#the worst one so far is the rubbish collection mission where he missed the last piece of rubbish by like 1.5 seconds

[unamused-kookaburra]

Hit and Run was so cruel with it’s timed missions that a single second could be the difference between victory and failure and having to start the whole mission again, but the worst part is that it was do-able because you couldn’t argue that it was impossible.

[qqueenofhades]

Ahem. So. Here's the thing. That part 6 ending was a truly spectacular garbage display, even by the high garbage standards of Garcia Flynn, and I need Lucy to be happy (even if she would probably be better off with someone who is not a walking trash fire. That being said, formal request for part 7 or 8 or however long it takes to drag him back from this epic garbage cliff he's thrown himself off.

You can catch up on the foregoing Absolute Garbage here (now posted on AO3.). As usual, I blame @pirate-owl.

It doesn’t take Wyatt and Rufuslong after they get to the hospital to realize something is funny.Lucy is happy to see them, though still considerably doped up, and the doctorsays she’s probably out of the woods. Not anywhere close to being actuallyreleased yet, though, and that makes everyone antsy. They know Rittenhouse hasa golden opportunity right now: either the boys take out the Lifeboat afterthem and leave Lucy behind, or they stay with Lucy and let those bastards do asthey please to history. They haven’t jumped yet, but they’re going to soon.Neither choice is what anyone wants, and Lucy finally says, “Let’s discuss thiswith Garcia. Where is he, anyway? Didn’t you two say he was going to be here?”

“Yeah.” Wyatt frowns. “He saidhe’d meet us here, he was – actually, I’m not sure what he said he was going todo, run an errand or something. That was a while ago, though.”

“Can you call him?” Lucy pushesherself upright against the white hospital pillows with a grimace. “What ifsomething happened?”

Wyatt gives her a wry look, as ifto say that the only person she should be worrying about right now is herself,but pulls his phone out of his pocket, steps into the corridor, and dials Flynn.It rings once and then goes to voicemail. (Which, since this is Flynn, is justa long beep.)

Wyatt frowns. “Hey,” he says.“It’s me. Call me back, Lucy’s worried.”

With that, trying not to jump toconclusions just yet (even though, in his opinion, one can rarely go wrongsuspecting the worst of Flynn) he heads back into the room, at least until thenurse comes in for Lucy’s morning checks and gives them the kind of look thatmeans they should probably clear out. Since this is the same one unimpressedwith Lucy’s taste in men last night, she says, ostensibly cheerily, “Is yourhusband here this morning, Mrs. Wallace?”

“I – no, I haven’t seen him yet.”Lucy manages a smile, while Wyatt drills a death glare into the back of NurseRatchet’s head; it is clear that only he gets to bag on Flynn for being late.“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

The nurse has an uh-huh expression on her face, butdoesn’t press it. Wyatt and Rufus are shooed into the corridor and out into thewaiting room, tense and anxious and not sure what to do when half the team isdown – one shot and the other incommunicado at the worst possible time. It’snot like they have day jobs they go to anymore; their entire existence is tiedup in stopping Rittenhouse. Lucy is still here under a fake name, her rubbishhusband is still a wanted fugitive and terrorist in the eyes of the U.S.government, and history could be turning on its head as soon as Rittenhousetakes the Mothership out again. As they manage a casual stroll out of the front doors and towardthe nearest Starbucks – possibility of being busted or not, they are starving,and not eating hospital food – Rufushisses, “What the hell kind of stunt did Captain Craplord pull now?”

“I’m trying to figure that out,”Wyatt mutters back, as they join the insanely long line – is the entireorthopedics department on break at once? Because it sure looks like it –finally collect their drinks, and kick out a hipster from a corner table. Thehipster gives them a baleful look, but Wyatt does not have time for his hurtfeelings, and flashes his Army ID. “Hey, pal. National security. Write yournovel somewhere else.”

The hipster gathers up hisAirBook and scuttles off, not without a final look warning them that he isgoing to write a scathing blog post about the entitlement of themilitary-industrial complex later. Wyatt slides into his vacated seat and grabshis drink; he asked for two extra shots, and even that doesn’t feel like quiteenough to kickstart his brain. He calls Flynn once more, just to be thorough,but this time it doesn’t even ring. He puts it down and says grimly, “Yeah.He’s gone.”

