Author's note: Hello everybody! I was planning to end this story with this chapter, but it got longer than I expected, so I had to cut it in half. As a result, the 6th chapter is already mostly written. I hope you will enjoy the read.

He woke up with a start, disoriented and searching for air. He felt like a drowning man surfacing above water. Everything was dark around him. No, not entirely dark, for a soft light was piercing through the shadows. Looking for the source of the light, he saw a flashlight resting beside him. That picture brought him back to the present at lightning speed. All the events of the day came back to him in a rush of images and emotions. He sat upright in panic.

"MOM?" He almost screamed, heart beating madly.

No one answered him. It was painfully quiet in the gloomy room. A foreboding feeling settled upon him. Something was wrong. Very wrong! And he was afraid to discover what it was.

He looked more closely around him to search for his mother, but there was no sign of life. She had to be somewhere close. She would not have left him alone in his state. At the reminder of his injuries, he lifted a hand to his head. The lack of pain left him perplex. He quickly took off the bandage around his head to assess his condition. While he could still feel both dried and sticky blood through his hair, the skin was now smooth and whole again where had been a fatal injury just moments ago. At least he thought it was only moments ago, but couldn't be sure.

He noticed something strange covering his hand once he brought it back into his field of vision. Actually, both his hands, and even his whole clothing, were covered by a thin layer of dark dust. A closer look at it told him that it was in fact… ashes!

The feeling of foreboding suddenly turned into one of absolute horror.

"Nooo! No please! Not that! Mom! What have you done?"

He started shaking, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation; his Mom had sacrificed her life to save his! Thus damning herself to Hell for eternity.

His mind was spinning with that horrifying realization settling in.

She was gone! Gone for good, in one last selfless act such as he never thought her capable of. And she'd done it for him! His heart and soul were crying for her.

But what had she done exactly? Burned herself up with a surge of celestial power to heal him? She would have needed to control her powers very carefully to form only healing waves as not to burn him too in the process, considering his actual mortal condition. He hadn't known she'd regain that much control over it, nor even that she had gotten back any of her former powers for that matter. On the other hand, maybe he only survived the rush of energy because Chloe was far enough? Or was it instead because Chloe was simply… dead?

Sheer panic overwhelmed him.

"CHLOE?" He screamed.

He couldn't lose her! Losing his Mother was already bad enough. He knew he could never survive losing Chloe too.

Only silence answered him. Then, a gun shot rang out farther in the basement, soon followed by others.

Chloe…

She might still be alive! He clang desperately to that slim hope. A hope that was decreasing with every second that passed by.

He all but jumped through the hole leading into the room on the other side and from there ran as fast as his celestial origin allowed him to. He barely spared a glance at their witness who was sitting through the debris of walls near the back exit, looking bemused.

Lucifer suspected to know perfectly well what was going on. He remembered Detective Williams and the devious plan he had unfolded. Chloe and Daniel hadn't known about it however. He should have told them, he should have remembered in time to protect them, though chastising himself for that was probably not going to do them any good at the moment. All he could do now was make sure to get there in time to avoid the worse.

A desperate Devil in grief and fury dashed through the basement, well determined to punish the sinner who was threatening the woman he loved and who had brought torment into his life.

Chloe got propelled backwards by the impact of the bullet hitting her square in the right side of her chest. The pain was breathtaking. She knew she would certainly be dead by now if not for her bulletproof vest hidden underneath her shirt. But still, the pain, both from the gun shot as well as from the rock that just hit her in the stomach, was such that she doubted being able to move. She was thankful to still be conscious though, but her life was hanging only by a thread now. With a rush of adrenaline, she rolled over and crawled away on all fours to hide behind a pile of debris as a rain of bullets fell around her. She'd lost her flashlight, fallen a distance away, but by some miracle her gun was still in her hand.

Fortunately, Williams had also dropped his flashlight. The lack of light in the room was both a blessing for her and a hindrance. While Williams had a hard time seeing and shooting at her, so did she. With the pain in her chest, it became a challenge to even lift her arm to shoot. Without exposing herself too much, she nonetheless succeeded to fire a few times in the general direction where she thought Williams had taken cover. They shot blindly at each other for a few rounds, without success. Chloe didn't have much hope of taking him down in such circumstances. But maybe she didn't have to…

"Williams! It's over. It's best for you to just surrender. You'll never be able to pull it off now. If you shoot us, you'll get caught anyway."

"Maybe you're right." Williams answered from his hiding place. "But at least I'd be able to finish the job. I don't think you're in a position to negotiate, Detective Decker. Actually," And she could hear a smile in his voice, "you are the one who should surrender. Otherwise I'll just have to shoot Detective Espinoza who might still be alive. I'm aiming at him right as we speak. What is it going to be, Detective Decker?"

A chill ran through her. Whatever she choose, Dan was as good as dead, and if she surrendered, she's be dead too. She never felt so helpless in her whole life than in that very instant.

All of a sudden, a growling shadow roamed through the room. She only had time to see two burning red eyes before Williams was grabbed by the throat and lifted up in the air. When she heard Lucifer's voice, she down right wondered if she might not be imagining the whole thing.

"You won't touch HER! You despicable piece of junk! You have no idea what you've already done!" The Devil thundered.

