a/n: GUYS. The response to the last chapter had me rolling :) Still hoping to bounce back with some replies tomorrow, but life has been crazy and is about to get crazier, so no guarantees. I'm hoping to post one more chapter by Friday at the latest, and then I'll be vacationing for a week, so hold tight - I promise there's plenty more drama (and angst) in the works for when I return! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT!


"Lucy...hey, wake up." The hand on her shoulder tightened, prodding her gently away from another world. "It's time to go, okay?"

Wyatt...Wyatt had been in her dream. Kissing her against the arch of her door in Bayeux. Trapping her hips with his. Smirking against her mouth, hands splayed wide, encompassing so much of her in one simple stroke of his deft fingers.

It was a fantasy that had taunted her many times before. He'd come to her, he'd forgive her, he'd love her.

Just as she was allowing that irresistible vision to carry her away again, the rustling at her shoulder returned. "Lucy? Jiya's here, and as glad as I am to go stall her for you while you get dressed, that's only helpful if you actually start getting dressed."

Her eyes blinked open to regard the purest - and realest - shade of blue, momentarily awestruck that he was actually here. But in another blink or two, the inky silence of a primitive wood shack came into focus behind him, a far cry from the picturesque village she'd called home for most of the last year.

Texas. She was in Texas, it was 1980, and they'd been stranded together for just long enough to have her throwing fistfuls of caution to the so-called wind. Which was really just a kinder way of saying that she'd thrown herself at him. Guess that part of the dream had been pretty damn real.

"Are you okay?" Wyatt asked with a worried crease diving between his brows. He cupped her head in his hand, a hesitant thumb tracing close to her temple. "Do you know where you are?"

Oh, dammit. Head injury. Right.

"I - I'm fine. And I know where I am. I remember - "

Everything. She remembered every last fiery compulsion that had led to his body enrapturing hers.

"I remember what happened," she finished weakly. "Go talk to Jiya and I'll be out in a minute."

"You're sure?"

Lucy clutched the blanket higher, gaze straying sideways to avoid the siege of his wide-eyed concern. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

His hand slid away from her with palpable reluctance, then he was up, pulling his shirt on as he maneuvered around the bed, the last bit of clothing not yet in place. He glanced back with a contemplative half-smile, an expression that settled over her like a cannonball to her chest.

It happened. It really happened. They'd slept together, she'd initiated it, and he was...well at the very least, he was half-smiling. What she chose to do next would probably be the difference between the ripening of a much larger grin or a debilitating frown that might just break his face in two.

Lucy watched uneasily as Wyatt shuffled outside with a nod to himself. A nod, a smile, a demeanor that reflected none of the churning pandemonium that crashed against her.

If she thought about it, she might hyperventilate herself back into unconsciousness, so she wasn't thinking about it at all. It was sex and it was over. Case closed.

But the air in the cabin was freezing, making it damn near impossible to pry herself out of a still-warm bed and into her clothes...clothes that should have been scattered wildly all around the room, but were actually folded neatly at the foot of the bed.

Wyatt. He'd collected them up from the floor just as diligently as he'd tossed them there, laying out each garment within reach to make her life a little easier.

He was good. Too damn good to be real. Case not closed.

Her determination to get herself covered - sweater on, jeans zipped and buttoned, shoes jammed into place - increased tenfold. The chill in the air was nothing compared to the icy tension racing up her spine. This had changed everything. Sex always changed everything. She was reliving the same nightmare as before, the one that was far more powerful than any fantasy of being loved again. It was the fear of losing herself to someone, to anyone, who could destroy her in three words or less.

No one could ever possess that same amount of leverage over her again. She wouldn't allow it.

The telltale creak of that shoddy porch of his announced her presence in just one step. Wyatt's attention shifted back to her immediately, the lights of the Mothership effectively obscuring his face from view. "All ready?"

"Shouldn't we, umm...tidy up, or something?"

God, did she ever hope the tapestry of surrounding shadows would hide her reddening skin as well as it masked him.

He stepped forward just enough to illuminate his lazy grin, making her rethink that whole wish for more hiding. "If I know my crazy-ass relatives, they'll shamelessly strip that truck for parts and blame the rest of it on wayward teenagers who've been granted way too much freedom."

