AN:

Happy New Year everyone! (not a worst one than the last one, at least)

I hope you've all been able to party safely with friends and family :3

First of all, thaaaanks SPCLjmm and the guest readers for the last reviews, sorry I can't answer you in PM.

And here's the new chap, the starting update for 2021.

Turns out it's the longest chap I've written for this story so far, but there are good chances that the 'date' chap win. Who wanna bet? X)

Music (several, this time):

Cold Blood | Valen

Champions | Fire Choir

Fearless | Kat Leon


KNOCK, KNOCK

15


By the time Chloe gets out of the car, jacket on her sore shoulders and gun in her holster, their suspect has already disappeared behind the house. Probably to go through the kitchen rather than the living room and thus avoid further risk of being noticed.

Speaking of which, Lucifer doesn't seem to feel concerned, a foot already on the road between her car and Jessie Evans' house. Chloe grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him behind a waste container at the entrance of the dead end. Lucifer crouches down, his eyes following a long, sticky streak that's barely an inch away from touching his shoulder. Slightly moving aside while wrinkling his nose in disgust, he turns to Chloe, back straight. "What are we waiting for?"

"I want to make sure he's in the house," she whispers, craning her neck towards the house and its windows, all shut on the darkness inside.

No suspicious movements nor lights.

"We could have waited in the car," Lucifer complains.

"We could have... if you hadn't gotten out that quick. Where did your 'exhilarating languor' go, hm?"

"Snored on the wrong side of the car, didn't you?"

Chloe welcomes his teasing with a glare, but Lucifer's gaze is already directed elsewhere. He, towards the house; she, towards the car behind her where she had left her phone.

She should call for backup, just in case.

But getting back to the car and following procedure, that's more time for their only suspect to run away.

"Knock, knock, Detective."

Lucifer's whisper makes her turn around. His pointed finger guides her eyes to the largest window on the ground floor, to the left of the front door. The gleam dancing on the pane captures her look, a reflection of quick - probably panicked - movements inside.

"Follow me," she whispers back before walking along the container.

"Not the answer I was expecting, but-"

So much for backup. Anyway, it was only one man. The Devil and a human could handle this without external help, like they'd done with dozens of similar situations before.

The gleam is gone seconds before they climb the front steps. Chloe looks through the other window; smaller, reflecting no more suspicious presence than its twin. She can only see the first flight of stairs leading to the second floor from here.

"Detective?"

She turns towards Lucifer, his hand already on the handle. Nodding, she takes her gun when he turns it towards her, the leather discreetly rubbed while the lock releases a clicking sound, the slight pressure of the Devil's hand on the door while her hand welcomes that of her gun. She grabs her flashlight from the other, gun and light pointed towards the kitchen.

Empty.

Chloe's and Lucifer's gaze meet before she enters, her creaking steps soon smothered in the living room carpet. Which is also empty.

Lucifer sighs at her back, door closed behind him. "Well, that's disappointing."

"He's still here, he must be."

Cautiously, Chloe enters the kitchen, a long narrow corridor of utensils and a stove as old as Methuselah that ends on a half-open wooden, screen door. She steps over spoons, lids and saucepans that had fallen during the messy fight between their suspect and the victim; the beam of her flashlight going up and down the door frame with each step she takes. With the barrel of her gun, she opens the door wide to the garden and the green wooden fence around it. Being still full dark outside, the fence looks even darker. Troubling, unmoving pillars and yet… she could feel them coming closer if she ever stops looking at them.

Frozen in time.

Chloe shakes her head.

Talk about Hell, about complete darkness in the middle of the night... not the best way to keep a clear head.

It's clear that their guy used that door, at least. Chloe passes her flashlight over the piece of mosquito net that had been ripped off - cut off perhaps - above the latch. It's a miracle that Jessie hadn't been assaulted before yesterday.

Chloe thinks of the murder weapon, the baseball bat she was keeping in the living room.

Or maybe Jessie was prepared for it. Anytime.

Chloe's flashlight passes over the rest of the garden without seeing anyone or noticing any suspicious noises.

"We should check upstairs," she whispers to Lucifer.

She turns around, beams of light passing over the emptiness of the living room, of her partner's presence.

"Lucifer?"

Her flashlight instantly rises towards the ceiling and its squeaks. She rolls her eyes soon after. "Or you check upstairs and I keep talking to myself..." she mutters, gun down and steps led to the stairs.

Muffled in the carpet a few seconds later, they are stopped dead by another noise. Not from the kitchen, neither upstairs.

Chloe's entire body tenses with just a breath, arms and gun extended towards the closed door leading to the garage, to the left of the kitchen.

There are those very special moments, hard to explain or making any sense to whoever doesn't have the same kind of job, whoever doesn't have to deal with as many risks as she does for others' safety; the kind of moment when you have to listen to your sensations and nothing else.

Neither Lucifer's reassuring footsteps - because they're his - above her head, nor the kitchen door slamming rhythmically with the wind, nor her trembling fingers around the grip of her gun or the thought invading her mind.

You imagined that noise. It's just a door.

Just listening to the shiver running along her spine that makes her hair stand on end, from her neck to the tight hold of the elastic, as tight as her hands are on the gun and the flashlight.

Someone's behind the door.

She can feel it; the weight behind the panel, the frozen movement, waiting for hers to come.

