Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Flora’s a little reluctant to trust this version of Luke, but — if he is a fake, he certainly wears the mask well. He is a gentleman through and through, and it’s nice to know that someone cares about her, at the very least. Not enough for her future self, evidently, but he seems to have some concern for her as she exists now, which is better than nothing.

“Hmm.” They reach the bottom of the staircase quickly, though she does proceed a little more gingerly, trying to make sure the sound of her heels clicking isn’t too loud. “I think I know another way out of here that does not require us to solve the puzzle on that door. Come on.”

Luke leads her back, away from the door and behind the staircase they took towards an alternate exit.

“Have you been here before?” she asks, slightly breathless.

“What sort of spy would I be if I hadn’t done some reconnaissance here before?” he responds with a smile. “I know their rabbit warrens.”

“...then you must have known,” she says, some pieces starting to slide into place. “How long have you known that the Professor of the future was an impostor? You know him better than anyone else. He was your best friend.”

Luke’s expression twists, just slightly. It’s just light enough for her to see it. “I…couldn’t get my hopes up that the real Professor hadn’t been warped. And besides, I didn’t have enough of a picture of the situation to figure out the identity of the impostor.”

“And how long have you spent investigating this?” she asks. Luke opens a door. The sunshine outside is bright.

“I…he took over London not long after the Prime Minister’s disappearance.” Luke places a hand on the brim of his cap, an echo of the Professor’s own mannerism. It’s a sign that even though they no longer possess their close friendship, the Professor has still had a profound unshakable effect on Luke. The two of them walk down the street in Chinatown carefully, keeping an eye out for any members of the Family that may be lurking. “I was rather preoccupied just with the prospect of getting away. He…of course, he wanted me at his side.”

“Why did you say no?” she asks. Would the Luke she knows have the courage to say no, had the Professor asked such a thing from him?

(No, her heart whispers, because if the Professor asked him to jump, Luke would answer “how high”; it is merely that the Professor would not ask. But this Professor did, and this Luke did not.)

“I couldn’t,” Luke answers. “I couldn’t just…stay by his side when I saw that his values were falling apart. That his resolve to be a gentleman was failing. These last ten years have changed me, but…I thought they had changed him more. I suppose if he’s an impostor, then the real Professor Layton is out there somewhere. Probably wherever Bill Hawks has been taken.”

“And what of me?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “If I had to guess…you left. I haven’t seen you in a long time, Flora. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don’t know.”

She can imagine herself in this world, almost, deciding to run back to St Mystere because she didn’t have the courage to stay with a professor that was abandoning his values, never mind her.

“I probably went back to my village,” she says. She wonders what would become of Bruno ten years from the present. He was starting to get old. She would probably need to take over, or at least someone who would be just as capable. She doesn’t know enough, but she could learn, and she doesn’t think she’d trust anyone else to not just…shut them off. “At the very least, it would be safe.” The tower doesn’t exist anymore, but it’s evident that Don Paolo isn’t interested in causing any more troubles for them. “And…well…maybe the Professor would have had the heart to send me away before he went too far.”

“Maybe,” Luke responds. “Come on, the station’s just this way.”

“Oh, yes, we’re taking the tube, correct?” she asks.

“It’s the fastest way out,” he answers. “And it’s not monitored as heavily as it probably should be.”

“Let’s go, then,” she says. They get tickets to the station on Flatstone St, and assimilate into the crowd waiting at the train platform. Flora’s always been good at blending into crowds, a skill that she isn’t quite sure how she picked up, considering St Mystere’s population was incredibly limited. They ride in silence, taking in the sounds of the other commuters.

Flora supposes that he didn’t actually care as much about her as she thought. She’s certainly afraid, but — honestly, she’s had worse, and more than anything she’s angry. Clive had certainly been forceful, but he hadn’t knocked her out or anything. The only thing preventing her from escaping right now is the fact that she can’t swim.

