The escalator rose and rose, and the air grew colder and purer. Aziraphale, carrying his own holy spirit around like a blanket, didn't seem to feel it, as his clothes grew simpler and brighter, his faint glow increasing in luminescence, hair and eyes shining.

Crowley was miserable. The temptation to access his own holiness was strong, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. It felt like losing in a way, admitting to being Botis, embracing the white wings, committing to being more righteous. He didn't feel holy, and was determined not to, no matter how cold he was becoming. He felt thinner, darker, more shadowed as they rose, as his blood froze and slowed and he became sluggish. The light was too bright, the air cut into his lungs. He could feel his heartbeat and breathing slow. He held Aziraphale's hand, the only source of warmth he had, and put everything he had into a defiant slouch.

They disembarked with only four flights to go, and the Angel of the Sixth Floor Elevator During the Morning Watch looked at them with baffled curiosity, a Principality holding hands with a scowling Seraph in black jeans and snakeskin shoes.

"Ah, Havani," Aziraphale said amiably. "Good to see you again. Would you ask Michael to meet us for a quick word?" He led Crowley into the larger room, where they stood alone, surrounded by endless kilometres of glass.

The light was even brighter and colder here, illuminating all the world spread below them. Crowley had never spent much time on the sixth floor, and it had looked different then, looking down on a single garden, not this huge glittering world. It looked different from up here, both more crowded and further away, the teeming human life hardly visible. No wonder the Third Sphere seemed so distant from the humans they looked over, with only the one who walked among them for thousands of years really caring.

He felt sick and exhausted, and clung to Aziraphale's hand.

The tighter grip made Aziraphale turn to him. "Are you all right, dear boy? You're not, are you," he added, a statement rather than a question.

"It's this body," Crowley said miserably. "Wasn't designed for up here."

"Change, then."

"I don't think the snake will do any better."

"Your other form."

"I don't think the maggots will fit in here. Anyway, I can't seem to do them any more."

"Your other other form," Aziraphale said patiently. "Your true form."

Crowley was frankly terrified at the thought. "I'm not sure I can. I'm not sure I want to. I don't want to remember, and I'm afraid I'll burn you. They tried to kill you with Hellfire, Aziraphale. What if it's a trick?"

"I don't think so," Aziraphale said thoughtfully. "I find it surprisingly easy to believe you are a demon in your heart, as it were, especially looking at you right now, but you are most definitely not one in ethereal form. I can't be hurt by Heavenly fire. Crowley, dear boy, you're shaking." Aziraphale said, and Crowley decided he would brave anything if Aziraphale would use his chosen name again and look at him with such worry.

He let go of Aziraphale's hand, and let himself embrace the fire buried inside him, turning towards it. His wings unfolded, one after the other, his eyes opening on all sides, his body gratefully slipping out of the bipedal form into something more serpentine. The Seraph blazed with heat.

"It's been a long time since I saw you like that. You look magnificent," Aziraphale said softly, "but I think I find your other self more comfortable."

"Which one?" asked the being who was trying very hard not to think of itself as Botis. Perhaps he could glower and sprawl a bit.

"Either," said Aziraphale, and his chuckle was warm and ordinary and suddenly everything felt easier. Crowley dared come closer, and when the licking flame didn't hurt Aziraphale, curled around him like he had in his black and red snake form.

"You never met me like this. It's a false memory. What could have been, if you saved me from Falling."

"I regret that I could not," Aziraphale said sorrowfully.

"No. I don't regret Falling. If I hadn't Fallen, I wouldn't have spent six thousand years enjoying Earth with you."

"Well, this is unexpected. And touching. Hello, Aziraphale. And—Botis?"

"Crowley."

"If you prefer." Michael folded her hands neatly. "Welcome back to Heaven. How can I help you?"

"You can explain what's fucking going on," Crowley said, all his determination to stay calm and let Aziraphale do the talking vanishing. The fact that Michael had tried to execute Aziraphale and Aziraphale didn't even remember it, was looking at her calmly—well, she had tried to kill Crowley, actually, and—the bright light was still muddling his head. How many pairs of dark glasses did he need to conjure up for this form? How would he even keep them in the right place when his eyes were floating around? "Turned up to see Aziraphale, did you?" he added bitterly. "Didn't bother to turn up for his frying."

