She was beginning to suspect the scenery was so nice to distract you from the fact of being dead.

Charmian had been walking for what seemed like hours along a stream with impossibly clear water. The meadow had given way to a forest, which from the looks of it would soon give way to the mountains looming against the horizon. It was all breathtaking and unspoiled, and above all the atmosphere was tranquil. The only noise was the rushing of the water and the sound of birds in the trees, though now she thought about it she had yet to see a single bird. It was near impossible to be upset or angry or to feel any kind of shock when everything was so peaceful, such emotions seemed alien and like a distant memory in this landscape. She wondered if that was precisely the idea.

Part of her had wondered if when she died she’d be called back to ascend again. That clearly wasn’t the case. When she’d been taken from her family she had wound up in a white room surrounded by soldiers, her hands and dress still stained with the mess from the grapes she’d been crushing at the time. Nothing about her was changed in that moment, only her location. Now she’d woken up in this Eden with her injuries miraculously vanished and back in a clean set of the jeans and vest she’d been wearing. That was good; as far as walking clothes went they were practical and they certainly looked better without the blood stains. If the first thing she did in the after life had to be a hike then at least she wasn’t in some long white gown or something.

She’d never expected any after life to be so devoid of other people - as nice as this place was, she didn’t think it could be the end destination for that reason. Even here you’d get lonely eventually. Still she wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do or how she was supposed to move forward. That had been why she started walking, but for all she knew this could go on forever. Heck, maybe it had already been forever. There was no way of knowing how fast (or slow) time was moving here.

Eventually she hit pay dirt – or at least what she thought might be pay dirt. It was the first manmade thing in the entire place, within a small grotto in the trees. In the middle of it stood an arch hewn from stone and black marble, wrapped in ivy and carved with a message in Hebrew. It seemed weird that it would be Hebrew of all things. In hindsight there seemed little good reason for her assumption but she’d imagined that such a thing would show up in English, or if it was really clever the first language of whoever came across it (it was in a magical after life dimension after all). Even her own native Greek seemed like a better contender given how ancient it was.

Irritatingly, it was one of the few human languages she knew little of. She had at least a rudimentary reading ability in most and was fluent in about fourteen. It was a natural by-product of the gig, since they travelled so widely and had to operate within so many different countries. What you didn’t naturally pick up you wound up having to learn in a hurry when dealing with a crisis. Yet the potential key to Heaven or whatever waited just had to be written in one she couldn’t even take a stab at. She could speak a little of its cousin Aramaic, enough to manage the many spells which were written in it, but that wasn’t helping her to decode this.

“Why did it have to be Hebrew? Latin always sounds cooler anyway.”

She muttered to herself as she ran her fingers over the carving. The stone felt reassuringly rough to the touch, but didn’t assist with the translation problem. Feeling out the unfamiliar letters didn’t make them any easier to understand.

“Omnia extrema sunt principia.”

Charmian should have been startled, but that sonorous voice was somehow too familiar even after all these years. It was good to know what it said but there was no mental room to dwell on its little riddle. This new development was too suspicious. Slowly her head turned back to face the intruder, the rest of her body gradually following suit. Looking him up and down, she started in disbelief.

“Huh?”

“All ends are beginnings.” He rocked back onto his heels in his habitual way and pointed at the arch. “That’s the translation, though you said you’d prefer it in Latin.”

Her gaze trailed his up and down, eyeing him warily. “Latin I understand, the mystery is you. You’re not possible.”

“Aren’t I?”

He looked exactly as he had the last time she’d seen him. The long coat and scarf over his evening dress, the leather gloves that were a little too worn in and the dark hair that was a touch too long poking out from beneath his top hat. The same cleft cut a groove in his chin and his eyes crinkled at the corners in the same way.

“You’re not him.”

“Aren’t I?”

“You can save the coy act for someone more gullible. He cannot possibly be here since he’s still alive and wearing a different face. I should know, went to some considerable trouble keeping him that way. So who are you?”

