Chapter Text
(prologue)
Every mention in literature, every painting, and every threat spoken on the street said that Hell was hot. A burning, fiery inferno of hellfire and pain. Where else would the word “hellfire” have come from, after all, if not from the fires of Hell?
But all of that was wrong. Hell was cold. He’d forgotten, the long years in sunny Los Angeles taking away the sensation of the cold, biting and furious and unforgiving.
Los Angeles, the City of Angels. There he’d declared himself no longer an angel, found his wings again, lost them, and grown to accept them. In Los Angeles, he could be whatever he wanted. He could allow himself to forget that he was blamed for humanity’s sins.
He may have been an angel, but he never felt like it, down in Hell.
He’d left his angel behind in the City of Angels. His savior, his blessing, his miracle.
That was why Hell was so cold, the throne he sat upon far stranger than familiar, the screams below him grating and painful rather than satisfyingly just, the freezing air that hung like a weight on his shoulders aching rather than refreshing.
He had flown away from her.
Chloe was pretty sure it had almost worked. Standing there, tears streaming down her face, finally, finally telling Lucifer that she loved him. She thought he almost decided not to go back to Hell. But then he smiled (grinned, even), called her his first love (only? That was either flattering or painful, because he had so much love and yet she was the first one he could let himself love), kissed her, and let his beautiful wings take him back to his kingdom.
Of course, she was lying to herself. When she thought back, she knew that he’d decided in the Mayan, demons banished and fight finished, to return to Hell. She’d seen the determination in his face, the lone tear in his eye. But it made her almost feel better, maybe vindicated, knowing that if she’d just gotten a better hold on his hand, grasped his jacket into wrinkles, maybe he wouldn’t have taken that step away.
She stood there for a long time, still crying, before she could make herself step away from the balcony. Going back through his penthouse was torture, every step a horrible reminder that he wasn’t there. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Unless Hell froze over. She stifled back some sort of hysterical giggle.
Chloe turned around, took a few steps, and froze when she saw his bed. Still unmade. Still a mess of pillows and sheets and recent memories. The horrifying wings and burned skin and sculpted tendon melting away before her into the face she knew. Jumping into his arms before either of them could do anything aside from laugh in relief, slamming her mouth into his before he could say a word. Falling to the bed. His body wrapped around hers. His face pressed to hers. A different sort of feeling, fueled by her relief and his thankfulness. Laughs and kisses and love even though they wouldn’t admit it for another twenty-four hours—she ran past the bed, stumbled down the few stairs, and looked at the rest of the room.
As she stepped through and around the mess that was his living room area, she saw a button-down that he’d flung carelessly on the couch, probably a few days before the mess that was this week. Before she could think or talk herself out of it, she’d grabbed the shirt, pressed it to her face, inhaled the smell that was Lucifer’s cologne and a bit of fire and something else that was just him, and stepped into the elevator.
She almost made the calls on the silent drive home. But something stopped her, probably the disconcerting voice of her old captain reminding her to tell family members in person. When someone died, whether in a shoot-out or in the hospital afterwards, she had to tell the family in person. So and so loved one has passed away. I’m sorry for your loss. Let me know if you need any assistance in anything or have any more information relating to the incident. This probably went along the same lines: when their brother and friend went back to Hell without warning, she had to tell Amenadiel and Maze and Linda in person.
So she went home. She stepped through her doorway, Lucifer’s shirt still clutched in her hand, wrapped around her arm, pulled into her chest. She almost called for Trixie before remembering that she was with Dan (thankfully; Trixie was the one she couldn’t have hidden from and aside from Maze the one she was most afraid to tell) for the weekend.
Chloe sat down on the couch, blessedly and frighteningly alone. She looked down at the shirt in her lap and watched the tear stains grow. Her mind raced. She couldn’t tell if the shirt was silk or not; if it was silk, it was going to stain. It probably wasn’t silk. Lucifer was gone. She had to tell Trixie. Why couldn’t he have waited a day or two and told everyone first? Said he was going back to England or something? There, that was a good cover story. Would work for most everyone—
She woke up on the couch, morning light shining gleefully in her eyes. “Mommy?” a voice asked.
“Chloe, are you okay?” another voice asked, this one slightly more amused.
Trixie and Dan. She sat up, still clutching the shirt, her back listing off every reason she should have gone to actual bed instead of crying herself to sleep on the couch. “I’m good, it’s okay,” she blurted back out. “Why are you two here instead of school?”
“It’s Saturday, Mommy,” Trixie said, sitting down next to her on the couch. “But I forgot my toothbrush here.”
Dan sat down on the chair across from them, resting his elbows on his knees. “We found that I have no suitable toothbrushes in my apartment, so we came back here with breakfast.” She felt his eyes on her face, finding the tear stains and red-rimmed eyes. Finally his gaze landed on the (distinctly Lucifer’s) shirt, and she saw him conclude that her business was her business. Wow. Dan had really grown up recently.
Trixie flopped down across her legs. “We brought doughnuts. Daddy said that we couldn’t continue the cop stereotype, but I said that doughnuts were the best and he eventually agreed.” Dan and Trixie glanced at each other and nodded before returning their nearly identical eyes to her face.
Chloe finally laughed, just for a second. And she managed to pretend throughout breakfast, keeping up appearances of being okay. Dan had promised Trixie a trip to the movies and probably the ice cream shop, and so an hour later she was alone again.
“Okay, Decker,” she mumbled as she brushed her teeth. The shirt was flung onto her bed as if its owner was coming home in a few hours, but she ignored that, because not ignoring it would mean tears, the emotion that Trixie had managed to calm without realizing it. She glared at her reflection. “Pull it together.”
