Angels Below

A Good Omens and Neverwhere fanfiction

Part 7 of 7

"You..." Crowley gestured at Door. "Opener girl – Lady Door."

"Yes?"

"Open the cabinet under the sink, there's a first aid kit – bind up Aziraphale's wound as best you can." Seeing her moving to obey him, registering that her hands – already under the sink, finding the kit – looked quick and capable enough, Crowley turned and began pulling back the wet towel and the items he'd used to barricade the bathroom door. "I'll be back."

Sandalphon pulled himself away from the tiny, huddled world he currently inhabited only with Gabriel, though he still clung to his friend's hand – fingers curled and interlocked – as he shifted his weight to glance around, and gawked disbelievingly at Crowley.

Door paused. "Islington will kill you."

Crowley inhaled a sharp, angry breath. "I'd like to see the sorry bastard try."

"For mercy's sake, Crowley, don't," came Aziraphale's faded croak from the tub. "Don't leave."

"Maybe I should–" began Gabriel, starting to rise and making a half-hearted attempt to free his hand from his best friend's tightened grasp. "Ow, Sandalphon."

"No, Gabriel." Crowley shook his head, hand on the doorknob. "I'm the only one in this flat immune to Hellfire" – and that included Islington, for all his psychotic bravado – "remember?"

"Gabriel, don't let him," rasped Aziraphale, as if the archangel could or would stop the demon.

But Gabriel – absolved of anything remotely resembling guilt by the demon's refusal of his perfunctory offer – looked away, clearly considering his duty quite done.

Crowley turned the knob, threw himself out, and slammed the door protectively behind him.

The angel in the tub moaned softly.

Islington was so startled by the bathroom door opening, he instinctively stepped back – and then Crowley was standing before him, glowering.

"You can't keep him from me for ever, Raphael."

"You think this is about Gabriel?" hissed Crowley, leaning closer to the angel. "You think I'd come out here to fight you over him?"

"Oh, I know it's not – but the fact remains that you're still in my way." He blinked, setting the still-open jar of Hellfire down in front of the door. His expression did not hold pity, as he was quite behind that at this point, but rather raw blame. "You know, if you'd gotten out of it sooner, your stout companion wouldn't have been hurt. Now you'll all suffer – all pay for what's been done to me."

Slamming his fists into Islington's chest, Crowley knocked the angel against the nearest wall. "If Aziraphale discorporates, if I lose him like this, your time in the underside will feel like a picnic compared to what I'll do to you – Heaven won't have anything left to punish."

"And if you touch me again, you sorry excuse for a fallen angel," whispered Islington, "I'll have your flaming head removed from your shoulders send it to Hell in a handbasket with a letter to Lucifer, reminding him that he's next." With that threat, raw power sparked from Islington, hot from long-term disuse, and sent Crowley rolling and skittering across the polished floor.

Crowley's thin body rolled to a stop, and Islington lifted a foot to kick him in the ribs.

A raised arm sent the angel sprawling in the opposite direction.

Risen to his knees, Crowley snarled and his black wings unfolded behind him, bristled and flapping angrily.

With raw hatred burning in their eyes, glowing respectively pearl and amber, the two beings of angelic origins charged at each other.

Door had lifted Aziraphale up so she could bind his wound. She had very little experience binding wounds, save her own – the one or the twice – but she did her best. It didn't help that his blood kept seeping through, turning white bandages into spreading puddles of scarlet.

Face gone white as chalk, Aziraphale scarcely noted her efforts, though they bordered on herculean; he was too busy trying to reason with Gabriel.

"They'll be murdering each other out there!" wheezed the angel. "He was like you once, Gabriel – he was an archangel, he was Raphael – shouldn't that mean something to you?"

"No," snapped Sandalphon, petulantly, now clutching at Gabriel's arm rather desperately. "It doesn't."

But Gabriel was quite changed. There was somebody a little – a very little – nicer behind his violet eyes in that moment, somebody who wasn't entirely unreachable.

He wrangled free of a sputtering, almost crying Sandalphon – whose face was flickering between shades of outraged crimson and a strangled purple almost the same shade as Gabriel's own eyes – and made for the door, opting to kick it open rather than to struggle with the knob.

"Oh, good lord," sighed the Marquis de Carabas, rolling his eyes and sitting down on the toilet-seat with a tired shake of his head. "One of you please be so good as to remind me never to leave London Below again – regardless of the reason – for as long as I happen to live. That is, if I live long enough to return there, which – quite frankly – is looking more doubtful by the second."

"Hey!" Gabriel bellowed into the hallway, which had grown a little lighter as it was nearly dawn. "Islington!"

