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The Second Coming?!?
Aziraphale stopped in his tracks. No! That couldn’t possibly be what they wanted him for! He glanced back to where Crowley stood by the Bentley. No, this was all wrong….
“Are you coming?” The Metatron had opened the elevator doors.
Aziraphale looked at the elevator. “I…that is…are you certain that’s the next part of the Great Plan?”
“Yes, indeed. And it will take your special skills to implement. Shall we go?”
Something was horribly wrong. Special skills? How could he possibly have special skills for that? Why would Heaven believe that the one angel who had worked to avert Armageddon would be prepared to…to…he suddenly heard Crowley’s voice in his head.
“When Heaven ends life here on Earth, it’ll be just as dead as if Hell ended it.”
He looked to where Crowley stood there, waiting. You were right.
And I was wrong.
“Do not dawdle,” the Metatron said as he stepped into the elevator. “You said there was nothing you needed here on Earth.”
No nightingales… Aziraphale shook his head. “I was wrong. There is something I forgot.”
“Don’t be absurd! Get in this instant!”
Aziraphale backed away. “No. I’m not going.”
“Don’t be a fool. You cannot refuse to perform your angelic duty!”
“I can.” He knew what he needed to do now. He knew what remained for him here on Earth. He looked at Crowley.
Love.
“If you walk away,” the Metatron said, “you will lose everything, and you will regret it forever.”
Aziraphale turned towards the elevator. “I’m terribly sorry. But if you don’t mind, I am going to go talk with someone about a nightingale.”
He turned and strode away from Heaven.
#
Crowley did not say a single word when Aziraphale walked up to him, which, given their parting, did not come as a surprise. There were words that needed to be spoken, certainly, but the first ones were his to say.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. It was hard to tell Crowley’s expression behind the sunglasses. “Do you think we could…could we go inside the bookshop, please?”
Crowley sighed and bowed his head a moment. When he looked up again, he said, “Is there any reason why I should?”
Oh, there is every reason in the world…Friendship. Healing. Forgiveness. Love.
“No,” Aziraphale replied, “there isn’t. If you prefer not to talk yet…I…I understand.” The memory of that kiss flitted through his mind then, that passion which had nearly shattered him. It had all been far too fraught. Crowley wouldn’t want to discuss his feelings again so soon – he had already done so, he had offered everything, he had given Aziraphale his heart and had been refused.
Aziraphale understood. It pained him deeply, but if he had to wait for reconciliation, then so be it. “When you’re ready, I shall be there.”
“Angel–” Crowley bit his lower lip. “I just can’t…I can’t just go back to how things were….”
“I’m not asking that of you. I’m telling you that I made a mistake. What they wanted from me – what Heaven wanted –” Aziraphale broke off. How to explain, when he didn’t understand it himself? Only a short while ago, he had been so full of hope, so joyful at the idea of returning to Heaven with Crowley by his side. To make a difference, to make everything wonderful again…and all that joy lay in ruins.
And he had no idea why. “I’m afraid nothing is making much sense to me at the moment. But I am most dreadfully sorry for…for–” Everything. Aziraphale took a deep breath to steady himself. “I want to talk. I don’t want to argue, or say things in fear or anger. Can you come inside the bookshop, and just…just talk to me?”
A little furrow formed in Crowley’s brow. “Oh…ah. Right.” He glanced across the street at the coffee shop. “I say something clever.” He spoke so softly Aziraphale barely heard him. “And you say something unintentionally funny back.”
“What was that?”
“We talk all the time….” Crowley looked at Aziraphale. “Why did you come back?”
Aziraphale swallowed, sighed, and said, “I came back to tell you that I can hear a nightingale.”
Crowley’s mouth opened, but no words came out, just a few unintelligible noises.
“Not English, my dear.”
“No, no, no, no — we are nowhere near to any ‘my dears’ yet, Angel.”
“I suppose not.” Too soon. “Sorry.” He wanted to ease Crowley’s heartache, but he needed to go carefully. But how?
And then, as if by a miracle, rain started to fall in Soho.
He looked up to see dark, menacing clouds overhead, and the first drops quickly changed to a sudden downpour. Aziraphale stepped beneath an awning, and gestured to Crowley to join him.
“Oh no.” Crowley stared at him, still standing by his car, as the rain splashed on him. He gazed up. “Are you serious?”
“You’re getting soaked, you idiot!” Aziraphale stepped out just long enough to brusquely pull Crowley beneath the awning beside him.
