Dr. Linda Martin

“It’s been a while,” Kara agreed, smiling as she shifted her weight. “I think the last time I saw you I was still pregnant.” Between Lucifer and Anton, she assumed Linda had to hear about Eva on occasion. She was appreciative of all the help she knew Linda had provided over the years. In fact, it was part of why she was here. 

She nodded and stepped forward to join Linda in her office, relieved that they could have a chance to talk privately. There weren’t a lot of people who knew their identities, but recent events had thrust them all into the spotlight without any warning. “I hope I’m not intruding, I just… um. You’ve helped Anton and Lucifer so much, and I…” Biting her lip, she took a deep breath so she could steady the waver in her voice. “I’m worried about my cousin.”

-

“You were.” she laughed a little, God things had actually seemed simpler back then which was crazy to think, “Though I’ve had the pleasure of babysitting Eva once or twice,” One time even with Lucy which had been a busy yet lovely afternoon. With any luck she might have the chance to do it again.

Anton snorted at her answer, though she was probably right. She didn’t have to deal with the Joker’s shit - at least, not firsthand. The bomb was a worry, but at least it wasn’t in the city. That much they could be thankful for.

“You had the right idea, at least. Why go out sober? That’s no fun,” Anton shook his head with a wrinkled nose before the attention was brought back to him. He leaned back into the couch and crossed his arms over his chest with a shrug. “I’m fine. I’ve been through worse. Much worse,” he shook his head again, his focus slipping into a momentary lapse in thought and awareness, as if he were remembering. “Kara and Evangeline are doing better. I do wish I’d gotten there… Sooner. Y’know?”

-

Linda shrugged, “I’m well aware of my flaws, in the face of utter annihilation I figured I’d rather be unaware of it. Instead I ended up saying a lot more to your father than I’d intended before waking up with a massive hangover.”

“See, that’s a common misconception about being okay, Anton. Just because a person has been through a worse experience at one point in their life doesn’t mean they’re automatically ‘fine’ whenever something slightly less traumatic happened. It’s only natural you may feel shaky or anxious after what happened to your family.” she paused a beat, “And I hope Kara knows that my door is always open to her if she feels the need to talk about anything.” Linda sighed quietly, “Regardless of the timing, you arrived and they’re unharmed.” That was what really mattered.

“I was a kid growing up in New York City and my dad was high up in the NYPD. You tell me.” Of course it had been often. Ted was a messy kid and a messy teen before Mike Muldoon had found him and taught him a thing or two. He’d done some amateur boxing at the local YMCA, too. So he’d known how to fight and he was a cop’s kid. He’d definitely gotten into some shenanigans. “Nothin’ made my stomach drop like ‘Theodore Henry Grant’ in that Irish brogue of his.” He shook his head. “I’m happy to call you Linda,” he added. “And apparently not ‘Madame’.” He couldn’t help his wryness. He was used to being around people who were, like him, rough around the edges.   

He settled in one of the chairs, watching her and looking around the office. It was a nice set up. “Well, I don’t think you’ve got too much to worry about with NOVA anymore, if you need a new machine. Last I heard, they’re pretty… shall we say disorganized?” Ted knew he shouldn’t make morbid jokes, but he’d been in the hero game so long that the only way to survive some of the shit he’d seen was to crack jokes. He tended to stay easygoing where he could, anyway. “Nothing in it unless you’ve got a good whiskey around here somewhere.” He shouldn’t, but… one would be fine. He was enhanced, so he was functional with three or four in his system.

“That’s where I’m coming from. I’ve been based there since after the War.” The JSA had had a few headquarters, but he was most commonly found in Gotham. “I don’t go around Arkham, though. You must have a massive set of–” He paused. This was a lady, Grant. Get it together. “That’s a tough gig,” he amended. “Don’t know too many people who could cut it there. Did you find your boring? Hope that wasn’t what you were lookin’ for here. Last I’ve heard, it’s been anything but boring.” 

Ted listened to the recap. It had all been in the files, but he didn’t mind the refresher. “Most of my stuff was with kids,” he told her. “I’m good with ‘em, people say. Hope we can help her out here.” Lifting his shoulder, he added, “As for people… I think it’s the luck of the draw on what you’re gonna get. Fortunately, when you run with the crowd I run with, you get a lot of noble type do-gooders. That’s what we are, isn’t it?”

