A few notes here:
1) This is probably the last chapter of this fic for now, but that decision is open for debate :)
2) This chapter is from future Lucy's POV
3) NBC sucks. Someone hold a seance for my spirit in case I expire before this decision is made.

That's all. Go read :)

She's forgotten how much she hates this place.

Sure, there's the obvious coppery tang of sorrow, a perpetual stain of despair that trails after each of the bunker's usual occupants. It's the loss of freedom, the loss of sunlight, the loss of a love that's barely taken its first breath, and now it's the loss of Rufus too.

Lucy has prepared herself for the hopelessness that permeates these shadowy halls. It wasn't so long ago that this pit had been her home. She'd been confident - overconfident, in fact - that she knew exactly what to expect.

It's the smaller things that her memory has graciously abandoned with time, though. The little hang-ups that fill in the details of a much larger painting, all of which conveys one predominant theme - rotting isolation. There's the prevailing chill that never tapers off, day or night, clinging to her backs of her arms and the tips of her toes no matter what she does. A single bathroom that's supposed to accommodate an entire team of ragtag misfits but doesn't come with a freaking lock. A shortage of hot water. The crappiest furniture mankind has ever designed. Poor lighting. No damn privacy, although Wyatt's insistence that the two of them bunk together has at least alleviated that inconvenience. Her younger self doesn't know the same luxury.

Because even here, in the broken-down Silo from hell, Wyatt Logan's presence in her bed is definitely a luxury.

One other nuisance she hasn't accounted for? The rumbling hunger in her stomach that a Lucy of five years ago had been incapable of feeling. That Lucy hasn't had an appetite since the day her mom uttered the word Rittenhouse in the faded warmth of their family kitchen. It almost returned to her somewhere between those six weeks of captivity and the arrival of a certain blonde-headed traitor in their midst, but with one ruthless ring of her cell phone, the bottom fell out again. She hadn't been able to taste a bite of whatever food she'd managed to choke down for weeks on end.

Not the case anymore. She works too hard, fights to hard, to not eat properly. God knows Wyatt had badgered the hell out of her about it in the beginning, but there's no need for him to keep that up anymore. As soon as she's given the opportunity to process something beyond the gripping adrenaline of warfare, her stomach is bound to catch up with her.

Which is how she finds herself on tiptoe in the harsh fluorescent light of a bare kitchenette, straining on tired legs for a box of freaking pop-tarts, because Garcia Flynn was right all those years ago when he'd complained in Salem. The food here is shit. She'd just been too wracked with trauma to know it back then.

That pack of pop-tarts - likely to be staler than sawdust, if she's venturing to guess - is just barely evading the tips of fingers when a hand lands unexpectedly on her shoulder, and she's swinging with a vengeance before she can even register his softly spoken offer of - "Here, let me..."

She's horrified even as it's happening. It's like her arm has detached itself from the rest of her body and there's no changing course now. She sees it unfolding but can't stop it, can't correct herself before it's too late.

Wyatt doesn't do much better. A flare of surprise shoots over his face as he reels back to sidestep the blow, but he doesn't quite make it in time. Her fist connects with his face, glancing across his cheek as he turns his head to take it with the least amount of impact; the irony is that he's eventually going to be the one who teaches her to do the same.

Or perhaps the even greater irony is that he's also the one who taught her to swing that fist in the first place.

"Wyatt! Oh God, I'm so sorry, but honestly - what the hell? Why were you - " a creeping smudge of red seeps at the corner of his lip before he can reach up to cover it with his hand. She's broken skin. "Shit. Shit, Wyatt."

He waves her concern away with a dismissive roll of his eyes. "It's fine. Nothing, really."

Lucy reaches for him, fingers eager to soothe the damage she's done, but her heart seizes in warning. He's not that Wyatt. Not the right Wyatt. Not the one who's bandaged her up just as many times as she's bandaged him.

Her arm drops uselessly, hanging at her side in strange suspension until she can jolt herself into action. "Is the first aid kit in the same place as always?"

"I don't need - "

"Yes, you do. Don't be an idiot."

She says it with the same flippant exasperation as all versions of Wyatt deserve, but his reaction sends her usual sense of ease skittering out of control. His eyes are pained, filled with a quick and acute shame that immediately makes her queasy.

