"Detective, I am so sorry."

The shadow of fierce intimidation clears from his face as he turns from the elevator and fixes her with a broken look. He crosses the distance between them in record time; where he had towered over Michael only moments before he now melts into her tight embrace. His hand folds behind the back of her head and draws her into his chest, clasping her tightly to him if only to stop his own fingers from trembling.

"I'm so sorry," he repeats, the words hot against her forehead. She draws back slightly to look up at him, resting her chin against his breast.

"I should have never left you." It's more to himself than to her, and she senses that he's on the brink of saying the words — those same words she never wants to hear again— It's all my fault — and she stops him before he can start.

She pulls back and faces him fully, taking up his shaking hand in hers. "Lucifer," she breathes, imploring him — forcing him — to look. "It's fine. I'm fine."

For a moment, he looks relieved: calmed, even, as she lets her hand slide back from his. It's only for a moment, though; as her hand leaves his his eyes snap to his palm, smeared and sticky with red from the deep cut across her hand.

"It's not fine," he says, quietly, fixed on her blood on his hands. "IT'S NOT FINE!" He swipes at the lone glass atop his piano and it flies across the ground, clashing and mixing with the litter of shards already on the floor. His hand grasps at the edge of the piano and he clings to it like a lifeline, bending sharply at the waist to stifle a sob.

"He took you from me." His face is shielded from her, turned away and masked by shadows, but his free hand lifts to swipe at the tears that fall from his eyes and lingers over his face.

Chloe breathes sharply and winces at the sound of his ragged breathing. She can feel his pain — it's coming off him in waves — and she knows he's crumbling at the seams. He can't keep her safe.

"Lucifer, stop." It's the detective voice: that firm, cool tone that cuts through lying suspects and mischievous daughters and, now, the wrath of the Devil — or is it God? — himself. He turns to her, panting still, wild-eyed like a deer in the headlights.

"You didn't do this. What happens to me is out of your control. I choose to be here, now, with you. I chose to be with you two days ago. Whatever that means. Whatever — whoever — that entails." She stares at him, searching his face and letting a small smile play across her lips. "I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

A beat, and he relaxes — really relaxes, this time — and walks to her. He brushes a loose strand of hair from her face and nods silently. He presses his forehead to hers and drinks her in, and she lets his choked sob die in her hair and even out into low, steady breaths. When he straightens with a hurried sniffle, his eyes still wet with tears, he doesn't trust himself to speak. Instead, he busies himself by diving behind the bar and rooting around like a pig on a truffle hunt, emerging victorious after a few seconds with a bright red, zippered, First Aid kit.

"Don't worry, Detective," he says, finally, poking his head out from the counter and fixing her with a look of playful composure. A glimmer of his usual self. "You'd be shocked at the number of holes I've had to plug in this penthouse. Although I must say, it's the first time I've had to use the First Aid kit to do so."

He grins; that same, signature, shit-eating grin to which she has grown so accustomed. She can't help but chuckle as she rolls her eyes in feigned annoyance.

"Ugh."

Heat erupts in the pit of Chloe's stomach as he bandages her hand with expert care and clinical precision. It strikes her, watching him wrap the gauze around her palm, that he seems far too deft and far too familiar with the procedure for an unruly, Devil-may-care, immortal celestial being, and she wonders if he's been changing her bandages while she sleeps, swapping places with Maze like guards on the night watch. The Devil, sleeping on the couch and changing her bandages while she sleeps in his bed. She nudges his nose, bent and peering at her hand, with her own and kisses him softly. She can't resist.

Neither can he.

The kiss is tentative, gentle; he doesn't want to hurt her and she still has so much she wants to ask him. He pulls back after a moment and looks at her with pleading eyes. He wants her; he needs her — but first, he needs her to know. He needs to tell her; here, on Earth, holding her bandaged hand.

She speaks first, and he secedes his thought to hers. "I think we're good," she laughs softly, motioning down to her hand. It looks like a catcher's mitt: what had been a simple slice was now wrapped fifty ways to Sunday. "Thank you."

He's incredulous. She's thanking him — standing in the middle of his living room, with a scar across her stomach and a bleeding palm and a bullet wound that's never quite healed in the nook of her shoulder and she's thanking him for patching up what would never have been broken if not for him.

"Lucifer, I…" Standing in the quiet penthouse, far from the heat and the chaos of celestial battle, words suddenly seem harder to find. There's nothing between them now: no flaming sword, no trek to Heaven, no evil twin — just six inches of trembling air and crumbs of glass. She wants to ask him, and he wants to tell her, and so instead they stand, waiting, in the pregnant silence. When she opens her mouth to speak again, mustering the courage and finding the words, he's staring down at the ring on her finger with soft, wide eyes.

She notices him looking and follows his stare. The sudden shyness that had enveloped her only a short while before with Maze dissolves and she makes no move to hide her hand from view. His eyes are blazing.

"The things you said—" here it comes, tumbling out all at once and without pause, "Were they real? I know it's paradise, and I know you brought me back, you came for me —" she blinks at the ring on her finger and the sight of it propels her forward with its ringing insistence of reality. "But when I was there, the things you said, before you brought me back…were they…?" She lets the rest of the thought linger. Even she's not sure what she wants to say; what she's trying to ask.

He swallows, hard. If only she knew — how long he had wanted her to know — how many ways he had tried to tell her without saying the words. Uriel. Hell. Heaven. God. All of it, for her.

It's not difficult to summon the words this time. There's nothing in his way; not anymore. But still he hesitates, staring at her disheveled and earnest and perfect — perfect — in the dim light. It's real, he wants to assure her.

"I love you," he says instead.

The words settle and blanket the air like ash on a battlefield. They fill his chest and throat and he wants to tell her again, and again, until he's hoarse and she's sick of the sound.

"I love you." A light smile, tinged with a soft, wistful pang. He wonders if she'll ever know how much. "Don't you know that, Detective?"