#I may write a dozen more confession scenarios in the future but here is the one I just came up with hehe

[jojo-schmo]

A confession🌟 (Part 2)

(Part 1)

(Part 3- Final)

[mockingjayne12]

Beyond - Chapter 3

(Lyatt / Timeless Fic)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Lucy moves to check her watch again.  He’s late.  She sighs heavily, as she looks around the library.  She has her history book pulled out, her journal resting on her lap, and her pencil irritatingly tapping against the table.

She hasn’t seen Wyatt since she dropped him off at the gas station on Friday.

Every time she felt like she was getting to know him or at least a little closer to having a conversation that didn’t revolve around school work, he shut her off, changing the subject, or in the case of last Friday, jumping out of her car before she even got to his house.

It wasn’t that he was impersonal, he asked her questions about herself all the time or had discernibly picked up on the details through observation.  But whenever she tried to move the conversation, he’d shut her down or try to charm his way into switching the topic back over to her or the assignment at hand.

As she’d made her way home Friday, dejected at how they’d left things, she’d been caught off guard to find that her mom had invited people over.  The house had been full of stuffy professor types, and powerful looking people that she wasn’t sure how they were acquainted with her mom.

She had tried to slink past the crowd into her room, but she’d been intercepted by her eager-faced mother, forced to be paraded around to these strangers.  The same introduction, always, with a set of plans for her future that she wasn’t quite sure were so much her idea as they’d been set for her since birth.  A notion that had been weighing heavily on her mind more and more as the year progressed.

She had put on a fake smile, her dimples never making their appearance, instead a nod of her head, a shake of her hand, a frowning disapproval at her attire, her mother apologizing for her, as if they cared.

“This is Luke,” she’d said with a knowing grin, as she introduced her to a boy her own age.  She recognized him from her English class.  He’d asked to borrow a pencil from her the other day, but hadn’t spoken a word to her otherwise.

Lucy had given the same smile she’d forced at the dozen other people she’d met.  Her mother rattled off his father’s accomplishments, as if they were meant to impress her, before whispering in her ear, “Be nice, you two could hit it off.”  Gripping her shoulders, an awkward grimace of a smile coming to Lucy’s lips, as her mom walked off.

“So…” he’d started, giving her a once over, which had her crossing her arms in front of her, narrowing her eye at him, while bringing her long curls forward, almost like a shield to hide her.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to find my sister,” she’d only half-lied, a disingenuous apology, and a quirk of her lips as she left the guy standing there gawking after her.

Rushing up the stairs, she’d locked her door, sliding down the wall, eyes closed, hair trailing above her as she settled on the floor.

“That bad?” Amy asks, looking over from Lucy’s bed, before getting up and making her way over to the young girl.  She may be young, but her sister was wise.

Waving her hand, she gestures for Amy to move over, clumsily kicking off her shoes, crawling into the bed, and wrapping her sister up into a hug.

xxxxx

Lucy’s yellow dress sways with her movement, the 60s attire far more comfortable than the corsets and hoop skirts she’d found herself wearing before. But as she makes her way into the Lifeboat, it’s not the dress that’s weighing her down this time, but the diamond reflecting light on her finger.  Her mind swirls with the idea of having to deal with this new person suddenly thrust into her life.

Engaged.

She can’t say she’d never thought about getting married.  The notion had crossed her mind more than once, although in every scenario it wasn’t Noah, this stranger, that had given her a ring, instead it was the man that was sitting in front of her that she’d imagined.  The one who with a sigh, leans over to strap her in.

“Nice rock,” he jokes, glancing over at the ring, grabbing the strap from that side.  “You’re really getting into these costumes,” he says with a laugh, his fingers brushing against her ribs.

Flexing her hand to look down at the diamond adorning her finger, she finds herself pursing her lips with a tilt of her head, almost reluctant in admitting this piece of information to him, but curious how he’d react.

“No, apparently, I’m engaged,” she reveals, almost phrasing it as a question, still unsure of how exactly she’d managed to pull herself together enough to be able to function in a relationship serious enough for marriage after what happened.

Wyatt stills at the confession, momentarily abandoning the task of buckling her in, and stares at her with shock and almost a flash of disappointment sulking on his face.

“To who?” He grits out, his disapproval evident in his tone.

“Exactly.  His name is Noah.  I’ve never met him before, but there’s all these pictures of us at the beach that I have no memory of.”

“You hate the beach…” Wyatt says, she assumes out of habit.  The list of things he knows about her are extensive, one of which being that she doesn’t care for the beach.  She’s always preferred something more cultural, a city to explore and discover.  The water only furthering her hesitance to spend any amount of time around the ocean.

“Apparently, there’s a version of me that doesn’t, and she got engaged…to Noah,” she frustratingly admits, as Wyatt resumes his task, spinning her this way and that to make sure she was safe.

“You gonna take his name or are you gonna keep yours?” He jokes, focusing on the buckles, before peeking up at her with a half grin, those blue eyes revealing more than just jealousy playing with his emotions, because she swears she sees regret floating in there somewhere too.  The fact that there was a point in her life when she thought she’d be a Logan plays heavily on her mind.

“I don’t even know his last name,” she replies matter of factly, putting on white gloves, hoping to hide the ring from prying eyes.

Wyatt plays like he doesn’t care, but if there’s one thing she knows, if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t ask.  

“Well, look on the bright side…”

“There’s a bright side?” She pessimistically wonders, eyes wide.

“You still have the honeymoon to look forward to.  He’ll probably taking you to a beach,” Wyatt says with a wink, like the idea that he knows more about her than her fiancé is something he takes pride in.

“Plus, you get to go to Vegas,” Rufus chimes in, like the city of impromptu elopements was exactly where she wanted to go at the moment.

xxxxx

She’d spent the rest of the weekend rewriting her history paper, and playing over conversations in her mind of what she was going to say to Wyatt come Monday.  A script of sorts playing in her head, a plan.

All of which had flown out the window as the minutes ticked by.  While irritation and anger competed against each other, at the forefront was dsiappointment leading the race.

She attempts to start her homework without him, but she’s too distracted, and finds herself checking her watch every five seconds.  That is until she looks up to see Jessica hanging around one of the stacks, glancing back at her with her friend.

