"Amy, NOW!"

She springs into action immediately, covering her head as she runs toward the Lifeboat. She can see the redhead turning to aim the gun her way and has a moment of panic before Wyatt, true to his word, fires several shots and forces their assailant to take cover. It gives Amy enough time to scramble inside the ship unimpeded, and she slides into a chair near the far wall as Wyatt had instructed, searching frantically for the control panel he'd mentioned.

Finally she spots it, filled with lines of text she couldn't begin to understand, but at the bottom, as he said, she sees it - Copy Forward Return Coordinates. She presses it, and a new window appears, prompting her to activate the jump.

"Wyatt, I got it!" she shouts over her shoulder, and she can hear his staggered footsteps as he hurries toward the Lifeboat fast as he can manage (considering his still-injured leg), and hears him firing his gun rapidly at the other woman. Amy turns and slips out of the seat, crouching low so she can crawl back to the entrance without catching any of the bullets that are still ricocheting everywhere, and holds her hand out the door for Wyatt to grab. Both of them struggle, as she attempts to hoist his heavier frame into the ship while he attempts to climb in using only the strength of one leg.

And then she flinches as warm blood spatters across her face.

Wyatt looks confused first, and for a moment simply locks eyes with Amy, brow furrowed. He reaches a shaky hand to his neck, to the gash that has just appeared, just as it begins to spill over with blood, and he slumps against the edge of the Lifeboat door, coughing, his other hand slipping out of her grip despite her attempts to hang on. A steady stream of blood seeps through the gaps between his fingers, his efforts clearly doing nothing to stem the tide. A bullet has torn through the side of his neck, likely severed major arteries if Amy had to guess, and if the blood loss didn't get him first, then drowning in it would finish the job.

Despite this, Amy reaches desperately for his arm. "Wyatt! Get in, please!"

He shakes his head, smiling as he gives her a gentle but firm push back, and she stumbles, falls against one of the empty seats. She looks back at him, confused, and he gives her a nod - then quickly keys a sequence into the keypad with his bloodied fingers, and takes a step back.

"No!" She scrambles to reach for him again, but the door slides closed quickly, nearly taking her arm off, and she has no idea how to get it open again. There's an identical keypad on this side of the door, but enough numbers that she doesn't have a hope in hell of getting it right on the first, second, or even thirtieth try.

She presses an ear to the door, listening for any noise outside the ship. The gunshots have gone abruptly silent, and she hears the faint sound of something heavy tumbling to the ground. A few seconds later a single shot follows. Amy's hands fly to her mouth, her stomach suddenly reeling as she struggles not to cry in sheer terror, horror, and everything in between. She's never been in any situation even remotely resembling this one, but she's seen enough action movies to recognize what is no doubt a final execution shot, finishing the job.

Once she can breathe again and has staved off her building panic, she forces herself to turn and slips into the chair against the furthest wall once more. The touchscreen is still flashing, waiting for her to activate the jump. The seatbelts take a bit of fumbling to get fastened, but she figures it out eventually, and then lets her head drop back against the headrest, again resisting the urge to vomit. She's gotta be dreaming. None of this makes sense, none of this can possibly be real. Earlier that day she'd been putting groceries away, now she was getting ready to travel through time, and the man who got her into this mess was just murdered in cold blood only a few feet away.

Still lost in her own thoughts, she's pulled out of it as she hears the sound of the external keypad beeping, followed by a short error tone indicating the wrong code was entered. She's almost positive it isn't Wyatt on the other side of that door.

Before her assailant has a chance to figure out the correct number sequence, Amy presses a finger to the touchscreen. Immediately everything vibrates, and she tightly grips the shoulder straps of the harness, terrified. There's one final error tone outside just as the vibration becomes almost unbearable, and then she has a feeling of brief weightlessness before she's jerked sharply to the side. Though she can't see anything outside the ship and has no perception of what the hell is currently going on, she can somehow feel the world spinning, sharp changes in momentum jerking her in the seat so roughly the belt strains against her. She feels herself on the cusp of blacking out and fights it.

