A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites - you all make it such a delight to write and share stories here! I apologize that I'm behind on my replies, but I've been sick for most of the past week. Hopefully this next chapter meets your expectations, and I promise to catch up on replies ASAP!
Wyatt turned his key in the lock, and let himself into his apartment. Toeing off his boots at the door, he hung his jacket and keys on the nearby hooks, and then meandered to the sofa, where he finally collapsed with a weary sigh. After a long day spent poring over the last few weeks' mission reports to ensure that every 'i' was dotted and every 't' was crossed, he was more than ready for an evening out with his teammates-turned-friends. Perhaps once he had a few drinks in his system, he'd even be able to muster the courage to finally invite Lucy over for a long-overdue talk. There was so much that she didn't know, so much that he needed her to know. He only hoped that it wasn't too late to tell her.
From practically the moment that he'd met Lucy – the very first second that he'd opened his eyes to find her seated across from him in the Mason Industries lobby – Wyatt had been at war with himself over his feelings for the petite historian. What he'd initially dismissed as mere physical attraction (a man would have to be blind to not see how beautiful Lucy was, and Wyatt definitely wasn't blind), had quickly proven to be far more complicated. And that was a problem – a very big problem – for Wyatt, because if there was one thing that he absolutely could not, would not do, it was fall in love. He'd already tried that once, and it hadn't ended well for anyone, least of all for his poor deceased wife. Unfortunately, by the time he'd realized what was happening, it was way too late. He'd already fallen in love with Lucy, and there wasn't a damn thing that he could do to change it.
Not that Wyatt wanted to change it, not anymore. Though he'd fought it for a long time, he'd finally accepted what Lucy had been telling him all along: some things in life were simply 'meant to be'. And him falling in love with Lucy? Well if that wasn't a clear case of 'meant to be', then Wyatt didn't know what was.
Unfortunately, now that he had accepted that, it was all Wyatt could do most days to keep himself from taking Lucy in his arms and kissing her senseless, right after falling to his knees and begging her to be his forever. Which presented a whole new problem, because he had absolutely no idea if Lucy was even in the same library let alone on the same page as him with regards to their relationship.
It wasn't that he was completely unaware of her feelings (he wasn't quite as dense as Rufus and Jiya seemed to think). He'd clearly seen a spark of something in Lucy's eyes when he'd kissed her back in 1934 – something soft and sweet, yet simultaneously electrifying – something far too real considering that the kiss had merely been a ploy to ensure the success of the mission. And her subsequent speech about people ("you, we, anyone") needing to be 'open to possibilities' with regards to love? Coming so close on the heels of that kiss, as they lay half-dressed, side by side in the world's narrowest bed? Throw in the long, lingering looks that she often cast his way, and the intimate hugs that seemed reserved only for him, and there was a lot of evidence to suggest that Lucy wanted much more than friendship from him. Yet despite it all, Wyatt feared that perhaps he was simply projecting – seeing only what he wanted to see.
The fact of the matter was, Lucy was a very passionate, tender-hearted, and affectionate person by nature – one who often went out of her way to help those in need. While Wyatt loved that (among other things) about her, it also made him question whether she was actually interested in him, or had simply made it her mission to help him put his life and heart back together. Though there was no debating that she had done both (and so much more), Wyatt had no desire to be Lucy's 'pet project'. It might have taken him a while to realize it, but he knew now that he wanted to be her everything, her 'endgame' as it were. Unfortunately, what he wanted meant absolutely squat if she didn't feel the same way.
So yeah, he and Lucy definitely needed to talk, and soon. Preferably before he lost every ounce of the self-restraint that he'd spent so many years cultivating, and did something completely stupid like kissing her in front of the whole team without her permission. Hadn't it taken all of his willpower to keep from doing just that last week, when she'd insisted on staying in 1954 without him?
