Returning to Lucifer and Trixie in heaven here. Thanks to those who left comments :) and, as always, thanks for reading!
This one will be a surprise.
Song rose about them as soon as they entered - a multitude of voices raised in joy and love cascading over and through them as they stopped briefly within the great hall.
Lucifer sighed and closed his eyes, allowing the song to wash over his soul.
It felt good. Like a deep celestial hug.
It had been so terribly long.
He hadn't yet been allowed back here since coming home, which is partly why he'd decided to check on Chloe and spend time with her.
This space, filled with the radiance of his siblings and the most evolved of all souls, had been his true home before everything went to shit.
He understood why it went to shit, of course, and given the chance to start over, he would likely cause the same shit again.
It was who he was, after all. The constant desire for more.
"Father, how could you create me to be like this and not expect my disobedience?" he asked in his eleven-year-old voice.
There was no answer.
He turned, looking about the wide space, circling a immense jeweled dais of light in the very center, and opening to a ring of doorways on the far side of the hall.
Trixie was storming her way towards one of the doorways.
"Oh, for fork's sake," Lucifer snapped, and rushed after her.
When he reached the door, it was ajar, and his Father already inside.
He pushed his way through, entering a room he was quite familiar with.
The Hall of Records.
Scrolls of light filled walls and shelves of crystal, and as he watched new scrolls appeared in the air, writing themselves before falling in a space newly made for them.
"Father?" he called, not seeing the child's form immediately.
Then he caught the pink of her t-shirt through the fractal lens of a nearby shelf, and walked over.
She was digging through scrolls, scanning and dropping each one.
"Too new," she murmured, before looking up and following a passage through darker crystal.
Lucifer smirked. "Father, aren't you everything? Shouldn't you know exactly where everything is?"
Trixie blew a raspberry at him, and pushed further back, to where the crystal turned to opaque obsidian.
Lucifer shivered, without understanding why.
She held her hand up, and a scroll rose from a pile in the darkest corner and drifted to her hand.
Frowning, Lucifer stepped back. He did not like the feel of this.
"It's your scroll, son. That's why."
She opened it, and Lucifer turned away. Tears rose to his eyes, and he found himself crying.
He didn't know why.
Trixie sighed. "That's what I thought."
He looked back to find her looking at him sadly.
"You understand what these records are, yes?"
Clearing his throat, he nodded. "Of course, a living record of everything that was, is, and will be for that soul."
She nodded. "This scroll says that you are still alive at this moment. You are living with Chloe and I. That you live with Chloe until her death at age 84, upon which you both return here."
Lucifer closed his eyes. The mention of Chloe dying was awful enough, without the implications of the scroll's inaccuracy.
"But... that's not right."
"No."
Fear rose in him, and he opened his eyes. "What does this mean, Father?"
"It means that reality is changing, Samael, and your son is the cause." She smirked. "So, I guess that wasn't true, what I said before."
Lucifer stared at her, unsure what to do with the information he'd been given. "What?"
She looked up at him. "That I am everything. I'm definitely not your son. And you are the first casualty of his claim on reality. He will continue to reweave what he encounters to suit his goal."
"Which is?!"
Trixie shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not him."
"Father," Lucifer started, squeezing his eyes shut. "How did this happen? I mean, there've been rumors of an Anti-Christ since the bible was written, surely you had something in place to prevent this happening?"
"Yes," she said, nodding sadly. "I had you."
Grimacing, Lucifer made an aggravated sound. "This is growing awfully circular, Dad. The Anti-Christ is supposed to be the son of the devil. Hello!" he cried with forced cheerfulness, pointing at himself, "I am the devil! Surely preventing me from having SEX with a woman who made me vulnerable would have been a bloody good start?!"
Trixie shook her head. "You are incompatible, Lucifer. You cannot mate with a human."
Lucifer took that personally. "I can so mate with a human. I mated all over the place with many thousands of humans, many times! Also - what of my brother and Linda? They had a child!"
She nodded with a smile. "Yes. But Amenadiel was completely mortal at that moment. You have always been a celestial, until that moment your son chose to come into being. He took your immortality to ensure his conception."
"No!" Lucifer shouted, and turned on his heel to leave. "I am not listening to this ridiculousness any more! I am tired of being the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong, and I am leaving!"
But he didn't go anywhere. He stayed in place, one foot raised to walk.
"Father," he growled. "Stop this."
"Your son is the manifestation of an entity that is as old as I am, Lucifer. You have been its warden for millennia. This is what I meant by 'I had you'."
He turned back to his Father. "Warden?"
"Where is your ring, Samael?"
Lucifer frowned. "The ring I was created with?"
Trixie nodded.
"Amenadiel removed it and left it to Chloe."
Trixie winced.
"That is less than ideal."
