It had taken several days, but Sabrina had finally left the bed behind and ventured out into the living room for more than a few minutes at a time. Not that she was doing much besides sitting on the couch and staring blankly at the walls most of the time. Every so often she’d focus in one one of the framed photos that lined the walls or were placed on the various shelves. But she couldn’t handle looking at them and seeing how happy she’d been less than a week before. Not that she could stand the idea of taking them down either.
She hadn’t changed out of the pajamas she’d eventually found herself in--a pair of shorts and one of Nick’s old sweaters. It still smelled like him, though she wasn’t sure how long that scent would actually linger. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, eyes still red from the amount of crying she’d done over the last few days. Every time she’d thought she had no more tears left in her body would show her that wasn’t the case.
Nearly every one of her animals was in the area with her, leaving barely any floor space available. Nick would have complained, reminding her that the apartment was too small for all of the hellhounds, cats and the wolf. Maybe that was why she’d not told them all to leave, some small part of her hoping that he’d somehow walk through the front door again and groan loudly at their presence.
But he wouldn’t because he was gone and he was dead.
She turned when she heard the sound of keys in the door, heart stopping for a moment at the possibility. But it wasn’t Nick that walked through the apartment door. “Hey, dad.”
Lucifer didn’t know the cure for a broken heart nor did he know the words that would soothe the open wound left by the removal of another. Not just any removal but Mr. Scratch going back to the dead. He found the same issue when he tried to speak reassuring words to himself about Chloe’s disappearance but they still felt hollow as he knew they would now. Just because they were all in some form or another back home with said missing loved one didn’t make things better here. A life gone was still a life gone.
Instead he mimicked the humans in his life, the people full of empathy that loved and cared so well for others. Those that knew they could not fix the situation but could help usher the person through the initial days after when the hurt was the worst. He visited the restaurants in the area known for the best soups and bought containers to reheat once he got to the apartment. He also purchased a few sandwiches from Sabrina's favorite places. A bottle of whiskey of course. Food for the animals. Anything he could think of that would be one less thing to worry about.
From what Roz mentioned in the text, he didn’t even know if she would be up and about when he arrived so he tried to be as quiet as possible juggling the cloth bags and the juvenile hellhound on his leash, eager to get in and see the others as well as Sabrina. When Luci Jr spotted Sabrina, he immediately pulled out of Lucifer’s grasp and bounded across the apartment to greet her.
Lucifer set the bags down on the closest surface and turned to Sabrina, striding towards her with arms open, not saying a word.
Sabrina was never going to turn down a hug and let her dad envelope her in his arms, holding on tightly to him. Thankfully her tears really did seem gone for the moment. Which was good because she didn’t think she could handle crying again. She’d done so much of it in the last few days, every little thing setting her off into a sobbing fit, and while she doubted she was done completely with it, she hoped it had lessened a bit.
And then right after hoping that she felt like crap, because was that a betrayal to Nick? Not wanting to cry about his death every other minute? She didn’t really know, having nothing to base this on. Her parents had died when she was a few months old and while she’d known several people who had died over the years, none of them had cut like Nick’s death did and still was. Add into it all that he’d killed himself because of her own sacrifice and there was a layer of guilt associated with it that Sabrina didn’t know how to process.
Sabrina almost welcomed the numbness that was settling into her bones, seeping deep inside of her for a moment before she pulled away from Lucifer and sunk back into the couch. She reached over and scratched Luci Jr behind the ears when he walked over to her before pulling the blanket up around herself.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.” All of her plans had been shattered, broken into pieces that she couldn’t really pick up again and try to fit together again. She’d meant it when she told Roz that she didn’t want to be in Vallo anymore. She didn’t want to be dead back home either though, leaving her stuck in an in between that she had no hope of navigating.
“You give it some time and then you kick yourself in the arse. Not get over it but start moving in a direction,” Lucifer replied as he scooped up the bags to go drop the items in the kitchen. “Not moving on either. Father knows grief isn’t bloody linear and you fall on your face or get sidetracked or just…” He stopped pulling soup containers out of one of the bags to wave his hands in the air. “It’s messy and a pain to deal with but not even celestials escape that.”
