Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What is Flynn doing?”

Jiya touches Rufus on the back.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I have no idea, but he’s been poking around the Lifeboat for over an hour. I’m just a little bit nervous that he’s going to pull a gun on us, and take the thing out for a spin from which he might never come back.”

“Flynn?!” Jiya calls out. “What are you doing?!”

With one hand on the time machine’s pod, Garcia Flynn looks over at the bunker’s two techies. “I’m just uh… I’m checking her over,” he tells them.

Rufus looks up at Jiya, shaking his head. “He’s not just checking it over. He’s had it powered on and off again several times. He’s up to something. And being that tomorrow is Christmas Eve… one of those anniversaries that could be triggering for him…” Rufus pauses and looks around the common area. It’s just him, Jiya, and Flynn. “Think we should get Lucy? She has a way of keeping him under control.”

“I can get her,” Jiya says. “But to be honest, Flynn’s been with us for two years. He’s had plenty of opportunities to steal the Lifeboat, but hasn’t.”

“I still want to know what he’s doing.”

Jiya pats Rufus on the shoulder, and steps down from the computer platform. Then heads down the hallway towards Flynn’s room – which is not a room she has visited often. She knocks on the door, and pokes her head in.

The room is a mess which surprises Jiya. The way that Lucy and Flynn comport themselves in the common area, she took them as neat freaks.

Their queen-sized bed is unmade, and a book lies open above one of the two pillows. Have they never heard about using a bookmark? Dirty clothes hang over the side of their laundry hamper, and a few t-shirts, and sweatpants are on the ground next to it.

Lucy is sitting with her legs curled beneath her, in the armchair in the corner of the room. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker plays quietly on hers and Flynn’s MP3 player on the desk. She’s covered with a grey, black, and white flannel blanket. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s wearing one of Flynn’s favourite dark grey sweatshirts.

Lucy sets the book down in her lap, and smiles at Jiya. “Hey, what’s up?” Lucy says. “Happy Christmas Eve-Eve.”

“Rufus is worried that Flynn is going to steal the Lifeboat. He wants you to come babysit him so that doesn’t happen.”

Lucy laughs. “Flynn’s not going to steal the Lifeboat. He’s not stupid.” She pauses. “Well… sometimes he’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid.”

“To be fair to Rufus, we all got into this mess because Flynn stole the Mothership. So, it’s not exactly out of the realm of possibility that he could steal a time machine again.” Jiya smiles, and looks around the room. “I’ve never been in Flynn’s room the entire time he’s been here. Looks like you two have uh… meshed well together.”

Jiya gestures at the way Flynn and Lucy’s belongings aren’t separated into his and hers cubbies. Their bathroom accessories: toothbrushes, a tube of toothpaste (yes, one – they share the same toothpaste), her hairbrush and his comb, and their deodorants are piled on top of each other in the wall-side cubby nearest the door. Never mind the fact that a year ago, Denise actually bought them that queen-sized bed. A fact that actually gets on Jiya and Rufus’s nerves when they are reminded that Flynn and Lucy – who are not a couple, by the way – get that bed, while they are stuck pushing their twin-sized could-be bunk beds together as if they’re a married couple in the 1950s.

“Yeah, we are… uh… meshed well enough.” Lucy stands up and drops her blanket and book at the foot of the bed. “We get along well. He’s a great roommate.”

“Roommate, huh?” Jiya raises an eyebrow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that you two were going steady.”

Lucy gives Jiya a look.

“Don’t look at me like that, Lucy Elizabeth,” Jiya says. “I’ve been meaning to ask… since you and Flynn are just roommates, and all… is there any chance you can get that tall Croatian to swap your queen-sized bed, and bring in the two twin-sized beds from my and Rufus’s room? I mean… since you’re just roommates, and have no need to actually share a bed.”

“Um…”

“As much as I love cuddling with Rufus, once he’s asleep, he becomes quite the bed hog.”

“I um…” Lucy runs her hand through her hair. “You said Rufus needs me to babysit Flynn?”

“Uh-huh,” Jiya nods her head. She’s not entirely surprised Lucy is avoiding her question.

“I’ll just uh… make sure Flynn isn’t planning on stealing the Lifeboat, and I’ll uh… I’ll ask him about the bed thing.”

“Sure, you will,” Jiya says, grinning as she follows Lucy down the hall back to the common area.

Lucy grins at Rufus as she walks towards the Lifeboat. Flynn is climbing back up the ladder, and disappears inside.

“Flynn?” Lucy says, as she stands in the Lifeboat’s entry. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Triple-checking all the nuts and bolts,” he answers without looking back at her. “I’ve noticed she’s been more rattly than she should be when we come back from missions.” He sits down in the pilot seat, and looks at the control panels. “You know, we’ve never actually tried out this auto-pilot software since Rufus and Jiya installed it last week.” He turns to look up at her. “Think it works?”

“Why do you need the Lifeboat’s auto-pilot to work?” Lucy asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No reason. Just think it might be good to try out before we actually might be forced to use it. That’s all.” He shrugs.

Lucy looks behind her at Rufus and Jiya who are sitting behind the computer monitors. “You know, you have Rufus worried that you’re going to steal the Lifeboat.”

Flynn chuckles. “Does he think I’ve been sitting around for two years waiting for the perfect opportunity to steal this thing? Which, by the way, presents itself every night since I got here.”

“You wouldn’t really take it out without any one of us though, right?”

Flynn looks up at Lucy, hearing the sincere concern in her voice. “No. Well… I wouldn’t take it out without you in tow, just to double check me on historical concerns. You know, if it were just you and me in the bunker, and the others were somewhere else.”

“Are you saying you’d kidnap me again?” Lucy huffs, trying not to smile.

“Are you insinuating that you’d like me to kidnap you again?” He winks. “That smile on your face tells me it might be something you’d enjoy.”

“It’s no secret that my time with you in Chicago wasn’t horrible.”

“It only got horrible after that Houdini guy got the better of me, huh?”

“I’ve told you that I always wondered if Holmes still would’ve captured me if I’d still been your prisoner,” Lucy says.

“And if he had, I wouldn’t have let him get as far as locking you up inside that furnace.”

The two of them share a smile.

Flynn stands up and exits the Lifeboat.

“Hey! Flynn!” Jiya calls out.

“Yeah?”

“Can you move yours and Lucy’s bed into our room? The twin-bed thing with Rufus and me has gone on long enough.”

Flynn glances over at Lucy, and runs his hand through his hair. “Um… I can. How soon do you want to swap?”

“Tonight would be amazing,” Jiya answers.

Rufus nudges her with his elbow, and they share a look and a smile – trying not to laugh.

Flynn turns his back to them and looks down at Lucy.

“What are they giggling about?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe the idea of you sleeping in a twin-bed again. I might’ve told them a while back how your feet hang over the end, and how that’s kinda funny to see.”

“Happens with our bed now, too. Unless I’m curled up trying to keep you warm. But even when it happens, it’s not as bad as with that twin-sized bed. With that thing, even my calves were hanging off the end.”

Rufus’s hand slaps onto Flynn’s shoulder. “All right, Flynn… let’s go move some beds.”

“I uh…” Flynn looks down at Lucy.

She shrugs her shoulders.

Neither of them really wants to give up their current sleeping arrangements, but since they’re not technically a couple, and Rufus and Jiya are, it only makes sense to relinquish the cozy queen-sized bed to the bunker’s favourite – and only – couple.

Lucy walks with Flynn and Rufus as far as the computer station. Then she climbs up the stairs and sits next to Jiya, slumping in her chair.

“You know,” Jiya says. “All you have to do is admit that you two are a thing, and we’d let you keep the bed.”

“We’re not a thing, Jiya. He’s…” Lucy watches as Flynn disappears from view down the hallway. “He’s a friend. My best friend, but we’re not… we’re not like that.”

“But you want to be?”

Lucy sighs. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but… I always come back to how it’s better this way because I don’t… I can’t go through another Wyatt-Jessica fiasco. Flynn’s wife and daughter are dead, and he loves them. If anything happened between us, all I can imagine is returning from a mission one day, and Lorena and Iris would be here. Flynn would be sharing his room with her, and I’d be back sleeping out here on that couch.” She pauses, and mutters, “Abandoned, again.”

“You know Flynn wouldn’t treat you how Wyatt did. He never has,” Jiya says, then asks, “Does he feel the same way about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Has he thought about being with you?”

“When we came to get you in Chinatown a couple years ago… we had this moment, and I asked him why he was here, and-”

“Oh, my God! He told you he’s here for you?!” Jiya is grinning ear-to-ear. “How have you never told me this before?”

“Actually, he didn’t say anything because Wyatt interrupted us.” Lucy bites gently on her lower lip. “I can only assume that he was going to say he’s here for me, but I don’t know for sure. He had this look on his face, in his eyes, that made me think he was going to say he loves me, but I mean… it’s Flynn. He can be overly dramatic sometimes. He could’ve been about to tell me that he’s here because this team is the only chance he has left to save his family.”

HRNNG! HRNNG! HRNNG!

“Well, that’s typical Rittenhouse for you,” Lucy says.

“Taking out the Mothership on Christmas Eve-Eve,” Jiya says. “How rude.”

They turn their attention to the computer monitor.

“February 26^th, 1993,” Jiya says. “New York City.”

“That’s the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center,” Lucy says.

Denise, Connor, and Wyatt join them.

“Where to now?” Wyatt asks.

“New York City, 1993,” Lucy answers. She looks at Denise. “Looks like we’re all going back on our own timeline. Tell me you’ve received another shipment of the serum.”

Denise nods her head. “Received it two days ago. I’ll go get it.”

“I hate getting injected with that crap,” Wyatt says. “I get nauseous just from traveling in the Lifeboat. The injection to make it safe for us to travel on our own timelines magnifies it so it’s a thousand times worse.”

“Not for me,” Lucy says nonchalantly.

“You’re just too sensitive,” Jiya teases him.

“Where are Rufus and Flynn?” Connor asks, looking around.

“They’re moving Flynn and Lucy’s bed into our room, and giving them our twin beds,” Jiya answers.

Connor and Denise share a look.

“Really?” Denise asks, surprised.

“I’m as shocked by that as anyone,” says Connor. “But back to the matter at hand, if I recall correctly, New York in 1993 means the World Trade Center attack? And if I’m correct, which I am, we’re going to want Flynn on the mission.”

“So, me, Flynn, Lucy and… who’s piloting?” Wyatt asks, looking at Jiya.

“I would, but my Lebanese ancestry might garner unwanted attention since anyone who looks Middle Eastern gets confused with terrorists all the time.”

Flynn and Rufus hurry into the room.

Flynn is already checking that his handgun is loaded. “So, 1993, huh?” he asks, looking at Lucy.

“Did you get the beds swapped?” Jiya asks Rufus.

“No,” Rufus answers. “Just got Flynn and Lucy’s bed stripped. Did you guys know that those two live in an actual pigsty?”

Lucy speaks up to avoid everyone talking about her and Flynn. “The attack was carried out by terrorists-”

“One of them, Ramzi Yousef,” Flynn interjects, “actually spent time in Afghanistan at an al-Qaeda training camp. His uncle was one of the men who planned the September 11^th attacks eight years later.”

“If I remember right,” Wyatt says, “they used a fifteen-hundred-pound urea nitrate-hydrogen gas bomb. I think they loaded it into a Ryder truck, and parked the thing beneath the North Tower.”

“That’s right, but the parking garage was actually under World Trade Center 3, which was the Vista Hotel at the time,” Flynn says, nodding his head at Wyatt. “And the um… FBI informant, Emad Salem, alleged that one of his handlers declined to give the go-ahead on a plan to provide the terrorists with phony powder to fool the terrorists into believing they were using real explosives.”

“Too bad that didn’t happen,” Wyatt says. “In total, there were six deaths that day.”

“So, do we think Rittenhouse is going there to make things worse?” Rufus asks. “Or do we think they’re going to try to 9/11 the World Trade Center in ‘93?”

“We’ll have no idea until we get there,” Lucy says. “Ok, so… the bombing happened a few minutes after noon. It not only killed six people; it injured just over one-thousand people.”

Wyatt stands next to Lucy, and checks his firearm. He looks down at her. “We’re going to need a plan if Rittenhouse is there to help them succeed in toppling both towers.”

“If the explosion happens,” Rufus says. “I’m hauling my ass back to the Lifeboat.”

“If they succeed in collapsing both buildings,” Connor says. “They’ll have killed more people than were killed on 9/11.”

Lucy nods her head. “That’s right, um… I think the estimate was that around two-hundred-fifty-thousand people were in both towers during the 1993 attack.”

“And only around fifty-thousand were evacuated,” Wyatt adds.

Denise returns with four syringes. “Ok, kids. Get in line.”

Lucy goes to Denise and lowers the collar of her – actually Flynn’s – dark grey sweatshirt to expose her shoulder. Denise injects her arm with a serum developed by the CDC to minimize the side-effects of traveling back on their own timelines. Flynn follows, rolling up the sleeve of his black t-shirt. Then Wyatt gets his injection. And finally, Rufus – without a second thought of sending Jiya on this mission – gets his.

Flynn goes over to Denise’s desk drawer, and rummages through it. He retrieves a flashlight and shoves it into the back pocket of his jeans. He and Lucy make eye contact, and he says, “The explosion knocks out the main electric power line, as well as the emergency system.”

“Which is the reason why safety renovations happened afterward,” she says. “After the ’93 attack, they added lighting to the stairwells in case of any future need for evacuation.”

“If we happen to be inside and the smoke is too much,” Wyatt says. “Head to the rooftop. The New York City police helicopters will be airlifting people to safety from there.”

“Only those with medical problems,” Lucy tells them. “Don’t rely on being helicoptered off the rooftop if that’s the only way out.”

“And hope that the buildings don’t collapse,” Rufus says, not thrilled that they might be heading back to a worse-than-9/11, 9/11.

“Flynn is in charge,” Denise tells them. “You follow his lead.”

“Why Flynn?” Wyatt asks, displeased.

“Because he has experience in this kind of situation,” Denise answers. “On top of that, his file shows that he helped evacuate civilians from unstable structures in war zones.”

Wyatt looks at Lucy. “And you’re ok with this?”

“Have been for a long time.”

“But I’m the American soldier,” Wyatt argues as the other three climb up inside the Lifeboat. “Shouldn’t that give me an edge over Flynn, the accused murderer and terrorist?”

“Both which we know aren’t true,” Connor says.

“Wyatt?!” Lucy calls out for him. “If you’re not coming, then get Denise injected and send her up.”

Wyatt glares at Denise. He huffs, and then hurries to the Lifeboat.

He steps inside just in time to see Lucy leaning forward, helping Flynn with his seatbelt. Wyatt rolls his eyes. “Two years and he’s still having trouble with that?”

“Actually,” Flynn says. “Lucy and I have this little game we play where we see who can buckle up the fastest, and the winner has to help the loser buckle up since the loser – in that moment – was incapable of being the fastest.”

“So, you’re saying you’re slow?” Wyatt sneers.

