Chloe had called everyone - Trixie's friends, Dan, Maze, the babysitter, Amenadiel and Linda, the local library, and checked her Uber account just in case Trix had pulled another of her use-mommy's-Uber-account-to-get-to-Lux tricks.

Nothing.

She'd gotten in her car, forgetting her driver's license, and on her first attempt a pair of pants, and had driven in an ever widening circle around her neighborhood, then Trixie's friends' neighborhoods, then to the precinct, then Dan's neighborhood, then the local mall, just in case.

Nada.

She was drinking a lot of wine, and Dan was still searching.

And she was pretty sure she was about to break into a million useless pieces, and would never, ever, come back together again.

Hours had passed. And she was still drinking. And she was starting to wonder if drinking herself to death would get her into Hell.

Where was Trixie? Where was her beautiful child?

And what in God's name had Trixie meant by 'I'm going to fix this?'

How!? How had Trixie known Lucifer was in Hell?! How had she'd made the jump from 'business trip' to Hell? Sure, Trix seemed to believe Lucifer from the very first moment they'd met, but why make that jump?! How could she have known?

It made no sense.

Charlotte's face kept flashing in her mind's eye though. Something about Charlotte was important here, her detective mind, swimming happily in wine, was saying.

Chloe rubbed her fingers across her swollen eyes and shook her head before taking another large gulp of wine.

She couldn't take this.

The room was swimming.

Lucifler...

No, that wasn't right.

Lunislur...

Oh god, she was drunk.

Voices drifted to her from the walkway outside her door.

"Stop being a wussie, it's just a little further."

"Child, I don't understand how you did this, or what's going on, but I can't BE HERE."

"Yes, you can."

"No, I can't! I have to go back! The fate of this world depends on it!"

Chloe sucked in a breath that left her head spinning.

Oh my god...

"You're such a drama queen, Sammy!"

Chloe jumped to her feet just as the door opened with a bang and Trixie walked in beaming.

...holding the hand of a naked, bleeding, storm-faced Lucifer, his scarred wings folded at his back, following behind.

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"LOOSHIFUR!" Chloe yelled, her heart jumping in her chest. Taking a few running steps in the direction she hoped to go, she staggered sideways instead, falling out of sight onto the stairs.

"Why did mommy fall over?"

"Stay right there!"

Chloe turned onto her back with a low groan in time to catch an angel - her glorious, beautiful... mangled?... angel - leaning over her.

The storm had left his eyes, and they swam with tears as they drifted over her features. "Chloe..."

"Looseyblur," she mumbled happily, her lips spreading in a brilliant smile. Reaching to lace her fingers behind his head, she pulled him down as she leaned upwards to meet him in a kiss.

But he pulled back and drew her up into his arms as the storm returned to his face. "Don't. Please. You are incredibly drunk, and it will only hurt more when I have to go back." He sighed and laid her gently against the couch. "Perhaps you won't remember this at all. That would be for the best."

"Nnno," she moaned, still seeking that contact as he turned from her to stand, dimly aware that a man with wings had just carried her to her couch. "M'not. Will not. Will. Won't. Please... please..."

Then she whispered the word she'd held back for so long. Needing him to hear it again, no matter how drunk she was.

"Lub."

He frowned back at her, his eyes narrowed in complete confusion. "What?"

Trixie's face appeared around his wing, looking just as confused.

"Why is mommy so weird?"

Lucifer turned back to face Trixie and his wings snapped out wide.

Defensively. Protectively. Something Chloe would have taken more notice of, if she hadn't started pointing and giggling at his ass.

"You're so... naked" The words mushed to laughter as she covered her mouth with her hands. "Ssssssooooo... nayykid..."

The laughter and her smile faded as her eyes traveled upwards.

And the room and her mind seemed to sharpen as she stretched out a hand to a terrible cut across his back.

"Lucifler... you're hurt..."

"Tell me WHO you are NOW!" Lucifer yelled, his voice deafening in the small space. "And what you did with the detective's real spawn!"

What?!

With a horrible dread grasping her heart, Chloe looked past Lucifer's legs to Trixie standing just beyond.

"Monkey?" she said softly, rising to stand. "What's... Where did you...?"

And it suddenly hit her.

Her daughter had somehow brought Lucifer back from Hell.

How?

"I'm Trixie!" her daughter yelled back, her legs stiff, her arms fists at her sides. "Why are you yelling at me?!"

