A quickly-downed glass of whiskey neat, a penthouse enveloped in early evening darkness, and a restless lightbringer in the middle of it all. It was not a normal Thursday night in Los Angeles, and every force in both heaven and hell knew it to be true.

"How could we have been so careless, brother?"

Another move for the nearly-empty bottle. A worried glance. A sharp exhale cutting through the air. (And just like that, the walls seemed to cave in on themselves, and in their place, the twisted woods of Greendale, awake more than ever on the witching hour of October 31st. After 16 years, he still remembered. Even after the earth is consumed by sulfur and stone, it would probably be the last thing he forgets.)

"I'm sorry, we?"

There were a lot of things that Amenadiel let his younger brother get away with. Even more so when the eldest angel learned to get away with a few things, himself. But this time around, he was not going to sit still and let Lucifer pass even the tiniest grain of blame onto him, especially when he had warned Samael from the very beginning that his pride would get him in trouble (And it did, didn't it? First, the fall, and now this).

Lucifer's narrowed eyes quickly met his brother's. "I know the fault is mine, but don't act like you haven't forgotten. You gave me your word, Amenadiel. And you broke it."

"I had no choice! Father said I had to watch over you, and that meant following you to earth when you deliberately left behind your place in hell."

"And you said you would watch over my daughter, but look where we are."

Amenadiel sighed out loud and quickly got up from his place on the couch, marching up to his brother and grabbing the glass of alcohol from his clenched hand. It was a rare thing to look the devil right in the eyes and stand unflinching through it all, but he supposed a few centuries with divinity gave you the uncanny power. "I try to understand you, Lucifer. I really do. But sometimes, I have to stop and wonder if you truly know what it's like to put someone else first."

(A soft cry pierced the silence of the night, and all at once, there was no heaven or hell or mortal plane in between. There was nothing left but her, delicate and beautiful in the flush of new creation, safe but for a moment in her mother's arms. He wanted to hold her, too; to promise her everything his own father once promised him. But he was tainted and corrupted and all the things she was not to know, not if he had anything to say about it.

There was no question why he left that night. There was no question why he turned his back with no more than a final look and a heavy heart. They assumed that it would end as swiftly as it began. What they didn't know was how he looked back with every step he took.)

"Trust me, brother," he snatched back the glass of whiskey and downed it in one sip, the liquid setting his throat on fire in a most welcome way. "I know."

Amenadiel's eyes softened and he pulled himself on to one of the bar stools, sitting directly in front of the other angel. In all his years, Lucifer was always the proud, confident one, and it showed in most everything he did. But now, with his head in his hands and slumped over his second bottle of alcohol, he looked nothing like the powerful force of divinity who once dared to defy God, himself.

He looked nothing more than a man. A very tired man who let go of the world (his only world, he would come to realize, when he returned to hell that fateful night and there was no trace of a silver-haired infant whose smile brought him the sweetest, most innocent pain) because he had no choice.

"I'm sorry for what I said. I forgot how difficult this must be for you." He placed a comforting hand on Lucifer's shoulder, and the younger angel wanted to scoff at his brother's misplaced pity. But instead, he decided to swallow whatever sarcastic comment he had planned when he saw the sincerity in Amenadiel's eyes. It was the same sincerity that convinced him to trust his older brother all those years ago. Now he wondered if he made the right choice.

("I can't watch over her from where I am, Amenadiel. Even if I can't, someone needs to make sure she's safe. Someone who'll keep her best interests at heart."

"Angels don't interfere with mortal affairs, Luci. You know you're asking for too much."

"Well, she's not mortal, is she?")

There was absolutely no cause for him to reason with his older brother, none at all. It wasn't like he still gave a damn of what Amenadiel thought of him. Still, the words fell from his lips before he could choke them down for a few more millennia, and soon, Lucifer found his mouth empty and the air suddenly full. "I just wanted to be a good father."

With a questioning quirk of his brow (and what a question it was, to hear his younger brother speak so vulnerably for probably the first time since their youth), the other angel asked softly, "And what makes you think you aren't?"

Lucifer could only smile dejectedly at the thought. It was one thing to be a relatively normal parent, raising a relatively normal child. It was another thing altogether to be the literal devil, watching his half-angel daughter grow from afar. In retrospect, it sounded like the punch line of a bad joke, but as it happened, there was no humour in the hand he's been dealt. "Well, for one, I've had a rather shitty role model."

