Work Text:
The whole house reeked of it.
Pain and sorrow mixed with the heat of raised tempers and harsh words and the ice cold, utter disbelief and confusion pouring in waves, the weight of them still hanging in the air, sinking into cushions and curtains and walls, even in the very fabric of his clothing. His shirt still smelled like her and Lockwood could not bring himself to put it in the hamper; it was as if by washing it, he'd be losing the very last trace of her.
Lockwood couldn't bear the thought.
He hadn't felt as empty and broken and hollow since - well, since a time he still didn't wish to talk or even think about, not when the only person Lockwood felt like he might want to open up to had left him and gone to a place he couldn't reach. Lucy might only live on the other side of town but she felt as unattainable as Jessica would forever be.
The sister he'd cherished and the girl he loved, inseparable in his mind.
Both gone.
Lockwood wiped his hand across his face tiredly, exhaustion overwhelming him all of a sudden. That, and a powerful kind of heartache that tore at him constantly, relentlessly. Missing Lucy didn't come in waves like the poets wrote about; it was something he had to live with from the moment he woke up 'til he fell face first into bed at dawn, a plague upon his every waking hour. Sleep offered no relief, her face and her laughter and her hair starring in his every dream, the ghost touch of her hand still dragging him away from the depth of slumber at times as he'd come awake with the desperate, foolish hope to find her standing there. Her absence had cast a shadow that no sunbeam could pierce through, a heavy fog that none of George's blabbering had managed to scatter.
Pushing his tea cup away, Lockwood stood abruptly, writing the day off before it had even properly begun. George and Holly could hold the fort for a day; he would go back to bed and pretend to sleep. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he'd end up tricking his own brain and actually rest.
He'd managed to persuade more stubborn people in his life.
Just not the one that mattered most.
So lost in his Lucy thoughts, Lockwood didn't see Holly until he was bumping into her on the landing. There was a clatter as the broom and dustpan she was holding cascaded out of her arms; then a low, hissing curse as his forehead clanked hard against her chin as he bent to retrieve them for her. "Oh, Holly, are you okay?" Lockwood asked as he straightened. "I'm sorry, I wasn't -"
"I'm fine," Holly said as she rubbed her sore chin. "Don't you worry about it."
She held out her hands and he gave her the broom and dustpan back. Then Lockwood frowned. "You've just cleaned the whole house yesterday. You needn't be so diligent about the chores, Holly. Your time and energy could be better used for other duties."
Holly bit her lip. "It's just that I thought..." She tilted her head to the side, her eyes briefly looking away. "I just thought it was time to clean her room."
No.
She did not just -
"No," Lockwood said firmly, the urge to snarl at her strong and burning. The very thought of Holly up there, in Lucy's room, standing where she stood, sickened him. It was Lucy's, and it was his; it was theirs and Holly had no business there. At his side, his hands curled into fists on their own. "Please don't do that," he murmured. "Don't...I don't want you going up there, ever."
"Oh. Oh, right, I didn’t –“
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “You know what? I think we could actually do with a supply run. We’re a little low on magnesium flares. Would you terribly mind?”
Holly opened her mouth to argue, Lockwood could feel it. She was too careful to ever let them go anywhere near low on anything. But she shook her head subtly then gave him one of those carefully crafted smiles of hers, the one that worked so brilliantly with grownups and clients. Today, it just annoyed him, how there was never any visible crack in her. “Sure, no problem. Anything else you need?”
Nothing you can find at the store, Lockwood couldn’t help thinking grimly. You couldn’t encapsulate the essence of Lucy in just her shampoo or the softness of her fuzzy jumpers. He needed her in the flesh, feisty energy and fierce eyes when she was battling at his side, where she should be. “No, thank you.”
Holly nodded her head, then left. Lockwood didn’t spare her a second glance before he was taking the stairs two at a time.
It felt wrong, being up there without her.
Gone were the pictures framed by her bed, of loved ones he hadn’t bothered to ask about, never taking the time to be there for her in ways more substantial than mere survival. Gone was the huge pile of clothes she used to drape over the chair, rotating between them instead of ever taking the time to fold them neatly and put them away. No matter where his gaze landed, all Lockwood could find was the evidence of her absence, as if playing some sort of sick, twisted game of spot the seven differences.
He smiled less without her.
