Chapter Text
Tonight’s case had been nothing more than disastrous, utterly sorrowful. They had been hired to deal with both, a Type 1 and a Type 2, in small cottage on the London suburbs. They had known what they were up against, that hadn’t been the problem; what screwed everything up was the fact that they’d had completely underestimated just how powerful that Type 2 actually was.
Research had been made and was as accurate as only George Casper Karim could manage to do. Nothing fancy honestly, just sad, as it always was, prompting Lockwood to make a face that Lucy didn’t quite understand at the moment.
It was two siblings, an older sister between the ages of 14 to 16 and a little brother that should have been around 10 years old. They had been murdered a long time ago, but the circumstances seemed to be contradictory in the research George managed to find. In some they had been murder by their father, who was apparently an alcoholic; in others they had been murder by someone else with unknown motives. Still, by the nature of their deaths, they stayed around as visitors and were now causing trouble. The little boy was not a problem, rarely taking a full form and just sticking by the same room; the older sister though, she was the reason why they had been called on the first place. Almost touching the current residents of the small house, she had taken a certain interest for the small child that the couple had and was especially aggressive when any of them stepped in the room where the little boy was often seen.
They had known she was a Type 2; they just didn’t expect her to be so strong or, the fact that she had turned out to be a screamer. Poor Lucy had been knocked out by her screaming when she went to that room to try to listen for their sources, leaving George with the task of finding them now and Lockwood to deal with the extraordinarily crossed teenage ghost.
When Lucy came to be after several minutes, she woke up to an exhausted George that had managed to find the sources barely just in time to stop the ghost from killing Lockwood, and a pretty beat up Lockwood that apparently had been thrown around like a rag doll more times that he cared to admit.
Despite everything, the job was done, so they gathered themselves and headed home. Thankfully it was a short trip back to Portland Row, filled with apologies from Lucy, suspicious looks from George and way too many “are you sure you are okay?” for Lockwood’s liking.
So, to say it was a blessing once they stepped inside their home, was a complete understatement.
All three of them proceeded to laboriously depose of their gear and rapiers. None of them really wanting to think any more about the case, especially Lucy, since there was something inside of her that kept telling her there was more, more of something she just didn’t know.
Once done, George was the first one to break the gloomy silence.
“Alright, this was more than a long enough night for me, I’ll take a shower and then go to bed” He announced making his way to the stairs, just to stop at the first step and turn around hesitantly before adding. “At least you want to go first Lockwood…”.
Lucy didn’t miss the odd expression on George’s face when he regarded Lockwood. The latter on the other hand, looked like he had just been caught off guard, completely lost in his own head.
“Ah? Oh yes, no, it’s okay George, you go ahead and take a shower, you deserve it” Lockwood gave them the shallow smile he used for business.
“Are you sure?” George questioned.
“Yes, I’m positive, besides I’ll be heading out, there is…something I need to do first” He supplied already heading to the front door.
“Wait, what? It’s almost midnight, you can’t g-“ Lucy began to protest.
She tried to follow him but stopped on her tracks when he turned around, his face holding a storm before he schooled his expression into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“It’s okay Luce, I’ll be fine…don’t wait up”.
And with that, he opened the door and simply disappeared into the night.
Lucy stared at the front door for a moment, trying to make some sense of what had just happened. A long sigh behind her made her turn her attention to the other resident of Portland Row, his expression the same as it had been for most of the case. She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Tell me” She demanded.
George looked at her like if he didn’t know what she was talking about and that just managed to irritate her.
“Tell you what?” He asked blatantly.
“Don’t play dumb with me Karim, tell me what you clearly know that I don’t know”.
“Whatever you think I know, are just assumptions” He replied tiredly.
She sighed. “I don’t care, just…you know more than me, you have been living with him longer”.
“Living with him longer doesn’t mean he has opened up to me more, you know? If anything, he began being less secretive when you arrived” George explained taking a seat on the stairs.
Lucy joined him, sitting by his side and resting her head on his shoulder.
“Please Georgie…I just want to understand”.
“Lucy, I-“ He began to argue.
“There’s something that you obviously know, giving the expression you’ve had since we took the case…so please ” She begged.
George took a deep breath.
“You already know about the room upstairs…about Jessica ” He began.
Of course she did, how could she forget one of the few moments that Lockwood has actually shared something of his past without any of them asking. Still, the thought of his sister, his dead sister, whose death-glow he has been forced to live with since then, sent a cold chill down her spine.
“Yes”.
“Well, it’s not like he actually deepened anything more than the fact that she died there…at least he did it with you”.
She fidgeted with her fingers, looking down at her hands. “No, he didn’t”.
And it was the truth. She knew the basics of the story just like George, but that was it. Ever since she became part of the team, her and Lockwood had spent some sleepless nights in each other’s company, doing their best as their traumatized minds allowed them to be, to try and be of some sort of comfort when the other one was having just a little bit too much of life . And their lives hadn’t been easy, both of them having their own barriers to protect themselves against being hurt again, so neither of them pushed the other to share, to talk. If one of them felt like giving out a piece of their past, of their feelings, the other would gladly hear; if not, they were content with the comfortable silent the company of the other provided against the dark thoughts that lurked in the darkness and loneliness.
“I guess I should have expected it” He adjusted his glasses and continued. “Anyways, after we got the case and I did my research, I couldn’t help but notice certain… similarities in between our visitors and well…”.
