Summary: "I don't believe being an asshole is genetic." A trip to Texas in 1979 and a bungled stick up hit a little too close to home for Wyatt.
Rating: T
Words: 13,700
Spoilers: Generally up to 1.12ish.
Warnings: Minor language. Brief scene of attempted non-con (not graphic).
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by someone else.
A/N: So okay, I never expected to like Timeless, but it appears to have broken my brain. Contains gratuitous hand-holding of the 12 Monkeys kind and brief instances of Wyatt Worship. Backstory invented for Wyatt from a couple of lines in episode 1.4. I will be more than happy for this to be Kripked in the future, as this will mean the show has a future.
UNMADE
"You need to tell her. Wyatt. Wyatt?!"
Lucy half-walked, half-ran down the hallway after Wyatt, finally catching up with him enough to grab hold of his wrist and get him to stop. Or at least slow down a little.
"Are you listening to me?" she demanded.
Wyatt finally came to a dead stop, turning back to face her without throwing off the hand she still had wrapped around his wrist. "What do you want me to say to her, Lucy?" he demanded, more exasperated than angry.
In fact, he sounded exhausted.
"Try telling her the truth."
Wyatt shook his head and scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
"I'm not sure that's an option here."
"Why? You want her to fire you again?"
"Look, if I have to let her think I'm even more incompetent than I think she already thinks I am—"
"She doesn't think you're incompetent—"
"—Then that's the way it has to be."
Lucy took a breath.
"But why not tell her?"
"Because…because I can't!" Wyatt returned, frustration clear.
"But you told me!"
"That's different!"
"Why is it different?"
"Because…because you're you."
And didn't that just beat everything?
"Oh," Lucy said.
"Yeah," Wyatt returned.
They both stood there studiously looking at the floor for a second.
"It was selfish," Wyatt said at length. "What I did."
Tentatively, Lucy put her hand on his cheek and angled his gaze back up to meet her own. "It wasn't selfish," she said. "I don't want you to die."
"But I wouldn't have died," Wyatt protested, "exactly. I just—you just wouldn't ever have known me."
Lucy straightened. "That's worse than dying. I don't want to never have known you."
"It was still selfish," Wyatt insisted. "I could have—I could have ended it. Flynn, I mean. I could have—"
Lucy silenced him with a finger over his lips. "Don't. It wasn't selfish, Wyatt. You were protecting us. Protecting me. Protecting Rufus. If you'd killed him, you'd be gone and we'd be dead and he…you know what he…what he would have done to me first. You know that. Or you wouldn't have hesitated. You did that for me. I know you did that for me."
"I couldn't let him—I couldn't—"
"Master Sergeant Logan."
Agent Christopher's voice reverberated down the hallway. And she sounded royally pissed.
She only used Wyatt's rank when she was mad at him.
And she sounded really mad at him this time.
She stood with the briefing room door open and a frosty expression on her face that made even Lucy shiver.
To be fair, she wasn't the one who'd fired him prior to their escapade at the Alamo.
But Lucy wasn't at all sure she wouldn't be the one to fire him this time.
If he didn't tell her the real reason he didn't kill Garcia Flynn when he had the chance…
24 hours earlier…
"I think I hate the '70s," Rufus muttered. "I don't wanna look like a pimp again this time."
"You don't look like a pimp," Lucy assured him, straightening his ridiculous orange tie. "You look very…disco."
Rufus grimaced. "God. That's even worse."
"Why are we even going to this place?" Wyatt asked, tugging at the collar of an only mildly hideous green shirt. "You said it yourself, Lucy. Nothing happens then or there."
Lucy shrugged. "Doesn't mean it won't," she pointed out. "Flynn's gone to some pretty innocuous places so far. Maybe he's going to make something happen."
"In Kermit, Texas?" Rufus queried. "Doesn't sound like much of anything's ever likely to have happened there. Except maybe some frog on pig action."
Lucy sniggered, before catching an odd look flitter briefly across Wyatt's face, but it was gone before it fully formed into anything she could completely identify.
"Anyway," Rufus continued, glancing over at Wyatt. "You're from Texas, right? It'll be like going home."
Wyatt grimaced, but otherwise failed to comment.
Lucy glanced up at him quizzically. "You said you were from West Texas?" she prodded. "Whereabouts?"
Wyatt shrugged. "All over," he non-answered, ducking past Lucy and Rufus and heading on out of the changing area.
Lucy glanced at Rufus and frowned. "That was weird, right?" she asked him.
Rufus nodded. "Yep," he agreed. "That was definitely weird."
April 1st 1979: Kermit, Texas
Rufus was right, Lucy decided. Nothing was happening here.
They'd landed a little way out of town, and Wyatt had headed them straight toward the town center without even having to ask anyone for directions. True, she guessed he could have had a look at Google Maps before they got in the Lifeboat, but his head didn't really seem enough in the game to have been that organized. In fact, his head seemed to have been completely out of the game since Agent Christopher ordered them here right after Flynn jumped.
He'd been kind of quiet and withdrawn, almost forgot to help her strap herself into her seat, which he always did, and definitely seemed distracted.
And unless Lucy was way off, he also seemed to know the area.
"Wyatt?" she said carefully, as they made their way up the main street into town. "You okay? You seem a little bit...off."
He glanced down at her and tried to force a smile which he didn't quite pull off. "It's nothing," he said at length. "I just...kinda grew up near here. I just...it's nothing."
It clearly wasn't nothing, but Lucy knew not to push with Wyatt. Give him time and he'd tell her what was going on.
The phrase "dirt poor" suddenly popped into her head, and she remembered him telling her a little about how he grew up when she was freaking out about going into that Nazi castle during World War II.
Before she had time to consider that further, a little bell tinkled above the door of the general store across the street, drawing her attention.
"Maybe we should split up?" she suggested. "Cover more ground that way."
Rufus glanced sideways at her, as if calculating where they were, and, perhaps more importantly, when they were, and how likely he'd be to get beat up, lynched, run out of town, or otherwise abused for not being a white guy if left to his own devices.
"1979, Texas…" he murmured. "Yeah, okay I guess."
"Wyatt?"
Lucy glanced behind her when she realized Wyatt hadn't answered her.
He'd stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and was just gazing off into the middle distance as if he'd completely forgotten she or Rufus were there.
And considering one of the most important aspects of his job was to keep them safe, that was completely out of character.
"Wyatt?" she repeated, and he turned to look at her as if he had no idea who she was or what she was doing there.
Then he blinked, shook his head a little, shrugged as if nothing had happened, and muttered a distracted, "Yeah, yeah, okay."
Lucy glanced at Rufus, who matched Wyatt's shrug with one of his own. "I'll take the gas station," he offered.
"General store," Lucy said. "Wyatt?"
"Huh?"
Glancing in the direction Wyatt had been gazing, Lucy realized he'd actually been looking at a group of kids hanging around outside a diner down the block.
"You wanna check out the diner?" she asked.
Wyatt blinked at her, looked back in the direction of the diner, took a breath and murmured, "Uh, I guess, sure. Okay." But he looked less than happy with the idea.
In fact, he looked kind of…nervous.
"Wyatt?"
He glanced back in her direction just once, before taking off toward the diner.
Rufus frowned as he watched Wyatt leave them without even the slightest of protests as to his concerns for their safety. "You know what's wrong with soldier boy?" he asked.
Lucy shrugged. "I dunno. He said something about growing up near here. I'm not...I'm not sure he had the happiest of childhoods. Maybe bad memories?"
Rufus shrugged. "He seems to have way more than his fair share of those," he commented, before heading in the opposite direction to the one Wyatt had taken, towards the gas station on the corner of the next block. "Meet you back here in fifteen?"
Lucy nodded. "We might have to form a search party for Wyatt by then," she observed, before heading across the street to the store.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a couple of young guys hanging around to the side of the doorway, but didn't really pay them any mind until one of them appeared to follow her into the store, grabbing hold of the door just as she was about to let it slam into his face.
"Oh God, sorry!" she apologized, and the guy just smiled at her.
"No matter, ma'am," he said, his polite words somehow not matching the expression on his face.
It really wasn't a nice smile.
Not a nice smile at all.
She ducked her head a little. "No need to call me ma'am," she said, a weird sense of déjà vu vaguely rattling around in the back of her head as she studied the guy behind her.
He was maybe nineteen, twenty at most. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Average height, kind of skinny. Kind of cute, if you were into that sort of thing. The sort of guy you'd pass on the street and never look at twice.
But there was something in his eyes. Something in the way his mouth twisted into that smile… Something that made Lucy's flesh crawl.
She returned his smile awkwardly before heading off to find the counter, where a middle-aged lady with flaming orange hair was bagging up groceries for a young woman with an ice cream-covered toddler balanced on her hip.