And then at once it ceases with a final jerk. A second too late, however, as Amy feels herself reeling, her rattled mind and rapidly beating heart overwhelming all her senses, and she slumps over in the chair, unconscious.

12 Hours Previous

Jiya's morning routine has always been the same.

07:00 - Crawl out of bed and attempt to wake up in the shower

07:30 - Get out of shower when hot water runs out, throw on whatever clothes are clean

07:45 - Inject enough coffee into her veins to feel human (possibly a slight exaggeration)

08:00 - Have 1-4 pieces of peanut butter toast (depends on how well she slept), with a sliced banana on top if they got lucky enough that week to have fresh produce in the supply order

08:15 - Grab a chair next to Rufus at the command console and get to work on Lifeboat upgrades and diagnostics

She has it down to a science, much like most of her life, ever the perpetual overachiever.

Or, she usually would, on any other day but today.

Instead, she simply lays in bed, wrapped tightly in her duvet, and stares at the clock on the night table opposite, watching the minutes go by. Before long, 7:00 turns into 7:30, and that turns into 8:00, and by the time 8:30 hits she debates whether she should just commit to staying in bed all day.

Because the love of her life is gone, and she feels lost without him.

Oh sure, alt-Lucy and alt-Wyatt had given them some hope, and for the evening after their visit that had kept her going, plugging away at the autopilot system to get it up and running. She'd not had a chance to do any diagnostics or tests, however, as once she had finished installing the panel and had everything up and running, she let out a shout of triumph and immediately turned to tell Rufus as usual...and then remembered.

Every time she slows down, every time she closes her eyes, every time she has a moment to think, all she sees is his face. His eyes desperate as he mouthed "I love you" - or tried to, but only made it halfway. And god, she wishes she'd said it too. Of course, she'd hoped he would pull through somehow and so all she did was beg him to hang on, but she wishes she'd spent that time holding him and telling him how much she loved him, how much he meant to her. Instead, she'd shaken him after his eyes closed, disoriented from her shock, and when Wyatt finally put a hand to her shoulder and murmured, "He's gone", she'd collapsed forward against Rufus's chest, her sobs turning into a keening wail. Wyatt quickly slipped around Rufus's prone form to wrap her in a hug, and she'd cried against Wyatt's shoulder while clutching Rufus's hand for god knows how long, until Lucy and Flynn appeared once more, neither of them looking much better, and Lucy looking especially worse with her split lip and bruised face. All of them were moving on autopilot at that point, and it showed on all of their faces. Wyatt and Flynn's faces were unreadable as they each lifted one of Rufus's arms, looking for all intents and purposes like they were just hauling their drunk friend home.

She and the still-injured Flynn had watched as Lucy and Wyatt dug a shallow grave on the outskirts of town. Rufus looked like he was sleeping. As they began the process of covering him over once more with dirt, she turned and put her face against Flynn's chest, eyes shut as she gripped his vest tightly, and he simply held her in silence, stroking her hair with his good hand and rocking her gently back and forth. Lucy had a hand on her arm the whole ride home, but she felt numb, like she was dreaming. It was only once she saw Connor's face filled with glee to see her that it finally washed over her in a cold wave - the realization that she'd never see Rufus again, and wouldn't even have a grave she could visit. He was gone, in every sense of the word. As if he'd never existed at all.

Later that same evening, once Connor had left her alone to get some rest, she'd rummaged through their room in search of one of Rufus's hoodies to wrap herself up in, and that's when she found it. It fell from the middle of a pile of his folded clothes and clattered to the floor, and she'd stared at it, abruptly feeling as if she'd just been punched in the stomach.

A small green ring box.

