InsaneJournal

Lucifer had already wanted to talk to Beckett following his successful conversation with Hawke, that had been urged along, in part, by Kate herself. However, the discussion with Mary could not quite be considered a success. It could however, be described as circular, annoying, and apparently never-ending as they seemed to rehash the bloody thing every few days.

Half-tempted to break into the bloodwine, Lucifer resisted and instead headed to Kate’s room with a bottle of scotch. Once inside, he said, “Well at least I’ve halved the number of women upset with me on this ship.”

He was at a loss of how to even proceed with Mary anymore. If banging his head against the wall would have had any discernible effect, he may have been tempted.

While Kate had gotten the ball rolling to resolve the issue of she and Castle living in - and therefore going constantly between - to different rooms, that hadn’t translated into a new room assignment for the two of them. Packing wasn’t exactly presumptive on her part, they would definitely be granted a change in housing assignment, but maybe it was a little soon to throw herself into it all.


But she was packing up anyway, the few decorations on the walls already down and stacked neatly in a corner, an open bag from one of the stores in Yorktown filled with jeans, workout gear and the lightweight coat she had been wearing when she arrived on the Enterprise placed beside it. The series of beeps from the ship’s computer system were the only notification Kate needed to know that Lucifer had lived up to his words on the PADD and shown up at the door to her room, and she left her small bedroom long enough to enter the common room and allow him entry.

Spotting the scotch in his hand immediately, she paused for two glasses, gesturing for Lucifer to follow her back to her room. “Oh really?” she asked, putting the cups on the surface of her writing desk where there was nothing else but the PADD and her NYPD Captain’s badge. “When did you talk to Hawke?”

“A few days ago,” Lucifer replied. “She had this thing with her arm being broken, and I went over there and spent the night, but we eventually talked,” he said. “And I stole some bloodwine out of her room that I intend to keep as my own. Which hopefully will allow me to get intoxicated if necessary tomorrow night.”

He wasn’t really planning on drinking too much, however. With alcohol potent enough to actually affect him being a rarity, he needed to save the bottle for an emergency, or at the very least, an occasion worthy of it. “Anyway, I listened to what you told me, and I talked to her. Even let her see my eyes glow red, which didn’t even phase her. So clearly, I need to spend more time with her.”

Filling each glass, Lucifer took his and considered his options for sitting, eventually deciding to lean against the wall, casually surveying Kate’s room. “Anyway, I’m glad I listened to you there.” It had been totally worth the initial awkwardness to have that conversation.

When it came down to it, Kate had been guessing which of the two women Lucifer had worked things out with. Since their initial conversation about the fallout of sleeping with both Hawke and Mary, she had largely left him to his own devices since Lucifer was generally capable of handling himself and his problems.

But what it had really come down to was the fact that he had left the gym with a desire to work things out with Hawke while things with Mary had just seemed as complicated as they were the morning after they had had sex. “Hold on,” Kate said, holding out a hand in the universal sign for stop, “Tell me you didn’t sleep with her again before you talked.”

Even if things seemed to be better between them now, another night of sex would only make it more complicated in the long term.

“Oh, no. I mean I went to her place because she was drunk, and in pain, and told her she looked like shit and needed sleep,” Lucifer explained. “And she all but passed out immediately at that point, proving my point. So no, only sleep, in this instance.”

And that was something he hadn’t regretted, even before they spoke. Because even when things were awkward between them, Lucifer cared about Hawke enough to show up when he thought it might help.

Picking up her glass, Kate didn’t make a move to drink the scotch inside immediately. Now that she had the rest of the story, she could focus less on all the things that might come back up and instead consider the rest of what he had told her.

Lucifer had shown Hawke what he really looked like, which was really one of those points in a friendship that would either solidify things for keeps or push them further towards the end. Hawke, true to Kate’s estimation of the woman, hadn’t flinched which just left her liking Hawke all the more.


Kate hadn’t seen Lucifer’s true form, but she wasn’t even sure that she wouldn’t need a little while to adjust when faced with it. “Well, it’s like I told you, there are some people out there that won’t run away from the hard stuff. It looks like Hawke is one of those people.”

What she wanted to do was tease him, to grin and tell him ‘I told you so’ and be completely insufferable about all of it. But Kate merely gave him a slight flick of her eyebrows, clearly pleased at the news, and took her first sip of the scotch. “You’re welcome.”


