#taken queue

“A shelf?” Mona asked, a mixture of disbelief and concern, as she looked around in some subconscious effort to spot the offending item, but obviously it was gone now. And apparently she had been moved from the scene of the incident anyway. She remembered none of it; only a distinct blackness of being utterly out for the count. Well, this was certainly a new experience, and not once she felt entirely fond of. 

“I think I’ll be fine without a doctor” Last time she had paid a visit to a doctor about headaches, it had been for her husband. She wasn’t repeating it for herself, “That shelf must have really hit me....”

Mona herself had been around a very long time, longer than most, even if, in her existence as an actual human, she was relatively new, there were still a billion years or so to call on...there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen, and she had seen how nothing was ever permanent, everything changed, either stopping completely or becoming something else, rolling on to something new. Nothing was as it was a thousand years ago, five hundred, even in five years things had changed, ended, moved. 

“I’m not a cynic....I just know that everything ends. It’s not a bad thing, everything has to end, to change, adapt..but it’s that ending that makes people appreciate it, to know that something might be precious. People don’t feel the need to live in the moment if the moment lasts forever, and if they don’t live in the moment, even just a little bit, then...then they’re missing the wonder of it” 

  “…but they work so well…”

Mona laughed a little in understanding, nodding also, “Well, that may well be, but trust me, giving in too often or too quickly to that puppy dog look leads to nothing but trouble. Trust me” She repeated for added emphasis. 

She was smiling ear to ear whenever she saw him. She had been smiling ear to ear the first time she saw him. When she’d dropped all those files (carrying far too many, Gil had warned, but she’d been convinced she could make it home with all of them), she hadn’t expected anyone to come over and help, people were too busy worrying about their own work, but then he’d been there. Grinning and bending down to help, making joke about it all, and looking at her as he did so, really looking at her, not just helping her and going, but staying, having a conversation. Connecting. 

She’d never felt that way before with a human; she had cared for them, wanted to do everything she could to help them, even pushing the boundaries of the rules to do so, and she had felt linked to them, to those she helped and those she knew, but this was different. This was like a physical connection, like something tugging at her. He had walked her back to her flat, the little home next to the church, made jokes about it being called The Belfry, and had held half her files as he chatted, and as they reached her door she knew she would invite him in for a coffee. She knew she shouldn’t, knew she couldn’t, but had done it anyway, telling herself it was just saying thank you.

By the time he had left, empty mug left behind, and she had closed the front door after him, she had been breathless and heady and completely in love. She didn’t know how she knew she was, she had never felt it before, but she was, she felt certain. And yet she spent the next couple of weeks trying to deny it. Denying that her heart skipped a beat whenever she chanced to see him again, that she flushed hot when he asked her to dinner, that she could not do anything but smile when even just thinking about him. 

She couldn’t even say what it was about him that made her feel this way. He was handsome and charming and a good person, but it was more than that, it felt...inexplicably, like she’d been waiting her whole existence just to meet this one person. And it was making her dizzy. Whenever she was at his home, she worried he’d expect her to sleep with him (humans did that now, didn’t they? Spent centuries declaring it for marriage only and now did it after first dates. An extreme change in a short amount of time), knowing she’d have to refuse and worried he’d take it the wrong way. But why was she worried about him taking it the wrong way? She shouldn’t been leading him on in the first place. 

Perhaps if she wasn’t on this tour of duty on her own, if she had friends with her, they might talk some sense into her, make her remember her purpose, her reason for existing, stop her being so selfish. But as she sat on top of the highest turret of the church, perched, wings stretched out, enjoying the freedom, she couldn’t reason anything beyond the fact she didn’t want to leave him, that the thought of an existence without him was too painful to comprehend. That suddenly earth seemed far more appealing than anything else; that going home wouldn’t feel like going home anymore. She’d be punished, she knew, for fraternising, possibly be reset, although her excellent record might prevent that, but she’d never get to see him again, that much was certain, they’d make sure she never saw him for the rest of his life. He’d live on without her, she nothing but a bad memory, and he would marry and have children and grow old and die and she’d still be here.

It physically hurt her heart to think it. Physical pain. 

