Chapter Text
When lucy makes her way back to her flat, her ribs are aching and she can feel the exhaustion deep in her bones. Her entire body feels heavier than the iron chains she carries on her good shoulder, and she knows she must look quite the sight, body bruised and broken, eye bags rivalling those of- nervermind. In this state, Lucy is glad her neighbours aren’t agents, all in bed by this time and unlikely to bump into her in the narrow corridor, if not for a bathroom run, in which case they would be as ashamed as she is. She must look quite pitiful, and if there’s anything she hates above all, it’s the look of pity.
Which is why Lucy isn’t glad to meet the bird-like ginger build (who first described him as a bird, she can’t quite remember, and though it doesn’t mean much, it somehow has always made sense with him) of Quill Kipps, quite possibly waiting for her, by her door.
“Oh good, it’s you. Way to make my day worse than it already is.” She makes a point of rolling her eyes higher than necessary.
“Nice to see you too Carlyle” Kipps’ smirk has something to it. It’s nothing like… someone else’s that she knows, but it’s still playful. It makes him look younger.
She’s too tired to pay much attention to it as she shuffles past him and takes an excruciatingly humiliating amount of time too unlock her door, her good arm being used to hold her kit bag and chains leaving her with her injured shoulder to battle with her broken lock.
“Need some help?” God, she can even hear his smirk in his voice.
She is conscious of how raspy and shaky her voice sounds when she croaks out an “ I’m fine”
“I can see that”
Lucy shoots him a glare before-finally-throwing the door open and trudging through, Kipps in tow.
“Invite yourself in I guess” she sighs
“What? You were going to leave me outside after I generously came to check on you?” Quill Kipps has always been a master of mock offence, second only to the best researcher in London (God, do they have to be everywhere?).
She was about to throw him a sarcastic response when his words hit her “Check on me?”
“I would say he’s here to get in your knickers but if he were, he’d probably have run away as soon as he was reminded of what you look like” Lucy hasto resist the urge to glare at the skull as to not blow her cover in front of Kipps
“Yes, Carlyle, check on you. Barnes said you were admitted at the hospital and only left this morning. He asked me to make sure you weren’t dying of hunger and loneliness” Behind the humorous words hides a tone of seriousness she expects from parents lecturing their child.
Lucy’s dropped her bags by now, grateful for the relief of losing the weight. She crosses her arms in front of her, a wall of protection against whatever Kipps is surely trying to attack her with. Her concealment of the wince that escapes her from her wounded shoulder, if unsuccessful, is not noticed, or remarked, by the other man. “I’m sure those were his exact words. Well anyway, that was nice, as you can see, I am perfectly well and alive, a bit hungry I’ll admit but if someone hadn’t invited themselves, I’d probably already be digging through my leftovers right now”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Kipps crosses his own arms in front of him, a shield or a weapon, she cannot determine.
“I don’t have enough for two.”
“I already ate.”
“It’s impolite to eat in front of guests”
“If I knew you becoming a hermit was the way to teach you manners, I would’ve found a way to get you out a lot sooner.”
Another glare. Kipps’ way of teasing always got her riled up.
“Well, I’m not that polite ; if your job is done, I don’t see why you’re still here” The answer is a badly disguised question, but he takes the bait.
“Rude. I’m still here because what Barnes didn’t mention is that you would be on a case tonight. I’ve been here for 45 minutes.” God, that’s a long time. Lucy didn’t think Kipps capable of such patience, and not certainly such patience for her.
“That’s because Barnes isn’t my mother, and I don’t call him every time I step foot out of my apartment. Hell, id have to call him every time I have to go pee.” The joke isn’t funny, but she makes it anyway.
“Please don’t remind me of your poor accommodations, it makes me softer than I should be. I don’t care whether you tell Barnes or not, you clearly should not have been on a case tonight. You’re injured and exhausted and in no way should you have taken a solo job in your state.” The tone of his voice has gone from serious to concerned, a much, much scarier one in Lucy’s opinion. It’s much too familiar, this overbearingness.
“I’m fine, Kipps, I’ve done worse.”
“How much time did the doctors tell you you had to rest for?” He’s taken a step forward and she does not like it, she tightens her crossed arms and ignores her screaming shoulder.
“They didn’t tell me to do anything; they merely made a suggestion.” Avoidant style, her favourite.
“How much time, Carlyle?” he insists.
“It’s just a piece of advice, plus, we really shouldn’t trust doctors, they work for the government”
“Did Karim tell you that crap?”