“Maybe I do it on purpose because I like when she buckles me in,” Flynn says, winking at Lucy.

She shakes her head, and rolls her eyes as the Lifeboat takes them back to 1993.

This mission to New York City has been uneventful.

For one reason or another, Rittenhouse actually prevented the attack from being carried out by terrorists. So, Flynn made the executive decision for the team to stay in New York until time runs out on the efficacy of their anti-side-effect injections – twenty-four hours.

Like the others, it doesn’t sit right with him that Rittenhouse prevented the attack.

Flynn and Lucy stand together and stare up at the Twin Towers. It’s cold outside, mid-20s, cloudy, and starting to snow.

“Are you sure you want to go up to the observation deck?” Flynn asks.

“I’ve never been up before, and I’ve never had the opportunity until now.”

“It’ll be colder up there than down here, especially with the wind chill.” He looks around them at the light snow flurries. “And the snow.”

“The cold doesn’t bother me,” Lucy says, grinning up at him.

“Ha! Really?!” He laughs. “The way you use me to warm up your icy feet and hands at night says otherwise.” He playfully nudges her. He takes a deep breath and looks around them. He hasn’t been back to Ground Zero since the Friday after the 2001 terrorist attacks. It’s eerie standing beneath these towers again, and it’s taking a whole lot of willpower to force the memories from that day to the back of his mind.

“Flynn?” Lucy touches his arm. “C’mon.” She smiles as she takes hold of his hand.

“I’m only hesitant because we don’t know for sure if Rittenhouse has delayed today’s attack, or found a way to make it worse later,” he says.

Lucy speaks quietly, “But we do know that it’s impossible for them to fly two planes into the buildings today. If anything happens, it’s not going to be a 9/11 event.”

“Yeah, but today the terrorists had hoped to damage the North Tower enough so that it would fall to its side, and take the South Tower with it. What if that’s what Rittenhouse is helping them figure out now?”

Lucy notices that Flynn’s breathing has become erratic. “Are you ok?”

Flynn shakes his head and closes his eyes.

Lucy looks around them, her eyes resting on the Vista Hotel – WTC 3. “Do you want to go get something to eat at the hotel restaurant instead, or… set up a headquarters of sorts in a room?”

“No,” he says. “It’s ok. I’m… I’m ok.”

He offers Lucy his arm, and she takes it. He leads her inside the South Tower, and they make their way to the observation deck elevators.

“We don’t have to go on the roof,” Lucy says. “We can stay in the enclosed deck. I think it has a food court.”

After several minutes spent riding the express elevator to the 107^th floor of the South Tower, Lucy and Flynn step out into the enclosed observation deck. En Vogue’s Give It Up, Turn It Loose plays softly over the speakers, but the constant murmuring of tourists drowns it out.

Flynn was nervous the entire elevator ride, and held Lucy’s hand tightly the entire way up. And even now, they continue to walk hand-in-hand along the concourse.

“Looks like they haven’t renovated to add the food court yet,” Flynn observes.

“I’m not particularly hungry,” she tells him.

Lucy stops.

He lets go of her hand, his fingertips grazing over the ring she wears on her left ring finger. It’s the ring he gave her last January for her birthday – a silver band with white opal embedded in it. She wears it all the time, and that fact often makes them targets for Jiya and Rufus’s jokes about how they’re the bunker’s resident kinda-sorta married couple, but not.

Now, before they go back in time, they no longer need to discuss what their cover story is going to be. They know by default that they will present themselves as husband and wife, and if needed, Wyatt is Lucy’s younger brother. Which is a role that Wyatt had taken as their cover story when they tracked Flynn to the Hindenburg in 1937.

Lucy steps toward the large window that overlooks the New York Harbor.

Flynn smiles at her when she sits down on one of the white metal benches. She’s staring out at Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. He knows without a doubt that she’s thinking of the over twelve million immigrants who were processed there from 1892 until 1924, when it was the most active immigration station in the United States.

He sits next to her.

He has to keep reminding himself that in 1993 – at least in his and Lucy’s original timeline – the terrorists did not succeed today. That Wyatt and Rufus volunteered to continue to keep an eye on things on the ground level. Flynn touches the side of his coat, feeling for the walkie-talkie in his pocket that they will use if they need to contact each other should anything go wrong.

Flynn smiles as Lucy rests her hand on his knee.

He leans forward and looks down and has to close his eyes, and shake his head to fight off a bout of vertigo. Somewhere down there, Rufus and Wyatt are not only keeping their eyes open for suspicious Rittenhouse activity, but also… they’re looking for some hot dog stand that Rufus remembers eating at with his family during a trip here in 1998, when he was fifteen years old.

Flynn takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

Rufus and Wyatt are experienced soldiers in this war with Rittenhouse. If anything is about to happen, he knows that Rufus will contact him and Lucy immediately.

He huffs to himself.

Hell, what if Rittenhouse has convinced the terrorists to do something horrible up here on the observation deck? Recent history dictates that hitting the Twin Towers on their upper-level floors is what actually brings them down. Of course, the added force of impact from two fully fueled passenger jets played a large role in the demise of the buildings. He’s not entirely sure that a bomb – if they managed to haul it up here – would damage the support columns enough to bring the building down.

Still, he’s nervous.

And if anything happens, he’s more than willing to injure both himself and Lucy, so that they could get off this building in the New York City police helicopter if that was their only way out.

Flynn looks behind him, his eyes scan the crowd looking for anyone suspicious.

They’re being approached by a tall, blond man and a brunette woman.

Sleepers?

Flynn feels his coat pocket for his handgun – just in case.

“Excuse me?” the man says. “Could either you or your wife take a photo of us with Ellis Island in the background?”

Lucy perks up and stands. She loves it when they get to pretend to be a married couple. “My husband is an excellent photographer,” she says. “If it hadn’t been our wedding, I would have hired him to do the photos.” She laughs, and smiles up at Flynn.

He returns her smile, and wets his lips. He loves the way Lucy lights up when she gets to call him her husband – much to Wyatt’s chagrin. Of course, he doesn’t mind it either.

“You should see our boudoir photos,” Flynn says, winking at Lucy.

“Oh, honey,” Lucy says, touching his arm, giggling. “I’m sure this man and his wife have no interest in that.” She looks at the couple. “I’m sorry. My husband is from Europe. He’s a little too familiar with people sometimes.”

“Misliš li da se neću hvaliti vođenjem ljubavi sa svojom ženom?” Flynn asks her.

She looks at him. She has no idea what he just said, but he’s grinning at her like a smitten dork.

He wets his lips, and holds her arms.

He presses his forehead against hers, and whispers to her so the other couple cannot hear him, “Should I kiss you, Lucy?”

Her eyes are wide.

They’ve pretended to be married more times than she can remember, but they’ve never kissed.

Is that what he asked her in Croatian? If she wanted him to kiss her? Because, her answer would definitely be ‘yes,’ if… if only it were real. But if she were to kiss him now, would it be a fake kiss? Would it not count? What the actual Hell, Flynn?

Lucy swallows hard, and nods her head.

Might as well ‘go with it,’ right?

Flynn smiles affectionately as his fingertips touch her chin, tilting her head back as he leans towards her.

Her heart could not be pounding any harder in her chest than it is right now.

She can feel his warm breath on her lips, and his thumb gently stroking her chin. She closes her eyes, and awaits the inevitable, and then… and then…

He rubs his nose against hers, and chuckles quietly.

Lucy feels the warmth of red flush her face. She’s embarrassed. She should’ve known better than to expect that Garcia Flynn would actually kiss her in the way a man would kiss his wife.

They’re just friends, after all.

“I think we scared them away, Lucy,” he says, cupping her face in his hand.

“Oh?” She looks around, and sure enough the couple that asked them to take their photo has disappeared. She shakes her head, and laughs nervously – hoping to cover up the fact that she actually wanted him to kiss her. “You’re impossible, Flynn.” She smiles, and wraps her arm through his. She tells herself: shrug it off, Lucy. Shrug it off, and pretend that you didn’t actually expect it to happen. She leads him down the concourse. “The view up here is amazing,” she says quietly.

“It is,” he says, glancing down at her. He’s not oblivious to the fact that she blushed when he pulled away, having not kissed her. “Do you want to go up to the outdoor viewing deck?”

“Do you?”

He shrugs. “I’ve never been, and always wanted to. Didn’t get the chance the uh… last time I was here.”

“I only wish I had brought my phone so I could take pictures,” she says as they make their way towards the escalator to the roof.

“I’ve got mine,” he says, stopping to smile at her as he digs into his coat pocket. He discreetly takes out his smart phone, and opens up its camera app. “I can’t make calls on it, obviously. But if we’re careful, I can get some pictures.”

“Take some photos in here,” she says. “After 9/11, people seemed to share more pictures of the view from the observation deck than the inside.”

Flynn looks left, right, and slowly spins himself around. Then snaps a few photos. He smiles at Lucy. “C’mere…” he says, opening his arm to her. “Selfie?”

Lucy smiles, and steps into him.

He wraps his arm around her shoulders, bends his knees, presses his head against hers, holds his other arm high above them, and snaps a photo.

“I think I managed to get Ellis Island in the background too,” he says.

Lucy keeps her body pressed against his as he reviews the photo, and sure enough, Ellis Island is in the background. Lucy covers her mouth and laughs, pointing at someone who had been behind them when he snapped the photo. The person is looking at Flynn’s smart phone with a very confused look on his face.

“At least he didn’t see my watch, right?” Flynn asks, laughing.

“Seriously,” Lucy says again, “you’re impossible.”

The cold February breeze hits them hard when they step outside. The sun still hasn’t come out from behind the clouds, and a few small snowflakes float around them. Lucy tucks herself against Flynn as they walk towards the railing, pressing her face against him to shield it from the cold.

Flynn’s eyes settle on the anti-suicide fence which is a few feet away from where they stand, just below the elevated viewing platform.

He closes his eyes.

He wasn’t in the lobby of the North Tower when firefighters began hearing the bodies of those who decided to jump on that September day in 2001, but he had read about it, and seen documentaries that featured footage inside the tower after the planes crashed into them.

To make the impossible decision to wait for help that might never come, or to jump so you could end your life on your own terms, he can’t even imagine what those people went through that day – and he had been inside the North Tower when it was hit by the first plane.

“Hey…” Lucy’s voice is soft. “Are you ok?”

“I’m uh… I don’t know how much you saw of my personal file, but I assume it had information about my being here on 9/11?”

Lucy shakes her head. “No, I uh… I didn’t read it in full.”

“I actually met Karl that day.”

“Karl? Your guy who manhandled me in Paris?” She shakes her head, trying not to smile at the fact that Flynn had captured her twice, and she really hadn’t minded it either time.

Flynn nods his head, and looks at her. He rests his elbows on the white railing in front of him. Then, he looks around to make sure that no one is close enough to overhear him. Lucy stands next to him. She places one hand on his arm, sensing the change in his demeanor.

“I was in the lobby of the North Tower when the first plane hit.” He gestures towards the other tower. “The um… the jet fuel fell down the elevator shafts, and caused an explosion in the lobby seconds after impact. Karl was… he was standing close enough to the elevators that he could’ve been hurt, so I pushed him away as the fire burst out near us.”

“You saved his life?”

“He wasn’t as close as others, so I wouldn’t say I saved his life then, but I probably prevented serious injury by getting him out of the way of the explosion.” Flynn looks at his hands. “He was a nineteen-year-old Marine then. That, and my military background up to that point, we uh… we both knew something terrible had happened, and without exchanging a word, we made our way up the stairwell to see if there was something we could do to help.”

He runs his hand over his face, and looks at Lucy.

Every muscle in her face is tense, and her lips are pressed together.

Her grip on his arm is tight.

“Are you sure you want me to tell this story?” he asks.

She nods her head, but says nothing.

“So, I don’t know, it was maybe fifteen minutes later, and we’re helping people make their way down the stairs. We still have no idea what caused the explosion at that point, and my phone rings. It’s my buddy Andrej, he knew I planned to tour the World Trade Center that morning, and he called to see that I was all right. Then he told me that a plane had crashed into the building, and I’m thinking well, shit… that’s a terrible accident. Then Andrej is cursing, and I can’t understand what he’s saying, so I’m asking him to calm down, and he does, and he tells me another plane just hit the South Tower.”

Lucy sees tears welling in Flynn’s eyes.

She rubs her hand along his forearm to try to comfort him, to let him know that it’s all right for him to be emotional. That he’s safe with her.

Flynn waits to continue until a group of schoolkids on a Twin Towers school visit walk away from them.

“I look at Karl,” he continues quietly, “and I ask him if he speaks another language. He says German and Arabic, so in Arabic I tell him that I think the United States is under attack because a second plane just hit the other tower. I didn’t want to say this in English because I didn’t want to cause a panic inside the stairwell. He looks at me, and in Arabic asks what we should do. I tell him we keep helping people. That’s all we could do, you know?”

Flynn looks at Lucy, and sees she’s wiping tears from her face.

“I can stop telling the story if it’s too upsetting,” he says quietly.

“It’s ok,” she says. “I just… I never met anyone who had been inside one of the towers that day. How soon before the collapse did you get out?”

“Andrej called again after the collapse of the South Tower, and I knew it was inevitable that the building we were in was going to follow suit. It took us about twenty minutes to get to the lobby, and… um… debris was everywhere once I got outside, Lucy. And though Andrej told me what happened, I still looked up and… and I couldn’t comprehend that the other building wasn’t there. Then I’m looking around, wondering where this skinny Marine is, and I realize Karl’s still standing in the lobby of the North Tower. He’s petrified to step outside, so I run back to him, and I have to grab him by the arm and force him to run with me. And I don’t know where I’m going. The area around the World Trade Center is unrecognizable to me, and there’s ash and dust in the air. It’s hard to breathe, and I’m using my shirt to cover my nose and mouth, and yelling at Karl to do the same. Then we hear this rumbling sound,” Flynn looks at Lucy, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes. “And I glance back and floor-by-floor, the building is falling.” He looks at her. “We’re not far enough away, and the plume of ash, dust, and smoke is coming right at us. It was so loud, Lucy… the roar of steel and cement… the people screaming.”

He physically trembles at the memory, and Lucy places her hand on his and squeezes it, letting him know that he’s ok.

“The pulverized debris… the ash… the… the smoke. The smell… and the taste… was something I couldn’t get out of my nose or mouth for weeks after it happened.”

“Even though you covered yourself with your shirt?”

“I… I didn’t have the mind to think of how I could wet the shirt to create a better filter. It was chaos… life-and-death… All I was thinking was how to save this scrawny Marine, and my own life. We ran. I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to survive. That this was how I was going to die – on vacation in New York, not in some war like my mom had always worried about.”

It’s not often that he talks about his mother, and Lucy can see that even now – seventeen years after that fateful day – that his mother’s worry for him still haunts him. Lucy can’t imagine what it must be like for him now. Knowing that his mom has read or heard on the news that her son murdered his wife and child. That it’s reported that he is involved in a terrorist organization.