-

“Ahh cop kid.” she nodded. There was likely a bundle of issues if the many police officer and children of them she’d seen over her years were anything to go by. Again though, that wasn’t the reason they were here. “So I’m going to go with yes until you found someone to help you let out any aggression building up in a more constructive way. Do you practice any fighting styles? Martial arts? Weightlifting?” she’d guess something like that. “My mother was a biological researcher and my father an English literature professor; I got full-named quite a lot for snooping in both their offices growing up.” But she’d been a curious kid. “Good. I think being on a first name basis will help with Jenny as well, children tend to be a little more open with first names.”

She looked at him and raised a brow, “I am not dignifying that with a laugh.” Though her lips did twitch a little towards a smirk. While she felt for all the people who’d past in the explosion at the NOVA headquarters she found the destruction of their harmful agenda nothing but a positive. “I’m splitting my time between here and District X but I think you’re right; I’ll have to bring one with me next time I go.” After a moment’s pause, well, it wasn’t like she didn’t already have it in the office. “Funny you should say.” she walked to her desk and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out a small bottle of high quality whiskey, “Sometimes I get very stressed in here,” she explained pouring a dram into his coffee and handing it over. She forewent any herself this time though, and added cream and a little sugar to her own.  

“After the war?” she asked with a frown, looking at him she’d out him about her age, maybe a little older? “Which one?” If he was in his 50′s he coudl’ve just been older enough for the last year of Vietnam, perhaps Iraq? She chuckled a little, “I was Joker’s sole therapist for a few months, I’ve got some pretty big cojones. Then a very cushy job came up in L.A. and, well I didn’t want to burn myself out on Arkham patients.” Turns out, in the long run, L.A. hadn’t been that much tamer once Lucifer had arrived.

“I hope so to. Her safety is what we need to focus on and it’s likely if police and social care do have to make proceedings this’ll get messy. One small grace is her grandmother, when I spoke with her she seemed very willing to get involved as needed.” She chuckled, “Never thought of myself as much fo a do-gooder, but I’ll take it.” she took a sip of her drink, “Do you have any kids yourself?” she asked, “Since you’re so good with them.”

“Ah! He would argue that He was just testing Abraham. That was back when He was still talking to you people.” Lucifer shook his head. He wasn’t defending his Father. It wasn’t about that. “But you’re really sort of proving my point, aren’t you? You’re singing the praises of human love and also reminding me that it’s wrathful. Which is it? And if it’s the latter, what’s it worth, then? Some good feelings for a hearty does of insecurity and uncertainty? No thank you.” He couldn’t imagine why anyone would willingly elect to have this feeling.  

Blowing out a breath, he shook his head. “No, it isn’t. But that’s not really the point, is it? I can put on a gown and call myself RuPaul, but I’ve not got the makeup skills to back it up.” Sure, Billy had taken down the photograph. And then that shitty little twink had shown up to tell Lucifer that he was still in love with Billy mere days after Billy had informed Lucifer that he was still in love with Teddy, different or not. “So what you’re saying is that I’m supposed to make it easy for Billy to reminisce lovingly over some idiot who didn’t know what he had? I’m supposed to simply be okay with it because, what? You want me to?” Lucifer didn’t do that. He didn’t do well with ‘because I said so’ or ‘because I will it’. Was that not the whole reason he was who he was? 

“I remember it,” he said. “I was there, wasn’t I?” Shifting with discomfort, he shook his head. This wasn’t really helping. He was just starting to feel a little defeated and that was pissing him off. 

“Hasn’t he had that chance? And isn’t informing me patently that he loves someone else the answer to the offered chance?” Why did they all think he was so dramatic? Didn’t this make sense to anyone else? Or was he supposed to believe he was just mad because he didn’t understand the inner workings of human’s little minds?

-

“Yea, see, that’s the problem.” Linda told him seriously, “If you have to test love, then you don’t trust that other person. And love should be built on trust. That’s why so many relationships can’t survive infidelity; it breaks the trust and with it?” she shrugged, “That love isn’t the same.” she paused a moment, chewing lightly on the inside of her lip, “I think it’s both. You worked with the police back in L.A., would I be wrong in suspecting several of the crimes you helped solve had love, broken or otherwise, as a main motivator? And, personally? I do think it’s worth it; people aren’t built to be alone. And, from knowing you as long as I have, I don’t think angels are either.”

