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“There’s no point being stubborn.”
It’s not the first time he’s been addressed, but Aziraphale ignores it yet again. He shivers in his drenched robes, now hanging heavy from his body. It’s becoming difficult to see, not only because of the water in his eyes, but because the storm has turned everything around them into a grey haze.
The water is now at his waist. He knows that when he concedes and finally moves, it will push against him, urging him to stay where he is. Perhaps he’ll let it.
Another sigh, more impatient this time. “What is this, then? A protest?”
What is this , indeed? It’s a fair question, though he’s not sure whether he knows himself yet. All he does know is that the situation around him causes his stomach to tighten, his hands to shake, his breath to quicken if he thinks about it too much.
The woman who sells him apricots. The man who tends to the local cattle, waving to him each time he passes. The girl who taught him a curious game that used pebbles that makes him want to smile until he remembers.
She’s dead. They’re all dead.
They mightn’t be yet, but that detail doesn’t matter. The Almighty has declared them dead, and the rain is pelting down, so it’s only a matter of time. Aziraphale feels each droplet as it falls against him and imagines that each one is a person who is destined to become part of the water.
In some ways, it’s easier to imagine that it’s already happened, that they’ve passed on to the next life at peace, not that they’re still trying to keep their heads afloat, gasping for air, praying not to be pulled under-
“Aziraphale .”
There is a new sternness and impatience now, and Aziraphale finally turns around.
Crawley sits in a makeshift boat, fashioned from a wooden fence and kept afloat with the aid of a few generous miracles. What is also miraculous is that the demon appears to be completely dry, his russet waves untouched. “I’m not sure what you’re waiting on, but you’re heading for discorporation unless you get in.”
Discorporation. Now there’s an idea.
Of course, his body is only a vessel and it would be nothing like how humans experience death, in all its permanence. But perhaps if he drowned here, perhaps if he could show Gabriel and Michael and even the Almighty how awful it is, then…
Then what?
They’ll all still have died.
So sullen, defeated, he turns and wades through the water, climbing into the boat. As he sits, the rain ceases and he feels a little lighter.
“Is that really worth a miracle?” he chides.
Crawley sighs. “Fine. Probably better for me to focus on not drowning us anyway.” The demon clicks his fingers and the rain starts up again. He draws his knees close to his chest, now shivering.
The boat begins to move, surprisingly steady against the current. Aziraphale fights the burning behind his eyes.
Crawley tries, unsuccessfully, to make conversation. It’s nothing particularly invasive; they’ve met only a handful of times since Eden and there is plenty of human history to catch up on from their separate pursuits. None of his questions relate to either of their work.
Yet, Aziraphale refuses to reply.
He initially justifies it as being the wrong place and the wrong time. As interested as he is to learn what lies further up north these days, which Crawley mentions having just returned from, he could not possibly listen to it over the roar of the rain, with his heart so close to breaking every time he thinks of humans at all.
But he notices something happening to his corporation whenever Crawley begins to speak. Despite the unrelenting rain, heat floods his body. Hidden by his robes, his nails bite into his palms. He can’t even bring himself to look at the demon.
He is furious. Angels do not get furious.
It comes to a point, when Crawley speculates that perhaps he’ll head south after all this is over, that Aziraphale can’t contain it any longer.
“I suppose you’ll be feeling rather pleased with yourself.”
Crawley stops whatever he’s saying and raises his eyebrows in amusement. Aziraphale can’t remember anybody ever raising their eyebrows like that before he’d first seen the demon do so in Eden, but it’s a habit he’s witnessed plenty of in humans in the last thousand years. Does the influence of evil really spread so far so easily?
“Pleased?”
“Will you get a commendation for this?” Aziraphale presses, the words like venom in his mouth. “For leading humans so far into sin that the Almighty has decided that the only way forward is this?”
For a few seconds, the demon doesn’t move, beyond the rain causing his hair and robes to shake. Then, he lets out one, sharp laugh.
“This punishment - execution - hardly fits the crime. A few too many humans do a few too many bad things-”
“Oh, don’t try to downplay the utter violence that’s been going on around here recently, because-”
“-because they were created to be flawed-”
“-people have been really badly hurt and have suffered terribly-”
“-so the whole lot of them deserve to die?”
“Not the whole lot .”
“Right, just the locals .” Crawley leans forward. “But you think that all this is a fitting consequence, then? All these people paying for their lives with death, because a couple - alright then, some - have been a bit too bad? Punishing the sinners for being violent by killing the whole lot of them because-”
Crawley straightens up, looking around anxiously, and when he speaks his voice is no longer his, but Aziraphale’s.
“God’s a bit tetchy ?”
Aziraphale moves his mouth, once, twice, trying to summon an argument.
Crawley leans back, but despite knowing that he’s won, he doesn’t look satisfied. “That’s what I hated about Heaven. Too perfect. No room for mistakes. No room for humanity.”
And something about that hits Aziraphale a little more closely than it should.
He can’t look at Crawley anymore, so he turns his back on the demon and gazes out to the endless expanse of water, the waves growing higher, and not so far away-
The panicked sound escapes him before he fully realises what he’s seeing. A head with a mess of brown curls is barely keeping above the surface of the water. Flailing arms fight against the waves, but they’re losing.
This is what we’ve done . Aziraphale refuses to look away as their boat continues to drift by and the boy’s head disappears again under the filthy brown water. This is the result of so-called ineffable plans. This is -
With a jolt, the boat moves towards where the boy had been visible just seconds before. Crawley scrambles to Aziraphale’s side and leans over the edge.
