Author's Note:
Written for kanshou87 for the Deckerstar Network Valentine's Exchange and based on the prompt Ronan Keating - If tomorrow never comes ( /kgs/TyEk2c).
(Set right around the time of the Season Two final episodes.)
"What is it that you really want, Lucifer? Have you ever asked yourself that?"
Lucifer stops pacing midstep, his grip on his phone flexing for a second before he recovers. To think that, of anything she could ask him, she had to ask him that.
It takes him a few more breaths to find his voice as his mind comes around full circle.
"That's quite the question, Doctor. It's not so simple. I can't just ask myself that. It's impossible."
Over the phone he can hear Dr. Linda sigh deeply, her voice causing an unpleasant static interference into his earpiece. He resumes pacing, marching crisply from one length of the small balcony to the other.
"No, Lucifer, it's not. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be."
In the background of the call he can hear sounds of revelry. Upscale revelry. The clinking of glasses and something that perhaps is-
"Is that champagne I hear, Doctor? I hope I didn't interrupt you in the middle of a celebration."
A whisper of a curse is his answer. The phone crackles again, followed by a hissing slip that leads him to assume that she's put her hand over the mouthpiece so he can't hear her.
While he waits he glances inside, peaking in through the window into the dark bedroom within. No lights. No sign of movement. She's still asleep.
After a few moments of unpleasant static go by and he pulls the phone away from his ear, crossing his arms over his chest and drawing his coat tighter. It's Valentine's Day here in Belfast and it's positively freezing but that only adds to the setting. Snow blanketed the countryside, fires burnt throughout the night, and he and Chloe were on their first international undercover assignment. Pretending to be a married couple, even, to add a touch more romance to the occasion.
He had planned on wining and dining her. Showing her the finest all-star treatment that the North had to offer, such as that is. What he hadn't counted on was Chloe getting terribly sick after spending their whole entire first day on a stakeout in an unheated van.
"Lucifer? Are you still there?"
Dr. Linda hadn't been delighted to receive his call. Or his text messages. Or his eighteen other calls when she hadn't immediately picked up.
"You're a good woman, Doctor. Where would I be without you?"
It's a rhetorical question, he would be in exactly the same place, but with less of a sense of immense pressure to answer her questions exactly right.
"Lucifer..." Oh he knows that tone. That's the tone the Good Doctor has when she's not pleased with him. "Lucifer, why don't you try this: instead of calling me in the middle of the night on my birthday, why don't you go and talk to the real root of your issues?"
He pauses again, staring out into the moonlight hills as he ponders her words. The bed and breakfast he and the Detective were staying at as part of their cover was on the very edges of town, surrounded by snow covered fields and the occasional dotting of trees. It had made for a very fanciful and lovely setting until he and Chloe had to chase down a frightened informant for nearly an hour. On foot. Through knee-deep or higher snow drifts. Hence why the detective had been out with a cold all evening long.
"But," he begins again, frowning when he thinks he hears the frantic downing of a glass at the sound of his voice, "but, Doctor, she's asleep. I should hardly-"
"You, Lucifer! I'm talking about you! Chloe is not the problem. You are."
Again he pauses. Where in the world would she get an idea like that?
"No, Doctor, I think you misunderstood-"
"Oh god, Lucifer, just shut up for a moment, will you?"
"Don't bring my father into this."
He says it as a reflex. Truly Dr. Linda must be a good way's into a bottle if she's lost her… way with guiding him through her words. But he shuts up to the next deep sigh that reaches him across the time zones.
"Lucifer," her voice is clipped but measured, "the reason you are having this… let's call it this 'crisis' is because you're afraid. Something has happened and you won't tell me what it is but you have to face these fears. And, to do that, you have to get your head in order. Ask yourself that question."
Saying it's simply a fear that has gripped him throughout the night is a terrible understatement.
His mother had found it, the key back to heaven. She had found it and now they only needed one last, final component before…
Before what?
Before he had to go back 'home'? There is no home for him, not anymore. Certainly not there, up in those fabled pearled gates. Not with them. No, he should be-
"Lucifer?"
He clears his throat. Goes back to pacing. At least now, in the very late hours of the night or the earliest hours of morning however you want to call it, he's all alone out here with his thoughts. No one around than his poor Good Doctor and his sleeping Detective.
