I'm still in denial about the cancellation. Ugh. You guys, this sucks.

Anyway, here's this. Written after episode 2, before episode 3, with no knowledge of spoilers and no knowledge of any fics posted after March 14th. Any similarities to later episodes or other fics are purely coincidence. Thanks go to qwertygal for the beta.

Lucy blinks up at the ceiling. She can't see much in the dim light. Jiya's breathing deeply from her cot across the room.

It's exactly what Wyatt was talking about; he wasn't wrong about her lying awake for hours on end.

But is it funny that he is entirely wrong about why she's lying here awake, her mind unrelenting in its quest to keep her from getting any sleep?

Because all the Rittenhouse madness, and her mother? It may be news to him, which is why he thinks that's what's keeping her up, but she's had six weeks to start to come to terms with the fact that her life will never be the same. What she wouldn't give to go back to that fateful day, when, until that federal agent had showed up on her doorstep, her biggest problems were a dying mother and getting denied tenure.

Lucy snorts a wry laugh into the darkness. Sure, only cancer and only missing out on tenure. Pretty devastating by any normal standards. If only that really was all she had to deal with.

She would have done it. She would have blown herself up.

Or at least she's pretty sure she would have. It's one thing to think or say you'll do something as a hypothetical, but when put in the actual situation, she well knows that talking the talk doesn't always translate to walking the walk. Once upon a time she'd have said with 100% conviction that she could never kill another person.

And they all knew how that had turned out.

Still, with no Amy, no mother – at least no recognizable version of her, no job, no lifeboat, no Mason Industries, no Rufus or Jiya or Wyatt, it had really meant no hope. No way out. No anything worth living for.

All of which she'd pretty much accepted, at least as best as she could have hoped to.

Killing that innocent soldier? Just another nail in the proverbial coffin, cementing her plan. At least if she'd ended up dead, there'd be no having to live with herself and the knowledge that not only did she have utterly nothing and no one, but that she'd also sunk to Rittenhouse's level.

And then, right as she was in the middle of checking off the list of steps in that plan?

Wyatt.

In the flesh, living, breathing – alive – and somehow right in front of her in 1918.

And suddenly her plan had been out the window and practically the next thing she knew, she's wearing ratty, borrowed sweatpants and standing in some miserable, underground dorm room that she's supposed to accept as her new home.

Instead of being dead, she was alive and had to accept all of that. On top of living with the knowledge that she's killed. Again. And that her mother doesn't give a rat's ass about her, not in comparison to her loyalty to the horror that is Rittenhouse.

Lucy can't lie; all of that? It is jarring.

But then Wyatt was there, taking her into his arms, alive and warm and solid and reassuring.

For everything else that had gone on, it was still utter whiplash, having him there like that. It wasn't that long ago that he'd put his life and reputation on the line to steal the lifeboat and re-set the timeline of his marriage. Then, suddenly, he'd been hinting at maybe, just maybe, looking toward… something with her. Only to – as far as she'd known – die before any chance at exploring what he actually meant by those possibilities.

That had done her in even more than her mother's revelation and getting dragged away to Rittenhouse's headquarters.

Because if Wyatt was dead, there really was no hope. Not for escaping, and certainly not for any sort of relationship.

And yeah, looking back now, it seems silly on some level, to care about romantic prospects, particularly when they were as vague and tenuous as theirs had been left, when the rest of your world, your life, was falling apart, but that little spark of hope that their last conversation back at Mason Industries had ignited had been all she'd had to cling to in those early stages after essentially being kidnapped by her mother. Wyatt would find her, rescue her, and they could escape together and maybe be something. It's what she'd told herself over and over. Her mantra. Wyatt would come for her and their possibilities.

Until Emma had waltzed into her room and snidely dropped the newspaper on the dresser.

So maybe that's why, when all he was trying to do was comfort her, her mind had drifted to more, needing to feel him, needing to have him like that, pulling him closer until she could feel his breath on her lips.

He hadn't shied away, but god, she'd felt pathetic when Jiya interrupted them and reality had smacked her in the face.

Talk about desperately throwing herself at him. Even if they had actually ended up kissing, would it have just been out of pity on his part?

Or had he, maybe, possibly, missed her – like that – just as she'd missed him?

That was the internal debate that toyed with her emotions through the nights.

Not her mother, not Emma, not anything and everything nefarious that Rittenhouse had made her do and would still do without her. But Wyatt, and what that interrupted almost-kiss might have meant. Because she's been too chicken to bring it up with him since then – better to be tortured by a 'maybe' than devastated by a 'no', right? And Lucy knows Wyatt well enough to know that if he's not actually interested, he's too much of a gentleman to embarrass her by bringing it up only to shoot it back down. Even if, somehow, he does feel the same way, his admission that he (and everyone else) is worried about her means he's probably not going to risk throwing off the tenuous equilibrium of her life right now by bringing anything else into the mix at this point.

But damn it all, Lucy curses with a soft sigh at the ceiling, it almost happened again.

Well, technically it did happen again. It's just that the thing happening was an almost-happen.