“Wh-What are you doing?”
“Rebelling.” His hand dives into the water.
“Crawley, you can’t-“
The demon’s head snaps towards him, and something about his teeth are now a little sharper, a little more dangerous. “Tell me not to,” he orders, though Aziraphale knows that it is really a challenge.
He says nothing.
Crawley turns back to the water and leans so far out of the boat that he’s close to falling in himself. After a numb second, Aziraphale grabs hold of the arm that remains in the boat, anchoring Crawley securely. Crawley spares him a fleeting and surprised glance before reaching out further, his whole arm submerged now and his face so close to the water that flecks of mud splatter on it, then-
He throws his body weight back, hauling the boy into the boat.
And as foolish as it may be, it’s as though permission has been granted. The boy is the boat. Nobody could possibly expect Aziraphale to cast him out now. He hopes, anyway.
He shuffles over to the child’s limp body and places his hands on both sides of the pale face. He feels that there is life underneath his fingertips, but it’s weak. He inhales and watches a thin stream of liquid pour out of the boy’s mouth in response, like water streaming from a jug. Aziraphale breathes until there’s no water left to remove, but still the boy does not respond.
“Please,” he whispers, closing his eyes. Perhaps if he prays, the Almighty will understand, see that another death is worth so little, show him mercy.
Aziraphale’s eyes shoot open when, from the other side of the boy’s head, two slender hands cover his own. Large, black wings unfurl and immediately encase them, stopping the rain. Just a little, the temperature around them increases, the air losing its chill.
“C-Crawley?”
“It will work better if there’s two of us,” Crawley replies.
A tiny part of him, the same part that had tried to justify the flood, the part that almost stopped Crawley from pulling the boy from the water, tells him to refuse the offer. Sharing a miracle with a demon? He knows how abominable that is.
But it’s worse to let a child die, so he nods and turns his attention back to the boy.
Crawley’s hands are warm against his own, a strange tingling spreading up his arms. Aziraphale feels immeasurably stronger. He wills the last droplets of the liquid out of the boy’s lungs. He urges warmth back into his body. He pulls the panicked soul, beginning to wander, back down into its host and soothes it until it steadies, recognising that there is no need to flee.
And finally, the boy takes a weak breath in before pushing it out of his shaking lips, repeating until he finds a steady rhythm.
Hot tears fill his eyes and Aziraphale pulls the child into his arms, smoothing his hair and offering a quick prayer for him. Crawley’s hands fall away.
“Thank you ,” he whispers.
He knows that he isn’t speaking to the Almighty.
Aziraphale looks up at the ark, now stationary and resting upon the muddy earth. Behind it, thin strips of colour curve across the sky of an eerily silent world.
It’s done.
Crawley had carried the boy, unconscious, to the entrance of the ark and left him there after knocking against the wood. Not long later, a young couple had emerged. Crawley had taken possession of the man for a few seconds, searching his mind, before seemingly being satisfied and returning to his own corporation.
“They’ve been trying to have children for years; he thinks that this is a miracle. The boy will be fine with them.”
“That’s to be expected. Noah’s family was chosen for their virtue.”
“Well, hopefully he’ll grow up to be a sinner.”
Aziraphale doesn’t reply. He considers suggesting that perhaps Crawley’s intervention had been part of the plan all along, that the Almighty had known, but something about it feels cruel.
They begin to walk, the bottom of Aziraphale’s robes heavy with dirty water, Crawley’s pristine.
“Where will you go next, then?”
“There’s not much point staying here,” Aziraphale replies. “Perhaps…”
He catches himself before he says it, but the demon is looking at him now. “Perhaps what?”
“I… well, I might head south as well. See how far the flood spread and what settlements are still there.”
Crawley’s expression is unreadable.
“Besides, it’s not as though I can allow you to roam around there unchallenged,” Aziraphale adds.
“Worried that I might cause another flood?” On the surface, the demon’s words are flippant, but underneath them Aziraphale can sense an undercurrent of…
Hurt? He’d expected anger, but not that.
“I shouldn’t have blamed you for this.”
It’s close to an apology. Even closer to a concession, perhaps, though both he and Crawley know that the specifics of it won’t be stated.
It’s just enough to reduce some of the chill in the air, however,
Crawley offers a half-hearted shrug, looking away. “‘M a demon. Been blamed for worse.”
And have all accusations against you been as unfair and self-serving as mine was? It’s a thought that will stubbornly lodge itself in Aziraphale’s mind for some five-thousand years, though for the moment he lets it float away.
“Well,” Crawley says, glancing behind him. By now the ark‘s entrance is no longer visible. “I suppose we’re both going south, then.” His black wings unfurl from his back and he grins as he flaps them once. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to fly.”
Aziraphale looks at the landscape ahead of him, towards the endless expanse of mud and debris. It would make for a much more pleasant journey to do as Crawley has, his wings aching from their misuse, but he doesn’t feel that he’s earned that.
“I’ll walk there,” he replies.
“It’s a long journey. I can’t imagine there will be any nice sights along the way.”
“I know.” Aziraphale offers him a small smile. “That’s rather the point, I think.”
Slowly, Crawley nods. “Right. Until next time then, angel.”
“Until next time,” Aziraphale echoes.
He watches as Crawley takes a confident step forward and launches into the air, and doesn’t look away until he’s nothing more than a small, black speck in the sky. Then, he walks alone through the wreckage of people and places that he loved so dearly, and tries to find comfort in knowing that one soul was spared through the kindest of rebellions.