Archive of Our Own ^beta

Robertson County, Tennessee, 1819

Betsy tensed, waiting for the next stab of the pin. Across the room the fire crackled merrily and her mother hummed as she darned the heel of Drewery’s stocking. Her father sat near the parlor door, rocking back and forth, forth and back, a wet raw growl escaping between his teeth.

The day had been a quiet one so far, filled with common work and common devotionals, small prayers she sent up every moment to God to deliver her from her torments. From the demons that plagued her home and her family. Betsy let her eyes drift closed, her hands stilling over the small sampler in her lap destined to become a piece of her trousseau, and sent up another silent plea. Dear Heavenly Father, please allow our family an evening of peace and—

A book dropped from the ceiling and flew toward her head, green cover flapping like a demented bat. She ducked, and her embroidery needle sank into the meat of her thumb. At least this was a needle she could see, she thought dully. Knowing where the pain came from this time made it slightly easier to bear.

Father roared, dropping from the chair to his knees. Mother’s humming died in her throat, leaving nothing but the sound of the crackling fire and a harsh, dry laugh that seemed to swell up from the shadowed corners of the room. Betsy clamped her lips tight as the scent of sassafras and ash filled the air.

“Luuuucy’s coming,” the hated, bodiless voice sang. “Lucy’s coming in a ball of fire, and death rides with her.” The laugh grew, reaching up to the ceiling and brushing along the finely wrought plaster. “Luuuuucy,” it called.

Betsy flicked a glance toward her mother. “Mother?”

“Lucy?” Her father stared at Mother in growing horror. “Lucy, what nonsense does the Witch speak this time?”

Mother’s shoulders shuddered and she lifted her head, the firelight glistening in the tracks of tears on her cheeks. “I know not, John. I swear to you by all that is holy, I know not.”

A deep knocking began to boom through the house. Father moaned and mother dropped her face into her hands. Betsy stood, waiting for the next blow. Normally the spirit confined its torments to herself and her father, but she would protect her mother as best she could from its evils.

The knocking cut off abruptly as their house slave Titus answered the door. Betsy turned, her mouth falling open in surprise. She heard murmuring from the hall, Titus perfectly differential as always, answered dismissively by a louder man. One that sounded accustomed to command, and to shouting across battlefields.

“Mother,” she hissed. “Father. We have guests.” She bent over to retrieve the book from the floor, noting that it was yet another prayer book she’d never before observed in the house. The cursed spirit seemed to have an endless supply of holy texts, a blasphemous mockery if she ever heard one. Betsy smoothed her skirts and turned toward the door, fixing a warm smile on her face.

Titus opened the door fully and bowed. “Master Bell, may I please present General Jackson.” A man stood behind Titus, frowning. He was younger than Father by a few decades, but his face was seamed by the elements, carved deep by concern and command. He bowed stiffly from the waist.

“Forgive the lateness of our arrival,” he said with as much formality as she would have wished for in the grandest of ballrooms, “but my horse threw a shoe on the road.”

Betsy curtsied deeply, noting that Mother was still blinking dumbly and Father’s hands trembled. It was up to her, then, to carry the honor of her house. She smiled again, doing her best to remember how to twinkle engagingly at a man though it had been a long while since she’d had to try. “Sir, for the Hero of New Orleans there is no such thing as an improper moment. My mother, father and I are delighted to welcome you to our home.” She gestured to Titus, who nodded and ducked back out the door. “Please, join us here in the family parlor while we await some proper refreshment. It is a cold night and you must have been on the road for hours.”

She held out her hand and he bowed over it, smiling. “Miss, I would be delighted to partake of your hospitality. I’m newly returned from Florida and I have missed the graces and pleasures of a proper Tennessee parlor.”

Father finally seemed to remember himself and he strode forward, extending his own hand in welcome. “It is a true honor to have you visit our humble home, General. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

General Andrew Jackson threw back his head and laughed, a merry lion’s roar that drove away the last of the spirit’s darkness. The room seemed to grow brighter and Mother began to breathe a bit more easily, the ghost of her former luminous smile stealing across her face. Hope welled up in Betsy’s breast. “Stories have reached me, even deep in Seminole territory, sir. Stories of your Bell Witch and it’s amusing tricks. I’m here to witness the marvel for myself.”

Walnut Creek, California, 2017

Denise’s phone buzzed at exactly 3:30am. Again.

Groaning, she slapped at it and contemplated, for the briefest of moments, ignoring it. Just rolling back over and nestling up against Michelle, enjoying a few more hours of child-free, conspiracy-free sleep. Which would be entirely irresponsible. Even if she knew why her phone was waking her up. Again.

Resolutely not swearing, because little jugs had big ears and tiny bladders, she slipped out from the warm covers and padded down to her home office. Maybe it was something different this morning. Maybe the Bunker’s motion activated cameras had picked up an invading force of Rittenhouse agents bent on destruction and world domination.

But she knew it would be Lucy.

It had been Lucy every night after her first in the Bunker. And when Denise powered on her laptop and entered six separate passwords and encryption protocols, it was Lucy again tonight. Lucy looking exhausted and vicious and empty. Lucy pummeling the bag with poorly wrapped wrists. Methodically working through every piece of equipment an active duty military base might need to stay in fighting shape. Incorrectly. And without a spotter in her zip code. Denise didn’t count, though she did stay up with Lucy every night until the girl went to bed.

It was strange thinking of Lucy Preston as a girl, when she’d been slightly older than Denise when they’d first met. She wondered if Flynn had the same problem.

Speaking of Flynn. Denise leaned forward, peering at the screen and wishing that those “Zoom! Enhance! Zoom again!” cameras on tv shows were real. But there was no mistaking the gaunt figure of Garcia Flynn lurking in the shadows of the doorway, eyes locked on Lucy as she beat whatever demons Rittenhouse had saddled her with into submission for the night.

Denise leaned back. This was the third time he’d shown up. Each time he’d stayed in the background, observing Lucy but never interacting. Much as she’d like to condemn him for it, Denise did the same thing so she didn’t have much of the high ground on that one.

Lucy either ignored him or was so wrapped up in her efforts to exhaust herself that she never even noticed he was there. Note, Denise tried to remind herself, fighting back a yawn, order Wyatt to give Lucy situational awareness training.

“It’s still creepy,” she muttered.

Then he moved.

“Damn it.” She leaned forward again. On the screen, Flynn’s mouth moved and Lucy jumped, whirling to face him, her fists up and her chest heaving. Flynn put up his hands. “Look at me,” scoffed Denise. “I’m just a harmless CIA trained assassin. No weapons. Not that I’d need them.”

Flynn said something else and this time Lucy crossed her arms over her chest, feet moving to a wider, more defensible stance that Denise approved of. So many people neglected their footwork. Flynn took a step closer. Lucy shook her head. Flynn rolled his eyes. Lucy tossed her ponytail and snapped something that Denise hoped was cutting. Hoped was enough to send Flynn packing.

Flynn put his hands on his hips and Denise sighed. Lucy would learn. Maybe Denise would throw in a few lessons of her own.

Now Flynn was stepping around Lucy, giving her plenty of space, and Lucy was circling him, her back to the camera. Crap. She only hand one in that room. Flynn rapped his knuckles against the bag, sending it swaying gently, and then gestured to Lucy’s abused hands. She shrugged. He grabbed a roll of tape out of his pocket and with quick, practiced movements and a few sharp flashes of teeth wrapped his own hands like a pro, twisting and turning so that Lucy could follow along.

Lucy’s shoulders slumped. Flynn tilted his head back, lips moving quickly and a mocking smile flashing across his face. Denise was sure it was a crack about “pretty hands” or maybe “pretty small hands”. Either way she half-hoped Lucy would take a swing at him. Even if such an action was on her list of things not to do to Flynn while he was in the Bunker.

Flynn turned his own back to the camera and the two of them appeared to be studying the bag, Flynn gesturing and Lucy throwing up her hands in what could only be frustration. Then Flynn threw a couple of quick jabs at the bag, slowly easing into a smooth series of combos that included some very pretty Muay Thai knee shots that Denise was itching to try herself. Flynn caught the bag, stilling it, before turning to Lucy and gesturing for her to try it.

Denise’s eyes grew heavy as she watched Flynn put Lucy through her paces. She reached for the fuzzy saffron and cinnamon colored blanket Michelle had left folded on the tiny loveseat in her office, where her wife loved to curl up with a book while she pounded out endless reports, content to enjoy each other’s quiet company. Flynn, she was forced to acknowledge, was a good teacher.

Rosy dawn slowly crept in through her heavy wooden blinds while Flynn led Lucy through a careful cooldown routine. He’d even gotten Lucy to laugh a time or two, something that Denise had been grateful to see. He was still a murdering son of a bitch who she didn’t trust as far as she could throw him, but he’d gotten Lucy to smile, so there was that. The two of them laughed at something and he pulled two bottles of water from god knows where, tossing one to Lucy. Maybe she and Denise would get some sleep tonight.

Michelle leaned in through the open door. “Lucy again?” She was holding two heavy, steaming mugs that they’d rescued from Goodwill when they’d first moved in together.

Denise sniffed the air appreciatively. “Is that coffee?”

Michelle bent down and gave her a swift kiss before handing Denise her favorite orange mug. “Coffee for me, extra strong marsala Chai for you.”

Denise took a long sip, reveling in the exact moment the caffeine hit her bloodstream. God she’d married well.

“So, Lucy again?”

“Yep.” She sighed and took another sip of tea, appreciating the heavy warmth and the pleasure of having the best wife on the planet. “But I think she may have turned a corner.”

San Francisco, California, 2017

Rufus stared at Flynn. Flynn turned a page in his book. And breathed. Breathed like a sneaky, breathing son of a bitch. Rufus narrowed his eyes.

Flynn turned another page.

Next to him, Jiya shifted and typed in another string of code, muttering about rubber ducks. Or rubber dicks. He hoped it was rubber ducks. They hadn’t had a lot of time together with the whole evil time traveling power hungry madmen trying to destroy history thing, and. Well. He really hoped it was rubber ducks. He knew where to buy rubber ducks.

Flynn was smirking now. Like a smirky, sneaky, breathing son of a bitch. Rufus snorted quietly.

“Rufus?” He jerked his head up and realized that Flynn was aiming that smirk straight at him. “Can I help you with something?” There were teeth in the smirk now, tiny flashes of white as his smirk grew into something bigger and even more punchable. How was that possible?

Rufus shrugged, because not punching Flynn without prior physical aggression was on a list Agent Christopher had given them a few days ago. “Nope.” He stretched out an arm, snagging it around Jiya’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “Nope, just sitting here with my best gal. While we have some downtime.” He aimed his own smile at Jiya and one of her eyebrows crept up. “Don’t you have a bunk of your own, Flynn? Somewhere you could have your own… downtime?”

Now both of Jiya’s eyebrows were climbing toward her hairline.

Flynn chuckled. “Ahh Rufus. I’ve spent more than enough time trapped in a small, concrete cell, thank you. I believe I’d enjoy some time in this larger, slightly better-appointed concrete cell.” He gestured suavely with his hand and his wrist in a way that Rufus knew he’d never be able to replicate. Something they probably taught in Smirky Sneaky Breathing Son of a Bitch Academy. Right after shooting people, but right before stealing your girl. “But please, don’t let me detain you if you and Jiya would prefer some… downtime. Elsewhere.”

Jiya huffed and slammed down the lid of her laptop, shrugging Rufus’ arm off her shoulders. She surged to her feet and grabbed her laptop bag. “Okay. Okay, that’s enough for me today. I’m out.”

“Jiya?” Rufus tried to follow her, stumbled, and crashed back down onto the couch. Flynn laughed harder and swung his long legs up onto the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle and settling back into the battered chair. It gently puffed a whisp of stuffing into the air.

“Oh nice,” Rufus groused. “Way to go. Now you’ve upset Jiya. Thanks.”

Flynn turned another page, his laugh dying down to a small, smug smile at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, Rufus. You don’t need my help with that.”

“Ugh!” Rufus shoved himself to his feet a bit more carefully this time and trudged after his girlfriend. Maybe he could put a rubber duck in the next supply order? Or some duck tape and itching powder for Flynn?

