7 months later

Chloe regarded her creation, smiling. It was Saturday morning, Trixie was still asleep for once, and Chloe used the opportunity to prepare a special breakfast. Among other things, there was a huge pile of pancakes next to a stack of light brown toast and a bowl of strawberries. Chloe was contemplating what else she could add to this breakfast deluxe, when a knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

Chloe smiled. There really was only one person who would show up at her place unannounced on a Saturday morning. She hurried over to the door, and opened it. "One of these days you'll-" She didn't finish her complaint about Lucifer never bothering to call before showing up, too surprised by the sight before her. As expected, Lucifer stood in the door, smiling brightly. What she hadn't expected was baby Charlie in his arms, cooing happily, trying to grab the stubble on Lucifer's cheek.

Chloe frowned. "Hello?" she said, more a question than a greeting.

Lucifer continued smiling brightly at her. It was a little frazzled. It was the smile of a man who desperately wanted to convey that he was in control of the situation, and was in no way whatsoever terrified of a baby.

"Can I come in?" he asked brightly, already swooping in besides her without waiting for a reply.

She turned around, staring after him stupidly. "Why do you have Charlie?" she asked, voice full of suspicion, wondering what Lucifer was up to now.

"I'm babysitting him," Lucifer stated, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

Chloe snorted. "Right. You're telling me you volunteered to spend time with a baby?"

Lucifer nodded, bright smile still plastered on his face.

"Why?" Chloe asked bluntly.

Lucifer scoffed. "Maybe I just wanted to spend some quality time with my nephew."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Why?" she repeated.

Lucifer caved. "Linda and Amenadiel are helping out at work. You should see her. She's incredible. Linda will walk into the room of somebody who has been stuck in a loop for a thousand years and free them as if it were nothing. She's giving classes to the demons now about how to help people work through their guilt. And while she's helping with my job, I'm, well,-"

He gestured vaguely with his free left hand. "Babysitting?" Chloe supplied, a grin slowly spreading over her face.

"Yes." He readjusted Charlie on his arm, and the baby was finally able to pull on his beard. He made a happy gurgle. Lucifer glared down at him.

"And how is it going?" Chloe asked, trying to contain her amusement. It was funny to see Lucifer so out of his element. He was holding the baby very carefully, as if it were a bomb that might go off any moment. Next to the amusement, there was another, quite different feeling, deep in her chest, at the sight of Lucifer holding the infant. She did not examine the feeling any closer.

The happy mask on Lucifer's face fell for a moment, and he looked a little scared. "I told you I would never lie to you, so let's just say I could, maybe, possibly, do with a little help."

Chloe shook her head. "I'm surprised Linda left him in your charge."

Lucifer looked genuinely affronted. "Please. I am more than capable of being in charge of a tiny creature that can't even run away yet," he stated boldly, as if he had not asked for help only a moment before.

Charlie, clearly having inherited his father's sense of dramatic timing, chose that moment to start crying. Lucifer glared down at him with a disappointed expression, as if the baby was doing it on purpose. He tried rocking him a bit from side to side in an effort to calm him down, but the crying just got louder and louder. Lucifer looked at Chloe, a panicked plea for help in his expression that he was clearly too proud to voice.

Chloe took pity on him, taking the baby from his arms. Charlie stopped crying immediately, sticking his tongue out at Chloe. Lucifer glared at him again. "Traitor," he mumbled under his breath, but his voice was affectionate.

"I just meant that it's a big step for Linda, leaving Charlie with you," Chloe said. During the first few weeks, Linda had refused to let the baby leave her sight for even a minute. It was understandable, given what had happened, but it added an extra layer of stress for Linda in what was already a stressful situation. After 5 weeks running on almost no sleep, she had finally given in and at least allowed Amenadiel to watch their son on his own. As far as Chloe knew, he had never again been handed over to a nanny though.

