[1] Fairtrade Hot Cocoa

The sun was setting on Jericho Washington. It had been quite an eventful day for the little town, although the regular citizens did not know this. Nor did they know that Jericho had even more interesting events that were destined to occur before the stroke of midnight. All the normal inhabitants, such as the humans, the pigeons, and the local angel —as opposed to the non-local angels which had entered city limits in the past few hours— were winding down and considering their regular day to be almost over.

Such was the story inside the little white house on Trinity Street. Atticus was busy in the kitchen, preparing a mug of hot chocolate. Not for himself, of course. Rather, for the very distressed human at his kitchen table, whom he considered to be a friend —despite their obvious difference in position in the grand hierarchy of things.

This particular human was named Owen, and he was very much like the town of Jericho in that there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about him in any way shape or form. He had no interests out of the ordinary. He had no skills out of the ordinary. He had no personality quirks out of the ordinary, except perhaps his slightly neglected intelligence. Everything about him was average in every single way. But to Atticus the angel, he was worth making a cup of hot cocoa, which in itself was extraordinary enough, considering all the truly extraordinary individuals out there whom Atticus would not make a cup hot cocoa for.

And so the hot cocoa was placed gently on the table in front of Owen.

Owen was, at that particular moment, doing something many young men of his age can be seen and heard doing. He was complaining about his girlfriend.

"Thanks man," He said, taking the mug in his hand. "I'm sorry for all this, things have just been so hard lately,"

Gracefully, Atticus took a seat across the table. Most people would assume that a creature so magnificent as he would have little interest in the trivial affairs of humans. However in the past few years, he had discovered that he actually quite enjoyed helping people resolve small matters. A surprising development in his character, considering his past, and an occurrence he was quite thankful for.

"It's okay, I understand," He told his mortal friend, "Hazel is a wonderful but complex person. Like all of us, she has her unique set of challenges,"

"Our date at the park today was definitely a challenge,"

"You brought her there because you wanted to break up with her, didn't you?"

Owen hit his head on the table a couple of times.

"Yeah, I was going to. And I still wanna. She's just changed so much lately and there's so much going on in her life." He stopped for a moment to think before continuing, "And I feel so guilty when she spends time with me,"

"You make her happy, Owen. Why do you believe spending time with her is such a bad thing?"

"Well she could be spending that time sorting herself out, or at least doing something she wants to do." He began to ramble, "It hurts because I don't really have feelings for her anymore, you know? But I still want her to be happy. It's like she thinks I make her happy but she's really just using me to distract her from everything else,"

Listening to this, Atticus only nodded quietly. Was he a therapist? No. Was he a couples counselor? Also no. Did he know how to do either of these things to a remotely effective level? Not really. Even though he lived the life and wore the face of an every day human, Atticus was anything but. And he was still mostly clueless as to how anybody's mind worked. This included himself. However he had learned one thing that was effective at making people feel listened to, and that was looking at them and nodding and not saying anything...

"What on earth do I do?"

...until he was asked a question like this.

Atticus took a calm breath and relayed everything Owen had said in his mind. Then decided on his answer.

"Right now, you're being very honest with yourself. I think you should tell her what you've just told me,"

"Ugh, but should I?" Owen said with a groan, "It'll break her heart. I don't wanna make her life any more difficult right now,"

"Everything will stay difficult if she has to stay in a relationship with someone who is no longer happy,"

"Yeah, you're right," Said Owen, though he sounded as though he wished his angelic friend was not right. "There's no way out of this. I just gotta tell her,"

For the first time since Owen had arrived, Atticus smiled. This was not something he did often, as there was often little for him to smile about so he preferred to save it for special occasions such as this one. And perhaps because of it's rarity, said smile was something truly seraphic and beautiful, curving his lips without pulling at his cheeks and thus making his already near-perfect face even more delightful to look upon. Though he was not aware of this fact, and perhaps never would be. Judging his own physical form was never something he was able to do easily.

"Well if that's the case, I beg you not to do it over text. That would be painful for everyone, including me," Atticus continued the conversation with that flawless little smile of his.

Owen laughed. But his laugh was quickly cut off by a knock at the door.

Atticus narrowed his eyes.

