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Aziraphale looked in horror at the blank book. “That was a first edition!” he cried. “Oh dear, are they all like this? What a terrible loss!”
“The whole of the world except this bookshop has just been destroyed, and this is what you’re calling a terrible loss?” said Crowley.
Aziraphale picked up another book and flicked through it. “Well, there’s no need to be disapproving,” he said, disapprovingly. “I thought we’d at least have some record of the world, that’s all. Something to remember everyone by.”
Crowley didn’t reply. Aziraphale looked up from his books. Crowley was sat in one of the chairs, leaning so far back into it that it looked as if he was trying to drown himself in the cushions.
“ ‘s no use,” Crowley said. “ ‘s all gone. Everything we did to avert the apocalypse the first time, everything we’ve ever done, it’s all gone. It was all for nothing.”
“You’re being awfully defeatist,” Aziraphale said, but all the same Crowley’s words had struck a chord somewhere within him. “I’m sure there’s something in one of these that can help. Some last-minute clue that will tell us how to save the universe!”
“We’re not in a book, angel,” said Crowley. Aziraphale couldn’t help but look at him again. He looked tired. “This is it. This is all there will ever be.” He shut his eyes.
Aziraphale shook his head firmly, even though Crowley wasn’t looking. “I don’t believe that.”
Crowley didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Since when has what you believed had the slightest bearing on reality?”
Aziraphale swallowed. “That was cruel,” he said quietly.
Crowley opened his eyes at that. For a moment Aziraphale thought he was going to apologise, but what he said was “I’m a demon. I’m meant to be cruel.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake, Crowley, aren’t we past this?”
In one smooth, furious motion Crowley rose from the chair. “I thought we were,” he snarled, “until you left me for Heaven because I couldn’t be the angel that you wanted me to be!”
The bookshop was silent for a moment.
“I thought you wanted to be an angel,” said Aziraphale. “I thought- I thought-”
“Why would I want to go back up there with all those smarmy hypocrites? How have you still not got it through your head, Aziraphale, after the way they’ve treated you for centuries, that being an angel doesn’t mean being good? It definitely doesn’t mean being happy. We both just got out from under Heaven and Hell’s thumb. Why would I ever want to go back?”
Aziraphale shook his head. “But you were so beautiful as an angel,” he said, trying to make Crowley see. “So imaginative, so full of life, so incandescently happy. I wanted you to be happy again.”
Were those tears forming at the edges of Crowley’s eyes? “I was happy,” he said. “On Earth, with you. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and kissed him.
Crowley’s lips were warm. At first he was still, startled, but then he began to kiss back. His hands snaked around Aziraphale’s waist. The whole world narrowed down to the remarkable softness of those lips, the firm comfort of those hands. Then, ever so gently, Crowley pulled away. There was a world of emotion in his eyes.
“Why did you leave?” he said.
Aziraphale’s heart broke. “I wanted to make it better. Crowley, I was so sure that I could make it better. Fix Heaven from within; make them see that the Second Coming shouldn’t be about destruction, or punishment.”
Crowley opened his mouth. “How-”
“-did that turn out, yes, I know, I know,” said Aziraphale. He swallowed. “I was wrong, then. Clearly.”
Crowley looked at him and actually laughed in disbelief. “Say that again.”
“I was wrong!” Aziraphale shouted. “There was never any hope of me changing anything, is that what you want me to say? I should never have bothered to try? You must be so pleased that I’ve finally realised and given up this- this- this idiotic fantasy!” He realised with a start that tears were forming in his eyes, and turned away so he didn’t have to look at Crowley any more. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I am. I’ll even do the stupid dance, if you want.”
“Forget about the damn dance,” said Crowley. Aziraphale tortured himself imagining the expression on his face. “Turn and face me, angel, this is stupid. Don’t be a coward now, after everything.”
“I am a coward,” Aziraphale said miserably. “A deluded, prideful coward. For all my supposed virtue, I never could bring myself to face the truth.”
Crowley put his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders and firmly spun him around. “You’re not a coward, angel. Deluded and prideful, sure, won’t argue with you there, but you-” He cleared his throat. “You were brave to try and change things. I only ever wanted to run away.”
“What a pair we make.” Aziraphale tried for a smile.
Crowley cleared his throat again. “I don’t know if this is worth anything, coming from a demon,” he began, “but for whatever it is worth, I forgive you.”
There was nothing Aziraphale could do in response to that except kiss him again.
“We should have tried to change things together,” he said breathlessly when they broke apart again. “Avert the apocalypse together, on our own side, like we did the first time. All of us versus all of them, just like you said.”
Crowley shook his head. “Maybe. But it’s over now. We’ve got the rest of eternity to torment ourselves with shoulds. For now, what’s the harm in just…sitting, for a little bit?”
