#and had to adopt an entire gaggle of Jims until they figured out how the fuck to undo it? haha

[demonic-mnemonic]

(EDIT: I'm going to leave the main text of the original theory as is, but I did want to just add that I don't think the original reasoning of how memories are getting lost necessarily holds up considering what we already know about the angels' ability to erase memories and the fact that Metatron is in this up to his eyeballs. But what I am still sure of is that memories are being erased, and not just in the present)

I just had a fun thought. What if Crowley and Aziraphale's 25 lazari miracle was so ridiculously overpowered that it didn't JUST work on Gabriel. What if they overshot the mark so badly that it just started affecting random other people to varying degrees and THAT'S why there are some characters that some people don't seem to remember fuck all about meeting.

What if it doesn't always affect everyone the same and THAT'S why, when every other angel in the room straight up forgot who the fucking Metatron was, Crowley (and I'm pretty damn sure Saraquiel, but that's a whole other conversation) still recognized him.

What if it started to affect people in unintended ways? What if it started to affect not only someone's ability to retain memories of a specific person, but started being able to affect their other memories too?

We still haven't talked about how Muriel, a fucking scrivener, does not seem to know how to read anymore in the present day.

Her entire job, her entire existence in heaven revolves around reading and writing and keeping records and she almost never gets to see or interact with any other angels except for once every couple of centuries when someone wants something from her. This is an angel who has spent millennia with only her books and records to keep her company. She has probably read more than every other entity in existence combined, and she still clearly has a deep love and affinity for books...

But when she tells Metatron that she's reading a book, she uses air quotes. Not reading a book, but "reading" a book. She's so drawn to books, the desire is there, but the knowledge is gone.

What else is being forgotten? Who else is losing pieces of their memories and themselves?

What if Crowley and Aziraphale are starting to lose memories of their history together piece by piece? Even worse, what if it isn't even confined to the present?

If their memories of their time together were to be damaged or lost early enough in their history, if each time they met they misremembered or couldn't remember the time before... It would affect the way they approached one another every single time. It would alter their entire timeline. Their entire history together could be wiped out without a trace. Or worse.

And there are signs. Subtle ones mostly, the faintest glimmers. A fleeting sense that something isn't quite right, that passes so quickly you're not even sure you didn't just imagine it. But there is one in particular that's slightly more there than the others. A tiny crack instead of a glimmer, so faint you don't even notice it at first, but once you do you can't unsee it.

Remember when Crowley and Aziraphale are working out how to give Job and Sithis their children back without letting an audience of onlooking angels know that they're giving them their exact same children back? Bildad the Shuhite antics ensue, we all have a good laugh at Gabriel's dead set conviction that the human reproductive system consists entirely of ribs, Crowley pokes a little light fun about how he needs to be on his toes under the eyes of an expert, it's a good time. But the thing is...what if he was? What if Gabriel was an expert on human birth?

Here's a fun fact. You know how many times Gabriel shows up in the Bible specifically to discuss someone's womb? Twice. On two separate occasions this angel is sent to Earth for the express purpose of womb related discussions with someone. I mean technically the discussions were more about who was going to be coming out of said wombs, but still. The womb is directly mentioned both times. And when he's talking to Mary he explicitly mentions conception.

He damn well used to know how the human birth process works. Who knows, maybe even enough to be considered an expert. Maybe that's why he was the one chosen to deliver those messages. One thing is for certain though, at the very least he was familiar with conception and he knew what a womb was and understood its role in childbirth. So what happened? Did he just not learn about any of that until after the events with Job?

Or did he have that knowledge all along, only to have it taken from him by something that wouldn't even be set in motion until centuries later?

What if that enormous surge of miraculous energy sent a backlash cascading unchecked throughout history, doing things they never meant it to do, now entirely unpredictable, capable of doing anything from making someone forget the name of an old acquaintance to washing away entire swaths of memories that are intrinsic to who they are? Eroding them away like a river, little by little, until eventually they're barely even an echo of who they once were, an empty shell of their former self.

The expert on human birth who can't remember exactly how it all works, but remembers God doing something with a rib once, and so he clings to that. The scrivener who's still inexorably drawn to books, to the written word, even though she no longer remembers quite how to decipher them, only that she loves them.

Maybe even an angel and a demon, the love and trust and devotion that they built over the course of 6000 years, that has outlasted every empire ever built, strong enough to withstand the wrath of heaven and hell combined, its roots as old as humanity itself and older.... torn down brick by brick even as the foundations were being laid.

Empty houses, almost remembering where the things used to be. Looking at where the furniture isn't