Cassie and Azazeal arrived to an empty church and smiled at each other over how quiet it was, but were soon joined by Elizabeth, Lucifer, Sara, and Luke and eventually Malachi as well. Azazeal immediately noticed that Sara and Luke had arrived hand in hand, but as soon as Sara saw her father and mother she disengaged her hand and ran over to them. Sara was now her full age and was quite a lovely woman.
"Do you have fun?" she asked.
"Yes, but it's good to be home. What have you been up to?" Cassie said.
"Horses, Luke, you know, lots of mischief. But I'm so glad you both are back!"
Azazeal frowned slightly at the mention of Luke but it was more of an automatic reaction than anything against the boy, who he hadn't seen since he was little. Luke, who now appeared to be a young man in his early teens, had already been stolen away by Malachi. The two of them appeared to be good friends as well, but you could tell that Malachi was still the most trouble.
Cassie and Elizabeth greeted each other happily and were both really looking forward to a private talk. Elizabeth felt that they should leave them alone, but Cassie insisted that they all stay because the sooner she could talk to Elizabeth the better she would feel.
Sara had bounded off to join Malachi and Luke, and Lucifer and Azazeal had moved off a little and to have their own conversation when Elizabeth said, "Okay, so you'll have to tell me everything immediately. I just can't wait."
"Oh, of course, but first I want to thank you for taking care of Sara for so long." Cassie wanted to quickly take care of these pleasantries and get Elizabeth alone.
"Actually, Sara's was really a great help. She's wonderful and very insightful, but I guess that's not a surprise."
"Thank you! And Luke's really grown up now hasn't he!" Cassie said.
"Yes, he's a great kid too. I try not to be surprised by that," Elizabeth said with a wry smile.
"I can see he's going to be handsome too."
"Well," Elizabeth replied, "I just realized…and I say this to you only because Azazeal's completely gorgeous, I mean look at him, but okay...Lucifer's body is…" and here she made an 'oh my god' face, "exactly what you'd expect God's favorite angel to be like, so if Luke has even half of that, all the women of the world are in trouble." And they both laughed.
Having heard the last bit of their conversation, Lucifer turned to them and said, "Are you talking about my son?" he said, amused.
"As it so happens, yes," Cassie responded.
"It won't be long now before I'll teach him all about you women," Lucifer said smugly.
"I just hope that doesn't entail prostitutes," Elizabeth said, knowing him too well.
"Come on, the best of them have a lot of knowledge to share. And despite what humans seem to think, sex is not an experience that should be fumbled into with no direction," he said as if he were making a pronouncement on our entire socio-sexual system.
"Once he knows a thing or two," Lucifer continued, "We can unleash him on all those beautiful women out there."
"Just the beautiful ones?" Cassie said slightly offended for all women kind.
Lucifer gave her an honestly annoyed and insulted look, "They're all beautiful."
Cassie could never understand his random opinions, but she glanced at Elizabeth who told her with one look that somehow all this made perfect sense in his world.
"How did we get on this topic?" Elizabeth said.
Lucifer, noticing the slightest hint of irritation in Elizabeth's voice, moved over to her, leaned down and, so close that she could feel this lips moving against her ear, he whispered, "Don't be jealous. You know I serve only you." He said this with such a mixture of amusement, sensuality, and sincerity that made her smile, blush and glance up at him quickly. His eyes lingered on her face for a few more seconds before he turned back to Cassie and Azazeal. Cassie had noticed Elizabeth's reaction but couldn't imagine what he could have said to make her blush. They were different she could tell and somehow she felt they'd discovered something while she and Azazael had been gone.
"Well, Elizabeth has kindly agreed to help me get our stuff settled, so we're leaving you boys to yourselves." Cassie announced. Elizabeth did not contradict her, of course, knowing that this was just an excuse to get some time alone.
"First, I have a problem."
"Uh, you're supposed to take a vacation to get away from your problems, not to come back with one."
"I know," Cassie said, "But here it is, Azazeal told me that he could make me immortal."
"He can do that? That's great, but I can see the dilemma."
"Well, apparently he can…unfortunately, that's not really the problem."
"Alright…"
"He just announced this to me like he was doing me a favor. He didn't ask me or even pretend to want my opinion and then when I got irritated, he didn't feel it was worthwhile to apologize."
Elizabeth just looked at her for a moment because Cassie had gotten quite worked up in telling this.
"Okay, so I exaggerated a little but that's what happened."