He strode through the kitchen, head full of Amazon Wish Lists and discrete torture methods when an arm shout out from one of the dark corridors and yanked him inside. “AAARGH?”

“Sssh,” hissed Lucy, a finger to her lips and dark shadows under her eyes.

“Sssh yourself!” Rufus put a hand to his chest. “You could have been anyone! You could have been Flynn in the library with a knife!”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “You were just sniping at Flynn in the common room.”

“Yes, and the man has evil ninja magic powers. He’s basically Queen Beryl. Or Sailor Galaxia.”

She squinted at him. “Those are not… those are not real people. Are those real people? In a timeline that you remember?”

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder and he felt her muscles tense, her hand shooting forward to grab the front of his shirt and shove him away from her. Rufus hit a giant, ominous looking steam pipe and ricocheted off, flying back towards Lucy. She ducked and pivoted and suddenly he was against the opposite wall, with her staring up at him, both of them breathing hard.

Rufus raised a hand. “Um?”

“Never mind.” Lucy squared her shoulders. “Look, I need your help.” She bit her lip and her eyes darted toward the hallway, but nobody came charging down it demanding to know when the Nazgul had broken in.

He brightened. “Sure!” Lucy had been a little… distant since she’d gotten back, and he was so happy she was finally asking for help. “What do you need? Some science? The world’s greatest grilled cheese?”

“I want to borrow the Lifeboat.” She gave him her best Professor look, the one that said that class participation was going to be worth at least half of his grade and she didn’t give a damn if that made him want to crawl into a tiny hole.

“Um.” He frowned. “Um? Um, I don’t think we can do that.” He waved his hands, part of his mind still trying to figure out how Flynn had done that thing with his wrists. “Do you mean borrow in such a way that the Lifeboat does not leave the Bunker and Agent Christopher doesn’t murder me and leave my body somewhere that even earthworms won’t be able to find it? Because I’m your friend, Lucy, and that I can totally help you with. Or, again, the offer for the world’s greatest grilled cheese is still on the table.”

“Look, Rufus.” Lucy squared her shoulders. “Look. I’ve been thinking about the way we handled Flynn. The way we’re handling Rittenhouse.” Her eyes flicked down for a moment, and then back up to him. “We’re not doing this the right way. We need to take the fight to them.”

“And can we take the fight to them with Agent Christopher’s full knowledge and approval? Because she scares me,” he held up two fingers and pinched them together, “just the tiniest bit. And I feel like she wouldn’t be down with you, um, ‘borrowing’ the Lifeboat.”

She shook her head. “Agent Christopher doesn’t understand. She can’t understand, Rufus.” Lucy rubber her hands over her forearms. She’d been doing that a lot lately. She’d also been wearing a lot of long sleeves, no matter how hot it got in the Bunker.

He cocked his head and sighed. “Can you make me understand? Just, like, a little bit?”

Lucy’s hands stilled and curled into fists. Rufus almost took half a step back before he realized this was Lucy and not Imperator Furiosa. Even if they were living in a totally post-apocalyptic Bunker these days. “We only ever react, Rufus. We’re passive. Rittenhouse acts. They do something, we’re six steps behind trying to stop them. Flynn went off somewhere in time, we tried to figure out when and where and why and stop him. We need to take the fight to them, Rufus.”

“What about,” he said, trying to form words around the super loud alarm bells clanging in his head, “what about saving history? Trying to keep history like it was? Trying to stop Flynn and Rittenhouse from changing things?”

“We’ve already lost that fight,” she whispered. “I’ve seen… things. When I was there. With them. They’ve made changes, so many changes that we don’t even know about.” She shook her head and stepped closer to him. “We’ve got to fight back, Rufus. We’ve got to do something about it.”

“Lucy…” He looked down at his shoes, trying to think about what his mom would say at a time like this. Not that his mom would ever have to deal with, yanno, time travel. Or actual vintage Nazis. Or the Alamo. Or… okay. Maybe his mom wasn’t the right person to untangle this. “Look, have you talked to Wyatt?”

She shook her head. “If you say yes, then he’ll come along no matter what. Just to keep an eye on us.” She grabbed his hand, looked up at him, and for once she looked fragile. Like a little bird, with hollow bones and a broken wing. Of course, birds were really dinosaurs and most of them would peck your eyes out as soon as look at you. And she had a little bit of that look in her eye, too. Like she wanted to peck out some Rittenhouse eyeballs. “Rufus. You’re the only person who can help me do this.”

Rufus squeezed her tiny hands in his own. This was Lucy, after all. One of his best friends. “We need to talk to Agent Christopher first. You have a point, Lucy. A really good one. But we’re a team here.”

Lucy tugged her hands free and shook her head. “No. You, me, and Wyatt? We’re a team.”

“And Jiya.”

“And Jiya.” She shook her head again. “But when it comes down to it? It’s always been the three of us. Agent Christopher doesn’t understand. She hasn’t been there. She hasn’t seen Rittenhouse the way we have.”

“The way you have?”

“The way we have, Rufus. She’s fine with us being passive. With taking baby steps. With waiting for disaster to hit and then trying to mop up a hurricane with a teaspoon.” She began to pace, a few tiny steps back and forth in each direction, head down and fists folded behind her back. “We need to make some moves. It’s our turn.”

He put a hand on her shoulder again, and she still tensed, but this time she didn’t try to throw him off. “Lucy?” She looked up at him. “Okay. If this is what you need? Okay. One trip. Just to see what they’re up to.”

She grinned at him, and there was something jagged, something a little Flynn-like in it. But it was Lucy and she was smiling and it was the first time she’d done that in a while. He grinned back. “Okay, cool. Let’s go steal a time machine.”

First they had to steal a Wyatt. But like Lucy had predicted, that wasn’t incredibly hard. They had their packs ready to go before they snuck into his bunk in the middle of the night. The poor dude had been curled up like a baby, facing the wall but not really asleep.

“Hey,” he whispered into the darkness. Rufus had met the real James Bond, and he was never going to be James Bond. But he would be the best Sneaky Rufus he could be. “Wyatt?”

Wyatt grunted manfully and rolled over. “Rufus? Why are you dressed like that? Are you wearing…”Wyatt sat up. “Are you wearing grease paint?”

“Yep. Get up. We’re taking a road trip.” Rufus grabbed for some of the clothes that Wyatt had left on the floor—and really, was that military regulation? If so, he’d been grossly misinformed by Hollywood—and flung them in his general direction. “Through time.”

“We’re stealing the Lifeboat? Again?” In the dim light of his bunk, Wyatt looked both exasperated and mutinous. “We’ve done this before, remember? Total failure? I ended up at a black site?”

“So, see, when I say ‘we’ I mean Lucy’s going to steal the Lifeboat.” Rufus saw Wyatt’s entire body still, hands freezing in the middle of zipping up his fly. “And I get the feeling we have, like, two options. She can try to pilot it herself and we’ll never see her or the Lifeboat again and we’ll be down a Lucy and a time machine.” He chucked one of Wyatt’s boots toward him, using his fingernails to try and pry apart the knots in the laces of the other. His mother would have absolutely murdered Rufus if he’d ever left his stuff looking like this. Murdered in ways Agent Christopher would only admire. “Or, we go with her and help her get whatever this is out of her system.”

Wyatt grunted again and held his hand out for the boot Rufus was holding. “You think this is something to do with her time with Rittenhouse?”

“I dunno. But I know she told me we have five minutes to get our butts to the Lifeboat before she left without us.”

Wyatt swore and took off in a dead run down the corridor. Rufus trailed after him, trying to be a sneaky shadow in the darkness. Which was going awesome, thank you very much, until Flynn cleared his throat from the open door of the bathroom.

“What is wrong with you people and jumping out at me from dark places today? Jesus!”

The shadows were all wrong this late at night, with so many lights off to conserve the solar batteries that powered the Bunker’s top secret off the grid power system. But a slash of light cut across Flynn’s eyes and by the way they were crinkled in the corners he could tell the suave sneaky son of a bitch was smirking at him again. Smirkily.

“Going for a midnight stroll? Sneaking out and trying not to get caught by mommy and daddy?”

Rufus began to inch away. “None of your business. Time team stuff.”

“And there are only three seats in your high school science project model anyway.”

He felt the blood drain from his face and then come rushing back as he rounded on Flynn. “You take that back. You take that back about my baby.”

There was a tiny, hissing chuckle in the corridor. “I apologize, of course. Far be it from me to besmirch your, ah, baby.” Flynn let the sound die and Rufus would have sworn the temperature in the hallway dropped ten degrees. “But the fact remains. You’re breaking protocol. All three of you. Rittenhouse hasn’t jumped recently.”

“We—”

“And what shall we do, hmm, if they do make a jump in time and you haven’t returned from whatever mysterious errand you’ve been pulled on this time? Yet another failed attempt to save Mr. Logan’s wife, I imagine?”

“This time it’s for Lucy.”

Flynn paused and then seemed to slide back into the darkness. Rufus almost stumbled forward, the buoyant weight of their snark suddenly gone, replaced by something heavier and deadlier. “I see.”

“You do?”

“I tell you what, Rufus. I’m going to go to back to my bunk and get dressed.” Flynn moved further into the darkness of the bathroom. Though the bathroom had never before seemed like an ominous pit to the underworld, that Rufus remembered. “I’m going to dress in sensible boots, and maybe accessorize with a few knives. And then I’m going to go read in the common room. Wyatt lent me The Count of Monte Cristo and I find I cannot quite put it down.”

“Oh… kay?” Rufus did not have time for this bullshit. He barely had time to get to the Lifeboat before Lucy started punching random buttons on her quest to one up Rittenhouse. “Okay. Whatever?”

From somewhere in the dark Flynn chuckled again. “Indeed.”

Rufus fled toward the relative safety of the Lifeboat. Whatever Lucy wanted to do in the past had to be way less creepy than this.

Wyatt looked at Lucy, who was very carefully not looking at him. Instead, she was studying Rufus’s hands as they flew across the Lifeboat’s controls in a way she’d never bothered before.

“So where are we going again?”

“Tennessee,” she said, a crease between her eyebrows as she watched Rufus. “1819.”

He braced himself against the first jolt of the Lifeboat leaving time and space behind. “Mmm. Too early for Jack Daniels. Though if you wanted to do something fun for my birthday, being present for the first tasting of Jack Daniels would be great.”

She looked at him for the first time that evening. She was wearing the long, warm skirt he’d come to think of as her “Old Timey Out of Fashion” getup and her hair was back in a way that it wouldn’t get grabbed if it came down to it. “Wrong side of the state. We’re going to be up in the mountains, toward Kentucky. Maybe we can get you some bourbon before we leave.”

He gave her a smile she didn’t return before she turned back to watch Rufus. “I think you might have the wrong kind of PhD to be a pilot. Not that you’re not plenty smart, ma’am. But you’re more the soft, squishy kind of smart.”

She gave him a half shrug, one slight roll of a shoulder not pinned back by the five-point harness. “Sufficient motivation can get you pretty far.”

And that was, largely, that. The Lifeboat had never been conducive to a lot of chit-chat, Wyatt knew. Too much jostling and rolling and being punched in the gut by pissed off physics. But this was a lot more... focused than he was used to from his two pet nerds. Usually Lucy would slip in a few relevant tidbits of history, nothing as complete as a full mission briefing, but still helpful. And Rufus would creatively complain about being stuck in a time where everyone from the grannies to the littliest babies in their cribs probably wanted him dead or similar. Which, to be fair, and Wyatt did try to be fair, was a pretty bad way to live. He’d never had to think much about it until he went tearing through history with Rufus. Now he absolutely factored it into each and every mission.

Speaking of which— “So you want to do the usual husband/ wife/ slave cover story?”

“Oh good, my favorite,” muttered Rufus. “Just once I’d like to go visit the Amazons of Dahomey or something. Could we do that?”

Wyatt guffawed. “The what of where now?”

“And we’re adding that to your podcast list,” sang Rufus. Wyatt leaned back. He’d never tell either of them but he was really starting to dig the history podcasts Lucy and Rufus kept putting on his old iPod. Something about listening to other people talk about history like a story, rather than reading yet another dry as dust after-action report by a military fanboy who had never served, made it more fun to keep up with them. Plus he could listen during his workouts, which was satisfyingly efficient.

