Teaser: How to save a life...


Code Blue

Almost at a run moving down the hallway, Lucifer was beginning to unconsciously pull ahead of and away from Chloe in his haste to get back to Dan's room. Her phone rang and she slowed to answer it, thinking it might have to do with Dan or Trix. She didn't let go of Lucifer until their arms were outstretched, almost parallel to the ground. The ICU was relatively empty of staff given the late hour and the lights were down low. He frowned. The guards outside the room were gone. Lucifer stopped on a dime, going wide-eyed as he laid eyes on the contents of Dan's windowed room – nothing. No one. Not even a bed. The lights were out.

Lucifer surged back toward Chloe, putting an arm up to stop her. There was an instant of anger on her face as she pushed his arm out the way and nearly bounced off him as she turned on the ball of one foot and carried on past him. Lucifer managed to hold on to one of her wrists before she came to a sudden stop. It was torturous to watch as the realization that her daughter's father was gone sank in. Chloe was shaking and beginning to sob. The two walked into each other and latched on for dear life.

Holding her close with one hand on the back of her head, Lucifer rested his chin on the crown of her head. His otherwise serene expression was occasionally marred by twitches of anger and heartbreak. Tears were flowing freely.

Her tone was devastatingly broken and Chloe barely managed to force the words out of her throat, "Oh God..."

When Lucifer spoke, the rage in his voice, in addition to all else, was unmistakable. "If I ever get my hands on that capital asshole, he's in for a few slices of my mind in a knuckle sandwich." Chloe tightened her grip on Lucifer realizing he literally wanted Dan gone as little as she did, even as a potent feeling of nausea took hold of her. Just a few moments passed before Chloe was tapping on his side and gently trying to push him away.

"Lucifer, let go... I'm going to be sick." He felt her convulse involuntarily. Releasing her and snapping into action, Lucifer carefully backed her into the metal framed chair sitting in front of Dan's room and dove at the nearest garbage can, bringing it back to her just as quickly. Keeping a hold of his hand, Chloe bent over and gagged. Again... and again. Lucifer stood over her with his other hand on the centre of her upper back, concern etched on his face. Nothing had come up. She hadn't had anything to eat in far too long. There was nothing there to bring up. They stayed that way until Chloe started to find her way back to calm.

Eventually the two came down enough for Chloe to lean back and rest her head against the wall behind her. Lucifer faced the door looking into the room and stood, feet shoulder width apart, still holding one of Chloe's hands in his own, with the other resting on his stomach.

"If you're not going to use that, I might have to borrow it. Consider yourself forewarned," Lucifer said as a wave of nausea made him sway and had him dropping his eyelids. Her tear-streaked face expressionless, Chloe nodded and used her foot to move it a little more his way.

"How am I going to tell Trix?' she whispered, letting her eyes close which prompted even more tears to fall. Lucifer leaned into the door, resting on his forehead on it and shaking his head.

"Even I have no idea."

The return of a physician to the nearby station hardly registered for the two. She busied herself with filing the paperwork she'd been carrying and entering data from clipboards she'd been carrying. Five minutes or so went by and she started showing interest in the two visitors without a patient to visit.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but, are you family...? Friends?"

Bringing herself around some, Chloe answered, "Uh... yeah. I'm sorry." She took in a steadying breath and used her sleeve to wipe some of what was on her face away. "I'm Dan's... ex-wife. And he's..." Lucifer shot her a troubled look when her pause lasted longer then he liked. "Well... he's mine." The doctor raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the odd moniker but not tactless enough to ask about it.

"In that case..." The doctor paused, pondering for a few moments how to best go about explaining herself. "I'm sure you have a rough idea of what it takes to earn these letters behind my name, Detectives. So... when I tell you that his condition now compared to his condition when he came in, is a dead-to-rights miracle, I mean every last letter of the word."

Chloe instantly stood and Lucifer turned to her just as quickly. "What...?" Chloe demanded.

"Are you saying..." Lucifer started, trialing off as he used his own sleeve to quickly wipe tears from his face. The pair stood motionless as the doctor spoke.

"Not long after you left, Detective," she began, referring to Lucifer, "he went into v-tach for a little under two minutes. Before they could finish an emergency ICD insertion – an implantable defibrillator – his heart stopped for about thirty seconds then started itself again. He leveled out more or less on his own. He'd been convulsing badly and his condition needed to be reassessed to determine the extent of the damage we expected, given all the bracing he was fighting against. What we found was the exact opposite. When he came in, he had a little over a dozen clean breaks throughout his body. His hip joint and some of the surrounding bone was shattered. He shouldn't have lived to get to the hospital, never mind through the day. We conducted portable x-rays on every region we could and where there used to be completely separated breaks, we couldn't find anything but hairline fractures. There's still quite a bit of soft tissue damage, but nothing that won't mend. We've non-invasively monitored brain activity and everything looks normal. With a few months of dedicated physical therapy, we expect a 95 – 99% recovery. He's in surgery having the braces casts and pins removed. I can't explain... None of us can explain what..."

"You don't have to, Doctor. It doesn't matter." Chloe started to laugh as she continued to speak. "We're just happy to still have him." There was still water in her eyes but there were no longer tears. When she looked to Lucifer her expression shone with the very light of life. He subtly smiled. Though still breathing hard, Chloe was trying her best to keep from smiling like a little girl.

