XVI — An Unavoidable Goodbye
"Well," Aziraphale said slowly, "she doesn't seem terribly interested in what we're selling, so to speak."
"She doesn't know what we know." Castiel hammered on the door, his patience seeming to have expired upon the witch denying them entrance to her home. "Rowena! I have information you'll want to hear."
"Away and boil your head!" snapped Rowena from within, her voice muffled.
"Oh, Scottish," Aziraphale observed.
Castiel shot him a questioning look.
"They're an angry people," Aziraphale explained, but it didn't seem to register with Castiel.(1)
The other angel just shook his head, then turned to the door. "We don't have time for this," he said decisively, then held up his hand.
"Wait, what are you—"
Castiel blew the door off its hinges.
Aziraphale blinked. "Oh my."
Rowena was waiting for them when Castiel calmly stepped through the now empty threshold, Aziraphale following hesitantly behind him. "Ah, hello," Aziraphale greeted, fiddling with his pinkie ring and wondering if this was truly advisable.
"We need to talk," Castiel said flatly.
The witch had both her hands raised, purple energy buzzing between her fingers. "I've cursed you before, Castiel, and just because we're a wee bit closer now doesn't mean I won't do it again. You stopped me from resurrecting my son—twice—I want nothing to do with you at the moment." Her eyes flicked briefly to Aziraphale. "Who's the posh jessie?"
"The best friend of the demon you accidentally summoned here," Castiel elaborated.
The purplish energy died down somewhat, waiting. She gave Aziraphale another look, with a kind of shrewd calculation that echoed her son's with great accuracy. "But he's an angel."
"He is. His name is Aziraphale."
"So...you're not here to get me to help you do away with the Serpent, then?"
"No. Crowley turned out to not be a problem. The opposite, actually. He and Aziraphale have done a great deal for us in the few days they've been in this universe."
"This universe?" Rowena's eyes narrowed.
"Yes," Aziraphale said, speaking up. "A small error in pronunciation, my dear, perfectly understandable, but I must commend you—your magic was strong enough to draw Crowley here in lieu of your son. No small feat, to tear open a hole in the universe and yank a demon through."
He wasn't angry at the witch for giving him the absolutely enormous fright that something dire may have happened to Crowley—she had wanted nothing more than to bring her child back to life. How could he begrudge her that? Plus, regardless of the relative stress of the past few days...the end result had been overwhelmingly worth it.
"If you're not here for help, why are you here? You boys never show up on my doorstep if you don't need something," Rowena asked, but she let her hands drop. "Also, Castiel, you'll be fixing that door before you go."
"Allow me," Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the door righted itself, reattached itself to its hinges, and swung shut with a quiet click.
"A polite angel. Now I've seen everything," Rowena commented with dim surprise.
"We do need your help, Rowena, but it's something small. It's just a matter of needing something now rather than later," Castiel told her.
Aziraphale side-eyed Castiel, wondering why they hadn't opened with, "Oh yes hello Rowena, did you know your son is alive and well?" However, Castiel knew this universe and this witch, and Aziraphale did not, so he let the other angel stay in the lead.
She rolled her eyes. "Of course you do. Did you miss that bit where I said I want nothing to do with you?"
"And did you miss it when I said that I have information you'll want? Which I will tell you..." Castiel stepped forward, closer to Rowena. "If you agree to help us."
She grinned up at the angel. "Castiel, you wee devilish peach, are you trying to extort me?"
"Is it working?"
She bounced her eyebrows. "Sexy." A short sigh. "Fine then, what do you want?"
"A manner of communication between our universe, and Aziraphale and Crowley's."
Rowena seemed faintly taken aback. "Made friends quickly, have we?"
"A lot has happened in a very short amount of time," Castiel replied.
"A brothers in arms sort of situation," Aziraphale added helpfully.
"Does this have something to do with the ever-so-precious information you're going to tell me?" Rowena asked, already weaving deeper into her home, through the living room and into the kitchen. Aziraphale heard distant sounds of cupboard-rifling.
