Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sudden downpour hit as they were walking home from a case, glad of the cool air and companionable silence in the early spring morning after a tense and difficult case.

Lucy watched George’s brow furrow, saw Lockwood’s jaw tense, the long years of shouldering adult responsibilities bowing down their teenage backs.

With more feeling than intention, she thought back to the snatches of joy she’d had in her too-short childhood.

It was the work of a moment to grab the boys’ hands in hers and pull them into the deserted road, running with gleeful abandon towards the rapidly-forming puddles.

Chapter Text

Rule one of a haunted house: don’t linger in the doorway. There’s something about thresholds, the spaces betwixt and between, where an unwary agent can get trapped by unmade decisions.

The space between days. Midnight means nothing to a manifestation, but the tipping of one day into another can make an unwise operative think that the night is nearly over when it’s only just beginning.

Florence knew this, knew to put her faith in the iron crucifixes rather than the time. The two Rawbones didn’t care that midnight had passed.

She did, though.

Hold onto hope.

Four hours ‘til dawn.

Chapter Text

Mrs Carlyle wasn’t one for baking with her kids, handing down treasured family recipes from her maternal bosom. Lucy had lived on toast and takeaways for years, but under George’s (im)patient tutelage, she was starting to feel less intimidated in the kitchen.

When she’d gone a fortnight without burning anything, George trusted her enough to bake unsupervised.

Sitting together that afternoon, the delicious aroma of fresh-baked scones scenting the air, Lucy beamed with pride at being able to nourish herself and her family.

As George grumbled his approval and critique, Lockwood brushed flour from her cheek with a fond smile.

Chapter Text

The steady plunk of dripping blood filled Lucy with horror, tapping straight into the terrified bit of her mind where she stored her memories of the Red Room at Combe Carey Hall; she’d insisted on calling a plumber immediately they’d returned, unable to stand the sound of the dripping tap in George’s bathroom one second more.

Her overclocked brain fought to pull her away from the present, her stained hands holding Kipps together as he painted the institute floor crimson with his lifeblood.

Poppies bloomed on his shirt, petals falling on the tiles around them, brash red on stark white.

Chapter Text

Crisp leaves crunched underfoot as Lucy hurried home, the pre-dawn light painting the streets in russets and shadows, promising another fine autumn day.

Tumbling through the front door in a whirl of sharp air, she dumped her gear in the hall and went through to the library, standing by the wide window to watch the dancing leaves, savouring the pocket of peace before the adult world stirred.

Rubbing sleep from his bleary eyes as he came up from the basement, Lockwood stopped abruptly at the library door, struck dumb by her serenity and his suddenly wheeling, racing, falling heart.

Chapter Text

Gifts from grateful clients ranged from the useful (the veg from Aldebury Castle had fed them for a week) to the baffling (the suit of armour, currently used to dry towels in the basement).

The bottle of 30y Tallisker had been an unexpected bonus, but it had slipped down a little too easily last night, he and George celebrating the books being back in the black once Lucy had rolled her eyes fondly and gone to bed.

Waking up sprawled in his armchair in the library, head pounding, stomach roiling, regrets rising, he feared they’d celebrated a little too well.

Chapter Text

It didn’t sink in when he saw the space in the hall where her boots weren’t, nor when he touched her mug left on the shelf, bone dry. George’s stricken face registered distantly, as did Holly’s set shoulders and intermittent sniffs.

It was only when he stood at the top of the attic stairs, faced with the irrefutable emptiness of the little room, that it hit him. She’d gone. Lucy had left him.

Grief slammed into him like a tidal wave. Floorboards dug into his knees, rocks in his chest, as loss filled his lungs and drove out his breath.

Chapter Text

Lucy had stopped following their fight some time ago, sketching peacefully at the table while the boys seethed at opposite ends. Her pencil paused at a particularly loud interjection from George.

“It's insupportable, Lockwood! Tom Baker is objectively the superior Doctor, and Classic Who the superior era!”

“Time moves on and we do too, George! NuWho has bigger plots and better companions!”

“How dare you! Philistine!”

“You’re too easily entertained, George. A quirky scarf and mad intonation does not a character make!”

“Says you! You only like 10 for his tight suits!”

Lucy sighed and turned back to her sketchbook.

