A.N: the only thing I own is Azrael.
Push
Azrael had stopped caring a long time ago. It only logical, after all. Angels were not made to care, especially not her. Ten-thousand years of ferrying souls to the afterlife had stripped her of whatever compassion she had been created with. Still, her job, she refused to call it her duty even though that was what it was, could still hurt her. Taking them, the souls, the humans, to Perdition was the easy part. Eventually, she had learned to take a sick form of delight from their pleas. Sometimes, she would linger a moment to watch the first flames lick over their stained surface.
It was taking them to Paradise that hurt- that used to hurt her. To see a human, a weak, sniveling human granted entry to her home... Or what had been her home. She had been cast out six thousand years ago and she could never go back.
Her pride stopped her from going to her younger brother in the Pit, and she hated the humans too much to mingle with them. They had been the cause of her Fall; tempting her to reveal secrets they had no right to know. Now, when she came to collect them, she offered no words of comfort. She rarely spoke to her the soul temporarily in her charge except to mock them. The living humans especially were not worth her time and so she stayed away. Azrael did neither overt harm, nor offered aid, even when she received a tentative prayer from the sister of a dying man. She remained separate, only doing her job out of a lingering sense of loyalty to the family she had lost.
And then she saw Charlie.
The girl was really perfectly normal by human standards. And to Azrael, who was not and had never been anything even approaching human, she should have been insignificant. In the eyes of one who had been alive since the sun first lit the tiny planet the humans walked on, she should have been a child even until two days before she died of old age. She wasn't.
Charlie was brilliant, able to solve any puzzle set in front of her faster than she had a right to. Her tastes were eccentric. Often, Azrael would find her dancing- if her wild jumping could be called dancing- around her small apartment to beat of music in languages the red haired human could not understand. Posters for movies about fantastic creatures and far-off planets covered the walls of her home, many scribbled on or signed by various people Azrael could only assume were important. While she spoke no other Earth languages, Charlie seemed to have taught herself phrases in the languages of her favorite books and would often insult her co-workers in Sindarin or Klingon. She had a sharp wit, a sharper tongue, and used both with little or no restraint.
By the time Charlie had reached adulthood, Azrael had, against her better judgment, grown fond of the human. It was all she would admit to herself for the time being. Eventually, she came to terms with the strange attachment she felt toward the red haired woman.
Charlie had first caught her interest when she was very young. When the girl was five, she had run out into the road in pursuit of a stray ball. It was the story every mother warned their child about. Charlie was struck by an oncoming car, but by some miracle, she did not die. Instead, she was driven to the hospital and kept there, unconscious, while they tried to heal her. Despite their best efforts, the child grew weaker and weaker. The beat of her young heart slowed and stuttered before stopping altogether.
Thousands of miles away, Azrael felt a sharp tug on her Grace. Without knowing what had caused it, or what she was doing, she pushed back, hard. In the hospital, machines screamed, the young girl choked, coughed, and then opened her eyes.
When Azrael had gone to find the source of the strange tug, she found herself looking down at a child with red, braided pigtails, and a well-loved copy of the Hobbit clutched in both hands.
The archangel watched the mortal girl grow up from far away. She saw her triumphs, her sadness, and her anger. The first time Charlie hacked into her cousin's email account after he had stolen her book, Azrael almost smiled. The first time she was stood up, left standing in front of the movie theater by a girl from her math class, she found herself standing to fly down and comfort Charlie. And then, when her missing date had ridiculed her in school, Azrael had given her an especially unpleasant case of mononucleosis. It may not have been much, but it was more interest than she had shown in millennia.
Charlie got a job working in the I.T. department of major company and Azrael was happy for her. At least until someone broke into the building where she worked and Charlie was thrown into a wall. Somewhere in the commotion of fighting and the attackers fleeing, Azrael managed to lose track of her. She heard a sickening crunch as bone broke and then Charlie was sprawled out unconscious on the tiles, right arm bent at an unnatural angle, but seemingly otherwise unharmed.
Then Azrael noticed the pool of blood growing under Charlie's head.
Time stopped.
Charlie, or rather Charlie's soul, sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. "Whoa... must have blacked out for a second there."
The angel could do nothing but stare at the mortal she had been watching over from childhood as her soul climbed shakily to her feet.
