Disclaimer: Aziraphale, Crowley, and Good Omens are created and copyrighted by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. This is a fanfic, intended only in the spirit of fun. Tons of love and thanks is owed to the amazing and wonderful Daegaer, who provided tons of feedback for the first half of the fic, and then ended upsomehow volunteering herself as a beta-reader and a proofreader, and who helped me correct many of my Americanisms with proper British English. And thanks to y'all for reading!

Ordinary Miracles

by Nenena

Chapter 03

Vigen, Guroian. 1999. Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening. W.B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Michigan. BV4596.G36 G87

Aziraphale didn't sleep, he never slept. (He'd tried it once in the fifteenth century as per Crowley's suggestion, and had found it not quite to his liking. He'd kept dreaming about doing his taxes.) But that particular night, waiting apprehensively for the apprentice that was to come the next morning, Aziraphale was feeling too jittery to do anything productive, either. He spent several hours cleaning and re-arranging the bookshop. Then he sat down in a comfortable chair with Margie on his lap, trying to read a book, thinking about the good work he could be out doing, thinking about what he could possibly buy Mr. Edwards as a nice Christmas gift this year.

Finally, Aziraphale gave up, closed his book, and asked Margie. "You know him better than I do. What would he be wanting for Christmas?"

Margie gazed up at the angel and purred.

Now, angels can't actually talk to animals or anything of the sort, but they can listen to animals better than most humans can. And Aziraphale knew exactly what Margie's purring alluded to. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, shaking his head, "but I don't think that someone like me should be... er... encouraging that habit... Maybe something along the same lines, but a bit, ah, classier? Does he have a good copy of the kama sutra yet?"

Margie wasn't paying attention anymore. She was thinking, rather impatiently, about how she would rather have the angel scratching her behind her ears. Aziraphale got the hint.

Morning crept up upon the city all too soon.

Aziraphale set out for his walk early. Margie had initially thrown an absolute fit when it looked like he was going to leave her behind, so he wrapped her up in a sweater, cradled her in his arms, and carried her along the whole way.

Now he finally understood what Mr. Edwards had meant when he said that Margie was a cat who didn't like to be left alone.

It was snowing lightly. Aziraphale was wrapped up in several layers and a warm overcoat, and Margie seemed snug and happy in his arms, occasionally rubbing her head against his chest. He walked all of the two kilometres that he needed to, deep in thought the whole while. Some people would have thought it strange to see a man carrying a cat wrapped in a sweater through the crowded streets so early in the morning; but then again, most people just didn't notice the angel. He didn't consciously arrange things this way, per se; it was more of a habit, just a tiny but consistent effect on the world around him, because sometimes, he really preferred not to be conspicuous.

He and Margie finally arrived at a church - a big one, old, Catholic, with stone saints and stone gargoyles lurking in every alcove, both inside and out. It was a weekday morning, and the inside of the building was cold, quiet, and deserted. The sinners were all at work, and the only resident priest was sitting alone on the edge of a pew in the front row.

No, wait. Not sitting alone. There was somebody - a small somebody - sitting quietly beside him. And the priest, well, he wasn't exactly the usual Father Johnson that Aziraphale knew from this particular church, at least, not at the moment. Heaven had always liked Father Johnson because he didn't mind the occasional possession by an angelic being when an errand needed to be run; and today certainly seemed to be no exception.

Aziraphale approached slowly, willing Margie to be still and quiet in his arms. "Betheuel?" he tried cautiously.

The priest, or rather, the angel, turned himself gently to face Aziraphale. "/Ah, you're late. What is that you're holding there?/" He wrinkled his nose delicately. "/Do sweaters normally smell so musky?/"

Margie poked her head out of the bundled sweater and glared at the priest-cum-angel. "This, er, is Margie," Aziraphale introduced the cat awkwardly. "I'm watching her as a favor to someone." He turned toward the boy seated beside the priest. "And you must be...?"

"Theo," the boy answered. He sized up Aziraphale with his eyes. His expression revealed instantly that he was not impressed. "Aren't you supposed to be taller?"

