(2/2)

"I found her in your Facebook friends," Lucy said softly. "The name is different but that's certainly her."

His brow furrowed and he shook his head in confusion. "So, what? Does that mean in this timeline I never married her?"

"I don't know," Lucy said thoughtfully. "But I know someone who will know."

"Who?" Wyatt asked.

"Jiya. Jiya knows everything," Lucy said with a half hearted chuckle. She pulled out her phone and dialed Jiya's number just before placing the phone on speaker.

"You rang?" Jiya asked brightly.

"This is going to sound like a weird question, Jiya, but just go with it, okay?" Lucy asked.

"Okay," Jiya said slowly. "Shoot."

"What do you know about Wyatt's wife, Jessica?"

There was a pause and then Jiya spoke up in a confused tone. "You mean his ex-wife? Are you guys still dealing with that? I thought you said you helped him through that whole 'screwing up his marriage' guilt thing he was going through?"

"They divorced?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah, did you hit your head on this mission or something?" Then she paused for a moment and then continued just as suddenly. "Unless, has something changed since your last jump?"

"Yeah, something changed," Lucy said with a nod. "We're still trying to figure it out."

"Okay, well call me when you do," Jiya said worriedly.

"Will do," Lucy told her. "See you later."

Lucy hung up and then placed a hand on Wyatt's shoulder. He'd looked lost and a bit confused during that entire phone call. She couldn't blame him because, honestly, she wasn't sure what to do with the information either. "Are you okay, Wyatt?"

"That explains why there's no trace of her here," Wyatt answered in a distracted tone. He took a deep breath and sighed before he spoke again. "And it actually makes sense," he admitted sheepishly.

"It does?" Lucy asked. From the way he talked about Jessica she assumed they had this fairy tale love.

"My marriage wasn't at all perfect," Wyatt answered hesitantly. "I just never wanted to remember the fights, which, honestly, there were a lot of them in that last year."

He laid back onto his bed with a far off thoughtful expression and after a moment Lucy laid down next to him. She kept her distance, though, uncertain of where Jessica being alive left them.

"About what?" She asked.

"My job, kids, buying a house, and so many other things. She wanted to feel more settled, more secure. My job hindered that for her. But it's all I know. What would I even do other than this? And kids? I mean, she knew what a son of bitch my dad was. I couldn't risk screwing up a new little person like he did, especially since I'm gone so much of the time," he confessed.

It was all coming back to him. The things he'd overlooked in his guilt and the things he'd purposely misremembered for the sake of her memory. She'd hated his job and it made sense that she eventually decided to move on. She needed someone different than him to make her truly happy. Jiya was right, he had screwed up his marriage. He felt guilt but not overwhelming guilt. Not like before when he'd lost her. No where close to that, at all.

Next to him, he heard Lucy sigh and felt her fingers in his hair. The space she'd put between them had disappeared suddenly and he was grateful to have her close again. He wasn't sure what brought her back but her hand running through his hair offered him too much comfort to question it.

"That doesn't mean it was all your fault, Wyatt," Lucy said softly. She knew what he'd been thinking. She knew him well enough by now to recognize his guilt. "I know this isn't what you imagined saving her would feel like. I'm sorry."

He reached up and grabbed the hand that was gently combing through his hair and then turned to look her in the eyes. There was no anger or resentment in her expression, just understanding and maybe some self doubt. He noticed there was less than there would have been two months ago but he could still see it lingering in her eyes. "Why are you apologizing?" He asked with half of a smile. "It's not as though this is your fault."

"No," she said with a sigh. "But I know how I'd feel if I got Amy back and things weren't the same. You know? Like if I got her back but it turned out in the new timeline we weren't close? That would be torture. But at least she'd be here. Alive. I mean I could fix the rest eventually."

He realized, in that moment, where the doubt he'd seen in Lucy's eyes was coming from. She assumed he'd want a second chance with Jessica. He could already imagine her gathering up the courage to step aside. He felt a brief pang of heartache in his chest at the idea of losing Lucy over this and then sudden amusement that, of course, this would happen just as they'd gotten comfortable with the idea of Jessica being gone.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head.

"What?" Lucy asked with a quirked brow and a hesitant grin.

"We had just gotten past Jessica, you and me. Literally today, the last bit of struggle with her was resolved. And now this," Wyatt told her with a wry grin. "It's like the universe just knew."

