"Wyatt! You need to take Flynn with you as back-up," Agent Christopher bellowed as she chased after the single-minded soldier. While she admired his fierce loyalty and protective nature (those exact qualities being a large part of why she'd selected him for her team in the first place), this situation was far too dangerous for him to handle alone.

Fear for the woman he loved coursing through his veins, Wyatt continued to make his way towards his jeep, steadfastly ignoring his boss's every word. The last person he wanted to have to deal with right now was Flynn. The asshole had known all along what was coming. Worse, he'd taunted them with his knowledge of pretty much everything except this. If anything bad happened to Lucy, Wyatt would hunt him to the ends of the earth — count on it.

"Wyatt, listen to me! You have no idea what you're heading into!" Agent Christopher persisted. "Rittenhouse has targets on all of our backs now, and getting yourself killed won't do Lucy or anyone else any good!"

Wyatt honestly couldn't care less what Rittenhouse did to him, as long as Lucy was safe. After all, he had no delusions about his own worth. From birth, it seemed, all that he'd ever done was cause pain, suffering, and disappointment to the people around him. Time and again he'd failed those who depended on him, this latest disaster being proof enough of that.

But Lucy…she was different. Whereas he was darkness — an emotional black hole of sorts — Lucy was a light brighter than any 10 suns combined. The team, the world, history...none of them needed Wyatt, but they definitely needed Lucy. And if his life were the price required to ensure that, then Wyatt would gladly pay it, in a heartbeat.

"Master Sergeant, I am ORDERING you to stop NOW!" Desperate to get his attention, Agent Christopher called upon the one tactic that she knew would work: a direct order. No soldier worth his salt, least of all one as dedicated as Wyatt, would fail to respond to that.

Resentful of every wasted second, but fully cognizant of the repercussions of defying his boss's directives, Wyatt skidded to a halt and whirled to face her. "With all due respect, ma'am, there's no freaking way I'm taking Flynn along. You heard him — Rittenhouse is after Lucy, and he's known it this whole damn time!"

"I hear you, Wyatt, I do," she sympathized. "And believe me, if I could put a bullet through Garcia Flynn's head right now without jeopardizing all of our safety, I would. But lacking Lucy's journal, he's the only resource we've got. Like it or not, if you want to save her, you need his help."

As hard as he'd tried to fight it, Wyatt couldn't prevent the tears that had been gathering in his eyes from spilling over onto his cheeks. "I already almost lost her once because of him. I can't…I just can't…."

"You're not going to lose her, Wyatt. I promise," Agent Christopher reassured him softly, as if attempting to soothe a spooked horse. Contrary to what her co-workers thought, she was fully aware of the budding romance between Wyatt and Lucy. Moreover, she fully supported it. However, unlike the rest of the crew, she was also perfectly familiar with the circumstances of Wyatt's wife's death. As such, she recognized that the fears now at play in his mind and heart extended far beyond their current predicament or his growing affection for the team historian.

"You don't know that!" Wyatt snapped. "If I don't get to her in time, who knows what Rittenhouse will do to her. And he's no better! How do I know that this isn't just some ploy on his part to try to hurt her again?" He buried his face in his hands in a belated attempt to hide his anguish.

"Wyatt," Flynn approached him cautiously, recognizing that his was the last opinion that the angst-ridden man wanted to hear at the moment. "I have absolutely no intention of trying to hurt Lucy. I admit that I lost my head for a bit after what happened in 1780, but it's just because I miss my girls so damn much. Losing them to Rittenhouse…it annihilated me, just as I know losing Jessica destroyed you. But I see now that I was wrong to do what I did. Future Lucy entrusted your safety to me, and I promise I won't let her down again."

"What are you saying?" Wyatt rasped, barely able to push the words past his throat.

"I'm saying save your anger for the actual bad guys, Wyatt. It's going to take both of us working together to save Lucy and bring Rittenhouse down for good, and I have that on Lucy's own authority. So please, trust me on this, and let's go get your girl back."

Though unable to bring himself to look Flynn in the eyes, Wyatt nodded his head decisively, and gestured for the man to follow him to his jeep.

