Lucy can feel the sharp sting of her throat, dry, screaming for water. Her breath comes out in the form of steam radiating from her chapped lips.
"There," Wyatt yells, ushering the team into what looked like an abandoned church ahead of them.
The snow leaving footprints of their journey, leading their enemy straight to their front door. The only thing they could hope for was a fresh set of white glisten to cover their tracks. Crunching through ice, their forest green uniforms offering them no coverage in the reflection of the white all around them.
The creaking of the wooden door only echoing through the air slightly, but the cold hand of Wyatt's on the small of her back slices through her veneer of toughness, and she can feel the collapse of her body once they step inside.
The war torn village is nothing but bombed out, collapsed buildings, this church one of the few left standing, a sign if there ever was one.
The temperature isn't much different inside, but it cuts the wind out, giving them some relief. She bends over, her hands resting on her knees as she catches her breath, not having been prepared to run in combat boots with the icy air stealing her breath.
Making her way to the front of the church, she takes a seat in the front pew, attempting to settle her nerves. Her eyes dances wildly around, scared, skittish like a deer. The missions seeming even more important now that she knew what happened if they didn't make the right choices.
"We should be safe here for a while," Wyatt says, standing in front of them, hands on his hips. Glancing out one of the windows, he leaves her to stare ahead, looking around for a piece of furniture to move in front of the door, but finds nothing.
"Gotta say, it sure is nice to be back," Rufus jokes, and Lucy doesn't miss the squeeze that Jiya gives him, his attempt to lighten the mood not doing much for any of them with danger on their heels.
Lucy numbly nods before abandoning the pew and settling down against the wall, figuring it would be easier to spread out, not that she planned on actually sleeping. Every part of her body was frozen, leaving her with a stinging feeling on her ears and hands, sending a violent shiver through her body.
"It's gonna get dark soon," Wyatt laments, and she can see Rufus pull Jiya just a little tighter, as they sit on the pew that separate them from the door.
"It's going to get colder is what you mean," Lucy says with a chatter of her teeth, her body unable to withstand the cold, no jacket for her, just the green uniform.
"Yeah," Wyatt says, not even commenting on her know it all attitude, instead concern written all over his face, as he comes to sit beside her against the wall.
A smattering of bruises align his cheek, matching the ones that hadn't quite yet faded from her own face.
The four sit in silence as the sun goes down, Wyatt's gun at the ready in case someone decides to come busting through the door. The pitch black setting doing nothing to calm their nerves.
She can feel the cold settling into her bones, an impossible shiver refusing to leave her. It eats at her, stripping her of every defense she has, slowly icing its way through her veins, nothing but chattering teeth, rosy cheeks, and pale fingers.
A noise outside sends her panicked face towards the window, Wyatt's hand twitching at his gun.
"It's just the snow," he whispers, the cold having stolen the volume of his voice. Her head whips towards his, visible panic on her face.
"D-ooo youuu thinkkkk that we'llll f-f-find her in time for the evac-cuation?" Lucy's question comes out slowly and slurred, her lips unable to form the words.
He sniffles a bit, a gesture she would have otherwise found adorable if they weren't slowly freezing to death, before nodding in her direction.
"I think we've got a shot," he says with the kind of confidence she'd come to expect from him.
She nods with her eyes closed, the movement seeming to drain the energy from her.
Licking her lips, attempting to moisten them in the frigid air.
She hears his movement before she can pick her head up to see, his stiff arms moving to take his coat off. It's around her shoulders before she can protest.
"Can't have our historian freezing," he teases, his grin not nearly reaching it's usual place, his own shiver vibrating through his body at the loss of his coat.
She pulls the material closer around her, burying her lips in the side. The scent of Wyatt cascading around her, loading her senses with an overwhelming feeling of warmth.
"That's…that's all I am?" She asks, and although it's meant as a joke, a slight tease like he had been doing, the levity of the moment has suddenly been weighted down with the question.
He'd told her loved her, stunned her into silence against the wall of the bunker. Her face had stung then too, that time from having been beaten. She felt a little like she'd been frozen in time as they sat perched up against another wall.
