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With a single page in hand, a great leap, and an even greater miracle, Crowley and Aziraphale tumbled into the last remnant of the universe: Aziraphale’s own bookshop.
After closing the door, the angel flipped the small sign hanging there to read 'Open'.
“Open?” Crowley questioned with an incredulous huff, stuffing the very last page of The Book of Life into his trousers' pocket.
“Someone might… want to buy a book?” Aziraphale said, forcing a cheerful smile.
The demon signed.
“Angel, as far as I can tell, the entirety of creation is us and this bookshop. I don't think you're gonna get many customers.”
“Well, then,” Aziraphale said, “I suppose there's just us. In the whole of everything. It's a place for us.”
“A place for us? We've got nothing!” Crowley cried.
“Well, we've got each other! And we've probably got some cocoa. And we've got lots of books,” the angel said, gesturing broadly around himself as he bustled around to find the aforementioned drink.
Crowley grabbed the nearest book, opening it to find every page blank before tossing it over to Aziraphale.
“Have we? Good luck reading these.”
A pained look graced the angel’s face.
“But that's... even the Dickens.”
After a small moment of mourning, he shut what used to be a second edition copy of Barnaby Rudge with a resigned sigh.
“Well,” Aziraphale said, "If... if it's all come down to this, then... there must be some sort of answer here, finally. To everything.”
“Oh, yeah,” Crowley snarked, “A hundred thousand blank books, but one with all the answers in it.”
"Well, there has to be something!” Aziraphale exclaimed, plopping down into his desk chair, “At least… at least a Clue of sorts!”
“A Clue?”
“Yes, yes, there must be—"
Crowley pinched his nose with a scowl.
"Angel, this isn’t a detective novel; the only blasted book that could help us now is the Book of Life, and I’m not sure if you remember, but our good pal Michael threw it into the Eternal Fucking Flame! Soon enough, everything, us included, is going to turn to dust!”
“What? No, no, you took the page! We’ll be perfectly—"
“Fucked! This bookshop and everything in it is made out of things that don’t exist and will never have existed at all once the universe catches up with itself!”
“Oh.”
"Yes, ‘oh,’ angel,” the demon said, his voice breaking. “We. Are. Fucked.”
“No. No, that won’t do. We’ve just got to think! Use our minds!”
“Ah yes!” Crowley exclaimed, ripping off his glasses in exasperation. “Our big beautiful whale brains are going to fix this whole mess, of course—"
It was at that moment that Crowley remembered something. Something that had gotten him out of just scarcely more trouble than it had gotten him into.
Crowley remembered that he had an imagination.
“Of course. Fuck, of course.”
In an instant, he was at Aziraphale’s side, riffling around his desktop.
“Crowley, what—"
“Angel. Do you have a pen?”
Aziraphale nodded.
A moment later, he brandished a large, fancy-looking box of them from his desk drawer.
“What kind of pen do you need? I believe I have Scriveiner, Onoto, Yard-O-Led—"
Crowley reached in and picked a pen at random.
“Pass me a book,” he said.
“Which book?”
“Well, it doesn't matter; they're all blank! Whichever one you give me is the right one.”
Aziraphale thumbed through the tomes above his desk.
“Bleak House?” he questioned, sliding it over to Crowley.
“Sure.”
Crowley flipped the book open, and the gears in Aziraphale’s head began to turn.
“But—but Crowley. That isn't The Book of Life.”
“It is if we imagine it is.”
The angel’s face lit up.
“Oh! Oh, you’re a genius!”
“Maybe. If this works.”
Crowley readied himself to write, but just before the ink touched the page, a thought seemed to occur to him. He glanced over at Aziraphale.
“Do… do you want to write it, angel?”
“Yes, yes! Give me the pen, please.”
Pen in hand, the angel read aloud as he began to write.
"There were three of them in that bookshop, which was the whole world. An angel, a demon, and one other, one who was there, because They were omnipresent. They had always been there. They would always be there..."
The moment stood, tense as the two waited for something, anything to happen…
…but nothing did.
“No. No, no, no no,” the angel whispered. “This can’t be… oh, this can’t be it.”
Crowley cursed under his breath.
After a few moments and a deep, shaky sigh, Aziraphale managed to compose himself. He shut the book and stood from his desk, brushing off his waistcoat as he turned to face Crowley. His lips twisted into a rueful smile.
