A/N: Hello everyone! Unfortunately my schedule is getting excessively busy due to a combination of school, sports, and work. I will try my best to keep up with updates but I happen to know from experience that if I'm stressed while writing then the finished product is, at best, only half as good as what it could be. And I hate putting out half-assed work. Therefore, I will be taking a break from this story until I can manage to find time appropriate to continue writing. But it does not mean I am abandoning this idea in the slightest. I know where I want to take this idea but I merely don't have time right now.

Thank you to all of the people who have supported me in this project! I am so grateful for all of the feedback I have received on this story, it makes all of the writer's block and late nights spent writing after classes so worth it.

So here's a nice long chapter to make up for my excessive absence!


Chapter 9: A Tense Reunion

The brisk walk down the hallway from the interrogation room and out the front door provided no more obstacles, allowing Luke to move quickly down to the curb where Flora was still parked in the little red car.

"A few minutes, eh?" Flora muttered as she turned the ignition and the car lurched to life. Luke piled himself into the passenger seat.

"Sorry." Luke replied breathlessly, fidgeting under her piercing gaze. If anything had changed in the last years, it was Flora's disposition. She had grown quite a bit as a person, seeing as how her naivety was all but gone, and it meant that Luke felt a slight bit inferior around her at times.

It was a solid few minutes before Luke dared to speak again. The tension in the car was positively electric and he knew it would spark even more discord between them if it stayed silent much longer. So when he opened his mouth to start the much-dreaded conversation, his voice shook terribly.

"S-Say, Flora, w-would you be mad if I told you I had stolen something?"

Flora sighed and Luke could literally feel her annoyance poking at his conscience. "You took a file, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Luke could hardly bear to breathe. He had only half-expected her to blow it all off. But those were the kinds of things he couldn't hope for anymore. Not when it was this important.

"What was it on, then?" Flora prompted, her tone oddly level.

Luke gulped. "...the professor's investigation on an organization called Enigma."

Flora's grip on the wheel tightened, though her irritation no longer seemed geared toward Luke. "I didn't know he was investigating something."

The boy silently thanked his lucky stars that she had directed her wrath elsewhere, and had taken a viewpoint similar to his own at the same time. He sighed in relief. "Neither did I. But I think it's our job to finish it." He felt his energy restored.

"Luke..." Flora started but her voice rapidly lost confidence and trailed off.

The teen in question turned to her expectantly. "What?"

"...Oh never mind." She shook her head, lips in a taut line. Something was obviously up.

Luke immediately became suspicious. "Flora, what?" he persisted.

"Don't worry about it. It's nothing. I was just...remembering."

Oh.

Luke knew exactly what she was referring to, and immediately changed his tone to one of sympathy. "Oh, okay. I got it."

They had already silently agreed to not pressure each other any farther than absolutely necessary, since memories were something dangerously personal and still an incredibly tender subject for them both. So, with a quick glance from the corner of his eye to check Flora's emotional state, and after deeming it safe, Luke quickly pulled the conversation back on track in terms of their pending investigation.

Luke cleared his throat. "Emmy's going to be meeting us as well."

Flora inhaled sharply and adjusted her hands on the wheel as they pulled into the driveway of...their house. "...When will she be here?" she asked as she killed the engine.

"She said a few hours...a few hours ago. So she should be here soon."

The young woman threw her companion a look of annoyance—presumably in follow up to the fact that Luke had left Flora sitting in the car for nearly two hours.

"Wonderful." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Then you can explain what on earth took you so long in there to the both of us."

Flora went stiffly to the front door and unlocked it, giving the knob a little shake before yanking it around and pushing her weight into the door itself. It reluctantly opened under the pressured with a loud groan. Luke flinched at her roughness, and the young woman appeared to notice his unease as she stepped inside.

"The door's a little sticky now," she said rather matter-of-factly. Luke nodded tensely at the statement and followed her in, closing the door behind them.

As Flora flicked on the lights, it was as if Luke was thrown into a memory. He remembered days long past of returning after a particularly long mystery and coming into the foyer of their little single story home...despite the thin layer of dust that coated the whole place it still shone like new. It was home.

