Archive of Our Own

The day they saw the positive pregnancy test, Lockwood was recovering from a bad flare-up. Not as bad as the worst he’d experienced before getting diagnosed, but still. He’d been feeling stiff and run-down for a while, and after an ill-advised trip to a clean-up site with DEPRAC the day before yesterday had spent most of the last twenty-four hours in bed. 

But he wanted to be present for this moment, so he’d gotten up this morning and made tea and a breakfast of eggs and buttered toast for the both of them, which never failed to make him feel a bit more human. The whole process cost rather more spoons than he would’ve liked, but he decided it was worth it. 

The Thinking Cloth, as it had been for three or four months now, was covered in notes and charts related to the mysterious and shockingly complicated process of conceiving. On her side of the table, Lucy had laid out a spread of pregnancy tests and was contemplating them one by one, trying to decide which one to take first. 

“According to this,” she pointed to a chart scribbled to her left, “the most likely date of conception was almost two weeks ago, so although I haven’t technically missed my period, I should be able to get a reliable result with these.” She picked up the box of bulk generics from Tesco. “However, Cassandra said this one told her she was pregnant at ten days, so it should definitely work for us now.” She held up a box Lockwood distinctly remembered as being the most expensive, advertising a digital display of results. 

“So what you’re saying is it doesn’t really matter which one you go with,” he said, laying out the plates of eggs and toast, but not touching his own plate. There was far too much anticipation to think about food now. 

“Well, it shouldn’t,” Lucy said. “But what if it does?”

“So use both,” he said. “Piss in a cup, and dip them in one right after the other.”

Lucy grimaced, but seemed to consider it for a second. “But if it’s negative I don’t want to waste the expensive one.”

“What’s the point of the expensive one if you only use it to confirm you’re pregnant?” he countered, his heart racing at the very idea. After five months of officially Trying, they were starting to get used to disappointment, but he still couldn’t help the stubborn hope that rose in him every time they did this. As he’d told her on the phone the other day– he had a feeling that this time would be different. “Just pick one, any one,” he said. He reached across and held one up that seemed middle-of-the-road. “Here, split the difference.” 

Lucy sighed, and squirmed a little in her seat. “Fine.” She snatched the box from him and disappeared upstairs to the bathroom. 

Lockwood watched her go and wished he could follow her. Along with her recommendation vis-a-vis pregnancy tests, George’s sister-in-law had also described the moment she and her husband had discovered her first pregnancy– in the bathroom together, hunched over the sink with an egg timer waiting for it to ding before flipping over the test for the results. 

Perhaps foolishly, Lockwood had fantasized about recreating that moment with Lucy, but there weren’t very many places to sit in their bathroom, and he knew it would be a bad idea today to waste spoons on an unnecessary trip up stairs when Lucy could just as easily bring the test down to him. 

While he was waiting, Lockwood took his meds before he forgot in the elation or disappointment that was sure to dominate the rest of the day, and made an attempt at nibbling on his rapidly-cooling toast. 

Lucy returned, set the white stick carefully face down on the Thinking Cloth, and ceremoniously started their kitchen timer. 

Their gazes roamed the room, looking everywhere except the place that would determine their future. 

Lucy’s fingers drummed restlessly on the table. “How many spoons today?”

He shrugged. “Ten or so.” Probably more like seven or eight after making breakfast, but he decided not to mention that. There were more than yesterday, at any rate. Yesterday had been a miserable One Spoon Day. Or Zero Spoons. Whatever the lowest number was. 

“Mm,” Lucy hummed, her gaze returning to the kitchen timer. 

Ten… nine… eight… seven…

Lockwood silenced the timer as soon as it beeped, while Lucy snatched up the pregnancy test and held it up to the light. This early, any second line was likely to be faint, but a faint positive was still a positive. 

Lockwood’s heart was in his throat. 

“Oh my God.” Lucy’s hand was shaking as she held it out for him to see. 

He leaned over, moving his head out of the way of the overhead light, and his breathing quickened when he saw what she’d seen. A faint, but definite, second line. “Lucy.”

“We did it, Anthony,” she said, a wide smile breaking across her face. “We finally did it.”

“Lucy…” He held the test in both hands, struggling to process the flood of emotions rushing through his brain. He wanted to jump up and hug her. He wanted to spin her around in his arms. He wanted to climb onto the roof and shout the news all over London. 

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Luckily, Lucy came around to him so he could hug her properly, kiss her and whisper how happy he was, although those words didn’t feel like nearly enough. 

When they parted, her eyes were shining. He was sure his looked the same. 

“I’ve got to call the gyno,” she said, hazily. “We’ve got to confirm it before we tell anyone. Get pictures and everything.”

Right. Right. They couldn’t tell anyone yet, not even George. It was too early. He looked at the calendar. Lucy was off today, so really they didn’t need to do anything except bask in the news and the company of each other. 

So he stood up, pulling her with him, and spun her around like he really wanted to. His shoulders throbbed for an hour afterwards, but it didn’t matter because they spent most of that curled up on the sofa, Lockwood’s hands pressed against her lower abdomen. 

About a year after his diagnosis with lupus, Lockwood and Lucy attended couples’ counseling. Lockwood had been all for it, at that point willing to try anything to finally put six years of long-distance followed by several rocky months post-reunion behind them. Lucy had been more resistant. 

“Do you want us to break up?” she said, her face going very white when he proposed the idea, pulling her hands out of his. 

