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The case had gone from bad to worse to unfathomable. The careful control Chloe had tried to maintain was long gone. Three young girls were murdered and the killer has struck again.
Chloe stands over the killer’s latest victim and feels guilt creeping in. She should have moved quicker, worked harder on the investigation, done more before it got to this point. The last week has been spent chasing this asshole, with several all-nighters pulled, and they’re still no closer than they were with the first victim.
“He’s taunting us,” Lucifer says angrily, jaw tight as he looks from the victim, who can’t be older than her early-twenties, to the area surrounding them as if he’s searching for the murderer. “As if he believes he’ll escape justice forever.”
She says nothing, already thinking about informing yet another family that she failed in keeping their daughter safe. “Ella, what do you have for me?” she says quietly, clenching her jaw in the hopes she can hide her grief from the others.
She doesn’t see Lucifer watching her, too preoccupied with finding and stopping this bastard.
Frustration is at an all-time high. Chloe has barely slept in days, her dreams filled with images of young girls being brutally murdered and an unseen figure, a shadow, laughing cruelly just out of view. She’s surviving on a diet of caffeine and vending machine food—until Lucifer starts bringing her lunch or dinner, citing his inability to watch her give herself food poisoning.
“You’ll find him, Detective,” he says softly when she barely grunts her thanks for the food. She’s practically cross-eyed from staring at the crime scene photos, evidence, and case files. “You always do. Running yourself into the ground isn’t doing anybody any favors, darling. You’re doing your best.”
“It isn’t good enough,” she snaps at him. “Don’t you get it? These girls’ deaths are on me, Lucifer. And if I don’t find this asshole, if he strikes again, that will be on me, too!”
“That isn’t true,” he says fiercely. “Detective, his choices are on him, not you. I know that you know that. We will find him, you have my word.”
Chloe shakes her head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Lucifer.”
He reaches over and covers her hand with his much larger one, stilling her restless fingers as she flips to another stack of photos. “I’m not,” he says, his expression more serious than she’s seen it in some time. “Now, will you please take a break and eat something? I could hear your stomach rumbling from the lift. Fifteen minutes. That is all I ask.”
Maybe it’s his touch or the way he’s watching her, but some of her stress and anxiety settles, and she feels a reluctant smile pulling at her lips. “Fine. But you better have gotten something good,” she grumbles teasingly.
Lucifer smirks and sets the bag of food down in front of her. “Don’t I always?”
Another four days pass before Chloe and her team are able to find a break in the case. The killer grew sloppier with his movements, cockier that he wouldn’t get caught, and kidnapped another girl. This time, they got a license plate from his SUV and tracked him down to a rundown motel on the outskirts of the city.
And that’s where it all grows so much worse.
The moment they burst through the door, the killer grabs his victim, using her as a human shield. Chloe holds up a hand, signaling to the SWAT team behind her to hold their positions, and tries to talk him down. Beside her, Lucifer is radiating fury, ready to launch himself across the room towards their target.
“Get back or I’ll kill her like I killed all the others,” the murderer threatens, holding a knife to the terrified, bound woman’s neck. She’s whimpering, tears falling from her eyes as she looks from her captor to Chloe, silently begging for help.
“Just put the knife down,” Chloe says soothingly. “I know you’re scared. We all are, okay? And I know that you think the only way out of this is to keep running, but it isn’t. Whatever led you here...it doesn’t have to end this way.”
He bares his teeth at her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not falling for that understanding bullshit salad you’re spewing, lady. Get back.”
“People make mistakes all the time, Andrew, but that doesn’t make you evil.”
Lucifer scoffs quietly beside her, but doesn’t put in his two cents.
She ignores him. “But hurting her or anybody else, that won’t fix anything. It will only make things worse.” Shifting her gaze slightly, she looks at the young woman, hoping to silently communicate that she’s doing everything possible to get everybody out of here alive. The woman nods minutely, getting the message.
Chloe looks back at Andrew. “Think about this, Andrew. You don’t want another life on your conscience, burning through your soul,” she says softly, pleadingly, desperately trying to get through to him. “You have a choice right now—all the choices. Put down the knife and I can help you. We can figure this out together.”
Everybody in the room holds their breath as Andrew pauses, and seems to really think about what Chloe is saying. But she sees the flash in his eyes and knows what he will do, which choice he will make. When his jaw tenses, instinct tells her to raise her gun, but she hesitates a millisecond too long.
Andrew slices the woman’s throat as Lucifer shouts, “No, don’t!”
Muscle memory keeps her functioning and Chloe raises her gun to fire, incapacitating him, but it’s already too late. She rushes across the room to the young woman as she chokes on her own blood and reaches weakly for her throat. Desperately, Chloe tries to hold pressure on the wound as someone else cuffs the murderer and medics rush into the room. They load her onto a gurney, working to save her life, even though Chloe knows it’s already over; the young woman’s eyes met hers again and though she was probably imagining it, Chloe saw something accusatory in her expression as the light dimmed and she exhaled one final time.
Chloe stays crouched on the floor, staring at hands covered in blood signifying the loss of life she could have—should have prevented. She hesitated. Why did she hesitate? She saw Andrew’s decision and could have acted, but...
Lucifer crouches beside her. She barely notices him or his warmth. “Detective,” he murmurs softly.
“Don’t,” she says tightly, her throat choked with tears. “Just...don’t, Lucifer.”
Lucifer doesn’t listen, because he never does. “This was not your fault. He made his choice long before we came into this room.”
“You don’t get it. I’m supposed to protect people. That is the job I swore to do every day. And I couldn’t even do that right.”
Without awaiting a response, Chloe stands and leaves the room, not feeling Lucifer’s eyes on her the entire time.
