Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Flynn isn’t necessarily prone to useless acts of violence, but right now he’s wondering how much longer he can go without setting something on fire.

Because on top of the already unideal fact that they’re stuck for the time being in 1918, Lucy had to go and get the goddamned Spanish flu.  

Maybe, he muses, maybe he can find a nice abandoned house to burn down. A Rittenhouse agent to strangle. Hell, maybe there’s a fascist around here somewhere who could use a good kicking. 

They’re holed up in the cramped servants’ quarters of a prominent family, hired as temporary help for an upcoming dinner Lucy has been certain Rittenhouse is planning to sabotage. Some sort of long-game approach to changing the dynamics of the upcoming second world war. They had been dropped a few days early in order to integrate themselves into the residence in question, and Rufus had jumped back to the present spend time with Jiya and Connor modifying the Lifeboat, which sorely needed it and would not benefit from sitting around in post-Edwardian London, unused, for several days. Wyatt was back home, off on a different assignment, and Flynn and Lucy had been confident they could handle this themselves. 

But then Lucy had interacted with a returned lieutenant colonel upstairs, talking him to several hours in order to get some information, and apparently the son of a bitch had been sick with what half of these men were sick with in 1918 because she’d shortly grown flush and feverish. This strand of influenza, she’d informed him the day before, had killed nearly 100 million people after World War I.

Flynn would give his right arm for some fucking penicillin.

The other servants had been apologetic; they had sent for a doctor but it was no telling how long it would take. Unspoken: a foreign temporary chauffeur and scullery maid (Lucy had loved that) weren’t a high priority in this contemptibly rigid class system. 

The fever has lasted for two days so far. Flynn hasn’t left her side (for convenience, they had posed as a married couple, so thankfully he isn’t going to be kicked out for the sake of propriety), and it only seems to be getting worse. He knows he shouldn’t risk contamination but every time he considers leaving the room, he is struck with a sense of darkening panic, a thin, cruel memory of gunshots in the middle of the night, of his wife and daughter slipping away before he could save them or even tell them how much he… 

Anyhow. Flynn tries to still the pounding in his chest, takes a deep breath through gritted teeth. It is sometime in the early morning, not that they have a window in this dim and dusty area of the servants’ garrett, and Lucy is still sleeping. She needs the rest. He imagines he must look like hell sitting there, slumped like some sort of grim specter, his hands clenched together to keep them from inappropriately clutching hers. Remembering how his glower had already scared off the house parlor maid, who had come by with tea, he tries to calm himself by listening to the soft rhythm of Lucy’s breath.

So. He’s grown used to her. Her presence in the diary and, recently, (undeniably, frustratingly) the real thing. Her quick mind and soft heart and surprising resilience. The way she’d broken down in his arms in Chinatown, the way she sometimes sleeps in his room after their long talks, the soft sharpness in her face, her arms wrapped around herself in sleep, her breathing…

Which, now, is low. Too low. As much as he doesn’t want to wake her up, Flynn finds himself gripping one shoulder and giving her a firm shake. He doesn’t excel at gentleness. 

“Lucy?” he says, voice hoarse from lack of use. She doesn’t respond or even stir. There is a thin sheen over her skin, the pale flush of ongoing fever, and her breathing is all too shallow for his liking and he feels like there’s a vulture picking at his chest, destroying him slowly. “Lucy,” he says again, and it’s a reprimand this time because how could she possibly be so foolish as to fall ill at a time like this? Why hadn’t she been more careful?

“Dammit Lucy, wake up,” he says, shaking her again. Funny, he dimly notes, how fragile the body is, how small the bones, like a bird. The thought makes him irrationally and intensely angry. “Wake up,” he repeats again, a useless mantra, and he is suddenly gripping the cup and saucer on her bedside table and before he registers his own actions, hurling them at the wall, one after the other. A soft shatter followed by a louder shatter. The faint laughter of fine glass breaking. Hell. He needs to wring someone’s neck, blame someone for this and give them their due. 