Lucy tries not to make eye contact, the girl having never once said a word to her despite meeting Wyatt nearly every day after their sessions.

“Who’s that?” Jessica’s friend asks loudly, motioning with her eyes towards Lucy, which has Lucy herself ducking her head, pretending to write, so as to not to appear to be eavesdropping, even though they were speaking loudly.

“Oh, she’s just a tutor,” Jessica dismissively replies, and although Lucy doesn’t know this girl, she can’t help but feel every insecurity rear its ugly head.  Straightening her back momentarily before slumping forward, her resolve threatens to crack.

Lucy had always acknowledged that she was something of a nerd.  She wasn’t naive in thinking that loving history and musicals, staying in to study for a test over going to a party made her cool.  But she’d always had a group of friends that at the very least made her feel she wasn’t alone, contentedly self-confident in who she was.  Here, she found herself struggling, lost in the crowd, shunned by most, the comment just another reminder that that all she was to everyone, who she was to Wyatt, was just a tutor.  A nerd.

Suddenly, the idea of sitting around waiting for a guy who hadn’t given her a second thought, who found her so insignificant that he just completely stood her up, seemed absurd.

xxxxx

“Saving history is your job.  Mine is Flynn,” Wyatt shoots at Lucy in the crowded casino.  His authoritative tone only making her want to stand her ground even more.

“So you’re calling the shots now?  No debate?” She questions, not sure when he thought he was put in charge, but she was about to check him right into place.

“No, there’s no debate,” he argues, and she narrows her eyes.

“You do remember what club I was apart of in school, right?”

“Oh, I remember,” he argues with a jerk of his head, like he knows he’s fighting a losing battle.  Their fights never lasted long, but they always ended with Wyatt admitting he was wrong, with her stubbornly unable to stay mad for too long.

The interruption of Rufus with uniforms to sneak into the show, ending the argument, for now.

“Really?” Lucy exclaims, holding up what had to be one of the skimpiest looking uniforms that existed in that casino.  It looked more like lingerie than something she was meant to work in.  It somehow managed to be both low cut and practically non-existent on the bottom.  “You couldn’t have found me a thong?” She asks, sarcasm dripping from her tone.

Wyatt bends at the side, closely examining the uniform, as Rufus defends his choice.

“I didn’t invent Vegas.”

“Well, go back and invent me a waitress uniform,” she says, folding up the garment and handing it back to him.

The shit eating grin plastered on Wyatt’s face is enough to have her shooting him the same look she’d given Rufus.

“What?” She barks at him. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen.”

He just shrugs, the grin refusing to leave, his eyes roaming over her at the suggestion of the past.

“I didn’t say anything,” he defends himself, holding up his hands.  “But glad you remember,” and she finds herself turning away from him at that, waiting for Rufus to return.

xxxxx

Lucy waits until the girls have walked away before standing to gather her things, the tears building, leaving her vision blurry.  She nearly throws her history book into her bag in her rush to get out of there.

Of course, just as zips up her bag, she sees him.

“Lucy,” he says, eyes bloodshot, as if he’s been up all night, exhaustion wearing on every part of him.

She chooses to ignore him, as she’s past the point of curiosity or excuses and just wants to go home.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I…”

“I don’t care,” she says, throwing her bag over her shoulder and moving to leave.

“Wait, Lucy, come on,” he pleads, trailing after her through the library.

Suddenly, she whirls around, nearly causing him to slam into her, his face taken aback at her change of direction.  Her curls bounce in the movement, a few tendrils coming to land in her face, her hand pushing them back in frustration.

“Do you think this is a game?” She asks, her brow furrowed together, her voice shaking, and she knows he can see the well of tears in her eyes.

“What are you talking about? I’ve been late once, it’s not a big deal,” he tries to reason.

“Maybe not to you, but it is to me,” she gets out, thinking of all the ways he had made her think that maybe she was more than how everyone else saw her, only to quickly sink back into herself, chastising the notion that this was more than it was.  

As she turns to leave, she can’t help but see the confused look on his face.

“You’re wrong,” she hears him say, but she continues to walk away, finally allowing her tears to fall.

xxxxx

The door slams in Lucy’s face, Judith Campbell the least of all pleased with her and the team for essentially kidnapping her.

“She’s hiding something,” Wyatt points out, the explanation of who exactly she’s a mistress for doing nothing but seemingly agitating him further.  For some reason, he seemed to have a  one track mind this mission, and his reluctance to have a conversation about what to do, seemed to only lead to more debate, as she refused to go along.

Usually she was the stubborn one, he reckless, but today it’s as if he’s vying for her position.

Kicking down the door he drags Judith out of the bathroom, her escape thwarted.

“If I have to tie you up,” he threatens, and Lucy jumps in, shooting him a look of disbelief.

“He is not going to tie you up,” she tries to reason.

“Oh, the hell I won’t,” he says, leaning down to make sure Lucy sees how serious he is.

She narrows her eyes at him, unimpressed with his attitude.

What was his problem today?

“Excuse me?” Lucy says, punctuating the words with her hands flying in front of her to make sure he was listening.

He turns from her then, as if not wanting to see how irrationally he was acting, with no need to be stopped by her.

“This guys knows things about me.  Personal things that are none of your damn business,” Judith adds, her voice rising.

“Oh what, like screwing JFK?” Wyatt throws out, no regard to the sensitivity of the situation.

“Wyatt,” Lucy hisses, completely thrown by his behavior.  “Stop it!”

He turns towards her, leaning so their faces are at the same level, his eyes swirling, as her’s burn.  Fire and ice.

“I’m sorry, we cannot play coy anymore.”

She steps closer to him still, his breath erratically hitting her face, his frustration coming off of him in waves.

“Go in the other room,” she sternly whispers.  “Please,” she adds, a plea for them to get this right.

With a huff, he angrily makes his way to the other room.

She gives an awkward smile at Judith, Rufus slinking to the window, not wanting to be apart of whatever spat was happening between the two of them.

The tension eventually dies down in the room, the electric energy having vacated with Wyatt.

“Water?” She offers Judith, who shoots her down.

