a/n: THANK YOU all for making my first attempt at Timeless FF such an awesome ride. This is it - we've reached the epilogue! I fully admit that there may be some inaccuracies in this chapter. More on that after you read ;)

The creak of the porch's rickety wide-planked floorboards should have given him up long before he had a chance to really observe her, but Lucy sat as still as a statue, not so much as even glancing in his direction as he braced himself against the battered doorjamb and ran his eyes over her motionless form. Her face was turned upward to the night sky, a ratty quilt hanging loosely around her shoulders to ward off the advancing chill. Sweeping tendrils of dark hair that had long-ago escaped the low twist at the back of her neck were now fluttering gently in the cool breeze, practically beckoning him forward across the shabby little porch.

It had been a long day - or more like two days, since they'd gone nearly 36 hours without any real sleep at this point - but she showed no signs of turning in for the night, even though there was a warm bed with her name on it waiting inside of the primitive cabin.

Actually, there was a warm bed with their name on it since they were once again posing as a married couple. And go figure that just when Wyatt was fully ready to embrace the role without a bit of resistance - to gladly spend the night with her wrapped up tightly in his arms - she was the one who had parked herself in a rocking chair on the furthest corner of the porch, wide awake and seemingly a million miles away from him. But he knew how that went. As far as he was concerned, the unexpected stints of insomnia were far worse than the alternative of oppressive fatigue. At least sleep could offer a temporary escape from yourself. Insomnia was far more suffocating; it had the power to trap you inside of your head and beat you down until you were absolutely paralyzed by the weight of your own thoughts.

And judging by the creasing frown that rutted her forehead, that was exactly where she was at. Wyatt had no intentions of leaving her there by herself, though.

"Evening, ma'am," he announced his presence in a poured-on hillbilly accent, waiting until her head swiveled in his direction before tipping his silly cowboy hat at her with a hint of irony.

It brought a tiny involuntary smile to her face. She shook her head slightly before her gaze returned to the sky. "Mock it all you want, but you can't fool me, Wyatt. I know that deep down you're just a good ole Southern boy like everyone else around here."

"Whoa now," he retorted quickly, crossing the wooden floor with wide eyes, "Texas may only be two states away, but I assure you that it is a world of it's own. You can't lump us in with anyone else."

"My apologies," she replied with a sideways grin that implied she was not sorry at all.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked quietly, motioning toward the other rocker that was sitting unoccupied in the cobwebbed corner behind her. She shrugged noncommittally and pulled the quilt more securely around her slender silhouette as he dragged the chair forward and plopped down next to her.

He took it all in stride, relieved to see that she was holding up alright under the circumstances. She'd done her job as well as could be expected since their bumpy arrival in West Tennessee, spitting out a myriad of beneficial facts about the Chickasaw tribe, Andrew Jackson, and most importantly, Isaac Shelby - a Revolutionary War hero and two-time Kentucky governor who turned out to be the real focus of the mission for reasons Wyatt still didn't completely understand. Lucy had insisted that they keep Shelby away from Emma, so that was what they had done, even if the guy seemed like he was older than dirt and about two seconds from his deathbed anyway. They'd only found themselves in the midst of two major snafus throughout the day, which was a win in Wyatt's book; the real trouble was that Emma had covered a lot of ground in the span of a few hours, which meant they'd ended the mission much further from the Lifeboat than what he preferred, and then the sun was setting and the horses they had 'borrowed' were nowhere to be found. It seemed like Emma and her goons had been successfully deterred for the time being, but with his team looking absolutely beat and Wyatt feeling a bit worse for wear himself, the decision had been easy. They were spending the night in what would soon become the central hub of Memphis, on the lookout for anything that could offer a bit of shelter just east of the Mississippi River.

The good news was that Lucy had easily sweet-talked their way into the home of a sympathetic planter who was apparently one of the area's earliest settlers. The bad news was that the farmer had plainly ordered Rufus to go find a place to sleep in one of the outbuildings behind the cabin, and his tone had not left much room for argument. Wyatt had partly overheard Lucy's repentant explanation to Rufus, something about Tennessee showing early support for emancipation, but the abolitionist movement not having enough traction to actually make it happen...yet. Her hushed commentary was cut short when their host cleared his throat with an impatient scowl, and then Rufus was gone, disappearing into the falling darkness with a disgruntled look.

