"What did she mean?" Wyatt began, his voice laced with concern as he turned to Lucy, who looked like she was holding it together by a thread. What else was she not telling them, what other burden was she stubbornly bearing on her own?
Lucy was still, hands clasped in her lap as she looked like she'd rather be anywhere else than in this moment, confronted by memories she wished she could forget. Her eyes danced across Wyatt's face, unsure of where to begin, and if she really even wanted to. When she made no move to reply Wyatt started to approach her, but it was the sound of Flynn's gravelly voice that snapped her out of her haze.
"What happened to you Lucy?" He asked quietly. Her eyes slid from Wyatt's face to Flynn's, both sporting the same furrowed brow and worried countenance as they peered at her expectantly. Flynn leaned with his back to the wall, arms crossed as he fixed her with a stare that made her feel as if he could see right through her and into her throbbing heart. If only he didn't know me so well, she cursed to herself, then I wouldn't be such an open book.
"I'm surprised you don't already know." Lucy said with a humorless laugh, trying to avoid the subject as long as she could. "I thought that my future self would have mentioned something in the journal".
The journal that was now secretly tucked away in her room, she remembered.
"Mentioned something about what exactly?" He returned, his confusion and concern both growing in equal measure. If this was something she had opted to leave out of her diary, that could only mean that she had experienced something far more harrowing than she'd let on. Something too painful to commit to the written record.
Lucy sighed. "About my time with Rittenhouse."
Everyone in the room looked at her with a mixture of pity and trepidation. Lucy had already been through so much in the last few months, apparently even more than they realized, and they all wondered just how much more she could take until it finally broke her for good.
"It's okay, Luce. You can tell us." Rufus assured her with the warm smile that she'd missed so desperately. "But only if you're ready."
She offered Rufus a small, but genuine smile of thanks, as he entreated her to share without pushing her. Because although she didn't exactly relish being handled like a delicate piece of china that could shatter at any moment, she knew how close she was to being pushed over the edge, and so did they.
Lucy took a dragging breath, feeling her body begin to shake as she prepared to delve back into events that she had tried and failed to erase from her mind ever since her rescue and introduction to the bunker. These were things that she didn't think she could survive a second time. Things that hurt to think about, let alone talk about, and Lucy had never really been much of a talker.
She also wasn't exactly a fan of having such a big audience to her story, even if she did trust every single person in the room without question. All of those eyes peering into her broken soul as she recounted the most painful moments of her life, it was just too much. So, she opted to keep her eyes fixed on the center of the table, trying to convince herself she was just speaking out loud to an empty room where no one would hear her cry.
And before she could talk herself out of it, the words came tumbling out of her mouth. She figured the best place to start was the beginning.
"The night that Mason Industries exploded was the night that we were planning to save Amy." She said, her long lost sister's face flashing in her mind. "But before I went on the mission, I decided to go home to say goodbye to my Mother. In my original timeline, she was sick, dying of lung cancer. So, once we changed the timeline back to normal, I didn't know if I would ever see her again."
Her breath hitched at the mention of her mother, shot dead less than 24 hours ago, but she soldiered through.
"I came home and decided to tell her everything. About the time travel and the missions, and about Amy. I figured it didn't really matter if she knew the truth or not, since our reality wouldn't be the same when I got back from 1979."
A single tear slid down her cheek as she mourned the fact that she never even got the chance, and that Amy was still lost. Possibly forever, thanks to Emma.
"But my mother had her own secrets to tell." Lucy gulped for air. "Apparently, she decided that this was the most opportune moment to reveal that she had known about time travel all along, and was a member of Rittenhouse herself, practically their leader. And she informed me, in no uncertain terms, that Rittenhouse would never allow me to take a trip to bring back some girl who no one else remembers, if it meant putting my mother's future in jeopardy."
Lucy remembered the initial shock of hearing the name Rittenhouse come out of her mother's mouth while being wrapped in her arms. Her whole body had frozen, unable to move as she futilely willed her brain to rationalize what she had heard. The universe couldn't take away the one person she had left in the world.
And yet apparently, it could.
"The realization hit me like a train, and I pulled away from her, trying to make a run for the door. Grab my cell phone. Anything to get help." She continued, her throat suddenly raw and dry. "But before I could make it so far as a few feet away, my mother had me pinned to the ground, stronger than I took her for, and stuck me in the arm with a needle that seemed to come out of nowhere. It struck me how premeditated it had all seemed, like she'd been planning to finally tell me, and knew exactly how I'd react. Anyway, I blacked out a few minutes later from the injection. The last thing I remember is my mom taking my head in her lap, telling me everything was going to be fine."
