Chapter Text
The call comes early on a Monday morning. The working week is only half an hour old, and she hasn’t even finished her coffee yet, but Special Agent in Charge Denise Christopher woke up this morning feeling like everything was about to change. When the phone rings, she stares at it for half a second with that same sense of foreboding washing over her. Then she answers and is fast proved right.
The coffee sits on her desk, forgotten.
“Get me Lucy Preston right now,” she says. “Garcia Flynn just escaped.”
She’s late. Fuck. There better be a cab outside, or her lecture on George Washington’s second inaugural will be even shorter than it was. Someone must have hidden her keys, never mind that she lives alone, because the little fuckers have just disappeared; her hairdryer chose this morning to give up the ghost, and there was an indeterminate stain on her favourite blouse. It’s not going well.
Lucy is so busy getting out the door that she almost runs headfirst into the agents. She stops just in time, and groans internally. The matching suits, the haircuts - it’s undeniable.
She should have expected they’d come for her one day. She just wishes it wasn’t right in the middle of Spring semester.
“No,” she says, before either of them can get a word out. “Whatever she wants, the answer is no.”
“Agent Preston,” the first one says - not a question. A statement. A reminder.
“It’s Doctor Preston,” Lucy says, doing some reminding of her own. “I don’t work for the FBI anymore.”
“Yes, ma’am.” That’s the second one - they do always move in pairs, field agents, all the better to ambush unsuspecting history professors. “Regardless, our orders are to escort you back to the office.”
“Am I being arrested?”
“No.”
“Then my answer is still no.”
The agent has the absolute audacity to smile. “She said you’d say that.”
“And?”
“Respectfully, ma’am, we were told that wasn’t an option.”
Of course not. She sighs. “What’s your name?”
“Special Agent David Baumgardner, ma’am. Dave.”
“People trying to kidnap me usually call me Lucy, Dave.”
“Does that happen often?”
“You’d be surprised.” A story for another time. “What, exactly, did Agent Christopher say to you?”
“Well, she told us to bring you back, like I said. And she mentioned you’d be, well...”
“Reluctant?” Lucy supplies.
“Yeah.”
That would be an understatement. “Well, if that’s everything, I have a class to get to,” she says, walking away. She doesn’t get more than a couple of steps, but she never expected to.
“It’s about Garcia Flynn,” he calls after her, and it’s that which stops her dead in her tracks. “She needs your help.”
She sighs, but she was always going with them. This only confirms it. “Let’s go.”
“Garcia Flynn,” Agent Christopher says, in her best commanding tone, and the room falls quiet. “For those of you new to this case: a prolific art forger, and the primary suspect in about two dozen heists, high-profile thefts, and confidence schemes. He was convicted of one count of bond forgery and sentenced to five years. As of last night, he had four months left on that sentence. Until he escaped. It’s been seventeen hours, and he’s in the wind. I want him found.”
This is maybe two hours after the first call, in a hastily assembled war room of US Marshals, prison wardens, and FBI agents. Among the absolute sea of Brooks Brothers fed-cut suits, Lucy can’t help but feel out of place - the few of them she knows, that know who she is, nod in greeting, but mostly they just ignore her.
At Denise’s command, the video plays, and they all watch.
They made it easy for him. That’s what Lucy thinks, at least, as she watches security footage of Flynn walking out the front door of a maximum security prison.
Despite herself, she smiles, bemused, as the tape plays once more. Of course. No digging tunnels or clinging to the undercarriage of a produce truck for him. That isn’t how he does things. He asks the guard to open the door, and the door opens.
“Where’d he get the guard’s uniform?”
Suddenly, every eye in the room is on her.
“Sorry,” one Marshal says, and she’s under no impression that he is, “who are you?”
“This is Dr Lucy Preston,” Denise answers for her, and she’s half-glad of it and half annoyed. “She caught him the first time.”
The exact truth of that statement notwithstanding - as Denise herself knows - it helps, and at the very least it shuts the Marshal up for now.
The warden - already looking very flustered before she asked - is the one who answers her question. “He ordered it online.”
She raises an eyebrow, the finer details of that statement for someone above her pay grade. “He has a credit card?”
“No - he used my wife’s Visa,” the warden admits, and a few embarrassed smiles flit around the room. “The marshals are tracking it, so if he uses it again, we’ll know.”
“He won’t.” Lucy looks back at the screen. “And the access badge? He had to get through, what, two other security doors between his cell and the front door?”
