Archive of Our Own

The first thing Aziraphale notices about Heaven is how empty it is. He’d sort of remembered that, in a vague way, but it's not until he's living there again that the vastness of it starts to seep into his skin. Everything is pure and bright and immaculate, and all he can think about is his bookshop, overflowing with things, dusty and imperfect and beloved.

“Am I allowed to decorate?” he asks the angel who’s leading him to his quarters.

“Decorate?” they ask.

“Put in some bookshelves, maybe. A flower box. Liven up the place.”

“Material objects?”

The panicked note in their voice is a good indicator that this conversation is likely beyond both their pay grade and their comprehension.

“They don't have to be material. I just thought it might be nice to make it my own a little.”

“You could put in a request with…yourself, I suppose.”

“I suppose. What is your name?”

“Ariel.”

“And what do you do here in Heaven, Ariel?”

“Oh, whatever's needed. I’m an assistant! Usually to Michael and Uriel, but sometimes even the Metatron will ask me to do things.”

“And do you like it?”

“Of course!”

“Of course,” Aziraphale murmurs. “And is there anything you would change?”

“Change?” Ariel echoes, as if it's their first time hearing the word.

“Any room for improvement, as it were. No need to be shy.”

“Of course not, Supreme Archangel! We live in paradise.”

“So we do, so we do. But if there ever is anything you can think of, please don't hesitate to tell me. I'm here to make things better.”

“But things are already perfect,” says Ariel.

Aziraphale swallows a sigh. “Yes, they are.”

Ariel opens the door and leads Aziraphale into the empty room. No bed, no chairs, no bookshelves. Walls that are mostly windows with no curtains. It's a private space in name only, somewhere he can go to stand and be “alone.”

“Thank you, Ariel. That will be all.”

The angel bobs their head in something of a bow and leaves, closing the transparent door behind them. Aziraphale watches them walk all the way back to the elevator, and then he is, at least for the moment, really alone.

It's the work of only a few seconds to fix things up. With a wave of his hand, the walls become solid and opaque, the same yellow as he has at home, the windows shrink and gain curtains, the floor gets a carpet. He adds some, if not all of the amenities he's become accustomed to in his years on Earth, and by the time he's done, it feels a little bit more like home.

He sits down on the new bed, testing the mattress. Of course, he can tell it's not real, in the physical sense, not like his lovely, antique bed in the bookshop, just like the book he pulls down is a very good facsimile of a first edition, not the thing itself. And when he leaves this small sanctuary of a room, he'll be back in the great open expanse of Heaven, feeling even more alone.

Still, it's much better to have it than not.

From the outside, he keeps the room looking the same, blending in with everything else here, but the others will be able to tell he's done something to it. Then again, he is the Supreme Archangel; the others won't be able to order him to change it back. Only the Metatron could, and if Aziraphale is lucky, he won't concern himself with something so trivial.

He can't say he's feeling particularly lucky, currently.

Michael and Uriel are already waiting when he arrives at their first meeting, looking at him with more hate in their eyes than he thinks angels should be capable of.

“Good morning!” he says.

“There is no morning here,” says Uriel. “Time is meaningless.”

“Of course. Do we have an agenda we're working from?”

“There is only one item on the agenda, Supreme Archangel: the Second Coming.”

“Jumping right in, then,” says Aziraphale. “I rather hoped to get the lay of the land first.”

“We are already behind schedule,” says Michael. “If you're not prepared--”

“Now, now, now,” says the Metatron, appearing out of nowhere and making all three of them jump. “Aziraphale is right. He needs some time to settle in again. He's been on Earth for a long time.”

Michael and Uriel exchange a look, and Aziraphale knows exactly what they're thinking. If one of them was in charge, they'd already be moving along. They wouldn't need to settle in.

“Why don't you start with an overview of our resources?” Metatron says, the slight edge in his voice turning the invitation into an order. “Our new Supreme Archangel needs to know what he's working with.”

*

Heaven still follows the traditional Creation schedule: six days of work, and rest on the seventh. Even before Aziraphale officially broke with them, he'd been doing considerably less work than that, and sleeping most nights. And, if he's honest, he always thought he worked harder than most angels did.

That, at least, still seems to be true. In Heaven, the angels are very good at being active, always going places and doing things, but all it really boils down to nothing. Aziraphale did more to increase human happiness in five minutes on Earth than most angels seem to in weeks. Most of them don't even seem to be thinking about it. Heaven is a finely tuned machine that, from what Aziraphale can see, does very little except continue to run itself.

“What is our long-term plan for increasing human goodness?” he asks in the next weekly meeting. All he personally has done towards that end since arriving here is send small, general blessings towards the humans he knows personally, and aside from that it's just a lot of brisk walking and corporate jargon.

“Excuse me?” says Uriel.

“Well, if we’re going to have a rapture, shouldn't we make sure we’ll be collecting as many souls as possible first?”

Michael and Uriel exchange yet another look. Sometimes it feels as if all the two of them do when he speaks is look at each other. “Why?” asks Michael.

“So that more people will be saved and fewer will die.”

“The worthy will ascend. We have no need for the unworthy.”

“Of course, of course. But some more might become worthy, with a little push. I think the first thing we need to do is drastically increase the number of agents we have on Earth.”

