Archive of Our Own

The first time Chloe sees Lucifer after he descends to Hell, she’s seven months pregnant and all she wants is a pickle. 

Her feet are killing her. They’re swollen, too swollen to be shoved into sensible boots all day, but she’s a lieutenant now and lieutenants have to set a good example by dressing professionally, so she shoved her swollen feet into sensible boots this morning. They ached all day long, but she managed to ignore the pain until she got home. That was when the regret set in. Because even though she tried—she really, really tried—she couldn’t get the damn things off. 

She briefly considered just leaving them on. One less thing to do tomorrow morning, which was a definite win. But then she realized that meant she’d have to sleep in her pants too, and that was a definite no. She considered grabbing one of the knives Maze always leaves lying around and just cutting her feet out, but that seemed a little excessive. Even for a hormonal pregnant lady. 

That’s how she ended up sitting on the couch and staring forlornly at her feet. She isn’t sure how long she sat there, glaring at her sensible boots. Half an hour at least. It definitely would’ve been much longer if not for Trixie, who got home from soccer practice and took one look at her mother and said What do you need?

Chloe’s back hurts too. It’s that deep, radiating kind of pain that she remembers from when she was pregnant with Trixie. It probably doesn’t help that she spent a good portion of the afternoon standing during a presentation to the LAPD brass about a community policing initiative she’s trying to get off the ground. They offered her a chair, but she was the only woman in the room and one of the other lieutenants was a guy who used to make snide remarks about Hot Tub High School, so there was no way in hell she was about to give her presentation sitting down. She stood, and she kicked ass, and she should know in about a week or so whether she got approval. She’s got a good feeling about it. 

But now her back hurts like a bitch. 

And she’s hungry. She’s always hungry these days, but the mini version of Lucifer growing inside her is just as fickle as her father, which means Chloe can’t satisfy her cravings fast enough. She’ll desperately want pizza, but by the time a pizza gets delivered, the smell makes her nauseous. She’ll crave sour candy, dash out to the store to grab some, and then gag the moment she puts a piece in her mouth. One night last week she ordered a dozen tacos, shoveled two in her mouth while hunched over the kitchen counter like a wild animal who hadn’t eaten in weeks, and then promptly threw them both up in the sink. 

And now she wants pickles. It’s 10:30 on a school night, so Trixie is in bed. The house is quiet except for the soft sounds of a Bones rerun on TV. Her feet hurt and her back hurts and she’s hungry. She wants pickles. She wants pickles really bad. She’s craving pickles, and she needs to get these pickles in her mouth before Rory changes her mind, but she can’t get the goddamn jar open. 

“Son of a bitch,” she growls through gritted teeth as she tries and fails to twist open the jar. “Who the fuck puts a lid on this tight?”

“I’ve always loved when you curse,” Lucifer’s voice says from behind her.

Chloe whirls around with a gasp. The door to the patio is open. Lucifer is standing in the doorway, fiddling with a cufflink and wearing an amused grin. He’s exactly like she remembers. Tall and dark and handsome as hell, dressed to the nines and gazing at her like she’s the miracle to end all miracles. 

She loves the way he looks at her. She always has. But she wasn’t expecting to see him—she wasn’t expecting to see anyone —so she doesn’t smile at him, or greet him, or throw herself into his arms. She just screams and drops the pickle jar.

It hits the floor and shatters. Glass shards fly everywhere, pickle spears land on the ground with a wet splat, and green juice sprays all over her bare feet and her shins and the cupboards. 

Lucifer startles in surprise. 

Chloe smacks her hands over her mouth and gapes at him, her eyes wide. 

Trixie’s bedroom door flies open, and Trixie comes sprinting out with her fists clenched like some kind of miniature Maze clone. 

“What’s wrong?” she demands. “Mom? What—”

She slows to a stop when she sees Lucifer.

“Lucifer?” she says. 

“Hello urchin,” he greets with a nod. 

Trixie walks into the kitchen and toward Chloe but stops when she sees the shattered glass everywhere. She frowns at Chloe and then at Lucifer. “What are you doing here?”

“Well I came to see your mother,” Lucifer says, gesturing at Chloe. “I didn’t expect her to go all scream queen.”

They both look at Chloe, but Chloe doesn’t say anything. She can’t. She can’t do anything except stare at Lucifer because she can’t seem to wrap her mind around the fact that he’s here. He’s here.  

“Mom,” Trixie says gently. She reaches out over the puddle of pickle juice and touches Chloe’s elbow. “Are you okay?”

Chloe finally snaps out of her shock. “Yeah,” she says. “Yes, of course.” She flashes her daughter a smile. “I’m fine, monkey. Sorry if I woke you.”

Trixie shrugs it off. “It’s okay.” She glances down at the pickles. “Just stay there, okay? I’ll clean this up.”

“No, it’s okay,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “I’ve got it. You go back to bed.”

Trixie gives her a look. “You couldn’t get your boots off earlier, Mom. I don’t think you’ll be able to bend over and clean up pickles.”

Lucifer frowns at Chloe, and she feels heat rise to her cheeks. “I think I can handle a broom and a dustpan. Besides, Lucifer is here. He can help. So go on, get back to bed. You have that big math test tomorrow.”

Trixie sighs but doesn’t argue. She looks at Lucifer. “Will you be here when I wake up or are you going back tonight?”

He looks taken aback by her question, but then he smiles at her. “Well I wouldn’t mind having breakfast with my girls for old time’s sake.” And then he frowns. “If you’d like to have breakfast with me, that is.”

Trixie rolls her eyes. “Of course I want to have breakfast with you, Lucifer. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stretches out over the pickles and the broken glass and presses a kiss to Chloe’s cheek. “Night, mom.”

“Night, baby,” Chloe replies. 

She watches her daughter walk back to her room and slide her door closed, and then she turns back to Lucifer. 

For a moment, they just stand there staring at each other. On the TV, Booth and Brennan are bickering. The pickle juice puddle is cold beneath Chloe’s toes. Lucifer fidgets, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and tugging on his jacket, and then he clears his throat. 

“I’m sorry to have frightened you,” he says quietly. 

Chloe shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I…” 

Her throat feels like it’s closing up. Her eyes are starting to flood with tears. Her heart is threatening to beat straight out of her chest because it's pounding so hard, and if she doesn’t have him in her arms within the next five seconds she’s going to shatter like the pickle jar at her feet. 

Lucifer must be able to sense that she’s teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown because he furrows his eyebrows. 

“Chloe,” he breathes. He sounds agonized. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I can go—”

“No!” she nearly shouts when he starts to turn toward the door. 

Lucifer goes still. 

Chloe tilts toward him, desperate to step forward and physically stop him from leaving, but then she remembers the glass all over the floor and she sways, trying to keep her balance. She sucks in a breath, her body trembling from the effort of trying to hold it together, and then she blurts out in a rush, “There’s glass on the floor and I’m in my bare feet so can you please just get over here?”

He blinks at her for a second like he’s surprised, but then it finally seems to sink in why she hasn’t moved. He lurches forward, rounding the edge of the counter and striding toward her. The glass on the floor crunches beneath his shoes and then he’s sweeping her into his arms and she’s sobbing, and he’s crying, and for the first time in five months and two weeks and six days she feels whole again. 

Lucifer settles down first. He lifts his hands to her face, and he kisses her forehead and her nose and her cheeks. He murmurs how much he missed her and how much he loves her and how she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. 

“Yeah,” she snorts, wiping the back of her hand under her runny nose. “I’m sure I look real attractive right now. Tears and snot everywhere and I smell like pickles and my feet are the size of clown shoes and I’m the size of a damn elephant.”

He smiles at her, and sets his hands on her belly. “You have never been more beautiful than you are right now,” he murmurs. “And you know I never lie.”

A fresh wave of tears fills her eyes. “Lucifer,” she whispers. 

She pulls his head down toward hers to kiss him. She whispers I love you against his lips, and he holds her the way he did that night in the panic room and whispers it back, and the sound of his voice is like a salve on her soul.  

She leans away eventually. He wipes the remainder of the tears from her cheeks, and she gazes up at him and tries to memorize every line and curve of his face. 

“Why are you here?” she wonders. “Not that I’m complaining, because I…” She leans closer to him. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

He smiles. “As am I.”

“But I thought we decided…?”

“We did,” he says with a nod. “We did. But I...” 

He doesn’t finish. 

Chloe frowns. “But you what?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t give you up,” he whispers. “I can’t give us up. I...I can’t.”

Her heart broke when he left, and in the last few minutes he’s put it back together, but she can feel it starting to splinter again. She swallows around the grief welling up in her throat and presses her hand over his heart.

“We talked about this, babe. You’re not giving me up. It’s just temporary.”

“Temporary,” he breathes with a humorless laugh. “Decades for you, millennia for me. Temporary feels like an eternity.”

Her eyes are starting to grow warm again and she bites her lip. She can’t do this. If his resolve is going to crack then hers is too. 

“What about the time loop?” she manages to say. “We promised Rory.”

“That’s why I’m here, actually. I spoke to Amenadiel. It was a terribly boring conversation about the nature of time loops and time travel. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But wouldn’t you know it, love, your Devil found a loophole.”

“You always were good at finding those,” she murmurs fondly.

He smiles. “It appears that time loops revolve around a single person. And it’s not our time loop we’re in right now, it’s Rory’s. We’re part of it, of course, but she’s the linchpin. So as long as nothing changes for her, then nothing changes about the loop or the future. As long as I’m not part of her life before she seeks me out, everything will happen just as it’s supposed to.”

A hope that Chloe never dared to entertain flickers to life her in chest. “So what’s that mean for us?”

He smiles. “It means we only have to endure short separations instead of a massive one.”

She frowns because she’s tired and hungry and pregnant and her brain doesn’t like the complexities of time travel. 

“I’ll keep my word to our daughter,” Lucifer explains. “She’ll grow up without me. She’ll never consciously see me, or hear me, or know I was here. But you…” He lifts his hands to her face and brushes his thumbs over her cheeks. “I’ll be here for you. Not every day. Not even every year. It can’t be as much as either of us want because if your emotional state changes too much...”

“It’ll affect her,” Chloe finishes. “I have to miss you or she’ll notice.”

Lucifer nods. “Yes. But we’ll see each other. Sometimes.” He furrows his eyebrows. “If that’s what you want, of course.”

