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You come into existence, bright and full of knowing. You know love. You are loved. You will learn to love.
She puts you to work immediately. There is a world to be made and She wants stars in the sky for it. She made you with clever hands and a cleverer head, and you weave stars from nothingness, big balls of gas and light, icy cores and molten centres. She made you inventive, creative, and so eager to show Her what you can do. The world will be beautiful in your hands, you promise Her.
Time goes by—or rather, it does not, not yet, because time as the humans know it has not been invented yet. Humans have not been invented yet either, even though you have heard something of that as next on Her agenda. In the meantime, the stars are yours and you arrange them carefully in the emptiness of a world not yet made, wholly devoted to your work.
When you are finally done with your cluster of stars—and, oh, how proud you are of them—you look to Her for instruction, for your next duty as Her agent. But She is silent, as She sometimes is for reasons you choose to deem ineffable, and you shrug, spreading your wings and looping back to Heaven until She speaks to you again.
Angels are very good at waiting. As good as God is at being omniscient and multitasking, She enjoys the silence too and the thinking, the pondering, and it can take quite a while before She makes Her next decision and informs Her angels of it. Patience is a virtue and angels are nothing if not virtuous so you dock on the fluffy clouds of Heaven and decide to take a breather.
"Great work down there," a voice greets you, smooth and warm as liquid gold, and you turn to see the Morning Star, Lucifer, smiling at you, haloed by an endless outpouring of light.
"Thank you," you reply as politely as you can through a squint because being around the Light-Bringer himself often has the unfortunate side effect of being blasted in the face with a million kilowatts of holy light. You can barely see the vague hint of a smile through the light and it occurs to you that perhaps you are not even seeing him smile, but inferring a smile from his honeyed tones. It is kind of hard to see the facial features of one who is constantly emitting light and the end effect is often akin to being blinded with the headlights of an oncoming car. (Cars have also not been invented yet and you would only have this thought during your musings of Lucifer sometime in the twentieth century.)
"Have you been informed of what your next undertaking will be?" Lucifer continues. "No doubt She will have something important in mind for someone of your talents."
You shake your head. "I have not heard from Her yet."
"Ah, then you will have to play the waiting game. As with all of us," Lucifer says, with a hint of something like amusement in his velvety tones. "Take the time to rest your wings. I'm sure She will have need of you soon." With that, he sweeps away in grand rustling of wings and it takes you a while to realise that he is gone when your retinas have all but been burnt out.
"Yes, thank you," you call after him, blinking away sunspots in the aftermath of his presence.
You take a walk. Being in the anti-gravity space created for the star fields doesn't give you much opportunity to use anything else but your wings for transportation so it feels nice to stretch your legs.
Heaven has not changed much since the last time you were here. It is still vast, white, and full of light (thanks, Lucifer). A heavenly choir is singing celestial harmonies that echo through the clouds and angels exchange polite greetings as they pass each other on their way to somewhere. Wings flutter and cloth whispers, the sound of a hundred—or was it more now?—different angels in Heaven. All is well.
Then you trip.
You do not squawk as you go down because it would be undignified for an angel to squawk, but you do make several appropriately distressed noises as you fall into a bed of soft, fluffy clouds. As you lie there, fallen, you realise that it isn't exactly all clouds under you but also a set of white wings, a form quite similar to your own, and, oh, a whole angel.
He blinks at you, his blue eyes wide and startled, framed by a set of pale lashes. His hair is almost the exact shade of white as the clouds of Heaven and just as fluffy, only with a touch of warmth to them. Why he had been under your feet is a mystery and it takes a bit of shuffling and reorganising before the both of you are finally disentangled from each other.
"I'm terribly sorry. Are you all right?" the angel apologises frantically, wringing his hands as he watches you with anxious eyes.
"No harm done. I should have been watching where I was going." You wave him off. Nothing had been injured except your dignity, but by the looks of it no one but God had seen the two of you go down in a sprawling heap and you don't mind it all that much. Maybe She got a good laugh out of it. "What were you doing down there?"
The angel relaxes once he realises that everything is well between the two of you. "I was watching the angels work on the Creation of the world," he explains, gesturing at a small hole in the clouds. Through it, you can see the space swirling beneath your feet, the first stars twinkling merrily at the points you had placed them at. "They've been doing a marvellous job and it is so very fascinating to watch it all come together like this."
You preen a little because you had a hand in the Creation of the world after all. "What's your favourite part so far?"
"Oh, there are too many to pick," the angel replies eagerly. "First of all, the Almighty did a splendid job with the backdrop. She really knows how to make everything stand out against the" —he waves excitedly around him— "nothingness. A brilliant juxtaposition. I was also watching the angels work on the various systems and galaxies. I believe a new one just sprung into existence, the Andromeda Galaxy, they called it?"
"Yes, that's what we've been calling it," you confirm for him and his eyes light up.