Michael flinched slightly. He was sure of it. "That was an error."

"Agreeing to murder him, or not showing up for it?"

"I thought my biggest priority was neutralising you, Serpent," she said, calmly.

"Good job there."

She smiled at him. She fucking smiled at him, as tenderly as a mother. Crowley's flames licked up around him, and he hissed.

"Hush, my dear," Aziraphale said, in a voice with steel behind its gentleness. Crowley subsided. "Michael, is there anywhere we can sit? I feel like I am delivering a report right now, and that's not what I came for. I'm afraid I've become accustomed over the millennia to human luxuries like chairs. And, if you would be so kind, tea. I find material comforts helpful in establishing the right atmosphere for a chat."

That gentle smile still on her face, Michael gestured, and a silvery blue couch and armchair materialised, a glass table between, with a steaming teapot and three cups. She gracefully lowered herself into the chair, and Aziraphale, less graceful but hampered a bit by a serpentine Seraph still wound determinedly around him, took the couch. He was quiet while he poured two cups of tea, but it was the quietness of a coiled spring. The spout hovered over the third cup.

"Crowley?"

"Not in this form, thanks." He focused on glaring at the Archangel.

Aziraphale set down the teapot. "Now, Michael, as my friend here requested, please tell us what is fucking going on." He lifted his cup and inhaled the scent pleasurably.

She sighed, for the second time showing some discomfort. "I warned you not to make any contracts, or let the demon do so. Once he did, it was out of my hands. Besides, it is a success, is it not?" She smiled at Crowley again, her smile maternal and loving. "Welcome back to the fold, Serpent. There will be much rejoicing at the first of the Rebels returned to us, once we deal with our recent loss."

Crowley hissed again. "I never agreed to change Aziraphale's memories of me and the Apocalypse. I couldn't. Hell wouldn't make a contractual mistake like that, I can't sign away what doesn't belong to me. The whole thing is invalid, and I swear I will burn the place down if the contract isn't broken. Hellfire and holy water won't hurt either of us, you're fucked. I'll destroy every one of you if I have to in order to save him."

"Hush, dear. You're not helping." Aziraphale looked, Crowley thought, like he was repressing a fluttery smile. Rescue fetish. He hated Asmodeus being right. He still felt his heart melt a little.

"Aziraphale's memories are changed?" Michael raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't know?"

"Crowley, much as it gladdens my heart to have you back in Heaven," she said, with a little iciness, "we just lost one of our Choir's most valued and beloved generals for reasons we cannot understand, and I have had other things on my mind than you two. The paperwork alone..."

"Give him back his memories."

"I never took them." She sipped her tea. "Aziraphale, are you sure you didn't agree to this?"

"I can hardly remember, can I?" he asked, plaintive.

Michael sighed and pressed her fingertips together. "Germain, would you please ask the Metatron for all current heavenly contracts regarding the beings Aziraphale and Botis?" She spread her hands and a tablet appeared. "Thank you, and please convey my gratitude to the Metatron." She blew on the tablet, and placed it down on the table.

For a panicked moment, Crowley thought it would be the Contract, the one detailing what he had done for Hell and his place in the Infernal regime guaranteed as a result. He didn't want Aziraphale to see that, an Aziraphale who had no tender memories of him to balance his early Betrayal out. But there was only a single promise.

Please just grant me this one thing, Lord. Just let me be able to be what he needs. Whatever he needs me to become, I'll become, if You help me. It's not fun being a temptation anymore. Please. I'll repent of anything You like.

And below it, signed with a sigil like a shining moth, was the word Done.

"That's interesting," Michael said mildly. "Prayers, covenants and redemption aren't usually Gabriel's department." Pain flickered over her face. "Or weren't."

"This is a completely incompetent prayer," Aziraphale said, and Crowley realised with a shock that the angel's anger was now directed at him. "Could you have been any more vague? I thought you were supposed to be a demon. You should know better than to make open offers to the Enemy like that!"

Defensively, Crowley slid back into human-like form and backed against the other side of the couch. "I didn't think anyone would listen."

"So it wasn't a sincere offer?"

