Having woken up, I had to go through a ridiculous number of tests to check my cognitive functions and the like and they concluded that I had a bad concussion. I was told that I was very lucky though because I might as well have broken my spine or fractured my skull. I didn't feel lucky though because it hurt like the devil. Thankfully, they gave me some medicine for that.

The course of action would be rest and they would keep me for observation.

Early next morning, which might as well have been the middle of the night, I was woken up by a whisper.

"Lucy?"

I thought for a moment that the skull was back. "I'm not killing Holly with a coat-hanger." I groaned into the pillow.

There was a choked sort of sound and I opened an eye and was met with sight of Quill no more than a few inches away from me, holding a bandaged hand to his mouth, struggling not to laugh.

"I knew you and Munro had some issues, but a coat-hanger, Lucy?" he sniggered.

"Well, it wasn't my idea." I grumbled, still not fully awake.

"Whose idea was it then? I thought everyone found her delightful."

"Of course you would think that." I rolled my eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He lifted an eyebrow at me, and I was too tired to analyse it.

I snorted. "Men generally find Holly delightful."

He only grinned cheekily at me.

"You're also both really high-maintenance. You ought to get along splendidly."

I felt very satisfied when he choked on air and turned completely pink.

"I mean it, you should go on a spa-date or something." I continued. "Shopping, maybe. It would actually be grand if you went shopping with Holly, because maybe then I wouldn't have to do it." I slurred.

"Anyway," he coughed. "We need to talk, and we don't have too much time."

He filled me in on what he had told DEPRAC and what he had told Lockwood.

"Tony's being be interrogated now, but I think he'll be okay. We er… had words, but I think he'll stick to the story. While his actions say differently sometimes, Tony isn't actually an idiot." He smiled ruefully.

I giggled, "I know."

"Barnes will probably come to talk to you too." He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at the door, as if he expected it to fly open any minute. "I should probably go before one of the nurses catch me in here." He didn't move to stand though. "How do you feel?" he asked me softly.

"I don't know. I have a headache but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I also feel lightheaded but that's probably because they might have given me something. Everything looks sort of," I waved my hands in the air, trying to find the right word, "... soft."

"Are you sure you don't just need glasses?" he grinned and came closer, leaning his elbows on the mattress "Is that better?"

I giggled because he leaned into a red-golden ray of morning sunlight that made his hair shine incredibly bright.

"It looks like your head is on fire." I put a hand on the side of his face and let the other one brush through his red hair.

He smiled softly. "I think you need to sleep."

"I am tired. But I'm glad you came. I missed you." I yawned.

He smiled widely and I found myself smiling back.

"I missed you too." He whispered and kissed my forehead.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, the sun was high in the sky and a harassed looking nurse was taking my blood pressure. The cuff tightened uncomfortably around my arm and I supposed that was probably what had woken me up. My headache was far worse, but my head was clearer.

Inspector Barnes came to see me, not long after.

"Good. You're alive." He grumbled, which was probably the closest thing to affection anyone had ever received from him.

"So – We have four casualties and eighteen people in hospital, including two DEPRAC agents. You mind telling me why you shouldn't be in handcuffs right now?" he started off. He was in a good mood.

"How many arrests did you make?"

He grunted "Forty-five."

"Then I believe that at least partially answers your question." I shrugged. "Will the injured people be okay?"

He sighed. "Too soon to tell. Three are in a coma, including Leopold Winkman."

"And Adelaide?" I asked. Hoping that she at least would go to prison like her husband.

Barnes shook his head. "Didn't find her. Probably escaped through one of the emergency exits."

"There was someone else there, behind the operation. A man."

I tried to give him a description, but the man had been so painfully ordinary that it was absolutely useless.

"You might as well be describing half the men in London." Barnes grunted.

I frowned at him. "Besides Leopold, he was probably the only clean man present. He was even wearing a suit. Surely that narrows it down."

The Inspector shook his head. "We found no one like that."

"He probably went with Adelaide then." I sighed.

"Now. Give a rundown of what happened there." He ordered.

I gave him my explanation. It was surprisingly easy to weave Quill's story with the truth to make it sound more legitimate. That we had been contacted by an anonymous source and had agreed to team up with Quill since we had a great collaboration in the past and we needed extra manpower. How our plan definitely wasn't to take down the trading ring on our own and how we certainly hadn't been doing anything other than reconnaissance. We also agreed that putting a little blame on DEPRAC wouldn't hurt our case.

"We knew DEPRAC wouldn't take us seriously without evidence, inspector Barnes. That's the general theme in our collaboration, isn't it? Besides, we had no idea that it would be on this large a scale." I shook my head. We really hadn't.

"And how about the Sources that were released?" he questioned.

"I'm afraid I'm not entirely certain how that happened but considering how many Sources they had in such a small space with that many people gathered, I'm not surprised. I'm more surprised it wasn't worse. But I didn't see much because at that point, I had snuck into their storage. There were sixteen boxes. Thirteen of them were full to the brim with Sources. Did you recover them?"

Barnes shook his head disappointedly "We only got ten. Three of them were empty."

