Chapter Text
Heaven’s Gate, Incorporated was not, in Aziraphale’s opinion, an altogether terrible place to work. It had its flaws, of course, and he could admit that the rule book was a bit stricter than most people would have cared for, but it ultimately served a very important purpose. Heaven’s Gate was a government-contracted corporation that focused on the care and management of children with magical abilities. The company owned and managed a few hundred orphanages for such children, and caseworkers like Aziraphale were responsible for ensuring that the Masters of these orphanages treated the children well.
On the morning of the Monday that would change his life forever, Aziraphale was typing up a report from his recent visit to the Oxbow Village orphanage. To his right, his coworker Charles was scrolling through a new list of assignments and sighing every few seconds.
“Is everything quite all right?” Aziraphale asked Charles in a low whisper.
“I’ve got a performance review,” Charles groaned.
“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale sympathetically. He didn’t take his eyes off of his computer screen for fear that one of the floor supervisors would spot him and give him a demerit. Five demerits led to a dock in pay, and Aziraphale simply refused to accept that he would ever do anything to earn that. “With whom?”
Charles slipped down into his chair and sighed. “Cherub.”
Aziraphale grimaced. Ms Cherub’s personality was the precise opposite of what her name implied; she was the Executive Supervisor for this floor, and everyone (including Aziraphale) had a healthy fear of her and her demand for every employee’s strict adherence to the company rules.
“I’m sure you’ll be just fine, my dear fellow,” Aziraphale said in a tone he hoped passed for comforting. There was no guarantee that Charles would be fine, of course, but something told Aziraphale that mentioning that would not be productive.
“If I don’t come back after the meeting this afternoon, tell my husband I love him,” said Charles.
Aziraphale stifled a laugh — making too much noise was sure to draw the attention of a supervisor, and Aziraphale’s laugh was far from quiet — and settled for a smile. In the chair next to him, Charles straightened up, clicked a button on his keyboard, and continued to scroll through his list of upcoming assignments.
An hour later, Aziraphale put the finishing touches on his Oxbow Village report, inserted his digital signature, and typed his final recommendation in red-colored bold font at the bottom of the last page: Master seems to have coached the children’s answers regarding the fire-setting situation on last Wednesday, June 15. Send upper-level caseworker for further review. He allowed himself a satisfied smile, flexed his fingers, pushed his glasses up his nose, and tapped the Submit button.
No sooner had he done this than the soft click-clacking of someone’s high heels became audible, and Aziraphale stiffened. The room in which he worked was massive; there were twenty-six rows of desks labeled with letters in alphabetical order, and each row contained thirty desks divided into blocks of ten with an aisle between each block. Desk L11 had been Aziraphale’s since he had been promoted to the third floor of Heaven’s Gate’s corporate offices in downtown London five years prior, and he was quite comfortable with his position there. It was directly next to an aisle, which meant that Aziraphale both had easy access to the hallway that led to the break room and that he had a pristine view of any supervisors who were headed his way.
At the moment, two supervisors were walking very quickly down the aisle, and they did not look happy. Aziraphale swallowed hard, ran a hand through his curls, and clicked open the next assignment on his computer screen.
The click-clacking of heels came to a stop directly to Aziraphale’s left, and he felt beads of sweat beginning to break out on his forehead.
“Mister Fell,” said a crisp voice, and Aziraphale shivered.
“Hello,” Aziraphale said politely. He looked up, plastering a shaky smile on his face, and met the cold grey eyes of Ms Cherub. Next to her stood Aziraphale’s least favorite general-level floor supervisor, Mr Throne. He had perfectly coiffed blond hair, immaculate teeth, and he was always dressed in a dark plum-colored suit with a golden Heaven’s Gate pin stuck to the right lapel. “How can I help you both?”
Mr Throne smiled a terrible smile and thrust a slip of paper toward Aziraphale, who took it obligingly.
“You’ve been summoned,” Mr Throne said sharply.
“Oh?” Aziraphale blinked at him. “Where to?”
“I’m sure you can read, Mister Fell,” said Ms Cherub.
