"Has anyone seen Lucy?"

Most of the team is still seated in the dining room, savoring the meal that Connor had managed to whip together out of thin air (a definite step up from their past several months of processed food from a tin or box), and they all look up at once. Flynn is standing in the sitting room with his arms crossed, frowning as he looks out the window toward the oceanfront.

"She was sleeping for most of the day," Jiya answers, continuing to clear dishes from the table. "Did you check her room?"

"Mm. No sign."

"Outside, maybe?" Rufus says, hurrying to scoop up the last bite of food from his plate as Jiya steals it out from under him. "We've been pretty cooped up for months, and when we haven't been underground, we've been running for our lives. I wouldn't mind a good old fashioned walk outdoors myself."

"It's worth a look. I'll be back." Flynn retrieves his jacket from the back of one of the sofas and slips it on as he exits to the terrace, closing the door behind him. The noise from inside abruptly dissipates, leaving only the distant sound of the waves crashing on the cliffs and shoreline. In front of him is a stone path that leads from the terrace down to the beach and Flynn makes his way down the hill, eyes scanning the dark as best he can. A cold breeze is blowing off the water, making him shiver despite his jacket, and he half hopes that he won't find Lucy there, as he'd vastly prefer to be warm indoors with the rest of them.

Unfortunately for him, upon reaching the beach he spots a figure a few yards down that must be Lucy, heading in the opposite direction of where he stands (and any doubt in his mind that it's her fades as he notices she's wearing one of his sweaters). She's strolling casually along the waterline with her arms crossed, staring off into the distance, not seeming to notice the gentle waves washing over her shoes, and he heads toward her. Lucy turns as she hears him approach, a gentle smile crossing her face as she recognizes him. "Hey Flynn."

"Lucy, it's freezing out here," he says, gesturing to her wet feet. "You're going to catch a cold doing that." The longer he looks at her, the more he frowns; she has a distant expression, as if her body is there but her mind is far away. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm alright."

Despite her words, he has a troubling feeling that something is off with her. He can feel saltwater soaking through his shoes, as cold as he expected it to be, but he ignores it, and isn't quite sure how Lucy is managing to do the same, which only makes him worry more. He nods at her sweater. "Where did you find that?"

Lucy looks down, as if she forgot that she was wearing it. "Oh. Sorry. I couldn't find the box of my clothes in all the chaos of moving, but I was able to track down yours. I can take it off."

"No, Lucy, no need," he says, putting a hand on her arm to stop her from pulling the sweater off. He scans her face, concerned, while she does her best to avoid looking at him. "You're clearly not okay. You don't have to tell me what's wrong and you can tell me to piss off, but at least tell me I'm safe leaving you alone out here."

She bites her lip, looking off to the side, then shakes her head. "No, please stay."

They continue down the beach side by side in silence, and after a minute or so passes Lucy slips her arm through Flynn's, huddling close to him for warmth. The sweater is almost comically large on her, the sleeves rolled up so as to not engulf her hands entirely, and she rolls them down slightly to shield her fingers from the cold breeze.

"Did you still want to talk?"

Flynn is taken off guard by the question; it's true he had told her on the drive there that they'd talk later, but he'd somehow managed to forget in the flurry of activity since. "Oh. Yes, of course."

"We don't have to-"

"No, we should."

She nods, staring at the ground, waiting for him to speak. Every second that passes in silence seems to make Lucy curl in on herself more. She looks almost afraid at what he might say, utterly lost and alone, and he's only seen her this way once before - a night in the woods over a year ago, a distant memory for him, and yet he can still clearly recall the way her hand felt gripping his tightly, as if she was hanging on for dear life. He has to remind himself that this is the same woman and that while it was a year prior for him, it had only just happened recently for her.

There is something hanging between them, something left unsaid, and neither quite knows how to say it.

"Flynn," Lucy finally says, her voice quiet, "I'm sorry I've been overstepping your boundaries. This whole experience has been incredibly disorienting for me; I came back to a life that doesn't feel like my own, and it's like there's this...chasm between me and everyone else. You and I especially. It feels like it's only been a week or two since I watched you die, and then I had to try to win the trust of a whole different version of you, and it wasn't you even though it was you. And now I'm back and I keep trying to just carry on as if nothing has changed, but I can't because things obviously have changed, and I just feel..." Her rambling cuts off as she pauses to gather her thoughts. She turns her head to look at him, the melancholy palpable on her face. "...I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. Like I don't belong here, or anywhere. And maybe I got you back, but as of late it feels like I lost you anyway."