He isn't ready to hear her say things like that. It isn't okay for her to put him down right now, not even teasingly, not when he already thinks the worst of himself. He's all too eager to believe any slight that comes his way.

So now she's touching him anyway, breaking her own rules in a heartbeat, dammit. All because no one does sad eyes like Wyatt Logan does sad eyes.

With a jaw that's almost too curiously smooth cradled against her palm, she guides his face to one side and reassesses the small gash on his mouth. "I didn't mean it. You're too stubborn, and sometimes you get a little short-sighted, but you are not an idiot, Wyatt."

She feels a zapping current of tension taking shape beneath her hand, the instant rejection of her words ransacking its way through him before he can even begin to form the words.

"You know better than that," he disputes in quiet resignation. "We both do."

Lucy has battled this same folding despondency from him before. Hell, she's won this battle before. It's a damn shame that her usual tactics often begin with kissing him and end with collapsing beneath him - or on top of him - spent and sated and glowing, because that's not an option with this Wyatt who belongs to a different Lucy.

There's always words too. Whispers, soft and fervent, sometimes a little desperate, lined with a heat that burns her up from head to toe. Words that remind him of who he really is, words that tell the story of how she's come to rely so fully on him, how she's fallen for him again and again because he leaves her no other choice. Words of trust, of reassurance, of belief. She reminds him that he's rebuilt himself before, after a bleak Texas childhood, after Syria, after San Diego. In the trenches of the Alamo. From his descent into 1983 and a lonesome stint in black site imprisonment.

He's rebuilt her too. He's taken her crumbled ruins, her pitted foundation, and cleared it all away until they're both rock-strong again. Together. After her mother drew her last breath in Chinatown and the fragments of a shattered marriage slipped through his fingers for a second time, they started again. They came home to world without Rufus, and on a cold concrete floor that didn't feel low enough for either of them, their first tentative step came in the form of three little words she never expected to hear from him.

From there they've designed a castle of their own making, one monumental structure that cannot be shaken or tarnished. An untouchable fortress.

But he doesn't know that now, and Lucy can't rely on that same solid ground that she treads so easily with her Wyatt. She also sure as hell can't silence his doubts with a roll of her hips or the glide of her tongue. Not today, not...not with him.

She might be needing something out of that first aid kit too if she keeps dwelling on all of this, because two Wyatt Logans under one roof is giving her a damn headache. Or heartache. Probably all of the above.

"Just sit, okay?" She tips her head toward the table behind him, allowing one last indulgent sweep of her hand against whiskery face. "I'll be right back."

By the time she returns, he's slumping backward into one of those chairs with a scowl so pitiful that he nearly has her laughing at his expense.

He surveys her reaction in a split-second and crosses his arms with a wary look. "If it's not one of you telling me what to do, it's the other. This is the second time today I've been told where to sit by some bossy know-it-all. Guess that's to be expected when there's more than one of you to deal with."

Lucy snickers as she takes the seat next to him and unclips the latch of the kit, remembering her demands for coffee to his much scruffier self in the early hours of the morning. "Oh, you have no idea…"

"At least he's reaping the benefits, right?"

She drops her gaze abruptly and hones in on the task at hand, stifling the swift stab of panic that accompanies his left-field suggestion. "Hold still. And quit talking."

He does as asked for as long as it takes for her to sanitize the surface of the cut and press a piece of gauze over it, his breath leaving him in short, staccato exhales. As much as she fears for her own diminishing sense of composure as she leans in so close, touches him so intimately, that's nothing compared to what might happen once she loses her excuse for keeping him silent. Subtlety has never been his preferred tactic, and she's not ready for his bulldozing curiosity.

"There," she says as she smooths a strip of adhesive across his warm skin. "All better."

Heat rises up her neck as his gaze flips down to her lips for just long enough to make his train of thought known. Her chair scrapes backward, memories of her own Wyatt kissing away the pain from so many stinging scrapes and sprawling bruises consuming her in a flash.

He gets the message, leaning away and stroking a meditative index finger over her work.

"So this makes us even, huh?" he proposes after a few uncomfortable seconds have passed, his small smile stretching distressingly thin.

She frowns, not quite sure what he's getting at. "Her bruises aren't your fault. I never expected you to leave Rufus when I grabbed that gun and went after Emma. I chose to go off on my own and I don't regret it."