She steeled herself before closing her eyes, feeling a wistful longing to believe every other lie her mother had ever told her. Lucy inhaled a deep breath as she began to recount her six weeks of captivity, and every horrible thing she had endured along the way.
Flashback
The first thing she remembered was the terrifying feeling of waking up and not knowing where she was. She was in a lavishly furnished room illuminated in warm yellow light, sleeping in a comfortable bed and dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing the day before. She was even still wearing her shoes. Her head was throbbing as she swung her legs out of bed and struggled to remember what had happened.
And then it dawned on her, and she immediately wanted to slip back into the blissful ignorance of sleep where the truth wouldn't be so painfully staring her in the face.
Her mother was Rittenhouse. Her mother. Carol Preston, the historian, the professor, the only person she had left in the world was one of them. It still didn't make any sense to her. How could the woman who raised her be a part of something so wretched and morally corrupt as Rittenhouse?
Blearily she also remembered Carol attacking her, knocking her to the ground before injecting her with some unknown drug. The idea that she had been literally kidnapped by her own mother still hadn't entirely set in.
However, the knowledge that she was trapped seemed to creep up on her all too quickly. She began to panic as her eyes darted around the small space, noticing that there wasn't a single window to the outside world, only a lone foreboding door that was sealed shut on the other end of the room. Her breathing hitched as the walls seemed to close in around her, despite the relative spaciousness of the room her claustrophobia was amplified by the fact that there was really nowhere to run.
But before she could slip into a full-blown anxiety attack the door to her room suddenly swung open, and there stood her mother, looking cheerful and ordinary as ever. Everything about Carol looked so tantalizingly normal that it made Lucy's skin crawl, now knowing the truth about the type of person who lurked beneath. But what did she know really? She knew her mother was a member, and one of great importance apparently, but beyond that she was mostly in the dark. She needed to learn more, if only to have more information to go on once the team inevitably rescued her. She couldn't give up hope; it was the only thing that would keep her sane.
"Mom?" She whispered, feeling like a whimpering child. "What's going on?"
Carol eyed her tenderly before coming to sit beside her on the bed. "Everything's okay, sweetheart. You're with Rittenhouse now."
"What does that mean exactly? Where are we?"
"Rittenhouse headquarters. We are somewhere close to home. That's all you need to know for now."
Lucy's initial reaction was one of pure frustration. What right did her mother have to keep any more secrets from her? And yet despite her attempt to be angry she was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness as she no longer recognized the person she was speaking to. She felt her eyes well up with tears as a strangled sob forced its way from her throat before she could stop it.
"Oh honey, don't cry. It will all make sense soon." Carol said soothingly as she brushed away Lucy's tears. She still flinched away from her mother's touch despite her instinctual urge to lean in to it. Carol noticed but paid no mind, smiling at her daughter warmly.
"Why are you doing this?" Lucy asked shakily, not sure she really wanted to hear the answer.
Carol sighed. "Because it's time for you to learn the truth about your place, Lucy. About what and who you're meant to be."
Between Flynn and her mother, she was starting to get pretty sick of the whole 'I know who you're meant to be' mantra.
"I should have told you sooner. It would have made your transition easier and saved us a lot of trouble and time. But I put it off for years because your role comes with great responsibility. It isn't something to be taken lightly, and I didn't want to burden you with it any sooner than I had to."
"And what made you decide that last night was the right time?" Lucy demanded. Carol gave her a knowing look.
"Maybe something to do with the antics you and your time travelling partners just pulled? We can't exactly turn a blind eye to the incarceration of over two hundred members, Lucy. Including your own father."
Lucy's stomach involuntarily flipped at the mention of Benjamin Cahill, and the fact that Carol referred to him as Lucy's father so freely. It made her sick.
"Not to mention the fact that you were about to embark on some ill-advised trip to save this Amy you keep rambling on about-"
"She's your daughter." Lucy cut her off. "How can you not care what happens to her?"
"Lucy, this person doesn't exist. They're from another life, another reality. And if what you say is true about her making me sick, I'm not going to trade my life for hers."
In that moment Lucy knew that the person sitting beside her was not the Carol Preston she knew, and her heart broke for the mother that she remembered and would never see again. The Carol Preston she knew would do anything for her daughters, would go to the moon and back for either of them, and this wasn't her. Furthermore, she was now even more terrified of the woman whose eyes were peering into her own, because she didn't know her. She had no way of predicting what she would do next, or how far she would go.