Linda, on the other hand, could not hold it together.
“He just left? Without saying goodbye? He just—” Chloe did not envy Amenadiel his sudden armful of weeping therapist. She’d left home immediately after Dan and Trix did, to go ahead and get this over with. The farewell tour of Lucifer Morningstar, fallen angel and Devil, hosted by Chloe Decker, the only woman he ever loved. She was not excited, and her four listeners were just as upset.
“I knew he was going to have to go back,” Maze snarled, pacing the room. “If he hadn’t been such a dick he could have at least said goodbye.”
Amenadiel looked mostly unaffected despite the fussing that Charlie was now doing (there was only so much the baby could handle, and being held by a virtual stranger while one’s mother was sobbing was not among that capability) and the knives that had casually emerged from Maze’s jacket. “Did he say anything before he left?”
Chloe bounced the baby and almost miraculously he calmed down and stared up at her, confusion at her identity painted across his face. “He just said that we’d just plugged a hole in a leaky… something, and that the demons need a king. And then he left. His wings are back to normal though.” Maze grunted at that.
Linda pulled herself out of Amenadiel’s light grasp and sniffed. “They’re white and gorgeous again? I wouldn’t have expected that after what you said when you were getting” hiccup “Charlie back.” She looked longingly at Chloe, and Chloe quickly decided that the longing was for Charlie rather than for herself, although a hug wouldn’t have been completely unwelcome, so she took the baby back to his mom. Linda smiled at her baby, scooting back into the couch cushions.
She thought about mentioning his revelations on the prophecy. It did mean hell coming to earth, demons killing mankind and taking over, and she—not Eve—was his first love. But none of these three had heard all that much about the prophecy anyway; none of them had obsessed to the point of trying to kill the guy or Devil they loved by order of an insane Vatican priest or actually turned into a demon thing on accident over it (to say they’d had problems the past few months would be an understatement).
That was hers. Those last minutes with him were hers. Maze stomped up and pulled her into a choking hug (not the kind of hug she would have requested) before she even realized she was crying again. If she hadn’t been shaking so hard, she would have known for sure whether the tear that landed on her neck was Maze’s or hers. As it was, she had no idea.
“Do you want me to fly you back down?” Amenadiel asked. “If you want to return to Hell, that is.”
Maze stiffened in her arms and turned them both to face the angel. “Lucifer is not all I have, Amenadiel. I need to protect Trixie and Charlie, on top of normal life. I do have a life here now, after all.”
Amenadiel nodded as Linda beamed. Maze had thankfully loosened the death-hug to death-glare at Amenadiel, and Chloe hugged her again. It hadn’t occurred to her until Maze’s words that Trixie’s best protector—even Dan would probably agree—was gone, and thankfully she was about out of tears and couldn’t cry anymore because it had been a terrible year and she had cried enough for a lifetime.
Linda looked up at Chloe and stood, offering Charlie again in what she clearly thought was the utmost generosity. They had apparently decided to change the subject completely. Maze disappeared as she and Linda and Amenadiel discussed the baby. Apparently he’d put on a bit over half a pound in his short life. Linda had taken him to the pediatrician after the whole Mayan incident—god, that was just yesterday—and the doctor had looked at her strangely but said he was fine. Perfectly fine. Like fine to the degree of why have you brought him so soon he’s like a week old?
“I did that with Trixie a few times,” Chloe remembered. “Paranoid mothers, I guess.”
Linda laughed. “Amenadiel was the one who insisted I take him to the doctor! For once, he was more paranoid than I am. I didn’t let him go with me because I’m pretty sure he would have killed the doctor if he’d made a different face than a comforting smile.” Amenadiel almost managed a smile, but Chloe saw him almost shudder, which was a weird emotion on an angel.
“What are you telling Trixie?” Maze asked abruptly, returning to the conversation as quickly as she’d left it.
“About what?” Chloe asked.
Maze rolled her eyes. “About where babies come from.” Chloe almost choked. They’d had that talk years ago, and it had gone just as unfortunately as she’d expected; Trixie was, after all, the queen of questions and little-to-no shyness. “Lucifer, duh.”
“Oh. Right. I was going to tell her and Dan and everyone else that he had to go back to England really suddenly.” Chloe felt her throat close up and she stared back down at Charlie, whose eyes bored into her soul in the way only babies can.
Amenadiel nodded. “That would be best. He didn’t manage to tell anyone else the truth, did he?”
“He was always telling the truth,” she sighed, Maze nodding. “But no, no one else aside from us knows. Except maybe a few criminals, come to think of it. But they don’t need to know that he’s returned to Hell, and it’s not like anyone believes them anyway. Most of them are in jail getting regular psych evals.”
They sat there in silence, the four of them who knew the truth. Not only were Heaven and Hell real: one of them was an angel, one a demon, one the mother of a half-angel baby, and the last was a human in love with the Devil.
Chloe excused herself when Charlie started wailing, because her nerves were frayed enough, and Maze’s expression of going into battle was enough to persuade her to not watch the is the baby hungry or sleepy or wet or just angry discussion.
Maze followed her outside and they stood on the porch for a minute. “I’m moving back in with you and Trixie.” Chloe nodded and Maze raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you’re not going to argue? Say I’m bad for Trixie or anything?”
