#timeless-librarian

When it finally started to decrease again, he found himself sitting against a wall, knees pulled to his chest, hands clutching at his head.  There was a blur in front of him and, when he squinted, a cop came into view, seconds before the man disappeared in a white blaze.

“You can’t be out here,” a voice boomed.  “Collect your stuff and get out of here.”

Then the white disappeared…caused by a flashlight, Wyatt’s foggy brain realized.  Unable to find the breath for words, he just nodded and shakily pulled himself upright.

“You okay, sir?” the officer suddenly asked, suddenly sounding more warm and generous.

“Migraines,” Wyatt ground out, hand rubbing at his head.  “Bad.”

“You need a lift?”

Wyatt considered for a split second then nodded.  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Where have you been?” Lucy demanded as soon as she opened the door to her hotel room.  “It’s after eleven!”

Crap, he’d been gone for almost four hours.

“Where’s Rufus?” Wyatt asked, wincing as the ache in his head ratcheted up a notch.

“About to go out looking for you.” Without taking her eyes off Wyatt, Lucy tapped on the connecting door. “He’s back,” she called loud enough to be heard in the other room.

Rufus burst through the door almost immediately.  “We are never splitting up ag—What happened to you?” he demanded as soon as he saw Wyatt’s disheveled appearance.

“I think I’m getting sick.” Wyatt then proceeded to describe his earlier head- and stomachache, the growing aches, then the head pain.

“And that might not be a big deal but I wasn’t sick before I got here and haven’t been sick for the last few days and I really don’t want to be a Typhoid Mary for some futuristic virus.”

Lucy walked over and rested her hand against his forehead.  “You’re not running a fever but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

“So what’s the plan?” Wyatt asked, dropping into a chair and wincing as the motion jarred his knees. “Do I have to worry about this or—”

Without warning, pain exploded in his chest, stealing his breath.  He doubled over, clutching at his ribs and forcing his lungs through steady inhales.

“Rufus, what’s happening?” he heard someone…Lucy…ask as he struggled to bring air into his lungs.

“Either he was poisoned somehow or…”  Rufus cursed. Loudly.  And creatively.  “Would you say the pain is sharp or dull?”

“Seri’sly?” Wyatt grunted out, his forehead pressed to the wooden table in front of him.

“It’s important!  Sharp or dull?”

“Sharp.”

“Started in your stomach, head, then chest.” Rufus cursed under his breath. “This is bad.”

Suddenly there were hands under his arms, hauling him to his feet.  Disoriented, Wyatt looked around until his gaze landed on Rufus, who was fully supporting him, Lucy hovering off to his right.

“Waz ‘oin’ on?”

Wyatt kicked Karl’s gun away then bent down to take his pulse.  “He’s still alive.”

He quickly patted the man down and, when he found no additional weapons, manhandled Karl out of his jacket, sliced it in half with his very modern pocketknife, then tied the thick fabric against his wounds.

With that out of the way, he turned back to Baumgardner and demanded, in a very calm, very level voice,  “What the hell were you thinking?”

“They told me not to take—”

“Not that!”  Then he paused to reconsider.  “Well that too.  But mostly you standing in the middle of the alley, with no cover in sight.’

“Past weapons are rarely accurate.  I would have been fine.”

“Flynn’s men don’t play by those rules,” Wyatt stated, standing up so his face was inches from Baumgardner’s.  He then pointed at the very modern weapon resting on the ground out of Karl’s reach. “That Glock is extremely accurate. And it was supposed to kill you.”

To his credit, Baumgardner barely reacted outside of a quick double blink.  “Oh,” he finally said.

“Oh is right.”  Wyatt smacked the back of his hand against Baumgardner’s chest.  “You have to be more careful, man!  Did I teach you nothing?”

“I’m sorry,” Dave replied, looking genuinely contrite.

“Can we come out now?” Lucy poked her head around a box, eyes wide with excitement.

“Yeah, it’s safe.”

Two seconds later, he staggered backwards with the full force of a Lucy hug.  “What the hell are you doing here?  How did you escape?  How did you get here?”

As she paused to breath, Wyatt gently pulled free of her embrace.  “One question at a time.”  He waited for her to nod before ticking points off on his right hand.  “I came to save his dumb ass.  Christopher helped me and Jiya flew me.”

“Jiya?” Rufus asked, his face contorting in great concern.

“It’s a long story.  Think Back to the Future II.”   In the distance, bells chimed and Wyatt refocused on the task at hand.  “Bam-Bam and I need to go,” he stated.

“But—”

“You both do just fine without him.  Just tell the new guy he,” Wyatt paused to jerk his thumb in Baumgardner’s direction, “died protecting you.”

“But—”

Wyatt reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand.  “You’ll both be fine.  I promise.”

She smiled uneasily.  “Okay.”  She ran her thumb along the back of Wyatt’s hand then pulled away.  “What do we do now?”

One corner of Wyatt’s mouth lifted as he looked her in the eyes.  “I think you know the answer to that.”

It took her a moment but she eventually nodded.

“Be careful,” Wyatt said, pausing to look at both of them.  They nodded slowly in unison.

“When will we see you again?” Rufus asked.

“Very soon,” Wyatt said, unable to resist the chance to be cryptic.

As Rufus and Lucy walked off toward the bar, Wyatt turned back to Baumgardner.

“Ready to go home?”

The soldier nodded, still slightly paler than usual.

“Good, because there’s about 80 different exercises I’m going to run your dumb ass through when we get there.”  Wyatt holstered his gun and walked away, muttering about where Baumgardner thought standing in the middle of an alley with no cover was a good idea.