With six long years and more doubts and heartbreak and wondering in between their first wonderful night and now, Dante finds there's a lot that needs to be said between him and his newly discovered soulmate.

I was cleaning up some previous chapters, and had an idea for an additional scene, so you can consider this canon despite not being in the main fic. Dante centric.

Dante sweeps his hand through his bangs nervously and glances over at Lily as he leads her to a guest room. His soulmate. Lily was his soulmate .

It seemed impossible given how stunning she'd been six years ago, but somehow she seemed to have only gotten even more gorgeous since he last saw her. Though maybe that was just six years of quiet hidden longing talking.

Fuck . He couldn't screw this up. He couldn't. It'd kill him if she left again. Especially since he wasn't absolutely certain why she'd left him the first time. Despite how short their previous acquaintance had been, he'd thought there'd been something special between them. The way they just clicked...

But then he'd woken the next morning to a cold bed and a broken heart. He'd never told anyone, but right up until he realized Marzanna was Lily's child, he'd still gone to that bar every now and then, desperately hoping to run into her again. Well, he'd never told anyone about Lily to begin with, so he wasn't sure if it said much that he never told anyone that he'd looked for her this whole time.

He flicks another nervous glance at her, as they reach the second floor, and he rubs at the back of his neck, "Well. I, uh, I figure you probably want your own space while we figure this whole soulmate thing out, and while we haven't gotten around to adding more guest rooms since Marzanna, Vergil, and my parents moved in, there's still one left." He opens the door in question and turns on the light before gesturing around the interior, "You're, uh, more than welcome to it."

Shit. Fucking shit. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this nervous. Had he ever been this nervous? It felt like his stomach was being slowly tied into a knot.

Lily gives him a quick look, too fast to be readable before she tilts a sad smile at the floor, "Dante. Listen-"

He quickly holds up a hand, "Uh. The majority of the people in this house have enhanced hearing, and just from the tone of your voice this sounds like it might be private."

Her mouth snaps shut and she stares for a minute before nudging him inside the room. He feels a brief surge of panic, but she follows right behind him, closing the door and waving her wand. A faint light flashes over the walls and door, then Lily turns to him, "Silencing spell. You could scream at the top of your lungs and someone with their ear pressed to the door would have no idea."

He hooks his thumbs in his pockets, then changes his mind and crosses his arms, "Handy."

She hums faintly, then turns away as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. He's quickly grateful that his crossed arms hide his hands and the way they clench at the memory of gliding through that ruby red hair. It takes more willpower than he'd like to admit to drag his gaze away from the way it gleams in the dim light.

For a moment the silence stretches between them before Lily almost whispers, "You don't have to keep staring at me like that. I'm not going to disappear."

The clench of his fists tightens, as he glances away. He had been... hovering, ever since he'd met her again at the park, but- "In fairness." He murmurs lowly, "The last time I took my eyes off you for an extended period of time. I woke to find you gone. That you'd left ."

She flinches slightly, "... Yeah. I suppose I deserved that."

He forces himself to let out a carefully measured breath and unclench his hands, "... Why." She lifts her gaze in surprise, "Why did you leave? I thought- I mean, I felt- And I thought you did too- Why , Lily? Was- Was it just all in my head?"

In a breathless confessional whisper, "No. No it wasn't." She looks down, "... Leaving you was one of the hardest things I've ever done."

Something in his chest loosens for the first time in six years, a quiet strain he'd been carrying. Their connection hadn't been all in his head. He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't chased her off.

She hadn't wanted to leave him.

He untenses considerably, "Then why?"

She smiles sadly, "It was someone of a catch twenty-two situation. Dumbledore and Potter... I knew that I couldn't escape them at the time, and the only way out was meeting my soulmate, but I wasn't there in the morning to find out what that feather meant because... Because I just knew that you'd ask me to stay. And I knew I wasn't strong enough to tell you no. I thought... I thought staying would just lead to heartbreak. Though, that was only because I didn't know we were soulmates."

He breathes out slowly, then admits something he wouldn't have ever admitted to any other woman, even the rare few he'd actually had feelings for, "You broke my heart anyway."

She looks up at him with that sad gaze, "... I know. I thought it'd be worse though, if I actually tried to run from them with you, only to be ripped away. And given that I had no clue of what you are and what you do, I was scared of what they'd do to you. That... that was one thing I couldn't bear."

She suddenly moves away, his heart lurches , but she just moves towards the window as she hugs herself, "I told you Marzanna wasn't an accident earlier. When I made up my mind and took the fertility potion, I wasn't expecting to feel any sort of attachment to the father of the child I wanted to have. But then I met you. When... When I woke up. I wanted... I desperately wanted to wake you, to stutter my way through an explanation. With the way we just... clicked, something told me that as crazy as it was given we'd just met, that you'd be in my corner."

One of her hands moves up to stroke his feather in an absent, well practiced move, and he finds himself wondering how many times over the years she'd rubbed at that feather and thought of him. Had she missed him? He was starting to believe that she felt the instant connection from being soulmates as strongly as he did, but she had been under a love potion at the time.

She lifts her head to gaze out the window at the moon, "Back then, I wanted more than anything to stay with you, to run from Potter and Dumbledore. The fact that I knew I was undoubtedly carrying our child only made it harder. I wanted to wake you and tell you everything and ask you to raise our child together."

He squeezes his eyes shut in pain. For a moment, he can see what could have been. That morning beginning not with heartbreak, but with Lily waking him. She would've stuttered out an explanation just as she'd described, and maybe he would've seen it when he first woke, or perhaps during the explanation, but he would've seen the feather and known .

