The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 54: A Stand

Chapter 54: A Stand

Anathema slid her fingers over the banister as she followed Tracy downstairs. Raising her head she cast her eyes around the living room, making a mental count of each reflective service covered or turned over, every ward set in place, any contingency dealt with. By the time she got to the kitchen, she convinced herself it was all enough.

But as she looked at the two beings waiting in her kitchen, the memory of last night reared up, and she had to ground herself to approach them with any air of confidence.

The angel was sitting at the table, the book of keys before him, his readers clasped in both hands. Crowley slouched next to him with his back to the stairs, his narrow profile regarding her with an unreadable look over his shoulder. Their body language suggested she had interrupted an in-depth conversation.

No wonder there'd been no comments about the house resembling a shrouded tomb. They were preoccupied. Shit, I need their focus!

From the bottom of the stairs, she watched Tracy glide between them and greet them with her usual grace. "Ready, dears?" Crowley's eyes remained locked on her. The angel flitted his wide eyes to her expectantly.

"How's the shoulder, demon?" the little witch asked.

He turned bodily around to her and leaned his arms on the table top. When he spoke, he looked toward the angel, and then to her. "Right as rain, if a little sore."

"Should I look at it?"

"You'll get all the look you need in a moment."

The angel rolled his eyes to the ceiling and turned away. Tracy came around and touched Aziraphale's hand, and smiled. He tried to return it, but it was weak. "Yes. Now's a good a time as any." Aziraphale straightened and pushed himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. He put away his glasses, and twitched, then cleared his throat. Determination set his expression, but those eyes wavered with so many racing emotions, and they locked on hers.

And right there she received a revelation.

Aziraphale didn't waffle on things. Instead, he weighed. He. Weighed. Everything.

Every display on his face, the back and forth, the darting eyes and working brow, the silent shifting of his mouth, it was all an instantaneous debate inside his mind of opposing sides, over nearly everything. The mental strain alone...

All this time what she had taken for indecisiveness was in fact the deepest form of consideration.

And there was Crowley at his side, watching him, waiting. Giving him the room. Practically reading every nuance of those inner conversations over the last 6000 years.

"You really do love each other," she found herself saying. They both blinked at her with surprise, then toward one another.

"Whatever that means, B.G," Crowley offered, taking the angel's hand in his own, stilling the poor creature's eyes into something both warm and sorrowful.

"I think it means you're ready," she stated, feeling the confidence she exuded. Stepping away from the stairs, she rose her hand and invited them up. "Gentlemen, if you please."

She saw the tiniest of movements. The smallest of reassurances. A tightening of fingers, a crinkling of folds around eyes and mouth, a look passed between two ancient beings that chose to live both in the world and of it. Our own side, she thought. Two, and the world, against Heaven and Hell. All of it there in the squeeze of a hand.

As they passed her up the stairs, Tracy followed up behind and paused before her. "Are you thinking this is where we begin to win the next war, dearie?"

"I'm not sure," she answered, her mouth going dry. "I think it's the first place we declare our solidarity. Here and now."

Tracy sighed, "With a gesture of love."

"Soppy," the witch's face soured, as she moved up the stairs. "That's how you Brits put it."

Tracy nodded concurrence as she followed her up. "Perhaps. Still not a promise of victory."

"No. Which makes it punch you in the feels even more."

"You admit that?"

"To you. Not a word to anyone else."

"Oh, my lips are sealed."