Camp Cryptid offers valuable lessons in music, art, friendship, and survival. Especially survival. And the terms that come with it.
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Chloe reached over and took his hand—Blanchard's hand—running her thumb across rough knuckles and fragile skin. She stroked the sides of his head, his cheeks, just like she had the night in the panic room, when they'd been waiting for the clock to run down on Tenth and Swanson.
They hadn't spoken much that night. Today…
"I couldn't do it. I couldn't miss all of her childhood," the words were spilling out of him now. "I was just so afraid of never knowing what she was like," he breathed like a confession. He was touching her too, her face, her waist, her back. "At first I thought I'd come here and I'd just check on her, but—" Chloe smiled, watching every familiar shade of Lucifer play across Blanchard's face: But once he'd actually met Rory, she'd charmed him without even knowing it.
"—then there you were and Johnny's heart almost stopped again." He clasped her face in both hands. "I didn't think anything could be that beautiful. Chloe—"
Chloe leaned forward and kissed him again. Lucifer had to turn up again, and turn up in a form that wouldn't make her hate herself for getting old.
He kissed her back, free hand going to her waist. Somehow, they were both in the chair he'd used to look at the camera.
"Is that ...what happened? The real John Blanchard?"
"Had bit of a misadventure with the climate controls," he said, nodding to the window behind him. Chloe noticed very new duct tape holding up a very old air conditioner. "Our real-life Johnny B Not-So-Good fell into my care the day after Rory arrived here. It turns out he did a bit worse than drop an amp in his roadie days. A good stroke for me electrocution doesn't do too much damage."
"You're possessing his body?" Chloe asked. She wasn't sure what she'd thought had been happening. Lucifer's mother had done it, but Lucifer's mother had had no skin or bones of her own…
"With his full consent, I assure you," Lucifer answered, holding up Blanchard's hand. The other one hadn't left hers. "Once I recalled that Charlotte Richards found herself back on the mortal coil once Mother left, Johnny was content to allow me a few days behind the wheel." Lucifer straightened, gesturing to Blanchard's less than elegant midsection. "Of course, given just how much human souls self-actualize, the exact state of said body was a bit of a surprise. I may be used to more plush accommodation, but with a little moisturizer and judicious use of a hair trimmer, I think I made the best of it." His mouth screwed up (exactly the way Rory's did, though she'd never realized). His face shifted like water. "But how did you know I was me?" he asked. "I was so careful! I didn't call you 'Detective' once."
"Lucifer—" Chloe said.
"All right, maybe once." He snapped his fingers. "It was on the lakeshore. I pronounced it 'lieutenant' with an ff instead of 'loo-tenant,' didn't I? It's always a little slip like that. Or did I say 'Los Angelese' instead of 'Los Angeluss'?" he exaggerated the American accent.
"You didn't," said Chloe.
"One of my music students blabbed? I've been calling them 'urchins' up until the morning you got here."
Chloe laughed, and she shook her head. She started kissing him again, little pecks on the neck. Her hands went to the ring of hair around the buzzcut, stroking gently.
He smiled, and he somehow made Blanchard's yellow teeth flash. "Then it must have been when I was talking to Miss Lopez. I can never hide how much I like the way she—do they still call it infodumping?" His grin broke and he held up one finger. "She knows too, doesn't she? She was needling me, the minx!"
Chloe shook her head against his neck and kissed the corner of his mouth and then up the side of his face, a laugh translated into contact. It was so good to feel his touch on her hair, her back…
"Then it was Hong-jae and the boys performing my composition last night. It's not like there are adaptations of 'Rhapsody in Blue' for clarinet and banjo just lying around."
"No," Chloe half-laughed as she kissed down his jaw.
"The swagger?" he gave a short laugh. "I can walk on someone else's legs but I can't stop all this."
Chloe pulled back. "No," she said, her cheeks starting to ache from the smile.
He exhaled, shaking his head. "How, then?" he put his hands on her shoulders to push her back, just enough. "When did you know?"
