When Lucifer departs on his spirited quest to retrieve Amenadiel, he leaves Chloe curled in the plush duvet of his bed, comforted in the resounding knowledge that she will certainly, undoubtedly, stay put. One too many surprise appearances at her front door after he had figured out how to install Find My Friends — "No, I wasn't stalking you, Detective, I was keeping tabs on the Brittanies to ensure they didn't get lost on the way to Lux, and I happened to see that you weren't at home, so I thought perhaps there was a case and you had forgotten to call me, which has happened before, you know" — had resulted in Chloe permanently blocking him years ago in a huff of exasperation. If he hadn't had his privileges revoked, he might have seen her as she tore from the confines of his house and sped off to Linda's the second his feathery departure settled into silence.

He arrives back at the penthouse contented in his cone of ignorance. Amenadiel is already there, pacing the length of the living room and slapping the top of the piano in a show of impatient fervor as Lucifer lands on the balcony and dusts his shoulders.

"Ah—ah," he darts to where his brother stands and plucks his hand from the piano, depositing it back to Amenadiel's side with a revolted frown. "Hands to ourselves."

"Sorry," he says, gruffly, glancing briefly to his hands and then straightening again as he recover his purpose. "Luci, where the hell have you been? You texted me hours ago!" Amenadiel fishes his phone from his pocket and shoves it toward his brother, fingering through the string of messages Lucifer had sent in the early hours of the morning. He reads them aloud in a voice thick with anxious perplexity.

Need to talk to you.

Rory paid me a visit.

Were you aware she's a raging psychopath?

She has the — Amenadiel pauses here in his dramatic reading and furrows his brow. "Staff? Does this mean staff?" He's hovering above the emojis that accompany the message — a wizard and a pine tree, this time.

"Oh, for the love of—do any of you know how to text? Seriously, I'm going to send you all to the Detective's offspring for a crash course—yes. Yes. A staff. The staff."

Amenadiel shakes his head in unqualified wonder. He doesn't even bother to respond, instead returning his gaze to the phone and continuing to read the wall of text that litters the screen.

Wants to wipe out universe and start over.

Justice?

Meet me at penthouse in the morning.

Also, she tried to kill Eve.

Need your help, brother.

The Detective…

"The Detective what? That's the last text you sent me, and then nothing! I've been waiting here for hours, Luci, with no idea where you are and with just this to go on! Rory's here? On earth? With the staff? And what does this mean, justice? And Chloe, what is this about Chloe? Is she alright? I'm picking at scraps here, Luci, you need to help me out—do I need to be worried for Charlie? For Linda? I fired the night nurse before I got here, and the housekeeper, and pulled him out of daycare for the day, I mean—"

Lucifer's hands shoot to the sky in hurried capitulation. "Relax! Relax, brother. Don't…pop your cork just yet." His voice has taken on its usual sheen of silky composure, but there's a nervous glint behind his eyes. It doesn't escape Amenadiel, who has since ceased his pacing and has taken a seat on the edge of the piano bench, eyeing his brother with a narrowed gaze.

His explosive interrogation shudders to a halt, leaving them in pensive silence. Amenadiel breaks it once more as he leans forward, pulling his weight to his elbows.

"Is Eve alright?"

"What? Oh, yes. Yes, she's fine." Lucifer puffs dismissively - he cares for her, cares about her, but she's not the one gnawing on the inside of his brain, seeping into the furthest corners of his chest and yanking at his heart with every precarious moment that ticks away.

"And Chloe?"

Lucifer isn't looking at him; he's facing away, head tilted toward the stone floor as his brother's questions rumble past. But he turns as the name passes through Amenadiel's lips, his back rigid as his brother breathes life into the thoughts that claw against his mind and drum at his throat.

"She's…" He shakes his head; allows a quiet, hollow laugh to spill into silence. When he meets Amenadiel's gaze his own eyes are glazed with tears, and his lips are hooked in a wistful, humorless smile. "There's something happening to her. Something to do with that damned staff; Rory's hurting her, it's hurting her, and I…I can't make it stop. I don't even know how to start."

There's a beat as Amenadiel's gaze softens; as the frustration that had laced his solemn form dissipates in a sympathetic fog.

"Please," Lucifer whispers. "Help me. I have to stop her, before…"

Before the universe ends. Before our idiot sister hits reset on all of civilization and everything beyond. Before there's no Heaven, or Hell, that awaits anyone at all.