"Sweetheart, I need you to come with me." Carol said gently, but also in a way that indicated it wasn't really a request.
Lucy hesitated before asking, "Where are we going?"
"We need to debrief you on all of your missions. All of the time spent at Mason Industries up until now."
"I thought that's what the recording devices were for." Lucy scoffed, crossing her arms.
Carol eyed her pointedly. "You and I both know that Mr. Carlin tampered with those recordings, sometimes he even went so far as to erase them entirely. Needless to say, there's large stretches of time unaccounted for and we need to know what happened."
With that Carol stood and made her way to the door, pausing at the threshold to turn and watch her daughter expectantly. Lucy could see fluorescent lights and an empty hallway beyond the door but held her ground where she sat on the mattress, staring back at her mother in silent challenge. Carol frowned and shook her head.
"If you won't come willingly, we have other ways of making you cooperate." She warned. Lucy shivered at the unguarded threat behind her mother's words and quietly weighed her options before deciding she'd rather just walk to the interrogation rather than be dragged.
She sighed in resignation before rising from the bed and making her way towards her mother, who didn't even try to hide the look of satisfaction on her face as Lucy followed her obediently into the hallway. It was so bright that she had to blink to adjust her vision, her head still throbbing slightly from whatever her mother used to sedate her the night before.
She followed her mother down a series of stark white, brightly lit hallways with multiple doors leading to unknown rooms. Saw no one, heard nothing. It was as if they were the only two people in the entire building, but Lucy was sure that couldn't be true, especially if this was Rittenhouse headquarters. They just had to be sequestering her from everybody else, and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
They finally reached whatever room Carol was looking for as she came to a stop and knocked on the door before it quickly swung open. Inside Lucy could see two men sitting at a metal table with a third chair positioned on the other side laying empty, presumably for her. Lucy began to internally panic at the thought of another small room with no windows but did her best to hold it together.
"Just be honest, Lucy, and tell them everything that happened. I won't be able to protect you if you refuse."
"Protect me? Protect me from what?" Lucy asked nervously. But before she could turn around her mother gave her a small shove at the small of her back, causing her to tumble forward into the room before the door closed shut behind her with a click.
Her mother had left her in the hands of Rittenhouse goons. Lucy was on her own.
"Miss Preston, would you please have a seat?"
And so, the interrogation began.
They drilled her for hours non-stop, going in chronological order from the Hindenburg all the way to the Rittenhouse summit in 1954, asking her every question under the sun. How did the timeline change? What was the original historical outcome? What did Garcia Flynn tell you about Rittenhouse? Why did you help him? Who killed David Rittenhouse? What did Flynn have you do while you were his prisoner? Were you actively trying to destroy Rittenhouse as well? To what extent are Mr. Carlin and Mr. Logan involved?
She answered everything more or less honestly. Although she did consider lying, she saw no point in fabricating what happened on the missions, since it didn't matter to her one way or another if they knew about her digressions against Rittenhouse. She had no intention of trying to get in their good graces anyway. If anything, she wanted to make it clear that she was adamantly against Rittenhouse and would never be one of them so long as she lived.
And then came the one question she couldn't answer.
"Who gave you all of the information necessary to arrest over 200 Rittenhouse members?"
All the blood drained from her face as all the air was simultaneously sucked from her lungs, knowing that this information was too precious to simply give away.
Ethan. Her own flesh and blood. Her grandfather. A double agent and a rebel standing alone, just like she was now. She couldn't betray him. She wouldn't.
"I wasn't involved in the identification and prosecution of the Rittenhouse targets. That was handled by Homeland Security." She lied, hoping she could feign ignorance and get away with it. But as fate would have it, luck was not on her side.
The older of the pair eyed her skeptically. "We know you orchestrated the entire operation and were key in delivering said information. So, I'll ask again, where did you get it?"
Realizing that they weren't going to buy any further lies, Lucy decided it was better to just say nothing at all, and let her silence speak for her.
And that turned out to be a very bad idea.
After a few seconds of silence had passed the agent shrugged with disinterest before saying, "Have it your way."
Suddenly both men simultaneously rose and circled around the table towards her, seizing her by the arms and dragging her forward despite her attempts to fight them off. Her cries died down a touch as she realized they were hauling her towards the back of the room and not towards the door. However, her confusion didn't last long as one of the goons released her only to kneel to the ground and grasp a metal latch attached to one the wood panels, yanking it up to reveal a small space underneath the floor about the size of a coffin.
