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And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:13
It was a nice day.
Not all days had been nice. Some of them had been rather awful, all things considered, but there had been plenty of nice ones too. Aziraphale sat on the porch on an old wooden bench with a cup of tea, listening to birds singing in the apple trees of their garden. The singing of the nightingales was impossible to tell apart from the mix of other sounds, but it was there, right enough.
Deep down Aziraphale had always had faith in good. Even though he had been proven wrong repeatedly and his faith had wavered, it never shattered completely. It was a curious thing, faith. In the face of the most disastrous situations, Aziraphale still always believed that some Great, or Ineffable if you like, Plan will come through and correct it all. He had to wonder if this had indeed been the Plan all along.
For understandable reasons Crowley had lost his faith long ago, but he did have something Aziraphale admired even more: hope. Underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist and had the kind of hope in the future that Aziraphale more often lacked. Crowley believed that he could change things and ask questions and find out how things worked. Over the years that hope had undoubtedly wavered too, but there had always been enough of it to carry both of them through some truly horrible times.
“What are you thinking, angel?” Crowley asked, putting his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale hadn’t heard the cottage door open and was startled by the touch. Even now, touching was something they were both still getting used to. Not just casual brushes against each other or inconspicuously leaning against the other for support, but intentional touching and closeness. The kind where you touch the one you love just to check that you’re both still here and safe. The comfort and pleasure of contact, communicating compassion and emotion physically. They had spent so many years avoiding the obvious and now that they were free to do so, it was difficult to get through those established habits.
“The garden,” Aziraphale said. “It looks nice.”
“Sure does.”
In the end, the one thing that had brought them here through all the hard times was love. Their love for the world, their love for humanity, and their love for each other. What had begun as a spark of connection, shared moments of understanding, had grown into what Aziraphale felt today. Most times it wasn’t the wild forest fire of emotions like it was described in fiction, but a deep smoulder underground, slowly burning unseen but ready to catch flame at any moment.
Aziraphale caught Crowley’s hand in his and brought it to his lips to press a kiss on the back of it.
“Make some room, angel.”
Crowley sat on the bench next to him, keeping their hands intertwined.