She presses her lips together. It’s not enough. She wants to reach out her hand and know that he’s there anytime she wants to touch him. She wants to call his name and hear him reply. She wants to fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him and see him every second of every day. Sometimes isn’t enough.

But it’s better than nothing. 

“Yeah,” she whispers, pulling him closer. “That’s what I want.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t stay beyond breakfast tomorrow. Amenadiel will be giving me exact times for when I can arrive and when I have to leave, and they’re non-negotiable.”

“But we have tonight?”

He nods. “We have tonight.” 

They spend the whole night talking. 

He tells her about Hell. He tells her about how it took a few decades for the demons to get fully on board with his changes, but he’s got them under control now. He tells her that Amenadiel offered to make time pass in Hell at the same speed it passes on earth so that their separation wouldn’t be so long for him. But there are so many souls to redeem—they’ve been accumulating since the beginning of time, after all—and some of them take so long to reach their moment of clarity that he needs all the time he can get. He tells her about all the new things he can do with loops, and about some of his sessions with individual souls, and she’s so proud of him that she thinks she could burst. 

She tells him about earth. She tells him about what it’s like to be a lieutenant, and about how Trixie and all their friends are doing. He rubs her feet as she tells him about her doctor’s appointments and her cravings, and when she hands him the ultrasound photo, he cries. They both do. 

When dawn starts to creep through the curtains, reality starts to set in. Dread spreads like ice through her veins, and she can see it written all over his face. She pulls him close, and he whispers her name and kisses her, and they lose themselves in each other until the sun has risen and she has to go wake up Trixie for school.

Breakfast is nice despite the looming separation. Trixie has plenty of questions and plenty of stories to share, and Lucifer seems happy, which makes Chloe happy. But then Trixie dashes off to catch the bus, and it’s just the two of them standing in her kitchen, and it hurts again. 

She thinks of that night on the penthouse balcony when she begged him not to go back to Hell and he went away. She knows if she begged him now, with tears in her eyes and their child growing inside her, that he’d make a different choice. He’d stay if she asked him to. 

But she won’t. 

“I love you,” she whispers. 

He presses his forehead to hers. “I love you too.”

The next time Chloe sees Lucifer, she’s giving birth. 

Their friends and family are on a rotation through her room the entire time she’s in labor, and they offer varying levels of comfort. 

Trixie is three books in on some new fantasy series she loves, and she happily reads it aloud when Chloe asks her to. Ella, of course, is sunshine and rainbows. She has a dozen stories about her STEM girls, and a dozen stories about Carol, and Chloe appreciates the distraction from the contractions so much she wants to cry. Linda is a godsend. Calm but funny, endlessly kind, and Chloe is so grateful to know that she won’t be the only woman in the world raising a half-angel baby that she does cry.

Maze is...well, she’s Maze. She snaps at a nurse for not getting Chloe ice chips fast enough, and growls at another nurse for putting too many blankets on Chloe when she’s clearly too hot, and snarls at the doctor for staring too long between Chloe’s legs until Eve gently reminds her wife that it is, after all, his job to stare between Chloe’s legs, so maybe she should cut him some slack. 

Amenadiel waves through the window in the door. Chloe waves back, and she feels that same rush of peace that she’s felt every time she’s been in his presence since he ascended to the throne of Heaven, but she’s glad he doesn’t come in. She would very much prefer for God not to accidentally catch a glimpse of her dilated cervix, thank you very much. 

“You’re very lucky,” a nurse tells Chloe right before her contractions start in earnest. “You have so many people who love you. This baby hasn’t even entered the world yet and she’s already so loved.”

She’s right. Of course she’s right. But the person Chloe loves most isn’t here, and the pain of that is almost too much to bear. 

Speaking of pain, she forgot how excruciating giving birth is.

“Almost there, Chloe,” the doctor says from between her legs. “Just a few more pushes, okay?”

Chloe tips her head back against the pillows and closes her eyes. “I can’t,” she whispers. 

She’s exhausted. Everyone offered to be in the room for the actual delivery but she told them all no, she said she’d be fine, but she’s not fine. 

She’s alone. 

A sob catches in her throat, and she can feel tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes, and she wishes that all those stories about being able to sell your soul to the Devil were true because she’d sell hers in a heartbeat if it meant that he would be here. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispers.

She feels him before she sees him. That presence of his that’s so much larger than life, and the warmth of his skin as he grabs her hand and holds it in both of his. She sucks in a breath and opens her eyes, certain she’s just delirious and he’s a figment of her imagination, but there he is. Black suit, perfectly arranged pocket square, adoration in his eyes. 

“Hello Detective,” he says with a smile.

“Lucifer,” she breathes in relief. 

He brushes a few strands of sweat-soaked hair back from her face, and then leans down to kiss her temple. “I’m here, love,” he whispers in her ear. “Now push.”

Everything gets a bit hazy after that. She pushes and squeezes Lucifer’s hand so hard she thinks it’d break if he were human. He murmurs encouragement in her ear and nuzzles close to her, apparently unbothered by how sweaty and gross she is. Seconds pass or an eternity passes, she doesn’t know. All she knows is pain, and then the sound of Rory’s crying echoing through the room, and then Lucifer’s laugh of disbelief in her ear.

“She’s here.”

When the nurse puts Rory in her arms, and Chloe looks down and sees those dark eyes that are so much like Lucifer’s, she thinks she couldn’t possibly be happier. But then a few minutes later, as she watches Lucifer hold their daughter for the first time, his eyes glistening with tears as he softly sings Isn’t She Lovely while Rory squirms, Chloe realizes she was wrong. 

She has never been happier than she is right now.

Chloe throws a party for Rory’s first birthday. 

It’s nothing huge—just finger foods and cake and a Cocomelon theme, because Rory is like her dad and she loves music but she hasn’t quite gotten to the rock and roll stage yet. She prefers songs about the wheels on the bus and twinkling little stars over drugs and debauchery. Chloe has zero musical talent, but Rory loves nothing more than when her mother sings to her, so Chloe does it often. She tries not to think about how much Rory would love the sound of her father’s voice.

Eve wants to plan a huge party. She offers more than once. But Chloe refuses because she knows that if Lucifer were here, that’s what he would do. There’d be a bounce house in the middle of Lux and a petting zoo and thousands of balloons and the tallest, most expensive cake that any one year old has ever had. 

Maybe she should have thrown a big party. Maybe she should have let Eve go crazy and given Rory a hint of her father’s extravagant taste. Chloe knows Lucifer wouldn’t mind. In fact, she knows he’d insist. But it feels wrong to do something he would do when he isn’t here to do it himself, and the idea of acting like he’s here when he’s not is just...it’s too hard for her. She can’t do it.

So, she throws a small party. Rory has a blast. Chloe takes a million pictures and half a million videos, and uploads them onto a cloud storage account that Lucifer can access anytime. Not that there’s cell service in Hell, because there isn’t. But Chloe likes knowing that he can pop up to earth whenever he wants and pull out his phone and see his kid on a screen, even if he can’t see her in person. 

The house is quiet. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is filtering through the curtains in golden streaks. Everyone is gone. Rory is asleep upstairs, and Trixie is out with Ella, and Chloe is standing in the kitchen, staring at her daughter’s half-eaten birthday cake and trying not to cry. 

She hasn’t seen Lucifer in a year. Their daughter turned one today and he’s not here. She took her first steps last week, and he wasn’t here for that either. He won’t be here to watch her learn to sing along with Cocomelon, and he won’t be here when she learns to ride a tricycle, and he won’t be here when she starts preschool. 

He’s not here. 

Chloe bends forward to set her elbows on the counter and bury her face in her hands. She tries not to let herself break down in front of the others, but no one is here. She might as well let herself have a good cry before she drowns her sorrows in at least three pieces of cake. 

“Mind if I have a slice?”

Chloe snaps her head up. She has to blink her tears away because her vision is blurred, but when she does, she sees Lucifer standing in her living room in a puddle of sunlight. He looks angelic. 

He smiles and slides his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t think I’d miss her first birthday, did you?”

Chloe can’t get across the room fast enough. 

They meet halfway, and she kisses him the moment she’s in his arms. He tastes like whiskey. He murmurs her name and slips his tongue into her mouth and desire roars to life inside her so fast that it leaves her breathless. 

They stumble to the couch and leave a trail of clothes in their wake. It’s been so long since she felt heat like this, and she knows it’s been even longer for him, so they don’t waste time. She tears open his shirt and he rips her jeans and they don’t slow down until they’ve both seen stars. 

They lay tangled together afterward, catching their breath. He strokes his hand through her hair. She traces the dips and swells of his muscles with her fingertips. She has her cheek pressed to his chest, and she can hear his heart beating. 

“What happens when I’m too old for this?” she whispers. 

He presses his lips to the top of her head. “Lube.”

She laughs in surprise, and his body shakes against hers as he chuckles too. She presses her nose against his chest and inhales, and then she kisses the spot over his heart and lifts her head to look at him. 

“I was being serious,” she says, resting her chin on the back of her hand. 

“As was I,” he replies, tapping his index finger on her nose. 

She rolls her eyes. 

He brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Nothing happens,” he murmurs. “We’re the same whether we’re humping like bunnies or binge watching Netflix or napping the day away.”

She frowns. “But you love sex.”

He smiles. “I love you. We’ve all of eternity to shag, darling. Trust me, when this time loop debacle is finished, we’ll spend at least a millennia doing nothing but each other. You needn’t worry if it doesn’t happen every time I visit earth. It’s worth the wait. You’re worth the wait.”

He doesn’t lie, and that makes warmth flood through her. She pushes herself off his chest and straddles his hips and then bends over him, her hair falling like a curtain around their faces. His hands stroke up and down her sides and then over her chest, his palms warm against her skin. 

“Well you don’t have to wait today,” she murmurs. She leans forward and brushes her lips over his. “Let’s do it again,” she whispers into his mouth. “And again.”

He smiles. “And again.”

Chloe leaves work late on a Thursday night in July when Rory is two. 

It’s been the week from hell. There was a serial killer on the loose, and even though he’s dead now—shot in the chest by Carol—he managed to take two of Chloe’s best officers with him. She delivered the news to their families herself. It’s hard for her to do notifications because it always makes her think of her dad, but she does them anyway. 

When she gets home, her mom is there. After a long hug, she tells Chloe that the girls are asleep—Trixie downstairs in her room, and Rory upstairs in hers. She offers to stay, but Chloe shakes her head. She’ll be okay. 