"No." Lucy trembled. No no no.
But her protests fell on deaf ears as the men easily threw her into the small compartment below, slamming the lid shut and sealing her in darkness within a matter of seconds.
"We'll come back in a few hours, after you've had some time to think things over." One of them sneered. Then they were gone, and Lucy was left alone with only the sound of her blood rushing in her ears as her heart thumped erratically in her chest. She didn't even have enough space to entirely stretch out her arms and legs, the space just barely accommodating the size of her small form. It was the worst sort of torture they could have chosen for her, and they knew it too, because Carol knew. It was with a detached sort of horror that Lucy realized that her own mother had revealed the most effective method of torture to use on her, seeing as only Carol would know about Lucy's car accident and the resulting claustrophobic tendencies. She had to learn to stop being surprised by these things, but doubted she ever would.
For the first hour or so she just kicked and screamed, clawed with her nails and pounded her fists against the lid of the compartment until her hands were bruised and bloodied. The next hour was mostly spent crying and feeling sorry for herself, while the rest of her confinement was filled with nothing but silence and her own ragged breathing as she hugged her limbs close in the fetal position, wanting nothing more than to curl into a ball and disappear. She did her best to breathe as quietly as she could and move as little as possible, despite being in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. What little rational thought she could manage lead to trying to let her mind go blank in the silence, theoretically allowing her to forget where she was and what was happening to her.
It didn't work.
She had no idea exactly how much time had passed once the two men returned for her. She was dazed and disoriented as they roughly pulled her out, taking her first deep breath in hours as her body emerged from the would-be coffin. But the sense of relief was short lived, as she knew she was going to be asked the same question, and that she was going to give the same answer.
It became a sort of routine. Day in and day out she would be escorted to the interrogation room, and they would undergo the formality of asking her where the information had come from, knowing that she wouldn't tell them. It seemed that her two interrogators took some pleasure in her daily torture, sometimes varying it slightly in the hope of eliciting some sort of response. They mostly cycled between the dreaded whole in the floor and the occasional waterboarding session; pretty much anything to emulate the sense of drowning and being trapped in small spaces. They were really using the traumatic experience of her car crash for all it was worth.
Though the most disturbing part of the whole affair wasn't the torture itself, not at all. It was what came after.
Every evening after the interrogation ended she was dragged back to her little prison of a bedroom, left to recuperate for another bout of hardship the next morning. And after a few minutes a knock would sound at the door, and Lucy always cringed with the knowledge of who was on the other side.
Each night after Lucy's daily round of torture, Carol Preston arrived to comfort her daughter.
The first night Lucy had been outraged.
"I don't want your sympathy." She had spat, backing away. "This is your fault. You're letting them do this to me!"
The second night had been more or less the same. She didn't need anything from this woman, this monster, let alone a shoulder to cry on. As far as she was concerned this person was no longer her mother. She would not depend on the same person who was allowing her to be abused. She could get through this, she just had to trust the team. They would come for her eventually.
Yet as the days passed and the physical and emotional pain became more intense Lucy started to falter. A week had passed, and she was living the same hell everyday over and over. She was an emotional wreck, half the time completely numbed to everything, and the other half just drowning in the turmoil of pain that threatened to overtake her every waking moment. It was simply too much to bear, and one night she snapped.
Or rather, she collapsed, right into her mother's open arms.
It was almost too easy to do. The soft texture of her golden hair against Lucy's nose and the scent of her mother's lavender perfume surrounding her as she clung to the other woman for dear life. Everything about it was all at once familiar and foreign, dangerous yet secure as she knowingly held fast to the one person who was responsible for causing her so much pain. It was the worst kind of psychological mind game, and one that Lucy was not likely to soon forget.
"All you have to do is tell them who it is, Lucy." Carol had said as she stroked her daughter's hair. "Then this will all be over."
But if there was one thing that Lucy held onto during her entire ordeal so far, it was her sense of loyalty. To Ethan, to her team, to herself. She was not one to be easily swayed and resolutely decided she would endure every torture under the sun before she betrayed anyone she loved.
And then, suddenly, there was no one left to be loyal to.
It was the most surreal moment of Lucy's life, which was saying something, considering the type of life she'd been leading lately. It was the moment that something inside her was forever damaged, like her will to live just dissipated into thin air, leaving her a hollow shell of a person untethered by anything or anyone.
Her mother had left the newspaper next to that day's plate of untouched food on Lucy's dresser before saying, "There's something you need to see."
