When the plane landed, Aziraphale unclenched his hand from the armrest and breathed a huff of relief. He reminded himself for the thousandth time since he'd gotten on the plane back that he was fine, that people flew all the time (It wasn't the flying, he loved flying, but it was the landing that sent his stomach into knots and convulsions) and survived just fine. He felt in the pocket of his chinos for the cross charm that his older brother had stuffed into his hand before the taxi had arrived to take him to the airport. He held it tightly, and its presence calmed him.

Once the plane had pulled up to the gate and stopped, he waited as patiently as possible for the doors to open and the steps on either end to be let down. When he made to the rear door and climbed down gingerly, the fresh air whisked the stale, smoky air from his wasn't so bad.

The terminal was a different story. Dozens of people were crowded at the seating area inside, peering at the passengers as they entered the terminal and holding up signs calling for people who weren't him. He pushed through, hoisting his rucksack higher on his shoulder as he adjusted his other duffel. Thankfully, his other things had already been delivered to the campus post office, where he could pick them up in a few days. In the meantime, he had the essentials: a few crisp white shirts, his favorite dark red tie and navy vest, the baggy tan sweater with felt elbow patches that had been his ever since Luke had gotten tired of it (and which hid his own slight tummy pudge wonderfully),, toiletries, and several leatherbound books, including a brand-new Bible from his father.

He pressed through the crowd clustered near the terminal's entrance, more family waiting for new arrivals from overseas and yawning passengers waiting for checked baggage at the carousels. Outside, the sounds of honking cars and noise from the nearby city center froze him for a moment. His collar seemed remarkably tight all of a sudden as he realized he had no idea how to get a taxi. The one that had picked him up yesterday at home (Had it only been yesterday? Goodness.) had shown up at the requested time after a phone call. Did he need to find a payphone? How much would a call cost here?

But after a moment of panicked observation, he ran to the curb and threw an arm in the air and yelled, "Taxi!" like he'd seen in one of the few movies he'd gone to the theater to see and, as if by magic, a yellow car came screeching up beside him.

Soon they were on the highway, weaving around the traffic as they approached the downtown skyscrapers. He cracked a window and leaned out cautiously to stare up at the shining buildings, too entranced by their bright facades and sheer height to be terrified. For the first time in his life, he was truly away from home—thousands of miles away, in fact—and without his father or brothers and sisters or anyone from church or bible study. He still couldn't truly believe this wasn't a dream—that his father had not only allowed him to travel overseas for university but even paid for his ticket.

"Father, I would like to discuss something with you, if you have a moment," he'd asked tentatively.

"Aziraphale, my son! Aren't you supposed to be delivering meals with Sarah?," Gabriel had asked, violet eyes looking up from the ministry paperwork to study his youngest son.

"We finished early, and I thought I'd see if you had time to hear a proposal about university next year...you see, I would like to do something a bit...unconventional."

"Unconventional?" His focus shifted fully to his son, concern furrowing his brow as a slight frown appeared.

"Yes, well, you see...I've been giving my education a lot of thought and was thinking, wouldn't this be a great opportunity for me to find a way to continue giving back, but perhaps to a new community where sin is rampant and I could see the suffering of those poor souls who need God's love first-hand in the longer term, not just a mission trip—"

Gabriel had listened silently to his rambling until he'd gotten it all out. And to Aziraphale's surprise, he'd said yes. "I think it's a wonderful idea! There's no better den of sin and iniquity, and it would be an excellent way to augment your theological studies."

He'd stared, mouth agape, and then broken into a cherubic smile that stretched across his round face.

"Kid, this is your stop. You gonna get out?"

Aziraphale snapped back to the present and realized the taxi had come to a stop outside of a massive, columned brick building at the center of a large open field scattered with trees and an impressive limestone fountain.

"Oh, uh, yes!" He reached a hand to his wallet in his coat pocket and handed the man the fare, plus a generous tip, then grabbed his bags and headed around the fountain to the main hall's entrance.

