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“Ned doesn’t want to see you,” Aziraphale says, as gently as he can and still block the way.
Mr. Parker, normally a big man, looks small and weak, his mouth wobbly. “But - I have to see him. Have to say I’m sorry -“
“I’m afraid he doesn’t have the strength to forgive you today.” All his strength is needed for dying, Aziraphale does not add; but he doesn’t have to. Mr. Parker’s knees give under the weight of the truth on his back. Aziraphale catches him and guides him to a seat in the waiting area. “He knows you came. That’s something.” Since Parker refused to come the three previous times Aziraphale was sent to intercede for his son over the years, it is something, though it is also too little, too late.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it? If I hadn’t thrown him out - if I’d helped him when he asked - he wouldn’t have lived that life. He wouldn’t be dying now.”
Possibly. Plenty of the people dying in this ward right now, and all over Britain, and all over the world, were never on the street, never turned a trick or shared a needle, have good jobs and warm homes. But Ned was turned out when he was sixteen, had a lot of survival sex before he settled down with David, and now the only thing Aziraphale can do for him and David and the rest of that rapidly-diminishing found family is to deal with Mr. Parker for them. “It does no good to think that way. The disease isn’t concerned with whose fault anything is. The important thing is to do what you can for Ned, going forward.”
“What’s left to do? He’s dying and he won’t see me - and I don’t blame him, neither.”
No one does, Mr. Parker. You were a horrible father. But a lot of people in this ward had horrible fathers, and you’ve at least shown up before the end. “He owes you nothing, that’s true; but the hospital won’t recognize David as next of kin. You’ll have plenty of responsibilities - soon. Beating yourself up now won’t prepare you for them.”
Parker rocks back and forth, gasping for breath, but finally asks: “What will?”
“First, you let yourself have a good cry. The chapel is a good place for that if you feel too exposed here. And then, when you can think - you think about Ned. And David. Your son-in-law, whether the law admits it or not. Not about yourself or how you feel. About them. What they need. Can you do that?”
Parker’s mouth works. “Wh-where’s this chapel, then?”
So Aziraphale takes him to the chapel (which is out of tissues again, so he fixes that), and continues on his way past the nurse’s station, where flowers accumulate. Laura’s family has sent her tulips with her old name, Quentin, on them, so he passes his hand over the card and fixes that as he smiles at the nurse on the desk and relieves the numbness in her feet; an old trick he’d learned during his first plague. When not allowed to cure disease, alleviating the discomforts of caretakers at least improves the quality and duration of care.
Aziraphale focuses on those who have no one, either because the lives that made them vulnerable have been lonely ones, or because they are among the last of their circles to succumb. They’d partaken of a sexual revolution in good faith, making shift to enjoy themselves in a society that insisted, even after decriminalization, that they seek satisfaction exclusively in bars and cruisy restrooms; till they were blindsided by a disease coming from nowhere to burn through their worlds. They are florists and hairdressers, artists and poets, entrepreneurs and ticket-takers, sex workers and accountants, singers and dancers, actors and bartenders, musicians and chefs, soldiers and sailors and marines and pacifists, junkies and nurses, scholars and teachers and students, science fiction fans and birdwatchers and weekend footballers. They are Dan, who calls Aziraphale Auntie and sewed beautiful clothes right up to the moment he collapsed; Stella, who still speaks in the jargon of the postwar years, when the police cracked down and the bookshop sheltered someone almost every night; Stefan, who studied for his nursing exam in the bookshop because his landlord’s parties were too loud; Les and Andre and Chris and Ramir, who walked arm and arm with Aziraphale in the first London Pride and taught him naughty songs; Little Mike, who never found a closet big enough to cram all his flamboyance into; Big Mike, who always walks between his friends and dangers such as traffic and cops, shrunk now till he fits easily beside them on their hospital beds, trying to step between them and Azrael. They are his neighbors, they are his friends, they are his, and they are dying.
