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Crowley was more than ready now; he was eager. He stormed into the bookshop, needing to see Aziraphale now.
And of course, there was Muriel. She lit up with a smile.
"Crowley! You're back!"
"Is Aziraphale here?"
"Well, of course not. He's in Heaven," she beamed, as if that was a good thing. "But I'm —"
"I need to see him. I need to speak to him now. And I need you not to be here when I do."
Muriel's smile faded. "I don't know what you expect me to do. I have to take care of the bookshop. He has to —"
"He has to nothing. I want you to go up there and bring him back down again, now."
"Will you keep an eye on the bookshop while I'm gone?"
"Sure."
Uneasy, she nodded. She walked past Crowley to lock the front door. Crowley miracled the blinds shut with a click of his fingers, and Muriel pulled back the rug and placed the candles.
She opened the portal. The light pulled her up to Heaven. Several minutes later, Aziraphale beamed down.
Crowley took him in. He was a sight for sore eyes. His eyes, sparkling with empathy. His hair, golden as his inner angelic light. His face, unmistakable.
"Crowley?" Aziraphale asked. "Muriel asked me to see you. Are you alright?"
Crowley took his glasses off. His yellow eyes were brimmed with tears.
"Oh, Crowley."
Aziraphale came forward and embraced Crowley. Crowley clung to him. He hadn't realised how much he had missed the angel, how much he needed him.
"No need to ask you what you needed me for."
"I haven't changed my mind, Angel. I still won't go to Heaven with you. But... I need to talk to you. There's still so much I have to tell you."
"I heard you."
Crowley floundered for several moments, figuring out how to respond. Finally, he settled on:
"Look, I know nothing has changed. You're still up there, and I'm still down here. But I... I need you to hear me now. And I don't want you to interrupt me this time."
Aziraphale stood there with a gentle smile on his face, and gave a little nod. "Go ahead," he said.
Crowley took a grounding breath. Then he began.
"I know you believe in Heaven, and you believe they're basically good. I know you want to believe that. You believe it because you're not jaded and cynical like me, you believe in others. That's what I've always loved about you, the good that you see in the world, that I can't see.
"You're good to a fault," continued Crowley, "you're pretty and cute. I mean your spirit is, not your... body. You're still innocent, I mean, you're still pure. You believe in things. After all these years, you still believe... I honestly don't know how you do it, I never could...
"I just can't believe in a God who could cast me out just for asking questions. I can't believe in a Heaven that kills kids, kills even the whole world, just for their own twisted sense of righteousness. Truth is, Angel, there's nothing good or right about them. There can't be. They're completely detached from it. They're so high and mighty, they don't know empathy. They don't know the meaning of goodness. They just know orders, and what they're told is good.
"You're so much better than them, Angel. You're better than everyone. Your heart is so full, you're trusting, so good, so pure of heart that you beat out Heaven and Hell, you beat out me. If you want to try to reform Heaven, I hope you do. But I just don't believe it. They’re just up too high to see the goodness they claim to represent. And when you fail... I won't even make you do the dance. I just want you back. I want to be back with my soul mate. You don't have to say anything. Just come back, Aziraphale. Come home."
"Honestly, it hurts to see you not believe in me," replied Aziraphale.
"You're the one who's full of faith, not me," replied Crowley.
"You always had faith in me before."
"I had hope," said Crowley, "that maybe you could be different. That you weren't like the rest of them. That hope turned out to be fulfilled, again and again. And do you know why I think it was? Because you were here on Earth. You were always your best self when you were here. Earth is where good resides. It's where evil resides. And Heaven and Hell, they aren't purely good or evil. They are simply borrowing those concepts from the humans."
"You may be right," Aziraphale answered. "Heaven was... is rather hollow without you. I miss you terribly. And things haven't exactly gone as planned..."
"Why, what happened?"
Aziraphale recounted the story.
"Everything you said, Crowley... came at a time when... I needed to hear those things. I needed to understand you, and I needed... to hear what you said about Heaven. It helped me process what was happening. I didn't want to believe it at first. Honestly, I've never wanted to see it, all this time. But once I saw it... it changed everything."
Aziraphale was crying.
"Oh, Angel," said Crowley. "I never wanted... Come here."
Aziraphale did, and Crowley embraced him. Aziraphale snuggled into Crowley.
"I never wanted to... ruin your good heart. I just wanted you to see... that you belong with me."
"Oh, Crowley, I know that. I've always known it. But I also... thought I could make it work. Me in Heaven. I thought I could make it into what it always should've been. Good. And Light. But it's so hard. And if I can't rely on Heaven, then..."