“You were right, when you said you need to protect Trixie and Charlie. Charlie has Amenadiel, but Trixie needs you. If anything happens, I don’t think that Dan and I are going to be enough.” That hurt like hell to admit, but Chloe knew it was true. “And I think I’m going to need someone to stop me from crying all the damn time.”
Maze sniffed. Without warning she pulled Chloe into a hug. She pulled away as abruptly as she’d hugged. “I’ll move in tomorrow. You have my old key on you?”
Chloe pulled the spare key off her keyring. “Nice of you to actually ask for a key?”
“Well, if the Devil’s gone and not watching, I might as well be human. So that means unlocking the door instead of breaking in, even though that’s so much more fun.” They exchanged grins, and Chloe stepped toward her car.
She’d barely sat down and turned the key in the ignition before she got a text from Linda. She laughed as she read “Lucifer Survival Group” and We should have game nights! Or maybe movie nights! Something to keep us together!
Amenadiel and Maze both responded immediately with emojis that perfectly expressed their respective gentleness (two hearts) and sheer evil (rolled eyes and a knife). As she drove away, Chloe decided to not bring Trixie to these movie nights.
“Mommy?” Trixie called from her bedroom an hour after Dan dropped her off again. Despite her better intentions, Chloe had found herself scrolling through her list of solved cases and thinking about Lucifer’s antics on each one. It had not been a good idea, and Chloe was almost crying again.
“Well, Decker, time to pull this Band-Aid off,” she muttered as she stood up and leaned into Trixie’s doorway. “What is it, Trix?” Trixie was sitting at her desk, holding a blue crayon over what Chloe was pretty sure was math homework, but already staring at her instead of looking at the homework she was about to turn into a coloring page.
Naturally, Trixie, the dear sweet angel that she was, said the one thing Chloe wished she wouldn’t. “I miss Lucifer. When can he come over?”
Chloe felt the question like an arrow to the heart. She stepped into Trixie’s room and sat on the bed, taking a deep and empowering breath. “Lucifer can’t come over for a while, monkey. He’s had to go back to England and he can’t come back for a really long time.”
Trixie stared at her, her eyes wide. “He didn’t say goodbye?”
“It was a really sudden trip,” she said weakly.
“Can I FaceTime him?”
Chloe grasped at straws. “He doesn’t have a phone right now and might not get one for a while.” Great. It sounded like England had called him back for jail.
Trixie’s bottom lip quivered. “Why couldn’t he wait to say goodbye?”
Chloe held her arms open and Trixie fell into her, hugging her back almost as tightly as Maze. And in that moment, she could have killed Lucifer for this, for her daughter’s tears which were now soaking her shoulder, for leaving so quickly that he couldn’t even say goodbye to Trixie, one of the very few people he actually loved. Her next words came pouring out before she could think. “He loves you, he said to tell you before he left. He didn’t want to go, Trixie, and he loves you so much.” That was the tiniest of lies she was positive he would forgive, even if he would probably never admit it. He had admitted that he’d do anything for her, and “anything” for Lucifer ranged from give a dollar to and return to Hell.
“If he’d loved us he would have stayed,” Trixie muttered.
“I think that’s one reason he had to go, Trixie. Because he loves us.” She wanted to say that she begged him not to go, but that seemed like a bit much.
She held Trixie until she was cried out, and Chloe felt like her heart had gone through a wringer and her shirt needed to. She couldn’t decide for a minute whether she was glad or upset that Dan hadn’t stayed for dinner, but honestly she was glad in the end that he’d get to hear with the rest of the department on Monday.
He’d probably handle it better without knowing how sad Lucifer’s departure had made Trixie. The man had enough reasons, both real and semi-imagined, to hate Lucifer, and Chloe didn’t really want to add this one.
She ordered pizza for dinner, because she didn’t want to cook. She rarely wanted to cook, but especially not now. Now, she just felt like sitting on the couch with her baby girl (who was probably going to be taller than her someday, with how fast she was growing lately) and vegging out on pizza. She did manage to make a salad to go along with the pizza when she realized that Trixie had had nothing but junk food all day, but it was the only productive thing she managed for the rest of the day.
Considering Trixie wanted to just lie on the couch and chat about the movie she and Dan saw earlier and a bit about Lucifer (but not too much) and squeal incessantly when Chloe told her that Maze was moving back in, she didn’t have to do a lot for the rest of the night. The Maze news led to the happiest Trixie that Chloe had seen in weeks, so that was one good thing out of the night.
“I miss Lucifer. Is he ever gonna come back?” Trixie asked quietly, her stuffed animals waiting eagerly for an answer next to her.
She tucked the edges of the blanket around Trixie and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m not sure, monkey. I know he would come back in a moment if he could.”
She stared at the front door for a few minutes before going to bed. He wasn’t coming back, though. He’d done his duty and returned to Hell to rule his demons, so she was going to do her duty and actually go to work in the morning.
The morning was Sunday. Chloe stared up at the ceiling and sighed. One day down. Many more to go. Forever to go.
She heard laughing from the living room, so she decided to get up and make sure that Trixie hadn’t made friends with some home invader. It wouldn’t have been too unexpected, honestly, and with the amount that Trixie talked it would be a terrible idea to kidnap her. All the same, it was best to check.
“You’re finally up, Decker! I brought boxes.” Chloe stumbled toward Maze’s car with a scant grin, wondering whether she could be qualified as a home invader if she was known and mostly expected.
“Trixie, stop, stop, give me that,” she called when she saw Trixie grabbing a box that was easily half her size out of the car.
