LIKE A MIRACLE
What about the white ?
What about it?
Was that some kind of tacit, universal and timeless agreement among the medical institutions abounding on earth?
Who did once say "the white is the reflection of hope, of health" ? An idiotic, deductive sentence that gave support to an equally nonsensical assumption.
Chloe had been staring at the white wall in front of her long enough to have wondered about this, and thus fairly often without ever getting a good or smart answer to it; anything that could have appeased her restless mind, just for a second.
She was surrounded by "white", wherever her eyes stopped.
Everything had turned into white; even before she arrived in this place looking like any other hospital. Turning into white when the rescue workers and their flashlights had finally reached them. White, like the sunlight that had blinded her when she had been driving outside. Turning into white when the doctor explained to her Lucifer's deep injuries.
" It seems that Mr. Morningstar has been injured during your fall. His broken ribs haven't been immediately taking in charge and thus worsened his general state over the next few hours. An internal bleeding can be quite impressive to see and a serious complication, but I assure you he's in good hands..."
Good hands.
White hands, tinted with the gloves they wore. White... But they wouldn't stay that way.
White walls.
This white bed.
These white curtains.
White, white, white and... white.
Others hues than white were unsuccessfully trying to balance the heavy atmosphere; a wall painted with shy green to show the entrance to the cafeteria a few meters away, rather uncomfortable gray seats welcoming people's relative patience inside the waiting room or even the garish red from a vending machine at the corner of the hallway.
None of them managed to capture Chloe's gaze.
There were some things that easily consumed the rest of the world.
Just like this white did. Sort of.
It was an absurd choice of hue. How could we think to connect health to a hue - a gaudy and so not comforting hue, moreover? Chloe didn't feel comforted by this uniformity.
She felt no comfort in front of this deplorable wall. She wasn't appeased by that same facial paleness that hadn't left Lucifer a single moment since he came back from the surgical unit. This said, his nightshirt as white as the rest significally reduced her partner's appearance. Just like the medical equipment that surrounded his unmoving body.
It was difficult to turn her thoughts towards any positive direction with that. Chloe had told herself over and over again that everything would be fine, that he was in good hands now, that nothing bad would happen to them both between these walls. Some meaningless thoughts inside this room, before Lucifer's closed eyes. Useless, really.
With a long sigh, the detective stretched the muscles of her shoulders, which painfully complained about this treatment, and closed her eyes. Her eyelids shut, she could have thought she was still stuck under these tons of concrete; still screaming Lucifer's name to bring him back to her, screaming for help to those who were making their way among the rubble.
One hour.
An hour to hear the stones fall, grazing metal. An hour without hearing Lucifer's voice again...
She mechanically moved her hand to her temple, rubbing the wound dressing hidden under her loose hair.
Touching the flood of useless thoughts without succeeding to clear them from her mind, just like this vise around her skull. She could almost hear Daniel admonished her over and over again, though he was no longer there.
"There's nothing more you can do right now, Chloe. Go home and take some rest. Trixie needs you, too."
Of course she wanted to go home, but sh-
She couldn't. Not now. Not yet.
She wanted to see her daughter, hold her in her arms and hold the certainty of never losing her again. She wanted to fall asleep beside her, huddled-up together under her pink blanket. Fall asleep and forget a bit.
But she couldn't.
She needed something else before.
Chloe opened her eyes. Lucifer didn't.
When will he open his damn eyes?
She leaned forward, her face close to his, and waited. What did she expect? She couldn't tell. A physical demonstration of life; a deeper breathing, a bending of his unmoving fingers on the sheet, a slight frown... Something that would finally ease her from all these deleterious thoughts.
Still, Lucifer didn't respond to her despair and remained to his peaceful oblivion. No bending, not the slightest frown or any noticeable change in his breathing. Nothing.
Squinting, the detective shifted and whispered in his ear;
"Nice try, but I won't leave this seat without answers to my questions."
She sat up properly and didn't take her eyes off Lucifer's features.
"I'll stay here as long as necessary, whether you like it or not."
She probably looked crazy by threatening someone unconscious and unable to defend himself, but she couldn't care less about it. She might have been worried about him - and she was - but she couldn't get away from that greedy frustration that stifled her more as the hours passed without any change. It almost looked perfectly calculated. The internal bleeding - unfortunate consequence of a deadly fall; that should have been deadly for anyone else – combined with his broken wing, passing out right on time; it was evident. The medical teams that had immediately separated them once they had been pulled out of the elevator shaft, this endless surgery... and now this.
It was really well played.
Giving her such information and then become totally inaccessible...
"Very well played." she mumbled, glaring at him. "You bastard..."
"It certainly sounds like him."
