AN: But, okay you guys, I don't even know where this came from. I sort of love it, also.
One Sinner's Prayer
He'd run into Rufus early the next morning, headed to put some miles on the treadmill. He was going to become a damn cave troll if they had to stay in the bunker indefinitely, fat and pale. At least they didn't have to rely on MREs, though Connor Mason's cooking did occasionally make him long for freeze dried meat.
"Hey, man," he said. "Sleep better last night?" He arched an eyebrow suggestively.
There was something very wrong with Rufus's expression. "Uh oh. You and Jiya have a fight?" He himself was an expert at fighting with the women he loved.
Rufus shook his head a little, clearly thinking. "Not exactly, no. No," he said again, "no fights, but I think we need to have a team meeting pretty soon. There's some batshit crazy stuff going on right now, and I'm hoping maybe one of you has some insight."
He nodded once. He didn't like the tone of Rufus's voice. It sounded ominous. "Right," he said, already making a battle plan. "I'll go wake up Lucy. She's on the couch, yeah?" he verified, half-turning, wondering if this would be a suitable excuse to touch her.
"Uh, no," Rufus told him. "I was just out there. Flynn's on the couch."
There was a pause. He blinked. "And Lucy is…where?"
Well, there was an obvious answer. She was in Garcia Flynn's fucking bed, wasn't she? Even if he - evidently - wasn't there with her. At the moment.
Oh, God. Was he going to be sick?
It was too easy to imagine them together. It had been easy when they'd come back from Salem. It was a hell of a lot easier after last night, when they'd been walking down the hallway, steps matched, Lucy smiling at Flynn the way she used to smile at him.
And then he'd asked for a minute, and she'd looked up at Flynn first. For permission? And then the son of bitch had bowed himself out of the conversation, Lucy's eyes following him.
What the hell had happened after that?
His brain presented him with several scenarios, all awful. Flynn might have been a gentleman, might have offered, insisted. That was the best option. The man did have a soft spot for Lucy, he'd known that for a long time.
Of course, it could have been less innocent than that. Could have been more painful for him.
Lucy might have gone to find him. Or he might have sought her out. There was something there, something between them.
If she let herself go…had gone in search of comfort…
Too easy, this was too easy. He knew what her skin felt like under his fingertips, and the idea of another man touching her in the way he had was going to literally make him lose his mind.
To hell with the treadmill.
He needed to shoot something. Or punch someone.
He couldn't do either of those things here, though at the moment, he was willing to give up ten years of his life for Garcia Flynn to give him an excuse to take a swing. He would only need one…
"Uh, Wyatt?" Rufus's voice broke through the red haze that was currently taking the place of his brain. He suspected the other man had been speaking to him for some time now, but he hadn't heard a word, too lost in a miserable vignette of Lucy saying Flynn's name as he brought her over the edge.
"Yeah?" he asked, forcing his attention back.
"You okay?"
Nope. Not even a little bit. "Yeah, totally fine. Let's say we all meet up in an hour?"
Rufus nodded, though he did continue to eye him skeptically. No worries, buddy. Just having a little breakdown over the idea of my girlfriend sleeping with the jackass that has tried to kill me multiple times.
He had difficulty with the idea of thinking about Lucy in terms of "ex." He also had difficulty with the idea of thinking about Lucy underneath Garcia Flynn.
And speaking of the person that he currently hated most in the world, there he was. Walking down the hall like he owned the place, like he always fucking did. He had two cups of coffee in hand. Nodded at him as they passed.
Well.
There was confirmation.
Lucy had definitely spent the night in his room. And he was bringing her coffee.
He tasted iron and realized he'd bitten his lip hard enough to draw blood. It was either that or commit murder.
Although he refused to think about it as hiding, that was probably what he did next. Hid in the room where they stored most of the workout junk. Treadmill, weight set. Punching bag.
He had no gloves, but it didn't matter. He jabbed, crossed, dodged the heavy swing of the leather. Lost track of time. Knew sweat was mixing with tears.
The hot water from the shower did absolutely zero to improve his mood. All he could think about was another shower, another morning where he had stood here, halfway to broken. Because of her.
Vastly different reasons, though.
It was with more than a little guilt and disgust that he realized he hadn't thought about Jessica at all during this entire flirtation with sheer insanity that was currently consuming him.
Holy. Shit.
Did Lucy feel the same about Jessica? Did she feel like screaming at the idea of him being with someone else, regardless of who it was? Did it hurt this badly? Did she want to die, if only a little?
Deep down, in the absolute depths of his heart, he had the unshakable knowledge that she loved him at least as much as he loved her.
Oh, God.
He had hurt her this way, this badly.
And she managed to smile at him still, to make friends with his wife. How? How the hell did she find the strength to do this?
He saw two options. He could drown himself in the shower. That would be an excellent way out of it all.
Or.
