When they arrived, security let them straight in on sight. At first glance, everything in the penthouse seemed normal. Everything, that is, apart from the silence. The piano lay abandoned, the sound system mute. Without them, and with the absence of Lucifer's voice echoing through the air, the place felt empty. Hollow.

Like death.

"Maze? Lucifer?" Chloe called out. She thought she saw the outline of Lucifer's body on his bed, but just as she was about to rush over there Maze came storming out of the bedroom, knife spinning in one hand.

They both spoke at the same time, their voices clashing.

"Is he okay?!"

"Where the hell have you been?"

Maze stood there, glaring, her blade still twirling as she waited for an answer. It was obvious she wasn't going to be the first to volunteer any information.

At least l know where the knife went, Chloe reasoned.

Mimicking Maze from earlier, she deadpanned, "Traffic." As per normal, her response didn't achieve the desired reaction from the demon, Maze simply giving her an appreciative grin instead.

"He's in there." She tilted her head towards the bedroom.

Chloe felt her heart sink as she entered the room. Lucifer lay prone across on the bed, his feet at the head, body angled away from the entrance. He was still coated in blood, but to her relief, Maze had been right, he didn't seem to be actively bleeding anymore.

Still, she'd expected him to look… better, somehow? If he'd healed enough to stop bleeding this quickly…

But his skin, what she could see of it, was even paler than it had been in the alleyway, and to her ears it sounded like he was still having trouble breathing. She gently sat down beside him on the bed, stroking her fingers through his hair. He didn't wake.

She'd been so focused on Lucifer that she realised she had lost track of the conversation. "They're stuck," she heard Maze say.

Linda appeared to immediately grasp what she meant. "Oh."

"Stuck? What's stuck?" Chloe asked. Maze looked at Linda and lifted her eyebrows.

The doctor nodded. "She knows."

"His wings. Every time he comes to and tries release them, that happens." She cocked her head towards the bed, where Lucifer still remained unconscious. "They're broken, probably."

Maze moved a little further into the room and leaned against the wall, arms folded. "There's ways of getting them out, but…"

She flicked the blade in her hand.

Linda visibly paled. "You're not saying…?"

"Last resort. It'd probably kill him."

Chloe felt sick. Were they actually talking about cutting his wings out of him? How would that even work? And how did they fit in there anyway?

"What happens if you don't?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

Maze pushed herself away from the wall. "Then they'll heal inside him. And you don't want that. Believe me."

"Is that why you... " Linda hesitated. "Is that why you needed us back here? So you could..."

She looked pointedly at the knife.

"Huh?" Maze followed Linda's gaze down to her weapon. "Ohhh. No. This will cut him even without- well, it'll do the job, put it that way."

"Then why?"

"She's here to make sure he doesn't kill me."

Chloe realised then that they were talking about her. "What…?" she said incredulously. The man lying down beside her didn't even look like he could move, never mind kill anyone. "Maze, you're being ridiculous."

"Am I?" she said, walking towards the bed slowly. "That's the Devil you're sitting next to, Chloe. Do you think he's going to be pleased to find the demon who betrayed him here, with what I'm going to be doing to him?"

Chloe swallowed heavily. "What are you going to do to him?" she asked.

"Fix him." Her eyes tracked down his body. "Or try to, at least."

She turned sharply, grabbing a bunch of keys from the bedside table and handing them to Linda. "Here. Back corridor, third room on the left. There should be some pretty heavy duty painkillers in one of the drawers. Possibly some in the cupboards. Bring back whatever you can find."

Linda looked taken aback. "Why would he need to keep painkillers here?" she asked, "It's not like he," her gaze flickered to Chloe for a moment, "gets hurt often."

Chloe tried not to feel guilty about that. The doctor was obviously under the impression that whenever Lucifer was injured, it was her fault somehow. It was typical of him not to have mentioned that half the time it was him throwing himself in the line of fire, with little to no consideration for his own safety.

The thought invoked that same feeling she'd had earlier. She examined the man beside her, at the blood that covered his body. Was that what had happened here? How exactly had he got her out of that ambush?

Maze's voice broke her concentration. "Aftercare, you know, for when it goes too far," she said with a shrug. Linda's eyes widened as realisation kicked in.

"Oh… I didn't know he was into... Not to that level, anyway. He's never mentioned it."

"He's not." Maze walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge and unzipping her boots. "Or at least he's not anymore. Reminds him too much of Hell."

"Then why…?" Chloe had to ask; she'd always assumed that kind of thing was exactly Lucifer's bag. More than one of the sexual partners of his she'd interviewed had straight out told her as much.

"Because it's what you humans want, isn't it? Well, some of you. He asks what you want, and then he gives it to you. That's what he's 'into'."

Chloe watched as Linda looked at Lucifer, concern upon her face. She could almost see the therapist makes notes in her mind for their next session.

"Linda!" Maze snapped her fingers, gesturing towards the back of the penthouse. "Drugs."

Linda blinked, coming back from whatever it was she'd been thinking about. "Don't you need to wait?" she asked, as Maze climbed up onto the bed, swinging one leg over Lucifer and straddling his thighs.

"They won't help with this," she said, looking down at the body beneath her with almost what Chloe would have described as sadness. If it wasn't Maze that is. "Nothing will."

Linda cast another look back at Lucifer before nodding silently, turning on her heels and quickly heading out of the room.

Chloe sat on the floor in a daze, trying to absorb what she'd just heard. Oddly enough, one thing stood out at the forefront of her mind though. Pointedly nodding her head at Maze's discarded boots, she looked at her with one raised eyebrow.

"Really?"

"What?" Maze replied as she shifted further up the bed, knees spanning Lucifer's hips as she positioned herself over his back. "You try dealing with the bitching about heels damaging the silk."

