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Chapter Text

It takes Aziraphale all about ten-fifthteenths of a second to notice that Crowley is not like his normal self. Well, to be fair, as of the measly 6 years after the "Antichrist" problem was solved and the flaming sword had since buggered off to only God knows where (literally), Crowley had changed quite a bit.

Of course, he was still the surly, sarcastic and frankly, bothersome rapscallion he'd always been since he was born from God's own hand (of which he fell right out of soon after, 'sauntered gently down' his great feathered arse), but ever since Armageddon came and went without so much as a trumpet of fanfare (at least, not from anyone worth knowing's perspective, considering Adam Young, now a bright and decently mannered student of 17 and at the University of Oxford studying Earth Sciences, pretty much made everyone forget such a thing happening), Earth and consequently, Crowley as a whole, had been quite easygoing as if late.

That was not the problem at hand, however. No, the problem at hand is that Aziraphale had woken up as of some nights ago and at precisely 9:03 in the morning, walked into his bookshop only to find a black and red snake silently slumbering over one of the many bookshelves he'd neglected over the time of owning the bookshop to clean, the imprint of the snake's scaled body having slithered up onto it's now resting place clearly marked in dust.

Now, Aziraphale was, of course, used to Crowley and his snake form, given he'd had albeit over 6,016 years and nothing more as of yet to give him so much as a glance seeing the giant serpent before going back to work, humans somehow mistaking the rather still snake as either a decoration (most of them) or as a rather eclectic pet (only about 3 people did so, prompting him to spin a story about how while he had been looking for a rather rare book detailing the observation of a Brazilian tribe that had long since disbanded, he'd picked up the large fellow in his suitcase by mistake during the purchase from a local villager's campsite and despite his best efforts, just couldn't let him go) as the day wore on and given it was London, stayed vastly indifferent and busy, only giving him pause at the end of the day to regard the snake as being...well, rather too still given underneath all that heft, there was still a demon, just a very unusually still demon at that.

Aziraphale, having periodically shifted his eyes to that particular bookshelf all day while either serving customers or just milling around the shop, finally took the initiative to move a ladder into place before placing a feather duster between his two rows of human-looking teeth and ascending said ladder before swishing the mess of feathers over the supposed nostrils of the currently shifted demon, chuckling as he received a snort and thereafter, a rather angry glare from two beady yellow eyes pointing in his direction.

"Well, I apologize for spoiling your nap my dear, as it looks lovely up here in the sun of my windows, but I thought you may want to know that the shop is now closed for the day, should you wish to turn back into your much more corporeal form. I thought perhaps since I haven't seen you as of late, we may go out for dinner? My shout of course."

The snake raised his head in interest (as expected), but then soon dropped it with a huff (not expected), just closing its eyes again. This, having known his friend and companion for such a long term of existence, worried Aziraphale, since as he had alluded to before, Crowley had not been attending their meetings or his address quite as of late.

In fact, true to the statement, Crowley hadn't so much as attended /any/ meetings in person between them for around 8 months Earth time. They of course, as all good friends and so much more do, had periodical phone conversations (a handy invention that, such a useful contraption), but lately Crowley's cadences seemed to be slipping away and, if he were so bold to admit it, there had been some hesitance in the demon's voice these days, the smoothness of his tone mixed with something far deeper than his usual misfortunes. Almost like as if he was longing to tell Aziraphale of some problem he could help solve, but would never do so.

Crowley wasn't a person (or entity, really) that liked people fussing after him, so in face of the snake just looking at him and then, sinking down again in the present moment, Aziraphale sighed, but then stroked the snake's head lovingly.

"Ah, I see. Well, tis' a shame, but I understand. Perhaps tomorrow, hmm?" He watched the snake for a reaction, but got none, nodding anyway. "Yes, I think so. Do come upstairs if you wish. Goodnight, my dear."

The snake never did come upstairs.

Chapter Text

On the third day of what he can now finally assume is a standoff between him and Crowley for some impertinence on his end (it must be, it couldn't be anything else! If only he knew just what he'd done wrong...), Aziraphale entered the shop with the full intention of giving the snake a piece of his mind, calling out loudly as he entered through his apartment door.

"Crowley, my friend, I must apologise as I do not understand why you are ignoring me as of late. I wish to know what exactly-"

However, his words stopped seeing the back of a long red-haired woman, frozen in what seemed to be almost fear, holding one of his many books on the Crusades (nasty period, that) next to a pile of others.

Stuttering a little, he called out. "I'm sorry, my dear, but this bookshop doesn't open until 9:30. How on Earth did you get in here?"

"Well, I've...actually been in here for a while."

Her voice was trembling, gentle, yet strong and vaguely familiar. "I just...wanted to stretch my legs and I thought it was earlier than...now, I guess."

