And Micaiah just wants fun, harmless, interesting magic powers and the chance to turn something as delightful as pain into more magic for his angel to work with. Credit doesn't come into it any which way.

"...Really?" he says, halfway disappointed. "I want to try making some, can I anyway?"

"...I mean, I could use them. Shell Bell told me how. But you don't have to and - and it's one thing when it's your Kiss responding to my voice but. But."

She produces a long melisma segment from a mass other than Micaiah's favorite, blinking at him.

"-hosanna," she concludes. "What did you do?"

"I changed how I feel when it kisses me," he says, stroking his Kiss. "So I can make it more, if I want stars."

"Oh," she murmurs. "...Do you like them as much as you thought you would?"

She hugs him tight. "I love you," she murmurs in his ear. "I love you and you're amazing."

"I love you tooooo," he says happily. "You're my favourite angel."

Kisses kisses.

She hugs him back, smiling. "I didn't expect it so soon," she laughs. "And I could be wrong and I could still miscarry - but I think I am!"

"Whatever it is, it probably already is it," says Micaiah. "So we might as well wait and see."

"Do you think?" she asks. "That it's already something and that it matters that it go on being that?"

"If I had been going to be a mortal, I'd be grateful if someone had angeled me instead. I don't think a mortal me - who still grew up here, not a mortal me like the ones we've met now - would feel the opposite way."

"I wouldn't want to have been angeled before I was born," says Micaiah. "Even if it would've meant growing up in an angel hold. I like the me I am."

"Okay," he says agreeably, and kisses her.

"I think so," Serah says finally. "On balance. I don't think I'd always like all the responsibility, but - I'd love to fly by myself. I'd love to have Jovah's ear, like that. I'd love to walk down the street and have everybody trying to give me presents. I wouldn't always like it but I'd always love it. That's what I think."

"Huh," says Micaiah.

"What?" Serah asks him, oblivious.

He shrugs. "I wouldn't."

"Should we get married?" he asks, smiling at his angel.

"Might be a good idea," she says, kissing his cheek. "We don't have to. I'm not Archangel and I'm not going to turn you out of the hold, let alone turn you out with the baby."

"Okay," giggles Micaiah.

"She does," Micaiah contributes. "I'm sure she does."

Micaiah beams at both of them.

[Still don't,] he confirms. [We know what you think and what I think and what Serah thinks, but we don't know what our kid thinks.]

[There's not going to be a chance to change it after we do know what the baby thinks. Everyone will know it's one thing or the other by then...]

[Well, I'd rather let it be whatever it was going to be than change it and find out later it wishes I didn't.]

[Try it,] he suggests, although he doesn't think it'll work.

[Okay. Everyone's just so worried all the time when there are too many mortals in a row, everyone's so happy when even the most undistinguished and tiresome angel-seeker comes in with a winged baby...] Pentagon goes, and she squeezes his hand.

He leans over and kisses her.

Micaiah giggles after her.

"We should think about names," Isabella says. "Some people pick different ones for potential angels and potential mortals even of the same gender, but I'm never sure why."

"I have no idea about names," he says. "Do you?"

"I like -iel names for boys. Nothing that'll get confused with a historical figure, and obviously Nathaniel is taken as far as we're concerned, but Zuriel or Abiel or Ithiel? Zion is good too. For girls..." She taps her foot. "Abigail. Candace. Keziah. Damaris."

"I like Zion," he says. "And Damaris."

She kisses his cheek. "We'll go with those, then, unless we think of something better in the next - eight months or so," she says.

"I love you too," she says, and she puts her final bite of lunch away and collects the dishes. "Say - are you getting tired of that one mass yet? Because there are so many. We could start on another."

"Sure!" he says cheerfully.

"I bet you could wish your range expanded. And it'd be fun," he says.

She kisses back, but breaks off before Hagar's introduction, which is in her original range and which, therefore, she knows already.

He turns up his Kiss-amplifying wish a little, not enough to get stars, but enough that he's getting about half hexes. Any more and he'd be too distracted to learn his part.

It's a two-hour mass. Isabella sings through, tirelessly, more charged up at the end than she was at the beginning, and she beams and kisses him.

