Chloe was falling fast, yet even as she braced herself for the impact of hitting the ground at terminal velocity, she felt deliciously uncaged. The abject terror, harrowing as it was, washed off the grime of whatever saccharine, whitewashed, lying existence she left behind.

All around her was nothingness. She was falling and falling with no ground in sight—indeed, with no anything in sight. No ground, no sky; no up, no down; not even light or dark. There was just the falling. She began to fear that this was her new eternity, just falling from nothing to nothing in a void, when all of a sudden, the feeling of falling was replaced with the far more sinister sensation of being pulled. She began flailing her limbs, trying desperately to swim or climb or run against the force that was drawing her faster and faster into an ever-hotter atmosphere, but it was futile to try to resist. As she tore through the air—such as it was—she began to make out a shadowy landscape of stone spikes and crags, toward which she was hurtling. The threat of collision or impalement imminent, she began screaming, her throat burnt and blistering from inhaling the scorching heat. All at once, she heard another scream, a ripping, gutting roar racing toward her, and in a flash, the source of the scream swooped toward her and she found herself roughly scooped up, and then arcing upwards, and finally soaring purposefully in a pair of sure arms.

Chloe blindly clutched herself to her rescuer, if that's what it was, gripping its neck, pulling her face into its chest. After a few moments, her brain started to clear enough for her to realize that she needed to try to figure out where she was, what or who was carrying her, and how to devise an escape plan. And so, she summoned the courage to view the owner of the arms that held her so strong. She lifted her eyes and what she saw induced hoarse, painful, convulsing sobs. Face stormy, jaw clenched, eyes almost maniacally focused ahead of him, it was none other than Lucifer who was conveying her to safety. Her shaking hands frenziedly grasped at his face, his neck, his chest. His wings flattened and they zoomed through a window and into a chamber all reds and golds, adorned with Turkish carpets, shelves of antique books and scrolls, enormous paintings by Old Masters, bizarre candlelight chandeliers suspended from the ceiling—high as a cathedral—casting twitching shadows on the walls, tables and shelves cluttered with bejeweled chalices, signets, busts, obelisks and other curiosities, all illuminated by a raging fire in a fireplace so large it could be its own bedroom, which was bordered by mosaics depicting printers and scribes from the Middle Ages. Lucifer alit, folded his wings, and carried her toward the damask-curtained four poster bed in the middle of the room, where he sat with her curled in his lap.

"Lucifer, it wasn't real, it wasn't real!" she kept rasping out, looking up at him plaintively and clutching at his shirt. "It wasn't real!"

It was clear from each wincing breath that speaking was terribly painful for her. "Shh, shh, don't talk," he urged. His voice was gentle, but he couldn't hide the look of bewildered horror on his face, or the pounding of his heart in his chest. When Chloe started to still, Lucifer examined her face, and then ran his hand from her cheek down the column of her throat; the pain faded away in the wake of his touch. She cleared her throat to test her voice. It was healed.

"Lucifer?" she whispered, her eyes wide. Gathered enough now to sit up on her own, she slid off of Lucifer's lap so that she was now sitting next to him on the bed.

"Chloe," Lucifer uttered in amazement. He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand and was surprised anew to find that she was indeed made of flesh and bone, not a vision or a delusion. "H-how is this possible? Why are you here?"

"I—" she stammered, her searching eyes focused into the middle-distance, as though the answer would appear in the air.

"Chloe," Lucifer said firmly. "Do you know where you are?"

She looked around. "Your bedroom?" she guessed.

His eyes smoldered with a quiet rage. He managed to growl out, "You're somewhere—" his voice caught. "Somewhere you're not supposed to be. Somewhere you don't belong."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to—I mean, I didn't come here on purpose. If you show me the way out, I can go."

"Bloody hell, Chloe, I didn't mean that you're intruding. It's just that… well, you're supposed to be in Heaven."

"Heaven?" Chloe exclaimed. "Wait, so…" Bang! Bang-bang! Bang! "So…I'm dead?"

Lucifer exhaled, and he took her hand in both of his. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Chloe gasped, and tears pricked at her eyes. "Trixie!" One immediate thought came to her mind: I have failed my daughter. She tried to figure out what had happened—how had she died? How old was Trixie? How long ago did this happen? She had so many disjointed fragments of memories, and she didn't know how to begin sorting the truth from the lie.

