I cannot believe this story turned out to be this MONSTER of a fic. I honestly didn't even know what I was planning when I started writing this but I'm glad with the way it came out. When the show got cancelled, I was so heartbroken that I stopped writing timeless fanficiton entirely, but even though we're just getting a 2-hour movie, it still feels like it isn't over yet. Lyatt is still so full of possibilities, I just wish they're treated right in the finale. Anyways, I really hope you enjoy this :)

He had always crumbled so spectacularly, Wyatt Logan. Some people chipped away like paint, fragile pieces dissolving to dust between your fingertips, and some people faded away right in front of your eyes, gone before you even realized it was happening. But people like him, people like Wyatt, they caught fire from the inside out. They burned bright and valiant, and they destroyed everything in their wake, until they were the only thing left, the last one standing, always.

He had burned, and he had brought them all down with them.

But if there was one thing he had done, he had made Lucy Preston fireproof. She was long immune to the burn now anyway.

The first mission after they brought Rufus back, they blew apart like they hadn't been crying over their dead friend less than four days ago. The minute they stepped out of the Lifeboat, they were yelling; Rufus the loudest of them, Wyatt, face pinched, trying to defend himself, and Lucy, somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

"We had a plan," Rufus bit out. "You go after the sleeper, I stay back to talk to the receptionist to figure out where they'd stash the ammo. I don't know why you're suddenly trying to undermine me in the field-"

"I was not trying to undermine you," Wyatt interrupted heatedly, "There was another sleeper guarding the stash, I was trying to keep you safe-"

"Almost sabotaging the mission is not how I'd go about keeping me safe-"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Wyatt stopped suddenly, turning around and pressing the fingers of a hand against his eyes. Something inside him seemed to snap, his shoulders tensing as if buckling under the weight of several mountains. Not for the first time, she watched him come undone, an uncontrolled storm of tangled emotions crumbling apart too quickly.

He removed his hand, turned towards Rufus with desperate, teary eyes. "I watched you die," His voice was anguished, squeezed raw from his throat. "I know you don't remember it, but I watched you die right in front of me. I watched as the life drained out of your eyes. I watched you take your last breath with my hands on the bullet-wound in your chest." He paused, the words catching in his throat, voice a haunting whisper in the sudden silence of the bunker. "And it was my fault."

Rufus looked at Wyatt for a stunned second, the anger quickly dissipating from his face. Lucy felt a lodge in her throat as she watched the two of them helplessly. There was a look in Rufus's eyes that told her that he hadn't paid thought to exactly how he had died in their original timeline, and now, hearing the description from Wyatt's mouth, he looked shaken to the core.

"I'm sorry if I was being too overbearing," Wyatt continued, "But I won't let you get hurt, not again."

Rufus swallowed, and then took a halting step in Wyatt's direction. "You made a mistake," he said finally, voice laden with conviction. "But what happened to me wasn't your fault. It was Jessica's and Emma's, but not yours."

Wyatt released a shaky breath but the hard glint of his eyes that told her that he didn't really believe what Rufus had just said. Everything about him seeped with poorly suppressed guilt. "That whole mess started because of me," he said. "Hell, Jiya spent three years alone, who knows where, because I refused to accept Jessica could be Rittenhouse." His eyes shot quickly towards Jiya before he was looking at Rufus once again, swept up in his shame, and sadness, and an oddly placed determination. "I put you all in danger, but I promise you, it will never happen again."

"Wyatt-" Rufus started, taking a step towards him.

But he was already walking away, ducking quickly into his room, leaving the remnants of his guilt behind him floating thickly in the air.

She found him later, sitting on that spot on the ground where he had first told her he loved her. He was fiddling with his phone, staring into space while his thoughts churned restlessly in his head. His focus only snapped back to the present when she took a seat beside him on the cold floor.

"You do know that we have perfectly good sitting furniture set up just a few feet away, right?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and his lips turned up in a half-smile. "And yet I seem to prefer the cold embrace of this floor."

She smiled in return as she settled back against the wall, a few inches of space between them. She didn't say anything right away, letting the silence take over.

"I was afraid too, you know," she admitted after a few minutes, still looking ahead instead of turning to face him. "It still feels like I imagined it all –I'm afraid that any moment I'm going to turn around and he'll be gone again."

He turned his head to look at her, eyes filled with sympathy and understanding. It occurred to her then that he was the only other person in the bunker who knew what losing Rufus felt like. Theoretically, they all knew what had happened and how they had gotten Rufus back. But no one other than her and Wyatt remembered seeing the lifeless body of their best friend lying on the ground; no one else remembered the crushing loss that had torn at her insides; no one else knew how devastating it had been when they hadn't even been able to bring his body back with them to the present.

"I keep thinking about future-us," he said, moving slightly so he was facing her. "They lived five years without him. I don't – I don't know if I would have been able to get through that."

Even though the inches between them had lessened, she didn't move away. "The fact that future-you existed and came back to 2018 proves that you would've gotten through it," she reassured, softly. She twisted her body slightly towards him, rested her head against the wall. "They don't seem real either, do they?"

He knew they she was referring to the future version of them that had blasted into the bunker in all their rugged glory. They had been so sure and headstrong, confident about their plan and leading everyone through the next steps with a calmness that was five years in the making. When the four of them had gone back to Chinatown to save Rufus, they had already had everything mapped out, down the seconds leading to when Emma had pulled the trigger. When Lucy thought back to them, she got a strange feeling in her chest, like she was trying to reconcile herself with a version of her that seemed like an impossibility.

"No," he agreed. "That beard? Your fighting skills? Unreal."

She let out a small laugh. "What can I say, I had a pretty good teacher."

Wyatt rolled his eyes, fighting off a grin, "Yeah, he sounds like a swell guy."

A burst of something warm rose in her chest at the lightheartedness in the air. She'd missed this. She'd missed him. But with that realization came a slew of painful reminders of why she had had to miss him in the first place.

He seemed to be thinking along the same line of thought.

"I know I haven't really been there for you the past few months," he said, eyeing her sincerely. All traces of humor were gone from his face and he didn't try to hide his earnestness from her. "But I'd like to be -again. Now."

She looked at him, as if weighing the proposition in her mind. But even through all the hurt, he was still her cornerstone, her touching point. Through all the curveballs, all the twists and spins and hurricanes, some lose thread of her life would always lead back to him.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay," he smiled.

And they went forwards from there.

A week after Chinatown, they moved into a new bunker. This one was bigger, with two washrooms, and enough rooms to individually accommodate everyone. But Lucy didn't expect the melancholy she felt as they vacated the old bunker. Unconsciously or not, that place had become their only home, a refuge from all the chaos of the previous centuries, a place that was a constant with its musky scent and perpetually rusting walls despite the changes in history. Until it too had been compromised.

She never thought she would miss it. She never thought that of all the things she would resent Jessica Logan for, this would be tacked to the bottom of her list.

The morning after they made the move, she was uncharacteristically the first one up. She rummaged around the haphazard stash of clothes she had collected over the weeks and pulled apart something that could pass as workout clothes. Changing quickly, she silently slipped out of her room.

Soundlessly, she made her way over to Wyatt's door, stopping at the threshold, suddenly filled with hesitation. But before she could change her mind, she steeled her nerves and rapped her knuckles twice against the cold steel, the sound resounding painfully sharp in the silence of the new bunker.

Within seconds, they heavy door was being pushed open and a bleary Wyatt was looking at her in confusion, hair adorably messy and face unguarded, "Lucy?"

"Teach me how to fight," she blurted out too quickly.

He blinked, taking a minute to absorb her words and then his eyes flashed to her mismatched workout outfit. A slow smile spread across his lips as he nodded, "Let me get changed."

"Stamina and strength," he had said the first day that he had started training her. "Before I can teach you any offensive moves, you have to build up your stamina and strength."

She had been doing fine, really. She was practicing a few basic moves he had taught her against the punching bag, and even though she got out of breath quickly, she was spending more and more time on the treadmill each day, slowing building up her stamina.

But after a sucky mission and way too many close calls, she realized that the whole thing was just going too slow. She had to learn how to fight; not how to escape, not how to run. What she wanted was to stand in front of Emma and have a fighting chance.

"You have to target the vulnerable points of the body like we discussed: eyes, knees, toes, crotch," Wyatt said, as he demonstrated how she would get free if somebody grabbed her from the back. "And then you run as fast as you can. Never give them the chance to get hold of you again -then it becomes harder to escape since they anticipate what's coming."

His hand felt clammy on the bare skin of her arm, and she shook herself free from his grip, frustration mounting, "What is the use of any of this if some Rittenhouse thug is holding a gun to my head?" she snapped, stalking away. "I asked you to teach me to fight, Wyatt. Not how to escape."

He seemed mostly unbothered by her outburst and that only annoyed her more. He was supposed to be the hothead, the unreasonable one. He didn't get to be the bigger person when she was throwing her own tantrum.

"This is me teaching you how to fight," he said calmly, taking a step towards her. "You can't learn to fight until you know how to defend yourself, how to take advantage of the situation. Learning real sparring techniques takes time and patience. You won't get it right the first try. Hell, you probably won't get it right the fiftieth time. That's why you have to learn this first."

It wasn't what she wanted to hear. Future-Lucy had gotten there hadn't she? Why couldn't he help her get there too?

"Then teach me how to fire a gun," she countered. "That should be easy, right?"

Again, he shook his head, "A gun is no better if your opponent can disarm you and use it against you."

"Fine," she bit out. "Fine. If you won't teach me, maybe I'll ask Flynn."

