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“Luce?” Lockwood calls.
No answer.
“Luce?”
Silence.
“Lucy?”
He feels his heart speed, a swoop of his stomach–
But surely not.
Everything is fine – she dropped a box, and she simply can’t hear him and George. He repeats this to himself, as he stands from his chair, while George looks at him, frowning.
They both move towards the basement as Lockwood hears himself saying, “It’ll be fine.” Because it will be, it will definitely be fine, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Something fell, Lucy can’t hear them, or she just fainted for some reason. Girls did that sometimes, didn’t they? It had been quite a night already…
“Lockwood, what if?”
“Don’t,” he says, but he’s thrown open the door, and he’s speeding down the spiraling staircase, leaping down two at a time. Images of Lucy collapsing, knocking sources from their silver boxes flash across his mind, but he pushes them away, clears them, until he sees, clearly –
Lucy on the ground, not moving.
George pushes past Lockwood, shouting.
Then George looking up at him. Time feels slow, and his hearing isn’t right. Is he underwater? George racing up the stairs, where Lockwood stands frozen. He gasps for air, his tie suddenly suffocating him.
Lucy on the ground. Lucy not moving.
Jessica on her bed.
Lucy on the ground.
Jessica on her bed, ghost hovering over her, while she turned blue, swelling—
Jessica in the ambulance, the sound of the sirens dulled and hollow. The blinding lights of the hospital, the sounds and chaos suddenly so loud—
Sealing her room with his uncle, the fight over the iron, the smell of lavender always in his nose.
Suddenly, he’s pushing George out of the way, rushing to Lucy's side, shaking her.
“Lockwood,” George says, “Stop shaking her.” George crowds Lucy and slaps her face. She doesn’t wake up.
“George.” His own voice is coming from somewhere far away with a strangled, desperate quality to it. George looks at him. “Lockwood, her eyes aren’t ghost locked–”
“They’re closed.”
“–and she’s not swelling and turning blue.” George puts his ear to Lucy's chest, then says, “She’s breathing. And her heart’s beating.”
“She's alive,” Lockwood breathes. Time slams back to normal speed.
“Yes,” George says, leaning back. He removes his glasses and wipes them on his shirt.
“What the bloody hell happened to her then? Is she okay?”
“How am I supposed to know? Like you, I just got down here!”
“Well, find out!”
George gives him a pointed stare. “You yelling at me will definitely make me go faster, I'm sure. Why don’t you double check that all sources are sealed while I check her out?”
No, he can’t leave her, not now, not again. “Why don’t you go do that? I'll stay here.”
George sighs, but grabs a rapier and moves towards the high security storage room, cautiously. Lockwood looks at Lucy, puts his ear to her chest, just to make sure that George is right. She is breathing, and he hears her heart thrumming in her chest.
What happened then?
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out Jessica's face, and blinks his eyes rapidly. Jessica's gone. Nothing will change that.
Checking for any blood, any wounds, he lifts her head and cradles it in his lap. He runs his fingers through her hair – nothing seems wrong – and looks towards her face. It’s paler than he’s seen it, but this is probably the closest he’s observed her, ever.
He studies the sweep of her eyelashes, the shape of her nose, the curve of her mouth—
His face heats, and he feels like he’s intruding on something private. He swallows and looks away. This is just a perfunctory check to make sure his employee is okay. He's simply doing his job, as anyone would. He puts two fingers to her neck, below her jaw, confirming for a third time her pulse is normal.
He scans the rest of her body, gently brushing his fingers over certain areas just to be sure. Ribs seem fine, legs seem fine. He props her up, so she’s in a sitting position and runs his hands across her back – all fine.
What the hell?
“You think we should, uhm, lift her shirt?” George asks. Lockwood turns rapidly to look at him. “Oh don’t be a dick, it’s not like that, just, y’know making sure she’s totally okay.”
“I checked her out myself, George. Everything seems to be fine…”
“Do you think we should call the hospital?”
Lockwood sighs. “Maybe 999, see what they say?”
“What could have caused it, any idea?”
“None. Assume all sources are sealed?”