He kisses right back.

"Again?" she asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Hmm, okay, that's a solid plan.

Mmm. Kisses.

"I think my voice is rested," Isabella says primly after some minutes of this.

"Okay." He snuggles up. "Let's do the song again."

That is just fine.

"Even if I never sang just for coins," says Isabella, when the mass ends with a prolonged and decorated amen, "any normal schedule will have us so weighted down with them we'll have to wish them lighter just so we can move around, even me. This is more than Shell Bell was carrying already. I wonder why."

"Well, I bet you Shell Bell doesn't sing for hers," Micaiah points out. "So maybe they only make coins when they want coins, and they don't want that many."

"I guess that's true," says Isabella, reaching out to run a finger along the coin edges lined up along her chain. To her ears only it makes a musical clinking sound, although the coins are visible on both chains to both of them.

Micaiah grins and hugs her.

"Let's go get dinner," she says, picking him right up and sauntering to the door of the music room.

"I like it when you carry me around," he says, snuggling into her arms.

Micaiah spends a lot of time during the meal giving his angel soppy looks. Because he looooooves her.

[Okay,] he says happily.

He giggles back, spinning around a few times just because he can and it's fun.

"You're -" Angela blinks at the scars. "Another Whistle," she adds. (This is not what she was going to say originally.)

"Sure," laughs the Joker, tugging on Micaiah's hand to twirl him in for a hug and a kiss.

Hugs and kisses! He likes those.

Angela averts her eyes, although she's perfectly calm about the proceedings.

"Why're you looking away, sweetie?" he asks, snuggling Micaiah.

"Sweetie?" asks Angela, instead of addressing the question.

"Well, I don't know your name," he says reasonably. "What do you want me to call you?"

"My Belltower nickname is Angela," she says. "My real name is Isabella. Either's fine but the first will be less confusing if you're going to mention the other Bells."

"Okay," he says. "Angela. That's cute. So why're you looking away, Angela?"

"...Is there some reason I ought to watch?"

"I don't know," he says. "I just wanna know why you're not."

She shrugs. "It's still a little weird to me. We've met Kas and Alice but everything except for lap-sitting went on behind closed doors."

"We're just hugging," laughs Micaiah, although there is enough lipstick on his face to give him the lie.

"Micaiah," sighs Angela.

He giggles, and disentangles himself from the Joker long enough to give his angel a hug.

The Joker regards this fondly.

She hugs him back, with wings. (Her wings are not Pathalan; she doesn't have to warn everyone she meets first of everything that they're not public property. Strange kids where she does intercessions run up and pet her all the time and she often just puts up with it then, instead of explaining.)

"Snuggly," he sighs. "I love you. I'm gonna go fuck this guy, okay?"

"That's fine," says Angela. "I'll wander a bit and then check in at the Belltower; do you want to meet there or just go home separately and assume we'll be back at the same time to tell Rinnah and Charles?"

"Mm, meet at the tower, I think," Micaiah decides. He disengages from the hug.

"That does look snuggly," the Joker remarks. "Can I hug you too?"

"I - think I'd rather not," says Angela. "I'm not particularly huggy in general. And I wouldn't put my wings around a stranger anyway if that's what you meant."

"Okay," he says agreeably.

"Snuggly!" he giggles.

"I can go back and forth!" he assures her, demonstrating. "And my clothes change when I do, to make room for the wings."

"...Okay. But not in front of anyone at home," says Angela.

"Okay. I'll meet you at the Belltower," says Angela, and she goes a-wandering through the bar on her way to the stairs.

"Are you okay?" Angela exclaims. "What happened?"

"I'm fine," he says, coming up to hug her. "It's so sad, though. All the awful things that happened in his life. But he's okay, so I'm okay too."

Angela picks him up to more thoroughly snuggle him. "...Is this the one who Stella put on an asteroid?" she asks.

He nods, cuddling up in her arms. "Yeah," he sighs. "And he's okay about that, too."

"That's good then."

"But I still cried," he says. "Because it was so sad."

"What happened exactly? Do I want to know?"

