36. How much do you remember?
Another Ineffable Partners fic but this time with some Anathema thrown into the mix!
“How much do you remember?”
Crowley and Aziraphale sat on an overstuffed sofa in Jasmine Cottage, having tea with Anathema. Crowley leaned forward, elbows on his knees, waiting for her answer.
“Well, I know enough to remember that you were there at the air base,” the witch said pensively. “I remember that Newton broke a lot of computers. I remember all of the prophecies coming true.”
“How much of the air base do you remember?” Aziraphale pressed.
Anathema paused. “Well, you gave me back my book,” she said slowly. “And... and you started talking about him being a snake? And an apple tree?” She shook her head. “It gets a little fuzzy after that. There was some asshole in a grey suit and a shorter person wearing a fly hat but I don’t remember how they got there. And then there was an earthquake? There were a lot of earthquakes that day, I remember. And a tornado.”
“What do you remember after the earthquake?” Crowley asked.
“Adam’s dad came to get him,” Anathema answered instantly.
Crowley nodded slowly. “Right.” He turned to Aziraphale and there was a silent conversation that passed between them that Anathema caught none of. Crowley turned back after a moment. “Right,” he repeated, “book girl. Girl with the book. All the prophecies in that book? Came true that day. Do you know why?”
Anathema thought about this question. She should know why. The prophecies had been her life for so long. “Because...”
“Because they were predicting the end of the world,” Aziraphale said gently. “And it came about. Well, most of it.”
“You helped to stop it, along with Adam and his friends,” Crowley added. “And us, sort of. Though we didn’t do much in the end.”
“So what... what am I missing?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer but needing to hear it nonetheless.
“Well,” Aziraphale began, “in the beginning—”
“Sparknotes version, angel,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes.
“Website people use to find book synopses and summaries. So they don’t have to read the whole thing.”
“Well, that sounds absolutely horrid. Why would anyone not want to read a book?”
“Why would anyone want to read Moby Dick?”
“Moby Dick is a great novel! It deconstructs the concept of fiction and creates art from its wording!”
“It’s boring, angel! I don’t give a shit about whale anatomy!”
“You don’t have to to understand its poeticism, Crowley. The story is deep and interwoven, and it was relevant to the world at the time of its publication and it certainly will be relevant again. It demonstrates a classic struggle of man versus nature in a completely new light!”
“It’s dull and much too wordy! Why would I want to read something that takes years to finish because I can only read a sentence at a time?”
Anathema sighed and sipped her tea. Eventually she would get an answer. For now, though, she watched the couple bicker and hoped that she and Newt would have far more interesting arguments than whatever was happening here.