Lockwood & Co. AU

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((A/N: I'm super sorry about the hiatus! I hit a huge writing rut that I couldn't get out of because I had too much schoolwork. I'm going to need more suggestions if you want this work to keep going, though.))

"Hey, Luce?"

Lucy perked up and looked over to Holly. "What's up?"

Holly seemed hesitant to ask her question, mostly out of sensitivity on the topic. "Do you miss your family at all?" She asked, but immediately regretted it when she caught a glimpse of Lucy's distant expression.

"Well," she started slowly, but Holly cut her off.

"You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, I was just curious!" Alarmed, nearly Holly shouted. Curious as she was, she didn't want to force Lucy into speaking about her past.

"Nah," Lucy waved her hand dismissively. "You have every right to be curious, to be honest."

Holly's eyes lit up at the fact that she'd get an answer. Lucy had never really opened up about her past very much, so she wanted to get something out of her before she closed up again.

"Well, I don't miss my family much, to be honest. My dad's gone, and my mom wasn't exactly a perfect parent. My sisters basically took care of me, admittedly not very thoroughly. I was the youngest of seven, which meant I was the runt of the family up until this agency."

Holly listened intently, leaning forward with her lips pursed. 

"The only one who ever paid me any mind was my sister Mary, so she's really the only one I'd really miss," Lucy said offhandedly. "She never had good psychic talent other than Touch, so I doubt she'd know I was there if I went to visit her."

Lucy shrugged, not seeming very upset. Holly hummed in understanding, but she realized something.

"What if she could see you, though? Lockwood and George don't have very good Listening, but they were able to hear you after they touched your Source."

Lucy smiled gently at her. "Well, I think my family's better off thinking I'm dead for good," she said softly.

"Why's that?" Holly questioned. At least with her family, she couldn't begin to imagine why their grief would be better than revealing something like that.

Lucy ran a hand through her hair distantly and let out a heavy breath. "Well, since I'm the youngest, I'm one of the only ones with any Talent left. Even if Mary knew, she wouldn't be able to prove that I was there. I wouldn't want my family thinking she's crazy, especially since my body is probably in silver-lined coffin or something. Also, they don't know that my Source is the necklace."

"That makes sense," Holly chirped. "I guess I just figured that you weren't ready to tell them or something."

Lucy shrugged. "Well, it's not like they live nearby anyways, so it'd be a pain to get over there on top of everything else," she said nonchalantly.

At this point, she had just begun to create excuses for Holly not to make her visit her family. Holly had seemed very encouraging, but Lucy really just wanted to keep her distance from her family in general.

She didn't even know how many of her sisters were in her hometown, or if Mary was with them, and she really didn't want to go back there if it was just her mom. No matter how many years had passed after she left her family behind, the prospect of seeing her mother again was a bit intimidating to her.