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The Morningstar Family
It's a dream come true.
After all these years studying, struggling, and striving to understand the concept of redemption, and to determine what could allow a soul in Hell to be granted permanent access into Heaven, Charlie and her friends had finally figured it out.
It took time to redeem a single sinner. A lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of spirit. But together, supporting one another, they'd all managed to get there.
Once they'd finally gotten Angel back, he'd been the first to go. Charlie had watched tearfully as he'd sprouted four tiny pink wings and entered through Heaven's portal, where Pentious, Emily, and Molly had been waiting for him.
Not long after that, Husk had changed his mind and decided to go with him.
And of course, Cherri too.
And after that, Niffty, and Baxter, and even Alastor…
It's been a long time since all of Charlie's friends had left her.
But she isn't lonely. She still gets to see them quite often when Emily opens up portals, or when Pentious and Baxter tag-team to make a livestream broadcast down to Hell.
And besides, it isn't like Charlie is alone down here.
Sinners continue to appear in Hell by the handfuls every day, and a good majority of them end up at her hotel to learn her methods of earning redemption. Though the staff members have changed since the original group, Charlie still runs the hotel with her head held high, and with her devoted girlfriend by her side.
Today, as Charlie surveys the bright-eyed, excited Sinners mingling around the lobby, she looks for Vaggi. But she doesn't see her right now, and knows she must be off handling one of her many duties as manager. So Charlie talks with her new staff and her new guests, smiling and laughing and offering genuine promises to get each and every one of them up into Heaven within a year's time.
Keekee and Razzle fly around the lobby helping out with smaller tasks. When they spot her, they both come gliding over to greet her, and Charlie hugs and kisses them both.
As she makes her way up the staircase, she looks for the only other person in Hell who hasn't left her. The only one who never could, even if he wanted to.
"Dad?" she calls out. "Are you here?"
Sometimes he was, even if she couldn't see him. It wasn't unusual for him to be hanging around and observing in the form of a bird in the rafters or a frog on the wall.
As Charlie scans the area for any telltale white shapes, she claps in triumph as she spots him. This time, he'd taken the form of a snake to hang out in one of the tall decorative plants. Charlie trots over to him and gives a little twirl as she reaches out to him.
"Dad! I- oh…" She hadn't realized until she'd gotten closer that he was asleep, with his head hanging off one of the large red leaves to the point where his hat is beginning to fall off. Charlie carefully reaches out to adjust it for him, but the contact rouses him. He blinks his hazy yellow eyes up at her, puzzled. Charlie offers a smile.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up. I just wanted to check on you."
Lately, she couldn't help but notice her father has been a bit… off. She can't quite explain it, but it's just an uncomfortable feeling she's been getting.
Even now, as he looks up at her, he doesn't seem to be all there. He tastes the air with his tongue, as if he needs to remember her scent and who she is…
After a moment, he gives himself a shake and seems to recall that he can speak, even in this form. His mouth curves up into a smile and he lifts his head up higher.
"Ah, sweetie! Sorry, sorry, was just dozin' off a little bit there."
Charlie reaches out to let him curl around her wrist.
"I get it. It's been a little boring for you since Alastor left, hasn't it?"
"Who?"
"Very funny, Dad."
With a chuckle, Lucifer poofs back into his human form in front of her. He reaches up to sling an arm around her shoulders and lets out a proud little sigh.
"Look at this place. I still can't believe you did it, after all this time. I'm so proud of you, Cha…" He tapers off without even seeming to realize he hadn't finished. Charlie frowns, easing away to try and catch his eye.
"Dad? Do you want some coffee or something? I know it's noon, but you seem… a little tired."
"Huh? Who, me? Tired? Not even a little bit! Your old man is rarin' to go, honey. Say, how is Sev doing? You two been on any dates lately, hm?"
Charlie frowns and gives him an incredulous look.
"Sev? Dad, we broke up nearly twenty years ago. I've been dating Vaggi for over a decade now."
"Oh, right, right, of course! Maggi, she's so pretty! How are things?"
Charlie gaze shifts to confusion, and a bit of concern.
