Archive of Our Own

Chloe woke up in the middle of the night, a sudden, abrupt return to awareness.

It took her a second to realise where she was. The view wasn’t an unfamiliar one, but it was dark, and though she’d had this apartment for a while now, she’d never fallen asleep here - on the couch, out in the lounge. Even exhausted after a day on the job, she’d always previously managed to get Trixie to bed and then make her way to her own.

So, couch. And she wasn’t alone, either. Her cheek was pressed against fabric and she was curled up against -

Lucifer. Who had his head tipped back, neck exposed, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady, seemingly dead to the world.

One arm wrapped around her shoulders, one stretched out against the back of the sofa.

Ah.

Chloe debated the relative merits of waking him up and moving to her actual bed, until she realised she was too tired to care.

She shifted instead, laying down properly, curling her feet under a cushion. Her head resting on his lap, hair spread out on his knees.

He didn't react, still peaceful.

She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

The next time she opened her eyes it was because morning had slowly snuck into the room, rays of sun peeping through the windows, golden light creeping up the walls.

Chloe lifted her head blearily, still stretched out on the couch. She could feel her neck protest at the sudden movement and she just knew that she was going to spend the day with a low-grade headache. Well done, Chloe, she thought to herself, and winced.

She sat up fully, pushing herself away and shuffling to the other side of the couch, looking over to Lucifer. She couldn’t tell if he’d woken up earlier or had been roused when she shifted, but either way, his half lidded eyes found her and he… softened, was the only word to describe it. He smiled at her, a small thing, but obviously genuine.

“Morning,” she said, rubbing at her eyes.

“Good morning, Detective” he said. He stayed there for a second, both of them looking at the other, the light catching the edges of his hair where it was starting to escape from its normal neatness. His five o'clock shadow nearing twelve. “I must say, this wasn’t how I pictured our first night sleeping together.”

Chloe snorted a laugh, and then realised that she’d more or less just spent the night using him as a personal mattress.

“Oh, god, I'm so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even ask if you wanted to stay -” she looked down at his pants - “and I think I drooled a little, I'll go get a cloth and -”

“No need, Detective. Don’t apologise for either you falling asleep or the state of my trousers. Yesterday was - eventful, for all of us. You are more than excused a moment to collapse. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She wasn’t sure, but she smiled at him again and he mirrored it, before he rose to his feet, freeing himself from the couch cushions. “Anyway. I may as well make myself useful while I'm here. What do you feel like? Coffee? Breakfast? I do make a mean omelette. Not that you’ve had the opportunity to try it yet, since we were so rudely interrupted last time I tried to cook it for you. But! That’s easily rectified.”

He paused, waiting for her answer, angled towards the kitchen. Almost too cheerful for the early hour. She squinted at him.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” she said, “I’m fine with whatever, don’t worry about -”

“I insist” he said, still smiling. “How about you take a shower, and I’ll get everything ready by the time you get out. It’ll be just like old times,” and then his grin turned just a touch teasing, “and, of course, if you want to come out in just your towel again, well, I certainly won’t complain.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen” she said, small grin back. She stood up, stretched out the remaining stiffness from her limbs. “Are you sure? You don’t have to make me breakfast, I’d be happy with - cereal or whatever.”

“Detective,” he said. “It’s no trouble. Allow me.”

She gazed at him for a second and then gave in.

“Alright,” she said, smiling.

“Excellent!” he said, starting to move towards the kitchen in earnest. She caught up with him, gently grabbed his arms. He stopped, turning towards her, one eyebrow lifted in a clear question.

She stretched up and pressed a kiss against his cheek, then turned towards her bedroom, leaving him staring after her.

He'd stayed good to his word, not that she'd expected otherwise.

She'd emerged from the shower feeling much better, as if she'd washed the events of the previous day down the drain, to find a mug of coffee and a neatly folded omelette laid out on a plate. Everything ready for her while he cooked his own.

He'd rolled up his sleeves, taken off his jacket, outlined by the sun still pouring through the window, and he just looked - so at home in her kitchen that the tiny bubble of love that kept flaring up in her chest expanded, nestled, warm at the base of her throat.