"…So you don't know who he is?" the younger woman was asking as she fished in her purse for her wallet.
"Nope. Think someone said he's scouting locations for a movie."
"But he just sits in the diner."
"Yeah. Maybe they're making a movie set in a diner."
"Huh."
"He's a hottie though," the orange-haired lady added with a knowing wink. "The accent's kinda sexy."
The younger woman giggled, her cheeks flushing. "Why Maryann, I really hadn't noticed," she said with a grin. "Besides, Wayne would kill me if he caught me looking at another guy…"
Lucy tuned out of the conversation, scanning the store to see whether there was anyone else she could talk to.
If the most exciting thing going on in town was a location scout with a sexy accent hanging around the diner, maybe Wyatt was right and they shouldn't have bothered following Flynn here.
As she turned, she almost ran straight into the guy with the creepy smile who, it seemed, had been standing right behind her all the while she'd been waiting at the counter.
"Sorry, ma'am," he said, tipping an imaginary hat at her and smiling that cold smile again.
By this point, Lucy was getting a very bad feeling.
Intel or no intel, she was starting to get the distinct impression she needed to get out of this store and go find Rufus and Wyatt. Especially Wyatt. Right now.
This guy... There was something about this guy. She couldn't put her finger on it, couldn't verbalize it, but there was just...something.
Pushing past the guy, she didn't return his smile this time, instead heading straight for the door without even favoring him with another glance.
She sucked in a breath as she finally made it out into the parking lot, immediately scanning the street beyond for Wyatt or Rufus.
She couldn't see either of them, and before she knew what was happening she was being grabbed from behind and dragged around the corner of the building, arms that were a hell of a lot stronger than they looked encircling her around the waist and literally hoisting her right off her feet.
She was so surprised she initially didn't think to scream, and by the time the idea entered her head there was a hand over her mouth and she found herself being shoved up against a wall between two dumpsters, the guy with the creepy smile suddenly pressed against the length of her, one hand grabbing at her hip while the other encircled her throat.
No, no, no...
"Get your hands off me you—hey—no, stop—" she tried to plead with him, but the smile was still firmly fixed to his face, now entirely more sinister and lascivious than it had been in the store.
"C'mon, honey," he whispered, his lips grazing her neck as one hand squeezed her throat tighter while the other roved down her leg to the hem of her skirt, fingers sliding underneath and up her thigh. "Don't tell me you're the sort of gal who don't put out on a first date."
His lips started moving down her neck while his hand moved up her leg and for a second sheer panic overwhelmed her to the point where she almost completely forgot everything she learned in that self-defense class she and Amy took what seemed like centuries ago.
And then it all came flooding back to her.
And her assailant found himself with a stiletto heel rammed into his foot followed by a knee slammed into his groin.
"I said no!"
The shock of that little maneuver was enough to get his hand off her throat, and Lucy shoved him hard as she tried to duck out past him and get back into the parking lot.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to stop him grabbing her by the hair and slamming her back against the wall, a knife suddenly appearing an inch from her right eye as he tried to corral her by shoving himself up against her again.
"That was stupid," he told her, spittle on his lips and an almost crazed look in his eyes. "Stupid bitch. Should o' just done what I wanted. Now I'm gonna have to make you a little less pretty."
He raised the knife as if he was going to slash her face with it, and she flinched in horror, just as a hand grabbed the guy's wrist and twisted it away from her.
Then he was literally being yanked off of her and thrown backwards, landing on his ass in the gravel with a thud.
"Not before I make you less pretty, asshole."
Lucy sucked in a breath, never so happy to see anyone her entire life.
For a second Wyatt just stood between her and the guy with the knife, before he turned back to her, a look of something Lucy could only vaguely identify as guilty terror twisting his features. "Are you okay?" he asked her, but she only had time to nod at him before the dick with the knife was back on his feet and lunging toward him.
"Shouldn't have stuck your nose in, Mr. Hero," he sneered.
Wyatt grimaced at him. "You must be a special kind of stupid," he told him, once again grabbing the guy's wrist and twisting it until the knife slipped from his fingers and went clattering to the ground, before ramming the heel of his hand into the guy's face with a weirdly satisfying crunch of bone, and the asshole was back on his ass again, blood pouring from his nose.
"I'm gonna kill you, you sonofa—" he started to spit through bloodied fingers, before a voice suddenly bellowed across the parking lot,
"Logan!"
Wyatt looked up sharply at the portly, middle-aged cop suddenly waddling toward them.
"How does he know your name...?" Lucy started to ask, before watching all the color drain from Wyatt's face as he glanced from the cop to the asshole and back to the cop again.
"We need to go," he said urgently. But his actions didn't in the slightest bit mirror his words because he made absolutely no attempt to move.
"Wyatt," Lucy said slowly. "What's happening?"
Wyatt was staring at the asshole on the ground, a horrified look of recognition quickly followed by revulsion darkening his face.
"Yeah," he said at length. "Yeah, we should—"
And then he had her by her arm, dragging her away from the guy in the opposite direction to the cop who yelled, "Hey, you two! Stop right there!"
But they didn't stop. They kept right on going, circling round back of the store and up into an alleyway running down the side of the building, where Wyatt promptly leaned against a wall and threw up into the nearest dumpster.
Lucy had absolutely no idea what was happening or what the hell to do.
"Wyatt?" She put a gentle hand on his elbow, but he didn't turn immediately, and it was only then Lucy realized he was trembling.
It took him a second to get his equilibrium back, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before finally turning to look at her.
He looked pale and sweaty and kind of panicked, and then he was grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her hair out of her face and demanding, "Are you okay? Did he—did he hurt you?" with a desperation in his voice that spoke more of his previous experience of losing women he cared about than maybe what was going on right now.
Lucy shook her head. "I'm fine. Really. Wyatt, I'm fine."
Wyatt didn't seem to believe her. "I'm sorry," he said, and there was an edge of complete horror in his voice. "I'm so sorry. I didn't—I didn't know. I shouldn't have—I shouldn't—what he was going to do… What he was going to do to you, Lucy. I'm so sorry—"
"Wyatt?" Lucy said, her turn to grab him by the shoulders. Then, "Wyatt!" She repeated his name a little more forcefully, and he finally seemed to pause long enough to draw breath. "Hey." She put what she hoped was a comforting hand on his cheek. "I'm fine. Okay? Just a little shook up. But that's not your fault. What he—what he nearly did? It's not your fault."
Why would it be his fault? Because he wasn't with her every second? It had been her idea to split up.
He just looked at her for the longest moment, biting his lip before shaking his head and turning away from her slightly. "But what if it is?"
"You're not making any sense." Lucy told him. "What's going on? Wyatt? How did that cop know your name?"
Suddenly he was looking right into her eyes with an intensity that was pretty damn unnerving. "What if it's all my fault?" he said. "What if that's why Flynn's here?"
"Wyatt—"
"That was my dad, Lucy."
He blurted it out so fast, it took Lucy a second to process what he said.
She just stood there looking at him for what seemed an eternity.
My dad was a world-class sonofabitch...
"How...?" She shook her head. "No. No that's not...that's not..."
"Why do you think I didn't want to come here?"
Lucy frowned at him. "I don't... How...?"
"What if that's why he's here?" Wyatt repeated. "Flynn. What if..."
"You think he's here for your dad?"
Wyatt shrugged and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I don't...I don't know. It's a pretty big freakin' coincidence if not."
Lucy took a breath. She needed to think about this. "When you said you grew up near here..."
Wyatt met her gaze awkwardly. "Here," he admitted at length. "I grew up here. Till my mom died. Then we moved around a bit. Then my dad ditched me. For booze and women and bar fights and the next get rich quick scheme. Then he went to jail."
Lucy looked up at him sharply. "He went to jail?"
Wyatt hung his head a little and scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Don't sound so surprised. You've met the bastard."
"What did he—?"
"He and his buddy stuck up a convenience store."
"And that's when—?"
"I went to live with my Grandpa Sherwin."
"Okay. You're sure it's him?"
Wyatt shrugged. "I had no clue till that cop said his name. Kinda don't remember him looking like that. Mostly remember him drunk and yelling and beating the crap outta me."
Lucy swallowed. "Wyatt—"
"Look." Wyatt shook his head. "You said it yourself: Flynn came here for a reason. What if he's the reason?"
"You mean like—"
"The whole Terminator deal. Kill your enemy's parents—"
"Then your enemy won't exist."
Wyatt nodded. "You think it would make a difference? If I was—"
"Unmade?" Lucy didn't want to think about that. For so many more reasons than she'd ever probably admit to herself right now. "If you weren't here, Rufus and I would probably be dead," she said at length. "Or if we made it this far without you, I would probably have just gotten raped. So it sure as hell makes a difference to me that you're here."
