a/n : All aboard the Lyatt train, kiddos. This is set somewhere in the future, don't even really know when, but it is canon-compliant with season 1. The fic title is lifted from the lyrics of Saturn by Sleeping at Last. That song is so good it hurts (kinda like these feels, man). Don't own Timeless, but these scenes definitely lived in my head for long enough that they had to be written down.
WARNING - this one is darker/weirder than some of my other stuff and one character maybe has a bit of a death wish here..? Wanted to put that out there just in case it affects anyone!
The lights are out and the room is silent, but he couldn't be more awake if he tried. The noise in his head is louder than an air raid.
"I don't know what happens today because the journal doesn't tell me everything. Lucy didn't write out everything...and what is written does sometimes sound crazy, like a different Lucy."
Wyatt sighs, punches his pillow, and turns over for the millionth time. At least he doesn't have to worry about waking Lucy tonight. No, she's deeply entrenched in a self-inflicted wine stupor, one that he'd readily enabled over the course of the last few hours. Someone ought to be knocked out into undisturbed oblivion for once, and she needs it more than he does.
He finds no real comfort in sleep anyhow these days, so the slamming force of insomnia doesn't bother him too much.
No, the true source of frustration stems from his own hubris. He's spent a lifetime charging full steam ahead, seeking to accomplish every assigned task with single-minded compliance. That's just the way he's been wired. Carry out the orders. Complete the mission. Don't ask why.
And it usually works for him, especially in the stagnant years that followed Jess' murder, because action is far more soothing than the alternative.
But now he feels handicapped by his blindness. He's no better than a well-trained dog, a programmed robot. He's always so sure that he's on the right side of things, and that might be the end of him this time.
The objective - the original one, from the night he'd first paid a visit to Mason Industries, the night Lucy Preston had initially flickered across his radar - had been simple. Stop Garcia Flynn. No other stipulations. Just eliminate the threat, whatever the cost.
He sees it so clearly now. He's been a damn puppet on the strings of Rittenhouse, just like everyone else.
Everyone but Flynn, that is. Flynn, who had apparently told Wyatt the truth in that stupid hotel room so long ago. It's sickening to think how stubborn he'd been, so high and mighty in spite of the fact that he was the one holed up against his will for hours, helplessly confined while Lucy and Rufus searched all over D.C. for a tape that no longer existed.
"...and what is written does sometimes sound crazy, like a different Lucy..."
Those words haunt him, chase away any hope he has of sleeping, because it's happening right in front of his eyes. It's a bad prophecy rapidly spinning to life, turning into certified reality with each passing day. He's got to do something to stop it.
Eliminate the threat, whatever the cost.
How foolish he's been, not seeing that this cost is far too high to ever be calculated.
He's losing her even as she lies right next to him. He just knows it.
- three weeks later -
She's going to lose her last meal all over the platform. She just knows it.
Her life has become an endless refrain of vivid, breathless showdowns. How she's survived this many close calls is beyond her, although the tiny shred of clarity that still occupies her brain tells her that Wyatt Logan is the sole reason she hasn't surrendered herself to the growing list of casualties that trail behind them, stacking up preposterously high throughout the decades.
It's nearly impossible to list out every appointment she's made with impending calamity. The initial jump seems to have set the proverbial ball in motion and it hasn't slowed down since. She still remembers every extraordinary detail - fire and ash raining down all around her as the frame of the Hindenburg crackled and burned to pieces, Flynn giving her that first glimpse of the damn journal right before he'd tried to use her body as a shield against Wyatt's bullet, the shock of being flung to the ground as the discharge of both guns thundered around her.
It seems like she's subsequently become a magnet for disaster. It's a far cry from the quiet life she'd known as a college professor and published author.
Because everything is different, isn't it? Nothing is recognizable now that she's been unwillingly tasked with the prestige of an elite bloodline that's been crafted for centuries. She really is light-years away from her old mundane existence in faculty lounges and bookstores now that she's straddling the fence between two insurmountable entities, all while the panorama of history shifts like fickle sand beneath her feet. Homeland Security has her, Rittenhouse wants her.
