The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 93: Silent Conversation

Chapter 93: Silent Conversation

As they bounded through the night, bouncing along and thrown side to side with the demon's manic driving, Aziraphale recounted the old joke about the station wagon. The family loaded up, the dogs and leashed cat, going out on some unknown holiday.

This was a bit like that, the angel mused. Just not the way he ever imagined.

Through the night the Bentley roared, and Dick Turpin puttered behind, way behind: a tiny caravan composed of bits and pieces of humanity and celestial: a rag-tag composition that no one in their right minds would define as "family."

And yet for Aziraphale, it was.

"Too bad you can't make your flat move around like the bookshop, demon," the little witch grumbled from the back seat. "How much longer anyway?"

He turned sharply and they all lurched to the left. "Forty minutes."

"That's to SoHo. How far to Mayfair?"

"Not enough to make a difference."

"Hmmm."

Aziraphale sat with his own thoughts, vaguely listening to the two of them. At last, he heard Anathema's swishing skirts as she propped her feet up and relaxed into a half-laying position across the back seat. Apparently she had concluded that this was enough information and decided to rest where she could. Which was fine by him. What he wanted to divulged to Crowley had to be shared promptly, but privately.

So, just in case...

Gently he took the demon's free hand and started to tactile sign into it.

There's been no mention of Adam.

He watched the demon's face for awareness, but the only light sources he could relay on were from the occasional street lamp or passing car, and when it did he only caught a flicker of a glimpse of Crowley's mouth, and it seemed set. But the demon took up his hand, and responded.

Better leave it that way for now.

Aziraphale thought again, then said:

I have a theory, about the vision the other night.

Crowley actually looked at him, briefly, his lips parting. Then he turned his attention back to the road as they careened through a pothole.

The angel braced his hand on the ceiling, then brought it down once more and brought Crowley's fingers into his lap.

I think it was a time shift, love. I think I brought you with me.

Crowley's eyebrows went up. Without warning he twisted to the angel, and swerved as his attention was diverted from the road. Quickly he righted the turn, staring forward again, but his expression, from what the angel could tell in this darkness, remained the same.

"Dammit Crowley!" came a muffled complaint from the back, and shuffling noises as the witch readjusted herself. Aziraphale inhaled, and continued:

Well, not exactly a time shift—

A Could-Have-Been, the demon quickly signed.

A what?

It was a Could-Have-Been. That's what I call them.

Now Aziraphale was glaring at him. All he signed back was a huge question mark.

The demon's face coiled. "Ehhhhh":

A possible future, or a separate reality. An outcome that could-have-been, but never-played-out.

Crowley, which is it?

I don't know, and I don't think it matters.

Why?

Because, he flitted quickly over the angel's palm before grabbing the wheel and flinging the Bentley into the heel of another sharp curving incline, result was the same. It never came to be.

In silence they continued for a while, the angel occasionally glimpsing into the rearview mirror to catch some sight of the others.

"Don't worry," Crowley told him. "They'll catch up." From the back, light snoring purred on the edge of the angel's hearing.

He looked out the window, the added out loud," In one regard it matters."

"Oh?"

The angel turned back to him. "It means I can take you with me on these shifts. That could be a benefit."

"Possibly."

More silence, more snoring. Then," Crowley, another thing."

"Yeah, whot?"

"What if.... what if it was something I learned from you?"

The Bentley's brakes slammed, then released, then the accelerator shifted and they sped up. The witch went "Onk-onk-onk,"in her light slumber, but that was extent of her complaints.

Crowley finally said, "I never thought of that. But...I suppose it's not a bad thing."

"Dear boy, why would such a notion surprise you?"

Crowley shrugged. "Didn't think I had it in me, angel. To teach you something like that."

Aziraphale turned back to the window, and beamed.