If anything, that just made her eyebrow rise further. "You're telling me Lucifer has a problem with girls who wear heels in bed."

Maze looked down at her. "Maybe you don't know him as well as you think you do, Decker."

You've got that right, she thought, studying the unconscious Devil in front of her. There was so much she didn't know about him, and apparently the truth of who he was, was only the beginning.

"Ready to do your thing?"

"My thing…?" Chloe glanced up at Maze, and her mouth dropped open in horror at what she saw. Her arms were raised in the air, hands clamped together to form a fist. "What are you do-"

There was nothing she could do to stop her. Maze brought her arms down full force, and they smashed into Lucifer's back with a sickening crack.

The effect was instantaneous. His eyes flew open, and the inferno within made what she'd witnessed earlier pale in comparison. Heat engulfed him, a devastating explosion that appeared to shatter his very being. Flames ignited in its wake, licking through the cracks that had formed upon his skin, attempting to break free of the prison that was his body.

Light flared inside the room as the shadows that normally reigned over the penthouse at night retreated, burned away by the strength of his fury. The fires of his domain blazed alongside their creator, escaping the smothering darkness that surrounded them and reclaiming their throne.

He opened his mouth, and there was no other word for it, the sound he made as his skin fell away was a roar. It reverberated through the air, pushing past her defenses and sinking into her muscles, leaving them ripped open and frozen as it twisted through her body. It was a sound that settled into her bones, digging into the marrow and awakening something deep within that she rarely allowed to break free.

A primal, undeniable force that tore at her senses until it was all that remained.

Fear.

Pure, unadulterated fear that turned her to stone, unable to look away as the distorted blur that was his arm reached behind him, taking hold of the demon that sat astride him and hurling her away as if she were nothing.

And to him, perhaps she was.

Chloe barely had time to even register he had moved. One minute Maze was on top of him, her fist buried into the meat of his back, and then the next she was gone, smashing into the wall that made up one side of the entrance to the bedroom and taking a good chunk of the stone with her as she skidded into the living room. A loud crash followed, a splintering of wood that sounding suspiciously like the piano. And then, there was silence.

The move had cost the Devil dearly; when he roared again it was torturous, the cry of a wild animal, crippled and feral. Agony spilled from his lips as his form contorted, strange protrusions pushing up from underneath the skin of his back, only to disappear again as another wave of suffering ran through him.

It was too much.

What she had seen, what she had heard, it all molded together to form a nightmare come to life, a vision not meant to be seen by any human eye still living. The sheer terror of it all had Chloe scrambling back away from the bed into the corner of the room, the cool glass against her back offering no sanctuary, nowhere to hide from the creature that awaited her in the dark.

Only one thought occupied her mind now, on an endless loop that wouldn't abide until she accepted the truth.

He didn't lie. Lucifer had never lied.

He was a monster.

It was different to how it had been before. There, in the loft, with his usual tailored suit and concerned expression, some part of her had recognised him underneath. But here? Right now? She could see no semblance of him in the beast that lay before her, growling softly in the returning darkness.

She could find no humanity here.

Had it always been this way? She'd seen him angry before, seen him oh so close to breaking as the violence took hold, the darker side of him he'd always warned her about battling for control. Was this what had always been waiting, hidden under the surface, covered with layers of skin and fabric and lies?

How many times had he come close to letting go? How often did this creature emerge when she wasn't looking, consuming the man she knew and burying him under this endless hate and anger? And why, of all people, was she able to stop it?

Because she could, she knew that now. Her hand on his chest, the plea in her voice; she'd seen the wrath in his eyes die time and time again because of it. Maze had been right; for some unfathomable reason, she, and only she, possessed the ability to allay his rage.

And perhaps she could do that now.

She watched him carefully. The Devil lay almost deathly still upon the silken sheets, his motionlessness only broken by the occasional tremor that would leave him writhing until it passed. The black material surrounding him only served to highlight the raw, jagged remains of the burns that covered his body, burns which had never been allowed to heal as they should. It left her wanting to claw the image from her mind, to rid herself of it before it embedded itself permanently in her dreams.

Linda had said his wings were a dichotomy, but for her the idea of that was nothing compared to trying to amalgamate this creature with Lucifer. Suddenly the lengths he went to in order to achieve perfection outside of his natural physicality made sense. He hid this part of himself so well that the further away he looked from it in the mirror, the easier it must have been to pretend it wasn't there.

What he'd said earlier that day, about not seeing himself that way anymore, it felt like a lifetime ago now.

She was still shaking. Her mind had calmed, her body had not. It took a while before she could convince herself to move, every instinct she had screaming at her not to go closer to the danger. Lucifer, for his part, remained as he was, his head angled in the direction within which he'd thrown Maze. She got the distinct impression he was waiting for her to awaken. Whether he was preparing to attack, or be attacked, she didn't know.

Finally, her muscles relented, and she felt able to move again. Cautiously, she unfolded her arms from around her knees, preparing to push herself up from the floor. The second her hands touched the surface though, his head turned, focusing on her in an instant. When his eyes snapped to hers, she lost the ability to breathe. He tilted his head curiously, a hunter observing its prey.

Fear began to crawl up her spine again, and she found herself pressing further back into the corner, the need to cower under his gaze overwhelming. His rasping breaths slowly became growls once more, and when she whimpered, he smiled, a twisted version of her partner that would never have looked at her like that in a million years.

It was enough to remind her that it wasn't what she was dealing with, but who that was important.

"Lucifer," she begged. "Don't. Please. Don't do this."

Something flashed across his face. He blinked at her. Once, twice, confusion swirling in the depths of his fiery gaze. She tried to fight through the panic that still gripped her, wanting to go to him, wanting to bring him back to himself. His face changed once more, and for a few seconds, it was Lucifer staring back at her. He opened his mouth to speak…

Just as Maze marched back into the room, armed with what looked to be a leg from the piano. She looked at each of them in turn; taking note of how Chloe cowered in the corner while Lucifer lay on the bed, struggling to maintain his human form.