That's what he should say. He's God, after all; the universe is his newfound charge, and the thought of its imminent destruction should be the only one anchored to his mind. But now, here, as he implores his brother with a pleading stare, the universe that hangs in the balance — his universe, now — begins and ends with her.

"Before it's too late."

Amenadiel is already nodding his head. "Tell me everything."

When Lucifer finishes his tale of the evening's events — strategically omitting from his retelling what had occurred after Chloe had finally come to on the shower floor — Amenadiel is staring past him, allowing his eyes to glaze over the illuminated wall of Scotch that lines the bar.

"Rory?" He repeats, incredulous. "Baby Rory?"

"The very same. I suppose this is what I get for spending her more malleable years down in Hell. Just think of how all this…spunk could have been better directed. We could have had quite the angel on our team. Now I'm afraid we have one batting against us. Rather violently, I might add."

"I don't believe this. Father never would have tolerated this."

"Exactly," Lucifer grumbles, vague annoyance tinging his tone. "Why d'you think she's just now imparted unto us the wisdom of her master plan? You think she just conveniently finished drafting it up right when Dad popped off to his alternate universe? She was clearly waiting to seize the opportunity. Thought I'd be raring at the bit to join her, as well. But my reluctance doesn't seem to have inspired a snag in her plan. If anything I'm afraid I might have added fuel to the angelic fire."

"Luci, don't you see? This is a test. Your first real test. She's pushing the boundaries, seeing how far you'll let her go. You need to show her — show our siblings — that you won't let Father's legacy slip away. You need to assert your authority; let them see your powers. Let her see what she's up against."

A pause. Lucifer swallows the dryness that settles in his throat.

"That's exactly the issue," he hisses, through gritted teeth. It's paining him to say the words; to humble himself in front of the sage elder brother who had knelt to him only days before. "I don't have any bloody powers. Not one…godly perk. Unless — do you think Dad left them in Charlie's toy again? Before he dropped off the face of the universe? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he knew what would happen — all-seeing, etcetera, so on and so forth — and he left them for me to find, so that Michael would't get to them first, and —" He's revving himself up now, bursting to life in enthusiastic vigor like a sputtering engine. Amenadiel is frowning; absorbing the words with a hardened expression.

"You don't have any powers?"

"Is this really the time to gloat? Surely there will be other opportunities for you to rub this in my face—"

"No, Luci. I'm not gloating. I'm just…" a smile breaks across Amenadiel's face, pure and sizzling with the heat of sudden understanding. "I think this is a good thing," he says, finally.

"A good thing? You think it's a good thing that I'm God, that I've been elected God, and that I'm no different than I was when I crawled my way out of the depths of Hell? You think that bodes well for the future of humanity, do you?"

"You are different, Luci! You might not have Dad's powers, sure, but you're not the same man I tracked down five years ago. You're different. Better. Good. Capable. Listen, what if Dad always knew you were going to replace him? Hell was the ultimate test. And the final step you had to take, Chloe, you—" He watches Lucifer's expression; watches as it softens and contorts to pronounced concern at the name. "You went to Heaven for her. You died for her. It was purely selfless, Luci. You love her. And you told her, didn't you?"

His eyes flick up to Amenadiel, betraying the rest of his body as it straightens against the heated question. He relents.

"Well," he tuts, suddenly sheepish, "Only took dying to figure it out, but…" he swirls his tongue across white teeth; tugs at the inside of his gum. "Yes. Of course I did, I do, I—I always have." He sniffs and glances away, slightly chagrined, tilting the conversation with an agitated roll of his shoulders. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like you didn't know, looming over my shoulder all those years. Breathing your little whispers."

Amenadiel smiles, and for a brief, hanging moment the gravity of Lucifer's news seems to blur in the cloud of fraternal relief that settles about the room. It's quickly broken by Lucifer's next words, stilted and rushed in an effort to cauterize the emotion he's strummed to life in his own chest. "But we can just forget that heartwarming revelation if we can't stop Rory on her hellaciously ill-conceived warpath. All of Dad's foreshadowing — if that's indeed what it was — will have been for nothing."

He drops to the edge of the couch, kneading his fingers into the leather as he leans against his palms. His voice is crimped; balking against searing frustration. "And if I don't have Dad's powers— if I can't stop my own sister — what good am I? What good am I to anyone? To the Detective?"