“So, you and brooding blue eyes in the next room,” she broaches.  “You sleeping with him?”  Lucy nearly chokes on her water, having not expected the question.  She can hear a snicker from Rufus by the window.

“What?  Um, no, no, we’re not…no, not sleeping together,” she gets out in likely the most awkward way that suggests that while she was not currently sleeping with hi, she wouldn’t be opposed to the idea.  She felt she was constantly wavering back and forth with every exchange she had with Wyatt.  There was a part of her that was still holding on to what had happened before, and just as she began to warm to the idea of him being around again, they start fighting.

“Well, he could use it.  He’s wound pretty tight,” she observes, effectively sending Rufus out of the room.

Adjusting her hair, Lucy sits, now that everyone was gone and it was just the two of them.

“We uhh, we used to…”

“Sleep together?” Judith offers.

“Yeah…but it umm, it didn’t work out,” she says, staring into her water with a sad smile.

“Hmm, I can’t imagine why,” Judith says with a twitch of her eye.

“He’s not…he’s not usually like that,” she tries to defend him.

“A man who acts irrationally like that,” Judith explains, gesturing to the next room.  “It’s because he thinks he’s got nothing to lose.”

xxxxx

“You heading to lunch?”  The question seemingly coming out of nowhere.  Lucy looks around to find Luke, from her mom’s get together, attempting to catch up with her.  Apparently, he hadn’t been deterred by her quick departure the other night.

He keeps in stride with her as she makes her way through the hallway.  She’s never much minded enclosed spaces, in fact she almost found comfort in the walls being so close, as if keeping her safe.  But as she pushes through the throng of people milling about in the hallway, she can’t help but feel the tiniest bit claustrophobic.

Gripping the straps of her backpack, she turns to look at the guy who’d just asked her a question.

“Umm, yeah,” she awkwardly shrugs, not sure what to say.  She’s tired, having spent the night curled up in bed dredging up every embarrassing moment she could, emotionally torturing herself, and when she felt like she’d had enough, she’d started in specifically on the moments involving Wyatt.

“Hey, have you started on that Hamlet assignment, because I don’t get it,” he asks, pushing through the doors to the cafeteria, getting her attention.

At her old school, she’d always brought her lunch, bypassing the line, and ate outside with a few of her friends.  The overcast sky having always offered them an excuse to pull their sweaters a bit tighter, their boots a fashion accessory that could last the whole year as the fog hovered above.

Here, however, to venture outside to eat was just asking for you to show up to your next class completely soaked and sunburned.  Which left her with limited options, usually choosing to bring her own lunch, finding a seat in the back, her company whatever new book she was currently reading, as she quietly ate her lunch.

“Umm, yeah, I have, actually,” she responds, and he smiles at her.  He seems nice enough.  Cute in a goofy kind of way.  She’s not sure she wants to act as a tutor to someone else, further cementing her title as exactly what Jessica had referred to her as, but he’s the first person to speak to her on his own volition, so she finds herself smiling back.

“Do you think we could go over it?” He asks, and she nods, as she takes her seat at her usual table, and he takes off to get in line for his food.  She finds she’s only slightly disappointed that her company wouldn’t consist of fictional characters.

Pulling out the folder with the assignment, and her sack lunch, she notices that her journal is missing from it usual spot.  She hadn’t taken it out at home the night before, but now, somehow, it was missing. The panic begins to rise in her chest, and she quickly takes everything out of the bag, looking in the dark, empty space with no journal in sight.

“No, no, no,” she mutters to herself, trying to think of where she could’ve left it.

Distracted, she doesn’t look up when someone sits down next to her, expecting it to be Luke.  But she finds herself gasping with relief when she sees her journal appear in front of her, only to feel dread sink in when she sees the hand attached belongs to Wyatt.

“Looking for this?” He asks with a sad smile.

She quickly takes the pages into her hands, as if they’d reveal where they’d been and who had breeched their spine to read.

“Where did you…” she trails off.

“You left it in the library yesterday,” he explains, but she knows he can still read the panic on her face.  The idea of him having read what she’d written, about her life, about him.  The blush of embarrassment already heats her face.

“I didn’t read it, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he replies, and she expects a smirk, but he’s serious.

She narrows her eyes at him, not sure if she can trust him.

“You really think I’m that terrible?” He asks her, and while she’s still mad at him, the sincerity staring her in the eye suggests that not only was he telling her the truth, but that the thought of someone invading her privacy like that made him angry for her.

“No,” she concedes with a sigh.  A shy quirk of her lips telling him that while he wasn’t off the hook, she did believe him.  “Thanks,” she says, holding up the book before safely tucking it into her bag.

He quietly nods, curiously glancing to his side.

“Friend of yours?” Her brown eyes flash up to see who he’s referring to.

“What?” She asks, confused by his question.

Wyatt gestures to Luke, who’s giving side-long glances at them from the line against the wall.

“Why?  You jealous?” she teases, popping a grape into her mouth, and she swears she can see him shakily follow the movement of her lips with a grin that sends her right back to that car, the gentle whisper of his fingers against her torso.

He doesn’t bite back a smile at this, reaching over and grabbing a grape from the bag, before popping it into his own mouth, his hair hanging over into his eyes, as if begging for her to push it aside to see the blue staring back at her.  Her hands unconsciously move into fists to resist the urge.

“No, I…just…his name his Luke,” he says, as if that were explanation enough, no jealousy required.

“And…” Lucy ventures with a raise of her brow.

“Well, if you two get married, you’ll practically have the same name…Luke…Lucy,” he says, and she snorts with laughter.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Logan,” she jokes, emphasizing the L in his name, nearly rolling her eyes at how not jealous he is.

xxxxx

“I need a word,” Lucy says, an argument having broken out again, as soon as Wyatt had entered back into room with a reckless plan for Judith.

He’s left with no choice but to follow Lucy into the next room over, but heels dug in, and unwilling to budge from his stance.

“We can’t risk this.  She’s too important to history,” Lucy pleads, her eyes wide with conviction.

He steps towards her, as if holding himself back, but she doesn’t flinch from her position.