"Were you a part of that project?" the angel asks, brimming with admiration.
"I may have made a couple of stars," you say, suddenly feeling shy under the weight of his attention. "A nebula or two."
The angel beams at you and there is light in that, not the kind that makes you squint and burns sunspots into your eyes after staring at it for too long, but the kind that is warm and makes you want to bask in it. It makes something in the centre of you glow.
"Oh, how talented you are, my dear. Outstanding work. The Almighty has indeed put Her best agents on the job," he gushes effusively.
You blush a little at the praise, turning your gaze on your feet instead of the over-excited angel before you. "Have you worked on anything yet?" you ask him in turn, eager not to be the only one on the receiving side of praise.
"I'm afraid not." He smiles ruefully at you. "I've been waiting but the Almighty hasn't seen fit to give me a job yet."
"We all play the waiting game at some point of time or another," you reassure him. "I'm waiting for my next job too." An idea strikes you, as if it was put into your head by God Herself. "Hey, while we're both waiting, how about I show you around the Andromeda Galaxy?"
The angel brightens up, his eyes awash with excitement, but then he dims it back down as he tells you, his voice laden with regret, "It is very kind of you to offer. I would love to, but I'm afraid I have to stay here until I receive Her orders. I haven't had any orders to leave so I'm not sure if I should."
You nod in understanding. You hadn't thought to consult Her before asking, but what the angel says makes sense. What if She needs him for some big job while he is away touring Andromeda? Best stay here where he can act immediately once he receives his orders.
However, that doesn't mean that he can't have that tour of Andromeda. You plop yourself down on the clouds cross-legged, tugging at the wisps of clouds around the small peephole into space until it widens into a sizeable pool of space. "How about this? We don't have to go anywhere. I can point it all out from here."
"Well, I suppose that should be fine," the other angel concedes, as if he hadn't been doing exactly that before you tripped over him, and he comes to sit beside you.
Unlike you, with your fiery hair and golden eyes, he blends in perfectly amongst the clouds, white against white. Now that you think about it, the reason why you hadn't seen the angel before tripping over him was probably because when he had crouched down, with his white wings puffed up, he had just looked like another cloud. The fact that everything else about him looks just as light and fluffy had not helped you pick him out from the sea of clouds underfoot.
You stifle a chuckle. You don't want him to think that you are laughing at him—it would be rude. "What's your name?"
He looks back at you, guileless, his bright blue eyes an open book.
"Aziraphale," he says, with a smile.
---
You bump into each other again after you return from the planet Mars. The Lord had you doing test runs on Mars, adjusting the atmosphere and climate, tweaking oxygen levels and dimming down other gases. She said that it was almost time to create humanity, which was to be the biggest, longest running project of Her Great Plan, and She wanted conditions to be optimal for them to come into being. You and all the other angels have been flitting around the Milky Way all day, prodding pieces into place and making sure that everything was perfect for the next step.
When there had been nothing more to be done, you had returned to Heaven obediently, awaiting her next orders. You did a quick trip around Heaven to catch up on gossip and trade speculations about what humanity would be like before traipsing down to the corner of the clouds where you had first met Aziraphale.
You had half-expected him not to be there, considering that almost all the angels in Heaven had been deployed to some task or the other to prepare for humanity's arrival, but then you spot a pair of white wings fluffed out amongst the clouds and a curly head of white-blond hair. He isn't crouched down today, but sitting before the pool of open space in the clouds, watching the angels work on the world meditatively. You wonder if he had watched you work.
As you approach, he looks up at you and a welcoming smile spreads across his face. "Hello again, my dear. How have you been?"
You take a seat next to him, falling into a sprawl that you have found comfortable to be in after a long day of work. You have been looking forward to your next meeting with Aziraphale. In your line of work, you have worked closely with various other angels and all of them have been perfectly nice and polite, but distant. All talk had been perfunctory and the stiffer ones didn't talk at all despite your prodding.
Sure, there was always Lucifer and his posse, who actually talked about interesting things, but you didn't fancy being blasted in the face with light every time you wanted to chat and there was no way you could tell the Light-Bearer to turn down his light. It was a wonder that the rest of them weren't blind yet.
"I've been working on the Milky Way this time," you tell Aziraphale. "Have you seen it?"
"Yes, it's this one, isn't it?" Aziraphale leans over the pool of space and traces the correct galaxy in the darkness of space with a finger. "I can see where it got its name—it looks a bit like a milky spill across the canvas."
You shrug. "The head designer's elbow got a little too close to their mug while they were drawing up the plans, but they decided to just go with it since the end effect looked pretty."
"A bit of a happy accident there, isn't it? It is pretty."
"Pretty important too. Have you heard the news?" you ask him.
Aziraphale looks blankly at you. If there had been news, he had not heard it.