Lucifer and Chloe held each other close, overjoyed but completely at a loss to explain what had happened. Had Amenadiel regained his abilities? Lucifer wondered. He tried a few times to speak but all that came out was a confused scoff. He closed his eyes and exhaled, resting his cheek on the crown of her head. Chloe was right. It didn't matter. At least, not now.

The doctor smiled and turned to the nurse's station counter. Scribbling a room number on the back of a pamphlet, she handed it to them. "Here. This will be his recovery room, once he's out of surgery. Feel free to wait there."

"Okay. We will. Thank you," Chloe said, feeling dazed and saturated by relief.

#

Having calmed themselves, freshened up and swung their collective mood down to mellow to compensate for the heightened emotional state they'd just spent far too long in, Lucifer and Chloe strolled the halls of the hospital, hand-in-hand, killing time until Dan came out of surgery.

"As redundant as this is coming from me: I'm not going to lie, you hesitating like that when she asked about us gave my stomach a turn," Lucifer said, bringing a hand to his abdomen, looking to Chloe with pursed lips and a dash of sadness on his face.

"I'm sorry. I..." Chloe started, stopping herself for a moment where excuses were the only thing she could think of. She went from narrow to wide-eyed the moment she knew what to say, smiling. "I know what we have, Lucifer. I just have no idea what to call you. Nothing 'normal' applies. Calling you my boyfriend seems almost derogatory. My man? Mmm, no. That... might be even worse. Husband, spouse? No. Have to be married for that. Significant other... you're one hell of a lot more than just significant. Lover? Yeah. Absolutely. A great one, to boot. But not something I'm going to say at time like this. Partner? Well, I'm starting to feel like that belongs at the Precinct, out on scenes. Not in private, between us and the people we care about. What else is there? Better half?" Chloe let out a laugh looking his way. "Uhhh..."

Catching her gaze at first, before having a long, hard look at his own shoes, Lucifer grinned, responding, "You're certainly my better half, but I'm not so sure myself that that goes both ways just yet. Working on it, though."

"Yes, you are. Admirably."

"'Mine', it is, then," he said, looking to her with a satisfied, if a bit wistful grin on.

"So, how does this go? 'Hi, Auntie Barb! This is Lucifer. He's mine,'" Chloe said, trying it on for size, laughing.

"I'm rather liking the sound of that. No idea who I'd have to introduce you to, but... 'Hello, so-and-so. Allow me to introduce the two of you. Meet Chloe. She's mine."

Chloe laughed and started with: "Call me nuts, but somehow, that feels–"

"Just right," finished the two, in perfect unison.

#

Dan had been awake for a little bit now, and he was beginning to get his bearings.

"You saved my life, didn't you?" He couldn't lift his head to see Lucifer but he knew he was there regardless.

Lucifer stepped up to his bedside, smiling, his thumbs hooked into his pockets. "Lacking any other explanation, Daniel, that appears to be the case. Yes."

"I'm never gonna live that down, am I?" Dan asked, chuckling weakly.

Lucifer's laughter and smile were as mischievously devilish as they could get. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Asshole."

"As much as I'd like to, I can't argue with that. Welcome back, Daniel," Lucifer said, respectfully nodding in his direction and going to seat himself again.

Trixie chimed in. "Mommy?"

"Yes, monkey?"

"Daddy needs a bad word jar." Dan's amused scoff didn't cost him an amount of pain he wasn't willing to suffer for it. Laughter really was the best medicine for the soul. Lucifer and Chloe were laughing right along with him.

"If that's really necessary and given circumstances, your Daddy's bad words are on the house," Lucifer declared, reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet.

"That's not how this works, Lucifer," Trixie reminded him.

"No, it isn't, but I think in this case, we can make an exception," Chloe said, grinning and laughing.

"But I thought you said there's never any reason to use bad words."

Chloe's brow furled thoughtfully. "Hmm. I may have been wrong about that. Sometimes... bad words help us get bad feelings out. Help us feel better when we feel really bad."

"Okay."

"Yeah, it is. But the feelings have to be really, really bad," Chloe cautioned her daughter.

Trixie nodded enthusiastically, smiling all the while, in reply. There was a knock on the doorframe.

"Flower delivery for an... El Espinoza?"

"Ella?" Dan asked, delight obvious in his tone.

Ella peeked out from behind the flowers, a mischievous grin on. "Hey."

"Very thoughtful of you, Miss Lopez." Lucifer stood and accepted the flowers for Dan, bringing them to the bedside table on the far side of the bed. He rearranged the flowers there to ensure Ella's sat nearest to Dan's bedside.

Dan looked over the flowers and then back her way. "Thanks, Ella."

There were no more seats in the room. "I'll make some room, I think. Let you be a family," Lucifer said, beginning making his way toward the door.

"Lucifer..." Dan began, waiting for his reply.

"Yes?"

"Stick around, man." Lucifer laughed, nodding. Ella, smiling knowingly, immediately moved to borrow a chair from the hall for herself.

"Very well, Daniel. Seeing as it is your get-well party, I suppose I have no business dictating the guest list."

Returning with her found chair, Ella set herself up. "Wooow, dude. You look like Hell," she observed good-naturedly, with a saddened but affectionate grin on.

Dan's laughter was difficult but genuine. "Then I look ten times better than I feel," he quipped, evoking subdued laughter and smiles from every soul in the room.


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