FLASHBACK

Despite the goddess's discrepancies, with how she tried to kill and poison me, watching her beg for Lucifer to forgive her on the spot I am standing in on the Santa Monica pier with the reality around me slowing down, I couldn't let Lucifer kill her.

He needed his mom more than he realised. I leap my self over the guard rails, landing on the soft crunchy sand causing the earth to quake at the impact, and sped over to Lucifer taking his hand as the flaming sword was about to smite her from existence.

" Don't do it, Luc!" I yelled, my breathing frantic as I held his wrist, and he stared at me in disbelief. " Please don't."

" What are you doing, Darling? Why do you.. defend her? She's tried to kill you on multiple fronts. Why are you coming to her defence for it?" He exclaimed, levels of pain and suffering in his voice, the flaming swords holy-fire that burned brightly licked the air. Goddess stood up, getting off the sand bank, staring at me in a strange but grateful way. " She has hurt so many people, Caused so much pain, and yet it is you who comes to her defence. The one who she has hurt the most. Why, darling? Why?"

" Because Lucifer I forgave her!"

I cried out, as goddess looked between me and Lucifer.

" I've been hurt by her, yes, Luc. But I am not going to let that pain she has caused to dictate what I think is right and what is wrong. Please Luc, just listen to what she has to say." I pleaded to him, his beaten up face leaned into the palm of my hand as I gently put my hand on his face.

Goddess defeatedly sighed, her face morphing into an ingenious sad smile.

" Everything I did was for us, son. I did it for you, I did it.. for your brother, so we could all go back to where we belong. In heaven. For our family."

She uses caution as she got closer to Lucifer and I, mindful of the flaming sword, and quickly I stand back as Lucifer rose the blade to point it at her. Pain on his features. " You used me. You used and tortured and hurt Ellie, all for what? Your own personal gain to get back into the place where we aren't welcomed no more, Mum? Why? Why did you do that to her?" I hear the evident hurt in his words, choking on his own pain and torment. " She didn't do anything to you."

" Because.. she stood in my way, i wanted to hurt her so bad. I wanted her to see that she was holding you back but I see now I didn't get to know the truth behind your reason for wanting to stay. 'cause of my own animosity towards her! I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry, Ellie."

Her eyes were bloodshot, red from the tears of her regret forming. I too began to feel my tears start to well. I slowly faced Lucifer, my hand wrapping around his bicep, coming to his side. It is moments like these that make me realise even in the storm of rage and fury that beneath all of it is a broken bond between son and mother. I could hold her accountable but I didn't want there to be bad blood any more in my life. In my heart.

" I want to make thing's right, if you let me. If you just give.. me the... sword I can set things right with your dad.."

" I can't let you do that, Mum."

Lucifer quietly told her, despairingly.

" .. Going home? That's not setting things straight nor is it making any thing start over. No. It's going backwards and nothing good will come out of it, Mum."

He voiced matter-of-factly. I nodded slowly, I am Lucifer's side on the topic. Nothing is good about reverting back to the old, harmful, and toxic habits of a bad environment. " That's not good for anyone." Lucifer stared at me, softly clenching my hand in assurance, and stepped a foot forward. " it's time to move forward. Even if I never get to see you, again."

As I think Lucifer is going to go through with sticking his mother, I go to protest and say no to him, the word slices a tear in the fabric of time and space. It's a pure void of nothing. A blank slate for the goddess of creation to have, to create for herself. Lucifer kept me behind a hand of his, in case the portal was a danger to me, spitting out a shocked 'Bloody hell.' I gaze in awe at the shimmer of the mesmerising and mystical beauty of the portal.

" I guess it can cut through anything, even the world itself."

" What is that?"

Goddess questioned, upon her staring into the endless abyss of the world in which she could create for herself, and stared back at us. " It's.. nothing. At least, for now. This is the real way to move forward, Mum." I wiped the tears off my face, moving my head to look at goddess, keeping silent and letting them have their own world. " To create a whole new world, your own world, without father." It's for the better. There is nothing good that will come out from going back to heaven.

" What about you? Amenadiel, my children?"

