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‘Stop fussing over me, I’m fine.’
I let out a rather unladylike scoff as I helped Quill up the stairs to the first floor of 35 Portland Row, his overnight bag slung over my shoulder.
‘I don’t think dosed up on painkillers after being stitched up a second time in a week counts as “fine”, Quill.’ I told him as I guided him onto the landing. ‘You could’ve told us you don’t have anyone to help you around at home during your recovery. There’s nothing wrong with needing help.’
Quill grumbled something I didn’t quite hear as I let go of him, swaying slightly on his feet. I was about to reach out and steady him again when he regained his balance.
‘I was doing fine until this morning,’ he tried.
‘Lockwood found you bleeding on your couch.’
Quill had been released from the hospital two days ago. After the Fittes Incident -as I had dubbed the disaster that ended in the literal explosion of the oldest Paranormal detective agency in London- he was stitched up and kept in a hospital bed for a good three days. He was released with a course of antibiotics and strict orders to take it easy. He had neglected to tell the doctors, or us for that matter, that he had nobody to help him around the house while he was recovering from the enormous gash in his side.
‘My stitches came loose, that doesn’t mean I need to be babysat 24/7.’
‘Oh, come on, we’re not babysitting, we’re just making sure you don’t have to wait god knows how long for someone to drop by when you need them.’
The day after the Fittes Incident, the DEPRAC Incident Clean Up team went through 35 Portland Row. They had cleaned up the Ghost Portal and taken all the occult objects we’d used to create it, including Jessica’s old bed. They even took the destroyed door with them when they left. The only things left behind in Jessica’s old room were the Lockwoods’ personal items, stuffed in the single remaining chest of drawers. It was a strange feeling, walking past the empty door frame that led to the room that was off limits for so long. Seeing the room so exposed made it seem like an immense weight had been lifted from the heart of the house.
The now empty room came in handy now that it was decided Quill was staying with us. Lockwood had called from Quill’s flat, so while he took Quill to the A&E to get his side stitched back up, Holly and I prepared to have him over at Portland Row for a while. Holly conjured up a rollaway bed I didn’t even know we had from the depths of the house on George’s instructions. Together, we fitted it with a clean set of sheets. We put an old, rather tattered rug over the ectoplasm burns the gate had left on the floor, and created a makeshift door out of another sheet to give Quill some privacy. It wasn’t much, but when I led him to it, he seemed rather pleased with our efforts.
‘This actually isn’t that bad,’ he said as he lowered himself onto the bed. ‘Bit bare though.’
I let out a soft snort. ‘Sorry the interior design isn’t up to your standards. Our house was ransacked last week, you see.’
‘Apology accepted,’ he shot back with a straight face. He cast another look around the room, his gaze lingering on the rug covering the ectoplasm burns, and his face turned more serious. ‘Not to be a paranoid adult, but… I think I’d sleep easier if I had protection.’
‘That can be arranged,’ I assured him. ‘We’ve got some old iron charms, I’m pretty sure. Or maybe a rapier?’
He relaxed visibly at my words.
‘I’d appreciate that, Lucy. I’m sorry for being such a bother.’
He looked small as he said it, like a hurt animal trying to hide away from a predator. I sat down next to him, putting a hand on his arm.
‘Quill, you are our friend. After everything we’ve been through together, you don’t think we’d just leave you to fend for yourself, do you?’
The small moment of hesitation before he shook his head was enough for me to realise he did think that, because that was exactly what had happened with his Fittes team. I gave his arm a squeeze when I got up.
‘Anyway, it’s no trouble.’
So maybe that statement had been premature. After living with George and Lockwood for a good two years now, I hadn’t expected another addition to our household to be much of an issue, but as the days passed I was very glad Quill made it clear he didn’t intend to stay over permanently.
Not that Quill completely depended on us. The first two days, he needed some help to get around, and Holly kept a close eye on his wound, but that wasn’t the issue. After living on his own for a long time, he’d developed his own daily rhythm, and it did not match ours. He woke up earlier than the rest of us and wasn’t exactly quiet about it. He also went to bed earlier than us, and we weren’t quiet about going to our rooms for the night either.
The interruption in our sleeping patterns caused some friction already, and the fact that Quill turned out to be quite a picky eater did not ease it. George was still recovering from his own wounds, so cooking duty fell to me and Lockwood. Quill had a hard time hiding his distaste at our efforts. Luckily, Holly took pity on us and stuck around at the end of the workday to help us cook after a few days.
The less said about the time he walked in on me in the bathroom because he needed more painkillers, and I had forgotten to lock the door, the better.
Even so, we did our best to make it work. And after a couple of days, we had got used to our new living situation. I remembered to tiptoe past Jessica’s old room on my way to the attic at night, and Quill did his best to keep quiet in the mornings until the rest of the house had woken up as well.
