First off, I am so mad at a certain network, but I'm going to skip that rant for now. This fic was started before that news hit, so yeah…
Anyway, this is the last chapter and it took a completely different turn than what I thought it would. More angsty for sure. But it's me, so I should have expected that. I'm kind of uncertain about this, explained more at the end so I apologize in advance if it's terrible.
Also, thank you everyone who commented and favorited and followed. It means so much to me!
Super early in the morning almost 2:00, so the grammar might be worse than normal. Sorry
Anyway, please enjoy this last chapter for "Love's Never Too Late". (there might be a trigger down there somewhere, I'm not sure. It's something that's a sensitive topic and 100% traumatic for anyone who has ever experienced it. So just watch out?)
Please leave me a review when you're done! They give me life.
"Why am I nervous? I shouldn't be nervous, right?" Lucy asks, smoothing her shaking hands down her white dress and staring at her reflection.
"No." Amy assures, batting her hands away from her dress. "You could be wearing a trash bag and walking down a dirty kitchen as your aisle, but Wyatt would still look at you like you're his universe, like you're the only one in the world. He'd still want to marry you just as much." Lucy laughs, her hands steadying at the thought of Wyatt waiting out there for her. "But luckily for you, you're wearing a gorgeous wedding dress ready to walk down an actual aisle to exchange vows with your man." Amy's hands flutter up to Lucy's shoulders to give them a squeeze, her face reflected in the mirror. "Although I still don't know how you got to Wyatt before I did. I mean, broad-shouldered soldier with stunning blue eyes and dimples—"
"Amy!" Lucy exclaims incredulously, laughing.
"What, Luce? I'm not blind." Amy states and Lucy rolls her eyes good naturedly. "But he's basically my brother now, so from here on out, his attractiveness is off limits. Besides, I'm happy you found him. You two are actually really cute together." Amy smiles.
"Really?" Lucy asks, arching her eyebrows. "Did you come to this conclusion before or after trying to murder him?"
Amy huffs, her eyes rolling around exasperatedly in her skull. "Are you ever going to let that go?"
Lucy pretends to consider it for a moment. "Probably not."
"Well, maybe I'll commemorate that time of the year with a prank war between me and your soon-to-be husband."
"Oh God, no." Lucy sighs, leaning her head back against Amy's.
"Get off, Lucy. You'll mess up your hair." Amy gently shoves Lucy's head forward from its resting place on hers. A wicked smile slowly encompasses her face. "But yeah, I think my idea is a pretty good one." Lucy groans and lightly shakes her head, indicating that she doesn't agree. "I'm being serious though, Lucy. You guys are cute together. Once I got past being angry at Wyatt for breaking your heart."
Lucy's heart swells with absolute love for her little sister. The tiny body Lucy held at seven years old. The protector who was willing to go toe to toe with a Delta Force soldier for the sake of her older sister.
"There is one thing I'm still pissed about." Amy says. "The fact that I'm not the president of the Lucy and Wyatt fan club." It's the last thing Lucy expects her to say and she can't help it; she busts out laughing. "I'm serious!" Amy cries indignantly. "Rufus is president and Jiya is vice president. I've been deigned to secretary, Lucy. Secretary!" Lucy laughs even harder. "You're not taking this seriously. I'm family, I should have special concessions."
"That's called nepotism." Lucy manages through her giggles, bending at the waist.
She's happy. She's so, so happy.
It takes her back to twinkling stars, a serene pool, ruby lips, and a flowing gold and white gown. And Wyatt's blazing, cerulean eyes. Everything was still such a mess then; her mother, Rittenhouse, her legacy, the fact that they were holed up in that dank bunker for the foreseeable future.
But it all fell away with Wyatt's eyes, like they were the only two people in the entire world. Wyatt's eyes were intense, tender, breathtaking, and ringed with desire all at once. That night, she let it fill her up. She let her lungs expand for the first full-fledged breath she'd taken since she'd returned to her team. She felt whole and loved and bursting at seams with possibilities.