“No,” he said at once. “Luce, I never want to break up, that’s the whole point. George said this could help make our relationship stronger.”

She looked irritated, and he wondered if bringing up George had been the wrong way to go about this. 

He tried again. “Look, I think it’s safe to say neither of us exactly specialize in open communication. Perhaps a professional could help with that.”

She still looked doubtful. “I don’t want someone else to tell us how our relationship should work.”

“That’s not what happens in couples’ counseling.”

“And how would you know?”

He sighed, and tried to move onto the next point in the bulleted list he’d drawn up, but none of them convinced her. In the end, what brought her around was a very long phone call with Holly, made while he was out giving a guest lecture at Atkins and Armstrong. 

Unreasonably put out that Holly had accomplished what he could not– from all the way in France, no less– he accepted Lucy’s concession with as much grace as he could, although no amount of persuading would induce either woman to reveal details about what had been said. 

“What does it matter, Lockwood?” Holly said, a rare edge of irritation creeping into her voice. “She agreed to go, didn’t she?” 

She had, so they went. 

George had put his best researching skills to work in finding them the right therapist– someone with experience working with former agents (and therefore PTSD), depression, and living with chronic illness. There was an impressive amount of overlap, and accordingly, she was very good. 

She was the one who had introduced them to the Spoon Theory. 

“It’s a way to put into words the amount of energy you have on any given day,” she said, speaking technically to both of them, but to Lockwood mostly. “You start in the morning with a certain number, and tasks you do throughout the day cost a certain amount. The goal is to end the day with a positive number of spoons– in other words, recognize what you can do in a day without overextending yourself.” 

Lucy had immediately latched onto this idea, thrilled to have a concrete way of telling him when he was doing too much, but Dr. Petrova headed her off. 

“Only you,” she said, pointing at Lockwood, “can say how many spoons you have, or the spoon-cost of any activity.”

Lockwood smirked, trying to keep from saying something smug, but Lucy said, “But what if I can tell he’s not being honest about it?”

That had set off an argument (or, ‘discussion’) that had consumed the rest of the session and left both of them emotionally exhausted. 

Still, the following morning, when Lucy awoke and rolled over to greet him, she said without sarcasm or mockery, “How many spoons today?”

“Hmm… a good number.” He stretched, grinning. It felt like it was going to be that sort of day. 

But a furrow appeared in her brow. “How many is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean– how many is a good number?”

“I don’t know.” He paused, staring at the ceiling. It hadn’t occurred to him to put an exact number on it, but he supposed that would probably help communicate the idea to Lucy. They used to talk in numbers all the time– how many salt bombs would they need for a dark specter? Would this be a two-flare job or a six-flare job? “Fifteen?” he said. “Twenty?”

Lucy nodded, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. “Twenty,” she said. “A good number.”

It had marked a sort of turning point, establishing their Spoon System, and after thirteen months of couples’ therapy, they fulfilled their goal set out at the start and finally got married. By mutual agreement, they kept seeing Dr. Petrova for several more months after that, but eventually the sessions tapered in frequency before becoming as-needed. On the day of the Two Pink Lines, it had been almost six months since their last appointment. 

As they embarked on this latest, terrifying adventure, Lockwood agonized over his ability to care for Lucy on low-spoon days. These worries intensified after overhearing a conversation between her and several of George’s sisters in which they shared various horror stories involving morning sickness so bad it required hospitalization, crippling pelvic girdle pain, and some sort of condition he couldn’t pronounce that involved bile leaking from the gallbladder into the bloodstream. 

After over ten years as an agent and the last six being chronically ill, Lockwood considered himself to have a pretty strong stomach, but that last one still made his skin crawl. 

Luckily, Lucy seemed to take to pregnancy fairly easily. She threw up all of twice during the first trimester, and didn’t start to complain of pain until well into the third. 

“I always knew I was built like this for something,” she said one evening after they’d been to a dinner party at which everyone commented on how good she looked for seven months pregnant. “My mum did this six times, after all– once with twins.” 

Lockwood shuddered, once again grateful that multiple ultrasounds (he’d insisted, given Lucy’s family history) had confirmed only one baby. “I still think you’re incredible, you know,” he said. “Even if you only do it once.” 

She laughed then. “To be honest, I feel like I’ve barely done anything yet, aside from eating my weight in donuts and George’s tahdig. We’re probably quite ill-prepared for the horrors promised to come after the baby's born.” 

Lockwood begged to differ, especially after the baby shower, which felt like more of a flood from the way gifts started piling up in their front hall a week before the actual event. He wasn’t even aware they knew this many people.

Luckily, the occasion fell on a high-spoon day, and Lockwood was determined to make the most of it, doing everything in his power to make it all about Lucy, even though the affair was technically for both of them. In his humble opinion, despite a few hiccups, the whole thing was a raging success. 

Mrs. Karim gifted them a thick stack of the softest hand-crocheted baby blankets anyone had ever felt. George, to Lockwood’s chagrin and Lucy’s barely-concealed ire, brought a child-sized rapier. 

“Not to fight ghosts with, of course,” he said, completely unashamed. “Just so the little hell-raiser can duel his father by the time they’re in primary school.”

At that point, Lockwood was forced to move things along before he did his friend an injury. 