“I thought you understood that we need you,” he grits out, standing, pacing. “That I– you’re a damned historian! You know the risks of interacting with soldiers in this time period! Were you thinking at all?

“You don’t get to leave yet,” he continues sharply, aware of what the anger is masking, the flood of panic threatening to drown him. 

Before her, his mission had been dark, single-minded. Almost inhuman. But she had breathed life back into it, painted it with joy, with compassion. He hadn’t felt those things with any degree of intensity since his family was ripped from him. “Not you,” he adds. “Haven’t I lost enough?” 

The words are almost lost in his throat, an angry, bitter sob. There’s one more cup on the table and its shatter against the same wall (the servants might fit them with a bill if they aren’t too scared of him by now) is hollow, unsatisfying. 

He sits again. “Please,” he says dully, the rage wrung out. He is as dry as a piece of cloth. “You need to wake up, because… because I can’t do this without you. I lo–” He swallows, runs his tongue over his lips, stops himself just in time because saying it will make it real, make him as fragile as a pile of bird bones and he can’t afford that. He can’t afford to lose another chunk of his soul. There would be nothing left. 

Lucy continues to breathe shakily, but does not wake up. 

She’s still holding on the next day, but it is by a thread. Flynn knows there’s a mission to be completed but his mind is in tatters. Stopping by the kitchen, he hears the butler and the cook whisper in low tones about the woman who had stopped by who wasn’t from these parts, that’s for certain, Mr. Williams, and rushes out the servants’ door to see Jiya crossing her arms and glaring at the house. 

“Sorry, they wouldn’t let me i– what’s wrong?” she asked at the look on his face. It takes all of his self-control to not fly into a rage, to demand why she had taken so long to return. She had no way of knowing, he reminds himself, and they’d all agreed on the details of this assignment. 

“It’s Lucy,” he says shortly, unable to resist a glower. “We have to go.” 

“What’s wrong? Was it Emma?” 

“No.” He swallows. “This– this mission will have to go unfinished.” 

Several emotions flash through Jiya’s face, confusion and concern and something frustratingly close to pity, and she nods. “Yeah. You’re explaining it to Agent Christopher, though.” 

“Gladly.” He steps inside to get Lucy, and hopes on hope that they’re not too late. 

After two days of zanamivir (turns out influenza isn’t typically treated with antibiotics), Lucy is awake and functioning again. Flynn finds himself avoiding her; the prospect of talking to her touching her, god, feeling her heartbeat… it’s overwhelming. He has let her twine too close to him. If he’d lost her… 

She finally corners him in the kitchen one afternoon. Jiya, Rufus and Wyatt are off on a mission. Lucy is grounded while she recovers and he (he grimly recalls) has been told by Agent Christopher that he needs to “calm the hell down” before he’s sent on another trip. Which is just absurd, and he’d told her so to no avail. 

“What’s your problem?” Lucy says sharply, catching him as he digs through the fridge for beer. 

“There’s no problem,” he says tersely, closing it, empty-handed, and makes to step around her. She moves in front of him again and there’s something endearing about that fact that she thinks she’s a barrier. All five foot five of her. He bites back a smile and looks at her, trying to shake the feeling that grips his chest when their eyes meet. Like a desperate drink of water, like she is relief embodied in human form. She’s still pale, not all there yet, but her eyes are warm and alive. 

And angry. Angry, too. “What is it, Flynn?” she says, and he notes a catch in her voice. “I thought I heard… well, what, are you mad that I ruined the mission?”

Speaking of the absurd. He barks out a laugh and finally dodges her, walking to his room. She follows insistently as he tries not to, what? Yell? Cry? 

“This is the last time I’m asking,” she’s saying, walking quickly to keep up with him. “Frankly, Flynn, I don’t have the energy for whatever this is–” 

“I almost lost you!” he snaps, spinning to glare down at her. She blinks once, startled. With a huff, he enters his room and she follows. 

She sits on his bed and he sits on his chair. Somehow, these have become their spots, no matter the setting. 

