Amenadiel is rapt in angelic preoccupation.
"Luci. I mean, it has to be Michael, right? He's stuck here, on earth…he knows the story of that staff as well as we do. Maybe he figured — if he can't be God, no one can?"
Lucifer frowns. Normally, he would leap at the chance to accuse his dickish, hunchbacked brother of any crime to which he could even be remotely associated — but this time, he takes pause. Chloe is similarly pensive beside him.
"It wasn't him," she murmurs, and they both turn to face her. She elaborates. "When he was here, earlier, before you crashed through the window and scared him off—" Amenadiel scowls. He's wanting for context, desperately, but it doesn't seem the time to ask. He's quiet instead.
"He wanted to know how to get his wings back — that's what he had come to ask you, before…" she gestures nebulously toward herself. "We got sidetracked. He seemed genuinely upset, like he needed your help but was embarrassed to ask. Why would he humiliate himself even further if he already had the staff? If he was already planning on using it?"
Lucifer's thoughts seem to be running along a similar vein. He shakes his head bitterly. "He wouldn't. It wasn't Michael, brother. He's stupid enough to have gotten us into this mess, but he's not bold enough to finish the job. He's a bootlicker, not an anarchist. He'd do anything to get back into the Silver City. He wouldn't burn it down."
Amenadiel opens his mouth to speak, and a faint marimba chime echoes through the penthouse. The pocket of his jeans lights up as his phone buzzes incessantly against his thigh.
"Oh no, please, don't let us keep you," Lucifer insists, "It's not like we were discussing anything important."
Amenadiel shoots him a look of brotherly contempt as he slides the phone to his ear and rises from the sofa, moving slightly out of earshot. Lucifer and Chloe exchange a glance.
"Well, I don't know," they can hear him muttering, scrunched in the corner by the elevator and whispering into the phone. "No, I didn't take him for a walk this morning…No, I forgot...Yes, I expect that would be why he's crying now…Look, I'm right in the middle of something, can you just….No, we're not hanging out, we're actually discussing somethi—"
Lucifer interrupts, his voice loud and clear and dripping in devilish amusement. "Why don't you just come up, Doctor? We could use your expertise."
His shout is loud enough that the incessant chattering on the other end of Amenadiel's call goes silent, for a moment. Then, more hushed muttering— "Yes, that was Lucifer…No, look, I told you and Charlie to just wait downstairs and I'd be do—" The call goes dead and he hangs the phone at his side with a defeated sigh, turning to face Lucifer. The doors to the elevator ding open before he can speak.
"Ah! Hello, Doctor. What a surprise." Lucifer rushes to usher Linda in as she appears at the mouth of the penthouse, stroller and Charlie in tow. There's not a doubt in Chloe's mind that she's been pacing the downstairs lobby for the entirety of Amenadiel's visit, lying in wait for the opportunity to make her entrance. The nosiest master of privacy in the history of psychiatry. Amenadiel stares at her with hapless defeat.
"I thought we agreed you'd wait downstairs," he says, slowly, "I just had to discuss something with Lucifer. Besides. We don't want Charlie around…all this." He waves a vague hand about the penthouse, and Lucifer tuts in taken offense.
"It's perfectly safe for children," he rebuffs, brushing the broken glass from Linda's path with a bare foot. "The little urchin is here all the time, isn't she, Detective?"
Chloe offers Linda a knowing glance. "I would keep the…the stroller hood down, if I were you," she teases, cupping her hands around her mouth in a mock whisper and laughing off Lucifer's look of abject betrayal.
"Oh, that's alright," Linda says, parking the stroller next to the piano. "He's tired himself out from all the crying." She shoots a pointed glare at Amenadiel, who shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "So, what are we doing here, anyway? Angel conference?" The look of hungry intrigue fades as her gaze shifts to Chloe, still dressed only in Lucifer's white shirt and sporting unkempt, un-ponytailed hair. Dawning realization frames her face and she smacks Amenadiel's leg.
"Oh," she says, "Oh." She flicks at him again. "Surely this can wait."
"Ah, finally — a woman of sense. Thank you, Doctor. Would you believe that's what I told him?" Lucifer says. "He's quite stubborn." At Amenadiel's shadowy glare, he relents. "Though, I suppose, rightfully so. It appears we have a situation on our hands."
"A situation?" Linda sits forward, peering between Lucifer and Chloe with pronounced, yet guarded interest. "I'm not gonna get skewered again, am I? I know how this celestial drama ends. Someone is always getting rotisseried, and it will not be me again, Lucifer, we're not that good of friends—" A marked silence draws across the room. Everyone is staring — staring — at Chloe. She only shrugs.