“Stolen,” says a voice. Its owner steps into the room, and Lucy groans internally. Of course he’s here. She just hoped he wouldn’t be. “Guard says he lost his spare badge about a week ago. Of course, they’re not allowed spare keys, so he didn’t report it.”
“Hi, Wyatt.”
“It’s been a while, Lucy. Should’ve known they’d bring you in on this. You ready to catch him again?”
She nods, tight-lipped, and readdresses the warden. “How did the door guard not know it was him? You have a lot of six-and-a-half foot tall Croatians on staff?”
“He shaved his beard, he cut his hair. The guy didn’t recognise him without it.”
“Flynn doesn’t have a beard.” Another piece of the puzzle, though Lucy is still sure she isn’t seeing the whole thing. “Show me.”
The picture on the screen flips back a day; it’s still Flynn, but barely him - his hair reaches almost to his shoulders, and the beard covers half his face. Only the eyes, staring straight into the camera and as piercing as ever, give him away.
“So he planned it,” Wyatt says, with a shrug, and Denise nods in agreement. “Four months left on a five-year sentence, and he runs.”
Like she said. They’re nowhere near finishing the puzzle.
“There’s also this,” says another Marshal, pulling something out of the evidence box and laying it on the table. “We found it in his cell. You have any idea what it is?”
In front of Lucy is a meticulously folded origami flower. That’s not unusual - open his file, and there are dozens of them - neatly folded and brightly coloured, found at crime scenes; in agents’ pockets; inside bank vaults. He sent her an entire bouquet of them once, on her birthday. This one, though, is different. She’s only seen one like it once before.
“It’s an iris,” she says, and that puzzle looks more complete. Oh, this is not good.
The marshal is watching, apparently waiting for her to say something else, and when she doesn’t he finally asks, “Any idea why he’d fold it from a page of your book about Abraham Lincoln?”
Well, that removes any doubt there. This flower, this message, is just for her. Because he couldn’t just pick up the phone. “What page?”
The marshal checks his notes. “153,” he says, and gestures. “See for yourself.”
She picks up the flower and unfolds it little by little until the crumpled page is lying in front of her. “I need another piece of paper, and a pen.”
“What’s going on?”
Lucy marks a few things off on the page, writing letters on the paper. “It’s an old way of passing messages. You both have copies of the same book, so all you need is the cipher and you can say whatever you want to each other using the words on the pages.”
“And you know the cipher he’s using?”
“Flynn loves the classics,” she says, almost smiling. “Everything’s a game, everything’s a puzzle. I don’t think he ever sent a message that wasn’t coded some way. That’s how the flowers started - he and his wife used to use them to pass messages to each other. The type of flower, the colour - they meant different things.”
“He has a wife? Is she involved in this?” She thinks that might be Dave, from her early morning not-kidnapping, again.
Lucy stops for a moment, the pen hovering over the page. “No,” she says. “She, um... she died.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, it’s all in the page number,” she says, all the explanation she has time for, and all the time she wants to spend lingering on it. She marks more letters off and adds more to her list. It’s an oddly powerful sensation, knowing that every eye in the room is watching her, waiting for her. When she’s satisfied with the letters, she arranges them into words and phrases.
“Anagram?” Denise asks, peering over her shoulder, and Lucy nods.
“U, C, L, Y, that could be your name, right?” Wyatt says, presumably trying to help, but she doesn’t have the time to explain why he’s wrong.
She keeps marking, trying different combinations of letters, and it only takes a minute before she has it. She turns the pad, pushing it to the centre of the table where they can all see.
You know the place.
It all happens quickly after that - Lucy had almost forgotten how fast these people could move. What seems like seconds later, she is back in a borrowed FBI windbreaker, crammed with far too many other people in the back of a nondescript van for a company that almost certainly does not exist. It’s all wrong and too familiar at the same time. In all of it, there is only one perk.
“It’s good to see you again, Lucy.” Rufus grins, and they share a too-quick hug. “If I’d known this would do it, I’d have broken Flynn out years ago.”
Lucy laughs, but the rest of the agents, bar Wyatt, scowl and look confused.
“That was a joke,” he says, and gestures. “You see what I have to deal with without you?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it later,” she says, still smiling, before nodding at the monitors. “How are we doing?”
“We can’t get eyes on the dock itself, but we’re covered everywhere else. Teams covering either entrance. You go in, give the signal, we take him down. Just like last time.”
