Chloe looked at her watch. Three minutes later than the last time she'd looked. She huffed, she randomly thought that waiting would be her Hell loop. She'd spend an eternity looking at her watch seeing that it wasn't yet the right time for whatever she was waiting for. She then remembered that your Hell loop is based on what you feel most guilty about, so unless she failed to save a baby because she was waiting for something, she already knew what her Hell loop would be and it was something much, much worse.

She shuddered at the image that had haunted her dreams for months when Lucifer had returned to Hell to protect them all from the demons who were finding too much freedom with their king absent. She'd realized then what awaits her in the Hell loop she'd forged. She would spend eternity killing the man she loved, watching Lucifer die, again and again and again, always by her own hand.

Some nights she relived the evening in the penthouse, but in the nightmare her hand didn't tremble; she emptied the vial into his wine, then sat silently as she watched him drink it before he fell lifeless to the floor. Other nights she stood wordlessly watching him pour the contents into his own mouth as they stood near the line of the soup kitchen. In both phantasms, her thoughts screamed for him to stop, but her voice wouldn't work and her body was frozen in place, refusing to reach out to knock the poison from his hand.

She shuddered at the thought. There would be time enough for that torment when she faced it. For now she pushed it from her mind and focused on the fact that he had just texted her. His private jet had just landed and he'd be out to the arrivals area where she waited shortly.

The two weeks he'd been away had felt like an eternity. He'd had to leave for business and had spent the last fourteen days in Italy. She was in the middle of a ridiculously convoluted case which had prevented her from going with him. She'd likely have been able to get through the case faster had he been with her, but unfortunately a shift in brass had resulted in his consultant's credentials being temporarily suspended while the new Lieutenant reviewed his background. It was infuriating and she missed having him by her side, both on the job and off.

She smiled as she thought of how good it was going to feel to get him back to the penthouse. She knew he'd be eager to get her into bed, truth be told, she was eager for that to, but just being near him was what she was truly craving. She felt off balance when he wasn't around, like her entire world was out of step.

As she waited for him, she quickly pulled the elastic from her hair and bent at the waist, tossing her hair forward. She tussled it a few times with her fingers before straightening up quickly so that her hair flipped back. It fell in soft waves around her face and shoulders and she used the large glass door she stood beside as a mirror to position a few strands where she wanted them.

"Stunning," she heard his voice from behind her. She turned to see him standing a few feet away.

She closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I'm so glad you're home!" she breathed against his shoulder as she felt herself melting against him. She breathed in his scent and felt a slight shiver go through her. The unmistakable combination of whiskey, smoke and his natural scent was intoxicating. She instantly felt the familiar urge to pin him against the nearest surface and mount him.

"I've missed you too, Detective," he replied quietly. He leaned his head back just far enough to be able to look at her face. "Truly, you are a sight for sore eyes." He smiled as he brushed a few strands of hair from her cheek then leaned in to kiss her.

The kiss started out innocently enough, but as soon as his lips touched hers, the instinct she'd been feeling flared from a flame to a full-blown inferno and she all but lost her senses. She pressed herself against him as fully as she could and deepened the kiss as she curled her fingers into his hair. As she felt his hand press against her lower back, she moaned quietly. There was something about the feeling of his hand against that one spot that caused her to literally go weak in the knees.

"Well now, if that's the welcome home I'm going to get when I return from a business trip, I'll have to travel for work more often," he teased. He chuckled and the low, rich sound of his voice pushed all the dark thoughts she'd had only moments before from her mind.

"No way. I don't care if I'm investigating the murder of the president; from now on if you're going international, I'm going with you. I hate when you're not close by," she retorted as she tucked herself into his side and they began making their way to the car he had waiting outside.

"I will certainly not argue with you, Detective. I've missed you terribly and have no desire to repeat the last two weeks," he assured her. "Video calls simply don't compare to the real thing."

