When Crowley opened his eyes, he didn't know where he was at first.

It took a moment to realise, to remember the place. The place that was nowhere, really.

Or Heaven, technically. But much further passed where even most angels tended to wander.

He sat up with ease, gave his neck a satisfying, painless crack. His wings were stretched out behind him, whole and healthy, and almost seemed to reflect the stars twinkling happily from all directions as he glanced around.

He could get used to this. It was nice and quiet. Peaceful. Beautiful.

Lonely.

"Hello, Crowley," said a voice, both in his head and all around him at once. It was so achingly familiar, even all these centuries later, that the sudden sorrow and pain it caused to tighten his chest was second only to the thought of Aziraphale, back on earth and so, so alone.

"Hi," he said, eventually, determined to sound uninterested despite the fact he was finally speaking with Her. The One he'd periodically been calling for throughout his long life. Calling for, and always remaining unanswered.

So yes. Uninterested, and angry. The latter didn't take much pretending.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Not where I thought I'd be," he admitted. "But it's an improvement over that, at least."

"Is it where you want to be?"

"Of course it isn't! You think I killed myself just for a quick trip up here? Please. It's not that great."

"Why'd you do it, then?"

He frowned, not exactly sure what direction he should be sending it, but he figured She would be seeing it nevertheless. "Why are you asking me so many questions?"

"I thought you liked questions, Crowley."

Oh, now She was just being cruel.

"Why are you calling me Crowley?" he countered, not quite ready to give in to that particular temptation being dangled in front of him. "Why not -"

"Crowley is the name you chose for yourself, is it not?"

"Oh, er, well yes. But you -"

She interrupted him again. "Then it's your name, and that's why I call you as such. So, Crowley, why did you kill yourself?"

He glanced down at his hands, no longer injured but also no longer existing at all, really - just balancing somewhere between the planes, wavering and translucent, while She apparently decided what to do with him.

Was this another trial?

"Seems a bit much, don't you think?" he asked finally, holding a hand out to see the way the starlight would shine through it. "God being the judge, jury, and executioner for lil old me."

"Crowley," said Her voice, with all the patience of someone with infinite experience in dealing with unruly children, and all the thinly veiled exasperation of someone who might much prefer to be doing anything else. "I can wait as long as it takes for an answer. We have all the time in the world."

And they really did, didn't they? All the time in the world, an eternity up in the stars. That didn't sound bad at all.

But it didn't sound like what he wanted, either.

He thought back on the moment, whether it had been only minutes ago or years, he really had no way of knowing. Reaching for the dagger to try and help Aziraphale, and having to turn it on himself in the end. What choice had he had, when he saw the Hellfire light up in her hand?

It wasn't a choice at all.

"She was going to destroy him, it was the quickest thing I could do. I had to save him."

"Because you love him." That one wasn't a question, only a statement.

"...yeah," the admission was easier up there, so far away from anyone who might overhear such a dangerous sentiment, far enough away for even the angels in Heaven not to eavesdrop. Still, it sounded just a bit too candid for him, and for this particular conversation, so he added a little scoff for good measure. "Duh."

"Demons aren't meant to commit such selfless acts of love," God said matter-of-factly, and Crowley laughed with little humour.

"Wow, so I'm terrible at my job. Never heard that one before."

There was no reply, and since She was right, they had all the time in the world, he decided he wouldn't be pressing the conversation onwards anytime soon.

It was hard to tell, lost both in thought and time among the stars, how long that resolve actually lasted. He leaned back on his hands to enjoy the view all around him, rolled his shoulders and flexed his wings and enjoyed all the painless movement that being incorporeal brought him.

And at some point, found himself staring back down towards the earth again, for a good long while.

"Will he be alright?" Crowley asked eventually, thinking that maybe, if he just tried hard enough, he might be able to focus on a little bookshop in Soho a million miles below them. "You know, eventually. When he's had a little time to get over it."

If he didn't know any better, he'd almost say She sounded a little sad. "You think he'd really just 'get over it'? Over you?"

It hurt, just to think about it. His angel, stuck on earth, without a 'side' to turn to and no one to look out for him. "Doesn't have much of a choice, really. And I'd want him to be happy again." Never before had he failed so spectacularly at sounding unconcerned.

"Do you want to go back?"

If he still had a heart, it would have started beating very, very quickly. Either that, or stopped entirely. "I didn't think that was how this works."

"It isn't, usually. But sometimes mistakes are made, and I can correct them."

"Mistakes? What mistake?"

"You, being here."

He glared again, at the endless stars in front of him and at Her as well, hopefully. "That wasn't a mistake! That was a choice, and a damned easy one as well."