“My name can’t be Lucy this time,” said Lucy. “There’s already another Lucy where we’re going and we can’t risk things being confusing.”

“Sure,” drawled Wyatt. “I’ve always thought you looked more like an Abbey anyway.”

“And where are we going again,” asked Rufus. Wyatt could see the rounded curve of Rufus’s cheek in the glow of the monitor and it was starting to do that twitchy thing he got sometimes when his stress levels were too high. Flynn was firmly back in the future and Rittenhouse wasn’t in the past they were going to, so he’d hoped this would be a little more fun for Rufus than it usually was. No dice, though.

“We’re going to Tennessee. In 1819.” Lucy ran a hand over her hair, triple checking the tightness of her bun and ghosting her fingers over her wrists and hip. If he’d known better he’d swear she was packing. And Lucy had been a mite skittish around guns since the whole Bass Reeves thing.

“You said that.” Wyatt cocked an eyebrow at her and she gave him her best stone face in return. But Lucy was naturally chatty. He could wait her out.

So he waited. And waited. And waited.

It was Rufus who finally broke. “I get that this is something you feel you have to do, but since you’re dragging us along too, can you maybe let us in on the plan?”

Lucy narrowed her eyes at Wyatt one final time and then sighed. “From 1871 to 1821 the Bell family of Robertson County, Tennessee, was plagued by a phenomenon that came to be known as the Bell Witch.”

“Plagued,” said Wyatt, flatly.

“Witch,” said Rufus in a strangled voice. “Like the Blair Witch?”

Lucy nodded and then seemed to remember Rufus couldn’t see her. “The Blair Witch was inspired by the Bell Witch. It included people being attacked, strange and sometimes prophetic voices, and objects appearing out of midair and hitting people. There were many eyewitness accounts verifying these phenomenon, which mostly focused on the oldest Bell daughter, Betsy, and the patriarch of the family, John Bell, Sr. “

Wyatt blew out a breath. “Oh yeah. This sounds safe.”

Lucy ignored him. “The Bell Witch phenomenon continued until 1821, when Betsy broke off her engagement to a local boy. About a year after it killed John Bell, Sr.”

“Killed?” Wyatt planted both feet more firmly on the floor and leaned as far as his harness would let him toward Lucy. “This thing kills people?”

“I’m in a horror movie,” moaned Rufus. “Do you know what happens to the black guy in a horror movie?” He twisted around to try and look at them. “Do you? The black guy always dies first. Every time. Lucy, you’re my friend and I get that you want to do this. But can’t we just go burn down Monticello or something to stop Rittenhouse?”

Wyatt opened his mouth and then closed it. Then he pointed an accusing finger at Lucy. “And just what does a creepy ghost thing in the middle of nowhere Tennessee in 1819 have to do with Rittenhouse? Or the price of tea in China?”

“Nothing with the second one.” She blew out another breath. “But like I said. People came to see the Bell Witch in action. Lots of people. And one of them, the person who is going to be there now, is a key member of Rittenhouse.”

“And—” the Lifeboat shuddered to a stop, shaking all of them down to their bones. Wyatt bit his tongue, tasting copper, and swallowed a couple of choice swears and a bit of blood. He hated when that happened. He was absolutely putting mouth guards on Rufus’s next Amazon Wishlist.

“And—” Screaming and banging came from outside the Lifeboat, rocking it like an egg on it’s round moorings. “And what the hell,” he snapped.

Rufus flipped on a screen. “Uh? Crap. Locals. We’ve got locals.” The banging got louder. “And they sound pissed.”

Lucy had already unsnapped herself from her seat and was reaching toward the hatch. “Stop that,” Wyatt snapped again. “I’m point, you’re behind me with Rufus while I fix this.”

She rolled her eyes. “And just how to do you plan to fix this? We’ve never been spotted before.”

“A little good old fashioned Southern hospitality, ma’am.” He grinned at her. “Tennessee and Texas have a lot in common that way.”

“Uh huh,” said Rufus behind him, disbelief so strong he could have used it to build a bookshelf. Maybe he should build Lucy a bookshelf back at the Bunker. She was a nerd. She liked books. Maybe a bookshelf would make her feel better. Make her get back to normal Lucy again.

He checked his weapon, flicked the safety off, and positioned it for a quick draw. “You just stay here and let me sort this out.” He reached for the hatch, letting it hiss open and getting a face full of cold, wet air for his troubles.

“Unholy abomination!” Oh shit. That… that might not be good. “Murdering unholy abomination! Spawn of the devil!”

He risked a glance out the hatch door. “Uh, hello?” A shot ricocheted off the side of the Lifeboat, a little too close to his face for comfort. “Shit!” Wyatt ducked down and checked behind him to make sure that Lucy and Rufus were down and out of the line of fire. “Stay back,” he hissed at the two of them.

“And I looked,” screamed a voice from out in the night, slurring just a little bit on what Wyatt assumed was the finest moonshine Tennessee had produced at this point in history, “and beheld a pale horse—”

“Oh great,” muttered Lucy.

“Shhh,” hissed Wyatt.

“—and his name that sat on him was Death,” continued the voice in a shriek. “And Hell followed with him!” The man had become more and more shrill with each word, the final echoing out into the night.

Wyatt decided to try again. “We come in peace!” He heard Rufus snickering behind him.

“The hell you do,” a man yelled back. “You killed Jeddidah!”

Rufus stopped snickering. “I killed someone,” he whispered. “I… it’s not supposed to do that. The Lifeboat is supposed to account for—”

“I ain’t dead,” yelled another voice, this one even more slurred. “I mean, I ain’t dead yet,” it amended.

They all fell silent, the only noise the wind clicking skeletal branches together outside the Lifeboat’s hatch. Wyatt blew out a breath and noted the way it fogged the air. He needed to get his team warm, out of the line of fire, and any potential hostiles neutralized as quickly as possible.

“You ain’t?” The first voice did not sound convinced.

The second voice seemed to consider this seriously. “No?”

“Well that’s just great,” yelled Wyatt. “Do ya’ll mind if we step out now?”

“’You all come out with your hands where we can see ‘em, stranger!” He heard the tell-tale racking of a shotgun, and wondered how accurate it would be given the current available technology and the fact that its owner was clearly shitfaced. Though any bullets near his civilians were a bit too close.

He sighed and stood, holding his hands above his head and knowing he was backlit in the Lifeboat’s interior lights, a perfectly silhouetted target that even a drunk man with an antique should be able to hit. “We’re unarmed! We’re, uh, just travelers. Who are lost.”

“And who almost got me kilt!”

“Jeddidah, you get over here this instant!”

“Comin,” grumbled the second voice, moving closer to the front of the ship. “Don’ see why I have to be the one to come to you.”

“Because I got the gun and I got ‘em pinned down,” said the first voice, shaded by the exasperation that comes only after decades of the same argument circling over and over again. “You can’t do shit back there behind the carriage.”

Wyatt stepped to the door and saw two men, better dressed than he’d have imagined by their accents, staring up at him. “Howdy.”

The first man, the one holding the gun, wiped an arm across his nose and leveled the gun at Wyatt’s torso. “Howdy yourself.”

Wyatt tried another smile. “You gentlemen wouldn’t know how to get to Nashville, would you?”

The second man, staggering to the other’s side, frowned. “And just what would you need in Nashville, demon?”

“We’re not demons,” said Lucy, peering around him. Wyatt resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he did half turn to look at her. “We’re very sorry for frightening you,” she said, giving them her sweetest smile and a few blinks of her wide brown eyes. He knew from extensive personal experience how devastating that could be. “We’re just a little lost.”

“Not demons,” the first one muttered, gun wavering between Wyatt and Lucy. “Not demons?”

She shook her head. “Not demons, sir. Just travelers on our way from Louisville to Nashville. Our wagon has been having some difficulties and our horses ran away.”

The second man, who had been swaying a bit as he fought a losing battle with gravity, frowned. “That’s… that’s horseshit that is.”

“Jeddidah!” The first man dropped the point of his gun and smacked the second upside the head. “There’s a lady present!” He nodded to Lucy. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.”

She dimpled at them. “It’s fine. It’s very late and you’ve had a terrible fright.”

“Naw!” The second man stamped his foot. “That’s bullshit! She’s a liar! This ain’t no wagon. Where’re the horses? Where’d they come from? And you ever seen a wagon what looks like this?”

“Gentlemen.” Lucy moved in front of Wyatt, her hands spread. He grabbed for her, trying to hook an arm around her waist, and missed. When had Lucy started to move that fast? She jumped down out of the Lifeboat, hands still spread wide, and walked toward the two men. “I’m sure that we—”

Tiny arcs of electricity lit the night and both men hit the ground, jerking and spasming. Wyatt gaped. “Lucy? What the hell?”

Lucy stood over the men, wires running from their necks to the Taser gun she held in each hand. He couldn’t see her face, only the sure, strong line of her back and the confident set of her shoulders. “Lucy!”

The two men stopped seizing. The first man moaned, and the second gasped a bit, making a small fluttering sound in his throat. Calmly, Lucy ejected the spent cartridges from each gun and reloaded them with fresh ones. Wyatt ran toward her and grabbed her wrist, jerking her to face him.

Her face was empty. Blank. Her brown eyes in the shadowed light of the Lifeboat were nothing but dark, burning pits. “Let got of me, Wyatt.”

The muscles in his hand loosened for a moment before he clamped down harder. “What the hell, Lucy?”

Rufus landed on the grass behind them with an aborted “Oof”. “I second that? I second the ‘what the hell’?”

She twisted her wrist, breaking his hold and stepping back three quick steps, no more, no less, and exactly outside of his reach. A perfect economy of moment. “They’re drunk, Wyatt.”

“They’re civilians, Lucy.” He shook his head.

“They’re witnesses.” She returned the Tasers from wherever she’d pulled them and moved past him, bending down by the first man’s feet and tugging at his boots. “They were witnesses. But they’re also drunk. And the Taser often causes the loss of memories leading up the moment of being Tasered.” She tugged one boot off, threw it to Rufus, and started on the other. “Rufus, he looks like he’s about your size.”

Wyatt turned and saw Rufus holding the bottom of the boot up to the bottom of one of his buff colored Timberlands. “Huh. Not bad. Thanks, Lucy.”

“You’re okay with this?” Wyatt spread his hands.

“Well, we need clothes. And Lucy going full Atomic Blonde with the Tasers was, um, unexpected. But,” he shrugged, “what the hell.” He chucked one of his Timberlands back into the Lifeboat and began pulling on the unconscious man’s boot.

“No, not ‘what the hell’. I mean, not that what the hell. I mean…” He turned back to Lucy. “Where did you get those?”

She was moving on to the man’s pants, checking his pockets and removing a sack that clinked and a twist of tobacco. “Agent Christopher.”

“Agent Christopher knows you have those?”

She tossed him the clinking sack. “Sure. I put them on the supply order. And she showed me how to use it.”

“Sisterhood of Badasses,” said Rufus behind him like that explained anything.

Wyatt raked his fingers through his hair. When that didn’t help, he did it again. When he looked back at the carnage, Lucy was still methodically looting the unconscious bodies of both of her hapless victims. And when had Lucy started to have victims? What, exactly, had happened when she was with Rittenhouse?

“Look,” he tried again. “Look. Just stop for a moment, would ya? Do you even have a plan here?”

She sat back on her heels and looked at them, a hint of exasperation the first trace of emotion he’d seen on her face all night. “Yes. We take their clothes and hide them in a barn. They wake up and assume they were robbed. Nobody believes any of their stories about magically appearing spheres made of flashing lights. If you’d help me with this, we can do what we came to do and be gone before they wake up.”

He put his hands on his hips, a small corner of his mind whispering that this was the exact same stance Jessica had taken when he was being and unreasonable idiot. Wyatt shoved the thought away and concentrated on the living, if possibly insane, woman in front of him.

She looked at up him, and in that moment she’d never looked more like her mother. He tried to blink it away, but the resemblance remained in her shoulders, in the pinched lines around her mouth, and in the stone cold eyes he was sure must be a trick of the dim light. “We’re going to kill Andrew Jackson.”

