It wasn't an awfully long list of Rotwell Institute's research facilities Holly came up with, but I was impressed that she remembered as many as she did. She remembered everything from Steve Rotwell's own calendar, so if we found anything on either of these sites, there was a good chance that the president of the large company was either involved or at the very least aware of the things going on.

There were six locations all written down neatly with addresses and everything and some of them even with the name of the person in charge.

I couldn't even remember my phone number on the best of days but in my defence, I didn't call home very often.

Which is a horrible defence when you think about it.

Lockwood had been irritable after their case in Peckham and after seeing his coat, I concluded that the evening obviously hadn't gone as planned. Holly was confident she could clean the coat though, which should cheer him back up.

I had committed to living at Portland Row, I had officially moved out of my small flat in Tooting (I did not get my deposit back) and I was willing to pay rent and everything. I had a bit of money saved up for it, but Lockwood hadn't asked and it was somehow implied that if we had to talk about the housing situation, we had to talk about the work situation too and I didn't quite know what I wanted to do yet.

The good part was that was my ankle was starting to get better. I could walk normally and even run, but not too far and it still felt fragile in a way. I figured I was ready to go out on cases in a few days. Lockwood & co. had had a few more cases since the night I spent at Quills house, but none of them required more than two people. Holly or George would stay at home babysitting me.

Well, George would stay in his room and sometimes do experiments at the kitchen table. Sometimes he would ask me random questions like about the resonance when I heard Visitors speaking or he would question me about the bone chamber underneath Aickmere's. One evening he even tried to hypnotise me to see if I might remember more.

He was also tinkering with the goggles we had gotten from Fairfax ages ago. Ever since he nicked them, he'd take them out from time to time, but recently he had been studying them more often. Whenever I tried asking about them, he would just shrug.

I'd come to appreciate Holly more and more; If I had her job, I was much more likely to stab someone than smother them with diplomacy. I wouldn't survive half an hour. Or the clients wouldn't.

She spent one entire evening cursing more than I thought her capable of, because there had been a mix-up with the clients. Angry people had been calling all day to complain that she had sent out bills to them even though we had cancelled their appointment and new customers were turning up out of the blue. She was frantically trying to fix things because none of the changes were in the calendar.

It was all good and it was nice to be there with them.

Something that wasn't nice was Lockwood.

Or he was polite enough and everything, but he confused me.

I had reached a point of confusion that I had never seen before, which was saying something.

He had asked me to move back in, but I could swear that now that I had, it was as if he was trying to avoid me. Other than at the occasional shared meal, I almost didn't see him. We didn't talk, other than short messages.

There were small episodes every once in a while. Once I fell asleep on the sofa in the living room and I woke up under Lockwood's dressing gown which someone had covered me with like a blanket.

Lockwood didn't say anything, but George wouldn't have bothered covering me and Holly would have taken an actual blanket. It was more like Lockwood to use whatever he had on hand or on his back in this case I supposed.

I hoped we could somehow move back to simpler times. To before Holly came along, only with Holly.

Lockwood, George and I had a great thing going and then we rocked the boat, and I was the one who fell out. That wasn't Holly's fault though and I wanted to have her on board, but we needed to find our balance. It seemed like the only problem was that for me, a part of the equation was missing.

If I were to stay within my boat metaphor, it was as if I only had one leg in the boat and one leg was in the water. That was obviously a problem for the others as well because it messed up the balance, but their solution was to pull my leg out of the water whereas I was tempted to jump out of the boat entirely.

Because I missed Quill.

It bothered me that I missed him because I didn't know why. I missed his sarcasm, his wit and his calm, quiet presence but looking at it objectively, George could provide those same things.

It really wasn't the same though.

I hadn't seen Quill since I fell asleep on his sofa. I had woken up that morning to a plate of scones, a note and a key.

A key that was now hanging on my new keychain along with the key to Portland Row.

It didn't mean anything of course, him giving me a key to his house. For heaven's sake, Bobby Vernon had a key.

Which made me think about the scene Bobby had walked in on.

That made me wonder which sort of scenes I might walk in on myself if I should ever use the key.

I shut down that train of thoughts fairly quickly as it made me feel a little bit sick and decided not to use the key unless it was a case of emergency.

My problem was that while I missed Quill, I was certain that the others did not and that made it harder because there was no one I could talk to about it.