Chapter Text

It should have been raining. If there was any justice in the world, it would be raining.

Holly snorted mirthlessly. If there was any justice in the world, there would be four flag-draped rapiers surrounded by grieving mourners here, not three. She’d be with her team, not standing stiff and isolated in Rotwell’s impersonal crematorium hall.

She’d not be paralysed with grief and loss, staring down the barrel of her remaining Talented years haunted by the memory of her companions, with no-one to turn to and no-one left to confide in.

She’d never felt this desolate in all her life.

Chapter Text

Licking his lips as he slid the clasp into place beneath her beautiful auburn hair, he tasted triumph. Annie knew the power of her own beauty, yes, and god knows she used it in equal parts to delight and torment him, but he’d won now. The necklace rested low on her neck, where a collar would sit, and he’d been meticulous about the hidden inscription.

An amulet to protect her from Hugo Blake’s odious attentions, to mark her out as his alone. No more poisonous jealousy, no more waiting in empty cars or dimly-lit restaurants.

She was his. His. Forever.

Chapter Text

It was stupid, really, considering what they faced down every night, that a slamming door made Lucy jump out of her skin and drop the mug she was drying.

Shards ricocheted across the floor and she froze, horrified, as she realised that she’d broken Lockwood’s favourite mug into hundreds of pieces.

Ears ringing with the memory of beefy slaps and vicious words, she turned wide eyes to Lockwood as he skidded into the kitchen.

“Everything alright, Luce? I heard a crash – hey, it’s okay, what’s all this? Come here, Lucy, it’s alright, please don’t cry. You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

Chapter Text

The realisation crept up on him by degrees, then all at once. The thirst for recognition, renown, which had driven him onto unprecedented success by his teens, his eponymous gallery in his early twenties, and recently establishing a world-class fencing academy, had ebbed and settled by gradual degrees.

Waking up on his thirtieth birthday, Lucy snoring gently in his arms, rain pattering on the eaves and a casebook that’d been empty for years, he realised that he’d reached the point he’d railed against his whole adolescence.

Lockwood – happy, healthy, healed – had entered his wilderness years, and he couldn’t care less.

Chapter Text

Five cups of tea, a new packet of digestives, a new Thinking Cloth. The old world has ended, and the new one is yet to be born; now is the time of familiar comforts. The five agents sat round the table in the trashed kitchen in slightly stunned silence, the potential repercussions of the cataclysmic events at Fittes House beginning to sink in as DEPRAC noisily dismantled their spirit-gate upstairs.

Quill drained his mug, setting it down with a thunk and sitting back in his chair.

“Well. Best get to it, eh? Shift yourself, George, let’s start with the library.”

Chapter Text

Deep in the bowels of Chelsea, far from light and warmth and all her friends, hard stone scraped Lucy’s knees as she sobbed her heartbreak into the dark. The hollow boy hovered silently just beyond her reach, his face a wordless mask of reproach.

Lucy had lost too many people in her short life already, but she’d never had to grieve someone before they’d died. Kneeling before the ghost of Lockwood yet to come, the pain tore through her as her future unspooled. Leaving her friends, losing her friends, on purpose? By choice? Lucy had never known grief like it.

Chapter Text

Lockwood had noticed a disturbing trend in his daydreams recently. He and Lucy were growing closer, and he wasn’t an idiot – he knew he fancied her, and had indulged himself with fantasies of touches, kisses, heated whispers in the night.

But since they’d returned from the Wintergarden case, his daydreams had gotten out of control. He spent one evening wondering what she might look like in twenty years, silver threads in her hair and laughter creasing her eyes. The other morning, how it might feel to wake up still wrapped around each other.

It didn’t feel like a crush anymore.

Chapter Text

The realisation sank through him like milk in hot tea. He’d seen his parents’ love for him and Jess propel them across the world and back, felt their loss in the devastatingly acute way children do. Adored his sister, and howled his grief to the moon when she was taken from him.

This didn’t feel like a crush. This felt like love, again, quiet but immovable, and the depth of it left him breathless and reeling.

Hot on the heels of this realisation came another. Lockwood knew fear, now. The idea of losing Lucy frightened him to his soul’s core.

Chapter Text

Three figures sat on the river wall, slumped and exhausted as the moon peeped through the clouds behind Tower Bridge.

