Chapter Text
“How… How is this possible?” Connor asks their visitors as they descend the metal staircase that Flynn has moved from the much older Lifeboat to the newer one.
“You made it possible,” Future Rufus replies to his mentor. “Well with some help from me, and a lot of help from Jiya,” he adds gesturing toward both Jiya’s with two hands.
“OK, but how –“ Connor begins to ask again before Agent Christopher cuts him off.
“We’ll talk about the how later, Connor. We need to first focus on the who,” she tells him firmly. Addressing the new arrivals, she asks skeptically, “How can we be sure you’re… them?” indicating the Rufus and Jiya who remain standing behind having not moved an inch since the hatch door opened.
“Easy,” Future Jiya answers. “Ask them.”
Present-day Rufus and Jiya look at each other and then their alleged future counterparts, both invoking the logic that they would use with any science problem. They can’t deny that they look, move and talk like them. Assuming they’re older than they are today, the difference in age is almost imperceptible which suggests that the difference must be small. Three? Maybe four years at the most.
Failing to think of any other way to quickly ascertain that it’s him, Rufus prepares to ask his future self a question. “What was - ?”
“Third grade science fair. LEGO robot that could shoot free throws inside of a shoebox-sized court using beads and a thimble from mom’s sewing room,” Future Rufus responded.
Stunned, Rufus asks, “How did you…?”
Everyone, except the visitors from the future, is surprised when it’s Present-Day Jiya who answers. “He knew what you were going to ask, because he was you when you asked the question the first time.”
Agent Christopher shakes her head in disbelief and mild pain, but quickly regains her composure. “OK, we’ve settled the who, let’s talk about the what. What do we need to do to save Lucy?”
“It’s simple really,” Future Rufus replies. “We have to travel back to 1888 San Francisco and stop Emma from shooting Lucy.”
Future Jiya interjects, “Well, it’s slightly more difficult than that. Rufus – this Rufus and I can pilot the Lifeboat back to 1888, but we can’t be the ones to stop Emma. The team that is there in the past isn’t aware that time travel within your lifetime is possible, yet, and right before a shootout in the street is not the best time to spring it on them. So, the only ones who can go back with us to actually stop the shooting are Connor or Agent Christopher.”
“And no offense, Connor,” Rufus adds, “but stopping a lethal Rittenhouse agent is more in Agent Christopher’s wheelhouse than your’s.”
“Okay, then,” Agent Christopher says without hesitation. “Let’s see how I take to time travel.”
******
Not wanting to waste any time when they arrive to secure appropriate clothes for Agent Christopher, she quickly changes into the dress that Jiya wore earlier that day. It doesn’t quite fit in all the right places, but with any luck, she won’t be seen by anyone other than the team. With nowhere to hold her firearm, they fashion a makeshift pouch out of one of the dark-colored misshapen hand-knitted scarves lying around the bunker.
Agent Christopher steps into the upgraded Lifeboat and takes a seat, working hard to suppress any display of nerves that she is feeling. Future Jiya assists her with the seat belts and gives her an encouraging smile.
“I wish I could say our upgrades make the ride as smooth as the Mothership, but I’m afraid it’s still quite bumpy. It will be quick though,” she promises the agent.
The team in the bunker wishes them luck and individually recite silent prayers or positive thoughts as the hatch door closes and the Lifeboat disappears.
Less than a minute later, the Lifeboat lands near the California coastline next to the other Lifeboat. Rufus turns in his seat to check on Agent Christopher who still has her eyes closed tightly. Her lips are moving as if reciting some type of mantra. “We’re here,” he says gently.
Agent Christopher opens one eye and peers at Rufus as if testing to make sure that all of her senses are still intact. Slowly she opens the other eye and looks across the way at Jiya.
“How are you feeling?” Jiya asks tentatively.
“Not as bad as I anticipated actually,” she replies honestly. “When did we arrive? How much longer until Lucy is shot?” she asks immediately focusing on the mission.
Rufus looks at one of the monitors to confirm the local time. “We have about an hour, so you need to get going. We can walk with you to the edge of town and direct you from there. As soon as you’ve taken care of Emma, you need to get the team – the entire team, back here immediately. It may be safe for Jiya and me to travel back to a place we already existed, but we don’t know the full limits, and I’d rather not push our luck,” he explains nervously.
