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God is many things, but she won’t let it be said that she’s not a woman of her word.
So she does what the angel and demon asked for. She creates a new, Godless universe.
She parts with everything from the old universe, lets it disappear into nothingness. A nothingness that she herself has inhabited for … well, forever, frankly.
And then she leans back. Takes a deep breath and relaxes. Sits there in her infinite nothingness. Her infinite silence. Her infinite …
Boredom.
Oh GOD she’s so bored.
She experiments with new life forms. Enjoys watching them flailing their many limbs around, learning to walk, talk, laugh, cry, love …
Love.
With each new creation, that’s where she falters. That’s where the boredom comes sneaking back.
Or perhaps it’s not boredom? Perhaps it’s something else. It’s an ache. An ache deep in her chest that she hasn’t felt before. Sadness? No, she’s felt that before. Not often, but often enough to recognise the feeling.
Annoyance? Perhaps. But then she remembers how it felt to speak to the archangel Gabriel, and she feels a shudder of real annoyance running through her. So not that, then.
Happiness? Definitely not. When she ponders this, she realises that’s an almost unknown sensation to her. She felt happiness when she created the world, of course. Or at least a semblance of it. When she created the angels, certainly. She had to pour a lot of happiness into them, and so she definitely knows how it feels, but …
Mostly she’s just spent the past however many billions of years feeling nothing. And then sometimes bouts of boredom that made her act out. Or rather, made her make the angels and demons and humans act out. In one way or another. There was the flood and that human … Noah, was it? The destruction of Sodom comes to mind as well.
But this feeling is new.
It makes her feel, for lack of a better word, yucky, when she thinks about it. As if she’s done something she shouldn’t have.
And honestly, she’s God! She can do whatever she wants. She’s only ever done whatever she wants. And she’s never felt this before.
She spends years, centuries, millennia, aeons pondering this.
And then she realises what it is.
It’s her conscience. She feels … guilty. Regretful. A bit sad too, if she’s honest with herself.
But she doesn’t understand why.
She did what they asked. Aziraphale and Crowley. She created their universe. She fulfilled their wishes. She did the right thing.
She believes that. For a long time.
But with time comes realisation. And with realisation comes acceptance.
And somewhere along the line of the many many millions of years that has passed, she realises that perhaps she didn’t do the right thing.
She did what they asked. But she didn’t do what she should have.
What she really wanted to do. What they really wanted her to do.
She made them disappear into nothingness without giving them a chance to be what they always should have been. A shared entity. Two halves of a whole.
So she goes to their universe. Meddles a bit, even though she was specifically asked not to. But she’s God, she can do what she wants. She creates two humans with their likeness - with the same faces, the same hearts, but none of the memories. And she waits it out. She looks at these two humans. These two strangers becoming something, someone. Finding each other. Loving each other.
It makes her smile. And for a short while the ache she’s been feeling dissipates. She’s done the right thing. They found each other. They got to love each other, truly, without fear of persecution, Heaven or Hell.
But human lives are short, and one day they’re gone. Again.
And the ache in her chest returns.
So she does it again. Creates new human counterparts of the Angel and the Demon. And it happens again. They find each other. Fall in love. Create a life together. Her ache disappears.
And then they die.
Again.
And again.
Because she keeps doing it. Keeps creating new human versions of them.
And each time the ache goes away.
But when they die, it appears again.
And eventually it becomes too much. Too all-encompassing. The hope and happiness she feels every time those two idiots find each other is drowned out by the sadness, regret, heartbreak and guilt she feels every time their lives end, as human lives are wont to do.
She has no idea how many times she tries and fails to make the feeling go away.
But one day she has enough.
She leaves the universe. Goes back to her infinite nothingness. And suddenly it feels much more … infinite. Vast. Empty.
And then she realises.
She can keep trying to appease her guilt by making human copies of them. Can try to make her heartache disappear by making them fall in love. But … it will never be enough.
Because it’s not them.
It looks like them, yes. It sounds like them, laughs like them, loves like them.
But it’s not, is it?
It’s not them.
The realisation hits her with a force that almost eviscerates everything, herself included.
She needs to bring them back. She needs to let them be what they should always have been.
But the thing is … She’s God. She’s not usually wrong about anything. And this would prove that … well … sometimes even God makes mistakes.
She tries to see the poetry in that. Thinks it may even sound like a good inspirational quote. But that doesn’t make her feel better about it. About being wrong. Ugh.
On the other hand, she’s tired of living with the constant ache in her chest, with the constant knowledge that she should have done something. That she could have done something.
