Remember all the things we wanted?
Now all our memories are haunted
We were always meant
to say goodbye
Already Gone - Kelly Clarkson
He spent the next few hours drinking coffee and chugging water until his bladder felt like it was going to burst and his stomach felt like it was going to float away. He went over in his mind what he was going to say, went over the answers to the questions he knew she would inevitably ask. He knew he was going to hurt her and it was the last thing he wanted. But he was going to hurt her regardless. Especially if he tried to make it work with her when his heart was with someone else. This way, at least, there would be honesty and closure.
God knew he needed it.
As the first light of the new day made its way into the bunker's dirty windows, Wyatt opened the door of his room, coffee and water in hand the divorce papers under his arm. From what he remembered, Jessica was a notoriously deep sleeper who hated mornings and everything that went with them except for coffee so it was quite a surprise for him to see her sitting on the edge of Rufus' old bed. "Hi. Couldn't sleep?"
"No. Not really. This bunker makes weird sounds." She mumbled, running her hands through her hair. "Is that for me?"
"Yeah," he smiled at her, handing it out. "Um..black with one sugar, right?"
She took a sip of her coffee, closing her eyes. "Oh yeah. You made this, didn't you? You always made better coffee than me."
He laughed, he couldn't help it. "That's because you have to have your eyes open to make it, Jess."
She snickered into her cup. "That was one time, Logan."
He sat down on his bed opposite of her. "Okay, what about the time you tried to bake me a birthday cake and you almost burnt down the apartment? They had to replace the oven!"
Laughter sparked in her eyes over the rim of her coffee cup. "I remember going to the store to pick you up a cake and I didn't get any candles. I was pissed when I got home and you said-"
"We don't need anymore fire today, thanks." Wyatt leaned back against the wall, smiling at her. "That was a good day."
Jessica scooted back against the wall and crossed her legs out in front of her, closed her eyes. "Yeah, it was."
They sat in silence while Jessica finished her coffee. It was nice, he thought, to just be able to sit together. It reminded him of the times when things were a lot less complicated, when there was a lot less heartache. "It wasn't always bad, was it? We had some good times, you and me."
"Yeah, we did." She still hadn't opened her eyes, but she smiled. "I remember the first time I saw you in Mrs. Hollister's sophomore English class. Everyone told me to stay away from you, that you were bad news. I never thought you would look twice at me."
"Why? Don't underestimate braces on a pretty girl to a teenage boy." She opened her eyes then and laughed at his playful smirk. There were so many things he needed to tell her. He stared at her until the smile fell away from both of their faces. "You changed my life. You made me believe that I was worthy of something other than the bullshit my father told me. You were the first person, other than my grandfather, to believe in me. You made me believe in myself. That I could actually be something."
"I-" she had to swallow twice before she could find her voice. "You never told me that."
That, he thought, was another thing to add to his ever growing list of regrets. "I never told you a lot of things I should have."
"Will you tell me now?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. From the moment I died until I came back in your life."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"Tell me. I need to know. I need to understand."
He took a long breath and let it out through his nose. "You died three months after I got back from Syria. February 11th, 2012."
He told her and she listened. He told her about his friend Matt and how he slept on an old air mattress in their living room for six months because he didn't want Wyatt to be alone. He told her about all the missions that came after he was cleared to go back to duty. About how he didn't care if he lived or died. He told her about the drinking and how he lived like a hermit until his buddies practically kidnapped him and made him go out into the world again. She was silent through all of it until he told her about jumping on a live grenade during his last mission in Afghanistan.
The shocked look on her face gave him no doubts about her feelings on that subject. "What? Why on Earth would you do something like that?"
He had the good grace to look sheepish. "It didn't go off."
She was pale, but his comment was enough to put color in her cheeks. "Seriously? That's all you have to say? You could have died, Wyatt."
He shrugged as if it was of no consequence. "Better me than the rest of my team. They all had something to go home to. If one of us had do die to protect the others, it was going to be me."
"I.. Wyatt.."
"I wasn't suicidal, Jess. I just didn't care." He took a deep breath and looked at her with sad eyes. "You know, I understand your Wyatt more and more looking back. I can see pieces of him in me. The drinking. The way he just didn't care about anything. The only time I was sober for years was when I was asleep or when I was on a mission. I could have turned out that way too."