She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left her mouth and she saw him wince.

Quickly, schooling his face, he took another step towards her, not letting her words bother him for too long, "Lucy, I know this is a long process. And I know that you feel helpless and frustrated. But you will get there. You've seen it with your own eyes."

She felt some of the frustration melting away at the genuineness of his words. "I don't want to wait five years," The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, sad and dragging and desperate. "I want this to be over now. I want to end this now."

It was something she had been thinking about ever since Future Lucy and Wyatt had showed up. Somewhere down the line, she had always thought that she would get her life back, that all this would someday end. But if they were still fighting five years from now, then what was even the point?

Looking at her like he knew exactly how she was feeling, he covered the few remaining steps between them and put a gentle hand on her shoulder, "Lucy, we know nothing about those five years except that we came back to save Rufus. We could be done with all this in a year. We could be done with this tomorrow. You can be angry -as angry as you like. But you can't stop fighting, okay?"

Embarrassingly, she felt her eyes stinging with tears. Damn him. Damn him to hell.

"How am I supposed to fight when you won't teach me?" she let out one last retort.

He had the nerve to smile. "You've never fought with your body, Lucy. You fight with your brain. That's your superpower."

He retracted his hand, moving back towards the yoga mat spread in the middle of the room, "Come on, we still have half an hour to go for today."

She stood there for a few more seconds and then she followed.

After the first time he had told her he loved her, he didn't try to make any kind of romantic move towards her at all. He seemed content to just earn her friendship and trust back and for that she was unbelievably grateful. She was still not sure if she was ready to return the sentiment. And despite what she had observed from Future-Lucy and Wyatt's relationship, she was still not sure if she'd ever be.

Everything inside of her was still too raw, a fire that had barely stopped smoking. Even though they had gotten Rufus back, her brain still traumatized her with flashbacks of his death. Sprinkled between those memories was the face of her mother, who betrayed her even with her dying breath. And while these hurts invaded every spare corner of her thoughts, she couldn't even fathom to untangle the mess that was her emotions for Wyatt Logan.

That didn't mean there weren't moments though. Moments where his hand lingered too long on her back before he realized what he was doing, moments where she caught herself unconsciously moving too close into his personal space without a second thought, moments between their training sessions where the adrenaline pumping through their bloodstreams demanded to be expressed in other manners, and she had to break contact before the blush on her neck could give her away.

But he still remained respectfully away. And each time a moment like that occurred and dissolved, she didn't know whether she was glad or disappointed.

The first time they encountered Jessica again, three missions into getting Rufus back, she could tell that it got to him. He was quiet on the way back and even in the briefing with Agent Cristopher, he was brief and to the point, leaving the room almost immediately after they were done.

It got to her too, but for entirely different reasons. The woman had manipulated them all, kidnapped Jiya, and had ultimately started a chain of events that had led to her mother's and Rufus's deaths. At this point, if she had a gun with just two bullets and she was trapped in a room with Jessica and Emma, she wasn't sure who she was going to shoot first.

The mood of the bunker was somber, and as she sat in the living area with a bottle of beer in her hand and a random show playing on the TV, she wasn't expecting company. So it was a surprise, that instead of brooding quietly in his room, Wyatt took a seat beside her on the sofa, mood looking a little better now that the hard-etched frown had lifted temporarily from his face.

He hesitated a little, "Can I talk to you about something?"

She didn't lift her eyes from the screen but she nodded her assent, curiosity piquing.

"When we were in 1888, the first time," he took a deep breath, bracing himself, "I asked Jessica is it was true. If she was actually pregnant."

Her heart leapt in her throat but she kept her face neutral, turning her head slightly to face him. She felt the hurt even thinking about it, almost like the first time he had made the announcement, when he had shattered any salvageable piece of their relationship still left. She remembered what she had felt at that precise moment, an anguish so acute, it had surprised her with its intensity.

But now, he was coming to her as a … friend. She rather he discussed every painful detail of their lives with her than let any secrets build between them ever again.

"She said yes," he continued, eyes flicking downwards. "And I know her word doesn't count for much. But I can't stop wondering about it. If she really is pregnant." His voice turned hoarse at the last word and he cleared his throat, eyes still averted away from her. "If it's true, then I'm compromised. Every time I point my gun at her, I'm wondering if I'm aiming at my unborn child."

Lucy was sure that she had experienced every possible hurt in the last few weeks, but this was a whole new kind of heartbreak. If it was true, if Jessica was really was pregnant, then they were talking about a whole new life. A baby. A boy or girl that would be Wyatt's own blood, someone he had brought into the world. Someone, she knew, he would love unconditionally.

And just because of the position Jessica had put him in, Lucy already hated her more than she had done a few seconds ago.

He misinterpreted her silence, already retreating. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head, "I shouldn't have-"

Almost instinctively, she reached forwards and grabbed his hand, afraid that he'd leave before they even got a chance to talk, "Wyatt, wait-"

He sat back once again, releasing a quick breath.

A little awkwardly, she removed her hand. "If you really believe she's pregnant," she said, ignoring the way her stomach turned at the words, "then you know none of us would ever want you to be in a position where you have to make that choice."

He faltered, "You want me to not come with you anymore?"

"No," she said immediately. "No." This time, she was the one who couldn't meet his gaze, swallowing thickly to dispel the sudden tightness in her throat. "But we'd understand if that's your choice."

"It's not," he said quickly, forcefully. "It would kill me to sit here, not knowing if you and Rufus were safe." His face was torn with conflict, the blue in his eyes criminally sharp in the dull glow of the bunker. "But I've put you all in enough danger. I can't let Jessica hurt you both just because I hesitated in the moment."

Hearing his conflict tugged at her heartstrings, and she felt a rush of deep sadness and sympathy for the situation he was now stuck in. When she had first found out Jessica was (maybe) pregnant, he had threatened to leave. The idea had been unbearable, the deepest, most personal sort of betrayal after he had promised her that she still had him all those weeks ago.

But the thought of him not being with them in the missions now was just as unbearable as it had been then.

"Wyatt," she started, vulnerably. "There's a chance that you could end up in that situation, I'm not going to deny it. But if you're not with us, there are countless other situations we could land in where we need you."

She could tell from his face that he knew what it had cost her to say that sentence out loud, to admit that she needed him still. And it was the truth, no matter how much her stubborn heart wanted to deny it.

He nodded seriously, "I'm not going to let you down, okay? But whatever is going on, I wanted you to know."

"Good," she said, with a small smile. "We're a team, Wyatt. This only works if we stay a team."

She hadn't meant anything more by it, but he looked at her like she had handed him the first rungs to forgiveness.

He nodded and then twisted towards the TV, settling back in the couch, "So, what are we watching?"

She smiled into the mouth of her beer bottle as she took another sip. "How do you feel about reality TV?"

Lucy tipped her hat downwards to cover her face as she made her way down the docks, heading towards the small office at the far end where she knew she would find the records she needed. They were in 1939, Boston and she was wearing a sophisticated blazer and skirt that reminded her of the blue and red outfit she had worn in 1941 before they had changed into their more glamourous clothes. It was a few hours before midnight, so the place was mostly abandoned but she still crept ahead slowly, taking careful steps so that her shoes wouldn't clack loudly against the wet pavement.

The office was in her sights and she quickly dashed the rest of the way to the small shack, looking around once before she reached for the doorknob and silently popped it open. But before she could step inside, an arm shot around her, grabbing her from the waist and pinning her backwards, while a hand was clamped tightly on her mouth, stopping the scream that had almost escaped her lips.

She twisted in her attacker's grip, but he only held tighter, his voice disgustingly close to her ear, "Now so sneaky now, are you, Princess?"

Instinctively, she struggled against the Rittenhouse thug, protesting into the hand that was pressed disgustingly against her mouth. But he held tight, tugging her backwards in an effort to lead her elsewhere. The panicked claustrophobia rose steadily in her gut, revolting against the caged feeling of the thug's arms holding her in place.

But between the panic, she remembered the early morning training sessions with Wyatt, preparing her for exactly this scenario.

Vulnerable points. Surprise attack. Escape.

She relaxed in her attacker's hold, giving her enough space to maneuver her body and bring down her heeled foot hard on the man's toes. The man let out a surprised squeak of pain and in the split second that his grip loosened from around her waist, she found enough leverage to throw back her elbow straight into his nose.

His hand released her as he grabbed his nose, cursing loudly in pain, "Fuck!"

"Lucy!"

She saw Wyatt heading her way, just as she finally twisted herself free from the man's grip. Wyatt cocked his gun at the thug's face and the man scrambled to reach for his own firearm. But before he could even fully take the weapon out of its holster, Wyatt smacked the butt of his gun against the side of the man's head, knocking him out cold in one quick blow.

Lucy's entire body was humming with adrenaline as she turned towards Wyatt, "Did you see that?"

Wyatt laughed, sharing her excitement as he quickly ushered her inside the shack whose door was still hanging open. From the distance, she could hear the sound of police sirens, the increasing volume signaling the rapidly closing distance between them. He turned back towards her once the door was shut and they were encased in hazy darkness. Even in the dimness of the room, she could trace the crinkles by his eyes that only came out when he smiled. "We might make a soldier out of you yet, Lucy Preston."

Her hoop-shirt crowded around his ankles as she clumsily ascended into the Lifeboat, and Wyatt's hands landed on her arms, steadying her before she could pitch forwards towards the floor.

"Woah," he said, holding her in place, "Easy."

Shooting him a sheepish look, she finally managed to situate herself in her seat, fidgeting until her skirts had fallen into place. He took his own seat opposite her, and then reached forwards almost unconsciously to clasp her seatbelt for her.