Michael’s face broke out into a smile, and if she hadn’t known before that it couldn’t actually be her Michael inside the grin proved it. The features were the same, the lips curled at the ends in the same fashion, but there was a hard light behind the brown eyes. It wasn’t unfriendly, but what should have been there was slightly mischievous warmth. The spark that was plain as day when talking to Justin was entirely absent here.

“I wondered if you’d question it. Most do not - too distracted by the Keeper’s chosen form.”

“So you’re the Keeper, then. Do you often refer to yourself in the third person?”

“I am not the Keeper, as it happens. In the normal course of things the Keeper should have been here in my place but I admit, I was curious to see what you’d come up with. You are the first avenger to ever walk this realm, since… well. I don’t need to tell you the more usual fashion by which avengers lose their immortality.”

 Yes, by being tortured in a hell pit until they fell from grace and became demons instead. How could she forget? 

With a silvery glow ‘Michael’ faded away and was replaced by a woman in a long green robe. Long sleeves skimmed the ground as she moved. Her skin was a rich dark brown but her hair was the kind of white she’d only ever seen on animals before, not people. Again, Charmian felt like she ought to have been having a different reaction but this place was somehow dampening it. This person was irritating and suspicious and even mildly pretentious; she should not be feeling so placid about that after the day she’d had. The most she could manage was twisting a lone dark curl around her finger, an old habit she had when she was trying to puzzle something out.

“Why do you keep talking like I have any clue what the hell you’re talking about? Can you please just tell me who you are and where I am?”

“You’re at the Gate.”

Finally, some mild exasperation - that was a bit more like it, this felt more like herself. “Well that might help if I had any idea what that is. What gate to where?”

“The Gate on. On. To sate your curiosity, it’s in Hebrew because the person who put it there has… let’s call it an eccentric sense of humour.”

That was not an answer that made any kind of sense. What was funny about Hebrew?  Thousands of people did speak it even if she wasn’t one of them. Maybe the arch purposely used a language you couldn’t read? She didn’t know. She was bored of not getting a straight answer but this thing probably wasn’t a demon so her usual interrogation methods were off limits.

“Look, it’s been a really long day and I’m not a fan of cryptic to begin with. Can you just explain to me what’s going on? In a language I do understand?”

“You died.”

“No shit.”

“If you desire your answer it would be in your interests not to interrupt so much… all souls must find and pass through the gate.”

Necessary as the exposition was, she was not going to be able to resist interrupting. “Maybe you should leave some instructions somewhere letting people know. That would’ve been useful information when I was aimlessly wandering the forest with no idea where I was going.”

“All roads lead to the Gate, so long as you keep walking. How long it takes depends on you.”

She clucked her tongue and gave a loose shrug. “Well it was a pretty road, I’ll give you that.”

“Yes, it’s interesting… though I suppose in your position perhaps it’s unsurprising that your vision was more expansive.”

Charmian threw up her hands. The longer she spoke to this woman the more those negative emotions which seemed so impossible and far away were starting to creep back into reality. “Again with the assuming I know what you’re on about.”

“What you see here is shaped by what you expect to be here – not what you want, what you expect. For most people it tends to reflect whichever religion loomed largest on their lives, even if they don’t believe.”

“But I know the religions are all wrong…” She shrugged, pursing her lips as she rolled that idea around in her head. Being immortal meant you didn’t spend much time imagining what came next. “That kind of makes sense. Is that why it smells like a vineyard despite there being no sign of any grapes?” Before she could continue with that thought another struck her. “Wait, does that mean that some people get here and it looks like Hell or something?”

“That we do not allow; souls come here to accept their path, not to face fear. That’s why the Keeper appears in the form of a loved one, to ease you on your way - the Gate can be daunting for the newly departed. Some find it hard to let go.”

“But you’re not the Keeper.”

“No.”

“Which begs the question…”

The woman cocked her head to the left and smiled at Charmian like she was a child. It was sweet, if a little condescending. Her hands were folded daintily in front of her and she exuded an air of quiet authority.

