Archive of Our Own

There were good things about being back in Heaven.

Surely there were good things.

Yes, he was far from everyone he cared about. Yes, his books were back on Earth, the place he’d come to call home was back on Earth, all the food he’d grown to love was back on Earth. Yes, all the little rituals he’d integrated into his life over the span of six thousand years, all little things that brought him comfort, were impossible on Heaven. Yes, there was no music in Heaven. Yes, they had stared at him and made little snide comments and whispered among themselves so much that Aziraphale had ended up caving in and changing out of his clothes into a Heaven-approved outfit.

Yes, he’d given up the one thing, the one person, that mattered most to him to be there.

But there were good things about being back there. Probably.

There had to be.

Why was he back there again?

Ah, yes, to change it. To make a difference. To help all the angels have their eyes opened like his were, see what he’d come to see, to realize the beauty of the Earth, the value of all those lives, and of little bookshops, delicious restaurants, parks and duck ponds and plants and everything he loved about the Earth. Everything for which fighting was more than worth the cost. And that She… well, She worked in mysterious ways, didn’t She? Her plans were ineffable. So really, how could they know what to do other than to follow their own instincts?

It had to be worth it, it had to be worth everything that he’d given up. He’d made his choice, and so had - other people.

Yes. Everyone had made their choices.

And some things, Aziraphale knew, he couldn’t fix just yet. Some things would have to wait until the Second Coming was definitively averted, until Heaven was on its way to a better future. Then maybe he could make certain people see that he’d had to go. Maybe then he might even be able to talk said people into helping. Into taking a leap of faith and just… embracing something that Aziraphale was so sure could make them happy.

They never should have Fallen. They were so Good, so much better than Heaven, so determined to save the Earth, and they’d been so happy as an angel, making stars. They should get to make stars again. Aziraphale just wanted them to smile like that again. He just wanted to right a very, very old wrong.

But there were good things about being back in Heaven. He didn’t even miss what he’d lost all that much, he was fine. Thinking a certain name didn’t even feel like ripping his heart out at all. He was fine, happy.

The reasons why he’d decided to go back to the bookshop for a quick visit, then, were entirely unrelated.

“Hello, Muriel,” he said as they came to answer the door.

They had, it seemed, leaned into what he was sure someone he knew would call a ‘bookshop owner aesthetic’, and were donning a large, incredibly comfortable looking sweater, cream at the edges and with rainbow geometric patterns arranged in stripes along the middle. It was by no means something Aziraphale would have considered wearing before, but at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to strip off the beige suit he’d made for himself in Heaven and slip into that comfy sweater.

He would also like to remember what it felt like to smile as Muriel did - vibrant, unburdened, energetic. He’d felt none of those things in what felt like years.

“Mr. Fell!” they greeted. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

He opened his mouth to offer his apologies for the intrusion, but Muriel barreled on, “come in! Would you like me to make you a cup of tea? Crowley says you rather like tea.”

Pain most certainly did not spread through his chest.

“Oh, no, that’s quite alright. I can’t stay long, I just came to - “ he’d stepped into the bookshop as he spoke, and if the streets outside had already made his heart feel tight, it was nothing compared to what happened as he took in the sight of his books, his shelves, everything he’d amassed over his many years on Earth. So many of the things he loved. That musty smell he’d perfected to keep customers away, the dust he carefully cultivated so they’d know just how often books left the store.

It felt like coming home at the end of a long journey on horseback and finding a warm bath drawn for you and food already cooking in the kitchen.

It felt like… heaven.

“What did you come for?” Muriel asked, and Aziraphale startled. “Sorry, it just seemed like you trailed off there.”

“Quite right,” Aziraphale said, and the smile he offered them felt tight. “I came to check on you, make sure you were doing alright with the bookshop. I know it’s quite a responsibility to have thrown on you unexpectedly. And we didn’t even offer you any training! It was quite rude, I’m afraid, and I do apologize.”

Muriel flashed him a brilliant smile. “It’s alright! Crowley has been teaching me. He’s very helpful, even if he’s grumpy most of the time.”

“C - he has?” Aziraphale raised a surprised eyebrow at them, and certainly did not avoid saying a name that always felt like it was being forcefully removed from his chest whenever he so much as thought it.