But now, the only thing he felt at seeing the peeling paint on the walls and the many stains that had never caught his eye a few weeks ago, was regret. Instead of being washed over with that familiar euphoric feeling of safety and relief, a barrage of negative emotion took hold of his heart and prodded at all the old scars. He remembered how he had struggled in school as his attendance was continually lacking and his teachers seemed to give him twice the work of any other student... he remembered how he had never managed to make any friends, and the ones he did make were only interested in him for his connections to Gressenheller. It had been tough playing apprentice for all those years.

A voice startled him from his reverie. "It's been a while, huh... since the two of us were in this place at the same time, I mean."

Luke shook himself back to the present and noticed that Flora was standing at the end of the hallway, wearing a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah... it really has." He chuckled sadly at how many memories there were contained within the walls of this house. And that was all they would be from now on. Memories.

Flora made a sound of agreement as she turned to leave. "I'll put on a spot of tea. Take your time."

"...Thanks." Luke murmured after her retreating form.

He sighed and glanced over to the coat rack mounted on the wall and found his old blue pullover still hanging there next to his raincoat. Clicking his tongue, he reached over and removed the old garments from the hooks, coughing at the dust cloud that appeared before him. But what he was searching for lay behind the clothes hanging. Dropping the coats to the ground, he began to tear down the other pieces of clothing as well, until his goal became visible. Below the many jackets was a single black frame that held a picture, the first picture the three of them had taken together after they got home from Flora's village. Luke, being the short boy he was, nailed the frame to the wall without really thinking of the location. And when Flora opted to have a coat rack put in a few months later and Luke offered to take the photo down, the professor had clearly told them that it was unnecessary. When Luke had challenged the statement, Layton had replied that it was the thought that counted, so the drama was welcome to stay in it's location as moving it would destroy the meaning.

Luke gritted his teeth and shakily reached out to grab the frame and pull it from its hook, running his fingertips over the glass. In the darkness behind the many coats, the picture had remained in perfect condition.

If he tried really hard, he could almost see the color between the black and white lines and grasp the little bit of life that bad been captured in the photo.

With heavy heart, he replaced the frame and smiled through the sadness.

It'll never be the same again...

But I need to move on. We have a case to solve, now.

A hand slipped into his bag and he confidently walked beyond the entryway, heading straight for the dining room table, which Flora had already set for three people. He almost thought that it was like old times, but caught himself and amended the statement. The third place was for Emmy.

It was the start of the new times.

He proceeded to dump his messenger bag's contents out onto the far end of the table, away from the place settings, and began ruffling through the many notepads, pens, candy wrappers, and random baubles of days gone past. An old emergency toothbrush. A strange rock from some strange land (he honestly didn't remember where it was from). A bent hair-clip that had once been used to unlock a door on one of their trips... the list went on and on. The pale yellow case file was at the base of the pile and pulled it free of everything else, taking it with him and sitting in a seat at the other end of the table.

Flora emerged from the kitchen a moment later with a tray of tea and sandwiches. Cucumber sandwiches. She smiled when she saw Luke sitting at the table, making a little gesture to the papers next to him.

"So 's that it, then?"

"Yeah."

"Right. Hand me your cup." She set down the tray in the center of the three seats and grabbed the kettle.

Luke handed her the cup and she poured it slowly. For the first time, Luke noticed how bad her hands were shaking and he felt another wave of regret. She moved to pour her own cup but Luke reached out at the last minute to steady her grip, wrapping his hands over her own and guiding the kettle's spigot to the cup with ease.

She chuckled lightly, though it felt forced. "Thanks, sorry."

"Um, yeah. Anytime." Luke retracted his hands and moved to face forward in his seat again, his cheeks hot.

Flora opened her mouth to say something but a knock at the front door cut her off. The two teens shared a knowing glance and Luke stood abruptly, dashing off to answer it.

A cold feeling washed through his body as he came in sight of the door. It would be the first time he had seen Emmy since she had left nearly six years prior. Sure, the professor had met with her once or twice over tea but Luke had never attended. He hadn't quite ever gotten over the way she had double-crossed them back in the days of Targent.

Luke took a deep breath. I'm over it. It was six years ago. Targent's not around anymore. She's on our side now...

