'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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The aftermath of that huge mistake, which is mostly trying to salvage non-existent dignity.
***
"So, are we ever going to address the elephant in the room?" Freddie asked from her place leaning against the wall of the tiny kitchen in the apartment over the bookshop.
"What elephant?" Aziraphale questioned his daughter. "There are no elephants here, only tomato sauce."
Freddie rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant, Pops, and you know it. How did we end up watching over the wrong child for eleven whole years?"
Aziraphale stopped stirring the pasta sauce simmering on the stove. (He was by no means a great cook, but after six thousand years of loving food and living life, he had picked up enough to get by.) He looked over at Freddie. "Yes, that is something we should discuss. After dinner."
"You're stalling."
"My dear girl." Aziraphale made a theatrical but entirely false display of offense. "Angels do not stall."
"Oh, don't lie to her, angel. She's not five anymore, it won't work," Crowley commented idly from his seat at Aziraphale's dining table.
"Speak of when I was five," Freddie cut in quickly. "How exactly did the wrong boy end up where the Antichrist is supposed to be? Because unless the real Warlock was abducted and replaced with an exact doppelgänger, I don't see how we could have lost him any time recently."
"Don't rule that out," Crowley quipped. "You never know, with this Armageddon business."
"My dears, this is important, I know. Hut dinner is nearly done, so would you please set the table and then sit down to eat. We'll handle this in the morning," Aziraphale directed.
Freddie rolled her eyes again, but grabbed a handful of forks and complied. She wasn't particularly mad about her fathers' attempts to salvage whatever little was left of their dignity after the utter shock at Warlock's birthday. Yes, the mix up would need to be discussed, but impending Armageddon and finger pointing over who lost the Antichrist were hardly conversations she was looking forward to. She didn't mind avoiding them, for the time being. They'd had enough excitement for one day.
Aziraphale dished the pasta into bowls, then ladled tomato sauce on top of it. When he finished with each bowl, Crowley carried it over to the table, which Freddie had finished setting. Each of them took the usual place they sat at when all three had dinner here, and dug into their food. Freddie hadn't realized how hungry she was until she took her first bite of pasta. Impending annihilation really had a way of making one forget their appetite.