Linda raised a brow, “Uh huh.” Even if the meaning might’ve been lacking in Lucifer’s eyes, Linda saw it well. Clinging to the past through pictures, and then choosing to take them down, represented a person finally moving forward. When she’d been called in to help empty Reese’s apartment there’d been photo’s of them everywhere... that’d been a very uncomfortable experience. “What I am saying is, you need to trust him.” Linda said, “Let him know you love him, that he’s important to you. A little extra romance can’t hurt, have a few dates, intimate evenings, you’re good at that, and just. talking. If you’re really so worried communicate with him. Let Billy know you’re concerned but, that you trust him.” she gestured slightly, “Remember, all about trust.”    

“You were.” she smiled, “And you were wonderful with me while I was in the hospital and afterwards. But every time I went back into my old office your mother was all I could think about. I needed to leave to fully recover.”

Slade had needed Dick out of the house for a short time. Related to a job, and Dick wouldn’t like it. But he had promised to meet up with him later for dinner in the city. He’d kept his word, as he always did, and made his way out there. He just hadn’t expected to be accosted by a tiny blonde in nerd glasses when he got up the stairs.

Marshmallow. “Excuse me?” He asked, blinking. Was she high? What the fuck was Marshmallow?

As she extended her hand, Slade assessed her, sizing her up. Hm. “Slade,” he answered. “Wilson.” His eyes moved to the door behind her. “You know Dick?” After shaking her hand, Slade pulled his phone from his pocket to text Billy: Linda Martin. Star City. Info.

He’d know everything about her soon enough, whether she told him or not.

Linda waved a hand slightly at his confusion, “Sorry, something of an in-joke.” she explained. Regardless of it slipping out, Dick’s sessions with her were covered by privilege and inferring anything about them to this gentleman, Slade, wouldn’t do any good. Though she was pleased the pair of them had worked things out, somehow.

“Nice to meet you Slade Wilson.” She smiled and withdrew her hand after the other had shaken it, as though she’d learned something from the action alone.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything? In fact I’m just on my way out. Dick invited me over to chat about making my services open to his family members, given the loss they’ve all suffered.” She’d never met Batman, or Bruce Wayne, properly but she’d seen him work in Gotham years and and even in the city more recently.

“Hi, Linda?” Kara knew who Linda was, sort of, but she hadn’t asked a ton of follow up questions. They’d run across each other once before. “It’s okay if I call you Linda, right?” It was a strange question to ask, but Kara knew that she hadn’t grown up in normal circumstances. She didn’t fully know when it became appropriate to stop adding miss or mister or whatever human decorum required. There seemed to be a lot of social rules that weren’t completely out of place on Krypton, but were definitely not the norm.

This was her first time at Linda’s office, however. Whether or not she would even be seen was up in the air, but she knew she had to try. She had to talk to someone, even if Linda’s associations with Anton and Lucifer made things tricky. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Kara Kent. I’m Anton’s girlfriend.”

-

“Kara?” Linda frowned in puzzlement when she saw the other standing in the waiting room outside her office. She hadn’t been expecting the other... had she? God, she had that many patients over the city these days it was a little hard to keep track. She really needed a secretary. “Of course I remember who you are.” she smiled and stepped forward, “It’s been a while though.” No surprise they’d hardly had a chance to meet though. The city had been so chaotic.

Anton rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I do hope you’re doing better than I am, at the moment?” He hoped. They all couldn’t be in some waste deep hole filled with shit - and each passing moment only increased the amount of shit that piled on top.

“I heard you had a little fun at Lucifer’s?” While the ‘f’ word certainly liked to try to wedge its way out from between Anton’s teeth, he had a tendency to push it back down before it could catch anyone’s ear. He could have sworn Evangeline took notice, but - no. Couldn’t have.

-

“Right now? Probably.” Linda agreed. Though she suspected that was largely due to the fact that, despite how chaotic her life could be, it was never her chaos. She just tried to help others navigate it. Anton, however, was right in the thick of it.

To reveal a vulnerable side to a complete stranger was almost like a strange catharsis to the mutant. His hearing caught wind of the woman nudging the box of tissues between the two of them. He bit back the urge to grimace, reaching for a tissue, and dabbing the corners of his eyelids with a sniffle.

