Chapter 2

Someone was poking her face in an annoying way.

She groaned as she opened her eyes with much trouble but when she did, she saw her small trio of friends around her. Star was looming over her, her finger poised to tap her again, while Michelle and Marcus were in a corner, playing with hand held consoles that Marcus probably snuck in. When she noticed that Hope was awake, and aware of her surroundings, Star's slightly worried look melted into a warm smile.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Hope." Star whispered. At her words, Marcus turned, and smiled widely at Hope. Her heart leapt in her chest.

"Hey…...what happened?"

Marcus raised an eyebrow and glanced at Star, both of their faces betraying their worry. Star was the one to ask, "You don't remember…...?"

Hope strained her befuddled mind, trying to fight through the fog that lingered and clouded it. "I….I remember sitting in class…."

"Everyone thinks you had a seizure!" Marcus exclaimed, his eyes blowing wide. "You apparently turned grey and you were having trouble breathing! Someone brought you to the nurse's offices and slept for the rest of the afternoon. Like…. you were dead to the world."

Hope was relieved that they didn't take her to the hospital, as those people would know something was wrong with her. That she wasn't human. But that did beg the question: why did this happen to her?

She would have to inquire about it with Mr. Fell. Speaking of which…

"Where are they?" She asked, as she struggled to sit up. Her friends helped her, placing a pillow behind her to prop her up. "My guardians. Shouldn't they have come….?"

There were some glances between her friends, glances that had Hope perking up and watching their expressions closely. "What….? What's going on?"

"Neither of them came to pick you up." Star said gently.

Hope felt that cement lump in her stomach grow, even though there would any number of reasons why they would be late. Mr. Fell might've gotten caught up in a book sell somewhere in southern England, or maybe he was too lost in a book to remember that she needed to pick up...

But it was Mr. Crowley's day to pick her up. And he was always on time.

"Star, could you please hand me my bag?"

The dark-haired girl nodded as she reached behind her and grabbed a hold of her messenger bag. It took her a moment to rifle through it, but when she found her cellular phone that was gifted to her by Mr. Crowley, she turned it on. Immediately, dozens of missed textual messages and phone calls bombarded her phone. All of them were from two people: Mr. Crowley and Mr. Aziraphale. The sight of the Principality's name on her screen several times caused the heavy feeling in her stomach to become even heavier. Mr. Aziraphale never called her unless it was direst of emergencies.

And for the Principality to call her several times in a row…..something wasn't right.

"Hope? Are you okay?"

Hope glanced up at their questioning glances.

"You've gone really pale…." Marcus moved closer. "Do I need to call the nurse back?"

"Uh….no." Hope cleared her throat before repeating in a much more confident voice, "No. I think I'm good. Uhm, Star? Would it be too much of a hassle to…or too much of a bother if I asked you for a ride back to Mr. Fell's bookshop."

"It's not a problem at all." Star assured with a big smile. "In fact, George should be here in a few minutes."

Hope tried to force a smile, to show her appreciation, but there was just too much worry in her gut, too many thoughts going through her head about what happened to her guardians. It just kept whirling inside her, too fast for her to pin down but…. she shook off her worry, figuring that it probably just a misunderstanding.

While Star, Michelle and Hope waited for Star's chauffeur, Hope's friends helped her gather up her things. It wasn't much, just a simple backpack filled with notebooks jammed packed with notes and doodles. Marcus's mother arrived to pick him up. Hope watched as he got into his mother's car and waved him off as they drove away. Not too much longer after he left, George arrived in a (slightly modified) 1960s pale cream Chevrolet. The chauffeur greeted them kindly and helped the girls put their things inside the trunk. Then, once they were all buckled up, they took off down the road towards SoHo. However, as they got closer and closer to the bookshop, Hope glanced out the window to see cars lining up along the street.

The feeling got worse.

Because up ahead, there were flashing signs of ambulances and fire trucks.

"Uh…" Star muttered, shifting a bit forward in her seat. "What's going on?"

"Don't know ma'am." George muttered. He pulled up beside a young man who was standing with his hand over his mouth, as though something tragic had happened. "Excuse me, son? Do you know what's happening?"

The young man glanced down at them, but Hope didn't see anything expect the building that was in the distance.

Or rather…. that wasn't in the distance.

"That bookshop in SoHo's caught fire. They're saying that it just went up in flames somehow."

Hope's world stopped moving. She felt icy cold. She couldn't breathe.

"Is the owner okay?" Star asked.

"Don't think so." The man answered. Hope barely heard him. "They're saying that the man was caught in the blaze. Just kinda went up like a strawman."