On that note…. Glancing at his watch, Wyatt figured that he had about three hours before he needed to leave to pick up Lucy. That was more than enough time to pull himself together, and to prepare for the talk that he hoped to have with her tonight – starting with addressing the sorry state of his apartment. Though typically a bit of a neat freak (military training and all that), he'd really let things slide lately. So many missions in such a narrow timeframe had left him with very little downtime, and it showed. The last thing that he wanted to do was invite Lucy into this mess. While he didn't think she'd really care (surely he wasn't the only one who'd been too occupied with work lately for housecleaning), it felt important, somehow, that she feel perfectly at ease in his home.
An hour and some concentrated effort later, Wyatt's apartment was practically sparkling. The dirty dishes were all washed and put away, the carpet was freshly vacuumed, the washing machine was humming with a load of clothes, and the bathroom was neatly scrubbed and smelling of fresh-cut pine. He'd even managed to scour the shower, and change out the sheets on his bed (not that he expected Lucy to spend any time tonight in either location, but hey – a guy could dream, right?). That left just one very important task to accomplish.
Empty cardboard box in hand, Wyatt stood at the end of his bed, and stared at the myriad photos and newspaper articles pinned to the wall in front of him. Aside from the wedding band now buried at the back of his sock drawer, these were all that he had left of his late wife – the last tangible bits of proof that she had ever been a part of his life at all. A couple of months ago, he'd have likely pummeled anyone who dared to even suggest that he remove them. Now, however, he knew that that was exactly what he needed to do. After all, how could he even hope to build a future with Lucy, if he was still stubbornly clinging to his past?
Though a part of him would always love Jessica, she was gone, and had been for years. It was long past time that Wyatt let her rest in peace, and started living his own life again. He knew that that was what his wife would have wanted for him, and for the first time since her death, it was what he wanted for himself, too.
One by one, Wyatt removed the papers, and deposited them in the box, feeling a little bit lighter in spirit with each inch of bare wall that was revealed. He'd just finished stowing the box safely out of sight under his bed when his cellphone began to ring. Seeing that the incoming call was from Agent Christopher, he answered right away. He hadn't even said hello before she was practically shouting in his ear. Shit. What had he done now?
"Master Sergeant, I need you to get your ass back to Mason Industries ASAP – as in NOW!"
Was it Wyatt's imagination, or did his boss sound panicked? That wasn't like Agent Christopher at all.
"Yes, ma'am. Mind telling me why it's so urgent?" Not even waiting for her reply, he strode to the front entryway of his apartment, slid his feet into his boots, snatched his jacket and keys, and dashed out the door towards his jeep.
"I'll fill you in when you get here. I can't be sure this connection is secure."
She disconnected without another word, leaving Wyatt to wonder and worry as he sped the few short miles back to Mason Industries what the hell was going on. What could possibly have Agent Christopher both sounding like that, and worried about secure telephone connections? Was it Flynn, or Rittenhouse, or perhaps an entirely new threat altogether? Whatever it was, Wyatt prayed to God (though he wasn't quite sure he believed in him) that it had nothing to do with any of the fears that had been playing through his mind on auto-loop for the past week.
Unfortunately, his prayers were too late. As he pulled into the Mason Industries parking lot, and saw the entire complex in flames, it was terrifyingly plain to Wyatt that his darkest suspicions had been correct. Though he still didn't know which enemy they were fighting, the war clearly wasn't over yet. Leaping from his jeep, he raced towards the burning building, thankful that he knew for certain, at least, that Lucy was not inside. Now if only he could be sure that Rufus, Jiya, Christopher, and Mason – the only family besides Lucy that he had left – had made it out safely.
Lunch hour traffic in the city being the nightmare that it was, the drive home was a long one, giving Lucy plenty of time to debate the merits and risks of reading the journal. By the time she pulled into her assigned parking spot in her apartment complex, she had finally reached a decision: however curious she and her teammates might be about its contents, it would be far wiser to simply destroy the book. Of course, that was before her coat got caught in the door on the way into her apartment, and the damned thing fell out of her pocket again.