And she can still do that something.
So one day, she leans back, takes a deep breath and brings them back.
They appear in front of her, hands still clasped, glistening eyes looking at each other and acceptance carved into all their features.
It takes them a while to realise what’s happening. The demon speaks first.
“What …”
Not very eloquent, she thinks. Most of his human counterparts would have thought of something far cleverer than that, but she supposes she shouldn’t compare them.
“Over here,” she says, resigned.
They both turn to her, acceptance giving way to confusion.
“You win,” she says, and they both gawk at her.
“Win?” The angel, Aziraphale, says. “Lord, I’m afraid I don’t understand …?” he trails off, and she sighs despondently.
“I did what you asked. I created a Godless universe.”
“Right, well, that’s good,” the demon, Crowley, says. Hand still clasped with Aziraphale’s. “But I thought, well … I thought we’d … you know …” he trails off, makes an explosive sound and waves his free hand around.
“Explode?” She tries to hide her amusement, but she must admit this is the most entertained she’s been in quite a while.
“In a manner of speaking,” he says sheepishly.
“Well, you did.”
“We did?”
“We did what?” Aziraphale supplies, confused.
“Explode. Or rather fade.”
“Fade?” The demon raises his eyebrows.
“Into nothingness. You ceased to exist. For a while, at least.”
“A while?” Crowley asks.
“A long while.”
“How long?”
She waves her hand. “Just a couple of billion years.”
They both gape at her. She does nothing, keeps her face completely free of emotion.
“But why?”
“Well, you asked for a new universe, so I thought yo-”
“No, I mean why bring us back then?” Crowley asks.
“Lord,” Aziraphale shoots the demon a somewhat scolding look. “Perhaps you may elaborate on, uhm, your reasons for undoing your, uhm-”
“Angel,” Crowley says. She notices that he squeezes his hand.
“Well, Aziraphale, I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“Of course not, Lord. Please excuse-”
“Yes you do,” Crowley says and again, she tries to hide her amusement. Contrary to popular belief, she has never minded being questioned. She enjoys the confusion and frustration it tends to cause. To the people who ask the questions, of course.
“Careful, demon.”
“We’ve been gone for literal aeons. Why bring us back now? What happened?” He’s frustrated now, closing in on her with an annoyed scowl. Aziraphale holds his hand, as if tethering him closer and stopping him from attacking her. It’s cute.
“Nothing happened,” she shrugs. “I was bored.”
Again, they gape at her.
“Bored?” Aziraphale says the word as if tasting it for the first time. “You brought us back, because you were bored?” he sounds frustrated now too.
She shrugs again. “I’m God.”
Crowley turns to the angel. “Right, this is ridiculous. Could you discorporate us again, and just get it over with?”
Aziraphale opens his mouth as if to protest.
“Oh, stop being such a drama queen,” she says, chuckling.
Crowley whirls on her. “Me?! I’m not the one refusing to answer a very simple question, after seemingly re-corporating us out of nowhere after literal aeons!”
She’s not chuckling now. In fact, she feels a bit … stupid. And she doesn’t like feeling stupid. She likes being vague and ineffable and respected.
But he’s right. And she knows it. And she really really doesn’t like it.
“Okay,” she says, holding up her hands in defeat. “Alright.”
“You’ll tell us?” The demon asks, unimpressed and the angel looks on with a hopeful expression.
“I suppose I do owe you some sort of explanation …” she trails off, unsure of how to continue. “I … I created the universe you asked for,” she starts.
They both nod, as if urging her on, and it annoys her a bit, but also somehow helps her continue.
“But then I … Well, I suppose I felt like I could have done more. For you.”
“For us?” the angel says quietly.
“Well, I … Oh, I’m going about this all wrong. What I mean to say is: after I finished your universe, I realised I felt a bit weird. And I don’t enjoy feeling weird. In fact, I don’t enjoy it so much that I put off delving into that feeling. I tried to ignore it, tried to create other things to make that feeling go away. But it didn’t. And when I realised what it was, well … I tried to remedy it.”
She trails off again.
“What you said that day, Aziraphale. That stuck with me.”
“What I said?”
“Yes. About me, giving you Crowley.”
“Ah,” he says, blushing slightly.
“You were …” she takes a deep breath. “Well, you were right. I did give you Crowley, I made you whole and then, well, I took it away.”
“I was right?” Aziraphale whispers, sounding almost as if he’s in a trance.
“As much as I hate to admit it, yes you were. And I realised that perhaps, you deserved more than nothing.”