Hope felt sick.

Before she realized what she was doing, she opened the door and ran down the street, in between the cars that were parked and the people that were watching with their mouths open and their eyes half misty. Hope ran, running faster than she had ever ran before. She almost flew towards the cindering bookshop, fighting the instincts to spread her wings and take off.

No…..no…..no…..no…no no no no no no no no no no no no!

"MR. AZIRAPHALE!"

Hope lunged forward, only to be caught by a firefighter that saw her. She was just outside of the very wide blaze, and even then, Hope balked at the sulfuric stench of Hellfire. Tears fell from her eyes as she realized, with horror and sadness and grief in a heartbreaking mixture, that he was gone.

Aziraphale, her beloved guardian, who took her in under his care, taught her all about the wonderful world of humanity and books, of knowledge and of learning. Aziraphale who healed her and kept her safe…was gone.

Erased from existence, forever.

Not discorporated.

Erased.

Gone.

Hope let her grief go, allowing her wails to leave her lips. Hope was numb as her friends helped her back into the limousine. She stared forward with unseeing eyes and a racing heart beat as the driver returned them to Star's home. They helped her into the rather large guest room, leaving her to get settled while they went to make supper. But Hope was still feeling a bit numb. She tried calling Crowley, but he wasn't answering his phone.

It didn't make sense that the demon, who always had his phone on him wasn't answering. In fact if something went down on his end, he would the first one to call out. But now…..Hope grew more and more frantic as each call went to voicemail. That is, until the mechanical voice informed her that Mr. Crowley's inbox was full and she couldn't leave one. Hope near about threw her phone clear across the room in frustration. But instead, tears fell down her face and she collapsed onto the bed. Her mind was going in all sorts of different directions. She just couldn't grasp onto any of the thoughts that popped up in her mind. The most common thought was one single sentence.

Aziraphale was gone.

She had heard of the botched trials before she came down to Earth. And then, when the two were comfortable, they told her how they got around it. She found it to be a remarkably smart thing, what they did, tricking and playing the system like that. But how did Heaven figure out that it was a falsehood they believed? Or, did they still believe it, and decided to use stronger Hellfire?

But what about Mr. Crowley? Where was he? Maybe he got away. Hope prayed that he did. And if he knew that Aziraphale was….

If he knew that something happened to Aziraphale, then the safest bet was he went into hiding. Maybe he feared that something happened to Hope as well, and left his phone at his flat while he ran without thinking. Hope tried to tell herself that was why he wasn't answering his phone that he always had on him. But that train of thought led her to a very unanswerable at the moment: where would he go?

The bookshop was obviously off the list. That left only a few places for the snake demon to go. Very few.

Only place that she could think of was Tadfield.

Knock, knock, knock.

Hope sniffled as she wiped her eyes before she said, "Come in."

The door opened and Star poked her head into the room, carrying a plate in her hand.

"Hey." She whispered in greeting. The girl held out the plate. "You hungry? I've got some country fried steak here with your name on it."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry." Hope's lip quivered. "I'm not in the mood."

"C'mon, Hope you've got to eat something." Star became quiet as she took in the girl's despondent mood. Hope heard her place the plate down on the nightstand before walking over to give her a hug.

The Messenger started to sob as Star rubbed her arm.

"We'll get to the bottom of this." Star assured her. Hope knew that she was going to, but did she really want to drag her friends into this? No, she decided but that wasn't the point at the moment. "Have you been able to get in touch with Mr. Anthony?"

Hope, still sobbing, shook her head. There wasn't anything else she could say. Anything that she could say or do at the moment besides cry.

"Do you want to go to his flat to see if we can find him?"

Hope nodded.

"Okay." Star sighed. "Well, we can go there tomorrow, whenever you want to."

"First thing in the morning." Hope insisted. Her eyes darted out the window, where the crescent moon shone a pearly white in the obsidian sky, surrounded by diamond stars.

"Okay. First thing in the morning." Star gave her one more hug before giving her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Michelle and I are going to be right next door if you need anything, okay? Just let us know."

Hope nodded but remained silent. Star left her with the food on the dresser and alone with her thoughts. She remained where she was all throughout the night, watching the stars twinkling silently above them all.

Dawn would come.

A new day would come like it had done for centuries. It would come for everyone, except Aziraphale. He would no longer spend nights sitting up, reading his favorite novel and sipping cocoa. He would no longer greet the dawn with his cheerful disposition.

No longer spend days guarding his little corner of the world, shooing away the customers that were rude enough to intrude on it.

Hope spent the night praying that Crowley was okay and out there somewhere.