“He has! He showed up here about a week after you left and said ‘if the -rude word- angel is just going to leave and dump all this -rude word- work on you, he’s even more of a -rude word- than I thought’, and then he just started organizing things. But he says it’s very important to remember that he’s not a bookseller. And not to sell any books. Those were the main points.”

Aziraphale’s heart did not shatter, because he was happy in Heaven and all of this was for the best. There was no reason why it should hurt. It didn’t. He was fine, he was just fine. Positively tip-top. Tickety-boo.

“Oh, he’s really quite a nice fe-“

And a book fell on his head.

Aziraphale caught it with a small startled cry, and glanced down at it in pure shock. What on Earth was The Importance of Being Earnest doing, jumping down to his head? He had no idea what reshelving Muriel and her new not-a-bookseller coworker had been doing while he was gone, but certainly they wouldn’t have left this book precariously balanced. No, he knew they both had to know the importance of preserving the books, of looking after them tenderly, carefully.

So what was it doing, falling on his head?

“Mr. Fell? Are you alright?” Muriel asked, pausing just before they entered the back room.

Aziraphale nodded, offering them a bit of a nervous smile. “Yes, yes, perfectly alright. Just a little… I suppose the book must’ve just gotten a bit overexcited, that’s all. I’ll be along in just a minute. Better put this one back.”

Muriel nodded and continued on their way.

Another glance down at the book revealed nothing that the first glance hadn’t. It was just a book - a valuable book, and a favorite of his in part as a virtue of it being one of… well, someone else he knew also took quite a liking to this particular play, so it held a dear place in his heart - but it was just a book all the same. Not one that he could imagine would be, quite literally, out for his head, either.

It didn’t matter, he supposed - he would be gone soon enough, anyway. Better to just put it back where it belonged and move on.

Shaking his head, he located a nearby step stool, and went to put it back on the top shelf -

Only to accidentally knock over the box it’d been next to.

It fell to the floor rather dramatically, the lid coming off and skidding to a stop only several feet away. The contents of the box, no longer safely encased, took off in a flurry and spread all over the aisle, showering Aziraphale in sheets of paper that he really, truly hoped were not as old, fragile and dreadfully rare as most of what he owned. Flying off and slapping him in the face was very much not a recommended activity for a 12th century manuscript.

“Oh, bugger,” he cursed under his breath, standing very still for a moment in an attempt to rein himself in.

It’d been a long few… however long it’d been.

Muriel didn’t come back to check on the commotion, at least there was that. He really didn’t think he could handle company at the moment, which he knew was ridiculous, but it was true. Everything just felt like too much - the bookshop, the book, and now this… this box, and these papers!

But it was fine. It was fine.

He was just reacclimatizing to Earth, that was all.

Gently, he collected the closest papers, and -

They were letters. Oh, he’d almost forgotten he ever had these - ever since the invention of the telephone, he hadn’t really had to store any new letters away. He could still remember the day that - oh, there was no point in avoiding it now, was there? The day Crowley had run into his shop, grinning madly and talking about how clever these humans were, how wonderful their inventions were, how amazing that you could now use a little device to call anywhere in the world.

When he’d left, Aziraphale had found a little telephone resting on his desk, the very same one that he still used to this day. Or that he’d used before he went back to Heaven, that is.

An important distinction.

He should put them away. He should just scoop them all up and slip them back into the box. No point dilly-dallying. Muriel was waiting, and so was Heaven.

And yet -

And yet he found himself scanning the contents of the first one in his hand, his back finding a rest on the shelf behind him, his legs crossing neatly beneath him, all without a single thought to his perfectly clean trousers. What did they matter? He hated them, anyway.
At the top of the page, his own handwriting noted “California, 29th of January 1884”.

Below, in a writing far less loopy but considerably more elegant than Aziraphale could say he remembered it being at the time, the letter followed,

They hadn’t been talking back then, had they? He’d almost forgotten about that, it felt like an eternity ago. The argument about the holy water, the decades spent apart… not a single word all the way to 1941, when Crowley had somehow caught wind of the mess Aziraphale had gotten himself into, and walked through consecrated ground to help him. Decades of silence, and then he’d saved his corporation, saved him the embarrassment of explaining the situation to Heaven, and separately still, he’d saved his books.