Rufus blows on his latte, thentakes a slug. “Am I missing the part where that’s a problem?”

“I feel you there, buddy. Believeme.” Wyatt laughs, without humor. “But we’re already in trouble as it is.You’re our only pilot, so either way, if Rittenhouse jumps again, you have tobe part of the Lifeboat crew. As we’ve noted, I can’t be in two places at thesame time. Which means Lucy is either here by herself, or you go alone, and Ican’t agree to that. But I can’t protect you both. We need Flynn back.”

Rufus opens his mouth, takes adrink of coffee instead of saying something, and then can’t hold back frompointing out the obvious corollary. “So what, he’s going to – what, come backand apologize? Look, I know why we were stuck with him. I know why we had toget him out of jail and even make him part of the team. Not that he ever wantedthat, because he’s terrible, but whatever. But now Lucy’s hurt, we’re screwed,and he’s left us in the lurch. He made the choice to go. He clearly doesn’tgive a damn about any of us. Good riddance.”

“I don’t know.” The last placeWyatt ever imagined he’d be is defending Flynn, but much as he hates it, he hasbeen able to sense that the other man’s feelings for Lucy are real. Even if heknows absolutely nothing about how to express it. Too real, perhaps. Tooterrifying. “You know what happened to his family, his wife and kid. He told meabout it during the Watergate mission. Rittenhouse shot them while he was inthe house, he heard the silencers. Found their bodies, but it was too late. I’mguessing… well. Seeing that same thing happen to Lucy right in front of himprobably set him off a little.”

Rufus snorts. “A little?”

“Look, I’m not defending him. Itwas a pretty ass thing to do. I’m just saying, I don’t think he suddenly bailedbecause he decided he didn’t give a shit. I did – well, I did the same thing,after Jess.” Wyatt’s voice sticks in his throat, and Rufus meets his gaze witha troubled expression. “You just want to be far away from anywhere you thinkthe pain can reach you. It does, though. It always does.”

“Hey, man.” Rufus puts a hand onhis shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s all right.” Wyattsighs. “Like I said, I honestly get not wanting to go to the bother of findinghim. But we do need him back, even if it’s going to take a lot of time we don’treally have to spare. And, well.” He hesitates. “Like it or not – and it’sdefinitely not – Lucy needs him back too. We can’t un-wrinkle reality, andthey’re, well. You know.”

“Yeah. Married. Somehow.” Rufusblows out a breath. “We could just wait a few days and see if she gets overhim.”

“I wish, but that’s still not ourchoice to make.” Wyatt is realizing what he’ll have to do, and sighs again.“Can you track his phone?”

“Maybe,” Rufus says dubiously.“It’ll be harder if he’s left the country, though. Or maybe he just hopped inthe Lifeboat and peaced out to some other time permanently. Maybe that’s it,”he adds, sounding hopeful. “He can go back to his solo-operator thing andhandle Rittenhouse, but we… probably can’t let Flynn deal with things hisway. Shit.”

“Yeah, he sucks at it.” Wyattgulps the rest of his coffee, winces as it burns on the way down, and – seeinganother hipster covetously eyeing their table with its precious power outlet,and guessing they should hit the road – stands up. “Come on.”

He and Rufus head out, aretempted to go back to the hospital, but the nurse will just evil-eye themanyway and they have nothing to report to Lucy. So they make it back to thesafe house, where Rufus boots up his myriad of computers and gets cracking. Thelast place he can triangulate Flynn’s phone is at SFO. After that, nada, but itdoesn’t take too much guesswork to surmise his next move. The asshole got on aplane and assholed off God knows where.

“Really?” Rufus mutters, fingersflying over the keys, as he tries various combinations and algorithms ofdubious legality (then again, it’s not like more bending of the rules is reallysomething he’s worried about anymore) until he finally hacks intoarrival-departure data for SFO’s main terminals this morning. Even anemotionally distraught Flynn is not dumb enough to travel under his real name,though there is the question of how he’d finesse the ID requirement (thoughsomeone who worked for the NSA probably knows how to bluff his way around thatand/or pose as a government representative for whom the stormtroopers don’tneed to see his identification). Finally, Rufus stops at a blinking name on alist. “Abraham Preston? Really?”

