Lucy was right when she thought Flynn wouldn't be able to look at her. Oh, he managed well enough on missions, once she was back on the roster, but he went out of his way to avoid her in their free time. It would have been amusing (and it was for Rufus), given the lack of places to escape to in the bunker, but it just made her sad. This Flynn was more integrated into the team than hers had been, but he was still much closer to the edge than the middle. She didn't like that he was pulling away from everyone else just because of her. So she took to mostly staying in her bunk or the control room in between missions. Wyatt and Rufus would occasionally keep her company, but it was Jiya that helped get her up-to-date on the less mission-related aspects of this timeline. She also got a more in-depth look at those missions than the quick run-through that Rufus had read out that first day.
While skimming through mission logs on one of her many visits to the control room, she learned that Flynn hadn't gone to 1773 because he was recovering from massive blood loss after a stabbing (and she once again marveled at how quickly he bounced back from an injury; she certainly hadn't picked up on him being wounded when she first got back). She had to deal with the near panic attack at the description of that incident; he'd been literally ounces away from death by the time they got him back to the present. She imagined that the Lifeboat had been a bitch to clean.
Lucy stayed that way, on the fringe, for about a month. For a month she watched Wyatt and Jess get back on the same page in their relationship. Things had been rockier for them in her timeline, so he had the pleasure of getting used to his wife not occasionally looking at him with contempt in her eyes. She watched Jiya and Rufus confirm that they were still on the same page. Really nothing had changed there; she figured those two would be solid in any timeline. Mason still oscillated between arrogant dick and kicked puppy, and Agent Christopher was… well… Agent Christopher.
She learned that she and Jess had actually been pretty good friends in this timeline during the brief period when they'd both been in the bunker, no doubt aided by the fact that she hadn't slept with Jess' husband. (Jess had taken that bit of trivia like a champ when they told her. She just asked if it was going to happen again and was content when they both said no.) Due to that relationship, Jess helped as much as Jiya with the personal history aspect. Moreover, Jess walked her through the last six months of everyone else's lives. It was odd, feeling like she was gossiping about people when she was really just learning what was common knowledge for everyone who hadn't gone to 1773.
For a month all she did was catch up and go on missions, trying to stay out of Flynn's way. Trying not to hurt him more than she did just by existing. It was when he could finally stand being in the same room as her that the dreams started.
They were so minor at first that she didn't think much of them. She wrote them off as her subconscious trying to fill in the blanks. Flynn telling her a joke that she'd never heard in her timeline. Flynn brushing her hair back when she was almost asleep at the table. Then they got more detailed, more intense, which was when she went to Jiya and found that yes, these things happened in this timeline. Things that happened on a mission but weren't considered relevant to the official report. Like, exactly what she said, word-for-word, that time she talked Flynn and Rufus out of a firing squad on one of those pre-Keynes trips (basically a three minute history ramble until the guy in charge got so confused and fed up that he just told them to go away and never come back). Things that escaped the general gossip dump, like what she and Flynn were wearing that time Jiya walked in on them kissing in the lounge (very little).
Then there were the more personal things that she didn't dare ask Flynn about. The first time he told her he loved her. The first time they made love (she woke up Jiya with her heavy breathing after that one).
Assuming those were also true, she was experiencing AlternaLucy's past. Specifically, her past with Flynn. As far as she and Jiya could tell, it was kind of the reverse of what happened to the pilot after their four-person trip. She convinced Jiya to keep it a secret from everyone but Rufus, and the three hypothesized that it was a consequence of Lucy traveling to a timeline where she didn't technically exist anymore.
There were three weeks of Flynn-centric dreams before the more general ones started; how she escaped her mom, a night of wine and bad rom-coms with Jessica early on in their friendship. Getting shot and dying in Flynn's arms was the last one before they started repeating, nearly five weeks after the first of Flynn.