Chloe let a finger touch the side of his face. "When I heard you telling Rory and Noah that they didn't have to talk to Stevens." Blanchard's blue eyes widened with Lucifer's wonder.
"But that was…" he said, but she was already nodding. "Before you saw me?" he asked. "And my voice at full twang? I really am the worst imitation Appalachian since a certain presidential race."
She nodded.
"No one else could protect her like that," she said. "You'd get that way with Trixie sometimes."
She watched Lucifer's emotions run through Blanchard's face, like the same beast swimming through a different lake. His fingers were still tight on hers.
"Where is the Urchin these days?" he asked. "Halfway to Mars? I get so little news. Ella was here, but neither of you said a word about Carrol. Or Linda. Did you and Amenadiel reform the LAPD like you wanted? Eve and Mazikeen—I don't see their faces on the currency yet, but what are they up to?"
Chloe touched his face again. "Find out." She took a shaky breath. "Come home."
His mouth parted, but he said nothing.
"I want you to come home," she said again.
"We …promised, and destiny, and free will—"
"Screw it," said Chloe. "Screw it. Come home," Chloe said again, fear of the future flooding into her, making her feel alive to the ends of her toes. "You don't have to have just six days. You don't have to be just her music teacher. Be her father. Come home."
She wanted to open her mouth and say he could split his time between Earth and Hell, like he'd originally wanted to. She wanted to open her mouth and say Hell could eat itself for all she cared. She was responsible for two other souls in this or any world, and one of them could get her dad back.
Lucifer breathed hard through Blanchard's lungs, hand loosening on hers ever so slightly. "But everything's different now. You're running your own precinct, Miss Lopez isn't with you every day, I don't even know what happened with Lux." It wasn't no.
"You're right. It wouldn't be the same," said Chloe. He wouldn't be her consultant, or maybe he would. They wouldn't solve cases together, or maybe they would. The hypocrisy of having a law-breaker for her lover would poison her tissue-thin efforts at reform. He'd get tired of being with an old woman and slip from being her lover to just her co-parent—or ghost her with no warning again—or maybe he wouldn't.
"I suppose it's..." Lucifer swallowed. It wasn't no. It wasn't no. He took a breath and then smiled, the Lucifer of it brightening Blanchard's dull teeth. "I don't believe in going backwards anyway."
She leaned forward and kissed him in time with the hope flaring in her heart, hard.
Chloe started planning, picking up ideas and throwing them away as if she were sorting socks. How should she introduce him to Rory? Things would be weird, and delicate, for a while. Rory might not take it well, her trickster father barging into their lives, pushing her aside to make room in her mother's limited family time. But once things settled down, once she and Lucifer had a rhythm going... Then she could tell him.
Then she could tell him.
Then she could tell him that letting him leave had been a mistake.
Dan had died only weeks before Rory arrived, and while seeing his ghost had given her a closure that no one else on Earth ever got, it had ripped open wounds that hadn't had time to heal in the first place. And then she'd died and been so distracted by Heaven that she'd forgotten that leaving Trixie alone would be a bad thing. When it had hit her, she'd gotten so sick that she'd nearly thrown up.
All three corners of the universe, had scared her, turned her inside out and backwards and then, when she'd been at her most disoriented, fate had shown her a picture of her new daughter, grown up and healthy, and it had made her its promise. She'd polished up that bright side until it blinded her because that was all you could do with a decision you couldn't take back. But now that she had a choice again, she could see it for the deal with the devil it had truly been.
With Lucifer back, all bets were off. Life on Earth could do anything to Rory, and Chloe would have to live with that, just like every other parent of every other kid. She could live with uncertainty, especially if they did it together.
"I'm taking Rory home today," Chloe said. "Can you—"
"I'll… I suppose I'll meet you in Los Angeles," he said. They still lived at the same apartment. He'd remember that. He looked down, "I didn't promise Johnny that this would work, but I'm a Devil of my word. He has been very patient." Chloe decided not to ponder what "full consent" might mean to a soul trapped in Hell. Or how much time "Johnny" had spent there during Lucifer's sunlit week teaching his daughter her first instrument. Moral tradeoffs were for later. Keeping Lucifer focused was for now.