Flynn's face softens as she speaks. "Lucy, I'm the same person. And so are you. You haven't lost me."

She carries on as if she hasn't heard him. "When I came back, you lost her. Your version of Lucy. Whoever she was before I came back and took her place. No wonder you can't stand me touching you."

"Is that what you think? That I can't stand you touching me?"

"You jump or tense or pull away any time I do."

He silently chastises himself. She isn't wrong, of course, but those reactions were for far different reasons than Lucy has clearly assumed, and rather than be clear and honest with her, he's let her suffer in silence, because he didn't know how to tell her the truth. She was absolutely right, back at the bunker - he is a coward.

"So what do you call this?" he asks, nodding at their linked arms pointedly, and she immediately moves to withdraw hers, completely misinterpreting what he's trying to say. He sighs and stops walking, Lucy halting a half-second later to turn back to him. "Lucy, it's not that I can't stand you touching me, not even remotely. If anything, it's the opposite."

Her brow furrows. "I don't understand."

He nods for her to follow him as he heads for a nearby rock, and they sit next to each other, Lucy taking care to leave space between them. Flynn notices this, sighs and shuffles closer to her, and reaches out to take her hand, holding it in his lap and looking down at it as if searching for an answer there.

"After my family was killed, I withdrew from other people almost entirely. Every bit of human contact I had was rooted in violence of some sort - fighting, torture, killing, whatever was necessary." He grips her hand tighter. "Except when it came to you. You seemed so sure of yourself whenever you appeared, had all the answers I needed and seemed to know exactly where you stood with me, even if I didn't. And every time you left I found myself missing that...connection. It made me feel human again, when you were around. It felt like a small part of me was still alive. Those journal pages you left with me every time were like letters from a friend. The only friend I had left." She's silent, her face expressionless as she watches him, though he can feel her squeezing his hand tightly in return. "And once we were finally on the same side, it was like the storm raging inside me had calmed. My desperation to get my girls back turned into-" He cuts off, swallowing, looking deeply ashamed. "I think part of me gave up. On them. On getting them back. The rage that was driving me just turned into grief - and of course, I'd always had that, but I realized after some time that I'd stopped expecting to ever see them again, and my hope to save them was replaced by mourning."

"But you said-"

"Not to give up hope. I know." He smiles. "And I didn't, not consciously. But one day I woke up and realized I was healing, as much as one can after losing everyone that they love. I was seeing a future beyond just taking down Rittenhouse. Seeing myself having a life again, one day, whether or not I had them back. And I feel like I'm betraying their memory every time I consider living in a world without them in it. I don't deserve it, not after everything I've done. They died for no other reason than their connection to me - don't I owe it to them to do everything in my power to get them back?" He lets Lucy's hand go and leans forward, staring at the ground, elbows resting on his knees with his hands clasped in front. "I don't flinch because I can't stand your touch, Lucy. I flinch because you're tangible evidence that I'm moving on."

The nervous fear in Lucy's eyes fades as she stares at him, stunned, slowly processing what he's trying to say without actually saying it. She doesn't respond, not at first, instead slipping off her perch on the rock, and he fears for a moment that she's about to walk away from him, that he's ruined one of the only things he has left that he holds dear. But she kneels facing him instead, and he feels her hands cup his face gently, tilting it up toward her. She presses a gentle kiss to his cheek, his forehead, his other cheek, rests her head against his, and the gesture is so impossibly tender that he simply closes his eyes, relishing her touch, the tension leaving his body all at once.

"They wouldn't have wanted that life for you, full of emptiness and loneliness, and you know that. You've come so far in redeeming yourself, in spite of your past mistakes. Don't bury yourself with them. You deserve to be happy, Garcia. You do."

He opens his eyes and leans back slightly to look at her. Lucy returns his gaze confidently, and for the first time since she returned to the present he can see clearly the woman he first met in a bar in São Paulo, steadfast and determined. Neither says anything for a moment, does anything, until he leans forward slowly, hesitantly, his head tilting slightly to the side, but he pauses just short of them touching, as if he's giving her an out, time to pull away as he half expects her to.