Wyatt had already decided that they were treating Rufus to whatever he wanted when they returned to the twenty-first century - free booze, an endless supply of Chocodiles, a video game tournament or movie marathon of his choosing - literally anything he could wish for, it was his for the taking.

But if he was going to solve one problem at a time, Wyatt's primary concern at the moment was sitting right next to him. It was Lucy, who had totally lost that glimmer of excitement that always came to life whenever she was seeing history happen right before her eyes. Lucy, who had pushed through an exhausting day without a single complaint or mention of the very personal stakes that these missions would now take on for her. Lucy, who had screamed his name in sheer terror as a bullet hurtled very, very close to his forehead a few hours ago.

As if reading his thoughts, she breathed a reticent question into the luminous air, her voice joining in the song of crickets and owls and bullfrogs. "Are you sure you aren't hurt?"

He turned to her with one skeptical eyebrow lifted, suggesting that nothing could be further from the truth. "C'mon, Lucy. They're gonna have to do a lot better than that if they want to hurt me. Flynn was a much better shot."

"Don't do that. Don't act like it wasn't a close call."

The tension wasn't just contained to her words, but spread visibly in a straight line through her body, giving her the appearance of something too brittle; something breakable. She wasn't looking at him, choosing instead to stare beyond the sparse railing in front of her.

"It was a close call," he admitted just above a whisper.

She didn't speak again, so he followed the line of her vision and let out a low whistle when he saw what had captured her attention. Clusters of brilliant stars blazed across the tapestry of a very black sky, dancing before him like an animated painting. It only took a second for his eyes to re-acclimate themselves to the sight, but that didn't diminish the awestruck feeling of seeing it all over again for the first time in a long time.

"I know this flies in the face of what I just told you, but damn...this sky reminds me a lot of growing up in Texas."

"Yeah?" she murmured in response, perking up ever so slightly.

He saw her interest and ran with it, committing himself fully to the rope that she'd thrown him. "Definitely. Summer nights at my Grandpa Sherwin's place out in the country were just like this one, only warmer and without the stupid costumes."

She rolled her eyes at that. "Can you please refrain from using the word 'costumes' until we're home again?"

Wyatt chuckled at the request, but nodded his agreement. Something howled into the glittering twilight, and Lucy shifted her chair closer to his even though the sound was still quite some distance away. He certainly didn't mind having an excuse for her nearness. "We sat out on an old wraparound porch, not too different than this one, night after night. Stars, millions of them, reappearing every evening around this time. And man, I was the worst at finding the constellations back then...didn't matter how often he tried to show them to me, I was hopeless. Couldn't even pick out the Big Dipper."

A smile spread across her face. "Really? You? The man who actually knows how to use moss as nature's compass and can spot poisonous leaves from ten yards out? I don't buy it."

"Contrary to what you and Rufus may believe, I wasn't born a Boy Scout. The survivalist crap was a work in progress."

Her smile evolved into a sweet, airy laugh. "But now you're going to tell me that you know all of them, don't you? That you're a verified astronomy expert."

"An expert?" He smirked and shook his head. "Not quite. But my grandpa was the most patient man I've ever met, and he kept at it. Didn't let me quit trying to learn them. He said it was a rite of passage, and when he said something like that, I always believed him. He was just that type of person, ya know?"

Lucy's expression was tender and concentrated, carrying the kind of warmth that melted something inside of him. "Sounds like the two of you had a lot in common."

She couldn't possibly know how much of a compliment that was, and even though he didn't entirely agree with her, it was nice to hear it nonetheless. He was suddenly hit with a sharp pang of disappointment when he realized Lucy would never have the chance to meet his grandfather. They would have hit it off right away, both sharing a love for the past and having a knack for putting Wyatt in his place when he really deserved it. Plus he'd seen firsthand how Lucy could essentially charm just about anyone, so he doubted it would have been any different with Grandpa Sherwin.

Once he had a better handle on his emotions, he went on, the memories washing over him with a sense of melancholy affection. "I'll never forget how proud he was when it finally clicked. I got Orion first, and then the Big Dipper, and from there you'd have to be blind to not see the Great Bear. I couldn't stop after that. I was obsessed with learning as many of them as I could. Can't remember all of them now, but I still know the basics."

There was a hypnotic sparkle in her eyes as she glanced over at him. It was as if the entire Milky Way was reflected right there in the depths of her dark gaze. "Show them to me?"

