A/N: Wrote this in one day, or should I say night; I'm at my most creative after 2 am it seems.
Spoilers: for season 1.
Disclaimer: Trust me when I say I don't own the rights to Timeless.
As a soldier you needed to know your strengths and weaknesses. Wyatt knew full well that trust didn't come easy for him. He had lost it from an early age, his father, the man he should have been able to rely on had not been there for him. His grandfather however had taught him that there were people out there that could be trusted. But Wyatt had still carried that hint of distrust with him in every relation he ever had since. People had to earn his trust. And even then, he would still occasionally lose trust in people he had once trusted implicitly.
In his line of work, he had to be able to trust that the person standing next to him would act accordingly in any situation. It wasn't that hard, because everybody had had the same training, they all knew what was at stake if they didn't do what was required. But being a soldier also meant dealing with untrustworthy people. Going into enemy territories and not knowing who to trust, it wasn't always an easy life.
He had loved Jessica, there was no doubt about that, but when it came to trusting her, he had failed. He hadn't trusted enough in her love for him. Being threatened by her meeting one of her ex-boyfriends. Getting furious – yet another one of his flaws, his temper – and leaving her to the worst imaginable faith.
He had trusted Rufus and Lucy, until they had both betrayed him by lying. Rufus about spying on them for Rittenhouse, and Lucy for not telling him about the journal and her conversations with Flynn. However, he had forgiven them both, since their lying had sprung from fear and not any form of ill will or malice. Rufus had been scared for his family and himself, and Lucy had been scared of the future that Flynn had predicted for her, a future where she supposedly was fighting on the other side, the wrong side? Who could tell anymore? Wyatt already knew that good and bad was not as black and white as you wished it to be. And their perception of time had become just as confusing since he'd taken this job.
Also, they had both proven that they were willing to sacrifice everything for the rest of the team, they had just needed an appropriate amount of time to adjust to this new line of work, they were not used to 'trust' being such a critical issue and such a large part of their jobs. They were fast learners though. And so, Wyatt could forgive all of that, and regarded it as minor offences against his trust in them. Not that he kept score or anything but knowing who to trust in your life was important for him.
Lucy for some reason trusted in him when he didn't trust in himself. She had pulled him out of his own head, stopped him from doing something reckless and helped him walk away from a hopeless situation. He had wanted to make amends for all the bad things he had done, all the times someone had gotten hurt because he either hadn't trusted them or himself. The hurt was too much to bear, he just wanted it all to stop, to end, and do something worthwhile in the process. But then she had come to him, a civilian in a battle zone, and put her trust in his hands. This at a time when he thought he had no one left, no one that relied on him, and no one he could rely on, on one that he could let down again. How could he walk away from that?
Even though he didn't always agree with Lucy he made a habit out of trusting her. Following along with what she said and preserving history, as best as they could, as they went on their way. But when it came to trusting her trust in a man that had killed dozens of people, a man that had already kidnapped her once, he was at a loss. He trusted her fully by now, but he didn't trust Flynn, far from it. And Wyatt was afraid that Lucy's trust in Flynn was misplaced. Worse than that were his fears of losing her altogether. But in the end, he caved reluctantly, going against his gut feeling.
Life was about choices. And he had made a monumental one the day that he hadn't trusted Jessica, and she in the end had turned up dead. This choice was monumental as well, he could feel it. He had decided that he was going to trust in Lucy, though his heart was screaming for him to grab her and run as far away from Flynn as possible. He had to trust that she was a capable human being, a person that was able to make her own decisions. She was I no way stupid, and she understood the potential consequences. But still as he looked back at her for the second time he was afraid that it might be the last time he saw her. He had left Jessica just like this, stranded among prowling strangers. The only thing different was the situation. His temper had made him leave Jessica because he hadn't trusted her, and this time his recently assumed calm had made him leave Lucy because he trusted her.
As soon as the door to the Lifeboat closed, and he couldn't see her anymore, doubt swept over him in a paralyzing fashion. Had he made the right choice? His trust in himself, and his ability to trust the right people at the right time, was at an all-time low.
If the outcome hadn't turned out differently the second time around, he might never have trusted anyone ever again. Luckily it did. His trust in her had been rewarded. She came back unharmed. Was this the Universe's way of showing him that he should trust in people? That this ingrained distrust of his, that he had carried around with him should not be there? People needed to be given the benefit of the doubt. Trust was precious, and it hurt whenever it was broken, but boarding yourself up, never trusting anyone, never letting anyone in, was cynical. You couldn't live your life that way. He was Delta Force sure, but Delta Force wasn't just one person, it was a team, and a team needed to be able to trust and rely on each other, that was what he had told Rufus and Lucy once. He realized now that that philosophy needed to apply to every aspect of his life.
A/N: The ending sucks I know, I'm really bad at writing endings, sorry. I have trust issues myself, so I kinda know where Wyatt is coming from here. Though this might not be true to character, I feel that trust plays an important part in the show overall, and so this sprung from there.
One week, people! Who's excited? I know I am!