“But it’s fascinating! You must appreciate that, this could re-write history as we know it!”

Lucy laid back on the damp grass, one arm over her face.

“Please shut up, George, I can’t think about it too much or my head will explode.”

“But it was her! Lizzie’s ghost, in the Tower, when she supposedly died in Scotland!”

Lockwood laughed humourlessly, pale face scratched and bleeding.

“It’s the last time we take a bloody royal commission, I’ll tell you that.”

Chapter Text

Golden sunlight streamed through the attic window, dust motes dancing in the beams. Lucy could hear George clattering about in the kitchen, the scent of something delicious wafting up the stairs, promising another leisurely breakfast where they laughed and ate, heedless of the clock and casebook.

Lockwood’s heart beat sure and strong under her cheek, their fingers tangled together, long limbs wrapped around the other in sleeping and waking. She was content enough to lie still and listen to him sleep, safe and secure in her bed, her arms, her heart.

She was in no rush to leave their paradise.

Chapter Text

Every agent has their own white whale, the one skill or item that we pour our energy and resources into perfecting. Lockwood had his finely-balanced rapiers. I had my emotional connection with ghosts. George had his Thermos.

Huddled in the smallest iron circle we could feasibly squeeze into, four howling Wraiths hemming us in, George’s quest for thermodynamic perfection paid off.

“Three sugars and a splash, that’s yours, Lucy. Milk no sugar, there you go, and that one’s mine. Mind out, it’s hot. Noisy buggers, aren’t they?”

The Visitors wailed and hissed, awaiting dispatch, but our tea break is sacrosanct.

Chapter Text

It seemed like fate: he and Lucy had finally sorted themselves out and had agreed on a first date, and lo and behold: the Royal Collections were reopening some of their galleries, lavender-strewn and laced with iron and silver. Wandering through daytime London, holding his girlfriend’s hand, Lockwood couldn’t be happier.

Seeing Lucy’s eyes light up and the way her fingers flew over the pages of her sketchbook as they took in the mournful, beautiful canvas before her, Lockwood found he’d answered the question he’d asked of his family’s graves. This, right here? This is what he’d been fighting for.

Chapter Text

Punishment had fallen swift and sure: demotion, colleagues not meeting his eye, a string of mismanaged, understaffed cases. Kipps had seen the writing on the wall and escaped with what remained of his dignity.

With no money, security, or plan, he’d gritted his teeth and done the only thing he could think of.

Portland Row had plenty of intersecting alleys to lurk in. It was a matter of moments to spot his last hope striding along the pavement, and stroll out with studied nonchalance to “accidentally" cross paths.

“Alright, Tony? Fancy a brew? I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

Chapter Text

Each incomprehensible heartbeat resonates through Lockwood’s body, tiny repetitions of the massive concussive wave that slammed him into the wall and out of the world. Surely, then, I must be dead, he thinks muzzily, because Jess is here to look after me. She’s the only one who’d look this concerned, that’d hold my hand with such tenderness, who’d call my name with such care.

The echoes of sister’s voice faded from his ears as he returned to his own aching self, his sharpening vision fixated on the focal point of a pair of storm-blue eyes creased in worry and love.

Chapter Text

Recent events lay heavily, and the process of clearing and repairing their home rendered Lockwood more open, more nostalgic, but brittle and occasionally humourless too. Jokes landed, until they didn’t, and each restored room unearthed a new cache of memories to process.

Kipps lost his patience as they were stripping the childish paper from Jessica’s walls. A glib comment had lit the blue touchpaper, and Lockwood ended up in Kipps’ face, all shallow breathing and clenched teeth.

The temptation was too much.

One little nose boop and the girls collapsed in giggles, George hooting with laughter, as Lockwood spluttered indignantly.

Chapter Text

Spring hadn’t fully chased away the horrors of the Black Winter, and Lockwood was more alert than usual since Lucy had, tentatively, reappeared in their lives. When the doorbell rang, long after dark and George and Holly tucked up safely in their respective beds, he was prepared to battle whatever spectre awaited.

What he hadn’t prepared for was the sight of Lucy, his Lucy, grey-faced and exhausted on the step, one hand stained crimson and a ragged gash in her sleeve.