---
Hideo, who has always been one of those who sees him more clearly than most, raises his eyelids with visible effort and accepts ice chips. “You could fix this,” he says, in Japanese, barely audible, when his mouth is moist enough to produce sound.
“I could not. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mean me. I mean -“ He gestures, too weakly for the gesture to mean anything.
Aziraphale lays a hand on his wrist before the dripline pulls out. “Oh, my dear. If it were up to me, I’d use myself up to fix it all. But you know it doesn’t work that way.”
Hideo sighs out all the breath in his body. “Would you - “ He stops for another breath. “I don’t want to wait. For the other one. I don’t want to meet him alone. Will you -?”
“I can’t do more than help you over the hump.” The withered hand lies like a leaf between Aziraphale’s two plump ones. “You can only go with the other, in the end. But I will introduce you, if that’s what you want.”
Hideo nods.
His soul comes easily, graceful as the body once was. The attached machines scream. Aziraphale kisses him, turns, and says: “Hideo, this is Azrael. Azrael, this is my friend Hideo. I know you’ll take good care of him.”
HELLO, HIDEO. ARE YOU READY?
Aziraphale slips out as the nurse comes in.
---
“Do you believe everything happens for a reason?” Marty asks.
“Certainly,” says Aziraphale. “Sometimes the reason is that viruses exist. Sometimes it’s that someone somewhere made a bad decision. Most often it’s a combination of factors.”
Marty is down by 40% of his body weight. He has no balloons, no flowers, no cards, only a manila envelope on the bedside table. “I deserve this.”
“If I could erase the word ‘deserve’ from the English language, I would,” Aziraphale says tartly. “It’s a disease, not divine retribution. If deserving had anything to do with anything, none of the boys you exploited would have predeceased you.”
“Yeah. Um. I didn’t think you’d come. For me. I thought - after I was locked out of the shop that time - I thought that meant -“
“It meant you were a danger to Chad at that moment. No one is locked out irrevocably. It’s about need, not worth.”
Marty pulls the envelope out from under the cup of ice chips and the TV remote. “I have no right to ask you, but - if I can’t ask you, who could I ask? My wife sent me divorce papers. I’ve signed them. Will you mail them for me?”
“Certainly.”
“And, I need somebody, if, when - will you take power of attorney? Nobody, I don’t have anybody - or I wouldn’t ask, but you, well - there isn’t anybody, now Vera’s given up on me, and it’ll be, somebody has to -“
“Of course I will. Set your mind to rest.”
“It didn’t feel so wrong at the time.” Marty is nearly fifty, but his voice sounds thin, and lost, and as young as any of the boys Aziraphale ever warned against him. “Kind of, of classical, you know? The Greeks. All that. But I, it was - and then there was Vera, I mean - I’m a bad man. Aren’t I?”
“You’re a man who’s done bad things. Whether that makes you a bad man is not for me to say.”
“A preacher was here earlier. Says if I accept Jesus he’ll forgive me and I’ll go to Heaven. But what’s the use of that? If it only helps me and not anybody I, I hurt? If it’s too late to make up for anything?”
“It’s not too late yet. By the look of things you’re responding as well to treatment as anyone ever does. You might even get to go home for awhile.”
Marty snorted. “I don’t have a home.”
“Still. Regrets are necessary, but what needs to occupy your mind is, how you’ll spend the rest of your life. However long that is. However weak you’ll be. Matching what you should do to what you can do.” Aziraphale pats his hand. “We’ll take care of the Power of Attorney tomorrow. Get one thing off your mind. Meanwhile, you should probably sleep some more. I’m sure things will be clearer when you wake.” Marty closes his eyes obediently, and slips off to sleep.
---
“Tch! Look at those nails! You’ve been neglecting yourself.”
“Oh, nonsense. I’ve been waiting till you got back so I could have them seen to properly, that’s all.”
“Where’s my kit?”
But Harry’s hands tremble too much to be trusted near a hangnail. He lets Aziraphale manicure him, instead. The skin of his hands and face are chapped and peeling, and Aziraphale happens to have lotion on hand, too. Harry relaxes as the moisture works in and the smell of cocoa butter wars with disinfectant and the ghost of digestive catastrophes past. “Your hair’s getting long. It doesn’t do anybody any good to let yourself go, you know.”
