#preston gets flashbacks to when carol left

[starcrossedconverse]

Barttim break up, and Bart has a tendency to kinda shut down. To cheer him up, Kon is like! Let's chill and listen to music! but Kon made a fatal mistake. He didn't check the playlist beforehand, and now Barts staring dead eyed to the wall, and isn't moving because sk8er boi came on

[qqueenofhades]

the trash saga of flynn and lucy: xii

one of these days i should come up with an actual summary for this, but you know it anyway: smut, pain, more smut, the abrupt appearance of a plot, more pain, and general bad choices. the trash saga of flynn and lucy or ao3, for your convenience.

“I think it’s been too long,” Wyatt says tersely, shifting his weight and looking up the road. “If she was just scoping things out, she should be back by now. Something’s wrong.”

It’s clear that Flynn isn’t going to need much convincing on this front, as his gaze has been fixed on the mansion like a heat-seeking missile for at least the past ten minutes. It’s only the presence of Lucy in their midst that has prevented him from plunging in and fucking up all the available percentage of Rittenhouse’s shit and then some, but it’s also clear that this isn’t going to constrain him for much longer. “I told her. Her mother’s one of them.”

“How would you even know that?” Wyatt says, but clearly more as an old reflex, his general impulse to fight with Flynn, rather than actual disagreement. His brow is creased. Neither of them are doing well with the idea of leaving Lucy by herself much longer, even if they’ll be in much more danger there than she will. “It could still be an accident. Somehow.”

Flynn makes a scathing noise in his throat. When it comes to those bastards, he does not believe in accidents.

Both of them manage to wait about thirty more seconds before Wyatt loses all ability or pretense of chill whatsoever. “Right. I’m going in. You with me or what?”

He figures he doesn’t actually have to ask that question, as while Flynn still may not exactly be his sworn brother-in-arms, they are what the other has, and Lucy is something that at least they can both prioritize. Flynn beckons Wyatt with a jerk of his head, and they proceed surreptitiously up the muddy road, doing their best to look like they’re simply late for the meeting. They merge in among the continued stream of arrivals, which by now has mostly slowed to a trickle, and head up the steps, until the doorman stops them. “Names?”

“Dr. Jekyll,” Wyatt says, not missing a beat. He jerks a thumb at Flynn. “He’s Mr. Hyde.”

Flynn bores daggers into him with his stare, but this answer evidently impresses (or at least confuses) the gatekeeper sufficiently to allow them to sidle on past. They step into the foyer, glancing from side to side, wound to the point of total explosion if anyone comes out or confronts them, but all they can hear is murmurs from behind closed doors. Rittenhouse does not appear to notice that two of its mortal enemies have just strolled in, which is either a very good thing or a very bad one. Wyatt has that cold shiver on the back of his neck that every soldier remotely worth their salt has to pay attention to. That sense that something is not right, is in fact very wrong, and if you don’t figure it out fast, it might just be the last thing you’ll ever do.

He exchanges a look with Flynn, and both of them draw their guns, advancing down the hall in recon stance, toward the half-open door at the back. It looks as if it leads into a parlor or a sitting room, and there is a flicker of movement from the other side. Wyatt takes the lead, thinking of clearing supposedly derelict buildings in Afghanistan, when there were IEDs or tripwires or other traps hidden in there, after something was dangled to lure the guys in. Some of those, they recognized in time and bailed accordingly. Some of those, they didn’t.

He shakes his head, fighting away the momentary flashback, and checks that Flynn still has his back. He does, so Wyatt doesn’t see anything for it. There’s not really any point in doing this the diplomatic way, so he takes a few quick steps and kicks the door open.

Inside, three women whirl to face them. The first is definitely Lucy, which Wyatt has half a second to feel relieved about before he registers that the expression on her face is one of aghast and frozen horror, as if she would have given anything for them not to have just walked in right now, and now that they have, the actual trap is about to blow. He doesn’t know why. The second woman is a faintly familiar-looking older blonde, and the third –

She’s likewise familiar, though Wyatt has absolutely no notion why. His first impression is that she’s tall – remarkably so, at least six feet – with sleek dark hair and high cheekbones. Young, probably early twenties. Unless she’s Black Widow, she doesn’t look like the most dangerous Rittenhouse operative in existence, especially in long skirts. But she’s standing with her arms folded and an exquisite eyebrow raised, a faint, mirthless smile playing at her lips. Flynn and Wyatt skid to a halt, realizing that this isn’t exactly an open-firefight situation, but not lowering their guns just in case. Lucy’s still looking at them as if this is her worst nightmare. And then, the dark-haired woman turns around and smiles.

“Well,” she says. “Hello, Daddy.”