“And I don’t know if the cloud of debris is strong enough to break storefront windows,” he continues, “but the only option we have is to duck inside some mom-and-pop Chinese restaurant, and watch as it passes by the window. And, Lucy, it was as dark as night, and we were cowering behind the checkout counter, and…” Flynn shakes his head, and wipes a tear from his face.

Lucy doesn’t know what to say, so she wraps her arm around his waist, and rests her head against his shoulder. She closes her eyes, and says a little prayer for him, and for everyone who lost their lives that day, and for those who survived.

He’s quiet for several minutes, struggling with his memories of that day. He swallows audibly and bites down on his bottom lip, his jaw tight.

“Karl and I, we uh… as the debris settles, we exchange contact information. He goes off to help search and rescue workers find survivors in the rubble, and I… I have field medic experience, so I’m making my way, trying to find a hospital or someplace where EMTs have set up triage, so I can help there. They weren’t as overwhelmed as I expected at the hospital, so I decided to stay in New York. I wanted to help look for survivors. I was there, with no sleep, for three days straight. I assisted with seven extractions in total in the first twenty-four hours, but after that…” He shakes his head.

“Only eighteen were pulled from the rubble, the final survivor was rescued only twenty-seven hours after the collapse,” Lucy says quietly.

Flynn nods his head.

“The next time I saw Karl was in 2004, in Afghanistan. I recognized him immediately, and he recognized me, and it was like… that experience in New York, it was like he had become my brother. We saw each other a few times a year after that. Thanksgivings, Christmases, he even visited a week after Iris was born.”

Lucy gives him a gentle squeeze before removing her arm from his waist. She rises on her toes, and kisses his cheek, and wipes away another tear from his face.

“I was in my first year of university that day,” she says. “Ever the early bird, I was at the university library early to work on research. I hadn’t watched the news at home before leaving, so when I got there, the librarian on duty unlocked the door, and let me in. I was getting settled when she brought out a TV so we could watch the coverage of the airplane crash at the World Trade Center. I uh…” Lucy swallows hard. “I watched live when the second plane hit the other tower. It was still dark out, barely after six in the morning in California.”

Flynn nods his head, and rests his hand on top of hers for comfort.

Lucy continues. “Classes weren’t canceled, but no one showed up. Everyone spent the morning watching news coverage in the university’s library. My mom called me maybe four hours after the North Tower collapse, and said Amy’s school called, and she was inconsolable. She couldn’t stop crying, and they needed someone to come pick her up. My mom was… I honestly don’t know what she was doing, but she wasn’t at home that day, so I picked up Amy, and I had to pull over on the side of the road because it hit me – what happened, and with Amy crying, I couldn’t stop crying. We sat in the car for about an hour before I could get it together long enough to drive to the nearest Dairy Queen. I knew I couldn’t go home because I’d want to turn on the news, and I didn’t want to expose Amy to any more of what had happened. I mean, she was only eleven years old, so we ate ice cream. We had ice cream for lunch, and for dinner, and finally when the sun began to set, we went home.”

Lucy wipes away tears with the sleeve of her coat.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Flynn says as he pulls her into his embrace. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s ok.” She sniffles. “I feel I know you better. That I understand more of the man you were before time travel, and…” She looks at him. “I’m glad you shared that with me, Flynn.”

He nods his head, but says nothing in return.

They stand, staring out at the horizon. Knowing that in eight years and seven months, the unthinkable will happen, and the world will never be the same.

“I want to leave,” Flynn says quietly. “I can’t be up here anymore.”

“Ok.”

Silently, they make their way back down to the enclosed observation deck and wait by the elevator.

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Lucy takes a deep breath, and glances up at Flynn. Duran Duran’s Ordinary World is eerily coincidental after their conversation on the roof – a song about loved ones who have died, a yearning for a time you can no longer touch because death has taken someone away from you. It’s relevant not only to what happens here in 2001, but also to both of them. He lost his wife and daughter, and Lucy has lost her sister. They’re both trying to learn how to survive – how to live – in this world without them.

They step into the elevator, and Flynn makes his way to the back corner – struggling with his emotions. Lucy stands beside him, and hangs onto his arm just so he knows she’s here with him.

By the time they reach the lobby, he is better, but she still wraps her arm around his waist as they step outside into the Austin J. Tobin Plaza.

“We should find Wyatt and Rufus,” Flynn says. “And if Rittenhouse hasn't done anything, head home and research the World Trade Center. See if any of the history has changed.”

“Including if somehow, nothing happening today has made 9/11 worse,” Lucy adds.

With arms around each other, Flynn and Lucy make their way across the plaza, passing by The Sphere, a large bronze sculpture situated between the Twin Towers.

“I think I see them,” he says.

They step away from each other since neither of them is comfortable showing affection towards the other in front of the team.

“That’s them, all right,” Lucy says, running her hand through her hair.

Rufus sees Flynn and Lucy, waves, and runs towards them.

“You two have got to try these hot dogs,” Rufus says, handing a paper bag to Lucy.

She digs into the bag and pulls out one hot dog, hands it to Flynn, and then takes the other out for herself. She looks at Wyatt, and raises her brow. “Have trouble with the garnish?” she asks.

“It all just…” Wyatt gestures to the mustard stain down the front of his denim jacket, “fell out.”

“The boy can’t eat,” Rufus says.

Flynn and Lucy bite into their hot dogs, and share a look. It’s good, but not as fantastic as Rufus has made it out to be.

“So… isn’t that the best dog you’ve ever had?” Rufus asks, energetically.

“Oh yeah, it’s… it’s amazing,” Lucy says with a smile.

“Good ol’ American cuisine,” Flynn adds.

Rufus holds up another bag. “I got two more to take back to Denise and Connor, so if there’s not much else we can do here since Rittenhouse seems to be the one saving lives today, can we head back? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the bunker still needs to be decorated, and…” Rufus looks at Flynn, “you and I still have to swap those beds, amirite?”

“Right,” Flynn says, with a side-glance to Lucy.

This absolutely sucks, Lucy thinks as she stares up at the ceiling of hers and Flynn’s room. She rolls onto her side, and peers below her where Flynn is also trying to get to sleep.

During the evening’s bed swapping event, Rufus and Jiya insisted that they stack the two twin-sized beds on top of each other as bunk beds, as they were originally intended to be. They said that it would give Flynn and Lucy more open space in their dorm room, so they wouldn’t be as crammed in there together as they had been with the queen-sized bed.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispers.

“Me neither.”

“It’s cold up here.”

“Do you want to swap?” he asks. “At least down here you’d be closer to the radiator.”

Flynn tries not to laugh when he sees Lucy’s legs dangling from above. He gets out of bed, and stands in front of her. “Here,” he says. “Let me help you down so you don’t hurt yourself.”

“It’s as if you know me well,” she says with a smile.

Flynn puts his hands on Lucy’s waist, and her hands rest on his shoulders as he lifts her up. Her nightshirt – one of his black t-shirts – lifts above her hips, and he quickly looks to the side when he catches a glimpse of her white panties.

He sets her onto the floor.

“Thank you,” she says, tugging down at the hem of her shirt.

He nods his head, and heaves himself up onto the top bunk. It’s still warm from her body, and he pulls the blanket up to cover him. The pillow smells like the strawberry shampoo that Lucy has been using ever since they got back from the Robert Johnson mission almost two years ago.

“Have I ever told you how much I like your cinnamon aftershave?” Lucy says.

Flynn furrows his brow, wondering why she’s asked this since it’s been a couple days since he’s shaved. “No, but I’ve noticed you like cinnamon,” he says. “How you add it to your hot chocolate, or sprinkle it on top of your pizza… or how you mix it into your vanilla ice cream to make cinnamon ice cream.”

“I do like cinnamon.” She pauses. “Your pillow smells like cinnamon.”

“Yours smells like strawberry.”

They’re quiet for a few seconds.

“I still can’t sleep,” Lucy says.

“Me neither.”

“Did you get anyone anything for Christmas?” she asks.

“No.” He pauses. “Did you?”

“No, but I wanted to.”

“This year has been rough, and we all agreed at Thanksgiving that we wouldn’t worry about exchanging gifts, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“I know,” she says. “But still… it’s just another bit of normalcy that we’ve given up on since…”

“Since I turned everyone’s lives upside down when I stole the Mothership?”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet again.

Down the hall they hear someone flush a toilet in the bunker’s bathroom.

Lucy sighs. “I’m still cold.”

“I’d offer to let you rub your feet against me to get warm, but… bunk beds.”

“I hate bunk beds.”

“Me too.”

They’re quiet again, and Lucy turns onto her side and huffs loudly.

“Do you want me to come down there and help get you warm?” Flynn asks hesitantly.

“Could you?” As she asks this, Flynn’s legs and feet are already dangling in front of Lucy.

She smiles.

Then he’s bent over, and crawling over her so that his back is against the wall. He lifts the blanket, and climbs under it. His hand rests on Lucy’s waist.

“Is that better?” he asks.

“Mhm.”

She closes her eyes and exhales slowly as Flynn wraps his arm around her, and gently tugs her back against his chest. She can feel his breath on her neck, and he’s rubbing his feet against hers.

She giggles quietly. “That tickles,” she whispers.

“You know, if you wore a sweatshirt and long pajama bottoms, you’d probably be warmer at night,” he says as his bare knee rubs against her calf muscle.

“I know, but…”

“But what?” He chuckles. “You like being cold so that you can ask me to… to warm you up?”

“Maybe,” Lucy says as she places her hand on his, and lifts it up to cover her heart. “I’ve also grown accustomed to falling asleep in your arms.”

“Me too,” he whispers. “You know what else?”

“Hm?”

“Did you know that before we started sharing my bed, and before the first night you spent in my room…” He chuckles quietly. “There had been a few times that I woke up because I was about to, or had already, fallen out of that damn twin-sized bed.”

Lucy snorts loudly, and covers her mouth as she laughs. She turns in his arms so she faces him, and playfully hits his chest. “Oh, my God!” She tries her best to stay quiet. “Are you serious?!”

“Very.”

“You never fell out of that bed once I made you sleep next to me!”

“That’s because, like now, I was backed up against the wall, using you as a bumper between me and the floor.”

Lucy laughs again, burying her face into his chest.

Flynn smiles, and rests his hand on the back of her head. “I imagine if I had actually fallen asleep in the top bunk, that you’d wake up when I’d crash to the ground.”

“Well, I don’t want that to happen.”

“So, you’ll take top bunk again?”

“No,” she answers as if his question were rhetorical. “If you were afraid to fall out of it, imagine what the bunker’s resident klutz would do.”

“What’s worse than falling out of the top bunk?”

“I don’t know, but we would find out.”

Flynn laughs, and tells her, “God, I love-”

Lucy’s eyes are wide, and she quickly looks up into his. Was he just about to say that he loves her?

“Flynn?”

He clears his throat, and wiggles his way out of this. “I… I love being… here… with you… like this. Laughing, and trying not to wake everyone up. Makes me forget reality for a while. It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s nice.”

He glances to the digital clock on their desk. “It’s midnight,” he says. “Happy merry Christmas Eve.”

“Merry Christmas Eve to you, too.”

“With all the bed swapping after we got back, we didn’t get many decorations put up, so tomorrow, did you want to help me find last year’s tree, and then we can decorate it?” he asks.

“I can,” she says. “Did you notice how much mistletoe Jiya put up?”

“Yeah, it’s everywhere. Why?” He laughs. “It’s not like she and Rufus need more excuses to kiss.”

“Makes my life more difficult because Wyatt has his eye on me like an eagle.”

“What?” Flynn playfully nudges her. “You don’t want to kiss Captain Sunshine again?”

“I never should have kissed him in the first place,” Lucy says, disgruntled.

“We all make mistakes.”

“You’ll never make the mistake of kissing Wyatt.”

“If you want…” He pauses, and huffs a chuckle. “If I see Wyatt standing under a mistletoe, waiting for you to kiss him, I’ll kiss him for you.”

Lucy scrunches her face and looks at Flynn in disbelief. “You would not.”

“I would,” he says. “Might keep Wyatt from standing under mistletoe for the rest of his life if I was the one to kiss him instead of you.”

“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “Please, don’t do that for me. I can avoid him well enough on my own.”

“Say the word, and we’ll all probably get to hear him screech like a pterodactyl.”

“Seriously, Flynn…” Lucy smiles, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”

“Admit it, Lucy,” he says. “You like me this way.” He pulls her closer to him. “You like that I don’t play by the rules, and that I’m frequently unpredictable. You like me because I allow you to take part in my chaos, too, don’t you?”

“I like that you give me room to grow out of being the person my mom tried to condition me to be,” she says. “Before you stole the Mothership, I was so obedient. I always played by the rules with no wiggle room for imperfection. I know you said that I started all this, but the Lucy that gave you the journal, she’s… I’m not her. At least not yet. But I think I’m meant to become someone willing to risk everything to go to you, and ask you to…” She lowers her eyes. “To destroy Rittenhouse, even if that means that it… that it erases me in the process.”

Flynn holds her hand against his heart, and grazes his hand across the ring she wears on her finger. “You’re nothing like her, Lucy. I… I don’t know if I’ve told you, but when you came to me in São Paulo, you were wearing an actual wedding ring with a huge diamond.”

“We get married?” she asks, not really certain that Flynn is a ‘huge diamond’ kind of guy.

“Not us,” he says. “You uh… you told me that I was right about everything, more than I would ever know, which was your way of telling me that in the future you came from, I had died.”

“Then who…?”

“Wyatt,” Flynn says. “If I had to guess.”

“Hmph, well… that isn’t going to happen,” she says, as she rolls onto her back.

“Hey… where’d your smile go?” Flynn runs his fingers over her stomach, in an attempt to tickle her just enough to rouse a quiet laugh, and a smile.

It works, and Lucy pulls the blanket up to cover her arms. “Hold me,” she whispers.

Flynn drapes his hand over her waist, and tugs her into him as he rests his head against her shoulder. He takes a breath, and quietly murmurs Silent Night to her in Croatian, “Tiha noć… sveta noć… ponoć je, spava sve… samo Marija s Josipom bdi… divno Djetešce pred jnima spi… rajski resi ga mir… rajski resi ga mir…”

Lucy sighs, closes her eyes, and is lulled to sleep by the sound of Garcia Flynn quietly singing one of her favourite Christmas songs.

The joy and laughter erupt all around Lucy and Flynn as their team reacts to Denise telling them that this year for Christmas, they will be allowed to visit their families. Connor is pouring wine into a coffee mug at the kitchen counter, and trying his best to gather the attention of everyone to give a toast in honor of being granted freedom from this dank bunker for the holidays.

Rufus and Jiya embrace in a hug, and Wyatt joins them before pulling Connor into his embrace.

Denise smiles at her team, happy to have given them joy this year for Christmas. Last year was anything but joyous trying to celebrate their first Christmas in the bunker with Rittenhouse ruining the holiday spirit every time they took out the Mothership – including on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

Lucy remains seated at the table, her hands clasped together. She uses her thumb to spin her ring around her finger. She glances across the room at Flynn. He’s leaning against the wall, keeping his distance from the team as he usually does. There’s a soft smile on his face as he watches the team celebrate. He likes them, cares for them, but the feeling isn’t entirely mutual.