Kneeling down, she'd opened it to find a gold band with a modest-sized emerald in the middle, a single small diamond flanking it on each side. It was absolutely beautiful, and made her heartache only worse. She was still staring at it while seated on the bed an hour later when it occurred to her that he would have had to buy the ring prior to them moving into the bunker. They'd barely been dating a year at that point, and already he'd decided he wanted to marry her. That was enough to set her off again, crying into her pillow until they'd heard the commotion out in the Lifeboat hangar, and she'd quickly dried her eyes and joined them, the ring box left beneath her pillow, forgotten for the moment.

Jiya shakes off the memory and rolls over in bed, reaches under her pillow to retrieve the box once more and opens it again. This time she takes the ring out and slips it onto her finger, swallowing as she does so - it fits perfectly.

She jumps at a sudden urgent knock on her door, and she gets up to let them in. Lucy is on the other side, and visibly relaxes as she sees Jiya. "Oh thank god, you're still here."

"Still here?" she repeats, confused. "Where would I be?"

Lucy seems to notice the ring on her finger then, looking briefly confused, but ignores it as she clearly has higher priorities at that moment. "The Lifeboat is gone. We thought...maybe you'd-"

Lucy doesn't have to finish. She can fill in the blank. They thought she'd somehow gone back for Rufus.

But then the rest of Lucy's words sink in. "Wait, the Lifeboat is gone? Where? Who took it?" She doesn't wait for a response. Her eyes widen as she realizes she's the only pilot left in the bunker, and what had to happen for someone to move the ship without her. "Oh shit. No, no, not good, it hasn't been tested." She pushes past Lucy and runs toward the command console, sees the launchpad is empty, and practically throws herself into one of the chairs. Her hands fly over the keyboard as she attempts to track the Lifeboat's location.

ERROR - UNABLE TO DETECT

"What the hell do you mean 'unable to detect'?" she growls at the computer. She types a few more commands in. "Tell me what I need to know, you son of a-"

LAST RECORDED LOCATION:

SAN FRANCISCO, 03 OCTOBER 2016

She sits back in her chair, stunned, staring at the flashing text before her. 2016 was the year of their first trip in the Lifeboat, the start of this whole nightmare. But if the system wasn't able to track the Lifeboat back to that point now, it could only mean that the ship was lost. And worse than that, she had no way of knowing if her autopilot program had worked, or if it had somehow just imploded, been lost in time, popped into existence a galaxy over - some sort of horrible fate that would account for why it was lost and unaccounted for.

She can hear feet on the stairs to her left, and looks up as Lucy slips into the seat next to her.

"It's gone," Jiya tells her quietly, still stunned, and it's Lucy's turn to look confused.

"How is that possible? Where did it go?"

"I have no idea. The last tracked location was 2016, and then nothing."

"2016? As in…"

"Yeah. The night of the Hindenburg."

Flynn enters at that moment, striding quickly through the kitchen toward them as he ends a phone call, and Connor follows close behind, still mid-yawn. "I was able to get Denise at home," Flynn calls to the two women. "She has no idea who the ship out, says she didn't authorize anything."

"Wait." Lucy glances around the group. "Where is Wyatt?"

All of them look around and it seems to occur to them only then that Wyatt is absent. Lucy jumps to her feet immediately, half-jogging in the direction of the sleeping quarters, and Flynn trails after her as she makes her way around the corner to Wyatt's room. The door is closed, and she knocks, getting no answer. "Wyatt?" she calls, and when there's no response to that either, she tugs the door open.

His room is clean, beds made (both now back against opposite walls), all surfaces tidy. Too tidy, in fact. She can see his personal effects are missing from their usual spots, including his holster and sidearm. In fact, the only thing left of Wyatt's are a few articles of clothing.

Flynn steps in behind her and sees the state of the room as well, and comes to the same conclusion as Lucy. "That goddamn idiot."

Part of her agrees. Part of her wants him to come back so she can yell at him, pound her fists against his chest until her anger subsides. Because right on the tail end of admitting he loves her, he's now run off alone, possibly forever, making him one more person she's lost in her life, and to make matters worse, he did said running off in their only time machine, meaning if anything happens to him while he's god-knows-where, they are well and truly screwed.