" You know that if we go back to heaven, if we take Ellie to heaven, not only will there be a war but there will be causalities. Because in ear there are casualties, Mum. What if.. Ellie is one of those people? I can't have that, Mum. I just simply can't take her up there. Not when the thought of.. of losing her in war haunts me every single minute."

Pained, and touched, by Lucifer's words I take his hand in mine having stayed back to let the two have their heart to heart.

" I never meant to hurt my kids. I never meant to hurt you, as well, Ellie. But I did. For that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Goddess's remorseful eyes bored into mine asking for forgiveness. She is taken back by the embrace I give, never expecting for me to be affectionate to her, and she accepted.

" I know. As I said, Goddess. I forgive you. I forgave.. you a long while ago." I stared back at the void of nothingness. This will be good, it will give her the second chance she needed to move past her own shadow of the past. " Let there be light, goddess. You are free, now."

She put her hand on my face, placing it over a space on my cheek under my eye, warmth in her face. Her face turned to Lucifer making a small side step to make herself stand before him. " My Angel, I will miss you. So much." It is time. If the riff is opened to the world longer then it needed to be open it could collapse our world.

I fall back in step, with Lucifer, as The goddess swallows her pride raising an arm to the shred in the universe.

Goddess's essence in Charlottes body is extradited from her body, I stared in fascination and wonder at how she is leaving Charlotte body, in a flash of light I blinked and her body tumbled onto the floor of sand. I raised my hand to cover my mouth. She's gone. She is really gone.

Lucifer unpins and dismantled Azriel's blade, keeping the pin of Amenadiel's necklace in his hand giving it to me, I watched him discard the sword in the void as it sealed itself closed to the world. I bring Lucifer in for an embrace and he continued to stare in a vacant, sadden, gaze on the body of Charlotte Richards the goddess of creation once inhabited in her time here.

Lucifer, keeping his composure, sighs.

" You were too kind to her, Darling. But if that is how you want to leave things, with her, you have my support."

I don't say anything except a simple 'I know', stepping up to him closer than I did before to put my arms enclosed around his neck, and I tighten my hold.

" It's all over, Luc."

~•~

PRESENT DAY

Rummaging in my desk for a specific missing pen of mine, I liked to write with, I banged my hand on the desk going wide eyed when a dent formed and I said a quiet 'Crap'. Dad's voice is what brings me out of my daydream, of trying to fix the dented metal, standing in front of me in his every day clothes.

He finished his days of being a trainee, yesterday, and today he started his career as a tier two police officer.

" Officer decker."

He cleared his throat. I looked up and my face hardened when I see who is next to my dad. Rebecca. She wore long sleeve, royal blue, uniform rookies wore. No freaking way.

" I will leave you two to discuss things."

Dad left Rebecca and I to our tense stare off. In respect of my fellow officers in the station, I lead Rebecca to one of the interrogation rooms in the station, and when I locked the stainless steel doors I turned to Rebecca. She put both of her hands up, to avoid conflict she disarms her gun on the table, then rested her hands on her utility belt. I let her talk.

" I realised in the past I have been the biggest bitch to you. Made your life at school an absolute living hell."

That is an understatement, I was in therapy because of the relentless bullying she gave me.

" Some might say it's a way of misplacing the anger I held, in myself, and the self hatred I had. I took it out on you."

" Yeah, you did, Rebecca. You made my life so miserable in school. For four years." I seethed, getting in her face, controlling how my Angel side wanting to take over and kill her. But it's psychically impossible for me to do it, Angel's cannot harm or can they kill humans. " Those four years I contemplated if I should have been more courageous and stand up to you. I did, in retrospect, that night at prom." Rebecca faintly reached for her face, cringing visibly, as it hits her the memory of me coming into my angelic powers. " but despite that I didn't feel better."

" I recognise how atrociously I acted, towards you, It's undoable. I don't expect you to forgive me, all I want to say is I apologies. For the way I was responsible for the fact you didn't get to enjoy your days at school 'cause I had no shame in being the biggest bitch and Bully to you."

I sighed, extending the breath, sitting on the edge of the Steel exterior of the table. Rebecca reluctantly takes her seat on the opposing side. " You hurt me, Rebecca. Deeply. On a level that I loathed you. But my therapist.. made quite a good point in one of our sessions." I stated, by how Rebecca tilted her head she's attentive to the next words I had to speak, I looked at the necklace Lucifer got me I still hadn't remove.

