Chapter Nine
Can we grab a drink? Alone?
Even if Ella hadn't concluded her quick text with a smiling, purple devil face emoji, Linda would have known that the jig was up, and Lucifer had told her. Or Maze. Neither had exactly been discreet with who they were, but since she and Ella, while friends, only hung out as a group on "tribe nights" and only communicated through the text chain and not one-on-one, it was obvious the kind of situation Linda was walking into.
Her money was on Lucifer showing her something. Whether that was because he was still having devil body issues or because with Eve moved out and his relationship with the detective so delicately balanced, he'd been desperate enough to reach out to the forensic scientist with proof, Linda couldn't quite say. Frankly, since a family dinner-and, no, about three years ago when Lucifer had wandered into her office and she'd blurted about hot yoga she had not seen that coming-about two weeks ago, she hadn't heard from him. While Amenadiel thought it was kind of his brother not to burden her during her six-week maternity leave, Linda was worried. The way he'd been so final about his therapy when he'd gifted her the priceless Freud journal and his hesitance to stay more to glib talk of Lux or, well, the Lucifer-standard sex puns during dinner…she knew his avoidance tactics by now.
So, it was with all these thoughts swimming in her head that she straightened her purse strap, held her head high (well as high as a five-foot nothing woman could), and walked into the burger joint a few blocks from the precinct. She found Ella easily among the patrons. The other woman was wearing a sky-blue t-shirt with a unicorn on it and waved eagerly from her booth.
Ella stood once she reached the table and gave her one of those famous, eager Lopez hugs. She gave them more frequently during tribe nights. Not that Ella was shy to hug. At all, but if you got enough Patron in her, Ella would hug you every ten minutes like an over eager sorority girl. It was endearing. Linda parted and sat down on her side, grateful a water was already waiting. She wasn't exactly hungry. She'd had a huge breakfast prepared for her by Amenadiel before he'd taken Charlie to the park for the morning, but she did feel suddenly parched, as if her mouth were lined with sandpaper.
"Ella, hey, this was unexpected," Linda said, trying to keep her tone neutral. On the off chance Ella wasn't finally a Celestial insider, Linda didn't want to be the reason she stumbled onto everything. "What's up?"
Ella bit her lower lip and sipped a milkshake that was massive, half whipped cream, and over the top for nine a.m. "Lucifer said I could talk to you about everything." The other woman raised her eyebrows for emphasis and stretched the final word of her sentence out to more syllables than it actually was. Then she looked over her shoulder as if they were in a Tom Clancy novel and lowered her voice a bit. "Devil stuff? Heaven stuff…all of it."
Linda nodded and sipped her water. On some level, as she liked Ella very much and the other woman, while she was struggling with her faith seemed an obvious choice to eventually bring into the fold, Linda was relieved to have the forensic scientist in the know. It would make "tribe nights," which had been fewer and far between since her baby shower and more strained due to tension between Maze and Chloe, easier than they had been. On another level, since everything about Lucifer now meant everything about her son and his life by proxy, Linda felt a small clench of pressure over her chest. Ella was a friend and safe, but it was all a lot.
It had been a lot since Lucifer had shown her his face years ago, and she kept rolling with it.
If she hadn't been all in with being almost killed by the Goddess of all Creation, she certainly had been the moment her GP had informed her she was pregnant. With a still very likely angel baby, even if Charlie seemed perfectly human so far. Not even a feather.
"You do. How do you know?" she asked. "I mean, not to play twenty questions, but Lucifer and Maze tend to chat a lot about being from Hell. How did you find out-out?"
Ella frowned and sipped her milkshake. "He showed me."
Linda's eyes widened. "How long ago?"
She finished slurping her shake and spoke again. "The days kind of blur together. I think it was three days ago. It's still Saturday, isn't it?"
