At the funeral, 7

Michael is beside me, as he has been for so many countless millenia. He is not pleased.

“Are you going? Tell me you're not going.” he asks. I sense his irritation, like a distant lightning strike, and I am grateful we’re alone, up in the now empty choir loft, looking down on the congregation as they shuffle out. Paxton is in front, behind the pallbearers who are beginning to carry her mother’s white coffin out of the church to the hearse that waits outside. She’ll be leaving for the cemetery in a few moments. I think she’ll be going alone; her friends have gotten caught up in the crowd and can’t reach her.

“Why should it matter to you?” I ask, although it’s a stupid question and we both know it.

“Gabriel, you’re a jackass,” Michael says, and I am shocked by his language, here in the house of God. I tear my eyes away from the solemn procession and glance over, seeing that he has surprised himself as well. “You remember as well as I do what happened last time.”

“It’s not like that,” I protest. “There’s no chance of that. It’s not like the Fallen. This is different.”

“How?” he demands. “Exactly how is it different, Gabriel? It always starts the same way -"

“No, it doesn’t. A friendship does not have to deteriorate into an affair, no matter what the others have done before us. We’re here to help, Michael. How can I let her suffer alone?”

“Then go, fool,” he says. “Hold her hand, do what you think she needs you to do. But for the love of God, don’t expose yourself, Gabriel. And don’t pretend to be human; it never ends well. For any of us.”

I glare at him. “I won’t pretend to be anything I’m not,” I say. “And I’m –“

“Smitten, is what you are,” Michael says, almost spitting with disgust. “With a human, and a witch, of all people.”

“There is no reason for this conversation to continue,” I say, with less heat than I expect. I'm no longer angry. I am adrift, hopeless. “Whatever I feel for this woman cannot manifest in anything other than friendship – you and I both know that.”

Michael seems to have decided that bombast is getting him nowhere. “Does she know that?” he asks, his voice low. "How can she help but want you, Gabriel? And what happens to her, when you regain your sanity, when you see that your mission calls you to other souls than hers?”

"She is stronger than that," I say.

"I doubt it. Or maybe she sees through you, maybe she knows that you want her; have you considered that? You may not know her as well as you think you do."

"That's enough, Michael," I say. In the space of a thought, I move to the church foyer, where the altar boy is opening the doors to allow the funeral party to leave the sanctuary. Michael follows, and I'm not surprised. He knows he's getting to me.

"Greater beings than you have attempted many kinds of unions with humans and failed. Jesus and the Magdalene were doomed from the start, He knew it, and still he tried."

"Michael," I hiss. "She is alone. She is in pain. Deserting her would be a sin against the nature that God gave me. There is nothing else you can do here. Go."

Michael stares at me with furious exasperation. "What will you do?"

I look away from him, at the pallbearers carrying the white coffin through the double doors. Paxton is a few steps behind them. The woman who sat with her during the mass is gone; perhaps she was caught up in the crowd as well. Paxton's eyes are blank and empty; I have seen dolls with more expressive faces. I wonder if the woman I know is even in there anymore. She passes by me without even glancing up, though a week ago she would have known I was there before the doors even opened. The bit of lace she wears in her hair has come halfway out, and it seems shameful to me that there is no one there to fix it for her.

"I don't know," I admit.

Michael sighs. "Good luck, Gabriel," he says, resigned. "And try not to be more of an idiot than you already are."