Chapter Text
Trixie rolls her eyes, crossing her arms across her chest. “C’mon,” she bemoans, barely restraining from stomping her foot to get Zadie moving. “I do this all the time.”
“Your mom’s gonna hear us,” Zadie whispers from where she sits across the room, firmly on Trixie’s bed.
“Yeah,” Trixie says, “but you keep saying you want to meet Lucifer.”
Zadie hesitates, lips turning down into a small frown. “Maybe another time,” she finally says with a shake of her head.
Trixie strides across the room and tugs on Zadie’s arm, trying unsuccessfully to get her to stand up. With a huff, she gives in and flops down next to her. “What’re you scared about!?”
“I’m not scared,” Zadie replies defensively. “It’s just - what if he’s my real dad or something. You said he…y’know, has a lot of girlfriends and stuff.”
Trixie fixes her with a look. “Zee, you look nothing like him.”
“You never know!”
Trixie rolls up onto her side, propping her elbow up so she can rest her head in the palm of her hand. “Ummm, I’m pretty sure your actual parents would know if Lucifer was your dad,” she says with a raise of her eyebrows.
Zadie shoves her, knocking Trixie’s elbow out from under her and sending her face-first back into the blankets. “Shut up. Still.”
Miss Chloe knocks on Trixie's bedroom door and enters before Zadie ever gathers enough courage to sneak to Lux.
“Hey, girls,” Miss Chloe says. “It’s getting late, I think it's about time we drive you home, Zadie.”
“Okay, Miss Chloe,” she replies, something like relief washing through her. She stands quickly, pushing down the guilt and embarrassment at not being brave enough to go along with Trixie’s antics.
“But Mommy!” Trixie complains. “Can’t Zadie stay longer?”
“Well, not really, Monkey. Tomorrow’s a school day, and I think Mr and Mrs Doran would be pretty upset if Zadie isn’t home, right?”
Trixie sighs. “I guess.”
“C’mon,” Miss Chloe says. “Zadie, do you have everything?”
Zadie nods and gathers her things quickly, her water bottle and jacket and the drawings Trixie and her had done earlier that day are all shoved into her backpack. She stamps her shoes on at the front door and clambers into Miss Chloe’s car. Trixie follows suit on the other side, Miss Chloe making sure they’re both buckled in before she pulls out of the driveway and heads to Zadie’s house.
A few minutes into the drive, Trixie leans over and whispers quietly into Zadie’s ear, “Maybe we can go next time?”
Zadie glances at Miss Chloe through the rearview mirror but Miss Chloe is focused on the road in front and not on their conversation. “I don’t know,” she says, for probably the tenth time today.
Trixie is relentless. “Lucifer’s a really, really, really nice guy,” she insists. “And even if it turns out he doesn’t know you, he’ll give us cash and a lot of chocolate cake just to make us go away!”
She purses her lips in thought, Trixie’s needling having actually worn her down. Besides, Zadie could never turn down chocolate cake. “Fine,” she agrees. “Next time we have a sleepover at yours.”
Trixie squeals with glee, kicking her feet and jumping up and down in her seat. Zadie can’t help but grin as well.
Miss Chloe looks at them through the mirror and says, “What’s got you both screaming, huh? What are you up to?” But she’s smiling at them and not actually angry.
“Nothing, Mommy!” Trixie replies sweetly.
“Nothing, Miss Chloe,” Zadie echoes.
Miss Chloe laughs and shakes her head. “You didn’t get into the chocolate cake, did you, girls?”
Trixie gasps in mock offence. “Mommy! I would never!”
But Zadie knows Trixie would because her friend’s told her four separate times that she’s snuck some chocolate cake from the fridge before when she should have been sleeping.
Miss Chloe tuts. “Oh, Monkey, I don’t know about you, but I know Zadie would never.”
Zadie shakes her head in agreement. “I would never, Miss Chloe,” she says emphatically.
