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It began with an ending.

With the ending of the War in Heaven to be precise. It would be hard to say how long the War lasted for, as it all happened before time had truly begun. All that could be said for certain was Michael and Lucifer had clashed on three separate occasions. The first two had ended with neither the victor, but in their third battle, Michael succeeding in landing the final blow, casting Lucifer down, down, down, out of Heaven, through the Earth, and into the fiery pits of Hell. And as Satan Fell, he reached out and dragged a full third of the Heavenly Host down with him.

As the shock of all that had happened – the War, its abrupt ending, the sudden loss of so many of their fellows – was still reverberating through Heaven, the remaining Archangels gathered together to meet. “The War may be over, but there’s still work left for us,” Gabriel said. “Satan might have made it look like he pulled all his followers down with him when he Fell, but how do we know he didn’t deliberately leave spies behind? Even if there aren’t spies, there might still be angels left who sympathized with him. We have to find them and cast them out now, before they can cause any more trouble.”

Michael and Uriel both nodded in agreement, but Raphael’s golden eyes flashed with anger. “You want to purposefully throw more of our people down to Hell?” he snapped.

“Now, Raphael,” Michael interrupted, her tone soothing but brisk, “I understand how you might be worried about swelling Hell’s ranks, but surely you can see not acting now would actually be more detrimental in the long run.”

“This isn’t about your pissing contest with Satan, Michael, it’s about having some compassion. We only just made it through the War and you want to go on persecuting people while they’re trying to recover? If we’re meant to love all of God’s Creation, seems like the very least we could manage is the other angels.”

“Of course we love our fellow angels,” Gabriel said. “That doesn’t mean we have to allow traitors in our midst.”

Raphael looked between the faces of his three siblings, but found no sympathy in any of them. “Fine, if you’re all determined, I won’t fight you, but I’m not going to help you either. If you need me, I’ll be healing people rather than traumatizing them further,” he said, then stalked off.

The other three Archangels began the long process of rooting out all potential traitors. Each angel was reviewed and either crossed off the list as innocent or, if found guilty, their wings and powers were bound and they were taken to the very edge of Heaven, an edge that only existed because the Archangels needed it to, and they were pushed off, Falling and descending down into Hell.

As they went about their work Gabriel might turn to Michael and say, “Good thing we know exactly where you were the entire War; I would hate to have to question you,” and then say to Uriel some time later, “Is Raphael still healing people? How can there be that much left to do when he said he was healing them all during the War too?” Or he might say to Michael, “Do you know how Raphael is doing? We all lost a brother, but I know he and Lucifer were especially close,” and then to Uriel, “This would go so much faster if we had Raphael’s help. Why was he so set against this anyway?”

The truth was Gabriel was intensely wary and even jealous of Raphael. Michael and Lucifer were the two eldest of the Archangels, and would have been the most logical choice for their leader, but Lucifer was Satan now, and Michael was a warrior, perfectly content to be the general and let someone else make the decisions the rest of the time. Uriel was the youngest of them; she generally kept her own counsel and would follow where her elder siblings led. But Raphael… Raphael wasn’t ambitious, but he was opinionated and stubborn and would absolutely fight with Gabriel for control if he decided he didn’t like the decisions Gabriel was making. Michael had sided with Gabriel this time, but there was no guarantee she would do so next time, especially not when Raphael was older than Gabriel. And if Michael agreed with Raphael, then Uriel would fall in line with them, and then where would Gabriel be? No, he didn’t dare risk it, but nor could he risk being too obvious about what he was doing. So instead he made off-hand comments, asked innocent-seeming questions, and waited.

It wasn’t until after the Garden of Eden had been completed and the first two humans had been created that the Archangels finished their cross-examination of all the angels in Heaven. Gabriel sent the angel they had been questioning on their way, congenially informing them they were the last one, and then turned to his siblings. Michael and Uriel exchanged a speaking look, and Gabriel carefully masked the sense of triumph rising within him.

“There’s one more angel we need to consider,” Michael said.

“Raphael,” said Uriel.

“Raphael? How could you possibly suspect Raphael?” Gabriel asked, affecting a disbelieving tone. Then he merely had to listen and hold back a smile as Michael and Uriel began listing back to him all the things he’d been slowly whispering in their ears.

When the other two had finished, Gabriel didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, he sighed and said, “I don’t like it, but you’re right. Raphael is a traitor. We know what we have to do.”

Even as word spread throughout Heaven that the trials had ended, the Archangels called Raphael to meet them very near to the spot where the edge of Heaven had been formed. Raphael thought it an odd choice of location, but it did not occur to him to be truly suspicious of it, not until far too late.

“Raphael,” Gabriel said, glaring down at his brother kneeling before him. “You have been found guilty of conspiring with Satan to defy the will of God.” Behind Raphael, Uriel was binding his wings tight with holy chains. Michael was busy holding Raphael down so he wouldn’t escape, though her efforts were mostly unneeded.

“But I haven’t done anything,” Raphael objected. His protest sounded weak even to his own ears. For all he had disapproved of their actions before, he never would have expected them to take it to this. He could not understand the flames of jealously and perhaps even hatred flickering in Gabriel’s eyes.

Gabriel continued speaking, taking no notice of Raphael’s interruption. “For your crimes, you must Fall.” With his final word, Uriel finished the binding, and Michael dispassionately pushed Raphael’s shoulders, sending him tumbling over the edge.

As Raphael Fell, the shock that had been numbing his system completely and abruptly gave way, leaving him to be overwhelmed by the sharp pangs of betrayal. For angels, who were made firstly of light and love and the Divine Spirit and for whom physical bodies were a mere afterthought, emotional pain hurt much harder and far deeper than a physical wound ever could. It was not just the treachery of his siblings Raphael felt, but abandonment by the one being who could have stopped them and could not have failed to see this coming, and yet chose to do nothing. Raphael felt a burning heat spark at the edges of his wings as he continued to plummet downward, faster and faster. Then, just as the pain truly overtook him, he felt himself caught and cradled by a strong pair of arms.

Moments before Raphael had been pushed from Heaven, Aziraphale had been standing on the wall around the Garden, watching the sky.  In the time since Aziraphale had been assigned as Guardian of the Eastern Gate, he’d seen more than a few angels Fall from Heaven and downward on into Hell. Even though he knew that the trials were over with, he often found his eye drifting to the spot. He’d spent too long afraid, certain that his oddness – the source of which he had never been able to pin down, but was incontrovertibly there, creating an invisible but impenetrable wall between him and his fellow angels – would mark him as a traitor doomed to Fall, despite his loyalty. He had been told he was cleared, but the relief had yet to come. So, he spent his time watching the sky, and saw when another angel came hurtling down.

It took a moment for Aziraphale to work past his surprise and confusion, but only a moment and then he was lifting off into the air, speeding his way to the tumbling angel. The trials were over; word had gone out through the official channels that all the trials were over and all the traitors had been expelled. This angel now must have tripped or some other accident must have occurred. Even when Aziraphale had gotten close enough to see the chains binding the angel’s wings, he continued forward, certain there must have been some sort of mistake. Finally, he was able to reach out and catch the angel, only to nearly drop him again in shock when he saw who he was holding.

Aziraphale had seen Raphael from a distance a number of times before, but the two of them had only met once. During the War, Aziraphale had taken a sword to the leg, cutting a deep wound in his thigh. The battle had moved on without him, leaving him on the ground, his essence slowly spilling out and away until he was certain he had reached his end. Then suddenly he had felt a warmth pressing up against his leg and spreading slowly outward. His eyes had fluttered open again to see Raphael bent over him, hands pressed to Aziraphale’s now slowly closing wound. Raphael had lifted his hands once the healing was done, but then immediately had shook his head, mumbling, “No, that’s not right,” and reached out again.

Aziraphale had grabbed his wrist then, and Raphael’s head had snapped up to look at him. His eyes were yellow like molten gold, but they had been so tired. All of him had been so dull and stretched out and worn out and tired. “Thank you,” Aziraphale had said. “That’s more than enough for me to be going on with for the moment. Why don’t you rest for a bit; I can stand guard.”

For a long moment, Raphael had stared at him uncomprehendingly, and then a smile had bloomed across his face. It had been a bit crooked, that smile. Not at all in line with Heaven’s clean starched perfection. Aziraphale had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Alright,” Raphael had conceded. “But after all this is over, you come find me. I’ll fix your leg up properly.” Then, to Aziraphale’s dismay, he had stood up and began to walk away.

“What about resting?” Aziraphale had called out, limping a little as he had struggled to get up himself.

“No time,” Raphael had called back, and then he’d been gone.

After the War had ended, Aziraphale had thought about going to see Raphael for his leg any number of times, but he had never quite gotten up the nerve to do it. Raphael was an Archangel; he was important and busy; he didn’t need to be bothered by a principality with a leg wound that was mostly healed anyway. And yet now here Raphael was, unconscious in Aziraphale’s arms.

It had to be a mistake. Despite the tightly bound wings suggesting otherwise, Aziraphale was sure Raphael Falling from Heaven had to have been some sort of mistake. He ought to carry Raphael back up and give him to the other Archangels; they could take care of him and sort out this mess. That was what he ought to do.

Aziraphale clutched Raphael tighter and sped back down to the Garden, praying to God that only She would see what he was doing. Something felt terribly off about all this to him. Besides, he had told Raphael he would stand guard.

Inside the Garden, near Aziraphale’s post at the Eastern Gate, there was a small hillock. Aziraphale hollowed it out with a thought, creating a room at the centre. A tunnel led into it, and he carefully coaxed the nearby ivy to fall over the entrance, rendering it largely unnoticeable. It was dark inside, but Aziraphale was an angel; if he wanted to be able to see, he could. Another thought and a nest of woven grass and leaves like the humans liked to sleep on appeared, and Aziraphale gently laid Raphael down on top. He made an attempt to pull the chains off, but whoever had bound Raphael obviously had much more power than Aziraphale had. On the bright side, he discovered the blackened edges to Raphael’s wings were not as serious as he had feared, merely a layer of ash that he brushed off to reveal pristine white feathers underneath.

Once he had Raphael settled, Aziraphale sat down with his back against the wall and anxiously waited for him to wake up. It had already been late in the evening when he had flown up to catch Raphael, and before long night fell, stealing away any traces of light from the room and forcing even Aziraphale’s ethereal eyes to strain slightly to see. Still he waited, until finally Raphael stirred.

When Raphael woke, he suffered a moment of confusion. He had expected to come to in Hell, but a pleasantly warm room and a soft bed was not at all what he thought Hell would be like, even if the darkness so thick he couldn’t see a single thing seemed reasonably in theme. Too, while he was cut off from his angelic Grace, he didn’t feel especially Fallen or demonic; he still felt like Raphael.

Then slowly the memory came back to him. Someone had caught him before he had finished Falling. His Mother had not forsaken him after all, though judging by the chains still holding his wings, She had not been personally responsible for catching him either; She would have been easily able to remove them after all.

“You’re awake,” said a nearby voice, and Raphael tensed. It didn’t seem an unfriendly voice, indeed whoever they were sound very pleased and relieved by Raphael’s awakening, but he couldn’t help but be uneasy when he was so powerless. Not even when he’d been at his most exhausted during the War had he been this unable to defend himself; he couldn’t even force his eyes to pierce through the dark at the moment.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Raphael asked warily.

