Chapter Text
Heaven is colder than Aziraphale remembers. Much colder, what with all the open concept floor planning and lack of Earthly, material things, but he can get used to it. After a moment’s hesitation, he steps from the elevator into Heaven for the first time since the Armageddon-that-wasn’t and… nothing happens. Aziraphale had expected the feeling of divinity and righteousness that came with being in Heaven full-time that he had felt before the Beginning to return, seeing as he had strengthened and renewed his relationship to the Almighty and Her ineffable plan, but he feels strangely empty.
Or perhaps he had expected to be cast out the second he step foot on the flawless, brilliant white tile, pushed out of Heaven for all his transgressions against Her. He pictures all the big things and the little things that had built up over the millennia coming back to bite him in the arse, but with every step further into Heaven he takes, following behind the Metatron, the only thing he can focus on is how cold he feels.
Aziraphale barely recognizes other have joined them, much less that he’s being spoken to, with how his head seems to be spinning, the cold making his insides sluggish. “Welcome back, Aziraphale,” Michael greets, a downturned corner of her mouth souring the sentiment.
“Yes,” Uriel adds, a strained smile that looks more like a grimace crossing their face briefly. “Glad to have someone so… qualified in the proceedings of Earth come to lead the next steps.”
Saraqael simply studies him and the silence that falls after Uriel’s statement is stifling. The Metatron smiles encouragingly at Aziraphale to respond in any way. “Oh, erm. Yes. Quite right.”
His thoughts are still moving along at a snail’s pace and he’s having difficulty processing anything that’s happening. He lets himself be guided onward, the Metatron speaking to him all the while. Eventually, he tunes back in to, “Gabriel gave me an idea and since you’re so fond of your bookshop, we’ve decided to make you a proper office. Desk, chair, shelves, the works. Even if it is a bit unorthodox for the supreme archangel.” They approach, yet another, open area, but this bit is broken up by a glass desk and plush white chair, white shelving units across the way in this paltry imitation of a human office cubicle. It’s almost enough to make him chuckle at the absurdity of it all but the numbness he’d been feeling in his extremities is beginning to creep upward and he can’t find it in himself to react. The Metatron clears his throat and pats Aziraphale on the shoulder, making him jump slightly. “I’ll leave you to, erm, get settled in. Someone will be by with the files you’ll need.”
And then Aziraphale is alone again. It’s all he can do to get to the chair before he collapses. He sits heavily and finally notices that he’s shaking, that the icy cold feeling might not be Heaven, but something inside of him . He watches as his hands tremble violently in front of him, not quite sure how to make it stop, before balling them into fists and clenching his eyes shut tight. He draws in a shaky, gasping breath, though he doesn’t need to, in an attempt to make this coiling, leaden feeling in his stomach go away. It doesn’t work.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there counting his unnecessary breaths before he feels a little less like he’s going to discorporate, but eventually his head clears enough to recognize that the rock in his gut is not nerves at reentering Heaven. It’s dread. And with nothing to distract him in this vast expanse of Paradise, it catches up to him, washing over him in waves as everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours on Earth comes crashing down around him. Getting everyone together for the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association meeting turned romantic intervention, the demons showing up for Gabriel, accidentally blowing up said legion of demons with his last ditch attempt at self-defense in the form of his halo, the Light and Dark Councils coming for his head, Gabriel and Beelzebub, of all things, being offered a chance to fix the proceedings of Heaven, and, of course, Crowley.
A wounded sound leaves him and Aziraphale presses a quivering fist against his mouth so as not to draw unwanted attention even though he is completely and utterly alone right now. He is not as dim as others believe him to be; he was well aware his own feelings for his closest friend and confidante had veered away from solely platonic ages ago, though telling him of them was an entirely different matter. He was not aware, however, that Crowley reciprocated. At least not to the extent he had shown, completely and totally upending Aziraphale’s world less than an hour ago. Heavens, had it really been that recently? It feels like eons since the bookshop this morning. Eons since he had broken the good news to Crowley. Eons since Crowley’s painful disbelief. Eons since he said he wanted to run away together like their bureaucratic counterparts had. Eons since Aziraphale begged for Crowley to join him, to become the angel he had once been, to be able to be together like they were. Eons since Crowley brought to the table everything Aziraphale had felt for the last 6,000 years and kissed him. Eons since Aziraphale truly believed he could have both a role in Heaven and Crowley. Sure, time is off-kilter in Heaven but the reason Aziraphale finds is all so hard to believe is because everything in his life had gone belly up in the span of fifteen minutes. Something he had thought to be a constant was no longer in his life and he had no time to adjust, to think about what had happened, what had gone wrong, what he had done wrong.
