A/N- Hey guys, I hope you have been enjoying this story. I never really bothered to post an author's note because this had originally started out as a one shot, buuuuuuut, the words kept on coming. I feel now that I should inform you that every chapter title is a song used for inspiration of that chapter. I am bringing this to your attention because, for the first time, I am reusing a song. It is a different variation of the original, but I stumbled across it and it fit the scene below so perfectly I had to use it again. Because this chapter is such a prominent moment for this one character, I have notated when you should start the song to fit the mood.

The song of this chapter is "Everything Stays" by PurpleRoselyn on Youtube. Give it a listen.

Enoy~


Deep breath.

Lungs expanded and pulled in the cold morning air, reveling in the oxygen, and contracted, pushing it back out in a foggy cloud that danced through the air before dissipating. Golden eyes watched it disappear absently, mind elsewhere, but attracted to the movement.

Lucifer stood in the wet grass, covered with half frozen droplets of dew, and wiggled his toes thoughtlessly. He wore a black shirt and jeans but no shoes, deciding that it would offer him more connection to the Earth below him, as the few rays of the sun that peeked through the trees slowly rose. Sliding shadows crossed his broad shoulders while his mind pondered over what words to use.

Fists clenched at his sides as he dropped his eyes to the grass below and his shoulders hunched. Eyes squeezed shut against the emotions roiling within his chest along with the freshly supplied oxygen.

He never thought such a day would come. A day where he would reach out, to his own father, and ask for . . . what was he even asking for? Help? No, he decided, he had no right to ask for help when he first needed to beg forgiveness.

The realization left him reeling.

For the first time in a very long time, longer than he could ever remember, he dropped to his knees and lifted his eyes to the skies above. He didn't pay attention to the dew that wet his jeans and pricked his flesh with its cold kiss. Arms rested upon his knees and hands fell between his legs to hang uselessly.

Breath fogged the air before him again as his gazed flickered between the clouds he could see through the canopies of the grand oaks around him.

Somewhere, a bird chirped, joyful of the new morning. But, other than that moment of song, the yard was quiet in the heavy morning. Nothing stirred around him.

"Father . . ."

The word hung in the moist cold air, like the fog of his breath, before it too dissipated.

He clenched his fists again and lowered his face to the ground. It was too much. Everything weighed down upon him like Atlas struggling beneath the world, arms trembling, to hold humanity up. He wondered if this was how Natalie felt.

How could he even begin to ask forgiveness for all that he had done?

"Father," he tried again, "What have I done?"

(((Everything Stays)))

It was a question that had lingered at the back of his mind since the day he had fallen. He had ignored it, refusing to acknowledge it, and danced around it as skillfully as any ballet. But now, now was the time to ask himself, what had he truly done? He could not ignore the lurking wolf within his mind any longer. Its fangs were drawn and hackles raised, ready to pounce as it had been for far too long.

He reached out with his hands, nestling them within the wet grass, and gripped the Earth before him as if he would be ripped away from the ground at any moment.

"I've destroyed everything," his whispered, eyes wide, and grit his teeth against a swell of emotions he was not at all used to. "But you made me this way," he muttered angrily. "Why?"

And then, then he rested his forehead upon the ground as tears of anger and hurt fell to mingle among the dew drops and fresh life of that morning.

It wasn't the time to question his father, he realized, and struggled to let the anger go. That was not why he was reaching out to him that day. He had spent many a night questioning his father before he fell and never received an answer, and he suspected he never would, so what was the point any longer? It was not his place to ask why he had been made the way he had, instead, he realized, he needed to focus on what he did with himself. Heaven was no more, and he now had a future, as questionable as it was. He had asked for a purpose in this new world and it had been granted to him by Natalie herself . . .

Her beautiful soul had stood by his side, fearless of the darkness within, and smiled upon his face so warmly that it brought forth more tears. Thousands of years of pain and anger were erased when she had reached out and touched him, kissed his wounds, and asked him to stand for her. Fangs and blood meant nothing to her, when she herself was a wild garden, and the personification of nature itself.

And he had been allowed to have her. She was God's greatest creation and she had been meant to end up at his side, just as the sun had the moon. Her beauty reflected off his hollowed and beaten soul, and the resulting glow had allowed the world to build itself back up into something new, capable of supporting all life.

His chest hitched, but he refused to let out the sob that wished so dearly to be released.

Forgiveness had been granted the day Natalie McAllister had set foot onto the Earth. New light shone upon all those present when she first opened her eyes and not even the angels themselves had been able to look away. She was light and love and laughter and she had been made to tame the darkness within his soul. Within the world.

She had stood before the wolf and saw it wanting. She had looked beyond the ferocity of its rage and saw it hungry. She had wrapped her arms around it and saw it needing. She had been fearless as it raged against her hold and spilled forth all that she had to offer. And she saw it heal.

The wolf's hackles fell and the fangs retreated behind the softness of love and adoration. And the question of what he had done retreated into his heart and soul and was no more.

"Thank you," he whispered.