(Untitled)

[ineffable_angel]

Date: February 2nd, 2001
Setting: Tadfield Manor, Ellie's room
Status: Private - Ellie, Aziraphale (Complete)
Summary: A reunion, hopefully better than the other.

Comments

[ineffable_angel]

He glanced at the cup in his hands, swirling the tea thoughtfully.

"I do think so, yes. I need to take care of things here. Fix a few things I left unfinished, try and see if... well, it's a little complicated. I've been quite well, though, as you asked." There were smudges around his eyes and a slightly drawn look that betrayed him. Exhaustion or stress wasn't as straightforward in a immortal - it wasn't as if the body was exhausted, precisely. It was more that the mind had been used to a habitual rest that it suddenly lacked, now. A good cup of tea - as one shared with Ellie undoubtedly always was - softened the look a little. "Perhaps a little tired. London still wanted my aid at night too; I think I performed more miracles after dark than during the day."

Recalling the intense feeling of satisfaction and relief of effort - trying is half the battle; it drives away worry over things that couldn't be helped - Aziraphale smiled, slightly. "My 'projects' were doing all right when I left them, but it's all a battlefield. I merely hope I've given them enough so that they can fight for themselves, too."

[chantinellie]

Ellie's faith in angelic honesty had been sorely tested of late, and she didn't quite believe Aziraphale's claim that he was fine, but she nodded and let it pass. He'd have ample opportunity to sleep at the Manor, if that was what he needed. "I'm sure they will. You're good at what you do, and often it doesn't take much to sway their courses." In either direction, of course, but that went without saying. "Things have been pretty quiet here, when I've been around. Um. Uriel had her baby." She studiously kept her gaze on her teacup. "And we seem to have a Sphinx living in the basement, did you know? But most of the regulars seem to be lying low right now."

She should have made the rounds before now, but she kept expecting to run into one or another of her Manor acquaintances in the usual course of things, and so far it hadn't happened. Aziraphale's arrival made her stop and count the days since she'd last returned, and she realized with a start it had been a good two weeks with no sign of John, Crowley, Gabriel or Belial. Where was everybody?

[ineffable_angel]

A half-smile. "Et tu, my dear? I did think it was abnormally quiet, but then, after all, I did run into Crowley yesterday, and I'm sure half the Manor heard us wake it up a bit. Otherwise... is John doing well? Crowley... was complicated." The angel sighed.

"I met Bran, actually. What an adorable creature he is, it must be said." Oh, Ellie, what have you been up to, that you aren't quite looking at me? he thought, watching her face. He didn't think it was anything particularly terrible, likely something that would worry him if she told him. Still, he'd rather worry than be in the dark.

Et tu, my dear?

[chantinellie]

Ellie winced slightly on Aziraphale's behalf. "I don't know. I haven't talked to him," she murmured, sipping her tea. "Any of them, really. I've been rather distracted.

"And yes, he is," she added crisply, her lips thinning into a disgruntled line. "Adorable and perfect, and he has accordingly been admired and made much of and showered with presents by all who've seen him. Even John gave him a stupid stuffed animal, if you can believe it." She fought the urge to hide her face behind her hair. It was all too easy to wallow in envy when she was by herself, but it made her feel petty to do it in front of Aziraphale, and she hated that.

[ineffable_angel]

He took the teacup from her, and set it down on the table, and then grasped her hands between his. The angel knew, as few others did, what motherhood meant to Chantinelle, so he sat there, holding her hands, and looked at her for a time, silently.

The angel was tired. Tired of playing games as he admittedly had done, tired of not actually conveying that he knew more and could do more than he did. He adored the pleasantries of polite and intimate conversation, and all the niceties of humanity - even manners was a type of societal construct, never mind afternoon tea or the affectation of lace handkerchiefs in his pocket. He loved it but there was something too easy to hide behind in them, ignoring the more important issues.

He almost, almost, released her hands to say something like, "Oh, what type of stuffed animal was it?" inferring a mental note of John's sense of humour, depending on the answer, but instead he paused, and changed his mind.

"Were you searching for her, while I was gone, my dear? Was that the distraction?"

[chantinellie]

Ellie bit her lip before it could start to quiver and give her away. She'd missed Aziraphale so much. No one else in the Manor, even among the few who knew, ever bothered themselves to wonder about such things. "Chasing my own tail is more like it. She got an entire planet to hide on, and she doesn't leave much in the way of clues. Just a lot of property damage and angry immortals."

[ineffable_angel]

Aziraphale gave her hands a small, supportive squeeze. "If you haven't found her, no one else has. A trail of destruction at least says that. And no one is looking harder for your daughter than you, I'm sure.

"She will turn up eventually, my dear. Perhaps even here."

[chantinellie]

Ellie blinked. That hadn't even occurred to her. "I don't know," she said slowly. "Adam didn't call me here. I was just following John, and he was following Crowley. Why would she be drawn here? Or do you think she might stumble on the place on her own?" That thought was alarming--the girl wouldn't know anything about a truce, or presumably, about Ellie; she'd just see a gathering of beings she would consider enemies. How would Adam deal with an attack by an uninvited, unidentified interloper?