No one quite challenged him like she did.
Biscuits didn’t taste the same, and he missed the way she nibbled on hers like a famished squirrel. He’d known he needed to take care of her, look after her right then and there; when he’d watched her devour a biscuit like she hadn’t eaten for days, and perhaps she hadn’t, he never asked. He’d wanted to help her; he’d wanted to give her something she’d never had before. A home that smelled like burnt toast, but a home all the same.
He couldn’t wear the tie she’d gifted him anymore, not without remembering her beaming smile when she’d looped it around his neck. The focused frown on her face while she tried tying the knot; how he’d told her he remembered watching his mum do it for his dad. The faint blush in Lucy’s cheeks, the softness in her smile.
He missed finding new little pouches of crushed lavender everywhere. In his sock drawer, hanging at the kitchen window. How Lucy used to make them, not to ward off evil spirits, but so that the house always smelled sweet.
He had the hardest time locking the door, now that she’d given back her key.
He tossed and turned in bed all night, without her in it. On that first night after Kensal Green Cemetery, Lucy hadn’t given them a choice; none of them would be left alone. Since his bed was the biggest, they’d huddled in together, the three of them, Lucy in the middle, her cheek rubbing between George’s shoulder blades, her tiny arm wrapped around him as if she wished she could be big enough to wrap herself around him. Lockwood had almost felt jealous, but the feeling had left him as soon as he’d settled in behind her and Lucy had blindly reached behind her to grab for his arm, draping it across her and holding his hand at her front like a teddy bear. It had only felt awkward for a second, sharing his bed with the two of them, George’s silly jokes to lighten the mood, Lucy’s tiny body pressed so tightly against his he inhaled her shampoo with every intake of breath; but then Lockwood had let himself relax, let all the tension ooze off, let himself enjoy this. Lucy’s hair tickling his nose, her leg tucked between his thighs, her cold foot dragging across his calf. Even George’s snores. He hadn’t known how touch-starved he was until Lucy rolled over in her sleep, right into his arms, tired limbs tangling with his like ivy, no way to know where she ended and where he began.
Looking at her bed now, Lockwood wondered how pathetic it would be for him to sleep in here.
To feel closer to her, to catch the last remnant of her scent, the warmth from her body. This had been his childhood room, his childhood bed, and he’d shared it with her and no one else. She’d slept where he’d slept, happy and warm from his mother’s embrace; cold and lonely after his parents had died; tiny and lost when he was too proud to go ask his sister if he could stay with her. When he’d been old enough to move back into the house, he’d opted to use his parents’ room, choosing to leave behind the memory of the weak boy he’d been.
He was the man of the house now, and men didn’t hide in the attic.
But Lockwood was still just a boy, despite the ill-fitted suits he’d found in his father’s wardrobe and decided to make his own, little boy stepping into his old man’s shoes. He was still a boy who’d spent his whole life terrified of losing the people he loved, and now he’d lost Lucy too and all Lockwood wanted to do was crawl into bed and hide where the ghosts of love past couldn’t reach him.
He was brushing his hand against her blanket when he saw it in the corner of his eye. The light from outside caught on it, making it shimmer.
On top of the windowsill laid the necklace he’d given her. The one he’d gifted Jessica years ago.
Lockwood felt something colder than ghost-lock seizing him. There had been no proper goodbyes, only days of arguing and trying to convince Lucy to stay until that fateful morning when he’d woken up and known. The whole house felt like Jessica’s room now, bearing witness to his loss. But this – this hurt more than anything else.
That she’d left him, Lockwood could almost understand. Everybody left him. But that she’d left the necklace behind stung in a way he hadn’t been prepared for. By leaving it, she was refusing a token of his love.
Because it was love, even if Lockwood had been too emotionally unavailable to show it properly. He’d tried telling her, maybe not in as many words, but he’d meant it, and part of him believed Lucy had known. Only it hadn’t been enough, had it? He’d taken every wrong turn with her, favoring his ambition over her well-being when he’d hired Holly behind her back with the excuse of efficiency on their way to becoming London’s top agency. But he’d hurt Lucy in the process, and that, Lockwood would never forgive himself for.
All he’d ever wanted was to protect her, and he was the one causing her the most harm. He’d neglected her, not taken her remarks, demands or concern seriously. He’d dismissed her need to work on her Talent, even tried to limit her, too caught up in his own fear of losing her he hadn’t seen it coming when Lucy had told him about being afraid of losing herself.