“I’ve got it, Mommy!”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m gonna get it this time.” Thankfully, the box wasn’t quite as heavy as it looked, but she was pretty sure that was a sword threatening to poke through the cardboard. She adjusted as necessary to not get stabbed. “Next time Maze moves in, you can get the big boxes.”
Trixie grabbed a canvas bag that looked even heavier than her box and staggered toward the house. “Why would Maze move in again if she’s already moved in? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Thankfully, Maze didn’t have too much stuff to move in, and Maze was separating the boxes and bags based on Trixie can open this one and This one has death-to-Trixie objects inside. They got her moved in without much prelude, and Trixie ran back to her room to start on a new picture for Maze’s door.
Chloe stepped into the kitchen to start some sort of brunch and when she turned away from the fridge she came face-to-face with a demon and had a miniature heart attack. “Maze, you can’t do that, the standing-behind-me-and-assuming-I-know-you’re-there thing.”
“Sorry.” She took three steps back. “What have you told Trixie about Lucifer?”
“Just that he’s gone back to England. I thought I would tell everyone at work the same thing.”
Maze nodded. “Nothing about him being the Devil? She’s your child, and I think Lucifer liked her. And she’s seen my face, it probably wouldn’t surprise her too much.”
Chloe glared at her as she started pancakes. “She’s ten. That’s too young to know so much about the world, like how heaven and hell and demons and angels are real. And I don’t think she really needs to know, especially since Lucifer isn’t coming back.”
Maze stared at her in the way that definitely meant you’re an idiot. “What happens if Charlie sprouts wings?”
“If that happens, I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” It occurred to her just as Trixie skipped into the kitchen exactly what Maze had said. “Wings? How long have they been worrying about that?” Maze couldn’t answer the question, though, because she was admiring Trixie’s new picture of grisly murder. She would have a talk with Trixie about that, since it was only a matter of time before she let something slip at school, except… Maze was moved in again, so it was only going to get worse, and teachers would probably just assume that she or Dan had talked about work too much. It would be fine.
She decided as the three of them ate breakfast that at least one good thing had come out of Lucifer leaving—as it turned out, the Decker girls needed Maze about as much as she needed them.
“Lucifer’s gone?” Ella shrieked.
Dan managed a so sorry, Chloe face that was almost convincing.
“Lucifer can’t have just left!” a random mail person said.
The entire precinct was a mess after she stood on the steps in the middle, took a deep breath, asked for everyone’s attention, and delivered the news.
This was another gracious lie. Chloe was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have thought too much about anyone at the precinct except Ella and maybe (maybe) Dan, but judging by the tears that had erupted in most eyes and run down some faces, everyone here loved Lucifer, and they needed the comfort.
She was bombarded with questions about his location (she wasn’t sure aside from “England”), how to get in touch with him (he hadn’t left a phone number or address, so impossible), and why he’d left. She answered the last question so many times that she was so close to saying just anything that occurred to her—he found out he was nineteenth in line to the English throne and went over to kill everyone else to get the crown on his head faster; he decided to go to business or acting or biochemistry school over there and wanted to be in seclusion for optimal learning; he was in isolated therapy for sex addiction.
Probably said something about the man she was in love with (and her as a person, honestly) that the last option was probably the most feasible. But she went with “something urgent came up, and he had to leave immediately.”
Finally Lucifer’s fans let her sit alone at her desk with her case files. She got a solid ten minutes of glorious and silent perusal before Dan appeared. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah!” she grinned as brightly as a sad Chloe could.
Dan scoffed, proving once more that he’d grown up recently. He’d never been able to see through her moods until the past three years or so. “Did you tell Trixie?”
She nodded, picking a random murder and separating it from the stack. “She’ll be okay. And Maze moved back in.” She peered up to catch his opinion on that, but she was pleasantly surprised by an agreeable nod.
“That’s probably for the best. At least we’ll get free babysitting and Linda and Amenadiel will get a break from Maze every now and then. Let me know if I can do anything aside from taking Trix on my normal days.” He glanced down at her case file. “Want me to go with you for this one?”
Chloe nodded, her throat closing up with the tears she wasn’t going to show. Dan nodded and walked back to his desk to gather his badge and whatever else he took these days. Before they could escape the precinct, though, Chloe found herself with an armful of Ella Lopez.
“I love you so much, Chloe, and I’m here if you need anything. Literally, anything you need. Lucifer will be back someday, I know it.” Chloe patted Ella’s back before pulling herself away.
“I’m not sure if he will, but thank you, Ella.”
Dan managed to hold himself together until they got to the crime scene. “Did you at least tell him how you feel before he left?”
Chloe glared at the steering wheel before getting out of the car. “It’s none of your business.”
“Regrets, Chloe, remember—”
“Yes, okay! I did! I told him that I love him, he said he loves me, but he still had to leave, it didn’t make any difference! There’s no regrets on my end, except that I didn’t pull myself together enough to tell him until two nights ago! Can we please just talk about the case?”
Dan pulled her into another hug—that made at least two too many hugs for the day, she was thoroughly hugged out—and Chloe was almost glad for the gunshots that prevented her from appreciating the affection. “Kenneth Murphy?” she shouted as they pulled out their guns. “LAPD! Put the gun down!”
Life kept on. Trixie went to school and begged for a dog. Maze hunted criminals and supported the dog plan. Dan went on a few dates and started going to improv again. Linda doted on Charlie and continued her occasionally ethically-confused practice. Charlie learned how to smile and out-talk (babbling, really) Trixie. Amenadiel… well, Chloe was never sure what Amenadiel did aside from smile at Charlie. He probably did whatever angels normally did. Which was… something. She was pretty sure he didn’t have a job, anyway.
