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I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away
Lucy is shredding sugar packets by the time Lockwood returns with a third cup of tea for them each, the first four attempts cooled in their mugs and pushed to the end of the table for the waitress to collect. She is seemingly avoiding their corner of their café, with its hushed argument and simmering tension, which is fair enough. Lucy wouldn’t want to wade into this either, especially not if she was on minimum wage.
Unfortunately, as one of the proprietors of said hushed argument and simmering tension, she’s stuck here, at least until Lockwood finally gives up and realises she’s set on this.
Set on leaving him. Or more accurately, Lockwood & Co, 35 Portland Row, George, Holly, Floating Joe, the whole shebang.
But from the way he’s taking it so personally, it seems he knows it’s mostly him.
He sits back down across from her, sets one of the cups by her fidgeting hands. She’s not going to drink this one either, least of all because their table has run out of sugar and she hates unsweetened tea, most of all because her stomach is in knots and if she puts anything in it she’s worried it’s going to quickly come back up.
“Explain to me one more time.” Lockwood says, as she stares into the milky swirl of her cup. “Because I still just don’t understand.”
“My Talent is getting out of hand.” Her voice is practically monotone. She’s repeated these words almost verbatim several times over the last hour. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me. I’m a liability.”
He scoffs, tries to keep his tone light. “You’ve always been a liability, Luce. That doesn’t mean we want you gone.”
“Yes, but it’s not about what you want.” She snaps because she’s tired and frayed along all her edges. “It’s about what I want.”
He gives her a hard stare, hand tightening around the handle of his cup, knuckles bleached of colour. “And this is what you want?”
She could almost cry with relief that it’s finally getting through to him if she wasn’t already on the verge of tears from the morning’s emotional rollercoaster.
“Yes.” She says, aiming for firm and reasonably pleased with only the slightest quiver slipping into her voice.
“And it doesn’t matter what I- or anyone else wants?”
“No.”
“But… but, why Lucy?” He asks and oh, she is going to slam her head into the table. “Because of a few hiccups on a few jobs?”
“A few-“ She drags her hands down her face to block out his pitiful expression, digging her fingers into her eyelids until she sees nothing but bursts of white. “I almost got us all killed at Aickmere’s!”
“Oh come off it.” Warm fingers wrap around her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face and leaving her blinking under the harsh fluorescent lights of the café. “I’ve almost got us all killed hundreds of times. Combe Carey? The bet with Kipps? That time George was under the weather so I made dinner and gave us both food poisoning?”
He’s thrown the last one in to try make her smile; she stares back at him stonily.
“What’s this really about, Luce?” He asks quietly, folding his hands over hers. Her fingers twitch reflexively at the contact, but she refuses to give in and thread them through his. “Was it- is it because I-“ He swallows, vulnerability cracking his expression wide open.
Now he’s avoiding her gaze, staring at their hands as he busies himself tracing one long finger over the lines of her palm. It tickles, a little, and Lucy suppresses a shiver.
“I thought in the basement at Aickmere’s we’d… I don’t know, cleared the air about… recent behaviours.”
Come off it. You know I’d die for you.
“We did.” Lucy confirms, swallowing past the lump forming in her throat.
“I know I haven’t been very fair to you, lately. I pushed you away and I am sorry for that.” He’s almost hunched over their hands now, directs his next words at them instead of her. “And I know you’re saying it’s because of your Talent but I can’t help but feel like there’s something else at play here, Lucy.”
“There isn’t.” She says desperately.
Lockwood takes a deep breath, then looks up and pins her to the grimy vinyl of the booth with his eyes. “I asked you, once, not to give up on me.”
And oh, there it is. He’s brought them back from this edge so many times, raced after when she’s been on the precipice of walking out. How many times in that first year alone did he plead with her to stay when she’d furiously stormed away?
He doesn’t realise she’s not angry this time. She’s scared, terrified that if she doesn’t furiously storm away, he’ll walk straight into death’s arms on her behalf, greet the devil like an old friend to prevent her from meeting him instead. She’s not storming off, she’s dragging herself out kicking and screaming and he’s making it all so, so hard to do, it’s breaking her heart.
Lucy makes a valiant attempt to stop her lower lip from trembling as she realises that she has to break his first.
“Well, maybe I have.” She lies, blatantly, cruelly, straight to his face.
Lockwood rears back, visibly stung. She pulls her hands from under his, snatching them away like his touch burns and he flinches, fingers curling around nothing, forming fists on the tabletop.
Then he’s on his feet in a swirl of coattails, the bell over the café door jangling violently as he throws it open and stalks out into the wintery morning.
barefoot in the kitchen, sacred new beginnings
“Hey.” The kitchen door is ajar, but she raps her knuckles against the frame anyway as she tucks herself into the gap.