Aziraphale raised one eyebrow, but Betheuel answered quickly, "/Field workers find it most beneficial to blend into the human populace and escape notice as much as possible. Assuming a human body with an extraordinary height would be a detriment to that goal. That's lesson number one. Remember that one, boy. There will be more to follow, I'm sure./" He turned and practically glared at Aziraphale, or as much as a particularly self-conscious angel was allowed to glare. "/You will, I trust teach him well./"

"But, the thing is, er, I've never taken on an apprentice before, and I'm not quite sure--"

"/It is not so terribly difficult, Aziraphale. I'm sure that even you won't have too much trouble accomplishing this task competently./" Margie growled low in her throat at that remark, but the other angel continued undeterred. "/Your apprentice must learn how to perform miracles. By the end of one month's time, he must have performed at least one truly good deed, via a coded miracle, that will prove him worthy of earning his wings. If at the end of one month he has done so, then he will be given his wings and an assignment out in the field. Also, we will give him a new name, something more divine-sounding than 'Theo'./" Again, that distasteful little wrinkle of the nose. "/If, however, at the end of one month's time, the boy has not yet performed a good deed or a successful miracle, then he will lose his chance to become an angel, and you, Aziraphale, will most likely have your performance, or lack thereof, evaluated by your immediate superiors, and will most assuredly earn demerits for such a failure./"

"I understand." Aziraphale turned back toward Theo. An adorable little boy, the angel thought, but his eyes were unsettlingly unreadable. "Well. Theo. I know you've heard this already, but my name is Aziraphale." Shifting Margie's weight to support her with one arm, he held out his other hand to the boy. "Shall we go?"

Theo took his hand, a bit warily, and stood up. "Where are we going?"

"Oh, I don't know. Out and about. Let's do some good work, shall we? Goodness, you'll need a thick coat, and a good hat, if we're going out today. Don't you have one?"

"What, a coat, or a hat?" Theo had reappeared on Earth in the same clothing that he had died in - a Cambridge sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He'd thought that particular detail to be somewhat insensitive of Heaven, but he wasn't about to complain.

"Well, no matter," the angel sighed. And then, just like that, Theo was wearing a thick coat and a hat. It was a rather dorky-looking hat, Theo thought. Nobody actually wore caps with brims anymore, did they?

Aziraphale seemed to sense something in Theo's eyes, because he suddenly appeared flustered. "Oh dear, is it not to your liking?"

"No."

"Er, well, um, I'm not sure... I don't know... Er, what the 'hip cats' would be wearing these days--"

"It's okay," Theo said emphatically, "just don't try." He glanced briefly at the priest, still sitting on the end of the pew. "Can we go now?"

"Go?" The priest blinked, confused. "Where? Who? Excuse me, and who might you be?"

The angel Betheuel, it seemed, had already left the building.

Aziraphale didn't even seem to notice the priest's question. He leaned forward and asked Theo, "Would you like to say hello to Margie? She loves it when you scratch behind her ears."

They left the church and trudged through the snowy sidewalks. Theo stayed close to the angel, who was, Theo thought with chagrin, not making a very good first impression. He was too short, too ordinary-looking, and he smelled of cinnamon scones and tea and unwashed cat. He was wearing an old, worn, camel-hair coat that looked like it had seen better days sometime around a hundred or so years ago. The same was true for his cap and scarf and scuffed boots.

The sky was low and gray, and the air was bitterly cold. Theo suddenly sniffled, and then sneezed.

"Oh dear," gasped the angel, "have you come down with a cold?"

Theo snorted back a noseful of snot, rather loudly. "Don't think so. How can I come down with a cold if I'm already dead?" He was still feeling bitter about this whole untimely death business.

"How about we stop in somewhere warm for a bite to eat? I wouldn't know about you, but I, for one, am famished."

"Um... I thought that angels didn't have to eat."

"Not technically, no, although there's no reason not to indulge in one of life's finer, less sinful pleasures."

Ah, thought Theo, that would explain why he looks so chubby.