“That’s a gross understatement, doctor,” he scoffed. “Giving me any kind of power is a stupid idea if one had any logic. I’d rather someone take it away. Not all of it but some of it. I don’t mean in a ‘drug me and then try to kill me’ way, either, you know?”

Another pause came to focus on dabbing away the stray tears from his face. Shaky breaths forced him to find his composure. The tension in his shoulders relaxed. He sunk his backside against the leather of the seat, exasperating a groan.

“My sisters are the only family I have that I trust. I told them not to do anything I would do. They’re smart girls. People like having them around, which is a relief for me. I’m very protective of them, even though they’re old enough to take care of themselves.”

-

“I understand.” she nodded, “You find comfort in the idea of being guided through life; which, given what you shared with me, it seems you’ve been subjected to, to a large degree.” Beyond what he’d described certainly, but if that was all he knew then she wasn’t surprised that he craved the familiarity and stability of it on a lesser level.  

“On the other hand you’ve also talked about how too much control over your life was detrimental to you. I think you’ve striving for a balance, just like all of us are,” she smiled, “Your particulars are just different from most other peoples.”

Linda was used to clients have varying degrees of emotional reactions in her office, so she wasn’t put off at all as Daken dabbed away a few unshed tears and made himself comfortable again, this was a difficult process so it was only natural really.

Wanda was aware, distantly, of Linda nearby her physically. She was distantly aware of all things physically. But it was too hard to be there. Present in her body and suffering through the pain of it. Wanda’s heart had simply broken one too many times, by this point. Losing Django and Marya, the farmer who had tried to violate her innocence, the Brotherhood that had stolen it. Her children, born and then stolen away. Her husband, looking on her like he had never really known any love for her at all. A new love, not just lost but absorbed. Returned and then lost again. And in between, she had killed, terrified her loved ones, lost herself and then tried to find it again in the midst of the fragments all the chaos and devastation had left behind. 

Linda knew a thing or two about her life, but they hadn’t really scratched the surface of all of it. Wanda didn’t like to, even if it threatened to choke her when the lump she pushed down came back up again. And now, with her therapist here, Wanda was still choosing to hide. 

Wanda didn’t reply. Her eyes were on Linda, but there wasn’t much depth. Did she want to talk? Could she come out of her own head? She wanted to but it just… it wasn’t safe. Inside, she could control everything. She could harm no one. And Wanda knew she wasn’t stable. In the back of her mind she knew she was having another break, on a much smaller scale than rewriting everyone’s reality over her own. But she couldn’t leave it now. Not when it was all still chaotic. Like she walked between realities with a tenuous hold on control. Still… Linda had been how she tried to fix herself. She couldn’t let it go so easily.

The world around the shifted as Wanda welcomed Linda in. The two women sat on the floor in her dimly lit caravan, illuminated by the glow of a number of candles as Wanda’s hands moved over a hand loom, pulling threads and manipulating them as she had been doing her whole life. 

“I can’t talk to you there,” she said, offering little by way of explanation. “How are you, Linda?”

-

If Linda hadn’t already experienced walking around in a mansion of her own mental making with Erik and Quentin she’d have been much more disturbed when the modern living room seemed to melt away around them and was replaced by what seemed like a big tent? No, a caravan. Well, Linda recalled Wanda mentioning those in their session. Mental construct of a childhood home no doubt designed to evoke comfort and safety to aid in recovery from an emotional trauma, she analysed to herself, the rationale helping calm any additional nerves floating in her belly. Not that she had long to dwell on any kind of analyses. If this was a world of Wanda’s making she could easily move Linda out of it the moment she wanted to.

Linda adjusted herself, getting a little comfier on the floor, “I’ve heard of fates weaving the future but this brings a whole new meaning to the idea of weaving a reality.” Whether the comment was for Wanda or herself she wasn’t sure and there really wasn’t much time to dwell.

“He only called me that when I was being a problem,” Ted answered with a laugh. “Apparently my mom used ‘Theodore’, but I don’t really remember her.” She was starting on a path of psychoanalysis, he was sure. Would she think he had Mommy issues? He didn’t think he did, but who knew? “And no, it isn’t. So Ted’s good.”    

