Chapter Text
Lucy is awoken from her nap by a sharp rapping on the front door. She sits up, startled, and a throw she doesn’t remember covering herself with prior to falling asleep puddles in her lap. She sits up straight, sniffs, blinks a few times to clear her head, and leans forward to read the note left under her cold cup of tea on the table.
Luce—
George is at the Archives. I had a meeting with Flo I couldn’t miss. We’ll both be back by sundown. Feel better soon!
A.L.
He’s left her with plenty of goodies spread across the coffee table; cough medicine, tissues, a fresh glass of water, even a plate of biscuits. Lucy smiles slightly at the kindness as she reaches for the water.
Then, the pounding on the door resumes, and Lucy sloshes the water down her front.
“Lovely,” Lucy grumbles stuffily. She stands, wraps the throw around her shoulders and makes her way to the foyer. She checks the peephole and stares for just a moment before opening the door wide.
“Ms. Fittes, this is a surprise,” Lucy exclaims. She steps to the side hesitantly and allows the woman to enter. “Lockwood and George aren’t home yet, if this is about a case.”
“Penelope, please, Lucy. And you’re the one I wished to speak with today, if you can spare a moment. You look peaky, dear, are you well?”
Lucy shrugs her shoulders with a sniff. She begins leading Penelope to the living room, when she remembers the sickroom she’s made of the place, and instead leads her guest downstairs into the kitchen.
“Just a bit of a cold. Tea?”
“Please.” Penelope responds, taking her own seat at the table. Lucy watches her study the tablecloth out of the corner of her eye as she puts the kettle on.
They haven’t seen Penelope Fittes since they broke into the Black Library. Since the failed party and the man with the golden blade three weeks before. Lockwood had told them Golden Blade said he wasn’t working for Fittes before he shot him, and Penelope has been unfailingly kind to all of them in person, but…Lucy just wishes the boys were home. She sees one of Lockwood’s rapiers leaning haphazardly in the corner of the room and sighs a bit in relief.
They sit in silence for a moment. Lucy picks up a pen and scrawls aimlessly on the corner of the tablecloth.
“I’d like to personally apologize for the chaos of the fifty years party a few weeks ago,” Penelope begins, and Lucy hopes the woman blames the color rising in her cheeks on fever. “We assume it was someone attempting to play a joke--,”
“There’s no need,” Lucy interrupts quickly. “I still enjoyed the party. And it was nice speaking with you.”
Penelope smiles. “You as well, Lucy. I also--,” she pauses as the kettle begins singing on the stove. Lucy jumps up to fix the tea.
“Would you like your mug back?” Penelope asks, brandishing Lucy’s mug of tea she’d brought from the living room.
“Oh yes, thanks. How do you take--,”
“Bit of honey, if you have it. Thank you.”
Lucy brings the mugs over to the Penelope and the table and sits back, sipping the scalding tea lightly.
“If you’re amenable, I’d like to discuss the job offer again.”
Lucy bites her lip. Must she deal with this today? She takes a gulp of tea and valiantly refrains from sighing.
“Thank you again for the offer, Ms. Fittes, but I have no intention of leaving Lockwood and Co.”
Penelope touches her index finger to her red lips thoughtfully. “Previously, I looked to offer you a job as an agent. In light of….recent discoveries,” Lucy feels a stone drop to the pit of her stomach, “It’s obvious you were meant for so much more than that. If anything, being an agent jeopardizes your immense value.”
You’re our biggest asset, Lockwood seems to whisper in her ear, and Lucy freezes.
“I’m not sure I understand--,”
“You can talk to type threes.” Penelope says the words bluntly, gaze harsher that Lucy has ever seen. “Just like my mother.”
Lucy heart skips a beat in her chest. She keeps her face blank and voice even as possible when she responds. “That’s ridiculous. Where did you hear something like that?”
“It doesn’t matter where. I know it’s true.”
Lucy stands from the table; she has to catch herself against the side of the chair. “You’re mad.”
“I’m not. And you owe it us, to the world, to help us gain a better understanding of your talents.”
“I don’t owe the world shit,” Lucy bites out, attempting to step back. The rapier in the corner is only a yard away. She stumbles and falls gracelessly against the cupboard.
Penelope Fittes circles the table slowly and stands before her.
“You’ve—you’ve put something in….in my tea….” Lucy trails off, voice slurring as the world grows alarmingly blurry. Penelope crouches next to Lucy and sighs.