"Partially," said Castiel, following after, and Aziraphale tailed behind him. "Do you think it's something you can accomplish, and quickly?"
"I've got the Book of the Damned, you doaty featherhead, there's very little I can't accomplish. I've been wanting to try this enchantment for a time, anyhow." She produced a few jars and vials of ambiguous ingredients a moment later, and a large bowl. Some things didn't change between universes, it seemed. Witchcraft largely was composed of more-or-less occult baking. "Smart of you to bring your new friend—I'll need his help for this."
Aziraphale brightened, a rise of scholarly interest springing to life in him. "How may I assist you?" he asked graciously.
Rowena tossed him a bit of chalk she had on top of her fridge, and Aziraphale managed to catch it before it hit the ground. "Your name—your real name, the Enochian sigil for it. Draw it on the farther end of the dining table. I'll mop it off later. And Castiel, go to my bedroom, grab the hand mirror on the dresser."
The two angels obeyed the witch. Castiel returned with the mirror, and Aziraphale, with a steady hand, deftly signed his name on the table. A bowl was sat in the table's center. Rowena then instructed Castiel to do the same with his own Enochian name, and Aziraphale passed the chalk off to his brother. Castiel, with a few short strokes, signed his own name on the table's other end.
Rowena worked over the bowl, mixing herbs and liquids from unlabeled jars. The smell in the air was noxious, to say the least.
"A physical object from both universes," Rowena rattled off next. She undid Castiel's tie from around his neck, and he made no move to stop her, though he did look vaguely confused. "Easy enough on our end. Posh Angel, the last ingredient is up to you."
"Something from my universe?" Aziraphale frowned. "I don't really have anything on me at present, save my clothes...would a hair do?"
"Not for this. No biological material."
A deeper frown. With great reluctance, he began undoing his bow-tie. He'd had this particular bow-tie for almost fifty years(2), and he was ever-so-reluctant to part with it—but, the situation called for it, and patently refusing on the grounds of his sentimental attachment to his clothing seemed all-together foolish.
Aziraphale draped it in the bowl over Castiel's tie, with no small amount of wistfulness.
Castiel passed her the hand mirror. "Is this all we need?"
"Yes. Let me double check the enchantment, but it should only take a tick," she replied, swiftly departing to the room beyond the kitchen, a small study by the looks of it. Aziraphale's instinct was to follow, but feared appearing rude, so he settled on inwardly fantasizing about what books Rowena might have in her possession, things he would never see in his own universe.
He went to Castiel's side, asking quietly, "And just to be clear, you do trust Rowena?"
Castiel paused for a long moment before answering. "To do this, yes."
"My dear fellow, that does not inspire much confidence."
Rowena returned with the Book of the Damned, setting it on the counter and flipping it open. Rowena didn't miss the way Castiel's eyes fixed on it. "You can take it if you want, Castiel," she said with a self-assured smirk, "but I've copied it all down. Hundreds of times. Scattered it all to the four winds, dozens of little hidey-holes, and you'll never find them all." She winked. "But nice try."
Castiel offered no response, only frowning.
"Let's get to it then, shall we? Stand by your names. Grab hands."
They obeyed, gripping each other's hands, their names and the bowl between them. Rowena moved towards the table, the book cradled in one arm, the mirror in the other. She tossed it in the bowl, then snapped her fingers, and brilliant blue flames swallowed everything within, mirror included.
She began to chant. Aziraphale identified it as Latin. "Partum un ponte, speculo...hi angeli muta auxilium."
A few more phrases, than a repetition of the first phase, and the flames rocketed high, nearly touching the ceiling. Mercifully smokeless, lest the fire alarms start sounding.
When the fire faded, there was nothing left in the bowl but the mirror, now suffused by a crystalline aura. Castiel and Aziraphale carefully released hands, and it was Aziraphale who picked the mirror up to inspect it first.
"So how will this work?" Castiel asked as Aziraphale turned the mirror over in his hand. He could sense it was enchanted, and heavily, too, but when he looked in it, he saw only his own eyes.
