Chapter Text
It has always struck Wyatt as strange, seeing people out of the context you knew them in.
It’s the small uncanny thing of running into your fifth grade teacher at the grocery store, your dentist at a bar, or that one guy from the housing department at the urinal net to you at a baseball game. People have categories in your head. They have settings. Your dentist belongs in that chair with a paper bib and a little hook and bright overhead light; your dentist does not belong on a stool in a shithole bar on a random Thursday afternoon, laughing at something his wife is saying. Your fifth grade teacher belongs in front of a whiteboard, not in the produce section of a HEB squeezing an avocado. The brain doesn’t know what to do with it. It glitches for a second. It tries to file the person back into their proper drawer, like seeing a fish out of water.
Wyatt noticed it most in the Army. You spent two years saluting a man who gets off on screaming in your face and has called you a an embarrassment to the United States and a pussy so many times that you wonder if the Army changed your name to it legally, and then you ran into him on a Saturday at a McDonald’s off the interstate, in a polo shirt and Dockers, crouched down next to a booster seat, gently telling a four-year-old in a princess dress that French fries do not, under any circumstances, belong in her nose. That guy? Same guy who reduced six-foot-six, two-hundred-forty pound Pearsons into a tearful mess yesterday, gentle parenting a girl in pigtails and calling her “daddy’s little angel.” For some reason, it just doesn’t compute.
It happens again at a Safeway in Mission on a random Tuesday night.
Wyatt’s always been a decent cook. His grandmother had taught him when he was little, having him work beside her in the kitchen, stirring batter or chopping vegetables, when he was old enough to trust with a knife. Delta Force had reinforced that. When your options were limited out in the field, you learned how to make something not-so-great taste like a five star meal. He rarely plans a meal, just goes into the grocery store and sees what inspires him. Jess used to laugh and say he shopped like he lived—wild and reckless, throwing whatever caught his eye into the cart and figuring out dinner on the drive home. She’d made fun of him for it for years. She’d also eaten everything he cooked, which he had taken, at the time, as evidence that his system worked.
He paces the aisles, throwing things into his basket at random. Chicken thighs, because they're cheap and forgiving and you can throw them in anything. A small bag of rice since the extended stay hotel Homeland Security put him up in has a rice cooker. A bag of tortilla chips that are on sale. On a whim he decides to make his own salsa. It’s been awhile since he’s made it, mostly because the last few weeks have been hectic, what with Mason Industries and jumping through time like he’s Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. It’ll pair well with the Corona he’d picked up at the corner store yesterday, BOGO.
He’s just selected a few jalapenos and is stepping back when he walks right into someone selecting onions from the aisle right behind him.
“Oh, sorry, about that,” he says, turning just as the woman looks over her shoulder. A very familiar woman.
He has to blink his eyes several times as his brain tries to process seeing the historian standing there in jeans and a gray Stanford sweatshirt, a matching red cart hooked over one arm. Her dark hair is pulled into a low messy knot at the back of her head and she seems to be just as startled to find him here.
“Lucy?”
Lucy Preston’s brown eyes widen in recognition. “Wyatt. Hey!”
“How’s it going?”
“Good, good. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.” He smiles. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She laughs. “Yeah. I have to admit, it’s kinda trippy seeing you somewhere that isn’t Mason’s or that damn lifeboat.” She makes a head explosion motion.
That makes him laugh. He’s glad he isn’t alone in the sentiment.
“You’re telling me.” Wyatt glances down at her basket and raises his brows. “That’s uh…a lot of TV dinners.”
Lucy stares at her haul, like she’s just noticing her wares. Her cheeks go slightly pink. “Oh yeah,” she says, giving a soft, nervous laugh. “Loathe as I am to admit it, I’m the type of person who can burn water. Amy’s the cook of the family. Now that she’s…well, anywho. I figure, a girl’s got to eat, so here I am.” She waves vaguely to her basket.
Wyatt shoots her a sympathetic look. “Sorry again about your sister.”
She winces and tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear, glancing down at her feet demurely. “Um, thank you. Thanks again, too, you know…for what you said that day to Christopher.”
“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. So…yeah. No problem.”
