This is the short but sweet ending of this leg of our saga. "The Third Domain" of the title has turned out to be the life in which Crowley and Aziraphale now find themselves, in addition to being a discovery, a ruse, an excuse for a new war... however one chooses to see it. From here, they embark on a new journey as twenty-first century (A.D.) humans, who will need to get used to new bodies, new logistics, new love.
Here, we explore a little bit of that - what do they learn about being human in the first twenty-four hours? How shall they proceed?
Thank you for reading all along, and I hope you enjoy this final bit. Stay tuned for a few words at the end!
EPILOGUE
They were human now, and therefore vulnerable. But they were very, very together, and that made them stronger.
It was now much more difficult for the agents of Heaven and Hell to locate and contact them, and a lot riskier as well. Humans can't perceive, for the most part, supernatural presences… and Crowley and Aziraphale found this fact very freeing.
They'd spent the rest of the day, after talking with Michael, as they had originally planned: reading the prophecies, and doing their best to interpret, via research, discussion and good old-fashioned educated guessing.
Then they'd returned home and learned a bit about being human. For a start, they had had wine with dinner, and quickly realised that it now took significantly less of it to render them drunk. They were "feeling it" after two glasses each, and, to their annoyance, they could not simply concentrate on sobering up, and make it so.
"How do humans not stay drunk forever?" Aziraphale asked, pacing about the kitchen, feeling inexplicably agitated.
"Erm… well, they urinate, for a start."
"Oh! Is that why I feel like I shouldn't sit still?"
"Probably!" Crowley replied, laughing.
"Oh, bugger!" Aziraphale spat, rushing from the room. Crowley then heard a toilet flushing, and when Aziraphale returned, he looked crestfallen. "It didn't work. I still feel loopy as a corkscrew."
"As I understand it, the alcohol has to work its way out. It makes its way through the bloodstream and… I don't know. Oh wait, I know! Eating bread! Supposed to help with the sobering-up!"
"Really?"
"Yes, I learned that in Italy during the Renaissance from a serving wench named Giovanna!"
"I see," Aziraphale lilted, adorably posing with one hand on his hip. "And what, pray tell, did you tempt her into doing?"
"What, you want, like, details?"
"Goodness, no," Aziraphale said, with a laugh.
"Also, coffee," said Crowley.
"What?"
"For sobering up."
"Oh! Okay, that makes sense. Caffeine."
"But I've heard that it works damn slowly."
"I think we're going to find over the next year or so that everything works damn slowly," Aziraphale sighed, reclaiming his seat at the table.
"Except time itself, ironically."
"Yes. Yes."
None of this stopped them from slipping off to bed early, though there was no sleep in the cards until the wee hours. And as it happened, Crowley realised that he'd have to adjust to what a human male body could do in the bedroom, at fortysomething years old after quite a bit of wine. He found that the whole affair required concentration, of a sort which he'd not been accustomed to giving the pleasures of the flesh...
Aziraphale noticed nothing amiss, but Crowley vowed no more alcohol before shagging, unless and until he could do the research to find out how to combat this travesty.
The following day, they didn't arise until almost noon, realising two new things. Firstly, humans need sleep. They actually need it, and when one doesn't rest until three in the morning, the body will compensate. Secondly, hangovers are a thing.
Aziraphale went to borrow some medicine from Mrs. Meehan, having no idea what to ask for, but reckoning the former nurse had something on-hand.
"Erm… hi," he said to her. "My companion and I have had a bit too much in the way of libations… last night, that is. And today, we're finding that we are unwell, which is, I can tell you, a highly unpleasant state of affairs."
"Libations? A highly unpleasant state of affairs?" Mrs. Meehan asked, with amusement.
Even Aziraphale could hear the Archaic English Dandy in his speech now.
"Yes, well, I suppose you'd know that, wouldn't you, having been a nurse? Anyhow, what sort of thing would you suggest as a remedy?" he asked.
Mrs. Meehan looked at him with tedium and a tad of disbelief, and didn't understand why Mr. Fell couldn't just ask, "Have you got any aspirin?"
She said, "You're telling me neither one of you has ever had a hangover before? At your ages?"
"It's not so much that we've never had them, it's more… well, it's been a long time. Centuries. Wait, no… centuries is too long. Decades?"
She stood staring at him quizzically for a few moments, before speaking. "I'll be right back," she said, leaving the door open, and heading for her bathroom cabinet.
Aziraphale wondered if other humans had this much trouble communicating with each other.
Meanwhile, Crowley checked his phone, and found a tearful message from Anathema Device, which she probably thought he would never hear.
Aziraphale returned to the flat with four Paracetamol tablets and handed two to Crowley. "Apparently, we take them with water? Do we break them up and dissolve them?"