“Your cooperation would have been ideal, but I knew not to count on that. Doesn’t matter now, though. Your mother’s signed off it all.”
“Lockwood will,” Lucy breathes out. The world is growing dark, her body weighted down by stones. “Lockwood--,”
“Mr. Lockwood will be told you’ve accepted a very prestigious job with us.” Penelope slaps her knees as she stands. She picks a walkie talkie out of her pocket and relays, “Asset is secure. Thirty-five Portland is clear. Engage now.”
“You….m-monster,” Lucy says, as her eyes finally slide shut.
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, love. It’s all for the greater good.”
And the world turns black.
***
***
***
Lucy wakes to a persistent beeping.
She opens her eyes and hopes someone got the number of the bus that ran her over. Her chest aches, her head feels split open, her nose is still annoyingly stuffed up and, and—
She’s in some kind of hospital. With tubes in her nose, and IV in her hand, and her wrists tied to the side of the bed.
“What the fuck,” she whispers to herself, eyes flitting around in shock. “What the--,”
Memory hits her all at once. The kitchen. The tea. Penelope Fittes.
She knows. She knows—
“Ah, good morning, Miss Carlyle,” a vaguely doctor-ish looking man says as he bursts into the windowless room. He shoves his glasses further up his nose and looks down at his clipboard before studying her thoughtfully. “We’ve a few very important tests set up for today--,”
“Let me go,” Lucy demands. She tugs at the padded bindings on her wrists harshly. “I haven’t consented to this, Penelope Fittes kidnapped me--,”
“Your legal guardian has consented,” the doctor reminds her. He smiles genially and steps forward to adjust something with her IV. Lucy decides that this man is the worst person she’s ever met.
Something warm begins flooding the tube to her hands, and within a few moments the world grows soft and warm.
“Don’t worry, Miss Carlyle,” the doctor promises. “We’ll take very good care of you here. We must make the most of that talent of yours.”
***
***
***
The first few days are frankly rather boring.
Doctors and nurses shuffle her around the dark and windowless hospital-like place, taking her from scan to boring scan. Sometimes they take her blood. Sometimes they swab her saliva, take strands of her hair. They keep her drugged, keep her pliant, and drag her from place to place in the bed or after she’s been transferred to a wheelchair; they never let her walk on her own.
Sometimes they ask her questions, easy and odd, about her family, her childhood. Her experiences with ghosts and her jobs with the agencies she’s worked for.
Lucy doesn’t answer any of them.
She doesn’t mind the testing so much; it’s invasive and clearly unfair, but the doctors and nurses are highly professional about it. It’s wrong and she wants to go home, obviously. But when she’d opened her eyes, Lucy had been expecting torture. This is boring and inconvenient, and Lucy figures she’ll just stay silent and wait patiently for Lockwood and George to finally get her out.
Then, they take her bone marrow.
They numb the area but keep her awake and extract the stuff with the largest needle Lucy has ever had the misfortune to lay her eyes on. She spends the next two days lying on her stomach, and the doctors don’t even bother securing her wrists since she’s in so much pain.
Lucy screams into her pillow at night; at the worst points, she gives in to the inevitable tears.
Where the hell is Lockwood?
***
***
***
“We have the baseline for her overall health,” Doctor Asshole explains to Penelope Fittes from the doorway of Lucy’s room. He’s told Lucy many times to call him Dr. Martin. Lucy prefers Asshole. Fits him much better, even if it’s just from the comfort of her own head. “Now I feel comfortable moving on to the practical experimentation.”
“Excellent,” Penelope Fittes proclaims with a clap of her hands. She steps forward and smiles at Lucy. “Do you hear that? Now the real fun begins, Miss Carlyle.”
Lucy gives her the finger and spits on her feet.
***
***
***
Lucy finds it frankly alarming just how many type threes Fittes has locked away in their basement.
They lock Lucy in a dark room, strapped to a chair with only a table and presumably two-way mirror along the wall. At the beginning of each session, they leave the sources, locked away behind the silver glass, on the table and leave her there, nodes stuck to her brain and connected to a machine to her left, waiting and watching for something to happen.
And happen it always does.