“Charmian. Avenger Queen, defender of the light. Such a long road and yet it has brought you here against all expectations, even mine. How foolish when I of all should know that none are invincible.”

Flattering as the Queen thing was, she had a team and she did not run a dictatorship. She held even less appreciation for the whole invincibility thing. For the first time a real scowl broke through the calm that this place commanded of her.

“Well I would’ve been a lot closer if somebody hadn’t demoted me. Guess you didn’t feel like putting a word in for me?”

“I gave that order.”

That stopped her in her tracks. Anger was flooding back to her, no longer weighed down by the tranquillity. Though her heart was no longer beating it felt like her blood was surging through her body with the force of it. She clenched her fists, her nails leaving dents in the skin of her palms. “You did WHAT, now? YOU’RE Michael’s superior?”

If her reaction at all bothered the woman she didn’t show it. It was unnerving – her face was even more inscrutable than his, and that was saying something. They’d never been allowed to meet anyone above his pay grade but she’d always found it hard to imagine who could possibly be telling him what to do. He was so dominant to begin with.

“Oh I’m everyone’s superior, child.”

Her eyes flashed with a blinding light that was almost impossible to gaze into. It was like looking directly at the sun, and as they blazed a pit of dread formed in Charmian’s stomach. This was… this was THE boss? The chosen conduit of the forces of light was standing before her? The person she’d been showing precisely zero respect to? Oh crap.

“Quite alright, dear one,” she said as if she’d heard that thought. Quite possibly she had. “A little irreverence is a healthy thing.”

“So…” She was about to ask more about the Gate but her question changed tack midway through, replaced with a more burning one. “Why?”

“Why? To give you power.”

She had to let that one sink in for a minute.

“You took away my power… to give me power.” The belligerent edge started to creep in again and she had to cram it back down. This woman could still send her back to the pit any time. “Forgive me…” What should she call her? “Ma’am… but that seems a little counter-productive.”

“The true power in my warriors is not that which the light bestows on them, Charmian.” She began a slow walk, circling her former minion. “It is that which they already possess. You were chosen for several reasons but that is chief amongst them. Your strength was always the ferocity with which you love. It’s the reason that you have always indulged in emotion more than others of your kind. Lucas fights for honour and fealty, Alexander fights for purpose, you fight to protect.”

Her comments ran completely counter to what avengers were told about ascending, which was that their ability to compartmentalise was their qualifying attribute. It all sounded very warm and fuzzy, but how did it explain anything?

“So why prevent me fighting?”

The responding laugh was sharp and yet strangely melodic. “As if there’s a power in the universe to prevent you fighting, the very notion! Remind me, Charmian, how did you die?

That was a fair point. “I don’t understand.”

“You fight because you love.” With careful steps she continued circling. “And you were denying that love, trying to tell yourself that you would succeed only if you stopped it taking its course. The only way I could remind you of what you were fighting for was to let you feel it - full on, head on, none of that superior ability to remove yourself from it. Unadulterated love.”

Silence reigned for a moment as Charmian was out of sarcastic comebacks. She slumped to the grass instead, face falling into her hands.

“I did not expect it to cost your life, however, and for that I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t think that mortality was a risk of, you know, mortality?” She muttered. “Besides,” she said with more volume, “it’s hardly the biggest cost you’ve had me pay over the years is it? Dying kind of pales in comparison to making me a guardian without equipping me to be one and having me be some weird exception to the whole soul mate rule with some impossible guy that I couldn’t be with even if I could’ve stopped getting him killed over and over. Is this why you came here instead of the Keeper? To assuage your guilt over making me your God damn pawn in this ridiculous game you’ve been playing? For leaving him to that fate over and over again?”

Without so much as blinking she asked the question. “What guilt?”

That was when, serenity be damned, Charmian let out a roar and physically launched herself at the most potent being in the universe. It didn’t go very well. Without moving so much as a muscle she managed to magically deter the attack. There wasn’t so much as a facial twitch on her part but that didn’t stop her from packing a wallop. Being thrown against a tree by an all powerful goddess was actually rather painful, even when you were already dead. Charmian couldn’t complain too much, however, since it wasn’t exactly the cleverest fight she’d ever picked (and she’d picked a few in her many years).

