A/N: Thank you to my guest reviewer. You've been lovely and I'm enjoying reading your comments so much! I'm so glad you're enjoying this.

Also, this was originally going to be a 3-shot story but I've decided to go ahead and divide my planned ending into two chapters, making it a four-parter instead. It just seems better paced this way. So the next chapter will be the last. I'm sorry if this confuses/disappoints any readers out there, 'twas not my intention.

The Sort of Thing You Forget

A Good Omens fanfiction

Part 3 of 4

A scruffy young man jumped out from an alleyway which adjoined to the last street before it was very nearly a straight shot to the bookshop. He drew a stiletto from under his dark-hued jacket and held it up threateningly. "Give me your wallet."

Sighing with visible exhaustion, Aziraphale shook his head. "I really am in no mood for this."

"You think I'm joking around here?" he sneered.

Aziraphale flicked a beringed little finger at the would-be mugger – hardly more than a silly kid, really, likely no more than sixteen or seventeen by his guess – and the young man found himself, quite suddenly, several streets away standing directly in front of a police station.

The angel continued on. He'd have gladly snapped his fingers and made the mugger leave London entirely, Aziraphale was that upset; but given the boy was so young and his parents – if he had any who were worth the trouble – might be waiting for him at home, and the angel still hadn't worked out where snapping his fingers actually sent people, whether or not it was some place terrible, the less dramatic reprimanding finger-flick had seemed the best course of action.

Once he'd reached the bookshop and let himself in, Aziraphale made himself two mugs of cocoa.

Two, because he spoiled the first.

Every time he recalled the look on Crowley's face back in the fort as he told that horrible story, his hands shook and he felt power come out of him the wrong way – he accidentally miracled the milk into old age, curdling it. Would have been a good thing if he'd wanted cheese, perhaps, but it made the cocoa unsalvageable.

The second was drinkable, before he forgot about it, leaving it to congeal on his desk.

He tried to read the book he'd been unwrapping when Crowley had first come into the shop in his pyjamas and rung the bell like it was going out of style, but he couldn't concentrate and eventually gave up.

He didn't sleep. Aziraphale rarely slept. It had always seemed a waste of time when there was so much good to be done, so many books to be devoured while burning the midnight oil. He didn't need it, after all, and angels didn't dream, so there was no real pleasure to it; it wasn't like the way he could still taste things when he ate them, irregardless of his not needing the nutrients.

Sleep often seemed rather pointless to him, really. It was far more Crowley's nature of thing.

Sometime around six or seven in the morning, Aziraphale still in the same chair he'd sat in with his untasted cocoa so many hours before, the bookshop phone rang.

Getting up wearily, he lifted the receiver. "Hello?"

"M'dying."

Crowley. Well, Raphael, he supposed – he didn't think he'd ever quite get used to that.

"What do you mean you're dying?"

"I mean," came the peevish alto voice from the other end, "my head feels like it's about to split open, I'm sweating like anything, and I was sick all over my lavatory floor. I think I'm about to discorporate. Probably a punishment from Heaven."

Aziraphale was growing alarmed, though making a pretence of not letting it come through in his voice, given how angry he still was.

Then he realised. Oh, for the love of... "You're not going to discorporate, you're simply having a hangover."

"Wot's M'angover?"

While rushing back over to Crowley's flat was the last thing he wanted to do right then, Aziraphale knew he couldn't just 'pass by on the other side' so to speak.

"I'll be there. Expect me when you see me."

Raphael was sprawled across the white leather sofa in his lounge, staring with half-closed eyes at the partially collapsed fort about a foot away.

He didn't remember how he'd started – then, with a slurred curse word and belligerent snatching of one of the more structurally significant cushions, given up – drunkenly dismantling it after Aziraphale stormed out.

How he currently saw it: the world had gone black sometime after the angel left and he'd fallen on his face, and when it was light again – too light, a light that made him sick – his fort was in a deplorable state of dilapidation.

With herculean effort, he lifted his head when he heard the unbearable scrape, bang, scrape of somebody moving things in the kitchen.