“We’re in the Garden. On Earth,” the other said. “Specifically, we’re in a sort of secret cave I made because I didn’t… I wasn’t… someone tried to make you Fall. And that can’t possibly be right, so I thought it might be safer to go somewhere out of the way for the moment until we can sort out what happened.”

“Oh, I know what happened,” Raphael muttered darkly. “It’s just a question of what to do about it. And you didn’t say who you were.”

“I’m the one who caught you,” the voice said, which was not at all a satisfactory answer. Raphael waited in pointed silence until the voice elaborated, “I’m one of the angels assigned to guard the Garden, and technically I’m on apple tree duty.”

This here was the cause of a misunderstanding on Raphael’s part. Aziraphale had not lied, nor intended to seriously mislead Raphael in any way. His only point of less than total honesty was in neglecting to mention his name – he had not been able to decide which would have been the worse outcome, if Raphael had recognized his name as the odd principality that didn’t quite fit in or if he had failed to recognize it at all. The trouble was Raphael had assumed his unseen saviour was guarding the Garden by being on apple tree duty, and was trying to remember which of the cherubim had been assigned to that task. In fact, Aziraphale was both guarding the Eastern Gate and currently on apple tree duty, as the cherubim previously assigned to the Tree had not returned after their trials – one Fallen and the other reassigned – and Aziraphale had been asked to cover until the arrival of their replacements, which Gabriel had assured him would be any time now.

“That explains why we’re in the Garden then,” Raphael said, tacitly agreeing not to push the angel on his identity any longer. The angel would tell him when he was ready, or Raphael would figure it out on his own.

“I tried to remove the chains from your wings for you, but they wouldn’t come off,” Aziraphale said.

“They aren’t made to be easy to get rid of; that would defeat the purpose,” Raphael said. “Normally they’d burn up in all the hellfire when an angel Falls. Failing that, the only ones who’d be able to get them off would be the Almighty or one of the Archangels. One of them who isn’t already chained up, obviously.”

“I could go get one of them for you,” Aziraphale offered.

Raphael made a dismissive sound. “Who do you think did this to me?”

“Oh. I… You mean all three of them?”

“Yeah, the gang was all there,” Raphael said bitterly. A heavy silence descended and Raphael abruptly realized that perhaps that wasn’t something he had ought to have told the angel. “You’re going to go get them, aren’t you?”

The silence stretched out for a few more impossibly long seconds before the reply came, surprisingly decisive. “Not if you tell me not to. I can hardly be doing the wrong thing if I’m just following your orders. You’re an Archangel too, after all.”

“So was Satan,” Raphael replied, apparently unable to help but dig the hole deeper for himself.

“I trust you.” Even with his wings bound and all but his more corporeal senses completely blinded, there was no way Raphael could miss the wave of faith that accompanied that statement. Faith not in him as an Archangel, however the other was choosing to frame it, but faith in him, Raphael, personally. It made him all the more desperate to know who the angel was, what Raphael could have possibly done to engender such a feeling.

He reached his hand out in the direction of the voice, and after a moment the angel clasped it with his own hand. “Thank you,” Raphael said, squeezing tightly, unable to do anything else to express his gratitude. Besides perhaps, given the rustling noises like the angel was shifting uncomfortably with the current subject, changing the topic of conversation. “What is the Garden like these days? I haven’t had a chance to see it since it was only half-done.”

The two of them talked through the entire night. Aziraphale kept waiting for the moment Raphael drew back, having realized what seemed so obvious to every other angel he had ever met, that Aziraphale was strange and awkward and boring. But that thought never seemed to pass through Raphael’s mind. Aziraphale even made him laugh, twice. He couldn’t recall having ever made anyone laugh before. And the sight of it, the column of his throat as he tossed his head ba0ck, the white flash of teeth visible within the joyful opening of his mouth, the crinkling of skin around eyes dancing with mirth, was even more beautiful than his perfectly flawed smile. Aziraphale felt he might have happily stayed right there forever if he could.

But time passed, as it unfortunately had a habit of doing now, and all too soon the impenetrable dark of the space lightened by the smallest fraction. “Oh dear, that’ll be the sun rising, won’t it? I need to get back to my post before I’m missed.”

“Alright,” Raphael agreed, trying to hold in his disappointment. He had hoped the angel might stay until the light was bright enough that he could see more than an ill-defined shape of him. “Suppose I better stay here for now. Would you… do you think you might be able to come by again tonight?”

Aziraphale flushed with surprise and pleasure. “I… yes, certainly. If you want me to.”

“I’d like that, angel,” Raphael said.

“Well, alright then. Until tonight.”

“Until tonight,” echoed Raphael, then watched as well as he could as the angel left. Once he could no longer make out even the hint of the vague shadow that was the other angel, Raphael laid back on his nest and sighed. Though he was pleased to have been spared the pain of Falling, his current situation – company aside – was not much of an improvement, and he still had no idea how to proceed. Not to mention he now had a full day of boredom to get through before he had the pleasure of the angel’s company once again. He sighed a second time, embracing the drama of the moment to entertain himself if nothing else. He closed his eyes to form a more complete picture of despair and, without at all meaning to, promptly fell asleep.

He woke just as dusk was beginning to give way to twilight. It seemed that with his powers bound his body actually required rest. It was something of an annoyance on principle, though in all honesty he had enjoyed the indulgence. And more importantly, his sleep had done a marvellous job of making the time pass without his notice, and he did not have at all long to wait until the angel joined him again.

The days slipped by in that same manner. While the sun was up, Aziraphale could be found tending to his post while Raphael slept away in his nest. When the night fell, Aziraphale would join Raphael underground and the two of them talked until the sun began creeping up on the horizon again. The other thing that did not change was no matter how much time they spent together or how close they became, Aziraphale would not divulge his name or identity to Raphael. He knew he was being silly and Raphael wouldn’t care, but he could not budge that kernel of doubt and fear within him on his own, and Raphael stayed true to his unspoken promise that first night and never asked again.

But oh, how hard it was for Raphael to keep that promise. With every passing day they grew closer and Raphael’s feelings for the other angel grew stronger. He felt he knew him now as well as he’d ever known the other Archangels and was certain he understood him better. At times Raphael almost convinced himself that was enough, that a simple thing like a name was trivial in comparison to hours and hours spent talking and sharing of themselves. But in truth curiosity had always been Raphael’s greatest weakness. He’d always asked just one too many questions.

It was in that spirit that one morning, not long after the angel had left to return to his post, that Raphael snuck out of his hidden den. He was not actually forbidden to leave the place; he had every right to come and go as he pleased if he so chose. He could have even left with the angel that morning and seen him in the light of the full glory of the dawn, but it was not Raphael’s intention to force the angel to reveal himself before he was comfortable. Raphael only wanted to sneak a quick look at the other in secret – there was something familiar about the angel’s voice and there were not so many cherubim that Raphael felt he wouldn’t be able to identify him upon seeing him. Then once Raphael had the knowledge to quench the burning need inside him, he would tuck it carefully away and wait until the angel shared it voluntarily.

Raphael crept through the Garden, heading in what he hoped was the direction of the centre, where the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil his angel guarded stood. As he did, he made sure to stay under where the canopies of the trees were heaviest, so none of the other angels standing guard saw him. He did not imagine any other angel being nearly so willing to overlook his sentencing by the other Archangels as his angel was, and Raphael had not yet come up with any sort of plan for dealing with his siblings.

In fact, he was so intent on watching the skies, he failed to notice the rustling in the undergrowth until he quite suddenly found himself face to face with Adam and Eve. There was a brief moment when both parties stared at each other in surprise, neither of them having in any way expected to run into the other. Then Eve clapped her hands together as her eyes crinkled in delight, and Adam gave a warm broad grin, the white of his teeth brilliant against his dark skin.

“Oh look, it’s another angel! And he’s come to visit us,” Eve said.

Adam clapped his hand on Raphael’s upper arm. “Pleased to meet you, brother.”

“You, too,” Raphael answered, with total sincerity. He had never felt anything like the rage and jealousy that Satan had held toward the Almighty’s newest project and prized creation, but up until this moment he had been largely ambivalent toward them. But how could he not like them now, when they both showed such immediate delight in welcoming him? “Raphael is my name. Do you have a lot of angels come to visit you in the Garden?”

It was a question asked both out of concern – perhaps watching the tree cover wasn’t sufficient caution after all – and out of hope. The angel had mentioned speaking with Adam and Eve, duties permitting, so maybe Raphael could get his name from the two of them.

Eve shook her head and Adam’s expression fell a little. “No,” he said. “We can see them up there on the wall, but they won’t come down to see us.”

“What about the other angels in the garden?” Raphael prompted.

“Ah,” Eve said, “you mean at the centre of the Garden—”

“Eve,” Adam chastised.

Eve rolled her eyes at him, though there was a fond amusement to the gesture. “We’re allowed to look. We just can’t take the fruit, right Raphael?” She turned to him for confirmation, but before Raphael could answer her, her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh no, what happened to your wings?”

Eve rushed closer, her hand outstretched, and Raphael had to quickly twitch his wings away before she could touch him. To her credit, Eve immediately pulled her hand back, looking suitably chastened.

“I did something a bit foolish, and got myself in a spot of trouble is all,” Raphael said. “Nothing I can’t handle.” It had been rather foolish of him to go off on his own like that when his siblings had still been on the war path despite the War being firmly over. And Raphael could handle it, just as soon as he figured out how he was supposed to do that.

“We can at least help you get them off,” Adam offered.

Raphael shook his head. “Appreciate the thought, but these are ethereal chains; the two of you wouldn’t be able to help.”

“If it has to be an angel, maybe Aziraphale can help,” Eve said earnestly.

“Aziraphale?” Raphael echoed hopefully. The name didn’t sound familiar but maybe…

“He’s one of the angels on the wall, but he’s much nicer than the others. He says he’s not supposed to leave his post, but he’ll sit on the edge of the wall to talk to us. And his spot is right near here too. Ah, yes, see, you can even see him from here,” Eve said, pointing.

Raphael leaned over to follow her line of sight and through a break in the trees he could indeed see the wall – far closer than it by rights should have been after the walking he’d done, and he’d been going in ruddy circles, hadn’t he? – and atop it an angel standing guard. From this distance, and given Aziraphale was standing with his back to them, it was hard to tell anything about how he looked. The standard white wings, standard white robes, standard human-shaped corporation, standard flaming sword – well, standard for the guardians of the Garden at any rate on that last one. The one standout was his hair, fluffy white blond curls that almost looked like a halo on their own. There was something familiar about that thought, but after considering for a moment, Raphael decided Aziraphale just must have been someone he’d seen in passing before.

Really, it didn’t matter what Aziraphale looked like. He couldn’t be Raphael’s angel because he was guarding the Tree while Aziraphale was stationed on the wall. And of course, even if Aziraphale were able to help unbind Raphael’s wings, it was far too much risk to approach and ask him. “I’ll keep him in mind, but I’d rather figure it out myself if I can. I don’t want to everyone to know about it.”

“Why not?” Eve asked.

“Oh, like you’ve never teased Adam for doing something foolish and getting himself in trouble,” Raphael said, heavily sarcastic.

