Lucy and Messer

The relationship between **Lucy St James** and **Aiden Messer** first began as mentor-and-student, before developing into a solid friendship and then romance.

## Season 1

After witnessing the suited men murder a scientist in cold blood, Lucy is kidnapped by them when she attempts to report the murder to the local sheriff. They intend on taking her to their base to be brain-washed, but Lucy is saved by Messer when he runs over one of them with his car. As they drive back to the town, Messer reveals to Lucy that he is an agent of Helios and has been sent to investigate the strange occurances in the small town. Lucy tries to offer Messer her aid but he refuses. The next day, Lucy manages to deduce the location of the secret base by putting together the locations of where the murder occured, and the direction the men were taking her to. After saving Messer from a confrontation with General Buzz Grunt, Messer agrees to allow Lucy to accompany him, though shows his annoyance in being forced to do so.

That night, they travel to the secret base and find that it has been mysteriously abandoned. Messer calls in help from a fellow agent at Helios, hacking the system and allowing them access to the basement. After entering, they discover a large amount of lab equipment, and eventually two scientists named Gary and Frank, who have been locked in the basement to further research. Gary provides some information to Messer and Lucy, before stabbing Messer with a syringe and fleeing down a corridor filled with purple fungus and spurs. The spurs infect Gary, turning him crazed and deranged. He attacks Messer and Lucy, stating that he must protect The Mother, and Messer is forced to shoot him in order to save Lucy.

**Season 2**

While trying to protect Lucy, Messer is shot through his left leg which snaps his tibia bone in half. He remains in agonising pain as Lucy helps to navigate him out of the warehouse, before eventually passing out from pain and bloodloss, and is taken to a nearby hospital. Due to the muck and dirt that Messer was dragged through to save his life, he gets a severe infection in his leg that requires it to be amputated and replaced with a prosthetic. Messer takes the loss of his leg and struggle to regain walking ability hard, and refuses to even talk or look at Lucy, which leads her to feeling an immense guilt as she believes he blames her for the loss of his limb.

As Messer comes to terms with his prosthetic, he delves deeper into depression and solitude. When he eventually returns to work, he doesn't communicate with the others as frequently as he used to, and Lucy avoids him out of fear of making things worse. While in the stock rooms gathering paperwork, Messer accidentally falls and drops his documents across the fall, leading to an enraged burst of violent anger which he takes out on the shelves. Oliver overhears the commotion and comes to speak with Messer. They have a surprising heart-to-heart about Messer's fustrations at his inability to walk, along with the PTSD he has suffered through this job, and he even admits that he wants a new line of work but doesn't know how to go back to civilian life after working as a spy. Oliver gives Messer the number for a psychiatrist that he also frequents.

Messer begins seeing the psychiatrist, Trina, who helps him overcome his PTSD and depression. They cover many aspects of his life, such as his divorce to Rachel, his rough upbringing and his parent's high expectations of him, and also his feelings of imcompetency. Messer even mentions Lucy, and that he feels like he has a large responsbility over her and that she is the "one good thing in his life" (hinting at the start of his realised feelings for her). In order to get him to experience the good things in life, Trina takes Messer to a few festivals and music concerts, and he begins having genuine fun and starts to let go of his serious demenour. Trina and Messer then begin a relationship with each other.

Meanwhile, Lucy has just broken up with Cameron after admitting to him that she will always put Messer first and still has feelings for him. She goes to Messer's apartment to see him and confess these feelings, leading her to see him and Trina making out on the couch. Lucy becomes deeply upset by this and becomes somewhat distant from Messer and jealous of Trina, but eventually pushes her feelings aside as she wants to be happy for him.

**Season 3**

During the season, Lucy and Messer constantly fight and bicker with each other, unable to understand the differences between them and how they like to approach things. At the climax, they end up breaking up over a misunderstanding. Messer then has a fight with Winter, leading him to leave Helios and start his own private investigations.

**Season 4**

A new building is constructed in San Myshuno which begins to gain attention for paranormal activity, but Helios cannot pinpoint exactly what it may be. The building presents itself as a very exclusive hotel and casino, that only the elite rich and famous are permitted entry to. The thing is, many of the patrons who go in don't come out, and it seems like there's more than just gambling going on behind closed doors. Many of the agents at Helios are working tirelessly to try and gain access to the casino, but even with all their money and hardwork, they are still unable to make it work.

The agents are pulled into a meeting with Winter, who reveals that they have finally gained access for one of the agents only. This agent turns out to be Lucy, who will be posing as Mary-Kae Feng, the niece of Victor Feng, a wealthy politician. Victor has agreed to team-up with Helios against Tranquility Hotel, as he believes they are supporting Emma Cho, his rival for the upcoming election. Lucy is the only one who can complete the mission, as she is of Asian background and can successfully pose as a relative of Victor (as most people assume that all Asians look the same).

Lucy is dressed up in lavish clothing and accompanies Victor to the Tranquility Hotel. Upon arriving, they discover that the hotel is a base of operations for a secret society that is based on sex, drugs, gambling and alcohol. Here, men are the ones mostly in control while women are viewed as pets or accessories to them, and those with money and fame are the ones who have all the power. At the top of it all is a robotic "Big Brother" leader, who only appears to announce punishments on wrong-doers or to encourage the citizens to continue partying. The higher your hotel room is positioned, the more rich and famous you are, and the more exclusive clubs you are able to access. Victor and Lucy are given a nicely sized hotel room, and promptly begin arguing when Victor begins trying to hit on Lucy ― leading them to discover that a strange chemical drug is being pumped into the air, causing the guests of the hotel to become lustful.