Chloe turned her head and took notice of Amenadiel's presence in the doorway. She hadn't even heard him come in, too busy she was to ponder and insult his brother lying in that awful white bed. Either that or Amenadiel was able to sneak in and out wherever he wanted without making a single noise - could be that, couldn't it? She didn't know much about his powers, other than his beefy squad status. Or she was just much more exhausted than she thought. One like the other, she was ridiculous anyway.
"Amenadiel! Good morning or... evening? What time is it?" she mumbled, looking for her phone in her jacket pocket.
"Five a.m. Visiting times are over; why are you still here?"
"The medical team gave up trying to get me out of here as soon as I showed them my badge." explained the detective, shrugging a bit. "What about you?"
"The benefits of being a family member, I guess."
Chloe nodded, looking at Lucifer's brother without a word.
Did he know that she knew?
Knowing Lucifer, the answer was negative.
Amenadiel took the free chair near the window. He sat beside the young woman without saying a word, looking for a moment at his brother's fragile silhouette. A silhouette so far away from this thousand-years-old strength told by the myths of every earthly cultures, far away from the Devil, this relentless maleficent demon without the slightest physical flaw. A flaw that should never have happened.
It was her fault.
Hers.
And she still didn't know why.
"As long as I'm staying near you, I become mortal."
She didn't know what to think, actually. Not since-
"Dan told me what happened." said Amenadiel, interrupting her thoughts.
"Is that why you're here? You're planning to convince me to go home and sleep a bit?"
"Should I convince you?" he replied with a smile.
She shrugged, smiling in turn. She had no clear answer to give him. Getting answers was important for her, but going home for a moment to think about all this, lying down with Trixie beside her; it was important, too.
"Not if you want to waste your time."
"Got it. And to answer to your question; no, I'm here for my brother. If you don't mind having company, of course."
"I don't mind at all." Chloe reassured him, pulling on a corner of the blanket that was stretched over Lucifer to remove a fold in the fabric.
They didn't say a word for a moment, both feeling no need to speak, both looking at the Devil's unmoving body, both waiting for something new that wouldn't happen any time soon. Chloe's eyes lingered a long time on his face, his black curls teasing his forehead, his long eyelashes against his pale skin; such fine locks of a same kind of answer.
Lucifer had tried to describe her his real appearance - as he called it - although there was only one for the detective.
"-...Well... It's quite the same that a burned face, I guess. In a more... infernal way."
She tried to replace this human face with that very different one, searching her memory and her imagination, both obviously so far away from the reality he had portrayed in a few words. She had seen a few cases of serious burns when she started to work for the LAPD. That was after voluntary fires with multiple victims. skinless, red... She couldn't describe it.
And the smell.
Chloe mechanically tightened her fingers around the arm of her seat; feeling almost instantly sick.
"Is everything all right?" Amenadiel asked her.
She nodded, hardly swallowing with the knot that had just formed inside her throat.
"Yes. Yes, 'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm fine, really. It's just-I'm tired, 'no big deal."
It was Amenadiel's turn to nod, still looking concerned, though. A few seconds passed before she heard his careful deep voice again;
"I've heard that there was a staff room downstairs... If you want to close your eyes for a time-"
"- and move me away enough from Lucifer so that he could heal faster?" ended the detective.
She turned her head and wasn't surprised to meet his chocked expression.
So, it was "no" for her. Not a big surprise.
Chloe turned her head back to her unconscious partner, smiling slightly at this all new breach of his truth engagement.
"I already thought about it. Lucifer and I have been separated long enough since our rescue until we arrived at the hospital. And I don't even count the four hours of surgery on the other side of the hospital - which makes me think that he can't heal himself as fast as you both think, even though I would have been at the other end of the planet. Maybe it's because of his wing..." she thought aloud.
"His wing?"
"He broke it when he tried to save me; it's been in a bad shape since. That with the internal bleeding... So no, going away wouldn't help much. Except to avoid answering my questions. Stupid Devil."
She could feel Amenadiel's look piercing her skin. He stared at her a long time.
"How long?"
"Only a few weeks." replied the young woman. "But there're still so many things I don't know, apparently. And this asshole couldn't find a better plan not to telling me the truth!" she exclaimed, pointing at Lucifer.
She let out a bitter exclamation and then crossed her arms on her chest.
"I shouldn't be so surprised, right?" she mumbled.
Amenadiel didn't give her an answer, lost in thought. And Chloe didn't try to get some from him. It was up to Lucifer to give them to her. She wanted it to come from him.
When was he going to wake up?
She barely noticed that his brother had gotten up and invited her to do the same, staring blankly at the hand he was offering to her, confused.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm offering you some answers, for want of anything better than my brother's. And a cup of coffee." he added with a smirk. "Either one should provide you some comfort after that terrible day, don't you agree?"