Not even the skull which I had to admit that I also missed dearly. That disgusting old pot of plasm would insult me, mock me, encourage me to kill people, but it would provide me with some perspective and if nothing else I could rant to it until I went blue in the head and it couldn't run away and it couldn't tell anyone else.

Now I had no one.

For this reason, I was punishing Lady Esmeralda.

I had been in the rapier room for ages, taking my many frustrations out on that poor dummy. I imagined I was back home, and I was slashing at that poor oak tree in my little clearing. I had no idea how long I had been down there. Sweat was running down my back, my muscles were screaming, the fresh scar on my arm was pulling uncomfortably and my ankle ached even though it was bandaged.

I knew that I had blisters in my hand. I could feel them biting in my palm, but I wouldn't stop - I couldn't stop.

My body was running on auto pilot and muscle memory alone.

"Lucy?"

The interruption made me drop the rapier with a clang. I dropped down on my knees next to it.

George came and kneeled next to me and put a cold, pasty hand on my shoulder. I looked at him and what he saw must have scared him because he looked worried, which was not a typical expression for him.

"Lucy, what would you like me to do?"

That's when I realised that the thing that had worried him was the fact that I was crying.

"I- I don't know." I looked at him and I felt completely hollow. I felt nothing and thought nothing, I was just an empty shell of myself. All that fire everyone always said I had, was gone at that moment and it must have scared the hell out of George because he scrambled out of there and up the stairs.

I wiped my cheeks, getting chalk dust all over my face, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I flopped down on my back and tried to catch my breath again.

A while passed. I don't know if it was a few minutes, but it might have been hours. Then the small clicks of Holly's low-heeled shoes sounded outside the door. I heard her rushing towards me, but I didn't actually notice her until she was all I could see.

She gave me a sad, understanding smile even though I have no idea what she understood because I didn't understand anything at all. She took my arm and pulled me up into a seated position. Something that would have taken considerable effort. She put her arms around me, not caring that I was ruining her clothes with my sweat, chalk dust and my tears.

Then the dam broke completely, and I held Holly like my life depended on it while I was overcome by sobs that shook my body in powerful convulsions.

Everything washed through me. The fear from the attack, the guilt about the nurses who had been killed, the tension, and the horror of what we had been through and what was still happening.

I didn't remember a time that I had ever cried like that. Not even after Wythburn Mill.

Even that pain was felt in this breakdown too. I cried and sobbed out all the despair that had filled me. I cried for the confusion and especially the loneliness I felt.

I cried for the fear and guilt I felt because I was still afraid of Lockwood's recklessness and I still feared to be the cause of his death but even so, I had still come back. I cried for the feeling of abandonment I got every time Lockwood would get up and leave a room as soon as I entered.

Eventually I calmed down even though I was still trembling. Tremors raked through me and little by little, my fit was reduced to shivers.

I had slid down and was lying with my head on Holly's lap as she stroked my hair.

George, bless him, came down to check on us every now and then. He brought a blanket and tea, as if we were having a picnic. He obviously had no idea what he was doing, but the fact that George made that effort spoke volumes. I felt more cared for than I had ever been by indifferent and sometimes abusive parents and overbearing sisters. That sort of thinking almost made me sob again. I should be grateful to them because they had given me life and raised me. Without them I wouldn't even be here, but I was still bitter.

"I don't want Lockwood to see me like this." I whispered to them.

George looked deeply uncomfortable like he'd rather not see it either, but Holly smiled gently.

"I sent him out on a very long and complicated errand as soon as George told me you weren't feeling well."

I sniffled a little, "I don't want him to think that I'm weak."

"Luce," George cleared his throat. "Of course, you aren't weak." He told me quietly and knelt beside me. I had the idle thought that I was happy that it was his front I was looking at because whoever came up behind him was sure to get an eyeful.

"What we do – it's awful. We seem to forget that just fifty years ago, no kids had to go through this. We're not built to withstand this sort of horrific work and not sleeping properly. We get so filled with trauma and terror that there's no room for anything else and then it doesn't take too much pressure before we crack. Honestly, I'm surprised you've lasted as long as you have," He finished bluntly.

"What George means to say," Holly sent him a pointed look, "is that you're not alone. We're all a little messed up."

"I don't see you blubbering on the floor," I croaked.