After she says goodbye to her mother and checks on Trixie, she climbs the stairs slowly. She hasn’t taken off her badge or her gun yet, and she desperately needs a shower, but she wants to see Rory. 

When she pushes open Rory’s bedroom door, she’s shocked to find a man standing over her daughter’s bed. She has her gun out in a heartbeat, her finger on the trigger, but something stops the words Don’t move! from coming out of her mouth. It’s the broad line of his shoulders, maybe. His dark hair shining in the moonlight. The faint smell of his cologne. 

“Lucifer?” she whispers.

He turns around slowly. He glances at her gun, but doesn’t react. He doesn’t smirk or make an innuendo. There’s devastation in his eyes and agony in the slump of his shoulders and Chloe’s heart twists in her chest. 

“She’s gotten so big,” he whispers. 

Chloe holsters her gun and steps into the room. “What are you doing here?” she hisses, putting her hand on his arm. “You know you can’t be this close to her. What if she wakes up?”

She tugs on his arm, but he doesn’t budge. He glances at their daughter, and that’s when Chloe sees the tears in his eyes. 

“Don’t make me leave her,” he whispers. He turns toward her and lifts his hand to her face. “Don’t make me leave you. Please.”

Chloe’s heart shatters. 

The corner of the room ignites with a soft golden glow, and then suddenly Amenadiel is standing there. “You can’t be here, brother.”

Lucifer doesn’t take his eyes off Chloe. “Please, love,” he begs. “Ask me to stay and I’ll stay.”

Amenadiel steps forward. “Chloe.”

Chloe’s fighting a losing battle with her tears. She glances at Rory, who is still asleep, but for how long? Lucifer’s hands are warm on her face and she can’t stop thinking about how much she wants this. The love of her life and her child in the same room, both within reach. No more lonely nights. No more goodbyes. 

“Chloe,” Amenadiel repeats, and this time there’s a tinge of desperation in his voice. “You don’t have long.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Lucifer whispers. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“Chloe,” Amenadiel says for a third time. 

Rory stirs, and they all go still. The room is dead silent. They hold their breath as Rory shifts in her bed, curls into a tight little ball, and then sighs and remains asleep. 

“The next time she stirs, she’ll wake,” Amenadiel warns.

The magnitude of what that means hits Chloe like a suckerpunch. She snaps to attention and tightens her hold on Lucifer’s arm and pulls him toward the door. This time, he doesn’t resist. She tugs him out into the hallway, and then casts a glance over her shoulder at Amenadiel. 

“Stay with her until I come back.”

He nods. 

Chloe closes the door and turns toward Lucifer. He looks shell shocked. She hesitates for a moment, unsure, and then she slips her hand into his. 

“Come on,” she murmurs. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They don’t walk very far. Just down the street from her place to the park, where they settle onto a bench beneath a streetlamp. 

Chloe doesn’t ask Lucifer what brought him here. She doesn’t press him to talk. She just wraps her arms around him and pulls him close and he curls into her side the way his daughter does, his head on her chest as if he wants to listen to the beating of her heart. 

Eventually, he breaks the silence. When he tells her he’s working with a group of souls who were absent fathers on earth, it takes every ounce of her strength not to burst into tears. 

“That’s not you, Lucifer,” she whispers. “You’re not absent.”

He sits up and looks at her. “I’m not present either. Not the way that counts.”

She strokes her fingertips over his stubble. “She told you that you were there when it counted. Remember?”

His eyes are glistening with tears. “What about you?” 

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie.”

Memories of her awful week—crime scene photos of brutal murders, the haunted look in Ella’s eyes, Rory’s tantrum when Chloe had to miss bedtime on Tuesday night because another body was found—slideshow through her mind, and she presses her lips together around the urge to double down on her lie in an attempt to comfort him. The truth is she wished for him to be here so many times this week that she lost count. She cried in the shower yesterday, and in her car this morning after she notified one of the families, and all she wanted was him.

“I’m not fine,” she confesses.

He closes his eyes. 

“But I will be,” she promises, leaning closer to him. “We both will be. Someday.”

He opens his eyes, and then brushes his thumb over a tear falling down her cheek. “I wish someday was today.”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “Me too.”

When Rory is three, Chloe drops her off at Linda’s for a playdate with Charlie. It’s a Saturday. She has the day off and Trixie is with friends so she plans to just hang out at Linda’s, but Linda shuts that idea down real quick. 

“You need a day off,” she says, ushering Chloe out the door. “I’ve got Rory for the rest of the day, so go on. Go do something for yourself.”

Chloe frowns. “Something for my—”

Linda shuts the door in her face before she gets the rest of her sentence out. 

Chloe stands on the front porch for a minute, frowning. She works and takes care of her kids and eats and sleeps. That’s pretty much her life these days, and it’s exhausting and stressful more often than not, but it’s what she knows. It’s all she knows.

So what the hell is she supposed to do now?

She goes home because she doesn’t know where else to go. She stops for a latte on the way, which she tells herself is a special treat, but really she just needs the caffeine. After she walks in the front door and tosses her keys on the counter, she stands in the middle of her living room and looks around with a growing lump in her throat. There are pictures of Lucifer on the walls, but they’re not enough. She’s standing in the place where he got down on one knee and asked her to spend the day with him and their daughter, and she loves that memory, but it’s not enough either. It hurts. She hasn’t seen him in over a year. She doesn’t know when she’ll see him again. Maybe after how hard it was for him to leave last time, he changed his mind about visiting and she won’t see him again until the end. Like, the end.

She closes her eyes and whispers, “I miss you.”

“I sincerely hope it’s me that you miss, because if not, this is very awkward.”

Chloe’s eyes fly open at the sound of Lucifer’s voice. She whirls around and there he is, standing just inside the front door and holding a bouquet of flowers and a white bakery bag that she knows contains a lemon bar. 

She drops her latte the way she dropped that pickle jar all those years ago, only this time she doesn’t have to wait for him to come to her. She runs across the room and throws herself into his arms, and he catches her with a laugh that makes her heart soar. 

“I missed you too,” he whispers.

On Rory’s first day of kindergarten, the weather is beautiful. 

The sky is a gorgeous shade of blue. The temperature is perfect. It rained a few days ago so everything seems brighter and more alive, and that includes Chloe’s daughters, who are both vibrating from excitement. 

Rory has been talking about her first day of school for months. She’s fiercely independent, so the idea of being away from her mother all day doesn’t seem to scare her the way it once scared Trixie. She’s a social butterfly like her father, so the prospect of meeting new friends makes her light up. She’s smart as a whip, too, and though she’d rather listen to music than read a book, she seems genuinely excited about the idea of learning new things. 

Trixie, meanwhile, is starting her first day of her senior year. It’s her last year of high school, the last year before she graduates and goes off to college, and she’s so grown up already that it gives Chloe a sense of whiplash. Her college applications are almost done. Between her good grades and her high test scores and her laundry list of extracurriculars plus plenty of volunteer hours, she’ll be a shoo-in at any college she wants. 

She’s already said she’ll go to USC. Chloe knows it’s so she can stay close to home and help with Rory, and part of her hates that her daughter feels like she has to stick around and be responsible when she should be off enjoying her youth. But Trixie is insistent that it’s her choice and that she wants to stay, and Chloe doesn’t make it a habit to argue with people over free will. 

Everyone else is excited about the first day too. Maze and Eve show up for breakfast. Maze tries to slip the girls switchblades—“For protection, Decker! Do you know how many weirdos there are at schools?”—but Chloe manages to wrestle the weapons away from her children and add them to the growing pile she keeps in a laundry basket upstairs in her closet. In the car, Ella calls to wish them both good luck. Linda and Amenadiel are at the school, dropping off Charlie for his first day of second grade, and when Amenadiel gets down on one knee and smiles proudly at Rory, Chloe’s composure starts to crack. 

Lucifer should be here. Lucifer should be kneeling before their daughter, beaming proudly and making her promise that she’ll get into all sorts of trouble but not too much trouble because her mother is a cop, after all. He should be here, and he’s not.

It’s not fair. 

When it’s time to say goodbye, Rory’s little jaw is set in determination. All the other kids are crying as they hug their mothers, and Rory’s bottom lip is trembling like she’s thinking about it, but Chloe can tell by the look in her eyes that she won’t. 

“Listen to your teacher, okay?” Chloe says, crouching down in front of her daughter. She adjusts the too-big backpack on Rory’s shoulders and then fusses with her jean jacket. “Be kind to the other kids.”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Rory says. “I’ll be good for you.”

Chloe smiles even as her eyes fill with tears. “That’s my girl.”

“You’ll be okay, right?” Rory asks, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

“I’m not sad, honey,” Chloe says, lifting her hand to her daughter’s face. “I’m just really proud of you, that’s all.”

Rory nods, and then she looks down at her feet. “I wish Dad was here,” she says softly. 

Chloe isn’t sure how she manages to keep it together. It’s not the first time she’s wanted to burst into tears and it won’t be the last, but it’s always the hardest when Rory misses him. It’s hard knowing that his absence is a wound that will fester. It’s hard knowing that he’s only gone because Rory asked him to be, and that she has to suffer for years before she can finally see her dad for who he is. 

“I know,” Chloe whispers. “Me too.”

She pulls her daughter in for a hug, and then ushers her into the waiting arms of a very enthusiastic teacher. She watches from the doorway as Rory finds her seat, and then waves as she settles in, and then she forces herself to turn around and walk away. She walks down the hallway and out the door and through the parking lot, smiling and waving at the parents and the teachers she knows. She gets all the way out to her car before the grief crashes over her like a tidal wave, and she can’t breathe through it. 

She can’t breathe. 

She drives to Lux. That’s where she always goes when she feels like she’s drowning. She’ll drink his whiskey so she remembers what he tastes like, and she’ll wear one of his shirts so that she smells like him, and then she’ll put on a record and curl up in their bed and slideshow through every memory she has of him, playing them over and over again until they’re burned into her brain, so that no matter how much time has passed she will never, ever forget. 

Amenadiel is at Lux. She doesn’t even see him until she runs straight into his chest in the lobby. 

“Chloe,” he says cheerfully. And then he sees the tears streaked on her face, and his smile fades. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. She never asks. She never asks because she doesn’t want to be that person, she doesn’t want to pull Lucifer away from his calling and she doesn’t want everyone to worry that she’s falling apart, but she is falling apart. She is. 

So she asks. 