"Good job, Decker," she said, rolling her eyes in her direction. "You've been a big help."

Lucifer snarled at her derision, and Maze turned to face him, snapping something at him in a language Chloe neither knew or understood. Guttural and sharp, it grated against the ears, but it was nothing compared to how it felt when Lucifer responded in kind.

The sheer power in his voice was unlike anything she'd ever heard, the lights above them flashing as his words thundered into the room. She curled even tighter into herself, and as what he was saying echoed in her mind she began to hyperventilate. Her eyes closed and she found herself praying, wishing for anything that would make it all just stop.

And then it did.

The sudden silence was deafening. Chloe couldn't stop shivering, her body rocking back and forth uncontrollably. Somebody was talking, but she couldn't make out the words, couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat.

Maze's laughter cut through the fog like a knife. "I don't serve you anymore, remember?" she snapped.

Lucifer however didn't answer, and when Chloe dared to glance towards the bed she found him staring at her in shock, his face slowly but constantly shifting between forms.

"Detective… I'm sorry… I-"

The sound of a slap cut through the room. In an instant the shifting stopped, and it was the scarred, ruined version of himself that faced Maze, his teeth bared.

"Very scary," she said, paying him no mind whatsoever. "Now, how about instead of trying to help her, you help me for a change?"

She cast an eye in Chloe's direction, and this time there was definitely sadness there. "Looks like you broke her anyway. And she's not going to get any less broken by you putting your pretty face on."

"It's a shame really," she said, as she turned back to Lucifer. "I thought she was stronger than that."

Chloe was watching what was happening, but it felt as though she wasn't really there, like it was a dream, or a show on the television. Logically, she knew her mind had distanced itself so she didn't lose it completely, but that didn't make the situation seem any more real. She was numb, and she wanted to stay that way.

The sound of multiple bottles and bags of pills being deposited on the bedside table announced Linda's return. "Wha- what happened?" she said, looking at Chloe with concern.

"Lucifer happened," replied Maze, nonchalant. "This all you could find?"

Linda nodded. "There's, er," she coughed. "Some interesting stuff in there."

"Don't worry, Doc," Maze said, moving onto the bed and mounting Lucifer again. He made a noise of protest, and weakly tried to throw her off. The demon moved out of the way with ease, and he groaned, the pain too great for him to continue. "The chains aren't for him."

She paused, reconsidering. "We might need them later though, if he won't stay still that is."

"No," he said, "not that."

"Help me then."

Linda had moved over to Chloe, who was still huddled in the corner. Chloe could hear her speaking, feel her hand on her arm, but it was no good. She couldn't connect with anything. Couldn't break free, from this... whatever it was.

Getting no response, the doctor turned her focus back to Maze. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked, rising from the floor.

"There is," Maze said. "You can pray."

"W- What?" Linda replied, astonished. "Why?"

Maze rolled her eyes. "Well, I can hardly do it, can I?" She gestured in Chloe's direction. "And she's hardly going to be getting on her knees for Lucifer any time soon."

Slowly, she ran a finger down Lucifer's spine, as though she were searching for something. He grimaced under her touch. "Besides, he'll listen to you."

Linda looked as though she needed to sit down. "God. God is going to listen to me."

"Sure, why not? Maze said, smiling as she managed to hit something that made Lucifer jerk. "He listens to all his precious humans."

"Well, I, um-" The therapist stumbled, lost for words. "I mean, what do I even say?"

Maze kept it together for a few more seconds before she cracked, throwing her head back and laughing. "Amenadiel, Linda, pray to Amenadiel. We're going to need him. God… God doesn't give a shit."

The doctor gave Maze a look of disapproval before leaving the room again, muttering something about now not being the time.

Maze ignored her, leaning forward and running her fingertips over the back of Lucifer's head, far more gently that Chloe could have ever pictured her doing. "I'm not sure he ever has."

It was the compassion in her voice that made Chloe blink, made reality come back into focus a little more. It didn't fit with what she knew, and it was enough to clear some of the haze in her mind. She gasped, and the sound drew Lucifer's attention.

"Chloe?" he said, the fire in his eyes wavering, dying down into familiar warm brown before rising up again. Oh, and it was worse, so much worse to see that face say her name instead of her title. It didn't seem right, it wasn't him.

But it was.

So she ignored it, focusing instead on the voice she knew so well, the voice she would recognise anywhere, no matter the face it came out of. Slowly, she rose from her position on the floor, stretching out her limbs and gingerly walking over to the chair beside his bed. Close, but not too close. When she sat, she heard him exhale, as though he'd been holding his breath the entire time she moved.

"So what do we do?" she asked Maze, finding her voice again.

"I get his wings out, you keep him from throwing me into the damn wall again. Simple."

Lucifer said nothing, still watching Chloe carefully, as if he were waiting for her to bolt at any moment. She had to admit; part of her wanted to.

"How…?" she asked.

Maze pressed into Lucifer's spine again and he winced and bucked slightly. In response she simply tightened the grip she had on his hips with her knees. The demon clearly had no intention of going anywhere this time.

"Angels…" Lucifer stiffened at the word. "They aren't all that different from humans really. Well, apart from the obvious. Hit 'em in the right spot, and poof, feathers everywhere."

"How do you even-" Lucifer started, but stopped abruptly when a look of disgust appeared on his face. "Right. My brother. Please, don't go on."

Maze chuckled. "I figure I must have hit the wrong spot the first time though, right?" She continued to light trace her fingertips up and down his back, and he tensed again, a low growl emitting from his throat. "So if you just tell me…"

"The bloody things can stay in there as far as I'm concerned, Maze."