He’d faced terrors that winter, Wraiths and Rawbones galore, but the fear was nothing compared to seeing Lucy injured.

Chapter Text

It fitted like a glove, far more than the generic name he’d been saddled with by his parents. Cruel children had seized on his taste for fitted clothes, shiny shoes, fastidious manners, and one chance remark flew round the playground faster than wind.

“What a ponce, I bet he uses a quill instead of pencil to do his homework.”

Kipps had drawn it around him, shining like armour. The jewels on his pommel, the set of his hair, his immaculate uniform, his unique name. In a sea of faceless silver-clad agents, he’d ensured that no-one could ever overlook him again.

Chapter Text

Lockwood realised his mistake almost immediately. What could be more natural than to drop a quick kiss to Lucy’s cheek as he rose from the crowded table, a long day of paperwork ahead? They were together, after all, even if they were supposed to be keeping it under wraps.

George’s eyes glinted mischievously as the heat rose in Lockwood’s face.

“Do I get one too, or is this sudden affection just for Lucy?”

Holly giggled.

“How continental. Bye darlings, mwah!”

Lucy cleared her throat, eyes blazing.

“Girlfriend privileges only, I’m afraid.”

And reeled him back in for a proper kiss.

Chapter Text

Sykes had seen enough angry kids get distracted and die to be wary of taking on any recently bereaved apprentices – which was a task, given that 9 year olds aren’t known for their rational thinking. Plus, you’d be hard-pressed to find a family that wasn’t touched by loss after a half-century of the Problem.

Everything in him screamed that taking on little Anthony Lockwood would be a mistake – too young, too much grief, too risky. But the lad was a natural with a sword, and besides – Sykes didn’t stand a chance against the steely determination in the wee man’s face.

Chapter Text

Dropping the orange peel in the simmering syrup, George sent a silent apology to his mum for deviating from her long-perfected recipe. His deft fingers handled the thin phyllo as carefully as the delicate archival papers, and the scent of warmed pistachio and sweet citrus drifted through the house.

George had done his research. Tablespoons of sugar in her coffee, liquorice stashed in every coat pocket, chocolates proffered at his sickbed.

He wasn’t the best at using his words, but George hoped that his baklava – made with love and a full jar of honey – was the way to her heart.

Chapter Text

Neither of their secretaries would meet his eye. One answered a phone in a hushed voice, the other studiously busy with paperwork. Unease mounting, he strode through their room and made to open their shared office door.

Locked.

High heels tapped behind him. He turned, unease coalescing into cold fury.

“Ah, Tom! As you see, there’s been a slight change in our little organisation. The solicitors will talk you through the details, but it’s all quite settled. It’s been fun, dearest, but we’re going in different directions.”

Marissa smiled thinly.

“Goodbye, Tom. The Fittes Agency thanks you for your service.”

Chapter Text

“How could you, George? After everything we’ve been through? We’re your friends! How could you think it didn’t matter to us?!”

Lucy’s flushed face and quivering voice spoke to her heartbreak, as did Lockwood’s icy stare and folded arms.

“She’s right, George. You’re our friend. What were you thinking?”

George polished his glasses with self-conscious defiance.

“I really didn’t think you’d care that much. I’m just the spare wheel sometimes, I figured you’d catch up without me.”

Lucy recoiled like he’d slapped her.

“George, you idiot! Bake Off Saturdays are sacred! You can’t just watch the next episode without us!”

Chapter Text

Things had yet to settle completely after Lucy’s return to Portland Row. At a loose end, she did more odd jobs around the house: cooking, sorting their salt supplies, even dusting the library (once).

Lucy turned on the radio and started the dishes. Smooth 90s RnB filled the kitchen, and Lucy hummed along, then sang quietly. By the time the chorus hit, she was in full-blown karaoke mode with the scrubbing brush.

Holly materialised, feather duster microphone in hand, just in time for the bridge, and as they belted out the final verse together, Lucy knew everything would be alright.

Chapter Text

Lucy poked suspiciously with her fork, fastidious as a crime scene investigator.

“This is Holly’s doing, isn’t it?”

Twin sighs from the boys at either side. George pushed his glasses up his nose, then wagged a finger.

