#kogla

All that was left of the archdemon Maltha was a small flickering of life in her chest, which Crowley kept stoked with the healing power flowing through his hands.  Aziraphale helped dress the wounds at his direction.

It took about an hour for her heartbeat to start back up.  Crowley was sweating and shaking from the constant exertion by then, but his face broke into a huge grin when it happened.  Her chest began to rise and fall shortly afterwards, slowly and shallowly. “Ah, there we go.”

They worked together to haul her up onto the couch, then, which was no easy task given their relative sizes.

She remained comatose. Crowley worked on her intermittently over the span of a few days.  Aziraphale made sure he took breaks, watching over the archdemon while he slept and ate so she wouldn’t wake up and get the jump on them.  He watched the gradually strengthening aura with understandable unease, but Crowley reassured him she would be very weak when she woke up and it would take a lot more healing before she could use her powers again.

They bickered about the intended level of recovery, and even though he tried a few times Aziraphale could not convince Crowley to simply let her die despite the toll she had taken on him.

One day when Aziraphale was keeping watch, he saw her hand begin to twitch.  He immediately fetched Crowley from the kitchen where he had been eating.

“All right, this is it,” said Crowley.  “Go in the bedroom where she can’t see you until I tell you to come out.”

“All right.”

He was relieved that Aziraphale actually listened to him this time.

When Crowley came into the living room, Maltha had levered herself upright and was prodding muzzily at the spot where the wound had been, which was now a mass of scar tissue.  The lesser demon watched her with a certain amount of trepidation from the doorway.

Finally, she looked up at him.  “Crowley?”

“Yes?”

“That wound should have been fatal.  Only a real healer could have saved me.”

He lifted his hand and gave a sheepish wave.

She just looked at him.

“It was me.”

Her eyes roved his face, searching, and then her expression collapsed, eyes brimming over with tears. “My healer?  Is it really you?  After all this time?”

He nodded.

Her memories of Heaven and all the love she had held in her heart began to flood back into her at the sight of those golden eyes that had looked at her in Heaven all those years ago.  

She clambered off the couch unsteadily and stumbled over to him, engulfing him in an embrace, which he returned uneasily.

“I had given up on ever finding you,” she said into his hair, sniffling.  “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t even recognize you.  I’m so sorry. My poor healer.  After all this time.  I’m so sorry.”

Crowley allowed her to squeeze him and sob over him.  After a few minutes he managed to break her grip.  “Come on, sit back down.”

She did so, wiping her face with her palm.  “How could I have forgotten?” she said.  “How could I think love was a bad thing?”

Crowley sat next to her and took her other hand tentatively.  “You know Maltha,” he began cautiously, “this whole time you kept saying how it’s not proper for demons to feel love.  How it’s harmful and needs to be stamped out.  And I can’t help but wonder if it was me you were talking about, or about yourself.”

She let out a fresh stream of tears.  “They all hate me so much, Crowley.  I fell for them and they all hate me now. They didn’t even think twice about rejecting me. They would rather see me kill than be gentle with anyone.  I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.  It would be better to feel nothing at all. I haven’t done a single thing right in my entire existence.  They all hate me.  Even the underlings in my clinic.  And now I’ve finally found my healer, and even he hates me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Really?  But I…I tried to take away all that…the cars and the fountains with the electric lights…and the cotton candy sky….”

He patted her hand. “No, I don’t hate you.  Because I know, deep down, you were trying to help me. Because you didn’t want me to suffer…the same way you were suffering.”

She crushed him in a hug again, sobbing, and Crowley felt her aura softening around him.

When he finally managed to pry her off again, he held out his hand for a handshake.  “Maltha, I would like to be friends.  Would you like that?”

She looked at his hand.

“No one has ever asked you that before, have they?”

“Friends.  All right.  Yes, I would like that very much.”

Her talons swallowed his hand as she took it.

“All right,” said Crowley, getting up and moving towards the bedroom.  “Since we’re friends, there is someone I’d like you to meet.”

“All right,” said Maltha unsurely.

“When, er…Marko from your clinic…”

“Him,” said Maltha distastefully.

“Right,” said Crowley. “Well, he, er…gave me something I had a reaction to and—”

“I knew it,” growled Maltha. “I’ll skin him.”

“Well, I had a reaction, but someone came and took care of me while I was sick.”