“Yeah,” George says, with a pause. “Except…” he walks towards the table where the ghost jar sits, “This one.” He closes the lever. “You don’t think…?”
“The skull? No way. We’re clearly fine.”
“Yeah, but Lucy's a Listener, Lockwood. And she’s definitely stronger than I am. If it is the skull, she’d definitely be affected in ways I wouldn’t be.”
Lockwood considers this but it’s ridiculous. He waves his hand. “George, you’ve been experimenting with that thing for ages with no results. It’s definitely not that. You were probably right earlier, just exhaustion from the Annabel Ward case. She got way too close.”
“Want me to call anyways?”
“Let’s get her upstairs, then call. Think you can help me with that?”
“How are we supposed to,” George motions at Lucy with his hands, “get her upstairs?”
“We’re obviously going to carry her.”
“Are we? Lockwood, have you looked at us?”
“George, where’s your ingenuity?”
Sighing, George walks over to Lucy and kneels next to Lockwood, “So head or feet?”
“Head. You take feet.”
George rolls his eyes at him. “Of course. No surprises there,” and as Lockwood’s about to interrupt, he rushes on, saying, “Maybe we should put her on something?”
“Sure, want to pull a stretcher out of… oh that’s right, George, we don’t have one.”
“Piss off, Lockwood. Don’t we have a wheelbarrow in the garden?”
“George, we’re not stuffing her in a wheelbarrow.”
“Just an idea. There’s no bad ideas in brainstorming.”
“Apparently there are. You’ve just had one.”
“We really need to hire an HR department so I can take up my complaints.”
Lockwood scoffs, and pinches the skin between his eyebrows. “I'll make note of it. Top of the priority list. Now on three, grab her feet.” He squats and puts his hands on each side of Lucy’s face.
George looks at him like he's an idiot. “Wait, Lockwood, I don't think you should grab her head, grab her arms instead.”
He fires back, “So she's just swinging like a hammock?”
“No, no, you simpleton, grab her under her arms.”
“Right.” He supposes that makes a lot more sense. “On three then? One, two, three.”
They both grunt as they lift her. “I thought girls were supposed to be light.”
“George, don’t say that.”
“Well, she’s heavy!”
“Anyone would be heavy, George. You would be heavy.” They awkwardly shuffle to the stairs, going very slowly. “Okay, I’ll go first,” Lockwood says, walking backwards until the back of his lower calf hits a stair. He tentatively raises his foot and steps onto the first stair, glancing down at Lucy's face as he does so. How can anyone still be knocked out with this much jostling?
They make their way up the stairs, one by one.
“Hold on,” George says, “my hands are getting sweaty. We need to put her down.”
“No, no, we can keep going.”
“Lockwood. We’re in the basement. We have to get to the attic. Do you know how many stairs that is?”
Lockwood sighs, “Okay fine. On three. One, two, three.” And as Lockwood squats to lower her down, he hears Lucy's legs thump on the stairs. He looks up and sees George standing. “George! You can’t just stay standing and let go!”
“I told you, she’s heavy!”
Lockwood takes his hands from under Lucy's arms, and runs a hand through his hair, thoroughly annoyed. How she wasn’t awake yet was beyond him. He puts his fingers back to her pulse, urgently.
“Okay, she’s still alive.”
“Of course she’s still alive. Why wouldn’t she be?” George asks irritably, then shoots Lockwood a worried look. One that he doesn’t like. It's the kind of look that makes him think George knows even more than he lets on. Like if he suddenly told George about Jessica, George would just nod, say something like, “it was glaringly obvious,” and they’d be done with it. He's thought of doing this so many times with George, but since Lucy's been here, he just can’t bring himself to do it. He knows it would become a thing with Lucy, and with Lucy already getting too close to ghosts, and with the things she can hear - a flash of her hand on his cheek, a whispered he wants her, you love me, don’t you? - how it was all his fault that Lucy was like this right now…
“You okay, Lockwood?” George asks.
He makes an attempt to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand. “Of course I am. Okay, let’s pick her back up.” They make slow work of it but finally get out of the basement, bumping her only a few times up the spiraling staircase. Taking a break, they put her on the couch in the sitting room.
