Bad Omens (The Final Cut/Definitive Version)

Chapter 9

Eden was high up in the air, the ice cold autumn air sending a chill through her feathers as she fluffed them out. She had never snuck out before....

She dressed as nicely as she could for tonight. She was wearing a pair of black dress pants, thick woolly tartan socks, her red converse sneakers...picking a top was more difficult. As she got older, her fathers' didn't bother getting her very many girly or womanly clothing items so she was reduced to wearing a gray leopard pattern shirt.

Sure, she had some other options, but she had no way of getting makeup to make herself look even nicer, and makeup wasn't her thing anyways. But at least she was able to borrow a bottle of her Papa's cologne, she loved the smell and it would have to do. She was still cursing her tomboyish ways....

She shivered again. She probably should have grabbed her blue duffel coat....and her scarf....

Gabriel was already at the park, standing underneath a lamppost, completely illuminated by the light. He was dressed in a simple pair of gray pants, a white shirt with a matching gray coat over it, complete with a white scarf.

He heard footsteps and he turned towards the direction they were coming from and he smiled from ear to ear when he saw it was Eden, carrying a large paper bag.

"Gabriel!" Eden exclaimed as she nearly ran into him. "Heh, sorry! I was afraid I was running late!" She hoped that he didn't see her shivering.

"It's all right, I actually came early..." His voice drifted off as his gaze became fixated on her wings. They were stunningly beautiful, as black as the night sky, the tips as white as the purest snow.  His nostrils breathed in her smell, it was some sort of human concoction but it definitely smelled great on Eden.

"You have beautiful wings....and you smell nice..." he said before he could stop himself. His face flushed.

Dammit Gabriel keep it together!

Eden giggled, her own face turning a bit red. "Thank you! You look very handsome tonight. I brought us something to eat, in case you were hungry."

"Oh yes, that would be lovely." He placed a hand on her back when she made her wings vanish, which made his face turn an even redder, as he guided her to a bench and they took a seat.

"What I have for you tonight is another favorite of mine, orange chicken with fried rice. I even got us an order of egg rolls and pot stickers." As Eden described each food item and began to take them out of the bag and placed them in the middle of the bench, he gazed at her with a mixture of wonder and fascination as he took in every detail of her face. Her eyes were just as radiant and blue as the day when he first saw them. They reminded him of the ocean, he had only seen it in slideshow presentations at Head Office, but Eden's eyes definitely had the oceans beat.

Once he was finished drowning in their wondrous depths, his gaze shifting to her freckles, our as she called them previously, "little stars''. They were varying shades of brown and sizes, scattered across her face as if someone had splattered ink on her face. He was so enraptured by every detail of her face that he flinched when her ice cold elbow made contact with his wrist by accident as she dug deeper into the bag for the pot stickers.

"Eden, you're freezing!" He exclaimed. He was such a fucking idiot. He should have noticed her shivering.

"It's okay Gabe, It's my own fault for leaving in such a hurry! I'm okay.." Without another word, Gabriel yanked off his coat and helped Eden put it on.

"Thank you Gabriel." She said as she snuggled into the coat, "You go on and try the food while I get warmed up." Gabriel noticed that the food was steaming and still very warm.

"No, you are going to eat; this will help you to get warm." He said as he dug through the bag and grabbed a plastic spoon. He was relying on what he learned from the pamphlets about cutlery and how humans consumed food....

It wasn't until Eden ate several bites of warm rice and chicken, along with egg rolls and potstickers that Gabriel was convinced she was warm enough and finally tucked into his own meal, the two of them enjoying one another's company under the lamp post light.

After the meal, the two of them walked side by side, almost touching, as they looked up at the sky, Eden showing Gabriel the stars, "There's Polaris, the North Star. If you ever get lost and are stuck with a compass that isn't working, just look for Polaris, he'll point you in the right direction. Over there is Sirius the Dog Star..." Gabriel listened, enthralled as Eden pointed to every star and told their story.

"And there is Alpha Centauri. At first, people thought it was just one star that made a single point of light, but it was later discovered that it was in fact two stars that make up two single points of light..."

He could listen to her for all of eternity.

"So I'll see you tomorrow during my break?" Eden asked as she and Gabriel walked on the park's cobblestone trail, the lamp post's lighting their way.

"Of course....thank you for dinner, it was scrummy." Eden giggled and replied, "You're very welcome. Thank you for your coat." She started to slip out of his coat but Gabriel stopped her.

"It's too cold. You can give it to me when we meet up tomorrow." Gabriel said as he took off his scarf and wrapped it securely around Eden's neck.

"But won't you get cold?" Eden asked.

"I'll be fine, you just stay warm and think of a place where we're going to eat tomorrow. I look forward to wherever we end up going." He had enjoyed every bite. He would even go by earlier tomorrow and get him something else from the menu.

"Thank you." She said but before she could stop herself, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. It seemed like the right thing to do. He seemed like he needed one from the moment she met him and she simply couldn't wait any longer.

Gabriel melted in her embrace and he wished that this would never end....

But sadly, it had too and they broke apart.

Eden waved as her wings reappeared and with one final glance at Gabriel, she took off into a run and with a FWOOSH, her wings lifted her up into the air.

Gabriel watched until she was completely out of sight.

His chest was aching again.

Eden was exhausted when she finally reached South Downs. She didn't even have the energy to fly through the still opened bedroom window...it had been terrifying when she had took off from there in the first place.

So instead, she reached into her pants pocket and pulled out the spare key her fathers' had made for her and landed with a soft thud just outside the garden gate.

The wooden gate opened with a creak and she made sure it was locked before she rushed to the front porch and to the front door.

The sooner she got inside, the sooner she could take a warm shower and go to bed.

She opened the door as slowly and as quietly as possible and stepped inside, but just as she closed the door and shoved the key back into her pocket, the lights flicked on and a voice snarled,

"Eden Alexandria Queen Fell. Where the fuck have you been?!"

It was her Daddy.

Eden had never seen him so angry....

"Horse Feathers." Eden muttered.