“I cannot do my job boxed in like this, worried about knocking over a salt shaker and somehow changing history,” he says, his face contorted in something resembling anger, but she can tell there’s more than that lingering behind the mask he’s choosing to wear.

She straightens, unsure of what he’s trying to convince her of.  She’s more than aware how easily history can change - the vanishing of her sister, the diamond planted on her hand, and that’s just in the last few days.  The shifting of the present had been something that she’d had to accept several times over in her life, waking up one morning to everything she’d planned suddenly ripped from her, forced to adjust to a new reality.

“This is not a game,” she warns, and she knows he can tell it’s not just this history that she’s talking about.  The one surrounding them also precariously in flux as they navigate their situation, floating pieces, unsure of where they fit.

“I agree,” he admits, like a ghost of his past staring back at him.  “Which is why if I have a shot to take out Flynn, I’m gonna take it, whether I have to do that alone or not.”

Going head to head with him, she leans forward so he can hear her in their hushed whispers.

“I don’t take orders, Wyatt.  I’m not a soldier,” she sneers.  “That was your choice, not mine. You’re not taking her.”

With a shake of his head at her confession, he gathers his jacket off the bed, leaving her standing there, blatantly ignoring her argument.

xxxxx

“What are you doing here, anyway?” She asks, popping another grape into her mouth, not quite ready to forgive him for yesterday, but unsure as to how he was sitting next to her right now.  They usually had different lunches.

“Showed up late,” he says with a shrug, and a grimace of pain briefly flashes over his face at the movement, so quick she’s almost not sure she saw it, before his lips settle into that grin she can’t stop seeing even when she closes her eyes.  “Figured I might as well eat before heading to class.”

“You don’t even have any food,” she quips back, finding him with only a coffee cup sitting in front of him, but wanting to make it clear in her tone that she didn’t support him skipping class. Although it did comfort her to know it wasn’t just her he managed to show up late for.

“And yet,” he says grabbing another grape.  “I seem to be eating,” he finishes with a wink.

“You seriously skipped class to eat with me?” She asks before she can catch her words, the urge to kick herself never more present, as he so easily picks up on her distinction, one he hadn’t made.  She hates how easily she seems to fall into his charm, unable to stay mad at him.

“Oh, no.  I didn’t know you were in this lunch.”

“Oh,” she says, her cheeks lighting up in a blush.  “Right, of course, you were just…”

“I’m kidding, Lucy,” he says with a smirk, which in turns causes her to give off a laugh, a big toothy grin playing on her lips, that catches his attention, lighting up his blue eyes to a color she’d have to identify later.  

He slides his cup in front of her, and she scrunches her nose, to which he laughs.

“It’s tea,” he says.  “Consider it a peace offering.”

Lucy tries to hold the shock from her face.  Taking a sip from the cup, she finds it’s not just tea, but her favorite, chai. She can’t believe that he remembered.  It had been an offhand comment she’d made one time during one of their sessions. And here he was, discernibly showing her that he was trying, that he wanted to know her.

“Look, about yesterday,” he starts, and she finds herself holding her breath for what he’s about to say.  “I didn’t mean to be late, and had I known, I would’ve found a way to let you know.  I uhh, I wasn’t even at school, I just came in to turn in my history paper and went to the library right after.  I’m sorry.”

She wants to stay mad at him, to shield herself from his charm, ward off any feelings she had begun to harbor for the guy in front of her.  But she can’t.  Her hands warm underneath the heat of the tea, tingling her fingers.

“It’s okay.  It wasn’t…I was having a bad day, and I heard something, and it just set me off, and…I took it out on you, so I’m sorry,” she says, running her warm fingers through her hair, pushing her curls to one side.

“Hmm, and what exactly did you hear?” He asks, grabbing another grape, but not immediately putting into his mouth.  He rolls it around between his fingers, trepidation in his actions for what it was that she heard, almost like he expected it to be about him.

She wants to tell him, but a part of her knows that badmouthing Jessica probably wouldn’t go over well, and she doesn’t want to put them right back where they had been yesterday - an insecure feeling bubbles up inside of her.  

She was just a tutor.

“It’s not important,” she dismissively answers, looking down, examining her own food.

He opens his mouth to respond when Luke walks up holding his lunch.

xxxxx

Watching Wyatt walk off, defeated from the betrayal of Judith, shoulders slumped, hand coming to touch where he had been hit, she can’t help but feel bad for him, despite being right about the situation.  She holds back her I told you so, and instead follows after him down to the lobby of the hotel.

She sees him standing against the counter, dictating a telegraph.  Quietly, and carefully in her heels, she walks up behind him, wondering what it is he’s doing, exactly.

“…and know that you love her more than anything,” she overhears, stopping her dead in her tracks.  The realization of what he must be doing leaves her breathless, her hand tingling as she silently holds her breath.  Tears spring to her eyes, and she wiggles her fingers, her nails digging into her palms.

When he turns, he finds her standing there, having heard what he said, although he can’t be sure just how much.

He looks broken,the telegraph a last ditch effort to get back to a time he was happier.  His face creases, still young, but different than the last time she was able to trace over every line when he smiled, when he cried.  The worry lines more frequent, creased from events she knew nothing about.

“It worked in Back to the Future 2,” he shrugs, trying to play off the seriousness of the situation.

“Wyatt,” she calls out to him, as she tries to brush by her.  Stopping, he turns to face her.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” he sighs, tucking his hands into his pockets, shielding himself from her.

“No, you don’t,” she tries, because even back when they were inseparable, he’d laugh at how often she surprised him, despite knowing her so well.  “I get it.”

“Do you?” His gravely voice shaking at her admittance.

“Yeah, I would do anything to get my sister back, so I get it, you want to change things to stay with Jessica,” she explains, attempting to keep the flinch away from her face at having to admit it wasn’t her that he was fighting so hard for.

He gives a soft laugh, shaking his head at her, like this wasn’t ever how he pictured things going down.  But in that moment, her heart clenches, even surely, as here as they are now, she knows that the pain of what happened still left her with a fragile heart, fractured but never healed.

