a/n: I wish I could have gotten this done sooner, but here it is! Chapter 2! And just wowww I cannot believe the support of this fandom. You guys are incredible. I've never had this big of a response to just one chapter of anything else I've posted on here. Thank you so much for the kind reviews, faves, and follows. I hope this one lives up to the hype! It picks up pretty directly from the end of the last chapter. Enjoy!


His eyes have been trained on the same corner of the ceiling for only God knows how long, staring without seeing, awake without a thought in his head. It wasn't as if he didn't have some rather urgent issues to attend to; quite the opposite, really. But he wasn't going anywhere until Homeland Security forcibly removed him from this spot, so there was really no point in stewing over the possibilities of what came next. He chose to be here, in this moment, for however long it lasted.

And it had already lasted much longer than he'd anticipated. Denise and her team were still milling around, making phone calls and rummaging through the house in search of something that would tip them off as to what Rittenhouse was planning to do, so caught up in their own activity that he could almost assume they had forgotten that he and Lucy even existed. Not that he minded at all. Wyatt had certainly killed time in much worse ways, and one of the more advantageous benefits to his years of military service was that he had the fortitude to sit still indefinitely, to compartmentalize the chaos and focus on what mattered most. His sole objective was ensuring Lucy's safety, a task that had once again become just as much about the mental aspect as it was the physical. It was one thing when she was dealing with the pressures of being out on the field, having a meltdown at the thought of maintaining her cover in Nazi Germany or distracted by how much she missed her sister while chasing down Jesse James across the perilous American frontier; to know that the real battlefield had been right beneath her own nose all along, here in the year 2017...? That was going to be one hell of a hump to get over.

His gaze strayed to the doorway just as Agent Christopher reappeared, acknowledging her presence with an impassive look before she had the chance to clear her throat by way of announcing her entrance. She silently regarded the the two of them for several drawn out seconds, and if Wyatt had been one to easily feel plagued by self-consciousness, this would have been an awkward moment. Lucy was limper than a rag doll in his arms and had been that way for quite a while. Her face was still resting in the crook of his shoulder, the fragrance of shampoo or hair product - like he knew the difference - lingered all around him, surrounding him with the type of soothing smell that made him feel some elusive emotion that he hadn't experienced in years. The small weight of her body was languidly pressing into his side and his head was tilted across the top of hers, a solid reminder that she was just where she needed to be, no longer missing or at risk. He wasn't sure when exactly she had drifted off to sleep since he couldn't see her face at this angle, but the steady cadence of her soft breath against his neck had been an easy tell - she'd been out like a light for at least half an hour.

To put it simply, this wasn't exactly normal behavior for coworkers.

"I have good news and bad news," Denise spoke offhandedly, as if he hadn't been aware of the fact that she was sizing them up, clearly forming some type of opinion about him in her moments of quiet observation. "Homeland Security is swamped, and now that we're down a whole lot of agents after that hit on the Mothership's warehouse facility, headquarters can't supply us with enough reinforcements to man a round-the-clock safe house. It looks like you're Lucy's best option after all."

A twinge of relief spread through him, but he betrayed none of it in his expression. "Which part of that is good news? Sounded all bad from your perspective."

She didn't take the bait. "Is that your cavalier way of telling me that you've changed your mind and are no longer available to put her up for the night?"

Touché.

"Thank you for asking, ma'am, but that's a no," he answered with a halfhearted grin. "Are we free to go?"

Denise smirked back at him in spite of herself. "Yes, although I don't recall ever making an attempt to detain you, Wyatt. I've assigned Agent Hemphill here - " she gestured toward the woman who'd blown into the room just a moment ago - "to pack up some essentials for Lucy in an overnight bag. We'll have the rest of her things boxed up first thing in the morning and stored at Mason Industries until further notice."

He nodded slowly, sorting through the information and plotting his course of action as fast as he could. "Can someone give us a lift to Mason? I rode here with your team."

"One step ahead of you on that - two agents are ready to take you and Lucy directly to your apartment complex. We will send a car in the morning so that Lucy can come in for her debrief."

"Don't you think that might be a little premature, all things considered?" An edge had crept back into his voice, a small spark of resistance that was fully prepared to flair back to life so recently after their last disagreement.