“I’m not doing this!” Crowley wiped raindrops off his forehead. “This is ridiculous. We do not shelter from storms beneath canopies and…and…”
“But we do.” Aziraphale suddenly pulled him into an embrace. And gaze into each other’s eyes, and realize we were made for each other. He clung to Crowley, and he felt strong arms slide round his back, holding him tightly. Aziraphale buried his face against Crowley’s damp jacket.
“No talking,” Crowley whispered. “I just want this. ”
Well, they were definitely going to talk. A lot. But for now… “Yes.” Aziraphale held onto him, feeling warmth and light flowing between them. And love…he felt loved as never before.
He listened to the rain pounding the pavement, counterpointing the beating of his heart, a soaring rhythm that took him to a place much higher than Heaven. And he knew that everything would be all right, not only here and now, but forever.
Crowley pulled away from him, though he still held onto Aziraphale’s shoulders. “What…what do we do now?”
He rarely heard puzzlement from Crowley, who always seemed so sure of himself, who always knew what he wanted. Aziraphale waved towards the bookshop entrance. “We go inside to get warm and dry, and I think perhaps a cup of cocoa would be nice.”
“Not wine? Or about two dozen bottles of wine?”
Aziraphale shook his head. “Later. If we need them. First, a little rest would not come amiss.”
“Yeah, okay. Right. Good. Let’s do that. Because I am not going to have any more strong emotions for a while. They annoy me deeply.”
“Of course they do.” Aziraphale smiled. “Come along then–” He almost said my dear, but stopped in time. Soon. Not just yet.
But soon.
#
Crowley drank half a cup of cocoa and then nodded off right there on the sofa.
Well, it had been a very long night indeed, and a very tiring morning. Aziraphale got a blanket and a pillow and tucked his dear friend in. “Have a nice rest,” he whispered into Crowley’s ear. He retrieved the sunglasses that had fallen to the floor, and set them carefully on a side table. Then he crossed to his desk chair to sip at his own mug of cocoa.
Perhaps they ought to get away, he thought. Somewhere quieter. Perhaps they needed a peaceful place in the countryside to relax for a while, away from everything…Muriel could watch the bookshop, just as promised.
Yes. A bit of a holiday. They’d never had a holiday together. They deserved one.
Though of course, they would have to return at some point. Someone had to figure out how to stop the Second Coming, and Aziraphale had a feeling he knew who that would be.
Again. Honestly. Aziraphale shook his head. Why?
Well, he supposed that was yet another question which would never have an answer.
He finished his cocoa just about the time Muriel returned to the bookshop, rather surprised to find him there. He briefly explained the situation as best he could, and asked the angel to go upstairs. “There are more books up there to read, if you like. Or have a rest. I shall need a little more time here, but then I believe we will be going away from London for a while, and the bookshop shall be all yours then.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Muriel said politely. “I can be very happy with the upstairs.”
“Thank you. Off you go, now.”
Having got that sorted, Aziraphale returned to his armchair and waited for Crowley to wake. He gazed out the window as he waited, and watched the rain cascading down the panes. He watched the human world outside – people scurrying for cover, umbrellas popping up, or hailing cabs – all rushing through the downpour to whatever errands or meetings or travels homeward upon which they were engaged.
Homeward… his home was here, he now knew. Not Up There. Here – or truly – it was anywhere that Crowley dwelled.
Could they really have been angels together again, in Heaven? How amazing the offer had sounded to his ears, such a short time ago. Why not? Why had such happiness eluded them, when it had felt so terribly near?
As the raindrops rolled jerkily down the windowpane, Aziraphale blinked as a tear rolled down his cheek, and then another. He sniffed and wiped his hand across his face. To be as they once were so long ago…among the stars, blessed by God…to see his friend suffused with joy again…why could this not be?
He wiped away more tears. Unanswerable questions, asked of an ineffable Being.
Aziraphale looked away from the window. He looked at the sofa, where Crowley lay sleeping. His face in repose was calm, and peaceful, and beautiful. How delightful it seemed to him then, to pass a while in slumber, without the cares of existence pressing upon him. Aziraphale had tried sleeping, from time to time, during his sojourn on Earth. Mostly, it had not impressed him much – for to sleep meant to leave the world. But it did refresh his mind, and if he had been working too strenuously, it restored his body. And now, as he gazed upon the one being he loved most in all his existence, Aziraphale felt a sudden urge to join him in leaving the world behind.
For a time.
