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6000 Years

We’re stepping into a Good Omens AU today folks, one that has been in the back of my head since Season 1, but I have never written down.

As always, ignore all canon that contradicts this AU. Also there are parts of this that are a bit fucked up. You have been warned.

We start when Aziraphale and Crowley, having already switched their faces, were being captured for their trials in Season 1. As the Angels are escorting Crowley away, they are attacked by another group and rescue Crowley (looking like Aziraphale). Aziraphale is not rescued and is escorted to Hell.

This was not part of Crowley’s plan; it was part of Aziraphale’s.

These beings (that we find out are other Principalities) continue to usher Crowley along, at first ignoring his protest (that he is not who they think he is and they need to go back) but stop him before he speaks either his or Aziraphales name going “We will explain, once we are safe. But for the love of the one whose face you are wearing, do not speak either of your names. We can’t attract attention”.

Meanwhile Aziraphale is still playing Crowley for the Demon ‘Trial’. This is interrupted when the Archangels, led by Gabriel, burst in. The lack of Aziraphale in heaven caused them to look a little deeper and it was immediately apparent that Aziraphale was wearing Crowley’s face. Aziraphale continues with the charade for a few more minutes, buying time until Crowley had been brought to the safe location (because of the magic involved, he could tell when they crossed the threshold). Then Aziraphale relaxes, dropping the magic that made him look like Crowely.

Beelzebub accuses Aziraphale of sheltering Crowley from demonic punishment. Aziraphale scoffs, not even looking at the demon and says ‘I was not sheltering him from you’. Aziraphale turned to fully face Gabriel and said, looking feral and with contempt dripping from his voice, ‘Poor little archangel(and everyone could hear the lack of capitals). So many secrets…and your leverage just went away’

Gabriel took one step toward Aziraphale, only for the principality to force him back against a wall and hold him there without touching him. This made absolutely everyone uncomfortable, since Aziraphale should not have been able to overpower an Archangel, certainly not so easily. Aziraphale, not even straining and still looking a bit unhinged said ‘Poor little archangel…you may have made a mistake, poor little archangel’

Now the next part switches between the principalities explaining everything to Crowley and Aziraphale speaking at the assembled demons and angels, except where noted. They all refer to Gabriel solely by the moniker of ‘poor little archangel’ with both contempt and the lowercase ‘a’ audible.

This is the story that is told:

It begins at the end of the Great Angelic War. The Archangel Gabriel was injured in the last battle, by the time they had healed they were different. This is well known. What is known only to a few is why. And the why begins with a poor little archangel, a librarian who never so much as picked up a weapon or tried to defend his home. This poor little archangel was ambitious and, at the end of the war, found several references to a spell developed just prior to the war, by a Power that Fell and was subsequently killed. A spell that would have been forbidden had there been anyone left to remember it. A spell that allowed a lower angel to take a higher angel's power. It was meant to be borrowed, with permission, but the poor little archangel was not stupid and changed the spell so that permission was not needed.

Then this poor little archangel took a chance, when The Archangel Gabriel was recuperating from that final battle (At this the angels and demons looked at Gabriel, who was trying to interrupt but had been silenced by Aziraphale). While the spell will take the power, it cannot take the other aspects of the angels being the responsibilities. Thus the change when the new Gabriel ‘awoke’. It likely would not have worked, had more of Gabriel’s close companions been there after the War. But alas.

At the same time God was trying a new experiment, the Principalities. We were to be a new type of Angel, sharing a single core between us so that we could pull more or less power as needed for our mission. God knew that another battle was coming between ethereal and occult and that Earth was to be the battleground. She did not want the humans caught between the forces, so She created the Principalities to each work with a Demonic Counterpart to push humans onward so that they would be well away from the Earth by the time the final battle commenced. Though She was unable to communicate her intention to the demons, She crafted each of the 50 Principalities with a specific demon in mind. A partner.

We were to be outside of the normal hierarchy, outside the normal rules. And unintentionally that created a loophole for a poor little archangel to exploit. In order to maintain the power he had stolen, the poor little archangel needed subordinates and he could not draw that authority from the true Gabriel’s subordinates. The poor little archangel tricked the Principalities into taking control of them. But just as he could not change his nature, he could not change the Principalities given mission. They continued on, started meeting their demonic counterparts. Began to love them.

The oldest Principality, Eva, met her demon Lilith first (the demons here all shifted uneasily, they all recognized the name Lilith but none could picture her). As soon as Eva spoke her love to the demon, the poor little archangel stuck.