“From…zero,” says Michael.

“One,” Uriel corrects. “Muriel is still there.”

“Does seem rather low, doesn't it? I could prepare a presentation! Some education for angels going to the surface for the first time.”

“And how does this prepare us for the coming war?”

“For one thing, we'll have more soldiers,” he points out, his voice cool. “And I was brought on because I had more experience on Earth than anyone else. If you have a problem with my methods, you can bring it up with the Metatron.”

Michael’s jaw works. “A presentation then.”

“Yes! I'll get started at once. I think we'll be much more effective if the new agents can draw on my wisdom.”

“Yes, I'm sure.”

“Hell will not simply let us do as we wish,” Aziraphale points out, reining in his enthusiasm and trying for a more detached authority. “They are still on Earth, recruiting souls to their side. We should be doing the same.”

“Hell is understaffed,” Uriel shoots back. “We heard it from Beelzebub zirself.”

“We don't seem to be doing much better. I haven't seen much evidence of our angelic legions here, just a handful of bureaucrats bustling about.”

“Of course the decision is yours, Supreme Archangel,” says Michael, which isn't of course we have plenty of angels. “We will do as you command.”

“And if the Metatron disagrees, he knows where to find me.”

Michael sniffs. “In your room.”

So they do know what he's done. No matter.

“I work best in private. The two of you can put together a list of recommendations for whom we should send to Earth in the meantime.”

He leaves before either of them can say anything, striding away from the meeting with a confident, single-minded focus that he's hoping will keep anyone from attempting to approach him. Not that most of the other angels are very willing to approach him to begin with, of course. Aziraphale hadn't entirely realized the kind of reputation he'd gotten himself here, first for the hellfire escape, then consorting with a demon, and finally coming back as Supreme Archangel. He hasn't been intimidating for quite some time, but here he is, the most terrifying angel in Heaven.

So he feels even worse when, in his determination to not have anyone try to talk with anyone, he walks directly into someone and knocks them over.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he says automatically, offering the other angel his hand.

“‘s my fault, I wasn't paying attention,” he says, and Aziraphale’s heart performs a great number of strange acrobatic maneuvers as he helps Crowley up.

Without even realizing he's doing it, he pulls Crowley into his arms. They haven't ever embraced before, but Aziraphale still knows the feel of him, his smell and warmth the same. He could have created this entire moment from memory, even though it's never actually happened.

Then his rational mind catches up with the situation and he pulls back to find Crowley staring at him with bemused brown eyes. The blink feels like a physical blow.

“Supreme Archangel?” he asks. His voice is different too, angelic, bright in a way that Aziraphale hasn’t heard in millennia. The snake tattoo is gone too, as if it had never existed, and maybe it didn't. Maybe this is somehow someone else, an identical twin invented simply to torture Aziraphale. “Are you alright?”

“I’m so sorry,” he manages, swallowing his own broken heart. “I mistook you for someone else. You are…?”

“Serpentine, sir. Thirty-eighth-level scrivener.”

“Serpentine. How long have you been a scrivener?”

“For as long as I can remember.”

“And how long would that be?”

Crowley--Serpentine--laughs, bright and surprised, and Aziraphale hates it with an intensity of hate he didn’t know he contained. Aziraphale has disliked things before, some of them quite a bit, but Serpentine’s delighted laugh is the first thing that makes him feel as if he could do something awful, something horrific. Something infernal.

Not to Serpentine, obviously. It’s not his fault. But to someone, most likely the voice of God.

“You have me there, Supreme Archangel,” says Serpentine. “I've been having some trouble with my memory recently. But everyone’s been great, really helping me to settle back in.”

“I’m sure. Who, exactly?”

Serpentine rattles off a few names, all low-level angels Aziraphale hasn’t actually met. It’s the kind of list he’d expect if Serpentine really was a scrivener having an unfortunate and unexplained memory lapse.

“So it’s been about two weeks, has it?”

“Around that, yeah,” says Serpentine.

“I hope you regain your memory soon,” he manages. “I have to…I have business to attend to. But I’ll find you again.”

“You will?”

“I may have some work for you.”

“Of course, Supreme Archangel. Whatever I can do to help. I think I could do more,” he adds, with an eagerness that opens up an ache in Aziraphale’s chest. “Some of the nebulas haven’t been checked on in years. I could stop by, make sure everything’s in working order. I know it's not scrivener work, but…”

“Is that what you’d like to do best? More than going to Earth?”

“Earth?” he asks, his voice as blank as if he'd never heard of it. “Haven’t thought much about Earth. But obviously if that’s where you need me to go, I’ll go there.”

“I see. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Nice to meet you, Supreme Archangel.”

“Yes,” says Aziraphale, and makes himself turn and walk away.

*

As a rule, angels--even Supreme Archangels--don’t find the Metatron. The Metatron finds them. He comes to meetings when he wants to, talks to Aziraphale when he wants to, presumably talks to everyone else when he wants to, and the rest of the time, Aziraphale doesn’t have any idea where he is, what he does, or how to get in touch with him. The Metatron doesn’t have a little room everyone knows about to retire to or an office for official business. The Metatron does as he pleases.

