Chapter Text
“I love you, Lucy.”
Wyatt says the words so quietly that Flynn wouldn’t have heard it, had it not been for how completely silent the bunker was with everyone in their respective corners mourning Rufus’ death.
About damn time, Flynn thinks to himself, as he inches closer to the corner to hear Lucy’s response.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Flynn is selfishly disappointed with Lucy’s decision to not respond in kind to Wyatt’s overdue declaration, but he also knows that they all still have a lengthy journey left on this road. After all, this is their first pass through this timeline he surmises based on the lack of sudden appearance of a second Lifeboat behind him.
Patience, he reminds himself. Certain that the heart-to-heart between the two lovebirds has reached its end, he walks toward the kitchen with deliberately heavy footsteps to alert them to his entrance. He acknowledges their presence with a nod and heads to the cabinet where the team stores the liquor. Somehow it is always kept well-stocked despite how much and how often this team drinks.
Wyatt and Lucy watch as Flynn takes a bottle of brandy from the shelf with his good arm and places it on the table. He turns back again to the cabinets to pick up 3 cups using his fingers. Understanding the gesture, Wyatt picks himself up from the floor and extends a hand to Lucy to help her stand. They walk over to Flynn as he pours the brown liquid into the cups. They each take a cup and lift them to eye-level.
“To Rufus,” Wyatt says.
“To Rufus,” Lucy and Flynn repeat in unison, with Flynn adding “Živjeli” before he brings his cup to his lips.
Wyatt gathers the empty cups and turns to place them in the sink.
“What in the world is a Chocodile?” Flynn asks.
Lucy and Wyatt react in kind and look suddenly at Flynn, who bends down to pick up an empty wrapper from the floor.
Wyatt chuckles, and Lucy looks at him with a smile. Tears well up in her eyes as she puts a hand to her mouth trying to contain the laugh that pulls at her cut lip and cheek.
Feigning confusion, Flynn turns away and tosses the wrapper in the trashcan, concealing a knowing smile of his own.
********
A little while later Flynn excuses himself to seek out Agent Christopher. He has a list of activities to set in motion over the next few weeks, and he’s anxious to get started with the one thing that makes sense to do immediately. He finds her in a secluded corner near the bunker entrance on her cell phone. She sees him approach and holds up a finger signaling that she will be done shortly.
“Kiss the kids for me. I’ll try to be home soon. I love you,” she says before hanging up.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Flynn says sincerely, “but I think we need to make plans quickly to find a new base of operations. I know it’s not ideal given the team is in mourning, but Rittenhouse knows where we are now thanks to Jessica. She and Emma may be on the run, but we can’t be too sure.”
Agent Christopher nods in agreement. “Yes, you’re right. Fortunately, I had already begun working on securing a new location for the team soon after you and Jessica moved in, since it was clear we were quickly outgrowing the bunker. It’s been taking longer than it should, because there are so few people in the department that I can trust with this information.”
Flynn nods in appreciation of her foresight and prudence.
“The good news,” she continues,” is that they are working around the clock to expedite the remaining necessary arrangements to allow us to move in a couple of weeks.” Agent Christopher sighs, “I just hope Jiya is up to piloting the Lifeboat for the move.”
“About that,” Flynn says slowly, trying to mask his relief at the convenient segue. “Perhaps we should consider having Connor start his pilot training sooner rather than later? In fact, maybe two people should train.”
Agent Christopher looks at him skeptically with a hint of distrust in her eyes.
“Oh, not me,” Flynn assures her quickly holding up his hand. “I was thinking perhaps Lucy… or Wyatt – or both even.”
**********
Two weeks later the team is settled into their new headquarters, which is thankfully above ground and spacious enough for everyone to have their own individual loft apartment in a building occupied solely by them just on the outskirts of the city. Flynn decides it’s time to approach Jiya. He is sympathetic to her need to mourn having lost the love of his life himself, but he’s working against a deadline known only to him.
Flynn rarely sees Jiya except for missions and family dinner nights, which Agent Christopher insists everyone attend at least two nights a week. The others on the team check on her regularly using an impressive balance of tough love and compassion to keep her socially engaged and emotionally stable.
To everyone’s surprise, Jiya easily agrees to train Connor, Lucy and Wyatt in how to pilot the Lifeboat even though the task is much more daunting and dangerous to do without the flight simulator that she and Rufus were fortunate enough to have. But to be honest, not having the safety net of a simulator helps to quicken the pace of their education and refine their skill level, given that the smallest error could be fatal. Still, the newbies are at least six months from being able to pilot solo and without Jiya triple checking their settings. Connor is probably at least eight months away.
When she’s not with the others, Jiya spends most of her time in her apartment using a sensory deprivation apparatus that she begged Agent Christopher to obtain for her in spite of Connor’s advice to the contrary. Jiya eventually won the argument using the logic – or threat – that she was going to continue to hone her visions with or without the device, and with the device was safer, because it included an EEG monitoring feature. She also regularly plays the “I’m three years older and wiser than I was two months ago” card, which makes everyone’s brain hurt a little.