No immediate reply, but now he was on a roll. It was back again, six thousand years of resentment and despondency bubbling up, no longer hidden behind a facade of indifference and designer sunglasses, and he didn't push it back down this time. "A mistake would be, oh I don't know, like the time you threw me out of Heaven? Like when you -"

"Now, now," the voice was almost haughty. "You're the one who ended up here. That's all I meant."

"I didn't deserve it!" Crowley was shouting now, hands balled into angry fists. First Aziraphale, and now this. If an incorporeal entity could shed tears, he'd probably be doing that too. "You know I didn't! And none of this would have happened now if -"

"- the world had ended a few short months ago. But, you played your part, and it didn't."

He opened his mouth to retort, but decided there was no point. He'd never get the response he'd been waiting lifetimes to hear. "Well then, I'm so glad all your game pieces on earth are still moving about all according to plan."

"The Plan, yes."

He sat for awhile, silently enraged, but didn't bring it up again. And again, he had no idea how much time really passed before he finally spoke. "Did you actually want the apocalypse to happen?"

"I could answer all your questions, Crowley, or I can send you back. We don't have time for both."

The blatant lie wasn't lost on him. "What happened to all the time in the world?"

"That's the problem. Generally speaking, sure, we have that. But the time in the world, that's kept going, for quite awhile now. We shouldn't keep Aziraphale waiting."

Crowley, who had been ready to fire back with something about time and stopping it and the ability to do whatever She pleased thanks to being God, faltered.

"Make your decision, Crowley."

He wanted his answers, more than almost anything, but he also knew this was a choice where he'd never get to take both options.

So that made the choice pretty easy.

"You're a harsh mistress," he declared, already reaching out to touch the slowly-spinning orb which had appeared in front of him the instant he'd made up his mind.

Her reply followed him a moment later as he began the speedy descent back towards the earth, and the one who was unknowingly waiting for him there.

"I prefer skeptically benevolent."


When Crowley opened his eyes, he knew exactly where he was.

He didn't need a moment to realise, or to remember the place. The place that was home, really.

He blinked slowly, once, twice, and focused on a pair of lovely blue eyes that always shined brighter than any star he'd ever made.

But now they were red-rimmed, and full of tears, and staring back at him with stunned incredulity, and none of those would do at all.

"Crowley?"

It almost wasn't fair, how many emotions his angel could fit into a single word. Especially when that word was his name.

"Hi," he tried to grin, but it was probably more a grimace as all of the physical injuries his body was still stuck with seemed to catch up at once. "God, human bodies can be so fragile."

He really shouldn't complain to Her, though. This was his choice, wasn't it?

And it definitely wasn't his primary concern when Aziraphale promptly burst into a fresh round of tears and pulled him impossibly closer in a borderline painful hug, but Crowley would rather die (again) than ask him to ease up.

"This isn't exactly the reaction I expected to welcome me back..." he said carefully, flexing stiff hands to get some blood moving again before wrapping his arms around the angel. He had his face tucked into the crook of Aziraphale's neck, so Crowley felt rather than saw his shaky chuckle as an answer.

"Rest assured they're happy tears, my dear. I thought...well, you were gone."

"She sent me back," Crowley answered with a tiny shrug. His back and shoulders were aching something terrible, but the pressure eased up a little when Aziraphale let go of him in order to pull away slightly and stare at him in surprise.

"She did?"

"Didn't want to keep me around, I guess," he shrugged again, managed to pull off a real grin, and it only grew when Aziraphale laughed quietly once more, somewhere between amazement and disbelief.

"Lucky for me," he pulled Crowley back into another embrace.

"I know. Who would be the test subject for all your cooking otherwise?"

"Shut up."

Crowley had never before heard those words spoken with such affection and adamance simultaneously, and hugged his angel back just a little more tightly.


"What do you think? More hot water? More bubbles?"

" 'ss perfect, angel. No need." Crowley didn't open his eyes. He would have waved a hand to dismiss the suggestions, but that would have required taking his arm out of the water, and he had no intention of doing any such thing.

And to think, Aziraphale had had to talk him into the bubble bath. When it had become apparent that the angel still wouldn't be able to heal any of his demonically-induced injuries, he had suggested the bath as an excellent way to reduce some aches and pains.

But 'suggested' was a kind term for it, because when Crowley had been less-than-enthusiastic, Aziraphale had made his mind up for him and carried more than led him towards the bathroom.

Now, submerged in soothing hot water that only left his head sticking out of a mountain of sweet-smelling bubbles, he couldn't imagine leaving it for the next decade or so.

Aziraphale - who had simply miracled himself a clean outfit when they moved rooms - didn't seem keen to leave him be and sat himself on the edge of the tub. "Well, let me check your back at least."

