Chapter Text
Chloe thought she knew Lucifer. The real Lucifer.
Better than anyone else.
The amount of faith she had in the man she loved was a force to be reckoned with.
But as she sat on the stairs with Linda’s manuscript, she realized maybe she didn’t really know him at all.
Linda was speaking, talking about hypothetical hell loops and asking for her help, but Chloe couldn’t stop her mind from flying through every time Lucifer had left her on her own.
The night he’d left her sitting alone in a restaurant for hours with no response.
Walking into his abandoned penthouse after she’d almost died only to have him return two weeks later with a Mrs. Morningstar.
When she’d wanted nothing more than to spend her birthday with her best friend and he’d fled the city to go to Vegas. Again.
The night she’d told him she loved him and watched as he grappled with duty and responsibility . She understood, but the memory still felt jagged and sharp.
Rory’s words from just a few hours prior, “You’re on your deathbed, and he’s not there.”
It all hurt.
She murmured a response to Linda, quickly standing and walking away with the sole focus of finding the only person that could give her the answers she needed. That she deserved.
She found him sitting alone on the penthouse balcony, the light and shadows of the fire dancing across his face. When he finally noticed her, her heart almost broke at the defeated look on his face.
“Can I ask you a few questions?” Her words pierced the thick silence of the room, and for a moment she saw fear flash across his face. She was still holding the rough draft in her hands, and watched as Lucifer’s eyes fell to the pages.
“I’m sure you can find whatever it is you’re looking for in there,” he said, his voice coming out much less sure than he had hoped.
Chloe knew it must have been hard to sit in a room with the people you love most and have them read through the intimate details of every decision you’ve ever made. She wanted to comfort him, to reassure him that he was a good man, but she needed to reassure herself first.
For all his flaws, she knew he had always cared about her—the back full of bullets he’d taken for her just days after they’d met proved that—but there were so many things that didn’t make sense.
Things she needed to understand.
“I don’t want to read about it.” She sat down next to him, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, but leaving enough space between them so she could look into his eyes. To emphasize her point, she tossed the stack of papers onto the ground next to them, not caring that the night breeze shuffled the top few across the ground. “I want to hear it from you.”
Lucifer looked at her then, let his eyes travel to her necklace— his necklace—that was laying flat against her chest. His gaze traveled further, landing on her hands that were fidgeting in her lap, the ring he had put on her finger months ago catching the light of the fire. The tangible reminders of him that she wore soothed some of the worry that had ebbed and flowed through his body all night.
He reached his hand out to still hers, letting his finger twist the familiar ring for a moment before he spoke. “You can ask me anything.”
Chloe nodded, taking a steadying breath before turning her hand over to interlace her fingers with his. The cool metal on her finger was a sharp contrast to the warmth of his hand, and for a moment she let herself draw comfort from the physical reminder that he had stormed the gates of heaven to follow her.
But the tangle of Linda’s book and Rory’s words from earlier refused to loosen the vice they had around her faith that he would always be there. She was scared—terrified—that even after all this time, after how much they’d grown both together and apart, that he’d leave her on her own again.
Chloe narrowed her eyes as she looked at their joined hands, trying to see through the swell of emotion that was threatening to overtake her. Start at the beginning, her mind offered, the principle drilled into her after years as a detective.
“Do you remember when we saved Lux? When you invited me to dinner?” She still wasn’t looking at him, only raising her eyes when he squeezed her hand.
“I do,” he answered slowly, trying to keep his face neutral.
“You never showed up,” she added, thinking back to how she’d felt when she’d finally walked out of the restaurant. Like she’d never be enough to keep his attention or earn his trust enough for him to open up fully. That he’d hurt her over and over again if she let her walls down. That no matter how much she wanted to she’d never be able to want it enough for both of them.
“You were acting strange the few weeks leading up to that,” she continued, her thumb tracing a path up and down his. “You were going through something—you showed up to the zombie wedding after a bender and offered yourself up as bait during the takedown. I remember asking you to talk to me but you told me I didn’t understand and that I never would.”
He nodded. He remembered how those words had left his tongue like daggers aimed at her, but how in the end they’d hurt him too.
Uriel had come for Chloe and he’d done what needed to be done. He hadn’t known he loved her then, but looking back now it was obvious.
“Would I understand now?”
Her question broke him from his thoughts, and he nodded again.
“Tell me about it?” Her voice was shaking, and she hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
“My brother Uriel showed up.” Lucifer’s voice shook. “He was here to try and get me to take my mum back to hell, and when I refused he tried to force my hand.” He paused, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, trying to force away the memory of how it had felt as he’d pushed Azrael’s blade into Uriel’s body. How it had felt to hold his brother as his soul faded out of existence completely.
When he was silent for a few moments, Chloe prompted him to continue. “Force your hand how?”
“He was going to kill you,” he told her simply, eyes opening to look at her fully. “So I killed him before he had the chance.”
Chloe felt the air around them become suffocating, the sounds of the city below disappearing as she felt the blood start to pound in her head. She’d known something big had happened. Had known him well enough at that point to recognize that he had been hurting, but this was something she couldn’t have ever fathomed.
Just months ago she’d watched as Lucifer had chosen to take Michael’s wings instead of his life. He’d shown the brother that had killed her—the brother that he hated— mercy in that moment and it made the gravity of his decision to kill Uriel even heavier.