"Must you always be so harsh towards Father?"

(How was that even a question?)

"Yes," Lucifer looked at his brother like he was talking the most profound nonsense on earth. "How could I not? The petty bastard abandoned me in a fiery inferno because of a single mistake."

Amenadiel regarded Lucifer thoughtfully (perhaps Linda was rubbing off on him in more ways than one). "And you think that makes him a bad father?"

"Among other things."

The older angel leaned back against his seat. "But aren't you doing the same thing with Sabrina?"

Lucifer's brows knitted at the absolute audacity. "What the bloody hell are you talking about? I may not be the best at raising my child, but I am leagues away from Dad's horrible parenting."

"Think about it. At the very least, Dad abandoned you because you were in open rebellion against him. But despite all that, you know deep in your heart that he'll hear you out on the off chance you call. What about your daughter? She doesn't even know there's a father she can reach out to."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at Amenadiel, but the other merely shrugged, looking wholly pleased with himself. "You know I stayed away for a reason. It was for her own good." Another sip of liquid fire, another reminder of the things he left behind (but it's not too late to return to them, either). "It's different."

Amenadiel raised his arms up in surrender, though in the back of his mind, he knew he got to Luci. It was an utter shame that his brother was as stubborn as they come, but if Lucifer only learned to accept that even he made the wrong call every once in a while, then perhaps the whole debacle would have been over and done with a long time ago. Still, Amenadiel was not one to fight a losing battle. He pursed his lips. "If you say so, brother."

There was something off about the other angel's tone that set Lucifer on edge. "I'm telling you, it is."

"And I'm agreeing with you," Amenadiel argued unconvincingly.

An unsure glance into his brother's eyes. A reluctant nod of the head at the truth (or rather, the lack of it) that he saw. "Alright." Lucifer shifted in his seat and regarded Amenadiel's saccharine smile with an uneasy frown. He turned back to his empty drink, nursing it in his hands while his mind settled into a newfound storm. "Good."

It was most definitely not good.

Quite the opposite, actually. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, but Lucifer found himself unhinged at Amenadiel's impromptu foray into clinical psychology (Although what did he expect, really? The guy was sleeping with a therapist, for Dad's sake), so much so that he found himself driving back to the precinct at breakneck speed not five minutes after their little chat.

Detective Decker was pleasantly surprised that her partner was back so quickly after his dramatic exit. Usually, when he takes off out of the blue, he doesn't return till the next day, probably with some wild sex story and a box of unintentionally-illegal donuts in tow. This time, however, he didn't look as put together as he normally did. Granted, he seemed somewhat calmer than he was when he left, but there was a trace of tension in every move he made, subtle as it was.

"Hey, Lucifer." She tried to send him a kind smile, but his eyes refused to meet hers, instead roaming all over the place as if looking for something he couldn't find. For a split second, she wondered if he was pumped full of drugs again, but she quickly shook the thought away. She saw how he reacted earlier when she brought up the teenage girl's name. There was no question that all this had something to do with her. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"

Still scanning the precinct for any sign of his daughter, Lucifer quickly brushed off the questions. "I promise I'll explain myself another time, detective. But right now, I'm not here as your partner, hard as it is to believe."

"You're not?" Chloe tilted her head in confusion.

With a tight smile, Lucifer nodded. "Normally, you wouldn't catch me dead in this place outside of my work hours. But as it happens, I'm here as a concerned citizen instead of an outstanding civilian consultant."

The detective almost scoffed at the thought, but she decided to hold it back with a bite of her tongue (if she had to bite down hard enough to draw blood just to keep a straight face, then she had to take it in stride as an occupational hazard). "Oh. And what exactly are you concerned about?"

Lucifer finally stopped his pacing and straightened up, eyes meeting hers in full seriousness. "My daughter has been unjustly detained, and I'm here to bring her home."

All at once, the stack of folders in the detective's hands dropped to the ground, and even as hundreds of pages of confidential case files pooled at her feet, she stood unmoving, mouth slightly ajar. Faintly, she could make out Lucifer mouthing a few words in concern, but none of them found their way into her ears. In fact, a serial killer could have waved a gun in her face, and she would have been none the wiser.

She didn't know what she expected, but it definitely wasn't this.