3.

Why was she taking so long? Where was she? Had she been caught? Had his father taken hold of all his work, destroyed it without trace? His blood ran high, fire coursing through his veins. The hatred in him was poisonous.

But just as he thought he was about to lose his own sanity going back and forth between questions, another thought stopped him.

Another thought ran through his mind, one that chilled him. Had she betrayed him? Had she gone to his father and given up everything?

No. No it was impossible. She might be very well capable of betraying him, but she would never abandon her mother in his hands. She knew that would mean Deborah's death as surely as the sun rose in the east.

He stopped pacing and sat on his bed, avoided putting his hands in his hair. Idleness was not for minds such as his. He had to keep occupied with something, focus his energies on a task, a problem, an equation, otherwise his mind prayed on itself. Already he was going over his plan again and again, finding imperfections, loopholes, mistakes. What if this, what if that…

He had been so engrossed in his thoughts, so out of reality that when she called for the first time, he had not heard her at all.

She had entered his hut as if stepping into a different reality. It was full of paintings of strange equations and models that he had probably made from scratch with his own hands. It was exactly as the childish part of her had pictured: the lab of the mad spotted him after she had taken the third step inside his living space. He was sitting there by one of those models, staring off into space, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was reading something that was right in front of him.

She swallowed with difficulty and was about to call him again when he noticed her.

"Bucket…"

There it was again, that name on his lips. Why did he speak to her with such aching familiarity, as if he had known her forever? It confused her every single time. And that note of relief in his voice, the way he looked at her, as if she was his salvation in the flesh.

… well, of his work, more like it.

So fast that it startled her, he planted himself into her personal space, reaching for his device.

"Did it work?" he asked, almost sounding anxious, but managing to hide it very well.

Skye started searching in her bag. "Yeah, I think so."

"For your sake – and your sweet mother's sake – I hope so." He said as he hovered above her. Her eyes snapped to his face, narrowing dangerously.

Asshole!

The word passed between them unspoken, but acknowledged by both parties so clearly that she might as well have said it out loud. She didn't say anything as she handed him what was his. Lucas sat himself down, turning his back to her, disregarding her completely and for a moment she wondered if he was arrogant or just plain stupid to turn his back to a potential enemy.

Fixing her eyes on his back, she could not miss now, in the light of day, what had been indistinguishable last night: the two cars on the back of his neck extended to a few inches near his jugular. A little closer and he would have bled to death…

Skye shuddered, unable to stop herself from thinking that having him be eaten alive by some carno in the jungle would have been better for Terra Nova and for her, but still, she was not cruel enough, she simply didn't hate him enough to wish him such a horrifying death. At least not yet.

The calculations came to life before him, adjusting themselves in ways Skye didn't understand. But going from his awed expression, he did understand them, and they worked.

"Yes… I knew you could do it." He murmured, more to himself than to her. "This is gonna work. I'm so close, just a day or two."

Skye neared the specter of those indecipherable equations once he went about the room, gathering papers. She didn't understand any of the symbols or their meaning, but together they looked kinda beautiful. Like a symphony, like little constellations. Organized chaos that somehow made sense.

To him of course, those symbols spoke in an entirely different language. To her, they were just vaguely familiar.

"I've seen these before, by Snakehead Falls." She noted absentmindedly, as she looked on. She didn't notice how that stopped his movements.

"And did you tell my father?" he asked with a nonchalance that Skye recognized as fake at once. He was trying too hard to sound like the answer didn't matter, which was the surest way to tip her off that it did.

"No." She said as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. When he looked at her questioningly, she explained. "That place is off limits."

There was something in her answer that both irritated and amused him. He almost rolled his eyes. Typical: his father had banned everyone from the falls to keep his terranovans from glimpsing at even a small part of his son.

His father had always gone through great pains to hide his shortcomings.

"He needs to keep our issues in the family." He said as he passed by her. He missed the curiously glance she send his way, it was discrete enough to escape even his sharp notice.

He had no way of knowing the depths of her curiosity, and how it all centered around him for a million of reasons. One of them was that she had slept in what had surely been his bed for almost two years… and Taylor had not mentioned him once.

He was the dirtiest secret in Terra Nova.

"The two of us suffer from a Shakespearian relationship that borders on a Greek tragedy."

As he sat down, Skye slowly moved to his right, carefully keeping herself where he could not clearly see her face. She was gathering intel on him, learning him. It was a hardwired behavior now, but also, she wanted to know the most she could on this man: it was obvious he was Terra Nova's number one threat.