I uttered a quite unladylike expletive that made Barnes' eyebrows rise high on his forehead.

"Adelaide and that man probably took the Sources with them."

He only nodded. "Be more careful from now on. You've made a lot of enemies. And uh, get better." He grunted uncomfortably.

Yup. I was expecting the adoption papers would arrive with the post within a fortnight.

…

I spent an entire week in the hospital. George and Holly came by every day. Holly fussed like a mother hen. I was grateful that she brought a few of my things like toiletries and a hairbrush. She also gave me a small bag that the boys weren't allowed to open. (I was grateful for being able to wear my own knickers – thank you, Holly.)

Lockwood too came every day. He usually came before George and Holly and left long before they were gone even though I can't have been the greatest company since I slept most of the time away. He was far more subdued than I had ever seen him before even if he cheered a bit as the week went on.

He didn't kiss my mouth again. I started being unsure if that night had been a hallucination brought on by my head injury which meant that there was still hope for that first kiss, I had been looking forward to. Sometimes his eyes lingered on my lips though and I wondered if the experience had been real and why he would be holding back now if it was. Did he regret it? Had it just been a spur of the moment thing and nothing more? He held my hand a lot though and every time before he left, he would kiss my knuckles which I thought was sweet.

Quill didn't come every day. Instead he came every night, probably because he knew Lockwood would never stay in the hospital after dark for fear of going blind from all the death glows.

Quill would also hold my hand but would study it finger by finger and the lines of my palm as if he were trying to tell my fortune. He smiled at me in amusement when he noticed the state of my fingernails which were uneven, flossed and dirty with iron and magnesium. I swear at one point he would have given me a manicure had he not been kicked out by a nurse.

He was the one who had given me the most comprehensive summary of the events following my injury. The others skirted around the subject.

Apparently, Lockwood had released two spirits as his intended diversion, and it had worked a bit too well. If there had been more room or less people it might not have been so disastrous, but in such a small enclosed space, it had deadly consequences. Lockwood had to be devastated.

A third had been released by accident when one of the relic-men accidentally dropped a Source out of the bag of lavender he had been keeping it in. Death by ghost-touch had been almost instantaneous.

Four relic-men had died from ghost-touch. A dozen more required adrenalin shots. Other than that, there were broken legs, arms, lacerations, head wounds and a few stabbings.

Quill himself didn't seem to have gotten away unscathed either. His left hand was bandaged, but he refused to talk about it.

Lockwood along with Holly, George, Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon had dispatched the ghosts. It was relatively easy since Lockwood knew what two of the Sources were and the approximate direction in which he had thrown them. I still had a hard time understanding how he could be so irresponsible. Yes, he was often reckless and yes, often we survived due to luck more than anything else, but usually it was only his own life he put on the line. Sometimes he pulled us along too, but usually the only life he was endangering was his own. The fact that people had died had to be eating at him and the only reason he wasn't in custody was because no one believed the relic-men when they blamed him.

Quill had been fired for insubordination. When I told him that he and George ought to start a club, he had snorted in disgust and pointed out that it would never work. Firstly, because every meeting would inevitably come to blows and secondly because he was the one who had gotten George fired from Fittes in the first place.

Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon had gone free. Quill had made clear to his superiors that they had no prior knowledge of this supposed reconnaissance mission. In that way, he had given them an out while also providing Lockwood and I with a cover. He had essentially sacrificed himself for us.

Of course, I knew that he had considered quitting already, but that wasn't common knowledge and there was just something different about being fired. It might even have consequences for his future plans. He assured me that he would be fine though.

It was strange seeing him in plain clothes. Other than half-naked and those five minutes of him wearing a t-shirt, I had never seen him in anything other than his Fittes uniform. Somehow, he still managed to retain an air of arrogance and while his bitterness had gone up a bit, he also seemed relieved in a way.

By far, the most bizarre visit I had though, was from Kate Godwin who came by on the second day. I still slept most of the time and when I woke up at noon, it was to the view of Kate, looking perfect and composed as usual, sitting in the chair next to my bed, leaned back and reading the newspaper that Quill had brought the night before. In it, was an article about the raid the other night and he had written small comments in the margins like "can you believe the cheek?" and "as if I would ever say that" or "Do these reporters even know anything about ghosts?". At the bottom there was a small blank space where he had written something that had been scratched out again.

I wondered how long she had been sitting there and if I had been drooling. I probably had.

She casually folded the paper and put it on the table, not changing her position at all. Her face was as unreadable as ever and I had the idle thought that maybe she and George had received the same training at Fittes.

"So – Welcome back to the land of the living, Carlyle." She studied her nails before looking directly at me, seemingly staring directly into my soul. I was almost surprised that she couldn't dispel ghosts just by looking at them.

"Hi Godwin."

She smirked at me. "Call me Kate."

"Kate... You might as well call me Lucy then. What brings you here?" I lifted a challenging eyebrow, trying to play it just as cool as she was, but I was sure I failed spectacularly, considering my massive bed head and the fact that I probably had an imprint from the pillow on my face.

"I was nearby and figured I might drop by on everyone's favourite agent."

I snorted "Hardly."

