When Chloe wakes with a jagged, violent start, she's drowning.

At least, that's what it feels like.

There's black fuzz winding down the corners of her vision, obscuring her view as her eyes shudder open. Everything is numb, and hot, and cold, all at once — she can't rip her legs free of whatever restraint binds her in place and she can't seem to part her lips to inhale against the torrent of water that shatters her face. Panic is gripping her chest, building in her throat, thrumming against the silver water that shoots past her blurred vision, until finally she's writhing free, urging her legs to move, forcing her mouth to gasp for air, and then —

"Detective."

The voice is soft. Grounding. Familiar. The panic dies as quickly as it had possessed her, and the haze that clouds her vision lifts at the cool insistence of his tone. Her mouth opens to suck in ragged gulps of air as white light floods her gaze and bites back the blackness.

She's wet. Soaking wet. As her eyes adjust and the fog in her mind fades to a dull mist her hand lands on cool, slick stone, and her fingers trace the iron grating of a circular drain.

Shower. She's in the shower. She's in the shower, fully clothed; the restraint binding her legs is nothing more than the drenched pair of jeans plastered against her and leaking navy dye onto white limestone. The blouse she's wearing is sopping wet and see-through, though this scene is a far cry from her Hot Tub High School days— it's hanging limp and heavy and drooping further from her shoulders with each prick from the shower-head.

Confusion rears its head once more as her fingers scramble along the slabs of silky stone, desperate for a grasp on something, anything; desperate for her mind to jolt to life and for the searing whistle that rings in her ears like an angry kettle to settle into silence. But she can't reach far; her hand is prevented from continuing on its wayward, blurred journey by fingers much stronger and steadier than her own.

"Chloe."

He calls for her again; by name, this time. The words are gentle, muted against the fuzzy hiss of pouring water, but they're laced with a concern that bounces against stone walls and loses itself in her hair.

She tilts her head up. Fire licks at the base of her neck and flares in smoking tendrils across her mind. Lucifer's nose meets her forehead as he leans down to meet her gaze, and his dark eyes come into clearer view as she blinks, once, choking slightly as water spills into her upturned mouth.

He's still holding her. His jacket is in a ball at the center of the bathroom and he's sitting, slumped with his back to the wall, wine-colored sleeves rolled to his forearms and black pants soaked to the thread. She's laying between his outstretched legs as he cradles her head with both hands, and as she whines to life and wriggles in his grasp he wicks the excess water from her lips, from her cheeks, from the dip in her collarbone where her shirt is wilting and peeling away.

"It's…cold," she croaks, the words leaving her with a crackling rasp. Her tongue feels like charcoal; coated with red-hot embers and near unusable, and the lips that mutter the words are dry and cracked. It's like she's erupted; burst into a single flame of volcanic proportions and left behind a crumbling pillar of ash. The water is cold — she's shivering with each freezing barb that pricks her skin and seeps beneath her clothes, but the part of her that's still sizzling with the aftershocks of her scar's nuclear meltdown is relishing in the cool relief.

The shower had been a Hail Mary; a last-ditch, frantic attempt to wake her after Lucifer's pleas had fallen on deaf and burning ears. He had carried her to the bathroom, lain her across the stone floor and pulled her against the crook of his elbows, wincing as the freezing water had drenched them both and hissed at the first touch against her scorching skin. Now, as she speaks and coughs to rid her throat of the smoke that seems to fill it, he wraps his arm around her chest, pulling her back to his breast and pressing a desperate kiss to her temple.

The arm that doesn't clutch her reaches for the metallic knob on the wall and bats at the valve. The pounding sheets of ice water stop, abruptly, and a few stray drops tickle her forehead as she shivers in the shower's wake. Without the water drumming against her she suddenly feels small — incredibly small — panting as the ringing in her ears slows with the methodic drip drip drip of the shower-head and sinking with a tremor against the arm that holds her.