That magical night, Wyatt's eyes were saying one sentence to her, over and over again: I love you. It was hard for her to believe at the time, and especially harder after the Jessica-being-alive fiasco blew apart their relationship and tore Lucy's precious possibilities into shrapnel to rest alongside everything else she'd lost. She knows better now. She knows that Wyatt Logan has loved her far longer than she can ever fully comprehend.
Today feels like that life-changing night in 1941, and the afterglow of one perfect morning in her soldier's arms. The muscles in her cheeks are familiar with her ever present smile and her vocal chords reverberate with a constant laugh. Every beat of her heart pumps love and happiness through her veins, threaded with the dazzling last peek of sunlight over the horizon before dusk swallows it up.
But it's so much more than 1941 despite the lack of all the opulent glitz and glamour that Hollywood had to offer. Lucy doesn't just have Wyatt, or Rufus. Or Jiya, Denise, and Connor waiting back in the bunker. No.
Today she has Wyatt, the man she's going to marry and never let go of again. She has Rufus, her best friend whom she lost once but fought fate and time to bring back. She has Jiya, her nerdy friend who asked her, what about what you want? She has Denise Christopher, gazing at her like a proud mother. She has Connor Mason, whose hands have pulled her from the Lifeboat's hatch onto solid ground more than once. She has Garcia Flynn, a rare and unexpected ally who is surprisingly easy to talk to.
She has Amy. Lucy has her little sister back. Her kickass, infuriating, protective sister.
And no more Rittenhouse.
Yes, Lucy still has too many scars to count from a time when she wondered how someone can take so much without collapsing on the ground and giving up; without being crushed under its weight; without being sucked into a blackhole of grief. She still has doubts and fears and remembers with stark clarity the face of the solider she killed in 1918 among other traumas wriggling under her skin. But she's happy. After everything, she deserves a little happiness and she's going to bask in it. Lucy will bathe in it, let it wash over her and feel it's velvety lightness against her skin.
"Amy." Lucy says suddenly, her laughter dying down. "Amy, I'm so happy." The force of it almost knocks her over. It fills her eyes with teary wonder.
"Good." Amy voice is suspiciously thick and a glance in the mirror confirms that Amy's eyes are sparkling with unshed tears as well. "I'm so happy for you, Lucy." Her hand trails down from Lucy's shoulder to her arm, elbow, wrist, and finally reaches her hand where Amy entwines their fingers. Silence surrounds the sisters for a moment, the air crackling with contentment and a feeling of such immense bliss that neither knew could exist before. After a beat, Amy pipes up as she swipes at her eyes. "But no tears, Luce. If you're going to cry, do it at the ceremony. Cry when the time comes for Wyatt's vows and he still can't competently express his love for you. Cry tears of shame."
Lucy laugh rings out once again. "Amy! Be kind. He's just not the best with words." She chastises.
"Yeah, I know. He got down on a knee and looked like a blubbering fish as he didn't actually ask you to marry him." Amy deadpans.
"He got scared I was going to say no." Lucy scolds.
"Yeah, well Rufus and I have a bet going that Wyatt's going to flop on his vows as well. He just chokes up around you. But watch him prove him wrong and give the most exquisitely beautiful, tear-jerking vows." Amy's voice dips into consternation at the end and Lucy shakes her head with a smile still curling her lips. "But let's you out of here, Wyatt's probably vibrating apart right now waiting for you. Any longer and he might just bust this door down, slide the ring on your finger, and declare you two husband and wife himself." Lucy laughs because she can see him doing that, her beloved, reckless Wyatt.
Amy skips out of the room before Lucy, skirts flouncing and clutching a bouquet as she goes to take her place. Then it's Lucy turn.
She takes a deep breath before pushing open the doors, all alone to walk down the aisle. As she strides down the aisle, to a beaming and eager and handsome Wyatt, she would swear she feels the barest brush of cool air against her arm. Henry Wallace, her true father, here in spirit. It's fitting.
There's something else Lucy sees as she takes step after step toward her future. It's the thin yet unbreakable thread that ties her to Wyatt. After everything, Lucy can't say with true conviction that she believes in fate anymore. But fate or no fate, her and Wyatt are meant to be together.