Lucy had approached the newspaper slowly, unsure of what she was about to learn, and if it was something she really wanted to know.
And then her entire world shattered.
Deadly explosion devastates Mason Industries. 22 presumed dead.
"This wasn't my call, Lucy. But it had to be done. I'm sorry." Her mother's words were a distant ringing in her ears.
Dead. Dead. Dead. All of her friends. Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, Denise. Everyone was dead.
No one was coming.
She could understand why the first stage of grief was labelled denial, because that was exactly what she did. It was her lifeline, her rock in the raging storm around her, and the only thing that kept her from entirely losing herself. She immediately accused her mother of lying, of forging the paper and fabricating the whole thing in order to force Lucy to cooperate. It was an easy conclusion to jump to.
But when Lucy refused to believe it, her mother turned on the local news channel, and suddenly denial was no longer in the cards.
Her grief was deep enough to drown in, and she did. She let it envelop her without protest, because she suddenly had no more reason to resist, no one left to fight for. She stopped eating what little morsels she had been forcing down before and just allowed herself to waste away. The fight had been drained from her soul, and she couldn't seem to find the strength or the motivation to keep going. She was all alone in this, the last one standing, and now she had been brought to her knees.
She told them everything. Losing the team had been the last straw, and with that she lost whatever resolve she had to keep secrets for the 'other side'. There wasn't any resistance to return to anyway.
The guilt of betraying her grandfather still squeezed her heart in all the wrong places, but she had shut it all out and tied up every loose heartstring, turned everything off until all she could feel was a dull ache in her chest.
As it turned out, she was informed that Ethan had peacefully passed away of old age a few days before Lucy's capture. And for the first time since her imprisonment Lucy felt herself smile, knowing at least one of them had escaped Rittenhouse's evil clutches, one way or another. In a strange way, his death almost made her feel lighter. Because for once, Rittenhouse was too late. For once Rittenhouse didn't win, since Ethan passed out of life on his own terms, and not theirs. Ironically, it felt like a victory.
After that something in Lucy started to change. It was like waking up after a long, hazy dream as she suddenly realized she needed to get a grip and do something. Her sheer and utter hatred for Rittenhouse bubbled up inside her as the faces of everyone she had lost materialized in her mind. She couldn't let Rittenhouse take anything else from her, or from anyone for that matter. And if her team couldn't be there to stop them, she would just have to go it alone.
So, she drifted through the following weeks, pulling herself together the best she could as her mother shoved Rittenhouse propaganda down her throat. Most of it went in one ear and out the other, although some of their archaic, conservative, backwards beliefs occasionally elicited an unconscious reaction from her. But there was always the threat of throwing her in the coffin if she decided to stop cooperating, which she was eager to avoid. If anything, she tried to view the whole thing as profitable intelligence gathering, despite the fact that she didn't have anyone to share it with, she still mentally catalogued any useful information she could get her hands on. With her indoctrination came the family history lessons and interminable lectures from her mother about Rittenhouse policies and ideals, as well as her introduction to many high-ranking Rittenhouse members who viewed her with a simultaneous sense of awe and thinly veiled scrutiny. It appeared everyone was very well aware of who she was, and everything she'd been up to. Sometimes her mother wasn't around, as apparently being the leader of an evil underground cult organization left one with much business to attend to. And much to her dismay Lucy was often left under the careful watch of Emma, who regarded her with obvious disdain as she taunted Lucy with the death of her friends, trying to test for cracks in her newfound loyalty to Rittenhouse. Lucy never wavered though, simply letting Emma's aggressions fuel her inner resolve as she put on the best acting show of her life.
But most days Lucy was left alone in her bedroom, like a princess locked away in her tower. Judging by most people's reaction to her presence here she could gage that the term princess wasn't actually that far off, considering how everyone always turned to stare and shamelessly whisper whenever she walked by. It was beyond annoying and even a little unnerving. After all, she had never been one to savor in being the center of attention.
Although one day, the title princess became all too real.
Her mother had come by for their usual evening chat, sitting to talk with Lucy over her lunch. She was eating a little more now, if only to keep up the appearance of good health. She had to at least try to seem like she was getting better if she was going to get anywhere.
Carol looked up at Lucy over the rim of her tea cup. "Lucy, there's something we need to discuss."
Well this can't be anything good. Lucy thought as she put down her fork and knife, eyeing her mother cautiously.
"I hope this isn't anything like the last time you said those words." Lucy huffed. Her mother shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"I've been to the doctor recently and received some troubling news." Carol began, a frown tugging at her lips. "You said I was sick in the other timeline, didn't you? Lung cancer, was it?"
