A/N: Hi everyone! Whew finally here with this chapter where we check in on Aziraphale in Heaven. It's a bit longer than previous ones since we're really getting into the movement of the story, and Aziraphale has a lot going on at the moment that didn't make sense to break up into separate chapters. Thanks so much to everyone who's subscribed and favorited so far. They warm my heart and get me through all the feels I'm writing. It makes me so happy to see people interested in this journey I'm taking our ineffable pair on.

Disclaimer: I do not own these idiots or else we would have definitely gone to therapy after the first apocalypse.

Chapter 4: i've never loved a darker blue (our truth is burned from history)

~cAc~

It takes three days for Aziraphale's new desk to become an overwhelming pile of paperwork, files, and the occasional scroll.

He watches blankly as Uriel drops off another thick stack with a disapproving frown before wordlessly exiting the overflowing office space. Aziraphale sighs heavily and pulls this new collection toward him with cold-numb hands. He shivers slightly and begins thumbing through the assorted files. Nothing but binders of old meeting notes, a long treatise on the Angelic Rules of Order, and the latest Heavenly Department Directory in this newest stack; nothing at all on anything immediately useful such as the Second Coming. He shivers again.

Or even how to simply adjust the temperature in his office to something less arctic.

Not that he expected there to be, honestly. In the days since his arrival, he's been met with a cool indifference from the upper angels and his new peers, who were quick to remind him that he wasn't quite yet their equal when he attempted a more friendly approach at the first meeting and asked casually about Second Coming.

"You're not yet The Supreme Archangel, Aziraphale," Michael had tutted, "Surely you didn't think you would immediately be brought in on every need to know project."

"I'm not?" Aziraphale responded, feeling suddenly off-balance, "I was under the impression I accepted the role." Uriel had let out a condescending laugh and rolled their eyes as Aziraphale flushed a deep red.

"You are nothing more than a Principality until the Investiture ceremony," Uriel sneered. "There are protocols after all."

Michael had nodded along sagely, "Think of it as a training period; so many things for you to catch up on before we can officially entrust you with the real work. Do you think Gabriel just waltzed into the role himself?"

Aziraphale had rather thought he had in fact. Michael and Uriel had made to leave the meeting area, muttering quietly to each other as Michael had added, "Simply stick to your meeting calendar and complete the paperwork for now, Aziraphale." She turned to give him a casual once over before continuing, "And for Heaven's sake, do get rid of that corporation."

He hadn't. The first stack of papers had arrived on his desk an hour later.

His stomach rumbles presently and shifts his attention back to the current mountain of material in front of him as he resignedly pushes the newest papers away from him. The low grade anxiety tightening in his lungs over the last three days constricts with a painful pulse. What a mess he's managed to put himself in, and now he didn't even have any real authority to act on until some to-be-arranged ceremony granted it to him. Whenever that might be. He soothes a worrying hand against his forehead and pulls another file toward him in an attempt at a distraction.

At least the Investiture protocol meant he had some time before the Second Coming began, he assures himself idly. Yes, at least he would be able to formulate some form of a plan, perhaps get some angels to even see the obvious goodness in stopping such a silly idea before the planning even got started. He opens the file and begins to scan the first page.

The scattered tension just under his skin refuses to dissipate though, and a loud grumble sounds from his stomach once again, his body used to the regularity of meals it was no longer receiving. Aziraphale banishes the hunger with an unsatisfactory miracle and tries again for focus.

Heavens, what he would give for a nice cup of tea.

The thought sends his mind off topic in an instant. Tea would mean scones: warm buttery scones like they do at the Ritz. The Ritz would mean champagne, which quite frankly he could use after these last few days. Oh champagne and…familiar features fill his mind as his heart gives a sharp thud in his chest…sad eyes…a turned back…his lips twinge with a kindled remembrance;

For the person who usually shared his drinks with him.

Tears blur the file before him, and he blinks rapidly against their presence. A hollow longing settles in his stomach now, a restless regret he can do nothing to satiate. He shuts the file with a sudden snap and stands from the desk, pushing the thoughts from his mind as he walks out the office. Perhaps it was time to do something about this corporation. Maybe then he'd be able to focus on the right things.

Instead of this scalding memory on his lips, or how much his heart aches.

~cAc~

He doesn't though. For reasons Aziraphale can't quite explain even to himself, he can't make his feet head in the right direction. Instead, he wanders through the hallways aimlessly, thoughts a jumble of disconnected ponderings, and tries to will the tightness in his chest to loosen, attempts to wear out the disquieting stress coursing through his limbs.