She thinks of calling Lucifer, thinks better the next second. If it's nothing, if she wastes her chance to catch the suspect...

Second breath, firmer grip around the gun, Chloe walks discreetly towards her goal. Lucifer's presence is audible enough upstairs to silence hers, though.

She even thinks she's been rather discreet once the barrel of her gun nearly brushes the door, the thought nonetheless nipped in the bud as the aforesaid door bursts open and thinks of knocking her out.

-xXx-


Chloe hates tea.

Not strong, tasty enough. Too much noise with mom's kettle, which she got from grandma.

Damn family legacy.

Chloe buries her face in the pillow. The wool tickles her temple, then her nose, wrinkled for the unpleasant smell becoming a taste in the back of her throat. Her hand twitches on the pillowcase, the other up to her ear.

Sticky ear.

She should shower before she even thinks about going downstairs.

Getting out of bed, too.

Her mom thinks the same, given how she's shaking her gently. Yet, it's too much shaking for the anvil that weighs around her skull. Soon the weight becomes discomfort, then pain under her fingers, from the right side of her head to the bridge of her nose.

Soon, her mom's annoyed mumbling becomes the Devil's panicked voice. "-ec'ive!"

Hands other than hers touch her temple, hair and neck; one passes underneath, the other supports her chin. The movement, though cautious, revives the pain, deep beneath her closed eyes.

"'loe…'o you hea' ...me?"

"Mhm..."

Her eyes open on the locks of hair delicately removed from her forehead. Then she hears a sigh. Lucifer's.

Relief.

"There you are!"

She shudders when his thumb passes under her eye, yet doesn't go any further. Neither does Chloe's effort, eyes shut the next second.

She has opened them too soon.

Too long.

Because... because that halo around Lucifer isn't normal at all.

"Detective?"

"St'll h'r…."

"Right, but-"

Chloe takes a deep long breath that doesn't decrease the pressure under her eye. "W't... happened?"

She regrets having opened her mouth now that the bitter taste in the back of her throat rises higher, every time she swallows. She regrets filling her nostrils with the strong smell of dried blood in the carpet, the blood that has reached her lips, has started to flow under her hair.

Blood helps this terrible taste to escalate behind her pinched, closed lips.

Closed, her eyes aren't anymore, first on the wide-open garage door to the coffee table, upside down above her head. Rolling on her back, she lifts a hand to her temple, squinting at three of her seven blood-stained fingers.

Seven?

"Chloe?"

She turns her head, devil without halo and kneeled at her side, staring at her anxiously. "What happened?"

Lucifer's gaze changes, widened for a moment, frowning shortly afterwards. "That's twice the same question, Detective."

She frowns, too.

Ow... bad move.

"Is it?"

He nods and leans towards her with his arm beneath her shoulders to help her sit up. He's talking, she's sure she just heard words, but—

That buzzing sound, she only hears that sound, that and her breathing blocked at ears level, any other noises in the room.

Soon, far too quickly, Lucifer helps her to stand up. Even faster, the acrid taste doesn't just invade her throat, but her entire mouth. It takes her breath away, seizing the pain as do her hands with Lucifer's shirt, as she tries to catch it there, with her nose buried in the fabric.

"The...uspect, he-" she gags.

"-is long gone," Lucifer replies as she fruitlessly tries to free herself from his firm and suffocating support. "I would've already torn off his bloody knucklebones one by one if he wasn't!"

Terrifying.

Yet, she laughs. Face still buried in his shirt, she opens one eye and notices a forward movement. Towards the front door.

"W'...re you going? C'ck out the room-"

She tries to move aside, Lucifer's right arm lowers to her waist to prevent her from falling backwards, his other hand on her cheek, a thoughtful support for her head and that endless buzzing.

She hears him protesting between two of them. "-lling for backup and an ambulance is what matters...ight now."

Chloe blinks and shakes her head at these few words of protest, "I don't need an amb-"

Stopped by the acrid taste inside her mouth rising from her throat to her lips, nothing can stop the ensuing outpouring of nausea. Lucifer's hands, however, stop her fall after it splashed his shirt. "Bloody Hell!"

-xXx-


Of all the things that could worsen Chloe's nausea, - her empty stomach, the pounding headache through one temple to the other, or the swaying of the car whenever they take a corner at variable speed - it's her partner's frequent glances that might succeed.

"You're vulnerable around me," she whispers for the last glance towards her.

"You're vulnerable around anyone."

Given how his voice sounds, she gets that his comment is a more puzzled than a playful one, more a fact thrown in the air, for his failure to understand her own comment.

It's more cute than annoying. The corner of her lips lifts and brushes the window on the passenger side. Eyes open - definitely better not to lose count of her stomach 'dance' going up to her throat - Chloe watches one, two cars pass theirs; then the bridge a little further on. Its suspension ropes, dark rods running parallel to the not so 'horizontal' sunrise, remind her of the fence in the victim's garden.

They remind her of Hell.

But she's never been there in person, not even in her dreams.

"You're gonna make us go off the road if you don't look at it," she says, eyes shut for the intermittent dark-lit brightness from the bridge.

"You're the one whose consciousness is going off here," Lucifer points out. He doesn't look away, yet knowing precisely when to brake and let a school bus pass in front of them.