The ground fell out from under him and for a moment Wyatt felt like he was floating in a dark, vast nothingness where the world was gone and everything he had fought for was ripped away. Then gravity crashed back in like a Mack truck, bringing a whole lotta angry along for the ride.

“No.” He pointed at her. “This isn’t right. And this isn’t you. This isn’t us. We don’t,” he shook his head, “we don’t kill people. We don’t do this kind of thing, Lucy.” He turned to Rufus. “Back me up.”

Rufus blinked, looked down, looked at Lucy, and then looked at him. He shrugged. “I mean, normally? No.”

Wyatt glared at him. “ ‘Normally’? Oh come on, Rufus.”

“Dude, it’s Andrew Jackson. ‘Trail of Tears’, Andrew Jackson?”

Lucy nodded at held up a finger.

Rufus rushed on. “Plus he owned slaves.” Lucy held up another finger, shooting Wyatt a “See, I told you so” look. He frowned back at her. “And,” Rufus continued, “didn’t he do a lot of other bad stuff, Lucy?’

She nodded. “And one day very soon he’s going to become one of the Ritttenhouse Presidents.”

Wyatt felt his mouth flop open. “One of the… One of the what?”

Lucy stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “I learned a lot while I was… where I was. Rittenhouse installed several members in the Oval Office. They don’t do it anymore because the President is under way more scrutiny these days, and the press is a lot stronger and more connected than they used to be. People would notice. But Jackson?” She nodded. “He’s going to be one of theirs and one of the worst.”

He threw up his hands. “Okay, fine, great. But why kill him now? Why not go back in time and kill him as a kid? People talk about killing baby Hitler. Why not kill baby President Andrew Jackson?”

“I thought about it.”

He stared at her. This was wrong. This was a stupid, sick nightmare. Lucy didn’t do things like this. She didn’t say things like this. She didn’t plan to kill people. “You thought about it,” he said flatly.

“I did. But this makes more sense.” She began to pace. “At this point, Rittenhouse has invested years in him. If I went back and killed him too early, they’d just shift their resources and planning to one of eight other candidates. But killing him now would cripple them. They’re so sure of Jackson taking the Presidency that they haven’t bothered grooming another candidate.”

“And he wouldn’t have the chance to commit mass genocide, right?” Rufus bit his lip. “That’s, that’s important too, right Lucy?”

“Okay,” snapped Wyatt. “That’s enough of this nonsense.” He reached out and grabbed Lucy, slinging her over his shoulder in a flutter of skirts and kicking feet.

Rufus was never quite sure what happened next. There was a noise he’d never imagined Lucy making, something between a scream of rage and a martial arts yell. Then she went full on Black Widow, spinning and kicking and hitting and then Wyatt was on the ground and she was standing over him breathing hard.

She looked at Rufus and he held up his hands. “Look, can we talk about this? I think we all just need to talk about this.”

Lucy pulled a gun out of somewhere. Totally full on Black Widow, he thought. “I’m done thinking. I’m done talking. I’m done just taking it, Rufus.” She grabbed the small sack she’d tossed Wyatt and dashed off into the night.

He looked down at Wyatt. Who wasn’t moving, and was kind of bleeding from his head. “Oh crap.”

San Francisco, California, 2017

Garcia Flynn licked his finger and turned another page of his book. Le Comte de Monte-Cristo was far better in the original French. Truth be told, this particular translation was abominable. But dear, sweet Wyatt had given it to him as a gift, a rather heavy-handed metaphor, and he was determined to enjoy it. If only to torture the man. Perhaps, whenever they returned from whatever foolish errand they’d stolen the Lifeboat to accomplish, he’d begin quoting relevant passages at unfortunate times. In the shower, perhaps. Or at dinner. Certainly when Wyatt was attempting to add even more unnecessary muscle to his frame.

He smiled at the thought and turned another page.

God in heaven, it was truly an awful translation.

Behind him the Lifeboat blasted into existence, sending papers flying—and why, he wondered, didn’t these people invest in a better filing system? Or step in to the twenty-first century and digitize?—and he flipped back to a particularly scathing passage he felt Wyatt would truly appreciate. The hatch to the Lifeboat slammed open, and a pair of feet pounded down the stairs and across the cement floor of the Bunker toward him.

One set. Alone. Carried on a heavy gait unaccustomed to running, or to the leather-soled boots that propelled it across the floor. He marked his page carefully and twisted, looking over his shoulder.

“Rufus,” he smiled. “You seem to be missing a few things.”

“Help,” gasped Rufus, doubling over and resting his forearms on his knees. “Help?”

Flynn shot to his feet, smile dropping back into the velvet-lined bag where he kept all his favorite weapons. “Tell me.”

“Lucy’s gone full John Wick?” Rufus panted. “We went to Tennessee. And she took out these two guys.”

“Lucy killed people?” That was… not a good sign. The Lucy that had first visited him in prison was a far cry from the woman he’d met when the Hindenburg went down, but nor was she yet the version that had changed his life in a small, seedy bar several years ago. To go from the innocent she’d been a year ago to someone who could take a life this abruptly was… not good. But confirmed several suspicions he’d begun to nurture.

Rufus shook his head and something in Flynn’s chest eased. She wasn’t ready for killing, not yet. And he’d prefer to be there to make sure she got through her first death in one piece.

“What then?”

“A Taser. A couple of Tasers. Full on John Woo stuff.”

“I see.” He’d known about the Tasers. Had left a small printout to their care and maintenance where she would find it. He’s also added a few lines about their history, knowing she’d appreciate the added detail.

“And then she knocked out Wyatt.”

He felt his lips try to twist into a grin, and he fought it back. Instead he coughed, politely, and said, “Come again?”

Rufus stood, his breath easing, and cocked his head. “I mean, I guess it was full on Black Widow? Not John Woo? More Jon Favreau? Because she, like, had the Tasers and she was all “Bzzzt!’ and then she wrapped her knee around Wyatt’s neck and was all ‘Hiii-Ya!’ and,” he waved his hands, “and yeah.”

Flynn resumed his seat on the couch and picked his book up. “It sounds like things are going fine. I don’t see why you need my assistance. Lucy seems like she has things well in hand.”

“No!” Rufus marched around the couch and set his hands on Flynn’s shoulders, pulling him forward. Flynn looked at Rufus’s hands. And looked at Rufus. And looked at Rufus’s hands again. Rufus released him, fingers splayed wide, and backed up a step, legs knocking against the coffee table. “Sorry. But no.” He shook his head. “No. Wyatt’s knocked out, and Lucy ran off to kill Andrew Jackson.”

Flynn let his chin drop to his chest and let out a long, deep breath through his nose. He closed his book again and laid it gently on the couch. He steepled his fingers, tapping them against his lips and looking up at Rufus from under his eyelashes. “So you have come to me. On this, the day of my daughter’s wedding.”

Rufus choked and sat down hard on the coffee table. Flynn stood and patted him on the shoulder before pivoting and grabbing the go bag he’d left by the side of the couch.

“Well,” he called, striding toward the Lifeboat, “are you coming? We have to go help Lucy kill the President of the United States.”

He heard a crash behind him, one that sounded like a metal coffee table and a few tin coasters hitting the floor, followed by frantic scuffling. “That’s not what I meant!”

Flynn grinned, one he rarely let fly in the company of others, and lengthened his stride. “You have until we reach Tennessee to tell me!” He bounded up the stairs, delighted to get a bit of fresh air. And to kill someone who genuinely needed killing. And maybe to save someone who didn’t need to start killing yet.

The Lifeboat, Literally Nowhere, ????

Rufus had, in the words of Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, chosen poorly several times in his life. Senior prom? Terrible. That one time on LiveJournal that had actually ended up on Fandom Wank? The worst. But in the great scatter plot of the times he’d fucked up, he still wasn’t sure how highly going to Garcia Flynn, Dude Who Had Literally Tried to Kill Him, ranked. High, he knew, definitely high. Especially since the man had quoted The Godfather at him, which he was pretty sure meant that one day Flynn was going to ask him for a favor he did not want to repay.

But Lucy kicking Wyatt’s ass and going full on Taylor Swift in “Bad Blood”? Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“So why 1819 Tennessee,” asked Flynn, breaking into his thoughts just as Taylor began singing about how they used to have mad love. “And why not The Hermitage? Why this random corner of the state?”

“Something called The Bell Witch? Lucy said that it was a local haunted house thing that people used to go see. Well apparently Jackson was one of these people?”

Flynn nodded. “Makes sense. He spent his entire career surrounded by camps of fanatically loyal soldiers and servants. Except for one point in 1819 where he was sent home in disgrace for upsetting the Spanish and the British at the same time.” He smiled. “Not a bad choice, Lucy.”

The Lifeboat rattled, rolled, and jerked as she flew back toward the field where he’d left Wyatt. The beauty of time travel being that he’d only be gone for a few moments as far as Wyatt was concerned. Which Wyatt wasn’t, because Wyatt was out. Probably with a concussion. Which wasn’t good.

“You’re fussing.”

Rufus shot a glance at Flynn. “I beg your pardon?”

“Fussing. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Excuse me,” Rufus snarled. Somewhere his mother was wincing spontaneously and getting ready to send her son a text telling him how much she loved him. Guilt was a hell of a drug. “But I really don’t see how it’s going to be fine.”

“Well, you stole government property. Twice. And one of your partners has gone rogue. And the other has, ah, been rendered more useless than usual.”

“Hey!”

“But,” said Flynn, stretching out his long legs like a Smirky Smug Cat, “things will be fine.”

“And you are telling me this because?”

“Because that’s what you tell someone in circumstances like these.” And then the man closed his eyes. He closed his smirky eyes and seemed to fall asleep.

“Are you… are you sleeping? Mid-time travel?” Rufus turned in his seat, trying to watch both Flynn and his monitors. “How are you even doing that?”

“Practice,” murmured Flynn.

Rufus turned back to the controls. “I’m gonna die. We’re all gonna die. And I’m going to die. And Jiya is going to kill me because I died.”

He couldn’t be sure over the crashing and banging of the Lifeboat in flight, but he thought Flynn might have laughed softly.

Great. Lucy had snapped. Wyatt was going to develop Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, and Flynn was going to murder him.

Just great.

Robertson County, Tennessee, 1819

Even better, thought Rufus, was that the field was empty when the returned.

Flynn ducked down underneath the Lifeboat, staring intently at the ground. “Anything,” yelled Rufus.

“Signed of a struggle,” Flynn yelled back. “Three bodies, all dragged off in the same direction. And then possibly loaded onto a wagon.”

Rufus dropped to the ground beside him and stared at the grass. Which stared back. “It’s the middle of the night. How can you see that?”

Flynn gestured. “Frost patterns. And we’re getting close to dawn, Rufus.”

He squinted at the horizon. The world was faintly greyish, a lighter shade of night, but nothing that he would call dawn. He’d seen dawn, after he’d pulled an all-nighter or fifty. He wasn’t sure what frost patterns had to do with anything, but Flynn was the specially trained magical sociopath he’d personally begged to come along on this mission.

“Rufus?”

“Yus?” He turned and Flynn was making one of those stupid elegant “come along” gestures that people who weren’t professional ballet dancers shouldn’t be able to do. “Did you do ballet?” He would have facepalmed, but that would be showing fear. Rule One of Flynn: don’t show fear around Flynn.

The man in question paused, stared up into space for a moment, and then gracefully did a little leaping thing with his hands above his head, looking like he was floating in the night air.

Rufus’s mouth dropped open. Flynn landed, did a complicated looking leg sweep, and then whirled back to Rufus. Rufus’s jaw totally unhinged, left his face, and walked to the nearest bar to drink and forget.

“You,” he said, “you did ballet?”

“I am a man of many talents.”

Rufus snapped his mouth shut. “Why did you just show me that?”

Flynn leaned close to Rufus, so close he could feel the man’s warm breath on his cheek. Damn, even his breath smelled good. “Because,” he whispered, “no one will ever believe you.”