Frankly, he's not so sure that his physical corporation isn't the only thing keeping him together at this point; flesh and bone holding tight on the whirlwind of warring emotions he can barely bring himself to look at lest he fly apart.

Eventually, he gives up on the idea of outpacing his worried mind–there's still paperwork to review, and he's likely been gone from his desk long enough for someone to notice–and shifts trajectory back toward his office with a defeated slump. He's drifted far though, and his pile of paperwork had not included an office map. At some point he takes a wrong turn, a left instead of a right, and finds himself wandering down a narrow corridor, almost to the end before he realizes the error.

Shaking his head at the confusing layout, the angel moves to turn around when his eyes catch on the soft light shimmering beyond the corridor's end. Glittering hues of orange and yellow and red; the only color he's seen in days outside of fluorescent shades of white or cream.

The first colors Aziraphale can remember seeing in Heaven for ages.

Curiosity courses through him. His pace quickens along the narrow way as he rounds the corner into a grand atrium and stutters to a stop with a shallow gasp. A seemingly endless gallery spreads before him, open vantage points spaced every so often along its path. The ceiling is almost translucent and the windows are Heaven's usual transparent glass; only here there is no sterile lighting looking out over the eras of mankind's monuments. Here, there is no installed lighting at all.

Instead, starlight, a riot of color, fills the grand hall.

Aziraphale's head tilts back, eyes wide as he takes in the staggering series of views and steps slowly in a small circle. It's beautiful, this place he's stumbled upon. He wonders how he'd never found it before now; although he supposes he was rarely here in recent millennia with any time to spare for exploring.

He begins to move carefully down the walkway. To his right, the Andromeda galaxy sparkles and twists. Ahead on his left, a red supergiant stutters and collapses into a brilliant supernova that fills the whole gallery with a burst of blinding light as it ends; and then in the dense well of it's leftover gravity a new black hole begins, pulling the remaining stardust toward it in a swirl of magnificent deep red and orange super-heated matter. The angel watches it mesmerized, the careful design of this universal system of rebirth and change, before stepping back along the platform.

There isn't anyone else here, he notices absently, his footsteps echoing softly in the massive space as he looks around in continued wonder. Which seems ludicrous to him, because surely this place was the most ardent celebration of heavenly creation.

He comes to a stuttered halt at the next lookout, heart giving a sudden and painful lurch beneath his ribs that he presses a hand to unthinkingly as he staggers forward to take it all in. Yellow-brown clouds of stardust reach out in a twist of columns against a blue-green ward of newborn stars at various stages of formation.

The Pillars of Creation, his mind supplies as he blinks rapidly against the tears once again threatening to spill over and rubs his hand firmly against the split-open ache in his chest. Humans always came up with the most poetic names. A tear falls from his lashes and hits the floor in a silent drop.

"Didn't expect to hear you'd taken the job," a voice behind him breaks the silence.

Aziraphale whirls around to find Saraqael peering up at him curiously from their hoverchair. His heart stutters painfully for a different reason this time as he stammers for a response, guilt flooding his stomach at being caught unawares and shirking his duties.

"Yes..well," he begins nonchalantly and attempts to wipe subtly at his cheek with a casual hand, "I don't see why. It's an honor to be asked." The words feel stale against his tongue.

Their expression narrows in response, "Hmmm, is it?" A reply he doesn't know quite what to do with.

"Of course," he answers faintly. Because what other acceptable answer is there? Stopping the Second Coming definitely isn't a motivation he likely had in common with anyone here. And he had thought it an honor, however briefly. Aziraphale glances nervously at the floor.

It's grey, he notices. An odd incongruity to Heaven's usual pristine white marble. Likely a design oversight.

"I never understood why She kept this hallway around," Saraqael continues unfazed as they move around him to hover closer to the swirling hues of the Eagle Nebula, "after everything." They look out toward the shimmering colorful gas pillars with an unreadable expression. Aziraphale stares helplessly after them and tries to comprehend how he's expected to react.

Is this a test of faith? What hinges on his correct reply?

"Ineffable I suppose," he remarks, more out of habit and less from surety, as anxiety churns listlessly in his stomach. "Besides, it's all a beautiful testament to Heaven's grand design really." There, a perfectly neutral reply that usually fit well in the expected beatitudes of heavenly conversation. And he does believe it's beautiful. Always has.

"Is it?" Saraqael replies. It sounds almost like a Question.

Aziraphale stares blankly at them in shocked response.

Saraqael clears their throat and turns their chair back around to face him. "You should come by my office sometime, Aziraphale," they continue with a kind but firm stare. "No need for an appointment."

