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He finds it behind the laundry basket.
Aziraphale is, for once, cleaning. It’s a distraction, mostly, but it’s not working very well because everything just reminds him of Crowley, but Anathema seemed to think it was a good idea.
But there it is. Crowley’s old, worn Queen shirt, the one they’d liked to sleep in. and, well. Maybe cleaning wasn't such a good idea today.
Anathema pokes her head in the door when she hears the thud of the basket on the floor. “What’s up?”
Aziraphale simply points at the shirt. He’s not quite deep enough in his grief to cry at everything, at least not anymore. It’s not quite the ocean it was a few weeks ago, even if the waves are still strong. He’s managed to get a little closer to shore again.
“Oh,” Anathema says. “Oh, Az.”
And okay. Maybe he is still deep enough in the ocean to cry. It’s been weeks, now, since he’d last found anything, so maybe he’d just wrongly assumed he was getting better. Newt had helped tidy away all of Crowley’s things, and Anathema had emptied out their half of the wardrobe into the chest of drawers in the unused guest room, so Aziraphale wouldn't have to see any physical reminders.
(It’s not like it mattered much, at first, because Aziraphale had rolled over and curled himself into a ball as far away from Crowley’s side of the bed as possible, unable to stomach the lingering smell of them on the pillow or the sight of their coffee cup on the nightstand, still half-full of water. He’d barely moved for most of the week; it had taken Anathema calling for Tracy to even get him out of bed before he even looked anyone in the eyes.)
But the shirt. That’s a bit too much, now.
So Aziraphale picks up the laundry basket and starts sorting the contents, burying the thought of Crowley again. They’re gone, he tells himself. They’re gone and they’re not coming back because they’re buried beside their mother with an empty plot to the left and the tiny, tattered remains of Aziraphale’s heart, the parts that weren’t completely destroyed in the hospital room, laying in their hands.
He doesn’t pick up the shirt, though. He can’t, not yet.
For the most part, he tries to block it out. He finds ways to ignore the yearning, the little part of him that still expects Crowley to come through the front door with their usual casual saunter and spread out on the sofa next to Aziraphale. He pushes it away, throws himself into work, and when that fails he simply gives up and lets the waves of his own ocean wash over him.
At one point, six months after the first hospital visit, the worst one, Aziraphale finds himself standing in the living room, staring at Crowley’s back under the blue knitted blanket they kept on the sofa. It’s one they’d made years ago, back before they were married, and Aziraphale remembers the moment Crowley had finished it so vividly. It was such a small thing, really, but Crowley was so bright in their excitement, and so honest in the simple joy of having completed it that he’d had no choice but to memorise their face in the pale winter sunlight.
But in that moment, Crowley had been pale, cold, barely able to climb the stairs without help, and it hurt.
Now, six months later, Aziraphale steps into the guest bedroom and sits on the bed. He pulls Crowley’s knitted blanket from where it’s draped over the end of the bed and wraps it around himself. He sits, and thinks, and asks himself, why didn’t we have more time?
Aziraphale’s getting better. Really, he is; Tracy’s not had to drag him from bed for two weeks, and Anathema’s told him he seems happier.
But sometimes it hits him. He’ll see Crowley’s favourite mug, the black one with the faded 007 printed on the side, and realise it’s sat untouched in the cupboard for nearly a year. He’ll realise that the bedsheets no longer smell like Crowley, just him.
It’s quieter, now. Crowley’s not there to play their favourite records every day, or come roaring up the street in the Bentley after work.
It’s too quiet. There’s no echoing footsteps, no signs of another person. The record player hasn’t been used since the day of the first hospital visit.
(They couldn’t, after that; Aziraphale was more concerned with Crowley’s health, and Crowley rarely had the energy to even get up and down the stairs. After a while they were at the hospital more than they were at home anyway.)
And after, well. There was nobody to listen to it. Nobody to consider their whole record collection and still choose the same thing every time, nobody to plead with Aziraphale to put his book down and come dance with them. Just nobody but Aziraphale, and the memories of Crowley.
It’s odd, he thinks, to be so used to all the noise of another person only for them to be gone so suddenly. Eleven years wasn’t enough. Six thousand years, an eternity side-by-side as stars in the sky wouldn’t have been enough. They only had eleven years, precious, both the shortest and longest of their lives.
The framed photos on the mantel don’t hurt as much anymore; now they just evoke the same longing as the knitted blanket or the untouched James Bond mug in the cupboard.
But Aziraphale has kept all of Crowley’s records, all their most prized belongings (barring the Bentley, which was left to Pepper, but remains in Aziraphale’s care until she’s old enough), so he still has the record player sitting in the corner of the living room.
Crowley’s knitted blanket has once again found its way to the back of the sofa; their beloved houseplants are healthy under Aziraphale’s careful watch. While there’s still a space left empty for Crowley, things are better , Aziraphale realises.
They’re better. He can see the sunlight without thinking of Crowley’s hair in the summer, or the way they’d burn so easily. He can hear Queen songs without flinching at the memory of Crowley singing them in the car or singing them to Crowley in a hospital bed. He’s okay.
It doesn’t register until he’s across the room and pulling Crowley’s favourite record from its sleeve, though.
The needle scratches. ‘Love Of My Life’ starts. Aziraphale’s feet move by themselves, stepping gently over the floor he’d danced with Crowley on so many times before. He dances alone, with the ghost of Crowley’s hands cradling his and the memory of their footsteps echoing his own.
It’s not the same, but he carries on, through the rest of the record, until he stops himself up by a thread tied to his healing heart and the feel of the soft wool of Crowley’s blanket under his hands.
He’s okay.