Looking back later, Rufus would decide that this was the moment he’d snapped. This was the moment that he’d decided reality was taking a break, or that maybe he was already dead and nothing else would ever touch him. Either way, he laughed. A deep, booming belly laugh that started at his toes, made his sides clench, and rattled happiness back into his chest.

When he finally caught his breath and wiped his eyes, Flynn was there holding out a water bottle and looking concerned. “Fluids,” the man of many talents said. “And we need to think about getting some food in you. And when was the last time you slept?”

Rufus took a long pull of the water and shrugged. “Dunno? Time travel, man. Mom. Man.”

Flynn rolled his eyes, took back the water, and tucked it into the weird pack he had slung across his back.

“What’s that?”

“Period accurate go bag. Really I—”

“No, I mean, what’s that?” Rufus pointed to the glints of light at the top of the rise of a nearby hill. They were dull, somehow, more a suggestion of a reflection than a real one, as darkness began to pour out of the night and light began to creep in. If they hadn’t been moving, he wouldn’t have noticed them at all.

Flynn swore and dragged Rufus to the ground as thunder boomed and dirt exploded next to Rufus’s head. Rufus stared at the fresh crater in the ground. “Don’t shoot,” yelled Flynn above him. “We’re unarmed!”

“You’re unarmed,” hissed Rufus. “You, Garcia Flynn, are unarmed?”

“Shut up,” Flynn hissed back. More loudly he continued, “Please, we’re looking for our missing friends.”

“Prove it,” shouted an angry voice that was quickly shusshed by others. Thus far, Rufus reasoned, Tennessee in 1819 seemed to be home to nothing but lots and lots of angry disembodied voices. Maybe this whole Bell Witch thing was real.

“A man and a woman passed this way earlier. They were attacked on the road. Have you seen them?” Flynn somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between genuine concern, a smidge of irritation, and appropriate volume. Rufus would have to ask him later for tips.

“Aye, we’ve seen the man,” bellowed a new voice, this one strong, sure, and so full of command it left no room to question. Rufus watched Flynn’s eyes narrow and he swallowed, hard. “No woman to speak of. A moment, and we’ll come down to you.”

Flynn stood, helping Rufus to his feet, both of them brushing dirt from their clothes. Their distressingly modern clothes, minus Rufus’s stolen boots. Oh crap.

“My boots,” hissed Rufus, “are stolen.”

Flynn’s gaze flicked down, and then up to the band of men coming over the ridge. “Maybe don’t tell them that,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he slapped a giant, welcoming smile on his face.

“Oh,” Rufus nodded sarcastically. “Yeah, thanks. Super helpful.” He scuffed his foot and tried not to look the arriving men in the eye. There were nine of them, all white, all bearded, all armed, and all variations on grumpy. Amazons of Dahomey, he thought. Just once, Amazons of Dahomey.

“Gentlemen,” said Flynn. “We are so relieved to have come across you.” He extended a hand to the man standing the tallest and wearing the best clothes of the bunch. “I am George Flynn, lately of New York City. This is my friend,” he said, clapping a hand on Rufus’s shoulder. “Rufus Marshall, a freeman and my driver, also lately of New York.”

The men’s eyes fixed on Flynn’s hand, resting against Rufus’s cable knit sweater. He nodded to them. None of them nodded back.

Finally, the one that seemed to be in charge gave a funny bow from the waist and then reached for Flynn’s hand. “General Andrew Jackson, presently of Nashville.” The other men nodded and murmured introductions, their gazes moving back to Flynn and dismissing Rufus’s existence. For the moment. “You said your friends were attacked?”

Rufus stared at him. This was the dude Lucy wanted to kill? This dude, who looked like he chewed on bullets for breakfast and like he might just break down and wrestle a bear out of boredom? This dude, who was surrounded by a bunch of other, heavily armed dudes and who looked like he might be able to give Garcia Flynn pointers on reasonable paranoia? They were screwed.

Flynn’s terrifying grin grew wider. “General Andrew Jackson, the Hero of New Orleans himself? My goodness sir, this is an honor.” Flynn gave his own funny little bow. “Last I heard you were on campaign. I hadn’t thought to meet you here, sir.”

One of history’s greatest monsters fixed Flynn with his own scary smile and clapped the nearest grizzled posse member on the back. The unfortunate angry white man staggered. “I’m home on leave. I thought to come visit the Bell farm and see its famous Witch for myself. I only arrived yesterday, and already there are bandits in the area as well.” Jackson sobered. “I’m sorry to hear about your companions.”

“Indeed,” Flynn looked grave and he pressed his hands together. “Wyatt and Lucy Logan. We were all travelling together on our way to Nashville. Our wagon broke down and Rufus and I stopped to fix it. Wyatt and Lucy went on ahead, looking for an hospitable place to spend the night.” Rufus stared at him. If this was how Flynn did it, no wonder he’d been eleventy billion steps ahead of them for the last year. The man was amazing. He was probably teaching improv classes on the side to raise money for his nefarious plans.

“We came upon their wagon and it had been ransacked. Both of them were missing.”

One of the men who refused to look at Rufus grunted. “The General was passing through last night. Found the two Ingram boys and another man laid low in a field over yonder. Jeddidah was missing his boots, and both were missing money. The man was bloodied, and none of them would wake when we attempted to rouse them. The Ingram boys are a bit fond of their drink,” he grinned, “but this seemed a mite unusual.”

Flynn frowned. “And his wife?”

The men shook their heads. “We’ve been out hunting this night,” said Jackson. “If there are robbers about, we thought to try and find them.”

“ ‘T’ain’t robbers,” muttered a voice from the back of the group. “ ‘Tis the Witch.”

Flynn blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Jackson looked like a schoolboy on Christmas morning. “Indeed! I’d not heard that it attacked passersby, but its powers are vast and mystrious.”

“Uh huh,” said Rufus slowly.

Thunderclouds gathered in Jackson’s eyes as he turned to him. “Do you doubt me, boy?”

Flynn moved smoothly between them. “Forgive my friend. We are both grievously tired and worried for our companions.”

“You should be most concerned for Luuuuucy,” breathed a voice. A cold gust of wind blew up the back of Rufus’s sweater and he shivered. Rufus looked at Flynn. Flynn looked at Rufus. They both looked up, trying to identify the source of the gasping, female voice. The trees were empty, cold, bare branches clicking together in the weak dawn light above them.

“There,” bellowed Jackson triumphantly. “There! Now do you believe?”

Rufus nodded. “The truth is out there.”

“Indeed,” said Jackson. “And so are your friends. Let us find them.”

Together they tromped off, over the frost covered hills toward a huge house that looked absolutely nothing like what Rufus thought a haunted house should look like. It was cheerful white clapboard with chickens running around out front, with women already moving purposefully behind the windows inside, preparing for the coming day. “Not as advertised,” he muttered.

Flynn shot him an amused glance.

Wyatt woke to something whacking him on the head. Repeatedly.

Groaning, he rolled and covered his head with his arms, trying to avoid further damage. Then something sharp and thin stabbed him in the ass. “Aah!”

He shot to his feet, slamming into a wall and listening to a musical crash as something glass and old and probably expensive hit the ground beside him. Wyatt opened his eyes, groaned at the way the dim light from the window across the room scratched at his eyeballs, and blearily peered around to find his attacker.

The room was empty. It was also vaguely pink.

Someone up near the ceiling giggled and he groped for a gun he no longer seemed to be wearing. His pants seemed to be missing as well. Shit.

He looked upward, scanning the corners of the room for anything that could have been a speaker or camera or ass poking device. Nada. Also nothing in any of the corners of the room. Just a narrow bed with rumpled sheets, a pitcher and basin, and a plain wooden chair. He’d been in less comfortable cells, though the disappearance of his gear was worrying.

Something whacked him in the back of the head, almost driving him to his knees. Wyatt whipped around and found an old book flat on the ground behind him. Next to the wall facing the door. The one that didn’t have a window on it, or any other reasonable explanation for suddenly appearing attack books. “What the hell?”

Stooping to pick it up he found that it was some kind of old prayer book with weird red ink all over the pages. I’m in a horror movie, Rufus had said. Wyatt tried to remember the old “Our Father who art somewhere doing something” prayer Granddaddy had tried to beat into him at one point or another back in the day. Since he couldn’t remember all of it, he figured it couldn’t hurt to start with a simple “Uh, hello?”

More giggling.

Great.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but this isn’t funny.”

“I mean, it’s kind of funny,” said Rufus.

Wyatt whipped back around and then grabbed his aching head, staggering a bit. He may have whipped one too many times. “How is this funny,” he ground out.

Rufus leaned against the doorway. “Probably the underwear? A little?”

“Indeed,” said Flynn from behind him. Wyatt raised his head to squint at the other man. Why did he constantly seem to be looming in doorways? “I commend you on your fastidiousness, and in taking the time to patch your pants so cleanly. Lovely, fine stitch work.”

Wyatt straightened. “Why are we talking about my underwear?” He pointed at Rufus. “And why the hell is Flynn here?”

Rufus pressed his hands together, studied the ceiling for inspiration, and then shrugged. “We needed backup?”

Now Wyatt pointed at Flynn. “That is not backup.” Flynn clapped a hand to his chest, radiating injured dignity and so much sarcasm he would have set off a Geiger counter. “There is no need for backup. And where the hell is Lucy?”

“That,” Rufus said, “is why we needed backup.”

Wyatt ducked under the bed, uncaring that his unguarded ass was bobbing up in front of Flynn and Rufus for the world to see, blood rushing to his head and making it pound like a Houston street during construction season. “Ha!” He came up holding his pants, though his gun was still missing.

Flynn gave him a slow clap. Wyatt gave him the finger. Rufus closed his eyes and appeared to be silently counting to ten.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, pulling on his pants in front of Rufus for the second time in twenty-four hours. “We are going to find Lucy. We are going to take Lucy home. We are going to pretend this never happened.”

“Which part?” Rufus held up a finger. “The part where she kind of kicked your ass?”

Wyatt glared at him. “And the part where you went and got a known terrorist for backup while I got hauled to a secondary location. All of it.” The room began to slowly spin and Wyatt locked his knees. He was trained. He was experienced. He needed to retrieve a member of his team and get them all back safely. Possibly while burying Flynn’s body under a tree in 1819 before they went back, giving him a nice way to vent his frustration. Yeah, that would be good.

Flynn leaned into the room. “You’re not looking well, Wyatt. In fact, I believe your head has begun to bleed again."

“For all evils there are two remedies,” sang a high, reedy voice that didn’t come from any of the men assembled. “Time and silence.”

“Indeed,” Flynn beamed. “And Le Comte de Monte-Cristo won’t be published for almost thirty more years.” He rocked back on his heels and placed his hands behind his back, almost at parade rest. “You are a bit of a wonder, aren’t you?”

Shadows began to gather in the corners of the room. “Sinner,” the voice hissed.

Wyatt would not drop down onto the bed. Wyatt would not submit to whatever madness was going on here. “Are you talking to the invisible voices?”

Rufus took a step back, knocking into Flynn. “Are you having a conversation with the invisible voices?” He stayed pressed against Flynn and Wyatt cocked an eyebrow at him. He didn’t necessarily agree with Rufus that Flynn was less scary than a disembodied voice that stabbed you in the ass.

Flynn smiled. “Wyatt, now that you have retrieved your trousers, I believe this would be a good time to depart. We have a Lucy to find.”

“Luuuucy,” the voice purred darkly.

Rufus shrugged his head. “Nope, nuh uh. Nope.”

Wyatt closed his eyes. The way the room had grown darker was actually kind of nice. Less nice was the spreading chill that accompanied it, dripping down his spine and causing his toes to cramp. “I’m good with going.”

“Then let us thank your hosts and be on our way,” said Flynn, looking for all the world like he was about to go take tea with the Queen. “And if you’re lucky you might even be able to meet General Andrew Jackson downstairs.”

Wyatt swore creatively, thoroughly, and in a way that would have made any native Texan proud.

Garcia Flynn was a man who enjoyed life’s simple pleasures. A good book. An excellent glass of wine. The complete and utter destruction of his enemies. So the memory of Tasing Wyatt Logan and stuffing him in the Lifeboat was one that would keep him warm for many nights to come. Agent Christopher had been suspicious when one of the Tasers she’d ordered for Lucy went missing, but Flynn took a “the more the merrier” approach to weaponry and it filled a truly excellent niche.

