Good Omens 3 fairy tale ending, canon compliant
Here's a very hopeful ending for Aziraphale and Crowley that doesn't technically mess with canon and also gives them their fairy tale story! It's made me feel loads better.
The universe has infinite possibilities. If the universe can exist with Heaven, Hell, and everything in between once, then whose to say that something similar couldn't happen again? Or something similar didn't happen previously? I am firm in imagining that Aziraphale and Crowley find each other again, as cosmic beings, in a future universe, with their memories intact, even the memories of Asa and Anothony, and all variants who came before and after, every experience still in their minds. They pop into existence at the beginning of time, looking like they did when they said goodbye in the bookshop, with the addition of their wings, because they can freely choose their forms and they quite liked the wings and previous faces. Crowley opts to not have his snake eyes so that his vision is perfect for stargazing. He keeps the yellow, however. Azirphale loves yellow.
They say hello as if no time has passed at all, because for them, it hasn't. They've always been together. They see the big bang happen again, countless nebulas forming right before them. Crowley is particularly happy about that. They hold hands and just...sit, or float, or flap, as stardust forms galaxies and solar systems, Alpha Centauri, which they visit of course, and, eventually, Earth. They get to watch it all happen, together, without the burden of having to make everything perfect for someone else's plan. They have no control, and that's the best part. That's what they wanted. They explore the cosmos and eventually head down to Earth where life has begun to sprout. Now they can watch the prehistoric ages and all the magnificent creatures that come with it.
They are particularly excited to watch humans come into existence, simply because that's what evolution does, not because they were put on the Earth like dolls by a supreme being. They walk amongst the humans through the ages, just as before, but with no worries of angelic or demonic duties. They are allowed to just...live. Aziraphale tries the food, he buys human clothes and keeps them in tip-top condition. Crowley enjoys the alcohol. They have no one to report to, no where to be, they just have each other, and humans all around them with the free will they sacrificed everything for in their previous universe.
Eventually, Aziraphale gets his bookshop in Soho, which they share, and Crowley gets the Bentley, which they share. The Bentley hardly ever leaves from its parking spot in front of the Bookshop. The two man-shaped cosmic beings see many recognizable faces in modern London, humans who look all-too familiar, some former demons, some former angels. Muriel and Eric seem to be getting along particularly well. Gabriel and Beelzebub, now called Bee, travel the world together often. They can't help but notice that every one of Heaven and Hell's former employees looks happier now. Their burdens have been lifted. Aziraphale and Crowley check in on Anathema and Newt in Tadfield, who found each other despite there not being any apocalypse to divert. So did Mr. Shadwell and Madam Tracy, whose sister Shax comes over for brunch sometimes. Joshua and Adam hit it off early in their childhood, Adam almost immediately made Josh second-in-command of The Them. Nina opens her coffee shop across the street, Maggie opens her record shop, Aziraphale forgives her as many months rent as he desires. Eventually Maggie finds something she wants more than a lonely record store and becomes Nina's right hand at the coffee shop. Turns out she can make a mean skinny latte. Things run as they should, ups and downs included, but strictly human ups and downs, not ones caused by any demons coming to invade a bookshop or floating heads calling one of them back to Heaven or a psychotic archangel ripping apart a book. No bookshop fires (Aziraphale is extra careful this time), no Hellhounds, no world-ending catastrophes. Well, unless you count Covid, which, in all fairness Crowley tried to warn people about. But humans never listen. That certainly didn't change much from before. Oh, well.
Aziraphale and Crowley still have a magic akin to miracles at their disposal (theyre no longer bound by the laws of "angels and demons" but keep the name for nostalgia's sake) but they try their best not to interfere too much. Free will, and all that. Many years pass, Wickber Street still bustles with people and no shops have yet to close down, except those whose owners simply choose to move on. Aziraphale and Crowley one day decide, despite all the paperwork and legality of the process meaning nothing to immortal entities, to get married. They always were, in a sense, even before the beginning of this universe. They knew that. Two simple rings and a piece of paper could never encompass all their love is. But the humans are pushy and some things come easier to "official" couples. Besides, they remember how nice it felt to be married in their past life. They could miracle themselves married, but where's the art? Where's the spectacle? If Aziraphale is going to marry the love of his entire existence, he wants it done right. Crowley just goes along with it, whatever makes Aziraphale happy is what he'll do. They invite all their friends, and acquaintances, and everybody just so happens to be able to come. Azi swears a miracle had nothing to do with that, but Crowley is skeptacle. Their ceremony is grand, there's dancing, singing, food, and quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol. The gold and silver rings they now wear have an almost ethereal shine to them. It goes down as one of the best experiences of their very long lives.
The bookshop is closed for a few days after that, though the Bentley remains where it always is. Those on Wickber Street theorize what the two might have been getting up to during that time. The truth was that they had taken a very romantic honeymoon in the stars, but when asked they just say "vacation." At some point Aziraphale and Crowley had set up a passageway in the very back of the bookshop that would take them anywhere their hearts desire. A simple miracle made it so the passage could never be discovered by any being other than them. They could of course just fly wherever they wanted, but the old wings do get tired. Miraculous teleportation was an option, too, but this, as Aziraphale says, is more fun.
Their most visited destination, second to Alpha Centauri, of course, is a simple cottage located in the South Downs. They remember Asa and Anothony settling down at a similar place. It has a beautiful garden, grown by Crowley without the use of any miracles, and they're all the most gorgeous, lucious, healthy plants anyone has ever seen. Any human with a particularly green thumb seethes with jealousy when they pass by the yard. The inside is riddled with pieces of tartan furniture and other accessories. They go to their cottage often, if only to gaze up at the stars they watched come into existence twice now. They hold hands on their matching lawn chairs and drink cocoa, rings glistening in the moonlight.
One special night they sit on their stoop, and when clouds build, thunder rumbles, and it starts to rain, black and white wings appear to shelter one another. They live an eternity and a half just like this. And when this universe eventually ends, they will be there to watch it start again.