“As in, Lucy’s favorite presidentthat he shot in front of her and her last name?” Wyatt is so exasperated bythis choice of alias that he almost reconsiders the whole retrieval plan on thespot. “Why?”

“Don’t you have to wonder?” Rufusflags the name and downloads the file. “How the heck they got together?”

“I try not to.” This is for Lucy,Wyatt reminds himself. “Where did he go?”

“By the looks of things…”Rufus clicks through a few screens, muttering to himself about the governmentnot even encrypting things properly. Really makes you feel as if your sensitiveinformation is carefully protected. “JFK.”

“New York? The hell is he doingthere?”

“Assuming that was his finaldestination. Don’t you have some special ops tricks? Call the TSAand get them to pull his passenger records?”

“That is… not a bad idea.”Wyatt supposes that at this point, the law doesn’t really enter it. So, whileRufus is monkeying around to see if he can crack into JFK’s servers or ifthey’re using a different protocol (or whatever computer-geek problem he needsto solve, this isn’t Wyatt’s lookout) he looks a few things up, makes a fewcalls, and finds no difficulty at all in informing the TSA chief that AbrahamPreston is a dangerous individual with a predilection for making terribledecisions, who important people would like to talk to ASAP. This cuts quite abit of red tape and the multiple levels of management Wyatt would haveotherwise had to circumvent, but nothing can ever be easy when it comes to thefeds. Finally, he gets the information that Mr. Preston (he snorts to himself)appears to have just left, as in minutes ago, on a Japan Airlines flight to NaritaInternational Airport, Tokyo. Wyatt thanks him for the information, assures himthat Delta Force is on it and the flight itself is not in danger, hangs uphastily, and informs Rufus.

“Are you serious?” Rufus looks asif this is probably a rhetorical question when it comes to Flynn, yes. “Heflies east to New York, and then back across the whole country and west to Tokyo? How does that makeany sense?”

“Don’t look at me.” Wyatt rubshis temples. “Easier for me, though. If I get a flight to Tokyo right away, Imight be able to make it soon after he does.”

Rufus still has plenty ofcomments under his breath about how tragic this whole affair is, which isn’t remotelywrong, but there is the problem of getting Wyatt to Japan first. There is adeparture late this afternoon, which he will have to hustle if he wants tocatch, and since they’ve already gone to the well once and there is no time tospare, he calls SFO and asks that they hold a seat for him, as a matter ofurgent national security. If all this ever gets back to Pendleton, Wyatt’sgoose is cooked, but frankly, he has bigger problems. Like tracking down Lucy’sutter failure of a spouse posthaste, then killing him himself.

This also means there isn’t anytime for Wyatt to go back to the hospital and tell her about this, so he givesRufus a look. “I’m sorry to stick you with this. Just… let her know thatI’m doing my best, all right?”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”Rufus says dryly. “You’re the one that has to deal with Flynn.”

“Yeah. Not looking forward tothat.” Wyatt is used to short-notice trips, after all, but in a time machine, not a plane. His life is weird. “I’lllet you know as soon as I get there. If Rittenhouse jumps while I’m gone…”

“I’ll go after them,” Rufus says.“Alone, if I have to. You know Lucy wouldn’t ever want us to do anything else.”

Wyatt knows this is true, even ashe practically has hives at the thought of either leaving Lucy by herself inthe hospital, or letting Rufus brave battling Rittenhouse by himself in the past.God, he’s going to wring Flynn’s neck.“Be – be careful, all right?”

“I’m not Delta Force or NSA, butI can handle myself.” Rufus holds out his hand, which Wyatt shakes, then pullshim into a brief hug. “See you soon.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt mutters. “I hopeso.”

