The generosity of Elizabeth Hummel.

When Wes Montgomery headed into his office in the angelic realms on the morning of Friday 30th June, his mind for once was not entirely focused on the tasks ahead that day. Instead, his thoughts were largely consumed by the anticipation of the events that he would be attending in the mortal world in the next two days. The following day would see the renewal of the wedding vows of Beats and Elliott, an event that would be attended by all of the Warblers, the majority of the New Directions, and of course, Beats' parents. Wes though with sadness about the fact that his old friend had approached his sister with an olive branch, something that most of the other Warblers would not think she deserved after her statement back in November. He had invited her to attend the vow renewal, to find a place back in his life, but she had declined, and had merely reiterated the points she had made back then; that he had to be certifiable as mad for getting married for the sake of a latino thug.

It was those two words that made Beats realise that it was pointless to argue, his temper raised by the way that she dismissed the boy that was now his son because of his racial background, without even meeting him. He walked away, knowing he would never forgive her now. He apologised to his mom for the fact that his sister would not be at the ceremony nonetheless, but said no more, not wanting to repeat those harsh words and hurt his mother's feelings even more. The one thing that he had not done was inform his sister of the date of the ceremony, and so when she called his mom on that Thursday to ask if she could look after her children on Saturday as she had plans, Mrs Harper agreed without hesitation. If she would not attend her brother's wedding, then it was her loss; his nephews and niece would however be in attendance with their grandparents…

Such was the importance of the event that Michelle had been persuaded for once to hire a temporary manager and deputy to cover Saturday at the Spotlight, so that both she and Dani could attend. Their role was simply to be there to monitor the staff at the busiest times, and to attend to any crisis. The night shift would be no issue, as the night manager was more than competent on their own. As she would be flying home on the Saturday night, Dani would take on a double shift on the Sunday, so that Michelle could attend the second event of the weekend, her brother-in-law's birthday party…

Elliott would also be in attendance at the 'surprise' party on the Sunday, to mark the moment that Thad entered his third decade. The Head Warbler was still not all that keen on a celebration if he was honest, given all that turning 30 meant to him. The words that Wes had said to him so many times over the years would not now be fulfilled. He would remain a single man. Only Michelle and David knew everything about the pledge that Wes had made to marry Thad if he was single at the age of thirty, and why the day would be difficult for him, and David had done his best to keep the event low key, thwarting the attempts of some of the others in the process. There would therefore be now crowds of former Warblers, no friends of his from UCLA - and of course, other than Ollie, there would be no family… It would be a small gathering of those that were closest to him, a day of good food, and naturally, song…

Of course, although all of the guest still believed that it was to be a surprise party, Thad knew all about it, and had even managed to have a say in the schedule of the day, by asking the Carmichaels to make suggestions of their own, which were in reality his own wishes. The party was also not a wonderful idea to Wes; he had planned to take the 2nd of July off work and spend the bulk of the day alone with the one man that he had ever truly loved, in blissful harmony. Now he would take the following day off, and celebrate with him after the event. However, as Wes stepped into the office that morning, he did not know that all of his plans were about to be turned on their head…

On stepping through the door, he was surprised to see that Finn was there, and that he had a smiling Emily at his side. They all greeted each other, and Wes watched happily as the couple interacted with each other. He was quite good at fighting away the green eyed monster around them; after all, he would have all that they did when Thad eventually died, and he was happy to wait decades for that…

"Well, it is good to see you both," Wes eventually said, "but what brings you here today?"

"Firstly, I decided that the best place for me to start introducing Emily to people would be at the wedding," replied Finn. "Everyone that really matters to me will be there with a couple of exceptions, and they are people that I would like to meet her on a one on one basis. It will save a lot of time doing things this way, and there will be far less going hither and thither. Secondly, Elizabeth wants to speak to you about a very important matter - our research project to be honest. As a result, it makes sense for us to be here in case you have any questions that she cannot answer."