The left half of her face, from her nose to her eyebrow arch, is stabbed enough by pain so as not to try to contradict him. She hasn't yet dared to look at the extent of the damage in the rear-view mirror or the sun visor, but it shouldn't be as bad as she fears. The paramedics let her go and hadn't insisted that much for her to go to the hospital. She'd only had to skip the offer a dozen times, so...

"I'm fine. Look at the road," she repeats.

She hears him sigh. "I sincerely believe that our police-related drive should become 'hospital'-related, Detective."

And sighs in turn.

And that makes eleven.

"I'm fine."

"My shirt 'smells' otherwise."

She smiles. "This should be a 'clean shirt'-related drive, then. Well… if you're really the Devil."

The car stops abruptly, the discreet dance within her belly pushed forward like the rest of her body. Chloe flinches, a peak of discomfort digging into her skin under the basic bandage put on in the ambulance half an hour ago. She breathes in through her nose, a slow breath of air turning nausea and pain into stomach heaviness and minimal discomfort under her closed eyelids.

Then back open, she meets Lucifer's wide ones. Freaky unblinking eyes.

The Devil.

Freaky.

Obviously.

"What was that for?" she moans.

"List me five recent events."

"What? Why?"

"Five, Detective. Devil's command... the very one you forgot, it seems," Lucifer adds as his gaze lingers on the small gauze across her left eyebrow.

Chloe would roll her eyes if only she wouldn't have had that bandage, in addition to pain and bile that are back challenging her control of her body responses. Limited with the expression of her annoyance, she just sighs. "I was joking, Lucifer."

"I'm not."

"Lucifer-"

"These human health care practitioners weren't either! They're as much human as you can be, so I tend to believe that they knew what they were talking about when they advised you to take care of yourself and rest," Lucifer says by raising his hands.

The sunrays through the windshield emphasize the general darkness of his clothes, so do they with his mood. Not really a halo for the former angel. Rather the memory of a light to which he had turned his back on, as he's turning his head right now; straight, hardline profile for the rising star.

The Devil in God's Light.

The aforesaid Devil stops talking - whatever he may have said the last five seconds, Chloe wasn't really listening - when she chuckles mindlessly, "-t to check—... Chloe?"

The corner of her mouth lifts as she shakes her head very slightly. "Sorry, I... I'm just-"

"Stubborn? Reckless?" he quotes, a hand on the wheel.

"Okay, you're the one who just braked in traffic, not me," she replies, pointing to the moving vehicles around them in the middle of the road.

"And you're the one dealing with a concussion, Detective."

"A slight one."

"Slightly disturbing if you start to forget who I am or giggle like a bloody baboon!"

"It's fine really, just a graze."

"And now you're repeating yourself. A confused state is not fine, rather the opposite!" Lucifer exclaims, passing fingers through his only two rebellious locks at the top of his furrowed brow.

Oh, how she'd like to roll her eyes.

She closes them instead, opening them shortly afterwards on her partner's repeatedly tense face. Saying that the suspect had barely touched her isn't a lie, nor is it the truth. To tell the truth, Chloe can't tell much, not remembering much about what happened between the time she had approached the garage door and the time when Lucifer approached the ambulance doors.

Her thoughts come and go, wrapped around the fractured pillar of her short-term memory.

Expected results with slight concussion.

It's nothing serious.

"I'm repeating myself because you're repeating yourself and I don't look fine because your questions aren't helping me look so," Chloe grumbles as she closes her eyes, her thumb brushing her unharmed eyebrow.

She can almost hear the pain throb around her skull in the silence that follows.

"Because I never should've left you alone."

She turns, Lucifer's eyes turned back to strict traffic surveillance in front of him, his hands stretched around the steering wheel. She wouldn't be surprised to see it break if he squeezes harder. The unusual, troubling tension of his muscles as her hand finds his arm is no more surprising. It could've been troubling if she wouldn't have known who he is; because she does, doesn't forget.

What surprises her is… that she doesn't say anything to prove him wrong.

Because he had been wrong.

He should never have left her alone downstairs and yes, she might not have been in this state if he'd stayed to check the living room instead of going upstairs to search the victim's bedroom because he'd 'wanted to'. He should have warned her.

And, initially, Chloe should have called for backup before checking the house. This wouldn't have prevented the subsequent assault, but there certainly would have been a better conclusion than the suspect's easy escape.

She could reassure Lucifer by self-flagellating as well, by being more 'responsible' than he had been.

She's the detective, he's the simple consultant.

She's the vulnerable human around anyone, he's the vulnerable Devil around her.

The Devil who can't always be there to protect her from danger.

This truth weighs on her vocal cords, it freezes her fingers on his sleeve, which had been crumpled more than usual by the professional prolongations of the previous night. Chloe swallows, breathes in through her nose for yet another acrid ascent around this truth that weighs on her.

On them.

So, instead of reassuring him about his responsibility - as she would have done 'usually' - she does as she's told.

She starts to list five recent events. "Jessie Evans is our victim, killed yesterday afternoon. We found poison in her tea, but that's not what killed her."

The tension under her hand decreases a bit.

"I…." Chloe pinches her lips. "We got a fight, Dan and I. At the precinct, about you."

The fabric tenses, slides from bottom to top, following Lucifer's movement; still silent, yet focused on her.