"I'll just demonstrate. Come now, Castiel." She went to the bathroom down the hall, and he trailed after her apprehensively. Aziraphale leaned around the corner so he could see what they were doing. Rowena grabbed Castiel's wrist and held his hand in front of the mirror. "The phrase I started the enchantment with, say that three times."
"Partum un ponte, speculo. Partum un ponte, speculo. Partum un ponte, speculo."
Aziraphale turned his eyes down to the hand mirror, sensing a change. The surface rippled, then revealed Castiel and Rowena, from within the bathroom. Aziraphale smiled a little, lifting a hand. "It appears to have worked. And this will function the same even once Crowley and I return home?"
"No matter where you are in time or space," Rowena confirmed.
"Thank you, Rowena." Castiel said. The connection cut, and then they returned to the kitchen.
"Decide which one of you gets the mirror," Rowena said, "and then tell me whatever precious information it is you think I would want to know."
Aziraphale gazed down at the mirror contemplatively. It wasn't that he considered himself irresponsible, far from it—but, things in the shop that were not books did have the...habit...of misplacing themselves. He could find you any volume he had every acquired in his long life in under thirty seconds, knowing intrinsically where every single book in the shop was, arranged in a scheme only he completely knew or understood.(3) However, other miscellaneous items were not so easily found. Crowley had once lost a pair of shoes in the shop one drunken night, and they had not resurfaced until three decades later. Aziraphale occasionally wondered if the building had, like the Bentley, attained some slight degree of consciousness from being inhabited by a celestial being for so long that it just ate things that weren't deemed important.
"Best that Castiel take the mirror, I think," Aziraphale eventually decided, handing the mirror the other angel.
Castiel accepted it with a nod before tucking it into one of the deeper pockets of his trench coat. The angel turned to Rowena. "Crowley's been resurrected. He's at the bunker, alive and well."
Aziraphale thought the revelation may have been a little abrupt, but said nothing.
All the color drained from Rowena's face. "You're lying," she spat.
"You've told me before I'm a terrible liar." Cas took a step closer to her. "Am I lying, Rowena?"
She gazed up at him, a sheen of tears in her eyes. Something seemed to shift in her, and she insisted, "Take me to him."
"Ah," Aziraphale raised a finger. "Perhaps, not now? He does still seem to be...processing his resurrection, such as it is." And by processing he largely meant that the King of Hell appeared to have less than zero interest in seeing his mother and had specifically told them not to contact her. Not that he was in the business of listening to demons, with one notable exception, but he didn't think it wise to make enemies in another universe. They had enough in their own to last them a very long time indeed.
"You should wait for him to come to you," Castiel agreed levelly. "Your relationship prior to his death was...complicated, to say the least."
"You tell me my son is alive but you won't take me to him? I'll get myself there if you don't take me, you know I will."
Castiel rubbed a hand over his face. "Fine, but the consequences are yours to deal with. You have to understand he won't be as happy to see you as you are to see him."
Rowena seemed unbothered. "Doesn't matter. He'll see soon enough...things will be different this time."
Crowley sat cross-legged on the counter in the kitchen, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch in his lap, given to him by the King of Hell just a few minutes before with a comment of, "Maybe it'll stop you from bloody pacing for five seconds."(4)
Crowley wasn't much one for reading—audio books were fine, but snake eyes weren't exactly made for squinting at tiny words. Still, given the story was supposedly about he and Aziraphale, he might as well at least flip through. He didn't know how to feel about the cartoonish version of himself splayed over the cover in a 'paint me like one of your French girls' pose, but otherwise the book hadn't been vastly offensive to him thus far, from the bits and pieces he'd read. Maybe not Nice or Accurate, but at least well written.
"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
"How?"
"It doesn't matter!"
"It could use a spaceship," said the angel.
Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird—"
"Only if it is the END of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those spaceships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to—" He hesitated. "What have they got to do?"
"Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back—"
"—in the spaceship."
"And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.
"You having fun with that?" asked a groggy Dean at the kitchen table, alternating between bites of toast and sips of coffee.(5) Jack sat next to him, minding a bowl of cereal. "I couldn't even make it through ten of ours. Think I gave up around Bugs."
