She couldn't focus on the screen in front of her. The email from Dan just looked like a ramshackle bundle of letters and numbers that made little to no sense as Chloe stared at them.
It was only ten o'clock in the morning but having only had a handful of hours sleep last night, and the events of the last few days, it had all well and truly crept up on her. Chloe blinked again, the noise of the station seeming so distant as she tried to concentrate. She closed her eyes again and shifted in her seat, desperate to try to at least offer the appearance that she was working. She was a professional after all but the noise in her head was almost overwhelming. A second later she heard a scratch and on opening her eyes, she saw Dan bearing a bottle of water under his arm, a cup of coffee and two small white pills in his hand. "I couldn't work out whether you were tired, it was still the migraine or you were hungover. I think I covered every eventuality possible..."
Chloe smiled and threw the painkillers down her throat, followed by a mouthful of water. Anything to see if it made her feel better than she did now. She was tired, but the fact that she had been awake for most of what was left of last night when she and Lucifer had made love that was actually the least of her concerns. She had expected their first time to be well a little wilder, knowing who he was, but as it transpired and the fact it was so tender and simple temporarily eased her heart into peace. Just to have those moments; hearing him breathing her name into her ear might just be the goodbye she needed, and indeed wanted. It might well have been a one-off for all she knew but it was not that which concerned her, it was his news of Eve that was truly troubling her.
"So what do you think?" Dan asked sitting in front of her.
"Of what?" she replied, shifting the coffee to a coaster.
"The email", he responded, tapping her computer screen. He was more than concerned about her now. She just did not look right; pale, troubled and perhaps even more than she had been before. "I actually think we are onto something with the CCTV in the gas station. That guy was there ten minutes before they think the victim died and..." he paused, seeing her eyes starting to glaze over. "Plus the fact he had a purple Mohican only serves to top off the witnesses story that she saw him jump off the Golden Gate bridge wearing an elephant costume".
"Did he?" she replied, still trying to read the screen but not a letter was registering.
Dan shook his head. Now he was worried even more. "Chlo...Chloe!" Her head snapped up. "If you still don't feel well, go home or go and see the M.E". He swallowed, wondering if he was about to tread on shaky ground. "Or go and see Linda".
"No" she replied, shaking her head. "I'm fine Dan. Honestly".
"You are not".
"I am" she responded, voice a touch harsher this time as if she ended telling him she would only open up a whole host of trouble. He thought so little of Lucifer as it was and thought even less of him for 'shipping out' as he had put it. "So do you think we have the guy on CCTV?" she asked.
Dan nodded. "The gas station is only 5 minutes walk away from the cemetery. He fits the guy that was seen standing by the gates too. I said we would go and see the gates witness again early tomorrow morning before we go to that training course. Just to flesh out a few things".
"Thanks Dan" she smiled, reaching across to squeeze his hand. She had clean forgotten about the firearms training. "I'll feel better tomorrow. Be of more use to you".
"We'll see" he replied. "Drink that water and that coffee". He departed with a smile and a promise to himself that he would be checking on her later. At least if she was with him all day tomorrow he could keep an eye on her. Make sure she rested, make sure she ate.
Chloe decided to pull herself together, blinking at his email again and trying to make sense of it all. She had about two minutes of silence when a voice spoke to her. She had not noticed the figure arrive."I want to apologise. For yesterday"
Chloe looked up to find Maze sitting opposite her, arms folded and looking rather contrite for a demon. "I am sorry Decker, but he infuriates me so much that it just...". She waved her hands unable to find the words that truly, succinctly described just to what degree she wanted to kill him.
Chloe smiled. "You have nothing to be forgiven for". She was genuine in that respect. "It was a normal human emotion".
"I do" Maze replied. Human emotion? Nah..."I should never have gone for you. You hadn't been hiding him".
"Maze, its fine, really" Chloe responded. "You had a shock. We both did..."
Maze was genuinely grateful and made her excuses to go. She had a nightclub to stocktake after all. "By the way, Decker, look like crap..."
Chloe laughed once and threw an eraser from her desk at the departing figure before she pulled her keyboard towards her, deciding it was time to knuckle down. She had only been off for a day, but the 100 or more emails that were taunting her said otherwise. Carefully she trimmed away the junk leaving a slightly more respectable number; a few screaming Urgent in their subject line but most she could work through methodically. Ten minutes or so later of forcing herself to ignore the feeling in her head that she could only describe as disconnection, her cell that had been put face down on her desk, vibrated.
