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The cottage kitchen was bathing in the soft May sunlight, and the air was thick with the scent of butter and sugar. Aziraphale was in his element, bustling about and humming happily to himself. He was almost exactly nine months pregnant now, his belly a massive, heavy roundness that his apron could barely stretch across. He looked beautifully radiant as he lovingly smoothed a stray patch of flour off the very top of the curve.
The oak back door suddenly creaked open, and Crowley slunk in, holding a huge, colourful bouquet of flowers in his hand.
“Happy anniversary, angel”, he drawled.
Aziraphale looked up from where he was bending over to put a batch of scones in the oven. “Oh, Crowley!” he beamed. “Happy anniversary, dear! They’re absolutely-”
“What are you doing?” Crowley squeaked, his voice skyrocketing an octave, as his wide, golden eyes fixed on the angel’s bent posture.
Aziraphale straightened up, rolling his eyes as he closed the oven door. “I am baking scones for the anniversary brunch. It’s not as strenuous as it looks, dear.”
Crowley didn’t look at all convinced. He practically tossed the flowers on the table, and rushed forward, grabbing him by the elbows. “Baking, angel? You mad? Are you alright? The baby?” He dropped to his knees in front of the angel, pressing his palms against the sides of the apron-clad belly. “You alright in there?”
Aziraphale gave a long-suffering sigh, gently patting Crowley’s head, giving his red curls a fine dusting of flour in the process. “He’s fine, dear. And so am I. Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to start setting the table-”
Crowley scrambled to his feet, grabbing the angel by the elbows again, a wild look in his eyes. “You will do no such thing. Sit down, angel! Rest!”
Aziraphale gave another sigh, and took a seat by the kitchen table, defeated. Crowley’s fierce protectiveness was reaching new heights. It was nothing at all unexpected during the time Aziraphale was in “delicate condition”. Nonetheless, it was starting to become slightly irritating.
“I am not fragile, Crowley”, he muttered as he watched Crowley gather the dishes for their outdoors brunch. “I am still perfectly capable of placing a tray in the oven.”
The demon shot him a peeved, skeptical look. “Your centre of gravity is completely compromised. You could have fallen into the oven!”
The absurdity of this statement made Aziraphale grab the bouquet and hide his laugh in it.
“Of course, dear”, he said as soon as he had recovered. “Sounds like a, hmm, realistic risk. Can I at least put the flowers in a vase?”
Crowley muttered something that didn’t sound like an objection, so he got up and did that.
When the flowers were safely placed in the vase and he paused to sniff them, he noticed Crowley had paused too. Apparently, to stare at him. The worry in his eyes had lessened, however, and given way to something else entirely. A slow smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as his gaze traveled from the angel’s face downward and landed on the round swell of his middle.
“I know I’ve said this a hundred times and I’ll say it again”, he said. “This look really suits you. You 're… absolutely stunning.”
Aziraphale felt a flush creep up his neck at the intensity in the demon’s eyes. “Oh, you old silly”, he sighed, brushing Crowley’s arm gently. “If I do look pleasing in this state, it is because I have a wonderful husband who has taken good care of me.”
Crowley let out a shaky exhale. “Not fair, angel. Don’t make this about me. You’ve done all the hard work.” He gestured vaguely at Aziraphale’s belly, with genuine admiration in his eyes. “I just brought you pastries.”
“Hmm”, the angel said, his eyes now twinkling playfully. “You did bring me pastries. Anytime I wanted. But I doubt you can credit pastries… for this?” he said, his voice a teasing purr, as he cradled his belly.
Crowley choked on his breath, his face heating up. He shifted awkwardly on his feet.
“We’re supposed to have a family brunch in five minutes, angel”, he growled. “You better stop teasing or we’ll be late. And you’ll be the one to explain to the kid why that is.”
Aziraphale giggled, entirely too pleased with himself and the demon’s flustered reaction. He pressed a quick, promise-of-more-to-come kiss on the demon’s cheek. “Alright, dear. But I shall resume the teasing later, when we celebrate our anniversary… just the two of us.”
