A/N: Oh all the lyatt/wucy we got, I loved the epi so much. I'm kinda feeding off of all the heartbreak; I'm just awful I know. And Lucy is just too good for this world, too pure. Give her a cell phone and she gets excited, too cute :) Also someone really needs to hug her or something! Preferably Wyatt, but I volunteer if he won't.
Spoilers: for everything up to and including 2x05 The Kennedy Curse.
Disclaimer: Lots of things are expendable; Timeless is not one of them. Me not owning the rights to Timeless, well I can live with that.
Time changes. Situation changes. People changes. More so when you are a time traveler. And yet here he was in a situation that was all too familiar. His hands were curled expertly around the gun, fingers lightly touching the trigger without squeezing, his aim... well, that was the problem right now. He didn't have a clear shot at the target. But he was a trained professional, and he had taken a shot like this before – actually, exactly like this – without the hostage getting hurt. But back then he hadn't cared about the civilian caught in the crosshairs, not really, not like he did now. This time it wasn't just anybody that was standing between him and the target. This time – though the same situation and the same person – it was someone he cared about, someone he could potentially lose.
He had perfect aim; he'd never doubted that, not until right now. It wasn't that he couldn't hit Emma – he had hit Flynn just fine 2 years back – it was the fact that he could hit Lucy in the process. They were just standing too close together. Using a human shield was horrific, yet brilliant if you wanted to avoid getting killed. If he pulled the trigger and Emma made even the slightest move one way or the other his aim would be off, and that could have catastrophic repercussions. He tried to recalibrate his aim a few times, but none seemed favorable, no matter what angle he directed the gun's nozzle the risks seemed too great. And so he hesitated.
Back when they started out, when they'd only just met, it had been Flynn that had been the enemy, he had been the son-of-a-bitch that had used Lucy as a shield - he was still a pain but saving the team during the Salem witch revolt had improved his standards with Wyatt considerately. But Lucy had still been Lucy back then. So, what had changed? What had made him pull the trigger without a second thought back then and what was it that stopped him now?
Take out Rittenhouse and protect the team that was his job, his duty. Currently the protection part took precedence. He had told her recently that she had saved him, and that wasn't a lie. But that salvation had changed him as well. This circumstance only showed to emphasize that fact even more. He wasn't willing to risk everything anymore; he had weaknesses now, which wasn't really ideal for a soldier. But done was done. The old Wyatt had died along with his wife. And if this was the prize he had to pay for being "alive" again he'd gladly do it.
Emma had a firm grip on Lucy and judging from the look on Lucy's face alone Emma had hit just the spot of Lucy's injury. Thinking about Lucy's cut still made him cringe inwardly; she should never have had to endure that. She probably shouldn't even be here right now – though this was a hospital, so it might actually be where she should be – as she was still recovering. She needed rest, and was only here out of spite, not that Lucy was vengeful in any way, but Jessica had hit her – when she was already down – on her pride as a historian, as their historian, and her contribution to the team. So here they were, and her running a high fever and being out of it only a day ago hadn't seemed to stop her. She was stubborn like that. But really, she did not need to prove her worth to anyone, if this JFK incident had showed them anything it was, that without Lucy all they did was make a mess. Emma seemed to have noticed her pain and increased pressure on the wound, which only made the want to kill her increase more for Wyatt. But not right now, not like this. And not with Lucy almost begging him to take the shot and Emma taunting him about his wife being back. It was all a bit too much.
And this was another thing that made him hesitate, because even though Lucy was right about Emma being their only pilot and taking her out would likely cripple their whole operation, her insistence that he do so, that he shoot, knowing full well that he might hit her too, that self-sacrificing pattern she had started to exhibit, he didn't particularly like that. He didn't want her to revert back to the time when she had been willing to sacrifice her life to get rid of Rittenhouse. He didn't want her to become him, to become that shell of a person that he had been after his wife had died. To become the very person that she had saved him from being. That kind of despair didn't belong anywhere near her.
Lucy still wasn't 100 % recovered which was evident as Emma pushed her rather forcefully towards him. Normally she would have stayed upright, but she almost collapsed into his embrace. Her legs still unsteady and judging from the heat coming off of her she was still not entirely free of her 17th Century induced fever. He caught her, trying to hold her steady without touching her wound, but ended up on his knees beside her anyway as she fell. It worried him, and so instead of running after Emma he doublechecked that Lucy was alright and that Emma hadn't inflicted anymore cuts on her than the one she already had. It took Lucy a second before she got her bearings and looked him in the eyes reassuring him that she was fine and that he should go after her.
After another moment's hesitation he did go, but in the end, nothing went as it should have, but it rarely did with their missions. However as long as everybody came out unscathed by the end of the day Wyatt could live with the curveballs being thrown at him, even the heart wrenching ones Lucy was presently responsible for. He knew he was a good soldier, he wasn't going to doubt himself, but there was no way, in any reality that Lucy was, or ever had been, expendable.
A/N: First of I love parallels, so this throwback to the pilot that this fic was built on was nice, and of course we got the baby doll / sweetheart parallel that just melted all the lyatt/wucy shipper hearts out there, I'm sure.
Sorry if this was all over the place. I know our brains process a lot of information very fast, but I doubt that Wyatt in these few minutes actually manages to think about all of this. It would have been nice though. Lyatt thoughts (and actions) en masse, are currently what I live for.
Lucy really is too good for her own well-being. I'm kinda scared that if this trend continues it won't end well for her.