Buckle up.

The warehouse was rather predictably dim, and Chloe's flashlight did little to fill in the gloom as she walked cautiously through the building.

Her squad had filled out behind her, to secure the exits and boundary walls before doubling back in.

And Lucifer was simply strutting by her side, tasting what he'd licked from his finger after poking it into a bag.

"There is a great deal of filler. Rather poor make."

"Lucifer."

"Yes?"

"Stop sampling the coke."

"Oh, I intend to. Absolutely disappointing."

Mouth twisting, she pushed on.

"There are three men and four women in this building."

She stopped to stare at him.

"What?"

"There are three-"

"I heard you Lucifer, I just don't understand... you're still reading minds?"

"I have never stopped. Did you know that Eric has a foot fetish?"

She blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry?!"

"Eric, one of your men. Foot fetishist. Could not stop imagining what my feet would look like in these shoes. Such a strange fascination. My feet look fantastic of course, but-"

"Lucifer."

"Yes?"

"Please stop."

He stopped obligingly, standing stock still in the middle of the darkened warehouse.

"No, I meant, stop reading minds."

He was quiet for a moment.

"That is hard to do, Chloe. Everyone thinks so loudly. It is hard to escape the incessant ponderings of humanity around me."

Frowning, she turned back to him.

Was it really that bad? Bombarded by unspoken thoughts whenever he went?

"I didn't realize," she said softly.

He smiled. "How could you?"

An ache rose in her chest suddenly. Unbidden, unwanted. Inescapable.

"Lucifer..."

"Please know, Chloe, that I do my best to ignore your thoughts, I know it unsettles you."

She shook her head slowly. "No, not that, though thank you. It's weird for me and I don't quite know what to do about that yet, but... no..."

He waited patiently.

"What you said back at the precinct?"

He nodded. "I could tell that unsettled you as well."

"You..." she frowned, looking away for a moment. Struggling to find a way to say what she needed to say.

"You aren't completely yourself, are you? Because, you do all of these things now... and... your speech is different, and-"

"It is?"

She nodded, biting her upper lip.

"It took me a little while to work it out, but... you don't use contractions anymore. Like, at all. You haven't since you came back."

He frowned, his gaze dipping briefly.

Then he slowly nodded.

"That is true."

"Are you Samael?" she asked, tears springing to her eyes, as all of her fears came rushing back with his admission.

The moments they'd shared together, his familiar mannerisms, his teasing humor, were all screaming that this was a stupid thing to ask.

But it was still there. This terrible doubt and fear.

That he wasn't really Lucifer. That Lucifer really was gone. That Samael was just acting like him, unknowingly, in his place.

Sighing softly, he smiled, and the look was kind and beautiful.

Just like Samael.

There was a sharp crack of a high caliber rifle.

Lucifer's head snapped to the side.

And he dropped.

Eyes bulging, sucking in a horrified breath, Chloe's swung her gun up as her training kicked in, sourcing the sound and firing multiple shots in the direction of the sniper who'd just downed Lucifer in front of her.

There was another crack.

Something slammed into her temple at the same moment, throwing her back onto the hard concrete.

Her body came to rest.

And she stared up at the corrugated ceiling far above, her thoughts growing sluggish and thick.

My head...

head hurts...

Everything stopped.

And a young girl with a goofy haircut stepped into view, her expression grave.

"Chloe, don't move. Stay in there."

Sitting up, utterly confused by everything, Chloe turned to look at her.

Azrael? she asked, frowning. What are you doing here?

Azrael slapped her palm over her face. "I said don't move, why did you... oh no..."

"Chloe!?"

At the sound of her name, said with such horror and disbelief, Chloe turned.

Lucifer was on his side nearby, his eyes stretched wide and so full of white, his mouth yawning open.

Oh my god, Lucifer, she said, reaching for him with a wild rush of gratitude. I thought you were dead!

"Brother," came Azrael's voice, low and wary, "please calm down, we'll get-"

"CHLOE?!"

He shot forward, his hand sweeping to her own, as his eyes bulged at something on the ground behind her.

"Chloe," Azrael snapped, "get back in your body, right now."

She turned to look at the dark angel, her mind glitching over something that had just happened with Lucifer, and something that had just been said.

Lucifer's hand, and her own... they hadn't met.

But they should have.

get back in your body

With a startled cry, Chloe shot up, twisting back to look at what lay behind her.

"Why are you doing the opposite of everything I say?!" Azrael cried, before shifting towards her brother, her hands outstretched. "Lucifer, you need to calm-"

CHLOE!

