Mitzvah

Adam shared his 13th birthday with Warlock Dowling, much to the bafflement of the Them, but even more confusingly, with Greasy Johnson.

It had taken two years to really figure out the right questions to ask about the night of his birth. He had known, with the huge flash of all-knowing, shortly after his 11th birthday, but to be fair there had been rather a lot going on and the details had been slippery. And even knowing your whole life had been the result of an incompetent shell game didn’t help you understand WHY. The Them barely seemed to remember anything about that summer at all.

“I still don’t get,” Wensleydale said the day before, “why you’re going to London with those…” His words failed. He still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of swearing properly, and while he knew Greasy Johnson was a right bastard, he couldn’t very well call him that given the whole adopted thing, and Warlock Dowling was a complete unknown. Some American kid? “I mean, you’ll be thirteen, right? A proper teenager and all? Isn’t it time to be with your real friends?”

“I don’t care,” Pepper said from her perch on one of the many useful logs that surrounded their favourite spot. “Clearly he’s outgrown us. Or rather, you two. I outgrew all three of you last year.” She had gotten her growth spurt and shot up 6 inches while Brian just seemed to gradually increase in height and Wensleydale looked nearly exactly the same as he had two years prior, only with a few more pimples and a little sheen to his hair. Adam had grown, certainly, but puberty was still just thinking about getting on with things, and hadn’t really gotten out of bed. 

“I haven’t outgrown anything,” Adam said, lying on his back, staring up into the leaves of the great oak that shaded their spot. “I just…I’ll celebrate with you lot on the weekend. There’s a thing. That I need to do.”

“Yeah, but Greasy Johnson?” Brian asked, kicking himself into a spin on the old tyre swing they’d moved down to their area the previous summer. “Why him?”

Adam shrugged. “Something happened the day I was born. And it’s the same day that Greasy was born. And Warlock.”

“What kind of name is that, anyway?” Pepper asked. “I mean, even the hippies didn’t usually give a name like that to an infant. Merlin, yes. Herne, sure. Gandalfs all over the place. But Warlock?”

“Satanic nuns,” Adam answered, distracted. “Anyway, my dad is driving us, and Warlock is meeting us there, and I’m going to get some answers, and then I’m coming back to have a proper party here in a couple days.”

The Them blinked at him. Pepper frowned. “I mean, you don’t have to tell us.”

“Why would Satanists have nuns?” Wensleydale asked. “That just doesn’t make sense. Nuns are about chastity and dedicating their lives to Jesus and I don’t understand why Satanists would do that? I mean, I thought the Church of Satan was just like, about free will and all that?” Wensleydale had been rather more curious about these things the past few years, though he couldn’t have told you why.

“It was a joke,” Brian said, though he sounded more hopeful than confident.

Adam just shrugged, rolled up to his feet, and thought about calling for Dog, who abruptly stopped chasing a squirrel and trotted over, wagging his tail. “It would be boring, anyway. We’re just going to a bookshop.”

“Wait, you’re going to London on your birthday and you’re not going to the zoo?” Pepper said.

“Or a river bus?” said Brian. He was particularly fond of the speed and noise of them.

“I dunno, bookshops can be nice,” Wensleydale said, looking thoughtful.

As this devolved into a discussion of the relative merits of the various entertainments London had to offer, Adam smiled, waved, and with his dog trotting behind him, headed home.

It had been an odd conversation with Greasy Johnson. The boy didn’t like to talk much, but he’d stopped being quite the arch-rival after he’d discovered American football. 

“Greasy, a word?” Adam said, as the much larger boy was coming off the field where a small group were finishing up a practice.

His one-time rival looked behind himself, turned back, eyebrows lowered in sullen suspicion. “What, me?” he said in a voice that had transformed into baritone overnight when he turned 12. 

“Yeah, so…” Adam sighed. “So you’re adopted, right?”

The eyebrows dropped down further. “What of it? Your lot had their go at me years ago.”

Adam scuffed his foot on the ground. “Yeah, sorry about that. See, I need you to go to London with me on Wednesday.” 

Greasy was nonplussed. “And?”

“And so I found out a bit ago that I’m, well, kind of adopted, too.”

Greasy’s eyebrows relaxed a little bit, but the rest of him still seemed very tense. “What’s it to do with me?”

“We were born on the same day, in the same place,” Adam said. “So was the boy we’re going to meet. Aren’t you curious?”

“How do you know where… they told me th’ adoption records was sealed.” Greasy set his helmet reverentially down on the bench next to the field, and poured himself a cup of Gatorade from a diminutive cooler. 

“Because I learnt things about my own birth and they were about you, too,” Adam said, his voice even, relaxed.

“What, were we switched at birth?” Greasy said, dismissively.

“Not … exactly.”

Greasy stared at Adam for a long moment, and then picked up his helmet and put it under his well-padded arm. “What’s that mean?”

Adam felt things slotting into place. “Come to London and find out.” He put up a hand as Greasy started to take an angry step forward. “I’m not messing about, it’s just it will make a lot more sense, and you need to hear the whole story. I don’t have the whole story. I’m not sure anyone has the whole whole story. But in London, we can learn most of it. And you can hear it not just from me.”

Warlock and Adam had been messaging each other since Adam had wheedled Warlock’s contact information out of Crowley a year prior. Adam had been circumspect, mostly having introduced himself as, “Hey, I found out we were born on the same day in the same hospital, isn’t that weird?” and having gone from there. Warlock had been in the US for far too long, in his own opinion, and Adam’s occasional messages felt weirdly more like home than his chats with his friends. 

Their joint birthday happening in London was Warlock’s idea. He’d already persuaded his mother to bring him to the UK in a few days before his school started in August; the rest was easy.

WD: They’ll do what I want. If I want to meet up with friends in Soho and spend the afternoon, they’ll send a bodyguard but they won’t care. 

AY: Mine are stricter. We almost never go to London, but maybe… I mean, it’s my birthday. And if we’re going to get answers, we really need to talk to some friends of mine who live there. 

After some back and forth with Warlock, Adam had phoned Crowley directly. 

“So, I need to come to London on my birthday and I need an excuse, and I need my parents to want to take me with a friend, and I don’t want to do any boogley boogley on them.”

There was a momentary pause, and then Crowley said brightly, “Oh, hello. So are you wanting us to do the boogley boogley, or…?”

“I don’t want to mess with their heads,” Adam said.

Aziraphale’s voice was a little distant, but quite distinct, as he asked, “Does his mother like the theatre?”

Adam blinked. “I don’t know? Maybe?”

“Are you trying to get them out of your way so you can do something without them?” Crowley asked hopefully. 

Aziraphale’s disapproving tone was clear, despite his distance from the microphone, “Please don’t encourage the Antichrist to do something nefarious…”

Adam laughed. “I wanted to see you. I have some questions.”

“Thought you got all of it answered at the airfield,” Crowley said.

“There was an awful lot. I couldn’t… when I let it all go, I only kept the stuff that was urgent, you know, for saving the world and stuff. I’ve only got bits and pieces of the rest of it. I figure you were there, you probably can fill in the blanks.”

“You sure you want them filled in?” Crowley asked. “There’s a lot that could get stirred up if you go poking around.”

“Most of the worst things that happen, happen because people don’t have all the information they need. It’s not fair to people to go about not knowing when it’s so important. Can’t have free will if we don’t have all the info.”

“Who’s the friend?” Aziraphale asked.

“A guy in my village. Shares a birthday with me. He’s adopted. We call him Greasy but I think his real name is Lucas or something. His mum died a couple years ago. He’s been having a hard time. Oh, and Warlock’s coming.” 

There was a long pause. And then a heavy sigh from Crowley. “Yes, bring them. You know where the bookshop is?”

“What about my parents?” Adam asked.

“We’ll handle it,” Crowley said.

The Youngs had been confused when Giles Baddicombe showed up with a set of theatre tickets, and a reservation confirmation for dinner and a suite at the Ritz. It took several credential checks for them to believe that it was real, including calling the Ritz and confirming that payment had been arranged.

“Oh, but that’s Adam’s birthday,” Deirdre started, “We can’t just leave him here alone…”

Adam cut her off, “Let me come to London. Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley said that if I ever came they’d be happy to take me on a tour. Mr. Fell has a bookshop. Just… Can I bring a friend?”

“We don’t have room in the car for all of Them,” Mr. Young said.

“Nah, I want a party with them on the weekend. There’s a circus we’re going to go see on Saturday. But for my birthday, well, you know Greasy? He’s been having a rough go, and it’s his birthday too, and I think his dad is sick.” Adam put on his most angelic face, and his mother melted. 

“Oh, of course, darling, that poor boy,” Mrs. Young said quickly. “It’s sweet of you to be so thoughtful of him.”

Mr. Young looked confused. “I thought you were enemies?”

Adam sighed dismissively. “Kid stuff.”

Mr. Young had not noticed a significant change in Adam’s overall general appearance in the previous four years, other than a little bit of upward growth, but desisted when his wife gave a tiny little shake of her head. He closed his mouth. 

The barrister said, “Of course there are several rooms in the suite, so an extra guest should be no trouble. Will the young gentlemen be joining you for dinner?”

The Youngs looked at each other but before they could comment, Adam said, “Oh, I don’t think Greasy and me will want to be at a stuffy old people restaurant. I can get Mr. Crowley to find us something where we won’t be worried about the forks and spoons. We can meet you after.”

Deirdre Young turned to Mr. Baddicombe, and said, “I still don’t quite understand why we’ve been gifted so lavishly? I didn’t enter anything…”

“My client was very specific about the itinerary,” the barrister said, “but he did not explain the exact motivation. I can tell you that the tickets and evening accommodations are a gift, no strings attached, and do not obligate you to any future course of action.”

Mr. Young frowned. “Is this one of those marketing things? Because we’re not in the market…”

Deirdre elbowed her husband. “If we can have in writing that there is no obligation to any future purchase or action on our part, I think it would greatly reassure my husband. I’m sure that if there’s a short presentation or something, we can endure it.”

“I can reassure you that there is no marketing of any kind, or any kind of sales,” Mr. Baddicombe said. “My client may wish to speak with you at some point but he is not in any sort of business that would involve that kind of marketing strategy.”

A call to the bookshop and a confirmation from Mr. Fell that “Of course he’d love to see the children, no trouble at all, perhaps we’ll take them to the zoo!” and the plans were set.

Later that night, lying awake in bed, Deirdre said to her husband, “Arthur, you really think that Adam will be all right whilst we’re at the theatre?”

Arthur considered. “Mr. Fell seems a sensible enough sort. I don’t think he’d let the boys get into any serious trouble. And that Johnson boy is as tall as I am now.”

“It’s so posh,” Deirdre said. “The Ritz! I’d sit through just about anything for an evening like that. How long has it been since we went off just the two of us?”

“Years,” Arthur said. “Never quite felt right leaving the lad, did it?”

So the last Wednesday in August rolled around, and off they went. Greasy sat on the left and Adam on the right with his mother in front of Greasy, looking out the window as his father drove. Dog had been dropped off at Jasmine Cottage for the trip. 

They were almost halfway there when Greasy finally leaned over and said, “When did you find out you’re adopted?”

Adam put a finger up to his lips and said, “Shhh, they don’t know.”

Greasy’s eyes widened, and his voice was simmering with distrust when he said, “Are you taking the piss?”

“No, I promise. It’s just complicated. All will be explained,” Adam hissed. Then louder, “So, anything you want to see in London?”

“Um, the Eye—” Greasy sighed. “No, well, actually next to the Eye, there’s an aquarium…”

“Sure, why not?” Adam said. “Bet Crowley can get us tickets.”

Mr. Young started to say something about requesting favours and then stopped himself when he remembered that they weren’t having to pay for any of the day’s adventure. Instead, he took out his wallet, and passed back an unprecedented fifty quid to Adam. “That’s for emergencies, and so that you can pay your own way as needed.”

Adam stared at the money. “If I don’t spend it, do you want it back?”

Mr. Young thought about being 13, which he could well remember, and thought about his son looking out for someone he hadn’t liked very much for a long time, and found himself shaking his head. “No, it’s yours. You’re 13. You can treat yourself and your friend if you like. Wouldn’t do to have you running about the city without some cash for emergencies. I trust you to do the right thing with it.”

Adam’s breath caught. A lot of people had said a lot of things to him over the years, but rarely had they involved trust. “Thanks, Dad.”

Greasy looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I didn’t bring…” he said in a low voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” Adam said under his breath. “Bet you I have fifty quid at the end of the day, too. The blokes who are going to be supervising us are generous. I don’t think it would occur to them to let us pay.”

“That’s weird.”

“They’re awfully weird. But… oh, you’ll see.”

They arrived at the bookshop mid-morning. Deirdre insisted on getting out, because she very much wanted to meet the people her son would be spending the afternoon with. 

The bookshop was closed when they arrived, one empty parking space miraculously available in front of it, but as they pulled in, before Deirdre could even comment on the “closed” sign, Adam pointed just around the corner and said, “Look, there’s Crowley and his car!”

Crowley was half sitting, half leaning against the hood of the Bentley, which did not dare dent from the pressure. 

His hair was longer than the last time Adam had seen him, two years longer, and his sunglasses were sleeker, but he was, incongruously, wearing trainers and a cardigan, both in a muted grey. Adam was suddenly completely certain that Crowley had decided that if he was going to meet Adam’s parents, he ought to seem harmless, and that his clothes only made sense if someone trying to dress the way Mr. Rogers dressed had been shopping in a high fashion women’s boutique on Bond street. The end result was… 

“He looks gay,” Greasy muttered.

“That a problem?” Adam asked, sharply.

Greasy shook his head. “Is he?”

“I’m not sure that’s the right word,” Adam said, “but I never asked.”

Adam opened his door, but before he could get out, he felt Greasy’s hand on his arm. “Hey, you know, I… if you’re introducing me… could you use my real name?”

“Lucas?” Adam asked.

“Lucius,” his friend said. “I… I’m tired of everyone calling me Greasy.”

Adam shrugged. “Why not? Can’t promise I won’t sl… mess up.”

“Thanks.”

By the time they were out of the car, Crowley was showing way too many teeth in an effort to appear harmless, and Mrs. Young was worrying aloud about not wanting to burden him.

Adam sighed. “Mother, it’s fine. Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell are friends, and we’re just going to be out and about this afternoon. I’ll text you everywhere we go.”

“Don’t forget your pictures,” Mr. Young said. “What do you young people call them? Selfies?” 

Greasy, or rather, Lucius, actually looked amused by  that, and then said, “I’ll make sure he remembers.”

“Lots of selfies,” Crowley said. “I think ’Zira has a whole itinerary planned. I understand you’ll be off on your own adventure?”

Mrs. Young smiled. “We’re going on a river cruise this morning, and then the theatre, and then the Ritz. It’s so exciting.”

That got a genuine smile from Crowley. “Enjoy. We’ll bring the boys by later. After you’re done with the meal. I would neither inflict two teenagers on your special dinner nor inflict the rules of the Ritz on the boys.”

“Oh, have you eaten there?” Mr. Young inquired.

Crowley’s look softened. “Many times. It’s our favourite. Now, children, come inside.”

“It’s closed,” Lucius said. 

