Chapter 117

"I'm sorry."

Gabriel looks over at the doorway, though he would recognize Jack's voice anywhere. He's standing timidly in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back. Gabriel eyes him for a moment, confused, then gestures for him to come in.

"What are you sorry for?" Gabriel asks. "You didn't do anything."

"Exactly," Jack says. "I thought I could help, but I couldn't."

"Oh, don't even worry about it," Gabriel says, waving a hand dismissively. "It was a long shot. We knew that from the jump."

Jack gives him an awkward but appreciative smile, still hanging back in the doorway.

"You can come in if you want," Gabriel says. "You're one of the very few people I don't mind sharing my hiding spot with."

Jack sits down next to the archangel. "Lucifer told me I should take a break from trying to levitate the pencil."

"You talked to Lucifer?"

Jack nods. "He found me on the roof."

"You were on the roof?"

Jack cocks his head to the side. "You seem very surprised by everything I'm saying."

"I just didn't expect you to find the roof," Gabriel says. "I don't think most people know you get to the roof." Granted, there's no way for humans to get there without an angel's assistance, so he wouldn't expect them to know.

"I didn't know, either," he says. "I just wanted to get out of here, and I ended up there."

"Well, that's about as 'out of here' as you can get," Gabriel says. "Where's Lucifer now?"

"Around the corner, 'cause he didn't want to come out here if it looked like you were still mad at him."

Gabriel chuckles. He can only assume Lucifer wanted to keep that little piece of information between the two of them, but Jack must not have gotten the memo about that.

"Lucifer, you can come out now," Gabriel says.

Lucifer appears in the room, apparently having opted to fly in instead of walking those ten feet, which Gabriel thinks is pretty ridiculous. Unfortunately, Jack doesn't seem to enjoy listening to Gabriel make fun of his brother, so he can't mention it.

"So?" Gabriel says. "What do we do now?"

No one seems to have an answer to that.

Gabriel sits down on the hood of one of the cars that has probably been sitting in this garage for a century. "Welp, that's nice. Thank you guys for really coming prepared. I'm glad we're making the most of our time together."

"Oh, shut up," Lucifer says.

"Make me." Gabriel glances at the obviously uncomfortable Jack, then says, "I mean of course I'll shut up. Yep. No fighting here."

Jack smiles slightly. "I appreciate the effort."

"I'm glad you do," Gabriel says. "I rarely put effort into anything but making people's lives difficult, so I'm glad it's getting recognized."