Most of Lucy’s co-workers brought toys, the final amount of which had Lockwood wondering where on earth they’d put them all, and if they’d ever need to buy the child anything to play with again. Flo Bones also sent a toy– an ancient-looking wooden rattle that arrived in a package from an obscure address in Germany, which Lockwood made a mental note to have evaluated by a Sensitive at his earliest convenience. Even weak sources were extremely rare nowadays, but if anyone was going to turn one up, it would be Flo. 

Kipps, to everyone’s shock and his own mortification, gifted the child a university savings account, already containing 300 pounds. Lucy actually teared up, causing Kipps to turn an even deeper shade of crimson, muttering something about the importance of starting these things early before excusing himself to the kitchen for more punch. Lockwood made a mental note to comp the next ten guest lectures he did at the Kipps Agency. Maybe the next twenty. 

Fortunately, this uncomfortable amount of sincerity was followed by several gifts from the three Carlyle sisters who had bothered to make the journey south– all various creams and wipes and equipment they insisted, as experienced mothers themselves, were absolutely essential for Lucy postpartum. It probably would’ve registered as more thoughtful had they not also provided all sorts of unsolicited advice (parenting and otherwise), as well as slightly graphic details of their respective birth experiences. 

“My fourth was a cesarean,” said Shaz, the eldest present, with a shudder. “Trust me, you want to avoid that at all costs. Recovery takes ages, and the scar is so ugly.” 

“Are you joking?” said Maura, the middle one. “I’d take a cesarean over the old way any day of the week. No labor, no pushing, just take a nap and bam– there’s your baby!”

This provoked a rather passionate argument, and again Lockwood was forced to change the topic before Lucy did to her sisters what he’d considered doing to George. 

The final gift came from Holly, in attendance with her also-pregnant wife, Martine. 

In a coincidence Lockwood found highly suspicious, Lucy tore open the immaculate white wrapping paper to reveal a set of stainless steel child-sized spoons, no doubt purchased from the finest Parisian baby boutique. 

To be fair, they were gorgeous– even George looked a bit awed at the delicate artwork on the faux-ivory handles, each hand-painted with deep green foliage and a different cartoon animal. 

If Lucy was thinking the same thing Lockwood was, she didn’t show it. “Oh my Goodness, Holly, these are beautiful. Thank you.” 

Lockwood hastened to thank her as well, although for the rest of the evening he couldn’t help shooting furtive glances between her and Lucy, wondering just what it was they talked about while racking up international minutes on their mobile phone plan. 

That night, when they finally collapsed into bed on either side of Lucy’s pregnancy pillow, she muttered, “No spoons left, Anthony. No spoons.” 

Lockwood blinked. It was the first time she’d ever applied the Spoon Theory to herself. For some reason, he found himself oddly touched. He reached out to stroke her hair. “That was the last thing, Luce. No more excitement before the baby comes.” 

Several weeks later, the baby did come, on a rainy, bitterly cold morning in October. Lucy avoided a cesarean, but at hour nine did opt for the spinal block, and in short order they were rewarded with their daughter– Eleanora Jessica Lockwood. 

At this point, many people had endeavored to describe to them the feeling of holding your newborn child for the first time– mostly with words such as indescribable and beyond comprehension. 

And although he’d started to roll his eyes, now in the moment himself Lockwood had to admit they’d been right. Sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair in a way that his back would punish him for later, Lockwood found himself utterly and completely without words as he held Eleanora against his bare chest. He thought he might be able to look at her tiny, scrunched-up face forever if there wasn’t an equally strong pull to keep looking back at Lucy on the bed next to him. 

Ostensibly, he was holding Eleanora so she could finally get some sleep, but when he managed to tear his gaze from one person he loved most in the world to the other, she was still awake, lying on her side as close to the edge of the bed as was possible without disturbing the various lines still connected to her. 

“Sorry,” she whispered, knowing what he was about to say. “I just can’t stop looking at her.”

Well. Fair enough. “She is utterly perfect, isn’t she?” 

“Utterly and completely.”

Lockwood wished he could bottle this moment. Save it somehow so he could come back to it whenever he wanted. He was suddenly sure taking himself back to this feeling might be the cure for anything– pain, depression, low spoons. He looked back at Eleanora, running the pad of his thumb across her impossibly soft cheek and tried to memorize everything about it. 

In a few hours, George would be here– the first of a multitude of visitors. (His mobile, up until he’d finally shut it off fifteen minutes ago, had been buzzing continuously.) In a few days, they would go home, and he knew in a distant, abstract way, that’s when the real challenge would begin.  

But now, just for a moment, everything was perfect. 

Before setting out to have a baby, both Lockwood and Lucy had considered his health to be relatively stable. Sure, there were occasional low points, but they’d found a suite of medications that worked, and developed a routine he was comfortable with. Most days, Lockwood could safely say he felt almost normal.  

After Eleanora was born, the first thing to get smashed into figurative smithereens was, of course, the routine. Lockwood didn’t care what anyone said about babies possessing their own sort of schedule, or trying to establish one around their habits. Neither he nor Lucy could make sense of Eleanora’s moods or for the life of them figure out what sort of schedule she might prefer. 

As they should’ve expected, given their own habits, Eleanora was a terrible sleeper, allowing no one more than a few hours’ rest at a time– waking up at all hours of the day or night to scream her tiny head off. Even when she was fed and changed, she seemed determined to cry for no reason at all– horrible, urgent wailing that went on for hours no matter what they did. Of course, as teenagers they’d regularly been in the habit of working on little to no sleep, but in the intervening years Lockwood had gotten somewhat used to getting a solid eight hours a night, and genuinely wondered how his younger self had ever functioned in such a way.

