Disclaimer: I do not own Timeless.

Villa Serena: Part 5

The sun was setting when Denise was finally at her car. She calculated the time it would take to drive up to the bunker and then back into the city, pick up dinner and make it. The kids better have their homework done, because they're not eating until 8:00.

She had just fished her keys out of her purse when she heard her name called. Turning on her heel, she saw Bob Greenblatt hurrying up towards her.

There's a reason parking garages are cliché. Mark Felt immortalized it as the ideal setting where no party can be overheard. People bug homes and offices. And to catch the times in between, they bug cars. Anywhere else was a free-for-all. And the echo provided in concrete structures distorts the sounds picked up by parabolic microphones.

All this is to say that Denise never believed for a second that she and Bob just happened to reach the parking structure at the same time.

"We're in luck," Greenblatt said. "With Garcia Flynn," he said after her confused look. "A DEA contact of mine happens to be on assignment in Venezuela. He's running interference on a trafficker out of Caracas. This trafficker has been in three of the same countries as Flynn over the past six years. You know, it could be nothing, but we've gotten leads on less." He shrugged, with a little twinkle in his eyes.

"Do you want me to reach out to the DEA agent?" asked Denise, professionally.

"No, don't worry about it. You just focus on identifying this Rittenhouse pilot." He turned and walked away.

Denise returned to her car, her face expressionless, her mind racing.

.

.

Jiya and Wyatt had reached the crowd again- someone was standing on a podium and talking- Jiya checked the man's face twice, but it wasn't William Jennings Bryan.

"Bryan's not here," she whispered to Wyatt. "Do you think he's going back to his house? Should we warn the others?"

Wyatt peered back at Villa Serena and it looked like he was mulling something over. "No," he said. "They're fine."

Jiya wondered how he could've known that- wasn't she the one with visions? And they were getting dangerously close to the one she'd seen earlier- Wyatt running through the crowd, shooting at an unseen target. She scanned the crowd, looking for any sign of Emma or Jessica.

"Jiya, can't you find them?" asked Wyatt. "Y'know, with your…" he gestured vaguely at her eyes as if her visions were some taboo subject.

She sighed and rolled her eyes back in her head. That was odd- now Wyatt was hurrying back to Villa Serena. She watched him burst through the door. There was Flynn and Lucy, looking hopelessly at a small device underneath a spindly table. A bomb!

She came back to the present in a hurry, gasping. "Wyatt!" she called. "Wyatt!"

But Wyatt was too far away now. She watched him from a distance draw his gun and shout something, but the din from the crowd was too much for her to hear.

There was a bang and suddenly everyone around was screaming and running. The crowd jostled Jiya back and forth as she struggled to catch up to Wyatt.

Blam! Blam!

Two more shots, a flash of red.

Jiya finally caught up to Wyatt, but the blood wasn't his. "I had a clear shot," said Wyatt. "I had to take it."

Jiya looked at the perfectly manicured hand reaching toward the fallen revolver, the mess of dirty blonde hair under the era-appropriate hat.

Wyatt turned the body over and Jiya saw an unfamiliar face and released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

.

.

Lucy watched with trepidation as Flynn seemed to watch the bomb closely. "Well," she said. "You planted one of these on the Hindenburg. You know how to stop it?"

Flynn shook his head without saying a word.

"You learned how to arm bombs but never how to stop one?" she said.

"Yes," he said, quietly.

"Why?"

"I didn't want to stop the bomb on the Hindenburg."

Lucy started walking toward the front door. "I'm getting Wyatt," she said.

"We don't need him," said Flynn quietly. "The bomb isn't triggered by motion. I can move it." Lucy watched incredulously as Flynn gingerly peeled the bomb back from the adhesive.

"This adhesive has been used to attach explosives to targets since WWII," said Flynn. "The compound has changed very little."

"Yeah, yeah," said Lucy. "Just be careful."

He held the bomb evenly in his hands and started moving toward the back exit.

"Where are you going?" asked Lucy.

"Away from him," said Flynn, gesturing with his head. Lucy turned to see Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan walk through the door.

He blinked at the sight of her. "Who are you?" he said.

"I'm with the State Department," said Lucy, thinking quickly. "Tea Leoni?"

"Lucy," said Flynn. "There is a bomb in my hand. Is this the moment?"

"Right," said Lucy, and she turned back to him and they quickly ran out the back, leaving a baffled William Jennings Bryan behind her.

Flynn walked stiff legged to the swamp and tossed the bomb into the water. Lucy watched for a few seconds and then water and mud shot up into the air in a muffled explosion.

Another second and Lucy felt a hot wave of mud slam her entire body. Winded, she lowered her head and spread her arms, attempting to keep the mud and muck from dripping on her ruined 1919 clothes.

She heard Flynn laughing and looked up at him. He waved his hands to dislodge any loose mud and tried to wipe his face clean.

"This is the quintessential Florida experience," he said. "In 2018, Floridians do this for fun."

"Shut up," said Lucy.

.

.

Through all the chaos and confusion, only one officer was able to get close enough to Wyatt and the dead Rittenhouse agent, and Wyatt quickly incapacitated him and took Jiya by the arm and ran for it.

He tried not to think of those five seconds.

They reached the swamps behind the housing where they found Flynn and Lucy practically rolling in laughter and mud.

"Did you defuse the bomb?" asked Wyatt.