"Of course," he stammers politely as his mind struggles to sort out this unexpectedly confusing conversation. Saraqael nods and then begins to glide deliberately back toward the main walkway before pausing,

"He created almost all of these, you know."

The ache beneath his rib cage cracks into an awning chasm, and he can't help the stuttering gasp his lungs demand. He doesn't know what to say here. Is he expected to deny him? Correct his judgment now in some way to be more damning? Surely, they'll see through it if he doesn't, straight through to his wretched, longing soul and condemn them. Panic floods his veins, cold and unforgiving, screaming at him to take the right next step. Deny, push away, reset, it's the formula that defines his survival. Their survival. Aziraphale exhales shakily and drops his gaze to the floor once more as he tugs on his vest.

It's grey, he notes again wildly–Maybe there's something to be said for shades of grey–like the pair of them. It's neither a light shade nor a dark one but something beautifully in the middle.

He can't stand on it and deny him.

"I do," he glances back up to meet Saraqael's patient stare. He lets the sentence end there despite the push of terror in his lungs to continue. This affinity is nothing they didn't already know, he tells himself. Nothing they didn't already try to condemn. Besides, the Metatron had invited him here with full knowledge of Gabriel and Beelzebub, of he and him. It was no longer an execution sentence.

Still, he waits for the scathing rebuke, the reminder that his relationships are something he needs to be excused for.

It never happens. Saraqael merely nods again in response and gives him an inscrutable smile before continuing back along the walkway and out of sight.

Aziraphale releases a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding; anxiety fleeing and liberating the vice grip on his stomach with such a sudden force that he sways slightly with nausea and grasps blindly at the railing beside him. Squaring his stance, he tries to focus on the nebula before him in an effort to calm the dizziness in his head. The gentle swirl of colors helps restore breadth to his field of vision.

It still feels like a stay of execution he's been given.

He stands unmoving in front of the nebula for hours, watching new stars rush into existence from the safety of its serpentine clouds. The ache beneath his sternum settles into a dulled pain. It's warmer here than he's been in days.

Residual heat from the recent supernova, he reasons.

~cAc~

Eventually, he pulls himself away from the gallery and makes his way back toward his office. The white halls and fluorescent brights a blinding change to the softer ambient starlight of the hall. His head aches from the glare off the pristine white tile, and there's a strain around his eyes that causes his jaw to clench painfully as he enters his allocated space and sits heavily in the desk chair. He stares blankly at the pile of expectant paperwork in front of him once more. His right temple throbs in response.

Picking up the top file, he shakes his head and wills his corporation out of its pained state, which only seems to be half as effective as it usually would be in his own shop. Trying to ignore the remaining dull thrum in his head, he picks up his pen as he skims a file on Precedents for Archangel Meeting Structures and Organization.

He reads the same paragraph fifteen times without comprehending before laying the page and pen down with a disgruntled sigh, his mind still a swirl of competing thoughts and confusion. Not for the first time, he regrets leaving behind his latest journal. It would be so nice to try to sort the mess in his head out on paper.

Which is easily solved, he realizes with a small start and a wave of his hand. A blank sheet of paper appears before him, and he picks up the pen with a renewed sense of energy as the last remnants of his headache fade in anticipation. Finally, one earthly routine he can keep while in Heaven.

Dear Diary, he begins.

He scratches it out almost before it's fully written, feeling silly and somehow oddly observed in the remote privacy of his office area.

Had so many of his journal entries always felt this much like heavenly reports?

Dear

Another scratch and he pauses, mind suddenly blank. Maybe he doesn't have anything to say after all.

Dear

Soft red hair the color of newborn nebulas centers in his thoughts, eyes the color of sunlight flicker mournfully at him before being covered by black shades. His throat burns and he blinks blurrily at the page. Of course, there is only one being with whom he really wants to talk.

Crowley. The name breaks the fragile lock he's been barely able to keep around his composure these last few days.

And then there are almost too many words to sort through, so many things he didn't say right or at all.

Oh my dear. I've really stepped in it now haven't I?

I saw your stars today. You'd be pleased to know they are doing beautifully. Do you know they made a whole hallway with views of them? It's stunning.

He pauses, allows himself to replay their last conversation yet again in his mind. He'd asked Crowley to be an angel. The betrayal in his friend's eyes at the ask. The sheer hurt inflicted that he'd been too hurt himself to try to understand at the time.

I've realized that perhaps I wasn't so clear in my ask of you. This is what I thought you might like to have back when Metatron made me the offer. I remember how much you loved them, you know?

I'm sorry if instead you heard me say that I think you, yourself, needed to be amended.