[ineffable_angel]

"If she's searching for something, she might come looking for it here, that's all. After all, Adam didn't call me here either, my dear. We came looking for him. Don't worry about it overmuch, please - in all likelihood, you will find her before all that. Besides, I should think I'd know if she does in fact show up here, so don't worry that there's no one here to recognize your daughter if you're away."

The angel patted her hand. "Poor dear," he murmured, and then he wasn't sure if he was talking about Ellie or the girl.

[chantinellie]

Ellie chose to believe the latter; sympathy was one thing, and more than welcome, but pity was quite another. "I wish I knew what she's thinking. I can't fathom what someone would look for in her position. If anything." Somewhere along the way she had gone from entertaining the possibility that the girl was her stolen child to assuming she was. It was a foolish and dangerous assumption to make, but hope, she'd found, was an addiction not easily shaken once it took hold.

[ineffable_angel]

"I know; or, rather, I don't, that's sort of the point, but I can't imagine that anyone has ever been in her position before."

He reached for his cup of tea, breaking physical contact to do so. "This is a little out of the blue, but you know, though," the angel mused aloud, "compared to other beings - vampires, for example - and other religious icons - gods, I mean, you have heard the stories of Zeus' exploits? - for immortals, we're quite lagging behind in the relationships department. It is entirely understandable why, of course; we're unlucky enough to have superiors with steady and certain aims, even if they are misplaced aims. And I wonder how long it's been since angels and demons are able to empathise enough to predict emotion after all? Well, emotions besides the obvious extremes..."

Sighing faintly, Aziraphale poured himself a cup of tea. "History helps us predict human emotion; it's elementary to think that in a given set of circumstance, a certain reaction will be produced. Obviously, the first problem would occur when a set of circumstances hasn't been previously demonstrated, but cause-effect just the surface of the whole great mess of feelings, isn't it? How, precisely, can you explain that to someone who hasn't experienced it for themselves enough to realize that it's as complicated as it is? The superiors haven't even realized this; nor do they think that such a concept exists in our minds, I suppose. It won't matter until it's challenged, so we're back to waiting for it to be challenged, really. Certainly, Up Above and Down Below must wonder why humans do what they do - yes, something is right and just by Heaven's definitions, so why are they upset with Heaven? Or something is evil and angry and encouraged to be so, but Hell would have trouble understanding regret. Empathy has never been their forte."

[chantinellie]

Ellie's eyebrows rose steadily through this monologue, and she nodded in the appropriate places, not interrupting. Aziraphale was one of the most intelligent people she knew, but he was rarely so verbose about it. "Some of the lesser gods consider us hopelessly backward in several respects," she replied after a moment. "Have you heard Loki go on about 'not-gods', as though we're some sort of disenfranchised deities? And he may have a point, in a way. The entire free will issue is clearly a red herring. If it wasn't, none of what goes on around here would be possible."

She took a sip of her own tea. "John has often gone on to me--at length," she amended with a wry twist of her mouth, "about the propaganda machines on both sides and how the bureaucracies are ultimately as ignorant of the real designs of Him Above or Him Below as they are of human nature." She wrinkled her nose. "They're left to their own devices, mired in busywork and enforcing whatever archaic rules they see fit, while the real Powers go about their business behind the scenes. I've never been sure whether to believe him. It's a rather frightening prospect, but the evidence certainly supports it." She looked up at the angel. "The question in my mind is, is Adam setting up to challenge them, as you say? Or challenge them again, on a different front. Or does he have something else in mind?"

[ineffable_angel]

Glancing at her, Aziraphale caught the raised eyebrows and merely drank his tea, keeping a mild expression.

"Adam might not be, or simply... hoping not to. He'd play a longer game than I imagine either of us would predict, but he is only mortal, and I can't think of any provision of safety or unity in a conflict that he could guarantee after his eventual death. And... I can understand where John is coming from, although voicing the theory bluntly, particularly with other angels around, has never seemed a brilliant idea before all this.

"There are so many variables," Aziraphale continued, leaning back. "We don't know if John's theory is correct; and if it is, will Him Above or Him Below interfere? Can we risk humanity along with our own kind, no matter what the cause?"

[chantinellie]

"I don't know," Ellie said, vaguely discomfited by the question. She rarely gave much thought to humans, apart from the occasional exception like John or when she wanted something from one of them; but she had to admit that they and their world, notwithstanding all the inherent flaws, were far preferable to the alternatives. "And it's not brilliant, but I suppose somebody had to acknowledge the elephant in the room, sooner or later." She sighed, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "It's funny how thing seem to change but don't, isn't it? We're as much in the dark now as we ever were, all of us. The only real difference is that Adam doesn't seem to want much of us, except that we not kill each other."

[ineffable_angel]

A half-smile. "Well, we're trying very hard not to do that, aren't we? I suppose we're just going to have to wait to find out. I have to say, though, that it makes me feel terrible mortal to be out of the loop, ironically; we're so used to thinking that we ourselves are the ones behind the curtain, but it's more that we're a different audience."

[chantinellie]

"Pay no attention to that man-shaped being..." Ellie muttered, and shook her head at Aziraphale's blank look. "Pop culture reference, never mind. I've had that feeling ever since I went underground, but even before that I always had the impression there was a great deal going on at higher levels that I just wasn't privy to. I suppose there's always another curtain or a bigger fish, or what have you. Unless you happen to be the Big Fish, as it were."