They met under the most extreme and ridiculous of circumstances: time travel. A soldier and a teacher who never would have met overwise were thrown together to stop a terrorist from ripping apart history. Then they had to thwart a shadow organization, pressed closer and closer throughout the centuries. If even a silver of fate existed, or even if it didn't, it lead her to Wyatt Logan. He was at the end of every path she traveled, every door she opened, every storm she survived—everything.
Lucy follows that string, attached from her heart to Wyatt's and endlessly stretching any distance that might come between them. She follows that string down the aisle to marry Wyatt Logan in a small, intimate ceremony that couldn't be any more perfect simply because he's down there waiting for her. Like always.
They exchange vows and rings.
Lucy says, "I do".
Wyatt says, "I do… ma'am".
And they share a kiss filled so with love and passion overflowing from the beginning of time to the end of time that the world stops for just a second.
Things aren't perfect now that Rittenhouse is gone, and they're married. Things have never been perfect. There's always been hearts ripped open and aching for the people they've lost. Wounds so deep that they're still open years later. Shattered pieces laying on the floor and ground into dust so they can't ever be put back again.
But that's never been much of a problem for them. Their edges were jagged when they met, hairline fractures running along their souls. Somehow, someway, Lucy and Wyatt always had a way of making their ragged edges fit. Now is no different, even if they're a little more beaten down and broken. Even if they're different, changed from who they were before the Lifeboat, Garcia Flynn, and Rittenhouse warped their lives in irreversible ways.
But they're happy together. Lucy and Wyatt. Always catching each other. Even if they get cut on each other's sharp corners, they never let go.
Lucy's prone to descending into silent spells and it's hard for Wyatt to determine if it's simply contemplation, or awful, invasive memories that have wormed their way into their head. Sometimes, she withdraws reflexively from his touch almost as if she's forgotten who he is or that there's no barriers, metaphorical or physical, to keep them apart anymore.
Wyatt has a difficult time not keeping his gun tucked into the waistband of his pants at all times. His first instinct at loud noises is whipping out a gun or snatching a knife. He still struggles with pent up anger, tension, and memories. More than one wall has suffered the release of his emotions. Just like the chipped tile in the bunker bathroom.
Both of them suffer from nightmares.
But they refuse to allow the scars of the past to detract from their happiness. From the feeling ballooning in his chest as he stands with Lucy in front of their new house. From the expanding lightness in his body as he sees Lucy's office is more half-office, half-library. From the laughs that erupts from his lungs every time Lucy attempts to cook and it's somehow worse than the last time she tried. From the feeling nestled right next to his heart when he holds Lucy, the feeling right in that exact moment, he's home.
He feels her leaving the bed the next night, leaving his arms. He lays there, empty and void without her warmth burrowed into him. Patiently he stays there, waiting for her to come back.
She doesn't.
After a few moments, Wyatt rolls out of bed knowing that attempting to return to the land of sleep without Lucy is pointless. He treks down the steps bare-chested in search of his wife. It doesn't take him long to find her.
She's slumped back against the couch cushions, a half-unpacked life scattered around her. Furniture boxes still taped and bolted shut. Some of the room is out of the boxes and in random places around the room. Other parts are partially covered in bubble and plastic wrap. It's a mess for them to do with what they wish. To rearrange and make something beautiful out of. Just like they did with themselves.
It's dark but he can still see Lucy from the wavering moonlight filtering through their open windows. Her brown hair is a tangled halo around her head and her sunset copper eyes are staring unseeingly ahead. It's a bit like her face after getting back from 1918. Blank, destroyed, all the life sucked out. It's a face he knows well and wholly hates. He knows what's running through her head when he sees her like this.
He pads quietly over to her, crouching down in front of her. No acknowledgement. Gently, Wyatt puts his hands on her knees and whispers, "Hey."
Her eyes blink owlishly, adjusting back to the present moment instead of wherever she just was. "Wyatt?" she asks, voice small and confused. Almost like a child. "I didn't mean to wake you." She says after a few more moments, realization dawning slowly on her overactive brain.
