Just a few days later Sara, Luke, Ella, and Malachi were sitting on the grass at Mendham in the afternoon chatting when Luke noticed a man standing under the hanging tree watching them. He was dressed in a nice modern suit and jacket that you could tell was navy blue even from a distance. He had neatly combed brown hair and one hand casually in his pocket. He wouldn't have looked out of place if he hadn't been standing so still and wasn't so focused on them.

"Hey, who's that?" Luke asked.

No one had a responded, but when Luke turned to look at their faces he saw that Ella seemed to have the answer.

"Ella?"

"Uh, that's Michael."

"What, a magical-ex-boyfriend of some kind?" Malachi said immediately due to her reaction to him.

"No, that's Michael, THE Archangel."

They all looked at him again and they could just see a smile creep across his face before he turned to go.

The kids had intended to inform their parents of this visitation but before they had a chance, Michael had already begun to make his rounds. Cassie and Elizabeth were having lunch in town when suddenly this handsome man slipped down in a chair at their table and smiled at them winningly. Nothing much shocked them any more but this indeed something new. They smiled back pleasantly, not realizing who or what he was.

"Why don't you join us?" Elizabeth said friendly but a slight sarcastic edge.

"Thank you!" he said.

"I'm Cassie, what's your name?"

"Michael," he said and then turned to Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth," she said.

"Good," he said, "Now I know which is which."

This statement puzzled them but Cassie said, "So you don't look like you're from around here, what brings you to our little town?"

"Business," he said, "I have some deals to wrap up and then I can head home."

"Yeah? Where are you from? Cassie's from here but I'm from California."

"Everywhere, really, I travel a lot."

"That must be hard. And it must be really hard to keep a girlfriend," Cassie said, prying a little because she still didn't understand why he would just sit down with them.

"Yes, I suppose that would make it hard, but I'm not really made for relationships," he said still smiling pleasantly like he talked to humans like this all the time.

"What a shame!" Elizabeth interjected.

Here he gave a little laugh, "It may be a shame but my work is very important."

"But what could be more important than love?" Cassie asked with an amused glance at Elizabeth who she could tell was just as confused as she was.

Ignoring her question and looking from one of the girls to the other, he said, "In fact, my work has a lot to do with the both of you."

"Does it, now?" Elizabeth said.

"Yes, I will be visiting your lovers, I have some interesting news for them both, but before I do that I wanted to meet you both and I must say I'm quite impressed."

"Who are you exactly?" Cassie said now suspicious.

"I told you," he said and now he was amused.

"The Archangel, right?" Elizabeth said after a pause.

"Yes, very good."

"And what's your news?"

"I'm afraid I'm not a liberty to say but I'm sure you will be told. However, I do have one item to discuss with you both. We are aware that you may accept immortally to remain with your respective angels. I am sent to inform you that if you do this, your fates will be combined and tied together for eternity." He said this matter-of-factly as if this didn't potentially mean…

"So we could go to hell?" Cassie asked.

"Well, since there is no actual location designated as 'hell' in the way that you mean I should say no but in the sense that you may not be in heaven, I can say yes. But the two of you both know Lucifer and he's not in charge of a flaming pit or anything like that." Michael laughed at the image that Cassie had unknowingly projected with her question.

The girls looked at each other with concern.

"I must take my leave of you now, but it was very nice to meet you both." And he rose, smiled at both of them and left them as they starred after him.

They considered rushing off to tell Azazeal and Lucifer but decided that Michael must want to see them alone and was probably already with at least one of them. So they finished their meal, discussing his announcement and speculating as to what his news to Azazeal and Lucifer would be.

When they were finished they found that their bill had been taken care of and that he had left something for each of them, which the waiter brought to their table. They both received a little box containing a gold chain necklace bearing a religious medal also cast in gold. Cassie's appeared to be the guardian angel medal that everyone is familiar with where an angel is watching over two children, only upon closer inspection it was not what she expected. The angel was Azazeal with his beautiful wings spread wide, looking protectively down on young versions of Sara and Malachi with a third figure in between the children, her arms around them both…and that figure was Cassie.

For Elizabeth the medal bore the well-known image of Michael with his wings and his flaming sword defeating Lucifer but if you looked closely the figures again bore an eerie resemblance to the real individuals. In this version, Michael appeared sad with one foot in the center of Lucifer's back, about to cut off his wings and Lucifer had an expression of pained confusion. It should have been disturbing but there was something poignant about the moment that it captured.

Michael appeared to Lucifer in Elizabeth's home in California, which was enough to put him in an immediate rage.

"Are you so bored Michael that you need to pick a fight? I'd be very happy to oblige, but I'd rather take it outside."

"I'm not here for a fight," Michael said seriously.

"Oh well, maybe next time."

"Lucifer, what have you done?" Michael said in a forcefully challengingly tone.

After a short pause, Lucifer's attitude changed and he responded evenly but with anger underneath, "What I had to."

"But she's nothing, just clay, not worthy, remember?"

"Not to me," with more anger creeping into his voice.

"Explain to me how this is what you want. She's not really capable of keeping you under control, and she tries her best, but she just not strong enough for you to completely give over your will, and then when you inevitably do something wrong, you go crawling back to her and she punishes you," he finished mockingly.

Lucifer gave a slight laugh and answered thoughtfully, "As comforting as it is when I am completely under her control, there is something extremely powerful in surrendering to her over and over again, giving in each time of my own free will. And when I am disobedient," here he gave him a naughty smile, "I get what I deserve."

"So it's a new sexual fetish then, is it?" Michael said, well aware of Lucifer appetites.

"How dare you!"

"I know what goes on between you two."

