Just before season 15, there’s a practice day, and Lucy is called to Sam’s office.
She checks her locker like any other morning once she gets to the stadium, and there’s a pristine, clean slice of strawberry rhubarb sitting on a gilded plate, resting on her scripts and books.
She doesn’t move to remove it, she glances around a moment, but before she can speak up. Eduardo is looking at her, shaking his head, and her mouth falls shut.
Walking up to her, Eddie shuts the locker quietly, while he cannot sigh, his eyes flicker, and a comforting metal hand meets her forearm.
“Go up to Sam’s office. This means business.”
Lucy doesn’t have any questions, she knows, at least, some about the manager of the team, she has at least seen him once, on the day she signed. The stories about him are tense, she even fondly remembers Jessica calling him a number of expletives at some point during a visit. Regardless, the Philly Pies take business as seriously as they do winning, and this is no jovial manner.
Lucy smiles at Eduardo, “Thank you dear.”
Eddie nods at her, letting his arm fall, “see you soon.”
So she goes. Heels clacking up stairs, the piece of pie in her hands still as pristine as ever, by the time she makes it to Sam’s gilded door, she’s putting on that practiced smile. This is no worse than any audition room, certainly no worse than any directors meeting, she knows she will be fine.
She knocks and the door opens wide. Sam is sitting there, and he grins.
“Ms. Tokkan, take a seat.”
She walks in, and does as asked, “What can I do for you Mr. H-”
“Sam is fine dear,” he cuts her off, “I’d just like to talk about your place on the team.”
Oh.
Oh dear.
Lucy paints a smile.
“What can I do for you? Am I pitching or batting?”
“Neither actually,” Sam perches his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands, “developmental has determined you aren’t quite ready yet, but in due time all things work out.”
She’s not playing.
What does he want?
“Do you have another role in mind for me?”
Sam’s wide grin creeps into view and Lucy just keeps herself from shuttering.
“From my understanding, you’ve been spending quite some time in the Piebrary, is that correct?”
Lucy nods, “Yes, I thought I’d test out the cherry pie recipes.”
Sam’s nostrils flare, he looks almost delighted, “Not everyone has a pension for baking like you do dear. Amazing on the stage, amazing in the kitchen, you even got perfect marks in mortuary school.”
Lucy’s smiling performance slides off of her face in an instant.
“Those records are private.”
Sam keeps grinning, “Nothing stays private forever dear, which was quite fortunate for me.”
Lucy’s lip twitches, she cocks her head and closes her eyes before asking the question one more time, “What can I do for you?”
Sam sits back. He’s clearly satisfied getting under her skin. “I need you to help in concessions. I believe you know about our commemorative pies.”
She blanches a bit, remembering the gaudy advertising about ashes.
Ashes.
Wait.
“You’ll have a special role that unfortunately the previous holder is unable to fill.”
Lucy’s lips are tight.
“You’ll be responsible for assuring everything surrounding those pies is perfect of course, and if any new recipes are to come of this, I’m sure you’ll be fantastic at figuring it out.”
Lucy feels faint, she needs out of this office. Now.
“I understand.”
Sam stands up, he’s walking to the door. When did the door close? She’s standing now too.
“I’m happy to see you undertake this position Ms. Tokkan, and I trust you won’t let me down?”
She puts on that smile again, “Of course Sam.”
He nods, “Good.”
He leads her out the door before shutting it in on himself, and Lucy stands in the hall alone.
She’s done it.
She never knew any of them, not really, Eddie or Lang or even Bright will talk about them.
She didn’t know them.
But she knows their faces.
Genetic material and technology she doesn’t understand is one hell of a baking technique and time after time again the racks are stocked with peach and apple and Mississippi mud and gooseberry and coconut cream and Lucy has never loathed the smell of sugar and fruit more in her life until now.
She does this, without fail because what else is there to do when the man upstairs expects this task done expertly.
She was even briefed, as much as a big black “recipe book” can brief a person about handling ashen remains in a culinary setting and what to do when the umps target someone new.
It’s been seasons though.
Yeong-Ho died before she was here.
Just like in school, she doesn’t let the grief hit her. Maybe it was the years of exposure, maybe it’s the acting classes she secretly paid for during college. She’s fine.
Getting called to pitch is a saving grace. She’s elbow deep in the crust when she gets the fax, and she knows damn well when she walks out onto the field shades of Mickey Woods gray are probably smudged across her face.
She does well.
Sam has not reassigned the task, she works on the days she doesn’t pitch.
Lang jokes about bags under her eyes and she punches him.
She is tired. The faces of the dead come in waves. This is why she went to acting, the faces haunted her then too, she never had to hold their hands then.
Maybe she’s hoping for the end of the world.
She’s never been a fan of comedy.
Bright burns.
In all the seasons she knew the girl, in all the seasons she didn’t, she knew that Philly was her home, even if it didn’t love her back.
Ruslan and Eduardo stare at her when she sweeps up the ashes. They try to tell her there’s no point and the glare she gives them both sends them turning heel. She bags them up. She does not bake.
Eddie knew about her task, eventually, after a particularly bad game, she confided in the metal man.
Both of them thought the last bit of her training would never come to fruition.
Pie or die and no one had died in a long long time.
But here she is holding the ashes of a girl in her locker refusing to use them for their expected purpose. They haven’t heard from Sam all season, and there sure as hell isn’t anyone in the stands itching for a Bright themed snack.
Day 67 and Lucy feels sick from all of the gaudy pink. San Francisco is still hot without the sun and worse with the supernova, but when Holloway leaves scorches in the grass, she’s out on the field before anyone else can catch her.
Eddie is trying to pull her back, he’s yelling at her, what the fuck are you going to do with those ashes with no mouths to feed, there’s no demand at the end of the world.
This isn’t about the pies in the concessions or her duty to the boss, in everything she has done from long before taking the field, in those damn classes that got her into this mess, she understood how important it was to not let these ashes go forgotten.
She doesn’t answer Eddie’s question. She doesn’t write recipes. She fashions urns out of emptied flour and sugar cans. After every single Mickey and Cedric and Juan and Forest and Hobbs and Yeong-Ho it’s the bare fucking minimum she can do.
She asks herself if saving the two of them makes up for it all, what she’s become.
Day 79, she doesn’t get her answer.