He could find her, kiss her, make love to her. Claim her. Until she promised she would never belong to anyone else other than him. How could she? It was a sheer impossibility.
Of course, he could do neither of those things.
So. Option three. The shitty option.
Where he pounded the shower tile with the flat of his fist until it was numb, then turned off the water with shaking hands. Where he dressed, made the deliberate decision to ignore his wife like the terrible husband he had apparently always been, because Christ, she couldn't see him like this, and managed to make it to the kitchen. If he wasn't going to die, then he needed to eat.
Lucy was there, alone, and his heart stuttered.
He missed her. She'd barely spoken to him in the past few days, and even then, it had been bland, unaffected. Or she'd told him to go back to his wife.
He missed her.
Not just as his…girlfriend, lover, other half, whatever. But he missed his best friend. The one person that he could tell anything to, could be an absolute mess around. He missed her wit, her warmth, the way she used to laugh at him.
And, yes, he missed the other part of their relationship. An insane, crazy amount. Missed Lucy in his arms. Missed the way she always smelled good, the way she would throw herself at him, utterly certain that he would catch her.
He always had.
Until this last time.
He didn't know if she was still falling, spiraling, or if she'd hit the bottom yet.
There were times when he hated himself so much he didn't think he could stand it.
Lucy was still in that ridiculous robe that looked incredible on her, hair tangled, flipping through a book because the woman couldn't even enjoy a cup of coffee without trying to enhance that encyclopedic brain of hers.
For a tortured moment, he looked at her closely. Her hair was a mess, sure, but that didn't necessarily mean it was because someone's hands had been in it. No burns on her soft skin from stubble. Not visible ones, at least, and he almost choked on the memory of where he'd left some. Those hadn't been visible, either. Finally, he worked up the strength to look at her lips. Not swollen, not well kissed.
He relaxed marginally. As much as he even hated thinking about it, he had a feeling Garcia Flynn would have been very thorough. She didn't look like a woman who had spent a night in reckless abandon.
She looked up. Spotted him. Smiled. "Hey," she said.
Forgetting about food, he dropped into the chair across from her, instinctively finding ways to put himself in her personal space, if just a little. Like he always did. Like he always had, almost from the beginning.
Her coffee cup was definitely the one Flynn had brought her.
"Good morning," he told her, deliberately.
Her eyes flashed at him, and, too late, stupidly, he realized he'd hurt her. Of course those words hurt her. For her, that night wasn't a reminder of the culmination of this thing they had between them. It was simply a reminder that she'd given herself to him, and he'd given her back.
Had he thought he wanted to die earlier? Because this was worse. Maybe because he could see it in her eyes. And if she ran to Flynn, to his arms, to his bed, he had no one to blame but himself.
Do better, Logan, he told himself. Be a better man. She deserves it.
And yes, he knew the she he was referring to was not the she he should be thinking of.
How much longer was he going to pretend that there was any hope in hell of his marriage working out? Pretend that they had anything in common now? Pretend that he didn't wake up in the middle of the night and wish the woman in his arms was instead the woman down the hall?
From her spot across the table, Lucy was clearly watching the play of emotions across his face. He wondered what she saw, what she imagined he was thinking about.
You, you beautiful woman. You, and how you deserve so much better than what you've gotten from me.
"So, tell me about the mission."
It wasn't what he meant to say, but it was a way to hear her talk. She used the words "we" and "us" too many times when referring to things she had done with Flynn. He missed, desperately and acutely missed, being a part of this team.
It was like coming home and finding strangers in his house. Last night, he'd walked in, battered and a little shaken, and they had all been laughing and smiling. Flynn was standing just behind Lucy, close enough that any sort of movement from her would bring them into contact. She hadn't seemed displeased in the slightest.
The thought had come to him that they looked like a couple.
He focused his thoughts, his concentration on her, now. It was just the two of them in this space, and she had the grace to throw him a smile occasionally.
The longer she talked, the easier it became to breathe. He started to fall back into his old habits, one leg stretched out under the table, brushing hers, something he had done deliberately a number of times in the past, another way to connect with her, to let her know he was there with her.
She moved her legs away.
She knew what he was doing.
And wanted no part of it.
"Luce," he said, stung.
She held up a hand. "Stop," she said, and even as quiet as the words were, he could hear her pain. "Wyatt…I can't do this with you."
"Do what?" he asked. Stupidly.
"I can't pretend like everything is the same it's always been!" she hissed, color coming into her cheeks. "Wyatt, I don't for a second blame you for trying to fix your marriage. But this, us, I cannot do this." She drew breath. "You don't get to have it both ways," she told him. "You don't get to have your wife back and then think you can still look at me that way, that we can still be as close as we were."
"Lucy," he said, helplessly now, but she wasn't having it.
"Don't," she told him. "Don't act like I'm the cruel one here. Under no circumstances will I be the other woman. It was hard enough, Wyatt, when there was a ghost between us. It's difficult to compete with a ghost, you know." Her voice shook a little. "Or maybe you don't, I don't know. But there is no competition now. You made your choice. You live with it."