“Look, about before, I’m sorry.  I know you’re just doing your job to keep history the way it’s meant to be,” he explains.  And she nods, unsure of where he’s going with this apology.  “But I don’t believe in meant to be or fate, Luce.  Not in the way you do.  Because if that were the case…” and he pauses, as she swallows the truth of his statement.  

“You’d still be with her,” she finishes for him, refusing to accept his belief.

“It’s all just dumb luck and random chance, Lucy,” his eyes say, searching her’s as if they hold the answer to a solution he can’t come up with.

She brings her lip between her teeth, listening to him essentially say that everything that had ever occurred between them was nothing more than happenstance, a roll of the dice.  It’s no wonder they ended up where they did.  Where she saw it as a second chance, he was telling her that it was a coincidence, one he didn’t care for.

She opens her mouth, searching for the right words to tell him that what they were was fate, was something that had shaped their entire lives, leaving them to meet again all these years later, but Rufus interrupts, leaving her to swallow her confession.

xxxxx

“Wyatt, I didn’t think you were in this lunch,” Luke says, taking a seat on Lucy’s other side, so she’s sandwiched between them both.

“I’m not,” he answers, offering no further explanation, but she can see the clench of his jaw.

“Wyatt was just returning something of mine,” she explains, trying to break up the awkwardness, which seems to have the opposite effect judging by Luke’s affronted look and the smirk playing across Wyatt’s face.

“Mr. Logan,” says a man Lucy recognizes to be the P\principal.  “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” He asks, and she’s grateful that while she can see Wyatt’s blue eyes roll, his back is faced toward the stern looking man.

Turning around in his seat with an impish grin, he plasters on a fake smile if she ever saw one.

“I was just heading there now,” he says, in a tone that suggests he was placating him and everyone knew it.

“I suggest you get there,” he says. “You don’t have any strikes left,” he warns, as if suggesting that Wyatt is here on borrowed time.  This has Wyatt’s hand coming to the back of his neck, and she can see the stress wearing on him, a slight redness to his cheeks, almost like he was embarrassed that she was hearing any of this.

Lucy can see the satisfied smile on Luke’s face at Wyatt’s reprimanding, only to quickly slip when Wyatt stands.

“I should get to class,” he says, like the thought just occurred to him.  His hand leans against the table, his eyes closing as if steadying himself, before leaning down, and she swears he grits his teeth as if in pain for a second.  “I’ll see you after school, Lucy,” he says, leaving no question as to whether he was going to show up.  “Promise,” he whispers, his hand dancing over her own in his path to grab one more grape.

She sees him chew, gleaming back at her as he’s escorted to class by the principal.

“Are you hooking up with that guy?” Luke asks, and Lucy’s eyes go wide, not having expected that question.

“What?  No,” she answers quickly, hoping her curls hide the better part of her blush at the idea of her and Wyatt doing anything like that, although she can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed her mind.  There’s been many a night where Wyatt stars in her dreams, only to banish the feel of his hands from her thoughts the next morning, refusing to give weight to an idea so absurd.  But then she wonders, what were others picking up on that perhaps she was too blind to see.  

She chances a glance over at Luke, who seems like he doesn’t quite believe her answer. “I’m…just his tutor,” she explains, taking another sip of her tea.

xxxxx

A shiver runs through Lucy’s body, having her crossing her arms around herself.  She purposely walks one foot in front of the other, slowing down the process of undressing and heading home.

She ends up stumbling onto Wyatt, apparently doing the same, sitting on a chair, still dressed in his 60s attire.

“Hey,” she says, unsure of where they stand at the moment, but unwilling or incapable of staying away.

He looks up at her, a deep sigh ready in his chest.

“Did your telegram work?” She asks, and he shakes his head.

“It was a long shot.”

Sitting down next to him, uncrossing her arms, she leans over, her hands lacing together.

“Heading home to your fiancé?” He asks, the glittering ring hitting them both in the face.

“Something like that,” she offers.  “I had several missed texts from him,” she says, raising her brow as if she expected Noah to somehow disappear when she came back.  Judging by the clench of Wyatt’s jaw, he was apparently hoping for the same.

Suddenly, he stands, and she finds herself peeking up at him through her dark lashes.

“You know, I umm, I never used to picture my wedding,” she confesses.

He lets out a puff of air, like her words were sharpened, ready to aim right at his heart.

“No?”

“No,” she murmurs.  “I used to picture being married,” she sighs, pursing her lips.  “Knowing that someone loved me enough to choose me every single day, and that I felt the same,” she finishes with a laugh.  “Stupid, I know.”  And although she laughs, she finds herself swallowing back tears.

“Not stupid,” Wyatt whispers.  “You deserve that.”

Looking up at him, she knows he means it.

“So what you’re saying is I should probably find out Noah’s last name, huh?” She teases, and he reaches for her hand, his touch feeling a bit like coming home, more so than she had felt in years, certainly more than the last few days.  Pulling her up, he attempts to release her hand, but their fingertips grip each other, until slowly sliding away.

“You know how I feel about names,” he says with knowing smile, as they walk together to find their every day clothes.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Logan.”

xxxxx

A/N:

OMGOODNESS, Y’ALL, WE’RE GETTING MORE TIMELESS!  when i had said last time that i was hoping to write these chapters as we waited for news, i never expected it to come this quickly.  so crazy.  and let me tell you, while i’m never going to stop fighting for another season, i’m super pumped for this movie.  my lyatt loving heart is prepared to melt twice with double the lyatt.

anyway, i hope you enjoyed this chapter.  please, please, leave a review/comment, they are sometimes the only thing that encourages me to actually sit down and write, so they’re much appreciated.

thank you, thank you!

[tenscupcake]

the null hypothesis (5/?)

fitzsimmons. teen. i hope even one person enjoys this story as much as i do lol... it is such a source of joy in my life... especially with the dismal turn aos has taken lately. thanks to @aroseofstone​ for the endless support with this fic. summary: roughly one out of every six people can't feel touch; that is, until their soulmate touches them. fitz and jemma are two indignant contributors to that statistic, content to devote their lives to science rather than searching for their supposed 'other half.' both too clever for high school, they head off to university at sixteen, completely unaware their fates are about to become intertwined. but in a world where soulmates don't always match, it's not always easy to confess to a stranger. a soulmate au with a twist. this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

By the end of his last class on Wednesday, Fitz has amassed a sizeable inventory of tactile memories. Paired them up with physical properties and adjectives he’s never understood before now. Metal, glass, paper, plastic, wood, nitrile. He tries to think of every possible material he might encounter in next week’s lab and desensitise himself to it, so as not to draw unnecessary attention from Jemma. He knows he eventually has to come clean, but he doesn’t want it to be by accident.