Grabbing the first thing within reach – which turned out to be a plastic plant mister – he shambled towards the source of the sound. His body relaxed, muscles unclenching, when he saw it was only Aziraphale.

"How'd you get in here?"

"I'm an angel." He reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a green glass bottle and a small cardboard box.

"Right."

"Also," he admitted, a touch grudgingly, "I have a key."

Raphael set the planet mister down on the counter-top. "About last night–"

Aziraphale ignored the attempt. "I've brought water biscuits and ginger beer – they should make you feel better." He rolled his eyes at the plant mister. "Oh, really, for Heaven's sake. What were you planning to do with that?"

"Aziraphale, will you at least look at me?"

He did, with ice in his stare. "Have you any idea the trouble you got me into with Gabriel?"

Raphael moaned. "It was six thousand years ago."

"Not for you it wasn't," he muttered.

"Still." He shrugged his shoulders. "Not much good getting worked up about it now."

"You called me a sucker." Aziraphale pursed his lips. "That wasn't very nice."

Raphael sniffed, leaning against the counter self-consciously. "I'll say I'm sorry, if you like."

"If I like," repeated Aziraphale, bitterly. "Listen to yourself."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Goodbye." He turned on his heel and began to walk out of the kitchen.

Raphael was stricken – snapping to attention, he reached out for Aziraphale's arm, not quite making contact. "Don't be like this. What am I supposed to do?"

The angel finally met his eyes. "Crowley, my dear," he said, very slowly and very coldly, "I don't give a damn."

"How long are you going to pretend you don't know I'm following you?"

Aziraphale slowed his steps. "Nobody's pretending. I'm deliberately ignoring you – there is a difference."

Crowley stomped along on the pavement, coming up beside him. "Work with me, I'm trying to apologise here. God, my head is still killing me. You know this is a form of torture – chasing you through central London in the blazing sunlight – right?"

Aziraphale inclined his head towards St Pancras. "I'm going in here."

"Why?" the demon whined.

He swung open the tall gate open and stepped over the property line. "Because it's one place" – the angel pulled the gate shut behind himself and latched it with a pointed click, glaring at Crowley through the black-and-gold grating – "I know you can't follow me."

"Right, fine. Good."

"Great. Tickety-bloody-boo."

"Have a nice day," Crowley called sarcastically over his shoulder.

Fuming, Raphael spent the next hour meandering his way over to St. James's Park.

He hated Aziraphale right then – almost as much as he hated himself.

Who did that stuck up Principality think he was? The anger pulsing through his veins with mad adrenaline changed course in a twinkling. Who did he, a fallen archangel who nobody seemed to want any more, think he was?

His feet weren't entirely healed yet, though they were certainly getting there; he wished he'd taken the black car.

The black car he didn't remember how to drive.

Damn.

At the park, he wandered some more, ignoring the urge to be sick again and the continued stinging of his feet, then plopped down on a bench beside a woman with a pram, face buried in her phone.

The little human creature in the pram was screaming bloody murder, crying like anything.

"Lady, it's crying."

She didn't look up.

It wasn't the cry of a hungry infant – it was a shrill plea to be held, to feel some connection to another living thing. Raphael didn't think he could stand it. Not now. Not today. Not while he was feeling like this.

"Please pick it up, it's very annoying."

The mother gave a noncommittal grunt, still scrolling on her phone.

There was a name on the side of the pram. Tobias.

Little Tobias screamed like nothing in the world would make him stop. He was lonely and somebody was going to have to bloody acknowledge it, okay?

"Hang on." Raphael reached into the pram and pulled the baby out, holding it in his arms. Tobias stopped mid-shriek, gazing up into his face while trails of spittle gathered on the side of his mouth. "Better?"

The baby blew a saliva bubble at him.

"The hell do you think you're doing?" The mother had put her phone away and was standing in front him with a look of disbelief on her face.

"He wanted–"

She struck him across the face. "You don't touch my baby!"

Their gazes locked. Hand clamping over her mouth in horror, she stared into his freakish yellow eyes, then ripped the baby from his arms, thrusting the child – now screaming again – back into the pram.

