Chapter Text
Days after the battle, the hotel still smelled faintly of smoke.
It clung to the walls no matter how many windows Charlie threw open, how many rugs she replaced, or how many times she changed the wooden floors.
Even the rooms that had been completely rebuilt still carried it, like the acrid smell of smoke and destruction had seeped far too deep to be scrubbed out. Not even incense helped—and you better believe she had tried a lot of them, going so far as to use her favorite perfume.
But at the end of the day, the smell of rubble and smoke always came back.
It doesn't matter, she thought overlooking the busy lobby with a hopeful glint in her eyes, Everything will be just like before, once the building is finished.
Charlie stood near the bar as subcontracted construction workers from Wrath walked around her, hauling beams, clearing debris and laying bricks while shouting over the noise. Above them, her father drifted between the broken arches, pausing midair with a faint, thoughtful frown as he adjusted something only he could see, no doubt trying to bring his vision to life.
“It’s not even that bad.” she said, muttering to herself.
A large section of the ceiling was still missing.
Light poured in through the opening in a wide, unapologetic beam, catching in the dust and the slow drift of debris being cleared away. Somewhere upstairs, something heavy scraped across the floor, followed by a muffled shout and a sharp clatter that echoed down through the structure.
Charlie winced slightly, then let out a small breath.
“…Okay, maybe it’s a little bad,” she amended, glancing at the unfinished parts of the destroyed lobby with something close to sadness.
Then she smiled again, softer this time, but hopeful all the same.
“But it’s better than yesterday.”
Behind her, there was a pause, the kind that came from someone thinking differently but not wanting to say it out loud. Charlie had gotten very good at recognizing those.
“Princess,” Husk drawled from where he leaned against the bar, polishing a glass that had long since stopped needing it, “there are many things left unresolved.”
“Yes,” Charlie said, turning to him with unwavering enthusiasm. She walked closer to where he was seated, plopping down on one of the new plush stools with a pleased huff. “But the scaffolding is going to be disassembled tomorrow and most of the guest's rooms will be finished by the weekend. Hopefully we can get back on the road next week to admit all residents back!”
Husk stared at her with an undecipherable expression.
“That’s not—” He stopped himself, squinting up at the construction in resignation. “Charlie, you know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Niffty popped up from somewhere near the stairs, covered in dust and what might have been insulation, her single eye bright with delight.
“I found three more broken things to fix!” she chirped. “Or maybe they were already broken? Hard to tell!”
She dragged a sack behind her that clinked ominously.
“That’s great!” Charlie clasped her hands together, watching her disappear through a door. “We’re making incredible progress.”
Husk muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a pessimistic observation.
Charlie chose not to hear it.
Because this—this was good. They were moving towards something. This was forward! And moving forward was what mattered.
Even if—
Her gaze flickered toward the far end of the lobby where a broken radio rested, placed neatly near a comfortable sofa —already half expecting to find someone seated there, smiling at her with that half teasing, half condescending smile.
But the sofa was empty.
Of course it was. It had been empty for days now. A week, maybe, though time had started to blur somewhere between the battle, the rebuilding, and trying to keep everything from falling apart again.
Still—
Her smile faltered.
“Charlie?”
She blinked, turning quickly. “Hm? Yes! Sorry, I was just… thinking.”
Vaggie stood a few steps away, arms crossed, her expression softer than it had been earlier in the morning when they had been discussing how to distribute hotel duties. Charlie tried not to think about what Vaggie had said. She was not ready to consider the possibility yet, she hadn't stopped looking yet!
How could Vaggie even think—
Vaggie touched her shoulder, snapping Charlie out of her spiralling thoughts. Vaggie's sharp gaze held a hint of concern, though she tried to hide it behind something firmer.
“You’ve been doing that a lot,” Vaggie said.
“Thinking?” Charlie laughed lightly. “Well, I would hope so! That’s usually how things get done. Gotta think of a plan first, you know?”
“Charlie...”
Charlie’s hands tightened slightly at her sides before she forced them to relax.
“I know,” she answered softly, eyes downcast.
The sounds of construction filled the space between them—distant hammering, the scrape of wood, Niffty humming somewhere behind them as she darted past with alarming speed.
