The garden in a ruined church
Most might have looked upon the destruction of consecrated ground as devastating, especially an angel like Aziraphale. But in the centre of the smoking rubble, amongst the desecrated remains of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, the site becomes a blessed place of epiphany, a radiant spot of love, and a sanctuary for his heart.
But even so, one does not simply miracle a church back together, especially not one blown to smithereens by demonic intervention.
So Aziraphale does the next best thing. He preserves what little of it remains. It takes countless minor miracles shifting favors in the bureaucratic circles of the City of London to stall the dismantling of the ruins, and some creative accounting to make enough room in the council budget for its upkeep. Finally, after 26 years, the City converts the ruins of St Dunstan into a public park. Of course, a certain A. Z. Fell & Co. is brought in to manage the job, and manage it he does.
It becomes his passion project away from the bookstore, whenever he needs a bit of fresh air. Trees push their green-laden boughs in through empty windows that once held stained glass, and vines wind and drape themselves over the surviving stone walls. Flowers are planted and greenery is spoken to with many tender, caring words so they are plumped up with love, flourishing despite the less than ideal air in the city. A burbling fountain, a flagstone path and stone circle in the middle surrounded by wooden benches complete his secret garden, a beautiful, tranquil oasis of green in the middle of a city that never stops hurtling forwards in time.
It was not, as conventional secret gardens are, hidden away from the eyes. It becomes, for many who work and live in the city, a brief reprieve from the world. The public comes and goes, bankers take their sandwich lunches to munch within its walls, and many a couple have their wedding pictures taken amongst the lush greenery.
For Aziraphale however, it remained secret because in 1967, when the garden was, at long last, ready for eyes other than his own, he was bound by circumstance to finally give Crowley a thermos containing a substance that might cause him to lose his companion forever.
That is, until the apocalypse that wasn’t came to pass.
When they finally go on their long-awaited first picnic, Crowley is puzzled when Aziraphale forgoes St. James Park and tells him to meet him at Tower Hill tube station on a Sunday morning. They stroll through the eerily quiet streets absent of the hedge fund types and corporate drones that form the weekday crowd, wicker basket in hand until they come down St Dunstans Hill.
The angel spies a flicker of recognition in Crowley’s eyes as they approach the church they had once stood in the smoking wreckage of, but still the demon says nothing. They pass children playing in the small churchyard outside the ruined stone walls, and a middle aged gentleman lounging in a patch of sunshine, perched on a bench with a book in hand. This is when Aziraphale chooses to take Crowley’s hand and lead him through what would have once been the church’s main doors and into the garden he’s been cultivating for half a century.
Crowley half remembers the burning sensation of consecrated ground on the soles of his feet, but the thought is quickly washed away by the love that envelops him the moment he steps inside. It radiates from every leaf, every blade of grass, every paving stone in the ground. It shines out at him from the lilies that bloomed in the bushes, and in the birdsong coming from the trees.
He turns to look at his angel who is gazing at him with such a soft, shy smile that the world seems to slow to a stop without any miracle on either of their parts.
“For you” Aziraphale whispers.
Crowley knows, at that very moment, that the angel had fallen for him the day he’d diverted the bomb to St. Dunstan-in-the East. And after six thousand years of his falling for Aziraphale, the angel had finally caught him.
St. Dunstan-in-the-East is an actual public garden in the City of London, surrounded by the stunning ruins of a church that was bombed by Germans in WWII. Based on the establishing nighttime shot in Ep. 3 of the church in which Crowley saves Aziraphale from the Nazis, the location and surroundings (read my location breakdown in this earlier reblog I made if you’re curious) make it very probable that St. Dunstan might be its real-life counterpart.
Edited to add: Neil + Douglas (the director) have somewhat confirmed that the connection to St Dunstans is intentional. Reverse engineering to make a calculated guess at the church’s location paid off! More details here.
FYI if you see two of these posts going around, I deleted the original cuz tumblr did something weird to the tags and I couldn’t fix it through editing.