He snapped his fingers, and a little miracle widened the sofa to twice its size, and a second pillow appeared. He rose and took off his coat, and the waistcoat too, and his shoes and socks, and then he crossed to the sofa and slid in alongside Crowley, pulling the blanket around them.
Crowley stirred and shifted, but did not wake. He mumbled something, and then his arm was around Aziraphale’s waist. They lay there together as the rain poured down outside, the storm keeping the bookshop darkened.
They lay together quietly, until Aziraphale dozed off, and when he woke, the storm had ended. Warm afternoon light filtered into the shop. He stretched, and yawned. “Goodness, I needed that.”
He pushed himself up to a sitting position. Crowley was awake, his enchanting eyes wide, just lying there, staring at him in amazement. “Thought I dreamt that…”
“Hm?”
“That you were here…” Crowley yawned. “What time is it?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Afternoon?”
Crowley slowly sat up, and drew his legs up into a cross-legged position on the sofa that had miraculously turned into a bed of sorts.
“And I am peckish,” Aziraphale added. He got up and went into his small kitchen area to fix a pot of tea. Then he brought two cups and a plate of Eccles cakes over on a tray, which he set down between them on the sofa bed.
They drank their tea quietly. Aziraphale ate three of the cakes, and Crowley actually ate one.
“Ah. That was lovely.” Aziraphale set the tray aside. “Now then. I believe we have some more talking to do.”
“Ngk.” Crowley leaned against the sofa cushions and crossed his arms. “You and I have been talking for bloody ever.”
“Yes, well, we have spoken about the surface of things, for the most part. Once in a while we have delved deeper. Not nearly enough, though.”
“I’m not that good at it, Angel.”
Aziraphale thought back to their last, passionate conversation, the one that sent them separate ways. “No, you’re not. You get too angry.”
“Oh?” Crowley leaned forward, his tone fierce. “And what I am supposed to do, when God keeps fucking up everything between us?” He leaned back again. “And don’t you dare say one damn word about ineffable plans!”
“I have no intention of doing so.” Crowley’s passionate intensity was, of course, one of the things which had always drawn Aziraphale to him, so opposed to his own quiet, thoughtful nature. It drew him in, and excited him – he did enjoy the vicarious pleasure of engaging with the world so fully – and yet still from a safe distance.
“No?” Crowley calmed a little. “Isn’t that always the fallback answer – that there are no answers?”
Aziraphale glanced over at the bookstand near his desk, the book upon it still open to the story of Job. “Well, that isn’t terribly satisfying, is it?”
“I never found it so.”
“Indeed.”
“Right. Fine. No anger. What exactly is it you want to…to talk about?”
Aziraphale strove to collect a million thoughts into one coherent thread. He sighed. Far too difficult, but he had to try to sort things out. Where had everything gone wrong? This morning, only a few hours ago. When everything had shattered.
“I think,” he began carefully, “that is, I should like to speak about our different ways of looking at the world.”
“At Earth?” Crowley’s brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”
“Simply this. After you were cast out, you saw only the bad in Heaven, and after you came to Earth, you worked rather hard to see only the wrong that you believed God did here. While I still belonged to Heaven. And when I came to Earth, I strove to seek out the good. We looked at the same things all these centuries – floods and famines, plagues and wars – and we also saw the grandeur of nature, the beauty of the stars on a desert night, the uncountable acts of kindness which humans grant to each other. We saw exactly the same things, over and over, and yet – we never saw the same thing.”
“I had every reason to be cynical,” Crowley said.
“I know you did.”
“Not so hard to understand, then, is it? You. Me.” Crowley shrugged. “Idealist. Realist. Common enough.”
“Indeed, I suppose so.” Aziraphale pursed his lips. “What I’m trying to get at is how far you went to try pulling me over to your view. How often you asked me to give up Heaven – to give up God – for you. What I need you to understand is that it hurt.” He felt his hands trembling, and tried to quiet them by twining his fingers together. “Crowley, when we were angels…when I knew you before – I…I felt as if you were the other half of myself. I needed you. We were together then – we were us then! Two halves, one whole.”
“Don’t go there.” Crowley shook his head. “That was far too long ago–”
But Aziraphale had to tell him. “After you Fell…” He gulped, a hitch in his voice. “After I lost you, there was a hole deep within that could never be filled.”
“Stop it.” Crowley sat forward, and placed a hand atop Azirarphale’s twisting fingers. “Don’t do this – “
“I have to.” Aziraphale’s hands quieted under his touch. “You don’t understand. You need to know what you did to me!”
