Chapter Summary: Jessica and Wyatt try to figure out their marriage, Wyatt finds out more about Lucy's journal and has a talk with Rufus.

"Wyatt?" Jessica said as he sat down beside her on the couch. They were watching This is Us which was apparently Jessica's favorite show. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," he replied.

"Are you ok?" she sounded sad again. Wyatt hated that sound. It reminded him of all the bad things he had done.

"Yeah, just tired." That was true. Emma had led them on a merry chase through the streets of Paris in 1870 as she sought to dissolve the fledgling Third Republic. Fortunately, they had taken out her sleeper agent before they bombed the meeting place and instituted chaos. It had been a particularly difficult mission. That wasn't the reason he felt undescribably like crying.

Jiya and Rufus had also been watching but disappeared awhile ago supposedly to sleep. But judging from the sly glances they cast at each other more than sleep was going on. Wyatt was glad his friends had each other. If anyone deserved happiness those two did. Sometimes it brought back memories of Lucy. Of that night in 1941 and then he'd go down a rabbit hole of memory and fantasy that left him feeling absolutely gutted with guilt and frustration.

Sometimes he felt like Jessica was a stranger. He was a different person around her. Maybe because he hadn't really known her. They had gotten married so young and Wyatt back then had just shoved all the anger from childhood down and pretended everything was fine. Then he had been gone most of the time. The few times he was with Jessica they had spent so much time arguing. He had forgotten that when she was "dead". He didn't really "know" Jessica because he had spent so much time thinking that he knew her. He had made her into some sort of angel when the real woman was just too complicated to be called anything but a regular person.

Things with Jessica weren't good. He was mourning a woman that he had never met in this timeline. It was impossible to be fully present with Jessica when he was trying not to think of Lucy Preston and Hollywoodland and her smile when she got excited. His Lucy. No, he couldn't think like that. She wasn't his. He was married. He ought to be glad that this had happened. Lucy didn't feel upset about any of this. She didn't even know him. She had her sister and her life and was happy. They didn't fight. That would imply they actually cared about each other's opinions. Instead, they were polite and he kept apologizing for the bunker and Jessica kept saying it was fine. It was just like visiting your great aunt and telling her that a room occasionally infested with bats was fine. Somehow Jessica was a stranger in her once familiar body.

"I don't understand. You're so distant. It's like when I talk you're a million miles away." Jessica shook her head and glared at him.

"What?" he asked. They actually hadn't been fighting. But he had been thinking of Lucy and how she would have dealt with the last mission. Cynthia was fine. She knew her stuff and she was tough and street savvy. But she wasn't Lucy. She never would be. She was an interloper on the team and everyone felt it. Rufus cracked jokes with her but he didn't have the same brotherly warmth that he had with Lucy. Flynn seemed to get along the best with her but he hadn't known Lucy as well as he had. Wyatt resented Cynthia. Every moment he saw her sitting across from him he felt like she had stolen Lucy away. It wasn't fair to Cynthia. But he didn't care.

"I just… this whole mission thing." Wyatt shrugged but Jessica frowned.

"If I didn't know you were trapped in an underground bunker I would think there was another woman. But the only other person besides Jiya, who isn't the type, is Cynthia and somehow I don't think so."

"Cynthia?" he laughed. "How can you think about this?"

"Because you aren't here. Your body is here but your mind is a million miles away."

"I promise I'll do better. I promise I'll be home more." That was kind of hard to promise considering they were basing everything off of Emma's schedule.

Jessica shook her head. "I can't do this. We…We just aren't working."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't really want this any more than I do. You just aren't here. I mean at least we'll part on good terms. I'm not mad anymore. I just know you have demons to fight and I can't help you."

Wyatt glanced at Jessica and saw she looked sad and pensive. All the fight had drained out of her. Somehow it was more depressing to think that at the end of it all their once good marriage had died with a whimper. There wasn't much to salvage was there? Just memories. And memories weren't the best foundation when the present was a mess. He could fight for Jessica. Fight for her to stay. But Jessica wasn't happy. He wasn't happy. Sometimes you had to make the decision to give up what wasn't working in order to make things better. At least Jessica was alive and she had a chance at happiness. She had a chance to move on with her life without being trapped in an underground bunker.

"Ok, I'll sign the papers." He said. Jessica looked surprised. She had expected a fight. But what was there to fight for? Some voice in his head reminded him that he would have fought harder for Lucy Preston. But it didn't matter, did it? Because he hadn't fought for Lucy either.

He had expected to feel more when he finally signed those papers and Jessica left the bunker. He just felt numb. Even though he knew his marriage with Jessica hadn't been as perfect as he had thought somehow he had believed he could make it work. But too many years, and one Lucy Preston later, they had changed too much. He thought of her constantly, trying to fight the urge to go find her. What could he say? What would a high-level professor at a great university want to do with a boy from Texas who now spent most of his time traveling through time-fighting a terrorist organization? Lucy had the life she had always wanted. A not creepy but dead mother, her sister Amy and a good job.