But he has to know that Aziraphale saw Serpentine, doesn’t he? This is Heaven, nothing is really a secret, especially not from someone as powerful as the Metatron. And he must have been waiting for it. For all Aziraphale knows, he might have orchestrated the entire encounter. Whatever happened to Crowley, no one else could be behind it, and if he wasn’t trying to keep the two of them apart, he was probably looking forward to their first encounter.

Aziraphale wants to scream. He wants to tear Heaven apart with his bare hands until he finds the Metatron. Anger is still alive inside him, a bright, hot thing, something incomprehensible. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with this. It feels as if he might explode.

Enough of his good sense remains that he knows he can’t do any of that. As much as Crowley--the real Crowley, who must exist somewhere, must still be findable or recoverable--would enjoy him rampaging through Heaven, destroying everything in his path, it’s the kind of thing that would, inevitably, end with the harshest of punishments. And that wouldn't help anyone.

Aziraphale takes one of the less used exits from Heaven into a deserted field, where he screams at the top of his lungs for quite some time. Thunder booms, lightning flashes, wild animals cower, and when it’s done, Aziraphale at least feels like he’ll be able to speak again without spitting sparks.

Once that’s done, he goes to the bookshop. Muriel is sitting in his chair, reading, but leaps up at the sound of the bell and doesn't relax at all at the sight of him. “Supreme Archangel!”

“Aziraphale is fine,” he says. People just called Gabriel by his name, didn't they? Everyone calling him by his title feels a little like they can't believe it's real.

“Mr. Fell,” says Muriel, which is a more than acceptable compromise. “How can I help you?”

“Just stopping by to see how the place is doing. It looks like you've been taking good care of it.”

“Thank you! I've been doing my best.”

Aziraphale runs his hand over a row of spines, checking to make sure they're all present and accounted for. “You haven't seen Crowley, have you?”

Muriel frowns. “No, not since you left. I was hoping he might stop by, since he knows so much about the books, but he hasn't.”

“I thought not.”

“Is everything alright?” Their tone is cautious, but the concern is genuine; Aziraphale’s smile is too.

“I'm worried about him. It's hard, not knowing if we’ll ever see each other again.”

All true, technically, and enough to twist Aziraphale’s stomach into knots.

“Oh, I'm sure you will. Nina said you just needed time to come around. So if you've come around, I'm sure he will too.”

“I'm sure.”

He takes the elevator back up to Heaven and isn't even surprised when Ariel the general assistant is waiting for him.

“I assume you're here to take me to the Metatron.”

Ariel’s brow wrinkles. “How did you know?”

“We have things to discuss. Please, lead on.”

The vast emptiness of Heaven also makes wayfinding rather difficult; even as Aziraphale follows Ariel, he doesn't really know exactly where the two of them are going. From one long, white corridor to another, up in one elevator and down a flight of stairs, the dizzying maze leading to the Metatron has annoyance bubbling back up in Aziraphale.

Finally, they reach an office with a door that actually blocks his view of what's inside. Ariel stands to the side and Aziraphale knocks, waits to hear “Enter!” and then pushes it open.

The Metatron is sitting at a desk, his fingers steepled in front of him. “I thought you would be pleased.”

Aziraphale’s smile is brittle, the most fragile facade. “Did you? Then why didn't you tell me?”

“It was decided that it would be easier for Serpentine to adjust to his new life here without your…reactions,” he says, as if a council had voted on it, but Aziraphale feels very confident the Metatron acted entirely alone. “I would have liked to keep the two of you apart a little longer.”

Aziraphale’s jaw works. “And what exactly did you do to him?”

The Metatron makes a show of going through a file. “After your promotion, I reviewed Crowley’s case again. You see, if he truly was worthy of being restored to Heaven, as you believed he was, then we had a responsibility to restore him.”

“He didn’t want to be restored!”

“He didn’t want to fall, either. Those decisions don’t belong to him. You should be proud. No demon in the course of history has ever earned redemption, but your friend did.”

Aziraphale bites back another wave of anger. “And if this is such a good thing, why take his memories?”

“How long do you think it would have taken Crowley to fall again, if we had restored him with his memories?”

If he and Aziraphale hadn’t had their argument, it might have at least been a few days. If his being an angel had been fait accompli, then he at least would have talked to Aziraphale about it, and maybe, somehow, that conversation would have gone better.

Then again, perhaps not. Aziraphale would have still been delighted, and Crowley would still have been furious. There was simply no getting around the fact that just because Crowley wasn’t interested in being a demon, it didn’t mean he wanted to be an angel either.

“So you’ve bought him a few millennia? He’ll fall again, he can’t help it. He’s still Crowley.”

“You weren’t concerned about that when you asked him.”

“That was when I thought you wanted him!” he bursts out, unable to keep his hold on his temper. “When you told me I could restore him, I thought you meant I could restore Crowley. He hasn’t changed, not really. If you realize he should be an angel, it should be him being an angel.”

“It is. The heart of him. And with your guidance, perhaps he won’t fall. You’ll be here to nudge him in the right direction. Now, was there anything else?”