Still, while Lucy was recovering from the birth and the sole party responsible for feeding, he decided it was only fair of him to take care of everything else– nappy changes, laundry, even cooking, although they ate rather a lot of eggs and buttered toast. Predictably, it wasn’t long before he found himself running dangerously low on spoons. 

Distracted and sleep-deprived herself, it took Lucy a bit longer than it usually did to notice he was dragging, but she eventually did, standing in the kitchen trying to rock Eleanora to sleep in her sling, watching as it took Lockwood three tries to grasp the bread knife. 

“Hey.” She drifted closer, one hand on Eleanora’s back, hips still swaying back and forth. “Are you feeling okay?”

He set the bread knife down and looked up. There were dark circles under her eyes he was sure matched his own, and her hair was unbrushed and unwashed for the fourth day in a row. He gave his best attempt at a smile. “I’m feeling fine.”

She chewed her lip. “How many spoons?”

“Enough.” Slowly, deliberately, he picked up the knife again and cut two slices of bread. After putting them in the toaster, he turned back to Lucy, where Eleanora was still fussing against her chest. “Want me to take a turn?”

“No, I’m alright,” Lucy said, although her voice had a bit of a frantic edge to it and she’d started bouncing in addition to rocking, trying to forestall the wail they could both sense coming. “Really, if you need a lie-down I’ve got her for a while.” 

“I’m fine,” he said again, trying his best to project confidence he didn’t feel. Truthfully, his head was throbbing, and had been since the early hours of the morning, and he felt if he walked more than a few steps at a time his legs just might collapse under him. But he forced those things aside for the moment and focused on buttering their toast while the bread was still warm. He could push through, for now. Lucy needed him to. 

Of course, his efforts backfired horribly. By the afternoon, his headache had become a searing migraine, and when he finally tried to sleep it off while Lucy took Eleanora on a quick trip to Singh’s, formerly Arif’s, for some groceries, woke up to find he genuinely couldn’t move– every joint screaming at him when he tried to sit up, the room spinning horribly when he finally managed it with Lucy’s help. 

It was terrible timing. Not that flare-ups ever seemed to have good timing, but this one really felt especially poor, given that he was supposed to be half of a team responsible for a temperamental infant. Even worse, at her next checkup (which Lockwood managed to attend despite feeling rather unsteady), Eleanora was diagnosed with infant colic. 

“All around, she’s very healthy,” the pediatrician declared, at which Lucy and Lockwood let out long sighs of relief. “Gaining weight and developing well. We don’t really know why some babies cry more than others– Eleanora may just be having a bit more trouble adjusting to the world.”

Lockwood nodded, and held Eleanora a bit closer. He could relate. He still found the world a startling and horrible place at times, and he’d been here for over thirty years. 

“It should fade on its own, but sometimes this can sometimes persist for the first three to four months.”

Lucy’s face fell, and Lockwood briefly closed his eyes. Great. Just great.  

Over the next several weeks, no one could say they didn’t try everything. Special bottles, various noise machines, singing, rocking, an infant swing Cassandra swore by but which Eleanora seemed to find personally offensive. Nothing worked. George was recruited to do additional research on the case, to no avail. 

“You managed to solve the bloody Problem itself and you’re saying you’re stymied by a six-week-old infant?” Lucy said, looking a bit like she wanted to tear her hair out. 

George glanced nervously across the table at Eleanora, currently wailing in Lockwood’s arms. “What do you want me to say? Turns out babies are a sight more complicated than ghosts.”

“Luce, it’s alright, he did his best,” Lockwood tiredly, bouncing Eleanora a bit in his arms. “The doctor said she just has to grow out of it.”

“That’s not good enough!” Lucy’s voice had taken on a slightly hysterical edge. “We can’t go on like this for much longer– it’s going to make you sick again.”

Lockwood sighed. “Lucy, I told you I’m okay.” 

“And there you go, lying again.”

Lockwood felt his ire rise up, and George began to look deeply uncomfortable. “Um, guys, if you ever need a break or anything you know you can always call me, right? Or, literally any one of our friends.”

“We know!” both of them snapped at once, turning on him. 

At least they could agree on one thing.

George held up his hands and backed off, but two weeks later they were forced to swallow their pride and call on their emergency reserves. 

Lockwood developed another flare-up (or perhaps it was just a continuation of the first one– he was too tired to tell), this time with a fever and a rash as well, and Lucy came down with mastitis. 

“Apparently very common for new mums,” she said upon returning from the doctor with a prescription for antibiotics and icepacks for her swollen left breast. “I can still feed her, though. In fact, I’m supposed to.”

But she looked dreadful, and fairly collapsed on the bed next to him, where he was propped up holding a (for once, quiet) Eleanora. She reached over to check his temperature with her hand and gave an exhausted laugh. “I can’t even tell if you’re still warm anymore.”

So they rang George, who came and took over for forty-eight hours until the antibiotics kicked in, while both Lucy and Lockwood were too feverish to remain upright for more than ten minutes at a time. 

Perhaps foolishly, Lockwood hoped that this brief respite would represent a turning point. That this little break was all they needed to get themselves back on track. 

