Much to Hilda's dread and Zelda's morbid amusement, Ambrose discovered early on that the quickest way to calm a certain fussy toddler (outside of herb-infused potions and silencing spells) was by sitting her in front of the telly to watch hours upon hours of gore-filled horror films. (Rosemary's Baby was a particular favorite, though Sabrina never realized the irony until much, much later). As she grew older, the fascination carried into weekly cinema trips and an affinity for Dr. Cerberus' shop. It was not so much the excessive blood and butchered flesh that lured her in, but rather, it was the chase, the will-this-screaming-blonde-die-yet thrill that kept her coming back each time. Above all that, though, the greatest thing about horror was the suspense.

As Sabrina sat with baited breath for whatever the club owner had to say (it could have been anything, really, from her father escaping hell to never having been there at all), she might as well have been in a horror movie of her own design, and for the first time in a long while, the fear threatening to clench her insides was more real than she ever felt. (Can the screaming blonde still die when angels themselves couldn't kill her for more than five seconds?)

Every passing breath stretched and lingered and dwelled, until she felt like an hourglass on the verge of tipping over. All the while, the man in front of her couldn't even meet her eyes, a wistful, almost bittersweet look on his face as he stared ahead, unseeing. Had she been younger and kinder (and slightly less traumatized), she would have asked him about his troubles and offered to fix them, herself. But nowadays, sixteen was no longer young, Sabrina Spellman (Mornigstar) was no longer kind, and trauma came as easily as dawn.

Waiting was a losing game, and she intended to win.

"You were saying something. About my father," she urged, meeting his gaze and refusing to break contact the moment he snapped back from his thoughts. He had her on the hook now, and he will not shake her away, not until the suspense felt less like a pounding drum and more like the comfort it used to be.

The mirthless smile that she received in response was a weak attempt at solace that she was far too used to at that point. (She first saw it when Hilda told her about the plane crash; since then, that smile never made its way out of her life). "Yes, I do believe I owe you an explanation. Before that, though," he sent a look her way, plaintive and familiar, and she felt haunted by something bigger than herself. "Whatever happened to that cat of yours?"

Sabrina blinked once, twice, then several times over. "I'm sorry, are-" She shook her head in disbelief, confusion clouding her thoughts. "Are you talking about Salem?"

Lucifer almost smiled (of course she would name her familiar over a witch massacre). "Black fur, easily enraged?" He saw the disturbed bewilderment on her face and let out a slight chuckle. "I could go on and on if you'd like, but it seems we're already on the same page."

"How did you-"

"Granted, if I had my way, you'd be better off with one of the hellhounds for a familiar. But Maze put up a fight, said I had to be more subtle with these things. Of course, that was rich, coming from her-"

Sabrina held up a finger, the beginnings of a headache hammering clear against her skull. Chalk it to confusion, insanity, or whatever else was ripping her evening apart much like a sixteen year old band-aid, but at that moment, the only reprieve she could find laid waiting at the bottom of her whiskey glass. With not so much as a second thought, she tipped it back with eyes closed. (If this rambling was to go on for the rest of the night, she needed far more than willpower to keep her heart from imploding by the apprehension alone). "I realize that you're trying to tell me something important, but if it's gonna take a few more minutes of this before you get to the point, I'd really like to know beforehand so I can refill my drink."

Lucifer almost bristled at the notion of anyone breaking a deal with the devil (she had, after all, only promised to have one glass when the evening started). Still, he couldn't hold her to it. To be fair, he was probably the root of her debauchery and disobedience in the first place (turns out the forbidden fruit doesn't fall that far from the tree).

"Right," Lucifer sighed, shaking away whatever remained of his haphazard thoughts. (He had the chance to bide his time, all of sixteen years to be exact. Now there was nothing left but the truth, and his own pride and fear be damned, he will not keep it from her any longer.) "I apologize. My therapist says I tend to ramble when I'm trying to deflect painful conversation-"

Sabrina raised a brow. "You have a therapist?"

"Stay with me here, darling," he intoned, holding both hands up in an effort to stop her from straying off course. "I promise there's a point to all this, and I'm getting to it."

She merely shrugged in response and gestured for him to go on.

"Thank you." Lucifer nodded. "As I was saying, this bit of news I'm about to tell you is painful and difficult to admit out loud, but it's long overdue, and you deserve to know."