Miss Chloe goes to answer but cuts herself off and frowns when, as she turns the corner onto Zadie’s street, there are police cars and emergency service vehicles everywhere. The houses are lit up in alternating red and blue and Trixie pushes her nose up to the car window.
Zadie feels something in her chest flutter but doesn’t understand why. “What’s going on, Miss Chloe?” she asks.
“I don’t know, honey,” Miss Chloe replies, but her car comes to a rolling stop at the barricade.
Zadie can see her house out the window, goes to undo her belt and hop out, but Miss Chloe speaks up. “Zadie,” she says, and her voice is unusually tense, laced with an undercurrent of something Zadie has never heard before. “Trixie, stay here for a moment, okay?”
“Miss Chloe?” Zadie says again. “Why’re the police officers outside my house?”
Miss Chloe’s chest stutters, like she just forgot how to breathe for a single moment, and she tries to smile steadily. Zadie thinks it doesn’t look quite right on her face.
“Let me go have a look, okay? I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Miss Chloe opens the car door, and the sound outside is suddenly very loud, before she quickly climbs out and shuts it again with a small click. The muted silence in the car makes Zadie’s head spin.
Trixie is still pressing her face against the car window, part of it fogged up from her breath now, but she pulls away to point something out. “My dad’s here,” she says, and Zadie follows her finger to see that indeed Mr Dan is there.
He looks sad, but like he’s trying to not look sad. Miss Chloe has made her way over to him and they are talking. Mr Dan’s face makes a big move, like all his muscles are breaking down, before they become normal. He looks over at the car, and Trixie waves at him through the window.
“Trixie,” Zadie says, chokes. She doesn't understand why everything in her body feels like it wants to run away.
Trixie turns to her, must see something on her face, because she frowns and immediately envelops her in a hug. “Zee, what’s wrong?” she says.
Zadie shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Trixie tries to comfort. “Like my mom said.”
Zadie nods, tries to convince herself Trixie is right.
Miss Chloe and Mr Dan talk some more. They look over at her house, then at the ambulance sitting right outside, then back to the car where Trixie and Zadie are watching them. Mr Dan’s shoulders slump down, and Zadie swears Miss Chloe reaches up to wipe tears away, before they start walking towards them.
Miss Chloe reaches the car first and she opens the door closest to Trixie. Again the sound outside is suddenly very loud, ringing in Zadie’s ears thunderously, so much so that Zadie almost misses what Miss Chloe says.
“Trixie, baby, I need to talk to Zadie, okay? Can you-” Miss Chloe’s voice trembles, cracks, and she presses her fingers to her lips. “Can you go with your Dad? Just for a little while.”
“But I want to stay with Zadie, Mommy!” Trixie immediately argues.
“Trix,” Mr Dan speaks up from behind Miss Chloe’s shoulder. He sounds stern, no nonsense.
Trixie sighs but unbuckles her seatbelt. She looks back at Zadie, reaches out to squeeze her hand and clambers out. “I’ll be right here,” she says, and Zadie nods.
She wants to hold on to Trixie, wants her best friend here to shield her from whatever words Miss Chloe is going to say, because Miss Chloe does not look happy. In fact, she looks distraught, like she’s going to burst into tears at any moment.
Zadie has never seen an adult look like that before.
When Trixie has disappeared with Mr Dan somewhere, Miss Chloe slowly crouches down. She is still in the doorway of the car, her hands braced on the car seat Trixie had just been sitting in. She looks at Zadie and gestures for her to come closer. Zadie does.
Miss Chloe takes a breath, and then another, and then reaches out to cup Zadie’s hands in her own. They’re warm, and Zadie’s eyes lock onto them, if only to save her from having to stare into Miss Chloe’s wide, blue eyes.
“Zadie,” Miss Chloe starts. “I’m sorry, darling, but there was a break in at your house, and- and your parents didn’t make it.”
Zadie frowns. Miss Chloe isn’t making any sense. “What do you mean?” she asks. And then, “They’re dead?”
The words hit her only after she’s said them. Dead? Her parents; her mom, her dad, dead. Gone. Dead? She feels cold all over. Cold and hot and tight and too big and too small and-
“Yes, honey,” Miss Chloe confirms. “I’m sorry.”