“Feel better?”

“I would if the punch had landed,” she grumbled.

“Honestly, were you this insubordinate with Michael?”

“Michael never screwed me over unless you made him. Well, except on the whole Peru thing but that was Alex talking in his ear. I’ve let that one go.”

The still unnamed woman took a few steps towards her again but maintained a further distance this time. “Well then, you’ll learn to let this one go.”

“Really? Several centuries’ worth of grief is kind of a lot to needlessly dump on a person.”

“Hardly needless.” This time she strolled back to the arch, running a hand contemplatively over the marble. “He must have passed through this archway about five or six times before I finally started to understand. Even I don’t know everything, you know.”

Charmian rolled her eyes. Once again, this stupid and cruel deity was talking as if the person she addressed was on the same page as her when they were actually reading from entirely different books. It was impossible to follow. Still, at least they could agree that clearly she didn’t know everything. If she did she would never have done this whole stupid thing with him.

“Michael, as Justin was then, had always been a target. Not the only target of his kind and not even the most significant, but always more of an enigma. We needed him to resist the dark and yet so often he skated right to the edge of it. The arrogance and desire for glory in his own nature draws him to it. I didn’t know how best to deploy our forces and while we were hampered by indecision he was left unprotected and a greater risk to our cause. Simply assigning a guardian didn’t seem enough but what else could be done?”

For the first time in their conversation Charmian didn’t want to interrupt; this actually had her full attention. It had been true of him in every lifetime she’d shared with him. He hungered for the success, had always moved in the kind of social circles or industries where temptation was rife and it took little at all to corrupt. That was probably how he’d always come so quickly to the demons’ attention, because those were the kind of places they always liked to lurk. Left to his own devices he was a pretty decent person but he had highly exploitable foibles which in the wrong circumstances could lead him down another path. Everybody had their flaws but not everyone’s would lend themselves so well to Hell’s designs.

“It wasn’t until the first time he met you that I finally saw it. Loving you made him a better man, and on reflection I realised that had always been what kept him honest. It wasn’t always you, or always romantic, but for the love of someone dear he walked the line.”

“So you…” It dawned on her and the picture was ugly. It was so ugly it was abhorrent. “That’s why you broke the rules about nobody being destined for each other. You tied him to me as a God damn insurance policy, because you knew I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Once again she remained unaffected by the venomous tone being directed at her.

“It was too precarious to simply hope he’d always find someone to love strongly enough. Even if he did they’d be as human as he was; they could fall or be used against him. But you? The rising star of my warriors, she whose entire being is built to protect that which she loves? We needed a more creative solution and gifting him an avenger was it. You were a far better guardian than I could have ever dreamed of.”

Yeah, she was such a great guardian it had taken her nine attempts to keep him breathing. Charmian desperately wanted to get up and try to hit the woman again – violence may not have solved anything but after a few thousand years it was her go to mechanism against immortal idiots (never mortal ones, that wasn’t fair). This time she found herself rooted to the floor, unable to move her limbs.

“We’ll have no more of that, thank you. Sit still.”

“You fucking bitch,” Charmian growled murderously. “You used me as some kind of leash on him? You forced him to love me so you could make him do your dance?”

It was incredible. The idea of a woman being able to mould a man into a better behaved person was stupid enough to begin with but it became even more so out of the mouth of an immortal. They were all supposed to be smarter than the humans.

“Don’t be ridiculous, child. I didn’t force him to do anything and I wouldn’t even if I could. His will is his own. He fell in love with you all on his own and he’s remained that way all on his own. He chooses who he wants to be and allowing him to remember loving you does not guarantee that he continues to do so or that he remains uncorrupted. I have simply left the door always open for him, given him his best opportunity, and thankfully the boy’s got enough sense to keep walking through.”