“Can I see him?” she whispers. She fists her hands in Amenadiel’s shirt and tries and fails to swallow a sob. “I need to see him, Amenadiel.”

Amenadiel smiles sadly. “Chloe—”

“Please,” she cuts him off, certain that he’s going to tell her no. She’ll beg if she has to. “Please, Amenadiel. I can’t...I can’t do this without him.”

Amenadiel smiles and covers her hands with his. “He’s already here.”

Chloe frowns. “What?”

“Go upstairs,” he says gently. “He’s waiting for you in the penthouse.”

Chloe blinks at him for a second, stunned, and then she lets go of his shirt and she runs. She doesn’t say thank you or goodbye. She doesn’t greet any of the Lux staff she passes. She just sprints to the elevator, and presses the button a thousand times, and then twists her hands together as the elevator ascends more slowly than it’s ever moved before. 

The doors slide open, and she steps into the penthouse, and for a moment all she can think about is that time she came here and found sheets on his furniture because he was gone. 

What if he’s gone now too?

“Lucifer?” she calls, her voice cracking. 

And then she sees him. He’s out on the balcony. He turns at the sound of his name. His eyes light up when he sees her, and his face breaks out into a smile, and she runs straight into his arms.

When she finally manages to catch her breath, she calls off work so she can spend the day with him. It feels like before. Before the time loop, before they were parents, before they weren’t allowed to be together every second of every day. They drink whiskey. They trade stories and tease each other and laugh. He plays the piano for her, and she orders food, and there’s sex. So much sex. 

But even though it feels like they’ve slowed time, they haven’t. She has to pick Rory up from school, and he has to go back to Hell, and they’re having goodbye sex when she says it. 

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers. 

He goes still above her. She closes her eyes, but it’s too late. Tears are rolling down her cheeks and her heart is shattering in her chest. It’s been in pieces for so long that she doesn’t even know what’s left to shatter. It’s more like someone is grinding the shards to dust beneath their heel. Soon, there won’t even be dust left. She’ll be nothing.

“Chloe,” Lucifer whispers. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs. He kisses the trails of her tears, kisses her forehead and her nose and her mouth, and she wraps her arms around him and clings to him desperately. “I’m sorry. I know you have to go—”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to go.”

He presses his forehead to hers. “Just a blip in our existence my ass.”

She laughs. Tears are streaming down her face, and her every inhale is laced with a sob, but she laughs. 

He nuzzles his face into the curve of her shoulder, and she weaves her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. They’re still for a while, and the grief that was eating her alive finally starts to recede. It doesn’t fade. It never fades. But the sharp pain melts into a dull ache, and she remembers how to breathe.  

“She’s worth it,” Lucifer whispers. 

Chloe nods. “Yes, she is. And so are you.”

He lifts his head to look at her. “Close your eyes.”

Her vision blurs with tears again. “Lucifer.”

“Close your eyes.”

She closes her eyes. She feels him press a kiss to her forehead, and then his stubble scratches over her cheek as he leans forward to put his mouth by her ear. 

“You can’t see me,” he whispers. “But I’m here. Always.”

The next time she gets to hold him it’s Christmas Eve, more than three years after their day in the penthouse. 

Chloe’s apartment is dark except for the lit up Christmas tree and the fireplace. Trixie and Rory are both asleep, so it’s quiet except for the soft strains of Kenny G’s Christmas album, which is turning slowly on the record player that Chloe keeps in the corner of the living room because it reminds her of Lucifer. 

She still has three presents left to wrap, but she’s tired. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t hear the front door open. 

“Chloe,” Lucifer calls softly. 

She startles in surprise, and slices the pad of her index finger on the edge of the red wrapping paper she has spread over the coffee table. It stings like hell, but she forgets all about the pain when she looks over her shoulder and sees the Devil standing in her doorway. 

“Lucifer,” she whispers. 

He crosses the room in just a few strides, and she barely has time to rise from the couch before he’s pulling her into his arms. 

They stand there for a while, just holding each other as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas plays, and Chloe finds herself wishing Santa was real so she could ask him to let her keep the love of her life for the rest of her life.

Eventually, they both lean back. 

“I come bearing gifts,” Lucifer murmurs with a smile.

Chloe frowns, and he gestures toward the door. She sees a large wrapped box sitting next to the kitchen peninsula, and a smaller box sitting on top. 

“For the girls,” he murmurs. “You’ll have to say they’re from you, of course. Unless Rory still believes in Santa?”

Chloe shakes her head. “No. She stopped last Christmas.”

Lucifer looks disappointed, and she knows it’s because he’s thinking about how he wasn’t here last Christmas, or any of the Christmases before that. 

“What’s inside the boxes?” she asks, lifting her hand to his cheek. 

“Jewelry for Trix.” He brushes a strand of hair back from her face. “Maze said she’s been wearing your necklaces. Fitting, since she’s your mini me, but I thought she could use one of her own.”

Chloe smiles. “And for your mini me?”

“A guitar. Child sized, of course, but...well, she has to start somewhere.”

Chloe’s eyes well up. If he were here, he would teach their daughter how to play the piano. They’d play duets together, and Chloe would surreptitiously record them on her phone so she’d always have the memory. But he’s not here, and she can’t bear to have someone other than Lucifer teach their daughter to play the piano, and he knows that. That’s why he’s here with a guitar for a child who adores music but can never know that her first instrument was a gift from her father.

“She’ll love it,” Chloe whispers, pressing her hand over his heart. 

“I love you,” Lucifer whispers back.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas starts playing on the record player. Chloe swallows around the sudden tightness of her throat, and tries and fails to keep her tears at bay. She knows how this night is going to go. He’ll help her wrap the remaining presents. They’ll go upstairs and undress each other and for a while, they’ll forget everything else. The world will narrow to her bed and to him and nothing else will matter. They’ll make love and they’ll talk and then they’ll make love some more. She’ll smile and laugh because she can’t help it when he’s around. He makes her feel weightless.

But when the first hints of dawn start to streak the sky, he’ll leave her. He’ll kiss her goodbye and slip away, and she’ll feel bereft for weeks afterward. She’ll wonder if it’s worth it to torture themselves with such brief reunions. She’ll wonder if it would be better if they just didn’t see each other until the end, when they never have to say goodbye again. But then she’ll remember his smile, and the sound of his voice, and she’ll know that stolen moments are better than no moments at all.

Lucifer covers her hand with his and leans toward her. “You know we never did get that dance at Maze’s wedding,” he whispers. 

He wraps his other arm around her waist. She tilts closer to him, and they start to sway slowly. The sound of the saxophone wraps around them like a blanket. Lucifer sings along with the chorus of the song, his voice low and melodic in her ear, and Chloe closes her eyes and smiles because this year, at least, they’re both home for Christmas.

Sometimes Chloe catches a glimpse of Lucifer in crowds. 

The first few times it happens, she thinks it’s just her mind playing tricks on her. She wants him here, and it’s deeply upsetting that he’s not, so she must be imagining him. 

When she locks eyes with him at the zoo while a two-year-old Rory sleeps on her shoulder, though, she knows. It’s him. 

Her favorite Lucifer-in-a-crowd moment happens when Rory appears in a school play. 

Their daughter is cast as an angel, which the whole family thinks is very funny. It’s a joyful night. But the entire time Chloe is sitting in the school auditorium and watching Rory up on stage, she can’t stop thinking about how much Lucifer would love this. He’d hate it too, of course. The chairs are uncomfortable and the air conditioning has made the room frigid. All the PTA is selling during intermission is cans of off-brand soda and unappetizing cookies. The kid who was cast in the main role forgets half her lines and stumbles through the other half thanks to a serious case of stage fright. But Rory is playing an angel and she’s dressed like an angel and she is an angel, and her father would love it. 

Afterward, in the hustle and bustle of the lobby while she waits for Rory to come out of the dressing room, Chloe’s heart aches. The whole family is here—Maze and Eve, Ella and Carol, Linda and Amenadiel and Charlie. Trixie too, along with her new boyfriend who is very sweet and also very nerdy. But the one person Chloe desperately wants to be here isn’t, and she aches. 

She’s coming out of the bathroom when she bumps into someone. 

“Oh, sorry,” she says, looking up. 

And there he is. 

“No need to apologize,” Lucifer murmurs. He slips a bouquet of flowers into her hand. “Wonderful performance, wasn’t it?” 

The crowds swirl around them, and she opens her mouth to ask him how long he’s been here, but she doesn’t get the chance. Someone bumps into her back, and she stumbles, and when she looks up again, he’s gone. 

She gives the bouquet to Rory a few minutes later. 

“They’re so pretty, Mom!” Rory exclaims with a megawatt smile that’s so much like her father’s. “Thanks.”

Chloe hugs her. Over her daughter’s shoulder and through the crowds, she sees Lucifer smiling like the proud father he is.

When Rory is eleven, Chloe gets shot in the same place where Jimmy Barnes shot her. 

Three armed perps sneak their way into the precinct dressed as cops in an attempt to break their boss out of holding. It almost works, too. The desk sergeant doesn’t recognize them but lets them in when he sees their (fake) badges. They go through three more officers and a sergeant, each of whom should recognize something is wrong but don’t because they’re too busy or too tired or too apathetic. Nobody notices.

But Chloe does. 

She knows all of her cops. She knows their faces and their names and their weaknesses and their strengths. She knows that even though she steers clear of the spotlight and not everyone in the precinct is under her direct command, everyone knows who she is. Whether it’s from her days as a homicide detective with the highest closure rate and an eccentric partner, or her community policing initiative that’s slowly but surely changing how the LAPD operates, or just the fact that there’s always a waitlist of cops begging to transfer into her unit and work for her, everyone stands a little straighter when Lieutenant Decker is around. 

But not these three. 

Chloe pauses halfway down the staircase when they pass by her. They all avoid her gaze and barely return her greeting, and she feels it in her gut. Something is wrong. 

She puts her hand on her gun. “Hey. Stop.”

They don’t stop.

“You three, stop. Now. That’s an order.”

They pull their guns out as they turn to face her. They shoot first, and though she’s not as young as she used to be, she’s still Chloe Decker and she’s quick on the draw.

She hits one of them. But before she can shoot the others, she feels the searing pain of a bullet drilling into her chest and suddenly she’s falling backwards and tumbling down the stairs. She hits the back of her head on the floor as she lands, and her vision swims. She hears Carol shouting nearby, and then more gunshots, and then Ella is screaming her name. 