“Last time?” One of the junior agents this time.
“I swear, it’s like none of you even looked at the file.” Wyatt rolls his eyes. “This is where we caught him the first time. Not sure why he’d want to come back here, but hey, makes it easier for us.”
“Why don’t you guys go get into position?” Lucy says, not asking. No-one, least of all her, is sure if she’s in charge, but Wyatt nods, opens the van door, and the other agents file out.
“Hey, Lucy?” Rufus says when it’s just the two of them. “Something’s not right here. I mean, who runs with four months left on their sentence? And definitely who does all that and then just... turns themselves in?”
Rufus doesn’t know everything about what happened that day, five and a half years ago. But he’s always been perceptive, always looked out for her.
“Yeah,” she says. Even with what she knows, there are still pieces that make little sense. “I guess we’ll find out.”
The pier is quiet, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the city a scant few streets away. It feels just like the last time she was here - only this time she knows about the horde of FBI agents at her back.
Flynn is standing at the far end of the dock, staring off at the water. Lucy recognises him, even at this distance, and it seems faintly surreal - to be here again, after all the time that’s passed.
She motions for Wyatt - who insisted on going with her - to wait where he is, and approaches slowly, suddenly unsure. In the whirlwind of the last few hours, it’s not like she’s had the chance to think about anything for more than a few moments, and it all hits her at once. What is she doing here? This isn’t supposed to be her life, not anymore. The FBI life - the high stakes, the late nights, the all-consuming chases - was something she was supposed to have left right here on this pier almost five years ago, the moment she wondered whether she was doing the right thing.
Maybe she was a fool to think she could escape it.
“I see you got my message,” Flynn says as she approaches, without turning. His head flicks from one side to the other, to the buildings where the other agents are waiting for her word to strike. “And you brought the cavalry.”
She takes another step forward. “Other way around,” she says. “They brought me.”
“That’s what I said.” He pauses. “It’s been a long time, Lucy.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that a lot today,” she replies, and sees the edge of his smirk.
“I’m sorry about that. There wasn’t any other way.”
“Did you make it in time?”
He turns then, and they’re face-to-face for the first time since they last stood on this dock together.
(His hissed, “I trusted you,” still rings in her ears.)
He looks sharper at the edges than she remembers, a little older and more weary - but then, so must she. Though, it’s fair to say, he doesn’t look like a man who just left prison - someday when there aren’t guns pointed at them, she’ll have to ask if he stopped and bought that leather jacket on the way.
He looks from side to side again, then tilts his head at her, questioning.
“They can’t hear us,” she confirms, but takes a step past Flynn to stand at the edge of the dock with him. The agents can still see, and better their conversation goes completely unobserved.
“Yes,” he says. “I made it.”
“Then that’s all that matters.” She pauses, glancing sideways at him. “You want to tell me what happened?”
“Rittenhouse,” he says, and though she’d been expecting it, the name still feels like ice water down her spine.
“I haven’t told anyone about her. I wouldn’t.”
“I know. It wasn’t you. But it’s not over yet.” Flynn sighs, heavy and weary. “I need help,” he says, and maybe he means the FBI, but he’s looking straight at her.
This morning she was just hoping to make it to the end of Spring finals; honestly, part of her still expects to wake up any moment and find none of this is actually happening. She opens her mouth to speak and exactly nothing comes out.
Flynn turns away again, back to the water. “How long do we have?”
“Not long.” She barely got Wyatt to stay at the far end of the pier; he’ll wait for her command, but not forever. “Did you finish the wine already?”
He nods. “A little while ago. You took longer than I thought.” He holds out his hand, a bottle cork between his thumb and forefinger, and adds, “For your collection.”
She takes it from him with a soft chuckle.
In the long months of their first chase, when she knew exactly who he was but couldn’t prove it, she discovered his one concession to predictability - this place. Every Sunday evening, Flynn and a bottle of red wine would be found here, watching the boats pass by the city. She had never been sure what she’d expected when she followed him here, but it hadn’t been him passing her the bottle and inviting her to take a seat. When the bottle was empty, she palmed the cork, thinking he hadn’t noticed, but of course he had.
The commendation at the bottom of her desk drawer may say she caught him here, but it’s maybe ten percent of the truth. She still has the cork from that day, too.
“You ready?” she asks.