“The poor man already had a serious concussion,” he murmured as he stalked through the darkness. “What could I do? Bash him over the head?”

“Sinner,” whispered a voice on the wind.

Flynn rolled his eyes.

“You lurk,” said another voice, this one tinged with California and Millennial nihilism. “You’re a lurker.”

Flynn slowly turned to face his quarry, spreading his hands. “No one ever seems to invite me in.” He stepped forward. “Though I do try to be polite, when I can afford the luxury.”

Lucy took a step back. He let his eyes flick over what little of her he could see in the pale moonlight. The shadows under her eyes looked deeper. She had a sweep of dirt or blood across one cheek. Her ghostly hands were clenched into fists.

Something in him relaxed. Unhurt, though likely suffering from a bit of exposure and dehydration. Smoke from the small fire he’d been tracking wafted to him on the cool breeze. “Invite me to sit by your fire?”

She took another step back. “Are you here to stop me? Talk me out of it?”

“On the contrary.” He held up his pack. “I come bringing gifts. And dinner.”

Lucy paused, and then jerked her head toward the direction of the fire before stomping away from him.

“Luuucy.”

Her shoulders went tight and she walked a bit faster.

“For the record,” he called, “that wasn’t me.”

She grabbed a few more sticks and fed them into the small blaze, sending up a scattering of sparks. “Green wood,” he said. She sat down on a log next to the fire and stared into it for a long moment, before looking up at him. He shrugged. “I haven’t been invited.”

Finally, finally, Lucy cracked a hint of a smile. “Then please, by all means. Mi log es su log.”

He took a careful seat, folding his long legs out of the way of the embers. Flynn was made for Capoeira and Tango, but economy class was a probably well-deserved circle of hell. His bad knee protested and he rubbed it gently.  

“I have,” he said grandly, “Chicken Alfredo or Spaghetti ala Bolognese.” He pulled two shiny MRE packs out of his go bag with a flourish. “And for dessert I have a Toblerone for each of us.”

“Why Mr. Flynn,” Lucy said, batting her eyes and laying on a Southern accent thicker than tar in July, “I had not expected to find such fine dining here in Tennessee.”

He gave her a laugh, louder than his gnawing concern was comfortable with, but far less than she’d earned for taking a stab at levity for just a moment on this cold, desolate night. “Mia donna,” he bowed at the waist and bent to start their meals.

She watched him for a long moment as the fire popped and crackled and an owl screamed in the distance. He kept his eyes firmly on the silver packets and let the silence stretch.

Finally, Lucy cleared her throat. “So. You hear the voices too?”

“Just the one, mostly.”

“I thought I was going crazy.” She blew out a breath.

He considered and discarded several responses. “I believe it harassed Wyatt as well.”

“Oh.” Flynn snuck a quick glance. Lucy was looking down at her hands, tucked into the folds of her skirt for a bit of extra warmth. “If we’re not careful, Rufus is going to come back with a spray bottle of holy water.”

She gave the fire a tiny smile. “They tried that, I think. They tried a lot of things.” She paused and raised both her eyebrows. “I honestly hadn’t expected that part to be real.”

“No?”

Lucy leaned forward and launched into a slow, slightly stilted discussion of the antics of the murderous Bell Witch, its effect on the local community, and its bizarre habit of recurrence. She lacked the spark of joy he was accustomed to seeing from her when she spoke about history. Flynn had watched every single one of her videotaped lectures countless times, appreciating her mastery of her craft. This was an echo of her former vibrancy, but he took no small delight in seeing even this much from her. Of late she’d been fare more interested in matters martial and deadly.

When she came to a natural pause he held up the packets. “Would you prefer the red sauce or the white?”

“Um?”

He handed her the spaghetti, knowing from long experience that the so-called chicken in the alfredo could be a bit chancy. Certainly no actual poultry had died in service to their meal. “Ah, a moment.” Setting down his packet he then pulled from his bag two sporks and two bottles of water.

She shook her head, accepting the bounty and arranging herself so that everything was in easy reach. “I can’t believe how hungry I am.”

“Hunger is the best seasoning.” He hoisted his water. “Saluti!”

“Saluti.” She clinked her plastic bottle to his and then dug into her meal with gusto. For the first two bites.

“The water will help.”

She made a face at him and took a long draw from the bottle. “That is…”

“Unique?”

“Yeah.” Lucy smiled a bit and took a smaller, more tentative bite. “Thanks for the food, though.”

They ate in companionable silence for a long while, ignoring the whispering voice that occasionally pelted them with twigs like a petulant child. When he judged her as close to relaxed as she was likely to get this evening, Flynn shifted his weight and pounced.

“So. Presidential assassination. That’s… new.”

Lucy stabbed her spork into the foil packet and leaned back, placing it carefully on the ground. “Killing him is the right thing to do.”

Flynn sucked at his teeth for a moment. “Yes.”

She turned to him, eyes wide and lips gently open in shock. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

“Lucy, killing is a skill. Nothing more. People want to ascribe a lot of difficulty and complexity to it, but at the end of the day it’s the kind of thing anyone can do. That’s why people try to make killing out to be so hard.” He scraped at the bottom of his MRE and let her chew that over.

She tossed a stick into the fire, ducking her head to hide her face. “You don’t think it would leave me irrevocably damaged and broken forever?”

“Of course I do.”

She snorted. “Great. Thanks.”

“Because you’re the kind of person who cares about doing the right thing. And you’ve been told your whole life that there are things that are the right things, and things that are the wrong things.” Flynn shrugged. “You’ve got lines you’re not comfortable crossing. That makes you Lucy. When you start crossing your own lines, that changes things.”

Lucy hunched her shoulders and stared into the fire for a long moment. “What if. What if things are already changed?”

Flynn sighed. “I’m a simple man, Lucy.”

“You’re simple like a Rubik’s Cube.”

He felt his eyes crinkle, though he schooled his face into stillness. He was going to treasure that compliment right along with Wyatt’s strangled “Urk” as he pumped 50,000 volts into the man. “Be that as it may, I am intimately familiar with the sacrifices one makes when one chooses a path of vengeance.” He drained the last of his water.

Lucy was quiet for a long moment. Even the Bell Witch had fallen into a respectful silence. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to talk me out of it or not.”

“Frankly, neither can I.” He sighed. “You have choices, Lucy, we all do. And you know better than most that choices have… ripples.” He reached into his bag again. “I can, however, present you with a simpler and more immediate choice.” He held out a Toblerone to her. “To enjoy the greatest candy bar in the history of the world or to abstain?”

Not looking away from the flames she held out a hand for her dessert. He gave it to her and sat next to her in the dark, waiting for dawn to break and carefully not thinking about what an excellent story this would have made for his daughter.

San Francisco, California, 2017

Jiya looked at Rufus. She looked a the large, bleeding white man stretched out across the bed. He was moaning a little, and she couldn’t tell if he was totally unconscious or just really, really out of it. Either way he’d been dead weight when she’d helped Rufus sneak him in here.

She looked at Rufus again. Raised a single eyebrow.

“I love you?”

“Nope.”

“I love you a lot?”

She crossed her arms.

“I will buy you a rubber dick?”

She let her arms drop. “What?”

“Rubber duck!” He held up both hands. “Rubber duck!”

Wyatt moaned again and shifted a little. “Rubber duck,” Rufus whispered. “I meant I’ll buy you a rubber duck.”

“You’re going to bribe me. With a rubber duck. To try and buy you time for, what, your fourth trip to the past tonight?” Jiya had heard rumors, but only rumors, that prolonged exposure to time travel caused a person’s brains to leak out of their ears. Apparently, this was correct. Awesome. And they’d just perfected their PharaMercy combo in Overwatch. Where the hell was she going to find another Pocket Mercy as good as Rufus?

“It’s not really bribery? I mean, it is,” he nodded, watching her face change, “it is absolutely bribery. Which is wrong.”

“And, I’m pretty sure, a bunch of felonies stacked together in a trench coat.”

Rufus nodded somberly. “Also true.”

Jiya rubbed her forehead. She could feel another headache threatening to start, and she was so totally sick of being sick. “But you need to go back and get them.”

“Right.” He nodded.

Wyatt tried to raise a hand and Rufus kicked the bed. “Ow?” The poor man sounded confused. And like he had head trauma. And might throw up again, which was absolutely not going to be a pleasant ride back to 1819. So at least Rufus would suffer a tiny bit for throwing this heaping pile of bullshit at her.

Jiya looked down at Wyatt again. “Okay, fine. But you totally owe me.”

Rufus kissed her cheek and sprinted for the door. “Whatever you want, baby! Love you! Byeeeeee!” She was almost shocked he didn’t yell “Hey Kool-Aid!” and leave a Rufus-shaped hole in the wall.

She leaned down and patted Wyatt on the knee. “So. You know I’m not a medical kind of doctor, right?”

Robertson County, Tennessee, 1819

“This is,” Rufus spat out, “totally the worst trip we’ve ever done. Ever. Ever!” He popped open the restraints on his harness and scanned the monitors, looking for signs of armed unintelligent life. “Oh hey, Rufus. Go to the greatest school in the world. Get a kick ass degree. Go to work for the best company on the planet. Become history’s first Uber driver!”

Nobody on the monitors. Note even a stray goat, which was good, because the last thing he needed was Black Phillip wandering through while he tried to survive the Bell Witch. “Awesome choice, Lucy,” he said, popping open the hatch. “Yeah, let’s go mess with Andrew Jackson and a ghost in the Antebellum South.” He dropped to the ground and scanned the horizon for any sign of Flynn and Lucy. “Awesome. Great. Totally tubular, dude.”

And there was no one. No audience for his well-deserved rant. No Flynn smirking smirkily. No Lucy covered in blood and holding Andrew Jackson’s severed head. That last one was okay. But really, overall, it wasn’t okay. Since Flynn had given him this time, this date, and these GPS coordinates. All that was missing were people from the future, ready to go home and get thrown in prison forever by Agent Christopher while Connor gave Rufus his Disappointed Face.

That was fine. That was totally fine. Rufus could just wait here. Forever. He needed to air out the Lifeboat anyway after Wyatt’s last trip. And then remember to write in the manual that people with head injuries who had been recently Tasered should under no circumstances travel through time. Thanks a lot, Flynn.

Sighing in disgust, Rufus went to haul out his trusty supply of lavender scented Lysol wipes. Thanks a whole heck of a lot, Flynn.

Flynn sighed, gently trying to ease the soreness from his knee. Sitting under the open sky in the middle of a mild winter hadn’t been the worst way he’d ever spent an evening, but he was several years removed from strapping himself to a tree and trying to kill the other guy.

The soft, warm weight of Lucy slumped against his shoulder murmured in her sleep and she gave a small, catlike stretch. He was glad of the pain and the cold because he absolutely didn’t need to know how Lucy Preston woke up in the morning.

“Lucy,” he said gently, flexing the muscles in his arm a tiny bit. “Lucy?”

“Mmm?”

“Rufus is likely waiting for us. And experience has taught me it’s not safe to leave him to his own devices for long.”

She nuzzled against his shoulder for the briefest of moments, paused, and then shot off the back of the log and onto the hard ground below. He looked down at her and permitted himself a single cocked eybrow. “Lucy?”

Lucy let her head thud back against the earth and stared at the sky. “I am awake.”

He stood and his back chimed in to join his knee. He was going to take a hot shower and three Advil once they got back to San Francisco. Very little in the past could compare to the glories of hot water on demand. “You are awake, yes.”

“Right.” She shoved herself off the ground and shook out her skirts. “Okay.”

He nodded. “So, I’m going to go meet with Rufus.” She looked down. “Who is truly our best shot at returning home in the next two hundred years.” Lucy made a noncommittal noise. He picked up his bag and dusted off a few desiccated blades of grass. “And you’re off to kill the President.”

Lucy’s head shot up.

He settled the pack across his shoulders. “Well. Good luck with that. I hope your reconnaissance proves useful and your sightlines clear.” He gave her a jaunty salute, turned, and walked off toward the waiting Lifeboat. It was probably too much to hope that Rufus had smuggled a thermos of hot coffee from the future, but Garcia Flynn prided himself on being an eternal optimist.