Lockwood is sat at the table, staring at his hands in silent contemplation, but the moment she slips inside, the mask is on. He grins at her, rakish and charming, and she might have blushed if his eyes didn’t look utterly dead, freezing any warm inner glow in her stomach.
Freezing.
She’s freezing.
Which is how she ended up here, because as she was digging through her still not-unpacked suitcase in the attic to try find something warm and preferably fuzzy, her hands had closed around worn grey fabric.
“So.” She holds up his old grey hoodie. “I sort of accidentally stole this. When I left. And never got round to sending it back.”
The ice in his eyes cracks a little; his smile shrinks but the sincerity grows. “I wondered where that went.”
She shrugs; the heat might not be coiling in her stomach, but it certainly is infusing her cheeks. Accidentally is a strong word that doesn’t entirely describe her spotting it on the laundry basket on the landing as she tiptoed out in the early dawn with her bags packed and, before she could question herself, swiping it on her way past.
The bedsit she’d rented had been chilly, far colder than her little attic got in the depths of winter, and that’s the only reason she’d worn it so often. But now she’s back and she’s in a room with more reasonable heat circulation, there’s no excuse to hold onto it.
Not when she’s got its owner to hold onto instead.
“Keep it.” Says said owner as she sits down next to him.
Lockwood takes the hoodie from her, drapes it over her shoulders, rubs some warmth back into her arms. How does he always know what she needs?
His smile is now miniscule, just the slightest turn up at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes are glowing. His socked foot bumps her bare one under the table as he smooths his hands down to her elbows before letting go.
“Thanks for coming home, Luce.”
She ducks her chin, studies the chipped paint on her nails. Her fingertips have been deathly white, their pads icy cold ever since they got back. She wonders if she’ll ever fully regain the feeling in them as she slips her arms into the hoodie to wear it properly, pulls the sleeves down past her hands to try warm them up.
But the cold is unavoidable, unforgettable, a constant reminder of what they saw.
And what they saw reminds her-
“I’d just like to clarify something, now that I’m back and everything.”
“What is it?” He prompts.
She looks up and he’s watching her so intently, his whole body turned towards her, one arm propped on the table and the other resting over the back of his chair.
“You… you said you’d die for me.”
Lockwood doesn’t even blink. “Yes.”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you didn’t.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I’d much- I’d much rather you lived. For yourself.”
“Lucy.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think you realise how big a thing that is to ask of me.”
“To watch you die would be a much bigger thing for you to ask of me, I assure you.” She almost laughs, sharp and harsh. “And it’s one of the conditions of me coming home. I’ve not gone through the last few months just to… just to watch you…”
She tails off, shivering from the cold and the fear and the thought of seeing him on the wrong side of life again.
Ever the businessman, Lockwood stares at the thinking cloth, contemplating her words.
“I could live for you?” He offers. “For George and the company?” He adds quickly, but they both know what he meant even if they’re not going to acknowledge it.
“I don’t know that I could handle that responsibility.” She tells him and it’s true. She can’t be his emotional crutch, just like she can’t make him be hers. It’s not healthy, but the other end of the spectrum, distancing herself, moving out of Portland Row feels impossible even though she’s done it before. They can’t be Lockwood and Lucy until they’ve worked out how to be Lockwood and Lucy.
She hooks her foot around his ankle.
“I’ll do my best.” He promises.
“No. Do better.”
He looks at her carefully, then nods, a tiny, imperceptible dip of his chin but it feels like a win to Lucy. She offers a small smile in return, just the slightest turn up of her mouth and his gaze drops down to her lips. She feels herself part them in surprise, feels his eyes trace the movement as she takes in a breath, then dart to look off to the side of her head, retreating to safety. She watches his eyebrows twitch with curiosity, then his hand is moving towards the side of her face and she feels like she has whiplash from the emotional ramifications of his gestures.
“Hey.” He untucks some hair from behind her ear, runs it through his fingers. It’s the strands that were bleached white from their trip to the Other Side.
“Oh.” Lucy groans, torn between batting him away and purring at the soft tug of his hand in her hair. “It’s awful, isn’t it? And it’s right at the front, so I can’t even hide it.”
“No, look-“ He stops twirling her hair around his fingers, reaches up to part his instead to reveal a white streak running through the section that flops over his forehead.
His hair has gotten so long since she’s been gone, dancing in his eyes when he doesn’t push it back. George’s is the same, his already unruly mop spilling over his ears. It can’t be her fault, really, she never nagged them about things like haircuts when she was here and she’s sure Holly would have been ready to march them both to the barbers if they ever got a spare second between cases, but she can’t help but feel a little pang of guilt about all the little changes she wasn’t here to witness.
“I don’t have to hide it.” Lockwood murmurs and she thinks they’re still taking about their hair, but she can’t be entirely sure.