Once Wyatt has gone, Rufus picksup a few groceries, figuring Lucy will not be terribly keen on eating Jello andprocessed gloop either, sighs deeply, stares accusingly at the sky, and finallyheads back to the hospital. He is very, very not looking forward to thisconversation, and Lucy is awake, anxious, and apparently trying to convince thenurses that she’s all right to be released, no big deal. Considering that shestill has a fairly sizeable hole in her side and was in emergency surgery lastnight, they are not buying it. As well, they have a few questions about theweapon that shot her. Ballistics testing has not been able to match it to anymodern ammunition. It looks like a bullet from a rifle from, what, the 1860s?

“1870s, actually,” Rufus mutters,supposing it’s lucky that Lucy didn’t get nailed by any of the automatic riflesthat Rittenhouse was supplying Custer’s doomed 7th with. If so –well, he doesn’t like to think about that. He and Lucy manage to fend off theirquestions for the time being, but it’s clear they can’t keep this up foreverwithout the police being involved, and that is likewise a problem. When they’vefinally got the room to themselves, he drops into one of the uncomfortableplastic chairs. “So, um,  Lucy. I have. .. something to tell you.”

A corner of her mouth quirks.“Does it involve why Wyatt’s not here now either?”

“Yeah, actually, it does.” Rufusrubs his face. “Flynn, well, he, he kind of skipped town. We found him – ittook us a while, but we found where he’s going, I promise. Wyatt went to gethim. But yeah, he. Decided to freelance again, I guess.”

Lucy’s face jerks, and then goescarefully, studiously expressionless. She looks away, twisting at the place onher left hand where her rings should be, and bites her lip. Rufus tries torespect her grief, even as he considers its object wholly unworthy of it, buthe can’t help himself. “Lucy, how did – how did that even happen? You and him?”

Lucy looks up in startlement,before apparently reminding herself that he doesn’t remember. After a momentshe says, rather hesitantly, “It was after the Yalta Conference mission.”

“Yalta Conference mission?”

“Yes. 1945, Roosevelt, Stalin,and Churchill meet in the Crimea, just before the end of WWII.” Lucy gives himan odd look. “Surely you remember that?”

“No, I don’t.” Rufus is struckwith the bizarre realization that they – himself, Flynn, and Wyatt – mustremember one version of recent events, as Lucy said that they have been marriedfor six months, and she must remember a completely different one. Did they actually go to Yalta 1945, ifhe doesn’t remember that they did? As a result of whatever changed in Sarajevo1914, the start of WWII’s predecessor, the mission from which they returned tofind this matrimonial surprise in the first place? Lucy was affected by thechanges, but they weren’t, since they made them to the timeline, eveninadvertently, while she wasn’t there? The same reason she remembered Amy’sexistence, while everyone in the present forgot it? Man, Rufus hates timetravel.

“Okay,” he says, electing not toget too off track. “So, Yalta?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“No. Technically, this me wasn’tthere.”

“Fine.” Lucy blows out a breath,clearly feeling doubly isolated. “Obviously, an event like that was huge forRittenhouse to target, and I… I was just running really angry aftereverything that happened with my mom, and I… I kept pushing the envelope, Ijust wanted to hurt them, I didn’t care what it cost. He saw me doing it, andhe… stopped me.”

“Wait, Flynn stopped you from going metal on Rittenhouse? Are you sure? Thiswasn’t another alternate Flynn from Bizarro Reality where he’s a nice andwell-adjusted guy?”

“No, it was him. He… he wasangry with me, still, but he didn’t want to see me go down that same road. Whenwe got back, he…” Lucy’s cheeks go pink. “He confronted me about it, and weended up…”

“Yeah, I can guess what you endedup doing.” Just as well that Wyatt isn’t here to hear this, Rufus thinks,although he has to at least suspect. “And then you what, got married the nextmorning? This actually isn’t the past where you have to get married after youbang because of honor and all that, I’m sure you know that, since you are,after all, the historian. So why – ”

Lucy gives him a look, cuttingoff his babbling. “No, we didn’t. It wasn’t until after – ”

She stops.

“What?” Rufus prods, feeling likethe town gossip who cannot keep their nose out of anyone’s business, but dyingof curiosity nonetheless. “After what?”