The words tore through the building, stirring a cloud of dust, rippling the clothing and hair of the person lying in a growing pool of blood before him.

That's... that's... Chloe whispered, stunned.

Lucifer's despairing gaze cut from her shocked face, to the glassy stare of the body wearing her clothes.

Wearing her face.

Chloe shook her head. No, that's... that's not...

There was a blinding flash of light, one that filled the entire space and her being with a warm, expansive peace.

And the scene resolved back to Lucifer holding the body in his arms, brushing a bloodied strand of hair back from the side of her head where a terrible wound had been opened before.

The eyes still stared at nothing.

Chloe took a step back, her hand rising to her mouth.

I'm not... that's not...

The man she loved looked up from the body at her, his eyes drowning.

"Come back," he whispered, his voice broken.

"Chloe!" Azrael cried, everything in her expression, her posture, screaming terror and panic. "Get back in it! We'll get Dad!"

Azrael's terror slid through her like knives of ice - Chloe jerked back, filled with horror at the sight of the body, at Lucifer's abject despair. None of this was right! None of it made sense! With a cry, she turned to run, her movements slow and thick and wrong, and found herself staring at the barrel of a rifle and a man with a mullet walking towards her.

But he wasn't looking at her.

He was looking through her.

"Don't know how you survived, asswipe. Gunna fix that right now."

YOU!

With the force of Lucifer's violent cry, the man was thrown backwards, his finger jerking on the trigger as the rifle was thrown wide of his hand.

The space bloomed with light - none of it soft and all-encompassing and peaceful.

Everything was bathed in the baleful glow of rippling flame.

Chloe twisted to Lucifer.

The man she loved was standing, his wings out, wreathed in a roaring maelstrom of fire.

His eyes were blazing red, leaving black streams of smoke as he stepped forward, his burning gaze fixed entirely on the man scrambling to rise to his feet.

Brother, no!

Lucifer! Chloe called. Wait!

He did not, and the flames dripped from his wings as he walked, catching on oils long impregnated in the concrete, spreading swiftly to the boxes and crates stacked around them.

And everything began to burn.

"The Usher, I presume?!" Lucifer growled, his eyes flaring brighter still.

The man staggered back into shelving, his mouth wide with terror.

Lucifer's voice became a clashing, discordant cry.

ALLOW ME TO USHER YOU TO OBLIVION

STOP, BROTHER! Azrael screamed.

The man who'd shot Lucifer, who'd shot someone else that Chloe didn't want to think about at all, started to scream.

And the scream grew terribly shrill as his body slowly dissipated in a fiery spray.

"Hey! Over here!"

Chloe spun again, her mouth open in horror, her phantom of a heart pounding.

The men from her squad!

No! They couldn't be here!

GET OUT! she screamed at them.

But nobody heard her at all.

"What the hell is that thing!?"

"Wait, is that Decker?"

"Oh, shit!"

Someone pulled a trigger as the The Usher's screams cut off abruptly.

And the bullet dissipated to steam before Lucifer's face as he growled at the group, his eyes the burning hearts of twin suns.

The men were swept away, their bodies transformed to bright ash where they stood.

LUCIFER, STOP! Chloe screamed, rushing to him.

But the sight of her had the opposite effect.

His mouth opened wide, those blazing eyes briefly shuttered in anguish, and he roared.

The concrete beneath their feet liquefied, then hissed away, as everything in the warehouse exploded, before the building itself was devoured in a bright sphere of writhing fire. At its center, Lucifer rose, his form pulsing beyond the spectrum of yellows and whites to scathing, screaming blues and beyond.

FATHER! Azrael screeched, stepping back, her form bubbling as the sphere grew, consuming everything in its path. HELP!

Then she was gone.

The block on which the building sat was obliterated as the wall of all-consuming flame grew, claiming whole apartment complexes and businesses, devouring every living being within and without - workers trading out the night shift, families sitting down for dinner, drivers and drug dealers and joggers and dog walkers, cops and prostitutes and EMTs, homeless retreating to their shelters or any nook that would take them.

The souls streamed from the devastation in bright waves of light as the sphere grew, hungrily devouring their world.

Chloe screamed at Lucifer to stop, her voice without sound.

But nothing reached him.

He was lost in his own pain, unable to see anything beyond it.

Unable to stop.

Unable to pull back what he'd released.

She tried to hold him, to pull him back with contact, but her limbs passed uselessly through his molten form. She couldn't touch him in any way.

And it just seemed to cause him more pain.

