Author's Note: A shorter chapter before the epilogue.

Fair warning: this chapter is still unbetaed, and I'm not a native speaker. If you spot any mistakes and/or misspellings, please, let me know.

Chapter 6: Pinkie Promise

The first breath he took was harsh and abrupt and so deep it hurt his lungs – like someone who'd been underwater for too long and was famished for oxygen – and the following ones weren't much easier, to the point it probably qualified more as wheezing than proper breathing.

And with the return of airflow in his lungs, the pain came back, too – biting and unforgiving.

Still, it was way better than the alternative.

And, as he gradually schooled his breathing into a reasonably calmer rhythm, all of his senses kicked back in, and he realized that the child was insistently tugging at his arm, calling his name in a desperate way, verging on hysterical.

"Lucifer!"

"Spawn," he panted, finally looking at her. Her eyes were wide and there were tear tracks on her cheeks, painting clearer lines on her dirt-covered face. She wasn't sitting side by side with him anymore, but crouched in front of him. Why had she moved? Why was she so distraught? Had something happened to her? "Are you alright, Beatrice?" he asked, alarmed.

"You weren't breathing!" she exclaimed in response, and he was fairly sure he could spot a hint of accusation in her voice. "For a long time! You wings went dark and I couldn't…I couldn't find your heartbeat."

Oh. Right.

"I apologize for upsetting you, Beatrice," he said, serious. "It was not my intention – but I was really, really tired."

She sniffed once, one lonely tear making its way down her cheek. "I thought you were dead," she said in a small voice.

Lucifer reached with his right hand and gently wiped the tear away with his thumb. "I'm not."

She was still staring at him, her expression stuck somewhere between unconvinced and terrified and he suddenly knew what he had to do. He moved his wing and struggled to sit upright, a pained grimace slipping on his face against his will, then gestured towards his chest with his hand. "Come here," he said, encouraging her to get closer. "Listen."

And, very slowly, very gently, she complied, careful not to jostle his injured side, until she was almost sitting on his lap, her ear pressed against his chest to listen to the quick thumping of his heart.

"You hear it?" he asked quietly after a while. "I'm not dead."

She nodded once, but her head lingered against his breastbone – as if to ensure the reassuring rhythm wouldn't stop, or perhaps unconsciously trying to pin him down on Earth.

"I'm not going to die," he tried to reassure her, glad he was now able the make the promise – it was something he hadn't been able to afford before. "I assure you they'll dig us both out of here alive."

A beat of silence. Then, she asked in a shy voice, "pinkie promise?"

Lucifer felt a small smile tug at his lips as she extended her smallest finger. "Pinkie promise it is," he solemnly agreed, then promptly mirrored her gesture and interloped his finger with hers. He knew all about this kind of agreement – the urchin had explained him the rules of such an unbreakable vow very thoroughly – and he took the commitment quite seriously, just as much as he would if it had been a blood bond or a handshake deal.

The child kept her little finger hooked to his for a long moment, then, finally satisfied, she let go and he felt her relax minutely against him, her ear no more pressed against his chest. She didn't move away though – if anything, she settled in his lap in a more comfortable position, her good hand snaking again around his waist to grip a handful of his shirt. She had clearly no intention to let go – or disentangle herself from his body.

Oh, well, so be it...

"Just this once, Urchin," he grumbled with a resigned sigh, his right arm encircling her smaller frame. And while he would never admit it out loud, it wasn't that bad. The child was pleasantly warm against his chilled body, the weight nested on his chest somehow grounding and reassuring. A bit clingy, mind you, and his clothes were probably creased beyond repair thanks to her grabby hands, but given the extreme circumstances he could just as well tough it out. Just this once, clearly.

"You know," she said after a while, the fingers of her good hand momentarily ceasing their assault to his shirt and reaching hesitantly instead to gently card through his feathers, "your wings are even prettier now."

Lucifer frowned, unsure of what she meant, and only after a more attentive glance at the limb she was touching did he understand. She was right – well, mostly right, for he wouldn't have been caught dead describing them as pretty. Anyway, they did look better than before. While the rest of his body hadn't improved much since before dying – well, apart from the whole not-being-dead-anymore thing – the same couldn't be said for the wings. The feathers appeared to be definitely brighter; they looked exactly how the feathers of the Lightbringer were supposed to be. How they used to be.

So bright, in facts, that their cozy little shelter was floodlit, bathed in a warm golden-white glow.

Courtesy of the old man, no doubt – but whether it was the umpteenth attempt at manipulating him, or just a complimentary gift was yet to be seen. Yet, for once, Lucifer wasn't about to complain. Just this once.

They stayed like that, listening to the noises from the outside getting closer and closer, until they suddenly stopped.

"Beatrice? Mr. Morningstar?" A disembodied male voice came from the other side of the debris wall, rather close. "Can you hear us?"

Lucifer was about to shout back in response, but the child beat him to it – and it was perhaps for the better, since he didn't have air to spare.

"Yes! We're here!"

"We're going to dig you out very soon – we're almost there," the man went on. "I'll need you to keep talking to me, to help us determine your exact location, so we'll be quicker to get to you and it'll be safer. Can you do it?"

"Sure," Trixie said, and readily answered all the questions the man asked – about their injuries, their current position, and what kind of medical attention they needed and so on.

Lucifer was just vaguely aware of the following conversation: head tilted back to rest against the wall, he only half-listened as the rescuers explained how they would proceed to free them, content enough to know that their inconvenient predicament was going to end soon.

And at last, the first ray of light seeped through a crack in the debris – a sharp shaft of brightness, cutting through the dusty air of their foxhole – quickly followed by another one, and then another one. Specks of dust danced lazily in the growingly larger beam of light, and Lucifer knew it was time to hide his wings.

With one last effort and without even raising his head, for he was too weak to do so, he folded the limbs away, his arm tightening minutely around the urchin's frame in a reassuring gesture as their ethereal glow disappeared from sight, earthly, mundane light from the outside taking its place, as the rescuers dug their way through.

Father had kept His part of the deal. Someday, it would be Lucifer's turn.