the blood in our future

Before the Sun Turns Golden

A/N: TWs for this chapter (sorry everyone)(skip if you want to go in totally blind, obviously):

- gore !If you do not like gore, you can avoid a lot of it this chapter by not reading the strikethrough text when it does appear!

- violence against animals

- mentions of implied grooming

Despite that making things seem gloomy, hope you have fun!!

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It was a sunny day in early autumn, leaves were swaying off their branches in a soft trance, and the air was warm.

Lucy was sitting on the garden steps of Portland Row, rapidly-cooling cup of tea in her hands. She tried to take it all in: How the street outside moved beyond the fencing. How the grass rustled, the birds sang, the bugs crawled, the overripe apples lay underneath the trees. How the sounds of the huge city slumbered just beyond; children playing and a lawnmower stuttering only a windsweep away.

A collared dove was calling out from some branch or another, the whole tree shaking intact with its wings.

Lucy recognised the sound from growing up in the country. Slow, hot summer days — that had been its home. She'd heard it wish in the morning, and she'd heard it beckon in the evening. It had always been there.

Norrie had been able to do a spot-on impression of it, eventually, after months of practice.

The sun was shining, the breeze was warm, and there was nowhere else Lucy would have rather been.

The bugs, the grass, the children — she wanted to commit it all to memory. Paint it in her mind's eye with her eye's brush. Lock it up in a vault and never let it go again just in case she couldn't do so later. Just in case that, later, everything would be gone anyway.

Just in case the only moment she'd ever be able to remember this was right now.

Because her mind wasn't a vault, wasn't a canvas. It was water, always straying, washing out every drop of well-loved paint. No matter how hard she tried, nothing would stay.

Over and over again, she reached up to touch Jess' necklace around her throat. Like always, it was warm against her skin. Calming. Kind.

She hadn't lied to Lockwood. She really could feel only bits and pieces of her now in the light of day. Nothing like what she'd felt in Winkman's holding cell. But even so — she knew that she was still there. Not just from the way Jessica held on to her water memories for her, but also from the way the pendant rested on her collarbone. From the way she was certain, deep down, that Jessica was still listening.

"He'd really like it, seeing you," Lucy tried in a quiet voice, same as the other dozen times before. "He misses you. I think he still blames himself, even now." She cupped the diamond in her hand. Gave it the bits of warmth her body still had left. "He won't touch you. He promised."

Sunlight shone down on her face, and again, she received no answer. But Lucy knew that Jess was there, still.

The door behind her was thrown open, and Lucy leaned out of the way just in time before it could knock her over and slosh tea all over her. It was George, of course, who'd nearly assassinated her. Figured.

He stood in the now-open door, blanket in his hands. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Scoot over, will you?"