"But to him," Wyatt said. "My existing probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference to Flynn. If I wasn't here you'd have some other soldier with you instead."
Lucy wasn't sure that was entirely true. "You're not just 'some other soldier,' Wyatt," she told him, not for the first time since she'd had to convince him of his own self-worth at the Alamo.
He met her gaze evenly. "But to Flynn? I could be any one of a hundred guys. So why here? Why now?"
Lucy shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe there's a bigger picture here we're just not seeing. Because we're standing too close to the problem."
Wyatt took a shaky breath.
This was probably the most rattled Lucy had ever seen him. "Maybe you should sit this one out," she suggested, albeit reluctantly. She hadn't been kidding at the Alamo. She really didn't think she could do this without him, no matter how good any other soldier might have been.
That snapped him right out of his apparent onset of self-doubt and insecurity, and he straightened abruptly. "What, go sit in the Lifeboat and wait for Flynn to kill you or Rufus?" He shook his head firmly. "Not happening."
Figure out what you're fighting for…
Lucy sighed in relief. "Then we need to regroup," she said decisively. "Find Rufus. Figure out our next move."
"What is our next move?"
Lucy shrugged. "We'll know it when we see it."
They found Rufus wandering up and down the main street, his usual deer-in-the-headlights expression fixed firmly in place.
"Where were you guys?" he demanded, running across the street toward them. "I was starting to think you ditched me. Something's happened at the store. I thought—"
"Yeah, that was us," Lucy confirmed, grabbing his arm and steering him back across the street in the direction of the diner. "Something—something definitely happened. We need to figure out what we're going to do now."
Rufus frowned at her. "What happened?"
"Not here," Lucy said. "Inside."
It was only when she made to head into the diner that Wyatt stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide and complexion considerably paled.
Lucy stopped too, glancing back at him quizzically. "Wyatt?"
The soldier swallowed visibly, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets and setting his jaw.
"Hey man, you okay?" Rufus asked. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"It's—I—" Wyatt stammered, and Lucy actually retraced her steps until she was standing in front of him, her hand on his arm.
"It's gonna be okay," she told him. "Come on inside. Everything will look better after caffeine."
Wyatt didn't seem entirely convinced, but he allowed her to gently guide him toward the entrance to the diner, following her inside meekly.
Rufus exchanged a quizzical glance with her as she passed, but she merely shrugged her shoulders at him.
The diner itself was like something out of the 1950s, all bright red leather booths and Formica-topped metal tables, and a counter that ran from nearly one end of the room to the other, the kitchen nestled out of sight behind.
A waitress was filling the coffee machine at the opposite end of the room. She didn't turn as they entered, just motioned to one of the booths and said, "Take a seat, I'll be with you folks in a minute!" Her hair was tied up in a long, blonde braid which reached almost to her slender waist, and Lucy noticed she had at least three pencils sticking out of a tortoiseshell barrette to the back of her head.
She pushed Wyatt towards a booth near the window, following him into one of the bench seats as Rufus settled himself in opposite.
And Wyatt didn't even protest.
Lucy had lost track of the number of times he'd insisted he sit on the outside in case he needed to make a quick getaway.
Rufus glanced once at Lucy, then at Wyatt, then back to Lucy.
"Okay, what's going on?" he demanded. "Because I'm not an idiot. Something's happened."
"A—a guy tried to…to…" Lucy started attempting to explain, but Wyatt ended up finishing for her.
"Force himself on her," he said succinctly. "Out behind the general store."
Rufus actually jumped to his feet before Lucy caught hold of his hand and pulled him back down again.
"It's okay—" she started to reassure him, but Rufus cut her off sharply.
"It is not okay!" he admonished her. "Did he hurt you? Is that who the cops had in cuffs?"
Wyatt looked over at him sharply. "They arrested him?"
Rufus shrugged. "Not sure. Creepy-looking guy in a Dallas Cowboys shirt?"
Wyatt took a breath.
"Okay, look," Lucy tried to change the subject. "Wyatt, when you came in here before, did you pick up anything that might help us?"
Wyatt studiously didn't look up from where he was apparently finding the table top absolutely fascinating. "Didn't come in before," he said. "Just…just couldn't."
Lucy swallowed. "Why not?"
Wyatt seemed to be tracing a pattern only he could see across the table top with his finger. He shrugged awkwardly. "Spent a lot of time in here as a kid," was all he said by way of explanation.
Rufus frowned at him again. "Here?" he echoed. "You grew up here?"
Wyatt sighed, still not looking up. "Three blocks over."
"Rufus…" Lucy glanced at Wyatt before continuing. "The guy who tried to…hurt me? Well, Wyatt thinks he's—he's…"
"Frankie Logan," a familiar voice put in, and suddenly Lucy was aware of someone sitting themselves down right next to Rufus. "Your dad, right, Wyatt?"
"Uh—" Rufus sounded like he might actually be choking on his own tongue, while Wyatt fumbled to get at the 9mm he had tucked in his jacket before Garcia Flynn grabbed his wrist and slammed his hand down on the table, holding it there for a good few seconds to emphasize his point.
"What the hell—?"
"Now, now, son, don't be foolish," Flynn said, beaming at the various customers glancing over in their general direction from the surrounding tables. "You wouldn't want any innocents to get caught in the crossfire would you?"
Wyatt grimaced, before relaxing his hand a little, at which point Flynn released his hold on him and settled back into his seat, a self-satisfied grin plastered across his features.
"This is a little brazen, even for you, isn't it?" Lucy bristled, and Flynn merely shrugged at her.
"Wait, what?" Rufus suddenly put in, as if his brain just caught up with the conversation. "Wyatt's dad? Did you just say that creep at the store was Wyatt's dad?"
Wyatt shook his head and hunched his shoulders over, as if trying to make himself as small as possible. "This is so not happening right now," he murmured.
"He's a real charmer, your dad," Flynn continued. "I can see where you inherited your winning personality."
Wyatt was on his feet in a heartbeat, sending the condiments and the menus flying as he dived over the table towards Flynn. "Don't even—" he started to growl, but Lucy grabbed his wrist before he could make contact, pulling him back into a sitting position.
"Wyatt!" she hissed through gritted teeth.
Wyatt fumed silently, but did as she instructed him, glaring at Flynn with the intensity of a laser beam dialed up to eleven. "Don't even compare me to him," he managed to grind out at length. "Just...don't."
"What do you want, Flynn?" Lucy asked, the exasperation clear in her voice.
Flynn regarded her for a second. "Remember when I told you I was going to go after every member of Rittenhouse one by one if I had to?"
Lucy remembered it only too well. Just before he dragged her off to the World's Fair. "You found one? Here?"
Flynn grinned at her. "I know! Some coincidence, right?"
"What do you want?" Wyatt repeated Lucy's earlier question. "What do you want with my dad?"
Flynn shrugged. "Doesn't necessarily have to be your dad," he said casually. "Any human shield will do."
"What are you talking about?" Lucy demanded, just as the waitress interrupted them with a steaming coffee pot suddenly thrust into their midst.
"Can I get you folks coffee?" she said, and Lucy shook her head slightly, not even looking up at her, all her attention on Flynn.
Flynn, however, seemed very interested in the waitress all of a sudden, veritably beaming up at her as Wyatt did the exact opposite, left elbow up on the table and his hand in front of his face as if he didn't want her to see him.
Lucy glanced at Wyatt, then at Flynn, and finally up at the waitress.
"Oh my God," she murmured, as Flynn continued to grin up at her.
"I think coffee could be just what we need this morning—" he made a show of glancing down at her name tag, "—Angie."
Lucy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, Rufus suddenly hissing, "Lucy, you're staring," right in her ear.
And she was staring.
She was staring up at the pretty blonde waitress in her slightly rumpled pink uniform. The pretty blonde waitress who couldn't have been more than seventeen, was about five feet even, had a mass of pencils stuck in her hair, and had the bluest eyes Lucy had ever seen.
Well almost the bluest eyes Lucy had ever seen.
She somehow managed to close her mouth. With an audible click.
"You okay, ma'am?" the girl asked, and Lucy nodded.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine, I'm good," she blurted. "And you don't need to call me…" she trailed off, studiously trying not to look at Wyatt, but failing spectacularly.
He was looking back at her.
With the waitress' eyes.
The girl didn't seem to notice, proceeding to pour four coffees. "You want food?" she asked. "We do the best cherry pie in three counties."
"Three whole counties?" Flynn echoed. "Well that's something, to be sure. Maybe you can give us a few minutes, Angie?"
The girl nodded. "Oh sure," she said. "I'll be right over here when you're ready."
