Chapter Text
“What do you mean the truth about Candy?” Chloe stiffened, wiping away tears. The overwhelming sadness of the last few minutes was replaced quickly with anger. “You ran off to Vegas and married someone else.” She practically spat the words out.
Lucifer tightened his hold on her hand, willing himself not to reach out and wipe her tears himself.
“It was never real.”
Chloe stood up then, only pulling her hand from Lucifer’s when she was too far to hang on. She walked a few steps away before turning back to face him, arms crossed over her chest. “What do you mean it was never real?”
Lucifer thought for a moment, unsure where to start. In the context of what they knew now, his reasons for leaving were foolish, but at the time his hurt had been one of the most real things he’d ever felt.
“Do you remember when I found you bleeding in your bathroom?” He held her gaze, pleading with her to hear him out.
“Of course I remember, Lucifer,” she responded, rolling her eyes.
“Did you ever wonder why I stormed into your house?”
“I was a little busy trying not to die,” Chloe snapped back, frustrated that he was making her work for answers.
“We had a moment outside of the lab earlier that day. When I asked you if what we had was real,” he offered, his voice soft as he recalled how it had felt to hold her in his arms in the warm afternoon sun. “I think I was in awe when you told me it was.”
Chloe gave him a whisper of a smile, one side of her mouth tugging upwards as she remembered the moment as well. No matter what followed, the way she’d felt when he looked at her that afternoon, so gentle and full of hope, would never leave her. She nodded, raising her eyebrows as she urged him to continue.
“I couldn’t believe you could possibly feel the same way I was feeling,” he paused when she opened her mouth to object, giving her a look that practically begged her to let him finish. “When you told me it was real...I don’t think I had ever experienced happiness like that before—I know I hadn’t.”
His words seemed to soften Chloe slightly, and she moved to sit back on the couch, though still far enough away to be out of his reach.
“It was real, Lucifer.” There was a sadness to her voice he couldn’t quite place, a mix of regret and sadness that one thing or another had kept them apart for so long. She watched as his face filled with the same swirl of conflicting emotions.
“I saw Maze and my mother after that.” He shook his head, inhaling deeply as the pain he felt that day flooded back. He felt like he was back in that dive bar getting his heart torn to shreds. “That’s when I learned the truth of your conception.”
For the second time that night, Chloe let so many assumptions she had made be replaced with truth. Her mind caught up to the beginning of his story. The way she had felt hopeless and terrified as her nose bled in her bathroom, and the urgency with which Lucifer had stormed in.
Did you know, were the words he had screamed before he’d seen the blood on her face.
It all made sense.
“And you thought I was in on it?”
Lucifer nodded, his eyes falling to his hands. His fingers ached to twirl the ring that he’d worn for so long, a nervous habit that he still hadn’t broken.
Chloe exhaled, the weight of the situations they had been put in feeling more unfair than ever. She remembered how she felt when she found out—hopeless and aimless and unsure if anything about her was her own. Even then she’d only come around after she found out they had been wrong about it all in the first place.
You’re not the gift, Chloe. That is.
Those words had changed her life.
Changed their lives.
She had to fight not to be consumed with bitterness that they hadn’t known sooner.
“I was so lost, so consumed with fear that everything I thought I’d made for myself here in Los Angeles—with you —was a lie.” He needed to touch her, needed to remind himself that the fear he had felt then was built on nothing but a lie.
Chloe was the only truth he believed in without fail.
She could tell he was struggling, and scooted closer to him on the couch. When he placed his hand on the leg she had folded between them, she immediately covered it with her own. She needed the reminder, too.
“I was heartbroken,” he started. “Disgusted with myself that I had unknowingly been taking advantage of you—at least that’s how I viewed it at the time. So I ran away.”
“You took away my choice in the matter and made one for both of us.” Chloe was angry again, though less at Lucifer at more at the fact that nothing in their time together had ever been easy. “You got scared, ran away, and left me alone.”
Put in those simple terms, Lucifer felt his heart break for what he’d done to her—what he continued to do to her for years after his first trip to Vegas. He had taken away her choice, her free will.
The most important thing from the most important person.
“I did.” He ached thinking about it. “I met Candy the first night I was in Las Vegas. She was performing and she stole my things.” He grabbed her hand in his, holding it up between them, holding back a laugh at the memory.
“Not seeing how her stealing your ring ended with the two of you married.” Her words were sharp, but as she lowered her hand she kept it in his.
“I went to confront her later that night. Found out her family’s business was failing and that she’d do almost anything to save it.” He smiled as he spoke of Candy, the fondness he felt for the woman evident. It made Chloe stiffen. “She was a mess and so was I.”
