HAPPY FINALE DAY EVERYBODY! Here's to hoping NBC comes through and gives us the season 3 we deserve. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting this fic! (Special shout out to my brainy bunch) I hope y'all enjoy this chapter! Please leave a comment/review if you feel the calling to. Tell me your favorite quote, favorite scene, favorite moment! Knowing these things helps me bring you the quality content you want!


The next night at Denise's he breaks the news to everyone, and they react as well as anyone does. The news of deployment, is something no one, particularly people that aren't family, really knows what to do with. They don't know if they're supposed to be happy for their soldier, or sad, or if they can express their worry, or if it's best they keep it to themselves. Jiya hugs him, Rufus and Connor clap him on the back, but Lucy, for once, he can't really read. It's clear in the confusion on her face she feels like she should do something, but he takes the weight off of her by insisting they not worry about it and just get to the game. He'll take the time to talk to her afterwards.

They get through seven hands. Wyatt would normally have been out of chips by now, but he's had some fairly good luck tonight. He's won three out of the seven, the other four wins divided amongst the other four people at the table. The group agreed this eighth hand would be the last of night as it was already well past 11:00. They've made it to the Turn; he, Lucy, and Mason are the last ones to have cards still in play. Denise lays out the Turn Card.

Queen of Spades.

He spares a look into his hole cards. The Queen completes his Full House. He might go 4 for 8 tonight.

"300," he bets, placing his chips in the center of the table, eyeing Mason as he does so. There's a crinkle in the tech mogul's nose.

Bluff called.

"Argh," Mason grumbles. "Bloody hell, Logan, couldn't let me have this one, could you?" Wyatt just shrugs, and there's a residual chuckle that rings across the table. "I guess you know I'm folding." He places the cards on the table with a satisfying slap, sending the turn to Lucy.

"What'll it be, Dr. Preston?" Wyatt asks with a quirked eyebrow. A smile begins to form on her face, but he can tell by the way she bites the inside of her cheek that she is trying to keep a straight face. A poker face, if you will. He casts a glance down at her right hand. Her little finger is raised slightly, like she can't decide yet if she's bluffing or not. She looks down at her hand and smirks.

"Raise," she responds. "600." Her six black chips find their way next to his three before Denise gathers them into the community pot. The winnings for this round have made it up to 1145. Wouldn't be a terrible way to go out for his last poker night. Denise lays of the final card.

Ace of Spades.

It doesn't help him much, but he watches her hand to see if it's what she needs. Still no movement, but it's still raised as if preparing to send out the distress signal. Maybe he needs to give her a little push.

"What's your bet, Wyatt?" Denise asks him. He takes a deep breath, knowing the deeper meaning of what he's about to do.

"All in," he calls to the table, pushing his pot into the center. There's a ring of exclamations from the others at the table, but Wyatt keeps a steady eye contact with Lucy, and what he sees is not quite what he expected. Where the was a growing air of confidence, there was now a subtle mix of confusion and, if he was reading her right, panic. She begins to lightly gnaw on her lip.

"Alright, Lucy," Jiya nudges her with her shoulder. "Think you've got the hand to risk it all."

Risk it all, Lucy.

The others think they see her tell, basically her sign of surrender, she doesn't have the hand, but when Wyatt takes another look, he knows nothing can be further from the truth.

Her pinky's dropped. No movement. Not the slightest twitch.

She's got the hand. He doesn't stand a chance.

Everyone's eyes are on her, and he's waiting for her to match his bet, to put everything in the open.

"Fold," she sighs, placing her cards face down on the table. There's another round of exclamations, and Lucy quickly joins in, laughing with the rest of them. Now it's Wyatt's turn to be stiff with confusion. There's a second where her eyes meet his again, but she quickly purses her lips, halting her laughter, and glances away.

She had every odd in her favor, and she didn't go through with the victory.

"Well go on, and collect your winnings, dude," Rufus laughs, slapping him on the back. "Hell of way to go out on our last night of poker with you for a while." He takes a second to collect himself before responding.

"Damn right, it is," he chuckles, drawing the winnings into his pot. "Hell of a way to go out."

If only it didn't feel like it cost him everything.


They all say their hesitant good-byes as the night comes to an end. They ask if they can see him off before he leaves, but he awkwardly declines. The days before a deployment have always been a very personal time for him. Jessica had always hated it. She had wanted to spend as much time together as they could, but he had been busy getting himself into the right mentality. Some of their biggest blow ups were the day leading up to him leaving.