The sources, mostly body parts, but sometimes jewelry or mementos, become aware of Lucy and begin their tirades. They scream at her about life, about death and people and the injustice of it all. They turn to Lucy, the first person who has heard them in years, and cry and moan and wail…wail…wail…
Lucy finds herself, astonishingly, missing the skull. He was terrifying, but in a funny way. He was snarky and interesting and, at times, genuinely helpful. He talked to her. These ghosts…
An intercom always comes on about ten minutes into the session, and Doctor Asshole asks Lucy what the ghosts are saying. She ignores him, does her best to ignore everything, and tries to simply look away.
It’s not always possible.
Because Lucy can feel them too, their pain, their fear, their anger. It fills her ears, sinks into her pores and drags her down, down, down. Those times she usually wakes in her bed, unsure exactly when she passed out.
Unsure when she stopped screaming.
Sometimes, the ghosts are impossibly sad. A child’s ghost is the one who finally breaks her.
The little girl, no more than six, is tied to a hair ribbon and locked away behind the glass. The little girl wails for hours for her father, her brother, anyone who will listen. She asks desperately again and again if anyone can hear her, if she’s all alone in the world. She’s desperately angry at the jealous mother who sent her to her death and Lucy—Lucy—
“I’m sorry,” Lucy whispers to the blue ribbon, pulsing and floating lazily in the plasm. She can just imagine the researchers sitting up straighter behind the mirror for her first words in week. “I’m so sorry.” She croaks. “You’re not alone. I’m here.” Beside her, the machine connected to the nodes on her head clicks faster than its normal steady rhythm.
Help me! The little voice begs. Please, please, help me! Get me out of here, let me free, I need to go, I have to go, I want me Da, let me see my Da, please, please--
“I can’t,” Lucy apologizes, her own eyes filling with tear. “I can’t help you, I’m sorry. I’m trapped here, too.”
No! the girl screams. NO! You have to help, you have to help me! PLEASE! PLEASE!
Something blasts from within the silver glass, and Lucy mercifully passes out.
***
***
***
Doctor Asshole wants to talk a lot about Hair Ribbon. He asks question after question when Lucy wakes up back in bed. What did she sound like? When did it start? What was her name? Why how when what why why why
Lucy screams in his face, long and loud and primal. She screams at him instead of into the pillow, until her throat cracks and her eyes overflow, and Doctor Asshole finally decides to take his leave.
***
***
***
In her spare time, Lucy composes letters to her friends. Norrie often, George a lot, but most of all, the letters are to Lockwood.
Tonight, the letter is short.
Find me, Lucy begs. Please find me, Lockwood. Find me soon, or I’m afraid of what will be left.
***
***
***
The next day, the doctors turn back to their original tests. Blood and hair and saliva and urine. Heart murmurs and blood pressure and MRIs and X-rays. They want to compare her health to the baseline, now that they’ve proof she’s talked to a type three.
Lucy has a feeling that even if she hadn’t talked to a type three, the result of the tests would be far off optimal based on her captivity alone.
“Well done, Miss Carlyle,” Penelope tells her at the end of the day, when she is exhausted and can barely see straight and wants nothing more to sleep and possibly never wake. “I knew you were special. We’ve quite a treat in store for you tomorrow.”
“I hate you,” Lucy croaks, turning her head away from the maddening woman. Her wrist restraints clank against the bed rail.
“No one is looking for you, Miss Carlyle,” Penelope says lightly. She rests her hand on Lucy’s upper arm. “It’s in your best interest to cooperate with us.”
“Fuck you.”
***
***
***
The next day when they strap her into the chair in the dark and lonely room, glue the nodes to her head and leave her with the source, it’s an astonishingly familiar one.
Hello, Lucy, the skull says, voice unusually subdued. You’re an idiot for being caught by these fools. A terrible idiot for letting them get me, too. Don’t respond, I don’t want them to know you’re talking to me. The skull says. Lucy nods slowly in agreement.
Lockwood and Karim will be on their way, Lucy. They like you far more than you deserve. Although, I’m not sure how Lockwood knows how to tie his shoes without you there, but I’m sure they’re doing their best. Try not to forget about me when they come, yeah? The skull finishes.
Lucy nods slowly again, and they sit in comfortable silence for a few hours, until the doctors deem ready to wheel her out.
***
***
***
“Carlyle,” a voice besides her begs. There’s a tugging at her wrist, a painful pull at her hand, “Jesus fucking Christ. Carlyle, please--,”
“Kipps?” Lucy whispers, finally opening her eyes. The boy beside her bed sighs heavily in relief as he pushes the restraints and tubes away from her.