The Metatron isn’t stupid, Aziraphale knows that. But there is a particular kind of stubborn, angelic naivete that Crowley has pointed out in Aziraphale himself on more than one occasion, a belief that the way things should work is the way they do work. And so the Metatron might actually believe that Aziraphale will come around on this and see the wisdom in his decision. He might even think Aziraphale already agrees with him.

He might not realize he’s done something unforgivable. Even for Aziraphale, who’s so good at forgiveness.

“Any notes on my plans to send more operatives to Earth?”

“No. You should do what you think is best.”

“Then I’ll hop to it,” he says, and takes his leave.

*

The problem with Serpentine is that he's not Crowley, but he is. Aziraphale can't stop thinking about him, but so little of it is about him, which truly isn't fair. Serpentine is a being in his own right, one who deserves to be treated as his own entity. If he were truly just another scrivener, Aziraphale wouldn't have ever given him a second thought. He would have run into him, apologized, and moved on.

But he does believe the heart of him is the same, even if he believes nothing else the Metatron said. And Aziraphale doesn't have any allies here, not anymore. He might have never had any. Even if Serpentine isn't trustworthy like Crowley was, he's leagues ahead of any other angel in Heaven. And, unlike everyone else, Aziraphale is sure that Serpentine will be honest with him.

He somehow manages to resist for four days before he's on his way to the scrivener’s wing, asking for directions to Serpentine. They've placed him on his own in a bare office with a desk and a huge quantity of scrolls. Either the Metatron wants Serpentine to fall again--sadly, quite possible--or he really is an idiot, because Aziraphale can think of no environment less conducive to someone like Crowley doing good than a room full of scrolls.

“Supreme Archangel!” Serpentine says, scrambling to his feet. “Wow, didn't think I'd see you again so soon.”

“As I said, I have a new assignment for you. Unfortunately, it's not quite as exciting as touring nebulae, but it is sorely needed.”

“Great, yeah, of course! What can I do?”

“I need an assistant.”

“An assistant?”

“Yes, I’m quite busy and need someone to help with my workload. And to discuss things with.”

“And you want me?”

It's surreal to hear the words in Crowley’s mouth, in his voice, with nothing but bright, open curiosity. As if there aren't thousands of years of complications weighing them down.

“You are the only angel I've met who was willing to admit he wasn't happy with his station.”

“I didn't say that.”

“But you aren't.”

There is something fascinating about watching Serpentine. It’s Crowley's face struggling with how to respond to him, something he's seen countless times, but the mannerisms are completely different, raw and new. “There could be some improvements. It’s just not very interesting.”

“This isn't a trap,” says Aziraphale.

“That's probably what you'd say if it was a trap.”

“Most likely,” Aziraphale agrees, his mouth twitching. “Still, the offer stands. Would you like to be my assistant?”

Serpentine scrambles to his feet. “Yeah, of course. Do I just come now? Can I leave all this?”

“What do you do with it, exactly?” Aziraphale asks.

“Read it over for typos. There aren't any. It might not be the most boring job in the universe, but I hope it's close. I don't want there to be many less interesting ones.”

“Surely there are worse things to be doing than reading,” Aziraphale says, with an optimism he doesn't entirely feel. He doesn't know Serpentine’s literary tastes, but Heaven certainly wouldn't be catering to Crowley's.

“It's a complete genealogy of the human race,” says Serpentine flatly. “Someone begat someone else begat another person. No plot and it's hard to get attached to any of the characters. The most exciting thing that ever happens is when someone uses a non-standard spelling of a common name and I have to double-check it's right.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale. “Yes, I can see how that would grate.”

“‘s fine,” says Serpentine, with just a hint of a hiss. “But if the Supreme Archangel needs me…”

“Aziraphale,” he says. “You may call me Aziraphale. I'm not sure why everyone is so focused on my title.”

“Well, it's a big deal, isn't it? Supreme Archangel.”

“It's hard to say. I'm still not sure.” Serpentine shoots him a confused look and Aziraphale shrugs. “I may simply be a convenient figurehead. I have yet to try to wield real power.”

“What kind of power do you want to wield?”

“I think there are ways in which Heaven could be improved.”

“Oh, yeah, loads of them. But I've been told they don't like you saying that.”

“And you listened?” Aziraphale asks, trying to convince himself that because he shouldn't be hurt, he isn't.

“If I had, I probably wouldn't be telling you how boring my job is.”

His relief is instantaneous. “No, probably not.”

*

“What is that doing here,” says Michael, voice too flat to really be asking a question.

“Who, me?” asks Serpentine.

Aziraphale pastes on a bright smile. “This is my assistant.”

“I don't know how you got him up here but he--”

“Serpentine. A former scrivener. The Metatron and I have already discussed him.”

Serpentine looks almost flattered. “Have you?”

“He's having some trouble with his memories, but he is an angel, the same as the rest of us.”

“An angel like you,” says Michael. “We are not the same.”

“How lovely,” says Aziraphale. “Shall we begin?”

The meeting is the same as all their meetings. They discuss Aziraphale’s plan to send a large delegation to Earth, debate how many angels are in a “large” delegation, and consider how they might select which angels to send. Aziraphale suggests that Michael and Uriel might benefit from spending some time on Earth themselves, and Michael and Uriel suggest that he should go back if he likes it so much.

