Next chapter is here! As always thank you so much for your reviews and comments and support!
War is hell.
It's hot and disgusting and dangerous and bloody and everything most humans spend their lives running away from while the rest, a small group of certifiably insane people, himself included, run straight towards it.
It's hell, yet… for him it used to be the time of his life. Being with his brothers, blowing shit up, stopping the bad guys, it was everything he'd dreamed of since his days as a rebel teen in West Texas. Then Syria happened… and the illusion shattered. People die. Friends, comrades, brothers all die. You won't be lucky enough to perish with them. They might even die because of you. Then Jessica happened…. and all sense of purpose was locked away with her lifeless body in the coroner's office and lowered into the ground a week later. She died because of him. Then Mason Industries happened. And another dream took place. A new team, a new family of two completely inexperienced civilians was dropped into his lap, placed into his protection. There had been presidents and spies and rockets and betrayals and moon landings and hooch and serial killers and shadow governments and somewhere in there… he fell in love. Lucy was everything he never thought he needed in a partner. She was bossy, cautious, outspoken, stubborn, and acted like she knew it all (which he knows now it's not that far fetched of an assumption). Then the Alamo happened... it hadn't hit him until much later that night when he was sitting alone in his apartment, watching an old western. He must've been too caught up in the adrenaline of near death, but when he realizes it, he nearly chokes on his whiskey.
Lucy's the only person who's ever been able to draw him out of a flashback. If Jessica had ever tried to touch him, she became part of the spell, and he would physically recoil from her. The look of hurt he saw the first time it happened sent him to PTSD counseling the next week, but she never tried to interfere with him during those moments again.
But Lucy, her touch and her voice, even in the midst of an entirely different level of hell, brought him back, calmed him, and her refusal to abandon him to die created a spark in him. Not love, not yet, but a desire. A desire for love, for the ability to heal and move forward. A desire to be a better man for her.
Then Rittenhouse happened.
They stole her, they tortured her, they brought Jessica back, they tried to wreck everything he and Lucy had created, and up until now they've succeeded.
War is hell.
And he didn't realize until now that it's even worse when you feel like you have nothing to lose.
The months drag by. Five down. One to go. Missions are successful. It almost feels like it used to. He can keep distracted with the work to be done, he laughs with his boys in their leisure time, but when they offer to play poker, he politely but adamantly declines, making up some bullshit excuse about trying to quit gambling.
If only.
"You alright there, Logan?" One of his oldest Delta friends, "Old man" as he had been called since boot camp as he was the oldest out of their group by 3 years, comes up behind him, a heavy hand falling to his shoulder. "Seem a little off there, brother."
"Oh yeah, man, I'm doin' fine," he lies, quickly wracking his brain for a change of subject as he takes a seat across from him. "How are Angela and the girls? I haven't gotten the chance to ask you since I came back."
"Back from the four year super secret mission in the incredibly suburban Palo Alto that had everyone thinking you were dead?" He eyes Wyatt inquisitively. Old Man isn't the first to probe him with question about what he's been up to the past few years, but he always just shrugs it off, knowing that the possible consequences for spilling such confidential information far outweighed anything he'd gain from it. "Alright, you keep your secrets," he laughs before reaching around to grab something from his bunk. "As for Angela and the girls, they're doing amazing as ever. Angela's bakery is gaining some real notice around LA. It's been her dream since we met in college, and I can't wait til I get to be back with her, supporting her in every way I can. I mean, not to brag but I do have some mad skills with cupcakes." Wyatt cracks a laugh at that, trying to imagine the giant that is Old Man with an apron on in a small little kitchen, frosting cupcakes, but he can't be a twinge envious about the way he gets to talk about his wife.
A lot of the men in his unit have been married, but almost everyone has ended with a nasty divorce, child custody battles, and a loneliness that lead to a lifestyle Wyatt isn't too proud to say he partook in for a while, but Old Man and Angela had gotten married right before his first deployment some 12 years ago, and, as far as Wyatt knew, the two are as happy now as they had been back then.
War might have been hell for them, but they left behind a different kind of hell for the ones they loved. It's why so many attempts at wedded bliss failed. Not getting consumed and torn apart by the lonely nights and constant worry took a different kind of partner than was readily available. It's why he and Jessica fell apart, and if he's being completely honest with himself, it's why he knew they had been doomed from the beginning. Jessica was strong, stubborn, independent, but she also never understood what would come with the life they signed up for in high school. She couldn't deal with the secrets and rushed exits, the exhaustion from missed holiday and ever present fear. This life had never been for her.