After a moment she speaks, and her voice is soft. “I thought… I thought I dreamed those things you said. Back in 1918.”

He processes this, trying to sort the feelings tornadoing through him. “You… heard?” 

“Yeah,” she says. It’s almost a whisper. She looks at him and before he can even stop himself, he has crossed the room and is kneeling in front of her, his hands on her knees. He is such a goddamned fool, doesn’t know how to be what Lucy deserves. He doesn’t deserve to be in her atmosphere but he’s never been good at staying away from her, has he? 

“Lucy,” he says, and he’s also never been good at apologizing. She’s there, and her skin is warm beneath the fabric of her clothes. He takes her hand, the fragile bones of it, and presses a kiss to her palm. 

“It’s okay,” she says, voice soothing as he rests his head in her lap, as she runs her fingers through his hair over and over again. He is shaking under the assault of her gentleness. “It’s okay.” 

Chapter Text

The house was silent when Lucy returned from her shopping trip with Amy. On the fridge, a note in small, chaotic handwriting: out for an ice cream with Iris.

It was a Saturday tradition, now that their respective families were back; Lucy spending time with Amy, Garcia taking the day for his daughter.

Iris, nearly ten now, was still getting used to the idea that this version of her father was different from the version of him who had, in her timeline, divorced her mother two years previous. Lucy knew these things could be fragile and had made the decision to stay out of their way for the time being when they had their Saturdays together. She’d ease slowly into Iris’s life.

Lucy spread her purchases out on the coffee table almost guiltily, still unused to excess spending. A quiet, jumpy part of her still felt like she should keep her personal items to a minimum, lest the undead corpse of Rittenhouse rise from the grave, leading to more hiding in bunkers and leaping through time. It was illogical, but she’d seen weirder things happen. But Amy had insisted that she needed a good, old-fashioned mall day, and far be it from Lucy to deny her anything.  

The haul: four books (three history books– Lucy was still getting used to some changes in the timeline– and one piece of historical fiction), a brick-red lipstick Amy had convinced her to buy, and a sweater for Garcia because he sometimes got cold at night. Tall people had tragically poor circulation.

She was apparently not that jumpy, because when a pair of arms suddenly slipped around her waist from the back, she realized she hadn’t even heard the door opening.

“Don’t you sneak up on me, mister,” she murmured, leaning against Garcia’s chest.

She felt more than heard his soft chuckle and turned around, stretching to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Where’s Iris?” 

“I dropped her off at her mom’s,” he said, leaning in to… sniff her hair? “You smell good.”

“Amy dragged me to Bath and Body Works,” Lucy explained. “It was, ah… a hurricane of smells. All at once.”  

“Sounds violent,” Garcia said, slipping past her to sit on the couch and tugging her down beside him. Curling up and leaning her head on his shoulder, she was struck, as she often was, by how solid he was beside her.

“It was horrible. So. How’s Lorena?” Lucy asked carefully.

The glorious angles of his face were relaxed. “Good. She’s very good,” he said, and turned to give Lucy a small smile. “She’s happy.”

Lorena had re-married in her own timeline, and she and Garcia were now cultivating a tentative friendship. It could have been more, probably, if Garcia had fought for it. But, as much as he would always love his first wife, and as ecstatic as he was to have her alive and well, he… hadn’t.

Almost instinctively, Lucy traced the smile lines etched into his face. “I bought you something,” she said.

“What more could I need?” he asked, looking at her that way he always did, vulnerable and intense all at once. Well. She couldn’t not lean in for a kiss, savoring the way he leaned into her with equal parts reverence and roughness, the way his hand gently touched the curve of her neck, the span of his back when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

She broke away. “I don’t suppose you’ll stop distracting me.”

“Never,” he said, the slight growl of his voice doing something to her, and she grinned, swatting his shoulder with one of the couch’s throw pillows. He laughed, almost surprised, and grabbed the pillow away from her. “No fair,” he said. “You have a weapon.”

