Chapter Text
They are on a picnic, just Chloe and Trixie—somewhere close to the edge of town, quiet and tucked away among towering pines. She’d simply pulled the car onto the soft verge, and they’d tumbled out. She, Trixie, the blanket and the hamper, and…
… she misses him so much.
Lucifer.
Any thought of him clamps a dry tightness in her chest and throat. She wonders what it would be like if he was with them now, how happy they’d be, but it’s silly really, dreaming like that. It’s painful too, so she stops. She’s got Trixie. She still has love in her life. Which is more than Lucifer has, stuck as he is in Hell.
The rustle of the wind in the trees vies with the none-too-distant drone of the freeway and the inescapable hum of the city. They find a flat spot on the scrubby ground and share sushi, pineapple fingers, and cake. Trixie seems content enough, though chocolate cake no longer sends her into the raptures it once did. They watch birds collecting nesting material while they eat. A few years ago, Trixie would have said it was the kind of place you’d find fairies, but she’s growing too old and wise for that now too, and when they finish, Trixie buries herself a book.
Chloe thinks about… no, she must quit thinking about Lucifer. It hurts so much, and she can’t conceal her pain. It isn’t fair on Trixie. Even if she is old enough to understand a little, she shouldn’t have to deal constantly with her mother’s sorrow.
Chloe lies down on the blanket and stares at a sky bleached with cloud, shielding her eyes from the brightness. There’s an empty cavity where her heart should be. That kiss goodbye… Was that when her heart was torn from her?
She mustn’t think of him constantly. It isn’t fair… Mustn’t think… Mustn’t think…
“Mom! Mommy!” Trixie shakes her, and she awakens abruptly. She’d not meant to doze off, but then she’s been sleeping badly, her mind constantly buzzing and body restless.
“What? What is it?” She sits up, blinking at her daughter. Trixie doesn’t look distressed, but there is a strange, wild vibrancy about her that alarms Chloe all the same. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. You won’t believe me.” Trixie is tugging her urgently, willing her to rise. “Come on. You have to see for yourself.”
“See what?”
Trixie leads her by the hand. They weave betwixt roots and brambles, farther from the picnic blanket than she’d really like Trixie to have strayed alone. Trixie’s excitement has reverted to that of a younger kid again, one who still believes in those fairies, so Chloe goes with it. There won’t be many more sweet moments like this.
Chloe laughs, breathless, as she runs. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. We’re nearly there.”
They burst into a clearing like something out of a dream. Weeping willows dip their branches into a glistening pool, on the far side of which cascades a waterfall. The sound of the rushing torrent smothers the last murmurs of traffic.
“Wow,” she says, “it’s so pretty here. Hey, Trixie, no… where are you going? That looks dangerous.”
Trixie is skirting along the edge of the pool, the banks slippery with mud and treacherous amid the tangle of roots and reeds. “See, Mommy, look?”
“I’m serious, Trixie. Stop messing around. You’re old enough to know better.” She launches forward, stretching her hand to reach her daughter, but Trixie has stopped on a small rocky ledge beside the waterfall. She’s grinning and waving madly.
Waving at the man who’s standing beneath the waterfall.
Waving at the man whose buff shape and lofty build seems dreadfully like Lucifer's… and who, she can just make out, is waving sheepishly back.
Chloe freezes, her fingers tented as if in prayer and clamped to her lips. A strange, wonderful warmth tingles through her veins, as she allows herself to hope. His eyes meet hers, the intensity of his gaze slicing through the water, which otherwise obscures her view of him like frosted glass. A bittersweet pang fills the cavity in her chest.
She believes, because she’ll die if this strange scene before her isn’t real. It’s him. It is Lucifer, and yet… how? She scoots around the pool, careless of the obstacles for which she’d chastised Trixie. She’s closed the gap between them in a heartbeat, and she’s teetering on the rock, carefully manoeuvring Trixie so she’s safe behind her.
He’s barely a yard from her, and he’s smiling, but maybe that’s for Trixie’s sake. To absorb the sight of him is the work of an anxious moment. He’s standing right beneath the flow, justifiably more rumpled than his debonair norm. His hair is flattened to his head, and his clothes—simpler than usual, a plain blue top and slacks—cling wetly to every contour of his frame. Indeed, everything about him is tinged slightly blue, and behind him is… To be honest, she’s not sure what it is, but it looks like an entire universe. A blanket of midnight blue pierced with twinkling stars reach out toward eternity. Maybe it’s a mural, maybe it’s a mirage, but she can’t focus on it for long.
The desperation and yearning in his eyes lance her deeply, but there’s hope there too. She wants to hold him, to kiss him so much.
“Lucifer?” She stretches an unsteady hand toward him, her disbelief heightening, because this has to be a dream. She’s slumbering by the picnic basket…
“Detective… no!”
He reaches out the same moment she does, as if they’re puppets operated by the same master’s strings. He’s warning her off; she realizes that too late, because the instant her fingertips enter the spray, there’s a crack. Blue sparks fly, the sensation akin to an electric shock, and she snatches back her smarting hand
From the other side, Lucifer roars in frustration and smashes the side of his fist through the water. There’s a loud crack of and a flash of blue lightening. Lucifer’s fist rebounds from the edge of the water, and he hisses as if scorched. Trixie squeals, and Chloe pushes her farther behind.
“Stings like a bitch, doesn’t it?” Lucifer laughs joylessly, rubbing his hand. “And there, my dear Detective, you see my problem.”
“He’s trapped,” says Trixie. “It’s okay, Lucifer. This sort of thing happens all the time in story books and it usually ends okay. We’ll get you out of there.”
“I’m trapped in a waterfall, not a storybook, Beatrice.”
“Same difference,” quips Trixie. “And you’re in the Bible. Plenty of stories in there.”
“Touché." Lucifer huffs. "Though I’d argue very few of them have happy endings. Not for me, at any rate.”
Chloe smiles tentatively, lips thinned, looking between them. “You’re due a happy ending then, right?”