Her breath hitched in her throat the moment his broad fingers brushed the front of her dress, heart suddenly jumping in her chest as her mind played a quick flashback of the last time he had clasped her seatbelt for her, after their night in Hollywood. He heard the hitch in her breath and that was enough to alert him to her reaction as he quickly withdrew his hands as if she had burned him, ducking his head away in apology, "Uh, I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I shouldn't have done that."

Maybe she was tired of how cordial things between them had been lately, or maybe she was just high of the thrill of another successful mission, but all she could think right then was how wonderfully exhilarating it had felt to have his hands near her, and how much she missed the utter lack of complexity behind the simple gesture.

Skin warming, heart thrumming a careful beat against her sternum, she met his eyes and said, "It's okay, Wyatt. I don't think I can move my arms in this thing anyway."

She could tell that she had surprised him, but nevertheless he reached back towards her, face full of such delicate hope that her heart ached. Carefully, his fingers grasped the clasps of the belt once again, slowly snapping them into place. When he had clipped in the final buckle, he gave the belt a gentle tug and then sat back in his seat, "There."

It was only then that she realized she had been holding her breath. Exhaling discreetly, she sat back in her seat and met his gaze. The look he gave her was open and heated and intimate, and she felt a small thrill up her spine as she stared back at him boldly.

They only broke contact when the Lifeboat revved into motion and made its spring through time. And later in the night, when she was alone in her bed, it was the thought of that stare that sent her off to sleep.

They found it tacked onto the door of the Lifeboat with a piece of scotch tape.

"Stand back," Wyatt said immediately, as he and Flynn pulled out their guns. "Someone's been here."

Quickly, the two men scanned the premises and then made their way around the Lifeboat and back. The woods around them were eerily silent but Lucy felt a chill in the air, an itch that tickled the back of her neck.

When it became apparent that they were in fact alone, they finally approached the Lifeboat, and Lucy peeled away the piece of paper that was stuck to its front. It was folded once on its side and she quickly pulled it open, Wyatt and Rufus looking from over his shoulder while Flynn hung back.

It was a sonogram.

And on the margins, written in black marker: 16 weeks. It's a girl.

Heart lurching in her throat, she exhaled a shaky breath and looked at Wyatt.

He was looking at the photo like the world had split open underneath his feet and he didn't understand whether he wanted to keep standing or let himself fall. With trembling hands, he took the paper from her fingers and brought it closer to his face, eyes flickering all over as he scanned every inch of the photograph.

And then he finally looked up, eyes marred with tears that sat heavy on his lashes. "It's real," he said, hoarsely.

Lucy stood there almost frozen, vision blurring as she stared at the paper in his hands. She couldn't fathom what to say or what to feel. It was real. Jessica was pregnant. Wyatt was going to be a father.

Rufus passed Wyatt a sympathetic smile and reached over to squeeze his shoulder, "I know Jessica officially sucks, but congratulations, man."

Wyatt let out a small laugh, pushing his hand through his hair as he looked at the photo once again. "It's a girl," he said in amazement.

And Lucy suddenly had a flash of another life, another scenario in which he might have said those words, and they could've meant something different to her. A news she could have celebrated with him, a news that was not indirectly tied to her pain.

But she knew that that life was not meant to be hers. She met his eyes and tried to muster up a genuine smile. "You're going to be a great father, Wyatt," she said.

For a moment, he was only surprised by her words, but then his face was overcome with a deep melancholy, a guilt so sharp, she could feel the tip of it pricking her chest. He couldn't meet her eyes for very long as his happiness rapidly diffused into shame.

"Thank you," he said, quietly.

Not for the first time, she felt the sudden and unbidden urge to throw her arms around him and press herself into his chest until she could reach and pull out the sadness from within him. She wanted to tell him that he had every right to be happy, that a child was a cause for celebration no matter the circumstances from which he or she was born of.

But because she was still carefully stitching together her own wounds, any words of reassurance got lost in her throat and she was left giving him a weak, tight-lipped smile in consolation. Almost stiltedly, they all climbed inside the Lifeboat, and she had half a mind to take Flynn's seat so she could avoid looking at Wyatt directly.

She settled back in her chair and closed her eyes once the Lifeboat revved into motion. As the world beyond her eyelids vanished, she gave herself only the time it took to reach back home to think about little blonde girls with sparking blue eyes.

They didn't talk about the baby after that, even though she could tell that it was weighing on him. After everything that had happened with Jessica, he had generally grown more withdrawn, but he had always been on alert, always on the move, always thinking ahead. But after the little gift Jessica had left taped to the Lifeboat's door, Lucy often caught him staring in the distance, thinking about a thousand things and nothing at all.

In their training sessions though, his attention didn't waver. In the mornings, he carefully helped her wrap her hands before he had her practice against the punching bag. For the past few weeks, he was trying to get Rufus to join in on the training sessions, and when Rufus gave his varying list of reasons for why his gentle soul wasn't made for fighting, she was secretly glad. She liked having Wyatt to herself in the early morning; she liked co-existing with him in a place where there was no missions, no curious eyes, no expectations to talk about anything other than how she wasn't pushing her whole weight into the punch.

The day he taught her how to fire a gun, he preemptively begged Denise to give them a few hours outside the bunker so they could practice with a proper range. And when they stood outside in the barren field atop the hidden mass of the bunker, he handed her his gun, taught her how to load a magazine, turn off the safety, and then carefully aim in the direction of their makeshift target.

She didn't know when she started shaking. But she felt his hands taking back the gun, gently squeezing the side of her arm as his concerned eyes gazed deep into her own.

"We don't have to do this today," he said.

"No," She shook her head, took a deep breath. "No. I want to."

She hated how the gun felt in her hand, cold and lifeless and yet holding the power to destroy lives. She hated how the impact knocked the wind from her body, hated how her ears rang with each shot. To no one's surprise, especially not her own, she was a terrible shot.

But still, when Wyatt concluded that they were done for the day, she grabbed his arm before he could walk away to dismantle the makeshift targets.

She finally voiced the one thing she hadn't been able to stop thinking about since her mother died, finally said the words that she had thought so frequently, they had started to poke out of her skin in abrasions.

"I want to kill her," she told Wyatt, voice unwavering, "I want to be the one to kill Emma."

"Lucy…" he started, gaze empathetic.

She shook her head, turned away quickly, heart dropping like a stone in her chest. He had only said one word but his tone made his thoughts on the statement very clear.

He grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving, "It doesn't feel any better," he said, gaze imploring, eyes desperately trying to convey something, "Whatever you're looking for, you won't find it this way."

"Revenge," she bit out. "I'm looking for revenge."

He gauged the expression on her face and then silently shook his head, dropping the hand that was still gripping her arm. Giving her an almost wry smile, he said, "Take it from the guy who spent six years trying to find his wife's murderer. It doesn't feel any better."

And then he was walking away, leaving her feeling stupid and apologetic and angry at the same time. He didn't get to throw his own experiences at her face like this. He didn't get to assume that her vendetta didn't hold meaning just because his own had gone up so spectacularly in flames.

But like all advise he dispensed her way, she couldn't stop thinking about what he had said. She wasn't backing down; she couldn't. She felt it deep in her throat that this was the only way. It was the only end that made any sense, that brought her any sense of justice at all.

Still, his words haunted her. Getting rid of Emma had seemed like the solution to all her problems, seemed like the only way to restore some kind of control over her own life. But she hadn't considered that killing her might not make a difference at all, that she would still feel as empty on the inside as she did now.

Things were quiet between them in the bunker. Later when she was loading her clothes in the washer, she sensed him behind her. Her shoulders tensed, expecting to hear his disapproval once again.

"You have every right to go after Emma," he said, voice low. Her hands stopped, fingers clutching tightly to the shirt she was just about to put inside the washer. "When I went after Jessica's killer, that was on me. It doesn't have anything to do with how you feel."

She let go of the shirt, turning to face him. He looked apologetic but determined, eyes boring silently into hers. "I wish I could tell you that killing doesn't get easier, but it does." She could tell that it was hard for him to admit what he was saying, words pausing thickly before he forced them out of his throat. "With each person you kill, you become desensitized. You remove yourself from it, until it becomes just a face, just a number. And in doing so, you lose a part of yourself." His hands clenched by his sides, and not for the first time, she wished his emotions weren't written so clearly across his face, wished that his life wasn't a series of perpetual bruises healing and reappearing across his heart. "I didn't want that for you. I still don't. But I understand that it's your choice."

She swallowed thickly, heart in her throat. "I'm doing this, Wyatt," she told him, stepping closer, slowly decreasing the distance between them. "But I don't want to do it alone."

He reached forwards and briefly grabbed her hand. Her skin sparked to life everywhere they touched. "You won't," he said.

And even though her decision hadn't changed, his reassurance lifted a thousand worries from her heart. She didn't know whether she'd succeed, she didn't know if she would decide to pull the trigger at all. But she knew that as long as she had him beside her, she would make the right choice.

They were in New Jersey, in 1980, in the middle of a bizarrely cold winter, and Lucy had no clue what Emma and Jessica were after.

Since the two women had taken leadership over Rittenhouse, their missions had become more cutthroat and less subtle, more like what Flynn's had been. They didn't try to subtly tweak the timeline in Rittenhouse's favor like Keynes had been trying to do; Emma's hits, although smart and calculated, were much more devastating. Ever since she had taken the helm, they had already lost too much history, changed far too many events to not have lasting consequences every time they went back to the present. And even though they mostly managed to thwart her efforts, Lucy knew that they were bound to slip, bound to fail drastically sooner or later -unless they started hitting on the offensive rather than trying to match Emma at every turn.