A minute frown crinkled her forehead as she turned away from the table.
Once she was out of earshot, Wyatt virtually growled at Flynn, "I swear to God I am going to kill you, you sonofa—"
"Now, now," Flynn said smugly. "No need to be like that. She's very pretty, your mom. I can see where you get it from."
Wyatt was practically vibrating. "If you so much as touch her—" he began.
"What? You'll kill me? I do anything to her and you disappear—poof! Right out of existence. So you better be careful you don't do anything to upset me, Wyatt. Not if you want to make sure she gives birth to you in five years' time."
"She's so tiny," Rufus murmured, gazing after her as she made her way around the various coffee cups that needed refilling, and Lucy kicked him under the table.
"That's my mom, dude," Wyatt ground out. "Stop looking at her like that or I'm telling Jiya."
Rufus blinked. "But she's so tiny—" he repeated, seemingly unable to take his eyes off her.
It was Wyatt's turn to kick him, and he did it a lot harder than Lucy had.
"Ow!" Rufus yelped. "What the hell?"
"Boys, boys," Flynn interrupted, "I think we can all agree Wyatt's mommy is very pretty." Wyatt scowled at him again. "But she's not the reason I'm here either."
Now we're getting to it, Lucy figured. "So if you're not interested in Wyatt's mom and you're not interested in Wyatt's dad, then exactly why are you here, Flynn?" she asked.
Flynn threw her another smug grin. "I told you," he said. "Rittenhouse."
"And who here is from Rittenhouse?" she asked.
Flynn glanced around the patrons in the diner. "He's not here yet. His name is Anderton Carmichael. He becomes one of Rittenhouse's chief money men in the future."
"And he just happens to be in Kermit in April 1979, where my parents just happen to be living at that exact time?" Wyatt virtually growled. "Forgive me if I don't believe you."
Flynn shrugged. "His car is about to break down on the outskirts of town," he said. "Any minute now, he's going to find himself in this very diner in Nowheresville, Texas, surrounded by the kind of trailer trash he wouldn't even wipe his shoes on back home in New York City." He winked sarcastically at Wyatt. "No offence. I'm sure your parents were fine upstanding members of the local community."
"I've got a gun in my pocket," Wyatt told him. "Bet I could blow your head off before you could get anywhere near my mom."
Flynn nodded. "Probably," he agreed. "But my friend Karl is currently standing a meter away from your father with a gun in his pocket. If anything happens to me, then it's bye-bye Frankie Logan and bye-bye Wyatt."
Wyatt ground his teeth together audibly, and Lucy grabbed hold of his wrist, just to try and calm him down a little.
"Okay so why all the theatrics?" she asked. "Why are we here?"
Flynn shrugged. "You're here because you follow me everywhere like obedient little puppy dogs. It's becoming just the slightest bit annoying. So I figured, you know, Lucy and her boys are bound to show up wherever and whenever I decide to off Carmichael, so why not add some extra insurance? While ever I'm holding a gun on either of Wyatt's parents prior to them getting together and creating their little bundle of joy, none of you three can touch me."
"I could just kill you," Wyatt pointed out. "Then you'd be gone and it wouldn't matter if your lackey killed my dad and I was erased."
Flynn blinked at him. "But all those people you saved in Afghanistan. That vital intel you got out of Syria. Not to mention Lucy and Rufus here. What do you think might have happened to them without you around?"
Wyatt gazed evenly at him. "If it hadn't been me it would have been somebody else," he said, repeating what he'd said earlier to Lucy.
Flynn nodded. "Quite possibly," he agreed. "Not to mention Jessica would still be alive."
Wyatt swallowed.
"You don't know that," Lucy interjected.
Flynn frowned at her. "Fate, Lucy?" he said. "From you? You know," he added, turning his attention back to Wyatt, "I'm surprised you never thought of this. Preventing your parents meeting. Or killing your father before your conception, perhaps. Probably the most sure-fire way to save Jessica."
Wyatt paled slightly, and Lucy found her fingers slipping from his wrist to his hand, where they tightened considerably.
"Then what would be the point?"
Flynn seemed surprised that Rufus, of all people, should chime in at this juncture.
But, Lucy reminded herself, Rufus was in love right now.
"What would be the point?" he repeated. "Sure, Wyatt could erase himself to save Jessica. But then they would never have met, never have fallen in love. So what would be the point?" He hammered the last sentence home again just for emphasis, looking right at Wyatt as he did so.
"Ah," Flynn said. "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" he said. And just like that his amiable grin rapidly descended into an angry scowl. "Well that's bullshit. If I could sacrifice myself to save my wife and daughter, don't you think I would?"
Wyatt produced his handgun and placed it on the table between them. "Go ahead," he said, gaze steely. "Why not erase yourself from history then? If you're so convinced I should do it."
Flynn considered the gun for a moment, before the easy grin returned to his face. "Very clever. The three of you appear to have ambushed me there."
Just then the door opened and a couple who couldn't have looked any wealthier short of having a neon sign flashing "loaded" above their heads entered the diner, glancing about themselves with obvious distaste, as if they'd suddenly found themselves in the Ninth Circle of Hell.
Lucy took a breath as Flynn glanced at his watch.
"Right on time."
"Is that him?" Lucy asked, indicating the guy in the ridiculously expensive suit and Italian loafers. "Is that Anderton Carmichael?"
The woman, all bleached blonde hair and pearls, looked down her nose at Wyatt's mom as she approached.
"Miles, I'm going to need to bathe in Chanel for a month to get the stench of this horrible place off me," she said, none-too-quietly.
"It's only while we wait for the repair, my angel," the guy said, patting her arm.
"I thought you said his name was Anderton?" Rufus murmured.
"It is," Flynn confirmed, just as a kid who couldn't have been more than six years old emerged from behind his mother's skirt, a plastic X-wing fighter from Star Wars clutched in his chubby fingers.
"Oh hell no..." Rufus said.
"Seconded," Wyatt agreed.
Lucy scowled darkly at Flynn. "We already had this argument!" she hissed through gritted teeth. "You can't kill a child—!"
"Says who?" Flynn shot back. "How do you know that if you hadn't stopped me from killing John Rittenhouse this wouldn't all be over, Lucy?"
"He's a child!" Lucy pointed out. "This one even more so!"
"He's going to grow up to be Rittenhouse!"
Meanwhile, Wyatt's mom had crouched down in front of the little boy, taking an interest in the toy in his hand. "Well aren't you just adorable!" she burst out, beaming at him. "You like Star Trek, huh?"
Rufus closed his eyes briefly, apparently mortally wounded. "Your mother is dead to me," he told Wyatt, who grinned fondly.
"Yeah, she always got them mixed up," he said. "When I asked for a Millennium Falcon for my fourth birthday she asked me if that was the one Dr. Spock drives."
Rufus sucked in a breath. "It's a miracle you're as sane as you are," he commented, and Wyatt grinned at him for a second, before glancing back at his mom, his grin turning to something a little more wistful.
Anderton Carmichael immediately stopped what he was doing and glared coldly at Wyatt's mom. "Are you an idiot?" he asked her shortly.
Wyatt sucked in a breath. "Okay, Flynn," he said. "You can go ahead and kill him now."
"Wyatt!" Lucy admonished him. "That's not funny."
"Who says I'm joking?"
"I'm sorry?" Angie said, blinking and straightening up.
The kid shook his head at her and headed on into the diner without sparing her another glance.
"Uh," the waitress tried to recover, "Welcome to Albie's. Can I get you folks a table?"
The woman wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Ugh, she has an accent," she proclaimed, any idea of subtly apparently lost on her. "Someone kill me now!"
Wyatt grit his teeth, his fingers closing around his 9mm. "If you insist..." he growled under his breath.
"Hey," Lucy admonished him again. "You're supposed to be one of the good guys, remember?"
Wyatt's scowl deepened.
"We're waiting for our car to be repaired," the husband explained. "It broke down."
Flynn grinned smugly. "Hate to say I told you so..."
"Oh, you poor things!" Angie said. "Well Mitch, our mechanic, can fix just about anything, so if you gotta break down you picked the best place to do it."
Miles Carmichael regarded her in a similar fashion to his son. "Quite how any place is a good place to break down, I'm sure I don't know," he said, glancing around himself distastefully. "Particularly somewhere like this."
"Your mom should just punch him," Rufus commented. "I bet she's a real firecracker when she gets pissed off, even if she is the size of Tinkerbell."
"Rufus," Lucy hissed. "Not helping!"
"Took a lot to piss her off," Wyatt commented. "My dad was pretty good at it though."
"Speaking of which…" Lucy murmured, glancing at the door as it opened once again.