"Good luck, gentleman. Keep me posted," Agent Christopher called after them as she watched them go. Though she'd never admit it out loud, she was thrilled to finally have Wyatt Logan and Garcia Flynn fighting side by side. Against the two of them, Rittenhouse surely didn't stand a chance.


The sight of Lucy's mangled, busted-down front door said it all: they were too late, damn it!

"We need to find her journal. Hopefully it's still here," Flynn barked as they pushed into the apartment, guns at the ready, just in case. More than anyone else, Flynn knew exactly what was at stake if they didn't find Lucy soon. "I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that she wrote about where the wedding took place. Where do you think she'd have put it?"

"Maybe her office?" Wyatt replied, scanning the entryway and the adjacent rooms for any signs of present danger. Seeing none, he tucked his gun back into its holster.

"Since I assume you know where that is, you check there. I'll look around out here." Flynn systematically started ransacking the living room, overturning the couch cushions and anything else that he could find that might possibly be hiding the book in question.

Wyatt started briskly towards the hallway, but halted in alarm when a crimson-colored patch on the tiled floor caught his eye. Was that…? He leaned down and touched a fingertip to the spot. It was still slightly wet and, upon closer examination, most definitely blood.

Terror and rage raced, neck-and-neck, through his entire body. If that bastard Noah had hurt her…. He snorted humorlessly. Either way the man was going to die, but if he'd hurt Lucy, then Wyatt would be sure to make it as slow and excruciatingly painful as possible.

Swallowing hard repeatedly in an attempt to keep his emotions in check (it wouldn't do Lucy any good for him to lose his head now), he resumed his trek towards the office, keeping his eyes trained closely on the floor for other clues as to what might have happened before his and Flynn's arrival. His diligence paid off when he spotted a trail of small puddles of water leading into the bathroom.

He pushed the bathroom door open, and surveyed the room, his eyes locking on the still-full bathtub. Impulsively he ran his fingers through the standing water (ice cold – it had clearly been a while since Lucy had abandoned her bath). He regretted the action immediately, though, as the unmistakable scent of roses (a smell he automatically associated with Lucy) wafted towards his nose. Not now, Logan, he admonished himself as unbidden images of her wearing nothing but bubbles flitted through his mind.

Seeing no signs of struggle there (and needing to get away from the highly distracting mental assault), he turned to exit the room, but paused as he spied Lucy's cellphone laying on the counter next to a small notebook. He pocketed her phone, and examined the book more closely, his fingers tracing the worn but familiar 'LP' engraved in the lower right corner of the cover. Yes, this was definitely the book from which Flynn had once read to him. "I found it!" he shouted excitedly, and hurried back towards the front of the apartment.

Flynn met Wyatt halfway up the hall, and snatched the journal from his hands. As familiar as he was with the book already, it didn't take more than a few seconds for him to locate the entry they needed. "Mount Tamalpais. That's where the Rittenhouse headquarters are, and that's where Noah took her – to the top of Mount Tamalpais."

"What? But I've been there. There's nothing at the top but a small visitor's center." Doubtful, Wyatt grabbed the journal back from Flynn, needing to see for himself that what the man had said was true.

"A visitor's center that also happens to double as Rittenhouse headquarters. What better way to hide than in plain sight, right?"

"Apparently," Wyatt agreed, having seen the proof now in Lucy's own handwriting. Wanting to get a better idea of what they'd be walking into, he flipped to the next page in the book. His whole body began to tremble, and tears once again stung at the back of his eyes as he read the words that Lucy had written there. There was no question about it now – he was definitely going to kill Noah as slowly and excruciatingly painfully as possibly. "We need to go. NOW!" Wyatt grabbed Flynn by the shoulder, and dragged him towards what remained of the front door.

Seeing and understanding the man's terror, Flynn insisted on driving. Wyatt had already proven to be a bit of a reckless driver on the way to Lucy's apartment (not that Flynn blamed him, under the circumstances), and in his current mental and emotional state, chances were high that, if Wyatt were allowed to drive, they'd wreck long before they ever reached Lucy.