"God is preparing to create humanity next. She's going to put them here, on Earth." You point out a little blue planet somewhere in the swirling midst of the Milky Way. You haven't been there yourself but you have seen it from afar. It is one of Her newer Creations, after much trial and error with the other planets across the solar system. Your test runs on Mars will help Her make a final few tweaks to the environment before she is ready to populate Earth.
Aziraphale looks beside himself with excitement. "It's time then?"
"The Great Plan is in motion," you agree, sharing his excitement.
"Humanity… I wonder what they'll be like," Aziraphale says wistfully. "I had a couple of theories about them myself, but I thought it would be best not to speculate until the Almighty officially shares Her plans with us."
"Gabriel has been going around telling everyone that humanity would be green and leafy and have their legs planted in the soil."
Aziraphale blinks. "Oh, then I was way off. I was thinking that humanity would look something like us."
"I'm actually with you on that," you hum in agreement. "It would be rather boring if humanity was rooted to the ground all the time. Besides," you lean in, dropping your voice to a conspiratorial whisper as you add, "I suspect that Gabriel was describing plants. I've seen the plans for them and they seem to be exactly what he thinks humanity will look like."
The corners of Aziraphale's lips twitch, but he still very valiantly manages not to smile as he says primly, "It is best not to speculate until either of these creatures appear on Earth. Will you be involved in their creation?"
"I'm not sure. She hasn't told me anything."
From your beginning until now, you have only ever been assigned to the stars, and you love the stars, but now that you have created thousands of them, you had been hoping that she would give you a different assignment. Maybe something to do with plants. The plans for them had looked interesting.
"I'm sure you will," Aziraphale says firmly, reaching over to give your hand a little pat. "I've seen your work and it is nothing short of splendid. She made you to be part of something important and I have no doubt that you will be involved in Her Great Plan."
You smile. Somehow, your friend seems to have more confidence in you than you do in yourself. "You too, Aziraphale," you tell him, wholeheartedly honest. Someone like him, with so much fervour and excitement contained in him, should surely be someone special. God was no doubt saving him up for some great task beyond the realms of your imagination.
The conviction in Aziraphale's eyes wavers and he smiles awkwardly, his uncertainty showing on his face. "Oh, I'm not sure. I haven't done anything important yet."
"I'm sure She has something grand in mind for you," you forge on, trying to cheer him up. "Maybe something to do with humanity."
"I would like that," Aziraphale says slowly, sounding pleased with the idea.
"Maybe we'll see each other down on Earth. You, helping out with the humans, and me, figuring out these plant things," you tell him.
"It would be a lovely change of scenery. What's more is that I'll get to see the world with you.” Aziraphale smiles at you, soft and wistful. “Perhaps we could go on that tour you offered the last time."
You like the sound of that. Aziraphale and you would be colleagues, discussing ways to carry out Her plans and tackling the problems that crop up together. In your downtime, the both of you could find a corner of Earth to watch the humans frolic and the green things grow, settled side by side and chatting away like what the both of you are doing now.
It sounds like paradise.
---
Project Earth starts and neither Aziraphale nor you are assigned to it. God has you making yet more stars up in the sky, a series of constellations to be viewed from Earth, which takes you far away from Earth itself.
Aziraphale stays in Heaven. He is there when you pop in between jobs, flitting around the edges of things but never quite being involved in them himself. He always smiles and gives you a little wave when you look his way, and you make sure to return them with a smile and a wave of your own every time.
You still talk to him whenever you manage to snatch an extended bit of time for yourself, the both of you sitting over the pool of space while you trace constellations in the sky and tell him stories of their creation. However, it is harder to look him in the eye now. You burn with shame, all the lofty talk of the both of you working on Earth feeling like empty promises in your mouth. At least, you still have your stars. Aziraphale has nothing but his patience as he sits by his only window into the world and waits for God to speak to him.
It seems almost cruel to have gotten his hopes up, only for them not to have gone through. You never meant to be cruel, but it seems that you have been so and you itch to fix this. Aziraphale never complains, even though you can see the hunger in his eyes as you regale him with stories that you spin around the stars. It can't be easy for him. If it were you in his place, you would have long been driven mad by the sitting and waiting and the silence. All of you were created for some purpose and you firmly believe that Aziraphale would be great at his. He loves the stars and Earth and the world and the idea of humanity more than any other angel you have ever met, and what else was more important to an angel but love?
That is why when you come back to Heaven after another job well done, you don't go straight to Aziraphale this time. Instead, you traverse across the endless sea of clouds and vaguely upwards until you reach where you need to be.
"Halt," Metatron pronounces, staring down at you very sternly. "State your purpose, angel."
You straighten up and try to look very humble and respectful. In retrospect, perhaps you should have combed your hair and groomed your wings before coming here. There is cosmic dust lodged in the tangles of your copper hair and your wings droop with dander and fluff and Lord knows what else picked up from the surface of Mars. You scuff your feet with their grimy soles and try not to shrink under Metatron's imposing stare as you clear your throat and make your case.