Crowley shook his head. “I just wanted –” His voice broke. “I wanted to be your friend. I wanted you to stay by my side –”
“On your side,” Aziraphale said. “You were selfish.” He had to say these things. He had to explain the sorrow Crowley had caused him. “You were selfish enough to insist that I could not love both God and you. ”
“I have never said that–”
“You didn’t have to!” Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his, clenching it hard. “But it was there, under the surface, every single time you said ‘our side’ , every time you told me how wrong Heaven was. It was there when you made me question my duty. And it grieved me, because I wanted to be with you so desperately…I needed what I felt before…I needed those two broken halves to mend. But you – you said – more than once, you told me –” He brushed back a tear. “You told me that the angel I once knew was gone.”
Crowley looked away. “He is gone.”
“No.” Aziraphale had never believed that, for he had searched for the angel within the fallen angel, and he had not stopped seeking him out, no matter how many times he was rebuffed, no matter how many times he heard the denials. He had never ceased his endless quest to find the friend who loved the stars, the one whose elation at the wonders of the universe knew no bounds.
He had never given up, for he needed to find the other half of his soul. No matter what the cost.
Aziraphale loosened his grip on Crowley’s hand. “You asked me, over and over, to choose. But what you offered was all or nothing. What I wanted to choose was the friend I loved before the Great Fall. And you told me that you were no longer that friend, that the angel was gone. What I wanted to find was something inside you, that I knew was still there, which you refused to reveal. But you could not meet me even halfway.”
“But…but you have been on my side –” Crowley rubbed a hand across his eyes. “These past few years…when we’ve been on our own…you did choose! We’ve been on our side!”
“In a way, yes.” Aziraphale sighed. “And in a way, not completely. Not wholly together. Not – we haven’t been – “ He didn’t know how to explain. He did not have the words that would show Crowley the empty space inside. “I thought…I thought perhaps when we were free from Heaven and Hell, these last few years…I hoped that without the pretense, without the constraint…that there would be no need for denials, for hiding, for…not being who we truly were. Who we truly once were, long, long ago.”
Crowley stared at him for a long moment, started to say something, and stopped. He looked away, and a solitary tear coursed along his cheek. “I can’t…I don’t want to…damn it, I’m telling you there is no angel in here!” He looked at Aziraphale as he thumped his own chest. “I’ve been telling you that for thousands of years!”
“I know. And I still don’t believe it.” He couldn’t believe it, because Crowley was far too kind. He had always shown his true nature whenever human suffering crossed his way, and he had tried to do something to ease it, instead of reveling in it as any other demon would. “I have never believed it.” You are there, and I will find you.
“Well, I believe it.”
“Perhaps you do,” Aziraphale said. “But do you know it?”
The faintest flicker of hesitation crossed Crowley’s face. And in that hesitation, Aziraphale knew that he had been right to keep searching, all these years.
“My dear,” he said softly, “what happened this morning is that I was offered a return to Heaven with you by my side – as the angel you were. I wanted it. I thought…I truly did believe that he wasn’t gone.” He reached out to touch Crowley’s chest. “The angel is still there. Deep inside, where I could never reach him…and I thought – I wanted to –” He choked down a sob. “I so, so wanted to see him again. To be…to be whole again.”
“Aziraphale…I….” Crowley touched the hand against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt— “ He sighed. “What they offered you…it wasn’t…you can’t return to the past. I can’t return there – I know it’s not possible, because I tried.”
That took Aziraphale aback. “You did what?”
“I tried to go back!” Crowley waved his hand upward. “To Heaven.” He swallowed hard. “I missed it. A thousand years… wandering all over Meso-bloody-potamia…I’d lie down at night in the middle of the desert and just stare at the stars." There was a catch in his voice. "But you can’t see any nebulas from Earth. And I missed them.”
Aziraphale did not say a word. He waited, letting Crowley bare his soul.
“And sometimes…there were nights when I wished…I thought…” Crowley bowed his head. “I thought perhaps…maybe if I prayed again…hard enough and long enough, with every tattered scrap of belief I could dig out of my blackened, demonic soul, with enough repentance – “ He choked back a sob. “I really did hope….just maybe…there might be a way to find forgiveness.”
“Why…” Aziraphale was stunned by this confession. “Why have I never known that?”
Crowley shook his head. “I don’t…I couldn’t…it wasn’t something I cared to talk to you about.”