"Well, one can hardly berate you for wanting such a thing, but that still doesn't explain how you got here." Aziraphale tutted nervously. "I know I locked the bookshop last night-"

"-and left the key under the stack of books on top of the door, because you had no more room one day and decided to use the frame as a shelf for your more dangerous novels."

"I-yes, how did you know that?" Aziraphale blinked and he could have sworn- "Crowley?"

The tension from the women's shoulders melted, just the tiniest bit, enough for Aziraphale to notice and then, start to chuckle. "Oh, Crowley, my dear, I thought you would never come out of that wretched serpent form of yours. Here I had been wondering if you were just going to stay that way for kingdom come!"

"Why in the bloody hell would I do that?" The demon in question finally turned around and Aziraphale noticed one of a great many things.

Firstly, Crowley as a woman was jarring, given his normal vessel, was much more abrasive to the human eye, but...inherently divine.

He (well she for the moment) was a beautiful creature, with long curly red locks to mid-waist, some gathered behind her head and tied with a green ribbon. She had a gentle face, soft-looking brows, slender cheekbones and worried yellow eyes (where were her glasses?) that watched him as he took in her form, dressed in nothing but- wait, worried eyes?

"Crowley, dear, what on Earth is the matter?" Aziraphale swiftly moved to be in front of the now, taking the woman by the arm and flinching as she pulled away. "Why have you changed your form? Did you think I wouldn't like it? I say, I find it darling really, but why all this-"

His words stopped, jamming themselves like sand in an hourglass as he took in one final detail he had failed to notice during the entire conversation. An impossibility if you will.

This woman, whom he presumed to be Crowley as of a few minutes ago and was currently standing in front of, was heavily pregnant. Very heavily pregnant.

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Aziraphale blinked, several times, before looking at his companion's face and chuckling nervously. "Oh, I apologise, I don't know what came over me. I assumed you were my friend whom I haven't seen in quite a while. Anyway, as I was saying earlier, the shop opens at 9:30, so I'm still not sure just how you go in here, but I have to insist-"

"It's me, Aziraphale." The woman hesitated, yellow eyes still staring at him nervously.

"That's…" Aziraphale's brain practically short-circuited before he swallowed. "Oh good lord."

"Yeah." Crowley's new form bit her lip, nodding. "...pretty much had that reaction as well."

"I don't…" Aziraphale looked over her, so very befuddled. "How is this possible?"

"I was hoping you could inform me, considering I still haven't found any idea as of yet."

"Well, I-" He looked between her and himself. "As far as I'm aware, we have had no...coital relations, as well as the fact that last I heard of you, you were in a male form."

"Not like I didn't try to get that first option once or twice." She had the audacity to smirk before it fell away to the same almost hidden worry. "But honestly, I have no idea how this happened, I literally was just lying in bed, thinking about...nothing and then God spoke into my ear."

Aziraphale almost flew up to the ceiling, bug-eyed. "God /spoke/ to you?"

"Yeah, twas' real weird." Her hand came to rest on the bump that housed whatever being had taken up residence within her. "She said something about stars and some other mambo-jumbo I don't remember and I woke up...in this form. This, however-" She waved her hands around the bump in a dramatic fashion. "-only turned up a few months ago."

"Only a few months ago- so /that's/ why you were avoiding me!"

Aziraphale couldn't help but feel a stab of indignation, of sadness and fury and ache, the only thing that could come from caring about someone so deeply it affects your very soul.

"You do not think you couldn't inform me of this instead of making out like you were on some solo drug and alcohol addled road trip across Britain?"

"Well, to be fair, I wasn't expecting this!" Crowley's real emotion suddenly showed itself and it was haunting for the angel. It was terror, complete and utter terror.

"I didn't expect this! Anything else, but not this! Not this form, not a child, not being in love! I didn't want any of this, I just wanted...I just-"

It was rare for the demon to cry, much less anyone in their right mind to see it without dying minutes after, but there are actual tears running down Crowley's face and Aziraphale has his arms around her gravid form in mere seconds contrary to the conversation (well, shouting match) that they were just having, her now shorter head buried in his collar and his hand in the back of her long hair, running from it down to her back in a comforting motion.

Of course, there was also a lot to unpack in the conversation as well, mostly with Crowley's admittances (in love? was she in love with him?) and their meaning (no, honestly, was she?), but it seemed that right now they would have to wait for a moment.

"Here, my dear, come and sit down. You look exhausted." He lead the now sniffling woman gently into one of his chairs stationed around the bookshop, thankful the 'CLOSED' sign was still on the door and the curtains that he opened every morning usually at this hour gave them the smallest bit of privacy as he sat in his own chair, dragging it so it mirrored Crowley's own.

