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Lucy was home. Lucy was home!
Lockwood had been sleeping fitfully after finishing a relatively easy case – a case that might have gone smoother if George hadn’t insisted on testing two different Rotwell devices on the Visitor at once, but nevermind – when the clanging of the doorbell woke him.
He couldn’t say that he’d been expecting Lucy on his doorstep after midnight, a knife wound in her arm and a quiet desperation in her eyes. But somehow, it didn’t surprise him. The many restless nights spent worrying about her, out there on her own, burning the midnight oil as he put together a detailed, step-by-step plan to get her back, meant that Lucy had been constantly on his mind for months.
Even when he could find sleep, dropping into his bed after a gruelling case or forcing himself to close his eyes after another long night sitting up in the office, there was no escape. She haunted his dreams as surely as she haunted his waking hours.
He would dream of kissing her and wake up aching with need for her. He would dream of her dangling from the railing at Wintergarden’s or standing on the lip of the well below Combe Carey and wake up sweating and shaking with terror. He would dream of her in the kitchen, or the library, or fighting ghosts alongside him and George and somehow those were the worst. He would awaken and, for a split second, he would forget that she was gone. Then memory would come crashing in and it was like he was losing her all over again.
So to have her here, knowing that she was alive and safe, at least for the moment, made him feel like the rubber band that had been squeezing his heart for the last four months had loosened just a fraction.
He knocked softly on the door to the attic in case she was already asleep, waiting for her muffled acknowledgement before entering. He found her sitting up in her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, wearing a pair of his old joggers. They were the shortest he owned, but she had still needed to roll them up several times.
“Hiya,” he said, doing his best not to jump for joy at seeing her back in her attic – it would always be her attic to him. “I brought you a clean towel. In case you want a shower in the morning or anything,” he said, setting it on a chair.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. Her voice sounded husky, tired.
He longed to touch her, to squeeze her shoulder, to pull her in for a hug. Lockwood had always found it so easy to show physical affection to Lucy. It was as natural as breathing for him. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But things were different between them, now, and he was less certain than ever of what she would accept from him.
“Did you find everything you need?” he asked instead, unable to stop himself from drifting closer.
“Yeah,” she said, looking down at her knees.
“Lucy, are you sure you’re alright?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling her head up and straightening her spine. She was as tough as they came, Lucy Carlyle. He’d watched her take blow after blow and keep fighting. That was just her way; she didn’t give up. He wondered, not for the first time, why he’d been so easy for her to give up on.
“Alright, well, if you need anything, just let me know,” he said. He didn’t want her to have to be strong in front of him. And he didn’t want to pull from her already depleted emotional reserves after the night she’d had. Better to leave and let her rest, regain her strength. “You seem tired so I think I’ll let go and let you get some–”
“Lockwood…”
“Yeah?”
“Will you… will you stay? Just until I fall asleep?”
“Of course,” he said at once, before realising that he wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking him for. “Do you want me to…” he inclined his head towards the bed.
Lucy nodded. He rounded the bed and slipped out of his dressing gown, letting it fall into a heap on the ground. Lucy waited for him to climb in before switching off the bedside lamp. She scooted down under the covers, curling up on her side, her back to him, her bandaged arm sticking out at an awkward angle.
“Sorry about the bandages,” Lockwood said. “I think George and I may have been a tad overzealous.” He heard a light huff of breath that might have been the ghost of a laugh. It was enough.
Lockwood reached a tentative hand out and rested it on her shoulder. He was prepared to take it back at the first sign that his touch was unwelcome, but instead she sighed and relaxed more fully into the bed. The fact that his touch still made her feel safe, melted his insides.
He wrapped his arm around her, loosely encircling her waist and listened to her breathing in the dark room. Every few minutes the ghost lamp outside came to life, lighting up the attic even as he felt a tiny spark of hope slowly growing in his chest. Maybe she still needed him after all, could learn to trust him again.
Lockwood had spent months putting together a detailed plan on how to get Lucy back. Not just back at the agency, but back at Portland Row, back in his life. It had taken him a while to pinpoint his worst mistakes where Lucy was concerned.
The first was hiring Holly without Lucy’s input, without even telling her. He’d broken her trust by doing that and everything that followed had all cascaded from that, the cracks spreading as she stopped listening to him and worse, stopped talking to him, stopped confiding in him. He didn’t even realise the size of the chasm that had opened up between them until he lost her.
After making his entirely too long list of mistakes, he’d turned to making the Plan to get her back. He had a detailed outline, twenty steps long, buried several pages deep in a notebook, which he kept in the back of one of his desk drawers in case Holly or George ever went snooping in there.
They’d made it to step six (successfully complete a big case together) without a hitch. Step seven had been to have Lucy around for tea and a chat, which he supposed technically had just happened. The way things were going, he didn’t think step eight was going to make sense anymore. He had an opportunity here to skip ahead a bit and he fully intended to seize it with both hands.
Lockwood lay awake for a long time, reworking the Plan in his head until he was satisfied with it. He wasn’t at all sure what was coming their way next, but Lockwood was happy to improvise once he knew the general shape of the path he wanted to follow.
Lockwood’s eyes were beginning to droop and Lucy’s breathing had deepened long ago. Waking up in her bed was definitely not part of the Plan, new or old. He slowly retracted his arm from around her and slid out from under the covers. Lucy didn’t even shift. She seemed to be dead to the world.
So Lockwood, being the daredevil that he was, took a very small risk. He leaned over, planting one hand in the bed where he had just lain, and pressed a kiss into her hair. She smelled of salt and blood, her hair tangled and dusty from her harrowing escape. He told himself it didn’t matter – she was safe now.
She was home.