I woke up in a hospital bed in a normal hospital room. My vitals were displayed on a monitor next to my bed. I lifted up my hospital gown expecting to see a suture with stitches, but instead there was just a circular patch of red demonic skin where Cain had punched through my stomach. They must have used demon skin for a skin graft. The skin was smoother and shinier than my human skin. It glinted in the light.

A nurse came into the room. "Oh, you're awake. Good. How do you feel?"

"Fine," I said, because I did. I felt more than fine. I felt good.

"Good. As expected," she said, writing something on my chart.

"Why do I feel so good? And why are there no sutures?" I asked.

"We used the CRA machine on your abdomen. It accelerates the rate of cellular regeneration in the area of focus. We wouldn't consider using it on a human because it also ages your cells in the process, but you don't age, so it was fine," she said.

"Demons don't age either?" I asked.

"Not past maturity, no. We can accumulate injuries or be killed, but we don't age," she said. "Helps with the whole keeping sinners down here for eternity, bit."

"Right," I said. "Does that mean I'm healed? Am I good to go see Margaret?"

"Yes, you are cleared to leave. You can get dressed and I'll discharge you," she said.

"But aren't my clothes bloody and destroyed?" I asked.

"Your original clothes are, yes. We have a spare set of clothes for you. It's just underwear, sweatpants, a t-shirt, and socks. Nothing fancy like you were wearing," she said.

"That's fine. I just can't wait to see my girlfriend scarf down tons of food," I smiled.

"Ha," she said. "That's funny. I'll get the paperwork. You get dressed."

I got dressed, and she came back into the room. She made me sign some papers saying I felt fine and that the hospital had no further responsibility to care for me once I walked out of my hospital room.

"Where's Margaret?" I asked.

"She's in room 4E," she said. "Just down the hallway on the right." She pointed.

"Thanks," I said, walking towards the room. As I got closer, I began to hear strange noises. They got louder as I got closer, until I walked into the room and realized they were just the sounds of Margaret eating quickly.

She was slurping down food like mad. She was currently going after some spaghetti and shoveling noodles into her mouth and sucking the noodles hanging outside into her mouth.

She looked at me with a face covered in red pasta sauce and said, "What?"

"Nothing," I laughed. "You just have a little sauce on your face. That's all."

"Oh." She took a napkin and wiped it off. "Better?"

"Yes," I said sitting down in a chair next to her bed.

I must have been smiling at her, because she looked at me, and said, "What's got you so happy? I never see you smile anymore."

"I'm just so happy to be here with you and free of this saving the world burden. You have no idea the toll it took on me to be away from you for so long," I said.

"Oh, I think I have an idea. It probably hurt as much as it hurt me," she said, spooning pudding into her mouth.

"I really am sorry. I've just developed this need to feel useful lately. It all started when I saved the world the first time. I just felt so needed, and I became addicted to it. It replaced my desire for alcohol, and I've been chasing it ever since," I said.

Margaret put her hand in mine and squeezed. "I understand. It's not easy to get rid of addictions. I'm not even sure it's possible to quit every addiction, at least for an addict. You just replace the bad addictions with better ones."

"Ain't that the truth," I said. "Maybe, I can become addicted to growing our family. A day ago I would've said I had no interest in starting a family, but now that it's on its way, I couldn't feel happier and more excited."

"I know, right? I feel the same way. What do you want to name him?" she said.

"Him? You already know the sex?" I asked.

"Mhmm. It's going to be a beautiful cambion boy. I was told a demon-human hybrid is called a cambion," she said, looking down at her now four months pregnant looking stomach.

"Cambion. It has a nice ring to it," I said. "How do you feel about Josh?"

"Pfft! Josh! Yeah, our kid's going to be named Josh," she laughed.

"What do you want to call him?" I asked, unperturbed. Discussion was good.

"Sorry for laughing. Josh just sounds so normal," she said.

"You want our son to have an abnormal name? He's going to get made fun of enough for being half human. You want him to get beat up now too?" I asked.

"No, but I like your name. I like the idea of him having a fancy first name that he doesn't use and just calling him by his normal middle name. Like you," she said, biting into a banana. Don't worry, she peeled it first. She's not a psycho.

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"That's very sweet, but do you really think that'll be the best for his social development?" I asked.

"I don't know. I wasn't bullied in school, but I wasn't a boy either. Do boys get bullied more than girls?" she said.

"No, just differently. Girls bully other girls socially with minor physicality, and boys generally do a little social bullying with a lot of physicality," I said.

"Wow, you seem to know a lot about bullying," she said.

"Let's just say I didn't go to the best schools," I said, wincing. That wasn't something I wanted to think about right now. Charlie was the last thing I wanted to be thinking about now, or ever. Or any of my other bullies, for that matter.

"Well, technically you're allowed to make the rules whatever you want them to be in Hell. So I think you should just punish anyone who bullies our child and choose whatever name we want," she said.

"That's a little power trippy, don't you think?" I asked.

"I think if someone bullies our child, they deserve to be punished," she said.

"I think so too. I just don't know if we should take the law into our own hands," I said.

"Honey. How many times have you saved the world? You take the law into your own hands all the time!" she said.

"That's true. I guess I just felt like it's different in Hell. I have a responsibility to be just. On Earth, I do whatever the hell I want to get the job done," I said.

"Why can't you do that in Hell too? Aside from your questionable focus on our relationship, you make great decisions. Especially as a leader. What's wrong with taking the reins in this dimension, like you do on Earth?" she said.

"I guess it's not so wrong. If I think about it, the only reason I feel uncomfortable doing it here is because I live here. I have to see the people who might hate me every day. But that's the coward's way out. If I want to make positive change, I need to actually change things," I said.