Aziraphale nodded. “Of course, of course.”
He unfolded the paper, flattened it with his fingers, and read the words that were typed in large black letters.
MR AZIRAPHALE FELL IS TO REPORT TO THE OFFICE OF THE ARCHANGELS AT ONE O’CLOCK ON THE DOT. DO NOT BE LATE.
Aziraphale blinked at the note and read it again. The message didn’t change.
“Um,” Aziraphale said slowly, “why have the Archangels reques-”
“We don’t know,” Ms Cherub interrupted, her cold voice dripping with false sweetness. “But this came through for you no more than fifteen minutes ago, and we thought it best to bring it to you immediately.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale.
“So,” Mr Throne said, clapping a beautifully-manicured and perfectly-tanned hand down on Aziraphale’s shoulder with a little too much force, “you’re to report to the Office of the Archangels this afternoon. Ms Cherub and I will come collect you at half-past noon to ensure that you arrive on time.”
Aziraphale blanched. “That’s… that’s very kind of you, sir, but there’s really no need-”
“We’ll see you then,” Mr Throne said, his smooth voice heavy with finality. He gave Aziraphale a final shark-like smile, turned on his heel, and left.
“Thank you,” Aziraphale said to Ms Cherub.
“It’s a good thing that you’ve adhered to company policy in regards to not keeping any personal effects on your desk,” Ms Cherub said cheerily. “It will make packing up your workspace incredibly simple.”
“Wh-” Aziraphale started to ask, but Ms Cherub waved him off with a flip of her red-painted fingernails and followed Mr Throne down the aisle.
Aziraphale didn’t dare breathe until after Mr Throne and Ms Cherub had both disappeared from his line of sight.
“Jesus,” said Charles quietly when Aziraphale turned back toward his computer screen. “I’m sorry, Aziraphale.”
“Yes, well.”
“Really, mate,” Charles said. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“We don’t know that I’ve been sacked,” Aziraphale protested.
Charles stared at him and shot him a wobbly smile. “Sure, Aziraphale. Good attitude.”
Aziraphale forced himself to smile back even as his stomach dropped into his shoes. And then, with a resolute shake of his head, he adjusted his glasses on his nose and clicked open the file of the next orphanage that he was set to review. There was no use wasting time worrying when there was work to be done, was there?
*********
At precisely twelve twenty-seven in the afternoon, Aziraphale heard the sound of Ms Cherub’s high heels against the smooth tile floor. He finished reading a page of a file for an orphanage in a small village south of Glasgow (evidently there was a child there who could fly, but who was too young to know how to control it), bookmarked the page, and sent his computer into sleep mode. With shaking fingers, he grabbed the slip of violently white paper off of his desk, took a deep breath, and got to his feet.
“Good to see that you’re ready to go, Mister Fell,” Ms Cherub said coldly. She wrapped one claw-like hand around his left elbow, and Mr Throne grabbed him by the right shoulder with one terribly beautiful hand of his own.
Aziraphale was escorted to the lift in this manner. Every time he and his bosses passed a row, the constant clicking of keyboard keys faltered as hundreds of Heaven’s Gate employees stopped to watch him be force-marched out of the office.
Dead man walking, Aziraphale thought to himself. He found himself stifling a giggle a few moments later, so he shook his head in an effort to clear it. Now was not the time for such an outburst. He’d almost certainly get a demerit, and assuming he still had a job after this meeting, he didn’t want any black marks on his record.
When Aziraphale and his escorts reached the lifts, Mr Throne smiled and pushed the up arrow on the wall. It illuminated, and a few moments later fell dark once more as one of the lifts emitted a pleasant ding.
“Go on, then,” Ms Cherub said, nearly pushing Aziraphale through the open doors.
“Show the slip to the camera,” Mr Throne said, still smiling, “and the button for the Office of the Archangels will appear.”
Aziraphale did as he was told. An automated female voice said, “Transportation to Office of the Archangels authorized. Please press the blue button.”