“Yes, of course you’re right. Only, since Vincent died - well. I know Gene’s to be trusted with shears, and I’m sure the new hire’s a fine young man, but. You know.”
“I do.” Harry pats his cheek with his free hand. “I’m surprised that Crowley of yours doesn’t take better care of you, though.”
Aziraphale feels himself turn pink. “He’s on a, a business trip. I’m not sure when he’ll get back. And, you know, our Conflict of Interest - he’s hardly in a position to drag me to the barber.”
“Then I suppose it’s up to me.” Harry grins at him. He’s barely got any flesh on his bones, can't stand on his own, and hasn’t bothered with the gown, wearing only driplines and a diaper. “I’ll carry you in myself and tie you to the chair. Get Gene to give you a Mohawk.”
“No need for that! I’ll go in tomorrow. I promise. Do you know, I think someone on the floor has nail polish. Cobalt blue. What do you think?”
“Only if you do my toes, too!”
---
“I know you’re busy, but Alan wants to see you.”
“Of course, dear boy.” The room is almost crowded, some visitors in street clothes, some in hospital gowns; even the most robust, even the straight family members, looking thin and drawn about the face. Jerry sits on the hard chair by Alan’s head, and takes his hand. “Honey? Mr. Fell’s here.”
Alan’s eyes open, bloodshot and yellowed, and he smiles the same small sweet smile with which he used to hand over bags of buns and scones. “I had a feeling you’d come today. Jerry and I want you to marry us.”
“Oh, my dears! You know it won’t make any difference.”
“It will to us.” They both smile, one pleading and one hopeful.
“Very well, then. What service would you like?”
“Can you - can you combine Jewish and C of E?”
They planned for this. Someone produces a prayer shawl for a chuppah. Alan’s grandmother unhesitatingly pulls the rings from her own fingers. Aziraphale has done this before over the centuries, though his ceremonial knowledge is a bit outdated, and can improvise well enough with so many willing participants. They kiss and crush a plastic cup, and he sees the state take hold, as it does for some couples; for whatever time is left, they are for all intents and purposes one flesh. Everyone sings, Aziraphale taking care to be ever so slightly out of tune, and disperse so Alan can sleep and Jerry can watch beside him.
Alan’s grandmother and Jerry’s mother hug Aziraphale on the way out. “They won’t tell us who you are,” says the older woman. “I don’t understand anything here. But it doesn’t matter, does it? They feel married now and we’re all family.”
“Just so, dear lady.”
“Anybody can tell you’re close enough to a rabbi, whoever you are,” says Jerry’s mother. “You should come eat with us.”
“Thank you, so much, I would love to, but I still have so many people to see.” Aziraphale watches them leave together, the tall straight one matching her steps to the bent wizened one, while Alan’s ex-boyfriend holds the ward door for them.
---
“Excuse me, sir, visiting hours are over.”
“Oh, you’re new. How lovely to meet you. I’m Mr. Fell.”
“You can’t be back here. Are you lost?”
“Not at all, my dear. Is it very late?”
One of the regular night nurses, Rachel, hurries over. “Hi, Mr. Fell! This is Trinh, she only started today. Trinh, this is Mr. Fell, don’t worry about him. Do you need anything, sir?”
“Can’t complain, but I’m afraid I have no idea what time it is.”
“It’s gone nine. Have you been here all day? You have; I can tell.” She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a Dairy Milk bar, and presses it into his hand. “Here, you need this more than I do, I expect.”
Aziraphale summons a smile from somewhere. “Oh, thank you, dear! You know, I am a tad peckish.” The nurses continue on their way, Rachel bending over to pour whatever explanation she has to give into Trinh’s ear, Trinh casting doubtful glances back at him as he eats the candy bar.
----
Hedda’s sleep meds can not subdue the resistance of a system that has played with pharmaceuticals for decades. She and Aziraphale reminisce about shows and casts and costumes until her eyes grow heavy and he breathes sleep into her fitful nerves.