Lucy looks down at her feet. Using George as an argument is a low blow, and Kipps knows it.
He pinches his nose between his fingers, a gesture freakishly similar to Barnes’. Lucy wonders if she had any gimmicks she picked up from the people around her. Not that there are many.
“ Just tell me what they said, Lucy.” Kipps didn’t use her first name often. Maybe that’s what makes her cave.
“Three weeks” she mumbles into the collar of her – she now realises- ripped sweater. Damn it, that was one of her favourites.
“Three weeks? Three weeks!? Carlyle are you insane?” his hands are flying about, his voice much too loud for her badly insulated walls. “They told you three weeks, and you didn’t even take a day!?”
Lucy feels oddly like a child gain, being scolded by her Mam, though it never had been for such caring reasons as the ones of a worried friend.
"I’m okay Kipps, I’ve survived through worse.” She’s like a broken record at this point.
“Have you though? You might’ve been more injured in the past, but that’s back when you had a team, people to support you. Now you only have yourself and this crappy place!” The reminder hits her like a physical slap, she doesn’t conceal the wince this time, she’s too riled up.
“I’m aware, thank you very much. You might not have noticed, but I’m trying my best out here.” Admittance is hard, but it’s still easier than going down that path.
“You could’ve at least have taken a couple days off!”
That is the last straw for lucy, who wordlessly walks over to her fridge and opens it wide, showing its nearly empty contents to Kipps. Then, she moves to her dingy table where she pulls out her stack of bills and waves them to the young man. To top it all off, she shales her piggy bank, which merely rattles, and practically shoves her torn, stained sweater under Kipps’ nose.
“I can’t. Don’t you see that I can’t? I can’t afford to take “a couple days off”. I don’t have a Fittes check coming in each case, with sick leave and prepared meals. I don’t have a team that can cover the bills in case I can’t go on a job. I can’t pay for medication if I don’t work to make the money necessary for it. DEPRAC do their best, but at the end of the day, their compensations all go to my kit and bus fare. So no, Kipps, I can’t slack off, because if I do, I will starve, get evicted, and end up on Nightwatch, which I will die before I let happen.”
Kipps’ eyes have grown the size of golf balls during her monologue, which would have been quite comical if not for the circumstances. He however manages to regain his stance quickly.
“Then leave this place. Come to Fittes, or to any other agency. Even Bunburch ! Hell, go back to Portland row if that’s what you need ! They’ll take you back, you and Holly just need to talk it out and …” It’s the name too much.
“Why does everyone always assume it’s because of Holly !? It is not ! I LEFT Kipps, on my own accord, for my own reasons, and it’s not the petty little jealousy thing I had going on with Holly that drove me out. I DID !!!!”
There’s a moment of silence. So many words spoken yet so much left unsaid. Kipps seems to realise this is a battle Lucy is planning on winning out of pure stubbornness Nothing can make the girl budge, the pain carried too heavy to put down, it would make her lose her balance if she did. She has no one to catch her if she falls.
“Fine. Stay. I’ll give you a couple bills you can reimburse in your own time, God knows I don’t need them with that nice Fittes check. Just take two days off, that’s all I ask. Please?” Quill Kipps is pleading. He’s in her kitchen-living room-bedroom-office and he’s pleading with her. How the hell they had gotten here, she did not know.
“No, Kipps. I don’t take pity. And you’re no one to me to tell me what to do”
The words “no one to me” seem to hit Kipps a little harder than Lucy had meant them to. She realises she doesn’t know much about the young man’s life, whether he has friends to be with, maybe a girlfriend waiting for him at home, but he’s here ; Lucy’s been alone for weeks, and now he’s here. Suddenly it feels like that is enough to make her crumble completely; Maybe she should go for a beer with him after winter, when things get calmer…
Her softness quickly dissolves when Kipps next speaks, apparently petty about her last comment.
“God if Tony saw you like this; he would tie you to the bed to make sure you rest; maybe I should take a page out of his book.”
“Lockwood’s not here.” Kipps nearly takes a step back at the coldness of her voice, which would’ve sent him to the wall with how small her place is.
“Lockwood. Is. Not. Here. And I would appreciate it if you weren’t either, right now. Please leave.”
Kipps stands, frozen in place, even more shattered by the hurt in her tone.
“ Please, Kipps. It’s too much.”
He turns away, but not before he sees a glisten in her eyes, and thinks maybe there’s one in his own.