Chapter Text
It takes a few days for it to all sink in. After all, Lockwood & Co. gets a tad busy in the immediate aftermath, what with the break-in and their biggest job to date, the NDA and nearly dying once or twice. Eventually, though, Lockwood runs out of excuses for why he’s still dwelling on the little experiment he authorized, Lucy attempting to divine the story of Annie Ward’s Source via Touch.
Perhaps, he reasons, it’s because this was the first time he was forced to confront the danger of Lucy’s Talent. He can further reason that his lingering preoccupation is based in concern for his team’s welfare, in a desire to anticipate risk. Of course he’d known, even from her interview, that Lucy’s Talent was strong - and it had worried him then, too, if only for a moment. But this was the first time he’d seen firsthand the very real threat it could pose if he let down his guard, let her get carried away.
One night, he falls into a fitful sleep recalling his body curled around Lucy’s as a shield. It bleeds into his dreams, something soft and watercolor - eyes huge, hands reaching; you love me, don’t you - sharpening into something frantic - stop, you’re hurting me! - a magnesium burst behind closed eyelids. He wakes with a shout caught hoarse and lifeless in his throat, unuttered.
Another time, in an empty warehouse, without a second thought, he shoves her out of the way, upon noticing a phantom reaching for her out of the corner of his eye. Only a Shade: easily dodged, had he simply shouted. It takes solid minutes till Lucy’s grumbling from the cold concrete floor breaks through his haze; it’s not till she lobs an especially choice epithet that he even realizes what he’s done. He locks eyes with her, and maybe she glimpses something there, a hint of what he can’t unsee, because she softens. He crouches to pull her up, and she rewards him with the smallest smile. It’s enough of a reset to launch them both back to the task at hand. The slight is forgotten by the time Lockwood hands her the thermos of Pitkin’s a half-hour later, feeling his hand linger of its own volition, seeking, as though Lucy’s hand were warmer than the tea.
Time passes. Things change. The dynamic at 35 Portland Row shifts.
Not everything alters. Still he finds himself retracing those well-trodden mental pathways.
Lucy’s fingers twitching to grasp his, on impulse. An answer to a question it would take him another year and a dozen mistakes and misses to realize he was asking, every time he grabbed her hand in the heat of the moment. With Annabel’s ring balanced in her palm, Lucy perhaps asking a similar question of her own: Are you there? Could you look out for me? Will you stay?
The same soft plea that bleeds into his every interaction, if he’s not careful:
Don’t leave me.
Lately, it seems like everything he tries only pushes Lucy further from him. Which should be good, he should want the distance, only… Only he’s selfish, and he doesn’t, and somehow he just keeps making everything worse.
Look at me. Look.
Over and over, she puts herself in danger, puts them all in danger, and then acts like he’s smothering her with every plea for caution. They snap and bicker and find themselves at odds when they should be on the same team. Lucy glares at Holly every time her back’s turned, and George stares at Lockwood like it’s his fault for bringing this down on all their heads. London is going to shit around them and all he can think about is how long it’s been since he’s felt the familiar comfort of Lucy’s hand in his.
Let me go! I can’t… Let me breathe! Let go of me!
It’s not until she leaves that he really hears what she was saying, that he realizes all she heard was that he blamed her, blamed her Talent, didn’t trust her. He’d give anything to do it over again, but it’s been a long time since he’s had the luxury of believing in second chances.
Lockwood stares down at the broken headphones on the attic floor. He hadn’t noticed them until he heard the crunch underfoot. Stupidly, his first thought is that Lucy must be grumpy without them, that maybe he should look up her new address and return them to her.
As if she’d even open the door to him. She’s almost certainly gone out and replaced them by now. Just a stupid pair of cheap headphones, damaged now beyond repair.
He shouldn’t have been up here in the first place. It’s dangerous, every bit as much as much as the not-quite-empty bedroom downstairs.
