Maybe, he muses, maybe he can find a nice abandoned house to burn down. A Rittenhouse agent to strangle. Hell, maybe there’s a fascist around here somewhere who could use a good kicking. They’re holed up in the cramped servants’ quarters of a prominent family, hired as temporary help for an upcoming dinner Lucy has been certain Rittenhouse is planning to sabotage. Some sort of long-game approach to changing the dynamics of the upcoming second world war. They had been dropped a few days early in order to integrate themselves into the residence in question, and Rufus had jumped back to the present spend time with Jiya and Connor modifying the Lifeboat, which sorely needed it and would not benefit from sitting around in post-Edwardian London, unused, for several days. Wyatt was back home, off on a different assignment, and Flynn and Lucy had been confident they could handle this themselves. But then Lucy had interacted with a returned lieutenant colonel upstairs, talking him to several hours in order to get some information, and apparently the son of a bitch had been sick with what half of these men were sick with in 1918 because she’d shortly grown flush and feverish. This strand of influenza, she’d informed him the day before, had killed nearly 100 million people after World War I.Flynn would give his right arm for some fucking penicillin.The other servants had been apologetic; they had sent for a doctor but it was no telling how long it would take. Unspoken: a foreign temporary chauffeur and scullery maid (Lucy had loved that) weren’t a high priority in this contemptibly rigid class system. The fever has lasted for two days so far. Flynn hasn’t left her side (for convenience, they had posed as a married couple, so thankfully he isn’t going to be kicked out for the sake of propriety), and it only seems to be getting worse. He knows he shouldn’t risk contamination but every time he considers leaving the room, he is struck with a sense of darkening panic, a thin, cruel memory of gunshots in the middle of the night, of his wife and daughter slipping away before he could save them or even tell them how much he… Anyhow. Flynn tries to still the pounding in his chest, takes a deep breath through gritted teeth. It is sometime in the early morning, not that they have a window in this dim and dusty area of the servants’ garrett, and Lucy is still sleeping. She needs the rest. He imagines he must look like hell sitting there, slumped like some sort of grim specter, his hands clenched together to keep them from inappropriately clutching hers. Remembering how his glower had already scared off the house parlor maid, who had come by with tea, he tries to calm himself by listening to the soft rhythm of Lucy’s breath.So. He’s grown used to her. Her presence in the diary and, recently, (undeniably, frustratingly) the real thing. Her quick mind and soft heart and surprising resilience. The way she’d broken down in his arms in Chinatown, the way she sometimes sleeps in his room after their long talks, the soft sharpness in her face, her arms wrapped around herself in sleep, her breathing…Which, now, is low. Too low. As much as he doesn’t want to wake her up, Flynn finds himself gripping one shoulder and giving her a firm shake. He doesn’t excel at gentleness. “Lucy?” he says, voice hoarse from lack of use. She doesn’t respond or even stir. There is a thin sheen over her skin, the pale flush of ongoing fever, and her breathing is all too shallow for his liking and he feels like there’s a vulture picking at his chest, destroying him slowly. “Lucy,” he says again, and it’s a reprimand this time because how could she possibly be so foolish as to fall ill at a time like this? Why hadn’t she been more careful?“Dammit Lucy, wake up,” he says, shaking her again. Funny, he dimly notes, how fragile the body is, how small the bones, like a bird. The thought makes him irrationally and intensely angry. “Wake up,” he repeats again, a useless mantra, and he is suddenly gripping the cup and saucer on her bedside table and before he registers his own actions, hurling them at the wall, one after the other. A soft shatter followed by a louder shatter. The faint laughter of fine glass breaking. Hell. He needs to wring someone’s neck, blame someone for this and give them their due. “I thought you understood that we need you,” he grits out, standing, pacing. “That I– you’re a damned historian! You know the risks of interacting with soldiers in this time period! Were you thinking at all?