God, this is awkward. Of course, dead wives and suddenly-non-existent sisters are hardly middle-of-the-grocery-store appropriate topics, but considering how the only two interactions they’ve had have inadvertently involved both those things, it’s no surprise the conversation led there.
Their association is strange. They barely know each other, yet he already knows some deep, personal things about her. Like the fact that she’s supposed to have a little sister, that her mom was dying of cancer, that she’s claustrophobic. She, in turn, knows some pretty private things about him as well. His wife is dead. He doesn’t believe in fate. He knows how to give himself stitches. It makes for a much more bizarre dynamic than a regular co-worker thing. It’s the kind of knowing that usually takes years to build up, packed into a handful of weeks under extreme circumstances. It’s a lot like going out on an op with a new member of the unit.
Trauma bonding, or whatever.
But the uncomfortable truth is, he isn’t even sure if he likes Lucy all that much. She’s bossy and a bit of a know-it-all, and she’s gotten in his way more than once. He thinks about how she stood there, outside of Mason’s, and told him that some things couldn’t be changed, that they were fate. He’d been pissed, borderline disgusted. “And Jessica? Is that fate?” He’d thrown back in her face. He hadn’t bothered waiting around for her answer.
He thinks about her standing there in that hotel room in 1865, stubbornly telling him that she wasn’t a soldier, that she didn’t take orders from him, and he’d been so annoyed, so frustrated by her obstinance and her refusal to look at things from a different angle, that he’d resolved himself to the fact that she would just be a thorn in his side for however long they’d be doing these missions.
But then he thinks about her standing there, covered in the blood and brain matter of one of her childhood heroes, her face crumpled and horrified, as she whispered, “I tried. I tried. I should have…” How broken hearted she’d looked when Robert Todd Lincoln had approached her, confirming his father was dead.
She’d been quiet in the lifeboat and he knew it wasn’t just because she was wildly claustrophobic and she was bracing for the inevitable sickness that came with traveling through time. She was a civilian, an esteemed professor at a fancy university, and she’d had a front row seat to one of the most notable assassinations of all time.
He can’t help but feel a tug of sympathy for her.
Lucy, clearly done with the awkward silence, clears her throat. “That’s…um, a nice assortment of vegetables,” she says. “Whatcha making?”
“Salsa.”
Her eyebrows go up. “You make your own salsa?”
“Yeah. It’s not that difficult. Onion, cilantro, lime, peppers, tomato. Throw them in the broiler for a bit, then into a blender, and boom: you’re done.”
“I think you and I have very different definitions of not difficult,” she says with a laugh. He’s a little startled. He doesn’t think he’s heard her laugh before. “Which is a shame,” she continues, grinning sheepishly, “because I can eat my weight in chips and salsa at Tropisueno.”
That gets a laugh out of him. A real one. He’s nearly as surprised to hear it as he was hearing hers. It feels a little foreign in his throat. Lucy is watching him with the corner of her mouth turned up, like she’s pleased with herself for getting it out of him.
“I can let you try some the next time we’re at Masons,” he blurts out.
Lucy’s eyes widen again. “Oh, that’s—um, you don’t have to trouble yourself.”
Wyatt shrugs a shoulder. He’s not quite sure why he offered, but it won’t be the first time he’s brought in food for coworkers. The guys loved it when he brought in one of his concoctions for them to try. And isn’t that was Lucy is? A coworker?
“It’s no trouble at all.” Then, glancing down at her assortment of Stouffers and Lean Cuisines, he adds with a grin, “Besides, knowing that’s what you survive off of is a little depressing.”
She rolls her eyes. “Hilarious," she deadpans.
And now they’re back to staring at each other. Wyatt doesn't know what to say. As far as he can tell, outside of their jumps, they don't have much in common. She’s a professor, he’s a soldier. She probably spends her evenings pouring over some textbook or grading papers. He spends his scouring the internet for any clues about his dead wife, drinking until he finally falls into a dreamless sleep.
They’ve made enough small talk for him to excuse himself politely and get back to his shopping. But, he finds himself hesitating. He isn’t entirely sure why. Maybe it’s that she and Rufus are the only two people on Earth who’d actually understand what this week has looked like. Maybe it’s that the alternative is going back to the hotel and staring at the walls. Either way, he isn’t quite ready to say goodbye.