You, my dear, are wonderful just as you are. I need you to know that. I know you think differently, but to me, the angel who made those stars and the demon who remembers them are the same miraculous being, regardless of form. I just thought…

Guilt swims quietly in his chest. He'd been so confused that day: elated at the prospect of them being given such a certain honor, shaky from the chaos that had so easily and violently shattered their peaceful sense of safety. His soul in terror that it could all touch them again so easily, and relief at the miracle-like chance to make it truly safe for them. In the overwhelm, he realizes as his heart gives a sickening skip, it had all gotten away from him; and he had barely heard the words he was using to plead his case over the desperation he felt to make sure it was agreed to.

Well that's the thing isn't it? I don't think I thought. Otherwise, I might have realized what you were hearing me say.

"Staff meeting in ten, don't let tardiness be your sin!" Michael's voice cuts shrilly across the hallway, and he crumples the note in a blind panic, tossing it toward the bin. He sits up straight and attempts to busy himself once again with the pile of paperwork on his desk as the archangel notices him with a saccharine smile and flits over to stand near his desk.

"That goes for you especially, Aziraphale," she fixes him with a patronizing stare. "You should set a good example for the others, you know. None of this Earthly five minutes after the hour start that humans have so indolently added to their business conduct."

"Of course," he murmurs politely and tries to tamp down the increasingly petulant urge in his gut that builds with every papery stack dropped on his desk. It sinks heavily in his stomach as she gives him another cloying grin and turns on her heel to continue rounding everyone up.

It's not indolent, a small voice inside him counters. It's considerate.

A note should be interjected here on the peculiar inner workings of Heaven's automated systems. Heaven was rather proud of this vast, ever-growing system of efficiencies. After all, there was so much paperwork to go through–which had only seemed to grow in size and volume as time dragged on, humans multiplied, and more forms were requisitioned by upper management–and only so many heavenly employees. One could often free up whole departments for other duties with a few quick miracles, they'd realized.

So naturally, an entire department of Thrones had been established to continuously review and optimize Heaven's processes.

One such process, the heavenly postal system, had come under such review during the Annual Synergies Review of 1951. Up until then, notes, memos, and official documents were sent via a department of courier angels that had grown rather large and overrun with the constant influx of papers and missives, not to mention the flood of traffic for the Lifts on days when official correspondence (or invoice payments) needed to be sent to Earth. A system ripe for improvement, the review board determined.

So a cost-benefit analysis was run to support this theory, and a consulting angel was assigned, who then set about interviewing the department leads, noting their suggestions, and then generally ignoring them while researching their own ideas. In their extensive research, a report from the Principality Aziraphale was found, which greatly intrigued the somewhat bored consultant. In it, the principality had off-handedly observed a rather ingenious human invention during a routine blessing at an office. Apparently, humans now used a system of new-matt-ick tubes to carry mail within and between office buildings.

And if humans could do such a thing, then how difficult could it be?

With a looming deadline and a quick afternoon research trip approved, the angel popped down to Earth to observe. It took them a moment to get their bearings in central London, but soon enough, they found a building labeled Office of Mortimer & Sons; and to their good fortune, a man was exiting the building wearing a Royal Mail insignia whom they could surely follow to said tubes.

Now here it is important to understand that this was the angel's first trip to Earth and all of its nuances. Also, tubes are not a shape most angels have much experience with (even less so pneumatic ones) given that Heaven is more partial to the perfectly symmetrical forms of spheres or cubes.

Additionally of importance is that this particular postman had just discovered his lover cheating on him in the mailroom of said office.

Thus, the angel followed the jilted mailman to the nearest streetcorner, where he proceeded to dump the stack of business correspondence forcefully into a grey metal tube before continuing on his way to the pub. Shortly thereafter, a much larger metal, tube-like vehicle pulled up to the curb, collected the smaller grey container's contents, and carried it off.

These must be the new-matt-ick tubes, the angel logically reasoned, and then quickly headed back to Heaven to file his report. A new, streamlined heavenly mail system was rolled out shortly after, without all of the unnecessary other "tubes" of course: just miracles, heavenly will, and the original small grey cylinder, which was made a more appropriate shade of silver, shrunk, and placed by every heavenly desk.

It was an instant hit with the Heavenly host, applauded by the Archangels as a divinely inspired improvement upon human design, and greatly approved by the Synergies Review Board, who were able to reorg the entire courier department into the then understaffed typewriter maintenance division.

Like most systems of its ilk, it functions without much angelic oversight (although Autosystem Tech Support will answer your ticket in 3-5 heavenly business days) and has fallen increasingly out of use in recent years with the adoption of whisper phones and virtual correspondence; however, the system is still fully functional. With just a note, and a vague sense of who the message is for, most messages are delivered without fail.

