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Haunt Me Like A Memory

Summary:

From what she can gather, he lost his entire family when he was very young, but it’s not something he talks about. She knows that after he joined the RAF, he was shot down over Germany and just barely escaped with his life. She knows during that little misadventure, he was shot in the shoulder, but she doesn’t know the details. He’s implied that there is more to the story, but he isn’t about to share it with her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It’s not as if she’s told him much, anyway. She managed to get out the bare bones about Paul, but that’s it. Her left ring finger feels bare. She took the engagement ring off three and a half months ago, but it still hurts every time she glances down at her naked fingers.

 

Or: Lucy opens up more about her past to Lockwood.

Notes:

Part 2 of the WWII series! Thank you for the lovely comments from part 1!

I've got a bunch of little ideas for slice-of-life moments between these two during WWII and I'm excited to get them written out. <3

Enjoy!

Work Text:

Lucy wakes up screaming.

It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. Lucy doesn’t sleep much, and when she does, she finds herself locked in nightmares like she’s pounding on a trapped door that won’t open. And tonight is no different as she finally breaks free, icy sweat beading on her forehead as she gasps for breath.

She rolls over, nearly dislodging Skull from where he’s lying on her feet. Skull is a fluffy, ornery orange cat who Lucy found scrawny and defiant behind 35 Portland Row a few weeks after she moved in. He doesn’t join her and Lockwood in the basement during air raids often, but she also knows he can take care of himself. He’s gained weight since she took him in a couple months ago, even though some weeks they struggle to feed themselves due to the limited ration coupons they receive from the Ministry of Food.

Skull lets out a grumbly meow, making his feelings clear about nearly getting kicked off the bed, and Lucy mumbles out, “Sorry.” She eases herself out of bed and smooths out her nightdress, before padding into the tiny, cramped lavatory. She splashes chilly water on her face and she watches in the cracked mirror as her pale cheeks flush into a ruddy red. Her eyes are bright, and she’s not sure if it’s from unshed tears or from the splash of frigid water. She decides she doesn’t want to know.

She brushes her teeth before realizing she doesn’t even know what time it is. Probably mid-afternoon. It’s her day off, so she had the idea that she could catch up on sleep, but that’s always like chasing butterflies. Lucy doesn’t sleep. If she does, the monsters find her.

Lucy pads out of the lavatory, back into her bedroom. Really, it’s just an attic. Lockwood mentioned once that he slept up here as a child, but he now sleeps in the master bedroom which she knows belonged to his parents. He doesn’t talk about them, though, and she doesn’t ask. They have an agreement not to pry into the other’s past, as much as it might pain them. What Lucy has learned about Lockwood has come with a price; each time she feels a bit of her heart escape to be with him. She knows he’s had a hard past. From what she can gather, he lost his entire family when he was very young, but it’s not something he talks about. She knows that after he joined the RAF, he was shot down over Germany and just barely escaped with his life. She knows during that little misadventure, he was shot in the shoulder, but she doesn’t know the details. He’s implied that there is more to the story, but he isn’t about to share it with her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It’s not as if she’s told him much, anyway. She managed to get out the bare bones about Paul, but that’s it. Her left ring finger feels bare. She took the engagement ring off three and a half months ago, but it still hurts every time she glances down at her naked fingers.

Without conscious thought, she crosses the room to the vanity Lockwood thoughtfully put together for her, and tugs open the bottom right drawer. Her fingers grip the diamond ring, and she wipes at her eyes. He’s dead , she tells herself firmly. She knows this instinctively. She knew it before she even received the telegraph declaring that her fiance was missing in action. For days after his final mission she dreamt of his aeroplane crashing into the sea; of his aeroplane exploding in a ball of burning flames; of him being shot in the head execution style by a faceless Nazi.

If she concentrates, she can see it all so clearly in her head. Her eyes close. Her head swims. A wail threatens to escape.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Lucy spins, the ring still resting in her palm.

Lockwood emerges on the landing. He’s just in shirtsleeves, no tie in sight, and Lucy stares, completely distracted, totally mesmerized. She rarely sees him without a tie or a suit jacket. The last time was last week when they seeked out shelter in the basement during a particularly bad bombing. It was there that she guessed that he was shot down over Germany, but he refused to go into any further details. She can still feel his hard thigh beneath her fingertips, and lately she’s been shifting guiltily in bed as she recalls how warm his hand felt on her own leg.

His sleeves are rolled up to his forearms, and his old watch draws attention to his graceful hand and strong wrist. His fingers are long; she’s spent many an hour lurking in the doorway of the sitting room as he sits at the piano, plucking out a beautiful melody that she doesn’t recognize but wishes she could memorize forever.

