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Lockwood was seething.
It had been a bad day even before Kipp’s team at Fittes had been called to join in on another of Lockwood & Co.’s cases. The haunting had involved a nasty poltergeist, and now they were all looking worse for wear, their ripped clothing splattered with ectoplasm. Even he had to admit that tonight hadn’t been his agency’s finest moment.
That didn’t mean they needed help from Kipps of all people though, and he was particularly bitter about having to share the case fee with his incompetent crew. And then, to add insult to injury, as they were finally wrapping things up, Kipps had the gall to bring up Lucy.
The past few months had been brutal without her. Lucy’s absence was like a gaping hole during cases—he desperately missed her Talent, her skill, and her intelligence. She made them a better team, and he knew that George and Holly felt it as well, even though they didn't discuss it.
There was a lot they hadn't talked about recently, and Lockwood knew the awkwardness was his fault. But he simply couldn't talk about Lucy, for fear that opening the floodgates would ruin his fragile grip on self-control completely.
That doesn’t mean he had been able to stop himself from thinking about her constantly. On the nights he couldn't sleep—so almost every night—he'd found himself staring at the ceiling, trying to untangle what exactly led to Lucy’s abrupt decision to leave Lockwood & Co. He was three months into these almost nightly deliberations, and he still didn't have any answers.
To be honest, more than the agency work feels off, and Lockwood didn't know how to cope with any of it. He had a running mental list of all the things in his life that feel wrong since Lucy left them—since she left him. (He knew George and Holly would tell him not to take her exit personally, but that’s never been his specialty, especially where Lucy is concerned.)
To start with, every room in Portland Row was missing signs of her presence. The Thinking Cloth felt bare without her drawings and sarcastic comments, and her sketchpad and pencils weren't scattered around the library. Mornings weren’t the same without making her toast and tea, without seeing the way her sleepy face would light up upon seeing her breakfast. Even his room felt different now that he didn’t hear her soft footsteps on the creaky wood floors above him in the attic.
It was strange—Lucy had only lived in his childhood home for a relatively short time, but she had left her mark on it irreversibly, just like his parents and Jessica once had. And now they are all gone.
On his worst nights, Lockwood had found himself sneaking up the stairs to his childhood bedroom in the attic. He paced and stared out the window, wondering where Lucy was, what she was doing, if she was safe. Sometimes he exhausted himself enough that he was able to fall asleep in her bed, occasionally slipping into unsettling dreams about her. If George and Holly had noticed his frequent visits to the attic, they’d never mentioned it.
However, it was one thing for him to indulge these thoughts in private. It was another thing to let a mention of Lucy disrupt his carefully cultivated public demeanor. Unsurprisingly, Kipps seemed to be more than up for the challenge though.
“So it’s true, then,” Kipps said, surveying their group. “Carlyle’s really has accepted that she’s better than you lot—in more ways than one.”
Lockwood turned to walk away, refusing to be baited for once in his life. He did not have the emotional capacity to engage with Kipps about Lucy of all topics. Not tonight, probably not ever again.
He was almost out the door when Kipps called out after him again. “It really is such a pity you missed your chance with her, Tony. But I always knew she would find someone better than you.”
Lockwood stopped and slowly turned back around. Well, that implication was just a bridge too far for his already damaged ego, even under these trying circumstances.
“What the hell are you talking about, Kipps?” he said, his voice sharp. He saw Holly give George a nervous look that he filed away to think about later.
Kipps raised an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t heard? Lucy’s dating Tommy Bentley from Rotwell’s. Guess you must have really messed things up—especially if she didn’t even bother to tell you herself.”
Lockwood stared at him. His brain couldn’t process what Kipps was saying. Tommy Bentley was one of the top agents at Rotwell’s, but Lockwood had always found him rather dull when they had occasions to interact. There was no way that Lucy could be dating him.
“I don’t believe you,” he dismissed. “You’re just still bitter she turned you down.”
“No, I assure you it’s true. I saw them together myself at The Ghost & Ghoul last week. He had his arm around her, and they looked quite cozy,” Kipps smirked.
“You’re lying,” Lockwood said coldly. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off because you know we’re the better team.”
“Tony, Tony,” Kipps laughed. “What reason do I have to lie to you about this? Ask around. Everyone’s talking about how she left you for him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Lockwood saw George and Holly exchange another covert look, and abruptly, he knew Kipps wasn’t lying to get a rise out of him. Suddenly, he felt like he was going to be sick if he didn’t leave immediately.
