UPDATE: Hi! Sorry, very very busy at work, so a little delayed in posting a new chapter. Hope to do so tomorrow (Sat) :)

NOTE: This is the SECOND chapter I've posted tonight - please be sure to catch the chapter before this one (Your Reliance On Order).

Unfortunately, this will be the last chapter I post tonight, but I think it's a very good one to leave you all on. :)

This is obviously not the end of this story. I have many more little moments to come. But this will do for a few days.

Thanks for sticking with this story through its many twists and turns. Let me know what you think, if you have a moment. And thank you, as always, for reading :)

Chloe sighed.

"What happens now?" she asked, feeling exhausted and defeated.

They'd won, right?

Why didn't this feel like a win?

The chair beside her was suddenly very appealing, and she sat down. Something pinched her thigh, and she dug into her pants before finding the culprit.

With some difficulty, she pulled out Lucifer's ring.

The sight felt like a punch in the gut. With a small sound, somewhere on the edge of grief, she closed her hand tightly around it.

Trixie stood before her.

Chloe stared up at God, unsmiling.

"You make mistakes."

Trixie nodded, sadly.

"I've made terrible ones."

"I'm angry at you, a little, I think," Chloe mumbled, fresh tears coming to her eyes. "Do you really see us as toys? Little lives to play with?"

Her daughter, who wasn't her daughter but also was, shook her head as her eyes grew soft.

"Those were their words," she said with a sigh, looking off to where the wound in the world had been. "They are well suited to each other. They could not see the value of the little miracles. The little moments."

When Trixie looked back, her young gaze was warm and bright. "Your lives are gifts to me. Each and every one of you a treasure. I may write out the bounds of your moments, but what you do with them - the intensity with which you live them, the gentleness, the passion, the care you fill them with brings me indescribably joy. You are not toys. You are not experiments. You are all, every single one, your own expressions of love and creation. I adore you all."

Chloe wiped at her eyes and gave a small smile, her gaze dipping to her clenched hand.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." Her eyes rose to her daughter. "Lucifer's gone. And you're God. That's a big deal."

Trixie gave a small smile. "The biggest."

"What happens now?" she asked again, yearning for an answer that made everything okay.

The smile turned sad. "I finish what the Third interrupted."

Chloe closed her eyes.

"I don't want to forget," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears again.

A child's hand threaded through her own.

"Are you sure?"

She opened her eyes slowly. Her beautiful daughter watched her with an endless patience and love.

But... it wasn't really her daughter. And she knew she'd never be able to look at Trixie quite the same way again.

"No... I'm not," she said honestly, her gaze dipping, then drifting to Samael.

He watched her with a gentle smile.

"What happens to you?"

"I return home," Samael answered her softly. "Where I belong."

"And I try to be the best father I can be," Trixie said, just as softly, "to the son who saved everything."

Chloe smiled a little, despite her pain. There was such joy in both of their faces.

"Can I think about it?" she asked. "Because maybe I need this pain to be who I truly am. If I forget, then I'm not really the same person at all, am I?"

"Momma, you will always be Chloe, no matter what I do. But take a moment. I wish to bring my daughter some peace - she is worn through. Son, stay with her?"

"Of course."

And her daughter simply blinked away.

It felt like a new wound on the world.

Somehow, Chloe managed to give Samael a small smile.

"Thank you for saving my life back at the hospital. I didn't get a chance to say that before."

"You're welcome," he answered, smiling back. "Thank you for saving mine."

"Oh, right," she whispered, staring down at her hand briefly, still clenched about the ring. "I told the angel of death to suck it."

Samael tilted his head with a thoughtful frown. "Those were not the words you used at all."

Chloe smirked. "Azrael was right. You are very literal."

She stared at him then, as if trying to look into him.

"What happened back at the pool, Samael? After you..." She waved her hand mysteriously, unsure how to capture what had had happened to him.

"I made no such gesture," he answered, frowning. "And now you are doing that thing with your eyes that Linda did. You are irritated with me?"

Shaking her head, she looked back down at her hand, and slowly opened her fist. The silver sparkled in the spotlights. The void stone was terribly dark against her skin.

"You said you loved me, Samael," she said quietly. "Why'd you say that?"

Footsteps followed. Samael's shimmering form came into view.

She looked up, into eyes filled with love.

"Because I love you, Chloe," he said softly.

Her heart quickened in her chest.

"As I love all of you," he added, in the same gentle, loving voice.

"Oh," she whispered, withdrawing back against the chair. "Oh."

The ache returned - a dark, cold ball in her chest.

"Oh."

Her mouth turned down, and she struggled to keep herself from crying. "That's... that's nice."

"You are hurt. I did not mean to hurt you."

Shaking her head, she stood from the chair, stepping aside so he wasn't quite so close.

"Please understand, Chloe. I have experienced your love for Lucifer. I have felt what you both shared. It was beautiful."

She finally looked at him, her eyes tight.

"But I am not Lucifer. My place is not here. I must go home. Do you understand?"

Chloe closed her eyes and nodded.

That was it then.

"I think I'm okay forgetting now," she said, her voice breaking. "Here."

She held out the ring. "This was Lucifer's. You should have it. I don't think I need it anymore."

Frowning, he looked down.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's a ring?" she said, a little surprised he didn't know. "You wear it."

He looked up at her, his brow furrowed. "How?"

She blinked, and shook her head slightly. "Wow. Well, you just... here." She plucked it from her hand, and took his own gently. His skin was so beautifully warm, and the landscape of his fingers so familiar, that she lingered for a moment, her heart sighing, before finally sliding the ring onto his right hand. "It should fit, you have the same hands. There..."

