(no subject)

[aeshma-daeva.livejournal.com]

Date: May 26, 2001
Status: Private (Aziraphale; Ellie; The Child & Asmodeus)
Setting: Cairo, Egypt
Summary: Cairo, where things start heating up.

The Four Seasons hotel was relatively new it’s pale beige walls were newly scrubbed and it’s decor was suitable. It may not have been an opulent palace as the demon had grown accustom to in his many years as posing as both the god Ra-Atum and as the Enemy of Ra, Apep. However, he felt a great deal of relief settle in his form.

Asmodeus sought out the front desk and, in fluent Arabic, asked to know which room his daughter was in. He presented the necessary paperwork to show that yes, he was Amos Diaz and was shown immediately to a corner room up on the twelfth floor with a breath taking view of the Nile. He tapped lightly on the door, hoping that she was not asleep.

Comments

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

"That's reassuring, I suppose." Ellie smiled faintly. "But you know, I think you and Crowley take the prize for that. Facing Him Below with one sword, a Witchfinder and a tire iron? That's so many kinds of brave I think it must have set a record."

She hadn't consciously spoken of Aziraphale and Crowley as a pair to either one of them since the breakup. But the fact of the matter was, a pair they were, whether friends, lovers, Adversaries or co-conspirators, and one bad fight wasn't going to change that. Maybe she was just biased, having lost her own lover; but every time she thought about it she fretted that something might happen to one of them or the other, and then how would the survivor be able to live with himself?

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure brave is the word, my dear," Aziraphale chuckled. "I think 'asinine' rather captures the flavour of it better. Or perhaps 'desperate.' After all, fleeing wasn't much of an option. Without Adam..." his voice trailed off into a shudder. "Well, at that point it had become a family matter."

He smiled wistfully. "Crowley has never needed much prompting to do insanely brave things. Tries to convince the world he's a lazy callous bastard, but, well. I worry." And I miss him terribly, he thought, but it hardly seemed right to inflict complaints about his personal dramas on Ellie of all beings...after all, Aziraphale's...beloved? Yes, still, alas...was still alive, and that meant there was always hope.

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Ellie nodded, not arguing the point, though she still disagreed. Even if you were backed into a corner and doomed, meeting your fate with a weapon in your hand, with your head held high, was different than meeting it cowering or begging for mercy.

"Oh, I know," she said, smiling sadly. The day she'd first met Crowley, he had been in no condition to present any kind of front, and so she had some inkling just how illusory that cocky act of his really was.

"Do you know," she said, scanning the menu and speaking not quite casually, "that day in the greenhouse, those accusations Raphael made against him--all he was worried about was that you might believe it and not want to talk to him anymore." He'd go away forever, Crowley had said, as though that were the worst of all possible catastrophes. "I think that frightened him more than the idea that two archangels had just damn near killed him."

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale's fingers tightened around his tiny coffee cup just a little, but it had a great force behind it. "He thought I would believe that?" Then he remembered that Crowley had been all too ready to believe something nearly as absurd of him - just for long enough to do lasting damage. Aziraphale shook his head. "Crowley...would be no more capable of an act like that than I am. Not to mention that...well, if Raphael told me the grass was green, I would have to look to check, and it would probably happen to be red that day. Don't get me started on him. Oh, just don't. Please. I won't be able to stop." Thinking of all the pain Raphael had caused was making Aziraphale feel emotions quite unbecoming an angel.

"Crowley, well," Aziraphale said more softly. "Has a way of making his fears come true sometimes. Sometimes I feel he's the one who's gone away from me. The situation, I mean, the way we are...it can't stay this way, it just can't. I can't imagine not wanting to talk to him. I want that more than anything else on earth."

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Ellie rested one hand in her chin, regarding the angel with an unreadable expression. "Of course you don't believe it. But we're not talking about a rational fear here. He's got abandonment issues--a lot of us do." It wasn't the easiest thing to talk about, even after all this time, but she tried not to sound too bitter. "It's easy to trust when you feel secure in His grace. I remember. None of us would have believed before the Fall that He would judge us the way He did; we couldn't even have imagined it was possible."

She shut her eyes briefly against the memory. Knowing that the Fallen had brought about their own damnation, and that it was all part of His big Plan, did nothing to lessen that sense of betrayal. They hadn't been deemed worthy of even an explanation for the severity or the permanence of their punishment. "And none of us thought afterward that it would ever be possible to trust again. Most still don't. They lost too much the first time, they aren't going to risk what's left.

"So yeah, Crowley's staying away. He's protecting himself. I'd probably do the same thing in his place." Tali hadn't lived long enough for them to have a first fight, but it probably would have happened sooner or later. "I think you're right, though; you two need each other. But I must warn you, Aziraphale dear...even if he does come to trust you again, that fear is never going to go away. Accepting Crowley means accepting that part of him, too."

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

"Feel secure in His grace?" Aziraphale said softly. "No...I can't say that I do. Not completely. Who can? It's so bloody ineffable, after all. Do I think Michael deserved that? No. Frankly, I don't. Or you? Or Crowley? If it were up to me...but I can never forget that it isn't."

He looked down. "I wonder if, after something like that, if trusting isn't too much to ask. The thing I have seen about humans...they fail each other. In countless little ways, all the time, and sometimes big ways. And yet, regardless...they still love. It's silly, sometimes. They do beat their heads against walls, again and again. And yet, I can't help but feel it's one of the things they do right."

"If he's trying to protect himself, I can understand that. But..." he took a deep drink and let his body absorb caffeine. "When I said I was willing to die to save the Earth, that was a half-truth. It might have only been true because Crowley was on it at the time."

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Ellie smiled in an oddly serene way, and said gently, "I don't doubt that for a moment. And I'll bet Someone Else has a pretty good idea where things stand. Crowley's the one who has to get it through his thick skull." She leaned in slightly, the smile widening. "So why are you here telling me?"

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale looked up at Ellie sideways, moved by her generosity. "Well, I assume Someone Else has a good idea of all of it, but alas for us all, He's not talking." And if He did, what would He say? How could He make it right again for those who had lost so much?

"As for why I'm here telling you, why," he smiled a little. "Of course sometimes the best way to distract oneself from one's own aches and pains is to try to help someone else. I do believe we have a current quest on our hands, and I am still at your service. I haven't been to Cairo in quite some time, but perhaps we'd best be getting on with it?"

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Thoose, alas, were questions to which Chantinelle did not know the answer. If she had, her own life might have turned out very different.

Reaching across the table to take and squeeze his hand, she said, "And I don't know how I could do this without you. But we'll make it home eventually. Think about it, all right?" She rose gracefully at his suggestion. "Yes, we should probably get moving. I shudder to think what those two might get up to unsupervised."

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

He smiled and squeezed back. "I have every intention of making it home. But at my age...one Quest at a time please."

Ellie had a way of making herself the centre of attention when standing, and Aziraphale, just briefly, allowed himself to wonder how much Crowley would enjoy that if he were here. The thought, for the first in quite a while, made his smile just a little wider.

Unsupervised. Aziraphale was hardly an expert on the subject, but it seemed to him that Ellie was already beginning to act like the mother of a difficult teenager. It was a side of her he looked forward to seeing more.

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Ellie walked outside and waited until the angel had joined her. Then, masking herself from the surrounding mortals with a thought, she unfurled her wings and took to the sky, unerringly homing in on Cairo and the pair who awaited them there.

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

Trusting in Ellie's potent instincts, Aziraphale followed.