Chapter Text
Once Booker had gone, Andy pulled out her burner and dialed a number apparently from memory. "Crowley? It's Andy here. We need to lie low for a bit and the safehouses are - potentially compromised. Any chance...?" She folded herself into a chair, listening. "Three rooms. Booker is - not with us - but we have a new one. Yeah. Yeah, we can get there." She hung up. "South Downs. Usual terms. Double check your gear, and meet up at the car in ten." She stalked into the tiny bathroom and closed the door.
Joe and Nicky nodded, Nicky moving easily to slide his sword into some sort of protective case.
Nile, having nothing but her phone and the clothes she stood in, stayed where she was, looking from one to the other in bewilderment. "What are the usual terms?"
Joe gave her a small smile. "We'll be meeting someone who - is badly allergic to holy water and blessed items. So no holy water at all, and anything blessed, like Nicky's sword, needs to be covered up enough that it won't - hurt - them."
"Oh." Nile raised a hand to her cross, almost the only thing she had left from her previous life. "Is this..."
Nicky sat back on his heels. "Has someone said a blessing over it? Praying isn't the same."
Nile shook her head. "Just prayers."
"Should be fine then."
Nile drew a cautious breath of relief and followed Joe down to the car, leaving Nicky to talk to Andy.
#
Despite herself, Nile fell asleep soon after they set out, her head resting against the window of the passenger seat. When she woke, the car was pulling up a long drive towards an old fashioned English cottage.
Two apparently middleaged white men waited for them by the door, one with a bowtie snuggled around his plump neck, the other with sunglasses perched on his skinny nose.
Andy pulled herself out of the driver's seat, moving a little stiffly. In the back seat, Joe and Nicky untangled their arms from each other and climbed out. Nile followed them, hanging back a little to take everything in. It was very green here, the garden growing lush around the cottage, as much fruit trees and vegetables and herbs as it was flowers and decorative bushes.
Sunglasses nodded to Andy as she approached. "Baklava-girl. Hi."
Nile blinked. "Baklava-girl?"
Andy sighed and said over her shoulder. "He's earned it, he's older than I am." She swallowed and turned back to the men. Her voice cracked as she said softly, "I'm not healing any more, Aziraphale."
Bowtie nodded solumnly at the name. "Hurt, my dear?"
She grimaced.
He smiled and laid a soft hand on her shoulder. "Let's get that seen to then," he said, and ushered her inside.
Sunglasses stayed where he was, only turning to look at Joe and Nicky. "I assume you're the ones sharing a room, Loverboys?"
The corner of Nicky's mouth twitched up in as clear amusement as Nile had ever seen on him. "Correct."
Sunglasses nodded and tossed them a key. "Top floor, on the left." He sauntered aside as they collected their bags from the car boot and went in. His gaze raked over Nile from head to toe, and he snapped his fingers. "You must be the new one. What's your name?"
"Nile."
"Right. Call me Crowley." He tossed another key to her. "Top floor, straight ahead. Whatever is in there is for your use."
Nile caught the key reflexively and felt it tug gently against her fingers, leading her into a narrow hallway and then up two flights of stairs. From the top of the stairs, she went straight on, and came to a door of warm, golden, wood. She unlocked it with the key and went in.
It was a small, bright, room under the eaves, papered in a pattern of blue and yellow flowers. A bed piled high with blankets stood under the gable window. A pair of black pyjamas in her size hung over the footboard, with a silk scarf folded on top of them. A cupboard in one corner held several changes of clothes, and a door in the opposite corner led to a tiny ensuite shower room, already stocked with... Nile stopped and stared. With haircare products designed for her kind of hair. And tartan towels, she noticed, almost irreverently.
The bed, when she sat down on it, smelled of the same detergent her mother had always used. It smelled like home, and she buried her face in her hands as a wave of yearning washed over her. If she cried, no one would notice. Her eyes healed too fast now to stay red for long.