Aziraphale, who had never much paid attention to the Annual Synergy Committee memos to begin with and had altogether stopped reading them somewhere around 1505 when the continued success of the printing press meant he was no longer starved for reading material, had applied only an earthly logic to the function of his office supplies. With a heavy sigh, he stands from his desk and leaves the office behind for the staff meeting.

The crumpled piece of paper disappears from the small rubbish bin and reappears still crinkled but now folded neatly on a book cluttered, wooden desk in Soho.

The rest of the week and part of the next continues much the same as Aziraphale's first three days in Heaven had. Endless meetings fill his calendar with routine agendas, more piles of files and scrolls deposit themselves on his desk just as he finishes the previous stack, and the temperature in his office only seems to grow colder.

Azirphale finds himself taking more aimless walks than he has in recent memory in an attempt to prevent the numbness in his limbs from becoming permanent.

He decides to make them productive ambulations at least and begins working his way through the departmental directory; only to find his overtures on Earth and humans met mainly with refrains of "that doesn't really align with our department's strategic priorities right now" or "you'll have to make an appointment for that type of agenda."

So he smiles politely and schedules introductory meetings for weeks out while the gnawing frustration in his gut grows, thwarting the confidence he had for being able to salvage this liminal space before his Investiture.

It becomes a routine of sorts. Attend daily meetings, finish paperwork, be rebuffed from yet another office and wander down the endless white corridors. Try to rid himself of the lost, unraveled feeling expanding silently beneath his ribs by mapping the office layout. Wish desperately for someone to talk to it all about.

He scolds himself mildly for the last one, this soft, selfish want, but the loneliness settles in the empty feeling within his chest and presses mournfully around his heart anyway. A grief he can't seem to stare directly at for too long.

Because all it seems to ask is if he's sure of what he's given up.

Today as usual his meandering path leads Aziraphale to another department, feet pausing as the angel takes in the office placard with a small start.

Records, Archangel Saraqael.

Well, at least he wouldn't need an appointment for this meeting, bizarre as it might be after their last encounter. With a bracing intake of breath, he adjusts his tie and smooths the wrinkles in his jacket before rounding the corner fully into the space.

Saraqael looks up from behind their desk at his entrance, folding their hands primly in their lap with a smile, "Ah Aziraphale, glad you finally made it by."

"Yes, well–," Aziraphale starts uncertainly as his mind fumbles for an appropriate excuse.

"Still can't believe you took the position," they continue, a wave of their hand negating his need to explain. But he has even less of an idea for how to respond to this statement. Because what is he supposed to say? A frustrated huff of air escapes his lips before he can hold it back,

"Yet here I am," his eyebrow arches pointedly. Honestly, was it really that shocking that he might be offered this promotion?

Saraqael fixes him with a perplexed stare, "Can't imagine you being for it though." Their lips twist thoughtfully as though he's a puzzle to be solved, "After he told you about it all."

Aziraphale's mind rushes to translate the myriad of subtext he doesn't seem to have the cipher for, and he reflexively stretches his hands, palms sweating. His brow falls, face morphing into a confused mirror of their own as he stammers, "Told me? I mean Metatron did give me some idea–"

"No, not the Metatron," they interject with a sigh of exasperation, "Him, Crowley, your demon," they explain slowly. "From when he snuck in here with Muriel, you know"

Aziraphale's stomach drops sharply as though he's missed a step on the stair; the gears churning in his mind grind to an astonished halt.

"He's not my…" he stammers automatically, the denial an auto-response on his lips before his brain restarts at the painful lurch beneath his chest. Because for the first time it wouldn't be a lie, but a truth he doesn't want to believe in. His thoughts skip and scatter over it as they struggle to process,

"...what would he have…" Aziraphale continues lamely, before Saraqael's words finally fully register and he recalibrates on a strangled breath, "He was in Heaven?"

Saraqael all but rolls their eyes in response as they throw both hands into the air, "Heaven's don't you two talk?"

Apparently not, Aziraphale thinks feebly, a detached numbness taking over his senses as his body strains to regroup within the frenzied shock of his thoughts.

They lean forward and grab the whisper pad on their desk, fingers swiping firmly across the screen as they mutter incredulously, "Creating twenty-five Lazarii miracles together, but no idea where the other one's been…"

The chaos of Aziraphale's mind lurches violently to address this latest twist of topic.

"Pretty sure that was Gabriel's influence actually…" A pointed stare silences his feeble attempts at reason.

"Perhaps," Saraqael replies, and then the frozen stupefaction of his features must incite them into pity. "Nevermind on that," they deflect, flashing him a sympathetic smile.