Wes was curious as to what was going on, but before he could ask, Elizabeth stepped out of her own office to join them. "Right, now that we are all here, we should move into my office for a bit of privacy. Wes, you and I need to have a long, serious chat about the future…" Wes looked a little surprised, and indeed worried, but he agreed at once, and they all stepped into the inner sanctum. He took his usual seat opposite Elizabeth when it was offered, then waited for her to speak again. "I will be blunt; as you will be aware, the regional director is about to retire, and I have been offered the post. The decision was not an easy one, but in the end, I agreed and have accepted the new role. That leaves a vacancy here in Ohio, and I was asked to furnish suggestions as to who should be my successor. My candidate was fortunately enough the angel that the council themselves preferred. I am therefore pleased to say that as of the end of July, the new head of the Ohio section will be you, Wes…"

Wes stared at Elizabeth for a moment, blinking his eyes in disbelief. "I am sorry, but what?" he said when his voice came back to him and his brain finally went back into gear.

"Wes, you were spotted as a potential talent for this kind of work the moment that you arrived here in the angelic realms. What I have never told you is that it is highly unusual for anyone to gain a clerical post like the one you have immediately upon their arrival, but it was felt by those above me that it would be a waste of your natural talent for organisation to have you go through the traditional year or two of collection duties; it also helped that the vacancy with me was pressing. From the day that you took the job, your conduct has been nothing but professional, exceeding all expectations, and your decision to intervene in the nursery was seen as merited even then. I am the envy of the other states in that I have someone as efficient as you to help me with all of the responsibilities that come with my role. You were earmarked for a promotion officially for the first time three years ago, when a vacancy came for a deputy officer in Massachusetts. You have family connections to the Boston area of course, but I stated at the time that in my opinion you were not yet ready for the role, and I confess, I did so selfishly. Now, however, with my promotion, it is logical that you take over here. You know the work, you know the team, and can literally just move desks."

"I suppose that the fact that I have been covering for you a lot recently in your absences has done very little to harm my reputation," mused Wes, "but taking over completely is still a very daunting prospect. I will probably end up calling on you for help all the time…"

"Well, you will of course have a new assistant of your own; Emily is going to step in to the role on a temporary basis, until such time as those in authority deem that an otherwise suitable person has arrived. You will of course be able to show her the ropes, so to speak, before you take my job officially in six weeks time." Wes nodded, still in a little bit of shock. He had always hoped for a promotion one day, but this one was bigger than he ever could have imagined, and had also come much sooner than he had anticipated.

Elizabeth smiled, knowing what was going through his mind. However, he would soon forget this news when she told him what came next… "Now, the next item on the agenda is to finally inform you of the true nature of Finn's mission to England. I'm afraid that we all kept you very much in the dark about it, which I know might well have rankled with you at times, but you will hopefully understand why when I reveal the story."

Wes looked at her, his curiosity peaking again. He settled back in his seat, making himself comfortable for the tale she was about to tell. Seeing that, she began. "When I first took the role of section head here in Ohio, I felt a little out of place, and so when I had to attend my first meeting of all the section heads for the United States it was quite a scary prospect, let me tell you… Some of the old guard were, and indeed still are, a bit gruff with those that they see as newbies if I'm honest. I ended up finding myself in the charming company of Irma Gorman, the head of the Missouri section, and she took me under her wing, allowing me to join her group, and introducing me to the important people…"

"It was whilst I was with her that I first heard the rumour about the most important and extraordinary event in the whole of angelic history. It was rumoured that a marriage had been permitted between an angel and a mortal, many decades before. Such a notion was unheard of, given the obvious differences, and the fact that neither could exist in the other's world with any sort of ease. The tale has continued to intrigue me, particularly as there seemed to be no form of documentary evidence to prove or disprove it. Knowing that my promotion was in the pipeline, and that I had an anniversary coming, I took it upon myself to see if I could prove the rumour to be true, once and for all. As you might have gathered, these extraordinary events took place in England, and that was why I had to send Finn over to London to conduct the investigation for me. He was the obvious choice for the work, as he desperately needed to take a rest from collections, even though he would deny that, and then there was the fact that his soulmate was there…"

"Wait, so you knew all about Emily?" Wes gasped, unable to believe that could be true.