He looked at her then, at her eyes that would inevitably well up, at her mouth that would tremble and swear and curse at the father that left her. But in that moment, all he saw was Diana's innocence in her doe-like gaze, Zelda's steel in her hardened jaw, and Hilda's gentleness in her upturned fingers, clasped almost in prayer as she hoped for the worst to be over. There was no doubt about it; his fears were unfounded. (Perhaps he had it right the first time. Maybe she would be okay, after all.)

Lucifer took a deep breath. (This. This was the moment that was both dream and nightmare alike. Since she was born, there was always a hidden need at the back of his mind that wanted her to know, "You are my daughter. My flesh and blood, my pride and joy, my beginning and undoing. You are the greatest light I have ever made." The same way, he found himself held back time and time again by the silent truth, ringing clear against his ears, that all light is consumed by darkness, and more often than not, the empty void left behind is by his own doing.)

He cleared his throat. "It all started with a favor."

Free will. It was the one thing his faith was built on. And in the beginning, when all that people desired was power and immortality, that's when the first breed of witches was blessed by his hands. Magic was the only gift he ever gave them, after all. Whatever empires and revolutions they built from it was entirely of their own choice. Little did he know he'd come to regret such choices, himself.

"It was fun at first. They were praising me, building churches in my honor." He smiled bitterly at his own misplaced vanity. "I felt like I was no less than Father, himself."

Quickly, though, it would all spiral into madness that even he couldn't contain. (The obsession with goats was one thing, but eating each other's flesh, drinking each other's blood, harrowing children and leading virgins to the slaughter; it was horror no different from the deepest bowels of hell). He was displeased, but he could not ask them to change. It would have been hypocrisy to preach freedom and choice, yet ask them to bend to his will (commandments and prophets kept on strings were Father's way, not his). If the Church of Night truly was to be redeemed, it should have been of their own volition, of their own need to correct their errors. Unfortunately, every High Priest and Anti-Pope that coveted the seat of power inched the covens closer to damnation more and more each time.

Then along came Edward Spellman.

Lucifer almost seethed at the name, but held himself back. (That man had his poison, and now he was dead along with it). "This new priest, he was young, idealistic, powerful. He had all the makings to be different than the rest of them. After all, he had the one thing that would forever set him apart from all the witches and warlocks that ever walked the earth." He closed his eyes, tasted an all-too-familiar remorse on his tongue. "He had Diana."

Sabrina's heart lurched at the mention of her mother, but she steeled her insides before she could break. (She had questions, and doubts, and fears – too many to be exact – but she could not speak them now. If she did, they would never stop, and the man who seemingly had all the answers would never get the chance to finish). He looked at her, concerned, but she merely nodded her head for him to go on.

"I thought, 'Maybe I could get to this one. Maybe he'd be the one to bring change after all these years.' And I was right. The Church was reformed and he did all of it on his own." She caught his gaze just then and was surprised to see his eyes glow red with barely-held venom, no different than hers when rage first brought her back to life (Her blood sang to the tune of a new belonging, and it felt right, somehow. She knew who he was, but couldn't admit it out loud).

"I should have known it was for a price, of course." Lucifer scoffed, dark and hollow, disappointed at his own guilelessness. "Always for a price."

With a sharp exhale, he got up from his seat and walked over to the bar, Sabrina's eyes following him with a silent incredulity all the while. He continued his story even as he fixed himself a stronger drink than he would have liked. "A small favor, come to think of it. He asked for a child. He and Diana were trying for years, but no spell or potion could give them what they wanted. I thought it simple enough. I mean, Father sent my brothers to bless humans with children all the time."

His face soured as he emptied the glass in one gulp.

"It wasn't like that, though." He had a grim look to him as he sank back down to his seat across from her. "I soon realized that I didn't have the same gifts as Amenadiel. I couldn't channel the divine light of life the way he could. But…Edward was relentless, and I was, too. After all, the Devil never left a favor ungranted. So in the end, I did give him a child."

Sabrina held her breath as the next words were softly uttered from his mouth.

"I gave him mine."