She leans forward to trace the white; he moves his hand out of the way to give her unbridled access and it drops to rest loosely on her knee as he closes his eyes like a cat when she pushes her fingers through his hair. She rearranges it so the frozen streak sits prominently at the front, a shocking dash across the dark tangle of his hair.
“There.” Lucy says.
The hand on her knee tightens, then Lockwood opens his eyes and draws it back into his own lap, straightening his spine so he is no longer curved towards her. Feeling oddly chastened, Lucy takes her hands from his hair and it suddenly feels like there is a gulf between them, even though he’s only shifted away a couple of inches.
But instead of moving back further, he reaches out to brush through her hair once more, drawing the full white section forward, looping it around his index finger.
“Now everyone will know we’re a matching pair.” He says and the distance doesn’t seem quite as far.
you hold my hand on the street, walk me back to that apartment
“So, do you really like my new coat?”
They’re walking down Portland Row and they’re holding hands. Not because there’s danger or they need to check the other is alive or offer emotional support; just because they can, because Lockwood caught her elbow earlier to steer her round the corner and then his hand simply glided down her forearm until his palm met hers, fingers interlinking firmly as though to say yes, you’re not mistaken, we’re really doing this.
The sapphire around her neck is a nice weight against her breastbone and quite possibly the only thing keeping her grounded down to earth right now. That and Lockwood’s hand. Lockwood’s hand held firmly in hers.
“Hmm.” She sneaks a glance as they walk; he’s got his usual swagger, but here’s a lightness to it like the world has been lifted off his shoulders for once. He’s still too pale to be healthy and his eyes are still ringed with heavy shadows, but the dying sunlight also highlights the pinking of his cheeks, the lifted corner of his mouth which quirked up when she joined him at the front door wearing the necklace and hasn’t left his face since. He looks as buoyant as she feels.
He looks alive and happy to be so.
She stops suddenly, and so does Lockwood due to their still interlinked hands. He raises a questioning eyebrow, but she doesn’t explain herself as she steers him below a ghost lamp, just flickering on as the first streaks of pink and orange begin to splash across the sky around them. They’ve still got an hour or so till night really falls, more than enough time to make it back to Portland Row without coming across any danger.
Lucy steps forward, internally delights in the flare of surprise on his face when she moves into his space, internally delights even more that this is allowed now without the excuse of danger.
“Just getting a better look.” She tells him with her most serious expression and he looks at her with such unabashed fondness that she is struck by the urge to climb his dumb lanky body like a tree.
Instead, with what she considers to be an impressive level of self-control, her hands land on his shoulders, smoothing over them and down his arms, feeling the expensive wool catching on her rapier-calloused palms. She turns up the cuffs, eyes the patterned silk lining critically, slips her hands into his pockets which makes him laugh.
God, she loves when he laughs.
She flips up the collar in the way she knows he likes to do it when there’s a chilly breeze or he just wants to look cool, then settles it back down into place, running her fingers round to the back of his neck to check it isn’t rucked up anywhere. She plucks a hair – one of hers, actually – from where it’s sitting on his sleeve, dusts off imaginary lint as an excuse to run her hands over his forearms again.
She can sense Lockwood’s endearment through his mild confusion, reads it in the charmed lift of his eyebrow and the slight pursing of his lips as she carries out her (perhaps unnecessarily) thorough inspection of his coat.
“Yes.” Lucy says finally. “I think it will do nicely.”
Then she grabs the lapels and uses them to tug him down, breaching their not-inconsiderable height difference so she can press her mouth to his.
To his credit, beyond a surprised noise that is muffled by her lips, Lockwood is quick to catch on, wrapping both arms around her waist to haul her up against him.
She always thought their first kiss – because a first kiss has felt fairly inevitable for a while now – would be something desperate and scrambling, in the heat of a case or its panicked aftermath. That’s all well and good, and she’s certain with his reckless streak and her stubbornness there’ll be plenty of those kisses in the future. But for now, she’s content with this one to be their first, pace set to slow, long and languid and lazy beneath the ghost lamp’s flickering glow.
When she draws back, the pleasant rosiness in Lockwood’s cheeks has intensified and spread to the tips of his ears. She can’t imagine she looks much better.
“I really like your coat.” She whispers and his answering grin is radiant.
“I really like you.” He murmurs back as if it’s a secret, as if he hasn’t made it clear as day by giving her the necklace and holding her hand and kissing her with commendable enthusiasm under the glow of the ghost lamp. And that’s only in the last hour; once she gets the chance to rewind all the way to beginning – and she absolutely does later that night, when he’s curled up asleep on the sofa with his head in her lap and she reminisces with every card of her fingers through his hair – she’s pretty sure she’ll find more evidence. His cover is well and truly blown.
Lucy draws a finger down the sharp line of his jaw, taps it against the dimple of his chin.
“Let’s go home.”
We were a fresh page on the desk
Filling in the blanks as we go
As if the street lights pointed in an arrowhead
Leading us home