Lilith didn't know what to think. As she walked through the field she struggled to comprehend what she'd just seen: Stanley had knocked a man unconscious with only two fingers? For stealing an apple? From her? It was weird enough Stanley doing her a favour, but the supernatural powers were another thing entirely. Nothing made any sense. Thoughts and questions were filled her mind as her legs brushed past the bobbing grass stems and were stung by the cold dew drops. Lilith was only carrying one apple basket: Stanley-but-not-Stanley had insisted on taking the other. They had left the confines of the village a while ago and were walking back through the fields towards her house. Although part of her didn't feel at all comfortable letting him anywhere near her home, that was the only place she knew where they could talk in the knowledge they would not be overheard, and he seemed so insistent no one heard them. Like he was worried the trees had ears and a malicious agenda. Every so often on the walk back she would find herself looking at him from the corner of her eye, taking in his body language: the way he walked as if he wasn't used to having legs; the way his eyes darted as if seeing everything for the first time. Everything about him seemed different; new. He definitely didn't seem like Stanley. His voice, his words, his manner were all different. His behaviour was borderline possessed, not to mention his attitude towards her as if she were the most astonishing creation in the world. She'd always thought that boy being nice to her was less likely than a pig growing wings and flying. It wasn't natural. As they neared her house, her suspicions only grew. If she didn't trust him before, recent events made her trust him even less. His explanation better be pretty damn good.

"Please don't be concerned, I have a legitimate explanation for all of this," Stanley was perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair that wasn't much more than a glorified tree stump (woodworking was one of the many skills Lilith was bereft of), his back stiff like the concept of sitting was entirely alien to him.

"You'd better, because what happened back there, that wasn't natural, Stanley," she dropped the apple basket by her feet and stood facing him.

"My name… my name isn't Stanley," he said again. His tone was serious. With a deep breath, he spoke again. "It's Lucifer." Lucifer. What did he mean? She halted the avalanche of questions ready to roll from her lips when he raised his hands defensively. "I know how it sounds, I know, but listen. I'm serious. This body," he looked down at himself, "the body that belonged to- to "Stanley": this is a vessel. It isn't me. I'm just the mind inside it. I need to use a vessel to appear on earth because… let's just say there would be complications otherwise. I'm just using it. Stanley gave me permission to take it over, so that's why I look and sound like him. Theoretically, I could use anyone as a vessel, and in that case I'd look and sound like them. You understand?" The beginnings of a theory began to grow slowly in Lilith's mind, sweeping away the questions one by one. She nodded slowly, and he continued. If this was what she thought it was- if he was what she thought he was… "I came here to look for you, Lilith. To meet you properly. I've known who you are for a long time now and I needed to speak to you; at least once. I didn't mean to make a scene back in the village," he smiled, "well, okay, I might have done… but you get my point. I just wanted to see you." He was trying to sound sincere and casual at the same time, and it wasn't really working for him, but Lilith barely noticed how nervous he was. Everything about this was starting to come together. For the first time in quite some years, a flicker of hope and certainty lit up within her. His eyes were expectant, awaiting her answer,

"You're the one who sent me the apple tree," she breathed. His face lit up at her statement, happiness written all over it, as if simply by recognising him she had granted him the greatest gift imaginable. His reaction confirmed it: this was the person who had helped her, who she'd been talking to like an imaginary friend. She wasn't mad, she wasn't alone, she wasn't seeing things. This 'Lucifer' sitting across from her was proof. She felt unimaginably relived. And happy too, as well as many other things, because why shouldn't she be? After three weeks of uncertainty, she had at least one small truth. "You're the angel."

Lilith didn't know what to feel. She was happy and she was angry and incredibly relieved, and all these emotions seemed to be waging a violent civil war inside her. She had no idea how to react.

"Prove it," she blurted out without thinking. God, she sounded so paranoid. "Prove that what you're telling me is the truth." He looked hurt at that. Not offended, but panicked, like he was suddenly .,in massive danger. He paused, took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eyes.

"When I sent you the tree, the first thing you did was climb. Straight to the top. I think you did it because, if you could feel the branches: that way you knew it wasn't just your imagination. Every day after that you would talk to me- I could hear you, when you prayed to me in your head. I heard everything. About how you needed hope, how you wanted to know that you weren't going mad. Every time you told me you needed a sign I heard you, and I just couldn't leave you waiting- what? What are you doing?" Silent tears had begun to slide down Lilith's cheeks. All that worry and stress of the past few weeks was washed away. He was real. There he was right in front of her telling her he was real, and not only that, telling her the only reason he was there was because she needed him to be. Now she knew she wasn't mad and she knew she wasn't hated by everyone in the universe. All the defensiveness and caution disappeared from her demeanour. Lucifer looked confused. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Lilith smiled "In fact, I'm a lot more 'alright' than I have been in a while. It's just-" she wiped her face with one tattered sleeve of her dress. "It's just a bit much, you know?" She guessed from the look on his face that he didn't know. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you or anything, I guess I'm just overreacting." He didn't seem so concerned anymore now that she'd stopped crying. She took a deep, calming breath, "It's nice to finally meet you."