He reached for the door and gave it a rough twist like Flora had earlier. It creaked open to reveal a familiar woman with wavy brown hair in a yellow trench-coat.

Emmy Altava.

"Luke! Oh Luke, it's so good to see you again! You've grown so much!" Emmy raced through the doorway to embrace the boy, catching him remarkably off guard.

"Y-Yeah, I guess I have..."

As Emmy pulled back, Luke finally got a good look at her. The only thing that was truly different were the stress lines that were etched into her forehead.

Maybe I wasn't the only one who's been worrying about the past...

"We're having tea if you'd like some," Luke started with a smile and stepped aside to let her through.

There's nowhere to go except up at this point. I can't stay stuck in the past forever.

Emmy grinned. "Yes please, I'm absolutely parched!"

Luke closed the door and they walked into the dining room where Flora was patiently waiting. She stood and walked to meet them halfway with a tense nod. The room descended into a serious air as they all took their seats at the table and took their tea in silence.

Flora finally broke the silence as she set her cup down. "So, Luke, why don't you start by recounting what happened at the Yard." She looked to Emmy for approval, who gave a simple nod.

"It's as good a place to start as any," Emmy added.

Luke nodded at the two expectant faces waiting for his story and began. He recounted his entire conversation with Chelmey, the mention of Enigma, the case file, the call to Emmy... and then he started in on the meeting with Clive and the numbers, at the mere mention of which immediately made everyone freeze. Luke paused in his rendition, curious as to the reason for their adverse reactions to his experience.

"What?" he inquired cautiously.

"Well...you, um, how much can we...actually believe?" Flora replied carefully, her eyes swimming with doubt.

"But—" Luke started.

Emmy cut in. "I agree with Flora."

Luke furrowed his brows. "What reason would he have to lie?"

"What reason would he have to tell the truth? And how do we even know the numbers represent anything real?"

Luke slammed a hand on the table. "I just know, okay! Trust me on this!"

Emmy seemed slightly taken aback at Luke's outburst and narrowed her eyes at her teacup, which trembled in the aftermath of his yelling. "... Okay. So what's next? Do you have any idea what they mean? And what else is in the file? We might as well start going through it all."

Luke nodded and opened the cover on the folder. "I've no idea what the numbers mean and the file's basically empty." He fanned the contents out across the table, which wasn't much. The file paper itself and the blank half-sheet. Nothing else.

Emmy rubbed her neck. "... So we're essentially back to square one?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Luke sighed. "I was hoping you might have some ideas."

"Luke." Emmy pursed her lips. "I'm a reporter, not a detective. If anything, you knew Hershel better than I did, so I would think that you—"

"Um, sorry to interrupt," Flora murmured suddenly, bringing the attention of the room completely onto her. "But I think I may have an idea."

Emmy sighed and shot a sidelong glance to Luke, who was glaring back at her. "Well from the way this is shaping up, we could use all the ideas we can get. So fire away, Flora."

The young woman in question pointed to the half-sheet. "This paper here... it was certainly blank when you got it, right?"

Luke nodded. "As far as I know, yes. Why? What are you thinking?"

"I... guess you could call it a hunch," Flora said with a wry smile as she stood up and walked into the kitchen, starting to rummage through the drawers. Luke and Emmy exchanged a glance and the two of them got up to move closer to her.

Flora finally pulled out a small box of what appeared to be matches and ran back to the table to grab the paper, Emmy and Luke not far behind. A match was lit and touched to the candle in the table's centerpiece, igniting the wick. Flora held the paper a few centimeters above the cone of the flame, close enough to catch the heat but far enough to prevent burning.

"Flora...what are you doing?"

The girl blushed a bit. "Well... it's a long shot but the professor showed me how to make heat-sensitive ink once a-and once it's been used the paper get's kind of off-color and rough like this one so..."

"So you thought that there might be ink on it but we just couldn't see it," Emmy continued, her eyes fixed on the paper.

"Exactly." She nodded.

Luke shook his head in disbelief. "Brilliant."

Flora laughed. "Yeah, that's only if it works."

Everyone observed in awe as tiny dark lines began to become visible on the paper. Flora smiled and began to move the sheet around until most of it was covered with crisscrossing lines.