"And the girls, they're growing so fast, man," he continues, showing him the picture he'd pulled from his pack. Angela sit's with her arms wrapped around their two girls, all three beaming for the camera. Missing teeth, and pigtails, and a literal white fence scream of a domesticity Wyatt doubts he'll ever experience. "Bri starts third grade this fall and Lizzy starts first." He leans back and runs a hand across his mouth. "It's the first time in my life I've really felt like the Old Man," he laughs. "But I'm just praying that we're back home in time for me to see it all." Wyatt just purses his lips and nods. They never offer each other false hope or guarantees. It's the lack of guarantees that makes them the most effective soldiers. Fight each fight like it's your last, and you might just make it out.
"What about you, Logan?" Wyatt lifts his eyes to meet Old Man's, shrugging like he doesn't understand what he's asking.
"What about me?"
"I know the divorce with Jessica must have been tough, but we'd talked more than once about how that love you both had was gone long before the papers were signed." You have no idea, man. "And it's been well over a year now. Anyone new come into your life?" Well that's a loaded question if he'd ever heard one.
"It's complicated," he laughs, running a nervous hand through his increasingly lengthy hair.
"Hey, you don't have to say a word of it if you don't want to," Old Man explains, holding his hands up in surrender. "You're like a kid brother to me, Logan. Always have been. I just want the best for you." They remain there for a beat, soaking in the rare, truly heartfelt moment before Old Man slaps him on the knee as he stands up. "Well I gotta get back to it. Trigger bet me fifty dollars and his stash of cigars that my old ass couldn't kick his in Super Smash Brothers which apparently he thinks is the only game I have knowledge of, you know… cause I'm so old." They share a hearty laugh at that, but before Old Man takes his last exit, he pauses.
"She looks like a good one," he smiles cheekily as if he knows something he shouldn't.
"Who does?" Wyatt asks, unsure as to what he means.
"The brunette in the picture you keep beside your bunk. If it's her, I'd say it looks like a pretty damn good match." Wyatt's too stunned to reply. He doesn't exactly hide the photo, but he never guessed one of his buddies could've picked up on his connection to Lucy through that alone. He leans over and picks it up, eyeing it with great care. It's a pretty cheesy picture all things considered. It was from his last poker night before he shipped out, Rufus had insisted on a group selfie to commemorate it. He's wearing his typical, wide-mouthed, goofy smile beside Jiya who's smiling just as big and just a goofy. Match made in Heaven those two, he thinks. Denise is looking down as she shuffles the cards, a loving smirk still visible though, Connor is eyeing the camera with a hint of skepticism, and he's in the back of the picture. A smile present, but his attention not on the camera. It's all on Lucy, sitting beside him her mouth open mid-laugh.
"Guys," Rufus grabs all their attention. "Get ready to smile. Gotta document our last poker night with Wyatt before he's off to save the world in the present for once." He scoffs at his friend's remark.
"What's that for?" Lucy asks, her smile bright and directed solely towards him. He isn't sure how to take six months without her.
"Youth these days with their selfies and Snapchats and all that," he elaborates with a grin, and when her smile bursts out into a laugh is when Rufus snaps the picture.
"Youth?" She asks between laughs. "Okay, grandpa. Get to your seat so I can kick your ass in poker tonight."
Feeling a tug too strong to resist, he picks up his phone and dials.
"Yello?" Just the voice brings the longing for home in full force.
"Hey, Rufus," he greets. "It's me."
"Wyatt?! Jiya, it's Wyatt!" He can hear the distant shriek some few thousand miles away.
"Well put him on speaker!" He hears her demand.
"Oh duh. Can you hear both of us now, man?"
"Yeah. Yeah I can," he laughs. "How are things back at the home front?"
"Pretty good. Nothing too exciting," Rufus shares. "Mason's working on some new deals with Lockman that's had us working off our asses, but it's all good things for him and for us. With what he's paying us now, we're looking at getting a house in the fall."
"And a dog!" Jiya adds.
"Yes and a dog," Rufus laughs. "But what about you, man? How's wherever the hell you are?"
