The day Lucy returned, Wyatt changed.

Most of them were definite improvements: he now said more than ten words a day, he actually followed the chore rota, he stopped sprinting circles around the bunker and lifting whatever he could get his hands on, and Rufus saw an honest-to-god smile on his face when Lucy walked into the common area late the first night.

But he was also more reserved. Before, he'd been an open book about his hatred of their plan to lay low and how he wished to be out there doing something instead of being cooped up in the bunker. He'd openly harassed Agent Christopher about her progress in locating Lucy and wasn't afraid to express his (mostly-negative) opinions about…well, almost everything. Now that Lucy was back, he had yet to say one negative thing about their living situation and hadn't mentioned anything about those first six weeks; it was like they hadn't happened at all now that Lucy was here again.

Then there were the two less obvious changes: Wyatt now left a chair in front of the door to the communal bathroom when he was showering and he always wore a short-sleeved T-shirt, no matter how high the temperature in the AC-free bunker climbed. Some might have just attributed that to Wyatt being polite until Lucy adjusted to their new living arrangements but the extended team knew better. It was out of concern for Lucy that Wyatt covered up the wounds on his back, lest she see those scars and blame herself. It was, after all, her mother who had spearheaded the explosion.

Lucy either didn't notice or didn't understand the significance of the ever-present T-shirt, despite the fact that everyone else was down to tank tops and shorts in the middle of the sweltering summer day. She also never asked about their six weeks of misery, which was probably for the best because there weren't a lot of happy details to share. Rufus didn't hold any of that against her though; everything she thought she knew about the world had just gone through a rough upheaval and it was going to take more than an afternoon to process it fully.

And so this slight improved morale became their new normal…for about six days. That was when, after hours of pouring over Keynes' manifesto, the extended team finally pinpointed a precise date and time of one of the pressure points. Within the half-hour, the Time Team was hurtling back to 1955 and, thirty-six hours after that, they were following the sleeper agent to an abandoned warehouse not far from the racetrack. Against all of their preferences, they split up to cover more ground with Wyatt going in through the front while Lucy and Rufus each curled around a different side. By the time the exterior two had gotten to the back of the building without encountering the agent, sounds of a fight could be heard from inside. Rufus and Lucy stepped through the back door just in time to see the agent grab a fistful of Wyatt's cheaply made shirt and tug him forward.

Rufus heard the ripping of fabric long before Wyatt ducked out of the man's grip, spun around then landed an uppercut that laid the man out. Almost instantaneously, Rufus heard a gasp next to him and saw Lucy's hands fly to her mouth as the rip in Wyatt's shirt revealed the angry red gouges on his upper back.

Wyatt looked over his shoulder at his teammates, his expression originally blank, but when he realized what had happened, he shifted so his back was out of their sight then relieved the agent of his thick varsity jacket. The soldier slid his hands into the large front pockets like nothing strange had happened and pulled out the smartphone, which he tossed to Rufus.

"Wyatt," Lucy finally managed to choke out but the soldier was already speaking as well: "Do we leave him or take him?"

"What?"

"Do we leave him here or do we take him back with us?" Wyatt repeated as he motioned to the man lying on the ground. "If he's been embedded in history this long, it might make things worse if he disappears."

"We can't take him anyway," Rufus said without looking up from the phone. "The Lifeboat only seats three and I'm not interested in someone else developing visions."

There was a beat of silence while the Time Team considered their next move; they'd been in such a hurry to keep the agent from changing history that none of them had considered what to do with the agent once they actually caught him.

"Let's call the police to keep him from fixing the race," Lucy finally suggested. "We can always come back for him if we find out he changes history too much."

As the conversation slid back on track, Rufus caught Wyatt breathing an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. If the soldier had actually looked over at Lucy's face though, he would have seen that she still intended to have a discussion with him, after they'd taken care of the current threat.

"We should stay until Sunday," Wyatt began as he bent down to secure the unconscious agent, "just to make sure Emma doesn't break him out."

Once the man was bound to a sturdy support beam, Wyatt straightened up then motioned to the doorway. "Let's go phone in an anonymous tip."

"Then what?" Rufus couldn't help but ask.

"We make camp."

Camp turned out to be literal as the Time Team didn't have a plethora of 1950s money to spend on a hotel room. Wyatt and Rufus had lifted some blankets and other supplies from the trailers outside the race grounds and the team spread them around the fire in a clearing not far from where the Lifeboat was parked. Thankfully it was still early fall so despite their lack of proper camping gear, they wouldn't freeze overnight.

Rufus conked out almost immediately, leaving Wyatt and Lucy silently staring at the fire. The soldier had just shifted positions, so his elbows rested on his knees, when Lucy slid close enough to him that their shoulders brushed together.

"How did it happen?" she asked, her gaze fixed with almost laser-precision on the crackling fire.

"How did what happen?" Wyatt asked innocently. He'd played out this conversation hundreds of times in the last week and at no point did it end favorably. Though pretending to not know what Lucy was talking out might seem childish, he wasn't above it, especially if it helped him avoid what was coming next.

Unfortunately, Lucy had other plans. She shot him an unamused, sidelong glare but then tilted her head in the direction of his back.

"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked, in one last attempt to change her mind.

Lucy looked back at the fire then nodded slowly.