Chloe solved crimes at a slightly slower rate than she was used to, managed to sleep through her morning alarm five times in six days, started figuring out what shelter to get this damned dog from, and realized she was pregnant.
The first was probably her fault (Lucifer hadn’t really helped with the cases much, probably), the next was Trixie’s fault (there were only so many begging sessions Chloe could take if Dan wasn’t there), and the last was Maze’s fault (okay, it was really Lucifer’s and her own fault, but it was easier to blame anyone else other than herself and someone who was essentially a million miles away).
“You pregnant, Decker?” Maze asked absently from the bathroom door when Chloe was throwing her guts up for the fourth day in a row. It had gotten bad enough that she’d taken two sick days. Chloe never took sick days.
Chloe pulled her face out of the toilet long enough to glare at her roommate. “No. I’m not pregnant. I just have a stomach bug.” As if soothed by the presence of something even more crotchety—Maze—her stomach settled and she scooted away from the toilet to prop herself against the wall. She was never eating again.
Maze leaned on the door frame and stared down at her, one eyebrow raised. Chloe had the distinct feeling that she was the wayward child and Maze the disapproving mother, and it was not a comfortable realization, since the situation would normally be completely reversed with her the responsible adult. “I thought Lucifer looked too happy in the hours before Charlie disappeared for it to be just a normal day. Good for him for finally wearing you down.”
“First of all, it’s none of your business.” She finally managed to stand up and actually look Maze in the eye. “Second, he’d spent the entire day before gradually turning into a demony thing and he was mostly just happy to not be some monster. Third, whatever may or may not have happened that night between me and Lucifer is none of your business.”
Maze shrugged. “It’s definitely none of my business, but it’s been six weeks since Lucifer went back to Hell, you’re exhausted all the time, and you’re throwing up like there’s no tomorrow. You haven’t eaten anything different than me and Trixie and we’re fine.”
Chloe finished brushing her teeth and pushed past Maze, an unsettling oh god she actually might be right feeling emerging. “Did you memorize a pregnancy book when Linda got pregnant?”
“I read more books than Amenadiel.” She chose that time to hand Chloe a CVS bag. “If you want to find out if the Devil’s gonna be a dad...”
Ten minutes later, Chloe was sprawled across her bed, laughing hysterically with a bemused demon. “It’s just my luck, isn’t it! He tries to get me in bed with him for, what, our entire partnership, and then the one time that we actually do—it was not him getting me into bed, by the way, it was me pushing him onto the bed—he knocks me up!”
They laughed for a moment at that, Maze looking far more interested in her aside about who-got-who-into-bed than she had any right to be. “I wasn’t even sure if I was right,” Maze said, leaning in confidentially. “Linda was insanely energetic until she passed out in Lucifer’s penthouse. Trixie just got worried enough that I asked Linda about other pregnancy symptoms—I think she thinks I’m pregnant now, by the way, so thanks for that—and it was the only option.”
Chloe finally stopped laughing and stared up at the ceiling. “Oh god, what am I going to do? Lucifer’s gone, probably forever, and Trixie’s ten. Isn’t that too old for a baby sibling? I don’t know, I was an only child.”
“You’re never too old for another sibling. I kept getting them until I was at least a hundred, when someone killed our mother. I think it was Lucifer, but he never confessed. And none of us cared enough to avenge her death anyway.”
“That doesn’t count. You were all spawned or something.” Maze sniffed derisively. “It’s not like Dan was really there all the time, because he was a textbook absent father until recently, but at least he was on this plane of existence or whatever… You all say that Charlie’s going to sprout wings! What about this one? Does it still count if Lucifer used to be an angel? But he technically still is, right? I can’t handle a winged baby! I refuse to bubble-wrap my house, and Trixie would be jealous!”
Her hysterical laughing descended into silent freaking out and Maze staring at her. The bonding session ended with Trixie bounding into the house. “Do not tell Trixie,” Chloe whispered with her angry face before standing up and going to hug her daughter.
“Hi Mommy! You’re feeling better! Where’s Maze? Hi Maze! School was fun! I have a lot of homework so can I have a Pop-Tart, Mommy? I need the sugar to concentrate.” Trixie smiled angelically up at her and she folded without another word from the monkey. Apparently she wasn’t going to have much longer as an only child, so time to spoil her while she could. Maze rolled her eyes as Chloe responded to at least two of Trixie’s sentences and reach for the box of sugar.
Maze did redeem herself from the lower status as person-to-reveal-roommate’s-pregnancy back to the demon-bodyguard she preferred when she helped Trixie with her math.
Her attempt to act like everything was normal was successful until she woke up at 3 AM with tears on her cheeks and empty hands clutching at the sheets.
We were wrong about something else in the prophecy. My first love was never Eve. It was you, Chloe. It always has been. She remembered the feelings of his lips on hers, her tears on his face, his eyes searing into hers with certainty and apology and love. The worst part of all… that last word. She yanked the pillow out from under her head and pressed it over her face, but it wasn’t enough to muffle the imagined word, his agonized whisper. Goodbye.
She peeked out from under the pillow and glanced down at her stomach. Well, if they had to have one good thing out of the whole mess that was their partnership, this would have to do. If she had to raise it alone in the name of the world’s safety, she would. Decision made and new spot in her heart carved out and decorated for a half-devil baby, she curled back into her blankets. If it took far longer to fall asleep than it should have, she was going to blame Lucifer.
