Author's note: I just couldn't go on without wrapping up a certain kind of closure to that last episode. So I am offering you the next few scenes as I see it, or should I say, hope could come next. I wrote all day to finish it for you as soon as possible (ok it was also a lot for me I have to admit :)) Make sure you watched the last episode before you read it though. Enjoy!
"It's all true… It's all true…" She whispers in fright, slowly backing away from him.
"Detective?"
Lucifer is at a loss. Why is she looking at him this way, as if she were afraid of him? Is it because he killed Pierce? Shouldn't she understand why he did this? Taking a step forward, he lifts a hand towards her as if it could prevent her from walking further away from him.
That's when he sees it. His hand.
His Devil's form…
No! It can't be!
He raises slowly his eyes back to her, to her horror-stricken face. He can feel his breathing quicken and his head start to spin with the devastating feelings of hopelessness and fear that are now overcoming him.
She is looking at him. The real him. And she is terrified!
He knows, in that instant, at the way her beautiful blue eyes are finally seeing the monster he is, that it's all over. He has lost her. Forever…
He sees her take a few more steps back until she hits the first step of the stair with her heel. She falls backwards and brakes her fall with a hand, only to collapse on the steps in an awkward sitting position, eyes bulging and visibly panting.
Lucifer instinctively backs away from her, not wanting to traumatise her any more than she already is. He finally has the presence of mind of putting back his glamour over his true form. He continues to retreat, with his hands up to show her he doesn't mean her any harm. It seems to be working, for she isn't moving anymore, instead watching him like he is someone she doesn't recognise and dread.
What could he say or do to make it right again? No, there is nothing to be done now. It is too late. He missed his window to tell her the truth, to come clean, and ease the news in a way she could accept who he is. He has been a coward and now he would pay for that weakness for the rest of his existence.
"I'm sorry Detective. Chloe. I'm so sorry!" He breathes out. The overwhelming pain and guilt he feels in this moment make his voice shake and crack on the last words.
But she doesn't react, as if not hearing what he is saying, or not wanting to hear it.
He looks at her one last time to memorise her features, her beautiful face, wondering if he will ever see her again. Then he turns away and walks out the way they first came in, possibly walking away from her life forever.
Chloe watches Lucifer leave through the corridor, without truly registering what is happening.
Lucifer… The real Devil! Her partner. The man she considers to be her best friend, her possible new lover… Oh God, no! Please, make it be only a nightmare!
Unfortunately she knows all too well that everything is mind-blowingly true. Everything he has ever said is actually true. How could she have missed it? How could she have been so blind? She knows how. She just didn't want to see the truth, even though all the pieces were there to be pieced up together. He'd never lied to her. She was the one who had been lying to herself, too afraid was she to face the facts, preferring to continue living in a safe bubble of science and logic. Her bubble was well and truly blown up now.
Her mind is reeling wildly, until she hears a low «woosh» sound. The same noise she heard back on the roof when Lucifer disappeared, not so long ago. Did he disappear again? As if to prove her that he might have, the SWAT team starts filling the room, coming from the same corridor Lucifer just went in seconds ago.
She knows someone is speaking to her, but she can't hear what the cop is saying. She is still fixing that now empty corridor, only seeing in her mind the image of the Devil, with his ravaged face and his red hellish eyes.
This is real! This is real!
When a paramedic crouches in front of her to check on her possible injuries, and she still can't bring herself to listen to his questions, that's when she realizes that she has to be in chock. Strangely she doesn't care. She just can't deal with all the questioning right now anyway. So she stays quiet and let him examine her without resisting.
She is mourning. Mourning her lost partner, her lost love, Lucifer Morningstar, who will never exist ever again for her. He had been replaced by that nightmarish creature. The Devil!
She doesn't know how much time passes, but at one point Dan is crouching in front of her, trying to catch her attention and take her out of her stupor, with Ella hovering by his side.
"… Chloe! Chloe! Do you hear me?" He sounds and looks very concerned.
She locks eyes with him, surprised to be able to hear his voice clearly. It feels like all she has been hearing for the last minutes are only muffled noises, as if she was deep under water and that, since the moment she saw, view, all of HIM.
She doesn't feel ready to deal with Dan's concerns right now. She tries to answer him nonetheless, to calm him down a bit.
"I'm fine… I'm fine!" It would have to do for now. She can't think of anything else to say.