Everything is freezing; the raging heat that had yanked at her scar and spilled forth into her is gone, extinguished — replaced by the biting chill of wet clothes against her and the bitter stone on her palms. He takes her hands before she can lift them to her own lips and breathe warmth back into the numb tips: as he lifts them to his mouth she wonders, absently, just how long she's been lying in here,just how long he's been cradling her between his knees with his bent head shielding her from the brunt of the glacial pour.

She murmurs unintelligibly as he holds her hands in his own and kisses her fingers: gently, slowly, one by one until there's a familiar warmth darting from the tips and thawing her shivering limbs.

"I'm sorry," he's whispering, his breath hot as it slides through her fingers. "Chloe. I'm sorry."

She's mumbling again; searching for the voice that had fled from her.

"The water, I—I thought...you're cold, I didn't—"

"Lucifer," she whispers, and the words die on his lips. Her fingers fall from his loose grip and she turns, awkwardly, pushing against the slippery stone as she pivots from his grasp to face him.

She hums lightly, a satisfied sound in the back of her throat that drags his gaze to her. "You kept your promise," she smiles, closing her eyes and letting her head fall against the crook of his neck. His hand wraps about her shoulders, drawing her into him as another quivering breath rattles her frame. There's a different sort of heat building within her, now; a liquid fire that licks and coils beneath drenched denim and draws a blush to her cheeks.

It's not the time. It's not the place. She doesn't even know where they are: if they're still at his house in the hills, if Rory is still here, if Maze and Eve have gone. She doesn't know what the hell happened to her; why the scar across her belly churned to life under the heated stare of the staff and sent her spiraling into supernova. But right now, right here, it doesn't matter. None of it matters.

He's the only thing that's real.

She folds into his grasp and her hands are racing up his collar, tangling through soaking curls as she kisses him everywhere — the edge of his lip, his cheek, his jaw, whimpering against his neck. She doesn't need to ask him. He needs her just as she needs him — needs to feel her against him, needs to know that she's real, that she's his and that he's hers and that she's here, now, with him. He's groaning at the touch of her lips against his neck; tilting his head to meet her mouth with his own as his hands loosen the ponytail that lies limp against her scalp and let her hair fall heavy about his wrists.

He doesn't bother to peel the shirt off her skin. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about the fabric plastered against her body, or that he has to shimmy the jeans from her legs with desperate abandon, or that he's still fully clothed, soaked to the bone, as he shrugs his pants down past his hips and drags her onto his lap. All he cares about is her: the way she gasps when he snakes an arm around her waist and pushes her inside him, the way she shivers — not with cold, this time — as his tongue slips inside her mouth and his fingers clasp around her hips.

He's the only thing that's real and she's the only thing that matters and they're clinging to each other as if they never expected to be found. He's whining into the wetness on her collar, breathing the scent of her in as his palms fold over her shoulders and guide her down, onto him, again and again until his name is breaking on her lips and she's crumbling in his arms. He follows her, falling apart as she calls for him with eyes glazed in soft fire.

He's panting as they settle, drawing in unsteady breaths between the gentle, searching kisses he presses to the base of her neck. Her chin is resting against the top of his head and her fingers trace hazy lines across the back of his wrinkled shirt.

She's waiting for the usual quip; for the languid, punch drunk line that tickles the still-burning embers at the pit of her stomach and draws a chuckle from her tired lips. But there's nothing. No witty remark, no self-aggrandizing purr accompanied by his hand threading its way up her thigh. There's only the sounds of his breathing, quick and shallow against her shoulder, and a wet heat on her throat as his lips travel up and down and back again.

"She's gone." He says, lifting his head from her breast and coaxing her face to his own with soft fingers. A laugh, light and breathy and tinged with relief, escapes his lips. "I think you scared her off."

"And you? Did I scare you?"

This time, he does consider a snarky remark; a return to the laissez-faire Lucifer she'd grown so accustomed to if only to defer her worry. His own words turn and rally against him: bluffing is the same as lying.