She flipped it over to find a text from Lucifer. 'Come home'
Panicked it might be Trixie and feeling a palpitation in her chest, she threw a text back at him. 'Why? What's happened?'
'Nothing. I'm bored'
Chloe rolled her eyes and breathed pointedly. She did not want to get into a round of text-tennis with him right now. Whilst he might be sitting around, she had a lot of work to do and she couldn't afford it any longer. He was worse than Trixie.
'You're a distraction'
'I know. So come home'
'You also know I can't'
Her cell fell silent for a few minutes. She was too distracted by the mountain of emails she had to engage further but her fingers twitched when she received no reply.
'Lucifer?'
'I'm here'
Before she could reply another text arrived, a much longer one, and as she read over it, her cheeks reddened. She could only describe it as a very explicit description of what he would like to do to her when her day was over or earlier if he had his way. Chloe slammed the phone face down on her desk again, praying nobody was watching. So maybe last night was not a one-off after all. He must have been typing it in his silence.
Her only response was 'Stop it'. That text was more than R rated. Thank god, Trixie did not know her pin-code. She texted again wanting to make sure she had not offended him. 'I love you, but not time nor place'. It felt so natural to tell him she loved him, particularly after last night but she was also slightly disturbed. That was the old Lucifer again; the free with his favors, naughty, downright filthy Lucifer. They had so much more to discuss and despite them being at least physically closer than ever, she really wondered whether she would be able to reach him, get him to talk to her properly. Promises and reality were different bed fellows.
A minute later her phone vibrated again to find a single heart.
"Fool" she whispered under her breath, but the handful of texts from him at home waiting for her seemed to have calmed her until her phone vibrated again. "For heavens..."
Instead she found a text from Linda. "How are you today?'
Chloe only had one answer and it was Dan that had put the question into her head. 'Can I come and see you later? I need to talk'
Just as soon as she put her phone down to wait for the therapist's response, Dan appeared again. "Hey, Chlo, we've got a hit on the guy in the gas station. You coming?" Finding strength, she got up downing a mouthful of rapidly cooling coffee and shot out of the station with him, returning there just over an hour later with an uptick on Dan's arrest rate and a surprisingly quick resolution. Maybe now she could dispose of some of these emails.
Later on that afternoon, forgetting to eat lunch, Chloe slid into her seat opposite Linda.
"How are you?" It was always the therapists opening question and with Chloe it either caused the floodgates to open or a stuttering silence.
"Lucifer is back. He came back the day before yesterday" the Detective offered. She needed to tell someone otherwise it might just have burst out to the one person that she did not want to know.
Linda's eye widened and she smiled widely. "That is good news. It is good news?"
"Oh yes" Chloe responded, nodding her head fervently. "Completely, but..." She pinched the bridge of her nose and she breathed in and out, puffing out her cheeks, trying to muster up the courage. "I don't know how long for and..." She could feel tears forming in her eyes but she needed to get it out. Chloe pressed her hands together and shook herself, trying to concentrate, finding a focus in a picture of Charlie on the therapist's table. "He is in such a state, Linda. Cuts, bruises, burns... whip marks. I don't know where to start with him. He says Eve did it".
"Eve? As in..." Linda was shocked to put it mildly.
"Yes". She did believe him. She did, but she didn't understand.
"Wow" Linda replied. "That is ...wow! Just... wow! But you are not sure how to deal with it?" she asked, seeing her patient nod. "Well my first suggestion would be to give him time. That is your first port of call. Don't push him..."
"I know that", Chloe sighed. "I've tried but I want him to tell me so I can help him. But after he told me, this morning he was behaving like Lucifer again. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't just reappeared after nearly a year". She wasn't about to tell her that he sent her the dirtiest text message imaginable, nor that when she left for work that morning he had been more than chipper. Trying to distract himself?
Linda nodded. "He may feel he has told you all he needs you to know for now or as much as he can offer. He may fear hurting you or scaring you and he is keeping a lid on things". Chloe digested the therapist's words. "But how do you feel about him coming back?"
Chloe hesitated. "I don't know how long he's going to be here for..."
"That wasn't an answer" Linda warned. Chloe had been coming to see her for almost all of that year now, once sometimes twice a week in varying states of distress, but getting her to open up had been a long work in progress.