The Lieutenant puts Chloe on mandatory leave for a few days after that—standard practice when something of this nature occurs. To her, it feels like a punishment for her failures on this case. Dan takes Trixie during that time, because Chloe can barely take care of herself, let alone her daughter, no matter how hard she tries to be normal. He doesn’t say that’s the reason, but that’s how it feels to her.
The guilt is like nothing she has ever experienced before, consuming her night and day and in everything she does. Images of all the killer’s victims flash before her eyes at the most inopportune times, just when she thinks she’s getting better. She lays in bed at night and thinks about that final confrontation, every word she spoke, every action she made, thinking about what she could have done differently.
But she already knows the answer: She hesitated, and it cost a young woman with her whole life ahead of her to lose everything.
Lucifer texts everyday, multiple times, attempting to cheer her up. Sending her funny memes, talking about whatever pops into his mind, inviting her out to Lux for a drink. She appreciates the effort, but none of it works.
When she returns to the precinct, her confidence is shaken. She second-guesses herself where she wouldn’t have before. She lets Dan and Ella do more of the legwork than she normally would, not trusting herself to not miss something crucial. Even handing out orders as lead investigator doesn’t come as naturally anymore.
Chloe feels tired—exhausted, depleted, and haunted by the weight of her choices. Of her mistakes. She feels as if the ghosts of those girls follow her everywhere she goes, and it’s pulling her lower and lower. And she doesn’t know how to climb out of this sinkhole.
Standing in a conference room in front of the evidence from her latest case, Chloe hesitates to even look at any of it. Maybe she doesn’t have it in her anymore; this job, the pressure, the responsibility. But being a cop, protecting and serving like her father before her, is the only career she’s truly wanted. Her dream job. For a while, she thought she did it pretty damn well, but now...well, at some point, every seasoned detective cracks. And she can feel the strain now.
She doesn’t hear the door open behind her. Doesn’t notice anybody else in the room until—
“Detective.”
Chloe stiffens. She knows Lucifer has noticed her slowly falling apart, because he always seems to notice. Even when she really wishes he wouldn’t. “Not now, Lucifer,” she says hollowly, her fingers brushing the case file.
He lets out a heavy sigh and moves to lean on the table beside her. “You’re not alone, you know. I know you think that I don’t understand what you’re going through,” he says, his voice a low gentle rumble. “But I assure you that I do. Far better than most. I know precisely what it is like to make a split-second decision that results in somebody being hurt. I have made more mistakes than you can possibly fathom, darling, and that is not an exaggeration. I know how crushing the weight of guilt can be on a soul. To wonder if you’re broken beyond repair and to feel like you’re falling apart inside.” He leans closer until their shoulders brush. “But Chloe, that does not mean that you give up.”
Her breath catches in her chest, every word hitting like a punch to the gut. She wants to deny it. Everything that he’s just said to her. But she’s just so tired of pretending, and if there is one person in the world who would never judge her, it’s the man standing beside her.
Looking up at him, the air feels thick with all the things left unsaid between them, and she can see that he truly does understand what she’s going through. This isn’t some motivational speech he’s making up on the fly; the look in his eyes says he knows, that he has lived this scenario or something similar.
Chloe swallows hard. The weight of what he’s admitting to her, the trust he’s giving her, the pain he must feel, all hitting like a brick wall.
Lucifer tilts his head slightly. “You are not broken, Detective,” he murmurs gently. His eyes soften as he gazes at her. There’s something raw and vulnerable in his eyes, tender almost, that she isn’t used to seeing from him. “Not to me, darling. Never to me.”
The tightness in her chest, that painful knot she has felt ever since that day, tightens even further at his words, knowing he never lies and truly means what he says. She doesn’t know if she should lean away from him or into him. Whether to run from all of this and live in denial, or take the comfort Lucifer is so freely offering.
“I just...don’t know how to keep doing this, Lucifer,” she whispers painfully, her voice as heavy and choked as the rest of her. “I don’t know how to trust myself again.”
He watches her for a moment, then gives her the faintest smile. “Then allow me to help you. That’s what partners are for, isn’t it?”
Looking at him, doubt and fear and pain warring for dominance, she desperately wants to believe him. After all, he’s never lied to her, he’s always trusted her and trusted in her.
As if he knows she’s on the precipice and about to fall over, he reaches for her hand, pulling her back to steady ground. “You’re not alone, Chloe,” he murmurs again. “I know that you don’t believe it, but I have walked this Earth for millennia. I have met kings and queens; Gods and Goddesses; I have fought with some of the best and brightest the universe has to offer. But there is nobody I have ever trusted more than I trust you, Chloe Jane Decker. There is nobody I would more willingly follow; nobody I have more faith in. And whatever you are facing, now or in the future, I will be here for you. Always, Detective.”
The sob that has been building up in her chest breaks free. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she holds him, pressing her face to his shoulder. For once, he doesn’t stiffen up or hesitate; one arm curls around her waist while the other cradles the back of her head. He doesn’t offer up anymore words, but holds her together, and piece by piece, she can feel whatever might have been broken in her start to repair.
She doesn’t know how long they remain like that. She doesn’t care that they're in a room with glass walls and the entire bullpen can see them. This is what she’s needed for days. And maybe Lucifer needs it, too; she can feel him relax, almost melting against her.
When she starts to pull away, he lets her, lifting a hand to tenderly wipe away the tears that have fallen down her cheeks. “Better?” he murmurs.
Chloe considers the question, feeling lighter than she has in too long. The grief hasn’t vanished, but some of the guilt has lessened. She nods. “Getting there.”
He gives her that proud smile she likes so much. “Well, then. In that case, let’s catch some bad guys, shall we?”
She smiles and it comes naturally rather than feeling forced. “Definitely.”