She can now hear Ella's voice ordering the SWAT team to back the hell away from her crime scene. It has just been confirmed that nobody but Chloe survived the encounter among the corpses lying around and that there is no threat to be dealt with anymore.
Apparently, Dan is not ready to leave her side yet. He sits down beside her and encircles her shoulders with an arm while stroking one of hers comfortingly with his free hand. The gesture gives her a sense of reality, making her connect once again with the world around her.
After having walked around for a few minutes and analysed the crime scene, Ella comes back to them to give Daniel her preliminary conclusions.
"Man! I can't believe Chloe survived that! And since Lucifer isn't among the dead, looks like he might have survived too. I think they were standing right there in the middle of the place when Pierce's men fired on them. But I don't understand. By the number of projectiles' cases that cover the floor around the area, they must have fired hundreds of bullets. How come Chloe only received one? And what on Earth are all those feathers doing everywhere? It's as if a giant goose was shot at. A giant goose that must now be an awfully butchered one, by the look of all the blood covering the feathers and the way they have been hacked up to pieces."
At hearing Ella's words, Chloe takes a first real look around the place. There is indeed white giant feathers covering the floor into roughly a circular pattern around the place where Lucifer and she had been standing not long ago. She reaches out to take a long feather resting at her feet. It is drenched in blood and sports a couple holes in it. Her hands start shaking all of sudden as understanding hits her.
This is Lucifer's!
It's coming from his wings! The wings he used to bring her to safety and then to disappear again from the crime scene, to get away from her.
She looks again at all the blood covering it. Lucifer had been injured while protecting her! He saved her life, probably not for the first time.
Her partner is hurt and possibly still bleeding, and here she is, feeling sorry for herself, unable to come to terms with something Lucifer had been telling her over and over again for the past three years.
She tries to remember if he looked injured when she last saw him leave. Even though it is hard for her to recall anything other than his Devil's appearance, she is now able to picture Lucifer Morningstar again after he'd put his hellish face away. There had definitely been pain in his eyes and in all his features. Pain and despair, angst and a strange sense of fatality. He had looked like a man whose life was about to end…
She abruptly feels all her insides twist into a painful knot. Was this she who had made him feel that way or was he hurting from the physical wounds he had taken to protect her? Neither possibilities sounded better than the other.
Whatever the cause, her partner was suffering because of her.
She stands up all of a sudden, startling Dan in the process.
Before he can ask what is going on with her, she blurts out, "I can't stay here! I have to go! I'll call you later."
And with that, she bolts towards the exit, ignoring Dan's desperate calls behind her.
She is glad to see that he doesn't pursue her though. Knowing her as he does, he probably understands that it would be vain to try and make her change her mind.
She barely spares a glance in the direction of Marcus's body sprawled on the floor, with his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. No, not Marcus, Cain! That story has to be true too, like everything else. She doesn't feel ready to dwell on the fact that she slept with the first murderer of humanity and even almost married him. There would be plenty of time to hate herself for that later.
Right now she has more urgent things to do. She has no idea if she'll be able to handle seeing him again so soon though. All she knows is that she needs to check on her partner and make sure he is alright.
Her partner… Can she still consider him as such after what she saw, after what she now knows to be true? Could anything ever be the same between them? Does she even want for them to get back to the way things were? And more importantly, would she ever be able to? She finds no answers to calm down her boiling mind.
She finally gets to her car and drives as fast as possible towards LUX, hoping against hopes that it is where he took refuge.
The drive to his place seems to be endless. By the time she gets there, she guesses that at least 45 minutes have passed since he disappeared on her. As well say an eternity.
Only after she steps into the elevator and hears the doors close behind her does she start realizing what she is really doing; she is going willingly into the Devil's lair! Panic begins to rise inside her, threatening to overcome her. She shuts her eyes for a moment and tries to picture her friend instead of the hellish monster that she saw only moments ago. Putting her trembling hands into her pockets, she breathes deeply a few times to calm her nerves before opening her eyes again, her panic now held under a tight grip.
She doesn't know what she expected to happen when the doors finally open, but it was certainly not to be welcomed by gut wrenching screams of pain.
She doesn't see anyone, but the screams seem to be coming from Lucifer's bedroom. Finding her courage, she walks uncertainly towards the room when she hears familiar voices talking anxiously.
"Lucifer please, try not to move! I can't do anything good if you continue squirming like that." Linda's voice, without a doubt.