“Lucifer,” she whispered, reaching out her hand not tangled with his to wipe a tear that was staining a path down his cheek. She was sure he hadn't even noticed he was crying.
“I don’t regret it. Not anymore.” His voice wavered, panic unfurling in his chest. He had been afraid then that he was a monster, that everyone he knew would have seen him for who he truly was if they’d known the truth.
He was afraid of that now.
Chloe sat in silence, trying to string together anything that would adequately convey the confusing swirl in her stomach. He’d killed his brother to save her and had to deal with it alone. He was right, she wouldn’t have understood then, but she could now.
That had been months before she had listened to him try and convince her that he was unworthy of her on the beach, and looking at it all together she was sure that the two were connected.
“I’m so sorry, Lucifer,” she told him with a watery voice, unaware until then that her own tears had started to fall. She was spurred on to elaborate when his face filled with confusion, like he wasn’t understanding what she could possibly be apologizing for. “That you had to make that choice. That you had to go through it alone.”
“I didn’t want to do it. You of all people know that taking a life isn’t something I ever want to do.” His voice was so soft that Chloe held her breath as she tried to focus on what he was saying. “But I couldn’t let him kill you.”
“I know, Lucifer. I believe you,” she reassured him. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me.”
It was then that Chloe’s mind drifted back to the cold, ashy hallways of hell. Been there, done that, stabbed my brother to death a million times, is what Lucifer had said only a week or so prior. At the time she’d been confused, the thought quickly pushed from their mind as they’d entered Jimmy’s loop.
“When were you in a hell loop?” The question fell from her mouth before she could stop it.
She didn’t understand much about hell, respected Lucifer enough to realize that it wasn’t a topic he wanted to spend his free time talking about, but she knew enough to know that he wouldn’t have been in a loop while he ruled.
The look on his face told her she was right.
“When you were poisoned.”
Chloe felt the room start to spin, too many things slotting into place at once. She remembered the moment vividly—the feel of her hand cradled in his when she’d woken up. How he’d joked about her not dying, and told her, ‘ That makes one of us’.
The only person who had known the recipe for the antidote had been in hell and Lucifer had gone to find him.
“You really died? Just to go find the formula?”
“ Just to find the formula?” He looked offended. “You were going to die, Chloe. No just about it. I didn’t have my wings at the time and neither did Amenadiel, so dying was the only way to get there.”
She watched his eyes spark with flickers of red for a moment, gripping his hand tighter in hopes to bring him back to the moment. She tried to control her own tears that were threatening to fall. Lucifer had been willing to chance getting stuck in a hell loop forever just to have a chance at saving her.
“And killing Uriel was your hell loop?”
He nodded solemnly. ““I never planned to kill him. I just wanted to save you.” His mind was far off as he spoke. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty about it.”
“Of course you felt guilty about it, Lucifer. He was still your brother regardless of what he was going to do to me.” She felt the need to reassure him. Wanted to let her lips trace the wet tracks down his cheeks and show him everything she could never quite put into words.
“I would do it again,” he said quietly, eyes focused on their joined hands. “Killing Uriel. My hell loop. All of it if it meant saving you.”
She knew he was telling the truth—knew that he’d fight wars and storm gates and rip apart universes in her name. She loved him for it, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d shut her out back then. That he’d been cruel to her when they were both hurting and left her alone.
Her mind was at war with itself.
Knowing the real story of those few weeks made her love him even more, something she hadn’t thought possible. She hurt for the Lucifer that had been alone and scared back then. The one that had thought he was unworthy of anyone’s love or acceptance. The one that had convinced himself nothing he could ever do would be enough.
But she hurt for her past self, too.
She’d never forget the way she’d felt the weeks after she’d been poisoned. Relief and joy at being alive mingling with the heavy sadness that Lucifer had disappeared. How it felt when she finally worked up the courage to go see him only to walk into a dark and empty penthouse.
It brought her right back to her present self’s fears.
“When Rory said you weren’t at my deathbed. I thought, ‘That’s impossible. Lucifer would never abandon me,’ but reading Linda’s book and hearing this… I’m scared, Lucifer. We were almost something back then, and I was so sure you wanted the same things, but then you ran away to Vegas and married Candy.” Tears streamed down her face as she spoke, choking on her words as she spoke. “After all of that—killing your brother to save me and being trapped in your hell loop just for a chance at the antidote—you still left me.”
Lucifer felt like he’d been slapped, the sting of her words lighting up every open wound they could find. If he had a hell loop now, he knew the sound of her sobbing because of how he’d hurt her would be front and center.
“I just want to understand,” she pleaded. “I need you to help me understand, Lucifer.”
His mind ran through the events of that day. He wished he had known then what he knew now. That there was nothing more real or sure in the entire universe than the love he had for Chloe Jane Decker.
But back then he’d been convinced it was all a manipulation. That she was simply another thing meant to hurt and control him. He’d walked away from Los Angeles—from Chloe —with a broken heart. Hoping desperately to regain an ounce of the control he’d lost at the hands of people who he thought had loved him.
It pained him now, that he had kept this all from Chloe for so long. That he hadn’t considered that she might still be carrying hurt after all this time.
He’d been afraid to tell her any of it, afraid that she’d see his shortcomings and failures and decide he wasn’t worth her time. He knew better than that now, the ring on her finger a constant reminder that no matter what, they would choose each other.
He loved her, and she deserved to know the truth.
“In the spirit of the night I suppose it’s time to tell you the truth about Candy.”