“Where are they?” she asks, eyes finally lifting up to meet Miss Chloe’s. It feels like she can’t breathe. “I want-”
Zadie feels her lip wobble, feels this big, huge thing in her chest, and then it breaks and she’s crying, hot tears welling over, spilling down her cheeks and into the neck of her shirt. She feels a sob escape her mouth, then another, and another, and then she’s hiccuping and her nose is running and there is just so much feeling in her she doesn’t know what they are except that this isn’t right and everything is wrong and she-
“I want my mommy!” Zadie wails.
Chloe immediately wraps the small girl into her arms, tries her best to soothe her, to comfort her. Her own heart is thundering in her chest, is breaking at the child’s cries. She doesn’t know what to do; feels inadequately equipped to handle this.
But Dan is worse at consoling victims, and Chloe isn’t half bad at it, and the victim in this case is Trixie’s best friend, and Chloe sort of sees her as an extension of her daughter so no way is she letting some random uni break the news to Zadie that her parents are dead. So here she is.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again, but it’s lost amongst Zadie’s keening sobs and the chatter of police behind them.
Break-in, Dan had said. Murder, actually, he had corrected.
A break-in to murder. Len and Mina Doran, murdered. But why?
As far as Chloe knows, Zadie’s parents are normal – if only sickeningly perfect as parents and even more so as a couple.
Gruesome, Dan had described. Bloodbath.
Chloe takes deep breaths, measuredly, counts to ten and then back to zero. She feels shaky still, so she counts again, up to 20 this time, and then down to zero. She runs her fingers through Zadie’s hair, rubs her back, lets the small girl squish her snotty, tear-stained face into the crook of her neck because it means she doesn’t have to look into her heartbroken eyes.
They stay like that for God-knows how long. Chloe’s knees are stiff, her back aches; she’s not as young as she remembers – reminds herself to pick up yoga or pilates again so she can keep her joints in good working order.
Zadie sniffles into her shoulder. Her shirt is wet, hair and neck too, but that’s okay. She’s stopped actively sobbing, only silent tears and shudders wracking her small frame now. Chloe doesn’t loosen her hug – something about Disney actors not being allowed to let go first – and continues to rub her hand up and down the child’s back.
“Miss Chloe.” Zadie’s voice is wrecked. It’s small, whisper-thin, interrupted by hiccups and shuddering breaths.
“Yeah, darl?” Chloe breathes. She’s scared to pull away, scared her brave face won’t be enough for the child.
“I want to see my mom.”
It’s said so plainly, so innocently. Chloe’s heart breaks. “I know,” she whispers, and lets Zadie pull away from her.
She doesn’t go far, only enough to look up into Chloe’s eyes. Chloe feels a watery smile press along her lips, tries it on in a comforting way, and sees that it works somewhat. Zadie’s body loosens minutely, slumps with exhaustion into her arms.
“I’m sorry, I know,” Chloe says again, and lets Zadie burrow her head into her lap as another fresh wave of sobs heave through her.
Dan is in what he calls his Work Mode. It’s significantly different from his Dad Mode, and for a while, had blurred into his Husband Mode, but that’s neither here nor there. Whatever. He’s in his Work Mode, where compartmentalisation comes easy and stoicism is the default and-
God, the murder scene had been bad.
He had known Len and Mina. He and Chloe had technically gone on double dates with them while Trixie and Zadie had their play dates, back before the divorce of course; had laughed and joked over glasses of wine, had sprawled along the very couch they had been shot on, had traded grill master secrets and parental fears with, had stumbled through the terrible-twos with and-
Well, they’re gone now and their daughter is sitting in a car he had helped Chloe choose with the label orphan forever stamped on her life.
Chloe tells him she’ll take point on breaking the news and all he can do to not break down in relief is nod shortly. They steel themselves, and Chloe does a miraculous job of getting Trixie out of the car, and Dan can barely look at Zadie, sitting there-
He draws Trixie close to his side, can’t imagine his daughter ever being left alone in the world without him let alone without both him and Chloe, and struggles not to let his Work Mode fail him now.