The strain that grips his face doubles. "I'm not talking about her bruises."

"Then what - " Lucy's eyes narrow in realization, lips twitching downward. "Wyatt...you can't mean…"

"That elbow to the face that I never got a chance to apologize for? Because I sure as hell mean that."

"It was an accident," she protests gently.

"Yeah, well so was this," Wyatt says with half a shrug as he hitches a thumb in the direction of his busted lip. "It's only right that you've returned the favor. Especially you - the you that's obviously been taught how to throw a proper punch. Much better than that windmill of an arm in 1918."

"It's a reflex," she murmurs repentantly, a hand straying up to touch his cheek again before she can check the impulse. "A very easily triggered reflex by now, one that the other Wyatt knows to avoid at all costs."

He sinks against her palm, eyes falling shut like he's coming under some sort of trance. "A reflex, huh? I don't know if I should be impressed or heartbroken."

That's a familiar admission from him. He's always hated it even if he's the one who insists it's a necessity in the next breath.

"Both. It's usually both."

His gaze is clearer, far more piercing and exact, when he blinks back up at her again. "You've been avoiding me."

Lucy pitches her head sideways in question, withdrawing her hand from the thin dusting of his five o'clock shadow before she's too far gone. The nostalgia of it will eat her alive, make her careless, give way to something that had earned Wyatt - her Wyatt - a halfhearted scolding and a few sailing pillows just a handful of hours ago. "I saw the two of you asleep on the couch this morning, and that looked nothing like avoidance to me."

"No," he says with a soft sigh. "You. This you. Not her."

"What? Why would I - "

He scoffs, but there's no heat behind it. "Don't do that. You might know your way around a shotgun and pack a mean right hook, but you still can't hide anything in that face of yours when you're cornered...which is probably why you've been keeping your distance. You know it's the only way to - to dodge whatever it is that you don't want me to see. Because, trust me, you're dodging big time."

"This isn't a family reunion, you know," she retorts a little too combatively, rising from her seat and decisively snapping the first aid kit shut. "I didn't come here to socialize. We're here for Rufus. Sorry if that's cramping your style."

His lips swell into a smirk that holds absolutely no heed for the gauze she's just taped into place. "And now you're being defensive. Even better."

This conversation is unreal. And annoying as all hell. He's always been too perceptive, but this time...dammit, this time, she's supposed to have the advantage by five freaking years of extra intel. "Wyatt - "

"Listen, that bearded wonder you showed up with yesterday? I have that guy's number. He's pissed with me. Not hard to figure out, especially because I'm pissed with me too." He pauses, reconsiders, then snorts out a cheap laugh. "I just said the same thing twice, didn't I? Him being pissed is me being pissed, right?"

Lucy huffs a sigh that's forceful enough to blow her own hair away from her face. "Is that a rhetorical question, or…?"

He laughs for real this time, pushing himself up to his feet and shaking his head sharply. "God, you just get snarkier with age, don't you?"

"Damn straight. And you learn to embrace it, just so you know."

"Yeah…" Wyatt casts a lingering look down over her, blue eyes burning anew, "I bet I do."

She pushes playfully against his shoulder, because if she doesn't push him back, God knows she'll resort to pulling him in. "So not the kind of embracing I was talking about."

"Oh really? Because I'm convinced it's both."

And there it is again, the implication she can't avoid. Even with all the lecturing she's done with her Wyatt, she knows now that there's no preparation for this moment. She's as good as sunk before she even begins. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw you this morning too, ya know," he discloses in a voice that's too deep to be trusted. "Or to be more specific, I saw a whole lotta leg...leg that definitely belongs to you. And a stolen t-shirt too, if I'm not mistaken."

"Finders keepers," she answers rather lamely.

Wyatt flicks a few fingers through the ends of her hair, a wistful smile crawling lazily over his face. "This shorter look suits you. I'm really not sure which way I like it better."

She's not encouraging this. She shouldn't. She can't. It's too strange, too messy, but...but this is also the lightest she's seen him since the hatch to the Lifeboat cranked open yesterday, and there's nothing she dreads more than chasing the levity from his face.

"Wow, that's a big step up from not hideous. Are you coming on to me, sweetheart?"

Oh dammit, she's totally encouraging this.