“Not for us, it’s not.”

They waved at the Youngs as they got back into the car and drove off.

As they went inside the bookshop, Adam got a message from Warlock. “He’ll be here in about 10 minutes,” he said to Crowley.

“Tell him the front door is unlocked,” Aziraphale said from the wingback chair. “He can ignore the closed sign.”

Lucius was looking around the bookshop. “D’ya have any comics?” he asked.

“You know, I never did, before,” Aziraphale said, looking significantly at Adam. “But one day, we, er, got a shipment, and they’re over there.”

Lucius latched onto the small display of comics like a lifeline, gingerly picking up sleeves and, finding something he liked, pulling a pair of cotton gloves out of his pocket.

Adam stared. “Gloves?”

“You said we’d be going to an old book shop. So I looked it up. Don’t want to damage them,” Lucius said. “I think these are really valuable. I’d feel bad if I got fingerprints all over them.”

Aziraphale beamed. “Oh, I like him, can we keep him?” 

Crowley rolled his eyes.

It felt like the bookshop was holding its breath as Lucius carefully opened one particularly old comic. The only sound was the careful turn of the page. Aziraphale sat in his chair with a book in his lap, but appeared to be looking more at his knees than at the text.

Crowley leaned against the end of one of the sturdier shelves, and Adam pretended to be paying attention to the comic.

A few minutes later, the bell on the front door jingled, and a tall man in a dark suit came in, looked around, asked all their names, and then muttered something into his hand. Then he turned and walked out. Crowley looked like a string about to snap, and abruptly walked behind a bookshelf.

Then the front door opened, and Warlock entered, alone. He’d grown several inches without putting on an ounce, and was definitely gangling.

“You always travel with the Men in Black?” Adam asked. 

Warlock shrugged. “It, you know, comes with the territory.” He looked over at Aziraphale, and looked briefly perplexed. “Aren’t you the magician who was at my birthday party 2 years ago?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “I, well, er, yes.”

“Are you really a magician?” Warlock asked. “You weren’t very good at it.”

Aziraphale sighed. “No. I mean, I can do magic, but I’m lousy at the—” He made an expansive gesture in the air. 

Lucius slid the comic book back into the sleeve, put it down, and said, “What do you mean, you can do magic?”

Crowley stepped out. “What he means is that he can do actual magic. Most magicians use sleight of hand, trickery, no real magic and all. Aziraphale is magic. But his sleight of hand is nonsense.”

“Real magic?” Lucius asked. “Can I see?”

“Shortly,” Crowley said. “Best use the loo first though; it’s in the back.”

Lucius frowned. Adam nudged him. “You probably should. It’s pretty overwhelming. I’ll show you where it is.”

As they left the room, Warlock squinted at Crowley. “You seem familiar, too. Have we met?”

Crowley sighed, and let his voice shift a little. “Oh, my darling boy, of course we have.”

Warlock went white as a sheet. “No. I mean, you’re… But… Nanny?”

“Not just Nanny,” Aziraphale said, standing up, and as his hand made a graceful drop from in front of his face down his body, he was transformed seamlessly.

“Brother Francis?” Warlock whispered, knees buckling. Crowley was right there, propping him up.

Aziraphale said, “Yes, my dear child.” He gestured again, returning to his normal appearance.

Warlock stared, first at Aziraphale, and then at Crowley, and then at Adam, standing just barely in sight at the back of the shop.

“Did you know?”

Adam shrugged. “Some of it.”

Warlock turned back to Crowley.“What… Why…. Were you always a man?”

Crowley snorted. “Me? I’ve never been. Still not.”

“But you look... I mean… Are you trans?”

Aziraphale sighed. “I’m not sure what we are computes with the whole ‘assigned at birth’ model, because we weren’t. Neither of us is really tied to one gender or the other, it’s a matter of convenience, preference, and whatever suits the occasion. I’m usually mostly man-shaped. Crowley, well, it varies.”

“You weren’t assigned at birth?” Warlock said, perplexed.

“We weren’t born,” Crowley said. “We were more… pulled from the fundamental ether of creation before the stars.”

Warlock started to sag again, and Aziraphale gestured a chair underneath the boy. 

He sat, and looked from one to the other as Lucius and Adam returned. “What are you?”

Crowley sighed. “That’s possibly a matter of some debate, but technically, I’m still probably a demon, ish. Used to be an angel.”

“And I’m probably still an angel. Ish,” said Aziraphale.

Lucius, who had just come back into earshot, walked forward, laughing. “That’s a good one!” He looked at Adam and then at Warlock. “Why aren’t you laughing?”

“It’s true,” said Adam. “Technically, I suppose, I’m the Antichrist. None of us are really any good at our assigned roles.”

Both boys turned to look at Adam. “You’re what?” Lucius said.

“Wait, Nanny, you used to tell me I was—” Warlock stopped, as Lucius and Adam turned to stare at Warlock. 

“Nanny?” Lucius’ voice was incredulous. “He was your nanny?”

“Oh for…” Crowley said, and snapped a finger up from his knees to his head, transforming into Nanny Ashtoreth. 

Aziraphale waved another chair over just in time for Lucius to sink heavily into it. 

“’Zat why you said he wasn’t gay?” Lucius asked. “Cuz he’s a she?”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know how they identify, it never came up. There was a lot happening the last time we hung out.”

“By ‘hanging out’,” Aziraphale said, “young Adam means that we were very busy trying to stop the world from ending.”

Crowley sighed, changed back, and said, “I’m an occult being. This corporation is arbitrary, mostly. I don’t have a gender. I barely identify as humanoid, and I’m not always human-shaped. As for ‘gay’, if I understand how young people are using it these days, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not straight, but that’s just because it’s hard to come up with an opposite gender of ‘is sometimes male-ish, is sometimes female-ish, is sometimes nothing at all, and is occasionally a rather large snake-like beast.’”

“Yeah, but are you two together?” Lucius asked, looking between Crowley and Aziraphale.

“Is there a reason you’re asking?” Aziraphale asked Lucius, in that odd combination of gentle and wary that grownups often take with teenagers asking pointed questions.

The boy’s eyes darted sideways to Adam. “Can you keep a secret?”

Adam smiled gently. “You’re about to be in on a secret that almost no humans alive know. I’ve kept it for a long time. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing you could tell me that would be worse than ‘I’m the Antichrist.’”

“I think I might be gay,” Lucius said. 

Aziraphale smiled. “I think what you young people would call us is QPLPs. Or, oh, what was it? Courgettes?” 

“Zucchinis,” Crowley said. “And you know I hate that word.”

“Oh, but it’s so cute,” Aziraphale said fondly.

Crowley shuddered.

Adam and Lucius blinked. Warlock sighed, “Queerplatonic life partners. Means they probably don’t have sex, not that I want to think about that, but they’re together. There’s a GSA club at the American School. They passed out literature. Dad hates it, so I go.”

Lucius looked down at his knees. “Anyway, so, this kid knows you two, and Adam knows you two, why am I here?”

Crowley sighed, looked around the shop, and said, “I think this conversation needs ice cream.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Aziraphale said. “Rest assured dear boy, that while we may not have met before, you’re here for a very good reason.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to walk yet,” Warlock said looking up at Crowley. “You… you’re a demon, I can believe that. But you rocked me to sleep. You tied my shoes. You were there more than my mother was, far more than Dad ever was, and you were so kind. I mean, you said the most awful stuff, but you, I mean, are you even capable of caring? You made me think… And then you just disappeared.”

“He’s capable,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t think your Nanny ever lied to you, not knowingly. We both thought you were the Antichrist, see. And we knew that the Antichrist meant the end of, well, everything. And we just didn’t want the world to end.”

“Rather fond of it, actually,” Crowley said. “After, well, we’ll get into that in a bit, but we decided together that we’d look after you, and we knew that Heaven and Hell would be watching, so we had to make it look good, and so we wanted to put on a good show for the respective sides, while working to cancel each other out, so to speak…”

“What he’s saying is that we’ve had a lot of experience at neutralizing the effects of both Heaven and Hell, and we wanted the Antichrist to grow up with both influences, so I became the gardener and Crowley became Nanny and well, I think we both grew far more fond of you than either of us expected.” Aziraphale’s expression was positively beatific. 

“But I’m not the Antichrist. He said he is,” Warlock said, nodding at Adam. 

“There was a bit of a mix-up at the hospital where you two were born,” Adam said. “I’m still not entirely clear on how all that worked.”

“If anyone had been anything remotely close to clear on it,” Crowley said, “then you, Adam, would have been named Warlock, and grown up the son of the American Ambassador, and Warlock would have stayed with the Youngs. I don’t think anything much would have changed for Lucius, who without the rather incompetent intervention of the Satanic nuns, would have been named something else entirely and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Dowling.”

“It took us a dozen years, two nuns, and quite a lot of threatening to work that out,” Aziraphale said. “It is fortunate that the nuns are not so much evil as, er, habit-bound. Had they been truly evil, I’m not sure you, young Lucius, would have survived the fire.”

Lucius swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry. “I think I want that ice cream now.”

“Right! Shall we walk?” said Aziraphale.

Adam stole a glance over as they walked south towards St. James Park. Lucius and Warlock both looked stunned, not quite staggering down the street, but clearly deeply preoccupied. 

He sighed. “I know it’s a lot,” he started.

“Ice cream first,” Lucius said. “I’m still thinking.”

“Well, my whole life suddenly makes a lot more sense,” Warlock said, and then returned to making sure his feet didn’t suddenly decide to do something other than walking. That seemed to occupy most of his remaining attention.

After a couple of minutes, Lucius exclaimed, “Wait, I’m American?”

“I mean, kinda?” Adam said. “Your birth certificate makes you British, and while I have no idea if any of ours are really legal, they seem to work all right.”

“Yeah, but my parents are American.”

“Your parents are the people who raised you,” Adam said.

“Easy for you to say,” Warlock said. “I guess you were raised by my biological parents?”

“They’re all right,” Adam said. “My— Dad’s a little strict.”

“He’s there, though,” Warlock said.

Adam sighed. “Let’s get ice cream.”

When they arrived at the park, Aziraphale made a beeline to the ice cream vendor, and told the boys to order what they liked.

They found their way over to a slightly less busy corner of the park. Well, it had been just as busy as the rest of the park, but once Crowley decided it was suitable, suddenly everyone who’d been lounging on the grass or sitting on the benches suddenly found somewhere else to be. Warlock’s bodyguards stayed back farther than they might normally, for reasons they couldn't have said.

“Best take one of your photographs, children,” Aziraphale said. “For your parents.”

“I'll get it,” Crowley said.

A moment later he frowned at the picture on his mobile. “There’s a flare.” He tried again, shifting a little. There was still a strange bright spot behind the boys, but their faces were visible, so he shrugged it off.

Adam pulled the flake out of the top of his ice cream, bit the creamy end, and then stuck it back in. “So, ’splain it to them, like you did to me,” he said to Crowley, around a mouthful of chocolate.

Crowley slipped his mobile into a pocket*, sprawled his usual sprawl on the bench, sighed, and then said, “I was handed a basket with you, Adam, in it, on the night you lot were born. Don’t ask me where you came from before the Duke of Hell handed you to me, I have no idea. Satan might know, if he remembers you at all. I don’t know how thorough you were at erasing yourself from his memory.”

*The cardigan didn’t usually come with pockets, but Crowley assumed that any clothes he wore would have pockets, and so it did.

Adam shrugged, and gestured at Crowley to continue. 

“Right, so I had a basket full of baby, and was told to take it, sorry, you, to a little hospital in Tadfield. It’s now Tadfield Manor, but at the time, it was home to an order of rather incompetent Satanic nuns. When I showed up, there was a man outside smoking. I assumed he was a bodyguard for Mrs. Dowling, but I now know he was Mr. Young. I had no idea there were two births going on. I found the nearest, and apparently, the most incompetent of the nuns in question, and told her to take him to the room the man at the front had told me things were happening in, the room where Warlock had just been born to Mrs. Young.” Crowley paused, but the boys were just listening, wide-eyed. 

“We figured the rest out by conjecture, later,” Aziraphale said. “What must have happened is that one of the nuns took Warlock out of the Youngs’ room, and someone thought he was the Antichrist, so they took him and swapped him with Lucius, who had just been born to Mrs. Dowling. And Lucius was taken away later and adopted to the Johnsons, in Tadfield.”

“Right,” Warlock said. “But what do we do now?”

“We don’t really have to do anything,” Adam said. “We can, I just…”

“You’re worried that if everyone finds out about the switch, you’ll be the odd one out?” Crowley asked Adam.

“If Warlock going to that club pisses off his father, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want a gay kid,” Lucius said, before Adam could respond.

“Dad’s worried about appearances,” Warlock said. “He’s a Republican. He keeps telling me that I’ll be his son no matter what, but I think that’s because he’s worried that I might decide to be his daughter just to spite him.” 

Confusion was setting up camp on Lucius’ face.

“I wouldn’t identify as something I’m not just to spite Dad,” Warlock said. “It’s just the best club in school, and I haven’t figured all that out yet. Anyway, if you like sports and shooting things, he’d probably be thrilled.”

Lucius gaped at him. “Never shot anything, but sports are good. I like American football.”

Warlock grinned, “See, he’d love you.” Then he sighed. “I’m not sure he’s ever gotten the hang of me.”

Adam sighed. “I don’t think my parents would stop loving me if they found out there was a mix-up. I just don’t want there being some nonsense just because we’re getting the truth.”

“So, you’re like, actually from Hell?” Warlock asked Adam.

Adam shrugged. “There’s some philosophical argument to be had about whether I changed reality enough that that’s no longer true. I did tell Satan that he’s not my dad, and it changed the entire world. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put the fate of the world in the hands of an eleven-year-old kid was a fucking idiot, to be honest.”

“Oh, I don’t know, you did well,” a voice said from over by the duck pond, behind them.

Aziraphale’s face blanched as his eyes widened. Crowley had what can only be described as a full body twitch, of the sort that makes owls and kittens fluff up to six times their actual size, but on him it only created an odd shuddering effect. Adam had a sudden image of wings puffing out, but they stayed in whatever other dimension they usually stayed in. He turned around to see a middle-aged woman in a flowing white pantsuit tossing peas to the ducks. They both surged to their feet.

“Grandmother?” he asked.

The world around them went still, a duck paused mid-flap, a pelican with its mouth wide open, a pigeon coming in for a landing, all perfectly still, only Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam remaining unfrozen. 

“Comme ci, comme ça,” She said, with a soft and merry smile at Adam. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.” She looked up at Crowley and Aziraphale and laughed outright. “Relax, my dears, if I was going to do anything to you, I would have done it already.”

They both started talking at once, and She held up a finger and said, “Aht! I’m just here for a quick visit with my erstwhile grandson.” 

Adam looked stern. “You know that’s not fair. They’ve been wanting to talk to you for ever so long.”

Aziraphale blinked at Adam. “Did you just scold… The Almighty?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“Oh, no,” Crowley said, stepping forward, putting his shoulder in front of Aziraphale protectively. “You literally damned me to Hell for asking questions, you don’t roll your eyes at Aziraphale for being shocked at you thinking nothing of a boy scolding you to your face.”