“Can we make sure that one of us never passes out again? I'm not meant for hard labor," George groans. Lockwood chuckles and waves his hand in the air. “You didn’t hire me for my brawn, Lockwood. Next time, I say we use the wheelbarrow.”
They carry on, and miraculously, after what feels like another hour, they make it up to the attic and practically throw Lucy onto the bed, both panting, as they sink to the floor.
“Do you think she’s okay, Lockwood?”
“She'll be fine, I'm sure of it.”
“We bumped her a few times… and nothing.” And George is right. Lockwood has been worrying about this too. Could she be concussed? A coma?
“Okay, go call 999. Better to be sure,” he hopes he sounds as calm as he doesn’t feel.
George rushes down the stairs to the phone, and Lockwood leans back against the bed, breathing. He can feel the lactic acid in his arms and shoulders, and he brings a hand to massage his neck, knowing he’ll feel some soreness tomorrow. He stands and stretches, loving the feeling of knowing he’s worked his body, even it well, it’s because he had to carry Lucy.
He turns and looks at Lucy, lying on the bed. Should he try and adjust her? Move her under the quilt and sheets? Get another blanket and put it on top of her? Leave her like that? He gives her body a scan, trying to identify if there’s anything he’s missing. He observes her like this – she’s usually in movement, like he is, restless, full of life and impulse – and there’s something alarmingly rare in her stillness that he feels strangely unable to draw his eyes away from. He notices a mole below her lips, which he supposes he’s known about, but never really thought about consciously. Were there other things he’s looked at for months but never fully clocked in his mind? She's of average height and build, he supposes. Full cheeks. He watches the rise and fall of her chest, fascinated by the slow rhythm of it all.
His eyes trail down to her stomach, the flare of her hips, her legs, her feet. He should probably remove her shoes. No harm in that. He walks to the end of the bed, kneels, unties them, gently removes them from her feet, and places them neatly near the edge of her bed.
Is she comfortable in those clothes, should he get her different clothes? Wasn’t there something about bras being uncomfortable and bad to sleep in – he’s read that somewhere, hasn’t he? Without warning, his mind supplies images of women in bras from the magazines under his floorboard, the black lacy ones, and then unhelpfully, his next thought is Lucy, bra –
—and that’s enough of that. Just biology. Pure and simple. No need to turn it over in his brain later at night and analyze what this might mean. Hormones is all. Occam’s razor.
He shakes his head. Tries to clear it from his mind, but he can’t quite put it to rest and feels a creeping discomfort he can’t fully articulate. He glances at her from his kneeling position, trying to understand this dread—
—and finds himself back in Jessica's room, her body on the bed, turning a light blue, the puffiness of her face, the unreality of it all in the moment and just three thoughts: Kill the ghost, Jessica is just playing, and who’s screaming?
“Lockwood.”
George. He turns and asks, “Well?”
George studies him, eyes piercing Lockwood’s from under his glasses. “They think she’ll be fine. Said that this can happen after big cases, especially to Listeners who get too close. Rare but not inconceivable. They did say if it goes any longer than 24 hours to call though.”
Lockwood looks at his watch and schedules an alarm to go off at 20 hours. Just to make sure. Just to be safe. He looks back at George, then away, realizing that he’s grinding his teeth, and his jaw is tight and cramped.
“Lockwood,” George starts, hesitantly, not quite meeting his eyes, “You had a panic attack tonight.”
“That’s not what that was.”
“That's absolutely what that was, and you know it. The question is, why?”
“Drop it.”
“But Lockwood—”
He clenches his fist, voice tight, “I said drop it, George. I don’t want you mentioning it again.”
He hears George heave a sigh, but mercifully, he turns and walks out of the attic. Lockwood can hear him ambling down the stairs, and waits until he hears the sound of George's door close.
He slams his fist against the wall - the sting of it a welcome sensation. This doesn’t have to be like last time. He's older. Smarter. Better.
And yet.