He supposed that was where he should say something reassuring but did Sabrina need to hear that right now? Daniel would be better at it than him or Ms. Walker. No, thinking on it, he theorized Ms. Walker would probably be better at balancing between the two. Lucifer’s speciality was being blunt and truthful.
Lucifer headed back into the living room, pulling a free chair closer so he could face her. “It hurts, it’s going to bloody hurt. Will it get better anytime soon? I don’t know, every person is too different to tell. Unpredictability is charming, that’s why I preferred being on Earth,” he admitted, “but you cannot stop living. Stopping your life for someone will make no difference from finding a way to move forward in living it. They won’t know the difference. You have to do it in your time.”
Sabrina had heard plenty of reassurances but they had all fallen flat on her. None of them were what she wanted to hear nor had they really helped at all. The only thing that could wasn’t going to happen and she wasn’t about to try and destroy the world to get what she wanted. At least not this time around. Aside from what some people thought she had grown and learned from her mistakes. Otherwise she would have tried to upend the world the second Nick had disappeared and fucked with a waypoint or two to see what she could manage.
Instead she’d laid in bed and cried, hating everything while she grieved.
“I’m not ready to keep on trying to live again yet.” This paused existence was about all she could stomach at the moment. The thought of interacting with others had her wanting to curl up in her bed and not come out for hours on end. The cheery nature of the month wasn’t helping either. It was a time for family and cheesy Christmas movies and falling in love, but she felt none of it. She didn’t want to try to feel it yet either. It felt wrong to be happy when he was dead. And she knew that was wrong, that Nick wouldn’t want her to feel that way, but it was a feeling she couldn’t seem to shake yet.
“It feels wrong to.”
“Which is why I expressed that you do it in your own time,” Lucifer replied, “as forcing yourself to do so on another’s time just leads to resentment.” A subject that he felt qualified to speak on once upon a time. “If all you want to do is lay in a pile of blankets and drink right now, I’m hardly one to come in here and tell you otherwise.”
He honestly didn’t know what to tell her. Lucifer knew a myriad of self-destructive habits and desires useful for getting past depression as celestials were not immune to emotion hence the self-actualization pain in the ass but recommending any of them to Sabrina was probably a bit…well, not at all healthy for a non-celestial or half-celestial. She still had a liver to worry about.
“So are you going to give up living your life because he isn’t here to live his?” The question was an honest one, a change of perspective. “You can mourn, you can grieve his loss, you can miss him so much your heart bleeds. Abstaining from life will not bring him back however. The only thing it would do is make you fade faster than was intended.”
She frowned at his question, sinking a little further into the couch. Sabrina knew he was right even if she didn’t exactly want him to be. Too bad the answer wasn’t to simply out-stubborn the universe into giving her what she wanted. If only it was that simple. Thankfully no one was trying to force her to grieve at their pace, so she didn’t feel resentment forming for anyone. Though she wasn’t all that happy with Vallo as a whole at the moment.
“No, I don’t want to do that.” The idea of fading into nothingness was one that did scare her. It was so contradictory to the girl she was, the fighter at the very heart of her. She’d laid down and let herself die once before, but that had been for the good of the world, to save it from the Void. And she’d left all of her friends and family broken and grieving, something she’d told herself she wouldn’t do again.
Sabrina didn’t want Roz to have to grieve for her twice. Or for Dan or her dad or any of the others she considered family to ever have to do so.
“Can we just sit here and watch something together for a bit?” Exhaustion was settling in again, pulling her downward and she wasn’t up for much more talking.
“Good. It’s not a fate you deserve nor anyone else.” To just cease existing. Should Lucifer ever die by Azereal’s blade or the few other methods that permanently snuffed out a celestial’s life, that was what he had to look forward to. Nothing beyond, no reuniting with loved ones. Just nothing. It was worse to think of that fate happening to those he cared for.
Lucifer rose from his perch and glanced around before finally locating the remote control. He flopped down on the couch beside her, resting one arm over her shoulders. “Tell me, have you ever seen Bones?”