Lucy made it sound so simple, staying. Flynn knew it would be a lot more complicated. There was a reason he planned on leaving. But now that he was here, with Iris real and alive and smiling brightly at him, with Lucy asking him to stay, he knew it would take more strength than he had left to walk away.

He had never actually planned this far. He was going to have walked away by this point. He glanced at Lucy and knew she was even more lost than he was. Even so, she was taking it better than he would have expected, after everything she knew about him.

"Thank you for watching Iris for us," he said.

"Oh, you know I enjoy the excuse. I'll let you get settled in," she said with a smile. She hugged him, then hugged Lucy, who took the cue and hugged her back, then hugged Iris before taking her leave.

"Mommy, come see what I made!"

Flynn's eyes flicked to Lucy. She looked frozen for a moment in surprise. "Of course," she said after a moment of shock. "Show me what you made."
Iris led the way to where several finger paintings were spread out over the table. She grabbed one and pressed it into Lucy's hand. It was a simple painting, stick figures of a man, a woman, and a child, clearly meant to be their family, outside of a house that looked nothing like theirs. Flynn thought it might have been the most beautiful painting he had ever seen.

"Thank you," Lucy said. "It's wonderful." She walked over and pinned it to the refrigerator with a few loose magnets. On the one hand, he knew how good of a mother she was, but she had more time to prepare before, so it still impressed him how much of a natural she was. However, she kept glancing at him for confirmation of everything she said and did because she had no idea if it was something that her other self would have said or done.

"Did Nanna have you get ready for bed?" he asked finally.

"Yeah! Are you gonna read tonight?"

He smiled. "Of course, draga. Go get the book for me." He headed to Iris' room and took a seat. She clambered on his lap with a copy of The Hobbit. He had been in the middle of The Last Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia when… everything happened. He had never been quite as grateful for bookmarks, which allowed him to pick up where he left off without difficulty.

He glanced up and saw Lucy standing in the doorway, listening. She smiled and the whole world was perfect.

"Daddy, are you okay?" Iris asked.

"Yes. Why do you ask, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Then why are you crying?"

"I'm not. I'm… sometimes people cry when they are happy, too."

"That's a silly thing to do," Iris said seriously. "You should laugh when you're happy and cry when you are sad."

Flynn laughed. "I'll take that under advisement," he promised.

Iris begged for a second chapter, and a third, and Flynn wasn't about to deny her, but at the end of that one she was starting to drift off.

"Have you said your prayers yet?" Flynn asked.

"Not yet. But I got jump on closing my eyes," Iris murmured. "Dear Jesus, thank you for this day and for painting all the leaves and please don't let them fall off too fast. And thanks for Mommy and Daddy and for giving them a safe trip. Amen."

Flynn wiped his eyes quickly so Iris wouldn't notice he was crying instead of laughing again, then stood and tucked her in. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead before reluctantly turning to leave the room.

"Mommy, too," Iris said sleepily.

"Of course," Lucy said. She kissed their daughter on her forehead too, then headed out into the hall.

They both headed out to the living room. There was a lot to talk about and he had no idea where to begin.

"A heads up would have been nice," Lucy said.

"I know. I'm sorry," he said softly.

"Why didn't you?" she asked. It didn't sound quite like an accusation, more like mostly genuine curiosity. "It was going to come up eventually."

He shook his head. "You wouldn't have believed me, not at first. I was planning on going back and changing things and you weren't likely to remember. And then… I told myself I would tell you when it was real. But that's the thing. I couldn't… Do you have any idea how many times I thought it might have worked, that she might be alright, waiting for me when I got back? How many times I went home, thinking this time, my family would be there? I know I should have told you but I… I couldn't get my hopes up again."

Lucy nodded. "There were a few times I thought Amy might be back. I… I haven't tried to call her yet. I'll go home… to my mother's place tomorrow, to find out." Lucy shook her head, slearly forcing herself to push aside her worry over her sister. "Normally, when a woman finds out she is a mom for the first time, it's… not as mom of a what, six year old?"

"Yeah. I know it's a lot to take in."

"It is. I have so many questions, but no idea where to start."

"I don't really know where to start either. I didn't plan this far ahead."

"What are we going to tell her? She seems like a smart kid. Who am I kidding, she's our kid. It's not surprising she's smart. She'll figure out that something is off." She shrugged. "And I don't like lying to her. It makes me feel like… like my mother."

"I hadn't planned on telling her anything about any of it, but that was before you remembered time travel, before I stayed. You're right. We have to tell her something. And the truth will help her understand why you don't remember things." He wouldn't even consider telling her if he thought there was a risk of it getting out, because that could place them all in danger, but she was six. If a six year old started spreading around the fact that her parents were time travelers, people would assume she just had a good imagination.

"Will she believe us? I mean, timetravel is a lot to take in."

"She's six years old. If we sit her down and explain it to her seriously, she will believe us."

"How much do you want to tell her?" Lucy asked.

"That's the real question, isn't it? I don't like the idea of telling her that I'm a wanted terrorist in some timelines." He wasn't thrilled that Lucy had seen him at his worst. He didn't want Iris to see him that way, too.

"It does take a lot of context to understand some of the things you did," Lucy agreed. "I'm thinking there is no reason to give her every detail. We just tell her the truth, that you pulled a Robin Hood and stole a time machine in order to save our lives. You were a soldier first, right?"

"Yes. I joined before I was part of the NSA."

"Well, I'm sure she knows that without needing to know every detail."

Flynn nodded. "You're good at this," he said.

"At what? Coming up with how to tell a kid… my kid, the truth about time travel?"