But the other part of her is intensely worried for him, and feels if he were to return that minute, she'd be more likely to wrap him in a hug first.

Seeming to sense her inner turmoil, Flynn rests a hand on her shoulder and squeezes briefly. "All we can do is wait and see, Lucy. It's out of our hands now."

A few hours later Jiya pushes back from her keyboard and sighs heavily. She's been trying to focus on software upgrades (to be installed later...hopefully) to kill time, but has made exactly zero progress with it to that point. She can't stop replaying the conversation with alt-Lucy in her head, mulling over her words and trying to suss out what exactly she meant.

"How are things going?"

She turns to see Connor smiling warmly up at her from the base of the stairs, and she responds by leaning forward and resting her forehead on the desk with a heavy sigh. "Not great."

"Sounds like it's time for a break." Connor nods for her to follow. "Come on, I'll make you some breakfast."

Connor isn't exactly known for his cooking skills (after years of not having to touch his billionaire kitchen) and so Jiya hesitates a moment, then shrugs to herself, figures he's just trying to be useful and/or take care of her, and follows him. He points at one of the kitchen tables and Jiya takes a seat, rubbing her hands against her tired eyes.

"What are you working on?" he asks, retrieving a large mixing bowl and a box of pancake mix from the shelf.

"Stabilization protocol that will partner with the new autopilot software. Hopefully make the ride a bit smoother. Not that I can actually test how it pairs with the new software, thanks to Wyatt." She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair, scowling. "That idiot better bring my ship back soon or there will be hell to pay. And if he's lying dead in a ditch somewhere, I'm going to kill him."

Connor smiles. "Wyatt's always made it out of tight spots, I'm sure this time will be no different. And we have no idea where he went, either. For all we know, he's gone back to find Rufus somehow."

There it is again. She knows Connor is just trying to give her a shred of hope and cheer her up, but all it does is flood her mind once more with grief, and she blinks as she tries desperately to hold back the tears burning at the back of her eyes. "Yeah," she finally says weakly. "Maybe."

A few minutes later, Connor sets a small stack of pancakes before her, perfectly made to her utter surprise, and follows it quickly with a bottle of syrup. He'd even thrown a handful of chocolate chips in for her, she notices, and smiles. She douses them liberally with syrup and cuts a small wedge, and her eyes widen slightly as chews. "Connor, these are actually really good."

"Don't sound so surprised," he says, chuckling. "I wasn't always a useless rich wanker. My mother raised my sister and I on her own, so I quite often cooked meals when mum worked late. Nothing particularly exciting, but I became quite good at the staples."

"You have a sister?" It occurs to her how little she actually knows about Connor's life - he'd always had a slight air of mystique about him, the untouchable and intimidating billionaire boss. Now that he'd joined the rest of them near the poverty line, he seemed much more human to her, something she'd taken for granted to that point.

"Oh yes, a younger sister. Katherine." He sits back in his chair, smiling to himself. "I haven't spoken to her in a few years - didn't want Rittenhouse to turn their sights on her, and it's not particularly well known that she exists, especially as she now goes by her married name. She's an artist, owns a gallery in London. Helped me with a few designs for Mason Industries, in fact - the car prototype, for one. She had the aesthetic vision, I knew the mechanics. We were an excellent team for a while."

"Until you cut her out," Jiya finishes for him, and he nods, his smile faltering.

"She didn't understand why. Probably still doesn't. I imagine she thinks I went off the deep end, got hooked on drugs or the like."

"I know what you mean." She takes her final bite of pancakes and then pushes the plate away. "Not that I've seen my family in a few years regardless of Rittenhouse - most of them moved back to Lebanon - but I used to at least call once a week. Now I think it's been...god, I don't know. Six months probably, since I last talked to any of them."

"I suppose hindsight is 20/20. If I'd known how things would turn out, I'd have slammed the door in Cahill's face immediately. No amount of funding has been worth any of this."

