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As a child, Rory adored her dad.
Her love for him was unconditional and undeniable. How could she not look up to him, when all her mom did was tell her how amazing he was? How selfless and caring he was, and just how much he loved her?
But she never saw him. Lucifer Morningstar had left before she was born, leaving her mother alone with her and her half-sister. Rory knew what he looked like, memorizing each detail of his face from the multitude of pictures her mom kept in her phone, in the computer, and in frames around the house, but he wasn’t there physically. And, at first, it was okay. She was only a child, after all. Whispers of an absent father, of desertion, had yet to reach her ears. She accepted her world without question, trusting her mother as if she’d been the one to create the universe.
When she started kindergarten, things slowly changed. She would see her friends getting picked up by their parents—both of them—and a sudden rush of a very unpleasant feeling would overcome her. Her eyes stung and her throat itched uncomfortably as she watched fathers walk hand-in-hand with their children.
Back then, Rory wasn’t able to give that feeling a name, but now she could.
It was envy . Utter, burning envy
It hurt that she didn’t have a dad who took her to school, someone who played with her and kissed her goodnight. Sure, her mom did all those things, yet she felt something was amiss. Even the kids with divorced parents saw their dads, so why couldn’t she? Why was he never there?
Slowly but surely, Rory began wondering why Chloe was okay with Lucifer never being there. She didn't understand how her mom, someone so brilliant, beautiful, and genuinely perfect, could accept his absence. How could she reflect so fondly on a person who’d gotten her pregnant, but chose to disappear before Rory could take her first breath, crying out for the first time in a world without him. It didn't make sense.
Starting to second guess her mother’s judgment when it came to Lucifer Morningstar was almost inevitable. Maybe her stories about him weren’t so true, after all. Perhaps he wasn’t the man her mom thought he was. How truly good could he really be if he didn’t care about the woman who loved him—or the child who loved him as well?
It’s strange how feelings can change. The adoration Rory had once felt towards her father had turned into hatred. It didn’t happen overnight. As she grew, so did the resentment for the man who had abandoned them all. Listening to her mother ramble about him, being able to see how much she loved him, only made her angry, to the point she had to ask Chloe to stop entirely. Why talk about him, anyway? He wasn’t there, and he was never coming back.
She hated him the most when she’d have a problem of the celestial nature. Of course, uncle Amenadiel and aunt Maze were always there for her—the former teaching her how to fly and the latter how to use her wings as a weapon in a fight—but deep down she knew it was not the same. Rory was half an angel because of Lucifer, after all. He was supposed to be the one to teach her all things celestial, to show her the universe. Did he care? When he left, did he think about the vacuum he was going to leave behind, the firsts he would miss, the questions and hate and hurt he would cause?
In time, she came to accept his absence, but never to like it. Her life was great, she knew she was loved and she didn’t need him in the slightest, yet she was still very bitter about it.
Watching her mother age and grey all alone was what enraged her the most.
Chloe deserved someone. She was the most amazing person Rory knew, so selfless and brave, so loving. She wasn’t supposed to spend the rest of her human existence waiting for someone who wasn’t waiting for her. She’d heard stories about Lucifer and, to put it mildly, he was a slut. For all they knew, he was still going around screwing anything with a pulse while her mom still longed for him. It would have been pathetic, if it didn’t feel just plainly sad. Her heart ached for her mother. Yet, no matter how hard she’d insisted, Chloe had always refused to start dating again. It was like her mother thought she was in a long distance relationship or something. It was frustrating.
Her mother’s life had been a long, good one, filled with great work achievements, amazing friends and two daughters who loved her more than anything else in the world. Rory wished she was immortal, her aging slowed down just like her angelical one, but that wasn’t a luxury they were afforded. Time was a bitch when it came to humans. Her body inevitably wasted away as the years went by and, soon enough, her mind began to wither as well.