Maltha looked at him warily. “It’s not that angel, is it?”

Crowley waved to the bedroom, and Aziraphale came out.

“That angel does not love you,” snarled Maltha, removing herself from the couch and gripping Crowley, eying Aziraphale like she was a child threatened with the removal of her favourite toy.  “Angels hurt demons.  He attacked me.”

“Wait, just listen!” Crowley yelled.

She looked down at him and saw the fear there, and it broke what heart had been developing inside her chest.  She let go of his arm.

He stepped forwards and took Aziraphale’s hand.  “He only attacked you because he was trying to keep me safe.  Aziraphale’s already had the chance to hurt me many times over, but he’s never taken it.  We’ve known each other for six thousand years.  And when I was completely helpless, he nursed me back to health and made sure I got something to eat.”

She looked at Aziraphale with watery eyes.  “But he’s an angel.  He just let you fall and did nothing about it.”

“Maltha,” said Crowley. “It’s been six thousand years.  What could he have done, really?  The past doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t have to matter.  What matters is what’s happening here and now.  Aziraphale is my friend.  He took care of me when I was hurt.  He loves me.”

Maltha looked at the angel uncertainly.  Care for the sick was the fastest way straight to her heart.  She couldn’t deny him credit.

“I suppose he must love you, then,” she finally conceded.  It was at that moment that she realized she had still been feeling love all along no matter how hard she had tried to push it down.  That love was what had gotten her kicked out of Heaven, and she would gladly fall all over again if it meant holding onto it.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, squeezing Crowley’s hand.

“Crowley, I’d like you to come work in my clinic,” said Maltha.  “You’re the only other one who could actually do this job.”

“Ahm,” said Crowley. “I…”

Maltha’s eyes shifted from his face down to some spot on the floor.  “Of course.  I forgot. The Earth.  You love it, and you want to be up here.  Though I cannot imagine why.”

He suspected that, had she been at full power, the request and subsequent reaction to his rejection might have been more forceful.

She hauled herself up. “Then I suppose in the end I’m alone all the same.  Thank you, Crowley.  I suppose I should get going now.”

Crowley bit his lip. “Maltha, I…Well, I’m not going to work in the clinic, but I did have something else in mind.  Why don’t you let us show you?”

“Show me what?”

“Why we love the Earth.”

Aziraphale was mostly better by then, so he volunteered to be the one to go to the store.  He didn’t have a good feeling about leaving Crowley and Maltha alone, but upon his return, he found the two of them in pajamas and swaddled in blankets, absolutely engrossed in You Only Live Twice.  They had just finished with what Crowley considered to be foremost among earthly pleasures: sleep.  All three of them had gotten a solid nine hours.  And now it was time for breakfast.

Aziraphale had been told he made “mean” omelets before, and although he wasn’t familiar with some of the terminology Crowley picked up from humans, he was familiar with the way Crowley flip-flopped certain phrases like for goodness’ sake for dramatic effect, so he took it as a compliment.  He also took it to mean he should be the one to cook, since Crowley was usually too lazy to cook at all and would probably mess it up.

He figured that someone Maltha’s size would need more food, so he piled fried eggs, mounds of bacon, and several pieces of toast onto her plate before giving Crowley a serving half the size as hers.  She clearly enjoyed it, although she didn’t seem to be grasping the significance of it quite like they’d hoped.  

After breakfast, Aziraphale and Crowley dithered on trying to decide what activity the three of them should undertake next.  Maltha, same as most archdemons, rarely left Hell except for important matters up on Earth. In fact, she tended to leave a bit more often than most, since she occasionally had to subdue patients that got out of hand to bring them down, but even still she had never spent much time on Earth and it had all been for business.  She would hardly be familiar with anything.

Aziraphale suggested they take her to a restaurant, but Crowley pointed out she probably wouldn’t find that very impressive since she was used to being waited on in Hell. Crowley suggested instead that they take her shopping and let her try on some nice clothes, with a pointed look at her blood-stained doctor’s coat.  But Aziraphale said, with as much tact as he could manage, that he didn’t think any of the department stores nearby would have anything in her size.

Neither was sure exactly what series of thoughts led them to the outcome, but they eventually settled on going to an amusement park.

