This adventure takes place pre-finale so Lucy doesn't know her mom is Rittenhouse.

Culberson Hospital, April 30th, 1983, 11 PM

Jesse Sherwin stood outside the door to his daughter's room, carrying a bouquet of flowers. His hand rested on the knob but he hadn't turned it yet.

Suddenly, there was a slight shove at the small of his back. "Go on," his wife Rebecca encouraged. "Don't you want to meet your grandson?"

Jesse nodded, took a deep breath, then entered the room.

"Hi dad," Melissa Logan whispered. She barely made eye contact with Jesse before her gaze drifted back down to the blue bundle in her arms. Her husband Drew sat on her left with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, wearing an expression of both awe and mild panic.

"How ya doing, Missy?" Jesse asked as he dropped the flowers on the nightstand then leaned over and kissed his daughter on the top of her head. From that vantage point, he was also given the first glimpse of his grandson. The child was sleeping peacefully in his daughter's arms, oblivious to the stress his birth had caused. Only moments ago, Rebecca had informed Jesse that their grandson hadn't been breathing when he'd been born. Fortunately, she had also known that the newborn had been quick to respond to the nurse's treatment, though he'd be spending the night under observation as a precaution.

"We're both fine," Melissa replied, tilting her head back so she could look her dad in the eyes. Though she looked exhausted, her face shone as only a new mother's could.

Jesse dropped his head so it rested against the top of Melissa's. "He's beautiful. Congrats to you both."

"Thank you, dad." A wide smile crossed Melissa's face before she raised her arms slightly, thus pushing her son closer to Jesse. "Do you want to hold him?"

"I'd love to."

The baby grunted as Rebecca lifted him out of Melissa's grip and, for a moment, the entire room thought he was burst into tears. Then his face softened and he quickly slipped back into sleep.

"His name is Wyatt Michael," Melissa announced as Rebecca transferred the newborn into Jesse's waiting arms. "He's 8 pounds, 3 ounces and 21 inches long."

Jesse was too busy staring at the slumbering child to respond. When his ability to consciously think returned, he reached over with his right hand and ran the back of his index finger along his grandson's cheek, grinning as the newborn reflexively sought out his touch. Then, he bent down, brushed his lips against the baby's forehead and whispered, "Welcome to the world, baby Wyatt."

Present Day

Twenty minutes after Lucy had left, Jesse Sherwin was still standing outside Wyatt's hospital room. He was unable to make himself go in, knowing it would make the fact that his grandson was seriously injured real. Deep down, Jesse knew that his brain not accepting the reality of the situation was a coping mechanism, but he couldn't find it within himself to throw the guise away. The fear of losing another family member, combined with the way he'd pushed at Lucy, despite recognizing her panicked expression, had left him floundering to keep himself together.

It was only after the same nurse passed him for the third time that Jesse knew he couldn't put off the inevitable any longer. He took a deep breath, ran a hand nervously through his hair, then entered the room.

A dark-skinned man who was sitting beside Wyatt immediately sprang to his feet, his thumb hovering over the emergency call button.

"Calm down…Rufus," Jesse ventured and the other man nodded hesitantly. "I'm Jesse Sherwin, Wyatt's grandfather." He then held out the coffee. "This is from Lucy."

It took Rufus another moment before he nodded, put down the handheld paging device, then reached for the coffee. "Thanks," he mumbled while taking a pull of the drink.

At that point, Rufus might have asked another question but Jesse was no longer listening, his attention laser-focused on his unconscious grandson.

"Any news?" Jesse asked as he dropped into the chair beside Wyatt and immediately pulled his grandson's hand into his. Wyatt's palm was rough and calloused like it had been ever since he'd been old enough to pull his weight on the family ranch. Jesse would never forget the first day the gap-toothed blond had dragged him over to see the (admittedly small) section of the fence he'd helped construct and the blister he'd earned doing it. From his proud expression though, one would have thought Wyatt'd built the entire thing.