Thankfully the people in his life now seem to maybe understand him a little bit better than that. Rufus giving him a slightly-less-than-cool-guy hug and Jiya making him promise that she'll see him again in six months. He makes his promise and she tackles him with one more big bear hug before she and Rufus are heading down the walk path to their car, a black Subaru with a Federation symbol and Rebel insignia on opposite sides of the back window.

He laughs softly at the nerdy rivalry between the couple, and slightly wishing that something so simple could be the only issue he faces with the woman standing behind him, leaning against the railing of Denise and Michelle's wrap around porch.

There's a soft glow emanating off of her in the dim light coming from the porch lamp. He loves seeing her so dressed down on nights like these, usually in nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt.

His mind wanders briefly to a home where he is and where she is and he can have her like this all the time.

Although without the shadow of anxiousness darkening her features. He knows there's no longer anything else left between them but the truth.

Raise.

"Can we talk?" He asks, mirroring her position from across the threshold.

"Of course," she smiles, but he can see the caution in her approach, like she knows what he's about to do.

Call.

"I thought I was going to be relieved when I finally got news of being shipped out, again," he begins, not knowing a better place to start. "Thought it was going to be what I needed to find a groove again, to break out of the routine."

"And it's not?" She questions. He simply chuckles and shakes his head.

"It's not," he admits, lightly pouring a fist on the wooden railing, trying to think of the right words. "Yeah all the repetitive training and work and going home only to wake up do the same hasn't exactly been a dream, but it's this—" he gestures around them. "For the first time in almost five years, Lucy, I'm going to be going somewhere where I don't get to have all of you, my team, beside me. I mean, really, how am I supposed to function without you spouting history into one ear and Rufus panicking into the other?" The both laugh at that and it helps to lessen the weight between them.

"You won't need a whole lot of history where you're going," she reminds him with a smirk. "I wouldn't be much help. More a hindrance than anything." That causes the smile to drop from his lips just a bit.

"Do you really believe that you were nothing more than a walking history book for me in all this time?" He asks in disbelief, not that he would actually be surprised if her answer was yes. She's never seen herself like he has.

"It's what I was hired for in the first place, right?" She shrugs. "I mean, just think of the shit that went down when I wasn't there to keep you two in line." It's true; he and Rufus had been a ticking time bomb without their historian there to keep it all glued together. Things went haywire whenever Lucy had been left behind.

That's what he's afraid of now.

"Maybe it's why you were hired, and, yeah, we were always pretty helpless when you weren't around, but c'mon, Lucy." He takes a couple bold steps towards her, still leaving a fair amount of space, but forcing them both to recognize that whatever is about to go down. It's them. Together. "The Alamo? Watergate? Bonnie and Clyde? Darlington? When I got arrested in the hospital? Hell, even the night before I stole the Lifeboat. I could keep going, but don't you get it? Through everything, through all this time travelling madness you have been my rock. My partner. My best friend." He feels his throat ache and it's only then that he feels the tears lightly pressing against his eyes, and from the way her eyes are shining he knows she's feeling the weight of his words as well. "How am I supposed to fight when I don't have you there to keep me grounded?" She blinks rapidly, clearly trying to push the tears away, wiping a stray hair away from her forehead.

"I don't know, Wyatt," she breathes, looking out to the street instead of at him. He makes one last step forward, eliminating nearly all the distance between them.

"I do," he whispers, tilting her chin up as gently as he can manage, giving her any opportunity to turn away.

She doesn't.

The heat of their stare burns.

"Back in 1944, when you told me you didn't think you could keep going on, keep fighting, I told you to figure out what you're fighting for. I explained that for all my life I had been fighting for my Grandpa, the man who saved me from a life of abuse and crime, but that's not the case anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. I'm fighting for the woman who saved me from myself, from the broken, hallow man who let himself suffer in grief and rage for too long." He takes a moment to let the words settle, a faint orchestra of summer cicadas ring through the night air. She shifts her gaze back and forth across his face like she's searching for something to understand.

"Wyatt, what are you trying to say?" There's a desperation in her voice, telling him it's time to stop with the riddles, the in-between-the-lines messages.

All in.

"I want to come home to my best friend," he confesses with baited breath. "In any way that she'll have me."

"In any way?" She asks as if unsure he means it or even what it means at all.