"Hot," Wyatt scoffs. "Dry. Too many alpha males in a single living space. Not enough pilots or historians or psychics." He says it as a joke, but the words are heavy with the truth he never thought he would have to face. "Other than that I can't say much else."
"I've got some pretty high clearance after all the time-traveling, taking down of secret societies shit." He jokingly insists, but when the pause hovers too long, he answers the question Wyatt can't bring himself to ask.
"I'm sure there's some reason you're not outright asking, but Lucy's doing fine. From what we see of her, she's mostly just getting through day to day. Although, she's been a little off since you left. Always checking her phone, getting jumpy when Michelle has the news on and they talk about anything related to military operations. I don't know if she's trying to be discrete about it or not, but she's worried." He feels the usual twinge of guilt at Rufus' words. Even when he was with Jessica, any reminder of how their absence from home affects their loved ones leads to a storm of conflict. "I mean that's how it was last time we saw her. She hasn't been at poker night the past few weeks." And with the one admission, Wyatt's mind is going over every possibility of what it could mean, if she's okay, if she's better, if she's found something that makes her happy. Or someone, another voice taunts, but he's not having it. If she's happy, then that's all he needs to know.
"Have you called her?" Jiya asks softly. "I think she'd love to hear from you." He doesn't know what his friends know of his and Lucy's final interaction, what she's disclosed to them, but it's the last thing either of them need, he believes, to force themselves through the small talk they've been reduced to. What the hell would he say to her otherwise? As much as he longs to be washed in the feelings of warmth and home that her voice brings, he could never bring himself to put her through that. She needs her space, she made that very clear, and he would be damned if he didn't give it to her this time.
"We… uh… we're giving each other some space," he admits. "Our last goodbye wasn't exactly picture perfect, and she made some things pretty evident." They don't respond right away but he knows the couple well enough he can almost see the scene played out, meeting eyes and speaking through them like cans linked by a string.
"I know it's been a rough go at it for you two, Wyatt, but she…" He holds his breath in anticipation for what his friend's next words will be. "Just… think about calling her, okay?"
"Is there something you're not telling me?" There's an air of intentional vagueness that just rubs him the wrong way. There's another stretch of silence.
"It's just… it feels like she's running away. Like I said she hasn't been coming to poker night, she's been cancelling on drinks, turning us down when we invite her over. She says it's because her job has her slammed, but we're worried about her." He feels nauseous, and he can't stop the guilt from churning his already guilt-stricken heart. It was him. He should've just said his good-bye that night, never burdened her with the weight of his truth.
"Hey, guys, I'm sorry, but I've gotta go," he lies, fearing just what he'll learn if they continue down this path.
"Oh, okay," Rufus sighs, sounding disappointed in him. He can't help but feel a little of that shame himself, but what Rufus doesn't understand is that it was all him. All his doing that Lucy's like this, and hearing from him would only increase the hurt.
"Try and stay safe," Jiya insists.
"I'll try."
"And, Wyatt," Rufus puts off ending the call for one more moment. "I know you're busy saving the world and all that, but just… if you get the chance… call her, okay?"
"Yeah, man," he states. "I will." The line goes dead.
The last month passes as slowly as the past five combined. He never finds it in him to pick up the phone again. He craves the sound of her voice so much that his appetite for much of anything else diminishes. He eats enough to stay strong for the last few missions. He executes them flawlessly. The thrill is almost enough to curb his longing to be home.
He doesn't call.
There's a part of him that's convinced all this ache she's experiencing is from a the words he placed on her, the ones she never asked for, and the only thing that will free her from them is the distance she adamantly asked for. He was never one to deny her anything, and that doesn't change now.
A breath of relief fills the air as they touch down at Pendleton. They all hold it on the way in, knowing that if they breathe too soon, they could jinx it all, bring the plane crashing down 10 miles from the California coast. It's stupid, but none of them have ever dared risking it. Not when they're so close to surviving just one more deployment.
But even after touching down on the airfield, saying his goodbyes, and hopping into his car, he can't find the ease to breathe.
He's driving the hundreds of miles back to a house that's empty. Alone.
And just like that he's wishing he were back in the fire of war.
Contentment isn't for the lonely. Not when you're heart is so irrevocably in the grasp of someone who no longer wants it.