Seeing the massive structure amidst the quad of brick lecture halls was surreal after only seeing the images in the glossy brochures he'd received by post. It looked almost exactly the same, except for the slight tinge of orange beginning to set into the leaves that predicted fall weather would soon arrive. In the meantime, though, the air was still warm, and he shivered at the burst of cold air that wrapped around him as he pushed into the building, juggling his bags.

There was a line of other students inside below a sign reading "GET YOUR ROOM KEY HERE", so he joined the end, dropping his bags with a sigh of relief. Straightening his jacket, and smoothing his shirt, he drew himself up and looked around at the other students in line. The fashions here were much the same as at home: tight leggings, blue jeans, baggy sweatshirts and t-shirts, some men and women sporting shorts that left very little leg to the imagination. The air reeked of hairspray, sweat, and bubblegum, but the line seemed to move fairly quickly.

When he reached the desk, the resident advisor ("Tammi", according to her paper name tag) asked, "Name?" in a bored tone, not looking up from her list.

"Aziraphale Thaddeus Fell."

The girl's head snapped up, her eyes looking him up and down. "That's...your name?"

"Um, yes?"

She snapped her gum, still eyeing him as she dug through the pile of packets at her table. "Here you go...Aziraphale. And your keys. There's a map of campus in there, but you're in building 4, Cranshaw. Go out the door you came in through, then turn right and go all the way down the sidewalk. It'll be the last building at the end of the path."

"Thank you very much," he said, grabbing his bags and hoisting them back up. As he began his journey to the dormitory, he continued to stare at his surroundings: the bright colors of his fellow students' clothes, the dank smell of something that wasn't cigarettes, the many buildings that created a maze across the vast campus, the honk of the shuttles announcing their departure to downtown, the far sides of campus, the mall.

He stopped for a moment to adjust his burden, wishing he had one of the carts that many incoming students and their families had brought with them. He could just see the hint of a steeple in the distance, belonging to the church that was adjacent to the school of theology. The sight heartened him, and he continued toward his dorm with a smile. This year would be a chance to discover his true self, his true purpose, to be tested and overcome adversity without the safety net of his close-knit family and church community. He might even face a bit of temptation before the year was finished—wouldn't that be an exciting development?

Two flights of stairs later, he arrived at his door to find it propped open with a skateboard. Inside was a long haired, tanned young man working on pinning up a Ramones poster above one of the beds. Half-unpacked boxes and bags littered the floor.

"Ah, hello there," Aziraphale said brightly, and the young man looked up.

"Hey man! You must be...Aziraphale? Am I saying that right?"

"Yes, I am—and yes, you are. Er, you did. Yes, that's me."

"Cool. I'm Brian. C'mon in, man, put your stuff down. Is that all you have?"

Aziraphale set down his bags, then realized all too late: His sheets and bedding were in the boxes that he wouldn't be able to pick up from the campus post office until the next day.

"I have parcels at the post office, but I fear I may have neglected to remember to bring bedding for tonight."

Brian stared at him for a moment, with much the same expression as Tammi the RA. "You're from abroad, right? Is that why you talk so weird?"

Aziraphale blushed. "Um, yes. I'm here for a year to study theology."

"Lemme guess, big uptight religious family?"

"Well, I don't know about uptight—"

Brian laughed, turning to dig through one of his boxes. "Hey man, no judgement here. I gotta lot of friends back home who go to church and everything. Not my scene, but you do you. And here," he said, throwing a wad of fabric to Aziraphale that turned out to be a sleeping bag. "You can borrow this until you get your stuff tomorrow. It's clean, my mom washed it before I left."

"Oh. Thank you," Aziraphale replied, spreading it out over his narrow mattress before setting his bags on top and beginning to unpack his few belongings. "I, er, hope my faith won't be a concern, I'd be happy to—"

"Nah, like I said, it's cool you're a church dork. People think I'm a loser for liking to skateboard still but whatever."

"I've never skateboarded before."

"Really?" Brian snorted. "Everybody I know used to when we were kids. Or ride bikes around, y'know."