"Yes," he whispers, and the word fills the space between them with silent desperation. And then there's nothing to do but to kiss her, again, to draw her in with a hand against her hair and to steal the breath she takes through parted lips. There's no burning heat this time; no molten desire crackling in the inches between them. There's only her, flush against his chest and smooth against his stubbled jaw and enveloping the ringing echo of his word in muted warmth.

"What happened to me, Lucifer?" She breathes the words into his shirt, her lips brushing damp cotton. "The staff…I just looked at it, and—"

"I don't know." He's shaking his head, and tiny droplets fly from his hair in a frustrated flurry. "I have no idea. I've never seen anything like it, but—" he pauses as Chloe's face pales, and rushes on with frantic insistence. "I'll get to the bottom of it, Detective. I'll fix it. Whatever…this is. You have my word."

It's the second time he's given his word to her; the second time he's made an impossible promise, but they're getting easier to make — dangerously so — with every lingering touch she presses to him and with every hushed mention of his name on her lips.

"The good news is, your…rather incendiary interruption seems to have put a plug in the celestial drama. At least, for the time being. My dear sister fled not long after you…" he swallows, and motions with pursed lips to the bathroom floor. "No doubt we boththrew a bit of a wrench in her plans tonight. But I doubt she'll stop, Detective. Now she knows I won't help her. She'll be on a tear trying to commit as much glorified murder as her stomach for justice will allow. She'll be intent on creating a weapon to destroy…" Dan. Trixie. Everyone. Everything.

You.

A shooting stab flits past his heart and lodges itself in his ribcage. "Me," he finishes, numbly.

For the first time, Chloe and Lucifer are alone in his house in the hills without a rabid murderer loose and roaming the hallways. The house feels smaller without the impending doom of potential death lurking beyond each corner; emptier without the incessant threat of danger tugging at the art on the walls.

He's given her the jacket that he had discarded and thrown to the center of the bathroom. It's wrapped around her shoulders, soaking up the remnants of water that seep beneath her shirt and trickle down bare skin. It's huge on her; her hands are lost in the fabric of the sleeves and her neck is swimming in the upturned collar, but it's dry and it's warm and it smells like him — like burnt whiskey and aftershave and expensive cologne. She nuzzles her mouth against the lapel as he guides her through the darkened rooms, their wet feet leaving squelching footprints in the white carpet.

"Take whatever you want," he says, shyly, as his arm leaves its station around her waist and pulls at the sliding door to his closet. "If…if that's what you want."

She's not surprised that he has a rack of women's clothes hanging in the closet of his white-walled bachelor pad. She can't imagine she's the first female guest to have stayed the night — though she'd wager a fair bet that she is the first to have spent said night crumpled in his arms under the frozen roar of his rain shower. It's not exactly how she had envisioned her first getaway with him. She had been hoping to mark the milestone with something more romantic — a trip up the coast, a candlelit dinner of wine and Kraft-single sponsored grilled cheeses overlooking the view from this house. She hadn't expected his universe-altering, off-the-handle sister to offer them a particularly disenchanting welcome, hadn't expected to awaken at the crack of dawn wrapped in his soaking wet embrace, hadn't expected their first morning here to be spent fucking him on a shower floor with frantic, whining desperation.

And she certainly hadn't expected his…overnight guest closet to look like this. She's expecting dresses; rows and rows of sheer, low-cut silk that she's seen him rake his eyes and hands across so many times before in the packed crowd at Lux. But that was before. Before everything: before Hell, and Heaven, and those three little words.

There are no dresses. No sequined, slouching tops, no ass-grabbing leather pants, not a single shred of clothing that she's ever seen Lucifer admire with hungry appreciation. There are just…jeans. And blouses. An entire row of sensible, button-down shirts. All one size, in countless colors and tasteful patterns and much, much, nicer than the ones that are currently hanging in her closet at home, but —

"Shoes," he mumbles, breaking her stare. He's pointing with doltish sincerity toward the floor, where a neatly organized brigade of ankle boots and brown shoes stands at attention.