/ / / / / /""Dad, you made it!"/ / /

Bang! Bang-bang! Bang!

/ / /And when it ended, they found themselves knitted together forever./ /

/ / / / / /She was as happy as she had ever been in her life./ / / / / / /

She pounded her fists on her head as though she were trying to knock out all of the fake memories to reveal what truly happened.

"Chloe!" cried Lucifer in alarm. "Chloe, stop it!" He grasped her wrists painfully and held them tight in his hands.

"UGH" she growled. "I've gone crazy, I don't even know what's real!"

"Chloe, Chloe come here." Lucifer gathered her to his chest and swaddled her with his arms, rocking gently. "You're not crazy, of course you're not. This was never supposed to happen."

After a few moments, when her mind began to clear, Chloe stated, "I was shot."

"Yes."

"When?"

"Two years ago."

"So, Trixie's… fifteen now?"

"Yes."

"How is she?" she asked, her voice breaking.

Lucifer sighed. "She's… well, she's wonderful."

"Really?" Chloe sobbed out.

He smiled gently. "Really. She's thriving. But… well, she did lose her mother."

Chloe nodded through her tears. "Right. Right, of course. But she's—she's happy? And, you know, she's"—her voice thickened—"she's got a good life?"

"She does. Truly."

"So, can you see her, or…?"

"Amenadiel sees her often."

"So, there's no way I can see her?"

"I'm sorry, Chloe, I'm afraid there isn't."

While she had hoped that Lucifer had some sort of crystal ball through which she could catch a glimpse of her 15-year-old daughter, the thought of Amenadiel watching over Trixie was immensely comforting to Chloe. If she couldn't be in her daughter's life, at least she had a guardian angel looking after her.

There were a million questions she wanted to ask. Did she still love science? Was she in the choir? Did she get her braces off? Was she still friends with Olivia? Was she still confident? Did she blame Chloe for abandoning her? How did she remember her? How did she respond to the loss? Did she let people see her cry?

She raised her eyes and instantly found herself ensnared in Lucifer's penetrating stare. "Chloe," he said. "I need you to tell me how you got here."

The anxiety began to creep up her throat when she thought about where she'd come from, and how she left. She took her time to gather her words.

"I was in this place… at least, I think it was a place. Or more of a, a space, you know—almost like a space in my mind? I don't know how to describe it." Lucifer's sober expression told her that he knew exactly what she meant. She continued, "And there was no time, it was just… just feeling. And it was perfect—but more than perfect, it was like I was just filled with this light—like, filled to the brim—and nothing ever happened that I didn't want to happen, and what did happen was part of this light and that's just what everything was and it was amazing. And everyone was there, even people I'd lost, like…" at this point, tears were falling down her face, "like my dad, and you. It was just… bliss." She cleared her throat. "But then sometimes things would just shake or flash and even though everything was perfect, it was also wrong somehow." Now, Lucifer's brow furrowed. "And when I started to feel like that, it kept happening, but I couldn't control it. Even though I knew it was wrong, I kept getting dropped back into the perfect place, and I couldn't get out. And then it would happen again and I realized that I was trapped, and that it wasn't perfect because it was all an illusion. How could something be good if it's a lie? It felt very, very wrong, and so then, anytime that shake would come, I would try to hang onto it and I got closer and closer, but every time I got pulled back. But then I actually had a vision—now I know it was a memory—and that gave me something to hold onto, and I could see where the perfect space ended and so I jumped out. And then I was falling, and then you caught me, and that's what happened."

"But, Chloe," Lucifer said. "You were in Heaven."

She nodded sadly. "I realize that now."

"I just don't understand," he said, running his hands up her arms, her shoulders, her neck. He placed his hand flat on her chest. "How is this possible? You have a heartbeat, you're breathing, this is not just your soul, I mean, this—" he pressed his hand to her cheek and looked deep into her eyes—"this is you." Eyes shining with tears, Chloe placed her hand on top of his, and nuzzled her cheek into his palm. He became agitated, every breath, every word, came out in dry sobs—"Chloe! Chloe I thought I'd never see you again!" He put his arms around her and clasped her to him, and greedily took her lips in his.