Lucifer: Taken

Part V

When Lucifer's eyes opened again, it was light outside. He blinked a few times, and his eyes moved around the room, taking in his surroundings.
Right. The hospital.
The detective was asleep in the armchair next to him, her knees drawn to her chest and a coat covering her. He watched her breathe quietly, not wanting to disturb her by moving or speaking.
"Lucifer!" A high pitched squeal of excitement jolted him out of his thoughts, and Chloe jerked awake, both of their heads snapping around to look at the door.
There Trixie stood, hands gripping the straps of her backpack. She ran into the room and hopped on the bed next to Lucifer, looking at him with her head cocked to the side.
"Daddy said you got hurt," she said questioningly. Lucifer opened his mouth to respond, but wasn't sure how. He looked to Chloe for guidance, and thankfully she intervened.
"Trixie, be careful on the bed. Lucifer is hurt, and it might not be good for him if you're up there." With her mother's words, Trixie hopped back down, jostling the bed just enough to make him wince. "Who brought you here? I thought daddy was going to work?"
"He did. Maze brought me," Trixie replied happily, walking around to the other side of the bed to hug her mother. At the mention of Maze, Lucifer again looked toward the door, where the demon stood as if frozen, her brow furrowed in disbelief. If Lucifer didn't know better, he would have said there was fear in her eyes.
"Mazikeen," he greeted her, more than relieved to see his loyal right hand. She slowly entered the room, not taking her eyes off Lucifer and not speaking.
"Hi, Maze. Thanks for taking care of Trixie," Chloe said, although there was a bit of a question in her voice. Lucifer and Maze stared at each other, communicating without a word spoken aloud. After a few moments of silence, Chloe spoke up again.
"Trixie, let's go to the cafeteria and look for some breakfast, yeah?" she suggested, taking the little girl by the hand.
"But I already had—" she began to argue, but Chloe pulled her out of the room with a last concerned look at Lucifer.
"Maze—" he began, only to be cut off by her raising her hand and closing her eyes.
"What the hell happened? Where have you been?" Maze demanded. Lucifer could hear the real question behind her words: who was able to kidnap you and do this much damage?
"Uriel," he said simply, and Maze bristled.
"I'll kill that son of a bitch, I swear—" Maze clenched her fists, and this time it was Lucifer's turn to hold up a hand and stop her.
"Firstly, don't insult my mother that way. Secondly, that is a problem for another day," Lucifer said, hardly believing himself. Who was that levelheaded voice in his head? "Maze, I need a favor."
Maze's eyes met his, and Lucifer could practically see the fire blazing in them. "Anything."
"I need you to get the detective out of here." At Maze's questioning look, he continued. "I'll heal faster if she's away. Besides, there's no good in letting her see me this way. It's only hurting her, and that's the last thing I want to do." Maze nodded, eyes scrutinizing his body.
"You've already been here and done this, Mazikeen, what are you looking at?" he said with a raised eyebrow and a small smile, and Mazikeen smacked his bicep playfully, causing him to wince.
"You idiot," she stressed. "What the hell happened?" It was clear that Maze was over the shocked phase, and now genuinely wanted to know what had gone down.
Lucifer recounted the story as Chloe had told it to him, adding in some extra information at the beginning about the case for context, and a few things about his days with Uriel. As he spoke about it, he felt a strange weight lift from his chest. For Maze to know what had happened was a comfort. Now they could solve the celestial side of the crimes together.
"Okay, but what did Uriel kill the others for? You said Chloe thought he was looking for information, but that doesn't make sense. If he came down from the Silver City like Amenadiel did, he would have known exactly where to find you. So why the wild goose chase?" she questioned. Lucifer frowned. That was the question he'd asked himself many times over in that basement, and he thought he got his answer.
"He didn't want to find me," Lucifer replied quietly. "He wanted me to find him." Maze shook her head dismissively, as if that wasn't the answer she was looking for.
"Fine. But angels can't kill humans," she explained slowly, as if he were stupid. Lucifer's eyes met hers in realization, and he fell silent. She was right. He had hired someone to kill those humans and leave clues for him.
Which meant the person who had technically murdered those three people was still out there.
"Mazikeen, we need to cover this up," he stated, and she gave him an angry glance.
"Absolutely not!" she nearly shouted, and Lucifer shushed her. "Absolutely not," she repeated in a hiss. "No one does this—" she gestured to Lucifer, "—and gets a cover up. Are you out of your damn mind?"
"No, no, Maze," he fired back in a low voice of his own. "I don't mean Uriel. Well, I do mean Uriel, but not in the way you're thinking. We can go after him later. But the Los Angeles Police Department needs to think that a human did this. They need someone that they can put in jail. We can get that for them. Whoever killed those three people must also be jailed for the crime against me, regardless of whether or not they did it." Maze frowned, thinking about their dilemma.
"Fine. We find the person who committed those murders under Uriel's direction, and we get to them before the police do. We have to make him confess to your kidnapping, and—"
"I wasn't kidnapped, Mazikeen," Lucifer scowled. "I went down there willingly. It was just the bit that followed that I wouldn't exactly classify as consensual." Maze rolled her eyes, crossing her arms.
