"Doubt it," Gabriel said flatly. "He wouldn't have left without letting someone know." Even if it wasn't Gabriel, given their last conversation. The Time Lord was too smart for that. If he didn't know Re-l had a habit of pretending not to care, he would have felt angry by her matter-of-factness; as it was, his stomach still turned over and his mouth tightened a little.

But he didn't say anything. It wasn't something he particularly wanted to think about. "No," he admitted. "I forgot about him. Sounded like a quack." Not that it was his fault, of course, but it was true. "He admitted he barely knew anything about medicine, let alone metaphysics."

Again the Archangel's mouth tightened, his stomach turned over, and he looked away. He wasn't sure how to explain it to her. The idea of telling Aziraphale frankly filled Gabriel with a nervous anxiety he hadn't felt before in a human body. The worry the other angel was going to spill all over him; Re-l was at least calm and practical about the issue. The idea, not of having to trust Aziraphale, but of not being able to be the older brother Aziraphale had clearly wanted to rely on when he came for help about Pollution.

The idea of relying on Aziraphale even more than Gabriel already was, and having him vanish like the Doctor had.

"I can't."