Then she burst into tears.

"Oh, monkey, it's okay..." Chloe took a cautious step, testing her balance, and tried to move around the ridiculously massive wing blocking her way to get to her daughter. To give her the hug her baby's tears demanded.

But Lucifer pressed her back and gave her a wide-eyed look that stopped her cold.

Fear.

Lucifer was afraid.

"This creature slipped into Hell and pulled me out of it, Chloe. This is not your daughter."

Chloe's throat closed tight. Her mind sharpened further still. Slowly she looked from Lucifer's face to the form of her daughter now sitting on the floor, knees drawn to her chest.

"Oh my God..."

Trixie sighed, and wiped at the tears flooding her eyes. "This was not how this was supposed to go."

She laughed then, though the sound stayed sad.

"But I guess that's the point, isn't it."

"Where is the real Beatrice!" Lucifer yelled, a faint flare of red touching his eyes.

"Oh my god," Chloe sobbed, as the world blurred again. Why did everything have to be a nightmare?! Where was her daughter?

The child in front of them stood slowly.

She started to speak.

Chloe blinked with every word, for Trixie's form and voice changed as she spoke, flickering into versions of her daughter that she recognized at age two, age four, then eight, then somehow shooting /forward/ into a teen she hadn't even met yet, and on, until her daughter stood before her a mature woman. Then older still.

"I am Beatrice, Samael. Chloe Jane Decker is my mother. I fashioned her as a gift for John and Penelope Decker, a gift that Amenadiel delivered for me, so that I might be born from her and have this life. A long one this time. One that wouldn't end with me nailed to a piece of wood for being a bit preachy."

Chloe was only dimly aware of Lucifer collapsing heavily to his knees. She swallowed, and found her throat bone-dry.

What had she just heard and seen?

What... just...

Trixie was ten again, and turned to smile at her. "This is a lot, mommy, I'm sorry. Don't worry."

"Dad," Lucifer breathed, and slumped further, falling against the back of the couch.

Trixie beamed at him. "I know how this conversation's going to go, so I'm going to squeeze this in while I can."

The grin softened to a smile that carried an incredible light.

"I love you, son. Without measure."

Lucifer's head drooped and he released a terrible sigh.

"You manipulative, arrogant, child's-face-wearing BASTARD."

Trixie snapped a finger at Lucifer with a toothy grin. "Here we go."

Lucifer raised his head, and Chloe's heart lurched in her chest.

His eyes were aflame. And not the modest glowing embers she'd seen before, but blazing orbs trailing acrid smoke.

The fire spread as he rose to his feet, engulfing his entire body and his wings in a brilliant burst of flame that roared as it licked at the ceiling, blackening it. The heat was immense - sucking in a burning breath, Chloe staggered away, terrified.

Trixie shook her head. "Nope."

The flames were snuffed instantly, leaving a distinctly non-burning, dark eyed Lucifer glowering in their wake.

Mouth twisting in absolute hate, he stepped forward, his fingers stretching into claws. The flames burst from him again, wilder this time - a deafening maelstrom that Chloe knew, at that moment, would swallow her and the world.

Trixie shook her head again. "Nope."

Lucifer stood extinguished once more.

Shaking now, his whole body taut, Lucifer opened his mouth and ROARED, his mouth stretched wider than any human's, and the terrible sound seemed to echo from everywhere all at once.

The entire building shook.

Every window around them exploded.

Chloe screamed.

STOP

The flying shards of glass froze in mid-air, hanging suspended for a moment before snapping back into place, the cracks sealing back into unbroken panes.

Chloe looked about herself in a daze, her mind muzzy from drink and shock.

"Samael," Trixie said quietly. "You are breaking mommy's home."

Lucifer's breath left him in a weary sob.

And falling to the floor, he curled up against his legs, folding his great wing over himself.

Without caring what her daughter was, what Lucifer used to be, and the great subdued battle she'd just seen play out, Chloe rushed to his side. He was too close to the Lucifer she'd seen in her dream to be okay.

Stretching out a hand, she went to touch his bloodied arm, fearful that his skin might burn.

He jerked away from her touch.

"Leave me be..." he whispered, his voice utterly broken.

Frowning, Trixie lowered herself to the floor. Echoing Lucifer's position at a distance, she curled up on her side to face him.

"Fuck off, Dad," Lucifer mumbled from under his arm.

