The Garcy Network

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved.” I mean. This poem is the MOST Garcy, how could I not.

It only took me FOREVER but…(also because I am weirdly emotional about this final movement have a link for your listening pleasure)

“Come home with me.”

Lucy Preston whispers it against Garcia Flynn’s chest as she ostensibly hugs him goodbye, a packed duffel bag waiting by his feet to be carted off to parts unknown. She doesn’t mean to say it—they have all spent so long trapped together, no space, no privacy, and if he wants to go away and find some peace and quiet now that Rittenhouse is gone, he is entitled.

Besides which, they are…they are…Lucy doesn’t know what they are. It feels dangerous to name it.

But. Flynn makes a small sound, startled and questioning, and pulls away from the embrace so he can see her face. He doesn’t speak. Instead, he watches her with haunted, shadowed, exhausted eyes, as if hope is a luxury he has forbidden himself, and Lucy squirms under the scrutiny and wets her lips.

“Come home with me,” she repeats, hating the way her voice shakes, hating how much her stomach twists in the silence that follows, insecurity whispering cruelly in the back of her mind that he won’t, that he could never want to, that she’s a foolish little—

“Okay.”

Oh.

It’s that easy.

Flynn moves into the spare room. First in Carol’s house, and then, after the itch under Lucy’s skin becomes too much, after the walls feel like they’re closing in around her, into the house Connor buys for them.

At first, Lucy wonders if she misunderstood. If maybe he doesn’t—if he only moved in with her at all out of some sense of obligation. But as time goes on, as they sink into routine…

There’s something fragile in it. In the way he cooks and cleans and doesn’t touch her, but looks at her with quiet worship when he doesn’t think she can see. And she realizes that he’s afraid.

If she’s honest, so is she.

They spent so long fighting, the shadow of loss hanging over them like a cloud, never sure what was going to be ripped away from them next. This—normal life—it feels like a fantasy. A dream. Pushing their intimacies into something more would be tempting fate, waving a sign for the universe to come take it away.

(Their scars are perhaps still too fresh for that anyway.)

But sometimes…sometimes Lucy wants him so badly she can’t breathe.

She’s not sure what wakes her at first. The clock tells her it’s just after 3AM, but she can hear movement from downstairs, and the faintest strains of music.

Six months. Six months of living together, of limbo, of dancing around the elephant in the room.

Lucy slips out of bed.

Flynn slides something into the oven as she appears in the doorway—a quiche, she thinks, from the look of it. Sweet strings filter out of the speakers, soothing and repetitive minimalism. She places it as Philip Glass, but the name of the quartet escapes her.

“Can’t sleep?” She asks. Flynn doesn’t jump, just gently closes the oven door and straightens up.

There’s a smear of flour on his cheek.

She wants to wipe it away. She wonders if he would let her.

He shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

Lucy steps into the kitchen, crossing closer as the movement changes over on the recording.

“Can I help?”

“I’m alright now. But thank you.”

She stops in front of him and chances taking his hand, not letting go even when he shivers and closes his eyes.

“You always take care of me,” Flynn says quietly as her fingers lace through his.

“No more than you take care of me,” Lucy replies.

“Still—“

“It’s what you do.” It slips out before she can stop herself, and Flynn squeezes her hand in return. The strings coalesce into something beautiful and rippling—it steals into her chest and cracks something open.

“It’s what you do…when you love someone,” she finishes.

He doesn’t say anything with words, but he grips her hand even more tightly and bends to press his forehead to hers.

“How long does that need?”

“Forty minutes,” Flynn replies. “I’ll check it in thirty.”

Lucy nods once and swallows.

“Will you—will you come to bed when you’re finished?”

“To your bed?”

“Ours,” she corrects gently. “If—if you want.”

The brush of his mouth across her knuckles is feather-light.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Yes.”