For a long, impossible moment, these words simply hang in the air without registering, without making any sense to anyone. Then they start to percolate, and Wyatt blanches. Starts to get what he thinks she said – but it can’t be true, it can’t be possible. According to Lucy, they lost her, fifteen years ago in 1814. This can’t be – but yes – but it –

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Wyatt’s reaction, however, is nothing compared to Flynn’s. For a brief, magical moment, the only emotion that lights his face is pure, impossible, radiant joy. He stares at her – at his daughter, grown up and strong and beautiful, given the life she never got the chance to have, to realize her full and formidable potential. All he can see is her, all he knows is that she’s alive and safe and standing in front of him, warm and real and breathing on her own. It’s probably the last thing that will pass through his mind when he dies. Inadvertently, he reaches for her. “Ir – Iris?”

She makes no move to take his hand. Continues to smile, but instead of soft and shy, it’s harder, colder, curdled. “Oh yes,” she says. “It’s me.”

Wyatt has a bad feeling about this. Has a very bad feeling about this. As well-attested, he is not Garcia Flynn’s biggest fan, but this is about to turn too cruel too fast, and Wyatt’s not a sadist, doesn’t enjoy or feel vindicated or thrilled by watching a man be crushed to dust in front of his eyes. “Hey,” he starts. “Why don’t we just – ”

Nobody pays him any attention whatsoever. Iris and Flynn’s eyes are locked on each other. Her lips are still drawn over her teeth, but there’s nothing remotely smile-like about her expression any more. “Surprised to see me?” she goes on. “After you left me?”

Flynn’s mouth opens and shuts. Nothing comes out.

“After you failed me?” Iris starts to circle him, sizing him up, as if to see once and for all that the giant in her mind is nothing more than a crumpled, shattered mortal man. “Left me behind? Betrayed my mother with her?” She throws a scathing look at Lucy. “I must not have actually mattered that much to you, did I? Just as long as you could go on your mad rampage and burn down everything in your way? You failed me, Daddy. You failed me. You let the monsters come, and you stood back and let them eat me. And you know who saved me? You know who didn’t fail me? Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse saved me. I owe everything to them, and you wouldn’t even leave me that, would you? No, you still want to tear them down.”

Flynn’s face is dead white, his eyes two pitted chasms. The silence is absolutely murderous as Iris considers him, angling for her next point of attack. She’s almost leisurely about it, with that same sort of intense and calculated rage as her father, the violent and single-minded and deep-burning desire for revenge, and the knowledge of how to exact it for maximum  pain. Yeah, Wyatt thinks dazedly, she’s Flynn’s daughter, all right. She’s just like him. Except she’s on the diametrically opposite side of the conflict, standing here and pledging allegiance to the organization that destroyed their family in the first place, that Flynn has dedicated his life and then some to taking down. Wyatt’s honestly not sure how the man is still standing upright. If this was him, if he was facing Jessica stabbing him like this, twisting the knives, telling him with this cool, brutal, and uncompromising hatred how he failed her, his spine would be snapped. He’d be on his knees. He’d be on the floor. He’d be through it.

“So,” Iris says at last, when nobody else in the room moves to interrupt. There’s no way they could. “Now you get to see how this ends, Daddy. You know, of course, that we can’t permit you to continue on your destructive little odyssey. And they’re not particularly interested in keeping you in a jail cell for the rest of your life. But we will do this properly – and for that matter, fittingly.” She glances sidelong at the older blonde woman. “Yes?”

“Take his gun.” The woman – Jesus, Jesus fuck, is that – Jesus, it is. Carol Preston, Lucy’s mother. The one she was so grateful to have back, alive, healthy, even as it warred with her shock and disbelief over losing her sister. Wyatt looks at Lucy, and sees the same expression on her face as on Flynn’s, the same stunned, numb, disbelieving heartsickness. “Make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble. Emma will be by soon to pick him up.”

Iris moves forward briskly, plucks the gun out of Flynn’s unresisting hand, and pulls a pair of modern handcuffs out of her silk pocket. She puts him into them, to which Flynn likewise offers no struggle. Wyatt raises his own gun convulsively – even knowing he can’t shoot her, and also can’t shoot Lucy’s mother – and Lucy screams, “DON’T!”

Wyatt jerks it down, even as Lucy’s paralysis breaks. She lurches forward, grabbing her mother’s hand. “Don’t. Mom, don’t. If you – if you loved me at all, if anything you ever told me was real, if this – ” She stops, gulping vainly for air. “Mom, please, please, don’t do this.”

Carol Preston looks at her daughter pityingly. “Lucy, honey. I’m doing this exactly because I love you. You know who this man is, what he’s done, what he’s trying to do even now. What he did to you. He erased you.”

“He did not do that to me!” Lucy’s voice is almost a scream, fists clenching. “Rittenhouse did it to me! And you – you’ve been lying to me my entire life!”