Serpentine watches, silent, but his brown eyes, unguarded by any kind of lenses or coverings, are shrewd and bright. He might not have his memories, but he's miles ahead of Jim. It's only fair; Crowley’s far more clever than Gabriel too.

He follows Aziraphale out of the meeting still in silence, waits until they're on the elevator before he asks, “So, who am I, really?”

The question is hardly a surprise. Only the timing is unexpected. Aziraphale thought it might take him a little longer. “Somewhere a little more private, I think. We'll go back to my room.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to pretend you didn't know what I was talking about.”

“No, I think it's probably time we discussed it.”

It's a long walk back to the living quarters, punctuated only by a few stops when passing angels have questions for Aziraphale. Serpentine hangs back again, listening without interrupting, but Aziraphale can feel his patience wearing thin, and he cuts the conversations shorter and shorter.

When they finally get to Aziraphale’s room, Serpentine spends a moment just taking it in, studying it with an intensity that makes Aziraphale think, just for a second, that it might be familiar to him.

“A lot of yellow,” is what he finally says.

“I like yellow.”

“Is this what Earth looks like?”

“Parts of it. It's what my home looks like.”

“You lived on Earth for most of the time it was a planet, right? That's what I heard.”

“Yes.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

He goes to investigate the bookshelf. “So, another terrestrial agent? Doesn't really seem like it needs to be a big secret.”

“You were a demon,” Aziraphale says. If there's a way to sugarcoat it, he's not sure how.

Serpentine’s hand stops on the spine of Doctor Faustus, appropriately enough. “A demon?”

“You fell. For asking too many questions, you told me. And I believed it,” he adds. “You don't have the talent some of us do for going along with things you don't agree with.”

“Am I a demon now? Can someone stop being a demon?”

“I believe you are the first demon to ever be restored to angelic status. Unfortunately, it was against your will.”

“I wanted to be a demon?”

“You wanted to be something else. Some other option.” An us, he doesn't say.

“So we were friends, you and me? Before you became Supreme Archangel?”

“We were, yes. We did--quarrel,” he says, carefully. “About your coming back to Heaven. The Metatron decided you shouldn't be allowed to refuse. That you should have no more choice in rising than you did in falling. And he realized you wouldn't see it that way, so…”

“No memories.” He collapses into an armchair, sprawling out like he's lost all his bones. It's so much like Crowley that Aziraphale aches with it. “You really didn't know. That's why you were so surprised to see me.”

Aziraphale sits on the edge of the bed. “I assume he knew I wouldn't approve.”

“A demon.” He shakes his head. “How could the Supreme Archangel be friends with a demon?”

“It's more common than you'd think,” Aziraphale says, with the ghost of a smile.

“So I probably shouldn't tell anyone else I know who I was, yeah? Or they'll just erase my memories again?”

“To be honest, I have no idea what their plans are for you. But it can't hurt to be cautious.”

“Is there a way to get the memories back, do you think? Some Supreme Archangel button you can press?”

“I'm not sure. I am a very new Supreme Archangel.”

“What happened to the old one?”

“He ran away with a demon, as a matter of fact. But I rather think they owe us.”

*

It is, as Crowley has pointed out more than once, a big universe, with plenty of unused planets. Finding an angel and a demon who don't want to be found is less like finding a needle in a haystack and more like finding a needle in the vast emptiness of space.

“I was hoping they'd taken your suggestion and gone to Alpha Centauri,” says Aziraphale, with a sigh. It's not lost on him that they've finally come here together, like Crowley wanted, and Crowley's not even actually here to enjoy it.

Serpentine drives the point home. “My idea?”

“It was a favorite of yours.”

“Was it?” He looks around with interest. “No wonder, it's gorgeous.”

Aziraphale’s heart stutters. It's been a few decades since he thought of Crowley--was his name Serpentine then, too? No, it's not a name he'd heard before, it must be a new invention of the Metatron’s--watching that nebula with that wonder in his eyes, but he really has been gone from the start, hasn't he?

“It is,” he agrees. “Now, let’s see, there's a promising nebula near--”

“You're supposed to leave us alone. That was the deal.”

Aziraphale and Serpentine both jump as Gabriel appears behind them. Aziraphale does miss Earth, where people appeared behind him without warning so much less frequently.

“Oh, it's you two. Let me guess, the Earth is on fire. Just wait for it to rain, it'll fix itself.”

Even though Serpentine has never met Gabriel and didn't know a thing about him until this moment, he gives Aziraphale a look like he's already learned to hate him.

Aziraphale steps in before he can say that. “No, that's not why we’re here. It's just a quick question and then we'll leave you be.”

“What's the question?”

“If someone’s memories are erased, as yours were supposed to be, is there a way to get them back?”

“I assume storing the memories in a fly isn't an option.”

“No.”

“Is it because you don't have a fly? I could probably get you a fly.”

“The memories have already been removed. It's too late for a fly.”

“Ohhhh,” says Gabriel. “Yeah. That's more complicated.”

“But it is possible,” says Aziraphale.

“Do they need their memories back? Not all memories are important. I honestly don't use most of mine.”

“They're my memories,” Serpentine puts in. “And I think I'd like them, yeah. Getting confusing not having them.”

