Rufus' reunion with Jiya wasn't all what he expected. She was mad at him for coming, for ignoring her warning because of her visions, but she threw herself into his arms and hugged him like there was no tomorrow anyway.

She took Lucy and Rufus to her shared room while they waited on Flynn and Wyatt. She was terrified that by leaving she would set off a chain of events that would lead to Rufus' death and was just explaining to Rufus for about the fifteenth time that if she left with him, he would be stabbed by a cowboy with yellow teeth.

Lucy stood in the hall, peering out into the bar for any sign of the others. She was just starting to get worried when Wyatt and Flynn appeared at the door. She waved them over and rejoined Rufus and Jiya.

Wyatt and Flynn looked haggard. They had raced over several blocks, searching for any sign of Jessica and Emma and had come up empty handed. "They must have gone back to the Mothership" Wyatt sighed.

Rufus nodded and then glanced at their reunited group. "Okay, well we've got five people, we only have room for four. What are we going to do? How do we all get back?"

"Flynn and I will stay behind, Lucy, Rufus, and Jiya you get home and then Rufus you can come back for us, once their safe."

No one liked the idea of anyone being left in the past, but Wyatt was insistent that Lucy and Jiya be taken home first. If Emma and her Rittenhouse cronies were still wandering around, he and Flynn had a better chance of dispatching them than any of the others.

But Jiya still wasn't on board. She begged Rufus to reconsider, to leave her and be safe – that if they made their way through that bar again, he would be murdered right in front of her."

Flynn, ever the skeptic to Jiya's visions, piped up "Well what if we didn't go through the bar? Is there a back door somewhere?"

Jiya immediately brightened up "Yeah! There is, we can just slide out through the back way."

They reached the back entrance without so much as passing a cowboy with yellow teeth. Jiya gave Rufus a kiss as he held her around the waist saying "See, I told you there was nothing to worry about. Your visions saved my life." Jiya smiled back at him as they walked out onto a small porch, followed by the rest of their companions.

One moment they were standing together on that small back porch, an eclectic family of scientists, soldiers and academics – time travelers all - and the next, they were diving behind water barrels, doors and water troughs as gun shots filled the air.

Lucy had felt the bullet graze her arm as she ducked for cover. As she situated herself behind a barrel, she turned to see Rufus, with blood blossoming over his shirt - the bullet that was meant for her, now lodged in his chest. Jiya was in hysterics. Flynn was still firing his gun at Emma in the furthest end of the porch, doing the best he could to take cover behind a post. Wyatt had made his way over to Rufus pulling out a handkerchief and pressing down hard on his friend's chest, begging him to be okay.

Lucy crawled over, knelt in front of Rufus and Wyatt and placed her hands over the handkerchief while Wyatt reloaded his gun. Tears were stinging her eyes, Rufus was gasping for air and Jiya's hysterical sobs were breaking her already broken heart. "Rufus, hang on…we'll get you home, just please…hang on." Lucy sputtered out.

Wyatt had just lifted his eyes from Rufus' bloodied and gasping form, to Lucy's beautiful tear stained face when he saw the gun.

Jessica had stepped out from behind a coach and was aiming her gun directly at Lucy's back. Wyatt reacted instantaneously. He swiped Lucy to the side with his left arm, shielding her from the bullet and fired his own gun.

He felt her bullet as it smashed into his shoulder knocking him sideways off of his knees. Jessica wasn't so lucky. She faltered as his bullet hit her in the abdomen. She walked a few steps, staggered sideways and then collapsed on the ground. Dead.

Wyatt let out a cry of anguish that tore a hole in Lucy's soul. Flynn made his way painfully towards them, his left arm, limp at his side from a gunshot wound. Emma was running away.

Lucy took in the scene around her. The death the detruction, the pain. She was no longer numb. Rage like she had never known burned within her, blinding her to all but one single, solitary thought. Kill Emma Whitmore.

She grasped Wyatt's gun and took off running into the night, oblivious to the screams Wyatt sent after her, begging her to come back. He tried to give chase, but Jiya had asked begged him to stay. Wyatt gritted his teeth, swallowed his pride and looked to Flynn.

Wyatt couldn't even look at the body of his dead wife as she lay in the dirty San Francisco street. He couldn't look at the body of his best friend and time traveling companion as he lay propped up against a water trough, bloody and broken. Instead, he held a weeping Jiya close to his chest and turned his eyes heavenward. He couldn't remember the last time he had uttered a prayer, but as he looked up at the night sky, he did just that.

Please God, don't let Lucy die.

It felt like hours to Wyatt as he and Jiya sat there huddled together, mourning Rufus, and praying that they wouldn't lose more than they already had that night. He's not sure what caught his attention first. The huddled figures of Lucy and Flynn making their way painfully back to the porch or the sound of Lucy's sobs breaking the unnatural quiet of the scene.

The unparalleled relief he had felt upon seeing her alive was quickly replaced with horror, anger, sadness, guilt and despair as he gazed upon her bruised and beaten face.

"I ran out of bullets" was all Lucy said as they slowly made their way back to the Lifeboat and back to a present without Rufus.

As soon as the hatch to the LifeBoat opened, Denise Christopher and Conner Mason knew that something terrible had happened. Jiya was covered in blood, Lucy had been beaten, Wyatt and Flynn both wounded. They didn't need to utter a reply to Conner's question of "Where's Rufus?", their faces revealed the horrible and yet undeniable truth. As they all retreated to lick their wounds, the sobs of Conner Mason reverberated throughout the bunker that was now danker than it had ever been.