A half kilometre later, Aziraphale led Theo into the entrance of a tiny little bistro. Someone in a waiter's sharp white-and-black uniform immediately scurried forward to meet them. He was waving his hands in alarm. "I'm sorry sir, terribly sorry sir, but we can't have you bringing that in here--"

"Oh," said Aziraphale, glancing down at the cat in his arms as if he had forgotten completely that she was there in the first place. Margie stared back up at him with her clear green eyes.

They left, and continued walking. It was still snowing. After a while, Theo asked again, "Where are we going?"

"Home, I'm afraid. I don't think that any of the good places to eat along this route will let us in with a cat."

"Where's home?"

"Soho."

"Oh." Theo glanced up at a conveniently nearby street sign. Now, Theo had never actually been in London before, so the street name that he saw meant absolutely nothing to him, but he had a pretty good guess that, the way his day was going so far, it probably meant that they were currently on the opposite side of the city. He sighed. "Do you always

walk everywhere?"

"No, I normally have a friend with a car who doesn't mind driving me. But right now he's, ah... He's on vacation. In Guatemala."

"If you're an angel, can't you just fly wherever you need to go?"

"Oh, but people would notice that." Aziraphale stroked the bundle of fur and sweater in his arms absent-mindedly. "And besides, Margie assures me that she is deathly afraid of heights."

They walked on a while further, in more uncomfortable silence. Then Theo asked, "Hey, aren't you going to, you know, do anything angelic today?"

"Like make miracles, inspire good, deliver divine messages, that sort of business?"

"Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm here to do, at least."

"I did have plans for today," the angel explained, somewhat awkwardly, "but I didn't find out that I was taking on an apprentice until yesterday afternoon. So I really should re-think my schedule now, although it is complicated, it being a very busy time of the year for us, you know. Right now, my only plan is to take you and Margie home, and then step out for a bite to eat. Margie won't mind being left alone for just a few minutes, will you, Margie?"

Margie meowed a loud protest at that.

Theo felt as though it were hours later that they finally stopped at the door of a small, run-down bookshop right in the center of Soho. "This is it," Aziraphale said as he fiddled with a key in the lock. "It isn't much, but there's some space for us in the apartment above the shop," he explained as he pushed open the door. "I've been using the living space on the floor above as extra storage for books for the past hundred years," the angel explained apologetically as Theo followed him inside the dark, damp, unpleasant-smelling bookshop. "But I cleaned out and tidied it up a bit last night, in case you wanted a place to sleep at all. Consequently, it's become, er, a bit more crowded down here," he added as he maneuvered around several extra piles of books that hadn't been on the floor yesterday.

Theo immediately wrinkled his nose. "It smells like mice in here."

"Oh, the mice are lovely housemates," Aziraphale said as he set Margie down on the floor and shook out the now fur-covered sweater. "They've agreed not to eat any of my books, as long as I protect them from cats and poison and the like," he continued, casting a meaningful glance at Margie, who sighed and rolled her eyes as if to say all right, all right, I get it, I'll leave them alone, just get off my case already.

Theo wandered further into the shop, his eyes sliding across shelves upon shelves lined with old, dusty books. His shoes, too, were kicking up clouds of dust on the floor. "This place could use a good cleaning," he commented loudly.

"But cleaning is bad for the books. It's bad for the atmosphere here, too."

"Forgive me for saying so, but, the atmosphere here strikes me as kind of..."

"I know. It's that way to discourage people from coming in, or staying long enough to buy any books."

Theo sighed. "Whatever happened to 'cleanliness is Godliness'?"

"Well, God never had himself a book collection," Aziraphale replied as he fretted around Margie's litter box. He wondered if he should bother cleaning out the thing at all. It was really doing a nice job of adding to the overall unpleasant smell of the place.

Tucked into the furthest back corner of the bookshop, in the back of the back room, was a staircase that hadn't been used in decades - at least, not until last night. Aziraphale led Theo up the creaking wooden stairs and into the "apartment" set up above the shop. Theo noted, with relief, that the smells were largely absent up here. The dust, however, was worse, coating some parts of the floor and the piles of books still lining the halls with inches-thick layers of gray and brown grime.

