Hoo boy. I needed a conversation between Future!Lucy and our poor, dumb, broken Present!Wyatt. I jumped in his head and couldn't climb back out until this whole thing had written itself.
It's sweet and sad and flawed because it's entirely from sweet, sad, flawed Wyatt's POV. Starts at the very beginning and goes through the very end of S2. Don't read until you've watched Chinatown.
Wyatt was pretty certain it was his father's fault. As were most things in his life, come to think of it, but he wasn't the wallowing kind.
(Brooding? Yes. Wallowing? He'd never had the luxury.)
After all, when Wayne Logan had threatened his wife with a raised hand, Wyatt, at age five, got between them.
When Wayne Logan took his wife's hard-earned tips from the diner (meant to be their grocery money for the week) and blew it on Lone Star beer and smokes, Wyatt, at age ten, found an old lawnmower at the dump, fixed it up, and started mowing lawns for the rich folks in town.
And when Wayne Logan sat back on his heels, spitting into a dirty Dr Pepper can and jeering at his son, Wyatt, at age thirteen, straightened his spine and repaired the car in the dark.
Nothing could knock Wyatt Logan off-center much or for long. Not his father's abuse, not his mother's depression, not his grandfather's death – nothing.
Even when they pinned a medal to his chest for being a coward, Wyatt kept his head high and lied through all of his psych evaluations, only going to pieces in private.
Even when his wife was murdered, he kept his jaw clenched and his eyes dry at her funeral, consumed with self-hate for his sins. He strong-armed the temptation to mourn (you don't have that right, asshole, he told himself in a voice that was eerily like his father's) and channeled his grief into other obsessions, like conducting his own search for her killer and playing chicken with death, silently daring it to lay a glove on him as he took assignment after dangerous assignment.
Yeah – far be it from any man to say that Wyatt Logan wasn't rock solid. His foundation was shot up full of holes, sure, but he was entirely self-possessed. He hid his weaknesses where they would never hurt another person but himself, determined to flip the script his father had read him every day of his childhood.
This self-deception kept him steady until the moment he cracked open one eye, then the other, and took in the sight of Lucy Preston inspecting him haughtily from the opposite side of the room.
He felt something within himself slide slightly off-center at the sight of her sitting there, fidgeting with the locket around her neck, and he smirked his best self-assured smirk to try and compensate.
He'd already written his reaction off as a slightly drunken fluke when he swaggered over to her in that Jersey jail cell and informed her lowly that he knew how to get them out. The instant her shoulders were bare, however, he felt it again: a disorienting internal shift that unsteadied him even as he held on to the metal bars.
So unsteady, in fact, that he barely caught the bra she threw at him.
So unsteady, indeed, that when his lips touched the undergarment to tear out the underwire with his teeth, he lost his breath for half a second.
Wyatt's only saving grace was that he was reasonably sure she couldn't see how she was affecting him. He tried to counteract her off-balancing looks and touches and remarks by trying to steady her, himself.
He argued that Christopher give her a moment when she turned up panicked about her sister's disappearance.
He made sure her Lifeboat harness was fastened and tightened properly.
He held her blood-stained hand as she cried over Lincoln.
And when he watched those same hands shake as they held a glass of whiskey in Nazi Germany, he told himself that talking her over the hump was in the best interest of the mission and his own safety. In reality, though, talking her over the hump didn't include stepping into her personal space and straightening her tie.
He'd never do that for one of his men, after all.
At the end of every day, however, Wyatt Logan felt like he was holding up moderately well around the dizzying phenomenon that was Lucy Preston.
That is, he was until they went to the Alamo.
Wyatt had only been there once before as a child on a school trip, but even with that limited exposure, the scrubby Texas brush and the haggard, anxious faces of the soldiers were familiar enough to drag out his carefully hidden weaknesses into the San Antonio sun.
His father's voice echoed in his brain, making him lash out at his team.
His brothers' bodies littered the ground, making him fear for his sanity.
And when he turned away from Bowie to see Lucy sitting guiltily behind him, ripping cloth into bandages, the shift her worried, warm gaze caused in his chest was seismic.