His eyes meet hers, and she quickly looks away.

In the two years since he joined the team, they have grown close. Maybe too close. Last night, Lucy realized how close they had become when they were forced to deal with sleeping in two separate beds for the first time since she began sleeping in his room. After two years of sleeping by his side, it was a shock to her system not having him next to her. A shock that was quickly remedied when he joined her in the bottom bunk. Obviously, he felt the same way too.

They’re comfortable with each other.

More than comfortable.

When they’re apart, she feels like a part of her is missing. And she shouldn’t feel that way, right? He is Garcia Flynn, after all. The man who has killed his way through time trying to destroy Rittenhouse. A man who – if this war ever ends – will still be a wanted fugitive, and if caught, will go back to prison.

She shouldn’t be this comfortable with him, but it’s as if he’s become a part of her.

A part of her she can’t imagine living without.

After she helped break him out of prison, she never would have expected that he’d become her closest friend. Her confidant. The only person who truly understands what it’s like to have Rittenhouse tear your loved ones from your life, and bury them so deep in the threads of time that it seems impossible that they could ever be saved.

But at least they have each other.

Lucy watches Flynn.

He’s eyeing Wyatt as Wyatt makes his way towards Lucy.

There’s mistletoe nearby, but not directly above her – thank God.

And Lucy suspects that Flynn would actually kiss Wyatt if the occasion called for it. She looks at him, and he looks at her. They share a smile, and he slightly wiggles his eyebrows to let her know that he’s got her back if Wyatt gets too close.

Lucy rolls her eyes, dismissing him.

He wouldn’t actually kiss Wyatt, would he?

She laughs quietly to herself, imagining how Wyatt might react if it happened.

“Ok, ok, settle down.” Denise laughs as Connor kisses her on the cheek as he wraps his arm across her shoulders. “I know this is short-notice, and that today is Christmas Eve, so Homeland Security is going to help me make all your travel arrangements as easy as possible.”

“What will we do if Rittenhouse takes out the Mothership?” Jiya asks.

“I uh…” Flynn speaks up, taking a few steps towards the team. “I volunteered to stay behind. I’m a wanted fugitive, and uh… I have no family I can visit, as it is.”

Wyatt looks at Lucy, and says, “I’d love for you to come spend the holidays with me and my family. I’d love to introduce you to my mom, and all of my annoying cousins.”

“Actually,” Lucy says, standing up. She lies through her teeth. “I volunteered to stay here with Flynn.”

“With Flynn?” Wyatt scrunches his face.

There has to be something he can say or do to convince Lucy to come back home with him to Texas. He looks up. Lucy is a few steps away from standing underneath a sprig of mistletoe. She bumps into a chair, trying to avoid it, and stumbles directly underneath it.

Wyatt steps towards Lucy, and touches her arm, puckers his lips, and… Just as he leans in to kiss Lucy, Flynn pulls her back, bends down, scrunches his face in disgust, and allows Wyatt’s lips to make contact with his.

Wyatt flails backward with a high-pitched screech upon feeling Flynn’s scruff against his lips. He wipes his mouth violently with his hands, and the sleeve of his denim jacket. He looks at Lucy, what the fuck?

Everyone in the bunker is trying hard not to laugh, and no one has blinked – not even once – since Flynn swooped in to rescue Lucy from Wyatt’s kiss.

Lucy covers her mouth, trying to hide the fact that she’s laughing. She gives Flynn a look. She can’t believe he was right about the pterodactyl screeching.

He shrugs his shoulders, as if to say: I told you I’d do it.

“Anyway…” Lucy says, running her hand through her hair. “Yeah, um… I’m staying here with Flynn. I’m the team’s historian, and if Rittenhouse jumps, he’ll need my expertise, and he’ll need someone to accompany him on the mission.”

Lucy looks at Flynn, and it takes all her willpower to keep from laughing again.

He nods his head.  He knows that Lucy is making this up on the fly. The very idea that he won’t be spending his fifth Christmas without his girls alone, has his stomach in knots, and his heart fluttering. Sure, last year, he was stuck in this bunker with everyone, but he more or less kept to himself. He didn’t feel a part of the ‘family,’ and if it hadn’t been for Lucy, no one would have wished him a merry Christmas.

But this year, well, his agreement with Denise was that he’d stay here alone in the bunker. Both he and Denise had assumed Lucy would go home with Jiya for the holidays. Flynn tries not to let his smile reveal how much he’s looking forward to time alone with Lucy, so he lowers his head.

“But you’re not a soldier, Lucy,” Wyatt says, still wiping his lips with his jacket sleeve.

“I’ve never been a soldier, Wyatt. Plus, I’ve saved you before. I’d be able to back up Flynn on a mission.”

“Right, like falling through a window, and holding up a lamp to defend yourself is the same as being a trained fighter.”

Lucy shakes her head, and turns her back to him – crossing her arms in front of her chest. He’s obviously chosen to forget the fact that since Flynn joined them here in the bunker, that she has worked with Flynn to learn how to properly shoot a firearm, as well as how to perform basic self-defense.

“Anyway…” Denise says, not oblivious to the continued tension between Wyatt and Lucy. “Phone privileges are granted so you can call your families to let them know you’ll be home this evening.”

The team disperses, and Wyatt passes Flynn, and punches him in the shoulder – and not in a friendly way.

Flynn doesn’t react, but looks across the room at Lucy.

She shakes her head as she walks towards him, and smiles. Without a word, she touches his arm to let him know that she appreciates him standing between her lips and Wyatt’s. As her hand slides down his arm, he takes hold of her hand for a brief moment. Lucy pauses, and looks up into his eyes. Then without a word, their hands slip away from each other, and she disappears down the hallway.

She knocks on Jiya and Rufus’s door even though it’s cracked open.

Lucy’s eyes fall on what had been hers and Flynn’s queen-sized bed. Though it had been slightly more comfortable, she actually doesn’t mind the twin bed when she shares it with Flynn.

“Hey,” Jiya greets her. “So, you’re staying here with Flynn, huh?”

“How did you two fare with the bunk bed last night?” Rufus asks, grinning.

“It sucked, but we made it work,” Lucy answers even though it didn’t actually suck.

“Yeah, but…” Jiya interjects. “You’re staying here with Flynn?”

“Is that really surprising to anyone?” Lucy asks.

“It isn’t,” Rufus says. “Well, unless your name is Wyatt.”

Jiya gathers a few of her favourite sweatshirts and folds them neatly before placing them inside her dirty yellow duffle bag. “If you don’t want to spend Christmas here, you can come with me and Rufus.”

Lucy raises her brow, and smiles. “So, you’re going to meet his family, huh?”

“Yeah, um… we’ve been together for over two years, so… you know, the whole meet-his-family thing, and…”

“What Jiya is trying to say is that… that…”

Lucy raises her brow and looks back and forth between the two of them. “That what?”

Rufus and Jiya share a look, and giggle.

“You know,” Lucy says. “Thank you for the offer, but I really do prefer to stay here with Flynn. Plus… it seems that this Christmas might be important to you two, so… it’s ok. But I appreciate the invitation.”

“Last year’s Christmas was weird with Flynn, wasn’t it?” Rufus reminisces. “Remember how he wanted to hire a contractor to put in a fireplace so that he could burn some Christmas log all day long? Then how he got upset when we voted to watch It’s a Wonderful Life? What kind of psychopath doesn’t like watching It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve?”

“He and Lorena would watch that movie after Iris fell asleep on Christmas Eve,” Lucy says quietly. It hurts hearing Rufus say that about Flynn, especially after everything the two of them have gone through to earn each other’s trust. 

Rufus doesn’t say anything. He looks at Jiya, who tilts her head, trying to tell him to say something apologetic since it looks like Lucy is about to cry.

“You know I don’t hate the guy, right?” Rufus says. “I know how much Flynn means to you, Lucy. And I… I didn’t mean to upset you by saying that.” Rufus pulls Lucy into a hug, and she hugs him back. “Just… don’t let him burn a log inside the bunker while we’re gone, ok?”

Lucy laughs, and wipes away a tear with the back of her hand.

Rufus steps out of their embrace, and gives Lucy an apologetic smile. “I know it sucks being in this bunker, and on-call when Rittenhouse jumps, but uh… promise me you won’t just sit around and ignore the holiday all together, ok? You and Flynn need to allow some joy into your lives.”

“We don’t even know where the tree is to decorate this year,” Lucy says. “And if I had known Denise was going to arrange this for everyone, I would’ve asked her if she could take me out to get Flynn a gift for Christmas.”

“You could always use the construction paper I have in my arts and crafts bin to make a tree, and tape it to the wall,” Jiya suggests. “I know it’s not all green paper, but it could be cute with all the colors of the rainbow.”

“I think Wyatt still has that Bowie knife that he brought back from the Alamo. It’s just collecting dust under his bed,” Rufus says. “Might be better appreciated by Flynn, to be honest. The guy has more historical fluency than Wyatt could ever hope to feign.”

Lucy smiles, appreciating that her friends want her to find a way to enjoy the holiday while stuck alone in this bunker with the team’s Most Unwanted.

“I’ll invite her, mom,” Wyatt says into the phone’s mouthpiece. “I really want her to meet you, and get to know the family, but I don’t know… maybe she’s still afraid that me and Jess might work out sometime, and-” Wyatt pauses as his mom says something on the other end of the call.

Flynn enters the common area wearing black sweatpants, and a fitted black Under Armour mock sleeveless tank. He eyes Wyatt as he finishes wrapping his hands and wrists with black cotton hand wrap. He goes over to the pinball machine, and moves it a few feet to the side – towards the TV – to give him better access to the teardrop punching bag hanging from the ceiling. He warms up with a few soft punches, then drums both hands against the bag with speed and precision.

“I know what I said, Mom,” Wyatt says into the phone. “I think she feels an obligation to not leave this other guy alone during the holidays, and frankly, I don’t think he even wants her around.”

Flynn drives a hard left uppercut into the speed bag, and then a hard right hook into its side. For two years, he’s dealt with Wyatt’s snide remarks about him, and his jealous assumptions. For two years, Flynn has kept his mouth shut as much as possible when Wyatt makes such asinine remarks. If it weren’t for Lucy, Flynn would have broken out of this bunker two years ago, and never looked back. He would have found another way to fight Rittenhouse without sticking around here to endure everyone’s mistrust, disrespect, and insults.

Most of the team has warmed up to him, but they still prefer to leave him alone unless it seems socially acceptable to engage him in friendly, cordial conversation.

Then there’s Wyatt.

The two of them don’t talk, not unless they have to work together on a mission. In that case, the two of them have developed their own language, and can get the job done with little to no words spoken between them at all.

It doesn’t help that he and Lucy have grown close, which is something that only sets Wyatt’s jealousy on fire. Flynn also knows that the guy hates that he gave Lucy a ring for her birthday this year, and that she wears it, and uses it as their fake wedding ring on every mission. And he probably made things worse when he pulled Lucy out of the path of Wyatt’s lips earlier today, so there’s that.

He beats his fists fast against the punching bag again, trying to drown out Wyatt’s voice.

“Flynn?”

Jiya stands next to him as he stops the bag from swinging so it doesn’t hit her.

“Yeah?”

“I know you’ve piloted the Lifeboat a few times already, but before Rufus and I leave, do you need me to go over anything with you just in case you and Lucy have to go after them?” Jiya smiles up at him. “I could set the Lifeboat on simulation mode, and you could practice while we’re still here. You know? In case you have any questions. And we don’t want you trying out the auto-pilot without one of us with you, so-”

“When are you leaving?”

“Just as soon as Rufus speaks to his mom to let her know we’re coming.”

“You and Rufus spending the holiday together at his mom’s?” He grins. “So, how soon until he proposes?” He takes a few more soft hits on the punching bag.

“Propose?” Jiya runs her hand through her hair. “Um… we’ve only talked about what we might do if we ever take down Rittenhouse, but uh… as far as I know, no one is proposing anytime soon.” She looks at him incredulously.

“That’s what Lorena told her mom the night before I popped the question,” Flynn says with a wink.

Jiya watches as he gently drums his fists against the punching bag. “Lucy’s having a hard time this year, you know?”

Flynn stops, and puts his hands on his hips. He looks at Jiya, expecting elaboration.

“She said something about how she would’ve gotten you a gift if she knew it’d just be you guys here this year, and… there’ve been tears.” Jiya pauses, and speaks quietly. “She thinks you’ll feel bad because she didn’t get you anything for Christmas.”

“You didn’t tell her that I got her something, did you?”

“Of course not.” Jiya smiles with a wink. “Oh! Shh! She just walked in.” Jiya takes a couple steps back and raises her voice to ask again, “Do you need me to go over anything with you just in case you and Lucy have to go after them?”

Flynn huffs, and smiles as he repositions himself in the proper stance to continue his workout. He glances back at Lucy as she sits down on the couch behind him with a magazine in her hand. He looks back at Jiya, and tells her, “I have a pretty good memory, but thank you for the offer.” He holds his fists up just below chin level, and restarts his workout.

Jiya glances behind him, and catches Lucy watching him.

They make eye contact, and Lucy raises her magazine up to cover her face.

Jiya rolls her eyes, and walks towards Rufus who is carrying both of their duffle bags.

Rufus and Jiya are gone, having left the bunker with Connor thirty minutes ago to head to the airport. They were all laughter and smiles, hugging everyone, and wishing them all a ‘Merry Christmas’ as they made their way out of the bunker.

Flynn sits down on the bench press, and unwraps his hands. Sweat drips from his hair and forehead onto the concrete floor below. Jiya and Rufus didn’t give him a hug before leaving, and he didn’t expect them to, they both had only waved to him as they disappeared down the corridor towards the exit.

He bundles the cotton wraps up in a ball and tosses them into the corner then lays flat on the bench with his feet flat on the ground. He’s added no extra weights to the bar, so that he can properly warm up.

“Last chance to ditch the bunker’s resident terrorist, and join me and my family for Christmas,” Wyatt says as he, Lucy, and Denise enter the common area. “My mom really would love to meet you, Lucy. It might even break her heart when you don’t show up with me.”

Lucy walks past the common area and glances at Flynn. They make eye contact before he tilts his head back, stretches his arms out to his side, and brings his hands up to the bar, wide to work on his pectoral muscles.

“Wyatt, again, I appreciate the invitation, but I really do want to have a quiet Christmas here in the bunker.” She forces a smile. “Besides, I volunteered to stay behind. So, uh… maybe next year things will be different.”

Denise gives Lucy a sympathetic look as she touches Wyatt’s arm. “Come on, Wyatt,” she says. “Your flight takes off in two hours, and I have no idea what traffic is like heading to the airport on Christmas Eve.”

Wyatt looks at Lucy, and shakes his head. Then he wraps his arms around her, and kisses her cheek. “If Flynn tries anything, think you can knock him out with that right hook I taught you? Break his nose?”

“Probably not,” Lucy answers.

Behind her, Lucy thinks she hears Flynn snort.