The words just somehow poured out the next morning over their respective cereals (Frosted Flakes for Trixie, some healthy thing for her, and Reese’s Puffs for Maze—they were an odd bunch). It certainly wasn’t thought-through, and she regretted them the moment she said them.
“Trixie, how would you feel about a baby brother or sister?”
Maze choked on her cereal. She looked back and forth between mother and daughter as if their conversation was her new favorite TV show.
Trixie glanced up at Chloe warily before returning her gaze to her soggy flakes. “Why?”
“Because… um… you’re getting one.” That was the worst possible way to announce her news. But there it was, out in the open.
Trixie stared at her until Chloe started twitching. “Really?” she finally asked.
“Really.”
Maze leaned back and smirked. Chloe glared at her as fiercely as she could before turning her attention back to Trixie. Apparently, this was all the demon could have asked for, Chloe being awkward and Trixie staring at her with the strength of an interrogator.
Finally, Chloe couldn’t take it anymore. “Trixie, monkey, you have to give me some sort of opinion.”
Trixie kept up the staring for another twenty seconds, then she broke the terrifying wide-eyed stare with a grin. “I hope it’s a girl.”
Chloe laughed, trying not to cry, and stood up to grab her older baby in a hug. Trixie jumped up into her arms and she lifted her up, Trixie giggling.
Trixie gasped when Chloe set her back down, her eyes wide and hands over her mouth in overdramatic shock. “Is Lucifer the baby’s dad?”
Maze finally laughed, the sound making both Deckers stare at her. “I knew you were smart, Trixie,” Maze managed between guffaws. Trixie turned back to Chloe as quickly as they’d looked at the resident demon, and Chloe just nodded. Maze gathered her bowl and spoon, almost tossed them in the sink, and disappeared up the stairs.
“And he left anyway? Even with a baby? Even though he loves us?” Trixie’s voice was full of righteous indignation that made Chloe want to laugh.
She knelt down next to Trixie’s chair, taking her little fists in her hands. “Lucifer doesn’t know, monkey. He left way before I knew. I found out yesterday.”
Trixie nodded, her anger fading away as quickly as it’d come on. They sat in silence for a minute, Chloe glancing back and forth between Trixie and the clock. If they didn’t get moving soon, she’d be late for work and Trixie would be late for school. “Is Lucifer gonna come back now?” she asked quietly.
Chloe sighed. That was the real question. “He doesn’t know about the baby, and there’s no way to tell him, monkey. He’s still probably not coming back.”
Lucifer’s voice reverberated through her head, the final damning words that would keep him in Hell forever. We may have stopped it now, but for how long? I need to keep them contained. They must have a king. For as long as the demons would want to walk the earth, so long would Lucifer be King of Hell. No matter his wishes, certainly no matter hers.
Chloe let Trixie sit there a moment and process, which didn’t take longer than a moment. Trixie bounded up and started jabbering about her baby sister (god, she hoped it was a girl. Trixie was not even considering the possibility of a brother). She kept talking as long as it took to get ready for school then the entire drive to school. “I’m gonna tell everyone—” and that was the cue to stop her.
“Trix, honey, don’t tell anyone about the baby yet.”
Trixie’s mouth formed a perfect pout. “But—”
“I need to tell your dad myself. He is not gonna want to hear it coming from anyone but me. And if you tell anyone—”
“They might tell Daddy.” Trixie thought about it for a minute. Chloe held her breath, hoping the kid would bite. Dan’s reaction was certainly a logical explanation, and it was definitely the only really child-friendly one. Finally Trixie nodded. “I won’t tell anyone.”
The grin the monkey was sporting as she got out of the car was probably not going to help keep the secret, but at least it wouldn’t hurt. Chloe shrugged as she pulled away from the carpool line. There was no telling how long she could keep the secret, but today would buy her some time.
As she pulled into the station, she cursed Lucifer again for leaving. Self-sacrificial idiot.
The next day was conveniently movie night with the angel, mother of half-angel, and demon. Chloe’s phone lit up when she arrived home from the office (which had been another day of Chloe, are you okay? I’m here for you! Do you want me to come to the crime scene with you? How’s Trixie handling everything?, all of which was ridiculous since Lucifer had been gone for more than a month. At this point, she was going to have to either be fine or not fine, and honestly she was as close to fine as she was going to be. She did run to the bathroom to throw up a few times, which definitely didn’t help convince Ella that she was fine).
Lucifer Survival Group
Linda: Ready for tonight?
Amenadiel: Why am I even in this group chat, Linda? I see your calendar every day. I know when the events are.
Maze: you deserve to suffer too
Maze: just kidding linda
Maze: linda
Me: what’s the movie tonight
Maze: linda are you there
Maze: linda
Linda: I’m slightly hurt at your lack of excitement. But too excited to act on it! Tonight’s movie is…
Linda: …wait for it…
Linda: You’ve Got Mail!
Linda: Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan!
Linda: The great duo!
Chloe stared at the phone. Sometimes these people were as insane as Lucifer himself, the man they were recovering from. Or surviving without. The message name really didn’t clarify. The thread stayed quiet for a moment until she felt compelled to help Linda out.
Me: I’m excited, Linda. You’ve converted me
Amenadiel: I’m also excited, Linda.
Linda: I don’t feel like you’re telling the truth, Amenadiel. But thank you, Chloe!
Maze: with this choice i declare you a torturer fit for hell
Linda: Thank you!
Linda: I think!
Maze: that wasn’t a compliment
Linda: If you all don’t laugh and cry at the right moments, I’m kicking you out. Maze, I’m talking to you.
