"Oh." The disdain in her voice was well-nigh palpable. It kind of made Aziraphale's skin want to slide off his bones. "It's you. What are you doing here?"
Aziraphale could feel Madame Tracy looking back and forth between them, but he ignored her. "Oh, simply discussing the finer points of fashion. And you?"
She disconnected the call she had been on, slipping her phone into her sensible pocket. "Nothing that concerns you." She smirked, and it was a calculated thing, all sharp edges and shiny teeth. For a moment, Aziraphale understood the professor's point, almost got - on a deep instinctual level - why Morningstar said that their enemies were not him but each other. For a moment, she looked like a shark. "Good luck talking clothing. It's very serious subject matter, I'm sure."
Tracy stayed quiet, and Aziraphale couldn't help a slight flash of insecurity at the fact that she was there, watching. Seeing how he acted and judging him by it. Should he speak up, fight back, do something? Or should he just ignore it all, let it flow off his back? Or, the third option, stay polite and nice and kind and not say much of anything?
He ended up going with the third option, even with the other two possibilities roaring in his head like a wildfire. "Thank you."
Her rejoinder - a sneer - made him think he'd chosen the wrong option. "That being said," came next, the corner of her mouth still tilted up in derogatory annoyance, "you need to know without a doubt that you do not belong here. Sad, I know, but true. You're not going to make it here, not if you can't even find it in you to read the textbook before the first day of class. Not even if you keep attending, keep trying, keep doing your best."
Her tone of voice indicated just how little she thought doing one's best was worth. He allowed himself a slightly snarky, "That is always the best course of action, you know."
Another sneer, tinged with another smirk and filled with still more teeth. "Thanks for the tip." Her enunciation literally popped on that one. "Bye bye, now." And then she was gone, walking out of the door with a swish of fabric and a chime of the bell.
"Well," Madame Tracy said. "Wasn't she odd?"
Aziraphale sat down in the chair he'd just vacated and fought the urge to cry.
"Oh, shush, now, duck. You're alright."
He was decidedly not alright, but he appreciated the effort. Her warm hand running up and down his back in a soothing pattern certainly didn't help keep him from breaking down, but he managed it a bit more anyway. Deep, harsh breaths tore their way out of his lungs, his whole being resisting the ebb and flow of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, in-
"That's her, then? The alleged angel?"
He nodded, not particularly trusting his voice to speak when he couldn't even trust himself to breathe. He did anyway. "Yes." It was more of a croak than anything.
"Well, petal, I'm sorry to say, I'm not sure I see an angel right there. Not the usual kind, at any rate." A moment, and two more passes of up, down, up, down his back. "I thought angels were supposed to be nice? Sweet?"
Aziraphale never snorted, but he came close. (Not even heartbreak and devastation could stop him from obsessing over literature.) "Not the original angels. The Old Testament was very harsh, actually. Lots of…" He floundered, and then made a big explosion gesture with his hands. "Fiery wrath. A-and fighting. They were soldiers, more than anything."
"Oh." Tracy frowned. "Poor sort of an angel, I'd say. What's so bad about just being nice?"
He shrugged, and it was a hopeless little thing. Small and semi-defeated.
Up. Down. "Well, don't you fret. I don't have a customer for a little while, or until the doorbell rings and someone drops in like you did, whichever comes first. We'll just sit here, just like this, all nice and calm. And then, in a few, you'll be right back to fighting fit and you can go get your man. How does that sound?"
Aziraphale snorted. "Fighting fit?" He hoped his words didn't sound as incredulous as he thought they did. He was unfortunately sure that they probably sounded worse. "I do believe that ship has sailed."
Tracy frowned, and Aziraphale couldn't help but feel as though he were responsible for upsetting her a great deal over the course of their little meeting. It was less than she deserved, he was certain, and more than he did. She'd only just met him. There was no reason for her to care, no reason for him to have bothered her, and no reason for him not to just leave, as soon as possible. "What do you mean?"
The chuckle he gave her was a weak thing. If his hands weren't already shaking in his lap, he'd have brought them up to wring them together. "Oh, er. Nothing, I'm quite sure." He wasn't sure what he'd see if he looked at her face, in her eyes, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Thus, he simply… didn't. "I do believe I was just being silly, my dear lady. Thank you for your concern."
She was still frowning, it turned out, when he finally looked. "Aziraphale-"
He lifted a hand. The name still felt wrong. And he didn't have to be serious all the time, right? He could have - just sometimes - a few things to himself? (He ignored the part of his head that told him he was lying to himself with that idea.) "Ezra. I go by Ezra sometimes."
Madame Tracy nodded. "It's a lovely name, pet. I'll call you Ezra then?"
Aziraphale pretended that hearing the name again didn't set his eyes all teary. He nodded. "Er. Yes. If you like."
"Well, then, Ezra…" She put a good, solid weight to the name, like it deserved some degree of focus simply for being his. (That might well have been the first time anyone had.) "What say you I put on a nice spot of tea and we have a cuppa? And Mr. Shadwell - that's my neighbor, you see - likes those chocolate biscuits to go with it, and I've just got 'em fresh in."
He nodded his gratitude. "Thank you, dear lady."
"Oh, it's no trouble, pet." She grinned, patted his hands once as she stood. "I'll be right back and then we can talk. Hold tight."
And, as she walked off down the semi-labyrinthine passageways she'd led him through before, he took a few, brief moments and let himself calm.