Instead, she closes the distance before he can, pressing her lips against his earnestly, her hands dropping to grip the lapels of his jacket and pull him closer. Every thought in his mind fades the moment they touch, and as the kiss deepens he slips off the rock to kneel as well, his arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her close. He can feel her relax against him, her firm grip on his jacket easing as she instead trails her hands up over his shoulders to tangle in his hair, making him shiver. She's calm and desperate all at once, as if she fears he'll fade away any second, as if she couldn't breathe until this moment and now that she has, she can't give it up.

He knows the feeling.

They part briefly, silent and looking at each other with curious eyes, the unspoken question of what is this hanging in the air between them. And then Lucy pulls herself against him once more, this kiss more urgent, more hungry. He kisses her just as fiercely, an unspoken promise that he will never willingly walk away from her, that he is utterly besotted and bewitched by her, and maybe always has been. He's never believed in love at first sight, destiny, any of that cliche bullshit, but he knows that from the first moment he saw Lucy Preston stroll up to him with a drink in hand and a smile on her face, even amidst his grief and confusion, it felt like he'd come home.

Eventually they part again, more out of necessity than anything, neither quite wanting to but the need to catch their breath winning out over their selfish desire to continue. But rather than pull away completely, she leans in, arms wrapped tightly around him as she lays her head against his chest, and he holds her tightly in return, resting his cheek against her hair.

"I've made a mess of things, nearly broken everyone's timeline, to bring you back." She tilts her head to look up at him, and there's such affection in her eyes that he has to resist the urge to kiss her again. "But if I'm being honest, I don't regret any of it. I would do it a hundred times over." She leans up and presses her lips to his in a slower, more languid kiss, then pulls away and opens her mouth to finish what she was saying, her expression an odd mix of fear and exhilaration, as if she's finally about to admit something that she's been holding in for a very long time.

But before she can say anything further, she blinks, sways slightly, and slumps to the wet ground, her eyes rolling back in her head as she falls limp. Flynn quickly moves to lift her in his arms as she collapses. "Lucy?!" She doesn't respond to his voice or his touch and he quickly hoists her out of the frigid saltwater in both of his arms, cradling her against him as he rushes back up the path toward the house.


Dark, cold, water dripping incessantly in the distance, drowning out the silence. Seated on the floor, he has his back to the stone wall, his face in his scarred hands.

A door creaks open. Slivers of light reach the bars, casting shadows over his cell. He looks up, squinting, his eyes still red.

"Daddy?"

Small hands reach through the bars. He scrambles forward, slips his arms through to hold her as best he can, clinging tightly and savoring the moment that he knows will be brief.

Pulled away from him, her small hands tightly gripping his own, she shrieks, fights to hang on.

"Please, a bit longer-" The butt of a rifle slammed into his face silences him; he collapses back to the ground, spits blood on the filthy floor, no fight left in him to protest and he stays down even as she screams.

"You have a job to do." The cell door opens and he's hauled roughly to his feet. "Do that, and then we can talk about a longer visit."

A gun and a photo are shoved roughly into his hand as he's dragged out the door.

"You have 24 hours. And you know what happens if you're a second later than that."

He looks at his wife standing behind all of them, her eyes downcast, filled with shame, with pain, with heartbreak and fear. She can't look at him, doesn't ever seem able to look at him anymore, a hollow shell of herself.

His daughter, still fighting to get to him, held tightly in the arms of a woman with chestnut hair who crouches and waits patiently for her to calm, rubbing her back with one hand to soothe her.

"It's okay Abigail," he says, his smile forced as he shoves the gun into his waistband. "Dad will be back soon."


Lucy's eyes fly open, heart hammering in her chest, and she sits up gasping desperately for air, her arms outstretched as if reaching for someone. She's disoriented, looking around wildly at her surroundings until she recognizes her bedroom, and she lays back in her bed, still breathing heavily but willing herself to calm. A vision, nothing more. She's not sure she will ever get used to them. Her head is throbbing, worse than any migraine she's ever had in her life, and she's still struggling to process what she'd seen. She wonders briefly if the pain is her brain's response to the timeline fracturing even further.

A moment later she notices Flynn in the corner, curled up on the chaise that is clearly too small for him in a position that looks far from comfortable and with a throw blanket covering only a fraction of his body. There's a book lying folded in his lap, the only light in the room cast from the lamp behind him, and outside the sky is still dark. The house is quiet, no doubt meaning the rest of the team are also asleep.