"No. I knew that his soulmate was an angel, and in the United Kingdom somewhere, that was all. That it turned out his soulmate was the young woman that I and my opposite number in London had assigned to work with him was a happy coincidence, trust me. I digress; the task that I set before Finn had to rate as one of the most massive that any angel had been given to undertake, but I knew that he had the necessary tenacity to get it done, and Emily had the tireless thirst for knowledge to sustain them both. However, it was still like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack…"

"They managed to find the details of the two protagonists that had been named in the rumour, and their files. Had they both still been in the English section then the work would have been simple, but the souls in question had not lived to their full potential, and both had returned to the mortal world, where they would not recall their shared past. However, it did give them a couple of dates between which they could focus their search; the death of the rumoured bride on 29th December 1940, a victim of what is now called The Second Great Fire of London, and the groom, on the 11th of November 1918."

"The 11th of November… That's the day that the First World War ended," said Wes, unable to stop himself interrupting.

"Exactly. On that date, our groom was in a trench in Belgium, when a stray bullet, fired from the enemy lines, hit him in the head, killing him instantly. He would be the second last British fatality of the conflict…"

"Private Albert Henderson, known to all as Bert, had only been conscripted into the army three months earlier on his 18th birthday; had only arrived in the battlefield two weeks to the day before he was shot. His had been an ordinary life in the East End of London; the eldest son of a large family, crammed together in a small terraced house in the shadow of the docks. He left school at 14, just as war was declared; he went to work with his father as a conductor on the tramway system, a job less back breaking and stressful than the dock labourer work that most of his contemporaries would find themselves in…"

"It was whilst he was at work in 1916 that he first met a young woman by the name of Elsie Mayhew, who worked in a department store in the Whitechapel district; she was two years his senior, but that was no issue to either of them, not in a city where young men of her own age and older were absent in increasingly large numbers at the front. He saw her every day as she headed to work, and most nights as she headed home, and one day he summoned up the courage to ask her out to the theatre. That was the start of a closer relationship; on a cold day in December 1916... It would lead on to meeting parents, those parents then meeting, and in due course, the news that they were engaged more or less, unofficially of course, was everywhere. He could not afford to buy her a ring so he could make it official, so instead he made her a promise; that no matter what happened, he would marry her before she reached the age of 30. She was happy to accept that pledge, even though she knew, like so many other young woman at that time, that his promise might never be fulfilled… His call up came, of course, and the final words he said to her, as his train was about to move off from the station to take him to the continent, was that he would marry her as soon as he came home, and that he loved her forever. On an impulse, she leant forward and kissed him on the lips properly for the first time, then he repeated the gesture. The whistle blew, and the train steamed away…"

"When the news reached London of Albert's death, Elsie felt nothing but rage; she had been cheated out of her future, ironically at the eleventh hour. That anger did eventually die down, as she realised that she was not alone in her grief. She decided that she would not seek out another man to replace him, feeling that would be disloyal to him and his memory; in any case, eligible bachelors were in short supply. She carried on in her work, and in time she took a more senior position at a much grander store in Oxford Street, by the name of Bourne and Hollingsworth. Her parents had passed away early in the 1920s, and she left the East End, taking a small flat in the more genteel Maida Vale. She still returned to her roots at the weekend to visit her siblings and the Hendersons, who still saw her as their daughter-in-law. Her faith had been greatly tested by Albert's death, but she remained a regular churchgoer, the man that she loved forever in her prayers…"

"Meanwhile Albert had entered the angelic realm. He needed some time to overcome the rage he felt at the circumstances of his death, but would become an efficient and dedicated collector, a role which saw him collect two of his own siblings during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919. His bosses however were aware that he still felt a deep anger within him, and that the rage he felt at the injustice of his death was just buried beneath the surface. And there was a good reason for that rage, which one day, quite by accident, Albert found out. It transpired that his name had been put on the list in error by a clerk rushing in the busy times. The bullet should not have hit him at all. In fact, the intended target was only a few yards away; a Lieutenant Hubert Henderson, also known to his friends and family as Bert…"

Elizabeth stopped as she saw the look of pain and sympathy on Wes' face. He empathised with the young man, and the error was all too similar to that which had left Blaine in limbo for two weeks… "On finding the information out, Albert reacted much as you could expect. He blew up in a hideous temper at those in charge, then suffered a complete breakdown. The then Head of the London section felt very strongly for him, and vowed to do all in his power to help him cope with the situation. To begin with, he allowed Albert to visit Elsie; by some miracle, she was actually able to see him, despite never having seen any other angelic presence in the past. He told her all that had happened, and she too raged at a bureaucracy that had left both of them in misery, and caused Albert's promise to her to be broken."