"Technically, you don't have to sleep anymore," the angel was saying to Theo, "but I heard that it's hard to make the transition from a sleeping creature to a non-sleeping creature, so I cleaned out the bedroom for you, if you'd like to use it." He pushed open a groaning, creaking wooden door. "Well?"

It was a small room, but, Theo noticed with relief, much less dustier than everything else in the building. There was a bed that looked freshly-made (albeit covered with an awful paisley-patterned comforter), a somewhat clean-looking throw rug tossed onto the wooden floor, a wooden dresser, and a dark closet. There was even a window, which looked out onto the street, although the glass was smeared and smoky in some places. The wallpaper, however, was terrible, and not just because of the impossible yellow and blue daisies that constituted the pattern, but because of the suspicious blotchy stains and peeling sections that dotted every wall. There were faded spots on the wooden floor where Theo guessed that, up until last night, piles of books had sat undisturbed for a hundred years or more.

"It's nice," Theo said politely. And then, "Thank you."

The angel beamed at him. He was quite pleased, having worked very hard to clean out and set aside the space for the boy. "How about I feed Margie, and while she's preoccupied with eating, you and I can step out for a bite of our own?"

Theo's stomach suddenly rumbled loudly. He realized that he hadn't had anything to eat since he had died, which had been quite a while ago. "Um, sure. Sounds good."

It was like being on an awkward first date.

Aziraphale took Theo to his favorite French restaurant, only a short walk away from the shop. They sat down at a table, Theo feeling particularly under-dressed in his jeans and sweatshirt. He was busy studying the incomprehensible, French-speckled menu when Aziraphale asked him, "So. Theo. Is that short for Theodore?"

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, dear."

Theo glanced up at him. "What?"

"Well..." Aziraphale fidgeted with his hands in his lap. Theo didn't need to see his hands to know that he was doing it; he just knew. "Er, Betheuel was right, really, that's not a very fitting name for an angel. A bit arrogant, don't you think?"

Theo blinked. This was something new. "Arrogant?"

"Well, don't you know what your name means?"

Theo shook his head.

" 'Theos' means 'God' in Greek. That's where your name derives from. Really, now, doesn't it seem wrong to have an angel flitting about named 'God'? I think He'd be rather upset about it--"

"Okay!" Theo snapped. "Fine, I can change my name later. All right?"

Aziraphale seemed momentarily taken aback. The expression on his face looked hurt. Theo lowered his eyes to the menu again, biting his lip, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

After some time the angel said, "I'm sorry. I mean, Theo is really a lovely name for a little boy."

But Theo would say nothing more; they sat for a few minutes in awkward silence, until a waiter came.

Aziraphale placed his order, three slices of dessert cake and an assortment of pastries, and nothing more. When Theo's turn came, however, he only huffed at the waiter. "Really. You only have to vegetarian entrees on the lunch menu, and absolutely nothing vegan. What kind of carnivores are you catering to here?"

Aziraphale didn't even know what a vegan was until Theo explained it to him. His initial response to this was, "Well, that seems kind of silly, if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you."

"You could have told me about your preferences before we went into the restaurant and you had to make a scene in front of that nice waiter," the angel chided as they walked along the sidewalk back home. "He was just doing his job."

"Listen, the things I could tell you about how they raise and treat dairy cattle--"

"Are probably things that I would not like to hear. I enjoy some cream with my coffee every now and then." Aziraphale raised one eyebrow suspiciously at Theo. "I say, were you perhaps French?"

"No. I was from Minnesota."

"Mi... ne... what?"

"America."

"Oh," said the angel, as if that explained everything. Then he was fretting, Theo could tell, it wasn't anything that he actually did with his hands, it was just the tone of his voice and a twitch in his eye. "Er, well, I don't, um, I'm not sure, then, you see, where we could go to eat, because, really, I'm not that familiar with--"

"A grocery store would be best."

"Say what?"

"I know how to cook for myself. My parents were never any good at it."

So they went to a grocery store. Theo bought tofu and sprouts. Aziraphale fretted the whole way home. His home was completely unequipped to deal with such things as the storage of fresh food - he was going to have to miracle a small refrigerator into the back room, he supposed. He had never been in a house with tofu and sprouts before, and was beginning to worry more and more about what Crowley would think when he finally got back in town. And not just about the tofu and sprouts, either.