"Well, either he's a jerk or there's something keeping him from just asking you…and I don't think he's a jerk."
"Me neither. And what's worse is that after all this, I started to worry that he's been manipulating me again, I know it's silly. But I do think he is keeping something about himself from me, do you have that problem with Lucifer?"
"Ha," Elizabeth laughed, "He's not shy, let's put it that way," she said with a little twinkle in her eye and then slight blush again.
Cassie looked disappointed.
"Look it's not fair to compare them. I mean you can, but only to illustrate their differences. Lucifer is literally the poster child for completely out of control, so it's not surprising that he's…more forthcoming…with everything. But you know he comes with his own set of challenges."
"I know."
"Cassie, it really helped me to think of Lucifer in terms of what he must have been like as a real angel, you know. To try to understand why he acts the way he does. It all makes much more sense that way. Of course, there's more information about him out there and he'll also tell me anything I want to know about himself, but I think that if you ask Azazeal, he won't lie to you."
Cassie smiled, "I'll do that. Now…what is up with you and Lucifer?" She said in a tone that indicated that she'd already noticed something.
"Nothing major," Elizabeth said trying to sound dismissive, "We had a rough patch but he apparently stumbled on to some self-control, so we'll see how that goes."
"How did that happen?" Cassie asked, knowing that Elizabeth wasn't being her as open as she generally was.
"I yelled at him about something and he took the hint, I guess."
"But he's different…again!"
"I know," was all Elizabeth would say with a kind of self-conscious look on her face.
"Alright," Lucifer said, flopping down in a chair, "Give me all the juicy details."
"I'm not in the mood," Azazeal replied.
"Not in the mood, come on, if I'd known you'd come back all droopy, I would have told you not to go. What's wrong with you?"
Azazeal didn't respond right away but eventually figured that if anyone could understand his situation it would be Lucifer.
"Cassie is irritated with me because I told her that I would make her immortal."
"How could you possibly get yourself in trouble over that?" Lucifer said, honestly shocked at how Azazeal could have managed that.
"Because I told her, I didn't ask her."
"Ah, well that's women for you. But that's easy enough to fix."
Azazeal just looked at him annoyed.
"But you didn't fix it. What are you thinking?"
Azazeal was regretting his decision to talk to Lucifer but it was too late to turn back now so he said, "What if she rejects me?"
"Are you serious?…You're serious! I don't believe you!"
Azazeal was getting angry now and his body tensed as if ready to attack Lucifer.
"And what would you do, great Morning Star, if Elizabeth rejected you?" Azazeal said hoping to get at Lucifer with this thought.
"She has, my boy, more than once and for various reasons," he chuckled a little as he said this.
"And what did you do?" Azazeal asked, now less angry and interested in his opinion again.
Lucifer looked at him like he was being the densest person he'd ever met, "I did whatever it took, Azazeal…I love her."
After a long pause, Azazeal asked in a low voice, "And if you lost her, if she was taken from you?"
Lucifer looked at him furiously, outraged that he would ask such a question out loud considering the dream they had shared, but answered angrily, "I would spend the rest eternity suffering, in pain, heartbroken…destroyed," he stood and with emotion creeping in his voice he added, "To love her as she deserves, I have accepted that," and he stormed off.
Azazeal considered this, and although Lucifer had always been one to throw himself entirely into everything he did, he was right. Azazeal really already knew that he had to get over this fear of being rejected, but as soon as he'd decided that, he'd remembered that even if Cassie was immortal that didn't mean that God couldn't take her. Of course, leave it to Lucifer to already have an answer for that too, even if it wasn't a pleasant one.
"Malachi!" Lucifer yelled and marched over to him.
"I don't know whether to thank you or kill you for getting me into this."
"Into what?"
"I could be fighting a glorious battle or in blissful oblivion, but no, I had to listen to you and your meddling mother."
"Hey, I didn't think you'd ever get close to finding what you were really looking for, so it's got to be worth something that at least you found someone would helps you even a little. And you love her, right?"
"Like you couldn't possibly comprehend," Lucifer responded with a mischievous smile.
"Then what's the problem?"
"You were the only one who knew what I needed, probably better than I did at the time, and you let me try. You can't image what I've been through for that woman and I blame you."
Malachi looked confused for a second and then a smile crept across his face. "You've found it haven't you?" Malachi said, surprised.
Lucifer replied with mock annoyance, "We're close enough…No thanks to you!"
And they both laughed.