On the bank of a small lake in London, a man-shaped being — whose defense against the autumn chill consisted of a tartan jacket that clashed with his equally tartan scarf — glanced at his pocket-watch.

Fashionably late, as always, he mused to himself, shaking his head fondly.

At last a sleek black car pulled up some ways away, and its driver, sporting his usual suit and sunglasses, stepped lithely out.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, angel," Crowley said, not sounding sorry at all as he joined Aziraphale on the bench overlooking St. James's Park Lake. He examined the seat of the bench, making sure the wood was clean of bird droppings before he settled himself on it. "So. What did you invite me here for?"

"In a moment, in a moment," the angel said, waving the question away. "How are you doing, my dear?"

"Good, thanks," Crowley said, a note of confusion in his voice. Aziraphale knew why.

"You're wondering why I'm being so pleasant."

"Well…yeah."

Aziraphale hesitated only a moment — no use in beating around the bush. It was now or never. "Ever since that day, Crowley — when was it? A month ago now? — I've come to realize…how much I care for this world. How much I care for you."

The angel kept his gaze fixed out across the water. Its blue-green surface, dotted with ducks, shimmered with the red of the sun sinking down behind Buckingham Palace in the distance. From the corner of his eye, however, he watched the sequence of emotions that paraded across his companion's face: shock, joy, suspicion, replaced finally by a careful nonchalance.

"Angel…"

Aziraphale held up one hand to silence Crowley. "Just look at that sunset," he said serenely as the sun plunged down behind the Palace, quenching all color and leaving them in shadow. "Every evening, the same, and yet it never loses a drop of splendor, of wonder, of newness."

The demon swung his legs back and forth, his long fingers picking at a splinter in the bench's seat. "What are you trying —"

"My dear," Aziraphale interrupted, grabbing Crowley's hand to still its fidgeting, "there simply is not time. So keep quiet and listen: I am being decommissioned from Earth —"

"What?" The demon's legs stopped dead in mid-swing, and his hand spasmed in Aziraphale's grip. "Az, for the love of…ach, just tell me you're joking, or you have several years at least, time to fix this —"

"I am being decommissioned," Aziraphale repeated, trying and failing to keep his heart in one piece as he observed the desperation in his companion's eyes, evident even from behind their darkened lenses. "After my, ahem, involvement in stopping the end of the world last month, my superiors have decided I could use some time in Heaven, to readjust to the ineffable plan, you see."

"Angel, please—"

"And it is unlikely," Aziraphale plowed on, "that they will ever deem me fit to return here." He swallowed, the motion feeling like sawdust catching in his throat. He'd told himself he wouldn't cry, but the anguish in those golden eyes was tearing into him like a knife… "They are coming for me tonight, and I need you to do something for me — oh, bugger." (His old swear-free had record been shot, well, to hell during the events of the Almost-Apocalypse.)

A little to the right of the sliver of moon hanging high overhead, a beam brighter than starlight blossomed across the inky sky. It extended downward, spilling across the black of night like a tear-track until it pierced the center of the lake.

Several more UFO sightings than normal would be called in that night, with witnesses ranting about tractor beams and aliens that glowed.

As the ducks scattered, shimmering shapes rolled down the beam of light like waterdrops down a stem, growing clearer and brighter as they reached the lake.

"Aziraphale, run!" Crowley cried, jumping to his feet and pulling the angel up with him. The sound of tearing fabric ripped through the air as the demon's wings unfurled. "I'll hold them off!"

"No, my dear," Aziraphale said gently, resisting the demon's efforts to push him away from the lake. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket, pulling something out. "Listen, take this ring —"

"This is not the time for…whatever this is!" Crowley protested as Aziraphale slipped a ring onto the demon's finger — the one humans of this age considered proper for wedding bands, the angel realized wryly.

"Just wear it, Crowley, for me," Aziraphale said, watching as the closest of the celestial beings reached the surface of the water and began gliding across it towards them. Others followed close behind it. "Every day. Swear it!"

"Az, no, just run, I —"

"Swear it, damn you!" the angel shouted.

"Fine, but come on, we'll fight them together, we can win, we faced off Satan himself, rememb — Aziraphale!"

The nearest of the golden-glowing beings had wrapped what was not well-defined enough to be called a hand, but a tendril of its essence, around Aziraphale's wrist.

Crowley grabbed his angel's other hand and pulled, wrenching Aziraphale free.

"Crowley, stop, I don't want them hurting you!" But Crowley was attacking the heavenly host, throwing sloppy punches at their only partially-corporeal forms.

There was a crackle of energy, as of lightning, and the demon was flung backwards into some shrubs, wings folding at awkward angles below him.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale cried as his fellow angels closed in on him.

"It is time to come with us," a ringing voice emanated from one.

"I know, I know," Aziraphale snapped back, eyes fixed on Crowley's unmoving form. He allowed himself to be pulled backwards, over the water, into the beam of light…

As he passed from the physical world, he watched Crowley stir, rocketing to his feet and hurling himself across the lake.

"Aziraphale!" The demon's scream racked Aziraphale's soul just as it was wrenched loose of his corporeal form — drifting upward as nothing more than spiritual essence, he watched Crowley catch the suddenly lifeless body that Aziraphale had called his own, just before it hit the water.

Goodbye, old friend, he thought. If only he still had eyes, he would have caught the golden gaze that stared desperately up into the beam of light, would have willed Crowley to understand what the ring was for.

As Aziraphale and his abductors reached the top of the beam, its light flickered and dissolved, leaving Crowley waist-deep in water and clutching his counterpart's corpse to his chest, utterly alone.