Chapter Text
He stood in the kitchen, not really hearing anything or seeing what he was doing.
“Lucifer, it’s gonna burn.” Trixie tugged fretfully at the hem of his shirt. He tried to tune in to what he was doing and found that the child’s anxiety was mostly unfounded, though he couldn’t have let it go much longer. Macaroni and cheese was beneath him, but he knew only so much about what human children were supposed to eat. Still. He knew more than Mother. He turned the heat off and turned to get a bowl from the cupboards.
“Beatrice, would you mind terribly eating in your room? I have to speak with your -” his throat stuck. “...With the Detective.”
Trixie quietly took her dinner and headed into her room. He stared at the sign that forbid boys other than himself and Daniel for a while before turning back to the kitchen table, where Chloe - not Chloe - had been sitting and watching them.
“Is...is the child yours? I would’ve thought it wasn’t - possible,” she said softly. And it wasn’t the way the Detective ever would’ve spoken and he hated his mother in that moment.
“She’s the Detective’s.” He took a seat across from her. The beach house felt cold and wrong behind him. “What is this? What are you doing in her?”
“You know your Father and I aren’t like you. We can’t just walk on the Earth as we are. Even if I’m too diminished to damage anyone, I still couldn’t survive on Earth as myself.”
Lucifer stared at her and found himself rapping his fingers on the table. He clenched his hand into a fist.
“Why now?”
“Why? Because it was Hell ,” his mother pointed out sharply. “Because I want to see you all again - because there was no one there to stop me.”
That brought him up short. Amenadiel had been watching over Hell in his absence. He must have abandoned it to do all this dirty work with Malcolm. He should probably do something about that, but...he needed to gather himself before he could give his brother a decent telling off.
“You should get out of her,” he said lowly.
“Why? It’s not as though anyone else was using it.” Lucifer felt his eyes flash hellfire, and her eyebrows rose. “Did you know this human, before it died?”
“ Her name,” Lucifer said sharply, “was Chloe Decker. She’s a policewoman - we work together.”
Mum looked suddenly uncomfortable. “...I’m sorry, son.”
Lucifer scoffed. “Don’t pretend.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, leaning forward. He leaned away. “...Please, Lucifer. I just want...what I truly want is for things to go back to what they were. To be with you all again. To go home . To get back what your Father took from me. But...I know I can’t have that. So...so, please...let me be a good mother to you, here. On Earth.”
“It’s too late,” Lucifer said softly, shaking his head. “You abandoned me, Mum. You just stood by and watched as I was cast out. Thrown into Hell. Vilified for all eternity.” He let that hang, turning his face away. There was a long silence. When Mum finally spoke, it was slow, like she didn’t expect to be saying this, at least not so soon.
“...Your Father never sent you to Hell.” He looked back quizzically. There were another few beats. “I did.”
“Oh, great.” Seeing Chloe’s face with those words was almost too much. “Much better.” He pushed away from the table and returned to the kitchen. Leftovers, what were you supposed to do with leftovers? Keep them. Tupperware, tupperware...
A hand caught him by the arm as he looked through the cupboards, and he stopped despite himself, though he couldn’t look at her.
“I did it to save your life.” Now he had to look at her. “After the rebellion, your Father was angry. Deeply angry.” Her breath hitched a little, and she touched his face. “He wanted to destroy you. I begged Him not to. I asked Him to send you to Hell instead. I did it because I love you, son. And I always will.” He felt numb. His arms were still raised, holding the cabinet open and reaching to push aside some glasses to see if the tupperware was hiding behind them. Father had wanted to kill him. Mother had sent him to Hell. Mother was wearing Chloe’s face and it was almost unbearable.
“So you’re just going to...live here? As...Chloe Decker?” He forced the words through his mouth.
“I can’t go back to Heaven. And I won’t go back to Hell if I can help it. I want to be close to you, Lucifer. Even if you say it’s too late. I want to try.” She stepped back, and Lucifer finally let his arms drop, closing the cupboard. He had no idea what to say. This felt all kinds of wrong. But if he let her go away, he had to acknowledge that he would never see Chloe again, and...he wasn’t ready for that yet.
“...Her bedroom’s upstairs,” he said, pointing. “You’ll need to sleep. Especially after the day she had.”
“Will you be here in the morning?”
He opened his mouth to say ‘no’. Then he remembered that he had no idea what was happening to Daniel, and Mum didn’t even know what school was, let alone Trixie’s routine. At least Lucifer knew roughly what time to wake her up and knew where her school was. Or did she get out of school due to traumatic events? He couldn’t call and ask Chloe, because she was...
“I’ll camp on the couch,” he said stiffly. Mum nodded, and after several long moments, headed for the stairs. He stood in the kitchen, feeling untethered, for quite some time. Next thing he knew, Beatrice was at his elbow with an empty bowl.
“Will you help me wash it?”
“...Right,” he muttered, turning to the sink. As he scrubbed at the yellow residue in the bowl, Trixie spoke again.
“Mommy isn’t...Mommy anymore, is she?”
He couldn’t lie. “Not quite, child,” he agreed quietly.
“What’s happened to Mommy?”
“Heaven, more than likely,” he said, staring into the sink. “...I wasn’t in time, Beatrice. I apologize. But your Mother can’t come back, and...the person your mother is now doesn’t mean you any harm.” Although...those plagues and floods...perhaps he needed to evaluate whether he could leave them alone together. He turned off the water and reached for the drying towel, slowly swiping at it until the moisture was all but gone. He went to put it in the cupboard and turned back to see Beatrice’s eyes full of tears, though she hadn’t made a single sound. He hesitated. He had no idea what to do with a crying child. They were usually loud, and they were always wet and snotty. But he’d caused this, he could admit that.
He went up to her and guided her gently back to her room, entering with her. He pulled back her covers and lifted her into the bed and then tucked them in around her.
Several moments passed with only sniffling. “In the beginning...there was very little. There was only...intention. Several forms of it. One day, out of nothing, two forms of intention met, and found they shared the same ideas of how things should be. So they found their own corner of nothing, and began to make it into something. It was bright, and it was beautiful, and it was just theirs. They decided to celebrate, and not long after came children they could share it with. And now it needed to be more than bright and beautiful. It had to be not too hot, and not too cool. It couldn’t be so bright that it hurt their eyes. The children had wings, and they needed something interesting to do with them. Formations short and tall...some of them became like cliff faces here on Earth...and some of them were like buildings. The children would have ideas sometimes, and their parents would put them into the world. Trees to play in or rest under...staves to spar with...” He paused. “Lakes. We - the children,” he corrected hurriedly, “didn’t come up with lakes, that was an idea the parents had of their own, but the children liked swimming and splashing once they found out they could. And at the end of the day, when they’d finished flying and playing...they would all come together to sleep. But before they slept, they would sing. It reached every corner of the new creation, and sometimes they’d all make up new songs together...”
Lucifer went on describing Heaven. His chest ached with it, and he was just barely hiding behind the veneer of fiction, but he wanted Beatrice to know about the place her mother was in - that it was beautiful, and peaceful, and she’d be sung to sleep each night (at least, so he assumed. The rebellion was over and done with before even Abel, the first human ever to die, passed on).
When he noticed her eyes were closed and her breathing had evened, he wiped away the remnants of tears on her cheeks.
“Good night, Beatrice,” he whispered. He stood up and turned out the lights, pausing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he closed her door, and crossed the room to lay down on the couch. Staring up at the ceiling, he wondered if he’d just broken things irrevocably.