“I wanted you to know, when you were old enough. The same way I meant to tell you about your father. When you’d understand, when you’d be ready to join us. I am so proud of you. I always have been. But when you take your rightful place at John’s side and become the greatest and strongest of all of us, Lucy, see – ”

“No.” Lucy’s voice is a whisper, silent tears starting to track down her cheeks. “No, you can’t do this. Iris – Iris, please. Listen to me. Before, what happened, when I – ”

“If you didn’t want me to join Rittenhouse, perhaps you shouldn’t have abandoned me to them.” Iris cinches the cuffs tight and forces Flynn to his knees. It doesn’t take much forcing. “And you don’t get to tell me to do anything, you know. Not after you wanted me out of the way so you could carry on your little affair with my father, without having me as a distraction and a burden. At least he meant me well, once. You never did. Homewrecker.”

Lucy opens her mouth as if to gasp, but can’t even get that far, as her mother’s elegant brow furrows. “Oh dear. Lucy, is that true? Have you – well, you know. With him? That is unfortunate. Not irreparable, but still unfortunate.”

Wyatt can actually feel himself about to defend Lucy’s right to sleep with Flynn if she damn well pleases, in a mark of how terribly and blackly perverse this whole situation is. Neither of them, for that matter, appear to have anything to say themselves. The ensuing silence is the most hideous, choking, clinging thing that anyone has ever heard or felt or tasted. Then the door swings open, and Emma Whitmore strides through.

Everyone snaps to attention, Wyatt snapping his gun up in something close to relief of having a target that he can actually shoot, even as he knows that if he does, all of them are dead too. Flynn jerks, as after all, Emma shot him a few days ago, and she’s clearly prepared to do a lot worse. She regards Iris coolly, up and down, and raises an eyebrow. “Well,” she says. “You look different, for sure.”

“You fucking bitch.” Flynn speaks at last, in something close to an actual snarl. “You – ”

Emma grins icily. “What? Outsmarted you? Is that what’s bothering you the most? You would have killed me as soon as we were done anyway, I’m just serving you a dose of your own medicine. How many times did I manage to hit you, by the way? I thought it was at least twice. You should be looking worse. Then again, it’s going to be much more fun to kill you like this.”

“Where are you taking him?” Lucy bursts out, in wild panic. “When?”

“That’s not really your business, is it?” At a look from Flynn that suggests he’s thinking about getting to his feet and charging her, Emma glances at Iris, who gracefully interposes herself between them. “We have the Mothership now, after all, and we’ve put a lot of thought into selecting the most appropriate venue for his trial. We’ll be transporting the org there to watch. It’s only high-ranking Rittenhouse that get to go, and after all, you’re not, are you?”

With that, she and Iris haul Flynn to his feet, one at each elbow, as Lucy lets out a sound as if she’s been stabbed. “Stop,” she says desperately. “Stop, I’ll – I’ll – ”

“You’ll what? Join Rittenhouse? Kind of ironic, if you’re trying to save him.” Emma looks amused. “You know, Lucy, you should have lied. Told me that you were knocked up. It would have disqualified you from any chance of being John’s wife, and you would never have had to know about any of this. But, well.” She shrugs. “You’re an honest person.  It’ll get you killed one day, no doubt. Don’t make it be trying to rescue him from the fate you know he deserves. I’ll leave you to handle her, Lady Preston, should I? Iris, come on.”

With that, the two women march Flynn away, the door slamming behind them, as Lucy lets out a gut-wrenching scream and throws herself after it. Wyatt catches her, holding her as tightly as he can, knowing it’s not enough, not sure that he has ever hated anyone more than he hates Carol Preston right now, throwing her a look of complete and utter, withering scorn.  “Wow,” he says. “Lady Preston, huh? Lady Rittenhouse? Mother of the fucking Year.”

Carol’s lips tighten briefly, but she remains unruffled. “I certainly don’t expect you to understand having to make hard choices for your children, Mr. Logan, no. I’d be an awful mother indeed if I didn’t want this wonderful future for Lucy. Once everything’s straightened out – ”

“Straightened out?” Wyatt’s voice cracks a little himself. “Is that really what you call this? Look at her! Look at your daughter! You are breaking her heart!”

“As I said. Hard choices.” Carol glances at Lucy, who is shaking silently in Wyatt’s arms, and seems, for a moment, genuinely distressed. “I’m surprised you’re taking Garcia Flynn’s side in this. I wasn’t under the impression you had any particular affection for the man.”

“Yeah?” Wyatt says savagely. “You know, I think I’m discovering a bit more right now. Flynn might be a – ” he tries to think of a good synonym for total lunatic – “little intense, but at least he’s not an actual monster. You people have no soul.”