"If you'd actually been paying any attention at all," Lucifer responded, extremely angry now, "you'd know how I feel about her and you know why I go back to her. And it's not worthwhile trying to explain to you what physical sensations feel like, you'd never understand, and obviously you've already misinterpreted how I experience them. What a shame!"

"Yes," Michael responded, his attitude changing instantly from challenging to approving, a bright smile lighting up his face, "You do love her, don't you? And you try so hard for her, old friend, but sometimes it takes more than love to conquer you in the way you need to be conquered." He paused for a moment before he continued. "She prays for you, did you know that, even when she has almost hated you. She prays that you will be allowed to stay together and that she will have the strength to help you."

Lucifer's eyes began to well up with tears despite himself, "And will her prayers be answered?"

"There is no need," Michael responded cheerily, "Between the two of you, you've really answered them yourselves. You've already given her all the strength she really needs and as you have seen fit to devote yourself to her so thoroughly and she has agreed to take you on, the Lord accepts this truce of sorts. Not that you asked for permission to elevate her to such an astonishing place in your heart. You've both caused quite a stir in heaven, let me tell you, but I always believed that this wasn't just one of your tricks."

"It's nice to know that someone up there believes me."

"I'm not the only one, but I still cannot understand it. How can she replace…?"

Lucifer smiled at this, "You know, it's very strange, but I think that now I would actually chose her over Him and even I can't explain that. Of course, I had assumed that I had further damned myself once I realized that," and Lucifer gave Michael a questioning look with this last sentence, wondering why God was not jealous, but then realizing that he no longer cared.

"I do not know His mind, He's always been a mystery, you know that." And with that Michael left him.

Azazeal was sitting in his study alone thinking of Cassie, when Michael walked in the room. Azazeal looked up at his visitor and smiled despite his sad thoughts.

"Michael, it's been a long time."

"Yes, it has."

Azazeal waited for Michael to speak knowing that the only reason he would be visiting him was with a message of some kind from above.

"I've been sent to tell you that the fallen will be given a chance to redeem themselves and you have been chosen to announce this to them."

This blunt pronouncement surprised Azazeal and despite his suspicions that this might be the case, he was shocked to hear it confirmed.

"Shouldn't you be telling Lucifer this? He's…our leader."

"It was your choice to stop Lucifer has ultimately given them all a chance to change their fate. But I have seen him as well, for we had other matters to discuss."

"And he will have his chance too?"

"I told him only that the Lord considers his relationship with Elizabeth as a truce and that he may remain with her for the time being." Michael's eyes smiled when he said this an Azazeal knew that Lucifer was also being given a chance but that it had been decided to approach him differently.

"You know I don't think he's being given enough credit, he's completely in love with her, beyond their arrangement. He's not going to fly off the handle or do anything rash."

"I know, just like I know how strong your love for Cassie is and how it is almost enough for you to forget your lost…but not quite."

Azazeal did not comment.

"I have my orders. It is up to you what you will tell Lucifer. You can risk his reaction."

The two shook hands and Michael left him.

Less than an hour later all eight of them were conveniently at the church, where Sara, Luke, and Malachi all talked over one another trying to explain who they had seen.

"I know," Azazeal all but shouted over them, "He has already spoken to me."

"To me as well," Lucifer added.

"Us too," Cassie interjected, and Azazeal and Lucifer turned to them immediately with questioning looks.

The girls had agreed to tell them only that Michael had visited them and show them the medals. They were not ready to reveal his message to them until they had heard what Michael had told Azazeal and Lucifer because they felt that the boys might not tell them if they knew what Micheal had said to them.

"He sort of joined us for lunch briefly and told us that he was here to talk to you two." Cassie loved that this wasn't really a lie.

"He told me that the fallen have been given a chance to redeem themselves, it seems like we've done a good thing here, helping the fallen to find a place in this world," Azazeal said with only a quick glance at Lucifer for his reaction, but there was none.

Cassie and Elizabeth were very excited by this news and each went to hug their man. Cassie could see the brightness in Azazeal's eyes that she now knew was her responsibility to bring out. She smiled to herself at how cute it was that this sometimes overbearing man could be so easily delighted by a job well done and she resolved to keep him that way.

Lucifer said quietly to Elizabeth only, "I can stay with you as long as you will have me."

"But…?"

"That is all that I want," he said, not telling her that he didn't think it would end up being her choice. Once this world was over, he thought he knew what his fate would be and he wouldn't let her stay with him even if she could. He assumed that when this world ended he would just convince her to go on to heaven without him, but she didn't need to know that now.

"But surely?…You will not be left out of this!" Elizabeth flared, offended on his behalf.

"He hasn't been left out," Azazeal interjected, overhearing them, "They were afraid that he would…overreact to the opportunity. Michael was not allowed to tell him but I can."

Elizabeth turned back to Lucifer pleased by this, "See, listening to me paid off!"

"I would listen to you anyway," he said but she could see that this news thrilled him.

When the girls showed their gifts from Michael to Azazeal and Lucifer they both got essentially the same reaction. Azazeal smiled when he saw it, almost proudly, and said that Cassie should wear it. She liked the reminder that he was her and their children's protector and the fact that she had an image of him as an angel. To him it was an acknowledgment of his family and that he would be allowed to watch over them forever.

Elizabeth, however, did not expect the smile that it got from Lucifer, although his smile was more thoughtful and sad. He too told her that she should wear it, but she considered it for a few days before she decided that she did want to wear it along with the diamond star that she always wore. For her, she saw it as a confirmation from Michael that what Lucifer had been telling her was true, not that she had ever doubted him, but it was comforting to have it validated. She also saw it as a reminder of what he had gone through and why she was doing all this for him. Lucifer saw it as a sign that Michael had turned over the role of watchdog over him to Elizabeth. He also saw it as reminder of the moment that he had become destined to be hers and that made him smile.