Eve giggled. “Well, maybe sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Adam echoed. He wrapped his arms affectionately around her waist and pulled her toward him. Eve giggled again as she leaned in as well, bringing her own arms up around his neck. “More like all the time.”

“Are you a fool all the time then?” Eve asked him.

“I don’t know, am I?”

“No.” Eve pressed a kiss to Adam’s lips, short and very sweet. “Only sometimes.”

It made something in Raphael’s chest ache to watch the two of them like that. To be able to so casually reach out and touch with love, completely sure of each other’s affections. Aside from the hand squeeze that first night, Raphael and the angel had barely ever touched. Only brief, accidental brushes. Raphael was not even granted the privilege of knowing the angel’s name. He wanted… oh he wanted, and wanted so much more than he’d realized before seeing Adam and Eve together just now.

Eve turned to face Raphael again, but kept her back pressed to Adam’s chest, and he kept his arms around her. This put him in the perfect position to turn his face into her hair and press a kiss to her wild black curls. She smiled up at him before turning to Raphael to say, “Would you like to come walk through the Garden with us for a while? We know all the best fruit trees, and a spot where the river forms a pool that’s perfect to swim in.”

Ultimately Raphael decided that no matter his own desires, he could not begrudge the two of them the happiness they’d found together. “Lead the way.”

Raphael spent half the day with them exploring the Garden, but eventually had to beg off on grounds of exhaustion. He was able to convince Adam and Eve to lead him back to the hillock where his den was without raising too many questions, and as soon as they left, he slipped inside and nearly crawled his way to his nest. He curled up and was fast asleep as soon as his head hit the ground.

He awoke to someone shaking him, very insistently. “Raphael. Please, Raphael. You have to get up. I can’t heal like you can, so you have to be okay, please. I can’t— “

“M’up,” Raphael said, voice still bleary with sleep, but unable to do nothing in the face of the angel’s distress. The angel’s hands leapt back instantly, and, feeling a bit cold at the loss of touch, Raphael sat up. “I’m okay.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I got here, and you were just lying there motionless, like after you almost Fell or during the War when– You weren’t even breathing, and know we don’t need to, but you always do, and I thought—”

“Angel,” Raphael interrupted. He risked reaching his hand out in the dark again and had it grabbed instantly in a two-handed grip so tight it hurt a little. “Angel, I’m fine. I was just sleeping. I told you I had to do that now.”

“Right, of course. So sorry; I was being terribly foolish, wasn’t I?” The angel tried to pull his hands away, but Raphael tightened his grip, just enough to make his own feelings on the matter clear.

“You weren’t being foolish,” he said gently. “The War was… it was hard. It was frightening and upsetting for all of us. Same with having to watch so many other angels Fall. It’s alright if you can’t let all those emotions go yet, and it’s not foolish to be scared of stuff that reminds you of all that. Yeah?”

“It’s not that. Well, not only,” Aziraphale admitted. He had held these fears in, certain that Raphael would at best think him ridiculous and might even feel insulted by them. But Raphael had told him it was alright to be scared and was holding Aziraphale’s hand again, like he’d been hoping for ever since that first night. He thought perhaps it would be alright if he shared after all.

“I just worry. All day long while I’m out there and you’re in here all alone completely cut off from your powers. What if a demon were to sneak into the Garden and find you? Or what if another angel finds you before you’ve had a chance to sort out the misunderstanding about trying to make you Fall, or what if having those chains on your wings for so long causes a negative reaction, or what if a million different things really, all while I’m not there to help you? It’s very quiet at my post; I have ample time to think up worst case scenarios. And then to walk in and find you unconscious – it was rather alarming.”

“Of course it would be,” Raphael agreed. “You know I think – and hear me out on this – I think maybe you should try getting some sleep.”

“Angels don’t need sleep,” came the retort followed by an awkward little, “Ah, well, with some caveats of course.”

“Maybe you don’t need it, but it’s nice. Relaxing. Helps your brain calm down a bit,” Raphael said.

“Even if that were the case, I wouldn’t have the first idea how to go about it. And the whole thing seems rather the opposite of relaxing to me,” the angel replied, and indeed Raphael could feel the tenseness in the hand gripping his.

“I have an idea. Turn around and sit in front of me,” Raphael said. He reluctantly let go of the angel’s hand to pat the ground.

Aziraphale shifted himself into place, confused but trusting. “Like this?” he asked as he looked over his shoulder at Raphael.

Those golden eyes were so piercing in their intensity that it wasn’t until Raphael chuckled and said, “I assume so,” that Aziraphale remembered Raphael couldn’t see him.

Though Raphael couldn’t see, Aziraphale couldn’t tear his eyes away, watching as Raphael gently reached a hand out and placed it lightly on his wings. “Is this okay?” Raphael asked.

Aziraphale nodded, then had to remind himself to answer with an audible, “Yes.” The word came out as a squeak. He turned his head back to face forward then, far too overwhelmed by the feel of Raphael touching his wings to be able to bear looking at him at the same time.

With the angel’s consent, Raphael began gently grooming his wings. Without his sight to guide him, Raphael had to be careful, so careful, and rely on his other senses instead. He slowly worked his way along, feeling feather by feather, listening to the soft rustle of the vanes brushing against each other. Slowly, gently, he continued onward, taking his cues from the smallest twitches of flight muscles and of warm, hidden skin. He felt the angel’s tight posture slowly unwind and relax. Raphael continued onward, lavishing tender care, feather by feather. The angel let out occasional soft sighs, the sound making Raphael wonder if the experience could possibly be as pleasurable for him as it was for Raphael. Feather by feather.

He had no idea how long it took him to finish both wings, hours and hours certainly. And he would happily go back to the beginning and do the whole thing over again, but that wasn’t what the angel needed now. He wrapped his arms around the angel’s waist and slowly guided him backwards and down, until they were both laying on their sides in Raphael’s nest. The angel’s wings kept them from being truly pressed back to front, but Raphael did not let it prevent him from leaning in to press his nose to the angel’s cloud soft hair. “Close your eyes now, and let yourself drift off to sleep,” he said softly. “I can stand guard.”

The angel’s breathing had slowed considerably since Raphael had begun grooming his wings, and now it slowly drifted to a halt altogether. The two of them had gotten into the habit of breathing – it might not be bodily necessary for them, but breath was required for talking – but not habit enough to keep it up in sleep it seemed. Reassured that the angel was sleeping now, Raphael dared to press a kiss to his hair. Then he settled back into the nest, keeping one arm around the angel’s waist and his chest lightly brushed up against the angel’s tucked in wings.

It was exactly the closeness Raphael had been longing for, and he floated along in a haze of contented bliss. What did he even need to be let back into Heaven for if he could have this? There was love there, yes, but not like this. Raphael cared for each of his fellow angels, but this was cherishing someone not regardless but because of all that they were, good and bad. He was trusted not because of what he was, but because of who he was.

Though it wasn’t total trust exactly, was it? The angel still didn’t want Raphael to see his face, wouldn’t tell Raphael his name. Raphael tried to push the doubt away. The angel’s secrecy might not have anything to do with whether or not he trusted Raphael. Surely that one who was assigned as a guardian, had possibly even been made to be a guardian, would willingly let that guard down to fall asleep in Raphael’s arms said far more about trust than any prevacation regarding his name. And yet now that it had surfaced, the thought remained, a discordant note in his symphony of joy.

Unbidden, a memory from earlier that day came to Raphael’s mind. The guardian up on the wall, with a flaming sword in his hand. It was Raphael’s understanding that all the angels assigned to guard the Garden had been given a flaming sword, and yet the angel never had his with him when he came. Raphael would have seen the flames, and even if the angel had deliberately doused them, he would have heard something, the sound of the sword being placed on the ground, or the rustle of it laying across the angel’s lap as his position shifted. No, wherever the sword was, it wasn’t here.

The first possibility that occurred to him was the angel might have left it to stand guard in his place; they could do that, if their owners asked it of them. But he dismissed that idea on the grounds it would draw far too much attention to the angel’s absence if someone were to happen across it. He might have left it tucked away somewhere near his post, flames quieted so as not to be too noticeable, but that seemed too risky as well. No, it seemed far more likely that the sword, while not in the room with them, was still somewhere close by.

Curiosity always had been Raphael’s greatest weakness. Carefully he stood up, stopping when his departure caused the angel to shift restlessly. After a few frozen seconds, he determined the angel had not and was not waking up, and continued on to the entrance and down the tunnel. As he drew near the outside, light began to filter in; the moon must have been full or near to it. Finally, Raphael spotted the sword, leaning against the wall just inside the mouth of the tunnel. The flames had been put out for the moment, but Raphael wasn’t going to give up without even trying. So, he grabbed the sword and headed back to his room.

Raphael knew his space well enough by now that he could navigate it easily, even in the pitch dark. He made his way over to the nest, and knelt down before where the angel was laying. He held the sword aloft in front of him, and willed it to light.

Under any normal circumstance, he would have succeeded easily. The sword was made to be wreathed in flames; any angel could light it. All it took was the desire and the smallest spark of Divine essence. But right now, Raphael’s wings were bound and his connection to the Divine completely blocked.  

“Come on,” he whispered to the sword. “Light for me. I know you want to. It’s in your nature, your preferred state of being, being on fire. I know I don’t have any Divine essence for you to draw from, but there’s a little right there in front of you. It’s your owner even, the one made to wield you. Come on, I know you can do it.”

Amazingly, the pleading worked, and with a small pulse, the sword was engulfed in flames, and light flooded the room.

“Oh,” Raphael said. The sword pulsed again, and the flames grew brighter.

He recognized the angel lying before him. Recognized him, and now knew why his voice had seemed so familiar, why the white blond curls like a halo had tugged at his memory. It was him.

Raphael had healed so many angels during the War. Numerous faces, countless injuries, and so many deep scars of mind and body he would never be able to heal. After a time, they all began to blur together. They had to, if Raphael were to have any hope of retaining his own sanity. But not this one.

At first Raphael hadn’t looked at his face. He had been just another injury; a leg wound Raphael hadn’t even healed properly on the first go round because he had been so tired. He had been so tired, and the War had been going on for so long, and there hadn’t seemed any reason it shouldn’t keep going on for the rest of eternity, and Raphael had just been so tired. But he had had a job to do, so he had reached out to heal the angel again.

Except the angel had stopped him. Had actually reached out and grabbed him and stopped him. Even that hadn’t been so unusual. Plenty of other angels had urged him caution back then. Raphael was the strongest healer by far, but his power wasn’t unlimited.  He had to conserve his strength, they had insisted, in case there was something important he needed his powers for later. He had wanted to shout at them, was fairly certain he actually had shouted on at least one occasion, that this was important. But for the most part he had reined it in because while they hadn’t been right in the way they had thought they were, they hadn’t been wrong either. There wasn’t a lot of sense in expending energy to heal a leg that was mostly functional when the next angel he came across might be dying.

But then the angel had suggested Raphael could rest while he stood guard. A principality, offering to stand guard over the Archangel. It wasn’t that it had been that ridiculous a notion; Raphael might have more power than any principality, but his powers, even when they weren’t so drained, ran in very different sorts of directions, and there was no doubt that any principality would be able to best him in a straight sword fight. No, what had been so amazing about it was the angel had offered. Had nearly verged on telling Raphael what to do. Downright presumptuous, really, a principality suggesting he ought to stand guard for an Archangel without even a whisper of an indication in that direction from the Archangel first. And once he had started looking closer, Raphael had recognized the concern, genuine concern, in the angel’s expression.