"Luci, we will figure this out. You don't have to do it alone."

Lucifer looks as though he's about to snap; as if he's about to turn on his brother with a snarl and a lashing word. But Amenadiel's declaration stupefies him as it simmers for a moment in the brooding quietude, and the cogs seem to click into place.

"Yes," he says, rising from the couch with a resurgence of stamina and crossing the distance to the bar. He pours himself a drink with deft hands, downing it in a single sip and sending the glass skimming across the top of the bar. "Yes. Together. That's it."

Amenadiel shrugs. He's no stranger to being left in the dust after he's dragged his brother the entire way to the finish line, and so he merely waits for the revelation to envelop him as well.

"No, don't you see? What if that's exactly it? Oh—" he chuckles, again, but this time the laugh is an appreciative one, full and echoing from the far corners of the bedroom. "That is good. Classic Dad, veiled even from beyond the veil." He pours another drink and slides it to Amenadiel, who catches it with a wary hand.

"I don't have any powers," Lucifer repeats, but this time it's spoken as if an almighty truth is hidden within the folds. He's staring at Amenadiel with waiting insistence, rapping his fingers impatiently against the bar as his brother frowns at the words. "What if Dad never intended for anyone to take up his mantle? Or — His powers, at least. What if that was his plan all along? Make us think he's retiring, giving up his powers to the worthiest child, let the true colors run wild while we all fight like dogs for something that doesn't even exist. There was never anything to inherit. The whole thing was a sham. He left and he took his powers right along with him. I'm not God, I'm just—"

"Luci, you're right," Amenadiel interrupts, standing with sudden force and nearly sending his drink toppling to the ground. "You're not God."

"Well, it stings a bit more when you say it, but—"

"Dad was God. He'll always be God. But he left you with the keys. He made the universe, Lucifer. He used those powers to create Earth, Heaven, Hell, everything — everyone — in between. No one had a choice in the matter. But you—" Amenadiel's smile is blinding; filling his face and widening ever still as the dawning realization breaks across his brow. "You were chosen. That's something Dad never had. Something he never could have. Of all the angels, Luci, they bowed to you. They want you to lead them. I think you're right — I don't think Dad ever intended for another God to take his place. Not in the same way, at least. I think he just wanted a leader. A keeper. Someone he trusts to guard the creation he spent billions of years perfecting. Someone who will ensure that it doesn't fail. That's you, Luci."

Lucifer is nodding along in absent reflection — there are a thousand thoughts running a thousand different ways through his head and he's struggling to hear Amenadiel above the ruckus thrashing against his own mind. "He never wanted me to do it alone," he muses, a twinge of fondness diluting the thought. "If I don't have his powers — if no one's picking up right where He left so abruptly off…then I suppose everyone is pitching in. All those angels, all those powers we've all self-actualized into being; they'll be put to uses Dad never even would have considered. And I'm supposed to…" he pauses. "Delegate. It's like He's abdicated the throne and gone full Rousseau, compelled us all into some kind of Heavenly democracy of which I'm now the — what? President? Prime Minister? What kind of banal, democratically inclined title shall I assume now that we've deciphered what I can only pray to — well, no one — is his final riddle?"

He can't help the quip, but there's something distinctly comforting in the hazy, fevered realization that now washes over them. The gaping, swallowing aloneness of his new position — the overwhelming, all-consuming gravity and the weight upon his shoulders — had been more daunting than he had even had time to consider. He can only feel the weight as it begins to lift from his shoulders — warden of the universe, keeper of the keys — it's still a looming task, and one whose future now hangs in uncertain balance — but he has help. He doesn't have to see all; be all. He has a hundred sets of trusted eyes; a hundred wings at his back and a hundred powers self-actualized into existence beyond the reach and scope of dear old Dad himself, so that one day — today — they may be used to fill the void He's left behind.

"As much as I appreciate this revelatory session — the Doctor is rubbing off on you, brother —" Lucifer tuts, smoothing out a crease on his jacket and adjusting his pocket square with an animated flair. "It would appear that my current plan of waiting around to become all-powerful and then simply banishing our rampaging sister to her room is no longer a viable option."

"No." Amenadiel sighs, though whether it's in response to Lucifer's Plan A or the thought of his baby sister destroying the universe in one fell swoop is impossible to tell.