After all, Flo had finally returned to England after several years abroad on her houseboat, and George was suddenly acutely preoccupied. Lucy clearly found this amusing, poking fun at his nerves at every opportunity, although Lockwood felt the stakes were a bit too high to take part. He suspected a significant reason that George struggled in the romance department was that he had never really gotten over her, and Lockwood was hesitant to believe that Flo would ever come around to the settled, consistent sort of life George clearly wanted for himself. 

Still, they watched the drama unfold with all the obsessive attention of new parents who often went days without speaking to adults besides each other, listening with rapt attention to every oblique reference George made to his social life.

“So you’ve seen her how many times since she got back?” Lucy said, leaning rather far over her mug of tea. 

“Twice.” 

“Did she show you her houseboat?”

“Maybe.” George looked a bit tetchily at them from his usual chair in the living room. “You know, you two really need to get out more. Or at least find a good program on the telly.” 

Lockwood resisted the urge to laugh, and made a note to remind George of this moment should he ever find himself in their position. 

“And did anything happen?” Lucy asked, undeterred. 

“No, if you must know,” George said shortly. 

Despite himself, Lockwood wished he weren’t too tired to figure out what his crabbiness meant about his deeper feelings on the subject, but they let the topic slide for the moment. Eleanora had recently graced them with her first real smile, and as she was in a rare good mood, Lucy adamant that she show it off to her Uncle George. 

Lockwood thought that smile was the most magical sight in the world. He already knew he’d do just about anything to see it. 

“God, you’re going to spoil her,” Lucy said one evening as he held Eleanora propped up on his knees, talking at her in that ridiculous baby-talk voice that used to make him roll his eyes, attempting to demonstrate the motion on his own face. 

“Oh, like you could resist,” he said promptly. “I mean, look at her!” He held up Eleanora’s smiling face to Lucy, sorting clean laundry on the dressing table, but Eleanora’s expression soured at the change in position and he brought her back to his chest, trying to soothe her again.

Lucy watched them for a minute, her expression a curious mixture of fond and smug. “I like to think I’ve had a bit of practice resisting charming smiles.”

Lockwood shot her the best grin he could manage over Eleanora’s snuffling head. “Oh, you believe yourself resistant to the Lockwood smile, do you?”

“Of course I do.” But she abandoned the laundry and joined him on the bed, arms outstretched for her turn. “I’m your wife, I have to be.” She shifted Eleanora in her arms so both of them could see her face, lips twitching upward again in that heart-melting, gummy smile. “The rest of the world, however. They’re in trouble.”

Later, Lockwood would reflect that it was moments like that one that made all the other horrible moments worth it. And over the next several weeks, there were a lot of horrible moments. 

Eleanora’s colic did not abate, driving everyone in the household to tears at one point or another as stress and sleep deprivation wore tempers paper-thin. Still, they forced themselves to muddle on– what else could they do? 

Lucy seemed to tap on reserves Lockwood didn’t know she had, proving once again that she was the strongest person he’d ever known, and that strength was desperately necessary as he struggled to match it. 

To his endless frustration, he found himself unable to quite recover from that first flare-up several weeks ago, and although some symptoms receded, they never seemed to go away completely. 

Before they knew what was happening, the spoon system started to break down. Lockwood stopped answering Lucy when she asked, afraid to lie and provoke a row, but more afraid to answer honestly and cause her to worry. At some point, she stopped bothering to ask, and Lockwood might’ve been relieved if he could string two thoughts together between the near-constant headache and increasingly frequent dizzy spells.  

Eventually, the nearly unthinkable happened when he almost fainted while holding a crying Eleanora. 

Luckily, Lucy was right there, at his elbow in a flash and somehow managing to take the baby from him while almost dragging him to the sofa before he collapsed completely. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pressing his face into a pillow as if that would stop the room from spinning. 

“Don’t apologize,” Lucy said, kneeling awkwardly next to him, although her voice was thin and reedy. He estimated they’d gotten barely three hours of sleep between them the previous night, and Eleanora was in fine form today, screaming into Lucy’s ear as she felt his forehead. “Shit.” She winced as Eleanora gave a particularly forceful wail. “How long have you been feeling bad?”

Lockwood couldn’t bring himself to answer, partially due to the brain fog quickly clouding his mind, and partially because he knew she wouldn’t like the answer. 

It didn’t matter. Once he felt steady enough, she helped him up to bed, and moved Eleanora’s bassinet to George’s old room, where she slept that night in an attempt to give him a good twelve hours off. 

And Lockwood tried to relax, tried to sleep, he really did. But the bed felt terribly empty without Lucy, and he could still hear Eleanora every time she woke up, could hear Lucy moving around to tend to her alone. He felt horrible and guilty and trapped in his own body, a feeling that was still very much present when he woke the next morning after a restless night feeling worse than he had in quite a long time. 

After her feeding, Lucy brought Eleanora in for a cuddle, but attempting to sit up made him dizzy, and his arms hurt too much to support her anyway, so in the end Lucy just laid her on the bed next to him, so he could put his finger in her grasping palm and watch as she waved it back and forth. 

He and Lucy didn’t speak. There was nothing he could say that she didn’t already know, and there was nothing she could say that she hadn’t already said. He thought he could probably play both sides of the conversation in his head if he tried. 

I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’m sorry you have to do this alone. 

Please don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. Just rest and get better. 

I will. I’m trying. 

Do you need anything? Water? Something to eat?

No, I’m okay. He always lost his appetite during a flare-up, but Lucy would go get him something anyway. 

