Chapter Text
Lockwood had been a whirlwind of energy that morning and Lucy couldn’t blame him. He’d cleaned the house, trained, gotten groceries and tried to work out who Jack the Ripper was all in the last three hours.
But Lucy felt much the same way.
It was the first time they were going to be allowed to see George since he had been put into the rehabilitation facility. The first time they could truly find out how he was being treated, if he was coping with it all.
Lucy was excited and terrified. What if the person they saw that day was no longer George? What if he didn’t… fit into their team any more? What if DEPRAC had broken him?
Lucy tried not to think about that. She had already thrown up that morning, the nerves getting too much of her.
She sat in the kitchen, sucking on ice cubes, telling herself over and over that it was going to be okay, George was going to be okay. And if he wasn’t okay in the moment, they were going to make him okay. Lockwood would do for George what George had done for him. He’d already spoken to Dr Morton about getting George into therapy the moment he got out. The therapist had agreed and had given Lockwood a list of books for helping a person who had been brainwashed.
Lucy pretended she didn’t know Lockwood was reading them. He pretended he hadn’t noticed her stealing one so she could prepare herself too.
Lucy told herself that seeing George would be a good thing. They needed to know exactly what state he was in. Perhaps he would be able to lessen their nightmares about what was going on in that monstrous place, prove to them that he was unbreakable. Or else, they would get to know the grim reality of what they faced. And that was a step forward in and of itself.
No matter how horrific a visitor was, Lucy found it was always a little easier when it had a name, when she knew some information about what she was facing. It made it all… quantifiable.
Popping another ice cube into her mouth, Lucy reached toward Skull. He had been the opposite of Lockwood all morning, remarkably still and quiet. Lucy tapped on the glass.
“What are you sulking about?” she asked. “George isn’t coming back today so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“You and your bean pole aren’t fun when you’re like this,” Skull muttered.
“Oh, well I’m sorry we’ve not been a barrel of laughs. We’re worried about our friend.”
It was easy to be angry. Lucy was furious with the entire world. She was furious that she had reached the point where she was excited to see George, where she had almost entirely forgotten about the way he left her wet laundry out where he knew Lockwood would be the first to find it if she left her things in the machine to long, where all the times he had broken the biscuit rule were forgiven.
“You won’t be any fun after,” Skull said. “If you’re upset, you won’t talk to me and if you’re happy you won’t talk to me because you’ll be too busy riding Lockwood’s-”
Lucy decisively tapped on the glass, reminded of the notices at pet stores where it said it frightened the fish. It never seemed to have quite the same affect with Skull but throwing his jar across the room was not an option.
“I know you don’t like him but could you at least pretend to-”
“I saw the book you were reading,” Skull suddenly said. “Cult Recovery: helping your loved ones overcome brainwashing.”
“Yes. Because DEPRAC might have brainwashed George. That’s what we’re up against. That’s why we’re not having fun right now.”
“DEPRAC isn’t a cult.”
“It might as well be.”
“I know what a cult is, Lucy. I was in one.”
Lucy froze.
There was something in Skull’s voice, a sorrowful realisation. It was the first thing she was learning about his past, the first meaningful thing, and it was so viscerally shocking.
“You were in a cult?” she breathed.
“How do you think I ended up like this?” Skull asked.
“I assumed you said the wrong thing to the wrong person,” Lucy said.
She had to fight the urge to shrug. It was so natural and yet so dismissive. She didn’t want to make Skull think what he was telling her was not taken very seriously.
“I had talent. I could see things no one else could.”
“You had sight?” Lucy gasped.
“And far more of it that blind Lockwood.”
Lucy wasn’t quite sure she believed him. Lockwood was a once in a generation seer. It was very possible that DEPRAC had never tested a more talented seer.
But she wasn’t about to point that out to Skull.
“Back then you didn’t get treated so… People didn’t believe you when you said you saw things they couldn’t see,” Skull said. “They said you were mad. They had you shipped off to doctors and no one cared what the doctors did to you so long as they did it in the name of making you better.”
If Skull had had a body, Lucy could have imagined he would have shuddered.
“I was sent to several doctors until the Master… Doctor Bickerstaff… took me in. He knew what the talent was, that some people were gifted with the ability to see glimpses of the other side. He took care of me. He told me I was special.”
Lucy could sense the ‘but’ coming. It had been similar with her mother. She had only been special when her mother had needed something from her. It was the same with DEPRAC. Lucy and Lockwood only deserved special treatment when it also served in DEPRAC’s interests to give it to them.
