a/n: And we're backkk. Without further ado, the second & final chapter.

"You heard her, they won't hurt me. Just go!"

Wyatt somehow caught the exchange between Lucy and Rufus even though his ears were ringing with the ruthless jabs he'd taken to the head, and the thought of Lucy putting herself on the line like that was a direct shot of adrenaline through his system. As much as he admired her bravery, he also wanted to give her absolute hell for believing that these goons could be trusted to follow orders and leave her alone. That was not a wager that he'd be taking any time soon.

He ducked, grinned at the satisfying crunch of his opponent's fist smashing into the brick wall behind him, and then flung all of his weight into tackling him against the opposite side of the alley. The brunt of the impact went straight to the big lug's head, knocking him out cold and not a second too soon.

Wyatt whipped his head around at the sound of Lucy's bloodcurdling scream, his eyes widening and breath catching as he watched her arms wheeling through the air, but it was no use. The second of Emma's dumb brutes had shoved her hard enough to offset her balance and she was going down no matter how much she fought it.

Her body hit the water with a grisly splash, sending his heartbeat into its highest gear.

Biting down harshly on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from calling her name, Wyatt threw himself into the task of searching for a gun on the guy who'd been temporarily grounded, knowing that he only had another second or two before Tweedledee noticed that Tweedledum was down for the count. But as his hands raced frantically in vain to find a weapon, the grueling sound of nothing but silence set his nerves on edge. Lucy should have surfaced by now, should be flailing around or yelling for him, but the winter air was devoid of any disturbance. There was only a muted slap of water washing methodically against the boards of the dock and the echo of his own heavy breathing. All else was still.

And if that weren't bad enough, there was no gun to be found.

Shit.

"Looking for something?"

The second man - the one who was responsible for Lucy's immersion into the freezing harbor - loomed over Wyatt with a gleaming pistol in hand.

Double shit.

A burst of gunshots split through the adjoining alley, but it wasn't Emma's guy who had fired. The bullets were coming from somewhere behind Wyatt, and he took his chances with whomever had decided to intervene, bolting through the carnage on a straight path toward the menacing body of water that taunted him from the other end of the dock.

Rufus' panicked voice boomed through the streets - "Wyatt, get down!"

He ignored his friend's warning, eyes straining through the darkness to try to discern any sign of Lucy in the brackish reflection below, but there was nothing. Not even a ripple.

Just as he was preparing to dive in and blindly search the entire harbor - as well as every surrounding river, channel, and the whole damn Atlantic Ocean if that was what it took - there was an abrupt gasping noise to his left that ended almost as early as it had begun.

"Lucy!?"

He plunged into the icy depths below, feeling as if he'd landed in a giant pool of knives for how severely the bitter coldness sliced against his skin. He couldn't allow himself even the briefest instant to adjust to the temperature, just swam like a man possessed until his arms made contact with Lucy's thrashing limbs. It required far more effort than he could have fathomed to propel her up to the surface, his legs and lungs both burning with the exertion of it as they broke through to gulp in the frigid midnight air. Even then, with her arms feebly grasping for his shoulders, he seemed destined to lose her again as she threatened to go under.

"My cl -"

Her head sank lower, dousing her words with a horrible bubbling sound.

Wyatt leveraged his arms beneath her and attempted to lift her higher above the clutches of the tide. "Lucy? Lucy, you okay?!"

"It's my cloak," she panted weakly, "and all the skirts...s'too heavy..."

"Just hold on," he wheezed back, dragging her with him as he tried to bob his way over to the posts that bolstered the wharf.

Now that Lucy could actually draw a full breath, her fingers made sluggish progress on the buttons at the top of her cloak, and Wyatt could immediately feel the difference once she'd cast it off into the water.

"It's - it's all q-quilted wool," she stammered disjointedly, "I-I couldn't..."

"It's okay now. I - " he pressed his lips together for an instant, steadying himself against an all-consuming shiver, "- I've got you. We're almost there."

He pushed through the crippling chill that dizzied him, kicking with what felt like the end of his stamina as they neared the edge of the closest dock. Wyatt grabbed onto the post with a heaving breath, huddling Lucy up against him as he peered up just in time to see Emma and both of her oversized watchdogs escaping past them, dodging another volley of gunfire as they went.

