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Lucifer adjusted his cufflinks as he walked toward Chloe’s room. He didn't know what he was going to say, but he needed to see her just in case…
He clenched his jaw and reminded himself that the plan was a good one. All he had to do was locate Carlisle’s cell once he was in Hell and get the formula. Simple. Really, he had the easiest part of things to handle; he just had to trust the others to execute their parts of the plan.
He needed to trust Maze to kill him. That was easy, Maze had never failed him. Betrayed him a time or two thousand, sure, but failed him? Never.
He needed to trust Linda to revive him. Again, easy. Linda was too caring for her own good and every bit as tenacious as she was patient. If anything were to go wrong, she’d not stop trying to save him until she’d spent her last breath.
Finally, he needed to trust Amenadiel to protect Chloe, and by extension, him. Despite everything that had happened between them, he knew without a doubt that no one short of their Father would be able to move her so long as Amenadiel was there.
So that was that. All he had to do was die, track down one specific Hell cell, then obtain and memorize the formula for the antidote before his heart was restarted and his soul pulled back into his body. Easy.
He paused when he turned the corner and spotted Trixie. She was alone in the small waiting room, sitting in one of the chairs with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms hugging her legs. Without consciously realizing he’d done so, he turned and walked towards her. He sat in the chair beside her. “You really shouldn't be wandering off alone, Urchin,” he said after a moment.
“My mom's going to die, isn’t she?” she replied without looking up at him.
Lucifer was taken aback by the question. “Why would you think that?” he countered.
“Everyone looks really worried and scared, even you, and you never look scared.” She looked up at him now and it struck him that there was an awareness in her eyes which belied her youth. “Everyone stops talking whenever I go in the room and they all look sad when they look at me,” Trixie told him. She studied him for a moment before adding, “You look sad.”
“Clearly you’ve been fortunate enough to have inherited your mother’s keen mind,” he quipped. “And you’re right, I am very worried about her. But I am going to go somewhere and talk to someone who will know how to make your mother better.” The statement was annoyingly vague, even to his own ear, but she was only a child and he was certain that she didn’t need to know the full breadth of the plan for how he was going to help her mother.
“Is it the man who hurt her?” Trixie asked.
“Yes, it is.”
She stared at him. “You’re the only one who can go talk to him, aren’t you? Because it’s dangerous where he is.”
Lucifer furrowed his brow. “Yes,” he answered simply. Lucifer looked down at her and felt an uneasiness washing over him. She was astonishingly perceptive for someone so young. He found himself wondering if she’d inherited anything at all from Dan as thus far, all her cleverness, wit and compassion seemed to be pure Chloe.
His stomach twisted at just the thought of her name.
“Promise you’ll be careful? My mom would be really sad if you got hurt trying to help her. I’d be sad too,” she said quietly.
“Why?” The word was across his lips before he could remind himself that he was talking to a child. Not the most rational of creatures when not under stress, so times like these it stood to reason that she’d make ridiculous statements about fear for his safety when her mother lay dying down the hallway. Again, he felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach at the thought.
“Because you’re my friend and I don’t want you to get hurt,” she answered with a shrug.
He sighed as Trixie continued to stare up at him. “You needn’t worry about me. I spent,” he hesitated, “a very long time in the place where I have to go to find the man who hurt your mother. I know it well.”
“But it’s dangerous,” she pointed out.
“Less so for me because I know it better than anyone else,” he assured her.
“Promise you’ll be careful anyway?”
Lucifer rolled his eyes at her stubbornness. One more aspect in which she clearly took after Chloe. “Very well. I promise I’ll be careful. Are you satisfied now?”
Before he could guard against it, she’d unfolded her limbs and flung herself against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck with a surprising amount of strength.
“Thanks for promising. I know you never lie, so at least I know you’ll be safe even if you can’t save my mom,” she said as she clung to him.
He cringed, not at her show of affection for once, but at the notion that he might not be able to save Chloe. With less reluctance than usual, he wrapped his arms around her small frame and held her to him.
“I will do anything I have to do to help make your mother better. I promise,” he told her quietly. She responded only by hugging him tighter. He held her a moment longer then leaned back slightly. She looked like she was on the verge of tears and he certainly didn’t have the time or patience to deal with that. He glanced around the room and spotted a vending machine. “You know, I do believe your arm is small enough that you could likely reach the bottom row of those snacks,” he told her as he pointed to the machine.
“You think so?” she asked as she looked at it.
“Absolutely. Go on, give it a try,” he encouraged.
Trixie climbed off him and went to the machine. As if on cue, a security guard appeared at the far side of the room. Before the balding, middle-aged man could say anything, Lucifer crossed to him and peeled several bills from the money clip he’d pulled from his pocket.