“I heard you wake up,” he says, carefully skirting around the fact that she woke up screaming. “I thought I’d let you know that there’s a pot of tea waiting in the kitchen for you.”

Lucy tries to force a smile as she swallows against the hard ball of emotions lumped in her throat. “Thanks.”

“And I have a small surprise for you. Nothing much, but I hope you’ll like it.” His gaze catches hold of the ring in her hand. The pretty diamond glitters in the warm glow of her bedside lamp. “Is that - “ His cheeks flare a bright red. “Never mind, I shouldn’t ask.” He knows what it is. She can see it in the way his face closes off. He’s very aware that no matter how attracted they are to each other, there are numerous reasons why getting together would be a terrible idea. And Paul’s memory swirls around them like a ghost, forcefully keeping them apart. Lucy suddenly wants to drop the ring back into the drawer; the diamond digs into her skin, threatening to burn her with red-hot guilt.

“I should put this away,” Lucy mumbles.

“Were you dreaming about him?”

Lucy looks up at Lockwood, startled like a deer. “Yeah.” The admission spills from her lips before she can think twice about it. She wants to apologize, to say she’s sorry, because she knows it hurts him. She knows with each little bit he learns about Paul, he backs away a little bit more to shield his heart from the girl who lost her boyfriend - her fiance. Really, she has nothing to feel bad about. She and Lockwood aren’t together. And she’s not sure she wants to get involved with a boy who’s returning to the RAF in a few weeks. But deep down, she knows it’s too late. For all that she still dreams about Paul, about his death even though she didn’t witness it, she’s become much too attached to Lockwood. If he dies, it might just destroy her. Shatter her from the inside out. Knock her down and let her fall into the void she just managed to dodge when she lost Paul. She’ll never come back from that loss. Never.

“I see.” His gaze rests on the ring she’s still holding. She hasn’t dropped it yet. She hasn’t shoved it out of sight, like a bad memory she wants to forget. “It’s pretty.”

“It is.” She subconsciously rubs her thumb over the diamond. It feels sharp against her skin.

“How long were you engaged?”

“Six months. He proposed right after he joined the RAF. He was in and out of town after that because he was stationed in Kent. Nowhere near our little village.”

“Why don’t you wear it?”

Lucy’s head snaps up. “He’s dead. There’s no point.”

“Sometimes wearing something like that can be a way of honoring that person.” He holds up his right hand and indicates his ring finger. “My father’s ring. It’s one of my ways of remembering him.”

Lucy smiles a bit. “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s got his initials inscribed on the bottom.” Lockwood pulls the ring off and holds it up to show Lucy. “DL. For Donald Lockwood.”

“What did he do?”

Lockwood smirks. “He and my mother were both old money, so they didn’t really work the way you and I do. But they were amateur researchers. Very fascinated with every superstition out there. Those masks hanging on the wall downstairs are shaman masks from the Amazon forest.”

“Do you believe any of that?”

“Not much, no. But I keep them there to honor their memory.”

Lucy nods, running her hands over her arms. She remembers when she walked downstairs to find him better securing the artifacts attached to the entryway hall. “It’s different, though. Those masks aren’t engagement rings.”

“He still gave it to you,” Lockwood points out. “It’s a token of his love for you and his hope for the future.”

Suddenly Lucy wants to cry for real. Holding the ring hurts way too much, and she wordlessly drops it into the open drawer. “I’m not ready,” she mumbles, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not sure I could wear it, anyway.”

“You could put it on your right ring finger,” Lockwood suggests. “Or maybe on a chain to wear like a necklace.”

“I’ll think about it,” she offers. “Anyway, I should get dressed. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to run up here.”

He gives her a small smile. “Did you get much sleep?”

“A couple hours.”

“Better than nothing.”

“Have you slept any?” He’s got perpetual dark circles under his eyes, so she’s never really sure if he’s slept or not.

“I slept a bit this morning, after the bombing stopped.”

“A bit?”

He smirks again. “I slept more than you, so I don’t think a lecture is in order today.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Anyway, I’ll get dressed and come downstairs.”

“Excellent.” His gaze falls onto the drawer she’s just slammed shut. “Do you have any photographs of him?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, and she reluctantly opens the drawer once more to pull out the framed photograph she keeps hidden away because looking at it is still too painful. She doesn’t glance down at the handsome boy whose arms are wrapped around her past image as she hands the photograph to Lockwood.

Lockwood gazes down at it. “He loved you very much.”

“I loved him, too,” she manages to choke out. “I knew he died before I got the telegraph. I was dreaming about his death for days before. But it was still a shock - “ And now she’s genuinely crying, tears streaming down her face as her body quakes with sobs. Lockwood gathers her up in his arms, holding her tightly as he strokes her hair and lets her cry.