Her eyes closed, She sighed, and then She put down the basket of peas, stepped forward, and looked up into Crowley’s face. He met her gaze almost, but not quite, without flinching. Well, the first flinch was involuntary, but then he straightened and focused.

She lifted a hand to his cheek, not quite touching it, and said, “You don’t really want me to change you.”

“I didn’t want to fall,” he whispered. “But I don’t want to be in Heaven’s army, and I never did.”

“My first conscientious objector. You fought Hell just as hard.” She closed Her eyes, stepped closer, and sighed, Her breath washing over him. “I have learned more from you, dear, than almost anyone.” 

Crowley staggered back, his hand going to his chest. Aziraphale caught him without thinking, and cried, “What did you do to him?”

With an imperious swish of Her finger, the world around the four of them faded into blue sky and cloud. 

Tears were running down Crowley’s cheeks, and he reached up to pull the sunglasses off, wiping his eyes. Then he turned and looked at Aziraphale. The colour of his eyes had not changed, but the shape of the pupil was different, and the mark on his cheek faded away. Aziraphale frowned. “I liked them the way they were. They’re part of you.” 

And just like that, both mark and snake eyes were back. 

“She gave you a choice,” Adam said.

“It’s more than that,” Crowley said. “She… they say that Hell is the absence of Her love. And I can feel it again. I can see.”

“Does that mean you’re an angel now?” Aziraphale asked.

“No,” She said, moving to Aziraphale. 

Crowley stood up. “But I’m not quite a demon any more.”

“You’ve been, hm, well, promoted,” She said to him. “Out of the hierarchy entirely.”

He scowled at that. “Took myself out of that is more like.”

“That too,” She said. “Both of you.”

Aziraphale straightened, put his shoulders back, and took a deep breath as She took his hands. 

“I know you think you haven’t been a very good angel, my darling.”

Aziraphale looked down. “I tried so hard to do what I thought was right.”

“Which puts you so far ahead of those who just followed the rules,” She said. “Sometimes we follow all the rules and get the wrong answer anyway, and sometimes we break all the rules and end up in the right place in spite of it. You, you developed a conscience. And a capacity to embrace the world.”

Aziraphale met her gaze, eyes wide, hope blooming on his face. “You aren’t angry?”

“I’m not, now,” She said. “It took me a while to really understand.”

“But you know everything,” Adam protested. “I did, too, for a little bit.”

“Knowing and understanding are two different things, sweet child. You know that. Do not make the mistake of thinking we are the same… but don’t think we’re so different, either.”

“Are you saying,” Aziraphale’s voice was coated with indignation, “that your plans have been ineffable because you did not, yourself, understand them fully?”

She shrugged and turned away. 

Crowley muttered, “That actually makes me feel better, oddly enough.”

She looked up, and then down and then back at Aziraphale. “Look, I am the Lord of all creation, but I’m only lord of all THIS creation,” She said. “I was, for that which I came from, very young when I started. And when things started going awry, I tried fixing it, early on, but I didn’t do a very good job. I had to step back, even when it hurt.”

“You killed all those kids,” Crowley said. “I couldn’t stop you.”

She turned to him, and looked down. “You, above all, took my instruction to love humanity to heart, Crowley. Or would you prefer I use the name I gave you?”

He shook his head. “Crowley is the one I gave myself, the one I chose.”

“I can’t… I want to tell you why things are the way they are, my darlings, but any explanation I give you will diminish the importance of this creation, and I don’t want to do that, as you deserve so, so much more.”

Adam sighed at her. “You can use metaphors. I think we, of everyone, will understand that they are metaphors.”

She sighed. “Imagine, if you will, a school. Only this school isn’t a building or even a place, but an entirely different set of dimensions. And each of us there, once we hit a certain point of our development, have to do, well, essentially a thesis project. And part of the raison d'être, well, of me, is to help answer some of the fundamental questions. I won’t tell you this is a simulation, because for you, it is absolutely not. I cannot, I won’t diminish what you have been doing here for so long, by telling you it’s a thought problem.”

“Except that it is, really,” Crowley said. “It always has been, you never hid that.”

“But what I don’t get,” Adam said, “is how all this started six thousand years ago and yet, the universe is clearly so old?”

“I wanted to set up a natural world. Something with as few basic rules as I could get away with. But I didn’t really have to start it at the beginning, we could just take a lot of it as writ…”

Crowley breathed in sharply. “That’s why it was so easy to place the stars.”

Aziraphale looked at him curiously. “You were around for that bit?”

“Yeah, it was like, oh, I would just have to think about how I wanted them to be, and they would show up, but with far more detail than I’d given them.”

Adam laughed. “You’re telling me the world is what, procedurally generated?” 

Aziraphale blinked, confused.

“It’s a video game thing,” Adam said. “They write all these rules and then there’s a random number generated and everything comes out from that or something. I don’t quite get it but it makes it a lot easier to get a big game that isn’t the same everywhere without people having to make decisions about every little thing.”

“A little, although, a little different. Time is arbitrary for us, in many ways, so the first bit just, blblblblblblip!” She marked that with a hand that seemed to follow a rapid corkscrew through the air, and a flourish at the end. 

“You fast forwarded the universe?” Adam asked.

“Fast forward! Yes!” She seemed pleased at the notion. “Got it to the interesting part.”

“So what was the question? The thesis?” Aziraphale asked. “Which is better, good or evil? I would think that obvious. Free will? Heaven versus Hell? Why did you put the Tree in the middle of the Garden?”

At this, Her eyes seemed to almost glow with excitement. “Aziraphale. Don't you see? Heaven isn't good, it's order. And Hell isn't evil, it's chaos. Heaven isn't the arbiter of goodness, it's the enforcer of obedience. And Hell is disobedience, unfettered by conscience.”

She gestured in the air, and a glowing fractal emerged, colours, a plane stretching, most of it simple, dark to the right of her, light to the left of her, a line of infinite complexity stretching upward and downward in the air in twisting curls of colour out of the gamut of human sight in places. 

“Look,” She said. “Complexity thrives on the edge of chaos, not in it. It rides the line between obedience and free will, the cold, drowning light of ultimate rigidity, and the burning darkness of undefinable chaos.”

Adam gazed at the roiling complexity of the centre and then turned to her, frowning. “But they see the order and chaos and think that they need to pick a side. You've set up a system where they are supposed to be living in the middle, compassionate and kind, and the ends are tearing it apart.”

She closed her eyes. “I know. The experiment had failed, which is why I was willing to have it end.”

“But it didn’t fail,” Crowley said. “It didn’t fail, because Adam chose the middle.”

She opened her eyes, and her gaze fell on him. “Not just Adam, child, but you and your beloved, as well.”

Several expressions at once tried to make their homes upon his face, got into a fight, and the net effect was that his eyes darted over to Aziraphale and back and then he said to her, “That’s really not fair of you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Since when have I been fair? Is he not your beloved?”

“Well, of course, but we don’t— It isn’t—It’s not safe.”  

“Why in Creation would it matter where or how you find your joy?” She said. “Not that you have to,” She shrugged, “you know, but you should have the choice. Aziraphale, love, how much of what you do is built on your habit of fear of standing out to Heaven?”

Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth like a beige-and-tartan guppy.

She closed her eyes, and the words “FEAR NOT” seemed to come from all around them. The angel gasped, held his breath for a long moment, and then sighed out slowly. He gave a little shiver and a stretch, extended his wings high, arching over his head and then down, and a ripple of colour spread out through his clothes, his hair, and his wings…

“They’re like, oh, mother of pearl or opal is like that!” Adam said, as colours glimmered through the white feathers. 

The Almighty smiled, and asked, “May I?”

“What?” Aziraphale asked, his voice a little lower, less worried.

She reached into the air, and pulled the fractal down into a length of silk, and then another. The first one She wrapped around Aziraphale’s neck, his tartan bow tie nowhere to be seen, and the next thing he knew, a silk bow tie with reflected fractal patterns was at his neck. 

“Might want to tone that down just a little in public,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale’s hair settled down from almost neon roiling colour into a more subtle, but still intricate shading, lighter than pastel, almost like a trick of the light. He looked down, and his jacket, which had gone a rather startling shape radiating green and purple light, settled down into a more opalescent version of what he’d been wearing before, but in much better fabrics.

“Are you saying,” Crowley exclaimed, “that the beige was just you afraid to step away from Heaven's colour scheme? I know Gabriel didn’t wear it.”

“It’s like, oh, what was that thing you came up with a while back… oh, the Homeowner’s Association. Acceptable palettes needed to be within a certain saturation range, no colours, pale, no paisleys, etc. etc.”

“Well, that was partly your idea,” Crowley said.

“I got it from Heaven,” Aziraphale said. “The angel in charge of the military uniforms was rather taken by the whole idea of tartans, and I figured it was more interesting than just plain beige, so I borrowed it.”

“So you have a choice about your eyes and stuff?” Adam asked Crowley. “Does that mean you’re going to use more colours, too?”

“I mean, I rather like the darker colours,” Crowley started, and then looked thoughtful for a moment. His wings unfurled and rose, and his Creator laughed as stars and galaxies glimmered through his wings, and fire licked through his hair. 

She whispered to Herself a name that had not been spoken in millennia as a shimmy started at his shoulders and worked its way down through his hips, and deep colour flickered down clothes that were hard to pin down, because they kept shifting.

“And you thought mine wouldn’t fly in public, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured, amused. 

The colours shimmered down what was briefly a robe, and then the fabric pulled in on itself, gave a satisfied twitch, and Crowley was left standing in a dark brocade suit with deep red accents, with his hair settled down into slightly longer curls. She handed him the other length of fractal silk, and he absently used it to pull his hair back into a knot. The effect was markedly androgynous. 

“You have to tell them how they will be safe,” Adam said.

“Oh, they’re safe,” She answered, and moved her hand in a complex figure 8. A batch of angels and a batch of demons appeared on either side of them.

“What is the meaning of this?” Michael and Beelzebub said in unison, and then both frowned, looked at each other, and then looked away in irritation.

The Almighty folded her arms across her chest, and said, “Young Adam suggested I make some things clear, and I agreed, as a favor to him.”

Gabriel’s eyes widened, and he frowned, opened his mouth, raised his hand, and then shut it again. His hand looked lost for a moment, and then dropped back to his side.

“Yes, Lord?” Michael said, voice full of respect and face full of fear.

“I would like to make it clear that Aziraphale and Crowley are off limits, if that wasn’t already clear from the results of your previous… experiment. They are not on either of your, oh, what did you call it? Payrolls. They’re on mine.”

“But—” Gabriel started. He didn’t get to finish because sound stopped coming out of his mouth. His lips flapped for a moment longer, and then stopped when he realised nothing was coming out.

“Let me put it this way,” She said. “I am unhappy with both your sides. The only people who have followed my instructions are Crowley and Aziraphale. They are being promoted, out of either of your hierarchies.”

Crowley blinked, and looked at Her and then Aziraphale, who was staring at Crowley with wide eyes. Crowley made a baffled shrug and mouthed, “I don’t know either.”

“But, sssssir, we tried —” Beelzebub started.

The Almighty shifted, and grew, and Her voice deepened. “I did not say you could speak.”  

There was a slight disturbance at Her right knee, a tugging, and She looked down to see Adam.

Without a moment of transition, She was back to the small, mild-mannered form of a middle-aged woman, and She smiled at him and said, “Yes, Grandson?”

Adam seemed remarkably relaxed for someone who has just seen the Almighty personally scold someone. “It’s just, I don’t think they know what they did wrong, and they’re going to have a hard time fixing it if they don’t know what they did wrong. When people punish me without explaining what I did, it just makes me mad, it doesn’t make me interested in helping them.”

“What was the last thing I said to you before today, Michael?” She asked.

“You said, ‘This isn’t working, I need to step back and think. Leave Aziraphale there,’” Michael said, without hesitation.

“And when is the last time you had an instruction, Beelzebub?” the Almighty continued.

“I… It… My memory is fuzzzzzy. I was left in charge when…” Zzzi looked around. “Why is not He here?”

“He quit Hell and moved to Los Angeles, oh, ten years ago,” Dagon said. “And yet, he didn’t… No, he’s definitely there. Why is he not here?”

“He also chose the middle, and humanity,” She said. “He wants no part of this, and I will not force him. Your memory is fuzzy because reality changed, and over time those changes have solidified—where I did not take direct action to preserve the memories of the previous timeline.” She let this percolate through the gathered beings. "No one told you to punish my agents. Or humanity."

“You favor them,”  Gabriel said, looking vaguely nauseated. “We have done nothing but preserve good and order and the rightness of things.”

“You, Gabriel, are a pompous, self-aggrandizing, arrogant prat, and I should have dealt with you aeons ago, but I had not yet decided what I would do to rectify the current misunderstanding. Remember that it is for such arrogance that the hosts of Hell fell in the first place. Tread lightly.” She silenced him again with a wave of her hand. He looked afraid for the first time anyone could remember. “How did you think that the War you all were so eager for would be decided?”

The demons and angels looked at each other and then back at Her. Sandelphon said, “We would fight, and we would win.”

“With a nuclear war?” Adam said. “How would that hurt any of you? All it would do is hurt humanity. But that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? All of you? Even the angels?”

“We fell because Lucifer couldn’t take Her loving humanity more than us,” Crowley said to Adam. “There’s a grudge.”

But She was stepping forward again. “No, Crowley.”

“No?” he said, suddenly uncertain.

“Lucifer fell because of that. You did not.” 

“Right,” Crowley said, covering his uncertainty with salt. “I just got the boot for asking questions.”

She sighed. “I told you it would be like this, that you wouldn’t understand.”

“Told me what?” Crowley’s tone was sharp, as if he was afraid She might actually, for once, answer.

“You didn’t fall, Crowley, you were sent.”

It was chaos, the Fall… Angels fighting, arguing, hurting each other. She had watched, noticed the two not in the fray, the millions fighting, and had done the only thing She could think of doing in the moment—  

With an act of the purest, most colossal will, She separated the sides. Created Hell, and created Heaven, for certainly the Heaven from before the Fall was gone, broken irreparably by Her wayward creations. She’d given both sides tasks, only this new Heaven hadn’t realised that its tasks were punishments, too, so bolstered by their self-righteous certainty that they were the obedient ones, as much as they shared the demons’ disdain for humanity. And Hell, of course, leaned into their punishment, revelled in it.

But before that, before the dust had settled, She pulled Crowley* aside, and explained what She wanted. He had asked so many questions, but She answered them. When the enormity of it finally settled into his skin, he sighed and said, “You have to make me forget. I can’t sell it, otherwise. They’ll know if I haven’t…”

[*Crowley chose his own name, and She respects it and so will we, though it was not what She called her angel, then.]  

“Lost your Grace?” She asked.

“Why did you take it from them?” he whispered. “I know you are so much more than we can comprehend, but I never thought you cruel…”

“They threw it away,” She said. “Assumed that casting them out meant I must not Love them. I still do, but it is a frequency they have blinded themselves to. I will have to change you… because you will not change yourself.”

He shuddered, but then looked to the Garden. “Will there still be flowers? Will I still be able to see the stars and remember that I was there?”

She nodded. “I can give you that. My brave darling.”