"It's okay." Wyatt soothes, mouth quirked into a small smile. "I can't really sleep anymore without you there with me." He confesses. Lucy gives him the barest smile but it's enough. She'll be okay. Slowly, she starts leaning forward until her forehead is touching his, sharing the same breath. Her arms flutter onto his shoulders before linking behind his neck. Wyatt stays there, giving her the comfort of his presence and skin against hers, giving her his exhales and breathing shallowly so she can have more air.
Wyatt loses track of how long they stay here, eyes closed and hearts beating in sync. "Do you want to talk about it?" he questions, letting the dance over her eyelashes, cheekbones, and lips. He'll do anything he can to ease her pain.
"Can—" Lucy swallows. "can you just hold me?" It's a request he'll never deny.
His nod is miniscule, but he knows she feels it. Lucy's arms start to slither back around to release him from her grip but before she can extricate herself completely, Wyatt tips his face up to press his lips tenderly against her forehead. Once he's out of her embrace, he heaves himself onto the couch, leaning against the armrest at the far end. Lucy lays horizontally, her head ending up in his lap. Gently, he starts massaging her scalp, running his hands through her unruly curls.
They stay that way as the night carries once, wrapped in silence and each other with the moon casting a silvery spotlight on them. Sometimes, it's these moments that Wyatt likes the best. The quiet ones where they don't need words because they won't do a damn thing. All they need is each other. Where he's the balm that soothes her aches and pains and lets her know that she's here and alive and loved.
"Wyatt." Lucy murmurs against him, so soft that if he wasn't so attuned to her voice, he wouldn't have heard. "Tell me something good."
"You." He says it simply and immediately. She's his good thing. His best thing. His sunsets and sunrises, his steady hand, his smile. His everything.
Lucy gives a strangled laugh, her voice choked like there's something lodged in her throat. Tears, trying to break the damn and flood her cheeks. "Something else." She insists, curling up tighter against him.
"Not sure I have anything else, babydoll." He admits. He can't think beyond her, doesn't want to.
"Please." Lucy begs, and he can hear how much she needs it.
Wyatt thinks long and hard. Not his father, that worthless sonofabitch doesn't deserve even Wyatt's wondering, glancing, half-a-second thoughts. Stories from deployment, even the good moments, hit a little too close to home for both of them and the war they waged not that long ago. Jessica… those memories feel poisoned, tainted from the Jessica of the previous timeline. The Jessica raised and conditioned by Rittenhouse. A loyal and proud member. Lucy's better at separating the two, his Jessica from the Jessica that tore a hole through them. She'd probably love to hear about a young, reckless, dumb-in-love Wyatt. But Wyatt's not so good at separating the two Jessica's, so he'll just pass on that for now. Maybe someday. That left one person.
"Remember me telling you about how much of a troublemaker I was as kid?" Wyatt asks.
"Yeah. Fifteen-year old Wyatt Logan, the bootlegger. Barred from prom for drinking on campus." Lucy croaks, nodding against his leg.
"Well, I'm gonna tell you about how Grandpa Sherwin tried keeping me out of trouble." Wyatt chuckles. He already feels Lucy relaxing against his leg at the mention of the only good man Wyatt had in his early years. Wyatt always wished that Grandpa Sherwin could meet Lucy, but it knocks into Wyatt now with all the force of an enraged bull. Wyatt knows that Grandpa Sherwin would adore Lucy. Take her sides in arguments, regale her with tales of Wyatt's misguided youth, impart wisdom on both of them even though they're not children anymore. "He'd trade me; staying out of trouble for a about his life, mainly his time in the army. I couldn't pull one over him either. He'd know if I snuck the smallest sip of my dad's whiskey and wouldn't tell me a damn thing. Let's just say that I, uh… didn't get too many of them. Didn't clean up my act until just a little bit before enlisting and then the Army straightened me out from there. But I got some. He wouldn't sugarcoat anything either, didn't paint war as black and white, good guys versus bad, a chessboard where you could see your enemy clear as day. I was more the one who romanticized it, growing up on Westerns where everything was clear cut. Grandpa Sherwin would always make sure that there was some short of life lesson in his stories, of course. It was Grandpa Sherwin's personal history. Guess that makes me a bit of history buff." He jokes. Blessedly, Lucy's answering laugh is not waterlogged with tears not yet fallen or layered with past agonies threatening to stain the future.