"Nothing will happen to the child as long as I draw breath," Lucifer said seriously. The flair for the dramatic obviously ran in the entire family. Lucifer sighed, crossing his arms. "She did make me promise to go see you immediately," he admitted grudgingly after a moment. "I don't know why everybody thinks I'm incapable of watching a baby on my own."

"I don't think you're incapable of watching a baby," Chloe said honestly. "You're smart, you're kind, you're fun, and when you commit yourself to something, you always give it your all. As a matter of fact, I think you would be a great dad."

Chloe bit her lip, her eyes going wide. That was a bit more than she'd intended on sharing. But everybody was always looking down on Lucifer, including Lucifer himself, and she was just so sick of it.

Lucifer stared at her, a disbelieving smile on his face. "You really think so?"

Chloe, who had been looking at anything but Lucifer after her unplanned outburst, met his eyes again. "I know so," she said with conviction.

Lucifer continued staring at her, as if she were some wondrous thing that he couldn't quite believe actually existed. It was a little unnerving, to be regarded with such singular focus and intensity. Chloe cleared her throat, starting to feel a little self-conscious. Thankfully, she was saved by Lucifer's phone, which started beeping. He took it out, checking the screen. "Aha! Feeding time. That's why he was getting upset."

Chloe leaned over, glimpsing the notification on his screen. It had detailed instructions on what and how to feed the baby. And then some more instructions in capital letters about what food and liquids not to give to a baby. Chloe smiled. "I see Linda made sure to leave you well prepared."

Lucifer put the phone away quickly, frowning. "I'm sure I could have managed to keep a tiny half-angel alive on my own."

Chloe regarded the baby in her arms. He looked like any regular human baby to her. "Any sign of wings?" she asked, smiling down at him.

"Not a trace. Maybe he doesn't have any. Or he hasn't figured out how to make them appear yet. Your guess is as good as mine, or Amenadiel's, for that matter. Nobody has ever brought up a half-angel before."

Lucifer put the large bag he had slung over his shoulder down on the kitchen counter, starting to dig through it, probably in search of the baby food.

"Speaking of things nobody has ever done before, how are things going in hell?"

Of course, Chloe knew the big picture. While she hadn't been as involved as Linda, never quite working up the courage to visit hell herself, she had still spent more time talking to Lucifer in the last half year than ever before. He appeared by her side at random hours, sometimes while she was at work, sometimes at home, asking her advice. Well, more looking for her approval. It had become abundantly clear to her during the last months that for whatever inexplicable reason the devil himself highly valued the opinion of one Chloe Decker, regular mortal. They would sometimes talk for hours, about the mechanics of hell, the adjustment process for those returning to earth, sometimes even Lucifer's past. She knew so much more about him now.

They talked about everything under the sun, with one notable exception. Either one of them had yet to breach the topic of their relationship. The changes in hell had understandably taken precedence over everything else, and Lucifer still spend the vast majority of his time down there. There was now an armada of people like Reese, going from room to room, helping others. Lucifer tried to make the demons do the same, with mixed success. Some of them jumped at the opportunity to do something different, bored by the never-ending torture they had to apply day in, day out. Others reacted quite differently, calling the whole thing madness, almost going so far as to openly rebel against Lucifer. Tensions were still running high in the underworld, and Lucifer had to remain visible there. Which meant their relationship status remained in the same grey area it had been in when he returned to hell the first time.

From what Chloe heard, none of the demons who had taken to freeing souls were as successful at it as Linda. Lucifer had asked her to give seminars to the demons about how to confront one's guilt. It was a little surreal to think about. Amenadiel had insisted that she was not going down there, which is how Chloe suspected Linda had ended up agreeing to do it in the first place. Nobody told Linda Martin what she could or couldn't do. When it became clear that there would be no stopping her, Amenadiel had insisted that she would only go if he was accompanying her at all times, taking her back as quickly as angelically possible at the slightest cause for concern.

"Same old, same old," Lucifer replied, drawing her out of her thoughts. He pulled a small container out of the bag and held it up in the air triumphantly.

