… solipsubmissive …

The touch was fleeting, whisper-soft, but enough to wake him.  Cool fingers on his cheeks, his forehead, the brush of soft lips on his.  He sat up straighter in the desk chair and blinked in the blue-ish light from his monitor.  He glanced around, strained to hear something in the silent house, but there was nothing, really.  Just the echoing dream of angels.

***

“You shouldn’t have done that, you know.”

“He looked so forlorn.”  Chloe peeked over the edge of the cloud, watching as the tall man turned off the monitor and stood.

Calliope rolled over and sat up, no longer interested in watching her friend’s charge.  “Guardian angels aren’t supposed to take such an interest in their subjects,” she said, giving Chloe a dampening look.

Chloe scowled and looked over her shoulder.  “It’s my first assignment.  I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Kissing your subject and flying away is part of your plan for not messing it up?”

Chloe looked stubborn.  “He shouldn’t feel alone.”

“He also shouldn’t feel stalked.”

Chloe felt a twinge of guilt and looked back over the edge of the cloud again.  He was just getting into bed, stretching out on his back with his eyes open and his hands behind his head.  So beautiful, she thought.

“I’m going to bed,” announced Calliope.  She gave Chloe a pointed look.  “You should, too.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she replied absently.  Her friend shook her head and flew off, leaving Chloe kneeling in the mist, her backside wriggling as she continued to watch the sleepless human male.

That was, of course, where Michael found her some hours later.  She’d missed check-in at the dorm, and he was the Archangel on duty.  “Chloe?”  His voice was gentle.  The first charge was always difficult for a new Guardian angel, and he was coming to realize they might not have made a good match between the soft-hearted Chloe and the human male below.  He made a mental note to check the data after he’d succeeded in pulling her away.

Chloe dragged her gaze from the man who still hadn’t managed to find sleep.  She looked up at Michael, tears brimming in her stricken eyes.  “We have to help him,” she said, her voice pleading. 

Michael chanced a look himself, saw that the man had immersed himself in paperwork despite the fact that it was the middle of the night.  “There’s nothing you can do tonight, Chloe.  He’ll be fine.  He’s very self-sufficient, if not entirely happy.”

She looked at him stubbornly.  “I want him to be happy.”

“That isn’t your goal.”

She returned to her former position, summarily dismissing him.  “It should be,” she muttered.

Michael sighed.  “You need to get back to the dorm.  You’ll not be able to fulfill your duties if you don’t get a sufficient amount of rest.  Do you want to jeopardize the eternal salvation of your first assignment?”

Guilt-stricken, Chloe sat up.  “No,” she said softly.  “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Michael smiled indulgently.  He’d always liked Chloe.  She was different from the other angels, different in a way he found refreshing and pure.  She believed in good, something all angels represented, but into which very, very few truly put stock.  It came from spending so much time salvaging souls, most of which had no desire to be salvaged.  This jaded even the most hopeful.  By the time a typical angel reached Guardian status, he or she had seen so much ugliness it killed the natural innocence with which they’d arrived.

Chloe stood and walked ahead of him, her face already brightening, plans tumbling around in her dark, curly head, plans for her human charge’s salvation.  Michael followed, shaking his head.

Somehow, Chloe had remained unsullied.

Part 2