With a fission of delight, Raphael had realized the angel had wanted to take care of him. That both the suggestion Raphael rest and the offer to stand guard had been born not of a sober and logical analysis of resource allocation, but because the angel had cared about Raphael, the same way Raphael had cared for all the wounded he healed. It had been such a blessing to finally feel understood for once that the joy of it carried Raphael on without the need for rest for ages.

After the War had ended, Raphael hadn’t looked for that principality again; he hadn’t had the time what with trying to clean up the mess that his siblings were ignoring in favor of their witch hunt, and with everything needing to come together for the Almighty’s new pet project of the Garden and humans. But he had kept his eyes open for the angel, hoping to see him again. It hadn’t been until after his almost Fall, and his newfound acquaintance and fast-blooming love for the angel who had saved him, that the principality had faded from Raphael’s mind. Only come now to find that the two of them had been the same being all along.

“Aziraphale,” Raphael breathed, savouring the shape of the name in his mouth. The sword pulsed a third time, flames leaping high enough that the room appeared bright as day to his dark-attenuated eyes. Between the light and the whispering of his name, it was no wonder that Aziraphale woke up.

The two of them stared at each other for a long, shocked moment. Raphael had not been intending for Aziraphale to catch him out like this. He’d been planning on keeping this whole thing a secret and owning up to it whenever Aziraphale had finally confessed to his identity.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale could feel the guilt and shame and fear roiling in his gut and creeping up his throat. All the reassurances he had given himself that Raphael was obviously enjoying his company, all his faint hopes that maybe Raphael wouldn’t care about Aziraphale’s true identity, went up in flames and burnt to ash. He was just a silly little principality, barely more than a nobody who wasn’t even particularly well-liked by the other angels in his own sphere. And yet he had tricked an Archangel into thinking he was someone interesting, someone worth the bother, someone deserving of having his hand touched, his wings preened, his body held. And now that his deception was laid bare Raphael was certainly never going to speak to him again. It was little better than he deserved, but it still tore him apart to think it.

“Az—” That was as far as Raphael got before the terror freezing Aziraphale in place snapped. He leapt to his feet and down the tunnel toward the exit. Raphael stood to give chase. Of the two Raphael was perhaps the slightly faster runner, but his haste and his bound wings left him unbalanced as he tried to get up, giving Aziraphale enough of a lead that he reached the outside before Raphael could catch up. Aziraphale flew up into the air, leaving Raphael behind on the ground, alone and unguarded.

What neither Raphael nor Aziraphale were aware of was what had been happening earlier that day. Mebahiah, the principality who guarded the Garden to the South, had had a sense that morning that something was off about the Garden. She patrolled along her length of the wall, watching the Garden closely, but no disturbance made itself known to her. And yet she still felt unsettled, even when the initial sense of something being out of place faded at around midday.

As the evening drew to a close and night began to fall, she reached the far eastern edge of her section of the wall. She paused for a moment and then continues onward, deciding that so long as she stayed on the wall, she would not truly be leaving her post. She planned on continuing on until she reached the Eastern Gate. Aziraphale was currently the interim guardian of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; it was within the bounds of his assignment to go inside the Garden proper to see if anything was truly amiss, and Mebahiah would even keep watch over both the South and the East while he did so.

Except once she reached the Eastern Gate, Aziraphale was nowhere to be found. Mebahiah began moving faster, hoping that Aziraphale had merely decided to do a walking patrol along the wall as she had. She continued to speed up as she went further and further along without catching sight of Aziraphale. By the time she had reached the northern portions of the wall, she was flying along the length of it. She reached Hahasiah, who had not seen Aziraphale all day either. The two of them flew together down the wall to Vehuel in the West, and still Aziraphale was nowhere to be found.

Though all three of the gathered were principalities, Vehuel was the most senior among them, so it was their decision that the situation warranted leaving the wall to search for Aziraphale within the Garden as part of discharging their duties as guards properly. They alighted from the wall, flying in a straight path across the Garden toward the Eastern Gate. They would start there, the last place they could be sure Aziraphale had been, and then work outward in a search for him or a sign of what had happened.

As they neared the wall, an angel, almost certainly Aziraphale, shot upwards from the ground and then off in the opposite direction. The other two turned to Veheul, who silently indicated Hahasiah should follow after Aziraphale while they and Mebahiah went to investigate the area Aziraphale had just fled.

Both of them were momentarily relieved when they ducked below the treeline and saw an Archangel had already arrived on the scene. But then Mebahiah spotted them. She darted a hand out quick, grabbing Vehuel’s arm to stop them before they reported to Raphael. “His wings,” she said.

There was a motion like Raphael was trying to flap or perhaps spread his wings, but he only succeeded in rattling the chains that bound them. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of the two of you not mentioning to anyone you saw me?” he asked.

Vehuel turned to Mebahiah, their mouth set in a grim line. “I’ll report to the Archangels. You stay here and make sure he doesn’t escape.” Mebahiah gave a sharp nod of agreement, then Vehuel left, flying straight up to Heaven.

“Guess that’s a no, then,” Raphael said.

Mebahiah stared at him and did not answer. Angels did not speak to the Fallen; they smote them on sight. Raphael was not yet Fallen, so she would not smite him yet, but she would not speak to him either.

The Archangels came with the dawn. It was an entrance timed to be dramatic and majestic, but Raphael had used the ivy growing on the hillock to form a new nest and had curled up for a nap some hours before, so he missed the grand entrance entirely. He did not wake until Gabriel pronounced, “Rise, Raphael the traitor,” and then cleared his throat pointedly when Raphael failed to rise.

“Sorry, were you talking to me? I guess I was a little confused about who exactly the traitor here was,” Raphael said, voice dripping with sickly-sweet innocence.

Michael and Uriel looked slightly uncomfortable, but Gabriel merely scowled. “Leave us,” he said to the three principalities – Vehuel having come back down with but separate from the Archangels and Hahasiah having returned shortly before Raphael began his nap after losing Aziraphale when he’d ducked back down into the Garden. Gabriel turned back to Raphael, who was sitting on the ground, the absolute picture of arrogant indifference, and he scowled harder. “What are you doing, Raphael?”

“I was trying to sleep before you showed up and woke me up, quite rudely I might add. Before that I had been trying to get out of my hiding spot for a while to stretch my legs a bit – I thought to myself, five minutes in the middle of the night, what could it hurt – but that principality, not one of those three just now, the blond one, the clever bugger, spotted me in 10 seconds flat. He wasn’t buying my story about Archangels not being as limited by the chains either, not until that red headed one from before started chasing after him. He meant well I’m sure, but the blond one must have confused him for me in the dark.” Raphael delivered the speech as though he were annoyed but trying not to show it and hoped that would be enough to protect Aziraphale.

“No, what are you doing here? Why haven’t you Fallen? What did you do?” Gabriel asked.

“I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t, could I?” Raphael said, rattling the chains binding his wings. “So, who do you think could have saved me from Falling if the other three Archangels of the Lord declared I should?”

“You’re lying,” Gabriel said. Raphael was not lying, though that was primarily because he had not yet technically made any claims yet as to how he had been saved beyond disavowing any of his own culpability in the matter. And it was possible that Aziraphale’s intervention had been the Lord’s plan all along, though Raphael had begun to feel Aziraphale’s actions were entirely down to him. But if Gabriel chose to interpret Raphael’s words to mean the Almighty had a direct hand in Raphael not Falling, well that was hardly Raphael’s fault.

He raised a single brow. “Did you want to test that?” he said, knowing full well the other three weren’t about to go before God asking for answers. That hadn’t worked out too well for the last person who’d tried it.

“Maybe we should,” Uriel said. “Test him, that is.”

“Yes, excellent idea,” Michael agreed. “We shall present a test to you, Raphael. If the Lord truly wishes you to be saved, then She will see to it that you pass or otherwise make her desires known.”

“Yes, thank you Uriel,” Gabriel said, his smile noticeably strained. “Well then, a test it is. Let’s see. Ah. The animals in the Garden were not named when they were created. If the Lord wishes you to return in Heaven, then I’m sure She will grant you the ability to name them,” Gabriel said.

Raphael just managed to hide a wince. Angels could not know the name of a thing merely by looking, but if the name of it was spoken, they could tell if it were true or not. And naming a thing was not as simple as coming up with a word and applying it – it required the Almighty’s blessing for a new name to ring true.

“I’ll need time,” Raphael said.

“For what?” asked Gabriel.

“Creativity is a process; I can’t do it on demand,” Raphael replied. If he had just a little time to think, maybe he could come up with something.

“Very well. We’ll meet you here at sunrise tomorrow, and you can tell us the names of all the animals in the Garden.” Gabriel’s grin was unbearably uncondescending, and Raphael’s answering smile was both sarcastic and far closer to a sneer.

The Archangels left after that, and Raphael waited another minute to be sure they were well and truly gone before clutching his head and tugging on his hair in a mixture of frustration and despair. “What have a I gotten myself into?” he moaned. Why hadn’t he spent more time planning out what he was going to do when he faced the other Archangels again? Well, he knew why, but he’d messed that up with his insatiable curiosity, and if Aziraphale didn’t hate him now, then he surely would tomorrow after Raphael failed this test and became a demon.

Raphael’s inner turmoil was interrupted by a soft cooing sound. He looked up, and perched on a tree branch above his head was a small white bird. As soon as the bird saw Raphael looking, it leapt from the branch and flew to another a short distance away. Then it looked at Raphael and cooed again.

Being an angel, Raphael could hardly ignore a sign as blatant as that, so he stood and took a step in the bird’s direction. That prompted the bird to fly to the next branch over. This process repeated itself over and over until Raphael was walking at a brisk pace through the Garden, following the bird. He tried calling to the bird a few times, but received no answer, and soon gave it up in favor of waiting to see where the bird was leading him. The journey did not take long, not more than ten minutes or so, primarily because Adam and Eve had already been in the same part of the Garden, hoping to run into Raphael again.

“Hello, good to see you,” Adam said when Raphael came around a corner and abruptly upon the two of them, and Eve echoed him.

“Hello,” Raphael said absent-mindedly, his eyes still on the bird. This time when they hopped up into flight off the rock they had stopped on, they landed themself on Adam’s shoulder.

Eve’s eyes danced in delight. “You’ve brought another friend with you. Hello, little one.”

Adam gave the bird a long moment of careful consideration. “I think I’ll call this one a dove.”

“That’s a pigeon,” Eve corrected.

Adam frowned thoughtfully as he continued to look at the bird. “I thought the pigeon was grey.”

“It was; they’re both still the same kind of bird. Look at its beak and the shape of its body,” Eve said.

Adam gave the bird one last look, then shook his head. “I don’t see it, but if you say they are the same, then I am sure you are right. Both names then, dove or pigeon, depending on which particular bird it is,” he decided.

Raphael watched their conversation with a rapt attention that was quickly blossoming into relief and gratitude. “Are you naming all the animals?” he asked.

“Yes. God has given it to me as one of my duties in caring for the Garden,” Adam answered.

“He’s very good at it, so creative,” Eve added in proudly. “When I tried to come up with a name it didn’t even sound like a word, just a bunch of random noises.”