One of her thugs - the jackass who Wyatt had the privilege of incapacitating not so long ago - glanced downward right as they passed, and upon seeing Wyatt, drew his gun and took aim with a warped sneer. "Say goodnight, you son of a bitch."

Wyatt urged a whimpering Lucy to the other side of the post and quickly followed after her, trying to shield her beneath the overhang of the pier as the first bullet ricocheted around them, but he was surprised to find that the maneuver was unnecessary. He could hear the click of another gun being cocked, but that was it. A second bullet never came their way.

"I will kill you right now if you try that again," Emma bit out sharply from somewhere above them. "I told you already - you will not do anything to endanger Lucy Preston's life."

Without another word of argument, the boards creaked overhead with the thuds of hastened footsteps, seemingly signalling their departure. Wyatt snuck a cautious glance up over the edge of the wharf to check if the coast was clear, relieved beyond all belief to see Rufus' outstretched hand materializing right above him.

"C'mon, man. I thought I said you had to wait an hour after eating before you were allowed to go for a swim."

"Very funny, Rufus," he mumbled as coherently as he could. He didn't take Rufus's hand, but instead reached back for Lucy and tugged her through the water, giving her as much of a boost as possible until Rufus had a firm grip around her. Rufus returned for him just seconds later, pulling roughly until Wyatt could flop listlessly onto the dock.

"My brother is a doctor," an unfamiliar voice chimed in from above them, "we can take them to his house. They'll need to be treated for pneumonia."

Wyatt shook the numbing cobwebs from his head, finally able to focus - although his brain was still reacting lethargically at best - on the frowning constable who stood next to Rufus.

Rufus was shifting uncertainly, twisting his cap between his hands as he looked back and forth between his two indisposed teammates. "We, uh...we know some doctors of our own. I'll take it from here. Thank you for your help, sir."

The officer cast a wary look glance from Rufus, down to Lucy who was curled into a quivering ball and still gasping for breath, then over the Wyatt who wasn't much better off. His gaze stopped there, undoubtedly seeking confirmation from the only white male in the group.

"He's right," Wyatt said, barely getting the words out between rattling coughs. "We'll be fine."

Wyatt didn't bother with the task of convincing the constable any further. He slunk his way over to Lucy without pause, willing his frozen fingers to rub consolingly across her back. "Are you a-alright?"

She sat up just enough to catch sight of him as he crouched beside her. He wasn't sure if she nodded in reply or if that was just another unruly shiver that shook its way through her lean frame. What he did recognize for certain, however, were the traces of limitless shock magnified in her dark eyes. She only looked at him for a moment, then glanced sideways to stare out hauntingly over the deadly chasm of open water.

It hit him with the impact of a hundred bricks raining down around his head. She had almost drowned. Again.

"Hey, hey, right - right back here," he said, the pads of his pruned-up fingers whispering over her face until she was forced to to find him again. "Don't let yourself go there, Lucy. Look at me. We're - we're fine, okay? We're going home. You're safe."

The fear in her gaze lessened bit by bit, and instead of responding verbally, she just launched herself forward into his arms. Wyatt gathered her as close as he could, his head bowing to her shoulder and his arms trembling around her.

He'd known her for less than a year, only a collection of several months really, but for every time his skin made contact with hers, he was just a little more lost in her. Looking back on it now, he knew that she'd cracked her way into his soul from very early on, maybe as soon as he'd wrapped his hand around hers as she cried over Abraham Lincoln's assassination. When was the last time he'd willing reached for someone's hand to do nothing other than show his support? And it had only escalated from there. He kept her close to his side in Nazi Germany, using the excuse of her visible distress as a reason to pay careful attention to her at all times. She'd been the one to take his face in her hands and urge him to stay with her at the Alamo, and he'd never forget how much effort it took to pry her fingers from his cheek and tell her to get ready to run across the bullet-ravaged fort. It had startled him to realize just how alive he felt when it was then his turn to frame her face between his palms, to hold her close as Bonnie and Clyde studied them from across the room, and that was before the taste of her mouth was forever imprinted in his memory. Alive didn't even begin to cover how that had felt.