"What are you?" she cried.

Raphael rose slowly, cheek aflame, turning away from her so she wouldn't strike him again out of fear. "Damned if I know." Damned irregardless.

Subdued, he wandered further on. That was when he saw a familiar figure in pastel grey and pale blue, white ruffles about the neck, looking pinched and anxious, like she'd just swallowed something distasteful – obviously she was on duty.

"Michael," he breathed, rushing forward towards the archangel on the green.

In an instant, he just about forgot he was a demon now, that he wasn't simply lost in a strange place as he'd originally thought, racing towards his former life with renewed vigour.

Michael's eyes widened in alarm. She gawked at him for a moment, then began to hurry away in the opposite direction.

"Wait!" He threw himself at her and gripped her around the waist.

"Let me go! I've left you alone – what more do you want?"

"Mikey, you old prune, it's me! It's Raphael! You have got to–"

She tried to struggle out of his grasp. "You're insane – you're the demon Crowley."

He tightened his grasp accordingly, pinning her arms in place. "Everybody needs to stop calling me that!"

"You think just because you survived a bathtub of holy water and changed your clothes you can come back to Heaven like nothing's happened? This is a trick. You are lying or you are mental."

"Please just listen to me. I–" He broke off and screamed, "Ow!"

She'd bitten him on the hand. Well, if she thought that was enough to make him stop, she was sorely mistaken. If Aziraphale was abandoning him, he had absolutely no one here on earth. And if Lucifer really was a monster who'd turned against God, it was no good seeking him out. Humans clearly didn't like him – look what that woman had done over his simply trying to comfort a crying baby! What sort of creatures were these? He couldn't remember anything about being a demon – or other demons – and yet he felt confident that even they, in their hellish fallen stance, couldn't be so...so... There wasn't a word for it!

Moreover, Heaven was supposed to be merciful – how could they punish him for something he didn't even remember doing?

The tussle between the pair of supernatural beings in clingy pastels quickly turned into a frantic wrestling match there on the greenery which – if they'd been mortals – would have been noticed by any number of interesting (not necessarily interested) onlookers.

There was a moment where Raphael wondered, in passing, if it was really Michael he was so desperate to make listen to him, to accept his apology. Really Michael whose good graces he was so eager to be back in he felt the world would – or might as well – end if he couldn't manage it.

Or if – perhaps, just perhaps – she was simply there, a flashier stand-in for another angel who he truly wanted to be grappling with right now but was currently on consecrated ground and thus unreachable.

He pushed the thought away, back to the furtherest recesses of his mind from whence it came. It depressed him to distraction and he had to be able to focus on the situation at hand.

Raphael had just about gotten himself wrapped so firmly around her that she couldn't move much more than a couple of fingers.

Not bad for a guy who felt like death warmed up. Still, it was lucky it had been her and not Gabriel or Sandalphon, who both outweighed him in the bulk department, he thought, rolling her over so that he could hold her in place by her wrists.

Straddling her, he panted for breath he didn't actually need. "We. Need. To. Talk."

"All right," she said, calmly but not nicely.

"Thank you. Finally." He let go of her wrists but didn't move.

She squirmed a little ways out from under him, gave the smallest of coy smirks, then promptly kicked him between the legs.

As he wasn't making the effort, there wasn't anything there that should have hurt the way such a kick would have hurt a mortal man. She had, however, been performing a miracle which – upon contact – knocked his thigh out of its joint. And so the pain was sharp and sudden and almost paralysing, and he screamed in agony as he fell off her.

He was sprawled helplessly on the grass, unable to give chase. He couldn't even stand.

"Please," he whimpered, stifling a sob, "you can't. You can't. You can't just leave me. I don't have anyone!"

Michael soared upwards in a stream of white light.

"Wankers!" Raphael bellowed, directing his hysterical rant at the place she'd been standing a moment ago. "All of you!"

Adam Young pulled his car – a cherry-red Toyota – over when he saw the limping demon walking in the murky London twilight.