“After the Lusitania mission,” Lucy says quietly, having guessed from hisexpression that he doesn’t remember that one either. “1915. The men he killedon that one, the operatives Rittenhouse was using on that – they were the oneswho killed his family. Lorena and Iris. He finally got to avenge them, and whenwe got back to the present… well. It was emotional, to say the least. Andthings might have gotten a little mixed up and… yeah. That was the next morning where we kind of woke up married.”

“Wait, what?” Rufus is mildly stunned. “So this whole time, Flynn actuallyhas killed the guys who killed hisfamily? And doesn’t remember that either? Why didn’t you… I don’t know,tell him? It feels like it could have helped with all the meltdowns he washaving.”

“Because now I don’t know if ithappened!” Lucy turns to look at him, eyes filled with tears. “You obviouslydon’t remember anything I just told you about, none of you knew that Garcia andI were married, he didn’t know wewere married, and now we’re referring to two totally different time streams andsets of memories and no idea at all about how to reconcile them! You know hecompletely stonewalled me for two weeks after you guys got back from Sarajevo,I couldn’t even say an ordinary word to him, much less this! And now he’s onlybarely started to let me back in again, then he disappears, and this…” Shetrails off. “I may or may not get a chance to tell him at all, but when thisFlynn finds out, I can’t help feeling that… he’ll think his job is done. Hewon’t forgive me for keeping it a secret, he’ll decide we can handle the restof Rittenhouse on our own, and he’ll… he’ll leave.”

Oh. Rufus understands, unfortunately and unpleasantly. And while Flynn leaving is exactlywhat he should want, and still does to some degree, he knows it would shatterLucy if it came about like this.  Shecan’t tell Flynn because, as noted, there’s no way to know if it still happenedin this new reality, and because it would be cold and paltry satisfactionindeed, when this Flynn doesn’t even remember doing it, when he never actuallyhas. The only thing worse than not telling him would be letting him believethat he had done it, giving him falsehope, that he could rest at last, and then finding out that no, those men arestill alive. And because Lucy cannot rid herself of the insidious convictionthat Flynn would far prefer a universe where he looked into the eyes of the menwho killed Lorena and Iris in cold blood, remembered their faces and their deaths, and where he is not married to her. Notthis, where he doesn’t remember either. Where he has fairly earned neither his vengeancefor the past nor his hope for the future, neither his grief nor his joy. Whenit is all a dream for him, and he could still be hoping that sometime soon,he’ll wake.

“I…” Rufus says at last.Reaches over and takes Lucy’s hand. “I’msorry, okay? But… evidently he stuck around even after finding that out.Unless he didn’t, and we had to drag him back already – which wouldn’t surpriseme. Why did he stay?”

“He… well, yes, he was alittle surprised to find out we were married the first time, too.” Lucy lookswry. “But he said that he didn’t think the job was done, that we needed to takeout the rest of Rittenhouse too. And, well, he said that he supposed we weremarried now, and if I wanted to not be married, I could say so. But I, uh.Didn’t exactly let him finish.” She coughs. “So he bought me a real engagementring and we had a new ceremony a few weeks later.”

Rufus supposes this is actuallyquite a romantic and poignant story, so much that you can almost forget Flynnis involved. “So he… he chose to stay married before, right? And to let goof the whole vengeance thing, and keep fighting Rittenhouse because it was theright thing to do? And otherwise, you know… be happy?” He doesn’t know ifit’s their fault for mucking it up or not, when yet again, you have that pesky“which version of events actually happened?” brain-buster. “And then you gotreset to total ground zero and stuck with the version of him that sucks. Wow,Lucy. You did not deserve that.”

“I don’t know if it’s aboutdeserving.” She stares out the window, at dusk falling over theglittering lights of San Francisco. “I don’t know if we can get it back.”

“He chose it once,” Rufus says.“Maybe he can again. I don’t know.”

“Maybe.” Lucy gives him a smilethat doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s clear she thinks they might have lost theirchance. “First, we have to see if Wyatt can catch up to him.”

“He definitely can,” Rufus saysstoutly. “I have faith in Wyatt.”

“Just none in Flynn?” Lucyclearly catches the unspoken implication.

“Not really.”

“I don’t know if I should either,honestly.” Her eyes go dark, distant, far away. “But I can’t help it. I just –I just. I just really want him to come back.”