He wanted to protest, to tell her she had gotten the whole thing wrong, but he knew she hadn't. A tear slid out of the corner of her eye, and he actually lifted a hand towards her. She jerked back, and it felt like she struck him.
He couldn't breathe again. Literally, physically could not breathe.
"Lucy," he said, into the loaded silence that followed. "You know, I don't think I can. Live with this, I mean."
Her eyes flew to his face, alarmed. "And what the hell does that mean?"
Out of nowhere, a sense of calm found him. It was one hell of a juxtaposition against the sense of mania, of absolute agony he had been wading through. His voice was quiet when he spoke. "It means I think I might have made a mistake."
Saying it out loud had the effect of making it true.
And he knew.
It was all over. His marriage was over. For real, by mutual consent this time, he was sure. Not by some stranger's hands around Jessica's neck. He shivered, lightly.
Would it be different this time? Without the crushing guilt?
And would it even matter if Lucy was done with him?
Slowly, carefully, praying to a God he hadn't acknowledged in half a decade, he reached for her hand.
His own hands never shook. But they did now.
Lucy didn't pull away this time.
He kissed her knuckles.
"Lucy," he said, surprised at the way his voice sounded. "I think I'm sort of a wreck right now."
She looked back at him in silence, and he realized he had no right to ask her for anything. Not anymore. But he was still going to.
"Don't give up on me just yet," he whispered.
Unexpectedly, a tear dropped onto the table between them. "Please," he begged.
He couldn't decipher the look in her eyes, and that scared him. "What does not giving up on you look like?" she asked. "Because I don't think it looks like me stuffing my fingers in my ears at night while you and Jessica figure it out."
His heart caught. God, he was a bastard. For so long, he had wanted Jessica back. And ever since he'd known time travel was a thing that actually happened, he'd been imaging what it might be like.
He had been wrong on every level.
Whatever had been between them as eighteen year old kids had not stood the test of time. Not now, not…well, not since Lucy Preston fell into his life.
And since Jessica's dramatic resurrection, he had been trying desperately to recapture what he'd had with her. Find any of that chemistry that had compelled her to follow him and the Army all over the damn world. And at nights, when it was just the two of them and a bed, he was still searching for it. Maybe if he tried harder, he could find it. In fact, he had never given more attention to what a woman needed, what she wanted, what would make her feel good.
With one exception.
Who was currently sitting across from him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing it was utterly inadequate. Knowing at the same time that he had never meant an apology more.
But did she?
Did she trust him? Maybe not anymore. She had literally put herself in his hands, and he'd dropped her.
"Wyatt…" she breathed, and he was absolutely terrified of what her next words would be. "You'll forgive me if I'm a little gun shy right now, but I think I've reached my quota of heartbreaks for the month."
His fingers tightened on hers. Oh, God. He was going to lose her. All the way. And yet, could he blame her for it?
"Lucy, I am so, so sorry," he told her.
"Yeah," she said. "You told me that. Before. On the phone."
The one conversation they'd had out of hundreds that she would always remember. The one where he should have chosen her. Fought for her. For them.
He ducked his head. Devastated didn't begin to describe it. He gasped for breath. Felt his shoulders shake. Realized too late that his grip on her fingers was too tight but couldn't seem to let go, terrified that this would be a severance of the last connection he would ever have with her.
And then - a respite. Her other hand slid to his face, thumb brushing away his tears. He leaned into her, kissing her palm, her wrist, unable to suck in enough oxygen.
"You never told me," she said softly, and he dared to glance up. "What does not giving up on you look like?"
He sniffed. Loudly. She was touching him, so that was good, wasn't it?
"Uh," he fought for another breath. "Just…maybe just don't fall in love with anyone else in the meantime?"
He was being deeply presumptuous, especially given their current situation, but she did give him a small smile.
And then, before she'd given him an answer, there were footsteps in the hall behind them. Lucy dropped her hand from his face. "Shit," he whispered. "I was supposed to tell you Rufus wanted a meeting with everyone."
They were out of time.
Lucy was first to gather her composure, and she stood, pulling her robe tighter. He tried to hide his face.
Rufus gestured to the living room. Lucy, making some sort of gesture herself, he hoped, sat between him and Flynn.
In the silence before Rufus spoke, he decided prayer was maybe not the least appropriate thing he could do. Lucy believed in it. Weirdly enough, Flynn did, too.
And if that son of a bitch thought prayer had brought him to Lucy, well, maybe it would bring her back.
To him.
Like all desperate petitioners from time immemorial, he promised a great deal. And, again, like all of his predecessors, meant every word.
Lucy's hand brushed his.
Deliberately, he thought.
Thank you.
Thank you thank you thank you.
It was time to fight. And fight he would.