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Paper-thin skin, white hair, slow breathing. A quiet room, still and calm, blankets soft and warm - serenity for a dying woman. But Chloe’s eyes would always be bright and all too knowing when Rory comes back to her time.
Rory gasps, returning to a chair she didn’t think she would be sitting in again. Just moments before she had both of her parents in her hands, young, together, in love.
And she had just made them promise to not change a thing. Made her father promise to do the one thing she hated him for, all so that she could come right back to this moment. A moment where she knew she was loved and always will be.
But her mom is dying.
And she’s dying without him because of her.
Rory takes up her hand, gentle, the weight of it no more than a feather.
“Mom…”
Chloe smiles, wrinkles abound, and squeezes Rory’s hand. “He’s not half bad, is he?”
“I- how did you do it? How did you keep it inside? The promise I made him make, I made you both make… how did you keep it? I should’ve just left, I should’ve let you both let me go-"
Furrowed eyebrows and a frown is her mother’s immediate response. “No, Rory. No. We would have never let you go, whether you asked us or not. We knew what the weight of that promise meant, but it was a burden we chose to bear.” And then she softens. “But it didn’t mean we couldn't bend the rules a bit.”
Confused, Rory tilts her head. “What-"
Chloe smiles, coy, and takes her hand back to point at the desk beside her. “There’s a photo album in the bottom drawer. Could you bring it here, please?”
Rory walks over, opens the drawer, and pulls out a large, white album with intricate, patterned lining. The edges of it are worn, as though it’s been held thousands of times.
She takes it back to her mom and places it in her outstretched hands before taking her seat again.
Chloe runs her hand along the edges and detailed patterns, soft and slow. And then she opens the first page and hands the open album back to Rory.
And Rory can’t help the gasp that leaves her. A polaroid stares back at her with an image she never thought she would get to see. It’s her dad. And he’s holding her with a soft smile and warm eyes as he looks down at her cradled in his arms.
Rory snaps her head up, staring at her mom. “How...”
Chloe sighs, wiping away a loose tear. “After you left, it didn’t take very long to send him on his way, too. It hurt too much to pretend he didn’t have to go, so we said our goodbyes as well as we could, and off he went to heal Hell.”
And then she laughs. “But it turns out your father was never very good at sticking to a plan unless it involved million-dollar pranks. About two days later he was back saying he forgot to bring his favorite whiskey with him, but we both knew better. Oh, you should have heard the grief I gave him, but I was just as happy to have him back. Of course, he did have to go again, more teary goodbyes, ‘This time it’s for real ,’ but then another week passed and he was back again, worried that he didn’t buy enough blankets and toys for you.”
Chloe sighs, chest heavy. “It was then that we realized that staying apart was never going to work. He’d pop back up, always some important reason or crazy idea that wasn’t all that important after all, and we both knew that we needed to figure out a better way to go about our promise. So we decided on planned trips, making sure he was there for milestones, and knowing when and where he’d fly up out of the blue.”
Chloe reaches her hand out and rests it on the picture of him holding Rory as a baby.
“He was so scared to hold you that first time. Not for any time continuum reasons, we both knew you wouldn’t remember, but he was terrified that he wouldn’t hold you right, that you wouldn’t like him. All kinds of silly reasons. I remember how he was so amazed, amazed at how tiny babies can be, and how gentle he was when I finally put you in his arms. He held you for hours like that. And you slept the whole time, something I could’ve killed him for because you never slept like that for me.”
Rory laughs, tears rolling down her cheeks. And then her mom tells her to turn the page.
And there’s more.
Birthdays, holidays, so many moments she thought he missed, all the way to her becoming a toddler. He was there, smiling wide, loving her, holding her. Pictures of them together, including Trixie.
“T knew, too?”
Chloe lets a snort out, the memory of Trixie finding out still sharp in her mind. “Your dad may or may not have flown back right in the middle of her having waterworks over a failed science experiment and we knew then if he was going to keep coming around, she’d have to know too. Your sister is a wise one, though. Apparently, she had always known.”
There’s a picture of Christmas, presents piled high, and Rory smiles. Instead of playing with her toys, she’s in the biggest box, all grins. Lucifer is kneeling next to her and holding her, helping her stand in it. She almost feels like she can remember his hands on hers, warm, strong. The tears fall easily now, knowing that was probably the last time he got to hold her.
As she keeps turning the pages, the time between pictures grows distant. A fact of her growing older. A fact of her being able to remember him, something that could never happen.
In the spaces between her life, there were pictures of her mom and him back at the beach where they had all been just days before for Rory. And in those pictures, she knew her dad was right. Smiling, at peace, her mom looked more like an angel than either of them.