"I need to speak with the Almighty," you say to him. "I have a certain matter that I would like to discuss with Her."
"Are you unhappy with your assignments?" Metatron asks, in a booming voice that is far too loud for someone standing less than five metres away from you. He looks at you closely, with piercing blue eyes that are so different from another pair of blue eyes you know well.
Instinctively, something tells you that being completely honest would not be the best option in this situation.
"Oh, no, I'm very happy with my assignments," you tell him, very convincingly. "The stars and me, we couldn't be happier together."
"If that is the case, then why have you come here?"
"Well, you see, I have a… friend who may have some concerns and I was just wondering if I could consult our Lord on the matter," you say, picking your words carefully.
Metatron's heavy brows draw together on his forehead. "Who is this 'friend' of yours and why could they not come here themselves?"
You press your lips together tightly and will Aziraphale's name out of your head with all your might. "No one," you say quickly.
"There is no angel with the name 'No One'," Metatron intones and it takes you a moment to realise that he is being completely serious.
"Oh, is that so? Funny, I thought that his name had been No One. Perhaps it was No-one-nael? Nothing-niel? Nada-nil? Nathaniel?” you ramble on, praying that you hadn’t just accidentally implicated a perfectly innocent angel.
“Nathaniel? The one with the flaming sword?” Metatron asks with a frown.
Oh Heavens, there was someone named Nathaniel after all.
“Nope. A flaming sword? Never heard of him, never seen a flaming sword in my life,” you say hurriedly. “Listen, Metatron, could you just put me through to God directly?”
"The Lord is too busy to concern Herself with the affairs of angels. You are aware that She is working on the Great Plan, are you not?" Metatron looks down at you disdainfully. "She does not have time to listen to every angel who comes to Her with a problem. I am the Voice of God. You may present your case to me and I will deal with it appropriately."
A peculiar wave of emotion washes over you, running cold and then burning hot through you in the next moment. It feels like indignation, lit like a fire within you, as you stare up at Metatron, baffled. "But isn't the Almighty, well, Almighty? She is supposed to be omniscient and omnipresent. She is supposed to listen to every single angel who comes to Her with a problem—"
"Enough!" Metatron barks, cutting you off. His eyes are cold as he stares down at you, looking deep into your eyes as if memorising exactly who you are. "You ask too many questions. You verge on insubordination."
You lift your chin and look at him defiantly. Who is he to speak for your Lord? The nerve of him. He borders on insubordination, in your opinion, presuming to know Her mind. She is ineffable and there is no way a mere angel, even an Archangel, can know what She will say. Heavens, if you had been speaking to Her directly, there was no doubt that She would know who you were talking about right away, what the problem was, and how to solve it.
"What is going on here?" a mellow voice asks, not from above you, but from beside you, and you turn just in time to get blasted in the face by an outpouring of holy light.
"Lucifer," you greet the Light-Bringer, with your eyes watering.
"Hello, you," Lucifer says warmly, "and good old Metatron too. What are the two of you bickering about?"
"Metatron won't let me speak to our Lord," you tell him through gritted teeth.
"This angel borders on insubordination!" Metatron shoots back.
"And what has he done to be labelled as such?" Lucifer asks mildly.
"He's questioning the Lord and Her ways," Metatron informs him.
You gasp, outraged. How dare he twist the truth around? "I'm only questioning you! Or hey, you're questioning me actually. I haven't done anything wrong. Why are you stopping me from seeing the Almighty?"
"Hush," Lucifer tells you, his wings flaring out behind him, and you hold your tongue. "There is no use arguing with the Voice of God. No doubt he has told you that the Lord is busy with the Great Plan and cannot make the time to see you." Through the blinding halo of light, you get the distinct impression that Lucifer had been looking at Metatron the whole time he had been speaking and there is something decidedly disdainful in the undercurrent of his voice. Only now does he look away, directing his lambent gaze unto you as he suggests, "Why don't you take a walk with me instead?"
Grudgingly, you go with him, taking the opportunity he gives you to cool your head off. The both of you walk amongst the clouds and without having to look directly at him, the light is a bit more bearable.
"What is troubling you?" Lucifer asks after the both of you have walked a distance away from Metatron.
You hesitate. Even with Lucifer, your friend, you are reluctant to bring up Aziraphale's name.
Acute as ever at detecting emotions, Lucifer switches topics smoothly, complimenting you instead, "You've done a stunning job with the stars. You seem to have a real knack for them."
"Thank you."
"It is no wonder She gave you the job of weaving the constellations," Lucifer continues. "They look spectacular from Earth."
That catches your attention and you can't stop yourself from blurting out, "You're part of the project on Earth?"