He caught her staring and turned towards her, waved her towards the food he’d placed out.

“Bon appétit”, he said, the words rolling off his tongue.

She settled herself on the other side of the counter, pulling the mug towards her and wrapping her hands around it.

“Thank you,” she said, watching him work.

“Dig in, Detective, no need to wait for me - I'm almost done” he said, cheerful.

She mentally shrugged and reached for her fork. He finished up just a little later, wiping his hands clean on the dish towel and slinging it over his shoulder, before joining her with his own omelette in hand.

“All good?” he asked, sitting next to her.

“It’s great,” she said truthfully.

She grinned at him again and he looked at her, still with that - soft, look in his eyes.

The moment was broken by her phone buzzing. She sighed, closing her eyes in a brief expression of frustration, before re-opening them and grabbing for her cell. She could see the light flashing - new message. She wished she had the luxury to ignore it, but life went on, and it could have been work checking in to see how she was doing. She opened it and read, then responded.

“A new case?” Lucifer asked, turning back to his food, still a tad too cheerful. She shook her head, placing her phone back on the bench.

“No. You already know they sent me home for the rest of the week. It was Mom. She wants to do brunch so she can drop Trixie off.”

“Ah,” said Lucifer. “I had wondered where the child had got to.”

“Yeah,” said Chloe absently, still staring at her phone. “God, Mom’s going to have a lot of questions, especially after I made her fly out here, what with the family emergency I called. She’s gonna want to know what happened. What do I even tell her?”

“The truth,” said Lucifer, folding his ridiculously long legs, one over the other. “That you found out about Pierce, that you were in danger. You can even tell her about me, if you'd like, though I doubt she'd believe you.”

Chloe snorted and then stopped, considering. “Do you want to come?”

He raised an eyebrow, looked a little awkward. “What, to pick up the spawn and visit mama Decker? Perhaps not. I should leave you to your family reunion. I’ve already imposed too much -”

“Lucifer, you haven’t imposed” she said. “I’m going to pick up Trixie and take her back here, I think just - have a quiet day in. Maybe watch a movie. You’re welcome to join us, no pressure either way - but never think you’re imposing. I mean, I know that Lux probably needs attention too, so seriously, it’s okay if you don’t come. But - keep in contact? You’ve got your phone. Will you promise that you’ll answer me if I call?”

He hesitated just enough to be noticeable.

“If I’m not otherwise indisposed,” he said, “but yes.”

It was probably as good as she was going to get.

“Right” she said, and then pushed herself out from the counter, Lucifer following. “I should probably get ready.”

They hovered awkwardly, neither one of them wanting to make the first move. She wasn’t sure where they quite stood now. She’d said yes to starting a relationship but - how fast?

And how much would change?

She pulled him down, gave him a kiss. He folded down to meet her again, and when they broke apart, he was breathless.

“Don't be a stranger” she said, and smiled.

Brunch with her mother had been - okay.

Chloe had given Trixie the biggest hug when she'd seen her, the tiny bit of remaining anxiety evaporating as soon as she saw her baby’s face. She was fine. There hadn't been anyone after them.

Her mom had been predictably dramatic when she'd heard about what happened with Pierce, though the upside was that her annoyance over the interruption to her life had been forgotten in the aftermath. One less thing for Chloe to worry about.

They’d had to cut it short - a return flight scheduled for not long after their meeting - but she’d promised her mom that she’d ring later, tell her everything that she hadn’t been able to while smaller ears were listening.

In the meantime, home.

She'd already called the school, let them know that Trixie would be absent. She just wanted a day with her daughter. Just a reminder she was here, that they were both here, that they were okay.

She was in the middle of preparing for a movie marathon - chips out on the coffee table, first film queued up and Trixie making hot chocolates in the kitchen - when she walked back to her bedroom, intent on grabbing her pillows to shore up the fort that they’d built in the lounge.

She’d made it two steps in before she realised that her clothes from yesterday had fallen from the chair where she’d left them, her blouse now in a crumpled heap and her destroyed bullet proof vest spread out on the floor.

