A double suicide appearing to be a suicide pact, in actuality being the plotted attempt of the aunt in wanting to get revenge on her sister for supposedly driving her own daughter to suicide. It was a tangled mess and Lucy was, as always, drawn to it. Her eyes seemed to shine with every preliminary detail Alfendi had brought out, tacking on a "well, or so it seems..." at the end of his synopsis blurb for a nice touch.
Alfendi already knows that she'd be drawn to it like a moth to a flame, an inevitable occurrence that he had expected the moment he suggested for her to be a part of it. He had already interviewed both the aunt and the sister earlier and it had been an easy solve with a few hiccups here and there, but he withheld such information to see how she would go about the case.
Lucy is already in the process of examining the crime scene; barely even speaking to him after he gave the blurb.
"This is absurd," Al mutters to his counterpart as they silently watch as Lucy gathered clues with the Reconstruction Machine. The case had still been open, reset to the first look of the crime scene. "What's the point if she can't even interview Pike or Friedman?"
"Please be a little more imaginative than that. You know that this has nothing to do with actually solving the case." Fendi drawls, letting out a low sigh. "How much she has changed...my goodness."
"Yes, indeed. She had been challenged in her own ways, it seems."
He takes a glance at her beautifully drawn notes, despite the organized chaos of the paper.
"She already figured the that the younger already had blunt trauma prior to the actual 'hanging' portion of the supposed suicide. She's quicker."
"So...are you working for the Yard again?" Fendi opens up the conversation and she pauses her note taking for a moment to formulate her answer.
"Aye, just in another part of it. I think the Commissioner put me in kidnappin' or sommat like that. i haven't quite gotten the chance to look at it. Been dreadin' such a thing, actually."
"Not homicide? That is your relative specialty." Our relative specialty, Fendi wants to add.
"No, not yet. There weren't any openings."
They're quiet for a bit. It's unnerving.
He knows that they are two separate entities, two separate people within the grand scheme of life. He has no right to encroach on her life and equally has no right to be selfish and ask her to stay, to work with him once more. Two years changes a person, despite the fact that they may generally be consistent.
Her presence feels right, it feels like home once more, even if her hair may be a little longer, her face may look a tad bit more mature than before, and even her methodology to go about solving the current case may appear different, but she was still Lucy Baker. The same bright-eyed Detective Constable that would peer to him for every approving look, every answer to her questions, and made him feel warm inside.
He wonders if she thinks the same of him.
The cleaner Mystery Room might be a shock to her and the way he may address her may be different but he's still Alfendi Layton. More mellow and less abrasive, perhaps, but still himself. The reality of his situation had never been lost on him and it was easier to throw his frustrations into work and the people around him; it was, afterall, a majority of his life. Lucy had been the unfortunate target of a large portion of his frustrations. He would have never truly acted on any of his claims of being violent and he's sure she's equally aware of the fact, but he's sure he wasn't the easiest to work with on a grand scale.
He had spent a good chunk of time wondering what had been the breaking point. Coming to work to her letter had been a nightmare that he had always dreaded, with only Barton coming into the Mystery Room an hour after to confirm the letter's claims of her choice to leave with a disappointed and grim look in his eyes.
"If it's worth anything, I missed you too." Lucy says in apropos to nothing and Alfendi snaps out of his thoughts and he straightens up, peering up to attempt to meet her crimson eyes, but she's not looking at him.
He stays silent as she continues to speak.
"It'd been rough, adjusting to something new. Bakewell is one of those towns, you know, where nowt was new to them. They knew each other, they went to the same festivals and bein' the new Detective Inspector felt like intrudin' on sommat I hadn't realize I would be intrudin' on." Lucy scratches the back of her head, adjusting a knob for closeups. "Plus, when I actually got out there, everythin' would remind me of you. Worse when it'd be that rare murder and I'd think, you'd know exactly who did this and confronting the suspect would be more fufilling because you'd be by my side. Sometimes when makin' a cuppa, I'd make two. Nights for the first few months were hard too, lots of thinkin' there."
Lucy's shoulder rise and fall. Fendi dares a comment. "Had all those side-effects not crossed your mind?"
"Good going, you moron."
"It's a real question."
She pauses for a moment.
"Well, when I was still 'ere, all I thought about was, 'I gotta get outta here, you know?' Flippin' 'eck, Prof, gettin' to that point was something I 'adn't thought I woulda gotten to at all, so once I actually did get out...it was already too late for take backs." She visibly grimaces and jots down more notes.
"You had to get out of here? As in the Mystery Room?" Al asks her, knowing it was a very moot question to ask.
Lucy bites her lip. She's nervous, the kind of nervous where you're telling a lover you no longer love them. The kind of nervous where you realize you had been caught and being confronted had been something possible, but you thought was not likely to occur.
"Aye, the Mystery Room." She finally gleans a look up to him and for once, her face isn't readable. He can make it out that she's nervous about this entire affair; that much is true. What wasn't as readable was her feelings towards this entire situation—was it alright? Was it something she wished she wasn't doing right now? Would he had never known, beyond possible chance, that she was here had she not come back?
"I feel like I still don't understand. I read your letter and everything." Fendi says to her. "Why did you...desire to leave here? I know that Forbodium had been your reasoning, but it hadn't been horrible, had it?"