"I think you're safe, Linda," Chloe says, matter-of-fact. "I took one for the team." She laughs good naturedly and nudges Lucifer beside her. For once, he doesn't return her smile. His eyes are churning. Too soon.
Linda is staring, mouth agape. "You—what? Okay, rewind. What did I miss? Was I in a coma?"
Lucifer sighs and sits forward, clapping his hands with focused insistence. "Right, listen up, Doctor, because we haven't got much time and we need your invaluable insight. It would seem I'm God, Dan's in Hell, Heaven's most potent artifact has been turned into a potentially universe-erasing weapon and has been stolen by a nameless, faceless, clubgoer, and Michael—" he pauses, and for all of his jaunty summarizing he seems unable to finish the rest in similar fashion. "Michael indeed…skewered the Detective. With said staff. Hence the 'it-becoming-a-terrifying-weapon' thing. I got her back, though." He rushes through the last part, a cocktail of pain and pride on his tongue.
Linda blinks. She dips into the purse at her shoulder and wordlessly removes her phone, tapping away at the screen and holding it to her ear in the dim silence. "Yeah, hi," she says, voice clipped and calm and her eyes glued on where Lucifer and Chloe sit ragged and worn against the couch. It's a far cry from the one with which she's so familiar, where Lucifer — and Chloe — had appeared crisp and composed so many times before; but sitting across from them now, separated by a sea of shattered glass and tired, nervous, eyes, she's suddenly feeling very at home. "I need you to clear my schedule." She crosses her legs and settles into her seat, folding her hands in her lap.
The Doctor is in.
They start from the beginning.
Not much fazes Linda Martin anymore, but Lucifer's godly admission incites a reflective chuckle after a few cloying minutes of absolute and total silence.
"So…you're God. I mean, the God is retired, so now you're God. But you're not God God, you're you. But you're God."
"Insightful as ever. Yes, that about covers it."
"Huh." She crinkles her nose, black rimmed glasses sliding part of the way down her face as she examines him, closely. "And why do you think you came back from Heaven?"
"Well, I don't know," he says, exasperated. "I should have burned up, I did burn up, but then…" he shrugs slightly. "Then I was back."
Chloe's chest tightens at the memory. Her hands, wrapped around the hilt of the Blade, straddling Michael with tears stinging her eyes and a scream ripping her throat, and Lucifer — Lucifer — appearing at her side like a mirage on the desert sun.
"Lucifer, you didn't just come back. You were banished from Heaven. Something changed that. Something huge."
"I…" He swallows weakly, aware of Chloe at his side and Linda and Amenadiel watching him with expectant stares. "I don't know," he says, finally. "Perhaps Heaven finally found me worthy, found me worth saving."
"See, that's just it, Lucifer." Linda is probing now, sitting at the edge of her seat with that hunger in her eyes, like a bloodhound on a scent. "I don't think Heaven decided anything at all. I think you did." She presses on at his blank gaze, noticing Chloe's eyes begin to narrow as she catches on well before him.
"Your wings, your devil face, your vulnerability…no one was responsible for those things except for you. You self-actualize. I don't think a freak of nature brought you back, Lucifer. I think you realized you were worthy. That you deserved to be there. I think—" she pauses, and smiles warmly at Chloe, "Someone helped you to get there."
He's silent, taking in Linda's words and running a hand through tangled hair. Before he can speak, Chloe shifts to face him, launching off an encouraging nod from Linda. "She's right," Chloe whispers, eyes wide and foggy with love — pure love — as the full weight of his sacrifice crashes clear into focus. "You were ready to die, Lucifer — to really die, just so that I could go back. You knew what would happen if you tried to come get me, and you did it anyway. You left everything behind."
"There was nothing to leave behind." He's shaking his head, fixing her with soft, sad eyes and the husk of a voice. "Not without you."
Linda breathes softly, her face kind and glasses shimmering against the dancing lights of the city. "Lucifer," she says, "You didn't come back because someone, or something, found you worthy. You came back because you realized you are. Worthy of Heaven, worthy of her, worthy of…"
"Love," Lucifer says, simply and softly. He's staring past Linda, past the wall of Scotch that bathes the penthouse in an orange glow.
"You've spent millennia asking other people what they want. Granting favors, fulfilling desires. I think, for the first time…maybe you finally realized your own."
"Is that true?" Chloe is looking at him now, searching his eyes, and there's no shadow of celestial magic when she speaks, no mojo. "What do you desire?"
He's not trapped beneath her gaze when he responds; not hypnotized by the enticing allure of their shared power. He's only honest, looking at her with deep brown eyes and a small, lilting smile. "You, Chloe," he murmurs, his voice thick and low and the words reserved only for her. "For you to choose me, and for me to…deserve you."