A quick glance down revealed that the fall had dislodged something from the journal. She automatically reached for it, and was surprised to find that it was a photograph of her mother, herself, and her sister, arms locked around each other in a show of familial love. Though Lucy recognized the picture (a copy of it had once sat on the end table in her mother's living room) she couldn't for the life of her figure out how it had come to be part of the journal. After all, that image had changed after the team's first mission, serving as the earliest evidence that Amy had been erased from Lucy's timeline.
That there was an unaltered copy of the photo still in existence when Amy herself was not, both baffled and thrilled Lucy. Could this mean that she would, at some point in the future, finally get her sister back? How was that even possible, now that she no longer had access to a time machine? And if, by some miracle, she could get access to one, what sorts of dreadful things would she be forced to do in order to put Amy back on the planet?
Fear and hope warred inside Lucy's mind. In the end, though, hope won out. Before she and her teammates had become the close-knit group that they now were, the prospect of someday getting Amy back had been the only thing to keep her sane and standing throughout the increasingly brutal missions. It was what she had fought for over the last year, and she couldn't stop fighting now if there was even the slightest chance that she would ultimately be victorious. Even if that meant doing the one thing that she currently feared most: reading the journal.
So Lucy retrieved the dreaded thing from the tiled entryway floor, and carried it with her into the bathroom. In practically no time at all she was comfortably ensconced in a steaming, rose-scented bath, journal in hand. Feeling more energized than she had all day by the prospect of getting her sister back, she turned to the first page of the book, and immersed herself in the tale of what she prayed would be a promising future.
A few hours and just as many hot water refreshes later, she wasn't sure that she could get through the rest of this day, let alone any of those that the godforsaken doomsday book warned were still to come. As she'd originally feared, her future would be a far cry from a Disney fairytale — more like a Grimm fairytale on steroids. Sure, there would be love, and moments of happiness that she'd never even dared to imagine, but it would all be overshadowed by soul-searing losses that would make the ones she'd already suffered seem like mere paper-cuts. How could this possibly be the life that she was destined to live?
Feeling wholly wrecked, Lucy dropped the journal beside the tub, and sank fully beneath the now-frigid water. Hair swirling in the mild current, every pore on her face clenching against the sudden cold, she couldn't help but flash back to that day so many years ago now when she'd driven her car off the road into the dark waters of that rushing river. At the time, after a pair of strong arms had miraculously pulled her from the wreckage, she'd felt so tremendously grateful to have another chance at life. She wondered now if she would have felt the same if she'd known then what she knew now, or if she'd have instead begged her rescuer to leave her to her watery grave.
Lucy surfaced and gasped for breath. No, damn it — she couldn't allow herself to think along those lines. There had to be a way to change it, to prevent all those dreadful things from happening. If there was one thing that she'd learned in the last year, it was that history — past, present, or future — definitely wasn't fixed: even the slightest change could cause whole chapters of it to be rewritten. The problem was, she had no idea what, exactly, to change in order to produce the desired results. Nor could she do anything, really, without the use of a time machine.
There was no other choice, really. She needed to share the journal with her team, including Agent Christopher and Conor Mason. Well, except for that last page. Though she understood why and appreciated that her future self had included it (it was the woman's entire motivation for writing the book in the first place), Lucy could see no good coming from anyone else having that knowledge, least of all Wyatt. But the rest of it they definitely needed to know, because the journal wasn't just the story of her future. As it turned out, it was that of her teammates as well. And if they didn't all do something soon to change it, it might be too late. In fact, Lucy suddenly thought, it might already be.
She snatched up the journal from the floor, and flipped back through the pages. Locating the entry about Flynn's arrest, she compared the date on it to that of the following entry. Her breath hitched in her chest. Dear lord — that was tomorrow!
Trying not to panic, Lucy retrieved her cellphone from the floor as well (given Wyatt's recent behavior, she didn't dare go anywhere without it anymore, including the bathroom), and called Agent Christopher. Out of everyone, it was most urgent that the federal agent be made aware of the storm to come. Unfortunately, the woman didn't answer. Uncertain as to how secure a voicemail would be in light of what she'd just read, Lucy kept her message brief and vague. "Please call me as soon as you get this. It's extremely urgent. Please!"