And then there was the swaying hug that he'd thrown himself into when they were finally reunited at the threshold of that airless chamber in 1893, and every potent embrace that had followed since that day in Chicago. For a man who had done everything he could to cut himself off from meaningful human contact - to insulate himself from ever being hurt again by the misery of lost love - it was obvious that his plan had faltered somewhere along the way. Lucy Preston had taken an emotional grenade to his defenses, blown right past his self-imposed barricade without even trying to do so, and now here she was again, indelibly embedded upon his heart with her teeth chattering and soaked costume dripping in perfect synchronization to his. She clung to him as if he represented life itself, and he clung right back with equaled fervor.

And for as much as she was probably hoping to find some semblance of comfort or solace in his arms, what she couldn't possibly realize was how much more reassurance she was giving back to him in return; how secure and protected he felt just knowing she was still there. Her heart was racing against his, her breath - wavering but persistent - was ghosting across his neck, and no one was saying goodbye.

One scorching hot shower and a set of dry modern clothing later, and Lucy still could not subdue the shivering aftermath of taking an impromptu dip in the Boston Harbor. As relieved as she was to know that Rufus and the constable had arrived in time to stop Emma from interfering with the fate of John Crane, she had a bad feeling that nothing would be able to cut through the resounding chill that clattered through her bones, not the knowledge that history was preserved, not even a million cups of steaming coffee or the warmest bed in the entire state of California.

As it currently stood, though, she had no bed to call her own. Not in this state or anywhere else.

She hovered in the hallway after Christopher wrapped up a very speedy debrief, faced with the unbelievably bizarre dilemma of finding herself homeless - and maybe even worse, aimless - for the first time in her life.

"Come on," Wyatt appeared before her with a drowsy grin, nodding toward the exit sign and pulling her along with him. "No way are you going back to Casa Preston after this, Lucy."

"Well yeah, I wasn't exactly planning on that, but - "

"But nothing. I have a spare room...although there's nothing really in the spare room yet," he admitted with a shrug, "but we'll deal with that tomorrow."

Lucy glanced back over her shoulder toward the conference room, then back at Wyatt who was doggedly undeterred. "I should talk to Agent Christopher and - "

"She already agreed that you could come with me. Takes a lot less manpower on her end to provide one set of security detail for the both of us. Do you know what kind of hell it is to try and encompass an entire hotel property with the necessary measures and precautions?"

The corner of her mouth lifted without her permission as he propped the door open for her. "No, can't say that I've ever dealt with that particular hassle."

"Trust me, it's a nightmare," he said emphatically, crossing behind her and gesturing across the parking lot. "And aside from the daily pillow mints, living out of a cramped little hotel room sucks anyway. You can do better than that."

Her brain must have still been half frozen, because even though she knew should have been fighting harder to assert herself, the reasons to tell him no were stuck somewhere beyond her reach. Either that, or she hadn't really wanted to say no in the first place.

Wyatt had her by the hand now, his fingers interlocking with hers, and she was momentarily jealous of the fact that he was thawing out from the jump much faster than she was. That jealousy quickly evaporated, however, when she realized just how much of his warmth was already radiating into her skin, lulling her into quiet contentment as he led her along the cement path.

They were only steps away from his Jeep now, and she knew she had to give him one last out. This was a big deal, after all. It was Wyatt. For as much as she trusted and respected and cared for him, he was still the same man that she had met at the beginning of all this - the man who had lost his wife in such a devastating manner and had never quite recovered in the years that had followed her murder. Regardless of the cautious optimism she held for what might someday develop between them, Lucy couldn't bank on the fact that he was anywhere near ready for something as invasive as hosting her in his apartment, especially when she had no idea how much time she would need before things eventually settled down for her.

"I...I don't want to impose, Wyatt."

He turned, that trademark smirk brightening his face as he addressed her. "Impossible. You are welcome to crash with me for as long as you need it. In fact, I'd be offended if you went anywhere else."

She was smiling in spite of the doubts that were surely surfacing in her eyes. "That's very generous, but how can I ask you to do that? To put up with a house guest for God knows how long? You're honestly telling me that you want to spend all of your working hours and all of your free time with a bossy know-it-all like me?"

He stopped short of his vehicle by just a half of a step, pivoting to look her squarely in the eyes. "That is exactly what I want. I wasn't kidding the last time I said it, Lucy. I'm open to whatever comes next. I think we both know that there's...there's something going on between us..."