Two bloodied faces several feet away turned to look at him. Crowley blessed under his breath; Islington's red smile, complete with a split lip, spread at the sight of him.

It made a running leap for the jar of Hellfire, half-buried under the splintered wood of the bathroom door.

Crowley snagged its legs and sent it crashing to the floor face-first, bloodying the angel's nose again upon impact.

A wind that might have been from Gabriel's power, or a sort of repellent polar reaction of demonic and angel power not mixing well, or from something entirely else, sucked the three of them down the rest of the hallway, past Crowley's office and the lounge, leaving them sprawled in the open space.

Something glowing a celestial blue crashed through the window. A shard of shattered glass cut one of Crowley's cheeks, making a neat, clean slice.

A stream of red running down the side of his face, Crowley blessed again and shielded his eyes with a raised arm. Lowering it slowly, he saw the light dimming enough to make out the familiar figure of Michael, followed by another flashing glow – this one more greenish-blue – which turned out to be Uriel.

"This stops here, Islington," said Michael, her voice flat, no-nonsense.

It roared in animalistic rage, and – nearly back on its feet – attempted to fly off through the broken window.

The floor bubbled, rippling and turning an ashy texture as something rose from it.

"Well, shit," murmured Crowley.

It was Beelzebub – and she did not look happy. "We've had quite enough of you as well, angel Islington." Her hand grabbed Islington's left wing and yanked. Her fingernails darkened and spread into talons which dug into and pierced its grey wings, holding it firmly in place. "If you think you're running off and leaving us with mountains of paperwork after this – think again."

A small smile of satisfaction, of relief started to curl up in the corners of Crowley's mouth before a bad feeling enveloped him and he realised – almost immediately – what it was.

The demon's face fell.

"No, no, no, no." He ran by Gabriel and the others, ignoring them as they bound Islington's hands behind his back and Beelzebub dutifully collected the jar of Hellfire, containing it safely.

Good for them. But what was happening beyond them mattered far more.

Crowley leaped over the broken wood, landing on the cool tile of the bathroom floor.

Within, Sandalphon was straightening his jacket, looking disconcerted; Door's elfin face was tear-stained, her opal eyes puffy; and de Carabas, wringing his hands, kept clearing his throat awkwardly.

Ignoring Sandalphon's hurried question about if Gabriel was all right, Crowley threw himself down hard beside the tub and looked down into it.

There was no angel there. No Aziraphale.

His blood was there, a little, still caked around the drain, but that too was fading – the way all physical parts of an angel tended to dispose of themselves after discorporation – to avoid improper human usage of the remains, which both Heaven and Hell silently agreed didn't benefit either side.

Crowley stared, as if the scene could correct itself.

As if, if he waited a few more minutes, Aziraphale's body could reappear.

Of course, it couldn't, and so it didn't.

A hand patted Crowley's shoulder. "There, there," said de Carabas, well-meaning but ill-suited to this manner of thing – a bit like Crowley himself in that respect, actually. "There."

Crowley brushed the hand off with a weak shudder – he was lost to everything that wasn't his own wretchedness just now.

Aziraphale was right; he shouldn't have gone out to fight Islington. He should have spent the last few moments here, with his best friend, before it was too late. The archangels and Beelzebub would have sorted it out eventually – as they were doing now – anyway.

His bloodied face drawn in and completely helpless, his dilated eyes were at their most snake-like as he continued to stare brokenly at the empty tub.

The demon choked out, disbelievingly, the only words that still had any meaning left for him. "You've gone."

"Hello?" the bodiless angel called into the empty white space. "Hello?"

No one answered.

Was he trapped? Was this a locked cell?

It didn't seem to be.

He walked, nobody stopped him.

Earth spun a few feet away, large and blue and impressive. A glimmering jewel in a glowing white box.

A pair of low-ranking angels, looking anxious, hurried past him.

"Excuse me, frightfully sorry to disturb you, but–"

They didn't stop – nor did they seem to realise or care he had no body.

Was this because they were worried, all of Heaven on alert, on account of Islington? Or was it because he'd spent rather a lot of time in London Below lately?

Well, either way, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, what.

The bodiless angel quickened his pace, stood beside the spinning earth, sighed, and stretched out an exquisitely manicured hand.

He'd figure it out as he went.

Again.

If things had been different, Crowley would have cared about a lot of things.

He would have cared about the broken windows, for a start. (Who exactly did the archangels, having gone in for the most dramatic arrival when they could've just used the bloody buzzer or, as time had been of the essence, at least miracled the windows open instead of shattering them into a million tiny pieces, think they were? Leaving him with a mess like that!)

