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Crowley decided that he would spend the next decade in Milton Keynes.
He didn’t particularly like Milton Keynes, nor did he have any reason to pick Milton Keynes over any other English city, but it wasn’t London, and that was good enough for Crowley.
Too many bad memories in London.
Too many bookshops.
It was as he took the turning off the M25, plants trembling in the backseat, did the fog in his mind suddenly clear and he came to a screeching halt on a thankfully quiet side road just outside of London.
“Who on Earth is Maggie?” he asked, glaring at his plants in the rearview mirror. They shook harder and did not answer.
He tapped the wheel thoughtfully. Aziraphale said that Maggie’s grandmother had owned the record shop and that it had been passed down the generations, but that wasn’t right. There had never been a record shop there until recently - Crowley was certain of it. It definitely hadn’t been there two years ago.
In fact, there hadn’t been a shop there at all . Crowley was sure that it had originally been one of the bookshop’s many back rooms.
The Back Room. Wasn’t that the name of the record shop?
Crowley narrowed his eyes. Crowley hadn’t even met Maggie until these past few weeks; surely if Aziraphale had a tenant, Crowley would have met her sooner?
He swung the car around and rejoined the M25, and the moment he did, a strange fog settled in his mind again, threatening to soothe his suspicions. It was difficult to fight against, but now that the thought had dug its roots into his brain, he found it easier to hold onto.
He parked outside the record shop and found Maggie slumped over her desk. He stormed over to her and tapped her shoulder.
“Maggie,” he growled but she did not stir.
He tapped her again and when that didn’t rouse her, he shoved at her shoulder.
She continued to sleep.
Crowley watched her for a long moment before realising that she wasn’t breathing.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
It was that blasted Miracle. She had never been very good at them.
She wandered through the long, winding corridors of Hell, sighing at the damp walls. Everything in Hell was damp, broken, or mouldy. She didn’t know why she kept coming back here.
It wasn’t as though anyone recognised her.
“What are you doing here?”
She startled and turned around to find Shax glaring at her, still in her armour from earlier.
“Um… I guess I’m a little lost.”
Shax looked over her in disdain. “These corridors are for authorised personnel only. Human souls aren’t meant to wander them.”
“Sorry,” she lied.
Shax huffed before shaking her head. “You had better follow me.” She whirled around and began marching through the corridors before coming to an abrupt halt and turning sharply again.
“Hold on. Do I know you?”
She stared at Shax with renewed interest. Shax narrowed her eyes in concentration before they widened a little. “Aren’t you the human that let us into the bookshop?”
Maggie grimaced. “Oh. Yes. I am.”
Shax smirked. “Made a right mess of that, didn’t you? Now look at you. Rotting down here with the rest of us.”
Stifling a disappointed sigh, Maggie nodded. “Right.” She gestured down the corridor. “The human areas?”
Shax restarted their journey with a smile. “That’s the problem with you humans. You’re arrogant. You think yourselves untouchable. You’re so annoying. And stupid.”
Maggie tuned her out and glanced at the other demons they passed. None of them seemed to recognise her either.
Perhaps it wasn’t that she was bad at Miracles. Perhaps she was extraordinarily good at them.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Maggie flicked her gaze back to an irritated-looking Shax. “Hm? Oh. Yes. Something about… humans?”
Shax clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Forget it. Just… keep up.”
Maggie nodded and pretended that she didn’t know these corridors like the back of her unmanicured hand.
“Maggie?! How- What- When-?! Shit. Shitshitshit. Bollox. Well, what am I supposed to do with you now?”
Maggie blinked and halted in her tracks. She looked around curiously.
“Did you hear that?” she asked and Shax made a face.
“Hear what?”
No, then. Maggie shook her head and forced a smile. “Never mind. Must be in my head.”
“Idiot,” Shax muttered under her breath as she continued their march forwards.
“Pretty soon your insides are going to leak outside and then you’ll just be a cocktail of putrid human juices, so I can’t leave you here, now, can I? How did you even manage it? You work in a record shop - did you literally bore yourself to death?”
Maggie remained quiet and listened to the familiar voice. She recognised it but she couldn’t quite place it. The tone was slightly off and there was a strange echo - like when someone speaks into a microphone that is too close to a speaker. It had the same sort of reverberating interference.
