Work Text:
***Warning, big spoilers for the books. If you've not read them yet then go read then!***
"Mummy!" The little squeal of delight rang in my ears as soon I stepped in through the door.
"Hello Lilly." I beamed at her as she flew through the air to hug me tightly.
"Mummy you know what tonight is right, you remember right?"
I laughed as the bundle of energy that is my daughter bounced excitedly on her heels.
"I remember, don't worry! Is Daddy in the kitchen?" I asked as I took her hand in mine and she snuggled into my arm.
"Yes he's with Uncle Georgie." She stopped then and pulled me to her, cupping her mouth in a conspiratorial manner. I leant down so she could whisper in my ear. "They're pretending to drink tea Mummy but it's not... it's that stuff that makes them silly!"
She grinned wide eyed at me, she knew she was being clever and getting Daddy into trouble. Her grin is so like his that it always stops my heart and gets me grinning back.
I pulled a dramatic shocked expression. "Oh dear!" I said. "Naughty Daddy! Mummy will go and check on them in a minute." I gave her a playful wink.
She bounced back to the kitchen as I removed my coat and shoes and walked down to the kitchen. I glanced at the newspaper clippings on the wall as I passed them.
It had been 10 years since the beginning of the end of the problem, 10 years since DEPRAC had organised the removal of the silver fences and allowed the spirits of the deceased to begin moving on.
It had happened so quickly that society had taken quite a blow. Our entire economy and way of life was so intertwined with the problem that its sudden absence caused massive upheaval.
These days ghosts were back to being a myth, a rare occurrence that the majority of people would never experience.
I shook my thoughts and brightly ended the kitchen.
"Lucy!" George's voice rang out happily at my arrival.
"Hello George." I said equally happily. "It's so good to see you!"
I went over and gave him a little hug. We'd gotten a lot closer over the years. When he'd eventually moved out he'd had a little moment of sadness and admitted he was worried we wouldn't stay in touch. I'd made very sure that hadn't been the case, he was still very much a part of our lives and had been the first choice of Godfather for Lilly.
Lilly was in fact sitting delightedly on his knee right now, wearing his glasses and giggling as she looked at us through them. He smiled down at her, full of affection.
"Someone is very excited about the festival tonight." He said. "It's all she'll talk about."
The festival I thought. It was an attempt by the government to boost the morale of the public. To remind them that, though times were certainly still hard, we didn't live in fear of the night anymore, and to show that the economy was improving.
A 10 year celebration of the end of the problem, of the defeat of Marissa Fittes and the new "deceased protection act" which held strict penalties for anyone caught messing with the world of ghosts that remained parallel to our own.
Of course the members of Lockwood & Co were star guests in this festival. We'd come back together for the first time in 8 years. The government had paid travel and accommodation for Kipps and Holly as well.
Holly had arrived in London yesterday and had brought her new partner over in the evening to meet us.
Kipps and his family were staying in a little town house in Chelsea and had joined us in Regent's Park for a lovely picnic. Kipps's two little ones and Lilly getting along straight away as little children do.
We'd kept Lilly out of the spotlight for the most part, wanting her to have what we never did, a nice, quiet, normal, childhood. She knew of the problem of course, all children did, and she knew we were famous for having helped end it. Her natural curiosity had started her asking more difficult questions recently but we'd managed to field most of the trickier ones for now. I had a feeling tonight was going to trigger a slew of new ones in the weeks to come.
"Luce, Lucy love." Anthony was smiling at me in the way he did when he caught me drifting off into my own thoughts. A soft and affectionate smile full of tenderness and love. I immediately smiled back lost in his beautiful deep eyes.
George gave a laugh. "Even without my glasses I know those soppy grins are on your faces." He teased us.
I poked him in the arm.
"Ow!" He protested in an overly indignant manner. He turned to Lilly. "Lilly your Mummy is sooo mean to me sometimes you know."
"Mummy!" Exclaimed Lilly. "You should be nice to Uncle Georgie, it's not nice to poke people."
George stuck his tongue out at me from behind Lilly and I laughed.
"You're quite correct Lilly, I'm soooo sorry George. Is your arm OK? Maybe Lilly should get her doctor's kit out to look after you?"
George's eyes bugged at me as I grinned wickedly at him.
Lilly squealed and ran off to get her kit.
Anthony laughed and clapped George on the back. "Don't worry." He said. I'll go and get some more whiskey to get you through it.
"Ah so you are drinking then." I laughed. "Lilly ratted you out you know."