Lucy didn't seem to find it as bitterly amusing as he did. There was a moment of silence, then she sighed again, and spoke. "What do you want to do, Wyatt?"

It wasn't said with impatience or as if she were rushing him to make a decision. She sounded as if she just wanted to know how to help him. It reminded him of the night he'd told her he and Rufus were stealing the time machine. She wanted a task-a distraction. He knew the feeling.

"I want to know what happened. When it happened. I want to know more about how she is now so I can make sure she's happy. How do we do that?" He asked her.

He was telling her what he wanted as he was figuring it out. He wasn't over thinking what he was telling her or softening anything to spare her feelings. He was being honest in real time. He actually surprised himself with his reaction. He'd thought about what he'd do in this situation, though he'd thought about it as little as possible. Thoughts of Jess coming back while he was with Lucy seemed to be more heart wrenching than anything else. He worried he might drop everything and run to Jess, trampling over Lucy in the process. He didn't want to do that, but he worried his selfish asshole instincts might kick in when push came to shove.

But that wasn't happening. He wasn't in an anxious rush to see Jessica and he certainly didn't want to deal with any of this without Lucy. Did that mean he was okay with his marriage to Jess not working out? Was he okay with his initial fantasies about seeing her waiting for him when he came home one day not coming true?

Yes, he realized. He was. Did it sting like a bitch to think he'd hurt Jess enough to push her away? Absolutely. Did he want to make sure she was happy and healthy? Yes. Was he ecstatic to hear that she was living and breathing on this earth again? Completely. It lifted a weight from his shoulders that he thought he would never be free of. The idea that she once again had a chance at life and happiness made him feel more...content than he had in a long time.

But with the knowledge that they'd divorced came the realization that he'd been misremembering the past. He'd been painting everything as if he and Jess were this perfect couple who had everything together and their whole lives planned out. Honestly, that was far from the truth. In the early days, they were amazing together. He had nothing but wonderful memories of dating her, proposing to her, the actual wedding. But once the honeymoon phase had ended, the realization that marriage was damn hard work had smacked them both upside the head.

He knew any couple argued. If you expected to love someone and agree with them all the time then you were in for a harsh reality. Hell, he and Lucy argued at least twice a week depending on how life threatening that particular week had been. But a couple in a healthy relationship didn't argue like he and Jessica had. She'd thrown things and screamed at him, he'd cruelly dismissed her and drowned her out with alcohol, and she'd even packed her things more than once after a particularly nasty fight. Neither of them were bad people, they just weren't as complimentary as they once believed.

They'd fight, make up, and then ignore their issues. Delaying them to deal with on another day. That night after leaving the bar, there'd been no way they could delay the explosion any longer. They'd both been hateful. He wanted his guilt to swallow him whole after she died so he'd painted himself a picture of the girl he'd dated and initially fallen in love with and forgotten the ways they'd grown apart.

Lucy must have answered his earlier question about how he could get more information on Jess because he realized she was now pacing the floor in front of his bed, talking to Rufus in a fast and urgent tone. She hung up and then sat back down next to him on the bed.

"Rufus is going to use Mason's creepy all knowing software to look up Jessica," Lucy explained. "That should shed some light on what happened with the two of you." She paused and he could see her flip a switch and dive headfirst into her History Professor role. "I've been thinking, if our last jump did this then that man that tried to kill Rufus must have been an ancestor of Jessica's killer. I mean, that's the only thing we did that could have caused this kind of ripple. We have no way of knowing for sure since we don't know that man's name or the killer's identity from the old timeline, but I think it's safe to assume that's what happened." She was rambling now about other possibilities that were much less likely, but he was barely listening. He knew what she was doing. She was deflecting and detaching. Giving him the space she thought he needed.

"Lucy," Wyatt said softly as he laced their fingers together. He'd interrupted her as she said something about finding the roster for the underground boxing club from their earlier mission, so it took her a minute to refocus on him. "It's okay."

She swallowed thickly and bit her bottom lip. "Are you sure?"

He brought the hand he held to his lips and kissed the back of it before nodding in response. "I'm sure."

Lucy's phone rang suddenly and she jumped in surprise. "That was fast," she said before she answered. She put Rufus on speaker so they could both hear.

"She remarried," Rufus said quickly with no preamble, as if he were pulling off a band aid. "To a guy named Tommy Ferguson?"