They had to convince her to change her shape into something a bit more human-like, and in the end she looked passible as a human except for the fact that she had a crop of black feathers instead of hair.  But it looked all the same from a distance, and Crowley couldn’t very well chastise her when he had never managed to change his eyes, so they figured it was good enough. Passersby also would probably not be able to tell what gender she was, but they figured that was something humans needed to learn to stop being unsettled by anyway, and headed out.

Even in her new form, Maltha was so huge that she barely fit in the Bentley, but she seemed to enjoy the car ride over.  She watched with interest but without comprehension as Crowley paid for their entry and a worker stamped her hand.

“And what’s this?” she said, examining the mark on her hand.  “It appears they’ve put a shape on me in ink.”

“That lets everyone know you’re allowed to be here,” said Crowley.

“It does not appear to have any supernatural hold on me.”

“It’s not a sigil. It’s just so everyone knows you paid to get in.”

“No one can deny me entry to where I choose to go.”

“All right,” said Crowley tentatively, “I mean, I suppose if that’s how you want to look at it.  But it’s worth it to do it the human way at least some of the time.  It’s more enjoyable that way.”

She did not seem to fully believe him, but she soon dropped the issue and became engrossed in the sights. They had to prompt her to keep walking several times as she stopped in the middle of the walkway to simply peer up at the tall rides.  

“They did all this without miracles?” she said, astonished.

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“They’re very clever.”

Her eyes roved around, clearly impressed, seeming to understand a little bit more now.

Aziraphale looked on in horror as Crowley strong-armed Maltha into riding the carousel, but he was surprised to hear her giggling with delight as the horses teetered up and down. She stayed on when the ride slowed to a stop and only got off when Crowley prompted her that the ride was over.

She did not seem quite as fond of the roller coasters, though, and they avoided them altogether after the first experience with them, which resulted in an unfortunate accident to the poor teenager who was operating the thing.

They made their way to the food court after that, and Crowley made a beeline for a human spinning a candy-colored web in a whirling machine.

He returned with two globules and shoved a pink cloud at her.  “Here.”

She took it.  “Cotton candy.  You said this is what clouds look like at the sunset.”

Crowley was already cheek deep in a wad of blue sugar, and nodded as it dissolved in his mouth.

She picked it cautiously apart and consumed it slowly.  Aziraphale indulged in a funnel cake, which he shared with the two demons when Maltha had finished her cotton candy and began to peer at him curiously.

“We should go back to America some time,” Crowley said.  “I’ve heard they deep fry Oreos over there now.”

“What?” said Aziraphale. “That sounds disgusting.”

“America?” said Maltha.

“Mmm,” said Crowley. “Across the pond.”

“The pond?”

“The Atlantic Ocean. Angel, let’s go try that sideshow game next.”

They went over and Crowley procured a ball from the counter, handing it to Maltha.

She took it and eyed the bottles in the booth skeptically.  “And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Knock down the bottles.”

“I could knock those bottles down from over here with my powers.”

“Ah, but that’d be cheating.”

“So?”

“So,” said Crowley, giving the carnival worker and apologetic glance, “if you do it without cheating, they’ll give you a prize.”

“What prize?”

“One of those.”

Maltha looked up at the stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling.  Her eyes fell to a goofy stuffed snake.

She knocked down the bottles with a bit too much vigor and ended up breaking one, but in the end she got what she wanted and walked away from the booth with the snake in her hands. She draped it around Crowley’s shoulders, and he rolled his eyes.

They decided it was time to leave when Maltha began to stare at the clowns with a hawkish, unsettled gaze. They went to the liquor store on the way home, then back to Crowley’s flat to assemble a picnic basket to take to the park.

It was a nice day; suspiciously nice, in fact, since the weather was rarely this bright and sunny. St. James was conveniently empty, letting them have their privacy.  They secured a spot by the duck pond and laid a blanket out.  Crowley kicked his shoes off and spread his scaly toes out on the grass, and Maltha followed suit.

They shared their meal with the ducks that were brave enough to get close.  Crowley found a duck sadly waddling around with a broken, half-healed wing.  He healed the bird and set it back in the water, where it quacked appreciatively and paddled away.

They sipped wine slowly. The sun slid downwards, streaking the powder blue sky with deep pink, and Maltha said cotton candy quietly under her breath.