"Bloody Hell! You think I do it on purpose? They are killing me!" Thunders Lucifer.
"Maze, keep him still will you? It will never heal if we don't take the bullets out." Continues Linda.
"Don't you see it doesn't work? I'll have to go retrieve one of my daggers to dig the bullets out." Maze sounds quite exasperated.
Mesmerized by what she is hearing, Chloe at last reaches the bedroom's entrance. What she sees inside instantly brings tears to her eyes and fills her with pain and empathy for her friend.
Fists clenched around the sheets, Lucifer is laying on his stomach with his wings spread wide. His beautiful wings, all bloodied and wrecked. It looks awfully painful. Maze is on her knees, straddling him and trying to force his wings into a still position. Besides the bed stands Linda who is gripping a wing and digging through a wound with pliers.
"Ah! Ah! I got one!" Rejoiced Linda.
At the exact same time Lucifer erupts into another scream of pain. "What have you done? It hurts like hell! You shouldn't be able to hurt me like that unless…"
All of a sudden, all three of them become very silent, then as one, they turn around to find Chloe standing silently at the door, looking awestruck.
Lucifer averts his gaze as soon as he sees her, but not before Chloe can see the surprise and fear in his eyes. What could he be afraid of? She? Her thoughts are interrupted by Maze who jumps out of the bed and rushes to her in a threatening way.
"Get away from here, Decker! You've hurt him enough for one day!" Maze was already leading her towards the elevator.
"No, Maze!" Screams Linda from inside the bedroom. "She needs to stay. It's the only way I'll be able to get the bullets out. Get a grip on yourself, will you!"
Maze stops in her tracks and glares at the detective. "All right! You can stay. In fact, if you dare leave this place and turn your back on him again, I'll personally go and drag you back in here myself. And I promise I won't be gentle!"
Maze forces her to sit down on the couch. It doesn't even come to Chloe's mind to try and resist as she flops down, not understanding half of what is happening.
As if wanting to at least answer part of the interrogations that were assuredly plastered all over her face, Maze spits some clues in her way. "If it wasn't for your ability to make the Devil bleed, I wouldn't allow you to be here. He can't deal with your shit and hatred right now, Decker, and I won't let you destroy him. What he needs are his friends, and I'm not sure I can still count you as one of them. So you stay here and be quiet. You can leave once we are done with his wings."
Maze doesn't let her time to reply anything and is already heading back inside the bedroom. Totally dumfounded, Chloe stays like that a long moment, unmoving, mouth half opened, and listening to Lucifer's screams of pain. She is now overtly crying. She can feel the overpowering need of taking Lucifer in her arms and sooth his suffering, but she understands that she lost that right when she as good as turned her back on him when she saw the truth. And that loss hurt, more than she could have imagined. Would she ever have the chance to embrace her friend again? She hopes so with all her heart.
She doesn't understand what Maze meant when saying that she can make the Devil bleed, but she knows he is suffering because of her and her rejecting him. And that's all she needs to know for now.
Linda obviously knew about Lucifer's identity before today and is okay with it. It gives her hope that she herself could overcome her first shock and come to peace with what he is. But how did Linda do to stop seeing only the Devil and be able to look at him as before?
She is then reminded of the answer she gave him last night when he tried again to tell her that he is indeed the Devil.
«No you're not! Not to me.»
She meant it at the time, really meant it. Because deep down she knew him, knew that he was a good man and that she loved him for who he was in spite of whatever he might have done in his past.
In that instant, she realizes that she still knows him, and has known who he truly is for a long time now, even though she wasn't aware of his real identity. Does it really matter where he comes from and what he is? It strangely doesn't feel so important anymore. Her friend is suffering right now, physically and emotionally. She had rejected him and seen in his eyes the pain it did to him.
She remembered the hope and love she had seen in his eyes last night before they kissed. He had believed her, believed that she truly loved the man he was in spite of everything. But she had destroyed that belief, destroyed what they had, with her fear, her inability to understand, and to see beyond his appearance.
She finds herself swearing to make everything in her power to make it up to him, to prove that he can trust her with what he is. None of it really mattered after all. None of it should change the way she feels about him.
She could already feel her love for him blossoming again and fill her entire being.
Author's note: I hope it gives you a certain sense of closure following that horrible cliff-hanger. Writing it did help me. Please let me know if it was to your liking. Thanks for reading.