"Whatever she's doing, this…hunt for justice, Jimmy Barnes' murder — it's tainting the staff, yes?"

"Yes. Each time it takes a life, the darkness within it grows. Like owner, like staff."

"Then there must be a way to reverse it. It is Heavenly, after all, there must be some way to restore it to...factory settings. Make it pure again." Lucifer scoffs. "Surely if the Lord of Hell can blast back through the Pearly Gates and emerge unscathed a piece of wood can be similarly redeemed."

Amenadiel falters. "It's not that simple. You know the stories. We were always warned about what would happen should the staff fall into evil hands. No one ever told us what to do if it did. I'm not sure there is a way to turn it back, not if Dad's intention was to punish our failing—"

"There's a way," Lucifer growls. The relief that had fueled him through the better part of their godly epiphany has reached the end of its tether at the sight of this roadblock. "There has to be a way."

Because if there isn't…

"There has to be," he says again, drowning the doubt that creeps behind his tongue and willing his declaration into existence.

It's afternoon by the time either of them speak again. Amenadiel has withdrawn to the desk Chloe set up in the corner of the living room, where leather-bound books are littering the oak surface and arcane script is pouring over the edge, gurgling hexes onto the floor.

Lucifer is similarly engaged, hunched over the glass coffee table with his iPhone in hand. He tilts the screen far from prying eyes as he peruses the google search results for his latest entry — How did those magical children destroy the Horcruxes — he may as well attempt to ride the wave of inspiration these novels have seemed to imbue in both the Doctor and the Detective.

He's halfway down a wikipedia rabbit hole when Amenadiel lurches from the desk and trots to the couch. "I have something."

He drops a heavy tome into Lucifer's waiting lap, where a crude drawing of something akin to Zadkiel's staff is scrawled across the page. Lucifer peers closer as he skims the words beneath the sketch — Amenadiel chooses to ignore the fact that the hours he's spent translating the meager line could have been mitigated entirely had his multilingual brother simply bothered to help.

"It's the myth," Lucifer says. "The same one we heard in the Silver City."

Amenadiel nods. "It seems we weren't getting the full story."

Lucifer looks closer. The language is tricky to decipher, even for him — either that, or his mind has traveled so far elsewhere that it's growing increasingly difficult to rein him into the page. When his focus finally meets the words, his eyes darken at the details which had been forgone in their Silver City tales.

"Well, on the bright side, it looks like it can be reversed," Amenadiel says, pawing nervously at the page as they both peer at the text. He reads out a rough translation, eyes furrowed against the fading ink. "By…blessing life that's been taken by evil. Purifying it once more." He straightens, lips parting as he grimaces in anticipation of Lucifer's next words.

"Well! That is thrillingly vague. Did I miss some sort of celestial conference while I was in Hell? One where you all collectively decided to speak in tongues for the rest of eternity?" Lucifer sighs at Amenadiel's chiding glance, and looks back to the text with a huff of strained intent. "Mm," he says, pressing his index finger to his lips as his eyes flick over the page. "Right. So, if I'm reading this latest riddle correctly, all I have to do to save the Detective is restore justice to offset my sister's own unjust justice. It's not convoluted in the slightest," he growls, voice dripping in sarcasm.

"This is good, Luci. This is progress. We know we can stop it, now. Stop Rory. And, maybe there's something in here that can tell us more about Chloe—"

"We don't have time!" Lucifer's hand slams atop the glass and the table reverberates under the weight of his palm, rippling with a disjointed warning. His eyes close, briefly, as he regains his composure and re-affixes his stare towards Amenadiel. "I don't have time to read a thousand books, or chant a million half-baked spells. I need to—I need to be with her. I need to do something, brother, anything—"

He half expects Amenadiel to scold him; to insist that this is helping; that this is the only way. But his brother is only smiling in wan understanding. "I know," he says, simply. "Delegating, remember? You should be with her, Luci. More often than not, she sees things we both miss. Maybe she'll have some ideas on what this restoring justice means. On how we go about blessing a life. She's a blessing herself, after all." He winces as Lucifer bristles at the words, staving off the anger he's sure to incite. "You know what I mean," he finishes, hurriedly.

"Very well," Lucifer says, curtly, hackles still raised in automatic response to Chloe Decker and blessing alluded to in the same span of six words. He lowers them slightly at the sight of Amenadiel's genuine sincerity. "Thank you," he murmurs.