"We're fine, Dad. You have dinner with us every night, remember?"
"Yes, yes, of course I remember! I'm just teasin', sweetie." He reaches up to pinch her cheek, but the gesture is lacking his usual energy. It almost feels like he's doing it out of reflex - habit - but he can't exactly remember why…
"Oh, Dazzle! C'mere, buddy!" Lucifer waves up as a little red dragon flies by overhead. The dragon stops, and his smile droops at the unexpected call of his brother's name.
"Dad-" Charlie shakes her head. "That's Razzle. Dazzle's been gone for a long time…"
"Oh…" Lucifer's shoulders slump. "Y-You're right. Sorry, it was just a slip of the tongue. My own fault for naming them like that, I suppose. C'mere, Razzle."
With a little bark, Razzle flies down to lick his face. Lucifer laughs and gives him a pat between the horns. Charlie watches him and says nothing. Once Razzle flies off again, her father straightens himself up.
"Anywho, I should make my rounds. Make sure all these new Sinners are behaving, y'know? See you around, sweetie!" With this, he starts strutting off into the crowd. The demons step back and greet him respectfully.
As Charlie watches him go, she can't shake that awful feeling churning in her stomach. It feels like threads are snapping, one by one. Like she's losing hold of him somehow…
It worries her to the point of following after him through the crowd. She watches her father's back as he waves to the new guests, smiling and laughing and making random silly comments.
"Dad-"
She calls out for him, but the chatter of the lobby increases and drowns her out. She picks up her pace and tries to catch up to him, but it feels like more and more demons keep appearing in her way, keeping him always just out of reach…
Then, all at once, she's out of the crowd, and the noise is very much at a normal, comfortable level. But her father is nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, Charlie doesn't feel well. She wanders off toward the kitchen in search of her girlfriend, but she doesn't find her there, or at the kiosk, or anywhere else.
"Vaggi…?"
Usually, she wouldn't even need to call for her. Vaggi always had this way of knowing if she was ever upset or feeling distressed, and she'd always drop everything she was doing and come to check on her. But today, Charlie can't seem to find her.
"Vaggi…?" She raises her voice, but still her girlfriend never comes.
The knot in her stomach twists harder, to the point where Charlie feels like she needs to lie down.
The guests and Sinners all around her continue smiling, and she plasters on a grin and waves back.
This is her dream. She'd finally managed to figure out how to redeem demon souls into Heaven. All of her friends are up there right now, enjoying their afterlives like they always deserved.
It's perfect. It should all be perfect…
"Whoa!" Charlie doesn't even realize it when she bumps right into her father out of nowhere. They both stagger, and his hat falls to the floor. Charlie quickly lunges forward to grab his arm to steady him.
"Sorry!" she yelps. "I was spacing out a little." She bends down to pick up his hat and offer it back to him.
"Don't worry about it, little lady!" he chuckles. "Glad I found you! I haven't seen you all day!"
Charlie feels like claws are sinking into her chest.
"Dad… I just talked to you like, three minutes ago…"
"Did you?" he hums. "Huh, sorry. Must've slipped my mind... Say, have you seen my wife Lillith lately? I need to ask her something."
The bile in her stomach bubbles over. Charlie takes a step back.
"Dad… that's not funny. Mom's been gone for over fifteen years…"
Dread. Dismay. Despair. The sickening sensation increases tenfold in her chest. Especially when her father just looks back at her with an empty smile.
"Ah, that's right! Silly me, I'm always forgetting that… I do still miss her. Y'know, my wife and I actually had a baby girl together. Cutest little thing in all the realms. I always wondered where she ended up…"
Charlie staggers back, knocking into a vase and sending it shattering to the floor. Deafening.
"Dad… what are you talking about…?"
But he just keeps smiling that hollow smile at her.
"My little girl… You remind me of her, actually... What's your name?"
The lights overhead begin to buzz, loud enough to fill Charlie's head with a dissonant static.
"Dad…" Her voice is thin, feeble. "Don't you remember me…?"
Lucifer just looks at her and shrugs.
"I'm sorry, but I can't say that I do."