He would have cared about the fact that nobody could agree on what was to be done with Islington, now that he'd been captured.

Heaven wanted a speedy execution – Hell wanted, ironically, to keep him alive, though only because no one knew, even now, who his demonic source on everything happening in London Above during his absence was and wanted to torture him until he ratted out the traitor.

But how could Crowley care about any of that with Aziraphale gone? Discorporated. Trapped in Heaven, maybe for ever. What did it matter? Angels, demons. Crowley was beyond hatred and blame. They were all bastards. Each and every damned one of them. He wanted back what they'd taken from him – he wanted his friend. And he didn't dare hope they'd give that to him.

He was in despair.

Behind him, Lady Door was acting strangely. After letting out a strangled yelp only the marquis even bothered to acknowledge, she said, tersely, "I don't...I don't think I like this..."

"Eh?" Crowley turned, thinking she was referring to something the arguing archangels and Beelzebub were saying (something had been done to make Islington temporarily incapable of speech so his wild threats wouldn't drown out their conversation).

She didn't respond to the demon; she appeared to be talking to herself, reassuring herself that it was all right. In a very different voice, once she was calmer: "Oh my, it's much roomier in here than I thought it would be."

Crowley frowned. What the devil was she on about? Was the flat bigger than whatever she was used to?

"I suppose," Michael said, breaking away from the others, "that some manner of reward or commendation is in order for Crowley." She glanced at Beelzebub. "Perhaps that should be your doing? He's a demon, after all."

"He'z not one of uzz," snapped Beelzebub, side-eyeing Crowley pointedly. "Not anymore."

"Well," Uriel put in, "he certainly isn't one of us."

Sandalphon shrugged. "Don't see why he should get anything. Doesn't need anything, really."

"What about his friend?" de Carabas cut in. "He seems rather upset about that."

"Right, of course." Beelzebub, glancing from de Carabas to Michael, crinkled her forehead under her fly-shaped hat. "Naturally. But, um, which friend'zz that?"

"The angel Aziraphale, I would imagine," said Michael, shaking her head. "But it's quite impossible."

Gabriel hesitated. "Maybe we should just give Aziraphale a new body – this once – and tell him to stay out of trouble."

Crowley's eyes widened. He had not expected this. Not from Gabriel of all people.

"What?" exclaimed Sandalphon. "We couldn't do that – Aziraphale is..."

"Is what?" hissed Crowley.

"It isn't that," explained Michael, straightening her cuff. "At the moment, Islington's trial surpasses any punishment Aziraphale deserves. Aziraphale is many things – but he isn't dangerous, and he's never tried to start a war."

"No," Crowley put in, heavily sardonic, "not even when you told him to."

"The problem is, quite simply," Michael went on, ignoring him, "Aziraphale is not in Heaven."

"What?" Crowley felt his chest clench.

"I'd know if he was," she insisted. "It's my job to know. He isn't."

"But..." Door stepped forward, and – unexpectedly – slipped her small hand into Crowley's, giving it a friendly squeeze. "If you knew where he was... Would you consider – as a gift to Crowley for letting Gabriel use the flat – giving him another body?"

Crowley stared, puzzled, down at the hand in his own. Door barely knew him. Why was she suddenly so comfortable, so familiar with him? His eyes followed her arm, looked at her face, struggled to see what was possibly there yet just as possibly wasn't.

Just who was looking out at him from behind those opal eyes? He didn't know Door well enough to tell the difference.

"Just this once," Gabriel agreed solemnly. "As the circumstances of the last few days have been beyond all of us." Then his violet eyes darkened and Crowley knew Gabriel was still Gabriel. "But Aziraphale had better give us a wide berth with it – next time he finds himself without one, he's got a hell of a lot to answer for. And we'll see to it that he begins with the fact that he somehow feigned immunity to Hellfire."

Michael gnawed on her lower lip, considering. "I think Heaven can live with these terms."

"That's all right, then." Door brightened, squeezed Crowley's hand again, let go, then began walking down the hallway with a light-hearted skip.

Crowley followed her, the Marquis de Carabas not far behind, clearly a little concerned.

Door began opening cupboards and taking out the black, copper-rimmed teacups, which she set down merrily on the worktop. "Would either of you care for tea? I'm about to put the kettle on."

"Are you feeling all right?" asked de Carabas, haltingly.

"Absolutely tickety-boo." She moved a stray lock of hair from her face and smiled over her shoulder.

Crowley beamed involuntarily back at her – well, at him, at Aziraphale, inside her, looking out slyly.

"You're not Door," de Carabas realised. "Are you?"

"No, dear Marquis, I'm afraid not." Her hands filled the kettle; her lips moved, as the angel inside her head whistled a hosanna contentedly.