At the end of that night, after they - tired, warm from laughter and relief, more than a little tipsy still - had said their goodbye, Aziraphale had turned around to find a little box over his counter. A little box filled with letters like this, most from after the beginning of the Second World War, but a few from years before then.

Crowley had slept through the majority of the years between 1862 and some time after the start of the second war. It was painfully clear why.

Aziraphale swallowed, breath hitching in his throat. It was just a coincidence that this box had fallen, just a coincidence that he’d picked up that letter. There was no reason to read into it, no reason at all. He should just finish gathering these papers, store them all back where they belonged, and move on. Go back to Heaven, go back to his job, go back to everything that was offered to him which he simply had to take, he had to. No one else could do what he would do. He was the only one who could change Heaven.

And he was happy. He was.

His hand found another letter with every intention of placing it back into the box. Surely it was just an accident, then, that he found himself reading his handwriting at the top of the page - “Blackpool, 2nd of August 1821”.

The letter read,

He had met Crowley in Blackpool in the end. The little seaside cottage he had rented had been wonderfully quaint, and they’d watched the sunset multiple times, bathed in a warm yellow light that had made everything feel just a little more unreal, and just a little more possible. Like great distances could be crossed if he wanted to, wishes could come true, the impossible could be made so reachable. After night had settled over them, they’d stargazed a good part of the evening away, Crowley pointing out constellations, the names of stars, their types, compositions, and as they drank the wonderful vintage wines Crowley had managed to secure, he’d also started to point out the ones he’d made.

And the meals - oh, they’d been wonderful. There weren’t many restaurants in Blackpool at the time, but Crowley had managed to find some truly delicious ones, and they’d all had some dishes he adored. Lunches had ended up a lengthy affair, but there’d still been plenty of time after to settle in all the hidden little spots on the coast that Crowley had pointed out to him and read.

If angels could be said to take holidays, he would’ve certainly chosen this one as the best he’d ever taken.

Oh, he’d been so clueless back then, hadn’t he?

Certainly, he’d flirted with Crowley his fair share. So many little scenarios, so many situations created so that Crowley could burst in as his knight in shining armor - occasionally quite literally - because he loved rescuing Aziraphale, and Aziraphale loved being rescued. So many little excuses for closeness, for intimacy, for touch. And all that time, Crowley had been doing the same thing, and he’d thought…

Well, he wasn’t sure what he’d thought. Surely he’d known, on some level, but it’d been so hard to admit it, so hard to let himself drop the pretense. And yet all that time Crowley had been right there beside him, playing the same game.

How much had he known? How much had he realized?

From this letter, it almost sounded like…

It almost sounded like Crowley had accepted his own feelings a lot sooner than 1941.

What had been the moment for him? What had made him realize ‘this is it, this is the one for me, I want to be with him for the rest of eternity, I want to show him that he’s my whole world and I would trust him with anything, do anything for him’?

How much time could they have had? Would it have been safe?

Aziraphale bit his lip, told himself that this eyes weren’t watering because he was happy in Heaven, this was a good outcome, he was going to change things, and set the letter into the box.

He couldn’t quite muster up the energy to pretend like he wasn’t going to read the next one, though. His hands found a letter of their own accord, and he scanned the words like a parched human might drink a tall glass of water - desperate, unable to savor it, and knowing that if he didn’t slow down, it might all burst out of him again. The longing, the heartache, the part of him that whispered in his ear a constant stream of Crowley, Crowley, Crowley. The part of him that kept glancing to his side, and breaking a little more every time that it didn’t find someone there.

Aziraphale’s handwriting: The Kingdom of Wessex, 3rd of November, year 4541 after the Beginning.

The letter read,

It’d been a long time ago, hadn’t it? Over a thousand years ago, Crowley was stopping by a market in the miserable rain, having slept for days outdoors on the muddy floor and ridden all over the kingdom, to pick up some sweet buns Aziraphale had once mentioned liking. All while Aziraphale still refused to call him a friend.