"What changed?"
"I…" Jesus, here came the hard part. "I don't want to hurt you."
She sighed at him, running her fingers in a circle on the edge of her empty cup. "I already know the answer, Wyatt. I need to understand. Tell me."
"Okay," He sighed, rubbing his hands over his jeans. He made sure he looked her in the eye because what he was about to say was the truth, regardless of how much it hurt her. "I met a girl and she made me want to live again."
The pain flashed in her eyes, but it was mercifully brief. She surprised him by smirking. "Was it love at first sight?"
He couldn't help the laugh and burst from his chest. "God no," he said, shaking his head. "She annoyed the crap out of me. At first everything was always, No, Wyatt. Don't step in that puddle, you might change history or I'm not a soldier, I don't take orders . She drove me crazy. She wouldn't listen. I mean, I'm just trying to do my job. I'm trying to take down Flynn and keep her and Rufus alive and I got blowback. It pissed me off."
Jessica's eyes were full of humor as she looked at him. "What changed between you?"
"I don't know," He still couldn't put his finger on when everything changed for him. "We started to trust each other. She became my friend. I would listen to her spout history books and I would just think, Wow . I mean, we still fought. We still fight, but it was different. I trust her with my life. I trust her with everything I have."
"When did you fall in love with her?"
"Jess..."
"Listen," she told him, scooting up until she was sitting at the edge of the bed. "I get it. I'm your wife and you're telling me how you're in love with another woman. It's awkward as hell but I need to know."
"I..." he cleared his throat repeatedly. "Are you sure?" He waited until he saw her nod. "There wasn't a moment . It was-" He ran his hands over his face, his hair, the back of his neck. "Remember how we used to talk about the lightening bolt? It wasn't like that. It was slower. I can't explain it. Damn it." He shot up off the bed, paced in small circles between the two cots. "I kissed her once during a mission. We were under cover and she was wearing that big stupid diamond from Doctor Douchebag and Bonnie thought we were engaged and Clyde started looking at me-"
"Bonnie? Bonnie and Clyde? Are you telling me you met Bonnie and Clyde ?"
"Jess...focus."
"Right, sorry. Who is Doctor Douchebag?"
"We came back from our first jump and she had a fiance she knew nothing about. Noah, Nick… whatever." He shrugged because the guy was of literally no consequence anymore. "She broke it off after a while. I met him once. I didn't like him."
"I wonder why?"
"Cute." He said, rolling his eyes. "And then there were all the other guys…"
"Other guys?"
"We couldn't jump anywhere without her getting hit on. Harry Houdini, Ian Flemming, Robert Todd Lincoln. I mean seriously? Every damn place we went, someone was sniffing at her skirts."
"I can't imagine that went over well."
"She didn't even notice half the time. She doesn't even think she's beautiful! And yeah, it bothered me. It pissed me off, but I was trying to find a way to get you back and she knew it. I couldn't say anything without sounding like a possessive asshole."
"Lucy said something about you stealing the Lifeboat."
"I did. I thought I knew who killed you, so I went back and made sure that the guy was never born."
"When you say that you made sure ..."
He could feel the bile fill his throat. He could almost see the blood on the concrete. "It was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen."
"Wyatt..."
"And Lucy was right. She knew I was going to do something stupid and fly off the handle. That's why she wanted to go with me."
"Wait, Lucy is in love with you and she wanted to go with you to get me back?"
"That's who she is. If she thinks that it will make someone happy, it doesn't matter how she feels. And the bitch of it is, I knew that I was hurting her when I left her house. I knew it, but I left anyway to try to get you back. There was something between the two of us then, I just didn't know what it was. I just knew that I couldn't feel the way I felt about her if there was a chance I could get you back. I had to try or I would always wonder."
"But it didn't work."
"No. When I got back they took me away and I thought I would never see her again. I had given up everything for a fragment of the past. I was a mess. I failed all of you. I didn't save you, I gave up Lucy. I made her think she was my second choice and she wasn't. It had nothing to do with her. I was the one that needed to know. I was the one that couldn't move on. I can't do that to her again. I can't do that to myself again. I won't."
