"I found it!" Jiya sing-songed, letting herself back into the dressing room.
Tossing the replacement dress in Lucy's direction, Jiya began to pace the limited confines of the small room, trying to gather her thoughts for the difficult conversation that she needed to have with her friend. She and Rufus had really messed things up just now with Wyatt, and she owed Lucy a huge apology for that. On the other hand, Lucy herself was far from blameless in this.
Not only was Lucy's choice to keep the news of her pregnancy from Wyatt extremely hurtful, but – given the team's particular line of work – also potentially dangerous as well. The more Jiya considered that aspect of Lucy's secret-keeping, the more upset with Lucy she became, until she was practically seething with anger.
Slipping the proffered garment over her head, Lucy examined herself in the room's solitary mirror, and cringed. While certainly lovely (and a much better fit than its predecessor), the two-toned, calf-length gown that Jiya had selected did absolutely nothing to disguise the recent changes to Lucy's figure. In fact, the juxtaposition of the rose-colored, criss-cross-style bodice against the burgundy, empire waistline skirt seemed to intentionally emphasize those parts of her body that Lucy most wanted to hide.
"Hmm…Are you sure that this fabric is a wise choice?" Lucy asked, veiling her actual concerns about the dress so as not to tip Jiya off. "It might be a little hot for dancing in, don't you think?"
"Oh cut the crap already, Lucy!" Jiya blurted, her aggravation with her friend finally boiling over. "You know as well as I do that the only thing 'wrong' with that dress is that it won't help you hide your pregnancy from Wyatt anymore."
Lucy floundered, stunned by Jiya's anger, and her seemingly psychic insight into her inner struggle. "What…how did you…."
"News flash: Wyatt knows. And thanks for the heads-up, by the way, that you hadn't freaking told him yet." Jiya snorted mirthlessly. "I mean, it's always been my fondest wish to witness one of my friends' hearts shattering into a thousand pieces, so yay for me, right?"
"He knows? You…you told him? After everything I've done to…to…." Lucy faltered, the air in her lungs suddenly far too inadequate. Feeling the all-too-familiar dizziness begin to set in, she sank to the floor, and quickly buried her head in her arms, hoping to stave off what was sure to come next. Not here, not now…please, she silently pleaded with whichever deity might be listening.
"To what? Keep Wyatt from finding out the truth? Yeah, I figured that out already, and so did he. The question is why, Lucy? Why would you even want to hide this from him in the first place?" Although it was clear that her friend was extremely unhappy about being confronted about her poor choices, Jiya had no intention of letting up on her until she got some answers.
"Because…." Lucy struggled to push the necessary words from her throat. She wanted to tell Jiya – she needed to tell someone, to free herself from the burden of the terrifying secret that she'd been keeping. But it was too late. Her eyes rolling back into her head, she slumped to her side as the darkness claimed her once again.
"Because?" Jiya demanded heatedly. "Because what? Look, I get that all of this must be pretty scary, especially since I'm guessing now that you didn't plan on getting pregnant. But that's all the more reason that you should have told Wyatt, don't you think – so that he could go through it with you? That's his baby, too, that you're carrying, and trust me, he wants to be a part of this. God, Lucy – the look on his face when he found out? That man loves you so dang much – he wants a life with you so freaking badly. I thought you wanted that, too, so why the heck are you shutting him out like this?"
Jiya paused and waited for Lucy to respond, but the ridiculous woman merely curled up into a fetal position on her side (on the hard cement floor, and in a fancy dress no less), doubtless in an attempt to make Jiya feel sorry her. Seriously?
It was a pitiful sight to be sure, but Jiya wasn't falling for it. Still, maybe she should try a softer approach. "Lucy, you're my friend, and nothing is going to change that. I just need to know what's going on so that I can help you and Wyatt work this out. Because I want you to be happy – I want both of you to be happy. So talk to me, sweetie – tell me what's going on in that stubborn head of yours, please?"
When Lucy still didn't answer, Jiya began to get concerned. Studying her friend more closely, she realized that the woman's whole body had begun to tremble. Had she really upset Lucy that badly? Feeling extremely guilty, she knelt next to Lucy to give her a comforting hug. The moment that she saw Lucy's face, however, the situation instantly became clear: she hadn't been ignoring Jiya, or attempting to play on her sympathies – she was unconscious and convulsing.