"There's no way you could have known how this would all turn out, Connor. The company was losing investors and they offered you a lifeline. Rittenhouse is great at making their offer sound perfect with no strings attached, until you finally see the strings above you and realize it's too late."

"But think of all the things that could have been avoided had I just said no. The time machines would never have been invented, Lucy's sister would still be here, Garcia's family would have lived, and...Rufus." He sighs heavily. This had clearly been weighing on him for some time, another thing Jiya had taken for granted. "Maybe I'd have lost the company anyway, but I think I'd prefer that to any of this."

"You said it yourself. Hindsight is 20/20." She shrugs. "Not to mention Rittenhouse was already out there, whether or not we were involved. Who's to say they wouldn't have found someone to build the machines anyway? At least this way, there's someone fighting back."

He nods, conceding her point. "I suppose you're right. I just wish there hadn't been so many people caught in the crossfire of my mistakes."

"What's that cliche saying? 'It doesn't matter if you fall down, it's whether you get back up'? I'd say that's pretty apt."

He smiles again. "Thank you Jiya. I don't know what I would do without you."

"Probably lean on Rufus, seeing as he'd still be here, but you get last year's model instead." The harsh words are out before she can stop them, and she immediately looks away, crossing her arms once more. Connor's brow furrows.

"Is that what you think? That you're just an understudy for Rufus?"

She shrugs. "He's the savant. I'm just a Lebanese nerd who got lucky."

"No, Jiya." He leans over slightly to catch her eye, smiling warmly, and she can see the affection in his gaze as she hesitantly looks back at him. "I sought both of you out. Your test scores were no less impressive than his. In fact, I'd say as of late you're completely on par with each other; your piloting has improved in such a short period of time and many of the more useful software improvements we've made have been entirely your work. Not to mention you survived three bloody years trapped in the past with no historian or soldier at your side, and still found a way to get the ship back to us and let us know you were okay. You're an understudy to no one. If anything, I'm in awe of you."

It doesn't show on her face, but his words have eased a weight she's been carrying - a fear that she'd never live up to Rufus's brilliance, and because of it, would have no chance of ever finding a way to get him back, much less stop Rittenhouse.

"Can I ask you something?" Jiya says quietly after a moment. Connor nods for her to continue. "What do you think my visions are?"

"How do you mean? The other Lucy-"

"Forget what she said. On a purely scientific level, considering everything you discovered in the early days of the Mothership before I'd joined the project, what would you say they are?"

Connor is silent as he considers the question, one finger idly tapping the table as the gears in his head turn. It's moments like this that Jiya can most clearly see the brilliant engineer Connor used to be, the one he's trying to be once more. "Ignoring everything we've just been told...my assumption was always that it was severe schizophrenia. I never did figure out what caused it, but after the first pilot returned only to have a brain aneurysm a few days later, and then Stanley returned utterly off his rocker and babbling about premonitions and speaking to people in his mind, I had Anthony go back to the drawing board and make sure we had the math 100% correct before we sent the ship out again."

"Who was the next pilot after them?"

"Anthony insisted on testing it thoroughly himself before letting anyone else take it out," Connor says, his mouth set in a thin line. "Without my knowledge, of course, as he knew I'd have put a pin in that plan the moment I heard it - and when everything appeared to be fine, we introduced our next pilot in line. Which happened to be Emma Whitmore."

"Ah." Of course Emma came next, only after it was proven safe. Of course she couldn't have been the next Stanley, babbling away locked in a mental hospital rather than becoming an eternal pain in their asses. Of course.

"After there were no further issues, we thought that Anthony had worked out all the kinks. Of course, what we never accounted for is that someone would attempt to ride in the ship before we factored in the extra body. All of the science was predicated on the assumption that the ships would never carry more people than the seats allowed for, that passengers would be fixed in place and accounted for in all calculations. But then, the science was also predicated on the assumption that we weren't at the behest of an evil cult pulling our puppet strings, so naturally we didn't account for any and all scenarios we might encounter, such as fleeing for one's life."