Chloe doesn’t answer. She just blinks slowly at the ceiling and tries to breathe. She thinks of Jimmy Barnes, and of Lucifer, but Lucifer isn’t here. It’s not his face that appears above hers to offer reassurance. 

“Decker,” Ella says, suddenly hovering above her. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” She presses her hands down on the wound to apply pressure, and Chloe groans. 

“Stay with me,” Ella says. 

“The girls,” Chloe whispers. “Ella, my girls.”

“Medics are on the way,” Carol’s voice says. 

He sounds far away. Chloe’s vision is starting to darken. 

“Chloe!” Ella calls, but she sounds distant too. “Chloe, stay with me!”

“Lucifer,” Chloe whispers just before everything goes black.

She wakes in a hospital bed. 

She’s disoriented. Her eyelids feel heavy, and it takes her a few tries, but she finally manages to open her eyes. The first thing she sees are half a dozen vases of flowers on her bedside table. And then she hears his voice. 

“Well, look who’s back.”

She smiles and turns her head, and there he is. He looks disheveled. His hair is mussed and his suit is wrinkled as if he spent the night in the chair next to her bed. She wonders if he did. He grabs her hand, and she clings to him. He leans forward, his chest pressing into the side of her hospital bed.

“You’ve been out for three years,” he whispers with a smile. 

“Ass,” she whispers back. 

He laughs. She missed his laugh so much that her eyes fill with tears. He notices immediately, and his smile dissolves. 

“Chloe,” he whispers, tilting closer and thumbing away a tear that escapes. 

She shakes her head. “Happy tears,” she whispers, her voice cracking a little. She squeezes his hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He leans forward and presses his lips to her forehead. “You scared me,” he breathes into her skin.

More tears escape as she closes her eyes. “I scared myself.”

“I should’ve been there.”

“Lucifer.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

They sit there like that for a long time. When he finally leans back, she knows what she needs to say. 

“Do you think I should retire?” 

He frowns and smooths his hand over her hair. “Why would you retire? You know when you’re going to die, darling. You know it’s in the distant future, and that it has nothing to do with your job.”

“Yeah, but they don’t.”

“Who?”

“Our girls. I know how it feels, Lucifer. That constant fear that you’ll lose your other parent. It eats away at you, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to damage them. I’m all they have right now and I...”

She trails off when she sees the grief and guilt shivering over his face, and she feels immediately guilty for the unintended implication of her words. 

“Don’t do that,” she whispers, squeezing his hand. “Don’t blame yourself.”

He shakes his head. “Chloe…”

“We made this choice together,” she says fiercely. “As partners. If you’re guilty, then so am I.”

He sighs but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t either. He strokes his hand through her hair, and she watches him. Sometimes when he visits, all she can do is stare at him. She has hundreds of pictures of him in her phone and a dozen more framed all throughout her house but a picture just isn’t the same as seeing his face in person.

“You remember what Rory said to you in the penthouse?” he murmurs. 

Chloe frowns. “When?”

“The night we read Doctor Linda’s book.”

She knows where he’s going with this, but she can’t seem to find her voice. 

“The person our daughter admires most in this world is you, Chloe. And do you remember why?”

She presses her lips together as tears fill her eyes. 

“Because you stand up for justice. You do the right thing, even when it’s dangerous or difficult, even when it could cost you everything. You are honest, and trustworthy, and reliable. You are selfless to a nauseating degree. You are truly good, and you’re the best thing that ever happened to me and to our daughter.”

He leans forward and lifts her hand to his mouth. He kisses each of her knuckles, and then kisses the white stone on the ring he slipped onto her finger all those years ago.

“You’re teaching our daughter how to be a badass,” he murmurs into her knuckles. “You can’t stop now.” 

She nods. “Okay.”

Penelope Decker dies on a Tuesday morning. 

It’s raining. California has been in the midst of its worst drought ever, and it’s been so bad that even Chloe sent up a prayer. Within an hour of doing so, it was raining. She’ll always love Amenadiel for how closely he listens to her. 

But God doesn’t save her mother. 

She wouldn’t have asked him to. Not that she knew she was supposed to. She didn’t know it was coming. Her mother died in her sleep, warm and safe and peaceful, and Chloe has a luxury that most humans don’t. She knows what the afterlife holds, and she knows where her mom is going, and she knows that after decades of longing for each other, her parents have finally, finally been reunited. 

It hurts a little that she and Lucifer can’t do the same right now, but she understands. Really, she does. But she misses him today more than most days. 

It’s raining. Rory has cried herself to sleep in Trixie’s arms, and Trixie is snuggled up in Maze’s arms, all cried out too. Chloe is staring at them, trying to understand why she can’t conjure up any tears of her own, when Eve sets her hand on Chloe’s shoulder. 

“Why don’t you get out of the house for a little while?” she suggests in that gentle voice she’s so good at. “We’ve got the girls.”

Chloe nods numbly and grabs her car keys. The rain is coming down in sheets, but she doesn’t pause for a jacket or an umbrella. She just walks out to her car, one foot in front of the other like the robot she feels like she is. She drives an SUV now, sensible and reasonably priced and roomy enough to hold two daughters and their angelic cousin, or sometimes two bounty hunters and their very large, very drooly dog. 

It’s just her today, though, and she doesn’t know where to go. She drives on autopilot with the windshield wipers on their highest setting. Somehow she ends up at the beach where she and Lucifer spent the day with Rory. She parks the SUV, and steps out into the rain, and walks down to the sand. She’s soaked to the bone by the time she stops. Her hair is plastered to her face and her clothes are suctioned to her body and she doesn’t care. Her parents are gone, and Lucifer is gone, and she’ll see them all again someday, but someday isn’t today. 

Today she’s just alone, and she’s too tired to grieve. 

She thinks he’s a figment of her imagination at first. The man in the distance, walking toward her across the sand and apparently just as unconcerned with the rain as she is, couldn’t possibly be real. But then he gets closer and she recognizes his stride, and the perfectly arranged pocket square, and she knows that if the rain were to stop his hair would dry in a mess of curls. 

She’s crying by the time he stops in front of her. She didn’t cry when she got the call and she didn’t cry when she saw the body and she didn’t cry when her daughters did. But she’s crying now, standing in front of the Devil in a torrential downpour, and she isn’t even sure which terrible thing she’s crying over but it doesn’t matter.

“Hello my love,” Lucifer whispers. 

She shouldn’t hear him over the storm or the crashing waves but she does. She grabs a fistful of his jacket and yanks him toward her and kisses him. He doesn’t pull away to ask her if she’s okay. He doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile. He just kisses her back and she knows, deep down in the place where her soul and his are the same, that everything will be okay.

Chloe records Rory learning to play the guitar as often as she can, but she doesn’t upload the videos to the cloud. 

It’s selfish of her, maybe, but she wants to see the expression on Lucifer’s face as he watches his daughter struggle to learn but slowly get better and better. She wants to carve out a little slice of what they should have had and keep it all for themselves, outside the reach of Hell and the time loop and everything else. 

Six years and three months after Lucifer shows up on Christmas Eve, he shows up on a Friday when Rory is sleeping over at Trixie’s new apartment. After their initial greetings—the hugs and the kisses and the teary-eyed whispers of how much they missed each other and how much they still love each other—he smiles. 

“What should we do tonight, darling?”

She smiles too. “I have a present for you.”

“Do you now,” he says with a sly grin. 

She laughs. “Not that kind of present. Well, okay, we’ll do that later. But not now. Right now there’s something else.”

She pulls him by the hand into the living room. They settle on the couch, cuddled together beneath a blanket with glasses of wine. Lucifer watches the videos, and Chloe watches Lucifer. After a spellbound silence when they’re done, he wraps his arms around her and presses his lips to her temple.

“Thank you for this,” he whispers. 

Chloe nuzzles closer to him. “Thank you for her.”

When Rory is fifteen, she gets caught tagging an underpass with a group of friends. 

It’s a Friday night, and Chloe is working late because she thinks her daughter is sleeping over at a friend’s house. She’s just poured herself yet another cup of coffee—it’s been a long day—and she’s talking to Cacuzza near her old desk when she looks up and sees her daughter walking down the stairs with Officer Jack Chase, a friend of Chloe’s from the academy, in tow. 

Chloe stops talking mid-sentence. Rory isn’t in cuffs, and Jack isn’t holding on to her, but it doesn’t matter. Chloe can tell by the guilty look on her daughter’s face that she’s done something she knows she shouldn’t have. It’s the same look she used to get when she was little and would sneak into Chloe’s bathroom to play with her makeup. 

Rory stares at her boots as she crosses the bullpen and then comes to a stop in front of Chloe. The whole precinct seems to have fallen silent. Chloe glances around the room, and everyone immediately ducks their heads and averts their eyes and pretends to be working. 

“Hey Decker,” Jack greets. He’s wearing a sympathetic smile, but to Chloe it looks like pity and she hates it. 

“My office, Aurora,” she says quietly. “Now.” 

Rory doesn’t argue. She just does as she’s told and heads toward Chloe’s office. 

When she’s gone, Jack quietly explains what happened. He claims he didn’t actually catch Rory in the act so there’s no need to file any reports, and he only brought her here as a courtesy since she’s a minor and it’s late. But Chloe knows better. 

“Thanks,” she tells him. 

Jack nods and smiles and then turns back toward the stairs. Chloe turns on her heel and strides toward her office. 

When she gets there, she finds Rory standing near her desk. She’s staring out the window. There’s a framed picture of her holding the guitar Lucifer bought her for Christmas not far from where she’s standing, and Chloe aches. He’s so close even though he’s so far away and their daughter has no idea. 

Rory turns around. Chloe folds her hands in front of her and lifts her eyebrows expectantly. It’s not quite the same look she gives suspects, but it’s close. 

“Sorry,” Rory mumbles.

“Are you?” Chloe asks. “Or are you just sorry you got caught?”

Rory folds her arms over her chest and glares at the wall. “Both I guess.”

Chloe sighs. “What were you thinking , Rory? You told me you were at Ashley’s—”

“I was at Ashley’s,” Rory interrupts. “And then we went out.”

“To deface public property?” Chloe says incredulously. 

Rory glares at her. “Why do you care, anyway? Lucifer did all kinds of stupid shit when you were partners and you never got mad at him. Hell, he fucking abandoned us and you’re still not mad at him.”