“But I wouldn’t be able to do it without you,” Adam replied. He hugged Eve close, and she rested her head on his shoulder. The dove, disturbed with the sudden invasion of their space, leapt up to a nearby tree branch. “Eve is so much better at telling the animals apart, and at remembering all the names I already picked. Without her I’m sure I would name each animal a hundred times instead of only two.”

“Right. Would the two of you be able to teach me the names of all the animals in the Garden by sunrise tomorrow?” Raphael asked.

“That’s not much time,” Eve said uncertainly.

“Yes, well,” Raphael pulled a face while he figured out how best to explain things. “I got someone to agree to help me with this whole situation” – he gestured over his shoulder at his bound wings – “but given how I got myself into the situation in the first place, they want me to pass a test first; I have to know all the names of all the animals by tomorrow morning.”

“We’d be happy to help, but I cannot promise we’ll be able to find all the animals in the Garden to teach you their names by morning,” Adam said.

Just then the dove cooed especially loudly, drawing the attention of the other three up to the branch where they were sitting. On the branch next to them were three more birds. Raphael looked at Adam and Eve expectantly and Adam looked to Eve. “That’s a swift and a plover,” Eve said, point to each bird in turn, “and the other Adam hasn’t named yet.”

Adam watch the third bird for a moment, considering, then his face brightened when the bird let out a call. “That one is a cuckoo,” he declared.

Once named, all four birds took flight. The three new ones flew off into the distance, but the dove only went a few feet farther, landing on the back on another animal. They stayed there long enough for Adam to name the animal a gazelle, and then moved on again, just a few feet farther.

“It looks like we may be able to find all the animals by morning after all,” Raphael commented as the three of them found the dove yet again sitting next to yet another animal. And each time after either Adam or Eve named the animal, the dove would fly on to the next. And then the next and the next and the next.

Eventually the circuitous route through the Garden lead them back to the hillock where Raphael’s den was hidden. The dove landed on a tree branch, the very same one Raphael had first seen them on, and settled down to rest. The three took that as their indication the task was completed, and Adam and Eve wearily trudged back to their camp. Though it was now closer to sun rise than sunset and he’d only gotten very little sleep the night before, Raphael still took the time to go back into his den to fetch his own nest to sleep in. He didn’t dare sleep inside the den, not knowing what the other Archangels might do should they return and not find him where they expected to in the morning, and he carefully avoided looking at Aziraphale’s sword still lying on the ground, but he wanted to have the nest. It was familiar and comforting and he could almost imagine it smelled faintly of Aziraphale.

As promised, the Archangels returned with the dawn. “Are you ready for your first test, Raphael?” Gabriel asked, the three of them still hanging a good ten feet in the air so Raphael had to crane his neck to look at them.

By this point, Raphael was cross and sleep-deprived and generally out of sorts, but not so much so that he failed to notice one very important word in Gabriel’s question. “First test?”

“We can’t very well just leave it at just one test, can we? We all want to believe in you, but under the circumstances we have to be very certain before we do anything drastic,” Gabriel said, his tone the epitome of reasonableness.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to do anything drastic like chaining me up and throwing me off a cliff into Hell,” Raphael replied, deeply bitter and sarcastic. “Fine, let’s start the first test.”

Uriel gently touched down on the ground and held her hand out. Moments later, a grey bird landed on it, drawing a small noise of amusement from Raphael. “That’s a pigeon,” he said, and the Archangels could sense that it was so. One after another the animals came, attracted by Uriel’s Divine Spirit, and one after another Raphael named them. Until finally, sometime after the sun had reached its highest point and begun its downward journey yet again, there were no more animals left to name.

“Satisfied?” Raphael asked.

“You have passed the first test,” Uriel confirmed. Her expression was as impassive as always, but Raphael thought he could see a faint glimmer of a smile in the edges of it. Raphael took heart in reminding himself that she was the youngest of them, and perhaps she had only agreed to his Fall because Gabriel and Michael had made her feel she had to.

“For your next test,” Gabriel boomed, “you must find and bring us the hair of the most dangerous animal in the Garden.”

“There are no dangerous animals in the Garden,” Raphael protested. That was woven into the fundamental nature of the Garden, that neither death nor danger should be allowed within.

“Not while they’re within the walls, no. But the animals here have counterparts in the wider world that can be very dangerous. I’m sure if the Lord does not wish you to Fall, She will guide you to the correct one. You have until tomorrow at dawn.” With that the three left before Raphael could even object to how very little time that gave him.

They had been gone for not more than a handful of seconds before the dove once again flew into view and landed on the same tree branch. This only made their earlier absence all the more conspicuous. “And where have you been?” Raphael asked. The bird fluffed their feathers up indignantly in response, and Raphael quickly put his hands up in surrender. “You’re right; I’ve already made enough of a mess poking into other people’s privacy. I wouldn’t want to lose another friend because I can’t control my own curiosity.”

The dove tilted their head, regarding Raphael with one lively black eye. After a moment they cooed in a way that Raphael thought sounded encouraging. “I’m forgiven then?” he asked. In response the dove flew to the next branch, then waited expectantly.

Once again, the dove led him to Adam and Eve, who this time were sitting in their camp talking quietly and sharing a meal.

“Good evening,” Raphael said as he came to sit with them.

“Good evening,” Eve said smiling, though her face soon fell. “Oh no, your wings!”

“Ah, not to worry, I did pass my test,” Raphael reassured them. “But it seems like I have a few more to pass before they’re willing to help.”

“How can we help with the next one?” Adam asked.

Raphael felt just a little of the tension he was carrying relax. He didn’t know that they even would be able to help, but it was gratifying just to have them offer, to know he wasn’t alone. Not, Raphael thought as he glanced up at the dove, that he was completely alone regardless. “I have to get hair from the most dangerous animal in the Garden.”

Adam and Eve glanced at each other. “There are no dangerous animals here,” Eve replied.

“That’s what I said,” Raphael agreed.

The dove cooed, a distinctly irritated noise, and glided over to land on the top of Eve’s head. They dipped down and began preening her hair. “Hello, little friend,” Eve said, reaching up to pet the dove. They hopped away from her hands and then bent down again to run their beak through her hair, giving Raphael what could only be described as a pointed look.

Comprehension slowly dawned, and a grin broke out across Raphael’s face. “Oh, that’s brilliant,” he said. Trilling, the dove leapt from Eve’s head to land on Raphael’s shoulder. They fluffed their feathers then settled in, looking about as smug as a bird could.

“What’s brilliant?” Eve asked.

“Well like you said, there are no animals in the Garden that are actually dangerous. And even if there were, ‘most’ dangerous is all going to be a matter of opinion and context anyway. I don’t need the right answer, I just need an answer that I can argue is right. So Eve, can you spare a lock of your hair?”

Adam reached over and clasped Eve’s hand. “Eve would never hurt anyone,” he said, frowning.

“Of course not,” Raphael soothed. “But neither would any of the other animals in the Garden, so willingness to do harm isn’t a factor. I only meant that Eve has more… power than the other animals. Both of you do, but she has significantly more hair than you do.”

Adam’s expression cleared. “Ah, I see. Yes, my wife is very strong. Strong and beautiful and kind.”

Eve’s eyes went heart-stoppingly soft and she leaned in to press a tender kiss to Adam’s lips. “I love you, my strong and handsome and kind husband.”

“And I love you,” Adam replied, the truth of it etched into every feature.

Raphael looked away. He told himself he was giving them their privacy.

After a minute, Eve cleared her throat, drawing his attention back. “You may have some of my hair if you need it.”

“Thank you,” Raphael said.

The two of them had a rock with a sharp edge they kept at their camp, which Adam used to cut off a lock of Eve’s hair. Raphael pulled a thread loose from his clothing and tied it around the hair, before tucking it into a fold of his robes. He declined Adam and Eve’s invitation to stay with them a while longer, instead heading back to his own little hillock. He curled up in his nest, and sleep quickly overcame him.

The following morning, he woke up just as the colours of the impending dawn began streaking across the sky. The dove was sitting on the same tree branch again, like they were watching over him. “Good morning,” Raphael said.

The dove cooed in reply, but them immediately flew away. Before Raphael could think to protest, the three Archangels appeared. “Are you ready for your second test, Raphael?”

“Ready,” Raphael agreed, pulling the lock of hair from his robes.

Michael alighted onto the ground, then took the hair from him and examined it carefully. “This is Eve’s hair,” she said, surprised and confused.

“Just human hair in general was what I was going for, only Adam doesn’t have all that much of it,” Raphael responded.

“You think the humans are the most dangerous animal in the Garden?” Michael said. Her tone implied that Raphael had completely lost it.

“Of course. Who else could it possibly be?” Raphael said with all the easy confidence he did not feel. “Think about it. First of all, there’s Satan; there was a lot going on with Lucifer but you can’t deny that part of it was him feeling slighted once the Almighty started focusing on work for her new project. He was jealous because Mom was too busy with the humans to pay attention to him. Not their fault obviously, but I would say that sort of power makes them pretty dangerous. Then of all the animals in the Garden, the humans are the only one She gave any sort of rules to. They’re the only ones with the power to disobey. We all know how dangerous that is.

“Even beside all that, the humans are by far the most intelligent ones of the bunch. Maybe they don’t have claws and sharp teeth or venom or just the pure muscle power, but that stuff’s only ever going to win you the battle. It’s the enemy with brains that you’ve got to watch out for; they’re the ones that’ll win the war. Don’t you think so, Michael?”

Michael’s smile said she knew Raphael was flattering her with the last point, and she was going to let him get away with anyway. “Well argued. You have passed the second test.”

Gabriel wasn’t pleased about that at all, but he wasn’t willing to openly contradict Michael. “For your next test, there is a river that flows through the Garden. To the north of here is one of the sources of that river, a spring emerging from deep underground, nestled between two rocks. Fetch a cup of water from that spring and bring it back here by dawn tomorrow.” With that the three left, though thankfully first Michael handed Raphael a lidded goblet for the next test.

Raphael looked up to the same tree branch, and there the dove was, having returned as soon as the Archangels left. “Lead the way,” Raphael said, and the dove proceeded to do just that.

Raphael was a little surprised when the dove did not take him to Adam and Eve this time.  Instead they took him as far as the river, and then landed once again on Raphael’s shoulder.  “I guess I don’t really their help to find a spring that feeds into the river when the river is right there. You and I can do well enough just the two of us, huh?” Raphael said, and the dove made a noise of agreement.

He turned to face upstream and began walking alongside the river bank. As he walked, he kept up a steady stream of chatter, and the dove periodically responded. At one point without thinking about it, Raphael reached up to touch them to punctuate a point, only remembering at the last second how they had shied away from Eve’s touch when she had tried the same the night before. But they didn’t seem to object to Raphael’s touch at all and after that even began touching Raphael themself, the bump of a beak or the light brush of the wing.

It was a generally pleasant way to pass the day, such that Raphael hadn’t even noticed how far they’d come until they, quite suddenly it seemed though Raphael knew it couldn’t possibly really have been sudden, ran up against the outer wall of the Garden. The river continued on underneath and on the other side of the wall, completely unimpeded by the heavy grate it had to pass through.

Raphael said a few choice insults under his breath in Gabriel’s direction. It was theoretically possible he had missed seeing spring on his walk, but he was too suspicious of the others, Gabriel in particular, to lend much credence to that possibility. If only Raphael could have used his wings, then he could pass over the wall in a trice. But if he had use of his wings, then he wouldn’t have even been in this situation in the first place.