He felt like an exposed nerve – raw and painful – and when he dragged Lucy into his side, barely keeping her from being struck by a stray Mexican bullet, he couldn't take it any longer.
"I'm not goin'," he told her, feeling the holes in his foundation finally cracking, creating spidery, irreparable fissures.
"What?" she gasped. "No! What do you mean?"
"You don't need me," he said. He couldn't properly draw breath. "They're gettin' rid of me anyway, right?"
"You can't stay here; everybody dies," Lucy ground out.
"Look, I know," he interrupted. He met her eyes and gave her the first excuse he could think up: "I can't leave good men like this. Not again."
He stood, took aim, and pulled the trigger. Hoped she'd be gone by the time he ducked back down behind the wagon.
"No," she said. "No, Wyatt."
"What difference does it make?" he asked, the barest tinge of a bitter smile on his face. "Jessica, everyone I care about is gone. Let me do one good thing. Let me buy you the time to get out."
She was already shaking her head, eyes full of tears, and as he turned away to take another shot, she seized his arm and hauled him back toward her.
"What about us?" she demanded. "We're counting on you."
"The next guy's gonna handle it," he began, but she cut him off.
"I don't want anybody else."
And then she put her hands on his face, holding him steady as his foundation continued to crumble.
"I – trust – you. You are the one that I trust. Rufus needs you; I need you. Okay?"
It was the first time, he realized, that she had deliberately touched him, and for some reason, he was furious. Furious and addicted, because though the sight and feel of her made his axis tilt, her touch on him settled and steadied him in a way he'd never felt before.
Wyatt Logan was irrationally and hopelessly addicted to Lucy Preston, and he was furious about it.
The anger wasn't directed at her. He was angry with himself; confused as to why he'd allowed her to have this effect.
But maybe it wasn't really a choice, he thought, as she thanked him and disappeared into the Alamo's aqueduct. He could tell her quiet "thank you" meant more than just thanking him for convincing John Smith to deliver her letter to Houston, but he wondered if she realized that it wasn't just out of this doomed Spanish mission he meant to follow her.
"I can't leave my people," said Bowie.
"I can't leave mine," Wyatt replied.
He'd be following Lucy Preston until his legs gave out.
(And maybe even then, he'd crawl.)
Lucy wasn't perfect and Wyatt wasn't blind. She was secretive and bossy and occasionally a little cold, and in some of those instances, he got so mad at her he could spit.
Still, those moments were the exception rather than the rule, and he tried his best to hide the moments he felt the studs of his foundation giving way. Pulling her gently by the neck toward himself in the Barrow Gang's hidden cabin and pressing his lips to hers made the room spin. Her fingertips trailing down his cheek as they pulled away from each other pinned him to the floor.
When that bastard Rittenhouse told his men to take Lucy to his bedchamber, a sick purr in his voice, Wyatt honestly had no idea what to do. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and an acute panic made his racing mind gray out as she was dragged toward the door, her face desperate.
He had never thanked God as sincerely as he did when Rufus's musket provided the distraction he needed to break free.
The emotion was cut off abruptly, however, when he heard her voice call out for him in the dark Revolutionary forest. The panic came back full-force and only grew until he managed to function on some higher, half-assed plane of recklessness. It was only when H.H. Holmes lay dead at his feet that he realized it.
Lucy was a roller coaster of steep inclines and sharp, stomach-in-your-throat drops.
Lucy was an earthquake with relentless, rolling aftershocks.
Lucy was someone and something he now almost inherently needed, but his guilt over Jessica hung over her like the sword of Damocles.
When he knocked on her mother's front door in the middle of the night and she appeared, hair messy, feet bare, robe half-hanging off her shoulder, he had to briefly touch the doorframe to steady himself. And when she began to cry into her hands as she sat on the stairs, he nearly changed his mind.
But he didn't, because he was an obsessed, stubborn son of a bitch.
Lucy didn't seem to notice – or, if she did, she didn't seem to care – when he returned, bowed with shame. She threw herself into his arms, whispering consolation into his ear. Wyatt held her tightly, closing his eyes and acknowledging afresh whatever entity was bestowing this undeserved comfort and massive responsibility on his shoulders.