"Lucy, dammit, I love you with every part of me that I was unsure how I managed this long without being with you, but I realized it's because I still am lucky enough to be the one to get drinks without every week, to kick your ass in poker, to have James Bond movie marathons with you and Rufus. If that's all I can ever have then I can live with that, but…" He runs a thumb across her cheek. "If there's a possibility of us of… of Logan and Preston… then you know what I would prefer." Her eyes flutter shut at the words, and he takes it as a positive sign, leaning in slowly and brushing her nose with the tip of his, encouraging her face to tilt up just so—

"Wyatt," she whispers, turning her head away.

Fold.

He lets out a regretful sigh, leaning back against the wooden slat behind him. He wants to be angry, but he can never be, not with her, not when he's the one who messed this up in the first place.

"I'm sorr—"

"No, Lucy," he stops her. "Don't you dare say you're sorry. If either one of us has anything to be sorry for it's me. I'm sorry for running out of the bunker after 1941. I'm sorry for not seeing the truth about Jess. I'm sorry for allowing you to think you were not always my first choice. My only choice. I'm sorry for putting you in danger, for breaking your heart, and for any other jackass thing I've done to hurt you. Lucy, you deserve so much better than anything I could ever offer, so believe me when I say I understand. But I also meant it when I said that I'll take your friendship any way you will offer it. Is that something we can still do?" There's a moment of silence where his question hangs in there air.

Maybe he just blew it.

He's relieved when a soft smile spreads across her face even though it might not reach her brown eyes.

"Of course," she tells him. "You're my best friend too, Wyatt; I can't lose that." He nods with pursed lips.

It's enough.

It has to be.

"Will I see you again before you leave?" Lucy asks. Wyatt has to take a second to answer because even he doesn't know.

"I don't think so, Lucy," he confesses. "I need some… personal time before I ship out." It's a half truth. The time he needs is time to process this. He's going to leave, he might come back, and if he does, this is all it will be. Seeing her again would just make it that much harder.

She just nods solemnly, not saying a word in response. They both cast their glance toward the road that passes in front of the house.

Now you know. You can move on.

"On that note," he pretends to laugh the tension away. "About time we got off Denise and Michelle's porch, don't ya think?" There's an air of sadness about her that he doesn't know how to translate. A year and a half ago he would have gathered her in his arms and offered any and all reassurance that she wasn't alone, that she had him. But it's all tainted now. Any physical contact is heavy with what once was. So now he just tilts his head towards their respective vehicles and hopes she follows.

She does. They walk side by side down the walkway, holding on to the last moment together before entering an unknown kind of separation, but, as many things have recently, the small path comes to an end.

"Come back in one piece?" She asks, locking her brown eyes onto his.

"I'll do my best." He has no more intentions of making promises he can't keep. In another world she would have jumped into his arms, but here she just nods. And that would have been it, but as they're walking to their cars, he realizes there is one more question he needs answered.

"Hey, Lucy?" He calls, and it's like she had forgotten he was there by the way she jumps at his voice, hand locked around the handle of her door. "That last hand… uh, why did you fold?" She seems taken aback by the question, but eventually just explains it away with "I was bluffing. Didn't have the hand."

"You weren't bluffing," he corrects her. "You wanted them to think you were bluffing by biting your lip, but that's not your tell, is it? You're too smart for that." She puts on a feign look of confusion and he can't help but feel a twinge of irritation. Did she think he wouldn't notice?

"What's my tell, then, Wyatt?" She asks in exasperation.

"You… you tap out SOS in Morse code with your pinky finger," he answers, gesturing towards her right hand. The only light around them is from the single lamp on the porch, yet no one could have missed they way her eyes grew at the accusation.

"How'd you know?"

"Because I know you, Lucy," he laughs in disbelief. "So answer the question: why did you fold? Your fingers were still. You had the hand to win. All odds in your favor. So why?"

"It wasn't a sure win," she explains. "Straight flush. Still could've been beat."

"Yeah, but the odds were—"

"Good odds have never been enough for me, Wyatt," she all but snaps. "Sure things or nothing at all. I've played with the odds too much the past few years… it never ended up working in my favor." The words go beyond any dumb poker game, into a realm of farmhouses and guest rooms, and lost sisters and fallen mothers, and a woman who has never reaped the benefits of all she sacrificed.

In retrospect, he would've folded too. A lot sooner than she had.

Before he has a chance to respond, her brake lights are shining into his eyes, framing his face in red.

Maybe he should have folded.