Crowley looks at Aziraphale, smiling sadly.
“I created your universe. I did what you asked, but I didn’t give you what you deserved. Which was a chance. A chance to become what you always wanted to become. What you’ve always been, but never fully.”
Now Aziraphale looks at Crowley. She’s stuck with how similar to that day their expressions are. Their eyes are glistening, and the sad smiles playing on their lips makes her own heart skip a beat. When did she become this sappy?
“I tried to remedy it without bringing you back. I know I promised not to meddle, but well … I created human versions of you.”
At this, she once again has their undivided attention. “You did what?” Crowley blurts.
“I … I’ll just show you.”
So she does. She shows them snapshots of thousands of different versions of them falling in love. She shows them first meetings, weddings, kisses and travels. She shows them young and naive, old and grumpy. She shows them everything, and while she shows them, she watches them. Their hands remain clasped, their bodies moving closer, until their shoulders touch. She watches them lean into each other, each of them relaxing against the other, both their faces showing the kind of contentment she’s seen a thousand (or more) times on faces eerily similar, but still not exactly right. She sees that now. All those copies, all those thousands (if not millions) of copies were them, but also not. But these two …
The guilty conscience she’s been carrying around for so long dissipates like the morning mist, like the dew that vanishes early in the day.
And she knows she finally did the right thing.
When she has nothing else to show them, the infinite silence stretches around them in an almost comforting way.
“Thank you,” Crowley says, surprising both her and his angel. “For showing us that.” His voice is thick with unshed tears, and she notices how Aziraphale unclasps their hands (something she thought might be impossible after so long), and wraps his arm around the demon’s waist in a comforting manner instead.
“As you see,” she says. “I tried. But it changed nothing. My feelings didn’t change.”
“So that’s why we’re here?” Aziraphale asks timidly.
“Yes,” she hesitates before adding. “I owe you a life together. A real life.”
“A life,” the angel says, tears filling his eyes.
“I know your universe is godless. No Heaven, no Hell,” she chuckles. “I know you said no demons or angels too, but … perhaps you’ll be willing to overlook that?”
They look at each other. “I can live with that,” Crowley says softly, so softly she barely hears him.
Aziraphale beams at him, his smile so bright she almost has to look away. “So can I.”
“Well then,” she nods to herself. She snaps her fingers (for the dramatic flair of it, she doesn’t really need to do it) and then they’re all standing in front of the bookshop on Whickber Street. A 1926 Bentley parked right by the front door.
The street is milling with people, completely unaware of the presence of an angel, a demon and God herself (perhaps because the concept of a God isn’t really a thing for them, but that’s neither here nor there).
She breaks the silence. “It’s exactly the same.”
They both turn to her.
“No one will question why it’s here. I promise, it’s the last meddling I’ll do. And just for good measure: by all intents and purposes you’re still you. An angel and a demon. You’ll live forever, unless you really want to change that, and you’ll get to perform miracles. But since this is a Godless universe, I expect you to use your miracles sparingly.”
They nod, both completely dazed.
“Right, that’s me, then,” she says, feeling suddenly awkward. She’s never felt awkward before. She doesn’t care for it.
“You could come for tea,” Aziraphale turns to her, face kind and inviting. “Or, I mean, I … it must be lonely. Being …”
“Thank you,” she says, immediately cutting him off. “I appreciate the offer, but if I’m honest this is more socialising than I’ve done in millennia.”
“Right, of course, sorry,” he says sheepishly. “The offer stands, though. If …” he trails off and she nods.
“Yes, well …” she says. “Now, what are you waiting for? Go live your lives.”
Aziraphale nods and opens the door to the bookshop. He crosses the threshold, his hand firmly clasped in Crowley’s who trails after him. He looks at her before entering, and smiles softly at her. “Thank you,” he says. She just nods her head once.
She stays there until they’re both inside the bookshop. And she stays as they fall into each other’s arms, kissing each other as if it’s what they’ve been wanting to do since the dawn of time. Which she supposes it probably is.
And then she disappears.
Or, rather.
She sticks around for a while. Watching them like she watched their copies for so many years.
But this time, when they get their happy ever after, it doesn’t end. It simply continues. Goes on and on and on ad infinitum.
When she realises this, she can finally find peace in the big, vast, infinite nothingness she has always, and will always inhabit.
And if, by some strange turn of fate, she feels those pesky bouts of boredom approach again, she looks in on them. The only two beings in existence that ever managed to make her feel more than contentment. And that replenishes her and makes her feel just as whole as those two make each other feel.