She held a hand up, stopping him there. "I'm not arguing with you again tonight. Go home. I assume I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

"Fair enough," he said with a glance down at Lucy's motionless form. Wyatt hated to wake her - to bring her back to this nightmarish reality - but not even he had the capability of getting out from under her without causing a major disruption. He carefully shifted to the side, keeping his arms around her as he steered her back against the wall where he'd found her.

He was halfway to standing when Lucy let out a muffled whine.

"Shh, it's okay. We're just going - " he paused mid-sentence, realizing that he had been a breath away from calling his apartment 'home'...as in their home. Weird. "We're just going back to my place, okay?"

He sent a fleeting look back at Agent Christopher. "Car's ready?"

"Car's ready," she confirmed with a terse note in her voice. "Take good care of her, Wyatt."

A sarcastic reply was on the tip of the tongue, but he found he couldn't bring himself to treat that order lightly. Instead he responded with nothing more than a succinct nod. Crouching back down in front of Lucy, he put a hand to her face and murmured for her ears only, "C'mon, professor...time to go."

Her eyes fluttered open as he began to maneuver her away from the wall once more. "...Wyatt?"

"The one and only. Looks like you're stuck with me now." He pulled her up to her feet, keeping his hands firmly planted beneath her arms. She took one rocky step forward before her knees locked up and Wyatt tugged her forward on instinct, resulting in her small frame colliding softly into his. He wished he could tease her, chalk it up to a routine bout of trademark Lucy Preston clumsiness, but it was hard to find any amusement in it this time around. "Alright, up you go."

He swung an arm beneath her legs and had her bundled in his arms and against his chest in a flash, already moving to the hallway before Agent Christopher could somehow change her mind about this whole scenario.

Lucy's fingers sought the collar of his jacket, her feeble protest coming at him like a delayed reflex. "You - you don't have to carry me, Wyatt. I can walk."

He snorted, his mouth twisting into a grin of its own volition. "That's why they hired me, remember? To do the grunt work and heavy lifting."

"Did you just call me heavy?" she mumbled, her face nestling against his neck and causing an inadvertent spike in the rate of his pulse.

"Never," he returned with a good-humored smirk, "I own backpacks that weigh more than you."

She muttered another retort, something about Delta Force and maybe even calling him a jerk somewhere in there if he heard correctly, but most of it was lost, muffled by the material of his coat and the sleepiness that burdened her voice. He didn't bother with a response, knowing without looking that she was already well on her way to unconsciousness again. Wyatt made his way down the steps with care, doing his best to avoid jostling her unnecessarily. An agent stood ready at the front door, motioning him outside and leading the way to a dark-colored SUV idling at the curb. It wasn't as smooth of a transfer as he would have liked, but before he knew it, Wyatt was situated in the backseat with a more-or-less unruffled Lucy draped against him. It was with a touch of irony that he found her seat belt and clicked it into place before reaching for his own. By the time they were all settled, her overnight bag had been delivered to the trunk and then they were off, rolling through the midnight streets in a determined course toward his apartment.

Wyatt knew that he should be making some sort of mental to-do list, thinking through sleeping arrangements and the particulars of when he could slip away to restock his barren wasteland of a kitchen, but his brain refused to latch onto any of the practical details that required his attention. He just watched the blur of yellow streetlights as they sped across the city, keeping an arm securely around Lucy, tethering her to his side every time their driver took a wide turn or braked a little too hard. He felt restless and alert, and was somehow simultaneously exhausted at the thought of what lie ahead. It was better to not think, to just stay present and move on autopilot like he'd been trained to do.

One step at a time.

Thanks to the lateness of the hour, the drive passed fairly quickly and mercifully without incident. He passed his keys to the agent sitting shotgun, murmuring his permission to go in with her duffel bag and make a precautionary sweep of the place while Wyatt focused on the task of getting Lucy out of the vehicle. Her eyelids didn't so much as flicker as he gingerly removed the seat belt and effortlessly scooped her back up into his arms.

"Heavy, my ass," he muttered beneath his breath, the corner of his mouth lifting at her earlier accusation. It was strange, being near her all this time and barely hearing her utter more than a handful of words since he'd initially found her. It wasn't so long ago that he would have given anything to get her to shut up for two seconds while she'd been ranting at him for ignoring orders and tarnishing her attempts at historical preservation. And now here he was, holding onto their last meager conversation like a refugee clinging to a life preserver. Her silence left him feeling hollow, aimless.

He was up the sidewalk and hovering at the door in no time, breathing out a sigh of relief when the agent returned with good news - the apartment was clear of any threats.