Later that afternoon, Theo was eating a bowl of muesli and exploring one of the darker and more forbidding corners of the bookshop (where, he reasoned correctly, the angel surely must have hidden the older and more interesting texts) when Aziraphale appeared out of nowhere and said, "It's about time that we did our good deed for the day, don't you think?"

Theo's spirit seemed to perk up immediately. "You mean, we'll finally get to do some miracles?"

"Er... No."

"But I thought--"

"You don't always need a miracle in order to accomplish a good deed," the angel said. "And, for the record, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't eat around the merchandise."

"You mean your own collection?"

"Yes. The merchandise. Now bundle up, we've got quite a walk ahead of us."

Theo was suddenly profoundly glad that he was already dead, because he was certain that his legs would have already been crying out in protest otherwise.

Before they left, Aziraphale supplied Margie with even more food, to keep her distracted. They left and walked for what seemed a very, very long time through the falling snow. They finally arrived at an anonymous apartment building, and Theo followed Aziraphale through the main doors, past the lower lobby, into an elevator. They ascended for a while, then got out onto floor twenty-something. Theo followed the angel through more hallways - he seemed to know where he was going, and strode quickly forward as if he had a definite destination in mind - when suddenly the angel stopped.

"Hold still," Aziraphale said.

Theo stood very still, behind the angel.

They were in front of an unmarked door. Aziraphale peered at it for a moment, then closed his eyes, held out his hands, touched the door, and whispered something underneath his breath.

"What are you doing?" Theo felt it appropriate to ask.

"Turning off the security system," Aziraphale explained. "He sometimes sets booby-traps to detect the presence of immortals other than myself. I wouldn't want you suddenly cleaved in half by an axe or eaten by a tiger or any such nonsense. It would look just terrible if I managed to discorporate my first apprentice in less than one day with him."

"Uh... Whose apartment is this?" Theo's voice squeaked.

"An old friend." Aziraphale made a gesture with his fingers, almost too fast for Theo's eyes to follow, and he heard a click as the door unlocked itself and swung slowly forward.

Aziraphale flipped a light switch, and suddenly the interior of the apartment was blindingly bright.

Theo stepped in after the angel. It wasn't a true apartment, he observed right away; it was a flat, and a painfully stylishly decorated one at that. There were white fluorescents overhead and a white leather couch beneath and an awe-inspiringly impressive home theater system dominating Theo's first eyeful of the place. Aziraphale, he saw, was over on the far windowsill, and gathering about half a dozen small potted houseplants in his arms. "A little help here?" he asked.

Theo walked over and took two of the plants from the angel. "Um, are we stealing this person's plants?"

"Not stealing. Saving."

"I don't quite follow."

"I've been Saving these plants for the past three months. I've also been meaning to permanently move them out of here and into my place before the occupant of this flat could return and abuse them any further. But I've been lacking an extra pair of hands until today," the angel explained apologetically.

Theo gaped at him. "We walked all the way across town just to steal a bunch of lousy plants?! THAT'S your good deed for the day?!?!"

From the direction of what Theo understood to be the kitchen area, a low, mechanical, grinding sound emerged.

"We'd better go," Aziraphale said quickly. "I knew he'd have something set up in here that would detect your presence. And I think that he trained his toaster to attack intruders."

They walked back through the cold and the snow, weighed down by plants. Theo would not speak to the angel. The plants in his arms were heavy, and their lush green leaves trembled and brushed against his face in a way that he found distinctly unpleasant.

His situation did not improve when, not less than one second after he stepped back into the angel's bookshop, Margie yowled and pounced on him.

"Agh!" Theo gasped, stumbling backward and nearly dropping the plants. Margie scrambled her way up his chest, digging her claws into his coat. She hissed at him.

Aziraphale, who had stepped into the bookshop ahead of Theo, took his

time setting his plants down on the nearest available surface (several wide stacks of books, side-by-side) before he turned around and said, "That's enough, Margie."

Margie slid back down Theo's coat, growling at him, tearing his coat with her claws. Finally, she hopped off of him.

