Lucy pulled up to the table, feeling satisfied with her day. Wyatt had set out the dishes on the table and now started serving the food. She saw the bottle of wine they'd chosen and the corkscrew beside it. She picked them up to open and smiled at the strangely domestic scene she and Wyatt made.
She mused as she peeled back the metal film and screwed the opener into the cork. She was looking forward to sharing her insights with Wyatt. She felt a bit nervous, too. Some of her observations were about how he had performed, how the team had worked together. She wasn't used to opening up about that with him. She reassured herself that that was exactly what he always did. His leader's eyes assessed their condition, suggested actions to help support their morale, which he took. This was so unlike her perspective as a researcher.
She'd moved into team thinking when they were in the field on a mission, but the scholar's slow, meticulous work alone still dominated her efforts in the office. She was used to taking in the words and thoughts of other voices separated from her by distance of time or space. Careful uncovering of original sources, the detective work of comparing conflicting accounts and the imaginative leaps one had to take in the absence of hard evidence. These were her tools in the painstaking field of history. Even her anthropological work, though much more socially oriented, involved much solo work. Sorting through interviews, considering the interpretations of artifacts. Working with a crew was always necessary, but coming together with other experts as deeply versed in her area was the exception, not the norm.
Wyatt's whole world view was team-oriented. Constantly relying on the talents, awareness and efforts of others. From the start he'd looked at Rufus and her as more than independent actors. And more than just tools to an end, but people with emotions & motivations that he needed to support. She paused for a moment, looking over at him with curiosity and admiration in her eyes. Did he really learn all of that from Delta Force? Neither David nor Sullivan had done anything like it, though poor David hadn't had much of a chance. And Sullivan outranked Wyatt, so it wasn't more extensive experience or responsibility that accounted for it. It's just who Wyatt was.
He looked over at her and smiled back. Wordlessly asking if she needed help with the bottle, to which she shook her head. She braced the bottle on the table, pulling the "arms" down on the corkscrew and beginning to tug slowly on the cork.
Her mind kept going. What if she could have that kind of a team as well? Wyatt had proved resourceful in areas of military history, Rufus in science, Jiya's research skills were impeccable... Each of them knowing in-depth aspects of history that related to their own lives. What if part of the problem was not just that Lucy was missing things, but that there were things she alone could never see? Why wouldn't this be the same with her game against Emma? Emma was surely ranging all the power of Rittenhouse against her, why even...
"NO!" The cork popped free suddenly, as a horrifying thought occurred to Lucy. The bottle toppled, nearly dropping on the floor. She saw Wyatt do a double take and watched him reach out to help as though in slow motion, as she stumbled back against the cabinets propelled by the force of her tug, and her distraction.
Wyatt righted the bottle, but his focus was on her. "Lucy are you all right?" She realized only then that she'd cried out. She felt leaden, as though her limbs were weighted down. Her face was ashen.
"My mother." She said woodenly. "We've been focusing on Emma, but she's surely getting help from whatever Rittenhouse is left out there, and we know that my Mother is..." Lucy suddenly couldn't make eye contact with Wyatt.
He stared at her sudden change, realized that the sink was flooding, stepped back to turn off the water, then returned to her. He put his hands on her upper arms. "You know, this is about her choices, not yours."
She looked up at him, her eyes dead. He recoiled despite himself. "She's advising Emma. She's trained like me. She trained me. Wyatt, how can I fight my own Mother. She knows as much as I know, knows what I know. And she has access to secrets of history passed down that I've had no exposure to. There's just, no way... Wyatt."