Crowley let out a weak, strangled sound. “You’re a real demon, you know that? Much more skilled tempter than I ever was.”
Aziraphale smiled at him sweetly. “Thank you, darling. Now, will you please put the kettle on.”
As they started to take the food and the dishes out to the garden, some of Crowley’s worry returned. He only let Aziraphale carry some of the lighter items: teabags, napkins, a juice box for Toni. Aziraphale was able to tolerate the sheer ridiculousness of it only because he knew, with comfortable certainty, that the baby would arrive in a matter of days—after which Crowley would calm down considerably, just like he did after Toni’s birth.
The garden brunch set-up ended up being an absolute picture of May perfection. Dappled sunlight filtered through the apple trees, illuminating the round table laden with scones, sandwiches, fruit, tea, coffee and a bottle of (non-alcoholic) sparkling wine.
Sitting front and center amidst the feast, against the vase of flowers, was Aziraphale and Crowley’s wedding picture.
In the picture, Aziraphale was standing slightly in profile, looking absolutely radiant in an exquisitely tailored, cream-colored suit, a sky-blue bowtie around his neck. Crowley was standing behind him, his midnight black suit contrasting beautifully with Aziraphale’s cream lawyers. The demon was resting his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder, arms around his middle. Aziraphale’s hands were placed on top of Crowley’s. While Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled with pure happiness, the look on Crowley’s face was of absolute, protective devotion, soft and fierce at the same time.
5-year-old Toni swung her legs back and forth against the rungs of her chair, happily sipping her juice. She was still in her witch-era, having switched the cardboard hat for a sturdier, wool-felt creation her parents had bought her from a children’s boutique in town. She carried one of Anathema’s spell books with her wherever she went, but currently the book sat on the grass, and her attention was entirely on the brunch before her. As she took a bite of a sandwich, her eyes fixed on her parents’ wedding picture, and she frowned thoughtfully.
“Where was I?” she asked, pointing a small finger at the picture.
Aziraphale looked up from his plate where he was spreading jam on his third scone. His face melted into a soft smile when he saw what Toni was pointing at.
“You, my little love”, he said, stretching out his arm and pointing at his own middle in the picture where his and Crowley’s hands joined, “were right there.”
Toni’s tiny, freckled face lit up. “So I was at the party, too?”
Aziraphale chuckled, gently brushing a crumb off his daughter’s cheek. “Oh, you most certainly were! Our little guest of honour!”
Toni beamed at this information, her little legs kicking faster. Aziraphale looked across the table at Crowley, catching his husband’s eye over the rim of a steaming teacup. After they had sat down, the demon’s anxiousness had quickly melted into a lazy, quiet contentment. He offered the angel a slow, lopsided smile, raising his glass.
“To us”, he toasted. “And the guests of honour”, he added, his gaze drifting to Toni and then to Aziraphale’s belly.
Aziraphale took his own glass and with a giggle, clinked it against Crowley’s. Toni joined in with her juice box.
“When will the baby come out?” their daughter asked after finishing her drink.
“Any day now”, Aziraphale said gently, placing his palm on top of his belly. There was quite a lot of pressure and movement there. “He’s been… um, rehearsing a lot lately.”
Toni looked at the remaining food on the table, thoughtful. “Can we save him a scone?”
Aziraphale’s heart absolutely melted. “Oh, sweetheart, what a lovely thought”, he said, reaching out to squeeze his daughter’s hand. “But I’m afraid he won’t be eating scones for a while. He doesn’t even have teeth until he grows up a bit.”
Crowley leaned back on his chair, giving the angel a wicked smirk. “Well, we don’t know that. He’s half-demon, after all.” He shrugged. “Might have little fangs, like snake babies do.”
Aziraphale shot him an exasperated look. “Crowley! Honestly! Toni wasn’t born with fangs, why would this one be?”
Toni simply nodded, looking determined. “Right. I’ll save him a scone. Just in case.”
She reached out and took a scone from the table, carefully wrapping it into a napkin.
Aziraphale couldn’t help but laugh at the endearing gesture, but his laugh was abruptly cut off by a sharp gasp that made both Toni and Crowley perk up on their seats. Aziraphale hunched over, squeezing his eyes shut as his entire body went rigid.