She stays focused on the sleeve, the words sliding between her lips. "Speaking of stakeouts, I fell asleep at some point and…." She sits up, watching yet another car honking and speeding over their stationary vehicle before looking at him. "And you're disrupting traffic, with a detective of the L.A.P.D. as a witness."

Lucifer squints. "That only makes four past events."

"If you start the car and drive me to the station, that'll make five," she replies, her hand off his sleeve.

Lucifer holds it halfway in her lap. Chloe watches their fingers intertwine almost instantly. She feels her skin shiver against the stifling heat of his; solid, invulnerable on some occasions. A layer of harmless alabaster for the crimson blazing fire underneath.

His skin feels warmer than she remembered.

Than she fant-... dreamed.

Dream, yes. Not a fantasy, not with Lilith and all his... human conquests in the background.

"You don't matter."

A nightmare.

"You should get some rest, Chloe."

Chloe raises her chin, she meets his gaze - worried brown without licentious crimson. A look for her, only her.

She withdraws her hand, struggling against his supernatural strength before he consents to let go of her. He frowns.

"Look, if you don't wanna drive me there, just take my place."

"You certainly shouldn't drive in your condition," Lucifer cuts her off.

"I can take an Uber!"

Her tone surprises them both, as much as it surprises her headache - dormant beat that hits the roof of her skull soon after, wrapped around the eyes and attached to her stomach. She closes her eyes, her jaw clenched, lips set in a hard line of tension very close to submitting to nausea.

"Very well," Lucifer murmurs.

And Chloe almost expects to hear him getting out of the car to switch places or driving her to an Uber, hardly able to see him without throwing up on his shoes or the dashboard.

She hears the engine roar again instead. She feels the controlled swaying, at its limits for her restless stomach. Her hand pressed on her mouth, her breath brushing her thumb, she focuses on her sensations. She holds on until Lucifer stops the car for the second time and that fresh air rushes in from his side.

Hand on tense lips, closed eyes opening on the door - wide open too - Chloe's belly twitches even more.

Is he really gonna leave her here, alone?

He's walked far, fast enough and hasn't turned around once to contradict the facts.

Great.

Best timing to listen to her to the letter.

For a second, she's tempted to get out of the car and ask him how he's gonna go back to his place if he abandons the only available vehicle. That's before she remembers who she's dealing with. And the information takes so long to reach her brain that she might - eventually - admit she's not at her best.

Lucifer surely flew to his penthouse by now. Can't take that long, just the time for her to catch her breath. Maybe. Probably. How would she know?

Chloe feels so tired at once that she doesn't even try to close the driver's side door. Nor does she move from her seat, eyes shut on the decisions to make. She could take the wheel, of course. She could... if her nausea would stop for long enough. Even so, her driving would still be awkward. Exaggeratedly slow at best, to avoid a possible dizzy spell in the middle of the road.

Such an example of responsible driving from the L.A.P.D.

The Lieutenant would love the publicity, as would Dan - that and piling on her recent lack of morality, Lucifer's bad influence on their daughter and herself.

Chloe opens her eyes, the back of her hand pressed against her sweaty forehead.

No, drive is a bad idea.

An Uber, then?

Her boss would still ask for an explanation, Dan would still be a pain in her partner's ass.

She must go to the station, though. To give that new evidence to Ella, at least. She could have left it to the officers at the crime scene after her statement, but….

It's her case.

Her aggression.

Her hand, resting at the level of pain, goes down to the glove box, then around the sealed bag with the vial inside it. She pulls on the plastic, her fingers tracing the edges of the tiny bottle that she and Lucifer had found behind the garage door - just Lucifer, who had been less surrounded by paramedics and cops than she. It had probably fallen out of the suspect's pocket before - or while - he was trying to split her skull in half like he did with Jessie Evans'.

Chloe's lips set in a hard line as she does her best so as not to see anything but deep exhaustion in the slight, steady tremor along her fingers.

You're fine. You're not Jessie Evans.

It wasn't the first time she had nearly gotten killed on duty.

She takes a long breath through her nose, the back of her skull back against the headrest of her seat, the bag on her knees.

She didn't nearly get killed.

There's no reason for her to freak out for what might or might not have happened between the time when her vulnerability had been to its highest point and the time when Lucifer had rushed downstairs. Whatever might happen while Lucifer would no longer be on Earth is as irrelevant.

He's not here. Now.

And she's fine!

Perfectly fine, Chloe loses track of time as soon as her eyes stay shut for seconds, the pain digging into her brain not helping at all. Minutes as an hour could have passed when she jumps on her seat as her door opens. Blinking a lot, she shades her eyes with one hand from the rare, though bright, sunray's that pass the newcomer's imposing stature.

Well… not that 'new'.

She frowns. "Lucifer? Wha-"

"I know, I know - 'time is money'... so I've heard. Anyway, let it not be said that the Devil is tight fisted about your health, Detective. In addition to driving like a maniac, of course."

"Like a... what?" Chloe whispers.

Hand still shading the rising star over Lucifer's shoulder, she looks at the two big white bags near the open door. She then notices the others - four bags as large and full to the brim, all carried by Lucifer like it weighs nothing.

"What's all this?" With her free hand, she pulls one of the bags towards her.

Lucifer puts the four bags at his feet. "This is the closest health care you'll get."

Chloe opens her mouth and moves her legs out of the car, her feet encircling the closest bag as she rummages through it.