“Will I be alone?” he asked softly.

With that, She smiled. “I think not. At least, not always. I will find you, when the task is complete.”

“Can such a task have an ending?” he asked, as She began to shape the ideas that would become his new existence.

“Everything has an ending. Go now. By the time you get there, you will be who you will be.”

He gave her a long look, nodded, and then walked away. He didn’t look back.

Crowley doubled over as though he’d been punched, his eyes wide, mouth open as the memories crashed in. “Haaaa, oh…”

Aziraphale stepped forward, reaching out a hesitant, concerned hand. “My dear fellow, are you quite all right?” 

Crowley, face still wide open and overwhelmed, shook his head. Aziraphale waved a hand absently and a colourfully baroque settee appeared behind Crowley, incongruous on the fluffy cloudlike surface that spread from horizon to horizon. Aziraphale gently helped Crowley sag down to sit on it, and then sat next to him, patting Crowley’s shoulder awkwardly.

“What issss happening?” Beelzebub snapped. 

“He’s remembering,” the Almighty said. “Remembering something he asked to forget when I sent him to keep an eye on the Earth and Hell.”

“I knew it!” Hastur said. “He’s a bloody spy is what he is!”

“No, love,” She said, focusing her attention on the Duke of Hell. “He was your guardian angel, sort of. Well, not yours specifically, but his presence allowed me to let you all be. Mostly. I didn’t want to destroy you.”

“If you could have, you would have done already,” Dagon said dismissively.

The Lord of all Creation sighed. “I have always, forever, had the ability to end any part of this, or all of it. But I’ve grown rather fond of it, and Crowley persuaded me that I didn’t have to. Well, he did, the first time. Adam and Aziraphale helped the second time, too.”

Hastur stared at Her, not blinking. “He wot?”

On the settee, Crowley closed his mouth and looked up at Hastur, “I…” He sighed. “I asked her not to destroy you, because you didn’t understand the big picture. Said maybe you could learn, given time. She allowed it, but wanted me to go with you, keep an eye on things, on the down low.” He winced. “It was my idea to become one of you. I just don’t think we both realised how much I would forget, when She cut me off.”

“But your basic nature was still good,” Aziraphale said, wonderingly. “I always knew, on some level.”

“You weren’t part of the rebellion,” Crowley said. “You were off reading the plans for human civilisation. I suggested that since you were so interested, you should have a hand in it.”

“You… You knew who I was?” Aziraphale asked.

“Better then than right after,” Crowley said. “Don’t think you knew me though. Always had your nose in a scroll.” His voice was fond.

The Lord made a gesture with her hand, and Aziraphale gasped. “Oh! No. I knew. Oh…”

She had confided in Aziraphale, after Crowley had sauntered* downward.

[*Staggered, really, with a side of stumbling and a burning weight of confused tears in his altered eyes, but shhhh. We don't talk about that.]

He had managed to be so focused on writing a theoretical treatise on potential systems of government in the presence of free will and the effects of divine intervention thereon that he had not actually noticed the chaos outside the Repository until G_d Herself appeared directly in front of him in all her glory, so bright he couldn’t see his page any more. He finished his sentence anyway, and then closed his eyes, lifted his chin, quirked his eyebrows and said serenely, “Yes, Your Magnificence?”

“Aziraphale,” She said. “It is time to put down your quill, and notice what is going on around you.”

“Oh, certainly, I was just finishing up…” He pushed a honey-gold curl back behind his ear, smudging it with ink, eyes still closed against Her overbright radiance.

“The rebellion is over,” She said. “I have ended it.”

“Rebellion?” he asked, eyes flying open. He winced, worried. “Oh, dear, was anyone hurt? I didn’t know that was going to be now.”

She sighed, and dimmed. “It took an age. And yes, angels were hurt. I had to separate them to stop them from fighting.”

“Oh, very clever,” Aziraphale said, sounding genuinely impressed. “How did you do that?”

“I forced the rebels onto a different plane. There were… casualties of the process. They lost their grace. Lucifer encouraged them to twist their forms in anger. They have a Hell of their own making now. Very unpleasant.”

“Who—” Aziraphale started, and then, resigned, “Oh, I suppose I will learn soon enough. So it’s over?”

“For now. I was thinking about discorporating all of them, starting fresh, but Crowley suggested that I let them be, give them a chance to learn.”

“Oh, that one is a nice being,” Aziraphale said with a fond smile. “Quite a head for complexity, that one. Such lovely nebulas.”

“I sent him to keep an eye on them,” She said. “He insisted that I make him like them, so he could fit in better.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “It will be agony for him, not being able to feel it, if he can remember.”

“He can’t. And they’ll be sending him to Earth soon. Which is why I must send you there as well.”

His eyes widened. “Me? I mean, I know I was going to be there eventually, but really?” He looked frankly delighted. “I’ve been so wanting to get down there and look around. Theory is all well and good, but getting down there on the ground… Do they have free will yet?”

She laughed. “Not yet. They’ve yet to take an interest.”

“Where did you put it?” he asked.

“There’s a little gated area off in a corner,” She said.

“Really ought to put that in the middle if you want them to get curious,” Aziraphale said. “You do want them to get curious? I mean, I assume the tree wouldn’t be there at all if you didn’t want them to eat of it.”

“You’re very presumptuous,” She said with a chuckle.

He blushed and stammered, “Oh, I didn’t mean…”

“No, I’m glad of it. It gets tiring being surrounded by people who won’t ever be honest with me.”

He smiled, relieved. “So what am I to do?” he asked. “I want to help if I can.”

She sighed. “I have three tasks for you, but unfortunately, you will only remember the one you can’t possibly succeed at.”

He gave a small, perplexed nod.

“First, and you won’t remember this, but I think you’ll know all the same, I need you to keep an eye on Crowley.”

“By which you mean…” 

“Just get down there and provide some balance. He’s very clever, and he won’t quite know what he’s doing, though I trust his instincts. And I want you to keep an eye on the world. Experience it. Someday, I may need to draw on your experience, to make a judgement. Follow your heart.”

He nodded. “And?”

“And I am, for a time, making you a guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden.”

“Oh!” He thought for a moment. “Just the gate?”

“For now,” She said. “You’ll have a flaming sword.”

He looked over the gossamer-thin sheets that made up the angelic scrollery, and frowned. “That seems very, well, flame-y. Might catch something on fire. Who am I guarding? Or am I defending?”

“You are there to watch, to guide, to help, and to nurture,” She said. “The sword is mostly for show.” She directed her attention briefly off away from the both of them.

“For… OH! So they will respect it more?” Aziraphale asked, pleased.

She smiled at him, brightening, but not overwhelmingly so, and he sighed, basking in the light for a moment.

“I won’t remember?” he said, at last.

“No. He would be suspicious if you were too helpful, I think.”

“An angel who doesn’t know he’s an angel, surrounded by rebels…” Aziraphale mused.

“They’re calling themselves demons,” She said.

“De-mons,” he murmured. “Oh, for him to think he’s lost your love, has been cast out… he chose that?”

“To better do my will,” She said.

“It sounds so… so lonely.” Aziraphale said. “Will you at least make it so I don’t attack him on sight?”

She smiled. “Of course.”

He looked up at her, eyes wide. “Will it hurt?”

“Not exactly,” She said. “Come here.”

He stood in front of her, his head below hers, and She bent to kiss his head. When She straightened, his hair had gone brilliant and short, and he seemed very confused, so She put the sword in his hand, and with a gesture, sent him down to Her garden.

Aziraphale looked up at Her and said, “I’m so, so sorry.”

She seemed taken aback. “Whatever for? You did as I asked, and a good job of it.”

“But I lied to you. First thing. As if I could possibly have hidden…”

“I knew you’d forgotten, and you didn’t know why.”

“You stopped talking to me,” he said. “We used to have such nice conversations.”

“It… It wasn’t fair for me to ask you questions when I’d already taken so much from you.”

“Since when do you worry about fair?” Adam interrupted. “You aren’t fair. It’s part of your thing.”

She sighed. “Aziraphale and I, well, he was the closest thing I had to a friend. Someone to talk to. Bounce ideas around. And I was still very new to the whole thing, and here I’d gone and given my friend an impossible task, and the first thing he did was lie to me. I knew why, and it wasn’t his fault, but it still stung. I suppose I didn’t keep talking to him because it… well…”

“It hurt too much to think about it,” Crowley filled in. “To know what you’d lost, of your own free will, and to know it would never be the same again.”

She nodded. 

Hastur snorted. “Yeah, but where does that leave us? We still haven’t settled it.”

“And you won’t,” She said. “At least not on Earth.”

Adam raised his hand. She looked down at him, startled at the formality. “Yes?”

“So, we’ve got this thing on Earth, see, called sports.”

“I’m aware,” She said. “Bunch of silly running around with a ball? People pray about it all the time, which is frankly confusing.”

“Okay, so sports is what we do so that we don’t actually kill people,” Adam said. “Pepper says that having sports gives us a…what did she call it? A constructive outlet for our toxic masculinity, or something. Which is odd because girls do sports, too. Anyway, sometimes schools decide which school is better by which can win a competition.”

“And then they rule over the other schools for all eternity?” Beelzebub asked, intrigued.

Adam laughed. “No, that would be boring. No, they get a plaque or something and then the next time they want to fight they do the battle again. Grownups do it, too—there’s whole leagues and brackets and championships, and advertising, and everything.”

“Advertising is one of mine,” Crowley said, reflexively, and then winced, remembering the last time he’d used the internet.

They all stared at him for a long moment, and then the Almighty said, “I forgive you.”

Crowley took a sharp breath in, and Aziraphale tightened an arm around his shoulders. 

Crowley looked over, heaved a sigh, rolled his eyes and said, “Yes, yes, you were right. Move on.”

“So,” Michael said slowly, “you’re suggesting that we use these proxy battles to what? Answer the eternal question?”

Adam laughed. "Nah, it's just a way for you to fight that doesn't hurt anyone else."

“Excuse me,” Aziraphale said, “I think… Look, haven’t you just been incredibly bored and worried for a very long time?”

Michael blinked at him. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I just realised that almost everything I’ve been doing for years has been done in fear,” Aziraphale said. “Not so much fear of Hell, but fear of not conforming enough to Heaven’s…” He paused, gave an exasperated shrug, and then said, “…aesthetic, for lack of a better word. I love Earth because it is so complex, so rich, so full of life and joy and feeling. It has a near infinite complexity of experiences to offer. And Heaven, while pristine, is, oh, a little, hmmm, one note. Hell’s no better. Dreary, miserable, but not remotely interesting. I don’t think you all should go mucking around with humanity, but you might take some time to explore a little. Taste food. See art. Develop a hobby. There’s a lot of pictures of most of you there, and boy, did they get it wrong, but it’s still beautiful. Nothing on Earth is perfect, but that’s kind of the point. Heaven’s version of perfection is so rigid that nothing can move. Hell’s version of wretchedness is so chaotic that it offers no benefit to anyone, not even the people who are there by choice.”

“When were you ever in Hell?” Dagon asked, as Beelzebub’s eyes widened with understanding.

Aziraphale, flustered, said, “That’s not important. Listen to me. No one ever listens to me, but listen to me now. You have a choice. You can explore. You can find joy, learn to understand the simple pleasures of life.”

“No, ssssserioussssly,” Beelzebub said. “When were you in Hell?”

The Almighty stepped up to Aziraphale, and whispered into his ear, and then stepped back. He looked at Her, nodded, and turned to Crowley. “Shall we show them?”

“We’ll never be able to do it again,” Crowley said. 

“You will not have to,” the Lord said.

“As we are or as we were?” Aziraphale asked.

“Oh, as we were,” Crowley said. “Easy enough to fix it later.”

And with that, Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, and they switched. It was faster and easier than it had been before, without the slight sting.

Gabriel and Hastur were both in motion before the change had finished, and found themselves frozen in place before they could take two steps, their faces both twisted with rage.

Beelzebub looked impressed and somehow resigned at the same time.

From everywhere, Her voice, at its deepest, resounded. “Did I not make Myself clear? Aziraphale and Crowley are off limits. Hellfire will not affect either of them, nor holy water. Do Not Test My Patience. I made you. I can unmake you. Do not tempt me.”

“They broke our laws,” Beelzebub said. 

“They defied The Plan,” Michael said.

“They lied to us,” Uriel said.

“Crowley murdered Ligur,” Hastur said. “I miss Ligur.”

“Enough,” She said. They all fell silent. She gave an irritated sigh and made a twisting gesture with her hand. “Ligur is back in Hell. You can explain everything to him when we are finished. Crowley was defending himself and trying to do my will while hamstrung by not knowing that that was what he was doing. But listen now. They were absolutely right to break your laws, defy your plan, and lie to you, because when they tried to tell the truth, reason with you, and follow the rules, they were abused, chased, threatened, and Aziraphale was even discorporated.” She turned to Adam. “Thank you for fixing him.” To her favourites, She said, “You may switch back now.”

They did.

Gabriel seethed silently in place. Hastur crumpled, the fight gone out of him.

As She continued, She walked from one to the next, looking at each of them with the most unsettling gaze in the universe. “They were right to fight you, to disobey you, to undermine you at every turn, because what I commanded in the first was to Love humanity. To protect them. And you decided together that humanity was not worth saving. To my shame, I almost let you.”

Uriel spoke up. “What now? Do we all fall for our arrogance? For trying to follow the plan without direction?”

“I will not make that mistake again,” G_d said. “But you will no longer have sway over the hearts of humanity. You may walk among them. You may experience the world, but you will have no power to move them to good or ill against their own will. You may, however, be kind for kindness’ sake alone, if you chose.” She looked up at Crowley, and said, “Cruelty will no longer be tolerated from any of the hosts. The humans are good enough at creating it on their own. You may wander the world for…” She looked down at Adam, and then over to Aziraphale. “I’ve lost my sense of the ebb and flow of human time. How long would be reasonable for them to get a feel for the world?”

“I’m 13, and I’ve barely begun,” Adam said. 

“To be fair, you were kind of larval for the first half decade of that,” Crowley said. 

“Give them 40 years,” Aziraphale said. “It’s biblical enough.”

“Better make it 20,” Crowley said, and then winced. “They’ll need to have better control of their appearance if they’re going to fit in.”

“What’s wrong with my appearance?” Hastur and Sandelphon said at the same time.

“You smell like poo and your toad is dirty,” Adam said. “And the gold teeth make you look like a bully,” he said to Sandelphon. 

“That’s because he is a bully,” Aziraphale muttered. 

“Fine, let them start from a clean slate, if they wish,” the Almighty said, waving Her hand. “They will have the same latitude with their marks that you do.” 

Adam looked over at Crowley and Aziraphale. “That they do?”

“You as well,” She said. “You’ve never wanted them, so the only time you manifested them was when the end was coming. And you pushed them away.”

“All the pictures were awful,” Adam said. “I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t want to be alone that way. I don’t need need a team jumper if I’m not on their teams.”

Crowley grinned. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Puberty is bad enough,” Adam said. “Horns and that nonsense would be a bit much.”

The demons looked at each other, baffled. “Why horns?” 

“The humans all think you have them,” Crowley explained. 

“Naw, that’s just some of ’em,” Hastur said.