"Amazing..." Emmy murmured.

"What... what is it?" Luke asked breathlessly, tracing a finger delicately over the lines.

"It looks like a map..." Flora whispered, beaming as she extinguished the candle flame.

Luke tried to imagine where such a complex street pattern would be seen. "You think it's London?"

"Looks like it...wait. What's that?" Emmy pointed to a particularly dark marking on the paper.

"Burn from the flame maybe?" Luke offered.

Emmy shook her head. "No, it couldn't be, it's far too consistent around the edges. Look how round it is... Could it be a marker of some sort?"

"What does that place correspond to?"

"Hmm, I don't think it matches any buildings or anything...it's just a spot in the middle of the street."

"You're sure there's no buildings there?"

Emmy reached into her pocket and pulled out an official map of London and spread it across the table. Luke gave her a skeptical look but she shook him off. She began searching for the section that the paper scrap corresponded to. She traced every single line until she pointed definitively to a spot that matched the place where the mark lay. "If it was something, it would be right here."

Luke peered at the spot, and realized that Emmy was right. There was nothing there.

"Then it must just be a mistake," Luke said, turning away from the paper.

"... Must be." Emmy sounded a bit discouraged.

Luke immediately jumped back into the investigation, rummaging through the papers to find the number sheet. "So the next question is what the numbers mean."

"What numbers?" Emmy asked.

"The numbers Clive gave me!" Luke exclaimed, running to grab a pen and notepad from the pile of junk from his satchel before hurriedly scribbling the numbers of earlier.

Flora eyed the boy warily and cleared her throat. "He...gave you numbers?"

"Luke—" Emmy started.

"Could it be a code of some sort?" The boy paid her no mind as he scrutinized the numbers, his eyes alight with renewed excitement. "Like the Caesar Cipher or something?"

Emmy slammed a hand on the table. "Luke!"

"What?" The boy turned to look at her, confused.

"Maybe," she started, clenching her hand into a fist. "...What if it doesn't mean anything?"

Luke folding his arms. "Huh? Why wouldn't it? Clive went to all the trouble to tell me—"

"You said he pinned you against the wall, right?" Emmy pressed.

Luke snorted. "Yeah but what's that got to do with—"

"He's insane, Luke. People who kill others... they... it changes them." Flora murmured, earning her an angry glare from Luke.

"He might not have meant anything by it at all. What if it was merely something to mess with you?"

"...even if that's true...I can't accept that it means nothing. Why would he have asked for me personally if it wasn't important?"

"Luke..."

The boy's fists clenched and he gritted his teeth. "It's fine."

"Then what do you think we should do? We have a map and a bunch of numbers. It's not exactly much to go on." Emmy folded her arms.

Luke looked back to the paper. "I think the numbers are a code that we're supposed to break."

"...code-breaking can take years." Emmy rubbed her temples.

"Then I guess we're going to be here for a while," Luke snapped, venomously.

Emmy eyed him skeptically and he gave her a glare as well, the tension between them rising once more. The room was alight with the lighting bolts between them as the ghosts of the past erupted from their hearts and burst forward in a swift wave of heated emotion.

Flora sat silently beside them, waiting with wide eyes to see who would explode first.

Luke bit his cheek, rapidly clenching and unclenching his fist under the table to relieve a bit of the anger flowing in his veins.

Why did I think that anything had changed? Who am I kidding? It wouldn't matter if it had been a hundred years since we had seen each other. Time doesn't heal all wounds.

His heart seized as he remembered who had said those exact words to him in a particular alley on a snowy London evening after their last adventure together. He remembered the sting of the snow on his bare hands and the way his mentor stiffly walked away from the scene, and how tired he seemed. And when Luke had inquired to the true nature of the situation, the reply had been strained.

"Time...doesn't heal all wounds, Luke."

Defeatedly, he unclenched his hand for the last time and lifted it up onto the table. It felt as if the anger from days past had, at some point without his knowledge, turned into an intense longing for what no longer was. He never knew how much it had hurt him to lose so much so quickly. For so long he had been running from the pain and using it to propel himself forward.

"I'm...I..." he tried to speak but there was a pesky lump in his throat that signaled the coming flood. Immediately he averted his eyes.