"How can you be so calm right now?" she appealed, and the answer was out of his mouth before he had even formed the complete thought.
(She had a way of doing that to him.)
"Because I've been through a lot in the last couple of days…and I've fought it for a long time. You can call it fate, or God, or the Force," he tried to joke, but if it actually was the Force, it wouldn't surprise him – nothing really surprised him after time travel. "But I am meant to do something. I am meant to protect the both of you."
He looked to Rufus, whom he now considered his brother, before his gaze was irrevocably drawn back to Lucy.
"I see that now," he said. "And I will."
(He had no idea when he said it that it was a lie.)
She looked back at him in quiet incredulity.
"You realize you sound like a crazy person, right?" she deadpanned. He let out a dry chuckle.
"I sound like you," he pointed out.
"Exactly," she replied, and the last of his derelict foundation crumbled away, replaced by the faith and devotion plain in her beautiful face.
He missed that old foundation. Desperately. It hadn't been perfect, but it had held him up solidly enough through every high and low of life until now. And it was better than facing the possibility of losing her to whatever obstacle they next came upon.
Wyatt thought she might be cottoning on to his charade when he told her he couldn't lose her to Flynn in 1954. There was a certain tremor in his voice when he said so. She still sent him away, but he could swear he saw awareness flicker in her warm eyes as he obeyed.
When all was said and done and he was staring down the reality of his bunk and friends and future at Pendleton, however, he knew he'd been made.
"Hey," she said softly, facing him. "Thank you. Thank you for everything."
He nodded and swallowed.
"Ah, we'll stay in touch," he said, grasping for lightheartedness. "I'll call ya if I ever need a bossy know-it-all."
"Yeah, I was thinking about texting you the next time I need a reckless hothead," she retorted gently, and he smiled.
"Sounds good."
She grinned a little shyly and they stared at one another.
I can do this, he tried convincing himself. I can let this go.
But then she was in his arms, her cheek pressed into the crook of his neck, and his breath was gone.
I can't. I can't.
"Y'know, maybe, uh…maybe Pendleton can wait a little bit," he fibbed as she pulled away. A smirk started to bloom on her face and he liked it so much that he found he didn't even really care she knew he was lying.
"You think I'm gonna miss the chance to help you get your sister? See what all this fuss is about?
Her face fell a little.
"I'm really sorry that you won't be able to get Jessica back."
He took a deep breath. Nodded.
"Maybe we do need to stop trying to fix the past," he admitted. "Start lookin' at the present."
He paused and the unguarded honesty in her eyes bolstered him.
"Maybe I do need to be open to possibilities."
"Possibilities of what?" she asked, but he smiled because now he wasn't the one who was lying.
"I don't know," he said simply. I've got a couple ideas, though. "I just know I'm not really ready to say goodbye yet."
And he wasn't. He wasn't ready to say goodbye, and he wasn't prepared to lose her for six weeks.
But he did, anyway.
The process of collecting the scraps of his old foundation and cobbling them back together in her absence was second only to the pain he'd felt when he lost Jessica. He had to, though, because without her there to keep him stable, he was a mess.
Wyatt knew he was being a miserable, unreasonable asshole to everyone in the bunker (and to the bunker itself, actually, as he punched walls and randomly threw inanimate objects across the room), but he couldn't help himself.
He was off like a gunshot the instant they learned about Rittenhouse's presence in Saint Mihiel and then also once they arrived on the front, almost to the point of risking Rufus's safety as he struggled to keep up.
Reckless hothead, indeed.
He was 95% certain he saw her lithe form and head of dark curls disappear into a canvas tent fifty yards at his nine o'clock, but he was still cautious when he peeked inside.
It was worse than the Alamo. The sight of her delicate features, which were calm and carefully blank with what he thought must be a defense against fear, made him feel like he was careening sideways off of his pitiful, make-do foundation. He was dazed with relief as he stepped toward her and clapped an urgent hand on her shoulder before she could leave.
She reacted and whirled on him with a move he had taught her to use when wielding a knife. Luckily, she didn't have one now.
She froze. He struggled to breathe.
"You're alive?" she breathed, and then he could, too.
