Written really quickly, and not looked over by a beta, so I apologize for typos/redundancy/any general dumb wording. I hated that Lucy turned away from Wyatt after Jiya interrupted them. And that she lagged behind and didn't walk down the hall with him. He kept looking at her and she shied away :( I'm so curious to see if they talk next episode. In the meantime, here's this.

When tomorrow comes
I'll be on my own
Feeling frightened of
The things that I don't know

~ "Flashlight"
Pitch Perfect 2

Wyatt steals (yet another) sidelong glance over at where Lucy sits, perched stiffly on one of the uncomfortable chairs, looking rather dazed as Agent Christopher quizzes her on any and all details she might have picked up from the time spent with her mother and Emma.

He hates that she has to go through that right now, but even he's willing to admit that it's probably necessary, intelligence-wise.

Still… her shaky, broken demeanor from earlier… It haunts him. She's the strong one, she's the one who talked him out of his own personal suicide mission at the Alamo. Seeing her like that? His heart hurt for her. And still does right now, watching having to re-live whatever the hell of the past six weeks was for her.

A bubbling sizzle draws his attention back to the stove, where the spaghetti is starting to boil over. With Rufus, Jiya, and Connor off doing whatever it is they do with physics, and Lucy and Agent Christopher in debrief-mode, it's fallen to him to deal with dinner. They still have to eat. Lucy in particular; she looks even more thin and fragile than she has before, and Wyatt has to wonder just how much of a toll the whole ordeal has taken on her.

But there's nothing he can do for the time being, other than to turn down the heat of the pasta and finish making dinner.

Cooking is not enough of a distraction from his own mind, unfortunately.

Maybe he was in denial before, when Rufus was annoyingly meddling (and prescient), but really, was how he felt and acted with Lucy missing any different from how out of his mind he'd been when he couldn't find Jessica that night? If anyone was any sort of authority on what it meant to have no fucking clue where the woman you loved was or whether she was alive or dead, it's him.

So yeah, he really should have realized just how far in he is.

But clarity hadn't fully hit him until they were back. Not when he'd first found her by nothing but dumb luck in that artillery tent, not when Emma had held the gun to Lucy's head, and not even when he'd finally gotten to strap her into her seat in the lifeboat for the first time in far too long.

Not until that admission that she'd have taken her own life just to take down the mothership.

Which would have meant never seeing her again, never holding her, never escaping the terrible ache of lost chances and what-ifs in his chest.

And he hates Carol and Emma for almost taking Lucy away from him, for putting Lucy through any of that in the first place, making her feel so shattered and lost.

Then suddenly he was sitting there, trying to reconcile the flood of rage and sadness and love (because he does love her, he's so desperately in love with her that it was insane to ever try and convince himself or anyone else otherwise) within himself, all while trying to do or say something, anything, that could have possible helped Lucy, without coming on too strong when she was so broken and vulnerable, and suddenly she's the one pulling him close enough that he could practically taste the generic mint of the government issue toothpaste they'd all been given on her breath. Out of nowhere, which was confusing as all hell when thrown in with that rage and sadness and love he was already contending with. But fuck, how many times had his subconscious drifted to those nebulous possibilities and what a future might have looked like once he'd found her? What, was he going to give her yet another blow by rejection her when he didn't want to reject her advance in the first place? Maybe Lucy was doing it for all the wrong reasons, but given where Wyatt's heart and mind had landed, there was no way he wasn't going to kiss her and somehow try and convince her that she had him, in every way possible.

Until Jiya.

It's not lost on Wyatt that for all their ability to bend the fabric of space-time to their whims, his colleagues have terrible timing.

But possibly worse than being interrupted in the first place is the fact that Lucy shrank away from him immediately, wouldn't look at him, wouldn't even walk down the hall next to him.

And now, when all he wants to do is get her alone and... Well, do or say what, he's not even sure, but he can't get her alone.

It'll have to keep until after dinner, in spite of his insides as roiling and unsettled as the stupid pot of spaghetti.

Except with the distraction of dinner, he manages to miss that the debrief with Christopher ends and Lucy slips away. The Agent informs him that Lucy isn't feeling up to eating and has gone to bed early, and they should probably let her have some alone time until it's time for the rest of them to head to bed too.

Wyatt's not sure he's ever eaten faster in his life, and punctuates the meal with his own claim of needing to lie down.

He's pretty sure he hears the beginning of an admonishment from Agent Christopher as he heads down the hall, but is grateful to hear a hushed murmur from Jiya cutting Christopher off. It's the least she could do after interrupting earlier.

Wyatt skids to a stop in the doorway of the room he now shares with Lucy. (He absently thinks he'll probably have to thank Rufus for finagling that arrangement instead of sticking her in the room that Agent Christopher uses. Well, depending on how things play out with Lucy…)

But she looks to actually be asleep, facing the wall next to her cot, and for as much as Wyatt wants to talk, maybe sleep is the best escape she can get right now.

He tiptoes over to his own bunk and slips out of his shoes, socks, and jeans, then eases himself under his blankets. It's early, and there's probably no way he'll be able to sleep – not after finally getting Lucy back, and certainly not after nearly kissing her – but it's at least a little bit of consolation that he can watch over her.

