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Every building has a history. Every house has a story. And Eden Cottage is no different in this respect. It has seen births, it has seen deaths, and it has seen everything in between. Every part of the cottage has a tale it could tell, from a scratch on a windowsill to a dent in a door, from a scar on a worktop, to a blemish on a carpet. Life and experience have seeped into the very essence of the house, giving it character, making it alive.
One thing it had seen a lot of over the years was love; the love between a husband and a wife, between a parent and child, between a human and an animal. It had seen romantic love, parental love, platonic love, forbidden love, unrequited love, fleeting love, enduring love, simple love, complicated love, love that builds, love that breaks, love that burns, and love that heals. It had seen love kindle from a small spark into a roaring flame. It had seen love in the full throes of passion ease and settle into a lifelong lasting love. It had seen love grow, burn and go out. It had seen love simmer at a distance, kept alive by hope, but tempered by realism.
And it had seen the type of love that meant giving it up, allowing it to go.
Often it is sacrificial love that leaves the deepest marks.
For Linda Allen née Kingsley, such love meant handing the keys of her childhood home over to a pair of strangers, trusting them to not only treat the cottage with all the love and care that it deserved, but also to not somehow tarnish or erase what had gone before.
And a lot had gone before.
Firstly it had been her parents first and only bought home, although they were not the first owners the cottage had had.
They had moved in in 1948, young and if not care free then that was only because that had been stolen from them by War just as she had stolen so much from so many. They were whole, hale and alive though, married for just over two years, a babe in arms, and the promise of more to come.
The cottage wasn't called Eden at that point, but when Adam Kingsley had married Evelyn Smith and taken her to their new home, there was only one name the cottage could be given.
Once in and settled, Mr. Kingsley would kiss his wife and son goodbye in the morning and cycle the few miles to his job in the nearby town. There was perhaps not a large amount of money to live off, but they did what they could. With an eye for quality and a knack for such things, Mr. Kingsley fixed up old furniture he found on the cheap and Mrs. Kingsley made jam and chutney from the fruits they grew. However tough the times, there were always hugs and smiles, laughter and stories, and maybe even some honey on the worse days.
The first major loss brought tears and sorrow when the second, much wished for child slipped from the world unborn.
Mr. Kingsley, helpless and lost and a man of his generation floundered at what to do or say, until in a moment of overwhelming love, wrapped his wife in his arms and said nothing.
Two years later, the cottage welcomed the arrival of a new baby girl and life continued as it always would.
Linda Kingsley grew up running through the garden and surrounding lands, sometimes following her older brother, sometimes on her own. In a lot of respects it was an idyllic childhood, sheltered from true harshness, and wrapped in a bubble of love.
It was in the house that she learnt to read, and with that her little world widened impossibly. She tumbled down rabbit holes, fell through wardrobes, and hunted for Captain Flint's treasure. She was a little woman, an imaginative orphan, and a railway child. She flew to Neverland, found the secret garden, and wandered the Hundred Acre Wood. She even loved a velveteen rabbit.
All too soon though, like all little girls, she grew up.
She fell in love with one of her brother's friends and had her young heart broken. She fell in love again, this time with a boy her own age, and experienced the headiness of new young love and then the slow slide out of it. She fell in love for a third time, and this time it stayed, and through it all the cottage saw her hopes and dreams, her sighs and tears, her smiles and her sorrows.
She married and moved away because that was what was done, and she left her parents alone in the house her brother had already vacated, but part of her always stayed.
She had children of her own, and though the world had moved on and the seventies were very different from the fifties, and the city suburbs different from the country, she tried to give her children at least a taste of what she had had, and little warmed her heart more than watching her children run through the same garden and fields that she had. But a holiday wasn't the same as living somewhere, so while the children enjoyed it, and enjoyed spending time with Granny and Grandpa, they didn’t love it as she had.
The seventies rolled into the eighties and the world seemed to burn. Money became tight. Her husband kept his job, but only just, and it meant long hours and thin lips. Then came the Falklands, and the strikes and the bombings, and the cottage became their little harbour of calm on a sea of choppy water.
For the first time in years the cottage once more held her hopes and her fears.
Her father retired and turned to his garden as his new distraction. Under his fingertips it flourished as it had never done before. He expanded the vegetable patch and barely a call to her mother went by without mention of yet another prize worthy specimen.
They lost a number of trees in the big storm of '87. Fortunately none of them fell onto the cottage itself, although they did lose tiles and guttering.
Ever pragmatic, her father decided to try something different and planted three apple trees in the newly created space. Well, he had joked, what was Eden without an apple tree?
The eighties rolled into the nineties and then her children were off to university and she started to wonder if this was what it had felt like when she had left home to marry all those years before.
Then her mum got sick. There had been signs, but her mum was stubborn and the doctor thought it was something else, and then when they realised what it was, it was already too late; ovarian cancer, stage four.
They held the service in the village church, but afterwards the closest of them gathered at the house, swapping memories and stories, sharing jokes, tears and loss. The cottage itself seemed to mourn with them, but that was hardly surprising since Evelyn Kingsley had poured the best part of fifty years into the bricks and mortar. Her essence lingered in every room, as did the smell of lavender, her favourite flower.
For the most part, Linda's father let everyone else do the talking, and for a while slipped away down into the garden. It was there that she found him, looking down towards the lake where he had often taken her as a child to feed the ducks. It while standing there that Linda promised herself that her father would never be forced away from the home he and her mother had built together.
It was a promise that cost her both emotionally and financially, but it was a promise she kept.
It would be easier to sell the place and move dad into a home, her brother argued when fourteen years later their father's age finally caught up with him.