Trixie is looking up at him, frowning, worried. He leads her to his car and Trixie climbs into the back seat without further prompting, apparently sensing that something is definitely wrong. His daughter is smart like that.
“Daddy,” she says, once he hops into the driver seat. He hates that it feels like he’s fleeing the situation, that he’s abandoning Chloe there with Zadie and the fallout of the murders, but they had both agreed Dan would take Trixie home and away from the crime scene. “Why’s Mommy talking to Zadie?”
Dan clutches the steering wheel in front of him, feels rather than hears the rubber foam creak under his fingertips, before he flexes them out. He takes a deep breath in, then out, and turns in his seat to face his daughter.
“Something very bad happened to Zadie’s parents, honey, and Mommy needs to tell Zadie.”
Dan can see the wheels turning over in his daughter’s head and for once curses that genius brain of hers. “Did they…Did Zadie’s parents die, Daddy?”
Dan bites back a sigh, feels a headache growing with how hard he’s been clenching his jaw.
“Yes, honey,” he says, not unkindly.
Chloe and he had discussed the topic of death and how to broach it with their daughter way long ago, mostly in part because Chloe’s dad is gone and Trixie doesn’t have a grandfather but Chloe still wants her to know about him, and they had settled on telling the truth: death is a thing that happens, it’s sad but unavoidable, but being sad also isn’t a bad thing because it’s just love with nowhere to go.
Dan wishes it’s that simple.
“But,” Trixie starts, and then fiddles with her hands in her lap.
“What is it, Monkey?” Dan prompts.
“But Zadie will be sad,” she says, frowns. “And- and why can’t I stay, Daddy? Because then I can make her happy. At least a little.”
“I know,” Dan says softly, and he doesn’t doubt that. Zadie and her are thick as thieves. But this is all so complicated. He’s out of his depth here; doesn’t know what to say, how to say it, how to help his daughter deal with this when he’s barely dealing with it himself.
“But Mommy is really good at making you happy, right?” Dan waits for his daughter to nod in agreement. “Well, that’s her superpower. And right now, she’s using that superpower to help Zadie. And it would normally be really good for you to help, however you can, but right now Zadie needs a grown-up. Okay?”
Trixie fiddles with her fingers a moment longer before she looks out the car window. Dan knows she can see Chloe’s car from where she is, can see half of Chloe’s back where she’s hunched partway into the backseat, cradling Zadie in her arms.
Dan swallows.
“Okay, Daddy,” Trixie says smally.
He breathes a sigh of relief, starts the car up, and takes Trixie back to his place.
It’s been two hours now. Chloe’s legs are numb, arms stiff. She’s somehow manoeuvred Zadie further into the backseat so at least she’s sitting too. Chloe wishes Dan had called her as soon as he had arrived to the crime scene, that he had warned her not to come, that she had been given more time to get her head around herself to know how to break the news to Zadie, or had been given the chance to shield the small girl from the truth even for just one night longer.
She doesn’t blame Dan though, would probably have been shocked and sickened and spiralled way worse than he had. Len and Mina were good people; were of the few people outside of work Chloe could have passably called friends. And now they are gone.
Chloe is only grateful that she hasn’t seen the actual crime scene yet; that she doesn’t have the image of their dead bodies ingrained into her psyche. She hugs Zadie closer to her chest, lets out a shuddering breath.
The small girl is out cold; exhausted, no doubt, overwhelmed. Chloe wishes she can drift along with her, but no, she has a job to do now.
From outside the car, she can see that the case worker has arrived – about time too – and Chloe gently extricates herself from Zadie’s grip, slips quietly out of the car.
“Detective Decker,” the case worker greets, tired but warm. “They said you’ve been with Zadie Doran this whole time.”
Chloe clears her throat, tries to straighten her clothes into some semblance of professionalism as best she can, and shakes the case worker's hand. “Yes,” she agrees.