He got out a pot and emptied the container inside. Chloe was mildly surprised that he knew where she kept her pots. Now that she thought about it, Lucifer seemed strangely at home in her kitchen. Like he belonged. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.

Trixie chose that moment to come out of her room. She yawned sleepily, but her eyes brightened when she saw Lucifer. They got even wider when she spotted the baby in Chloe's arms.

"Charlie! Can I hold him? He's so big now! I'll be careful, I promise." She beamed at Chloe and the baby. Chloe looked back to Lucifer, raising her eyebrows in question. He nodded his approval, and Trixie all but squealed in delight when Chloe carefully handed the baby over. He was long past the stage where his neck still needed support, and she knew with certainty that her daughter was responsible enough to handle him. Trixie proved her right when she slowly walked with him in the direction of her room instead of running off in excitement.

"I have so many things to show you!" Trixie said excitedly. Chloe heard her continuing to talk to the baby in her room, telling him the backstories of some of her stuffed animals. Chloe smiled, turning around to Lucifer. She saw him turning off the stove. She raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. "Let's give them a moment. He can eat a bit later," he said, smiling as well.

"Oh! There is something I've been meaning to show you," Chloe said, interrupting the dangerously domestic mood that had settled over them. She grabbed her laptop from the kitchen counter and opened it up. She found the news report from the local station and hit play. The reporter was interviewing a man who, to be fair, looked like your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist with his unkempt hair and wild eyes. The man was talking without stopping for breath, about how all over the U.S. and possibly the world, strange people had started appearing, and the governments weren't doing anything about it. The reporter looked like he had mentally checked out, and was busy formulating a rant in his head for whoever had sent him out to interview another nut job. The man went on to say that some of these people spoke strange tongues, but he got interrupted by the reporter who exasperatedly asked if he was talking about immigrants. At that point, Lucifer closed the laptop, stopping the video.

"There are more and more people asking questions. You can't go on like this forever. Sooner or later somebody will figure out what's going on," Chloe said.

Lucifer shrugged, seeming completely unconcerned by what he'd just seen. "Never underestimate the human ability to ignore things they don't want to know about."

Chloe shook her head. "There will be a breaking point when too many people have come back and it will be impossible to ignore."

Lucifer sighed. "And I'll deal with it then. You know, we've improved the process a lot from when we first started. They now get a quick guide to life in the 21st century, a fake passport and some cash. The rest is on them."

Chloe nodded, deciding to let the issue go for now, in favor of another problem they kept coming back to. "Have you made up your mind whether or not there are irredeemable souls among them?" Were there crimes so despicable, so inhumane, that their perpetrators should not get a second chance? They had taken the easy way out in the beginning, starting with people like Harrison, whose sins, at heart, were committed while trying to help others. But at some point in the not-so-distant future, the demons and the free human souls roaming hell would get around to the tough cases, men and women who were war criminals and mass murderers.

Lucifer rubbed his right hand over his eyes, suddenly looking much more tired than only a moment before. "No case has come to my attention yet where one of the returnees has fallen back into their old behavior. But it's bound to happen sooner or later. One of these days we're going to release evil back into the world."

Chloe had learned early on in this endeavor that despite the confident facade he put on, Lucifer seemed to spend a lot of his life in constant self-doubt. She locked eyes with him. "Until then you'll have released hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are eager to make the most of their second chance and live a good life, helping others. You are doing an extraordinary thing that will change the destiny of an incredible amount of people for the better."

He nodded, his spirits visibly lifting at her praise. "You've dealt with some horrible people. Do you think there are souls that belong in hell? Souls that we should not reach out to? Doors that have to remain locked for all eternity?"

And there it was again. She had asked Lucifer a highly complex, philosophical question, and instead of answering, he turned the question back to her, as if he for some inexplicable reason valued her opinion more than his own. She had told him on several occasions that she didn't feel she had any expertise to answer these types of questions. Lucifer would always reply that being an empathetic human was all the qualification needed. Chloe wasn't so sure. She tried to imagine it from the victim's point of view. How would they feel if the person who murdered them or did God knows what other awful things to them, were to be given another chance? She remembered the cold, dead eyes of some serial killers in the interrogation room, and the relief she had felt knowing these monsters would never walk free again.