What did it even matter to become famous if she wasn’t here to share the glory? When her skills and goodness and strength were pillars of what they’d been trying to build here? When it was her love that had saved them both, he and George, lost boys before her?
Lockwood hadn’t known how lost he was, not until she’d given him the safety and warmth of being found.
And now here he was again – just as lost and empty and terrified as he’d been when he was orphaned at the age of six, and left all alone again at the age of nine. He took the necklace with trembling fingers, remembering the warmth in his belly every morning when he’d see Lucy enter the kitchen wearing it. She never took it off, it seemed, as she’d be wearing it even when she was still all bed-mussed, the curtain of her bangs hiding sleepy eyes, the pendant resting above the soft-worn nightshirt she slept in. She’d looked beautiful to him, gloriously so, all soft and pretty and his in a way he’d never allowed himself to say out loud, even to himself.
And now it was all over.
Shaking his head, Lockwood noticed at last the little note underneath.
Thank you for this, but we both know it was never truly mine. Love, L.
He traced the shape of her love with shaky fingers, trailing them along the round letters, her initial. It was maddening, just how much this shook him. How a small piece of paper held so much and so little of her at the same time.
Her love that he'd lost, the love he hadn't know how to give her.
"Oh, Luce..."
Folding the note neatly in two, Lockwood slipped it into the pocket of his trousers. He'd carry it around with him to keep himself accountable, to remind himself of what he was fighting for, in case he ever was stupid enough to lose his focal point.
He slipped the necklace in there, too.
Next time he gave it to her, Lockwood promised himself she wouldn't have any lingering doubt.
Lockwood had always believed that falling in love felt like an explosion.
In the times before the Problem, this was how he pictured it: people meeting, souls recognizing one another in a blaze of glory, fireworks in the night sky instead of magnesium flares, love burning bright red. Girls keeping their love tucked into a locket, boys pouring theirs into a ring. People had all the time in the world then, leading lives that could be defined by the things and the people they loved instead of the things they feared losing.
How many times had this very thought haunted his nights? This gripping, paralyzing sense of dread, panic overwhelming him at the idea of losing someone else? What good did love do, if it only ever brought pain too?
But then he'd met Lucy, and Lockwood had slowly realized how wrong he'd been all along.
How love could be a quiet, soft thing, as mundane and ordinary as a girl tending to a garden long forgotten, turning the apples he picked into half-burnt pies, making lavender garlands from the bush his sister had planted. Love had spread roots around his heart like Lucy wrapping her arms around him, the seed of a hope stronger than the fear blossoming where the sun had stopped shining long ago.
It'd happened quietly, then all of a sudden, realization dawning on him, the weight of it, the truth of it both overwhelming and humbling. It'd terrified him, but it didn't anymore. Loving Lucy was as easy as breathing, as natural as the familiar weight of his rapier at his hip or his work belt around his waist. Loving her in the open was easier than pretending he could live without her love, without the comfort it brought, the warmth, the steadiness. The safety in its knowledge.
He'd been lost before he met her, and he'd lost his way again when she left. But now Lockwood knew she was his true north, the star guiding him to a home that hadn't felt like it in so long, not since she'd been gone.
She was his home, and Lockwood hoped he still had the key.
Standing at the threshold of the kitchen, Lockwood didn't hesitate. It wasn't because you should never linger on thresholds, but because he was sure. The little note in his pocket was creased from all the times he'd unfolded it to read her words over and take courage from them; the Thinking Cloth was covered with her scrawling now, tiny reminders that she was here, back where she belonged, with him. But it was her words that had brought him here, to this very moment.
Just a boy standing in front of the girl he loved with a promise.
To do better. To be better. To love her and never take her for granted ever again.
"Luce?"
She startled from where she'd been leaning against the kitchen counter, staring at the kettle. "Oh, hi."
Her dressing gown hung loose on her, falling off one shoulder. What had she been eating? She was wearing a lilac shirt that had a hole at the hem, and a pair of shorts with a jam stain on them from two breakfasts ago, if he recalled well - and Lockwood would forever be grateful that she was giving him new moments turned memories that he could collect and greedily hold onto.
She'd never looked more beautiful to him.