That actually breaks through Gabriel’s haughty facade, and he looks rattled. “You?” He frowns, leaning closer. “You're an angel.”

“Angel with no memories, yeah.”

“At least they fixed your eyes,” says Gabriel.

“What was wrong with my eyes?”

“Nothing,” says Aziraphale. He turns his attention to Gabriel. “The Metatron gave me your old job. So if there was some sort of power you had to reverse this, I might have it now.”

Gabriel is still inspecting Crowley. “Why did they turn you back into an angel?”

“I don't know, I wasn't really there, was I!”

“Why is he an angel and Beelzebub isn't?” Gabriel demands of Aziraphale.

“Has Beelzebub done anything to warrant becoming an angel?” Aziraphale asks. “Does ze even want to be one? Crowley certainly didn’t.”

“Crowley?” asks Serpentine. “Was that my name?”

Gabriel ignores the question. “I just think if he gets to be an angel, Beelzebub should be too.”

“Well, we’re trying to turn him back, so no one needs to be an angel!” Aziraphale snaps. “I just need to know if there's anything I can do.”

“You're the Supreme Archangel now?” Gabriel asks. Aziraphale had been expecting him to be more upset about that than he had been about Crowley’s ascension, but apparently he just wanted to be upset about both.

“Yes. I don't think it's going to turn out well.”

Gabriel considers the two of them for a long moment and finally sighs. “The memories are still in there somewhere. They've been blocked off, not destroyed, destroying them is too much work. You destroy the block, you get him back.”

“How do you destroy the block?” Serpentine asks

“Oh, no idea. We put them in, we didn't take them out. I think something must change in the brain,” he adds, with a contemplative tone in his voice that Aziraphale has never heard except from Jim. It's rare for Gabriel to admit he's not completely sure about something. “It felt like my head was too small for the other things in it, and if I remembered them, it would explode. But it didn't!”

“So there should be a way.”

“I didn't do it myself but yeah, probably. I don't know. If you're the Supreme Archangel now, everyone should just listen to you and do whatever you want, so you can just order them to tell you how to fix it.”

“I rather think that attitude is why you're no longer Supreme Archangel,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“Well, it's your problem now. My life is going great. I can't believe they suckered you into that job, it's awful.”

“I was hoping to make a difference.”

Gabriel snorts. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

*

Aziraphale really had thought he trusted the Metatron. Or at least that the Metatron was on his side. And there's even a version of the Metatron who really is on Aziraphale’s side, who wants the two of them to do good things together.

But there's also no way anyone who’s truly on Aziraphale’s side would ever do anything to harm Crowley. And if the Metatron thinks what he did doesn't count as harming Crowley because some part of Crowley still exists, then the Metatron is not only untrustworthy, but stupid. It's the kind of betrayal that infects everything, that can't be separated from the rest and cut off. If the Metatron would do this, then Crowley was right. Aziraphale’s belief in him has been misplaced from the start.

This is the primary reason he thinks getting Crowley's memories back into Serpentine has to be his top priority, even with the Second Coming in the offing. Serpentine is more pliable than Crowley, more trusting and less willing to argue, and none of those, in these circumstances, are a good thing. A restored Crowley might leave him without a second thought, but at least he has survival instincts and can take care of himself. Serpentine is a walking, talking risk vector; not only could someone possibly convince him that Aziraphale wasn’t his friend after all, but anyone who recognizes him as having once been Crowley knows that he’s Aziraphale’s greatest weakness. It’s as if his heart is walking around, exposed and defenseless.

They return to Heaven and Serpentine tags along as Aziraphale performs his duties with minimal input from his brain, which is occupied with trying to figure out how to unlock Serpentine’s memories. Only Crowley turning the full force of his demonic powers on Gabriel had ever dragged any memories out, and even then, it hadn’t been much.

“I think we’ll go to Earth,” he decides, once they’re done with their obligations.

“Why?” asks Serpentine.

“Some familiar places might help your memory. And we should try to find your car. I’m sure it’s worried about you.”

“I have a car?” He sounds so excited it makes Aziraphale ache. “Brilliant. What’s a car?”

“A human invention. You’re very fond of yours. I do hope that the Metatron took you from near Soho; the Bentley knows it can just park in front of my shop. If you were somewhere else, we might not be able to find the car until you regain your memories.”

Serpentine mulls this over as they get into the elevator. “What happens to me if the demon memories come back?”

“Nothing will happen to you,” Aziraphale assures him. “You’re the same being you’ve always been, just without most of your experiences. And I believe you’ll remember the time you spent without memories. Gabriel remembers his.”

“Just seems like I must be really different, if I was a demon. Hard to imagine a few millennia of memories could turn me into that.”

“You may remain an angel even if your memories return. We’re in a completely unprecedented situation; I don’t honestly know what will happen. But…the being that you were is the best being that I’ve known in all of history. Demon or angel. Though it might have taken me some time to admit it.”

The doors open onto the familiar Soho street, and Aziraphale feels the relief of it instantly. This is his home: this street, this city, this planet. He’ll find a way to come back to it, with Crowley--the real Crowley--by his side. There’s simply no other option.