"Some doors need to stay closed," she said, trying not think about the fact that she might have just condemned countless souls to an eternity of suffering.

Lucifer regarded her, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded. Both of them were silent for a long moment, thinking about the enormity of the decisions they were making, and the potential cost of making the wrong one. The only sound in the sudden silence was the happy laughter coming from Trixie's room.

Their somber mood evaporated at breakfast, when Chloe watched Trixie feeding Charlie. He was sitting in Lucifer's lap, since they didn't have a highchair, and seemed intent on getting as much of his food on Lucifer's suit as possible. Lucifer had saved his suit jacket early on, but he regarded every new spot on his dress shirt and suit pants with such heartfelt disdain that it made both Chloe and Trixie burst out into laughter every single time.

Charlie managed to get his fingers into the contents of another spoon full of food, and promptly placed his hand flat on Lucifer's chest, gurgling happily. Chloe burst out laughing once again, and Lucifer, who had been busy staring at his chest unhappily, looked up to glare at her instead. Chloe tried to stop, but the disgruntled look on his face had her snorting again within seconds. She saw the corners of Lucifer's mouth lift up as he started smiling in spite of himself.

Chloe looked at him, and suddenly felt a strange, almost painful, sensation in her chest. The whole thing was just so very domestic, Lucifer for once not busy with some grand scheme involving heaven and hell, but simply having breakfast with them, a baby sitting in his lap. It hurt to think that he never had moments like this, never grew up, never had a real family, only a father who demanded obedience and siblings who didn't consider him worthy.

The doorbell rang, drawing her out of her thoughts. Trixie was staying with Dan this weekend, and with all the fun they'd been having, Chloe had forgotten to keep an eye on the time. Trixie ran off to quickly get dressed, pack a bag, and, if Chloe was lucky, brush her teeth as well.

Chloe went to open the door. It was indeed Dan, who seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood, meaning he was not brooding and glaring at everyone and everything in his vicinity. He stopped and frowned when he spotted Lucifer at the table, but then, to her utter surprise, Chloe saw him crack a smile as he took in the state of Lucifer's dress shirt and pants, and the sour mood the other man was in.

"Baby troubles?" Dan asked teasingly, walking over to pick Charlie up and whirl him around in the air carefully. Charlie laughed happily, and Lucifer looked even more disgruntled. He used the opportunity to get a towel and try to clean his dress shirt, but it was beyond saving with such simple measures.

Trixie came running back, a small backpack slung over her shoulder. Dan leaned down and she gave him a hug. Charlie seemed happy to be included, keeping one of his arms around Dan and reaching the other around Trixie.

Dan surprised Chloe again by asking "Did you brush your teeth?". Trixie rolled her eyes, like she couldn't believe the things her parents made her do, but obediently ran off to the bathroom. Dan handed Charlie back to Lucifer. The baby made a disapproving noise, reaching out to Dan. He seemed to have singled out Lucifer as the one person he didn't like. Dan smiled at the baby, then there was a long, awkward silence while he waited for Trixie to get ready and neither one of them seemed to be able to come up with anything to say.

"I'll have her back before dinner tomorrow," Dan said finally. Chloe nodded. They had already agreed on this, but he probably just wanted to say something to get rid of the awkwardness.

Trixie ran back in like a whirlwind, kissing Chloe goodbye and running out the door in a hurry. Dan walked out after her, a small smile on his lips, leaving her with Lucifer and a baby.

Well. Chloe cleared her throat, unsure what to do next. She decided to occupy herself by sorting out the mess left over from breakfast.

"Do you want to go for a walk? I left his buggy outside," Lucifer said, unusually subdued.