"Oh my god!" Trying not to panic, Jiya scrambled to her feet and yanked open the changing room door. "Somebody get a medic! We need a medic in here right now!" she hollered at the top of her lungs, certain that at least one of her coworkers would hear and respond.
"I'm on it!" came a gruff reply from the other side of the changing bay, followed by the sound of hurried footfalls against the cement floor.
Relieved to know that help was on the way, Jiya propped the door open, and then dashed back to Lucy's side. Stroking her friend's hair away from her face, she couldn't help but notice how pale and hollow-cheeked Lucy looked. And those deep, dark circles under her eyes – why hadn't she noticed those before? Given the state that her friend was currently in, Jiya began to suspect that Lucy had been hiding something much more serious than just her pregnancy.
Before Jiya could really consider what that 'something' might be, the medical team arrived. Not wanting to get in their way, she stepped out of the room. Through the still open doorway, she watched in trepidation for several long minutes as they worked on her unconscious friend.
Ultimately deciding to transport Lucy to the nearest hospital, the medical team lifted Lucy carefully onto a gurney. Please let her and the baby be OK, Jiya prayed desperately and repeatedly as she trailed them through the halls of Mason Industries and out into the parking lot where an ambulance was already waiting to take them away.
"Are you riding along?" one of the medics asked, pausing to give Jiya the opportunity to accompany her friend.
"No, I…I need to track down her…her boyfriend first," Jiya replied somewhat distractedly, the thought only having just occurred to her that she needed to tell Wyatt what was going on. Oh god, the poor guy was already such an emotional wreck at the moment – what was this terrible turn of events going to do to him?
The medic nodded at her in acknowledgement, and then quickly clambered inside the vehicle, sealing the rear double doors behind him.
Though she knew that she needed to get moving – to find Wyatt and Rufus, and inform Agent Christopher and Mason of what had happened to Lucy – Jiya could only stand and stare as, lights flashing and sirens blaring, the ambulance carrying two of the most precious people to her in the entire world sped away into the night.
Having broken every speed limit along the way in his desperation to get home, Wyatt finally pulled into his designated parking space at his apartment complex. Swiping the tears from his eyes, he climbed from the jeep, switching off the headlights and locking the door behind him. He ascended the stairs to his fourth-floor apartment two at a time, eager to begin the process of drinking himself into oblivion. His life had once again gone to complete shit, and he needed to forget, if only for a few blissful hours.
"Wyatt…hold…up!" he suddenly heard from behind him. He paused mid-step, instantly recognizing the strained voice of his best friend and teammate. What the hell was Rufus doing here? Had he followed him home?
Huffing and puffing from the exertion of racing after the Delta Force-trained soldier, Rufus drew to a stop a few stairs below Wyatt. He raised one hand in a silent bid for his speedy friend to wait as he attempted to catch his breath.
"What do you want, Rufus?" Wyatt barked, not at all in the right mental space for company at the moment. He seriously needed to be alone, preferably for at least a week, if not for the rest of his godforsaken life.
"Lucy…," Rufus wheezed, bending over at the waist in hopes of alleviating the tremendous pressure on his lungs. Geez, he was out of shape. He really needed to start running again or something.
"Lucy's none of my business anymore, is she? You of all people should know that," Wyatt replied brokenly. Pointedly ignoring the fresh wave of tears flowing over his face, he turned his back on the winded man, and sped up the final flight of stairs to his apartment.
He had just cracked the seal on his favorite bargain-basement whisky when the frantic pounding on his apartment door began. God damn it – couldn't Rufus take a freaking hint? "Go. The fuck. Away!" he hollered, lifting the bottle to his lips, and partaking greedily of the warm, soothing liquid.
"I can't, Wyatt," Rufus argued fiercely through the wooden barrier. "Lucy needs you right now. Can…can you just let me in? Please? We seriously need to talk, man, and I'm pretty sure you don't want or need your neighbors hearing all this."