A hand gently came to cover his own and he turned back to see it was Flora's.

"We're all in this together, Luke. We always have been. We just... don't want you to make any assumptions."

Luke choked past the lump in his throat. "Thanks." He turned his gaze to Emmy. "But if either of you don't want to do this, then you can leave. This case is my responsibility and—"

"No," Emmy interjected with a raised hand. "It's our responsibility. We're your family Luke, don't shut us out." She wore a sad smile.

Luke smiled back and the lingering tensions began to solidify into something more reliable as the trust from days past began to return to them. Flora smiled and retracted her hand from Luke's, knowing full well that her work was done.

"So, where do we start?" she asked brightly.

Luke cleared his throat. "Well, I want to take some time to examine these numbers." He pointed to the small sheet of paper with the roughly scrawled digits.

Emmy nodded. "That's a fair plan. I'll keep looking at maps to figure out exactly what this square pertains to."

Flora piped up as well. "I'll look in the professor's study for anything relating to the case. Perhaps he kept some evidence here."

Everyone silently turned to their respective tasks. Flora left for the study, Emmy went to grab her bag and Luke sat down with his numbers.

So what do these mean? 12, 23, 16, 3, and 20...

What if I assign each a letter? Perhaps it's a word? L... W... P... C... T... LWPCT?

No no. That can't be right. Could it be an acronym? But no organization that I know of has such a benign name. It doesn't even flow right.

Maybe it is a Caesar Cipher...but in that case the possibilities are endless because I have no formula. Any one of those numbers could be the addition, subtraction, or multiplication factor... Might as well get started trying them.

Three hours passed without Luke even knowing, and by the time he had come up with his last word set, which was HBMJR, it was nearly dark outside.

Emmy gave a great sigh and leaned back in her chair with a yawn. "Well, I figured out what the map shows. It's this section right there." She lazily outlined a square of the map with her finger.

Luke raised his eyebrows and turned to look at her. "How did you do that?"

She placed her arms behind her head and stared pointedly at the ceiling, her gaze strangely vacant. "Well, I kept wondering to myself why there were horizontal and vertical lines all across the map. At first I thought it was a result of the ink pooling at the creases, but then I suddenly thought they could be intentional dividers, you know, the kind they use on city maps. So I pulled out an old copy I had of a London map plan and sure enough, I found the exact spot easily. The edges are awful smudged but there's even some numbers that act like coordinates—"

"Coordinates? No way..." Luke murmured to no one in particular.

"Yes, way. Look." Emmy said, thinking the comment was directed at her, as she thrust the paper into his face. "See?"

"No, not the paper. I mean, no way that's actually what they are."

"Well what else would they be?"

Luke eyed the paper carefully, his gaze coming to rest on that irritating blotch in the bottom right. The proverbial light bulb went off in his head. "Emmy...what exactly are the coordinates of that spot?"

"The spot? Well it's at... 12... 23... 16. Why? Does that mean something?"

Frantically, Luke grabbed the paper in front of him, now complete with his many copies of the alphabet that were marred with little crisscrossing lines as he had counted out each letter set for the last three hours. Tears of joy started to form at the corners of his eyes and he licked his lips excitedly.

"Emmy... you're not going to believe this."

"What now? Have we spent these last three hours doing all this in vain?"

"Quite the opposite actually... the numbers, or the first three at least, they... they match the coordinates." Luke shakily pointed at the paper, a giddy smile appearing on his face.

Emmy rocketed out of her chair faster than Luke could blink and she scrambled over to snatch the paper from his hands. "Oh my God, Luke. Oh my God." She hurriedly turned back to the map, finding the place to which the spot corresponded and reading the tiny text beside it. "It's... the courthouse?" The excitement faded. "Luke are you sure that—"

But her comment was not heard by the intended audience, for Luke was already running down the hallway to the professor's study and yelling Flora's name at the top of his lungs the whole way.

The girl in question came out into the hall with a loud, "I haven't found anything yet, Luke."

But she was caught mid-step by none other than Luke, who grabbed her shoulders firmly and asked breathlessly, "Did the professor ever use a different kind of stamp? The metal kind that go in ink instead of wax?"