After floundering for hours, Flynn finally tracked down a cab driver who had driven Emma and Jessica to two separate locations, one a residential address, and the other leading to a secluded research facility.

"Nothing," Lucy said in frustration, "I can't think of anything that could've happened in these places."

"I can," Rufus interjected suddenly. "Irshad Technologies, the facility -it was founded by Dr. Kamila Irshad. She's part of the only other engineering group except for Mason Industries who's gotten anywhere close to building a time-machine. 1980 -I think she started the company only last year. "

Wyatt's face was somber. "Why does Rittenhouse suddenly need a time-machine expert?"

"Whatever they need her for," Rufus said, "It can't be good."

The group of four split into pairs as Wyatt and Lucy headed towards Kamila's residence, while Flynn and Rufus headed for the company. Kamila's house was only a few minutes' car ride away from their current location, and in record time, Wyatt had parked their stolen car around the street and they were making their way towards Kamila's modest house. The lights were off and Wyatt put a finger to his lips as he walked down the porch and tried the front door.

The door was unlocked. They shared a glance before Wyatt pulled it open and headed inside, gun first. It quickly became apparent that the house was empty but once Lucy turned on the lights, they both stopped short.

Kamila's research was everywhere. Spread on the couch, piled in stacks across the dining table, pinned to walls between framed diplomas. Lucy walked through the mess slowly, the numbers and equations mostly foreign to her, even though she tried her hardest to make sense of it.

She only stopped when she saw a set of blueprints she recognized all too well, spread open on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.

The drawings were of the Mothership, and scribbled along the corners were strings of code Lucy could make no sense of. She grabbed the sheets of paper, folded them hastily and stuffed them inside the inner pocket of her jacket. She turned around to look for Wyatt, when she heard the rapid fall of his footsteps running back down the stairs.

He grabbed her arm as soon as he appeared in the doorway, face panicked, "There's a bomb. We have to go now."

She had barely comprehended what was happening before he was pulling her back into the living room, and towards the front door. Her hand grabbed desperately onto his forearm and she held on as her heart starting hammering against her sternum, a healthy dose of adrenaline quickly rushing her veins. They ran through the open door and down the steps leading from the patio. They were halfway across the driveway when the bomb went off.

It all happened in milliseconds. Wyatt pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms around her as he pressed her back to his chest, just as the house exploded into pieces behind them, the force of the blast knocking them both off their feet.

There was a piercing screech in her ear, as the world faded in and around her, a heavy weight pressing her body to the pavement and constricting her breathing to short gasps. Time seemed to pass slowly as her blood rushed to her head, throbbing through her brain, making it difficult to think. When she tried to open her eyes, black spots danced in front of her vision, a searing pain in her head, like her skull was trying to split open on itself. She coughed as soot filled her lungs and tried to turn her head.

Wyatt. She had to find Wyatt.

It was between moments of clarity that she realized that he was the heavy weight that was pinning her body to the ground. Slowly, she tried to extract herself from beneath him, and took in huge breaths as she managed to throw off his heavy legs and arms away from her. She fell back to the ground when he was off her, and it was then that she realized that he was fully comatose, sticky blood coating the back of his head, staining his hair into a deep red that dripped slowly down his neck.

Hands trembling in panic, she reached for him, brushed a hand across his face. "Wyatt," her voice was fringing on hysterical. "Wyatt, wake up."

A shadow fell over them and she looked up blearily to find Jessica standing a few feet away, looking at the rubble around them in calm disinterest. Lucy's fright or flight instincts kicked in, and ignoring the pain that spasmed through various parts of her body, she reached over and grabbed Wyatt's gun from his holster, sitting up clumsily and pulling off the safety like Wyatt had taught her.

She pointed the gun at Jessica, but Jessica's face barely changed. There was a calmness to her demeanor, but Lucy could almost feel the storm lurking behind it, waiting to be let loose. Jessica's lips twitched up in a half-smirk, "You couldn't, Lucy," she said, briefly eyeing the gun Lucy was pointing at her, "even if you tried."

"You don't know me," Lucy bit out, tightening her grip on the gun.

"I don't," Jessica conceded. "But I do know that you'd never do anything to hurt Wyatt's baby."

Lucy's hand spasmed against the gun, but still she held tight even though Jessica had successfully rattled her. It was so blatantly the truth. Wyatt had been worried about being unable to do anything to protect them from Jessica that Lucy hadn't considered that she would be just as helpless in the same situation. If she were to pull the trigger right now and something happened to the baby, she didn't know if Wyatt would ever forgive her. She didn't know whether she would forgive herself.

Jessica motioned to someone behind her, and two men stepped forwards. "Grab him," she said, gesturing to Wyatt's limp body.

Lucy's heart seized in panic. She pointed her gun towards the first men, and then the second, a sinking feeling spreading through her limbs at the realization that she was outnumbered.

Jessica looked at her, hand pressed against the gun at her side, but there was a stillness about her that Lucy couldn't understand. "I don't really care about what happens to you, Lucy," she said, "But I guarantee you that if you pull that trigger right now, you're not walking out of this alive."

The two men moved forwards, each grabbing Wyatt by one arm. Lucy stumbled towards them, pointing the gun at one of the men, "Stop!"

She heard the click of a gun and then Jessica was pointing her own weapon at Lucy, "Your move, Princess."

Lucy watched as the men pulled him away, helpless to do anything but watch. A vicious kind of feeling boiled in her blood, a resentment and anger so fierce, it was only rivaled to what she had felt towards Emma back in 1888.

Jessica slowly backed away, gun still trained at Lucy. "You know, in my timeline, I almost convinced him to join Rittenhouse. But he's always been stupidly noble. Even when it hasn't done him any good."

And then she was gone, her goons dragging Wyatt with them, while Lucy sat there numbly, everything inside her screaming in protest.

People from the neighboring houses had started to gather and Lucy could hear firetrucks in the distance, but she could not make herself move. She didn't know what was happening around her, the world outside her mind blurring at the edges. Now that the adrenaline had started to wear off, multiple parts of her body cried in pain and her vision clouded over before focusing once again. She only regained her grip on reality when she felt Flynn's hand on her arm, his persistent voice leading her away, "Dammit Lucy, what the hell just happened?"

Rufus's worried face came into view, "Lucy, -Lucy, where's Wyatt?"

She could only shake her head, the guilt in her throat making it hard to speak. "Jessica," she finally gasped out. "Jessica took him."

Lucy didn't speak the rest of the way home. She only knew one thing. Rittenhouse had already taken too much from her. She was not going to let them take Wyatt too.

It was three days since they had gotten back from 1980, and Lucy was going insane. Denise was pulling her resources with Homeland in an effort to locate Emma and Jessica in the present but so far, she had had no luck. The only thing they had figured out was why the two women had been in 1980 in the first place. Rufus had been able to decode the blueprints Lucy had picked up from Kamila Irshad's house; they barely scratched the surface of the calculations that Emma had probably acquired from the scientist, but the codes scribbled over the drawings had been enough for Rufus to guess why Rittenhouse had needed a time-travel expert in the first place.

They were trying to modify the Mothership so Emma and Jessica could travel to a time where they already existed.

Since Future Wyatt and Lucy had shown up in the bunker to save Rufus, they had known that traveling to a time after their births was a possibility. But Emma and Jessica hadn't known that -for them Rufus had never died in the first place. And the fact that they had figured it out, and were actively trying to follow through was more than troubling.

But Lucy couldn't dwell on that for too long when her mind was constantly occupied by Wyatt's absence. She felt helpless and irritable, like she couldn't properly pull air into her lungs no matter how hard she tried. When she had thought that he was dead, the six weeks she had been with her mother, she had felt empty, a quiet numbness that had overtaken everything inside her head. But this was a different kind of torture, knowing that he was hurt and amidst the enemy, while she had no choice but to sit back and do nothing.

"He's trained for scenarios worse than this, Lucy," Denise had told her when they had come back to the present sans Wyatt. "He's tough enough to get through whatever they throw at him."

But Denise hadn't seen how badly he was injured, hadn't seen the cold calculation on Jessica's face. Lucy still couldn't understand why Jessica wanted him now. Was this her one last ditch effort to recruit him to Rittenhouse? Was this a revenge of some sort? Or was this something as simple as a strike against the enemy, a blow she and the team would never be able to recover from?

She was shaken out of her thoughts when Rufus took a seat beside her on the sofa, nudging his shoulder against hers in greeting.

"You know you remind me of Wyatt, when you were with Rittenhouse those six weeks," he said, and then cracked a small grin. "Except he was way worse."

Despite herself, Lucy could feel a smile tugging at her lips, "Oh, yeah? What did he do?"

With a small laugh, Rufus sank back into the sofa. "He drove Agent Cristopher insane for starters. When she wasn't spending her time looking for you, she was trying to keep Wyatt from escaping out of the bunker."

Lucy was surprised that it was the first time she was hearing about this, but that didn't stop the soft tingle of warmth that rose in her gut. She glanced sideways at Rufus, "Did he succeed?"

Rufus snorted, "Heck no. But he did try to weld his way through a foot thick steel door. That's something."

Indeed, it was. She remembered the anxiety in his eyes when she had convinced him to leave her behind in 1954. It wasn't hard to imagine then that he would have been worried for her, would have been frustrated with his inability to help when she had been kidnapped by her own mother for six weeks.