"So I should try it then?" he asks. Maybe it's not such a bad idea. Maybe.
"Try a little self reflection to understand what's going on inside you? Yeah sure, Lucifer, give it a go. I love it when my patients do that."
That wouldn't be sarcasm he's hearing over the phone, right? No. Of course not.
"Goodnight, Doctor. And thank you for… not hanging up on me."
A long silence stretches. He can hear many different sounds muted in the background while he waits for her to reply.
"You're welcome, Lucifer." Her voice is heavy and weary. "Now goodnight."
He stares at his phone for a little while after she disconnects. Then he remembers his manners and hurriedly pulls her contact number back up. He'd almost forgotten. That would have been terribly rude of him.
Happy Valentine's Day, Doctor.
He sends the text off, confident that she would not have answered to his voice. Then he takes a few deep breaths of the frigid air.
A beep and a heart emoji is his only reply.
Lucifer is very quiet when he opens the door from the balcony and creeps back inside.
Chloe is still deeply asleep, there's even the faintest hint of a snore, though perhaps her blocked sinuses may be to blame for that.
4:17 in the morning.
That's the time on the clock and it casts an ethereal blue glow over Chloe's skin, making her look pale and ghostly to the point of death. But she's warm when he touches her, her forehead burning up as her body fights off the sickness. A day, a full day spent in a frigid van followed by an hours snow romp had done its number on her.
I'll take the floor.
Oh no, Lucifer, no you don't. We can share the bed.
Certainly not, Detective. You need your rest. You need to be well to fight crime and all that good business tomorrow.
He shakes his head, brushing back the memory. Chloe would have normally fought him. Normally would have won, too. This just goes to show how under the weather she was.
With a sigh he tucks the blanket tighter around her and goes back to pacing, this time flickering in and out of the shadows like the Lord of Darkness he truly is.
Time seems to have less meaning in the night. Almost as if the moments are suspended, floating in a delicate bubble that could pop at any second.
Lucifer would be quite content to spend at eternity right where he is, watching over his Detective as she breathes and fits, her body fighting off a nasty fever and all the other trials they had faced together these last few days since landing on the Emerald Isle.
And how unfair is that? Poor Chloe taking the worst of their shared conditions but he, thanks to his dubious heritage, simply had to walk away a short distance to cure his ails.
It's very unfair. Completely. He would gladly take on any challenge, any burden or penance, to save her from these failings of her mortal flesh.
And there in lies the core of their problem: whether he stays or he goes, Lucifer is immortal. Perhaps his body here may die, but his fate will continue on for the end of time. Hers won't.
It's an odd thought and one that he's never allowed to leave the back recesses of his mind before. But perhaps tonight is the time to go over this? To permit the truth to affect him?
The very thought of having to leave at all, and certainly within just a few days…
She wouldn't know…
That's the cruelest part of all of this. He would simply disappear and Chloe would never know...
Oh.
Oh.
Was that what the Good Doctor had meant? When he had called her, frantically and again and again, and told her that he was having a crisis because his Detective was sick. Any other Doctor, any other mortal, would have told him to 'calm down' and that he was overreacting. That's always what they say. 'Calm down'. It's not that easy, is it?
But of course Dr. Linda had known better. She had been able to read between the lines even when he didn't understand them enough himself to even know they were there.
Lucifer stands up, not having realized that he was kneeling down next to his Detective.
She needs… she needs… what does he need?
Maybe exactly what his Doctor had ordered: it's time to confront what the real problem is. It's not his Detective. His perfect, endlessly forgiving other side that he will never begin o deserve. Perhaps Dad put her in his path for a reason, he has a way of doing exactly that, but it doesn't matter.
No, she's not the problem.
He stumbles into the bathroom, tripping on the low tiled step inconsiderately separating the two rooms. When he flicks on the light he flinches, having spent the last four or five or however many hours pacing in the darkness trying to calm his wandering thoughts.
The man he sees in the mirror looks exactly like the man he pretends to be.
Lucifer takes a deep breath and fights it all back down. Smothers the voices of his brother condemning him and his Mum cajoling him. Suffocate every word dear old Dad has ever whispered into that poor and battered part of himself that's called his conscience.