And yet, here is Lucy, passed out in her bed with no timeline on when she’ll wake up. He could have been the one to bring her Grade Four to the basement. He should have said no when she and George wanted to experiment with the ring. He should have put a stop to this entire thing, and he didn’t.
Lockwood hangs his head - was his life just one big fuck up? Unable to hold those he cared for safe in his hands? What was the bloody point of even giving a shit, then?
His breathing speeds, his stomach twists, and he becomes hyper aware of the weight of his heart in his chest, the drag of it, thrumming along day after day after day.
Christ, he has to move. He can’t stay here with the suffocating air in the attic and Lucy's body - still alive, still breathing – just there, on the bed, like Jessica.
He rushes downstairs, the cooler air a sigh of relief and reprise, looking around for something to do that’ll distract him but keep him close. In case…
He turns towards the basement, but he could get lost for hours down there, practicing with his rapier until his muscles ache and he’s soaked with sweat, and his brain is no longer a torment. Instead, Lockwood heads towards the kitchen.
He pulls out a chair and sinks into it, catching sight of one of Lucy's scribbles on the Thinking Cloth. It’s of Annabel Ward, and it’s hard not to let his mind drift. Lucy would be fine, she has to be, but moving forward, he will make a conscious effort to ensure she doesn’t get that close again. It’s dangerous and alarming, and he can’t have her putting her life on the line just so some ghost gets justice. Because it doesn’t matter, does it? Death is a final fate, an ultimate inevitability, and once you are gone, you are gone. Visitors be damned, it isn’t the same, is it? There is life, and there is death, and anyone who fools themselves into thinking there is anything else is a fool.
Lockwood stands, pours himself a glass of water and drains it in one gulp. He pours another glass, grabs a piece of paper and writes DRINK ME! and slices into some bread that he leaves on the counter for Lucy when she wakes. He trudges up the stairs to the attic where he places the glass of water on Lucy’s nightstand.
Putting his fingers to her neck, he checks her pulse again, as he watches the slow rise and fall of her chest. Alive - what a perilous thing to be in this world. One of her arms is flung off the bed, and grabbing her hand, he brings it close to her side, his hand lingering on her wrist, the blue of her veins stark against her pale skin. He runs a finger across them, feels the ridges and bumps of her life and blood under smooth skin.
Lockwood glances at her face and brushes a stray hair away, and in that moment, she sighs, and he freezes.
“Death…” she breathes.
What the fuck? “Luce,” he whispers, “uh, you okay?”
But she doesn’t say anything else. He's not sure how long he stays, but eventually, he feels a stirring in his legs, urging him to move.
Wandering, he finds himself at Jessica's door. Resigned, he pulls out his sunglasses and puts them on, opens the door, and walks in, feeling the immediate blast Jessica's psychic energy as it surrounds him in a suffocating embrace.
Avoiding her bed, he sits on the floor, surrounded by boxes of his parents and Jessica all around him.
“I'm sorry,” he hears himself saying, the scent of lavender in his nose and lungs, “I’m so sorry,” he practically gasps, his voice breaking. He feels his eyes burn and a lump in his throat that makes it hard to swallow.
He squeezes his eyes shut, saying the words that are always the hardest, but the ones that always need to be said. “It was all my fault, I should have been there. If only I had been there, then you’d–”
Something wet hits his knee.
“You’d be here. With me. But you’re not.”
Lockwood feels that familiar sense of emptiness, unable to move, to process. It's how he used to spend hours here after it happened. How he’d curl up on the floor trying to stem the sobbing, how he’d eventually exhaust his tears, shaking with the horrible reality of it, the shame, the crushing weight he felt in his heart. How the seconds, hours, days, weeks, and months ahead terrified him. There was too much time and nothing to do with it in the impossible desolation he faced. How he used to study the veins in his wrists, marvel at how only a thin layer of skin protected the life that flowed within them. How faulty that design was, how tenuous. How a slip of a knife in the kitchen sink—
And yet, here he still was.
“Lockwood,” he hears George calling, “Where are you? We’ve got a case!”
He stands, a burst of kinetic energy and need coursing through his limbs. “Coming,” he calls, relief washing over him. He can’t be here a second longer.