In which a "get Mr Fell & partner together" list is made and we learn a little more about the history of Nina & Maggie.
POV Nina.

Outside "Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death", dusk was gently starting to creep in. Inside the café, an angel and a demon were clustered round one side of a two-person table, taking it in turns to scribble on the back of a receipt. Progress had been slow, which was less due to Nina's frequent attempts to steal[1] the pencil from Maggie, and more to their good-natured bickering.

[1] 'Steal was the verb Maggie would use. If you asked Nina, she would suggest that a better term was 'borrow.' Angelically. Her suggestion would be incorrect.

Maggie wrote horribly slowly. And she had a habit of spinning the pencil between her fingers in a way that was incredibly distracting. It made Nina's fingers twitch too, with the urge to reach out and curl them over Maggie's. Which would admittedly stop the pencil's motion but was also a recipe for disaster, if the spike in her heartrate she felt every time their hands lingered on each other was anything to go by.

She'd already apparently become incapable of handing Maggie her damned skinny latte without drifting a completely unnecessary feather-light touch across Maggie's thumb and fingertips. The last thing she needed was to become addicted to grabbing her whole hand. That would be something even harder to justify to Head Office, should it come up.

Nina sighed inwardly. The remnants of paranoia were still hard to shake, even after the Apoca-wasn't. They had been clinging to her ever since those decades in the nineteenth century, back when she had been working in the kitchens of a newly constructed nunnery in Twickenham. That was the period where the Archangel Sachiel[2] had bombarded her with letters and check-ins.

[2] "Pronounced Saychiel, but you can just call me Lindsay."

Nina had been confused at first, then annoyed, then alarmed. Finally, she had worked out the problem. Just-call-me-Lindsay was convinced she and Maggie were having a torrid affair and that Maggie was trying to tempt her away from Heaven. They were outraged and they wanted Nina to know it – as well as every single one of their opinions on Nina's apparent faithlessness to Heaven.

Maggie had also been outraged at the suggestion. "But it's not like that at all!" she had huffed, cheeks flushing crimson with indignation.[3] In all the millennia Nina had known her, Maggie had always had a tendency of stumbling over her words but now she was spluttering worse than Nina had ever seen. "We wouldn't! I mean – well, you wouldn't! And, well, I might be a demon, but I do have certain standards of behaviour!"

[3] The Reader is here asked to remember that neither Maggie nor Nina are proving themselves to be particularly reliable narrators, and that they would do well to draw their own conclusions as to the colour of Maggie's cheeks, before jumping to Nina's.

Just-call-me-Lindsay had eventually backed off and stopped deluging her with ominously-worded memos. Nina was still in the dark as to the reason why, but she hadn't ever brought it up in case the Archangel had just miraculously forgotten. The memory was still enough to make her nervous. Every so often Maggie would enter her workplace – wherever it was – nunnery, library, orphanage, now café, holding a record and beaming. Nina had never dared take it. She could still feel the Archangel's eyes lingering on her.

How could she dare to try take Maggie's hand? Not to mention that it might make Maggie uncomfortable. She had made it extremely clear where she stood. Certain standards of behaviour. They're trying to set us up. Of all the ridiculous things. Nina repeated Maggie's words from earlier that afternoon firmly to herself. This was fine. They were friends. Best friends, even. The angel who had been becoming increasingly cynical throughout the centuries[4], while always trying to spread as much Grace as she could, and the demon whose constant warm beam at first glance camouflaged how much she loved inflicting Shenanigans on unsuspecting humans.[5]

[4] Honestly, Nina was surprised she hadn't Fallen yet. Not that she was complaining, mind you. She wasn't particularly fond of Management in Heaven, but anyone lower ranking than the Archangels was generally kind enough, if perpetually stressed. Not to mention the whole nose-dive into a pile of Sulphur thing was supposed to be very painful.

[5] That said, Maggie's idea of Shenanigans rarely extended above minor inconveniences carefully calculated to cause a major knock-on effect. And really, at that point, if the humans were that easily influenced, the Shenanigans would have happened sooner or later, with or without Demonic Intervention. Exhibit A: see coffee line earlier that afternoon. Not that Maggie ever let that slip to Down Below.

She might have realised she had slightly more than friendly feelings for the demon but Maggie clearly seemed to think that the idea of them in a relationship was ridiculous. Which was fine. Maggie liked her, Nina knew this. Was extremely fond of her, even. Just perhaps not in the way Nina might have wanted. But sometimes that happened in life. Goodness knows she had seen it enough in humans. The last thing she wanted to do was make her uncomfortable or chase her away.

So really the only sensible thing to do was to keep borrowing the pencil from Maggie so that Nina could take turns adding to the list and avoid doing ill-advised things like grabbing Maggie's hand, instead of the receipt.

