A/N: We're going back in time at the beginning of this chapter, to see what Lucas and Riley were doing while Maya was in the hospital.

("I've been holding on to hope
That you'll come back when you can find some peace
'Cause every word that I've heard spoken
Since you left feels like a hollow street."

"I've been told, I've been told to get you off my mind
But I hope I never lose the bruises that you left behind
Oh my lord, oh my lord, I need you by my side."

"There must be something in the water
Cause everyday it's getting colder
And if only I could hold you
You'd keep my head from going under.")

- Lewis Capaldi, "Bruises"

July - October 2020

Age 20

Year 3, Special Agent

"She's going to be okay."

Riley stared up at Lucas incredulously before looking down and shaking her head. "You have to say that. Thanks though."

Lucas moved a little closer to Riley, cursing the metal armrests wedged between them in the uncomfortable hospital waiting room chairs. He'd forced both Riley and Josh to change out of their bloody clothes sometime after Maya had gone into surgery, but all he'd been able to get were casual clothes - jeans and t-shirts - for the both of them, that Zay had brought them.

Zay was currently on the phone in the hallway; Lucas could see his lips moving as he leaned stiffly against the wall outside the window, his work suit seeming incredibly out of place in the fluorescent hospital lights. He was probably talking to some supervisor getting or giving updates on their case.

Lucas's eyes wandered around the room to spot Josh pacing on the other side, near the window. His body was taught, fists clenching and unclenching, and Lucas could imagine he was getting dizzy from moving in circles. As if on cue, Josh switched directions.

"What are we going to do if…"

Lucas glanced down at Riley as her small voice trailed off, but her eyes were intent on the ground.

"She's going to be okay," Lucas repeated. His eyes rose back to Josh, who had stopped moving. "She's going to be fine."

"I don't like this," Riley admitted, crossing her arms.

"No one likes people being in the hospital," Zay agreed, "but I've bought you all the time I could. You have to go back to work. Maya's stable, all that she needs is time and medicine to heal up. In the meantime you three-"

"No."

Zay, Lucas, and Riley all looked to Josh, the only who was still sitting down, staring at the ground.

"What do you-"

"I'm not leaving her here alone," Josh cut Riley off, looking up. "She's part of our team, I'm not just going to abandon her."

Zay crossed his arms. "Agent Matthews, if you want to try to fight this, you'll need to do it yourself."

"Fine," Josh ground out, standing up abruptly.

The three of them just stared at him. There was no 'fighting' orders that were handed down by the administration. They were given orders and they followed them.

"What are you going to do?" Zay asked cautiously.

"I'm going straight to the top," Josh declared, pulling out his phone.

"You're going to ask Mom?" Riley realized.

That was certainly a ballsy move. Even if Director Matthews was Riley and Josh's mom, Lucas knew how she felt about her children - Riley more than Josh. They were both terrified of her, so if Josh was willing to stand up to her, there was a damn good reason.

Lucas knew exactly why Josh was fighting this, and it wasn't just because Maya was just his teammate. One look at Riley told him that she knew too, but Lucas knew in a different way than she could understand. He could never leave Riley here alone if she had been the one shot. He would fight too.

Lucas and Riley made it back to the safe house alone, and the house felt empty.

They'd been alone in the house before; Josh and Maya had been sent on partner missions a few times since they entered the field. But this time it felt different, and Lucas could tell Riley was feeling it too.

They spent a few days in relative isolation, both doing whatever they could to avoid thinking about Maya. It got so bad that Lucas was relieved when they were assigned a mission, if only so they could spend a few days in which they couldn't think about it.

When they returned to messages from Josh, Riley and Lucas didn't even need to talk about it. Lucas called in an emergency transport and they came straight back to Maya and Josh without even changing out of their mission suits.

They met Josh in the hall where he had seemingly been staring blankly into Maya's open doorway, and Riley immediately bypassed him to go to her best friend's side and check on her.

"They said she'd be awake anytime now," Josh informed Lucas as they watched Riley rest her hand on Maya's silently. "She's finally gone down to zero milligrams on her opioids and so she'll supposedly just…wake up when she's ready."

"How has she been?" Lucas asked as he watched Riley leave her bedside and walk towards the open doorway, evidently a little sad that Maya hadn't been awake.

"She had some internal bleeding about two weeks ago," Josh informed them as Riley rejoined the pair. "Farkle took her back into surgery for some experimental treatment that she hadn't been strong enough for before, but there were some complications and I ended up giving her almost three pints of blood over twenty-four hours."

Both Lucas's and Riley's eyes widened, but Lucas was the one to say, "That's not safe and it's probably illegal."