"I'm not sure there is a right way to do that. I mean accepting impossible situations."

She shrugged. "If it's happening, it's clearly not impossible. I've time traveled, Flynn. I'm used to impossible." She hesitated for a moment. "Garcia. It's Garcia. I'm guessing in this timeline I call my… husband… wow that sounds strange… but I'm guessing I call you by your first name."

"I know this isn't what you had in mind, as the end result of defeating Rittenhouse. And I know that you know me too well in this timeline to actually want… the life we had before."

"Yeah, well, it's complicated," Lucy said. "Flynn… Garcia… I'm sorry. I…"

Flynn shook his head. "Don't be sorry," he said, flashing her a smile. "You're alive and safe, and so is Iris. This is everything I was fighting for. I always knew, even when I set out, that the life I knew was gone forever. And I was okay with that. As long as I could save you, both of you, I was willing to give up what I had before. I know I made a lot of mistakes along the way." He frowned. "I crossed a lot of lines. I tried to cross others, but you were there to stop me. I always knew there was no coming back from that. You allowing me to stay, in any capacity, it's so much more than I had ever hoped for. It's more than I deserve."

"Maybe," Lucy said. "But I meant what I said, that you could come back from that. And you have. We worked together to beat Rittenhouse and to do it the right way. That counts for something, too."

Flynn smiled. "If you've decided to let that count, I'm not going to try to talk you out of it."

Lucy suddenly started laughing. "I just realized how hard this is going to be to explain to the rest of the team. Since we changed so much this time, we decided to disburse, figure out if anything changed in our lives in this new timeline, and meet for lunch tomorrow to compare notes. They aren't going to believe me."

"Does this mean I can look forward to Wyatt threatening to kill me again?" he asked.

"Almost definitely. Don't worry; I won't let him follow through."

"I appreciate that."

Lucy smiled. "Any time. Literally. I have done it in a lot of times."

"Yes you have. We call you the historian, but I think your more difficult job is being peacekeeper."

A sudden frown crossed her features. "History. Am I a history teacher here? Because I don't know what has changed. Rittenhouse was such a big part of history, I might be missing hugely important events. Or even details that I have wrong. I've kept up enough to function on missions, but I can't teach history."

"You teach a few classes, but mostly you write."

"Okay. Okay, I'll… email my students and tell them… I don't guess 'I was murdered and my husband brought me back with time travel' would work but a family emergency is almost true. So a family emergency came up and I have to cancel class tomorrow. That will give me time to check on Amy, have lunch with the team, figure out if I'm missing anything majorly obvious in history. I guess Iris has school tomorrow so we can talk to her after that, I guess." She shook her head. "I still have so many questions."

"I don't know what all history has changed from what you knew, but I'll answer anything I can."

"I guess the most important thing right now is what normal looks like around here. I mean, it's not that I'm going to be able to manage normal in everything, but I'd like to at least know what it's like. And a tour of the house."

He gave her the grand tour, quietly so they wouldn't disturb Iris' sleep, and tried to fill her in on normal life in this timeline. There was a lot to fill her in on, and he didn't really know where to begin so he tried to give her a little bit of everything, tiny fragments of a life here.

"This is the guest room. I guess… I can stay here and you can have the master bedroom."

"I can stay here. It's your house," Lucy said.

"It's your house, too," he pointed out.

"Yeah, technically. But it's your home."

"Ah." It stung, more than he expected, that she saw it that way, but it wasn't really surprising. "I hope you will see it as home someday."

"Me too, but one step at a time. And it makes no sense for you to stay in the guest room instead of the room you are used to, when I'm not used to either one. I will need to get some spare clothes though."

"It's not spare. It's yours."

"Right. It's going to take some getting used to, but I'll get there," she said. He helped her find her side of the dresser. She gathered up a few things and headed back for her room. "Goodnight, Flynn… Garcia," she corrected herself. He walked to the door with her and watched her head down the hall.

"Goodnight, Lucy" he said softly before heading back into the master bedroom alone.

He had never expected to sleep here again. Although at the rate his mind was racing, he still might not sleep. He had gotten used to sleeping alone, but that was in hiding, in an old motel or a secret hideout. He had never slept in this bed alone and it felt too large and too cold this way. It was more than he could have hoped for, but that didn't make it any less strange.

Finally, tiredness overtook him and he drifted to sleep.

"What time is it?" Flynn mumbled. He was still mostly asleep and half opened his eyes when Lucy slipped carefully out of bed.

"It's late. I thought I heard Iris coughing. I'll be right back."

He smiled and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

The first shot woke him. They were silenced, as much a gun can be, but suppressors only do so much. It kept the neighbors from likely hearing it, but it didn't hide the sound from anyone in the house. Technically it was two shots, back to back so closely that the sounds almost ran together, a professional double tap hit.

He was up and moving before he heard the unmistakable sound of a body falling to the floor.

"Mommy?!" Iris called. "Dad…" Two more rapid shots cut her off.

Flynn jerked awake. He'd had that nightmare before of course, but he hadn't anticipated how much more real it would be, here in the house, in the same bed where he had slept that night, here where it happened. Where it didn't happen, he tried to remind himself. He changed it. They were fine.

He got up anyway, and made his way quickly and quietly to Iris' room. He opened the door and stood for a long moment, watching her sleep, listening to her breathing.

He made his way to Lucy's room to check on her. He debated with himself over it, but he opened the door and made sure she was still there, still alive. A wave of relief so powerful it was an almost physical sensation washed over him. They were both alive, and safe, and here. Perhaps now, with Rittenhouse gone, he could protect them.