Sitting on the floor against the bunker wall, ice pack held gingerly to the bruises she had sustained, Lucy stared into nothingness. Emma Whitmore still lived….and so did she. The bruises were a reminder that she could still feel, that she was still subject to the pain Rittenhouse could inflict. She almost hated Flynn for interrupting Emma. Just let me die she had been thinking as Emma choked her and beaten her face. But Flynn had come and she, in one last ditch effort, tried to end Emma Whitmore…and failed. She wouldn't fail next time.

Wyatt's presence broke her out of her dark thoughts. She saw him studying her, watching her….she removed the ice pack and looked up into his face – it was full of pain and anguish. He sat beside her and there they were, two broken people with enough grief between them to fill an entire ocean.

"It's all my fault" sighed Wyatt. "If I hadn't…..if I hadn't brought her here none of this would've happened. I was supposed to keep you and Rufus safe. It was my job and I messed it all up. Just like I messed up everything with us. Rufus is dead because of me"

Lucy turned to look at Wyatt. He was broken. She had never seen him so low. Tears filled his eyes and every line of his face spoke to the depth of his anguish. He had lost Rufus. He had killed Jessica. And he felt like he let them all down, Lucy especially.

She was broken. Rittenhouse had definitely made her regret that she hadn't just ended it all in 1918. How much pain and suffering could she have saved herself? How much pain and suffering could she have saved her friends? Wyatt blamed himself. He had hurt her, with Jessica, yes….but his heart had been in the right place. She knew that.

Lucy reached for Wyatt's hand and let her fingers slide between his. He closed his eyes tightly as if that action caused him more pain than the gunshot wound in his shoulder. "Wyatt, it's not your fault. Rittenhouse is to blame. Rufus knew the risks just like the rest of us." At the mention of Rufus' name, Wyatt let a tear fall jaggedly down his cheek. "You brought me home safe. You brought Jiya home safe. That's what mattered most to Rufus."

Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. His heart too full of gratitude towards the woman who sat by his side, but he knew it was more than gratitude he felt. "I love you Lucy." He uttered those words like a prayer. "I know I said it before…but it's true. I don't expect anything back. You don't have to say anything. I hurt you so much over the past few weeks." Wyatt squeezed her hand and opened his eyes to look at her bruised face. He ghosted his fingers over her swollen cheek and whispered, "I'm so sorry, Lucy."

Lucy lifted her hand and touched his hand to her face, leaning into it. "I know, Wyatt."

He let his hand fall and turned his head away again, too ashamed to look at her. Those bruises reminded him of his failure to protect her. His betrayal of her trust. This bunker was full of reminders of his deadly mistake in bringing Jessica into their lives. He wanted the forgiveness of Lucy Preston more than anything in the world, but he knew he didn't deserve it.

She seemed to sense his inner turmoil…Lucy was always acutely aware of Wyatt's brooding thoughts even when he couldn't bring himself to talk about them. She reached up and touched his face, turning it back towards her. "Wyatt" she said softly, "look at me."

He reluctantly brought his eyes up to meet hers. His were filled with self-reproach and sorrow. Lucy's were filled with pity and sadness. He grasped her fingers that were now caressing his cheek. "How can you even stand to be in the same room with me, Lucy?"

A tear slid down Lucy's cheek as she pressed a gentle kiss onto his lips. Her own were split, sore and bloodied, but his were soft and warm. More tears fell from his eyes as she touched her forehead to his and sighed "Because I love you too."

They sat there holding hands, heads together silently crying over all the pain and suffering that had buried them in grief – each desperately clinging to the small thread of hope that those three words promised. In a perfect world there would be no Rittenhouse. In a perfect world Rufus would still be here. In a perfect world there wouldn't be undead wives and fake fiances. It would just be them. Happy. Together.

Lucy dropped her hand from Wyatt's cheek and was pulling away when her attention was caught by a hint of gold around Wyatt's neck. Her fingers tugged at the chain and caught Wyatt's attention. "Oh, yeah," he said softly, "I almost forgot." He let go of Lucy's other hand and worked the chain off of his neck and pulled the necklace out from underneath his shirt. "This is for you."

Lucy stared at the locket…her locket that was now sitting in the palm of her hand. "Wyatt… how?"

Wyatt gave her a small smile, "I know you gave it to Fei, but I promise I didn't send her home empty handed." She looked down at his hand and noticed for the first time in weeks that he wasn't wearing his wedding band. "Even trade." He said simply. "But between you and me, I got the better deal."

Lucy pressed the locket to her lips and closed her eyes. "Thank you, Wyatt." He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close and whispered into her hair "Sure thing,…ma'am."

Their world wasn't perfect, but it was their own. They had hit rock bottom and then some. But here, against this cold bunker wall, she felt warm, safe and loved…and that, for now, was enough.

(A/N) Okay, so if you made it this far, you've survived. I'm sorry it was so long, but I needed to clear up some of the problems I had with the storyline. To me, there wasn't an expressed reason that Rittenhouse was in 1888, other than to get Jiya….which I thought was kind of confusing. How did they get there first? Did they know the LifeBoat hadn't made it? I was confused…so I tried to give an explanation in here. As this is my second attempt at fanfic I feel completely out of my element and TOTALLY self-conscious, but I do hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are welcome!