“Get it down you. Fruit won’t kill you, and frankly, I’m shocked you’ve managed all this time without getting scurvy or something.”

Lockwood tried not to laugh at Lucy’s pout, and again at the suspicion on her face as she speared the tiniest possible sliver of blueberry pancake and nibbled it like it might explode.

“Hmph. It’s fine. I still prefer chocolate though.”

Chapter Text

Water lapped gently at the jetty’s pilings, the tide rising to kiss the tips of Flo’s enormous boots. She sat back, swinging her legs to the tune in her head, watching the world go by. Afternoon faded softly into early evening, and the river sang beneath her. The air moved.

“Evening, Flo. This seat taken?”

A smile, a nod, and George flumped down by her side.

Wordlessly proffering a bag of liquorice, he pushed his glasses up his nose and sat back with her.

Side by side, linked fingers a speech unspoken, they watched the sun set over their city.

Chapter Text

He’d not meant to, the first time. Walking back from the Furnaces one night in that interminable winter, he’d glimpsed auburn hair and followed without thinking, so glad that Lucy was alive and well that he’d not realised he’d accidentally followed her home like some deranged stalker.

The second time, and third, and fourth, he couldn’t pretend to himself that it was an accident. Heart roiling with pain and longing, a thousand conversations and a thousand more rejections crowding his head, Lockwood kept to the shadows of Lucy’s new life, too hurt to get closer, too heartsick to stay away.

Chapter Text

Returning to the living world, vitality poured back into every nerve ending, every sense roaring in jubilation at the proof positive of being a living, breathing, joyous soul.

Unfortunately for Kipps, that also meant an overwhelming fire in his abdomen and the disconcerting sensation of feeling life pour back into his body, only to drain immediately to pool on the floor below him.

He watched the colour leech from his hands, ashen under the harsh fluorescent lights, and thought to himself: if I’m to burn, I’d rather be ashes in the real world than a ghost in the next one.

Chapter Text

Raised by distant parents, old-fashioned nannies, a gruff uncle, and a traumatised sister, Lockwood had learned early on to keep people at arm’s length. Literally. That’s why he was so good with a rapier.

Lucy didn’t get the memo, apparently. She’d held his hand a lot before they’d gotten together, sure, but it was a whole new world as his girlfriend. Brushing his hair off his forehead. Shoulder squeezes and footsie under the table. Reading on the sofa, lying with her legs or head in his lap.

Brick by brick, each caress dismantled his defences, and he’d never been happier.

Chapter Text

Chronology is largely optional when you’re a ghost. Like sneezing, or sex. Fun if you’re in the mood, and it can scratch an itch sometimes, but you can bimble along just fine without it.

Skull had been drifting for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to experience time passing. Cut adrift from his friends, his life, even his name, it’d been easy enough to float along his afterlife like flotsam in the sewers.

Lucy crashed through his consciousness like a firework, and the timeless boy found himself counting down the minutes until he could speak with her again.

Chapter Text

Despite the late hour, little Bobby Vernon was practically vibrating on the long walk back from the Clerkenwell Furnaces to the Fittes dorms.

“I knew the new database cross-referencing system would prove itself! How that imbecile Karim could possibly think his one-man, pen and paper operation could stand up against all our resources- he’s deluded. Truly, one more mistake like that and DEPRAC will have no choice but to shutter Lockwood’s ramshackle outfit!”

Kipps’ stomach dropped. Heedless of Bobby’s crowing, he pictured his future without Tony’s sparring, Lucy’s glower, Karim’s outwards sloppiness and inwards brilliance.

Its bleakness snatched his breath.

Chapter Text

Lucy’s spirited defence of the night-watch kids at Kensal Green pulled Lockwood up short. Born and raised in London, he’d not thought overmuch about the child army deployed throughout the city – only pitied their poor training, tossed a coin in a collection bucket every Christmas, listened to their reports before shooing them away.

They were just there in the background, a necessary part of the capital’s makeup that he’d begun to take for granted.

No longer. He saw their sunken eyes, thin fingers, slumped shoulders, unbrushed hair, unloved souls, everywhere he went.

His city was haunted by the lost children.

Chapter Text

It’d taken the boys some time to get used to living with a girl – regular laundry and no more pantsless breakfasts were adjustments.