So far, their list read as follows:

1. The Angel of Jealousy

Nina squinted at the words. "Don't you mean 'angle'?"

"I don't know. Do I? Your words were 'make red-haired partner jealous' and then you trailed off and started thinking. Anyway, I like the description 'Angel of Jealousy'. It feels suitably melodramatic."

Nina cracked a smile and bit back a pun about obtuse angels and angles.

"Ok, so the love triangle trope was clearly a demonic invention, but it does always seem to work. Forces out unspoken feelings, sometimes even gets people to realise that they have them in the first place. And it's not like we need to worry about accidentally setting up Mr Fell with the wrong person, because – pfft – when was the last time love interest number two ended up with the main character?"

Maggie scoffed. "Trying telling Jacob, Rachel, and Leah your 'demonic invention' theory. Wasn't that specific love triangle an integral part of the Divine Plan? Not to mention David, Jonathan and, oh, whoever it was ended up as David's first wife?"

"Your fixation with the Divine Plan never ceases to amaze me, sunshine. Anyway, it's hardly a triangle if one of the love interests dies as early on as Jonathan did."

"Well, demon or otherwise, I've always been invested in a good story arc."

Nina snorted. "Let's move onto point number two."

2. Lock them in a cupboard

"Nina, I'm impressed. That's hardly an angelic suggestion."

"End justifies the means, sunshine. Well. Usually. Sometimes. Well. It definitely will do in this case!"

3. Fake-dating

"So, what's the deal with this one? We convince them to fake-date? We pretend to be in a relationship which magically pushes them to admit their feelings?"

"Er. We figure it out closer to the time?"

4. A last-minute wedding cancellation(?)

"Seems a bit drastic. Are either of us really prepared to propose to and marry Mr Fell or Sunglasses?"

"Fake-propose and fake-marry."

"That's ridiculous. Stepping onto consecrated ground hurts you, sunshine."

"There are ways around it. We just accept I'm going to turn up doing a little hopping dance. We do it in a tiny chapel and I can wait in the doorway. We could have our wedding outside. Worst case scenario, I turn up on a space hopper or something. Rubber's fairly insulating."

Nina snorted with laughter. "I'm still not convinced. But the space hopper I would pay to see."

5. A unexpected rainstorm

"Rain?"

"It's romantic."

"Whatever poor bastard said that had clearly never lived in the United Kingdom for an extended period of time." Nina shuddered. "An 'unexpected rainstorm' happens at least once a fortnight here. If the rain hasn't forced them together yet, I doubt even a miracle – angelic or demonic could get it done."

Maggie sighed. "Maybe they've just never been trapped together under it yet. It always seems to work in the movies."

Nina still looked sceptical. "Well, anyway, just thinking about it, I can guarantee you that if – just as an example – the two of us suddenly got drenched in a rainstorm, my first thought would not be 'oh, isn't this romantic' – it would be more along the lines of 'oh bugger bugger bugger.'"

"I…err. Yes. I will bear that in mind." Maggie's voice was slightly higher pitched than it had been earlier, and the café suddenly felt rather warm. Nina realised with a start just how close they were sitting to each other. Darkness had completely set in outside the café.

"Well. We have five ideas," she said, somewhat lamely. "Maybe some more will come to us, but this is enough for a decent start." She jumped to her feet. "Good planning session, I think."

"Good planning session," Maggie agreed. Silence stretched between the two of them. Nina picked up the list and fiddled with it.

"Well. I should probably be off," Maggie ventured at last, getting to her feet.

"Yes. Of course."

There was another long pause.

"Alright. Next time either one of us sees Mr Fell and partner together, we make a start. I've already got an idea."

"The naked man friend who showed up outside A.Z. Fell and Co this morning?"

Maggie blinked. "The – the naked man friend?"

"Caused a real stir, I can tell you. Showed up holding a cardboard box and then dropped it to hug Mr Fell. Poor man looked like he'd seen a ghost. Huge crowds. Felt a bit bad for the man so did a little miracle to stop him going viral."

"So that's why there were so many people in my shop this afternoon!" Maggie sounded a mixture of amused and annoyed. "And there I thought it was my new window display.[6] But, yes, the, er, 'naked man friend' sounds like a good place to start."

[6] Said window display had promised, with perfect truthfulness, "Best of Bebop to banish those Blues away."

Despite her best efforts, Nina felt her mouth quirk into a smile. "Well that's not a phrase I ever thought you'd say, sunshine. But yes. Operation Mr Fell & partner is ready to rock and roll."

Thoughts & feels? If you do, do drop a comment :D
Any theories about the 'naked man friend' in this universe?
Do you feel Nina's characterisation makes sense?

This chapter's music recommendation is "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" by Ella Fitzgerald