It could be ten minutes later, it could be three hours, but he's just managed to let his eyes close when he hears the sniffles, and can just make out the slightest shuddering of her shoulders in the dim light.

The tugging ache in his chest is back with a vengeance.

"Lucy?" he ventures in a tentative whisper.

She freezes and the crying stops. But she doesn't answer, or look at him, and dammit all, he is not going to let her pull away from him when he just got her back and they need each other more than ever.

So he tosses back his own covers, pads the two steps to her bed, and kneels next to her.

With a careful run of his hand over her back, he coaxes gently, "Hey, I know you're awake."

All he gets in return is another sniffle, and a beat later, a hollow, phlegmy, "…I'm fine."

Like hell is he going to let her leave it at that and push him away. "You know you've always been a terrible liar, right?"

She doesn't respond to that and Wyatt's at a loss. She's been through so much and all he wants to do is be there for her and hold her and somehow make it better, but her pushing him away at the prospect of finally being together is not something he anticipated. Is she embarrassed that she tried to kiss him? Regretting it? (God, he hopes that's not it.) He just keeps rubbing her back, no idea what else he can or should do right now.

But then her shaky voice breaks through his worry.

"…I'm sorry about before," she says quietly, still curled up and facing away from him. "Here. When Jiya- I shouldn't have-"

"Do not apologize," Wyatt cuts her off. "I'll take an apology from Jiya, but not from you," he insists, needing her to know that trying to be close to him is the last thing she ever needed to be sorry about. "Not for that."

"But we're not-" she protests haltingly. "You- Jessica."

Wyatt's eyes fall closed with a sigh. It's not as if that wouldn't have been a fair argument for a while, but it hasn't applied for longer than he'd been willing to admit until very recently. Not now. Not after how the torture of those six weeks felt. "I'm not using her as an excuse anymore," he pledges to her. "You can't either."

That must hit a nerve. Lucy doesn't turn to face him, but she does lean a bit in his direction, enough that he can see the confusion on her face in the dark room as she asks, "Excuse?"

"Only reason I thought about her in all this time down here is because I was going crazy going through the same thing all over again. I've done this before – not knowing where you were, or if…" He can't bring himself to voice the other possibility they'd all wrestled with while hold away underground for weeks.

He's also already kicking himself for not being more clear (again… Not knowing what possibilities? Yeah, right…) and leaving Lucy to read between the lines of what he's implying by equating her absence with Jessica being missing than night. But she's no idiot (just one of many things he most definitely loves about her) and the realization of what he's saying is clear on her face as she rolls fully over to face him.

And not unlike what she'd done to him, right there on that bed, Wyatt reaches to cup her cheek, swiping away a stray tear with his thumb. "If you're not ready for… this… Doesn't matter, you have me regardless. Just please don't shut me out."

Lucy gives him a wan, watery smile and brings one hand up to cover his against her face, nodding against his palm.

He's not going to push her on anything more than that; a smile is good enough for now, and if what happened earlier is any indication, they'll get to everything else at some point. "Try and sleep," he urges, letting his hand fall away from her.

It's not easy, climbing back into his own bed, but Wyatt manages it and forces himself to roll over to face the wall lest he be able to see Lucy and want to go right back to her.

But it's just a few more minutes of quiet before he again hears sniffles and shuddery sobs from behind him.

Wyatt's torn. Does he go to her and risk spooking her, sending her back into whatever emotional place it was that had her pulling away from him as soon as Jiya walked away? Or does he do nothing and let her think that he's any less than 100% devoted to being there for her? He's still agonizing over his next move when he hears the tiniest squeak of a bed spring and the rustling of blankets. Then suddenly, she's slipping under his covers behind him, curled up against his back.

That doesn't last long. Wyatt may still have a tiny shred of vestigial willpower when it comes to resisting Lucy Preston, but not when she's crying in his bed. Carefully, he flips himself over, hugging her to him, rubbing her back, and cradling her against his chest as she sobs. He's more than grateful when, not long after, Lucy's breathing evens out and the shudders rattling her frame cease.

A peaceful sleep is certainly preferable to teary wakefulness. So Wyatt lets his hand still on Lucy's back and feels his own eyes flutter closed drowsily.

There's still a lot to figure out, in terms of Rittenhouse and for the two of them. But they'll deal with that tomorrow.

~FIN~

I'm stuck in the dark but you're my flashlight
You're getting me, getting me through the night
~ "Flashlight"
Pitch Perfect 2

Take me to tomorrow, take me there today
I've had my fill of sorrow and livin' this way
Take me to tomorrow, that's where I'd like to be
the day after tomorrow is waitin' for me
~ "Take Me to Tomorrow"
John Denver
("John Denver's amazing" – Lucy Preston)

Sorry for the cheesy 'Pitch Perfect' song, but it was on TV after the episode last night, plus the DVD for the third one comes out in a week and it has (not)Wyatt in it. The other song? Well, it fit given Lucy's preferences.

Also, I didn't read anyone else's post-ep fic yet. Any similarities that might exist are coincidence and purely the product of great minds thinking alike :)