Chapter Text
Couples get into fights. They do, it’s a healthy, human thing and most times they reconcile when they’ve calmed down.
Denise and Michelle fight, most times it’s about Denise’s job or the kids. Those are normal things.
Rufus and Jiya fight. About Star Wars and Star Trek, what take out to order and from which place. Sometimes, it’s about Jiya’s visions, sometimes it’s because Rufus acts carelessly on missions (and if Flynn is the snitch, well, nobody but Jiya and him has to know that).
Wyatt and Jessica fought. Often. About the army, about Wyatt not getting himself the help he needs, Delta Force, other guys. Now, that they’re at the bunker, they fight too. About Rittenhouse, about missions, about the baby.
Lucy and Garcia fight. Oh boy, and how they do. They’re both strong-willed people, stubborn and even though Garcia looks at Lucy like she hung the moon, he calls her out from time to time, doesn’t hold back when he thinks she’s wrong.
They don’t fight very often, but when the do it’s loud and it often ends with one of them storming away. They both sulk, give each other a cold shoulder for a few hours, maybe for a few days if it’s been particularly bad, but eventually the storm clouds dissipate and they find their way back to each other.
“You know what? Just do it, go, I don’t care. Go and get yourself killed if it’s not enough for you that it would at least affect me”, Lucy turn to storm off, but Garcia catches her hand before she’s out of reach.
“Lucy”, he pleads, most of the fight has already drained out of him, now he’s just tired wants her to understand. “I don’t want to go, I have to go. I’m the most capable to do it.”
“But you don’t have to go alone! Take at least Wyatt with you!” The suggestion to take Wyatt with him comes somehow reluctant. He’s still a wildcard concerning working with Garcia, which is, honestly, stupid.
“That wouldn’t make it any easier, Lucy. Plus, he still isn’t at a hundred percent yet.”
That’s true. Wyatt caught a bullet on the last mission, and no matter what he says, he still needs some time. But that doesn’t cool down Lucy’s anger.
“Then talk to Denise! Tell her you can’t do it like that!”
“Lucy”, Garcia says again, sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “We have to do it now. We have the information now, Rittenhouse doesn’t know we’re coming and the sooner we get to it, the more damage we can do.”
Denise had gotten information about a Rittenhouse location, they didn’t know for sure, but they’re pretty sure it’s where they store the Mothership. Denise couldn’t dispatch a unit of Homeland Security Agents, the risk ticking off a snitch, of a double agent working in the system was too high.
With Wyatt out of the game, Denise had to turn to Garcia. She wasn’t too comfortable with that, but it was the best choice they had.
“Do you even care?”, Lucy bellows now, so upset that tears are threatening to spill. “Do you even care that you could die doing this? Do you really want to give Rittenhouse the satisfaction to have killed every one of your family?”
It hurts, badly. And Lucy knows that. That’s why she said it. Because she can’t have him giving his life to Rittenhouse just like this.
“Lucy…”
Sometimes it seems her name is the only word Garcia remembers.
“Uh, guys?”, Rufus’ timid inquiry cuts through the heavy tension like a knife. “We should get this show on the road.”
“We’ll be right there”, Garcia promises and takes a step closer to Lucy, carefully caresses her arm. “I’m sorry, my love, I have to go. I promise I’ll be back in no time.”
He desperately searches for her eyes, but she turns away, moving away from his touch. It leaves him hollow.
Lucy joins the rest of the team a while after Flynn has left the bunker. She silently pulls a chair over to the improvised comm center, where a tiny screen shows a grainy picture of Garcia’s perspective and a pair of speakers transmit his voice.
From what she gathers, he’s almost at the location. Good for him.
“Y’know, Flynn”, Rufus mentions casually after shooting Lucy a cautious look, “Whenever Jiya and I get into a fight, I bring her something nice to apologize. Not to say that women are materialistic or something, but it usually is an appropriate gesture to show that you care.”
“Rufus, I’ve been married. I know how it works. Better than most husbands”, he utters a little self-deprecating laugh, and Lucy does her hardest not to smile. He doesn’t deserve a smile. Not now, not with this self-destructive behavior, not when he acts like it wouldn’t hurt her when something happens to him. Because something will happen to him, she knows it.
“I’ve arrived at the compound. Two men at the front gate. I’m going to try the back door.”
Lucy tries not to listen. The fear has already settled into her bones, she doesn’t need dread to form a tight ball in her stomach, she feels sick enough as it is.
Nevertheless, the noises from the speakers find their ways to her. Muffled gunshots, Garcia grunting as he drags the bodies into hidden spaces, his short and precise updates as he continues to fight his way into the building.
“I’m inside now”, he huffs eventually, Lucy has to strain to understand his words.
“Then you’re on your own.”
