Wow. I have to admit, it feels really surreal to actually be uploading this.

Several readers, both here and on dA, asked for this. I racked my brains. I grumbled. I wrote. I got Writer's Block. I cursed profusely in thirteen different languages. I got over my Writer's Block. I got more Writer's Block over something else. And, eventually... I finished it.

And here it is. A sequel to Fade to Black. A sequel. Not the sequel.

There are two. The other is titled Broken Treasure and is by the utterly amazing Sister-to-the-Queen. She will upload the first chapter tomorrow, and I insist that you all go and read that one too.

And on that note, early though it may be... there are several people that I owe a great deal of thanks to. One of them, of course, is Sister-to-the-Queen, for sticking by me the whole time I was writing this, being patient, putting my fears to rest, for titling this thing and all of its chapters and taking on the painstaking task of beta-ing this monster and beating the evil out of it. I can honestly say that this story would not be as good without her.

The second is my dear friend Pen Sil, who, even though I still haven't allowed her to read this piece, helped me to write several scenes in it, including the beginning scene of Chapter 9. And also kicked me in the head every time I started procrastinating. Without her, this story probably still wouldn't be finished.

The final person to thank is Haizea, my best friend, for putting up with my incessant babble regarding this story and my Writer's Block, and for not murdering me yet. xD You're the best, Lady Zed!

In any case. -ahem-

'Resurgemus' translates to 'We will rise again', and 'Renatio' is Latin for 'Rebirth'

I do not own Good Omens. That belongs to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't own Aziraphale, Crowley, Azrael or God. They, too, belong to Pratchett and Gaiman.

I do, however, own all the other characters in this story.

And without further ado... I hope you all enjoy Resurgemus.

The sun was slowly making its way down from the highest point, dark clouds beginning to gather on the horizon.

Grey eyes as old as time, their bright blue long since faded, opened, dispelling the images that haunted him. A hand lifted to push back tangled blonde hair, moved down to cover the eyes for a moment, curled around lips and chin, and finally came down to rest on his lap. He stood, moving to the window, eyes blankly taking in the oncoming storm. There was another patch of darkness in his memory today.

Fading… It was all fading away… Life drifted further and further out of his reach with each passing day, each passing second, until he'd almost forgotten what it had felt like to really and truly live. He felt lost inside himself, his mind trapped inside its own thoughts like a cage, the blackness closing in on him.

He'd lost all will to live. He felt numb. Nothing mattered any more. He had nothing left to give to the world. He'd tried, God knew how hard he'd tried to keep going, to keep giving, but there was nothing there anymore. He'd burned out, finally reached the end of what he could manage. There was nothing left for him, nothing to tie him to the world. He was alone and empty. The love he'd once felt for humanity was gone, replaced with… nothing. Not even hatred. Just nothing. Numbness. Emptiness. He longed for an end, longed to be free.

Nothing was the way it used to be, back when he'd been happy. There was a hole inside him, a place where something had been ripped away. He missed the absent part of him, missed the person that it represented. He was lost in darkness, in emptiness, a part of him still refusing to believe that it was real, still expecting to wake up from the nightmare. He couldn't stand the empty feeling that was filling him to the point of agony, until it felt like Hell. The darkness that grew inside him, around him, that darkness that swallowed him took every speck of light left, every tiny hope, every happy thought, everything that kept him going, until he wasn't him anymore, until he wasn't anyone any more, until all that was left was nothing but the unshakable, undeniable, unbearable knowledge of the truth, of the fact that he was gone.

He turned, moving haltingly towards the door to the shop.

A tiny part of him wondered if he could save himself from the darkness and the endless despair, knew that he could have saved himself, but it was too late… He couldn't think, couldn't think why he should even try. There was nothing, no reason. His duty, the only thing that had kept him going through a thousand lonely years, was gone. God had forsaken him. He was alone in the darkness, trapped in an endless Hell of Today, with only the endless Hell of Tomorrow to greet him. Yesterday, the days when he had been happy, when he had loved and been loved, when he knew, the days before the darkness came, felt as if they had never existed. He could barely remember them, couldn't remember what happiness felt like and barely remembered what it even was. He stepped over the threshold. What was the point?

And with that question, his mind snapped and he screamed. Behind him, the bookshop that had been his hiding place for the last thousand years burst into flame in response to his anguished shriek. The books were nothing. Paper and ink. Who cared? Not him.

The heavens opened and drenched him. The cold water should have numbed him, but he couldn't feel it. He was already too numb, too far gone. The flames danced behind him, resisting their very nature, burning, blazing, hotter, brighter, crackling and hissing in defiance as the rain fell on them, refusing to be extinguished. He didn't feel the heat of the blazing inferno behind him. He didn't see the terrified looks of the villagers. There was only fury.

The Shadows took him and it felt like Death. It was welcoming. The world faded, the walls closed in. Emptiness engulfed him… and he felt nothing. Saw nothing. Knew nothing. He was broken, and he didn't know or care. All that existed was darkness and numbness. It was as good as Death, as good as the end.

He welcomed it.

He didn't know how much later it was that something disturbed his world of darkness. He didn't know how long he had wandered, lost, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. It came suddenly, breaking through the darkness. It was something he had not felt for so long that he couldn't find the word for it at first. In confusion, he looked down to see the sword that had pierced his breast, his mind searching for a word, the word to describe the sensation.

Pain. It was pain.

He raised a hand to touch the sword, his brow furrowing at the beautiful silver flames that danced along the blade. Silver… That was divine fire… But… he was… Why did it hurt?

The answer hit him. The anger that had consumed him, the darkness that had swallowed him…

He had Fallen.