“Angel?” the demon squeaked. “A rehearsal?”
“Doesn’t… feel like it”, the angel groaned as the wave of the contraction slowly peaked and began to recede, leaving him trembling. He opened his eyes, meeting Crowley’s panicked, wide-eyed stare. “I… I do believe he’s coming.”
Crowley was on his side in a fraction of a second.
“Right. Okay. Right”, he rattled off. “It’s happening. Today’s the day. We’re going inside. Right now.”
*
The next three hours felt like an eternity. The master bedroom was strictly forbidden for Toni, a rule enforced by a very stressed, hyper-focused Crowley who kept running back and forth between upstairs and downstairs. Toni sat on the sofa, nervously waiting, with the spell book in her lap. She was trying to do a good luck spell for her Papa, but found it hard to focus. Every now and then the sounds from upstairs made her freeze: deep, pained groans from Aziraphale, followed by frantic, encouraging words from Crowley.
And every time there were sounds of pain, the house shook a little, making the windows rattle faintly.
The last time Crowley had checked up on her downstairs, he had smiled and told her that her Papa was doing great and that her little brother would very soon be here.
“I know it’s scary”, her Daddy had told her before vanishing upstairs again. “But it’s all part of it. Just like when you entered the world. It’s like a… like a really big miracle.”
“A really big miracle”, Toni said to herself as she waited, staring at the napkin-wrapped scone on the coffee table.
She hugged her book as the sounds upstairs grew more intense, more breathless, more frantic. The house shook more forcefully than ever before, like an earthquake had hit it. The framed pictures on the wall tilted, and the teacups in the kitchen cupboard clattered against one another as a massive, overwhelming wave of golden rippled straight through the floorboards.
And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the shaking stopped, and the light faded, leaving the house completely still and ordinary-looking.
Seconds later, a brand-new sound cut through the silence.
It wasn’t a groan, and it wasn’t a rumble.
It was a sharp, high, incredibly loud wail—a tiny, furious voice piercing through the master bedroom door and echoing down the stairs.
Next came a muffled, breathless laugh from Daddy, followed by a soft, relieved sob from Papa. Toni stood up, and clutching the napkin-wrapped scone tightly to her chest, she walked slowly toward the bottom of the stairs.
She heard the wailing quickly subside, and soon she heard the bedroom door creak open. Crowley stepped out onto the landing, a dazed expression on his face. When he spotted Toni standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him with big, waiting eyes, he broke into a helpless, wide grin.
"Hey, Big Sister", he said, his voice thick and entirely wiped out. "Come on up. Someone wants to meet you. But you have to be quiet, yeah? No shouting, no flying unicorns, and absolutely no spells.”
Toni nodded, and excitedly rushed up the stairs. Crowley scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom, where the heavy velvet curtains had been drawn back to let in a soft haze of the afternoon sun. Sitting in the center of the bed, propped up by an absurd mountain of pillows, was Aziraphale.
The angel looked thoroughly rumpled, his hair a wild mess of pale curls, but his face was completely radiant. He was smiling as he stared down at the small, pink creature resting skin-to-skin against his chest, tucked inside his linen shirt. Toni felt a rush of relief at the sight of her Papa looking so happy and not at all in pain.
“Look who’s here, angel”, Crowley said softly, stepping closer to the bed and gently lowering Toni onto the mattress beside Aziraphale’s hip.
Aziraphale looked up, his eyes crinkling with absolute delight. “Hello, sweetheart”, he cooed, shifting slightly so Toni could see better. “Come closer. Someone very special would like to meet the High Witch.”
Toni scrambled forward on her hands and knees, until she was eye-to-eye with the creature.
It was tiny and impossibly soft, with a tuft of fine, white-blond hair. It squinted back at her with eyes that were the same warm yellow as Crowley’s, but the pupils were round. It let out a microscopic, snuffling squeak, its tiny fingers twitching in the air before settling against Aziraphale's chest.