——————

Garcia Flynn hates the almighty,ever-living, absolutely-not-a-single-one-given fuck out of Tokyo.

He can barely remember whatpossessed him to come here in the first place, and the last few days aresufficiently hazy that he’s still confused about having traveled somewhere thatisn’t in the past. He took the first flight from San Francisco to New York, gotanother one, picked Japan because it was on top of the departures board andsounded as if it was the furthest away, and now, after God alone knows how manyhours of flying across multiple directions, time zones, and continents, he’shere. It is utterly disorienting. He can just about read Chinese, because ifyou deal with Russia as long as he has, you inevitably deal with China as well,but that does him no good with Japanese. The city goes on forever, and for aman who has spent most of his life in covert ops, where the entire point is hiding, he is as conspicuous as a heartattack. Six-foot-four men stand out anywhere, but especially in Japan. Staring isn’t considered rudein Asian culture, and everyone isstaring at him. He turned around too fast in a store and almost flattened sometiny Japanese granny, whose nose reached to about his navel. This is a countrybuilt for midgets. He feels like he’s parting the Red Sea when he walks downthe sidewalk.

Flynn is also not in the least afan of all the cutesy Hello Kitty-style kitsch that seems to predominateeverywhere, the fact that riding the subway (especially at rush hour) involves pretty much literally taking yourlife in your hands, and that no matter where he wanders in this gleaming,futuristic city, the complete antithesis of everything to do with the past, henever feels remotely better. If anything, he feels worse. He hasn’t doneanything but fight Rittenhouse for too long to remember, and he can’t relax.Keeps wondering what they’ve done, if they’ve taken the Mothership on anotherjump, what the hell the trio is going to do about it if so. Christ, he’s evenfound himself worrying about Wyatt. Thingsare clearly upside-down.

And Lucy.

Flynn doesn’t even need to forcehimself to be honest (which is good, otherwise he might never get there) to beconfronted with the fact that he has felt like he wants to die every hour,every minute, every second since heleft her. He has drearily struggled to rehearse the rationalizations,everything he worked out about how it was the best choice, but that barelycompensates for the knot of agony in his chest that hasn’t loosened its grip atall. If anything, it’s getting tighter. Still more, he knows that it was thecoward’s way out, and Lucy will be so angry with him for doing it that he haslikely burned any bridges back. He’ll just… he has no notion. He’s at the endof his rope. He just wants to go to bed and sleep for five years. Maybeforever.

Flynn supposes that he could workon identifying Rittenhouse members in the present, try to disrupt theiroperations and their ability to run more missions interfering with the past, asthat is essentially his only marketable skill set at this point, and might evenbe tangentially useful for the Time Team. He doesn’t know what to do with hislife if he’s not chasing them. Lucy started that too, and now he’s lost hertoo. No more than he deserves, really.

Presently, Flynn has gottenbuzzed at a sake bar, but not very much, as it takes a lot to get him drunk and he was tired of being gawped atby the locals. He has bought a room in a grimy hostel in the bar district (well,grimy by Japanese standards, which would still be shockingly clean for budgetaccommodation anywhere else) and he’s half-hoping some mugger with a death wishwill try to jump him (they’d have to jump very high). He could do with beatingthe shit out of someone, even if this is liable to get him dragged before theprefecture police, and accordingly cause more complications. He’s drunk justenough to have a headache, and he is in a vindictively foul mood. Fine, justlet them, let anyone, he doesn’tcare, he just wants it to –

At that moment, someone steps outof the alley in front of him. Flynn can’t help but wondering wildly if hisrequest for a mugging was granted after all, even if the joke’s on them, as hehas nothing worth stealing. He reflexively loads up for a punch – and thencatches sight of the newcomer in the glow of the neon sign from the takeoutrice place ahead, and freezes.

“You?” His tongue is still too thick, but the shock cuts throughhis head like a circular saw. “What the – whatthe fuck are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like?” WyattLogan glares back at him, blue eyes almost red in the reflected glare, givinghim a momentarily hellish aspect. “Tracking down your dumb ass!”