A wave of nostalgia rolled over Jesse and he gripped Wyatt's hand tighter. He had loved every minute of teaching Wyatt the ropes of his ranch and, while he understood the call to duty, he had been more than a little sad when his best worker had driven away.

Suddenly, there was a gentle hand on his shoulder, snapping Jesse back to the present.

"Are you alright?" Rufus asked, quickly straightening up so he was back on the other side of the bed.

Jesse nodded, unable to speak around the lump in his throat.

Rufus must have realized this, for he began a one-sided conversation about Wyatt's current condition, who the doctors and nurses were, and more. It was only after he'd filled Jesse in on Wyatt's schedule for the rest of the day that he'd taken a deep breath and asked, "Where is Lucy, by the way? I assume you ran into her because one, you knew her name and two, she gave you my coffee."

"She went for a walk," Jesse responded, having had Rufus' entire monologue to free the lump in his throat and calm his heartrate. "She told me to tell you she'd be back in an hour."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Rufus' face wrinkle with concern. "Is that unusual?" he questioned, as a general feeling of unease settled over him.

Rufus shrugged. "I guess not. It's been a long few days for all of us."

As Jesse glanced back over at Wyatt, Rufus peeked into the pouch of his hoodie, hoping to see his phone flashing with a text from Lucy. He'd sent her a message as soon as Jesse had showed up without her, but still had yet to receive a response.

Unfortunately, his phone remained dark.

Scowling, Rufus sat back in his chair and stared at Jesse. Now that he had time to just think, the family resemblance between Jesse and Wyatt was obvious, from the shape of their faces to the color of their eyes.

And suddenly, Rufus had thousands of questions he wanted to ask Jesse about Wyatt, who was still something of a closed book even after all their time together. He was down for any normal stories about Wyatt's past, such as what he'd been like as a kid, or whether he'd always been this straight-laced, but any (moderately) embarrassing stories Jesse wanted to share would just be an added bonus. Wyatt seen Rufus struggle on more than one mission, due to his extreme dislike for the outdoors, but the pilot had yet to have any material on Wyatt, who seemed to be good at just about everything.

As much as he wanted to ask though, he wasn't sure if this was an appropriate time. He had just opened his mouth to test the waters with a few benign queries when Jesse looked away from Wyatt and fixed his gaze on Rufus. "Wyatt speaks very highly of you. Says you're one of the smartest men he's ever worked with."

Rufus didn't know how to respond, having not expected that at all. He knew Wyatt trusted and respected him but none of the team had ever explicitly said anything of that magnitude to each other.

Jesse must have recognized Rufus' hesitation for the corners of his eyes crinkled up slightly. "He also said you weren't the best at taking compliments. But I think you should have that one, considering you saved his life."

"It's nothing he wouldn't have done for either of us," Rufus finally managed to say.

Jesse nodded, his face splashed with an emotion Rufus didn't quite recognize, then fell silent. They sat that way for ten more minutes, during which Jesse alternated between paging through Wyatt's file or tending to Wyatt in some capacity, while Rufus checked his phone constantly for a message from either Lucy or Jiya.

When his phone remained silent on both counts, Rufus knew he had to do something before he went crazy. "Have any good stories about Wyatt?" he asked casually. "To pass the time, of course."

Jesse looked up from Wyatt and smiled widely. "I have thirty-four years' worth. What would you like to know?"

So much was different in this timeline that Lucy wasn't even sure where she could run to. Noah was in her apartment and she didn't want to deal with her mother in this state (which she knew only prolonged Carolyn's accusations that Lucy was lying to her, but today it couldn't be avoided).

Her body seemed to move of its own accord and, almost before she knew it, she was at the park a half-mile from her mother's home. It was the park she and Amy had spent many hours at growing up and, to this day, it was one of her favorite places to just go and think.

She turned off the engine then walked over to the bench by the playground which was free of occupants at the late hour. The whole play area had been remodeled in the last year, with less death-defying attractions and a shade over the main section, but it still felt the same to her: safe, comforting, and warm. Her heart felt just that much lighter as some good memories snuck their way into her current mood.