"I know why you're angry at me, Samael."

Lucifer made a small irritated noise. "You're omnipotent, You twat. Of course you know."

"Could you stop swearing? I'm also ten."

Lucifer curled in further with a moan. "Dad, I hate you so much."

"No, you don't."

One baleful red eye peeked out from the feathery ball that was Lucifer. "I'm unsure how I could make my feelings on the subject any clearer, Dad, outside of tearing that child's head off to force you back to your real form."

Chloe's heart turned cold.

"Please... please don't do that," she whispered, stricken.

Lucifer growled against the floor. "Oh look, more manipulation. You've crafted a fine little trap for me here, haven't you, Father. I'm impressed."

Chloe's face fell and she pulled back from Lucifer, her eyes drifting to her daughter's.

"Is... is that true?" A small noise of pain left her. "Is that all that I am?"

She felt like a toy at that moment. Something picked up, mashed against another, and then discarded in boredom.

"Mommy, look at me."

"Don't, Chloe, he's a liar."

Trixie's gaze turned raw. "I am not. Unlike your interpretation of what it means for yourself, I can't lie. Everything I think and say exists. I am literally the embodiment of truth."

Lucifer blew a loud, irreverent raspberry.

Trixie sighed.

Chloe pointed at her daughter. "You lied about eating the chocolate cake!"

Giving a strange, I-might-be-losing-my-mind-here laugh, she continued, "You even looked me in the eye and said 'No, mommy'!"

Her little daughter looked at her with the exact same expression she had that day.

"That was a big fat, absolutely not the-embodiment-of-truth LIE!" she laughed, catching Lucifer's wicked smirk.

But it slipped and fell with his gaze as he just closed up again with a heavy breath.

Eyebrows soaring, Chloe looked back at her daughter in pain. "I love him, Trix. Is that not real? Did you give me those feelings?"

Trixie gave her a smile that was beatific and glorious, and at that moment Chloe felt like the center of every universe that had ever been or ever would be.

Lucifer sighed. "Stop that, Dad."

With a roll of her eyes, Trixie gave Chloe another smile, that of her ten-year-old daughter. "Every part of this is real, mommy. And I didn't put you here for Lucifer. I put you here for me. To make me vulnerable."

Chloe blinked.

The wing at her side slowly retreated, exposing Lucifer's completely stunned expression.

"What?" he whispered.

Beatrice looked down at him with such love that Chloe felt her throat close.

"This is your world, Samael. Do you know that?"

Lucifer's puzzled frown deepened as his brow soared. "What?" he repeated, his voice growing softer still.

Trixie laid down on her belly and propped her head up on her small arms.

"Do you know how many of my worlds suck?"

She didn't wait for another what, and turned over on her back to start drawing in the air. Where her finger passed, scenes began to play out of worlds built in perfect order, with perfect people, living their lives ordered by perfect laws.

Nothing was out of place. Everything was the same even color. Not a single expression lit anyone's features with joy, or sorrow, anger, hate or love.

"Those poor sods," Lucifer mumbled. He had sprawled on his back to watch, his arms behind his head, his wings folded like a blanket beneath him. Exposed and open.

Chloe turned back and frowned at the scenes playing out in front of her.

"That looks like an accountant's ideal universe."

Lucifer tsked. Glancing at him, her heart skipped at the sight of his smirk. "Chloe. Some of the wildest sexual fantasies I've ever fulfilled were accountant's. Don't believe the stereotype."

Chloe laughed. It felt wonderful to hear his beautiful voice again, sounding so much like himself.

Trixie poked her fingers in her ears. "I'm still ten!"

With an irritated scowl, Lucifer turned back on his side, closing up again. "The point, Father. Make it."

"Why is this world so different from the rest, Samael? Why is it so filled with incredible beauty, yet so equally filled with terrible pain? With such glorious heights of love yet such blinding depths of hate?"

Lucifer sighed. "Gosh, Dad, the Almighty Creator Of Everything Ever, I wonder."

"It's because of you, son. This world's joys, and its wounds - all of them - have their source in you."

Chloe turned to him slowly, the meaning of what had just been said squeezing tight about her heart.

Oh no.

Lucifer had frozen. He'd grown so still, she flashed back again to the scene in her dream. His battered body on the bed.

Without thinking, she reached for his arm.

But with a sudden rush of white and the sound of beating wings, he was gone.