A/N: Hey friends! So I'm back with another TFP entry. This one is for Prompt #4: Season 2 finale post-ep (can pick up at any point in the time after the finale as long as something from the episode is resolved). I chose to resolve Lyatt. Because I'm me and DUH.

So here is a little something to hopefully soothe some stress. (The network-that-shall-not-be-named will not earn a mention here. I am holding a grudge. Pretending they don't exist. Not here. Not in my therapy space. NOPE.)

Also forgive any typos. I barely proof read this because I'm exhausted.

Happy reading!

I'm Here (To Wipe Your Eyes)

By angellwings

Tonight before you fall asleep

I run my thumb across your cheek (across your cheek)

Cry 'cause I'm here to wipe your eyes

I know I made you feel this way

You gotta breathe, we'll be okay (be okay)

Cry 'cause I'm here to wipe your eyes

- "Wipe Your Eyes", Maroon 5

They saved Rufus.

That is her first thought as she wakes. White light is streaming through the small foggy bunker windows indicating it's early morning. She slept on the couch to give Jiya and Rufus a bit of privacy. Jiya and Rufus. Including him in the present tense again should be enough to put a smile on her face first thing that morning.

But it isn't.

She rubs the sleep from her eyes and turns her head toward the chair next to the couch.

Where she finds Wyatt Logan, and her brown eyes meet his deep blue ones.

As much a shock to her system now as they ever were, she gasps and sits up. She's surprised to find anyone up this early, let alone Wyatt.

"Sorry," he mutters, in a voice that is thick and hoarse. Not with sleep but something else entirely.

"No, no it's fine," she says as she clears her throat nervously. It's not the first time she's woken up to his presence.

Except - oh god - except it's not the same as last time. It will likely never be the same again. His eyes water before hers and she has no doubt that the same thought occurred to him at the exact same moment. His eyes fill with remorse, longing, grief. All feelings of desolation. It's what she doesn't find there that forces her tears to spill out of her eyes down her cheeks.

Because what she doesn't see is hope.

No matter what happens or how they move forward, they still lost. They have Rufus back but they're still grieving.

They're grieving each other.

Her tears come faster and her face crumples. She tries to look away before he can see but—

"Lucy…"

She can't fool him. Not unless he's willfully allowing her to like he has been for the last several weeks. Clearly, he's not letting either of them pretend any longer. He reaches for her but she holds up a hand to stop him. More tears fall when he flinches at her action. It's not that she wouldn't accept his touch, she would. She absolutely would if she didn't feel completely foolish and unjustified in her tears.

She's grieving him and he's right there. He's within reach and she's crying like…

She shakes her head and throws the blanket off her legs. "Forget it," she says. "It's fine. I'm just...I'm an idiot."

"Not possible," Wyatt replies quickly. Like a reflex. Like he physically cannot allow her to talk badly about herself.

Her heart lurches and fresh tears form. God, she misses him. She misses him more than any thoughts or words can express. There is a physical ache, a gaping hole, in her chest where her feelings for him used to be, but for her own survival she ripped them out and hid them somewhere else. Away from her chest, her center, because he can't be the thing that centers her anymore.

Can he?

She stands and pads a rushed trail across the bunker, intending to lock herself in the bathroom for a few minutes, but she hears his steps behind her and then his voice stops her.

"It's okay to be upset about us, Lucy. I am."

She's frozen in place as his words send a chill down her spine. She worries her bottom lip and turns slowly to face him. Her chin quivers under the strain of the tears she can't hold back and her hands cover her face for a moment before she wipes desperately at her cheeks.

Wyatt must take her turning to face him for what it is, a sign to continue - to keep talking. She needs him to keep talking.

"Even before our one night we had something truly special," he admits. "And I fucked it up. Now we have to build something else. Something brand new. It won't be the same. Whether we like it or not the way we were before is…."

"Gone," Lucy says in a voice strangled with tears. "It's gone. The only thing we know for sure is that in our not so distant future we'll be kicking ass and saving the world, if nothing else."

He nods and she can see the glassy shine and red rims around his blue eyes. Her heart aches for him and because of him. How is that possible?