They were slightly tipsy from the wine, which was all gone now, and now that it was past dark they were out of excuses for remaining sober. They went back to the liquor store to load up, then headed back to Crowley’s flat.  And they engaged in Maltha in the kinds of conversation Aziraphale and Crowley had always had in back rooms of bookshops and bars and flats and private and public places where people get drunk, the extended discussions that started out serious but eventually dissolved into hysterical laughter into the wee hours of the morning.  The conversations that had always kept them close to each other and to the Earth.  

Aziraphale told her about the library of Alexandria and the printing press and his esoterica of books in his shop.  Crowley told her about the invention of the Model T and the proliferation of automobiles. They were astonished to find that she had no idea humans had invented machines for flying through the air, and her eyes sparkled as she said she had no idea humans were so clever and inventive.

They told her about Da Vinci and Bosch and Michelangelo and and Shakespeare and every clever human they had ever crossed paths with. They told her about the Spanish Inquisition and Pompeii and every great tragedy they had been present for.  They told her about the great fluctuation and onward march of human history, the rising and falling of Rome and Spain and Britain and America, and they told her about the Great War and World War II and Apartheid and how humans fought each other endlessly and were endlessly cruel despite their cleverness. And they told her about the humans who showed the goodness of human nature during those tragedies, the helpers and heroes and bleeding hearts who save thousands of lives when the need arises.

They told her about their own failed attempt to avert the apocalypse, which by now was far enough in the past to safely laugh about, and she covered her mouth to try and be polite, but her cheeks were flushed drunken red and she obviously found it very funny.

They then blacked out from drinking too much.  Aziraphale and Crowley had been matching Maltha’s pace, but her higher body weight meant she needed more to get drunk.  Neither had given it much thought because they were used to being able to hold their own in drinking contests, and they had driven right off the edge of that cliff into unconsciousness.

Maltha sat in the easy chair, swirling her glass of wine, eyeing the drunken angel and demon on the couch across from her.  Both of them were snoring with their mouths cracked open.

She was thinking.  She was thinking very hard.  Until a small sound behind her betrayed that they were no longer alone.

“Be quiet, please.”  She stood and turned around, drew her wings out, and flourished.  “Don’t wake them.”

Marko from her clinic stood there, still swathed in bandages, with Duke Hastur by his side. Both were looking at her unsurely.

“My lord,” said Marko. “Are you drunk?”

It took her a few tries to figure out how to do it, but she miracled the alcohol out of her bloodstream. “Of course not, Marko.  Don’t be absurd.”

“My lord—”

“I said don’t wake them,” she rumbled.  “They’re both still recovering.  They need their rest.  Let’s move into the kitchen.”

Demonic feet scrabbled on the tile, and Marko said with an irritated whisper, “My lord, you were supposed to be gone for a matter of hours, and when you didn’t reappear we became concerned about what had happened to you.  This demon showed up wanting to know about the progress of his friend, but I couldn’t tell him anything, so we came up to find you.”

“I’m fine,” said Maltha. “I’ve been spending some time up here on Earth.  No cause for alarm.”

Marko looked past her into the living room to the two sleeping figures there.  “He’s still not better.  Still with that angel...”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine,” said Hastur.  “He bloody well doesn’t behave like a demon should!”

“Keep your voice down,” she commanded for the third time.

Hastur looked supremely irritated at the request, but he obeyed nonetheless.  “He needs something, lord, he’s still not—”

“I have decided he does not need any further treatment,” said Maltha.  “That’s my final decision.”

“No!” growled Hastur. “You said you would—that snake deserves whatever you give him after what he did!”

Maltha looked at Hastur, the gears in her head turning in a way they had never thought to for the last 6,000 years, and she finally, finally realized:

“You think my care is a punishment, don’t you, Hastur?”

Hastur’s eyes went wide. “Of course not, lord!”

“How dare you?” she hissed, her eyes dilated like a predatory bird about to strike.  “I’ve never done anything but try to help, and this is how you treat my love?”

“Love?” said Marko, alarmed. “Demons don’t—”

“Who exactly made you the judge of what demons do and don’t?” she said.  “You’re fired, Marko.”

“You can’t fire me for expressing a concern about—”

“I’m firing you because you forcefully overdosed a patient and put his life in danger. And I had to find this out from him instead of you, because it didn’t occur to you to report it to me, somehow.  Don’t set foot in my clinic again.”