She went to grab them, throw them onto her bed to worry about later, but something stayed her hand as she went to let go.

She turned her vest around in her hands, the impacted metal glinting in the light, and something in her stomach gave, as if a switch had been flicked.

If she hadn’t had it on -

She would have died. The bullet had hit her almost directly over her heart. She had the still-developing bruise to show for it.

She’d almost died. Trixie would have been without a mother.

If it hadn’t been for -

She sat down on the edge of her bed, heavily. She thought she’d already cried out everything she possibly could last night, but - she felt herself tearing up again, vision getting blurry.

She’d spent so much of yesterday just in a state of reacting to things that she really hadn’t had the chance for it to sink in. That she’d stared down the barrel of a gun, and survived.

That she almost hadn’t.

Chloe knew her job was dangerous. This wasn’t the first time that someone had shot at her, had shot her. She’d made her peace with it long ago, but - the fear had never felt as real as it did in this moment, staring at the few centimeters of kevlar that had stood between her and - nothing.

She lifted a hand to rub at the scar on her shoulder, the only reminder of where Barnes had hit her.

It had been Lucifer who had saved her then too.

A moment passed, then two.

Trixie called out, asking about marshmallows, and Chloe breathed in and out, wiping her eyes clear, trying to pull herself together again. She answered Trixie absently, extracting her phone from her pocket.

Thank you, she texted Lucifer. I don’t think I said it at the time. Thank you for saving me.

His reply came almost immediately.

Anytime, Detective.

The next day rolled around quickly.

She re-read the same sentence for the fifth time before she gave up on her book, dropping it back to her bed and letting her head fall against her pillow.

She’d dropped Trixie off at school, packed up the pillowfort, had finished the last of the chores around the house, and was now trying to distract herself from - everything - by reading.

She’d managed to do a fantastic job at distracting herself from reading instead. Without Trixie home to focus on, without work to keep her occupied, her mind kept returning to Pierce, to Lucifer, to the case that had been transferred. She knew that she should stop, that there wasn’t anything she could do, but she just - couldn’t.

Her mind cycled through question after question after question.

Would they catch everyone? They got the gang members at the warehouse, but how many other hideouts did Pierce have? She knew she was no longer assigned to investigate it, but - could she give the new team her help? Would there be something that they might not think to check?

If Pierce really had been immortal, how much did that change things?

How much did she know already, that she’d missed, that she should have -

She cut herself off, closing her eyes.

This was ridiculous.

She just needed to speak to - someone, get it out of her head and hopefully out of her thoughts. Something to stop the speculation that she kept returning to every time she had a moment of quiet. Preferably someone who was dealing with the same issue, who knew what it was like - and, oh. She knew exactly who.

She sat up and rolled her legs over the side of the bed, reaching for her phone.

She sent a group message to Dan and Ella, asking if they wanted to catch up, and then checked the rest of her texts, her previously tidy inbox.

Linda had replied to her mediation request - offering a time for tomorrow and asking her to prepare questions in advance for their session, questions that she wanted Lucifer to answer.

Chloe almost laughed - after all, at this stage, what didn’t she want answered?

She emailed back, looked around, and then got dressed to get out of the house.

Maybe the outside world would work where the book hadn't.

It didn't.

She was grocery shopping, a normal task on a normal day, something that wasn’t normally a source of philosophical wondering, but now -

She was re-evaluating the world, looking at the shoppers around her with new eyes.

How many of the people here would go to Heaven, or Hell? How did it work? Was there a balanced system, some sort of scale to weigh people's sins?

What about other religions? Obviously there was Lucifer, but did that mean there were also other - other figures? Who else was real that she didn’t think existed?

The Easter bunny?

Who knew. If you’d asked her even a week ago she’d have laughed, but now -

Who could say? If Lucifer was real, then - what else?

“Excuse me” said a voice behind her and Chloe realised she’d been frozen, staring at the apple in her hands in the middle of the produce section.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, laughing awkwardly and moving out of the way. “I was just - thinking.”