But content is what he'll be. For his own sanity it's what he has to be. He's fallen down the well of self-pity and despair before and what you don't realize before you tip yourself backwards is that that particular well has no bottom, no water to drown you, no ground to crush you. No, you just fall and the further you fall the more desperately you wish for the end. But in this place, if you want an end you have to make it yourself.
It's how he ended up with a the taste of steel on his tongue on the anniversary of Jessica's death and the night after that and the night father that, the bottom of the well in sight.
But he never could do it.
And he didn't know why until a waiting room in Mason Industries.
He's stronger than that man, the one driven mad by grief. He's stronger because of her. He's alive today because of her. No matter where they end up, he'll never let that be for nothing.
Returning to a dark home after a deployment is one of the most terrifying moments of reintegration into normal life. Shadows, masked corners, they're all made for hiding the ones who want to see your life gone in an instant.
He understands all too well why most children are afraid of the dark.
So he enters the apartment with caution, listening intently for every noise, every creek of the floor below him and ceiling above him, every car driving by outside, every dog barking, ready for a fight that his brain tells him should have been left in a country too far for ghosts to follow.
"Why didn't you call?" He has his gun drawn and pointed in less than a second, but it's target shocks more adrenaline into him than any single enemy he faced in combat over the past six months. "Whoa there, soldier." Lucy is there, on his couch, holding her hands up in surrender. "Nothing too threatening here. Just a historian." He hesitates bringing his weapon down, not knowing if this is some cruel trick his mind is playing on him, but the thought of having her in the line of fire, even from his controlled hand, finds his gun tucked away in its holster just as quick as he had drawn it.
"I think you underestimate your ability to intimidate, professor," he throws back, not taking a single step. "You nearly scared the shit outta me. A soldier fresh off deployment is about as likely to blow up at the slightest pressure as land mine." He sees a flash of guilt strike her face, but she quickly shakes it off, squaring her shoulders a little more.
"Why didn't you call?" She asks again, a little more firmly this time. "Six months without a word. Why?" Now that he can fully register her question without the immediate threat of intrusion pouncing onto his nerves, he feels her words cut at his already anxious heart.
"I didn't think you wanted me to," he admits with a breath caught in his lungs, carefully waiting for her response. She just sighs, adjusting her position of his couch, wiping at her arms like his words are a blanket on her and it's just too warm.
"I didn't think I wanted you too either," she confesses, not meeting his eyes. "But then I… I don't even know when it started but one day I had one of my students ask why I was checking my phone so often. It just never occurred to me until then that I was, but she was right. I must have been checking it every fifteen minutes, and that was when I was in the middle of teaching. If I was anywhere else it was every five minutes. For six months I slept with the ringer on full volume and right beside me where I would wake up to it regardless of the hour. I could never sit still when I was home alone. I'm honestly surprised there's any carpet left in my apartment at all. You were always on my mind. Hell, Wyatt, I tried going on dates, but I just… I couldn't do it. And then a few weeks ago there was just this moment where…" she takes a deep breath and then just sits back into herself, vaguely gesturing around her. "So here I am."
Of every scenario Wyatt imagined coming home to, he never dreamed this would be it, but her words shock him, sending lightning through his nerves and straight to his brain, short-circuiting any response he had locked and loaded, so he fires blind.
"How'd you get in?"
Lucy looks a little shocked that that's his response to her roundabout confession, but after a moment she offers a shy smile and pulls something from her back pocket, holding it up for him to see.
A paper clip, bent out of shape.
"You… picked my lock… with a paperclip?" He asks incredulously, and she just shrugs.
"Learned from the best." It's one of those moments where the breath rushes from his lungs, but instead of being voluntary, it feels like her words just reach in and steal it, leaving him gasping. He never thought a paper clip would elicit such a response, but it's her and it's here and she picked his lock just to be waiting when he comes home. He's hoping like hell for this to be what he's been longing for. That she's ready for him, for them.
"I—I have an alarm and everything." He feels like he should forget all these questions about how she got in because she's here, teary-eyed on his couch, but it's all he has the courage to ask. If he asks her why, he's afraid of what she'll say. He's afraid it's going to be a good-bye, a last moment of trying to explain why she can't forget the pain. He couldn't live through any final good-bye with her.
There isn't a world, a timeline, a life he can live in now where Lucy Preston isn't a part of it.