"I am pleased" Chloe replied. "No I am happy he is here. I really am"
"Good"
"Except..." Chloe breathed in; the words sticking in her throat. "When he came back, when I saw him at first, I thought I was losing my mind, hallucinating and I have never been so scared". She swiped her palm across her face, accepting a tissue that was passed to her. "Yesterday, he and Maze had a fight and I just zoned out in front of them. I've never felt it before and it was...it was terrifying that I was just sitting there in this daze. I could barely hear them and this morning, I was trying to look...just looking through emails and I wasn't...I wasn't seeing them..."
"Chloe you know we have touched on this before" Linda responded her voice calm and quiet. She could see her patient pulling at the sleeve of her jacket.
"Lucifer saw it all" she replied, trying to focus again but feeling that disconnect creeping back up on her. "He brought me out of it, both times, but..." Chloe lent forward, her head in her hands. "I just feel...it's like I'm not here and I'm going to make a mistake at work or something will happen to Trixie and it'll be my fault! It's like it was again when he left..."
Linda heard every word and she was right. From last week to this, it was clear that Chloe's distress levels had increased. They had reached a place of at least attempting to move on but no this was ten paces back. "What you describe to me are classic symptoms of PTSD, Chloe. We have discussed Anxiety too. The anniversary could well have triggered something that so far you have managed to keep hidden or at least partially controlled", Linda explained. Chloe nodded carefully. "His reappearance might have awakened something too. You need to tell him how you are feeling. How him going and indeed coming back has impacted on you. How it as all affected you too".
Chloe just shook her head. "I don't want to burden him. I don't want to be talking of negative things if he is only here for a while". He has enough to be concerned about and we may not have long...If he goes again I want him have happy memories of me.
"Chloe, you have to find your peace with him. Whatever happens, whether he is here for hours or days or he stays forever, you need to find a common ground and you need to tell him. If you tell him, he may open up more about Eve in turn".
Chloe sat up straight. "Last night. I slept with him".
Linda would admit she was stunned at the frank admission. "Did you intend to do that?"
"No". Her answer was quick and it was partially the truth. It was the last thing on her mind yesterday. "It felt right".
"Then it was right" Linda replied until suddenly a thought struck her. "Where you careful?" She put her hands up immediately. "Actually don't answer that question. Awfully intrusive! Who am I to talk about being careful? First mother on earth of a half angel baby?!"
Chloe laughed through her tears. Right now, she didn't care if she became the second one. Her cell buzzed before she could speak further. "Sorry, it might be work", she noted, scrabbling in her pocket balancing her cell and the handful of tissue. Instead of the station though it was another message from Lucifer. 'Where are you?".
Linda saw the reactive smile that spread across her patient's face. "Was that him?"
"He wants to know where I am", Chloe replied. Her voice was soft, touched that he was concerned and Linda saw the smile that stayed.
"Tell him then" Linda offered.
"No" Chloe replied, putting the cell face down on her lap. "I don't want him to know I've been talking about him." After everything that had happened before he left, her betrayal with Father Kinley, she was going to try, try, try to be as open and honest with him as she could possibly be, but equally he needed to know she was seeing his therapist. That was not a statement for a text message. Even though he seemed to have forgiven her, she had not forgiven herself by any means. She needed to overcome that too and she had, when it came to it, to make it up to him as much as she could now he was here.
"Chloe?" Linda questioned, interrupting her train of thought. "Remember what I said. If you talk to him about how you are feeling, he might talk to you". Linda could see that she was carefully digesting the question. "Do you want me to speak to a doctor about medication?" It was one that had been asked before and Linda knew what the response would be. "It may help settle your mood. Make it easier to cope and concentrate,"
"No", Chloe replied, immediately. "I need to be there to help him. I need to be useful to him. I'm going to be what he needs me to be". Linda smiled at her response. "What?"
The therapist shook her head in wonder. "This is the first time you have come here and we have left the session with such a positive statement. It is small steps, Chloe. Some days you will take several back, but you will find your light again".
Just as she was about to get back in the car to go home Chloe sent a simple text message – a pizza emoji and a question mark. For the first time today - well the first time in a while - she actually felt hungry but was in no mood to cook. Barely a millisecond later, as he must have had his cell in his hands, she received a 'thumbs up' followed by a string of 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'.
Chloe smiled. Linda was right.
She did need to find her light.
She needed to find her Lightbringer.