Alf’s kidneys fail and the machines run mad as Aziraphale stands with him in the shadows, watching together the few moments of frantic activity over his body, till Azrael comes.
Tarun sleeps throughout, to dream well and wake tranquil.
Pneumonia has Jack by the throat, so he breathes through a tube, clinging to Aziraphale’s hand till Azrael returns for him.
The machines beep and the lights are too bright and the soft-shuffle feet of the nurses never stop moving up and down the cold halls.
---
Dawn is still a few hours away, but he has seen everyone he feels he can see, supplied all the blessings and miracles he feels he can supply; so he makes his way toward the exit, past a familiar figure in a waiting room chair, hair like frayed cotton thread, skin waxen and pale where not speckled with pink rashes and black boils, white scrubs loose upon their wasted frame. They cough into a handkerchief. Aziraphale frowns and quickens his pace.
“Hello, there,” says Pestilence.
Aziraphale nods without slowing. “Hello. I’m on my way out. Busy days, you know.”
The Horseman falls into step beside him. “Not as busy as the old days, though, eh? Can’t remember the last time I took a whole family down at once.”
“I can, but I prefer not to dwell on it.”
“I know, you’ve always hated me.” Pestilence doesn’t sound put out about it, but their voice is eternally so clogged with phlegm that judging their mood by its inflections is a mug’s game. “Angels always do, but you’re one of the ones that takes my work personally. So I thought, since I was in the neighborhood, I’d give you the news myself.”
Aziraphale, already weary down to the center of his being, feels himself sag. “Please don’t tell me it’s about to get worse?”
“What, this AIDS thing? Naw. It’ll hold like this awhile yet, but there’s people in labs working away, they’ll have a treatment worked up in a few months. Or years. Or something. Then it’ll go the way of Spanish flu. Remember Spanish flu? That was quite a ride, wasn’t it? Global terror, carrying off the young and fit, more than the War even, leaving the old and the young wondering what the hell’d gone on!” Pestilence coughs up a wad of blood and mucus into their handkerchief, and presses the lift button. “But nobody remembers it now. Nobody. You say flu and nobody recoils, nobody runs to put on a breath mask, just, oh sorry to hear it, get some sleep, drink plenty of fluids, like it’s nothing. Measles, that’s a week out of school, some sore eyes.” The lift doors slide open. “Smallpox, now, I hear it’s going extinct. Like a dodo or a mammoth! Some of my greatest work, smallpox, and I bet you could go all over this city and not find one person with the scars.”
Aziraphale leans on the button for the ground floor. “So what is this news of yours?”
“Can’t you guess?” Pestilence grins, rheumy eyes blinking.
“I’m too tired to guess.”
“Oh, you’re no fun. I’m retiring.”
Aziraphale is almost too exhausted to feel the surge of hope. “You’re - no more epidemics?”
Pestilence scoffs. “You call this an epidemic? Where’s the carts rumbling through the streets while the drivers call bring out your dead? Where’s the commandeered buildings full of stretchers bearing people that die before the doctor can even look at them? Where’s the mass graves? You call a bunch of people wasting and dwindling in nice clean rooms where the general public can’t see ‘em, attended by professionals that get to go home most nights, an epidemic? I remember when you carried food from house to house to keep people from starving before the disease was finished with them! I remember children crowded into one filthy room watching each other die one by one after their parents croaked it! I remember entire towns that cut themselves off, wiped themselves off the map, rather than let anyone in or out to spread the disease to their neighbors! This is a paltry excuse for an epidemic and you know it!”