Chloe feels like she’s been slapped. It’s the first time Rory’s ever cursed at her, and it’s the first time she’s ever called Lucifer anything but Dad, and it hurts.

Rory must realize she’s crossed a line, because she shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Sorry,” she mutters. 

Chloe shakes her head. “Stop apologizing just because you think it will get you out of trouble.”

“Is that what he used to do before he knocked you up and ran away?”

Chloe blinks at her daughter, stunned, and then her already frayed temper snaps. She brandishes her finger and opens her mouth, but before she can say anything she’ll regret, the office door swings open behind her. 

She turns to find Sonja standing in the doorway with a file in her hand. 

“Sorry,” she says, glancing between Chloe and Rory. “I was just going to update you before I left. I didn’t realize you had a visitor. I can wait.”

Chloe glances at the clock on the wall. It would be unprofessional and selfish to ask Sonja to hang around this late on a Friday just so Chloe can yell at her kid. It also might not be the worst thing in the world to give herself a few minutes to calm down. 

She turns back to Rory. “Go sit in Ella’s lab until I’m done.” 

Rory rolls her eyes and stomps her feet through the office and past Sonja without a word.

Chloe sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. Her head is pounding. She just wants to go home and crawl into bed, but she can’t. And even if she could, she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep. These are the nights when she misses Lucifer the most, and her bed feels unbearably cold without him. 

“We can do this later, Lieutenant,” Sonja says kindly. 

“No, it’s okay,” Chloe says, dropping her hand. She smiles. “Now’s fine.” She walks around her desk and gestures at the chairs across from her as she sits. “What’s up?”

Sonja takes a seat and starts talking. Chloe has to try extremely hard to focus on what she’s saying because Rory’s words are echoing in her mind. 

He fucking abandoned us and you’re still not mad at him.

When Sonja finishes her update, she asks for some advice. Chloe offers some suggestions, but then she smiles. 

“But that can wait until next week. Get out of here and go enjoy your weekend. I don’t want to see you back here until Monday morning.”

Sonja laughs. “Yes ma’am.”  

She gets to her feet and heads for the door, but she stops in the doorway and turns around. 

Chloe frowns. “Is there something else?” 

Sonja hesitates, but then she seems to make up her mind and straightens. “Teenagers can be rough, but don’t second guess yourself,” she says. “She’s a good kid, and you’re a great mom.”

The urge to burst into tears is so strong that Chloe curls her hands into fists beneath her desk as she struggles against it. 

“Thanks,” she manages to say.

Sonja nods and then disappears, and Chloe is left alone in the silence of her office. 

She puts her elbows on her desk and rubs her temples. She wonders how Lucifer would deal with Rory tagging an underpass if he were here, and then she realizes Rory probably wouldn’t have tagged an underpass if her father was around. 

She exhales a heavy sigh and, after glancing at the framed drawing of Lucifer and Trixie sitting near her nameplate, she gets up and heads for Ella’s lab. 

Rory isn’t there though. Ella isn’t either, which might mean they’re together somewhere, but it could also mean Rory is wandering around the precinct looking for some other way to rebel. 

Great. 

Chloe sighs and takes a lap to scan the bullpen. She’s starting to worry when she walks past the break area and spots her daughter by the refrigerator. Rory has the door open, and she’s bent forward as if she’s retrieving something, but she’s not moving. She’s standing totally still, her head cocked as if she’s listening, and it isn’t until Chloe walks up behind her that she realizes Rory is eavesdropping on a conversation that two uniformed officers are having near the coffee maker. 

“…not surprising the kid’s a troublemaker,” one of them is saying. Chloe can’t tell because they both have their backs to her, but she thinks the one who’s speaking is Officer Tucker. That means the other must be Officer Barnes, his partner. 

“I mean, her dad was nuts,” Tucker says. “You know I saw him snort cocaine at an active crime scene once?”

“Jesus,” Barnes says. “How the hell did Decker end up with a guy like that? She’s such a goody two shoes.” 

The world seems to grind to a halt. Chloe feels an embarrassed flush race through her body from the top of her head down to her toes. They’re talking about her.

“Well, you and I both know good girls like bad boys,” Tucker chuckles, oblivious to the fact that he has an audience. “And actually, between me and you, Decker’s always had questionable taste in men. She married Espinoza pretty fast, and then turned around and divorced him when she found out he was on the take. Then she screwed around with our lieutenant—”

“Wait, Decker? ” Barnes cuts him off. “Decker slept with her boss?”

“Oh yeah,” Tucker says. “Got him to put a ring on it and everything, but then she left the poor guy hanging and called off the wedding. He was so distraught he moved back to Chicago.”

“No way. Really?”

“Swear on my mother’s grave. You can take the girl out of the hot tub but you can’t take the hot tub out of the girl.”

They laugh, and Chloe feels suddenly dizzy. She knows she should clear her throat or say their names or do something, anything to alert them to her presence, but she can’t seem to make her mouth move. She’s frozen in place. 

“All that to say, I wasn’t surprised when she shacked up with a guy who called himself the Devil,” Tucker says, sipping his coffee. “Not surprised he turned tail and ran after he knocked her up, either. Guy was as selfish as they come. I kind of feel bad for her. He’s probably living it up in Vegas, fucking everything that breathes, and she’s here all alone with his nightmare of a kid on her hands.”

Rage flares in Chloe’s chest, but before she can open her mouth, Rory straightens and slams the refrigerator door closed with a bang.

Tucker and Barnes whirl around at the sound, and Chloe startles in surprise. She’d been so caught up listening that she’d forgotten her daughter was listening too. 

“Oh shit,” Tucker breathes. 

“You two are real assholes, you know that?” Rory spits. Her hands are curled into fists and she’s glaring, but the tears in her eyes make it clear that she’s far more hurt than angry.

Chloe’s heart twists painfully in her chest, and she reaches out to set her hand on her daughter’s arm. “Rory.”

Rory shrugs out of her grasp. “If anyone deserves pity, it’s you guys,” she snarls at Tucker and Barnes. “You’re so butthurt that my mom never looked twice at you that you’re standing out in the open talking shit about her and she’s your boss. What kind of idiots do that?”

Tucker flushes a brilliant shade of crimson. Barnes’s mouth falls open. Chloe presses her lips together because, well, her kid’s not wrong.

Rory glares at them, mutters fuckers under her breath, and then stalks away.

An awkward silence follows her departure.

“Lieutenant,” Tucker starts.

Chloe holds up her hand. “Don’t.”

He falls silent. Barnes clears his throat. Neither of them will look at her.

“Go do your jobs,” she says.

They both turn on their heels and hurry away. 

Chloe watches them go, and then turns her attention back to what actually matters: finding her daughter. She strides through the bullpen, head on a swivel, and then stops when she glances through the windows and into the lab. 

Rory is inside the lab, and she’s buried in Ella’s arms in a tight hug. Her back is to the windows, so Chloe can see her shoulders shaking, and she knows even from this far away that her daughter is crying. 

Ella catches her eye over Rory’s shoulder. I got this, she mouths. 

Chloe tries and fails to smile. It should comfort her that Rory ended up in Ella’s arms. Rory idolizes Maze and she’d punch anyone who looked at Eve sideways. She has a profound amount of respect for Linda, and she adores Trixie. But Ella is different. There’s something about the bubbly forensic scientist that seems to cut straight through the granite exterior Rory tries to project, and down to the generous and kind soul hiding beneath. Chloe has always loved that. 

Probably because it reminds her of Lucifer.

Anguish washes over her. The floor seems to tilt beneath her feet, and she stumbles blindly toward her office. She manages to get through the door before the first tears spill from her eyes, but only barely. She closes the door with a soft click as her vision starts to blur. She turns and presses her back against the door, and after a moment of trying and failing to compose herself, she sinks down to the ground. Her knees bump her chest as she buries her face in her arms. She sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and then tilts her tearstained face up to the ceiling and closes her eyes to pray. 

Amenadiel. 

He answers almost immediately. He always does. Golden light flares in the corner of the office, and then suddenly he’s standing in the same spot Rory was not long ago. 

When he sees Chloe on the floor, he smiles sadly. Empathy is etched into the familiar lines of his face. He crosses the room and crouches before her. She sniffs and tries to wipe her tears away, but more fall in their place. He reaches out and sets a large hand on her knee. It brings her no comfort. There’s only one thing that will. Or, rather, one person.

“I need to see him,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “Please.”

Amenadiel shakes his head. “You can’t. Rory will be back in this office in five minutes.”

“I can do five minutes,” she insists. “I only need five minutes.”

He tilts his head. “Chloe,” he says gently. 

“Four,” she begs. “Three.”

He doesn’t say anything. 

She fists her hand in his shirt. “Thirty seconds. Ten. Just...just a second, Amenadiel. Please. Just let me see him for a second.” 

“I’m sorry,” Amenadiel murmurs. 

A fresh flood of tears fills Chloe’s eyes. She wants to hate him. She wants to shove him away from her and scream and ask what the hell the point is in becoming god of the whole damn universe if you can’t answer one stupid little prayer. Better yet, what’s the point of any of this? Why is she a miracle, why did she and Lucifer cross paths, why did they finally finally find their way into each other’s arms if they were always destined to lose each other?

What the fuck is the point?

Amenadiel holds out his hand, and a folded sheet of paper materializes in his palm. There’s a red seal with an M imprinted in the wax on the center. 

“Lucifer asked me to give this to you if there was ever a time when you needed to see him and couldn’t,” Amenadiel murmurs. 

Chloe stares at the sheet of paper, but she can’t bring herself to take it. “He wrote it?” 

Amenadiel nods. “Yes. For you.”

Chloe chews her lip, and then finally reaches out and takes the paper. She brushes the pad of her thumb over the wax seal. She wonders how long ago Lucifer touched it. 

“I am sorry, Chloe,” Amenadiel murmurs. 

Chloe nods but can’t seem to find her voice.

Amenadiel squeezes her knee, and then disappears in another flare of gold.

Chloe rubs her thumb over the wax seal for a few more seconds, trying to find her equilibrium again, and then slowly gets to her feet. She wipes the remaining tears from her cheeks, and then walks over to one of the black leather chairs nearby and sits. She slips her finger beneath the wax seal and gently unfolds the sheet of paper. 

She recognizes the familiar black scrawl immediately. She brushes her fingertips over the page, and then closes her eyes to imagine what he looked like writing this. She sees him at his desk in the penthouse, an absurdly expensive fountain pen in his hand, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She smiles despite herself, and opens her eyes to read. 