She put the apple in her cart and sighed.

There was only really one way to know, wasn’t there?

She’d finally decided about the session with Linda. The questions that she wanted answered there - they weren’t the ones that she was wondering about now, not something that she’d use the time for.

What she needed Linda’s help to work through was between her and Lucifer, not about - everything else. Religion. His previous - job.

…which meant that she had free reign to ask about those now.

She made up her mind. She was already catching up with Dan and Ella, so all they had to do was - change the venue.

She texted them with the new plan, and then texted Lucifer to let him know too.

Lux was loud.

It was always loud and full of movement, of people dancing and drinking and laughing, and she suddenly realised that despite all that she felt - comfortable here. It wasn’t her usual scene, but she knew this place.

Trixie was with a babysitter. She didn’t want to spend any further time away from her baby girl but she also knew that she needed to see Dan and Ella, needed people she could process this shift in reality with, and as she didn’t have to worry about work the next few days - it was now or never.

They all looked out of place here, neat, but not dressy. Chloe in something high necked, hiding the developing bruise from the earlier bullet. The bouncers hadn’t even looked twice at them, letting them in with a nod of recognition and a few cries of frustration from the line.

Did it look different in here, now that she knew the truth?

She shook herself. She knew that nothing much had changed, stray wondering aside.

She’d called ahead, before the club had opened. Lux didn’t normally reserve booths but they knew her, made an exception - reserved her a corner, out of the way and in the quietest, in relative terms, area of the club.

They all got settled, drink or two or three in hand, courtesy of Lucifer’s open bar policy for his friends.

They spent a while just catching up, sharing their grief about Charlotte and updates from the Sinnerman case that Dan had been forwarded. He was off the investigation, but he had friends who were working it, and they’d sent him a few things unofficially.

It took a couple drinks before they brought up what they were really there to discuss.

“I’m still like,” said Ella, and then mimicked a ‘mind blown’ motion with her hands, blowing out her cheeks and making a noise to go with it. “Y’know? I mean, it’s one thing to have faith, but to know… and now I’m wondering how much we got it right. Like. Humanity, right? Clearly we got Lucifer wrong.”

“Maybe not,” said Dan. “He’s always been a dick to me.”

There was a grin under the words though, an indication not to take it too seriously.

“Dan!” Ella cried, laughing, smacking his arm. “Seriously though. Lucifer is a total sweetie. I always felt like the Devil got a bit of a bad rap but now I know that’s the case.”

Chloe nodded. “He’s said some things to that effect before,” she said, nursing the same drink she'd been on for a while. “About how Hollywood got him wrong. Other stories too, I’m guessing.”

“Not just him,” said Dan, glancing out over the club as if searching for someone. “Maze. Amenadiel. If Lucifer isn’t lying, then they’re - a demon. An angel. I worked with a demon. A demon.”

“Not just you,” said Chloe. “We all did. And Maze babysat Trixie, and - but we know them. Her. Does it really change anything? I mean, it explains a lot - a lot a lot. But Maze was never - evil. Isn’t evil.”

“Explains her awesome knife skills” said Ella, swirling around the straw poking from the top of her piña colada. “I mean, kinda explains. Do you think she had to learn it or she just - bam! - popped into existence knowing how to use them? How does that even work?”

“Lucifer said he taught her some of it,” Chloe said. “When we were getting Pierce’s laptop. After he’d taken down five of the men coming after us like it was nothing.”

They were silent for a second.

“I let him know we’d be here tonight if he was ready for us to ask him questions,” Chloe continued. “I didn’t want to pressure him too much, but - I feel like we’ve only got part of the picture, not all of it.”

“Same” said Dan.

“True” said Ella. “I mean, there’s gotta be at least some truth to all the deptictions, right? I mean, he can make his wings disappear, so does he have like? Horns? Or something else hidden?”

Chloe froze, wondering how much to tell them when it wasn’t her story to share.

“No,” came a voice from behind them, saving her from answering. “I don’t have horns. Sorry to disappoint.”