The smell of wood smoke lay heavily on the house, mingled with the sharp scent of herbs. The second Lilith had mentioned food, Lucifer had practically begged to be allowed to cook. His face was so hopeful and insistent she'd practically had no choice. Now he was kneeling in front of the fireplace with crayfish shells lying in a pile beside him and the meat slowly smoking over the crackling wood. She wondered why he was so eager to help out: first carrying her basket, now making her dinner. No one ever went out of their way to help her. Maybe he just really loved to cook. If so, he cooked amazingly by the smell of those crayfish. And they were almost done… Food was considered a luxury in Lilith's mind, well-cooked food was held in even more reverence. She found herself leaning instinctually towards the smell, anticipating the taste of the smoked meat. Have you got no self control? She was acting like a starved animal. Had she never seen food before or something? Lucifer was probably judging her right now, he probably thought she was some filthy dog begging for scraps. He'd been so charitable as to offer to cook for her and here she was behaving like some uncivilised peasant. And she'd brought it on herself, of course. She was suddenly and acutely aware of every single flaw in her appearance: her dress was muddy and second-hand, her hair was matted and unwashed, the bones of her wrist stuck out, she didn't even own any shoes. Her house was tiny, the little furniture she had was badly made and broken, the floor was uneven, the straw was bursting out of her mattress at the edges, her whole house was falling apart and she looked like a mess and she couldn't survive on her own without bloody divine intervention and she was too skinny and always hungry and she had lived for twenty odd years (plus the ones in the Garden she didn't remember) and all she had to show for it was this sorry mess of an existence and she had no friends and no one even liked her and she was ugly and stupid and useless and she wasn't worth it—

"Supper's ready." She looked up. Lucifer was standing in front of her with a steaming bowl of crayfish in his hands.

The food was delicious. They had dragged two chairs outside to the low grass at the back of the house to eat, Lucifer had started a campfire with the dry logs to ward off the approach of the cold night. Lilith had savoured every bite, and once the bowl was empty of crayfish and sauce they had talked some more. Not serious, like last time. Just chatting. He seemed so interested in the most random of things: the lives of the people in the village, how she'd built her house, how to use a bow and arrow, if the stream flooded when it rained, if she'd ever swum in the lake, what having a cold felt like, and practically anything else you could think of. He asked more questions than a five year old child, and to be honest she found his curiosity kind of endearing.

"So how does all the thread say together?" he asked, cloth being his latest topic of interest.

"Well, it's all loose at the edges, but you fold those bits over and sew them up so it doesn't all come undone." Lilith didn't seem to get tired of explaining. It was strange; she didn't feel so uncomfortable any more. They had been chatting for hours, but she didn't feel awkward at all. She'd stopped thinking about how there was dirt under her nails, or how filthy her feet were from walking barefoot all the time. She wasn't worried about it; about anything. She wasn't questioning herself all the time, she wasn't picking up on all her mistakes. When she'd tripped over her words, they'd laughed about it. Eventually, she realised she was feeling normal. Not 'the-way-she-felt-every-day' normal, but she felt like she was normal. Like there was't anything wrong with her, like she wasn't mad or lonely. Like she wasn't failing at everything, like everyone in the world didn't think she was a freak. She smiled absent-mindedly. Normal felt fantastic. She looked at Lucifer, who was gazing into the glowing embers of the fire, and she somehow knew that the feeling wasn't going to last.

Lilith wondered if angels could cry. Was there ever any need for tears in heaven? She didn't think so. Maybe that was why Lucifer kept staring at her when he thought she couldn't see: he didn't know what sadness looked like, and he was worried there might be something wrong. That would explain it. He'd left a while ago; after night had fallen and the fire died. He said his brothers needed him, something like that. But before he'd gone he'd looked her dead in the eye and told her "I will be coming back." She couldn't tell if that was emotion she heard in his voice or she was just imagining it. After he went Lilith had climbed the apple tree again. Not because of anything that had happened that day, or what she now knew about its origins; but because the branches of that tree had become her safe place, even in the dark, a place where she could relax, or think, or just be. That's what she needed to do just then. Be. Just exist for a bit. Try and process everything. She was thinking about what had happened that day, and she kept coming back to Lucifer: her guardian angel was real, he had come down to earth just to see her, and he'd been sending her miracles for no other obvious reason aside from he thought that she needed him. And he wasn't exactly wrong: Lilith didn't want to think about where she'd be if it weren't for the apple tree. It was hard to imagine it had only been three weeks since everything turned around; only twenty one days since the first miracle. Was it twenty one days ago for him too, or did time pass differently in Heaven? Did he remember it the same way? Was it kept in his memory as the day he had made himself part of her life forever? Probably not. Lilith just realised she sounded like one of the girls from the village: swooning over the first man that turned her head. Hopeless sappy romance was not going to put food on the table (bad analogy, she realised, he actually was putting food on her table). But it was getting late. Now was not the time for reevaluating her life. She wondered if it was possible to fall asleep up here, would the cold be too much when night fell? If she went back to her house, she'd just be confused again. But confusion was better than pneumonia, and there was no way she was going to manage to wrap her head around what had happened, so she regretfully clambered down from the tree and traipsed home. Sleep was pulling at the corners of her mind. Inside, the smell of smoke still lingered in the air; and in her dreams it billowed from a deep red fire raging below her, around her, inside her; consuming the house and everything around it. She woke up in a cold sweat, and the fast-fading memory of happiness.

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