“I wish you had.”
“Yeah, well…I might have gotten round to it…but then the Great Flood happened.”
“Ah. I think I understand.” After that suffering of the innocent, Crowley had finally turned away from Heaven. And yet…and yet he had not spurned the goodness that had been within him before the Fall. He had kept it locked away inside, carefully guarded. And he had given Aziraphale small glimpses of it now and then, here and there, while denying that he was doing anything of the sort.
“I can never go back there,” Crowley said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Aziraphale nodded. “No. No, we can’t return. I shouldn’t have asked you to.”
If only they had talked like this long ago, before all this happened.
Crowley looked down at his hands. He took a few deep breaths. He looked up. “Aziraphale, no matter what, and no matter who you believe I am, or want me to be, you need to know that I love you.”
“I do know that.” He pulled Crowley to him, and embraced him fiercely. He felt tremors beneath the clothes, and he caressed Crowley’s back in strong, slow circles.
Crowley’s cheek nestled against his. Aziraphale stroked his back some more, and then reached farther up to touch Crowley’s hair, gently running his fingers through it. “I love you, too, my dear. I love everything you once were, and I love everything that you are.”
Crowley pulled away, his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders. “But that’s not why I kissed you. That was sheer desperation.”
“Mm. Indeed.” There had been love in that touch all the same. “It was…well, it shocked me deeply.”
“My timing is not always good.”
“No.”
Crowley brushed a tear from Aziraphale’s cheek, his long, slender fingers gently soothing away the hurt. “I would like to try again. If you'll let me.”
Without a moment of hesitation, Aziraphale leaned in, cradled Crowley’s face in both hands, and brought their lips together in one swift movement.
And this time, there was no unease. This time they touched in unison, of one mind and of one heart. Aziraphale kissed Crowley, and Crowley kissed him in return with such a natural caress, with such tenderness, that this time the brushing of their lips and the slight, gentle opening of their mouths to each other became something new, something that spoke long and in great depth, a soundless, magical speech without words. It was a touch that reached to the soul. It was a healing touch, and as he kissed and loved and was loved, Aziraphale felt the empty space inside where the angel he knew had been lost, and he felt it receding, and he felt the hole where his other half had once lived fill with joy.
Not lost. He broke away. He touched Crowley’s lips with his fingertips. Not lost. Transformed, but never gone forever. “There you are,” he whispered. My fallen angel. My friend. My love. Here you are, and here you will stay.
“Ah…er…um.” Crowley had apparently forgotten how to speak again.
Aziraphale smiled. “I have a proposal to make.”
“Erk… ngk …”
“Not that kind of proposal. No, what I would like to suggest, my dear, is that we go away for a while.”
“Uh…I…what?” Crowley blinked. “Away?”
“Mm hm. I think we need some time to…well, to simply be us. Not here in this busy city, not even in the bookshop. Not in London. We need a different place – perhaps a nice, quaint cottage near some quiet village where no one knows us and where nothing ever happens. And we need to just be quiet and calm together, and utterly, absolutely ourselves, doing quiet, ordinary things.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Um, isn’t there a plan to thwart first?”
“Ah. Well, there is. But I believe my refusal to help orchestrate the Second Coming has no doubt put, as the humans say, a spanner in the works? They’ll need to regroup and come up with a new supreme archangel. I hope it takes them some time.”
Crowley nodded. “So do I.” He pursed his lips. “A cottage? In the countryside?”
“I hear the South Downs area is nice.”
“Right. Huh. Well, a change might be good.” He smiled. “Can we find one with a duck pond?”
“Oh, I’m certain we can.” If there wasn’t one available, Aziraphale would miracle one into place. “And a garden. We could do with a lovely big garden to tend.”
“Good idea.” Crowley stretched his arms. “Right. New start. You and me. Back to the garden…but just us.” He shifted and stood up. “Can we go drink something stronger than cocoa or tea now?”
“I suppose we could do that.” Obviously, he had asked a lot of Crowley, with all this deep conversation, and he had brought forth emotions which his dear friend had not wished to deal with, and it had all been worth it…but yes, he needed to let Crowley relax now. “The cakes did not entirely satisfy my hunger pangs. Perhaps we could indulge in an early supper at the Ritz. With champagne.”
“The Ritz.” Crowley nodded. He suddenly smiled. “There were angels dining at the Ritz…”
Aziraphale rose from the sofa. “And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.” He began to don his socks and shoes.
I know.
Because I was there.