He almost never received unexpected visitors these days, and his thousands of years fighting a biblical war did not help his cautious nature. Owen had no such instincts, and little social awareness so he didn't even consider the knocking, nor the look on his friends face as the smile dissipated instantly. Atticus found himself rising to his feet and walking tentatively through the front hall of the house. It was unlikely that anything malevolent, such as a demon or angry spirit, would knock. And perhaps to the old Atticus would not even answer the door at all unless he knew it was an angel paying a respectful visit, but this newer retired Atticus was much more in the mood to deal with demons and spirits than he was his own kind.

Thankfully, all of his caution was for nothing as the person at the door was, in fact, a person. Not a demon, spirit, or angel. The only drawback was that this person was bound to bring trouble into the house, regardless of her intentions. And considering the time of day and the look in her eye, the kind of trouble she was bringing —although not enough to damage the fabric of reality— would still be a bit of a headache for the one who answered the door.

"Oh my god, Atti, I'm sorry it's so late," Said Hazel, Owen's girlfriend.

Atticus, who was neither interested nor capable of sleep and therefore cared little for what determined 'late' by a human concept of night time, simply dismissed her worry.

"It's okay," He assured her, "What do you need?"

"Owen's sister said he was here. Can I talk to him?"

He opened the door for her.

Hazel was another person whom Atticus considered a friend. And he was slightly concerned what would happen once Owen eventually got around to breaking things off with her. She was more intelligent than her boyfriend, and a little sharper when it came to interpreting the world around her. From an objective point of view, one would see nothing super remarkable about her in terms of her looks or her personality, but there was always something about her that drew Atticus' attention. Though what it was, he could not say. It was certainly not physical attraction, nor any supernatural influence that he could detect. But nonetheless, despite her being an all-around pretty normal person, there was something different about her. He could just tell.

They had only met by coincidence. Hazel's grandmother was a heavily devoted to the church that Atticus volunteered at in his spare time. Hazel herself would never in a million years consider herself to be anything close to religious. In fact, she probably didn't even admit to having a Christian family half the time, for fear of the (well-earned) stigma and ridicule associated with the church. Regardless of this, poor Hazel had been dragged to a few church events over the course of her childhood. Eventually she met Atticus and the two gradually became friends.

After he had gotten her inside and had started to make her a cup of hot cocoa, Atticus stood quietly by the stove and listened to her as she recounted to her boyfriend, the reason she had turned up at the little white house unannounced so late in the evening. As per usual, there had been conflict between her parents that led to her being kicked out for the night. Not something Atticus could relate to, but something he could sympathize with nonetheless.

"...So I told them both to just calm down, but that just made Mom even angrier." Hazel was in the middle of complaining. "She called me ungrateful and did the whole mom-rant. And then Dad tried to defend me, which really pissed her off. Eventually she straight up told me I'd have to find my own place to sleep tonight,"

"Oh wow," Was all that Owen had the capability of saying.

"I went to your place, but your sister said you were spending the night at Atti's." She turned in her chair to look at Atticus, "Sorry for appearing out of the blue, but I just really didn't wanna sleep in my car,"

With a little nod, Atticus allowed himself another smile. Two in one night was practically a record.

"It's all okay, Hazel. You're welcome to stay here as long as you need. Whether it's a day or a month, my door is always open." He said these words slowly, calming the frazzled look of his friend by quite a bit.

He turned back to pour the hot chocolate into a mug. Then he was unexpectedly attacked by a hug from behind. Between Hazel's arms, he rotated himself so he was facing her again. She was exhausted and he could feel it in her very aura. So he let her cling to him as long as she needed, without saying anything.

Owen, however gave him a pointed look, which he returned with an apologetic one.

"Thank you," Hazel whispered. "You're like a guardian angel or something,"

This was not the first time Atticus had been compared to an angel —For obvious reasons. He just resisted the urge to laugh and allowed Hazel to let go of her koala-like embrace. Her attention then moved to the hot cocoa which was steaming on the countertop, waiting to be decorated with marshmallows or whip-cream or whatever the future drinker so desired.

Suddenly, Atticus' body froze.

"Do either of you smell that?" He asked the room.

Owen sniffed the air, "I smell chocolate? Did somebody fart or something?"

"Cinnamon?" Hazel asked. "Is there cinnamon in this?"