Chloe was no longer the sharp lieutenant Rory once knew. She began spending most of the day in bed, too tired and weak to do anything else, just as she started mixing up names and forgetting dates. Too many times she ended up calling Rory by Trixie’s name until, one day, the two sisters had to accept the reality of what was happening in front of their eyes.
Their mother was dying.
There was no denying it anymore. It wouldn’t be long before her time came.
Aurora shouldn’t have felt sad. She was fully aware of the existence of an afterlife, and there was no doubt her mom was headed to Heaven where she could visit as she pleased, yet it broke her heart nonetheless. Her sister didn’t have the same abilities. Trixie couldn’t fly up whenever she wanted just to have a chat with their mother. She’d have to wait years to be reunited with her, and Rory found that extremely unfair. They rarely talked about it, if ever, and she suspected her sister avoided the topic on purpose, wanting to ignore her own mortality, her own nearness to death.
Most of Rory’s waking hours were now spent at Chloe’s deathbed. Having a husband and two children—who now had kids of their own—Trixie didn’t have as much free time as she did, but still tried to be there as much as possible.
Sitting on a plastic chair next to a bed that now took up the majority of the living room in her childhood home, Rory was holding her mom’s hand. Under her forever youthful palm, Chloe’s skin felt wrinkled, frail and so very cold. No matter how many blankets she used to cover her body or how much she cranked up the air conditioning, her mom’s hands were now permanently icy. There was no way of keeping her warm.
She watched the woman lying in bed, her eyes closed and her forehead seemingly stuck in a frown, and she barely recognized her mom. Underneath the lines and the dark spots time had put there, she could still see the beautiful, strong, loving woman who had raised her, yet they seemed like two different people. This—the old, fragile woman struggling to take each new breath—didn’t look like her mother.
She was probably in denial, as aunt Linda would say. They still saw each other every once in a while, whenever Charlie dragged her along when he went to the Silver City to spend some time with both his parents. Linda was very insightful; too bad she had the tendency to psychoanalyze everyone even as a soul in Heaven. The woman knew no rest. And Rory really didn’t like when she prodded around inside her brain, especially about her relationship with her mother—or the nonexistent one with her father.
Denial was a pain in the ass.
Her mother’s incoherent mumbles dragged her out of her own thoughts, and she instinctively tightened the grip on her hand as if to let her know she was there. During the past couple of days, Chloe had grown restless even in her sleep. She was clearly in pain, her whole body aching after spending hours upon hours laying on a mattress, and Rory felt so useless at the notion that there was nothing she could do to help her out. Painkillers helped, but her mother was too far gone.
Chloe’s eyes fluttered open, and she blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the lights. “You’re here,” she whispered, a soft smile forming on her lips.
“Of course I’m here,” Rory replied. “Where else would I be?”
“I missed you so much,” she managed to say, the words coming out with great difficulty.
Rory tilted her head slightly, her brows knitting in confusion. “What do you mean? I’m always here.”
“Yes, you are,” Chloe replied and she closed her eyes again, her breathing slowing down as she fell back into slumber.
“She’s not making much sense anymore, is she?” a familiar voice asked.
When Rory turned to search for the source of the sound, she found Trixie standing in the doorway, her expression as somber as it had ever been. She must have witnessed the whole exchange, because her eyes were filled with unshed tears.
The half-angel shook her head slowly. “No. I think she must have mistook me for someone else.”
Again , she thought, but decided not to say out loud. It hurt too much to admit how her mother struggled to remember who her children were, eyes searching theirs in such a distant, absentminded way.
Trixie pursed her lips in a tight line, her brown eyes conveying how sorry she felt about the whole situation, but they also held a lot of resignation. There was nothing they could do to prevent death. Even with God as their uncle, that part of human life couldn’t be avoided. It wouldn’t have been fair towards the rest of humanity—not to mention that their mother would have never agreed to become immortal or anything of the sort. She was better than that.
Rory tried to conjure up a smile, but all she managed to do was grimace. Happiness seemed a foreign concept, lately. She could barely remember the last time she or Trixie had genuinely smiled. Her sister wore a constant mask of worry and exhaustion, which only served to make her look older.