Though his natural instinct was to balk at the offer (nobody had ever driven his precious jeep but him and his grandpa Sherwin), Wyatt, too, recognized that he was in no shape at the moment to drive. Reluctantly but sensibly handing over the keys to Flynn, he raced to the passenger side, and buckled himself in.

"I know a few side roads that will save us some time," Flynn reassured Wyatt as he peeled out of the parking lot. "Don't worry, we still have a couple hours until the actual ceremony. We'll make it in time – I promise."

Wyatt nodded solemnly, appreciative of the man's cool-headedness, not to mention his apparent understanding of the desperate urgency of the situation. Who would have ever thought that a day would come when he would feel thankful in the slightest for Garcia Flynn? If the man actually followed through on his promises to help rescue Lucy and destroy Rittenhouse, Wyatt might even consider forgiving him for all the terrible things that he'd done. Maybe. Eventually.

Mentally relinquishing the task of getting them to their destination in one piece and as quickly as possible to Flynn, Wyatt closed his eyes, leaned back in his seat, and tried unsuccessfully to focus on the calming feeling of the coastal fog rushing past his face. But it was no use. No matter how hard he tried to avoid it, his mind just kept drifting, like a tongue to a sore tooth, to thoughts of all of the things that that monster Noah and Lucy's demon of a mother might be doing to her right now. Things no woman – no person – should ever have to endure.

"You know," Flynn ventured, once again seeming to sense the direction of Wyatt's thoughts, "You should probably use this time to read the journal. It's the best weapon we have against Rittenhouse right now, and the more you know of what to expect, the better our chances will be of rescuing Lucy and coming out of this alive."

Still thoroughly rattled by the little bit of it that he'd already read, Wyatt wasn't at all certain that he could handle another go at Lucy's journal. At the same time, he knew that Flynn was right – if he was going to be of any use to Lucy at all (and he had to be – he couldn't lose her – he just couldn't), then he needed to know exactly what they were up against.

Using his cellphone as a flashlight, Wyatt reopened the journal, determined to make his way through it for Lucy's sake, no matter how gut-wrenching the events she described there might be. Several pages later, however, he slammed it closed again. How could any of this, let alone all of it, possibly be true? How had future Lucy managed to survive it? How had she restrained herself from putting a bullet through her own head?

Between the abuse heaped on him throughout his childhood by his alcoholic father, the ravages of serving in multiple wars, and the brutal murder of his wife, Wyatt had experienced more than his fair share of horrific things in his relatively short lifetime. Yet nothing he'd endured thus far compared to the utter brutality of future Lucy's life as described in her journal. God, it couldn't all have been that bad, could it?

Determined to find even the smallest bright spot, the slightest glimmer of hope to cling to, Wyatt flipped to the last page of the journal. Surely things had to have eventually turned around for Lucy, right? Fate, the universe, the Force – they couldn't possibly be so cruel, could they?

Less than a minute later, Wyatt found himself leaning out the window, violently spewing the meager contents of his stomach along the highway. "Drive FASTER!" he growled, barely getting the words out before the overwhelming terror of what the future held both for Lucy and for him had him heaving once again.

Flynn glanced over at his partner-in-arms sympathetically, knowing right away which page Wyatt had just read. Damn it, he'd meant to tear that last page out before they left the apartment, but in the heat of the moment, he'd completely forgotten. He prayed that future Lucy would forgive him for breaking her trust, for breaking his promise to never let Wyatt read that page. Truth be told, though, Flynn should never have made that promise to begin with, and he realized that now.

How many lives could have been saved along the way if he'd simply told Wyatt the truth to start with? How many conflicts and altercations could have been avoided? If only he'd used his common sense instead of clinging to a promise born of grief and desperation... Either way, at least now Wyatt finally knew the truth. He finally understood exactly what they were up against, and why it was so important that they take Rittenhouse down. Whether future Lucy ever forgave him for revealing that truth or not, Flynn couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about it. After all, it wasn't just her future had never been just her future that was on the line.