" She said, to quote martin Luther king Junior, forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a permanent attitude. Meaning I had to step up to the pedestal of forgiveness and forgive you. Not for you, but myself."

Rebecca absorbed the words in, slowly she did a nod understanding, while standing up. The room become silent as we both simmered in an openly uncomfortable moment of silence. She inhaled, swiftly facing me. " I found.. out, the night of our graduation, about my dad being a dirty cop. I didn't want to believe it. You didn't know it but the night of our graduation.." Her eyes were trained on me and her breathing did a sharp turn in speed. " I saw you. I saw.. how you were drugged and.. taken by that guy.. in the hallway. I was coming back from having an argument with my dad and I saw him take.."

My face fell solemnly, listening to Rebecca talk about that faithful night, feeling my eyes drop letting her go on.

" Something didn't sit right when I saw it was Malcolm, my dad's old work partner, carrying you. I wanted to stop him, to intervene. He had this crazed look about him, I had never seen it before on anyone, it didn't even seem like I was staring at a human but an actual monster."

I put my hand up pausing her mid-sentence to breathe in. Even if she did decide to stop him, I doubt it would have ended well.

" Malcom is, I guess now was, my father. Rebecca." Dropping her jaw she takes a reactive step back. " He had taken me and held me hostage for a month." I disclosed the incident even if I didn't intend on going into depth of what happened. " It's in the past, now. It happened and I've moved on."

" Oh my god." She whispered. " I'm so sorry."

" Don't. If anything I have come out stronger, if anything, and more importantly I survived. The same can't be said the same for him, but it is for the greater good he is dead."

He can't hurt me or anyone else for that fact no more. Rebecca unexpectedly sped up on me, I didn't get time to react as she hugged me. That is when I put my hand between us and I sighed timidly. " Right, sorry. Sorry, I crossed the line. It's just that is horrible what you endured. I.." she stuttered, a frown finding its way onto her face, backing off. " I can't imagine how scared you must've been. The thoughts you had. He.."

" Like I said I've come to terms with the fact it happened. I've moved on and moving forward is the best thing to do for me."

Not pressing the matter further Rebecca nods before both of us snap our heads to the sudden startling noise, of the interview room crashing open, and Lucifer himself barges in puffing his cheeks out in a flustered redden mess. " There you are, darling! I was asking where you were, around the station, and i asked Nathan where you were and he told me he saw you enter.. oh. Hello. Who is your friend here, Ellie?" Lucifer asks, he genuinely asked and it wasn't flirty in any way, looking to me then back at Rebecca.

" This is Rebecca. She isn't a friend.. yet. That is up for debate."

I told Lucifer, giving Rebecca back her station assigned firearm, and Lucifer tilted his head to the side. I looked at my wrist checking the time, I had a detectives exam I'm eligible to sign up for and I couldn't miss it for anything, I muttered about having some time.

" She's the stations newest boot. Uncle Dan's in charge of showing her the ropes for today."

Rebecca waved, blundering under the intense eyes Lucifer is staring at her with, facing me to nod. " It was good speaking to you. I'll see you later on in the day."

She said, moving past me, going out to the main hall of the station where I noticed uncle Dan is talking to one of the on duty hall staff. Lucifer snapped his head to me.

" Can I ask what that was all about, Darling?"

" Please don't. Even i am confused on it."

~•~

Nevadas long stretch of desert, and the alpine mountains that sat on dry land looming over a valley of cactus tree, proved to be the hottest's place on earth even in the winter. I didn't have the capability to live in the heat, but I lived in Los Angeles which is a desert state. Go figure. Lucifer is convinced he was kidnapped, for him to think that is remotely unconstitutional to his usual remarks about god being the one to do that, and I found it hard to believe god did.

" Lucifer. You brought me all the way out here, on the day of the exam sign ups, because you are convinced your almighty dad had someone take you and drag your ass all the way, and I can't believe I'm saying it, out here cause... of the fact you got your wings back?"

" Yes! That is exactly what I'm saying, Darling. The wings in intentionally cut off! And they're magically back, isn't that a little coincidental? Ah! Ha-ha! Foot prints."

