Lucifer had been avoiding all of the inhabitants of the hotel. They seemed nice enough, but he was starting to run out of excuses to hold off talking with Charlie. He didn't want to avoid her, he just didn't know what to say. She had cornered him in the kitchen the day after that Roger guy had his freak out and said she wanted to discuss Alastor and his 'sudden' disappearance. That alone was enough to want to brush the whole topic aside, but she had such a hopeful look in her eyes it made him almost fold right then and there. Almost.

He didn't know how, but he was certain she had figured it out, and while normally he would have been so proud of his little girl, he wasn't too eager to confirm her thoughts. Things had been going far too smoothly lately, and it was making him anxious. Something was going to go wrong and when it did it would explode in his face. Something like Heaven finding out. There was no way they would, but surely that was the mess coming his way.

Which is why he was now pressed with his back against his bedroom door holding his breath while someone was knocking aggressively.

"I KNOW you're in there! You can't avoid me forever dad! Either we talk now or I'm just going to tell everyone he's in the mortal-"

The door opened, her fist raised mid knock, a look of shock in her face. She clearly wasn't expecting him to actually open up. He wouldn't have but he didn't want anyone to hear her yelling, even though there was no one else on this floor.

"-realm," she finished quietly, pulling her raised hand back down to her side. There was a moment of silence as she took him in for the first time in two weeks. He knew he must look a mess, being so focused on keeping busy he hadn't slept much or ate really, not that he really needed to. He also couldn't really place the last time he had showered now that he was thinking about it.

He ran a hand through his hair letting out an awkward laugh, unsure of how he was going to fix this. "Hey Char Char."

Her eyes went round, full of concern, her voice dropping to a light whisper, like she was afraid if she spoke too loud he would shatter.

"Hey, dad."

A sad smile breached his lips. Had he really looked that bad? A quick snap of his fingers fixed him up, but it didn't seem to ease any of the awkwardness between them.

He watched as her gaze fell to her feet, hands fidgeting with themselves. It was a trait he too carried. A light warmth slowly started filling his chest. Even her nervous ticks resembled his. It seemed the more he stayed, the more of himself he found in her.

His bottom lip trembled, his body torn between overwhelming love and pride for his daughter, and guilt for purposely avoiding her for so long that things had become awkward between them again. And for what? Keeping her ignorant to events happening in the other realms? He inwardly shook his head.

Maybe it was better if he told her. He was the only one in hell that really knew what was going on, and if something happened to him - if heaven found out- it would be best someone else knew.

"Charlie I-"

"Look dad-"

They both stopped, an awkward smile shared between them. She really was his little girl. He waved her into his room feeling a little better. Once the door was closed he turned to watch her slowly wander deeper into his room, her gaze flicking from duck to duck.

He let out a steadying breath before pushing forward. "I'm sorry Charlie. I've been really busy lately with all-"

"-It's because of Alastor right?"

His gaze was pulled from the floor to her and it felt like he had been struck in the stomach. She was watching him carefully, eyes wide and hopeful. A hand moved to the back of his neck before he relented and told her what he knew she was looking for.

"Yeah it's because of Al."

In seconds Charlie closed the gap between them, her hands taking one of his.

"He's alive right? He didn't actually die?"

The amount of hope in her eyes made his chest hurt. Did she really care for the sinner so much she was worried about his well being? Of course she did. She saw the good in everyone, even in the ones many deemed hopeless. He tried to hold her gaze but he couldn't, shoulders falling in defeat.

"He didn't die, he's alive and well."

Charlie's hands quickly withdrew as she took a few steps back. Her voice cracking under her emotions.

"Why didn't you tell me? Tell anyone? We were ALL mourning his loss." She turned her back to him, arms hugging herself. "He's in the mortal realm isn't he?"

Lucifer reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, to reassure her, but it fell before it reached its destination. He was ruining it all. She would kick him out, not want to see him again. Feeling defeated he moved the small two person table and took a seat, his eyes locked on his hands, now twisting between themselves.