"No, swallow them whole. Wash them down."
"Oh. Okay. How do you know this?"
"Erm... the 1960s were an interesting time in the temptation business," Crowley said, making his way to the sink, began running the water, and filling a glass. "Especially for a demon trying to lay off free love and needing to find other avenues of hedonism in which to mire the human animal. Let's just leave it at that."
"Gladly," Aziraphale said, curtly, pretending to study the pills in his palm.
"By the way," said Crowley. "We have to call Book Girl and Breaks-Things Guy and tell them we're alive."
"Oh, blast it, you're right!"
And so, the two of them took their Paracetamol, then the four of them convened for lunch, this time in London, upon Anathema's insistence.
"We've decided to move up here," she told them, sipping her tea.
"Really? That's lovely news!" Aziraphale exclaimed.
"Yeah, well, when we talked about inheriting the bookshop, we more or less decided to try to run it ourselves rather than sell it off," Newt reported. "To do that, we'd have to move Londonwards."
"Although, don't get us wrong," Anathema qualified. "We're over the moon about the fact that we're not inheriting it!"
"No offence, but so are we," Aziraphale admitted.
"But, the more I thought about living in London, the more I liked the idea," Anathema said, delightedly. "I only settled in Tadfield so I could find the Antichrist. But I grew up in L.A. I'm a city girl. And London is much closer to Newt's mom."
"We're going to let Tracy and Shadwell have Jasmine Cottage, since they're keen to get out of the city, and we'll find a new place. Although, now that we don't have to run the bookshop, I suppose we don't have to be near Soho," Newt said.
The foursome then discussed different places around town where it might be fun to live (since Anathema had plenty of money, they could afford just about anything), they discussed being human, being free, being in love, and the coming war.
"I can't believe we have to go through all that rubbish again," Newt groaned.
"It may never fall upon you to do anything – we just don't know," Aziraphale said. "We're studying the prophecies, don't worry – you don't have to do any of that anymore. We'll keep you updated if we find anything that concerns you."
And then, the couple from Tadfield went off to check out flats, and the other couple walked along the Thames and talked about tying up loose ends.
"I suppose I'll have to have the car towed, and some petrol put in it," Crowley sighed. "They're going to think I'm mad."
"And you'll actually have to be a careful driver, now," Aziraphale reminded him. "You won't be able just to magically not hit anyone as you go, and if you get a dent, you'll have to pay to have body work done. Not to mention, if you crash, you might actually die."
"Ugh," Crowley groaned. "Being human is harrrrrrd."
Aziraphale laughed delightedly. "Then, this might not be the best time to mention getting a real deed to your flat, actually paying bills…which brings us to the question of employment, Crowley. I have money to last us a long, long while – possibly the whole of our two human lives. But honestly, you're going to have to find something to do with your time. You can't just laze about being all tempting anymore."
"Can't I?"
"Well… not during the day," Aziraphale said, a bit sheepishly, batting his eyelashes nevertheless.
They walked in silence for a few moments. "I suppose, if I got a job working in media, I could keep an eye out for, you know… the Kraken. Tibetan tunnels coming out of nowhere. Ridiculous weather…"
"It's not going to be like last time, you know," Aziraphale scolded.
"Oh, come on, I know that," Crowley scolded back. "But it would allow me to have my ear to the ground, so to speak. What stories are breaking, and are any of them apocalyptic-sounding?"
"Not a bad idea," Aziraphale commented.
"'Course not. But let's have a proper holiday first, yeah? Before we get stuck into eight-to-five behind a desk, paying bills, daily grind and whatnot… what say you?"
"I say, that sounds wonderful. Where would we go?"
"Where has neither of us been?"
They walked in silence again for a few minutes, thinking. They realised that between the two of them, in six thousand years, they'd managed to cover most of the planet.
"There's always Alpha Centauri," Crowley suggested with a smile.
"We'll call that plan B," Aziraphale said. "How about we keep it simple? The south of France. Sun, blue sky, good food, good wine."
"It's all beaches," Crowley said. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
"Will you be there?"
"Er… yeah."
"Then it's what I want," Aziraphale said simply, taking Crowley's hand.
And that's it, folks, for this bit of ineffable saga!
As I mentioned previously, I do have a few ideas jotted down... I've decided "push up" in the queue a plot bunny I'm nursing - a bit of fluff about the human lives of the formerly angelic/demonic pair, and the simple pleasures of Earthly living. It might be called "Creature Comforts" when it does appear, but I have no idea, at this juncture, when that will be!
Once again, thank you for reading, and I hope you'll leave a review with your thoughts! *smooch!*