Slowly, tears prickled at her eyes and she stood, affronted. She was out of air, out of words, but the room felt like a box that closed in more and more with every passing second, and she couldn't take it any longer. "So you're my father, is that what you're trying to say?" She inched closer, and though it escaped her, the light fixtures swung from overhead and the walls trembled and shook with every step forward. "That I've been lied to and deceived more than I thought?"

"Child, calm yourself." Lucifer grabbed ahold of her shoulders when she stopped in front of him, but she only wriggled free from his grasp. Bottles behind the bar began falling off the shelves and the whole penthouse was filled with the violent cacophony of shattering glass and harsh winds whipping through the heavy drapes.

Sabrina chuckled humourlessly. "Calm myself?" (As much as she didn't want to believe his words, everything about him, from his wry smile to his blazing eyes, was familiar. Though they'd just met, he was no stranger to her, and her own wry smile and blazing eyes knew why). "This isn't the first time I heard all this, you know. You're about the second Lucifer Morningstar to come up to me and call me his daughter. Knowing this, how do you expect me to feel after everything? And don't you dare say calm."

For a moment, Lucifer lost focus on his rage-filled child and the apartment torn into disarray before him. (No one was supposed to know about Sabrina's satanic nature. The truth was supposed to die along with Edward and Diana all those years ago. But to hear that an imposter took both his name and his greatest secret set him on edge). He drew in a long breath, steadied himself. (One at a time, Linda would say. One at a time). "You can't go around listening to every stranger that comes barging into your life."

"Right, but I should listen to you, is that it?" She looked at him sharply, and if given a choice, she would have done so for hours upon hours, but she soon found that she couldn't hold her anger for much longer. (Twice. Two times she was fooled about her parentage, and the first instance, she held onto her wrath as it twisted and coiled within her until she was on the verge of collapse. Now, as tempting as it was to allow the red heat of rage to carry her from one disaster to the next, her temper seeped out of her in stubborn flashes, leaving nothing but a tired, beaten-down girl who just wanted a father who wouldn't leave this time around).

Sabrina looked at him, his calloused fingers, his grief-stricken eyes, and wondered how things would have worked out had he stayed (Would those fingers have tucked her in at night, drove her to school, taught her to dance in her pyjamas? Would those eyes have lit up at the sight of her each morning?) She shook the thought away with a shuddering exhale. It wasn't much use mulling it over. It only mattered whether he stayed or not, and they both knew which one he chose.

"I-I can't do this." She wiped at her eyes and turned her back on him, and all at once, the room stopped shaking and the only thing that lingered in the air was silence. (She came to terms long ago that she was the Devil's daughter. It was nothing new, nothing earth-shattering. What surprised her, however, was that the Devil was gentle and sullen and sad, and she wished she had known sooner, because maybe she would have turned out a lot better if he was the one who showed up at Greendale instead of the sadistic, goat-headed asshole that wanted to marry her). "This is too much right now. I have to go."

With a flick of the wrist, her bags were back in her hands and she was already halfway across the room. (If she stayed there a moment longer, she feared that she would have embraced him, accepted him, forgiven him. Not that he deserved it – he still abandoned her, after all – but at that moment, she was so achingly desperate for a friend, let alone a father, that she probably wouldn't have given it much thought. She could only imagine the way Zelda would look down on the pitiful, pathetic mess loneliness turned her into).

She needed to leave before she became somebody she would regret.

"Sabrina, wait." Lucifer understood her need to escape, to run away just like she did before (still a runner, no doubt). He didn't plan on stopping her. After everything that's been said and done, however, he couldn't let her slip through his grasp again without hearing the words he should have said a long time ago. "You're my daughter, and I...I never should have walked away from you. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I never left. I hope you know that."

Conflicted, she glanced back at him, torn between empathy and anger. Eventually, she settled on a silent disappointment, instead. "No," she uttered with a shake of her head. "No, I don't."

With one last lingering look, she shut the door behind her, and the only thing left of her presence was the wrecked penthouse and her newly-found father, standing exhausted in the middle of it all.

Stepping over the broken glass and downturned furniture, Lucifer made his way to the bar and picked up the nearest bottle he could find intact. As he set it down on the countertop and screwed the cap loose with one hand, he scrolled through his phone with the other, raising it to his ear as it started to ring.

"Mazikeen," he breathed, chasing the greeting away with a swig of alcohol. "I need your help."