“If you wouldn’t mind, allow the child a few moments of distraction. Her mother is –“ his voice faltered for an instant. “Her mother is quite ill. This,” he said as he pressed the bills into the guard’s hand, “should more than cover the cost of any items she might manage to liberate from that contraption. As well as a few minutes of your patience.”
The guard nodded without looking down. Lucifer thanked him and walked away. He heard the guard say something that sounded like an expletive and could only presume that the man had just realized how much money he’d handed him.
“Bloody mortals and their money,” he muttered before he walked into Chloe’s room.
She was asleep, laying on her right side with her arm dangling over the edge of the bed. Again, that stomach-flipping sensation hit him. He stood silently watching her as thoughts he didn’t want ran through his mind.
Everything between them had felt so real. Knowing his Father had used her to manipulate him was infuriating, but if what Amenadiel had told him was true and she was unaware, none of it was her fault. She’d been manipulated, just as he had. Somehow, he felt that made it even worse. His Father screwing with him was something that had been happening since the dawn of time and he was certain it would continue until the end of it.
Chloe, however, was innocent. She didn’t deserve this. Any of this. She didn’t deserve to have her emotions toyed with or her very existence orchestrated to put her in his path. He resolved then and there to find a way to free her from this mess. A mess that she was only part of because of him and which had nearly ended her life on several occasions.
His anger grew as he thought of how often she’d almost died because of him, in one way or another. Maze had almost killed her in her sleep one night, claiming it was to protect him from the vulnerability she triggered in him. Malcolm had nearly killed not only her, but Trixie as well. Then there was Uriel who had made at least three attempts on her life. And of course, most recently, Mum’s attempt to blow her up. It ended with this, somehow. He’d do what he alone could and once he knew she was safe, he’d figure out some way to save her from this twisted part his bastard of a Father had forced her into playing.
He moved to leave but had only taken a few steps before he heard her weak voice.
“How long have you been staring at me like a perv?” He looked back, scoffed and stepped back toward her as she made a noise that he presumed was meant to be a chuckle before asking “Where’s Trixie?”
He exhaled then told her, “Well, I’m afraid she discovered the snack machine. And the fact that her tiny hands can just about reach the bottom treats.”
She managed a small grin and mused “Wonder who taught her that?” He sighed again but said nothing more. “Lucifer, what is it?” she asked.
He stepped closer and gently took her hand in his. He made a conscious effort to ignore the way his heart raced at the touch of her skin. It wasn’t real. None of what he felt was real because it was based on a lie. “I am going to do everything in my power to fix this.” As he uttered the words, he knew she wouldn’t realize that he was talking about so much more than just the current threat. The oath she didn’t comprehend the magnitude of hung between them for several beats.
“I know,” she whispered, her words confident and trusting without even a hint of fear or doubt in them.
He kept his eyes on her for several more seconds, time measured by the steady beeping of the heart monitor which reminded him how dire the situation was with every bloody blip. He shot the offending equipment a glance as he considered crushing it for a second, then looked back down at her. A final look into those crystal blue eyes and he knew he had to act quickly. Not only was the poison coursing through her with every beat of her heart, but if he didn’t find a way to set her free of Father’s game soon, he didn’t know that he’d have the strength to do it. As he walked around the end of the bed and headed for the door, he could already feel his resolve faltering.
Every part of him wanted her, in ways he’d never wanted anyone in all his existence. He wanted nights spent on the beach as he held her, telling her about how he’d created the stars and mornings of watching her sleep until he couldn’t resist the urge to wake her up just so he could look into those eyes. He wanted ridiculously awkward family dinners with her over-the-top mother and afternoons of inane banter between her and Trixie as they sat on the sofa in his penthouse while he played the piano and watched them. He wanted all of it and so much more. Had wanted all of it…
For a moment he’d allowed himself to believe that he could have that life. After eons of the meaningless, hollow, empty existence he’d been half-living, he’d allowed himself a spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, he could feel something genuine that was actually good. He’d let himself believe that what he was feeling for her was love, but he realized now that it was just one more punishment. Caring about her, only to have it all shattered before his very eyes as the realization that it was all smoke and mirrors came crashing down around him; the anguish he was fighting but could feel creeping through him was a new level of cruelty. He hadn’t thought even his Father would be that vicious, but clearly he’d been wrong.
As he stepped into the hallway, he felt like a vice had wrapped around his chest. All he felt now was anger, pain, and sorrow. Whatever he’d have to do to push her away, he was going to hurt her in doing so. The idea of seeing pain in those luminous eyes, knowing that he would have to be the one to cause that pain was more than he could bear to think about.
He spotted Amenadiel near the far end of the corridor and squared his shoulders. He had to stay focused on the task at hand. He had to save her before he worried about anything else. He’d made promises to both Trixie and Chloe, and he never broke his promises. He was nothing if not a Devil of his word. He would do everything in his power to save Chloe’s life; breaking her heart would be have to be a worry for another day.