The case worker peers into the car, sees Zadie slumped there, smiles sadly. Chloe is sure the case worker has dealt with this before, isn’t sure how he is still going because Chloe can barely move.
“I’m not,” Chloe continues, “on the case, though. Zadie is- I was driving her home; she’s my daughter’s friend.”
“Oh.” The case worker looks at her now, seems to examine her the same kind of way Linda sometimes does, and Chloe isn’t sure she likes it. “Well, we’ll need to take her back to the station all the same,” he says. “See if she has any family or friends of family nearby that can take her in before we go through Mr and Mrs Doran’s will for an appointed guardian.”
Chloe swallows, shakes her head numbly. “Oh,” she says. “They don’t.”
At the case worker’s questioning look, Chloe hurries to explain herself. “They don’t have any other family,” she says. Len and Mina had both been only children; Len hadn’t had a father his whole life and had lost his mother only two years ago, and Mina had grown up in the system.
“I see,” the case worker says measuredly. He looks at Chloe, then looks at Zadie in the car again. He seems to mull something over. “Would you…”
Chloe frowns. “Sorry?”
The case worker clears his throat, tries to smile but it’s more a sympathetic grimace than anything. “The next thing would be to call around for a willing foster or group home to take the child in, at least for the night, so we have more time to find permanent arrangements.”
“Oh,” Chloe says.
“If nothing has been specified in the will, I’ll try again at Mr and Mrs Doran’s funeral for anyone willing to take her in.”
“No,” Chloe says before she even realises she’s speaking.
The case worker looks at her. “Pardon?”
“No, I-” Chloe shakes her head, feels like she’s watching herself outside of her own body. “I’ll take her.”
“You will?”
Chloe nods. A group home? Foster home? Strangers? The least Chloe can do is take Zadie home and be there for the girl when she wakes up; God knows she hopes someone, Linda, Ella, Lucifer, or even Maze, would do the same for Trixie if it ever comes down to it.
“Are you sure?” the case worker asks.
She nods again.
“I’ll help you get settled then.”
Chloe wakes the next morning, body stiff and aching. It only takes a moment for her to remember the events of last night and she feels her heart hurt, feels something like dread crawl up her throat.
Zadie is asleep in Trixie’s bedroom, still out from her crying spell in the back of her car. The case worker had followed Chloe home last night, had made a quick walk through the house to ensure everything was good, had handed her his phone number, and had told her he would be in touch soon once he had more details.
That was that.
And now Chloe is making Zadie breakfast, trying to think of what to say when she wakes, how she’s going to deal with all this. She’s not left to stew for long, Zadie stumbling groggily out of her daughter’s bedroom with the worst case of bedhead Chloe has ever seen. In any other circumstance, it would be adorable, but all Chloe can feel is grief for the girl, grief for Len and Mina that they’ll never get to see their own daughter again or make her breakfast again or watch her grow.
“Miss Chloe,” Zadie starts, yawns, “where’s Trixie?”
Chloe stumbles. “She’s at her Dad’s, darling,” she says softly.
Zadie furrows her brows, looking up at her in confusion. “Why?”
Chloe feels her face trying to pull itself into a frown, forces it into a sad smile instead, isn’t sure if she’s successful. She kneels down and beckons for Zadie to come over. She does.
“Do you remember what happened last night?” she asks softly, gathering the small girl into her arms.
Zadie sniffs, leans closer into Chloe’s embrace. She furrows her brows, thinks hard. Chloe can tell the moment she remembers; her small face trembles, flitters over with a hundred emotions Chloe is sure she can’t even name, before it lands on a grief-stricken one, something that looks like part-disbelief, part-resignation and part-sorrow.
“Oh,” she says, and Chloe pulls her in tighter.
She’s ready for more tears, for more sobbing and shuddering, for her to demand to see her mom again, but nothing comes. Zadie merely stares blankly at some point in the distance before she throws herself into Chloe’s chest and wraps her arms tight around her neck.
Chloe lets her.