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Aziraphale kissed his fingers softly, then put them to Crowley’s mouth.
It was not like their last kiss—desperate, hungry—, it was a “thank you for everything, and goodbye”.
After hesitating for just a fraction of a second, Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s fingers back, then blinked twice, fast, to stop a tear from falling down his face. He didn’t want the last thing Aziraphale witnessed to be sadness, after Aziraphale had filled Crowley’s existence with so much love.
Why was Crowley sad deep down, anyway? He’d picked that battle. He’d made that bed. He and Aziraphale were going to disappear, but a real universe would be born in return; and it would be born from love. That’s what everything had been about: love. From the very beginning in the garden, to the very end in that bookshop.
With nothing else to lose and nothing else to fear, Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand, tight.
And standing there, in their bookshop, they waited.
And waited.
The old floors creaked under God’s feet as she stood up.
And then, laughter.
Laughter?
Aziraphale, who had closed his eyes seconds ago—to abate his sight and feel the smell of books and Crowley’s hand on his with more intensity as he vanished—, slowly opened them and was met with a curious scene: that of God giggling and shaking her head.
“Aziraphale…” She walked towards him, an ear-to-ear smile adorning her face.
“Lord?” was all he could manage to say. He didn’t stop holding Crowley’s hand, but rather squeezed it even harder, tighter, in fear.
“How could I make you two vanish?” God’s eyes widened in amusement. It was as if a child had successfully pranked someone, or gotten free candy. “After I just told you how happy it makes me to see you together, how could I make you disappear? Make it so neither of you ever existed?”
“But, the universe with Free Will and all that…” Crowley momentarily let go of Aziraphale’s hand to make a couple ‘swoosh’ gestures, “One that started with the Big Bang. You told us you were creating it. You basically promised.”
“Relax,” God replied, “I will create it.”
“So? Why are we still here then?” Crowley raised his voice. “Don’t tell me this is like, some sort of trick or something, or a Monkey’s Paw situation, or-”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale stopped him, “let her continue.” He made a ‘go on’ gesture with his free hand.
God breathed in and out slowly. “Thank you. As I was saying, I will make a godless universe. That doesn’t mean this one must cease to exist.”
“What. What?” Crowley mumbled, looking at Aziraphale and then at God and then at Aziraphale again. “Did you hear- am I the only one who’s a bit lost here? How can there be two universes?”
“Anything I want, can be,” God reminded him. She began to pace around the bookshop, admiring the chandelier, the messy shelves, and closely listening to the creeks in the hardwood floors. “I quite like this place, I must admit. Don’t you, Aziraphale? Crowley?”
“I… well, of course I like it,” Aziraphale let out a nervous chuckle, “it has been my book- our bookshop for around two centuries. And I have every limited edition and signed copy you could think of in here. Well, or, I did, before… you know.”
“I would hate to destroy it,” God continued, seemingly without having listened to a thing Aziraphale had just said.
Crowley and Aziraphale shared confused looks. Satan, still sitting on one of the old, velvet chairs, arched his left eyebrow.
“What would you say about leaving this bookshop as it is?” God stopped pacing and stood directly in the middle of the establishment, under the light. “And leaving you two, as you are, in it? I bet you could find many things to do around here. You could even rewrite some of the books, and I’ve heard you have hot cocoa as well. Speaking of which, will you prepare me some, Aziraphale?”
“Cocoa?” He stared at Crowley as if waiting for approval. The latter nodded once, and Aziraphale released Crowley’s hand from his firm grip. “Of course. I’ll be right back!”
As he swiftly covered the distance between them and the back of the bookshop, Crowley kept his eyes fixed on him. And as soon as he was out of his line of sight, Crowley turned to God with a look that screamed “what the hell is going on here and please tell me you’re not going to hurt him”.
“Relax,” God repeated.
“How am I going to relax? I don’t understand- I didn’t even know you drank human-made stuff! Why did you send him to-?”
“It will be fine,” God assured him. “How would you fancy a garden?”
“A garden?” Crowley asked.
Smiling, God pointed to a place in the wall next to the entrance, and another door appeared; a stained glass one with a white frame, spotless, in striking contrast with the rest of the bookshop.
“Oh, that’s new.” Crowley raised his eyebrows.
“It will give you two something else to do for all eternity. Otherwise, I have a feeling you’d get quite bored eventually,” God explained.
“What’s in there?” He asked, getting closer to the door and squinting.
“Plants about to germinate, eggs about to hatch, and humans about to be born,” she answered.
“Humans?” Crowley all but yelled. “But I thought we were done with that, I mean, the Book of Life-”
“It will be something small. You have limited space as well as resources, so you’ll never get a population size over, say, a hundred or so humans,” God looked up, counting in her mind, “and animals I don’t know. I only put a few species in there. I know you like ducks, so there is a lake as well—with frogs too, they are a favorite of mine. Now, tell me, Crowley,” she got between him and the new door, commanding his attention. “Do you take it? Do you want this?”