"If nothing else," he repeats. He swallows thickly and shakes his head. "If nothing else-" his sentence stops short and he hangs his head. He takes one step closer to her, hesitantly, like she might turn him away, and then his entire body deflates. As if for a fleeting moment he considered running to her. When he speaks again his voice is watery and rough. The gaping hole in her chest grows at the sound of it. "God, Lucy, how did I let us end up here? How did I let us go from—from Hollywoodland to this. To these people who say things to each other like If nothing else? I want so much more than to just kick ass and save the world with you. The idea of us being nothing beyond that-"

The words die in his throat. She knows he can't bear to finish speaking the thought out loud. She knows because she can't bear to hear it.

"I know," she says. Though the words sound more like a sob than actual words. Her voice is full of anguish, practically dripping with it in the same way her tears are dripping off of her chin.

She hates this. She hates that they're so broken, so separated. She wants to hold him. She wants to laugh with him. To cry with him. To kiss him. God, she just wants him and she's tired of feeling like that's not allowed. Like he's not hers to have.

She folds her arms across her chest to keep herself from reaching for him and allows her tearful eyes to meet his bloodshot ones.

"I miss you," she chokes out. Her voice is barely there, burdened with sorrow so deep she doesn't think it will ever fade, but she manages it. She tells him how she feels about him. It's painful and it also feels strangely satisfying. "I miss you so much, Wyatt. Not just - not just who we were in Hollywood but before that. I miss being able to talk to you, lean on you, tru-" she bites down on her lip hard to keep from saying the next words. So hard she draws blood. Admitting she doesn't trust him feels like a blow she can't deliver. Even if it's true.

"Trust me?" He asks. "You miss being able to trust me?" He asks again like he's already accepted it. It doesn't seem as if it's news to him. She can hear the heartbreak in his voice as he continues. "I can't say I blame you. I all but promised to be there for you and then…" he lets out a soggy self deprecating chuckle. "And then I ran out on you so fast I broke the sound barrier. Honestly, it's amazing that you can stand to look at me or be around me at all. I don't even want to be around me."

"Wyatt-"

"But goddamnit, Lucy, I miss you so much I ache."

She gasps and tastes her own tears as it happens. She was not expecting that. He told her he loved her, yes, but you can love someone and not want them with every fiber of your being. You can love someone without being in love with them. Or so she's been told. She's found herself incapable of either of those things. She's so deep in love with Wyatt Logan that even her lack of trust doesn't stop her from wanting him.

But she wasn't so positive that he felt the same. Until now.

"You-you do?" She stutters with a gulp.

"God, yes," he says as he takes another tentative step forward. "This whole time, Lucy, I know it probably didn't look that way to you but, Jesus, you were always on my mind. Always. Even when I tried to keep you out you found your way back in. There were so many nights that I just wanted to-" he pauses and swallows thickly as if he's remembering pain he tried to forget. "To hold you. Talk to you. Breathe the same air. Just anything as long as it was me and you. But I couldn't do that to you and the few times I let myself try it...I walked away feeling like an asshole. Holding onto you was hurting you so I tried to let you go. I swear I did, but you're so much a part of me now that cutting you out hurt too much. I couldn't manage it no matter how hard I tried. I still can't. I don't want to, even if that means I spend the rest of my life missing you. I'd rather be near you and miss you than try to forget you completely. I love you and if that means all I get is kicking ass and saving the world then I'll take it. Happily and gratefully."

Happily and gratefully. He'll take whatever scraps she can manage to give him with no complaint...just to be near her? She knows he's hurting. She knows she hurt him too. While he made the bigger mistakes, she made a few of her own. She refused to listen to him when he tried to tell her about his doubts. She shut him down every time. He would swallow his feelings, again. He would put himself through that, again. This time for her and her comfort.

But that wouldn't make her comfortable. If what he says is true, and she has decided in this moment to trust it is, then he would stand by and ache for her (his words) as he had for the last several weeks. Seeing Wyatt in any further pain was the last thing she wanted. She wanted all of this to be over. The pain, the longing, the regret. They were torturing themselves and it suddenly felt unnecessary. Were they making this harder than it needed to be?