“I’d love a cup of joe,” he answered. He had taken to drinking again, not that he admitted it. And late night beers meant coffee throughout the day to stave off the nausea. “Just black. If it’s not too much trouble.” He considered her. “Do mutants not like hot beverages?” He asked, teasing a little bit. He was sure that they did, though Ted didn’t exactly know any. At least that he was aware of.

“Nah,” he answered. “This’ll be my first time. I’m relatively new to the city. They just called me in as the social worker. It’ll be my first actual case, as a matter of fact. Here in Star City, I mean. I have cred from back in Gotham.” He wasn’t exactly the most run of the mill at what he did. After all, he came from an athlete’s world, not an academic’s. But a lot of people said that made him more approachable. He hoped it was true. “The grandmother said she found bruising. So we’re expecting a domestic issue, right? God if i hope it was just a misunderstanding, though. I feel like that’s always how I go into these. And then I end up reminded how fucked up people are.”

-

“Was that often?” she asked, teasing a little and smiling at him, “I used to get ‘Madame‘ off my parents,” she chuckled, “To this day it gets my shoulder’s up a little.” She tried not to analyse every person she met (though it often happened) and in this case wanted to enjoy a conversation with a handsome man before they got down to work, “Just call me Linda then, no need for formalities.”

“Coming right up,” he smiled, gesturing him to take a seat while she set the machine to work, “Oh they do, but they didn’t exactly have the funds lying around for a quality machine like this, and NOVA had a big target on my back to leaving to get one myself was a risk I just couldn’t take.” she shrugged, picking up the cup and handing it over to him, “Cream or sugar?”

“Oh, you worked in Gotham? Me too! Well, many moons ago.” she added with a little laugh, “I was a therapist at Arkham but after several years of it I just wanted something a little more boring, so I upp’d sticks to L.A.” Then she met the devil and, well, that had certainly been far from boring. “She did yes,” Linda confirmed, “But, upon speaking with her myself down at the police station she mentioned Jenny had become much more withdrawn, she wasn’t hugging her as much as she used to and was quieter. Those are usually big warning signs.” Not that she was going into this looking for bad news, but she knew what to look for by this point. “People are. she agreed, “But not all of them, it’s important to remember there are more good than bad. Helps you get up in the morning.”      

He listened, for all that he wanted to interrupt her. He knew how to love. It wasn’t broken. It was just… it had been put away for a long time. Love could be wrathful, dangerous. “‘For God so loved the world that he sent his one begotten son…’ to be tortured and hung from a cross and then thrown in a cave. Maybe love by your definition is just as wrathful.” And Lucifer was afraid. Hell had enough pain. Humanity was supposed to bring beauty back to his grey life. He was supposed to escape the cynicism of being a torturer and punisher of the nastiest and blackest sins. He had needed to find the good in humanity here. He didn’t want to hurt. Lucifer was so tired of that. 

Bloody hell.

“He didn’t leave. Teddy left!” So much for Redacted. “He went off to some bloody vacuum in the sky to be something else. Billy moved on. He was supposed to have moved on to me. But Inbred Space Cockblock was never supposed to come back. When I met Billy, he had a picture from an engagement shoot on his bloody corkboard. He still loved Teddy when I met him. So you’re telling me that he has enough love to love this other man and me at the same time? I never thought i would so vehemently reject polyamory, but Billy makes me absolutely fucking mad.” His hands pressed into his hair. “If Teddy hadn’t left, they’d be married. Who knows, maybe they’d have a” gag “child.” Something Lucifer could never have and didn’t want. Aside from Eva, infants were disgusting little beasts and he would never be a good father. Not with his role model.

Her question drew a bitter scoff from him as he sat back, resting his ankle on his knee. He didn’t answer, but his brow knitted together and he pressed his knuckle against his mouth. “Wouldn’t you?” He asked after a moment? “You left LA because of me, didn’t you? Because of everything I put you through by proxy. People die around me. Demons thrive around me, I’m the root of most people in the Western World’s perception of evil, I tortured for billions of years, and I only own one bloody t-shirt!” He set his jaw hard, looking away again. “I don’t know how to love anymore even thought I’m an Angel,” he finished quietly. “I’m so much demon that it bites at my stomach, and it could always get worse.” 

Giving another scoff, this one sad, he finished, “I’d leave me.”