“So, you live around here?” He asks, only realizing after how lame the question is. He might as well ask her, “come here often?”
Terminally polite, Lucy doesn’t point it out. “Yeah, just a few blocks over, in Pacific Heights.”
Wyatt lets out a low whistle and grins. “Fancy. That’s one hell of a teacher’s salary, Preston.”
“Hardly,” she snorts. “It’s my mom’s house. I’d probably be living off mac and cheese if I had to pay rent in this area.” She laughs when Wyatt shoots a pointed look at her basket. “Yes, you’ve made your opinions on my diet quite clear. Enough of the passive aggressive judgement.”
“You really should eat something more substantial,” he says, shifting into team leader mode without thinking. “These missions don’t look like they’re ending anytime soon. You’ve got to keep up your strength.”
“Yes, dad.”
Wyatt laughs sheepishly. “Sorry. I don’t mean to boss you around. It’s just, going to the places that we go…doing what we do…you never know where we’ll wind up. It’s probably smart to have something a little more solid in the tank. You know. Protein. Vegetables. A food group that isn’t sodium.”
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying.”
“You don’t even know what’s in those,” she says defensively.
Wyatt laughs. “Yeah, I do. Salt, butter, a couple preservatives. Another dash of salt…”
“Alright, alright, I get it,” Lucy rolls her eyes. “I’ll try to do better, okay? Here.” She reaches behind him and he nearly jumps at her sudden closeness, but then she’s holding up a stalk of celery.
“See? Healthy snack.”
He shakes his head in amusement. “Celery is like ninety-five percent water.”
Lucy’s eyes narrow slightly. “Are you sure Homeland hired you for the gun, or as our team nutritionist?”
Wyatt grimaces, realizing belatedly just how pushy he sounds. She’s not a soldier, like she said, and is more than capable enough to make her own decisions about her body. But, he does have to depend on her in the field, and well…he’s seen more than his fair share of soldiers cramp up or fall out from heat exhaustion because they didn’t feed themselves right. The body’s a piece of equipment. You can’t run a HUMVEE on fumes, and you can’t run a body on processed food and coffee.
Both of which seem to be Lucy’s preferred diet, based on the contents of her basket.
“Shit, sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to lecture you. Force of habit, I guess. From the Army.”
Lucy shrugs nonchalantly. “I know it comes from a good place. And I appreciate it, really I do, Wyatt.”
“Okay.”
Silence again. Lucy fidgets awkwardly.
“Well, I should—” she begins, just as he blurts out, “Does it feel real to you?
She blinks. “What?”
“Being here. Doing regular stuff.” He waves vaguely at the produce. “Half the time I’m running around doing errands thinking, I was on a damn dirigible last week. It’s — I don’t know. Does it feel real?”
She lets out a startled laugh.
“That’s — yeah. No. I feel like I’m dreaming half the time. And I don’t know what to do with myself. My mother was asking how work was the other night, and I almost told her, ‘well, considering how, in the span of a week, I’ve watched my childhood hero take a bullet to the brain, but also got held at gunpoint by a time traveling terrorist, so not great.’”
Wyatt winces and takes a quick sweep of their surroundings. The produce department is empty save for an old woman clear on the opposite side, picking through a basket of apples. Judging on her slumped posture, it’s likely they could have this conversation three feet from her and she wouldn’t hear a damn thing, but still. Confidential is confidential.
Leaning toward her ear, he says through gritted teeth, “Ixnay onyay errorismtay.”
A hand flies over her mouth. “Crud. You’re right,” she whispers. Then, as if just processing what he’d said, she leans back and looks at him. “Did you just speak pig latin?”
Wyatt can’t help but laugh. “You know pig latin?”
“I told you, I’m not old,” she drolls, rolling her eyes.
His grin widens. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lucy shoots him a sharp glare at the title, but it’s dampened by the slight curve of her lips and the twinkle in her eyes. He’s sat across her in the lifeboat enough times now to know they’re brown. He’d only noticed because Jessica had brown eyes, too. This close, though, he realizes they’re actually a shade or two lighter than Jess’s. They’re a cozy amber, like the whiskey he drinks every night to put himself to sleep.
And what the hell was that? He’s never been poetic. It gives him pause.
Luckily, a sudden, audible growl disrupts him from thinking too hard about it.
