Recurrence

Chapter 2

Something mondo weird was up.

Okay, in the precinct, a lot of weirdass things happened. Ella was a scientist, and she noticed things. Sure, she filed them away to piece together later, but she noticed all the same. Maybe it was her faith, even damaged, that kept her open to the other possibilities in life. It was more likely because she'd grown up her whole life with Rae Rae as her ghostly companion, something she'd been more at peace with since her talk with Chloe. But yeah, the station and their cases could be balls to the wall bizarro.

There was the dagger that apparently created a stabby-stab party at a yoga studio that she still didn't understand. The weird dance of back and forth between poor Charlotte Richards and Lucifer. Not that stepmother didn't explain a lot, but there was still something off in how Amenadiel and Lucifer had treated her like a mom, down to what felt like decades and not a few years of baggage. And the crime scene. Pierce---she'd never wanted to hope in Hell more in her life than when she'd found out he'd tried to kill Chloe and Lucifer---was the weirdest. Not only had the coroner's report been impossible, reporting injuries and carbon dating that were off the charts and the reason it had been buried in red tape, but the scene.

None of it made sense, least of all the very large, very bloody feathers everywhere. She'd saved a few, not sure what to do with them, but positive that they were some big part of the bigger puzzle, and not all deserved to end up in a vacuum or in storage basement of the precinct.

So, yeah, L.A. was a weirder city than Detroit for obvious reasons, but the cases that hit Ella's precinct directly often seemed batshit loco. But this was a different kind of weird, something she couldn't understand. Yeah, she got that after the Pierce the freaking Sinnerman debacle that Chloe needed a vacation to Rome (she'd have chosen Aruba herself), and that month of team Deckerstar being MIA made sense. But things had been better. Even with the tension while Lucifer was dating Eve and, okay totally keeping it one hundred, not been good at balancing work and all the pleasure, things felt like they'd been before Pierce had fucked it up.

But now?

In the almost five weeks since the realtor case, things felt broken.

Chloe went to crime scenes alone. Not only was Lucifer not there, but he didn't even complain about being left out. Lucifer always complained. It was something she rolled with because he was also funny as hell and more than game to joke around with her, double entendres easily dripping off his lips, and it made the day pass easily. But the dude was a whiner. So far, he'd been going through files, organizing paperwork, and sitting in on her debriefs. But not a damn peep. It made zero sense. As far as she knew, nothing had happened at the masquerade party but a solid win for the whole team. Bad guy caught, no one injured, and all moving on.

But Lucifer was clearly riding the bench, and she had no idea why. Or crazier still, why he'd taken the demotion without a fight.

He spent more of his time in her lab than he usually did these days. Even after the paperwork part and when he was released by Chloe, he'd quietly make an excuse to slide into Ella's space, settle himself on a stool and either play with his phone or let her talk to him. She liked that part. The way he seemed to enjoy her rambling. He'd always humored her but something had changed there too. Over a year ago with the last time she'd seen Rae Rae, he'd started just coming by at nights to hang. She'd even been able to coax him into occasional movie nights and sci-fi watching marathons at her place. He'd been surprisingly game for Dr. Who and as she'd totally called it a total Tennant fan. Soured fast on Supernatural, much to her frustrations. You'd think the ultimate devil method actor would want to see how someone else had played him---was still playing him cause did that show ever die---but he hated it once they got to the angels in season four.