With a soft squeak, a square of blank metal above the normal lift buttons slid aside. A glowing blue button with a cartoonish drawing of wings and a halo moved forward, replacing the metal panel.
“Push it,” Mr Throne said.
Aziraphale did.
“Goodbye, Mister Fell,” Ms Cherub said as the lift doors began to draw closed. “You’ve done good work, and you were a valued employee of Heaven’s Gate, Inc and an important member of our corporate family. We appreciate your service.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale faintly. By the time he managed a “Thank you,” the words landed against the closed metal doors of the lift.
Heaven’s Gate’s corporate London offices were forty floors of steel and glass that rose toward the omnipresent grey clouds. When Aziraphale was younger, his mother had told him that London had once gotten days of sunlight, but those days had long since passed. The London that Aziraphale knew was always cloudy, usually rainy, and often smoggy. Aziraphale was used to it. He was used to everything about his life. He woke each morning at four forty-five, laid in bed for exactly fifteen minutes, got up at five, made two pieces of toast for himself and opened a can of cat food for his tomcat, Oscar, and was dressed and on the Tube by six-thirty. He rode the Tube to the stop in the basement of the Heaven’s Gate building (Heaven’s Gate employed well over ten thousand Londoners, making it the largest single employer in the city and therefore deserving of its own train station), got off, and took the lift to the third floor. He clocked in at seven o’clock precisely every morning. He took his lunch from eleven to eleven-thirty. If he had an orphanage visit scheduled, he would leave at noon. On the rare occasions that the visit would take him somewhere overnight, he would call his neighbor and ask her to feed Oscar in the evening. Otherwise, Aziraphale did paperwork and wrote reports (and double-checked reports from floors one and two) until five-thirty, when he clocked out, took the lift to the basement, and got on the train home. He would make a cup of soup for himself and open another can of food for Oscar, and then he would read a book until nine o’clock, when he would go to bed.
This is all to say that never, not once in nearly twenty years of employment at Heaven’s Gate, had Aziraphale been higher than the third floor of the London corporate offices. Now, though, Aziraphale was standing very still and watching the numbers on the little screen above the lift doors get higher and higher. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two… on, and on, and on.
Ordinarily, the numbers on the lift buttons went from B to 39. This would have been a mystery given that Heaven’s Gate had forty windowed floors, but every Heaven’s Gate employee knew that the fortieth floor was reserved for the office and penthouse suites of the Archangels. The Archangels ran Heaven’s Gate; they lived, worked, and socialized on the top floor of the building, and non-Archangels were very rarely invited to pay them a visit. When this happened, it did not usually come about because of anything extraordinarily positive.
Aziraphale had never known anyone who had actually met the Archangels. He was half-convinced that they were a legend made up by the floor supervisors to scare employees into compliance. For most of his employment at Heaven’s Gate, Aziraphale hadn’t spared the Archangels a second thought. He worked, was paid well, and took pride in the knowledge that he was helping keep special children safe and helping them go on to lead happy and healthy lives. The Archangels had, until today, been of no consequence to him.
“Floor forty,” said the automated voice, shaking Aziraphale out of his thoughts. The doors to the lift opened with a hiss, and Aziraphale stepped out into an entirely white hallway.
There was a single door at the end of the hall, so Aziraphale walked toward it. Behind him, he heard the lift doors slide shut, and his heart fell into his stomach.
When he reached the door, he tried the handle. It was locked.
“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “That’s… not very inviting.”
A laugh filtered through a small speaker next to the door. “Sure’s not, mate. What about this place seems inviting t’ya?”
“Ah, hello,” Aziraphale said. “Not much, I suppose.”
“Got it in one,” the voice said. The person to whom the voice belonged sounded young, younger than Aziraphale, and probably not male. They snapped their gum and asked, “Wha’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Aziraphale Fell.”
“Right, gotcha right here,” the voice said. “One o’clock. Audience with the Archangels.”
“Yes,” said Aziraphale.
“Damn,” they said a moment later. “All of the Archangels.”
“Uh.”