She smiles to herself, knowing that once Wyatt leaves, Flynn will have something to say about that.

“Look, Wyatt… go have a wonderful holiday with your family, ok?”

“Ok,” Wyatt says. “Merry Christmas, Luce.” He kisses her on the cheek again, and then leaves with Denise.

Lucy closes the heavy door behind them, leans against it, and imitates Wyatt by saying in a mocking, whiny voice, “Merry Christmas, Luce.” Then she groans loudly in frustration.

“Could you even reach my nose if you tried to punch me in the face?” Flynn calls out from the common area.

Lucy smiles, and rolls her eyes.

She makes her way to Flynn and looks down at him with her arms folded across her chest. “I’m pretty sure I could punch your nose if I had to,” she says with a smile. “Need me to spot you…?” She looks at him quizzically. “Just the bar?”

“Oh, come on, Lucy… you’ve watched me work out before. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” He winks.

“Right,” she says. “It’s safer to warm up with the bar than to dive right in, and hurt yourself with what...?” She smiles. “Last time I asked, you were up to one-hundred thirty pounds. How much are you pressing now?”

“One seventy.”

She raises her brow, impressed. “I’m not sure I could safely spot you with that kind of weight.”

Flynn sits up, his legs on either side of the bench. “What time is it?” he asks.

“About four o’clock.”

“How about I uh… get cleaned up, and we figure out how to make this place a little more Christmas-y?”

“Are you suggesting we leave the bunker to go shopping for last-minute decorations on Christmas Eve?” Lucy rolls her eyes, and smiles. “What if Rittenhouse takes out the Mothership?”

“You don’t think I can rig something up to alert us while we’re out?”

“What if they spot us while we’re out? Denise doesn’t want us making public appearances.”

“We could disguise ourselves?”

“How?” Lucy laughs. “You’re so tall that you’d stick out like a sore thumb no matter where we’d go.”

“I worked as a covert operative before, Lucy.” He winks. “Trust me… I can disguise myself. And I can disguise you, too. If we want to have some fun with it.”

She narrows her eyes, and bites her lower lip. The mystery of what exactly he’d do so Rittenhouse can’t recognize them is too enticing to say ‘no’ to. “Ok, but if Denise has to send Wyatt to rescue us, I’ll never let you live that down.”

“You really think Wyatt, on his own, could rescue us?” He flashes her a smile. “He’d probably get captured too, and then it’d be up to us to figure out how to save all three of our asses.”

Lucy laughs, and shakes her head. “I prefer not to talk about Wyatt at all while he’s gone.”

Flynn nods his head; he couldn’t agree more.

He stands, and without another word makes his way down the hall to the bathroom. Lucy watches him, walking to the end of the hallway just in time to see him turn into the bathroom. He closes the door behind him. Lucy smiles, and shakes her head. The idiot forgot to grab a clean change of clothes and a towel. She starts towards hers and Flynn’s bunk, and just as she’s crossing in front of the bathroom door, it opens.

He stands in front of her in just his black boxer briefs, smiling sheepishly as he points towards their room. “I uh… I forgot clean clothes, and a towel.” He laughs quietly at himself.

“I was going to get them for you.”

“Oh?” He raises his brow. “Ok.” He steps back into the bathroom and closes the door.

Lucy’s eyes are wide and her heart threatens to pound its way right out of her chest. Does he… is he expecting her to walk into the bathroom as he’s showering to bring him a change of clothes and a towel? Lucy exhales, and resists the urge to fan herself as she steps into their room.

The two of them living together is a type of organized chaos.

The sheets and blanket are pulled down at the foot of the bottom bunk bed. His pillow is bunched up, and she never retrieved her own last night since she’s used to using his chest as a pillow anyway.

They’re definitely not a couple.

They’re just two good friends who share a room.

They’re friends who are roommates.

Roommates.

Some might tease that even when they’re not on missions, they pretend they’re married. Or they get teased that even though they’re not a couple, they’re still living together. But isn’t everyone in the bunker living with everyone else? Of course, not everyone crawls into bed at night with everyone else as Flynn and Lucy have done every night since Rufus’s life was saved on a return trip to 1888.

The book they’re reading together as they settle in at night, Les Misérables – in its original French – lies on the floor next to the bunk bed. Days and nights in the bunker can be long, especially when Rittenhouse is quiet for long periods of time as they’ve been since Thanksgiving, so having a really long book to read is useful in passing the time. Plus, she really enjoys hearing Flynn read aloud in French. She’s no linguistic expert or anything, but she’s certain she detects his Croatian accent when he speaks the language, and there’s something so charming, and sexy about the way…

She shakes her head, pushing that thought from her mind.

Just as she had to keep pushing thoughts about the almost-kiss between them on the observation deck of the South Tower.

At least she had research to keep her occupied when they got back last night. Well, at least up until it was time for her and Flynn to spend their first night in the bunk bed.

Nothing in 1993 changed after they left. There was never any terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, not until September 11^th, 2001. And even that event didn’t change except for the fact that it was slightly more chaotic for people to use the stairwell since the step lights weren’t installed as a safety enhancement since there was never an attack on the complex in 1993.

The death toll on 9/11 increased by eleven, but Lucy has no way of knowing if any of the additional eleven lives have any ties to Rittenhouse because she has no official list of casualties from the original timeline. Rittenhouse accomplished something by preventing the 1993 attack, but the implications have yet to be known.

Lucy kneels at the side of the bunk bed, and pulls out their under-the-bed storage container, and rummages through their clothes.

When she first moved into his room last year, they had ‘his’ and ‘hers’ storage bins – there are two under here, after all – but as she grew more comfortable using his soft t-shirts as pajamas, or more comfortable wearing his warm turtleneck sweaters, their ‘his’ and ‘hers’ bins meshed into two messy ‘theirs’ bins. She takes out Flynn’s favourite grey t-shirt which always reminds her of the first morning she woke up in his bed. She smiles remembering how he had told her; you were a gentle and responsive lover. His words alone suggested that he had, in fact, been thinking about her in that way. She finds a clean pair of his boxer briefs, then stands up and grabs his cargo pants from one of the wall cubbies.

She looks around their room.

Where are his socks?

She sets his clothes down on the bed, and goes to the worn-out armchair in the corner of the room, next to the old computer monitor – which he’s been tinkering around with to see if he can get it to work again. She picks up one of her lacy black bras, her satin robe, his jeans, and a couple of his t-shirts.

No socks.

She bolts out of the room, and hurries to the other end of the bunker where the laundry room is located. She checks the dryer, and sure enough. Yesterday’s load is still inside, and yes, his socks are there with her socks, their underwear, and her bras. She gathers the clothes in her arms and goes back to their room, dropping the clean clothes onto their unmade bed.

“Lucy?!”

She perks up when she hears Flynn call her name from the bathroom.

“Towel!”

“Oh, God!” Lucy spins around, looking for a towel, but doesn’t see one. “Hold on!” she shouts back at him. She runs out into the hallway, and opens the bathroom door, and quickly slams it shut after seeing Flynn standing outside the shower wall – dripping wet, and naked.

She smiles wide, takes a deep breath to calm herself. Then cracks the door open again – this time without looking in – and tells him, “I can’t find a towel… hold on.”

Flynn stands in the middle of the bathroom for a few minutes, waiting for Lucy as water drips off his body.

He smiles and rests his hands on his hips.

He laughs when the door cracks open, and Lucy’s arm extends against the wall. She’s waving a bath towel in the air like she’s waving a white surrender flag. He goes to the door and opens it a little further, making sure he keeps himself concealed behind it. He looks at her. “You ok? You seem… flustered.”

He wraps the towel around his waist, and steps out into the hallway.

Lucy looks up at him and smiles.

“I’m good. I just uh…” Her eyes quickly scan his chest. It’s not that she’s never seen him shirtless before, but… she gently bites her bottom lip. “I think we should tidy up our room.”

“Remember when you first moved in with me, how hard we both tried to prove to the other that we were neat freaks?”

Lucy laughs. “Yeah, that was…”

“Awkward?”

“Yeah.”

Lucy wraps her arm around his waist, and then upon realizing what she’s done – since he’s practically naked, she quickly withdraws.

Flynn stops and looks at her. “That’s a first.”

“What is?”

“Withdrawing from me like that.” He smiles. “Usually, you tug me towards you until I wrap my arm across your shoulders.”

“Well, um… we’re not on a mission, so…”

“I like when you’re like that with me, Lucy,” he says softly, taking advantage of the fact that they’re alone, and he can have this conversation with her. “What I’m saying is that if you want to be close to me, you don’t have to wait until we’re pretending that we’re married on a mission, or… in bed, trying to keep warm, or trying to get to sleep.”

“But you’re not dressed.”

“You know, when the AC broke last summer-”

“We weren’t naked, Flynn.”

“There’s a towel around my waist, so technically I’m not.” He winks at her.

Lucy looks at him, trying to figure out what exactly is going on. This is the first time they’ve been alone, together in the present. Without anyone else from the team nearby, or in another room close to theirs.

When they’ve been alone during missions, it’s been easy to ignore whatever this is.

And every time they’ve been alone – other than at night – they’ve been able to ignore these feelings that are now rushing to the fore.

Lucy lowers her eyes, and looks at him. His damp, grey chest hair. The scar on his abdomen. His scruff. The way his wet hair flops onto his forehead. His soft hazel-green eyes, staring back at her.

She knows she has nothing to be afraid of if she lets him know how she feels for him. But she is somewhat afraid of what everyone else in the bunker would think of her.

To this day, Wyatt still calls Flynn a terrorist. Rufus still makes sure he stands behind him when he’s drawn a gun. Jiya is friendly with him, but manages to keep him at arm’s length. Connor treats him as a work colleague, except for last summer when Croatia played the World Cup semi-finals against England. That was a riot. And Denise is cordial with Flynn. She’ll sometimes talk to him about her family, but the overall feel Lucy gets from Denise is that she views him as muscle – an asset to use when they need someone reliable to kill one of Rittenhouse’s many sleeper agents.

Lucy looks up into his eyes.

And even she continues to call him Flynn despite how close they’ve become, out of fear that calling him by his first name would make her more vulnerable to express how she feels for him. Or how calling him Garcia might get him to admit he has feelings for her too, and… that would just complicate everything.

And for whatever reason, he’s still standing – in a towel – with her, here in the hallway.

“I’ll just uh…” Lucy points down the hallway. “I’ll be in the common room.” She lowers her eyes, and walks away.

Flynn stands still and watches Lucy as she disappears around the corner.

He knows.

He’s not oblivious.

Lucy is falling, or has fallen, for him.

And he understands that she’s afraid to admit her feelings. That she’s afraid of what the others would think of her, of them. He fell in love with her a long time ago, but made a promise to himself that he would never act on his feelings unless Lucy felt the same way, and made her feelings known first.

They’re teammates.

Roommates.

They’ve slept in the same bed, and woken up in each other’s arms for two years now.

She’s comforted him when he’s woken up from nightmares by running her hand through his hair, and whispering to him that he’s safe. And he’s comforted her when all she can do is cry herself to sleep – hating that her own mother instructed Emma to go back in time to make it impossible to save her sister.

He steps into their room, and sees that Lucy has dumped their clean laundry onto the bottom bunk. He smiles. They have become so comfortable with each other, that they have no problem living in a mess. Granted, if they lived in a proper house, he’d clean up after himself all the time, and he suspects Lucy would be tidy too, but somehow this bunker doesn’t exactly inspire tidy living.

This bunker isn’t home.

It’s just a place they have to stay in between dangerous missions. They’re allowed to relax, and let things – like tidiness – slide, while in this bunker.

He unwraps the towel from around his waist, and folds it neatly. He sets it on the foot of the bed. He steps into his black boxer briefs, and puts on his cargo pants. He sees that Lucy set out his favourite grey t-shirt, so he slips into it. He rests his hands on his hips and looks at their room. Even Rufus and Jiya aren’t this messy. He and Lucy should be embarrassed. Of course, no one ever visits them. This room is by all intents and purposes, his and Lucy’s private sanctuary.

Except for yesterday, when Rufus helped him swap the queen-size for the bunk bed.

He sits down, being careful not to hit his head on the bottom of the top bunk. He folds their socks, their underwear, and her bras. Then he empties their under-the-bed storage containers, and begins organizing their clothes. Any clothes that he’s not sure are clean, he places inside their laundry hamper.

He takes Lucy’s pillow from the top bunk, and places it next to his on the bottom before making their bed. Then he straightens the items on their desk, and finds a proper bookmark to place inside Les Misérables.

He smiles, and runs his fingers over the book’s cover. He loves that they’re reading this book together because he gets to listen to Lucy read aloud in French, with her adorable American accent. Her French is much more advanced than his own, so she sometimes helps him with words he struggles to pronounce, or wrapping his head around the damn French literary tenses and moods – which aren’t needed in day-to-day conversation and communications, which is the extent of his grasp on the language.

He looks at their room.

For the first time in weeks, it is clean.

He smiles, and barefoot, he steps out into the hall and heads towards the common area.

He stops when he sees Lucy bent over, pulling a large, rectangular box down the other hallway.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“It’s uh…” Lucy blows a strand of loose hair from her face. She stands up straight. “Last year’s Christmas tree. I found it in the storage room.”

“Need help?”

“It’s heavy,” she warns.

Flynn squats down, and picks up the box, balancing it on his shoulder. “One seventy, remember?” he says, winking.

“Show off.” Lucy smiles, touching his lower back.

“Where are we putting it?”

“I was thinking to the right of the TV, between it and the pinball machine.”

He nods, and carries the box into the living area. He sets it down in front of the pinball machine. “Were the ornaments in storage?”

“I think so.” Lucy runs her hand through her hair. “I’ll go check, and you can get the tree out of the box?”

“No,” he says, smiling. “I’ll just stand the box up straight, and we can use Scotch tape to pin the ornaments to it.” He winks at her.

“I roll my eyes at you more than I should, you know?”

“I know.”

Flynn looks around for his pocket knife – which was the gift Lucy gave him last year for Christmas. It’s on the kitchen counter. He picks it up, and reads what she had inscribed onto it: I’d like to get to know you, Christmas 2017. Love, Lucy.

Her name is in a beautiful script font.

He cuts the tape on the box, and sets the pocket knife down.

He’ll have to move the record player someplace else before setting up the tree.

“I found some ornaments,” Lucy says as she sits down on the couch. “Looks like some of them got squashed since last year.” She looks up as Flynn lifts the record player stand, and moves it to the other side of the TV. “Think there are any Christmas albums we could listen to?” she asks.

“Feel free to look while I get the tree set up.”

“Oh!” Lucy exclaims.

Flynn looks at her. “What?”

“My favourite ornament survived.” She holds up a figurine of Olympic gold medalist figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi.

“Yamaguchi?” he asks.

“I was nine years old when I watched her win the Olympics in Albertville. She’s the reason I begged my mom to let me take figure skating lessons.”

“You figure skate?”