Although he strained to hear over the shusshing of his own footsteps through the dead grass, he didn’t hear Lucy move from her spot by the fire.

“Stop it,” snapped Rufus, shaking his finger at the empty sky. “You cut that out right now.”

Another pine cone smacked into his head.

“Cut it out!”

“Blood.”

Rufus froze. He closed his eyes. “Horror movie,” he whispered. “Black guy. Alone. In a horror movie. Shit.” Jiya was going to murder him for this. For all of this. And she’d never get a rubber duck and they’d never get home and he’d never kiss his mama again and he would never get to see Black Panther 2. Which might be the worst one because he had a time machine and totally could have—

“Luuuuucy brings death in a ball of fire.” Above him something clacked and groaned like the lid of Dracula’s coffin rising. He risked a peek up. The trees were writhing, each leafless limb twisting and reaching down toward him, branches looking like sharpened spears against the blue sky.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He tried to run, but a root lifted from the dirt, wriggling worms and beetles dropping from it, and slapped at his knees. Rufus went down hard and flipped over onto his ass, trying to scoot away. “Flynn! Flynn!”

Two shots rang out and the branches closest to his face exploded into splinters. Which were also now in his face. The tree reared back as though it was hurt and he scrambled to his feet, for the first time in his life running toward the sound of gunfire.

And there was Lucy at the top of the next hill, feet wide and arms steady as she sighted town the barrel of a big ass gun and fired calmly toward the evil killer devil tree. She looked like hell and he’d never been so happy to see anyone in his life. Flynn was running down the slope toward him, a knife out and murder in his eyes. If anyone could stab a tree to death, Garcia Flynn was the crazy asshole to do it.

“Get it Flynn,” he screamed, running past him and up the hill toward Lucy. “Kick its ass!”

“Blood,” the air around them moaned. Lucy continued to fire, and Flynn let out a wild whoop as he slashed the long roots that were still trying to trip Rufus.

Rufus threw himself behind Lucy, who looking like Sarah Connor about to take down an army of Terminators, and peered over her shoulder at the carnage below. Flynn was… actually doing it. He’d slash and the tree would rear back. It would try to whip him with its branches and Lucy would fire into the trunk, blowing huge gaping holes through the thing. Flynn would dodge, she would fire, and he’d pop back up to add insult to injury.

Which was awesome. And totally deserved to be documented for posterity. If his phone wasn’t safely in the Lifeboat per the protocol he’d personally written. “Oh my god!”

“What,” said Lucy, voice distant and eyes still on Flynn murdering a tree below.

“I don’t have my phone. Pics or it didn’t happen!”

She didn’t dignify that with a response, just repositioned the gun, which Rufus thought was really more of a hand cannon, and kept firing. The gun clicked. “Out,” yelled Lucy. Flynn turned and started running back up the hill, one remaining branch whipping feebly behind him.

Rufus punched the air. “You just got Flynn’d!” Flynn grinned at him and rolled his eyes. Okay, in the scatter plot of bad choices Rufus had made in his life, this one hadn’t been completely terrible.

And then the universe proved him wrong once again.

Metal was shaped to separate flesh. To slide between sinews or slip between ribs and obliteate the neccesary archtecture of life. A tree brnach was never intended for such a task. Whre metal had a bit of give, a tree branch shaped into a spear by a malovelent entity was as elemental and unforgiving as stone, burying itself into his side and splitting him open wide.

All of this would occur to Garcia Flynn later when he had a moment for poeticism. Right now, all he knew was that wood hurt like a bitch.

“Uff!” The air punched out of his lungs, worse than any hit’d ever taken from a human. He fell to his knees, to tried to. The giant fucking pieces of wood sticking out of his body held him at an odd angle, the entire weight of his body dragging him sideways and driving the tree deeper inside him.

He heard screaming. Voices. One was high pitched and shrieking like a small bird being startled by a snake. One was an unearthly bellow of rage.

As Flynn began to tip toward the cracked and dry earth he caught of a flash of Lucy’s skirts running past him. Heard her boots ringing against the side of the Lifeboat. Smelled a flash of sharp, burning chemicals on the wind.

“Blood,” the voice sighed.

“Oh I’ll give you blood,” said Lucy in a voice like ice. Then there was a loud puff of air and a woosh.

“Lucy, no!”

The wood inside him jerked and a wordless scream vibrated through his bones. Pain exploded in his body as the branches and rootlets were jerked out of his flesh. Flynn coughed and tried to roll to his knees. Fell. Tried again.

“Holy shit,” Rufus said from somewhere behind him.

Two small hands hooked underneath his arms and began dragging him up the hill. “You’re really heavy,” Lucy huffed.

“We,” Flynn panted, “are going to add more weights to your routine.”

“Shut up.”

“Gladly.” Flynn looked up at the clear, blue, perfect sky as his ass slid up the hill. He tried kicking a bit to help, but things weren’t working as they normally did. His bad knee was still there, though, waving hello with a different kind of grinding pain that said falling hadn’t been his best option. Flynn resolved to lay back and enjoy the ride.

Two more hands grabbed him and he looked up into Rufus’s worried face. He tried to smile. “I thought I’d take a stab at levity.”

“You’re a monster. A punny, punny monster.”

The angle changed under his ass, indicating that they’d reached the top of the hill. “I thought it was cleaver.”

Rufus shook his head. “Tree one, Flynn zero.”

“Hey,” said Lucy. “The tree is on fire. Clearly, the tree or the ghost or witch or whatever didn’t win this round.”

“Floral Kombat,” Rufus muttered.

“Any way you slice this,” Flynn offered, “we—”

“Nope.” Lucy sat down next to him and looked up at Rufus. “Okay. How long before we can go home?”

Flynn struggled to sit up, wheezing only a little bit in a decidedly manly way as he gained verticality. Down below, the demon tree, likely a good old bit of Tennessee oak, was thrashing feebly. It whipped its flaming branches against the side of the Lifeboat. Likely not something their time machine had been designed to endure.

“Uh,” said Rufus. “Well. I’ve got a fire extinguisher in there somewhere. Three, actually. And. Um.”

“I propose we wait until the tree has stopped doing whatever it is it is doing,” nodded Flynn. “Just in case.” Lucy covered his hand with hers briefly and squeezed, before sitting back to watch the impromptu bonfire. “A strategic re-tree-t, you understand.”

“We’ve got ninety-nine trees, but a birch ain’t one.”

“Oh my god,” said Lucy, burying her face in her hands.

Sitting on a hillside with a serious wound was never enjoyable, but the cold had helped slow the bleeding and numb the pain a bit. Still, it was longer than he would have liked before Lucy decided it was safe enough to run back to the Lifeboat and set to work with Rufus’s stash of fire extinguishers. The two men sat on the hill, hurling tree puns back and forth.

Flynn would learn later than Lucy had only lasted seven minutes before running for the slightly less talkative flaming possessed tree.

“Flynn?”

“Mmm?”

“Flynn.”

“Mmm?” Rufus was starting to sound a bit worried. And like he’d said Flynn’s name more than once. Flynn blinked. “Yes, Rufus?” A bit of black smoke blew past his nose and he wondered if he would always associate this mission with things on fire. A better memory than his last time in Budapest, to be sure.

Rufus’s brow furrowed. “You, ah, got a little quiet there.”

“Just watching Lucy.” Who was magnificent, and covered with soot and fire retardant foam. And was smiling, just a bit, which made the entire morning truly resplendent.

“Resplendent?”

Flynn cleared this throat.

“And, uh, the ground is getting a little, um, red where you’re sitting.” Rufus held up a hand that was indeed slightly speckled with crimson. Flynn expertly judged it not to be life threatening, but it would explain the lightheadedness he was beginning to experience.

Rufus rose. “Hey, Lucy? Lucy!” Lucy turned to look up at them, kicking absently at one of the branches. “I think Flynn needs a doctor!”

And then Lucy was back with them, peering anxiously into his face, her hands warm and soft against his cheeks. Which was lovely, given the persistent nip in the air.

“Help me get him into the Lifeboat. I’ll get him patched up enough to make it home while you get the rest of the debris cleared from the ship.”

“I’m really quite well, I assure you.” They helped him to stand but Flynn was proud to say he made it down the hill and back to the Lifeboat under his own power, with only a moderate amount of assistance from gravity. And Lucy’s hand tucked under his elbow.

 “Flynn?”

He looked at the two wavering Lucys standing side by side, wearing equal expressions of consternation, and tried not to smile. Just lovely. “Yes?”

She huffed out a breath. “Let me help you up. We’ve got a rope ladder. It’ll be easier than trying to climb it.” She clambered inside and he indulged a moment of looking at her glorious backside, appreciating the fact that he’d long ago stopped being a good man and that he was content to reap the meagre benefits such a position afforded him. And that this position afforded him.

Lucy’s head popped back over the side of the Lifeboat. “Why are you smiling?”

His smile widened. “It’s a glorious morning.”

“It’s almost the middle of the day.” She unfurled the rope ladder and nimbly climbed back down. His delight at a second viewing of her derriere almost overwhelmed the searing pain of his wounds. Almost.

“All right,” she said, turning to face him. “Let’s get you up to the first aid bag.”

“My,” he remarked, putting one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, “an entire bag.”

“Wyatt’s orders.” She moved behind him, placing one hand on his side and the other next to his thigh. “I’ll try to boost you as best I can.”

Garcia Flynn was a gentleman, who had been raised by his fierce, brilliant mother to treat women with the utmost respect. So he refrained from any one of the dozen lewd comments that flew through his head the moment she laid her hands on him. Instead, he noted that her hands had grown even warmer, likely a combination of the cold air and the possibility than an infection was setting in. It was unlikely that ghosts sanitized their trees before they flung them at unsuspecting time travelers.

“Thank you, Lucy,” he ground out.

After an agonizing eternity he finally managed to crawl into the Lifeboat, Lucy boosting him the entire way. She helped get him settled in one of the bucket seats and took the other across from him, reaching without looking for a desert camo printed backpack the size of a Great Dane. Flynn quirked an eyebrow. “He has you traveling light, I see.”

“Wyatt has,” she paused, hands flying through the pack as she plucked out a smaller, orange and blue striped zipped bag, “concerns.”

“I’ll just bet he does.” Flynn sat back, content to watch her.

Lucy gave him a Look and raised an eyebrow of her own. “Can you take off your sweater on your own, or do I need to cut it off of you?”

“As much as I enjoy having a choice, I fear I will need it later.” He paused, testing his range of motion. “I fear I will also need your assistance in this.”

She gently began to pull the sweater over his head by the back of his neck. Clearly she hadn’t had a great deal of experience dressing and undressing small children, or anyone else, he imagined, and he tried to help her where he could. “At least you wear black,” she said. “That was a lucky choice. It won’t show blood.”

He smiled, even though she couldn’t see it with his head buried in the sweater and his arms held out like a particularly stiff yogi. He breathed deeply, in for a count of seven and out for a count of seven. “It’s a deliberate choice,” he gasped. “Most of my things are black.”

She paused. He did as well, straining to hear anything that would give him a clue to her thoughts with his head buried in three pounds of midnight black wool. “I should probably get more black,” she said softly.

With one last gentle tug she had the sweater up and off of him. He sat back again, panting. “Do you plan on having to patch me up quite a lot, Lucy? Because while I’m sure you are an exemplary nurse, I do have a limited number of clothing options.”

She held up a pair of blunted scissors and neatly sidestepped the topic. “I’m going to cut your undershirt off. I don’t want to drag anything else through that wound. He glanced down and noted that the left side of his previously white undershirt was a deep, spreading crimson.

“That’s just fine.”

She nodded and bent to him, leaning forward in her chair so that he had a perfect view of the her bobbing, glossy curls as she concentrated on the task. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair, tight enough to turn his knuckles white, as she carefully peeled the bloody shirt out of his gaping wound. He’d never understood the appeal of wartime romances between nurses and soldiers— he had little inclination to romance when he was fighting not to black out from pain. And yet, the urge to stroke her pretty hair was almost overwhelming.