“Now hold on,” said Hastur. “You can’t just—”

“I can do whatever I like. If I catch either of you bothering these two again, you’ll regret it.  Now, both of you, get out, and don’t come back.”

They looked at each other dismally.

“Now.”

They both thought it wise to make themselves scarce quickly.

Maltha gave a sigh and trudged back into the living room.  Aziraphale and Crowley were still dead to the world; Aziraphale was sprawled out with his head tilted back, and Crowley was lying with his head resting on one of Aziraphale’s thighs.

She smiled at them despite herself, and inserted herself onto the couch with them, transferring Crowley’s head to her own lap and leaning Aziraphale’s head onto her shoulder, putting her arms around them and closing her eyes until she also fell asleep.

“Thank you for showing me the Earth.  I think I’m starting to see what you mean.”

It was another beautiful day; the delicious breeze whipped at Maltha’s feathers and the sundress she had put on, and she held a wide-brimmed hat onto her head with one hand to stop it from blowing away.

“I’m glad,” said Crowley.

She strode forwards and gave him a kiss on the forehead.  “My healer.”

Crowley smiled awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“I’m glad you ended up here, Crowley.  You belong on Earth, not in Hell.  I’ve only just realized that love really only blossoms on Earth.”

“What are you going to do now?” Aziraphale asked.

Maltha turned from them and looked off into the distant blue sky.  “You’ve made me realize I’ve spent far too much time sitting around in Hell. I’m going to go off and see the world and everything that’s in it, no matter how long it takes.  You’ve got me at a few millennia of disadvantage.  I have quite a steep learning curve to catch up with you.  Take care, Crowley, Aziraphale. The next time you see me, I will be learned in the ways of Earth to approach you as equals.  I look forward to it.  Maybe then I can finally have some genuine companionship.”

She began to stride away. “You sure you don’t want a ride?” said Crowley.

“I think I’ll walk,” Maltha called back to them, waving her hand vaguely.

“Have a nice trip!” said Aziraphale.

They stared at her vanishing figure.

“Does she know that we usually…um…take vehicles for long distances?” said Aziraphale.

“I…I don’t know,” said Crowley.  “Looks like she intends to just walk in a straight line till she finds something interesting.”

Her figure grew fainter and fainter in the distance.

“Are you sure letting her go off like this is a good idea?” said Aziraphale.

“Not at all,” said Crowley.

Her billowing white dress finally became indistinguishable among the landscape.

Crowley turned to Aziraphale and said, “Ah, well, now that that’s finally over, angel…”

“Yes?”

Crowley put a pair of sunglasses on his face, and grinned at his companion.  “We’re going to the auto body shop, and you’re going to get a new coat of paint put on the Bentley.”

“Me?!  Whatever for?”

“Because as I recall, there’s an enormous scratch on her side, and I know exactly who put it there.  Did you bring your wallet?”

Aziraphale gave an exasperated sigh.  “I did, as a matter of fact.  All right, let’s go then, if it bothers you that much.”

They headed back towards Crowley’s flat. Aziraphale took the demon’s hand as they walked.  “So…you’re a healer, hmm?  I’ve often wondered your job had been in Heaven.”

Crowley flushed. “Yeah, what of it?”

“Nothing at all,” said Aziraphale.  “I think it’s…cute.”

“Cute?  How is it cute?“

Aziraphale let go of his hand to wrap an arm around his shoulder instead.  “The big bad demon!  He’s actually quite nice if you ask him for a Band-Aid.”

“All right, all right.”

“Oh, that whole thing about the Caduceus—that must have been you, then?”

“A bit of a joke, really. Just trying to tempt some Israelites into idol worship with the whole ‘look at the healing snake!’ part. Graven images and all that.”

“Backfired a little, did it?”

“All right,” said Crowley crankily.  “If you’re just going to tease me about it, I can use my staff to smack you upside the head instead of give you a Band-Aid, you know.”

“Ooh, you have a staff?  Kidding—don’t give me that look.  Oh hey!  Let’s stop by my bookshop.  I have a plant of yours that I saved from the dumpster.  Two, actually.”

“Really?  Angel, you shouldn’t have!”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand.  “Well, what are friends for, if not to watch out for you, in sickness and in health.”