"How did you get out?"
"Agent Christopher. She came to see me and told me about some things." Lucy's father. Rittenhouse. "Rufus and Lucy were in danger and I needed to be there. I needed to protect her. I focused on that and it grounded me - because that's how it works with us. I can be going out of my mind and all I need is for her to touch my hand, say my name-" he glanced at Jessica and sighed. Too much. Way too much information to be telling your wife. "Anyway, Agent Christopher left a paperclip for me. That's how I got out."
Jessica laughed in spite of the pain he saw on her face. "I saw the way you two were at the hospital after you were arrested. She was so sure that you would be back in no time at all. The paperclip."
She was looking at him like she didn't know him. Maybe she didn't anymore, but it didn't stop the hurt from creeping into his chest. He hated that he was the one that was doing this to her. But he couldn't lie. Not anymore. "I'm so sorry, Jessica."
She seemed to understand. He watched her eyes go soft with emotion as the first tear trailed down her cheek. "In all the time I've known you, I've never seen you cry. Not once. Until yesterday. I've never seen you like that. You take her pain and make it yours." She shook her head, wiped impatiently at her tears. "You love her."
He sat on his bed slowly, like a rickety old man. He could feel tears sting his eyes. "I tried not to. I tried to tell myself that she was a friend, that she was my teammate. I fought it for a long time, but she was always there. She was always in here." He said, resting a hand over his heart. "I let you go because I needed to move on but I let her in because I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm sorry if that hurts you but I won't lie to you and I won't lie to her. I can't lie to myself."
"Have you told her?"
"No." He whispered, closing his eyes. "Rittenhouse had her for six weeks and I nearly went insane. Then when we got her back she wasn't ready to deal with anything other than herself, and that was fine. Then we finally..." He opened his eyes and shrugged sheepishly. "You know, and then you came back. It's been a hot mess since then." He got off the bed then, dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hands in his. "Jessica, I never meant to hurt you. That's the last thing I ever wanted to do. But I know that if I stay and try to make it work, I'll end up hurting all of us in the long run."
She smiled slightly, moving her hands up to cup his face. "Wyatt Logan, I have never been more proud of you in my life." She pressed her lips against his in a soft, sweet kiss. "I guess you know now. We were always meant to say goodbye."
Wyatt pressed his forehead against hers, ran his hands up her arms to grab her wrists. "I love you, Jessica. I always will."
"Me too, Cowboy. Me too."
They didn't say anything after that. There were no words needed for goodbye.
He left for the showers feeling better than he had in days. Things were good, if not a little weird, between him and Jessica. There was no more guilt, no more unanswered questions or doubts. The only thing he needed to do now was talk to Lucy and pray to God that she would take him back. He would wait. He would wait forever if he meant they would have a future.
He found her in the kitchen, sipping on her habitual mug of tea. She was sitting at the table, her back to him. There was an open book in front of her, but he could tell she wasn't reading. He walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself another cup. God, he needed to sleep sometime today.
He walked up to her slowly and could tell, by the stiffening of her shoulders, when she realized he was next to her. "Hey." He whispered, taking the chair next to her. "How's your arm?"
She shrugged, took a small sip from her mug. "Better. I'll be fine. Just need time."
She wouldn't look him in the eye and he was pretty damn sure she wasn't talking about her arm. He needed to set her straight. Fast. "I did a lot of thinking last night," he told her, taking a sip of his coffee. "I spoke with Jessica this morning about her and me. You and me." He ducked his head and caught her eye. "I made a decision. She and I-"
"That's great." Her smile was forced and her tone suggested it was anything but. "I'm happy for you, Wyatt. You deserve to finally be happy."
She made a move to stand, but he caught her hand before she could walk away. "You don't understand, Lucy."
"No, I get it. I'm happy for you." He could see the tears forming in her eyes and it made him sick to think that she thought he would just leave her. "I'm thrilled for you both."
He stood then, threaded the fingers of the hand he held with his own. "Lucy, I'm not going-"
The alarm blared through the silo, startling them both so much that he let her hand slip through his fingers. He watched her walk away, shouting questions to Jiya and thought Fucking Rittenhouse. Would they ever just stop trying to ruin his life?