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“… and so with an inspirational piece of deduction work, I managed to solve the case. So you see the agency is going very well indeed. And don’t worry, I’ve managed to live up to my motto of “any mystery solved!” However, I still have no clue about dad’s whereabouts. Where can he have disappeared to? He’s really causing his loved ones to worry, the silly old fool! Haah, I suppose he’s probably off somewhere having a whale of a time, blissfully unaware of how worried Alfendi and I are. Anyway, I’m very well and feeling positive. I hope your work with my brother is going smoothly, Lucy. Well, smoothly as it can, at least. Yours, Katrielle”
reads the end of a letter on one of the desks of the Mystery Room, belonging to one Detective Constable Lucy Baker, considering the state of slightly less disarray that the work space is in. Alfendi had happened upon it unintentionally when searching Lucy’s desk for a file pertaining to a recent murder of a man who looked like he was bitten in half by a shark, despite being in the penthouse of a hotel, as they needed to interrogate the bellhop who happened upon the scene for questioning. But the rather unique stationary, penmanship, and a rather familiar logo caught the corner of his eye and he couldn’t help but forget about the missing upper half of the billionaire.
They had visited Kat once or twice, not by any personal choice of his, of course, in the past year or so, to consult her on cases they’d been working on in her neck of the woods in the rare instance they visited a physical crime scene. Additionally, Kat, annoyingly tends to drop by every so often, typically interrupting them while they are hard at work at the crime scene reconstruction device whenever she needs to consult Inspector Hastings or some other buffoons for her own Detective work. He knew, of course, that Lucy was rather taken with her, comparatively, much more excited to see his dear sister than he is, often badgering him to take lunch early so they could have tea with Kat and the like, but he didn’t know that their acquaintance was deeper than that.
As much as he loves Kat they really don’t have much in common, aside from the killer intelligence and intuition that they’d inherited, nay been trained to learn, by virtue of being around their lovely father. Her rather sunny disposition and imaginative mind reminds him a lot of dear Lucy, which he supposes is part of the reason they get on so well, and the both of them could probably clean out the local sandwich shop between the two of them if given the task. It’s endearing he hates to think, that his assistant probably knows more about his sister than he does at this point, but it’s at least nice to know she has a friend in Lucy, as she hadn’t been predisposed to many in that past. He’s quite sure that her only close friends other than their old caretaker Rosa, that talking dog of hers, and her assistant whose job is to work with her.
He annoys the chiding from Placid that maybe they really aren’t so different considering their shared situations, but to be fair to himself, he’s allowed Lucy to drag him to work events with their ‘friends’ on several occasions when Lucy bursts back into the office with sandwiches in hand for their lunch.
Sitting in her desk chair he turns to her, holding the letter in hand, narrowing his brows at her as she comes in, “So this is why you’ve been keen on asking about my father today?”
“Sorry fer caring about ya then, Prof,” Lucy says with a hint of sarcasm as she tosses Alfendi his sandwich and sits down in his swivel chair. Between large bites, she questions, “Why are ya going through my stuff, any’ow?”
“I’d hardly say it’s going through your stuff when you left it plain sight,” he says matter of factly that makes her roll her eyes and give him a small pout.
As they eat in silence for a moment, thinking he’s finally won the bout, per usual she always has something to challenge him back, which is one of the reasons she’s the only assistant to have stuck around this long. “Still begs t’question if yer doing okay wi’ t’lack of any news on yer da’s whereabouts?” There’s both a rebuttal in there to his snooping, but also a deep care and concern for his well being he’s not accustomed to. He likely never will be, but Lucy seems to have made it her life’s mission to ensure that it’s not so on some days. It seems this would be one of them.
“I told you Lucy, it’s really nothing,” he says, running a hand through his hair and nodding his head. He hears the words, “I hadn’t expected much from the new lead anyway,” slip out from under his breath and mentally chides himself upon seeing the way Lucy’s eyes turn when she hears it.
“So Kat was reight, ya did know summat about it,” she says, trying to hide the self-impressed smile on her face behind the sandwich.
“Commissioner Barton told me it was a dead end and I can only surmise he told cat the same,” he says matter-of-factly before Potty slips out to add, “I don’t see what you’re so smug about, Baker.”
“Nowt, I just thought ya were acting funny these past few days and Kat’s letter and yer reaction confirmed it,” she says with a small nod of the head in satisfaction. Ever since Forbodium she seems to take more pride in reading him correctly, regardless of who happens to be in charge of him at the time, it’s almost sweet, nay it is, when he thinks about it. He didn’t think that the continued absence of his already incredibly distant father was visibly taking such a toll on him? He’d been used to trying to hide it and mustering up his courage about it to Kat when he was gone on adventures with Uncle Luke when they were young, but he thought he didn’t have any particular anxious tells. Apparently, he was mistaken and his student had, yet again surpassed her mentor.
“Yes, your deduction skills never cease to stop growing,” he deflects with sarcasm, despite the sentiment being, indeed, very laced with the truth.