"Of course it was!"

"Then why would you make such a thoughtless prayer?" Aziraphale spread his hands helplessly.

"Because I love you!"

"Oh," said Aziraphale, subsiding suddenly. "Of course you do. I'm sorry, dear. Tactless of me." He patted Crowley's knee comfortingly.

"S'right," Crowley mumbled. It wasn't like he technically needed his heart anyway. It could keep getting shattered on a daily basis. "Why are you smiling?" he lashed out at Michael.

"This love," she said carefully, "manifested before you became unFallen?"

"Several thousand years before," said Crowley, and Aziraphale blushed.

"And stayed steady all that time without consummation? Well, then." She cheerfully took another sip, and blew on the tablet again. "This is the contract Uriel and Dagon drew up. Demonstration of unselfish love, no acts of lust, no attempts to make Aziraphale Fall. We didn't make a formal offer for Crowley's soul because they were ironing out the details, and indeed I thought it was an unfair provision. You have managed to break your chains anyway with the same prayer that formed the other offer, so Hell can hardly raise objections, so I fail to see what the problem is. This prayer contains a strong implied offer of chastity."

"Are you sure? I mean, if I thought I'd had any chance, I would have been on my knees begging him to fuck me."

"I'm right here, you know," Aziraphale said, turning red.

"Well, did you?" asked Michael.

"No. I didn't want to upset him." Or be rejected again himself.

"Well done, my beloved child. I can't wait to tell Uriel. She owes me a new marble palace for betting that you wouldn't Ascend."

"I don't care about my Ascension. Give Aziraphale his fucking memories back!"

"I didn't take them, and I don't have the power to access them. I'm rather afraid," she said gently, "that you're going to have to negotiate with the former Archangel Gabriel for that."

The demonic contract folded up in Crowley's hip pocket suddenly felt like an unbearable weight.

Aziraphale's face fell. "Oh..."

"You're not Falling, not if I can help it," Crowley said grimly, taking his hand. "I'll work something out."

Michael finished her cup. "This tea really is a very pleasant experience, Aziraphale. I must allow you to introduce me to more material pleasures, as the planet seems like it will be around for a while longer." She touched the moth sigil, and a proposed agreement blossomed out of it, detailing that the demon Crowley be offered his former position in Heaven, and have his former sins and betrayal completely washed out in the eyes of the subject of the prayer.

"Sloppy," she mused. "Wait, what's this?" She touched a tiny spark above Gabriel's sigil. It expanded, into a stylised lemon tree, and the note "With respect and love, query your interpretation of the proffered contract, G. It seems to me that an offer of Ascension is not called for without extraordinary circumstances. More detailed alternative proposal follows. S."

Crowley snatched it up, opened the proposal, and stared. Panic overwhelmed him, tightening his throat, hammering his heart. He thrust the tablet back at Michael. "We're going. Thanks—thanks for your help," he managed to force out.

"My pleasure. It's a delight and a triumph to have a lost lamb back with us."

"Crowley, what--"

"We're going. Now. I need to think, and I can't do it here."

Aziraphale touched the back of his hand. "If I can help at all, I will."

"You can't. No one can. I have to think this through myself. Oh, fuck Sandalphon, the fucking sadist. What did I ever do to that bastard?"

"You know, your Ascension isn't permanent yet," said Michael, a little coldly.

"Yeah, I can see. Thank G-S-Existence for that. Angel, let's go." He practically dragged Aziraphale to the escalator, past the confused Havani, and down. He held onto Aziraphale's hand like a vice, and his mind screamed all the way down.

He thought he knew what he had to do. He just couldn't face doing it.

Notes:

1) Havani is the Yazata/angel in Zooastrainism presiding over the Second Watch (morning to midday).

2) There are several different interpretations of the number of heavens and their content. I've gone with the one that places the sixth heaven as the one from which humanity is overlooked by angels, so Azirphale's team would likely be based there.

3) Germain is a saint who records the deeds of beings.

4) A moth is one of the symbols of Gabriel; a lemon tree is one of the symbols of Sandalphon

5) Again, thank you for staying with me! This is by far the longest fanfic I've ever written, and it is amazing that people are staying with me through the twists and turns. You are amazing and lovely.