As the pain spread through his body, it was followed by a sort of relief as he realised that the agonising stillness and darkness would finally end. He looked up, meeting the green gaze of the young angel, and smiled peacefully before closing his eyes as the divine fire burned away at his core, at his soul, and he turned to dust and scattered. The world faded to nothing…

In a dark room that existed on a plane outside of our own, a pulsing orb began to dim and scatter, the sparkling sand that danced inside it falling still and dark, only to stop as it was surrounded by ethereal power. A figure in a dark robe materialised out of the darkness in response to a call unheard by any ears other than his own.

Find them. The voice echoed around the space, loud and yet soft at the same time, and filled with sadness so great it was impossible for any human to understand. You know what to do.

The figure nodded, raising a bony hand to capture the orb, and turned, catching another orb, similarly cloaked in ethereal power, almost absent-mindedly, and fading back into the darkness.

It was time for Azrael, the Angel of Death, to enter the Void once more.

He floated in the emptiness, straying far out of thought and time. He was not conscious of how long he spent there. He did not care. It did not matter. In this place, time meant nothing, thought had no significance. It was as if he did not even exist. It was peaceful, in a strange way. Pain did not exist, nor numbness or sadness. There was naught there but nothing.

Nothing – the complete and utter lack of any matter - is not a concept that the human mind is equipped to deal with. When faced with the idea of 'nothing', the human mind tends to imagine blackness, a darkness so absolute that nothing can be seen. This is wrong. Darkness in itself is something, and so it cannot be nothing.

He drifted in nothingness, not thinking, not feeling. He did not know how much later it was that the vacuum was disturbed. Time was nothing, meant nothing.

He hung in the void forever, yet for no time at all.

The sound that disturbed him was a sheepish cough.

He twitched limbs that he'd forgotten he had – limbs that he shouldn't have had – and opened eyes that he didn't have. The being in front of him (or was it? He couldn't tell) was familiar. His mind searched for the name, he opened a mouth that hadn't existed a moment before, spoke words that hadn't been a second ago. "Azrael… Angel of Death."

YES.

"Who… Who am I?"

YOU ARE NO ONE.

"Who was I?"

THAT YOU MUST REMEMBER ON YOUR OWN.

His mind sought a name that wasn't, a name that he hadn't used in millennia.

"…Aziraphale," he croaked.

Death nodded. AZIRAPHALE, PRINCIPALITY. FORMER CHERUB AND GUARDIAN OF THE EASTERN GATE, he said.

The former angel sought the memories of his life. Bits and pieces floated hazily through his mind. He remembered the pain of being stabbed through the chest, shuddered at the memory of the agony of his soul being eaten away by divine fire.

"I thought that… I died…"

YOU DID.

"I shouldn't exist… any more…"

The skull looked – somehow – embarrassed. AH. WELL. YES. IT'S ALL RATHER EMBARRASSING, ACTUALLY… IT WAS A BIT OF A BUGGER TRYING TO FIND YOU, I MUST SAY. He produced an object from his robe. It was a pulsing orb of light. Grains of sand sparkled as they lay still at the bottom. Aziraphale gasped. "Is that -"

YES

"I thought that they turned to ash when we died…"

THEY DO. YOURS WAS PRESERVED, AND THUS YOUR SOUL REMAINED UNTIL I WAS ABLE TO GET HERE. AS LONG AS THE HOURGLASS EXISTS, THE SOUL EXISTS, AND AS LONG AS THE SOUL EXISTS, THE HOURGLASS EXISTS. IT IS A DIFFICULT CONCEPT.

"Preserved? By who?"

THE CREATOR.

Aziraphale looked away. "Impossible," he whispered softly. "He forgot me a long time ago."

THEY SAY THAT HE NEVER FORGETS ONE OF HIS CHILDREN. YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE.

"A second… chance? Why?"

I WOULD NOT PRESUME TO KNOW. IT MUST BE A PART OF THE PLAN.

A small smile graced the former angel's lips as if he had just remembered an old joke. He found the familiar words. "The Ineffable Plan…"

CERTAINLY. Death sounded puzzled. He turned his attention back to the object cupped in his fingers.

Aziraphale itched to touch the glowing orb, but he held back. "What will you -"

WATCH. Death's skeletal fingers danced over the orb. The throbbing radiance faded away as, under his skilled touch, it was reshaped, the light turning to glass as the orb reformed into an hourglass. The sand still lay at the bottom, no longer sparkling.

The skeleton raised his skull to look at the soul of the former angel. COME.

Aziraphale made to follow, but they didn't seem to have moved at all when they found themselves at a doorway – well, more of a glowing rent in the nothingness than a door, but a doorway nevertheless.

Death held out a hand to usher him through. GO.

Aziraphale took a halting step forwards.

AND… AZIRAPHALE?

He looked over to the skeleton. "Yes?"

GOOD LUCK.

"Thanks…"

He reached out tentatively with one hand, touching the light, and bit back a gasp as his hand passed straight through. It was warm and comforting. He had long forgotten what those sensations felt like – what anything felt like, really.

I SHOULD HURRY, IF I WERE YOU, advised Death. YOU ARE BEING CONCEIVED RIGHT ABOUT NOW.

Aziraphale nodded and stepped into the doorway, his voice echoing back with a startled "What?" as Death's words sank in.

Death grinned – not that he had much choice – and turned the hourglass over in his hand. The sand began to fall again. He slipped it back into his robe and drew out a second orb, this one pulsing with darkness. NOW, he mused, TO FIND THE OTHER ONE…

Chapter 2, Regiones Somnii, will be uploaded this time next week.

Yeah, I know. I'm evil to make you all wait that long.

See ya next week, peeps.