Archival search complete, Saraqael moves their chair around the desk to hover in front of Aziraphale. Translucent tablet in an outstretched hand that he takes from them unconsciously.

"Well, I've just remembered I'm late for a meeting." With a meaningful last glance at him, the archangel glides toward the door with a press of controls, voice pitching louder with intent as they continue, "Do stay as long as you need though Aziraphale. Just close those records on automated meeting improvements when you're finished won't you?"

And then Saraqael floats from the room. Aziraphale's limbs reawaken as he takes a shaky breath and forces himself to focus on the device in his hands. Multiple archived security and meeting recordings glimmer up at him from the screen.

He starts the first recording and ignores the leap his heart makes at the appearance of Muriel and the disguised (ridiculously so, good Lord) but familiar form of Crowley. An amused smile twitches at the corner of his lips as he watches Crowley override the passwords (he'd always suspected) and the files display. The recordings continue. A gasp escapes his lips.

Aziraphale watches everything through twice in confusion, and then once again as dread creeps icily through his skin and the air leaves his lungs.

By the fourth replay, terror and anger mix freely in his gut as any lingering disbelief collapses into abrupt understanding.

~cAc~

You WENT to Heaven and didn't think to tell me?

He all but flies from the records room, pen and paper in hand before he even makes it back to his desk fully, heart pounding and a sour bile stuck in his throat.

How could you do something so reckless and so dangerous, Crowley! You could have been hurt; they could have exterminated you on sight! How could you…

A wave of nausea shudders through him, and he presses his finger-tips into the glass desk top as he tries to weather the barrage of nightmares his mind conjures. Crowley disintegrated by a deluge of holy water, leaving him actually on his own forever. The demon imprisoned in Heaven in a consecrated, burning cell. His friend dragged back to Hell in a sudden disappearance of ground, a horror Aziraphale's mind can relive from vivid memory. Crowley erased from the Book of Life completely; Aziraphale to have never known him at all–unfathomable–a loss he wouldn't know to mourn but would have grieved somehow.

Crowley made a blank slate like Gabriel to eliminate what he'd found out. That he knew about the Second Coming of it all.

The thought sparks a simmering hurt underneath the roiling fear in his gut.

And not to mention that you knew about the Second Coming and didn't think that was something that perhaps I might need to know upon taking a job offer in Heaven? I mean that explains so much of your side of the conversation, dear boy, but why didn't you tell me, Crowley? We could have made a better plan, but no, you didn't TELL me anything. Just let me go right on with my ramblings and ideas and then punished me for not being able to figure out the hidden pieces in all of this. When you knew all along what they were? What they did to Gabriel…and then you just let me walk into Heaven blind? Oh you are just…I could just…I'm so angry with you right now.

I needed you with me on this. And you…You…YOU–

He presses the nib of the pen so hard against the paper that it breaks with a sudden snap.

Fuck.

His chest hurts, his mind spins in a million vector freefall. Aziraphale wants to yell at him, push him, grip his shoulders and shake him until he understands the sheer stupidity of his brash actions and the chaos keeping them to himself has wrought. A few hot tears splash onto the page by his shaking hand.

Even more, he wants to grasp him tightly, mold him so firmly against his chest that he can feel his heart still beating, bury his nose in the length of his neck and breathe in his familiar scent and thank the universe for sparing Aziraphale from this bereavement he's unknowingly avoided. He takes a stabbing breath of air.

Most of all though, he wants to turn back time and freeze it so that they can properly talk, argue their way back to the same page, to their side again. Instead of him imploring about an already moot plan, and Crowley looking at him with resigned golden eyes and softly rambling out words of…

Oh. The pen rights itself.

This is why you confessed, isn't it? Why you were suddenly dead set on running away again. Oh, Crowley. Why didn't you just say that then? Then I would have known that what I was thinking would never work to keep us–

Safe. All he's ever wanted for them to be. The aggrieved anger in his chest fizzles out with a mournful shudder.

Because he knows underneath all of their missteps that's all Crowley wants for them as well.

It's the implicit truth of almost every interaction they've ever had, the delicate choreography of the dance they've done for millennia: a turn of phrase here, a misleading warning there, a proclaimed denial of adjective, a gratitude purposefully left out. Within it, they'd perfected the art of living just outside the lines but still close enough to go uncaught, figured out how to spend an entire existence next to each other while pretending their proximity is just coincidence.

They've become almost too good at it perhaps, Aziraphale dismays, each of them so desperate to protect the other while not giving anything away to Heaven or Hell that they've started to omit whole truths to the space between the lines in their conversations. Spoken words and hidden meanings so different that neither one of them could parse it.