She thinks it would be better if they both just went to hell and left her out of it, but no one's asking for her opinion.
It's amazing to think that she actually longs for the days when she'd naively believed that their one true enemy was Garcia Flynn. It had been easier to swallow those odds. Today - in the present, of all places - she wishes she had something so steadfast to cling to, wishes for an answer that is spelled out in simple black and white.
But that's a useless notion, isn't it? Because even Flynn is a charcoal drawing, blurry and grayscale. He's neither right nor wrong. None of them are.
And that's why Lucy is ready to lay down the fight; she's hit her limit. She's had it with all the white noise of her existence.
To put it in more dire terms, she's about two seconds from standing up and striding right into the middle of the chaos that's overtaken Mason Industries, because maybe it's time she embraces her doomed fate and just lets the darkness close in over her for good. Maybe her nine lives are all used up at last. Maybe she's gone through all of her chances and found herself at the end of a very long road, bone-weary and bankrupt.
She almost shrieks as a hand claps over her mouth but she manages to choke back that reaction, thinking that the whirlwind of her morbid thoughts have already become reality. The universe is coming to collect on the wretched weakness that surrounds her. That was fast.
But no, it's not the universe. Not yet.
It's Rufus who spins her around, releasing her mouth once she's facing him but keeping a finger to his own lips as a signal for her to remain silent. Glass shatters from somewhere beyond the shelter of the Lifeboat and she decides that maybe he's too late. Maybe a bullet will still find a way to ricochet back here and pierce her through the heart, or a thorny shard from of one of those gigantic windows will fall on her and steal her away from all of the carnage.
There must be wildness painted in her eyes because Rufus is gripping her arms in a nearly painful hold, shaking her like he needs to wake her up from a bad dream. It's a shame that this dream is more real than anything she's ever known.
"Lucy, c'mon, we can't stay here," he whispers, his gaze flinging haphazardly around the poor covering of the time machine.
He's right, this is no place to avoid death. They're completely exposed on one side, defenseless. All it will take is for one member of Emma's infantry to wander off in their direction and then they're both sunk.
And that's what it takes to motivate her - the value of his life.
He's Rufus, after all. Rufus, the one with a quick, self-deprecating sense of humor that has helped her cope with all of the senseless horrors that they've witnessed since they first landed in 1937, both of them being so wide-eyed and nearsighted at the very beginning of this nightmare. Rufus, who has loyally stood by her side as she's attempted to navigate her life's greatest trial, always willing to lend an ear or give a hug when she needs it. Rufus, who is open about his feelings and offers friendship as easily as if it were air. Rufus, who invites her over and helps her get better at Mario Kart and makes great margaritas. Rufus, who loves Jiya and must be out of his mind with the worry that she could return to Mason Industries at any given moment without a clue of what awaits her.
Lucy's legs won't move, though. She tries, honestly she does, but she's still crouching behind the metallic shadow of the Lifeboat even as he's crawling off of the platform and dropping to the floor below. He looks back, motions violently for her to follow, but she simply shakes her head.
"I can't," she mouths at him, "go without me."
His face is bewildered and off balance. He obviously cannot comprehend why she's letting the debris of battle bury her in its wake, what could ever possess her to take such an illogical risk, but there's no time to explain. Wyatt - out of sight but never far away - is shouting something in a battered, urgent voice. She wishes she could understand his words, but her ears are ringing and everything else is indistinct. Rufus staggers to his knees and covers his head. She's probably supposed to do the same.
She doesn't.
There's a loud bang, more crunching glass, a fierce heat that engulfs her skin, and Lucy wonders if this is finally it. If this is what it feels like to get erased from the planet.
Her last thought is that Amy might be waiting for her on the other side. Can someone who - by historical standards, anyway - never existed in a new timeline still be on the welcoming committee in the afterlife?
Lucy is about to find out.
to be continued!