"You're alive," he responded, and she giggled a little hysterically, throwing herself at him like she always did. He was prepared for it, though, and barely resisted the temptation to bury his face into her shoulder before she grabbed Rufus and pulled him into her embrace, too.
He was still a little giddy with relief when she suddenly said: "You have to go."
"What?" he said dumbly.
"My mother is leaving soon."
"Your mother?" asked Rufus.
"She's one of them," Lucy hissed.
"S-so your mother's Rittenhouse?"
"Don't have time to explain right now; I have to get back to them," she said, turning away. He seized her by the arm.
"Wait," he grunted. "Get back to what?"
"They're trying to save a soldier which means I have to kill him, I guess?" she babbled.
"With that?" said Rufus, pointing at the grenade. Lucy looked down at her own hand like she was surprised to see the bomb there.
"No, this is for the Mothership," she rushed on, waving it in front of his face. The beginning of a terrible thought bloomed in the back of his mind. "Which you guys can take care of now."
Wyatt took the grenade. The awful, unnamable thought grew bigger.
"Okay, it's about three miles from here, near an abandoned farmhouse up the road, okay?" she explained with her hands, repeating herself.
"Wait, hold on, let me get this straight," said Rufus. "You were gonna kill a soldier and blow up the Mothership?"
Lucy sighed sharply, disconsolately.
"I thought you were dead," she said simply, and the whole of the thought took form and spilled out of Wyatt's mouth.
"How were you gonna get home?" he asked rhetorically, fear in his voice.
She swallowed.
"I wasn't."
When she left the tent, it felt like his guts followed her.
He could barely believe she was sitting on the cot across from him, hours later. When she broke down in his arms, he made her a second false promise.
"You haven't lost me," he intoned as she curled into him.
But she would. A mere day after the most passionate, blissful night of his life (including his honeymoon, but no one need know that except himself), he was staring into the hard, exasperated eyes of his dead wife.
Wyatt ignored Lucy's calls seventeen times before answering, and when he did, he could hear her tears even though they were silent.
That was the day he began breaking his promises.
Lucy came back from Salem with two deep wounds – one physical, one emotional – and Flynn at her side. She lingered in a feverish delirium and he lingered at the door of her room, torn.
Because he loved his wife. He would always love Jessica, even though she wasn't quite the same. She flinched infinitesimally when he called her 'Jess.' She drew slightly away from him when he held her at night. Her smiles didn't always reach her eyes, which seemed a little more flint-like than he remembered, but he couldn't tell if that was because he had viewed the memories he had of her with rose-colored glasses for so long or if –
No. He couldn't think that way. This was his wife, for God's sake. She was probably acting like that because she was still learning to trust the man he was rather than the drunk she had known for the past six years.
As he slowly tried to withdraw from Lucy and pour himself back into his marriage, he started inadvertently shooting holes in the once-healthy bedrock of her doing. The sick thing was that though it was his own foundation, that foundation now existed in another person, so his self-inflicted wounds weren't just his any longer.
The first wound had been his wordless abandonment. The others followed like dominoes in a cascade of damage: the knife to her arm, the infection and fever, the casual belittling of Jessica's doing that he allowed, unchallenged, and then the nick made by Emma's knife in Lucy's neck.
He had thought he'd been doing an okay job of tying himself back to his wife, but the moment Emma had Lucy in her hold, it was like another earthquake. He nearly stumbled, shoving the hospital tray out of the way as the blade bit into her smooth skin.
Lucy saw his failure and was rightfully terrified. Emma could've killed her, and it would've been his fault because he was too scared to take the shot.
He sought solace in Jessica's bed, and the sixth wound was Lucy's face as she brushed past him in the morning to use the bathroom.
Maybe I'm just like Dad. I'm just someone who hurts everyone around me no matter how hard I try, he thought morosely the morning after she returned from Depression-era San Antonio. Maybe this is just my baseline.
And then he saw Lucy walk out of Flynn's room and his vision went red.
"Stay the hell away from her," he growled at the man later, not making eye contact.
"Oh, you mean…Lucy?"
Goddamn this asshole.
"You know she's not your wife, right?"
Wyatt looked up and met Flynn's eyes in the mirror.