“I don’t need it,” Adam said. “I don’t want it.” 

Crowley held up his hands. “It’s up to you. You don’t have to.”

“You are not a thing of Hell,” the Almighty said. “You are your own.”

“Will we still have our miracles?” Uriel asked.

“Within reason,” the Lord answered. “The world belongs to the humans. You may assist. You may not save them from themselves. I will speak to you again. Walk lightly.” And with that, something shivered through the visible host, and then through everything. Only Adam, Crowley, and Aziraphale were untouched, because they had already been changed. Then, with the faintest whisper, it was back to just them and the Almighty.

“I still have questions,” Adam said.

“So do I,” said Crowley. 

Aziraphale twisted his hands and then said, “I will have questions, in a bit.”

She gave Adam a long look, and then said, “No, I won’t remove your powers. You would cease to exist.” She paused, and then said, “No, that wouldn’t be better. Your parents and friends would be sad, and erasing you from the timeline completely would leave a tear in this reality…Yes, of course there are other realities. No, I’m not going to explain it to you. I didn’t abandon humanity, I’m here, aren’t I? I was just—it is actually impossible to explain what was going on, I don’t think your brains have the requisite parts to sense the things you’d have to be able to sense in order to even have an analogy.” 

She paused again, and then actually rolled her eyes. “Fine. It’s like when you’re in the middle of something important and you get a call from someone you can’t hang up on and they won’t stop talking about office politics and the school dance, only with infinitely more stakes and I think the call lasted a couple millennia give or take. It doesn’t mean the important thing isn’t important, just that sometimes it is impossible to reconcile every priority, and we do our best. Yes, even with my capacity for multitasking.”

She turned to Crowley, “And before you ask, yes, I was getting called on the carpet for the amount of hands-on meddling I was doing. It’s just not done with this kind of project, usually. I wanted to prove that some meddling would be a good thing.”

“Was it?” Aziraphale asked, gently.

Her breath sighed out of her like a resigned benediction. “I am very strong,” She said. “If I’d had a gentler hand, perhaps. It’s one of the reasons I left you two in the field. You are both quite subtle.”

“You really didn’t care who did what,” Crowley said, his eyes wide with wonder.

“Stop beating yourself up for the chaos you sowed,” the Lord said. “It was a delight.”

Crowley shook his head. “I know we planned it, but there were still things…I can’t stop seeing them.”

“You liked the chaos?” Adam asked.

“I made it all,” She said. “All of it. Good, evil, order, chaos, the muddling, amazing middle. You have to remember that while I am capable of appearing to you to be like you, much as you are able to appear to be like a human, despite not being exactly human, my intelligence and emotions are not subject to human limitations, though interestingly, that has, in fact, brought to my attention limitations I was unaware of possessing. I made this all for the complexity, not for some lofty higher concept of goodness.”

Crowley stared at her. “You killed so many. You gave them commandments. You played favourites. You… You set them up.”

“You are still angry at me,” She said. “I won't cast you down for your anger, because it comes from a kindness from which I have learned much. But all of them die, Crowley. It’s part and parcel of free will.”

"Children don't choose to die!" he said, springing to his feet. "Certainly the firstborns didn't, or the babies who… drowned." His voice broke.

She stepped forward, put Her forehead to his, and said, "I truly did not see them for what they were, and that was my shame."

“Now that my will is free, am I mortal?” Crowley asked, pulling away and sitting down with uncharacteristic gracelessness.

Instead of answering immediately, She sat down next to him and reached a hand up to stroke his hair. “Yes, and no,” She said. “You have an immortal soul, now, and a flexible corporation. I fed you from both trees, don’t you remember?”

They had both had a hand in the making of the garden, before the Fall, before the humans. Crowley had come to see his stars from the ground, to fine tune placements from the most vital perspective. Aziraphale had come to place the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, though once he looked at them, he felt the one he knew she wanted them to try might be a little too locked away. 

She actually walked among them, then, as the last, finishing touches were made, just before the final part of the project was to begin. It wasn’t just them, there were angels everywhere, working on all the myriad creatures. 

“Have you tried either tree?” She asked Aziraphale, who was busily planting papyrus plants, near where Crowley used the river clay to coax snakes into being because the stars were not visible during the day, much to his annoyance. 

“Oh, I didn’t know if you wanted us to… Wasn’t sure it would affect… I didn’t want to presume…” Aziraphale stammered. 

“What’s this?” Crowley asked. 

“One tree conveys knowledge of good and evil,” Aziraphale said. “The other, eternal life.”

“Don’t we already have that?” Crowley asked. 

“You do my bidding,” She said. “How free your will? I don’t know. If the humans try one, they can never try the other, I fear the harm would be too great.”

“But we can, because we do not… fruit ,” Aziraphale said.

“You mean because we don’t breed,” Crowley said.

“As long as they do not know good and evil,” Aziraphale said, “They are like the animals, and will not grow out of balance. If they were immortal and knowing, they might live long enough to rival Herself, and that’s not what this is for.”

Crowley shrugged. “I’d try it. I don’t mind the work, but I’ll admit to curiosity.” 

She smiled at that, and they continued with their work until the dust and clay were ready for Her last task. “Come, walk with me,” She said. 

Each tree was behind a wall, as tall as either of them, with no apparent gate. She gestured, and the stones opened on the Tree of Knowledge. She pulled down a fruit which no one had named yet, and handed it to Aziraphale. He took a deep bite, his first bite of anything, ever, and gasped as sweetness and tartness flooded his mouth. He held the bite there, not quite knowing what to do with it.

“Chew,” Crowley said, and demonstrated by taking the fruit, biting into it, and moving his jaw dramatically. 

Aziraphale imitated him, looking perturbed, until Crowley laughed at his expression. “Now what?” Aziraphale asked, only he hadn’t swallowed, so it came out like, “Nah wha?” and Crowley, who had already swallowed, said, “Swallow.”

“Is there something that’s supposed to be different?” Aziraphale asked once his mouth was clear.

She smiled. “No one has ever asked you to do anything wrong. There is, as of yet, no evil here. I made you both with enough curiosity to be useful to me.”

“I’ve never been much good at conformity,” Crowley said, “But my mind is full of questions.”

“Hold them until you’ve tried the second tree,” She said. 

“Still, I thought we were already immortal?” Crowley said as they went to the second tree. He took a bite, chewed, and handed it to Aziraphale as he swallowed. Aziraphale had started chewing before She said, “Mostly. You two, your souls will be impossible to extinguish, though your corporations may still be vulnerable.”

“Has any angel yet died?” Aziraphale asked.

“No, not yet,” she said cryptically. “How are the fruits?”

“I don’t know about this eating business,” Aziraphale said. “But I suppose it is as good a method as any of initiating the process when the humans are ready to move on.”

“So they have to have enough free will to figure out the wall in order to get the knowledge they need to figure out the wall?” Crowley asked. “I’m not sure I understand…”

“It will become clear later,” She said, and sighed. “Alright, back to work. We’ll take tomorrow off.”

In the end, she took the next day off, and the following day all Hell broke loose, though the humans remained blissfully ignorant until many, many weeks later.

And the knowledge that they’d partaken was lost when they’d next returned to the Garden. 

“That’s why Heaven was so wrong,” Aziraphale said. “Why we could see what was right and all they could see was what was written.”

“Is that why I could restore Aziraphale’s corporation?” Adam asked.

She nodded. “You were shaped, my darling grandson, from the dust of the garden, with my blessing.”

He stared at her long and hard. “So I really don’t have parents?”

“You have the parents you chose.”

“You have us,” Crowley said. “No matter how this falls out.”

“And She has claimed you,” Aziraphale said.

“Will you explain some of this to Warlock and Lucius?” Adam asked. “They’re really confused.”

She shook her head. “They could not survive even this much, seeing and knowing who I am, even with my glory hidden. But come here, child, and I will send a blessing for you to give each of them.”

“How many?” Adam asked.

She picked up his hand, and pressed her lips to the palm of his right hand, once, another time, and again. Then She tugged him close and pressed a kiss to his forehead, and whispered in his ear of a time before the basket, before Crowley, before Hell, of a time when She watched from the shadow of the Tree of Life, as Lucifer shaped a babe, rough, from the dust between the trees, then left. Of coming out of the shadow to pick up that babe, and hold him to her breast, and kiss his free hand, his left hand, as he suckled. Of holding him there, until Lucifer returned for him. 

As She leaned back, She said, “I think you will have as many as you need.”

His eyes were wide as he nodded, staring at both hands, which danced with ethereal light for a moment, and then faded to his normal kid-grubby palms.

She smiled, and said, “You can, when you’re ready, forget, for as long as you need.”

“Maybe,” he said, and then he was back in the world, which was still frozen.

A moment later, Crowley and Aziraphale, looking much as they had at the start of the journey, popped back into being and put their wings away. 

The duck flapped, the pigeon finished landing, the pelican closed its mouth, a goose honked, and the noise of London sprang up around them.

“…Well, I don’t think the grownups have done much better,” Lucius was saying.

“Hear hear,” Warlock agreed. “Hey, are you okay?”

Adam staggered, blinked, looked down at his hands again, looked up at them, and said, “No. No, not really. Did you see the woman who was just here?” And then, without giving them a chance to respond, he said, “No, of course you didn’t. My Grandmother showed up.”

“What, when? Just now?” Lucius’ eyes widened, and Warlock cocked his head. 

“Wait, your… THAT Grandmother?” Lucius asked.

Adam nodded. "She stopped time for you. Crowley, can I see that picture?"

Crowley handed the mobile over, and Adam stared for a long moment at the picture of the three boys, with a too-bright glare to one side. He waved a hand over it and gave an overwhelmed, half-hearted snort as the glare resolved into the face of his Grandmother, merry, winking, with a finger up to her lip.

"Is that… did the—is G_d a woman?" Lucius asked. 

"As much as I am a man, sort of," Aziraphale said.

"Did G_… your Grandma photobomb us?" Lucius asked.

Adam nodded.

“Family, man,” Warlock said. “You okay?”

“She’s not angry, if that’s what you’re asking,” Adam said. “They’re pretty shook up, though.” He nodded at Aziraphale and Crowley. 

“So what are we supposed to do?” Warlock asked. “Are we on a mission from…?” 

“Nah,” Adam said. “I have some blessings I can pass along, though. Hey, ’Ziraphale. What will the blessings do?”

The angel shrugged. “Whatever you need them to do, probably, though there’s always a quirk, or a twist, or a catch.”

“Can it give them superpowers or something?” Adam asked.

“Dunno,” Crowley answered. “Depends on what you ask for.”

“What would you want?” Adam asked Lucius.

Lucius blinked. “No idea. Maybe… let me think on it." 

Warlock stared. “How much can one of these blessings do?”

“You can’t change someone’s basic goodness,” Crowley said. “But you can effect quite a lot of other changes.”

“Don’t have to decide just yet?” Warlock asked Adam.

Adam shook his head. “Before you leave us today, I think.”

“Anyone up for the Eye?” Crowley asked. “Might give you some time to… grapple. Get some pictures.”

“It’s awfully crowded there,” Warlock said.

Crowley looked thoughtful. “Not if we’re there in, oh, half an hour, it’s not.”

Whether by some brief augmentation of the geometry of the Eye of London or by an entire tour bus deciding that it would be too crowded and going on a river cruise instead at the last minute, there were not only tickets waiting for them at the Eye, but a whole, empty capsule.

As it climbed slowly into the air, Crowley and Aziraphale both stretched their wings out to look at them. 

“’s’different,” Warlock said, considering. “You’re both different, aren’t you? More colour.”

“Less fear,” Adam said. 

“She… She freed us,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley isn’t as demonic as he thought. He never was.”

“Rub it in,” Crowley said, pretending irritation but failing to convince. “You’re not as angelic as all that, either.”

“Oh, but we knew that,” Aziraphale said. “Rather a relief to not keep trying and failing on that score.”

“So… ‘She’,” Lucius said. “How’s that work with the whole Almighty Father bit?”

“Oh! I can actually answer that,” Aziraphale said. “See, She always tended towards the Mother side of things, but She’s every bit as, oh, what do you young people call it… Agender! Yes, rather, basic celestial stock is just not dimorphic the way humanity is. Not even hermaphroditic, really, She created not by any sort of sexual or even asexual reproduction, but by pulling from the fundamental stuff of creation and building out of whole cloth, or whole dust as it were. But the whole system was designed around dichotomies, so when She started with the first Adam, he took it rather to heart that he was created in the Almighty’s image, and there was no explaining it to him that that meant, ‘to Her idea of humanity and vaguely Her-shaped.’”

“He was rather preoccupied for a while as to whether the Lord had a long schlong,” Crowley said. “Bit of a git, that one.”

“Crowley! They are children!”

But the boys were snickering. 

“In Any Event ,” Aziraphale continued, “She shrugged it off and didn’t consider it important, and when they called her The Father, She didn’t really differentiate, because it wasn’t exactly wrong. I believe that when Jesus came along, She sent a piece of herself along with Him. She was certainly Present within him often enough. She wouldn’t talk to us as Herself, though. He spoke for Her, in metaphor, mostly. I honestly think that’s when She learned to care for the weak and downtrodden. He showed her. Before that, She just didn’t seem to notice the masses. Part of the reason She sent him at all was to understand.”

“And then She withdrew,” Crowley said. “For so very long.”

“Oh, I think She was rather sidetracked.” Aziraphale said.

“What… Do I want to know what could possibly sidetrack a god?” Warlock asked. 

“Apparently this is but one Petri dish,” Crowley intoned. “And she is but one scientist.” 

“Oh, that does oversimplify, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale said.

“No,” Warlock said. “That actually makes more sense that way. It’s less lonely if we’re not the only ones.”

“All of everything is just an experiment?” Lucius asked.

“More than,” Crowley said, “Because we actually answered a question, and proved a point, and if I understand it, where we were initially slated for cleansing, so it could begin again, our reward for being successful is that we will be allowed to continue. And I don’t know that that’s ever happened.”

“If I am parsing Her words correctly, and there’s a significant likelihood that I am not,” Aziraphale said, “many like her are given tasks like, ‘Build a stable system,’ and She managed to build something of far more complexity and interest, so rather than being relegated to the has-bin, as it were, we’re an ongoing observational project.”

Warlock and Lucius looked at each other. “Does what we do matter, then?” Warlock finally asked.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “Because it matters to you.”

“She wants us to be kind,” Adam said. “Most of all. I don’t think much else matters to her. She wants us to thrive and find joy in the world and be kind. She talked about demons and angels like they’re both opposite sides of the same problem, and that we’re the answer, in the middle. She didn’t even really seem to value ‘goodness,’ per se, but kindness made Her happy.”

“So all those churches and crap got it wrong?” Warlock said.

“The ones that get more caught up with getting into heaven and following rules than being kind and helping people, yeah,” Adam said. “Heaven is dull as paint, right? Hey, what does that mean about when we die?”

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other and then shrugged. “Dunno if she’s changing it or not, but mostly people tend to create their own afterlife,” Crowley said. “The soul finds its own normal. Little hard to explain without actually dying, though I know the ones who the demons torture are the ones who spent their lives hurting people for the fun of it, especially those who pretend religiosity while being worse than anything Hell ever came up with on Earth. We actually do have special places for those who hurt children on purpose. Heaven, I don’t know.”