"It's not that simple. There's a lot of things happening right now, things that need to be-"

Her hands slamming down on the other side of the table had him jolting up, meeting her heated gaze.

"So you've been lying about everything?!"

He visibly cringed at her words. "Well no, I haven't really lied about anything just… needed to keep it secret?"

There was a moment of pause before she heavily fell into the seat across from him.

There was a long, well needed silence, the two needing time to gather their thoughts. After a few minutes Charlie broke it.

"Why?"

When she didn't get a response she turned to look at him. "Why is he on earth? You said it wasn't possible."

He never confirmed that was where Alastor was, but there wasn't a point in fighting it now.

"I said it wasn't possible, so I wouldn't have sinners trying to get me to do it. Not really something I want advertised."

She nodded in understanding and a bit of relief washed over him.

"So what happened to his souls?"

"Uhhh, yeah…umm that was me too I guess."

"He made a deal with you right? Traded all of his souls to get access to earth?"

He couldn't hide the grimace. That was probably a better story than the truth, that he had simply gotten angry with the sinner and ripped all of his deals out of him. Necessary, but not in the way it occurred.

Charlie must have seen his face and taken pity on him deciding she didn't need the answers. Instead she asked a little nervously, "Do you know why he wanted to go there? Wait!" Her eyes widened at the sudden realization. "So Alastor really was the one that killed Roger then."

It wasn't a question, and even if it was, he couldn't've really known the answer, though it wasn't hard to imagine that he had. Instead he simply shrugged.

She turned away, humming in thought. Lucifer left her to her thoughts silently hoping she wouldn't press for more information. If it all went well, he wouldn't have to tell her everything.

A sharp gasp and Charlie whirling around to face him again eyes wide and had all his nerves arise again.

"He went to find Ellen. That would mean-"

She left the sentence hanging, eyes wide and looking hopeful again, silently pleading for an answer.

Oh no.

He was about to respond, though he had no idea what was going to tumble out, but a loud pop accompanied with a golden letter stopped him. It seemed to distract Charlie as well. She reached out to grab it, but her hand recoiled a soft hiss escaping her.

"Ow."

Lucifer stood to inspect the letter to find his name scrawled across the front in a cursive he faintly recognized. One thing was for certain, it was a letter from heaven. His stomach dropped as he carefully reached out to grab it.

His eyes quickly scanned the contents and the further he read the more panicked he became. They knew. Of course the contents of the letter didn't actually say so, but how could they not? Why else would they be summoning him to court? He let out a small wheeze in building panic. What was he going to tell them? There was no way they would believe he was doing this for the betterment of the human world. Especially with someone like Alastor being the one walking that plane.

He would be going into this blind, terribly unaware of what they knew. A dangerous game of cloak and dagger. He couldn't give them any more information then they already had, but how was he supposed to do that?

"Dad? What is it?" Charlie moved to read over his shoulder. "Oh! Heaven wants to see you. What about? I thought you weren't allowed up there?"

His eyes never left the letter. "I won't be up there. It'll be a meeting like the one you had with Adam."

"Oh, well that shouldn't be too bad. Is this also about Alastor?"

"I really hope not," he muttered as he quickly moved to his workbench, pushing aside whatever he was last working on.

Charlie followed him, eyes still peering over his shoulder to read the letter. "Well you have a week before the summons, I'm sure it's not that bad. If it was bad they'd summon right away right? I'm sure this is just a small thing. Oh! Can I come? Maybe it's about the hotel!"

The only thing worse than having a court case with heaven was having Charlie there to witness everything going to hell. Definitely not an option.

"Uhh.. I'm afraid I can not bring someone along, it seems to be a private meeting. Sorry kiddo." He hoped his smile was reassuring.

"Oh." Charlie deflated a bit but nodded in understanding. "Yeah it's supposed to be a secret."

She took a few steps back towards the door but hesitated. Her fist clenched, giving her the courage to turn and face him again. "You'll tell me all about it as soon as you can right?"

If things kept going the way he thought they were, it was likely she would be finding out a lot sooner than he hoped. "Of course."