Chloe frowned, looking up from where she had been cleaning the traces of the baby feeding adventures off the table. She had a sudden, unbidden flashback to another walk with a small baby, a long time ago. It had been one of those rare moments when everything had aligned, everything had made sense. It had been a beautiful, sunny winter day, and she and Dan had just been walking around aimlessly, young, in love, unbeatable. She had been so happy that day, she remembered. It was a bittersweet memory.

She looked at Lucifer and wondered again if he had any memories like that one. Had he ever gotten a chance to be happy like that, believing that everything in his life finally made sense and the future looked bright? Did he spend a single day of his existence carefree and happy?

"Never mind, I'm sure you have other things-"

Chloe realized with a start that she had left Lucifer hanging for quite a long time, leading him to the assumption that she didn't want to spend time with him and the baby.

"Not at all, a walk sounds great," she said brightly and Lucifer first frowned, then smiled.

In spite of all the time they had spent together during the last months, it still felt weird to be walking next to Lucifer while he was pushing a stroller with a baby. They walked in silence. Chloe chanced a glance at Lucifer from time to time, but he was looking straight ahead. The silence wasn't awkward as such, more the comfortable type between good friends who didn't have anything to share at that particular moment. Charlie had finally settled down, and was quietly watching his surroundings with the rapt, fascinated attention that only babies and young children were capable of.

Even though they had been talking to each other regularly for months now, there were still some things they never touched on, like their relationship. And there was another thing Chloe had been mulling over for quite some time, and had yet to find the right moment to bring up. She was a bit afraid of what it might trigger, how exactly Lucifer would react to it. Maybe it would be best to just get it out, so she could stop thinking about it.

"You told me that you think you misunderstood your father's intention, that hell was never meant solely as a place for punishment, but as a chance for redemption as well." She paused, carefully considering her next words, glancing at Lucifer again. He was looking back at her now, a small frown on his face, clearly uncertain where she was going with this.

Chloe took a deep breath. No time like the present.This is Lucifer. You talk to him about matters affecting the entirety of humanity on a daily basis, for God's sake. You can do this.

She stopped walking, and Lucifer followed suit, raising his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

"Do you think, that maybe- maybe his intention in sending you there was similar? That maybe he didn't just want to punish you?" Lucifer stared at her, a certain coldness creeping into his features, but Chloe charged on bravely, now that she had finally found the courage to bring it up. "That maybe he wanted you to have a chance at redemption as well? You said you never felt quite at home in heaven. Maybe he wanted for you to have a chance at a different life, your own way to be happy?" Her voice cracked a bit at the end, and she bit her tongue before saying here, with me.

Chloe stared at him, waiting for his reaction. She could see that his expression had darkened, like it did without fail every time somebody mentioned his father. She wondered if maybe she had gone too far, had finally overstepped her boundaries. She had felt in over her head for quite some time now, but maybe this would be the final straw, the moment he snapped and told her she didn't know the first thing about what she was saying. Which was true. The only thing she knew was that it felt right, that she hoped to God it was right, because she fervently hoped that there was a chance for Lucifer to be happy.

Lucifer let go of the stroller, but they were on an even stretch of sidewalk, so it didn't roll away. Chloe saw him clenching his hand into a fist, then opening it up again, repeating the movement several times, clearly upset. She braced herself for another rant about the evils of his father, something which she was quite familiar with by now.

Lucifer took her completely by surprise though. Instead of getting angry, he just ran his hand through his hair in an almost helpless gesture and shrugged his shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was timid, greatly at odds with his usual demeanor. "Honestly? I don't know. I never know anything for certain with him." He sighed. "Maybe I'm one of the irredeemable ones. A door that should stay closed forever."

Chloe stared at him in shock. "You must know that that isn't true."

"Do I?" he asked, sounding impossibly young, and lost.

Chloe closed the distance between them, putting a hand on his face, emphasizing each word. "You do. And so do I."

He frowned, then a hesitant smile started spreading over his face. "Then in this, as in everything else, I shall choose to trust your judgement."

Chloe smiled. "Wise choice," she said, leaning up to kiss him.