Fifteen

Home

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Night had fallen by the time Crowley and Aziraphale reached the villa again. Or rather, the place where the villa should have been. Crowley rubbed his eyes. Either he was hallucinating after more than thirty hours on the road, or this was a midnight mirage.

Or the villa really was gone.

'We must have taken a wrong turn...?' Aziraphale said.

'We're in the middle of the desert!' Crowley said. 'There are no turns.'

'The wrong valley, then,' Aziraphale said.

'No, this has got to be the right place.' Crowley got out of the car. The night air was cold on his skin. Overhead, the stars cast their light through a foggy veil. A sliver moon hung above the horizon.

The desert was empty.

Sand stretched out on all sides, blueish in the moonlight. There was only one other feature to be seen, a small lake at the bottom of the valley, perfectly circular. Near the shore stood a single palm tree. Crowley stared at the tree. He knew that tree. He'd sat in its shadow and shared his liquorice with Gee... was that only four days ago?

But that meant they were where they should be, all right. It was just that the villa wasn't.

Aziraphale had gotten out of the car too.

'What's that lake doing where my house should be?' Crowley said frustratedly.

'Perhaps a flash flood...?' Aziraphale said, sounding as if he didn't very much believe it himself.

'Nah! It's not natural. Look at it, it's too... too round,' Crowley said, gesturing.

'You think people demolished the villa and made the lake?' Aziraphale said even more incredulously. 'In three days time?'

'People, angels, demons. It's gone!'

Aziraphale shook his head. 'But they can't have found it. I did a miracle, remember, I hid the place from everyone who wasn't... oh...'

Crowley stared at him. Slowly the realisation dawned on him.

'You mean it's actually gone?' he spluttered. 'Gone gone?'

'Well, it's... unfindable,' Aziraphale said.

'So it's gone.'

'Yes, I think so.'

Crowley opened and closed his mouth a few times before words came out. 'My house!' He sank to his knees, raking his fingers through the sand as if he could dig it all up. 'My plants! My wine collection!'

Aziraphale carefully touched his shoulder. 'Crowley, I'm so sorry.'

Tears welled up in Crowley's eyes. He slumped back and stared at the lake.

He'd really liked the villa, and he was so bummed about the collection of rare vintages in the cellar. But his plants... That loss really felt like another empty hole. Like his eyes. Like the speed limit.

Why did everything have to change?

Aziraphale's hand was still there on his shoulder, a solid presence in the desert night. Crowley leaned in to it. Aziraphale gently squeezed his shoulder.

Thus they remained for a long time. At length Crowley got up. 'Let's go.'

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The star-scattered sky stretched out over the desert, the Milky Way a glittering scar spanning horizon to horizon. The only light on Earth was the headlights of the Bentley, casting a modest double beam forward on the empty road.

Crowley watched the stars as he drove. They seemed distant, two-dimensional on the dome of night. He felt a faint sense of loss at the realisation that he would never get to visit any of them again, but it was mixed with a sense of wonder. He was still here, in this tiny world underneath the night sky, gazing up. He could so easily have lost all of this.

What a strange thing life was.

'Where do we go now?' said Aziraphale beside him.

Crowley startled. They had been driving in silence for hours; he'd thought Aziraphale asleep. 'Home,' he said after a few seconds.

The bookshop. Where else?

It was silent for a moment while their thoughts returned to the last time they'd been there.

Aziraphale drew in a breath. 'Crowley, I...'

Crowley looked at him.

'I... I'm sorry. I just, I wasn't... able...'

'I know,' Crowley said. 'Me too.'

Aziraphale smiled. That beaming smile of his, that Crowley recognised even in the dark. Aziraphale nodded.

'Do a dance?' Crowley said.

Aziraphale groaned and leaned his head against the headrest. Crowley laughed.

They eyes met again. I forgive you. The words were there, they didn't need to be spoken. They knew each other too well.

Crowley thought back to what Gee had said, only three days ago in this very car, about angels and demons and freedom of choice. He'd realised it then, or perhaps earlier already: neither of them had been free to choose that day in the bookshop. Their respective pre-programming, as Gee had called it, had driven them on an inevitable collision course, and all of the hurt that followed had been unintentional and helpless.

But to his surprise he found that that knowledge didn't actually make that much of a difference. Angels, demons, pre-programming, to hell with it all. They were Crowley and Aziraphale, and he chose to forgive, because they were both sorry, and he wanted to.