"I read them all, I didn't think they were that bad," said Jack.
"Yeah, well no offense kid, but you're two. You'll develop better taste as you get older. Chuck's books are shit. Makes sense, his whole universe is shit."
"Sorry, weren't you telling me off for saying that just the other day?" Crowley asked dryly.
Dean shrugged a shoulder. "I like you more now."
"Stop, you'll make me go all warm and fuzzy," Crowley said sarcastically. "And frankly, no, not having much fun. These blokes are nothing like us. They're total idiots."
Dean remained notably silent.
They heard the bunker door open upstairs, and Crowley immediately hopped off the counter. Crowley was out in the foyer in a moment. Other Crowley sat at the strategy table with Sam, alternating between a glass of scotch and a crossword, with Sam on his laptop.
"All I'm saying, Moose, is that you have a golden zone—just about two inches below the ears, and when you go out in the sun, you get these lovely natural highlights—"
"Exactly how much attention have you been paying to my hair over the years?"
"Guys," Dean voiced, pointing towards the top of the staircase, and the footsteps steadily approach. Sam and Crowley broke away from their argument to look upwards, and Cas and Aziraphale stepped into sight.
With the ginger witch following shortly behind them.
So THAT was the important business, eh? Family reunion? Crowley had no idea why Castiel would have deemed it necessary to bring Aziraphale along.
Other Crowley stiffened dramatically in his seat, hands frozen inches from his glass of scotch, and similarly, Rowena stopped halfway down the stairs, eyes hitting her son.
"Fergus," she breathed, a complicated expression on her face, somewhere between apprehension and relief.
Other Crowley acknowledged her with a far less positive attitude: "Mother."
Rowena opened her mouth to say more—
Other Crowley vanished.
Aziraphale frowned. "I did wonder if that would be his reaction."
Castiel's brow furrowed. "I didn't think he would leave."
Dean crossed his arms, looking at Cas and Aziraphale. "You guys really think that was a good idea?"
"Good is irrelevant. She helped us, and we owed her this," Cas answered.
"He...was rather adamant earlier," Aziraphale pointed out lightly, before finishing his descent down the stairs and bee-lining to Crowley. "Hello, my dear." His eyes widened when he noticed the book tucked under Crowley's arm. "You're reading it!" the angel beamed.
Crowley reflexively smiled back. "Call me personally invested."
"I'm eager to sit down with it."
Crowley's attention drifted to the notable absence at Aziraphale's neck. "You're indecent," he observed mildly.
"Long story. Tell you later," the angel replied, but let out a quiet yip of surprise when Crowley's hand grazed his neck, and then proceeded to undo his top two buttons.
"Fashion, angel," he explained shortly. "Never do up the top few if you haven't got a tie."
Aziraphale blushed, which delighted every wicked part of Crowley.
Meanwhile, Rowena's face was taut with irritation. "He can't avoid me forever."
"I mean, he's petty and immortal," Sam pointed out. "So...technically he can."
"You can't expect everything to just be okay overnight," Dean told her. "You got a lot of making up to do, and he doesn't owe you anything."
"Oh, look at this! White Knight Dean Winchester has found a new princess to defend!" snapped the witch. "I'm staying here until he returns. He'll come back here eventually, he always does."
None of them seemed particularly bothered by that, and Crowley could only assume the witch had stayed with them before. The Winchesters seemed to have very blurry lines between friends and enemies.
"So this is what you two went to do?" Sam asked, flicking his eyes between Castiel and Aziraphale.
"We actually had a purpose beyond that." Cas retrieved an ornate hand mirror from within his trench coat. "A method of communication between our two universes, so we can remain in contact, and call upon each other if something goes wrong."
"A mutual, cross-reality partnership of sorts," Aziraphale provided, seeming pleased.
Dean bounced his eyebrows. "Cool."
"You're welcome," Rowena said loudly. She sighed and walked through the crowd of them, heading down the hall to where all the bedrooms were. "I'll be in my cups. Tell me if my hellspawn returns, would you?"