Vaggie’s gaze rested, briefly, on the same empty spot Charlie had been looking at.
“…Still nothing?” she asked.
Charlie hesitated. Then she shook her head, her smile returning—carefully placed, like setting something fragile back on a shelf.
“No. But that’s okay,” she added quickly. “He’s probably just recovering. Or… regrouping. You know how he is.”
She let out a small laugh, though it sounded hollow.
“He’ll show up,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “He always does.”
The words hung there, exposed under both Vaggie and Husk’s uneasy stares.
Later, when the noise faded and the workers had cleared out for the night, Charlie found herself standing alone near the front desk.
The newly installed lights turned on, casting a warm, golden glow on every surface. The kind of light that made things look gentler than they really were.
She liked this kind of light.
It made everything feel… possible.
Charlie reached up, smoothing a hand over the edge of the desk, tracing the faint grooves left behind by damage that hadn’t quite been sanded out yet. Her fingers lingered there, feeling the unevenness.
Fixable, she told herself.
Everything could be fixed, as long as she put the effort into it.
She turned, glancing again toward the far side of the room.
The radio sat where it always had.
Silent.
There was no static. No sudden, sharp crackle cutting through the air with theatrical timing just before a familiar, reassuring voice filled the air.
Nothing.
Her chest tightened. This wasn’t like him.
That was the part she couldn’t make sense of.
He left sometimes. Disappeared, even—but never like this. Never without a word, without a trace, without even the faintest indication that he was still… alive somewhere.
The last time she had seen him had been before the battle. So confident, so certain that he could take the First Man on his own.
She should have known better. She had known better. But in the middle of everything, with the pressure of the battle closing in, she had trusted him anyway.
She vividly remembered his back as he walked towards the battle like it was just another performance.
She hadn’t seen him again after that.
The realization hit her again, quieter this time but no less sharp.
With Sir Pentious, they had known. They had seen what happened even if it tore their hearts apart.
But with him—
Nothing.
Charlie swallowed.
She had tried.
She really had.
She’d gone to Rosie first, because if anyone would know where he was—or at least have an idea—it would be her. At least, that was what she told herself.
Charlie had gone to thank her, to offer condolences for the cannibals lost in the battle. It had felt like the right thing to do. Necessary, even. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, as gently as she could manage, she had asked if Rosie had seen him.
Rosie had smiled softly, had told her not to worry, reassured her that he was definitely fine and would appear again.
But how could she know? No one had seen him after the battle.
Charlie had wanted to believe her. She still did.
But—
There had been a moment, walking through Cannibal Town, when something quieter had crept in. A thought she didn’t like, didn’t want, but couldn’t quite push away once it had settled.
She hadn’t gone there just to ask.
Not really.
She had gone to make sure there was nothing left to find.
The idea had felt wrong the second it formed, sharp and unwelcome. She hadn’t said it out loud—not to Rosie, not to anyone—but it lingered anyway, threading through everything she saw.
The cannibals ate anything. Anyone.
Everyone knew that.
So if Alastor had been injured, or if something worse had happened—
Would there even be anything left of him to find?
Charlie swallowed, her stomach turning violently.
No.
She pushed the thought away almost immediately, shaking her head like she could dislodge it entirely.
It didn't work, the grotesque images of what could have happened kept flashing through her mind no matter how desperately she tried to think of something else.
The silence that followed felt heavier for it, settling into her chest in a way she couldn’t quite ignore. Charlie turned and made her way toward the bar instead, in search of something that could help her numb the intrusive thoughts.
The possibility was haunting her.
Charlie had so few people she truly held close—not because she hadn’t tried, but because it had never come easily. Not with the expectations placed on her, not in a place like Hell, where kindness was so often mistaken for weakness.
She knew better than that.
Caring wasn’t weakness.
It couldn’t be, not after everything she had seen.
She cared. Cared about her family, about her friends, about the few sinners who were trying—really trying—to be better. That mattered.
It had to.
And Alastor…
Charlie slowed slightly as she reached the bar, her fingers brushing against the countertop.