They exchange a look — rife with words that neither has the energy to say — as Amenadiel scoops a handful of books from the desk and makes for the elevator. He pauses before he reaches the doors, turning back around with yellowed parchment brimming from his outstretched arms. There's a question on his lips, but it's stuck at the base of his throat, straining for freedom and dying at the tip of his tongue as he shifts uncertainly. Lucifer stares at him in baffled silence.

"Luci, I think we should tell Michael about all this."

The silence grows; expands until it's trembling against the walls and echoing in deafening stillness off the marble floors. A layer of frost glazes over Lucifer's bewildered stare and freezes dark eyes.

"What did you say?" The words are level, commandingly cool. He's giving him a chance; offering Amenadiel an out before the ice coating his stare shatters into a million pieces and before the heat flaring in his chest can coil fully to life.

Amenadiel trudges on, pressing through the veil of hostility that's shrouding the distance between them. "I know what you're thinking. I know how he's behaved; the things he's done—" he quiets, shifting the trajectory of his words at the look on Lucifer's face, "But I genuinely think he wants to repent, Luci. Chloe told us he came here looking for you, desperate to get his wings back. And you and I know better than anyone what he needs to do in order to make that happen. He's got a long road ahead of him, but — this could be a start. A chance for him to do good, for once. To help us stop Rory. To help Chloe."

Lucifer has been listening with barbed interest, biting back the welling hostility roiling within him. The dam breaks at the mention of Chloe.

"To help Chloe?" He repeats, laughing in vicious incredulity as a hand slams against the lid of the piano and leaves a ghostlike print. "I gave him a chance when I spared his life. And not just the one. I gave him another when I found him here," he spits, thrusting the hand that's sinking into the piano through the empty air of the penthouse, "Staring at her, terrifying her, trying to—" he can't continue. He doesn't want to finish the sentence that's boiling over in his mind because he doesn't want the words to be true. Doesn't want to think about what would have happened if he hadn't arrived; if he'd been too late. How would he have taken her from him, this time?

"He's the reason we're here in the first place. He tried to steal my life. He tried to take everything from me. He did take everything from me." He's not just talking about the staff, now; about the day at the Coliseum. He's verging into uncharted territory, leaning into fears whose depths have thus far remained untapped. Those days — months ago, now — when Michael had stepped into his shoes, assumed his life, his home, his job, his…her. He had never discussed it with Chloe — not really, anyway. She had figured it out: no surprise there, as Michael had always been the worse actor and she the superior Detective — but he had never asked her just how long it had taken. Just how much damage Michael had already done. Just how much Michael had stolen from her; had tricked her into giving up with a face and a body and a voice identical to his own.

The thought steals the anger from his voice and shoves him back with a choking hand. He's pale; shaking as the fears he had fought tooth and nail to bury in the simple pleasure of returning to her struggle to the surface and dust off their claws as they hook and hang from his heart.

"I don't want his help. You said yourself I'm not the next Dad, so I don't have to answer his prayer for wings. I don't have to help him. And I won't. I don't want him anywhere near this."

A darkness crosses Amenadiel's face. It's times like these that neither has to elaborate: the silence speaks for itself and a muted understanding is overflowing from the broken pieces of Lucifer's pleading stare.

"It's not your grace to give, Luci," he says, his voice thick. "Ask her. Let her tell you. Let her decide."

Amenadiel steps backwards, into the waiting doors of the elevator as the words hang heavy and lap at the dregs of fear that swirl about Lucifer's head. They don't speak again as the doors skate shut, but as Amenadiel's shadowed face fades from view he catches the beginnings of an infinitesimal nod as Lucifer's glassy gaze lifts to meet his.

Lucifer makes it back to the house in the hills in record time, landing on the overhanging deck with a ruffled huff and a clipped roll of his shoulders. He bends to drag a finger across the surface of the pool, flicking the water onto his mussed curls in a poor man's attempt to straighten the strands that have come undone in flight.

He can tell something is wrong before he rises. The water is too still, the lights too dim, the air too heavy. She's not here.

He doesn't even bother going inside. He can feel the weight of her absence stomping on his heart, wringing out the worry from the knots in his stomach. He's back in the air as quickly as he had landed, unfurling frantic wings and leaving only a ripple of glassy water in his wake.

He doesn't need Find My Friends to seek her out, now. He goes to the only place he can think of.