Linda let out an appreciative whistle. It had taken her more than seventy-two hours to escape most of her shock. She'd canceled appointments for a week and claimed a death in the family to just try and deal with her zombie-days due to terrifying nightmares plaguing her, ones filled with Lucifer's true face and eyes that burned like Hell fire. It had taken a week beyond that and Maze's determined prodding before she'd been able to start speaking with either of them. If she were honest with herself, it had taken her probably three weeks from start to finish before she'd been able to be any kind of therapist again. But, seriously, she really had wanted to make sure her terrible, deadbeat of an uncle was in Hell.
How could you have the Devil on your sofa and not ask about that? Or Hitler? Everyone wanted to know about Hitler, she was sure.
But Ella seemed remarkably composed for a woman who'd seen Lucifer's real face, even if she'd already been religious to begin with, more or less. Maybe even despite that. Linda knew for a fact it was terrifying and that it had driven lesser people mad-Lucifer hadn't confessed such things, but she'd heard Maze brag about it before. Its revelation had driven Chloe to another continent.
No, scratch everything.
Ella was taking it too well.
"Did he show you his wings?"
Ella blinked and her eyes widened. "Oh my gosh. What?"
Not that those would be any less terrifying these days. She wasn't sure if him processing his "I hate myself epiphany" enough to make his devil hand go away meant his wings were snowy white again, but she suspected they were still traditionally devilish and bat-like. He wouldn't be avoiding her so deliberately if everything were as normal (well for him) as he claimed.
Linda frowned. "White, feathery angel wings?" She shrugged. "Actually, it's a little funny if you think about it. Normally, Lucifer's wings are white as snow. I don't know much about the other angels, haven't met them, but Amenadiel's are far darker. He mentioned once that white ones were fairly rare."
Ella frowned. "Huh, I guess I figured every, single one would have the big, snowy white wings. It seems to go with a lot of the image."
"I guess Precious Moments figurines got it wrong," Linda offered. "You haven't seen his wings."
"No, I honestly didn't know he still had any. The Fall and all that, right?"
Linda nodded. That was all she needed to confirm that even if Lucifer wasn't having huge problems controlling his body currently, then he was still dealing with the wrong kind of wings. He'd definitely have shown Ella otherwise. It was a safer, saner way to offer proof without his returned face.
"But no, uh," Ella hesitated. "Just, you know, proof."
She frowned, still trying to parse out what Ella wasn't saying. It was her full-time job, and, while she wasn't a detective like a couple of people in her inner circle, Linda still knew exactly when people were trying to skate the truth with her. "His face or just his eyes?"
Ella nodded so hard her that her ponytail bounced behind her head. "The eyes. That. Totally a big deal. Anyway, I am totally on Team Devil or whatever."
The answer made sense, considering Ella wasn't still a recovering, gibbering mess, but something still felt off. She'd have to corner Lucifer on Sunday and get him to commit to a return to therapy soon. She'd be done maternity leave in a week anyway. She wasn't buying exactly how Ella knew, and it was worrying her.
"Celestial," Linda corrected, offering a tight smile.
"Huh?"
"Well, granted, half the 'team' is a demon and The Devil, but the other half are an archangel and a Nephilim. Then again, Charlie seems pretty average. Since there's never been an angel-baby before, we're not really sure if he'll get Amenadiel's abilities or not."
"Wait, I'm pretty sure in the Bible there are angels, uh, you know…" Ella blushed, and Linda appreciated her not putting such a fine point on the sex with humans part. Her life was so very weird. Not a bad weird, but just bizarre. "Well, they're definitely in the Bible so I figured that Charlie wasn't the first."
"Trust me, I did so much Google searching and went to a few different libraries around the area, including UCLA for Biblical texts when Amenadiel dropped the whole 'this has never happened before in angel history either' bomb. Apparently, fun fact, angels were all just fully formed. So it's not like Lucifer or Amenadiel had childhoods."
Ella rolled her eyes. "That actually explains a lot. They're, uh, a bit immature or naïve."
