alternate universe where Lockwood and Lucy kiss before she leaves Lockwood and Co, after their argument in the Cafe. There's also a sad twist in the end so stay around for that
the start of this fic is basically the Creeping Shadow's plot, except th...
🎵Did i drive you away? I know what you'll say You'll say 'ooh sing one we knoww' But i promise you this: I'll always look out for you Yeah that's what I'll do🎵 -Sparks by Coldplay
After I relayed the good news back to George and Holly i headed into the Library to lay down by the firelight. Thunder rolled in outside the windows, rain pounding against the glass, as if trying to break in. I found it calming, it kept me awake but also relaxed my inner senses, keeping them dulled and numb. I laid there staring into the amber flames dancing along the coal. She had said yes, she had agreed to work the case with us. It was perfect, fantastic. But there was a part of me that couldn't help but chide in, we were only on one case. 'Two days max.' Is what i had told her. And it was true, the longest we would take was two days. Only two days i would see her. Only a day i could fight alongside her once again.
That night was just like any other night in my room at Portland Row. I could not sleep. I got up went into the kitchen and made tea. I got up and went down to the basement, wrote a few notes into our case file or punctured a few rapier slashes into Floating Joe. Anything to keep my mind off the guilt, anything to shut out the replaying voice of the girl i let slip away from me. Faster i moved, my plimsoles squeaked on the basement floor, dust plumed up off the chalk circle below my feet. Sweat beaded along the sides of my forehead. I did not want to remember it, the embarrassment of it all filled inside me. I had kissed my coworker, i was a disgrace. I had some nerve asking her back on a case with me. Faster, i pushed myself, encircled Floating Joe, his top hat discarded on the floor. Day-light slowly began to stream in through the windows.
"Can't sleep?" My shoe jutted forward emitting a particularly loud squeak on the floor, i halted, startled, Floating Joe swung to and fro awaiting another attack. I nudged his side with my rapier, kept him spinning, it was Holly, behind me. I could see her just out of the corner of my eye. Dressed in neat cherry red dress and white blouse. "Eh, thought i should get some practice in before our case tomorrow." I huffed, spinning Joe on his chain. "You mean today." Holly corrected, moving away from the doorway and towards our desks. Idly passed Lucy's old desk. My jaw clenched, i picked up my pace once again, lashing out at the straw dummy. "You know, you're going to work yourself to death, Lockwood. You need rest, you need a good diet. And you need to let Lucy go.." She said the last part in a smaller voice, but it was direct, carried with venom.
"I have let her go, she's not here is she?" I waved my free hand about the room to emphasise my statement. Holly laughed. "Well no she's not, yet. You will find a way to bring her back, and she will listen to you. I know you will. She is meant to be in this company." I could hear the smile on Holly's face, it started to weird me out. I slowed, and looked at her. She was looking at our case file, her polished finger's flicking through the pages. "Yeah well it's not our business anymore." She looked at me, sadness in her eyes. "I know." "The case is just one night, two nights max." She slowly walked towards me, looked up at me. "You need sleep Lockwood, you look as deathly as a visitor." "I'm fine." I shrugged, i had enough of her at that point. Her and George, they always looked at me with that concern. I was fine, that was the truth. I was doing just fine. "Sorry to bother you, Holly." I went and put my rapier in the pot by the corner of the room. Wiped sweat off my forehead, and went up to my room.
As i passed I stopped. A tingling feeling passed through me, urged me to go further, up to the attic.
The attic used to be my room, when i was very young. I still remembered looking out the window and seeing the garden below, where the ghosts of my parents stood for only a moment, hand in hand staring up at me. But now the room had changed, photographs of Lucy's friends from her home town had been taped to the brick wall, or stuck to the mirror. This room now held George's clothes. Socks lay across the floor and shirts on the radiator. I frowned in disgust, this was a place to keep it just how it was, not fill up with dirty laundry. I looked around, perused at the wooden wardrobe, and the window that over-looked the city. I sat on the edge of the bed, sat there in silence.
I could remember the time in Kensal Green Cemetery, when Lucy had cut her arm badly with her rapier. I cleaned her wound up here. After an argument. I had told her about a part of my past, i was finally ready to share. And we were so close, my hand in hers. The room still had a hint of her perfume.
I suddenly needed to get out of there. I couldn't sit there, thinking of her like that. I could imagine her face, pure horror, maybe she would yell, or maybe she would storm out not saying anything.
Or maybe, just maybe, i was the real reason she left.
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