She found herself doing things AlternaLucy would have done automatically, things that she wouldn't have known to do in her own timeline. Mixing some cocoa into Jess' coffee on those occasions that she fixed it (she and Jess weren't on coffee-buddy terms just yet in her own timeline). Which mug not to use unless she wanted to incur Agent Christopher's wrath. Calling Agent Christopher "Denise." For the most part, people took it in stride. They'd had six months to forget the mannerisms Lucy had displayed in the less than ten weeks they'd all lived together. She'd get the occasional side-eye from Denise, but the agent never remarked on it.
It wasn't until she adjusted the seatbelt in the Lifeboat before Flynn even got in that he said anything. It was one of those rare occasions that she and Jiya were ready before him, and he found the straps already lengthened to accommodate his taller frame when he got in his seat, despite Wyatt having been the last one to use it. He'd stared at her with wide eyes until they jumped, at which point he went back to being coolly professional.
Lucy tried to escape the inevitable conversation when they got back by making a beeline to change her clothes. Unfortunately, Flynn was waiting for her when she left the tiny room they used to store the miniscule wardrobe they'd scrounged together.
"How long have you remembered?" He grabbed her by the arm and led her to a little side nook. She shook his arm off; for all that he was being gentle, she wasn't fond of the manhandling.
"It's not like that," she told him, a headache already forming.
"Then tell me what it's like, Lucy, because it seems like you remember things that aren't from your timeline." Why'd she have to adjust that damn seatbelt?
"I'm not-" she sighed. "It's not remembering, exactly. I've been having dreams. From what Jiya and I can tell, they're of your Lucy's life during the time that it was different from mine."
"And you didn't think this was important to share?" How could he look so frustrated and adoring all at once?
"No! Because they still aren't my memories, Flynn! I can tell the difference. I might know how long your seatbelt straps need to be, or that Mason secretly likes cheap beer, or how Jiya finds it grounding to have her back rubbed after one of her visions, but it's not like I lived it. It's like someone played really detailed home movies over and over again until I had them memorized." Hearing her call him Flynn seemed to deflate him some. Another reminder that she wasn't the same Lucy that he lost.
"How much do you know?" He was looking down now. She couldn't tell if he wanted her to remember their time together or was dreading it.
"Most of it, I think." She waited a beat to see if he would stop her. He didn't. "I remember calling Wyatt to warn him that Rittenhouse was still a threat. I remember slapping you when you found me because I thought you gave Emma the mothership. I remember you pulling me out of the path of a bullet on our first mission together." She took a breath and closed her eyes before taking a chance. "I remember how your hand spans my back when you're holding me. How you like to kiss my neck when I'm curled up next to you. How you look at me and say my name differently when no one is watching, or you just don't care, which is most of the time." She opened her eyes to find him staring at her, speechless. "I remember what it's like to kiss you, to make love to you, to have you hold me so tight at night I almost can't breathe." She felt a tear escape, and he raised his hand to her cheek and wiped it away with this thumb. "I remember what it's like to love you." She saw him lose his breath for a second, his own eyes watering. She grabbed his wrist and gently pulled his hand away from her. "But I didn't get that. I can see it happen, can even feel it to some extent, but I didn't get to actually do any of it." He closed his eyes and fell back against the wall. "This is why I didn't say anything; I didn't need to give you another reason to look at me and see her. I know that it hurts you. And I wish I could change that, but I can't." Lucy sighed again, running a hand through her hair. "It might be selfish, but I don't want you seeing the person you lost every time you look at me. I want you to see me." She couldn't stop herself from running a hand down his arm before turning to leave.
He had her back up against the wall before she'd even made it out of the nook. He crowded her in, lips inches from hers, and just held her there, their breath mingling once she had caught hers. He watched her face, waiting for a sign, but she looked at him sadly. "No, Garcia. Not like this." Not when you're thinking about her, how much I'm like her, how you maybe almost have her back. Not when I'm already falling for you and would give almost anything to see you look at me that way. He stepped back and let her go. She left already planning to go back to her routine of bunk-to-control-room. She spared a glance back and saw him leaning against the wall again, eyes closed, tears making their way down his cheeks. She managed to hold the rest of her own tears back until she made it to her bunk, where Jiya hugged her while she fell apart.