"That's all? You're not worried about it?"

"Not at all. My Uncle Ray will probably install a new lock, and the rest of 'em will take turns sitting up here with a shotgun for a few nights until the whole thing is forgotten entirely."

"Did I hear that right?" Jiya emerged from the depths of the time machine with a teasing look of disgust. "First the NASCAR stuff, now crazy uncles with shotguns? You are so an undercover redneck, Wyatt Logan."

He shrugged, eyes rolling back to Jiya. "What can I say? Guilty as charged."

Jiya narrowed her gaze, eyes skipping back and forth between Wyatt and Lucy. What had started off as lighthearted banter was beginning to shift into something that resembled actual disgust. "Let me guess...that hillbilly shed of yours came with only one bed, didn't it?"

Lucy scanned herself frantically, relieved to see everything zipped and buttoned, each article of clothing arranged with proper care. Another quick glance at Wyatt revealed that his appearance hadn't given them away either, so how had -

A self-conscious touch to the top of her head was all it took to identify at least one clue. His hands plundering through her hair had taken its usual unruliness and transformed it into a volume-infused hive of absurdity. Essentially, she was now the perfect candidate for a covert operation to the '80s. What a shame it was to think that she was on her way out.

Where Wyatt was clumsily trying to talk their way out of Jiya's barbed speculation, Lucy was ready to do anything but talk. No thinking, no talking, no inviting another sliver of scrutiny. She would take hold of the salvation that was autopilot, the merciful setting she'd defaulted to after Providence and hadn't once let slip until the undeniable hex of this cabin had scrambled her senses.

She blew through their eggshell-ridden conversation, one she'd adamantly shut out altogether. With an ease that had been coming more and more naturally to her, Lucy hoisted herself up to where Jiya lorded herself over them, breaking in with a question that would hopefully cut right past the rest of it. "So where to this time? I doubt I get any say in the matter, but I'd really like to double back to the safe house that had a view of the ocean."

Lucy could practically feel Jiya's unwillingness to turn the conversation away from the point she so clearly wanted to make - a point of searing disapproval - but something more urgent took over instead.

"Sorry, but I'm actually not here to take you home," she confessed with a sigh. "The two of you better have gotten some rest, because Rittenhouse is out again. We're off to the 1760s this time."

Wyatt's disgruntled groan had Lucy desperately missing another groan - a groan that would have less to do with back-to-back jumps, and more to do with anything that involved a trip to the 18th Century. Who would ever thought that she could actually ache over the loss of Rufus's incessant griping so acutely?

She did her best to snap out of that rising tide of melancholy, striving for some level of practicality as she took her seat and tucked her rumpled hair behind her ears. "So costumes are going to be hard on this one. We really shouldn't be spotted in - "

"Look behind you."

How she'd missed a few yards of balled-up petticoats stashed behind her seat, she really couldn't say, although the dull pain of a raised bruise and only a few hours of decent sleep were probably on the short roster of potential explanations.

"I grabbed some of your stuff from when we were in Atlanta," Jiya explained while taking her own chair. "Same for Wyatt. I know it's a more than a hundred years off from where we're going, but - "

"But nothing. It's way better than blue jeans. Good thinking."

"Thanks." She swiveled around to regard Lucy with solemn eyes, voice crackling with sudden candor. "I'm glad you guys are okay. Both of you. It wasn't easy...leaving like that, I mean. That plan always made perfect sense right up until the second I had to commit to it."

The lump in Lucy's throat was now competing in size with the lump on her head. "I'd like to claim that we totally had the situation under control, but I was out cold for most of it, so…"

She chuckled wryly as she trailed off, but Jiya didn't return the laugh.

"Yeah, so I heard. Wyatt mentioned that when he - " she paused, head tilting to frown past Lucy and out into the darkness. "Wyatt? Are you getting your ass in here or what?"

Lucy turned her full concentration to the task of fastening her harness, not at all interested in learning what it was that had kept Wyatt from climbing aboard and throwing in his two cents. Not that she really needed to look at him to form an educated guess. His eyes were essentially scorching a trail down her face from where he stood at ground level.