Wyatt's eyes widened in recognition and then he chuckled softly. "He's a family friend. He and Jess grew up living next door to each other."

Rufus continued. He sounded less hesitant and Wyatt had a feeling Rufus had expected a more dramatic reaction from him.

"Right, well, in this timeline, that night you and Jess had your fight resulted in her moving out the next day, from what I can gather. It looks like, according to some invoices I found with this insane software straight out of Orwell's 1984, you tried couples counseling for about a year before legally divorcing. If it helps, the paperwork for the divorce seems to indicate it was a pretty amicable split so the counseling must have done something for you both."

"What happened then?" Wyatt asked. He wordlessly hoped the assumption Rufus had made about counseling was right. He'd hate for Jessica to be carrying around any ill feelings toward him.

"According to my expert facebook stalking abilities, she moved back home to live with her parents while she got back on her feet, got a job as a paralegal at a small law office, and then ran into Tommy at the grocery store. It was love at second sight," Rufus told him. Wyatt heard concern creep into his friend's voice before he asked. "Are you okay, man?"

He squeezed Lucy's hand and smiled slowly. "Yeah, yeah I think I am. I wanted her alive, safe, and happy and it sounds like she's all three of those things. Thanks for helping me out, Rufus."

"Anytime, day or night, my friend," Rufus replied. "Let me know if I can help with anything else."

"Thanks, Rufus," Lucy told him. "You're the best."

"Yeah, I know," Rufus said with a chuckle as he hung up.

When the call went silent, Wyatt felt Lucy staring at him. He turned to meet her eyes and found concern for him waiting in her gaze.

"Are you sure, you're okay?" She asked. "I mean Jessica was a huge part of your life and when we met you were so set on getting her back-"

"Lucy, you're a huge part of my life," he told her. He made sure to hold her gaze, knowing the truth of it would show in his eyes. "I think someone very smart once told me, 'the present isn't perfect, but it's ours.' Remember that?"

She nodded with a weak smile but didn't say anything in response.

"I've been sitting here thinking. Thinking about Jess, and you, and the years in between and more than anything what I've discovered is that I let my guilt motivate everything I did and everything I felt. Jessica and I grew apart long before that fight but in the face of feeling as though her death was my fault I'd convinced myself otherwise. I lied to myself about the true state of our marriage. I thought I deserved punishment and remembering our marriage as perfect did the trick. It kept me angry and alone, just like I thought I deserved," Wyatt admitted. He turned his gaze to her hand and studied the way her fingers fit so perfectly with his and smiled softly. "Until you. Until Rufus. Until the two of you forced your way through all my walls and convinced me I could actually live. So, no, I don't want to go running back to Jess begging her to take me back. I'm content knowing she's alive and has found someone to love her the way she always deserved. Now, I can do the same with the added bonus of most of my baggage having been put behind me." He paused and took a deep cleansing breath. As he exhaled he realized he felt lighter than he had in years. He met Lucy's eyes again with a look that he hoped was full of everything he felt for her, including the things he wasn't quite ready to say out loud. "I'd like to think that you are that someone but that's up to you. I'm not going anywhere," he promised as he brought a hand up to her cheek and gently caressed her face.

She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. He must have said all the right things because when she opened her eyes they were shining with unshed tears and her self doubt was gone. It had been replaced with joy. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen Lucy radiate happiness the way she was now. Since they'd met she'd been through so much. Too much, he thought to himself. He took in every bit of her beautiful face. He wanted to remember that look of pure joy for the rest of his life.

She launched herself at him with a tight embrace. With her cheek nestled against his shoulder in a way that was unique to only Lucy. She pulled back from the hug to meet his eyes and beamed at him before she spoke. "I'm going anywhere, either."

And now it was his turn to feel an overwhelming mix of relief and joy. He could no longer imagine himself without Lucy Preston and he never wanted to. They were good for eachother, as near perfect as he thought they could ever be. No amount of timeline shifting could change that.

They had a lot of fighting left to do. Against Rittenhouse. Against time. Hell, they were still currently dealing with whatever damn fool broke into her safehouse. But they also had a lot to fight for. Rufus. Amy. Eachother. As long as they fought together he knew they'd win. They could deal with anything life or time threw at them, including the ghosts of their pasts.

fin.