“Well then. If this really is the end, then. I need to tell you I… I’m sorry—"
Crowley shook his head with a pained groan.
“Angel, angel you don’t have to—"
Aziraphale cupped his hands around one of Crowley’s own as he blinked back tears.
“No, no. I do. I was trying to make everything right for the world, for us, but… all I did was make it all worse. Oh, Crowley. It was Heaven that I wanted to change, not you. Never you.”
A choked sob caught in the demon’s throat. Aziraphale squeezed his hand.
“After all this time, dear, you must know that I…”
The angel’s lip quivered.
“That I love you."
A shuddering breath wracked Crowley’s frame as tears finally began to fall from his serpentine eyes.
“Aziraphale,” he whispered, hands shaking as he grasped at the lapels of the angel’s coat.
“Fuck, Aziraphale. Can I…?”
“Please.”
And so, Crowley pulled his angel in, and for the second time in either of their very long lives, the two beings kissed.
The kiss was Heaven. It was Hell. It was wonderful and desperate and terrifying: a beautiful beginning and a tragic end, one and the same.
Eventually, reluctantly, the press of their lips ceased, instead replaced by their foreheads pressed together as they stood breathless, teary eyes squeezed shut, and clutching each other's hands as if their very lives depended on the contact.
Then, the doorbell jingled.
And the two froze.
“Can I... Can I help you?” the angel called out in shock. “I’m afraid all the books appear to be blank,” he continued, laughing wetly, “Even the Dickens.”
“Even the Dickens?” someone said. “My, my.”
The angel and the demon flung themselves around at the voice, Her voice, just in time to see the Lord Herself walk through the bookshop door.
“As you said earlier, Aziraphale, you did not really need to summon me. I was already here. I’ve always been.”
“Yes, of course, Lord,” Aziraphale sputtered. “You can be everywhere; You are everywhere, but... that doesn't mean... You’ll talk to us, Lord.”
“Well,” She said, snapping Her fingers.
A chair appeared in the alcove where Aziraphale's desk stood, and God took Her seat.
“I’m certainly talking to you now, aren’t I?”
“Yes!” Aziraphale exclaimed, "Yes, of course y—"
“Chop, chop then! Get on with it. What is it you two summoned me to ask?”
At that, Crowley huffed.
“I thought you didn't answer questions," he said, tone biting.
God simply smiled.
“My aversion to questions has been… slightly overstated. And after all, these are the most extenuating of circumstances,” She said, eyes twinkling. “So! You each get one. But they had better be good.”
Silence stretched out between the three as God waited, Aziraphale fidgeted, and Crowley gaped, not unlike a fish.
“Aziraphale, you go first, dear. Crowley clearly… needs a minute.”
The demon in question, who at that moment was sporting a rather concerning thousand-yard stare, sank heavily into Aziraphale's desk chair.
“…Or two,” God corrected.
Aziraphale cleared his throat and stepped forward, clasping his hands together over his waistcoat.
"Lord. Um. Well, to be honest, I suppose I have quite a lot of questions, but… there’s only one I truly need answered.”
God nodded.
“Go on then,” She said.
“Why…” the angel started shakily. “Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete... and then take it away?”
From his chair, Crowley made a sound that could only be described as “Ngk.”
In Her own chair, God sighed.
"Aziraphale,” She said, something akin to sorrow passing over Her face. “The only thing I ever gave you, any of you, was the will to choose. I didn’t give you Crowley. I couldn’t! He’s not mine to give or take. No, dear, Crowley gave himself to you. And that’s the beauty of it all, isn’t it? The beauty of life. Of living. That despite it all, you get to choose.”
“And you’re not… angry? That I chose Crowley too?”
At this, God laughed.
“Not in the slightest. Your love for each other... is as messy, silly, and predictable as the universe itself. And it’s always made me smile. How could I ever be angry at that?”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale.
“Erm,” followed Crowley, eloquently.
God turned to him.
“Did you have something to say, dear?”
"Well, you know, um, speaking of the universe and all,” the demon muttered, “I have my question now. About it, I mean.”
“Yes, you always did, didn't you?” God said, though not unkindly.