Handing her a handkerchief, he politely waited till she had dried her tears somewhat before grasping her hands in his own, a shiver seemingly going up his spine at her touch. Had his comrades in Heaven been witnessing him giving in to temptation, he'd be surely smited within moments of doing so. Truly, it was quite the miracle he hadn't so far.

"Crowley, look at me. Please." The yellow eyes he'd had so hated in the beginning, but had grown to not only secretly admire, but seek out over the many years, tipped themselves to hold his gaze and his expression untwisted itself into some less worried, but still of course, notably concerned. "Why did you not tell me about this? You shouldn't have troubled yourself with such torture on your own. I could have assisted in some way to ease it."

"I just...I didn't want us to change." Crowley looked stricken (or at stricken as this form could look to be), shaking her head in what could only be sorrow. "You know I like children so."

"Yes, my dear, but that doesn't explain your hesitance to inform me of the divine giving you this gift, much less why you are so upset about something that is so wonderful."

"That's why!" Crowley's eyes blazed for a moment, before fading out again. "The "divine" has given me a gift that I can't keep. This child is Nephilim. As soon as it's born, if it's not killed at the very moment it uses its first breath to scream and it grows up, it'll forget us."

Aziraphale had to sit back, but didn't let go. Sadly, Crowley had a point. As the laws of the universe dictated thanks to God herself, all children born of ethereal beings, whether it be of demonic (Antichrist) or angelic (Nephilim) would grow, just like human children would.

But, unlike times of old when humanity was still in its first strings of life, while humanity's children were allowed to keep the memories of their raising and parentage and childhood, Nephilim would not.

At human age 18, a quite heightened age for any child, let alone one that might have been borne with the prerequisite of celestial powers, Nephilim as been upon thousands of thousands of years would "assimilate" into humanity as it were and forget their parentage.

As soon as they left their parent's arms and were truly on their own for the first time in their lives as most young humans do, a thin haze would befall their memories and anything involving the beings that cared for them. Faces would blank out into nothing, voices a fleeting noise in the distance, confusion (as well as heartache) an all too present emotion.

They would effectively be erased and only vague instances of what they once had would remain.

Enough to be human, but not enough to be gods.

Crowley obviously could see the look on his face and her own fell once more. "Now you see what she's done, angel? She has cursed you. Cursed I. The divine has cursed us."

"The divine never curses! She only creates." Aziraphale shook his head, clutching her hands a little harder than before. "I understand you're upset, but somewhere in that black heart of yours, you must see that she wants you to be happy. She wants all to be."

"I cannot be happy like this." Crowley just shook her head. "I cannot be happy whilst staring down the future, knowing that this child is going to just...be here for 18 years, a speck in our time and then just...leave. It's unfair."

"Us fighting a war of our own making was also unfair, but we found a way to fix that, didn't we?" Aziraphale sild down to his knees before her. "We can find a way to deal with this, deal with everything that comes. We've had 6000 years to do so, we can still, just in a new way."

"But what if the new way gets us killed? Or worse, them?" Never one for doubts in her head, it made Aziraphale's protective side fair up knowing Crowley's mind was so burdened.

"We will figure it out." Aziraphale reiterated, watching her carefully. "Together."

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Over the next few days since the revelations (Ha, Revelations? Get it? Like the Bible? Anyway-) that had come about and Crowley's not so subtle news that they were expecting a new life together (something that the angel couldn't even begin to dream about), several things happened that to a normal human person, may boggle the mind.

First, using a miracle (or several), Aziraphale's flat above his bookshop was transformed into a larger size unbeknownst to the people of London as the outside hadn't changed so much.

Secondly, Crowley's home had been stripped down to the barest minimum of belongings as to not draw any attention to the house being empty (mostly due to Aziraphale, given Crowley needed to rest and she mostly pointed to things she either wanted or wanted to go to assist him in some way) and subsequently moved into Aziraphale's flat without much complaint.

Thirdly, a custom snake tank, made by a specialist reptile company over the other side of London was moved into the bookshop and directly in front of the most sun-catching window Aziraphale could locate on the bottom floor, a sign on its front saying "Hello, my name is Demon ("Really, angel?" "What did you expect? I can't exactly call a snake something trivial, like Apocryphon." "...just hand me the TV guide will you?") and I am an anaconda. I am the shopowner's companion. Please do not bang or tap on the glass."

(Thankfully, most humans paid attention. Only a few were...let's say "miracled" away.)

Lastly and most certainly the most important of all, almost a week and two days after the snake had first appeared in his store, Aziraphale came back after getting both a rare book from a private seller and takeout lunch from The Ritz Hotel for them to enjoy at home, only to find Crowley hunched over the end of their bed frame, a wet series of stains following her from the kitchen to the door and when she kneeled, her head down.