It’s funny in a way. Lucy has been running from the memories for the last few months, but now it’s caught up with her in the little attic room. Her past is haunting her, exposing her for Lockwood to see, selling her out as naked and vulnerable and raw. She’s suddenly been reduced to nothing more than a heartbroken girl who lost her love to a brutal war. She’s the girl who stands aimlessly on the train platform, waiting for the ghost of her soldier to return to her. She’s the widow pacing in front of the window as she prays that it’s all been one huge mistake.

Prayers didn’t work for Lucy, and she’s terrified that once Lockwood returns to flight, they won’t work for him either. And now she’s crying from the fear that she might lose him as well. But she’ll never admit it. She’ll never tell him how terrified she is.

Her fists ball up the front of his shirt as she sobs into his chest, and now he’s rocking her back and forth where they stand. A sudden furry warmth wraps around her ankles, and she hears the little cry that is Skull showing his concern for her.

She wishes Paul had gotten to meet Skull. And then she feels even worse, because then that would mean that Paul met Lockwood, and that is opening up a whole new can of worms. She likes to think that she would never be attracted to Lockwood if Paul was still alive, but deep down she suspects that no matter the circumstances, she would never escape the way her heart flutters when Lockwood smiles at her. She could be married and pushing a pram, and her gaze would lock on Lockwood like magnets drawn together. And it’s not a comforting feeling, because it begs the question - would she have left Paul for Lockwood?

But it’s all hypothetical, she reminds herself furiously as she finally pulls back from Lockwood. Because Paul is dead and Lockwood is alive, and he’s standing right in front of her.

“I haven’t cried in a bit,” she tells Lockwood thickly as she reaches for the handkerchief she’s left out on her bedside table. “Not since before I moved north.”

“Then you were overdue.”

She can still feel the hot lump that threatened to overwhelm her throat as she stared at the telegraph carrier standing on her front porch. She can still remember the way her knees gave out and she crumbled into pieces when the news was delivered and her worst fears confirmed. She can still feel the wails of grief ripping through her throat as she curled into a ball. She was inconsolable for days. Only Norrie was able to get her out of bed, reminding her in her no-nonsense manner that Paul wouldn’t want her to wallow her life away.

Lucy answered adverts in the London Times for both a job and a housemate two days later, and she never looked back.

Lockwood hands Lucy the photograph back, and she wordlessly shuts it away in the drawer.

“Who’s that?” Lockwood inquires, nodding to a photograph that is taped to Lucy’s vanity mirror.

Lucy manages to smile at his question. “That’s Norrie. My best friend. She’s, er, working at the same place as George, I believe.”

“Ah. So not too far away.”

“No. We just don’t usually get the same days off, so I haven’t seen much of her.”

“Well, bring her around sometime. I’d like to meet her.”

“I will,” Lucy agrees, smiling for real. Her tears are a distant memory, and she begins to feel steady once more.

“Come downstairs when you’re ready. I’ll keep the tea warm for you.” And he offers her a flash of a bright, shining smile, and Lucy can’t keep herself from hoping that she gets to see that smile more often. It’s very lovely. And maybe one day, he’ll have a smile reserved just for her.

She hopes so.

Lockwood retreats down the stairs, and Lucy gets dressed in her usual skirt and sweater. Once she’s feeling a bit more herself, she follows Lockwood’s lead down the stairs and into the kitchen.

The tea kettle is still on, and when Lockwood sees her, he pours her out a cup before holding out a bowl of sugar. “For your tea,” he tells her with a glorious smile, and for the first time ever, all thoughts of Paul’s memory are wiped from her brain. Sugar is so hard to come by right now, especially a whole bowl-full. He must have been saving up his sugar rations for her. She’d mentioned once or twice in passing that she missed adding sugar to his tea, and he remembered it.

“Thank you,” she whispers as she accepts the bowl. Lockwood proudly sets a sugar spoon in the bowl, and on a whim, she sets the bowl on the table and stands on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to his cheek. “Thank you so much.”

He smiles, a light flush creeping up his neck and into his cheeks, and he sets her cup of tea in front of her. “Take all the sugar you want. It’s yours.”

And she happily sits down at the table, pulling the bowl towards her. Lockwood joins her with his own cup of tea, dark as stormy night. He watches her contentedly as she spoons sugar into her tea, his perfect hands wrapped around his cup. Their eyes meet, and they smile at each other.

On this chilly November day, in the warmth of the small kitchen, everything is perfect. Just for a moment. Just for a breath.

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