Denise’s words sound final. Lucy fights the urge to throw up.
Right now, she hates every person in this godforsaken bunker. She hates Denise for making him go on the assignment. She hates Wyatt for getting shot. She hates Rufus and Jiya for not convincing him to stay. She doesn’t know why she hates Connor, but Lucy’s sure she’ll find a reason.
“Sounds like there are people behind those doors”, Garcia says after he rummaged through an office space and several storage spaces of various sizes. Until now, he hasn’t found much, some weapons, some paperwork about employees and rented premises. No sign of the Mothership and, Lucy counts that as luck, no sign of Emma for now.
The doors his camera is pointed at are big enough to hide some sort of garage behind them, one that’s definitely big enough to store a time machine.
“Do you hear anything specific?”, Denise half obscures Lucy’s view of the screen and she barely keeps herself from shoving the agent away.
“No, it’s muffled. There are no other entryways but this gate.”
Denise takes a breath, thinks. Then she looks at Wyatt, who nods. Lucy wants to strangle him. Especially since it had been Garcia who dragged his unconscious ass back to the Lifeboat, after Emma decided to have a little fun with them.
“It’s your call.”
Lucy jumps up, her chair falls over with a deafening bang.
“Garcia-“
“I’ll do it.”
“No!-“
Wyatt grabs her wrist and pulls her back, blocks her sight, she hears Denise agreeing and wants to scream, to yell at him not to do it, to come back to her, but Wyatt presses his hand against her lips, muffling her words.
She fights him for a few seconds, in the background she hears how Garcia and Denise go over a last few details, claws at his hand until he pulls her to his chest, presses her flush against his warm body.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! But he’ll be distracted if he hears you. He needs to concentrate”, Wyatt whispers and Lucy stills. She knows he’s right and buries her face in his shirt, tries to block out the noises from the speaker. But with closed eyes they only become clearer.
“I’m going in.”
The doors open, for a moment everything is silent. Then unintelligible voices, Garcia starts to say something, but his voice is drowned out by the firing of guns.
Lucy freezes. She grabs Wyatt’s shirt a little tighter.
Suddenly, static.
Wyatt turns, takes Lucy with him, they stare at the screen, it’s dark safe for the flashing of the guns. It turns completely black after another two seconds.
“Get me those comms up and working now!”
Jiya, Rufus and Connor jump into motion, frantically press buttons, yell tech gibberish at each other, but nothing they do works. The screen remains black, static crackling fills the air.
Lucy leaves.
It’s twenty minutes later when Jessica knocks at the unfamiliar steel door. She has never so much as looked at it before.
Without waiting for an answer, she opens it and finds Lucy sitting on ground, leaning against the frame of hers and Flynn’s shared bed. She’s also never been inside the room but isn’t surprised by what’s in front of her. It exactly depicts its owners, books stacked on every available surface but at the same time there’s a certain tidiness to it. Some gun stuff, concealed, but Jess knows what to look for. Little to no personal effects.
She sits down beside Lucy.
“Did the others send you?”
“No.”
It’s the truth, they didn’t. Currently they’re worrying over Flynn’s position and Wyatt tries to convince Christopher to let him lead a team to get the Croat back.
She decided for herself to come, to look after Lucy, because, finally, this is something she can do, something she’s good at. Something she’s used to.
“How did you do it?”, Lucy asks eventually.
Jess shrugs. “You learn to get used to it. You distract yourself. You try not to think about it so much. Because that’s what gets to you. The what ifs and maybes. I used to think about all the stuff we’d do once Wyatt was home. Maybe it’s not the healthiest way to cope. But it worked for me.”
Lucy tries to distract herself, tries not to think about him.
She chats with Jess for a while and is surprised by how pleasant her company is. The blonde tells her a little from when she met Wyatt at high school, of their tiny wedding which was everything they could’ve wished for. She keeps it light.
And for some time, it works. Then reality slams back into Lucy, full force, and she is reminded that they, her and Garcia, may never have any of this. That their love could die in this bunker.
She can’t breathe and finds herself over the toilet, retching. Wyatt is there (where did he come from?) and rubs her back softly. Others are there too, they take turns watching her, as if they need to keep her from drowning herself in the toilet.
In the middle of the night, Lucy wanders the cold and empty hallways and stops at the front door.
He will come through that damn door, she tells herself. He will, and then I’ll punch the living daylights out of him.
He does.
There’s metal clanking and banging, it rises Lucy out of the exhausted slumbers she’s slipped in, and then he’s standing in the doorway, blocking it almost completely with his heavy gear and an enormous bouquet of wild flowers and a box with a ribbon.
Lucy doesn’t care, she makes him drop it all when she jumps into his arms, she also doesn’t care about the blood covering one side of his face when she kisses him.
Because he’s home and the storm clouds are gone.