"No," he answers sincerely. But it had never been his words that made her feel like she hadn't mattered, but rather his actions. They'd danced around each other for years. The past having a way of appearing out of nowhere, dragging its baggage with it, and although his feeling of guilt and grief had dissipated, it hadn't left her feeling anymore loved.
She doesn't respond, and she can see the frustration on his face, but it's not with her, she knows that much. He wears the same face she'd seen in San Antonio. The one that felt he had let his team down, that he needed to somehow sacrifice himself for the betterment of those around him. And maybe she'd pushed him to do that. Maybe she shouldn't have insisted he work things out with his wife. Perhaps if she had been selfish, if she have voiced what she wanted, for once, she may have gotten it.
But she hadn't, and now here they were, hulled up in a church in North Korea in the freezing cold with nothing but their thoughts shivering through them to leave them lonely.
Despite the coat, she still felt herself shiver, and glancing over, it didn't look like Wyatt was fairing any better. His eyes had fluttered closed, only briefly, but it was enough to give her the courage to do what she had wanted to do since the moment they'd walked into this safe haven.
Scooting over, her hips just touch his when his eyes open, the ice of his blue meeting with her brown ember, and in that moment, she swore she could start a fire with the love she felt for him. The spark between them never something that went out, instead it stood simmering below the surface just waiting to ignite again.
Her cold hand reaches out, lightly tracing the bruises, the stubble like tiny pinpricks bringing feeling to her otherwise numb fingers.
His own hand raises, hesitant to touch her, like if he did, she'd disappear through his fingers. But there's no flinch on her end, even when his thumb smoothly graces over the cut on her eyebrow. The quiet sting a gentle reminder of why they were here, why she was still fighting.
"Do…do you think what they…we…said is true?" She gets out her voice coming back to her in warmth as it brushes against his face before bouncing back to her.
"Flynn seemed to think so," Wyatt responds, a conversation from earlier refusing to leave him, his eyes downcast, as if defeated.
"Do you re-remember what you told me before? If you don't like the fu-future, retwite it," she says with a peek of a grin on her lips.
His mind seemingly travels back to that night. It seemed like a lifetime ago. They'd just had their first real fight, ironically, about that journal. It had left them stranded and at each other's throats. But it wasn't long before they'd made up, unable to stay mad with each other for long. Realizing that as long as they had the other's back, they'd be fine. But now the journal had made its appearance again. A future she never could've predicted haunting a life in which none of it had happened yet.
"What if it's like Rufus, inevitable?" Wyatt searches her eyes, begging for an answer she didn't have. She could only work to make a different future, one in which she didn't lose the man in front of her forever.
Taking his face into both of her frozen hands, the saltiness of a tear escaping his eye wets her palm.
"Losing you…is not an op-option, Wyatt," she mutters, her words coming out shaky because of the cold, but their conviction no less sound. "Ev-every version of me knew that."
She can feel the stubbled smile against her hand at that, as if coming to a realization of his own.
"What happened to fate?" He asks, and she can't help but recall a time when she felt that everything was predetermined, destined to happen no matter. But literally standing in front of a version of yourself, warning you that your choices absolutely made a difference, one leading to total destruction with Wyatt by her side, and the other an unknown that hopefully left her with everything she wanted.
But much like Wyatt, she couldn't stop thinking about the journal, the Lucy that had lost her Wyatt, the one that had devised a plan to get him back. Sitting here in the cold, every part of her threatening to lose feeling, her heart refused to stop, not willing to let the man in front of her slip away this time.
"Maybe we were always meant to meet, b-but we choose how the rest goes. Isn't that why we're here? To rewrite h-history with our choices," she attempts to shrug.
"You sound like me," he says, scooting closer to her just a bit, enough that she can feel the heat radiating off his body, threatening to engulf her in its flames, and as she stares into the ice blue of his eyes, she wants nothing more than to burn right there with him.
"Hmm," she hums but it comes out sounding more like a chattering moan that has Wyatt almost laughing at her if she weren't so serious. His hands slide over her arms, rubbing up and down, causing friction to build, creating a warmth inside her that spreads like wildfire. The slow path of his hands finally landing on face, his callused fingers trailing the path of her jaw until they're tangled in the bun her hair rests in, his thumbs soothingly whispering against her skin.