"That's the, uh, blonde lady just down the hall…unless history's changed again."
"I'm warning you," Wyatt said, as calmly as he could.
"What is it you want from her, Wyatt? Because if you have a problem, I suggest you talk to Lucy about it. She's perfectly capable of making her own choices, don't you think?"
He walked away and Wyatt fervently wished that looks could kill.
The seventh wound was a gentle bruise – one only she felt when he tried to comfort her with his hands on her shoulders after they came back from 1919.
The eighth was his words: "Lucy – I still care about you. I can't make that disappear."
He caught the ninth before it came out of his mouth – because when she told him that the closest thing to a miracle she had ever seen was his getting Jessica back, he desperately wanted to tell her that the closest thing to a miracle he had ever seen was her pulling him back from the void he had lived in after Jessica was gone.
So he kept it to himself and attempted to patch her wounds, instead.
"You're Lucy Preston," he said seriously. "That's pretty damn good."
He could tell she didn't believe him. And he knew that the fact that she didn't believe him was his fault, too. So he gave up, and thus inflicted the ninth wound, anyway.
He held pretty steady after that, not wishing to damage her one bit more, for a few more missions – that is, until Christopher revealed her suspicions and he slammed Jessica's pregnancy out on the table like the unbeatable card he thought it to be.
He didn't need to look at Lucy's face to see that tenth wound. He walked away and felt it burning a hole in his own back.
Wyatt lost track after that. He lashed out at everyone, especially Lucy, and took a masochistic pleasure in making sure everyone knew how hurt he was by their wariness.
The odd thing was that the more he pushed Lucy away, the softer her eyes became.
It hadn't happened in so long that it took him completely off-guard when it did: Lucy physically turned him from his angry, surly warpath, wrapped her arms around him so that she was hugging his neck, and held him there.
Instinctively, he put his arms around her waist, and he felt like he was falling off of a cliff into a heaving sea. She held him up and he tucked his chin into her shoulder.
Then she left and he stood there, confused and breathless and shaken.
He tried to ground himself by laying his head on his wife's abdomen.
He tried to ignore his growing sense of panic when he woke and found Jessica – and his gun – gone.
And when he felt his elbow connect with Lucy's mouth – saw her face crumple, heard her cry "No, no," at him in the same frightened voice his mother had used when trying to fend off his father – was the moment he knew he would never be worthy of looking her in the eyes again.
He didn't look at her when he apologized. And even though she forgave him, he still kept his distance, avoided her gaze unless it was absolutely necessary, believing himself to be radioactive. She handed him some books to use in the search for Jiya and he left quickly, not wanting to scare her.
Because he had scared her. He had physically struck her. He was no better than his dad.
After the blur that was Chinatown – after the horrific, half-formed sentence that was Rufus's last 'I lo –' to Jiya – after he held his brother as he died – Wyatt was numb.
They only made it out without being arrested because his training kicked in.
He despised himself as he pulled Jiya to her feet, dragging her as gently as he could to the Lifeboat as tears cascaded down both their faces. Jiya cursed him, sobbing, pounding her fists against his chest, and he took it willingly because the blows helped to beat some feeling back into him.
Flynn appeared just as Wyatt had helped the now-catatonic Jiya into Rufus's seat. A brief, insane flash of rage took hold of him when he saw Lucy's broken face, and instinct screamed at him to get Flynn away from her before he could continue hurting her.
But then he noticed that Lucy's face was buried in Flynn's chest and she was clinging to him so tightly that her knuckles were the same color as the white of his shirt, and he remembered that he, Wyatt – not Flynn – was the bad guy now.
So he just watched as Flynn buckled her in; just watched as Flynn put a gentle palm to her face and left a handkerchief there for her to press against her split lip. He watched, immobile, as Flynn hit the button to close the door and sat down himself to buckle in.
They all sat in terrible silence as Jiya robotically started the liftoff procedure.
When Wyatt found Lucy sitting in that same terrible silence in the bunker hallway, he couldn't help himself. He sat down, being very careful not to touch her or even get too near her. He felt like a sinner confessing to a priest, and when Lucy spoke, her bruises gave her a slight lisp that finally broke him.