Chloe hesitated; what if Lucifer did wake up in the meantime? A deep feeling of guilt seized her as soon as she seized his hand; a strong feeling that wasn't enough to deafen her need for answers instead of the actual Devil's quiet lethargy.
But she did want answers.
And if there was one thing that Lucifer would understand... it was her choice to fulfill that desire at the cost of everything else.
- xXx -
Now that she was sitting in front of that green wall, Chloe realized that she had quickly misjudged the lighter hues from the rest of the building. White wasn't that bad to look.
"Here."
She gladly accepted the cup of a darker hue offered by Amenadiel, a strong smell of cheap coffee brushing her nose. She already drank this so much at the precinct that she almost forgot the delicious taste of freshly milled coffee beans.
"Thanks."
She poured a lot of sugar in it and stirred the "coffee" with her spoon. Except for a few doctors and nurses who were waiting for the end of their shift by drinking another cup of coffee and no more think about the time; they were both alone. It was for the best; Chloe didn't know where this conversation would lead them. Where it would lead her feelings. In fact, this was the most uncertain thing at the moment.
Amenadiel took place before her, then he lifted his own cup to his lips. The sour prequel of a complicated talk. The detective didn't rush things, she had no interest in doing so and wasn't that impatient to start.
A real contradiction...
"Give me answers, but jut those that I might like."
Something like that, yeah.
She kept stirring the sugar in her coffee even if it had already disappeared into it, watching the movement of the warm liquid around her spoon.
"You seem to take the news surprisingly well." began Amenadiel after a while.
There you go.
There was the starting signal.
"It wasn't easy the first times." said Chloe with a tensed smile. "It's still complicated... most of the time."
"This is understandable. The proof of the divine is something difficult or impossible to deal with, for people as fragile as humans can be."
The detective let out a slight exclamation.
"By seeing Lucifer like this... I'd say that's an inter-species notion, isn't it?"
"Well-It's...What's happening to my brother can't be seen as a generality; it's-…"
"Complicated ?" she helped him.
"Sort of." Amenadiel told her with a light laughter, seemingly uneased, though.
"Tell me about it..."
"How did you find out?"
Chloe shrugged.
"Lucifer left his cut wings in one of his cupboards. 'Couldn't any longer deny the facts right before my nose after that."
Amenadiel sighed deeply, getting instantly upset with the detective's explanation. He shook his head, staring into space, and began to mumble insults against his younger brother.
"...-lucked prick! He won't listen to me, will he?! How stupid I was to hope that he might think a bit after his last session with Linda! Wait-Wait, you talked about his wings earlier, didn't you?" he exclaimed, staring at Chloe, suddenly filled with hope about these divine limbs. "Didn't he cut them off after all? Why didn't he?"
"Because I asked him not to."
"You what?"
"I asked him to stop it. Only until he finds out the reason they came back." she explained.
Amenadiel stared at her, speechless, and then laughed.
"You're the very first person he listens, Chloe. You really must be somebody special to affect him and his behavior like this!"
Chloe smiled in turn, barely. Her hands clenched around the goblet as she took a long breath.
"I guess that... A walking miracle is indeed special." she said as calmly as she was able to.
As calm as she could seem, the detective felt antsy inside; each of her thoughts, each of her breathings acting together to bring it outside. Her trembling hand around her cup was the only thing that betrayed her real state of mind. Amenadiel didn't seem to notice though. If the young woman was possessed by untimely tremors; all of a sudden, he was frozen to place; a quiet, solid salt statue with its dark eyes on her without blinking for single a moment.
Of course, Chloe had expected to cause a more or less strong reaction by splaying her ace, but she had to admit that the angel's reaction here – well, the complete lack of it - wasn't planned at all. After all... That miracle "thing"; she had every right to feel upset about it, even if she didn't know much. But if Amenadiel reacted that way with just a few words...
What did she miss?
"Who told you this?" asked the angel with a tensed tone.
"Lucifer. I mean... I'm not even sure he realized what he was saying back then, in his bad condition."
"What else did he tell you?"
"Not much." answered Chloe, sitting up in her chair, feeling more and more uneased with Amenadiel's eyes on her. "It sounded like crazy stuff for the most of it. He said… "
Chloe tried to remember Lucifer's words as he told them before he lost consciousness.
"He said that your Father planned absolutely everything. That he had to protect me... protect me from himself."
She sighed, shaking her head.
"That's complete nonsense."
She began to nibble her thumb with anxiety and looked at Amenadiel who seemed to have nothing to say about this part of the story. Not even one additional question or two.
This anxiety she had been feeling for a moment instantly exploded. Chloe slowly moved her hand away from her mouth, staring at her partner's brother.