She brings her face closer, his nose hitting her smaller one, rosy red at the tip, and she crinkles her face in a way that causes his eyes to flutter briefly down before settling back on her eyes. She'd been searching this whole time for a way to get her loved ones back, and here he was, right in front of her, holding onto her like his life depended on it, and maybe it did.
She couldn't pretend that she hadn't been hurt before, but sitting here, she knew that obligation and love were two very different things, an obligation not being a choice but a demand, one in which he had fulfilled, that she had encouraged, and that ultimately had led him to this choice.
The love radiating from him, Lucy eagerly soaking up his heat as her own, she knew that they were making the choice together, for each other.
Her lips barely ghost against his, the past beating inside her, begging her to live for all those versions of them that couldn't. Breaking away, his face searching her's for an answer to what this was, she leans back in, a slight smile tugging on her lips, before sealing the existence of them with a kiss.
As her cold lips move with his own, the feeling begins to come back to her, no longer numb or frozen with indecision. They'd been threatened with erasure, a world where Wyatt no longer existed. The determination felt in the pressure of need in their kiss. What had started soft and sweet had turned into one fueled with loss, a passion to gain so much more.
In that moment, they'd set ablaze the past, forging ahead to create their own future.
Breaking away, a yearning for more there, but a settled feeling of contentment washing over her. Her forehead rests against his lips, her grip refusing to loosen, afraid if she lets go, he'd be gone.
"You were always the choice I wanted to make, Luce," he murmurs against her. "I just…"
"I know," she whispers, wrapping him in a hug, adjusting them on the floor, her face buried in the crook of his neck, curled around him to keep the warmth between them sealed. Her leg worms its way between his two, entangling them into a cocoon. His eyes close, as if committing the moment to memory, wanting this to be the past he remembers.
"I wonder how she knew…"Lucy wonders out loud.
"Who knew what?" He asks, his arms bringing her closer still, settling on the small of her back underneath his coat.
"The Lu-Lucy who wrote the journal. How did she know that we'd find each other?" Her words vibrate against his chest, the question sinking in.
His words sure and confident, murmured against her like a prayer spoken into existence in a house of worship.
"We always find each other."
She smiles against him, knowing that that much was true. Even when things seemed impossible, they somehow always managed to come together.
They lay in quiet for a while, a slight shiver runs over her, reverberating in Wyatt.
"Are you still cold?"
"A little," she lies, knowing his body heat was certainly keeping her warmer, but the chill was still seeping in.
"You know the best way to stay warm—"
"We're in a church, keep your clothes on," they hear Rufus say from the pew he and Jiya are resting on, apparently having heard their entire conversation echoing through the church.
The last sound they hear as they fall asleep the infectious laughter of Lucy, as she attempts to muffle the sound in Wyatt's shirt. The pair falling asleep against one another, wrapped in their embrace.
xxxxx
The gentle rays of the sun cascade in through the window, catching Lucy's eye, stirring her awake. She can feel the ache in every part of her body, a side effect from having shivered all night, despite being nestled against Wyatt.
His jacket still hangs loosely around her, as she opens her eyes to a sleeping Wyatt. A grin appears on her face, her eyes roaming over the first peaceful, content face she'd seen him wear in a long time.
As if, sensing her contemplation, a crinkle of worry takes form in a line across her forehead, slowly waking up, a pair of sleepy blue eyes staring back at her.
"Hi," she says, biting down on her lip.
"Mornin'," he says, placing a kiss on her forehead, before moving out of her embrace, his senses kicking in, aware of his surroundings.
"Wyatt?" She asks, his calm face now wrinkled in worry once more, as they get back into their mission. The night have blessed them with a safe haven.
"I'm going do a perimeter check. Make sure it's safe to head out," he gestures towards the door, and she's shaking the coat off of her before he leaves.
That seems to crack his exterior a bit, gently grabbing the coat from her, his fingers whispering against her own as he takes it.