“You are a weapon,” she pointed out and he snorted, wrapping his arms around her and positioning them so that they were spooning on the couch, lazy and still. 

“You’d better not fall asleep at eight o’clock at night,” she warned him eventually, snuggling into his chest.

“I’m an old, old man,” he said. “I can’t help it.”

“You’re forty-four. Stop being a drama queen.”

“I’m not a drama queen,” he said, sounding almost offended and she resisted another fit of giggles, pressing his hand to her mouth for a quick kiss.

“I did get you an old man sweater though,” she said. “I thought you’d like it.” Stretching from the couch, she reached into the bag and grabbed out a lump of knit blue fabric before reclining against him again.

“Mm. I don’t deserve you,” he said, shaking the sweater out thoughtfully. Still curled into him, she watched him unbutton it, the deft way his long fingers moved. Then he spread the garment over her like a blanket.

“That’s definitely not what I bought it for,” she said, shifting so that she was facing him.

In response, he kissed her lazily.

“Thank you,” he said after a languorous minute of this.

“I mean,” she said, “it was on sale…”

A soft laugh. “For everything.”

She smiled into another kiss, her eyes growing heavy. Hell, maybe it was okay to fall asleep at eight o’clock at night. Maybe they deserved the rest. 

Chapter Text

Flynn wakes with a start and it takes him a moment to get his bearings; the room is pitch-dark, he is sleeping in a chair, knees and back aching, and there is a small, soft woman in his bed, snoring quietly.

Lucy wouldn’t like the fact that she snores sometimes, and he wouldn’t dare point it out to her. It is actually, he finds himself thinking, quite endearing. He’ll take any piece of her that she’ll share with him, the dark, fractured creature that he is.

She trusts him, somehow. With this thought in mind, he tries to fall back asleep, but the chair isn’t exactly what one would call comfortable, and the snoring soon slows. There is a shifting of sheets, and Lucy is standing in front of him in the dark. He can feel her heat. God. He could reach out and touch her cheek, the curve of her shoulder, the column of her neck.

He doesn’t.

“Go back to sleep, Lucy,” he says, his voice thick and tired. They need all the sleep they can get.

“I–” she starts, and then pauses. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he says. Sometimes he hates the way she makes him feel, like his chest is being peeled open. Like someone is performing an autopsy on him, revealing soft things no one should see. “I’m here.”

“I’m not asking for sex or anything,” she says quickly, like she’s trying to get that embarrassing thought out of the way. Maybe he smiles in the dark at that. “I just want– can you hold me?”

There’s her own vulnerability. Heart pounding, he grips the arms of the chair, trying to gather his racing thoughts.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says finally. His eyes have adjusted to the dark and he sees her stiffen.

“Right,” she says, and sits down on the bed. Flynn’s heart does something– sinks, or shudders.

“Lucy–”

“Am I not good enough?” she snaps, and Flynn knows she’s not really snapping at him. She has been hurt recently by someone else, and that person is too much of an idiot to give her what she needs. This isn’t about him, he reminds himself. It’s about Wyatt.

And God help him, as monstrous as he has become, he can’t take advantage of that. He would like nothing more than to curl himself around her, let her soft strength be his, just for a few hours, just for a second. But…

“I’m not good enough,” he explains, or tries to explain, and his voice is pained. They weren’t supposed to go here, not yet. “Don’t you understand that?”

Her face is ash-gray in the darkness. “Flynn,” she says, after a moment,  “I know exactly what you are.”

That almost stings, but he nods. “Then you understand.”

“What am I supposed to understand? That you’ve killed too many people to deserve a goddamned cuddle?”

“Is this a joke to you?” he asks through gritted teeth and she stands up, crossing to the door.

“I’ll be on the couch,” she says shortly, and he knows that she would have slammed the door if it hadn’t been the middle of the night. Flynn stares into empty space for a few minutes before groaning and standing up. She is going to be the death of him.

He finds her on the couch in the bunker common area, curled into a stubborn ball. Sitting next to her, he nudges her over, pulling her head onto his lap and stroking her hair, a gentle apology he doesn’t know how to verbalize.