"Probably not," says Micaiah. "But if you want to ask anyway, you can."

"I think I want to know what made you so sad," she murmurs.

"...Do you want to ask him?" says Micaiah. "I don't think I can tell the whole story properly."

"I - okay," says Angela. "Where is he?"

"In his room. I could take you there, or bring him here," says Micaiah.

"I'm not sure if the other Bells would want me to invite him into the Belltower," muses Angela. She stands up, and sets Micaiah down. "Where's his room?"

"I'll show you," he says, hugging her.

Angela follows him through the apartmenty section of Milliways.

Micaiah knocks on the Joker's door.

"He said you'd be a better source of - the story that made him cry," murmurs Angela.

"Which one didn't," he sighs, reaching out to give Micaiah a hug. "Well, c'mon in, both of you."

Angela steps inside and looks around.

It's a terrible mess - clothes, knives, playing cards, and nowhere to sit. Micaiah conjures up an angel chair in an empty patch of floor, then shoves some blankets out of the way and perches on the edge of the Joker's bed.

"Thanks," she says, pecking Micaiah on the forehead before she sits, a wing on either side of the cutaway back.

"I met Micaiah's mother, when I went and got Nathaniel - and I knew he needed getting, though I haven't spoken to their father," says Angela. "Did he tell you about Nathaniel? Do you have one?"

"Sweetie here's the only one of us with a sibling," he says, kissing Micaiah's temple. "And he got out way early, compared to the rest of us. Me, I was with 'em till I was fifteen."

Angela winces.

"Yeah," he says. "So. I burned the house down and ran for it, and spent a while on the streets, stealing and whoring and generally getting into trouble. Your Micaiah knows what that's like," he hugs him again, "but he had a much nicer time of it than I did."

"Well - I knew about the stealing but - whoring? Literally? Micaiah?" Literal whoring's legal in Jordana but not in Bethel or Gaza, at the moment. It's not reputable in any province.

"A few times," he shrugs.

"...In Jordana?" she asks hopefully.

"Oh, is that where it's legal?" he asks. "I dunno, does it matter?"

"It's legal in Jordana and not in the other two provinces. It doesn't matter very much. Although - political reasons, always politics - if you ever want to take it up again can you ask me to fly you to Breven or wherever, first, so I'll know where you are and you won't be arrested? We're going to get married, we're going to have a baby, you reflect on me - I don't want to be confining but I will need to deal with a lot of people who care about a lot of things."

"Yeah, that's fine," he says. "I probably won't, anyway, it wasn't that much fun."

"Okay." She leans over to kiss his temple, then looks expectantly at the Joker again.

"I got raped," he says quietly. "It wasn't pretty. Wasn't the last time, either."

Angela's eyes water slightly. She reaches for Micaiah's hand.

Micaiah wraps his hand around hers and squeezes.

"I'm sorry," says Angela, rubbing at one of her eyes.

"You're a sweetheart," he says with a gentle smile. "It's okay. I'm okay."

"It's not okay that it happened, even if you're fine now," says Angela, crying softly.

Micaiah gets up and hugs her.

She hugs him back tight. "Did that ever happen to you?" she asks fiercely. "You're not so closely parallel - but -"

"No," he says. "I think I'm the only one of me it hasn't."

"Only one I've met," the Joker agrees.

Angela cradles Micaiah in her arms and lets tears fall into his hair.

He curls up in her lap and snuggles her.

Eventually she relaxes and composes herself and lets him go.

"I love you," he says, kissing her forehead.

"I love you too," she says.

"Aww," murmurs the Joker.

"Was there more to it, or don't I want to know?"

"Pretty sure you don't," he says amicably.

"Okay."

"I wanna hug both of you," says Micaiah.

"...Simultaneously?" He doesn't seem likely to have mentioned the desire if he meant one at a time; he seems pretty welcome to hug the Joker and he's always welcome to hug her.

"Kinda," he says. "I mean, I wanna hug you and I wanna hug him, and I wanna do both of those things right now, but I can't because you two aren't hugging friends."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," he says, and hugs her some more, and kisses her forehead, and goes back to the bed to snuggle the Joker for a bit.