He would've immediately reassured her that he would be by her side, that he'd do everything in his power to help her, to protect her, and he would've ended his reassurance with a grin as he motioned to the feather and said something clichéd about how she was his soulmate after all, not that he hadn't already known from the moment he'd laid eyes on her.

It would've been an exaggeration of course, but he'd have said it in the hopes of making her feel better, since she'd been so amused by his clichés the night before.

Lily would've been surprised and asked him what he was talking about, and he would give his own confession about his heritage and what the feather meant. And Lily would've been ecstatic by the solution to her problems dropping into her lap like that. She'd explain in turn to him how that alone would protect her from the grasp of those bastards. And he'd have been relieved and overjoyed that it would be so easy to get her away from them.

It would've probably been in that moment of joy that she'd have confessed about her little baby plan and how she was pregnant with his child and shyly admit that she knew she was dumping a lot on him, but she wanted to keep their baby, and she wanted to raise it with him.

He'd have been shocked, and nervous, but he'd have known that he was embarking on this incredibly sudden journey to parenthood with Lily, not to mention that he was going to have family again, so he'd have agreed. And Marzanna would have been born and he would've loved and adored her as much as he did now, but from the beginning . Lily would jokingly complain that their baby had her wrapped around her tiny fingers and he'd have happily agreed.

And things wouldn't have been perfect, because life wasn't, especially when you're a Demon Hunter son of the traitor Sparda, but it would have been incredibly close.

He breathes out slowly as the image disappears. His hands clench again as he opens his eyes, "... You robbed me of six years with her."

Her head drops, and fuck , but even in this moment the way the moonlight shines in her hair is mesmerizing . It's good, then, that her voice is equally as beautiful, or he might've missed her quietly admitting, "Yes, I did."

He looks down. He had only had his daughter for a few months, but he already loved her so much . He remembered, on that wretched night so many years ago, when his home had been attacked and he had thought he'd lost his family the first time. Vergil had been reading in his room, but he'd been with their parents. When his mother had grabbed his hand and dragged him away to hide him, he had looked back, and he had seen his father that had never been anything but gentle to them fighting off a horde of Demons with unbelievable ferocity.

At the time, he had just thought it was because the demons were their enemies. Later as a teenager, his opinion hadn't necessarily changed but he started to put a good portion of it on the fact that his dad was a Devil.

He knew better now. He and Vergil had only been freshly seven at the time, only a few months older than Marzanna was now. And just as she was his baby girl, undoubtedly he and Vergil had been his father's baby boys. It still held true that the demons were their enemies, and certainly his father's Devil blood made him stronger and more suited to battle, but the ferocity he'd seen that night had nothing to do with any of that. It was because he was his father.

He knew in his bones that if history tried to repeat itself, if demons broke in and Lily ran to hide their daughter, and his little girl looked back, she would see that same ferocity reflected through time onto him.

That being said. The past couldn't be undone, and it was pointless to be angry at Lily when she hadn't meant to hurt him. And for all that she'd been carrying his child in her womb, she hadn't necessarily meant to steal his daughter from him either. She had just been doing what she thought was best with a shitty situation with the information she had at the time.

He's drawn from his thoughts by Lily sighing quietly, "And I've seen how much you love her, just in the few hours I've been here. I know there's nothing I could do to get you to forgive me for that-"

"No."

She turns to him in surprise at being cut off, "... No?"

He sighs, "The past can't be undone. Marzanna's here now, and... so are you. That's more than I ever thought to hope for, all these years I've missed you." He drops his own gaze, "Things aren't perfect. Life never is." He looks back up, meeting her eyes, "But if want to make it up to me," He uncrosses his arms and is in front of her in three strides, "Then stay." And for the first time he can remember, his voice cracks, breaks , but he pushes on as he reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear on the opposite side from where she had earlier, "I don't care how you want to go about this. Us. Just stay . Please."

Lily sucks in a sharp breath, then her eyes flutter closed as she reaches up to hold his hand to her face even as she leans into it, "Yes." Her eyes drift half open to gaze at him through her sinfully long lashes, "I said it earlier. I couldn't ever deny you that if you ask."

And he still feels a little unsure. Six years of yearning and heartbreak and doubt lie between now and when they'd made that breathtaking connection, but she was still Lily, and she'd said she'd stay. That's more than enough to help him draw up the 'charming' grin she'd loved so much, "Yeah?"

And a flicker of that old mischievous teasing enters her eyes, "Mm. Yeah. Even if you are going about it wrong. I mean, really , Dante? A guest room ?" Her hands come up to grab his hips and tug him closer, "Do I seem like I want a guest room in your house."

And that. That draws a laugh from him, as he wraps his arms around her waist, draws her that little bit closer, sways with her, "Well, I'm getting older you know, you're supposed to learn manners as you age, not act like a cocky shit."

She grins lightly, "Are you saying you aren't ? Pity, it was one of my favorite parts."

He chuckles as he leans down, "Then you're in luck, I'm absolutely still a cocky shit. I just thought that since I'm getting older, I should maybe try to act like I'm not every now and then."

She starts to meet him, leaning up, "Mm. Don't ."

He hovers just over her lips, wanting to make sure , but before he can ask Lily moves the last few centimeters and presses their lips together. She sighs against his lips, and he brings one hand up to cradle her head.

And he wasn't dumb, he knew they still had a lot to work through together, a lot to talk about, but maybe. Maybe everything really would work out fine. Maybe, this time, they can be happy together.

Despite how things had ended last time, he's certainly willing to try.