She really had just been trying to not panic in the tiny little compartment of the trunk, and trying not to bounce around to the point of smacking her head and getting a concussion. But then in Wyatt's arms again, curled up against him, commiserating but laughing about it, god, that tiny trunk compartment had suddenly become her favorite place in the world. And then when the jolt of the car has thrown him on top of her? Yeah, they'd laughed about it, but there was no denying the rush of heat that ran through her upon feeling the weight of a man – especially that one in particular, no matter how accidentally – on top of her for the first time in longer than she cared to remember.

Wyatt hadn't shied away then either, and Lucy had felt the barest brush of his lips over hers before the stupid trunk got yanked open.

He'd looked sheepish as they'd climbed out of the car, face red as he'd roughly wiped any hint of her lipstick from his mouth and dodging Rufus' gaze at every turn.

What she can't decide is whether he's embarrassed that they'd ended up in that position, or just that they'd been caught.

She knows which she wants, but again, was he just caught up in the moment, thinking she was upset all over again, about her mother on top of the claustrophobia, taking pity on her and going along with it just to take her mind off the feeling of being trapped in that tiny space?

And maybe she is just overemotional, the attraction amplified by everything that's gone on since that day back at Mason Industries. But acknowledging that potential likelihood is doing nothing to lessen the desperate need for one of these almosts to turn into a yes, definitely.

Unfortunately, the close quarters of the bunker aren't normally exactly a prime location for much privacy, even if she were inclined to actually broach the topic with Wyatt.

She's not, by the way. Inclined to broach the topic, that is. She's still a big fat coward. When they'd arrived back from '55, it had been late, Jiya already in bed and only Mason to greet them. And even then, he'd retired to the room the men were sharing pretty quickly. Rufus had headed for the shower right away, wanting to clean and re-bandage his arm. Wyatt graciously had said he'd take a shower last, after anyone else had finished. But for as much as Lucy wanted to shower too, and rinse off the remnants of the dusty day at the racetrack, the prospect of exiting the dingy bathroom to everyone asleep except for Wyatt had suddenly sounded like way too much privacy.

So Lucy had panicked and feigned exhaustion, forgoing the shower until morning and opting for the safety of her bunk and Jiya's presence as a chaperone. Of course, she'd been a little too loud in her return, waking Jiya, who'd then gone off in search of Rufus, but thankfully, she'd returned quickly and gone right back to sleep, not leaving Lucy alone for long.

Of course, now, wide awake in the dark, Lucy's hating her own cowardice all over again. Because as silly as it seems given the magnitude of what they're all up against, she really does want to kiss Wyatt. So much.

And more than kiss, obviously, but that seems even more ridiculous to let herself think about considering that even an actual, established couple – one half of which is sleeping across the room, alone – has apparently forgone most of the physical aspects of their relationship for the sake of the group and the fight to take down Rittenhouse. No one else is making relationships and sex a priority, so why is her brain?

Lucy squeezes her eyes shut and sighs again.

She really does hate her brain right now. Because it's one thing to muse about some missed opportunities, to wonder about reciprocated feelings, but her mind just had to go and make the leap to sex.

God, she's in a sorry state, isn't she? The last line of defense against her own mother taking over the world, and here she is lying awake tortured by something between innocent playground 'he loves me, he loves me not' and straight up being turned on by the anticipation left in the wake of the interrupted moments.

The matter is not helped when, unbidden, the mental image of what Wyatt might look like in an equally aroused state invades Lucy's brain. Like maybe when he was alone in that shower not long ago.

She clenches her hands by her sides under the thin blankets.

She can't.

Not with Jiya there.

But it might be the only hope for ever getting sleep again, given the way these… situations with Wyatt seem to keep happening.

And lord knows it's been long enough; it won't take any time at all.

But she can't.

Still, she wonders, had Wyatt? Thinking about her? Tonight in the shower? Or ever?

That mental visual is enough to convince her that she most definitely can. And needs to.

Lucy shoots a quick glance in Jiya's direction; she's out cold on her stomach, face buried in the pillow. Good.

As carefully as she can to avoid any squeaking of the ancient metal cot, Lucy rolls toward the wall, turning her back to Jiya.

She squeezes her thighs together. It's another minute before she can muster up the nerve to do anything more than that, but the memory of the feel of Wyatt half on top of her in the car… It's too much. Lifting her top leg up just enough, she slips one hand down past the elastic waist of her underwear.

Lucy almost has to laugh at herself when she reaches her target; it might actually be amusing just how riled up two not-kisses have her were she not so desperate to get some sleep.

There's not much to go on – these two almosts, that night with Bonnie and Clyde, and the barest hint of possibilities from that last day before everything fell apart – but the memory of him above her in the trunk, pressed against her, leaning in, lips brushing hers…

She rubs harder, swirling the tip of her finger furiously.

All it takes after that is her mind wandering to the thought of Wyatt, in the shower, naked, hard and wanting it just as much as she does.

Lucy bites her lip, swallowing the tiny whimper that threatens when it hits. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut and she clamps her thighs around her hand as the unsurprisingly hollow pleasure washes over her.

Because it's not as if it was actually him eliciting the reaction; it's just her fingers and her imagination.

Because nothing has actually happened.

When her pulse slows and the rush subsides, she sighs numbly, tugging her hand back out of her sweatpants.

Well, that didn't exactly provide any answers about Wyatt.

But at least she'll get some sleep tonight.

~FIN~

And on a related note, NBC can go fuck itself.