"Oh, I do have a bicycle back at home! I used to ride it to do our door-to-door visits…"

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly: both finished unpacking, then sat chatting about the differences in teenage hobbies from their hometowns. Aziraphale beamed, happy that his roommate seemed like a decent fellow, even if he did seem to have done quite a bit of underage drinking that apparently wasn't considered illegal until the passage of a national drinking age law in the last year or so.

They went together to the first-night orientation, an overview of the campus facilities and codes of conduct that Aziraphale truly tried to follow. Next to him, Brian slouched in his seat, doodling on his jeans with a ballpoint pen and yawning occasionally.

When they were dismissed, they headed to the dining hall, where the many options offered a culinary temptation in the form of too many choices that smelled heavenly greasy and rich. Aziraphale stuck to a salad and a roast beef sandwich, while Brian loaded up a plate with an entire pizza's worth of slices, to be washed down with Coke.

"Hey, Heather!" he shouted through a mouthful of cheese at a girl with dark eyeliner smudged around her eyes and cherry-red dyed hair. The girl rolled her eyes but came over to sit beside him.

"'Ziraphale, this is Heather. We go way back."

"Hello, it's lovely to meet you. I'm Aziraphale Fell."

"Hey," she said with a smirk. "Brian bothering you? 'Cause I can kick his butt for you."

"Bothering me? Why, no, he's my roommate!"

She stared at him for a moment, then looked at Brian as she took a bite of cereal. "This guy for real? What a nerd. But, y'know, that's fine," she finished quickly at the slight downturn of Aziraphale's mouth. "No, really, you seem like you don't care what people think, and that's cool."

"I must confess, you're a bit confusing."

Heather cracked a real smile at his confession. "But isn't that more fun than being obvious and easy and nice?"

"She fancies herself a rebel, this one," Brian interjected, earning him a poke in the side from Heather. "But hey, 'Ziraphale, you came all the way here to do your own thing, so I'd say you're the one with the real rebel cred."

"Me, a rebel?" Aziraphale gaped at him for a moment.

Heather nodded. "That's pretty badass, he's right. Not a lot of people have the guts to wave 'bye to mom and dad and go thousands of miles away from home. My family's only a state away."

"Well, I...never thought of it like that. A rebel, my." He smiled and dug into his dinner with a fresh appetite.

When they finished eating, Brian invited him to hang out with him and Heather, but Aziraphale checked his watch and declined, yawning and doing the math to figure out what time it would be back at home.

Back at his room, he put his jacket away, sat at his desk, and dialed the many codes and numbers to reach home. Luke answered sleepily, and they chatted briefly before Gabriel took the receiver.

"Hello, son. Arrived all right, then?"

"Yes, father, I'll be picking up my things tomorrow, but I've met my new roommate, Brian, and his friend Heather. We ate dinner together. I may ask if he wants to join me for church tomorrow, it looks like there's a lovely little chapel across campus."

"Wonderful. I'm pleased you're settling in, and not getting into any trouble. As Corinthians says, 'But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place'."

"Er, yes, I suppose," Aziraphale replied, thinking of Heather's nose ring and dyed hair and Brian's Ramones poster across the room.

They chatted for a few more minutes, not wanting to run up a high international calling bill on the dorm's account, then said their goodbyes, with Aziraphale promising to call home again in a few days to share how classes were going.

A quick shower and change into his favorite striped pajamas later, Aziraphale kneeled beside his bed, holding the small cross. Lord, help me help others here. I want to make a real difference in someone's life. Show me a path and I will follow it.

He grabbed one of the books from the desk behind his bed, a very nice copy of Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates, and thumbed through the pages to "A Fisherman and His Soul," but the tale of the fisherman attempting to sell his soul to be with his mermaid love could not fight his exhaustion for very long, and soon his eyelids fluttered closed for longer and longer intervals until he sleepily but carefully set the book aside.

The plush of the sleeping bag and the scent of lavender from Brian's mother's laundry detergent lulled him to sleep quickly, and he dreamed he was flying through the clouds on great, downy white wings.