Alastor had become important to her in a way she hadn’t really noticed at first. It had happened quietly—somewhere between his interruptions, his commentary, and the myriad of everyday things that built bonds.
He didn’t believe in the project—not really. He made that clear often enough. He delighted in things she didn’t always understand, and sometimes said things that made her wonder if he even wanted to be part of the Hotel, be her business partner at all, no matter that he was the one to offer in the first place.
But when it counted—
He was there.
Always practical, already moving toward a solution before she had fully figured out the problem.
Charlie let out a slow breath, her gaze unfocused for a moment.
She hoped he knew she appreciated that.
Not just what he did—but the moments in between. The rare, almost accidental things he shared, the pieces of himself that slipped through in conversation when he wasn’t paying attention.
She had always liked those.
It made her feel like they were getting closer, like maybe it wasn’t all in her head.
Because Charlie had come to think of him as a friend, even if she wasn’t entirely sure he saw her the same way.
Which made the thought of his d—
She swallowed, redirecting her thoughts.
If something had happened to him, if he was alone, somewhere, with no one to—
Charlie’s grip tightened slightly against the bar.
No.
That thought twisted too sharply to sit with.
She reached into Husk’s drawer without permission, finding a bottle she knew was stronger than anything she would normally touch. She poured herself a very small amount—more out of habit than experience—and downed it in one go before she could think too much about it.
The burn hit immediately, sharp and unforgiving as it went down.
Charlie winced, coughing lightly under her breath as she set the glass down.
“…Okay,” she muttered.
That was—
Stronger than expected.
But, honestly, it helped. Her thoughts felt less tangled now, less crowded, with the worst of those images finally pushed aside. Charlie knew better than to waste that kind of clarity when it came. She needed to think and go back over every possibility she hadn’t exhausted yet.
So she started going through a mental checklist.
A day after the battle, she had gone to what remained of his room first.
Or, rather, where it should have been.
There was nothing left of it now, just an empty stretch of space where the walls had been torn open during the battle. His radio station hadn’t fared any better. Both had been caught in Heaven’s assault, reduced to something that didn’t even feel like a place anymore, bits of rubble, broken wood and moss spread everywhere.
Charlie lingered there longer than she probably should have, just in case—
But there had been nothing to find.
After that, she had tried the broken radio found in the destroyed lobby, carefully adjusting the broken dials, turning frequencies she didn’t fully understand, hoping something—anything—might respond.
It never did.
Every attempt ended the same way.
Silence.
She’d tried scrying next, setting everything up exactly the way she had been taught, focusing as carefully as she could. But the results had been… off. Inconclusive at best. The pull kept pointing downward, which didn’t make sense—there was nothing beneath Pentagram City. Not like that. Not in any way that could explain it, as far as she knew.
Tarot hadn’t helped either.
The cards had slipped from her hands more than once, scattering before she could even finish laying them out properly, as if his destiny was obscured and refused to be read.
Even tea leaves—which always worked—had given her nothing but strange, inconsistent patterns that didn’t mean anything no matter how she tried to interpret them.
Charlie let out a small breath, rubbing the bracelet in her right wrist absentmindedly.
She had thought about asking Vassago.
As the Ars Goetia of all things hidden or lost, he would have been the most direct solution—probably the only one who would give her a clear answer.
But that meant going through her father.
And her father—
Charlie winced slightly.
Her father really didn’t like Alastor.
She wasn’t entirely sure why, and at this point she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she knew enough to understand how that conversation would go. Even if he could find Alastor himself—and she had no doubt that he could—he wouldn’t.
Which meant that option wasn’t really an option at all.
Charlie swallowed, her hand curling slightly against the desk. It’s been days, maybe— maybe it was time to start considering the obvious answer.
“No,” she said quickly, cutting the thought off before it could settle. “No, that’s not—”
She stopped, exhaling.
“He’s fine,” she said more firmly. “He has to be.”
Because the alternative—
Charlie straightened.
If there was one thing she had learned from Alastor, it was that there were always solutions.
She just hadn’t found the right one yet.
After ruminating on what options were left at her disposal all through the night, she found herself walking into the lobby once again early the next morning.