Lucy's laughter died long enough for her to say, "No, we threw it in the mud."

"How'd you know about the bomb?" asked Flynn, quickly.

"Jiya saw it," said Wyatt.

Flynn squinted his eyes at Wyatt like he knew something. Wyatt figured he was suspicious, but he didn't care.

Five seconds.

The team made their way back to the water where Bill and Ben McCoy were waiting.

"Always get mud in the boat," said Bill, shaking his head. "Best get in. Let's get you home."

"How'd y'all do?" asked Ben.

"The secretary's safe," said Flynn.

"And Rittenhouse?" asked Lucy, looking back to Wyatt and Jiya.

"One agent dead," said Jiya, then, "No one we know," after a meaningful look from Lucy. Wyatt could feel her eyes on him but stubbornly avoided meeting her gaze. Instead he watched the swamp water roll past their little motorboat.

Five seconds. For five seconds he was convinced he'd just shot and killed his wife. He'd made a solemn vow in front of God to love, honor, and obey her in all things. But he saw her with a gun and he shot her.

Prime Wyatt must have known he'd run into the agent, who he could only surmise Emma had on this mission because she looked so similar to Jessica. Prime Wyatt knew he'd take the shot, knew he'd put her down.

Make your shot count. Including Jessica.

But then again, he'd also warned him about Flynn and the bomb.

"Jiya," Wyatt whispered, barely audible over the rumbling of the motor. "What did you see in your vision again?"

Jiya looked around but no one was paying attention. "Lucy runs out and grabs us. You follow her back and disarm the bomb."

"But instead Flynn threw it away?" said Wyatt.

"I know," said Jiya. "I can't think what changed."

Wyatt thought he knew. In the time stream where they don't save Rufus, no Prime Wyatt comes back with a cryptic message to teach Flynn EOD. Wyatt doesn't do it, Flynn can't disarm the bomb, and Wyatt has to.

That means that Prime Wyatt didn't know that Wyatt would shoot and kills a Rittenhouse agent.

His head started to hurt and Wyatt tried to stop thinking about it. He focused instead on the rocking of the motorboat as it traveled up the creeks back into the harbor.

Before they disembarked, Wyatt shook hands with Bill and Ben McCoy.

"You look troubled son," said Bill.

Wyatt turned back to the others- they were all too far away to hear, not realizing he was hanging back.

"Someone told me what to do on this mission," said Wyatt, looking back at the two bootleggers. "Someone who knew what they were talking about. He makes the rules, I follow them. And I did but… I can't stop thinking that it wasn't the right call."

Bill nodded. "Son, you know what the only thing people in this country have consistently done since it started?" Wyatt shook his head and Bill leaned in like he was sharing a secret. "Kick the rules in the teeth." And he winked.

.

.

Rufus's heart was racing and he was sweating. It was almost like reliving Chinatown, but he knew this feeling had nothing to do with Emma shooting him.

The Mothership had returned a few moments ago, and any minute now the Lifeboat would come back too. He tried to envision Jiya climbing down from it- tried to decide where the best place to meet her would be.

He felt a hand bracing his shoulder and knew that Connor was behind him, in every sense of the phrase.

The console started coming to life- screens illuminating the jump trajectory through time and space. "That's my girlfriend," he said, watching the machine land perfectly.

The hatch opened and Wyatt stepped out first, rolling the safety ladder over. Lucy was next, followed by Flynn, both of them covered in partially dried mud from the looks of it.

"What'd Rittenhouse do?" asked Connor. "Attack a pig farm?"

"No, that was Flynn," said Lucy.

Rufus wasn't paying attention to any of them. He had eyes only for Jiya who was finally making her way toward him.

"Taking it easy, I see," she said and she kissed him quickly.

"Hopefully, never again," he said.

The door opened and they turned to see Agent Christopher entering. "Did I miss the whole thing?" she said.

"Pretty much," said Flynn.

"But I'm glad you're here now," said Rufus and he turned back to Jiya. "Look, I'd love to make this the great rom-com climactic scene it should be, but the fact is, that damn alarm could go off again any second and I'll be on the Oregon Trail dying of dysentery, so I'm just going to ask this as quickly as possible."

And not stalling for even a second, he dropped to his knee and reached into his pocket. "Will you marry me?"

And there was the ring- a beautiful half-carat diamond encased in a perfectly oval setting and stacked on a simple gold band.

Lucy's hand jumped to her mouth, Wyatt appeared to be nodding with approval, but Rufus had eyes only for Jiya. Her face had lit up as bright as the Mothership ever had her hands trembling as she reached out for the ring.

"Of course!" she said and then they were kissing again.

Despite the lateness of the hour, they all stayed up. Mason fetched his finest bottle of scotch and Flynn and Lucy couldn't even be bothered to change out of their dirty clothes. After everything that had happened to them over the past few years, everyone was just so relieved with the brief evening of normalcy. Something as simple and hopeful as engagements and marriages were still part of the world. However much they time traveled, things were still moving forward.

As the evening swiftly turned to night, one by one, they drifted out of the party. But Rufus and Jiya stayed up, dancing to Mason's old records.

"We should get some sleep," said Jiya, with reason.

"No, let's stay up," said Rufus, not losing step.

"Ok," said Jiya, laughing. "For how long?"

"Until we stop."

"We're never gonna wanna stop."

"That's fine."