-

“Lucifer, I know I’m just a mortal, but I think I know quite a lot about love. Love an inspire wrath and, going by my biblical knowledge, God’s love isn’t free.” she paused a moment, “Not, unconditional. He had a man go to sacrifice his son to prove he was loved. That isn’t something I would consider love. That’s a somewhat twisted form of worship. Love as most people try and understand it, means you put another person’s needs above your own because you care about their wellbeing more than yours.” Crazy as it was to think she’d have several things to say to God if he ever graced her door, about love and about parenting.

She really hoped he never turned up. Talk about asking for a smiting.

“So his name’s Teddy.” That worked well, “Remember, Lucifer, different kinds of love. I still love Reese in some way but I’d have nothing good to say to him and I wouldn’t want to be with him. “Teddy chose to leave. He understood what, who, he was giving up to do so and he still made that choice, maybe with Billy’s blessing, maybe without but he made the choice. From the sounds of things Billy struggled to move but then, he found you.” she gestured at him, “Is that picture still on his chalkboard?” she asked. Linda couldn’t help but snort softly, “It still gets me how many sects, movies and texts go on about the Devil wanting a child when you seem so against them.” But she quickly became serious once more, “That doesn’t matter. He did leave. Dwelling on ‘what-ifs’ is never a good thing. In fact, if you dwell on this so negatively, Lucifer, I can all but guarantee Billy will struggle.”

“I left LA because your dear Momma gutted and burned me to a crisp.” she informed him primly, “I needed a change of space, not people, we still kept in touch. And here we are now.” And her life was still just as mad as it had been back then. “I never blamed you for what your mother did, Lucifer. You do know that? You’re my friend, I want to be in your life knowing everything about you that I do. Billy knows as much or if not more than me and he still also wants you in his life. Maybe you think you don’t know how to love but I think differently.” she smiled at him, “Do you remember, after your mother left, when you came to visit me in hospital? Do you remember what you said? What you did?” She did. And she’d never forget it.

“Everyone keeps saying that. Love comes in many forms. Like I should just understand that. Humans and their fickle little brains. It’s like how they are convinced that Dad loves them even though he literally drowned the whole bloody lot of them for pissing him off.”  He shook his head before pressing his hands through his hair and blowing out a breath. “Pardon me if I think it’s a bunch of horseshit. Perhaps the Hell in me talking.”   

“But why?” He asked. “Why do you still love him? He was a sack of ass, Linda. According to Billy, Redacted wasn’t a sack of ass and he would still be with him if he hadn’t left. And I’m supposed to nod and move on? Bloody hell.”

-

“I don’t think that.” Linda told him patiently, “But I think what you need to understand is that this is something almost all humans, and mutants and metas, understand. It’s not even about your father. It’s about humanities complex sociological relationships. We possess the capacity to experience bonds in numerous ways that all remain close. Think about it this way, I know love is difficult for you, but I’m going to say this. I love you. You’re my friend.” she smiled at him softly, “And I also loved my parents. I also loved Reese. And each of those loves is a little different. At their core though? They all revolve around the impact each one had in my life. Love really is just a special kind of impact.”

“Reese made me happy at first. I spent years dedicating myself to him and him to me. He left a mark on my heart and I can’t just erase that. You left a mark on my heart that can’t be erased. I wouldn’t be the person I am without both you and Reese. Billy probably wouldn’t be the same man he is without this previous partner. He changed Billy, he impacted him. And, like me, he probably can’t just erase that.” she paused a moment, “It isn’t easy, especially for someone like yourself, but love really is infinite, we can make more if we need it. Billy loved his old partner, but he loves you. He’s with you now because things changed. He did leave.”

Thinking on it, Linda asked another question, “Are you worried that if you accept this, and don’t proactively deal with ‘Redacted’ that Billy might one day think he’s made a mistake or change his mind?”  

He took her hand to shake it. She was smaller. Would be smaller still without those heels. Women were baffling to Ted. Those couldn’t be comfortable. Still, she looked nice and he hadn’t come here to critique her clothing. What kind of asshole did that, anyway?        

“Eesh,” he said as used his full name. “I don’t think anyone’s called me Theodore since my dad was still alive.” Granted, that had been the 1940s, but that just went to show. Now that Linda would probably know he was Ted Grant, the seemingly immortal heavyweight champion. She didn’t strike him as much of a boxer fan. “Ted’s fine.” Some people called him Teddy, but he didn’t know Dr. Martin like that. 