“Oh, thank God,” Kipps proclaims. “Okay, okay. Can you walk?”
Lucy swallows thickly. “Probably not. There’s a chair in the corner--,”
“I don’t have the lift code. We have to take the stairs,” Kipps explains quickly. “Okay, it’s alright, c’mere—Jesus, did they even feed you?” He wraps her arms around his neck and puts his own arms under her knees and shoulders. “You good?”
“Fine,” Lucy whispers.
“Just, hang on, alright. Lockwood’s checking upstairs, he’ll meet us outside. Speaking of,” Kipps pulls a walkie talkie out of his pocket and clicks the button as they hurry out the door. Kipps moves efficiently down the hall and through a shadowed door that leads to the emergency staircase up. They’ve been in a basement the whole time. “I’ve got her. Retreat.”
“Rendezvous in five,” the staticky, blessedly familiar voice responds. “How is she?”
Lucy snatches the walkie out of Kipps’ hands as he begins his measured run up the stairs. “Lockwood.” Lucy can’t keep her voice from trembling. “Lockwood.”
“Lucy.” Lockwood’s voice cracks. “Hang on Lucy, I will see you in five minutes, just hang on. I—shit. I can’t talk but I’ll meet you there. I’ll be there. Kipps, keep her safe. Lockwood out.”
Kipps and Lucy spend three minutes in silence as he ascends the stairs. His breathing is heavy, but even. He’s in good shape. Or, if Kipps’ exclamation is true, Lucy isn’t much of a burden to bear.
It’s the fourth minute when all hell breaks loose.
Alarms begin going off, a door blasts open ten floors beneath them, and someone below begins firing off shots.
“Fuck,” Kipps gasps, hugging the wall to avoid the bullets. “Fucking hell. Hang on, Carlyle.”
Lucy buries her face in Kipps’ shoulder and does her best not to throw up. She closes her eyes, and listens to the chaos, to the blasts and the shouts, to Kipps’ harried breathing and doors slamming.
Until the final door slams, and for the first time in weeks, Lucy Carlyle breathes in fresh air.
She opens her eyes.
It’s dark outside, lit only by the ghost lamps along the quiet road. They’re not at Fittes’ headquarters, nowhere near it based on the smells from the river and the sounds of the docks nearby.
“Where--,” Lucy questions, but Kipps shakes his head and starts sprinting for a cab parked down the road.
“Not now,” he huffs as he runs. From the other side of the building, a new shadow materializes. Lucy’s heart freezes at the sight, until she recognizes the dark coat billowing behind the shadow.
The shadow catches up to them at the same time they reach the cab. He opens the door and slips in first, sliding across the seats as he reaches his arms out for Lucy.
Lucy goes without thought, lets herself settle in the shadow’s lap, shoves her head into the shadow’s neck and simply breathes. From the front seat, someone wraps a blanket around her shoulders.
“Go, Flo,” a voice above her head commands, and the cab peels away from the curb, surely breaking every speed limit ever known.
“It’s okay,” the voice above her head whispers in her ear. His hand strokes her hair, his other arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder. “You’re okay. It’s okay, Luce.”
Lucy lets out a sob and the arms around her tighten. “I’m sorry it took so long. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”
“I want to go home,” Lucy gasps.
“We are,” Lockwood promises. He doesn’t react when she grips his wrist, holds it like a vice. “We’re going home now.”
“What about Fittes?”
Lucy can hear Lockwood’s heartbeat beginning to slow against her ear. “We got you emancipated from your mother. DEPRAC helped, mostly Barnes, really all Barnes. Fittes was waiting on the official court order to let you go, but we decided that was a load of bull, so…” Lockwood swallows thickly. “We didn’t know where they were holding you until yesterday. George was in the Archives for two days straight to figure out an escape plan.”
Lockwood rests his cheek against the top of Lucy’s head. “I hate them,” Lucy says softly into Lockwood’s neck. “I hate them all.”
“We will burn them to the ground,” Lockwood vows, voice as solemn as the grave. “Fittes is finished.”
It sounds impossible. But when it comes to Anthony Lockwood, nothing ever seems to be.
“Good,” Lucy replies. Lockwood take the hand away from her hair and picks up Lucy’s hand, grips it tight. “Burn them all.”