Holly smiled gently, "Lucy, you're the most powerful Listener I've ever met. Probably the most powerful one I've ever even heard of. That makes you incredibly strong, but it also makes you equally vulnerable. There's nothing wrong with that and it makes you the opposite of weak. We face terror on a daily basis, and we're all affected by it."

"We all do strange things to cope with it. I read and experiment and try to find a solution to make this stupid Problem go away, even though it's probably futile." George chuckled ruefully. "Holly bakes and tidies to a freakish degree -"

"Hey!" Holly protested and I chuckled a little

"- and how the hell do you think Lockwood became so good at fencing? You happen to talk to a Type Three ghost in a jar and now you lost it."

"It isn't fair." I whispered a little petulantly.

"It never was." George shrugged. "Now, the thing you need to do is decide if you can continue or not. Do you want to keep fighting and being an agent or do you want to chicken out and give up?"

"George!" Holly admonished.

Give up?

It was tempting to lay here. Just drift away. I could go back north. Or maybe get a job at a bakery or something. Perhaps I could work at Arif's.

But then something flared in me. It started in my chest. I refused to think something so clichéd like that it came from my heart, but it was somewhere in the general vicinity. It spread white-hot through me and filled me with defiance.

I was Lucy Bloody Carlyle. I was a great and powerful Listener. I could talk to Type Threes; I wouldn't let anything stand in my way. Not Lockwood or Quill, not even myself. I was an Agent.

I pushed myself to stand and grabbed a piece of a ripped tea towel that was meant to be used for cleaning our rapiers and I angrily wrapped my blistered hand with it.

I squared my jaw

"Fight me" I sneered

"Ooh," George grinned "Feisty."

I looked at him and felt my own grin spread. "That's right. Step over here and I'll show you exactly how feisty I am."

"I might just do that," George tied the string of his sweatpants a little tighter so they wouldn't fall down and grabbed a spare rapier.

I chuckled wetly. Holly looked very apprehensive and skittered out and up the stairs.

But I didn't mind that she ran. I faced George at a brutal pace. I was absolutely ruthless. He wasn't the best at fencing, and neither was I, but what I lacked in technique, I made up for in ferocity and playing dirty. Soon Holly re-joined us, now in a stylish training outfit.

I gave everything I had, not only using my rapier, but hitting and kicking as well. It almost turned into an all-out brawl.

Afterwards I collapsed completely. After a gruelling training session, a mental break-down and a ferocious fencing match, I was completely exhausted.

And I felt great. Not really myself, but something a bit harder and a bit stronger. Galvanised by my tears if I had to be poetic.

We all collapsed on the mat.

I swatted at George "Thank you"

"Both of you." I squeezed Holly's hand.

"That's what friends are for." Holly groaned, a bit sore.

"I dunno," George panted. "We're more like a co-worker-family-hybrid,"

That's how Lockwood found us – sweaty, dirty and grinning like idiots.

He came in, and looked very confused for a moment, but eventually, he was apparently caught up in our collective joy and threw himself down between me and Holly, making the chalk dust fly.

He frowned minutely when he saw the tear tracks that were probably visible and if not that, my eyes were bound to be red. But I knew I was grinning like a loon and apparently it was infectious because he smiled back at me and grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers. He was more relaxed than he had been in what seemed to be forever and for a moment, it seemed like everything was going to be alright.

"We're going to Aldbury Castle," he announced with a large smile.

"We're going to what?" George moaned.

"Go pack a bag! We're leaving tomorrow."

"For how long, Lockwood?" Holly asked. I figured she was on the way to getting used to Lockwood and his impulsiveness because she sounded more exasperated than frantic.

Lockwood shrugged. "A few days maybe. The place does sound rather haunted. Lots of interesting things."

George and Holly got to their legs and tried to dust themselves off.

"Can I borrow your shower, Lucy?" Holly asked and I nodded at her. That was the least I could do after kicking her arse so profoundly.

He turned his head to look at me and gave me a wide grin and gave my hand a squeeze. "You're coming too of course, Luce."

I sighed deeply "Sure. I don't think I have anything else to do anyway." I smirked and sat up.

His smile lit up the room and it warmed be up because it was directed at me.

It was hard to say no to anything he said when he looked at me like that.

Sometimes I wondered how aware he was about the power those smiles of his held – they were powerful weapons indeed.