He lands at the threshold of her apartment, sealing his wings back in with a zinging, searing hum as his fist batters the door. He's raising his palm to rattle it from its hinges when it squeaks open, ever so slightly, and a tired, blinking face peeks through the crack.

"Lucifer?"

The door opens wider, bouncing off the inside wall as Trixie lets go of the handle and envelops him in a crushing embrace.

He's rigid with worry; still bristling from the frantic desperation that had fueled his frenzied knocking. He goes stock still as she folds against him and buries her head in his torso.

"I—" he falters. He hasn't seen her — properly seen her — since the funeral. Since she'd nuzzled her head in her mother's shoulder and sobbed as they lowered Dan into the earth. He doesn't know what to say to her; how to fall back into the comfortable routine of grumbled, half-returned hugs that he had come to harbor such a begrudging affection for. And so he does the only thing he can think to do; the only thing his sealed throat will allow, and for the first time he hugs her back.

She hangs onto him tighter when he wraps a tentative hand around her shoulders and the back of her head. There's a sniffle beneath him, and the sky blue shirt he wears stains navy as tears stream down Trixie's cheeks and streak against him.

Her voice is muffled when she speaks into his shirt, stripped of its usual teasing, all-knowing intonation. She sounds more like a child, wide-eyed and pleading and hopeful, than ever before.

"Are you gonna stay with us?" she begs, her voice plain. "Please don't leave again. My mom needs you."

His voice catches. He doesn't want to cry — not ever, and especially not in front of the prepubescent child currently clinging to the folds of his jacket. He's sure Dan would know what to say; would know the words to comfort her, to tell her that he's never leaving again, that he'll watch over them until eternity comes crumbling down. But he's not Dan. He doesn't know how. For all the promises he's made Chloe; all the vows that have tumbled out so easily in her midst, he has no idea how to swear to the tiny child that's latched around his waist.

The gentle fall of footsteps flicks his eyes up, and a familiar voice answers for him.

"He's not leaving, monkey."

Chloe's gaze meets his own as Trixie wriggles from his grasp and drags a hand across her eyes to rid them of tears. Chloe kneels in front of her daughter, tracing absent fingers along her cheek and around her chin and kissing her softly on the forehead.

"He's not leaving," she whispers again, speaking the vow that's frozen on his own lips. Her hands fall to Trixie's shoulders and squeeze her arms with gentle reassurance. "We just need to talk about a few things, yeah?"

Trixie is nothing if not perceptive: like mother, like daughter. She nods, and the shadow of plaintive, childlike innocence that had enveloped her at Lucifer's touch dissipates in favor of her usual discerning gaze. She turns to Lucifer as she treads to her room, offering him the sliver of a smile as the door slides shut behind her.

"I went to Linda's," Chloe blurts the second they're alone, surging ahead before Lucifer can chide her for her disappearance.

He pauses, lips slightly parted.

"Why?"

She sits gingerly on one of the barstools beside the kitchen counter. Her hair is loose about her shoulders, still-damp from a recent shower, and her hands are winding nervously through the sleeves of a white sweater. She dodges his gaze for a long second, staring down at the veins of marble that crack and run along the countertop.

"Because I needed the truth," she whispers.

He looks…wounded. "I always tell you the truth, Detective," he says, softly, dropping down into the seat opposite her. He makes to reach for hands, but hesitates as she takes a shuddering breath and draws her gaze to him. He settles them atop the counter instead.

"I know," she whimpers. "You told me for so long, and I…I didn't…" Another breath, quivering as she steels herself for the leap across the threshold.

"I know about your brother," she breathes, "I know you killed him. Before we…years ago."

His face darkens. Rory.

"Detective, I—I know what my sister said, how it sounds, but there's so much more you don't know, I—I didn't want to, I had to, I—"

"I know," she says, again, the words clearer this time as they slash through the mounting anxiety straining against his chest. "That's why I went to Linda's, I…don't be angry with her, please, she didn't want to tell me anything, but I—I needed to know. I needed to understand. I know you, Lucifer, I know it's not you, I saw what killing Pierce did to you. I knew there had to be a reason, I just—" she falters, lowers her gaze back to the countertop as she thumbs the ring on her finger. She points feebly to herself with a trembling hand. "I didn't know it was me," she finishes, her voice breaking.