"You don't deserve that, Wyatt," Lucy tells him with shaky exhale.

"Deserve what? To ever be near you again? Yeah, I know," he says with a scoff.

"Stop that," she says as she shakes her head and looks away from him. "You know that's not what I mean. I would never...I would never be able to do any of this without you. I wouldn't even be standing here without you. We've been through too much together for me to just let that go. To let you go. You made a few mistakes, big ones yes, but who hasn't? I'm not completely blameless in the breakdown between us either. And I've also made at least one very big mistake that compromised our safety. So has Rufus. But we got through that and we came out of it stronger, didn't we?"

This is all occuring to her as she's speaking. Her brow is crinkled in thought as she studies her socked feet on the concrete floor. She lied to him about Flynn and the Journal. Rufus secretly recorded their conversations for Rittenhouse. He forgave them for that. What did Wyatt do exactly?

He dared to believe that his no longer dead wife was actually the person he lost so tragically. He hoped that he had a chance to correct his mistakes and absolve his guilt. He was a loyal man and a good man and his wife came back from the dead. Yes, he made some impulsive decisions while trying to take advantage of that second chance and in the process he pushed her away and trampled all over her heart. But he didn't mean to. She genuinely believed that.

He was a bull in a room full of crystal.

No matter which way he moved something - someone - ended up broken, leaving him surrounded by jagged shards and no way out that wouldn't shred him as wholley as the crystal itself.

New tears blurred her vision. They were in this mess because of his goodness. It was complicated and difficult. He loved Lucy but he was married to Jessica. Given what she learned this morning she now knew, he missed her but he felt obligated to give his marriage another chance. Like he had no choice. And she hadn't exactly told him otherwise, had she? She never once asked him what he wanted and let him talk. She told him what he wanted or what she expected him to want. What else was he supposed to do?

He gave up everything he wanted for Jessica and it was all for nothing.

These tears aren't for her own heart. They aren't mourning the gaping hole in her chest. No, these tears are for him. He's lost so much. Just as much as her. Somehow she thinks it might be worse for him because he had started to accept his losses and then Rittenhouse uphended his entire world. He was worse off now then when they'd first met.

That thought threatens to widen the hole in her chest until it swallows her up.

He was so broken then. She imagines his face in that jail cell in Jersey, telling her that Jessica died. She felt for him then but that pain must be nothing to compared to where he is now.

"Wyatt," she says in a voice that is breathless and laden with tears.

Her eyes stay glued to her feet, but she hears him shuffle closer. She sees the toes of his boots pointed at the toes of her socks. She knows he's close enough to touch.

"Ma'am?" He asks. His voice sounds just as emotional as hers. It does nothing to stop her tears.

"You didn't deserve any of what's happened to you in the last few weeks," she tells him. "Too much has been taken from you and thinking about all of it...hurts. I hurt for you. I am so sorry."

She hears a sniffle from him and watches the hands he holds stiffly at his sides clench and then unclench.

"What are you apologizing for, Lucy?" He asks. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"No, but my mother did. She did this. To you. To us. To Jessica. And, let's be honest, she targeted you because of me. Because you're important to me. So...no I didn't do anything wrong but it is - it is my fault." Her voice breaks over the last sentence and as soon as it ends one of his gentle calloused is under her chin.

He's nudging her face upward until she's looking into his eyes and at the traces of tears on his cheeks that must match her own. He stares at her for a long silent moment, searching her face and shaking his head. Finally, he removes his hand from her chin to brush a stray hair back behind her ear and speaks.

"Don't," Wyatt states in a low pleading voice as he brings his hand to rest back at his side. She wishes he was still touching her.

She missed his touch, even the little inconsequential touches. It was the small intimate gestures that meant the most to her. She wants them back. She wants him back. The urgency of that thought feels like a blow to her heart as he goes on.

"Don't do that to yourself. You are not your mother. You are not Rittenhouse. Lucy, all you've done is be the amazing, brilliant, strong woman that you are. None of what's happened is your fault. Your mother, Jessica...they made their choices. You had no say in those choices. If you didn't have a vote then don't get to take on their guilt. Don't take on my guilt, either. You called me a reckless hothead once and I have more than earned that label in the worst way I could imagine. Those choices, they were mine. I made them. Now I have to deal with consequences. I have to deal with losing you."