Rufus was quiet for a little while, and when Lucy settled into the sofa beside him, he gave her a look that was alight with a sad kind of sympathy. "Despite the whole shit show with Jessica …" he started slowly, "He does love you, you know."

Lucy looked down at her hands, coughed once to dispel the sudden tightness in her throat. "I know."

Rufus looked at her in surprise, raising his eyebrows. "Are you trying to Han Solo this situation?"

Lucy let out a small bark of laughter, rolling her eyes briefly. "He told me," she confessed. "When we came back from Chinatown the first time … he said you would've wanted me to know."

Rufus smiled ruefully, "I told him to cut the crap back in 1918. If I had known that all I needed to do was die for him to admit it-"

Lucy hit him with her elbow, and he stopped talking midway, grinning sheepishly, "Sorry, sorry. Too soon, I know."

"He told me I didn't have to say it back," Lucy continued after a beat, a cinch inside her unravelling, the burden of the words begging to be released out in the open. "He said I didn't have to say anything."

Rufus's face was empathetic. "And now?"

And now, he's not here. "I don't know," she said. She ran a hand through her hair, leant forwards on her knees. "It used to be so uncomplicated, the three of us. No matter what else happened, we were solid."

Rufus didn't offer any reassurances, just looked at her with too much understanding. "Do you love him too?"

Did she? If she had been asked that question in 1918, in 1941, she wouldn't have hesitated. Yes, of course she did. Of course, she loved him. How could she not? But now, everything had changed. He had abandoned her, broken her trust, had threatened to leave when they needed him most. Seeing him with his wife the day after she had given him everything had obliterated her.

But he had also loved her. Propped her up every time she didn't know she needed it. Supported her decisions even when he didn't agree with them. He had been blinded by his past, made mistakes that had hurt everyone around him. But every day since, he had strived to be better, had struggled to overturn his guilt into a shaky path towards redemption. He had been thrown into an impossible situation and even though he hadn't handled it as well, she understood. Understood what it felt like to lose your objectivity in grief, understood what it was like to feel so loudly, it drowned out every other noise in the world.

At the end of the day, if there was anyone on earth, who deserved a second, fourth, fifth chance, it was Wyatt Logan.

Did she love him?

"Yes."

Rufus reached a hand to squeeze her shoulder. "Then it's really not that complicated, is it?"

Their mission without Wyatt almost got blown to hell because she couldn't stop worrying about him while they were traipsing around eighteenth century, Scotland. Jiya tagged along on the fourth seat, and despite the comfort of having another woman beside her, and Rufus's numerous Outlander references, she still couldn't force her mind to focus on the mission, not while Wyatt was still with Rittenhouse and they were nowhere close to getting him back.

Lucy still had Wyatt's gun with her and she had been careful to tuck it inside her jeans out of Agent Cristopher's sight, sneaking in extra rounds of ammo from his room and fitting it inside her pockets. Flynn had been the only one to catch sight of the gun before she had hidden it in her eighteenth-century satchel and he had stayed quiet, although the look on his face spoke suspiciously of approval.

But the one mission she had been ready to face Emma and Jessica with the complete intention of hurting them, seemed to be the only mission where they didn't encounter either of the women at all, dealing instead with two well-placed sleepers, discarding whom took the better part of the day, and the bottom half of her dress.

When they arrived back in the present, tired and frustrated, Denise was waiting for them in the hangar. The moment they stepped out of the Lifeboat, she was rushing towards Lucy.

"Wyatt just contacted me from a gas station near San Hose twenty minutes ago," she said. "He escaped."

Waiting for Denise's agents to escort Wyatt back to the bunker was torturous. Denise had sent detailed instructions to Wyatt to guide him towards the nearest Homeland safehouse, where she had sent a detail to pick him up.

Lucy only breathed a sigh of relief, when Denise informed them, at one in the morning, "Wyatt just got to the safehouse. My agent will escort him here, but it might take time since they have to stay on the DL. I suggest you all get some sleep."

They all nodded but took quiet seats in the living room, except for Flynn and Conner, who trudged back to their rooms. Lucy tried to distract herself by searching through the changes they might have made in history while they were back in Scotland, but she could hardly concentrate on a single paragraph before her attention wavered, thinking back to the blast that had knocked Wyatt out, how he had shielded her body with his own, and what Rufus had said to her yesterday, how it wasn't all that complicated after all.

When the alarm for the bunker sounded almost three hours later, she bounded off the couch in seconds, rushing through the hallway until she was standing a few feet away from their only door to the ground. Seconds passed, excruciatingly slow, and then the door pulled open.

On the other side, stood Wyatt. Haggard and beaten down, still in the clothes she had last seen him in, with a thin gauze making its way around his forehead, that held a larger bandaged wad towards the back of his head.

Before she knew what she was doing, she closed the few feet of distance between them and threw herself at him, such strong relief flooding her system that she was afraid it would burst out of her. A beat passed and then his arms came around her, gripped her so tight that there couldn't possibly be any space between them. Even though they had only been in a similar position a handful of times, the shape of him against her felt like the most familiar thing in the world, and she closed her eyes tightly, pressed her face deep into his shoulder.

"Don't ever do that again," she said, pulling back only a fraction so she could look at him. She didn't know what she was talking about. That he had jumped in to protect her. That Jessica had taken him captive. That she had been forced to worry about him for more than four days.

But she didn't need to explain herself. He looked at her, face tired, eyes as blue as ever, and flashed her the same smirk she had seen when they'd first met.

"Yes, ma'am."

After the greetings, they all made their way back to the living area, so Wyatt could explain what had happened.

"They took the doctor with them," he started, wincing slightly as he took a seat. "Dr. Irshad. She's been working for them for days, trying to figure out a way Emma and Jessica can travel to a time after their births."

"Did you find out why they're doing this? Any particular event they want to go back to?" Agent Cristopher asked.

"No." Wyatt shook his head. He reached inside his jacket and took out a few pieces of crumpled paper, handing them to Rufus. "I stole these from the doctor. I don't understand any of it, but if they're trying to alter the Mothership, maybe we can beat them to it. We know it's possible."

Rufus rifled through the papers. "She's definitely on the right track," he observed. "But without the full schematics of the Mothership, which Rittenhouse doesn't have, it's going to be an uphill battle."

"Good," Cristopher said. "We could really use a win right now."

"But if they already had Dr. Irshad," Lucy started, feeling a spike of apprehension in her chest at the thought of the answer, "what did Jessica want with you? The bomb wasn't a random attack, Wyatt. She knew we would come to the house, and she was waiting."

From the way Wyatt's face suddenly closed off, Lucy knew that the answer wasn't going to be anything she wanted to hear. "It wasn't random," he agreed. "She was waiting there… for me."

Lucy waited for him to continue, and when she saw the hesitation in his eyes, she reached across the distance between them, and laid a hand across his arm. His eyes flickered briefly to her in a small smile, before he looked downwards, gaze studiously trained on the floor. "When we were in 1832," he started, "during the shootout, Jessica got hit. It was just a flesh wound, but the trauma… she lost the baby."

As his words sunk in, the sudden silence in the room was deafening. Lucy felt a drop in her stomach as her heart twisted upon itself.

Wyatt ran both his hands across his head, still not daring to look them in the eye. "She said that the bullet that hit her was mine." His voice cracked at the words, and he cleared his throat, so he could continue speaking. "She wanted me to suffer. She wanted me to feel everything she was feeling. There was no Rittenhouse agenda, just Jessica."

The pain of him was palpable, and she felt it in the air like something she could grab in her hands. Everything they had gone through, but suddenly Lucy was at a loss on what to say or how to act. What could she possibly say that could make this better, that could overshadow the fact that not only had he lost his unborn child, but that his ex-wife had blamed it on him, had captured him with the sole intention of hurting him like she herself hurt.

Agent Cristopher was the first one to speak up, her face pained with understanding. "How did you escape?"

"When they were on the jump," Wyatt answered. "There was an electrical tray running in the ceiling of the room they were keeping me in. I pulled it open, messed with a few wires and short-circuited the power to the room. It fried the locking-mechanism on the door and I escaped."

Agent Cristopher nodded, and then stood up. She walked over to Wyatt and put a hand on his shoulder, face sympathetic in a way only a mother's could be, "I'm sorry for everything that's happened, Wyatt. But we're all here for you if you need to talk. Now get some rest, you deserve it."

With a squeeze of Wyatt's shoulder, she was walking away, and slowly the rest of them followed. Wyatt stood up too and Rufus walked over to him, "I'm sorry, man," he said, quietly. "I'm glad you're back."

Wyatt nodded. Jiya gave him a quick hug before she wandered behind Rufus, and then it was just Lucy, standing there beside him.

Without looking at her, he started walking towards his room, and without saying anything, she followed behind, until he was rummaging through his dresser for clothes and she stood uncertainly on the doorway behind him, not sure what she was waiting for.

With fresh clothes in his hands, he turned around and gave her a reassuring look. "I'm fine, Lucy. You should go to bed."

She nodded and he bypassed her on the way to the shower. But when he came back to his room sometime later, showered and dressed in a loose t-shirt and flannel pants, she was still there, perched on the edge of his bed.

He seemed both surprised and relieved to see her, and after a small moment of deliberation, he took a seat beside her.

Without thinking too much about it, she reached between them and grasped his hand, tightly lacing their fingers together. He sucked in a slight breath and then squeezed her hand, the front he had been putting up for them finally cracking, a glass wall disintegrating all at once. A shudder passed through his body and when he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were glistening with tears.

"Did she hurt you?" Lucy whispered.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "She wanted to," he admitted with a wry snort. "But she couldn't make herself do it. I guess there was some part of her that still loved me."