“The angels wouldn’t sully themselves with human souls,” Aziraphale said, annoyance clear. “There are whole separate heavens. The souls find peace there. I don’t know much beyond that, it’s not my department and I haven’t spent enough time to find out.”

“Is my mother there?” Lucius asked quietly.

“You mean the woman who took in a little baby without a moment’s notice and loved him with her whole heart?” Crowley asked. “She had nothing to atone for.”

“She left me behind,” Lucius said.

“Be easy, lad,” Azirphale said. A thoughtful look settled over his face, and he said, “I wonder if…”

He closed his eyes, and the capsule continued upward toward the peak of the rotation. As it crested, Aziraphale’s eyes opened, and a woman’s voice came out. “Lucius?”

“Don’t play with me,” Lucius said, warning.

“Oh my boy, you’ve gotten so big.”

“Mum?” he whispered.

He found himself enveloped in a hug which felt endlessly familiar, despite the wrong body doing the hug.

“I didn’t want to leave you. And I’m okay. There’s no pain here, and it’s good. The Angel said you were wondering, and I don’t want you to worry. I can’t describe it here, but someday, many years from now, I’ll see you again, and show you what there is to see Beyond. If you want to make me happy, do the things that make you happy.”

“Dad’s sick,” he said. “And I’m afraid.”

“You won’t be alone,” she said. “And when he comes to me, I’ll keep him safe, okay?”

“Is it wrong if I want to keep him a bit longer?”

“I can wait, darling. He’ll come to me in his own time. We can’t change that. But I know…” Her voice faltered. “There are things I can’t tell you about the future. I just…Don’t be afraid. You have your guardian angels, too.”

Aziraphale straightened. “Oh! Did it work?”

They stared at him.

“You don’t know what she said?” Lucius asked.

“I stepped aside and let her use my corporation for a few minutes,” Aziraphale said. “I told her we’d watch out for you.”

“It worked, Angel.” Crowley said. “And your mum is right. I’m as much part of why your life is what it is as anyone. We’re not going to let you slip through the cracks.”

“Can you heal my dad?” Lucius said bluntly.

“Tricky,” Aziraphale said. “Perhaps.”

“Can I use my blessing for him?” Lucius asked.

“Best ask him, first,” Crowley said. “He might not want you to give it up that easily.”

“He’s my dad,” Lucius said.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, “Could you stay with the lads for a bit whilst I investigate?”

“Of course,” Crowley said. “Right! Time to play Spot the Landmarks!”

Warlock looked at Aziraphale. “How are you going to…”

With that, Aziraphale’s wings opened, light breaking into colour across the bright surfaces of the feathers, and he winked, and he flew through the windows of their capsule, vanishing once he was on the other side.

“Does he do that often?” Warlock asked.

“Nah,” Crowley said. “Too showy if Heaven was looking. But they have no say, not any more. She says we’re our own side, Her side, really, and that Heaven can’t touch us. Hell neither. So he can show off a little, for you. I think if he was the sort to want to show off for everyone, She’d never have given him the latitude.”

“What’s that mean, that you’re not a demon?” Lucius asked.

“I asked her to make me like them, so that I could walk among them and mitigate what they were doing,” Crowley answered, staring out the window and not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I forgot that I wasn’t one of them. Spent time dreaming up inconveniences so I wouldn’t have to murder anyone or inspire something worse. Didn’t always succeed.”

“You didn’t know what you were,” Adam said. “And you helped save it all, when it counted.”

“You know all about that one, don’t you,” Crowley said. “Probably did better without our interference than you would have, with.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Warlock said. “You two were weird, but you made me feel loved. Special.”

“Needless to say,” Crowley said with a rueful laugh, “Please don’t crush mortals under your feet.”

“I figured that one out a while ago,” Warlock said. “Too much work. And too close to what Dad and his people seem to be wanting.”

“Hey, can we go to the aquarium?” Lucius interrupted. “It’s not far.”

Crowley gave the young man a long look. “Sure.”

They’d been at the aquarium for over an hour when Aziraphale returned, materializing in a bright shaft of light in a nearly empty tunnel through one of the large tanks. 

Lucius started forward, and then restrained himself. 

“I was able to ease his pain and heal the immediate problem,” Aziraphale said. “The tendency is still there, and he’s still smoking, which means that it will probably come back, but for now, I’ve bought him some time, I think. Years, should be. Half a decade, at least? Yes, about that.”

“Would a blessing give him longer?” Lucius asked.

“That was a blessing,” Crowley said. “They’re not immunity, just… a nudge. If he decides to stop smoking, he’ll probably succeed better than without the blessing, and the healing can get rid of the current damage, but if he keeps doing the same thing, well…” 

Lucius sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense. Still, how long would he have had without it?”

“Months,” Aziraphale said. “Maybe less, maybe more. But not long. He said any gift you were given should be for you, not for him.”

Lucius stared at the deep blue of the tank in front of him, the lights above shimmering through the rippled surface of the water. He sighed, and then cocked his head to one side. “Would it be too trivial to want to be able to make fish really healthy?”

They all stared at him.

“It’s just, I’ve been trying to have an aquarium, but I dunno, something’s been wrong, it’s hard to keep them alive.”

“Have you tried speaking sternly to them?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale elbowed him. “They’re fish, dear, not plants. Lucius, if you really want to be able to make fish thrive, you best ask to be able to make aquatic creatures and environments thrive, as most aquariums need more than just fish.”

Crowley looked at him, bemused.

“What? I was thinking about getting a tank for the shop, before I realised the damp would affect the books.”

“Yeah,” Lucius said, turning back to Adam. “If I don’t need to heal my dad, then yeah. That.”

Adam looked at his hand, and then placed it on Lucius’ forehead. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, “There, done, I think.” He took his hand away and looked at it again. 

Lucius looked at the tank in front of him, and found his eye drawn to a fish swimming listlessly near the bottom. 

“I… There’s something wrong with that one. Can I…”

“Just focus on it,” Aziraphale said. “See what’s wrong, and see how it should be. Then make it that way.”

Lucius looked from side to side, then stepped forward and put his hand as flat as he could on the curving glass, focusing on the fish in question. A moment later, it wriggled and then swam up to the glass, nosing in Lucius’ direction. 

“Easy,” Crowley said. “Don’t stir it up… Not too… Whoops!” 

Every fish in the tank crowded up to the glass near Lucius. 

“Let them go,” Aziraphale said, softly.

Lucius opened his eyes, breathed in sharply, and then waved his hand. The fish dispersed. 

“It’s better?”

Crowley and Aziraphale nodded.

For the first time the entire trip, Lucius really smiled. “Cool.”

Warlock had been almost everywhere in London, and didn’t have much interest in the touristy things that Crowley kept suggesting. Finally Aziraphale said, “Should I take the other boys over to the zoo while you spend some time with your Nanny?”

Warlock nodded, and Crowley looked completely nonplussed, then whisked the two of them back to the bookshop for cocoa. Well, they hitched a ride with the security detail, but close enough.

Warlock was quiet as Crowley went through the motions of doing it all the hard way, back at the bookshop.

“You spent years doing things you didn’t have to do, because you thought I was someone else,” Warlock finally said. 

“I was worried we’d ruined you,” Crowley said to the cups, back to Warlock. “That’s why we stayed away.”

“I figure Armageddon would have been worse. That demon dude was nasty. Smelled like poo.”

“He’d have been nasty even without the smell. But you stood up to him just fine. He was so angry.”

“Mostly I just missed you,” Warlock said. “They’re having me board this year, did you know? Mom says it’s because Dad is likely to be posted back to the UK, I think it’s because they want me out of the way if those asshats self-combust.”

“Hastur?” Crowley asked, putting the cocoa in front of Warlock.

“The current US government,” Warlock said. “I guess if I’m here, I’m less of a target?”

“We will protect you, regardless,” Crowley said. “Now that we know we can, safely.” 

“Don’t suppose you can protect my Dad?” Warlock asked.

Crowley looked up at him with regret in his eyes. “You know what’s been happening as well as anyone.”

Warlock sighed. “Yeah. He’s my Dad, but yeah.”

“Tell me, do you like school?” Crowley asked.

Warlock sighed. “I guess? It’s not bad, it’s just… I kind of wish I could just go to a regular school, and not board, and not be surrounded by, well, you know.”

“Rich bastards?” Crowley asked, amused. “As a rich bastard myself, I can’t say I blame you.”

“What’s going to happen if we tell our parents about the switch?” Warlock asked.

“They’ll probably be angry. Confused. I’d be shocked if they didn’t still love you,” Crowley said.

“Course,” Warlock agreed. “I’m amazing.”

Crowley threw his head back and laughed. “That you are, my darling boy. That you are.”

When Aziraphale returned, a few hours later, with two sugar-wired and very tired boys, he found Crowley sitting perfectly still on the sofa with an old storybook in his lap, with Warlock sound asleep, head tipped against his shoulder. 

Aziraphale gave them a fond look, and ushered the other two boys upstairs, where they sprawled out to watch TV with the sound low and promptly drifted off, nudged slightly by an angelic urge to take a nap.

Returning to the sofa in the back room, Aziraphale said quietly, “Would you like me to take him up?”

“Nah,” mouthed Crowley. “Missed my boy.”

Aziraphale lifted the book off of Crowley’s lap, and tucked a pillow behind his head, so that he could relax a little.

Crowley closed his eyes and Aziraphale picked up his book, and sat in one of the wingback chairs, keeping watch.

The boys didn’t sleep long, just enough to regain their equilibrium. Once they were all awake, they overruled sushi and curry for fish and chips. 

They sat in a booth in a nearby chippie with plates full of fried fish and thick cut potatoes. 

Warlock noticed a commotion in the back of the shop near the stairs, first. One of the cooks yelling at his teenage child about what the kid was wearing. Warlock frowned, and started looking more and more distressed. Lucius looked back and shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s what it’s going to be for me if I come out at home.”

At that, Warlock stood up, and marched to the back of the shop. As he did, the argument became clearer. 

“Hey,” Warlock said. “Leave them alone.”

The kid’s eyes widened. They were wearing a plaid button down over a flat chest, and a cap that made it hard to tell just how long their hair was.

The cook turned to Warlock, started to open his mouth, and then stopped, looking over Warlock’s shoulder, where Aziraphale stood, looking at least a foot taller than he normally did, and nearly glowing with Presence.

“I’m sure your child is fine,” Aziraphale said. “Nothing wrong at all.”

The cook shook his head. “Nosir.”

Warlock said, “It’s hard enough being a kid right now if you’ve got people on your side. Please be on your kid’s side.”

Crowley, looking no different than he usually did, took a leaflet out of his jacket, and handed it over. “Try talking to these folks. Don’t argue with them. Listen. You can do that, yeah?”

The man nodded. 

“That’s your kid, yeah?” Warlock said. “Someone you held when they were small, and wanted the best for?”

The man nodded.

“Nothing changed. Don’t you be the problem,” Warlock said. “Be better than that.” He glanced back just in time to see Crowley’s hand make a small, arcane twist at his side. 

The cook sagged slightly, looked a little confused, and then looked down at his kid. “Hey, got any homework?”

The kid blinked. “Um, yeah.”

“Get it started then.”

The kid looked from their dad and back at Warlock and then back at their dad, and then mouthed, “Thank you.”

Warlock shrugged, and went back to the table.

When they were all seated again, he said, “Yeah, so I think I know what I want my blessing to be. Can I help someone change their physical appearance the way you two do?” 

Aziraphale’s eyebrows climbed. “You mean, Nanny and Francis?”

“I mean, boy to girl, that kind of thing. Help people find ways of dealing with gender that aren’t so dysphoric?”

“If you’re talking about a full on transition, reproductive organs and all, I have no idea,” said Crowley. “The looks are… for me, they are trivial. Whether you can change someone’s destiny that strongly?”

“Destiny schmestiny,” Adam said. “How about… you want to be able to ease the journey of people who have trouble finding acceptance, either from themselves or from the people around them. That leaves it up to Grandmother how far She pushes it.”

“Yeah,” Warlock said. “That. I don’t want to change who people are, but some of my friends are in such pain… And there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to help.”

“Can’t hurt,” Adam said. “Here.” And he leaned across the table to press his right hand to Warlock’s forehead. 

“With the ability to heal comes the ability to see pain,” Aziraphale said. “If it gets to be too much, find us.”

Warlock nodded. “Will you be there when we talk to my parents?” he asked.

Crowley nodded. “I believe they’re eating dinner at the Ritz as we speak.”

“His parents, though,” Warlock said, nodding at Adam.

Aziraphale looked upwards. Crowley looked sideways, and then said, “Well…”

“What did you do?” Adam asked.

“I just thought it might be easier if we explained it to them all at once,” Crowley said. 

“Best get a wiggle on,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t want anyone leaving before we’re ready.”

“How much are you going to tell them?” Adam asked.

“Well, we can’t exactly explain about the whole Antichrist thing,” Crowley said. “But we can explain that there was a mix-up, and that the records are lost.”

“Think my parents will recognise you?” Warlock asked.

Crowley shrugged. “I’m going to do what I can to see that they don’t.”

They arrived at the Ritz on foot, still trailed by the ubiquitous 2-man security detail. Lucius startled as they walked in the front door, to see Mr. Johnson sitting, thin and pale, in the foyer. 

Lucius hugged him and then looked over at Aziraphale, who gave a small, pleased shrug.

Mr. Johnson nodded at Aziraphale and said, “Hullo, Adam.” 

“Mr. Fell, Mr. Crowley.” The maitre d’ nodded at them and said, “Our private dining room is ready for all of you. The rest of your party has already been served, as you requested.”

They followed a waiter to an opulent dining room set with several round tables. At one, Adam’s parents were laughing over a tiny shared dessert. 

At another table at the opposite end of the room, their backs to the door, Warlock’s parents sat, eating exquisite food in tense silence, not looking at each other. Several security people were standing against the wall.

Deirdre Young noticed the boys, first. “Oh! Adam, who’s your frien…” Her voice trailed off as she took in Warlock. 

Mr. Young was staring as well, and then up at Crowley. “Is this when you tell me there were two babies after all?”

The boys looked at each other, caught off guard. Adam took a deep breath and said, “So, this is Warlock Dowling. You know how Lucius…” He glanced over and Lucius shrugged. “Greasy’s given name is Lucius, anyway, Lucius and I share a birthday? So Warlock was born the same day, and at the same hospital.”

“He’s just…” Deirdre said in a near-whisper. “Doesn’t he look just like Sarah?”

Mr. Young nodded. “There were two babies, and they said that one wasn’t ours.”

Mrs. Dowling had heard her son’s name and turned around. “Tad,” she said slowly. 

“Hm?” her husband said, not having noticed anything at all.

“Tad, why is Warlock here with these boys?”

“It’s our birthday, Mom,” Warlock said. “All three of us. We were all born at the same hospital.”

She blinked at him, and then the other two, and then startled. “Tad, that other boy, isn’t he the spitting image?”

“Spitting image? Oh! He looks like Billy.” 

“Who’s Billy?” Lucius whispered to Warlock.