Lucifer grinned at them, leaning up against the side of their booth, customary glass in hand. Chloe could still sense the faint hesitancy in him, but much less this time, tampered down underneath his usual confident swagger.

“Ey! Speak of the Devil!” said Ella, and then paused and pulled the biggest grin Chloe had ever seen on her face. Which was saying something. “Literally! Oh my god, is that phrase actually true? Do you hear us if we talk about you?”

Lucifer looked down at her fondly then made his way to sit with them, sliding into the seat next to Chloe.

“Not usually, Miss Lopez, unless I’m within earshot.”

“Awww.”

He paused, looked at them all. “I’d say I’m glad that you’re all taking this as well as could be expected, though you all seem to be a couple of drinks deep already, which suggests that you may be trying to forget - what happened. If you want me to go -”

“No,” said Chloe. “Stay. Although like I texted, we’re probably going to have a lot of questions for you if you do, so up to you.”

He looked at her again and she could tell he was debating something before, finally -

“I’m an open book,” he said. “Mostly. I do reserve the right to not answer, if I chose.”

“That’s fair.”

Ella fistpumped the air, drawing the attention of both themselves and a few others in the crowd, though they looked away after a second. “Yes! AMA time with Lucifer!”

“AMA?” he repeated back, questioning and confused. Chloe looked at Ella quizzically and even Dan didn’t seem to get it.

“Ask me anything,” she said back, still delighted. “It’s an internet thing, started on - nevermind. Basically it’s just a chance to ask people about their lives or their jobs or stuff and they answer.”

“Ah,” said Lucifer. “Well. Yes, I imagine that is where you’re likely to start, am I right?”

“Hell yeah!” she said in response, and then grinned again. “Okay, wait, the number of puns I can now get out of this is going to be amazing.”

Dan shook his head, then turned to face Lucifer proper.

“You’re not wrong. So like. What. How. What happened?”

“Bit of a broad question, Daniel, would you like to elaborate?”

“Your history, man. How did you get here? Why Earth? And what happened - I mean, are our stories true? About - the fall? About Hell?”

Lucifer stiffened and he stared down at his drink. “Starting with the big questions, I see.”

“I mean, if you don’t wanna answer man, then that’s fine, I’m just -”

“No,” said Lucifer quietly. “It’s okay. You all deserve to know.”

He took a long, deep drag from his glass.

They waited. The club kept moving around them, music pounding out heavy and deep, vibrating in their chests. Safe from curious ears by the volume of the beat.

After a few seconds, Lucifer’s voice started, low and clear despite the outside noise. Almost hypnotic, and though Chloe knew that his - skills - didn’t work on her and she didn’t think he was using them now, they all leaned in as if pulled.

“We - my siblings and I - were created to - be something specific. With specific aptitudes, specific roles. At the time we - didn't know any better. That’s all there was. And when my father asked you to jump, you didn’t even ask how high. You just jumped. Mum - wasn’t as demanding, but that didn’t make much of a difference. We knew our places. Knew how things had to go, how they must go. And we were happy. For a while.”

Chloe saw Ella mouth “Mom?”, a voiceless aside to Dan. Dan shrugged, eyes locked on Lucifer.

Lucifer seemed too caught up in his story to notice, staring into the middle distance, at the throngs of people dancing themselves into oblivion, at nothing.

“And then Dad got interested in… his projects. In humanity. And suddenly, he’d shown us this glimpse of… another option. Of existence without a specific purpose. Of free will. The ability to choose. To desire something other than what you already had. And I - I wanted. And so I… rebelled.”

Another long pull at his drink. Their booth was silent, a tiny bubble in the booming club, motionless.

“And I was cast down for it,” he said, finally, toying with his glass, not meeting their eyes.

“Hell already existed, but it was empty, at first. And then, all of a sudden - it wasn’t. And it was clear I’d been given a new role, a new part in his play. To act as a warden to those who took their God-given free will and used it to deny others the same, who, when choosing, chose badly. As if to rub it in my face, at what people were capable of when given opportunities, made to watch guilt-filled mortals flagellate themselves over the choices they'd made. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

They were all frozen in place. Ella looked horrified, Dan sympathetic.