Maze: fine. i’ll behave
She dropped Trixie off at Dan’s (the kid hadn’t managed to convince Chloe to take her to movie night, and she never, ever, ever would; there was usually way too much alcohol consumed after Charlie was put to bed to keep it child-friendly. Her conversation with Dan was limited to hi, I’ll take Trix to school on Monday, and actually how about you come for dinner on Sunday night and drop her off then?, and okay sounds good, and bye) and pulled into Linda and Amenadiel’s driveway.
Amenadiel met her at the door with a babbling Charlie, passing him over without so much as a hi, Chloe, how are you? Would you like to hold my child? Isn’t he cute? and escaping further into the living room. Charlie grabbed onto her hair almost immediately and Chloe accepted that her scalp would soon ache. But he was fricking adorable, so it was okay.
“Chloe! How are you?” Linda called from the kitchen.
“I’m fine,” she called back. The popcorn smell was approaching nauseating, and she mourned the loss of fake butter in her diet. Charlie tugged at her hair and she gently pulled it back out of his grasp. “Charlie’s getting so big!”
“I know,” Linda said, her voice wavering for a moment. Maze appeared from the kitchen, throwing herself down on the couch. She glanced down at Chloe’s stomach and Chloe shook her head furiously for a second. Maze’s eyebrows rose and fell, rolling her eyes and reaching for Charlie. Silent conversation over, Chloe handed the baby over and stepped into the kitchen.
She and Linda talked for a few minutes, the psychologist treating her like a glass vase for five minutes less than the average other person, which was probably since Linda herself felt like the glass vase instead. Amenadiel popped in and out, adding an accidentally-snarky comment here and there and taking bowls of popcorn to the couch.
They all sat on the couch, Charlie put peacefully to bed, and Linda turned the movie on, her eyes already rapt with appreciation for young Tom Hanks and overfilled wine glass in her hand. The movie droned on, and Chloe didn’t notice any of it. Amenadiel was paying more attention to Charlie’s I-didn’t-want-to-go-to-bed-yet sounds (she assumed; he kept glancing toward the baby’s door) and Maze was twiddling a knife.
The blessed monotony of watching a movie that didn’t require too much thought to keep up with made her mind check out. Her brain flip-flopped from Maze (someday she was going to drop that knife and lose some fingers and it was going to be awkward for everyone) to Linda to Charlie to Amenadiel to the single reason she would fail every Bechdel test.
She managed to keep the condemning and/or happy words out of her mouth for the entire night, even if just because she didn’t want to make herself into a hypocrite after her long speech to Trixie about not telling anyone. And because she could imagine Linda’s reaction, and no one wanted to see that on You’ve Got Mail night. She guessed, anyway.
The four of them talked for a while after the movie about mundanities like detective work (Chloe argued that no, they probably shouldn’t start another game night series with Ella and Dan included, Ella would become unbearable with Monopoly), bounty hunter work (“And then I held the knife to his throat and he—” “I think I hear Charlie crying.” “Me too, I’ll go check on him!” “There had better be space in his room for another person.”), psychological work (Linda proceeded to almost cry over Lucifer not being there to be annoying and utterly fascinating anymore), and whatever went on with Amenadiel (he didn’t say much. He rarely said much, but this time he said less than usual).
She didn’t make it home until after midnight, when Charlie woke up with a vengeful scream. His tired and half-drunk parents had ushered the others out, and Maze had decided to go on a very late-night run instead of return home like the average human.
Chloe opened the door with a sigh, trying to walk inside instead of just fall gracefully onto the couch. It was a graceless fall, but at least she didn’t end up falling off the couch. She pondered for a solid minute and a half about why she was so exhausted—she’d gotten sleep the night before, what more could her body ask of her—before the answer hit her like the headache that had been threatening since she smelled the popcorn hours before.
She managed to stand up, close and lock her house, and collapse on her bed properly before she addressed her stomach. “You, tiny demon, are going to be the death of me.” She considered this statement for a moment. There was absolutely no call to be talking to one’s stomach before there was even a change. “You will also be the reason I go insane.”
Chloe had a relatively peaceful weekend, which consisted of doing absolutely nothing aside from making lists.
First list: what to do very soon. This list (written in blue ink) featured make doctor’s appointment, tell Dan & Linda & Amenadiel & Ella (without dying), tell mom???, calculate maternity leave (and tell work), and figure out how to summon the devil from hell.
Second list: what to buy. Red ink showed ginger, m&ms, all cereals (somehow, they were almost out of all three types), crayons, windshield wipers, everything with ginger, vitamins, and shit-ton of bubble wrap??????
Third list: surviving. Since this one was the one that would probably actually get displayed on the fridge, it had black ink and also work, ginger, Trixie, vitamins, exercise, and a scratched out blob that Trixie probably wouldn’t be able to read as summon the devil.
Her work done by noon on Sunday, she took a nap for the rest of the day, a nap that was punctuated every few hours with waking up to eat Saltines and throw up. It was a peaceful day, all in all. Chloe considered her life as she hugged the toilet again, and she decided as she wobbled back to her bed that it was as okay as it was going to be.
Lucifer’s voice broke through a dream about evil bunnies. Immediately the dream shifted to the balcony, the rumpled bed behind them. They leaned against the railing, her wrapped in a sheet, Lucifer’s arms tightly around her. They didn’t speak, just watched the city fly by. She tried to shift in his arms, to look at his face, but he held her still.
The scene shifted and she stood facing him, his back to the city, tears on her face. “Please don’t go,” she begged. “I—I love you. I love you. Please don’t leave. I love you.”
