This chapter is weird, but I have my reasons. Bear with me.

Revealing the truth of the cave incident, THAT was the actual point of this story. But it is called "Body Swap," so we can't end this thing without seeing the onscreen Body Swap, can we? No, of course not!

We also left the previous chapter a bit frustrated. If we're to have satisfaction, there needs to be resolution, and this chapter should provide at least one type.

Moreover, we have all wondered exactly what happened on that night, when Crowley said "you can stay at my place, if you like." But personally, (and this is where the real fun of the chapter lies for me) I've always wanted to see the scene that would come directly after they make the swap, but before they leave Crowley's flat. I think that scene could have been mightily entertaining!

That scene is here! We also have a bit of waiting about in Berkeley Square, lunch at the Ritz, and some good, old-fashioned FEELS!

Hope you enjoy!

EIGHT

The agitated angel and his demonic counterpart spent the next half-hour in separate rooms, having coffee, trying to shake off the revelations of the past several hours, and to think of anything unsexy.

"Can I come in now?" Crowley asked, after his body had calmed, making sure the same was true of his companion. Because if they were to walk into their executions with clear heads and nothing seeming amiss, it would not do for them to spend more time together in a state of heightened excitement.

"I suppose," Aziraphale sighed, standing up from the sofa, where he'd been sitting, meditating.

"So, I was thinking, basic glamour, with physical contact as a replication exemplar," Crowley said, striding back into the room with his jacket back on, hair combed, trousers under control.

"Really? I would think that would be a tad risky."

"Risky? How?" Crowley asked, stopping across the coffee table from the angel.

"Well, it's superficial, isn't it?" Aziraphale argued. "So superficial as to be, I daresay, unstable."

"Okay, look, when you're walking around looking like me, don't stay stuff like 'I daresay.'"

"Crowley, focus. A glamour is thin and lazy, and could be seen through by the right personnel. We need something more like, say, a stage-two infusion."

"That's… that's…" Crowley stammered, thinking about it. "That's old magic! No one does that stuff anymore!"

"That's because no-one on either side trusts anyone else enough to try it," Aziraphale said. "Not to mention, there hasn't been any good reason to do it in quite some time. Except maybe your lot, trying to confound people, or some such."

"It's an exchange of flesh, not just appearance. You don't think that's a bit dangerous?"

"I think it's the only thing that has a chance at working," Aziraphale said. "Anything else, and I might shrink two inches randomly while I'm trying to be you. Or my own voice might blip in and out. Or your hair will turn red while you're pretending to be me, or…"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Crowley sighed. "Sorry, it's just… it's a pretty deep change."

"It is, but… it's you and me. We've already deeply changed each other," Aziraphale said, with a shy smile. "What's one more go, to save each other's lives?"

Crowley smiled. "What a way with words and notions. No wonder you're so good at doing temptations on my behalf, angel."

An awkward silence passed between them, of the sort they had not experienced in millennia. Then, Aziraphale said, "So, are we ready?"

"I suppose so," Crowley said, and he held out his hand. Aziraphale took it.

And they both concentrated, and did a mutual bit of miracling that caused their corporeal forms to exchange positions. The flesh wrapping that had belonged to Crowley for the past six thousand years now housed the mind and soul of a certain angel. Aziraphale's issued body was now harbouring the insides of the demon. Both bodies underwent a diffusing and infusing of energies. That is to say, a draining, then fortifying of supernatural powers and sensibilities. Any body that Aziraphale would inhabit would be soaked in Heavenly assets, and therefore immune to holy water. The same was true of Crowley and Hellfire. Subconsciously, they had both willed their respective clothing to switch as well.

And so, if they were correct, and Heaven and Hell never worked out what they had just done, then retribution would be a cinch.

"Except, er," said Crowley, stopping short, and clearing his throat after hearing Aziraphale's voice come out. "Whoa… that's weird."

"Indeed," said Aziraphale. He couldn't help but laugh. But it was Crowley's laugh that came out, which made him giggle even more.

"Stop that!"

"I can't help it!" Aziraphale insisted, testing out Crowley's falsetto. "It's so bizarre!"

"I suppose it's either laugh or cry," Crowley commented, pulling Aziraphale's voice down into a lower register.

He crossed his arms (well, not his…), annoyed, feeling the uncomfortable Victorian suit tighten across the back of this barrel-chested body. He noted, as he often did, how much he liked this shape, though it didn't feel particularly comfortable at the moment.