She gave him a small smile before dashing into his arms in a tight hug. "It's okay dad. Alastor likes to keep his cards close to his chest. It makes sense why it all needs to be kept hush. That's just Al, right?"

He was glad she couldn't see the shocked expression on his face. How did he get so lucky to have Charlie for a daughter?

"R-right." He cleared his throat pulling away to give her a smile.

"He followed Ellen to help her get Xander back."

He stuttered, eyes wide unable to fathom how she had put it together so quickly. "I-uh-well I- I mean-"

"It's alright, I understand. I won't say a word."

Before he could even try to dissuade her or maybe fumble through a half hearted lie, she was gone. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, turning back to look at the golden parchment lain on his desk. Well that could have gone worse he supposed.

…

Lucifer clutched an empty folder to his chest as he stood outside of the heaven embassy staring at the door, finding his feet had stopped working. He was screwed. He had a full week to build some sort of case, some sort of defense for his actions, but he had nothing. This was going to be an absolute nightmare.

With stiff steps he managed to force his legs to move forward, slowly one step at a time. Even if he was any good at building a case for himself, he had no idea how he was going to get out of this unscathed.

His hesitant footsteps echoed in the empty lobby, the only proof that he was moving forward, his mind still stuck outside of the embassy.

After signing in he took one more grounding breath reminding himself that the less he spoke the better it would be. I couldn't accidentally let something slip if he didn't speak. His brothers and sister talked a lot anyways, so hopefully they would just come to their own conclusions and he'd just shake or nod along. A foolproof plan.

The first thing he noticed was the lack of others in the mock courtroom. No jury, no audience and no spectators. It struck an eerily similarity to the last time he had been in a heavenly courtroom, the one where he was sentenced to his fall. He swallowed past the lump that had overcome his throat.

His eyes found his family, the one he was banished from. All but his Father.

"Lucifer, glad you could make it."

His gaze darted to Sera, giving her a small nod of acknowledgement before he scanned the faces of his brothers. None of them looked happy to be there. That was something he could relate to, he didn't exactly want to be there either.

"Please take a seat so we can get started." Sera gestured to the desk off to his left. At least this time he got a desk to sit at, last time he was simply chained to the floor.

He plopped down, eyes still scanning his brother's faces. The only one that let some sympathy past their guarded expression was his twin Micheal. He gave him a faint smile, which was returned with a slight tilt of his head.

Sera's voice rose, even though she didn't need to, the emptiness of the room already echoed her voice around.

"It has come to our attention that a demon has made it to the mortal realm, something that only you could have made happen."

He raised his finger to point out that he was not the only one that had that ability, but the words died in his throat realizing all the others that could were sitting in this room and it was very obvious none of them had. By process of elimination he was indeed the only one that would have. Not a great start.

"We have had a number of new souls whispering about a man with demonic blood, meaning this sinner is an even bigger threat to the human world. I'm sure you are familiar with this sinner. Alastor. The one you assured me you would keep a close eye on. Tell me, how did you intend to keep an eye on him in a different realm?"

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was worse than he thought. He knew Alastor was going to cause problems, heck at this point he wasn't even sure if he had found Ellen yet. He obviously killed Roger. How many others had he also killed?

He cleared his throat standing, only to realize he still had the empty folder squeezed against his chest. He quickly fumbled it onto the desk in front of him trying to smooth out the crumpled edges.

"I- well- it's a funny story actually." He cleared his throat again, the room already feeling too warm. He tugged at his collar uncomfortably. "See I was keeping an eye on him but he-"

"Was?" Gabriel quirked his dark brow up into his curly brown hair. "So you stopped? It seems we found our problem. Incompetent as always," he scoffed.

Immediately Lucifer broke his only rule, keeping quiet. Instead, he tried explaining himself. "What? No! I had a small issue with the moral we had in Hell and well one thing led to another and I had to-"

He stopped himself from continuing. He needed to send someone to get their kid. Not something they knew clearly, and he'd be damned if he was going to let that slip. It would make things worse.

