Work Text:
Holly was absolutely getting fired.
Shivering outside the wreckage of Aickmere Brothers, Lucy’s backpack with the stupid skull jar at her feet, she blinked back tears. This was exactly why she hated agent work. She was excellent at the stuff Lockwood had actually hired her to do, but she had finally snapped at exactly the wrong moment and bloodied everything up.
The poltergeist was her fault. Her fault, her fault, her fault, the mantra drummed at the front of her brain. She had known what she was doing, needling Lucy the way she had, but there was something about that girl that crawled under her skin like salt in a papercut. The girl was impossible. She was beautiful in that agonizing way that didn’t have to put the slightest bit of effort in, the kind that looked drop-dead gorgeous with bed head and stained sweatpants, and it wasn’t fair, not to mention unhygienic. Never mind that she was tiny, had an ass for days, and was the most talented Listener in London. It seemed that no matter what Holly did, Lucy was determined to undermine her every move, ridicule her, and make her feel small. And she had enough.
The truth was, she had been excited to meet Lucy Carlyle, for all about thirty seconds. Then Lucy had come downstairs that morning to the office and—Holly actually empathized on this point, Lucy hadn’t known she’d be there—her disdain was palpable.
“Just give her a few days, Miss Munro. It’ll blow over quickly, I’m sure,” Lockwood had assured her. (It had not, in fact, blown over.)
Actually, she could say it had finally blown over, the poltergeist had seen to that. She cursed herself. She should have waited until the job was done. She wasn’t a complete rookie at field work, she knew better than to let her emotions get the better of her. But so did Lucy and the girl simply vexed her. She delicately wiped away a tear.
But Lucy was also the one in the basement, and her boss, so hopelessly, obliviously in love with their colleague, had jumped down after her. She could very well be dead. Lockwood could very well be too. Her fault, her fault, her fault.
Physically, Holly herself was only a bit banged up, at least compared to poor Bobby Vernon. She pulled a compact mirror out of her belt—a vain accessory, she knew, but also one she found quite useful for turning dark corners. Her hair was a sight, and she could feel the blossoming of a bruise at her cheekbone and several other places that were thankfully covered up by her torn dress. After trying for a few moments to gently blend what was left of her makeup to hide the dirty tear-streaks on her face, she gave up and closed the compact.
A few feet away, Kipps and George were trying to figure out how to safely climb down after Lockwood and Lucy. Flo stood off to the side, her jaw set in a line as she pointed to where they might rig up lines to rappel down. A grim-faced Kat was keeping Bobby alert until the DEPRAC vans arrived and could take him to hospital. What was taking DEPRAC so bloody long anyway?
What was she going to do? She really needed this job, it’s why she hadn’t quit. It was a stroke of luck that Lockwood had found her so soon after leaving Rotwell. Pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes, she willed herself to hold it together, trying to silence the voice that whispered it was Cotton Street all over again. Lucy and Lockwood were two of the most Talented agents she’d ever come across. They would be fine. They would climb out of the hole and she would beg Lockwood to keep her on. She would make things right with Lucy, for real. They didn’t have to be best friends, but she really felt that maybe they’d come to an understanding before the poltergeist sent her flying. The image of Lucy falling made her shudder. Her fault, her fault, her fault—
“Oi! I think that’s them,” Flo called, her gaze trained on the horizon toward the river. Holly followed her eye-line and could just make out two figures coming slowly up the bank. George let out a whoop of relief and even Kipps face brightened considerably. She felt the tears well up, but this time she let them fall.
“Thank God,” she whispered quietly to herself.