“We have a larger goal, Mr. Logan. We always have.” Carol evaluates him with those cool, reserved eyes. “You know I can’t have Lucy attached to such an unsuitable man, the very one who’s been trying so hard to destroy everything we stand for. If you come around, if you join Rittenhouse, there’s a chance that we might consider you an appropriate – ”

“You must really think I’m stupid, don’t you? I heard all about the plans to sell Lucy off to John Rittenhouse. And yeah. Tough choice. Join the Evil Empire or the Death Eaters first?”

“You’re wrong.” Carol shakes her head. “You’re both wrong. I just wish you could see – that you could both see – the true good that Rittenhouse wants to do in the world. Of course your perspective is warped and blinded, and I take my share of responsibility for that. If I’d raised Lucy Rittenhouse from the start, we wouldn’t be having any of this problem.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt says again. “There’s a problem here, all right, and it’s definitely your fault. However, I can promise you it’s not the one you think it is.”

Carol makes a noncommittal noise, as if to say that they’ll have to agree to disagree. For a few more moments, there is no more sound except Lucy’s ragged breathing. Then she completes her brief and silent breakdown, somehow manages to find the strength to pull herself together one more time, and disentangles herself from Wyatt. Turns and regards her mother with that same chilling, depthless contempt, eyes flat and jaw set. “You don’t make any choices for me,” she says, not shouting. Not even raising her voice. Quiet and calm and utterly, unforgivingly lethal. This is the Lucy that dropped Jesse James with a single shot while the men were arguing about whether or not they could, the Lucy that, when pushed too far, might be the most dangerous of them all, simply because nobody would ever see it coming. “You don’t control my life, my future, or the people I choose to love. And you don’t get to dictate how I get back to any of that. I want my sister back. I don’t know whether you remembered she was gone, and honestly, I don’t want to. I’ll try to save you, to prevent things from going back to the timeline where you were dying, because you are my mother. Because I owe you that, if nothing else. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t want to. That I won’t wish with my entire heart that I could, because I don’t think I can ever trust you again. That I can ever even look at you again. So, Mom. I hope this was what you wanted. I hope it’s worth it, for you and your beloved Rittenhouse. Because if not, well. You’ll have paid the entire world, your entire soul, and been left with this in return.”

And with that, while Carol is blinking as if she’s just had something heavy swung into her face, Lucy whirls precisely, surgically, on her heel, and beckons to Wyatt. Holds her head high, shoulders square – God, this woman, she is a force of nature, she is elemental, she is primal – and doesn’t look back. Walks out of the parlor with her entire life burning down behind her, and does not shed a single tear.

------------------

“We have to,” Lucy says, still quietly, as speaking any louder feels as if it might rip open the gaping wound in her chest. “We have to save him.”

Wyatt gives her the look which says that he knows she means well, but he honestly has no idea how they’re going to pull that off. Or even if they should. There is the whole idea of not leaving a part of the team behind, but as recently as their last mission, Flynn was still their enemy, bombarding Fort McHenry and playing an indirect part, even if not the prime mover, in changing history to what they encountered the last time they were in the present. “Lucy,” he says at last, quietly. “I don’t agree with what happened, I don’t think even he deserves this, and I know we can’t just step aside and let Rittenhouse do what they want, but. . . how would we even start?”

“You heard what Emma said. They’re moving him out of 1829, they’re taking him somewhere, somewhen else for whatever big spectacle they’ve planned for his downfall. Which my mother has probably planned, in fact.” Lucy’s chest contracts again until she almost can’t breathe, fighting against an overwhelming tidal wave of despair. “She’s using the Mothership to shuttle the various Rittenhouse luminaries there to watch the show. What is it, ancient Rome? So they can throw him in the arena with some lions and have the full experience?”

“Probably.” Wyatt stares bleakly at the sky. They’ve been let go, as they’re not what Rittenhouse was after – that entire scene, that entire trap, was staged precisely to catch Flynn, and it’s worked to a nicety. Besides, Rittenhouse clearly thinks they’ll be back of their own free will soon enough, which might actually be the case. “But the Lifeboat’s dead. We can’t follow them.”

“Yeah,” Lucy says, carefully offhand. “We can’t.”

Wyatt’s gaze swivels to her sharply. “Lucy – I don’t know what you just thought, but if we split up one more time – ”

“Look.” Lucy closes her eyes briefly. “We both know that if I put my mind to it, I could argue my way into a spot on the Mothership. It probably wouldn’t even be that hard. My mother is running this, John Rittenhouse thinks we’re practically engaged. I can play that. Wherever, whenever they’ve taken him, I can get there too.”

“Yes, but then what?” Wyatt presses. “The two of you are going to outrun all of Rittenhouse, he’s going to agree to leave behind Iris even if she has been brainwashed to hate him, and you’ll make it to the Mothership in time to activate the remote-retrieval and signal Rufus to pull you out? You still, as far as we know, can’t go back to 2017. So are you – ”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, all right? I don’t have the full plan. I don’t have much of any plan. I just.” Lucy stops, staring down at her hands. “I can’t let him die, Wyatt. I can’t do it.”