Then Charlie looked down.
Azrael braced herself, ready for screaming, or crying, for her to look up and stare at her with liquid brown eyes and ask why me? She readied herself to face the same things she relished from every other human soul she had collected.
"Oh..."
Azrael opened her eyes. "Oh?"
"What am I supposed to say?" Charlie asked.
The Archangel did not respond. Horrified, she stared at the black brand on the red haired woman's soul.
"No." She breathed, taking a step back. "No, that's not possible. You've done nothing..."
"What are you talking about?"
Azrael swallowed hard. This, at the very least, had never bothered her before. But now... the mere idea of telling Charlie what she had seen, what she knew sent pangs running through her Grace. In that moment, she would have Fallen again just to save the woman in front of her.
"Charlie, I'm sorry. You're dead-"
"I figured that part out for myself."
Azrael barked a laugh. "I wasn't finished. You're dead... and... I don't know why... but you've been marked for Hell."
Charlie froze, hands curled into tight fists. "What?"
"I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do.
"It isn't because I like girls, is it?"
"No!" Azrael replied immediately. "No, not at all. You humans made that up on your own. No... I don't know what you did to earn Hell."
Charlie sighed and looked down. "I do."
Azrael shook her head. "No, that's not possible, I've been watching over you."
"Every second?"
"Well..."
The answer was no. Azrael had lost track of Charlie for about a month two years previously thanks to a number of natural disasters that had demanded her attention.
"Charlie... maybe if you tell me what you did, I can absolve you."
"How?" She asked, hope sparking to life behind her eyes.
"I'm an angel. My name is Azrael."
That got a response closer to the one she had been expecting. Charlie's eyes went wide and her mouth fell open in a perfect "o".
"You're...?"
"Yes, I am. I can help you... if you tell me what you did to earn yourself a place in the Pit."
Charlie looked down at her body, crumpled and unmoving on the floor. "I... I killed someone. It was an accident, but... And then I ran, changed my name..."
Azrael nodded. She had noticed the change, but accepted it, deciding the Charlie could be called whatever she wished.
"I regret it, I really do. I never meant to- it was an accident." She was becoming frantic now, tears welling up in her eyes and spilling in clear tracks down her cheeks.
The archangel looked away, pressing her lips into a thin line. "I... can't change where you are going. I'm sorry."
She had been a fool. Her reasoning was that Charlie was good, honest, kind. True, she had many of the failings of humans, but she was good.
Azrael started pacing, hands clasped together in front of her. Then, for the first time in six thousand years, she prayed.
"Father, what do I do? She... I cannot let her burn. You have pardoned humans before, spare her. For your daughter, spare her... Please."
She was met with nothing but hollow, echoing silence.
Azrael was not surprised. She had never expected an answer. After all, what right could a Fallen angel have to ask for a human to be redeemed?
Then, a horrible, wavering howl split the air.
"What was that?!" Charlie jumped, staring around the room. "Azrael, what... what made that noise?"
"A Hellhound." She replied, voice barely louder than a whisper. "Charlie you have to run. If that thing catches you, it will drag you back to its master."
"Can't you do something?!" Charlie screamed. "I can't outrun a dog, not one as big as that thing sounds."
Do something.
Charlie made it sound so easy, like turning on a light or pushing a ball down a hill.
Azrael stopped pacing.
A push...
Memory rushed back, of a hum in the back of her mind, a sharp tug on her Grace, and then pushing hard and fast until it went away... and finding Charlie on the other end of the pull.
Azrael had saved her before. She could do it again now, she had to.
She crossed the room in a few short strides and pushed both hands through the center of Charlie's chest. The woman screamed in pain, brilliant light flashing over her skin, turning her eyes from chocolate brown, to burning gold. Azrael ignored her. Slowly, she bore down on the human soul, knowing that if she worked too quickly, she would crush it and Charlie would cease to exist.
If the Hellhound arrived before she finished, that was what she would have to do.
Carefully, she let a ribbon of her Grace free. It cocooned Charlie's soul, strengthening her and protecting her. Azrael's wings, now unrestrained, arched up toward the ceiling, filling the room with thousands upon thousands of purple-black feathers. Charlie stared up at her, tears still pouring from her eyes. Thankfully, the canopy of feathers blocked the approaching Hound from her view.