He also realised he'd have to stop himself from touching certain parts of this body unduly, before he had permission to do so from its proper owner, and before he was back in his own body. He cursed inwardly, wishing that thought hadn't crossed his mind.

Now he was even more annoyed.

He waited for the angel occupying his body to stop his undignified laughing. "Done?"

"Yes, yes. Sorry, what were you going to say?" Aziraphale asked, standing up straight, and clasping his hands loosely, attentively, at his breastbone.

"That! That, right there!" Crowley complained, pointing at how his companion was holding his hands. "If you're going to convince anyone, you've got to keep a lid on those mannerisms."

"You don't like them?"

"I like them on you, but you're supposed to be me! Put your hands at your sides. Put my hands at your sides. My hands at my sides. Whatever – just do it!"

Aziraphale did as asked, and asked, "How's that?"

"Fine. Now walk across the room."

Crowley then watched his own body move from one end of the salon to the other, with its arms firmly at its sides, taking small steps, a nervous look on its face.

"Well?" asked Aziraphale.

Crowley sighed. "We'll fix the facial expression when we get the glasses on you. But the walk… oh, angel, we're both doomed."

"Then tell me what I'm doing wrong!"

"You're walking like a robot!"

"Do you want me to walk like an English dandy?"

"No, walk like me!"

Aziraphale tried to picture Crowley's usual walk. It was the confident swagger of someone who's sexy and knows it.

He tried it out.

Crowley groaned, as he now observed his body leaning into each step with one shoulder pushed forward, then up, then back. Then the other shoulder did the same thing, as the feet moved awkwardly across the floor.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not you!" Aziraphale exclaimed in response to the groan.

"It's all in the hips," Crowley tried. "One more time."

"Hips. Right."

Aziraphale gave it a go, but the result made Crowley cringe even more. "Stop, stop, stop. You look like a robot again. One that's been dipped in water, and is malfunctioning. Okay, don't do my usual walk… just try something more understated – like me, but in deep thought or something. Take longer strides than you were taking before, and swing the arms just a little."

One last try yielded something passable. "How's that?"

"Relax, and try again – it's not bad."

Aziraphale practised a few times, then said, "I can't see you, Crowley. If I could see you, I could remember how you move."

"Come with me," Crowley said, then walked in Aziraphale's brown boots to the loo, just off the main hallway, where he only ever went to shower, primp, and fill up his plant mister.

The two of them stepped in, and Crowley closed the door, behind which, a full-length mirror revealed their new looks. Crowley didn't know what to say. He most definitely liked the look of Aziraphale, but found that seeing the angel's face looking back in the mirror was quite disturbing.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, said, "Oh, now, this helps."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, absolutely. I feel it now," he said, cocking one hip, and hooking his thumbs in his jeans pockets. "I love how you move, Crowley. I just needed the visual to settle in, and there it is… it's powerful. I'm bloody gorgeous."

"Thanks," Crowley said with a smirk, straightening the bowtie currently fastened around his neck.

"Oh yes! That's good, Crowley – do it again!"

"What? This?"

Crowley did the motion again, and watched himself in the mirror.

"Yes, it's perfect. And just keep your hands clasped behind your back if you're going to walk, and it should keep your stride reasonable, and your hips straight."

Crowley tried it. "You're right – that works."

"And if you get upset, just smile."

"Like this?"

Crowley gave a tight smile that was slightly too tight, so he adjusted it in the mirror until he could see Aziraphale's trademark expression of discomfort.

"Fantastic," said Aziraphale. "Glasses?"

Crowley opened the medicine cabinet, which seemed to contain only two silver flasks, a bottle of cologne and four pairs of sunglasses. He grabbed one of the latter, opened them up, and personally placed him over the reptilian yellow eyes that were watching him.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No."

"Yeah, me neither," he replied, with a scrunched nose.

It was his first time back in Heaven since being cast out, and spending half a day there gave Crowley electrical tingles. And not good ones. It burned just enough to make him squirm, but it was all right – he wasn't there for very long, and the uptight nervousness worked to his advantage. He was also reminded of how similar Heaven and Hell actually were, when one got right down to it. Both were, at best, bloody boring, and at worst terrifying. And of course, as he had noted on more than one occasion, one could not get a decent drink in either place. Plus, both were run by morons.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, had never set foot in Hell before. It was not burning that he felt, but more a sickly quality in the pit of his stomach. Hell was dank, echoing, endless, and damned scary. He worried that in his trepidation, he did not behave with enough cool, enough bravado, to pass as Crowley.