What would have happened if he’d admitted why he’d been compelled to invite Crowley over in the first place? Why he’d spent nights thinking of his absolutely-not-a-friend sleeping out there in the cold and damp, and felt he’d needed to do something about it?

“Oh, Crowley,” he found himself saying, and he sniffled, mind drifting to thoughts of a shared room in the castle, of how much Crowley must have loved those soft feather mattresses, how well he must have slept during those nights, but Aziraphale hadn’t been there to see it. No, he’d kept his distance, justified Crowley’s presence, even, as ‘an important acquaintance’. Too scared of what could be, too hesitant to do something that might be considered improper in Heaven’s or Hell’s eyes, too scared of what they might do if he did, too blind to realize that the line had already been crossed a long, long time ago.

Could they have had more time? Did he feel this way already, back then?

He must have. It’d settled as a comfortable, warm ache inside of him, so ever-present he didn’t realize it until Crowley loved him so obviously, so completely, that his heart all but leapt out of its cavity in utter joy.

And now…

A sound, the familiar sound of a teacup hitting the saucer underneath it.

Aziraphale raised his eyes, and found Muriel standing uncertainly at the doorway, tea in hand.

“Sorry,” they said. “It’s just… your cupperty is getting cold. I could make it stay warm for you, but Crowley says you don’t like miracles in your food, and I’m really not sure if maybe cooling isn’t part of the experience?”

“That’s quite alright,” he assured them, forcing a smile to his lips.

It must not have been enough, for Muriel frowned. “Are you alright, Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale nodded, doing his very best to smile, then sighed and gave up on it. What was the point? He’d clearly been crying, he could feel the tear streaks down his face even if he couldn’t quite remember them actually falling. He’d been crying, his heart was broken, it had been since the day that he left, and he just didn’t have the energy for this anymore. It hurt too much.

He was tired of being in pain. Tired of fighting himself. Tired of being afraid.

“You know, I think… I think it’s possible I may have made a terrible mistake,” he managed to get out, his voice tight as he gave up on fighting the tears.

Muriel glanced between him and the tea in their hand, and Aziraphale couldn’t help a small smile. Muriel was, as Crowley would likely put it, one of the good ones. “Yes, dear, thank you,” he confirmed as he reached out, and Muriel quickly crossed the room to hand it over.

The tea was too cold and a little too sweet, but it was made with care and the best of intentions, which made it absolutely perfect.

(He still discreetly miracled it warmer and less sweet, though.)

“What mistake?” Muriel asked after a moment.

Aziraphale took a long sip of his tea - which politely refilled itself as to not disappoint a tea-deprived angel - before gathering up the strength to answer. “I left. I thought… oh, I wanted to help, you see? I still do. And I still think I could make a difference, I could change things from the inside, but - well, it’s hard. I never thought it would be easy, but I never realized… I never realized leaving could hurt this much. I didn’t realize it had.”

Muriel nodded sagely, though he knew he’d hardly offered enough information for them to make any sort of assessment. Still, the smile they offered him was kindly, full of warmth and hope and other wonderful things Aziraphale hadn’t felt in what he was sure had to be an eternity. Not since he got on that lift and left his world behind.

When you’ve been in the dark for so long, Aziraphale thought to himself, then seeing the light did feel somewhat like burning.

“Maybe you don’t have to leave,” Muriel suggested. “Not completely. You could visit.”

Aziraphale smiled, but it was a lackluster thing. “Oh, it wouldn’t be enough. It’d never be enough. I suppose… I’ve been trying to accommodate Heaven for so long, I just - I wish that I could simply choose happiness. I wish I didn’t have so much depending on me. I can’t choose myself before - well, before all of Creation.”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Muriel tried.

“I’m afraid it’s been made quite clear that it does, actually.” Aziraphale’s eyes dropped to his lap, where a few letters were precariously perched. His heart squeezed tightly in his chest, desperate for something he knew he couldn’t have, trying to will it into existence when that simply wasn’t possible, not even for him.

It hurt. It hurt so badly.

He wondered if Crowley felt the same. He wondered how he could turn him down, choose to remain on Earth, if it did hurt this much. Aziraphale was certain that he could never, even the strongest resolve would break when faced with such heartbreak. The only reason he could get on that lift was because too much depended on him, and no one else could do what he would do for Heaven. No other angel understood Earth as he did.

