Orange: The banks of the Schuylkill River, Pennsylvania. 1781.

The fire at Wyatt's feet spiked upward at his careless prodding, releasing a crackling burst of orange embers that seemed to match his mood. Each shimmering flame came licking up around the wood in hot, angry billows, with ribbons of leaden smoke following after it in evasive wisps. If only he could do that, to find a way to discharge the remnants of his frustration into puffs of vaporous smoke. As it was, he felt much more kinship to a pressure cooker than he did a fire. He was all steam with no vent or relief valve; an illuminated bundle of dynamite in a tiny foxhole.

The worst part was that he wasn't the only one on this particular mission who seemed to be worked up well beyond a natural boiling point. His team - his real team - could handle his occasional flashes of asshole behavior. They knew how to work around the worst of his recklessness, could shrug off his biting sarcasm, easily called him on his crap when necessary, and ultimately knew when it was better to just give him some damn breathing room.

But add in a second jackass - one whom Wyatt had long ago branded as a homicidal psychopath - and the whole thing had gone to shit more than once in the last 12 hours. Not that he was taking any of the blame for how badly he'd handled it all. No, none of this would have happened if someone had listened to him from the get-go. Garcia Flynn had been their enemy for far too long. It was unreasonable to think that throwing him into this situation could have been anything other than a disaster.

A snap sounded from the cluster of tents beyond the fire, causing Wyatt's head to jerk upward from the flames fast enough to cause whiplash. But it was the very definition of a false alarm. There was no intruder, no bear or raccoon, no Rittenhouse representative. Not even that bastard Flynn was emerging from his tent.

"Tone down the heat vision, Superman. If you glare at that campfire any harder, I think it's probably going to detonate into a million pieces."

Wyatt aimed an unamused smirk over the sizzling blaze, both eyebrows raised in mock salute as Lucy ducked past the flaps of her tent and came stumbling out across the uneven forest floor, harmless to everyone but herself. "Thanks for the advice, Lois, but I'm doing just fine out here on my own."

"Lois?" She rounded the small fire with a shake of her head, then plopped down next to him on the uncomfortable log that he'd fashioned into a makeshift bench. "I don't want to be Lois Lane. I want to be Wonder Woman."

He shrugged nonchalantly, but couldn't contain the shifting grin that formed across his mouth. "Guess that could work too. I'll admit that it wouldn't suck to see you in that little costume of hers."

She smacked his bicep in response. "Don't be a cretin."

"Sorry, ma'am. It's written in the genetic code. Can't be helped."

"Science actually refutes that sort of - "

"Lucy," he interrupted with both hands raised in surrender, "I didn't mean it, okay? You win. Please don't educate me to death tonight."

She rolled her eyes toward the moonlit sky, but there was a smile building beneath her supposed exasperation. "Fine. But let it be known that I'm only taking pity on you because you looked so miserable out here by yourself."

"I'm not miserable," he refuted in a tone that probably came across as nothing but miserable. "And what about you? Why aren't you sleeping? Is it your shoulder?"

She glanced down blankly at her shoulder as if she'd forgotten that it was attached to the rest of her body. "No, it's fine. It's been almost two weeks, Wyatt."

"Two weeks isn't an eternity, you know, especially not for a gunshot wound. It would be normal if it was still giving you trouble."

"Well it's not bothering me," she insisted, dark eyes gleaming orange with firelight as she turned to look at him again. "You, on the other hand..."

"I'm bothering you?" he gaped at her incredulously. "I'm sitting out here minding my own business, silently watching out for wolves and thieves while the rest of you snore the night away, and somehow that's keeping you from your beauty rest?"

"Are you implying that I need rest to be beautiful?"

"Lucy," he growled out irritably.

She reached for his hand, wrapping her freezing fingers around his before she turned her face back up to him. "I woke up a few minutes ago and couldn't fall back asleep. I'm worried about you. Today was...a little ugly."

"Today was a lot ugly," he corrected her with a snort.

"Agreed. And I know you're pissed with me about all of this - "

"No." Wyatt shook his head, jaw tight as he protested. "It's not you, Lucy - "

"Yes it is," she murmured in return, "it might not be all me, but don't deny that you're itching to tell me off right now. No bullshit, no lies - tell me the truth."

He refused to meet her eyes. After several mute seconds of nothing but crackling wood and chirping crickets, he relented slightly. "I'm...annoyed."

"With me. You're annoyed with me," she said a bit too forcefully.

He attempted to pull his hand out of her grasp, but she clung on like a greedy spider, not allowing him to so much as flex his pinky away from hers.

"Wyatt," she hummed lowly, "you're allowed to be angry with me. You know that, right?"

Now he really wanted to run, sprint actually, go tearing off through the pitch-black woods until he hit the river, and then swim as far as New Jersey just to avoid this conversation. He was fully aware that he'd been an ass today, so the last thing he wanted from her was this - a deluge of sympathy, understanding, compassion. He didn't want to be psychoanalyzed and he didn't want to talk about his feelings. He wanted to be left in peace, just him and the hissing campfire for company.

"I'll get over it, okay? Just needed to cool off."