So they did. Side by side on the sofa they sat, hand in hand, each lost in thought. Every once in a while they would look over at each other and smile. Eventually Crowley fell asleep, head resting on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale felt that this was very lovely for about ten minutes, upon which time his arm started to go numb, and he skillfully relocated Crowley’s head to rest upon a pillow instead. Crowley looked so peaceful in sleep. Aziraphale gave him a kiss on the forehead, then escaped to the kitchen to fetch cocoa and a book. Absently, he starting penning the first few lines of Pride and Prejudice.
By the time Crowley woke up, he was done with Pride and Prejudice and halfway through Emma, feeling thankful and not a little smug that his angelic memory remained sharp as ever.
“What’re you doing?” Crowley said groggily. He never was a morning person, Aziraphale thought fondly.
“Just supplying us with a little reading material, my dear. If we’re to be stuck here for the rest of eternity, I may as well start building my collection back up.”
Crowley sat bolt upright. “That’s it,” he said.
“That’s what, dear?”
“Quick, give me one of those.”
Frowning, Aziraphale handed him an empty copy of Descartes' Meditations. Crowley started scribbling away frantically. He turned the book to show Aziraphale what he had written.
“Whickber Street?” Aziraphale read. He looked at Crowley sharply. “You don’t think-”
“Well, why not?” Crowley said. His whole body was alive with rejuvenated energy, and he started to grin as he scribbled faster. “This is the whole of the universe, isn’t it? Universe has got to listen to the universe, that just makes sense, and right now all it’s got to base itself off is what’s in this room. What we tell it.”
“That makes no sense at all,” Aziraphale protested. “This isn’t the Book of Life. Why would the universe listen to-”
Crowley marched over and threw open the doors. Outside was not blackness, but-
“Whickber Street,” Aziraphale breathed. “I don’t understand.”
Crowley looked at him fondly. “It’s simple, angel,” he said. “All it is is belief. If you believe something hard enough, with the whole of yourself, the universe believes it too.”
Aziraphale stared at the undeniable evidence of Whickber Street stretching out before him. “I don’t follow. I believed wholeheartedly that Heaven was superior to Hell for millenia, and it didn’t change the fact that once you get past the aesthetics, they’re precisely the same.”
“You really have changed,” Crowley said, somewhat too gleefully for Aziraphale’s taste.
Aziraphale sniffed. “Yes, well, the end of the world does tend to have that effect. But you haven’t answered my question.”
Crowley stood a moment in thought, staring out at his creation. “Maybe there’s a difference between believing in something that is, and believing in something that should be,” he said finally. “Believing in something you see as the natural state of the world, ’s not believing, not properly. Same way as angels and demons can’t properly believe in God, cause we’re well aware She exists. Maybe…” he trailed off. “Maybe,” he said, slowly, “maybe when we accept what’s true, but we believe in something better…maybe that’s where the power comes from.”
Aziraphale was overcome with a powerful wave of love. “That was beautiful, Crowley. No, I mean it,” he insisted as Crowley waved his hand as if batting the words away. “That was very wise.”
Crowley looked away bashfully. “Six thousand years with the humans, guess some of the philosophy rubs off on you,” he said, but Aziraphale was sure that, secretly, he was pleased. “What now?”
“Now?” Aziraphale said. “Now we save the damned universe!”
“I know you’re capable of saying the word ‘fuck’, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, sounding pained, but he turned to the next page in the book all the same.
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A number of years later…
In the middle of the South Downs stood a cottage. Before the End Times, as news outlets liked jokingly to refer to the events of the last few years, there had been empty fields where the cottage now stood. Nobody could remember any planning permission being obtained or construction vans coming by, but then, it had been an odd few years. You couldn’t quite trust your memories like you used to. So when the records were checked and the planning permission was right there, neatly filed, people were inclined to shrug and move on. A couple of the more curious locals asked the couple who lived there, but they merely shrugged and said that it had been a miraculously smooth construction process.
The cottage was small and cosy, with a thatched roof and ivy stretching prettily across the walls. Flowers bloomed out-of-season in the tastefully designed and rigorously maintained garden, which also featured plants that should not, by rights, have been able to survive a British winter. In the back of the garden were set two deck chairs, with a view of the stars.
Crowley pointed. “Alpha Centauri,” he said.
Aziraphale took his hand and looked. “I think I rather prefer it here on Earth.”
Crowley kissed him. “I love you,” he said.
Aziraphale smiled, surprised. “I love you too, my dear, but what’s brought this sentimentality on? Is everything all right?”
“Just making up for all the times I didn’t say it,” Crowley said. “Everything’s all right. More than that, actually. Everything’s perfect.”
It ends, as it began, in a garden. Or, more precisely, two gardens. Endings, after all, are never quite as neat as we might imagine. Halfway across the world, in the Persian Gulf in southern Iraq, a woman stands in a small garden. She plucks an apple from a tree and takes a bite. She chews, thoughtful. A drop of juice runs down her chin and she rubs it off with her hand.
“I do believe I prefer it all from this angle,” she says to herself. She looks up at the sky, as the sun begins to break through the rain, and the beginnings of a rainbow stretch across the deepening blue. She smiles.
It is a nice day.