"By this time, it was the spring of 1928, and Elsie was fast approaching her 30th birthday; the time by which he had promised he would marry her. What would happen next was a fluke, an accident of chance. Albert was never told which clerk had made the mistake, but they knew who he was, and one day they overheard him bemoaning the fact that he was not being allowed to marry Elsie as he wanted to, to another collector. Now, as you are aware, angels can marry each other if it is approved by a member of the angelic council, and they have the relevant paperwork. The clerk decided that he would fill out the form for the marriage, so that Albert could marry her at once; he also forged the signature of the relevant official, something that he and the other clerks often did for the man in question. The clerk however assumed that Elsie Mayhew was also an angel. The problem with the form at that time was that it did not state that the intended spouse had to be a resident of the angelic realms, it was just assumed. As a result, the clerk had made another error; he had authorised the wedding of an angel and a mortal…"

Wes stared at Elizabeth for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief. "It was a very kind gesture, but surely such things would have been checked out before any ceremony could take place. The senior official involved would not recall signing it for a start, so that would have raised doubts about the legitimacy of the permission…"

"In the normal run of things, I would guess that would indeed have been the case, and our tale would have ended there, but the official in question was in the process of being promoted, and for such an event to be discovered at that moment, for the angelic council to discover that his signature was being forged by his staff on a routine basis at his instruction would have been a scandal. That it had been happening for so long without anyone raising any kind of suspicion would not have looked good for him, but it would also have been bad for the whole angelic structure in England. The hierarchy at the time decided that when the issue did come to light, it would be better to ignore the implications and allow the ruling to stand…"

"They did what!?" yelled Wes, unable to believe that such a blatant breach of the rules governing relations between the two realms could have been allowed to remain in place.

"People in high places, as we all know, do not like to be shown up as having made errors of judgement, or to have been negligent, so it was in no-one's interest to make too much of it. They therefore buried it as well as they could, removed all the evidence that they could erase, and burying the parts of the paper trail they could not hide by misfiling it. It is only due to the dogged determination of Emily and Finn that the truth has finally emerged, and indeed one of the reasons that the England section was only too happy to allow Emily to transfer here was to prevent the truth behind the rumour surfacing there…"

As Wes continued to shake his head in dismay, Elizabeth continued. "With the written authorisation given, all that remained was question of how on earth the ceremony could actually take place, given that at the time, the only angel the bride to be could see was her groom. Thus began a period of hard work on Albert's part, as he convinced the woman he wished to marry that there were other angels all around her, and that she just needed to believe to see them. That was no mean feat, and it would be the autumn of 1928 before she was able to see the officials that would conduct the ceremony. They quickly set a date, and ended up marrying on the day of her 30th birthday, as she could mark the date without anyone questioning why she was celebrating. It also meant that he fulfilled his promise to her; he did indeed marry her at the very age that he had pledged to do so, a decade before…"

"So they were married, but that cannot have been easy for either of them," stated Wes.

"Well, no. For a start, there was the issue of kissing, of course, as they had to remain modest and chaste, as you well know. Elsie also had a strong desire to change her name as other women did on marriage; she wanted to be Mrs Elsie Henderson, but in the circumstances, to have done so would have been viewed as bizarre, and it was impossible. They could not have people that knew the story thinking she had lost her mind after all. In any case, she could not have carried on in her position at work as a married woman; it was still an era in which such things were not considered respectable and proper."

"Albert still had all of his angelic work to do, and so they saw each other little more than they had previously. Elsie had her work too, but now wore her wedding ring on a chain around her neck, hidden from view. That was both a source of irritation and pleasure for her; she hated the world not knowing, but loved having such a huge secret at the same time. For the next decade and a bit, they lived married, but apart, savouring each of those little moments that they could be together. Around them of course the world began to fall apart again; the fragile peace was eventually shattered by the Nazi regime, and soon enough, war was once again a scourge on the youth of the country. Elsie found herself joining a team of firewatchers in the store, ready for the onset of the German Luftwaffe. At first the expected bombs failed to fall, but there was no complacency. Eventually, as we know, they did arrive, and the store was damaged by bombs; they remained standing, whereas John Lewis just a short distance away was burnt to the ground…"

"Christmas 1940 was a subdued affair. There were few toys and games available for children, and food was rationed. At work, Elsie and her colleagues had to prepare for the onset of clothes rationing and coupons; the haberdashery department that Elsie ran was now running short of buttons as their manufacture was restricted, and thread and new wool also became a luxury. Still, the majority of her stock would not involve coupon use in their purchase, and it was not a headache for her, unlike those that worked in the drapery, tailoring and ready-made departments close by."