She balls a fist and punches Clive in the jaw. It’s not the strongest punch in the world, but it does still startle him, and the wheel jerks a bit to the left. It feels good, more than anything else. Satisfying. Never mind that her thumb hurts. 

“I will push you off this boat into the Thames,” he growls.

“This isn’t the Thames,” she points out. Because it’s not, and he’s not, and everything about this is a facade.

“You would still drown,” he says, and in that moment she sees it — he would kill her given the chance. Her life is not worth saving in his eyes. None of them are. If it were his choice, he’d be the only one of them alive by the end of this. They’re all irredeemable.

He takes her out of the boat. She keeps her head down and follows, not dragging her feet as much as she had earlier. She has a shot at surviving this if she keeps her head down. They head into the lighthouse, and then down a trapdoor, and from there she can’t possibly keep her head straight enough to provide directions other than eventually arriving in a hallway outside a room. Useless. If someone wanted to retrace her steps, she couldn’t even retrace her own.

Clive passes her off to a couple brutes that she doesn’t know the names of. “Take her to Ventilation,” he orders, “and do not tell anyone where she is.”

“Yes, sir!” they both say in unison. Clive turns to the door and opens it, glancing briefly at her before moving forward.

They stuff her in a cage, because of course they do. She’s getting an awful lot of flashbacks to Dropstone. At least there she could make it out on her own wits. Here? She’s stuck until either someone rescues her or Clive’s had enough and comes back for her.

Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later, whichever option it may be.

Chapter Text

Considering that Clive had drafted the blueprints for the pagoda himself, he knows exactly where to go from here, and that the Professor will get caught up on the obvious door with a puzzle lock. He had put the puzzle there himself.

Chinatown might be known as Dimitri’s hangout, but it was Clive who decided to build it, just as he had everything else in this place. He puts on a show of hesitating for Flora; he knows convincing the Professor is a lost cause, and he already has Luke eating out the palm of his hand, but Flora is a wildcard. He hadn’t expected her presence; evidently, he hadn’t done enough research into the Professor as of late. 

“Have you been here before?” she asks.

What’s the best way to answer? If he hasn’t, he’ll seem stupid; if he has, he’ll seem negligent.

“What sort of spy would I be if I hadn’t done some reconnaissance here before?” he asks. Negligent fits the image better than stupid. The more he interacts with Luke, the more he knows — Luke is very smart, but also fairly oblivious. “I know their rabbit warrens.” Never mind that he designed most of them. He’s even snuck in through this entrance before when he didn’t feel like dealing with Ward. 

“...then you must have known,” she responds.

What?

“How long have you known that the Professor of the future was an impostor? You know him better than anyone else. He was your best friend.”

Oh. Oh. So this is where his faux negligence gets him. His facade is slipping — he fixes his expression into neutrality instead of annoyance. She’s definitely noticed.

“I…” He pauses, trying to come up with an explanation. Hopefully she’ll just read his hesitance as not wanting to talk about it. “…couldn’t get my hopes up that the real Professor hadn’t been warped. And besides, I didn’t have enough of a picture of the situation to figure out the identity of the impostor.” A plausible enough scenario, to be sure — Luke wouldn’t know enough to determine Dimitri Allen was the impostor, even if Clive’s painted a picture of a Luke that at the very least is aware of the explosion of a decade ago.

“And how long have you spent investigating this?” It sounds sceptical, almost, but there’s just a hint of genuine-ness underneath.

Clive takes a moment to gather all the details of his cover story again as he opens the door that leads outside. It has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, but it’s his story regardless. Dimitri had thought it ridiculous, and it certainly hadn’t stood up to the Professor’s scrutiny, based on the fact that he had found Don Paolo. 

“I…he took over London not long after the Prime Minister’s disappearance. I was rather preoccupied just with the prospect of getting away. He…of course, he wanted me at his side.”

He wonders — if the true Layton had turned, and he asked Luke to follow, would Luke have the wherewithal to refuse?

“Why did you say no?” she asks, probably thinking something along similar lines.

“I couldn’t,” he answers immediately.