Aziraphale's mind came to a crashing halt, far from lunch and other frivolous things such as his new purchase, both items being uncategoristicly thrown somewhere in the mess of the kitchen as he hurried to the trembling demon's side. At his touch, she arched back into his person, tired eyes trying their damnest (no pun intended) to focus on him.

"My dear, how long have you been in pain? You should have told me. I thought we already went over this." He gently admonished. Given the process of human birthing, she had to have been hiding it from him (how much more did she not trust him?) for quite some time.

"Since last night. You seemed so excited about your book, I didn't want to worry you."

"Oh, Crowley, my dear-" Aziraphale palmed her chin, not bringing to her notice the tears streaming down her cheeks. He was still not used to her female form, but having interacted with it, felt the Nephilim move within it (an experience in itself) and lied with it (in several forms), he was sure she would have been less resistant by now. "You need to trust me. Despite your fears, I only have your best interests at heart. You know I do."

"I know, I'm just…" The same look of terror crossed her face, just like that day in the shop.

"Shhh-" Aziraphale nodded, not needing her to say anymore. "It's alright. Come, let's get you off this floor. Shan't have you hurting upon it, on my life. It most likely hasn't been cleaned in several decades. My own fault." If it made her smirk, he had no excuse not to smile back.

Moving Crowley to the bed was thankfully, rather easy, despite her legs shaking as if she was leaning against an electric fencing unit of some type, but that all fell to pieces when she started groaning, her knuckles going white as she gripped the bars once more in earnest.

For the first time in his 6000 years of being alive, Aziraphale wished he could just miracle this moment away. Despite the things that she (and of course, himself) had done since being born at the dawn of creation, Crowley didn't deserve to be in such pain.

Childbirth was truly as described by others, as inhuman as humanity can be. But in pain and suffering, comes creation as well as peace.

He hoped that such would occur as soon as possible.

He also vaguely wondered, should have the remains of Agatha Nutter's last book ever had found its way into his hands (and not burned as he later found out to his disappointment), if inside of it, it would have contained this. Him, Crowley, this new life. Together.

He did not thankfully, have to wonder long, as at the guidance of gentle hands and patient encouragement over a numberless series of hours, the angel is soon holding delicately a toe-headed sleepy-looking infant in his arms, one of God's newest and most precious creations for the world at large, her lips smacking as he watches over her and of course, her "mother" in well-earned rest, the sun starting to set on their old lives and rising anew.

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The child, surprisingly, grows rather quickly for one born so small.

It's as honestly if they just blink and her form switches to spite the both of them some days.

Christened with the not-too-hard Latin name of Mariella, the little girl grows from a rosy, bubbly infant that melts the hearts of all she meets on her morning walks to an unruly toddler clinging to their legs (or worse, setting alight her cot, but that's a story for another day) before into the sweetest, but the most devilish young girl Aziraphale has ever had the chance of meeting (or teaching the ways of the world for that matter).

Her red long hair either sat in pigtails, buns or usually braids (Crowley having to do all three as Aziraphale never had liked long hair in his form and he, now having returned to his male form only 24 hours after birth, was more experienced given his stages of life included some a type of identity filler) where it could be away from her face and show off her brilliant blue eyes, the divine making sure in leaving no doubt as to her lineage from just a look at her.

Currently, at this moment, Aziraphale is watching the elegant 12-year-old as she confidently leads people around to the sections of the shop so they can find what they wish, her cheeky smile seemingly charming his customers quite effectively (if the rate of sales in his shop has to say anything about it).

On the other side of the room, Crowley sits in his designated cage, body draped over a branch with a keen set of eyes as he watches along with him, their other children, Sigur, Damien ("Crowley, NO!" "Crowley, YES!") and lastly, little Athena running around the shop in various stages of unkempt as both absorb the moment at hand.

These will not be their last children, obviously, that is understandable. Being ethereal, they could have so many more, a whole army of them really, but for right now, let us just watch them watching the future. It seems to be awfully close, does it not?

We don't know that the future has in store for us.

What these children of two beings both holy and unholy will live to be.

Will they be more like angels? Demons? Humans? Perhaps.

Only time (and an overabundance of megar parenting skills) will tell us.

There is however, one thing we can be certain of, despite the uncertainty of tomorrow.

For these children, unknowingly leaving one day thinking they'll return to their home and forgetting this bookshop, forgetting the long summers in France where crepes and brioche are a firm favourite, as well as the winters in Tadfield with their Uncle Adam and cousins, there will come a day, when all is said and done and their time on Earth is up, that the place they lovingly grew up in, will be still standing proudly tall in its own little corner of London, eyes only looking at it's windows for seconds before the hustle takes them away again, with two old men sitting with open arms to welcome them all back home.