One nice thing about having Quill around was the reassurance each morning that he was, well… still alive. After what had happened, my nightmares returning with a vengeance did not surprise me. They often did after large cases. Nearly every night since we’d crossed Other London, I relived the experience, but sometimes the outcome was more fatal than it had been in reality. All of us sitting at the breakfast table in the morning, bantering and making plans to renovate the house, was a relief. Even some of Quill’s sharper remarks would make me feel a lot lighter.
A week after Fittes House fell, I woke up in the middle of the night with a scream dying in my throat. I shot up, hand shooting to my hip out of habit as I scanned the room. My heartbeat thundered in my ears like the echo of the explosion in my dream. The ghostlight outside clicked on and revealed what I already knew. My room was empty. I wasn’t about to be grabbed by the mad inventor Gödel, who’d shot from his shattered pillar with his single arm outstretched after the hall exploded around me and my friends.
My friends… The panic that had subsided rushed back, and before I knew what I was doing, I was out of bed and rushing down the stairs. My footsteps thudded on the wood, and even before I reached the landing, Quill pushed aside the sheet in the door opening to his temporary room.
‘Lucy?’ He asked. His voice was gravelly with sleep, and he rubbed his injured side. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Are you okay?’ I asked instead of answering him.
‘Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You- George…’ I trailed off, suddenly feeling silly and childish. ‘I had a nightmare. I’m sorry for waking you up, Quill.’
Quill watched me for a moment, and I waited for an annoyed sigh or biting comment for interrupting his sleep. It didn’t come.
‘Come on, let’s have some tea. You’re shaking,’ he told me instead.
I let Quill lead me down to the kitchen. He flipped on the light, which made me flinch at the sudden brightness. He planted me on a chair at the table, went over to the counter to put the kettle on, and then turned to watch me for a while. I’m not sure what he saw, but his frown deepened and after a moment of hesitation, he stood up straight.
‘Wait here,’ he told me.
Before I could react to his statement, he left the kitchen and swept up the stairs. It didn’t take long for him to return though, with a confused Lockwood and a bleary-eyed George in tow.
‘Right in time for the water to boil,’ he said triumphantly as they entered.
He directed George and Lockwood to sit at the table with me and went about pouring water into four mugs. He was moving with such determination that I only remembered his injury when he stretched to grab the tea from the top shelf, and hissed when the movement pulled on his wound.
A moment later, all four of us were sitting at the table, warm mugs of tea in hand.
‘Are you going to tell us why we’re having a house meeting at four at night?’ George asked around an enormous yawn.
‘Lucy needed a cup of tea and company,’ Quill answered.
Lockwood and George both turned to me, and I fidgeted under the weight of their gaze.
‘I had a nightmare,’ I admitted after a moment, ‘a bad one.’
‘Oh Luce…’ Lockwood reached out and laid his hand over mine, giving a soft squeeze.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I’m not… It’s nice to just sit here with all of you,’ I said.
‘Do you want me to call Holly too?’ Quill asked.
‘It’s four in the morning Quill, don’t you dare. She’s no doubt still asleep.’
‘I don’t know about ‘no doubt’, Luce’ George remarked.
‘Huh?’
‘You’re not the only one who has been having nightmares. I’ve been dreaming of you and Lockwood dieing in that explosion nearly every night.’
‘So have I,’ Quill said.
‘I dreamed of losing all of you, too,’ Lockwood agreed.
I looked at the others, and realised they felt just like I did. None of us were truly okay after what happened. We’d gone through hell and back, almost literally, and it left its marks on us. George was still bruised, Lockwood had dark circles under his eyes, and despite Quill’s almost feverish determination in getting us all downstairs to have tea, he was pale and sluggish. But we were all still here, and that was the most important thing.
So I told them about my nightmare. About the way the events in the hall of pillars and Marissa’s office melted together into a terrifying rush of ghost touch and explosions. How they all died in front of me, first George and Quill, then Holly and Lockwood, like my team in the North had. And finally, how after all that, I thought I was going to die alone; killed by a trophy of the woman who had doomed England half a century ago. They listened closely, without questioning me or commenting on the fact I teared up. And as I talked, the details of the dream faded away, until it was just another bad memory. Unpleasant, but unharmful.
‘I didn’t even get to meet the blond paramedic?’ Quill asked after I finished talking. His joke got a wet chuckle out of me, even as I shook my head.
‘None of us could get out of Fittes House in time. Just like that, you were all-‘ I broke off my sentence, and George reached over to pat my hand reassuringly.
‘Sounds like it was a bad one.’ Quill said. Lockwood and George nodded in agreement.
‘It was just a dream, though… I’m sorry for- for waking you up, making such a scene out of it. You could all use your rest.’
‘Technically Quill did that,’ George pointed out.
‘Oh shut up, you were already awake,’ Quill grumbled. ‘And you said it yourself, Lucy. There’s nothing wrong with needing help.’