Contemplating whether or not to comply with his friend's request (Lucy definitely didn't need him…now or ever…she'd made that abundantly clear, hadn't she?) Wyatt took another long, comforting swig from the bottle, and then another.
"Dude, if you don't let me in right now, I'm going to kick this door down. And then I'm going to kick your self-centered ass!" Rufus bellowed, pummeling the door for all that he was worth. "Don't think that I won't, Wyatt Logan! Lucy seriously needs you right now, goddamn it!"
Yeah right, Wyatt thought, chuckling to himself and tipping the bottle once again to his lips. His nerdy, bleeding-heart, utterly pacifistic friend could barely bring himself to swat a fly without serious encouragement, let alone voluntarily kick someone's ass.
Finally beginning to feel the buzz of the alcohol pumping through his system, Wyatt kicked off his boots, and collapsed onto his living room sofa. It might not be the most comfortable spot in his apartment to pass out (as he knew from experience that he eventually would), but at least – unlike his bed – it didn't hold any particularly poignant memories of time spent with Lucy.
Lucy…beautiful, amazing, far-too-freaking-good-to-be-true Lucy. Wyatt rolled to his side and tried without success to stifle the mind-warping combination of searing pain and soul-deep desire that flooded his brain at the recollection of the first and only night that he'd been blessed to pass holding her in his arms without barriers or restraint – worshipping her body and everything that it enshrined with his.
They'd just returned from Arkansas, from that near-disastrous mission to steal a freaking key, of all things, from the notorious Bonnie and Clyde before Flynn could get his greedy hands on it. In the course of the mission, he and Lucy had been forced to emulate Bonnie and Clyde, assuming the role of a similarly 'passionately in love' criminal couple. In order to prove the veracity of their relationship to the infinitely skeptical Clyde Barrow, Wyatt had, at one point, spontaneously reached for Lucy, pulling her into a kiss that had not only alleviated the outlaw's doubts, but Wyatt's as well. No lightning bolt from the heavens had ever been so electrifying as the feel of Lucy Preston's mouth moving against his.
Yet idiot that he was, when all was said and done, Wyatt had tried to deny it – apologizing to Lucy, and dismissing the most intense moment of his life to date as 'just playing a role'. Thankfully, Lucy had seen right through him. Daring him to prove that it had all been an act, she'd pressed her lips – and every sweet curve of her body – to his. And it had all unraveled from there – every self-serving lie that he'd told himself from the moment that he'd first laid eyes on her, every bit of his carefully crafted self-control, everything that he'd ever believed about destiny and love.
In the course of that one night, Lucy had repeatedly taken him to heights of ecstasy that he'd never even dreamed possible. More, she'd filled every crack in his fractured heart with her loving tenderness and compassion, opening his mind to 'possibilities' that he'd previously thought dead and buried right alongside his murdered wife. For the first time in years, he'd truly felt alive…he'd felt whole.
God, how could he have been so foolish as to believe that Lucy had actually meant it – any of it? No longer able to hold his heartache at bay, and having no reason whatsoever anymore to do so, Wyatt buried his face in the sofa cushions, and sobbed.
The muffled yet unmistakable sound of his friend's weeping drifted through the closed door, reminding Rufus again just how badly he and Jiya had screwed up. But none of that mattered right now. Looking both ways to verify that the hallway was clear (the last thing he needed right now was somebody calling the cops), Rufus backed up a few steps and ran at the door, kicking it down exactly as he'd threatened to do.
The sound of his door crashing instantly had Wyatt on his feet, gun drawn and pointed at the intruder.
"Don't shoot! It's just me!" Rufus held up his hands in surrender, just to be safe.
"Rufus, what the hell? If I wanted you to come in, I would have opened the goddamned door!" Wyatt snarled, and tucked his gun back into its holster.
Once again turning his back on his friend, Wyatt strode down the hallway to his bedroom, and slammed the door behind him. And now he was in the one place in his apartment where he really did not want to be right now. Damn it, why wouldn't Rufus just go away and leave him be? He didn't want or need to hear any of his friend's lectures tonight. He just wanted to nurse his wounds in his own way and in private – was that really so much to ask?
