The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Normalcy

The day started off perfectly normal, thank you very much, and the way things were looking in her life this was feeling more like the abnormal outlier of the equation rather than, well, any dictionary definition of what normality was supposed to be. It was her day off, which was nice, and as long as she could trust Doddle to man the kitchens in her absence, preferably without mixing together a delicious concoction that would leave her new curtains a smouldering pile of ash - again - then things should be as free of stress as she could manage. Admittedly, with the nature of her employment, Rachel wasn't entirely sure if she could be completely without stress - one policeman could be having just bad enough of a day to disregard the agreements in place and begin to haul decent enough folks away without a second thought, someone could miscalculate their work and have the building begin to crumble around them with ease, really even the more inconspicuous things could lead to unforeseen disastrous ends so being completely stress-free was not a possibility - but she had it in her mind that she was going to have a perfectly pleasant day and treat it as if there was even a scrap of the mundane to her existence. 

Well, this lasted for about as long as it took for the though to fully form, which was truthfully better than she usually got so she could count this as a win all the same. Her plan was to go to the marketplace and get herself a new hairpin with the little extra money she had stored away for the purpose of treating herself - and there was not a soul who would argue this, she absolutely deserved to treat herself from time to time as a reward for all she did for everyone. In fact, if anyone were to try and disagree with this, there would be at least half a dozen scientists of all manner of clandestine disciplines ready to jump to her defence at a moment's notice - which was a perfectly reasonable notion in theory. Unfortunately, as she had seen time and time again, notions that were reasonable in theory did not always translate to being quite so simple as all that. Truthfully, she would find herself a little disappointed if things did try to play out exactly as she planned, so she had already taken this thoroughly into consideration before she had even set out that morning. 

One moment she had been completely alone as she cast a curious glance through a shop window, regarding the utterly impractical - and utterly cupcakey - dresses that were being displayed there with a look of amusement, the next she was definitely not alone. Pale, clammy and slightly twitchy hands curled around her, pulling her into a clumsy hug, the owner of said hands plonking his head between her shoulder blades with a little huff. She did not need the presence of the window to inform her that she had nothing to worry about in this interaction, however, as she could not think of anyone else but Edward Hyde who would be so brazen as to greet her, and greet her publicly no less, in such a familiar manner. 

"'m sleepy..." the odd little man mumbled, not only proving her point as to who it was that had approached her with this, but also managing to actually sound genuinely tired at that moment. It was very rare, Rachel had long since concluded, for Hyde to get tired, and even rarer still that he would willingly admit it to anyone, even himself, and so this would have had to be a completely sincere utterance. Or a total lie. There were no middle grounds for the man so she just had to hope that the latter and not the former was what was presently applicable in this moment. 

"Oh, I'm sure you are," she returned softly, a distinct kindness in her voice that was not so very commonly shared in his general direction, let alone said to him specifically, "You've been out all night, little one, I'm sure you're all tuckered out. Did you want me to walk you back so you can have a nap in Jekyll's office before you toddle off home?" 

Now, she was quite aware that this offer was risky as the man was just as likely to get embarrassed and lash out as he was to actually take her up on this offer. Using the reflective nature of the window to her advantage, she was able to turn to properly assess the wiry haired blond that was presently clinging to her like a koala with no regard for the fact they were very much in the public eye. He met her gaze with his own tired eyes, tired in such a specific way that she had only ever really seen on those instances where Jekyll worked himself near to death without stopping - giving further credence to her idea that he might be a secret clandestine half-werewolf son of the doctor - and she knew that the man was not good enough as an actor to be able to falsify this very real exhaustion. 

"Mhm..." he once again mumbled in confirmation. His nod could have either been out of him furthering this agreement or just because he was so tired he could barely hold his head up long enough to even try to address her. 

With a little sigh, utterly false and she made sure that was obvious, she returned this nod.

"Let's go get you some much needed rest. You can lean on me."

This was a detour, certainly, but it was one that she had already taken into consideration. As the world's leading Edward Hyde wrangler, she knew that it was important to approach everything with the assumption that he would distract from whatever plans were at play. 
She would drop the silly little man off, make sure he has a nap, then she would head back out and carry on with how she planned her day to go. She would, really, she insists. She would not just wait to make sure the man was actually asleep, nor would she marvel about how sweet and at peace he seemed when he was asleep. 
It was late afternoon when she did head out again.