He’s met about a dozen new people over the span of a day: other members of his suite, professors, classmates he’s been forced to work in groups with. And as he’s shaken all their hands, he’s been consistently amazed by how different everyone’s is. Some are unpleasantly moist; others are uncomfortably dry. Some squeeze hard, other barely hold on. Some hands feel massive around his, others are dwarfed by his own. Some have soft hands, others have rough calloused skin he wonders how they cope with. It’s funny, how he can start to make assumptions about the people he meets simply based on their handshake. How confident they are, how muscular, how often they use their hands, whether they have a skincare routine. A useful tool for the future, he speculates, that he’s almost glad to have acquired.

But there’s only one hand he keeps going back to, one he daydreams about touching again. Because only one changed his life forever: Jemma’s. Hers was the nicest of all.

In fact, that little hand has consumed roughly ninety percent of his waking thoughts since he walked out of that lab. Well, that hand and the person attached to it.

The lecture for their chemistry class meets tomorrow morning, and he’s already vowed to himself to try to find her. Being introductory level as it is, an important prerequisite for multiple programs, it’s a huge class. More than three hundred students. Trying to locate someone specific to sit next to without prior coordination may be near impossible.

But his only ill-formed plan as of right now, that Mack helped him formulate, is to get to know Jemma better. His only hope is that, perhaps, if they’re friends, finding out the truth about him won’t be as revolting to her (worse case scenario; best case scenario, maybe she’ll be flattered). And the more time he spends with her outside of their lab section, the quicker he can get to know her, and vice versa. The sooner he can get the answer he needs.

Though, he has no idea what he’ll do if he does find her tomorrow. Simply stare at her from afar? Approach her and hope he doesn’t trip over his own tongue? Sit next to her and pray he can restrain himself from touching her the entire fifty minutes?

He spends the evening worrying about how it will play out as he repeatedly copies down the derivations of the equations he learned in Mechatronics today. Trying to memorize them early. But his wandering thoughts are distracting enough that it takes him much longer than it should. He keeps writing the wrong symbols, forgetting how to do basic integration.

When he finally gives up for the night and climbs into bed, he faces a night just as sleepless as the last. Tossing and turning, seeing Jemma’s face behind his eyelids. It’s a hazy memory, at this point, so many hours have passed since he’s seen her. He vows to himself the next time he sees her he’ll pay closer attention to her features, devote the details to memory.

He finally falls asleep in the wee hours of the morning, dreaming of what it’d be like to touch her again.

But his worry turns out to be for naught.

He does arrive early enough to spot her (he knew she’d be the type to show up ten minutes early), but completely loses his nerve when he sees her. She’s unmistakeable there in the front row, both a laptop and a notebook on her tiny retractable desk, intently focused on the former. There’s a few dozen students inside already, but a myriad empty seats. Including all the ones next to her. He’s entered at the very back (and top) of the large lecture hall, and he’s totally out of her line of vision, for now. He could walk down the steps and wait for her to see him.

He imagines how she’d look over and smile at him, inviting him to sit next to her. Or… what if she simply rolls her eyes, disappointed that he’d not leave her alone here, either?

In that moment, she turns in her chair, as though she’s about to look behind her. With the way the air evacuates his lungs at the idea of her seeing him, he’s no longer uncertain if he’s brave enough to approach her. He definitely isn’t. Heart sinking into his shoes, he looks down to the floor, settling into his usual chair in the back right of the hall instead.

He clenches his fists and mentally kicks himself for chickening out. Fighting the urge to look up.

He doesn’t even know for certain whether Jemma did look up toward the back. But if she did see him, she pretended not to.

Perhaps it’s for the best, then.

 -----

 Encouraged by her conversation with Daisy, Jemma makes it her mission to put Fitz out of her mind. Temporarily. He’s not going anywhere, after all. She’ll see him next week in the lab, where she can put her plan to form a friendship into action. And until then, there’s nothing she can do. Instead, she decides to go on an excursion to break in her new sense. Can’t be giving herself away to everyone around her after all (least of all Fitz).

She wanders around campus with her notepad and phone, touching everything she can get her hand on and trying to match it to descriptions she can find online.

Grass, she punches into Google. Coarse, scratchy, springy. She has too look up definitions for each tactile adjective, and get a sense of how each one translates on her fingertips. But the investigation is well worth her time. This is a whole new way of interacting with the world, and Jemma can’t contain her curiosity.

Polystyrene. Flexible and spongy, yet brittle. She tears off a few pieces of the coffee cup, finally matching a sensation to how it squeaks and rips.

But it isn’t long before she has to admit she’s spectacularly failing her mission. All she can think about is Fitz.

Cement. Hard, dense.

What’s he doing right now? Inventing something, probably. Or maybe he’s still in class, that serious focused face on as he scribbles messy equations down. Or perhaps he’s rolling his eyes at another student he’s been forcibly partnered with.

Water. Fluid, refreshing. She sits on the edge of the fountain, dragging her hand through it, marvelling how it tickles her hand as it resists the motion before finally rushing between her fingers. As soon as she pulls her hand out, each individual droplet trickles down her hand before reuniting with the pool below.

What if he is her match, and he’s just too shy to admit it, too? She imagines the hypothetical revelation making him smile, a phenomenon she doesn’t think she’ll ever get enough of. Those boyish cheeks lifted even higher, his eyes sparkling. What colour were they? Somehow, she’d failed to notice.

She leaps up and walks in circles across the plaza, trying to get a hold of herself. She can’t entertain such thoughts, not when she has no proof yet. It’ll only crush her even more if she’s built up hope of that.