"Thanks," he says, quickly dressing, as she watches on with wandering eyes, until her hands take note and find them adjusting the collar, her thumb tickling his neck, sending that crooked, dimpled grin at her.
No sooner had she pulled the piece of clothing tightly around him, that they hear a unmistakable noise outside. And this time, she's sure it's not just snow.
It wakes Rufus and Jiya, turning them towards the door where the sound was coming from.
Wyatt goes into soldier mode, immediately drawing his gun, swiftly moving towards the pew the other two sat on, crouched down into position.
Lucy hovers behind him, not wanting to get in the way, vowing to help more than hinder him. She can feel the fear rise in her, uncertain of what this was going to mean for the team. None of them had guns aside from Wyatt. There was no way for them to defend themselves.
A shot rings out, and Lucy jumps, choking on her gasp.
Wyatt moves to head out, and she grabs for him.
"Wyatt," a hiss of panic in the form of his name escapes her.
"Don't move," he instructs, lowering his hand, to indicate for them to stay low.
And then he's gone, disappearing through the door, and Lucy swears she can see their future dissipate along with him.
She stays on her haunches, every nerve in her body screaming out in danger. Her face frozen into one of panic, mouth hanging open in the same shape of his name, the taste still on the tip of her tongue.
It's only when she feels a hand take her's that she registers that Rufus has offered her an outlet for her stress. Squeezing tightly, they sit and wait, the noise escalating, the shots ringing out. Each second a moment of hope that as long as no one busted through the door, they were safe, Wyatt was safe.
She's sit with baited breath, having forgotten such an intrinsic habit, her heart syncopating with the bullets that seemed to ring out.
A surge of emotion rises in her, a clarity she was close to reaching, but hadn't come to the realization until just then. It had been something that started as a small flicker back when he'd wanted to stay at the Alamo. It had grown into a flame she'd gently stroked the first time he'd kissed her in front of Bonnie and Clyde. She'd thought of the possibilities countless times, threatening to explode when she thought he'd died, only to fall into the fire, a fiery passion that had kindled between them for so long, crackling into a morning after glow in Hollywood. A startled ember quietly keeping hope alive when Jessica had come back, sparked into existence again at his confession of love. And now here they were, the future threatening to smother them until Lucy was desperately inking a plan into a journal to ignite the same passion and regain what she'd lost. The words licking at her lips, ardently demanding they be spoken. Their future selves acting as a last flare from the Lifeboat.
The door slams open, and the three of them jump, prepared for the gun fire to sear through them. But instead, it's Wyatt.
Out of breath, face red from the cold…but here.
Her legs are carrying her before she knows what she's doing, flinging her arms around his neck in a searing hug, strangled cries coming from her mouth.
A muffled sob of, "I can't lose you," is uttered.
His arms instinctively wrap around her, supporting her like he always had.
"You haven't lost me," he says, and she knows she's heard those words before.
Pulling back, her hands frame his stubbled face, the dark hair bringing out his blue eyes even more in the daylight.
"Promise me," she demands, serving him with an impossible task to agree to.
"I'm not going anywhere," he says with a sad smile, using the pads of his fingers to wipe away at the tears that had stained her face. "I promise."
She nods, knowing that he couldn't possibly know that, but the promise of the attempt was enough for her in that moment.
"I love you," she whimpers, her fervent words eliciting the most luminous smile from the man in front of her.
"I love you, too."
The two of them destined by fate to keep crossing paths until they finally got it right. And this time felt like the one.
xxxxx
A/N: hello. so this fic came out of nowhere, in the sense that i had been working on beyond and i saw the promo pic with wyatt and lucy and this scene demanded to be written. this is not necessarily what i think will actually happen…more like wishful thinking on my part.
as for beyond, yes, i am still writing it. i just get distracted by other ideas, especially with all this new content coming out. but it will be posted…eventually.
i've been really hard on myself lately. discouraging myself from really putting anything out, because i know i'm not the most talented. but if you did read all of this, and you didn't hate it…i'd appreciate a review/comment, if you feel so led. it would be greatly appreciated.
thank you.