“I’m glad to know that you’re so invested in keeping up with the gossip about me, Kipps. It’s almost like you’re the one who’s obsessed with me. It must be because you have nothing else going on in your life.”
It wasn’t the best insult he had ever come up with, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Lockwood stormed off to find a cab before Kipps could tell him even more bad news, his coat swishing behind him. George and Holly trailed after him nervously.
He held up a hand as they waited together silently on the curb. “Just be honest—you two knew, didn’t you?”
George looked at Holly helplessly. Holly cleared her throat. “I might have heard something about Lucy and Tommy from one of my old friends from Rotwell’s,” she ventured. “But you know how people talk. I wasn’t sure if it was true.”
Lockwood scowled and threw himself in the cab; it was a tense trip back to Portland Row, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He refused to make eye contact with George and Holly, pointedly avoiding their concerned looks.
Instead, he stared out the window and thought about Lucy.
It was after cases that he always missed her the most: the look of elation on her face after securing a Source, the way their eyes would meet after they had successfully cheated death again, even how she would frown when she thought he had been too reckless. He longed for the nights he used to sit next to her during the cab ride home—his hand clasped in hers or his arm loosely slung over her shoulders, her head occasionally resting on his shoulder, her soft breathing grounding him after the evening’s adrenaline high.
For the past three months, he has worried about Lucy during moments like these, fearing that she was alone in the world without anyone to look after her. It had brought him a small amount of comfort to tell himself that she was on the other side of London potentially thinking about him too.
But now, thanks to Kipps, Lockwood knew he couldn’t have been more wrong. All this time, Lucy hasn’t missed him at all.
Lockwood clenched his hands in his lap. He didn’t know why he was continuing to torture himself with thoughts of her. Not only was she gone, she wasn’t thinking twice about him—not now that she had Tommy.
As soon as they arrived home, Lockwood bolted to the basement, not even bothering to change before pulling out his rapier for practice. Instead, he just rolled up his sleeves and undid his tie, chucking it across the room.
He didn’t care that it was still the middle of the night. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep in this state anyway.
It was just absolutely fucking unbelievable, he decided.
It was bad enough when Lucy had left Lockwood & Co. He had always known how Talented she was, and he had long harbored fears that she would someday leave to go to work for another agency. But the idea of Lucy dating Tommy Bentley was beyond what he could comprehend.
He threw himself into practice in a way he hadn’t in years. He began running through rapier drills automatically, barely even processing the complicated moves.
His mind was racing. The impulsive part of him was tempted to get in another cab to go to Lucy’s flat right now. He had her address upstairs, just waiting for the perfect opportunity, the right case to convince her to come back to him.
But she probably wasn’t there anyway. Most likely, she was off with Tommy, working on some interesting case. Or even worse, maybe they were together at Lucy’s flat doing things he couldn’t even bring himself to consider.
Just imagining Lucy with someone else made him feel sick again. That should be me, he thought desperately. If I’d been more honest with her, maybe it could have been.
He was so lost in thought he barely registered that a particularly violent thrust of his rapier had knocked Floating Joe down to the floor. He ignored the dummy as his mind continued to spiral.
He was probably going to have to see pictures of Lucy and Tommy together in the papers soon. Maybe she would go to work at Rotwell’s and get the fame she deserved for her Talent. Then, she would probably marry Tommy, have five children, be incredibly happy, and never think about him again.
That train of speculations made his rapier moves grow sloppy with frustration, and he accidentally knocked over a box of iron filings. He didn’t bother to stop to clean them up and continued on with his increasingly messy practicing.
He must have been louder than he’d realized because the next thing he knew George was tentatively venturing down the stairs.
“Bloody hell, Lockwood!” George exclaimed, looking around at the disaster in the basement. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Thinking was not exactly high on my priority list at the moment,” Lockwood panted, continuing his drills.
“Mate, I know you’re upset about Lucy, but you’ve got to get it together.”
“Get out,” Lockwood said shortly. George held his hands in the air and started to back up toward the steps.
“Did you hear what Kipps said, George? Fucking Tommy Bentley,” Lockwood snarled, stabbing the dummy after each word.
“I never knew you had a problem with Tommy,” George sighed, walking back to sit down at his desk.
“She left me—us—for him. She’s probably going to go work at Rotwell’s next.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what happened here, Lockwood.”