Then Lucifer threw the piece of garbage in question ten feet across the room, right into a wall. Mad with rage, he turned back on him with eyes burning with the fires of Hell. He swiftly advanced towards Williams to take a hold of him once more by the throat and bring him up against the wall at eye level.

Williams could only squirm and moan in pain and fright, as the hand around his throat was squeezing the life out of him. Lucifer did his best to restrain himself from killing him right on the spot. Only the fact that Chloe was still alive kept him from doing so. He was however uncertain of her state and wellbeing, which kept him on the brink of losing his mind.

Lucifer's voice was shaking with unrestrained anger. "WHY? Why did you do it? What did you desire so much that you would kill to get it?" He released the pressure of his hand just enough for Williams to speak.

The detective tried in vain to fight the pull to answer. "I… I wanted to make my uncle proud."

"And who is that uncle of yours?" He growled

"Marco Saputo…" Williams breathed with difficulty

Of course. The Mafia leader had infiltrated the Anti-gang unit with one of his man. His own nephew moreover. He should have seen that one coming.

"Well, Mafia gang nephew, we'll see how proud your uncle will be at seeing his own blood rot in a psychiatric yard," the Devil said menacingly.

Williams started screaming at the top of his lungs, terrified out of his mind by the vision of Hell materialising in front of him.

The low lighting in the room didn't allow Chloe to see clearly what Lucifer was doing to Williams. Not that she really cared. At that point, he could be strangling him to death that she wouldn't really mind. She was actually too busy reconciling what she had just seen to care about the faith of a criminal. Lucifer was up and about, looking stronger than ever when he had been close to death only minutes ago. And the way he had thrown the detective across the room… those red glowing eyes… It shouldn't be coming as a surprise though, everything considered. It wasn't even the first time she'd seen him that way. She'd just taken great care of dismissing it all, time and again. Well, no more. It was finally time to face the truth.

Her partner, the man she loved, was the Devil!

She thought she should be afraid, terrified even of that realization, but strangely, she was not. Sure, she was in a bit of a shock. Who wouldn't really? But the relief and joy she was feeling at seeing Lucifer alive and apparently well was outstanding any other emotions in that instant. All she could think of, and see in her mind, was the way he had looked at her when saying that he couldn't live without her. That being was only the Lucifer she knew and loved, whatever his origins.

However, Lucifer sounded quite distressed at the moment, maybe because he believed she was injured. She needed to help him calm down, tell him that she was fine. So she stood up and walked slowly to him through the debris, her path illuminated only by the low lighting given by the flashlights laying about in the room. That's only when she reached him that she saw it. His head…

He didn't have any hair left, and his skin… His skin looked red and burnt, with ridges in some places, just like images she had seen in books of what the Devil should look like, except for the horns. Of course, like he'd already told her, he didn't have any. That made her smile in spite of everything. She remembered him believing that he was burning earlier, as if he were reliving a past event. Looked like he really did burn after all, eons ago. She mentally cringed at the thought of his past suffering.

She forced herself to stay calm and to keep her breathing steady. It was only Lucifer, and he was in distress, as his grimacing face and the tears on his ravaged cheeks proved.

She was proud of the steadiness of her hand when she laid it over his shoulder. She spoke calmly, but loud enough to be heard over Williams' screaming.

"Lucifer…"

She saw and felt him freeze instantly. He didn't turn towards her though.

"Lucifer, he got what he deserved. You can let him go now. Everything is okay! I'm fine. And you are too."

She lifted her other hand to caress the back of his head to confirm that there was no wound anymore. His burnt skin felt surprisingly soft, and definitely exempt of any injury. How that could even be possible, she had no idea, but didn't really care, as long as he was ok.

"Please stop! You're just hurting yourself Lucifer." She insisted pleadingly.

Lucifer could hardly grasp what was happening. In his rage, he'd made the error of summoning his Devil's face instead of only flashing it at Williams. And now, Chloe was touching him, in his Devil's form, and she wasn't even flinching. Hadn't she been touching him, he would have put on the lack of lighting the fact that she didn't sound scared of him. There was, however, no denying the fact that she had to be aware of his appearance, thus of who he truly was, and that she was apparently unafraid of the Devil himself. Instead, he thought she sounded … worried? About him? It just made no sense.

In complete shock, Lucifer let Williams fall roughly on the floor where he rolled into a ball, crying and mumbling incoherently. In his state of dismay, it took Lucifer a moment to regain control over his glamour to hide his Devil's face. Only then did he turned ever so slowly towards Chloe.

Chloe had moved one of her hand to the side of his neck to cup it in a caring way. He couldn't see her face and eyes clearly in the shadows, which didn't allow him to understand her state of mind.

"I don't… I don't understand." He whispered, part hopeful, part terrified.

Chloe placed two fingers on his lips to silence him.

"Hush! I told you Lucifer, everything is okay! WE, are okay!"

He couldn't start imagining what this could mean. Before he could dwell on it any longer, Chloe fell into his arms in what felt like a desperate embrace. He hugged her back with equal desperation. All the caught up emotions that were eating him up started dissipating as a wonderful sensation of relief flooded through him. Relief at her acceptance, and relief at knowing she was still alive. Hugging her fiercely, he basked in the feel of her and in that magical moment, forgetting about everything that wasn't her.

Author's note: Please, let me know if you liked it. Every kudo, comment or review make my day :) Thanks for reading!