As she did this time, after watching them in silence for five or ten minutes. Water with supplemented electrolytes and porridge with sliced fruit on top, along with his medications. Holly would be proud. 

He drifted for a long time after that, mostly sleeping, occasionally waking to eat, shuffle painfully to the bathroom, see Eleanora, let Lucy check his temperature. She never said much, but each time he saw her she looked more tired and stressed, and guilt burned his stomach all over again.

Sometime much later, when the room was dark in the way it only got at night, she asked him what hurt. 

The honest answer, of course, was everything, but he knew that wasn’t what she meant. “My chest.”

She nodded calmly, but turned quickly away to check on Eleanora’s bassinet to hide her face. 

Lockwood knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. More than the joint pain– which in his case was mild compared to some stories he’d heard, and mostly concentrated to his upper body– this had always been one of his most severe symptoms. He’d eventually learned this was due to the disease attacking his heart and lungs, which was frankly not at all comforting, but since finding the right medications things had seemed to be under control. Until now, that is. 

When she’d composed herself, Lucy turned back to face him. “I think we should ring the doctor in the morning.”

He nodded, too tired to make his usual protests. It was probably for the best, even if this was nothing more than a particularly bad flare-up. Perhaps there was a way to resolve it more quickly, so he could go back to helping with the baby. 

Lucy checked the clock, and made to stand up, no doubt to gather what she’d need to retreat to George’s old room again. 

He caught her hand before she could. “Stay.”

She frowned. “Ellie will wake you.”

“She’ll wake me anyway.”

Lucy hesitated.

“Please. I’ll rest better if you’re here.”

She relented, and Lockwood felt himself relax, falling asleep quickly after she turned out the light. 

But it wasn’t Eleanora that woke them up. 

Later, he wasn’t able to say whether he prodded Lucy awake, or if she sensed a disturbance and woke up on her own. He remembered Eleanora sleeping through the initial whispered conversation, but waking up when Lucy got up to ring George, and when George didn’t answer, Kipps. 

The clock read half-past two in the morning when Kipps arrived, holding a fussing Eleanora and averting his eyes while Lucy helped Lockwood slowly, painstakingly, into shoes and a jacket, and then outside to their car. 

Lockwood remembered being annoyed when Lucy suggested, years ago now, that they buy a car. Who needed to drive in London? He’d never even bothered with a license. But she had one, having learned during her time in the States, and she insisted a car would be useful when he didn’t feel up to walking from bus stops and Tube stations, and for situations like these. 

He rested his forehead on the frigid window as she drove them to the hospital. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast, pounding in his chest even while sitting down, and he could see his gasping breaths as they fogged up the glass. 

That was what had made their decision. He’d woken up from a nightmare he couldn’t remember, and after ten minutes still couldn’t catch his breath lying down.

The hospital, as it so often did, became a blur around him. Bright lights, white coats, beige hallways he did his best to block out when there wasn’t a nurse or an orderly or Lucy at his side asking him a direct question. He tried to go back to that moment he’d bottled when Eleanora was first born, holding her to his chest and staring at her perfect face. Or holding her in their bed with Lucy at his side, watching her look back at them with that smile that could light up the darkest room. 

If Lucy noticed his dissociation, she didn’t try to bring him back, at least not more than was necessary to interact with the doctors coming in and out of the room. Being the middle of the night, his regular doctor was currently unavailable, and every new consultant who came to see him had to be re-briefed on his symptoms and medical history. 

At some point, he got an echocardiogram which made the physician assistant purse her lips, but after that things went strangely quiet. Lucy fell asleep in the chair next to him, and he reached out to pull a strand of hair from between her lips. 

She looked about as awful as he felt, and he made a silent promise to do something special for her when all this was over. Something that showed her how grateful he was for never leaving his side, shouldering more than her share of Eleanora’s care, for being so strong in all the ways he couldn’t be, even in the most difficult moments. 

Lockwood still remembered his teenaged fatalism, the deeply-held belief that his life would be like a magnesium flare– explosive and impossibly bright, but disappearing equally fast. Going out with a flash and taking as many ghosts as possible with it. This outlook had always scared Lucy, and it had taken her a long while to accept that there was little she could directly do about it. It seemed to be the way his brain was wired– to a default state of melancholy held at bay by the thrill of ghost hunting or dangerous expeditions. 

He’d been eighteen when Lucy and George finally forced him into psychotherapy, and nineteen when he took his first antidepressant. To his surprise, the combination managed to work wonders, and Lockwood had entered his twenties optimistic even in the face of his fading Talent, feeling as if he could take on the world. 

Well. They all knew how that went. 

Lucy woke up when the consultant arrived, luckily one they’d seen before, and announced a diagnosis of pericardial effusion. “Basically a build-up of fluid around the heart,” she said. “It’s not quite severe enough to be considered an emergency, but I’d like to schedule a needle aspiration for the afternoon, which should help relieve some of the pressure while the steroids take care of the inflammation.”

By that point, the sun was just barely visible out his east-facing window. 

They nodded dimly and signed the appropriate paperwork before settling in to wait. Lockwood fell asleep again, and woke up shivering from a dream about the Other Side that told him whatever was in his IV had finally managed to break his fever. 

The procedure itself was nerve-wracking. Lucy was not allowed to be present, the space otherwise too crowded with doctors, nurses, and a few trainees hovering to observe, but Lockwood was instructed to remain calm regardless, and stay very still. 

