Please see part one for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part: 2/2

Author's Note: So apparently Counterbalance wasn't as finished as I thought it was. Originally it was meant to be a oneshot, but several reviewers wondered about what Wyatt was going to say at the end of part one, and it wasn't fair that I knew what it was going to be, and no one else did. So I wrote a second part, from Wyatt's point of view, that I hope answers all the questions raised in part one. Thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts for the first chapter, and I hope you enjoy this part!

*~Counterbalance~*

Part II

Wyatt spent most of his time changing back into modern-day clothes wondering what, exactly, had gone wrong during their mission. He wasn't used to things going bust in quite that way. Flynn did get away from them more than once, granted, but to have missed him completely? And for him to have done absolutely nothing to change the timeline, as far as Lucy could tell?

Something wasn't right.

He was just hoping this wasn't some sort of sign that his own personal mission, on which he planned to embark shortly, was going to go bust as well.

Forcing his mind away from that thought and its potential ramifications, Wyatt pulled his t-shirt over his head and called to Lucy, two cubicles away, "So what do you think Flynn was doing?"

"I don't know," Lucy responded. A long silence followed, and Wyatt was beginning to think she wasn't going to say any more. However, as he sat down to pull on his shoes, she continued. "Maybe he received some bad information, or he was casing the area. It could even be that he was planning something, and he was interrupted by something or someone he hadn't counted on. The possibilities are nearly infinite."

Wyatt swung open the door and went to hang his clothes on the return rack nearby as he digested Lucy's words. Regardless of whether Flynn was out for a jaunt or had been deterred from any plans he had, perhaps it would be best for them to take the win and not look the gift horse in the mouth.

But still... "It's going to drive me crazy, not knowing."

Lucy was quiet for a moment, then the door to her cubicle opened and she came over to hang her clothes next to his. "Me too. But at this point, I'm just happy we had a somewhat peaceful mission, for once. I can't imagine this is going to happen very often." Sighing, she stared at her time-travel outfit for a long moment, a strange look on her face.

Perhaps the mission had bothered her more than she let on. Tucking his hands in his pockets, Wyatt frowned and offered a little shrug. "Sure wish it happened more often. Or, even better, that we didn't have to go on these crazy missions in the first place. It just isn't natural, time travel." But if time travel hadn't been invented, I wouldn't have met Lucy or Rufus.

And I wouldn't have a chance to get Jessica back. He didn't dare give voice to that last thought. He already knew what Lucy would say in response, and neither of them would like it.

"No, it's not." Lucy sighed as she ducked her head, digging in her purse for her cell phone. "Well, have a good evening, all right? Hopefully it'll be a while before we get called back in." She pulled her hand out of her purse, closed around her cell phone, but it slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor.

Wyatt saw her sway for a second before she lurched forward to try to catch it. Then she let out a soft cry and started falling, and he realized she was going to hit the floor if he didn't stop her.

"Whoa!" Wyatt caught her around the waist and carefully settled her back upright, hanging on to her upper arms until he was sure she was steady on her feet. But he could see the way her eyes stared at him, unfocused, as if she were dizzy or couldn't quite see straight. "Hey, Lucy, are you okay?" As soon as he asked it he knew it was a stupid question, since he could see she wasn't, but he hoped it would prompt her to tell him what was going on with her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Lucy made a soft sound in the back of her throat as he saw her hands curl into fists at her sides. "Migraine," she whispered. "Started in the past. Keeps getting worse. Going to - to call a cab."

"Do you think it's an unexpected side-effect of time travel? It's not like there's a book or a page online we can go to which talks about things like that." Wyatt slowly let go of Lucy and watched her for a second to make sure she would stay upright before he leaned over, picked up her phone, and handed it back to her. "Maybe we should take you to the on-site doc."