"Are you honestly telling me you don't know them?" he asked with a sly grin inching up on one side of his mouth. "Don't they teach these things in all of your precious textbooks?"

"Fine, if you don't want to do it..." she feigned a look of indifference and turned her head away from him.

His hand was on her arm then, giving a gentle tug in his direction. "Well get over here, then."

"Over where - " but then her face sharpened with understanding as he nodded down at his lap. "Wyatt..."

"C'mon, don't be shy. Proximity is a key part of the experience, Lucy."

He could see that she was trying to smother a timid smile as she stood up and took a little half step closer to his chair. His hands cinched around her small waist, guiding her into place against his legs. She eased into him as if it were the most natural thing in the world, her head nestling beside his and her shoulders coming to rest against his chest. He folded one arm snugly around her and used the other to find her wrist.

"What do you want to see first?"

She tilted her head, the softness of her cheek slipping over his jaw, causing his breath to catch at the feathery touch of her skin on his. "I don't know...what's your favorite?"

He raised their joined hands and started tracing his way through the cosmos. "There. Leo the Lion."

"Do it again," she instructed with a laugh, "I didn't get that at all."

He laughed too, then began again, slower this time with his mouth right beside her ear. "The head and mane are here...like a backwards question mark. See it?"

She nodded, and one of those escaped tendrils of her wavy hair tickled his neck.

"Okay, then a straight line here," he murmured, taking her finger and trailing it off to the left, "to his back end, and tail. That's Leo."

"I see it!"

He leaned into her, grinning at her enthusiasm, and propped his chin against her shoulder. "You're already a much better student than I was, but that was to be expected, wasn't it?"

"No comment," she said smugly. "What's next?"

Wyatt obliged, using the same method to sketch out the other constellations that he could recall, and when he ran out of ones that he actually knew, he decided to ad-lib instead. He wrote her name in looping cursive, forged a terribly makeshift circle that he deemed the Lifeboat, and then got really ambitious when he outlined a very lopsided version of the Golden Gate Bridge. That last one really had her laughing, a guileless kind of laugh that she couldn't contain. She hastily hid her face in his shirtfront, trying to muffle the sound before it could travel indoors and disturb their new friend. Wyatt bundled her more securely against him and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head, smiling with a smidgen of self-satisfaction as he used his feet to swing the rocking chair into motion. The sound of her happiness had very quickly become an addiction of his, something he wanted to spur on as often as possible.

When she was finally able to compose herself, Lucy sat up in his lap and ran her fingers over his chest, busying herself with the unnecessary task of straightening his shirt. "You should stick to the real constellations, Wyatt. You're much better at those."

"What, you didn't like my bridge? That's a little hurtful."

"You know me," she said with a contrite look, "I like playing by the rules. Everything in it's proper order, fixed points and concrete plans. I don't usually go for abstract."

"Yes, I do know you," he brushed his nose against hers, let himself examine her lips in the inky darkness. "And as much as you say you want everything to be black and white, right and wrong, you've proven on more than one occasion that you're better at charting your own course than you think."

She sighed at that, her hands searching for stability as she angled herself sideways to see him better. "So is that the object lesson for tonight? Sometimes you have to take the stars and shape them into the future that you want instead of the one that seems to be spelled out for you?"

He chuckled and ran his fingertips over her cheek. "You're giving me way too much credit here. I just fumbled my way into this analogy coincidentally."

"Making it up as you go, right?"

"Right," he answered, his gaze flickering between her eyes and her mouth. "That's the deal. We make it up as we go...choose our own futures."

Lucy drifted closer until there was barely any space left between them. "I choose you then."

Those words drove him the rest of the way forward and he kissed her with abandon, drinking her in like a man who hadn't seen water for miles and miles. His hands fused to her jaw and held on with all that he had, for once feeling very grateful that he was stuck somewhere in history instead of living this out in their present timeline; there were no damn cell phones to interrupt them in 1818.

She dragged her fingernails through his hair and he arched into the sensation, indulging in the fiery trail that she left in her wake. Her lips collided with his over and over again, matching his fervent kiss with a potent insistence of her own. He fought to keep the chair under control as Lucy wriggled further into his lap. The momentum had them swaying chaotically for an instant, so he planted his feet more firmly to regulate the pace at which they were moving, never letting her lips leave his in the process. But then she shifted against him again and his head fell backwards away from hers, unleashing a dull groan at his body's staggering response to the friction she'd created.

