Chapter Text
It ended, as it had once begun, in a garden (although this one was also sort of a bookshop). It ended there because it was in that quiet place where they chose humanity over each other.
Except they didn’t, they couldn’t, because they were humanity. ‘Our’ side was always humanity. An angel and a demon that had been there for humanity’s first breath, first steps, first skinned knee. Every significant moment in history, they had been around not doing what they were supposed to be. Or doing exactly what they were supposed to be, depending on your view of ineffability.
Crowley and Aziraphale. The birth of the universe was their meet cute and the whole of history was their love story. And they had always made me smile. They will always make me smile (I can make a godless universe but can an omnipotent god unmake herself? Still, I no longer play games with the universe. I play them with my son. He’s gotten pretty good at card games. And developed a taste for pizza, which he goes to visit the universe for sometimes).
When I remade the Universe, the universe of universes, I unmade them. That was the cost. That was the price they were willing to pay. And yet their love was impossible to unmake, even had I cared to. The last two points of light in the old universe. And, well, it is so much easier to start a fire with a little spark. Same goes for Big Bangs. Their love echoed through eternity. They echoed through eternity. Not always exactly the same but always them deep down. No longer in charge of guiding humanity but simply being human and finding each other, as they always had, again and again. They were always real and always them. The love was always true and, even when it wasn’t simple, they always lived happily ever after. You could think of it like a retirement. Sometimes in the South Downs.
If you broke an infinite mirror into infinite shards and scattered them through infinity then none of the shards are the mirror and yet they are all the mirror. Their reflections may not be as vast as they once were but they are no less a mirror at heart.
And, perhaps, when the mirror shattered there might be one piece a little bigger than the rest. A little more recognisable as the mirror it once was. The other shards were equally the mirror but someone outside looking in might just consider this one a little bit more the actual mirror.
It began, as it had ended, in a garden.
Arizaphale blinked slowly and looked down at his outfit. He didn’t remember the last time he wore a robe like this. He did, of course, remember the first.
Still disoriented, he padded through the soft grass and shifted through the dappled shade of the trees.
His memory was slowly coming back. The Bentley literally burning through the sky. Michael ripping the universe up, page by page. God and the devil and the bookshop at the end of everything.
Crowley wanting what he’d always wanted, right from the start, for there to be an answer to the universe. For it to possible to make sense of it. For humanity to have a chance. For free will to mean something.
God’s best angel from first to last.
He feels a sob rise in his throat. All the emotion there hadn’t been time to feel still filled him to bursting.
It escaped as one whispered word, “Crowley.”
Then a deep hiss behind him.
“Hullo, Angel.”
Spinning, he came face to snout with a large, black serpent and fell back in surprise. The grass was equally soft to land in as to walk through but he paid it little mind.
The serpent lazily curled back up onto the tree branch and seamlessly morphed into a man lounging along the length of the bough, red curls cascading carelessly as he reached up and picked something before reaching down.
The deep hiss was now a husky voice. “Can I… tempt you to a bite of apple?”
He looked for a moment at the apple in his hand before his gaze switched to those eyes.
Yellow always had been his favourite colour.
He smiled tearfully, “Crowley.”