He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch, swallowing the shame that came from feeling like a coward. He imagined seeing Lucy again, returning home to Eleanora. He realized that Christmas was in less than two weeks. He hoped he’d be feeling better by then. He’d had no opportunity to do any shopping. Perhaps George would be able to help him…

“Alright, all done.” Someone taped a bandage on his chest and he blinked, looking up at the doctor. “You’ve done very well, Mr. Lockwood. We’ll keep you here for a few more hours to monitor you, but I expect you can be discharged well before curfew.”

“Oh, good,” he said faintly. “Thank you.” He took a deep breath as they gathered their supplies to leave, then another, and another, reveling in the release of pressure in his chest. He still felt tired, but a more normal sort of tired– the sort that came from too little sleep and too much excitement, not the desperately ill, negative-amount-of-spoons kind of tired. 

Kipps answered the door when they arrived home that evening, and Lucy immediately took Eleanora from him so they could properly greet her, but soon handed her back so they could both collapse into bed, where they slept for something like twelve hours straight. 

Lockwood woke up to the faint smell of adasi. 

Lucy stirred sleepily beside him, a faint grin coming to her face. “George.”

The man himself nudged the door open to their room less than a minute later, carrying a tray with two steaming bowls of lentil soup. “My sincerest apology for not picking up when you called.”

Lucy and Lockwood’s half-hearted insistence that there was absolutely no need for such a thing was quickly lost as they devoured their breakfast with so much enthusiasm George actually laughed. 

“I hope that’s a sign you’re both going to live.” He was looking at Lockwood when he said it, though. 

Lockwood met his eyes. “Yes, George. I’m going to be fine.” 

“Good, because Kipps has someone who’d very much like to see you.”

Lucy nearly upset the breakfast tray in her urgency to hold out her hands as Kipps arrived with Eleanora, and Lockwood had to laugh, steadying it, even though he was no less eager. 

“I hope she wasn’t too much of a terror,” she said, visibly relaxing once Eleanora was back in her arms. 

“She was a perfect angel,” Kipps said. Lockwood raised an eyebrow at his entirely straight face, and Kipps didn’t bat an eye as he continued, “Compared to wrangling the two of you as teenagers, anyway.”

Lockwood gave an incredulous scoff. “As if you ever managed to wrangle us.”

“More like he frantically chased after us shouting obscenities,” Lucy added. 

“Like I said,” Kipps responded. “This was much easier.”

Kipps departed later that morning, George a few hours after that (after preparing them a week’s worth of ash reshteh), and before they knew it they found themselves alone. 

Lockwood spent most of the day in bed, and even Lucy barely left the room. When Eleanora cried they just rocked her from where they sat, too tired for the usual pacing and bouncing. Maybe it took a little longer for her to settle that way, but Lockwood honestly didn’t care. After thirty-six hours effectively separated, he’d missed her so much listening to her cry was almost a relief. One look at Lucy told him she felt the same, and he wondered how ridiculous they looked– grinning like idiots sitting in bed with their crying baby. 

When she finally dropped off at some point in the afternoon, Lucy sat herself cross-legged in front of him, and he knew it was time for a Serious Talk.

“That can never happen again.”

“Luce–”

“I know we don’t have total control of it,” she headed him off. “But we do have some control, and I think we can both agree there’s been a certain… breakdown of communication.”

He nodded. 

“How many spoons do you have right now– first answer, without thinking.”

“Six.” Not a lot, but he’d been preserving them by resting for most of the day. 

She nodded. “Okay. What was your average number of spoons a few weeks ago?”

“…Less than that.” He tried not to look away when he admitted it, knowing it was the crux of the issue. 

“Okay.” She nodded again and sat back. “You cannot run on fumes like that again, Anthony, you know that, right?”

He nodded slowly, considering her words carefully. “Neither can you.”

“I can–”

He cut her off. “I know the consequences for you may be less dire, but that doesn’t mean you should. And I know we need to do better so that I stay healthy, but during the times when I’m not, you can’t exhaust yourself caring for both of us.” He nodded towards Eleanora’s bassinet. “How many spoons do you have right now?”

She took a minute to consider it, and he didn’t press her. She was less used to thinking like this. “Twelve, I think. Maybe fifteen.”

“Okay.” He rubbed his chin. “How about this– if I have less than five spoons, and you have less than ten, we call George or Kipps.” 

“Alright.” Her lips twisted up in a half-grin. “I think Dr. Petrova would be proud of us.”

He chuckled. “Finally communicating and making a gameplan after a possibly preventable crisis?”

“I think she would say that’s very us.”

Over the next several months, Lockwood decided he was pretty proud of them, too. After a very subdued Christmas in which, to his great relief, no gifts were exchanged between them (although their front hall once again filled with gifts for their daughter), Eleanora’s colic finally began to fade. The occasions on which they needed to call George lessened considerably as Lockwood’s health improved at the same time, although he wouldn’t say they were quite perfect in abiding by their new Spoon Rule. There was some friendly bickering about who was worse about exaggerating their own Spoon Count, which occasionally developed into less-friendly rows. But overall, he would say they did pretty well. 

At any rate, they allowed Holly and George to plan a massive party for Eleanora’s first birthday, treating it almost as a celebration for themselves for making it through a hellish first year. 

After his brief hospitalization, Lockwood had to start taking steroids again, which he hated for multiple reasons– chief among them that they worsened his depression. Sure, he felt better physically, but he also wanted to claw his brain out of skull so it would stop. Fucking. Torturing him. It was more than a relief when he was allowed to phase them out, although that came with the addition of yet another heart medication. 