"Considering they're technically billions of years old, immature seems kind." Linda said, laughing.
It wasn't that Amenadiel wasn't knowledgeable about many things like history, the Bible, or how to fight. He and Maze often got into playful arguments about which weaponry was best for a certain task-and she was going to have to get them both to clamp down on knife talk when Charlie understood words more-but when it came to humans behavior or rules…for an immortal being, Amenadiel seemed if not clueless, than guileless. He wanted so badly after finally getting to know humanity to see the best in everyone. After Caleb's death…he'd shut down some and thrown himself into hovering over Charlie 24/7.
"True, but so wow. Okay, catching up. Team Celestial and Charlie's the first ahem ever. Wow."
Linda nodded. "You won't say anything, will you? I mean, Lucifer has never cared or Maze. Amenadiel gets it now, but the three of them are so very strong, nearly invulnerable."
Ella seemed to pale at that. "I know."
Curious. "But Charlie's completely normal, like any other five-week old infant. I don't want…I'm trying to keep him safe, even if he doesn't have any powers that we can tell yet."
"So no baby wings?"
"God, no. Oh wow, there it goes again," Linda admitted, her voice a bit more tight than she'd have liked. It would hit her in moments like this, sometimes with the simplest turns of phrase that her son's grandfather was God. The God. The one with a capital "G," whom she'd never believed in but now was quite sure was one of the worst, most abusive fathers in history. The less so-called Grandpa knew or did with Charlie, the better.
"What?"
"I just remember that Charlie's grandfather is literally God. Phew, it's a lot, Ella, let me tell you. I love Charlie more than anything, and Lucifer and Maze are some of my best friends. Which, okay, ethically wonky with Lucifer, but this is beyond a special case so it is what it is."
"What about Amenadiel?"
She smiled at Ella's quiet yet patient tone. Maybe it was how she talked to victims at a crime scene. It was reassuring and nothing but kindly, genuinely interested. "I would be lucky to one day be more than just a co-parent with Amenadiel. I…he proposed when I first found out about Charlie, but it wasn't the right time at all, and I didn't want us to be together because he thought we had to be, like another task to complete. I know Maze was upset about us as an item at first, but she has Eve now. They're even bounty hunting together now, out in North Dakota on assignment."
Ella smiled at that. "Maze is lucky. Eve's a great kisser!"
Linda arched and eyebrow and then laughed. "For at least one actual angel in the mix, I think our group is too incestuous sometimes."
"Maybe, but would you?"
She nodded and let her fingers stroke the thin, silver chain of her necklace. Amenadiel had given it to her when Charlie had been born. A thank you gift for something she'd be glad to do a million times over because Charlie was, hands down, the best thing that had ever happened to her, especially at her age and thinking she'd wasted that chance waiting for Reese to grow up. It was nothing special, just a small owl on the end of the chain with tiny, diamond chips for eyes. He'd told her that since she was so wise, the bird fit her well.
She wished she felt half as smart as her wayward angels thought she was.
"If we ever figured our own mess out, in a heartbeat, but it's very complicated." And he's shut down a lot lately too. "Right now, we have a good, healthy balance for Charlie, and that's the most I can hope for." She finished her glass and leaned back in the booth. "Now, I don't have like swag to hand out to you as a welcome to the team. There should be hazard pay, but there's not. It's thankless, but they're most of the time worth it."
Maybe not when I'm supposed to defibrillate them to death or having their mom flash fry me, but it's mostly pretty good.
Ella bit her lower lip and her nails clicked on the frosty glass of her milkshake. "I'm worried about Lucifer."
And there it was. Linda had been right. He was definitely avoiding her in a frantic effort to hide whatever was really going on with him. Like he really assumed she'd be so distracted on maternity leave she wouldn't notice the signs. Lucifer might be a master of denial-it had taken him three years to figure out his own deepest problem was rooted in self-hatred, something she'd known and been easing him toward since he put a fist through her wall-but he was far from adept at hiding his true feelings from anyone. The insouciant mask had never been all that convincing.