"You can rely on me," said Crowley.
A quivering smile came to Aziraphale's lips. Perhaps it wasn't enough. Or perhaps it was everything he ever needed. But either way, it's what he had.
"Thanks, Crowley. I really appreciate it. You're my world, you know."
"You're my world," replied Crowley.
For a moment, Aziraphale's human disguise slipped, and blue eyes covered his face. All shimmering and deep and soft.
"God, you're gorgeous," breathed Crowley.
A significant look. Aziraphale, touched by the comment.
"Oh, do you really think so?"
"You're a sight for sore eyes," said Crowley. "I missed you. Yes, I really think so."
Aziraphale smiled softly. Then the sadness was back, the disguise slipped back on.
"Still, I wonder if I did something wrong..." he said.
"You're everything an angel should be. You're good and kind and pure... of heart, you understand. And they all... at the very least the higher ups... they're disgraces of angels. The archangels, the ones in charge... And don't even get me started on God! She's far up on Her own pedestal, she can't even take one question, without casting one down so low, to damnation. Power corrupted them all so absolutely... And I'm so full of hate for all of them!" growled Crowley.
Then he looked at Aziraphale, that soft look, so sad and gentle.
"But you're not like that," said Crowley. "You're everything I'm not. You're so good..."
"That's not true."
"No?" said Crowley. "Then indulge me, Angel. What am I?"
"Behind all that hatred and frustration, there is love. Love for the world. Love for children. And apparently, love for me."
"It's easy to love you, Angel. You're so good. I don't know how you love so much, so deeply. I'm falling again, have been for centuries. Not from Heaven this time, but for you. And I can't seem to stop falling deeper and deeper every day. So when you left..." said Crowley, and the tears fell now.
"You're good, too, Crowley. I've seen it. It's just hidden behind all your layers. You hide yourself away so that no one can see it, when the real you is so beautiful..."
"There's a good reason for that."
"And with your good reasons, you keep the world at arms length. Only I see the real you."
"A lot of good that love did me. You left me."
"I'm back now. We always do this, don't we? We go, we return. Again and again, through all these centuries."
"It never stops hurting, though. Doesn't stop the doubts from creeping in."
"See?" said Aziraphale. "Love."
"And fear," said Crowley. "I don't want what happened to me to happen to you. I'm terrified about what Heaven will do to you. They're going to turn on you; you're like me, and neither one of us ever fit up there. We're Earth-bound beings. Here is where we belong, Angel. Won't you come back home?"
Aziraphale looked at him with those eyes. Pity. Gentle sympathy.
"Come with me, to Heaven," said Aziraphale. "Help me finish the job. You don't have to be an angel. Just be there with me."
"You know I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't belong there."
"It doesn't matter where we go, does it? Wherever we go, we are each other's Earth, aren't we?"
"The problem is, they want to destroy the Earth. It isn't possible for them to be reformed. Because they don't embody the good you think they do, because they're all too high up. It's isolating, and it detaches you from reality. They claim to be good, and that's a lie. The truth is, they are cut off from what is good and bad. They don't have the proper context to know good from bad, because they are absent from those concepts. All they have at hand is orders, what they should do according to God. That's not goodness, that's blind faith. It's amorality.
"You've been up there too long. Now you can't let them go. You still believe all their lies. You've never seen, like I have, what they're really capable of. Who they really are. You don't know, can't see, what you are without them. And until you do... it's impossible, isn't it? Us. I know it doesn't seem fair, making you choose. But I have to. I've spent too long loving you to settle for second choice. You choose me, or this is goodbye."
"I... that's not fair, Crowley."
"No, what's not fair is you, running to them always like they're more worthy of your love than the being who has been beside you all along, fighting by your side for the same things. You, treating them like they're better than me. You, still not choosing me. Not seeing the shades of grey, not seeing them as the amoral shits that they are.
"Perhaps you could reform them, but not without the Earth. They need the Earth as much as you do. You need to be brought back down to Earth to understand anything."
"You might have a point there..."
"So you'll come back home?"
Aziraphale's eyes sparkled with emotion. "I'd love nothing more... Let me just sort a few things out in Heaven, and I'll be with you as soon as I can."
Crowley didn't know if that meant Aziraphale was really coming home or not. But he decided to trust him. If there was any angel he could trust, it was Aziraphale. They had relied on each other for millennia.
"Hurry back."
A dear smile came to the angel's face.
"I'll do my best."
And with that, Aziraphale disappeared in a beam of light, back up to Heaven.