The moment of smugness wasn’t lost on Lucifer and he laughed in response before adding, sincerely, “Thank you. I was bloody terrified and I hated it, but in the end it wasn’t so horribly awful. Only slightly awful.” In truth, he was still terrified to show Hawke his full form, but she had asked him about it, so he knew that day was coming. “I trust her, the same way I trust you,” he said to Kate. “Maybe more so, as you’ve never seen me as anything less than human. Which… I don’t know that you need to?”

Then his expression shifted, and he sighed. “I wish I could say that things with Mary were resolved, but I don’t think she even realizes that she makes things worse every time she insists that we speak.” Every time Lucifer thought they were making progress, Mary seemed to return to the same, tired points. “She says she’s ready to move on, and then she rehashes it all again.”

It was endlessly aggravating to him, but he hadn’t been lying when he told her she’d lost some of his trust. And had he known just how many people she’d spoken to, or how her side of the story had morphed into something almost unrecognizable to the truth, he’d have even less reason to trust her. But for the most part, he was unaware, and it was only his dealings directly with her that caused him to pass that judgment.

Kate took another drink before she placed the glass back on the table, pulling out the chair that was tucked neatly under it for Lucifer. Of course there was also her bed but she didn’t think that he would really want to sit there. “Oh, it’s supposed to be scary,” she said, tugging out three smaller shopping bags and lining them all up at the edge of her bed. “Telling people that stuff opens you up to vulnerability because now they know something that could really hurt you. I don’t really think people are supposed to love that sort of thing, but if you’ve never really experienced some long-lasting emotional pain then it all probably comes out a bit easier.”

She shrugged at that, obviously unable to really know what someone else might feel without all the complications and emotional rollercoasters of her life.

But Lucifer had posed an interesting question to her embedded in all the rest of it. Did she need to see him as anything but the human face she knew? Kate considered that while she opened one the drawers in her dresser, lifting out a stack of t-shirts in various colors and carefully slipping them into one of the bags. “Honestly? I don’t really think of you as the devil that often,” she replied. “I mean, I know that you are but it’s not exactly something that defines our friendship. If you wanted to show me, I wouldn’t say no, but I don’t think you have to show me just to prove who you are because I think that part of you is pretty small, now. You aren’t in hell being the overlord anymore, so that form doesn’t really define you to me.”

Oh Mary. Kate didn’t even realized that she gave a sigh at the mention of the woman, her own frustration bubbling up as Lucifer talked. He didn’t know it, at least not from talking with Kate, but Mary had spoken to her about his reaction to their night of sex and she had told her to give him some time and some space.

It didn’t sound like Mary had done either. “So she’s still upset that you didn’t want to discuss how great - or not so great - the sex was?”

Taking the offered seat, Lucifer listened to Beckett. He knew she was speaking from experience and he knew he didn’t have her full story. What he’d eventually learn, he expected would come in bits and pieces, as had been the case thus far. He was fine with that, as he’d come to appreciate the complicated person that Beckett was, because she was also one of his closest friends on the ship.

“What happens if you just disappear one day?” he asked her. Maze had, after all. “How the hell am I supposed to handle that.”

And she raised another question. “Who am I, if I’m not the devil anymore?”

Then he laughed at his sudden philosophical tangent, and went back to addressing the more pressing issue.

Raising a brow he said, “I have no complaints about that night. Only the entirety of the aftermath that’s followed. As soon as I say, can we move on, yes, good? She reminds me yet again that she’s from a time where this was unusual and she’d never had casual sex before and so on… That’s not moving on.”

Kate paused in her packing, standing to her full height to look Lucifer directly in the face. It was odd how life went in circles sometimes. Not so many years ago - at least in her life, not in actual time - she had been that person, terrified of really opening herself up and making a connection with people because they could leave, or die, and otherwise rip her open and create another gaping wound like the one that was still there from her mother’s death.

She had lived nearly 15 years like that, keeping everyone at arm’s length because it felt safer and, in the end, Kate had come to realize that her life wasn’t much of one at all and that she had been denying herself so much by letting fear control her actions. “You remember the good things,” she said, her voice very soft and yet very direct at the same time. “You’re immortal, Lucifer. You are going to outlive everyone. Would you rather spend all of time alone and distant from people or would you rather look back on the good things and the connections you made and remember it all fondly?”

That bit said, Kate turned back to the open drawer, lifting out a smaller stack of sweaters, none of which she had actually worn yet, and placing all of them in the same bag with her other shirts. “Ah, that’s a much simpler question,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Who do you want to be? You left hell because you didn’t want to be the devil anymore, right? So who would you like to become?”

