Chapter Text
The doors to Lucifer’s private rooms were not meant to be entered uninvited.
They were carved from obsidian and sealed with silent wards, the kind that whispered warnings into the bones of those who approached without permission. But Charlie didn’t stop.
She walked straight through.
The wards didn’t bite her.
That alone said something.
Lucifer was seated at a wide desk near the arched window, sunlight filtering in through smoked glass. Hell’s version of daylight cast long golden-red streaks across the floor. The room smelled faintly of burnt parchment and wine.
He didn’t look up when she entered.
Charlie closed the doors behind her with more force than necessary.
“I want to know the truth,” she said.
Lucifer dipped his pen into ink. “About what?”
“Don’t do that.”
He signed something—his signature long and sharp—and only then did he lift his eyes.
Charlie stood with her arms crossed, still wearing the half-burned court gown from the night before, her hair pulled back messily, the shadows under her eyes deeper than usual.
“You can’t burn down a court banquet and expect me to just pretend this is strategy,” she said. “This is personal.”
Lucifer leaned back, folding his hands in front of him.
“You’re not wrong.”
She blinked. “You’re admitting it?”
“I didn’t deny it.”
“That’s new.”
He said nothing.
Charlie crossed the room, standing across the desk from him. The desk itself was old—charred along the edges, corners wrapped in iron. Her voice softened just slightly.
“Why now?”
Lucifer tilted his head.
“Why not centuries ago? Why wait until now to call war? To demand loyalty? To... raise yourself up again?”
A long silence stretched between them.
Then he asked, “What do you think I’m doing?”
Charlie didn’t answer at first. She walked slowly to the window, looking out across the spires and burning skies of Pandemonium. The war banners were already flying from the towers. His seal—not Lilith’s—was back above the gates.
“I think,” she said slowly, “you’re trying to erase something. Maybe several things.”
Lucifer’s voice was cool. “And what exactly do you imagine I’ve erased?”
“I don’t have to imagine,” she said, turning. “I lived it.”
He held her gaze.
Charlie’s jaw tightened. “There’s a version of you I remember. It didn’t last long. But I remember... hands that held me differently. Softer. Like I might break.”
Lucifer’s face didn’t change, but a muscle twitched beneath one eye.
“You always told me I was born of Hell’s highest flame,” she went on. “You told me you carved me from pride, from purpose, from legacy.”
She stepped closer to the desk.
“But I remember nights where your voice was different. Higher. Slower. Like it hurt to speak and you didn’t want me to cry.”
Lucifer stood, slowly.
“You were a child.”
Charlie shook her head. “I was a baby. And babies don’t remember words. They remember touch. Sound. Heat.”
She stared at him.
“You keep saying Lilith abandoned me. But I think... you abandoned someone, too.”
Lucifer didn’t speak.
He didn’t blink.
He just stood there—silent and unmoving—as the past scraped its claws along the inside of his ribs.
“I think,” Charlie said softly, “you’re afraid I’ll see you. The real you. And hate what you used to be.”
He closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
When he opened them again, his voice was almost gentle.
“Go.”
Charlie’s breath caught.
“That’s all you have to say?”
Lucifer turned away. “Go.”
She didn’t move.
Not for several seconds.
Then she said, almost as if to herself, “One day, you won’t be able to hide anymore.”
And she left.
The door shut behind her, quietly this time.
Lucifer remained still.
The candlelight flickered across the walls. His desk was scattered with maps, letters, folded orders—all neat, all under control.
But the wineglass on the edge of the table trembled slightly in his hand
Lucifer stood alone in his study.
But he wasn’t in the present anymore.
The light shifted, subtly—growing warmer, gentler. The fire in the hearth dimmed. The shadows changed shape.
And in his mind, he was back.
It was dark, but not the way Hell was dark. It was womb-dark , muffled, private. The kind of dark meant for new things, fragile things. The walls of the chamber had been softened with velvet and smoke-silk, lined with protective sigils meant to shield the soul— her soul.
He— she —lay curled in a great high-backed chair, gold hair damp and sticking to flushed cheeks. Her body trembled beneath a long robe of black and crimson, barely tied at the waist. Her chest ached. Her hips still throbbed. The blood had already been washed from the floor, but she could still feel it.
And in her arms—
Charlie.
So small. So soft. Swaddled in violet silk, skin flushed peach, eyelids twitching in sleep.
She wasn’t crying.
She was breathing. That was enough.
Lucifer shifted the bundle just slightly and lowered the fabric from her own chest, guiding the newborn gently, reverently to nurse.
The pain was sharp. The ache deeper than bone.
But the warmth—
The warmth made her eyes sting.
She hadn't cried during labor. Not during the tearing or the blood or even when Lilith refused to enter the room. Not when the midwife whispered, "She won't come in, my Queen, she says it's not her place."
But now—now, in the stillness, with this impossibly warm, impossibly alive thing clinging to her breast—
She wept.
Just a little.
And kissed the top of Charlie’s tiny head.
The door had opened.
Lucifer remembered the shift in air. The sudden drop in temperature. And then—Lilith’s voice.
Cold. Controlled.
“You’re still in that shape.”
She hadn’t even crossed the threshold.
Lucifer hadn’t looked at her.
She had stayed seated, arms curled protectively around Charlie, who had just fallen asleep.
“You could have shifted back by now,” Lilith had continued, not unkind—but not kind. “The child is out. The body isn’t necessary anymore.”
Lucifer had stroked Charlie’s hair. “This body was never unnecessary .”
Lilith had gone silent.
Then:
“She’s... healthy, at least.”
“She’s perfect.”
A pause. Long. Uneasy.
“You’re not,” Lilith had said quietly.
And then she’d turned and walked away.
The flashback cracked—like glass under stress—and Lucifer staggered slightly as the room pulled back into the present.
His wineglass had shattered in his hand.
Blood welled along his palm, sliding between the lines of his knuckles. He hadn’t noticed crushing it. Didn’t feel the pain.
He stared at the glass shards scattered across the floor.
Then he pressed the bleeding hand to his chest—just over the heart.
And he whispered, to no one:
“She is perfect.”
Lucifer stood alone in his study.
But he wasn’t in the present anymore.
The light shifted, subtly—growing warmer, gentler. The fire in the hearth dimmed. The shadows changed shape.
And in his mind, he was back.