A/N: Spoilers for 2x05 and 2x06. Also be warned...no happy endings found here.

Happy reading!

angellwings

Up In Smoke

By Angellwings

"I had a dream about a burning house,

You were stuck inside I couldn't get you out,

I laid beside you and pulled you close,

And the two of us went up in smoke.

Love isn't all that is seems,

I did you wrong.

I'll stay here with you until this dream is gone."

-"Burning House" by Cam

The perimeter alarm blared and Wyatt was immediately up, gun plucked from its hiding spot. He looked across to check the other cot, only remembering in that moment, that Jess had left nearly twenty hours ago. Before the jump. Before they finally finished Keynes (though not Rittenhouse.) The threat Emma threw at Lucy as they retreated still rang in his ears like a gunshot. He padded his way down the hall to the room Lucy shared with Jiya and knocked lightly. He would clear their room first before checking all the others.

Jiya answered with bleary eyes.

"What's going on?" She yelled, to be heard over the alarm.

"Perimeter alarm," he replied. "Lucy with you?"

Jiya glanced back into the room. "No. Her sheets haven't been touched either. She probably fell asleep on the couch again."

He scoffed. "Doubt she's asleep now."

They made their way to Rufus's room but he was already halfway out the door. That was two people accounted for. Three more still to be counted. But when they reached the common room, Wyatt in front with his gun held high, the only person waiting for them was Mason.

Fear and panic filled Wyatt. He walked carefully but with quickened steps toward the bunker door. The ladder was in view and so was the night sky through the open hatch. The alarm was blaring and his ears were ringing. He counted four of the bunker's six residence, all staring at the open door and hatch.

Still no Lucy. No Flynn.

No. No, no, no.

"Lucy!" Wyatt yelled as he turned away from the door. "Shit, she's gotta be here."

"What?" Rufus asked. "What is it?"

"The door was open," Wyatt said frantically. "Have you seen Lucy?"

Rufus shook his head. "No, not since I went to bed. She was sitting at the table with Flynn."

Flynn. It couldn't be a coincidence that he was gone too.

Rufus turned to Jiya. "She never came to the room last night?"

Jiya swallowed and then shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "No."

Wyatt's eyes narrowed on her. Did she know something?

Rufus looked passed Wyatt to the open hatch and his mouth fell open as he thought. Wyatt didn't think he was ready for the words he knew Rufus would say next. He kept his gun trained on the open door and prepared himself as best he could.

"Flynn's gone too, right? You-you don't think that they...did they leave together?" Rufus asked in a raised voice. "Can we shut that damn hatch? The alarm noise is driving me insane!"

"No!" Wyatt shouted. "No one moves until we find Lucy and Flynn. They have to be here! Lucy's knows the risks! She would never—it's too dangerous!"

"Wyatt…" Jiya said with a furrowed brow and a conflicted sigh.

"I'll check bathroom, Rufus you check the—"

"Wyatt!" Jiya said loudly as she turned and met his eyes. "She's not here."

"What the hell are you talking about, Jiya? Did she say something to you?" Wyatt asked as he stepped into Jiya's space.

The perimeter alarm stopped and Wyatt whirled around with his gun raised to find Rufus descending the ladder. His friend held his hands up in surrender, "I'm sorry. I couldn't think. I had to stop it."

"Put the gun away, Wyatt. No one broke in," Jiya told him with a sympathetic glance. "She broke out."

"How do you know that?" Wyatt asked her again. Why? Why would she? It didn't make any sense.

"I saw it," Jiya said with an apologetic wince. "Before we left for that last jump I—I had a vision. Lucy had a duffle bag strap across her shoulders and she was climbing the ladder. She's not here. She left."

The fear he felt earlier burned into despair and rage. They only returned from the jump six hours ago. She seemed fine when they landed. Well, as fine as Lucy could be lately. What with her forced smiles and haunted eyes and cagey desperation - that had started to make her unpredictable in the field. Would she really just leave? Where would she go? Why would she leave? Who would keep her safe?

The answer came back to him faster than he liked and left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Flynn.

A few months ago that would have been him. But not now. He had fucked all of that up. He was no longer the one she trusted with her plans and secrets.

"If she wanted to leave," Rufus said with hurt etched across his face. "Why wouldn't she tell us?"

Rufus looked to Wyatt for an answer. Wyatt chose to say nothing. He couldn't think of anything that would make this better.

Jiya huffed and rolled her eyes. "Really? Is this that much of a surprise to either of you? Christopher and I wondered how she stayed every day so how could the two of you not see it? You're both supposed to know her better than any of us. Honestly, I'm surprised she didn't leave sooner."

"Of course you're not surprised," Rufus told her in a biting tone. "You had a vision."

"That's right," Jiya said as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "I did. I wanted to tell you, Rufus, but considering how that went the last time I thought you wouldn't want me to. Besides, my visions are nothing more than a side effect, right?"