He pushes a useless, frustrated breath out of his lungs, still feeling half-frozen on the inside, and wishes for some way to parse all this out. Almost like his thoughts had been heard, the once-empty glass desk populates itself with a white spiral-bound notebook and a glass full of pens. Oh, this he could do. Words had always calmed him in a way nothing else had ever been able to. Reading and writing gave him a way to process when his thoughts began tumbling and tripping all over themselves the way they are now.
He flips the notebook open and grabs a pen from the glass, uncapping it, pausing for but a moment before putting ink to paper. He titles the page Things I Know and begins a list:
Love is a trait of Heaven.
Of course, there are many things with which Heaven is credited, faith, hope, generosity, and the like, but love is the foundation of them all. There is even a rather famous verse from the Bible the people have fixated on that declares the importance of love. Without it, Aziraphale’s position would be pointless, given that is his main undertaking as an angel: loving humanity.
I began loving Crowley when we were angels together.
Aziraphale smiles fondly as he remembers the constellations and nebulas reflected on Crowley’s face when he created them back before the Beginning. He had been, and still is, stunningly effervescent. The coldness in him abates slightly.
Crowley had fallen for questioning the Almighty.
It had broken Aziraphale’s heart to hear that such a passionate angel had been cast out, but he had tried to warn Crowley of what would happen if he continued down that path. It doesn’t mean he didn’t privately rage and weep for him when he’d found out.
Crowley, despite his demonic status, is still good at his core.
He can’t help but remember the countless number of times Crowley had gone against Hell simply because he hadn’t wanted to follow their senseless orders. Job and Sitis and their children, for one. Young Elspeth, for another. Adam and the whole of humanity. Every single time Crowley went out of his way to save Aziraphale himself, to go out and do miracles on his behalf, to do him favors out of the goodness of his heart, like his books in the Church or Hamlet or his very brief stint on the West End magic scene. Undoubtedly, Crowley was good.
Demons and angels cannot love each other due to their diametrically opposed natures.
Except, that one isn’t quite true anymore. Gabriel and Beelzebub had proven that. So, if he was wrong about that, what else had he been wrong about? What else had he misinterpreted? He shakes the thought from his head. Whatever God has planned is ineffable. It is not his place to speculate on the rules, as he so often reminds himself. He continues his list.
Crowley loves loved him.
He’d really cocked that up and possibly in an irrevocable way. Any warmth that had returned disappears as quickly as it had come on.
Crowley was happiest when he was an angel.
Aziraphale had been there, for Heaven’s sake! He had seen just how much joy creating the stars and the planets have given Crowley. He was blessed enough to witness the installation of a universe done by Crowley’s hands and how loved his creation was. He had never seen Crowley as happy since.
I have the power change things for the better.
His superiors had finally seen how apt he was at his job on Earth and believed him capable of helping. How much more commendation could an angel get than that? He knew his belief in the Almighty, his faith in the goodness of God, would get him to a place where he could truly be of service. He would have the power to bring Crowley back to angelic status and make him happy again. He wouldn’t have to choose.
Heaven, and angels, are the good guys.
He’d be loath to admit how he hesitated writing this one out. With everything fresh in his mind, Aziraphale finds it hard to ignore how willing the archangels had been to destroy life in God’s name. The children who would not be fortunate enough to make it onto Noah’s ark come to mind. Urging Lot and his wife out of Sodom and Gamorrah had been Aziraphale’s task, but he had not known why until Ado turned back to search for her daughters and transformed into a pillar of salt at the sight of divine wrath falling upon the cities she called home. He remembers the heartless, unfeeling decree that Michael and Gabriel had passed that would kill Job’s blameless children and have Sitis give birth seven more times at her older age for a simple test of faith.
Then, of course, were the countless plagues and epidemics and wars and genocides that Heaven had turned a blind eye to instead of helping. Healing was supposed to be in their wheelhouse, but Aziraphale’s many pleas for help during those times went ignored. Much the same thing had happened when Armageddon was supposed to come to pass, the angels not only allowing, but encouraging the obliteration of humanity so they could- what? Prove once and for all they were better than everyone? Aziraphale never understood how they could be so prideful and not see the hypocrisy in their actions. But, again, it is not for him to question.
A recording angel, bright and bubbly like Muriel, approached his desk with a thick folder just then, drawing him out of his borderline blasphemous thinking. “Are you Aziraphale, supreme archangel?”