At the mention of Mary’s reasoning, Kate wrinkled up her nose in distaste. It wasn’t necessarily because of Mary but because that was the exact thing that Kate had initially thought when Lucifer had told her of the problem that had developed between them. “Well, on one hand, I do think that is part of it,” she admitted with a shrug, “But it sounds far more to me like Mary feels guilty and maybe regrets it a bit, but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. Maybe she keeps bringing it up in the hope that you’ll justify the act?”

It kind of felt like she was grasping at straws for an explanation, but in Kate’s experience the biggest motivating factor for someone to contiually return to a topic was guilt, anger, or dissatisfaction and she didn’t think Mary Crawley really fit the last two items on the list.

Lucifer laughed, though he found little humor in the thought of dealing with Kate’s disappearance. “You know, this was a lot easier when all of my friends were demons and immortal with me. All of you are going to be gone one day.” The thought was sobering and he really didn’t want to contend with it. And that made him want to push the next question out of his head as well.

So instead he focused on the one topic that didn’t completely depress him, at least yet. “What is there to even justify?” he asked.

“And you’ll find other people that will be your friends,” Kate replied. “That’s not a bad thing, Lucifer.”

While she didn’t wrinkle her nose, Kate did have a small indent between her eyebrows while she thought over the next question he had asked. “Sleeping with a man she isn’t married to?” she asked with a shrug. “Or, maybe, sleeping with a man she isn’t married to and wanting to do it again?”

“Maybe I didn’t think through that bit where I left hell, properly,” Lucifer said. “Of course, can you imagine what I’d have been like if I’d ended up here without having lived on earth?” He found the very thought of that amusing if only because no one on the ship had any idea how they’d lucked out there.

“Well if she wants to be friends again, she needs to get over it. If she’s not over it, I’m not going to keep having this same conversation on repeat.”

That was ruining his friendship with Mary more than anything else and it was irritating him, but also making him wonder if this was going to be a pattern with any future issues that might arise.

“Have you told her that?” Kate asked, using her foot to nudge the now empty drawer closed. “I’m only asking because Mary doesn't seem to understand just how annoyed you are.”

For a moment, she considered not saying anything about the conversation she and Mary had, but Kate quickly dismissed it. In this situation, she felt like Lucifer needed to know.

“She asked me what I thought she should do about your reaction, and I told her to leave you alone and let you decide when you were ready to talk to her,” Kate gave a shrug at that. It wasn't necessary to point out that Mary hadn't listened. Lucifer's continued annoyance was enough of an indication that she hadn't. “I don't think she understands how frustrated you are with her reaction or the way she's ignoring your feelings on the matter, and she definitely doesn't seem to realize it's going to permanently damage your friendship since she keeps bringing it up.”

“I’ve tried. Usually she then launches into the same explanation so I give up again,” Lucifer replied. “We were writing earlier and I gave up and came over here, instead.”

Frowning, he took a long sip and then said, “This is where I wish I could go outside and smoke.” He still had a pack, somewhere.

The topmost drawer was the only one left and Kate paused for a moment, debating with herself on if she really wanted to start throwing underwear and items adjacent into a bag with Lucifer sitting right there. It took around thirty seconds for her to decide that she didn’t care because he knew that she wore it and would it really be a surprise that she had a stash of lingerie? She was guessing it probably wouldn’t, at least not to him.

Sliding open the drawer, she gave a roll of her eyes in Lucifer’s direction. “That’s the biggest cop out I’ve ever heard,” she told him, snagging the second bag from her bed and dropping it onto the floor at her feet. “I understand that it’s annoying and frustrating, but isn’t it moreso to be constantly retreading the same conversation points? If you are really that bothered, you need to sit her down and make her understand how you feel and leave no doubt that if she keeps this up that it’s going to put a permanent end to your friendship.”

“If Mary doesn’t understand after that? Or if she ignores you altogether? Then maybe it’s best that your friendship does come to an end,” she continued, tossing several fistfuls of silk and lace in varying colors and cuts into the bag. “No true friend is going to just discount your feelings on something like that unless they truly don’t give a damn about you. And then they aren’t much of a friend.”

Lucifer shrugged. Copping out seemed like a valid method of dealing with the situation. But he knew he didn’t really want to do that, even if he was presently annoyed. “Yeah, I still care about her and it’s bothering me that we’re not talking, but when we talk now I generally wish I could throw the PADD device against the wall and break it into pieces.”