"Goddamnit…" Wyatt mumbled, as Frankie Logan sloped into the diner behind the Carmichael family. "I thought you said the cops arrested him?"
Rufus shrugged. "Without a complainant," he said, glancing at Lucy, "I guess maybe they had to let him go."
Lucy swallowed. "Wyatt," she said slowly, "no offence but I'm not sure I want to be in the same room with him right now."
"None taken," Wyatt said. "And neither do I. He comes anywhere near you again…"
"You'll kill him?" Flynn offered with a grin. "Ohhhh, but you can't, can you?"
Wyatt scowled at him darkly. "You know, maybe it'd be worth blinking out of existence just to wipe that smug smile off your face."
His father, meanwhile, appeared to have spotted them and was heading in their general direction, which caused Lucy's grip on Wyatt's hand to tighten.
"Up," he said shortly, rising smoothly to his feet and pulling Lucy with him.
Flynn's hand moved instinctively towards his jacket pocket, the threat clearly implied, but Wyatt didn't seem to care.
Deftly he managed to somehow switch places with Lucy without her having to move very far, pushing her toward the seat nearest the window while he continued to stand in front of her, a grimace on his face that could have melted glass.
"Good puppy, down boy!" Flynn commented, and Wyatt didn't even favor him with a glance, all his attention fixed on the guy approaching them.
He had a makeshift bandage on his nose and what looked like the start of two stunning black eyes.
Good, Lucy found herself thinking. I hope his crotch hurts like hell where I kicked him too.
He hovered a foot or so away from the table, glancing nervously at Wyatt before taking a step closer to the table and to Lucy.
Wyatt's hand on his chest should have been an indication that this was in no way happening, but Lucy figured the guy was just an idiot, because he just kept coming.
"You want me to break your jaw too?" Wyatt asked, and Lucy was pretty sure he was being deadly serious.
"Look," Wyatt's dad murmured, making another futile attempt at getting around Wyatt to get closer to Lucy. "I'm sorry about earlier, ma'am," he managed. "Just a little misunderstanding."
"What part of 'no' did you not understand?" Wyatt demanded.
"You her boyfriend?" Frankie asked, for the first time seeming to actually look at the guy standing between himself and the intended target of his half-assed apology.
"Yes," Wyatt snapped, at the exact instant Lucy replied,
"No."
Wyatt glanced over his shoulder at her and fixed her with a "what the hell?" look, and she immediately changed her answer.
"Yes," she said emphatically. "Yes, he's my boyfriend."
"You come anywhere near her again, I'll—" Wyatt paused, glancing at Flynn. "Well you don't wanna know what I'll do to you."
Flynn snorted a little. "That was a lousy apology, Mr. Logan," he said casually. "I told you to make it heartfelt."
Wyatt glanced from Flynn to Frankie, as if he wasn't entirely sure who the guy was talking to.
Frankie shrugged. "Still don't see why I had to apologize, boss," he mumbled. "She was asking for it in that short skirt."
Pretty much the same way Frankie Logan was asking to be punched in the face by the guy he had no idea would be his son one day.
He fell back onto the floor with a thud, skidding across the tiles until he finally came to a stop at the feet of Wyatt's mom, who looked so surprised she almost dropped her coffee pot on his head.
Lucy kind of wished she had.
"Always wanted to do that," Wyatt hissed, flexing his reddened knuckles.
"Uh," Rufus mumbled. "Wyatt, how did your parents meet exactly?"
"Shit." Wyatt glanced up from his sore hand. "Some guy…" he began slowly, "...smacked my dad in the face in the diner where my mom worked. She was the one that patched him up…"
"You're bleeding all over my clean floor," Angie announced shortly.
Frankie looked up at her. "Well excuse me, sweetheart," he said, swiveling a little to get a better look at her.
Or a better look up her skirt.
Lucy wasn't quite sure which.
He apparently liked what he saw, whichever part of her he was trying to get a look at.
He grinned big at her, despite his nose starting to bleed again. "Little help? Wouldn't want to ruin all your hard work there."
Angie put down the coffee pot and helped Frankie to his feet. He wobbled a little bit, and she just looked him up and down for a second. "Four times I've seen you in here, and every time someone's ended up trying to hit you. First time they've actually managed to do it, though."
She glanced at Wyatt, frowned at him quizzically for a second, not having actually seen much of his face prior to that moment, and then turned her attention back to Frankie.
"Well come on then. Don't want you bleeding all over my counter too."
She led Frankie off toward the kitchen and Flynn leaned back in his seat before letting out a low whistle. "Ah, young love," he said smugly. "Who knew you played Cupid to your own parents, huh, Wyatt?"
If it was possible for Wyatt's glare to intensify, it did.
"How is that even possible?" Lucy asked, shaking her head.
Rufus shrugged. "To travel through time, we bend it," he said. "Time's not a linear thing. That's just the way we make sense of it."
"So it's always been my fault they met?" Wyatt asked, sounding utterly horrified.
Rufus shrugged again. "You're apparently the reason for your own existence."
Wyatt looked like he wanted to say something else, but the way he glanced sideways at Flynn suggested to Lucy that he didn't want to say it in front of him.
Instead, he demanded of Flynn, "Why did he call you 'boss'?"
Flynn indicated Wyatt should sit back down with a wave of his arm, and when the soldier didn't comply he helpfully pulled a 9mm Glock out of his pocket and pointed it in the general direction of Rufus' head.
"Wyatt?" Rufus said very slowly. "Maybe you should sit down now."
Flynn shrugged. "I shoot him, you'll be stranded here in 1979, remember? Then what happens when you catch up with yourself in five years' time?"
"I don't know," Wyatt returned. "Nobody I asked seems to know the answer to that one."
"Bad things," Rufus said. "Only bad things."
"And yet you're here," Wyatt pointed out. "How does that work if you can't travel where you already exist?"
Flynn shrugged. "There are things you don't know about me," he said cryptically. "Maybe I'm younger than I look. Now sit!" he snapped. "I won't tell you again."
Wyatt reluctantly did as he was instructed. "I'm not your dog. Don't tell me when to sit."
"My apologies," and Flynn sounded anything but apologetic. "You're her doggy." He indicated Lucy with an inclination of his head. "I forgot."
"Are you planning on telling us your evil plan sometime today, or do we get to die of boredom first?" Wyatt returned.
"I already told you," Flynn said. "Kill the child, save the future."
"And?" Lucy prodded. "How are you planning on doing that? And what does Wyatt's dad have to do with it?"
Flynn sighed. "Alright," he said. "Let me tell you a story. Are we sitting comfortably?"
Wyatt rolled his eyes, and Lucy elbowed him in the ribs.
"April 1st, 1979, Kermit, Texas," Flynn continued. "The Carmichael family of New York break down on the edge of town and find themselves in Albie's Diner—" he indicated their surroundings, "—while they wait for a repair. While they're there, a masked man enters the place, pulls out a gun and demands the money from the register. The waitress, one Angela Sherwin," he glanced at Wyatt, "Wyatt's eventual mom, is in back of the diner tending to an injured customer, and manages to raise the alarm by warning the cook, who calls the police. When she goes back out, the robber threatens to shoot her if she doesn't hand over the money."
Wyatt made a move as if he was going to stand up again, but Lucy put her hand back on his arm and he stilled.
"The robber leaves empty-handed," Flynn continued, "after a short shootout with the cops in the parking lot, and although they can never prove it, it's believed that he was a local youth by the name of Raymond Harris, and that he may have had an accomplice inside, his best friend, one Frankie Logan. Logan had gotten into an altercation with a customer prior to the attempted robbery and was otherwise occupied getting himself cleaned up in back of the diner by Angie the ever-helpful waitress..."
Wyatt glanced sideways at Lucy. "Remember that buddy of my dad's he eventually got arrested with?" he said quietly.
"Raymond Harris?" Lucy hazarded.
"Uh-huh."
"...And true love ensues," Flynn finished, grinning sardonically at Wyatt as if he knew enough about his backstory to know that wasn't true.
Lucy didn't know whether it was true or not, only that Wyatt had once described Jessica as the only person he loved in the world, suggesting either his dad was dead by then or there was really no love lost between them. Whether that had to do with his dad's relationship with his mom she really didn't know.
"What the hell did your mom see in that guy anyway?" Rufus asked suddenly. "Seems like a Grade A scumbag to me." He stopped abruptly, glancing quickly at Wyatt. "No offence."
Wyatt shrugged. "Again. None taken."
Flynn smiled easily at Lucy. "Some women just like the bad boys," he said.
"And some prefer the good ones," Lucy returned, studiously not looking at Wyatt as she said it.
Dammit, Lucy! she chided herself. You said that out loud, you idiot!
Flynn snorted, while Wyatt seemed completely oblivious to what Lucy just implied.