"To hell with my safety if Maya needed the blood, and anything is legal with a government badge," Josh deadpanned.

Lucas met eyes with Riley knowingly. "What kind of experimental treatment?"

"He explained it to me but I didn't understand it at all," Josh admitted. "I'm not Science & Tech." His eyes slid back to Maya, still unconscious. "Whatever it was worked, though, thank god. I have no idea what…" Josh trailed off, but all three knew what he would have said.

Seeing Maya like that changed things in the entire team's dynamic. They had been working the same programs over and over, the same movements, since they were each thirteen years old. They all had known the danger they willingly put themselves in, but knowing it and seeing it were two very different things. Maya getting shot made it real, a truly possible, if not likely, result of their choices.

Watching Josh react, though, made another scenario very real to Lucas. A scenario in which he had to watch the girl he loved in the same position.

For the first time, Lucas honestly considered leaving the field.

He'd been on a set path for almost ten years of his life. He entered the academy at fourteen and every moment after that had been on a path towards being a field agent. Risking his life regularly. He'd been doing this so long that he hadn't even seen a different life as an option. Really, it wasn't, according to his contract; not until he'd completed three years as a field agent.

Which would be up in just a few months.

But he knew the only way he would leave the field would be if Riley would go with him. And he knew that she wouldn't. It just wasn't an option for her, both figuratively and literally. She'd told him how her mom saw her and Josh, how she had been put on this path long before she even started at the academy. This was her life and it always would be; she was too afraid of her mother to even consider leaving.

He wanted her to leave. He wanted to request admission into the re-placement program for agents who leave the organization, for both of them.

He never wanted to risk seeing Riley the way Josh had been forced to see Maya.

Lucas was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, watching as Riley and Josh prepped for a partner mission that they had been assigned. He found himself stamping her image in his mind again, even though it probably wouldn't do much good, since Riley was likely to change clothes before they arrived at their point A.

As he studied her face, Riley looked up at him from the kitchen table, and they met eyes for a moment. He knew she could read exactly what he was thinking.

As he turned to walk back into the living room, he knew Riley would follow him. Sure enough, he heard Riley ask Josh to give her a minute.

"This isn't even a very dangerous mission," she began as he turned in the living room to face her. "We won't even have guns."

Lucas stared at her quietly, and Riley hugged her arms around herself.

"You know I can handle myself."

"I know that," Lucas agreed, crossing his arms.

"Then why are you looking at me like I'm walking into a minefield?" Riley narrowed her eyes.

"Because Maya was first in her class and she was standing a foot from Josh when she got hurt." He shook his head, studying her eyes. "Handling yourself isn't enough."

"Then what would be?" Riley asked softly, taking a step towards him.

"Not going at all."

Riley sighed. "You know that's not an option. I was assigned a mission, I can't just refuse it. I'm an agent, I have to follow-"

"Then don't be an agent."

Riley stopped, her words dying on her tongue.

"Our contract is up at the end of December, that's less than three months away," Lucas reminded her.

"You're serious?" Riley asked incredulously.

Lucas could only read disbelief in her expression. He knew that right before she left on a mission was possibly the worst time he could bring this up, but he couldn't dwell on it forever.

"Lucas, this is my job," she reminded him. "This is our life."

"It doesn't have to be." Lucas reached out to take her hand, seeing the almost imperceptible shiver when he touched her skin. "I love you and I know you love me too; you're just too scared to admit it while we're coworkers. You haven't let yourself be happy since before I met you. I want to be the one to make you happy. But we can't do that if we stay."

"Transport is here," Josh's voice from the doorway to the kitchen cut into their conversation.

Riley's eyes stayed on his for just one more moment, before she whispered, "We'll talk when I get back."

Then she picked up her bag and followed Josh outside, not looking back at Lucas again.

Lucas stared emptily at the place where she had been, the unwanted thought running through his mind.

If she got back.

A/N: The next chapter is the last chapter in the team's functional life in the safe house. We'll be moving on to part three, the aftermath. If you guys remember, in the beginning of the book in the preface Lucas had faked his death. We're coming up on that part and why.

We've still got a significant portion of the story left, though. There has been a lot of speculation about Joshaya's future in the reviews and some of your predictions are actually true; some aren't. You'll have to wait and see. I wrote a bunch of what happens in part 3 way before even getting through the academy because I really enjoyed writing the interesting and emotions-charged bits, so writing part 3 may actually go quicker.

Please be nice in the reviews. Reviews with profanity are now automatically filtered out and don't even get posted. You're not helping anyone. Of course, constructive criticism is always welcome. Things that actually tell me what you think of the plot and what you were hoping for, instead of just screaming at me to not fuck up a certain character.

Kisses,

C