Anthony looked sheepish. "She always knows doesn't she! Can't get a thing past her. Just like her mum." He smiled at me again.
George laughed then. "You're kidding right? Lucy was always totally oblivious when it came to you, you know."
I blushed a little remembering how clueless we'd both been to each other's feelings before the problem ended.
We lapsed into conversation about how things used to be, remembering little stories and laughing. Then I realised that Lilly hadn't come back. I went to see if she'd forgotten about her doctor's kit. Couldn't let George get out of Godfather duties after all.
Lilly's bedroom was Jessica's old room. Her psychic presence had gone once the problem was over and Anthony wanted it to be a happy place again, it seemed natural and he thought Jessica would be happy that her niece had her old room.
She wasn't in there however, or in the spare room, George's old room.
I froze then as I heard her tinkling laugh coming from my old room, the attic room. It was pretty much our storage room these days and normally out of bounds for Lilly. A lot of our old agent's gear and some of Anthony's parents' relics were up there.
I marched up the stairs all ready to give her a gentle telling off when I heard her thinking laughter again and then her voice.
"You're so silly! Of course I know them, they're my Mummy and Daddy!"
I froze halfway up a step, who was she talking to? I couldn't hear another voice reply. Was she role playing? She often talked to herself pretending to play two different people as small children did sometimes.
"I'm nearly 5."
A pause.
"I don't know."
Another pause. This was unusual, normally Lilly did both voices rather than imagining one in her mind. I felt a strange sensation creeping over me as I listened to the one-sided conversation.
Another tinkling laugh and then... "That's rude! Why are you all see through like that?"
I ran, I think I must have taken the stairs nearly 4 at a time, my heart pounded and pure terror ran through me, a panic I hadn't felt since the days of the problem.
I slammed the door open and shouted Lilly's name. She screamed in fright at my entrance and then sat there wide eyed and trembling at me. "Sorry Mummy! I'm so sorry, I heard the boy and he said he needed me to come up, I was going to come and tell you, only he wanted to know if I knew you, which I said was silly but..." She trailed off looking at me guiltily.
I looked wildly around the room. Nothing! Not a thing. Lilly sat on the floor in the middle of the room with her doctor's kit in front of her and nothing else.
Then I felt it, the chill in the air, the sense of pressure, not unpleasant but still wrong somehow. I held my hand out to Lilly.
"Lilly, darling, come slowly to mummy."
She stood up and walked over looking worried. Just before she reached my outstretched hand however she stopped, looked at me very quizzically, turned to the empty room and gave a shrugging gesture.
"I don't know. I dont think she heard you."
Another pause in which my muscles felt cased in concrete.
"Tell her what? You don't look like a skull."
All of once the concrete fell away and a joy and sorrow filled me.
"Skull?! Skull is that you? Are you there? I can't hear you. Wait, I know you're in one of these boxes."
I starting frantically opening the storage boxes, I couldn't believe it, was it really my Skull, I felt giddy with happiness that he might be back, sorrow and loss at the clear fact that my talent must have faded and guilt at the fact I'd left his Skull shoved in a box somewhere with all the other relics.
Lilly watched me in confusion and then grimaced. "Mummy, he's saying rude things about you and he wants me to repeat them."
I looked at her in awe and then joy bloomed in me and I laughed. "It's OK darling, you can tell me what he says." I spoke more sternly then. "But you tell him from me that you are an impressionable 4 yr old and that if I think he's being a negative influence it's never too late for me to fully destroy his withered old skull once and for all." I glared meaningfully around the room.
She turned to a corner and nodded at it, then giggled again. Then she turned to me with a face full of concentration. "He says I have to tell you that you are an ig-no-rant old person, that he is horrified that you stuffed him in a box full of..." She paused again as if listening. "Ew, mummy he says he's covered in underpants!"
My face turned pink, I searched the room and spotted the old box of clothes. A memory of me wrapping the Skull up in a drawer many years ago surfaced, swiftly followed by a memory of that drawer being tipped into a box when we set the nursery up.
"Oh Skull, I'm so sorry! It was only because they were soft, and I thought it would protect you from being bumped around, and I wanted to keep you close, back then."
I started rummaging around in the box, eventually clasping my hand on something cold and hard, I pulled it out and there it was! The Skull in all its battered glory.
I turned back round and saw Lilly waving her hand around in front of her. My blood froze for a moment again.
"Lilly." I said. "You're not, touching the boy are you?"