The destruction doubled and tripled in size, and Chloe screamed, knowing her family, her friends, were about to die.

And he would not stop here.

The whole world would fall to him.

In desperation she looked beyond him, over the bright carcass of the earth that she stood above, for the ground was a smoldering crater beneath her.

And something caught her eye - a small piece of earth, untouched.

A patch of concrete floor, and a body.

Chloe made a small noise. A sob of disbelief and pain.

That was her body.

She was dead. She hadn't wanted to face it before, but she had to face it now.

And Lucifer, in the midst of his wrath, had protected her terribly empty shell.

With the thought, Chloe stood next to it, surrounded by embers floating like fireflies and the pulsing light of the star that Lucifer had become.

She stared down at it, and felt an odd detachment from what she had been.

A single mother. An LA cop. Living such a small life.

How strange, to have struggled so.

In that moment, with that distance, her soul woke yet again to what she truly was.

A fragment of God's power, excised with purpose, and delivered as a blessing by an angel.

More powerful in this moment than she had ever been.

The blessed soul that had worn the form of Chloe for a lifetime looked up at the blazing star of her celestial mate.

And smiled.

She lowered into the flesh, and with her own spark of power, reignited the life within.

The body arched up from the floor with a gasp.

Slowly, she rose to her feet, her gaze locked on Lucifer, and stood on her little island of untouched land in the midst of an apocalyptic fire storm.

There was little air to breathe in the miasma of ash and embers and flame.

So she made her own.

And opening her mouth, she spoke in the purest of tongues.

STOP

But Lucifer was locked as the heart of a star, his energy pouring outward endlessly, his rage and grief now an abstract function of destruction.

To save the world, she would need to save him.

The blessed soul expanded outwards, seeking the edges of his pain devouring the world.

And finding them, she enfolded them, wrapping the essence of everything she was around them.

Then slowly pulled back.

It was easy, if she did not think of being Chloe.

Did not concern herself with her own worry and fears.

Did not become small and human again.

Slowly, she drew his power inward, and slowly, the energy of his pain decreased as his awareness grew of her and what she was doing.

She drew his star to her physical form as the fires weakened and died back.

Until he was standing before her, on the little island of concrete, his wings sagging, his naked body wreathed in flame.

In her arms.

How, he kept saying, in a voice broken and weary.

How

Rest, was all the blessed soul said, as she dampened the last of his fires upon the world, extinguishing him to ashen skin.

His eyes caught her own, burning still, anguished and lost.

They shuttered briefly as he brushed her face, his gaze searching and disbelieving, then fluttered closed.

And he sank.

On top of her.

"Oh crap," Chloe murmured, suddenly finding herself supporting the full weight of Lucifer, wings and all, on a little block of concrete at the bottom of a smoldering crater.

She sank with him, supporting him as best she could, controlling their fall, until she sat holding his head on her shoulder, her other arm weaved under the mass of his wings, cradling him against her chest. The rest of him lay between her legs, stretched out on ashen ground.

"Lucifer?" she whispered, brushing his cheek and the hair that had flopped over his eyes.

He didn't respond. His mouth was parted, his eyes darkly shadowed and closed.

Completely out.

Coughing, starting to sweat with the overbearing heat, Chloe stared around herself, struggling to grasp what had happened.

She'd died. She'd really, honestly died.

And Lucifer... seeing her, he'd completely lost it.

And so many more had died.

But then... she'd done something... incredible.

She remembered it - enfolding his energy, pulling him back, drawing him near.

"I have you," she whispered, resting her cheek to his forehead as the crater around them hissed and spat.

He didn't stir.

A sound rose faintly. The chop chop chop of helicopter blades nearing.

Chloe blinked, registering it, and looked down in a panic at the mass of angel sprawled over her.

"Oh crap!" she squeaked again. "Lucifer!"

She cupped his cheek, and tried to lift his head, but he was leaden.

"Lucifer? I need you to wake up!"

The helicopter neared, its searchlight sweeping the edge of the crater. Back and forth, back and forth.

"LUCIFER! WAKE UP, PLEASE!"

She tried tucking his wings in, to narrow them at least so she could roll him over and hide them, but they were too large, too spread out. She couldn't shift enough to grasp them.

She still tried, even as the searchlight dipped into the crater, the bright blazing light seeking its center.

"Chloe!" a familiar voice cried, and suddenly hands were grasping Lucifer, pulling him up.

Smaller hands grasped her own, gathering her into a hug, and as the searchlight swept over her little island of concrete...

...they were gone.