Chapter Text
In the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born. His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up forthwith. The bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one—the one solitary Phoenix bird.
— “The Phoenix Bird”, Hans Christian Andersen (1850)
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Once upon a time, in a not so very far away land so much as it was a very far away time, an angel and a demon died screaming.
This angel and demon were a very odd duo. They had names, of course, but these days no one ever really deigned to say them outloud. The angel was reserved and a lover of literature, while the demon was crass and a lover of a nice bed. Their natures deemed them enemies from the Beginning—they weren’t meant to work together, let alone be friends, but that was what they were. The two worked under an Arrangement, meeting in theatres to toss for the next assignment and to drink in quiet taverns in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was good, and they had each other.
And like all good things, the end of it was inevitable. It wasn’t either of their faults, truly. Neither expected them to ever die, if they had anything to say about it—invincibility came with the idea of immortality. They just happened to be too late to stop the inferno.
It was an overall gruesome and ashy demise, one that you would read about in an old field report and get a sour taste on your tongue. Gabriel, Supreme Archangel of all Heaven, was…well, not devastated, but certainly not happy about it when he’d heard. The 17th century was a turbulent time for Heaven, as the humans were going through their occasional existential and religious crisis, so Gabriel didn’t exactly have the time to mourn—nor would he, as angels did not mourn—but it was the thought that counted. They had the customary ceremony and everything when the news had reached the rest of the Heavenly Host: that for the first time in all of history since the Great War, an angel had actually been destroyed with Hellfire. A cautionary tale come true.
The gathering was quick and quiet. Heaven didn’t have the proper protocol written for anticipation of an angel perishing before Armageddon, so they made little fuss about the fallen soldier. Once the working angels had passed their polite regret for the loss, they went on with their work without many qualms about it. Maybe, if Aziraphale had been more present in Heaven, his absence would sting deeper. This is not the case—everyone had promptly moved on.
But Gabriel…Gabriel remembered. You couldn’t forget a warrior like Aziraphale in a hurry. He kept the incident in the back of his head after that, waiting for the faint memory of a soft angel with a horrifying end he’d only wish on the Enemy to fade into the eternity he had lived and had yet to live. If he were foolish, he’d say that chapter of the Universe’s story had been closed forever.
Gabriel, however, is not that easily deceived. He has waited, and was prepared to wait, for a very long time. He expected it would take a few millennia for the debacle to become relevant again, possibly near the End of Days or something else equally monumental—so it had been a bit of a surprise when, less than four centuries later, those memories had finally been put to use.
That, rather coincidentally, is where our story is meant to begin.
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Heaven, October 21st, 1967 A.D
“Did I miss the show?” Michael asks primly, fixing her cuffed sleeves and taking their place beside the rest of the archangels. “Apologies if I have. Had to take a few calls.”
There are four stark white office chairs placed in a line and facing an enormous holographic screen. There are now four archangels sitting in each one—Sandalphon, Gabriel, Uriel, and Michael, respectively. All but the latter are watching the screen with eagerness and fervour, for the excitement being proposed beats any boring day they were meant to have today. After nearly 6000 years of existence, birthdays for planets got old—but then they’d gotten word from the Metatron. You never got word from the Metatron, unless it was for something like this.
“No, not at all,” Gabriel says as Michael settles in, giving only that and a slight nod of the head to acknowledge that they had arrived. “Actually, I think—“
Sirens distorted by the spotty feed start to wail as a human ambulance speeds by the screen. Though this recording is not coming from a camera, this angle is being broadcasted from the unassuming parking lot of Barnet Hospital in North London, where the Event is meant to take place. The howls of an agonised human woman can be heard clearly even at a distance, as if she were seeing God for the first time. While the feed cannot enter the vehicle, the noise is all they need to hear.
As established before, today is not a usual day. Human affairs aren’t usually the archangels’ subject of interest, but this human in particular is different. The woman inside this ambulance—a Good woman, really—bears a burden not unlike the Virgin Mary once held.
A holy child planted in her belly.
“Bingo.”
“That’s him?” Sandalphon, who hadn’t realised the severe implications of this until a few moments ago, crinkles his nose. “Hm. It looks…”
“Disturbing?” Uriel finishes for him, concentration not yet lost despite watching a Mrs Fell screaming bloody murder being escorted out of the ambulance and onto a wheelchair. “I never understood that specific ritual.”
“I think it’s symbolic,” Michael says. “Very different from back in the day.”
“It really is.” Gabriel ponders the scene accordingly, putting his hand under his chin in a subject-of-a-mosaic-worthy manner. “But that’s a thought for another day. We need to enact the next step.”
“And what is that step?” Michael asks sceptically. Always the thinker, them. “Taking the principality back and enacting justice? We haven’t had a representative on Earth for centuries now, and if he’s risen along with the demon…”
“Can we do that?” Gabriel narrows his eyes at the screen. “It looks a little too early, Michael. Let’s wait until we know for sure. He might not even be an angel anymore.”
“And how will we know?” Micheal urges, twisting in their seat so they can face Gabriel directly. “The corporation is baby-shaped. If we are going to wait until he’s back to the appropriate age…”
“We will know,” Gabriel says firmly. “It won’t be that hard—we just need to take care of him until then. Simple! And he’s an angel . God won’t let anything happen to him until we get there.”
The four archangels exchange silent glances between themselves, and nod as one. Gabriel turns off the feed with a wave of the hand as they all stand up. Michael and Uriel head off on their own, whispering to each other and holding their heads up high. Gabriel turns towards the nearest window, looking down at the cluttered image of a city skyline peppered with human monuments and stormy skies.
“What now?” Sandalphon asks, ready to please but unsure what to do. “It’s just…waiting?”
“I suppose so,” Gabriel says, folding his hands behind his back. “That’s all we can do for now. Arrange an overseer for him, Sandalphon. He’ll need Heavenly guidance, so he won’t go down the wrong path…as he did before.”
When it looks like he isn’t going to give a second order, Sandalphon marches off to pick the first angel he sees for the gruelling task. Gabriel stays still for a long time after that, watching the contained chaos without paying much attention. His mind is rather occupied, trying to piece together the looming scenario as well as comprehend just how unique this all was.
The reason why it is so confusing for such a powerful being is simple. This sort of situation, by default, is not meant to happen. There are three things an entity can do after death, one thing an entity can do after total destruction, and a re-do is not any of them. Reincarnation is an entirely human idea, first conceptualised around the middle of the fifth millennium and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It embedded itself in human mythos and religion in many forms, but the core is always the same.
It involves two separate beliefs that are required to mesh; that every soul persists forever as itself after death, and that God would deem someone worthy enough to defy all Her laws to the point that She would allow them to enter a new body following their corporeal existence.
The first could be argued for rather easily. Human souls are theoretically ‘immortal’, just not in the way some of them believed. They either floated up to Heaven for bliss, plummeted down to Hell for divine justice, or were just so damn confusing that they were forced to stick around on Earth without form and haunt their hallowed ground until Armageddon. There wasn’t meant to be a fourth option for humans, because if there were, She would have set that little precipice up from the Beginning and make the function known.
Then again, God Created the Rules. That little discrepancy can be pushed aside if necessary. If what the Metatron claimed were true—which, looking at the screen again, seemed like it—then there was little time for the world to grow up at all.
Armageddon be approaching, God save them all, and Aziraphale was going to help them win.