Lucy turned to face him fully, eyes tracing the new cut that had appeared beside his left eyebrow. She knew him well enough by now to know what he was thinking without him having said anything at all.

"It's not your fault," she said, tightening her hold on his hand.

He shook his head, voice hoarse, "It was my bullet, Lucy."

"No," she said again, stronger. "It wasn't your fault."

A tear escaped his red-rimmed eyes. His face was devastated, his hand shaking where it was intertwined with hers. His desolation was familiar, as bitter at the back of her throat as it had been when Rufus was still dead, and two broken people had taken a seat on the cold hard floor. She felt his pain deep in her chest, and it no longer just hurt. It burned her. From the inside out.

"I might have murdered my own baby," he choked out. "How do you get over something like that?"

And then he was crying, prying his fingers out of hers and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes as if to stop the tears that made rapid descent down his cheeks. His whole body shuddered on a sob and she reacted instinctively, folding herself around him, a hand pressed to the back of his head, as she guided his head to rest on her shoulder.

She bled her own tears into the mop of his hair as she held him, and she didn't just cry over the pain she could feel in the shudders that passed through his body and into hers; she cried over everything they had lost; everything this fight had taken from them. Not only people they loved; but innocence, faith, hope.

When his shudders subsided, he pulled back, emotions raw on his face, as he stared at her with glassy eyes. Hesitantly, his hand came up and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. "Thank you," he murmured.

She gave him a brittle smile, and then impulsively pressed her lips against the crown of his head. "Get some rest," she whispered.

And even though her heart rebelled at the thought of leaving his room, of leaving him alone with his pain, she knew that there were some battles that he had to fight alone. She pressed a brief hand against his shoulder and stood up to leave.

The next morning, when Agent Cristopher showed up at her usual time, Lucy intercepted her in the hallway.

"We can't keep doing this forever," Lucy told her. "How long are we going to chase Emma through history?" She stopped walking, forcing the agent to stop beside her. She steeled her shoulders, gave Denise a hard look. "I think it's time they do the chasing."

For a second, Denise was silent. Then a hint of a smile curled at the corner of her mouth. "I agree."

A hazy sort of plan started to take shape. But it depended on Rufus, Jiya, and Conner's ability to alter the Lifeboat so that they could go back in history to more recent times. While the papers Wyatt had stolen from Dr. Irshad certainly helped, the calculations on them were theories at best, some of them Rufus and Conner immediately discarded based on their more intimate knowledge of time travel. But it gave them several points to start at, which the three tech-experts readily appreciated.

Her earlier fears still sat at Lucy's heart. When Future-Lucy and Wyatt had come to 2018 to save Rufus, they had come from five years in the future, indicating that that was the amount of time it had taken for them to find a solution to this particular problem. And Lucy was not prepared to keep this parade going for five years.

But the future-them didn't have one thing present-them had: Rufus. And if there was one thing Lucy believed in, it was her friend's ability to crack this problem too.

A month passed, slow on all fronts, with only two trips to the past and little to no progress on altering the Lifeboat. She kept a close eye on Wyatt, staying close to him, so he knew that she was there, even if all he wanted was her silent support. Once his wounds from the explosion healed, they started training again, and by the end of the month, she was hitting the target eight out of ten shots, even though she rarely got the bull's eye.

It helped him, she noticed. Focusing on training her, teaching her how to spar, how to stand so she could best center herself, how to move in a way that kept her body closed to the attacker; it centered him too. Now that she had seen it first hand, she could imagine how he would've been with trainees or soldiers under his command, firm and direct, but understanding. It made her wish that she could have known him in circumstances other than this.

She knew that by now, she had forgiven him. She knew that now more than ever, she was afraid. She wanted to take a step forward, but she was terrified to move. Her heart ached for it, the feeling she had felt that one night in Hollywood, but the rest of her was convinced that the moment she decided to bite the metaphorical bullet, everything would once again fall apart.

She thought of his voice telling her he loved her. She thought of it again, and removed the pain from the words.

It was ironic really, how their places were now switched. She had always been the one waiting for him -because of his history, she had known from the very start that if anything were to happen, he would have to be the one to initiate it. And now the tables were turned. She saw the affection in his gaze; she saw the way he smiled at her sometimes, like she genuinely made him happy; she saw the way his being propelled towards her, every time they were in trouble, and even when they were not. But now, he was the one who stood at the sidelines waiting for her. And she knew that he would keep waiting, and if she decided against it, he would quietly walk away.

"Do you ever think of what you're going to do if we win?" Rufus asked them. It was a couple of hours before midnight and the three of them sat around the campfire, trying to keep shelter form the biting cold of 1563. "I'm going to ask Homeland to give us lifetime compensation for the hell they've put us through and then play video games until I die of old age."

Wyatt let out a snort of laughter and even Lucy could feel the mirth in her throat, despite the tiredness that was wearing them all down.

"I'm never going to open another history book ever again," she said, dramatically.

Rufus grinned. "You wouldn't last a month."

"I'm willing to bet you a box of Chocodiles that I would last several months, thank you very much."

"Three boxes and you're on."

Still grinning, Lucy turned towards Wyatt. "What about you, soldier?"

His eyes sparked at the flirty tone of her voice, bright in the warm glow of the firelight. "If lifetime compensation is in question, I might just get a new car. And race it across the highway in full speed until I get pulled over."

"Wow," Rufus exaggerated, "we have a real bad boy over here."

They grinned at each other and Lucy reveled in the camaraderie in the air. It reminded her of the few times they all hung out outside of their missions, doing nothing more but relaxing and blowing off steam.

She grabbed a fallen branch and dragged it across the ground in lazy patterns. "If I ever go back to teaching, it won't be the same," she admitted. "I think I know too much now."

"Nothing will be the same," Rufus agreed, uncharacteristically morose, and then winced when he thought of something. "I'll have to find a new job."

"Me too," Wyatt said, looking into the fire. "I don't think I want to stay in the army anymore."

She looked up, surprised at the confession, and somehow glad that he had made the choice. She couldn't bear the thought of him walking out of this and then walking back into another warzone when he had fought enough battles for a lifetime.

"What are you going to do?" Rufus asked.

"Work on contract, or find a private security firm, I don't know," Wyatt said. "I'm tired of moving from place to place. I just want to stay still."

"Underground bunker not still enough for you?" Rufus quipped.

Wyatt rolled his eyes indulgently, "You know what I mean."

He unclipped his holster from his side and then settled back against the log he was leaning on, eyes flickering to the woods around them and then back to the fire. He was silent for a while. "You what the craziest thing is?" he posed. "Even after all that's happened, if this were to ever end, I'm going to miss it."

The fire crackled, a few sparks shooting into the air and then disappearing into the night.

"Me too," she said.

"Same," Rufus agreed.

It was another month later that they figured it out. When they were not on missions, Rufus, Jiya, and Mason spent the majority of their time pouring over theories and calculations to figure out how they could alter the Lifeboat. The area behind the hangar had become their makeshift workstation and the two lone tables were stacked with heaps of papers, books, and a few too many computer screens for them not to accidentally topple to the ground.

Lucy sat on the couch, trying to read a novel for a change and a few feet away, Wyatt and Agent Cristopher were engaged in a surprisingly competitive game of chess.

It was then that Rufus burst into the room, the crazed look in his eyes indicating how little sleep he had gotten in the last few days. "We did it," he said, and then threw his head back and laughed. "We figured it out!"

All of them were out of their seats in seconds.

"Are you sure?" Agent Cristopher asked. "'Are you absolutely certain?"

"It's going to work," Rufus said.

It took another few days for the team to finish work on the Lifeboat once they had figured out how to travel to a time past their births. The day it was done, Lucy felt a strange feeling in her chest. Either it would work and they could end this once and for all. Or they would step into the Lifeboat and never step out. No matter what happened, it was the end. The end to the mindless chasing they had been doing through the millennia. The end to some of the best, worst, the most incredible and the most heartbreaking moments of her life.

If it all went as they had planned, this would be the day they got their life back. And it would be the day they lost the life they had created for themselves in the dark, musty bowels of the bunker.

Everyone was surprisingly quiet as they stepped into Lifeboat, knowing that if they succeeded, they would be coming back to a different life.

They had all taken their seats, when they heard, "Wait!" and Jiya clambered up the stairs, appearing at the circular threshold of the Lifeboat. "I'm going with you."

Rufus swiveled around in his chair, hitting a few buttons to delay the take-off procedure he had already started. "Jiya, there are only a four chairs; we can't risk this again."

"If we pull this off, then we're going to lose the last eight months of our lives," Jiya said, quickly. "And that, for me, means three years. This time -it's made me who I am, Rufus." She took a steadying breath, a betraying tremor in her voice. "I can't lose that."

A hundred things were written on the expression on Rufus's face. "We have to take Flynn," he said, even though it was clear that it was hard for him to fight her on this. "Or he'll never get out of prison."

"I don't want to take anyone's seat," she said quickly. "I've done this before. I'm the only one who's least likely to get affected from this."

"Jiya," Rufus said, apprehensively. "The last time you did this, you were hurt, badly. And it gave you the ability to see into the future. Who knows what's going to happen this time."

Jiya walked further into the Lifeboat, bypassing them until she was standing beside Rufus's seat. "Or I'll be completely fine because I've already done this once before." She grabbed Rufus's hand, looking deep into his eyes. "Rufus, please let me do this."

He took a deep breath and made a decision. "Okay," he said, nodding his head as if he was trying to convince himself that this was a good idea. "Okay. Hold on tight."