“Not well, but as a ten-year-old kid, I thought I was on my way to the Olympics.” Lucy stands up and goes to sit cross-legged on the floor, next to the record player stand. She flips through records that have probably been collecting dust in this missile silo since the 1950s. “When Amy was old enough, she took lessons, too. And every Christmas Eve, my mom would have her colleagues over for a holiday party. Dress code: formal. And Amy and I hated those parties so much, we’d sneak out, take a cab to downtown San Francisco, and go ice skating at the Holiday Ice Rink in Union Square. We’d be the only ones out there in formal dresses skating. It became a uh… one of our Christmas Eve traditions.”

“Did your mom know you two did that?”

“She never found out,” Lucy smiles with a twinkle in her eye.

She flips through the vinyl records, but doesn’t find any Christmas albums.

Flynn clears his throat, and says, “The uh… the year before, um… Lorena and I actually took Iris ice skating there on Christmas Eve. It was her first time skating, and she couldn’t stand up straight, so Lorena and I held onto her hands, and hobbled with her across the ice for a couple hours.” He places the final piece of the tree into place. “Both Lorena and I were bent over, aching backs, and this woman – dressed in a sparkling navy-blue evening gown, wearing a sporty white parka comes up to us, and tells Iris that it helps if she pretends to step on the bugs.”

Flynn looks at Lucy, and sees it in her eyes.

The woman who helped Iris was Amy.

“Small world, huh?” he says.

Lucy nods her head, and quickly wipes a tear from her eye. “Yeah, um… Amy’s favourite color was blue. Every shade of it. She actually borrowed that dress from me that year because she had splurged on purchasing equipment for her podcast, and couldn’t afford to buy anything new. And mom had this thing about how we couldn’t wear the same dress to her parties that we had worn before. Amy figured borrowing my dress was a loophole.” Lucy laughs.

“I don’t remember if I saw you that night,” he says.

“I was in a white chiffon and tulle floor-length, sleeveless gown, with beading embellishments on the décolletage,” she says, running her fingers across her collarbone. “And you’ll appreciate this,” Lucy smiles at him, “I wore a burgundy pashmina shawl to ‘keep warm.’”

“You do look… good in burgundy,” he says.

“You wear it quite… well yourself.”

Good… well…

Beautiful… handsome…

Why are these words so difficult to say aloud?

He looks at her in the same way he looked at her when they were alone in Chinatown last year – I don’t give a damn about Wyatt. That’s not why I’m here… Why are you here? – so, Lucy averts her eyes.

“Lucy…” Flynn steps towards her. “What are we doing?”

She knows what he’s asking, but still answers, “We’re about to decorate the Christmas tree.” She turns away from him, and digs inside the Christmas ornament box. She retrieves Rufus and Jiya’s Supernatural Castiel angel tree topper. She smiles at him and holds it up.

He watches her, wondering if they’ll ever do anything about their feelings for one another. The almost-kiss in 1993 didn’t even lead to a discussion about it having almost happened. Their flirting, cuddling at night, arms around each other… it’s obvious, but neither of them has the guts to do or say anything.

Lucy looks up at the tree, and even on her toes, she isn’t tall enough to place the Castiel angel tree topper.

“Here…” he says quietly. “Let me help.”

He places his hands on her waist, and lifts Lucy off her feet so she can place the angel. He sets her down, and wants more than anything to wrap his arms around her, rest his chin on her shoulder, and tell her how much he cares for her. To have her turn around in his arms, look into his eyes, and hear her say I love you.

He lets go of her waist, and she turns to face him.

Her hands rest on his chest, and she looks up into his eyes.

She smiles.

“Thank you,” she whispers as she lowers her hands to his waist.

“Looks like we don’t have to do any last-minute Christmas decoration shopping after all, huh?” he says quietly. He raises his hands, wanting to touch her. But he doesn’t. “I can throw something together for dinner, if you want to find a Christmas movie to watch, or music to listen to.”

Lucy nods her head. “Ok.”

Her hands remain at his waist.

She looks down, and closes her eyes.

He’s her best friend, and she has foolishly allowed herself to fall in love with him. And sometimes, she thinks that he loves her too, but then in moments like this. Like, right now. The magnetism between them is so strong, but… but he won’t touch her. He’ll hold her in his arms at night to keep her warm, to make her feel safe. He’ll hold her hand, or walk with her arm-in-arm on missions. He’ll comfort her when she cries.

But now, when she thinks she’s giving him every sign to let him know that it’s ok to show affection, he stands here, his hands at his sides, and does nothing.

Lucy clears her throat and steps away from him.

“Uh…” She wets her lips. “If Denise left a DVD of Christmas Vacation, we can watch that,” she says. “You know, keep it light-hearted… comedies?”

“Yeah,” Flynn runs his hand over his face. “That’s… that’s fine.”

Lucy makes her way back to the storage room, and Flynn goes to the MP3 player on one of the tables in the kitchen area. He scrolls through it, and finds a Christmas playlist, and cues it up.

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why

Santa Claus is comin’ to town

He goes to the kitchen and looks at what ingredients he has to work with to prepare a nice dinner for him and Lucy for their Christmas Eve. There are a couple of white onions on the counter, small shell pasta, spaghetti noodles, minced garlic, green lentils, tomato paste, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, a few packs of oven-roasted deli slices in the fridge, Kraft singles cheese, spinach, kale, arugula, iceberg lettuce, garbanzo beans, black beans, chili beans, red beans, frozen peas and corn in the freezer…

He squats down and gets the cutting board from underneath the sink.

“I found Christmas Vacation, but Denise also left Scrooged, Elf, Home Alone, and It’s a Wonderful Life,” Lucy says as she joins him in the kitchen. She watches as he cuts both ends off the white onion, and peels away its skin. “I know I’m a terrible cook, but… can I help?”

“Of course.” He smiles. “Do you want to chop the onion, or julienne the spinach?”

“How do you julienne spinach?”

Flynn goes to the refrigerator and takes out the plastic container of spinach. “I like to pick out the larger leaves first, and then stack the smaller ones on top.” He demonstrates. “Then once it’s full enough to roll, I hold it on the cutting board like this… take the knife, and cut the roll into thin slices.”

Lucy smiles at him, and uses her hip to nudge him aside. “How much do we need?”

“Not very much.”

“What are we making?”

“It’s technically called lasagna soup, but only because the recipe originally calls for lasagna noodles. But we don’t have any, so it’s now called small shell pasta soup.”

Lucy nods her head and watches as he places a pot on the stovetop.

He drizzles olive oil into it, and turns up the heat, and begins chopping the onion as Lucy slowly juliennes spinach next to him.

“My mom never took the time to teach me how to cook,” Lucy says as she keeps her eyes on the cutting board. “I always liked to taste test as she’d make dinner, or bake cookies, and she hated that. So, even if I showed an interest in what she was doing, I was told to leave the kitchen.”

“My mom has pictures of me sitting on the kitchen counter as a two- or three-year-old, with flour all over me, and cookie dough in my hair as I’m licking a spoon. When I got older, she told me that her first husband, Mark, never learned how to cook for himself, so she decided that she would raise her kids – regardless of gender – to be proficient in the kitchen.”

“I’d love to see that picture of you one day,” Lucy says, laughing. “Then I could show you pictures of me at debates, or school history project presentations, holding up my straight-A report cards, or my official Valedictorian photo.”

Flynn furrows his brow and looks at her. “Aw, c’mon, Lucy… there had to be more to your life than school. What did you do for fun when you weren’t studying?”

“I liked to read. When I was a kid, I read a couple years above my age. I uh… I liked to write my own stories. Before history dominated my educational background, I wrote silly stories about how my stuffed teddy bear came to life when I was sleeping, and what wacky adventures he’d go on while I was asleep.” Lucy laughs. “Back then, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I wanted to tell the stories that I made up in my head as I laid in bed, daydreaming as I fell asleep.”

“It’s never too late to do that, you know?”

“What? Become a novelist?” She stops cutting the spinach and turns to him.

“Or write children’s books about a teddy bear that comes to life at night,” he says, smiling at her. “I know a book like that is something Iris would have loved to have me read to her at night.”

Lucy watches Flynn as he chops the onion with the chef’s knife. He doesn’t speak about Iris very much, and when he does it’s always in the privacy of their room. And it’s usually him thinking out loud about the ‘what ifs’ if Rittenhouse hadn’t murdered his little girl.

Lucy sets her knife down, and rubs her hand on his back.

“Did Iris have a teddy bear?” she asks.

“She wanted to work at a zoo when she grew up, so she had teddy bears, stuffed whales, owls, dogs, cats, birds, lizards, snakes, horses, dolphins, rats, monkeys, elephants, and uh Karl got her Eeyore one year for her birthday. She promptly named it after him, and he spent a full hour arguing with her that he was not like Eeyore, and Iris insisted that he was a grump who needed many, many hugs.”

“He doesn’t seem like a hugger,” Lucy says.

“He wasn’t, and Iris knew it, so she hugged him all the time anyway.” Flynn smiles. “Can you measure out two tablespoons of tomato paste, please?”

She nods her head, and finds the tablespoon. “Do you know what happened to Karl after you were arrested?” She hands him one tablespoon, he drops it into the pot, and hands it back to her. She fills it again.

“I don’t know,” he says, taking the second tablespoon of tomato paste from her, adding it to the mixture. He sprinkles in basil and oregano, then dumps in a spoonful of garlic. He uses a wooden spoon to combine everything. “Last thing I heard about him was Emma telling me that he bailed on me. I imagine he’s off doing his own thing, maybe went back to the Middle East.”

“If we could find him, do you think he’d join the fight again?” she asks.

“Not sure,” he answers. “Karl hated time travel, and I think he only helped me because, well… first and foremost, we’re like brothers, but also because…”

“Because?”

“He’s a sucker for lost causes.” Flynn forces a smile and looks at the large can of crushed tomatoes. “Can you open that? The can opener is in the drawer to my left.”

She nods, and retrieves the can opener. “You know our fight with Rittenhouse isn’t a lost cause, right?” she asks quietly, pushing the open can towards him.

He pours the crushed tomatoes into the pot, and nods his head. “I guess I had hoped it’d be over by now,” he says quietly as he adds vegetable broth, and lentils.

“Me too.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “But you know what?”

“Hm?”

“One day, we will win.”

“You say that confidently.”

“Because I am determined to not live in a world controlled by my mother’s cult.”

Flynn opens a bag of small shell pasta, and pours one-third of the bag into the pot. “Got any new ideas how to defeat them?”

“Not yet, but… I have faith in us,” she says, touching his lower back. “Faith that one day, you and I will figure it out.” She gives him a soft smile, then takes a deep breath. Her eyes fall on the julienned spinach which still sits on the cutting board. “When is that supposed to go in the soup?”

“Once the pasta is al dente,” he answers. “It’s just supposed to wilt a bit in the heat before serving.”

“So… dinner’s almost ready?”

“Yeah.”

“That seemed really easy for a Christmas Eve dinner.” She reaches in front of him to get two soup bowls from the shelf. “Sit at the table, or cozy up on the couch to watch a movie while we eat?”

“Couch,” he answers. “And then after we eat, we can finish decorating the tree.” He smiles. “Which movie did you want to watch first?”

“Historically, on Christmas Eve, Amy and I would watch Christmas Vacation first, then we’d try to watch other movies during my mom’s party before we’d give up and go ice skating.”

“Go get the movie started, and I’ll bring dinner to you.”

Lucy smiles.

She puts in the DVD of Christmas Vacation, and then runs down the hallway back to hers and Flynn’s room. She walks in and stops in her tracks.

He cleaned.

Like, put clean clothes away, straightened the books and papers on their desk, and put bottles of lotion, hairbrushes, combs, and his electric razor back into their proper cubbies, and he made their bed – clean.

It’s a pleasant surprise that brings a smile to her face.

She picks up a folded blanket and takes it with her back to the common area.

Flynn is making his way to the couch with two bowls of soup. He sets them on the coffee table and sits down. Lucy joins him, and drapes the blanket over both their legs. She holds her bowl of soup with both hands, and inhales its warm steam. It smells delicious.

“This part where Clark drives underneath the truck with the tree trunks,” Flynn points at the TV. “That… it’s impossible.”

“It’s movie magic, Garcia,” she says teasingly.

He turns his head to look at her.

That’s the first time she’s called him by his first name.

He smiles as she looks at him.

“What?” she asks, as she takes her first taste of the soup. Her eyes light up as she swallows. “Oh, my God! This is really good.”

“I like hearing you say my name,” he says softly. “Thank you.”

“I mean…” She looks into her soup bowl, and pushes the shell pasta around with her spoon. “It’s just a name… no big deal.”

He places his fingertips under her chin, and lifts her face until he’s looking into her eyes. “It means a lot to me, Lucy.”

“It’s just a name,” she murmurs as she looks back down at her soup. His appreciation of her calling him Garcia has made her feel shy.

Garcia smiles as he watches Lucy poke her soup around with her spoon. He leans back against the couch, and focuses on the TV.

They finish their meal in silence – broken only by shared laughter as they watch the crazy shenanigans of Clark W. Griswold, Jr.

Lucy leans forward and places her empty bowl on the table in front of them. Then she takes Garcia’s and does the same. She looks at him, and he looks at her. She raises her brow. He smiles, and tilts his head to the side to answer her unspoken question. Without a word spoken between them, Lucy curls up against him with her arm draped over his waist. He adjusts their blanket, and places his arm across her shoulders.

“You know that metal plate in my head?”

“How could I forget?”

“I had to have it replaced because every time Catherine revved up the microwave… I’d piss my pants and forget who I was for a half-hour or so.”

Lucy and Garcia quietly laugh as Eddie talks his way out of using a uber-lubricated saucer-sled down a snowy hill – which in a few seconds will send Clark down the hill, through the woods, and into on-coming traffic.

“Have you ever been sledding?” Lucy asks.

“A long time ago,” Garcia answers. “When I was a kid, when my family visited my grandmother in Mostar. We’d go to the Rujište ski resort a couple days before Christmas, and rent toboggans.” He smiles down at her. “My grandma was a lot like my dad. Quiet, reserved. But once I got her to go with me on that sled,” he laughs, “we couldn’t get her off the hill.”

“That’s hilarious. I mean… I’m imagining a little – or tall? – old lady running up a snowy hill, and laughing all the way to the bottom in her sled.”

“Not too far from the truth,” he affirms.

“I grew up in California with my mom, so the only time I had the opportunity to go sledding was when I worked at the University of Chicago’s history department. It was fun, but a little too cold for my tastes. Or maybe I was too old to really enjoy it, I don’t know.”

“If it was cold, and snowy here, I’d say we could sneak out of the bunker for a while and go sledding.”

“You know what we need to do?” Lucy says, sitting up, and slapping her hand on his knee. “We need to finish decorating the tree.”

Lucy stands and goes to the ornament box, and digs through to find ornaments that haven’t broken.

“I’ll go find the Christmas lights,” he says. “And hopefully I won’t have to detangle them like Russ.”