Wyatt’s brows lift in amusement and Lucy flushes.
“On that note,” she says stiffly. “I should probably get going. I—I skipped lunch, and…well…” Her lips roll in and she makes a popping noise before tilting her head toward the front of the store, like she’s pointing the way out. “Anyway. Uh…see you around?”
Wyatt nods. “See you around, Lucy.”
He watches her scurry off, shoulders slightly hunched as she disappears around the corner. Shaking his head, he goes back to shopping. When he grabs a bag of salad and pre-cooked chicken, he can’t help but think of Lucy, sitting in some fancy house in the fancy part of town, poking at some congealed monstrosity posing as five cheese rigatoni. It makes him chuckle.
Wyatt finishes up and heads toward the checkout lanes. This late, there are only two lanes open. He slides into the shortest one and waits. It’s then that he notices Lucy standing at the front of the line. She’s chatting cheerfully with the teenage cashier who he can hear saying that he plans to go to Stanford in the fall.
Lucy talks with her hands. He’s seen her do it on missions, but here, beneath the fluorescent lights of the grocery store, there is something particularly endearing about it. The way her fingers move when she talks, the little flicks and rolls and the way her whole body leans into whatever it is she’s saying. She’s telling the kid something about freshman year housing, gesturing wildly, and the kid is grinning at her like she’s the most interesting person he’s talked to all shift, which, considering how this is a grocery store, she probably is.
She’s good at this, Wyatt realizes. The being-with-people thing. He’d only seen her do it on missions, where it always read as part of the job — Lucy slipping into whatever role the era demanded, charming Presidents’ sons with that bright, attentive way she has of making whoever she was talking to feel like the only person in the room. He’d assumed it was a skill. Using her knowledge of each of the historical figures, maybe, the same way he could shoot center mass without thinking.
Apparently, this is just Lucy.
He watches the kid tell her something that makes her laugh, and he feels his own mouth pull up at the corner.
“You should ask her out.”
Wyatt blinks. He looks down to where the voice came from.
The old woman in line in front of him has turned around. She’s maybe seventy, soft white hair, a quilted vest, a pair of reading glasses hanging from a beaded chain around her neck. He thinks it might be the woman from earlier, in the produce section.
She’s leaning on the handle of her cart and looking up at him with the kind of patient, slightly entertained expression that suggests she’s been watching him for longer than he realized.
“I’m sorry?”
“That lovely girl you’ve been staring at.” The woman nods toward Lucy. “You should ask her out.”
Watt feels his face go hot. “Oh. No, ma’am, I — I wasn’t —”
“You were.”
“I was just —”
“Honey.” The woman gives him a smile that is somehow both kind and absolutely merciless. “I saw the two of you earlier, laughing and smiling and carrying on.” At Wyatt’s dubious expression she says, “I’ve been married for forty-seven years. I know when a man is smitten. She’s been up there, talking with her hands. I don’t see a ring.”
Clambering for something to say, Wyatt blurts, “She’s actually — we just work together.”
The old woman’s eyes narrow ever so slightly and her disappointment is palpable. But, Jesus, he’s standing in the middle of a grocery store being interrogated by a five foot nothing grandma.
“We’re um…friends,” he adds lamely.
The woman looks at him for a long, evaluating moment. Then she pats the handle of her cart twice, like she’s coming to a verdict.
“Well,” she says. “I think you ought to be more than friends.”
He opens his mouth to retort, but then the line shifts forward. She gives him one last knowing look — the kind his grandmother used to give him when he was lying about whether he’d eaten the last cookie — and then turns back around to start unloading her cart onto the belt. The conversation, apparently, is over. She has rendered her judgement and is now moving on with her evening.
Wyatt stands there with his basket against his hip and his ears burning.
Bags in hand, Lucy thanks the cashier and wishes him good luck at Stanford in the fall. He lights up like she’s just personally promised him a scholarship. As she makes her way out of the store, she glances over her shoulder briefly, and her eyes land on him. She gives him a quick smile and a tiny wave.
He lifts his hand back.
She turns and walks out through the automatic doors. The night swallows her up beyond the glass.
“Friends, hm?”
The old woman is staring at him again. It’s only then that he realizes that he’s smiling.