She doesn’t say anything. When the tears come, he silently wipes them.

Chapter Text

Stepping into the inn, Lucy sees a grim shape sitting in the corner, trying to look inconspicuous and failing miserably. So of course it’s him. 

Surprising, maybe, because Lucy had assumed that he was probably bent on interfering with the first Constitutional Convention, which is hopefully going to conclude in a few days, if her version of history has its way. Maybe he has one of his lackies doing it, or maybe she’s wrong about what his agenda is on this jump. Maybe there’s a delegate in this inn that she needs to somehow protect, though that doesn’t look likely at first glance. 

Still. Wyatt and Rufus are off chasing said lackies, and distracting the leader can’t hurt. Unless he shoots her, or kidnaps her again, but she’s long since had the feeling he isn’t planning on hurting her any time soon.

And she has some questions. 

When she sits down across from Flynn, surprise crosses his face like a shadow. 

“Lucy,” he says, frowning. He obviously isn’t used to not being the one to sneak up on her. 

“The version of me in the journal,” she says, without greeting. “What was she like?”

He sighs, leaning forward on his elbows, and she tries not to start at the proximity of his face to hers. He may be the enemy, she may be on a mission, but she’s only human and it’s a… compelling face. “I’ve already told you–”

“No,” she says, cutting him off. She doesn’t have time for this ‘working together’ bullshit. She thinks back on what she’d just found out from Denise, the grainy photographs she’d seen of the man she had visited just the other day, which is a few centuries away. “I’m asking you what she was like. What was she willing to do for her cause. Did she hurt people? Did she manipulate and threaten?” She doesn’t want to say did she lose her soul? but the implication is clear. 

Banded together in front of her, her fingers squeeze into fists, but she thinks the rest of her portrays the lie of calm. Maybe she’s good at lying. 

She takes in another breath and continues, ignoring the almost startled look on his face. “Was she a monster?” 

“Why would you think something like that?” he asks, and he looks almost soft, a warm stirring in his eyes. For just a moment, she sees the man she spoke with before they found David Rittenhouse together, telling her about his family, how he couldn’t bear to taint them with his darkness. Maybe something in her chest aches, but she ignores it; she has to. She needs to know. 

“She apparently sent someone on a killing spree through history,” she says, and some sort of mask comes up over his features, stilling them. “I can’t imagine someone like that not being...”

“A monster?” he says quietly. He is calm, expressionless, and looking her dead in the eye. “You can say it, Lucy. I know what I’ve done. Who I’ve killed.” 

Dammit, this isn’t about him, for once. This is about her father, this is about how unspeakably evil someone has to be in order to threaten an innocent man’s family. This is about something that’s in her blood. Something she can’t wash out. 

And still, looking at Flynn, she can’t help but wonder what kind of personal calcification it takes to do terrible things to prevent people like her father from continuing a heritage of injustice. 

“You told me once you don’t sleep at night,” she says quickly. She’s imploring him now, her own futuring rising, swelling in panic. “How do you handle what you’ve done?” 

“Don’t worry, Lucy,” he says, and though his face is still calm, his voice is hard, bitter. His eyes are unreadable, which is a message within itself and why does it hurt to hear it? “You don’t become like me.” 

She looks down at her hands, still balled into tight fists on the table. He follows her gaze and seems to put two and two together. 

“Or,” he says, carefully, after a moment, “like them.” 

Them meaning... Rittenhouse? Her father and his family? About to ask him to clarify, she opens her mouth, but realizes one of his hands has settled on hers. 

He realizes it too, almost startled at himself. But neither of them move and Lucy relaxes her hand, letting his larger one cover it. 

For a moment she takes in the rough lines of his palm, the calluses, the smooth length of his fingers. She doesn’t want to name the stirring in her, but she has felt it before and it’s strictly not allowed– 

–so she pulls away. She doesn’t bother to take in his expression before she leaves.
  
She can’t bear to.