Neither Timeless nor the characters belong to me. They are only to be used as my imagination sees fit. :)

This takes place between the end of 2x03 and the end of 2x04. Spoilers for season 2 so don't read if you don't want to know!

And as always...Please review and let me know what you think!

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BROKEN - Chapter 1

"What the hell were you thinking, Wyatt?" Agent Christopher's voice rang off the bunker walls, making Wyatt wince slightly. Not so much from the force in her words but more so from the guilt doubling him over now that he knew his team had jumped without him.

His team.

Lucy.

They had jumped. Without him.

Because he wasn't here when they needed him.

The Mothership had blasted off back to Massachusetts in 1692, forcing the team to scramble on a mission to chase Rittenhouse through time again. And this time they didn't have their soldier, their protector, along to make sure they came home in one piece.

They only had Garcia Flynn, and who knew what his agenda actually was. His stomach roiled and his heart beat erratically when the multitude of horrible things Flynn could do to his team...to Lucy...began to manifest in his mind.

"Have you heard anything I have said to you, Master Sargeant?" Christopher's normally controlled voice had risen slightly in pitch, a telling sign that her patience was now at its limit.

"Yeah," Wyatt acknowledged wearily.

"Your team is off on a mission with only Flynn to watch their backs because you suddenly decided to go AWOL," she continued. "I didn't even want to let Flynn back out of prison, much less let him go back in time!"

"I get it!" Wyatt had finally heard enough and stood suddenly, violently knocking the chair over behind him. "I fucked up, okay? I realize that already, you don't have to lecture me."

"Well what the hell was so important that you jeopardized your team's life to break out of here?" she queried.

Wyatt hung his head, overwhelmed. The brief surge of adrenaline that had surged only moments before dissipated as quickly as it had spiked. Wearily he retrieved his chair from the floor and plopped himself back into it, body language screaming defeat.

"Jessica," he said softly.

Christopher sighed. "Wyatt, I know that you..."

"No," he cut her off, finally meeting her gaze. "She's alive."

The agent stared at him. The fondness she had developed for Wyatt had been tested through the last several months, and he had been almost unmanageable when Lucy had been missing. Once he had retrieved her, though, he had settled in to life in the bunker and had almost even seemed...happy.

The angsty young man that had been desperately searching for his long-lost wife had now been replaced by a man with a quiet purpose, as well as a new partner in Lucy to share that purpose. And now he was regressing back to this again? She shook her head trying to grasp what he was telling her.

"Wyatt, why do you think she is alive now after everything you did to try to bring her back?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what happened. All I know is that after we got back from 1941 I got a text. From Jessica. Telling me to meet her at a bar downtown. Apparently, she works there."

Christopher stared at him, now slightly intrigued. "You saw her?"

Wyatt nodded. "Yeah, I did." He paused for a long moment then met Christopher's stare.

"It's her," he acknowledged. "I don't know how or why...but it's her," he finished softly, eyes threatening to spill over with unshed tears.

"How in the..." her words were cut off by the familiar gush and pop of air as the lifeboat re-emerged in the bunker. They looked at each other for only the briefest of seconds, silently acknowledging the conversation was now officially on pause, before he quickly stood and moved to the landing area.

Wyatt swallowed thickly as the hatch stayed eerily closed. Typically they threw it open as soon as possible to help somewhat with the nausea, but now it remained shut long after his teammates should have shown themselves.

Something was wrong.

He grabbed the portable stairs and had just moved them to the front of the lifeboat when the hatch finally opened. His relief at seeing Lucy's face dissipated quickly as he noticed she was leaning heavily on Flynn, and that he was practically supporting her whole weight within his arms as he helped her through the hatch.

"Lucy," he breathed, taking in her too-pale face, the angry red marks around her neck, and her useless left arm. Her left arm that he now saw had obvious blood streaks down the sleeve of her dress and a makeshift bandage that had been hastily tied around it.

He directed his attention to Flynn. "What happened?" he growled.

"Wyatt," Lucy warned in a tired voice, but he missed the barely controlled anger in her eyes and turned his own fiery gaze back to the man now supporting her as they descended the steps.

"Flynn?" Wyatt demanded. "What the hell did you do?"

Flynn opened his mouth to speak but Lucy beat him to the punch.

"Do you want to know what happened, Wyatt? Do you want to know what he did?" she raged, still sagging heavily against Flynn but rising slightly to meet Wyatt's challenging tone.

"He saved my life, that's what he did. He jumped between death and I when he had absolutely no reason to. If you have a problem with that, or God forbid go on some guilty martyr parade because you weren't there so be it. But DON'T YOU DARE blame him for this because I would not even be standing here right now if it weren't for him."

Wyatt drew back slightly from the force of her attack, overcome by the magnitude of hurt and betrayal in her eyes directed at him. Merely a second later her battered body must have felt no need to prove she could remain standing, for her eyes suddenly slammed shut and her legs buckled beneath her. He instinctively reached for her but Flynn was already in position, easily sweeping her up into his arms. He contemplated Wyatt carefully over Lucy's head, then seemed to right himself and moved with Agent Christopher's direction towards their makeshift infirmary.

Rufus had also descended the steps from the lifeboat and took in the stunned demeanor of his friend.

"Wyatt, what the hell happened?" he demanded. "Lucy nearly died and we didn't even know where you were."

Wyatt's jaw moved, trying to find the words to explain but remaining mute. Rufus took him aside out of earshot of Jiya and Connor.

"I didn't think you would let her out of your sight again, especially after what happened between you two back in 1941. What is going on with you, man?" He looked at Wyatt's lost face again as a sudden fearful realization began to take shape in the pit of his stomach.

"Wyatt. Please...please tell me you are not simply being an ass and having second thoughts. Because if you do that to Lucy I will kick your ass."

Wyatt's head snapped towards Rufus at that, surprised to see the normally timid man standing threateningly tall with clenched fists.

"I'm serious, Wyatt. Do. Not. Hurt. Her. She has been through enough of that already to last a lifetime."

"You don't think I know that?" Wyatt rasped, finally able to form a coherent sentence and getting chest to chest with Rufus. His eyes were red and watery, tears threatening to brim over. "Do you think I want to hurt her? Or ever make her feel like she has been abandoned? I'm the one that wants to protect her from all of that. I'm the one that..." he couldn't finish his thought, instead shaking his head and moving a few steps away.

Rufus relaxed, slightly mollified now that 'normal Wyatt' had finally made an appearance. "Dude, then what is going on with you?" He looked at his friend, observing for the first time his red-eyes, disheveled shirt, and utterly lost expression, and the pit began to form again in his stomach.

Wyatt's blue eyes guardedly met his as he ran his hand anxiously through his hair. "It's Jessica."

"Ummm...what about her?" His stomach pit was growing bigger by the second.

"She's alive, Rufus. I've seen her."

Rufus was speechless for a long moment, unable at first to comprehend what Wyatt had just confessed, then baffled by what that meant for his future with Lucy as well as the team.

"Well...damn."