Chapter Text
As a rule, Lemony tried not to become a “regular” of any establishment. For some time, two years in fact, he had not bee a regular of any town, or of a region, or of his associates’ phone calls. He had not been a regular of a library, he had not been a regular of the prison where his sister was even though he knew he should be visiting, and no matter how hard he tried he was not a regular of a guilt-free conscience.
For the first time since he and S. Theodora Markson had left for the dying town – a term in this case meaning “a town which Lemony had failed to save, which had and would continue to plague him for many years” – of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, Lemony found himself back in the City. He’d avoided it for long enough, afraid of everyone he’d left behind, but he’d learned a very important lesson in the month he’d returned: for every volunteer and noble person in the City, there were ten times as many places to hide. A lonely soul could get lost in entire neighbourhoods, as Lemony had.
Once upon a time he’d considered himself to be one of those noble people, ready to take on the war of his predecessors against evil. Now, though, Lemony wasn’t so sure that he was any better than a man who wanted to destroy a town or a child who wrote in someone else’s beloved book.
Despite his aversion to becoming a recognizable feature in any place, he had become somewhat of a regular in the cafe around the corner from his apartment. He often sat in the back corner, a cup of steaming coffee set off the the side where it would sit untouched while he stared at the equally untouched lined pages of his journal. The bitter smell reminded him of a certain girl who’s smile could mean anything, and the nothingness he wrote reminded him of the nothingness he’d found himself accomplishing to help her. She haunted his thoughts often, but so many things haunted him that he could scarcely keep track of all the people he’d hurt anymore.
The Brew-or-Two was a drab little shop that, despite the windows that made up two walls, was constantly dark thanks to the tall buildings casting it in shadows. It was staffed with a woman who was not particularly short, not particularly thin, and not particularly friendly. Lemony suspected that her short temper had something to do the the fact that she always appeared to be juggling several tasks at once and seemed to be the only person who worked there. Oftentimes she and Lemony were the only two in the cafe, and whether it was because Lemony only left his apartment at odd hours or if it was because the place was simply too dismal to be a popular neighbourhood hangout he was still unsure. Whenever he was waiting at the counter for his coffee she would look him up and down and say–
“Aren’t you a little young to be out this late?” she asked, as if on cue.
Sighing, Lemony took the mug he was being handed. “We’re always going to be a little young for things we ought to be doing,” he told her. He turned in time to see someone in a long coat walk briskly out of the Brew-of-Two. Lemony frowned and looked back at the barista – a barista being someone who prepares various kinds of coffee, though the title was a bit of a stretch for the scowling woman that prepared only one kind of unappealing beverage. “How long was that person in here?”
The barista looked uninterestedly at the door, which was swinging shut as they spoke. “She just came in to use the restroom. None of your business.”
Lemony returned to the table in the back where he had left his messenger bag and coat. The server was right, it was none of his business, and yet he couldn’t let it go. He could hear Kit as if she sat across the table from him, though he had tried to banish her a number of times before over the lonely years, “You’re just being paranoid, L. Being back in the City is doing that to you.”
He glared at his sister. “Being paranoid and being cautious aren’t the same thing.” Kit didn’t seem convinced, so he pressed on, “Paranoia is irrational.”
“And you’re the poster-boy for rationality lately. When was the last time you weren’t afraid?”
Shame bubbled up in Lemony’s chest, hot and ugly, and he looked down at his coffee. It didn’t appeal to him any more now than it had earlier, but after a regrettably long drink he looked up to see Kit had mercifully disappeared. She was right though. ‘Later’ had come. He was always scared, never noble.
When he stood, Lemony wasn’t sure if it was cowardice or determination not to be a coward that made him stride towards the restroom. His heart hammered at he searched the room for any indication that it was just a coincidence that a girl with sunglasses and a trench coat had been leaving just as Lemony arrived. Any hope of that coincidence died when he found a folded piece of paper tucked in behind the sink. With shaking fingers, Lemony unfolded the paper to reveal a brief not written in spidery handwriting. ‘The usual place. Midnight.’ He swallowed the dread in his throat and flushed the note, where it would not be found again.
Lemony felt lightheaded as he left the restroom to gather his things. As he passed the front counter he caught the server giving him a complicated look, but Lemony couldn’t bring himself to decipher it. He wondered if he was wrong about there being places in the City to hide.