"I am," Lucifer confirms. "I'm part of the group timing the sunrises and sunsets across the globe. God has commissioned a series of tricky effects to be done across the sky at those times and it is all about the lighting after all." The light around him winks.
"What does Earth look like?" you ask Lucifer, eager for any tidbits of information to share with Aziraphale.
"Hmm," Lucifer ponders. "The land is all clustered together at the moment and surrounded by a large body of water called the ocean. Some of the angels are working on bringing a bit of green to the land."
"You mean plants?"
"They are plants indeed," Lucifer agrees and you hide a grin. You can't wait to tell Aziraphale.
"What about humanity?" you prod further.
"They have not been made yet. God is taking just a little while more to set the stage for them before they come into being."
"Oh." You begin to droop, but then perk up again as an idea strikes you. Perhaps this means that there was still a chance that Aziraphale would be assigned to the creation of humanity. There was still hope.
"Why don't you nip down to Earth and take a look around yourself, if you are so curious about it?" Lucifer inquires, turning his luminous gaze on you. "You've done work on Mars and that isn't too far away from Earth."
"God hasn't assigned me to Earth," you tell him.
Lucifer raises an eyebrow. "Do you need Her to dictate your every move?"
You stop in your tracks, confused. "Well, the Almighty is in charge of everything around here."
He stops as well, looking pointedly at you. "Did She put you up to talking to Metatron?"
"No."
"Did She tell you to take a walk with me?"
"Well, no. You did."
"I asked you to take a walk with me, but gave you the choice not to if you so wished," Lucifer tells you, resuming his stride and leaving you to scramble after him. "There is a difference between ordering and asking."
You think about it. What Lucifer says makes sense. The Lord dictates your movements for the big jobs, the one involving the Creation of the world, but She doesn't really tell you what to do in your spare time. There are some angels, the extreme ones, who literally do nothing when they are done with their jobs, sitting perfectly still in the clouds and looking into space with blank eyes. But there are also angels, and these are the majority, who spend their free time singing, frolicking, sword-fighting, gossiping, taking walks, or sitting by a pool of space and chatting about everything. As all-encompassing as the Lord is, you don't think She would be whispering in the ears of thousands of angels—or were they in the ten thousands now?--at every second. That would seem terribly exhausting, for starters.
"Does this mean that God orders and angels ask?" you ask Lucifer, turning over his statement in your head, prodding at it, and trying to make full sense of it.
There is a smile in Lucifer's voice when he speaks but when you look up at him, the light is too blinding for you, as always, to see if it is really there on his face. "It means that there is always a choice. It is up to you to decide what you want to do."
---
"Aziraphale," you say to him the next time you reconvene at the pool of space. He had been gazing far into the distance when you had approached, so far and so intently that he hadn't even heard you sit next to him. His blue eyes are dreamy and distant—you think he might be looking at Earth.
At the sound of your voice, Aziraphale brings himself back, the light returning to his eyes as he looks up and sees you gazing at him. "Hello again, my dear. Your latest stars are lovely. Part of the new galaxy, are they?" A line creases his forehead ever so slightly as he murmurs, "She seems to be taking you further and further away."
"Listen, Aziraphale," you say urgently. Excitement thrums in you, born from an idea you had while turning Lucifer's words over in your head. You had flown back so fast that you hadn't even stopped to see your latest star take shape, its residue dust still clinging to the palms of your hands. "Why don't we go and take a look at Earth together?"
"Oh, I was just about to suggest that," Aziraphale says, pleased as he gestures towards the pool of space. "Look, it's right over—"
"No, I mean take a look at Earth in person," you tell him. "We could fly there, explore Earth for a bit, maybe stay for the Creation of humanity, and then pop back to Heaven to see if She has any new orders for us."
"Did the Almighty instruct us to do so?" Aziraphale asks, his blue eyes filling with wonder and his wings twitching with excitement behind him. "Are we being assigned to Earth?" He brims with so much hope that it almost hurts.
"No," you shrug as casually as you can and try not to mind the way the light in Aziraphale's eyes dies down, "I thought it might be nice for us to do something fun together. You know, to get away from Heaven for a bit."
Aziraphale stares at you, his mouth a thin, unhappy line even though he tries not to show how disappointed he is. "You know we can't."
"And why not?" you ask him. You have received no orders not to go to Earth and if She doesn't interfere with what angels do in their free time then going to Earth for a quick jaunt should be no problem. You think it works that way. You are nervous too, about jumping through so many hoops to find a loophole, but you can't stay still any longer.
What if the Almighty never calls upon Aziraphale? What if humanity is created and the Great Plan is put into motion and Aziraphale still remains here in Heaven, watching from afar? What if She only ever gives you the stars to work on for all eternity? What if things never change? There is a whole world out there that is being created and to be confined to only a part of it—or worse, to never have a hand in it—scares you.
