This chapter is Fold, but from Lucy's point of view. Hope you enjoy some more angst! It ends soon I promise! Thank you for the positive response for this story! Please leave a review if you enjoy what you read :)


"What'll it be, Dr. Preston?" Wyatt asks her with a quirked eyebrow. She feels a smile begin to pull on her face, but she bites the inside of her cheek to hold it off. She glances down to her cards. An Ace of Spades short of a Royal Flush… She considers the odds of the next card actually being what she needs. It's not a great gamble, but with Wyatt looking at her like that, like he's daring her, she feels a surge of boldness.

"Raise," she smirks. "600." Wyatt's eyebrows lift a tad in surprise, she doesn't tend to raise the bet. Her six black chips find their way next to his three before Denise gathers them into the community pot. She can't remember exactly what the winnings for this round have accumulated to, but she knows its a fairly sizable amount.

"Call," he says simply, setting his chips out

Denise lays of the final card.

Ace of Spades.

She has to physically stop herself from gasping. She has it. The hand is hers. What are the odds? She looks toward the only other person still in play who is looking fairly nonchalantly at the Ace.

"What's your bet, Wyatt?" Denise asks him. He leans back in his seat, taking a deep breath. What's he thinking?

"All in," Wyatt calls to the table, pushing his pot into the center, keeping his eyes locked on hers. Everyone else laughs excitedly at this new development, but Lucy is frozen.

She's never been an expert at reading people, understanding what they're thinking behind their eyes, and that has never played to her advantage in poker. When Amy would drag her away from her work and to a friend's poker night, her younger sister had always been able to find people's tells and ticks, but Lucy would try and just fall flat, over analyzing every movement to death.

But then there had been Wyatt.

She caught his tell on the first night so many months ago. It was so him that she almost laughed out loud. Her ever present soldier, his trigger finger twitches when there are things on the line. But she had noticed something else over the next couple months.

His tell has nothing to do with bluffing. Wyatt Logan doesn't bluff. He rarely folds and typically bets high, but not because he's trying to urge other people to fold, but because even in the highest stakes, odds-stacked-against-him situations, Wyatt truly believes he can still win, or he's going to go down trying, and that's when his tells shows.

That's where his tell is showing now.

But when Lucy reads into his eyes just a little too much, she doesn't think this risk has anything to do with poker. He's looking at her with the same gaze he had once upon a time in a dreamland. A dreamland where he had tried and failed to flirt but succeed to make her fall with the light of a pool illuminating his face and the stars punctuating his eyes. When he had taken a gamble on her and whispered "Now?" into the cool night air. The air between them then as thick as it is at this old poker table in their former superior's home.

Her heart accelerates, but she tries to keep her breath visibly calm. For the first time since the hospital room, he's putting possibilities out there for him to grasp, asking her to put her everything in the open just like he has.

"Alright, Lucy." Jiya's nudge to her shoulder almost makes her jump from her seat. "Think you've got the hand to risk it all?"

She does. She could put her everything in and get it back in ten fold. There's a moment where she feels the pull to do just that… to get back to pool sides and guest rooms and old cars and coastlines and checkers… but isn't there always a moment after? A moment where what you thought you had in your hands falls apart… the moment of alarms and witches and knives and dead ex-wives and hospitals and noises that keep people up at night and vodka and betrayal and shattered hearts, and it all started with the moment she thought she could have it all.

"Fold." The word is out of her mouth before she can think, and the look of anguish that flashes across Wyatt's face is another kind of knife piercing through her porcelain skin to her blood red heart.

Was it worth it?


"Can we talk?" Wyatt asks, joining her up on the porch, but leaving a fair amount of distance between them. A chasm between hearts.

"Of course," Lucy smiles. She's under no delusion that the conversation that's about to happen won't leave both of them reeling, but there's a part of her that aches for him and there's another that simply can't take running anymore.

"I thought I was going to be relieved when I finally got news of being shipped out, again," he begins bluntly, shoving his hands into the worn pockets of his faded jeans. "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. A chuckle rumbles from him and he drops his chin to his chest, shaking his head lightly

"It's not," he admits, lightly pounding a fist on the wooden railing, casting his gaze out to the street, leading his eyes into the shadows. "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 vaguely 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?" She can't help but laugh at that. He really had always been the focal point of hers and Rufus' occasional hysteria during their trips. When they panicked, Wyatt would calm them down, help them see straight, and bring the mission home.

The real question, she wonders, is how they're going to function without him.