Lucifer pulls out heated icepacks from another bag and a box of Advil from another. "Well, the person I talked with wasn't a practitioner but he was undoubtedly human. His expertise thus should be helpful to take care of yourself despite yourself. Although, I start to wonder if we have enough of these…" he reads the back of the box, "… Tylenol's pills to overcome concussion. I usually take twice as many drugs to overcome boredom."

Chloe's hand wraps around a bottle of fresh water out of the bag that she places on her lap, the other playing with a smaller box of Tylenol as Lucifer throws his into the bag with a dubious expression.

He frowns even more once he looks at Chloe. "Maybe I should have bought more."

Given the amount of varied medication that's at her feet, she's pretty sure he shouldn't. She slightly shakes her head. Once, just once so as not to worsen her headache.

"No need."

Lucifer doesn't look convinced. "You sure? You're... crying. Doesn't that mean that the pain is… too much?"

Chloe smiles, she drinks her tears even before the water from the bottle on her lap. "I'm sure. It's tolerable," she reassures him, wiping her cheek with the back of her sleeve.

She only feels relieved not to be left alone, defeated, dejected by more than she could control.

Not again.

After a quick inspection of the bags, Chloe sniffs and looks at Lucifer, not ready yet to praise his efforts rather than curse them. This is just faked normalcy, after all. Excessive normalcy for the unbearable emptiness she would have to fill with nothing, nothing more normal for her to live without him. Before him.

She unscrews the cap, her hand tracing patterns on the plastic ; from bottom to top, then from top to bottom. "Anyway… did you really have to buy the whole drugstore?" she reprimands him, the neck near her trembling lips.

"There's no limits to the Devil's care, darling."

The plastic makes a slight noise in her hand, the fresh water freezes her very last hopes to feign unfazed passivity. She breathes in, yet more oppressed than the last weeks, and averts her gaze. "Right."

This doesn't matter.

-xXx-


How is he doing this?

Chloe thinks faster than the instinctive, yet undeniable, thought coming into her mind - that some devilish stuff might do the trick, as always. She thinks many things, all coming from other details, which come from an undeniably long observation of the Devil.

Not half slouched over the desk they shared, like she is.

Not yawning so wide that it could dislocate his jaw. She can feel her muscles protest from chin to nose.

From another perspective, another thought reluctantly conceded, Lucifer doesn't have a slight concussion. He only endured minor collateral damages that he tried to make disappear under astronomic soap and water, obsessed as he is about looking perfect in all circumstances. He rubbed his shirt fabric for so long with one, soaked it with the other, and several times since they arrived at the station that Chloe no longer feels solely responsible for his clothing misfortune.

She doubts that any dry cleaner in town will be able to resurrect his shirt as good as new.

Chloe's gaze briefly leaves her computer screen for the still damp fabric of devilish laundry. The shirt couldn't be darker, more crumpled and pressed against the Devil's six-pack.

It's the most obvious detail on him that their night hadn't been nice and quiet. Although, if it's not obvious enough for everyone around, Chloe's appearance wins by far.

Even his hair - more tousled than usual despite all the water he had used to style every lock-, even his beard one day too old, too ungroomed for his scrupulous masculine perfection don't equal his human partner's exhaustion.

On second thought, it might be the attitude, the posture and aura of lingering perfection orbiting around him that prevented her boss from sending her back home for the rest of the day. As she had feared, her arrival at the station had aroused surprised and worried murmurs at first, then shouted orders from the Lieutenant who wanted them both to follow her in her office. Chloe had at least been relieved not to run into Dan at that time, neither afterwards.

One reprimand is enough.

Lucifer's skillful whispers intent to soften her boss' reasonable irritation, already too much.

Both of them agreeing on which was the best way to let her keep working on the case while not making her state of health worse than it already is - the worst part of the day, really.

Who do they think she is? Some teenager who's unable to figure what's good for her? She'd just declined an unnecessary medical examination to the ER. There's no need to chaperone her, no need for Lucifer to act so instead of their usual partnership since then. When he's not sitting straight and more awake than she'll ever be, busy helping her with paperwork, he looks for any leftover donuts and retrieves one from a colleague on leave - for her. When he doesn't bring every bottle he bought earlier around her desk, on which she's been closed to stumble several times, he asks for the heat to be turned down.

Then asks for it to be turned up ten minutes later.

And yet, besides this crazy stampede… he breathes, shows, and speaks with an energy she doesn't have at all.

Maybe she should've gone back home the moment she'd given the vial to Ella. Get some sleep.

"My King..."

Her fingers shake a bit on the mouse.

No.

No sleep.

It's been hours since she had that dream and Chloe still has trouble getting it out of her head. It is no better for what happened in the house, of what could've happened if Lucifer hadn't been there at all.

"Because I never should've left you alone."

No Lucifer, in three months.

Her hand squeezes the mouse harder, clicks and clicks of petrifying uncertainties that will only get worse in her fertile subconscious, eager for unsolvable problems.

She can't prevent, can't act against Lucifer's departure. She can't reassure herself about the - toxic, maybe? - bond he shares with Lilith and how it might have an influence on theirs that is still young, fragile.

A fine thread joining two planes of existence.

Two times of experience.

Nor can she go back on how vulnerable she had been a few hours earlier, with the suspect.

But she can find him. She can do something about it; even exhausted, even wounded, chaperoned by the worst guardian of professionalism in the world.