Polite distance reigned until the morning after a particularly noisy case where Lucy had taken a psychic battering. They’d found her curled up on the sofa, fumbling her book shut with a blush as they entered. George rescued it from the floor.

“Ooh, Lucy! Rivals? The library never has that in and Riders was a scream, can I have a lend?”

Fervour ignited in Lucy’s eyes as she launched into the relative merits of Romance versus Rutshire.

Chapter Text

With work and patience, I can make sense of any problem. Even the Problem, if given access to the right libraries. People? Not so much. Too many variables. They don’t follow the right scripts. Lockwood was alright, I had him solved in a week or so – charisma, howling void of insecurity, good hair. Predictable.

Lucy was different. Her rough edges fitted alongside mine. Her chaos wasn’t chaotic. We were friends.

I’ve been a bit alone my whole life. The odd duck in the flock of swans.

When she left, that bleak midwinter? That was the first time I felt lonely.

Chapter Text

Combat boots on frozen ground, the first geese overhead. The winter had been long, lonely, endless. Until it did. My routine disrupted by one boy’s greed, who died empty-handed and alone in a cold graveyard. His killers hunting me through the dark streets, bleeding and desperate, until I followed my feet and went home.

The winter hadn’t been kind to my boys either, and even the implacable Holly was showing signs of strain. The frost between us took time to thaw.

I saw a daisy this morning, fighting its way out of the winter’s cold embrace. Things will be okay.

Chapter Text

A Klondike prospector reckoned that only 3 in every 100 prospective miners made their living from finding gold. Howard Carter was 48 when he plundered Tutankhamun’s tomb. Most pirates didn’t bury their gold, but that doesn’t stop people hunting for it.

I’ve spent my life digging through print and paper, panning for the nuggets I need to keep my friends safe and solve this fascinating Problem.

When Lockwood dropped Occult Theories into my battered lap, none of us had any idea what treasure it contained. Such a little pamphlet, to unlock the answers to so many of my biggest questions.

Chapter Text

Crouching behind crates, they watched the scientists swarm over the armoured man, removing thick steel plates, shouting to the medics for heat packs and adrenaline shots.

The man practically had to be carried out of the room, pale and weak from his journey across the Other Side. The Creeping Shadow was a lot less frightening this side of the iron circle.
Lockwood nudged Lucy.

“I’ll not hear another word from Kipps against our cloaks. Primitive? Bollocks. The best scientists in Britain, and this is the best they’ve come up with? I’ll stick with the feathers, thanks. Besides, pink suits me.”

Chapter Text

“Curséd beast! Begone! There’s only room for one unholy spirit in this squalid bedsit and it’s ME!”

Lucy sighed.

“It’s really not that bad, Skull. Please stop with the histrionics.”

“Not that bad? NOT THAT BAD? I know tormented spirits, Lucy, being a fine specimen of such myself, and that is the most hideous, awful, wretched wailing I’ve ever heard! Accurséd soul, torture us no longer!”

Rolling her eyes, Lucy flicked the lever on Skull’s jar shut, ignoring his fizzing protests, and turned up the radio.

“Shut it, philistine. Kate Bush is brilliant, and that’s the end of the matter.”

Chapter Text

Getting stabbed in the gut was not part of Kipps’ plan to take down Marissa. Bleeding all over the laboratory floor wasn’t very dashing-hero of him, and the less said of being wheeled out on a trolley like so much dirty laundry, the better.

Fittes’ had been cutthroat. A colleague’s injury was an opportunity for self-advancement, stepping over their bones to your next promotion. Frailty was a death sentence.

The care and compassion that awaited him at Portland Row was difficult to stomach, to begin with. Battle scars take time to heal. But with time, tea, and love, they did.

Chapter Text

A tiny part of his brain screamed at him to snap out of it. He’d known that La Belle Dame wouldn’t need to look hard to find his heart’s desire.

A curl of her finger, lips curving in invitation, and Lockwood was lost. Through the theatre, up the stage steps, through fire and raging waters: wherever Lucy went, Lockwood would follow.

Entranced, ensnared, enchanted. He’d do anything she asked, no matter the cost.

Thank god for the real Lucy, slicing through the air, the ghost, the glamour.

She asked him to come back to her.

How could he possibly refuse?