Chapter Text
He opened his eyes. The light that filtered from the window was dull, muted in shades of grey, and the sky outside gloomy and overcast. He sat up, sighed, and got ready for another long day ahead.
Going back to his old life, after however long he was gone, should have been easy, like wearing an old beloved jacket, or riding a bicycle–although he doesn’t suppose he’d ever learned that one–but the past few weeks have been a far longer adjustment than he thought it would be.
Walls of books greeted him in their quiet, orderly rows, as they always did: his silent companions in the endless tedium of the days before—well, whenever the Second Coming would finally deign to arrive. Aziraphale caught the forbidding thought before it could call forth any other, more dangerous notions, and shooed it away. It would not do to indulge impatience. He had a duty to perform, by God (literally), and he was going to do it to the fullness of his abilities.
For now, evidently, that meant keeping guard over Heaven’s embassy in London, keeping up the guise of the centuries-old bookshop, and waiting. But for what?
Heaven had sent no further word since they sent him back to earth, with nothing but a vague idea of having been away for a while, and a hole missing in his memories. When he tried to venture further into them, he was met with nothing but a headache, and blinding white.
The earliest thing he could remember for now was waking up in his bed, seeing the well-worn wooden floors, looking over the window onto familiar streets, working out the different shop fronts and their assorted proprietors and clientelle, reorienting their identities and placements in his mind. As he walked through the shelves, refamiliarizing himself, he closed his eyes. His hands grazed the spines, feeling the soothing rhythm on his fingers at each rise and fall along the cloth and leather-bound curves, the miniscule spaces in between. He felt, with some deep, inexplicable certainty, that this place was important to him, somehow. This he accepted easily: a piece of a puzzle snugly fitting in its place, putting together a picture of who he was before the heavenly decision to restart, begin anew –all part of the Ineffable Plan, of course.
The only concrete clue left to him was a brief letter he found on his desk that first day back, typewritten on heavy cream cardstock, addressed to his name. The rest of the message just read:
You have elected to have certain memories of a past number of years erased.
Await further instructions .
It did not say when the next missive would come, though far be it for an angel to question the timing of heaven, so Aziraphale resolved to perform his duties, or an approximation of what we believed they were, while he awaited said further instructions.
Memories came back, in painfully slow drips, like water down a leaking ceiling. Some days were easier than others, especially when he ventured out, met some people, the memories surged back, called forth from wherever they had buried themselves. Some days Aziraphale fretted, not knowing what to do with himself, feeling like he was battling with his mind, unsure of his purpose.
He resolved that today would be better than the others. Aziraphale was bustling about his shop, getting ready for the day, when he found himself pausing, letting his lids fall closed as he savoured the soft sounds of the city waking up, the bustle of the early-morning crowd. He was determined to get back in the groove of things, make the most of the time on earth. Get reacquainted with himself again.
Might be a good day to grab a cuppa at Nina’s , he thought. The dear old girl and her partner had been sweet and welcoming as he had arrived back, and they popped by sometimes with tea or cakes in the early evenings. He appreciated it more than he could say. He would not really have known what to do with himself otherwise. Surely he had other duties and activities that kept him occupied on earth before he had gone, but that part of him felt like a muscle that had not been used in a long time, or perhaps more like a phantom limb. Far more evenings than not he found himself sitting in the quiet, cavernous hall of the bookshop, staring up at the shelves upon shelves of books surrounding him. A self-contained, virtual world of words that he knew should have brought him comfort, joy, familiarity; yet there he was, feeling small, slight, and utterly alone.
He gamely made his way across the road to the coffee shop, waving brightly at Nina as he stepped just outside the glass door. The door chimed open, and a fellow who seemed to be in a bit of a hurry rushed out, shouldering him quite aggressively in the process. Aziraphale gasped in a quick jolt of annoyance, surely one could wait their turn, he thought, but it just as quickly shifted to concern.
“Oh, are you alright, dear—” he turned around to ask, but the man was gone.
When he stepped up, Nina had a cup of piping hot earl grey waiting for him at the counter and a complicated look on her face. Aziraphale frowned: he was still trying to get the hang of deciphering the nuances of human expressions again. Her look was a little like pity, mixed with comfort, and some concern. A strange combination. But why?
“Goodness,” he said, trying to make a joke out of what just happened, “they go too fast for me, I’m afraid.” He gestured back outside. The loud roar of an engine seemed to support his observation.
Nina just pursed her lips, offering a small smile and a shrug. Puzzling, thought Aziraphale. She was always one to speak her mind on these things. Must be a regular she quite likes.
“Your one’s a slithery one, he is,” someone chimed in behind him. The lady who ran the gentleman's establishment, if memory served correctly—and it hadn’t quite yet fully recovered service of late, so that did bear double-checking at another time, Aziraphale thought.
He caught the quick, frantic admonishments at her from Nina and one or two other people in the queue. Curious , he thought. At that moment, however, Maggie appeared at his side and wanted to get his thoughts on some records—a happy distraction: memories of these things had come to him quickly, easily, no resistance at all.
That night, Aziraphale dreamt for the first time since… well, since he could remember.
He is in the bookshop.
There is music playing softly on the gramophone. The blinds are turned down, the lights soft, mellow. The room feels smaller, somehow, but in a good way. Intimate? Yes, that’s the word.
Books and notes scattered on the table. Wine glasses and half-empty bottles. A feeling, inside him, of warmth, of belonging, of not-aloneness, so full and rich it aches.
His fingers graze on something. Firm, but yielding. Warm to the touch. Someone chuckles softly.
“Careful, angel.”
The lights glint gently, like stars, on the rim of wine glasses, their blood-red menisci, they flicker off the round edges of black glass—
Aziraphale opened his eyes.
The light that filtered from the window was dull, muted in shades of grey, and the sky outside gloomy and overcast. He sat up, sighed, and got ready for another long day ahead.