Beatrice wasn’t so young anymore. She was in her sixties, and the growing lines and crow’s feet on her face had only gotten worse since their mother’s health started declining. Gone were the days when she and Rory looked like actual sisters. Now more than ever, people confused them for mother and daughter. Trixie usually laughed it off, but Rory was certain there had been times in which she’d seen a glimmer of hurt in her sister’s eyes when that happened.
Having an eternally young sibling must have not been nice.
Rory didn’t have to worry about aging, didn’t need to prepare herself each day before looking into the mirror, afraid to discover new wrinkles on her face. She didn’t have to fear her children or spouse might get injured—or worse, die. And, of course, she didn’t have to see her sister’s appearance never change, knowing it had been just a matter of luck. After all, it was only by casualty and genetics that Rory had those abilities. Same mother, different dads, and the result didn’t seem very fair or balanced to either of them.
When they were much younger, Rory had seriously wondered if her sister hated her. She knew that was a silly thought, but a part of her still believed Trixie had every right to do so, especially now.
Disentangling her fingers from her mother’s, Rory got up and walked towards Trixie. “I… I think we should start making arrangements. For, you know, everything .”
She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word funeral . Other than how devastatingly sad it would be, it also felt entirely pointless. Their mother’s soul wouldn’t be there to witness the ceremony. By the time they managed to host a commemoration, she’d already be up in Heaven having Hawaiian bread toasts with her father, Trixie’s dad, Linda and Amenadiel. But funerals were for the living—and the humans. Ella and Carol probably wanted to be there, alongside everyone in the police department, from the rookies to the detectives and even the janitors, and all the other friends she’d made during her life. It was the right thing to do.
Trixie nodded. “Should we ask Amenadiel to get in contact with…” she hesitated, studying the expression on her sister’s face, “Lucifer?”
Rory flinched. It was an entirely involuntary response to the mention of his name but, although not pleasant, she was glad Trixie had decided not to call him her dad. No one in their family called Lucifer her father anymore, not since she’d nearly had a meltdown at the age of fifteen at the umpteenth story about how truly great he was.
“Why would you even suggest that?” Rory’s tone dripped with incredulity and revulsion.
Trixie put up her hands in surrender. “I just… I thought he might want to be here for when she…”
“If he wanted to be here, he would be here right now! He would have not abandoned us!”
Behind them, Chloe mumbled something and stirred under the sheets, making the two sisters fall silent for a moment. Once it was clear their mom was still asleep, their gazes met again.
Trixie eyed her with sympathy. “Listen, I know what you think about him, but I knew him. You might not wanna hear it, but he loved her. I’m sure he still does.”
Rory could not contain a scoff. Shaking her head and trying to keep her voice low, she said, “If he loved her so much, why did he abandon her?” The words tasted bitter in her mouth and begged to come out. There was so much anger inside of her, sometimes she worried she might explode. “He’s the Devil. How can anyone trust anything he says?”
“He doesn’t lie.”
“How do you know that’s not a lie?” she asked, exasperated. “And please, don’t say because I knew him or I swear I’m gonna lose it.”
Her sister rolled her eyes in a way that reminded Rory of their mother. “Well, I know mom. I trust her judgment. She always said he had a good reason to leave and I trust her. Why isn’t that good enough for you?”
Why wasn’t it good enough for her? Truth be told, she had no idea. Rory had spent so much time resenting Lucifer, she barely remembered why it had started. Still, there was no way she was saying that to Trixie.
“What is a good reason to abandon your pregnant girlfriend and your unborn child?” Rory countered.
Just as she expected, Trixie hesitated for a beat, then murmured, “I wish I could tell you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, I…” She let out a sigh. “I wish I knew, okay? I’m sorry I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for.”
And Rory believed her. She could see it in the way Trixie looked at her that she truly felt for her. If anything, that made her even more mad. Pity was not something she wanted from people, especially not the ones in her family.