“You are special,” Lucy found herself saying.
She knew there would be more to the story. She knew it would be long and drawn-out and sordid but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Skull knew she thought he mattered. Skull faltered for a moment, as if looking for the motive behind the compliment, preparing to dismiss it as another trick. Then he went to say something. Lucy braced herself for more.
Lockwood appeared in the doorway. He looked between her and the jar.
“He giving you a hard time?” Lockwood asked, nodding toward Skull.
“No, no,” Lucy rushed to say. “We were just talking.”
“Okay,” Lockwood said.
He peered toward Skull as if he wasn’t quite convinced by what Lucy had said. Still, he didn’t challenge her. He merely shrugged and turned to face Lucy once more.
“The taxi’s here. It’s time to go.”
With George in the rehabilitation centre, Lucy had tried her best not to think about what such places were like. It made it a little easier for her, made sleep a little more likely.
But there was no ignoring it as the building appeared in the front window of the taxi. It was a monstrosity, a concrete stain upon the landscape, ringed with barbed wire. There were no signs to say what exactly the building was but Lucy couldn’t imagine there was a person who saw it who didn’t instinctively know that there were agents locked away inside. Who else would have such a terrible place created for them?
Lockwood took Lucy’s hand as they took in the towering walls. He gave it a tight squeeze as they passed through the gates.
A few other cars were pulling up in the parking lot as their taxi came to a stop. Parents climbed out of vehicles with coats and handbags. They were waved through by the guards. Lucy and Lockwood were immediately approached.
“Agents?” the guard said as if that in itself was a crime.
Lockwood gave him a winning smile.
“Yes. Lockwood and Co.”
“You’ll both have to be searched. Come with me.”
“Of course,” Lockwood said, tiredly.
Lockwood and Lucy were made to hand over their coats and their rapiers. They’d emptied their pockets into a plastic tray and been patted down for good measure. They’d been asked about who they were going to see, if their agency head knew they were there. Lockwood had tried to make a joke about that but Lucy had glared at him to stay silent. Even if the DEPRAC officers interrogating them couldn’t decide the two just weren’t going to be allowed to leave the facility, they could decide they weren’t allowed to stay.
And they needed to see George.
They both did. They needed to know that he was okay, needed him to know that they were doing everything in their power to get him out and would be there by his side from the moment he was free.
Eventually the guard waved them through. They went to pick up their things but he stopped them.
“I didn’t clear them. I just cleared you two. You’re lucky I don’t decide to take your shoes.”
There were a total of eight visitor rooms. Two were public rooms where ten agents could receive visitors are once, albeit behind glass. The other six were private rooms where it would just be the agent and their family or friends separated by the glass. You had to paid extra to get a private room but Lockwood had been willing to to ensure that George felt able to speak to them as freely as possible. Not that it was very free. There were guards on the corridor just beyond and a guard on the side of the glass George would end up on.
The room they were led into wasn’t nice. Lucy didn’t think anyone could describe it as such. The walls were grey, the light flickering. There was a clock on the wall that it had taken Lucy five minutes to realise was stopped. She and Lockwood sat on hard metal chairs, anxious of the seconds ticking by. Visiting hours were set. They didn’t get a guaranteed hour with George; they got an hour in the building.
Eventually Lockwood had shot the guard a tight smile and asked if he could see what the hold up was. Even the guard had seemed curious. He’d sent out a radio message and seemed to get an answer he wasn’t prepared to share with them.
Another two minutes ticked past, monitored on Lockwood’s watch. Lucy studied the guard.
“Excuse me,” Lucy called. “Do you know when our friend will be out?”
“He’s refusing to come out,” the guard shrugged. “Might as well go home.”
Lockwood’s brow furrowed.
“What? Why?”
The guard shrugged, saying he wasn’t about to start giving out therapy sessions to brats with stage fright. Lockwood glowered at him.
“As the head of his agency, can I go back and check on him in his cell?” he questioned.
“You can if you are over the age of 18.”
“What?” Lockwood spluttered.
He informed the guard that he was head of the agency George worked for, that regardless of his age, he had a right to visit an agent of his in a cell at the centre.
“New regulations for this centre,” the guard shrugged.
Lockwood glowered. There were not other agency heads under 18. They had made up a rule for him, one to stop him from getting to see George.
“You know I would be flattered about you making up a new regulation entire for me in any other circumstances,” Lockwood growled. “But I refuse to let you stop me from seeing George.”