"Do you still think it's schizophrenia?"

"If you'd asked me a few months ago, perhaps. But too much has happened since then. All of your premonitions about Rufus came true, in some way, shape, or form, and then alternate versions of Lucy and Wyatt appeared - something I thought was quite impossible - and told us there might be something to your visions, more than just seeing the future. And then learning other historical figures may have experienced the same phenomenon - Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, people who never would have time travelled - I truly don't know what to believe anymore. This clearly goes beyond science, or at least what our current knowledge of physics allows us to understand."

"Lucy said something to me on a mission a few weeks back. At the time I just took it as her trying to cheer me up, but now I'm not so sure. She asked me, 'Did you ever think that maybe you're seeing these things so that you can save Rufus?' After we lost him, I figured there was no way that could be true, but then the other Lucy told me that my visions were the key to saving him, that I'm warning myself from other timelines, other realities. But if that is actually all true...how do I do it?" She sighs, yet again feeling helpless. "I doubt Lucy wrote a detailed 'how-to' in that journal, and I've already traversed every moment in time I could think of while looking for him and found nothing. So what the hell am I meant to do?"

"A good question. And unfortunately one I can't help with." Both of them are silent as he mulls over, and just as Jiya is about to excuse herself to track down Lucy (and therefore the damn journal), Connor perks up. "But I bet I know who could help."

"Oh?"

"I think it might be time for us to indulge in another conversation with Mr. Fisher. If anyone will be able to help you figure it out, it'll likely be the man that has spent years dealing with these visions and learning how to utilize them."

"Stanley?" Jiya says, eyebrow raised. "Connor, you said it yourself, he's insane-"

"Perhaps - he clearly didn't return from that trip as the same man who left - but we now know at least parts of his babbling are true. None of us have experienced the same phenomena that you two share. Even if only 10% of what he says is useful, that's still 10% we wouldn't have had otherwise."

Jiya considers it, then shrugs. "What the hell, we've got nothing to lose at this point."

Being that all the bunker could do in Wyatt's absence was wait, Lucy and Flynn had attempted to return back to their discussion of the current journal and how it differed from Flynn's earlier version of it. Having been up most of the night already doing so (in addition to everything that had happened in Chinatown the evening before, as well as their visit from Lucy and Wyatt's alternate selves), by mid-morning Lucy was starting to drift off mid-discussion, her head nodding as she struggled to stay awake, at one point even ending up resting her forehead against Flynn's arm with her eyes closed. When it happened a third time, Flynn finally told her to lay down and get some rest, and she was so exhausted she complied without argument. He'd laid the ratty wool blanket over her, smiling as she snored softly, and then seated himself in the corner to continue reading the journal alone.

I sat wrapped in a blanket, lost in thought, and then Flynn kissed me. And finally the pain I've felt for so long dissipated. So I kissed him back...again. And again. It was just the right time and place. And it wasn't because of the cold. Whether we admit it or not - we needed each other that night. I could see it in the way Flynn looked at me. I felt it in the way he took me in his arms, the same arms I used to run from - but not anymore. That night, I felt safe, and protected, and loved.

He'd re-read the passage several times over the past hour, and was no less confused now than when he'd first read it. It painted a romantic picture of the life they could have awaiting them in the future, but it was the one entry in the journal that most strongly made him believe it was fake. He'd heard Wyatt's confession the night before, and though he'd missed Lucy's response, her reaction to Wyatt's Lifeboat hijacking painted a fairly clear picture for him. It would be unreasonable to expect her to have moved on from her feelings for Wyatt that quickly, but when she'd asked him in 1888 "Why are you here?", he'd finally realized she had absolutely no idea how he felt about her.