Stupefied quietude travels along the veins in the counter and electrifies the both of them. He's searching fruitlessly for words that could never fully explain; that could never be enough.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, voice wavering. "I never meant to—I didn't know you had to do that, I would never have asked you to do that, I—"

His valiant quest for the right words stops in its tracks at her breathy, broken apology. His guard drops: utterly, completely, and the shadow parts from his face. He reaches for her hands and takes them this time, folding them in his grasp.

"No," he says. "No." He smiles, eyes filmy with incredulity. "You never made me do anything, Detective. You saved me. And he was…" he swallows the dryness from his throat and fixes her with a level, piercing stare.

"He gave me an impossible decision. He wanted mum, back in Hell, and I…I couldn't give her to him. I couldn't send her back there. So he—" The pain is still fresh, unraveling the scar across his chest as he tells her the truth. The whole truth. "He threatened you, as collateral. Your life, or mum's. And I couldn't let him take either."

"My car accident," Chloe breathes, the gears clicking into place. "Four years ago. You said it was your brother, I thought you were just…"

Lucifer nods. "A warning. I tried to send him away, so many times, but he was…persistent. And then one night, he had had enough. Waited too long. He was going to set your death in motion, all because I couldn't give him mum. Or wouldn't. He was going to kill you because of me, Detective. Because I couldn't give him what he wanted."

"You killed your own brother to protect me?" She asks, her voice flickering. "Even then? All those years ago? I didn't even believe you, didn't give you the time of day, but you still...?"

"His name was Uriel," Lucifer says; slowly, deliberately. "He was my brother. And I cared for him, very much, but…" he pauses, smiling with a forlorn gaze. "You were my partner. Detective, there's never been a time I wouldn't have done anything for you."

She's hugging him before he can speak again, pitching clumsily from the barstool and lunging into him, nestling her face into his collar. He's grateful for her touch; for the smell of her, for the weight of her folded against him, and he holds her head to his shoulder with a gentle hand.

"If I could go back," he says, lips flush against her ear, "If I could see him again, do it again, I would make the same choice. You are all I care about, Chloe. I—it tormented me, killing him, I relived it over and over again in Hell, but mum, she saved me, pushed me through the guilt —"

Chloe's palms press against his shoulders as she yanks herself back from his searing embrace.

"What are you talking about?"

They face each other, blinking as the silence magnifies. She remains standing, inches from his slumped figure as he opens his mouth to speak and closes it once more.

He clears his throat. "Right. You remember when I popped back down to reclaim my Throne, post demonic revolt?"

"It rings a bell."

"Yes. Well. I had, um…paid another visit a couple of years prior. When you were…well, when you were in the hospital. Not to reclaim my crown, just to...run an errand. Of sorts. Hence why I managed to get myself stuck for a brief moment. But not to worry, Detective. It all worked out, mum popped down, got me out, I got the antidote, Maze and the Doctor revived me with one of those….ah…." He mimics rubbing his palms together and pressing them to his chest as he thinks of the word in a nervous haze, "Defibrillators." He shrugs his shoulders. "See? All in one piece. So no need to worry, it was ages ago."

Chloe is staring at him, eyes narrowed, breaths puffing out in rapid-fire exhalations. "The antidote," she repeats, haltingly. The realization is crashing over her face, sending her spiraling backwards. "That's why I woke up? Why the doctors could cure me? You—you went to Hell to get it? How did you—"

Defibrillator.

It's too much; it's sending her brain into overdrive and her tongue into a spiral. "You died?" She says, her voice raising in alarm. "You—what? You killed yourself? To—to go down to Hell? To save me?"

"Technically, Maze killed me," he says; a glimmer of his cavalier attitude peeking through the chinks of conversation. "But I did ask her to. It was perfectly safe. I just had to die near you, pop down to Hell, get the antidote, get revived. Four step plan. Didn't count on the getting-trapped-in-Hell bit. Or on your doctors being so persistent. Amenadiel fought off the entire cast of Scrubs trying to keep you in one place."

Chloe's mouth is hanging open.

The lightness drops from his voice as he watches her expression; as he watches the tears prick her eyes once more.

"But you were so scared," she whispers, her fingers lacing in front of her mouth. "You were so scared of going back there. The way you talked about it, the things you saw, you — you did everything you could to stay away."

"None of that mattered." He says, smiling wistfully.