Lockwood ignored George’s entirely reasonable comment, and then he turned to glare at him. “And you and Holly knew—and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me, so I had to find out from Kipps of all people!”
“In our defense, you haven’t exactly been the most stable person lately, Lockwood. Plus, you've refused to talk about her. We didn’t want to say anything unless we were sure.”
“Great,” Lockwood said sarcastically. “Even my employees are worried about my mental state. Really comforting.”
“Lockwood, stop being such a bloody idiot. We’re so much more than your employees.”
“All the more reason why someone should have told me.” He stopped to catch his breath, and George took the chance to interject.
“Lockwood, I know emotions aren’t exactly your strong suit, but I don’t think you’re actually angry at Lucy.”
“Well, what am I then?” Another swish, another stab, a kick for good measure.
“Clearly, you’re so jealous you’re about to decapitate poor Lady Esmerelda after you’ve already knocked down Floating Joe,” George said calmly. “After everything they’ve done for you, that’s no way to treat them.”
“I am not jealous,” Lockwood hissed.
“Well, I don’t know how else to explain your behavior then.”
Lockwood stopped and leaned his forehead against his arm on the wall; suddenly, all the fight drained out of him, and he just felt hollow.
“George,” he sighed, closing his eyes and letting his rapier fall to the floor. “How did I mess this up so badly? I still don’t even understand why Lucy left,” he said bleakly.
“That part still doesn’t make sense to me either, Lockwood.”
“I just—” he said, defeated. “I miss her so much, George.”
“I know,” George said quietly. “I miss her too.”
Lockwood was past the point of return now, and he couldn’t stop the rest of the words from pouring out. “I thought that Lucy and I were figuring things out. Everything with Holly was past us, and we were talking more again. I thought she knew that… well, that… that I…” He swallowed. Even now he couldn't say how he really felt about her. It was no surprise she’d left him.
“Knew what?” George said calmly. “That you’re massively in love with her?”
Lockwood threw him a scathing look, but found he couldn’t deny the truth of the statement. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Look at what you’ve done to the basement, Lockwood. Does this seem like a normal way to react after hearing about a former colleague’s new boyfriend? You haven't even mentioned her name for weeks, and now this. Even you have to admit that you're acting a little deranged.”
Lockwood let his head fall back on his hands. “What do I do, George?”
George shook his head. “Hell if I know, Lockwood. I’ll tell you what you aren’t going to do though—you aren’t going to talk to Lucy about this.”
Lockwood grimaced. Apparently, he was far more predictable than he realized.
George continued. “I know you have her address, but confronting her in your current state and telling her how much you’ve decided you hate her boyfriend isn’t going to get you anywhere—except probably kicked out of her flat. You’ll be lucky if she ever talks to you again if you pull something like that.”
Lockwood took a deep breath. “I know,” he admitted.
“Just calm down a little. Regroup. It’s probably not serious, this thing with Tommy.”
“What if it is?” Lockwood said quietly, cringing at the note of desperation in his voice.
“Listen,” George sighed again. “Getting involved in whatever mess you have going on with Lucy is the absolute last thing I’m interested in doing. But I have to say that while your feelings may be painfully obvious to everyone else, I don’t think they were to Lucy. You both are pretty damn oblivious.”
Lockwood glared at George, who ignored him and continued. “Lucy seems to be exhibiting classic rebound behavior. I don’t think she’s over whatever was going on between you two. I know how she used to look at you. She’s obsessed with you. It’s quite disgusting really.”
“So… you’re saying you think I still have a chance?” Lockwood said slowly.
George shrugged and stood up. “For my sake, as the person who lives with you and works for you, I bloody well hope so. Now, I’m off to bed. Please do me a favor, and don’t terrorize Holly about this, okay? She was just looking out for you.”
Lockwood nodded. “I know.” He hesitated a moment. “Thanks, George.”
George nodded back. “Keep your self-destructive urges in check and try not to murder anyone.”
Lockwood surveyed the basement once George was gone. He wasn’t exaggerating—it looked like an ineffective burglar had ransacked his house again. However, he decided to leave the mess to deal with in the morning.
Instead, Lockwood walked up the steps to put the kettle on in the kitchen. It was still going to be a long night. Once his tea was ready, he slowly walked up the steps to the attic and settled in on Lucy’s bed, leaning back against the iron headboard. Now he needed to come up with a plan to win her back for good—in whatever capacity she’d have him.