The dove had begun pecking at Raphael’s arm, and after some charades and trial and error, Raphael was able to work out that they wanted him to hold the uncovered goblet up to them. They reached their head forward and firmly grabbed the edge of the goblet in their beak.

“I think that’s going to be too heavy for you,” Raphael said. At a rough guess the goblet weighed twice as much as the dove did. They let go of the goblet for long enough to clack their beak at him irritably before grabbing hold of it again. Carefully, Raphael released the goblet, and to his amazement the dove kept hold of it with no apparent trouble. They took off and flew over the wall, carrying the goblet.

Raphael was anxious as he awaited the dove’s return. How could he not be? He trusted them absolutely, but there were too many unknowns in the situation. How much further away was the spring? Was it somewhere safe for them to land and fill the goblet? What sort of predators were out there, beyond the walls of the Garden where they could be vicious and dangerous? The last was especially worrisome, because while they were uncommonly strong for a dove, they were still just a dove, and what’s more they were a dove carrying a heavy goblet, weighing them down and compromising their ability to flee or defend themself.

Finally, his eyes caught a flash of motion in the sky, and the dove came flying back over the wall. They landed on Raphael’s shoulder again, this time holding a goblet full of water.

Raphael quickly took the goblet and placed the lid back on it. “You really are marvellous, aren’t you?” he asked, and the dove cooed and butted his head against Raphael’s cheek affectionately.

They got back to the hillock shortly after sunset. Lacking anything else to do between then and when the Archangels arrived at dawn, Raphael laid down on his nest to sleep. But he had finally shed the last of the exhaustion that had been plaguing him the past few days, and sleep wouldn’t come.

“I think this test should be the last one,” he said. He rolled over in his nest so he could see the dove perched on their branch. “I can’t be sure since they never gave me an official number, but three tests, one for each of them, seems like how they’d probably do it. Meaning tomorrow morning I’ll be officially reinstated as an Archangel again.” He sighed. “I’m not even sure I want that anymore.”

The dove’s feathers fluffed up and they began making distressed noises.

“I don’t mean that I want to Fall,” Raphael quickly clarified. “I appreciate your efforts in keeping me out of Hell; between the two, I’d still pick Heaven over that place. I just…”

Raphael rolled onto his back, looking at the stars he’d helped to create. They looked so different from down here. The details, the subtle shades of colour and delicate dances of gas and plasma, were all lost with distance, but the distance allowed him to see it all spread out and beautiful, like a patchwork tapestry. It made him feel small. It made him feel enormous. It made him feel.

“Even if Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel remove the chains from my wings tomorrow, they still put them there in the first place; there’s no way they can undo that now. How can I ever trust them again? I—” Raphael cut himself off and shook his head. “That’s a lie. Well, not a lie, but it’s not the real point.

“I’m assuming you’ve never been to Heaven. There’s a lot of love there, but it’s love like this.” Raphael gestured up at the night sky above them. “It’s beautiful and all-encompassing, but cold and distant and undifferentiated. I’ve been up close; I’ve seen those stars. I’ve cradled them in my hands as they were born before placing them gently where they belong. I know them, completely and intimately, all their beauties and flaws. I want love like that, like how Adam and Eve look at each other. But that kind of love seems like it belongs down here on Earth. Maybe that’s why I never tried very hard to figure out how to get these chains off.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Then again, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”

The dove cooed inquisitively, and Raphael gave a tremulous smile. “Because I’ve already messed it all up. I had my shot and I let my curiosity get the better of me and invaded his privacy. I betrayed him; there’s no way I can undo that now. How can he ever trust me again?”

Raphael rolled onto his side, unable to stand looking at the stars any longer. “Good night, Dove,” he said, then forced himself to sleep.

 Raphael woke very early the following morning, weary in a way that no amount of sleep could fix. He might not have opened his eyes at all, if not for an odd fluttering sensation he felt against his arm. The fluttering turned out to be the brushing of tail feathers; sometime in the night the dove had lay down pressed up against Raphael’s chest and fallen asleep. After all he’d said last night, this gesture of trust nearly undid him, and he could not help himself but to make a gentle stroke down the length of their back. The dove briefly opened one eye, but upon seeing that it was Raphael touching them, closed it and settled comfortably back into sleep.

Oh. Raphael thought. Oh.

 The dove’s feathers were all already in alignment, but Raphael gave them a once over as best he could without waking him anyway. Afterward he continued to pet the dove as the sky gradually lightened, simply for the joy of doing so.

Eventually he gave two firmer taps against the dove’s head, waking him. “It’s almost dawn; they’ll be here soon.” The dove made a sleepy coo of acknowledgement, then took off. He vanished amid the trees only moments before the Archangels arrived.

This time Gabriel was the one to land on the ground and stand before Raphael. “It is time for the third test,” he said, holding his hand out expectantly.

Raphael handed him the goblet. Gabriel removed the lid and touched the surface of the water with one fingertip. He didn’t know what was special about the water from that particular spring, but Raphael assumed there must be something about it to make it distinguishable, and that Gabriel was now testing the water to make sure Raphael hadn’t simply filled the goblet from the river.

After a moment Gabriel’s expression soured. He didn’t let it linger for longer than a moment before smoothing his features back into a semblance of something righteous and authoritative. “For your final test, go pluck an apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and bring back here. You have until midday,” he commanded, then vanished.

Michael and Uriel subtly glanced at each other in confusion. For they had agreed that Raphael should face three tests, and Gabriel introducing a fourth test had taken them both completely by surprise. But the three had also agreed not to contradict each other in front of other angels, to avoid the risk of starting another rebellion like Satan’s. By silent accord they left without another word to Raphael, going back to Heaven where they could question Gabriel on the sudden change in private. They would not find him in there, however. Gabriel had stayed on Earth to watch Raphael to ensure he didn’t cheat on this last test.

In the time between when they had expelled Raphael from Heaven and found him again in the Garden, Gabriel had very thoroughly convinced himself that his plot to force Raphael’s Fall had nothing to do with jealousy or his own selfish ambition. Raphael had deserved to Fall, and Gabriel had been the only one with the clarity to see that. And since Raphael’s Fall had been justly earned, the only way he could be passing these tests now was by resorting to the same treachery as before. Gabriel was righteous in his cause in the way that only the deeply wrong and truly arrogant could be.

When Raphael had presented Eve’s hair for the second test, Gabriel had come to the conclusion Raphael had tricked the two humans into helping him, and that they had helped with the first test as well. The third test had already been agreed upon by the Archangels at that point, and Gabriel let it stand; it did not seem possible for the humans to help Raphael retrieve the water from the spring, when they were no more able to leave the Garden than Raphael was at the moment. And yet somehow they had.

Hence this final test. Adam and Eve were forbidden the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so they would not be able to help. And Raphael with his chained wings marking him as a traitor and destined to Fall, would not be able to take the fruit from under the eyes of the cherubim guarding the Tree. Gabriel had forgotten that he had yet to reassign new cherubim to guard the Tree and had not thought to check if the interim guardian had returned to his post after disappearing several nights prior. So, it was with a gleeful air that Gabriel secretly watched Raphael, waiting for him to fail and for Gabriel’s convictions to be vindicated.

Unaware of his hidden observer, Raphael set off to the Tree. He’d travelled around the Garden enough in the past few days that he did not need help to find the centre, which was just as well, as the dove did not return to guide him. Raphael was not surprised by this, nor was he surprised when he reached the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to find the dove nestled on the lowest branch, waiting for him. After all, he had told Raphael guarding the Tree was one of his duties.

“Hello,” Raphael said. The dove gave a dignified sounding coo in response. Raphael’s expression twitched in amusement, but he matched the formality with a half-bow that was only slightly teasing. “I know the fruit here is off-limits to the humans, but I don’t recall there being any such rule about Archangels taking some. So, if you don’t mind…” He reached up to grab a fruit that was hanging right next to where the dove was perched. The dove watched intently, but made no move to stop Raphael as he plucked the apple off the Tree.

Fruit in hand, Raphael stood frozen, waiting for some unforeseen consequence of his actions, but none came. Finally, he let out a long sigh of relief, and with a grin shined the apple on his robe.

“A little anticlimactic for a final test if you ask me,” Raphael remarked to the dove. “Suppose I do still have to get back, but as long as I don’t trip and fall in a ditch along the way, I don’t see as that being a problem.”

He twisted the apple this way and that in his hand, admiring the rich red colour of it. “What are they even going to do with this thing anyway? It’s not going to do anything for them; angels already have knowledge of Good and Evil.” The comment was made idly, but as soon as he said it Raphael began to wonder. What would happen if an angel were to eat the fruit of this Tree? Would it be just like eating a normal apple? Would the Good and Evil interwoven with change the flavour of it? Did knowledge have a taste? More intriguingly, was there perhaps a deeper understanding of Good and Evil that the apple might perhaps impart upon someone if they already had the basic knowledge of them?

Curiosity always had been Raphael’s greatest weakness.

Raphael looked up at the dove with an expression that was not as entirely apologetic as it probably ought to have been. “Oh, you’re going to be mad at me for this,” he said to him. Then, quick as a striking snake, he brought the apple to his mouth and took a bite.

For a long moment nothing happened. Raphael stood still, his eyes wide and unseeing. Then suddenly his face contorted with a silent scream, and his wings burst into flame.

“Raphael!” Aziraphale cried, jumping down from the Tree. By the time his feet hit the ground, he had transformed back from a dove to his approximately human-shaped body once again. Everything in him screamed to help Raphael, but he couldn’t get close enough, not until the Hellfire burned out, leaving the chains binding him as nothing more than a few scattered remnants and his wings as black as soot.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Aziraphale repeated over and over again. He scooped Raphael up in his arms, gently guiding Raphael’s head to rest on his shoulder with shaking hands. “It’s okay; it’ll be okay. I’ll fix it. I, I… We’ll just go have a talk with the Almighty, and the Almighty will fix it,” Aziraphale declared, taking off toward Heaven as fast as he could fly.

Gabriel had watched everything unfold, cycling through anger, shock, and glee as it happened. But when he saw the principality pick up and carry the Fallen angel toward Heaven, he had no choice but to break his cover. “You! What are you doing? Get back here,” he yelled, chasing after the other two.

Aziraphale recognized the voice, but did not dare look back or reply. He was supposed to obey the commands of the Archangels above all save the word of God Herself, but Raphael needed him. Aziraphale flew faster.

Aziraphale had been made to be a solider and a guardian, strong and solid. Gabriel, on the other hand, was the Lord’s own messenger, made to be quick. In all of creation there was no being faster than Gabriel, save God. By all rights, Gabriel should have caught up to Aziraphale easily. But Aziraphale, like all angels, was foremost a being of light and Divine Spirit and love, and today Gabriel could not catch him.

Aziraphale raced through Heaven until he reached what could most closely be considered the door to God’s throne room. “Lord! Lord! Mother, please. Raphael needs your help,” he begged. He choked back a sob when Raphael’s name tripped and stalled as he forced it out of his lips, and at how wrong and stale it sounded hanging in the air. “Please help him, Mother.”