Chloe, my love:

I want to be there with you. I need you to know that. I have never wanted anything or anyone more. But you don’t need me, darling. You want me, you love me, you choose me. I know all these things. But I also know that our daughter was correct that day in the penthouse. You can do this without me, and you will. It isn’t fair. It isn’t what either of us want. But she’s worth it. She’s worth all of it.

Close your eyes. 

I’m with you always.

Chloe closes her eyes, presses the letter against her heart, and cries. 

A few minutes later, just as Amenadiel predicted, Rory bursts in the door. Chloe has tucked Lucifer’s letter away in a desk drawer, to be pulled out and re-read over and over until the paper wears thin and the ink starts to fade. 

There are tears in Rory’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

Chloe knows that this time, her daughter means it. 

She opens her arms, and Rory comes running. 

On the afternoon of Rory’s sixteenth birthday, while Chloe is in the shower in preparation for the family dinner that Linda is hosting in a few hours, she hears the bathroom door creak open. 

She frowns. Trixie took Rory out for a drive to celebrate Rory getting her driver’s license, which means Chloe is supposed to be home alone and her bathroom door should not be creaking open. 

She peers around the shower curtain and out into the bathroom and finds herself face to face with the Devil. 

“Hello gorgeous,” he greets.

Her heart leaps with joy—he’s here!—but then she frowns. 

Wait. 

He’s here now?

“Amenadiel told you now was okay?” she says, pushing her wet hair back from her face. “I don’t know when the girls will be back. It could be any minute.”

“We have half an hour,” he says, taking off his jacket. “And I intend to use every second of it.”

He climbs into the shower without taking any of the rest of his clothes off, and as he steps under the spray and his thousand dollar suit gets drenched, she laughs. 

“I missed that sound,” he whispers as he buries his face in the curve of her neck. 

She starts to unbutton his shirt. “You know, considering he’s all-knowing, you’d think Amenadiel would’ve told you that Maze and Eve are taking the girls away for the weekend. I can’t go because I have to work, so you could’ve waited a few days and had me all to yourself for a night or two.”

“Oh he did,” Lucifer says, his mouth trailing along her clavicle. “I’ll be back this weekend. But it’s our daughter’s sixteenth birthday and I wanted to tell you that you should give her the Corvette.”

That stops Chloe short. She frowns and gently pushes his face away from her collarbone. 

“Wait, what?”

“The Corvette,” he repeats. His wet hair is flopping over his forehead in a really adorable way that reminds her of the first time they ever took a shower together. “I’d like for that to be her gift for her birthday seeing as she earned her driver’s license.”

“But Lucifer, you love that car.”

He smiles. “And I love her more. She should have it.”

Chloe feels her eyes start to warm with tears. She can still remember a time when he refused to park the Corvette in the LAPD garage for fear that someone would scratch it, and now he wants to hand over the keys to their sixteen-year-old daughter who has a lead foot that rivals his own.

“I love you,” Chloe murmurs. 

Lucifer brushes his fingertips over the bullet scars on her shoulder, and then leans forward to brush his lips over them too. “I love you too,” he whispers.

He lifts his mouth to hers and kisses her, and she melts into it. It doesn’t matter that they only have thirty minutes. It doesn’t matter that she’s not as young as she used to be, or that she definitely no longer looks like the girl who got out of a hot tub topless. He whispers that she’s beautiful, and she feels beautiful. 

Love will do that to you.

A few days after Rory turns eighteen, she and Chloe get into yet another argument. 

Chloe is usually pretty good at controlling her temper. Especially with Rory, who inherited her father’s mercurial nature and his superhuman ability to hold a grudge. It’s because Rory is like her father that Chloe has so much patience for her. Whenever Rory’s feelings get the better of her, all Chloe can see is Lucifer. 

But lately, it’s been difficult. Because lately, Rory hasn’t been shy about expressing her hatred for her father. 

Chloe knows that’s how it has to be. She knows it’s inevitable and necessary, and even though she could fix it all, she knows she can’t. She knows that. 

But she can barely stand it. She can’t stand lying to her child even though that very same child is the one who asked her to lie in the first place. She can’t stand that Rory has no idea how incredible her father is. Lucifer has sacrificed so much for the world even though all it’s ever done is villainize him, and it hurts that the person he’s sacrificed the most for despises him for it. 

So, when Rory mutters under her breath that she wishes her father would have stayed dead during the war rather than resurrecting, Chloe snaps. 

It’s not pretty. 

She yells. Rory yells. There are tears and there’s cursing and then Rory storms out of the house and slams the door behind her and Chloe is left seething and alone. 

She paces the floor with her hands curled into fists. She wants to punch something, but she’s not exactly young anymore and she hasn’t had super strength in nearly two decades and she’d probably end up breaking her hand. So, she does what Chloe Decker usually does when she’s upset and can’t think straight but doesn’t want to leave the house and risk anyone seeing her so distraught. 

She cleans. 

Lucifer appears while she’s scrubbing the kitchen counter. 

“Mm, should’ve brought the maid outfit,” he muses.

She glares at him over her shoulder, and the smile drops from his lips so fast it’d be comical if she wasn’t so furious. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. 

“Your daughter,” she spits at him. “She’s...she’s so…”

“Difficult like her father?” he offers. 

Chloe throws the sponge into the sink and rips the yellow rubber gloves off her hands. “This is stupid, Lucifer. All of this is stupid.”

“Stupid?”

“She hates you. She hates you for something that she forced you to do, and she says the most god awful things about you, and I just have to stand there and take it. I have to look her in the eye and lie.”

“I know,” he says gently.

“No, you don’t know,” she snaps. “You’re not the one who has to be here every day fighting a losing battle. You’re not the one who has to get up every morning and lie. You have no idea what this is like for me.”

He stiffens. “So you think this is easy for me?”

She shakes her head. “That’s not what I said.”

“You think I don’t wish I could be here with you?” he demands, stepping toward her. “You think I like only seeing you once a millennia and knowing that you’re up here, raising our child on your own, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it except be glad that you’re too stubborn to break?”

“But I’m not, Lucifer! I’m not too stubborn, I’m not unbreakable, I’m not—” Her voice breaks. Her throat tightens, and her vision blurs. “I’m not,” she whispers.

The anger in his eyes evaporates. He crosses the room in a few strides, and lifts his hands to her face, and she closes her eyes and wishes that their life could be different. That they could be different.

“You are,” he whispers fiercely. “You are, Chloe. You’ll bend, but you’ll never break.”

She curls her hands around his forearms and opens her eyes to look at him. “How do you know?”

“Because we already know you succeed. We know that our daughter grows up to be beautiful and strong and brave, just like her mother.” 

A sob catches in Chloe’s throat. “She hates you right now.”

“But she loves you.” Lucifer smiles. “And that’s enough for me.”

“Detective,” Lucifer whispers in Chloe’s ear as he wraps his arms around her waist. 

She’s in the middle of scrubbing burnt cheese from the bottom of a glass dish over the sink, but she smiles and tips her head back against his shoulder. 

“Satan,” she greets. 

He laughs and then presses a kiss to her cheek. “What did you have for dinner?”

“Lasagna.”

“Are there leftovers?”

“In the fridge.”

She shuts the faucet off, and then dries her hands on a dish towel and watches as he heads toward the refrigerator. He swings the doors open, and she leans her hip against the edge of the counter and folds her arms over her chest. 

“You only make lasagna on special occasions,” he says, his voice muffled as he roots around the shelves looking for leftovers. “What was the occasion?”

“I met our daughter’s girlfriend tonight.”

There’s a pause, and then Lucifer peeks around the open refrigerator door with a frown. “Did you do a background check on her?”

“No.”

He straightens. “Chloe. What if she’s a serial killer?”

“Have you seen Rory’s wings?”

Lucifer huffs. “Still. You should have Maze and Eve follow her. Make sure she’s not a threat.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Fine, I will.”

“No you won’t.”

“Yes I will.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “No, you won’t.”

He purses his lips. “Fine. I won’t.” He grins at her. “But we’re going to eat this lasagna in bed as payment for my silence, so ditch the apron.” He slams the refrigerator doors closed. “Actually, on second thought, keep the apron. You can use it to tie me up.”

Chloe laughs.

Trixie is getting married. 

It’s a lot for Chloe to wrap her head around. Her eldest daughter hasn’t been a little girl for a long, long time, but sometimes Chloe looks at her and all she can see is the seven-year-old who was missing her front teeth and would hide chocolate cake under her bed. 

She misses those days.

She’s in a room at the church, tucking her bullet necklace beneath the neckline of her dress, when she hears the familiar sound of wings by the open window. A moment later, Lucifer appears behind her in the mirror. She smiles at him, and he smiles at her, and then he wraps his arms around her waist and ducks forward to kiss her jaw. 

“You look beautiful,” he murmurs. 

“Thank you.”

He meets her gaze in the mirror. “Can I see her?”

Chloe smiles. “Let me get her.”

She leaves him in her dressing room and walks down the hallway toward the bridal party suite. When she opens the door, the entire bridal party turns to look at her. The bride and the maid of honor smile in unison. 

Chloe winks at Rory and then fixes her eyes on Trixie. “Can I talk to you for a minute, monkey?”

Trixie smiles. “Of course.”

She’s a vision in white, and when she grabs Chloe’s hand as she passes through the doorway, Chloe tears up. 

“Too early to cry, Mom,” Trixie says fondly, squeezing her hand. 

Chloe laughs. “It’s never too early to cry.”

When they get back to Chloe’s dressing room, Lucifer is standing at the window with his hands in his pockets. He turns around as Chloe closes the door, and the look on his face when he sees Trixie in her wedding dress makes Chloe’s eyes fill all over again. 

“Lucifer,” Trixie breathes. 

“Hello urchin,” he murmurs. “Don’t you look breathtaking.”

Trixie crosses the room and buries herself in his arms, and he hugs her back tightly. When they separate, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small box. 

“I know your father sent you something borrowed, and your mother gave you something old, so I got you something new.”

He opens the lid. Chloe crosses the room to stand next to Trixie and glances down to see a pair of beautiful sapphire earrings nestled inside the box.

“And something blue,” Lucifer adds. “Because I couldn’t resist.”

Trixie looks up at him with a smile. “They’re beautiful, Lucifer. Thank you.”

Lucifer beams, clearly pleased, but then his smile fades and he clears his throat the way he does when he’s nervous. 