Wyatt blows out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he says at last. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“It’s. . .” Lucy’s lip quivers, ever so slightly. “What Iris said, I think it – ”

“No. No, it was not your fault, okay? Listen to me.” Wyatt reaches out and grabs both her hands, making her looking at him. “It was not your fault. It wasn’t Iris’s either. She was a little girl, those bastards got hold of her, of course they managed to get her thinking and saying everything they wanted her to. What happened with you and Rittenhouse, with your mom, that isn’t your fault either. Okay, Lucy? Okay?”

Lucy takes a long, slow breath. She isn’t sure she believes it, but she appreciates him saying it. “Okay,” she echoes at last. “But I can’t leave either of them, Wyatt. I – don’t ask me to.”

Wyatt manages a faint, wry smile. “So,” he says at last. “You’re choosing, huh?”

“You and Rufus will always be the rest of me. Always.” Lucy tightens her grip on his hand. “And you need to stay here and get the Lifeboat fixed, find a way to communicate with Rufus. I’m pretty sure even Rittenhouse isn’t going to buy a convenient change of heart from you in three hours. Besides, someone has to figure out if there’s any chance of stopping whatever they did here, or if there’s any way to get history back on track. I can’t ask you to risk yourself for Flynn. I have to do this by myself.”

“Maybe,” Wyatt says. “You could ask me to risk myself for you, though.”

“I know. I do.” Lucy keeps looking at him steadily. “But I can talk myself onto the Mothership. I can’t talk you. And Flynn, whatever it is with us, I don’t know myself. But I just. . . I can’t help but think that we were always supposed to meet, somehow. God, fate, whatever. Something brought us together, led us to each other. Whatever that is, I have to see it through.”

Wyatt is quiet for a moment, as they still sit holding hands. “Okay,” he says again, at last, barely more than a whisper. “If that’s what you want, Lucy. If you really think you can, but – you know there’s a chance you can’t make it back at all. That they’ll just kill him, and you’ll be stuck as one of Rittenhouse’s creepy cult fanatics forever, wherever, whenever. If you go, I just. . . I just want you to be sure that that’s something you’re willing to do. To sacrifice.”

“I know.” She does, far too well. “And I’d do the same for you, or Rufus.”

“Not quite, though,” Wyatt says, very softly. “It’s something different. With him.”

Lucy pauses. Then at last, just as softly, she nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess it is.”

The plan is almost simple, when it comes down to it. Wyatt stays in 1829. If he can keep trying, and get the Lifeboat somehow operational, he can install the remote-retrieval patch and be extracted to 2017 by Rufus. Lucy will go back to Rittenhouse and pretend she’s seen the light, that she’s thought it over and agreed her mother is right, that this is what she wants. Then she’ll get a seat on the Mothership to whenever they’ve taken Flynn, try to find him and Iris, and save him from whatever terrible fate Rittenhouse has in mind for him. After that is when this all turns decidedly hypothetical. If they can make it to the Mothership in time, and if they can trigger the override, Rufus can get them home. If that matters. If Lucy’s back. If Flynn himself can even stand to look at her again, or agree to leave Iris, even knowing what’s become of her. It feels like every possible outcome ends with Lucy losing him somehow, and yet. No matter how utterly, cosmically impossible this appears to be, she’s simply not prepared to do that.

She and Wyatt bid a brief, understated goodbye, trying to pretend this is nothing more than an ordinary parting, checking out between missions, when both of them know that the Time Team is now officially and possibly permanently broken up, in three different years in three different centuries. There is no certainty at all of ever seeing each other again. She doesn’t know when exactly Rittenhouse has taken Flynn, but her hunch is earlier. Maybe a little earlier. Maybe a lot. They don’t really want a fair trial for him, after all. They want him to burn.

When Wyatt’s headed out for the Lifeboat, when he’s out of sight and she can’t see him at all anymore, Lucy turns back and starts toward the mansion. She’s going to need to play her role well, and there can’t be any mistakes. They’ll be plenty suspicious as it is, but if her status as apparent Rittenhouse princess is worth anything, she has to milk it for all it’s worth. All she can think of, the one thing to keep her focused, is that they’re going to pay. They’re going to pay for this, for her, for Amy, for all the lies, for Flynn, for Iris, for altering the entire fabric of history, for Wyatt, for Rufus, for everything. They’re going to pay. They’re going to pay.