With his head down and his guard up, Lemony found his feet taking him towards the centre of town against his better judgement. It was a bad idea, and every instinct told the young writer that he should be packing his small suitcase to leave immediately. That had been his reflex: to run. He ran when danger arose, he ran when a volunteer came into the town he hid in, and he ran when a stranger gave him a look that seemed just a little too knowing for their own good. Lemony wasn’t entirely sure when he had become the kind of person to run from treachery instead of the kind who faced it boldly as it was the right thing to do. And yet, despite this pattern, Lemony found himself walking right into a dangerous game.
As it happened, this dangerous game took the shape of a nearly empty diner where Lemony had spent many nights of his childhood sitting up at the counter. The clock on the front wall ticked loudly as Lemony took his seat and he couldn’t help but watch it anxiously. He was early, quite early, but if he was sure of anything it would be that the girl who wrote the note would be early too.
Minutes ticked by while Lemony stared at the increasingly slushy root beer floats he had ordered, one for himself and one for the still-empty stool beside him. As only a few minutes turned into ten, and then fifteen Lemony felt increasingly foolish for how nervous he had been. The note had surely been for someone else, or perhaps he had made it up all together – though the likelihood of him inventing a note that didn’t really exist was less likely than inventing a conversation with a sister who wasn’t really there. Even so, he held his breath when the bel above the door rang as the clock hands hit midnight precisely.
Lemony didn’t look up from his float until he heard the stool beside him squeak. The girl who sat beside him wore a long tan trench coat ted in at her waist and a pair of sunglasses so large that they covered most of her face. For a long few minutes they stared at each other, though Lemony supposed she couldn’t be looking anywhere and he would never know. The expression on what he could see of her face was unfathomable. He turned back to his ice-cream and not long after he saw she did as well out of the corner of his eyes.
For several minutes they ate in silence, for which Lemony was thankful. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to find his voice were he addressed. It came to an end with a clipped, accusatory, “Well?”
“Well what?” He turned to see that his associate was staring at him again.
“Well, how long did you think you were going to hide out, Snicket?” Lemony could tell how hard she was trying to sound distant, as if this meeting were nothing, but her voice gave her away. It wasn’t her face, expressions perfectly masked as only a practiced across could, but her voice that always gave her away. She sounded hurt when she spoke; it made Lemony hurt as well.
Clearing his throat, Lemony set down his spoon and turned in his seat to face her. “It’s not hiding if no one is looking for you, is it?”
Lemony assumed he must have sounded pitiful because she removed her sunglasses and like that, her whole face softened. As Lemony gazed into her eyes, impossibly dark and achingly familiar, he noticed how they looked older than her remembered as if she had seen and done things far beyond her fifteen years. Lemony wondered if he looked much different to her, if the years of sitting back and doing nothing while treachery almost followed him from place to place, showed in his face.
Instead of commenting how he had changed though, she simply told him, “We are always looking for you,” in a voice so gentle that he would have missed it if she hadn’t been all he saw.
An eternity passed while they continued with their floats before his associate spoke again. “Dewey’s been dying to get his hands on your notebooks, by the way. He’s trying to catalogue everything that any volunteer has ever seen or something. Apparently it’s not good enough to share our knowledge individually anymore. Besides, we all know you’ve probably seen more of the world than we have lately,” she said as if not a day had passed since they saw each other.
It took him moment to realize what she had said. Seeing an old classmate in person was one thing, but Lemony had hardly thought that any of his old colleagues had given him much thought let alone considered him a volunteer; enough of a volunteer for Dewey’s catalog at least. He didn’t comment on it, but kept the small feeling of belonging tucked away for later. He startled even more when he felt a gentle hand on his elbow which was propped up on the counter.
“Ramona and I have been working on a research project. We’d be happy for your set of eyes if you have the time,” was what she said but Lemony knew that what she meant was, “We missed you.”
When he replied, “I’d be happy to,” he knew she knew he meant, “I have missed you too, as surely as the sun rises.”
The girl popped off her stool and popped on her sunglasses. “We’ll be at the cinema in the morning, Snicket. You know how to get there.” For a moment she lingered there, and the slighted twitch of her lips upward was enough for Lemony’s heart to stutter.
He watched her as she left and continued to look out the door into the night long after she was gone. On his lips he could feel his reply and her name, which he hadn’t dared even think while he’d been away. She was too far gone to hear him when he replied. “I’ll see you there, Beatrice.”