A look of half amusement half disbelief crossed her face. "You've always hated him this much?"

"No not always." He explained absentmindedly, one eye on the papers in his hands, the other on the calculations in front of him. He didn't find it difficult at all to tell her all this. In fact, this was the smoothest conversation he had had in years and it came so easy. The bond they shared made it easy to talk to her, to say things that he had never told anyone this freely.

"It started on 2148, august." He actually mumbled those words, as if they kept getting stuck between his teeth.

"What happened then?"

He turned to look at her in the face, to gauche her reaction, her expression. What he found there was interesting. She was really listening, cataloguing information like a computer.

"Ask him yourself." He responded curtly, returning to his work.

So that was why she made such a good spy! That nonchalance, the real interest in her eyes, the chattiness and propensity to snoop that could only have gone unnoticed on a teenager. Lucas almost smiled. She was trying to drill him without him noticing!

She had quite the nerve, he had to admit.

"So, after the portal opens both ways, what then?" She asked, faking disinterest to perfection. But now that he knew her game, he was not about to be fooled.

"You'll see. Now out Bucket, I have work to do."

She eyed the back of his head with anger and resentment. He had either understood what she was trying to do or simply was a great jackass. Both were extremely possible and not necessarily mutually exclusive.

"Don't make me tell you twice." He warned and this time his voice vibrated with the danger of pushing this any further.

Skye slipped out as quietly as she had come in.

oOoOoOo

The depth of his satisfaction when he got back the results of his calculations shook him to the core. He had made it. He had finished, it was done. His work was finally complete.

He had felt the elation overflow in him, make him tremble from head to foot. His heart had trembled within his chest… and out of nowhere, he had wished she was there. Wished he could hold her, thank her, because she had made all this possible, because she had helped.

And he had held on to that feeling, held on to the lightheadedness it caused him, the way it made his heart flutter – of all things. He was that happy! And he wanted to share it with someone so very specific – with her.

Because of her absence, his violent happiness tasted strangely incomplete. He needed her there, with him. Because the only reason he was holding the result of his finished work in his hands so soon was because of her. She had taken that final step, make this extraordinary sensation that was running through him possible. She had done it for him, finished his work, the last piece of the puzzle that would be the begging of Nathaniel Taylor's destruction.

The second he saw her as she so unwittingly wondered into his hut, that pet name of her had left his lips sounding like a 'thank you', a call for her only.

He had almost pounced on her then, before she even knew what was coming, unable to control his speed, uncaring really of her reaction. He had wanted her in his hands, the need had been corroding, the pull towards her like gravity: unstoppable.

With the grace of a man that had spent the last five years of his life in the wilderness, with the enthusiasm of a boy that had finally received the best gift of his life, he had grabbed her soft face, held on for dear life. The feel of her in his hands, so breakable, warm, so infinitely soft was almost as good as the gift she had given him.

He had felt her sharp intake of breath, her freezing in his hands. And he had also felt the way she relaxed when she realized his hold was nothing but gentle.

"It's solved it, it's done. Thank you Bucket." He whispered impossibly warmly, his forehead on hers, close enough to fill his nostrils with the sweet scent of her hair. She smelled of something sweet that made his mouth water, and the wilderness of the jungle.

He used that pet name of her with a naturality that frightened her. She couldn't know that he had been calling her that for years, until he was as familiar with it as he was with his own name.

Her pulse had skyrocketed under his finger at first but now it was settling. She had been started out of her bones by suddenly having him literally in her face. When his fingers grabbed the sides of her head, entwining in her hair, she thought he was going to attack her. Her blood froze in her veins. But then, when he had thanked her so breathlessly, so utterly sincerely, his intentions had been more clear. The more he looked at her, the wider his smile became, and this time it was a real smile, not a sneer, not a smirk.

There had been something so familiar about his gesture, it had taken her instinct only a fraction to recognize it and calm down. It was just like any other hug… only a lot more rough, wilder, maniacal - just like him really - but familiar none the less.

"You figured out how to make the portal go both ways?" She asked tentatively, looked at him quizzically. He nodded, his a secretive smile on his lips as if they were partners into a very important secret. From this close he could see every shade of the sky in her metallic-blue eyes. He looked down at her and his heart swelled with true warmth. The feeling shone right out of his eyes and he noticed her confusion as she took it in.

Lucas stood there and saw her take notice of his closeness as well.