" Mine, Luc. Those foot prints are mine. Look, I get it must be hard for you to comprehend a reality where your wings are back but maybe it is a good thing!" I replied, the screech of hawks cawing in the wind rippled as I looked around for signs of a disturbance in the sand. " I don't see anything out of the ordinary, Luc."

" Nothing is good about how I have my wings back, Ellie. So not bloody good. I'm not lying, I was on my way from the hospital visiting Linda to see how she was, and leaving you a message about how I fee.."

I spun on my feet, interrupting Lucifer, as I sensed an imminent confrontation about the evening before. I sighed. " It is fine, Lucifer. I get it. After the whole goddess, Charlotte, situation emotions were high. And I remember our conversation that night. You're not ready to.. go further. I don't want to make you feel like you need to explain." Much as it hurt me I brushed it aside for now. I squint my eyes, as a figment of what looked like a human arm stuck out of the desert ground, moving past Lucifer.

I squat on the ground floor level.

" I believe I'm looking at either A, a really dead arm, or B we discovered a new type of humanoid plant. Oh dear."

Calling in the crime on my phone to the LAPD precinct, they were out of jurisdiction and we were needing to collaborate with Lancaster PD, I had dusted for prints post mortem to go on record.

I drove here with my own bag of products, in a preparation in the case I was suddenly in a bad situation and needed evidence, which came in handy. Ella clicked away on her camera as she dramatically re-enacted what she thinks was in the victims mind. " Soaked in sweat, parched and starving, he scraped, clawed his way towards the light, but ironically the only thing stronger than his desperate desire to live was.. the sun." Ella, lying in the two feet deep grave, pretended to gasp out loud for air. " Relentless heat literally cooking him until one last breath. And he's gone." She flopped her arms down.

I snorted at the thud of her arms. " You, Ella, deserve a Emmy for that performance." I call out, swabbing the particles of dust on a wallet I found. " You should be an actor." I laughed.

" Why thank you, M'lady." Ella bowed, holding on to Lucifers hand as he helped her out of the grave, and he shakes her off. Rebecca is on the scene too I noticed, I seen her wave at me and I subtly did it back. " I will mention you in my acceptance speech on the night I get my award. Might even drag on the stage too!"

" Yes, yes, we all agree your reenactment of the poor dehydrated sap was good but we gotta get to the devil in the details. He is clearly, and can not stress this enough, responsible for my devil napping. It's far too coincidental. Who he is? And what does he have to do with me?"

Lucifer questioned, pointing his scabbed hand in the air directing a finger to the dead victim, and he swung his head to me hearing my voice. " His name is Steve Venalis. Owner and CEO of Angelette hotel." I handed the ID to Lucifer, he read the details of the ID and its contents with a baffled stare. " Do you recognise him at all?".

" Nope. That is strange, never heard of him. You think I'd have a connection to him but I don't. I suppose we'll get more answers once we find our assailant."

Ella, writing the information on Steve's card to go on file, muttered how he had nice eyes but I wasn't listening to the rest of her compliments as I saw Rebecca making her way over to the place I stood. She passed me a ziplock bag she processed herself. " Found this on the victim. I bagged it straight away and came to you."

My eyes slowly blink and Rebecca tapped the bag of a chipped nail the victim must've ripped off the attacker. " Thought you might want to see it." It was a good find. I don't understand exactly why she came to me and not uncle Dan.

" Amateurs. How did we get stuck with these useless idiots, Ellie? What happened to our men and women we usually work with?"

" Lucifer we needed to work with Lancaster PD as the crime scene is in the LA border. So they are helping us out here, Luc."

" I think these Lancaster guys are doing a great job!"

" Jeez, these Lancaster guys are a bunch of tools."'

I shake my head.

' Man. One of these days I am going to have an aneurysm. Wait, actually I don't think that is a possibility. EUGH.'

JASMINE SPEAKS;

This is the first chapter done for season three! Next one we meet pierce.

I can't stand him but there are a few things I have installed for both Ellie and him.

What did you think about this chapter? About Rebecca? I plan on doing a redemption arc for her with Ellie. They aren't friends for now but I want them to build a better relationship first.

Rebecca Paolucci is portrayed by Sasha Pieterse.