"I can't Mummy, I tried but my hand goes through him." She waved her hand in the air again.
"It... doesn't hurt?" I asked, a slight tremor in my voice the only sign of my thumping heart.
"No. Mummy, is he a ghost?"
Not waiting for my reply she turned back to the corner and looked quizzical again.
"You don't look like an overstuffed turkey." She pursed her lips. "Actually I think you look pretty."
Pause.
"Mummy isn't mean, she never says horrid things!" She stamped her foot on the floor and balled her little fists up.
Pause.
"Mummy." She turned to face me again and I realised I'd been transfixed unmoving through the whole conversation. "The boy says you used to call him names, and that Uncle George did terrible things to him!"
She turned back to him. "I shan't talk to you if you're mean about my Mummy."
A pause where Lilly folded her arms indignantly and hmphed loudly.
She slowly turned back to the corner again. "Did he?! In the bath?!" She giggled again. "That's silly you wouldn't both fit."
She turned then to look at the skull in my hands with an open mouth.
"That's your HEAD?!" She gasped. "Why would Uncle George take THAT into the bath?!"
All of a sudden it was like a dam inside me broke. Memories of the Skull, of our adventures, all the times he saved my life, all the times he cursed Anthony and George out, all the times he tried to get me to kill Holly.
I laughed and laughed and laughed, tears rolling down my face as I clutched the Skull to me. Lilly came over and gently put a hand out to the Skull to touch it. My laughter finally subsided and I looked at the Skull with fondness.
"I missed you old friend." I said quietly. "I'm... I'm so sorry I can't hear you anymore." A tear of sorrow joined the tears of laughter. "Thank you." I whispered. "Thank you for everything."
Lilly put her hand on mine. "He thinks it funny you waited until you can't hear him to decide he's your friend but he sounds a bit sad."
She grimaced at the air. "You do sound sad." She stated. "You sound like Daddy when he's sad."
Pause.
"But I'm a Lockwood too!"
There were footsteps then coming up to the attic and Anthony and George peered at us through the doorway.
"We came to see if you were OK." Anthony said and then saw the Skull and my tears. He was by my side in an instant, his hands on mine, his thumb caressing the back of my hand.
"What is it Luce?" He asked. "Is he back? Can you hear him?"
I looked at him through my tears and shook my head. I didn't have any words left for how I was feeling.
Lilly spoke for me. "There's a boy that Mummy can't see, that's his head." She pointed to the Skull.
"He's rude Daddy." She turned to the corner again sharply. "That's mean, I won't say it."
"What did he say Lil?" Anthony's voice was like stone.
Lilly looked a little worried, Anthony smiled at her and held his arms out for her to sink into. Then in a softer tone he said, "it's OK, we know what the Skull is like you can tell us, I can always throw him back in the sewers where he came from." He said this in a playful teasing manner, but glared at the Skull over Lilly's head as he said it.
Lilly tilted her head as she listened again. For a moment I had a thought, that this must have been what it was like for Anthony and George all those years ago, I really didn't give them credit for how frustrating it was!
"He says, is that all the thanks he gets, and... that he saved your lives, and that he solved the problem for you..."
Pause.
"No they didn't."
Pause.
"No, mummy doesn't like being famous."
Pause, and then a look from Lilly that she was considering something.
She shook her head. "No, I don't think I want to be famous either."
Anthony choked at that and then tightened his grip on Lilly.
"Ask him what he wants Lil."
"Erm, he says he wants rec-og-nishun, and that he came to say goodbye to Mummy."
I looked at the Skull in my hands and then at Anthony. I really didn't want to be famous, and I really really didn't want to drag Lilly into that world. But the Skull had saved us and maybe he did deserve some recognition, maybe it would help him move on.
"Ok" I said. "You're right, you do deserve recognition, and why not, it's been 10 yrs, maybe it's time for the whole truth to come out." I bit my lip.
"How about..." I said slowly. "How about we write a set of books, write down all of our adventures."
"He likes that." Lilly said. "But he wants to be a main character."
I grinned. "Well of course." I said. "How could he not be?"
Lilly looked to the corner and smiled.
"I like your smile." She said to the corner.
Anthony laughed.
"I can't believe I have to listen to more one-sided conversations from a Lockwood" George groaned, then grinned as well. "Does this mean I can get all the old case notes out?"
I laughed too, I felt a joy I hadn't felt for a while. A new Lockwood & Co venture, yes, this would be a great idea.
And so, if you haven't already then go read the books!