Maybe he'll leave. Maybe. He doesn't want to, but perhaps one day.
For now though, there's nothing for it then. He might as well give it a try.
"What do you really want?"
The words are bitter and muttered under his breath. He can't bring himself to look up into the mirror above the sink he's leaning on.
He tries again, this time taking a deep breath. In and out. Good Doctor Linda had once tried to teach him therapeutic breathing, but he'd never quite taken to it. Too slow. Too boring. Too peaceful. That's not him at all.
But now he's getting a little desperate. Being pulled in two directions is agonizing enough for him to try anything.
"What is it that you really want?"
He jerks his chin up, forces himself to stare right into his own eyes as he says it. Never had he ever thought about trying this on himself. It won't work, surely. But it's worth a try.
And it doesn't work. Not at all. But maybe it does.
What does he want? So many things. Impulses and desires that he cannot even name let alone fully understand.
He wants…
He wants to be happy. Doesn't everyone want to be happy? And he wants Chloe to have… everything. Everything her bright little heart could ever desire.
What is it that you really want?
...A life of his own. A chance to show her how much she means to him. How much she in all her mortal shell has changed his destiny. Forever.
He wants…
He wants her to know. He wants her to know what he feels. He does. Even if he doesn't know it himself.
Lucifer gives himself one last hard look in the eyes and then steps back, turning away from his own reflection.
What does he really want? No, that trick doesn't work on himself. Pity. It might have lead to epiphany.
But the Good Doctor's word do guide him, lead him along a path of acceptance.
What will be will be. He cannot change his Father's path anymore than he can control his own final, ultimate fate. What he can change, however, is the here and now.
Chloe, Detective, his Detective. She was brought onto his path for a reason.
He hasn't been very fair to her, has he?
All the stunts that he's pulled. All the lines that he's crossed. All the times he simply didn't listen.
She has stood with him, time after time. Oh sure, Lucifer, spout whatever nonsense you're going to say. Yes, you're the devil himself. Right. Don't worry me about any of that, I've got your back, Jack.
And yet, no matter what, she was firmly in his corner. She stood by him, stood up for him, even. Tried to tell the world that he's not a bad man, not some sort of entitled playboy prince bad boy wannabe. Or at least not just that. Suddenly that means more to him than anything else in the world.
To think that he would even consider the notion of leaving her. No. No no. That's all his mum's plan. He wants no part of it now. He never did, not truly, but certainly not now. Not now when the Good Doctor has shown him the way.
What is it that he really wants? Well, that's actually quite easy.
More of the same.
More and more and more forever Or, should that not be possible, at least a lifetime spent here right where he is. Right where they both are.
When he goes back into the bedroom it's still as dark and as quiet as when he'd left.
Chloe sleeps on, completely unaware of the silent but monumental war that had been waging within the man who was both her partner and roommate for the night.
The bed dips down when he shifts onto it but he stays careful not to disturb her or let her slide. No, he moves very carefully, laying down but allowing no part of their bodies to actually touch.
He wishes he could have all of her. Most of her. Even a tiny little part of her. Some memory to take with him back to heaven.
Will he meet her there one day?
How else could you merge this together? This juxtaposition between good and evil, living and immortal?
Oh, dear gods, will he have to introduce her to his parents?!
Lucifer's eyes shoot open at that He hadn't realized he was about to nod off, laying down here next to her. His hand automatically finds her own, the one that she in her sickness had wrapped around herself. He intertwines their fingers without thinking for he is a man of action, after all.
Chloe won't remember any of this tomorrow. She's too deeply asleep, too far in the middle of the night, but he will. He will remember it all.
Tomorrow is a new day. A day of promise and change and Lucifer trying to be a better soul than he knows how to be.
There's just one more thing to do. Just the one.
He pushes himself up onto his elbow and leans over he, his lips hovering barely above her ear. And then he whispers the words.
There. He said it. Maybe someday he'll be able to say that when she'll hear it.
Tomorrow he'll make a point of trying it. If he can't say it in words, maybe… he'll find a way. Find a way to show her what she really means to him.
Tomorrow is tomorrow, though. Tonight… tonight he has everything he needs.