She continues her investigation, instead: the shiny paint and windscreen of a new car, the bark of a tree, the surface of a stone. But even as she catalogues these things, her mind wanders. Curious about how other things would feel. Cupping his jaw. Running her fingers through his hair. Splaying her fingers on his chest. It’s purely scientific, she tries to convince herself. This curiosity.

And yet, she has no desire to quench said curiosity with any other bloke. Any person. Even if it were possible to, which it is definitely not, she’d only want Fitz.

Oh, this is not good at all.

The next thirty-odd hours progress in much the same way. Trying to focus on other things, constantly distracted by her soulmate’s abrupt arrival in her life. Trying to prepare herself for next week’s lab, what she’ll say to him to try to befriend him after the rocky start they had.

But it’s not until seven forty-seven on Thursday morning, when she’s one of the first people in the lecture hall for chemistry, that it hits her that Fitz is in this course. Unless he makes a habit of skipping lecture (which wouldn’t be unbelievable for him), he’ll be here this morning.

Why had this not occurred to her sooner?

There’s just so many people in this class, she’d managed to compartmentalize the lecture portion apart from the lab portion. There are so many fewer students there, such a different learning atmosphere. It’s hard not to separate them mentally.

Suddenly, her decently-controlled anxiety skyrockets again. Heart skips several beats. What if she runs into him? She hasn’t fully prepared for such an encounter yet.

She turns around, scanning the room for him.

Sitting in the very front, as per usual, she has a good view of the entire room. But so far, there’s only about ten other students here, scattered across the room quite randomly.

She tries to focus on what she’s reading, a recent article that caught her interest about genetically engineered allergen-free peanuts. But she can’t stop herself from looking back.

The fourth time she does, she catches sight of him, unmistakeable with his cardigan and tie. The door has just banged closed behind him, way at the top of the hall. But he’s looking down at the ground, evidently unconcerned with whoever else is already in the room. He slumps into a chair in the very back row, the right-hand side too, about as far away from her as he can get. She lets her gaze linger on him for a moment, hoping he’ll glance up and see her, but he doesn’t. He must be looking at his phone, or something else. He looks a bit grumpy, too, from her vantage point. Perhaps not a morning person.

She turns back around, staring numbly at the whiteboard. And doesn’t bother looking back again. She supposes it’s for the best. What would she have done, anyway, if he had seen her? Waved awkwardly? Invited him down to sit with her? Taken the long journey up to the back of the class to sit with him? All those options sound dreadfully anxiety-inducing. It’d probably seem weird and clingy anyway, jumping him like that when he’s not expecting it. Especially this early in the morning.

It’s fine. She can wait until the lab. That’s what she’d planned on, anyway.

But the entirety of the dull lecture, all she can think about is Fitz, sitting in the back of the very same hall. He’s probably just as bored as she is, playing on his computer with engineering stuff.

She’s surprised that mental image makes her smile the way it does.

 -----

 When Tuesday afternoon finally arrives, Fitz is no more prepared than he was five days earlier. He arrives ten minutes early, partly so Jemma knows he was serious about not being tardy again, and partly so that he can mentally prepare himself for when she walks in. After he turns in his completed lab report from last week to the basket in front, he simply takes his seat at their station and waits. He thinks about putting his PPE on, but decides against it. Once he’s suited up, there’s no chance of any skin contact. And stupid and selfish though it may be, he’s hoping for some today. He doesn’t need a lot. Just one touch, and he’ll be content for another week. One little touch.

He jumps every time someone opens the door closest to him, but it’s never her. The TA (Jason, he’d found out his name is by checking the syllabus), then three other students amble in. It’s not until the fifth that he finally sees Jemma.

She looks taken aback to see him, pausing in the doorway like she’s surprised he arrived before her. But she collects herself momentarily, taking a visible breath before offering him a wave and a smile and walking inside.

“Hey, Fitz,” she offers as she approaches their bench.

He realizes he neither waved back nor said anything by the time she sits down, only followed her with his eyes. His poorly committed memory of her didn’t really do the real thing justice. She’s so much more breathtaking than he remembered. Her smile alone brightens the entire aisle around her, and he can actually feel common sense leaving his head the longer he stares at it. Then there’s her eyes, a bright, inviting shade of brown. The way she manages to carry herself with such authority. And is that a bit of a blush on her cheeks?

Oops. He still hasn’t returned her greeting.

“Hi,” he manages. Swallows hard.

Well, this is going well.

“Jemma,” he adds, probably too delayed for it to seem natural. She’d said his name, though.

His last name again. Huh. It’s rare for anyone to refer to him by last name like that. And this is the second time she’s done it in the short time since they met. But it sounds nice when she says it, soft and almost affectionate. Which is mad, because she can’t possibly feel that way.

“Sorry,” she says, unexpectedly. What does she have to apologize for? “I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Did what?” he asks before she can volunteer it.

“Called you by your last name. I don’t know why –”

“That’s fine,” he blurts out.

“Yeah?” she says, surprised.

“Yeah, I, er… I like it,” he manages to say. It must sound mental, but he’s unable to bear the thought of accepting her apology and, by extension, agreeing she should be sorry for anything at all.

She lifts an eyebrow almost flirtatiously. He thinks.

“All right.” With the tiniest of smiles, she delves into her backpack for her things.

Her hands are as of yet un-gloved, and suddenly he realises he’s about to miss his short window to touch her hand again. He runs through a list of ways he could contrive such a scenario in his mind as she pulls out the necessary items from her bag. Just as she’s going for the box of gloves at the end of the bench, a random one spills out of his mouth.

“Oh, er, Jemma, could I… er… borrow a pen?”

Confused, she glances down at his hand, where he’s still holding the pen he’s written down half the protocol with.

“Ran out of ink?” she guesses.

Nope, just an absolute numpty who forgot to stash it before he asked.

He exhales with relief that she’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. That could’ve gone a lot worse.

“Yeah,” he agrees. If the circumstances were different, he’d be lauding her for giving him a good excuse.

With a little more theatrics than necessary, he chucks it into the nearest bin. A perfectly good pen. Oh well.

“You’re in luck,” she says, fishing around in her bag again. “I’ve got lots.” She glances over at his notebook. “You want black, I imagine. To stay consistent.”

