((Hallo everyone! Well, here it is. My very first attempt at a fanfic. Or rather: the first chapter of my very first attempt at a fanfic. Pleasepleasepleaseplease review it! I really want your feedback so I can know what to change! Because I know it isn't perfect, far from it. lol. Just tell me what you think! Thanks! Kisses to all!))

((Edited! Changed! New and improved!))

She first saw him at that little restaurant in Soho. You know the place. The one that's all windows and metal, that looks like it fell out of another universe or something. Anyway, she was sitting there, paying her check, dumbfounded at how much a place could charge for a coffee and cottage cheese sandwich, when she looked up...and there he was.

She hadn't even noticed he was sitting with anyone...good lord how could anyone notice anything when...he was sitting there. Sitting there like that, as if he hadn't a care in the world. As if the weight of heaven and hell had been lifted from his shoulders, and he was finally secure. The first thing she noticed were the sunglasses. How they sat perfectly on the bridge of his nose, seeming to hide a secret behind their dark lenses. Then the cheek bones, and the hair, fabulous, black tendrils of hair. And she stared at him, stared completely and utterly, her mouth hanging open a bit. The waiter had to prod her in the arm so that she could sign the check, and he could finally be on his way. He let her know, quite rudely, that he didn't have all day.

Her hand began to automatically sign a complicated mass of curves and lines and.... She stopped immediately, scorning herself and signing her true name instead. Adreana Bergeron. And instead of smiling up at the waiter, she found herself smiling at the mysterious (my, he looked like he could be on the cover of a biker-themed romance novel or something) man at the corner table, and to her utter horror...he was smiling back.

Don't get me wrong, his smile was lovely. More than lovely, more than mysterious...intoxicating. But....he was actually looking at her. Their eyes were actually meeting. And she was finding that she couldn't stop smiling, and her cheeks began to hurt and her eyes began to water, and she had to look away, giggling childishly.

She stood, straightening out her black skirt, messing with her sweater so she could stay there for a few moments more, and not have to leave just because her lunch was over. Yet the waiter was giving her a look so evil that, after giving him a ghastly look in return, she began walking swiftly out of the restaurant. And as she exited, she made sure to walk past the table in the corner, and to accidentally brush her hand against the man's shoulder as she went by. She left in a daze, red in the face and smiling.

******

It had officially been a week since the almost Armageddon. Quite an embarrassment, really, for anyone involved. Yet Crowley had nothing to complain about. On the contrary, he was pleased that he didn't have to go back...down there to fight against the 'arch enemy'. At the moment, he and the 'arch enemy' were doing lunch at a swanky little restaurant in the very heart of soho. An open, airy place made mostly of glass and metal, seeming like a star-ship or something else utterly unearthly. The demon was picking at a bit of angel-food cake, half listening as an overly intelligent angel droned on and on before him.

"...no, no. I'm sure of it, you know?" Aziaraphale was saying, between sips of white wine. "He works in, though it may sound cliché, mysterious ways. If this was to happen, it would have happened. All part of the ineffable plan, you mark my words." The angel was referring to Armageddon. Or the Armageddon that never really seemed to happen. He had been quite perplexed, being of the mind set that 'everything happens for a reason', and Crowley was getting thoroughly annoyed with it.

"You really do like that word, don't you angel?" Crowley said, raising an eye brow over the rim of his black sunglasses, and leaning against the table. Aziraphale tilted his head to the side, giving a polite smile that clearly asked 'what the heaven are you talking about?'. Crowley smiled, "Not everything has to be 'ineffable'. Maybe it was just a mistake. A pure, simple, honest mistake."

Aziraphale shook his head, looking at Crowley as if he demon were a small child, not versed in the ways of the world around them. Crowley hated the look and fought back the urge to throw something at that blue-eyed, angelic face.

"He doesn't make mistakes, don't you see? He is the Almighty. He is the One. If He were to make mistakes, than do you think the world would have been created?" Aziraphale said steadily.

"If He doesn't make mistakes, than why did he need all this 'end of the world' business in the first place?" Crowley asked in the tones of one who had said this a million times before. "Besides, they're made in his likeness, aren't they? And believe you me, they make mistakes that you wouldn't believe!" It was at this time that his eyes wandered in frustration...and he saw her.

She was sitting by a window, although it was quite impossible to go to this restaurant and not be sitting by a window, and the sun was gleaming perfectly off of her hair. Quite magnificent hair it was. A deep mahogany brown, slipping in soft curls past her shoulders. She was looking incredulously at her check, and he liked the way her brown eyes widened and her eyebrows rose in frustration.

And then she was looking at him, and she was smiling. Somewhere around his chest, a muscle he never knew he actually had contracted and he smiled back. My, her smile was pretty. Even prettier as her face began to color and she looked away from him quickly.

"Crowley, are you with us at the moment?" Aziraphale asked, waving a curious finger in front of the demon's sunglasses. Crowley jumped, sputtered, apologized, told the angel that indeed he was listening. That he had heard everything Aziraphale had said. Almighty, ineffable, ethereal, all that good stuff. And Aziraphale smiled, smiling even more when the girl walked by them, touching a hand to Crowley's shoulder before she departed.

Crowley cleared his throat, willing the scent that she left behind in melt away. Yet it lingered, lily of the valley and coffee, taunting him coyly. He caught the angels gaze and rolled his orangey eyes, coming back to his senses with a hard, internal, 'thunk'.

He had been on this world for thousands of years. He would be damned if some girl in some restaurant in soho, of all places, was going to make him go all 'gooey' inside.

"What, exactly, was that about?" Aziraphale chortled, taking up his wine again and watching the girl's receding back. Crowley shook his head, waved his hand so that the waiter 'accidentally' forgot that they hadn't yet paid their bill, and stood from the table.

"Shall we be going, then, angel?" He looked out of a wall, the city was looking pretty much like it always had, Armageddon or not. "Sometimes I wish that at least someone remembered," Crowley said grudgingly, avoiding his thoughts of the girl altogether, as Aziraphale polished off his wine, gave the waiter a sizeable tip, and followed the demon out of the restaurant and into the Bentley.

******

((Yes! The new and improved and EDITED version of my wondefah first ever fanfic. Hope this makes things a bit more IC (in character, that is...my...some of the new abbreviations are throwing me off, they are!). Ok! There is a review button down there, for the love of Merlin, click it! All my love, ~Lizney Wolf~))