He didn't answer Jiya. Not audibly, anyhow. He came scuffling up the side of the Mothership after another beat of silence, brushing against Lucy's knees on his way to his chair, a touch that had to be pretty damn deliberate given the extra space that this machine afforded them.

It didn't matter. No amount of brooding or begging would shake her. They had a job to do, another era of history to defend, and whatever it was that had unfolded between them a few hours ago had to be secondary to all of that.


His head had been so far out of the game that it was a wonder he'd returned with all of his limbs attached. A tedious string of bruises was bound to appear across his ribcage by tomorrow morning, but for every bit of anguish Wyatt was nursing on the inside, a bit of outward damage felt rather inconsequential by comparison.

Every sign Lucy had given him in the past six hours all pointed toward one very fatal result. One night. Just a single damn night, one to add to their two others, none of which were ever going to accumulate into anything that resembled a hopeful future.

No matter how he'd tried to corner her, to wrestle some sort of indicator as to where her head was at following their time together in Texas, Lucy had stiffly soldiered on as if his repeated attempts to talk had been nonexistent. Where there was no other excuse to avoid him, she skillfully rattled off more facts about Colonial America than he'd ever heard in thirteen years of tortuous public education. He'd give her credit there. If knowledge was a weapon, she sure as hell knew how to wield it. Between her scathing evasion and the beating he'd taken from a few stooges in triangle hats and knee socks, this jump was rapidly going down as one he wanted to thoroughly erase from his memory, which was sent him to the showers first. Not his usual M.O. with Jiya and Lucy as his current comrades in arms, but washing her off of him was a matter of vital self-preservation, one he made no apologies for.

Not that either of them left much room for apologizing anyway. Amid Jiya's judgmental side-eyeing and Lucy's tight-lipped refusal to acknowledge him, there was really no point in explaining. He locked himself away and let the steam build a barricade between him and the rest of the world. Just a few minutes of quiet to regain himself was all it would take; he could reset, start fresh, give his insubordinate brain a kick in the ass. He had to, or he was going to get pummeled just as badly on the next jump and the one after that, on and on until he either learned his lesson or spent a few months in a full body cast.

But for whatever sparse bit of clear head space he'd been able to reclaim under the scalding spray of hot water, his equilibrium was skewed in mere seconds once he was back in his room. The door had barely shut before it squeaked open again with the momentum of Lucy's light knock. Wyatt glanced over his shoulder, pulling the towel from around his neck and letting it hit the desk beside him with a soft plunk. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." Dark eyes roved over him, absorbing his wet hair, the thin white t-shirt, a halfway crooked pair of sleep pants slung lazily against his hips, but never once touched down on his face.

If it hadn't been for his two female companions and one cramped parcel of a hallway, there wouldn't have been anything on him but boxer briefs, if that. He was exhausted, just a breath away from becoming flagrantly careless. Too much fighting and driving and then more fighting - along with a frightening sense of disquiet that hit him every time he considered an uncharacteristically impassive Lucy - had mixed poorly with the filmy hour or so of rest he'd stolen in the small hours of the night.

Sleeping with Lucy had somehow kept him from being able to find actual sleep next to her. His body had been damn near comatose, but his mind - his heart - couldn't shut down afterwards. He was too consumed with her flawless white skin awash in moonlight, her hypnotic breathing, the slim warmth of her loose-limbed body stealing over his abdomen. She'd turned eventually, leaving her spot on his chest to roll away from him with a sleepy hum, and her bare back had lured him right after her, bringing him onto his side to loop himself around her small frame. And eventually, with her hair caught in the fringe of his whiskery cheek, his arm slackening gradually over her waist, he'd nodded off at last...

Only to be dragged awake a short time later by the glowing clamor of a time machine touching down on soft Texas earth. Leaving that bed had nearly brought on a toddler-like fit of refusal.

If her fixed attention now - from where she was draped temptingly against the doorpost - offered any barometer for the likelihood of another night spent twined together, then those halfway crooked sleep pants of his might disappear even faster than his exhaustion. There was more than one way to recharge after a long-ass day or two on the job. He'd gladly work it off just as well as he'd sleep it off.