She realized it slowly, as she initial shockwaves of having him almost tackle her - of seeing him look at her in that undecipherable manner that was almost like real affection - waned little by little…

Then she became aware of his closeness, of his body head that assaulted her like a wave. She became aware because he wasn't moving and he kept staring at her with clear happiness and exhilaration… and beneath all that, barely masked, there was intent – something Skye recognized but that never, not in a million years had expected to see in him.

He didn't seem to be bothered by how close he stood, by how intimate his touches seemed to be.

Probably, because to him they weren't.

But she was massively confused by them, by him. Because this was Lucas Taylor and he was not a boy by any means. He was something else entirely. Every single thing he did was confusing her, she didn't have time to recover from his last action when he didn't something else – like smile it that way again – that pulled the rug from under her feel gloriously all over again.

He was like a code she needed to break in order to understand. It was irritating how freely he was behaving, when she had to twiz her brains just to try and figure him out.

The joy in him was so overwhelming that he smiled openly, fully, without holding nothing back. He almost laughed as he explained how everything would now change, gathering his things in the process.

Skye listened, frowning as he spoke and for the first time, she was stuck speechless by how… normal he could seem. And just like that, seeing him so happy, so exited, dispelled another of her childish fantasies: that Lucas Taylor was a high-strung, cold heartless bastard who was unable to feel anything remotely good and whose emotions varies only on the dark and creepy side of the spectrum.

Well, she had thought that, but now she knew she had been wrong, at least partially. His smile was that of a boy, his eyes sparkling so much that they startled her. Only now was she noticing he had eyes of such a mesmerizing shade of jade.

She was more than surprised when he cut her questions off, his voice exuberant.

"Why 'Bucket', I have to know." And he said it in such a way, smiling so openly that she believed him: he had to know. He didn't ask, she realized. He only demanded.

Skye had learned by now that it was easier to give him what he wanted right away and spear herself the consequences of his insistence. She shared with him that embarrassing story of her childhood and was shocked when he chuckled at her as he put on his jacked.

"I like it." He said, eyes sparkling like jewels. "It suits you."

Had they been in any other circumstances, had he not been so clouded by his own obsessions, so brutal in his means to achieve his goals, so uncompromising and utterly closed to everything else… had he been a normal person back in Terra Nova, Skye was sure she would have found his smile disarming.

But this was not just any man. This was Lucas Taylor.

Of him she was just suspicious.

Which should have meant she was prepared for his next words, but it turned out she was not. They shook her to the core and she understood how much she had let her guard down.

"I don't understand why so many people want to be like their fathers. I only ever wanted to destroy mine." He had spoke so lightly, laughter making his voice dace, but the words were so heavy that they pushed against Skye's head, making it ache. She didn't address what he said of Taylor – something about him disappearing into the unknown again seemed a little more pressing.

She couldn't allow herself not mistake of not figuring out what he was up to.

"Where are you going?"

"To the portal. 2149 awaits. There's so much to do and not much time but… I wanted to tell you before I left: you shouldn't go back to Terra Nova."

And those were the words that broke the spell. If before she had entertained the thought of being something to salvage in him after all, not she sobered up to reality fast. Nothing good could come from those words.

"It's not safe for you there. They're coming."

Her frown deepened. "Who?"

He had told her about the army, about the imminent attack. He had held back nothing, he didn't see the point. His actions, his words, they were all calculated, measured - but trusting her was as natural as it was thought through and planned. And it shocked him, startled him to find out that he could trust someone after more than 10 years of being so thoroughly convince that he would never have faith in another human being ever again.

Now here he was, telling a Terranovan spy that her home was about to be destroyed, allowing her to have that knowledge, for he very simple reason that he did not want her harmed.

He cared…

That had been startling to him also.

She had been expendable once, but a long time had passed since he had entertained thoughts of unmasking her just to spite his father. She was not just a pawn anymore, she was important, he cared for her, and now, after she had finally finished his work for him, he felt her as much a part of him as his own limb. She had been there with him through it all, for three years she had been a constant presence, in the fringes of his mind. Constant even without knowing.

"… they will burn Terra Nova to the ground with or without the people in it." He said and for a moment Sky thought that she saw a hint of regret in his eyes, eyes that were not so guarded and empty anymore. But it was gone and later one, she would attribute that to her own fantasy, to her own wish of wanting to see something good in him, something to save, even where there was nothing.

Her voice shook. "Why… why would they do that?"

He shrugged. "Control the past, you control the future."

Skye took heart from the only thought that was able to console her. She grasped at it with all her strength.