Even... afraid of all these things that she could never control, Chloe can control how she reacts to her aggression.

She can catch this bastard, lock him up in this life so that Lucifer would lock him up in the next.

"Remind me again what we're looking for?" Lucifer inquires as he takes one of the files piled up behind the screen.

"I don't know. Anything."

"Well, that explains everything!" he exclaims, file open in his lap, his heels on the edge of the desk. "Or nothing at all, which comes to the same, I suppose."

Chloe sighs heavily. "We're looking for a link between the first and the second victim, but I don't know what. It's the principle of in-depth research, Lucifer. Searching for whatever isn't right before our very eyes."

"Your in-depth research sounds nothing like mine, Detective. Although no one spells it the same. Oh, speaking of spel-!"

She glares at him. "What's left of coffee in this cup is hot enough to cool your libido, Mr. Morningstar," she warns him, within an inch of grasping the aforesaid cup.

His smile fades, his fingers slowly turning a document from right to left without having scrupulously read. He only has eyes for Chloe.

A puzzled, still concerned look.

"I would gladly point out that your authority would cool anything but my manhood on other occasions… anyway, thermic shock is the last thing you and I need right now."

"You better help me find a connection between our victims, then."

She has perceived the gleam in his eyes, the hope to lighten the weight on her shoulders - not that he knows where it comes from, yet he knows it's here. She appreciates him trying. Usually. She feels guilty for putting an end to such a gleam only a second later, when Lucifer looks away and nods, his fingers tilting forward another useless file. "Of course," he says.

He doesn't say much for the next ten minutes, during which Chloe's helplessness and guilt kick up a notch behind her screen. She can't find anything very significant that would connect the victims, not even Penelope to Francis before he arrived at the Centre or Penelope's involvement in it.

Why had she suddenly been interested in such a cause?

She was old and it was the first time, the only time before her death, that she had helped underprivileged people.

Of all the causes she could have defended, financed... why the underprivileged youth of East Los?

Why not defend immigrant people, abused children looking for another place to live? Why not homeless people?

Why this center, why Francis?

And why kill Jessie Evans?

She had absolutely nothing in common with Penelope. One young and limited resources with a thankless job, the other older with substantial means since her husband died two years ago, keen on juvenile 'lost' causes.

Young. Juvenile.

Juvenile. Young.

What if Jessie had been helped by the Center years ago?

"Where's the list of former residents of the Center?" she asks Lucifer as she pulls the stack of files towards her by its base.

He catches the falling stack with one hand, which she brushes while removing hers. Real quickly. "These are all the files, from the beginning of the year."

"Just from this year?"

He nods, his hand moving away from the wobbly stack now wedged against the screen. He flips through the file on his lap, as he has done the previous ten minutes. "The Centre welcomes and disposes of many lost prepubescent souls each month, Detective. Blame monetary self-centredness and global capitalism. It looks like the length of the lists grows or shortens with monthly donations."

His quiet, so quiet, intonation makes Chloe cringe. His mouth moves tensely around words; he is more tense, more than he has been lately. She frowns as she listens to him, as she notices how his gaze never meets hers for more than a few seconds.

"What about the archives?"

"Unless I am mistaken, they're still in another dusty box at the Center," Lucifer informs her, not looking up once from the file.

"Really?"

He nods. "Mhm. You couldn't carry everything on your own. We left those from 2010."

"2010?" Chloe repeats, surprised. "Nothing before?"

"Before?" Lucifer sounds rather intrigued than distant this time. "What for?"

"Jessie Evans might have lived there when she was younger. That would fit with her situation, she wasn't rolling in money. Besides that, adults often reproduce the same kind of environment into which they've grown up."

"Not in my experience, Detective. That being said, mine has mostly been out of human standards."

He turns another page, almost the last one of the file he's reading with attention - that he seems to read so. Always giving her the least amount of possible attention.

The less possible.

She's reduced to getting only that from him, isn't she?

"Regardless, our last victim can't have been part of the Center's background for the simple reason that it only opened its door in 2010."

Chloe sits up. "How can you know?"

Lucifer slightly shrugs. "One of the memorial trophies in Mrs Harris' office. See? Not a chance that our victim lived there. Neither volunteered."

"Why not?" she asks defensively, her hands tense in front of the keyboard.

Lucifer's hands close the file on his lap, put it back in the stack on her desk. He then joins them at mid-thighs, heels still resting on the edge of her workspace. His gaze on her is neither as tender as she has hoped nor as angry as she has feared.

Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Neutral.

And she hates it.

"Because I've just read that pile of files from top to bottom and none of them is listing Jessie Evans' as one of the volunteers. She has no connection to this place, no transcribed link at least."

Chloe's fist hits the desk. "Damn it!"

She buries her hands in her hair, her fingers passing over the old, long-stretched elastic that lets more hair outside its grasp then inside. She hastily removes it and shakes her head, adding more locks of hair to the invisible weight on her shoulders.

"There must be a connection…" she murmurs.

"There always is, but it looks like this one is beyond our perception," Lucifer says.

She rolls her eyes, shuts them briefly as soon as her wound lazily manifests itself with tolerable pain. She smiles unhappily, her right hand still buried in her matted, bloody locks of hair. "That's gonna help us, for sure."

"'Help' is indeed what I'm trying to do here."