"Whatever. We need to make your story and their story line up. I'll see what information I can get from the police, you talk to Chloe and see what she'll give you."
"She's not going to give me anything," Lucifer scoffed. "She will keep all of this very hush hush and away from me as much as she can. We wouldn't want to trigger Lucifer's PTSD, now would we?"
"You have PTSD?" Maze asked doubtfully, one eyebrow raised.
"Of course not," he snapped in annoyance. "I'm the devil; I invented PTSD."
There was a knock at the open door, and Lucifer gave Maze a warning glance. Not a word.
"We brought a couple options in case you were hungry," Chloe said, thoughtlessly tossing an apple toward Lucifer and laying the rest of the snacks on a table in the corner. The apple connected with his shoulder, and although the impact was small, he winced.
"Right, I've been stabbed there in case you'd forgotten, thank you," he muttered, picking up the apple from where it rolled onto his lap. Maze snatched it from his hand and took a bite, leaving Lucifer frowning in displeasure.
"Sorry," Chloe hastily apologized. "Hey, Maze? It's 8:30. Trixie is late for her summer camp. Would you mind taking her? I have a debriefing at 9, and might not make it in time if I drive her."
"Yeah, whatever." Maze crunched the apple again, turning to leave. "Let's go, little human." She nodded to Lucifer, and Trixie waved on her way out the door.
"Thanks. I'll walk you out," Chloe said hurriedly. "I'll be right back." That part was directed at Lucifer, and he gave a mock salute as they left.

~~~

*Maze's POV*

Trixie chatted all the way through the hospital and outside, until they got to Maze's car.
"Okay, Trixie. Hop on in, I'm just going to talk with Maze for a second," Chloe said, holding the door open for her daughter to hop in. "I'll pick you up this afternoon, okay? Love you."
"Love you too, Mommy!" Chloe kissed her forehead and shut the door. She looked at Maze, and Maze stared back with a raised eyebrow, arms crossed in front of her chest.
"Maze, I overheard the last part of your conversation with Lucifer," she began, and Maze stopped chewing her apple.
Oh, shit.
She started to respond, and Chloe waved her hand, shaking her head. "Look, I know Lucifer has this whole confident devil thing going on, and you've been around for that a lot longer and know him better than me, but I want to make sure that you know the risks of him actually developing PTSD. He's been through a lot in the past couple of days, and I don't want to see his mental health deteriorate because he has this macho man thing and doesn't want to talk about his feelings and what he experienced. This is a big deal, and it should be treated as such."
"Chloe, look," Maze sighed, internally counting her lucky stars that this was the subject Chloe had heard them talk about. "Lucifer is gonna be fine. Seriously. He's a lot tougher than you give him credit for."
"He's a lot less tough than you give him credit for, Maze," Chloe retorted in frustration. "He was just kidnapped and tortured for three days. He almost died. He has a long recovery ahead of him. There was already an incident last night that worried me and Dan—"
"What kind of incident?" Maze asked, body perfectly still. What the hell had Lucifer done?
"When he woke up, he tried to rip his IV out. I know that can be pretty common for people coming out of anesthesia, but this was different. I've never seen him look so panicked. That's a—"
"Chloe—"
"—classic sign of PTSD—"
"Chloe, stop!" Maze nearly shouted. Chloe stared at her, face flushed, and Maze lowered her voice. "Lucifer is going to be fine. The thing with the IV, I wouldn't put too much stock in. You know Lucifer: he's big on the free will thing. If he didn't choose it, he doesn't want it. That's probably why he tried to take the IV out. It wasn't because he was traumatized, it was because he didn't put it there. Give him some credit; he knows how to handle things like this."
"But Maze, you weren't there, at the crime scene. You don't know what happened to him."
"He told me, Chloe," Maze sighed. "It sucks, and I'm sure it hurt both—"
"He told you? Did he tell you that he was almost dead when we got there?" Chloe demanded. Maze pursed her lips, exhaling in frustration. "Did he tell you that he was still conscious when Dan stuck his hand inside that open stab wound to try and stop the bleeding? Did he tell you that he was choking on his own blood as we waited for the ambulance? Did he tell you that if we had got there five minutes later, he would have been dead? Did he tell you that, Maze?" Chloe was near tears, and Maze nodded, backing down for now. Nothing that she said right now was going to make a difference.
"Alright, Chloe. Alright. What happened sucked ass. I get it. I'll keep an eye on Lucifer, and try to get him to go see Linda. Okay?" Maze kept eye contact with her as she walked around the car to the driver's side.
"Okay. Thanks, Maze," Chloe muttered, putting her hands in her jeans pockets.
"And Chloe? I'd give you the same advice. Talk to someone," Maze suggested, taking a bite from her apple and raising it up as a goodbye before opening her door and getting in the car. She made eye contact with Trixie in the passenger seat, and rolled her eyes.
"Humans," Maze muttered.