She wasn't sure whether she was relieved or not.
Possibly not.
"So we know what's supposed to happen," Rufus prodded Flynn. "I'm guessing you don't intend events to play out that way?"
"A shootout in the parking lot seems a wasted opportunity to me," Flynn commented. "All those bullets flying around. You never know who's going to be hit by one."
"Like a six-year-old boy?" Lucy asked.
Flynn smirked at her. "You catch on quickly," he said.
"And how are you planning on making that happen?" Wyatt asked.
Flynn regarded him for a second. "Your father, idiot that he is, was too distracted by a pretty face first time around. And his partner gave up too easily when the cops arrived." He smirked again. "All they needed was a plan. A little nudge in the right direction. Someone, say, like my friend Karl to call the cops before the cook. Get them here just that little bit earlier to catch Ray and his buddy Frankie in the act. Take them out in a hail of bullets. That sort of thing."
"Wait a second," Lucy said. "You can't kill Wyatt's father. You said—"
Flynn shrugged. "I figured the Rittenhouse boy had one hope for survival in a shootout where I had a gun pointed at him; and that was your soldier boy here." He inclined his head in Wyatt's direction. "When the bullets start to fly, what better way to distract him from protecting the kid than by sending him off to protect his own parents, and, by extension, his own existence?"
Wyatt's jaw tightened, and Lucy was pretty sure she could hear his teeth grinding. "Go ahead, asshole, talk about me like I'm not even here," he said, "but you just told us your entire plan. Now I know what you're up to, what makes you think I'm going to let you get away with it?"
"Because, when it all goes down, you're going to have a choice, my friend. Protect a child who will grow up to be Rittenhouse; protect Lucy and Rufus; or protect your mommy and daddy. It's up to you. How far are you willing to go to save your friends?" He indicated Lucy and Rufus with a jerk of his head. "Would you sacrifice your entire existence for them?"
Wyatt didn't reply. But Lucy was pretty sure she knew his answer.
"I'm fairly certain even you can't split yourself into three, Master Sergeant," Flynn added. "Delta Force is all about the team not the individual, am I right?"
Lucy remembered Wyatt saying the same thing back when they were stuck in 1754.
Wyatt shifted slightly, but again didn't reply.
When it came down to it, Lucy had very little doubt who Wyatt would save if he had to choose, and it wouldn't be himself or the Rittenhouse kid. His primary directives were to kill Flynn and protect Lucy and Rufus. There was nothing in his orders about protecting himself.
Flynn glanced at his watch again.
"Any minute..."
"Nobody move, this is a stick up!"
"...now."
The door banged open so hard Lucy thought the glass panel might shatter, as a tall, skinny guy dressed all in black with a black ski mask over his head burst into the diner. He was waving a handgun around above his head and holding a black nylon carryall which he proceeded to throw onto the counter.
Unfortunately, there was no one serving, so he just stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds, before finally slamming his hand down on the little bell positioned next to the dessert cabinet.
Wyatt actually sniggered. "Crack team you've assembled here, man," he said, and Flynn rolled his eyes impatiently.
There were about six other customers scattered around the diner by this point, the Carmichaels, a bum who'd been taking a nap at a table in the far corner, and a couple of elderly ladies, one of whom asked loudly, "Edna, what did that young man just say? It's 70 degrees out, why is he wearing a ski mask?"
"I think he said something about a stick up," Edna replied, not looking up from her knitting.
The guy at the counter shifted from foot to foot. "Hey!" he yelled. "Frankie? You back there?"
Wyatt shook his head. "You know I could disarm this asshat in five seconds flat," he murmured, tensing as if about to spring to his feet.
Just as Frankie came bursting out of the back, pulling Angie with him. He looked pissed.
"Whaddya have to go an' say my name for, Ray, you idiot?" he demanded, immediately wincing as he realized what he just did. "Goddamnit!"
"Please tell me you're adopted," Rufus glanced over at Wyatt, who scratched the back of his head and shrugged.
"If only."
"Now who's the idiot?" the guy in the ski mask demanded, tugging the mask off of his head. "God that thing's itchy!"
"That's the other guy!" Lucy realized with a shock of recognition.
"What other guy?" Wyatt asked.
"The one who was outside the store with your dad before...well, you know. Before."
"Raymond Eugene Harris?" Angie demanded. "That you? Your momma know this is what you do in your spare time?"
Frankie shook his head. "You know her?" he demanded.
Ray shrugged. "We were in grade school together," he said. "How was I supposed to know she'd be here? Anyway, I was wearing a mask. You're the one said my name!"
"God, kill me now," Wyatt muttered.
"What're you doing waving that popgun about for anyway?" Angie asked.
Ray regarded his handgun. "This—this is a stick up!" he burst out, recommitting himself to his course of action and suddenly pointing the gun in Angie's direction.
"Hey!" Wyatt was on his feet in a second, but suddenly there was a gun pointed at him too. And it wasn't Flynn's.
Frankie's hand was shaking a little, but he managed to keep his aim fairly steadily directed at Wyatt's head.
Wyatt froze, hands raised a tiny bit. "Hey, watch where you're pointing that thing."
"Back off, Mr. Hero!" Frankie snapped, before returning his attention to Ray. "And you, stop pointing that thing at her!"
Ray shrugged. "How else am I gonna make her give us the money?" he demanded, suddenly shoving the gun so close to Angie's head the muzzle was only a hair's breadth away from her temple.
Wyatt's hands curled into fists, and Lucy could tell he was only restraining himself with a massive effort of willpower.
She'd seen him do this before, weighing up his options, deciding on a course of action rather than blindly throwing himself into something suicidal. If he went after Ray now, he risked getting himself and his mom killed and then he wouldn't be able to save anybody.
Angie glanced from Frankie to Ray. "I'm not giving you a damn dime," she told him shortly.
"Oh man, I think I'm in love with your mom," Rufus muttered.
"Not helping," Wyatt grit out through clenched teeth.
At which point Ray clicked off the safety, and Angie actually looked kind of scared for the first time.
"Hey, okay," she said. "No need to get nasty."
Ray threw the bag at her, and she moved toward the register, just as the sound of approaching sirens and screeching tires drew Frankie's attention to the windows.
"Aw, crap," he said. "Get the money, man, we gotta go!"
"Here comes the cavalry," Flynn said, as four police cars skidded to a halt in the parking lot, a whole mess of cops tumbling out onto the gravel with weapons drawn.
Ray paled considerably, glancing over at Flynn. "You said they wouldn't get here till after we left, man!" he burst out.
Flynn shrugged. "I lied."
Ray blinked at him. "But—but what do we do now?"
Flynn inclined his head and sat back in his seat as if he didn't have a care in the world. "You get your brains blown out, probably," he said.
"Sonofa—" Frankie pointed his gun briefly at Flynn, as an authoritative voice suddenly boomed out of a bullhorn,
"You in the diner! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands raised!"
Ray swallowed, glancing from Flynn to the parking lot and back to Angie. "Money!" he snapped, pressing the muzzle of his weapon directly against the girl's forehead. "In the bag! Now!"
Angie whimpered, and both Wyatt and Frankie made a move toward her, Frankie suddenly bringing his own gun to bear on Raymond.
"Get that thing away from her, man!" he snapped, pretty much stopping Wyatt in his tracks. "I'm not kidding! You hurt her and I'll kill you!"
"Aww," Flynn cooed. "It's all so romantic!"
Lucy scowled at him, before her attention was drawn to movement beyond the window, as several police officers crept stealthily towards the front door of the diner.
"Oh crap," she muttered, causing Rufus to swivel in his seat in order to see what was going on.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticed Miles Carmichael pulling his wife in front of him as his son stood up and moved a couple of paces closer to where Frankie stood with his gun still trained on Ray.
"Those cops come in here and see you both with weapons drawn, they're gonna blow you both away," Wyatt told the erstwhile robbers flatly. "Along with everyone else here. You want that? Huh? Put your guns down, you idiots!"
Frankie and Ray looked at each other, both shaking their heads.
"Him first!" Ray snapped, his hand trembling as he continued to press his gun against Angie's head.
"I told you," Frankie snapped back, springing forward before grabbing Angie's arm and yanking her behind him and away from Ray's gun. "You get the hell away from her!"
Ray's fingers tightened around the trigger guard, and suddenly the two friends had their weapons drawn on each other.
"You'd ditch me for a chick?!" Ray whined. "Ah man, that's just low."
"She—she took care o' me," Frankie stumbled. "No one's ever done that for me before."
Wyatt looked mildly surprised by that admission, while Flynn merely drawled,
"Someone hand me a tissue, would you?"
And that was when the glass panel in the front door exploded inward and the first cop over the threshold opened fire.
