Chapter Text
“We need you, Luce, you can’t just leave!” Lockwood all but shouted, nearly overturning a cold cup of tea with a frustrated hand. There was a shake to his voice that was going to be the end of Lucy’s resolve if this conversation didn’t finish soon. Let it hurt a little now if it keeps him alive in the end, she reminded herself. Let it hurt a lot forever, for her, if that's what it would take.
“Maybe it’s not mutual,” she whispered. She had gone into this thinking it would be easy, that she would get away without having to lie, but all the stops are pulled now. This has to end. She has to go.
“...what?”
In his shock, the fight drained out of him, and a boy drooped back into the seat where a man had been sitting just a moment before. She half-expected him to be swallowed by the fabric of his suit, like a child playing at a maturity that they couldn’t even begin to understand. Steeling herself, she continued.
“I don’t need you, and I think that it’s…it’s time for me to see what I can do on my own.”
This was an unimaginable cruelty, and later she’ll turn it over so many times in her head that it’ll take her stomach with it, sending her to double over the toilet in her attic bathroom in the middle of packing. The pain that exploded across Lockwood’s face hollowed her out into the very reason she was leaving, turning her into a ghost of who she was (who she might have been, one day) with a gaping maw in her stomach determined to gorge itself on any peace it could find.
“That’s not true, Lucy.” He was back to the man she knew, the boy she was trying to save tucked far away in the recesses of that jacket. The distress that had torn her open was now schooled away, though whether it was saved for somewhere private or gone for good was something Lucy wouldn’t have the privilege of knowing.
Then it sank in that he had said Lucy, not Luce, and she nearly went dizzy with heartache.
“Yes it is.”
“It’s not. If you want to leave, leave, but don’t lie to do it.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You promised you would stay!”
“I can’t predict the future, Lockwood! We’re psychic in the hear-the-past way, remember?”
He didn’t reply, staring down at his hands.
“I’m the most powerful Listener of our generation,” she said, revelling, even in her grief, in the way that phrase tasted in her mouth. “I need to explore that.”
“You can do that at home!”
Not home anymore, she thought wryly, even though it was. Even though it always would be.
“I can’t, Lockwood.”
It came out with less regret than she meant it to, a phrase coated with an annoyance and anger she didn’t even know she was capable of. Lockwood’s posture closed like a coffin.
“Fine,” he said, spitting the word he’d been choking on. “I’m sorry we’ve been holding you back.”
He stood and overturned the newest teacup. The whole cafe watched, in the morbid, fascinated way that one might glance at a funeral, as he stormed out of the building. This was a man who wore his coat like a shroud, who had tragedy nipping at his heels like a shadow. You might not know him, but you could see the way the universe had not been kind to someone so – well, was he young? Surely the world would not be so unkind as to saddle such frail shoulders with so much weight.
Tepid Earl Grey dripped onto Lucy’s lap. She began to cry.
At some point, another young woman will come over and help Lucy mop up the tea. She will ask if Lucy's okay, and Lucy will say yes, because what other options does she have? Admit that she had just taken an atom bomb to her life, that she had just hurt one of the only people who had ever shown her kindness? No, yes, she was fine, thank you. Later, the café manager will gently informed her that it was time to leave, and Lucy will, walking back to Portland Row in a daze. Putting her hand on the doorknob will send a shock through her, a buzz that will startle her back into herself and remind that she had revoked her own welcome to this house.
Creeping upstairs was easy enough – Holly was long-gone and judging by the lack of coat and his rapier in the foyer, Lockwood hadn't been home yet. George was clattering around in the kitchen, but Lucy didn't have the heart for another goodbye, another battle for someone's belief that she really was making the best choice here. She paused on the landing in front of Jessica's room. It's a front door in its own right, she knew, a portal to a different version of number 35. Opening it revealed a home long-gone, a lovely memory contained in the glare of death and the scent of lavender. This townhouse could not lose another of its beloved residents; she feared it wouldn't be able to stand. She was mostly sure she would survive moving away, but she knew he wouldn't survive if she stayed.
The next hours passed in a fugue, and suddenly she was back out on the street with her bags and a rapier: just as vulnerable as when she had been standing here a year and a half ago, and somehow a million times more alone.