Safety. To Aziraphale in the moment it had been a return to Heaven, a system remade. To Crowley it had meant the truth of them and getting away before it all ended a second time now.

Yet they'd both missed the cue the other had buried in the words they'd spoken aloud.

Oh what a pair you and I make.

You know, dear, I'm rather beginning to think we should actually state things more directly. It might save us quite a bit of foolishness.

I wish you had told me.

I understand why you didn't.

He lets the note fall listlessly into the rubbish bin beside him as regret clings to the edges of his mind. He presses his elbows into the desk and drops his head heavily against his hands.

Aziraphale wishes again that he could rewind to that moment, search for all the cues he missed between Gabriel's restoration and that fateful step behind Metatron into the Lift. It feels like all he has are more puzzle pieces than before though, and none of them fit.

Gabriel. Unease skitters up his spine and his thoughts flit rapidly as all of his earlier worries return at once. How on Earth was he going to stop a Second Coming that Heaven's favorite couldn't?

Panic sparks along his skin. It was so much further along than he thought, already planned, and look at what they'd already done when refused once. A restless anxiety floods his chest, and suddenly he can't stand to be sitting a moment longer. He staggers to a stand from the desk.

Why ask him to be the Supreme Archangel when he so obviously would be at odds? Nothing made any sense.

Aziraphale moves distractedly from his office at a frenetic pace. Not that this knowledge changed much though did it? He still had to find a way to stop it–the annihilation of everything for the sake of their Great Plan. A fallible plan though, subject to whims of mismatched leadership and outdated strategies. That's why they'd stopped it the first time around with the apocalypse, no? He rounds a corner, practically throws himself down another pristine white corridor to match the racing of his thoughts.

Surely, the Second Coming wasn't a part of the Ineffable Plan though? Not something She would want?

Another turn, another corridor as he tries to outpace the trepidation rushing through him. Because what if it is what She wants? What if the whole reason he's here is to bring a gentle Earth centric perspective as it all comes to an End? He'd always assumed at least a vague alignment with Her, and it's impossible to know if he's not. He takes a left on weak legs, braces a hand against the pristine white wall at the dizziness that almost overtakes him.

But what if fulfilling Her Plan means the destruction of everything he wants?

He nears the corner on an agonized breath at the warring sense of wrongness and reputed duty his train of thought has led him to. That can't be the answer though, can it? Heaven was good. Goodness couldn't exist in the pain and suffering it would take to bring humanity to its end.

And that is so close a Question that he steps fully around the wall and comes to a trembling standstill of both body and mind, panicked shame clamping like a vice around his chest.

Above him starlight shimmers and swirls. His feet have led him to this atrium again, this dissonant architecture of heavenly tributes. A perfect match for his own discordant being, he thinks hysterically.

Frustration bubbles up within him, mixing with the contrition beneath his sternum. If only he were a better angel, content with whatever the answer, ineffable or not. He paces slowly down the walkway, a familiar curse for the imperfect shape of his soul repeating in him as it has since time immemorial. He's not supposed to be this way. He's not supposed to doubt. He's not supposed to want anything but God's will.

It's a stain he can never quite get out.

Aziraphale comes to a stop in front of the Pillars once more and stares out into the nebula's expanse, despair pressing at the edges of his senses. His mind swirls listlessly but finds no answers to soothe its disquiet, and he moves to stand fully in front of the cluster of swirling colorful gas clouds, searching for a truce to placate the battleground of emotions beneath his ribs.

For a while, he consoles himself in watching the life inside the cluster play out. His eyes catch calmingly on a newborn star twisting into existence, and he marvels at how the foundling star's accretion disk builds gently from the elements provided by the nebula: the fragments of former stars and rogue elements pulled into a new form, an agreement made to band together for a time in an explosion of light before returning to the darkness and deciding what to try out next. Nothing purely good, nothing purely bad–just a lived existence.

And oh, this place isn't a monument to heavenly design at all, he realizes with a sharp intake of air.

It's a temple to change. To the beauty of allowing things to morph, to end and begin again anew as something else; to the magnificence of using the pieces left behind by something old to form a new creation entirely. It's never truly destroyed, this matter around him, only transferred, reshaped: allowed to expand past its old boundaries into something else without judgment or threat. Growth as a constant variable, change its natural outcome celebrated in a burst of variety and color, instead of a dreaded hesitation. A universal cycle of question and answer. No end date, no expiration upon which a winner must be found.

Everything in this room was a Question to the very idea of Heaven.

Or rather, instead, it was a beautiful alternative suggestion.