“Do I-? For all eternity?” Crowley’s eyes were opened so impossibly wide they were about to fall off their sockets.
“For all eternity. All this and him, of course,” God pointed with her head to the door leading to the back room, where Aziraphale was preparing her beverage.
“Of course,” Crowley replied without skipping a beat, “yeah, no, I’ll take it, thank you very much.”
Not long after he brought his sentence to a halt, God—as well as Satan, who’d been sitting there in shock the entire time—vanished into thin air.
“And… bye, I suppose.” He waved to no one.
“Here it is! I hope I didn’t make you wait for too long! Hot cocoa for- where are they?” Aziraphale’s face dropped as he came out of the back room with a steaming mug in his hands.
“God knows where they went. Quite literally,” Crowley said.
“And that door-” Aziraphale set the mug on his desk carelessly and quickly walked towards Crowley and the entrance to the garden. “Where did it come from?”
“It’s a miracle,” Crowley shrugged. “But anyway, yeah, we have a garden now. And humans about to hatch, or something like that, I was shocked so I wasn’t really paying attention to that part.”
“A garden?” Aziraphale asked softly, and then, “Can we go in?”
In response, Crowley opened the door and held it for him. Hesitantly, Aziraphale stepped inside.
His foot landed on lush, short grass.
He took a few more steps, with Crowley following after him.
Before them was an exact, walled replica of the Garden of Eden from millennia ago—well, not exact, for it had ducks and other animals that hadn’t quite been invented or fully fleshed out yet when the original garden of Eden existed. Rows and rows of relatively new trees and bushes extended in front of them too, and when Aziraphale and Crowley looked up, they were met with a bright blue sky and what they guessed was a copy of the Sun shining grandly on everything.
“That’s-” Aziraphale began saying.
“The Garden of Eden, yep. But a reprised version. I like this one more, to be honest with you.” Crowley spun around, impressed.
“I was going to say “that’s all ours?”,” Aziraphale corrected him.
“Oh, yes,” Crowley replied, “all ours. For all eternity.”
Even though he was still in disbelief of the landscape in front of them, Aziraphale decided he was going to have all eternity to look at it closely, so he turned to Crowley with a warm smile instead.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
Crowley smiled back at him. “It’s not so bad when you get used to it.”
A soft breeze ran through the garden and closed the door behind them, but they were both too distracted and too warm and too happy to notice.
“So, what now?” Crowley asked, getting closer to Aziraphale.
“I suppose now… we nurture this, and we wait.”
“I guess. And in the meantime-? I don’t see any ducks in here, I really hope she didn’t lie to me,” Crowley scanned the premises again.
“They are still eggs, I presume,” Aziraphale said. “Oh! I should get to rewriting Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice before I forget!” He turned to the now closed stained glass door.
“You’ll have eons to do that, angel,” Crowley tilted his head back and sighed. “Let’s sit here for a while, I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted. Look, there’s a bench over there, by the lake.” He sauntered towards it. “I don’t know why it’s there though, if there’s nothing to look at yet. I can’t wait for the ducks, I tell you.”
He let himself fall onto the wooden bench—one strikingly similar to the one in Berkeley Square—and Aziraphale followed after, only he sat down carefully.
They stayed in silence for a minute or two. Did time even count now, anyway? If there was something they had in abundance, it was time. And the garden was too peaceful not to stop for a while and take everything in.
“This is marvellous,” Aziraphale eventually said.
“That it is,” Crowley agreed, “though a bit boring, right now, don’t you think?”
“Be patient,” Aziraphale sort of reprimanded him, but with a smile on his face.
“Oh, I’ve been nothing but patient, angel.” Crowley laughed.
Aziraphale turned to him for a second, then averted his gaze.
“I think we both have been. But that is over,” he practically whispered.
“Good riddance, I hate waiting.” Crowley exhaled loudly. “Enough of this, angel. Come here.”
He stood up. Aziraphale stared at him befuddled.
“But we just sat down! You wanted to-”
“Oh, for Heav- for Hell’s- someone’s sake, get up for a second,” Crowley urged him.
Begrudgingly, Aziraphale obeyed. He smoothened down his vest and positioned himself in front of Crowley.
“What do you want?”
“I want to do it right this time,” Crowley replied.
“Do what right?” Aziraphale looked around nervously.
“This. Us. The kiss?” Crowley said. “Remember?”
“Oh.” was all Aziraphale could manage.
“Yeah. So?”
“That’s- yes, you may,” Aziraphale muttered.
Crowley chuckled. “I may?”
“I don’t know what to say, okay!”
“Me neither, let’s just do it,” Crowley said, looking at everything but Aziraphale and constantly shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Let’s just-”
More soft winds, again, as Aziraphale was whispering something, and it carried his words with it for no one to hear. Then, Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s face—rather harshly, and erratically—and kissed him.
And kissed him and kissed him for who knows how long.
They had all the time in the universe, anyway, and they had a garden.
And in one of the corners of it, in the shade of an apple tree, a small nightingale egg began to hatch.