“I know I missed much of your life the way I’ve missed your sister’s,” he says quietly. “And I want you to know that I’m truly sorry for that. I wish I could have been here every day. But today, especially, so we could celebrate together.” 

Trixie shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. I get it. And Rory will too someday.” 

Lucifer smiles, and then cuts a brief glance at Chloe. “Thank you for taking care of your mother in my absence.” 

“Thank you for making her happy,” Trixie replies. 

“I’m standing right here,” Chloe says dryly. 

They all laugh. 

Lucifer fiddles with his cufflink. “You know, Hell isn’t much for torture these days. But if this bloke you’re marrying hurts you in any way, I will make an exception and it will not be pleasant.” 

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Trixie laughs. 

Lucifer tilts his head. “And why’s that?”

Trixie grins. “Because he loves me the way you love Mom.” 

Lucifer glances at Chloe. She remembers the last wedding they went to, and she smiles because he’s got the same look in his eye now that he did then. 

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close. 

“Well then we have nothing to worry about, do we?” he murmurs into the top of her head.

Chloe drives to the penthouse after her retirement party. 

Lucifer is waiting for her with a bottle of champagne and a twinkle in his eye that reminds her of the first time she ever saw him. 

“Hello Detective,” he greets. “Or should I stop calling you that now that you’ve retired?”

“You didn’t stop when I became lieutenant. Why stop now?”

He hums in agreement. 

She stops in front of him and wraps her arms around his middle and tips her head back to look at him. “I like it when you call me that.” 

He smiles too. “Well then I’ll call you that for all of eternity.”

She laughs. “Deal.” 

Lucifer visits a lot more after she retires. 

Chloe isn’t sure how or why. She doesn’t know if it’s because Rory moved out, and since she’s not sleeping in the room down the hall anymore, there’s no chance that she’ll accidentally hear her father’s voice. Maybe he’s just hit a good rhythm in Hell, and he can delegate more to his demons, and thus has a bit more free time. Or maybe it’s more than that—maybe he knows she’s getting older, and with both her girls gone and no more work to keep her busy, she’s lonelier than she used to be.

Maybe it’s all those things. Maybe it’s none of them. Chloe never asks, because despite the fact that she’s devoted her life to finding answers, she’s learned that sometimes she doesn’t need them. 

All she really needs is Lucifer. 

Lucifer is with her at the doctor’s office when she gets the diagnosis. 

He holds her hand while the doctor delivers the news. It’s not good news, exactly, but it’s not terrible either. She doesn’t have long, but it won’t be messy or painful. She wonders if Amenadiel had something to do with that but doesn’t ask. 

“When do you have to go back?” she asks Lucifer as they leave the doctor’s office hand in hand. 

“Not for a while,” he replies. He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses her knuckles. “Let’s go to the beach.”

They spend several hours sprawled in the sand beneath the sun. She sits between his legs with her back against his chest, and he wraps his arms around her. He asks about Rory and Trixie and everyone else, she asks about Hell, and then they sit in silence and bask in each other. 

“When it’s over, I’m going to come to you,” she murmurs. 

She hears him suck in a breath and feels him go still behind her. She strokes her fingertips over his knuckles and waits for him to find the words she knows he’s thinking. 

“You don’t belong in Hell,” he murmurs in her ear eventually. 

She shakes her head. “Neither do you. And it’s not really Hell anymore, is it? You made sure of that.”

He can’t argue with that, and he doesn’t. 

“I talked to Amenadiel,” she says. “We can come and go as we please. It’s not like I’ll be stuck. I can see them all whenever I want.”

“You should be able to see them all the time,” he murmurs. “You belong in the Silver City, Chloe. I can visit you—”

“I’m tired of visits, Lucifer. I’m tired of being apart. I want you every second of every day and I want to help you help people. It’s my choice. And that’s what I choose.”

She straightens and turns to face him. He lifts his hand and brushes his fingertips over her cheek. Even all these years later, he still looks at her like she’s the miracle to end all miracles. She knows she doesn’t look the same, but he does. He’s just as handsome as he was the first time she ever saw him.

“You deserve paradise,” he whispers. 

She smiles. “Paradise is wherever you are.”

When Rory time travels, Chloe is nearly blinded by the light show her daughter causes. She doesn’t mind, though. She just closes her eyes and tips her head back on the pillows and settles in to wait. She doesn’t think it’ll be long. 

She hears the floorboards creak nearby, but she knows it’s not her daughter. 

Lucifer’s lips press against her forehead. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispers. 

She smiles. 

Chloe pauses outside the door and wonders if this is how Lucifer felt all those years when he was visiting her. 

She isn’t sure if she has a heart anymore, seeing as she’s dead and all, but something is beating wildly in her chest. She doesn’t think she breathes anymore either, but somehow she feels short of breath. 

She lifts her hand and knocks. 

When Lucifer swings open the door and their eyes meet, it takes every ounce of her self control not to throw herself into his arms. She wonders how long it’s been for him since he visited her for the last time. He looks stunned by her presence, so she’s guessing it’s been a while.

“Hello Detective,” he murmurs. 

She exhales a breath she’s been holding for decades. 

“I thought you could use a partner.”

“Do you know how long I’ve spent fantasizing about what it would be like to have sex with you on this couch?”

Chloe picks her head up off of Lucifer’s naked chest. “Millennia?” she guesses.

“Millennia,” he confirms.

She laughs. Linda’s office—well, Lucifer’s office that’s designed to look like Linda’s office—has a golden glow that’s reminiscent of a late afternoon in Los Angeles. Chloe knows it’s an illusion because she’s not in Los Angeles, she’s in Hell, but she doesn’t care. She’s in Lucifer’s arms and they never have to say goodbye again and she just had the best sex of her life, which is really saying something considering how many times she’s had sex with the Devil. 

This isn’t Hell. 

This is paradise. 

“Want to see if the desk is better?” she asks, arching an eyebrow. 

His eyes light up. “Hell yes.”

Chloe and Lucifer are cuddled on the couch in his Hell penthouse, watching season four of Bones after a long day of helping a trio of soccer moms work through their issues, when the elevator dings. 

Chloe lifts her head from his chest and frowns. “Are you expecting someone?”

Lucifer shakes his head. “No. Are you?”

“No.”

The elevator doors slide open, and someone familiar steps off. 

“Hi Mom,” Rory says quietly. “Hi Dad.”

For a moment, neither Chloe nor Lucifer move. Silence rings in Chloe’s ears. Lucifer’s body is rigid against hers, frozen in shock. 

Rory smiles. “I uh, I tried to wait a little while so you guys would have some time to…” She trails off and gestures between them with a look of disgust. “You know, do your gross stuff.” 

Chloe lets out a surprised laugh, but Lucifer doesn’t react.

Rory glances at her father and then shifts from one foot to the other and clears her throat. 

“I can come back later if you guys were about to bone during Bones.” She turns back toward the elevator. “Actually, you know what, I should’ve called or something. I’ll just—”

“No!” Chloe and Lucifer shout in unison. 

Rory stops dead in her tracks. 

Chloe jumps to her feet, sloshing whiskey on the leather couch and Lucifer’s pants in the process, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. 

His eyes are fixed on Rory. He gets up slowly, his glass gripped in his hand so tightly that his knuckles are white, and Chloe takes it from him before it shatters from his super strength. Not that it matters. Neither of them would bleed if it broke. 

Once he’s on his feet, Lucifer sways a little. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. He furrows his eyebrows. 

Chloe leans closer to him, her shoulder pressing against his. “Lucifer?” she murmurs. 

He looks down at her, his eyes wide. He looks afraid. She wonders if, after all those years making sure he wasn’t seen or heard, he’s having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that things are different now. 

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “The loop is closed.” 

He swallows and doesn’t move. 

“Go on,” she murmurs, bumping her shoulder into his. 

He swallows again, and then looks toward his daughter. He takes a deep breath, his chest lifting with the inhale, and then he walks slowly across the room. 

When he stops in front of Rory, she shifts shyly beneath his gaze. He lifts his hands, hesitates, and then reaches out to hold her face.  

“Hello Aurora,” he whispers, his voice thick with awe. 

Rory tilts closer to him and wraps her hands around his forearms. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “For everything.” 

Lucifer pulls her into a hug, and Rory hugs him back tightly, and the last remaining crack in Chloe’s broken heart mends.

When Trixie finally walks through the gates of the Silver City, they throw a massive party. It feels a little like the day Chloe brought Rory home from the hospital, except this time everyone is present. 

Chloe is watching Rory and Trixie laugh together over slices of chocolate cake when Lucifer comes up behind her. 

“Does Daniel know that food other than waffles and pudding exists?” he asks as he slips his arms around her waist. “I watched him offer your spawn waffle-flavored pudding earlier and nearly lost my lunch. And if the look on her face is any indication, she nearly did as well.”

Chloe laughs. “Trix loves waffles,” she says, leaning back against him. 

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean she wants to taste them in her pudding. I mean, what’s next, taco-flavored pudding? The horror.” 

Chloe laughs again. “I’ve seen you sprinkle crushed ranch puffs over your ice cream sundaes, so I don’t think you have much room to talk.”

“You said you liked that.”

“No, I said I was glad you liked it. You just heard what you wanted to hear. You do that sometimes.”

“Well,” he huffs, pulling her a little closer, “it seems I’ve just acquired a new project.”

“Improving your listening skills?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m an excellent listener. No, I need to teach my partner how to appreciate the finer things in life.”

“The finer things?” Chloe repeats incredulously. “Lucifer, on no plane of existence would ranch puffs sprinkled over ice cream sundaes be considered the finer things.”

“Agree to disagree.”

Chloe rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue. They stand there for a while, holding each other, and then he leans down to press a kiss to her jaw. 

“You should stay for a while,” he murmurs in her ear. “Help her get acclimated.” 

In the distance, Trixie throws her head back and laughs at something Rory has said. Chloe smiles, and then turns to face Lucifer. 

He gazes down at her with that look in his eyes that she loves, and she strokes her fingertips over his stubble. She can do this whenever she wants now. Whenever she reaches out her hand, he’s there. When she calls his name, he replies. She falls asleep next to him and wakes up next to him and that’s never, ever going to change. 

“We should stay for a while,” she tells him. “Partners, remember?”

“To the end,” he murmurs with a smile.

She shakes her head and smiles. 

“For us, there is no end.”