Lucy started to shake her head, then stopped abruptly as if the motion made her pain level spike. "No, this is far from the first migraine I've had. They pop up sometimes when I'm tired, or stressed. Or both. I have medicine at home I can take for it. That's why I need my phone, to call a cab." She pronounced each word clearly and carefully, as if she were having to focus practically on each later to make sure she didn't slur or stutter.

Feeling extremely doubtful, Wyatt tilted his brows at her as he slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her toward the door. "All right, if you say so. But forget the cab, Lucy. I'll drive you home." He'd watch her carefully the whole way, and if it so much as looked like she was getting worse (was that even possible at this point?), he'd turn around and bring her straight back.

"You don't have to do that," Lucy said, but it was obvious her protest was half-hearted at best.

"I want to," Wyatt replied firmly. Letting go of her arm, he continued, "Now stay here for a minute, okay? I'll pull the car around and pick you up. Looks like it's going to start pouring any second now."

When Wyatt pushed open the door, a rush of wind smacked him in the face before rushing past him into the building. He shoved the door closed against the wind's greedy overtures before jogging toward his truck. The first few raindrops splattered across the windshield and caught his arm as he reached out to pull the door closed behind himself.

Great. He heard thunder rumble right before he started his truck and headed for the front door of Mason Industries. This storm certainly wasn't going to help Lucy's headache any. Already the drops were getting bigger and hammering against the roof as if they were demanding to be let inside.

Lucy hardly waited for him to pull to a stop and put the truck in park before she clambered into the passenger seat, closing the door behind herself as quietly as she could. Raindrops sparkled in her dark hair in the flash of lightning and the glare of the dash as she clicked her seatbelt and sagged against the window, eyes shut.

At first Wyatt thought she'd passed out, but then she told him which way to turn out of the parking lot. Wyatt shared a quick, significant look with Rufus, who was just coming out of the building with Jiya, then put his truck in gear again and pulled away.

Knowing Lucy was in no state for conversation, Wyatt stayed silent as he drove. Each time he glanced over, he saw her eyes slitted open as she watched where he was going, prompting him a little ways before each turn he needed to take to get her home. He tried to avoid as many rough places in the road as possible, but knew each one he couldn't had to be increasing her pain level.

A few minutes later, Wyatt held an umbrella over himself and Lucy as he escorted her from his truck to her front door. When Lucy fumbled her keys, he took them from her and unlocked the door. She looked like she was about to cry, and he wished he could do something to take away her pain.

He hated feeling so helpless.

Looking around the dark foyer, Wyatt set the wet umbrella just outside the door on the porch and shut the door behind himself. "Your mom's not home?"

"No." Lucy stepped out of her shoes, then shuffled down the hall toward a dark doorway. "She had a meeting. With her coworkers. At the university." Again, her sentences came out stilted and precise, and she sounded so very tired.

He followed her, closely enough to catch her if she stumbled but not so much he invaded her personal space. Allowing what little light filtered in through the windows flanking the front door to illuminate his path, he slipped past Lucy into the spacious kitchen and took quick stock of the room and its visible contents.

After cataloguing the location of the microwave and the likely places cups and saucers would be, Wyatt finally spoke into the silence which had fallen between them. "Where are your pills?" He glanced over his shoulder, noticing Lucy had propped herself against the counter as if it were the only thing still keeping her on her feet. "If you want, I'll make you a cup of tea and some toast while you go put on some more comfortable clothes. I can get your pills ready for you, too."

"Pills are in the cabinet between the stove and microwave," Lucy said, pointing. "The pills are orange, and it's the only prescription bottle in there with the vitamins and over-the-counter stuff. I get two of them. And tea sounds really good." She paused, and he saw her swallow hard as her face drained of what little color had been left in it. "Not so much the toast."

"Just one slice?" Wyatt stepped over to rest his hand on her shoulder, partly in support and partly in encouragement. Her eyes looked dull in the dim glow of the light he'd found under the microwave. He figured it would be enough to see by without causing unnecessary further pain to Lucy's head. "You shouldn't take those pain pills on an empty stomach."