"Yeah?" she asked softly, leaning closer with baited breath.

"Of course," he murmured back earnestly. "And obviously there's no obligation for anything to happen just because you're staying with me. I - well I don't mean that something will or won't happen, but you've been through a lot lately, so I just...we'll figure it out, okay? No pressure. For now you need a place to go and I have one. And yeah, I care about you so - "

Lucy drifted a hand over his shirtfront and slanted her mouth over his, moving without thinking, submitting herself to the uncharacteristic need for action over discussion. He didn't seem to mind the interruption. His responding kiss was just as breathlessly exhilarating as she'd remembered. His hands curved down her back as his lips met hers over and over again, fingers dipping into the curve of her spine before slipping under her sweater and bringing her forward into the wall of his sculpted torso.

Wyatt hummed against her mouth with a heavy sigh before breaking away, but he made no move to release her body from where it rested against his. "God, Lucy..."

The flood of reservations that she'd somehow squashed down a moment ago all came crashing back into her head at the sound of his gravelly voice in her ear. "I...I'm sorry if - "

"There's no need for that, ma'am."

She could hear the smile that illuminated his words without having to crane back for a real look at it. "You sure?"

"Positive." He took a tiny step backward, his dimpled expression reflecting in the lights that flecked across the exterior of the compound. "Glad that's settled. So I'm sure that we can arrange a little shopping trip for you in the morning, but in the meantime, I should be able to lend you a few essential items."

"A little shopping trip?" Lucy aimed a too-sweet smile in his direction. "I was thinking we could probably kick the day off with a few hours at Union Square, hit all of the big stores there, take a lunch break, then drive over to Fillmore Street for a while to see what's new there and - "

Wyatt reeled her back in with his hands sinking lower to her waist. "This was working better for me when there was less talking."

She was laughing as he nipped playfully at her mouth, but then quickly gave herself over to his kiss as his tongue teased its way across her lower lip. The gentle, disarming touch of his lips on hers slowly built in intensity, becoming more and more mesmerizing and hypnotic with each passing second. Before she knew it, her shoulders were melding into the frame of his Jeep as his hands cradled the back of her head. The bristle of his day-old stubble scratched over her cheek and the friction of his tongue against hers ignited a forgotten flame from deep inside that she'd long ago dismissed as intangible. If it weren't for the sanctuary of his arms and the assistance of the vehicle at her back, she may have just floated away right then and there.

His mouth left hers with notable reluctance, his breath coming hot and fast against her cheek as he let out a labored groan. "And here I was worried that I'd be too rusty at this..."

Lucy was smiling wryly as she smoothed her hands over his shoulders. "No complaints here."

He helped her up into the Jeep after another spellbound kiss, then made his way around to the driver side with his gaze never leaving hers through the glass pane of the windshield. His blue eyes were solemn as he climbed in next to her, his hand immediately finding hers from across the cab.

"Obviously we don't know exactly what's in store for us now that Emma has the Mothership and Rittenhouse is pulling the strings, but I want you to know I'm here, Lucy, no matter what. In case you didn't quite catch it before we jumped to Boston, I need you to hear it now. I don't want to go backwards with you. Only forward. It might be a..." he swallowed for a moment, his throat bobbing as he worked through a flicker of emotion, "...a slower version of forward than if I had met you at another point in my life, but it will be forward."

Misty-eyed and almost moved beyond words, Lucy watched him intently through the dimly lit vehicle. Her hand trembled inside of his, but it wasn't because she was still too cold to hold it steady. No, it was because she wanted to keep her hand right there, firmly held and unspeakably sheltered, for as long as the foreseeable future would allow. "I...I think I met you just when I was supposed to."

Wyatt's thumb sketched a line across her knuckles. "Something like fate? A higher power?"

"Maybe even the Force..." she said in a low, teasing voice.

"Maybe," he grinned easily before leaning over the center console to kiss her once more.

Whatever it was - God or the cosmos or perhaps even the power of the Jedi - Lucy was sure that someone or something had been up there calling the shots in her favor on the night that Wyatt Logan had walked into her life. With every passing moment, it became increasingly clear that he was meant to be here with her, a safe and reliable harbor for her to take cover in as she weathered the difficulties of this storm.

The end! Livin' for those reviews, friends :)