The door closed behind them, and a few moments later, the Lifeboat vanished into the air like it was any other mission.

But this time, only the people in the Lifeboat knew if they made it to the other side or not.

When Lucy had closed her eyes, the moment the rings of the Lifeboat had started spinning, half of her had believed that she'd never open them again. But only seconds later, she felt the familiar jolt of the landing, and when her eyelids flickered open, they were still there. All five of them, safe and sound, and breathing.

"Did it work?" Wyatt breathed out.

"Yeah," Rufus stuttered. One of his hands was still clutching Jiya's tightly. "I -I think it worked."

There was only one way to know for sure.

The latch of the Lifeboat slid open and hesitantly, they all stepped outside. The room they had landed it was completely dark, but she would've have to be blind to miss the giant glowing orb standing in its middle.

The Mothership.

"It worked," Jiya said slowly. She turned towards Rufus, face breaking into a huge smile, as she planted a noisy kiss on his lips. "It worked!"

Lucy took a deep breath. For the first time, they had traveled back into the twenty-first century, and only eight months before the time they had left. They were inside the warehouse where Agent Cristopher had kept the Mothership after they had caught Flynn. In a few minutes, Emma Whitmore would be breaking through these very doors, taking down the security detail stationed outside, and stealing the Mothership from right under Homeland's noses, starting the whole mess that had invariably led them here.

But this time, in this timeline, the redhead would not be getting anywhere near the second time-machine. Not if Lucy had anything to do about it.

Wyatt stepped forwards to stand beside her and together, they stared at the Mothership. She felt his hand at her elbow, drawing her to face him.

"Here," he said. She looked down and saw his hand offering her a gun, the standard issue type that he and Flynn used. His own gun was still in his holster. "I asked Agent Cristopher to get this for you. If you want it."

Hesitantly, she reached forwards and took the gun from him, hand tightening around it once it was in her fingers. She adjusted her grip, felt the coolness of its surface like the death it wished to deliver. She looked at Wyatt and swallowed. "Thank you."

His gaze was solemn yet understanding, "You don't have to use it if you don't want to."

"I understand," she said. She reached forwards and squeezed his hand and somehow it said all that she needed it to.

"Three minutes," Flynn called out from behind them.

They all took their positions. Rufus went back inside the Lifeboat, and Jiya slid into the Mothership. This way, even if things went south, they could prevent either of the machines from falling into Emma's hands.

"Thirty seconds," Flynn said, voice quieter.

When Emma blew through the door, Lucy was prepared.

Lucy aimed her gun, clicking off the safety. For once, her hand was completely steady, a calm assuredness slinking across the back of her mind, drowning out everything else.

Emma stopped in her tracks, the self-satisfied smirk slipping off her face when she saw Lucy. "You're supposed to be with your moth-" She stopped when she noticed that something was amiss.

"Drop your weapon, Emma," Lucy said, coolly. Behind Emma, she could see Wyatt and Flynn, on either side of the door, standing patiently in the shadows, still unseen.

Emma's gaze flickered to the Lifeboat and then back to the Mothership, the gears turning in her head. Her eyes scanned Lucy, noticing everything, the changes in her appearances, the gun in her hand, the way she held herself, feet apart, shoulders steady.

The Rittenhouse agent reached the conclusion fairly quickly. "You're from the future," she said, a faint note of awe in her voice, that was quickly replaced with the realization that there was only one reason Lucy would travel back in time to this moment. Her hand tightened on her gun.

"Drop your gun, Emma," Lucy said, again.

Any faint awe Emma might have felt was quickly replaced with a smirk that slowly stretched across her lips. "The fact that you're here right now, Princess," she said, boldly stepping forwards. "It only proves that in the future, I won."

The words were meant to rattle her, but other than a faint sense of annoyance, Lucy realized that they had no effect on her at all. Emma had done all that she could to hurt her, had tried to take anything and everything that Lucy might have held dear, but they were still there. Lucy and her team were still standing, still persisting, and despite how badly Emma had torn them down, they were still whole. Tired and tarnished and riddled with a million hairline fractures, but still completely and utterly whole.

"You won't have a future if you don't drop your weapon right now," Lucy said. Her finger twitched against the trigger. She remembered what she had told Wyatt.

I want to be the one to kill Emma.

And now, Emma was standing in front of her. And she had her chance.

"I must really have done a number on you, huh?" Emma gloated, still moving forwards. "It must take a lot of hatred for you to be pointing that gun at me so easily."

Lucy felt a kick in her heart, and she glanced over Emma's shoulder to catch Wyatt's eye. He was waiting for her -waiting for her to pull the trigger or give him the signal.

Almost imperceptibly, she gave him a small nod.

Silently, Wyatt and Flynn moved from their places, moving towards Emma from the back.

"You're right," Lucy told Emma. "I've never hated anyone as much as I've hated you."

Wyatt reached the redhead first. He swiped his leg across her feet and knocked her to the ground, while Flynn grabbed the hand that was holding her gun, twisting it upwards, before Emma could pull the trigger. A few stray bullets hit the ceiling and harmlessly bounced off. But they already had her.

Emma struggled against the two soldiers, looking at Lucy like she was just comprehending the ambush she had walked into, a vengeful anger smarting in her eyes. Flynn forced her to her knees, and Wyatt pulled her arms behind her back, swiftly snapping a pair of handcuff across her wrists.

"But now that I've got you," Lucy said, moving closer, fixing the muzzle of the gun against Emma's forehead. "I don't really need to waste my energy anymore."

She stared into Emma's eyes and saw everything that had been taken away from her. Amy, her mother's frantic fingers digging into her hand before she had collapsed, a twinkling night over a shimmering swimming pool, Rufus's limp body decorating the streets of Chinatown. The need for vengeance swelled in her heart like a raincloud waiting to burst, like a mountain waiting to fall. A little pressure from her finger and it would all be avenged.

It doesn't feel any better. Whatever you're looking for, you won't find it this way.

She pulled her gun away from Emma and tucked it swiftly into the waistband of her jeans.

Looking up, she met Wyatt's eyes. He had been staring at her with an unnerving steadiness, waiting to see what she would do. She knew that he wouldn't have said anything either way, but when she put away her gun, she saw the look on his face transform from one of worry to one of unflinching pride.

Lucy didn't need to kill Emma. Because the moment they had forced the Rittenhouse agent on her knees, they had already won.

They made one more stop before they could head back to the present, landing a few miles outside a non-descript village in Indiana in 1724, a random location to a random time-place.

Flynn took a bound and gagged Emma and headed towards the village where he would inconspicuously drop her off to live the rest of her days. Wyatt went off in search of explosives they would use to blow up the Mothership once and for all.

It didn't take the two men long to make the trip and back, and by that time, Rufus had taken out the nuclear core powering the Mothership and inserted it into the Lifeboat's battery system. Then he took the supplies that Wyatt had collected and rigged up a small bomb.

They took shelter inside the Lifeboat, while the Mothership blew up in smithers.

It was when they stepped back outside, and Lucy saw the flaming wreckage of the other time-machine, that she actually comprehended that it was all over. They might still have to deal with the remains of Rittenhouse when they went back to the present but never again would someone steal the Mothership. And never again would they go back in time to chase them down.

"We're not risking traveling with five people again," Rufus said, when it was time to go back. "We've got the nuclear core now, so we can easily do two trips back to back."

"I'll stay," Lucy volunteered. She looked towards Wyatt, hoping that her gaze didn't betray too much. "And Wyatt can keep me company."

He glanced towards her, surprised, but agreed quickly. "Yeah, we'll stay. You guys go ahead."

Giving her a look that told her he knew exactly what she was doing, Rufus clambered back into the Lifeboat, Jiya and Flynn following behind.

And then it was just her and Wyatt, and a barren felid of flaming wreckage.

She turned towards him, fighting the fluttering in her belly. For the first time in months, she allowed herself to stare at him unabashedly. Her eyes flickered over the light scruff dotting his sharp jaw, to his hair, jutting upwards in the wind, and landed on his eyes; which stared right back at her with a lightheartedness she had not seen since he had escaped from Rittenhouse.

"We did it," Suddenly she couldn't stop the wide smile that spread across her lips, an exuberance spreading through her insides, making her almost giddy. "We did it, Wyatt. It's over."

His smile mirrored her, like he couldn't help himself when she was looking at him like that. "We did."

She stepped closer to him, eliminating the distance between them. She had forgiven him; she had forgiven herself, and she had done her waiting. The truth was that there was no one else but him. There was never going to be anyone else. If there was only one person in the entire world, in the entirety of space and time, that was meant for her, then it had to be him. Because the way he looked at her right then, filled to the brim with longing and hope and affection, was with more love than anyone else had ever dared to try.

She raised a hand and pressed it against his cheek, reveling in the way he inhaled a sharp breath. His eyes were trained entirely in her, and he didn't move as she covered the last bit of distance between them. He was still waiting for her, she realized. He would not move unless she acted first.

Her thumb brushed slowly against his jaw.

"Lucy…" he murmured.

And not unlike that night in Hollywood, she said fuck it, and closed the rest of the distance between them, throwing her arms around his neck, and capturing his lips in a bruising kiss.

He responded immediately, an arm winding around her waist, hauling her against his body, the other cupping her face, bringing her closer still. She felt something loosen inside her chest, like she hadn't properly breathed since that night in 1941. But while that kiss that been a hesitant exploration of everything new, this kiss felt like she was walking back into the sea after a separation too long, too arduous to endure.

