It was bound to happen, sooner or later. In retrospect, Lucy was honestly amazed it hadn't happened before. Of course, this was not when she said when Lockwood ruefully held up his absolutely ruined coat and asked Holly if she could repair it.
It happened on a case, because of course it did. While they had managed to seal the source eventually, the spectre had given them a real run-around, and at some point, Lockwood had had to vault an iron fence to escape certain Ghost Touch. Lockwood himself had made it over the fence just fine. His coat however, had not. The coattail had gotten caught on one of the sharp tips of the iron bars of the fence. The loud ripping noise was practically ringing in Lucy's ears still.
"No, that's way beyond my abilities, Lockwood," Holly said decisively when she saw the extend of the tear in the fabric. "I can barely sow on buttons."
This admission surprised Lucy, who had always assumed Holly was a master in any domestic task people threw at her. Lucy had been taught how to sew when she was barely six years old by her sisters, because it was easier to repair her damaged clothes than to brave asking her mother for new ones.
Lockwood lowered the ruined coat with a dejected look on his face. He had other coats of course, but Lucy knew he was particularly fond of this one, even if she did not understand why.
"Maybe I could take it to a tailor?" Lockwood tried, but George was already shaking his head before he had even finished the sentence.
"It would take hours to fix that, Lockwood. It would be cheaper to just buy a new coat entirely."
With his last hope thoroughly crushed, Lockwood mournfully dropped the coat on the full bin liners somebody had deposited near the door with the intention to take them out.
"Are you staying for a cup of tea, Holly?" he asked in an effort to distract himself.
"If you are offering," Holly replied. Holly, Lockwood and George made their way to the kitchen, but Lucy lagged behind in the hallway.
"Aren't you coming, Luce?" George asked from the doorway of the kitchen, but Lucy shook her head.
"No, I'll take the rubbish out and then I'm off to bed."
"Suit yourself," George shrugged.
Lucy waited until George had disappeared into the kitchen, and then shot into action. She took of her backpack, took out the ghost jar – ignoring the protests from the skull within it – and then grabbed the ruined coat. With some effort she bunched the fabric together until it was a ball that could fit into the skull's spot in her backpack. Then, to give her story some credibility, she took the rubbish out to the bins outside, and made her way up to her attic room with both the backpack and the skull.
The next morning, Lucy found herself in a nice little store called Sophie's Sewing Supplies. It was decorated with soft pastel colours, and stocked with a myriad of different fabrics, buttons in all sizes (Lucy could've sworn she saw some in the shape of Roger, the mascot lion of the Rotwell agency) and other sewing supplies.
Full of determination, Lucy walked passed the shelves full of sewing machines and bolts of fabric, to the back wall that held a display with a rainbow's worth of coloured threads. There she immediately lost her determination. There were so many different kinds of threads, which was she supposed to use? Her sisters had given her entire lectures on what threads and needles to use for which projects, but when she repaired her own clothes, she usually just got a thread in a close colour and called it a day. She tugged the sleeve of Lockwood's coat out of her backpack and tried to find a colour match.
"Can I help you?"
Lucy started so badly she dropped the spool she had been holding, which promptly rolled halfway through the shop.
"Oh god, sorry," Lucy muttered, diving after it. The shop attendant was faster, deftly plucking the rolling spool of the floor and flashing her a grin.
"Sorry," Lucy said again, starting to feel utterly ridiculous.
"So, what do you need, love?" the shop attendant asked. She had soft features and pretty eyes. Her grey hair was cropped short, and she had a button pinned to her dress that said "I'm Sophie".
"I uh," Lucy hesitated, but then shook her head. She was a trained agent for god's sake; she could manage a little errant.
"I need to repair this," she said eventually, taking the coat out of her backpack entirely.
Sophie's eyes widened as she saw the damage. Both the outer fabric and the lining had been torn. The tear was about a foot long, and the edges were already starting to fray.
"Do you mind if I-" Sophie reached for the coat, and Lucy silently handed it over. She watched as the older woman put on the glasses that hung from a cord around her neck and took a moment to examine the label in the coat.
"You're going to fix this?" Sophie asked as she trailed a fingertip along the tear.