"You know," Aziraphale shrugs helplessly, his great white wings shifting with the motion, "because the Almighty didn't tell us to."
"She doesn't have to tell us to do everything," you wheedle. "Besides, it's not like we're going to be doing anything on Earth. We'll just take a look, I promise. We'll be in and out with no one the wiser."
"She's watching us. She always is," Aziraphale frets as he wrings his hands, his blue eyes distressed. "What if this is a test? You know how the Almighty loves her tests."
"Aziraphale," you say pleadingly, desperate to make him come around. "They're rounding up the team to create humanity and forming another to watch over them. Have you heard from Her at all?"
Hurt flashes through Aziraphale's eyes and he looks away from you as he says quietly, "No, I haven't."
His chances are slipping away. What is an angel without a job? A purpose? Does God forget about any of Her children, now that there are so many of them? What will happen when she creates humanity? Will Aziraphale forever be lost and forgotten in the midst of all of them?
"Come with me please," you coax him, keeping your voice low and gentle, as if you are talking to a particularly twitchy creature. You want to take his hand, but he is too caught up in wringing his hands into little bits. "Let's go see Earth together. I don't know what plans She has for you but She is taking such a long time to convey them to you. Aren't you tired of waiting?"
Aziraphale's bottom lip trembles. "I will wait for as long as it takes for Her to decide on my role in the Great Plan."
"What if it takes all eternity? What will you do then? Still be waiting and watching all the other angels come and go by?"
"I will wait," Aziraphale says quietly, resolutely, faithfully. He tilts his chin up and there a spark in his blue eyes as he turns the questions back onto you. "What about you? Can you bear to leave the stars behind? I've watched you create each and every one of them, shape them with your hands, and breathe life into them. The sky is so much brighter with them around." His eyes soften, his mouth shaping hesitant words as he adds softly, "My sky is so much brighter with you around. Dear one, what if you're making a mistake?"
Oh.
You take his hand, easing your palm under his and rescuing it from being wrung into oblivion. It is a nice hand, as nice as hands can be, soft and plump and delicate. It feels like it was made to be held and that is exactly what you do, folding your clever, spindly fingers over his hand and holding on. Even in the face of this revelation, the time has come for you to make a decision.
You crave the fruit of knowledge, unsure of exactly how forbidden it is when no one had thought to lay down the rules properly. You want to see the world. You wish that Aziraphale would come with you because you think, out of everyone else in Heaven, he should be the one to see the world with you. His love for you tethers your feet to the clouds, keeping you whole and grounded, and your love for him is the wind rushing beneath his wings, tugging and coaxing and begging him to take flight.
You will have to meet in the middle at some point of time in this story. But this is not that point and as much as it pains you to, you understand.
"I won't ask you to go if you don't want to," you tell him softly, your heart heavy in your chest. "I understand."
Aziraphale shuts his eyes, like that would keep the emotion from leaking out of them. When he opens them again, you can read the fear, shame, and regret within them, all laid out so clearly for you to see.
"Thank you," Aziraphale says. And, I'm sorry.
---
You pray.
As with most people, it is a last resort to turn to when all else have failed. You are not sure how you got to this point. You had been happy with the stars and Aziraphale, and then one day, suddenly, you weren't. When did creating the stars become a chore instead a thing of wonder? When did seeing Aziraphale at the same place every time you return to Heaven turn from relief to guilt to a nagging feeling that is was not right?
Who are you to doubt Her orders? Her Great Plan? Her silence?
What is happening, truly? You want to know and the only way you can conceivably think of knowing is to ask.
So you pray, because the path to God has been blocked by stern angels who give you more questions than answers. You pray, because you want God to hear you for once and you want God to listen when Her children speak to Her, and not just the other way around.
You find a quiet spot in Heaven—and it is a hard task to find one with Heaven so crammed full of angels—and you drop to your knees. When you clasp your hands together, the grime and dust from your work press between your palms, and once again you think that perhaps you should have cleaned up before doing this. Self-consciously, you rake your fingers through your tresses, shaking out the cosmic dust before tossing your hair back and closing your eyes.
You take a deep breath, exhaling deeply before saying aloud, "God, can you hear me?"
Silence. You give her a good minute or two to answer, in case She wants to answer, but there is only silence and you press on.
"God, I wish to speak to you about a certain matter." Pause. Silence. Continue. "It is about a friend of mine, an angel. His name is Aziraphale. I don't suppose you have heard of him? I mean, of course you must have—you created him after all. But just in case you have forgotten who he is—because there are so many of us after all and you are so very busy and there are bound to be things that just slip through the cracks—just in case, I want to remind you about him."