The window wound down with a whirr. "Crowley!"

The demon didn't look up, just kept limping along, passing right by the idling car. His manner did not suggest somebody who was ignoring the caller, simply someone who thought he wasn't the one being addressed. How strange.

"Crowley!" Adam leaned out the window.

This time he stopped – he'd heard him properly but did not turn. It was as if the name annoyed him somehow, like nails on a chalkboard, the sound of it grating up his spine.

Finally, the demon turned and looked. His face, though still distorted with pain, was greatly transformed as if from intense surprise. "Lucifer?"

It was hard to tell if the demon's tone was frightened or else elated. If Adam had to venture a guess, he'd have said it was a bit of both. "No... It's Adam. Your voice sounds funny. Are you all right?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. You don't even look like him, really. I don't know why I thought... For a second, you just... Never mind. I'm having a severe lapse of memory just now, uh, Adam, was it? Could you do me a favour and pretend this is the first time we've met? Whoever you are, however we actually know each other."

Adam smiled warmly, obligingly. "Nice to meet you."

He shuffled awkwardly. "Nice to meet you, too."

"Do you want a lift? I'll take you wherever you need to go."

The demon hobbled off the pavement and walked around the car, grabbing the door-handle. "Yeah. Thanks."

"From a stranger?" he teased.

"Oh, well, desperate times."

"Yeah, I noticed you can barely walk – what happened?"

"Long story." He groaned as he heaved himself into the passenger seat. "Got my ass kicked by an old friend."

"Aziraphale?" Adam guessed.

The demon appeared rather offended. "No, not Aziraphale!" he snapped pertly.

"Oh. Suh-ree. Excuse the hell out of me then." He was silent a moment, then had another thought. "So. I guess you didn't get my message on your ansaphone, then. About my being in London for a couple days."

"Was that what that incessant blinking red light was on about?" sneered the demon. "Thanks."

"This is getting nasty, I think we should be nice again," Adam suggested, pulling gently on the steering wheel and making a smooth left turn.

"I'm never nice," he said darkly. "Not any more. Somewhere along the way, nice became a four-letter word."

"Oh, I dunno, sometimes you are."

"If you say so. Tell Aziraphale that one of these days, then. Maybe he'll listen to you." He paused. Then, "By the way, my address–"

"Oh, don't you worry," Adam assured him. "I know exactly where I'm taking you."

"Good. That's all right, then." He blew on his hands. "Cold tonight."

"Hmm," agreed Adam. "So why don't you tell me what's been going on with you? I bet I could help."

"Unlikely. You probably wouldn't even understand it. I'm not sure I do."

"Try me."

And so the demon did. He told him everything, both as if it mattered enormously and as if it mattered not at all. There was pain in his face during the telling of it, but there was a touch of sharp humour as well, the smallest hint of a smile.

Adam missed any number of turns and went rather in a circle until the story was nearing completion and he felt certain of hearing all of it before they arrived at their destination.

When they did, the demon frowned. "You said you were taking me to my flat."

They were directly outside of Aziraphale's bookshop. There was a light on inside.

"No," said Adam with a smile that – though he couldn't have known it – was far more reminiscent of God after shuffling a particularly satisfying deck than it was of Satan. "I said I'd take you where you needed to go."

"Are you coming in with me?"

"Crowley – Raphael, whatever – see here. There are some doors you have to go through on your own." He understood it might be a little scary, but the demon had to buck up and do this anyway – Crowley was better off being brave. "Do you understand?"

"No, not really. But I think, if I did, I wouldn't be me."

"Go on, then. Your friend's waiting for you."

A/N: Yes, the Stardust reference was deliberate.

Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.

Edit update: I did recently change part of this, but only because of a small mistake I noticed regarding Adam supposedly leaning over the passenger seat to talk to Crawley on the street; this would only make sense if Adam somehow had an American car, which then turned back into a British one when Crowley decided to get in (since he then had to go into the street to get to the passenger side); oops. Unless the Antichrist has magic car powers, this makes no sense.

So I fixed this.