“You didn’t live here,” Aziraphale explains, “but you spent a great deal of time here. And you never told me where your flat actually was, so I couldn’t bring you there anyway. But I think there’s plenty here that you might know.”

Serpentine shakes his head. “Nothing yet.”

“We’ll start at the--oh!” He beams. “There’s your car, just as I’d hoped. I should have checked for it the last time I was here, but I was…distracted.”

He crosses the street to the Bentley and Serpentine follows, a slight frown on his face.

“This is a car?” he asks, leaning down to squint at it.

Aziraphale pats the hood. “This is a vintage Bentley. You're very proud of it. He's lost his memories,” he tells the car. “But he still cares for you very much. And of course I've missed you too. We'll come and take you for a drive soon.”

“What does it do?” Serpentine asks, once he's finished his inspection.

“It's a mode of transportation. See, you can see the others going past, taking humans places.”

Serpentine watches the traffic go by for a moment and then returns his attention to the Bentley. “This car is definitely nicer than all the other cars,” he declares. “No question. The best of the lot.”

“Of course. Come along, I'll show you the bookshop.”

Serpentine follows him inside, and Muriel starts to welcome the two of them as customers before and cutting themself off with a delighted, “Mr. Fell, you found him!”

“Muriel, Mr. Crowley has lost his memory,” says Aziraphale with a smile. “We're trying to help him recover it.”

“Oh! That's dreadful. No wonder you haven't been ‘round. If there's anything I can do to assist, please let me know.”

“This is your home?” Serpentine asks, looking at the shelves with interest. “I thought it was supposed to look like your room.”

“I modeled the room after my flat upstairs, not the shop itself. And the shop is mine, but I like to think that it was Crowley’s too, a little. I wanted it to be ours.”

“I didn't think demons liked bookshops.”

“He didn't like to admit it.”

Serpentine shakes his head. “I don't remember it, I'm afraid.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes and remembers the white-hot rage that had nearly consumed him when he realized what the Metatron had done to Crowley. It's a useful feeling, unlike the grief of Serpentine not knowing the shop. “Try harder,” he says, in the most commanding voice he can manage, putting all of his power behind it, and Serpentine takes an involuntary step back.

“I don't…” He starts, but something in Aziraphale’s eyes shuts him up. “We don't dance,” he blurts out.

“That's something.”

“We did dance, though,” he says, wonder in his tone. “I remember dancing with you here! Humans all around.”

“Anything else?”

“No. But that's more than I've ever remembered. Why were we dancing?”

There's no real point in lying. “I thought it would be romantic.”

“And you wanted it to be?”

“Very much so, yes.”

Serpentine is quiet. “You said the two of you quarreled. What exactly was that about?”

“Our future. I wanted him to come back to Heaven with me. I thought the two of us could work together to try to make things better. He wanted us to run away together.”

“Sounds like you got what you wanted.”

“I mean no offense to you, Serpentine, but you are not the same. I wanted my partner with me with all his memories and experience. With all our history together. I wanted to save him, not lose him.”

Serpentine shrugs. “Well, you got more of what you wanted than he did.”

“I don't expect him to stay, if I restore his memories. I assume we'll still be at an impasse. But he can leave, and I'll let him go.”

There's a silence Aziraphale doesn't know how to interpret. “I don't remember anything else. Sorry.”

“We can walk around the neighborhood.”

They walk slowly, Serpentine clearly turning something over in his head, Aziraphale not sure he should ask what. If Serpentine decided he didn't want the memories back after all, Aziraphale wasn't sure he could force them back on his own. Even if he could, would it be wrong? Should Aziraphale’s belief that Crowley would want the memories back trump the reality that Serpentine didn’t?

If Serpentine doesn't want them, could Aziraphale truly let Crowley go?

“Oh, Mr. Fell, Mr. Crowley!” says Maggie, startling Aziraphale from his thoughts as she steps out of the record store. “I thought that was you. And together, too! It’s so good to see it.”

“I’m not him,” says Serpentine, when Aziraphale doesn’t.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Crowley. I’m not him. Lost my memories. Not a demon anymore. It’s a whole thing.”

“Does that happen? Demons not being demons? I thought it only went the other way. Not that I don’t think Mr. Crowley deserved it, of course. He was a little gruff, but we all would have died without him. Can you get the memories back?”

“We don’t know,” says Aziraphale. “I was hoping walking around the old neighborhood might stir something up.”

“Have you tried a kiss?” Nina asks.

It’s Aziraphale’s turn to say, “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, I was just thinking aloud, you know? In all the stories, it’s a kiss to break curses. Maybe that’s not what losing memories is, but…well, just thinking about it. Silly, probably.”

Aziraphale wouldn’t have said their first kiss had done them much good, and he’s not sure a second would either. “There are no bad suggestions, my dear. Tell me, how have you been?”

Maggie has been well, at least. She and Nina have been spending more time together, not dating, but becoming proper friends, and Maggie is trying to feel like that’s enough on its own while still hoping it might lead to something more. Aziraphale knows, but doesn't point out, that there's a breaking point for that.

Serpentine stays quiet as Aziraphale and Maggie catch up, which isn’t surprising, exactly, but does make Aziraphale start to feel itchy. The Soho idea may prove to be his undoing, after all; something is shifting in Serpentine.