A few celebrities are also in the hotel, including a famous pop singer who appears on the billboards to announce that they will be making an appearance at the "Seven Sins", a club on one of the upper floors and one of the few that allow access for the "lower level" patrons. Victor and Lucy decide to go to the club, and after lining up for hours, discover that they must pay a thousand dollars each to gain entry. Victor informs Lucy that he refuses to pay for this, but quickly changes his mind when they witness the man in front of them being electrocuted and then dragged away when trying to haggle the price down. Victor reluctantly pays for the entry, and they discover a huge club full of pumping music, gambling tables, and bars.

Victor and Lucy go their seperate ways so that they can both gather evidence. While dancing, Lucy joins a group of attractive but fake-looking women. The women reveal to Lucy that they are searching for a "sugar daddy", so that they can climb up the levels of the hotel and gain access to more of the exclusive clubs, restaurants, and memberships. Lucy tells them that she is on Level 27 and staying at the hotel with her uncle. The girls mock Lucy and encourage her to find a sugar daddy of her own, stating that Level 27 is considered poor and that she's lucky she even got into the Seven Sins Club. They set their eyes on Marcus Everdeen, a famous rapper and extremely wealthy man ― Marcus is perfect for them, as he is not *too* wealthy as to be unattainable. Lucy decides to try and compete with them for Marcus and his friends attention so that she can climb the levels and gain more access to complete her investigation.

As the night goes on, Lucy becomes influenced by the drugs pumped into the air and the alcohol she consumes in order to impress Marcus. However, he finds her somewhat annoying and prefers the other girls. Lucy ends up getting into an arguement with one of the girls. Before it can become phsyical, Marina Summers (the celebrity endorser) appears on the stage and announces that they will be hosting an auction to give away attractive young women to the men. A curvy woman with brown hair appears on the stage and Marcus makes rude comments about her ― though he still bets some money on her "for fun", which makes the other girls jealous. Suddenly, Lucy is grabbed by two men in suits and dragged toward the stage while the other women laugh and jeer. She is taken backstage where she encounters Victor who has a blonde woman draped over his arm. He confesses that he sold Lucy to the club in exchange for money, as he is clearly overly high and enjoying the patriarchal dictatorship that the hotel encourages. Lucy attemps to escape and attack Victor, but she is shocked and thrown into a bird cage.

Lucy is eventually wheeled onto the stage. A few men in the front make crude comments about her appearance. Marina joins in by commenting that they should start the bet off at $5 only, since that is all that Lucy appears to be worth, leading the men to laugh and bet along dollar by dollar. Suddenly, a man at the back of the club makes a large $200 bet ― Lucy tries to see who the man is, but can't due to the lights on the stage. Marcus then joins in, and he and the mystery man, along with a few others, increasingly bet higher and higher. Lucy eventually sells to the mystery man for $9900, which Lucy thinks is a bit too low.

Once the auction is concluded, Lucy is taken to Level 79, where she is escorted to a very large and lavish hotel room that overlooks San Myshuno below, has a second level, and a large hot tub in the ground. She is instructed by her escorts to wait for her "owner" to arrive. They hand over her lugguage before leaving her alone and locking the door. Lucy immediately grabs her bags and drags them into the enormous master bedroom, where she empties the clothes and opens up the hidden compartment, pulling out her spy technology so she can report in to Helios. Her gadgets are all tangled up in each other's cords, and Lucy frantically activates her transmitter as she changes out of her dress and into her comfy clothes.

She manages to quickly send off a message to Headquarters revealing Victor's betrayal and the drug-pumping chemical when she hears the front door unlock. Lucy quickly kicks her things underneath the bed and pretends that she was in the midst of undressing to seduce her new "owner" as he enters the room. The man comments that she shouldn't feel the need to do so but he won't complain if she does. Recognising the voice, Lucy spins around to see Messer standing in the doorway. At first her heart skips a beat, as it has been a long time since she last saw him, but she quickly swallows her feelings and demands to know what he is doing here. Messer responds in irritation, informing her that he was investigating the hotel and that he was really getting somewhere when Lucy showed up and be almost blew his cover trying to save her. Lucy pretends that getting auctioned off was her plan, but Messer sees through it.

They have a brief arguement,

*There was a deep twisting ache within, as if two hands had gripped my heart and torn in either direction. And there was a bitterness, strong and hot and vile. I finally had everything I wanted: my dream man, my dream job, and now reality had come to tear both away.*

*I loved him. With all my heart and all my soul, I loved him. I would easily let the world burn up in flames if it meant keeping him safe. But...*

*But I remember the little girl I had once been. Alone in the desert, the numbness of never being the chosen one, the favourite, the loved. My entire life I wanted nothing more than a place to belong, with people who loved me as much as I did them. And here I was. Helios was my chosen family. It was what I had always wanted.*

*Messer and I loved each other, with the force of a thousand suns. But in the end that was all it came down to. I could never leave... and he would never stay.*

- Lucy and Messer's first break up

*Sometimes I think back to the day that Messer asked me to leave with him. Sometimes I hate myself for refusing to go. Sometimes I hated him for choosing not to stay.*

*I've heard the phrase said once or twice: "Right person, wrong time". Maybe that was what we were. Maybe that was all we could ever be.*

*I recalled the ache I had felt the first time we left each other. It had felt as if my heart were being torn in two. The feeling was different now. There was a numbness, a soreness of my soul, but there was also a cold certainty. I missed him and I loved him, but I knew that this was it. We had torn each other apart too many times before, and now the stakes were too high to take the wrong step.*

*Because this time, I knew for certain that he would never leave, and I could never stay.*

- The second break up