Next, she phoned Wyatt. If he were still at Mason Industries, perhaps he'd be able to track down their boss. However, that call, too, rang through to voicemail. Lucy frowned in growing concern. Wyatt always answered her calls — always. Even when she'd prefer that he didn't (like when he was showering — how was she supposed to keep her thoughts from wandering when the man was naked on the other end of the line).
Frustrated and confused, Lucy hung up without leaving a message, and tried calling Rufus, Jiya, and finally Mason, all with equally unsuccessful results. What the heck was going on? Those three were nearly as obsessive as Wyatt about answering their phones at all times. So why weren't they answering now? Why wasn't anyone answering now?
Deciding that her best bet was to drive to Mason Industries to try to locate Agent Christopher herself, Lucy clambered from the tub. She was just reaching for a towel when the sound of someone pounding insistently on her front door reached her ears.
Checking the time on her phone, Lucy realized that it was far too early for Wyatt to be there. Though she wasn't expecting anyone else, whoever was at her door clearly wanted her immediate attention. Perhaps one of her neighbors was having some kind of emergency? She hoped that it wasn't that sweet little old lady again from two doors down. The poor thing had already been through so much in the last couple months, what with the broken hip, and the disappearance of her beloved cat.
The journal and its dire predictions momentarily forgotten, Lucy wrapped herself in her favorite silk robe, not even bothering to dry off first. Tying the flimsy garment closed along the way, she sped from the bathroom towards whomever needed her help. As she rounded the corner into the tiled entryway, Lucy slipped, her feet practically flying out from under her. She tumbled to her back, shrieking in pain as her head slammed against the floor. Feeling a bit woozy but undeterred (slips and falls were practically a way of life for her, given her natural clumsiness) she stood up, just in time to hear the unmistakable splinter and crack of her front door being kicked in.
Lucy blinked in astonished bewilderment as, a few seconds later, the one man she'd hoped to never have to see again strode into her home, gun in hand and pointed directly at her. Well, crap. Apparently, her future had decided to show up a day early.
"That's quite the interesting look for you, Lucy." His eyes roamed her scantily-clad body appreciatively, and more than a little possessively.
Feeling self-conscious and extremely vulnerable, Lucy clutched at her robe, pulling it as tightly closed as she could.
"We'll definitely have to revisit it soon. But sadly it's not at all appropriate for where we're going." He tossed a small duffle-bag at her feet. "Get dressed."
Lucy hesitated, weighing her options. She could try to run, but he'd most likely catch her (and then punish her for the attempt). On the other hand, if she did as ordered, she'd be precipitating her own doom.
"Now!" he commanded, waggling the gun for emphasis.
Recognizing that she had no real choice at the moment but to comply, Lucy snatched the bag from the floor, and turned back towards the bathroom in hopes of dressing privately.
"Uh-uh." He grabbed her arm, and whirled her back around to face him. "Here, where I can keep an eye on you." Seeing the look of mortification on her face, he laughed derisively. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, Lucy. Now get a move on before you make us late."
Turning her back to him again so that at least she didn't have to see the disgusting leer on his face, Lucy dressed as quickly as possible, all the while wishing that Wyatt would show up early and take this guy out before it was too late. She knew from the journal, however, that her wishes were in vain. At least, having read the book, she had some idea of what to expect in the hours and days to come. If only Wyatt did, too.
As she reached to tie the hiking boots that the man had provided for her, Lucy spotted the trail of water leading from the entryway to the bathroom, punctuated by a small patch of blood from where she'd hit her head. Hopefully, when Wyatt did arrive, it would all still be there. Assuming that he kept his cool (always questionable in his case), he might just spot it, think to follow it back in search of her, and find the journal. It was really the best that she could hope for now. Come on, soldier — please don't let me down, she pleaded mentally, wishing for all the world that he could somehow hear her thoughts. Oh, and please don't read that last page, she tacked on just in case.