"So when are you going to go after her?" Wyatt glanced up as he swirled the whiskey in the bottle he had been drinking. He wasn't drunk, not yet but he was in a state where seeing Garcia Flynn was not exactly a welcome surprise. Not that it was ever welcome. Cynthia was ok but he and Rufus still had real trouble trusting Flynn.

"What? Who?" he asked.

"Lucy Preston. She's destined to be on the team. The sooner we get her on the team…"

"The sooner she'll write her damn journal that she'll give to you. But I'm pretty sure that timeline is already shot to hell. She's not going to write in the journal." Wyatt replied. "Besides why on earth would she agree to join the team?"

"They managed to convince her the first time," Flynn said.

"Well, if you're so worried about it go yourself," Wyatt replied. The truth was that if Flynn dared to do it he'd probably punch him/.

"I would. But somehow I don't think she'll believe me. I have the tendency she'll be calling security and I'll end up arrested again. Besides Christopher won't let me out of this damn bunker." Flynn shrugged and then continued, "She has to be on the team. If she doesn't then all of this will fall apart."

"I don't understand. We've made it so far. Lucy doesn't need to get dragged in again. She gets to keep Amy."

"Because she's the one who set this whole thing off. It was two weeks after my family died three years ago. I was drinking in a bar in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Then she walked in. I think she was probably about five or ten years into the future and she looked...disheveled. Like everything in life had collapsed. She gave me the journal. I read it at first because I was curious and drunk. I thought it was the ranting of a crazy woman. Then things she said started coming true. Mason built a time machine. World events she talks about came true. Lucy started this whole thing."

"That's not possible. You can't travel back on your timeline." Wyatt said.

" I'm not sure how she did. But she did. Perhaps Rufus and Jiya found a way to do it. What I'm saying is she has to come here. She needs to join the team. So someday she can write the journal and come back and give it to me."

If anyone in the world had a story in which a random older woman in a bar gave a journal to a guy who just lost his family and it somehow inspired a career as a time bandit it would be Flynn. The story sounded so outrageous it was probably true. Wyatt longed to see Lucy, just to see her even though she wouldn't know him. But he didn't know how to go about it. She wouldn't know him. Their strange and complicated history didn't exist.

Time went on. More missions. Denise and Mason kept watching as they went out again and again. It was exhausting and depressing. He and Rufus talked about Lucy. They reminisced about memories only they knew. When it was all said and done Lucy Preston had been his best friend (apart from Rufus who was also his best friend). They talked about how she was so clumsy and how her face lit up when she met her favorite historical figures. They talked about how damn brave she was for facing the idea of a suicide mission on the Mothership. They talked about all the missions that the current timeline had dissolved.

"So, how are things with Jiya?" Wyatt asked. Things had been a little tense a few months back right after Jessica left the bunker. Apparently, Jiya was seeing visions of Rufus's death. Wyatt didn't take much stock in them. But Rufus did. Because he had seen the man in Salem die after Jiya had said it would happen.

"Better. I mean it isn't her fault. And I guess, well, if I die then at least I want to go out kicking and screaming. Cowboys are better than cancer or something." Rufus tried to smile but Wyatt could see he wasn't as casual as he appeared.

"You aren't gonna die. You hear me? Any cowboy missions we are strictly leaving you behind. Ok?" Wyatt said.

"Well, ok. But her visions always come true. Don't know if I can outrun them." Rufus sighed. "You know this is so weird. Cause if my mom talked about visions I'd just roll my eyes. But now I'm like, maybe this whole weird seeing the future thing is real."

"I used to believe in fate. But now I don't. It all comes down to choices and pure luck." Wyatt thought about how quickly Lucy had been erased from the team.

The beeping of the alarm sounded in the Bunker. Emma had jumped.

"Well, back in business," Rufus said with a smile. "I really hope there are no cowboys."

Author's Note: Wow! That finale was pretty crazy. I couldn't post anything because I was frankly reeling. I must admit I'm not very happy with the way the writers were portraying Wyatt. I thought in Ep. 9 they went way too far in portraying him as obsessed with Jessica and trying to defend her. It made his confession of love to Lucy seem less real. I do believe it is but it felt a little fake even to me. And don't get me started on the next love triangle they are totally starting. I hate love triangles. There will be no love triangles in this story (except for the Jessica/Wyatt/Lucy internal stuff).

I now have totally revised my ideas for the future of this story based off of Future!Lyatt. I'm honestly not sure if I can make this Lucy into that Lucy. Because she didn't go through all that horrible stuff. But she also has her own past. So who knows? But if I can sneak that Lucy in I'm totally going to. I have a few ideas.

I got rid of the Jessica/Wyatt stuff as soon as possible. I'll be honest that I really dislike canon Jessica now. I really liked her at first. So it's hard to write her sympathetically when I see her stealing Jiya. And Flynn and Wyatt have a somewhat normal conversation. Flynn tells Wyatt about the journal because Lucy isn't here. I'm assuming his story about the bar in Brazil was the truth. I think it was. It sounds like such a dramatic story that it had to have happened to Flynn. I love the Rufus and Wyatt conversation because they both miss Lucy and her friendship so much. Also, Rufus gets a chance to talk about his fears over Jiya's visions.