"And risk further inflaming my future self's hostility? Wouldn't dream of it, babydoll." He chuckles nice and low, raking those same fingertips - fingertips she knows better than her own - down over her neck. "I know how he can be with these things."

Her mouth falls open, irrationally defensive over her Wyatt, because the one in front of her is only a million times worse about that trivial bullshit than the man she calls her husband. "How you can be with these things."

"Tomay-to, tomah-to."

She's laughing in spite of herself now, God help her. "You are such a pain in the ass, Logan."

Mild confusion passes breezes across his face before he shrugs it off, but Lucy sees the wheels turning. She's just done something - said something - that isn't clicking for him yet.

Logan. She doesn't do that back then, does she? The last name thing...they didn't really pick that up until they're able to joke about their cover story in Hollywood, and for the Wyatt of today, Hollywood is anything but a joke.

It's official - she's screwing this up just as badly as her own Wyatt did with the other Lucy.

She shuffles backward until the kitchen counter bites into her waist, a sudden awareness of their closeness burning through the fog that's taken up residence in her head.

The light behind his eyes dims slightly, but he doesn't fight to reclaim the lost proximity. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you in here, ya know? It wasn't a conscious thing. I just - "

He shakes his head, a brittle half-grin gaining purchase as he flounders.

"Just what?" Lucy asks, sure that she'll regret it even as she's drawing the words out of him.

"You're okay, right? With me, with him..?" He looks away, but not before she suspects that there are tears clawing stubbornly to the surface. "Someday, eventually, it stops being so - so damn hard, right?"

"Wyatt - "

"I need to know," he pleads suddenly, "tell me...tell me I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing. Tell me that I'll stop hurting her, that I still have some shot of proving myself worthy of her."

Her hands are on either side of his face in an instant, mooring him to her before the fear can devour him whole. "She trusts you. She needs you. Far more than you know, even now."

"But how could she ever - "

"I know what you're thinking, okay? You're sure that no one needs you here…that you've only made her life worse by being in it, and nothing you can do will change that now." She watches his mouth part in surprise, his chest rising unsteadily at the precision of that particular insight. "But you're wrong, Wyatt. I know it better than anyone. She's me, and she needs you just as much as you need her. If you keep letting yourself doubt that, then you're only going to hurt her again and again."

That's still a tough pill for him to swallow, but he's hanging on her every word, that much is obvious. He clears his throat roughly, unleashing a fragile thread of a smirk. "You've always had a way of pulling me off the ledge, haven't you?"

"It's what we do," she murmurs. "We save each other."

Wyatt nods into her hands, his eyebrows creasing together. "Thank you...ma'am."

"Last tip - never stop calling me that, okay?"

Now his devilish smirk is fully realized, as beautiful as it is intoxicating. "Wasn't planning on it, ma'am."

"Good." Lucy leans in, slides her lips over his cheek for no more than one breathless moment, then extricates herself from him with one clear goal in mind.

The hunger from before has all but evaporated, leaving a much different craving in its place. She's down the hall as fast as can get herself to him, and when he's finally in sight - longer hair, hardened muscle, the full contour of a dark beard - she eagerly collides into him all at once.

"Luce?" he asks into her hair, the unspoken current of his concern channeling into his strong arms as he anchors her to his chest.

"I love you, Wyatt. I have loved you from the start. It was true before I could ever understand it, and it never once faltered."

"They got to you too, huh?"

It's her own words from earlier in the day coming back to haunt her, but he doesn't exploit their role reversal any further than that, even if it's what she deserves. There's just a noise of understanding and then he's tucking her closer. His hand runs in a pacifying line up her neck while he nuzzles his mouth to her temple, an implicit comfort that requires no words.

She clears her throat, firming up her emotions for just long enough to make sure they're on the same page. "The second Rufus is back where he belongs, we're out of here, okay?"

"You've got it, ma'am."

There's no way of knowing if she's just encountered a causal loop of her own making from the Wyatt she's left in the kitchen to the one who holds her now, but something tells her this is a fixed point that exists far beyond her influence. There's probably not a Wyatt in any variation of the universe who can resist the use - and misuse - of that unlikely term of endearment.

Lucy presses her face into his shoulder and smiles softly, immensely grateful for the fact that one day, eventually, it had definitely stopped being so damn hard.