Shaking his head, he added, “So really. How have you not moved into the same room as your husband before now?” It was a mark of his respect for Kate that he didn’t mention the lingerie she was packing, other than that particular question that it had brought to mind. Normally, Lucifer wasn’t above providing commentary.

“I mean, yes, having a jedi as a roommate is brilliant, but it’s been how long now?”

“Then stop using the tablet and go talk to her in person,” Kate replied. “The only way I think Mary is going to let this go is if you make it clear what the consequences will be if she doesn't. If that doesn't get through to her? I think that should tell you all you really need to know.”

She had a mind to tell Lucifer that they weren't changing the subject from his problems to hers, but Kate bit back that retort to give a sigh instead. “Nearly a month,” she said, carefully folding up a piece that was white and entirely see through and therefore easily prone to tearing. “I didn't think I'd have to be the one to bring it up, so I kept waiting. And then I got tired of waiting, so here we are.”

“Were you two living together before you got married?” Lucifer asked. If they weren't, that would have been the only explanation he'd have for how almost a month could go by without living in the same space. If they had been, Castle was probably secretly training in the ways of the Force. That was the only plausible explanation.

“And alright. I need to talk to Mary. Face to face.” Lucifer conceded that point, but he was going to delay it at least another day. “Soon.”

“Yes and no,” she replied, aware how strange that sounded. But it had been a weird situation all around, mostly because they hadn’t planned to get married when they did. “We mostly lived in his loft in SoHo, but there were nights where I had to work late or where he just wanted to write when we didn’t sleep in the same bed. Or there were nights, sometimes entire weeks, where he and I wanted to get away from his family and we would stay at my apartment. The agreement was always that I would move into the loft because it was far nicer, bigger, and much more practical for a family but our schedules just never gave us time to officially pack my things and move.”

“I actually carved out a couple of days at the end of our honeymoon to do it, but Castle and I planned a big wedding that didn’t end up happening,” Kate said. “And due to the circumstances surrounding that, I kept my apartment. When we did get married, we essentially eloped and it took a good month afterward before we had the time to find someone to rent the place and pack it all up.” Kate gave a shrug then, dropping the last of her underwear and other unmentionables into the bag at her feet and closing the drawer.

“Right. Then your husband has secretly been training to become a jedi,” Lucifer replied. “Because there’s no other explanation.”

He grinned at Kate, because really, the circumstances were weird in general. They were living on a spaceship in the future, in random housing assignments that put complete strangers from entirely different worlds together. Lucifer wasn’t about to give her too hard of a time. He was really just genuinely happy that Castle had shown up, because Kate’s demeanor had changed, and she was no longer feeling guilty over decisions she couldn’t change.

Which meant she had more free time to dispense out life advice to him. It was a win/win situation.

“Alright, I have a night of karaoke to plan. Any requests?” he asked. “Other than Free Bird?”

Lucifer had brought up jedi as a joke, but he really had no idea how close he was to the truth. Part of the reason Kate hadn’t pressed the issue of moving until now was so Castle had time to interact with and get to know Luke Skywalker. Her husband couldn’t actually become a jedi, but if he had his way, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. “He would if he could, trust me,” she said with a grin. “But, really, he’s either spent the night with me here or I’ve stayed with him. It’s not like we’ve been staying apart since he got here.”

But she was ready. Ready to be able to walk into her quarters and not have to see her roommate, and her girlfriend, involved in whatever it was they got up to, or to feel as if she and Castle were disturbing Luke with his meditation. Not having to share a bathroom was another high point. “But it’s time to move,” she said and left it at that. Lucifer could use his imagination as to why.

Rolling her eyes at him, Kate stepped over to the closet, lifting out the clothes hanging within with both of her hands and turning to toss them onto the bed. One more handful of stuff and the closet was empty sans the shoes lined neatly on the floor, items which she would have to come back for when she had emptied another bag. “Free Bird is a terrible song, you can do better.”

Unhooking a slinky red dress from its hanger, Kate folded it neatly and dropped it into the only remaining empty bag on her bed. “My music tastes are pretty varied, but I always have loved Pearl Jam. They were a huge part of my teenage and collegiate years.”

“Oh, Free Bird isn’t an option. I deleted it from the catalog,” Lucifer answered her. “But I’m happy to know that you agree.” But it was his turn to roll his eyes. “You had to choose a band where the lead singer has a completely distinct voice and style?”

