After the storm

Chapter 18

The following couple of weeks seemed perfectly blissful for Chloe and Lucifer. They were spending as much time with each other as possible, they were almost inseparable, be it during the day or at night. They kept splitting their time between Lux, when it was Dan's turn to have Trixie and Chloe's house when the young girl was staying there. They were both aware of the fact that they couldn't be more happier, or could they?

They still didn't manage to announce their engagement to everyone, especially their family and friends. The worst thing for Chloe was that she felt guilty about not telling her daughter. Every time she and Lucifer tried to do that, there was something interrupting them like that ringing phone which almost prevented them from getting together not long ago.

As far as work was concerned, everyone at the precinct was having hard time. Most of the officers and technicians were down with the flu leaving the place quite empty and understaffed. It meant that those who were lucky to stay healthy or managed to come to work, were given all the cases as obviously the bad guys must have had much better immune system which was shown in the growing number of crimes at the time.

Since Lucifer was invulnerable, he was the only one to be a hundred per cent sure to be ready for work every day, well at least as far as health was concerned. Fortunately, Chloe has managed to avoid the illness so far but when it came to Dan, he wasn't so lucky. He spent almost two weeks lying in bed with high fever and general weakness of the body. He came back but he still often experienced fatigue.

The situation was different with Ella. She got it too but she decided to be strong and refused to take a leave of absence as she knew how her part of the job was important in each case. Thus, she kept coming to the precinct, having to deal with overwhelming weakness and splitting headaches.

Chloe was given a few cases which involved much more investigating, following endless leads, interrogating numerous suspects and plenty of paper work. At the end of the day and lately even during the day, she started feeling exhausted, probably due to being so overworked. She didn't want to have Lucifer worried about her so she was trying to hide the symptoms which became increasingly overwhelming. At least she was done with the nightmares – they ended like Lucifer had said they would and she just hoped she wouldn't be visited by his sister anymore.

It was late afternoon and the precinct was quiet with its lack of staff. Dan went to check on the new lead that has just appeared and after that it was his turn to pick up Trixie from the sitter. Ella was in her office sitting at the microscope and taking some notes for one of their cases.

Lucifer decided to go and make some strong coffee if they were to make it through till the end of work that day. He was standing in the kitchen corner, and while waiting for the coffee to brew, he started observing his Detective.

She was hunched over some files piling on her desk. Surely, that uncomfortable position was going to give her back pain later in the evening. He made a mental note to give her a soothing massage and work on all those knots in her back and neck. Then he noticed something else – from time to time she would frown like she was in pain, touch her head and close her eyes. Now that was definitely a bad sign. He knew she worked too much for the past weeks and he was doing everything in his might to make it easier for her but she was stubborn and sometimes it was hard for her to accept his help.

Two hours later, Lucifer finally managed to convince Chloe to call it a day since she was too exhausted to make anything constructive anyway. He also succeeded in sending miss Lopez home, he was really impressed by her perseverance and dedication to work.

Their drive to Lux was quiet, she didn't have much energy to talk and she felt her eyelids becoming heavy. Finally, they reached the club, took the elevator and entered the penthouse. She had to fight with herself not to fall asleep while standing in the middle of the living room.