She stared at the circular slide and let out a long exhale. It'd been wrong to snap at Jesse, she knew that—it was just that her emotions had already been on high alert thanks to the many similarities between this and her mom's situation in the original timeline, before Jesse had even read her so easily.

She knew she had a tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve but she thought she was better at hiding her emotions than that, especially since showing fear in a classroom of college-aged students who could care less about the subject material, was grounds for five long and uncomfortable months of them trying to outsmart her. For that reason too, she wasn't used to anyone fighting her battles for her. She fought every day against her students, trying to impart knowledge, even to those who were only taking the class to have enough credits to graduate. It'd been a lesson she'd learned early from her mother, who had raised her single-handedly until Henry Wallace, Amy's father, had come along.

She pulled the tie out of her hair and scritched her fingers along her scalp in wide circles, while fighting to pull herself together. It was a long and tedious process though with the slew of emotions threatening to swallow her whole. There was her original hate of the whole Flynn/Lifeboat/Mothership situation (despite the opportunities to experience the past it had afforded her), the guilt over Wyatt being injured (which she logically knew wasn't her fault but she had had a part in allowing him to pass off the early symptoms as nothing), and her frustration and embarrassment over the Jesse "don't-call-me-Mr.-Sherwin" situation. That was without even mentioning the long-standing issues of Amy's erasure, Noah's existence and her uneasy relationship with her mother.

Her heart skipped a beat and she knew she had to get it together before she drowned in the "what could have been's". After taking a deep breath, she kicked her feet up and lay on the hard plastic bench.

Her strength had always been focusing on what she could actively control in the present; unfortunately, the overlap between that and her previous list was pretty much nothing but she didn't let that dissuade her.

She breathed in and out slowly while staring at the stars, silently making a list of what her next actions were going to be.

As was always the case, she found muscles relaxing with each quantitative step until she was fully resting against the bench. As guilty as she felt for the entire Wyatt situation, the only thing she could do about it now would be to go back to the hospital and help him in whatever capacity she could, whether that be sitting by his bed until he wakes, or finding out more information about Jimmy, the original pilot, for which the First Rule of Time Travel had been instated.

Her mind made up, Lucy took another deep breath then sat up and walked back toward her car, feeling considerably more at peace than she had been when she arrived.

Just before dawn, Agent Christopher walked back into the Lifeboat support lab.

"We found Flynn!" someone shouted from off to her right and it took every ounce of Denise's self-restraint to keep her from initiating an emergency protocol. When this whole situation was over, she and the team were going to have a serious talk about announcing their presence, especially when armed Homeland Security officers were involved.

Once her heart returned to her chest, Denise looked over to see Jiya grinning widely and pointing at the large elevated screen. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, which probably had something to do with the enormous cup of coffee in her hand. The other three people in the lab were trying to muster up similar levels of enthusiasm but were failing miserably. They didn't even have the energy to be surprised by Jiya's supersonic exclamations.

"Where is he?" Denise demanded, stepping closer to the projection.

"El Grenada, by the docks."

Agent Christopher smiled, not for the revelation but for what this meant for Flynn. "Send me—"

"The coordinates are already in your email."

"Good work team," Denise said before turning on her heel and leaving the room. By the time she reached the elevator, she had already forwarded Flynn's coordinates to Sgt. Caleb Mitner, who was in charge of the raid team she'd assembled late last night for just this eventuality, and received confirmation that said team was ready to go.

The elevator deposited her next to the conference room above the Lifeboat bay where a temporary command post had already been set up. Cameras from Mitner's team were being broadcast on a bank of monitors in front of her and they were being maintained by Jason Hagen, another tech on the Lifeboat team, who was sitting against the rightmost wall, typing furiously on his laptop.

Denise poured herself a cup of coffee from the hastily set-up snack table, dropped into the seat which provided the best view of all six monitors, then settled herself in for a long wait.

Up next: More kid!Wyatt stories and finally a bit of good news.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!