Work Text:
TWOS
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Most would say that things happen in threes. It’s the superstition, isn’t it? Things always come in threes. But not to Garcia Flynn.
Things in his life do not happen in threes.
They happen in twos.
He had to wait two years until Mason Industries finished work on the Mothership. Between the years 2014 and 2016, all he had was the journal. Lucy's scribbled words seemed to be his only human connection. The journal became his bible.
Two years -- two years between meeting the Alternate Lucy and the Present Lucy.
In 2018, the Alternate Lifeboat showed up, bringing with it the LIMITED ability to travel into their own Timelines.
Traveling into 2012 found a stranded Garcia on the beach. With the complications of traveling into their own timelines still ever-present, Flynn knew that no one was coming for him. Not anytime soon, anyway.
There are two Garcia Flynns in Sao Pualo, Brazil in 2014.
Garcia Flynn #2 braces himself against the humid rain. The two weather patterns don’t often mesh together, but apparently today in Brazil they do.
Flynn tucks the tan rain jacket closer to his neck as he trudges through the puddles on the way to Gaurita Bar.
He doesn’t really care if she sees him. In her present timeline she'd never know him -- to the other Lucy (the one that's here), the Flynn she knew was gone, probably believed to be dead because of the complications of the travel.
Two years. He'd once again waited two years to see her again.
Time never went by more slowly. It was unbearable — painfully so. Unlike the last time he waited, there was no mission to prepare for. There was no 'Mothership Retrieval' to plan.
Some part of Flynn tucked away in his subconscious said that he deserved the excruciating wait.
The rain tickles his face, his unshaven cheeks acting like a ‘plinko board’ of sorts for the little drops of moisture. The beads of water just travel between the grey and black coarse hairs.
He finally finds a good stopping point, underneath a store’s awning that shields him from the rain. He leans against the concrete wall and just waits, keeping his green eyes glued to the bar across the street from him.
Lucy didn’t stay too incredibly long with him while giving him her journal so his wait shouldn't be a long one.
Flynn doesn’t realize he was holding his breath until he releases it when he sees Lucy walk out of the bar. He takes in her appearance and thinks the same thoughts when he first saw her in the prison.
She's looked better.
She’s lost weight, he notices. Her already prominent cheekbones are even more so. Even from this distance, he can see the bluish-purple bags that cradle her eyes. The cool tones seem enhanced by the dull grey sky.
Time had never stood so still the moment Lucy’s hazel eyes locked onto his own green ones.
Some part of him wished that she never saw him. He just wanted to take one last look at her — but the other part, the biggest part of him wanted her to.
He needed it.
He needed it like a man in the desert needed the smallest drop of water — just enough to keep him alive, keep him going. To keep him sane.
Garcia Flynn stands in place as he watches Lucy move across the road without looking out for traffic. Lucy seems completely oblivious to the sounds of horns honking and the Portuguese swear words that are being directed at her. He wanted to go onto the street to collect her, but she’d made it across by the time his brain sent the signal for his legs to move.
He was glued, stuck to his spot underneath this awning on the sidewalk at the sight of her.
Lucy knocks her toe against the built-up sidewalk and comes hurtling towards him. With his body finally listening again, Flynn immediately brings his arms out to secure her as she reaches out for him.
Flynn feels Lucy’s small fingers clutch his rain jacket as if her balance isn’t the only thing at stake. She holds onto him like her life depends on it.
Flynn’s heart breaks when he feels her body shudder against him. It’s not cold out here, even with the rain — so that only means one thing.
She’s crying.
She’s crying FOR HIM.
“Lucy,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.
“Hey,” he says, the syllables drawn out in an attempt to comfort. “It’s okay — it’s all right.”
“You’re here,” she gasps, her sound laced with sobs. "I hoped -- I thought maybe --"
When she removes herself from the embrace, she places her hands over his scruffy cheeks and just stares at him.
“I never knew you cared,” Flynn replies with a his signature smirky smile.
Lucy, frustrated at his remark at a time like this, just shoves him against the chest.
“I thought you were gone!” she shouts, throwing no care to the crowd around them, people going about their business despite the rain.
“You were gone and it was my fault! If I hadn’t come here in the first place — if I hadn’t given you the damn journal — it was all my fault,” Lucy says, sobbing even harder. "It's all my fault! You started all this because of me -- because I told you to!"
“Hey, Lucy. It’s all going to be okay,” Flynn tells her, trying to get her to relax a little bit.
He bends down to try to look into her teary hazel eyes, but she's not having it.
Truthfully, he never knew that she cared so much.
He’s ecstatic about it, no doubt, but he just simply never knew.
She says nothing more as she wraps her arms around him once again, almost as if to reassure herself that he is still here.
He has no qualms with it.
How could he?
When he knows that Lucy doesn’t regret her decision to embrace him and immediately pull back, he rests his pointed chin against her rain-soaked head.
He just holds her and lets her cry herself out, not really knowing what else to do. One of his hands find themselves on her soaked shirt that is clinging to her back and the other finds it's way on the the back of her head.
Afraid his chin hurts her head, he tilts it a bit so that more of his cheek is against her head. He breathes in, all other scents lost to the smell of her strawberry shampoo.
The same shampoo her sister used.
When he feels Lucy begin to pull away, he lets her. He doesn’t really want to let Lucy go, but he knows that at some point he will have to, so he does.
Lucy wipes away any remaining tears with her forearm and sniffles.
“Well, I guess I should get you home, then.”
Flynn just gestures to the space in front of them, not knowing where to go because he doesn’t know where she parked the lifeboat.
Lucy just grins, some of the brightness returned to her eyes, as she takes the long-fingered hand of Garcia Flynn and drags him out of the shelter of the awning. Together, whilst hand-in-hand, they run out into the rain, towards the Lifeboat — the time traveling machine that will take them home.