"Oh, okay then. Because being practically crippled is an option, is it? Can't fly. Can't fight. What happens when they eventually kick your ass back down to Hell, huh?"

She dug her fingers in and he blanched, gritting his teeth.

Chloe's heart stopped. They could do that? Would they send him back to Hell again someday?

The fact that he didn't argue with her spoke volumes.

"Lucifer," Chloe said, quiet but insistent. "Let her help. If not for you... then for me?"

Something in his face softened, brown eyes staring back at her, and she knew what his answer would be before he even spoke.

"As you wish, Detective."

He sighed, long and slow. "Mazikeen, if you please?"

This time, Maze took it steady. One by one, she tested his vertebrae, until finally he flinched and said, "There."

Suddenly she didn't seem quite so confident anymore. Turning to Chloe, she looked at her expectantly and asked, "You ready?"

Chloe got the distinct impression that was a question for all three of them.

"What do I do?"

"Talk to him. Hold… urgh," she said, pulling a face that was eerily similar to Trixie's back when she would catch her kissing Dan. "Hold his hand or something if you have to."

The image of Lucifer, overtaken by rage and pain, played again, still fresh in her mind. She shuddered a little. Maze wasn't the only one dreading this.

"Decker, listen to me. I have never met anyone who can control him the way you can. All you have to do is keep him calm until it's done. Got it?"

Chloe looked at Lucifer, who was currently grumbling something along the lines of, "She doesn't control me…" under his breath.

Maze snorted. "You keep telling yourself that."

"Okay," Chloe said, and it was self-reassurance more than anything. "Okay." Steadying herself, she slid from the chair onto the floor until she was eye level with Lucifer. He watched her cautiously, as though he still were waiting for her to run. His hands were hanging loosely over the side of the mattress, and she reached for them.

As soon as she touched his skin though, he pulled away. Wrapping his fingers firmly around the frame of the bed instead, he shook his head at her. "I don't want to hurt you."

She laid her hands on top of his. "You won't. You never have."

He blinked, and when his eyes opened again it was an endless, surging pool of flame that stared back at her, just for a few seconds. "You don't know that," he said, dark and serious.

She squeezed his hands tighter. "I do."

It was at that moment that they were interrupted by a rather pissed off sounding demon.

"If you two lovebirds have quite finished?"

Chloe wasn't sure who flinched more at that, her or Lucifer. Still, she backed away, giving him space for whatever was about to happen. "It's going to be okay," she said, before looking up at Maze and giving her a small nod.

At the first strike, he made almost no sound, just a choked off gasp as his body absorbed the blow, that he smothered as quickly as he could. His face constricted under the pain, but his eyes remained locked onto hers, not wavering for even a second. It was as though she were an anchor, the only thing keeping the beast inside him tethered.

"Again," he growled.

The second blow saw him cry out, his head bowed, hands crushing the point at which he held the bed frame until the entire structure bent and pitched inwards. She couldn't help but reach for him, but as she did his skin began to change again, scars snaking their way up his arms, growing thicker and longer which each shudder that wracked his body. Regardless, she pushed on, but his head whipped up to meet her. "No."

She'd never seen the fire in his eyes ignite from this close before. It started in his pupil, one infinitesimally small spark that burned so hot it was white, barely even visible before the rest of his iris caught. The spread reminded her of wildfire, of an unstoppable fury that consumed everything it touched, until all that was left was the radiating heat of those inhuman eyes, piercing into her own.

"AGAIN."

It wasn't a request, it was a command. Maze stiffened above him, and for moment Chloe was able to see how she must have looked in Hell; determined, deadly, and without mercy. The demon gave a single nod, and drew back her fist once again.

This time when it connected, something cracked. It wasn't the loudest noise, barely even audible over the sound of Lucifer heaving in gulps of air, but it was enough. Enough to steal the breath from his lungs, to make his entire body spasm, jerking up off the bed, as something bulged out near his spine.

All Chloe could focus on was his face as his humanity was stripped away from him once more. There was no sudden change this time. No, it was more like he was being flayed; the skin from around his eyes peeling, melting away in a cascade that rippled down his body. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and the next time Maze struck…

He screamed.

A flash of white exploded from one side of his back. He continued to cry out, the glass windows surrounding them starting to crack as Maze continued to strike him with precision, blow after blow, until Chloe had to cover her ears, the sound of his agony too much for her to bear.

Until at last, it was over. The final hit caused something to wrench free from his body, a white, twisted and torn thing that rose high into the air before crashing back to the ground.

And as it fell, so did he, his head lolling to the side as conscious thought slipped away.

Chloe couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't tear her eyes away from him.

That was until a single bloodied feather, glowing softly in the darkness, floated into view.

She rose from the floor.

White. So much white. It was all her mind could comprehend.

Everything else fell away. The thud of his wings hitting the floor. The feathers that fell, dislodged in the impact. The sound that accompanied them, like rain upon the marble.

Maze climbed down from the bed, bending down beside her and scooping up something from below. Chloe barely noticed.

"How many?"

The voice seemed distant, unimportant compared to the sight in front of her. His wings were the most breathtaking thing she'd ever seen, their soft glow a stark contrast to the dimness of the room.

But the longer she looked at them, the more she noticed something was wrong. Every time she blinked, there was more clarity. A broken feather. No, shattered feathers. Each one tainted by blood, no longer seeping but caked throughout, no part of his wing left untouched.

"Decker," the voice insisted again.

Still, she didn't respond.

"Chloe." A hand grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. The world snapped sharply into focus. Maze stood there, and her eyes… was she crying?

"How many did he take for you?" she demanded yet again.

"I don't… I don't understand," Chloe said.

In answer, Maze opened up the cupped hands she held out in front of her...

…and let a dozen or more bullets fall to the floor.

Oh no.

Oh god no.

This time, when she turned to Lucifer, she saw everything.