"Yeah," she chuckles, pushing some hair behind her ear. "I had to have a little help with that." She sniffs to hold back the tears so desperate to flee. He wonders if she allowed herself to feel even half of the anguish he experienced during their time apart. He hates seeing her cry. He hates even more being the cause behind it. Her life had been one nightmare after another, and if she'll allow him now, he'll fight to make sure she never has to live another one again. Dreams only from now on.
"But when Jiya cracked it, I realized I should have known it all along." She looks into her lap, a smile forcing its way through the tears. "1-9-4-1, Wyatt? Hollywood? I figured it would always be a little too bittersweet for us." He's having flashbacks to the night on the porch, wondering if he moves towards her, if the bubble will burst and she'll run, but the tears are falling a little harder now, and in no world would he leave her to cry alone.
"Lucy—" he takes a step forward, but she's beaten him to it. Her arms are around his neck, her face buried deep in the crook of his neck her tears carving into him, creating canyons in the skin, trying to convey the gaping hole their separation had left on her heart.
"Can we just…" Her voice is thick with feelings gone too long unexpressed. "Skip the words for right now? Please, Wyatt, I was so afraid I'd never see you again, that I would never get the second chance, that I would have to live with the last words I said to you not being about how much I love you, and I just…" Her body shudders against him.
"Sh, sweetheart," he whispers, only then realizing his own tears falling into her dark hair. "We can skip all the words for now. I promise. No more running. No more regrets. I'm home. I'm here. What I told you all those nights ago is still as true today as it was then. I love you so damn much, Lucy Preston, and if it's okay with you I'd like to never have to suffer through another day without you again." He feels her shudder against him again, but it takes a moment to realize she's laughing.
"That sounds pretty good to me," she beams, pulling back from his embrace to look him in the eyes. "I love you, Wyatt." She wipes at the tears on his cheeks, but so long as they fall due to this blissful relief at being again in one another's arms, he doesn't mind them. His heart is too full to mind much of anything other than her.
He slides his hand from behind her head to under her chin, tilting it up slowly, silently asking again if this is okay, if this is really what she wants, and this time she doesn't turn away.
In that moment of her lips against his, he wonders if he's truly been breathing since the last time they did this. Because despite the lack of oxygen he's currently taking in, his chest feels full. Like that one night in Hollywood had taken his need for air and replaced it with a need for her. It's not surprising, he's known for longer than she realizes that he cannot live without her.
In a kiss that's been put on hold for two years too long, there's no rush. It's so slow and soft that he doesn't realize he's opened his mouth up to her until her tongue is sliding across his, sending shocks of exhilaration into his core and drawing her even closer to him. He would wonder how they fit so seamlessly if he didn't already understand that they are it. They're not lightning strikes or whirlwind romances because those are all too fleeting, too come and go. A brilliant bright light that blinds the senses and hides what's broken. It burns. It destroys. But it's made so that you can't look away.
What this is… there isn't a comparison worthy of what he feels for her and what he desperately prays she feels in return. He can't hide anything from her. He's never wanted to. Because she heals him. She fixes him. She knows what's broken before a word can escapes his lips. She has him pieced back together before he knew there was a part of him missing. Even from the first mission, they had an understanding. They fought, they argued, but they always understood. With whispered looks, with gasping touches, and and he's never wondered when it happened because he doesn't know. Part of him feels like he's always loved her, like they've loved across 1000 lifetimes back to the first sunrise when the earth was new. She's in his blood, his breath, his heart, and finally, finally, in his arms. Their souls are a tangled mess now, unable to be separated. He hears it in the way her body folds into his, a silent whisper that wraps around them, binding them together.
Yes.
She relinquishes her hold on his mouth, sighing contentedly, her nose finding a home again in the crook of his neck, and her hands linked behind his back.
"Couldn't have told me all that six months ago?" He teases, and she just rolls her eyes.
"You're lucky you're getting them now," she laughs and it's light and carefree first the first time in so long, and it brings a powerful light from her eyes that jump starts his heart. "Now there's something I need from you that I've been deprived of for over 75 years." With a few simple words she turns the light to heat, starting a fire that knows only one way of being put out. "We have a lot of missed time to make up for."
And now we can all breathe a sigh of relief! Happy Lyatt=Happy ship. One more chapter and then an epilogue! Stay tuned and shoot me a review while you wait ;)