He closes the book in his lap and looks over at Lucy's sleeping form on his bed. Though he suspects the journal is a fake, part of him wishes it was true, if only for her sake. Setting aside the supposed events that might pass between them, her future overall seemed...brighter, in the new journal. She wasn't as hardened, as merciless as she ultimately ended up in his version. And if there was one thing Lucy Preston deserved, it was for her future to be full of happiness rather than rage and grief. He wanted a different life for her, one that didn't resemble his own. He'd carry the rage and grief for both of them, but let her kind heart be spared. It was the only thing that gave him hope anymore, her complete and utter belief in the inherent goodness in others, her determination to keep going, her warm nurturing presence that made him feel human again, more like himself and less like the monster he'd become. She hadn't let the fight against Rittenhouse destroy her like he had.

He sets the journal softly on the desk next to him, then eases the sling over his head and straightens his arm, stretching lightly. The muscle is still weak in his shoulder where he'd been shot, mildly painful when flexed but otherwise functional. He knows he should probably keep the sling on as long as possible so the wound can heal, but only having the use of one arm is driving him insane. He'd deal with the long term consequences of that decision later.

The first thing he notices as he leaves his room, closing the door softly behind him, is that the bunker is quiet. Perhaps the quietest he's ever heard it. A few minutes of wandering through the common areas confirms what he was suspecting. Jiya and Connor are absent, leaving him and Lucy as the only current occupants of the bunker.

Glancing down at his watch - noon already, he must have dozed off in the chair a few times while reading - he heads for the kitchen and retrieves the jar of instant coffee he keeps on the top shelf, a particular brand from back home that he'd requested specifically for himself. It hadn't stopped Wyatt from giving it a try, and eventually he'd somehow managed to use half the jar.

He sets two mugs down on the counter and pauses a moment as the thought of Wyatt passes through his head. The man was a goddamn asshole and a massive pain in the ass, but Flynn was admittedly curious what the younger man was up to. Pissed as hell that he'd done it, for a multitude of reasons, but still curious. Lucy had made mention of his being a 'reckless hothead', but this was the first time Flynn was seeing it with his own eyes. At least while they were on the same team, anyway.

Having made two coffees (his just black, hers with cream and sugar), he heads back to his room and slips in quietly. Lucy is still curled up on her side facing the wall, and he smiles, tugging the blanket up further to cover her shoulders where it had slid down. He sets the coffee down next to the bed, then departs once more, grabbing his towel on the way out. He'd been up most of the night, and when he wasn't awake, he was curled up uncomfortably in a worn out leather chair that had next to no padding left. His whole body is aching, an annoying reminder that he isn't as young as he used to be, and there's nothing he wants more than to let boiling hot water pour over his back for an hour or three. Not that he could, seeing as the boilers only had enough hot water in them for a ten minute shower before it would be back to glacially cold, but it was the thought that counted. Normally he would only get maybe two, three minutes tops of hot water (the perils of no longer being an early riser like he once was, and so therefore always seeming to follow Wyatt Logan's shower, a fact that Wyatt definitely knew), so in the absence of the rest of the team, he was going to take advantage of having it to himself.

He's halfway through a glorious 5 minutes of hot water when he hears a sound echoing from the launchpad. He's a fair distance away and so it's just a passing echo he hears, but...he could swear it sounds like…

Flynn cranks the taps to turn the shower off, and quickly pats himself dry with his towel, resting it around his neck as he pulls on his pants, and he quickly finishes drying his hair enough that it's no longer dripping before throwing his t-shirt on. He slips out of the bathroom and strides quickly toward the control room (or is it command centre? He's never really been sure what to call the heart of the bunker), and sees his suspicions confirmed. The Lifeboat is back.

If he had to make a guess as to how much time had passed since he heard the first noise, however, the ship had landed a solid 3 minutes previous, and yet the door was still solidly shut, the engines quiet, no sign of life anywhere near it. Why wasn't Wyatt exiting the ship? Drawing closer, Flynn comes to a halt a few feet from the door, his eyes on the keypad. A streak of blood is painted across the white keys, trailing down the edge of the door before disappearing abruptly. Whatever had caused it, there wasn't any evidence of blood spatter on the door itself, which likely meant the Lifeboat door was open when-

Yeah. Yeah, it's unmistakable. Someone had to have been shot. Whether they managed to make it into the ship or not, he can't tell from the visible evidence. Only one way to know for sure.

