Astraea hummed a tune as she walked around the small cottage that she and Jacob inhabited. Her memory was still fuzzy, but Jacob reassured her that it would return to her with time. The cottage was quaint, residing on the outskirts of L.A. Both her and Jacob had decided to move from England after finishing school. Astraea and Jacob shared a cottage and payed for everything together.
It had been a few days since she had awoken when Jacob had deemed her well enough to leave her room. He had visited her room every day, spending hours with her and bringing her tea to calm her restless mind. She hadn't been sleeping properly, every hour of sleep was silent, like she was floating in an abyss. She had tried to bring it up to Jacob, but he had brushed it off as nothing, leaving her even more confused. Surely people should dream? It was probably the tea Dr. Lohan had prescribed.
"What's that you're humming?" Jacob had been sat at the kitchen table watching her clean, she had almost forgot that he was there. She knew that she should be used to his presence, they had been friends for years, right? It was unusual that she was always so startled by him, like she wasn't expecting him to be in her life. Like he was a ghost haunting her dreams.
Her head ached at the thought of sleep, she should go to a doctor about her lack of it. Though, she was already seeing a therapist about it.
"Just a tune." She really wasn't aware of where she had heard it, a flash of long, red hair popped into her mind. She recognised it but couldn't place it. A long forgotten memory trying to push through the haze, another hallucination most likely.
Jacob hummed, he did that a lot. He never responded to her, just hummed whenever she said something. He seemed content to sit silently in her company. She quite often liked silent company, a vague memory of hours spent in silence, but she found that his silence was disconcerting. Why though? He was her friend, she had nothing to worry about. It was Jacob. Just Jacob.
She had spent the last few days reassuring herself of this. He was just Jacob - there was nothing wrong with him. Or her. Yet, every time she repeated her mental mantra, she had that pull in her gut telling her it wasn't the truth.
Morpheus sat in the small living room above A.Z Fell and Co. An angel and a demon sat across from him, worry etched into their faces.
"I went back to the park when I couldn't find her. I couldn't find anything strange." It was odd for Morpheus to be the one carrying the conversation. Aziraphale had quieted drastically as the realisation that his sister was missing again sank in and Crowley sat next to him, comforting the distraught angel.
"It's not like her to run off. She's not that kind of angel." He burrowed closer into Crowley's side, sniffling as the demon wrapped an arm around the angel. It was a strange sight, angels and demons were hereditary enemies, yet, they were cured up on a couch together. He could only assume that people thought the same thing when they saw him and Astraea together. Thought, they were different to the angel and demon. Him and Astraea were purely friends, right? The duo in front of him clearly had something more going on between them.
"So what do we do, then? You're an Endless. God of Dreams. Can't you just find her in her dreams?" He chose to ignore Crowley's jab at him. The three of them were under emotional distress and he didn't have the time and energy to get annoyed at the demon.
"I wish that I could. But she isn't dreaming. It's like she's being blocked off from me." Aziraphale sniffled again at that, turning away from the Endless. He couldn't imagine how difficult this must be for the angel, he had only just got Astraea back. It was unfair. He had had only a century with her and even found her presence infectious, Aziraphale had spent his entire existence by her side.
"Well maybe she's just not sleeping?" Crowley was clearly trying to be the voice of reason. There was a quiver to his voice, though, that clearly showed his fear for the missing angel.
"No, no. Astraea is an angel of routine. She has slept every night for the last millennia. Pausing only for the last century. She was exhausted when I dropped her off as well, she would have come home and fallen immediately to sleep." The more he thought about it, the more it worried him. It was so unnatural of her. To be awake for so long was not a normal occurrence for her, in fact, it was abnormal. Lucienne was too busy trying to find the missing dreams and nightmares, he couldn't task her with helping to find Astraea as well.
The trio sat in silence.
"Is there anything that could be blocking her from your view?" Crowley's voice was desperate. This was his angel's sister that was missing. Despite the fact that she was older than Aziraphale, Crowley had always thought of her as a daughter, maybe a younger sister. In the last few centuries, he had spent many nights stroking her hair and humming an old welsh lullaby to her. Pais Dinogad was what he always hummed to her. She had suffered through many nightmares over the years and it appeared to be the only thing capable of calming her.
They had never told Aziraphale of their prior friendship. And the fact that Astraea almost fell.
She had tried to follow her best friend - Crowley wouldn't let her. She was too pure. He couldn't have her descent to hell on his conscience.
"Valerian." Morpheus whispered. His blood froze in his veins. If it was possible, his face paled more than it already was.
"Valerian?" Crowely inched forward, only being held back by the angel tightly grasping to his shirt.
