True story: this ficlet happened because I am not a good enough artist to paint the relevant picture, which was my initial response to your prompt. But while a picture may be worth a thousand words when it comes to showing the details of a scene and invoking an emotional response, words can also do a lot that a single image can't. And given that I literally woke up from a dream around 2am this morning with the opening line and the description of Lucy's smile in my head, well... I can recognize a sign when it's shoved it my face. *wry*