And that absolutely broke her heart. The walls shattered, and she broke down completely, grasping his hand tight, and covering her mouth to smother her sobs.

"There is..." he said, in a strange whisper, "something... here..."

He made an odd sound.

A kind of grunt, coupled with a gasp.

It snapped her from her grief, and she looked up at him, blinking through the blur of tears.

He was holding his chest. The spot right over his heart.

Then he shifted his hand, and grasped the robe he was wearing.

"What... am I..." Frowning, still looking at the gown, he shook his head. "No, I am wearing my... wait."

Lifting his head, his eyes found her own, full of shock and confusion.

And full of Lucifer.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

He shot forward, engulfed her with his arms, and held her so tightly she felt her ribs bend.

Then he pushed her back, and she had a small heart attack, thinking that no, it really couldn't be him, and that Samael had realized what was doing. How strangely he was acting.

But his hands were lifting the arm of her shirt, and he was pressing and holding the skin there, and staring at her, completely lost.

"But you were..." and his gaze widened as he took in the curtain behind him, then the stage around them, and he finally turned to look over the empty seats.

His arm looped behind her, the familiar cradling of her back she was so used to, so in love with, as he turned and twisted, and then shook his head as he turned back to her.

And brows arching, eyes dark and yearning, he pressed in, closing his lips against her own and kissing her needfully, desperately, as his hand traveled warmly up the back of her neck to cradle her head.

And she started to cry.

The kisses lingered, wet with tears, and she grabbed him and held him so tight, and cried against him until he finally pulled gently away, his arms still wrapped around her.

He smiled, his eyes travelling from her eyes, to her brow, her lips. He raised a hand and swept a few wayward strands of hair aside, then met her gaze again as his smile widened.

"I am an idiot," he said.

The words were so unexpected, she just laughed.

And he grinned, and kissed her again, pressing in once more as his gaze grew hungry.

But she raised a hand and very, very gently, pushed him back.

He looked down at her hand and back, the smile fading.

And she asked, because she needed to understand.

"Lucifer?"

He opened his mouth to answer, with a small smirk, and then he stopped. Frowning, he studied her, and looked down at himself again.

"I am very confused."

The joy she'd felt a moment before grew harried and fluttery. Her hands clenched around his gown and his arm.

And she was honest.

"Me too. Are you Lucifer?"

She needed an answer. She had one of sorts in the way his body melded to hers, the soft set of his eyes, but nothing made any sense. There was still a strangeness here she didn't understand.

He smirked at her again, snapping back to what she knew and expected. But the expression softened again, and he looked at her in wonder.

"Am I?" he asked.

But he seemed to dismiss his own question, frowning and shaking his head at himself, as the slightest hint of a British accent crept into his voice. "What is... of course I am... I..."

"Samael?" she whispered, dreading the answer.

He looked at her, frowning deeply.

"Chloe, I am very confused."

And the way he said her name was all the answer she would ever need.

Smiling, she pressed forward and hugged him tightly.

With a contented sigh, he folded his arms around her and rested his cheek on the crown of her head.

It was perfect. It was wonderful. She could feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing, and hear the steady beat of his heart.

His white wings curled around them both.

"I am very happy," he whispered, brushing his lips against her forehead.

She nodded. "Me too."

She wouldn't ask any more questions. She'd just hold him.

"Chloe?"

Of course, she couldn't stop him from asking them.

Dammit.

"Yes?"

"I was shot, was I not?"

Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded against him.

"I thought I died?"

Frowning, she held him closer. She couldn't talk about that... but she could ask a question.

"What do you remember?"

He drew in a deep breath and released it in a heavy sigh. She rode it out, dreading what he would say.

"My creation. Father telling me to save you and stop the dark... wait."

He pulled back from her abruptly, his expression wide with shock. "We had a child?! It hurt you!"

And his eyes burned molten red, as he bared his teeth in anger. "I will tear..."

Chloe just held on.

He blinked, and the fires were gone.

"I did. I stopped him. Oh, Chloe. I unmade the child. He was... he was still our son, and I..."

His gaze dropped sorrowfully.

She cupped his cheek and shook her head. "No. He wasn't, not really. He did terrible things. You saved everybody from him. That's what mattered."

But he was deep in thought again. "I fell, did I not? Into Hell. No... that was later... Into water? And you held me? And then..."

A smile grew on his face as his eyes found hers again.

His skin grew soft and bright.

"I found love. For myself. For who I was, once. Who I am now. Lucifer was good. You and Linda were right."

Chloe clenched his robe tighter.

She couldn't trust herself to speak.

"I am Lucifer, Chloe," he said, noticing. Smiling, he took the hand clenched in his robe and held it tenderly. "I am myself. I am... still very confused. But..." he looked to the side, thoughtfully. "I remember... camping?"

His gaze snapped to hers and grew very serious.

"Please do not ask me to go camping again."

Chloe laughed abruptly and shook her head. "Oh, god no. Never, ever again."

He grinned. "I liked what we did while camping, though. Very much." Pressing in close, his gaze traveled to her lips. "Let us do that again, very soon." He kissed her, and it quickly grew hungry. "Like... now," he murmured against her mouth. "Here."

The response in her body was immediate, and she pressed very happily back, before quickly shaking her head.

"We can't have sex on a school stage, Lucifer!"

He stopped, and pulled back, frowning.

And for a horrible moment, she thought she'd lost him again.

But his gaze drifted behind her, and slid back, slyly.

And he grinned.

"There is a curtain."