PART ONE

RUFUS

I turned the volume on the TV up, trying to drown out the unsubtle argument Agent Christopher and Connor Mason were having the next room. All I wanted to do was sit down, in silence, with a beer and watch The Simpsons.

Any episode of The Simpsons.

Unfortunately, three episodes in, I hadn't been able to pay attention at all. For the entire first episode my mind had been ticking over the fact there was 'nothing' wrong with Jiya, but that didn't make sense. People who had nothing wrong with them didn't have random seizures and collapse on the floor.

She'd told me to leave her alone, and I had, but the worrying wasn't something I could turn off so easily.

Finally I had run out of possible scenarios as to how I could help her, paying attention to the TV for all of three jokes before the argument had burst into life in the next room.

And then Lucy had sat down across the room from me, at the table. There was a book in her hands, but her eyes were more often staring towards the exit, or checking her phone, than they were aimed at the book in her hand.

Her face was blank, calm almost, but I knew better. I knew her mind was as focused on Wyatt as mine was on Jiya. In fact possibly moreso, since he had run off with no explanation.

I switched the TV off and walked over, sitting opposite her.

It took her a moment to register I was looking directly at her.

She closed the book, not that she'd been looking at it, and forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes in any way.

'I don't need your pity,' she said carefully. 'I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for this.'

'He's being an ass,' I said, not caring.

Her smile reached her eyes. 'Yes, well…that's one explanation.'

I laughed and she joined me for a moment, before her smile dropped from her face and her eyes fell back to the table. I sensed she didn't want to talk for a moment and watched as she took a deep breath, lifting her eyes to meet mine again.

'Do you think it's Jessica?' she asked quietly.

I had barely heard her over the arguing, but my heart broke a little in that moment. We'd all been thinking it, but no one had said it out loud until that moment.

'Yes,' I replied simply.

For a moment her face crumpled, then she took a deep breath and looked back at me.

'Then I'm happy for him.'

It was the least convincing lie I had ever heard, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

She picked up her book again, this time paying great attention to it as I watched her taking in deep breaths. It seemed as though she thought if she could read the pages more intently then she could drown out what was happening in the world.

I couldn't stand it.

As the argument in the next room got louder, I heard a few swear words and the name 'Flynn' mentioned a few times, I stood up.

'Let's go,' I said sternly.

'Where?'

'To find Wyatt.'

She glanced at the other room for a few moments, then put her book down on the table.

'Okay. Let's do it,' she replied. 'But just to check that he's all right.'

'Of course,' I replied.

LUCY

Rufus had been smart enough to deactivate the alarms before we escaped, meaning it would take hours before anyone noticed we were gone.

Concentrating on anything was hard, all I could concentrate on was that the one thing I still had left in my life had just run away from me without a goodbye. As much as I told myself I was happy for him if it was Jessica, that I wanted him to be happy, that I would have done the same for my sister, it felt strange.

He had come to my place to tell me before he went back to try and save her, yet now?

Not a word.

Like he had already forgotten about me.

I could feel Rufus watching me in the back seat of the taxi, but I couldn't make eye contact with him because I would burst into tears. Part of me wanted to suggest going back to the bunker. It was safer there. The idea that a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses was going to hide either of us was ridiculous. Agent Christopher wouldn't take long to find us once she started looking, or worse – Rittenhouse.

But I just needed to look Wyatt in the eye and know.

Know if he was going to choose Jessica over me.

And I would forgive him completely if he did, but it would hurt.

It did hurt.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes and hurriedly wiped at them with my sleeve. I wasn't going to cry. This was bigger than what I wanted.

I just suddenly felt so alone.

I felt Rufus' fingers wrap around mine lightly and I turned to look at him, taking his hand and squeezing it.

'I'm sorry,' I said quietly. 'I'm trying…'

'Don't,' he replied. 'I understand. If it was Jiya I don't know what I'd be feeling right now.'

'It would never be Jiya,' I replied.

Rufus snorted. 'No, she's too busy refusing to discuss her medical problems with me, or even admit there's really a problem.'

I squeezed his hand again, then laughed. 'We're both doing really well, aren't we?'

I pulled my hand away to wipe the moisture from my eyes again as the taxi pulled up outside the house Wyatt had shared with Jessica before her death. It had taken all of ten minutes of stalking online to find out where it was.