So he admitted the thing he had known for far too long, the thing that happened to him the very first time he had laid eyes on her but had not wanted to acknowledge, the thing that had stained and hurt and probably ruined her, and he dared not meet her eyes, so he shrugged brokenly, instead.
"You don't have to say it back. You don't have to say anything. I just should've said it a long time ago and I didn't, so I'm sayin' it now."
Because Rufus tried to say it to Jiya before he bled out and he couldn't.
Because Rufus wanted him to admit it.
Because Rufus was right. It was about damn time.
In the very early morning after his and Lucy's future selves made their dramatic appearance, when everyone else was in bed, he found himself sitting on the sofa his dead-but-maybe-hopefully-not friend had slept on so that he could have some privacy with his traitorous spy of a dead-but-not-really, soon-to-be-ex-wife and possible mother to his hypothetical child.
God, his life was fucked up.
He was so numb and distracted that he didn't even notice Lucy approaching. He only became aware of her when she was already sitting beside him. He could peripherally tell it was her, but he continued to avoid meeting her eyes, ashamed.
"Ready to hand off the watch, soldier?" she asked briskly, and the difference in her voice made him snap his head 'round to stare at her.
Future Lucy sat there, looking calmly back at him. She was wrapped in a blanket from his bed, but it was ratty and worn, and he realized it must be the future version of his same one.
He blinked a few times and she smiled in a small way.
"I didn't steal it off your bed," she said. "You gave it to me. Or, you will give it to me. Later."
Wyatt frowned but nodded hesitantly. She didn't say anything else and neither did he, so he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. He felt like he had no energy left to summon or create words.
"Oh, Wyatt," sighed Future Lucy, and he looked back up to see that her eyes were filled with tears.
He began to reach out toward her but stopped, not knowing what to do. Should he touch her, or would that be a betrayal of his Lucy? But - she was his Lucy, right? Just a later version? Did this Lucy even want him to touch her? Were they even together in that way? He sure didn't think his Lucy would ever allow him anything so absurdly generous ever again -
This Lucy cut off his rambling thoughts by placing her hands on his face and bringing his head to her breastbone. She placed his ear carefully over her heartbeat and wrapped her arms around him, holding him gently and securely against the steady thump-thump in her chest.
A painful, guilty sob escaped his throat and he curled his arms around her waist. She felt like the last solid, real thing in the universe.
"Shh, sweetheart," she soothed him, running a hand through his hair, and he began to cry like a child.
He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he was aware of, his head was in her lap and they were both covered by the blanket. He didn't stir, because she was speaking quietly - so quietly he could barely hear her - over him.
"You're going to be alright," she murmured. "We both are. She still loves you. I know she does, because I always did. I always will. She might still be hurt and angry, but she's already decided to wait for you. Because you're worth it, sweetheart. I've never met anyone who is so thoroughly deluded as you that they are worthless. You are not your father. You are not the sum of your mistakes. You are mine and I love you."
She raised the volume of her voice just a bit when she spoke the last sentence over him and he knew she knew he was awake. He opened his eyes and stared up at her.
"I don't deserve another chance, Luce," he said hoarsely. One side of her mouth curved upward.
"Don't shoot the messenger," she said simply.
He swallowed and sat up beside her. He could see the gray light of dawn filling the small bunker windows.
"Does he - I mean, your me - know you're here?" he asked.
A real smile covered her face now.
"Why do you think I came?" she replied. "He told me about this. You'll tell your me about this, later."
He blinked a bit stupidly.
"We need nicknames," he joked feebly. "Like -"
"Wyatt Prime and Lucy Prime?" she interrupted sardonically. "Yeah, it wasn't that clever the first time you suggested it."
"I haven't su -" he began, but then understood. "Oh."
"Yeah," she agreed, and leaned forward to plant a soft, swift kiss on his cheek. He stayed still, the room spinning as she pulled away and stood.
"Keep the blanket," she said. "It's yours, anyway."
He watched dumbly as she walked away.
"Will it, like - explode or something if I put it on my real blanket?" he mused, only half-joking, and she stopped and turned back to look at him.
"I dunno. Try it and find out."
She winked and walked out of sight.
It felt like his guts followed her.
