Chapter Text
Anthony Lockwood wonders about the last time he went to bed this early. He must have been a small child. And a small child is nearly what Lucy looks like now, slumped almost peacefully on her attic bed after being dumped there unceremoniously by a struggling Lockwood and George. It’s barely past six in the evening. The sun hasn’t even set.
“Should we just leave her here to sleep?” George puts forth dubiously.
Lockwood doesn’t share his hesitation. He nods. “She needs it.” It’s been a long several days for all three of them, nearly culminating in their deaths multiple times. They’ve survived the ransacking of their home, the room that wept ghostly blood, the staircase of chanting dead Satanic monks, and the old iron baron with homicidal intent, but they haven’t had much of a chance to rest and recuperate from the experience.
“I need to sleep for a week to recover from that,” George says. For a brief moment Lockwood thinks he’s read his mind about Combe Carey Hall before realizing that the other boy is referring to the more recent ordeal of carrying Lucy up three flights of stairs from the basement, where they found her knocked out on the ground. Even with their joint efforts, three flights of stairs is about three too many to carry an unconscious person up comfortably.
Lockwood nods again, uncharacteristically as out of words as he is of breath. He picks up a pen from Lucy’s dresser as George moves towards the stairs, and starts tapping it against his thigh when the resident researcher announces that he’s going to go get a glass of water for when Lucy wakes up.
When Lucy wakes up. As far as Lockwood is concerned, it can’t happen soon enough. He’s glad to let her rest, but he’d be gladder to know that she’s going to be okay. He peers down the stairs after George, suddenly aware that he’s now alone with Lucy. The thought makes him feel… awkward? But why should he feel awkward? He’s been alone with her before, hasn’t he?
He chalks it up to feeling like he’s invading the sleeping girl’s privacy, swatting away inner protestations that he hadn’t felt like that when George was there too. He’ll have time to parse this later. Right now his focus needs to be on making sure she’s comfortable. Pushing himself up from where he’s been leaning against her dresser, he walks towards Lucy, ignoring the confusing screaming coming from somewhere deep inside his brain as he approaches. He slowly brushes her hair out of her eyes, letting his fingers linger by her temple a few seconds longer than he’s willing to admit to himself.
At that moment, George reappears with the glass of water. He sets it on a shelf next to the bed and frowns. “Not conspicuous enough,” he mutters, and Lockwood is inwardly thankful that the same can be said for his movements just seconds before. If George had noticed how… tender Lockwood was being, he would never hear the end of it.
Wait. Tender?
The phone rings. Lockwood jumps at the chance to answer it, all but flinging the pen he’s been fiddling with back onto the dresser in his haste to get to the stairs. The phone ringing is good. It means that something else is demanding his attention for a few minutes. It means he can escape the attic bedroom and breathe a few deep breaths.
As he picks up the receiver, it occurs to him too late that it could be DEPRAC calling. He really doesn’t feel like talking to Inspector Barnes right now. Fortunately, it’s a prospective client.
“It’s the children’s choir,” explains the strident voice on the other end of the phone when he asks what the case is. “Some of them say they’ve seen a skeletal figure through the window.” (The voice says skeletal figure as though each syllable is its own word.) “They could be pulling our legs, but it’s multiple kids saying as much, so we’re a little concerned. Didn’t want to trouble the likes of Fittes or Rotwell with it, but Lockwood and Co. seem like you’d be up to the task, if there is a task. Oh, there’s a graveyard just outside that window, too, in front of the playground, which is why this is all so worrisome. Could you agents come and… stand guard while everyone leaves the church, just to be safe? Maybe investigate the premises?”
“We’ll be there tonight,” Lockwood promises. Anything to take his mind off of how worried he is for Lucy.
He realizes, again too late, that perhaps he should have consulted George before agreeing to abandon their restful night off for a chilly graveyard. Ah, well. He climbs the two sets of stairs back up to the attic to find George scribbling something on a scrap of paper in his all-capital scrawl. Peering over his friend’s shoulder, he laughs. “Drink me,” George says lightly, finding this to be a reasonable explanation.
“Right, because she won’t know what to do with a glass of water,” Lockwood teases. George splutters something about making the glass more noticeable before Lockwood cuts him off. “Come help me pack the things,” he announces. “We’re going wraith hunting.”