Wyatt keeps talking, re-telling some of his Grandpa's stories for Lucy. He keeps going and going, even when he feels sleep weighing down his eyelids and pressing down around his torso like a blanket. He keeps talking and talking until Lucy's asleep. Her measured breaths reach his ears and her body is curled tightly around him, muscles lax and mouth hanging open to inhale puffs of air.
Wyatt gazes down at her, bathed in the moonlight that's creeped further in the room since he found her in here. The soft light highlights her battle-hardened limbs, always lanky but newly minted to escape captors and hold her own against the organization that was supposed to be her legacy. It pools in the hollows of her cheeks that shrink day by day. It illuminates the slope of her nose, the lashes that flutter gently against her pale cheek, and her delicate collarbone. She's beautiful, a mix of historian and fighter and passion and everything else he loves. Here, cradled in his arms with her mind caressed by sleep, she could be a moon goddess. It probably wouldn't be too far of a stretch. Lucy's always seemed too good to be true.
It doesn't take Wyatt too long to follow her into sleep. The position is awkward—partly upright yet slouched, Lucy's bodyweight all on his thighs—but he doesn't care. A sore back tomorrow is worth a peacefully sleeping Lucy right now.
Besides, he can't sleep unless she's with him anymore. It might be a bad habit he's developing, but he'll take it over alcoholism—the cliff he was teetering on the edge of for years after Jessica's death. Now he has something more addictive than any numbing wine or whiskey: Lucy. He's been a Lucy Preston addict far longer than he cares to admit. First craving the voice that was always there to contradict his bullheaded ways and pulled him from the dust of Alamo; her presence that gave him comfort and purpose; her eyes, so deep and endless and, at first, incapable of hiding a single thing she was feeling; her skin, the familiar electricity they've just always had, a constant connection that sprung up one day and he soon found himself unable to live without; her lips, their first meeting sweet and soft and signifying everything that he'd once been too afraid to admit; her body, the pleasure etched in her face when he filled her and how he wanted to put that same ecstasy on her face every day.
Wyatt Logan's addiction to Lucy Preston is probably enough to fill more than one ocean. But for now, she's there with him. So he sleeps.
For Lucy and Wyatt, the engagement phase didn't last long. Too much time had already been wasted on dead wives, twisted family trees, and the entirety of the space-time continuum that sucked both of them back into it repeatedly (and screwed them over more than once).
Lucy, now free from Stanford, insisted on not getting another job until her and Wyatt settled down. She wanted to be present in every second of their new lives as officially husband and wife. Wyatt desired a more stable job, something that wouldn't throw him into a classified mission or dangerous deployment at the drop of a hat. He told himself it was because he wanted to spend more time with Lucy. It was true.
Half true.
He wanted to start a family with her and he wanted to be there. Being separated from Lucy would be hard enough. But separated from her and their metaphorical child? No. Just plain no.
He sat down with Agent Christopher to talk over options and now, Wyatt is the proud head of security at Mason Industries. It's a good fit, for everyone. After all, Connor Mason had a time machine stolen from him. By a terrorist. In his own company. He thinks that enough to warrant trust issues with Mason's capabilities to keep ahold of his crazy ventures.
It works for both of them. Lucy fields offers from other colleges, tabling them until she's "ready" to get back to work. They unpack the house together, arranging and rearranging and building their life. It feels good. It takes a while, but they get their house all put together. There are empty spaces, alcoves, and rooms. Voids filled with the silent whispers and promises of little feet running around.
Wyatt is worried. Very worried. It's been about a month since they've organized and unpacked everything. Wyatt goes to work every day, overseeing security measures, interviewing potential security officers, and taking charge of training. He and Lucy have started to settle into a rhythm, wonderfully domestic.