“How did – ” Flynn isn’t sure ifhe stopped trying to hit him too early. “How did you – ”

“How did I find you?” Wyattrepeats, clearly vastly underwhelmed by the sheer disastrous nature of thiswhole situation. “Well, aside from the fact that I obviously have a fewconnections, Abraham Preston, itlooks like you completely half-assed this whole thing. Don’t tell me thatsomeone who worked for the NSA for most of his life, and who went off the gridfor two years before he stole the Mothership, doesn’t know how to properlydisappear. Instead you use the most obvious fake name possible, then go to theone place you will literally be remembered by everyone you meet. You want toknow how I found you? Just asked if anyone had seen a tall, crazy-looking whiteman. Took me about three hours, tops, since I got from the airport. It almostlooks, oddly enough, like your heart’s not in this at all.”

“I – ” Flynn opens his mouth,then shuts it with a click. “Why did you come after me?”

“I’m not even going to dignifythat with a response.” Wyatt folds his arms. “Why do you fucking think I cameafter you?”

“I – thought you’d just – ”

“Yeah. I’m sure you thought alot. And I’m also sure it was mind-meltingly stupid, but hey, what’s itmatter?” Wyatt is angrier than Flynn has ever seen him. “Rufus and I have beenbusting our asses trying to fix allyour problems, worrying about Lucy, about what we’re going to do if Rittenhousejumps again, and you’re – what? Enjoying some geisha girls and anime?”

Flynn bristles. “I am not cheating on Lucy, I didn’t – ”

“Oh, so it’s cheating on hernow?” Wyatt yells, as heads start to appear on the balconies in the buildingsabove the narrow alley. “When you’re still, as far as I know, trying to rejectthis whole marriage as hard as you can? You didn’t cheat on her, hey, no, youjust ran away? Gold star!”

“Wyatt, just – ”

“No. No, you do not get to say anything. I’m here because of Lucy. Notbecause of you. Rufus thought we should just leave you down whatever rabbithole you’d dug for yourself, and frankly, I wanted to agree with him. But sinceyou’ve fucked all of us now, not just one of us, I had to come and see if therewas any hope of salvaging anything. You know what? Now that I’m here, I’mreally not sure why I bothered. Go get drunk and run away. Fine. The rest of usmight be screwed, but at least we try to fix our own problems.”

Flynn can feel a faint heatrising up his throat, stinging his cheeks. “Wyatt – ”

“If you’re interested inapologizing, I’m not interested in hearing it.” The younger man regards himwith a gaze that has turned to chips of flint. “I’m not even the person you oweit to. That’s Lucy. She loves you, you stupid son of a bitch. She loves youmore than I’ve seen her love just about anyone, however that happened, andyou’re breaking her heart. If you think that doesn’t matter, just say so. Saveall of us some time and trouble.”

Flynn feels as if he has been runover by a steamroller. He turns away, unable to meet Wyatt’s eyes head-on,rubbing a hand over his face. He had words, an answer, he swears, but that just blew all of them to pieces. He has never hated himself more than hepresently does, he knows he can’t justify his actions in any way that wouldsatisfy Wyatt, and any less to himself. And yet –

“I can’t protect her,” he says.“I can’t protect her. She got shot right in front of me. It could happen again,I could lose her too, and I – ”

“So what?” Wyatt has absolutelyno interest in sparing his feelings. “You’ll run away, and she’ll – not getshot? Yeah, you’ll do a bang-up job protecting her from five thousand milesaway, you fucking moron. Tell me, is there any logic anywhere in your decisions? Any? The smallest bit?”

Flynn has absolutely no reply.They stand there staring each other down (or rather, Wyatt stares, as Flynn still can’t look at him straight) fora horribly long moment. A hundred potential scenarios run through Flynn’s head,a thousand. None of them end with Lucy kissing him and telling him she’s justglad to see him, that they can put this behind them and start fresh. None ofthem end with him allowing himself to believe that, even if she did.

“Well?” Wyatt snaps, when hedoesn’t say anything. “Are you coming back, or do I just leave you to whateverother terrible decisions you somehow haven’t made yet?”

“I…” Flynn swallows hard,still feeling as if there’s a sizeable chunk of shrapnel lodged in his chest.“The former.”