'Travel sweet?' asked Aziraphale.

'Thanks.'

Silence returned. But it was a different silence. Crowley felt a smile spread over his face. All was right again. Well, nothing was right; they were knackered and battered and mortal, his plants were gone and he could only hope they made it to Cairo before the petrol ran out again, but all was right again.

And so they drove on, a tiny car under the great night sky.

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Cairo International Airport was crawling with people. Crowley and Aziraphale made their way through a crowd of tourists, businesspeople, pilgrims and overeager perfume sellers – Crowley in front because Aziraphale wouldn't push people out of the way quickly enough – to get to their gate in time. They made it, though at the cost of several people's toes and ribs and one child's biscuit.

They were the last to board. As they were led to the plane, the last of the luggage was being loaded. Crowley craned his neck to see.

'They won't forget the car, will they?' he muttered. They'd paid an exorbitant amount of money to have the Bentley transported along with them. It better not be left behind. He turned to the staff member leading them and opened his mouth to ask, but the man cut him off and beckoned impatiently. 'Everything is taken care of, sir. Please walk on.'

'Of course. Come, Crowley,' Aziraphale said.

Crowley grumbled. He didn't like leaving his car in other people's hands. But he followed Aziraphale to the plane.

They got on board and were led to their seats. Crowley sat down by the window to fret about the car. They would take good care of it, wouldn't they? This wouldn't be the first time they transported a car. Then again, the Bentley had been made before passenger airplanes were a thing. It wasn't built for this kind of nonsense. They better be very careful.

Aziraphale settled in the middle seat and was immediately intrigued by all the buttons he could push to make himself more comfortable. Crowley paused his worrying for a moment to smile at his delight.

The aisle seat was taken by an elderly Egyptian woman, who clearly very much did not want to be here. Her daughter was trying to talk to her, in the same rural desert dialect Gee had spoken, and in an increasingly exasperated way. 'Come on, umm, you want to be at Gamal's wedding, yes?'

'Why can't Gamal come back here? Why did he have to go live in England in the first place? Does he know what he's doing to his old ummi?'

'You were the one to suggest England!' her daughter said. 'Anyway, we're going, whether –'

She was interrupted by the call for everyone to fasten their seatbelts.

'I'm going. Behave yourself,' the daughter hissed, and left for her seat.

The old woman harrumphed and crossed her arms. She caught sight of Crowley and Aziraphale, who had inadvertently turned to follow the conversation. 'I don't want to fly in this contraption!' she told them defiantly. 'It's not right. If God had meant for us to fly, He would have given us wings.'

For a moment Crowley and Aziraphale stared at her.

'Right,' Aziraphale said with his uncertain smile.

'Right,' Crowley said, barely containing his laughter.

Then the airplane's motor rumbled to life around them, and the old woman shut her eyes and began to mutter a stream of prayers. Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a glance. Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale's mouth curled. For a moment they looked at each other.

Then the plane began to move. Faster and faster they went, and Crowley just had to look out the window. The runway zipped by, until the grass became a blur. Crowley was pressed into his seat. He laughed out loud.

This was speed!

Then they came loose. Delighted, Crowley watched the runway fall into the distance, then the airport, then the city. The Nile came into view like a glittering ribbon. Crowley squealed with joy. He'd flown all over the world, but he'd never experienced it anything like this.

He pressed his face to the window and watched Cairo slowly pass underneath them. The desert disappeared into the hazy distance.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale to share his excitement. Aziraphale was watching him with a smile. Crowley smiled back, then he looked back out the window, where the delta was coming into view. The Nile curved its way through the landscape. Tiny traffic passed over the roads and ships over the river.

Some part of Crowley wanted to turn to Aziraphale, to lean into him, to talk, to... oh, hell, he didn't know. To see if they could go back to that moment there in the mosque portico, when they'd stood so close, and Aziraphale had reached for him and... That moment had given Crowley so much hope.

He'd cut off all thoughts of kissing Aziraphale since the disaster in the bookshop. Blocked out even the memory, desperate and angry and hurt. But he hadn't really forgotten. He would like to kiss Aziraphale again, if Aziraphale would kiss him back... and Crowley kind of thought he would.

Yes, he would like that.