She manages to make it inside again, smiling and apologizing for her earlier breakdown, asking to talk to John. She can’t face her mother, even and especially to lie that she’s come to join her, and her mother knows her too well; she has a better chance of working on John, who’s so desperate to believe her anyway. It takes a bit of persuading, but she gets an audience with him, and manages to choke down her umbrage. Smiles. Flirts a little. Brushes her fingers along his arm. Gives him the general impression that if she gets to go with him to Flynn’s trial, they can be Rittenhouse-married and Rittenhouse-boinking to get started on their Rittenhouse-babymaking, just as soon as that awful traitor is taken care of. She, of course, will choke him with a curtain tie sooner than letting any of this actually happen, but it does the job. He says she can come. He’d be honored.

Lucy may throw up in her mouth a little at that, but manages to hide it. She waits until the door opens and Emma appears, clearly intending to pick up the Big Boss for the main ride – then stops dead at the sight of Lucy. “Well, well. What are you doing here, exactly?”

Lucy forces a twisted little smile. “I’m going with John, of course.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Emma regards her with cool suspicion. “That’s what you’re doing, is it?”

“What else would I be doing?” Lucy takes John’s arm and smiles again, with teeth. “I’m Mr. Rittenhouse’s special guest. Aren’t I?”

“Yes,” John says. “Yes, Miss Whitmore, she is. I’m happy for her to accompany me.”

Emma divides an utterly unconvinced glance between them, but she also can’t contradict her benevolent overlord to his face, even if she clearly knows what is actually going on here. With another I’m watching you look at Lucy, warning her not to try anything, she sweeps a bow and leads them out to the Mothership, which she has evidently just landed on the lawn. It is supremely out of place among the staid nineteenth-century brick mansions, with its glowing blue lights and smooth white plasteel shell. Lucy wonders how much they have to pay the cops to look away in this part of town.

It appears they’re the last ones to go; everyone else has already had their ride, including her mom. It’s just the three of them leaving 1829 now, the same as they arrived here, but of course, utterly different. Lucy fumbles the seatbelt buckles as best she can, then leans back. With her best version of a winning smile, she says, “When are we going?”

“Not really something for you to worry about, is it?” Emma triggers the door latch, and it cycles shut as they prepare for the jump. “Since you’re coming as one of us?”

Lucy doesn’t want to kill anyone else. Really, she doesn’t. Once was more than enough, and it’s not something she wants to repeat. But just then, she seriously considers it.

“No,” she says instead. “Of course not.”

When the Mothership lands, the door opens, and Lucy has to allow John to help her out, a blast of sea wind hits her face, there are no lights that she can see, and a few Rittenhouse goons waiting with horses and a lantern. Her hunch about earlier appears to be dead on the money, and she spends the ride trying to work out where and when on earth they are. It’s warm and sticky; it feels like summer. It’s coastline, it looks like New England, and when they reach the town, it appears to be seventeenth-century. Late, if Lucy had to guess. This is a little before her area of specialty, since she works on American history, and this is clearly still colonial, well before the Revolution. While John and Emma are climbing down and discussing something with the men, Lucy takes the opportunity to glance at a broadsheet posted on the wall of what appears to be the village inn. It’s dark, and she has to lean in close. Nonetheless, the words jump out at her.

Their Majesties Court of Oyer and Terminer, UNDER William Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, & Crown Attorneye Thomas Newton, does Here Convene and Provide for the Just & Regular Detection and Punishment of those Suspected of the Abominable Crime of

W I T C H C R A F T

& Other Satanick Sorceries and Devilish Evils

in Salem Town, Province of Massachusetts Bay

1 6 9 2

Anno Domini

In the Third Year of the Reign of Their Protestant Majesties

KING AND QUEENE

WILLIAM & MARY

of Great Britain, Ireland, & Etc.

Earlier. Yeah, earlier. Lucy would say so.

She thought they wanted Flynn to burn. That they didn’t want a trial, they wanted a baying mob. That there wasn’t going to be justice. Only murder.

Apparently, she was exactly right.

She jerks around as John and Emma finish their conversation, and pretends not to have noticed the bill-paper. Allows herself to be shown inside the narrow, creaking inn with them, thinking that at least the one good thing about having landed in the middle of a frothing witch hunt is that there will be no question of her and John having to share a room(though if Lucy recalls, a substantial proportion of Puritan brides were already pregnant on their wedding day, as – surprise, surprise – if you try to force everyone to live by a strictly repressed and zealous religious code, it’s going to backfire on you). She gets her own, as John insists, while Emma continues to look openly skeptical. “Sir,” she starts. “Sir, Lucy has been – with him, I don’t think we can trust her by herself, I should share with her, I should keep an eye – ”

“Nonsense,” John says earnestly. “She’s not a prisoner. She chose to come with us.”