He forces a smile at them. “Yes, thank you.” They place the folder on the desk and Aziraphale can see SECOND COMING written in heavy-handed black ink along the tab. Angels and demons alike had heard of the Second Coming in a distant future sort of way, much like how word of Armageddon spread through Heaven and Hell long before the plans were set into motion, but very few knew the details besides the Almighty. Not until now, apparently. He reminds himself there is someone else here. “And you are?”
The recording angel straightens and grins widely. “Serafil, scrivener of the twenty-second order, at your service. Let me know if you need anything else.”
They turn away as Aziraphale pulls the folder closer to him when a thought occurs. “Oh, Serafil?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I should like to see all my files from during my time on Earth, if you please. Must keep up the good work that got me promoted, eh?” He says it like a joke, but really he is deeply curious, sinful though it may be, as to why the Metatron chose him of all the angels in Paradise to take over.
Serafil nods primly. “Right away, sir.”
Aziraphale shakes out his hands, hoping to dispel some of the cold that has now made it’s home in his bones, and gets to work. He almost expects his hand to go through the file when he attempts to open it but he has well and truly been elevated to a higher rank. The folder flips open easily enough and the top sheet of paper stares back up at him, the word Notice written in red at the top. The rest of the paper is merely two sentences long followed by a short sign off: The following pages detail what is to happen during the Second Coming. These instructions must be followed to the letter when the Almighty gives Her signal. Godspeed.
Odd that such an official document wish its readers luck, but Aziraphale continues on. The next chunk of pages are fairly innocuous, giving various legions of Heaven their tasks for the Second Coming. It is what comes after these that alarm Aziraphale. There are three distinct happenings that mark the event, but the first one is categorized the most important and is the most horrific. “They are all to die?” he exclaims aloud, rising from the chair. “All the humans- dead?” It is then that he notices Serafil has returned with his other files. They place them on the desk and scurry off, seemingly terrified of the usually-calm angel becoming enraged. He spent so much of his time and energy devoted to the protection and upkeep of humankind and they put him in charge of a death mission? That is the best use of his expertise?
He can no longer look at the Second Coming file and it takes everything in him not to throw it from the desk. He does more pointless even breathing in an attempt to calm himself from the verge of either panic or wrath, he isn’t sure. He takes the file with his reports and flips open to the first sheet. Strange. This is a recording, not a progress report form. He looks at the tab on the folder, seeing Principality, Aziraphale in neat typeface. This was not a file of his progress notes from Earth, this was a file on him and not an updated one at that. He pulls the recording from the file and the pillars surrounding his makeshift office come to life.
There, he sees himself tied to an office chair, Gabriel joining Uriel and Sandalphon in front of him. “And I bet you didn’t see this one coming.” He gasps when he recognizes what is unfolding in front of him. It is not himself he sees, but Crowley wearing his face. He’s about to see his trial. Aziraphale’s head is rushing and he can only hear choice phrases. “I’m the archangel fucking Gabriel,” he says. “We’re meant to be the good guys, for Heaven’s sake” and “May we meet on a better occasion,” in his own voice. “Shut your stupid mouth and die already,” from Gabriel.
As Crowley-as-Aziraphale steps into the hellfire, only one thought ricochets around his mind and through his lips. “They were never going to give me a fair trial.” He’s not so naïve to think this wouldn’t have been exactly how it ended up even if he did have a trial, but they hadn’t even tried to keep up their charade of justice.
Aziraphale remembers, then, something that Crowley said in the days leading up to what was supposed to be the end of the world. “That’s part of a demon’s job description. Unforgivable. That’s what I am.” Except, for as righteous and holier-than-thou as the angels wanted to appear, they had attempted to do something egregious to one of their own. Two of their own, if Aziraphale counted how quickly they were ready to dispatch Gabriel after learning of his love for Beelzebub. They are the ones who are unforgivable.
Hands planted on the glass table, Aziraphale’s thoughts race again. Over the millennia, he had managed to convince himself that he loves Crowley due to his angelic qualities: his goodness of heart, his love for humanity. If what Aziraphale just saw was anything to go by, those qualities are not angelic at all. Now that the rose colored glasses have well and truly been lifted, he realizes most of the angels he’s ever interacted with are spiteful, cruel and callous, and playing at omniscience. Angels like the one Crowley had been are few and far between and Aziraphale… Aziraphale had tried to get him to come back to a place that cast him out. He had tried to get him to come back to a place that would thoughtlessly murder his best friend, someone he loved, for doing his job. A place that had committed atrocities in the name of the Almighty.