Chloe's head turns towards his bitter intonation. Her fingernails almost graze the back of her skull when the words come out of her mouth - unstoppable, stupid words. "I suppose that your 'helpful try' is out of my perception, then."

It's hard not to perceive Lucifer's posture change. No muscular tension following the blow, both literal and figurative, in a way. It looks more like a proper stop in Earth thermodynamics. There is no more 'neutral' reaction from him.

It's beyond her perception.

The water soaking the fabric of his shirt could freeze with each of his breaths, each move of his rib cage. His eyes could carbonize the files, her screen, the keyboard in front of her.

They could carbonize her.

Her.

"You don't matter."

Imperceptible.

"If my help doesn't help you enough, I'd better get going," Lucifer offers, his gaze not leaving hers.

She won't avert her gaze from his.

She could.

Shame, anger, helplessness, and guilt - all these emotions are eating her up enough from the inside to show a slight part of them to her partner, her-

"My King…."

Her fingers tense on the keyboard, hidden from him.

The King.

"Good idea."

Her reply hurts him even more; she can see that it does with his slight frown, his fingers crushing the armrest of his seat before he stands up quietly, graciously.

Too graciously.

Too neutral.

Too late for her to take it back, take it all back - her decision, her imperceptible feeling of helplessness. Too late to apologize for making him feel guilty about it. He's not the problem.

It's not just him.

Mute, not daring to say anything else that she might regret even more afterwards - perhaps more than seeing him leave now -, Chloe watches him uselessly smooth out the folds on his ruined shirt.

Ruined because of her.

"Call me if Miss Lopez has any news for the case, Detective."

The intonation brings up anger, shame and guilt between her shoulder blades. She nods and watches him leave with shoulders down, submitted to what she perceives too often.

"There's no limits to the Devil's care, darling."

Chloe sits up first, leans over the next file the next second, barely following the Devil's footsteps towards the precinct's exit.

This...

These murders, these victims, this crazy guy on the loose….

She can prevent this.

She can understand the connection.

-xXx-


"No. No, I-... Yes, thank you for your help. Right, goodbye."

Chloe hangs up with a sigh.

It makes no sense at all.

From the sigh ensues a long inhalation carried by an as long study of the ten open files throughout the desk. She closes the eleventh one and throws it on the only corner left unoccupied by that mountain of paperwork, close to another sigh.

Her hands pull another file, already open, which she already read like... many times, already useless once she lays eyes on it one more time. Even so she thumbs through it again, for the umpteenth time. It's the only thing to do. The woman she has just hung up with - Krista, that was her name? - had assured her that the entire list of volunteers had already been given to the L.A.P.D. To her, then. The detective in charge of the case.

She is.

In charge of these files, like many others.

She'll figure that out.

She's gonna change things.

"Now you understand how impossible your proposition is."

She still doesn't understand what could have led the murderer to target Jessie after Penelope. Not the same age, not the same financial status, one murder very organized… full control, everything planned long before the act itself. Calm, even when he had risked ruining everything by using Francis, which was convenient. Which probably meant that he wouldn't have been able to approach Penelope's house - less risk of losing control in a smaller environment, more time to put the finishing touches of the staging if needed. Essential staging, isn't it?

Chloe turns another page of names.

Names and names that get through her senses, push her speculations.

Maybe he couldn't have approached Penelope that close, maybe that he didn't inspire enough confidence?

No, no.

He had pretended to be a volunteer at the Center. He would never have been able to be part of it if he didn't inspire an ounce of trust in the staff and young people living there.

It's something else.

She drops the endless list of names and leans over to the left corner of the desk, knocking over the pen pot as she takes the file from the first crime scene. She opens it over the volunteer file, passing the close-up pictures of the body for wide shots of the street.

At the presumed time of death, that must have been crowded. The chaotic morning traffic, pedestrians in a hurry to get to work or those just going home after work - there were plenty of snack bars and coffee shops open 24 hours a day in the area. She had gotten plenty of calls for armed robbery when she was a newbie, so she knows.

It was crowded.

Maybe what he was looking for.

Staying unnoticed, always.

Frank was the one who had poured the poison. He didn't.

What about Jessie?

With Jessie Evans' file now open in front of her in a clutter of pages, half of which falling to the ground, Chloe takes another look at the pictures Ella had taken the day before. The mess, clear signs of a struggle... is it what he gets when he's on his own, with no backup to do the dirty work? With no one to make him look unnoticed, nearly invisible?

One like the other, the mess he left there was...

It doesn't make any sense.

"You're not looking at the problem from the right perspective."

First lesson she'd learned when she'd started as a cop; that amount of violence in a murder necessarily implies an emotional outburst, that both the victim and the murderer knew each other somehow. Or that it shows refrained pulsion.

Chloe runs her finger over the picture of the teapot.

The first theory makes more sense.

Searching for Jessie Evans' name in volunteer files makes as much sense. She and the suspect might have known each other from working there. And Lucifer had proved that such a meeting between the two victims was impossible.

"It's impossible."

It makes sense.

So why is it that the hiring manager - 'Krista' - can't recall Jessie's name? Moving her seat back, Chloe gathers up papers and cardboards without dropping this possibility. Maybe Jessie too had given a false name, removed any picture from her file - as their main suspect. Chloe has gone through the volunteers' files enough times to know every selfless face at the Centre.

But there's no video footage showing the second victim there. None.