And then before he knew it, he and Lucy were alone. Together.

Wyatt made a beeline for his bedroom, prioritizing Lucy's comfort above all else without a second thought. He slowly lowered her onto the mattress, then removed her shoes and blazer before stopping and taking stock of the situation. He knew she would be more relaxed if she changed into something else - pajamas that he assumed had been packed into that duffel bag on her behalf, or something of his if need be - but was that worth waking her? He wanted to disturb her as little as possible, remembering just how traumatizing it was to be abruptly pulled in and out of sleep when in this state, feeling more anxious and disoriented with each interruption.

He settled on letting her sleep, deciding to leave a pair of his sweatpants and an old t-shirt folded on the opposite corner of the bed in case she woke on her own and didn't see her bag on the other side of the nightstand. With that taken care of, there was nothing left for him to do but slide the bedding out from beneath her and rearrange the sheet and comforter over her body. Her head dipped sideways against his pillow once she was all tucked in, her dark hair fanning out behind her and her limbs curling up to one side with a contended little exhale. She seemed so small, practically disappearing in the sea of blankets and pillows that surrounded her, her face looking more at peace than he'd seen her in weeks.

And damn him if she didn't look like she belonged there. All he needed to do was crawl in next to her and the picture would be complete.

He turned away with a groan, feeling rattled at the direction of his own thoughts. Neither of them were ready for that, not tonight anyway.

So instead he grabbed a change of clothes for himself and left the room, cracking the door enough to give her some privacy, but not enough to muffle all noise in case she needed him at some point. He dragged himself through the motions of his nighttime routine, barely making it to the couch before fatigue descended upon him with a vicious force.


Wyatt had been a heavy sleeper at one point, the type who often dozed through his alarm and was consistently running behind schedule every morning. Those days were long behind him now. Basic training had knocked the lazy right out of him from very early on, but then add in the consequences of his tours in Syria and Afghanistan and some very bleak, sleepless nights after Jessica's death, and he had essentially learned to function for days at a time without ever finding real rest. It had been no issue for Wyatt to acclimate to those middle-of-the-night phone calls from Agent Christopher whenever Flynn decided to go joyriding through time at the most inconvenient of hours. He was a soldier. He was used to it.

So when he jolted awake in the total darkness of his living room a few hours later, he honestly wasn't sure if something had triggered this sudden alertness or if it had just been nothing more than a wasted reflex. A nightmare, a memory, a neighbor slamming their door, whatever...

But then he remembered why he was on the couch, and for once it was not because he'd drunken himself into a whiskey stupor and never made it back to the bedroom. It was because of Lucy.

His gun was in his hand in an instant, snatched up from where he'd purposely left it within reach on the coffee table. He had fully intended to follow protocol and systematically check every shadowy corner before looking in on her, but then her frightened voice rang out through the apartment and protocol went to hell after that. He burst through the door, gun drawn and half-expecting an escaped Garcia Flynn to be there with a knife at her throat, but in a split-second it was clear that she was alone in the room. No Flynn, no Rittenhouse, just Lucy.

But it was Lucy unlike he'd ever seen her. She was gasping for air, her arms fighting against the covers as if they were a malicious enemy. Most of what she said was unintelligible, but the words "no" and "help" spilled out of her repeatedly as Wyatt left his gun on the dresser and dropped onto the bed next to her, pinning her arms down in his hands.

"You're dreaming, Lucy," he called out, his voice even and firm. "It's just us here, no one is going to hurt you. You're safe."

Tears streamed down her face as she tried to pull away from him, weakly mumbling something he couldn't quite catch. He tried once more, this time lowering himself flat against the mattress and rolling her into the safety of his arms. "Do you hear me, Lucy? It's a dream, nothing bad is gonna happen to you, okay? I've got you."

Her body gradually went slack against his, relinquishing the tension of her nightmare little by little with each passing moment. He kept whispering reassurances against her ear, begging her to trust him, to believe that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. She burrowed closer, a hand coming to rest searchingly against his chest as if she wasn't sure if he was actually there or just another product of her imagination. He didn't dare move a muscle. He would stay for as long as she needed and then slip away once he was sure the dream had passed and all was well.

But it wasn't long before Wyatt was lulled into a place so warm, so sheltered, that sleep claimed him just as fully as it had already claimed her.


to be continued!