the blood in our future

The Light I'll See

A/N: Good luck!

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Lucy gasped as she woke up with a start, as her eyes cleared and filled with the view of the kitchen.

Or, rather: With the two boys leaning over her, the kitchen ceiling stealing into those rare places in between.

"Lucy!" George immediately called for her, far louder than necessary. He supported her head as it threatened to slip from her again. "You're back! Are you alright?"

"Wythburn is Colby's great-grandfather," Lucy choked out instead of an answer. "It's Theodore Wythburn. Boone tried to murder him the night they both vanished, but Theo got the upper hand and killed him, instead. He and Hedwig were friends — he searched for her family in Germany to give them closure, but only her aunt, Luisa, was left."

"Luisa Hoffmann." George's eyes grew bright. "Friedrich Hoffmann was a false name to not get caught by the police."

"He thought no one would believe that he hadn't been involved."

"But why go back to England in the first place?"

"Guilt." Lucy grimaced as she tried to sit up, as she nearly came tumbling down again. And she would have, had Lockwood not held on to her so tightly. "He felt guilty for never giving himself over to the police and hindering a proper investigation. And he felt guilty for never noticing what had been going on all those years." She swallowed. "Wythburn and Boone — they grew up together. Wythburn trusted him. Loved him." She looked to Lockwood as she said it. "He was never able to find where in his mill Boone killed all those people. But he did find the notebooks and sketches when he went back to the boarding home. Those same ones Hedwig talks about in her diary. He burned the home down, but I think he took them with him."

She nodded towards the pages strewn over the ground. "I think he copied the most important bits down onto those pages. They're a confession, of sorts. A recollection of what happened. He wanted his descendants to know the full truth. He wanted them to go to the police after he'd died."

"But they never did," George whispered, frantically reaching for the papers behind him. "Look: This here is the last page. You can see where he put his signature. And right underneath—"

"The signature of every Hoffmann and Albright and Colby who ever lived," Lucy completed. Her heart still felt weird; it beat too fast, beat too slow, but she didn't grace it with any attention. "They all decided to keep his name clean. Or their own, I suppose."

George pointed to one signature in particular. He shuffled around so Lucy could read it, too. "'It wasn't your fault, dad,'" he read aloud, "signed by Jürgen Hoffmann. And here, another one: 'Miss you', signed by Wes Albright. That's Colby's brother."

Lucy's eyes drifted towards Lockwood, as they always did. He hadn't said a single thing yet since she'd found her way out of Wythburn's memories, and it made her worry.

If he'd looked pale before, he was white as a sheet now. White as a ghost. His fingers were twisting nervously by his side, and his eyes were fixed on some point far off.

She reached for his hand, but he rose before she could take it.

George didn't notice. All of his focus was on Lucy. "Are you sure you're alright? Not that I'm not insanely glad to have you back, but that vision seemed... nasty." His eyes dropped to a wet splotch on her dress. "Not only that, but you dropped your tea when you fell. It should have scolded you."

"Must have just gotten lucky," Lockwood commented, looking out the window as if none of this concerned him. "All the sugar I added must have cooled it down."