Though, in the end, he convinced Crowley's superiors, even if he was playing a more subdued version of his companion.

Both angel and demon felt relief when they became immersed in their respective punishments. The uncomfortable tingles went away when Crowley stepped into the Hellfire, and his uncertainty at the future dissipated when he saw the look on the Archangel Gabriel's face. It was incredibly satisfying. His only regret was that he could not witness Aziraphale backstroking in holy water, scaring the living Hell out of those living in Hell.

Beelzebub approached Aziraphale in his holy bath and waved her arm. Only then, when he was spat back out onto the ground floor Tangible Plane entrance in central London, did it occur to Aziraphale that he and Crowley had perhaps been naïve to think that this would only take a day. He actually marvelled at how little time had transpired for him to be tried and not-executed, because he now felt free, and incredibly lucky.

Except, he then looked about and realised that Crowley had not returned with his body. "Oh dear," he moaned in Crowley's voice. It seemed that neither of them had considered the possibility that one would survive, and the other would not. He knew it was still early, but he was an angel in love, fretful by nature, and he had everything to lose. In addition, he now had an idea that on Heaven's side, it could be a while… decades, perhaps! What had they been thinking, and what was he to do now?

He walked, hands in pockets, so as not to clasp them in front of him as he might do (just in case anyone was still watching), towards a bench in Berkeley Square where they said they would meet when it was all over. He simply could not stop his mind touching on the thought that Crowley had been somehow discovered, and destroyed. He caught glimpses of himself in storefront glasses, and morbidly thought that even if Crowley never returned, he'd have this body, and could always feel close to him…

But fortunately, he needn't have worried. It was less than two hours that he waited in Berkeley Square, before he saw himself – his own body – sauntering through a side gate. His heart leapt, and he had to stifle the urge to run up for an epic hug, and a very public snog.

Instead, they sat restrainedly side-by-side as always, upon a park bench debriefing the day's events. Then they risked a public swap-back, and went to lunch.

It was a particularly poignant lunch, though the fact that it was at the Ritz had nothing to do with that. They drank champagne, sitting across the table from one another, and toasted, "The World." In that idea was encompassed "the future," and "possibilities." Aziraphale ate, while Crowley watched. Afterwards, they had coffee, and the angel partook of dessert, again while his companion watched. It was a lot like a million such meals they had taken before, as though they had to close "this" chapter of their relationship, before the next one could truly begin.

"Well," Aziraphale sighed, as they walked out onto the street. "Shall we get a taxi?"

"A taxi to where?"

"I was thinking… well, your flat," said the angel, sheepishly. "But come to that, I don't care where, as long as you're there."

Crowley pulled his phone from his pocket. "I'll see if I can call one… hold on…" he said, examining the display on his phone. "Angel, did you use my phone?"

"Oh, yes, I did," said Aziraphale. "I used the Google. Never done it before. It was quite interesting. And efficient!"

Crowley smiled fondly. "Aw, you used it to look up Vincennes."

"Yes, well, I had some time to kill in the Square waiting for you. And I haven't been to Vincennes in seven hundred years, and I was wondering whether the cave was still there, or whether it had been turned into a cinema, or a carpark."

"And?"

"It's still there, but it's a bit of a tourist attraction."

Crowley laughed. "Ah, if only they knew."

"The château, and the Bois, the lake, the cave – it's all been long-since absorbed by the city of Paris, of course, and it's protected by the government, as culturally significant property. Which, I suppose is a good thing. But I had been hoping we could visit…"

"And have an historic re-enactment?"

"More just as a meaningful destination for the two of us," Aziraphale said. "For a holiday. A place we could say is 'our place,' but I rather think the comings goings of tourists would kill the mood."

"We could always stop time, if we wanted to," Crowley suggested with a wry smile, more or less joking.

"Let's just go home," Aziraphale said, softly, taking the demon's hand. "That will do just fine."

"Home," Crowley said, just as softly, with a frisson. "Home, with you."

As always, here is my shameless plug for reviews: if you're reading, let me know it! I thrive on it!

And if you choose, this can be the end of the story! It's a pretty good place to stop, knowing that our favorite ineffable pair are happy together, and headed home.

However, if you are looking for Crowley and Aziraphale to find the "other" kind of satisfaction, the NSFW kind, then one more chapter is coming! It all depends upon what you're looking for, in the matter of closure.

Either way, thanks for reading!