He pauses, like he wants to say something else, but eventually he nods and lifts his hands, wrists up and together. Still, for a moment, Lucy does nothing.
“You could’ve just kept running,” she says, not quite a question.
Flynn smiles faintly. “Running is easy,” he says. “It’s the stopping that’s the hard part.”
She motions for Wyatt, who springs forward as if released from a trap, already yelling for Flynn to stay where he is. He seems almost a little disappointed that he does.
“Thank you,” Flynn calls back to her as Wyatt leads him away.
Lucy sits at the empty desk in Wyatt’s office, and waits. God, this place never changes. The desks in the bullpen haven’t moved, the walls are the same shabby shade of blue, and even the sputtering old coffee maker - which only poured sludge five years ago, let alone now - still sits in its usual corner. The only thing different are the people casting pointed looks in her direction and whispering to each other.
She doesn’t have to wait long, though.
“You’re up,” Wyatt says when he appears again after only a few minutes, glowering. “They’re waiting in Interrogation Room B. You remember the way?”
She jumps up, nodding, simultaneously relieved and even more nervous than before. Wyatt catches her arm as she passes him.
“You don’t have to do this now, Lucy,” he says, voice low, concerned. “Let me have an agent take you home, and you can do your debrief tomorrow.”
Come back here? When all today has done so far is remind her of the exact reasons she left in the first place? No. Besides, where once she might have appreciated Wyatt’s concern - even found it endearing - after everything that happened, it just feels cloying.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she says, breaking away from his touch. “Let’s just get it over with.”
There are briefings and debriefings and interviews, all of which mostly comprise endless repetitions of the same questions until she can barely remember the answers. And all the while, she knows that across the hall is Flynn, and whatever poor souls have drawn the short straw of trying to question him.
(In all of it, every telling and re-telling, she never once says the name Rittenhouse.)
By the time she sits down in Agent Christopher’s office, it is dark outside, and she feels years older.
“Good work today,” Denise tells her, and she has to laugh.
“Doesn’t feel like I did much.”
“Sometimes it’s like that. But you did. Somebody who didn’t know him would never have figured out that code as fast as you did.”
“Maybe.” Lucy sighs as she sits. “What’ll happen to him now?”
“Most likely?” Denise asks, and Lucy nods. “He’ll get the maximum. Another five years.”
It almost doesn’t seem fair. Flynn stages the most polite jailbreak of all time, and his clock gets set back to zero for his trouble. And if he decides he needs to get out (because any walls they can put around him are really more of a challenge than a cage), somehow she doubts next time he’ll be kind enough to turn himself back in.
Denise seems to sense her disappointment.
“There is another option,” she says, sounding suspiciously casual. “There’s a pilot program in the Justice Department for high value, non-violent offenders. They work with law enforcement for the duration of their sentences, do a little good. Ankle monitoring, tight leash. Flynn qualifies.”
“What’s stopping you?” Lucy asks, realising too late that she’s walking into quicksand.
“Well,” Denise says, the offer plain in her voice, “he’d need a handler.”
“Oh, no. No. I can’t. I, just... No.” She’s babbling, and can’t seem to get it to stop, but the point stands.
Except.
I need help.
Flynn, a man with a flexible relationship with the truth at the best of times, has never once lied to her.
“You wouldn’t be an Agent,” Denise says quickly, as though it might help. “I know that’s not something you want anymore. You’d only work Flynn’s cases, and you can keep your job at the university. Wyatt and Rufus would work with you - their badges will get you the access you need, but you’d run the team.”
The thing is, it makes sense. Too much sense.
“Not that you’ve thought about it,” Lucy says, and receives a knowing shrug in return. “Wyatt knows his case just as well as I do, and he already works for you.”
“Wyatt’s my best agent. He does his job, and he does it well. And you and I both know if I give him to Wyatt, the building won’t be here in a week, let alone Flynn.” Lucy can’t help but nod her agreement. “He likes you. More important than that, he trusts you, and so do I. Just... take a day. Think about it.”
The next day goes completely perfectly: she wakes up fifteen minutes before her alarm; there are no suited-up kidnappers on her stoop; there’s good news about her latest grant application; her lecture, rescheduled, goes off without a hitch, and the students’ questions are engaging and insightful.
The entire time - all last night and through to today - the only thing she can think about is Flynn asking for her help.
She doesn’t even make it to lunch before she calls Agent Christopher.
“I’ll do it.”