The thing was hideous. Hairless, and the grey-white of rotten meat, it stood seven feet tall at the shoulder. Red-tinged saliva dripped from its mouth, staining the skin of its massive paws. Black teeth the size of kitchen knives protruded from its mouth and each foot had four iron claws. Worst by far were its eyes. They were not red or black. Instead, they were the milky blue-white of a cadaver's gaze. This Hound was old, its skin scarred and its temperament shaped by centuries of training in the Pit.
Azrael stared at it over her shoulder as she finished easing Charlie's soul back into her body. The pool of blood around the woman's head disappeared as though it had never been then, although her arm remained broken. Then she stood, turning the razor-edged feathers of all four-thousand wings on the infernal dog. It snarled at her and lowered its head, bearing every one of its teeth and its rotten, grey gums. The angel stayed where she was, planted firmly between it and its target.
The Hellhound charged and her wings flashed down, filling the room with a sound like the screech of breaking stone and tearing metal. Its head struck the ground with a thump, black blood pouring from its severed neck. The rest of the dog fell a moment later, meat and skin melting away until only blacked bones remained. Then those too disappeared, leaving behind a fine film of ash on the otherwise clean tiles.
Time started again.
This time, when Charlie sat up, her body came with her. She rubbed her forehead with her left hand and pushed her red hair out of her face. Then she looked around.
Concentrating for a moment, Azrael pushed away the part of her Grace she used to keep herself hidden on the physical plane, allowing Charlie to see her. She tipped her head up and kissed her quickly, gently, almost nervously, on the mouth. Then she smiled, whispered an address in a town twenty miles to the north, and disappeared with a sound like pounding wings.
~OoOoO~
Almost three months later, Azrael heard a knock on the door of the hotel room she had checked into for this exact purpose.
Dropping her book, she ran, actually ran, to answer it. When she reached the door itself, however, she could not bring herself to answer it. She simply stood there, staring at the polished wood, hands trembling by her sides.
The knock came again.
This time, Azrael lifted her hand. Slowly, the knob turned, and slower still, the door opened inward.
"Um... Hi."
Azrael smiled.
"I... I wanted to wait for my arm to get better," she gestured at the offending limb, "and then it took me a month to work up the nerve to see if I'd been hallucinating or something... So... does this mean I was really dead?"
Azrael nodded. "I brought you back."
Charlie shifted awkwardly.
Her mouth opened again and she found herself speaking, sharing things she had never meant to. "Twice, actually. That was the second time. The first... when you were little, you were hit by a car. I brought you back then, too."
"Oh."
If Azrael had been human, had been something even close to human, she would have blushed. As it was, she simply looked away for a moment before stepping back and holding out a hand in a wordless invitation.
Charlie smiled and stepped inside. "Why not."
"Why now?" the archangel asked.
"Well... I figured that it was time for a change of scenery, you know? I was moving anyway, so..."
"Stay with me."
It wasn't a question, but it wasn't a command, either. Azrael did not know what to call it, it or the sensation that was slowly permeating her Grace. She simply knew that she did not want Charlie to leave.
"I can't."
The angel flinched as if she had been struck. "I see."
"No, you don't. I'm running because I don't want to get hurt again. So staying with another supernatural creature after... after what happened. I won't be safe."
"I can protect you."
"I have to protect myself." Charlie's voice was gentle and Azrael nodded. "I can still see you, but I can't stay."
She nodded and smiled, going over to the refrigerator. "Would you like a drink, then?"
The action was so painfully, perfectly human and for a moment, Azrael had to wonder what it would be like if she did not have wings and she did not ferry souls to their final resting places. She wondered what it would be like to have to live every day as if it were her last because some stranger and the corner of a marble wall could snatch it away at any moment if not for an angel's intervention.
Charlie left soon after, but she had been stamped onto Azrael's Grace.
And so, the next time she found herself called to escort a soul, an older man who had stayed for too long hoping to settle an impossible score, she walked with him to Paradise with a smile on her face and kind words on her lips. And she remembered a beautiful, red-haired woman with movie posters on her apartment walls and thought that maybe she would be proud to see what her angel had become.