The feathers, frayed and broken, littering the marble and the bed around him.

The break in his right wing, the fractured bone clearly visible as it lay awkwardly on the sheets.

The bullets that had joined them, those few lucky enough to be dislodged when his wings broke free.

And finally, the many holes that indicated those still buried, surrounded by blood spatter she was more used to seeing on corpses than something still alive.

If he were a human, he'd be dead.

For all she knew, he should be dead.

"Lucifer," she breathed. "What did you do?"

He stirred underneath her, just for a moment.

"Keep you safe…" he mumbled, barely audible. "All that… all that matters."

And then it hit her. Unbidden, she closed her eyes, and suddenly she was back there, an intense pain in her chest, the sound of gunfire all around. The darkness was taking her, pulling her down, and all she could hear was him screaming… and screaming… and screaming.

He'd sheltered her.

And this had been the price he'd paid.

She dropped to her knees, cradling his face in her hands. "Lucifer…"

He opened his eyes to look at her, the flames within barely moving.

"Don't cry," he whispered. "You shouldn't cry, not over me."

"You saved me." She shook her head. "I can't believe... why would… thank you."

"You saved me too," he said in reply. "...More than you know."

"Okay," Linda called out as she rounded the corner into the bedroom, "I did the best I-"

She skidded to a halt. "Oh my," she gasped.

"Mazikeen?" Lucifer said. The demon stepped into view. "Ah, there you are. Can you please..." He shifted awkwardly on the bed, before seemingly coming to the conclusion that finding a position that was less painful was going to be impossible. He sighed wearily. "These things aren't going to cut themselves off, you know. Chop, chop."

The Devil lay in front of her, casually talking about amputating parts of his body and looking awful pleased at having made a pun about it.

This was her life now.

"No!"

All three women spoke in unison. They stared at each other, and Maze broke the silence first. "I told you before. I'm not doing that again. Ever."

"Lucifer, you can't. You promised me you wouldn't do that to yourself anymore," Linda pointed out.

"Didn't say somebody else couldn't do it for me," he grumbled under his breath.

He'd done this before? Multiple times? Why?

"You used them to save me," she said quietly. "You can't do this."

She thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but when she looked again, it was gone. Eventually, he inclined his head slightly. "If you insist, Detective."

"What do we do then?" Linda asked, "How do we fix this?"

"Beats me, you're the doctor," Maze replied.

"How many times, I'm not that kind of-"

Linda looked at Chloe pleadingly, silently asking for help. Luckily for her, this, she knew.

"We remove the bullets," Chloe said decisively. "Clean the wounds, bandage what we can. Do you have any supplies?" she asked Maze.

"A few. Down in the bar. We keep them there for bar fights, that kind of thing. It's rare, but it happens."

"Okay. Something is better than nothing. Go get them." Maze bristled at the order, but complied nonetheless. "Linda, do you think you could fetch some water?"

Linda nodded, disappearing towards the kitchen.

"So authoritative, Detective. I like it."

She rolled her eyes. With him, it was almost automatic by now. "You're not funny, Lucifer. How much pain are you in?"

He tried to shrug, but by the look on his face immediately regretted it. "Less than I was, more than when I've not been shot," he said blithely.

An evasion, something she was more than used to.

"I-" he hesitated. "I can't turn back though. It's too much."

It was only when she saw him looking at this hands that she understood. He was talking about his face.

Just as she was about to reassure him that it was okay though, Linda returned with the water. "I hope you don't mind, Chloe," she said, "but I called Ella earlier to tell her you and Lucifer were safe. She's going to let Dan know."

Shit. She hadn't thought about either of them the entire time. And with her phone off…

"Are they at the loft?"

Linda shook her head. "She said when they got there the place was already swarming with cops. They both got sent home. There's people looking for you."

Chloe must have looked worried, for the next thing she knew Linda's hand was on her shoulder. "Maze has the place on lockdown. Nobody is getting in here anytime soon."

"That's not going to make it any easier to explain…" she sighed.

The touch of leathered skin brushed over her hand, and this time, she managed to resist the urge to pull away at his touch. "There are ways of making these things disappear, Detective," he said, and for a second she saw the old Lucifer there, the one who thought he was above such things as petty human laws. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you are not punished for this. None of you will be."

He said it with such surety that she couldn't help but believe him. Lucifer never lied, after all.

She heard the sound of the elevator, and it wasn't long before Maze joined them again, first aid box in hand.

"Will this do?"

Chloe took it from her, examining the contents carefully. "It'll have to." She took out the gauze, needle and thread, anything that could be useful. Linda held out her hand.

"Pretty sure I can remember the basics."

Maze looked up from where she'd been inspecting the damage to Lucifer's left wing, tracing the edges of one of the bullet holes with her blade. "No stitches. He'll heal quickly… after."

Without warning, she stuck her knife into the wound, causing Lucifer to yell. Chloe wouldn't have thought he could pale in this form, and yet, he did, letting out a stream of unrecognisable curses. After a few minutes, Maze managed to prise the bullet out, and it dropped to the floor with a clink.

"I'm getting good at this," she said with a smirk.

Lucifer growled. "A little warning next time, Mazikeen?"

"I can do better than that," she said, abandoning her position by the bed to wave a bag of pills in front of him. She tossed them to Chloe, who caught them without thinking. "There's more on the table when you need them."

Chloe looked at her in disbelief. "More than this? Let me get this straight, you think he's going to take all of these?" There must have been 50 in there at least.

"No. He'll need to take all of these." She gestured with her knife. to the myriad of bottles and bags of medication that Linda had gathered earlier. "You saw how much that hurt, Decker. Even with you here, they won't kill the pain for long. Wings are… sensitive, or so I've been told. Imagine digging out glass from under your fingernails." She paused, thinking, and grinned. "Or one of Trixie's legos from your foot. I'm taking that one to Hell with me by the way, if I ever get back there."