All at once, the buzzing gets louder and louder.
Until all the lights burst and toss Charlie into a terrible darkness-
She sits up in bed screaming, so ensnared by the awful nightmare that she doesn't even realize she knocks Vaggi clean off of herself from where she'd been comfortably curled up. Charlie hunches forward, pulling her knees to her chest and clutching her head, shaking herself hard.
"Dad… Dad-!"
"Hey-!" Vaggi is immediately awake and alert, reaching out to gently rest her hands over the vice grip Charlie has on herself. "Charlie, it's okay! You just had a bad dream. You're okay, sweetie."
At the foot of the bed, Keekee and Razzle are also startled awake. Slowly, they crawl their way up, worried and whimpering, to brush against Charlie's legs. Charlie shakes her head again, heart still thudding in her chest from the panic of being forgotten-
"No… Dad…"
"Charlie." Vaggi speaks a little more firmly, but her hands remain gentle as she pries her princess' nails away from her head. She cups her cheek, coaxing Charlie to look at her. "Hey. It's okay, Charlie. Everything's all right."
Charlie blinks past the tears, recognizing her girlfriend for what feels like the first time in years.
"Vaggi…? Oh, thank goodness…" She throws her arms around her, nearly bowling Vaggi over with the force of it all. Vaggi catches her, running her hands slowly up and down Charlie's back and through her hair.
"I'm here, Charlie. It was just a bad dream. I promise everything's okay."
But Charlie is still tangled in the painfully confusing threads of what her nightmare had shown her. She can't fully comprehend Vaggi's reassurances just yet.
"My Dad, h-he… he was… he wasn't himself… I mean, he was, but he just… he didn't…"
"Easy, honey." Vaggi tries to soothe her with a kiss to her temple. "Your dad's totally fine. He just showed us how he'd rearranged the rubber ducks in his room earlier today, remember? He put them in rainbow order. He's making strides in cleaning things up and putting his time and energy to good use."
Gradually, as Vaggi paints the picture and reminds her of the events that had occurred earlier that day, Charlie recalls it happening. Her father had been his usual happy-go-lucky self, proud and excited as he'd shown off his redecorating skills to them both. He'd been perfectly, entirely, and unabashedly himself. Not that distant, helpless version she'd been shown in her dream.
Little by little, Charlie starts to calm down. But Vaggi knows there's someone else she really needs to see right now.
"Keekee? Can you please go get Lucifer?"
The little cat gives a determined salute with her tail, then disappears into a poof of smoke. While they wait for her to return, Vaggi focuses on helping her princess.
"It's all right, Charlie. Your Dad's fine. You'll see. He'll be here soon." She presses another kiss to Charlie's head. "Do you wanna talk about it…?"
She extends the offer cautiously, carefully, while rubbing her thumb across Charlie's cheek to dry more of her tears. She glides her nails gently through Charlie's frazzled hair to smooth it a little, wanting her touches to keep her grounded in reality.
Charlie sniffles and swallows a few times before slowly wrapping her arms around her girlfriend and pulling Vaggi in close. Her voice is nothing more than a cracked, raspy whisper, but Vaggi still hears her.
"He… forgot me…"
It's all Charlie says, but those three words spoke volumes.
Vaggi's heart breaks for her. She can only imagine the panic such a cruel nightmare must've caused Charlie, considering how her mother had left without a word and never once attempted to contact them again. For her to believe her father had then forgotten about Charlie while looking directly at her must've been absolutely gut-wrenching.
Vaggi squeezes her tightly, endearingly.
"I'm sorry. That must've been really awful. But it's okay now, baby. I promise."
Charlie shudders as another sob works its way up her chest, but she's already feeling much better now with Vaggi talking her down. Still, though, some of the doubts linger.
"How long has it been…?" she croaks. "H-How many years-"
"Years?" Vaggi gives her back a series of light, reassuring little pats. "Honey, we just stopped Vox last week."
Charlie sniffles again, then slowly eases herself back to look her in the eye.
"Last week…?" she mumbles. "Oh… you're right. A-And everyone is still-?"