"I'm going after them," Wyatt announced. He didn't have time for whatever lover's spat Rufus and Jiya were having. Lucy was out there alone with Flynn. "They couldn't have gotten far. I'll find her and bring her back."

He started to run back to his room to change when Mason stopped him.

"I don't think she wants to be found, mate."

Mason's tone was almost regretful, as if he hated to be the one to say it. It was funny to Wyatt that it was Mason who pointed that out to him. Mason, who largely stood on the outside edges of the drama. Mason, who for the longest time was too caught up in himself to help them fight Rittenhouse. Mason, who didn't really know Lucy at all.

"He's got a point," Rufus said with a sad sigh. "What are you gonna do if you catch up to her, Wyatt? Throw her over your shoulder?"

"If I have to," he sneered. "Emma is still out there. Rittenhouse is still out there. They'll come harder for her now that Keynes is dead. They won't stop. If she stays out there she'll die."

"I don't know," Jiya said with an arched eyebrow. "It seems if you're gonna be off the grid then Flynn would be the guy to call. He lived off the grid for years, didn't he? I think she's in pretty capable hands. In fact, she might be safer out there than in here." Jiya paused before she added one final line. One final line that punched Wyatt in the gut. "Maybe even be happier too."

He felt sick. Like he'd been to 1754 and back in the Lifeboat a few thousand times. The idea of Lucy being safer and happier without him had the power to collapse his lungs. He reached a hand out and pressed it against the nearest rusted metal wall. He leaned his weight against it and bent over at the waist to try and manage the wave of nausea he was feeling. Had he really been that horrible to her? Had he been so dense and so clueless, so inconsiderate, that she felt the need to run as far and as fast as she could? He knew - he knew - he fucked up. His mistakes kept piling up over the last several weeks to the point of crushing him beneath them. He was half assing everything with Jessica because he was too busy watching Lucy and he was hurting Lucy by keeping Jessica around the bunker. He was hurting two women he claimed to care about and, despite his attempt to do what he thought was the right thing, being a complete and utter asshole.

The deciding factor, the moment that finally woke him up, was the knowledge that Keynes put a price on Lucy's head. They were coming for her and the idea of a life without Lucy…

Well that's what he was feeling now, wasn't it? Nauseas, breathless - he ached all over. Was it possible for a heart to literally break? And if it was, could it kill you? If so, he might be dying.

It sounded overdramatic, he knew, but it wasn't.

"Wyatt?" He heard Rufus ask. He barely heard it through the fog of his pain.

Wyatt managed to straighten up and look Rufus in the eye. He realized Mason and Jiya had left the room. They'd already given up on getting Lucy back. She wasn't taken, she left, so to them there was nothing else to do. Lucy made her choice.

"Rufus," Wyatt said as he felt remorse building up in his throat. The same remorse he felt after he stole the time machine to save Jessica. It was the exact kind of regret he felt for abandoning his friends. Deep and all encompassing. He came out of that so sure he was meant to do one thing: protect Rufus and Lucy. Had he forgotten that? Had he forgotten her? "What the hell did I do?"

"I hate to admit it, but it wasn't just you," Rufus replied as he leaned a shoulder against the bunker wall. "I'm partly to blame too."

"For what?" Wyatt asked in confusion.

Rufus shook his head and looked down at the grimey bunker floor. "I've been caught up in my own shit. Even with Jiya, I-I've not been a very good teammate or friend or partner to anyone lately. Lucy was right there. She was clearly hurting. Everyone else saw it and I...I did nothing. I did nothing? This is Lucy. I killed that man in Houston and she was right there with me, holding my hand through it. And after she found out about those recordings she forgave me so quickly! I gave her grief about the journal all the while I had a secret of my own and she forgave me almost instantly. Lucy, who gives the best damn hugs on the planet - and I did nothing to comfort her. I kept my distance. We joked about you and Jessica when we knew there was a chance she could overhear. This place is a freaking tin can. Why didn't we think about that?" Rufus sighed and closed his eyes. "I bring all of this up to say...it wasn't just you. I failed her too. Somewhere along the way, we lost the Time Team and it might be too late to get it back."

"It can't be too late," Wyatt said with a shake of his head. "It can't be. I know my timing has always sucked, especially with Lucy, but...I need her. I had a plan. I was going to talk to her in the morning over breakfast. I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as her taking me back, I'm not an idiot, but I thought...I thought I could convince her to let me try again. Or at least get us back to being the friends we once were. I can't stay away from her anymore. She makes me the person I want to be, the person I should be. I should have seen it from the beginning, I know but-" He stopped and swallowed thickly before continuing in a bitter tone. "Though, what does it matter now, right?" Wyatt asked. "She's gone and Jiya's right, if she's with Flynn we'll never find her. He's too good."