"Why me? If you know how many he needs…"

"Because he trusts you. It doesn't matter how out of it he gets, he'll take whatever you give him."

Lucifer was unusually silent. This was normally about the point she'd expect him to argue. Instead, he merely indicated towards where she knew his safe to be. "You'll find a bottle of the good stuff in there, Detective. Should wash things down nicely."

She stood, and he rattled off the combination. As she went to type it in though, she stopped. "Lucifer, that's my badge number."

"Is it?" he said, oh so innocently.

Shaking her head, she smiled. He wasn't fooling anybody.

It was time to begin. Before she could stop him, Lucifer grabbed a handful of the pills, throwing them into his mouth and swallowing them whole. "Just to start things off," he said lightly. Almost as an afterthought, he added at a volume that only she could hear, "You'll do fine, Detective."

A few minutes later, she saw the fiery points that counted as his pupils dilate, and those charred lips of his smiled dreamily.

"Oh, that's lovely…" he slurred, closing his eyes.

"We should move quickly," Linda said. Already, Maze had started working on the next impact point.

They continued in relative silence, and it was just after the third bullet came loose that Chloe spoke again. "How long do you think-"

She didn't even get to finish her sentence before she heard Lucifer whimper, as Maze twisted her blade in a little further. Lifting up one of his eyelids, she was shocked to find him already starting to focus. When the next bullet was freed, he whined, making her decision for her. She opened up the bag in her hand, and it wasn't long until he was pain free once more.

They fell into a pattern, Maze expertly wielding a weapon that was in no way meant for surgery, while Linda washed down his feathers and stemmed the worst of the bleeding as best she could. When she noticed the pain getting too much, Chloe would measure out the pills again.

She hadn't noticed how fast she was getting through them.

"Chloe," Linda warned, "That's all we have. You need to make them last."

All she could think about was the trust she could see in Lucifer's eyes. He was counting on her to make this bearable for him. He was counting on her to-

"She's right." Maze said, sweating with the effort of digging out those bullets lodged into the thicker muscles that lined the top of his wing. "He's endured far worse than this. Why do you think he looks the way he does?"

Chloe didn't even want to think about that. All she cared about was that at the moment, she could help him not be in pain anymore, just for a little while. Still, she slowed down, leaving him just that bit more conscious, just a bit more self-aware.

He didn't take his eyes off her the entire time.

It felt like a hundred years had passed when the last bullet hit the floor.

With a loud thunk, Maze buried her knife into the table beside the bed.

"And now, we wait," she said.

She stalked over to the bar, never looking back for a second. Linda followed. Thinking Lucifer was still out of it after the last dose she gave him, Chloe went to stand and join them, but as soon as she did, she felt a hand around her wrist.

"Don't go," he murmured.

"Lucifer…" she said, "You need to rest, okay?"

He shook his head blearily. "Don't go," he repeated. She realised then what he meant.

Gently, she removed her wrist from his grip, moving his arm back onto the bed in a way that would be more comfortable for sleeping. "I'm not going anywhere," she assured him softly. "I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

With that, his face relaxed and he closed his eyes, slipping away into sleep almost immediately.

When she got to the bar, there was already a drink waiting for her. Maze had the right idea; after what they'd just finished doing, they could all use one. In fact, after all she'd been through today, Chloe was surprised she hadn't thought about hitting the bar already.

"There's really nothing more we can do?" Linda asked as she pulled up stool, her vodka swirling in her hand.

"Not until he gets here, no," Maze replied, pouring a round of shots and downing them, one by one. She looked across the penthouse to where Lucifer still lay sleeping.

"They chained him when they let him fall, you know."

She said it casually, as though she wasn't talking about one of the biggest events in a biblical history.

"They let him fall, and they let him burn."

"That's why he doesn't like chains?" Linda asked. Maze nodded, before snatching up a bottle from underneath the bar.

"When I found him, he was broken. And I don't mean emotionally," she spat, the word distasteful on her tongue. "Bone, skin, there was nothing left Hell hadn't torn to pieces. If he were one of mine, it would have been my best work."

Neither Chloe nor Linda asked what she meant by one of mine. They already knew.

"His wings healed first. They always do, for angels. But… there was too much fighting, too much bloodshed. They healed, but they healed wrong. And so, when it was over," she hesitated for a moment, taking a drink straight from the bottle, "he asked me to break him all over again."

Something in her eyes glistened. Linda reached out to her, but she simply shook her head and moved further away across the bar.

"Do you know how many bones are in an angel's wing? I do. I know how to break all of them. I know the sound they make when they snap. I know the time it takes for them to set. And I know how much it hurts."

Chloe sipped at her drink. Hearing Maze talk about Lucifer... how had she never realised just how much she cared for him, underneath it all? She knew they were friends, knew they'd been friends for a long time… longer than she ever could have imagined, she knew now. But the way Maze spoke about him, it was almost like they were family.

Which made how she could have betrayed him even harder to understand.

And yet… family hurt each other sometimes. She knew that too.

Maze slammed her now empty bottle down upon the counter, wiping at her mouth. "It took months," she said, "to get him back to how he should be. Couldn't do it all at once, you see. Always another rebellion around the corner, always another fight to be had. Weakness has no place in Hell."

She smiled then, and it was all teeth. "And he was never weak. Never merciful. Never trusting. Not like he is up here."

With the way she looked at Chloe then, she got the distinct impression Maze blamed her for that.

"I was his right hand and still he didn't trust me, not completely. But I protected him when he needed it, served him when I wanted to. It was enough. And when it was time, he told me which bone to break, and I did. The rest, he dealt with himself."

The sound of something hitting the doors on the balcony attracted her attention, but when Chloe turned to look, there was nothing there. It had probably been a bird. Maze, however, looked disappointed, as though she'd been expecting something else entirely.