Theo stood shaking, still holding onto his plants, although just barely maintaining his grip on them. "What was that all about?!"

"She's mad at you, for leaving her alone."

"ME?! You were the one who bribed her with food and then left her! You were the one who left her alone!"

"Yes, but that darling cat would never dare attack me," Aziraphale stated matter-of-factly. "Because I'm an angel."

Margie stood not one foot away from Theo, glaring at him, her tail waving back and forth slowly, ponderously. She looked as though she were ready to pounce on him at any minute.

"Oh, look," Aziraphale said, pushing away a pile of dust and papers to uncover a phone that Theo swore hadn't been there this morning. "I've got a message. Er, that's what the little red light means, when it's blinking, right?"

"Yeah. Supposed to."

"Ah. Well then." Aziraphale seemed very pleased with himself. "I've only had this blasted ansaphone for less than a year, and this is my first time receiving an actual message. This is exciting, isn't it?"

"No," Theo answered, carefully stepping around Margie and setting down his plants with the others. "Listen, um, you probably need to put these closer to a window, and you probably want to clean the windows in here a bit first, so that at least a little sunlight can get through--"

Aziraphale was ignoring him, poking various buttons on his phone and trying very hard not to curse. "Play, play, which one is the play button?! Oh, maybe it's this little arrow here... Ah, that's it. Blasted thing, you'd think they'd at least label it with the word 'play'--"

" 'Mr. Phale? This is Edwards,' " an electronically recorded voice began. " 'Listen, um, I'm really sorry about this, but there's a problem with the estate here, and, um, some legal issues that don't look like they're going to be resolved any time soon, and the whole family's feuding about it, and you know how it goes... Anyway, I hate to do this to you, but it looks like I won't be back as soon as I thought, so would you mind watching Margie for a couple days longer?' "

"Oh, great." Theo rolled his eyes.

" 'I should be back in town soon after Christmas. Maybe the day after. I don't see myself being able to return any time before then. I'm sorry. Give me a call on my cell if you can't keep Margie for that long.' "

Mr. Edwards' disembodied voice recited his cell phone number as Theo sighed and began moving the plants closer to the only window in the bookshop, the storefront window that looked as though it had been deliberately smeared and dirtied specifically for the purpose of blocking sunlight out. Theo figured that the angel probably considered sunlight bad for his books - it did, after all, cause colors and print to fade prematurely.

"Did you hear that, Margie?" the idiot angel said to the cat. "You and I get to stay together through Christmas! Isn't that lovely? Oh, Theo dear, thank you so much for your help. Crowley is going to have an absolute fit when he finds out about this, but he can always get himself new plants, I suppose. Theo, you look pale, is something wrong?"

"I've walked farther today than I ever have before anytime in my life. I'm exhausted. Don't you ever use public transportation?"

"You should probably lie down," Aziraphale said, and he sounded genuinely concerned. "It's awfully late, too. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Theo yawned. As much as he hated to admit it, he was tired. "And I suppose that you never sleep, right?"

"I did once, a couple hundred years ago."

"Figures." Theo started toward the back of the shop. "Since you so graciously provided a bedroom, I might as well use it. So what do you usually do all night?"

Aziraphale smiled at him. "The same things that I do during the daytime."

"How thrilling." Theo made his way through the back room and started up the stairs, leaving the angel and the infernal cat down below.

He sighed when he stepped into his bedroom, yawned again, and sat down on the bed. He blinked. There was no clock in the room, but it was dark outside, and it felt late. His legs ached, which depressed him, because he thought that he had finished with this whole mortal pain business at the moment when he had died. Theo kicked off his shoes, and pulled off his shirt. Then he realized that he had no other clothing to change into, let alone pajamas. So, with a shrug, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and crawled naked beneath the covers of his bed. He could complain about the whole clothing issue to the angel in the morning. Right now, he had to admit that the angel had done at least something right - the bed felt warm, and cozy, and was just the perfect length for his body.

Tomorrow, Theo fervently hoped, things would get more exciting.

With that thought in mind, he drifted off into sleep.

Continued.