He moved to kiss her again, and she dove in like a lake monster down the dropoff.
It wasn't his mouth, but it was his kiss, and Chloe started to let herself believe this was happening. This really was the love of her life disguised as a mortal, and not a figment of her stifled imagination. She'd have him in her life again. In her arms. In her bed.
The shift in the air took hold and became solid. Chloe would look back on the time she'd spent raising two daughters with a nearly all-female support system as happy years because they'd been only part of her life. Child actor. Starlet. Rock star's girlfriend. Cop. Detective. Partner to the devil. Single mom in a circle of amazing women. And next… Fully earthbound blended family? Mortal mom plus one part-time Healer of Hell? Not even God knew. It could be better than enough. It could be better than good.
"Hey. You two done making out?" said a voice from the door. Chloe broke away from Lucifer long enough to see Ella flashing a grin. "Rory's saying goodbye to Noah. He's pulling apart last year's wasp nest, so they're going to be a while."
"Miss Lopez," said Lucifer. "I do hope you're not here to 'punch me in the biscuits,' because I'm about to return the entire lunch tray to its original owner. Or… Honestly, I'm not sure he's ready for the Big Upstairs if this doesn't work."
"Shut up," she said, and she stomped right past Chloe to give him a hug around his one free patch of shoulder.
"Lucifer's going to be meeting us back in L.A.," Chloe said when Lucifer said nothing.
Ella opened her mouth and then shut it again.
"I have been wondering about something," said Ella. "Two things, really."
Lucifer's hands splayed on Chloe's back. "Miss Lopez, there is nothing you can say that would anger me right now. Shoot."
"First, where's your real body?" she asked. "Did you squish yourself in there, or..."
Lucifer's smile played on Blanchard's lips. "Still in Hell, hidden," he said, holding up a hand. "The time distortion is working for me for once. I'd say I'm semi-aware of what's happening. Or not happening to be more precise. I rouse myself enough to brush most of the ash off, but I expect I'll have quite the mess to clean up once I..." his mouth moved without sound. "Once I get back."
"And you came because..."
"I was afraid of missing her childhood," he said.
Ella pressed her lips together and got quiet. Chloe's own smile faded. "Can you say that another way?" she asked.
Lucifer frowned. "All right. I was terrified of missing her childhood."
Ella's expression didn't lighten. "Not you didn't want to miss her childhood or you didn't desire—"
"Ella, where are you going with this?" Chloe finally asked.
A shadow of pain flowed across Ella's face. "Lucifer, was your brother Michael anywhere near you when you got the idea to come here?"
"Of course not. I hadn't spoken to Michael since—" Lucifer stopped talking. "Oh," the word was barely a breath as it left his mouth.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't have come," Ella was saying. "I'm glad you're here. Rory's glad you're here even if she doesn't know the whole story. But if that deific d-bag is up to something and this is part of it, then we've—" she stopped. "You've got to square that."
"Even if Michael is up to something," Lucifer said, "that's no great thing. It'll take you a few hours to get back to Los Angeles. That leaves me plenty of time to trounce the Wingless Wonder and put him back to work taking surveys with infernal quality control."
Chloe couldn't find a place to put her eyes. She focused on the stain on the front of Blanchard's work shirt. Then she found his elbow. Then his wrist.
She reached back and turned back the cuffs on Lucifer's sleeves. Dark bruises, the exact kind that came from handcuffs, and scratch marks from fingernails.
Since they'd arrived at camp, Lucifer had been rubbing his wrists as if they itched. As if they hurt.
"How'd you get these?" she asked softly. She wanted him to tell her that Blanchard had had a perfectly mundane run-in with some perfectly mundane handcuffs. Or that Lucifer had used his time on Earth in a borrowed body to engage in bondage play with twenty hookers because her middle-aged ass didn't do it for him. Just not… "Can you self-actualize in this body?"