“Cousin,” Warlock said. “On Dad’s side. Hey, who’s Sarah?” he asked Adam.

“My sister. She’s at uni,” Adam replied, absently.

“We were told,” Mr. Johnson said, “That Lucius had been abandoned at the hospital. My Elsie and I took him in when he was just a day old. Right before the fire.”

“What’s happening?” Deirdre said, looking back and forth between Warlock and Adam. “Arthur, what do you mean, two babies? Why does that boy look so like Sarah?”

“Everyone take a deep breath,” Aziraphale said. “There is no emergency here. If you can be quiet for a moment, we can explain.”

All of them stared at him, and then, miraculously, went quiet. 

Aziraphale turned to Crowley and gestured for him to continue. 

Crowley winced, said, “What, me?” and sighed. “Oh, all right. So, when the boys were born, you,” and here he paused to gesture at Mrs. Young and Mrs. Dowling, “were both at the same hospital, and I’d been told to drop a third baby off, because it was the only place in the area with a baby hatch*. And you know how incompetent the nurses were…”

*Note that Crowley had only the vaguest idea of whether or not baby hatches still existed. The last time he’d actually used one, for a tiny orphan whose mother had died as it was born, it had been at a nunnery in the 16th century. Still, he automatically equated “nuns” (of all sorts) with “where one drops off infants to be provided for” and was so sure the idea was plausible that everyone around him believed it.  

“It took us years to figure it out,” Aziraphale said. “We met Adam a few years ago, and figured out very quickly that he was the baby from the hatch, but we weren’t quite sure what had transpired. We knew Warlock was probably not in the right place, but we knew there was a third child. Adam himself figured that part out. And then we knew that it wasn’t a simple baby switch, but that more of a—” Here, Aziraphale drew a circle in the air with his finger.

“Kind of like a shell game,” Crowley said, “only with three peas and no one was keeping track or understood what was happening.”

“Do I know you?” Mrs. Dowling said, squinting at Crowley.

“Aw, not likely,” he said in his broadest Estuary accent, at least an octave lower than he’d ever pitched his voice as Nanny.

“Wait, so you’re telling me that the babies got switched?” Arthur said. “All of them?” 

“Adam is the baby that was dropped off for adoption. Warlock was born to Mrs. Young. And Lucius over here, was born to Mrs. Dowling.”

They blinked at him, and then at the boys and then back at him. And then, finally, at each other. 

Mrs. Dowling finally said to Deirdre, “Warlock has had the best of everything we could give him—” at the same moment as Lucius said, “I want to stay with my Dad.”

“Mr. Crowley, what does this mean for us?” Mr. Johnson said. “I love my boy, I always have, even though he wasn’t born to my wife. We always knew he was a blessing, and after what Mr. Aziraphale here did for us today, I’ve even less doubt, unless the answer is I’m going to suddenly lose the only son I’ve ever had.”

Thaddeus Dowling stared at Mr. Johnson, and then at Lucius, and then at Warlock, and then looked at his wife. The expression on her face was a terrible mix of guilt, fear, relief, and, when she noticed him looking at her, a bolt of pure rage. He shrank.

She took a deep breath, folded her napkin and put it next to her plate, stood up, and said, “I need a moment. I need some air. I need…”

Warlock looked at her, resigned, and said, “Mom—” 

She opened her mouth, closed it again, and then just put up a finger, not meeting his eyes. “I need a few minutes.” She darted out the door and a security person followed her out.

Thaddeus Dowling looked at Warlock, at Lucius, and then hurried out after his wife.

Warlock swallowed, and frowned, and looked like he was trying not to cry.

Deirdre Young was already on her feet, gathering Adam into one arm and Warlock into the other. She pressed a kiss against Adam’s hair and then rested her cheek against his hair, which he was only just barely short enough for her to still do, and from there, stared at Warlock. 

“I don’t know what they’re going to decide,” she said, “But you will always have a home with us if you need it. Both of you.”

Mr. Johnson said, “You boys all know that it wouldn’t have mattered who ended up with us, we would have taken any of you in.” 

“I wasn’t even going to be living with them this school year,” Warlock said. “They persuaded the school I go to to board me early. I don’t think they’d take Lucius away. If I’d thought that, I never would have agreed…”

“Why are there so many security people?” Mr. Young said.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m allowed to say,” Warlock started. “American politics. You know.”

One of the security people came over, and flashed a very official looking badge with three letters on it, and said, “Protective detail, sir. National security. Ongoing legal matters.” 

Warlock shrugged. “See?”

They heard an outburst from outside, garbled shouting in a feminine voice and a lower pitched pleading in response. The only thing they could hear clearly was, “Maybe if you’d been there …”

Harriet Dowling charged back into the dining room like a force of nature.

Deirdre let go of Warlock, but stayed close, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Harriet stopped in front of Lucius, looked him up and down, and then turned to Warlock. “What do you want from me?” she finally asked.

He shrugged. “I mean, I’m supposed to move into the residential hall tomorrow.”

“You know why,” she said, looking around the room. “I’ve been your mother your whole life.”

“Except when Nanny was,” Warlock muttered. 

“That’s not fair, and you know it,” Harriet said.

“Let me go to a regular school,” Warlock said. “Adam’s… My…”

“Deirdre,” she murmured in his ear. And then louder, “Warlock would be more than welcome to join us for the school year, if there are security issues that would be helped by him being less visible. We can pass him off as my brother’s boy, if we need to. He looks just like my eldest…” Her brother lived in Boston, and hadn't been home since uni.

Harriet winced and then nodded, and then looked over at Lucius with naked hunger on her face. “I want to get to know… I mean, we can’t bring you into… The things going on that are why Warlock was going to board, I wouldn’t bring another child into it, but…” 

She looked back at her husband, who was already on his mobile, looking away from the whole situation, and something in her broke, and another thing in her grew a much stiffer spine than it had already had, and she opened up her purse, pulled out a cheque book, stared at it, then pulled the lining of her bag out and tried to tear it, before grabbing a knife from the cheese plate and shooting a glance at her husband that caused a little shiver of alertness to run through the security agents.

She used the knife to slit the lining of her large shoulder bag, and pulled out a flat, thin wallet. Opening it, she handed crisp bills in high denominations of three different currencies to both Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Young. She put the knife back down, opened another pocket of her bag, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. 

Crowley watched her with unfeigned interest, while the Youngs and Mr. Johnson opened their mouths to protest.

She shook her head, pulled a pen out of her bag, and took it over to her soon-to-be ex husband. He looked up, and then down at the papers, read the top sheet, started to look away, and then she flipped the packet open and pointed to something. He sighed, and fumbled out his wallet. He took out all the cash, handed it to her, pocketed the now-significantly lighter wallet, held the mobile against his ear and took the papers from her, scribbled his signature, and then handed it back to her. She thrust the packet at the oldest member of the security detail, who looked it over, and then nodded. 

She dashed invisible moisture from her eyes, and said, “Right. So, Tadfield? I don’t suppose there’s a decent hotel there…”

Crowley blinked, and said, “Actually, I do believe there’s a property available for let.”

“You can’t mean,” Aziraphale started. “The cottage? I thought Anathe…”

“Think bigger,” Crowley said. 

“But aren’t there bullet…”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Really, what do you take me for?”

“But Mary…”

“She’ll be happy to help,” Crowley said and then turned to the head agent. “So, if Warlock here, and Mrs. Dowling, were to, say, stop being publicly visible, it would make everyone’s job easier?”

The agent nodded. 

“Please, call me Harriet,” Harriet said. 

“Right,” Crowley said. “We’ll help with the logistics, of course.”

“Was this… was this you?” Deirdre asked. “Today? This dinner?”

“We felt that it might help facilitate things,” Aziraphale said. “How was the theatre, Mrs. Young?”

“How was…” she laughed disbelievingly, and then blinked. “Did you just…”

A waiter came in, and asked Crowley, “Will the young sirs be ready for their birthday cakes?”

“Ooo, cake,” Aziraphale, said. “You really must… Yes, please bring that now.”

Crowley looked around the room, and his gaze fell on Harriet soon-to-be-something-other-than-Dowling, who was starting to droop as the magnitude of everything started to sink in. He leaned over and said as he drew a chair behind her, “I’m absolutely certain that the Youngs are going to invite the boys to stay with them tonight. And I know that another room has opened up on the same floor. Shall I reserve it for you?”

She sat down heavily, and looked up at him. “Yes, thank you. You seem so familiar. Do you have a sister?”

“I get that a lot,” Crowley said, snapping a finger behind his back. The suite which had been set up for two rooms earlier in the day suddenly appeared in the system as a four-room suite, and housekeeping responded appropriately.

“I never felt like I’d got the knack of this, you know,” she said. “I wanted to. I tried so hard. And the harder I tried, the harder I failed.”

“I know how it goes,” Crowley said. “Look at it this way. You’ll get to know both your boys better, this way, and you won’t have to be in charge of either of them. And maybe you’ll figure out what you want to do for yourself, on the way.”

“For myself?” she said, as if such a thing was impossible. 

“Trust me when I tell you,” Crowley said, “That this has all been stacked against you from day one, and the fact that you are here, now, with the son you birthed and the son you raised is an actual miracle.”

“I’m not sure I believe in miracles,” she said.

“You should,” Warlock said, sitting down next to her. “Are you divorcing Dad?”

“Separating,” she said. “That was a spousal support agreement.”

“You had it already,” Crowley said. “You didn’t get it because of Warlock, today.”

“I was going to make him sign it after Warlock was safely at school,” Harriet said. “I didn’t want… You shouldn’t think… It’s not…”

“I know it’s not my fault, Mom,” Warlock said.

“Good,” she said. “That’s good. I just couldn’t, the functions, the press, the politics…”

“I’m not going to be mad if you want to get to know Lucius,” Warlock said quietly. “I know I’m not… I mean, it makes sense now why—” 

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” Harriet said. “I daresay it would have been difficult for any child, with your… with Tad’s… If it hadn’t been for Nanny, when you were small, I don’t know what I would have done. The social pressure alone, plus—” She shot a look at Thaddeus Dowling, and then at the security agents. “It’s too much for anyone, And then when Nanny left…” 

She looked up at Crowley. “Are you sure you don’t have a sister?”

Warlock and Crowley looked at each other for a long moment, and then Crowley shook his head. “Naw, no sisters, me. Sprang fully formed from my Mother’s forehead, or something like that.”

“We joke that he was not so much born as hatched,” Aziraphale said, wrapping a proprietary arm around Crowley’s waist. “I’ve known him, oh, forever.”

“Oh,” Harriet said, and then, “Oh!” And then a moment later, “Then do you two live in Tadfield as well?”

“London, for the moment,” Crowley said. “We’ve been talking a bit about getting a place out in the country. London’s a bit, well…”

“An appalling monument to late stage capitalism is what Pepper says,” Adam said from the next table over, where he and the Youngs had shifted.

Crowley laughed. Aziraphale’s brows knitted, and then he sighed. “Yes, I suppose the young lady is right.”

Adam laughed. “Better not call her that to her face, she’ll kneecap you.”

“Still,” Aziraphale said, “as much ostentation as there is here,” and he looked around the ornate frippery of the Marie Antoinette room, “the cakes are really, really good.”

All three boys stared at him, and then Lucius mouthed at Crowley, You sure he’s an angel?

Crowley laughed. “Angel, your capacity for hedonism will never fail to amuse.”

“There’s a really good bakery in Tadfield,” Adam said. “Might not be as fancy as here, but everything tastes just perfect.” Then he blinked, as he finally realised why.

Four waiters marched in, carrying trays, three of which held individual birthday cakes, and the fourth a selection of mousses and petit fours.

Crowley absently picked up a plate, and then looked down as Aziraphale snorted. “What?” he asked, glancing at the dessert. 

“Don’t you think the fig leaf mousse is just a little too on the nose?” Aziraphale asked. 

Crowley blinked, and set the ornate confection gently on the table, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Should we sing? We should sing,” Harriet said.

Warlock cringed. “We really don’t need to sing.”

The other boys shook their heads in agreement.

“But…” she sighed. A waiter held the tray in front of her. 

Crowley leaned over and pointed at the soufflé. “That one has Grand Marnier.”

“How did you know?” she exclaimed. “That’s my favorite!”

“Lucky guess,” Crowley muttered. 

A few minutes later, Thaddeus Dowling put his mobile in his pocket and turned around. He looked long and hard at Lucius.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said.

“I really like playing American Football, I really like tropical fish, and I’m probably gay,” Lucius said, without changing his tone from one thing to the next.

Mr. Johnson startled, and then reached over to wrap his arms around Lucius’ shoulders. “Doesn’t change a thing,” he murmured in his boy’s ear.

“Hm, well, I suppose I can work with that,” Dowling said. “She’s filled you in?”

“I have a Dad,” Lucius said. “I don’t expect you to take over.”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to, right now. If the mess I’m in blows over, maybe one of these days I’ll take you to a game. Or maybe we can take all of you snorkeling. Or something. If it’s okay with…”

He was big on family vacations but not very big on paying attention, anywhere.

“Johnson,” Mr. Johnson said. “Henry Johnson.”

“Henry. Yes. Let me know if the boy needs anything. Anything at all.”

“We’re fine,” Henry Johnson said. “And yes, I suppose a trip would be okay, when things are more stable for you.”

“I’m going to have to go, there’s a situation back at the Embassy,” Dowling said. “Lovely to meet you all.” He looked over at Harriet, then at Warlock, and sighed. “We’ll speak later.”

Warlock muttered something under his breath, but the man was already gone, with most of the security detail.

A sharply dressed young woman in a hotel uniform materialised at Crowley’s elbow. “Sir, we have the suite ready. If your party is ready to adjourn there?”

“Thank you,” Crowley said.

The suite was not the most ostentatious in the hotel, but it was very large, and the butler showed them a number of bedrooms. The boys immediately lunged at the farthest room, which had a sitting area all its own and a television with gaming consoles set up. 

“Are you sure?” Mr. Johnson asked Aziraphale as he was shown his own room and the rest of the group went to see the other rooms in the suite. “It’s bigger than our house. Well, almost.”

“I find that it’s heartening to indulge once in a while,” Aziraphale said.

“I’d have thought it would fall under Greed,” Henry said. 

“The seven deadlies are a human invention, well, distortion, actually, and the whole concept of sin is due for a major revision, or so I’ve been informed.” Aziraphale said. “Occasionally enjoying a gift in a time of great stress? Never hurt anyone.”

Henry looked back at the bedroom, and smiled. “I suppose now that the security detail is out of the room, we’ll need to have another conversation? Can I tell them about you?”

Aziraphale thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Tell them whatever you think appropriate, but remember that it may be hard for them to believe.”

“You could show them, as you showed me,” Henry said.

“That was a bit of a special case. There’s a little more to the story, as you might guess from my involvement, and we do not wish to create more, er, turbulence than necessary.”

Henry stepped into the bedroom, and beckoned Aziraphale in after. “I’m guessing it has to do with young Adam? He wasn’t a foundling? Something like that?”

“That’s Adam’s story to tell,” Aziraphale said. “The boys all understand the truth. I’m not, well, the Youngs have been rather magnificent, haven’t they? I wouldn’t want to put anything between them and young Adam. He wouldn’t deserve it.”