"So why the car service today? I would have thought you'd be chomping at the bit to get behind the wheel of the 'Vette. Or is it just that you didn't trust me to dive it to come pick you up?" she teased.

"Detective, I trust you implicitly. My choice to use the car service today was strictly strategic," he commented as they reached the waiting limo. He handed the small suitcase he'd been wheeling along to the driver as he gestured for Chloe to get in. She did and he followed her. Once they were in and the driver had shut the door, he pulled her close and caressed her face. "You see, I knew my flight would be landing smack in the middle of LA's worst traffic hours. Which means that it is going to take much, much longer for us to get home. Now, that would be an agonizingly frustrating waste of time, given that I've not been able to get my hands on you for the last two weeks. This way," he put his hands around her waist and guided her onto his lap, "someone else can keep their hands on the wheel while I put mine to far better use." He slid his hand up her thigh. It was rare that she wore jeans, but he loved it when she did. There was something about the way they clung to her legs that drove him wild.

"Oh, I do love the way you think," she purred into his ear as she shifted so that she was straddling him. She moved to wrap her arms around his neck when her surprise caught his eye.

"Hello," he said, stretching out the sound of the "O". He gently took her left hand in his right and repositioned her arm so that he could look down at the inside of her wrist. There was a tattoo there which was healed, but clearly new. "What's this, Detective?" He examined the simple design, it was a black outline without shading and looked like a compass. From top to bottom it spanned perhaps two inches and was the same width; each arm was roughly half an inch wide where they connected and tapered to a point. In the very center of the design was a smaller version of the shape, this one roughly half an inch from tip to tail.

"So observant. I thought we'd at least make it back to the penthouse before you noticed it," Chloe commented.

"Well, I spend a fair amount of time with this brilliant police detective who has a particularly keen eye for detail. It would seem that the trait is rubbing off on me," he teased.

Chloe giggled. "It's something that I had been thinking of getting for a while; it's a Native American symbol that represents hope and guidance." She ran a finger over the design.

"I suppose a compass for guidance makes sense," he commented.

"Actually, it represents something that was used as a kind of compass, but that's not what the design actually is," she told him. She smiled as she looked down at the tattoo for a few seconds before looking back at him. She held his gaze as she explained. "It's a Morning Star."

"A Morning Star?" he asked, somewhat taken aback. He thought he was familiar with every symbol associated with his name, but this wasn't one he'd ever seen before.

"The Indigenous people of North America would use the morning star to navigate and keep their bearings as they tracked animals or sought more fertile lands for their communities. It was viewed as a light of hope, a glimpse of the brilliance to come in each new day. It was also thought to be a connection to all spirits who had passed before, its presence showing that the ancestors continued to watch over and protect those who were here and the generations that would come," she told him.

He stared down at her wrist as she spoke. Despite what the symbol might represent to others, he read the deeper meaning behind her choosing it; she'd marked herself as his. The design was her way of declaring their bond forever more. She'd chosen him once again, this time indelibly making his name, making him a permanent part of herself.

"Now, even if we're apart, I have you with me, in a way," she commented almost awkwardly.

"I don't know what to say," he murmured as he brushed his fingers over the lines.

"Well, as long as you aren't about to say you hate it, anything would be fine," she giggled again. She'd been unsure how he would react to the tattoo, but he seemed pleased, if not a little surprised by it.

"I could never hate any part of you," he told her. He brought her wrist to his face and placed a single, soft kiss over the center of the tattoo. "You chose this design for me?" he looked up at her now with a grin that she thought looked almost shy somehow.

"I chose this design because you, my Morningstar, are the source hope and the guiding light in my life," she answered as she rested her right hand on his shoulder so that her fingertips bushed against the back of his neck. "As long as I have you, I'll never be lost again."

For the first time he could recall, Lucifer was rendered utterly speechless. He had no words to explain to her how much the gesture meant to him. "Chloe," he whispered as he brought his hands to the sides of her face and drew her down to his. He kissed her gently before leaning his forehead against hers. "I love you."