Gabriel landed beside Aziraphale and caught his shoulder in a firm grip. “What do you think you’re doing? Neither you nor that creature have any right to be here.”

“I believe that would be my decision,” interrupted a voice, musical and beautiful and enough to bring any mortal being to tears.

The two looked up to find themselves now standing before the Almighty’s great throne, with the Almighty towering over them.

“Of course, Lord,” Gabriel said. “I only—”

“I will speak with you later,” God said.

Gabriel’s mouth opened and closed several times, before he gave a single jerky nod. “Yes, Mother,” he replied, and immediately after found himself banished back to the antechamber.

God looked about the room at the seraphim and cherubim who had gathered to bask in Her presence and sing Her praises. “I would like a moment alone with Aziraphale,” She said, and with far more grace and dignity than Gabriel, they all vanished as well.

The Lord rose from her throne, and without having grown smaller in the slightest, stood now roughly of a height with Aziraphale. “Oh, my poor dears.”

She placed a hand on Aziraphale’s cheek, and it was only as he felt the surge of power revitalizing him that he became aware of how worn thin he’d become. Once Aziraphale felt back to his normal levels of energy, She moved her hand to gently stroke Raphael’s forehead. “My foolish child; that fruit was not meant for you.”

Her hand on him triggered a reaction from Raphael. Not much of one, a minor stirring of his body, a brief flutter of wings, but it took Aziraphale by surprise, and his grip on Raphael started to slip.

In an instant, God’s hands were covering his, pressing Raphael in closer to him, and he could feel Her too taking his essence and using it to gently cradle Raphael’s. “Keep a tight hold,” She said, “for the ground here will no longer support him.”

Aziraphale had seen what She was referring to, back at the end of the War, right after Satan had been cast down and suddenly all the angels of the Rebellion had sunk through the floor as well, screaming as they went. Aziraphale clutched Raphael even closer.

“Please Lord, Raphael—”

“That is no longer his name,” God said, so very gently and yet it still cut like a knife in his chest. Because of course he knew, Fallen angels didn’t get to keep their former names.

“Can’t you fix it? I promised him…”

“I cannot.”

“Please,” Aziraphale begged. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, or broken any rules; he doesn’t deserve to be cast out.”

“You misunderstand. He has not been cast out; he Fell,” She said, which failed to clarify the matter for Aziraphale at all. Of course, She could tell he was still confused, so She explained further. “He was always asking questions, possibly more than any other of my children. And I do love his questions; a creator likes to know their work is being thought about. But he was never good at accepting that not all questions lead to specific answers, and doubts crept into his heart. Even still, sometimes the strongest faith is first forged in the fires of doubt.

“But then he ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit could not grant him knowledge he already had, so instead it showed him all the Good and all the Evil that ever was, is, or will be. It was too much for him; not even an Archangel can see all of that at once. And being already full of doubts, his mind turned too easily to the Evils presented and not the Good. Seeing all that, he could not help but to lose faith, and that is why he Fell.”

“And that’s why you can’t undo it?” Aziraphale asked

“Not even I can manufacture faith. Anything I did now would not be true faith. Faith comes from within. He may yet return to Heaven, but only if he wishes it, by his own will and choice,” She said. “No one can force faith. All we can do is offer love and acceptance and do our best to catch them when they fall.” Her smile was warm and knowing, and Aziraphale’s cheeks pinked slightly remembering that day weeks and weeks ago when he first caught the angel plummeting from Heaven.

“I understand, but… but you can’t send him down to Hell. He doesn’t deserve to be punished when he hasn’t done anything wrong. Please let him stay in Heaven,” Aziraphale said.

“You can’t hold him up forever,” She said.

“I can,” Aziraphale immediately replied. It was his fault the other had been caught in the first place; if he hadn’t panicked and run off that night, then the other principalities never would have found him and he never would have Fallen. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I don’t doubt your commitment or abilities. But you can only hold him up so long as he allows you to,” She said, and that was a good point, Aziraphale had to admit. “He cannot stay in Heaven.”

“But…” Aziraphale began to protest again, but then the meaning of Her words sunk in. “Oh.”

“You have been enjoying your position on Earth, haven’t you?” She asked. “We’ll make that a permanent posting for you, if you like.”

“Yes, I think—” Aziraphale sniffed, blinking back tears. They could stay on Earth. Both of them together, just liked he’d wanted and had been so certain could never happen. “I think that would solve all our problems nicely.”

“All save one. You still need to give him his new name,” God told him.

“What, me?” Aziraphale said, shocked at the very notion. “You want me to give him his new name? I can’t… I couldn’t possibly…”

“He must have a new name. If you don’t give it to him, then Hell might yet be able to lay claim on him by giving him one themselves,” She cautioned.

“Oh no, I don’t want… But I can’t name him myself,” Aziraphale said. “He’s the creative one, not me; he’s the one that should be choosing his new name, not me. If I even tried it’d probably just come out as a bunch of random noises.”

“He’d welcome a name of random noises if it came from you.”

“But I can’t be sure of that,” Aziraphale said, then immediately blanched at what he might be implying. “Not that I doubt your word, Lord. But… if naming him gives a claim over him, then I can’t do something like that when he isn’t even awake to consent to it.”

“He will not wake up until he is given a name,” God countered.

“But— I can’t—” Aziraphale clenched his eyes shut and tried to still the trembling of his hands. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t. It was too much to ask of him and too much for him to presume. He couldn’t, but the alternatives…

“Alright, hush now my child. All will be well.” Aziraphale opened his eyes to see God smiling at him, soft and reassuring. Aziraphale pressed his lips together and nodded tightly, trusting Her that it would indeed be well.

She turned her attention to the Fallen angel, drawing a single finger across his forehead and down the line of his nose, then running the back of her hand along his jaw. “Crawly, I think. Yes, that’ll do well enough for now.”

As she spoke, the Fallen angel’s eyelids twitched and he began to shift and change in the slightest ways. His body stretched out just a little longer and leaner. His red hair grew just a shade darker. The lines of his face grew just a little sharper and lost just a little of their celestial perfection. All small, all subtle, such that the only two beings in Creation who might have noticed the difference were the ones already present. Finally, the tiniest of black snakes wound its way from his hair and settled beneath the skin by his right ear.

Crawly did not immediately wake when the changes finished, but Aziraphale’s essence, still holding Crawly up, could sense him revitalizing, a promise that he would wake again, and soon. “Thank you,” he said, having to choke the words out past the overwhelming sense of relief.

“My darling child,” She said. She ran Her fingers through his hair and then cupped his cheek. “Any good here was done by my hand only in so far as that hand created you. Your love and compassion do you credit, Aziraphale. Remember that, and be not afraid.” Aziraphale might have burst into tears then, but She placed a kiss on his forehead and he felt Her peace flow through him, warm and gentle, diffusing his emotions just enough to keep him from feeling overwhelmed.

“Now let us to Eden,” She said. “The two of you need to return to Earth, and it has been far too long since I went for a walk in the Garden.” Speaking the words made them so, and Aziraphale found himself once again stood by the little hillock where he had made Crawly’s den. God was nowhere to be seen, and Aziraphale could only assume She walked elsewhere in the Garden.

The nest was still on the ground where Crawly had left it that morning. Aziraphale gently lay Crawly down, rolling him onto his back so his newly freed wings had plenty of space to stretch out. Even in his sleep, Crawly took full advantage, his wings sprawling out wide. This afforded Aziraphale his first opportunity to see them since the change when he wasn’t distracted by more pressing concerns, and the poor things were in terrible disarray. Feathers sticking every which way, with some of them bent or broken or nearly falling off, not to mention the thin coating of soot across the entirety of them.

It was hardly surprising given recent events, but Aziraphale couldn’t very well leave them like that. He sat down beside Crawly and pulled one of his wings into his lap. Crawly’s head shot up at the touch and he looked back over his shoulder at Aziraphale. Despite the abruptness of the motion, he still seemed more asleep than awake, his eyes glazed and half-lidded. But Aziraphale hardly even noticed that at first, too distracted by the change in Crawly’s eyes, by far the most dramatic difference alongside his wings. The gold of his irises had spilled over to fill the entirely of his eyes, and the shape of his pupil had shifted to something long and slitted – rather in keeping in theme with the snake coiled up next to his ear. They were beautiful.

Aziraphale shook off the momentary distraction and smiled at Crawly. “It’s alright, dearest; it’s just me. I was going to tidy these wings up a bit for you.”

Crawly stared at him, dazed and confused for half a minute longer before Aziraphale’s words finally seemed to make their way into his brain. He gave a vague hum of acknowledgement, then lay his head down and went back to sleep.

Aziraphale began work grooming Crawly’s wings, carefully straightening feathers out and sorting them back into place, while gently removing the handful that were beyond help. He miracled up a cloth to wipe the soot off with as he went, revealing the feathers to be an even deeper black than first appeared, with a faint iridescence when the light hit them just right. Aziraphale went about his work quickly and efficiently. He had to assume that it was terribly uncomfortable for Crawly to have his wings in such a state, and Aziraphale didn’t want him to have to suffer any longer than was necessary. And yet despite the need for efficiency, Aziraphale couldn’t help his longing, fantasizing about a time in the future when he could go slow and treasure the feel of each individual feather.

As he was just wiping the last of the soot off the last feather, a distinct and overwhelming feeling cut through the air, something like the earth shaking beneath one’s feet or the rumble of thunder lodging itself in one’s chest, though it was neither of those things. The Almighty was still in the Garden somewhere, declaring something to be so, with an unusual degree of force and finality. Feeling rather alarmed, Aziraphale ducked back inside the hillock to retrieve his flaming sword, still lying on the ground where Crawly had left it. Then with a last look at Crawly, still sleeping content on his nest, Aziraphale followed the feeling to the centre of the Garden.

Some time later Crawly – though he did not know that was his name – once again found himself not to be in Hell when he awoke, despite expectations. In fact, he once again found himself on the same nest in very nearly the same spot in the Garden, though this time he was beside the hillock rather than inside it. The real difference, however, was that this time he really had Fallen. He knew this in part because he could no longer recall his former name from when he’d been an angel only that morning, but mostly because he just knew. Now that it had happened, there was no mistaking it for anything else.

 He was not nearly as upset about the whole thing as he might have been, not the least because he hadn’t woken up in Hell. More importantly, he had a hazy recollection of having woken up briefly some time earlier to Aziraphale grooming his wings. It admittedly was the kind of scene he could very well imagine himself dreaming up, but where he’d woken up did lend credence to it actually having happened. Granted, Aziraphale wasn’t still present, but he did have a job he was supposed to be doing, one he’d been slacking off on significantly the past few days. It wasn’t that surprising that Aziraphale would have seen him settled then gone back to his post. He might even be planning to stop back by once night fell, like he used to. But now that he no longer needed to remain hidden, Crawly saw no reason to wait for that.

He stood and began walking in the direction of the Eastern Gate. After taking no more than a handful of steps, he found himself somewhat disconcerted by how swivel-y his hips seemed to be – he didn’t remember them having behaved like that before. But then there were a great number of rumours and horror stories traded around about the ways in which angels became twisted and grotesque when they Fell. Pendulum hips weren’t all that terrible a fate, comparatively. Though they did require a bit of getting used to, enough that even once he remembered his wings were free again and he could fly if he wanted to, he opted to continue walking to get in as much practice as possible before Aziraphale saw him.