"What's actually going on, Ella. I'm his doctor, you can tell me."
"And I'm his best friend," she replied, tone sure. "He made me promise not to say much about certain things, but I'm trying to, you know, say things without saying them?"
"Meaning?"
"I just think he's not doing well. Chloe benched him at work; she won't let him do more than paperwork and he's miserable. Lux is only running on Thursdays to Saturdays and during night hours only. I'm sure it's in the red doing it. He barely does anything that's not come to the station to do the paperwork-without even complaining!-and then goes home to Lux in the quiet, as far as I know. Like I get now that he and Chloe are having a bad time about everything cause, like, she knows and I guess it didn't go well, right?"
Linda wasn't sure if Ella knew about Chloe's betrayal or not, but she was erring on the side of caution there. To say "things weren't going well between Chloe and Lucifer" was one of the biggest understatements of all time. Running, even temporarily in her initial shock, to the Vatican had been a huge mistake. And a betrayal she wasn't sure Lucifer would ever stop nursing.
"They're having a lot of trust issues, and I think we both can relate as to why." She frowned. "Wait, he actually focuses on the paperwork part?"
"Well, I wouldn't say focus completely, sometimes he origami folds forms, which he's super good at by the way." She shook her head, "But he's quiet and withdrawn. He's been spending a lot of evenings just chilling in my lab letting me drone on about spectrometry and DNA testing, etc. It's not him. Like at all. I mean, I love he's been so attentive, but I'm not that interesting. He should be orgy deep in Lux stuff by now, and he's just…not."
She reviewed all that Ella was telling her now, all that Ella had carefully not said, and tucked it away in her mind along with Lucifer's refusal to see her professionally-maternity leave be damned-and Ella's evasiveness over exactly how Lucifer had proven he was the Devil to her. So much was afoot, and none of it good.
Reaching over, she squeezed Ella's hand. "Thank you. I know Lucifer has probably sworn you to secrecy on some things, and I respect you have different boundaries with him as a friend than I do as, well, family now. I get that, and after everything he's been through this year, he needs to know he can trust some humans completely. But if you've noticed all these changes at work and at Lux…I needed to know them. He needs to address whatever is eating at him."
Ella nodded and let out a sigh of relief. "It's just weird, you know? Lucifer's so sad, and I've seen him that way before. When Chloe was gone or when they had this almost date at his penthouse but then were so chilly to each other for a long time…but he's really down, and I don't know how to help him on my own."
"I'm not sure I can completely either. Honestly, some of this is about how Lucifer chooses to help himself and what he chooses to accept or not."
"I think Chloe benching him is really messing him up."
Linda nodded but skirted the issue. "I think if his head hasn't quite been in the game lately, that having him on a more restrictive form of duty is a safer choice for him. I can understand Chloe's logic completely, but I also understand that will feel like total rejection to him. Again, thank you for letting me know. Honestly, neither Amenadiel nor I did."
"New baby haze. I totally get it. My brother Diego like never slept with my first nephew. He was always doing that thing where you go to the grocery store for supplies but end up putting the freezer food in a corner and accidentally find melted ice cream the next day cause you were too tired to put it in a fridge." She smiled brightly again, and patted Linda's hand. "We got this. I mean, we do got this, right?"
Linda laughed. "We can try, and I'll feel better with Maze at least back from North Dakota. Eve…things are too raw there for her to help, and I don't blame her. But, yeah, surprise. With angels or, uh, close enough in Lucifer's case, you get a lot of emotional lability…vulnerability. Kind of the weird price for being outside indestructible maybe. I don't know."
"So," Ella said, grabbing her purse and preparing to leave. "You sure we can't get at least team shirts?"
"Forget shirts. They owe us tropical vacations. With cabana boys!"
"Or girls," Ella said, grinning. "Grass skirts optional."