But it's still a 'possibility'.

Shaking her head, she leans under the desk to pick up a paper stuck under the wastepaper basket. She shakes off the dust, reads a few lines there, knelt on the floor.

Possibility...

You don't proof myth with possibi—

The paper creases in her hand. She closes her eyes and swallows, back on her seat the next minute as she watches her slightly trembling hands put papers into messy order. She pulls on the most creased parts, runs her hands over them to smooth out the words brutalized by her grip, words telling brutality as well.

Home invasion, Penelope's home. A few months before she died.

A report from the police officer, the first to arrive on the crime scene.

She reads every word under her fingers, those of the broken window on the first floor, the 911 call, the victim's obvious state of shock at the hospital.

'In shock'.

Her fingers stop on the last of these two words. She bits her lip.

"You should get some rest, Chloe."

"I'm fine," she mutters to the papers spread out in front of her.

"Good for you."

Chloe jumps on her seat and raises her head. Mazikeen arches an eyebrow to her wide open eyes, to her hand moving too quickly towards her holster to support her previous mumbling. The demon puts her leather jacket on the seat on the other side of the desk.

Chloe sighs, relieved. "Maze…." She moves her still trembling hand back to the desk, engulfed by shame. "You startled me."

"You'd startle anyone with that face."

Chloe pinches her lips and scratches her temple, grimacing as soon as her nail brushes the bandage and the wound hidden underneath.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, ignoring her friend's comment.

"What are you still doing here... without Lucifer?"

"Answer me, Maze."

She shrugs, her hands on the back of the seat. "Ellen wanted us to meet here."

"Ellen?"

"Your turn Decker. Answer me," the demon orders as she scrutinizes Chloe.

"Working. I'm trying to find a murderer. The usual."

Chloe pretends to dive back into her files even though her eyes see nothing more but dark, blurred lines. She turns on the lamp on the desk, neither helpful for her reading.

"This has nothing to do with Lucifer and his missed session with Linda, does it?"

Chloe lifts her chin too quickly to pretend otherwise. She knows it, Maze knows it - her smile is too wide, way too confident about hitting the nail on the head. Chloe squints. "How do you know he missed his session?"

"Phew! I should've put on a looser dress - Feels like my breasts are about to explode!" Linda complains, pulling the fabric of her little pink dress down to her mid-thigh, the other hand cupping her left breast.

Chloe stares at the therapist behind Mazikeen's back. "Linda?"

Linda stops twiddling her breasts and smiles at her. "Hey, Chloe." She then looks at her clothes with a puckered forehead. "What happened to you? No, you'll tell me over a drink. You're ready?"

Chloe's mouth shuts, opens for the first question, nearly shuts again for her friend's second reaction, who's back pulling on her dress at butt level this time. "Ready? Ready for what?"

"Maze! Linda! Perfect timing, doc!" Ella congratulates them, rushing over her lab to high-five with Linda and then Mazikeen, although the latter highs too enthusiastically.

Ella rubs her palm with a slight grimace, then turns to Chloe, who's still clueless about what's going on here.

"Oh boy, mi stupido! Sorry, Clo, I... I completely forgot to tell you that it's girls' night out tonight. I mean, I wanted to tell you last night, but you were on a stakeout and then you showed up today and-... it looked like you've been shaken like a rattle. Then your talk with the boss and—" She catches her breath, shaking her head. "You looked so-... serious when you got out and gave me the vial that I-... I didn't want to- You know? Sorry!" she repeats with an apologetic face.

"Relax, Ella. It's fine, there's no rule against partying. I just can't tonight."

"Can't or won't, Decker?" Mazikeen implies, to which Chloe answers with a glare.

"Chloe, you sure?" Linda asks, less pestering. Yet, her stare reflects Chloe's face too well. "You look like you could use a break."

Chloe shakes her head again. She plasters a smile on her face, her hands passing over the cardboard file that she fills with various papers, not caring if it's the right ones in the right file.

"I'm sure." Her voice sounds annoyingly broken. She avoids Linda's perceptive gaze to cling to Ella's. "I really am. And what I'm gonna use are the results on the vial to make some progress on the case. Ella?"

"Still running but they should be ready tomorrow morning."

Chloe lets out a sigh. "That late?"

Ella nods. "Half of the lab staff is on vacation."

"Great," Chloe mumbles as she closes the file.

"Come on, Decker, it'll be fun!" Mazikeen picks up her jacket from the seat, Linda already heading for the stairs. "Well, I'll make fun of you being drunk and sobbing about your heartbreak."

"Heartbreak?" Ella repeats, eyebrows raised. "Wait! Something's wrong with Lucifer? Where is he, by the way? Haven't seen him since you gave me my gift."

Chloe clears her throat and scratches her cheek, avoiding Mazikeen's gaze and Ella's naive smile. Devoid of her own perspective. "He... there was no need for him to stay that late, so-..."

"I'd better get going."

"Good idea."

She breathes in and out; slowly, before even leaving her seat, metallic armchairs clenched with her trembling grip to imprint its shape in her palm.

All this so as not to let that tremor, that very visible vulnerability echo through her voice. "Where are we going?"


AN:

Tribe night for the next chap!

Thank you so much for reading this one :D

No precise date for the next update (still busy translating the chap in English) but it's a matter of weeks.

See u soon & stay safe!