With obvious reluctance, Lucy waved her hand in weak affirmation. "Okay. Just one slice. Honey for the toast and in the tea, please."

"Okay." Wyatt squeezed her shoulder gently, then turned her toward the doorway and guided her forward with a hand between her shoulder blades. He couldn't help but notice how thin they felt beneath the fabric of her sweater - thinner than usual, as if her pain had drained the vitality and health right out of her. "I'll figure it out. Go on, Lucy. I'll have everything ready when you get back."

"'kay." Lucy shuffled off, and he waited until he heard her ascend the steps safely before he turned back to the kitchen.

Through trial and error, Wyatt found everything he needed for the toast and tea. He made a soothing peppermint blend, hoping it would help the nausea he could tell Lucy had been feeling. After setting the tea to steep in a purple mug covered in white dog paws, he set the bread to toasting as he went hunting for the honey bear. He found it on the shelf above Lucy's headache medicine, and snagged it after shaking two of the orange oval pills into his hand.

While turning to set the honey and pills on the counter in front of one of the stools, Lucy came back into the kitchen. Her bare feet made little noise on the floor, and he noticed her toenails were painted a pale pink (surely that wasn't historically accurate for most of the places they went, but it wasn't like they would be seen by anyone but herself, and even then in the present). She wore sweatpants, a purple shirt with a wise-looking owl on it, and a well-worn flowered robe that clashed terribly with the tee.

"Hey," he greeted her, noticing her face was freshly scrubbed and she was even paler than she'd been when she went upstairs. "Better?" At least she looked more comfortable, physically.

Offering him a thin smile, she settled down on her stool and stared down at the tea and toast he'd made. "More comfortable, anyway." She waited for him to set the honey and pills down before adding a murmured, "Thanks."

After stirring the honey into her tea, Lucy motioned to the cabinets and fridge with her free hand. "Help yourself to anything that looks good." She reached for her teacup, lifting it towards her lips as she added, "The least I can do after you brought me home and did all this is give you something to eat. Sorry-" she swallowed down her first sip of tea, obviously waiting for it to settle before going on "-sorry I'm not getting up to do it myself."

Wyatt lightly touched her shoulder in a silent gesture of gratitude on his way past to the fridge. He figured the less noise he said, the better for the pain level in her head. After pulling an orange and a bottle of water out of the fridge, he got a bowl and knife for the citrusy treat, then settled onto the stool next to hers.

He allowed the silence to settle around the two of them as he ate his orange and drank his water. Keeping an eye on Lucy, he watched the minutes tick by on the microwave clock as they both waited for her pills to kick in.

As time went by, he saw her shoulders start to relax, the lines around her mouth ease, and the tension seep out of her expression. After a half hour or so, she started making small comments, and he responded with equally short answers.

That's a good sign, Wyatt thought, wiping his sticky fingers on a paper towel. Her pills must be kicking in, finally.

They lapsed back into silence, and Wyatt tried to ignore the thoughts lingering in the back of his mind. The two of them hadn't talked, the way they had before, in quite a while. In fact, before today, they hadn't really said more than a few dozen words to each other since before leaving to track down Flynn, though unfortunately they hadn't managed to stop him from meeting up with Jesse James in the past.

In truth, Wyatt just wasn't sure what to say to her anymore. The kiss they'd shared still burned in his memories, mostly when he was sleeping but more and more often when he was awake, too. It had created a tension between them that hadn't been there before...

...Or, he admitted wryly to himself, it had been, and he just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. The kiss had only further fanned the flame. But thinking about it, let alone acting on it, felt too much like a betrayal of Jessica, particularly since his plan had finally taken shape fully and he had Rufus's agreement to help him.

Wyatt was abruptly pulled from his thoughts when Lucy slipped sideways on her stool, her head bouncing gently off his shoulder. Sparks shivered up through his neck and exploded in his head, and it was all he could do to make his chuckle sound natural as he replied to her breathless apology.

