A/N: Okay I am now caught up. This is yesterday's chapter. One more to go, you guys. I don't know if I'll get it posted today, but I'm going to try my best. I have work and then family celebrations tomorrow so we'll see. I should have seen the finale feels derailing me coming from a mile away. But man was I ever UNPREPARED. That finale was like FANFIC COME TO LIFE. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A TELEVISION FINALE LIKE IT EVER. I'M ON MY SIXTH REWATCH RIGHT NOW AS I EDIT. THE QUESTION IS, WILL EVER STOP WATCHING IT? NOT LIKELY. ALSO I AM SO EXCITED TO READ ALL THE FIC IT INSPIRES YOU GUYS. I HAVE TALKED TO SO MANY AUTHORS WHO ARE ALREADY PLANNING THINGS AND I AM PUMPED. LET'S GO, FAM. BRING IT.
Anyway, happy reading!
angellwings
November 2019
He looked back over his shoulder as he entered the room and shut the heavy metal door behind him. Hopefully, no one would notice he was missing for several minutes. He pulled Grandpa Sherwin's lockbox out from under the bed and opened it. Sitting on top was a small round ring box covered in black velvet. He took a deep breath as he stared at it. This had become a daily routine. Stare at the ring and think and try not to be terrified of Lucy's hypothetical answer.
He didn't even know how she felt about marriage. They never talked about it. Or kids. They talked about their pasts and their childhoods, trying to retroactively get to know those things that should have come before falling in love, but the future was dangerous. They didn't know what it held for them.
He reached for the ring box just as the door began to creak and hurriedly shut the lockbox and tucked it back under the bed. A moment after he tucked it out of view the door opened wide enough to reveal Lucy.
Casual, wonderfully normal Lucy Preston in jeans and a sweater. She toed off her shoes as she crossed the threshold of their room and grinned at him.
"Retreating for a Thanksgiving Day nap already?" She asked with a chuckle. "Too much turkey?"
He smiled at her in amusement as she crossed the room and then spread out across their beds which were shoved together and made like one bed complete with homey throw pillows. They'd been officially sharing a room for two months yet sometimes he still didn't believe it. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up with her arm.
"Are you up for some company during your nap?" She asked with a suggestive grin and a quirked brow.
He followed her lead and kicked off his shoes. "Trust me, Lucy, when it comes to you I am always up for company."
He slid into bed next to her and they both automatically shifted until her head was on his chest and his arms were wrapped around her. This was a habit now. A good habit. One he hoped he never had to break.
"Can I…" He hesitated as soon as the words started to leave his mouth.
"Can you what?" Lucy asked as she tilted her head up to look at him.
"Can I ask you something?"
She grinned at him with a mirthful expression and nodded. "Anything you want, Wyatt."
"After everything we've seen and been through, how do you feel about...marriage?" Wow, that was painful to ask. Did it sound as awkward as it felt? Probably, right?
Her eyes widened in surprise as they met his. "You—you want to talk about marriage? I wasn't sure you would want to. I mean with the way things went with Jessica, in either timeline—"
"What happened with Jessica was about myself and Jessica, not marriage itself," he said as he cut off her sentence. He knew where that train of thought was going. He wanted her to understand. "Even in the original timeline if Jessica wasn't Rittenhouse, we had issues. We had issues because we grew apart, not together. Throw in deployments and all the time she spent alone and by the end it was beyond anything she signed up for. We were too young and impulsive and we didn't know as much as we thought we did. It just...it was never right. I see that now. I didn't before because I got so caught up in my grief and my guilt, but I've been remembering things little by little and we were both awful for each other. It wasn't marriage that destroyed my relationship with Jessica. We did that to ourselves."
He felt her hands caressing his face in a soothing act of comfort as she nodded and replied. "And you don't think that would happen with us?"
"If that were going to happen with us, it would have by now," Wyatt answered honestly. "We've had plenty of opportunities for that resentment to grow and it hasn't. Do you know why?"
She was quiet for a moment as she thought back through his words and then finally she spoke. "Because we've grown together. Side by side. Right?"
"Exactly," he told her as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "We've both changed since all of this started, but we've changed as a unit. We've adapted to each other's mistakes and consequences and all the lessons learned. We're actual partners in a way Jessica and I never could have been. So, marriage with the right person would be completely different than any experience I've ever had with it."
"Makes sense," she said with a nod and a pensive expression. "The only marriage I've really seen up close is my parents. They had problems too. Huge arguments sometimes, but they always worked it out. The next day it would be like none of it ever happened. Although, now I no longer know how much of that was real. And I wonder sometimes just how much my father knew. Was my mother always Rittenhouse or did she change because she never met Henry? Did he know that I wasn't his daughter? If he did he never acted like it, and then for me to even be here my mother had to have cheated on him because they were married well before I was born."
Her brow furrowed and she curled further into him. He could tell these were things she didn't like to think about. Thoughts she had but then pushed away.
"Growing up I thought their relationship was so simple. But now given everything that I've learned...I don't know. I wonder sometimes if it was all a lie. And that...that scares me. It doesn't put me off the whole thing, don't get me wrong, but it just makes me realize that marriage is complicated. It's difficult. It's committing your whole life to one person and taking on their struggles as your own. You have to be prepared for that, like you said. You feel like you and Jessica weren't prepared. Before I take that leap, I'd like to be confident that we can share each other's burdens completely." She looked up at him then and smiled contentedly. "And we've been working on that. We've been sharing more and more of ourselves with each other. I'd take on anything for you. Share any of your pain and offer you as much comfort as I could — and I feel as though that made no sense and I have talked in a complete circle."
She blushed in embarrassment and hid her face in his chest. But she didn't need to. He understood her.
"So, then, you think we're ready for that?" He asked curiously. That was the impression he got from her answer.
"I think that…." She paused, looked back up at him, and bit her bottom lip before continuing nervously. "I'm ready when you are."
He smiled warmly at her and then dipped his mouth down to hers for a relieved kiss. They stumbled their way through this conversation with much less awkwardness than he anticipated. The question of when he was proposing wasn't really the question anymore. The question was how. He would figure that out later, but for now he wanted to enjoy this moment. The kiss deepened and Lucy's arms wrapped tighter around him, pulling him toward her until he was bracing himself over her with her legs wrapped around his.
She was the rest of his life. This was the rest of his life...with her. The future was theirs to define and create together.