As he got closer and closer to the Wall, more and more doubts started to niggle at him. When he’d first woken up, he had been sure everything was going to be fine now between him and Aziraphale, but what if it wasn’t? Yes, Aziraphale had helped him with the Archangels’ tests, but maybe that hadn’t meant he’d actually forgiven Crawly for invading his privacy, maybe he had just considered Falling too extreme a punishment despite his personal feelings. And even if he had forgiven Crawly for that, that didn’t mean he’d forgiven him for taking a bite of that apple and screwing everything up. It wasn’t that Crawly regretted Falling, exactly, but he would regret it if being a demon changed how Aziraphale felt about him, and it was seeming increasingly stupid of him to assume it wouldn’t.

By the time he’d reached the wall, he had worked himself up into a nice frothing state of anxiety, but determinedly hid it as he flew up to stand alongside Aziraphale. He put on a self-depreciating grin, one that was intended to communicate, “yes, I am confident enough to poke fun of myself for being an idiot; also please don’t hate me,” while out loud he said, “Well, that went down like a lead balloon.”

Aziraphale’s return smile was brighter than any Crawly had ever seen, and he felt his niggling doubts dissolve instantly at the sight of it.

“You’re awake! I had been worried. That is, I had faith you would wake up again, right as rain, of course, but… oh, it is good to see you again.” A myriad of all sorts of different possibilities, each more terrible than the last, had been running through Aziraphale’s head ever since he’d left Crawly slumbering on his nest. Seeing Crawly again, and specifically seeing him because he had sought Aziraphale out, was an indescribable relief.

“Happy to be here. Here, which I can’t help but notice isn’t Hell. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s not exactly what I was expecting,” Crawly said.

“Oh, no need to fret about that, dear boy,” Aziraphale said. “I had a word with the Almighty, and you won’t have to report to them.”

Crawly’s jaw dropped and he stared in gape-mouth astonishment. “You what?”

“After you… well, you know—”

“Fell,” Crawly supplied.

“Yes that,” said Aziraphale. “Afterwards I picked you up and took you to Heaven, had a bit of a chat with the Almighty, and now everything’s sorted.”

“You took a demon into Heaven—”

“You’re not a demon; you’re a Fallen angel.” Aziraphale corrected. He hadn’t gone to all that trouble to keep Crawly out of the legions of Hell to not have his work acknowledged.

“Alright, fair point. So, you took a Fallen angel into Heaven, burst into God’s throne room and demanded She fix it?” Crawly asked, somewhere between incredulous and deeply smitten.

“I didn’t burst in; one can’t burst into the throne room, you know that. I just went to the door and let Her know I had a very important matter to discuss and was invited in. Then I explained that you hadn’t done anything wrong, and while it appears the matter of being Fallen is dependent on your faith and not anything She can fix, she did agree that forcing you to go to Hell was quite unnecessary. You’ll remain here on Earth instead.”

Crawly had a lot to say about all of that, but all of it flew right out of his head with Aziraphale’s last sentence. “I get to stay on Earth. Permanently,” he echoed.

“That’s right,” Aziraphale said.

The realization crested over him slowly until it crashed into a crescendo of joy. No more Heaven with its cold distant love that tasted like apathy. No being sent to Hell with its cruelty and abuse. He got to stay on Earth, just like he wanted. Earth, where things were bright and verdant and growing. Where there was love that was close and knowing and warm. Where Aziraphale was. Because everything he wanted was on Earth, but the Earth wasn’t in itself everything he wanted. But now, given everything that had happened, he was sure if he just said something, then—

“Oh goodness, I just realized, you don’t know what your new name is yet, do you?” Aziraphale said.

“Ah, no. Didn’t realize I already had a new one to be honest. That is, when I woke up and couldn’t even remember the old one, I figured it was no good anymore, just didn’t know about the new one.”

“You don’t remember…” Aziraphale began to ask, trailing off when it was clear from Crawly’s expression that he didn’t. “Then I will remember the name for you in case – well, just in case. And your new name is Crawly.”

“Crawly,” he repeated, then frowned. It was his name, he could tell, but at the same time it didn’t feel quite right. It was a little itchy almost, like snake skin right at the beginning of a shed.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked.

“Don’t know. Just feels a little off. Crawly.”

“Crawly. Oh yes, I hear it now,” Aziraphale said. “Like a feather about to fall out during a moult.”

“Yes, or like shedding snake skin, exactly,” said Crawly.

“Well, She did say that the name Crawly was only meant to suit you for now. When we were discussing the matter, I really did think you should be allowed to pick your own name, only it wasn’t possible at the time, given you weren’t going to be able to wake up without a name. And, well to be honest, She rather thought I should be the one to pick your name, but of course I couldn’t possibly without your permission.”

“I wish you had,” Crawly said. “Rather have a name you came up with than one from Her.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, his hands fluttering nervously in front of him. “Oh, but I’m sure anything I came up with would just sound ridiculous; I’m not at all creative.”

“Doesn’t matter. Still rather have it from you.” Rather was something of an understatement really. That implied he just found it preferable to the alternative, as though the idea of having a name Aziraphale specifically picked out for him didn’t leave him feeling warm and lit up inside.

“Well. In that case. Well, it seems there’s still the option to change it yet. I could help with that. If you’d like.”

“I would like that, angel.” The way Crawly said the last word was less than a name, but more than just a descriptor. It was a specific identifier, something personal gifted from Crawly to Aziraphale, and it made Aziraphale feel warm and lit up inside.

“Alright then,” he said, turning to face forward once again as he smiled to himself, softly pleased.

Crawly followed Aziraphale’s gaze out across the open desert before them only to abruptly realize it wasn’t just open desert he was looking at. “Is that Adam and Eve? What on Earth are they doing out there?”

“Oh yes, it was a dreadful commotion just now. It seems that Eve saw you earlier this morning when you were at the Tree – my understanding is the both of them had gotten rather concerned when they didn’t see you yesterday, and she had gone out looking for you. She saw you at the Tree and heard you talking about knowledge of Good and Evil, which sounded rather appealing to her. Then she saw you take a bite from the apple and presumably ran off to tell Adam before she could see your wings… well, catch flame, because she came to the conclusion the fruit wasn’t dangerous to eat after all. Apparently, she and Adam had gotten the mistaken impression that the trouble with the fruit was it was poisonous.”

“Really?” Crawly drawled sarcastically. “I wonder how they possibly could have come to that conclusion when they were specifically told ‘if you eat it, you will die.’”

“Yes, well, admittedly it wasn’t the clearest way to explain what would happen.” That being that while in the Garden they were protected from Death, but eating the apple and gaining the knowledge of, and therefore the capacity for, Good and Evil threw off the balance of the Garden, which was specifically designed not to allow for anything dangerous within its bounds. “Still, I’m sure She had her reasons. It’s all part of the Great Plan.”  

“Well, I still think--"

But what Crawly thought was to remain unvoiced, because at precisely that moment, a light shone down from Heaven, pointed directly at Aziraphale. “Aziraphale. Angel of the Eastern Gate.”

“Yes, Lord?” Aziraphale replied.

“Where is the flaming sword I gave you, Aziraphale?”

Instinctively, Crawly reached out and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand, a gesture that was both comforting and protective. It was Crawly’s fault after all that Aziraphale didn’t have his sword on him. He was the one who had stolen it, even if he had only ever intended to borrow it briefly. He opened his mouth to say as much, only to be stopped by Aziraphale squeezing his hand. He looked over at him to find Aziraphale giving him a reassuring smile.

Aziraphale then turned back to God and said, with the bold air of confidence that could only be possessed by the truly and deeply nervous, “I gave it away.”

“You gave it away.”

“There are vicious animals. It’s going to be cold out there. And she’s expecting already. And you did say, Lord, that my compassion did me credit, not that you need me to remind you, I’m sure. And—”

“Aziraphale,” She interrupted, and Aziraphale’s mouth snapped shut. “Very well. Make sure you keep an eye on things.”

“Yes, Lord, of course,” Aziraphale agreed, stumbling over his words a bit in his relief.

The light passed from him then and rested, just for a moment, on Crawly. Just for a moment, but long enough for Crawly to feel it. Though he had been absolutely certain he couldn’t be what She had wanted him to be – he was a Fallen angel, after all –there was no disappointment in Her. Just love and acceptance and understanding. It wasn’t enough, not by a mile, not after the things the apple had shown him, but it wasn’t nothing either.

And then as abruptly as she had arrived, she was gone.

“Dearest?” Aziraphale’s voice, along with another brief squeeze of his hand, brought Crawly out of his momentary reverie. He looked at Aziraphale and gave him a grin of mischievous delight.

“Did you just disobey God, admit to disobeying right to her face, and manage to walk away with a pat on the back and a ‘keep up the good work’?”

“Well, you couldn’t really call it disobeying since I was never told I couldn’t give my sword away. I just… used my own initiative to interpret the orders I was given,” Aziraphale replied.

Crawly threw his head back and laughed, long and loud and free. “You mad bastard. How do you keep getting more perfect?”

Aziraphale’s face flushed pink at the notion of anyone thinking him perfect, much less Crawly, who was very near to the definition of the term as far as Aziraphale was concerned. Unfortunately, Aziraphale’s attempts to express as much amounted to little more than a series of words and sentence fragments with no coherency whatsoever. Meanwhile Crawly just continued to look more and more charmed.

“Oh, blast it all,” Aziraphale finally said. He quickly tugged on their joined hands, pulling Crawly in closer. Then he smashed their faces together in a graceless but enthusiastic kiss.

Crawly made a high-pitched noise of surprise before returning the kiss with equal enthusiasm and lack of skill. After a little trial and error, they managed to stumble into some degree of finesse, helped by Crawly’s hand resting on Aziraphale’s cheek guiding them both in a unified sort of direction.

They might have continued on for quite awhile indeed, had they not been startled by the drops of the first rainfall.  The surprise of it, coupled with Crawly’s indignant expression, drew a laugh from Aziraphale as he swung his wings up to cover the pair of them. Crawly wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s waist to draw the two of them even closer together and, with an appropriate amount of grumbling, added his wings to Aziraphale’s, black feathers gently pressing against and interlacing with white.

Aziraphale sighed happily and laid his head on Crawly’s shoulder. “You know, I think we could get quite good at that with some practice. Kissing, I mean,” he said.

“Mmm,” Crawly hummed, nuzzling Aziraphale’s hair. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Aziraphale smiled, but the expression dropped off after a minute. “Do you think they’ll be alright out there in all this rain?”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. They’ve got your sword to help keep warm and dry, don’t they?” Crawly pointed out. “Besides, they’ve got each other. What else do they need?”

“What else indeed?” Aziraphale said. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “I love you, you know.”

“Love you too, angel,” Crawly said.

“Like you love the stars?” Aziraphale asked.

“No,” said Crawly. “Much, much more than that.”

In time the wall they stood on would crumble away. The Garden would vanish beneath the desert sands as Death finally came to collect his due. But where Death walks, so too does life. The Garden will die, but the Earth will grow and thrive. And so will the human race, spreading across every corner of the globe. With them every step of the way on the journey will be the two that were there with them here at the start, the angel and the Fallen.

But that’s all yet to come. For now, the two stand on the wall, their future and the whole world laid out before them. It ends, as all good stories do, with a brand new beginning.