Toni stared, her eyes round. She reached out a hesitant finger, very gently bopping the baby on its button nose. “He looks angry”, she said then.
Both her parents laughed.
“He’s not angry”, Aziraphale said then, gently caressing the baby’s head. “But very tired, definitely.”
Crowley sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at his son with an expression of pure fondness and pride.
“He’s got the glare down to a science, though”, he rasped, reaching out a long finger, smiling as the baby’s tiny fingers instinctively wrapped around it. “A proper death stare at five minutes old.”
Toni looked at the scone she had placed on the bed, and asked the important question: “Does he have fangs?”
Aziraphale chuckled. “No, I'm afraid he doesn’t. ”
“So, no scones”, Toni deduced.
“No scones for now. But I’m sure he’s happy you thought of him.”
Toni then offered the scone to her Papa, who gladly accepted it.
“What are we gonna call him?” Toni asked after a moment, looking enamoured as her baby brother yawned, revealing a completely fangless mouth.
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances. The topic of the name was a delicate one, since they always seemed to end up arguing about it.
“Well”, the angel said, pointedly looking away. “I had the perfect name, but your father took it off the list.”
Crowley’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean, Darcy? Why would you want to name our son after some stuck-up Regency git?”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “It's a stylish name. Unlike Bentley.”
Crowley crossed his arms on his chest. “Nothing wrong with Bentley”, he grumbled. “You want style, you got with Bentley.”
Toni was looking at the baby, deep in thought. “He doesn’t look like a Darcy. Or a Bentley”, she stated, making her parents stop their bickering at once.
“Go on then, High Witch”, Crowley said, giving her an encouraging smile. “What does he look like?”
Toni watched as the baby blinked sleepily up at her. He was soft, and warm, like the gentle breeze in the garden.
“Zephyr”, she said with certainty.
Aziraphale gasped, his gaze flying from Toni to the baby on his chest. He smiled, his eyes watering. “Zephyr”, he whispered. “Oh, how wonderfully poetic.”
Crowley’s expression melted into something incredibly soft. “You’ve been reading too much of your Papa’s poetry”, he muttered. “But yeah. That sounds… right.”
Toni beamed up at them.
*
After some minutes, Toni had drifted asleep against Aziraphale’s side, tired out by the long, exciting day, her witch hat fallen beside her.
Aziraphale was feeling equally tired, but in an absolutely wonderful, blissful way. He smiled drowsily at baby Zephyr who was turning his head against his skin in small, erratic motions. Aziraphale gently guided his face toward his breast. Zephyr let out a tiny, indignant squeak, flailing one tiny hand in the air impatiently, before his little mouth found its target. A second later, the room was filled with the sound of tiny, enthusiastic swallowing.
Aziraphale sighed, absolutely enamoured by his son. “He’s so perfect, Crowley. The most wonderful anniversary gift.”
Crowley gave a breathless chuckle, his eyes glistening as he watched his husband and their new baby. “Yeah. Looks like we gave each other the perfect gift this year.”
Aziraphale looked up at him, his gaze warm and soft. “We certainly did, my dear. But we’ll have to postpone that private celebration”, he added, almost bashfully. “By a few weeks, at least.”
Crowley leaned in to press a sweet, lingering kiss on the angel’s lips. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than this, angel”, he whispered. “You, me, the Menace, and the newest co-creation.”
”Our newest miracle”, Aziraphale said softly. His eyelids felt heavy.
“Go to sleep, angel”, Crowley said, tenderly brushing a stray curl from the angel’s brow. “I’ll watch over you. All of you. Make sure the newbie doesn’t do any impromptu baby miracles of his own.”
Aziraphale chuckled sleepily, resting his head against the demon’s shoulder, and soon drifted off to sleep. Zephyr followed suit shortly after.
As the afternoon darkened and the first stars began twinkling in the sky, Crowley guarded his family like a protective shadow. He wiped his eyes, trying to comprehend how he ever got so lucky. All the centuries when he had nurtured hope, even the tiniest of hopes, that the angel might love him back, all the years of torturing himself with imagining what life with Aziraphale might look like…
It had all been so worth it.