But she still hasn't gone back to work. It's a very un-Lucy like thing to do. He knows that she loves teaching, it's why she studied so this timeline's history so hard; so she could get back to it. Wyatt tries to let it go, ignore it. He doesn't want to question her and make it seem like he's trying to pressure her into getting a job or anything like that. Maybe quitting Stanford hit her harder than she thought it would? Is there something else? Endless questions wriggle restlessly at the back of his mind, refusing to be silenced.
It's about a week later, a week of incredible refraining on Wyatt's part, before he gets his answer. They're standing at the sink, him washing dishes and her drying when she asks him a question out of the blue. "When do you think Rufus and Jiya are getting married?"
Wyatt blinks. "Uh… I think Jiya's trying to give Rufus ample time to get off his ass and ask her but she's getting impatient. My money's on Jiya asking him."
"Wyatt!" Lucy giggles, putting the plate she was drying down on the counter so she doesn't drop it.
"What?" Wyatt asks, face split in a magnificent smile at the luxurious sound leaving Lucy. "Come on, Lucy, you know it's true. Why are you asking?"
Suddenly, it's as if a switch has been flipped. Her face smooths over and she bites her lip, attempting to fake nonchalance. "No reason." She shrugs. "If it's soon, I didn't want to ruin their big announcement with mine, so…"
Big announcement? Is she trying to be cryptic, because Wyatt's failing to connect the dots. He's not passing Go, not collecting 200 dollars. Lucy keeps peeking at him nervous from under her eyelashes, gnawing on her lip frantically now and twisting her hands. Wyatt racks his brain but he's still not getting it. "And by that you mean…?"
"I'm pregnant, Wyatt." She blurts like she can't hold it in anymore.
Wyatt drops the glass he's holding, and he thinks he might have heard a crack when it hit the bottom of the sink, but he doesn't give a damn about kitchenware at the moment. Pregnant? They weren't using protection, but they weren't specifically trying either.
Another voice echoes in his head, one he had pined for for six years. That pregnancy had been a lie, a last-ditch effort to keep Wyatt ensnared in her net and the web of their marriage so she wouldn't be kicked out the bunker. That'd make it hard for her to complete her objective. A word that opened a yawning chasm between not just him and Lucy, but everyone the bunker.
This is different. It's Lucy telling him she's pregnant with their baby. The woman he loves more than anything. It's a shock to his system, the Lifeboat turning his organs inside out as they blink out of the present. He's going to be a dad?
Wyatt has no idea how long he's been standing there, frozen. He thaws as he lets out a whoop, lifting Lucy off the ground and spinning her around, unbothered by the fact that his hands are still soapy and wet. He's laughing and crying at the same time and when he finally puts Lucy down, he can see that she is too. He presses his cheek to hers, letting their tears mingling and their laughs ripple through the others body. "We're having a baby." Wyatt whispers in awe. Lucy nods against him. Right here, right now is the happiest moment of Wyatt's life.
"And if you've been wondering about why I'm still technically unemployed, it's because I figured that landing a job still to request maternity leave wasn't the smartest idea." Lucy murmurs.
About two weeks after Lucy told Wyatt she was pregnant, Jiya and Rufus announced their engagement (and yes, Jiya was the one who popped the question). Lucy had wanted to keep the news between her and Wyatt for a little while, and now she felt stuck. She didn't want Jiya and Rufus to feel that Lucy was stepping on their moment with a pregnancy announcement.
However, pregnancy was not kind to Lucy's taste buds. Cravings hit her hard. There were some weird combinations of food and there were foods that she could no longer stomach. Not to mention the fact that alcohol was strictly off limits for roughly nine months. When Wyatt and Lucy went out with Jiya and Rufus, it was usually to eat, and sometimes to their favorite bar. Given that their friends were geniuses, it didn't take them long to pinpoint something off with Lucy.
Jiya came to the realization first, an engagement ring (that she and Rufus chose together after he said yes) refracting light on her finger as she scrutinized Lucy. Jiya's brow was furrowed, braid slung over her shoulder and Rufus's arm around her. It all changed in .2387 seconds. Olive hands smacked the table and Jiya squealed, very loudly in a very public location, "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE PREGNANT!"