"That's why I can't help him. I don't know how to fix him. I only know how to break him."

Neither of the humans in the room said a word.

A low groan sounded from the bedroom.

"I'll go," Chloe said, slipping down from the stool and placing her drink back on the bar.

When she got there however, he'd already slipped back into unconsciousness again.

A wave of exhaustion washed over her, and it was only then she realised just how tired she was herself. She considered for a moment crawling onto the bed to lie beside Lucifer, but no sooner had she thought it than she dismissed it. There was no way of doing that without disturbing his wings.

The fact that she'd had the urge in the first place though… it said a lot.

Instead, she retrieved a blanket from the closet, draping it over herself as she curled up in the armchair next to him. The sofa would have been comfier, but… she didn't want him to wake up alone.

She closed her eyes, listening to the comforting sound of his breathing.

Within seconds, she was asleep.

...

The sound of Amenadiel's voice brought her out of her slumber.

"Oh Luci," he said. "What have you done?"

He approached the bed, his hand outstretched, but stopped short of actually touching the bloodstained feathers. Lucifer stirred, his attention drawn to Chloe.

"Worth it," he muttered, sotto voce.

Amenadiel followed his brother's gaze to where she sat curled up in the armchair. "Chloe."

He sounded shocked. "Chloe, you can't be here."

"She stays."

Lucifer's voice was stronger now, a little less drowsy. He looked at Chloe for a second, and then amended. "She stays as long as she wants to."

"Brother…" Amenadiel warned.

"I'm not going anywhere," Chloe said.

She smiled at Lucifer, and he returned it. And although to see a smile on that face was still disconcerting, it was his smile. As time went on, she saw more and more of him in there.

"Very well," Amenadiel said, albeit it reluctantly, and she couldn't for the life of her understand why.

Why was it such a problem that she stay?

There was no time to ask though, Amenadiel busy examining the break in Lucifer's wing with grave concern.

"Knife's over there if you want to cut them off, brother. Make your life easier." Lucifer's voice was muffled by the pillow he currently had his head buried into, but Chloe could still hear the note of distress there.

To her surprise, Amenadiel paused, looking at the blade still buried into the bedside table, almost as if he were considering it. When he looked back at her, it must have shown on her face, for he shrugged. "They grew back before."

Lucifer raised his head. "They won't. Not this time."

Chloe thought of the horrific scars that had once marred his back. They were nothing compared to what she was seeing now of course, but the pain he must have gone through…

"Can you save them?" she asked Amenadiel.

He lifted the most damaged wing slightly, leaning over to take a closer look at it. Lucifer made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a whine.

"I think so. We have a brother who would normally be in charge of this kind of thing… but I've dealt with enough injuries in battle to know the basics."

"Your brother won't help?"

Amenadiel just looked at her sadly.

An annoyed grumble broke the sudden quiet.

"Well if you're not going to do me the courtesy of removing the bloody things, can we at least get on with it?"

Amenadiel took a deep breath. Chloe tried not to laugh; she knew exactly how it felt having to deal with Lucifer sometimes, and his brother must have been doing it for… well, longer than she wanted to think about right now.

"Chloe, you're not going to want to be in the room while I do this," Amenadiel said, as he started to adjust both his and Lucifer's position so that he could better access his wing.

"But-"

"For once, he's right, Detective," Lucifer forced out, his voice breaking as he struggled with the pain of being moved. "I don't- I don't want you here for this."

Standing up from the chair, she moved closer, crouching down and taking Lucifer's hand. "Alright. I'll just be in the other room if you need me, okay?"

When she went to leave, he tugged her back again. "Don't sit near the bar."

She smiled. "Tired of me drinking the top shelf?"

Wearily he looked at her, not laughing. "Just… don't sit there. Or on the balcony." Letting go of her hand, he shoved his face in the pillow again, evidently unwilling to explain further.

Puzzled, she turned to leave. "Chloe?" Amenadiel called out after her. "Ask Maze if she has anything he can bite down onto."

Her face fell. She'd thought the worst was over. Apparently, she'd been wrong.

Taking one last look at Lucifer, she walked out of the room.

...

It was like being stuck in a hospital waiting room. Maze had disappeared into the back of the penthouse for a while, and emerged carrying what looked like a selection of ropes and other objects Chloe couldn't quite identify. She could hear the murmur of the three of them talking, but not what they were saying.

Something occurred to her. She turned to Linda, who was sat on the other sofa. "What did Maze mean earlier, when she said the drugs would have more of an effect with me here?"

The doctor floundered for a moment, and Chloe braced herself for the usual excuses of therapy and confidentiality. But they never came. Footsteps across the marble floor had Linda turning her head over towards the bedroom, just as Maze vaulted over the back of the sofa and dropped down next to her.

"What I meant was-" she started to explain.

"Maze…" Linda said, warningly.

"Look, if she hasn't figured it out by now, she will soon. And if she doesn't, well, he's not going to tell her to leave, is he?"

Linda looked at Chloe, and let her eyes fall to the floor. "I suppose not, no."

"Will somebody please just tell me what's going on? Why does everybody want me to leave all the time?" Chloe demanded.

"Because you're the reason he's in this mess," Maze stated bluntly.

What?

"Lucifer is an angel. Immortal. Invulnerable. Except... around you."

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.

Memories hit her like a battering ram. It appears you make me vulnerable too. The Devil gets burned by fire. It's not me I was worried about, Detective.

...What's happening to me?

"Why?" she managed to stammer out. "Why would he stay with me, if that's true?"

"Because he's a fool," said Maze, at the same time Linda said softly, "I think you know the answer to that, Chloe."

Her thoughts were whirring, her heart thudding so loudly in her chest she thought it might escape at any moment.

And then, it all fell away as a scream tore its way into the penthouse.

