InsaneJournal

Lucifer let himself into Peggy's office, unannounced, and then closed the door behind him. He took a seat and looked at this woman he'd come to know. Well enough it seemed that he knew he could find her in her office even though they now knew no more travelers would be arriving for her to greet.

"So," he said, cutting out the preamble. "Are you staying here or going home?"

Peggy looked up when Lucifer came in, an eyebrow arched that only arched higher at his question without greeting. She set down the PADD she had been reviewing and crossed her arms. "I haven't decided yet," she said. "Have you?"

She liked to think she knew him well enough by now, and yet she didn't have a good handle on how he was reacting to this. On the one hand, she assumed he'd jump at the opportunity to leave, though that might have been more obvious before, before he had left and come back. He seemed more okay with this now that he was here a second time.

"I'm staying," Lucifer replied. "How could I not, knowing Risa exists?"

He said this easily, but the decision had been anything but. "It's purely selfish," he mentioned. "This is a universe where my father's influence seems to not be so annoyingly omnipresent." There was also the matter that his friends could all decide to leave, which is why there had been no preamble to his question to Peggy.

A smile touched her lips and she shook her head. "Why doesn't it surprise me in the least that you'd want to set up the rest of your life on Risa."

She rubbed the side of her neck and sighed. "I don't know honestly, for me. This has been a big part of my life over the last year, and yet …"

"And yet it's coming to an end, so you're out of a job and this is nothing near what you were doing back home?" Lucifer asked. "With entirely different people?"

He understood that much, at least.

She nodded. "This isn't my life, Lucifer," she said a moment later. "It's not supposed to be my life. It's not anything like I anticipated and while on the one hand, there are opportunities here that I would never have been offered back home, I'm not certain I want to see this out." That was the first time she'd said her feelings on the matter out loud.

"What opportunities are you referring to?" Lucifer asked. He took a seat, watching her. "And what do you want to go home to? You've found answers for all our questions. What about your own?"

"Space travel, other worlds, cultures, languages, the opportunities are endless, aren't they? It's very different than 1948." She paused at his question. Here, she supposed she had Steve but he - Peggy shook her head. Daniel she thought, Daniel was back home, waiting for her.

"It's different than any of the millennia I've bore witness to, yes," he agreed. "I think the decision is different when you know you'll outlive everyone you know."

He paused. "Does this mean I'll never ever hear you play piano?"

"I imagine it is different for you. Here or there, you'd eventually get here anyway, right? You're just pushing the timeframe up." She shrugged a little then smiled at him. "I don't really have any reason to play the piano, now do I?"

"There are always reasons to play the piano," Lucifer pointed out, but he knew the answer before he'd even asked the question. "So what are you going to do with your last few days in space? Other than visit me in the lounge."

Peggy shrugged. "I'd like that. We can drink together and toast our time here." She smiled a little. "And maybe I'll play something for you."

"You better not be teasing," Lucifer said. But then he smiled back at her. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Do I seem like the type of woman to be a tease?" she asked him, pursing her lips and smiling at him.

"Do you want me to answer that?" Lucifer asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I think given your line of work back home, combined with your integrity, you most certainly could be a tease," Lucifer replied. "It's a shame that this position is so boring by comparison."

"Well, this is a lot more administrative than I like, but for the first few months after I went to New York, that's about all I could do. Was allowed to do. Because I'm a woman," she added to clarify what she meant.

"Until you proved their sexism was completely off-base?" Lucifer asked, raising a brow. He had no doubt that if anyone from her time period could, it was Peggy.

She shrugged. "I ran off eventually at Howard's call to Los Angeles." She stopped at the mention of Howard, pressed her lips together and said nothing for a moment. Then, finally, "I did enjoy LA."

Lucifer grinned. "Is that where you'd be returning? If so, say hello to it for me." Not that she would remember. Apparently that was no longer a choice.

"Yes, to LA, I'd assume." She glanced away for a moment, considering how it would be to see Daniel again, even if she didn't realize she had been without him this long. She stopped thinking about him, truly, about a month in, because she knew it did her no good. But the idea that she could return to him, to that moment when they might have been at the brink of something, made her think that her decision was the right one.