A/N: Let's all take a trip in the Lifeboat back to the season one hiatus. When all we had were vague possibilities and the revelation that Lucy's mother was Rittenhouse. Before the bunker, before Mason's hangar exploded, before we knew Lucy was taken.
THAT was when I started this. I wrote 800 words and then stopped. Not sure why. But I discovered it tonight and found myself finishing it. Weird, right?
Anyway, because of that it's set in that post S1 universe we all imagined before S2 began airing. So, hopefully it's still enjoyable even though it no longer matches canon. Also forgive any typos. I was trying to finish this before I went to bed and lost my momentum.
I'll proofread it tomorrow.
Happy reading!
Angellwings
PS - I fully intend to get back to WYHIMF very soon!
Nightlight
By angellwings
"Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light.
Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night?"
-"Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens
When Lucy was a kid, she hated the darkness. Once she was tucked in at night she never left her bed because outside of her bedroom were darkened halls. Her room, at least, had been illuminated by a nightlight. She'd grown out of it eventually. As long as it wasn't a dark enclosed space she was fine.
Until a few months ago. Her mother revealed she was Rittenhouse and everything Lucy thought she knew was wrong. Shadows and darkness now seemed just as dangerous as they did when she was a child. Monsters lurked in closets, hallways, and behind every door. Sleep was nearly impossible with lights out. She now had a small night light plugged into one of the outlets in her bedroom. It was comforting. It allowed her to wake up and quickly verify whether or not she was alone in her own room.
But while out on a jump in the 1700s that wasn't an option. Even with Wyatt and Rufus softly breathing, or snoring in Rufus's case, in the same room she still felt panic in her chest. Rufus and Wyatt had flipped a coin to decide who got the the second bed. Rufus ended up with the other bed and Wyatt ended up with a lumpy, short chaise lounge. Lucy thought about telling him he could take the bed they'd already decided was hers. She wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight anyway. They were in an empty cottage they'd found in the woods. Probably abandoned during the French and Indian War which had ended the previous year.
It was dusty but it was better than nothing.
Lucy sat up in bed, slipped her feet in her shoes, and quietly shuffled past Wyatt and Rufus who were both asleep. This room was facing away from the moonlight so it was nearly pitch black. The den had a large window and the moonlight illuminated it almost as much as her night light did at home. She wrapped her coat around herself and then sat down in one of the wooden rocking chairs in front of the window.
She wouldn't be sleeping in a wooden rocking chair but at least the panic subsided out here. She glanced up at the sky and smiled softly. The stars were beautiful. No ambient light meant they were brighter in the past than they were in the future. She'd gotten caught up in her thoughts and the view and apparently hadn't heard someone sitting down in the rocking chair next to her.
"Can't sleep?"
Lucy turned to find Wyatt smiling tiredly at her from the other chair.
She nodded after a moment. "Just admiring the stars," she told him in reply. "Did I wake you?"
"Light sleeper," he answered with a sluggish side to side sweep of his head.
"It's beautiful here, isn't?" She asked him as she turned back to the window.
"Parts of it," he agreed. "The outhouse in the backyard kinda ruins the beauty, though, if you ask me."
She chuckled at him and rolled her eyes. "Point taken, but you at least have to admit that things feel more...open here. Free."
She felt his gaze on her as he studied her expression. She tried to keep the lines of her face as carefree as possible. He knew her too well but somehow she had managed to hide the true scope of her fear from him, by the skin of her teeth. But she may have just inadvertently ruined all of her hard work. One view of the stars and an open field with his ethereal blue stare next to her is all it takes to spill her guts. Damn it. Damn her attraction to him. Damn her trust in him.
"Not exactly the word Rufus would use," Wyatt reminded her pointedly after a lengthy silence. "But I get it. No clandestine cults or complicated family bloodlines here. Just sky, stars, and trees. Simplicity."
He really did get it, get her.
"You think about running away sometimes, don't you?" Wyatt asked her. Though it was more of a statement than a question. He didn't really need her to answer.
"It would probably be better for all of you if I did," she answered with a shrug. "But you can relax, Soldier. I only ever get as far as thinking."
She was too terrified of Rittenhouse to go too far from the safety of Homeland Security...and Wyatt.
