god though but do y'all ever think about lucy taking lockwood and george back to her hometown to meet her loved ones?
like? it's only fair, really. she's met mr and mrs karim, plenty of times; they pop round once or twice a month to drop off absurd quantities of persian food, hug george, and tell lockwood he's not eating enough. but it takes her a while to get around to it, because - well, because most of her loved ones back home are just engraved plaques on a monument in the town square, and norrie is...norrie is...
but...she's been to see lockwood's parents' graves, hasn't she? that's kind of the same thing. and he's walked in on her dictating a tape for norrie before, and he didn't act like she'd lost it; he wanted to say hello, so she'd let him, and he'd introduced himself to the tape recorder as though norrie would ever have a clue who he was.
so she books the tickets, and she finds them a hotel room, and she calls ahead to see if norrie's parents would mind having visitors (living visitors, that is, not the other kind).
and like, it feels a little bit like being naked, showing them where she comes from, that small town with no claim to fame where she is just the daughter of a drunk and the agent who got all her teammates killed. she doesn't feel much like that girl anymore most of the time, not when she's at home in london where she's valued and respected and cared for. but here she's stared at and whispered about and snubbed in the corner shop, and it feels like she's being strangled by that old version of herself, swamped by it like a poorly-fitting jumper.
but she doesn't have to deal with it all alone anymore.
george buys flowers for her to lay at the memorial where her friends' names are carved, and lockwood steps without hesitation between her and some nosy old bag who bustles up to remind her that they'd all be alive today if she'd done her job right. she takes them to see norrie, and when her voice fails and chokes her up (because it should've been both of them that got out, it's not fair, if she'd only agreed to go when norrie wanted to...) george darts out to ask for water for her, while lockwood perches on the arm of her chair so he can drape an arm over her shoulders and takes over the one-sided conversation effortlessly; he tells stories and makes jokes like the girl lying motionless in the bed can hear him, reassures norrie that lucy is doing well. maybe even tells her she's welcome to come to london when she wakes up, they'll make room at the agency for her.
lockwood charms her sisters, the ones she's still relatively close to. george plays with her nieces and nephews, and even when he complains about third wheel duties, it's good-natured. and when they run into her mother, coming home from the pub as they walk back to their hotel, lockwood - despite everything she's told him about her childhood, how angry she knows he is, this young man who would walk into hell for her and do it gladly - behaves. he's polite-ish and reasonably personable and he only does a little of that rich-people thing lucy's never been any good at, where every charming comment has a rapier blade behind it intended to cut. he compliments her mother on the daughter she raised, says how glad he is to have lucy in his life, that he can't imagine how difficult it must have been to part with her. lucy's mother is as she's always been, cold and distant. she grumbles, i hope you're happy, young lady, and lucy is, and when she says that she is, lockwood grins like she just switched on the sun.
just. lockwood and george seeing the core of all lucy's hurts, the little girl who was never loved like she should've been, and having her back the whole time.