"Valerian root. If she were to be ingesting it, it would knock her out and block her from my senses." He paused as if contemplating something, "If someone was making her ingest Valerian to block my powers, they would have to be knowledgeable on medicinal plants and my weaknesses." Crowley's grip on the couch tightened. He was practically puncturing holes through the material.
"So, we're looking for a being aware of celestial forces, in particular you. Who knows about medicine. Can't be that hard?" Aziraphale spoke for the first time in minutes, standing from his place beside Crowley - the demon reaching to pull him back, "Let's get looking."
"Astraea?" Jacob's voice called from the kitchen doorway as she was cooking at the stove - still humming the tune from before. "I'm going out for a while."
He walked towards her, grasping her shoulders and turning her to face him. His body towered over her, making her feel small as she was encapsulated in his being.
"I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere and don't forget to drink your tea. Remember, the doctor prescribed it." He brushed a strand of hair out of her face and she felt a shiver go down her back. She hated the tea. It smelt like feet and tasted like dirt.
"I won't" She whispered, it was almost like an instinctual fear. There was man standing over her, a man who was much stronger and cornering her against the stove.
He tilted her chin up to connect their eyes with his finger, "Good girl."
He left her alone then.
She didn't know when he'd be back, but she couldn't help the thought that she wished he would never return. It was selfish a cruel, but she couldn't help it. In that moment, he had scared her more than she had ever been scared before - and she had a feeling that she had been very scared before.
She sat at the kitchen table, her half made lunch sitting forgotten on the stove. She had had enough thought to turn off the stove before she sat down. Something was wrong, she could feel it. Picking at her brain, like a lockpick trying to break through a door. Maybe there was a door in her mind? She had heard of suppressed memories at school, hadn't her therapist talked to her about it?
She sipped at her tea and her worries melted away, within the hour, Jacob had returned and she had embraced him at the door. All fear seemingly disappearing as she relaxed at the kitchen table.
"Miss me?" He laughed as she met him, nuzzling into his side, a teacup still held in her hand.
"Don't forget we need to go and visit Dr. Lohan, it's your weekly visiting day." How had she forgot that? Of course she was due to talk with her therapist, she had only been thinking of her therapist this past hour.
She loved her therapist, she was a very kind woman, but she didn't like going to therapy."Are you still having the hallucinations?" Dr. Lohan's voice was always careful when questioning her about her hallucinations. Hallucinations of angels and demons, of Gods and men.
"They're not as bad. The tea is really helping." Dr. Lohan smiled at that, pleased with her progress.
"That's good to hear." She wrote a few things in her notebook, "Which one's are worse? The one of your brother or of the god?"
"Endless. Not a God." Her reply was instant, correcting the shrink. They had had the conversation multiple times and Astraea was getting tired of correcting her. It didn't really matter what the shrink called him - he was a made up part of her imagination anyway, he didn't have feeling for her to offend.
"My apologies, Astraea. Which one's are worse, the one of your brother or of the Endless?" It was neither, that was the answer. Her imaginary brother and the Endless constantly plagued her thoughts. But they weren't the worst. Not this week.
"Neither." Dr. Lohan paused in her writing, glancing up at Astraea from behind her glasses that were much too big for her head. They were almost comical, and Astraea had had to refrain from laughing on multiple occasions.
"Then who?" Astraea didn't mention many people in her hallucinations and dreams. The dreams were worse than the hallucinations - it was why the tea had been prescribed.
"Crowley." She didn't mention the 'Demon' much during their sessions and when she did, she usually began crying. Claiming that he had left her, abandoned her for a mad man with an insane plan. Dr. Lohan had originally thought that they had been lovers and Astraea's mind was trying to compensate for a bad break up. After further investigation, she now believed that they had only been friends. Though that could hurt just as much, if not more.
"And what of Crowley?" Dr. Lohan's voice had quieted, knowing that this would probably be a tearful session.
"He sings to me. An old song, not in English. I'm not sure what. It's a lullaby." Her voice was breaking by the end and a singular tear ran down her cheek, "He strokes my hair and tells me to sleep. That he wont leave me, that he'll chase the nightmares away. That he'll protect me. That he wont let me fall."
"Fall?" Dr. Lohan was barely whispering, but her voice carried across the quiet room."To hell. He fell to hell, he wouldn't let me fall too." She didn't move, just sat on the couch, gripping onto the seats and staring forward, through Dr. Lohan.
Dr. Lohan wrote down some notes and moved swiftly on from the talk of the demon. It wasn't long before the session was over and she was being escorted out by Dr. Lohan, tissues gripped tightly in her hands.
"I'll see you next week, Astraea. Keep drinking your tea." The door to the therapists office closed behind her and she was left alone in the corridor.
A blonde haired woman bustled past her and into an office further down the corridor.
"Sorry, Astraea." She muttered as she bumped into her.
"It's not problem, Linda."