Wyatt is caught off guard. Thenhe says shortly, “That doesn’t necessarily exclude more terrible decisions, Isuppose. And you have not even started to fix things, believe me. But I supposethat is, statistically speaking, the lesser of the shitty options you couldhave taken. Come on.”

Flynn has absolutely no idea whattime it is by the time they finally land in San Francisco, his third flight(and second long-haul international flight) in about as many days. They wentbackward over the International Date Line, so it’s technically yesterday fromwhenever they left Tokyo, and even his well-calibrated internal clock, whichhas to deal with much larger time jumps on a regular basis, is hopelesslyscrambled. He slept a little on the plane, but not much, and he’s practicallyfloating. Whatever is about to happen next, he just wants it over with.

Wyatt checks his phone as soon asthey are allowed to turn on their electronics, and tersely reports thataccording to Rufus, Rittenhouse still hasn’t jumped again. This is baffling toboth Flynn and Wyatt – someone surely saw Lucy shot in 1876, they have to knowshe’s on the shelf, that the Time Team is distracted and divided – and more thana little suspicious. If they haven’t, it’s because they think there issomething they can more profitably be doing in the present, and that’s not terrifying at all.

Despite his singular level offatigue – a flattening brew of emotional exhaustion, double-whammy jetlag,sleep deprivation, and Japanese misadventures –Flynn is antsy to get to thehospital and see Lucy, even though he’s quite sure she will not want to seehim, and that the conversation could quite justifiably be started off byslapping him until his ears ring. He and Wyatt catch a cab, at which Flynn dozesoff in the back while they’re stuck in traffic, and has to be woken with astart thirty minutes later. They stumble into the hospital foyer lookingpractically like intake candidates themselves, and Flynn reels. “Go tell Lucy I’llbe right up,” he says. “I need a minute.”

Wyatt gives him a cold fish-eye.

“Yeah, I know. The last time I saidthat, I – never mind. But I think it’s obvious I’m not going to do that again,and it’s probably better that you warn her, rather than that I just walk in outof the blue. All right?”

Wyatt continues to stare evilly athim, with the clear indication that if Flynn takes so much as a single step outof this hospital, he, Wyatt, will shoot him on the spot and dump him in ashallow grave. At last, however, he jerks his head once, and heads for theelevator. Calls over his shoulder, “Five minutes. Then you better be up there.”

Flynn grunts in assent and headsinto the men’s room, staring at himself in the mirror. Under the harshfluorescents, he looks mostly like a corpse himself, and splashing cold wateron his face barely helps. He is so tired that even death would feel like a lightnap. He isn’t ready for whatever Lucy is going to say to him, even knowing hedeserves it. God. He really could not possibly have fucked that up more. Maybe atleast she’ll finally be free of him, his cracks and his catastrophes and hisendless mistakes. She deserves that.

Still. He has come this far. He hasto finish the job.

Flynn splashes one more round ofwater on his face, and straightens up. He’s just reached over to dry his handswhen the bathroom door opens, then shuts. He looks up, uninterested, and then –

“Hello, Mr. Flynn.” BenjaminCahill reaches to lock the door behind him, and holds up his hands to show thathe’s unarmed. “We’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

“Wh – ” Flynn can’t even get theword out. He tries to take a step, but his feet have dissociated from hissparking, malfunctioning brain. “You bastards – you fucking bastards have been watching the hospital this whole time?”

“Of course we were. Can’t afather be concerned for his daughter?” Cahill looks genuinely wounded. “I do carevery much about Lucy, I heard what happened at Little Bighorn, and I had toensure that that unfortunate slip-up wasn’t going to lead to any more permanent –”

“Shut up.” Flynn’s fingers flex.He’s fairly sure he could make at least a start at strangling him, but therehave to be more of them outside. “Shutup.”

Cahill looks at him with a faintsmile and raised eyebrow. “Listen to me, Mr. Flynn.”

“Fuck you.”

“Listen to me. There’s something you need to know. About your wife.”

Despite everything, that catches Flynnlike a brick across the face. “What?” he blurts. “Lucy?”

Cahill’s other eyebrow raises atthat. The silence briefly turns horrendous, and then he shakes his head. “No,”he says simply. “The other one.”