Lucy nodded diplomatically, but he didn't miss the contrary frown that flickered over her face. And that was when the guilt kicked in. This was far from the first time he'd ever been frustrated with her. They'd clashed more than once or twice over their differing approaches to the mission at hand, and Wyatt had never before felt the need to hold back on her when they weren't seeing eye-to-eye. That hadn't been the case today. He was seething at every turn, snapping out orders like a total prick, but he'd refused to just clear the air and get it all out in the open.

And at the center of it all, yes, he was pissed with Lucy. She'd advocated the loudest for Flynn despite Wyatt's many objections, wearing Agent Christopher down with her repeated requests to re-engineer the Lifeboat for a fourth teammate and pardon him from his imprisonment so that he could aid them in their quest to permanently take down Rittenhouse. Even Rufus - the poor guy who had been shot in the gut by Al Caopne thanks to Flynn's interference - had done his best to tone down his opposition now that their team had expanded to four, which meant Wyatt was the sole killjoy of the group. So he'd boxed it all up and clamped his mouth shut for the sake of the team. Or at least he'd meant to box it all up, but there may have been the occasional leak in his composure throughout the course of this stupid day.

He felt Lucy's quiet gaze tracing over him. Just when he expected her to press harder, nag him for a confession of sorts, she did the exact opposite. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and nudged her head onto his shoulder. No speech, no pleading. The only disruption came from the occasional tiny clouds of visible breath that drifted up from her lips and scattered out into the cool night.

"I don't like the way he looks at you."

Wyatt wanted to slap his hand over his mouth as soon he'd said it, but there was no chance of taking it back now that it was out there.

She stiffened slightly, but didn't remove her head from where it rested against him. "What?"

"It's nothing. Forget it."

That incited her to action. Her face swam up before his, but there was no real expression there, only the faintest indication of curiosity lurking in her eyes. "You don't like the way that...Flynn looks at me?"

"I said forget it," he muttered idiotically, as if his mere suggestion to drop it was going to have any effect on her.

As expected, she wasn't even in the ballpark of letting it drop. "Well can you blame him? He looks at me like I'm the person who double crossed him and sold him out to Homeland Security after I promised I wouldn't. And even if he'd believe me about that, it still doesn't help that we're in 1781, now does it? He's stuck here, with me of all people, forced to aid us in keeping Emma from finding John Rittenhouse, the same boy who would already be dead if I hadn't gotten in the way last time we were in the neighborhood. So yeah, can't say that I'm shocked by his chilly reception, Wyatt."

Against his better judgment, he could feel words of explanation spilling out of him before he could stop himself. "It's not like that. Even when he's not yammering on about his baseless grudge, he's...he's always watching you and it's...intense."

"Intense?"

He lifted his shoulders noncommittally and redirected his eyes to the dependable glow of embers instead.

"You mean intense like the way you look at me?"

"What?" he scoffed, his full attention whipping back to her in an instant. "I'm not intense. Not like him."

Lucy's mouth quirked to the side. "Yeah, not always, but...you have your moments."

"And you're full of it."

She shrugged, but it was evident that she was barely holding back a laugh at his expense. "They don't call you brooding blue eyes for nothing."

Wyatt shifted sideways to face her better, causing the log to creak contentiously from beneath them. "What the hell are you on tonight, Lucy? No one calls me that."

"No one but Judith Campbell."

He squinted at her in the flimsy light of the fire, trying to peer past the strange pirouetting shadows that the flames were casting over the angles of her face. "Judith Campbell? As in Vegas in the '60s, Judith Campbell?"

"The one and only," she acknowledged with a hesitant nod.

And now he was sure that she was blushing or something, even if it was virtually impossible to see it in such unreliable lighting. "The two of you discussed my brooding blue eyes?"

Lucy squirmed almost imperceptibly at the teasing lilt in his voice. "Her words, not mine. And it wasn't much of a discussion. You were blowing a fuse at her lack of cooperation, I was less than appreciative of your hostile approach, and she...I don't know, she thought she was picking up on something that obviously wasn't there."

"Something...between you and I?" he asked without allowing her to break away from his gaze. "What exactly did she say?"

She blinked those Bambi-like eyes up at him several times before admitting quietly, "she, uh, asked if we were sleeping together, and at my totally bewildered reaction, she...she said that you could use it."

"Huh," he pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Well I wouldn't quite say that obviously there was nothing there at the time. There's always been some level of truth to that assumption."

Now Lucy was the one who was gaping at him like a fish stranded on dry land. "I'm sorry, what?"

"C'mon, Luce," he chided with a grin. "You caught me watching you take your bra off just 4 or 5 days before Vegas. It's not like I was ever repelled by your appearance."

"Right, well...I didn't, uh, I mean you're a guy and you're straight, so I didn't exactly read into it at the time, and - "

"Aren't you the one who was just telling me that science refutes the assumption that all men are cretins? That acting like a creepy lecher isn't automatically written into the basic male genetic code?"

If he hadn't been sure before, there was no question that she was turning pink now. "What side are you on, anyway? You do realize that this confirms what I've been saying all along. You are intense. Judith said so, and you're basically telling me she was right about everything else. Do I need further evidence?"