Rufus was silent for several minutes and Wyatt understood why. There was nothing left to say or do. Just acceptance. Acceptance of how their mistakes had cost them Lucy. Compassionate, brilliant, brave Lucy Preston had chosen to leave them both. She finally fought for what she wanted, made a choice that wasn't selfless, and that choice...was to live in a world outside the bunker without the Lifeboat, Rufus, Wyatt, or time travel.

"We should call Agent Christopher," Rufus said hesitantly. "She needs to know. She'll want to at least go looking for Flynn. He's still a criminal."

Wyatt knew he was right. They should call Agent Christopher.

But that would mean a manhunt that would result in Lucy and Flynn being caught and brought back to the bunker. Flynn was good but he wasn't good enough to escape DHS with only a half hour jump on them. If they really wanted to get away they needed more time.

He failed Lucy in every other way. He noticed her grim face for months. She wasn't happy. He knew it but he never said anything to her about it.

"You deserve to finally be happy, Wyatt."

And so did she. If this would make her happy then, who was he to keep her from it?

No one. He was no one to her now.

"And we will," Wyatt told him as he felt tears pooling in his eyes. "But not yet. Let's give them until the morning at least." He suddenly remember that night he watched her cry on the stairs. The night he asked her to buy him some time so he could go back in the Lifeboat and save Jessica. "She stalled Agent Christopher for me once. I think it's time I repay the favor."

"Are you sure?" Rufus asked.

"I'm not gonna get my second chance to fix everything I did wrong, Rufus. But I can do this small thing. I can give her time. So, yes, I'm sure."

Rufus nodded slowly. "I'm never getting back to sleep now."

Wyatt snorted derisively. "You and me, both. Come on," Wyatt said as he removed his hand from the wall and walked toward the kitchen. "Let's get a drink. After the last twenty four hours I think I need a whisky."

Rufus and Wyatt were still slowly drinking when Agent Christopher arrived for the day, three hours later. Regrettably, Wyatt was only buzzed when Denise's disappointed eyes found his.

"Drinking at nine in the morning, gentleman? Don't you both have better things to do?" Denise asked.

"Well, ma'am," Wyatt said with a wince. He regretted the use of 'ma'am' instantly, all it did was remind him of her. "There's not much point to it all since Lucy left, so...no. We don't have better things to do."

"Lucy...left?" Denise asked with wide concerned eyes. "Where did she go? When?"

"You should probably ask Flynn that question," Rufus offered as he drained his glass. His words were a bit slurred. That's when Wyatt remembered he rarely saw Rufus drink anything stronger than a beer. "He left too."

So, Rufus might be drunk.

"What?" Agent Christopher yelled.

Rufus winced at the sound and brought a finger to his lips in a sluggish movement. "Quiet, people are sleeping. Well, two people. Mason and my girlfriend who probably hates my guts."

"She doesn't hate your guts," Wyatt assured him. "Lucy hates my guts."

"Oh, right," Rufus said with a nod. "She probably hates mine too."

"But not on the same level, man," Wyatt said as he poured another glass of whisky.

Agent Christopher stormed over to them as they sat at the one of the tables in the Mess. She grabbed the glasses and the bottle and angrily threw them in the sink. "What the hell happened, Master Sergeant Logan? Where are my historian and my terrorist?"

Wyatt let out a chuckle and a snort at the phrasing of her question before he answered. "Not here. Perimeter alarm went off about three hours ago. Where were your guards, by the way? Thought you said we were going to have them keeping eye on the bunker now that Keynes is dead?"

"I was waiting for approval of the funds and man hours needed for something like that," Christopher said sternly. "How drunk are the two of you?"

"Pretty drunk," Rufus said with a loud obnoxious laugh. "Fake laugh, hiding real tears."

Denise rolled her eyes. "Go hit the showers, Rufus, sober up. I'm going to need you searching surveillance footage for Flynn."

"It's no use," Wyatt told her in a despondent tone. "You won't find them. Flynn's a literal pro at hiding out. They're gone."

"They're not gone till I say they're gone. They're my assets and, damn it, we're finding them," she promised them. There was real emotion in her voice when she spoke. She wasn't using her commanding Agent voice. No, the voice he heard just then was the voice of a mother. The voice of a woman who was worried for Lucy's safety.

"She doesn't want us to find her so why even try?" Wyatt asked. She should have at least let him finish that last glass of whisky.

"So we can tell her we fought for her," Denise answered. "Isn't it about time you got off your ass and did just that, Logan? Or is Lucy not worth the effort to you?"

The anger that had been numbed by the alcohol was back and Wyatt slammed his fist down on the table, causing both Christopher and Rufus to jump.