Rufus didn't hesitate to follow Wyatt. His legs might be sore for it tomorrow, but if he had to kick down another door to get the man to listen to him, then he would. Thankfully, it didn't come to that, since Wyatt had left the bedroom door unlocked. "OK, listen up, asshole. Your girlfriend is…."
"She's not my girlfriend," Wyatt snapped. "She doesn't want me, Rufus, and I sure as hell don't need you here rubbing that fact in my face!"
"Seriously, Wyatt, if you don't shut the fuck up right now and listen, I will kick your ass – don't think for a second that I won't!" Rufus growled back at him, his bank of patience for Wyatt now completely bankrupt. Something in the tone of his voice or the fierce expression in his eyes must have finally gotten through to Wyatt, though, because the man at least shut up.
Rufus rubbed the back of his neck in agitation, and tried to calm down a bit before speaking again. "Look, Jiya sent me here to tell you that Lucy's in the hospital," he resumed in a gentler tone. He watched as the expression on Wyatt's face transformed from petulance to alarm. Good – dude was actually listening then, too. Rufus held up a hand to stave off the questions already forming on his friend's lips. "She – Lucy – apparently collapsed in some sort of seizure at Mason Industries, and they had to haul her off in an ambulance. The doctors managed to stop the convulsions, and are running all sorts of tests, but they haven't been able to wake her up."
He paused for a moment, giving Wyatt the chance to speak. But Wyatt just sat there looking stunned for the second time in as many hours. "So yeah, we just thought you should know. What you do about it is up to you, but if it were me, I'd be hauling my ass down there as fast as possible to be with the woman I loved."
When his friend still didn't respond, Rufus exited the bedroom, and made his way back out of the apartment through the the now-demolished front door. He'd call someone tomorrow to replace what he'd ruined, but right now, Jiya was waiting for him at the hospital, and he needed to be there to support both her and Lucy.
Rufus had just pushed the 'close door' button in the apartment complex's elevator (he'd had enough of a workout chasing Wyatt up the stairs already) when Wyatt dashed into the mobile compartment and tossed him a set of keys. Rufus quirked an eyebrow at the other man questioningly.
"You're driving, but we're taking my jeep," Wyatt explained gruffly as the elevator began its descent. "It's faster than that piece of crap you call a car."
Rufus nodded in silent agreement. Though slightly offended by Wyatt's opinion of his choice in vehicles (he'd paid good money for that so-called 'piece of crap', thank you very much), he was too relieved by his friend's decision to come along to the hospital to bother to call him on it.
"Hey Rufus?" Wyatt asked hesitantly, terrified of what his friend's answer might be. "Is she…do the doctors think that…. Are Lucy and the baby going to be OK?"
Rufus sighed heavily, wishing like hell that he could tell Wyatt with absolute certainty what he knew the man wanted to hear. The poor guy had already lost one woman that he'd loved, and that had nearly destroyed him. Rufus didn't even want to think about what would happen if Wyatt's tragic history repeated itself, and he lost Lucy and the child that she was carrying, too. "They don't know yet. They don't know what's wrong with her exactly. But Lucy's a fighter, and with the two of you as its parents, I'm 1000% certain that your kid is, too. So let's just focus on that for right now, alright?"
"Yeah," Wyatt whispered hoarsely. Rufus' words might not have been exactly the reassurance that he was hoping for, but that last bit, at least, was definitely something he could cling to. And he would. "Hey Rufus?" he called to his friend again as the elevator doors slid open and Rufus strode out ahead of him.
"Yeah, buddy?" Rufus replied, continuing towards Wyatt's jeep.
"Thanks for kicking down my door. You're a real badass when you want to be."
Rufus grinned. Yeah, he was, wasn't he? "You're welcome, man. That's what friends are for, right?"
A/N: First, thanks as always for your generous follows/favs/reviews and thought-provoking questions. Second, I've had several questions specifically about how the Wyatt in this story (who obviously loves Lucy and only Lucy) could possibly be the same supposedly Jessica-obsessed one to whom Lucy was originally married before the timeline shift in 'Homecoming'. Answer: there are definite hints throughout 'Homecoming' that Lucy's view of things may be 'off' for some reason. Beyond that, please keep reading - it will become clear in time. ;-)