Crowley should have known better. Of course there was one thing that would get him to move. There always was, and always had been.

Still, that didn't stop him from making a bit of a fuss, giving the greatest sigh his damaged lungs would allow as Aziraphale held out a hand to help pull him into a sitting position. The angel couldn't stop the frown that flickered across his face as he saw Crowley's exposed torso, and the demon followed his gaze downwards.

The wound he'd inflicted on himself had closed, probably when he'd 'returned', but it certainly wasn't healed. Like a large, dark, bruise, directly over his heart.

"It doesn't hurt," he said after a moment, and the false confidence in his voice sounded weak even to him. But he was pretty sure it wasn't a lie - everything hurt, and he didn't think that one in particular was causing him any extra grief.

Aziraphale only pursed his lips and nodded before moving to take a look at the demon's back.

"It doesn't look...worse," he said, after taking a moment to carefully wipe away any lingering bubbles.

"Hmm, very persuasive."

"No, really," he did sound more convincing then, at least. "And the veins, or the webs, whatever you want to call it, they're fading already."

Crowley held a hand out of the water again to inspect it more carefully himself. Aziraphale was right, while they definitely weren't gone, they weren't as dark as they had been...before.

The angel said something about washing his hair, but Crowley only hummed his distant acknowledgement, still lost in thought as he studied the patterns on his arm, and the broken fingernails, and the only partially-healed knife wound through his hand, and the blisters across his palm.

He flinched when he felt Aziraphale's hands in his hair, but only a little. The angel's hands were only warm because of the water, and so, so gentle.

"So...so she's really gone, then?"

The hands paused, but only for a moment before they resumed softly massaging shampoo into his scalp. "Yes. And she won't be back."

"Sure about that?"

"Quite certain. She burned, because...because of what you did."

"Ah. Good." Crowley felt no need to elaborate further, just closed his eyes again and enjoyed the feeling of Aziraphale's hands in his hair.

He was almost asleep sitting up by the time the angel gently tipped his head back to rinse his hair, but he could feel the stare he was receiving when Aziraphale's hand didn't leave the back of his neck afterwards, so he dutifully held back a yawn and forced his eyes back open to meet his gaze.

"Why did you do it?"

He'd already answered that question once today.

"It's been a day, angel, I'm bloody tired, maybe -"

"Crowley."

The pleading tone would be too much for him on the best of days, never mind now. He let the guise crack, just a little more.

"I had to, Aziraphale." The angel opened his mouth to argue, but Crowley didn't give him the chance. "She would've destroyed you. Couldn't let that happen."

The look he was receiving now was much too reflective of what he was feeling, too much pensive understanding, and he had to drop his gaze as he quoted a conversation Aziraphale hadn't been present for. "I know, I know - demons aren't meant to commit such selfless acts of love."

"Is that what you'd call it?" Aziraphale's reply was so quiet, almost a whisper, and Crowley realised just a moment too late what he'd said.

He glared at the bubbles, knowing he wouldn't be able to blame the sudden heat in his cheeks on the steam from the water. "Er, that's, well you know that's what some would call it, anyway, and -"

"Whoever might call it that, I appreciate it, because I love you, too."

"- they don't know any better, because demons aren't ever nice, and - wait. What?"

"I love you, too."

"I...I never said..." Crowley's eyes snapped back up to meet Aziraphale's patient gaze, the small smile on his lips and the slightest flush across his own cheeks. Fuck it, he'd already said as much to God Herself, this should be nothing. "I mean. I love you. I mean, obviously."

He wanted nothing more than to sink back under the water when Aziraphale laughed quietly, but settled for a deep sigh. "Listen, angel, I never imagined this happening quite like this. I'm sitting in a bathtub."

"You are. And the bubbles in your hair are quite cute, actually."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake -"

"We can do it again later, if you like. You choose the time and the place."

Every day. Everywhere.

"Not when I'm in the bathtub."

Almost everywhere.


Tucked into Aziraphale's bed, wearing his cozy plaid housecoat and underneath half a dozen fluffy blankets while nestled into the angel's side also wasn't one of the many scenarios Crowley had imagined for such initial declarations.

But it was better.

"I love you," he said it again, and it was already easier.

"And I love you, dearest." It was fascinating, really, how his angel managed to fit so much of the word itself into just a few syllables.

Maybe it was exhaustion, or adrenaline, or an unholy combination of the two, but the next words were even easier. And he'd be better prepared, this time. "Will you kiss me?"

And when Aziraphale agreed, not with words but with soft, almost reverent actions, Crowley knew without questioning that his final choice in Heaven had been the best he'd ever made.