He would probably need two bags of blood when they returned. Just to be safe.

Flynn breathed more deeply as the last of the cloth peeled away from his wound, and then hissed as she immediately swiped him down with alcohol wipes. “A bit of warning next time, please.” He watched her hands on his  torso, pale and so very, very small against his skin. Also, remarkably steady. He glanced up to her eyes, which were focused. Analytical.

“Lucy,” he said, gently taking her wrist and holding it for a moment. She paused, tensing briefly before relaxing.

“What?” She refused to look at him, refused to look away from his supernaturally-inflicted wound.

Flynn ducked his head, trying to catch her eye. Forcing her to look at him. “Lucy.” She glanced at him, then away, then back, their eyes locking. “Lucy?”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“You’re remarkably better with blood this time around. I was under the impression it made you ill.” He rubbed his fingers gently over the pulse point in her wrist. “Was I mistaken?”

“No,” Lucy whispered, closing her eyes. Blocking him out, he wondered, or blocking out a memory? “No, you were not mistaken.”

He gave her wrist a final, gentle squeeze and let her go. “Well. I appreciate you helping to patch me up.”

She chuckled bitterly. “Thank me after I’ve got the bark cleaned out and the sutures in. You’re going to need a lot, I think.”

“Probably twenty or so,” he agreed.

She finished wiping him down with the alcohol rubs, the burn of it killing his nerve endings helping to keep him grounded in the disturbing here and now. Rufus was outside, his knee was being vocal, Lucy was unwell, and powers both domestic and supernatural were likely looking to kill them all. Focusing on the mission was important.

As was breathing deeply again as she began to thread the wickedly hooked needle with black thread. “Do you have a topical anesthetic,” he asked. She looked blank. “Something to help me keep my wits about me when you’re sewing me up? As we’re in hostile territory and all.”

“Oh. Um.” Lucy put down the needle and dug through the pack. “I don’t know? I’ve never done  it that way.”

He cocked his head. “And how many times have you done this?”

“Enough. And I don’t think we have that.” She nudged the bag gently with her toe. “I’ll put it on Rufus’s next Amazon Wishlist order.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned sideways in the chair, trying to give her the best possible light. “At least give me a cool looking scar, eh?”

She rolled her eyes and picked up the needle. He braced, and she hooked the first stitch through his skin at a slightly odd angle, drawing the thread through a little differently than he would have. But beggars could not be choosers, and Lucy feeling safe enough to touch him, possibly because he appeared incapacitated and harmless, was nothing to turn his nose up at.

She frowned, her mouth tugging down and her brows drawing together as though she was tackling a particularly difficult essay question. She cocked her head on the second stitch, and then turned her entire body at an odd slant for the third and fourth.

“Lucy?”

She shook her head, standing. “I’m… having trouble with the angle.” She moved behind him, leaning over him from the back, her arm brushing against his shoulder as she made the fifth stitch with more confidence.

He looked down and her hand. From this angle, this was how it would look if he was stitching himself up. She’d needed to stand over him, to replicate the angle of someone stitching themselves back together. He closed his eyes, feeling rage and sadness well up to blot out the pain. Oh, Lucy. Oh my poor, brave Lucy. I think I’m going to meet you again far earlier than either of us imagined.

Later, when she was finished, when she’d competently bandaged him up and helped him slip his sweater back on, when he was a little giddy from the endorphins and the Advil she’d made him swallow, he asked. Had it not been for that particular combination of chemicals and the bizarre intimacy of having a woman’s hands on him inflicting pain, he might never have done it otherwise. Instead, he said, “May I see them?”

“See what,” she asked absently, deft hands repacking Wyatt’s precious and ridiculous portable pharmacy.

“The scars.”

She paused and raised her head, but did not look at him. “What scars?”

“The ones you didn’t have before your time with Rittenhouse.”

Now she looked him dead in the eye. “No.”

And what had he expected? That he’d kiss them and make them all better? That he’d tell her she was still beautiful? That she’d say yes and cry and fling herself at him? He could have laughed at himself. Lucy, his Lucy, wouldn’t have cared.

“You saw mine,” he said, trying for rakish. And it was true. Her eyes had ghosted over the old bullet wounds, the web of scar tissue from the shrapnel he’d taken in Prague, the divot from the mole he’d had removed ten years ago. He was, he knew, a prettier man with his shirt on than off.

The banging Flynn hadn’t even registered in the background stopped. Get impaled by one small tree wielded by a ghost, and suddenly his situational awareness went to hell. Great.

Rufus’s head appeared in the open hatch. “Let’s get the hell out of here, okay?”

“Sounds perfect,” said Lucy, throwing herself into her own seat and not meeting his eyes.

“Tree-mendous.” Flynn began to buckle himself in. Rufus patted his shoulder on his way to the controls, and Flynn felt a tiny bit better. Must be the painkillers kicking in.

San Francicso, California, 2017

Denise pinched the bridge of her nose and reviewed the list of people she could not kill. She could not kill Rufus because he was their only trained time machine pilot, and therefore firmly not expendable.

She made a mental note to talk to Connor about accelerating Jiya’s training.

Denise could not kill Lucy, because Lucy was invaluable for both her knowledge of history and her connections to Rittenhouse. Whether as a contributor or as leverage, murdering her was off the table. She could, however, sit the girl down and ask her what the sweet hell she was thinking. Probably over a cup of strong tea.

She would adore the opportunity to kill Garcia Flynn. In fact, she strongly considered it. Or perhaps just sticking him back into the dark hole she’d recently pulled his ungrateful ass out of. But he was an effective, highly motivated asset already read in on this operation. Dumping his body in the Pacific ocean around the time they were carving the Easter Island statues would be satisfying, but wouldn’t be prudent.

It was possible she wasn’t going to get to kill anyone over this little jaunt. But by god she would make sure no member of her team ever tried something like this again.

The Lifeboat whirled into existence, looking faintly singed and carrying the smell of char and napalm along with it. She felt her jaw clench and massaged at it gently. She was going to be paying for braces in a couple of years and couldn’t afford TMJ right now.

Flynn was the first one out of the hatch, both hands up and liberally covered in blood, gauze, and surgical tape.

“What the hell,” snapped Denise.

“A tree possessed by an evil spirit tried to kill me.”

Rufus’s head popped out of the hatch behind him. “He is in fact not lying.”

“What,” Denise said more slowly, “the hell?”

Flynn was moving slowly, concentrating on every step he took down the metal staircase. She almost, almost came forward to help him, but he hadn’t quite earned that yet. Rufus followed him down, looking so concerned over Flynn that Denise almost did a double take. She crossed her arms instead and stepped back to give them both a bit more room to maneuver. “And the new damage to the Lifeboat?”

“My fault,” said Lucy, stepping out of the hatch. She matched the Lifeboat and smelled like she’d just come off a long shift fighting a four alarm blaze.

“Yes, I’m well aware of that.”

Lucy paused at the top of the stairs and squinted thoughtfully. “Right. I meant the Lifeboat was my fault. I set the tree on fire.”

“It was awesome!” Denise looked at Rufus, who slumped a tiny bit. “I mean, it was? She was full on Ripley from Aliens with the flamethrower and the cocoon?” He bounced a bit. “It was really cool.”

Lucy said nothing, picking her way carefully down the steps and then immediately putting a good four feet of space between her and Flynn. Whose mouth twisted wryly. Interesting.

“You are all going to give me a full debrief. Starting with you,” she pointed at Lucy. “You,” she pointed to Flynn, “go see Connor and get pumped full of antibiotics and whatever else you need.”

“Blood would be good.”

Rufus grimaced. “Slightly creepy.”

“You,” Denise pointed at Rufus, “are going to go help Jiya with Wyatt.” Facing Jiya would be punishment enough for Rufus, and Denise slightly regretted not having any well-placed cameras in the personal areas of the Bunker.

“It Wyatt okay,” Lucy asked softly.

Denise snorted. “He’ll live.”

“Awesome.” Rufus rubbed his hands together. “Quick question, though? Who’s on the twenty?”

Denise raised an eyebrow and fished out her wallet, pulling out two of them. “Sacajawea, of course.”

Rufus stared at the money in horror. Flynn sighed. Lucy squared her shoulders and headed for the conference room, not looking at any of them.

Lucy stared at the heavy steel door separating Flynn's sanctuary from the rest of the Bunker.

It was just a door. Objectively, it was an arbitrary delineation of space. Everything, really, was pretty damn arbitrary these days. Did anything really matter? Did this?

She raised her hand to knock and then lowered it again, tucking her elbow tight against her body and holding her fist against her cheat. This felt like it mattered. This felt like the first thing in a long time that actually did mean something.

Which was stupid. Nothing meant anything. Rittenhouse had taught her that. Her mother had taught her that. This didn't mean anything.

She raised her fist, and banged on Flynn's door. Lucy heard a shuffling, a few quick steps, and then the door was open. Flynn was staring down at her, a small welcoming smile on his face. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She pushed past him, fingers dancing along the hem of her sweater, eyes drifting over his neat stacks of books and salvaged electronics. He made a small chuffing sound and gently closed the behind her, the click of the latch sounding heavy and final.

"We never finished our conversation," she said without turning to look at him.

"And which conversation would that be?"

Nothing mattered, she reminded herself. Nothing mattered, nothing made sense. So this didn't have to, either.

"You asked to see my scars."

He frowned. "Lucy. That isn't... No."

She lifted her chin. "No. It's fine. It doesn't matter."

He stepped back. "It doesn't?"

In a single motion she drew her sweater over her head and tossed it towards the door, feeling her hair cascade over her shoulders, soft and scratchy on her suddenly sensitized skin. She lifted her chin again and glared at him.

He met her eyes, no creeping look of horror blanching his skin, no flickers down to ogle her breasts. Just quiet, steady, and entirely Garcia Flynn.

"Go ahead. You wanted to see my scars."

He shook his head, eyes still on hers. "I've seen them. I've seen them in the way you run from your friends, the way you run toward danger, the way your hands no longer shake when you see blood. They're there for anyone who knows how to look, Lucy."

She flushed, felt it race down her chest and into her belly. Somehow, now, at the worst possible moment, it DID matter. It mattered that she was seen. Seen fully, and completely, as she was now. No one seemed to see her anymore. Except for Flynn. Who saw entirely too much.

"Well," she said, fighting the sudden urge to cover herself, “you might as well see the rest."

He gave her the barest nod, and then he did. He catalogued the small, round burns from Emma's cattle prod. The flock of tiny scars like snowflakes on her right shoulder where she'd been shoved into a mirror and had to dig the shards out of her skin later, sobbing in the shower. The long line up her side where her mother had slashed her, because knowing how to do field surgery on yourself was a vital skill, a Rittenhouse rite of passage. The ones on her arms where she'd almost given up, before she realized she could take some of them with her.

Flynn was done in a few seconds, far less time than it had taken to carve out a new Lucy from the shell of the old one. From the one that she'd never be again. And when he was done, he took three long steps to his bed, grabbed the rough olive Army blanket lying at the foot, and draped it over her shoulders.

"Oh, Lucy," he said, drawing the blanket tight and then wrapping her in the warmest, strongest hug she'd ever had in her life. It was like having a mountain come to life and hold you, firm and gentle and filling you with a belief in both the miraculous and in the real possibility that things really would be okay for at least a little while.

A sob tore from her throat and she leaned against him, letting the tears fall for the first time since she'd escaped.

Later, because there was always a later, and a before, but rarely a present for time travelers, they sat on his floor giggling. Lucy had retrieved her sweater, Flynn had broken out his special stash of Tim Tams, snuggled directly from Australia because the ones sold in America were, in his words, garbage, and they both made a mess as he tried to teach her a proper Tim Tam Slam.

"Wait," she said, "wait! You mean you've never had Pop Rocks?"

He pulled a face. "I am a trained CIA asset. I evaluated them and found them too be too potentially dangerous."

She snorted and rolled against him, bursting with laughter. "Your Kryptonite is Pop Rocks?"

"I beg your pardon?" He looked lethal, literally deadly serious, and it sent her into further gales of laughter.

"Oh," she said, resting against him and pulling out her phone, "oh we are absolutely putting these on Rufus's next Amazon Wishlist."