His face crumpled and brightened at the same time. “My first love was never Eve. It was you, Chloe. It always has been. I love you, Detective.”
His kiss burned her, and she gasped in his arms. When he pulled away, his face was bright red and skeletal, and flames ate away at his skin. His demon wings stirred the air behind him. He grinned, blood dripping from his mouth, when she took a step backwards.
“I’m the King of Hell, Chloe. What did you expect?”
She sat up in bed, the blankets puddling around her and her hands covering her mouth and her heart steadily beating its way out of her chest. She was still burning; even the tears streaming down her face felt hot against her skin.
“Chloe?” a voice called from the kitchen. “Where are you? You okay?” It took her way longer than it should have to place Dan’s voice—what kind of person was she, that she apparently couldn’t handle the true appearance of the love of her life to the point that she had a full nightmare about it? Well, actually, she’d basically tried to kill him because of it a few months ago, so what was a nightmare in comparison?—and she pulled herself out of bed to join him, wiping her face as she plodded into the kitchen.
Dan relaxed when he saw her appear in the living room. Chloe was proud of him for that reaction, since she was pretty sure she looked more ghostly than human due to the all-day sickness, the sheer amount of sleep she’d been getting, and the tears-inducing nightmare. Her thoughts were confirmed by Trixie, who stood next to Dan and stared without stepping closer.
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, all acknowledging that Chloe looked a bit of a wreck and agreeing to not mention it. “Chinese food?” Dan suggested.
Trixie cheered and Chloe managed to not get nauseous at the thought of food, so it was probably a good idea, which was confirmed the moment that the food arrived and she set upon it like it was the first thing she’d eaten in a week. Or weekend, which was nearly true.
The three of them talked for a while, mostly Trixie describing their trip to the beach (Chloe raised an eyebrow when Dan proclaimed his intention to teach Trixie how to surf soon) in such detail that she could almost smell the saltwater.
After they finished eating, Dan told Trixie to do her homework, which was immediately obeyed to Chloe’s great shock. When Trixie (like any child of divorce, she guessed) had both of her parents around, she always wanted to stay up as late as possible with them, but the monkey just hugged her and walked to her room, glancing back and forth between parents, looking as guilty as she could without having done anything bad.
Chloe understood the reason for this guilt when Dan asked her to speak in private. They sat down on her bed in mildly uncomfortable silence until Dan took a deep breath. “Trixie accidentally told me that she’s getting a baby sister.”
“Ooh.” There was just no good way to go about this, was there? “Yeah, Dan, I’m sorry, I meant to tell you first…”
Dan sighed, pressing his face into his hands. “And you’re not adopting? That was what I was still hoping, to be honest.”
She tried not to laugh, but it was impossible not to at least breathe out a chuckle. “No, I’m pregnant. And it’s—”
“Lucifer’s,” Dan finished, looking like the dictionary’s definition of resigned. “Trixie was very informative very quickly. I don’t like the guy, you know that, so I’m not going to say anything there. I’m assuming it wasn’t planned?” Chloe scoffed, and Dan looked even more pained, taking that as the answer it was. “How far along are you?”
“You literally don’t have to ask any of this,” Chloe said. “I’m keeping the baby, that’s all you need to know right now.”
“This baby’s going to be my daughter’s sibling, I feel like I should know some stuff,” Dan said, finally looking a little irritated. “How far along?”
Chloe glared, because the man did have a point. “About six weeks, give or take a bit.”
Dan very clearly did not do the math in his head to figure out when six weeks ago was. He clearly did not want to hear anything about the outside-of-work relationship between his ex-wife and Lucifer, which was not surprising and also good. “Did Lucifer know before he left?”
“Of course not,” she muttered, trying not to be offended. “He wouldn’t have left if he’d known.”
Dan laughed, making her cross the line into offended. “He would have gone so much faster if he’d known, Chloe. The guy just can’t handle responsibility. He—”
“Don’t.” Dan stopped talking and stared at her for a minute while she stared at the wall.
This was the one thing she’d tried not to think about: how would Lucifer react? There was absolutely nothing in their history (or his) to suggest that he’d react any differently than Dan would have expected (run and run and fly as fast as he could), and it was not something that she was going to think about. “Lucifer is gone, Dan,” she whispered, turning to look at him again. “There’s no way he’s coming back, and I’m not going to think about what would happen if he knew. Whether he would have stayed or if he’d still have gone—it doesn’t matter. I’m having the baby either way.”
They sat quietly for a moment. Eventually Dan’s arm wrapped around her, and she let her head fall on his shoulder. They both sighed.
“Trixie’s going to be crushed if it isn’t a girl,” Dan finally offered.
Chloe tried to laugh. “I know. I’m trying to decide whether she’d handle a brother if it is a boy or if I’ll just have to steal a baby from the hospital somehow.”
Dan’s shoulder shook as he laughed for a second. “You would never get away with it.”
“Why not?” she asked, too tired to be offended again. “I’m a cop. I can get away with almost anything.”
“Lucifer’s kid loose in LA without you? California—no, the world wouldn’t stand a chance.”
She thought about it for a second. If the kid was anything like Lucifer, the world was definitely doomed. She grinned. “I guess Trixie’ll have to deal with it.”
“Yep.” He was quiet long enough that Chloe almost fell asleep on his shoulder. “I bet it’ll be a girl, though. The world needs another Decker woman.”
She smiled. Either way—boy or girl, human or some weird angel hybrid—the world wasn’t prepared.