The secret got out quickly after that. Denise was immediately imparting motherly wisdom on them, pushing parenting books into their hands, and watching closely over Lucy. Amy threw a bit of a temper tantrum that she wasn't the first to know and that they didn't tell her as soon as they knew.
Lucy is now in her 18th week. All visits to the doctor have indicated everything going smoothly, but Wyatt's wound extra tight at work these days. If he punches some of the recruits a little harder than normal during training, no one says anything. Lucy also finds his hovering in equal parts annoying and endearing. Depending on the day.
Lucy barely has a baby bump. It's tiny, but's it's already everything that Wyatt and Lucy revolve around. There's still so much more time to go. Wyatt has no idea how he's going to handle the later months with a heavily pregnant Lucy if he's this anxious at 18 weeks.
He never finds out.
He's in his office at Mason that day, filing security reports when it gets the call. The screen flashes Lucy at him and he answers at once. He doesn't think anything of it. Lucy's been inclined to call Wyatt at work and ask him to pick something up for her on the way home.
This time is different.
It's not Lucy at the other end of the phone.
"Wyatt?" Amy, voice saturated with panic.
"Amy?" All thoughts his job are abandoned. "Amy what's wrong? Lucy—"
"She—She—" Amy dissolves into sobs, ugly hiccups coming through the line. Wyatt's gripping the phone like it's his lifeline because he has nothing else to hold on to right now. He's starting to spiral. "My god, Wyatt. There's so much blood. Why is there so much blood?" Amy begs through the phone.
Wyatt's blood runs frigid. Amy never came out and said her name, but he knows that the blood Amy's referring to is his wife's. "Amy—"
"She was find one minute, and then the next she's saying her stomach hurts. Then she just starts bleeding. So much. I called the ambulance already, but Wyatt you need to get to the hospital." Wailing sirens come through the line.
"Amy, what's happening to her?" Wyatt gasps out, voice wobbling.
"Wyatt…" Amy whispers, voice laced with pity. "I think she's losing the baby."
He drops the phone.
Most things from that point is a blur. He knows he stumbles out of his office, off-kilter and face streaked with tears. Rufus and Jiya intercept him and then Wyatt's in the back of Rufus's car as Rufus guns it to the hospital. When they get there, his worst fears are confirmed.
Lucy had a miscarriage.
Lucy lost the baby.
"When's the last time you and Wyatt had sex?" Amy questions, crude and blunt as she makes herself at home in Lucy and Wyatt's living room. Lucy didn't hear her sister come in.
It's been two months since Lucy lost her baby. She's been in a daze ever since, the world hazy around her as gets by day-by-day. Her fingers are wrapped tightly around an entire bottle of whiskey, hella strong stuff, too. Wyatt's tried to help, but he's mourning too. He's at least attempted to pull himself out of it. He's taking care of himself and trying to take care of her too. He cleared all alcohol from the house the first night Lucy drank herself into oblivion. But Lucy has a car, a credit card, and knows the location of a grocery store, so she's winning that particular battle. She knows that she and Wyatt should be mourning together and she knows what his biggest fear is: that he'll lose her too. To grief and loss. It makes it her sick to think that she's doing nothing to contradict that mindset. But sometimes she can't even look at him. It wasn't his body that their baby's life slipped from. He wasn't carrying their child. Logically, she's aware that she's not at fault but her brain has gotten into the habit of informing her otherwise. The only way to shut up the goddamn voice is drinking it into submission.
"Protected or unprotected?" Lucy asks Amy, taking a swig of her bottle, the buzz humming through her veins.
"Does it matter? And stop that. That'll kill you and certainly won't help your next baby." Amy hisses, snatching the bottle from Lucy's grip.
"My next baby?" Lucy asks, turning to Amy incredulously. "I already felt one die inside me, that's more than enough for me."
"Lucy," Amy croons, voice much softer as she scoops Lucy's hands up in her own. "did you know that the next pregnancy after the first miscarriage is usually successful?" Tears start leaking from Lucy's eyes. Here they were, talking about her baby using words like successful. "And you are absolutely not to blame for what happened." The tears are falling in earnest now, from both their eyes. Lucy wanders vaguely if her tears are whiskey. She'd certainly been drinking enough of it.