“And me?” A tear threatened to roll down her cheek; it was only the quiet calm of her forest that prevented it. A deep breath in of that familiar (though incongruous) vineyard scent staved it off. “I gave up my life, my family for you. I dedicated my entire existence to your cause, served you faithfully, and you put me through all this? You made me suffer because it was convenient for you?”

It was like nothing touched this damn woman. Her face remained impassive, not a flicker of feeling across it, and there was not a single bit of twitching or fidgeting that would indicate any kind of reaction. She was impervious to guilt it seemed. Funnily, it seemed to Charmian’s mind like that gave her something in common with the demons.

“You have suffered. Not by my wish or design, but because I entrusted you with a difficult task that only you were equal to. I have done as much as I could to empower you in that task, even if at times I could not spare you from the pain it brought. But the strongest steel is forged in the greatest heat, Charmian, and so it has been with you. Now you stand before me, victorious and still uncorrupted even though many in your situation would have taken to self-preservation. You overcame yourself and the limits of your humanity, in so doing you have succeeded completely in your duty and proven yourself my greatest champion. Your pains were neither needless nor in vain.”

Finally something of a softer expression came on her face as she studied the now openly weeping soul before her. It was hard to work out what was more overwhelming. It was a toss up between being told that his love had always been unforced or hearing from the big boss’s own lips that she was the light’s greatest champion. That was quite a thing; she’d always been top of the tree with the avengers but they were only one group of many. There were a lot of levels between her and the woman standing opposite. It really was the validation of her entire life’s work and it was coming from this being that she was still raging mad at.

“Take heart, child. Your suffering is done and your reward is at hand.”

“Doesn’t seem like much of a reward.” She sniffled and rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. “Leaving everyone I love to mourn me.”

“That is the fate of all mortal creatures. I find that in the balance they really do prefer to love and lose rather than to never love at all.” There was a pause before a more contemplative look settled over her features. It was something in the set of her jaw. “I suppose though in that same balance you weren’t really much of a mortal creature, were you?”

Brown eyes flicked up warily towards the still burning orbs in the cloaked figure’s face. It was true, she’d spent less than one percent of her life span as human, but she didn’t see what that had to do with it. “What are you getting at?”

Once again she stroked the marble up and down. “There are great rewards beyond this gate. The heaviness you feel would be gone, impossible as that seems to you now. Eventually you would even begin life anew, as all souls do. If however you would prefer a different prize… it’s a little unorthodox but then I suppose, given your toils, it would be the least I could do. I can raise you again, if you wish.”

That was quite an offer – a second ascension. She would be an avenger once more. Back where she’d always belonged, back with her team, back where she could see Justin again. There was no telling what paradise she’d be passing up to do it, but the consolations were obvious and many. Trouble was… she’d never been in a position before where her work with Justin was done. Would their relationship really be any less impossible than it had been before? She would never grow old, never get sick or injured, never die (again, anyway). He would do all those things.

How would it feel for him when he started looking more like her father – and eventually her grandfather – than her lover? Especially when there was press attention? Wouldn’t they start to ask how she appeared so youthful? (Assuming he even wanted that with her, they’d never had a chance to discuss what had happened that last night in the cabin). He could never have a family with her, and how would they even make dating work when she had a sacred calling to get on with and he had cameras to be concerned with? Now there was no longer any need for him to remember her in future incarnations would that end too?

“I…” Charmian was wringing her hands together. “But didn’t you say the whole thing with me was that feeling all this love makes me better? How’s that work if you make me an avenger again and it all gets shut back off?”

She smiled. “Well now. Maybe Nathaniel’s had more influence on you than I thought. The choice is yours, Charmian. It’s for you to judge now.”

A creeping feeling in the back of her mind wondered if maybe she should follow the course that she’d been set on. She had lived long enough. She had done a lot of good in the world, but she’d also had to witness a lot of evil in it. She had missed out on marriage, children, any number of human experiences. When she thought about it like that – hadn’t she earned her rest? It was comforting to imagine a time when she’d be reborn without the weight of everything she had witnessed and everything she had lost.

“Uhh… how long do I get to think it over?”