Plan Me No Plans

It Begins, As It Will End, With Raphael Being Hashtag Done

Note: You can imagine her any way you like, but I had Catherine Tate in mind for Raphael when I wrote her, and in fact this casting informed quite a lot of my characterization of her, which is why I'm bothering to tell you at all.

-/-

"How are we supposed to make them fall in love?" Uriel demanded. "The Demon Crowley is a demon. It's right there in the name. How could any angel fall in love with him?"

"I don't know," Gabriel replied. "But if any angel could, it's Aziraphale. He's always been an odd duck."

"An odd duck?" Michael asked.

"Yes, it's a human expression," Gabriel explained proudly. "I rather like it."

"Aziraphale's not a duck, though."

"No, but he is odd."

"That's true."

"Maybe if Aziraphale and the demon Crowley were to meet, sparks would fly?" Sandalphon suggested. "Our sources do suggest he's also an 'odd duck' among demons."

"We can't just have them meet," Uriel said. "Aziraphale will just smite the demon as soon as they do, as any angel naturally would. It's not like he doesn't know what he looks like."

"He's said he prefers not to smite him if he can avoid it, in case Hell sends a replacement up instead. Better the enemy whose wiles he knows than one whose wiles he'll have to put in time to learn, he says."

"That's very sensible," Michael said. "I had wondered."

Sandalphon nodded. "So if we can plan for them to meet, perhaps arrange for them to spend a long time together, maybe they'll start talking and fall in love? The Almighty has said that the necessary seeds are there, if only they'd realize."

"How do we arrange that?"

"I have a thought," Uriel said. "Aziraphale has that bookshop, right? Humans matchmake all the time, there's bound to be something there that will tell us."

Gabriel snapped his fingers excitedly. "That's an excellent plan, Uriel! I'll go down there right now and ask!"

And vanished in a crackle of lightning, leaving the other three to stare at the place where he'd been.

Time passes differently in heaven than it does on earth, so while it was nearly an hour later by Gabriel's reckoning when he returned, only about ten minutes had passed in heaven, time that the others had spent speculating about whether Michael ought to use the backchannels to get some information on the demon Crowley or whether that might be crossing the line of the Arrangement with Ligur.

They abruptly cut off when Gabriel appeared, triumphantly holding up a book.

"Pride and Prejudice," he said. "Aziraphale says it's the quintessential love story, and he has five copies, so he must really like it. We can use it as our matchmaking template."

-/-

"What," the reader might well be asking at this point, "the fuck?"

See, what had happened was-

About two days ago on earth, a nanny and a gardener bid farewell to the child believed to be the Antichrist, and after restoring themselves to their preferred shapes and forms, angel and demon had stared longingly at one another for a long moment before clearing their throats and shuffling awkwardly and saying that, oh, must be getting on then, see you around, we'll rendezvous to discuss our plans later, take care, etc.

Meanwhile, in Heaven, the Almighty had watched this before metaphorically smacking Her metaphorical forehead and saying, paraphrasing, "I was sure the nanny-and-gardener routine would work!"