“Oh. Oh. Oh… How am I going to break it to Nina? I mean… maybe she won’t care because you two weren’t… ah but she will, won’t she? Because that’s the point, isn’t it? She does care. And this… you… you’re going to break her heart.”
Maggie slowed at the mention of Nina’s name and allowed Shax to stride on ahead.
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
She recognised the voice now. With a small frown she ducked into one of the many winding and useless corridors of hell (there were hundreds of them and they went on for miles before looping right back to where you started).
She took a pendant, golden and shaped like a toucan, from her pocket and placed it around her neck.
Crowley scrambled backwards as Maggie gasped for breath.
She rubbed her eyes and stretched and, upon noticing Crowley, yawned very wide and very fake.
“It’s supposed to be good for the mind to have a nap in the afternoon,” Maggie said with a smile before her gaze fell to the large, black bin bag in Crowley’s right hand. Her eyes widened a little and Crowley thrust the bag behind his back.
“Just a nap, was it?” Crowley asked.
Maggie nodded. “A deep nap.”
“Right. Very good,” Crowley said suspiciously.
They stared at each other for a long moment before Crowley folded his arms; bin bag still clutched between his fingers.
“Alright, out with it. Who, or rather, what are you?”
Maggie blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Crowley snapped, throwing his arms up for dramatic effect, “ what are you? Because you certainly aren’t human. You can’t be.”
Maggie frowned. “Are you feeling well, Mr. Crowley? Does this have something to do with your talk with Mr. Fell?”
Crowley grit his teeth and jabbed an accusing finger in her direction. “ Don’t . Don’t change the subject. Who are you?”
“...Maggie.”
“And who is ‘Maggie’?” Crowley snapped. “Because you can’t be a human. Or at least not a human who owns a failing record shop. And certainly not a human who owns a failing record shop in one of Aziraphale’s back rooms. He likes his privacy too much for that and he would never sell part of the bookshop. He’d turn this whole street into a bookshop if he could. Has enough books for it.” He was getting distracted with thoughts of Aziraphale again - he did that more often than he liked to admit. He needed to get back on topic.
“The point is,” Crowley said, shaking his head to clear it because the fog was settling again and he nearly forgot why he was there. “The point is that you, Maggie, don’t make sense.” He sounded like a drunken rambler sprouting nonsense. He felt like a drunken rambler sprouting nonsense. What was with the fog?
“I think you need to sit down, Mr. Crowley,” Maggie said worriedly as she stood. “Would you like a glass of water, perhaps?” She offered him her chair.
He waved her off. “No. No, I know I’m right.” He squinted at her behind his glasses. “Nina didn’t even know you, yet you were in love with her. How does that happen? You said that you barely spoke to her before we started interfering .”
Maggie frowned and attempted to guide Crowley to the chair. He allowed her to but that was because he was too distracted to protest. “Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?” she asked.
Crowley thought about Aziraphale then decided if he spent too long thinking about Aziraphale, his heart would hurt. He scoffed instead. “A ploy manufactured by Disney so they can hire lazy writers.”
Maggie clicked her tongue. “That’s a little pessimistic.”
Crowley realised that he had somehow been Maggie-handled into a chair. A glass of water appeared in his hands, although he didn’t remember seeing Maggie leave the room to pour it.
“I’ve never even met you before these past few weeks,” Crowley pointed out, sipping at his water because it felt like he should. “Yet you claim to be Aziraphale’s tennant. You claim that your grandmother was Aziraphale’s tennant. Well, I’ve never met any of you.”
“Well, I’ve always been here,” Maggie said as she wandered out from behind the desk and began sorting through records.
Crowley watched her for a moment. “Everyone else left the shop, but you stayed to fight. You were immune to Aziraphale’s Miracle.”
“So was Nina,” hummed Maggie before she stiffened and Crowley leapt out of the chair, spilling water over himself and the floor.
“A-ha!” he crowed. “You know what a Miracle is!”
“Everyone knows what a miracle is. It’s in the bible,” Maggie huffed. “Jesus turned water into wine. That’s a miracle.”
“No, but there are miracles and then there are Miracles, and you know the difference, don’t you? You’re not human.”
Maggie sighed in exasperation. “Mr. Crowley, you really aren’t making any-”
“I’m making perfect sense and you know it. And I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re the one causing this annoying fog , so you can stop it.”
Maggie hesitated before her shoulders slumped in defeat. “That ‘fog’ is a masking Miracle - like the one you used on Gabriel. The reason you can feel it is because… well, you and Aziraphale hid Gabriel. I’m just one person trying to hide… myself.”