"I can't do it again, Amy. I'm so scared." Lucy confesses, breaking apart in her sister's arms. Lucy breaks and drowns and suffocates and burns down right there in Amy's arms.
"I know, Lucy. I know." Amy murmurs against her skin, her hands rubbing up and down Lucy's back. "But this has got to stop. This isn't healthy. Take care of yourself, take care of Wyatt. And mourn together. You're gonna get through this Lucy." Amy assures, her tears dampening Lucy's dark waves. "You're gonna get through this."
Lucy does get through it. With Wyatt.
It isn't easy, but when have they ever been easy? It's once more scar, bigger than all the others, to add to the museum of their cut-up bodies and hearts.
They mourn their lost child and this time, they can't hop in the Lifeboat and go back to change the timeline so their baby lives.
But Lucy wants to try again. She wants a baby that she'll hold and love and raise. But she'll never forget her first child and how they never got to draw their first breaths. Wyatt is there for her as always, constantly asking her if she's sure and they can wait if she wants.
She wants a baby. She wants to have a baby with Wyatt.
Although…. There is one thing she wants to clear up before trying.
Wyatt drives her to Mason, where they track down Mason, Agent Christopher. Jiya, and Rufus and herd them into a conference room. All their eyes are sympathetic, and Lucy appreciates the sentiment, but she doesn't want it. She just wants her questions answered. "Can time travel affect pregnancy? Or fertility? Or anything like that?" The question is mainly aimed at Connor, but she'll listen to anyone with an answer. Connor looks like he fully expected that question to fall from her lips.
"We don't know." He sighs. "There's so many variables, incalculable. How many trips you've taken, how far back, traveling to alternate timelines, injuries on jumps —changing the physical form from the initial jump back to the current timeline—" Connor keeps prattling on, listing off all the reasons they can't be sure.
"So—so what you're saying it that Lucy's miscarriage could be the product of time travel?" Wyatt asks, voice strangled.
"It's impossible to tell. Or know." Connor admits. "I'm sorry."
Lucy feels sick, pressing her hand to her stomach. A habit she'd formed when their was still a little life growing there. "Oh my god." She breathes, staggering slightly. Wyatt's at her side in the blink of an eye, arms wrapped firmly around her to steady her. Even as the Earth's crust is crumbling beneath her feet.
"Or maybe it was a normal miscarriage." Denise cuts in. "You have no idea. But if you want children, you shouldn't stop trying because of some hypothetical, maybe time travel side effect nonsense." She insists.
"She's right." Jiya pipes up. "What we know about time travel and it's effects is alarmingly low for how much we've done it, but we can't let the what ifs dictate our lives."
Next year, Lucy and Wyatt welcome their daughter into the world.
One day, they're gazing down at their daughter sleeping in her crib, the tiny human they both helped make and love beyond words. "Lucy, I love you so much. I love her so much. I'm so lucky. Why couldn't I have just found you earlier? Or not ruin us in the first place?" Wyatt whispers against Lucy's ear. So many emotions war in his chest. Gratefulness, happiness, overwhelming love. But also mingling around is regret and sadness.
"It doesn't matter." Lucy's breath ghosts over him in reply, turning her head to the side and nuzzling her nose into his cheek. "If there's one thing we know by now, it's that love's never too late." She tucks her face into his shoulder as they both soak up the bliss of the moment for just a little longer.
Okay, last really early morning for this fic cause it's over now.
This took a really different direction from what I originally intended. Initially, I wasn't even going to have more chapters beyond the first, but I hope I did okay. And the whole baby thing in his chapter…not in my plans. I thought about cutting it out, but I thought it kind of fit and I wanted the sister moment with Amy cause I thought I needed a bit more Amy Preston here.
I get uncomfortable writing this far into the character's hypothetical futures, I always feel like I start to deviate from who they are. I hope I didn't and that I did them justice. And you know what? Even if people hate it, I did something new and different and stepped outside of my comfort zone and should be proud of that at least. I'll just keep telling myself that.
Anyway, I hope I did the characters justice and that you guys enjoy. Please leave a review to let me know what you think.