"It can be about what we fucking want anymore," Wyatt said through a clenched jaw. "It has to be about what she wants and what she needs. She doesn't need me. So, while it may not seem like it to you, this is me getting off my ass and putting Lucy's needs before my own. I'll be damned if I let you bring her back to this hellhole unless I know it's what she wants. So, look for her all you want, but I want no part of it."

"What if I gave you an order, Master Sergeant?" Christopher asked firmly.

"Well, ma'am, then," Wyatt paused and smirked at her as the words from all those months ago returned to him. "-then I'd have to say, court martial me."

Alright, maybe he was a little drunk too.

"Me too," Rufus added with a small hiccup. "Though, I guess that would just be 'arrest me' cause I'm not military or anything." At the glare Christopher gave him, he added. "Not that the details matter, really."

And that was the beginning of the week from hell. First two weeks from hell actually. Christopher's manhunt for Garcia Flynn, and by default Lucy Preston, when on without any assistance from himself or Rufus. After a day of being hungover, Rufus focused all of his energy on the Lifeboat while Wyatt started hiding whisky under his cot and retreating to his room. Unless the empty cot in his room taunted him. When that happened he snuck into Jiya and Lucy's room to let Lucy's cot taunt him instead.

She took very little with her when she left. The few clothes she had, her locket, and maybe a couple of books judging by the gaps in her makeshift storage crate bookshelf. Everything else looked just as she left it. He'd been able to lay with her in that cot one time. After 1941, after they showered and changed. They were exhausted from the mission and from other more enjoyable activities when they'd tumbled onto her cot for a brief nap. Her head against his chest, her arms wrapped around him. They nearly got it right that time. The timing, that is.

They were so close to having it perfect.

But he saw that text and then got it all wrong.

He set fire to their friendship and their affection in a matter of hours and didn't nearly look back as much as he should have. He let the bunker burn down around them and didn't realize it until it was too late to get either one of them out. So, he would sit here and wallow in her memory because it was what he deserved. The fire was growing and enveloping him. He knew it. But how could he leave the flames when she was there in the middle of them? How could he give up a chance to hold what was left of her? If the bunker burned down around them then he would be holding on to her memory as it fell.

He could feel her now, laying against him. He could see her too. But she wasn't solid. She was a wisp of smoke, a veiled vision. A pale imitation of the woman he knew and loved.

But he would take what he could get, even as he watched the sheer hologram version of Lucy go up in smoke.

She was gone. She didn't want him. She didn't need him.

She could go on without him, he knew. But he didn't know how to go on without her. Not without becoming the man Jessica knew for six years. Not without becoming that man who left Jessica on the side of the road. Not without becoming his old man.

That two week manhunt passed by excruciatingly slowly. Wyatt found himself in Jiya and Lucy's room more than his own. Sitting and drinking in Lucy's space. Trying to soak her in.

Until one day, the perimeter alarm sounded again. Nothing could sober a man up like the sound of an insistent deafening alarm. Or the idea that maybe, just maybe, Lucy decided to come home. Home to him. Home to Rufus.

Just home.

But what he found when he skidded to a stop in front of the bunker door, was not Lucy. No, he should have known better. He should have known the source of the disruption belonged to none other than Garcia Flynn.

Flynn grinned at Agent Christopher and leaned against the doorway. "I heard you were looking for me."

He couldn't really be blamed for what he did next, could he? He was furious and a bit drunk and Flynn looked so goddamn smug. Not only that but he came back without Lucy. The hatred he had for Garcia Flynn sent Wyatt careening across the room until he had Flynn held against the wall. Wyatt's hand wrapped tightly around his throat.

"Where is she?" Wyatt asked. "Is she alive? Is she safe? So, help me, if you hurt her-"

"Hurt her? Me?" Flynn asked in a strangled voice as he still somehow managed to grin. "Isn't that your job, Master Sergeant Logan?"

Wyatt recoiled so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. It was true, though, wasn't it? He hurt her more than Flynn ever had. He was the monster. Not Flynn.

Flynn smoothed out the wrinkles in his collar and rolled his eyes at Wyatt's obvious distress.

"Lucy is safe," Flynn answered. "From Rittenhouse, from time travel, all of it. You needn't worry about her. She is where she wants to be." Flynn pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Agent Christopher. "She asks that everyone stop looking for her and sends this list of recommended historians we can consult before missions. She's not coming back."

"Not - not ever?" Jiya asked with wide tearful eyes.

"I wouldn't say not ever," Flynn told Jiya with a small sympathetic smile. "But certainly not anytime soon. Not until she's ready."

That same wispy vision of Lucy appeared in the doorway behind Flynn. She smiled at Wyatt, sadly he thought, before floating toward him. She caressed his cheek that was rough with unshaved scruff but he felt nothing. Nothing but a cold breeze. He thought she tried to say goodbye but he couldn't be sure and he never got a chance to clarify.

In the next moment the vision was gone.

Up in smoke.