“And who is that?” Crowley asked, relaxing a little now that Maggie was no longer arguing with him.
Again, Maggie hesitated and flicked her gaze to the coffee shop across the street, which was now closed and shrouded in darkness.
“I’m… My real name is Abaddon. ”
Crowley straightened and surreptitiously reached for a broken record player arm lying on one of the shelves underneath the desk. It wasn’t a very effective weapon, but it had a thick needle and could probably poke out an eye or two if needed.
“Abaddon? As in the demon Abaddon? As in, Fallen Angel Of The Great Abyss, Prince Who Commands A Thousand Locusts, Archdemon Of Destruction… that Abaddon?”
Maggie offered a weak smile. “Yes.”
“The one who can change into a toucan?” Crowley asked.
“Yes.”
Crowley tightened his grip on the tonearm.
“What are you doing here?”
Maggie glanced over at the coffee shop once more before sagging against the shelves of records. They creaked beneath her weight.
“I’m a terrible demon. Worse than you, really. At least you’ve managed to restrain yourself for six-thousand years. What did I do? Fell in love with an angel and got her reset to factory settings. Now she doesn’t even remember my face. Doesn’t remember herself either. Thinks she owns a quaint coffee shop in the middle of London. And that she’s human.”
Crowley blinked as Maggie’s (Abaddon’s?) face fell into her hands. “Wait… are you suggesting that Nina is…?”
“Castiel, The Angel of Tears and Temperance, Guardian Of The Door To The Seventh Hall, Prince Of Saturn,” finished Abaddon (Maggie?) “Yes.”
“...And she’s had her memory wiped? Like Gabriel?”
“Yes,” said Maggie, miserably. It was hard for Crowley to see her as a demon, especially when she was moping like this. He would stick to calling her Maggie for now.
“And you’ve been using a masking Miracle to keep angels and demons off your trail, which is why Aziraphale and I didn’t recognise you?” Crowley said slowly. The fog was starting to lift now that he was piecing it together - as though the magic could no longer function once its intentions had been revealed.
“Pure coincidence that I ended up next door to you both,” admitted Maggie. “I just followed where my angel went and she came here. Perhaps she was drawn to Aziraphale’s Heavenly aura? Either way, it made it that much harder to craft a story you two would believe.”
Crowley nodded absently before snapping his gaze to her. “Wait, so you’ve known all this time about Aziraphale and I being an angel and a demon and you just… rolled with it? Even with all of our meddling? Trying to set you and Nina up during the ball and under that canopy in the rain-”
“That was you?”
“No. Anyway, doesn’t matter.” Crowley tilted his head. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was worried you’d report me,” mumbled Maggie, gaze dropping to the floor. “Heaven had succeeded in wiping Castiel’s memories and Hell were planning on doing the same to me - or worse - so I ran. Or… flew, I suppose.”
Crowley’s shoulders fell. “All this for an angel loving a demon?”
Maggie shrugged. “Happens more often than people think, I’m guessing. Angels and demons aren’t that different, after all, but the bosses can’t have their wars if we refuse to fight because we’re too busy shoving our tongues down each other’s throats.”
Crowley wrinkled his nose and Maggie managed a lop-sided smile. “One of my conspiracy theories, anyway. I bet they’ve had to wipe a few memories on both sides over the millennia.”
Crowley thought of Aziraphale, stepping into that lift with The Metatron, and suddenly his blood turned to ice.
What if…?
“Crowley? You look awfully pale. Is everything alright?” Maggie asked.
He stood abruptly, barely hearing the chair clatter onto its back behind him. Maggie raised her eyebrows.
“If you’re right,” Crowley whispered, eyes wide, “then I might have just made a horrible mistake.”
“A horrible mistake?”
“An awful one. A terrible one. One that might get Aziraphale…” he trailed off and swallowed.
“Oh,” Maggie said quietly. She paused. “Perhaps you’d better go after him?”
Perhaps he should.
Crowley strode towards the door but hesitated before stepping through it and turned sharply on his heel to face Maggie.
“Sssstay here,” he hissed sternly. “Once I get Aziraphale back, we’re going to sit down and have a nice chat .”
Maggie nodded once as Crowley slammed the door behind him.
With a wistful glance towards the coffee shop, she fixed the fallen chair, then perched upon it and waited for Crowley to return.