"Taylor will never let that happen." She said, convinced that it was true.

It was a prayer more than a fact really, but it was the only thing Skye counted on with certainly. She knew Taylor would shed every single drop of blood in his system before he abandoned Terra Nova and its people.

But apparently, in the present company, it had been the wrongest thing to say.

"He's a man, not a god!" Lucas snapped so violently that the backlash of his temper made a shiver run down her spine. One moment was all it took for his darkness to swallow him whole again and leave nothing of that boyish smile she had seen for the past five minutes.

Lucas saw the way she bristled, how she froze and her eyes stayed wide as she considered how to tread around him, as if he was a minefield.

He had not snapped like that to anyone in years. He had almost lost his bearings, listening to her talk about his father, about the faith she had in his strength, in his infallibility. He had wanted for a moment to grab her and shake her until she changed idea.

Her belief in his father's power to keep her safe was what was going to get her killed. He knew that all too intimately, because that note of dead certainty in her voice had resembled too closely to the one that had been in his mother voice, hours before she died. It resembled the one he had held himself, until he had seen just how pathetic and empty that promise was.

Still, upon seeing how weary she was of him now, all over again, he gathered himself fast, even regretting his loss of temper a little. Lucas smiled again, only this time, after seeing what a real smile looked on his lips, Skye was able to tell that the fakeness of the one he was wearing now.

"But don't tell him that, you'll hurt his feelings." He added, as if it had all been a joke. Skye's breath shivered. This was no joke. His hatred for his father was so toxic that it burned even her, and she itched to step back from him, to run somewhere.

The quiet had been broken and the moment had slipped away… and Lucas regretted it. Because he could see form the alarm in her eyes that she didn't understand. He wanted to make her understand, to stop her from looking at him like that, as if she was a bird caught in a cage.

He stepped closer, trying to keep the violent emotions battling inside him off his face. The hatred and anger was not for her, they were for his father. His little sister didn't deserve the burn of it, not when she had already helped him so much.

He tried to get back to how happy had had been to finally be so close to his goal. To how happy he had been that she had happened to him. He watched as she looked away from him when he was close enough to smell her hair, her skin. She was unwilling to back away but she did try to keep him out by refusing to look him in the eye.

But she would have to, because she had to understand even a small part of what he was doing, of why her world was about to be torn apart.

"When the tanks roll in and my employers start stripping this place to nonexistence, the commander will know, finally, that I beat him."

Skye had decided that with Lucas the best tactic was the one used on rabid dogs: don't look him in the eye and maybe he won't bite you. But when the word 'tanks' came from his lips, her eyes snapped to his face, wanting to read the truth there, wanting to see if he was bluffing.

He was not.

He was at his most honest, at his most vulnerable even. The desire burned in him so strong that it made his eyes shine and Skye found herself recoiling from all that hatred in his eyes, as if it was hurting her.

The total of his emotions seemed to border on desperation…

"I've been waiting for this day since I was 14 years old… and I have you to thank."

His voice shook when he spoke, as if the emotions in him were getting the better of him. And yet he looked at her with such gentles that it made the words coming out of his mouth seem like they were being spoken by someone else. He looked so gentle, his eyes so warm… and yet he spoke of death, of destruction – with that look on his face…

Without warning, he moved one hand on her cheek, surprising her again, but not as much as the first time. Softly, he angled her face to the side. Skye couldn't help the way her heart tripped over itself. It had already been springing against her ribs but having him touch her always made her react badly: the shadow of the thought that he might break her neck with the same ease and calm he caressed her face, never left her head.

When she felt his lips on her cheek, so close to her ear that she shivered, giving her the softest kiss, she stopped breathing, hands fisted so hard that her nails were a breath from drawing blood. He lingered on her, his stubble scratching her, making her skin tingle as if it was not already on fire. She felt him breathe her in but couldn't imagine what was going on inside his head. She didn't even know what was going on in hers…

When he pulled back he looked at her with an expression of almost shyness, as if he, for a moment, regretted having gotten that close, especially when he saw that the shock of what he had told her had starting to overtake her and she couldn't take a full deep breath.

He left her there, struggling to breathe, drowning under the weight of her own guilt and misery. Only now did she understand how far her treachery had gone, how he had used her so well to deal the death blow to her own home and she had not even realized what she was doing.

'…I have you to thank…"

Those words kept pushing against her skull, making it hurt, making her chest impossible to expand. She felt the threat of guilt push her under, and the tears came unbidden.

After three years, she finally broke.

.

TBC