“Lockwood and his sister” Lucy finished for him, and it clicked.
She should have noticed; how did she not figure it out. That ghost, the sister, she was around the same age as Jessica had been when she died; and the little boy…he was the same age as Lockwood when it happened. And then it hit her, the expression she saw on his face when George was filling them in with what he had found out.
“Yes, then when I was telling you about the research I did, Lockwood made-“ George kept going.
“A face, I remember…I didn’t understand it back then” She interrupted him feeling guilty.
“Exactly…after that, it was enough for me, so I tried to figure some things out and…”.
“And then what??” She asked exasperated.
“I came across with the day Jessica died…it’s today ” He said looking at her, concern dripping from his voice.
“Oh”.
That was the only thing she managed to get out. There was so much going on inside of her in that moment that words weren’t an option. She felt a weight on her chest, and the air was too thick. She was overwhelmed with sadness and lost that didn’t even belong to her. Everything felt wrong, they shouldn’t have taken up that case; she should have somehow figured it out; she should have done something, so Lockwood wasn’t alone fighting not only a visitor but also his own ghosts of the past.
“We shouldn’t have gone there” She found herself saying before she could stop.
George looked at her a little offended. “Do you think I wanted to? Especially after figuring that out?”.
“You could’ve told me…we could’ve come up with something…” She replied breathing quickly.
“Lucy…this is Lockwood we’re talking about” He shook his head and sighed. “The minute we would have told him what we knew, he would have brushed us off like if we were kipps…there’s nothing we could have done to stop him from taking this case”.
Much to her dismay, she knew he was right. Lockwood would never say no to a case, especially not for his well-being, even if it meant poking into an old, open wound. And speaking of wounds.
“Do you know if he’s too injured?” She inquired quietly.
George shook his head. “I was too busy trying to find the sources, I didn’t really pay attention to what he was doing…I just vaguely heard thuds and throwing around but nothing specific”.
“Umm…” She hummed and then took a deep breath, preparing herself to ask something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Do you…do you know where he went?”.
“Your guess is as good as mine” He supplied with his eyes glued to the front door. “He never really did anything on this day before, at least not since I moved in, but today, well…”.
He didn’t need to say it out loud for them to know what he meant. Today had been like a slap across his face, a painful reminder of what could have happened to his sister if things had been slightly different, and a reminder that she wasn’t here anymore.
“There’s not a lot of places he could’ve gone, at least not that wouldn’t be suicidal…” Her voice was more of a whisper, but George heard her.
“I don’t think his goal is to die tonight…or he would have simply left that visitor touch him, and she tried more than a couple times during the job” George commented absently.
So, Lockwood didn’t leave alone to try and put himself in danger on purpose in the middle of the night, fine; but after that, there was only so many options left and there was a particular one that she had been trying to ignore since she became aware of it. She wanted to believe that maybe he just needed to clear his head, take a walk alone and grieve in private if he didn’t want her or George prying on his past, but after these years of living with him, she just knew that wasn’t the way Lockwood worked. They were talking about a boy that lost all his family before even reaching 10 years old and that had been surrounded by death ever since, dancing recklessly with danger as his personal hobby and toying with his life like if he had more to spare; and even if she wanted to think more of him, he was at the end, still just a teenage boy that didn’t quite reach yet the title of young adult, a teenage boy that had resolved to dangerous coping mechanisms to evade himself from getting hurt again.
Parting from that, what was just one more for the collection? One more self-defense method to turn off the pain that came from his own memories.
“Should we go for him? There’s only so many that are nearby and that would be willing to serve to an agent, especially after midnight”.
She tried her best to keep her voice neutral, leaving out whatever she was feeling about the topic. She was grateful to learn that George was on the same page as her so she didn’t have to elaborate.
“I don’t really think he will be so reckless Lucy” He rubbed a hand across his face and got up. “He just needs an escape and honestly, if I was on his shoes…I might just do the same after a night like this”.
His words echoed on her mind as she stayed there, frozen on the stairs, unable to move.
“You should rest Lucy, even if you were unconscious, this case was hard for all of us” George voice reached her from upstairs and she turned around to look at him. “The most we can do today for him is let him have his space, I’m sure he won’t be so messed up to put his life at risk so let’s trust him on this one…goodnight”.
With that, he disappeared on the threshold, the sound of a door closing followed after.
The next couple hours were sort of a blur for Lucy. She got up from her spot at the stairs and went to take a shower, something she tried to do as quickly as possible in case Lockwood arrived while she was doing it. After she had clean pyjamas on, she laid on her bed and tried to follow George’s advice, to just let Lockwood be and let him do stuff on his own accord tonight and just check on him in the morning…but she couldn’t. The restlessness and pain she had seen in his eyes right before he left, didn’t let her to even consider getting some rest, not when he was out there, alone .
She got up from bed and slowly made her way to the kitchen to prepare herself some tea so it would help her sleep, nothing more. She was halfway on finishing her cuppa when the sound of the front door broke the stillness of the night and her heart stopped.
Feeling thankful that she hadn’t turned the lights of the kitchen on, she quietly made her way to the front door and once she was at the bottom of the stairs that led to the small entry hallway, she carefully peaked her head over so she could have a clear view of the door, but no one would see her. She knew it wasn’t honest, but she needed to know first what she was facing up before just jumping in.
Still, whatever dramatic sequence her mind thought she would see in there, completely faded when she finally focused on the figure a few feet away from her.