For the first time, she let her heart break at the thought of how Lucifer must have felt.
“I listened to her. Let her tell me about why she was willing to go so far to save her father’s club.” He looked straight at Chloe then. “And then she listened to me talk about us. About you , really . It was my first heartbreak.”
Chloe hummed her acknowledgement, tracing soft paths against his hand with her finger.
“I was wearing a pink snuggie, if that tells you anything about how I was doing.” Chloe had to purse her lips to stop her laugh from escaping, the absurdity of the mental image almost enough to break the tension of the night. “By the end of the night we figured out we could be of service to each other.”
Chloe pulled away, but Lucifer tightened his grip on her.
“Not that type of service,” he added quickly, rushing the words out of his mouth desperately. “ Never like that actually.” His affirmation seemed to placate Chloe for the momet.. “I thought you had no choice in your feelings for me. I knew that if I came back I would be too selfish to stay away, so I had to come up with a story that would make you think I didn’t feel the same.”
“And coming back married was your solution?”
“You know I don’t lie.” He raised his eyebrows, silently challenging her to try and disagree. “You’re far too intelligent to have been fooled. Coming back with evidence that I’d moved on from you was the only way to get you to believe it.”
For all the flaws in his logic, Chloe knew it was true. Every fear she had when it came to him had been exposed when Candy had sauntered into the precinct.
“So you’re telling me you got married so that I would be forced to move on?”
“I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but yes that was my flawed logic.” Lucifer sucked in a breath, so frustrated with the choices that he had made. The consequences of his actions were evident in that way Chloe’s voice was breaking. He nodded at her, disappointed in the choices he had made, but knowing that at the time he thought it had been for the best.
“I was crushed when she walked into the precinct.” Chloe sniffed, willing herself not to cry at the memory. No amount of time would ever be able to pull that image from her mind, though now it was tinged with sadness for everyone involved.
“I know.” Lucifer couldn’t look at her, ashamed that he had done it on purpose.
“It was a cruel thing to do,” her voice was wavering as she spoke. “Some of the things you said really hurt.” Her mind flew back to their fake therapy session, to the half truths and admissions that came from playing their respective parts. He had sat beside her and openly talked about his fear over almost losing her while his actions had shown the opposite.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could say in response. Lucifer could still hear the disappointment that had laced her words when she told him he had disappointed her. What good is a partner if I can’t depend on you, was the question that had followed him for years afterwards. “I don’t have an excuse for what I did, but I hope you understand why I made the choice I made.”
“I do understand Lucifer, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t still hurt.” She studied him for a moment, squeezing his hand to get his attention. “I wish you would have told me sooner.”
She wished she could have been the person he came to when he was broken. That she could have been the one to offer him a blanket and a couch to cry on. She knew it was useless to wish for it, she had been the indirect object of his hurt at the time, but it didn’t stop her from wanting it all the same.
“I do, too,” he admitted, not sure what else to say.
He thought back to the takedown that had happened during that case. The way her hands had felt against his neck as she asked him if he was alright and how his whole body felt warm when she told him she would see him tomorrow. No one had ever shown more grace to him than Chloe, something he knew he had taken advantage of.
“I’m sorry that you were hurting.” Chloe lifted a hand to his cheek, swiping at a tear that he hadn’t realized had fallen down his cheek.
He looked at her like she had said the most outrageous thing in the world.
“Just because I was hurting didn’t mean your pain is any less valid.” Her fingers scratched at his cheek before dropping to the curve of his neck. “I just found out you literally went through hell before finding out that everything you thought was real might not be. You were allowed to be upset, even if I didn’t understand why.”
Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, Lucifer was blown away by the woman in front of him.
She was every good thing wrapped up in a bundle of wisdom and warmth. Forgiveness was her default, and understanding was something she never ran short of.
“I love you.” His words were soft, the only thing he could say to even come close to how he felt about her in that moment. “And I'm sorry.”
She unfolded her legs, rising up on her knees and throwing one over his legs so she could settle into his lap. She would never get tired of hearing those three words fall from his lips. “I love you, too.”
She kissed him, soft and gentle and full of the comfort she wished she could have given him years ago. One of his hands sunk into her hair, the other settling firmly on her hip and pulling her closer.
He let himself be consumed by her, let her lips heal the hurt he had felt and remind him that they had made it. That he was here with her. That she had still chosen him despite every poor choice he had ever made. That she loved him, not in spite of everything he had done, but for every broken piece and jagged edge that made him who he was.
Having her there with him, with less between them, he knew that no matter what came next, their love would make it.