"Hi," Lockwood said, taking a step closer before he lost his nerve. "I've got something for you."
Her eyes sparked as Lucy craned her neck as if to look behind him to see if he was hiding something in his back. "No doughnuts, then?" she pouted.
She looked absolutely adorable, and Lockwood had to resist the urge to kiss her. The urge was as familiar to him as the almost choreographed way they had to move around each other in the kitchen, Lucy making tea, him bringing the plates, her hip bumping the cutlery drawer closed while he reached out to the cabinet above her head. Another thing he was thankful for - that it hadn't changed, even after all the months she'd been gone.
They'd gotten right back on track, and all Lockwood wanted was for them to be back for good.
"No doughnuts, sorry," he answered with an apologetic smile. "But I can jog down to Arif's and -"
"No need," Lucy interrupted him with a small smile. "Toast is fine."
He'd butter her toast every morning just to see that smile. He'd do it because he'd do anything for her. Reaching inside his pocket, Lockwood took out the necklace. "I hope this is fine too..."
Lucy gnawed at her lip, her eyes widening a little. "Lockwood..."
He took another step closer; it brought him close enough to hear the change in her breathing. Or was it his? His heart was pounding. "Please hear me out," he said. "Just - there are so many things I wish I'd told you sooner. Please."
Lucy nodded her head as she crossed her arms over her chest. It didn't feel so much defensive as a way to brace herself, fingers curling around her elbows to hold herself up. Lockwood wanted to pull her in, tuck her under his chin and wrap his arms around her; she was so tiny, he could hide her in his coat if he carried her in his arms. A part of him wanted to - to shield her from the cold, the dark, the hurt.
"This belonged to my sister," he went on. "It's the last gift I gave her before - before I lost her. Jessica...she loved shiny things," he told her. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done - talking about what his sister had been like, memories making her come alive in his mind when she'd been so long gone. "She had no interest in the relics our parents brought back from their travels, ghost-repelling bracelets and those pillbox rings with iron powder in them. She always liked pretty jewelry that made her feel like a princess. So I asked our uncle to take me shopping with him. She was...she was so happy. She loved that necklace, she wore it all the time."
He paused, swallowing hard. He remembered the warmth of Jessica's hug, how awkward he'd felt, pressed tightly against her chest, but how proud, too, to be the one who made her smile. He toyed with the chain, averting his gaze for a minute.
"It's beautiful," Lucy said softly. "I don't think - I never said it, but it's true."
Less than you. "When I first gave it to you, it was because you reminded me of her," he admitted in a murmur. "Strong, fierce, beautiful. And I - I missed seeing someone wear it. For a moment, I felt like...like it helped keep Jessica's memory alive. And I thought you'd look so pretty with it." He looked up and Lucy's eyes were gleaming. Or was it his own gaze that felt blurry? "You looked beautiful that night, Luce. I know you felt out of place, but in a crowd of thousands you were the only one I saw."
Lucy let out a small sigh, her eyes focusing on her feet as she stubbed the toe of her slipper in a little crack in the tile. "Stop it..." she whispered, shaking her head.
"I can't," Lockwood said. "It's true."
Her eyes met his then, and they were gleaming, welling with unshed tears. He took another step closer.
"Lockwood..." His name was just a whisper, but it brought a sliver of hope, one he hadn't dared believe in.
"This is the most precious thing I own," he kept on. "And you're the most precious to me." Lockwood unclasped the necklace, held it before her with pleading eyes. "I want you to have it because...because..."
His mouth felt dry, and Lockwood ran his tongue over suddenly parched lips. He didn't miss the way Lucy's eyes followed the gesture, nor her little intake of breath. He wanted to swallow it and taste her lips, had wanted it for so long, the ache felt familiar, too.
Lucy shook herself of her trance and ran a hand through her hair. "Because what, Lockwood?" she asked daringly. A little hopeful, a little feisty. His Lucy. She'd always been the bravest of them all, and he loved her for it.
Among many other things.
Lockwood reached out for her, and they were standing so close already that his arm brushed hers and he just had to curl his fingers around her elbow to gently stir her away from the kitchen counter and pull her in. He turned her around and Lucy let him, and that told him everything he needed to know.
That she was ready to meet him halfway.
That they could do this - move on from the pain of the past few months, the sting of abandon, the ache of emptiness.