Atticus took a light breath. So he wasn't imagining it. The scent of cinnamon really was on the air. Hot and sweet.

"Atti's allergic to cinnamon, remember?" Owen said a little more rudely than he probably meant.

Atticus said nothing. On the outside, he pretended it was nothing. But now his mind was swirling with thoughts he had tried to forget years and years ago.

It had been so long. Why was she still haunting him?

...

Xander stood waiting outside the house on Trinity Street.

After Bentley had learned that Atticus was on Earth, she had gone back on her word and suddenly decided she wanted to confront him. Tracking him down was easy enough, but now that they had found him, Bentley had become hesitant again. Xander didn't really feel like dealing with any more angels for the day, so he informed her that if she wanted to arrange a little chat with her former murderer, she would have to go alone. So she had agreed and gone around the back of the house by herself.

Only judging from the lack of chaos erupting in the house he was watching, Xander was starting to guess that she didn't actually end up revealing herself to him. Which was just as well as the peace-treaty hadn't technically been lifted, despite the blatant violation earlier that day. —And who was more likely to ruin the agreement than Atticus and Bentley?

But true to her original word, Bentley did not engage and instead returned quietly to her brother on the street outside.

"You decided not to bother him, then?" He asked her.

She didn't look at him, and her answer was low, almost disappointed sounding.

"He looked... happy,"

Happy? When had Bentley ever cared about Atticus pash de Ophaniel's happiness? Xander looked at her and raised an eyebrow. She saw his expression and very quickly elaborated with a more appropriate answer.

"But that's not why I left him," She said, "I need to focus on finding the people I need to find,"

"Who are you even looking for?"

"A Nephilim,"

This was not the answer Xander wanted, nor was anticipating in any way. All immediate thought of the previous conversation was drained from his mind with that one baffling word.

"A what??" He wasn't even sure he had heard her right.

A Nephilim, for those who are not already aware, is a flavor combination of human and angel. They are often blessed with unnatural power, but are also very poorly designed, genetically speaking. The existence of such creatures is very uncommon, but still a good argument for planned parenthood and birth-control. Because they are frowned upon by both of the parenting cultures that would theoretically be involved, and the children unfortunate enough to actually be Nephilim tend to live quite unfortunate lives, there had only ever been a few born in the history of ever, and all of them had suffered rather tragic ends.

"Why are you looking for a Nephilim?" He asked.

"It's part of the assignment, haven't I already explained?"

"The assignment to stop the war?" Xander already had mixed feelings about Bentley's so called 'assignment', but the more in depth she got in description, the more unsure he became. "Good luck with that. There hasn't been a Nephilim born in at least a hundred years,"

Bentley just shrugged this off.

"Well then we'll find a descendent of one," She said.

Hearing her say this was the tipping point for Xander's involvement. Although he was thankful to her for saving him earlier, her immediate plans —if you could call them that— were just becoming more and more absurd. Now she was indicating that she wanted his help, which he simply could not do at that point in time. With the war supposedly starting back up, and the 'it' coming out of nowhere, he just did not have the mental capacity.

"Bentley, I can't. I'm busy," He said, perhaps a little more coldly than he meant.

"You're busy?"

"I'm on the High Council, remember? I've got work to do!" His cognitive dissonance told her, "Whatever you've been brought back to do, you're gonna have to do it without me,"

She said nothing to this, instead just glaring at him with red eyes.

It was then that Xander realized something. Bentley had been dead for eighty-five years. Who knows where her conscience had been or what things she had endured in death. Here he was, treating her the way he had done since he was born. It hadn't really occurred to him yet that things were different now. This suddenly made him feel guilty about dismissing her so quickly.

"Sorry," he told her.

But Bentley didn't seem to care about his rejection. In fact, she might not have been listening at all.

"What if I can help you in return?" She offered.

"How?"

With the flick of her wrist, the 'it' appeared in her hand. Xander's eyes naturally moved to the sinister little pouch, thinking about the contents,

"I can get this to Hell for you," Bentley told him, "That's what you were trying to do, right?"

With all the mayhem of almost getting gang-beat and killed then rescued by his deceased sibling, Xander had completely forgotten about the reasoning behind why he had the 'it' in the first place. God, poor Smythe was probably getting ready to storm the Earthly Realm by now, he was so late. And if she found out that Bentley was back, then there would a whole fiasco resulting in who knows what kind of arguments around the council table. He had to get that thing back to Hell as quickly and as peacefully as possible or else things were going to start getting extremely messy.