And then his immediate longing and passion was melding into a smile that she could feel against her lips as he kissed her.

"Stop smiling," she grumbled, even as she could feel her own mouth stretching against her will.

He laughed and kissed her again, and that sound alone felt like a reprieve from the misery of the preceding months, like an elixir that set her so wonderfully free.

"Wyatt," she breathed, parting once before kissing him again. "Tell me again."

"What?"

"Tell me you love me again."

He pulled back, lips still brushing against hers, breath fanning over her face, and knocked his forehead gently against hers. "I love you," he breathed, looking straight into her eyes, voice heavy with feeling. "I'm so in love with you, Lucy Preston."

The words washed over her and unlike the heartbreak they brought before, she felt the full extent of what they were meant to portray. Her heart contracted with feeling, chest filling with waves of heady affection, and this time it wasn't difficult to reply.

"I love you too," she said, and then kissed him once, twice, parting his mouth with her own and swallowing his appreciative groan. "I love you so much, Wyatt."

They stood there tangled in each other, until she felt the Lifeboat reappearing into the clearing behind them, a gust of sharp wind ruffling their clothes, signaling the time-machine's arrival. They only parted when the hatch slid open, and Rufus leaned out.

"Ya'll can do that in the present," he called out. "Let's go home."

Lucy hid her smile poorly as she grabbed Wyatt's hand and they walked towards the Lifeboat together. As she buckled herself in across from him, she felt the same way she had done when they were going back to the present after 1941. But this time, there were no doubts. There were no hesitations or barriers or secrets. This time, it was real.

"Wait," Wyatt said, just before Rufus was about to take off. "We have one more stop to make."

She stared back at him in confusion, but he was smiling. He reached a hand out to her and when she slid her fingers into his palm, he said, "Let's go save Amy."

When they arrived back in 2018, everything was different.

They were in an unfamiliar location which was in no way reminiscent of the bunker where they had started their journey from. Even though she could immediately tell that it wasn't the same place, the hangar they had landed in reminded her of the one in Mason Industries, with a slew of monitors lining a couple of rows of desk, and actual people seated in front of the workstations.

"Welcome to the new and marginally improved Mason Industries," Rufus said, spreading his arms. "Agent Cristopher did not appreciate us landing in a weird bunker in the middle of nowhere when we got back to 2018 the first time."

"How much has changed?" Lucy asked, looking around the foreign room, as they slowly descended the stairs down.

"Not much," Rufus said, "But enough."

An employee was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs and they were immediately ushered to a conference room where Jiya and Agent Cristopher were waiting. Jiya had already explained a lot of the details of the past few months to Agent Cristopher and when they trio walked into the room, they took over, detailing the life of the bunker to Denise whose memories were now not aligned with their own.

Half of Lucy was practically jittering in her seat with impatience to know about Amy, but the other half lamented the life they had lived that Agent Cristopher no longer remembered. She knew that Denise would always be a part of their family, but living together in an underground bunker was entirely different than being called into Mason Industries for missions.

In turn Denise told them about what she remembered. She knew that the timeline had been altered when a future version of them had come back to stop Emma eight months ago. In her reality, the team had been disbanded after that, while Mason had set out to rebuild his company after the explosion. Once a new set up was in place, Rufus and Jiya had fixed the Lifeboat and the team had only been reassembled again to test the modifications made to the time-machine, and for harmless 'fact-finding' missions for the government.

"Denise," Lucy finally scrounged up the courage to ask. "Do I have a sister?"

Agent Cristopher frowned, "Yes, Amy. Why do you ask?"

A tear tore through her heart with the extent of her relief. All of a sudden, she was blinking back tears, trying to swallow the lodge that was stuck in her throat. She glanced towards Wyatt as he reached under the table to grab her hand, squeezing tightly.

"I have to go," she told Denise.

She was in Wyatt's car and they were parked in front of the house she hadn't seen in eight months.

"Carol Preston passed away in her sleep on 21st August 2018," Lucy read from her phone, voice scratchy in her throat. "She is remembered by two daughters, Lucy and Amy Preston."

Wyatt's eyes were filled with sympathy as he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "Maybe, she was different," he said. "Maybe the version of her that met and fell in love with Henry Wallace wouldn't have stayed with Rittenhouse."

Lucy closed her eyes, felt a tear dip drown her cheek. "Maybe," she whispered.

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, and turned towards him, "Come with me," she said, giving his hand a tug, eyes flicking to the house they were parked in front of, and then back to him.

He gave her a soft smile and brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. "I think you need to do this alone."

Giving him a jerky nod, she pulled him in for a deep, dragging kiss, before she was tugging off her seat belt and stepping out of the car.

When she entered her house, everything was the same as she remembered. Not when she was there with her mother, no. But when she was there with Amy. She stood frozen in the foyer, feeling like she had traveled back in time itself, and soon she would be sitting back in the Lifeboat, ready to go to her actual reality.

But no, this was her reality now. And this time, it was here to stick.

She heard Amy before she saw her, moving around in the kitchen. "Luce?" she called out. "Is that you?"

Lucy's breath caught in her throat at the sound of her sister's voice, and on shaky legs she moved forwards, until she could see Amy, standing before the fridge, turned away from her. Lucy didn't know what she had been expecting, but her sister still looked the same, dressed in an outfit Lucy had seen many times before, hair maybe a couple of inches shorter than it had been the last time Lucy had seen her.

Lucy cleared her throat. "Yeah, it's me."

Amy turned around at the sound of her voice, closing the fridge behind her. The moment she saw Lucy, she was moving towards her, concern written on her face, "Hey, is everything alright?"

Lucy shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, but the moment Amy was near her, she dropped all pretenses, immediately engulfing her little sister in a tight hug, body shaking with the force of the sob she was trying to suppress. Amy's arms came around her, her voice understandably worried, "Lucy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Lucy said, closing her eyes, squeezing Amy tighter. "Absolutely nothing."

"Is this about your secret mission with Homeland?" Amy asked, frowning, even as she patted Lucy comfortingly on the back. "Why did they call you in last night? You said you were done with all that."

"I am," Lucy said. She finally pulled back, giving Amy a brittle smile. "It was just a rough night."

Amy still didn't look appeased, but with a squeeze of Lucy's arm, she pulled away. "Well, I knew you'd be getting in late, so I made lunch."

She walked back to the kitchen, setting up plates on the counter where they usually ate. When she turned around, her eye caught on the car parked outside through the window.

"Is that Wyatt?" Amy asked, setting up another plate, squinting to see through the window. "Tell him to stop being weird and come inside."

Lucy laughed, the air finally free inside her lungs. She walked over to the window, waving to get Wyatt's attention and then gestured for him to come inside.

It was going to be a good lunch.

They went to his apartment next.

"Soldier's wife found dead, March 20th, 2011," Wyatt read from his phone. "It's the same article that was published before. She was never resurrected in this timeline."

Lucy gauged his face for a reaction and saw his fading sorrow overlaid with a somber acceptance. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, "It's better this way."

She nodded in agreement, and they got out of the car.

She hadn't been to his apartment before, so she didn't know what to expect; he had told her that after Jessica's death, he had lead a mostly barebones life. But when he opened the door and they stepped inside, it looked surprisingly… normal.

Comfortable couch, a few dishes in the sink, shoes lines up against a wall, magnets on the fridge. But she could tell form the way he was looking around, that the apartment had suffered some changes.

"It looks better," he admitted. "Before, I didn't know how long I'd be staying so I didn't get much stuff." He looked at her and smiled. "But it looks like I decided to stay after all."

Grabbing his hand, she dragged him inside, and slowly, he pointed out all the things that must be new. He grabbed a book that was lying on the coffee table, and read off the cover, "A People's History of the United States." He grinned at her slyly, "Looks like I'm developing more refined reading habits. Wonder who's influence that is."

She rolled her eyes fondly, grabbing the book from his hands. She flipped through the pages and noticed the handwritten notes scribbled in some of the margins.

"It's mine," she said, surprised. A sliver of warmth uncurled in her belly at the realization that the version of her in this timeline must have left it over at his place. "The other-me must have left it here."

She could tell form the bashful smile on his face that he was just as wonderstruck at this small piece of information as she was.

The book wasn't the only piece of her in the apartment. There was a sticky note stuck to the microwave, written in her handwriting, declaring that she'd gone to get breakfast; one of her favorite sweaters was draped on the back of an armchair, like she had forgotten it in a hurry.

And then there was a picture stuck to the fridge: of her and him accompanied by Rufus and Jiya. All four of them had their arms around each other like they were posing for the shot, but in the picture, they were still caught off guard. Both Jiya and Wyatt were in the middle of talking, a mirthful humor in Wyatt's eyes, while Rufus had his head thrown back in laughter. Lucy was at the corner, looking at the other three in fond exasperation.

She was still looking at the picture when she felt Wyatt's arms snake around her from behind, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder as she gazed at the picture in front of them.

"I want this, Wyatt," she admitted. "I want this life."

He kissed the side of her neck, tightening his arms around her waist. "You have it. As long as you want."

She turned around in his arms, planting her hands on his shoulders as she looked at him closely. The contentment in his eyes felt like a balm that further soothed her quickly healing wounds.

"You know there's still something you haven't shown me yet," she said, biting her lip to contain her smile.

"Yeah? What's that?"

Her eyes flicked over his shoulder to the door of his bedroom, standing ajar. He caught the movement of her eyes and laughed, a loud hearty sound that she could get used to hearing every day of her life.

He grabbed her hand and started leading her towards his bedroom, the blue in his eyes smarting with mischief, "Whatever you wish, ma'am."

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