Thanks to all of you who fed my neediness, and left a review for chapter 8 - I appreciate it, truly!
This is the second-to-last chapter, and I'm so sad it's almost over! :-( I'm hatching a plan for a "sequel" type thing... I'm still trying to get my mind around some of the concepts. Stay tuned!
Okay, friends, this is the pivotal scene : Aziraphale and Adam Young cross paths, and the angel makes a decision, and a "statement" about the way things are.
Hoping to give you a squee before the end. :-) Enjoy!
DECISION MAKING AND RULE BREAKING
The young witch and her brand-new boyfriend found a spot in the middle of a field that, as Anathema had described, seemed to unite about half a dozen back gardens, and down the hill a ways, a lovely lake. The spot was right beside a patch of dirt, about a metre wide, perfect for a small bonfire.
Anathema was carrying a black box, about the size of a circa-1990 computer monitor (though not the same box as had been delivered earlier, or so it seemed), and Newton a rucksack. He reached inside and removed a blanket, which he spread on the ground, and the two of them sat down.
Aziraphale and Crowley could not keep a respectable distance (read: remain unseen), and still hear what Anathema and Newt were saying to each other through conventional means (read: ears). So Crowley snapped his fingers, and suddenly the two young people's voices were magically crossing the field, and reaching the ears of the angel and the demon.
Newton pulled some old newspaper from a rucksack, and placed it in the middle of the dirt patch, then weighed it all down with a dry branch lying nearby.
"Right," said Newt. "If you'll give me back my matches, I'll get the fire going."
"Oh dear," Aziraphale groaned. Just the thought of Agnes' second book meeting fire pained him a bit.
"Steady on," Crowley whispered. "That's why we're here. Just keep quiet."
They saw Anathema hand something over, and then Newt struck a match. The little pile of kindling began to burn.
"Very nice," Anathema said. "You managed to ignite, rather than extinguish!"
"Your basic boy-scout stuff, I can do," Newt told her. "I could rob a bank with a Swiss army knife, were it not for all the electronic security. Actually, that would be rather advanced boy-scout stuff."
The two of them sat for a few minutes in silence, staring into the fire. Then, Anathema turned to her left and removed a thick stack of parchment from the black box she'd been carrying.
Aziraphale inhaled sharply. "There it is."
"Are you sure?" Newt asked her.
"Yes, I'm sure," she answered. "I know what I'm doing, I just don't like it."
"Technological marvels can be revealed," he offered.
"And you'd probably just break them," she teased.
The young man chuckled. Then, "Think of it this way: do you want to be a descendant all your life?"
Anathema never answered, she simply took the top page off the document she held in her hands, and leaned toward the fire.
"Indeed, she does not!" Aziraphale said, frantically, as he jumped out from behind a bush, and began hurrying toward the young couple. He waved his right hand, and just like that, the fire was completely out, including the little bit that had begun to recede the corner of the page.
Anathema could not decide between gaping at the spot where the flame had once been, or at the angel now emerging from seemingly nowhere, and she spent several seconds looking back and forth as though watching the world's quickest ping-pong match.
A moment later, Crowley sauntered into view, and followed distantly behind his friend, not wanting to get in the way of this transaction, and continuing to keep his distance.
"Oh! It's you!" Newt said, pointing at Aziraphale, then at Crowley. "And you!"
"Erm, wow… hi," Anathema said, trying to find her bearings. "What… what…."
"Am I doing here?" Aziraphale said, now just slightly short of breath from having jogged across the field. "What, indeed! I'm glad you asked that, young lady. And, well, I suppose there's no point in beating about the bush, as they say, so I'll just say it. Plain and simple, no nonsense. In the Queen's English. What I'm hoping to gain, Miss Device, if you'll allow me..."
"He wants your book!" Crowley called from twenty metres away, in light of the fact that the angel would not just get to the bloody point.
"You… want my book?" Anathema asked. "Agnes' book?"
"Yes, dear, but the second of Agnes' books. We've been told there's a continuing volume."
"This?" And she held up the stack of parchment she'd received that morning from an agitated lawyer.
"Yes," Aziraphale breathed, reverentially. He held out his hands. "May I?"
She handed it up to him, and he took it, noting absently that had Crowley allowed him to stop back at the book shop, he'd have been able to pick up some surgical gloves, so as not to damage the parchment. Then he let his eyes dance ecstatically over the title page: Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter: Concerning the World That Is To Come – Ye Saga Continues.
