I dreamed of the nest, but this time I was not alone. Crowley was there, leaning back against the downy lining, wings extended, wearing a languorous smile.

My pain was almost gone.

"Check your feathers, angel," he said. He gave his own a little shake. They were shockingly black against the dove white of the nest.

I tentatively reached around to feel my shoulder blades. My wings were furled up in their hidden position; but they were there, and they were fledged, or almost so. Every quill was tender and every blade hurt to the touch, but they were growing back. "It's a miracle!"

"Looks like it." He grinned. His eyes glinted with their familiar old hellfire.

I am not much for expansive gestures, but I would have embraced him, if a sudden agony in my wings had not stopped me. I gasped, and fell back against the side of the nest. "I'm much better," I mumbled through a fog of pain. "Much."

He frowned, and snapped his fingers.

"I am already asleep," I reminded him.

"Oh yes. Dammit. Oh well. I'm kind of getting the hang of this now anyway." He sighed, shrugged, then gripped the sides of my face and planted on my cheek a big wet sloppy kiss.

"What are you-" I awoke with a start, to see Crowley's flat, and Crowley, close to me. "What in Hell -?"

"Now sleep," he said, and snapped his fingers.


He was absent for a week after that. I wandered around the dark flat, still weak, but not so weak as to ignore the refrigerator stuffed with five-star sushi and rare champagne. I ate, and drank, and flexed my regrown feathers.

On the seventh day, at eleven pm, Crowley came back, holding a book. His dark glasses, and his swagger, were in full force.

I too was feeling more myself, although concerned about his vanishing act. "Where have you been? What have you been doing?"

Crowley sprawled on the black velvet settee. "Ah. Yes. Well, turns out I was completely right about the Compliance. You remember I rang you? Well, they are onto us. One of them collared me in the street." He saw my dubious expression. "The real Compliance. I checked. Asked to see its identity card, unlike some other people I could mention." He raised his eyebrows at me.

"Gloating is very unbecoming, you know." I gave him a very firm stare.

"Anyway, I told it I had to fetch my records. Dashed off. Found you. Now here I am."

Alarm rippled through me. "You mean the real Compliance is coming?"

"And by the by, I gave my people a call, asked them to go through channels to talk to your people…" He waved a hand in circular motion. "Yada yada. The upshot is, your request for an internal investigation has caused a whopping great stink. Everyone is denying everything. Beelzebub says not her. Gabriel is doing his butter wouldn't melt thing. Everyone wants to know who sent the mysterious monster, and how come we two outlaws are still alive." He smirked.

"The Compliance is coming," I repeated.

"Yup. Any minute now."

"Then we must-"

"Calm down, angel. I'll leave the paperwork on your desk for it to find."

"But-" But, my paperwork was in no state to be examined by a real auditor. Nothing after January!

"Here." He tossed a book to me. I caught it awkwardly, sports never having been my forte, and saw it was my own ledger of angelic doings. I turned to the time entry section and found it filled with careful accounts of my miraculous deeds, signed and dated, all in Crowley's tight, slanted handwriting. Rows of angular script described my supposed days.

I turned to him, beaming. "You did my timesheets for me!"

He scowled.

"Oh, thank you. You know how I loathe it."

"We'll put it on your desk later. Better drop you off too, probably not a good idea for you to be discovered lurking here."

"No indeed."

He began a grandiose shrug - and winced.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing. How's your wings?"

"Uncomfortable. But better. Thank you."

There was a pause. I think each of us knew the other was lying.