"You won't need a whole lot of history where you're going," she puts on a smirk, but the words just remind her how much he doesn't really need her anymore. "I wouldn't be much help. More a hindrance than anything." Her clumsiness, her chronic worrying, her obsession to detail, they served their purpose (well maybe not the clumsiness) in the past, but these were things that would get him killed in the world he's going back into.

"Do you really believe that you were nothing more than a walking history book for me in all this time?" He asks in disbelief. She has to take a second to respond because she knows she was—is—more to him in a sense, but through the lens of their missions, it's exactly what she was.

"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." She knows she had been a sort of historical glue for them. She would've killed to see what exactly went down in with them plus Flynn when they went to go save JFK.

"Maybe it's why you were hired, and, yeah, we were always pretty helpless when you weren't around, but c'mon, Lucy." He walks toward her and she stops breathing for a moment. He halts well within what would qualify as an acceptable amount of space for a conversation, but for the purpose of this discussion it forces her to acknowledge that there is a something between them. It wouldn't feel like this if there wasn't. "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." She can hear the tightness in his voice even though she can count on one hand how many times she's heard him so close to tears. She feels pretty close to tears herself. "How am I supposed to fight when I don't have you there to keep me grounded?" When the tears begin to blur her vision, gathering on her eyelashes, she tries to blink them away. His rock? How could she have made him feel so safe when he was always the one to save her from drowning?

"I don't know, Wyatt," she breathes, forcing herself to look away. The intensity of his gaze heating her to dangerous degrees. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees him step forward, leaving them without a barrier.

"I do," he whispers. His fingers are gentle yet firm beneath her chin, slowly tilting her face towards him as if asking permission to look into her eyes.

Stars colliding couldn't burn this bright.

"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." Any breath she had is caught in her throat. It's all too real. Too fast. Too close to everything she wants.

"Wyatt, what are you trying to say?" She tries to sound strong, but it comes out as pleading.

"I want to come home to my best friend," he confesses with baited breath. "In any way that she'll have me." The breath that had been caught escapes in a rush. She wishes she had the option to press pause on all of this, to dwell on the words and what the could mean, the way she does with books. But it's here and it's now, and the look in his eyes calls into her for an answer.

"In any way?" She clarifies.

"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…" His thumb glances her cheek. "If there's a possibility of us of… of Logan and Preston… then you know what I would prefer." For a moment her eyes close and she dreams. Dreams of firelight and blurred eyes. Where his nose is brushing against her and he's leaning in… but then she feels it. The finger directly beneath her chin, his trigger finger… it's twitching, and she wakes up. Everything, he's putting everything out there, and he doesn't think he can actually win.

It's real. It's not Hollywood. It's real, and it's him, and there's too much on the line, and she can't.

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

A single sigh speaks long speeches of regret and his head lightly fall against the wooden slat behind him. Her own regret sparks in her heart. She shouldn't have been so selfish to let herself remember the rush, hang it in front of him, then yank it away.

"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?" She takes a second to let the weight of his words wash over her, wondering if it could really be true. Whether it is or not, if she's certain of anything it is that she cannot lose the man standing in front of her.

"Of course," she tells him. "You're my best friend too, Wyatt; I can't lose that." He nods with pursed lips, but his gaze falls to the ground.

"Will I see you again before you leave?" She asks, hoping that he'll say yes, that they won't leave things like this.

"I don't think so, Lucy," he confesses. "I need some… personal time before I ship out." She shouldn't feel so disappointed by the words. Personal time. Isn't that what she's been asking from him for months? The least she can do is give it back to him now.

If only she were better at being selfish.

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

"On that note." His laugh is about as fake as the smile he plastered on. "About time we got off Denise and Michelle's porch, don't ya think?" She can't move just yet. She's so wrapped up in the words he shared, in the fact that after this he's going to walk away only to be shipped off to some godforsaken country, in the part of her that wants to fling herself back into his strong embrace because it's him. It's only ever going to be him. But she can't… so she just follows him down the steps in silence.

"Come back in one piece?" It's the only thing she can think to say, but it carries her greatest fear with it.

"I'll do my best." She appreciates him not promising anything. Neither of them know if he can do just that, but they take the hope that they can.

There's a moment where she feels pull, a tug, like a rope is urging her to jump into his arms as she would have done so long ago, but she knows if she gives in now then there would be no going back. Not for her. So she turns and she begins to walk away.

"Hey, Lucy?" He calls after her , and she physically jumps, keeping her hand locked in a death grip around her door handle. "That last hand… uh, why did you fold?" She's taken aback by the slight accusation behind the question. How could he have known?