Before Lucy even had chance to process what Lockwood had said, he was going to move. She quickly caught his sleeve, keeping him from hurrying away. Lockwood caught her eye, disgruntled confusion etched across his face.
Lucy didn’t give him time to ask what she was doing. Instead she turned to the guard.
“You tell George that if he does not come out here right now, I will not be able to keep Lockwood from breaking in to that centre, something we all know is illegal and will result in him having a very long stay in a cell, just like George.”
“I don’t take orders from agents,” the guard snarled.
“But if you don’t listen to us, you’re going to have to lock us both up,” Lucy told him. “And DEPRAC doesn’t want that. If they did, they’d have locked us up long ago. So do you really want to upset your bosses by having us locked up when they’re going to either have to keep us there or do all the paperwork to get us released?”
The guard considered Lucy’s point intensely. Then he reached for his radio.
“Tell Karim he had better get out here or else the Lockwoods are going to go feral.”
The door that led to the rest of the centre opened two minutes later.
It seemed like the opening of an airlock, all the air immediately being pulled from the room. Lucy froze. Lockwood did the same. They just stood there, staring, as George was led in.
Lucy had been prepared to see the signs of George losing weight, of sleepless nights, of tears. But she couldn’t see anything of the sort. Even if they were there, they were hidden by the swelling.
George had a black eye. His lip was split in two places. There were bruises littering his cheeks and his hands. His fingers looked like they had been all but crushed. Lucy felt a sob build up in her chest as George slowly, eyes never touching them, shuffled into the chair opposite them. He sat and winced at the moment.
Lucy wanted to do something, say something, but words never came. Lockwood was the one who leant in.
“Who did this to you?” Lockwood growled.
George shook his head, not meeting either of their eyes. Lucy had come to expect such things from George. Eye contact was not his thing and she didn’t care for a second. But this was different. This lack of eye contact was cold with shame. George couldn’t look them in the eye because he couldn’t bear to.
“You did nothing wrong,” Lucy said and she wished more than anything she could reach through the glass to rest a hand on George’s.
“What happened? Didn’t the guards do anything to stop it?” Lockwood said.
It wasn’t the sharpness of Lockwood’s voice that made George flinch. It was the question. Lucy’s stomach curled as she realised exactly which word had drawn the reaction. Her jaw dropped.
“A guard did this to you?” she whispered, hollowly.
And then the horror she felt was replaced by anger. Because of course a guard had done this. No agent would be so barbaric.
“Did you do this?!” Lucy screamed at the guard still standing in the room. “Did you touch him?”
George flinched at the noise. Lucy tried to think of more to shout, more insults to hurl, but she could think of nothing bad enough.
Lockwood’s chair scraped over the floor. Lucy turned, seeing he had gotten to his feet. He was pale, shaking, mouth set in a grim line.
George got to his feet.
“Lockwood, whatever you are thinking…” he began.
Lockwood turned sharply.
“No!” George screamed.
He slammed his fist against the glass.
“Don’t you dare!”
The guard began to move toward George.
“Don’t touch him!” Lucy screamed. “Don’t you dare touch him!”
George looked toward Lucy. There was a desperate plea in his face, made all the more awful by the swelling of his skin.
“Go after him,” he plead. “Don’t let him do anything stupid.”
“I am not leaving you,” Lucy told George, firmly. “I am not letting you out of my sight.”
Lockwood supposed the only reason he had not been tackled to the floor was because he was in the visitors section of the facility. He got the impression guards didn’t like agents to feel any emotion but fear, didn’t like the thought of them breathing without permission.
But Lockwood wasn’t about to let any of the guards stop him. He needed to get to a phone.
There was one at the reception desk. Lockwood strode straight up to it and the scowling woman behind the desk. He reached over, grabbing the phone without a word.
If the receptionist had been going to protest to Lockwood using her phone, she didn’t dare to after the glower he offered her. He imagined she had pressed some sort of panic button at any rate, that guards from all over the building were coming to do to him the exact same thing they had done to George.
Lockwood didn’t care.
He reached into his pocket, feeling around in the depths that held loose salt and pocket lint. And then he found it. A business card Penelope had passed him.
Lockwood keyed in the number, hands shaking with fury.
“Penelope Fittes,” he heard her say down the line.
Lockwood was a little surprised the number did get him directly through to her and not to her receptionist. Still, he didn’t spare it anything more than a thought.
“It’s Lockwood,” he said. “I agree to your terms. Just get George out of there.”