The romantic in him wanted to think that even without memories, he and Crowley would find each other, trust each other. And maybe they would, if both of them had lost memories. But it really is a lot for Serpentine to take in, that he was an angel who became a demon and an angel again, and even what kind of demon he was. The kind who saved humans and danced with an angel, the kind whom the Supreme Archangel loved.

That would be difficult for anyone to wrap their mind around.

Aziraphale says his goodbyes to Maggie and tries not to panic. “Perhaps we should try somewhere else. The park, we used to--”

“I kissed you,” says Serpentine. “Didn’t I? I remember kissing you.”

“You did.”

He rubs his jaw. “Maybe we should try it again.”

It’s about the last thing Aziraphale was expecting. “Why?”

“Because Crowley really wanted to. The first time, I mean. And if he wanted to kiss you that much, maybe doing it again will be enough to bring him back. Curse or not.”

Even just thinking about it feels like a betrayal, which is ridiculous. He and Crowley had no agreements, and if they’d put any official label on their relationship before his memory loss, the label probably would have been “broken up.” And even if he did kiss Serpentine, it was as close as he could come to kissing Crowley, and he’d be doing it only to try to bring Crowley back.

It still feels wrong. But he has no better ideas.

“In the shop, I think. If anyone has questions about the two of us being in Soho together, I can easily answer those, but kissing would be much harder to explain.”

“You’re the expert,” says Serpentine, and Aziraphale tries not to think about that either.

Muriel, of course, lets the two of them upstairs without any objections or even questions, and before Aziraphale knows it, they’re in his old bedroom, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

“I don’t see why you went back to Heaven in the first place,” Serpentine finally says. “Seeing how you are here, it's obvious you were longing for your bookshop and your demon.”

“It’s easy to think that doing the right thing involves some degree of self-sacrifice and misery. Of course I’d hoped that I could truly have everything I wanted, but once I couldn’t, it felt much more appropriate that I’d had to give it all up. Heaven does so love a martyr.” He lets out a breath and wipes the palms of his hands on his trousers. “Alright. I’m going to kiss you.”

“Don’t have to sound so excited about it,” Serpentine mutters, and it’s just enough like Crowley to remind Aziraphale why he’s doing it.

Despite everything that's happened, he still hopes that there will come a day when kissing Crowley will be routine, easy, as automatic as making a cup of tea, with the same warmth and happiness following it. This, however, is a distant goal, and kissing Serpentine is nothing like that. Aziraphale puts his hands on Serpentine’s face, mostly to hold him in position, and pulls him down to press their lips together. It's a kiss in name only, with none of the things that Aziraphale knows humans get out of kisses, and he's about to pull back, writing it off as a silly notion, when all at once, Serpentine comes alive under his fingers. Hands come up to grip Aziraphale’s waist, holding on, and the mouth he’s kissing is moving, kissing back with an urgency he recognizes.

He still pulls away. “Crowley.”

“Yeah. Point to Maggie.”

Emotions swirl inside Aziraphale, too big to stay inside, too big to even become words. He throws himself into Crowley’s arms, slamming him against the wall with the sheer force of his relief. After a second, Crowley's arms are around him too, awkward and a little unsure, as if he's not sure that he's doing it right.

Or perhaps not sure he wants to do it at all. Aziraphale steps back again to find Crowley watching him, and his heart sinks.

“Your eyes.”

“What?”

“You don't have your eyes back.”

“You mean they aren't yellow? I thought that would be a good thing.”

“I like your eyes.”

Said eyes dart away from him. “Do you really?”

“Of course. They're your eyes.”

“I think I might still be an angel,” he says, still not looking at Aziraphale. “I'm not sure how to tell except that I haven't been cast into Hellfire yet.”

“The Metatron did say you'd earned redemption. I don't know that regaining your memories would cancel that out.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Not sure how to feel about that, to be honest.”

“It's why I was so pleased when he offered to make you an angel again,” Aziraphale says. “The first time. It's so rare for Heaven to admit they've made a mistake and rectify it, I was glad they finally had.”

Crowley finally looks at him again, and it's so much worse to have him back without his eyes or his snake sigil. Before, they were a painful reminder that Crowley wasn't Crowley, but he needed that reminder. Now, he just wants all of Crowley, his Crowley. His demon. “Everything you told Serpentine--was it true?”

It's hard to know what specific thing he wants to know about; Aziraphale told him a lot of things. But it doesn't matter, really. “Yes.”

“Alright. Probably good I still have the angel eyes, then.”

“Oh?”

“I still don't think we can fix Heaven. I don't think there's a better version of the system we have right now, I think it's all shit. Do you? Are you still on the Metatron’s side?”

“No. He's not on mine and I'm not on his.”

“Does he know that?”

“I don't know. If he has any sense, he should. I don't see how he could do what he did to you and think I would ever forgive him. But Heaven can be quite…”

“Stupid?”

Aziraphale smiles. “Yes.”

“I'm hoping so.” His mouth twitches up into a smile, sharp as a knife and so welcome after Serpentine’s open happiness. “I think, Angel, it's time you and Serpentine the scrivener went back to Heaven and raised a little Hell.”