Lockwood.

After four months, his proximity was shocking; it was shocking, too, how familiar and unfamiliar he was all at the same time.  He was standing on the dowdy little landing in his long dark coat, his right hand still hovering by the bell.  His hair, as ever, flopped to one side over his brow; his eyes sparkled at me between the fronds.  As I met his gaze, he smiled - and that smile was a world away from the hundred-gigawatt version you saw in the papers.  It was warm but somehow hesitant, as if it hadn't been used recently.  It was the smile I'd hazily imagined a hundred times; only now it was real, solid, meant just for me.  He wore the same old coat with the same old claw marks, from the night we opened Mrs. Barrett's tomb.  The suit was new, though, charcoal-gray with the thinnest purple stripe; as always, it was elegant, stylish, and slightly too tight for him.  I even recognized the tie - it was one I'd given him a year ago, after the case of the Christmas Corpse.  So he still had that, still liked to wear it....

I blinked, and stopped thinking about his clothes.

Lockwood was standing at my door.

All this ran through my mind in the first split second.  "Hello, Lucy," he said.

I just managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which my mouth would simply have stayed wide open while emitting a gassy whining sound.  But I didn't get close to the cool, calm reaction I'd dreamed about during those four long months apart.

"Hi," I said.  I withdrew my hand from my pajamas.  I rubbed hair out of my eyes.  "Hi."

"Sorry it's a bit early," Lockwood said.  "I see you haven't been up long."

Funny, when I'd lived with him at Portland Row, I'd puttered around in nightclothes all the time.  Now that we worked apart, I was suddenly wildly embarrassed.  I looked down.  No, they weren't even my best pajamas.  They were an old gray pair I was using while my laundry was being done.

My laundry...  My blood went cold.  The laundry package!  If it was outside the door...

I craned my head out, surveyed the landing to either side.  No.  No sign of it.  Good.

"Are you all right?" Lockwood asked.  "Something wrong?"

"No, no.  Everything's fine."  I took a deep breath.  Be calm.  The pajamas weren't a biggie.  I could deal with this.  It was all going to be great.  I put one hand nonchalantly on my hip, tried for an expression of airy unconcern.  "Yes. Everything's fine."