Rufus paid the driver as I stepped out of the car, my eyes falling to Wyatt – sitting alone on the porch steps, his head in his hands, staring at the ground.

I hated the jolt of hope that hit me at that moment.

Taking a few careful steps towards him, I stopped in front of him, worried that I was going to scare him, maybe a little worried that he would disappear.

'Wyatt?' I said quietly.

He looked up at me, and the disappointment that registered in his face when he realised who it was hurt. It hurt more than him running away without an explanation, more than the hours of dwelling I had done on that moment.

Suddenly I was the person he didn't want to see.

His eyes shifted to Rufus as he walked up behind me.

'What are you guys doing here?'

He was angry, or maybe it was defensive, but either way as the man in front of us stood up I saw the soldier, not my friend.

Not the man I had fallen in love with.

'We came to check you were okay,' I whispered. 'What are you doing here?'

'How did you find me?'

'Google,' Rufus replied. 'Or some government agency version of it that Jiya hacked into.'

'You shouldn't have left, Agent Christopher will be mad,' Wyatt replied calmly. 'I'm fine. Go back to the bunker.'

Rufus hesitated, looking at me.

I refused to stop watching Wyatt. Folding my arms across my chest I took a step closer to him.

'If you were okay you wouldn't be sitting on the steps of a house you shared with your dead wife,' I said sternly.

Finally he met my eyes again, this time I saw something more there, a little bit more of my Wyatt.

'She's not dead,' he replied.

'We figured,' Rufus shot back.

Wyatt glared at him. Rufus threw his arms up in the air and walked off, muttering something to himself about stubborn men. I kept my eyes on Wyatt, something was very wrong.

'Why aren't you happy?' I asked quietly.

'Lucy, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to just run off…' he suddenly seemed to realise what he'd done.

'It's okay,' I reached out, lightly touching his arm. 'I understand…'

'She was there Lucy, right there, in front of me, and I hugged her, I held her in my arms, she was real. But then she wasn't…things aren't the same…' he said quietly, his eyes out of focus, somewhere else. 'It's like the Jessica I loved, the one I married, she wasn't that person anymore. She told me to go home, to wait until her shift finished and we'd talk, but I don't have a key to the house or anything, since this is not where I live anymore.'

WYATT

Shit.

Lucy.

We had been mid-conversation about us, about what had happened and I'd run off. And here she was standing in front of me, asking if I was okay, listening to me talk to her about Jessica, and suddenly it all seemed so wrong.

I should have thought about this moment, should have considered that maybe Jessica would come back.

But I hadn't.

I'd been caught up in Lucy and Paramount Studios and glamour and I hadn't thought about Jessica in weeks. Not since Lucy had gone missing. Not since -

'Do you think it was Rittenhouse?' she asked.

No. No I hadn't thought about that. I ran a hair through my hair and shrugged.

'I don't know,' I said.

My voice came out weak, strained. I just wasn't able to handle this right now.

Before I could continue a car pulled into the driveway. I didn't recognise it, but I could assume it was Jessica's car.

I watched Lucy's head turn as my attention was drawn away.

'I'll go,' she said quietly, looking back at me.

And that's when I saw it. The complete and utter devastation in her eyes.

'Lucy…'

'It's okay, Wyatt, really…' she said, backing away slowly.

Slowly enough to stop and make eye contact with Jessica as she stepped from the car.

A dark shadow crossed her face as Jessica saw Lucy.

Suddenly it registered.

Why Jessica was acting strange.

In this world, this version of history, I still knew Lucy.

I still worked with Lucy.

I had still fallen for her.

It wasn't until Lucy looked back at me that I realised I was watching her leave.

I look back at Jessica, the shadow now replaced with a stern, cold look.

'What's going on, Wyatt? You come to my work, hug me, say strange things, then I come back here and she's here?'

I watched her for a moment. This woman, the love of my life, or so I had thought until right at this moment.

How could I have done this to her? How could I have broken her to the point where she hated me this much.

'What did I do?' I asked quietly.

She snorted.

'Jessica, I need to explain something to you…I'm not your Wyatt Logan,' I said quietly.

She frowned at me, then glanced back at Lucy and Rufus walking quickly down the street.

Then she looked back at me.

'Okay. I'm listening,' she said. 'But I'm going to need a drink by the sound of things.'

She entered the house.

Our house.

I hesitated in the doorway for a moment, then I stepped back into the life I thought I had long left behind…