“I’m not looking for answers. Definitely not about him .” She spat the last word out as if it was venom.
The other woman nodded slowly, an unconvinced look on her face. “I won’t talk to Amenadiel, if that makes you feel any better.”
Rory’s tense muscles relaxed all at once.
“But,” Trixie continued, “I would think about it, if I were you. One day you might come to regret this decision.”
“Oh, I’ll be waiting for that day. I think it might happen right when Hell freezes over.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Trixie. “Ro, I know you grew up without a father, okay? Well, news flash, so did I .”
“That’s not the same thing,” Rory argued.
“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “ My dad died, while yours is still out there and, as far as we know, loved you from the second he knew you exIsted. You still have a chance. I won’t get the chance to see my dad for many years, if I even end up in Heaven at all.”
“You think you’re not going to Heaven?”
Trixie heaved out a sigh, clearly frustrated. “That’s so not the point. What I mean is that Lucifer is still out there, he loves you, but you refuse to listen to reason—which is fucking ironic, by the way,” she said.
Frowning, Rory asked, “What is that even supposed to mean?”
“It means that you got your maturity from him!” The words came out harsh, probably more than Trixie intended for. “Teenage angst at nearly fifty years old? Sounds like a Lucifer thing to me.”
Her jaw slacked and her eyes widened in surprise. Rory was definitely not expecting that from her sister. In a way, she got it. Trixie had explained it fairly well, after all. Dan, her dad, was up in Heaven, a place she couldn’t go unless she died as well. For all they knew, Lucifer was still around, but she refused to look for him. Perhaps it was out of pride, or anger, or resentment—Rory genuinely couldn’t tell anymore. She’d made that choice a long time ago, and changing her mind now wasn’t an option. Nevertheless, she knew it hurt her sister because, unlike her, Trixie didn’t have a choice.
For the first time—possibly ever—Rory did not know what to say. She didn’t even have a snarky remark or any sort of comeback to make. She truly felt bad for her sister.
“Lucifer?”
Both their heads turned in Chloe’s direction. Her eyes were open for the first time in a while, and she was trying to lift her head off the pillow to look at something in their direction. Rory was quick to get on her side, followed by Trixie.
“Hey,” she whispered, helping her mom adjust on the bed. “Everything’s fine.”
“Oh, I know. You’re here now.”
Trixie and Rory exchanged a look.
“Who’s here, mom?” asked the eldest daughter.
The corners of Chloe’s lips turned up in a soft smile. “Lucifer, of course,” she replied hoarsely.
Rory swore her blood had just turned into ice inside her veins. This day was the worst . Not only her sister kept mentioning her father, but apparently their mother was hallucinating him as well.
“She looks just like you, you know?” Chloe continued in a whisper. “I don’t say that to her because she’s so mad at you, but I see you in her all the time.”
A shiver ran down Rory’s back. Her mom wasn’t simply hallucinating Lucifer, she thought Rory was him, saw him reflected in her features. Even as her mind slowly deteriorated and the memories began to fade, she still thought about him constantly. And still, he wasn’t there to take care of the woman who, on her deathbed, saw him in her daughter. Was he that selfish?
“Rory will understand, soon enough.” Chloe took a shaky breath. “Our little ray of light.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. “He’s not here, mom. He never was and never will be.” Try as she might, she could barely keep her voice from trembling. Hurting her mother’s feelings pained her in turn, but she simply couldn’t let her live a delusion. “It’s me, mom. It’s Rory. I’m not… I’m not him.”
Suddenly, Trixie’s warm hand was on her shoulder, squeezing it gently as a way to let her know everything was going to be okay. She appreciated the sentiment but, at the moment, it didn’t feel like it.
Chloe blinked a few times, her eyes focused on her youngest daughter’s face. “Oh, yeah. Of course it’s you, Rory. My little angel.”
“He… Lucifer…” Even saying his name was a struggle, but she forced herself to do it. “He’s not here.”
“I know, baby. I’m sorry. My mind just slips sometimes,” Chloe said, looking a little lost.