She's crying, softly, letting tears douse the ring that sits pale and luminous on her finger. "All those years? The whole time?"

"How many times until you believe me, Detective? Whatever it takes. It's only you, Chloe. It always has been."

She's speechless. It's all she can do to stand limply as he rises from his seat and crosses the distance to her; as he cups her face in broad hands and kisses her gently, sealing the truth on her lips.

"If you'd only bloody listen," he rumbles, breathing the words against her mouth as a chuckle escapes him and passes over to her.

All he's lost, all he's given, all he's taken away — everything he's sacrificed is staring back at him through blue eyes, whispering a muted I love you against his neck. Then, just then, everything is still: the earth-shattering crises that have racked the past days and that loom heavy above their heads scramble in the contented haze of delirious laughter.

When the cloud above them clears they've moved to the couch, watching the fireplace dance in the setting sunlight. Chloe is draped across him, her legs folded over his own as his hand traces absent circles over her thigh.

He's relayed the highlights of his conversation with Amenadiel, but he still hovers above the pointed question he has yet to ask. The words are tittering nervously on his tongue: he doesn't want to break the spell she's cast on the room; doesn't want to thrust her from the contented stupor she's assumed as she lays against him and listens to his recounting.

But his brother is right. He's always right. It's not your grace to give, Luci.

"Detective…"

She sits up in immediate attention as she detects the change in tone.

"Amenadiel seems to think…it might be prudent to include Michael in our efforts to stop my murderous sister. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so they say — that, and as you know he's recently expressed an interest in…self-actualizing his wings back into existence. And we all know how that happens. Amenadiel thinks this might be the perfect opportunity for him to…well, to get a jump-start on the good angel bucket list." He pauses, threading the next words carefully. "I wasn't similarly inclined. But he thinks — and I have to agree — that it's not my decision to make."

Chloe frowns. "Whose, then?"

"Yours." He continues at Chloe's blank look. "He took my life from me. Took everything that mattered and tried to pass it off as his own. But I'm not the one he lied to. I'm not the one he—" The words are mangled in his throat. Finally — quietly, shyly — he asks her. "Did he hurt you? Before I came back, before the Coliseum, before everything. When I was still in Hell, and you were…alone. With him."

He doesn't want to elaborate. He doesn't have to. She understands; from the fever in his eyes and the flush in his cheeks and the broken snag that cuts the words.

"No," she murmurs, brushing a hand through his hair and pressing her palm to his temple. "No."

"If he…did anything, tried to do anything — if you saw that every time you looked at me —"

"Nothing happened." She laughs lightly, her thumb trailing along his cheek. "Except him killing me. But that's been dealt with." She shakes her head at his tilted look. "No, Lucifer. No. It—it was your face, yeah, your voice, your clothes, and I wanted him to be you, so badly, but — I knew. I knew the second I saw him. He didn't trick me, didn't make me do anything — actually, now that you mention it, I shot him —"

"You what?"

"Yeah, well, just to prove he wasn't you. It's not like it did much good. But it did feel good."

"I'm sure," he muses, staring at her in unabashed incredulity. "I'm not sure why I was so worried about you, Detective," he says, settling slightly into the cushions as his nerves still and the quiver that trembles against his throat dies away at her insistence.

"Let him help," Chloe murmurs, her fingers curling into his. "We have to be better than him. Lucifer, we have to give him the chance at a life he tried to take from you. That's what makes you different from him. That's what makes you good. That's why they chose you to lead. Not him."

"Is that what you want?"

She hesitates. "I think it's what we need to do," she breathes. "I don't know about Michael — I don't know if he can be good, I don't know if he can get there, but…I believe in you. I have faith in you. If anyone can lead him there…it's you. I think we have to try."

When Lucifer pauses, she keeps on. "Besides — he's the reason the staff is pure evil, right? He got us into this mess. Rory is just riding his wave. Maybe, if anyone can help us…" she motions to her scar, and Lucifer's eyes flare dangerously close to crimson at the sight — at the memory — "It's him."

There's a long pause; a pregnant silence as the sparks fade from Lucifer's stare and flicker instead in the roaring hearth. When he turns back to her he reaches for her hand, raising the alabaster ring on her fingers to his lips.

"Okay," he murmurs, soft and muffled against the cool stone. He nods, once, bowing his head against her breast as his lips leave the ring and nuzzle in the base of her neck. "Very well."