Lucifer did not return before Chloe knew it.

Constantine performed his stopgap spell and accompanied Chloe back to the police station. He asked to leave before they both entered the station, however. He claimed he wanted to avoid further entanglements. Something about not pissing off the Lord of Hell by hanging around his girlfriend.

Chloe's head was too full at that point with possible scenarios to explain the whole situation. She let Constantine go. She wouldn't be able to explain where Lucifer had disappeared to — but that was the easiest thing to handwave. Lucifer went whenever and wherever he pleased and never told anyone about it. This was just one more time.

The bodies, however, and the damage in the warehouse…. Constantine might have information to add, but so far he hadn't shown any willingness to adapt his statements for general consumption. Chloe had spent too much time being ostracized already to want to be marked as crazy for claiming supernatural influences. The truth was just too far out there. She spent the rest of that day staring at her computer screen, trying to think of something, anything to type, only to go home with a headache.

The next day, the ME reports arrived on both her case and Linda's intruder. Both had been ruled natural causes — heart failure, case closed. In some ways it was a relief, because the difficult story became little more than routine form-filling. Chloe spent her day doing that and other paperwork, then left early enough to pick Trixie up from school.

That evening, after putting Trixie to bed, it was hard to keep her mind off Lucifer's jacket and its contents. "Keep it safe," Lucifer had asked. Nobody knew this thing existed. Nobody knew it was at her house. But Trixie might stumble across it at any time, and who knew what might happen then. She'd have to find a safer place for it.

The following day brought inspiration. Without any fresh cases, the Captain saddled her with reviewing old cases due to be archived. By lunchtime, her desk was covered with random assorted junk and archival boxes full of files. Once she'd completed the paperwork, these boxes would disappear into long-term storage, most likely never to be seen again. Unless someone knew to look. Now that was a thought.

Chloe drove home during her lunch break and brought the piece of scaffolding back with her. She removed it from Lucifer's jacket and wrapped it in a large evidence bag. This went into one of the boxes — one for an innocuous case, where the culprit had been arrested and convicted on overwhelming evidence. She'd tell Ella about it later, as Lucifer suggested. Maybe over some drinks. Maybe over a lot of drinks.

With that specific box gone, Chloe had one less thing to take care of. But that meant she could focus more on her remaining worry. Lucifer.

"Before she knew it" might have been an exaggeration. She couldn't imagine a scale for the kind of task Lucifer had set himself, but closing a Hell portal hadn't sounded like it could be done in a flash. And he'd been gone for far longer before without her worrying. Nevertheless. Chloe hadn't known what Lucifer was up to at that point.

Chloe was almost expecting Lucifer to walk through the door at any moment, with coffee and a quip for the officer whose path he'd happen to cross on his way over to her desk. Not that that had been the rule lately. But with the two of them starting to talk again, he might have picked up that routine.

Chloe left work early again, to pick up Trixie from school and help her pack for a weekend with Dan.

Intermezzo

Working retail is Hell. Literally, in my case. I know that much.

But it seems like I don't have a choice. My life repeats itself over and over again, and a lot of it is spent working minimum wage retail jobs. Especially early on, when I still have to earn my qualifications.

I walked out of my mother's house because she was trying to control me. I escaped that much. But I didn't escape anything else. And if I'm being completely honest – I miss my mother. Just a little.

I drag a week's worth of store uniforms into the laundry facilities of the building where I clean two nights a week. I'm not supposed to use them, but it's the only place I can do laundry free. I need to wash my uniforms somewhere. And usually there's nobody around. Not this time.

"You!" I say as I recognize the stranger. He doesn't belong here. He has never belonged here. He has only invaded this space and made whatever Hell this was, worse. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on loose ends," the stranger states. "I would have thought you had moved on already. But here you are. You haven't reached a détente with your mother yet?"

"How could I?" I dump my laundry on the table. "I only get that one meeting, and it always ends in anger." I approach the stranger so I can poke a finger in his chest. "You ruined everything."

The stranger huffs ruefully. "As I am known to do on occasion, yes." He takes a breath. "But this one is on you, I'm afraid. You want to talk to your mother." He cocks his head. "So why don't you?"

"I just said." I start digging through my bag to find the soap I brought. My phone tumbles out onto the floor. I grab after it, but my fingers miss it. Of course. "I only get the one meeting."

The stranger nods. "And that is the only way you could possibly talk to her?" He picks up my phone and checks it over. "Don't these things allow for voice calls?"

That leaves me speechless. The thought hadn't even occurred to me. "I…. I don't have her number." That was true, too.

The stranger shoots me a brilliant smile. "Well. That, at least, I can fix." He unlocks the phone and punches in some numbers. Then he hands it back to me. "The number is in there. Whenever you want to use it."

Right. That's helpful. Giving me a phone number, but still leaving me to struggle with everything else on my own. "That's it? That's all I'm getting?"

The stranger frowns as me. As if he doesn't understand. "What else do you need?"

"Not having to work three jobs would be helpful, for a start."

The stranger turns his head and looks me up and down. "Just giving you that might be dangerously close to showing you a way out," he starts after a few seconds. "And you wouldn't like where that door led, I don't think." He picks up a newspaper someone left behind and starts leafing through it.

It gives me the time to study him, too. It looks like he's still in the same suit – sans jacket – that he'd worn before. And "worn" is the right term. Whatever he's been doing before coming to check up on my "loose end", it put his clothes through the wringer. "Where have you been, anyway? You look terrible."

"I believe I talked about cut-throat politics before," the stranger replies, not looking up from the paper. Although he does swipe his free hand across what's left of his vest. "It is destructive on the wardrobe, isn't it? But this is all I have at the moment." He goes through a few more pages of the paper before he looks up. "I could take you forward again, to the point in your life where you are past this." The sweep of his arm takes in the laundry room. "But that would limit the time you have to contact your mother."

"No."

"I thought so." The stranger nods. He folds the newspaper over and drops it on my bag. "Well, looks like you'll be busy for a while yet, and I have promises to keep. Good luck."

There's a flash of light, blindingly bright. When I can see again, the stranger is gone. Later, when I'm packing my laundry, I find the newspaper he left on top of my bag. There's a job advert. It's for a starting position. Temporary work, but it's in the field I'm studying and the hours are better than the store I'm currently working at. Hey. It's worth a try.