"Lucy..."

"Mmm?" Her eyes were still closed, her mouth now whispering against the shell of his ear.

"We - " he watched as her tongue peeked out to moisten her lips for just a second, the effect scrambling his brain to mush, "uh, we...screw it."

He pulled her in for another kiss, and she welcomed him back without protest. He just needed another taste of her. More of her mouth, her tongue, her roaming fingers and velvet skin. It was a craving that couldn't be satisfied.

Lucy broke away with a gasp several minutes later, her hands anchored to his neck and her big doe eyes studying him with unconcealed longing. The shadows seemed to enclose them in a world of their own as she left a simmering kiss on the corner of his mouth, each breath still coming rapidly in an achingly shallow pattern of desperation.

Wyatt ghosted a thumb along her lower lip, his lungs greedily taking in as much air as possible. "We should...we should slow this down."

"Okay..." she covered his hand with hers and trapped it against her face, "too much too soon?"

"Uh, right...well that is a good point, and - " he blinked hard, trying to assemble a single coherent thought, " - and we probably shouldn't rush into this..."

"Sure," Lucy nodded, stroking her fingers over his knuckles, still looking a bit woozy despite the increasing steadiness in her voice.

He turned his face to nuzzle against her palm. "And if I'm being really honest, I'm about a split-second from hauling you over the threshold and having my way with you in that house, but I don't want our first time to be in some broken-down shack with a crotchety farmer lying just on the other side of the wall from us...something tells me he'd be a little less congratulatory than our old friends Bonnie and Clyde."

Her face was an endearing blend of amused and astonished. She gaped at him, too flustered to make any response other than the tiny disbelieving noise that sprang from her throat.

"What? Too much too soon?"

She grinned, shook her head, and snuggled her body into his. "It's just so surreal...hearing you talk like that."

He found the edge of the quilt that she'd been wearing around her and rearranged it over their intertwined mess of arms and legs. "Well get used to it, ma'am. I'm not going anywhere. Understood?"

"Is this the part where I say 'sir, yes, sir?'" she asked with a snicker.

"I could get used to that," he hummed into her hair, earning a small jab against his ribs. "What? You suggested it! Are you telling me that was just a joke? Because I thought you meant it."

"In your dreams, Wyatt."

"Speaking of dreams," he said softly, his arms holding her more resolutely as he spoke, "I think it would be a good idea if you try to get a little sleep tonight, Lucy."

She sighed, but nodded meekly into his shoulder. "I know. I was just so high-strung when we got here, I couldn't even think about sleeping. Every time I think I have a handle on what's going on, everything gets flipped on it's head. I feel so out of it."

"It will get better, I promise." He pressed a kiss to her temple and began to rock them gently, setting a lazy tempo that would hopefully help to soothe her. "Just be patient with yourself."

She slid a hand over the fabric of his shirt before coming to a stop right above his heart. "I'll try. It's a lot easier with you around."

Her words echoed in his head long after she'd said them, overwhelming him with their significance. She had revived something in him, something that had been dormant for too many years. Something that had almost died altogether. If he could somehow return the favor - give her even the smallest semblance of peace or solace in return - he would gladly do it a thousand times over.

So he stayed in that rocking chair, keeping a steady rhythm and watching the stars above them until her head sagged further into him and her breathing had evened out at last. It was only then that he left the porch with her still curled up against his chest, stealing one last glance out at the silver-speckled sky before trading it for the cozy glow of the cabin's interior.

For all of his talk about free will and open-ended choices, Wyatt couldn't help but believe that maybe some things really were ordained, that some people were actually destined to meet each other...to even fall in love. When he crawled into bed next to Lucy and felt her reaching for him instinctively in her sleep, it was easier to imagine it; because maybe, just maybe, some part of his story really was a fixed point that had been written in the stars all along.

a/n: ok so this conversation about constellations has literally been in the works from the very beginning (thus the title *wink wink*), so that meant I HAD to get them somewhere with stars...? That is why this chapter had to exist. But in doing so, I also landed myself in a random time period and a random location...and I also know very little about constellations? In summary, just please overlook the fact that I relied on sketchy internet research for basically everything in this part!

That said, thank you for reading! Please review!