"Okay then." Wyatt exhaled deeply, just in case she wanted to cut him off, but, when Lucy remained silent, he was forced to begin. "We were in the Lifeboat, wearing these god-awful 1970s outfits—bellbottoms, wide-collared shirt, gold chain, the whole nine yards. Rufus had it all ready to go, I was calling you for the thirtieth time, when…" As if on cue, pain knifed through his upper back but it was just a fraction of the excruciating agony he'd experienced that night.

Wyatt cleared his throat while he mentally shoved that memory back into the black hole it belonged in, then continued, "Rufus pulled me to safety—saved my life. Christopher found us sometime later and brought us here...or there...you know what I mean. Six weeks later, we found you."

One of the logs crumbled and Wyatt poked the pieces back into the middle of the flame with a long branch. Grateful for something to occupy his hands, he avoided looking at Lucy, not wanting to see the horrified expression he was sure was on her face.

"Did you even go to the hospital?" she asked a short time later. The question was hesitant, like she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Couldn't. I was supposed to be dead."

He didn't need to elaborate on lying on a table in the grimy bunker while Christopher pulled shards of metal out of his back with tweezers from a cheap first-aid kid, the lack of any form of anesthesia, the white-hot burn of the dollar-store hydrogen peroxide as she disinfected the wounds, or the sharp sting of a needle as it slid in and out of his inflamed skin; he could tell from the changes in Lucy's breathing that she'd already worked most of that out.

"I'm so sorry, Wyatt," she whispered as she leaned her head against his shoulder. "For all of it."

"You don't ever have to apologize to me," the soldier said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her even closer. "Especially when it wasn't your fault." He finally looked down at her but her face was blocked from his view by a thick lock of hair.

"Right, it was my mother's," Lucy spat out. "That's not much better."

"You're not her, Lucy. Not even close." He wanted to add how Lucy would never do the awful things her mom had done, but he wasn't sure that comparison would be properly received at the moment. So he stayed quiet and just rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

After a pause, he felt Lucy nod against his shoulder. "Was anyone else hurt?" she then asked. "Other than…"

Other than the twenty-two employees reported dead.

"Just cuts and bruises," Wyatt was quick to respond. Rufus had been deeper in the Lifeboat, which meant he'd only received a few superficial injuries from the force of the explosion itself. That luck had been shared by Christopher and Jiya, who had been in the upstairs conference room and had had enough notice to hunker down behind a table, and Mason, who had been in his office on the far side of the building from the hangar.

All that meant though was that their scars were less visible than his.

"Thank god."

Lucy was silent for a long moment before speaking up again. "Can I see them?" she asked in the same tone of voice as the hospital question. She obviously conflicted as to whether that was a good idea.

Wyatt had no such indecision: her seeing the scars up close would not go well, which was why he'd gone out of his way to keep them hidden for so long. "Lucy I—"

"Please, Wyatt."

She sounded so lost that, in that moment, the soldier would have done anything to appease her. Reluctantly, he let the jacket slide off his shoulders and shifted so his back would be lit by the fire.

He fought the urge to pull away as her fingers parted the rip in his shirt then brushed against the smallest scar on his lower back. She slowly moved up toward his shoulders, her feather-light touch against the still healing tissue sending shivers up his spine.

Wyatt wasn't actually sure what this back looked like anymore, thanks to the lack of mirrors in the bunker and no desire to contort himself to see the damage in the one that existed. The lack of blood on his shirts from the past few days meant the gashes were fully closed but still, they can't have been pleasant to look at.

"You deserve better than this," Lucy said softly, resting the palm of her hand over the worst wound: the circular one spreading across his left scapula, directly behind his heart.

"You do too." Wyatt reached back and laid his hand on hers as the fire swelled in front of them. "You deserve a life where your sister exists, where your mother isn't trying to overthrow America, and where your father wanted to be around you."

He heard Lucy's breath hitch so he didn't continue, not wanting to churn up any more undesired memories. She was dealing with enough as it was.

A beat later, Wyatt felt her breaths steady out. "Thank you," Lucy whispered, leaning forward so her chin was resting on their overlapping hands.

Then she glanced at Rufus, who was still passed out on the other side of the fire, before rolling her head to face Wyatt. "Are you still…open to possibilities?" she asked softly.

The soldier's heart just about dropped into his stomach but he forced himself to take a breath. Lucy was going through so much, this wasn't the time or place to start a relationship. "Are you sure? I don't want to—"

The rest of his words were lost as Lucy leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. Wyatt's brain short-circuited and it took him longer than it should have to throw caution into the wind, turn to face Lucy head-on, cup his hands around her face and kiss her back.

On the other side of the fire, Rufus had been watching the entire exchange through cracked eyelids. Once they kissed though, he rolled onto his side, drowsily like he was in the midst of a dream, in order to give them more privacy. Internally, he was as excited as the two of them were, and couldn't wait to get back to the present to inform Jiya that Wyatt and Lucy were now officially happening.

"If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it" – Wyatt Logan (probably), Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton (actually).

A/N: As you can tell from every other one of my fics, I'm not big on ships. However, Wyatt and Lucy belong together. That is all.

I hope you all enjoyed the premiere as much as I did! I can't wait to see what other adventures the next nine episodes hold.

Thanks for reading! If you can spare the time, I'd love to know what you thought!

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