He nodded to her office. “Sorry if me being early throws you off, but I thought we could chat before they bring the kid in. Make sure we’re coming across united.”

-

“Parents often prefer the full name, since they chose it names often mean to them then they do to us and shortening it for them is unlikely.” she explained with a small shrug, “But, that’s not an issue for us, Ted.” She preferred the shorter version too, more approachable.

“Oh that’s not a problem at all, I’d went over the case last night and was just getting a few last minute things ready. If you’d like to come inside we can have a little chat before Jenny gets here.” Linda smiled and gestured Ted to head into her office. “Can I get you a tea or coffee?” she asked, gesturing to the machine in the corner of the room, “After seeing patients in District X for so long I’ve really missed having a hot drinks machine in my office.” she chuckled slightly.

Grabbing a notepad and pen, Linda deposited them on the coffee table in her office and continued, “So, things like this are never easy but as I’m sure you know, making it as easy for Jenny is what matters. Have you had any past interaction with her before this?”    

“You could say that,” he said, focusing only on what she asked him. It was all too important that he not stall. “If an argument is what you call being told that the purportedly ex-love of your…” He gestured, shaking off the necessity of a label. Billy had asked to be called partner and he called Lucifer partner, but that still felt like the wrong word. “whatever’s life has returned, they’ve seen them, and they will, evidently, always love them. And yet for some reason they’re staying with you? Is that an argument?” He shook his head in irritation. The talk of it only put him back in that shitty mood that accompanied the original conversation. Like he was sick or something like that.  

He cocked his head, his lips pursing as he raised his brows and held out his hands as if to cede the floor. “What have you got for me, doctor?” Was this really 

-

Linda tilted her head as Lucifer explained what was going on, and giving away the reasoning for his emotional state in the process. “Lucifer, I’d say it was an argument. And I’d also say in your first true attempt at a magnanimous relationship it’s perfectly natural to become jealous when an ex of your current steps into the picture.” she paused a moment, “Love comes in many different forms, they don’t all make sense and they’re all vastly different. Some of them, we have no control over.” Linda licked her lips almost a little nervous, “Lucifer, do you remember Reese? My ex-husband?” She almost never talked about him, given how awfully things had ended between them.

“I wanted to divorce that man, I hated what he’d become, what he made us and what he did. But, a part of me still loves him. When a person has such an impact on your life you can’t just turn that off. What’s important, is you don’t stagnate in it. Which, it seems to me, Billy isn’t. He chose you. Doesn’t that say something very important?”  

Hearing her words left a bitter taste in the back of his throat. Being coaxed to dig deep into the memories from decades ago. His grip on the glass in his hand wavered, forcing him to set the piece back onto the table. Lips pursed tightly into a thin line. 

Dammit.

The stray tears prickled from the corners of his cheeks. He raised a shaky palm over his face, cupping below his eyes to keep them hidden from the therapist’s view. His head tilted downwards, swallowing the lump in his throat, composure faltering in spite of his efforts.  

“I was trained by a man who told me I wasn’t allowed to love or be loved,” Daken muttered through seething breaths, “Even after all these years of being away from him, I still think about the times when he called me an abomination. He told me that no one is allowed to love the abomination, no matter how lonely they feel.”

A strained breath forced a pause from the other, staggering breaths coaxing the tears to roll down his cheeks, absent of resistance. “I thought I knew what love was. I’ve seen individuals of all kinds, human and mutant, demonstrate it to each other. I wanted it so fucking badly but every time, I believed it was a lie. That son of a bitch told me I was meant to conquer, not love. I hate him for how he treated me but to this day, I still believe him.”

-

Therapy wasn’t easy. Anyone who told you otherwise was either lying or had never been themselves. To have to confront patterns in behaviour, your own past traumas or flaws, could be an intense emotional experience, almost violent for some people. She could already see the difficult Daken had with trying  to move further.

She politely nudged the box of tissues on the coffee table between them towards him but didn’t comment on the shininess of his eyes, sometimes the illusion of privacy was better than none at all.

“This man, Daken, you keep mentioning him, but, I’m struggling to see how he can still be in your life. Based on what you say you wouldn’t be here if he was. He sounds manipulative, controlling. All these things you’re saying about what you are and aren’t allowed, he has no power over those.”