Before she can talk herself out of it, she grabs his hand that had brushed the hair out of her face a moment ago and places it on her cheek. His palm cups her face as she shakes her head against his hand. "But you haven't, Wyatt. I'm still here. You haven't lost me."

She knows what she's saying. She didn't stumble across the words accidentally. She understands that she's repeating his broken promise back to him. His mouth drops open and he stares at her in disbelief. His hand falls from her cheek to the curve of her neck and she feels his thumb gently caressing a trail across her throat. It grazes the edge of her jaw and she immediately feels the crinkle in her brow relax at his touch.

"But how can you still be here?" He asks her as his voice breaks with unshed tears. "You said yourself that you don't trust me anymore. That should mean that you're going to - I deserve to lose you, Lucy." He brings his other hand up to push her hair back off of her shoulder. "I deserve to never be this close to you - to touch you like this - ever again. Why are you letting me?"

"Because I want to trust you. Because I need you," she says as she makes the huge decision to let her walls drop. To lay it all out for him. They've kept secrets long enough. They've lived in half truths and self sacrificing heroics for far too long. "I'm tired of telling myself that I can't have this. Us. I'm tired of holding myself back from what I want. I'm tired of missing you and tired of pushing you away when I really want to pull you closer. And mostly because I…" her sentence trails off but she doesn't plan to let it end there.

She frames his face with her hands on his cheeks to keep his eyes focused on her. She will not let him look away. This will not be a repeat of that moment in the hallway where their eyes aren't connected and he can't see warring emotions. No, he's going to see it all. He deserves to know. After all, if she can love him through the last few weeks then she can love him through anything.

"Mostly because I love you."

"You can't," Wyatt replies.

His face contorts in confusion and pain. He genuinely did not expect to ever hear those words from her. Her heart that's missing from her chest and likely shattered somehow breaks even further at that realization.

"You can't. I don't dese-"

She cuts off his sentence by pulling his forehead to hers. "Listen to me, Wyatt Logan, making mistakes, mistakes that you clearly regret, does not mean you deserve love any less. You do deserve this," she assures him. "You're a good man with a good heart who lost your way on a path that was designed to screw with you. Yes, you made some bad calls and no we can't go back to how we used to be. But that doesn't mean it ends. That doesn't mean it's over. You said it earlier, remember? Now we have to build something new. Something stronger that we build together. That's what I want. I want to do that with you. But I'm not making the mistake I made last time. I can't tell you how to feel or what I expect you to want. You have to decide. What do you want, Wyatt?"

"You. I want you."

He answers faster than she ever expected him to and the pure need in his voice sends goosebumps across her arms. She's crying again, but when has she ever stopped really? Her arms wrap around him and she buries her face in his neck. He gave her the answer she hoped beyond all hope for. The answer she wanted. He sounded so assured that she can't bring herself to mistrust his words. There are still issues to work through on that front but right now, in this moment, she just wants to hold him.

"I love you, Lucy. I never want to pretend I don't ever again. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I just...god I just want to love you. That's all I want," he whispers as his arms tighten around her and one hand lands on the back of her neck in a desperate grip.

They stand there in the hallway for an indeterminate amount of minutes, just holding each other and crying. In the middle of her tears she is almost certain she's felt him press kisses to her temple and the shell of her ear. As she pulls back to look at him and his hands automatically find her face, she realizes that what Wyatt wants is what she wants.

She just wants to love him.

His thumbs trace over her tear tracks and wipe the moisture from her cheeks. Something about his expression strikes her as different. He looks exactly as handsome as he always does but there's something in his eyes that she hasn't seen in quite some time. Once she's able to name it, it's that something that has her jumping toward him and placing a firm kiss on his lips. One he returns like a drowning man finally breaking the surface of the ocean - like he's able to truly breathe for the first time in weeks. That something she saw in his eyes is reflected in his kiss. In the taste of his tongue against hers, the brush of his stubble against her chin, and every little nudge and nip of his lips against her own.

That something is hope.