“Because she wants to rescue him!” Emma has apparently decided to throw caution to the wind. “I know you can’t see that, you actually think she likes you, but she doesn’t, she just wants to get close to Garcia Flynn and – they’re sleeping together, John, she’s just using you to – ”

At that, John looks actually stunned, so that for a moment Lucy winces and thinks everything is about to blow up. But the look of anger on his face is turned on Emma, not her. “How dare you. Lucy – Lady Preston – is just as trustworthy as I am, and she will be treated that way.”

Emma flicks a glance at Lucy, as if to ask her just what mad skills she has to get two men as dissimilar as Garcia Flynn and John Rittenhouse so desperately attached to her and all but eating from her hand. Lucy flashes back another demure, inscrutable smile. She’s enjoying seeing Emma be frustrated, though of course it’s also useful for her if they loosen her leash. Wherever they have stashed Flynn, she doubts it’s here, and she’s going to need to find him fast.

Further attempts from Emma to talk John around fail, and once Lucy is finally alone, she waits long enough for them to hopefully think she’s asleep, and the inn has gone more or less quiet. There are some seventeenth-century clothes laid out on the bed, which she thinks it wise to change into. In the middle of a witch hunt, the last thing an already-strange woman needs is to draw more attention to herself, so Lucy strips off the nineteenth-century dress, corset, and boots and gets herself kitted out as a good Puritan housewife. As if this place wasn’t Scarlet Letter-enough already. But Lucy is going to have to work with what she’s got.

She opens the window cautiously. It’s narrow, made from ashy lime-glass, and there is a drop down onto the steep timbered roof below. Lucy is not the most coordinated person in the world, and secret sneaking out is not her forte, but she manages to swing a foot over the sill, and then another. Shoots a wary glance back, but the door to the room remains closed. Then, taking a deep breath, she squeezes through and pushes off.

She has half a terrifying moment to be suspended in midair before she hits the roof with a thump, claws wildly, kicks, wonders if someone is going to get suspicious and come out to look, and clings to a fistful of splintered board, feet dangling off the edge. She grunts, swears under her breath, makes more or less sure that she’s not going to break her neck, then lets go. Another tumble, a plunge into what absolutely smells like a compost heap below, and she rolls away in the mud, breathless, dirty, and winded, but free. Then she picks herself up, looks around warily – the town watch is not going to think highly of anyone out after nightfall, and if she isn’t careful, she’ll be hauled up in front of the Court of Oyer and Terminer herself – and runs.

Salem is dark and for the most part, quiet. You wouldn’t know that it’s about to play host to one of the most infamous episodes of public mass hysteria in history, and execute twenty innocent people, fourteen of them women, by hanging – despite the popular stereotype, they don’t actually burn them at the stake. At least, this time, and at least before Rittenhouse arrived from the future to co-opt said hysteria, and use it to stage the spectacular downfall of their most dedicated enemy. They, in fact, probably are going to burn him, just to finish things off with a bang. Tell the townsfolk that he is the Devil Incarnate, that he’s the reason for the outbreak of witchcraft, that they have to destroy him to save their souls. It’s not going to take much.

Lucy tries to keep her fear at bay as she searches – if they have Flynn down some dank dungeon or thief-hole, she probably won’t be able to find him in time. But at last, as she turns into the small square before the church, she sees the stocks and pillory set up in front of it, on a raised dais that still smells of sawdust. There’s someone sitting in the stocks, legs locked in place, head down, motionless. By the looks of things, people have already been busily attending to their public duty of throwing rotten food, stones, sticks, and other garbage at the offender.

“Flynn?” Lucy whispers. Starts to run, hurrying up the steps. “Flynn!”

He doesn’t react, doesn’t even look up. There is a gash on his cheek, and between that and the two bullet wounds, he is clearly in considerable discomfort.  But he doesn’t appear to notice that either. It’s only when she kneels next to him and tries to take his face in her hands that his eyes even attempt to focus. When they do, he mostly seems confused. “Lucy.”

“Yes. It’s me. Come on, I need to find some way to get you out of these.” Lucy looks around for any helpful implement that she can use to break the stocks, if anyone has left out a hatchet for wood-chopping, that kind of thing. “The Mothership isn’t too far. If you can re-activate that retrieval program you were talking about, Rufus can get us out – or at least somewhere – and we can see if I can come back to the present, or meet up with Wyatt, or – ”

She’s babbling, anxious and on edge and too relieved to see him again, feeling it twisting in her gut, still wrapped around her heart, but he still doesn’t react. He seems, if anything, angry. “What the hell,” he says, half to himself. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Breaking you out of jail, by the looks of things.” Lucy tries to pry at the stocks with her hands. This, of course, does not work. “Are you okay to run?”

He just keeps staring at her, dark gaze flat and empty. This is more unsettling than any rage she’s ever seen him in, anything he’s ever tried to do. This is Garcia Flynn with absolutely no fight left in him.