It was around now that Crowley noticed a movement in what little peripheral vision he had, while wearing the dark glasses with the side covers. Actually, it was more a feeling than any glimpse of things shifting, the frisson of something kindred coming into the vicinity...
Within a few seconds, a small black and white dog sped across the green.
And coming up behind him, at a casual clip, was Adam Young.
"Look at that," Crowley muttered to himself. "The Antichrist out for his Sunday morning constitutional."
Adam noticed Aziraphale, Anathema and Newt in the field, stopped, and waved. The three of them waved back.
"Oi, Adam," Crowley said, walking toward the boy. "Lovely afternoon, then. Thanks for that."
Adam shrugged. "You're welcome. What are you two still doing here?"
"It's a long story," Crowley said, now stopping ten feet away from him. "I mean… you'd believe it if I told you, but you'd likely be bored."
Adam studied him with squinted eyes for a few moments. Then he said, "There's something a bit off about you."
"Off? I mean, well, I'm a demon, but why would that seem off to you? You're the…"
"No, it's something else. Are you…" Adam continued to scrutinise him, then he looked at Aziraphale the same way, then back at Crowley. "Are you out of your time?"
"Oh… yeah," admitted Crowley. "I do that sometimes – wow, you're good. Like I said, long story. But what about you? What does a boy like you, if there were any boys like you, get up to on a day like today… if there ever were a day like today? I mean, there was never supposed to be a today, was there?"
"I'm being punished. By my dad. I'm restricted to our garden."
Crowley smiled. "Following the rules is not your strong suit, I see."
"Nah, not me," said the boy, smiling.
"Good for you!" Crowley said. "Just like a perfect, human boy!"
"But if my dad asks, it's because Dog ran off, and I had to chase him."
"I don't imagine I'll be seeing your dad anytime soon, but if he asks, I'll absolutely lie for you. No qualms."
There was a pause, and then Adam said, "Erm… is your car all right? I did my best with…"
"Yes, yes, it's flawless, in fact," Crowley told him. "I appreciate that."
"You helped me. You helped me realise who I actually am, and that my life isn't about just what some book says it ought to be."
"Ah, well..."
"It was the least I could do. Considering how annihilated your car was, and I was sorting everything out anyway, you know, the way it had been…"
And in this little bit of conversation, Crowley saw an opportunity. Adam Young was standing right in front of him, less than twenty-four hours after the failed Armageddon, discussing his work in putting things right, the way they were before it all went down.
Just a little while ago, he and Aziraphale had got into a short, but very enlightening exchange, that was nevertheless frustrating to Crowley. Probably to them both.
People would talk, Aziraphale had insisted, when Crowley suggested that they needed to be together when they checked into an inn.
"What could they say that hasn't already been said?" he had asked the angel, as a retort. He had been referring to the fact that people had taken the two of them for a couple, for time immemorial. Even in eras of history when 'that sort of thing' was not considered 'normal.'
But to his surprise, the angel interpreted his comment a whole different way, and had admitted that there was much, indeed, that had not been said. Both of them had been saying things to each other for centuries, in their own way. But Crowley had consciously got louder, so to speak, the last eighty years or so, and had, on more than one occasion, spooked his friend. He was, as he'd told Aziraphale, "speaking" as loud as he dared, and he had been all too conscious of not pushing. And so, that left the ball in the angel's court.
Crowley realised, in this moment with Adam, that he'd just discovered a way to gracefully lob a serve that his friend would have no choice but to return. Hopefully, this would move the game forward, for better or for worse.
"Yeah, Adam, about re-setting the world the way it had been before, I'd like to have a bit of a word with you," Crowley said.
"Oh. Yeah? Why?"
"In the midst of all the chaos yesterday, Aziraphale's book shop and flat were destroyed in a fire."
"I know. Are all the books not restored? I thought I got them all."
"The book shop is fine – again, flawless, and thanks for that. It's the flat that did get back the way it was."
"Oh really? Well, I'll admit, I didn't pay much attention to that bit. Reckoned he'd care more about the books."
"Well, you're not wrong there. But, Adam, if we asked you to, you know, reset things again, could you do it without disturbing anything? Without people noticing?"
