Work Text:
Grieving Lucy
Summary: Lucy through the eyes of people who love her
Chapter 1: Davy
How could you do this to me? The plan was to raise our saviour together. But you held Simon in your arms, smiled at him with all the love in your enormous heart, and then your eyes drifted shut. You never opened them again.
Why? Is this my fault? Was bearing the Greatest Mage too much for even your sturdy body and faithful heart? You grew so weak as your pregnancy went on. I did everything I could to strengthen you, bolster you against the baby’s demands on you. But my magic was no help in the end.
And what am I to do now? I can’t raise a child—I have to prepare the way for him. I have to make sure the world is ready for his coming. And others might find out what we did if I claim him openly as mine. They’ll doubt that he truly is the Greatest Mage. They’ll say the Chosen One cannot be manufactured. As if that’s all Simon is. He’s so much more.
I’m looking into his blue eyes now, so much like yours, Lucy. He’s so much more than anyone could understand. And he’s ours, my love. Yours and mine. He will save us all, I know it.
He’ll have to be raised by strangers. I know you would hate that. But what else can I do?
Lucy, I needed you. You were the only one who believed in me, the only one who believed in our mission. Simon and I are both lost without you.
Yesterday, I spelled Simon and I invisible, and snuck into Watford, and down to the catacombs. There, I spent hours impressing your likeness into the stone. The final image was so lifelike, I could swear I almost saw you take a breath, and my heart started racing in forlorn hope. But nothing else happened. Your face stayed flat and lifeless, when there was nothing but life in you once.
So much life.
Simon was quiet for most of the task. He’s a quiet baby in general, but he seemed enthralled by what I was doing. I wonder if he remembers the mother who held him, who sniffed his hair and smiled at him through tears.
I don’t know.
Before I said goodbye to your portrait, I lifted him up to see you, one last time. Lucy, I don’t know how you did it, but when the baby held out his arms towards your likeness, your painted eyes began to drip. Soon, your image was constantly crying, tears that slid down your rosy cheeks and disappeared into nothingness when they reached the border of the image.
Are you crying for the life you should have had? For the life we should have had? If so, then I’m glad. I’m glad someone is able to grieve for us. I cannot. I must look forward, work towards fulfilling our purpose. I have no time for sorrow.
Farewell, Lucy.
Chapter 2: Lady Ruth
You were always a sunshine child. That’s what we called you, your father and I. Our sunshine girl. There was only light in you, even if, in the end, you were consumed by darkness.
I’m sitting in my wingback chair in my bedroom, staring at your candle. It has ceased even to smoke. It just sits there, lifeless, never to light up the room again. Like you, my dear one.
You were the kindest child. You cared for your brother as if you wanted to be a second mother to him. You cared for your friends, always wanting to give them everything they wanted or needed. You cared for your parents. Even in the infamous rebellious teen years, there was seldom any conflict between us. You were artlessly affectionate, and, if you disagreed with something I said, you expressed your disagreement calmly and thoughtfully.
We were thick as thieves, you and I. Until he entered your life.
I have to admit, I didn’t worry much over your fondness for Davy, not for a long time. Sure, he was fanatic and passionate about his causes, but isn’t that the way of youth? All that energy and few responsibilities: of course children devote themselves passionately to things they believe in.
It takes years and perspective to understand that every golden idea has a black underside, and every obvious evil has a hidden rind of good. In the real world, there is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’, only people. And all people have some of both.
You never could see the dark side to Davy’s worldview. To you, he was golden all through. And I? I made the mistake of trying to make you see it. But nobody could ever make you do anything you didn’t want to, could they? Your gentle golden head was stuffed to the brim with your father’s stubbornness.
My insistence hurt our relationship. It’s why I lost you, I think. If I’d only given your Davy some credit for goodness as well as for evil, I might have been able to keep you in my life. Maybe Davy would have let me raise your Simon instead of sending him into care.
I will always blame myself for that.
I believed, for so many years, that you were alive, that you’d seen Davy for what he was, and run, as far and as fast as you could. But you never did, did you? You believed in him to the end. Maybe, if you had lived, you could have tempered his fanaticism. Maybe he could have become the person you believed him to be. Or maybe not.
I’ll never forgive him. Hatred for him, for who he was and what he did, will burn like a canker in my soul until I die. But, in the end, he gave me Simon. My grandson. Your beautiful, beautiful boy. A child with a soul as golden as your own. So Davy did accomplish something of use in this world.
I plan to know and love your son for as many years as I have left in me. Maybe I’ll even live to see your grandchildren. I see the way young Basilton looks at Simon. He’ll ask our boy to marry him, and they’ll have a family some day. I’d like to be around to see it. But when my time is done on this Earth, I shan’t fight it if it means I get to see you again.
I miss you, my sunshine girl.
Chapter 3: Mitali
When the Crucible’s magic dragged me to you, that first day at Watford, I was a little dubious. You looked like a farm girl. All rosy cheeks, freckles and yellow curls. You even wore your long hair in two pigtails, one behind each ear. You didn’t look like a very complicated person, and, in my childish arrogance, I labeled you ‘simple’ before I’d even shaken your hand.
Would it surprise you, Lucy, to know I still think that, in a way? You were simple. Not stupid, no. But not complex. And I came to love you for it.
I’ve always been a little surly and suspicious. That wasn’t you. You accepted me with open arms on that first day. You said we’d be the best of friends, and you made it happen. You were an unstoppable force. If you believed in something, you willed it into existence.