He finished off his drink and refilled it, before adding, somewhat reluctantly, “I think Just Breathe is my favorite Pearl Jam song, even if it’s not the most relatable.”

The look Kate shot him was amused, as was the hint of a smile playing at her mouth as she folded another dress up. “I have good taste in music,” she shrugged. “Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Coltrane, Frank Sinatra….” There were others, of course, but those were the ones that immediately sprang to mind.

It was strange how life could sometimes kick you in the gut, a memory showing up out of nowhere to remind you of some pain or experience. For Kate, Just Breathe was one of those songs, locked up in a time where she had been so broken and wounded. Some of those lyrics had called out to her, helped her make just a small bit of sense of the darkness she had been trapped in. “It’s relatable to me,” she said quietly, keeping her face turned away from Lucifer until she had managed to get control of the pain that still loved to rise up and take her by surprise.

Clearing her throat, she dropped a third dress into the bag. “But yeah, that’s one of my favorites. I liked it so much that I taught myself to play it on guitar.”

The moment wasn’t lost on Lucifer, and he watched her as she purposely kept her face shielded from him. Without having spent as much time as he had with Chloe, he probably would have pressed her for details as to how the song was so relatable. Instead, when she cleared her throat and told him she could play guitar, he merely gestured to her glass of scotch.

“You can play?” he asked. “We’ll need to find a guitar, and then I’ll use the piano in the lounge and we can play something.”

“No, I’m good,” Kate said with a shake of her head. “Sometimes things just come up and grab you by surprise.” And it was obvious that it had, the little sparkle of joy that she usually had lurking around in her eyes was gone, replaced by something dark and painful. “When you lose someone, there are some things that get you. The lyrics of that song really dig into that in a lot of ways.”

At his question of her playing she gave a nod, “Not as much as I used to. I dated this guy when I was in high school that had a band and he taught me a lot. I already knew a bit from lessons as a kid, but I got really serious about it when I met him.”

Actually, she had just been serious about the guy, the guitar had been a way to keep his attention and just turned into a hobby along the way.

“I have songs like that,” Lucifer said. “At Lux, whenever I needed to clear my mind, I’d sit down and play. Maybe sing. I’m not quite so fond of the idea here,” he admitted. It was one thing he really missed from home, and having his own space. Even if his club was filled with people, it was still his.

“For obvious reasons I’ve never really been a fan of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. But then there was this priest that came in, looking for me, wanting my help. I pretty much did everything I could to prove he was actually awful. Instead, he surprised me. He uh… played that song. Father Frank.”

Lucifer had stopped hating the song after that. Even if his friendship with Father Frank was quite literally short-lived, the man had made an impression on him. “Of course, my father being who he is decided to let him die, so that could have ended better.” He was leaving out details, including any mention of the one-sided conversation that followed. “Anyway. I finally learned to play that song.” He shrugged, and finished off his second glass quickly.

“As a tribute to Frank,” Kate added as Lucifer finished his drink, well aware that she didn’t need to explain his own motivations to him but feeling that she should put it out there anyway. “That was a nice thing that you did.”

“But, sure,” she said quickly, figuring it best to put it out there before she lost her nerve. “If you can find a guitar, I’ll play with you sometime. Playing, no singing.” She wasn’t going to sing in public no matter what. Singing was something she somehow could only manage in front of small groups and, even then, it wasn’t a sure thing.

With a small laugh, Kate added a skirt into the bag, “My mother in law would be thrilled to know I agreed to that. She’s been trying to get me to perform in public for years now.”

“Yeah, as a tribute to Frank,” Lucifer said. “Heaven knows I won’t see him again.”

He briefly considered refilling his glass, but instead set it down, and glanced curiously at Kate. “Can you sing?” he asked.

“I can carry a tune in a bucket,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I won’t be winning any Grammy’s or anything.”

“So? Let’s hear something,” Lucifer said in response. He didn’t actually think she’d go along with it, but damned if he wasn’t going to try.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no because, while certain people like Martha and Castle liked to pretend she was this great singer, Kate knew that, at best, she was average. She would never sing in public, and she didn’t think Lucifer would make fun of her if she did something quickly so she tried to think up a song that she could maybe sing the chorus of.