Actually, he couldn’t care less what colour ink he uses or if it matches his old pen, as long as it’s Jemma’s.

When he doesn’t respond, she pulls out a black one, anyway. And when she holds it out for him, there’s only about a centimetre of space left on the end of the pen for him to take it.

Is she reading his mind, or is this entirely coincidental?

Greedy as he is, he doesn’t think on it too hard. It’s still a perfect opportunity, and he doesn’t want to miss it.

He reaches for it hesitantly with his left hand, giving her plenty of time to decide if she wants to change her tactic here. But she doesn’t budge. He steels himself for what’s coming, and closes his hand around the end of the pen, lightly brushing one her thumb and finger as he does.

Fitz thought for sure he had built up that first time in his head. That logically speaking, there was no way the second time would be as magical as he’d come to remember first. But he was oh so wrong. Senses alight in the finger pads that had touched her, no less intensely than before. New cells, new sensitivity, it seems the rule is here. He holds his breath, trying not to visibly react. But it’s still tingling, every last bit of skin that touched hers, blood rushing into that hand as fast as into his face.

His heart screams for him to be bold, to reach out and touch more, not caring whether he’s revealed or not. Thankfully, his brain stops him from doing something so stupid, and he just watches her reaction instead. But, again – there’s not much to go off of. She grins tightly once she’s handed off the pen, then turns back to the rack of gloves.

As he’s putting on his own gloves and coat, he churns over what just happened. She could’ve done that so many other ways. She didn’t have to hold on to so much of that pen – a mere inch on the opposite end would have sufficed. She could’ve just set it on the benchtop for him. She could’ve tossed it on his notebook, for God’s sake.

It’s only as he’s thinking back on the fleeting moment that realizes that, just as he’d reached for the pen with his left, she had held it out with her left hand. When he knows she’s right-handed.

Is it possible she wanted to sneak a little touch of her own?

Oh, how badly he wants to believe that.

But that is scant circumstantial evidence. This is merely confirmation bias at work: he’s only absorbing the evidence that supports the theory he wishes to be true. Because there’s plenty of conflicting evidence, too, that he’d rather ignore: such as that she has neither visibly reacted to this second touch, nor initiated a conversation about the first one.

The way he feels about this whole phenomenon is rare, he knows that much. And what reason does Jemma have to fear she’d be mismatched? She’s beautiful and, evidently, brilliant. She could probably have whoever she wanted either way.

No, chances are, his gut instinct is right. He still needs more evidence, more time to be certain, but...

Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose. God, that was such a bad, impetuous idea. He’s only got patches of three fingers on his left hand with sensation, now. It’s going to feel odd until he can somehow contrive a left-handed handshake, or another similar form of contact. (Assuming he can even think of another one that wouldn’t be construed as plain harassment, because right now he’s coming up rather blank.)

He doesn’t have any more time to mull it over before Jason is calling the now full lab to attention.

They’re both a bit less talkative, this time around. Fitz knows in his case, he’s about a hundred times more nervous, being in his bloody soulmate’s presence and making his best effort not to make a total fool of himself in front of her. Only one chance at a first impression, and he already mucked it up. Trying to redeem himself is actually quite stressful.

But it remains a mystery why Jemma is quieter. Especially considering how talkative she’d been last week: narrating the experiment, asking him questions, bossing him around. He sort of misses it.

A small, optimistic part of him hopes it’s because she’s nervous too, being around her own soulmate. But the much larger, realistic part of him that relies on evidence and logic assumes it’s because she’s already decided she doesn’t much care for him.

It’s not that they don’t talk at all, because they definitely do. And Fitz relishes in every bit of new information about her. It’s mostly things related to school – their class schedules, their research interests, what they want to do when they finish school. He tells her about his plan to be an aerospace engineer, and she confesses she’s still having trouble deciding between biotechnology and medical research.

And just as last week, they divide up their tasks efficiently, and complete the base protocol and the extra few steps of investigation that had tacked on quicker than any other pair.

He can’t believe a week ago he had all but written off the idea of a friendship with her. He’s never met anyone so passionate and intelligent before. He’s not overly fond of biology, but he could listen to her talk about it all day. And damn it if she doesn’t manage to make these fogged-up, bulky lab goggles, that make everyone else look like a clown, look adorable.

As the minutes tick by, he’s more and more glad that they’re required to wear full PPE in this lab – that the coat, goggles, gloves can’t come off until they’ve finished. He isn’t sure how he’d stop himself from touching her if they were working this closely together without all that. Every time she taps impatiently on the bench with her fingers as they wait, he can’t help but imagine they’re somewhere else: that her gloves are gone, and he can stop her fidgeting by taking her hands gently in his, brushing his thumb over her skin. Whenever she’s turned away, he can hardly think of anything but what it’d be like to brush the back of his hand along her smooth cheek.

And he’s not proud to admit this, but every second the experiment doesn’t require his immediate focus, he can’t stop staring at her.

They complete their entire modified protocol in, again, just under two hours. But last time, the end couldn’t come soon enough. Now, it’s far too soon. They’ve still got another hour allotted to finish, and he’d like nothing more than to spend it with Jemma. But, lacking a good enough excuse to have them both stick around an extra hour, he’s mute as they finish recording up their observations and final measurements and turn in the carbon copies.

He holds out hope that perhaps Jemma will end every lab with a friendly parting handshake, once they’re free of these bloody gloves.

But she does no such thing today.

“See you next week, Fitz,” she says as she walks past where he’s still stuffing things into his bag.

When he looks up, she gives him a smile that takes his breath away. Awkward red goggle lines on her face or not, she’s stunning.

“See you,” he echoes, trying to smile back. Only hoping he succeeds.

He watches her until she gets to the door, and she stops and glances back before she opens it.

“Good luck with that rat liver.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles out.

With a parting wave, she’s gone.

Fitz’s heart does a backflip in his chest. He’d only mentioned his dread over the upcoming lab this week in biochem in passing. She wasn’t just nodding along with his stories and complaints about his other courses. She was listening, and remembered everything he’d said. Wished him luck.

Floating on the reassurance of that one simple gesture, Fitz can’t stop smiling the rest of the evening.