Out west made it sound all terribly romanticized, like she was an adventurer in times long since passed who had just returned from her quest to find her home in upheaval.

"Oh, that would be awful," he said, a pang of discomfort on her behalf. Airports were miserable places to be anyway, let alone to have to be shocked by a vision of another life and confronted by the Bureau. Let a woman de-board and retrieve her baggage in peace. "I was having dinner alone, thank goodness."

At the mention of her son's name, though, he brightened. So this was young Elliott's mother! They hardly looked related, and she barely looked old enough to have had him, but he wasn't going to pry.

"Oh, you're his mother! He's mentioned you a few times, seemed like he felt terribly guilty and unsure how to tell you. Bright young man, though," he lowered his voice as if sharing a secret, "did you know he contacted them? ...The Bureau, I mean? Directly through email, I believe." Aziraphale frowned. He hadn't meant to tell her that; it felt like a betrayal of Elliott's trust and yet...maybe it was for the best that she knew anyway.