"I know how to sew," Lucy answered, trying very hard not to sound defensive.
"That's not what I meant, love," Sophie said absentmindedly. "Repairing this will take a lot of time and effort, and it looks like this coat has seen quite some action. Is it really worth it?"
Lucy thought back to the sad look on Lockwood's face the night before, and found herself nodding.
"It's my friend's," she said softly, looking down at the dark fabric. There was an ectoplasm stain near the shoulder that wouldn't come out, and scratches further down, and she understood why Sophie was surprised she wanted to mend it. "It's important to him, and I don't want him to have to throw it away."
A knowing smile appeared on Sophie's face.
"Well, if that's the case…" she muttered, and then made her way to the thread display again. She took a moment to match colours, and then came back with two spools in her hand.
"If I were you, I'd fix the lining first," Sophie said, handing over one spool. It was a simple black cotton thread, which perfectly matched the colour of the lining. . "Double the thread and use a simple backstitch." Lucy accepted the spool and gave a nod.
"Now, for the outer-fabric," Sophie started. "This is a waxed silk thread, which should be strong enough to sew a thick wool fabric like that. I'd use a ladder stitch, so the result will look like an extra seam. I hope you have a lot of patience, love."
Eventually Lucy left the shop with the two spools, a new set of needles, a thimble and some other stuff she'd bought on a whim.
Sophie had been right, it had taken ages to finish sewing the coat, especially because Lucy had done it in secret. She had had to hide out in her room and sew during her (very limited) free time. It had taken her 8 days, about half of the lengths of thread – because she had messed up a couple times and had to start over – half a dozen plasters for all the pinpricks in her fingers, and a few curses that even the skull in the jar hadn't known before.
But now she was finished, just in time to get ready for their new case that evening.
Lucy quickly changed into her case outfit, stuffed the coat in her backpack and grabbed the skull in the jar, who was not happy to have been banished from the backpack.
"I'm just saying, am I not more valuable? I should-" Lucy twisted the lever.
"You'll be back in the goddamned backpack soon enough, deal with it," she told the skull sternly and then bounded down the stairs, where her colleagues were waiting near the door.
"Ah, there you are, Luce." Lockwood said, sending her a sunny smile. "Ready to go?"
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Lucy asked.
Lockwood gave her a puzzled look.
"I don't think so?" he replied.
"Are you sure?"
He exchanged a look with Holly and George, who shrugged.
"I don't know what you mean, we've got all the supplies. Chains, salt bombs, our rapiers…"
"Your coat," Lucy stated, feeling the Carlyle grinTM spreading across her face as she put the skull down on the floor and swung off her backpack.
"What do you mean? I'm wearing my-" Lockwood fell silent as Lucy pulled the folded long coat out of her backpack and handed it to him.
"You got me a new one?" He asked as he let the coat unfold. As he said it, he must have seen the ectoplasm stain and the scratches, because he abruptly fell silent.
George whistled through his teeth and gave Lucy an impressed look.
"You fixed that yourself?" He asked her, and Lucy gave a nod.
Holly was the one who noticed the embroidery first. Lucy had gone down to the little board on the fence, copied the font of the Lockwood and Co logo in her sketchbook, and had painstakingly embroidered the letters on the left side of the front piece in a shiny silver thread. It had taken her two extra days, but the result was something she was proud of.
"I can barely believe you did all that in a week," Holly said, carefully reaching out to touch the letters. Lucy just gave a shrug.
"I put some old skills to good use, is all," she said.
Lucy was about to pick up the ghost jar to put it in her backpack when Lockwood hung the coat over his arm, grabbed her hand and jerked her forward.
"Ow, be careful of my ha-" and then she found herself with her face pressed into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her.
"I seriously don't know how to thank you," He muttered into her ear.
Lucy was very glad her face was hidden from the others, because it would be impossible to play down the blush that spread across her cheeks at that.
"Just take good care of that coat," she said, "because I'm not turning my fingers into pincushions for you again."
A/N: This one-shot is based on a headcanon by my friend Wolfjawswriter. The idea for it has been drifting through my mind ever since I first read it, and I finally had time to write it last week.
Please let me know what you thought in a comment, or shoot me a message on tumblr; my username is thegirlfromthesea!