Rory nodded, tears welling up inside her eyes. “It’s fine, mom. Just rest and everything will be fine, alright?”
“Don’t think too much about it, Ro,” Trixie whispered from behind her. “Maybe it’s just a one time thing,” she tried to reassure her.
But it was not a one time thing.
It kept happening, over and over again. The more Chloe’s condition worsened, the more she spoke to Rory as if she was her father. Having to listen to her mom talk to him in that adoring voice, knowing that he didn’t care enough to actually be there, hurt her in ways she’d never thought possible.
Sometimes she told Rory some of her childhood stories, other times she reminisced about old cases and events they had probably experienced together as partners. She still called him that, at times— partner . It was clear as day she, after all these years, still loved him like the first day, if not more.
Her devotion for him had withstood the test of time and distance.
Hers was the kind of love that transcended memory, a love she couldn’t forget, as if written into the very fibers of her being.
Even so, he chose not to be there. She never thought that possible, yet Rory’s hatred for her father only kept growing.
And yet, even though it pained her immensely, she never told her mother Lucifer wasn’t there again. She kept on pretending to be him, silently listening to all the stories Chloe recounted, knowing it was all worth it, if that put a smile on her face. It was clear that thinking he was there made her happy. How could she take that away?
On the day of Chloe’s death, friends and family were all gathered inside the small Decker’s home. The doctors had been very blunt with her prognosis. Her time had come. All they could do was spend some time with her, hoping she would feel safe, loved, and not be in any pain.
Right then, as she watched all the people she loved the most say goodbye to her mom, Rory knew she had to do something. Not to stop death, of course—her aunt Azrael had nothing to do with it. She had to try and bring there the only person missing, the one she knew would allow Chloe to go in peace.
She needed to get in contact with Lucifer.
As much as she didn’t like the idea, she loved her mother way too much to think of her selfish wants.
After asking everyone for a moment alone with her mom, Rory sat down on the plastic chair, placing one hand over Chloe’s. She couldn’t help but study her, as if to burn the last images of her inside her brain.
Long gone were the blonde hair, the pink lips and tight skin she associated with her mom when she was a child. All her hair was white now, her skin had a greyish tint to it, her lips looked chapped and blue. Soon enough, in Heaven, she would look no older than forty and be forever stuck in that youthful appearance but, at that moment, she looked tired and old. It was time.
Taking a deep breath, Rory closed her eyes and began speaking. “I don’t know where you are. You probably can’t even hear me, but I know uncle Amenadiel is always listening, so he can pass the message along. I know you don’t care about me—I don’t even know if you care about her—but for some reason she still cares about you. She loves you. Lately, whenever she looks at me, she sees you.” Her eyes watered and, in her sleep, Chloe’s fingers tangled with hers. She wasn’t sure if her mother was listening, but it didn’t matter. She had to go on. “She needs you. I… I need you. It kills me to admit it but we need you here , Lucifer. Right now it doesn’t matter why you left. I don’t care, I only want my mom to see you one last time. I would never reach out to you, but… We’re losing her. My mom is dying and it hurts. Please, just… Just come home.”
A sob broke free from deep within her chest, her shoulders shaking violently as she let herself cry for him for the first time in years. She cried for herself too, and for her mom, the woman she loved the most in the entire universe.
Rory couldn’t tell if she waited for a minute or an hour. The constant beeping of the machines marked each second as it passed, but she couldn’t keep up. The more she waited, though, the more her anger grew. She was pissed at him, but mostly at herself. She couldn’t believe she was foolish enough to think he’d actually show up after all these years. Had he not demonstrated how much he didn’t give a fuck about them? Why did she think this time would be any different?
It didn’t matter how much she begged; Lucifer Morningstar didn’t love them. All he cared about was himself. He didn’t have time for little old human Chloe Decker and her hybrid spawn. They were probably just a nuisance to him—a mistake he’d made years prior and wanted to forget.