"Good," he said firmly. "I'd hate to be nearly court martialed twice, which is exactly what would happen if you ever ran away, Lucy. I'd follow you. No way in hell I'd let you be out there alone with Rittenhouse still after you."
She didn't really understand why that revelation shocked her, but it did. Court martialed for her? Defy orders for her? Live a life completely on the run to protect her?
Before she could stop herself the question escaped her.
"Why?"
"What?" He asked in surprise.
"Why?" She asked again. "Why would you do that for me?"
"I told you in '54, Professor. I can't lose you again. I won't. So where you go I follow. Bottom line," he promised as if it should be obvious. "I don't give a shit if that's the 1700s or some remote location in the present. If you go, I go too."
He couldn't mean that. Not really. For a brief moment she thought he wanted something more but after everything with her mother he backed off. She just assumed she had put more meaning behind his words than he intended. As certain as she was that she already knew his answer, she couldn't help but press him further.
"Would that still have applied if all of this had ended, like it was supposed to, months ago? If we had saved my sister and truly stopped Rittenhouse and Pendleton was waiting—"
"Yes," he said in one gust of air from his lungs. It sounded as if he had to get it out right then — as if he might lose his nerve otherwise. "Yes, it would have applied then. I thought this mission was over once before and I hated it. I hated the idea of leaving you. I hated it then and, if it's possible, I hate it more now."
The words were said in an increasing cadence. The rhythm unevenly pushed forward until the words of his confession nearly collided into each other. But even as muddled as the words were she heard every syllable crystal clearly.
"I hated it too," she uttered softly. The words fell off the tip of her tongue, as if they were waiting on him to set them free. "I didn't want you to go. I thought—I thought after we saved Amy and set everything right we would have time to talk about it. But then—"
"We didn't save Amy," Wyatt finished for her, mercifully letting her avoid her mother's betrayal for the time being. "I thought that too."
"And now everything scares me, Wyatt."
That confession shocked her. She said it but part of her didn't believe the words left her lips. She hadn't wanted him or anyone to know.
As far as they were concerned, she wasn't scared. There wasn't time to be scared.
But she was scared. Hell, she couldn't sleep without a damn nightlight anymore. Like a child.
When he didn't reply she kept going as if she needed to fill the silence, as if she needed to say it all out loud.
"I have a nightlight in my bedroom now. I know Christopher has agent's outside my apartment building at all times. I know you're quite literally across the hall. But I can't shake the fear of being watched. Or of waking up to someone unfamiliar towering over me — or worse someone familiar. Someone I thought I knew. Someone who raised me. I am actually jumping at shadows, Wyatt. Shadows. A car light shines in my window for a split second and I'm imaging it's her. Coming for me. I can't do this—feel this for much longer. It's suffocating."
"Claustrophobic?" He asked knowingly. The expression on his face was even, nearly flat, but in the glint of the moonlight she could make out his conflicted feelings of sympathy and anger in his emotive glance. Under the surface, he was boiling.
She nodded at the accuracy of his assessment and swallowed thickly. "The walls are closing in and I can't find any windows or doors."
His brow twitched before he lifted a shoulder with a false sense of carelessness. "Then we make you one. We break the walls down or shoot our way out. Whatever we have to do so you feel safe. We do that. Together. That's what I'm here for, Lucy. To help you. I'm not asking to save you — I'm just...asking you to lean into me a little bit. Trust me? Just a little, at least?"
"I do trust you, Wyatt," she replied instantly. "You and Rufus. More than anyone."
He nodded and a relieved grin tugged at his lips. "Good. This is new for all of us, Lucy. The size of Rittenhouse is frightening enough. You're not alone. We're all scared."
She scoffed and gave him a disbelieving look. "You're scared? Mr. Delta Force?"
"Yeah," he confessed as he took a deep shaky breath and met her eyes. "I have a lot more to lose now than I did before."
Her breath caught in her throat at the targeted sincerity in his penetrating gaze. How did he do that? How did he pin her to her spot with one look?
"When all this started I honestly didn't care one way or the other. Live or die, why did it matter? I didn't have anyone and no one had me. I—I didn't think I deserved it. Still don't sometimes. But whether I deserve it or not, I have people now. People to care about and try to keep safe. Rufus, Jiya, you. Rittenhouse is a threat to that - to you. So, yes, I'm scared. I'm scared I could lose all the people I have in the world for the second time in my life. I'm not sure I'd survive it this time."