"I could," the boy said. "But… couldn't you do it as well? Or him? You guys both have magic, right? I mean, I saw you stop time, and transport the three of us into, like, a sideways world. And here, today, you're…"
"I know, I know," Crowley interrupted. "But Aziraphale's not that keen on us doing what he calls frivolous miracles. He likes to earn what he has, get things done the proper way if he can… launder his clothes, rather than miracle them clean, things like that. If he really wanted the walls a particular colour, he could snap his fingers and do it, but he's not that sort of bloke. Not as a rule, anyway."
"Okay. Just tell me what needs fixing."
It was just about then when Aziraphale shook hands with both Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer, and began walking back toward Crowley, elated, with the stack of parchment in-hand.
"I found out how she got it!" Aziraphale called out as he approached. "I'll explain it later – a fascinating story about Agnes and a bunch of lawyers, and some coins. It explains a lot about the chap we saw leaving her house in a hurry."
Crowley smiled. "So, you got what you came for!"
"She was nominally reluctant to give it up," Aziraphale said with a wry smile, clutching the manuscript to his chest. "But she didn't need much convincing. Especially since the first prophecy is Giveth the pages to the angel, and you will finde felicitous union with Adultery's spawn."
"Whoa. That's… risqué," Crowley commented, as Adam laughed. "And also, I think… wow, too much information."
"No, no," Aziraphale said, waving his hand. "Newton Pulsifer has an ancestor whose name was Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery Pulsifer, also a Witchfinder, and well-known to Agnes Nutter, to say the least. They called him Adultery for short."
"So, the first prophecy said she should give the second volume to you, and then she and Newt can go shag their brains out."
The angel looked at him disapprovingly, and subtly indicated there's a child present with a tilt of his head. "It means, they find happiness together."
Crowley chuckled. "Tomato, to-mah-to. I like my interpretation better, because yours isn't funny. Wait a minute! You peeked?"
Aziraphale sighed. "Yes. Yes I did. I feel awful."
"Really?" asked the demon, teeth bared, nose crinkled.
Aziraphale said, "Well, yes. Nominally."
Crowley cackled. "Well, look at the three of us! Just a trio of rule-breakers!"
Aziraphale grimaced. "I'm not a rule-breaker, I'm…"
Crowley interrupted. "Oh please. You can't possibly still believe that now. And speaking of which, Aziraphale, Adam and I were just discussing the details of the way things had been reset, after Armageddon was averted yesterday."
"Oh. Really?"
"Is there anything you'd like to say to Adam about the arrangement of your flat?" Crowley asked him pointedly.
Adam looked at him expectantly, with a face that seemed to suggest he was totally ready and willing to help…
Aziraphale looked back and forth between Crowley, Adam, and the ground, uncomfortably. "Oh… well…excellent question. Thank you, Crowley. Erm… well, Adam… I think…"
Crowley was holding his breath.
"No," Aziraphale said to Adam, finally. "You did a marvellous job. I absolutely adore the changes."
"So, no paint, chairs, kitchen, floor issues?" Crowley wondered, again, pointedly.
"No, no," Aziraphale chirped. "Everything is…"
"Please don't say tickety-boo. Please. I'll actually pay you not to say it."
"You're sure?" Adam asked Aziraphale.
The angel smiled. "Yes, young man. Your work has been top-notch."
"Okay," Adam shrugged. "I've got to go find Dog. Keep in touch, okay, guys?"
And with that, he ran off.
Angel and demon watched him go. After a few beats, Crowley said, "You absolutely adore the changes?"
"Well, of course I don't. The walls are dreary brown, the chairs are completely the wrong colour, that stove is cumbersome and hideous, and the parquet floor is…"
"I know. All wrong."
"Twice it's been all wrong! Not to mention the kitchen. But you know… he's just a boy, Crowley. He should be running through the field, looking for his Dog, and stealing from that apple tree, and living the rest of his life, not shoring up the details of my flat."
"I see."
"His Earthly presence is much grander than my own pedantic needs. Besides, he's the Antichrist. I'm an agnel. Can't very well ask him for help."
"You ask me for help all the time."
"That's different."
"So you're saying, the young Antichrist has got better things to do, even though the changes would take two seconds?"
"Yes, exactly."
"And you're still against the idea of either one of us miracling it fixed?"
"Well, yes… just doesn't seem a kosher use of our unique powers for something so trivial."
"Right," Crowley said, and he dared to reach out and grab Aziraphale's hand. "Message received."
What do you think? Too ambiguous?
Drop me a line, please, and let me know your thoughts! Thanks a lot for reading!