the blood in our future

Polar

Contrary to what George had tried to make them believe, Lucy quickly found out that researching in the Archives was far from any fun.

Currently, Lockwood and she had split up in favour of working as efficiently as possible: He was somewhere in the building, pulling up those of Ilwich's newspaper records that were stored here instead of the town library, and she was sifting through the documents George had already stolen.

Lucy let out a huff as she put one more unhelpful page of birth records to the side.

With George and Mary out and about, too, she was currently alone in the small room they'd rented. And only now that she was alone, no longer filled with anxiety for Mary, no longer sparring with Lockwood, did it dawn on her just how tired she was.

She hadn't slept much the night before they'd left for London, and staying up now certainly hadn't made things better.

But there was another thing, too.

She still felt this... unbearable coldness. The kind of coldness that wore you down, that hollowed you out. Even during training with Lockwood, she'd never fully gotten warm. And now that she wasn't moving much anymore? It was getting worse.

She'd layered two jumpers on top of each other, but they did nothing to stop it. The cold's grip on her tightened, and, slowly, Lucy began to think this might be something other than just her tired mind.

Had she caught the flu out on that clearing last night?

Well, if she had, she'd just have to push through it.

Through the cold and her tiredness: Her eyelids had started dropping, reading over headline after headline.

Roughly, she pinched her arm, wincing at the pain.

She needed to stay awake. Her friends were counting on her.

Lucy had just spotted Colby's name in old school records when a sound caught her attention.

A trickling. Quiet, but unmistakable. Somewhere, something was dripping.

A smile stole its way onto her face. Had Lockwood actually managed to waterlog something? Again?

She closed her eyes and adjusted her head to locate where it was coming from - but to no avail.

It never changed in volume, whichever way she turned.

No, that wasn't right. It did change in volume. But her position didn't matter for that.

It grew louder and louder, whichever way she turned.

Finally, she looked up - and the first drop of water landed right on her face.

She sprang back, out of her chair.

The entire ceiling was wet, was oozing. It was sagging under the weight of the water above, groaning horribly under the pressure, and it was going to fall, fall, fall any second now-

"Lucy."

There was a hand on her shoulder, and then she was back, head rising up from where it had sagged off to the side, hair covering her face.

She was sitting in her chair again, no water above her, Lockwood standing right beside her.

"You alright there? Tired?"

She felt hyper-aware and dazed at the same time, still not entirely back again. "Did I nod off?"

"Seems like it."

"I didn't even notice."

"Well, except for your tour through the house, you did stay up all night. No wonder you have trouble staying awake now." He gave her one of those grins she loved so much. Those earnest ones. Those filled with promises of inside jokes and hot tea. "Or it could be that our training just tired you out too much."