A/N: Due to popular request from readers, which sparked the muse (YAY!), I'm adding 2 more chaps to what was originally only a one-shot. Thanks so much to everyone who left me kind comments - they really are like magic for the muse! This is for you!
I welcome the outside air and what it signifies in the wake of my captivity, but the night is also lit with strobing lights from multiple police vehicles, and the edged flurry of activity around me is distinct in its brisk pace and somber undertones.
The happenings pass in a manner that is a muted blur at times while others a sharp cacophony.
I recognize Ella as she comes charging toward me, my name leaving her lips repeatedly. She's crying when she hugs me, and I try not to wince.
The medic patches me up as best she can, and I try not to think too much about the various pain points that seem to attack in waves, or the nausea, or the way my limbs feel feeble and exhausted as if I've run a marathon rather than lain trapped for endless hours.
My mind remains in the tiring and unstable alternating state of muddled and then startlingly sharp and clear.
It's strange this—how clear my moments of clarity are, as if being rescued from certain danger knocked all the cobwebs loose and everything is suddenly clearer than it ever was.
Like how Lucifer presses his cell phone to my ear before I can even ask, and the choked relief I feel to hear the sound of my daughter's voice.
Like Lucifer.
And Marcus—or rather not Marcus, as my realization buzzes and whirls and pulls, even amid the chaos.
Marcus says something about taking me home and I don't protest, though I probably should, because when he puts his arm around me to help me to his car it feels wrong, so much so that I wonder how I ever fooled myself into thinking it doesn't.
The obviousness is a near tangible thing.
It follows me the entire drive home, and after too.
There's something unequivocal in our darkest moments, something raw and unfettered and profound. The contrast is distinct. Illuminating. Hazy and sharp. Hazy and sharp. The cacophony is shouting now as I sit and Marcus stands in the center of my living room.
It's not the best time for it, and yet, on the other hand, perhaps there's no better time; spent and drained of any pretence.
"I can't see you anymore, Marcus. I'm sorry."
I blurt it out suddenly, my voice scratchy from disuse, while I sit there still wrapped in Lucifer's jacket, trying to hold myself together in the aftermath of my kidnapping, amid the obviousness of Marcus's degree of cluelessness.
He's angry, I can see that, and I'm startled by the unease I feel at this, at the sliver of fear that snakes into my gut amid the throbbing pain points, and I recognize how wrong this is too.
He immediately asks if it's about Lucifer, and clearly I've only been fooling myself and no one else.
I don't give him an answer, but he knows, I can tell.
He stalks out the door without another word.