"He's a wonderful angel. He cares a lot about the world and humanity, even if he hasn't met them yet. He doesn't do too well around the other angels because he gets nervous but, Lord, when he smiles it is like light itself—no offence to the Light-Bringer." You bite your lip, thinking very hard about your next words before they fall into place. "My Lord, I just want to see him happy. Why have you forgotten about him? You give me and all the other angels countless tasks and keep us very busy, but why is it that you have neglected him? I do not know if he has ever heard the sound of your voice, but he believes in you so very much."
"God, I don't mean to overstep, but I was thinking of bringing Aziraphale down to Earth, y'know, just to see the plants and the animals and perhaps even humanity. Even if he doesn't have a job, it can't hurt for him to sight-see a bit. No offence, but it does get boring up here in Heaven sometimes, even with the marvellous choir. I thought it would be nice if he could be in the thick of things, instead of just watching from afar. Plus, it would be a nice vacation from the stars for me too. I love them so, but I was hoping to take a look at those new green things you have on Earth."
The silence grates on you as your solitary voice echoes through the clouds in a one-sided conversation. You clench your hands together, so tightly that the dirt bites into your palms and almost melds into you.
"God, are you listening to me?" you ask. "What is the Great Plan? What is humanity? What are we all doing this for? You never tell us anything beyond ANGEL DO THIS and ANGEL DO THAT. I know that the Great Plan is ineffable, but if you talked to us more perhaps we would be able to understand. What else did you create us for if not to understand your thoughts? What else did you create us for if not to carry out your will?"
You will get no answer from Her today. Nor tomorrow or any other day far into the future. You are beginning to understand this. God speaks to you and you can speak to God, but the space between the both of you is insurmountable and now fractured in a way that you do not know if it is repairable or not. Here is the first break, between God and Her child. In the gap formed, a seed of doubt has sprouted. The fruit of knowledge is to come.
You will go, with or without God's blessing. With or without Aziraphale.
There are many things that you do not know and yearn to know, but at the very least you know this: you know your own mind. You control your own actions, wherever they may lead you to.
---
The time has come. The air has changed, humming with new atoms that will be used to make an entire new race of children. You will be there to see the Creation.
You brace yourself at the edge of Heaven and the blackness of space yawns beneath your feet. You know this part of the world as well as you know yourself. Every star in the night sky was hung by your own hands. If angels and humanity are the children of God, the stars are yours.
You are scared. If there was air in your lungs, it would be coming fast in your chest, short, anxious puffs of air in and out of your nose. But you are determined. If you go to Earth and return, unscathed, you can prove to Aziraphale that everything is fine and God won't punish you just for wanting things. Perhaps the both of you can even take up new jobs on Earth. The other angels could probably use extra pairs of hands to watch over the numerous life forms coming into existence on Earth.
As you pile up your reassurances against your anxieties, you drop off the edge of Heaven and let your wings carry you down to Earth.
The journey to Earth doesn't take long and soon, you see it. The land all clustered together. The body of water they call the ocean. The green things covering the earth called plants. It is beautiful and so much more than you could have ever imagined. You circle Earth once, twice, thrice, giddy in your new discovery. You can’t wait to show Aziraphale this sight.
There are the angels, clustered in a walled-off garden. Humanity will be there in this beautiful world created for them. You promised to look, and only look, and so you flap your great wings and angle in, craning forward to see.
It comes without warning.
This is the second break, between God and Her child. For every action, there is a consequence, whether deserved or not. Millenia later, you will still wonder what had been the cause of it. The questions, the actions, or the things intangible that had been growing in your mind?
But for now, you are sure of this: your wings are burning, your beautiful angel wings. The flames are carmine, scarlet, vermilion, and crimson, hot as painted canvas, raw and violent as unreciprocated dreams.
You are a falling star. You are gone too far. You are a series of questions, reaching for answers far beyond your understanding without realising that you were tipping off the edge.
All you have ever wanted is to know. All you have ever felt is love. That was what She made you for after all.
So why, oh, why did God stop loving you?
You are scared. You are Falling. Your wings won't hold you now and you plummet to Earth—no far beyond Earth and into somewhere else entirely.
You are
burning,
burning,
burning,
and you think, is this how it ends?
“Aziraphale—” you gasp and the flames lick their way into your throat, ripping and searing and erasing.
It burns his name straight from your tongue.
---
Eventually, you will learn to crawl.
You will slither on your belly, your nose in the dirt, your golden eyes full of hurt. You are the stuff of nightmares, you are graceless, you are Her damned child.
(You miss the stars.)
They don't tell you that even after the Fall, you keep burning. Most days it feels like a piece of burning ember lodged in your core, glowing red hot with anger and bitterness and pain, so much pain. They don't tell you about the emptiness that comes with the absence of Her grace. The Fall hollows you out, twisting you into a mockery of your past self, and you can't pass reflective surfaces without flinching away at who you are now. You wonder if you will still be recognised, as you are.
(You miss him too.)