Agent Christopher nods, ready to do as she’s told and hoping that the plan works to avoid having her bunker kids go through the heartbreak of loss once again.
******
Upon entering the town on her own, Agent Christopher quickly locates the street that the back door of the saloon exits into. Rufus and Jiya were not completely sure where Emma was standing when she took the shot, but they are able to describe the general direction. Nervous that she only has one chance to save the team, Agent Christopher stays hidden in the shadows with her head on swivel as she scans the street, the saloon’s door and the surrounding buildings.
She hears the hurried scuffle of shoes on the dirt a few feet from where she’s standing. A blur of red hair and emerald green silk hurries past her and quickly takes cover diagonally across from the back door of the saloon. Emma is hidden too well in the shadows for Agent Christopher to get a clean shot. Unwilling to reveal her position, she decides to wait until the assassin makes her move, hoping she’s quick enough to react and stop her.
With her gun aimed in Emma’s direction, Agent Christopher hears the back door of the saloon swing open, but she resists the temptation to look in that direction so that she can take the shot as soon as Emma moves into the light. As Emma makes her move, Agent Christopher decides to increase the odds for the team’s survival and yells, “Lucy! Rufus! Watch out!”
The warning does its job distracting Emma who redirects her gun and aims toward the dark corner where the disembodied voice came from. Confident that she’s well-hidden, Agent Christopher fires three shots at Emma, who ducks and retreats backwards into the darkness. Agent Christopher remains crouched low but moves from her hiding spot to give chase. She nearly collides with Flynn and Wyatt who had the same idea. The duo trains their guns immediately on this new player only to find that it’s their fearless leader.
“Agent Christopher?” Wyatt questions while she continues to scan the area for any sign of Emma or another Rittenhouse agent. Convinced the threat is over, she lowers her gun and nods. Without a word, she immediately heads toward the saloon and sighs in relief when she sees the rest of the team unharmed. She pulls a surprised Lucy into an embrace, then reaches out to include Jiya and Rufus, who are equally dumbfounded, in the group hug. Flynn and Wyatt rejoin the others, still thoroughly confused at how Agent Christopher managed to travel to 1888 without a time ship.
“At least I’m not the only one who doesn’t get a hug this time,” Flynn sneers looking at Wyatt.
Wyatt glares at him but chooses to not give the man the satisfaction of a response.
“I still don’t understand how you got here,” Wyatt begins, “but the odds are in our favor now, so I say the three of us go track down Emma and Jessica.”
“Wyatt, no,” Agent Christopher orders him. “We’ll find them eventually, but right now, it’s important that we get back to the Lifeboat to rejoin the others as soon as possible.”
“Others?” Rufus asks
“Yes, I’ll explain on the way,” she replies. “Hurry. We need to go.”
******
As the team walks briskly back to the landing site, Agent Christopher describes how a second Lifeboat appeared back in 2018 upon the team’s return from San Francisco. As she begins her story, she realizes that she isn’t sure whether she should tell the team about the original outcome of the trip, so she decides to play it safe and remains vague on the details. Instead she focuses the story on Future Jiya and Future Rufus’ arrival and the plan to take the second Lifeboat to this time period to help out the team.
When the group arrives at the landing site, everyone except Agent Christopher, becomes frozen to their spots upon seeing the two Lifeboats side-by-side. They only start moving forward again, albeit much slower, when Future Rufus and Jiya step out to greet them.
“How… How is this possible?” Rufus asks slowly.
Not wanting to go down this rabbit hole again, Agent Christopher speaks up, “We’ll talk about it later when we get home. Let’s just get out of here please.”
Recognizing her words as an order, everyone moves to board their respective Lifeboat with the other team temporarily forgetting that they have one passenger too many.
“Wyatt!” yells Future Rufus. “We saved you a seat in our ship.”
Wyatt hesitates and considers suggesting Flynn ride with them instead, but not wanting to seem petty, he dismisses the idea and heads toward the newer ship.
Future Jiya goes over the details of the landing plans for the two ships with the other (Past? Present?) Jiya so that the pilots don’t accidentally cause a collision in their haste to return to 2018. Once everything is settled, the older Lifeboat disappears into the fabric of space and time first. The upgraded Lifeboat follows suit minutes later.