Lucy's mouth parted in momentary surprise, suddenly overwhelmed by a cascade of conflicting emotions, as she had no idea how to feel about the possibility of her mother dying. Would she be sad? Relieved? She honestly couldn't say. Finally, Lucy replied, "Yes, Stage 4 Adenocarcinoma. You were a smoker."
Carol's nose crinkled distastefully at that. "Well in one manner or another it seems to have caught up to me, smoker or not." She said mournfully. "There's a malignant tumor in my right lung cavity. They've caught it in the early stages, and they are going to do everything they can. But nevertheless, it's time to start planning for the future."
Lucy didn't follow. "Planning for the future, what do you mean?"
Carol shrugged. "I'm not getting any younger Lucy. Whether it's the cancer or simply old age, I'm not going to be around forever, and someone has to be around to carry on the family line."
It took a few moments for Carol's words to set in completely. Carry on the family line. But within a few moments something clicked, and Lucy struggled to bite back a gasp of terror.
"You-you need me to have children to carry on our bloodline? Isn't it enough that I'm already living and breathing?" Lucy asked incredulously, not that she had any interest in being the next in line to take over Rittenhouse after her mother inevitably passed away. She still had to suppress the urge to be sick upon mentioning the whole business of bloodlines, and exactly who hers was traced back to. When her mother revealed the true nature of their lineage and the practically 'royal' status attached to their direct connection to David Rittenhouse, Lucy had nearly collapsed right then and there, as the image of her ancestor's cold, ruthless eyes flared in her memory. She would never be able to mentally reconcile the insane fact that her great great grandfather had shamelessly inspected her like a piece of property before nearly assaulting her. Just another thing to add to the list of other crazy, impossible, twisted things in her life.
"Unfortunately, the other members of the board still don't entirely trust you. They're convinced you're still working for the other side and want a guarantee that the bloodline will continue if something…goes wrong." Her mother finished lamely, unsure of how to put a positive spin on the possibility of her daughter not living to carry on her legacy for one reason or another. It was enough to make Lucy's head spin.
"It may have escaped your notice mother but I'm not exactly involved with anyone at the moment, so unless you're planning on marrying me off to the highest bidder I don't know where you expect your perfect heir to come from." Lucy shuddered, wondering if her mother really would force some sort of arranged marriage on her just to ensure the family legacy.
"That's not true Lucy, you were engaged to Noah until you decided to call it quits. What about him? He is quite the-"
"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Noah is Rittenhouse?" Lucy demanded, nearly falling out of her chair at her jump of shock. It turned out there were always more surprises apparently, but her mind was still reeling.
"Of course he is, Lucy. Do you really think you'd be marrying anyone who wasn't?" Carol seemed almost exasperated with Lucy's cluelessness. Meanwhile Lucy was attempting to compartmentalize her abject horror at just how much control Rittenhouse and her mother really had over her life all along, and she never even knew. Furthermore, something else didn't make sense.
"But then why would Noah help us? Why would he save Rufus' life if he knew we were fighting Rittenhouse?" She asked curiously, her heart twisting at the mention of Rufus, just another person who had slipped through her fingers, lost to her forever.
"Honey, he saved Rufus' life because he loves you and would do anything for you." Carol said, reaching a hand across the table to cup Lucy's cheek. "But he was still loyal. He informed us of your location as soon as he finished operating on your friend, although by the time we arrived only Agent Christopher was there to greet us. You'd already gone."
Lucy fought the urge to slap her mother's hand away. "Mom I hardly even know him. I'm from a different timeline, remember? I was never engaged to anyone."
Carol waved her hand dismissively. "Know him or not, he's your best option Lucy. You'll learn to love him."
"No!" Lucy yelled shrilly as she stood up from the table, her chair knocking back and hitting the floor with a clatter. She glared at her mother with all the steely resolve and reluctance she could muster, unable to repress her growing sense of outrage and fear any longer as she finally allowed herself one act of resistance. One time where her voice had to be heard. "I will not be married off and bred like an animal. If you care about me at all this is the one thing that you won't make me do."
To Lucy's surprise, her mother dropped the issue almost instantly and didn't bring it up again. Carol was apparently somewhat taken aback by her daughter's adamant refusal, as Lucy had been a perfectly pliable and obedient daughter over the last few weeks, at least leading up to this point. But she didn't push, for which Lucy was eternally grateful.
Little did she know she wasn't out of the woods just yet.