Now that I know Simon is yours, I see that in him too. He has always been straightforward and true. That was you all over. You saw people for who they were, and liked them because of it, rather than in spite of it. You saw that I was arrogant about my intelligence, and twitted me gently for it, but you never disliked me for it, or tried to change me. You saw that Davy was inflexible in his obsessions, and you listened to him, and supported him anyways.
That was you all over, wasn’t it, Lucy? You were never the main character. I know that sounds dismissive, but that’s not how I mean it. You were the entire supporting cast. That’s what you did—you supported people. You stayed in the background, and acted as a pillar of strength to everyone who knew you. Your brother. Your parents. Me. Davy.
So many people in this life only want to play the leading role. That wasn’t you. You wanted to help the rest of us lead.
I don’t know if you know how rare someone like you really is. Someone who listens, truly listens. Someone who cares, without judgement. You and Martin were the only people I’ve ever met like that. When I lost you, I told myself I’d be fine. I still had Martin. I’d have lots of children, an enormous family. I didn’t need a best friend.
I was wrong, Lucy. I always needed you. I need you now. I need you to smile at me in that teasing way you had and tell me, this isn't so bad. You’re brilliant, Mitali, you can handle this.
I need that now. My life is a whirlwind, my children are a mess, and now I’ve learned that the best friend I ever had died twenty years ago.
I need your cheer and calm and gentle strength to get me through this.
I started out thinking you were simple, Lucy. I wish I understood sooner how I’d long for simple some day.
You’re truly gone. I’d hoped you were alive and happy in California, even if you didn’t care about me anymore. But now I’m certain you never stopped caring. You inquired about me in every letter you wrote to your mother, and it seems that your life ended when our knowledge of you did. So you always loved me, Lucy. I didn’t appreciate that love enough when I had it.
I’m in my office, looking at a mountain of paperwork I have to deal with. I’ve an entire list of problems and responsibilities. But I’m going to take on one more, Lucy. Your Simon. I’ve never treated him as kindly as I should have. My hate for Davy blinded me to the qualities he inherited from you. But no more. He is your son, though he’s only now come to know it. And so, I’m making a vow to you today, Lucy.
He’s your son. Therefore, I swear to you he will be my son too. I’ll give him all the love I can. I’ll try to do for him what you would have, Lucy.
It’s the very least I can do.
Chapter 4: Simon
Hello, Mum.
I’m here, in the Catacombs, looking at your portrait. When Baz said he wanted to visit his mum today, for the first time, I was able to say, “me too.” I don’t know if you understand how much that means. To know I have a mum. That someone wanted me. That I wasn’t discarded or thrown away. At least, not by you.
I’m staring into your blue eyes, so much like mine, in wonder. Every time I’ve been down here over the years (and I’ve been down here a lot), I’d stop to marvel at your portrait and how it was crying, actually crying.
Now I’m marveling again—because you’ve stopped crying. Now, your portrait smiles into my eyes with untarnished happiness.
Is it really you in there, mum? Did you somehow come to haunt your own image? Because I’m betting you stopped crying the moment your candle went out in Lady Ruth’s bedroom. The moment you knew your mother had found her grandson.
I should call her grandmother, I suppose. It’s hard to get used to. Hard to accept that I’ve actually got a family. It all seems too good to be true.
I know that the reason I was in the dark all these years is the Mage’s fault, not yours, mum. You loved me. I really believe that. And, in the end, you made sure I found my family. I’m grateful.
But I’m angry too, mum. Not at you, not really. Well, a little at you. Why did you keep believing him, mum? Maybe if you’d gotten away from him before I was born, you might have survived. I might have grown up secure in your love and away from the Mage’s influence.
I suppose I’m really angry at myself, though. I was no better, was I? I believed the Mage without question for so many years. I wanted to believe him.
He cared about me, at least a bit, I think. It might make you happy to hear that, mum. He never exactly treated me like a son, but there were moments, weren’t there? Moments where he spoke my name with tenderness or ran his knuckle down my cheek in worry. It wasn’t nearly enough to really make him my father. But he did care. In the end, he was misguided and awful, but he tried to help me most of the time, I do believe that.
What would it have been like to grow up in a family? With you loving and doting on me? The mage, distant and stern, but still caring? With a grandmother and an uncle? It feels so foreign. I can’t even imagine it.
I’m getting kind of off topic here. This isn’t what I came here to say.
Mum, I came here to get to know you.
I know that sounds odd. I’m just looking at your portrait, how can that help me to know you? But Baz says he feels closer to his mum when he comes here. I think that might be true for me too.
Your mum and brother, and Penny’s mum and dad have all taken to telling me stories about you. Sometimes I feel like I know more about you than anyone actually alive. But I don’t know you.
Somehow, when I’m down here, you feel real to me in a way that doesn’t happen anywhere else. Nobody knows where your body lies, so this is as close as I can get to the actual you. When I’m in Lady Ruth’s sitting room listening to stories about you, they seem as distant as a dream. When I sit here and talk to you about these things, it feels like you’re right here. I need that. I need my mum to be solid and real, even if she’s gone.
I’ve never understood how it feels to be part of a family. I’m learning that now, with Baz and Penny and Shepard, and Jamie and Headmistress Bunce and Lady Ruth.
But now that I’m here, sitting on the stony ground in front of your portrait, I’m learning what it feels like to have a mum. I think I like it. No, I love it.
I love you, Mum.