After some deliberation, Lucy began going back to work part-time. It made them a little nervous, given the way his immune system was suppressed, each of them imagining horrible scenarios involving him getting ill and infecting Eleanora, or the other way around. But aside from one nasty cold that eventually got Lucy as well, none of their worst fears panned out and they began to relax again. 

There were still low-spoon days, of course. And Lockwood still felt guilty when he couldn’t help Lucy in all the ways that he wanted to. But he did his best to make up for those on other days, and tried to find things he could do on barely any spoons at all. 

His favorite of those, he discovered, was reading bedtime stories. And although he started with Goodnight Moon, he quickly branched out in favor of more interesting fare. 

“Don’t you think Shakespeare is a little advanced for eight months?” Lucy said, leaning against the doorframe with an amused expression. 

Lockwood looked up from his copy of As You Like It. “On the contrary, I think it suits her perfectly.”

“It looks like she’s fallen asleep to it.” 

“Exactly. I think the rhythm of the words soothes her.” He turned his gaze back to the pages with a haughty sniff. 

Eventually, Lucy felt comfortable going back to work full-time, leaving Lockwood at home most days with Eleanora all to himself. Which he rather selfishly enjoyed, although it came with the challenge of keeping track of every childcare-related item and task through brain fog without backup. After a somewhat rocky first week involving multiple phone calls to Lucy in the middle of work, they sat down together and made a massive chart out of a fresh Thinking Cloth complete with schedules, reminders, checklists, and various important phone numbers, which helped a lot.

He did his very best to make the most of the high-spoon days where they could do more things, like take trips to the aquarium, where Eleanora’s eyes would grow huge in the blue light of the giant fishtanks, or even just walk about Hyde Park in the pram. 

“What would you like to do this afternoon?” Lockwood asked one day over lunch, around a month after her first birthday. “It’s a bit chilly, but if we bundle up the park is certainly an option. And not too sunny, which is a good thing for me. What do you think of Regent’s Park this time, just to change it up?”

Eleanora didn’t answer, in favor banging her hands on the tray of her high chair and opening her mouth like a little bird, eager for a mouthful of mashed carrots. 

“Alright, alright.” Lockwood brought the spoon to her mouth– one of the spoons that Holly had given them, in fact. This one was painted with delicate cartoons of pandas and tiny purple flowers. “To be honest, it doesn’t look terribly appetizing to me, but I’m glad you enjoy it– oh, more? Of course.” 

In between bites, Eleanora babbled happily, and Lockwood tried to pick out new words in the stream of chatter. She already had Dada and Mama (to his great satisfaction, Dada had come first), milk, and Kiss (meaning Kipps).

The next time he held up the spoon, she reached for the handle. 

“Oh, do you want to try this time?” He obliged, watching as about ten percent of the food went into her mouth, while the rest was smeared across her face and bib. “Wonderful job, impressive dexterity– oh, no don’t throw the spoon on the floor!” He leaned down with a laugh and held up the dirtied utensil, waving it out of reach while Eleanora giggled and made grabby hands. “No, this spoon is dirty now, and Dada has to get a new one.” 

He stood up to put the panda spoon into the sink, taking the lion one from the drying rack. “You’re lucky you’ve got so many lovely spoons.” He dipped the new one into the mashed carrot. “Can you say spoon , Eleanora? S-p-ooooon? Oh, alright, I can see that you’re still hungry.”

He tried again after another bite. “Spoon.”

“Spspspspsp.” 

“Very close. Spoon.”

“Poon!”

“Excellent job!” He smiled and fed her another bite of carrot. “Can you try again? Spoon.”

“Poon!”

“Very impressive! We’ll have to tell Mama about this new word tonight. Spoons are very important in this household, as you’ll come to know. And not always the literal kind.” 

“Poon!” 

“Oh dear, I hope you’re not using spoon to mean carrots. Perhaps we shouldn’t do these lessons at mealtime.” 

Somehow, spoon became Eleanora’s favorite word that day, although Lockwood noticed she mostly seemed to use it to indicate she wanted food. 

After lunch, they walked the short distance to Regent’s Park, wandering through Queen Mary’s Rose Garden even though it wasn’t the season. They returned in time for Eleanora’s afternoon nap, and as was their habit, Lockwood settled into the rocking chair in the corner of her room for a story. 

They started with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? because it had the best pictures, before moving on to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. By that point, Eleanora had begun to doze, and Lockwood picked up The Tempest. 

“This never used to be one of my favorites,” he murmured. “But I’ve recently developed a new appreciation for it.” 

Between verses, his eyes drifted occasionally to the ceiling, where two silver mobiles spun gently round, charms winking in the afternoon light. They were the only things that remained from what this room used to be. Decades ago now, when it belonged to a different Jessica. 

Lockwood thought she’d like what they’d done with the place– walls repainted a soft lavender color, stacks of pillows and toys instead of unopened crates, all surrounding a white-painted crib instead of a bed. Cleared  of echoes of death and darkness. Ready for a new beginning. 

When his eyes returned to Eleanora, her eyes were fully closed, and her breathing had deepened. It was nearing time for the delicate process of transferring her to her cot. But she was nestled so snugly in his arms, and the moment felt so peaceful, he allowed himself one more verse. 

“I have done nothing but in care of thee,
Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who
Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing
Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.”