"Stay more than three days and we're charging you rent," Dean hollered after her, but she offered no response.
Jack checked the clock. "How much longer do you guys have?" It was just after six in the morning.
"Not long, I'm afraid. We do need to be going," Aziraphale said, with a hint of melancholy. Crowley couldn't claim to be upset to be going home, in any way, shape, or form. This little involuntary trip had its moments, but he knew very well they were pushing their luck staying in what looked to be pretty much a godless universe. He didn't have a great relationship with Her, not after, well, everything. But this had at least served to put things in perspective. She did care. At least enough to not let an absolute mess like the Winchesters' world happen.
"We'll drive you guys to the Gate, just in case things get weird," Dean offered. He turned to Jack. "You're still grounded, so you get to stay here and make sure Rowena doesn't fuck up any of our shit while we're gone."
The Nephil seemed dejected, but nodded anyway. "Okay. I will."
"Oh! Before we get going..." Sam hurried out of the room for a moment, into the library, and returned with a stack of books, bound neatly with string. He offered them to Aziraphale. "I thought you might want some souvenirs. We don't really use any of these anymore—just lore books, but with the way you talk about your shop..."
"I'm touched," Aziraphale answered with a warm smile, accepting the gift from Sam. "Thank you, Sam. I do so appreciate it. They'll be quite literally one of a kind back home."
"I just wanted to give you a garbage bag filled with the Supernatural books, but Sam figured you might like this better," Dean said blandly. "Alright, we heading out?" He looked to Sam and Cas for confirmation, earning nods from each.
"My plants are probably wilting," Crowley mourned.
"I'm sure Anathema thought to take care of them," Aziraphale comforted him gently.
"Let's go." Dean made for the stairs to the garage. Sam and Cas followed afterwards. Jack hesitated, looking beseechingly at Crowley and Aziraphale.
"All is forgiven, Jack," Aziraphale told him sincerely. "It was a pleasure."
Crowley thought that was a bit of an overstatement, but said nothing.
"Thank you," Jack said, voice thick. "For Castiel. I'm sorry for what I did, but..."
"He's your father," Crowley admitted begrudgingly. "Family makes morons of us all."
Jack took that as the closest to forgiveness he was going to get. "Be careful in Heaven."
Crowley snorted. "Always am."
With that, they followed the Winchesters, setting off down the hall, tracking the echoing of their footsteps.
Crowley, with great care, grasped Aziraphale's free hand, the one not toting his freshly gifted books.
Aziraphale smiled.
"I can do this now," Crowley said, with no small amount of amazement.
"Indeed you can," confirmed Aziraphale, looking at him in such a tender way that Crowley thought his heart was like to melt. Every instance of unguarded affection peeled away more and more of him, and he wasn't sure whether he was thrilled or terrified at being stripped utterly bare by Aziraphale.
Both, actually. Probably definitely both.
Crowley smiled back at Aziraphale. "Let's go home, angel."
1. A large percentage of Castiel's human interactions were made up of time spent with the Winchesters and Bobby. Thusly, he assumed all humans were angry.
2. Gieves & Hawkes, in 1969—he'd exchanged his cravat for a bow-tie and had not had any desire to change since. Nor had he bothered to get a new one, as the bespoke fashion that once dominated Savile Row had been traded out in favor of more typically modern, sleek suits, and tartan was certainly on no one's agenda. Essentially, as soon as Crowley started shopping there, Aziraphale stopped.
3. That scheme was Chaos, and hence why Crowley enjoyed the bookshop so much. How many people had shaved off the top layers of their soul spending hours in Aziraphale's bookshop, trying to dig through the mass disorganization to find what they were looking for?
4. A simple text exchange between Castiel and Dean had confirmed that he and Aziraphale were fine, just "doing something important but nothing lethal" and would be back momentarily. Crowley had been understandably concerned, wondering how far the apple fell from the tree when it came to Cas, Jack, and lying for the greater good.
5. Dean had gone so far as to drive to the gas station down the road and obtain a cup of coffee there, claiming he didn't trust anything within a thousand feet of Crowley.