No one but a certain fallen angel who’d made it very clear he wouldn’t go with him.

How could he do it?

Unless he didn’t feel the same, not quite.

But these letters… Crowley had poured his heart out to him multiple times over the eighty years they hadn’t spoken following the holy water request. He hadn’t sent them, but he’d written them, and then he’d left them behind for Aziraphale to read. Not a word said, simply trust, something Aziraphale knew him well enough to know he’d only done at the end of the night so he couldn’t talk himself out of it. Their date before that, and the sweet buns over a millennia before…

He couldn’t not feel the same. He couldn’t.

“You’ve been spending quite some time with Crowley, haven’t you?” Aziraphale asked after a long moment, daring to make himself glance up at Muriel.

They nodded. “I have.”

“Do you think… might Crowley be open to seeing me again?”

Muriel beamed. “Of course! Oh, he misses you so much. He talks about you all the time, you know? I think… it’s weird. Talking about you makes him very happy, but also very sad.”

“Yes, I… I’m afraid that makes an awful lot of sense.”

“Oh. Is that bad?”

“A little.” Aziraphale smiled sadly, and he shook his head. “But if he still talks about me at all, then I suppose there might still be time to fix things.”

Muriel smiled again, and Aziraphale found his heart aching for something entirely different. It’d been so long since he’d been that innocent, that willing to believe that things might simply work out, that eager to take people at their word. He longed for it, and felt his age in a way he hadn’t known a being like him ever could. He was not, after all, old. Old implied a range against which to compare one’s age - he was simply eternal.

But at that moment, he felt very, very, very old.

Somehow, even though all angels preceded time, making Muriel just as ancient as one might be inclined to call Aziraphale, Heaven had not broken them. It had, Aziraphale was only just beginning to suspect, broken him.

“That’s great!” said Muriel. “What are you going to do?”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to smile, and this time, though it was still shaky, he managed to put more strength behind it. This was a smile he meant. “I think,” he started, “that you might be right. Maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Perhaps I can choose happiness and not give up everything I’ve been working for.”

A compromise. They had to be able to reach a compromise.

Neither of them deserved this pain, did they?

Aziraphale finished his tea - setting a personal record, he suspected - and stood, laying the cup and saucer gently down on a nearby end table.

“Thank you very much for the tea, dear, but I’m afraid I must be going. I do believe I have a conversation I’ll need to have that’s much overdue.”

Muriel nodded, and their face did something complicated Aziraphale was hesitant to apply meaning to - almost like a knowing look mixed in with everything else, bleeding through the utter sunshine that they seemed to exude at any given moment. “You’ll work it out. He cares about you very much.”

Inexplicably, Aziraphale suddenly felt the urge to blush, and he ducked his head in an attempt to hide it. A quick miracle to put the letters away and store the box where it belonged, at least, provided an excellent excuse for it.

“I do hope so,” he replied, offering them an almost nervous smile. “I’ll stop by before heading back to Heaven either way. And… thank you, dear, for looking after Crowley.”

And as Muriel waved goodbye, Aziraphale stepped out into the streets, his feet taking him down the familiar path to Mayfair as if of their own accord. They’d always gravitate towards Crowley, wouldn’t they? And maybe that wasn’t something to fight, as he’d done on some level or another for almost as long as this planet had been in existence. Maybe it was something to fight for. And he would, he’d work this out with Crowley as they’d worked out so much before, because while it was true that they couldn’t come before all of Creation, well…

How could those two things be opposite?

If he loved Crowley as much as he knew he did, and Crowley loved him as much as all those letters had been showing him for hundreds, probably thousands of years, then how could this stand in their way? How could it be possible that they couldn’t work through it?

Why would She ask him to choose between Crowley and the Universe?

Maybe it was a test, but not the kind of test that he’d thought it was. Maybe it wasn’t about choosing to sacrifice his own happiness for the greater good.

They could work this out. They could.

They would.

Somewhere in an impossible apartment in Mayfair, Aziraphale’s happiness awaited, and this time he hoped that it wouldn’t slip away.