"Had to send a demon to the mortal world? Against the charter you signed eons ago assuring you would do no such thing?" Gabriel crossed his arms glaring at him.

"You said this mortal girl made it back the last time we spoke. You allowed this demon to follow her?" Sera was the only one that didn't seem to be glaring daggers at him, but her look wasn't much better.

"Yes, she did make it back to her realm." He had no intention of answering the other half of her question.

There were hushed discussions happening above him, likely his brothers being caught up to Ellen and her appearance in Hell. As far as he knew, only Sera knew.

With the attention temporally off him he fell back into his chair trying to get some air back in lungs, unaware his breathing had become erratic. He just needed to keep himself composed for a little bit longer.

"Married?! That's not possible."

He had almost forgotten about that, it felt like ages ago. He braved a look upward to find Gabreil was red in the face with anger. Micheal was simply shaking his head, likely in disappointment. Raphiel and Uriel remained quiet, simply listening and he wasn't surprised that Remiel looked bored out of his mind. He normally fell asleep during these things.

Lucifer's hands started fiddling with the folder in front of him. Maybe if he stayed quiet they would forget about him, arguing amongst themselves for the whole two hour time slot.

"Lucifer!"

Nope apparently not.

"You joined a mortal with a demon? What were you thinking!?"

Gabriel flew down to be in front of him, his height causing him to tower over the devil.

Lucifer couldn't help but lean back a bit, shrinking away from his brother. "They're in love, a rare thing in Hell. What was I supposed to do?"

"Tell them it wasn't possible. We have no idea what will happen to that human."

Remiel leaned forward, a hand holding his head up. "Well this just got a lot more interesting. Not even I could have seen this coming." A lazy smile curled across his lips, blue eyes going white as he was taken over with a vision. Of what no one would know, but Lucifer could only hope it wasn't related to anything in this trial.

Gabriel rolled his eyes flying back up waiting with the rest, hoping he would have some important insight. "Great, " he mumbled sarcastically.

The room was waiting with bated breaths hoping it wasn't long before Remiel returned to them. Lucifer was hoping for the opposite. The longer he took, the less time on the clock. Of course running the clock wouldn't solve any of this headache but it would give him more time to get his thoughts together, and now that he knew what they knew he could actually build some semblance of a case for himself. Of course he never had such luck.

A gasping breath from Remiel signaled his return to which he leaned back laughing. Apparently he had seen something good in the future. His gaze found Lucifer.

"I suppose it's not surprising to find you're playing with fire Lucifer. Don't worry, I have foreseen good things for you, if everything goes according to plan. I will warn you as I do with all I see visions of, nothing I've seen is set in stone, things are still in play so you still need to tread carefully, as do your friends."

Lucifer starred, mouth agape. Oh, now he was screwed.

Sera was the first to ask. "Remiel, what did you see?"

He gave Lucifer one more look before turning to Sera. "You will all find out in due time, however you should know by now I can not express what I have seen. I'm sure Lucifer knows of what I speak and he is the only one that needs to know for now."

"You can't be serious?" Gabriel tried pushing.

Remiel leaned back, arms crossed in front of him, a smug smirk dancing on his face. "Sera, do continue, we don't want to run out of time now do we?"

Silence filled the room for a long moment, eyes flipping between a smug looking Remiel and and a horrified looking Lucifer.

Lucifer was pretty sure if he wasn't immortal he would have died on the spot from a heart attack. He knew of all his siblings Remiel was the most aloof, but that didn't stop him from enjoying watching as things went to chaos. His reasoning was always 'I see one of many possible outcomes, I can't be correct all the time so why not sit back and watch it all unfold? I either get to be pleasantly surprised or I get to watch as things fall into place to get to what I see.' Long story short, his words of confidence did nothing to ease Lucifer's panic. It seemed he had also caught on to the fact Lucifer was trying to run out the clock.

"Very well," Sera started. " Lucifer, do you deny that you willingly sent a sinner to the mortal realm?"