Unbidden, a memory arises, another time he trespassed here. He’d knocked, at least, but the door was open; and when he poked his head around the door to see why Lucy hadn’t answered, the reason was obvious: she had these headphones plonked over her ears. He’d started to say something, but the words dried up in his throat, and he just stood there with his mouth half-open for several minutes. She was dancing along to an unheard melody, humming to herself, enthusiasm more than making up for any lack of talent in either arena. It must have been one of her favorites, though from the snatches he caught, Lockwood couldn’t quite place the tune.
She’d been facing away from him, toward the window, tidying a pile of sketchbooks and, just for a moment, living in her own world, one uninterrupted by hauntings or curious housemates. The skull had spotted him, though, from its perch on the windowsill. It made a terribly knowing face, eyes narrowed, then clearly letting out a cackle that made Lockwood immensely grateful the lever on top of the jar was shut. Whether it was the skull’s distasteful expressions or the prospect of disturbing Lucy’s simple happiness, Lockwood decided he didn’t really need to interrupt her right then, and left her to her dancing.
And now she’s gone, and he’s left clinging to a stolen scene and a memento. It’s all a little too much like that time Lucy and George convinced him it would do no harm to play with a pilfered Source and Lucy had wound up more or less possessed.
She loves him. She’s dancing to the song. He’s watching her. He wants her, but it’s just…
He recalls Lucy’s hands on his face, and his cheeks burn.
At the time, he hadn’t quite recognized the guilty thing thunking heavily in his gut for what it was: the feeling of wanting something that wasn’t, and never would be, his to want.
She comes home, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like he can catch his breath.
Lucy’s back where she belongs, safe and sound under the warm and welcoming eaves of 35 Portland Row. Well - welcoming, anyway; warm might be a stretch, until Lockwood finds the time to fix the seal around the attic window that looks out over the street. Still, he can’t shake the fear that her presence is only temporary, any more than he can shake the memory of a half-gone Lucy clutching at his chest while she suffocated secondhand.
Then they walk through death, side by side. She falls, her cloak tears, and he feels something in his ribcage correspondingly rend in two. He pulls her up, against his side, and for a fleeting second, before they’re back to running, he thinks maybe shielding Lucy is the closest he’ll come to a life’s meaning.
The truth settles, as most do, in scattered pieces. They’re strongest not as one standing in front of the other, but side-by-side. There’s something to be said for knowing each other’s weak spots, wading into uncertainty with confidence, trusting that if they can’t pull themselves out, the other will. It’s what he does for Lucy, shoulder to shoulder while she engages the ghost that should be - yet isn’t - Marissa Fittes; and it’s what he asks Lucy to do, hands clasped in a graveyard, with the sounds of her wrestling a sword out of a chained boy’s hands still ringing in his ears.
When it all comes to a head and his body is curled around a bomb, he remembers a ghost-girl’s fury exploding in his living room, tackling his bullheaded Listener to the floor. This time, he’s wrestling a woman who refuses to die, callous to the cost she’s never been the one to pay, and his bullheaded Listener stands frozen, stubborn to the very end.
“I’ll stay with you,” she whispers, and under better circumstances, he’d be rejoicing. As it is, her words still echo even above the post-concussive pulsing when they both come to after the blast. As he encases a blearily blinking Lucy in a crushing hug, certainty settles beneath his breastbone: it’s past time she heard the same.
There’s Lucy, thumping down the steps - his heart leaps. The sapphire necklace gleams around her throat; he swallows a lump in his.
“I see you got started on that paperwork.”
Her smile could replace a hundred ghost-lamps. “I’m a conscientious employee, what can I say?”
It’s clear she threw on her jacket in a hurry; it’s a tad lopsided, and she struggles for a moment with the zipper. Unable to help himself, Lockwood reaches over to tug it up for her.
He clears his throat. “Ready, Luce?”
She beams at him, eyes shining. “Ready.”
The autumn chill has only just begun to settle in, but her cheeks are already pink before they close the door behind them. Her blush is warm, inviting. He can see it, finally, the future where it’s his hand on her face, carefully guiding her nearer.
Just as they step over the iron line, Lucy takes his hand.