For you see, the poor little archangel was not content with the power he had already stolen. However he could not enact the spell again without releasing the true Gabriel. He thought, incorrectly though the poor little archangel is just learning that now, that he would be able to take the power of his subordinates as punishment. He could not punish us for things that were explicitly allowed by our mission, even if they were normally against the rules for the ethereal. However if it was not explicitly allowed, he could punish us as our superior with no oversight because he was never meant to be above us. Working with our demons was explicitly allowed. Acknowledging our love for our demons was not.

The punishment he decreed was a ritual of his own design, something he was able to force his angelic subordinates to participate in. It stripped the connection between the Principality and the shared power core. It also forces the Angel to utterly destroy the demon, both angel and demon feeling the excruciating pain of the act. (Beelzebub: Are you saying that Gabriel has destroyed a demon that way? Aziraphale: I’m saying that the poor little archangel has destroyed 49 demons that way). The poor little archangel thought that he was getting the power of the angels. He was not.

Since the Principalities share a core, all he did was reduce the number of beings pulling on that core. And the Principalities, when working together, were meant to be a last line of defense for the humans. As such the combined core was strong enough to take down two seraphim.

(Michael-who had not made the connection between 49 demons destroyed and the number of Principalities created: How many Principalities are still connected to that Core? Aziraphale, looking just as unhinged with a wild smile that looked more like a scream: As of January 13 1923 I am the last principality connected to the core.)

Though the punishment broke the connection between the Principality and the Core, it could not remove their angelic immorality. So the angels lived on, almost against their own will. As the poor little archangel was looking for reasons to punish us, we had no way of knowing what would break a rule until it was broken by one of our brethren. We learned too late of 49 different infractions. We were stuck, we could not risk our partners, could not tell them (that was the 18th rule broken). But the poor little archangel was stuck as well, in order to change the punishment he had to renegotiate the agreement that bound us. He could only punish us for actual actions, not thoughts, not feelings, but words and actions. And the ritual could only be performed with the demon present.

Two days ago, when Adam chose not to end the world, there was a 13.6 minute period where the ethereal and occult energy mixed in a way that was usable without a connection to either an angelic or demonic core, if one knew how. Eva has been studying for a very long time; to create a place of safety, a place where Crowley would be beyond the poor little archangel’s reach. She was able to complete it with those 13.6 minutes and her lifeforce.

So now we will be free

Now this was a lot, and everyone in hell was looking at the still pinned “Gabriel” and the even more unhinged looking Aziraphale (at this point he has 50x the power he should running through him, has spent the last 6000 years deliberately giving mixed messages to the love of his immortal life as he walked the tightrope of doing enough to not be accused of negligence -that had been infraction number 6, the principality had thought to avoid their demon to protect them- while also not being breaking any of the known rules, and finally sees that stress about to be relieved; long story short he is on the edge of a breakdown and could win a fistfight with God herself).

Crowley, with the crowd of 48 remaining Principalities (all of which are very focused on making sure Crowley is safe, almost to the point of creepy obsession-Listen, he is the best and in some ways the only reminder of their lost demons. There is a lot, as in an actual metric ton, of trauma here), is also trying to digest everything that Aziraphale has not been allowed to tell him for the last 6000 years. Also dealing with the fact he is decidedly not allowed to leave the warded area (a room about half the size of his apartment) until they get word that either the fake Gabriel is stopped OR Aziraphale is dead (he has also, rather worryingly, been assured that they will all make sure he is dead before he would be forced into Angelic hands an the ritual-like I said, lots of trauma).

The actual Archangels do decide that they need to take the fake Gabriel with them, at least temporarily, so that they can find where he has stashed the actual Gabriel. After that he will be given to the demons as a gesture of goodwill, for the demons he murdered. It is also collectively decided that the War would be put on indefinite hold while everyone worked to clear the humans from their battlefield. They would also work together to try and reverse the punishment ritual, at least to reconnect the remaining Principalities to the Power Core (with the full support of Lucifer-who got punched out by a high strung, jumpy Aziraphale. As far as Lucifer is concerned, Crowley's permanent job is now solely to keep the crazy, overpowered angel happy). This is also fully supported by Aziraphale, who would like to stop feeling like he is burning with power, please.

When they find the real Gabriel, he is living but a stick thin shadow of his former self. He was never able to fully heal from his injuries because he has spent the entire time since the fake Gabriel took his power in the angelic equivalent of being stuck, partially comatose, in a dusty closet.

As part of his punishment for…well for everything, the Fake Gabriel’s name was stricken from all the records. He was referred to solely as ‘poor little archangel’, no capitals.

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