She smiles as she watches Garcia head towards the storage room. Her eyes narrow. Is… is he… is he barefoot? What the heck? It’s comfortable in the bunker, but not warm enough to walk around on cold concrete, without something on your feet. She shakes her head. If only she could quickly run out and buy him a fun pair of socks as a Christmas present.

She walks to the tree and hangs a soccer ball ornament on one of its branches. Then she grins mischievously as she puts a French flag ornament next to it – her little way of joking with him about Croatia’s loss in the World Cup final against France last summer.

“What are you grinning about?” Garcia asks.

Lucy spins around with wide eyes. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh…” He looks at the ornaments and shakes his head.

“I’ll move it,” Lucy says, feeling bad now that he’s seen what she’s done.

“To the back of the tree?” he asks, chuckling at the way Lucy is scrambling to remove the French flag ornament. He works the Christmas lights out of a knot, keeping his eye on Lucy. She’s acting nervous, which means she’s about to get more clumsy than usual.

In a rush to get to the back of the tree, Lucy slips on the smooth concrete floor. She has to wrap both her arms on the tree to steady herself.

“I didn’t know you were a tree hugger, Lucy,” Garcia teases.

“I’m… I’m not,” she says. “My socks don’t have grips on them, and the floor is slippery.”

“You did figure skating; shouldn’t you be better on slippery surfaces than the rest of us?”

“It’s different. When you’re ice skating, you know to expect slippery. Not so much in socks.”

“You know… even though we’re stuck in the bunker for the holiday, we could still do our family Christmas Eve traditions.”

“Go to the ice rink in downtown San Francisco?” Lucy cocks her eyebrow in doubt.

“Well, no,” he answers. “But maybe after we get these lights on the tree, we could put on some Christmas music, turn off the lights, and pretend we’re ice skating right here. Move around the table and the couch.”

Lucy looks down at his bare feet. “You’d have to put on socks too, you know.”

He smiles. “I could, or… I shouldn’t so if you get a case of the slips again, I could catch you before you fall.”

“Ha, ha.” She runs her hand over the top of her head. “Ok, so that covers my family tradition, so… which tradition of yours would you like to do?”

“I don’t think it’s safe to go up on top of the bunker’s roof to watch for Santa, but maybe we could sit outside, start a little campfire, and just…” He shakes his head.

“And what?”

“Um.. The last Christmas I had with them, I…” He laughs. “I caught Iris trying to crawl out her bedroom window because she wanted to meet Santa Claus on the rooftop, and say hi to all his reindeer. She was a very determined little girl, and I couldn’t get her to go to bed until I promised her that I would sit on the roof with her, waiting for Santa.”

“She was four?”

“Yeah. Four years old.” He smiles. “I carried her in my arms out into the garage, and we used the ladder to climb up onto the roof. Lorena was not thrilled about this, but my little girl had me wrapped around her finger, and I couldn’t say no. We filled a basket with Christmas cookies, and carrots. We bundled up and I sat up there with her, talking about where she thought Santa was right now, and if Rudolf’s nose would be seen from thousands of miles away. Eventually, she fell asleep in my arms, and I carried her down the ladder, and tucked her into bed.”

“She must have been so sad when she found out she slept through Santa’s visit.”

“She wasn’t, actually. In the morning, she woke us up and sat between us. And as adult-like as she could, she explained that she understood that Santa doesn’t come until all little kids are fast asleep, and it was because she couldn’t stay awake that he was able to deliver all the presents to every little boy and girl.”

“She took credit for Santa?” Lucy smiles.

“She did.” He smiles back. “I don’t think that’s really a tradition, but that night with Iris asleep in my arms, up on our rooftop, I decided that I would do that every year until she decided she was too old to wait up for Santa, or too old to believe in him.” He shakes his head. “I wanted it to be a tradition.”

“Then, after we finish decorating the tree, and fake ice skate, we can sit outside and look for Santa’s sleigh.” She smiles at him, and touches his arm. “I’m also thinking that we could look around the bunker to find something to wrap to give each other as gifts. I feel awful that I didn’t get you anything.”

“I have the pleasure of your company,” he says.

“Something you can unwrap, Garcia.”

“Actually…” he starts draping the lights around the tree. “I got you something.”

“Oh, no…” Lucy shakes her head. “No, no, no… now I feel really bad that I didn’t get something for you.”

“It’s ok, Lucy.” He looks behind him, and Lucy is hurrying away.

She disappears down the hallway.

He looks on, shrugs his shoulders, and continues decorating the tree.

She’s gone for a significant amount of time. Long enough that Christmas Vacation is almost over. The police and SWAT officers are bursting into Clark Griswold’s house. Garcia rummages through the box of ornaments. Some are broken, some are not. He picks up the Kristi Yamaguchi figurine. He looks at it, and says a silent prayer that somehow, someway, they’ll be able to figure out how to save Amy. His eyes scan the tree, and he decides to place the ornament directly underneath the Castiel angel tree topper.

He finishes hanging an assortment of different ornaments, and throws tinsel onto the tree branches.

The Christmas lights are lit, and their colors sparkle – reflecting off the tinsel.

“I’d like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people, and I want him brought right here… with a big ribbon on his head! And I want to look him straight in the eye, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol?”

Garcia laughs out loud at Clark Griswold’s mad rant.

He goes to the light switch, and turns off the lights in the common room, so only the tree is lit. Then he starts moving the couch towards the wall, then the coffee table – to create an impromptu ‘ice’ skating rink.

“Garcia?”

He turns when he hears Lucy’s soft voice.

She’s watching him from the kitchen, and has a wrapped – albeit, in colored construction paper – present in her hand.

“I had to uh… steal from Jiya and Rufus in order to get you a present,” she says as she walks to the tree and places the gift beneath it.

He nods his head, holds up his finger, and says nothing as he heads towards the Lifeboat.

Lucy sits down on the couch which is now backed up against the wall. She smiles. Garcia was serious when he said they could pretend to ice skate in the bunker.

It’s that time, Christmas time is here
Everybody knows, there’s not a better time of year
Hear that sleigh, Santa’s on his way
Hip, hip hooray, for Christmas vacation

Gotta a ton of stuff to celebrate
(Jing-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-ling)
Now it’s getting closer, I can’t wait
(Jang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-lang)
Gonna make this holiday as perfect as can be
Just wait and see this Christmas vacation

Lucy stares at the Christmas lights twinkling on the tree.

She smiles.

Then she picks up the TV remote, and turns it off.

And apparently, the MP3 player is still playing soft Christmas music in the kitchen. She hadn’t even thought to turn it off before starting the movie.

The Carpenters Christmas Portrait album – her favourite.

Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you

Merry Christmas, darling
We’re apart, that’s true
But I can dream, and in my dreams
I’m Christmasing with you

Holidays are joyful
There’s always something new
But every day is a holiday
When I’m near to you

Garcia returns, and places a small wrapped box under the tree.

He turns around and smiles at her. “Shall we skate?” he asks, holding his hand out to her.

She stands, and takes his hand. But instead of ‘skating,’ Garcia pulls her into him, and places his free hand on her back. Lucy looks up at him, and sighs as she rests her hand on his shoulder.

Logs on the fire, fill me with desire
To see you and to say
That I wish you merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I’ve just one wish
One this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you

“This isn’t really ice skating, you know,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

“I know…” he sighs, then says quietly, “I’d like to do this with you every Christmas Eve.”

She smiles before resting her head on his chest. “I like this Christmas better than last year,” she tells him. “You… me… alone in the bunker.”

“Me too, draga…” he says quietly.

“What does that mean?” she asks. “Draga?”

“It’s uh… Croatian for sweetheart.”

“No one’s ever called me that before,” she says.

“Probably because it’s Croatian,” he says, hoping to shrug it off. He didn’t mean to call her that, it just slipped out.

She shakes her head, and looks up at him. “I’ve been called baby, babe, babydoll, honey, baby cakes, Luce, and dollface before… and I’ve hated all of those nicknames.”

“I called you honey once,” he reminds her.

“That doesn’t count because you were pretending to be a bastard when you kidnapped me, and took me to Chicago.” She smiles. “Actually… that was the first time we kinda pretended to be married.”

“The second time was in Salem,” he says. “Can you imagine what Rufus was thinking then?”

“He told me later that he had been trying not to laugh at us.”

“Mr. I-knew-living-with-Flynn-was-gonna-suck, who was quite adamant about not trusting me, or liking me being part of the team, was already laughing and having fun so soon on that trip?” Garcia laughs.

“You weren’t wrong when you said you’re more fun on these missions than… well, you know.” Lucy smiles up at him. “Because you are.” Garcia says nothing, but gives her an appreciative smile. “I uh… before I… As a historian, it was always fascinating for me to travel back in time. To see how people really lived, or how historical events actually happened. But I hated when I’d receive the call from Mason Industries that you had taken out the Mothership. I could do the job asked of me, but I didn’t want to be there.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“I do, and I don’t,” she answers. “I do in the sense that every time we go after Rittenhouse, I’m afraid of what history will change, and the effect it will have on our present.” She looks up into his eyes. “I don’t feel that way anymore because I…” She shakes her head, and looks down. “I look forward to teaming up with you when the team splits up.”

“You mean you like pretending we’re married?”

Lucy drums her fingers lightly on his shoulder, and looks at the ring she wears. “I like that you got me a ring to wear so that we don’t have to keep explaining to everyone who asks that I was a stupid, forgetful woman who misplaced her wedding ring.”

“You know, you don’t have to wear it when we’re not on missions.”

“I like wearing it,” she tells him. “I’m sure you knew from the journal that I like white opal.”

“You didn’t write anything about it in the journal,” he says. “I actually considered it because ancient Greeks believed that opal offered its wearer foresight. A way to look into the future. You know? Because in a way, I know things – or I used to know things – about your future, and I don’t know… maybe the opal was representative of me.” He huffs quietly, shaking his head. “I know that wasn’t obvious when I gave it to you on your birthday, but now you know.”

Lucy looks into his eyes, and smiles. She rests her head against his chest, and sighs contentedly.

I’m dreaming tonight of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it’s a long road back
I promise you

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please, have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

Garcia pulls back, sliding his hand to her lower back. Then he lifts his left hand to spin Lucy in time with the music. She smiles at him as he brings his hand back to rest on her shoulder blade.

“You’ve spun us underneath a mistletoe,” she says quietly.

He looks up, and sure enough. They’re slow dancing underneath one of Jiya’s many mistletoes. He looks down at Lucy, and his eyes search her face. Does she want him to kiss her? Should he kiss her?

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Garcia feels Lucy’s thumb gently massaging his arm, and he senses that she’s thinking of stepping out of his arms. Does she regret mentioning the mistletoe above them? Has he waited too long to do anything since she’s mentioned that they’re under it?

“Lucy… draga…” he whispers.

She wets her lips and looks into his eyes, then quickly lowers them – gazing at his lips before looking down at the floor. She wants him to kiss her, but she’s not sure that he will. His hand cups her face, and his thumb gently caresses her cheek. She looks up into his eyes again, and she sees it. He wants to kiss her. She trembles as she takes a breath. He lowers his face towards hers, and she closes her eyes.

Waiting.

Anticipating.

And then… his warm breath is on her lips, and…

Sleigh bells ring!
Are you listening
In the lane
Snow is glistening
A beautiful sight
We’re happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland

Then the upbeat, joyous Medley: Winter Wonderland/Silver Bells/White Christmas track of the Carpenter’s album snaps them out of the spell they cast upon themselves.

The moment to share a first kiss is gone.

Lucy laughs nervously as she steps out of his arms.

Garcia walks to the MP3 player and turns down the volume.

“So, uh… do you want to open presents tonight, or wait until tomorrow?” he asks.

“Um… up to you.”

“My family would plan on opening one present each on Christmas Eve, but we’d get excited about it, and end up opening all of them before going to bed – if we went to bed.” He laughs as he walks to the tree. He bends over and picks up the small wrapped box, and the hastily wrapped – and oddly-shaped – gift she wrapped for him in colored construction paper.

Lucy follows him, wondering if he’s bought her a necklace to match the ring that he got her for her birthday. Jewelry isn’t really something you give to someone who is just your friend, but with them… things are different. He holds the gift out to her, and she takes it.

He sits next to her on the couch as she looks at how well he wrapped the present. Perfect folds and creases. He used double-sided tape so that there’s no trace of it on the burgundy wrapping paper. And he’s curled white ribbon and affixed it to a tag with her name on it.

“It’s so well wrapped, that I’d feel bad for tearing it apart,” she says with a smile.

She takes her time opening the gift, and finds a black velvet jewelry box. “Garcia…” She looks at him, sensing that he’s spent a good amount of money on her, while all she did was steal something from Jiya and Rufus’s room.

“Open it,” he says.

She slowly opens the box, and gasps when she sees what’s inside. “Oh, my God… Garcia…” Her eyes fill with tears as she lifts the golden chain necklace, and locket that she gave to Fei last year when they went to bring Jiya home from 1888. “How did…?” A tear falls down her cheek as she looks into his eyes.

“I have my ways, Lucy,” he tells her, smiling. “It wasn’t easy to track down, but ever since you gave it away, I’ve seen you reach for your neck, wanting to touch it.”

Lucy clutches the necklace in her hand, and leans forward.

She gives Garcia a kiss on the cheek.

He wipes a tear from her face, and watches as she stands up.

“Thank you,” she says. She’s beaming. “I’m gonna…” She points towards the hallway. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “Don’t open your present without me, ok?”

He nods his head and watches her run to the hallway – disappearing out of sight.

He looks at the construction paper-wrapped gift in his hand, and holds it up to his ear as he shakes it. He didn’t really think he’d hear anything inside because the gift itself is soft to the touch. But still, traditions die hard, and as a kid he used to shake every present under the Christmas tree until his mom or dad told him to stop.

Lucy comes back into the room, and is pulling her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head.

She sits down, now wearing the locket around her neck.

“I put Amy’s picture back in it,” she says as she opens the locket to show him. “You have no idea how much this means to me,” she says, leaning towards him to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.” She rests her hand on his leg. “And forgive my gift for being the exact opposite of sentimental.” She gestures with her eyes at the gift in his hand to let him know he can open it.

He smiles at her, and his eyes sparkle with excitement. “I love the color construction paper,” he says as he carefully unwraps the present. “The red, the green, the-”

“Oh, just rip it open, Garcia!”

He laughs, and tears into it.

“What the?!” He starts laughing immediately as he holds up a pair of Snoopy and Woodstock slipper socks that depicts the cartoon characters sledding off of Snoopy’s dog house, saying ‘WHEE!’ Garcia shakes his head and lifts one foot onto his knee, and puts on one sock. Then he switches feet, and wears the other. “I love these!”

He stands up and walks in front of Lucy as if he’s a foot-slash-sock model.

Lucy laughs. “I had to improvise, and since you were running around here barefoot, I figured you might want warm socks, and… they’re slip-proof.”

“Why did Jiya have Snoopy socks in my size?” he asks. “I mean… I don’t think her feet are as large as mine.”

“She originally got them for Rufus, and then changed her mind and threw them in with her clothes.”

“I think I’ll wear them to bed too because my feet get really cold when they end up hanging over the end.”