But the urgency of it was gone. There was no burning, all-consuming want pushing him. And... there was time. It was strange, really, because they were mortal now and there would be no more infinity. Yet Crowley felt the space of it. It could wait. He could wait. He could sit here with Aziraphale and enjoy the quiet companionship, in the mutual knowledge that things were still to come, and it could be good. It was good.

Besides, how often was he going to have the opportunity to see the world from this perspective again?

So Crowley leaned against the window, happy with Aziraphale's presence beside him, and watched Egypt sail out of sight.

By the time they began to descend, Aziraphale was thoroughly fed up with the seating on this airplane. There were three dozen options for the positions of the chair back, seat and armrests, but no combination was actually comfortable. The sandwiches served halfway were more like salted cardboard, and the wine was not worth the effort of spitting out.

So he was happy when they sunk through the clouds and good old England came into view.

The plane made for Heathrow. Their descent steepened, terra firma came closer and closer and then the wheels hit the ground. The airplane bounced once, twice, before the final violent landing.

'CAREFUL!' Crowley shouted through the plane, far too loudly. People turned their heads. The old woman on Aziraphale's other side, who had thankfully fallen asleep through the flight, began her fervent prayers again.

'Hush,' Aziraphale said to Crowley, touching his arm.

'But the car –'

'The car will be fine.'

The car was fine. If anything, it seemed happy to be home in the cold and wet and London's crowded roads. Crowley sat himself behind the steering wheel, Aziraphale in the passenger seat, and so they drove away home.

Whickber street was unchanged. On the outside at least. When they parked the car in front of the bookshop and got out, Aziraphale saw that the blinds behind the window were torn.

It was like a punch to his gut. Of course. He remembered Muriel had said that Astaroth and the others had made a mess of the bookshop, but that piece of information had been kind of overshadowed between the Second Coming and the disbanding of Heaven and Hell.

He hesitated on the doorstep.

'Come on,' Crowley said, walked past him, and pushed open the door. But then he halted on the doorstep.

Aziraphale braced himself and looked over Crowley's shoulder. He squeaked.

The bookshop was a battlefield. The floor was covered with books, thrown open, some ripped. Not a single bookcase was still standing. Aziraphale's armchair was lying on its side, one leg missing.

'Oh no...'

'Astaroth,' Crowley growled.

They slowly entered the bookshop. Aziraphale picked up a book from the doormat, an original Blaeu Atlas Maior, thrown face-down on the world map. There was a dirty footprint on the cover.

They made their careful way in, stepping between the books on the floor and clearing a path to the staircase. A look upstairs told them the demons had left the first floor alone – though there was a chocolate stain on the carpet that hadn't been there before. But standing on the stairs and looking over the chaos that was the bookshop, Aziraphale could cry.

For a moment they stood there, taking it in. Then Crowley walked to the nearest bookcase. It was leaning against the staircase, and its contents, Aziraphale's collection of rare scrolls, were scattered over the lower steps. Crowley hauled the bookcase upright, picked up one of the scrolls and put it on the top shelf.

The shelf came loose. Aziraphale squeaked in misery.

'Well, damnit,' Crowley muttered. He picked up the shelf and studied it. 'Okay, umm... right. I've got hammer and nails in the back of the car.' He walked back over the path they'd cleared. On the doorstep he turned around, gesturing impatiently. 'Well, come on! We don't have forever!'

Almost automatically, Aziraphale came after him. 'Why do you have a hammer and... oh, never mind.' He was a bit too tired for this.

Outside Crowley stopped short. 'Huh,' he said, staring at the back of the car.

'What?' Aziraphale was much too tired for yet more unpleasant surprises.

But then he saw what Crowley saw and raised an eyebrow. There was a key in the boot lock. Crowley's spare key, the keychain – a plastic apple Crowley had once found in a garden centre – dangling cheerfully underneath it.

'What's that doing here?' Aziraphale muttered. It hadn't been there when they'd handed in the car at Cairo International Airport.

Slowly, suspiciously, Crowley turned the key and opened the boot.

Then he began to laugh.

Aziraphale raised his other eyebrow as well. 'What?'

'The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth back!' Crowley said.

'What do you mean?'

Crowley just gestured at the boot. Aziraphale wondered if he'd lost his mind.

In the boot stood a potted plant, an amphora of wine, and an empty liquorice bag.