"I'm guessing your pills are kicking in?" he asked softly, smiling down at her slightly dazed expression.

"Mm-hm." Lucy nodded, and a relieved expression washed across her face. Apparently the motion hadn't caused her worse pain, and her face had regained some color, easing away a little of the scary paleness.

Slipping off his stool, Wyatt helped her off her own seat and guided her toward the stairs. "Here, let me help you up to your room. You get some sleep and feel better, and I'll clean up the kitchen and leave you to rest, okay?" Hopefully he'd be able to slip away before Lucy's mother got home and he had to try to explain his presence at the house - and how he knew Lucy. He wasn't sure what she'd told her mother about her job at Mason Industries, and he didn't want to do or say something to make Carol suspicious.

Lucy's hand felt cool as she clung to Wyatt's supportive hand as he guided her up the stairs. "Thank you," she whispered. "And not just for - for making me tea and toast and bringing me home and cleaning up the kitchen and..." She trailed off dreamily.

"You're welcome, Lucy. What are-" He stopped, nearly choking on the words as they reached the top of the steps. You're lying if you finish that sentence, Logan. Don't do it.

Apparently Lucy thought he was waiting for her to show him where her room was, because she lifted her hand and pointed to a half-open door down the hall. Then she looked up at him expectantly, and he realized she was waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"Well, you know, after all, what are friends for, right?" The words burned his throat, but he couldn't take them back, and he couldn't change them. Because, at least for the moment, they were still friends. Because he hadn't betrayed her yet, and she didn't know he was about to do so.

Lucy didn't respond past a muzzy smile as Wyatt helped her fold down the blankets on her bed, then guided her gently down onto the mattress so she wouldn't fall or go down too hard and jar her head. Tucking the blankets lightly but securely around her, Wyatt smiled down at her, hoping his eyes didn't betray anything he didn't want her to know. "Comfortable?" Maybe she won't notice anything's wrong, or remember any of this come tomorrow.

Snuggling down under her blanket and against her pillow, Lucy hummed adorably. "Yep. Than' you."

"Good." Wyatt lightly tapped her blanket-covered foot on the way to the door. He needed to get out before he did something they'd both regret later.

You need to tell her, Logan. He stopped in the doorway, torn between the urge to turn back or run down the stairs and out the door, and not stop until he'd gotten back to Mason Industries. She deserves to know what you're going to do.

Before he could stop himself, he turned back to see her staring at him through heavily-lidded eyes, her expression puzzled. Swallowing hard, he said, "Hey, Lucy?"

"Yes?" The word was expectant, even though it was obvious she was having to force herself to keep her eyes open, her mind aware.

The truth hovered on the tip of his tongue, begging for release. Say it, you coward. Wyatt swallowed hard, nausea swirling in his gut. He was beginning to regret that orange.

Looking into Lucy's soft eyes, with her dark hair fanned on her pillow and a gentle smile on her face, Wyatt knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't add to her pain, her disappointment. He couldn't crush the fragile balance of her world, not tonight. Not after everything else weighing so heavily on her the past week - longer than that, really.

Shaking his head, at last Wyatt forced himself to look away. Curling his lips into a quick smile, he shook his head, trying to play off the past few seconds as unimportant. "Nothing. Just - get to feeling better, all right? We'll talk later."

Without waiting for her response, Wyatt forced himself to turn and go back downstairs. But as he cleaned up Lucy's kitchen and made sure he left everything the way he found it, he had to acknowledge the truth.

He would have to tell her sometime. And neither of them would like what happened after that.

But no matter what, he had to do it.

*~The End~*

Author's Ending Notes:So even though I intended Counterbalance to be a oneshot when I wrote the first part, several reviewers wondered what Wyatt was going to say at the end of part one. It wasn't fair that I knew and no one else did, so I wrote this second part, which I hope answers all the questions raised in the first part. Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites, and alerts for the first part, and I very much hope you enjoyed this one, too!