She looks down to the Reconstruction Machine.
"You're making us sound horribly insecure."
"You want to know too, don't you?" Al doesn't respond to that.
"I wouldn't use 'orrible as the word, maybe overwhelmin'. From an outsider, I knew that you couldn't entirely control yerself, beefin' in there and all. Finding out your whole identity had been washed by something ridiculous...well, I know you weren't too chuffed by all that." She shrugs. "I knew why you were like that; an explanation to the chaos in you. Didn't mean you could be like that to people. To me."
Oh.
He swallows.
She stops her examination, but neglects to look up once more.
The long stretch of silence feels criminal. He should say something, there should be supplication to this response. There should be something, not just the low hum of the machine or the late night traffic out and about, but what does one say to that?
He had heavily miscalculated the deep emotional wounds he had been delivering to her. She cared, that much was obvious, but she cared so much that it was best to leave rather than continue in equal parts misery for the two of them.
He takes a deep breath in.
"I'm sorry," Alfendi murmurs quietly and the words register in Lucy's body; a clench of a fist and narrowed eyes, still not looking at him.
"What for?"
"In for a penny, in for a pound." Fendi murmurs.
"For causing you such a distress that you felt it was necessary to leave. For not being the best mentor you had been seeking. Mental health condition or not, reason or not, everything that occurred to me truly was no excuse to be so cruel to you. You deserved so much better. You still do. Please believe me when I say that the day you left may truly be one of the worst days of my life because Baker, I failed you—the very opposite of what I had intended to do for you." Al lets out a low breath, clenching the fabric of his trousers.
"And I, equally am sorry. I am not exempt from any sort of blame. The reality of it all was glaringly obvious, please believe me as well, my dear, when I say that I should have tried harder to control us, to seek help in a manner that was healthy. We should have tried harder," Fendi adds on, pointing to himself at the mention of 'we'.
And silence returns once more.
Lucy shifts in her chair to face him and truly looks at him. Was this how it felt like to be a murdered corpse, being heavily analyzed for every crack, wound, and trauma? He doesn't back down, looking back at her with the most open expression he can.
She bites her lip once more, but it's no longer the pensive kind. Rather, she's biting her lip to stop herself from crying, he realizes as the first few tears trickle town her almond shaped face.
"Good going, you got her to cry."
"Me? I think we are both equal to blame within this reaction."
She uses the sleeves of her coat to wipe away her tears and she mumbles a quiet sorry, standing up and walking to the side of the room with a small couch and falls into it, burying her face in her hands.
His heart sinks at the sight. He made her that way.
He goes to stand and makes his way over to her, stopping across the small coffee table to give her space.
What does one say to this? He had never seen Lucy cry before and being comforting hasn't been quite his forte. He grabs some tissues on a shelf and thrusts the box near her face.
"Here." He says and she looks up, taking the box and using some of the tissues.
"Sorry," she says once she is capable of speaking without a bombardment of sobs coming out of her.
"It's fine."
"Always thought you just wanted to be rid of me once your mystery was solved, like my purpose was complete and this was your way of getting me gone because I was mitherin' you or sommat." She says and the confession strikes him.
"That was never the case, Lucy, you know that." He denies immediately and it was true, he never assumed it to be that way.
"You had a bloody awful way of showin' it then!" She cries and Alfendi doesn't know what to say to that.
She wasn't wrong. He had been awful to her. He should call it for what it was, verbal abuse. He could have been sacked for it and Barton would have his hands tied; no matter how much his father may have influence, it wouldn't have been enough. Lucy spared him such a fate, opting to quietly slip away.
He sits next to her and let the tears continue to spill on her own, patiently waiting for her to compose herself.
"How do we even fix this?"
"I don't know. I really don't know."
"We don't even know how long she felt this way, if it was building up."
"It's possible that even prior to Forbodium, it had been concerning for her."
"Steady on, she'd say when we got out of control. Had it been since then?"
"Who knows what Baker was thinking back then. She hadn't been the most forthcoming."
"When someone is threatened with scissors consistently, it's likely she wouldn't want to be forthcoming with her feelings."
"You know they were empty threats when they were towards her, you know that."
"Did she?"
"You must know everything was never directed towards you because I truly meant it, did you not, Baker?" He asks. He needs the confirmation.
"Ee, it was always a mixed bag, Prof. I never knew for sure."
"Christ." He mutters.
She wipes her nose with some tissue and looks at him.
"Can I ask you something, Prof?"
"Yes, anything."
"When you asked me to solve this case, you already solved it, hadn't you?"
"Yes."
"So you deliberately made me do this unnecessary work?"
"I wouldn't call it unnecessary, it is nice to hear another opinion." He wants to be contradictory, just for a little. The corner of Lucy's lip quirks up then falls back down as quick as it came.
"Right. But why ask me to?"
He presses his lips together and doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to say, but the words come out anyway.
"I...It was an offer to see if you would be alright to speak to me. You came, I might as well take the opportunity. If you had walked out that door right after seeing me, I would have been fine with it. If you welcomed me back with open arms, I would have been elated. Anything you want, my dear, it's all yours."
The best way is obviously to be direct and Alfendi knows it. No more games, all truth and nothing barred. He watches Lucy ponder and think, looking down at the tissue in her hands and fiddling with it. Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times as she wavers a bit.
It's something.