"I…" Lucifer looked down as if seeing them for the first time. "I don't know," he answered.
"Are you chained in place right now?" asked Ella.
"No," he said. But his eyes were drifting off to the left.
"Would you know it if you were?" she whispered.
He opened his mouth. But he never lied.
Chloe felt as if her insides were full of ice, as if a dark voice from the edge of the world were saying The universe only promised you Rory, still alive at the end of your days. No one said anything about her father. And Hell is not a safe place. And you broke the deal anyway.
Lucifer swallowed. "I suppose… I suppose I should go and find out," he said.
"Is there any way we can help?" Ella asked. "I'd go downstairs with you if I could but… Spirit is willing, flesh is squishy and needs oxygen. Chloe has Maze on speed dial. I might be able to get in touch with Ray-ray. And Jophiel—well, short answer I can find him and maybe Zoraphon and I know he's mad enough at Michael—"
Lucifer was shaking his head. "No, I… The time dilation…" he looked back at Chloe but answered Ella. "I should just go." His face pulled into half a smile. "I've put down uprisings before." But he'd had Mazikeen with him then.
Chloe nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. She could see it on his face. He thought Ella was right. Michael had orchestrated or taken advantage of Lucifer's absence here, and he would wake up chained to a rock. Chloe remembered the pain on Michael's face when Lucifer had cut his wings. What if he'd returned the favor?
Strings. And that was all the fathering she'd get?
"We have to tell her," said Chloe. "Or Ella can go get her now. Rory should know it was you—"
Lucifer leaned forward, shaking his head. "No—Chloe—Chloe, you can't—" Still obsessed with his promise to older Rory.
"She should know she knew her father—"
"She'll think it's her fault."
Lucifer swallowed. Chloe thought she couldn't even hear birds outside.
"Besides," Lucifer said, recovering. "I'm going to tell her myself, right?"
Sooner or later.
"Just…" he held out both hands, closing his eyes as he breathed. "Tell her Father loves her? Just tell her I love her."
Chloe whispered against his skin. "I have been." Lucifer gripped her hand and squeezed.
"I love you," he said. And Chloe could see it. She could see it. He didn't think he was coming back.
"I love you," she whispered back. A drop of something wet hit her hand.
"Detective," he said, both hands going to her shoulders. "Chloe. I'm going to pop down, put Dante's rings back in the right order, and then I will see you in Los Angeles. Perhaps still tonight."
"'Though Hell should bar the way'?" Ella murmured.
"If you can't, send me a message," said Chloe. "Like with Garner case."
But what were the chances that he'd escape his chains but not come straight to her?
"I'm going to come myself, Chloe. And then—" but the joke, surely about one or both of them coming, stopped in his mouth. "First thing's first. I must keep my word to our dear Galahad in waiting."
Chloe pressed a kiss to his temple, hard. He didn't let go of her hand as she tried to walk away. She looked back one time, a second time, as he seated Blanchard's body in its chair. There was a feeling like a rush of wings.
She didn't stay to see if Blanchard would wake. Ella did. She closed the door behind them and didn't say a thing.
"Just call me back, Jophiel, soon as you're on-plane," Ella muttered into her phone. "Ray-ray. It's me. Gotta talk." She shook her head. "Temeluch only texts…"
Chloe couldn't feel the sunlight, could hardly listen to Rory's chatter as they threw her duffel in the back of Ella's car. Her hands were shaking as she got behind the wheel. Ella shook her head and shooed her into the passenger's seat.
Lucifer would meet them tonight in L.A. Even if there was a whole demonic uprising with Michael at its head. Even if Lucifer was down there without his Mazikeen or his Chloe or Dan or any other angels to help him, he'd still win. And he would come to Earth and meet them in L.A. She'd see him tonight.
"Mommy?" Rory asked. Chloe forced a smile.
Her hands shook, so she clasped them together in a pose that was almost a prayer. There was nothing else to hold on to.
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The end. I hope you have enjoyed this fully canon compliant ride.