Linda leans back contentedly against the pillows; watches as Lucifer's gaze tears reluctantly from Chloe's and he gathers a reassuring smile from Amenadiel before facing forward.
"You see," Linda says, gently, "All you." A smile breaks out across her face — a proud smile, beaming and cutting through the tender haze that had fallen over the room. "Well, and me. A little bit. I mean, I know you're not in love with me, but as your therapist I do feel like maybe I deserve a little credit—"
She does deserve some credit, but he's not looking at her. She's not sure he's even hearing her — though that would certainly be nothing new. He only has eyes for the Detective beside him, small and tired and draped in his oversized shirt and burning with fire that seeps and spills into him.
It's only the vague reminder of the universe-ending, colossally problematic, now-missing piece of Heavenly wood that stops — barely stops — Lucifer from invoking whatever godly gifts remain untapped in order to vanish Linda and Amenadiel from the room and take Chloe on the couch right there and right then. She seems to have the same thought, but a decidedly larger semblance of professionalism about her— and looks away from him suddenly, swallowing the faint whine that had risen up at the sight of him and at the sight of his look.
She clears her throat, if only to mask the last remnants of the low hum that had escaped her, and turns a look of feigned composure to Linda and Amenadiel.
"Wow," Linda says, breaking the tension and nodding to herself. "This is wildly uncomfortable. "
Lucifer tuts. "You're telling me," he mutters, shifting and adjusting his robe with obvious discomfort.
Amenadiel speaks up, eager to avoid yet another traumatic sexual confrontation in the span of a single night. "Your breakthrough won't mean anything if we don't find the staff, Luci," he says, ever the rationalist. Lucifer sighs, returning to reality — to the case — with a sulking huff.
"This staff," Linda interjects, curiosity piqued once more, "How does it work, exactly? The whole 'ushering-in-the-end-times' thing. Someone just has to take a swing with it, and poof?"
"No, not poof, Doctor." Lucifer shakes his head. "It's a bit more…nuanced than that, I'm afraid. Though perhaps we should be glad of that. Some tree-hugging hipster could be twirling it around in a coffee shop as we speak." Or someone more sinister. The thought makes him squirm ever so slightly in his seat.
Amenadiel butts in, sensing Lucifer's rigidity. "Whoever wields the staff has to do so with intent. It's why Zadkiel was the perfect candidate. Righteous, seeking justice. He fulfilled the staff's purpose — to bless life, to uphold good." He gesticulates slightly, gearing himself up to go on. "Now that the staff is impure…if it were to fall into the wrong hands, hands that intended it to be used for evil…well, it would find its home there. It's attracted to impurity, now. Once it finds its match in owner, it'll…" he pauses. "Fulfill its purpose."
"So, it won't have the same effect as the Blade?" Chloe asks, "It doesn't encourage you to kill? It just…waits for someone with the right intent to come along?"
"Yes, but…" Amenadiel's voice peters out as his own thoughts catch up to him and threaten to consume the words in his throat. "It's not just that. The staff grows with its partner, molds to them. It's already impure: if the wrong person finds it, molds it to their will…there's no limit to the darkness it can hold. The more atrocities they commit, the more powerful it will become — the harder it'll be to find it, to reverse its effects."
Chloe's thinking, locking eyes with Linda across the couch as both their minds work overtime to keep up with this crash course in celestial mythology.
"So, it's like a Horcrux," Chloe says, finally, shrugging at Linda and receiving a Yeah, that's kinda where I was at, too — glance in return before turning her gaze to Lucifer and Amenadiel. They're both looking at her with the same expression of utter bewilderment.
"What?" She says, "Trixie's reading Harry Potter. We listen to the audio books in the car."
"Okay, it's not like a Horcrux, Detective, honestly, what is it with you people and the celestial Hogwarts obsession? There is no angel school in the sky," he says, looking pointedly to Linda, who glances away in a show of amused embarrassment, "And there are no Horcruxes. It is a murderous, scar-inducing celestial staff belonging to a man in a robe. It's—well, no, I suppose it is a bit like a Horcrux."
Chloe purses her lips. The whole thing is a bit ridiculous, even for her; I mean — a staff with the untapped potential to wipe out the entire universe lost in Los Angeles with absolutely no way of being found and not a single lead — it's almost enough to summon up a hollow laugh. Amenadiel seems to be following the same line of reasoning, but Lucifer — Lucifer — stands to his feet in a sudden burst of optimism.
"I know how to find it," he crows, eyes sparkling with a sudden haste as he looks about at the assorted, rag-tag bunch on the couch. He points to Chloe, a wicked grin settling across his face. "How do you feel about one last sting at Lux, Detective?" Her eyes meet his, and his heart trembles against his chest — he can't help it. "For old times' sake."