Flynn knocks on Jiya’s door hoping that she isn’t mid-trance. To his relief, she calls out “It’s open!” in reply. Flynn enters to find the young woman placing a package of microwave popcorn into the microwave.
“You’re early,” she says without looking up. “I haven’t even downloaded the map packs, yet.”
“Uh…” Flynn responds startling Jiya.
“Oh! Hey,” she says recomposing herself. “Sorry I thought you were Wyatt. We’re going to try out the new Call of Duty map packs tonight.”
Flynn nods with a closed-lip smile. “That sounds like fun. I’m sure you’ll kick soldier boy’s ass thoroughly,” he predicts with complete confidence.
Jiya smiles in appreciation that Flynn recognizes her prowess when it comes to video games. “Yeah, that’s pretty much a given,” she says. “What’s up?” she asks casually.
“I won’t take too much of your time, but I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” he says approaching the breakfast island of her kitchen. “It’s a rather big one, I’m afraid,” he adds.
“O-kay,” Jiya says tentatively.
“It’s about your visions,” he begins choosing his words carefully to avoid giving too much away before it’s appropriate. “I’m not sure how it works, but I was hoping you might be able to zero in on a specific place and time. If that’s possible, even,” he adds.
“It depends,” she explains. “My visions are still pretty limited to events that happen in the past - before my natural timeline, but if you give me an approximate date and place, I might be able to see something. Although it helps if I see or sense something that can help trigger the vision.”
Flynn gives her a hopeful look, “I might be able to give you all of those.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper folded into eighths. “I don’t know if Lucy told you, but she gave me her journal back in May 2014 two weeks after my wife and daughter were killed. I was sitting in a bar in São Paulo when she approached me.”
Jiya nods affirming that she is familiar with the story.
“I had a dream last night about that day, and in the dream, I had a memory about something I saw in the journal,” Flynn explains as he slowly unfolds the paper. He places the paper on the island and slides it towards Jiya.
She looks at the paper which has about a dozen lines of physics equations written on it. A few of the formulas make sense, but others not quite, although she suspects some of the numbers and symbols are just inverted or transposed.
“I’m sorry it’s not completely accurate,” Flynn apologizes. “Since I no longer have Lucy’s journal, I had to try to recreate it from what I could remember plus what I saw in the dream, so I’m sure there are errors. Hopefully between you and Connor you can make enough sense of it to correct the mistakes?”
Jiya looks up at him skeptically not quite believing that this much detail could be remembered from single dream. “Why didn’t you give this to us before?”
“I had forgotten all about it,” he lies coolly. “Truth be told, I had been drinking quite a bit for days when I met Lucy,” he admits sheepishly hoping that Jiya believes him.
In his defense, the drunken stupor part was true, but thanks to the photographic memory that he’s never openly admitted to having, the version of the equations that is written on the paper is precisely the one that was detailed in Lucy’s journal and accompanied with her future self’s explicit instructions:
Memorize this page. Practice writing it from memory, so that when the right time comes, you can give it to Jiya.
“Huh. OK, well I can give it a try tomorrow with a rested mind.”
“Great. I’m not sure if it will lead to anything, but I figured it’s worth a try, right?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Flynn places his hands on the edge of the island and pushes his body weight back to stand up straight and head toward the exit. When he opens the door, he nearly runs directly into Wyatt who was just about to knock on the door. Wyatt is surprised to see him visiting Jiya but says nothing as he steps aside to allow Flynn to leave.
“Don’t keep her up too late,” Flynn instructs him as he passes by. “She has homework to do in the morning.”
**********
A week later Jiya runs excitedly towards the largest apartment on the floor which the team designated as the common area for socializing, post-mission debriefs and strategizing. Connor trails behind her trying to keep up with an equally joyous look on his face. Agent Christopher, Lucy, Wyatt and Flynn look up from their respective tasks unsure of what could spur such enthusiasm.
“What’s going on?” Agent Christopher asks alarmed.
“This… is… it,” Jiya pants trying to catch her breath holding up her electronic tablet.
“What is what?” Lucy asks
Jiya tries to start talking again but fails. She waves at Connor to take over.
“We have it! We figured it out!” he exclaims to the confused faces in the room. “We have the formulas we need to make it possible to safely travel in your own timeline.”
“Wait. Time out. How is that possible?” Wyatt asks.
“It is,” Jiya assures him having finally caught her breath. “I saw it in my visions. I saw Lucy in the bar in 2014 in São Paulo when she met Flynn – I mean meets Flynn.”
Lucy looks immediately at Flynn in disbelief but is unable to speak.
“Once I was able to narrow down the timeframe,” Jiya continues. “I was able to see Lucy return to the Lifeboat and get a look at the control panels. They were… upgraded somehow. The entire Lifeboat looked different, and so did the two of you,” she says looking at Wyatt and Lucy with a look of wonder.
“And,” Connor continues, “from the details in Jiya’s vision plus the partial equation from Flynn, we were able to reverse engineer the formula enough to build a plausible solution!”
Still confused, Agent Christopher looks at Connor and inquires simply, “So what does this mean?”
Unable to contain his joy, Connor shouts, “It means we can save Rufus!”