“You don’t get to leave yet,” he continues sharply, aware of what the anger is masking, the flood of panic threatening to drown him. Before her, his mission had been dark, single-minded. Almost inhuman. But she had breathed life back into it, painted it with joy, with compassion. He hadn’t felt those things with any degree of intensity since his family was ripped from him. “Not you,” he adds. “Haven’t I lost enough?” The words are almost lost in his throat, an angry, bitter sob. There’s one more cup on the table and its shatter against the same wall (the servants might fit them with a bill if they aren’t too scared of him by now) is hollow, unsatisfying. He sits again. “Please,” he says dully, the rage wrung out. He is as dry as a piece of cloth. “You need to wake up, because… because I can’t do this without you. I lo–” He swallows, runs his tongue over his lips, stops himself just in time because saying it will make it real, make him as fragile as a pile of bird bones and he can’t afford that. He can’t afford to lose another chunk of his soul. There would be nothing left. Lucy continues to breathe shakily, but does not wake up. —She’s still holding on the next day, but it is by a thread. Flynn knows there’s a mission to be completed but his mind is in tatters. Stopping by the kitchen, he hears the butler and the cook whisper in low tones about the woman who had stopped by who wasn’t from these parts, that’s for certain, Mr. Williams, and rushes out the servants’ door to see Jiya crossing her arms and glaring at the house. “Sorry, they wouldn’t let me i– what’s wrong?” she asked at the look on his face. It takes all of his self-control to not fly into a rage, to demand why she had taken so long to return. She had no way of knowing, he reminds himself, and they’d all agreed on the details of this assignment. “It’s Lucy,” he says shortly, unable to resist a glower. “We have to go.” “What’s wrong? Was it Emma?” “No.” He swallows. “This– this mission will have to go unfinished.” Several emotions flash through Jiya’s face, confusion and concern and something frustratingly close to pity, and she nods. “Yeah. You’re explaining it to Agent Christopher, though.” “Gladly.” He steps inside to get Lucy, and hopes on hope that they’re not too late. —After two days of zanamivir (turns out influenza isn’t typically treated with antibiotics), Lucy is awake and functioning again. Flynn finds himself avoiding her; the prospect of talking to her touching her, god, feeling her heartbeat… it’s overwhelming. He has let her twine too close to him. If he’d lost her… She finally corners him in the kitchen one afternoon. Jiya, Rufus and Wyatt are off on a mission. Lucy is grounded while she recovers and he (he grimly recalls) has been told by Agent Christopher that he needs to “calm the hell down” before he’s sent on another trip. Which is just absurd, and he’d told her so to no avail. “What’s your problem?” Lucy says sharply, catching him as he digs through the fridge for beer. “There’s no problem,” he says tersely, closing it, empty-handed, and makes to step around her. She moves in front of him again and there’s something endearing about that fact that she thinks she’s a barrier. All five foot five of her. He bites back a smile and looks at her, trying to shake the feeling that grips his chest when their eyes meet. Like a desperate drink of water, like she is relief embodied in human form. She’s still pale, not all there yet, but her eyes are warm and alive. And angry. Angry, too. “What is it, Flynn?” she says, and he notes a catch in her voice. “I thought I heard… well, what, are you mad that I ruined the mission?”Speaking of the absurd. He barks out a laugh and finally dodges her, walking to his room. She follows insistently as he tries not to, what? Yell? Cry? “This is the last time I’m asking,” she’s saying, walking quickly to keep up with him. “Frankly, Flynn, I don’t have the energy for whatever this is–” “I almost lost you!” he snaps, spinning to glare down at her. She blinks once, startled. With a huff, he enters his room and she follows. She sits on his bed and he sits on his chair. Somehow, these have become their spots, no matter the setting. After a moment she speaks, and her voice is soft. “I thought… I thought I dreamed those things you said. Back in 1918.”He processes this, trying to sort the feelings tornadoing through him. “You… heard?” “Yeah,” she says. It’s almost a whisper. She looks at him and before he can even stop himself, he has crossed the room and is kneeling in front of her, his hands on her knees. He is such a goddamned fool, doesn’t know how to be what Lucy deserves. He doesn’t deserve to be in her atmosphere but he’s never been good at staying away from her, has he? “Lucy,” he says, and he’s also never been good at apologizing. She’s there, and her skin is warm beneath the fabric of her clothes. He takes her hand, the fragile bones of it, and presses a kiss to her palm. “It’s okay,” she says, voice soothing as he rests his head in her lap, as she runs her fingers through his hair over and over again. He is shaking under the assault of her gentleness. “It’s okay.”