𝐇𝐎𝐀𝐗 - L. Morningstar

FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

IT MEANS A GREAT DEAL TO ME

"If things were different,
Would you still love me?"

In life, we meet different kinds of people, and we find different kinds of moments. Slowly, these different people and these different moments make us into whom we are, shaping not only a new being but rather a torch, a flicker of what humanity really is that will be passed down generations. We are all different moments that made us, a shred of every person that we have ever loved, even if they, in the end, hurt us. Because love is a powerful emotion— it's not one that is destroyed by a few scars. It's hurt, yes. Damaged? Quite a bit. But dead, finished? Love is not something that can ever be finished. Love is not something that will ever just go away.

"I am sorry I left you in hell," Lucifer said, a sincerity in his voice that Josephine had forgotten the likes of and had missed but was still adamant to believe.

Anger was a funny thing really, it would burn through you so brightly, so fiercely that it would end up leaving your heart in nothing but ashes. The angel had started to believe there was nothing but the fallen remains of a broken heart underneath her ribs.

"If you were really sorry," she gritted out, "You would have not left me there in the first place."

An emotion went through Lucifer's eyes then, one she had never thought she would see again.

Regret.

Her mind flashed back to her younger days, that dark moment when Michael raised his blade to strike her. Lucifer had a similar expression back then.

"I just- I don't know what happened to me then, Josephine," Lucifer gulped. "Hell just- hell stoped being a kingdom and it became a prison. A cage. And I wanted to get out so badly."

"You did not have to leave me there, Samael," She gritted. "I waited for you to come back and stay or take me away from that miserable dark place. I waited day after day; century after century till millennias had passed but you never ever came back for me. Hell was your kingdom, Lucifer, not mine. For me, hell was always a prison that I couldn't escape."

"I didn't know how long I would be gone."

"That is not an excuse-that is not what happened," Josephine replied. He looked so much like the man she had loved her entire life that she forgot he had changed. That she too had changed. "Hell needed a ruler so you left me there alone. That is what happened."

An apologetic face did not fix what happened before Lucifer left her in hell and it seemed to finally dawn on him. He took a step forward, standing just a few inches away from the petite angel.

"Josephine, I wasn't thinking. I just- I needed to escape and my father wouldn't care as much if you were still there." Lucifer looked like he was about to cry.

"No, Lucifer, no. That's not- that's not okay. I am your wife. I always thought that despite every promise you break and every trust you betray, that bond meant something holy to you-"

"It does, Josephine, it means a great deal to me."

The angel payed no attention and continued speaking, "-But it did not. It did not when you left me there. It did not when you never came back to save me. It just did... not.  If my love was the crime, this punishment was not the one I deserved."

"I know,"  There was something in his voice, a sliver of defeat that made Josephine think that she had won that conversation. She looked at him again, her eyes full of unshed tears as her heart broke a tiny bit at the state the devil was in.