And it was as if everything stopped.
Lucy turned immediately to Wyatt for direction, as she always did in these sorts of life and death, about to get your head blown off situations.
But he wasn't looking at her.
At least, he was only looking at her for a split second.
She'd seen him do this before too.
And in the second between that first shot ringing out and Wyatt moving, Lucy finally understood exactly what he was doing.
His gaze skipped from Lucy and Rufus, to Anderton Carmichael, to Frankie and Angie, then to where the cops were charging into the room and to Flynn, as he reached into his pocket and once again pulled out his Glock; and she could see it all in his eyes, could see the thoughts spinning through his head: distance, velocity, speed, angle, assessing everything as Flynn brought his weapon to bear on Anderton Carmichael and the cops pointed theirs at Ray Harris and Wyatt's dad.
It took him a second, maybe less than a second, and then he was moving, first towards Lucy and Rufus, as Lucy knew he would, kicking the table they were sitting behind so hard it flew up slightly into the air, where Wyatt grabbed it one-handed and slammed it down on its side in front of them, knocking Flynn to the ground as it did so.
"Get down!" Wyatt yelled at Lucy, who grabbed Rufus and yanked him behind the table with her, just as Wyatt dived for the Rittenhouse kid, grabbed him around the middle and vaulted over the counter with him, the two shots Flynn managed to fire from his position on the floor taking out a napkin holder and a chunk of the heel of Wyatt's boot.
And then Flynn swore as his 9mm clicked onto empty.
Once safely behind the counter with the kid, Lucy heard two shots ring out from Wyatt's position, both Ray and Frankie yelping in surprise as their guns suddenly weren't in their hands anymore.
Ray fell back to the ground, clutching at his bleeding hand, but Frankie appeared only to have been burned by Wyatt's bullet grazing his fingers and slamming into his .38, sending it clattering over the counter and skidding across the tiles until it came to a stop five inches from Garcia Flynn's foot.
"Nobody move!" the first cop yelled, and nobody did except Flynn, who snatched up Frankie's gun, sprinted across the diner and threw himself over the counter, barely inches in front of the five rounds the lead cop managed to put into the table Lucy and Rufus were crouching behind, the floor, and finally the counter itself.
Lucy wasn't entirely sure what happened next.
There was another bang from behind the counter, and Flynn was up on his feet, dragging Frankie behind him with Wyatt on his heels.
"Nobody move!" the lead cop yelled again, one round narrowly missing Wyatt's head and shattering the dessert cabinet to his left, and he stopped dead, left hand raised as he lowered his gun to the counter behind him with his right.
"United States Army!" he bellowed at the cop. "That man has a hostage!"
The cop paused. "Hold your fire!" he ordered, as Flynn pulled Frankie in front of him and began to back the two of them toward the door to the kitchen.
"Everybody relax, and no one needs to get hurt," Flynn said, and Lucy was pretty sure he wasn't talking to anyone but Wyatt.
Wyatt took a slow breath. "Let him go, Flynn," he said, his voice deceptively calm. "You didn't get what you wanted. The kid's still alive," he pointed out, moving a little to his left to ensure the boy was completely behind him, "I'm still alive, Lucy and Rufus are still alive—" he glanced over at them just to double check they were still alive. "Chalk this one up to bad luck and cut your losses."
"Bad luck and Wyatt Logan," Flynn said. "Not exactly my favorite combination of circumstances." He still had Frankie's gun pointed at Wyatt's dad's head, and although Lucy wasn't entirely sure it would still work, although she thought Wyatt's bullet hit the grip when he shot it out of Frankie's hand, Wyatt himself didn't appear to be taking any chances. "Now I'm getting home in one piece, whether you like it or not. Whether you're getting there at all? Well that's entirely up to you."
Wyatt took another breath, and Lucy could almost see him thinking.
"You could shoot Frankie, of course," Flynn continued. "You're standing close enough that a bullet to his chest would go straight through him and into me. Two birds with one stone."
Wyatt hesitated, his hand hovering over the Beretta he'd just put down onto the counter.
"Wyatt?" Lucy said, not liking the note of pleading in her voice one bit. "Don't. Please? Please don't."
"Come on, Master Sergeant," Flynn continued to taunt him. "It's you or me. Your mission or self-preservation. Which is it going to be? You gonna put yourself above your orders? Huh? Are you that selfish?"
Wyatt blinked at him, not moving even the slightest bit.
"Wyatt?" Lucy said again. "Please?"
Wyatt glanced over at her, just once.
And she couldn't read his expression.
What Wyatt did next? Well Lucy was pretty sure even he was surprised.
It took him a split second, and suddenly he had his gun in his hand again, and there was a bullet in his dad's thigh.
Frankle yelped in surprised agony, his knees buckling out from under him so that he was a dead weight in Flynn's arms and he had to let him fall to the ground.
Another split second and Garcia Flynn was standing there completely open and unprotected and Wyatt was six feet away from him with a loaded gun in his hand.
The two of them just looked at each other.
"You want to risk it?" Flynn asked, taking a step backwards. "I could kill them both before you even—"
Wyatt got three rounds off before Flynn ducked back into the kitchen, Frankie's gun clattering to the floor as he clutched at his bleeding arm with a grunt of startled pain.
"Weapons down!" the cop yelled again, and this time, Wyatt complied, tossing his gun onto the counter and raising his hands above his head.
Angie crawled over from her position on the floor next to the Rittenhouse kid until she was at Frankie's side, her hand on the wound to his thigh as she pulled a pile of napkins onto the floor and proceeded to put as much pressure on the wound as she could get.
"What the hell just happened?" she gasped, her attention sliding from Frankie to Wyatt. "Who the hell are you?"
"Did he say your name was Logan?" Frankie asked. "Are we related or somethin'?"
Wyatt swallowed as the cops swarmed around them, snatching up every firearm in sight.
"Uh," he stammered. "I don't... Coincidence," he managed lamely, as one of the cops grabbed his left wrist and proceeded to twist it up behind his back before slapping on the cuffs.
Next thing, he was face down on the counter being cuffed to the rear as the lead cop picked up his Beretta and began to examine it with some interest.
"Never seen a 9 mil like this one before," he said. "Looks kinda foreign."
Wyatt nodded. "Special military issue," he said easily. "Experimental."
"Ah," the cop said. "You got ID?"
Wyatt nodded. "Uh. Maybe in my jacket? Wherever that ended up."
"Here!" Lucy snatched up the jacket Wyatt had left on his chair, which was now on the floor with a couple of fairly decent-sized bullet holes in it. Fishing in the pocket, she pulled out the fake ID Agent Christopher had given him, fervently hoping it was a military one.
The cop examined it carefully. "Master Sergeant, huh?" he said, and for a second Lucy wondered whether Wyatt had brought his actual ID with him.
"Yes sir," Wyatt confirmed, offering no resistance to the cop currently restraining him.
The lead cop nodded at his colleague. "Let him go, Mike," he said. "He actually is US Army."
The patrolman quickly released the cuffs and allowed Wyatt up.
"Thank you, officer," Wyatt said politely. "Uh, you may want to get an ambulance? Kinda hit the kid in the leg by accident." He indicated Frankie, who was looking at him as if he didn't know whether to hate him or thank him.
The officer nodded, getting onto his radio as Lucy managed to pick her way through the debris until she was at Wyatt's side.
"I think we need to get out of here," she said quietly. "Before anyone starts asking awkward questions?"
"My baby! Where's my baby!" a shrill voice suddenly emanated from the back of the diner, and Anderton Carmichael's mother was teetering across the tiles in her ridiculously high heels.
Wyatt bent down and took the kid's hand, gently pulling him to his feet. "He's fine, ma'am," he told the woman, lifting the kid up and sitting him on the counter. "Just seems to have gotten half the dessert cabinet on him."
Indeed, Anderton Carmichael seemed pretty much oblivious to the chaos going on around him, busily licking cheesecake off his fingers.
Mrs. Carmichael appeared completely horrified. "My child has blood in his hair!"
Wyatt glanced at the kid's head. "I think that's cherry pie, ma'am," he corrected her.
She just looked at him for an instant before bursting out, "Oh my God, but that's so much worse!"
"Uh, guys," Rufus had appeared at Lucy's side. "How are we getting out of this without spending the next ten hours at the Sheriff's station?"
Wyatt indicated the door to the kitchen. "Same way Flynn got out," he said. "Come on. I've had enough nostalgia for one day."
Distracted by the hysterical whimperings of Anderton Carmichael's mother, the cops didn't notice as Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus quietly snuck out the back way.
But not before Lucy heard Angie murmur, "Wyatt. That's a nice name…"
To say how softly-spoken Agent Christopher generally was, Lucy could hear her yelling at Wyatt halfway down the hallway.