He looks like he's just presented her with a homemade painting of questionable quality and is waiting for her inevitable reaction of feigned politeness. He's gone slightly pale watching her body go rigid at the sight. When she does turn around, he's already rehearsing the fumbled apology in his head, his cheeks heating as the words rise up.

She's crying. There are tears spilling down her cheeks, drooping into the folds of his jacket, tilting in their course as she sniffles and faces him.

Feverish alarm sparks to life in his chest and he stumbles over himself, unsure if he should grab her and fold her into his arms or if he should wheel away and let her be; if he's gotten too close, if it's too much. She answers for him, plunging against his chest and winding her arms around his back. She loves him; so, so much more than he can know — so much more than she can squeeze into those three words. He's standing there in perplexed, relieved silence, allowing his own hands to melt against her touch.

"Not exactly the reaction I was hoping to incite," he murmurs, his voice soft as she laughs against a sob. He smiles, and clutches her tighter.

"When did you do this?" she asks, lips tilted in awe, lost in his jacket around her shoulders and his shirt pressed to her face. She shakes her head. "Don't answer that. It doesn't matter. It's perfect."

She pulls away from him and he relinquishes his hold on her with some reluctance. She shrugs his jacket off from around her shoulders and tosses it on the foot of the bed behind them, peeling the crinkled shirt from her body and unclasping the damp black bra plastered beneath. He takes a ginger seat at the foot of the bed as she undresses, watching her with unabashed reverence as her clothes hit the ground with a dull thud. She hadn't struggled to put her jeans back on; they had simply abandoned them on the slick floor of the shower as Lucifer had guided her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Her underwear had stayed on: he hadn't even bothered to paw them off of her in his scrambling urgency. He had only shoved them aside with a low growl against her neck, plunging inside her and holding the fabric away with unrelenting fingers. Now, there's a second's hesitation before she hooks two fingers through her waistband and shoves them down, wriggling free of their pressing hold.

He hasn't changed his own clothes, yet. He doesn't want to move. It's all he can do to unbutton the shirt that clings to his chest and jerk his already-haphazard pants the rest of the way down his legs, until they're mingling with her pile on the floor and he's left hanging off the edge of the bed in boxer briefs and the wilted remains of an open dress shirt.

He shifts, slightly, against the growing tightness that pulls against silk boxers. He's totally helpless against the effect she has on him, standing naked in the center of his room and reaching for the clothes he had purchased for her, never thinking she'd actually wear them, that she'd actually be here, with him — circumstances be damned. It's impossible to hide his budding interest even as he urges a nervous hand into his lap. Any other time — any other place — he'd shove himself off the bed and approach her with a wily grin, nudge himself against her thigh, whisper something filthy at the base of her neck. But this isn't any other time. He's not vulnerable around her; not anymore, but the events of the past few hours are swirling in his mind and beating at his heart and the sight of her standing in front of his bed, pure and safe and untouched, is too sacred to interrupt with a coarse word and a rough hand against her waist.

She slides on dry clothes, relishing in the well-tailored warmth they provide her. When she turns back to Lucifer she clocks his strained gaze instantly, and her eyes drop to where his hands rest in hesitant agitation against his lap. They're doing little, if anything, to hide the arousal piqued at the sight of her. His eyes float up to meet hers, dancing in abashed silence. "You'd think one of the perks of being God would be avoiding this sort of thing," he says, offering a tight-lipped smile and then faltering as he immediately second-guesses his choice of joke. "Detective, I'm sorry, I don't meant to make you uncomfortable, I—" he gestures with futility toward the closet, towards her, as if somehow she'll understand the aimless motion and the thoughts racing through his mind. She's resisting every urge to draw him into a kiss — she's never seen him so flustered; so apologetic for the body he usually peacocks with every given opportunity. It's…adorable. It's adorable.