“And it probably doesn’t help when I rub my cold feet against you to try to warm up.”

“I don’t mind it,” he says.

Lucy takes one step back when unexpectedly, Garcia is in front of her. His hands at her waist, and he’s looking down at her. She feels so tiny this close to him. Her hands rest against his chest, and she looks up at him.

“So… I was thinking…” His voice is low.

He gazes into her eyes, and Lucy’s sure that he is going to kiss her for real this time.

“Yeah…?” She’s breathless.

She looks up, but there’s no mistletoe above them. And unless she can figure out how to make it not obvious that she’s doing it, there’s no easy way to side-step them both a few feet to her left so they’ll be underneath a mistletoe.

“We have no firewood, so I can’t make a campfire outside…”

“Do you not want to go watch for Santa?” she asks coyly.

“I do… but we’ll have to keep each other warm.”

“I’m ok with that.” She smiles.

Garcia sits with his back against the outside wall of the bunker. He sighs, resting his chin on the top of Lucy’s head as he stares out into the darkness in front of them. Lucy quietly clears her throat and adjusts her position between his legs. It’s cold outside, not freezing, but they’re still bundled up in the warmest coats they could find.

The stars are obscured by the cloud cover that has been in the area all day.

They’re quiet, enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence.

Silence between them has always been comfortable.

Lucy rubs her hand across his arm, and sighs.

Garcia lifts his chin, and turns his head to look at her. Her brow is furrowed, causing small wrinkles to appear on her forehead. He tightens his hold on her, and whispers, “I can hear you thinking.”

She shifts her position slightly to look up at him. She blinks, sighs, and rests the side of her face against his chest, curling her hands between their bodies to keep warm. “Do you want to have kids again?” she asks quietly.

He doesn’t answer right way.

The question is unexpected.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” he says. “It’s been four years since I lost Iris, and in those four years, I’ve wanted nothing more than to find a way to save her.” He pauses. “If you’re asking if Lorena and I had talked about having another kid, the answer is yes.”

Lucy gently bites her bottom lip. “I meant…” She lowers her voice, and squirms slightly in his embrace. “I meant if… if somehow we can’t figure out how to save them, would you want to have more kids with… someone else?”

He closes his eyes, and considers her question – considers her. Then he answers, “Yes.”

Lucy doesn’t say anything.

She sighs, closing her eyes.

“Do you want to have kids?” he asks.

“By age twelve, I had all three of them named, and I knew which universities they would attend,” Lucy answers with a soft laugh.

“What were their names?”

“Nora, Jack, and Lily,” she answers. “And Nora was going to go to Princeton. Jack was going to Duke. And Lily would attend La Sorbonne in Paris.” She smiles up at him. “Of course, my plan was to start having kids in my mid-twenties, so I’m about a decade behind now.”

“You just need to meet Mr. Right,” Garcia says.

“Right now, my choices are Wyatt, Connor, and…” Should she state the obvious? She smiles. “And… you.”

He laughs, and pulls her closer against him. “And where do I stand?”

Lucy touches the ring on her finger, and whispers, “I think you know.” She sits up straight, and turns to look at him. “Almost every day, for the last two years, we’ve risked our lives to fight Rittenhouse. We go on these missions, not knowing if everyone will make it back alive. And even if they don’t, we… we can go back and change things like we did with Rufus. And… this won’t last forever, and I’m afraid that when it ends that I’m going to lose you.” She looks into his eyes, and touches his jaw. “I don’t want that.”

“Lucy… we don’t know what will happen.”

“I broke you out of prison, and I know Denise says the NSA suspects the Iranians, but… what will you do when this is over? You can’t stay in the United States. You’re a fugitive. And the United States has an extradition agreement with Croatia, so you can’t go there.”

Garcia sees that this is upsetting her. And to tell the truth, he’s spent nights lying awake in bed next to her, wondering how he’ll say goodbye forever when the day comes that he will be taken back to prison. The last thing he wants to do is break her heart. He loves her too much to put her in a position where that could happen.

“You’re my best friend, Garcia,” she says. “And… and I love you.”

“You love me?” It’s impossible for him to rid the smile from his face.

“Of course, I do.” She looks at him in disbelief. “Did you really not know?”

“God, Lucy…” He cups her face in the palm of his hand. “I… it was in the journal, but… so many things in it changed after I stole the Mothership that I… I stopped believing it.” He shakes his head, then gazes into her eyes. “I thought that…” He trails off, lowering his head.

“You thought what?”

“That maybe I had done too much, or gone too far,” he says. “To a point where you’d never be able to look at me and see anything other than a… a terrorist, or a murderer.”

“You know I don’t see you as either of those things, Garcia.” She runs her hand through his hair. Wishing he could see himself through her eyes. A man who has done horrible things to stop Rittenhouse, but who has fought every day since joining her team in the bunker, to prove himself worthy of their trust – of her trust. She knows his regrets since the night he stole the Mothership in October 2016. She knows his struggle to forgive himself for what happened to his girls, and for what happened to Amy.

And in their quiet moments together, he has shown her the kind of man he is.

He’s without guile. Always speaking the truth, never dishonest with her or anyone else on the team. He’s dependable, faithful, and carries himself with confidence. His intelligence makes him even more attractive in Lucy’s eyes, as well as his dry sense of humor. And his domesticity… the way he’ll cook for the team, help with their laundry, and the way he makes her feel warm and protected when they lie in bed together at night. Or the way he treats her when they masquerade as husband and wife while on missions. There is almost nothing about him that is unattractive in her eyes. Except the times when he doubts that he is deserving of love, or talks about himself as a monster.

Garcia gently takes her wrist, and strokes its delicate skin with his thumb. He draws her hand to his lips, and kisses her knuckles.

“Garcia…”

“I love you, Lucy…” he murmurs. “I don’t know what this means for us, but-”

“Do we even have to say it?” she asks, trying not to laugh.

“Say what?”

“That we’re…” She wets her lips. “That we’re together.”

He looks at her with soft eyes. “I understand if this is something you don’t want the others to know about.”

She looks at him, shaking her head as she smiles. She rises onto her knees between his legs, and looks down at him as she holds his head with her hands. She bends down, and presses her lips against his forehead. “I think just about everyone already thinks that we’re a thing.” She giggles. “You saw the looks they shared with each other when you and Rufus were swapping the beds, right?”

He looks at her and wants to feign not having noticed, but he laughs instead. “Even Denise and Connor looked baffled,” he says.

“But Garcia…” Lucy smiles, and speaks quietly. “If we’re honest with ourselves… how long do you think we’ve actually been together?” She leans down and kisses his cheek. “Because looking back… I think that this thing with us began-”

“The night Connor and I went back to 1888 to save Rufus?”

Lucy nods her head.

Garcia lowers his head, thinking back to that night.

He had returned from 1888 with bloodshot eyes, a bloody nose, and a severe headache. He had stumbled out of the Lifeboat, and Lucy had been there to help him. She had held his arm over her shoulders and led him to the bunker’s medical bay. She hadn’t known if he had been shot on the rescue mission like he had been the first time they were in Chinatown, so she was careful as she helped remove his shirt to look him over.

He remembers being dizzy.

Very dizzy.

So dizzy that Lucy had to help him stand as he took a shower that night. How she had helped him into sweatpants, and a long-sleeve shirt. The way she had supported him as she helped him into his bed, and then… He had looked away as she began to undress even though she hadn’t asked him to do it.

When she crawled into bed beside him that night, he had argued with her that he would get up to go sleep in the armchair in the corner of his room. But she had insisted that he stay in bed beside her. And he hadn’t said anything when he heard her crying, or when he had felt her tears soak through his shirt, or when her arm had draped across his body, and held onto him tight.

After that night, they never slept without each other again.

Their friendship had become something else.

Both of them had realized how much the other meant to them.

They have been close ever since.

“I’m cold,” Lucy whispers.

“Why don’t we go inside, and I’ll uh… I’ll heat up some cinnamon apple cider, and-”

“We can watch another Christmas movie?” Lucy says, rubbing her nose against his.

“I’m thinking I can move the TV into our room, and we can curl up together under the blankets and watch It’s a Wonderful Life?”

Lucy’s breath catches.

She knows the last time he watched that movie was with Lorena the year before Rittenhouse murdered her and Iris. And she remembers how upset he had been last year on Christmas Eve when the team voted to watch the movie. So upset that he excused himself and retired to their room for the night to read. She looks up at the night sky. “Well… I’m not sure we’re out here late enough to spot Santa, and hot apple cider and a movie sounds warm, so…”

She stands, and offers her hands to help Garcia to his feet. Then they walk hand-in-hand back inside the bunker.

“Buffalo gals, can’t you come out tonight, can’t you come out tonight, can’t you come out tonight. Buffalo gals, can’t you come out tonight and dance by the light of the moon.” George and Mary sing together on the TV, which has been moved into Garcia and Lucy’s room.

The hot apple cider has been drunk, and the empty mugs have been placed on the floor beside the bunk bed. They talked about putting the bunk bed back into Jiya and Rufus’s room, but then decided that they really don’t mind sharing the smaller bed because it just gives them an excuse to cuddle close together. Even if that means his feet dangling over the edge, or either one of them almost falling onto the floor.

Maybe later they’ll ask Denise for a larger bed, but for now, this is fine.

Lucy and Garcia lie on their sides facing the TV.

His arm is across her waist.

“Hot dog!” George exclaims. “Just like the church choir.”

Lucy giggles softly, turning her head to look at Garcia. “I love that he exclaims ‘hot dog,’” she explains. Her smile disappears. He’s looking at her with tears welling in his eyes. “Garcia?” She turns around in his arms, and touches his face – worried that watching It’s a Wonderful Life has made him sad, thinking about Lorena and Iris.

“I’m ok,” he says.

“We don’t have to watch this if you don’t want.”

He shakes his head, and pulls her closer to him.

Lucy closes her eyes when his forehead touches hers, and she rests her hand on his chest.

“Garcia…?”

“Hm?”

She nuzzles up to him, and quietly asks, “Is it all right if I kiss you?”

He blinks his eyes.

He’s so accustomed to taking the lead in relationships, to… making the first move, that Lucy’s question has caught him off-guard. He runs his hand through her hair, and feels himself blush. He lowers his eyes, and smiles. Then he looks into her eyes, and answers with a quiet, “Of course.”

Lucy takes a deep breath, and gently bites her bottom lip.

Her fingertips brush across his lips as she holds his gaze. Then, she looks at his lips, leans towards him, and gently places her lips on his. Their eyes close as Lucy places small kisses on his upper lip.

His hand moves to her waist, and Lucy pulls back slightly to look at him.

To cup her hand on his jaw.

She kisses him again.

There’s no tongue in this kiss.

It’s a simple kiss. An exploration of how their minds and bodies react to something so simple, yet so meaningful between them.

Lucy’s thumb caresses over his stubble, and then she weaves her fingers into his hair.

Garcia pulls her closer to him, pressing his hand against her lower back. He lowers his head as their lips part, and she places a soft kiss on his closed eyelid.

She trembles as she rests her forehead against his, catching her breath.

Their first kiss took her breath away.

He pulls back and looks into her eyes, brushing his thumb against her cheekbone. He smiles at her as he holds onto the back of her head, and he kisses her again. His lips are careful with her, gentle as he kisses both her upper and lower lips. He wants her to know that he doesn’t want things to go too far tonight. That he wants to enjoy being with her without expectation to do anything more than this.

She parts her lips, and exhales. Smiling before gently caressing his lips with her tongue – welcoming a more passionate exploration of each other. He tilts his head to the side as his tongue enters her mouth. Without breaking away, he carefully rolls Lucy onto her back, and hovers above her.

And her heart is pounding in her chest as he pulls back, moving his fingertips to caress the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

“I love you, Lucy,” he murmurs, then lowers his mouth to hers again.

She runs her hand up his arm to his shoulder – holding firmly to the back of his neck.

He lowers his body onto her.

His chest against hers as their kiss deepens.

His tongue is soft, and the kiss is slow.

She lets out a soft moan, and turns her head to take a breath.

And his lips are at her jaw as his fingertips trail down her neck. Then he’s gentle – so gentle – as he kisses the long muscle of her neck.

She’s lightheaded.

Content, and at peace.

This is perfect.

“And to think…” she whispers. “We’re not even underneath a mistletoe.”

They share a laugh.

Then Garcia rolls back onto his side.

Lucy turns to face him.

He looks happy.

Relaxed.

“You make me happy, too,” she says.

The bunker’s smart phone buzzes on the desk across the room.

Lucy leans down and kisses Garcia’s cheek before crawling out of bed to see who is checking in on them. She stands up and walks across the room.

“What is it you want, Mary?” George asks on TV. “You want the moon? Just say the word, and I’ll throw a lasso around it, and pull it down. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary.”

Garcia looks at Lucy as she reads the text message that has been sent, and thinks of the first time they really connected. San Antonio, 1936.

I wished on the moon
For you…

He sighs.

Her birthday is a month from tonight, and though he loves it when she wears his t-shirts to bed, he also thinks she would enjoy having her own pajamas. Maybe he could find something warm, and in burgundy, for her. With soft fabric, which wouldn’t smell like himself when he holds her close.

Lucy runs her hand through her hair, and smiles at him as she walks back to bed. She crawls in next to him, and Garcia pulls their blanket up over her.

“Denise just checking in on us?” he asks.

“No, actually…” Lucy smiles. “It’s uh… Jiya just texted us to let us know that she’s just asked Rufus to marry her, and he said ‘yes.’”

“That sneaky little…” Garcia shakes his head, and laughs. “Before they left, she told me that no one was proposing anytime soon.”

Lucy sticks the tip of her tongue out between pressed lips as she types a response.

She hits send.

“Did you tell her about us?” Garcia asks.

“No. I uh… I actually have no idea how to tell everyone. Especially since it seems most of them-”

“Except Captain Sunshine-”

“already suspect that there is something going on between us.”

Garcia rests his hand on her, and gently strokes his thumb against her hip. “Can I… um… can I kiss you in front of them?” he asks. “Would you be comfortable with that?”

“Garcia, you idiot.” Lucy shakes her head and smiles at him. “We’re together now, so you can kiss me whenever you damn well please.”

“Will you still call me Garcia?”

“Do you want me to?” She pauses. “I ask only because you’ve worked so hard to make Flynn this dangerous and intimidating name. Thus, giving you the same reputation, which you use to keep everyone at arm’s length.”

“True,” he says. “You can still call me Flynn, and save Garcia for when we’re alone.” He kisses her lips. “Of course, if you slip and call me Garcia in front of the others, I won’t mind.”

Lucy smiles as she turns in his arms to face the TV. She closes her eyes when Garcia kisses the nape of her neck.

“It’s after midnight now,” he murmurs. “Merry Christmas, draga.”

“Merry Christmas, Garcia.”

He kisses her cheek, then rests his head next to hers on their pillow.

With a yawn, Lucy closes her eyes, and drifts to sleep.

Neither one of them knows how long it’ll be before the others return, but until then, they will enjoy spending this Christmas alone with each other.