“Good Lord, how could I be so blind?” he whispers as tears well up in his eyes. “How could I do that to him?” Crowley’s hurt face swims to the forefront of his mind, how betrayed he’d looked when Aziraphale had told him he hadn’t rejected the offer, when he dismissed him, and later when he forgave Crowley for not understanding what Aziraphale’s vision was. His fingertips ghost lightly over his lips. Crowley had been trying to get him to see that Heaven and Hell were not the way to fix things, that they are simply looking for an excuse to go to war with one another, humanity be damned. Crowley had been trying to get him to stay where it was safe, where they could fight together.
A sudden clarity strikes Aziraphale. “I understand now,” he says, drying his tears roughly with the back of his hand. He scoops up the Second Coming folder and marches towards the part of Heaven where Michael and Uriel, and likely Saraqael, like to inhabit. The trek there from the desk they’d given him allows him to work himself up into a near-frenzy. The archangels give him strange looks as he stalks his way over.
“Aziraphale,” Uriel says, sounding genuinely shocked. “How goes the preparations?”
He throws the folder onto Michael’s desk, delighting only momentarily in how caught off guard the archangels seem to be at his behavior. “I have bitten my tongue for nearly seven millennia so now you will stay where you are and listen to what I have to say.” He locks eyes with Michael, then Saraqael, and finally Uriel before he begins. “You have never liked me. You have never even respected me. Nobody has even tried to offer me a cup of tea in this divine blasted nothingness. I was lower than you in rank, so you thought it was okay to hide behind your positions and mock me. I was tasked with the protection of humankind and when I tried to do my job, you pitied me, you made fun of me, and you took great joy in doing so. You rule Heaven with fearmongering and an iron fist. Time and time again, you have tried to bully me into plans that result in the destruction of one God’s beloved creations, just because you see humans as lower life forms. Or maybe you’re bloodthirsty and crave war with Hell, and you can take the wrath and envy you feel and spin it into so-called righteous indignation at their scorn for the Almighty. I will not be a part of it any longer. I simply won’t.”
They flounder for a moment when silence rings out before Michael says, “But you must. You were chosen. You accepted. You are the only one suitable for the job.”
He hums at her response. “It took me a while to figure that one out, I’ll give you that. But I did figure it out.” Saraqael looks uncomfortable when his steely gaze lands on her. “The only reason you chose me is because I was a threat to you where I was, not because you find uniquely qualified for this position. Crowley and I convinced the Antichrist to stop Armageddon. We survived your attempts on our lives. We managed archangel level miracles together. You chose me to lead Heaven because you wanted to keep an eye on me and you knew Crowley would never want to come back here. You wanted us separated because you are terrified at what we could accomplish together.”
“That is quite enough, Aziraphale,” the Metatron’s voice rings out from above. “I must say, I’m shocked at you. You are clearly not who we thought you were.”
A delirious laugh bubbles out of his throat. “I’m not who you thought I was. For Heaven’s sake, you repeatedly have tried to eliminate those who go against you. Against you, not God. How would She feel if She were to find out that you have taken the matter of life and death into your own hands?”
“So what are you going to do?” Saraqael asks, only the tiniest inkling of fear creeping into her voice.
Aziraphale straightens his bow tie and brushes imaginary lint from his jacket. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to leave and I’m never going to return so long as this,” he gestures at the plans for the Second Coming, “is what you have in mind. I’m not going to be a tool for your war against the Down. I am going to Earth and I am going to do what the Almighty intended me to do: protect people. And if you even so much as think about contacting me for something that doesn’t come directly from the mouth of God, you shall discover why I keep a gun in my bookshop. Are we clear?” When no one says anything, he turns on his heel and makes his way towards the elevator back to Earth. He has some business to attend to.
Uriel’s voice cries out as his thumb hovers over the button. “Wait! You can’t do that!”
He looks over his shoulder, turning just enough so they can see the severity on his face. “Oh? Try and stop me. In case you’ve forgotten, I am a soldier. A warrior. Guardian of the Eastern Gate. I have fought in countless human wars because you decided they weren’t worth your time to stop. I am not a stranger to violence.” He jams the down button and the doors slide open. “Have a nice rest of eternity. I hope I never have to see you again.”
The doors slide shut and once the elevator moves, he slumps against the side. He’d never done anything like that before. Sticking up for himself had taken a lot out of him. He slaps his face lightly, trying to buck himself up. There’s one hell of an apology he has to make.