“It doesn’t feel paltry to me. Or to the gay community.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, you take everything so personally. Only people in one subculture are even scared here. Sure, some straight idiots are afraid they’ll catch their deaths from a gay toilet seat, but nobody’s leaving town over it. As for the gay community - “ Pestilence flutters their handkerchief as well as such soggy cloth can flutter - “Give it thirty years. Forty at the outside. It’ll be the Spanish flu all over again. Nobody’ll remember. The old ones won’t want to talk about it and the young ones will get their vaccine or whatever and go on their merry way, not even noticing there’s a missing generation. Probably figure they invented queerness all by themselves. Only little private worlds are ending. Nobody expects the big world to end by contagion anymore.” The lift doors slide open. “So I’m settling down in Africa, where there’s still room to flex my muscles.”
“I hardly call killing innocent Africans retirement!”
“Oh, no, I’m not retiring from spreading.” Pestilence blocks the door. “I’m retiring from being a Horseman of the Apocalypse. I’ll still spread disease where I can. But I can’t spread terror, not at a Horseman level. Not globally.”
Aziraphale blinks, his eyes gritty, his brain struggling to process their words. “So, what, there’ll only be three riders on the last day?”
“No, got to have four. It’s written and all that. But I’m turning over the horse and the crown to my cousin Pollution. We’ve worked together in the past - cancer, that’s a collaboration, and good old cholera, you remember -“
Aziraphale shuddered. “How could I ever forget?”
“Yeah, the kid’s got form, and most important, people are afraid of them. Can’t shut Pollution up in special buildings and let trained professionals worry about it! No, they breathe Pollution constantly. Step over it on the sidewalk. Drink it and eat it, grow their food in it. They don’t know how to live without it, even though they can see it overwhelming them. That’s the life for a Horseman!” Pestilence rubs their nose with their handkerchief. “Pollution’ll even keep up with my work. Medical waste in the oceans - brilliant!” They step aside at last. “So I’m saying good-by to a few angels that really hate my guts, and then it’s off to Africa. Where all the angels hate my guts.”
Aziraphale strides past them into the lobby. “I hope the Africans foil and disappoint you at every turn. They have modern cities and highly-trained professionals, too, you know.”
Pestilence grins, but whatever taunt is on their lips can’t get past a coughing fit before Aziraphale reaches the exit, and pushes the door open onto a rainy London night. The smell of car exhaust and wet cement embraces him, welcome as home after breathing disinfectant for...however many hours it’s been. Streetlamps shine on the hood of a long black car, and the long black figure leaning against it sprints to put an umbrella above Aziraphale’s head as he steps out from under the awning.
“Hi, angel,” says Crowley. “Just got back to town. Thought I’d take you somewhere for a full English. Just the morning for it.”
Aziraphale sways on his feet. “Where do you expect to be open for breakfast at this hour?”
“I know a place. You’ll love it.”
He lets Crowley take his arm, and lead him to the Bentley, and put him in on the passenger side before circling round to the driver’s side. “How did, were you able to -?”
“Nice little vacation, good to get out of town sometimes. Scared the life out of some street racers in Manchester on my way through, hit some night clubs, stirred up some envy here, some avarice there - good fun. And don’t worry about your assignments. They were a doddle, left me gobs of time to hit every AIDS ward in the north. Blessings everywhere! A shotglass blessed against disease in every town I passed through!”
Aziraphale couldn’t bear to look at Crowley. “If your side finds out what you’ve been doing -“
“Screw ‘em. I’m not letting you discorporate yourself trying to minister to every AIDS patient in the country.”
“I shouldn’t - I don’t know why -“ Aziraphale feels his breath get ragged, and realizes that, the Dairy Milk aside, he hasn’t eaten in three days. “It’s not like, not like it’s the Black Death, taking whole families. And they’ve - and, and, I shouldn’t - I ought to be able to - My reports - I haven’t, haven’t been in the same wing as a pediatric oncology ward in months -“
Crowley puts his hand on the top of the seat back by Aziraphale’s head. “They’re your people.”
“They’re all my people. I’m the Guardian of Great Britain, not just, not - But I can’t, can’t compartmentalize - them - and it’s like this, it’s everywhere, New York, Paris, Berlin - I -“ He leans sideways until his head rests against Crowley’s shoulder.
Crowley’s arms close around him as he sobs in the Bentley’s warm and sheltering darkness.
-30-