Thanks for reading and for the kind reviews on the first chapter of this. It's going to get a little worse before it gets better. Still, I hope you enjoy it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

... ... ...

"Who's Lucy?"

Agent Christopher's words hit like a .45 caliber to the heart. Beads of sweat break across the wrinkles on his forehead as panic claws through his gut.

"Lucy's not—" he trails off. "Mason!" Wyatt yells, storming over to command central in his desperation for a different answer. This has to be a sick joke. He grabs the man by the collar, jerking him to his feet. "Where's Lucy?" he growls. "And don't fuck with me right now, I swear to God! Just—just tell me where she is. Please," his voice breaks.

Connor's eyes widen, regarding him much like a wild animal about to attack. Wyatt clings to the last shred of hope left inside as he awaits the answer he dreads most. "Wyatt," Mason begins carefully, holding his hands up in peaceful surrender. Wyatt shakes his head, as though if he disagrees hard enough the horrible truth won't come out of Mason's mouth. "I don't know who you're talking about. Lucy who?"

The truth is out, the worst one imaginable. Wyatt's blood runs cold as the words Lucy's gone play over and over again in his head.

There's a commotion somewhere behind him—Rufus and Jiya—their own cries of shock over Lucy's disappearance ringing through the void. But none of it fully registers. Spots swim in his vision, blood roaring like a storm in his ears. Wyatt falls to his knees and struggles to breathe for the ache in his chest.

Lucy's gone.

… … …

Agent Christopher refuses to postpone the mission debrief. Apparently having the love of his life erased from their timeline and his heart ripped out isn't reason enough to push it. Wyatt can barely string a sentence together that doesn't include the words fuck and you during the whole thing, so it's about as useful as tits on a bull.

It's not until Flynn shoots off his goddamn mouth with his take on who's to blame for Lucy being gone that Wyatt snaps. He leaps out of his chair, knocking it to the ground in his haste, and lands two hits to Flynn's jaw before three agents forcibly pry him off the guy. Wyatt shoves them away and puts his fist through the meeting room window before storming out of the room.

Now he's cooling out in the med bay, pulling shards of glass from the split and bloodied knuckles of his right hand. It should hurt, he thinks, digging his tweezers into the broken skin. But he's numb to everything except the agony Lucy's disappearance left behind.

A perfunctory knock sounds on the door a second before Rufus cautiously pokes his head inside. "Can I come in?" Wyatt lets out a non-committal grunt and drops another piece of glass in the metal tray. Rufus takes that as an invite. "You really should let the doctor do that," he suggests, shifting in the doorway, stuffing his hands awkwardly into his pockets. His suggestion goes largely ignored, and Wyatt continues pulling glass out of his skin, piece by piece. "How—" Rufus starts, then clears his throat. "How are you doing?"

Wyatt halts the makeshift surgery and lifts his head, eyes narrowed to slits. "Are you serious?" he asks tightly. "How the hell do you think I am?"

Rufus scrubs a hand over his face. "Sorry, that was—stupid," he finishes weakly. "I miss her, too."

That sentence alone pushes Wyatt into a rage. He flips the medical tray over, sends it crashing to the floor, tools and glass scattering across the tile. "Don't!" he grits through his teeth, getting into Rufus's face, jabbing a finger into his chest. "It's not the fucking same and you know it!" Grief squeezes his throat like a vise and once again it's hard to breathe. "What am I gonna do, Rufus?" His voice cracks. "What do I do without her?" The dam breaks finally, the tears he'd been holding back since he found out the truth streaming freely down his face.

Rufus wraps his arms around Wyatt while he sobs.

… … …

Wyatt spends the next two days holed up in a motel drowning in whiskey-soaked misery. The nightmare of losing Lucy from his life is a constant, haunting presence. If the bad dreams he has once he's drank enough to pass out aren't tormenting him, then it's the flood of happy memories while he's conscious that threaten to choke the life from his body.

There's a box of his personal effects on the wobbly table in the corner that he keeps eyeing with disdain knowing nothing inside will contain any trace of Lucy. He wants nothing to do with any part of this hellish timeline. By some small mercy his wallet and cell phone made the last trip with him, so he has one printed picture of the two of them tucked away, and a hundred or more saved on his phone. He looks at them, reliving each memory with her until his eyes burn and his heart shatters a little further, then starts all over again from the beginning. The cycle lasts until his phone dies.

Polishing off another bottle of Jack, he casts wary eyes to the box again as another name flits into his head. Jessica. How many times is he going to have to relive the pain of that particular wound before it stays in the past where it belongs? Guilt churns in his gut for being so damn selfish and thinking such awful thoughts about the woman he was once married to. She doesn't deserve that. But he's not emotionally prepared to deal with it all over again on top of losing Lucy, too.

After tossing the empty bottle near the direction of the trash can, he stumbles across the room and haphazardly knocks the lid off the box. His personnel file sits on top. Wyatt regards it like a ticking bomb, afraid of the realities concealed inside from this timeline just waiting to explode in his face. He pulls it from the box and reads. From what he can tell, nothing else has changed in his life. Jessica reappeared in 2018 and now they're divorced. The fact that he's relieved probably makes him sound like a total asshole, but he's been called worse. Free from any additional bombshells in this timeline, he resumes his grieving, reaching for a fresh bottle to help dull the pain.

He's interrupted by an insistent knock on the door. What the hell good are DO NOT DISTURB signs for anyway if all people are going to do is ignore them? "Go away!" he hollers. More knocking ensues, growing more relentless by the second. Wyatt pushes to his feet, blood boiling, and jerks open the door. "What the fuck do you want?" Jiya and Rufus in the doorway, and his bark loses most of its bite. "Oh. It's you guys."

"I've been calling you all day," Rufus scolds, worry lines etched across his forehead.

Wyatt shrugs. "Yeah, I watched the phone ring. Didn't feel like talkin' to anyone. Still don't."

Undeterred by his surliness, Rufus barges into the cramped room with Jiya on his heels. "You look like hell, Wyatt."

"Then my outsides match how I feel inside. What do you want?" he snaps, staggering back to sit on the edge of the mattress.

"To make sure you weren't drinking yourself to death! I've already lost one best friend this week, I don't want to make it two."

Wyatt opens his mouth to respond, but Jiya gets in the middle of the two, her eyes flicking between them. "We're worried about you. I also have some news that I wanted to share with you both."

"News?" Rufus asks. "What news?"

Jiya slides the bag off her shoulder and pulls out a computer, setting up shop on the little table. "I started searching when we got back to see if Lucy exists in this new timeline or if she was really—it's taken me a little while, but—" she lifts her head, a hint of a smile curving up her mouth, "I found her."

Wyatt says nothing, too gobsmacked to form words. He sits and stares at Jiya with something akin to hope sparking to life in his chest.

"You—you found Lucy?" Rufus asks, face scrunched in confusion. "Where?"

Jiya flips the computer around to show them the proof. "Texas."