Some pictures were goofy, candid shots of her, ones where Lucifer is just out of sight as her mom snapped a picture. One is from her first prom and Rory remembers how excited her mom was, giving her rainbow flowers before Rory even told her she liked girls. It’s a picture of her outside, getting picked up by a girl she had just figured out she had a crush on, and just inside the door is Lucifer giving two thumbs up to the camera.
Right after, there’s another one that’s just a blur of him as it looks like he’s being shoved into a closet. Rory looks up and asks about it.
Chloe laughs. “Oh, that was one of his impromptu visits. He had flown into the house and thought you were at school, but you had been home, sick, and were sleeping on the couch. He thought it was a brilliant idea to steal my camera and take a selfie to commemorate the first angel with a cold, but then you woke up and I had to shove him in the pantry.”
Rory sniffles and gives a low laugh. “So that’s what happened to all of my Oreos.”
Chloe sighs. “And the honey… And the jelly beans! He always did have a sweet tooth.”
Rory turns the page and it's her sixteenth birthday. The year her mom gave her the Corvette.
“He wanted you to have it. You scared the hell out of him when you drove it before, but he’d never heard the car run as well as it did in your hands. He wanted you to be able to smile in it, to make your own happy memories… That was one of the closest times he got to revealing himself, when you got stuck between third and fourth. He wanted more than anything to just go out and show you how to run it, but he knew he couldn’t.” She gives a quiet laugh as she thinks about another gift. “That’s why the next year he got you Noodles.”
Rory nearly drops the album. “Noodles is from dad?”
Chloe snickers. “He’s an old friend of your dad’s actually. He couldn’t believe you named him that either. Noodles, the famed, immortal snake from the Garden of Eden. It absolutely killed him hearing that, he thought you’d pick something ancient and I don't know, heavy metal? But he knew he’d help keep an eye on you. Well, as well as a snake can.”
Rory can’t help how wide her eyes go. She always wondered how in the world he was still alive. She knew pythons could live a long time, but it’s been almost twenty years and he was by no means a young snake when she got him.
She looks down at the album, a book full of stories and memories just outside of her world, photos that told her how much she was loved.
He was there.
He was always there.
And even though she was so angry with him, he never stopped being there for her.
She closes the album, quiet.
“Mom, I’m so sorry I’m the reason he isn’t here right now.”
Chloe hums a soft tune. And then she says, with a glint in her eye, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I think there’s someone at the door, dear.”
Rory looks up, confused. “Mom, what are-” and then she’s cut off by a doorbell.
She stares at her mom, who gives her a knowing smile. Rory places the album down and walks over to the front door, heart beating hard against her chest. And when she opens it, it’s as though the entire world falls into place.
At the doorstep is Trixie, gray-haired, bespeckled, and smiling as wide as ever. And stepping from behind her, wings closing, is an angel. One she had just left not moments ago.
His beard is no longer a well-groomed cut, fuzzy and peppered with white, and he has laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. It’s an angel who’s self-actualized aging, choosing to grow old with the love of his life. And with a soft, emotion-struck voice, he says, “Hello, Aurora.”
She was never one for hugging, something she thinks she got from him, but she can’t help herself from launching into his arms, nearly toppling him over. Sobbing, face pressed into his shoulder, and arms wrapped tight around the back of his neck, she whispers, “Dad.”
Lucifer breathes out a sigh of relief and brings his arms up around her, holding her close. Hundreds of thousands of years he waited for this moment, waited to hold his daughter again while he watched her grow up in the world. And now he can finally see her, hold her, love her, without reservation. He kept his promise.
Trixie laughs, tears in her eyes. “It’s good to see you too, Rory.”
Rory turns her head and stares at her. “T, I can’t believe you managed to keep this a secret all this time. You are the worst at hiding literally everything.”
She smiles. “You know, I grew up with Auntie Maze long before you met her. She taught me enough tricks to keep up my sleeve, like where to hide the really good chocolate by letting you find the easy ones.“
Rory laughs, amazed, and extends an arm to pull her into the hug with Lucifer. And they stand there for a long while, letting Rory finish out her sniffles.
Calm, breathing with an ease she didn’t think she could ever know, she finally steps away, rubbing at her eyes, mascara a mess. “I have so many questions.”
Lucifer looks at her, gentle and warm. “I know, my love.” He holds out a hand. “Shall we?”
In that moment, fingers outstretched, Rory feels all of time and space align itself in her soul, the world as it should be, and she takes his hand. Together, the three of them walk inside, and there they stay, smiling, laughing, and holding each other, telling their stories, until Chloe falls asleep, surrounded by the loves of her life, for the last time.
Lucifer kisses her hand, tears in his eyes, and whispers, “Sleep well, Detective. I’ll see you soon.”
And in that love, in that peace, Chloe can let go, a promise kept.