bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God

Part 3

Aziraphale blinked, several times, before looking at his companion's face and chuckling nervously. "Oh, I apologise, I don't know what came over me. I assumed you were my friend whom I haven't seen in quite a while. Anyway, as I was saying earlier, the shop opens at 9:30, so I'm still not sure just how you go in here, but I have to insist-"

"It's me, Aziraphale." The woman hesitated, yellow eyes still staring at him nervously.

"That's..." Aziraphale's brain practically short-circuited before he swallowed. "Oh good lord."

"Yeah." Crowley's new form bit her lip, nodding. "...pretty much had that reaction as well."

"I don't..." Aziraphale looked over her, so very befuddled. "How is this possible?"

"I was hoping you could inform me, considering I still haven't found any idea as of yet."

"Well, I-" He looked between her and himself. "As far as I'm aware, we have had no...coital relations, as well as the fact that last I heard of you, you were in a male form."

"Not like I didn't try to get that first option once or twice." She had the audacity to smirk before it fell away to the same almost hidden worry. "But honestly, I have no idea how this happened, I literally was just lying in bed, thinking about...nothing and then God spoke into my ear."

Aziraphale almost flew up to the ceiling, bug-eyed. "God /spoke/ to you?"

"Yeah, twas' real weird." Her hand came to rest on the bump that housed whatever being had taken up residence within her. "She said something about stars and some other mambo-jumbo I don't remember and I woke up...in this form. This, however-" She waved her hands around the bump in a dramatic fashion. "-only turned up a few months ago."

"Only a few months ago- so /that's/ why you were avoiding me!"

Aziraphale couldn't help but feel a stab of indignation, of sadness and fury and ache, the only thing that could come from caring about someone so deeply it affects your very soul.

"You do not think you couldn't inform me of this instead of making out like you were on some solo drug and alcohol addled road trip across Britain?"

"Well, to be fair, I wasn't expecting this!" Crowley's real emotion suddenly showed itself and it was haunting for the angel. It was terror, complete and utter terror.

"I didn't expect this! Anything else, but not this! Not this form, not a child, not being in love! I didn't want any of this, I just wanted...I just-"

It was rare for the demon to cry, much less anyone in their right mind to see it without dying minutes after, but there are actual tears running down Crowley's face and Aziraphale has his arms around her gravid form in mere seconds contrary to the conversation (well, shouting match) that they were just having, her now shorter head buried in his collar and his hand in the back of her long hair, running from it down to her back in a comforting motion.

Of course, there was also a lot to unpack in the conversation as well, mostly with Crowley's admittances (in love? was she in love with him?) and their meaning (no, honestly, was she?), but it seemed that right now they would have to wait for a moment.

"Here, my dear, come and sit down. You look exhausted." He lead the now sniffling woman gently into one of his chairs stationed around the bookshop, thankful the 'CLOSED' sign was still on the door and the curtains that he opened every morning usually at this hour gave them the smallest bit of privacy as he sat in his own chair, dragging it so it mirrored Crowley's own.

Handing her a handkerchief, he politely waited till she had dried her tears somewhat before grasping her hands in his own, a shiver seemingly going up his spine at her touch. Had his comrades in Heaven been witnessing him giving in to temptation, he'd be surely smited within moments of doing so. Truly, it was quite the miracle he hadn't so far.

"Crowley, look at me. Please." The yellow eyes he'd had so hated in the beginning, but had grown to not only secretly admire, but seek out over the many years, tipped themselves to hold his gaze and his expression untwisted itself into some less worried, but still of course, notably concerned. "Why did you not tell me about this? You shouldn't have troubled yourself with such torture on your own. I could have assisted in some way to ease it."

"I just...I didn't want us to change." Crowley looked stricken (or at stricken as this form could look to be), shaking her head in what could only be sorrow. "You know I like children so."

"Yes, my dear, but that doesn't explain your hesitance to inform me of the divine giving you this gift, much less why you are so upset about something that is so wonderful."

"That's why!" Crowley's eyes blazed for a moment, before fading out again. "The "divine" has given me a gift that I can't keep. This child is Nephilim. As soon as it's born, if it's not killed at the very moment it uses its first breath to scream and it grows up, it'll forget us."

Aziraphale had to sit back, but didn't let go. Sadly, Crowley had a point. As the laws of the universe dictated thanks to God herself, all children born of ethereal beings, whether it be of demonic (Antichrist) or angelic (Nephilim) would grow, just like human children would.

But, unlike times of old when humanity was still in its first strings of life, while humanity's children were allowed to keep the memories of their raising and parentage and childhood, Nephilim would not.

At human age 18, a quite heightened age for any child, let alone one that might have been borne with the prerequisite of celestial powers, Nephilim as been upon thousands of thousands of years would "assimilate" into humanity as it were and forget their parentage.

As soon as they left their parent's arms and were truly on their own for the first time in their lives as most young humans do, a thin haze would befall their memories and anything involving the beings that cared for them. Faces would blank out into nothing, voices a fleeting noise in the distance, confusion (as well as heartache) an all too present emotion.

They would effectively be erased and only vague instances of what they once had would remain.

Enough to be human, but not enough to be gods.

Crowley obviously could see the look on his face and her own fell once more. "Now you see what she's done, angel? She has cursed you. Cursed I. The divine has cursed us."

"The divine never curses! She only creates." Aziraphale shook his head, clutching her hands a little harder than before. "I understand you're upset, but somewhere in that black heart of yours, you must see that she wants you to be happy. She wants all to be."

"I cannot be happy like this." Crowley just shook her head. "I cannot be happy whilst staring down the future, knowing that this child is going to just...be here for 18 years, a speck in our time and then just...leave. It's unfair."

"Us fighting a war of our own making was also unfair, but we found a way to fix that, didn't we?" Aziraphale sild down to his knees before her. "We can find a way to deal with this, deal with everything that comes. We've had 6000 years to do so, we can still, just in a new way."

"But what if the new way gets us killed? Or worse, them?" Never one for doubts in her head, it made Aziraphale's protective side fair up knowing Crowley's mind was so burdened.

"We will figure it out." Aziraphale reiterated, watching her carefully. "Together."