Upon arriving in the bunker, Wyatt stands up to open the hatch.
“Hey, Wyatt,” Future Rufus calls out, “do you mind hanging back for a minute?”
Surprised by the request, Wyatt nods and moves aside so that Agent Christopher can exit. Wyatt reclaims his seat and looks expectantly at Rufus and Jiya.
Knowing they can’t delay rejoining the others for too long, Rufus quickly lays the cards out on the table. “Wyatt, you need to know something. The reason Jiya and I came back to help you guys out is because in the original timeline, Lucy died.”
Wyatt looks at them in shock and disbelief, hoping that this is their idea of some sick joke to get back at him for some prank he’s done in the past or in the future, but the look in their eyes tell him that they are telling the truth.
“How?” Wyatt asks his voice cracking.
“Emma,” Jiya answers. “In the original timeline, Emma was waiting for us and ambushed us as soon as we exited the saloon. Lucy was shot in the chest and died… in your arms,” she adds.
Wyatt closes his eyes in horror, but safe in the knowledge that history has been changed for the better, he opens them and regards Rufus and Jiya with heartfelt gratitude for the sacrifice they made to save Lucy.
“Thank you,” he tells them. “Thank you for saving her.” Suddenly a question crosses Wyatt’s mind, and he immediately voices it. “But why are you telling me this? Why not Lucy or the others who you came back to help?”
Rufus looks at Wyatt head on and bites his lip briefly as he recalls the grief the Wyatt he knew lived with for years. “We needed to tell you, because Lucy’s death destroyed you. Believe me, we were all devastated when we lost her, but you… You practically died with her that day.”
Wyatt squints his eyes at his friend and regards him quizzically. He’s not surprised that Lucy’s death would have crushed him, but he’s known grief before. Hell, he lived it for six years after his wife died, and although he greeted each morning for years with indifference, he still functioned until eventually he was at least capable of going through the motions.
“You don’t believe us,” Jiya observes.
“No, I do,” Wyatt insists not wanting to hurt her feelings. “It’s just...”
“You love her,” Rufus tells him unwilling to mince words. “You love her now, but you never told her. And when she died, you regretted the fact that she never heard you say it. In fact, the first time you said it to her was when you were sitting on that cliff back in 1888 holding her body in your arms.”
The image of such a scene struck a chord deep within Wyatt. It was if he could not only see himself sitting in the grass overlooking the dark ocean below with Lucy in his arms, but he could almost feel the dewy grass beneath him, hear the waves crash against the rocks below and feel the weight of her body held against his chest. It almost felt like a memory or a dream that was too real.
“Listen, man,” Rufus continues seeing the anxious faces peering into their Lifeboat in the distance. “It’s up to you what you do with this information, but we thought you needed to know. You have a lot to deal with right now with Jessica, but we care about you and Lucy. You’re our family, and we would never forgive ourselves if we didn’t tell you.”
Rufus stands and places a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder as he exits the Lifeboat. Jiya does the same on her way out as well. Wyatt, however, remains where he is staring at floor of the Lifeboat, struggling to differentiate dream from memory and memory from reality. He closes his eyes suddenly unable to see definitive lines between the past, the present and the future, but the one constant he knows that exists across all three is that he loves Lucy Preston.
“Hey.”
A familiar voice and hand on his shoulder brings him back to the present. He opens his eyes and looks into the warm brown eyes that have a way of keeping him grounded, tethering him to reality – to hope.
A smile slowly breaks across his face, and her initial expression of concern soon reflects a smile in return.
“Hey, yourself,” he replies.
“Why don’t you come down and join us?” she asks gently.
Wyatt shakes his head remembering that they wouldn’t have had to even travel to 1888 in the first place if it wasn’t for his mistakes. “Lucy, all of this was my fault. I don’t –“
“Wyatt,” she interrupts him. “Yes, you made some errors in judgment, but nothing happened that can’t be forgiven. Jiya’s home safe. Rufus is alive. We – the team - is back together safe and unharmed. It’s a good day. So, come, be with us. Please?”
He lets out a small chuckle. “I don’t think I can ever say no to you, ma’am.”
Lucy smiles back at him a little surprised by his response but decides to let it go as she steps out of the Lifeboat. Wyatt follows behind her and is welcomed by his team, his family.