She laughed in a way that I wasn't sure was sincere or not.

"No, I heard you aren't very popular at Rotwell's."

Rotwell. That rang a bell. I suddenly remembered something. Or rather someone.

"Carlyle? – Lucy?" Kate prompted. Apparently, I had zoned out a bit too long. She snapped her fingers in front of my face and I frowned.

"What do you want?"

"To check that you haven't got brain damage and so far, I'm not convinced." She looked at me seriously. "I heard you were back with Lockwood."

I sighed. "I don't know, honestly." I looked at the ceiling. "I haven't been rehired, if that's what you're asking."

"But you moved back in with him." She concluded. The way she said it made me strangely uncomfortable.

I shifted a bit. "I'm just staying with him at the moment. Well, him and George." I clarified.

"Right." She smiled, displaying a row of perfect teeth, white and shiny enough to rival Lockwood's. Except this smile was cold like that of a crocodile.

"Holly too from time to time." I felt like elaborating.

She nodded. "How come you moved back in?"

I hesitated. This felt more and more like an interrogation. "I don't believe that's any of your business."

She pursed her lips "I suppose it isn't." She went back to studying her nails.

An awkward silence stretched before I gave in with a huff. "Fine. Some people broke into my flat. We think it had something to do with that black-market ring."

She nodded thoughtfully. "So, the danger is over then?"

"Why Godwin, I didn't think you cared." I raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Maybe I care about someone else." she replied enigmatically

I sighed. "Fine. I doubt it's over. They almost killed me once already and DEPRAC only got maybe half of the relic-men that night. And Adelaide will want to get revenge for both her husband and now her son as well. She'll be out for blood. Mine in particular."

I tried to sound nonchalant, but the truth was that I was terrified. Kate Godwin's appearance just confirmed that virtually anyone could walk into my room and I would be defenceless.

Apparently, she had the same thoughts because she frowned at bit. "Are you even safe here?"

I sighed heavily "I don't know. Why do you even care?"

"Let's just say I have a vested interest." Well that sounded as vague as possible and slightly ominous.

The worst part was probably that she left without another word before I could ask what she meant.

…

The fourth day, George came by, curiously alone.

"You look like shit." Was his greeting. I smiled because coming from him, that was bordering on a compliment. His brutal sincerity and sometimes purposeful antagonism was something that had grated on me at the beginning, but now I welcomed it. I could always trust George to tell things as they were.

"Do you remember that time when I threw a saucer at you and it split your eyebrow?" I reminisced with a grin.

George snorted "I have the scar to remind me."

"Sure, you do, but you don't spend too much time in front of the mirror, so what use is it?" I shrugged.

"True."

"Where's Lockwood? He's usually here by this time." I asked

George grinned. "I taped some black cardboard on his window before we left on a case last night." He scratched his neck. "He's been running himself ragged. He's been out on cases at night and coming here, only with a quick shower in between. We came home at 3 last night and I told him that I'd wake him up at 6 this morning."

I looked at the clock. It was almost noon.

I smiled at him. "Good job, George. How is he?"

George took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face. "It's bad, Luce." He sighed heavily. "It's really bad. I haven't seen him like this since Robin died."

"Your previous assistant?"

George nodded. "He was hard on himself back then. This time it's worse. He's not eating and he's not sleeping. Holly's going bonkers about it."

I bit my lip. "I'm not saying he should punish himself or beat himself up. I want all the best for him. But maybe this could put some sense into him. It was a reckless move."

George sighed heavily and looked at me for the longest time without saying anything. I could tell that he was formulating something in that big brain of his though. He was sitting in the chair and was tapping the table with his index finger and I didn't dare interrupt is thought process.

"I see that Kipps has been here." He noted out of the blue, turning the newspaper on the bedside table towards himself, with Quill's neat swirling handwriting. He had brought a fresh one the previous night which had an article about DEPRAC's investigation. They had finally linked the trading ring to the furnaces.

I only nodded.

"It was really a good thing he did for you. And Lockwood."

"It was." I confirmed.

He shrugged, "but you know, that him doing a good thing doesn't make him a good person, right?"

I sighed. "He's never done anything bad to me." I pointed out. "And since I've met him, he hasn't done anything bad to any of you either, other than your petty rivalries. He's even been helpful."

George took off his glasses and rubbed them with my bedsheet. I raised an eyebrow at him, but it was useless because he wouldn't be able to see it anyway. He put them back on and rummaged a bit in the rucksack he had brought. I almost cried when he pulled out a familiar looking tin of biscuits.

"Thank you, George" I breathed when he offered me one. "What they have here – I swear it's made with sawdust."

George shrugged "Or it could be leftovers from the crematorium."

He grinned when I gagged.

"What I mean to say is that you should be careful around Kipps." He continued.

I sighed heavily. "And why is that?"

George shifted uncomfortably. That caught my attention. George generally doesn't shift.

"Because he isn't nice."

"Not… not nice? That's your argument? George Cubbins telling me to be careful with someone because they're not… nice? And what am I supposed to do with you then, you arse? Beat you with a stick?"

George shook his head. "Just think about it."