“All of ‘em at once.” There was a certain awe, or possibly fear, in the person’s voice.
“Is that… is that not normal?”
“Nah, mate.” Aziraphale could hear them tapping on a keyboard. “C’mon in, have a seat. We’ll chat. I’ll explain the pr’tocols.”
The door emitted a loud buzzing sound, and Aziraphale yelped and jumped halfway out of his waistcoat. When he’d recovered, he tried the door handle again, and it turned.
Aziraphale walked into the receptionist’s tiny office and gave the blue-haired person behind the desk a little wave. They smiled at him (and it occurred to him that it was the first genuine smile he’d received from someone at Heaven’s Gate, with the possible exception of Charles), blew a bubble with their chewing gum, and pointed to a chair in the corner.
“Hello,” Aziraphale said as he sat down.
“Hiya.” The receptionist typed something into their computer and hit return before looking over at Aziraphale once again. “Right-o, so. The Archangels.”
“Yes,” said Aziraphale.
“I’ll let you through that door-” they pointed at a small door on the left side of the little office with one black-painted nail “-at five minutes to one. You should go in, f’llow the lighted path, and then enter the big room at the end. They’ll all be there — they like to sit up above, they do — and you’ll say hello to ‘em all, and then you’ll sit in the chair. They’ll talk at you a bit, and you just nod and say ‘kay and answer any questions they have for ya. ‘Nd when you’re done, walk back the way you came, knock on the door, and I’ll let you out.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “All right.”
“They’re a bit… intimidating,” the receptionist said. “But if ya show ‘em respect, you’ll be perfectly fine, mate.”
“Thank you,” said Aziraphale earnestly.
“Ready, then?”
Aziraphale blinked. “Now?”
The receptionist checked their watch. “Forty seconds to go.”
“Oh.”
“Deep breaths, bruv.”
“Right.”
“Twenty-five.”
Aziraphale stood up, pulled his waistcoat tight over his belly, adjusted his bowtie, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Fifteen.”
Aziraphale crossed to the door and looked over his shoulder.
“Right,” said the receptionist, offering him one last warm smile. “Get on, then.”
There was an audible click. The door swung open, and Aziraphale took a bracing breath and stepped forward into darkness.
*********
“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “Hello, then.”
“Have a seat, Mister Fell.”
The room was cavernous and cold. Lights on the ceiling flickered to life, and the four shadowy figures that Aziraphale had spotted upon his entering the room suddenly became much more visible. They were perched on a high balcony like gargoyles, staring down at him. One of them bore a striking resemblance to Mr Throne; he had dark hair streaked with grey that was pushed back from his face, and he was grinning at Aziraphale like he’d started smiling a decade ago and had forgotten how to stop. To the right of that man was a rat-faced man with gold wire around his front teeth. A pointy-featured woman sat next to the rat-faced man, and a youngish person with short curly hair and gold leaf stuck on their face completed the quartet.
Aziraphale sat and tried very hard not to shake.
“My name is Gabriel,” said the smiling man.
“Sandalphon,” said the rat-like one.
“Michael,” the prim-faced woman said with a sniff.
“Uriel,” said the youngest one.
“Hello,” Aziraphale said, and then he poked himself gently in the chest with one finger and said, “Aziraphale Fell.”
“We know,” said Michael. She smiled down at him without showing her teeth.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve called you here today, champ,” Gabriel said. With a small jolt of surprise, Aziraphale realized he was an American.
“Mm,” said Aziraphale.
“We’ve got a special assignment for you.” This was Sandalphon, who was now smiling down at Aziraphale in a way that made Aziraphale feel like a bucket of something slimy had been dumped down the back of his shirt.
“Oh?”
“We’ve taken notice of you, Mister Fell,” said Michael. “Your reports are always exceedingly fair.”
“Th-thank you.”
“Tell me, Mister Fell,” asked Uriel, “would you say that you often let emotions influence your decisions when you’re on a case?”
Aziraphale shook his head. “No, no. The handbook is very clear about that — the job of a caseworker is to report the facts and make a recommendation. No emotions are to be involved under any circumstances.”
