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"So, what do you want?"
Aziraphale and Crowley shared a look. Turning to the Almighty, they replied,
"Privacy please"
.........
In the garden, in the bookshop. Almost where they began really; at least where they began to begin to truly matter to eachother.
Aziraphale looked into Crowley's eyes, formidable, familiar, capable of great tenderness and great wrath, and now full of tears.
"Well" said Aziraphale gently, "What do we want, Crowley?"
..........
"We want people to have a chance" said Aziraphale.
"A chance at what?" replied God with idle curiosity.
"To be people!" Crowley snarled, brimstone rising.
"To be people, and that's it! Good people, bad people. Loud people, meek people, cat people, dog people, bloody axolotl people! Just people. Without divine influence. Without divine punishment or reward" he deflated and said "Just leave them be. No demons in their ear, no angels at their back"
Aziraphale smiled and clasped Crowleys hand.
"That's what we'd like, please" he said. "Bring it all back as it was - after all, its not their fault they were unwittingly part of a giant game of celestial chess, but going forward, make them free to choose their own paths"
Satan and the Almighty shared a look, one knowing and one with the air of waiting for the next trick with a smirk on his face.
"No angels?" God asked Crowley. He looked at Aziraphale briefly, swallowed and nodded.
God turned her attention to the angel, "... and no demons?"
Aziraphale's gaze didn't waver from hers as he nodded, his hand tightening possessively on Crowleys hand in his.
"A universe without me, without him" God gestured regally to Satan on her right, "without you?"
Crowley began to nod stoicly, but winced instead as Aziraphale's grip mangled his hand.
"Actually, no" he stepped forward, bringing Crowley with him, "not without us" he clarified.
"Not without us?" asked Crowley
"No my dear, we're not going anywhere" Aziraphale smiled, cheeks dimpling but eyes resolute.
"After all, there aren't two more angels and demons anywhere in heavens ranks or hells dungeons who have embraced humanity as much as we have" his eyes returned to God, "how hard would it be to, as Crowley said, leave us be?"
The silence of the unmade world outside the bookshop door seemed to draw within.
The Almighty contemplated the angel before her; his kind eyes, the softness about his form which belied his love of food, laughter lines around his mouth that hinted at his love of good company, and the hand that held the demons firmly, white knuckled and steady.
Her eyes slid to Crowleys slim hand, gripping the angels for dear life - quite literally, she thought, with the amusement of a child revelling in their own imaginative play.
Crowley's eyes were not kind, his form not soft, the lines on his face were furrows upon his brow. He had clearly worried, he had wondered, but most of all, he had loved this angel. In secret, in peril, in uncertainty, and the weight of that love was written all over him.
How hard would it be to leave them be? Not hard at all, really. In fact it would be about as easy as it would be to unmake them.
"Hang on" a course voice interrupted the temporary reverie.
"Oh good lord" Azirphale breathed out.
Satan leant forward in his chair, "If you're asking for a world with no angels, demons, heaven or hell; no her" he nodded towards his maker, "or me" he said through a clenched smile, "then there'll be no possible place for you two to exist in this brave new world with no rulebook"
God looked over at the two of them, waiting.
Crowley smiled, scratching his hand across the course stubble of his chin.
"Ah well, when Aziraphale said leave us be, he was misquoting me" He looked sideways at Aziraphale.
"To err is human, after all" he drawled with a private wink, "but I actually asked that you'd leave people be, to be people. And that's what we're asking for. Leave us be ... as people"
Azirphale's smile grew, his eyes brimming with tears.
Crowley brought Aziraphales hand up, holding it over his slim chest and letting the angel feel the beating of a heart he didn't need but which was pounding anyway.
"We're halfway there already" he reasoned, "you may as well grant us a little nudge over the edge, "said Crowley. "After everything"
..........
"Alright" said The Almighty.
Azirphale and Crowley looked at eachother and back at God, surprise and suspicion etched on their faces.
"A-alright?" Aziraphale asked, disbelieving.
God leaned back in her chair.
"Alright indeed. However, it occurs to me that in a world with no angels, and no demons, as much as you have enjoyed playing at being human, and although it's a world with no rulebook as my friend here said, there is still one rule that must govern this world in the absence of the divine"
"Yeah, I already thought of that" Crowley replied. "People ... don't get eternity"
His eyes caught Aziraphale's, searching his face for any hint of dismay.
Instead, the angel brought Crowleys hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to it as he said, "My dear, we have had millenia, unable to be together. I shall gladly relinquish an eternity apart for a life truly shared with you; one without fear, and without... reprisals" He looked sideways at their mutual bosses.
In the last little patch of universe, a mere scrap of paper floating on a breeze, the last demon and the last angel stood before their maker, hand in hand in a book shop stocked with empty books, with pure potential.
..........
The Almighty rose from her chair, and glancing once at Satan, turned to Crowley and Aziraphale.
"...well?" She prompted.
When no reply was forthcoming she said softly.
"Time to say goodbye"
Understanding dawned on Crowley and Aziraphale. They turned to one another, hand in hand, until Aziraphale raised one to his lips to press a kiss there. He reached across and lay them on Crowley's lips, saying goodbye to the demon he had loved so dearly for six thousand years. Crowleys lips met his fingers in a kiss as he too bade farewell to the angel who had given him back his heart after his fall.
"To the new world angel, where people will be free and no-one will know our part in it"
Aziraphale smiled tenderly, "Ah, yes my love" he whispered, looking reassuringly once more into serpentine eyes, " ... but we will"
............
It was that ephemeral time of year when the cherry and apple blossom in the city had reached its peak, and the blooms which hadn't been shaken off with seasonal hailstones had begun to let go of their boughs and fall to the pavement with all the gentle grace of snowflakes.
They swirled as people walked through the fragrant drifts, the unfortunate blooms floating to the gutter, the fortunate carried on the wind further afield. A few found themselves at the foot of the steps to the Ritz one particularly sunny afternoon in April.
A couple were to be found there, and anyone curious enough to have been eavesdropping would know that something of a lovers tiff was being carried on under the opulent chandeliers of the famous eatery.
"Darling, won't you take those sunglasses off indoors? You know you don't need them anymore"
A red headed man, slim and slouching, elegant in shades of deepest navy and grey, looked over the offending accessory at his companion. Amber brown eyes gazed fondly over the tortoiseshell frames.
"Been years and years angel, my face feels all wierd and naked without them" he pulled a face and pushed the glasses back up his nose, leaning back in his chair and smiling as he did.
The other man sighed theatrically and dabbed his mouth with a napkin before laying it fussily back on his lap.
"Oh but Crowley, I do so miss seeing your eyes when we're talking. You know how much I love your eyes"
The red haired man grinned and sighed in feigned defeat, swiping off his spectacles, folding them and storing them in the top pocket of his jacket in one fluid movement. He gazed into the other man's blue eyes and reached for his hand.
Even the most curious eavesdropper would look away here, for none of this is their business. This one doesn't however, and sees how happy the dimpled face of the man with white hair is when he lays his hand in his companions, where it is cherished and held. A golden band gleams on the ring finger, and his husband smiles as it catches the light.
They see the red haired man slide to the edge of his chair, one slim hand with matching golden band snaking up the tartan collar to the back of his companions head to settle in the fly away white hair there while his leather ankle boots jostle for a space between the neatly laced brogues of his husband beneath the tablecloth.
They both pause before their lips meet, smiling into one anothers faces and looking as though they can't quite believe their luck. Somehow, this could be their first date or the five hundred and fiftieth. The couple seem both new and familiar, and when their lips meet, we must finally look away and leave them to their life together.