"Look at you," he echoes on a shaky exhale, "you're gorgeous."

A meteor streaks through the nebula in response, and he blinks rapidly in an attempt not to cry at the small surge of pride that streaks through his chest. Look at what Crowley had made here, the stunning version of grace his creations proposed. Saraqael's comments float to the forefront of his mind.

I never understood why She kept this hallway around, after everything.

He doesn't know why She allowed it to stay, either. A small smile forms on his face as he thinks of Earth, the people She made in her image. How much that very humanity has grown and changed, usually because of its very willingness to try something different, to embrace its variety, to ask a feared question. The converse of how much it then stifles and collapses when people insist on rigidity and fear their differences.

He doesn't know why She allowed it to stay. But then again, he's never seen such a stunning understanding of the truth of Her own creation's complexity reflected anywhere else in Heaven.

The new star finishes growing, reaching a critical mass which ignites it in a brilliant burst of nuclear fusion. Let there be light. Golden, yellow light floods the viewing area–his favorite color.

A flash of anger courses through him, quiet and hot. She made Crowley Fall, exiled him for the asking, and then had the audacity to still display his suggestions. And for what? Is this room a warning? A trophy?

Terror lashes up his spine then, and surely he'll Fall now. Cold shame suppresses the air in his lungs as he grasps weakly at the railing in front of him. Maybe this room is the Apple of Eden, and he's finally taken a bite in the form of a Question. He'd already been lingering on the edge of them. Aziraphale hangs his head toward his chest as tears fill his vision, and he waits for the floor to splinter and crack.

Nothing happens. Tears roll silently down his cheeks and splatter onto the grey concrete beneath him. It's a perfect shade of grey actually: the kind you can only get by mixing the purest of blacks with the purest of whites. An answered compromise to the question of absolute absorption vs absolute reflection of light.

He wonders if this was the color of Heaven before the War. He never noticed, there wasn't a need to pay attention. Now, he wishes he could remember the details of it.

He wonders how many others Fell just for a suggestion. How many others like himself were left behind with the guilt of surviving despite them, scorching themselves in blinding bleach to remove any other shades. Absolutes, black and white are. Ultimatums on the same spectrum. How much potential had they lost in not allowing for any variety of color between the two ends, all the while collapsing under an insurmountable fear of difference. Winning the War was all anyone ever talked about in both Heaven and Hell. Losses were just an unexamined consequence.

He wonders though if anyone knew the price they would be paying to win. The forfeiture She'd decided was worth the victory. All to avoid the possible questions of allowing for an infinite spectrum.

A solar flare erupts from the fledgling star in front of him and pulls his blurry gaze up to view it once again. The ground beneath him remains unchanged. The red, orange rush of heat reminds him of the way Crowley's hair would catch in the late afternoon sunlight, and the hollow ache in his chest grows. Loneliness needles his lungs sharply, and he attempts to draw a steadying breath against its onset.

Even now, this is still the warmest place in Heaven he's been.

It's Love, identifies a quiet, certain voice at the back of his mind. The warmth of residual Love for one's own creation is everywhere around him. It lingers here at the blurred grey edges even after millennia. Love mixing vibrantly with every color. Hope mingling in the dark matter between them. Peace shimmering in the light created.

Faith reflected lovingly in the form of a Question.

Some old foundation inside him shatters irrevocably at the realization, and the tidal wave of emotions he's been holding back breaks upon its remnants. A sudden sob erupts from his throat, a shuddering, gasping cry that sends him to his knees on the grey ground, hands pressing painfully into the cool surface. Agony mauls at his heart and mixes with an anguished fury that pools in his stomach, ripping a tormented gasp from his lungs.

There's no way to hold it inside him anymore, this devastating understanding, this haunted wraith he's invited out of hiding within him. It burns up his spine, claws frantically at his throat. He throws his head back and screams violently into the surrounding silence. Fists he vaguely registers as his own pound against the firmament beneath him with so much rage that a small fracture now runs through its surface.

It's a mausoleum, Aziraphale decides on a choking breath, of everything it had cost them. Heaven and Hell: angels and demons. Crowley. Aziraphale. It's a war memorial.

And his grief, he finds, is endless.

~cAc~

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Sorry for so many heavy feels with our angel in this round-he's got a lot to unpack but I swear we'll get there. Like I said in the tags we're working on our trauma in this fic, but that's only so I can give them the softest of reunions and epilogues like they deserve.

As always, reviews are the lifeblood of this fanfic writer's motivation, and I would love to read you thoughts and feels if you're so inclined or come scream with me over on tumblr if you'd like (username: justtellher)