Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lucy stared at the email like it might explode if she looked away. Her first big role, under two of the best directors in London, opposite the best actor her age. And her best friend was stage managing!

She replied to the email with her phone number as requested, then sat back in her chair. The audition had been a last-minute whim - there had been a sign for an open call outside a theatre one day when she was walking home from a different audition (the work never stopped), so she had gone in. Her phone buzzed with a text.

Holly: Oh my God!!!!!! Congratulations!!!!

Lucy: i know!!!! congrats to you too this is huge!!

Holly: Hope you've gotten over that crush on Anthony Lockwood😜

One time. One time had Lucy admitted that she thought Anthony Lockwood was a little cute after they saw him in Peter and the Starcatcher, and Holly had never let her forget it. In her professional lesbian opinion, he looked like he ate Tim Burton scripts instead of food.

Lucy: if you bring that up at rehearsal so help me god i will never speak to you again

Holly: Your love of raccoon eyes is safe with me xx

The next morning, Lucy woke up an hour and a half earlier than she needed to for rehearsal. She used that time to Google her new colleagues, her anxiety only rising with each credit. Montagu Barnes had just finished a run of Macbeth as the titular character, Quill Kipps had played Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and even Bobby Vernon had been in Waiting for Godot as one of the two main characters. By comparison, she had an incredibly light resumé, mostly ensemble work in plays in smaller theatres and a few supporting roles.

And, of course, there was Anthony Lockwood, who played Chip in Beauty and the Beast on the West End when he was 5 and only had his career skyrocket from there. That had been his last musical credit, but he was an absolute tour de force in every play he was in, no matter the role. It didn't help that he lived almost entirely out of the public eye, despite his famous late parents. The mystique only added to his allure, allowing him to float tall-dark-and-handsome around London in that long coat he seemed to love.

God, she was going to crash and burn in front of these people.

There were few places in this world that Lucy loved as much as a rehearsal space. A square of folding tables on light wood floors painted with stripes of sun marked a new beginning, the start of the creation of a new piece of art. Holly was already there, clipping the last of the scripts into a binder.

"Holly!"

The woman jumped, nearly scattering paper everywhere. "Lucy, hi! Don't do that."

"Sorry. How are you?"

Holly was safe and, thankfully, the only one there. She was one of the most organized, respected stage managers in all of the UK, but Lucy knew her as a friend first - she had worked with Holly on her very first show in London.

"I'm well. I trust you are breakfast?”

Lucy opened her mouth like a fish, the quick lie catching in her throat. She had been too nervous to eat this morning, abandoning her chocolate oatmeal for a snack when she got home.

"It's gonna be a long day, Lucy. Here.” Holly procured a granola bar from the pocket on her overalls and handed it to Lucy. "Cute outfit, by the way. Can't say I've ever seen you look this put together at a rehearsal. Any special reason?"

There was a look on her face that said she very much thought there was a specific special reason, and Lucy pulled a face. It was true that she had opted for a nicer outfit than usual, a white tennis skirt and blue sweater and her hair swept up into a twist, but it was because she was working with several big names, not just because of one person.

"Can't I try once in a while without being judged?”

"Sure you can. This is just not that once in a while. Here's your script. Everyone else will be arriving soon." She winked. Lucy scowled.

There was a place tag at her spot on the table, between Montagu Barnes and Anthony Lockwood, with Eurydice in big letters and Lucy Carlyle in smaller ones underneath. This was the other bright spot of theatre: for at least the next two months, she was Eurydice first and Lucy second, if at all. She could leave behind her insecurities and history and delve into someone else's, creating a character that someone might really love. She sat down and printed her name and phone number on the front of her script, in case she misplaced it (it happened often). And so it begins. God, she loved this job.

The rest of the cast trickled in, and Lucy put on what she called her "people face:” acceptable, even, easy. Not the face of someone who turned every interaction over in her mind for weeks after the fact. Penelope Fittes was amazingly kind, giving her a warm handshake and smile. It felt like what a mother would do if she cared. Steve Rotwell was...there. He wasn't unkind, he was just quick. Quick hello, quick handshake, quick smile. Lucy didn't mind it, because it meant that when they were down to the wire, he would move through things at the right pace.

Montagu Barnes (or Montagu, as he had told her to call him) was well cast as a father. He had gotten her a cup of water before the read-through started, and then had admonished her for not bringing a water bottle of her own with her.

Then there was Lockwood. He swept into the room with 10 minutes to spare. He slapped Quill Kipps on the shoulder, who looked like he could not appreciate that less, then sauntered over to his place.

"Hello, Monty," he said to Montagu, who shot him the flattest stare Lucy had ever seen.

"Do not call me that, Lockwood."

"So you're playing my father-in-law?"

"Is he still your father-in-law if he's dead?" Lucy said, then immediately regretted it, turning beet red. "Sorry."

Lockwood smiled at her, a warmth and light to rival a thousand suns. "It's okay. I suppose he is, since he never stops being your father." That made her heart ache. "You're Lucy?”

"I am. You're Anthony?”

"Call me Lockwood," he said, and sat. His fingers danced a jig against the plastic table, and Lucy noticed that his ring finger carried a signet ring. He had very nice hands.

There was something extra familiar about that request, though he was asking her to call him by his last name. Anthony was what everyone called him - the press and the tabloids, the interviewers on television, the people on the street who liked to pretend they were closer with celebrities than they were - but Lockwood was what he chose, what people close to him said. She was part of that now.

"Welcome, all, to our table read of Eurydice," said Penelope, smiling wide. Lucy loved her smile. She was a very pretty woman, in the way that Lucy dreamed that she herself might look when she was all grown up. "Shall we begin?”

A chorus of "Ooh, yes," and "yes, please," swelled at the table. There was the sound of scripts opening and pencils and highlighters clattering: an orchestra in its own right. Holly read the first stage direction, and though there was no movement, no sets or costumes or lights, the world they were in melted away another appeared, with a raining elevator and a river of forgetting and a glowing globe. It was a soaring play and Lucy realized that her own life wouldn't disappear into the background as easily as it usually did: Eurydice ached and loved and lived just like her, or perhaps she ached and loved and lived just like Eurydice. It made her feel less alone.

"He stands on it," Holly read, nearly an hour and a half later. "He closes his eyes. The end."

The room seemed to sigh with that finality. Lucy touched her face and realized that it was not Eurydice crying - it was her. Lockwood brushed his knuckles against hers, catching her attention. She tried not to think too hard about how she could still feel the heat from his skin on hers.

"You were really good, Lucy. You already know her really well."

And Lucy didn't shy away from that compliment, because at least that last half was true. Eurydice was inside her, wrapped around her bones and threaded through her muscles. She had never quite felt like she fit in anywhere, but she fit in in this cast. This was her role. She was made to play this part.