Flora blinked in surprise at his sudden excitement. "W-Well, yeah. Only on his professional documents, though. I don't think that he used it for—hey!"

The boy pushed past her into the office and began searching the drawers for his prize, which he found rather quickly. A small oblong stamp whose tip was so black that the design wasn't even visible.

"What do you need a stamp for..." Flora started to ask but her voice trailed away and Luke turned to see her standing in the doorway with a look of incredulity. "You don't think that—"

"Grab an ink well and come on!" He took off again, this time heading for the dining table, where Emmy was staring at the map and presumably triple-checking her numerical calculations on the coordinates.

She abruptly stood as he entered with Flora close behind him. "Luke how can you be sure that—wait. Why do you have a stamp? Luke what's—"

"This is the final piece!" Luke exclaimed as Flora set down the inkwell and unscrewed the cap. He dipped the tip of the stamp in and pushed it down onto his number paper, making a clear mark.

"Luke..." Emmy gasped as the realization hit. "You can't possibly be thinking that—"

"I am." Luke grabbed the notepad and moved to compare it to their map fragment, his companions peering anxiously over his shoulders to see the results.

No one spoke as the meaning was completely clear. The stamp and the mark on the paper matched perfectly.

"So... what does it mean?" Emmy asked.

Luke shifted his posture nervously. "...he wants us to break him out."

"What? Who?"

"Clive."

"Pfft. Where'd you get that idea?"

"Look. It's obvious." Luke pulled the notepad with the numbers on it closer and pointed to the sequence. "The first three numbers are the coordinates and the second two...are the time. He wants us to wait at this spot on the map, the same as the coordinates, at 3:20 pm, which is when the truck will be passing by."

"Luke...we can't just go breaking a criminal of his record out. And what if he just wants us to get caught? What if it's a trap?"

"It's not a trap."

"How would you know that?"

"I..." Luke paused. How did he know? In reality, did he know? "I...don't."

"Then what would be the point of risking it?"

"We might not know if it's not a trap...but I don't think it is. Why would Clive work for the police in order to shut us up? There's nothing to shut us up about. Or at least not yet. I think there's something else going on here..."

"And why would he go to all the trouble of marking this paper—which was locked away in the archives at the Yard? And using a stamp not even his own, no less."

"I...don't think Clive was the one who marked it."

"Luke..." Flora started.

Luke turned on her, his gaze icy. "Flora, I know what you're going to say—"

She cut him off. "No you don't. I'm saying I think you're right. There's only one other person who could have made that mark. And we already know the reason why."

"...yeah." Luke sighed.

"Hold on a second, you two, what do we know?" Emmy held up a hand to try and stop the conversation before it got out of hand.

Flora looked to Luke, who gave a conceding nod. He was granting her permission to make the final observation clear—to make it real. She took a deep breath to collect herself. "The professor made that mark because he wanted us to get Clive."

"Whoa, whoa, we're jumping around a bit now. It's the professor's seal, sure, but how do we know it was he who—"

Luke took the opportunity to jump in. "Because Clive gave me the numbers personally and Chelmey gave me the case file. The professor knew all of this was going to happen. Because... the three of us were always meant to take this case."

"But up until now, we had assumed that Clive was the killer so why would we—"

"He wasn't."

"And how do you know that?!"

"Because I just know, Emmy. The professor wouldn't have set this up if Clive was the one who did it."

"Fine, let's say for one moment that he isn't the killer. So what in Heaven's name does any of this have to do with Enigma?"

"I don't know. But I think that Clive is essential to figuring it out."

Emmy thought hard on Luke's answer, frowning deeply. "... you're sure about this? What you're proposing... we'd be breaking the law."

"I know full well what it means," Luke said clearly.

She sighed and took a seat again at the table. "Then we're going to need a plan."


A/N: How was that nice long chapter? The old gang is finally getting back together, and the action is just starting! And we're only on chapter 9! I'm so excited to get to keep writing this because I have so much planned... But I wanted to really focus on the relationship between Emmy, Luke, and Flora because they're essentially all that's left now, so I can only hope I portrayed everything accurately!

Thanks for reading and please tell me what you thought! Feedback is seriously better than all the chocolate in the world.