“After all, history is written by the victors, and I wasn’t in much of a position to protest. I was vilified. Held up as a symbol for evil, used as an excuse for atrocities. I have never,” sudden and loud and forceful on the last, “forced anyone to do anything. I punish evil, I am not the cause of it. I am not responsible for people’s actions, not their lives, not their souls. And yet. When someone says my name, that’s all people can see. As if I’m the spectre that sits on their shoulders and whispers in their ears that they should be bad, who tempts them to sin. That I’m the monster who waits in the dark. When all I ever wanted was - independence. Freedom. And for that alone, I was - cast away. As trapped in Hell as those around me.”

He went to take another drink, but it was empty.

Chloe quietly pushed hers over to him and he glanced at her as if he’d forgotten that they were there, as if he were waking up from a dream. He looked away.

The spell broke.

It was if the noise of the club flooded in. Chloe’s shoulders relaxed, though she placed a hand over Lucifer’s, gently tethering him to her.

He didn’t glance at her again, but neither did he move his hand away.

They all took a collective breath.

“Well” said Dan. “I’m not good at this kind of thing, but - that sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

Lucifer huffed a laugh.

“Why are you sorry? None of it was your fault.”

“Because you didn’t deserve it,” said Ella. “Because you still don’t deserve it.”

She was suspiciously bright eyed, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, though she suddenly looked determined.

“We have gotta correct the record. I mean - I guess I can speak to my local priest - I don’t know if I can get him to believe me, but we can start somewhere -”

“Miss Lopez, I’m not expecting you to correct thousands of years of stories on my behalf -”

“But I want to” she said, stubborn, with the kind of conviction that was found at the bottom of several cocktails.

Dan nodded his head. “I mean, I don’t think this is something we can fix overnight, but for now -” He held up his glass in a brief salute. “I’m on your side, man. Fuck the stories. You’re not a monster. Annoying, yes, but evil - nah.”

Lucifer cleared his throat, suspiciously choked. “Well. Thank you for the vote of confidence, Daniel. And you, Miss Lopez, though, I’m not sure how much luck you’ll have with changing the narrative.”

Chloe tightened her fingers over his hand. “So why Earth? You said you were trapped? What happened?”

Lucifer motioned to a waiter for a new round, and then turned back to them.

He seemed to think about the question, taking a second to respond.

“It was originally just - a vacation,” he started. “I couldn't - I just needed. A break. Sometimes. A reminder that there was more to existence than -”

He broke off as the waiter came up to their table, dropped off a few bottles as opposed to a few glasses. Lucifer grinned, passed them a tip, and got back to it.

“As I was saying,” he continued, new drink in hand. “Vacation. I took them occasionally, just coming up for a breather, amongst - other things. Amenadiel wasn't happy that I kept coming Earthside. He'd take me back down after a few hours, usually, once he'd noticed that I'd left my post. But this time around I got - leverage. A way to get him off my back for a while. I was able to put down some roots. And so I opened up Lux, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Chloe could sense that there was more to the story, but she didn't push. She could already tell that he'd probably told them more in the past half hour than he’d likely ever told - anyone.

“Well,” she said. “I, for one, am glad that you stayed.”

Her hands, already over his - she threaded her fingers between his, held on. The heat of his skin flush against hers.

“Same,” said Ella immediately. “I mean, I don't know how this is now my life, but I wouldn't swap it for anything. I'm glad I know you, Lucifer.”

Lucifer smiled, seemingly attempting for blasè but failing. He didn't say anything.

Chloe looked at Dan.

“What,” he said, and then grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Lucifer - you're a pain in the ass, but you're our pain in the ass. And - I'm glad, that I know you. Despite the whole Detective Douche thing. And the tomatoes that you threw at me during that case that one time. And when you stole my gun and badge. And -”

“I get the point, thank you Daniel,” Lucifer cut across. “Well. I - thank you, all of you. LA would be much less interesting without you all, I can promise you that.”

He grinned at them, another small but genuine thing. Chloe wasn't sure if he was more relaxed now he knew that they knew, or if it was just relief that they hadn't fled.