"Oh G-…" she whispered, stunned. "Tell me it's nonsense, Amenadiel. Please!"
"Chloe-"
"Oh fuck-" she said in a very low tone, getting up and placing her hands on her strangely painful temples at once.
Two men that were sitting at a few tables from them stopped their conversation to stare at her, curious. Amenadiel leaned forward, moving his hand towards her, knowing then that he couldn't reach her from where he was.
"Chloe, please-"
She didn't listen, making a few steps till the other end of the table, going round in circles, not caring about the multiple curious looks on her. She had trouble breathing, thinking. She had so much hoped to have misunderstood Lucifer's words; she had convinced herself that it was nothing, just insignificant ramblings. All that coming from a seriously injured devil.
Exhaustion, her own exhaustion...Something, anything.
Anything, but certainly not the "truth".
"Oh for fuck's sa-!" she exclaimed in a breath, turning quickly to the table, not caring about Amenadiel's endless asking. "I'm a fucking walking miracle!"
A miracle.
Like-... Like the Virgin Mary!
Or Lazaru's resurrection.
A miracle.
"Why?" she murmured, staring blankly at the wall in front of her.
The detective finally turned to Amenadiel and looked him in the eye, the angel still struggling to appease her after this destabilizing revelation. A bomb would have been sweeter to handle... so much sweeter than this. Their trip in the elevator wasn't that terrible, after all.
A miracle. A straight creation from God, from Lucifer's holy Father... Why? Why even doing this?!
"Why?!" she repeated harshly, deeply upset.
"Chloe-"
"Lucifer told me that youand your Father were close; so, don't pretend you don't know." she warned him, her voice trembling with rage. "You do know something! You do!"
The subject was complicated enough for Amenadiel to wait for an alternative before he finally gave up the fight and sighed with resignation. At this point, Chloe wasn't expecting to be comforted or belied. As terrible as his answers might be, she needed to hear them.
He had to know something, he had to explain to her.
He had to; someone had to.
And right now.
"I don't know much about this." he warned her.
He waited for her to answer him, but the young woman remained silent and kept glaring at him, resolute. Amenadiel sighed again and looked down, probably unable to reveal what he knew while supporting Chloe's gaze.
"One day, my Father summoned me; an interview He kept secret from the rest of my family. It was thirty-five years ago. I wasn't surprised to be summoned; it has always worked like that with Him and I guess it still does since. But... the secret around intrigued me. It was something new. Just like what Heasked me. Well... not that new, but this practice was forgotten for so long back then that I didn't think I'd use it right away."
"What did He ask you?"
"That I bless a couple so that they give birth to a child. I wasn't allowed to ask why... Never."
"This couple-... Was it-?"
Amenadiel nodded.
"Your parents, yes."
"You knew... The whole time... you knew!" murmured Chloe, annoyed at feeling tears tickle the corner of her eyes.
"I didn't know it was you, Chloe." he tried to defend himself. "I only found out when I met your mother again six months ago. That's when I understood your emotional connection with Lucif-"
Amenadiel abruptly stopped talking, shutting his eyes and clenching his fists on the table.
But it was too late.
"What?"
Chloe's voice was a cold breath. Her whole body suddenly submerged by a freezing wave of understanding. Would she have wanted to move that she wouldn't have been able to, breathing was almost a miracle.
A miracle ... What a cruel irony.
The anxiety she had so much wanted to hide from his sight was now the mistress of her senses, of her emotions, of her very least thoughts. Chloe had no more control on them. It appeared to her then that she never has. Not even once.
She wasn't even supposed to exist.
If she was here, it was just-
It was-
"For him." she said aloud through her trembling lips.
She could feel Amenadiel's concerned look on her. She could also feel that freezing tumult ravaging everything inside her. One thought, more powerful than this indefinable chaos, remained in her mind.
"I need to get out of here."
And without warning, Chloe staggered towards the white, impersonal corridor; she clung on to that single thought, clinging on to that unnerved reason before this terrible truth. She barely noticed that Amenadiel had moved as well, holding her by the arm - she only stopped after she noticed this unpleasant tension in her numbed limb. She blinked several times, astonished to feel nothing more than that iron grip around her flesh.
"Chloe-"
"I need to get out of here." she repeated weakly by looking him straight in the eye.
He seemed to hesitate, but finally let her go.
When she finally reached the corridor, she heard Amenadiel's deep voice resounded behind her;
"I'll let you know when he'll wake up."
Chloe didn't answer, now almost rushing towards the exit of the hospital. Rushing to escape this truth, her own answer that she feared not being in Lucifer's favor. Nor in anyone's favor.
She could only run.
Run and avoid asking Amenadiel not to.
Tbc with... "The person I am."