Clive knows that no one wants to think of themselves as evil. The fact that he hadn’t followed the Professor down his spiral of evil was reassuring to Luke, who at the age of thirteen is still naive enough to believe that he could never turn to darkness himself. Professor Layton is not so easily convinced, but he’s always known that the Professor would cause the house of cards to fall. He had warned Dimitri.

“I couldn’t just…stay by his side when I saw that his values were falling apart. That his resolve to be a gentleman was failing. These last ten years have changed me, but…I thought they had changed him more. I suppose if he’s an impostor, then the real Professor Layton is out there somewhere. Probably wherever Bill Hawks has been taken.”

“And what of me?”

Right. The lack of a future Flora shouldn’t have been nearly as brushed over as it had been, but Clive can improvise. The fact that the Professor and Luke had already, for the most part, overlooked it was comforting, but said a lot about their relationship to Flora. Neither of them seemed particularly close to her, though clearly she wanted some sort of companionship if she was desperate enough to follow them here.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “If I had to guess…you left. I haven’t seen you in a long time, Flora. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don’t know.”

“I probably went back to my village,” she responds. “At the very least, it would be safe. And…well…maybe the Professor would have had the heart to send me away before he went too far.”

“Maybe,” he responds. He genuinely doesn’t know — Professor Layton must have visited that village at some point, but he doesn’t know it. That makes her potentially a risk.“Come on, the station’s just this way.”

“Oh, yes, we’re taking the tube, correct?” she asks.

He may as well get her attached. If she likes him enough, maybe she won’t point out to the Professor the obvious holes in his story when it comes to her part in it.

“It’s the fastest way out,” he answers. “And it’s not monitored as heavily as it probably should be.”

He’s back in familiar territory. He can answer questions about the future he’s built. He can’t answer any about her. He doesn’t even know where she came from or her connection with the Professor.

“Let’s go, then,” she says, a strange determination taking over her. Clive purchases the tickets for the two of them, and they huddle together at the train platform. Flora seems surprisingly at ease with the crowd, and they slip in together wordlessly with the rest of the passengers on the tube.

Clive takes Flora because, really, what other choice did he have? If he was going to kidnap one person during his daring escape, it had to be either Flora or Luke, and he knows he’s buttered Flora up enough between their escape from Chinatown and his offering to help her down the stairs and the general idea that he listened to her. Luke would probably bite him, and then where would that leave them?

He pulls her into the little motorboat he parked at the Thames Arms and starts the drive to the other side of the river, paying more attention to his destination than anything else. The punch comes out of nowhere, but really, there’s only one other person in this boat.

She seems happy, for a moment.

“I will shove you into the Thames,” he says, only realising his mistake after he’s said it. This is not the Thames. 

“This isn’t the Thames,” she responds, echoing his own thoughts.

It certainly hurts a bit, but she has a rather weak punch and shoddy technique. Getting slapped by Bostro hurt more.

“You would still drown,” he responds, trying to end the conversation. He can picture himself doing it now — shoving her off the edge of the boat into the river. It wouldn’t take much — she’s wearing heels, so she’s easier to throw off-balance, and she’s also weak. It’s why it was so easy to drag her along in the first place.

But he doesn’t want her dead. She can’t really hurt him — that punch was rather weak. And…she’s not from London. She can’t be older than nineteen. She does not need to be destroyed for them to realise the consequences of their actions. And he wants them to feel the ache of her disappearance. It’s easier to hurt them with her.

They reach the other shore. He pulls her along, but she comes willingly — it seems that his threat sapped the fight from her. Shame. He thinks he liked it better when she was willing to punch him for kidnapping her. He heads for the surveillance room.

Ah, Lockjaw and Fisheye are guarding the room. He foists her off to them. “Take her to Ventilation,” he orders, “and do not tell anyone where she is.” Layton will have to solve another puzzle to find her.

“Yes, sir!” they bark in unison, holding one arm each.

Clive opens the door, taking one last look at Flora to make sure they’re not roughing her up too much. Time to activate the fortress.