Rather than wake Flynn, she slips out of her bed, shutting her eyes tight as she stands and feels a wave of nausea pass over her. It fades seconds later, and she wanders quietly over to her en-suite bathroom, closing the door quietly so as not to wake him. Flicking the light on, she squints at herself in the mirror, frowning at how pale her face is.

She exits the bathroom, again moving as quiet as she can manage, and crosses to the night table next to her bed. Pulling open the drawer, she retrieves the burgundy journal that she had stashed there beneath some innocuous papers. She gathers the quilt from her bed around her shoulders for warmth and makes her way to the terrace door.

Outside she finds a small seating area, with a gas fire pit at the center that she quickly turns on, sighing in contentment as the flames cast gentle light and warmth over her. She curls up on the nearest sofa under her heavy quilt and flips the book open.

She's so engrossed in reading that she doesn't realize how much time has passed until she hears the terrace door open. She quickly tucks the book away under the blanket, smiling as Flynn wanders over and sits next to her on the couch.

"How are you?" he asks, clearly still exhausted and somewhat shaken from recent events, but doing his best to hide it. Lucy knows him far too well for that to work. She turns so she's seated next to him rather than facing him, and leans her head on his shoulder, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his.

"Fine. Bit of a headache but it's fading quickly." His skepticism is obvious, and she turns his face toward hers and kisses him, soft and brief, reassuring him she's okay, and she can see him visibly relax as she pulls away.

"Was it a vision?"

"Yeah."

"Who was it about this time? Rufus again?"

"No." She turns to stare into the fire. "Wyatt this time. Much further in the future than anything previous."

"How do you know?"

"The baby. She must have been 3, 4 years old."

"She?" Flynn repeats softly. "A daughter?" Lucy nods. "I suppose that means Jessica was telling the truth, then."

"It looks that way."

"What else did you see?"

Her brow furrows. "He was being kept in some sort of cell. Alive, banged up a bit but seemed fine overall…physically, anyway. But his face...I've never seen him like that. He looked hopeless, resigned. And they gave him a job of some kind - killing a target, I think."

"He's working for Rittenhouse, then?"

"Maybe. But not willingly. I think they're using his daughter as blackmail."

Flynn's face darkens. "The lengths these evil bastards will go to in order to get what they want will never cease to amaze me. Was it Emma?"

"I don't know who was ordering him around. I didn't see them. There were a few voices, a man I'm assuming was Nicholas Keynes, but I don't know if the woman was Emma or my…" She swallows. "My mother."

"Was there anyone else with them?" She knows what he's really asking, between the lines. Was Gabriel with them?

"A few guards, I didn't recognize them. Some woman was taking care of Wyatt's daughter, I never got a clear image of her. And Jessica. She wasn't locked up, but she didn't seem particularly pleased at anything taking place either."

Before she can say anything more, another door opens further down the terrace and Rufus steps out. Lucy untangles herself from Flynn quickly, not out of any shame, but to avoid any questions that might arise that she doesn't feel like dealing with yet. Flynn seems to understand, as he leans back with his arms crossed instead and stares out at the ocean in the distance, where the sun is just starting to rise.

"Hey. You're both up early." Rufus checks his watch. "Or maybe late is a better word. You okay, Lucy?"

"I'm fine," she replies, smiling, which Rufus raises an eyebrow to.

"I also enjoy a seizure on the beach now and then. Forgive me if I don't take your word for it. What's the prognosis from your bedside nurse?" He looks over to Flynn, who raises an eyebrow in return.

"If the lady says she's fine, then she's fine."

It does little to reassure Rufus, but he shrugs regardless. "Fair enough."

"Couldn't sleep?" Lucy asks, changing the subject.

"Yeah. It figures. Spend a year sleeping on concrete mattresses and suddenly we have these gloriously soft beds that none of us can stand. Aside from Connor and Jiya, apparently, but those two could fall asleep anywhere." He sits on the sofa opposite Lucy and Flynn. "You freaked us out, Luce. When Flynn came running in with you passed out in his arms, we all thought Rittenhouse had gotten to you somehow. Still not used to being this out in the open, I guess."

"I know. I never thought I'd miss being underground, if only for how safe and secure it felt." She pauses a beat. "Though I suppose even that didn't stop Rittenhouse from waltzing in."