"Can I help you...ma'am?"

He watched the way his final word riffled through her, amazed at how that familiar summon of a title never became stale for either of them.

Lucy's confidence seemed to take a momentary dip before she sealed the door shut behind her. Those damn long legs of hers unfurled over the stretch of warped farmhouse floors, bringing her closer to him second by second. His hands framed her hips as soon as she was within reach, holding her still so he could chase her wandering gaze. "You here to keep me company tonight?"

She nodded, a hand rising to palm against his chest.

Another half of a second and Wyatt would have closed the deal without question, but something - a revival of good conscience, a recovered delay in his lust-ridden brain - drove him to make one last attempt at catching her eyes before he flung himself into the abyss. She dodged him, angling her face downward, denying him a view of anything but eyelashes.

"Lucy," he breathed out severely.

Her lips were hard against his, startlingly insistent and precise. He tightened his hold on her, squeezing once to expel a wave of heat from his fingertips.

"Hold on," he murmured against her mouth, tipping his forehead to hers. "We should - "

She knotted fingers through his hair and tugged him back in, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat. His pelvis jumped forward on instinct, the steady drone of his desire beginning to climb higher and higher. He kissed her. He had to. He needed - he needed…

He needed to stop letting her drown out his last thread of common sense.

"Lucy - "

She bit down on his lip and didn't let go. It was punishing. It was goddamn sexy. It was also annoying the absolute hell out of him.

"Wait, dammit - " he threw himself in reverse with all the grace of a clunker in a car chase, not stopping until his back thumped against the wall behind him. "What are you doing? What the hell is this to you?"

Lucy's eyes fluttered to the floor, mouth pursed and heat rising up her neck. "You - you know what I'm doing."

"No, I really don't. I've been trying to talk to you about last night and you won't hear a word of it. You've barely looked me in the eye all damn day. You can't even look at me now."

Nothing, not a sound. She was drilling a hole in the floor with an avoidance that was practically violent in nature.

Wyatt softened his tone, doing everything he could to remove the accusation from his voice. "So are we talking about this or aren't we? "

"There's nothing to talk about," she said to the planks beneath her feet.

"What exactly was your plan tonight? Just some sloppy attempt at friends with benefits? Pretty damn hard to do that when we aren't even friends anymore, isn't it?" Her backward flinch at that statement did nothing to derail the soul-sucking unraveling of his heart. "So I'll ask it again - what the hell is this to you? I'll be a lot of things, Lucy, but I won't be your fuck buddy."

Her face tightened into a smile he didn't recognize, eyes chipped with ice as her gaze darted upward. "Don't remember you having any issue with it last night."

"Last night," he seethed in return, pushing off the wall and stalking closer, "wasn't about fucking. I don't care if it's cheesy as all hell - we made love last night, and nothing you tell me now can convince me otherwise."

Her arms folded over her chest, a physical barricade to reinforce the wall she'd constructed around her heart. "Right, and I'm the know-it-all..."

"That's it? That's…" he floundered, too angry to see or hear or think straight. It was no secret that she felt the need to guard herself against him. The divide had been there all along, from the moment he'd sat down at that cafe table in France and plead his case with her. He knew where he stood. She'd told him it couldn't be the same this time, had pushed him away and away and away…

And just when he'd convinced himself that the distance was finally on its way to becoming a thing of the past, she did this. She gave him one glimpse of heaven before kicking him straight back to hell.

Wyatt turned his back to her, voice trampled and broken-down, barely intelligible to his own ears. "Just go. If that's all the more you want, then please just - just go."

Another Lucy would have breathed his name in a manner that was just as afflicted and jumbled as his own tangle of conflicted feelings. That Lucy may have touched his back, his arm, his shoulder. She would have tried to explain, or at least whispered that she was sorry. She'd linger an extra moment, debating if it was possible to leave things on such shaky ground without doing irreparable damage. Something. The Lucy of before would have done something.

But the Lucy of after - the Lucy he'd lost - was already gone, allowing the door to slam shut behind her without a second thought.


a/n : did anyone *really* think this would be smooth sailing so soon? (my apologies if your answer was yes...)