"You had Garcia Flynn right there in front of you and you didn't take the shot?" she snapped. "Am I reading your report correctly, Master Sergeant?"
Lucy moved to the briefing room door to try and better hear Wyatt's side of the conversation.
Although his reply of, "Yes, ma'am," was fairly predictable.
"And why on earth would you do that?"
"Because if I'd taken the shot, it would have endangered a civilian, ma'am."
"One of the idiots stupid enough to help Flynn rob a diner?"
Lucy was pretty sure she heard Wyatt swallow. "Yes, ma'am."
Come on, Wyatt, tell her, dammit!
"And if you'd endangered this civilian, how many lives do you think you would have saved if you'd taken the damn shot and dealt with Garcia Flynn like you were ordered to?"
Wyatt hesitated. "I don't know, ma'am," he replied.
"Do you have any idea how hard I have to fight to keep you here?" Christopher said suddenly. "Every time the three of you go off on a mission and come back without Garcia Flynn dead or in custody my bosses want to fire you."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Because, out of the three of you, you're the one they think is expendable. Replaceable. Not important. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
Wyatt paused again. "Yes, ma'am."
It was Agent Christopher's turn to take a breath. "You know sometimes military people can be so damn infuriating," she said. "'Yes, ma'am, no ma'am,' sometimes I wish you'd just tell me what you're actually thinking, Wyatt."
Wyatt paused again. "Sorry, ma'am."
Lucy actually heard Agent Christopher sigh.
"So why did you really not take that shot?"
"There was a civilian..." Wyatt began to repeat.
"Lucy, get the hell in here!" Agent Christopher suddenly interrupted him, and Lucy startled so much she banged her forehead against the door.
Rubbing at her temple, she gingerly pushed open the door and stuck her head ever so slightly into the room. "I'm sorry," she began. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I just—"
"Yes you did," Agent Christopher corrected her.
Lucy blinked. "Well—"
"Why didn't Wyatt take the shot?"
Wyatt had been standing completely still, hands behind his back, eyes straight forward, but for a brief second he glanced sideways at Lucy as she moved to stand next to him.
"I'm not sure it's my place to—"
"Lucy."
"The civilian was Wyatt's dad," Lucy blurted, and Wyatt closed his eyes briefly on an exhalation. "If he'd shot at Flynn, he would have shot his dad, and if anything happened to his dad, then—"
"Wyatt would have been erased from history," Agent Christopher finished for her. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Ma'am—" Wyatt began to protest, but the Agent silenced him with a wave of her hand.
"Why didn't you want to tell me?" she asked.
Wyatt blinked. "I don't—it was selfish. I should have...I could have..."
"It's not selfish to want to continue to exist, Wyatt."
"If he wasn't here, if he'd never been born," Lucy put in, "myself and Rufus would probably have been killed ten times over by now. Not to mention all the people he saved before he came here. He's not expendable and he's not replaceable, and he's certainly not not important. If that—well, you know what I mean."
Agent Christopher smiled just a little. "I didn't say he was any of those things, Lucy," she pointed out, before turning back to Wyatt. "But you should have told me."
Wyatt shrugged. "I was...I was embarrassed. By him. By not having the guts to kill him."
"Killing your own father would have been bad enough without knowing you'd be erasing yourself from history at the same time," Agent Christopher said, her voice softening.
Wyatt suddenly found the carpet extremely interesting. "Yes ma'am."
"And it's not like I didn't already know."
Wyatt looked up at her sharply. "Ma'am?"
"You think I hire people without knowing every single thing there is to know about them?"
Wyatt blinked at her.
"I knew where your parents were living in 1979, son. And I knew there was a chance you might bump into them if I sent you there."
"Then why did you...?"
"There had to be a reason Flynn went to that exact place at that exact time. And I don't believe in coincidence."
"But why would you still send me on a mission where you knew I could be compromised?"
Agent Christopher smiled softly at him. "Because you're not expendable, or replaceable and you're certainly not not important," she said. "Wyatt, we don't get to choose our family. I knew all about Frankie Logan when I hired you."
Wyatt didn't respond to that immediately. "And yet you still hired me?"
"I don't believe being an asshole is genetic," she said.
Wyatt actually smiled a little at that. "Thank you, ma'am." He paused for a second, then added, "What happened to him and my mom? I kinda don't know if anything changed."
The agent picked up a file from the table in front of her.
"Well, your dad did some time for the diner hold-up," she said, scanning through the attached pages. "I'm guessing that's different?"
Wyatt glanced at Lucy before nodding.
"He only did six months, though. It seems your mother appeared as a character witness at his trial. Said he saved her life."
"He kind of did," Lucy put in.
"Your parents didn't marry until, oh, four years later." Agent Christopher glanced up at Wyatt, and he shrugged.
"When I came along," he confirmed. "My dad wasn't big into commitment. It was only when my grandpa threatened to castrate him that he did the right thing."
"Um," Agent Christopher continued to scan the file. "Your mom..." She paused for a second and looked up at him. "I'm sorry, Wyatt, but she still died of breast cancer in 1991."
Wyatt nodded. "Didn't really expect that to have changed, ma'am," he said, and Lucy might have imagined the slight catch in his voice but she was pretty sure she didn't.
"Your dad, well," the agent pushed her hair behind her ear. "A couple of arrests before your mom passed, and then quite a few after. His buddy Raymond Harris did five years for the diner stick up. Seems like he got out around the time you were born and eventually tempted your dad back into bad habits. They did a few minor stretches together, then in '94 they robbed a convenience store. Harris shot and killed the clerk and went away for life, and your dad got twenty years."
Lucy sucked in a breath. "You never said someone died," she commented. "Or that your dad went away for so long—"
"He didn't," Agent Christopher said shortly. "He was killed in a disturbance in his cell block in '98."
Wyatt nodded minutely. "Pretty much all stayed the same then," he said.
"I'm sorry, son," Agent Christopher said. "I wish things had worked out better this time around."
Wyatt shrugged. "I was better off after he went to prison," he said. "I think...I think my mom made him a better person, you know? He was—different—while she was alive. Even held down a couple of jobs. But after... After she died, I guess he reverted to type. I dunno. Maybe some things are just meant to be." He didn't look at Lucy, but she figured that was meant for her.
"Well," Agent Christopher said, "that may be true, but I'm sorry I couldn't give you the heads up before I sent you back there."
Wyatt shrugged again. "All part of the job, ma'am."
"It's a sucky part of the job," Lucy commented as she and Wyatt headed back toward the locker room. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."
Wyatt was as unreadable as ever. "It was nice to see my mom again," he commented. "I don't really…" He stopped abruptly, as if he suddenly realized he was speaking out loud.
Lucy slowed him with a hand on his arm. "You don't really what?" she prodded.
Wyatt took a breath, examining his shoes before slowly looking up at Lucy. "I don't really remember her that much," he said quietly, and Lucy's fingers slid down his forearm until they curled about his hand.
"I liked her," she told him.
"Not as much as Rufus did," Wyatt returned with a subdued smile.
"Oh God, he'll be going on about that forever!" Lucy agreed.
"He thinks my mom was Tinkerbell," Wyatt pointed out flatly.
"There are worse things she could have been," Lucy said. "Still. She seemed like a nice person. Had a good heart." She squeezed his fingers gently. "She reminded me a lot of you. Or you remind me of her. You know what I mean." She smiled softly at him. "You're a lot more like her than your dad."
"God, I hope so," Wyatt murmured.
Lucy squeezed his hand again. "I'm glad you didn't…unmake yourself," she said softly, blinking up at him with suspiciously watery eyes.
Too much damn 1970s mascara again, she told herself.
Yeah, that was it.
Mascara.
He didn't meet her gaze, his eyes downcast, fixed on her fingers entwined in his.
"Don't ever think you're not important," she added, finally touching his face with a gentle hand and raising his eyes back up to meet her own. "Because you are. To me. Rufus. Agent Christopher. Every person you ever saved, every life you ever touched. I'm glad I know you, Wyatt. And I don't want that to be undone. Not ever."
Wyatt's eyes seemed a little misty right then too, and Lucy was pretty sure he couldn't blame it on 1970s mascara.
"Okay?" Lucy prodded.
"Yeah," Wyatt agreed at length. "Okay."
Lucy smiled brightly at him. "You know what we need to do right now?" she asked.
Wyatt squinted at her. "Do I want to ask?"
"Ice cream," Lucy said. "We need ice cream."
"We're not six years old, Lucy."
"You're never too old for ice cream," she told him. "Now come on. We should grab Rufus and Jiya on the way."
"The way to where?"
"I know this fantastic little diner just down the street…"
"Oh God, kill me now…"
The End