Darkness on the horizon.
Calm before the storm.
He would miss storms and rain. The wind whipping in his hair. The smell of the air before the thunder and after the lightning strikes.
Charlotte was gone. Amenadiel was right.
The problem wasn't that humans wouldn't believe him. It turned out that some humans were perfectly fine with angels and demons. Dr. Linda recovered. Chloe would probably weather it with flying colors, no pun intended. The problem was that when Divinity and humans interacted, the latter died.
At least Charlotte got a second chance. She didn't go back to hell. He didn't know what choices she made before the end, but he knew Amenadiel had taken her home. He hoped her death was quick, but gut shots rarely provided that.
If. When Chloe dies, she'll surely be claimed by heaven. And then she'll be gone and he won't see her again- which was better than the alternative of her falling to hell. But if he stays, she might die too soon. Nearly had already, a few times.
If he continues to indulge his selfish desire to have human company, to walk among them, where he doesn't belong, he will keep hurting them. Causing pain.
He loves Chloe too much to do that to her.
All he had to do was let Cain go. Not try to 'fix' things. Not help him die. Not 'defy' Dad's plan.
It may be all Dad's fault, but it became clear he could not fight omnipotence. Only rail against it ineffectually. For all eternity. Screaming into an uncaring and unfeeling void.
So be it.
At least he wouldn't take her with him.
Dad may be an ass for creating creatures that were unable to coexist happily with one another, but it was what it was.
Dad was responsible for creating Chloe. One could argue that without His intervention, she wouldn't exist at all. But she did. The fact of her conception changed nothing. The power over him she didn't even know she had meant nothing. It was a mockery. She was sent to mock his desire to have any kind of existence outside of Hell. It wasn't her fault. He could do nothing about it, save one thing.
Dad was worse than an ass. He lorded His power over all. Lucifer himself created by him, for His own long term purposes.
Petty.
And as unassailable as the stars Lucifer put in the sky for him. One doesn't win when against the very cosmos. The black hole in the center of this galaxy would move before Dad did.
And if Dad chose to move it Himself, nothing could stop Him, and this sweeping disk of light and life would be torn asunder into nothing over the millions of years it would take for the disruptions to batter this little blue and green atoll apart by the storms of cosmic winds.
Lucifer made some choices. He could make them again, fate or no fate. If he could go back in time, he would still have made his choices to be thrown from Heaven. But what if Dad Himself built him that way. Did he even make a choice?
Dad played the long game.
So could he.
He couldn't choose to stop being a pawn. But he could choose to no longer hurt those humans who had become dear to him. Even if none shall remember it in a few more million years. A moment in time, a moment gone, but not forgotten by him. He at least would remember her love, her choice to be by his side, despite his endless declarations of his own Divinity.
She choose him anyway. Illogically. Insanely.
Unconditionally.
His heart was gone. It would stay here, always. He couldn't afford it anymore.
He reached for Maze, who wrapped her arms around him, lingering with him.
She was ready. He was not.
Lucifer gripped his demon tightly, letting his wings out as the first drops of rain stung him.
And flew back to Hell.