“Come off it, Prof,” she says with a small laugh before getting up from his chair and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are ya sure ya don’t want to talk about it?” she asks, giving his shoulder the gentlest squeeze as she looks down at him with that dangerous look in her eyes. It takes all that he is to not just break down underneath her soft caress about the whole situation, but there was work that needed to be done and neither his worries about his father nor his unspoken affections for his assistant would deter him.
“I’m fine , Baker. What I want is to get back to the bisected billionaire,” he says a little too defensively, wincing at the bite in his own voice at Lucy’s who’d only been trying to help. At his words and behest, her hand leaves its place on his shoulder and her warmth goes with it as well.
“Aye, alright then,” she says, as she goes back to his desk and boots up the reconstruction machine so they can get back to the case and tosses the wrappings from lunch into the rubbish bin. He sighs to himself as he gets up and stands alongside her at the machine, needing to face the task at hand.
As they wait for the scene to fully render from the footage the investigators took on the scene, she mumbles under her breath, “I’m ‘ear fer ya, if ya need owt though.”
Placing his hand on hers, he smiles at her and replies with a similarly quiet, “Thank you, dear Lucy,” and returns the light squeeze from before. She flashes him a quick smile which he almost becomes lost in before the ding of the machine alerts them that it’s time to get back to work. Somewhat flushed, he redirects his attention to the bisected billionaire that he’s suspiciously much less interested in than before.
After he finishes submitting the closed case file to the Commissioner on the billionaire’s murder they’d been looking into that week, Alfendi walks back into the Mystery Room, seeing Lucy penning a letter, tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she writes, seemingly deep in thought.
As he enters the office, he places a hand on her shoulder and says, “Do tell my dear sister that if she wants to fraternize with you she should just visit on the weekend as she’s robbing my precious assistant from her work.”
She almost jumps in her chair at the contact and looks up at him with a flustered look on her face. “I was just waiting fer ya t’get back. I didn’t want t’start a new case without you is all.”
“And there’s no paperwork you could have been doing in the meantime?” He says sarcastically, for which he receives a sheepish look from her. Tearing himself from where he stands above her, he crashes on the office’s couch with a cup of coffee in hand. “What were you writing Kat?”
“Dear Kat, thanks fer yer wishes about working wi’ Al, but yer brother is bein’ unbearable. Yours, Lucy,” she says, barely holding back her grin as she reads it, entirely too pleased with herself.
“Very funny,” Alfendi retorts as he takes a sip of his coffee.
A small smirk inches its way onto her face, which she quickly hides, moving on to her question at hand. “She was wondering if ya wanted t’come t’dinner with ‘er and ‘er assistant next week. Apparently there’s a new place in town whose desserts are summat special.”
“Of course she’s picking the restaurant off the dessert menu,” Alfendi bemoans, almost petulantly. He knows that she has an abominable sweet tooth and had dearly hoped it had gotten better, but he seems to be mistaken, and God knows if his dear sister is excitable already what she’ll be like after a ton of sugar. And Ernest? There could not be someone he would want to spend time with less which gives Blaine entirely too much credit. Blaine, at least, knows how to solve a murder or how to be useful in a fight if it comes down to it, Ernest seems to be entirely too scared of his own shadow, let alone his sister, at all times. He’s entirely too by the book and just reeks the university in the same way that his father does, he doesn’t know how Kat bears it. “And does Ernest really need to be there, he’s so dreadfully boring.”
“Proud o’ya fer remembering ‘is name this time,” Lucy chirps as she continues to pen the letter, “Besides ‘e’s not so bad. ‘E’s got a great taste in films, ya know?”
“Delightful,” he retorts promptly, wondering why Lucy would even know that in the first place, but suspects the three of them likely have had outings to the theater once or twice, by choice. He supposes if Lucy enjoys their company well enough it would be good enough for him and the least he can do for her and his sister is to at least try. Besides, they hadn’t been out much lately with the caseload they’d been taking on and rate at which they’d been working through cold cases. “I suppose we can go”
“ We ?” Lucy asks, peeking her head up from the paper and cocking her head to the side in confusion.
He winces internally, at the thought he’d mistook her meaning. Defensively, Alfendi feels Potty step in with a curt “I’m assuming this was a joint invitation, Baker?”
“She didn’t say it was, but she was reight keen on seeing ya,” she says with a nod, unperturbed as always by his reappearance. Things had gotten easier since Forbodium as there were all in all a lot less migraines and internal fights between the two of them, but he hadn’t expected how at ease the others could be. His coworkers had gotten better about managing the shifts with a sense of composure and Lucy, especially, has treated them as if they were normal as the sunrise in time. It’s so deeply comforting to be able to not worry so much when around her and just be, he quite literally doesn’t know what he’d do without her at this point. But she likely doesn’t notice the flush on her boss’s face as he internally thinks of her in such endearment as she continues to ramble, “—and we already have lunch plans this weekend, so I didn’t want t’overstep or nowt.”
“It’s not, I want you there,” he says, altogether a little too fast and feels the flush on his face deepen as Lucy looks at him in slight shock, but seems pleased, nevertheless. He adds, “It’s probably the only way I’ll be able to stomach it. The meal and the company alike,” to try and cover the ardency of his quick reply.