She drops beside him on the bed and hooks a leg over his own, leaning in and dragging a kiss along his cheek. "Don't apologize," she laughs, her lips against his ear. "Not for that." Her hand falls against his leg and glides up his thigh, hovering above the bulge in his boxers until his soft pant turns ragged under the teasing heat of her fingers. Her hand drops the rest of the way, grasping him through black silk and letting her smile curve wider against him as he stiffens into her touch.

"Lucifer," she murmurs, reassuring him as he falls back against his elbows and his head arches against her lips. "I always want you."

He's mumbling into her neck, jumbled words that choke against her jaw as she lingers over him. One hand is stroking him through the fabric of his boxers as the other loops through the elastic band and urges them downwards, until his loose, hanging shirt is the only thing left clinging to his form and she's bending her head to trail soft kisses along the same path her hands take.

A questioning hum leaves her lips as his mumbling grows more desperate, more guttural as her tongue flicks across his hips and her fingers trace his length.

"What?" She smiles, taking pause so that he can speak the words he's muttering with such fierce insistence. Her nose tickles his thigh, her fingers tightening around him as her tongue flutters to a stop.

"Love…you." He draws in another sharp breath as her lips nuzzle against him again, hot and gentle and dripping with the promises he's left with her. The next word is even quieter; spoken with his eyes to the ceiling and his hands bunched in the fur throw beneath him. "Always."

When Chloe opens her eyes, the dawn has passed. The morning sun is pouring in through the windows, breaking through the silver fog that settles and rolls across the hills. She hadn't realized how tired she was — she doesn't even remember falling asleep— but it's a fair bet that her time spent unconscious on the stone floor of a bathroom was not passed in any sort of vaguely fulfilling REM state.

There's a familiar weight pressed against the scar on her stomach. Lucifer's hand is resting there, his broad palm covering the entire jagged line as the rest of him lays splayed and snoring gently beside her. They hadn't even bothered to climb under the covers for the few hours they've been asleep, nor had he even had the energy to pull his boxers back up; they've made their way to his ankles, where the elastic band pins his legs in place.

He wakes the second her breaths take on a new rhythm, like he's been keeping some kind of supernatural, third eye glued to her even as he'd slept peacefully at her side. Their rest has brought on a settled sense of clarity that shrouds last night's — and early morning's — events in a muddled haze.

"I need to have a chat with Amenadiel," Lucifer announces, as the weight on Chloe's stomach shifts and he moves to cover her with his body. He's peering down at her, dark curls framing his angled face.

"Good morning to you, too," Chloe grumbles, squinting up at him and casting a sidelong glance to her scar as the comforting pressure of his hand alleviates. She half expects it to burst into flames again without him holding her together.

"Will you be alright here?" He's tossing a nervous glance toward the window, to the door, to the darkened corner of the bedroom like a coked up German Shepherd. "I can send someone. Maze, maybe. I don't know where she's gone, but I could call her, bribe her with the promise of torture should an intruder decide to barge in—"

"I'm fine. Lucifer, you don't need to watch me twenty-four seven. I am perfectly capable. Besides. You said I scared your sister off, right? We can put her on the back burner for a while, maybe? Figure out…well, the front burner?" She snorts at her own joke and points to her stomach. Lucifer blinks, once, and shakes his head in slow condemnation. "No? Come on, like…back burner, front burner, cause of my stomach — the burning — no? Nothing? Really? You're, like, the king of bad puns."

He doesn't want to tell her that the reason for his frown is because it's too soon; because he doesn't know if there will ever come a day where he can wag a loose grin and laugh with cool composure at the memory of her crumpling in his arms.

"My puns are never bad," he intones instead, reeling back from the kiss he had been about to press to her neck. "Yours, on the other hand...perhaps you shouldn't have retired after all, Detective. All this free time. So many puns. I fear improv is the next rung on such a perilously unfunny ladder."

There's a beat; an agonizing, palpable second of silence after the teasing words tumble out. It's the first time either of them has even mentioned Dan — or Dan's hobby, as it were — outside of a…Hell capacity. The moment passes as quickly as it had come, as a smile bursts across Chloe's face and she punches him lightly on the arm that braces itself over her.