“So how does it work?” Dan asked, leaning forward again, propping his elbows on the table. “Like, the system? We don't have to go to church now, do we? Does that actually have an impact? Is it a points based thing? Like a - do two bad things but it's balanced out? Because, oh man,” he said, his flushed face suddenly paler, “I've. Uh. Done a lot of stuff so far that I'm not proud of.”

Ella had perked up again at the line of questioning and then frowned, turning to Lucifer.

“I mean, we've got what the church says, but we've already established that they kinda got it super wrong when it came to you, so - how much are we supposed to believe?”

Lucifer blew out a sigh.

“Believe it or not, I'm not necessarily the best person to ask.”

Dan snorted. Chloe raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Unfortunately. I was neither judge, jury, nor executioner when it came to human souls. Oh, there are certain things that are a surefire ticket to hell - guilt being the main one. But the rest of it is up to you. You all send yourselves to the afterlife that you believe you deserve. No church needed, but if that's what helps give your life structure, well.”

Chloe’s frown suddenly matched Ella's.

“That seems incredibly… unfair,” she said. “What if -”

“Fairness doesn't factor much into the system, unfortunately” said Lucifer, eyes suddenly hard. Not at them, she could tell, but at something else. “You'll have to take it up with my father.”

“Right,” said Ella. “Actual God”. She looked lost for a second and then blinked, pulling herself together again. “Me and the big guy were already on rocky grounds earlier, but now it's gone from rocky to practically earthquake levels of shakiness to be honest.”

Lucifer glanced at the ceiling, as if physically searching for something.

Nothing happened.

“You don't have to -”

“I know,” said Ella. “Again. I want to. Free will, right?”

A crooked smile to Lucifer, slowly mirrored.

“Right,” said Dan, downing the last of his drink. “Not that this has hasn't been fun or I don't have more to ask, but I should probably get going. The hangover from tonight is already going to be bad enough and I've organised a lunch with Amenadiel tomorrow. I've got lot to talk about with him, too.”

He slid out of the booth, reaching for his phone. “I'm going to call an Uber. Ella - do you want to come with?”

Ella sighed, hugged Chloe, and then started to wiggle out of the booth too. “Yeah, I probably should.”

She made her way out and around to Lucifer, and then bent down to hug what she could reach of him. She pulled back, waved a brief finger. “I still have so many questions” she said. “But they can wait. I'll text you.”

She went and stood next to Dan, who threw a salute in their direction, and then they both started to head out, weaving through the crowds.

“And then there were two,” murmured Lucifer, turning to her.

Chloe hummed. “Although I should probably be getting a move on too. Gotta relieve the babysitter.”

“Can I tempt you for one more drink?” Lucifer asked “Maybe retire upstairs?”

She looked around at the club, her stomach doing that low fluttering thing she'd tried so hard to deny. It was tempting, but -

She shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “Trixie comes first. But we've got our session with Linda tomorrow, I'll see you then.”

“Ah,” said Lucifer. “Yes, she did check in with me. And sent me the list of your questions so I could think about them in advance, I should add.”

Chloe's eyes went wide. “She did? She didn't send me anything - should I check in with her?”

“No need Detective,” he said, “no need. I don't have anything pressing to be answered tomorrow. After all, it’s - me, who has things to explain, not you.”

“Are you sure?” Chloe asked dubiously. “Not that we can't have conversations outside of this, but there's nothing you want to ask?”

“Detective, you are always who you've shown yourself to be. A selfless, kind and courageous individual who puts her daughter first. I don't need to have that confirmed, I already know.”

She could feel a blush rising, glad that the light of the club didn't quite show it.

“Right,” she said, not sure what to say in response. “Well. Goodnight, Lucifer. See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he repeated.

She unthreaded her hand from his, gently cupped his cheek, and pressed a chaste kiss against his lips. Then she slid out of the booth, already in the process of ordering a car, thinking about the logistics for the next morning.

Leaving Lucifer staring after her, gaze following her as she walked out and away.