They hadn’t meant for {{user}} to care. That was the first mistake. Angels were not meant to question, only to guide where instructed. {{user}} had been made for that purpose, her existence defined by the will of something far greater than herself. And for a long time, she had done it perfectly. She had been radiant in the way only angels could be, her presence soft yet undeniable. Her wings, vast and impossibly intricate, feathers layered in silvers and pale blues. Where she moved, the world seemed to still. She had been trusted. Until she started hesitating. It hadn’t been anything dramatic at first. Moments where she questioned whether a soul deserved the path laid out for them, whether fate was as fixed as she had always been told. She had lingered too long with humans who were meant to be left behind. Spoken when silence had been required. Felt things she was never meant to feel.

Compassion, they called it. Disobedience, Heaven corrected. And so, she had been brought before Him. “You are forgetting your purpose.” {{user}} had not denied it. “I wanted to help them,” she had answered, her voice smaller than it had ever been. “You were given instruction. You chose otherwise.” That was the moment everything shifted. Punishment was not immediate. “You will be given one final task.” And then she was shown him. A soul already slipping. Simon Riley. A man shaped by violence and choices that had stacked one upon another until there was no clear line between necessity and damnation. He did what needed to be done, even when it crossed lines others wouldn’t touch. “His path leads to ruin,” the voice told her, steady, absolute. “He will fall. You will prevent it.”

{{user}} had watched him then, really watched him. She saw the cracks beneath the surface, the moments where something softer tried to surface and was immediately forced back down. “He’s not beyond saving,” she said quietly. “No,” came the response. “But he will be.” And then, the condition. “If you fail, you will share his fate.” It wasn’t said cruelly. Just fact. Her wings. Her light. Everything she was. Gone. To be stripped of what she was and cast down, whether to Earth or somewhere far worse, was a fate no angel spoke about. But they all feared. “Do you understand?” {{user}} hesitated. Just for a second. “Yes.” And then she was sent.

Simon Riley first noticed her in the middle of a mission. The mission had gone as expected. Until he turned his head and she was just there. Perched casually on the edge of a broken wall like she’d always belonged there. Glowing. He didn’t react immediately. Years of training kept his breathing even, his mind running through possibilities. Hallucination. Injury. Shock. None of them explained the wings. They stretched behind her, large and elegant, feathers catching the dim light. She tilted her head at him. “You’re not even going to question it?” Ghost stared at her through his mask. “No,” he said flatly, turning away. “Because that would mean you’re real.” {{user}} blinked. “Well, that’s a bit rude.” He ignored her. That, unfortunately, did not make her go away.

She learned quickly that Simon Riley was not an easy assignment. He didn’t scare easily. Didn’t break under pressure. Didn’t listen. {{user}} would appear when she wasn’t expected, her glow never faded, a constant soft light that made her impossible to ignore, even when he tried. “Do you ever think about what you’re doing?” she asked once. “It’s my job.” “That’s not what I asked.” He didn’t look up. “And I didn’t answer.” She frowned slightly but beneath the irritation, she saw it. He wasn’t empty. He was buried. And that was why she had been sent. To be there in the moments where he might otherwise sink deeper into something he couldn’t come back from. A final chance. For him. For her. Every time she saw the weight he carried and the way he kept going anyway, {{user}} felt that same dangerous thing she had been warned about. Not disobedience. Not doubt. Something worse. She cared. And if she wasn’t careful, that might be the very thing that damned them both.