He grimaces as he keys in the door code, his finger coming away red with someone else's blood, and he waits for the door to fully cycle open before he ducks inside, already mentally scripting the verbal lashing he's planning to give the younger man. But inside all he sees are three empty seats, with the final one turned to face the wall, chestnut brown hair just barely visible above the top edge. There's no movement from that corner and his heart pounds in his chest as he slowly reaches out to grasp the back of the chair. There's far less blood in the cockpit than there was on the outside, which points to whoever got shot falling back off the ship rather than making it inside, but the lack of movement concerns him. God, if the other man came back dead, he has no idea how he's going to tell Lucy-

Turning the chair to face him, Flynn's brow furrows as he sees not Wyatt's prone form, but that of a tall, lanky girl instead. She's passed out in the seat, her skin incredibly pale, with a spatter of blood cutting a trail across her face, though she doesn't have any visible injury as far as he can tell. He presses two fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse, and finds a strong one almost immediately. Just out cold, then.

He leans her back against her seat and places a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Hey," he says quietly, waiting for her to recover from whatever trauma made her pass out (if he had to guess, he'd say it was likely the traditional first trip in the Lifeboat resulting in her brain being battered around). She responds only with a quiet groan, but otherwise doesn't move.

Flynn removes the seatbelt and kneels next to her, easing one arm under her legs and the other around her back. He lifts her easily and holds her against his chest as he navigates his way back out of the ship, nearly tripping a few times but taking care not to jostle her too much. He carries her over to their makeshift living room and lays her on the couch, then takes a step back to look at her. Her face is so familiar, but he can't tell why; he's definitely never met the girl, he can tell that much.

He sits on the edge of the coffee table and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and rests his chin on his clasped hands, watching as she slowly recovers, her head lolling back and forth as she groans slightly louder.

Finally, her eyes open, and she squints at the ceiling, slowly blinking her grogginess away as she looks around at her surroundings. Her eyes fall last on Flynn, seated a few feet away from her, and her brow furrows, a hint of recognition on her face, not that he has any idea why-

"Flynn," she says, barely above a whisper thanks to her dry throat, and he abruptly sits up straight, staring at her with somewhat more caution now.

"I'm at a disadvantage here," he says, his voice low and suspicious. "You know who I am, and I have no idea who the hell you are."

She smiles, her eyes still closed as she recovers from a sudden wave of vertigo. "I like you," she murmurs, laughing quietly, the laugh quickly turning into a cough. Flynn jumps to his feet and crosses to the sink, fills a glass with water, then heads back to the girl and holds it out to her. She takes it gratefully, sitting up slightly on one elbow to gulp the water down. She seems to be recovering more by the minute, eventually easing herself into a sitting position, and is finally able to look him in the eye.

"Where is Wyatt?" Flynn asks her, and he can see it on her face immediately. Her smile fades at once and she looks down, and it's then that Flynn sees her hands, covered in blood and shaking slightly. She looks over her shoulder, back toward the Lifeboat, and sees the trail of blood leading down from the keypad. She swallows heavily.

"I'm guessing that blood trail isn't from you," Flynn says quietly, and she nods slightly.

"He, uh...the door shut, I couldn't…I tried, I swear to god I did-"

He doesn't really need her to fill in the blanks, she's said enough, and he can tell she's close to tears. "Hey, hey, it's okay, calm down," he murmurs, placing a hand on her arm again. "How about we start with your name? That's an easy one."

She pauses, then nods, grateful for the distraction from her rising panic. "It's Amy."

Flynn freezes, eyes widening.

"Amy Preston."

Well then.

Holy shit.