She couldn’t do it, but she couldn’t not do it either. She couldn’t lose him, but this was pathetic and selfish to think this way. He was one man, one human man, and she was.....was much more than that, part of something much bigger. But how could think they were here to help humans if they constantly felt themselves above them? Maybe they weren’t that different at all. Maybe she didn’t want to be that different anymore. 

It might not even work out, she was warned when she went to see Mr Mountjoy. What if you give it all up, and he doesn’t feel the same. Human men say all sorts to get women into bed you know. How can you be sure? It was all concern, she knew, she meant well, and it was only Zak who didn’t argue otherwise, Zak who had known what she knew and had forced himself to turn away, to leave that girl behind and suffer the consequences. She’d have expected arguments from him most of all, but he seemed to be the only one who didn’t. 

Once it’s done there can be no coming back, Mounjtoy had warned. She had expected judgement (actually, she had expected him to be more imposing instead of looking just like the rest of them), but instead received only warnings. If you choose a mortal life you can never come back here, it can never be reversed, no matter what happens. Mortal lives are not all love and joy and excitement, there is suffering and pain and loss. But wouldn’t she be suffering pain and loss if she didn’t do this? I can’t give him up. If she was to take her chances, she wanted those chances to be taken with him. She was so sorry, she didn’t want to turn her back on this, she didn’t want to let anyone down, but.....she was in love. She’s always had a soft spot for humans, others would say, she knew, always let herself get too emotionally involved. But if they were created to help humans, wasn’t it inevitable they’d become like them? If some angels could fall below why not others fall in love? 

She hadn’t been prepared for the agony of the blade, cutting through, hacking away at something that had been apart of her for millions of years, since the very first day she existed. She thought of him and of her work and of her little flat and her job and all the things on earth that would be hers permanently now. But worse than the cut of the blade was the agony of the wings being peeled away, of losing that connection, of that part of her dying. Her back bled when it was done, and her wings seemed lifeless and empty, but what struck her the most was the heaviness. The grounded, earthed heaviness of suddenly being completely and utterly human, confined to one solitary existence, one breakable body, one fallible mind.  

And she’d had no other choice but to go straight to him. She had her wings, she’d been allowed to keep them, and they were wrapped in brown paper like a strange, large parcel as she stood in the busy street. One human amongst hundreds. And when she knocked on his door, her heart had been in her throat, fear that Mountjoy’s warnings had been for the immediate future, that she’d be rejected by the very person she had given it all up for. Despite her worries, she smiled when he opened the door, smiling at the sight of him as she always did.

She told him everything. She had to. How else could she explain lack of family, lack of childhood stories, how else could she explain the bloodied wounds on her back, the scars that would form there. She told him everything and waited with bated breath for his response and felt the pressure of being human weighing down on her as she waited. She had always felt certainty, reassurance, calm, but now other things ran through, things she couldn’t control. And she didn’t know what to expect.

She hadn’t expected a proposal. She’d had to ask him to repeat it. Twice. 

She had said ‘yes’ twice as well, smiling as always, and suddenly all her doubts and regrets went far away to the back of her human mind, as every part of her was consumed with happiness, exhilaration, love, comfort, relief. She’d never felt so many good things all at once. It was exhausting. 

“No,” Mrs Sheringham shook her head with a smile, understanding why Anna might have jumped to the conclusion, “No not to the angels; to whatever my choice brought me, good or bad”

Mona gave him a quick appraisal, a split-second look up and down, checking that he actually was going to be of any help at all, before deciding she had nothing to lose and it wasn’t exactly as if there was anyone else around she could be asking. 

“I’m looking for this address,” She held up an torn envelope, the letter still inside, creased and read, “I know I’m in the right area but....I’m afraid that’s about as much as I know”

“I think that’s the nature of life, y’know?” She suggested, almost thinking aloud as she spoke. Managing to sound both contemplative and otherworldly certain all in the same breath, and all with an understanding smile, “As you go along, you have baggage, and that baggage you have gets a little heavier every day. But I think...I think maybe it’s easier when you’re dong it with someone. It lessens the weight....but sometimes, just sometimes, I think there are those people who can’t help but get weighed down”