A scream that didn't stop. It only grew louder, to the point where even Maze looked sickened to hear it, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. Underneath, there came a low grunt of effort from Amenadiel, follow by the snap of bone grinding against bone.

The room exploded.

Glass from every direction shattered into the air. The wall behind the bar became a waterfall, whisky spilling onto the floor as each bottle fractured and broke, almost inaudible over the inhuman howl that shook the apartment.

Chloe threw herself down on the sofa, covering her head with her arms. Across from her, Linda did the same thing. The room continued to shake, items stored lovingly on the library shelves falling to the floor, with books soon following.

It seemed to go on forever, despite the fact it was probably no more than a few seconds.

When it stopped, the silence was terrifying, far more so than anything Chloe had encountered that day so far.

Before she even knew it, she was halfway to the bedroom. Maze was there in an instant, taking her by the arm. "You might not want to go in there, not yet."

Chloe glared at her. "Let. Me. Go."

The demon did exactly that, stepping aside with a flourish that clearly said, it's your funeral.

Chloe turned, immediately walking straight into Amenadiel.

He caught her by the shoulders, steadying her. "It's done," he said. Stepping back, he looked at her kindly. "He's asking for you. But Chloe-"

"I can't stay," she whispered. "I know. But I need to see him."

Nodding just the once, he smiled sympathetically. "I'll leave you two to it."

Lucifer was no longer in the same position as he had been when she left. He now lay on the edge of the bed, his right wing spread out over the mattress, supported by pillows and blankets, while the other hung over the side, where it covered much of the floor.

She thought he might have been asleep, but when her foot crunched on the remains of what had been the stained glass window as she entered the room, he mumbled her name.

"Hey," she said softly, crouching down in front of him so their faces were level.

"You're still here," he replied, wonderous and unbelieving.

She knelt down properly on the floor and took his hand. He tried to shy away at the feel of her warm, smooth skin against his own, but she held on tightly, unwilling to let him run from her.

Not again.

"Of course I am."

She smiled, and for the first time she thought she saw the tiniest ember of hope in his eyes.

He never stopped looking at her for a second as his fingers carefully curled around her own, searching her face for even a hint of discomfort at his touch.

"You'll stay?" he asked, that ever growing hope evident in his voice now.

She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the look on his face as she said her next words.

"I can't."

His hand tensed, but before he could remove it she brought her other hand up to stop him, placing it on top of his and pressing down gently. He could have easily broken free, she knew that, but he acquiesced, remaining where he was, his fingers trembling underneath hers.

"You know why I can't," she said, opening her eyes and watching as understanding dawned.

"They told you."

She nodded, and he looked away. "They shouldn't have."

"Lucifer…" she sighed. "Of course they should, they needed to. What would you have me do, stay while you lie here in agony, taking twice as long to heal, just so I don't leave?"

The look on his ravaged face told her that yes, he would have her do exactly that.

She ran a hand over the top of his head, her memory providing the feel of soft, silken hair where there was none. He leaned into her touch, and her smile returned as she held the side of his face with her other hand, stroking a thumb over his cheekbone.

"I don't think I'll ever understand why you stayed," she said, "knowing you could get hurt around me. But Lucifer, you can't expect me to do the same. I don't want to go, I don't want to leave you, but I can't sit and watch you suffer either. Not when there's something I can do to help you."

Her eyes fell to the floor as her chest grew heavy, and a tear ran down her cheek. "This is all my fault. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me."

It was his hand that hovered over their entwined fingers now, and he altered their positions until he ensconced both of hers safely within his own. "No, Detective. I meant what I said earlier. You cannot blame yourself. It was my choice to stay. My choice to protect you."

Removing one hand, he wiped away her tears. "And as for your question, the answer is simple really."

She blinked, and found warm, rich brown eyes staring back at her.

There he was.

"Chloe," he said, in that soft, reverent way as he always spoke her name. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be. Father himself couldn't make me leave you."

He left her breathless.

This man. This wonderful, complicated, unfathomable man.

How could she have ever doubted how she felt about him? About all of him. The dark, the light, the good and the bad. They were all part of the person he was. Her partner. Her friend.

It was true, there was much she didn't know, much she couldn't even hope to understand.

Not yet.

There was one thing she understood though, and that was him. Who he was at his core.

Devil or angel, it didn't matter.

To her, he was just… Lucifer.

The rest though? Well that was a different matter entirely.

Her former worldview was gone, fractured beyond repair. The mere thought of Heaven and Hell, Gods and angels, it caused a swell of panic to rise and sit in her throat, waiting for the moment she would break and it could escape.

She could see now why Lucifer had warned her of humanity's inability to handle proof of divinity; just the idea of it was both awe inspiring and terrifying.

But she had the Devil on her side, and there were others who could help her as well, now that she knew. Linda for one. Maze… well, maybe not so much.

She would get there though, that was the important thing. And she had to make sure he knew that.

"I need time, Lucifer. We both do."

The look he gave her in response was apprehensive; him being him, she already knew he expected the worst.

"You need time to heal," she said, unable to stop her gaze from drifting to his still-bloodied wings. "Time away from me."

He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head.

"And I… I need time to come to terms with all of this. What it all means, for me, for us…"

There it was again, that tiny spark of hope at her use of the word us.

"But, Lucifer..." She pulled her hands away from his, and cupped his face. "I'm coming back. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I just need time, that's all."

He smiled, and suddenly all she could see in the face looking back at her was love.

Yes, it wasn't the face she was used to. But it was still Lucifer, and that was all that mattered.

"Time heals all wounds, Detective?" he said, pensive but hopeful.

She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead, the skin there underneath not feeling quite so strange anymore. When she drew back, it was barely.

And when she spoke, it was her choice to let her lips brush against his.

She chose him.

She would always choose him.

"Exactly."