"You know, I think it's really cute that you're all worked up about this conversation even though we're officially together now." He leaned in closer and used his free hand to brush a tendril of hair back behind her ear. "Is it really so embarrassing that she could pick up on it before it was even happening?"

Lucy snuck closer yet, her nose touching his for just one breathtaking moment. "I don't know. Is it really so embarrassing that you've been upset with me all day? Because that shouldn't be so hard to admit either, should it?"

"You're deflecting," he grunted.

Both of her eyebrows shot up in tandem. "Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle black..."

Wyatt backed away from her, sliding across the log so quickly that he was pretty sure he'd just lodged a splinter in his ass. "Okay, fine. I'm pissed, alright? I don't like working with Flynn, I really hate that you wanted to work with him, I think it's total bull that Agent Christopher chose to go with your opinion over mine on this, and to top it all off, I'm annoyed with myself for acting like a spoiled toddler today just because I didn't get my way in this damn argument. How's that for honesty?"

She had the nerve to smile in the wake of his foolish outburst. "Now was that really so bad?"

"I - " he sucked in a reluctant breath, closing his eyes before he could go on, " - I really don't want to be let this shit get between us, Lucy. I've been that guy before, the one who lets his feelings bring out the worst in him, and I...I won't do that to you."

Her pinched countenance set his heart on a crash course with his plummeting stomach. "Wyatt - "

"I never told you the whole story about what happened to Jessica," he said in a rush, cutting her off before she could let him off the hook.

"You didn't have to," she whispered in a voice that was just ashamed enough to bring his gaze back to hers. "You've given some of it to me in bits and pieces over time, and eventually...well, I looked it up, Wyatt. I read about it online. I know what happened that night."

"Then don't you see?" he asked with an unmanageable thread of desperation, too relieved that she already knew to be irritated that she'd sought out the truth on her own. "We fought that night. My anger, my temper, my jealousy...that's what killed her. I left her there, Lucy. I - "

"You didn't kill her. You left her there after she chose to get out of the car."

He reared back with a disbelieving sneer. "What, so it's her fault? I drank too much and acted like a major jackass so of course she got out, but that doesn't mean - "

"Doesn't mean what? That she was responsible for what happened next? Of course she wasn't. And neither were you, Wyatt. She willingly got out on the side of the road and you drove away. You both made mistakes, but no one could have predicted that there was a murderer on the loose that night." Lucy's expression softened, and she reached for his hand once more, a plea for cease-fire clearly written in her eyes. "You and I are going to fight. We're bound to disagree, to lose our tempers, to say things to each other that we'll eventually regret. It's a normal part of any relationship, even the ones that don't involve chasing criminals through time."

She paused, watched the smoldering coals for several seconds, then turned back to search his eyes with unabashed earnestness. "You had no trouble yelling at me before we were a couple. You used to know that I could handle it, that I could shout right back, and that we were always capable of working through it together even when things got rough. That shouldn't change just because we're also making out these days."

Wyatt sighed, wove his fingers through hers with a nod, and worked his way back across the log. "Is that your way of hinting that you want to make out now?"

"It sure wouldn't hurt," she said with a slow grin.

He chuckled, then dipped his head to press a long, rambling kiss to her tempting lips. It was with a glimmer of amusement that he leaned back just enough to catch her eyes. "So Judith Campbell knew we had the hots for each other way back then. I'll be damned."

"She was a very perceptive woman," Lucy murmured before leaning up to tug his mouth back to hers.

Beneath the veil of countless stars, they felt the tension of the day - as well as the week, the month, the year - loosen its grip on them, trading the burden of saving the world for the serenity of just existing together in a cozy little bubble of their own making.

That bubble was promptly shattered with the intrusive clearing of a throat from the other side of the fire.

Wyatt tightened one arm around Lucy and automatically reached for his holster with the other, but his burst of adrenaline eased marginally when his eyes landed on Flynn's tall outline.

"I believe we agreed to switch off, did we not?" He suggested with a mirthless look. "It's been several hours."

Lucy stood without preamble, muttering as she pulled on Wyatt's arm, "How the two of you can do that - keep track of time without alarm clocks or phones or anything - will forever be beyond me. Be careful out here, Flynn."

He said nothing in response, just watched the two of them blankly as they made their way around the fire and over to the group of tents on the other side. Lucy's hold on Wyatt's arm was decisively unyielding even as they approached the tents. There were three in total - one for Lucy, one for Rufus, and one for either Wyatt or Flynn depending on who was keeping watch over their campsite.

"C'mon, brooding blue eyes," she whispered with a secretive smile, "I want someone to personally protect me from the wolves and thieves tonight."

And then she was vanishing into her tent, hand still firmly clasped around his wrist, leaving him with no choice but to follow behind her.

"Bold move, Luce," he said with a laugh, collapsing over her in the snug, narrow space of their canvas covering.

"He just saw me with my tongue down your throat," she answered coyly. "If he didn't get the message before tonight, there's no mistaking it now - I like the way you look at me the best."

As if to prove her point, she curled her ice cube hands around the back of his head and dragged him down to reclaim his mouth once more.

review, s'il vous plait :)