"Never," she gasps theatrically, a look of wounded horror darkening her gaze. She presses an absent kiss to the arm she had just swatted at with playful derision. "Go," she says, softly. "I'll be fine. You think Amenadiel can help? Now that we know it's your sister?"

He sighs, flopping onto his back once more and folding his hands across his chest. "I don't know. But you know what they say. Two heads are better than one…something like that. Even if it's a comically bald one."

She laughs, but there's a stilted end to her chuckle as the clarity that had accompanied the morning sun dredges up memories of the past hours — conversations and glimpses that had been masked by the blinding fog in her head and the searing bite of the shower. Rory's voice echoes clear and resounding at the center of her brain.

What is it exactly that absolves you of killing an angel? Your own brother?

She's quiet for a moment, letting Rory's words marinate in the silence. When she rolls back over, the question is scorching her tongue, begging to escape — and he's gone. There's a heavy indent in the duvet where he had just lain, and as she sits up on her elbows she can see him dressing quickly at the far end of the room, shrugging on a light blue dress shirt and a fresh pair of dark pants. He catches her gaze before she can speak; before she can muster up the courage to find the words again.

"Right. I'm off. God business, unruly sister and all that. Call me if you need anything, Detective. I'm on speed dial. I deleted all those extra apps from your phone while you slept; you should just see your messages and the little green telephone. So you don't get confused. If you need me, if you hear something, or you have one of your gut feelings — you're quite good with those — you just tap the little phone, and—"

The question on Chloe's lips goes up in smoke. His spirited ramble has extinguished all the raging fire from her mind. "You deleted all my apps?"

"Focus, Detective!" He sighs in fervent exasperation and shoves her phone into her hands. She touches a tentative finger to the screen and blinks as it lights to life. Even the photo on her lock screen is gone. Where a smiling picture of Trixie had been there's now a screenshot of the notes app with a number pasted in enormous, bolded font.

"You got rid of Trixie?" She whines, in vague annoyance. "What…what even is this?"

"It's my number," he says. "In case the mobile doesn't work and you're forced to use the landline and you don't have it memorized, which obviously you don't, or you would have known what you were looking at—look, I'm sure the offspring won't mind. You can pop her back on as soon as we can rest assured you're safe."

"I—" She's going to scold him; to assume her Detective! tone to which he had grown so accustomed, but decides against it before the words can leave her mouth. There's no use arguing with him; not when it's her he's worried about. She simply shakes her head, gazing at her newly-wiped cell phone and back up to him in pronounced bemusement. She tilts the phone up to him in acknowledgment. "Thanks."

He harrumphs in approval and slips his shoes on, adjusting the pocket square of his jacket with hurried precision and rushing to where she still sits, knees drawn, beside his hastily-vacated spot atop the bed. "I'll be back," he says, bracing his arms against the side of the bed and facing her with wide, pledging eyes. "With answers. Chloe—" And then, again, for the thousandth time, a vow whose resolution he can't even pretend to portend. "I'll make it right. For Daniel, for you, for…for us."

His forehead leans against hers and his eyes close as he drinks her in. His fingers find her own and he lifts her hand to his lips, pressing his mouth against the milky stone and the cool metal band that wraps around her ring finger. Another promise.

And then, just like that, he's gone.

Chloe has always considered herself to be as by the book as they come — she just doesn't go by Lucifer's book. For a moment she's frozen in his wake, balancing the hand he had pressed to his lips in front of her own and gazing at the ring that sits cold and aching with the absence of him.

As she lowers her hand, her fingers find the phone Lucifer had dropped into her lap and she thumbs to the home screen, relishing in her choice of two measly applications. She opens her messages and types out a quick note to Linda.

Hey. Can we meet?

The response is almost immediate. She's not surprised; she's sure that dealing with Amenadiel and Amenadiel's infant child leaves a gaping void gasping for a semblance of normal, female, human, interaction.

YES!