“Just go,” he says after a moment, apparently deciding not to bother with the question of how she got here. “Just leave me here.”

“So what?” Lucy flares back. “You’re going to give up? You’re just going to let Rittenhouse kill you? Burn you alive? You can’t let them win!”

Flynn just keeps looking at her without a word. It’s evident from his face that he’s pretty damn sure they already have.

“There’s no point,” he says at last. Again, half to himself, as if he’s not entirely sure she’s really there, and doesn’t want to be caught conversing with thin air. “There’s no point. It’s all been for nothing. Iris is right. I failed her. I failed Lorena. There’s no chance of anything. It’s all gone.”

Lucy understands this viewpoint, she does. She also slightly wants to smack him, despite his current decrepit state, because while this may all be true, it’s also true that she’s here, risking her ass to rescue him – Rittenhouse might not outright kill their precious princess/hoped-for future co-Supreme Leader, but she doesn’t think that it’s going to be grand declarations of love and insistence on preferential treatment forever, or even much longer. Emma’s clearly already more than willing to get her out of the way, since John doesn’t want to, and this is definitely going to blow things to hell, if they’re caught. She finds something that looks like a crowbar, wedges it into the stocks, and tries to get up enough leverage to budge them. Still nada.

“Stop,” Flynn says roughly. “Lucy, stop.”

“Shut up,” Lucy grunts, sitting on the crowbar in an effort to use her body weight, but five-foot-five-inch scholars are not exactly sumo wrestlers in this department. “Whatever you want to do is usually the exact wrong decision, so you can understand why I’m ignoring you.”

Flynn stares at her, so thrown that she thinks he might laugh, but his face remains too bleak for that. She shoots a look over her shoulder, fairly sure that she saw someone light a candle in a window, doing whatever the Puritan version of peering through the curtains at the neighbors is – that kind of thing probably happens a lot around here, given the, you know, witch trials. She has a feeling as well that if he put his mind to it, he would be able to bust out of these stocks, no problem. A trained and hardened secret agent like Flynn has probably been in far worse binds than rudimentary seventeenth-century wooden pieces of crap like this. But he’s also just as clearly past the point of caring. Figures he deserves whatever happens next.

As her own efforts are getting nowhere, Lucy stops. Doesn’t know what to say to make him want to fight again, when she likewise feels the same, questioning if there’s any point in continuing to resist something so strong and so evil and so determined to steamroll everything and everyone they believe in and care about. She leans forward instead, so their foreheads brush. “Come on,” she says at last, quietly. “Come on, Garcia. Let’s go home.”

She doesn’t know where that is, or how they’d get there, or if he’d want to, or any of that. But something deep and drowned in his eyes seems to surface, ever so slightly, at that. He looks at her again, as if actually registering her presence, and frowns, brow furrowing. “Lucy?”

“Yes,” she says tartly. “Who did you think?”

He doesn’t say what he was thinking (probably for the best), but at last, slowly, he gives the stocks an experimental shove. Takes the crowbar from her, pries hard, grunts in pain at the strain this is putting on his wounded shoulder and side, and then with a rattle and a crash, sends the top half of the bar flying. Pulls his ankles out, grimacing, rubbing them to restore circulation; his feet are bare. She helps him up, they jump down, and get set to run – and then, all at once, a torch flares in their faces, making both of them blink and cringe. Then another one, and another.

Someone pushes his way through the crowd: an unpleasant-looking fellow with a double chin and an elaborate white wig, a high clerical collar and black robes. Not that Lucy can be entirely sure, but she’s pretty sure it’s Cotton Mather – Puritan minister, intellectual architect of the witch trials, and general A-number-one dickhead – who is regarding them with hard, bitter glee. “Well, well,” he booms. “The Devil Incarnate and his concubine, the Mother of Demons, before you in the flesh, good people of Salem! Seize them. Seize them! You know what is writ in the Holy Scriptures. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“Seriously?” Lucy pants. “Seriously?”

Flynn shoves her behind him, groping for the gun he doesn’t have. More torches are flooding the square from every side. If Emma decided that badgering John about her suspicions was getting nowhere, guessed that Lucy was going to make an attempt to rescue Flynn, and decided to tip off the citizens’ militia instead, she –

She’s done her job pretty damn well, actually.

Lucy didn’t expect to die by being burned as a witch in 1692, obviously. No sane person would. But it also, barring a miracle, appears to be what is going to happen to her. Emma will have taken particular care with this. Made sure there’s no chance of John, or Carol, accidentally interfering. Distracted them with something, told them to stay inside, let the provincial natives roar off on their little witch hunt. Rittenhouse might not get their full spectacle, but at least they’ll ensure Flynn is dead. No way to prove that Lucy’s death was anything other than a tragic accident. Regrettable, of course. But perhaps – once they think about it – for the best.

In short:

They are completely fucked.