"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's shocked, but tries to appear as oblivious as possible. He can't know why.

"What's my tell, then, Wyatt?" She shoots back, her fear making her defensive. He can't know.

"You… you tap out SOS in Morse code with your pinky finger," he answers, gesturing towards her right hand. She feels her eyes go wide.

"How'd you know?" He can't.

"Because I know you, Lucy," he laughs like it's the most obvious thing. "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 blatantly lies. "Straight flush. Still could've been beat."

"Yeah, but the odds were—"

"Good odds have never been enough for me, Wyatt." She snaps. Her patience is overtaken by her fear. He knows her. He's seen through her. "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." Even in the moment where every odd is for her, she is not going to allow the chance for heartbreak again. Another break and she will shatter, another break and she will never be able to piece herself back together.

He's stood frozen at her outburst for too long. If he gets another chance to speak, who knows what will happen. She has to get out. She runs.

She's in the car, driving away before she allows herself to remember… remember a night too long ago where Amy taught her how to play the game and made her promise something too big for either of them to understand.


"My gosh, Lucy, you're so obvious when you lie, you're not going to last a single hand," Amy sighs. "You don't have one tell, you have like seven. You bite your lip, twirl your hair, blink a lot, even sweat, like damn, Lucy, is it that hard for you to lie?" Lucy isn't quite sure how should respond to her 20-year-old sister criticizing her inability to lie, but she just shrugs.

"I don't like lying," she responds, leaning her head onto her hand.

"Yeah, I'm aware," Amy laughs. "You don't like anything fun." Lucy is about to argue that, yes, she does, in fact. It's just that her idea of fun and Amy's differ greatly, but she keeps it to herself. It's pretty useless arguing with her spitfire sister.

"Okay since you have so many natural tells, let's try giving you a new on to focus your nervous lying energy on, m'kay?" She knows that Amy is going to make her regardless of if she protests, so she plays along.

"Alright, so what'll it be?" Amy mirrors her pose with one hand holding up her head and analyzes her older sister, twitching her lips from side to side as she does, and then Lucy sees a light bulb go off.

"Okay, I got it," she laughs. "You're going to love this one, right up your alley." Lucy is a little nervous as to what Amy qualifies as "right up her alley," but she goes with it. "So anytime you're bluffing and you start to panic I want you to signal me," Amy tells her, but that doesn't really give Lucy any indication on what the physical tell is.

"Signal you how?" Lucy asks, over exaggerating her enthusiasm, earning a mock glare from Amy.

"What I want you to do is tap out SOS," she explains. "In Morse Code. With your pinky." The two girls had learned Morse code as kids to communicate around their parents, so it made sense for them to utilize it now. "Keep it real subtle, and keep with the lip biting so it gives them something else to look at, although I doubt you could stop with the lip biting if you tried." That earns Amy a playful punch to the arm. "Do all of that and you'll be golden. Think you can manage that?" She tries it a couple times and finds it fairly simple, especially for her smaller hands.

"Yeah I think I got it," she grins. "But what if someone catches on?" Amy just laughs.

"If a girl catches onto this, then you make her your best friend because that means there is someone just as nerdy as you, but if you find you a man that catches on…" Amy's smile gets a bit bigger. "You marry that boy because that's soul mate kinda shit right there."

Lucy laughs out loud at that.

"I don't think you have to worry about soul mates for me, Ames. I'm not exactly what every guy dreams of." Amy just shrugs and sits back in her chair.

"One day, Luce, mark my words. You'll find him. He's gonna be something you never expected. He's not going to be a professor or a historian or anything like that, but he's going to know you better than anyone like that ever could, and when that day come, do me a favor would you?"

"What?" Lucy asks, ready to promise whatever to her sister in terms of love because she's not foolish enough to believe it could happen to her anyway.

"When it happens…" she begins. "Don't run away like you always do. Run towards it. Forget mom and responsibilities and reason, and just run towards him. I'm tired of seeing you give up on what could have been great."


Lucy doesn't realize the tears falling down her cheeks until her blurred vision almost causes her to run a red light. She wipes them from her face and glances towards her hand, the red of the stop light reflecting in the moisture.

"That wasn't it, Amy," she whispers to the vacant passenger seat. "Soul mates were always for you, not for me."

The light shifts to green and she makes her way through the street, steeling herself against the gaping vacancy she feels in her heart, in her car, in the world around her.

Her heart is something she will never risk again. Not for Wyatt Logan. Not for anyone.