The three dots appear again, and then…

Mimosas?

Chloe stifles a laugh.

Sure, she writes. Rough night?

The dots appear, disappear, then reappear again like an angry game of whack-a-mole.

Charlie is teething, the text reads, followed by an emphatic line of teeth emojis. Then the cherry emojis. Then the fire. Chloe cocks her head and mutters aloud as she deciphers the line. Her phone buzzes with the answer from Linda. Boobs are on fire, she writes.

"Ah," Chloe says, speaking into silence.

She types out a quick response — On my way — and hops from the bed, smoothing the wrinkles from her side but leaving the crinkled sheets where Lucifer had slept. She likes it like that. Like he's still laying there, watching her with a languid smile and dark eyes as she laces her shoes and ties back her hair. She misses him — even though he'd only just left; even though she's going against his singular wish for her to wait here until he returns.

Really, he ought to have known better. Chloe Decker has never been one to sit still — not when she has a case. And here, right now, as she traipses through the halls and waltzes through the front doors, out into the morning air — the detective is in.

—

Linda greets her at the door, accepting the peace offering of Dom Perignon snatched from Lucifer's cellar with zealous hands. She ushers Chloe in, closing the door behind them with pointed caution.

"Shh," she hisses, as Chloe's boot catches on the stair and summons forth a haunted creak. "He just went down."

"Oh," Chloe whispers, following her across the meticulously lain path of winding carpet and wincing as her toe eeks out a whimper from an outcropping of hardwood. "Sorry."

"Sit. Sit." Linda ushers her to the couch, dropping down in limp exhaustion and uncorking the bottle in one fell swoop. The glasses are already on the coffee table; no doubt lined up in rabid anticipation for Chloe's arrival. The doctor forgoes the orange juice entirely, offering Chloe a glass brimming with champagne.

"So much for the mimosas, huh?"

"I deserve this," Linda retorts, matter-of-fact. "Amenadiel was supposed to take Charlie today. Instead, he fires the night nurse, pulls him out of daycare while I'm at work, I mean, I come home and there's a baby just…sitting in my kitchen! Just sitting! And then, he goes ahead and fires the housekeeper, who—I don't have time to vacuum, Chloe. Look at me."

"Okay. Wow. Let's just — deep breath, yeah?" She nods sympathetically to Linda, who inhales on her suggestion and sets her glass back down onto the table. The motion seems to calm her somewhat, and she turns back to Chloe with a semblance of composure returned.

"That's…part of the reason I came, actually. I think I know why Amenadiel's acting so weird."

"Oh?"

"Lucifer's sister — their sister — is here. Rory. I don't know if maybe Lucifer mentioned her in one of your sessions together, or…" Linda shakes her head, interest piqued. Chloe continues on. "Well, regardless. She's the one with the staff. Maze and Eve tracked her down, after the costume party at Lux. She's…she seems dangerous. Unpredictable. It's probably why Amenadiel's freaking out, you know? Lucifer told him about her, he just went to meet up with him — they don't know where she is, she escaped before we could stop her, so I'm sure he's just —"

"Wait, wait. Slow down. You met her? She escaped? Why am I always the last to hear about these things? Just a text would do it. Hey, Linda, I'm leaving your baby in the kitchen while you're at work because my psychopathic angel sibling is on a murderous rampage and I think she might infiltrate our house staff! You know? Just something quick, so I can be up to speed."

Linda is staring at her, wild-eyed under black-rimmed glasses. Chloe shrinks ever so slightly in her seat. "If it's any consolation, Lucifer tried to send me back to the penthouse before we met her. I think they're just trying to protect us, Linda."

"Well, that's…stupid." Four years of medical school for such insight. Chloe nods in agreement nonetheless.

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

The doctor sighs and rubs her temples with tired hands. "So, universe-ending staff in the hands of another crazy angel." She laughs hollowly as she takes a swig from her glass. "Just par for the course, I guess."

