'JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.'
In which an angel, a demon, and their adoptive daughter decide to stop Armageddon. Except it's days away, they've lost the antichrist, Heaven and Hell are both breathing down their necks, and th...
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Eleven years (with the wrong child, but shhhh, they don't know that yet) go by in the blink of an eye.
***
Somehow, the Seraph and his Demonic counterpart managed to pull it off, securing positions in the Dowling home that allowed them to be close to young Warlock. Aziraphale assumed the identity of Brother Francis, a kindly, if slightly scraggly old gardener, who tried to instill a gentle nature and a respect for all life in the little boy. Even respect for common garden pests, much to the frustration of Crowley, who actually knew how to garden... And who often became irritated with the way Aziraphale let the slugs eat the leaves of the shrubbery he was supposed to care for.
Crowley had taken on the position of Warlock's nanny, Nanny Ashtoreth, an elegant but gothic lady who dressed like Mary Poppins' evil twin. Nanny Ashtoreth doted on Warlock (Crowley did enjoy the fact that preventing Armageddon also allowed him to spend time with kids) singing him Demonic lullabies and promising that he would someday rule over the armies of Hell and smite his enemies. Crowley and Aziraphale's great hope was that their opposing methods would cancel out any inclination towards Heaven or Hell that Warlock possessed.
In addition to the Nanny and the Gardener, a third individual was key to the strange upbringing of Warlock Dowling. Upon taking the position as nanny, Crowley, aka Ashtoreth, made it a condition of employment that Freddie, posing by the name Freddie Ashtoreth, the nanny's daughter, was allowed to stay as well. The Dowlings had agreed, and Freddie became a friend to their young son. She and Warlock would play with action figures and chase butterflies together. Freddie was almost acting in the role of a cousin, of sorts, teaching the boy how to climb trees and do cartwheels, and later, when she reached the adolescent years, babysitting him.
Overall, the girl enjoyed the time spent with Warlock. He was a funny little boy and she considered him to be like family. His mother, Harriet, was kind as well, if a little frazzled or frustrated at times, but she was always friendly to Freddie, and she had the recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies the girl had ever tasted. Freddie didn't care much for Thaddeus Dowling, a rather abrasive man who tended to speak over others, but fortunately, he wasn't around much. (That was especially good because when Freddie was still young, she was terrified of him, because he was such a brash man, and she ended up running to one of her parents whenever he was home. A natural instinct, but not particularly helpful behavior for someone who was supposedly undercover.)
Aside from the general presence of Thaddeus, there were a few other unique challenges to spending so much time in the Dowling home. For one, Freddie and Aziraphale were forced to spend far more time away from the bookshop than they would like to. For another, Freddie always had to be careful with her words and remember to call Aziraphale 'Brother Francis' and Crowley 'Mother' when they were at work preventing the Apocalypse, and she was posing as Freddie Ashtoreth. Of course, it was fun sometimes, like something out of a spy movie that she and Crowley would watch, but other times she would nearly slip, and then berate herself mentally as the day went on.
On top of assisting in the role of 'godfathers' her dads were playing, Freddie was growing up in other ways as well, through the years, and it showed. When she wasn't at the Dowlings, she was at the bookshop, or Crowley's flat, reading, helping mist the plants, and going from watching PG movies to watching PG-13 rated ones. (At age 10, because Crowley's idea of Demonic parenting was one of a kind, and because she had been begging him for a while.) She got her ears pierced at eleven, holding Crowley's hand as she did, and suffered through birthday parties featuring Aziraphale's awful stage magic and fairly tasty chocolate cakes.
In addition to the normal and abnormal trials and tribulations of growing up, Freddie, like most young people of the modern era, attended school, with varying degrees of success. She was an intelligent girl, who liked to learn but hated standardized testing and memorizing. She enjoyed English class (she was the daughter of a bookshop owner after all) and history. (It was always fun to listen to all the second hand accounts knowing that she could go home and learn things first hand from her fathers who had six thousand years of history stored inside of them.) Science and math, she wasn't as interested or successful in, due to so much of it being formula or memorization based. Still, she made good marks, and didn't get into much trouble, except for one week long suspension when she was twelve and convinced Crowley to turn into a snake and come to school with her to scare two boys, who kept running up behind her and grabbing her around the middle, in the halls. She may have been suspended, but the lesson those two had learned about respecting people's autonomy and consent, as well as the frankly priceless looks on their faces, had made it all worth it.
Freddie had a handful of friends that she went out with outside of school hours, but no best friend, and overall, her relationship with her fellow students tended to be casual. She wasn't sure why - maybe it was because she saw a whole side of the universe that they never would, and that caused a disconnect. Or maybe she just wasn't good at making those deep friendships. Who knew? Still, she was happy. She had hobbies and a Bentley that she was learning to drive, she had books and miracles and fathers who loved her - and who loved each other, but were far too silly to admit it. Freddie was observant and creative and usually kind, and oh so very human. When summer rolled around, eleven years after the birth of the Antichrist, she was sixteen years old and someone her fathers were already proud of.
Freddie Eve Fell had a sharp mind, a smile like starlight, and Queen music (ever the soundtrack to life, she, Crowley, and the Bentley all agreed) ringing in her mind. She was raised with one foot in the human realm and one in realms Occult and Ethereal. She was one of a kind.
That was a damn good thing, because Armageddon was coming in like a summer heat wave, and it was only those willing to embrace the odd and forge their own path who had a chance of stopping it.
(Once they realized the truth about the Antichrist's identity, that is.)