“He seems like a great kid,” Henry said. 

“The best, and you can trust me on that. If you needed to know more, I would tell you.”

“If I can’t trust you,” Henry said, “who could I possibly ever trust?”

“Just, please, love them. The boys need…”

“They’ve had their whole world turned upside down,” Henry said. “You know how the village is. They’re all ours, now, yeah?”

Aziraphale nodded, and then said, “If I helped you, do you think you’d want to give up smoking?”

Henry laughed. “For my boy, I’ll give it a shot.”

Aziraphale reached out, and then, before his hand came to rest on Henry’s shoulder, he hesitated. “It might involve changing your brain a little. Just the craving.”

“Funny blessing, that,” Henry said, “but sure.”

Aziraphale rested his hand on the man’s shoulder briefly, and then said, “There. The craving should be as far gone as one angel can make it.”

“Did you know my boy is gay?”

“He told us earlier,” Aziraphale said. “He wanted to know if Crowley and I were.”

Henry waited, the question on his face.

“Truth is, I’m not sure human sexuality translates very well to immortal beings who do not, by fundamental nature, have gender, or for that matter, genitals.”

“Oi, yeah, awkward that,” Henry said. “You don’t tell many people about you, do you?”

“Oh heav… goodness, almost never,” Aziraphale said. “If you’d been asleep when I healed you, I probably wouldn’t have told you, either. You’ve taken it rather well. No, there are, oh, a handful of children, and a handful of adults who needed to know. Too many more and we’ll be sparking a new religion, and that never goes well.”

“No?” Henry asked.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Ask me again sometime, and I might tell you.” The angel put his hand on the door, and said, “You’re a good soul, Henry Johnson. And you’ll see her again, in time. But she’d rather you stay where he needs you, for now.”

Henry’s hand flew to his chest and his eyes widened. “I… Yes, thank you.”

In the main sitting room, Crowley was showing the Youngs and Harriet the bar. He looked up when Aziraphale came in. “Is he okay?”

“Well, considering the day, I think he needs a bit of a lie down, before he tries to be social.”

“Can’t fault that,” Mr. Young said. In his very orderly life, his son’s… sons’ 13th birthday was definitely in the top three most disorderly days he’d ever experienced. “Good man, Henry. Thought he was pretty ill?”

“Oh, he’s gotten much better lately,” Aziraphale said. “You know, I should check on the lads.”

Harriet, who had already had a rather tall glass of something that normally came in very short glasses, squinted up at him, and said, “You’re familiar, too.”

“Oh, I’ve been in London for years,” Aziraphale said breezily. “I do love the parks. You’ve probably seen me there.”

Crowley looked down at her, and put a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes cleared a bit, as her intoxication level dropped into the “pleasantly tipsy range” instead of the “about to do embarrassing things involving bodily functions on the carpet” range that she would have gotten to if all the alcohol she’d just gulped down had been allowed to metabolise. He looked her in the eye, and said, “Harriet, you are as safe here as you have ever been, and we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you or your family.”

“Tad’s not my family any more,” she said. “Oh god, I think I need a drink.”

Deirdre moved over to sit right next to her, and took her hands. “Maybe not a drink. Maybe a cry?”

“I’ll just step out and have a pipe,” Mr. Young said, looking longingly at the extremely inviting veranda and its complete absence of external emotion.

“Oh, yes, I’ll join you, if you don’t mind. Crowley can check on the lads,” Aziraphale said. 

On the veranda, they packed pipes with a high-quality tobacco that Aziraphale miracled out of his pocket. 

“I don’t do this often,” Aziraphale said. 

Arthur puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a bit, and then finally said, “Am I ever going to know what this is all about?”

“The boys?” Aziraphale asked.

“The boy, the airfield, you and your Mr. Crowley… I know Adam is different. Was more different, before, and now, well, he’s a bright boy, but he always felt a little too miraculous to be real.”

Aziraphale laughed. “That’s a startlingly apt observation.”

Arthur puffed on his pipe, more for something to occupy the silence than anything, and then said, “Are you human?” He’d run every other option through his practical brain, and that left the impractical question as the only logical course of action.

Aziraphale coughed. “That’s an odd question.”

“Mr. Crowley hasn’t changed much more than his sunglasses in thirteen years, that I’ve seen,” Arthur Young said. “And he’s bookended a lot of weird stuff.”

“You remember?” Aziraphale asked without thinking.

“You never did answer that question.”

“Ah, no,” Aziraphale said.

Arthur Young raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't," Aziraphale said. "And I'm not."

Arthur took that in with remarkable calmness. “Is my boy human?” 

“Warlock is perfectly human,” Aziraphale said. “For all he had a rather odd upbringing.”

“You keep avoiding answers.”

“Adam, well, there are great theological questions as to whether or not he is human, now. But I can tell you, whatever he is, he is good, and that is down to you and your lovely wife.”

“I wish I could remember,” Arthur said. “It’s like an itch I can’t scratch.”

“Ask him someday, not today, when he’s absolutely confident that today changes nothing,” Aziraphale said. “If he’s ready for you to know, he’ll tell you.”

“It could have gone very wrong,” Arthur said. “And then it didn’t.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale slowly. “That is possibly the best description of Adam anyone has ever possibly given.”

The silence stretched out between them, puffs of fragrant smoke floating up into the August twilight. 

“My wife had a good time today,” Arthur said.

“Happy to treat you two again some time. Wouldn’t mind having the boys over. They’re remarkably good people for thirteen-year-olds.” 

“Oh, I don’t feel comfortable asking…” Arthur said.

Aziraphale smiled and put out his pipe. “Someday, Arthur Young, I hope that you’ll learn just how much you deserve all the good things. This,” and he gestured to the suite behind him, “is tiny, relative to the good you did in raising that boy as sensibly as you did. Your wife, too.”

“Always thought we were out of our depth,” Arthur said.

“You were, yes, absolutely and completely out of your depth. But maybe most parents are. You did well, regardless.”

“Hm! Well! Thank you,” Arthur said. Glancing inside, seeing his wife holding a sobbing Harriet Dowling, he decided that discretion was the better part of avoidance, and found one of the many chairs on the veranda to sit and finish his smoke. The view was lovely.

“Mr. Crowley went back to check on the boys,” Deirdre said to Aziraphale as he came in from the veranda. 

Aziraphale headed down the corridor, crossing paths with Henry Johnson. 

“Mr. Young is on the veranda, but he’s smoking,” Aziraphale said. “There’s some tears in the sitting room.”

Henry nodded. “Fair. Can’t blame any of them, can I?”

Aziraphale gave him a look of pure compassion. 

“Careful there,” Henry said. “Your—” he made a vaguely circular gesture over his head “—you know, is showing.” 

“Oh, yes, thank you, of course,” Aziraphale said. “Right.” He hurried down the hall to where Crowley was holding court with the boys.

Back in the sitting room, Henry found Deirdre and Harriet sipping tea. “Wouldn’t mind a cuppa myself.” 

Deirdre stood to get the pot from the ornate tea service, and was well into pouring when her husband came in from the veranda. “Cuppa, darling?”

“Oh, yes,” Arthur said, figuring tea was probably safe ground, caffeine or no.

“Isn’t it odd for those men to be hanging out with the boys?” Harriet asked.

“They’ve never been safer,” Henry said. 

“You know something,” Arthur said.

“My… Lucius never asked me how I got here today,” Henry said.

“How did you?” Deirdre asked.

“Well, I was in Tadfield, in bed, ill. Dying, really. Slowly, but I know what the doctors said and I know how hard it was getting to catch my breath. Figured I had a few more weeks in me, if that. And it was, oh, the middle of the afternoon when there was this flurry of white, I don’t know. It sounded like wings, but big. The wind blew my crossword to the floor, and there was this light… and then…”

“Yes?” Deirdre asked eagerly.

“Well, he was there. Aziraphale. Mr. Fell, I think he calls himself, to you. And like, by the time he said three sentences it was hard to imagine he hadn’t always been right there. It was right funny; he actually said, ‘Be not afraid,’ and I said, ‘Well, I figured I’d have a few weeks more, but if it’s my time, it’s my time,’ and you know he actually got flustered? An angel of the Lord, flustered.”

“Angel?” Harriet said. “What nonsense is this?”

“I know,” Henry said. “But there it is, he said that he knew my son, and that he knew I was sick, and that he wanted to see if he could help me, because Lucius was going to need me healthy. Said he wasn’t that angel, the one who would come to me at the end, but just a regular old angel, which was, honestly, in retrospect, just the oddest thing for any angel to say. Regular old angel. As if any angel could be regular.” 

They stared at him. 

“Anyway, he healed me, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I was sitting in the lobby of the Ritz in my Sunday best, and there was my boy, looking more hopeful than I’d seen since his mother passed on. I didn’t take a train, or drive, or anything else. Just, one moment, asleep, the next, fully dressed and sitting in the lobby of the Ritz of all places.”

They blinked at him. 

“By healed, you mean…” Deirdre said.

“I mean, not only do my lungs feel clearer than they have since before I was diagnosed, but my arthritis cleared up, and a tattoo I got when I was 18 just clean vanished. I’ve been blessed.” 

“Wonder if that Crowley chap is one, too,” Arthur said.

“He reminds me of Warlock’s old Nanny,” Harriet said. “Strangest woman. Read him the most horrific stories, but he never got scared. Just laughed and said Nanny was funny, and he adored her. But Crowley swears he doesn’t have a sister.”

“Couldn’t he, oh, I don’t know, have been in drag?” Arthur asked. 

Harriet cocked her head. “I don’t think so. We went swimming with Warlock more than once, and I saw her in the shower, and she was, there was no doubt she was, well… she.”

“When was that?” Arthur asked.

“Oh, Warlock must have been six?” 

“Well, I first met him the day this all started, when they were born,” Arthur said. “And he looked almost exactly as he does now.”

Henry laughed. “If they can grow wings and hide them in a few breaths, don’t think that would be much of a trick.”

“Warlock has been talking a lot about gender,” Harriet said. “He’s got a tender heart about it. There are a few children at his school who are transgender, I guess, and he kept poking at his father about them, like he wanted to see what his father would do if someday he came home wearing a dress. Do you think someone could start out one thing, go all the way to the other, and then come back?”

“I suppose anything’s possible,” Deirdre said. “But if one of them’s an angel, wouldn’t it be more likely than not that the other is?”

Harriet stood up and walked to the window, her hand sliding idly up and down the ornate trim. “I just don’t know about this religious stuff. We’ve been going to the Baptist church when we’re in the States, but they’re, oh, the church we had to go to because of my husband. It’s hard to believe any of it, so I’ve been just going through the motions for years. Hard to believe when you see people capable of such…” She stopped, and shook her head.

“Just because what they say doesn’t match what they do,” Henry said gently, “doesn’t mean that some of it isn’t correct.”

“How do you ask such a thing of someone who has been so helpful? ‘Are you an angel, Mister Crowley? Do Heaven and Hell exist? How damned am I for toadying up to some of the most evil people on the planet for most of my adult life?’” Harriet said. 

“You’re not,” Crowley said from the entry to the hallway. “Not yet, maybe not ever.”

Harriet whirled around and stared at him. “Okay, then, what are you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Once upon a time, I was an angel. And then, well, I thought I fell, but I was sent, and I forgot. And then I was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. And that was a long time ago. And now? If I can be forgiven the monumental levels of evil I have sown in this world, you, Harriet Dowling, can be forgiven for the company you’ve kept over the years. I certainly kept enough of the same company with you.”

“How… Are you? Nanny? Is that why… But why were you with us, if you thought you were…”

Crowley held up a hand. “I know that this is going to bug you. And you’ll need to let it. Part of the answer to why we were with you lies in the larger story, and that’s not for us to tell yet. Maybe… Maybe next year.”

“But you are her,” Harriet persisted.

“I have been many people, and one of them was your child’s Nanny. I care for Warlock, well, more than a supposed demon should care for anyone, but then again, I’m rather gone on an angel, and I learnt today that I’m not as demonic as I thought, after all, so…” Crowley sighed. “I think I need a drink.”

“Later, dear,” Aziraphale said, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I think everyone needs some time to settle.”

“You’re an actual angel?” Deirdre asked Aziraphale.

“Mostly,” Aziraphale said.

“The actual angels are gits,” Crowley said. “Wouldn’t trust them with any child of mine, I wouldn’t.”

“You have children?” Deirdre said, surprised.

“Weeeelllll,” Crowley said.

“He takes them all under his wing,” Aziraphale said. “One of the first things I noticed about him. ’s why I didn’t smite him.”

“You didn’t smite me because you asked Her not to let you. And you like me.” Crowley said. 

Aziraphale made a wry, teasing face, “I don’t.” His eyes twinkled.

“He loves you,” Deirdre said to Crowley. “Anyone could see it. I don’t know if he could hide it if he tried."

Crowley blushed, and Aziraphale turned scarlet.

“Wait,” Harriet said. “When you said he takes them under his wing, is that a figure of speech?”

“Henry just told you that I have wings, didn’t he?” Aziraphale looked confused. 

Crowley sighed. “I guess this means we can go back the easy way?”

Aziraphale looked thoughtful. “I suppose it does. Just, sit down, all of you? A head injury would be most inconvenient.”

Eyes wide, the adults sat. 

“Oh, by the way,” Aziraphale said, “Harriet, would you mind transporting Mr. Johnson back, and one of the boys? To Tadfield tomorrow? Or when you leave? Keep the room an extra day if you need.”

She nodded.

“We’ll figure it out,” Deirdre said. “You really flew him here?”

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale said. “I teleported him. Much less stressful on him. A little fatiguing for me. Not much. But a little.” He turned to Crowley. “Ready, dearest.”

Crowley nodded, and they stepped out onto the veranda. 

From inside, the parents watched as the veranda disappeared in a cloud of brilliant feathers. The cloud settled into wings, and the two looked at each other, clasped hands, and then blurred faster than sight into the sky.

Inside, Harriet Dowling sagged back against the back of the expensive sofa. 

“All right, there?” Deirdre asked.

“My nanny was the Serpent of Eden,” Harriet said. “I’m rethinking my life choices.”

“He said they were both there, with you. You don’t remember Aziraphale?” Henry asked.

Harriet blinked, then cocked her head to one side, and said, “We only hired one other staff that week, when Nanny came. A gardener… But he didn’t look anything like…” 

“Could have been a disguise?” Arthur suggested.

She laughed. “It was so dreadful though, he was the sweetest, gentlest man but my lord, the buck teeth, and the accent… And Warlock adored the both of them. Oh my… good lord.”

“The really funny thing,” Deirdre said, “wasn’t that they were your nanny and your gardener, but that they were with the wrong boy.”

Harriet looked around for the alcohol, found a bottle of sherry and poured herself a splash. She took a swallow, and then said, “One would really prefer to think that such powerful… such holy beings…”

“Actually knew what the hell they were doing?” Deirdre filled in.

Harriet took another swallow, and then nodded.

“I think,” Arthur said, “that we are very, well, blessed, that it turned out exactly as it did.”

“Give me a few days,” Harriet said. “I think I’ll get there, eventually.”