"That's a smidge different," Rufus points out. "Talking of which, have either of you heard anything from Wyatt?" Lucy shrugs and looks to Flynn, who shakes his head. "And of course we can't do anything until he contacts us with a location. Something we have no guarantee will happen." He sighs. "Gee, it's too bad someone didn't just, I don't know, knock him out or something. Y'know, before he could run off and make poor life choices?" Flynn staunchly ignores Rufus's pointed words and stare. "So what do we do now, then?"

"Keep looking, I guess," Lucy says, sitting up straighter. "All hands on deck. Use every resource we have available and ramp up the search."

"Our resources are pretty much limited to books and the internet. Denise wants us to get Connor's surveillance software up and running as soon as possible." He yawns. "Guess I'll go get a head start on that. Either of you want a coffee?" He grimaces. "Or espresso, I guess, since Connor is nothing if not a pretentious rich guy. Or he used to be, anyway. Still, caffeine is caffeine."

Lucy smiles. "Sure, thanks Rufus. We'll be down in a bit."

He gives them a strange look as he leaves, as if something is different but he can't quite put his finger on it. Once he's disappeared back inside, Lucy sighs and glances at Flynn, unable to keep the sly grin off her face, and his usual smirk turns into a warm grin as well, both of them laughing quietly.

"You stay here and rest, I'll retrieve provisions." Not giving her a chance to protest, Flynn presses a kiss to her temple and stands. Lucy watches him leave, smiling, and once she's alone again, pulls the journal out from under her blanket to read once more.


Flynn hears Rufus yelp in pain as he makes his way down the last set of stairs to the main floor, and sees him standing over the espresso machine having clearly just given himself a light steam burn.

"How the hell does this thing work?" he says to no one in particular. "What I wouldn't give for a good old-fashioned overpriced, environmentally-unfriendly coffee pod right about now…"

"Need a hand?" Flynn asks as he enters the kitchen.

"Be my guest," he mutters, stepping aside to busy himself instead with tracking down mugs. Within minutes Flynn has the machine ready, and they form an assembly line of Rufus handing him mugs one after the other to then fill with painfully strong coffee. "How the hell do you know your way around an espresso machine?"

Flynn chuckles. "My painfully Slavic father had high standards for his coffee, so naturally his wedding gift to me was an espresso machine that Lorena loathed using."

Rufus leans back against the counter, arms crossed, looking curiously at Flynn. "I think that's the first time you've talked openly about your family. With me, anyway. Really ruins my image of you as a murderous sociopath."

"Gee, thanks Rufus, you aren't so bad yourself," Flynn replies, grinning and taking a sip from his own coffee. Rufus remembers the mug in his own hand and also takes a sip, then looks over at Flynn with eyebrows raised, clearly impressed.

"As much as it pains me to admit, this isn't half bad. Maybe there's something to this whole pretentious-rich-guy thing." Rufus is quiet a minute or two as he watches Flynn make another coffee, before he clears his throat and says casually, "So...you and Lucy."

"What about me and Lucy?"

"Something going on with you two?"

"Not sure what you mean," Flynn says, not looking up, his voice a little too nonchalant.

"Oh come on. You guys have had this weird vibe going for a while now, not to mention you refused to leave her side until she woke up, and then I find you cozied up with her outside at 4 AM. I'm not an idiot, Flynn."

Having finished making the last coffee, this one for Lucy, Flynn continues to avoid looking at Rufus, instead taking two mugs in hand and heading for the stairs. "You're imagining things. Best get started on hunting down Wyatt, don't you think?"

From over his shoulder, he can hear Rufus snort and call after him, "Sure, whatever you say, buddy."

Upstairs, Flynn heads for Lucy's room again. Spotting her through the window to the terrace, he pauses at a distance to watch her. She's wrapped up in reading something, biting her lip lightly as her eyes quickly scan the pages, and she lifts a hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear. That same hand then drifts to her neck, where she pulls a chain out from beneath her shirt to fiddle absently with the pendant, and it takes him a second to realize what exactly the pendant is. A gold ring. The same ring as the one on his hand.

You don't know me, but I know you. Really well, actually.

Years for him. Weeks for her.

He sets the mugs down on a table to his left and looks down at his left hand, then at Lucy once more, before he slips the ring off and transfers it to his right hand instead, and before he can consider what exactly the gesture means to him, he picks up the coffees and heads her way.