Chloe nods, biting back the lump that rises in her throat as the events of the past night pulse into discordant focus. "That's actually not why I wanted to talk to you," she says, quietly. Linda's gaze snaps to attention. "I mean, it's related. Kind of."

She pats her knees and leans forward at Chloe's shy intonation. "Lay it on me," she says, peering over the bridge of her nose.

"When Lucifer and Rory were talking, she said something, and I—it didn't make any sense. I was hoping maybe…" her voice dies in the lame, downward spiral of an aborted question. "She said Lucifer killed his brother. Another angel. But that's—that's not possible, right? He wouldn't do that. Kill an angel. He didn't even kill Michael, when—" she trails off. She's quickly verging into territory the doctor certainly isn't familiar with; at least, not yet, and Chloe isn't sure she has the capacity to relive the events of the Coliseum after last night's own festivities. For what it's worth, Linda seems to have gotten tangled in the first lines of Chloe's questions — she's so taken aback by the initial words that the Michael quotient seems to have evaded her completely.

"Chloe, you know I can't tell you what he tells me in our sessions. Doctor-patient confidentiality. I'd be breaking the law. And, more importantly, his trust."

"I know. I know. And I don't want you to — to break his trust; I don't want to, either, but I just—" she tosses her hands in the air; smacking them back to her jeans with helpless fever. "Is it true?"

Linda stares at her; wide-eyed and paralyzed. It's all the answer Chloe needs. "Why?" She chokes, the words thick as they edge past the tightness in her throat. "Why would he do that? Was he—was he evil? His brother? Did he…" she's panting, running a hand through the strands of hair peeking through her ponytail. "He attacked Lucifer, right? Tried to—tried to kill him? That's why?"

Linda is torn: torn between four years of medical school and the Hippocratic oath she's sworn; between the celestial knowledge swirling about her head; between the friend on her couch grasping for answers, begging for the truth when it's evaded her for so long already.

"No," she says, finally, settling on the answer. "In fact, I think…Lucifer attacked him."

Chloe's shaking her head; vigorously this time, retreating back against the cushions in marked denial. "I don't believe you," she says, the words hot. "That's not possible. He wouldn't do that."

"I don't think he had a choice," Linda whispers, eyes glassy.

"What does that mean?" Chloe demands. "He attacked him, he killed him, but he didn't have a choice? What the hell does that mean? Why didn't he tell me? Why—why wouldn't he tell me?"

Linda's lips are parting, opening in futile resistance against the onslaught of interrogation. Tears are stinging Chloe's eyes, and the words are tumbling out in barbed assurance. "No. You're wrong. I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Lucifer would never do that. He would never murder someone. He's—he wouldn't."

Linda is studying her now; watching her with a hawkish look. "Are you sure?" She asks, twisting the question between Chloe's ribs and letting it settle at the base of her heart. "You know him better than anyone, Chloe, and you still can't see it."

"See what?" Her voice is plaintive; she's spiraling here, on this leather couch, with a mimosa made entirely of champagne trembling on the glass table beside her.

Her mind soars to that day in the loft; the day she had seen his face. The day Pierce had drawn his gun and shot her squarely in the chest, sending her crashing into Lucifer's white-hot embrace. He was the last thing she had felt before she had succumbed to darkness — the searing heat of his hands on her cheek and the ragged scream that had clawed its way from his throat. And everything that had come after; the scene that had greeted her when she'd limped her way from the roof and stood at the bottom of the stairs. The knife, buried to the hilt in Cain's breast and Lucifer, cracked and red and panting in a frenzied cocktail of fear and satisfaction as he'd knelt beside him.

Linda doesn't need to say it. Chloe understands: suddenly, clearly, all at once. She still has so many questions; so many threads hanging loose and dangling helplessly. But the one, glaring truth is staring her down and putting the rest of her frantic uncertainties to shame.

"Because of me?" She asks, her voice a mere ghost of itself. She says it again, but it's not a question this time. "He did it for me," she whispers, seeking out Linda's curt nod of affirmation. "To keep me safe."