"Where is she?" He cleared his throat, attempting to sound dispassionate. "That is, she still owes me rather a large favour and–"

"Oh, don't worry, she's in here – there's just a lot more room inside her head than there was in Madame Tracy's. I've got a bit more control, kindly allowed the run of the place by the thoughtful young lady in question." Her hands took Aziraphale's favourite teaspoons from the drawer and set them beside the teacups and matching saucers. "But now that Heaven has promised me a new body I won't impose on her hospitality for much longer. Everything's going to work out now. It's all going to be quite lovely."

"Aziraphale, you stupid–" blurted Crowley, leaning across the island.

Door's hand reached over and pressed itself flat against Crowley's cut cheek from earlier, healing it. Then, he said, "Crowley, my dear, if you wouldn't mind getting a few things down for me?" And the accompanying angelic megawatt smile, even though it was on Door's face, was so shamelessly – so utterly – Aziraphale, Crowley stood no chance against it. "Lady Door can't quite reach everything I'm used to fetching for tea. The tray, for a start."

Crowley could have said a million things. That Aziraphale had scared him and he was furious. That there was no point fixing tea for a bunch of fussy supernatural entities who sure as anything weren't going to drink it. That there was so much still unresolved and, even supposing the archangels kept their word and he was given a new body, things wouldn't go back to how they'd been before all this, not exactly, because how could they?

That–

He could have said, but he didn't.

They were all gathered around the pool at the Lady Door's house. It was an associative house, meaning this room was not attached to any of the others and – without her opening it up for them and coming along – no one could leave the pool and go elsewhere.

So, for just now, only the pool room was accessible and open to those she wished it to be.

This made it somewhat ideal for a meeting of demons and angels – no one could go too far off to scheme, if they wished to scheme.

Door was uneasy, the last time she'd been near this pool, she'd seen her dead brother floating in it. But at least her mind was her own again; the angel Aziraphale – in a body that looked very much the same as the one that had danced the gavotte with her – was a few feet away, munching on the hors d'oeuvres she'd set out while Crowley circled around him, peering anxiously over at Gabriel and Beelzebub, whose heads were bent close together.

"If they're getting along," murmured Aziraphale over his shoulder to Crowley, swallowing, "this may not be good. It could be the start of what you predicted – demons and angels against...against..." He trailed off, as if it were unbearable to finish.

The demon grimaced.

Beelzebub suddenly broke off from her huddle with Gabriel, whose arms were folded angrily across his chest, and stormed past them, muttering, "Azzhole."

"Uh... Right. I don't think we have anything to worry about," Crowley sighed, relieved. "Not yet."

"What do you suppose they'll do with Islington?" Aziraphale wondered next. "I mean, if they don't destroy him, and he comes back..."

"You really think they'll let him out of their sight again?" snorted Crowley, shaking his head. "Not even Gabriel is that dense. Islington's bound to be under constant surveillance in Heaven from now on. Or Hell, if Beelzebub eventually gets her way."

"Am I late for the party?" said a voice that was unfamiliar to the angels and demons present but very dear to Door, who whirled around and raced towards it.

"Richard!"

The Marquis de Carabas stood by the side of a young Scottish man, into whose arms Door flung herself, squealing with unrestrained delight. "Look who I found lurking about the outskirts of London Above – calling out for us like a lost child."

"Isn't that touching?" Aziraphale smiled warmly at the reunited pair. The principality felt slightly less apprehensive about leaving her behind in London Below for ever, knowing they'd likely never meet again, now that she had Richard back for company.

"I expect," Crowley sniffed, giving a little shrug of forced carelessness, "you'll want to be getting back to your bookshop, now that things are falling back into place?"

"Oh, there's no hurry," Aziraphale said gently, giving his friend a slight nudge with the corner of his elbow. "I thought perhaps we could have dinner somewhere nice. We could talk about my time in London Below and how you got on with Gabriel – I'm simply dying to learn if the police were ever actually called. And I expect it'll be easier for you to just drive us back to the flat again after we've finished eating." He linked his arm around Crowley's companionably. "The closed sign's still up in the shop – it can always wait another day or two."

Perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout on the nature of reality – on the gaps between London Above and London Below – for shortly before closing, following the first day after Aziraphale reopened the bookshop, he sold a copy of Mansfield Park he had not previously known he possessed.

Nobody save the angel himself saw the buyer – a rather messy-looking, red-haired girl practically drowning in the oversized leather jacket she wore over her mismatched clothing – but she was there, right enough.

fin

A/N: Reviews welcome. Hope you all liked the ending. Replies may be delayed.