“Okay,” Charlie said, pacing lightly across the room, energy building in her steps. “Okay, so if the normal methods aren’t working, then I just need to think a little more… creatively.”
Husk glanced up, unimpressed. “That usually means trouble. What are you thinking of?”
“Not trouble,” Charlie said quickly. “Just… expanding our options.”
Vaggie watched her carefully, setting down the forms she had been filling. “Charlie…”
“There are people who could find him,” Charlie continued, thinking out loud now. “Or at least narrow things down. We need to contact some private investigators, someone that can track his last known sighting, maybe check for the surveillance cameras—”
She stopped.
A thought clicked into place. Slowly, her expression shifted.
“Oh.”
Husk immediately looked wary. “No. I know who you are thinking of and that’s possibly the worst idea you could have right now.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up, something bright and certain sparking behind them for the first time all day.
“No, no—this could work.”
“Charlie,” Vaggie said, more firmly now, “what are you thinking?”
Charlie turned to her, excitement pushing past hesitation. “There’s someone… someone that has the technology to find him.”
Vaggie’s expression darkened almost instantly. “No.”
“You don’t even know who I’m going to say—”
“I do,” Vaggie cut in flatly.
Charlie winced slightly. “Okay, yes, you probably do, but—listen, just hear me out—”
“No.”
“He has resources—”
“He’s a snake.”
“He has technology—”
“He’s a snake with a budget.”
Charlie let out a small, involuntary snort, the mental image catching her off guard before she could stop it. The moment passed quickly, and she stepped closer to her girlfriend, her voice softening as she spoke, trying to ease her into seeing things from her side.
“Vaggie…”
“No.”
“It would just be a conversation.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking for anything extreme—”
“No.”
Charlie paused, then tried again, quieter, this time.
“I just need to know he is alive.”
That did it.
Vaggie’s resistance didn’t completely disappear, but it cracked, just slightly, under the weight of Charlie’s worry and sadness. She reached for Charlie's hand, her grip gentle and grounding.
“I know you do, babe,” she said.
There was no sharpness left in her voice now, just something worn and tired, like she’d already been having this argument with herself and had reached no definite conclusion.
Charlie held her gaze, her expression soft but unwavering.
“I can’t just wait,” Charlie continued. “Not when there’s a chance that waiting is making things worse. If he’s hurt—if there’s something we could be doing—”
Silence stretched between them.
Then, slowly, reluctantly—
“…You’re not going alone,” Vaggie muttered.
Charlie’s smile came back immediately, brighter this time. “Of course.”
Husk let out a sharp snort from behind the bar. “I am absolutely not going wherever this is going.”
“That’s okay!” Charlie said, glancing over at him. “I appreciate the honesty though.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Husk sighed, setting the glass down with a dull clink, “I usually support your ideas. But this?” He gestured vaguely toward the door. “Bad news. This is purely self-preservation.”
Niffty darted past them again, a blur of motion and energy. “Are we going somewhere dangerous?” she chirped. “I love dangerous!”
“Yes!” Charlie said, at the exact same time Vaggie said, “No.”
"Niffty, please stay. We need you to clean up after the construction crew."
Niffty nodded, already on her way to sweep the dust one of the stone masons was leaving behind.
Charlie paused, then pressed her lips together like she could physically hold back the excitement bubbling up again as she found a renewed purpose.
She clasped her hands together anyway, taking a steadying breath.
“Okay,” she said, taking a breath, steadying herself. “Okay. We’ll just go, we’ll talk, we’ll ask for help, and then we’ll leave. It will be simple.”
Vaggie gave her a look.
Charlie’s smile didn’t falter.
“…Relatively simple,” she amended.
As she stepped toward the entrance, Charlie slowed just enough to glance back at the lobby.
At the dust still drifting, the tiny specks illuminated by the light. At the uneven floors and half-rebuilt walls that didn’t quite match yet. At all the small signs that something had broken—and was still being put back together.
Her gaze lingered a moment longer.
On the space by the sofa, at the broken radio.
Her chest tightened.
Hold on, Alastor, she thought, briefly closing her eyes.
Then she squared her shoulders and pushed the doors open with renewed determination.
I’m coming to find you.