Her brain supplied an old standby, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and one that she had sang countless times over the years and Kate picked it up at the second verse where she was the most comfortable. It wasn’t anything flashy, her voice huskier and lower in tone than her speaking voice would suggest, but it was steady and strong, even a bit unique with the vibrato that cut through some of the longer notes.

As promised, Kate wasn’t going to win any awards or pick up a lot of accolades but she was serviceable enough. “And that’ll be all of that,” she said once she had finished at the end of the second verse.

“See now we’ll have to play and sing,” Lucifer informed her. “Maybe we can break into the lounge at some point, if we’re not going after the alcohol.” He enjoyed listening to Kate sing. He could sing along with her. “Tell me why you won’t do karaoke again?”

“Nope,” she said quickly, giving a shake of her head. “I told you, I’ll play something but I’m not singing.”

Finished with packing all of her clothes, Kate turned around to survey the room. The only thing left was to empty out the drawers in her desk, the shoes in the closet, and the coffee and alcohol she had gotten while in Yorktown. All of that could wait until she had taken the stuff already packed to the new room, which she hoped would be sooner than later. “I don’t sing in public,” she said in reply to his question, walking over to pick up her nearly full glass of scotch and taking a long sip. “Whatever I can manage in private or around a handful of people goes out the window in front of a bigger group. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I can give a speech, I can play a sport, but anything beyond that? It isn’t going to go well, so I just don’t do it.”

“Not in front of people,” Lucifer insisted. “That’s why we break into the lounge when there’s no one else in there.” It was a perfect plan, and he wasn’t about to relent. “I’m sure we can get actual permission,” he mentioned. “If you don’t want to use your security position to sneak us in.”

With Beckett turning her attention back to her drink, Lucifer refilled his own glass. He didn’t really have a reason to stick around any longer, and he was invading Kate’s room at the moment, but he also wasn’t in a hurry to leave.

“I really miss Lux,” he mused. “There was the bar downstairs, of course. But then I had my own private lounge if I just wanted to play and not worry about anyone.” The ship didn’t really have such an area.

“And I should leave,” he mentioned, drinking half his glass in one go. He didn’t need to sit around, getting nostalgic over a place he’d left behind.

“If you want me to do it, actual permission would be a requirement,” she said with a raise of her eyebrows. “I’m not getting written up because I snuck into the lounge with you.” If Kate were going to be disciplined for something, it was going to be something she felt strongly about and even though she enjoyed playing a guitar, that wasn’t one of the things.

Sipping at her drink again, Kate merely watched Lucifer for a moment. There was a thread of an idea in her mind, just the very edge of something that she needed a little bit to think through before she put it out there for him to consider. “Maybe you should ask if you could run the lounge,” she said once she’d figured out the best way to approach it. “It sort of runs itself right now, but maybe Starfleet would be open to someone taking it and really doing something with it. They’ve organized things on occasion - aside from the Saturday parties being a weekly thing - maybe they would let you do that more frequently.”

Or maybe they wouldn’t, Kate didn’t really know the answer to that. But she also couldn’t think of anything on the ship that would be more suited to Lucifer. “If they agreed, you could go in and play when it was closed, and I don’t think anyone would mind.”

They probably wouldn’t mind anyway, given that Lucifer couldn’t get drunk off anything served at the bar.

“Kate,” Lucifer began, his eyes growing wide. “You are a genius.” There was nothing about that idea that he didn’t like, other than the possibility that someone on the ship might not go for the idea. But he’d already organized karaoke, hadn’t he? If that went well, why wouldn’t they let him organize more things?

“I mean that’s the most brilliant idea I’ve heard since I got here,” he went on, clearly excited at the possibility. His brain had already kicked into overdrive, as he envisioned what it would be like to something to do onboard that he was also good at.

She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out, the look on Lucifer’s both comical and just very nice to see. So often he was hiding problems and other issues under a mask of charm and sarcasm, but this was genuine and Kate was happy that she had a hand in it. “I have my moments,” she agreed with a grin. “Hopefully they’ll be open to the possibility. I think you would be very good at it.”

And then she lifted her glass in a imitation of a toast towards him, bringing the drink to her lips and finishing what was left of it.

Lucifer followed suit and then said, “Alright. I need to get started on this. I’m going to start with Peggy, if only because we’re meant to talk anyway.”

Well, he’d decided on that at least. She hadn’t necessarily agreed. Details.

Standing up, Lucifer walked over to Kate and hugged her, his enthusiasm catching up with him. And then he headed for the door, leaving what little was left in the bottle behind.