And for that, for being the cause of her pain, and her anger, and her mother’s life of sacrifices spent waiting for him when he clearly would never return, she hated him all the more.
That’s when it happened. There was so much hatred inside of her, her body couldn’t physically contain it anymore. It kept growing at an impossible rate until it was everywhere, enveloping her, forcing her to do something.
She wanted to kill him. Never in her life she’d desired something more than to be the cause of Lucifer Morningstar’s demise. He didn’t deserve to be alive when her mom was dying before her eyes. She had to find him and kill him.
Somehow, her body knew where to find him before her mind had any time to catch up—in the past. Rory traveled back in time, something she never thought possible, with the sole purpose of putting an end to his miserable life.
Life finds strange ways of putting everything into perspective.
It didn’t take long for her to find him. She was a woman on a mission and it didn’t matter who she had to cheat and what she had to do to accomplish it. But then, face to face with her father, the man she’d spent years hating, things changed. With her bladed feathers pressed into his throat, searching his eyes, pupils reflecting such a vulnerable, honest, and confused look inside of them, Rory knew this wasn't what she wanted at all. Killing him wouldn’t have made her feel better, nor would it have stopped her mom from dying. She didn’t want him dead. All she’d ever wanted was just to know him.
And she did. As it turned out, the two of them were far more similar than she liked to admit. Ever since that first look into each other’s eyes, she’d recognized him. Rory knew him. It was something deep and primordial, a connection that couldn’t be broken.
In the past, all she found was a family, the one she’d longed for her entire life. In the past, there was a father who adored her, a mother who did just the same and was still young and healthy, and they did so without even knowing how it was possible she existed. They accepted her, loved her, truly and unconditionally, and by the end of her not-so-little trip in time, she knew without the hint of a doubt her dad would never abandon her or Chloe. He loved them so fiercely.
Nevertheless, after everything that happened with Le Mac, she knew he had to leave. He didn’t want to—he begged her not to make him promise—but she saw things much more clearly now. Breaking the time loop was risky. Things needed to be that way in order for Dan to go to Heaven, for Lucifer to find his calling, and for her to become the person she was in the present and know how truly amazing her parents were.
Saying goodbye to them wasn’t easy. A part of her felt like she was losing her dad all over again, along with her mom, but she knew they would reunite soon enough.
When she found herself back next to her mother’s deathbed, Rory felt dazed but so incredibly happy and proud of her family. But a tiny yet very insistent voice inside her head kept on reminding of how many things Chloe and Lucifer had to sacrifice to respect her choice. Causing them pain was the last thing she’d ever wanted to do, but it had happened anyway. For that, she truly was sorry.
“Look who’s back!” Chloe said, her eyes locking with her daughter’s.
For her it probably had been just a second, yet to Rory it felt as if an entire life had gone by since she’d last been with the elderly version of her mother. It was strange. She was glad to be back, but she wished the circumstances were different.
“Hi, mom,” she replied.
Chloe stretched her fingers towards her, a smile on her face. “Hi, honey.” Finally, after weeks of talking to Rory as if she was her dad, Chloe recognized her daughter.
Rory smiled back, huffing when she tried to speak but no words would come out. She rubbed the back of her mom’s hand with her thumb, her eyes filling with tears as memories of the weeks spent in the past flooded her mind.
“How did you do it?” she asked, her voice shaking with emotion. “How did you keep all that inside… for so long? I mean...” She swallowed past the lump in her throat as she struggled to keep the tears at bay. “All that you had to endure, like my anger… and my yelling and… crying.”
Chloe’s expression was soft and understanding. “No parent wants to see their child in pain. But it’s part of the job,” she simply replied. Once again, she made it all sound so easy. She truly was the strongest person Rory knew.
“Yeah, but…” Tears fell, and her chin trembled as she fought to keep it together. “All that you went through. Just because I asked you to.” She looked at her mother, now knowing what true devotion looked like, and she barely found the strength to whisper, “Thank you.”