"Everyone's still here," Vaggi assures her. "Angel is dealing with some things… but he'll be back soon. I know he will. Everyone else is still here and they're all fine, Charlie. Just take a deep breath."
Charlie nods, then draws in a wobbly inhale and lets it out. Vaggi encourages her with a small smile.
"That's it. You're okay, baby."
By now, they can hear footsteps of squeaking duck slippers barreling down the hallway toward their room. Keekee opens their door and slips her way in just before Lucifer comes bursting through in his pink night robe.
"Charlie-?! Sweetie, is everything okay-?"
And that's all she really needs. To hear him saying her name with such earnest, fatherly concern.
Of course it was just a bad dream. For as lousy of a parent as he might've been for a while, she knows he'd never forget her.
As Lucifer rushes over to her, Vaggi releases her girlfriend and supports her back so Charlie can turn to hug her father.
"Dad… thank you… I'm so glad…"
Lucifer had only gathered the bare minimum information from Keekee, but he knows it must've been quite distressing if his daughter had actually called for him in the middle of the night.
"Y'know," he says, patting her hair. "The last time you had a nightmare like this, you were only 47 years old." As they ease apart from the embrace, Charlie blinks up at him, more curious now than anything.
"You remember that…?"
He smiles.
"Well of course I do! Sweetie, I remember everything." To prove it, he pulls over the chair from their vanity, sits down beside the bed, and recounts the memory. "That night, you said you dreamt there was a big scary hawk that came and carried me off! You thought that Heaven came down here and took me back. You cried so much we ran outta tissues and you had to use Keekee's tail!"
Charlie blinks and turns to look at her cat. Keekee chirps and licks her cheek with her tail.
"I do kinda remember that now, actually…"
"Right?" Lucifer chuckles. "Hey, Razzle, c'mere boy." He waves the little dragon over, and Razzle happily crawls into his lap with a yip. "And then there was the time you'd just turned 32. There was a nasty storm that night and we lost power. And the only thing that made you feel better was this little guy…"
Holding Razzle in one arm, Lucifer lifts up his free hand and casts a bit of magic. Charlie's eyes widen as she watches the tiny golden sparkles begin to take form into the shape of a familiar little bird. Vaggi presses close to her side, hugging her arm to offer her support as she watches too.
The little bird flies free of Lucifer's palm and sings as it circles in the air between them. When Charlie reaches out, it goes directly to her and settles in her palm.
"I remember him... I named him, didn't I…?"
"Sure did!" Lucifer nods. "Sunshine, if I'm not mistaken. And he wards off all bad dreams!"
The little golden bird chirps. Charlie giggles.
"That's right... Hi, Sunshine."
Lucifer smiles as he watches her. Even though his daughter is over 200 years old now, he still sees that same little girl who barely came up to his knees.
He's relieved that she's all right now. All the remnants of whatever nightmare had perturbed her have completely vanished. But even so, he doesn't see the harm in staying a little longer.
"Oh!" he says. "And then there was the time…"
As he continues to recount stories from her younger years, Charlie finally feels like she can breathe again. Hugging Vaggi to her side, she gives her an appreciative little kiss before leaning back against the pillows with her. Keekee curls up on her lap, and Sunshine hops down to nest on the sheets beside her.
Lucifer cradles Razzle as he continues to tell her stories of her childhood - stories Charlie herself had long-since forgotten.
Before long, everyone starts to yawn. Razzle and Keekee fall asleep on their laps. Then, only when she's certain her princess is all right, Vaggi lets herself drift off, too.
Charlie can tell when Vaggi's fallen asleep, and she feels she won't be far behind her. She leans over to leave a kiss on top of her girlfriend's head. But before her own eyes get too heavy, Charlie casts a sleepy smile over at her father.
"Thank you, Dad…"
Lucifer utters another yawn as he slouches back into the chair.
"Anytime, Charlie… I love you, my little apple seed…"
"I love you too, Dad…"
With this, the two of them fall asleep at just about the same time.
For the remainder of the night, the Morningstar family sleep soundly together, illuminated by the soft golden glow of a tiny bird who warded off all bad dreams.