"Is she in danger? Is he going to hurt her?" Lucifer turned again, his entire being thrumming at that moment in fear for the woman he loved. He tried to unfurl his wings, to fly to Earth, and was swiftly reminded of how very dead he was.
It didn't matter. He would be there in the next moment with a thought.
"Sammy," Trixie said quietly. "You can't help her like that."
Stabbing his small fists by his sides, he glared back at her. "Then help me, Father. Restore me. I know you have the power to do so."
Frowning, she took his hand in her own, and pulled him with her as she left the Hall of Records and returned to the main hall. The celestial host's song rose about them, drawing away his fear for Chloe, his concern over his son's work on the world. A small part of him knew that if he stayed here for much longer, he would have no desire to go anywhere else.
"Your body, where is it?" Trixie asked, tugging his small tailored sleeve to draw his attention.
He blinked at her. "Father, you should know these things?"
"Son," Trixie snapped at him, "I'm not linked to the reality in which you're dead. Your body is obscured from me. Where was it placed?!"
Lucifer shuffled uncomfortably. "In the Meadow of the Last Age, Father."
Trixie's expression melted to a soft smile. "Awww. That's a good spot. You and Amenadiel spent a lot of time there when the universe was young."
He sighed, and nodded quietly. It was one of his favorite places. Or had been. He'd not been back since returning to heaven, having no desire to see his corpse lying in the midst of it.
"Come then, Sammy."
She lifted her hand, and he took it, and the world shimmered about them.
Light flooded his dead senses then, a shifting kaleidoscope of greens, purples and reds - patterns falling through the undulating leaves of the crystalline trees around a meadow of tall, multi-faceted grasses.
"Oh, Sammy," Trixie whispered, her young voice on the edge of breaking. "There you are."
The grasses chimed and swayed about them, leading their eyes to the raised platform of red stone at its center. Lights sparkled about the platform and the body that lay there, utterly white and still.
A few souls drifted by, curious, their star forms shimmering to and around the body.
"Yeah, have a good gawk, why don't you!" Lucifer yelled, a part of him in such deep anguish he could barely keep from crying.
Trixie stepped reverently towards the platform of stone.
The sight was not a welcome one, but he moved forward to follow, avoiding looking at the body until they stood only feet away.
There was no corruption in Heaven, so he was as he had been on Earth - his face battered and broken, a small hole in his chest. Everything else had been cleaned though - the dirt from the Guardian's efforts, the grit and sand from the riverbank and his fall.
The robe he'd been given at his making, worn before he'd rebelled, was folded neatly at his feet, and a white cloth draped over his pelvis.
A crystal flower lay against his chest.
His brother had been so kind with this, that it hurt all the more.
Trixie moved forward with a choked cry and wrapped her arms around his body's head and chest.
"I'm so sorry, Sammy," she murmured, resting her forehead against the corpse's cheek as she started to cry. "I'm so sorry."
Lucifer frowned, his own mimicked throat growing tight. But he gave a small wave. I'm still here, Dad.
The lack of a true voice made him look down. He was his normal dead self again. No longer a boy.
"My son," she whispered, stroking the side of this face that had been so wounded by Remiel. "Look what they did to you."
Lucifer sighed, not wanting any of this. Hurry up and heal that thing, stitch us together again, and I'll do my best to save the day.
Trixie had gathered the body's hand in her own and was holding it against her cheek. She did not turn to look at him.
"It's not that simple, Sammy."
He frowned, not liking the sound of that at all.
What do you mean, it's not that simple? You did it for Lazarus?
"Lazarus' path was still within my reality, son. His scroll held the nature of his resurrection. Yours does not."
Then change the scroll, Dad!
Trixie turned to him, bereft.
"I can't." Her eyes swam with tears as she lowered her gaze. "I have to write a new one."
Lucifer blinked and took a step back.
What?
Swallowing against her tears, Trixie grasped the corpse's hand again. "I have to destroy your scroll and create a new one." Her gaze finally rose to him. "I have to remake you, Samael."
But, he whispered, that means that will I cease to exist...
She nodded slowly, her gaze falling to the corpse again. "For a moment, yes. Then you'll be reborn."
But I won't remember who I AM, Father! I won't be ME anymore! Horrified, he took another step back. You would undo me, Father?
"Son, you've already been undone," Trixie sobbed. "Your kind were never meant to die. And your soul will not last, untethered from your scroll. From me. You will weaken. You will fade. You will cease to exist over time no matter what I do." Weeping openly, she held the corpse's hand with a white-knuckled grip. "Most of you is here, son. I've already lost you."
No, he said, shaken to his core.
He turned and started to walk away, the view of the trees wavering through his mimicked tears. No.
He could not, and would not believe this.
"Goodbye, son," Trixie whispered behind him.
Lucifer ran, the memory of a heart thudding in his chest, remembering Chloe's face beneath his, smiling up at him as their lips met for a kiss.
I love you, Chloe! Chloe Jane Decker, I lo-