“Well, like you once told me, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Chloe chuckled lightly, then sighed, closing her eyes only for a second. They looked at each other for a moment, the mutual understanding that her time had come passing between them.
“I’m gonna miss you, honey,” she said.
Rory tried to laugh through the ball of sadness lodged deep within her chest. “Mom, I’m an angel, remember?” she reminded her. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Chloe smiled, finally at peace after a long time. “It’s a date,” she murmured before closing her eyes.
Even though she knew she would see her mom again very soon, seeing her exhale for the last time provoked a pain in Rory that rippled through her entire being. She doubled over, her forehead resting on her mother’s unmoving head while a sob escaped her lips, feral and unstoppable.
She found the strength to move once again, only to shout, “Trixie?! Oh my God, Trix!” before another wave of pain nearly knocked her unconscious.
Her sister knew exactly what had just happened the second she walked into the room. Trixie’s legs gave out, and all she could do was call out for her mom, knowing she wouldn’t be able to answer her for a long time. After a while, Rory managed to get up, only to crawl beside her sister on the floor, hugging her so hard she might have caused a few bruises. They cried, and held onto each other until they managed to make the violent sobs subside.
“There’s something I need to do, Trix. Will you be okay?” she asked after a while.
Beatrice knew what her sister had in mind without having to hear her say the words. Nodding, she replied, “Just, don’t take too long.”
“It’s only gonna be a second for you, I promise,” Rory told her, and with that got on her feet and spread her wings, taking flight immediately.
Before she even knew, she was in Hell. Chloe’s place was surely in Heaven, but something told her that, knowing her mom, she wanted to be with Lucifer more than she wanted to spend time in the Silver City. Obviously, she wasn’t wrong. After all, she was the daughter of the best detective in Los Angeles and the Devil himself.
She spotted them as they exited someone’s cell, smiling like they were not just getting out of some damned soul’s hell loop. They truly were disgustingly in love, holding hands in the middle of Hell’s corridors and giving each other bedroom eyes. She might have even gagged, if she hadn’t been so focused on the reason why she had gone there in the first place.
Rory ran towards them, wrapping the both of them into a suffocating embrace. They were startled for a second, but as soon as they recognised her, they hugged her back.
“Mom, dad, I’m so sorry,” she cried out, fresh tears falling down her cheeks. “Please, forgive me. I’m sorry.”
Lucifer was the first to break away, taking a step back to look into her eyes. For her, only a short amount of time had passed since the last time she’d seen him, but down there he’d spent thousands of years away from her and her mom, and she was the sole reason why. He had every right not to forgive her— to hate her , even.
“There’s nothing you need to apologize for darling,” Lucifer replied. “I know what’s on your mind, but I promise, it’s alright. You’re finally here. Your mom’s here. This is such a wonderful day.”
She shook her head violently. “I asked so much of you two. You spent so much time apart because of me. You put what I wanted before anything else. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.
“And we would do it again, and again,” Lucifer replied. “Don’t you know that, Rory?”
“But I hurt you so much,” she insisted.
Finally, Chloe intervened. “You gave us the strength to do the right thing. It wasn’t always easy, but it was all worth it in the end.”
“Besides,” Lucifer added, “we might have sneaked a few visits here and there when you were not looking. You know, to keep the spark alive,” he chuckled, leaning towards Chloe to give her a kiss.
Rory chuckled, then fake-gagged. “As if you two would ever stop being so sickeningly smitten,” she said, rolling her eyes.
They all laughed, and she felt ten pounds lighter, a weight she had carried for too long finally falling away from her.
“So, you’re not mad at me? Even though I hurt you?” she asked both of them.
Lucifer shook his head, a sincere smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Of course not, Rory. We love you. We’re proud of you, and we would never change who you are,” he assured her.
“We love you so much, baby,” Chloe concurred.
Rory launched into another hug, taking them by surprise once more. That was exactly what she’d always desired ever since was a child—a united family.
And finally, even after all the heartache and the obstacles, she had it.
Now they only had the whole of eternity to look forward to.