The four Archangels smiled at him in unison. Aziraphale hated it.
“And I see here that you are…” Sandalphon trailed off for a moment before finishing his sentence with “...unattached.”
Aziraphale turned a very vibrant shade of scarlet and nodded.
“Good,” said Gabriel. “Good, good. I think you’ll be the perfect caseworker for this job, Mister Fell.”
“Wonderful,” said Aziraphale faintly. “What exactly is the assignment?”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and Uriel placed a manila envelope into a slot on their desk. The envelope slid down a chute and sailed out across the floor. It slid to a stop against Aziraphale’s shoe.
“All of the information is in there,” Michael said. “But we can give you the overview now, if you’d like.”
“Yes, please,” said Aziraphale. He picked up the envelope and turned it over to see TOP SECRET stamped in bright blue ink.
“There is an orphanage we would like you to visit,” Gabriel explained. “It’s called Tadfield Island.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s on a small island off the coast of Scotland.”
Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled. “There aren’t any orphanages on islands in Scotland.”
“None that the general employee population know about,” Uriel said. “But we can assure you, Mister Fell, that Tadfield Island orphanage is very, very real.”
“Tadfield Island is an experiment of sorts,” Michael clarified. “The Master there is… well, he’s different.”
“The children are, too,” said Sandalphon. “They’re there because they’ve caused trouble at our other orphanages, you see, and that trouble couldn’t be resolved, so they were relocated.”
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said.
“You’ll be perfectly safe,” Gabriel said. Aziraphale didn’t believe him for a single second. “Anyway. We’d like you to go for a month, and you can send weekly reports directly to me.”
Aziraphale felt queasy. “A- a month?”
“This particular orphanage has a unique culture, and we feel that your assessment would be most effective if you were to spend a prolonged time there.” Sandalphon punctuated his statement with another greasy grin.
“When am I to depart?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Michael said cooly, and Aziraphale felt like fainting. “We’ll have your current assignments transferred to other case workers.”
“Oh.”
“Any further questions?” Uriel asked.
Only about a million, Aziraphale thought to himself.
“Yes, actually,” Aziraphale said quickly. “Wh-”
“We’ll leave you to look over those files, then, Mister Fell,” interrupted Gabriel. “Have a safe trip.”
“Right,” Aziraphale mumbled. “Thank you.”
“No, Mister Fell,” Michael said with another cold smile, “thank you.”
*********
Aziraphale walked back toward the door he had entered with the thick TOP SECRET file tucked under his arm. He was sweating, and he was shaking like a leaf in an autumn breeze, and he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do. When he reached the door, he knocked on it, and it opened for him with a click.
“Hallo, then,” said the receptionist. Then, “Blimey, Mister Fell, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“I think I’m dreaming,” Aziraphale said dazedly.
The receptionist laughed. “Nah, you’re not. Sorry.”
“It’s quite all right, my dear.”
“They said I’m to send you home,” the receptionist said, tapping at something on their keyboard. “Let ya get to packin’.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Lovely.”
The door to the hallway buzzed, and Aziraphale reached for the handle.
“Have a good trip,” the receptionist called after Aziraphale. The last thing Aziraphale heard before the door shut behind him was the loud popping of a chewing gum bubble.
“Thank you,” Aziraphale said to no one for the second time in the span of an hour. Then he steeled himself, adjusted the position of the file under his arm, and walked toward the lift at the other end of the hall.
For the first time in nearly twenty years, Aziraphale Fell left Heaven’s Gate at one twenty in the afternoon. No one stopped him. No one even looked at him twice. It made him wonder if he could have been leaving early all along, if anyone would have even cared. But those types of thoughts weren’t good to dwell on, and so Aziraphale banished his doubts from his mind as he waited for the train home on the platform in the basement of Heaven’s Gate’s office building.
Deep in Aziraphale’s stomach, an unfamiliar feeling was growing stronger with every passing moment, and he was overcome with the sudden and inescapable terror that accompanied the realization that life as he had known it was completely and utterly behind him.