"On the final Saturday of the year, Elsie stayed back after the store had closed to ensure her department was ready for the challenge to come. It was not going to be easy, but she was determined like her colleagues that Bourne and Hollingsworth would get through everything with as much ease as possible. She had even proposed a scheme to one of the managers whereby they would accept the return of buttons from clothing no longer wearable so that others could get a better match for their own items, and it was being viewed in a positive light…"

"However, she was not going to be there to oversee all her work. She decided to visit Albert's family in the East End on the Sunday; on her way home, she was caught up in the worst air raid to hit the capital, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She would die as the flames raged around St Paul's Cathedral, as shown in one of the most famous images of the Second World War…"

Wes nodded, recalling that most iconic of pictures, the dome of the cathedral illuminated in the night sky by the inferno raging around it, encircling the building in a sea of flame. He could only imagine what it had to have been like for those in the vicinity at the time…

"The bus on which she had been making her way home had been picking its way carefully through the Barbican area of the city when it found its path blocked by rubble and flame. Unable to reverse, the conductor on the bus advised the handful of passengers still aboard that if they headed back along the street a little way they would come to a road that lead them to what is now the St Paul's station on the Central Line of the Underground. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been more sensible on the bus driver's part if he had headed there instead… Elsie was the first off, and well ahead of the rest of the little group, knowing that with one change at Oxford Circus she would be home in no time. Her haste was what killed her in the end; had she not been in such a hurry, then she might have been further back when a bomb fell yards from her, and blew a five storey building down on top of her… At least her death would have been swift."

"Thankfully," said Wes quietly. "And although the event was tragic, the sadness had to have been tinged with delight for her and Albert; together at last, as husband and wife, in the angelic realm."

"I would imagine that there were mixed emotions on both sides, but you are correct about the joy… They remained side by side, in a devoted marriage, for the next five decades, before they agreed that it was perhaps time to start afresh, and start their fourth lifetime on earth, albeit with the condition that they would meet and fall in love all over again. Somewhere in England right now there is a couple, in their early 30s, that know nothing of their life before and the epic story that rocked heaven…" finished Elizabeth.

"Well, it is certainly a fascinating story from angelic history, and I am glad that you have been able to satisfy your curiosity. To prove that such an unlikely rumour is a true story is something else."

"The fact it was true certainly took the angelic council by surprise when we told them. That we had all the documentation to prove it had really happened, that the fiction was fact was what swung it in our favour. Emily found every one of them with help from Finn, the pair of them digging into boxes of papers that had been undisturbed for decades. Of course, the reason I wanted this proved was not just for idle curiosity; it was necessary to make the case for what I wanted for my anniversary. As you know, I can ask for anything that I wish, as long as there is a precedent for it somewhere in the angelic realms. There have been any number of outlandish wishes granted over the years, trust me, because it happened at least once before."

Wes looked at Elizabeth, slightly confused as to what she was talking about; after all, he knew of no mortal that she was attracted to, so it seemed a strange thing to have gone to such great lengths to have proven.

"Of course, the rules also state that a wish made as a reward on an anniversary of service does not have to be for the personal benefit of the person in question; they can transfer what they wish for to another angel, or indeed, to a mortal. I decided quite some time ago, as this anniversary was approaching, that I had no need for a personal wish, and that there was one thing that would make me happier than any other. That there was only one desire that I wanted carried out. Finn knew this from the moment that I asked him to go to London, and I think the fact that he wanted it too was a great motivation to do the work with no complaint. The problem was the council, but faced with all the documentary evidence, they had no choice really but to give me what I desired the most. Wes, I am giving my wish to you; and thanks to Finn and Emily's hard work, permission has been granted for you to marry Thad…"