“Okay, if yer sure, Prof?” She says with a hint of nervousness to her voice, not trying to come off with too much excitement much more than he is able to muster
“Absolutely, Lucy,” he says with a smile, before taking a sip of his coffee, to further hide his face.
“Dear Kat, scratch that, yer brother is behaving ‘imself a little more than usual. We’ll both see ya next week,” she says aloud cheerfully as she goes back to her letter. She adds an, “I’ll try to get ‘im to wear a different sweater this time, I doubt ‘e’ll oblige” which makes him let out a laugh mid-coffee sip causing a rather unbecoming spit take that leaves them both in laughter and feeling far to jovial to continue working. But alas, there was still more to be done, but at least they have next week to look forward to.
“It was a reight good film, ya just don’t have good taste,” Lucy says, lightly elbowing him in the side underneath the umbrella Alfendi’s holding as he walks her back to her flat following the outing with Kat and Ernest which wasn’t as egregious as he had imagined. He got on well with Kat and was able to catch up with her, and if things got quiet or awkward, Lucy quickly came to his aid to fill the air with more conversation. The food was indeed something special, as Kat had said and for not being the largest fan of sweets, he found the desserts rather satisfying. Ernest had looped them all into seeing some sci-fi thriller film he and Lucy had been keen on seeing, extending the night more than anticipated, but it wasn’t altogether unpleasantly. Well the night wasn’t, the movie was.
“I solved the mystery in the first five minutes, it really wasn’t that gripping, Baker,” he retorts, which Lucy seemingly isn’t buying as she fumbles for the keys in her pocket as they approach her building.
“That’s not t’point, yer supposed to just enjoy the action of it all,” she says, before turning to him with a pout. “Yer can’t tell me that t’intergalactic chase was all that exciting?”
“It purported to be a thriller, it wasn’t thrilling,” he asserts once more, which earns him a roll of the eyes as she unlocks the door to her building.
Laughing under her breath with a small smile on her face, she says “Yer such a spoil-sport sometimes Prof, you know that?” She looks upon him sweetly, after with one hand gently gripping his forearm and the other on his scarf that she’s been wearing since she’d gotten cold at the theater. “Ta fer comin’ and the scarf. I know it meant t’world to Kat,” she says, with a kindness and a hint of nervousness as she fumbles over her words that begin to ramble. “You comin’ not the scarf o’course. Especially that ya even came along fer t’film and didn’t dodge off at yer first chance, It made ‘er real happy.”
He stifles the laugh at her endearing awkwardness, and places his free hand on the one on his forearm with a smile, “The company was pleasant enough. I’d consider doing it again, should you or Kat wish.”
“I’d like that a lot,” she says with a pleased nod as she unwraps his scarf from her own neck and wraps it around his gently, covering the different sweater he did wear for the occasion.
“Then we’ll try and make it happen,” he says, trying to focus on speaking instead of their proximity as she does so. He similarly begins to ramble nervously, “Besides, it’s probably good for me to get out of the Mystery Room sometimes.”
“Aye, there’s those famous Layton deduction skills at work. Glad ya said it so I didn’t ‘ave to,” Lucy says with a laugh in her voice before pressing a light kiss to his cheek. He can barely catch the flush on her face before she stammers out a cheerful, “G’night Prof, see ya on Monday,” and closes the door to her building behind her.
“Goodnight Lucy,” he says almost breathlessly to the door that has been shut in front of him where Lucy once stood, unsure of how to process the whole situation, if she harbors affections for him in the same way he does.
Usually he doesn’t sleep in his flat, it’s too much of a hassle to get to when he’s caught up at work and it feels much more foreign to him than the lived-in nature of his office. But he finds himself needing to walk that extra mile tonight as the thoughts rush through his head that internally argues the meanings of it all. The rain continues to fall, but he doesn’t put his umbrella back up, taking in the feeling of the rain crashing against his skin, praying it’ll help his reasoning acutely.
He thinks about every moment and detail of this evening’s interactions with Lucy, nay the months since Forbodium’s interactions with Lucy, seeking an answer. So many things would suggest she does, but he isn’t sure that his own incompetence in these manners isn’t misreading and Lucy’s genuine kindness and care to all she meets. The situation is delicate and he can’t lose her, not because of some grave miscalculation, no he has to have 100% certainly because even being .01% off could damn him.
It’s these thoughts that stir him as he returns to his flat that night he finds a letter under his door with penmanship similar to the one’s he’s seen strewn on Lucy’s desk. Curiously, he opens it up and reads:
“ Dear Al, I can tell you're utterly captivated by Lucy, but it seems to be a mystery why you haven’t done anything about it in return. If you need help solving it, “any mystery solved” is the Layton Detective Agency’s motto. Love, Kat.”
He feels himself flushing at the letter in hand, cheeks burning as red and as hot as where Lucy kissed him earlier that evening. He wonders if maybe, just maybe, he needs to pay the Agency a solo visit.