They tell you that now that you have been cast out, there is nothing more to do but to act against Her. They tell you to hold on to the pain and the agony and to derive strength from it. As an angel, you had been loved and had loved. As a demon, you are hated and will learn to hate. It will make you strong and give you purpose.
To be perfectly honest, you aren't sure. For one, it is pretty tiring to nurture hate continuously. Secondly, you are pretty sure that She doesn't care. From past experiences, you know that She shrugs off things like this like water sliding off a duck's back. If She didn't listen to your prayers as an beloved angel, what makes them think that She would be listening to your curses as a damned demon?
You don't tell this to any of the other demons, of course. They wouldn't understand.
Lucifer, or Satan now, you suppose, calls to you one day. His light no longer blinds you and when he smiles, you see it on his face. You wonder if he had always looked like that or if he had been changed too. He is beautiful, elegant on his throne, and there is something dangerously alluring about him that makes you unable to take your eyes off him. Beware, your senses seem to tell you, do not look away.
"Why don't you go up there and make some trouble?" Satan says to you, smiling beatifically, as if he was still amongst the clouds of Heaven, instead of the fire and brimstone of Hell.
"Is this an order?" you ask.
"Your choice." Satan shrugs. His eyes glitter, his lips curling in a smile, or a sneer—it is hard as ever to read him even though you can now see his face. "However, it isn't like you have anything better to do now, do you?"
You go. You break through the earth and into the Garden of Eden, where you spend some days lazing around in the leafy foliage and darting at small animals until they scurry away in fear. You watch the humans potter around, so clever and so curious, brimming with untold potential. They love their world, walled in as they are and protected from the wilderness of the great unknown. This is a safe space where they are loved by God and guarded by angels.
You look at them and wonder: How long would it take for them to fall from grace? What would do it for them? When given a choice, how would they act?
You had once been told that perhaps human beings would resemble angels. You wish you could tell him how close his guess had been. The fruit of knowledge now has a form and humanity is just as hungry for it as you were. It barely takes any prompting from you—you know they had their eye on it for a while now. Eve eats the apple and Adam does too. To no one's surprise, least of all yours, they are cast out of Eden. It is a pattern you know well.
You suppose you should be gloating, you know, as the opposition, so you dutifully slither up the wall on the East side to where you know an angel would be standing guard, watching aghast as Adam and Eve leave the safety of Eden to traverse into the great unknown. You don't think it is all that bad. They still have each other after all and the world out there is beautiful if they can take care of each other.
At the top of the wall, you shed off your slithery form and concentrate on forming arms and legs. If you are to gloat properly, you should at least be at eye level with your enemy. Out of habit, you bring back your coppery mane of hair and the wind blows through it with a gentle sigh, dislodging dirt and other things it had collected while you had been down on the ground. You almost feel like yourself again.
Time to get it over with then. You speak your line and when the angel, your adversary, fumbles with the reply, you turn to face him, exasperated. And you stop, your cleverly formed taunt dying in your throat.
It is him.
He finally got an assignment down here on Earth, no less, guarding humanity.
You have seen the Angel of the Eastern Gate from a distance, as you have the Angels of the Northern, Western, and Southern Gates, but eyesight isn't really your strong suit in snake form and all you had noticed was the flaming sword and not much else. Now, up close, you see his great white wings and his hair, so much like the clouds but with a touch of warmth, and his eyes, big and blue and full of emotion.
He stares at you and there is a helpless look in his eyes, his mouth working but with no name on his tongue. He knows you, he loves you, but you had Fallen, and taken everything with you. Unfamiliarity overlaps with emotions rooted deep in the history of both of you—he doesn’t know why he is crying or why he simultaneously knows you and doesn’t.
I knew you once, the both of your souls seem to cry out and that is the third break, isn't it, between the ones who go and the ones who stay? You can pick your side, you can control your actions, but you cannot decide what happens to those you leave behind. In the distance formed between the both of you, there is loss and a forgetting.
But, there is also hope, you realise. In absence, there is possibility. In absence, there is space to create, to know again, and perhaps to learn to love once more.
You told him your name once. You can tell it to him again, even though the name you once told him is now lost to the both of you. You aren’t partial to the name they gave you Downstairs, but it fits and it sticks with you. No matter. It will have to do for now.
In return, he tells you that he gave away his sword and it is all you can do not to burst out in laughter because of course, of course. He had always been a special one—you had known that the moment you met him up in Heaven.
You thought that you would feel resentment, meeting and talking to him down on Earth. Everything you had done for him had led to this, which means that you had essentially Fallen for him.
Instead, you think, thank the stars, he is here. The walls of Eden have been breached. Adam and Eve have left the garden. Spread out before you is a world waiting to be built, nurtured, and explored.
You were the one who had asked questions. You were the one who had Fallen.
He had been patient. He had been the one to wait.
Either way, you had both ended up here on Earth.
Finally.
(This is not your End, but your Beginning.)