"That's what I think," she said.

"Ok. That's what I'll do. If any of the other kids bully or beat up our son, I'll kick the shit out of them," I said.

"Whoa! Who said anything about violence?" she said.

"I'll send them into one of the Circles of Hell?" I asked.

"Suspension, my dear. You can suspend them from school. Or expel them if it gets really bad. We don't have to put kids in the hospital to get our point across," she said, squeezing my hand again. She had such soft hands. I never seemed to notice that.

"Right," I said. "That makes more sense."

"Although, the mental image of you kicking the shit out of a bunch of mean children is hilarious!" she laughed.

"Right? That's what I was going for," I laughed.

"You do know how to make me laugh, Dave. I know I haven't said it much, because I've been so cross with you, but I love you dearly. I love you more than life itself," she said, pulling my hand up to her mouth and kissing it.

"Now, you're kissing my hand and trying to talk sweet to me? What is the world coming to?" I asked.

"Hey. I'm capable of realizing when I've gone too far, and I'll admit, I have been a bit too harsh over the last twelve hours or so," she said.

"A bit? You were so mean you almost made me cry! If I wasn't such a big strong man, I would've bawled my eyes out over our last few conversations," I said, smiling.

"Right," she said, winking. "I bet you didn't cry because you were too busy pissing your pants."

"Hey! That's not my fault! You're scary when you're mad. Speaking of being mad, what happened to Sarah?" I asked.

"I hear she's in a hospital bed somewhere sleeping her ordeal off. She went through quite the traumatic experience," she said, eating more pudding.

"Who's fault is that?" I said, putting my hands on my hips.

"Ok, you're right. I was too harsh and I may have been over prioritizing my safety over hers, but in my defense, I thought you were cheating on me," she said, putting more pudding in her mouth innocently.

"You thought what? Why would you ever think that?" I asked.

"Female hormones do things to your brain, ok? You should try it sometime," she said.

"People keep telling me that," I said, remembering Sarah's earlier remark.

"Speaking of the ordeal with Sarah, how did some guy almost kill you? Aren't you supposed to be invincible?" Margaret asked.

"I found out recently that I'm not. I'm just super tough. And apparently, that guy is the most powerful human on Earth," I said.

"How come?" she said, popping grapes into her mouth.

"Well, he's the only true immortal on Earth for one, and he has some sort of extremely powerful super strength medallion. I really need to learn how those work or get made. Being able to make them myself would be really useful in combating stronger opponents," I said.

"I know how they're made. I'll tell you, but first you tell me who that guy is. Saying he's the only true immortal is vague in the most infuriating movie way possible," she said.

"Ok. His name is Cain. He's the first murderer and he was given a mark by God to walk the Earth forever," I said.

"You fought Cain? No wonder you got your ass kicked. What's he doing getting involved with you, though? I thought he fell in a ditch somewhere and couldn't get out. He's been missing for hundreds of years," she said, peeling an orange. Man, they really gave her a lot of fruit.

"Maybe he's really good at hide and go seek. I don't know. I do know what he's up to now, though. He wants to remove his mark, and he's killing celebrities and demons to do it," I said.

"How?" she asked.

"He's stealing the magic from demon deals," I said. Then I looked at her. "You don't have any demon deals out there, do you?"

"No. I'm a desk jockey. I've never even been to Earth. I've only ever read or seen videos about it," she said.

"Oh, thank God. I was worried for a second," I said.

"Hey, we don't use that word, remember?" she said.

"I'm the Devil now, remember? I can say whatever I want," I said.

"Ok, fine, but what's so great about this God guy anyway that humans are always thanking him?" she asked.

"You know who Cain is, but you don't know God?" I asked.

"No, I know God, but everything I've ever read about him makes him seem like a bad guy. He banished humans from Paradise. He created disease, suffering, and death," she said.

"He was always fighting Lucifer over something or other. He decimated Sodom and Gomorrah and killed everyone in them because he didn't like the way they did things. He just sounds bad. So why do humans always thank him?"

"I see. Lucifer must have limited the information about him, so you only ever saw him in a bad light. God's done a lot of good things, too. He created humans. He made Heaven and Hell. I assume he created demons, but I don't actually know. And he invented sex. What's not to like?" I said, throwing up my hands.

"That is a fair point. Sex is good," she said, nodding her head.

"I'm glad we can at least agree on that," I said, smiling. "Wait. You said you knew how medallions are made. Dish."

"Ok. I'll tell you, but don't talk about them to anyone else in Hell. They're forbidden, and Lucifer made us stop bringing them up. He didn't get rid of the texts on how they're made, but we're not supposed to speak about them in public. It would be like talking about making bombs on Earth," she said.

"I see. Duly noted. Now dish," I said, grabbing a candy bar off her tray.

"Hey, that's mine!" she said.

"I'm hungry," I said.

"It's for the child," she said. "You're basically stealing candy from your own baby."

"Ok, ok. You can have it back. It sounds really bad when you say it like that," I said, putting the candy bar back.

"Thank you," she said. "Medallions are made using human souls as the power source. Their power level depends on how many souls you use, and they never run out of energy. Souls are infinite wells of energy."

"I see. Well that prevents me from using them. I'm not about to use human souls to fuel my power. That's totally messed up," I said.

"That's why we're not supposed to talk about them," she said.

"Makes sense. Well, good thing I'm off the case. I don't have to worry about getting stronger now and fighting Cain anymore," I said.

Part of that statement was correct, and part of it wasn't. I wouldn't find out until much later which one was which.