She laughed darkly and nodded her head. "I get that. I—I feel like I've lost everything. My sister, my career, my father in a way — my mother. The life I knew before the Hindenburg is just...gone."
At those words Wyatt quietly reached over and took one of her hands in his. He breathed in and out deeply and studied her fingers. He kept quiet with a twisted up yet thoughtful expression. In that moment, she wondered what all of this would be like without him. The time travel, the secret societies, government agencies…
Without him, she'd have no footing. She really would be drowning. From that first mission he steadied her. Kept her head afloat when she felt like the water rose too high.
She bit her bottom lip and squeezed his hand before she spoke again. "But, you know, for all I've lost...I've gained too. Without my losses I don't think I'd have you or Rufus. And, honestly, I don't know what I would do without you, Wyatt Logan. Sometimes, it feels like I was led to you — as crazy as that sounds."
He chuckled and teasingly rolled his eyes at her. "Still pushing that fate stuff, huh?"
"Yes, because I'm right and I'm going to keep saying it until you admit I'm right," Lucy replied with a grin.
"You might be saying it for a while then, ma'am," he said with a challenging quirk of his brow.
"That's fine," she told him. "I'm no quitter."
"And stubborn as hell. Yeah, I know."
She laughed softly and half heartedly smacked his arm. "I'm not the only one who's stubborn and you know it."
"You're right. It's safe to say Jiya's pretty stubborn."
Her eyes narrowed on him as he grinned. "She's not who I was talking about."
His brow furrowed and he shook his head. "I don't know that I'd call Rufus stubborn, Lucy—"
"God, you're obnoxious," she told him with a soft laugh. "You. You're stubborn."
She brought her hand that wasn't holding his around to swat at him again but he grabbed that hand too.
"Yeah, well, you don't give me much choice, babydoll."
"What? You expect me to just let you run the show, no questions asked? Keep dreaming, shweetheart," she insisted with a defiant crooked grin.
"Oh, I will. Believe me, I will."
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her and she shook her head with a blush and another quiet laugh. Being this openly flirtatious was still new to both of them. But, damn it, did she ever love it.
"Too much?" He asked with a sheepish half-smile, leaving one lone dimple on his cheek.
"I definitely didn't hate it," she replied with a demure tight lipped grin.
He cleared his throat nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. "We should, um, go out for a drink when we get back."
"Sure, we can talk to Rufus about it in the morning."
"I wasn't exactly planning to invite him."
She looked up at him with a startled expression that slowly grew into a smile. "Are you asking me out?"
"Trying to," Wyatt answered with a self deprecating chuckle.
"Took you long enough," Lucy replied playfully.
"Is that a yes?" He asked warily.
She closed the distance between the two of them and their rocking chairs and pressed her lips to his. She released one of his hands to cup his cheek as they kissed. The contact lingered as she indulged in the feeling of his soft lips against hers and his scratchy stubble beneath the palm of her hand. His free hand snaked around her waist and trailed tenderly over her back. She felt his tongue trace her bottom lip and on instinct opened her mouth to his.
This kiss now went above and beyond their last one. Their last kiss hit them both like a sledgehammer. This one was slow and sweet. They intended to savor it as long as they could. The minute Lucy felt herself barely a minute away from crawling out of her chair and onto Wyatt's lap she pulled back.
Not the time or the place for where that was leading.
"That's a yes," she replied as she pressed her forehead to his.
"This might be presumptuous but if we decide to pick up where we left off later, I do have a nightlight in my hall bathroom," he offered with a tender smile. "I'm not opposed to moving it into my bedroom for you."
She chuckled and smiled sweetly at him before placing a quick chaste kiss to his lips. "That is certainly an intriguing offer, Master Sergeant. I'll keep that under advisement."
Maybe she didn't need a nightlight, after all. Maybe all she needed was him, by her side day in and day out, to help her ward off the shadows. To help her break down the walls and shoot her way out. Maybe he was her nightlight. Her partner to help her find her way through the darkness.
Or maybe he would help her find the strength she needed to do all of that for herself.
Either way, she couldn't wait to find out. Together.