"Alright," He said, "It's a deal. How are you going to pull this off?"

Inside the house, things had quieted down a little.

It had been about an hour since Hazel had turned up at the door and she had finally gotten over her daily troubles. Her and Owen had retired to living room where they were snuggling on the couch. —Though as to whether Owen was particularly fond of the activity, Atticus could not say. The angel, of course, gave the couple their space, and stayed in the kitchen where he was washing out the cocoa mugs alone in the golden light of the lamp overhead.

That fleeting smell of cinnamon had triggered some memories, and they weren't necessarily ones he wanted to remember. Even though the scent had passed and had only been there for a couple seconds to begin with, he still found his mind wandering amid the soap and bubbles in the sink. Such a thing was hard not to do when one had a mind able to contain all the secrets of the universe and existence itself. And yet these memories that filled his mind were more obnoxious and more important to him than any unearthed truth of reality.

Still, he tried to push them away. Because those days were gone. They died on a bridge in 1941. And they should never come back.

A gentle 'meow' from the window caused Atticus to look up. Just outside the glass, one of his many feline friends was trotting alongside the windowsill. This meow was not a command, but rather a gentle hello of one passing through. Atticus, in turn, waved to the cat and wished it a good evening, but did not let it inside. Even after the cat had wandered off, Atticus remained staring out the window blankly until he caught himself lost in memory again.

By now the mugs were very definitely clean. The angel set them out to air-dry beside the draining sink then started off towards the stairs. On his way through the hall, he passed the door to the living room. It seemed as though Hazel had fallen asleep on Owen's chest while he was scrolling through his phone. Atticus only looked at the two of them for a moment before continuing his way down the hall, his face empty.

Even though Atticus was an angel, and therefore did not need to sleep, he still had a bedroom. This was really just to avoid confusing any mortal guests who might come by the house. Most of the time he simply allowed the stray cats to sleep on the bed when they felt like it. Sometimes, on nights like this one, he would also go and practice music in his room —for no reason other than to make it feel lived in.

So as to not wake the sleeping human downstairs, Atticus cast a silencing charm on the door. Then he took up a violin, lifted it to his shoulder, drew a long and deep breath, and began to play a soft and slow melody.

Playing music was the only thing he could think of that would get his mind out of the past. Usually.

But on this particular night, the more he played, the more he thought about it all. All the buried memories, conversations, fleeting moments, it wouldn't go away. Then after some time he even realized that the song he was playing— it wasn't his own! He had heard it somewhere in one of those short yet vivid memories. Though which exactly he could not recall. But it was definitely one he had been meaning to lock away, now sprung back up subconsciously directly into his music.

Damn it. How much chaos was one hint of cinnamon going to bring to his mind tonight?

And still, despite all the torment, he continued to play the song. And as he did so, he recalled the fires of London, but also the other memories from that life he no longer considered to be the one he was living in now; A conversation over a game of chess, a baptism at a river, an evening in the forest. All the things he had spent nearly a century trying to forget. They all came flooding past the dam broken by that one whiff of nostalgia over a cup of hot cocoa.

So he continued to play. Just him and his violin, the only sounds ringing throughout the entire night. As though they were the only two things left at all in the world.

Standing in the sleeping house, all alone.

Always alone.

Until... something shifted. Something not in the room or the house, but rather somewhere else nearby. Something unrelated to the angel or the music he was creating.

Whatever it was, it was on a very high wavelength, too high for most things to detect. It was clear that something in the nearby area was happening. And that something, was extremely powerful or was carried out by a being that was also extremely powerful. And whatever it was caused a sudden shaking shiver to pass over Atticus' body.

All his muscles tensed. He immediately stopped playing and rushed to the window. Drawing the curtain back, he could see that the little neighbourhood was the exact same as it was on any given night. To any person's eye, there was not a single thing out of place. There were the rows of houses, schoolhouse, the corner store, Jericho United Church. All of them sound asleep, and none of them aware of whatever Atticus was picking up on through his angelic radar.

His fingers clutched the curtain as he suddenly began to think.

Had the scent of cinnamon really been a coincidence?

...