With what seemed like Herculean effort, Crowley stood from his seat and stepped in front of the Lord.
“What I want to know is... what’s the point of it all? The Great Plan. Why did you think it was a good idea, even a sensible idea... to make an infinite universe... run it for six thousand years, and then just... tip the board over? Ineffable my ass!” the demon said, throwing his hands in the air. “I mean, the whole thing is just lunacy!”
“Well, yes,” said God. ”Clearly.”
Crowley gaped. God continued.
“Michael was a bit of a raving lunatic by the end, tipping and burning and whatnot. No good ideas ever come of that. Regardless, the six thousand year bit was part of the Great Plan, not the Ineffable Plan. There is a difference, you know.”
At this, Aziraphale looked quite pleased.
And Crowley… Crowley sputtered.
“But Michael didn’t write either of the blasted Plans!” he cried. “You did!”
“Oh?” God said, raising a single eyebrow high on Her heavenly face, “Did I now? Because that’s certainly news to me.”
“Bu… wha…? Huh…?” the demon said.
“Crowley dear,” God said, "no one being writes the Ineffable Plan. That’s rather the whole point of it, really. Everyone alive has a part in The Plan; everyone has a say in it. Angels, demons, humans too. It’s what you all make of it. That’s why it's Ineffable. The Plan contains endless possibilities and multitudes, beginnings and ends. You just have to choose the ones that happen.”
For a short moment, Crowley was very, very quiet as he processed the bomb God had just dropped into his lap.
Now, you might think, what with him having far more bomb experience than the average individual, that Crowley would know, at least vaguely, how to diffuse one.
And you would be very, very wrong.
“You’re saying that the Plan… the whole bloody Plan was just to let us choose?!” Crowley yelled, “Go off the rails with no conductor?! But what about demons and the fall and the great big buggering—"
“Ah, yes!” God interrupted. “Demons. What a curious concept. I always found the whole idea quite tragic, really; I never would’ve thought of it myself. But see, that’s the thing with having Creations; you never know what sort of thing they will create next.”
Crowley’s eyebrows pinched.
His fists clenched.
He might have even taken a moment to pick his jaw up off of the floor before speaking.
“Now what in the world is that supposed to mean?”
Once again, God laughed.
“Crowley, you of all beings should know a thing or two about letting things run their course. And about being given credit where there wasn’t any due. You and I are quite alike in that way, really.”
"Wha—"
Crowley was suddenly cut off by the ring of the grandfather clock, despite the fact that time, at that particular moment, ostensibly had ceased to exist.
“Ah! Unfortunately, dears, I do believe that the time for questions is over. I can’t give you all the answers; after all, where’s the fun in that?"
With a final smile, God stood and decisively made Her way to the door. As She turned the knob, She spoke.
“Besides, I’m so looking forward to watching what the last of my Creations decide to do next.”
The door jingled cheerfully as She stepped out into the universe and walked away.
Once again, there were but two of them in that bookshop, which was the whole world. They stood in stunned silence for quite some time until someone decided to speak.
“What in the nine bloody rings of Hell was that?” asked Crowley.
“I’m not quite sure,” answered Aziraphale, “But… what on Earth do we do now?”
Then, a faint glimmer caught their attention.
There, on the desk, a mostly blank book, one that was formerly Bleak House, had begun to glow.
"Well, angel,” Crowley said, pulling up a chair, “I suppose we write.”
And so they did. The two beings wrote and wrote until once again the busy sounds of Whickber Street, and then London, and then England, and then the entire world clattered merrily outside their doorstep, messy and beautiful and as ineffable as ever.
It was a nice day. Though not all the days had been nice. There had been rather more than two million two hundred thousand five hundred eighty-five of them so far. Rain, on that particular day, had just been reinvented, and it remembered that it quite liked to be in London. And so, there it was.
Aziraphale and Crowley smiled as the first drops pattered upon the bookshop window.
Ms.Sandwich huffed as she stepped out onto the street, her great pink overnight bag dampening with every passing second.
Harry the Fisher’s finger hovered over the call button as water droplets plopped on his screen.
Somewhere in Tadfield, a young man and his Dog raced through the drizzle towards the warm, dry comfort of home.
On the wet, crowded streets of Soho, Jesus smiled.
And in the heavens, God did the same.