Now that she was back, Lockwood felt whole again.
Gently he pushed her hair away over her shoulder and put it on her. Lucy instantly lifted a hand to flick at the pendant and Lockwood let his hands roam to her shoulders, slowly stroking them down her arms.
He felt Lucy shudder, and he couldn't pretend his hands weren't trembling too. "Because I was an idiot to ever let you go," he started as he bent his head to the crook of her neck, letting his lips hover by her ear. "Because I should have never made you doubt how much you mean to me."
Because I love you.
It was too soon to say it. He didn't want her to believe he was only saying it to make her stay. He didn't want to say it when she wasn't ready to hear it; when she was still terrified of those words and their weight, when he knew now that love had been at the forefront of her mind when she'd made the decision to leave.
They still had so much they needed to talk about, so many knots they needed to untangle. But for now Lockwood only wanted her to know that love was safe, as safe and warm and familiar as him sliding a plate with buttered toast to her across the table.
Don't give up on me, he'd once told her here.
"Take a chance on me, Lucy," he said now. Love was scary but they could be scared together. There was nothing they couldn't face as long as they were side by side.
He pressed his lips softly to her temple, let them trail down to her cheek. She smelled of honey and lavender and her skin tasted the same, it was intoxicating.
Lucy turned around in his arms, his hands falling to her elbows, hers finding the front of his shirt. Her mouth was just an inch away from his. "I didn't leave because of you, you have to know that," she said, her eyes quite not meeting his until she forced herself to, let him see her tears. "I left for you."
"It doesn't change the fact that I didn't treat you like I should have," Lockwood shook his head. "But I want to change that now. If you'll let me. If you'll have me." He lifted a hand to brush against her collarbone, fingers softly touching the chain of her necklace. It was hers, it'd been hers even when she didn't believe it. "I gave it to you because I wanted you to have a piece of me to carry around with you. But now I want..."
He made the mistake of looking down at her lips. Lockwood had to close his eyes for a second, and he felt Lucy's hands on his shoulders, her arms looping around his neck as she pulled him in until his forehead touched hers. He let out a sigh that felt like it came from deep within, from a corner of his soul he'd never explored. "What do you want?" she asked him softly.
This was the hardest thing he'd ever do. Tell her he loved her without scaring her away again. "I just want you to know I'm yours."
Lucy exhaled slowly, her breath fanning over his lips. And then he felt her mouth gently moving against his own, his Lucy, always the bravest, taking a leap of faith with him.
He kissed her back, berating himself for not doing it first, but knowing this was only the first of many, of so much to come. He let his hands fall to her hips, his thumbs drawing circles inward, toward the open front of her dressing gown. He could feel the muscles in Lucy's stomach flutter at his touch and it was driving him mad, the urge to slip his hands inside so strong, to lay his palms against her hips with one less barrier of fabric keeping him from touching her bare skin.
Lucy pulled away, then dove back in for a quick kiss, a second, another. Her mouth was red and plump from his and she looked magnificent. "When I was gone, there wasn't a day when I didn't wish I wasn't here," she told him, so earnest his heart clenched. "I want you to know that."
He hadn't known then, but he knew now. Same as her.
In every way that mattered, they matched.
His love tucked in a necklace that had once belonged to the sister he'd loved, now resting above the heart of the girl he loved; hers in the tie he'd picked this morning while getting dressed, knowing it was about time to wear it again.
Lockwood kissed her again, because he could. Because it was all he ever wanted to do. Lucy giggled against his mouth, pulled him in by his tie before pawing at his face, pushing him away. It was the softest sound he'd ever heard from her, the happiest, and he wanted to learn all the ways to draw it from her again. "I'll make the tea, you take care of the toast, alright?" Lucy said, beaming.
Her smile was all fireworks, but the warmth that settled in his belly was comforting.
Maybe this was what love with her felt like: a rush, a wave, a stampede, and the sense of peace that followed. Adrenaline running high after coming home from a case and gathering in the kitchen for tea and biscuits as they cooled down and sought out one another for support.
The golden halo of dawn instead of the bright copper of dusk.
He'd stopped believing in the promise of a new day a long time ago, but she'd instilled that hope in him the very first day she'd walked in.
And for the first time in a very long time, Lockwood couldn't wait to see what today and all the days after would bring.
the end