Yes, it would be easier, she agreed, but it wouldn't be right.
The idea of selling the place still brought her to tears. It was the biggest thing she had left of mother. It was her father's home. It was history.
She re-mortgaged her own house and paid for carers to come in daily. She spoke to him regularly on the phone. She went to visit when she could.
She watched as her father declined.
Then it was over.
We're going to have to sell the place, her brother told her less than a week after the funeral. The inheritance tax for one thing. She also knew that he needed the money. She could do with the money as well, what with what she had spent on care bills, and then she could also help the kids get their own places, maybe pay off some of their student loans, finally replace her car.
With a heavy heart, she contacted Crawford and Co. and put the property on the market.
There was some interest, but not a great deal. The housing market had slowed and was threatening to crash completely. The village was too small, too isolated, too old fashioned for modern life. The garden was too big, too complicated, too needy. The cottage itself was too out of date, too small for a modern family, too expensive for an individual.
They lowered the price, but still nothing.
It was too expensive for locals and too isolated for city people. Local jobs just didn't pay enough now to keep up with the explosion that had been the housing prices. It was all a bit ironic now. Her parents had managed a life and home that her own children could only dream of.
They lowered the price again.
They had a little interest.
A writer came to have a look, but in the end found something better.
An offer was put in, which they considered accepting, until they realised it was a developer who wanted to knock down the cottage and build goodness knows how many new houses across the land.
She really argued that one with her brother, who was in favour of just taking the money and calling it a day.
She refused.
It stayed on the market
And it stayed.
And it stayed.
She paid for someone to do the main lawn, and keep it relatively neat and tidy, but she could only afford to do so much, so much of the garden went wild. She paid for someone to go in and dust the place as well, but again, a home isn't a home if no one is living in there.
She considered lowering the price again. Three more months, she decided, then she would consider other options. Maybe even talk to the developers again.
Two more months.
She prayed for a sign.
One more month.
She prayed for a miracle.
One more week.
She prayed for anything.
Three more days.
Her phone rang.
*
"I'd like to meet them."
They were accepting the offer. Of course they were accepting the offer. The offer was... well the offer was almost so unbelievable that even now she had to pinch herself.
The question was, was it too unbelievable?
Who were these people who had decided they liked it so much they were offering well over the asking price - even the original asking price. Didn't they know they could have had it for considerably less? Why did they want it so much that they were willing to pay so much for it?
It made her a little nervous, to be honest. It was going to be hard enough handing the keys of her childhood home and memories, not knowing who she was going to be handing them too until it was too late was somehow even worse.
Eccentric, Karen from Crawford and Co. had called them. Well yes, perhaps that wasn't too surprising, but there were different levels to eccentricity, weren't there. She just had to know that their type didn't involve bulldozing the place, or ripping up trees to build a swimming pool, or, or-
Well, she just had to know.
The fact they were a gay couple, well that was neither here nor there. She certainly had no problems with that. Love was love, as her mum used to say. She just needed to know that they would love the place as she had loved it.
Fortunately, Karen from Crawford and Co. was very understanding and came back to say that the buyers were more than happy to meet with her, just name a time and place.
She went for a neutral location; a local coffee shop in a town not too far from Little Aven. She had wondered how they would recognise each other, but Karen had confidently reassured her that they were unmistakeable; white blond, waistcoat and jacket, looks like someone's professor uncle; skinny redhead, sunglasses, hipster type in black.
The description was shockingly spot on, and at the same time it barely did them justice.
They were already waiting for her when she arrived, side by side, sharing a four person table. They looked almost as nervous as she felt, or at least, the blond man did from the way he was wringing his hands, until his partner reached over and gave his hands a reassuring squeeze. That seemed to help and Linda decided she couldn't keep them waiting much longer.
"Mr. Crowley? Mr. Fell?"
They stood up as she approached.
"Hi, I'm Linda."
*
"... and we were so delighted when Ms. Loeffler said you wanted to meet. We so love the cottage and the garden, and well, everything about it, that it seemed remiss of us not to be able to tell you so in person. There is just so much love there and Ms. Loeffler said it was where you grew up. Well then, you must tell us all about it so we can love it all the better as you obviously do."
Mr. Fell - "Zira, please" - was just so earnest that it was bordering on overwhelming. He was just so genuine, and bright, and, in the now forgotten meaning of the word, gay*.
* The original meaning being light-hearted and carefree, cheery and jovial, mirthful and exuberant. He was also very much the modern meaning of the word as well, but that was beside the point.
He also honestly seemed to want to know everything there was to know about the cottage. It was something she was happy to talk to them about. She was greatly relieved that they were interested enough to want to know, and it wasn't as if there was anyone else she could really talk to about it, but now faced with the situation she found herself unable to figure out where to begin.
The other gentleman - Anthony, although he apparently went by his surname - seemed to sense her floundering, and leaning forward from where he had been slouching, entered into the conversation.
"Tell us about the cottage," he said. "How did it get its name?"
Now that she could do.
"My parents named it," she found herself telling them, "when they first moved in. My father's name was Adam, my mother was Evelyn, although she went by Evie, and I suppose it just went from there."
"Oh, how positively marvellous," enthused Mr. Fell - Zira - and then, after that, talking was easy.
It was odd, because they honestly were interested in knowing more about the cottage and the gardens and her experiences of living there. Properly interested, not just politely. It was... nice.
An hour went past and they finished their drinks, and then it was suggested they get another drink and surprising herself, she accepted.
"We're not going to do anything to it, if that's what you're worried about," Mr. Crowley said as Mr. Fell trotted off to order the drinks. "No major renovations, no exploiting it for the land, no knocking down trees to make way for a tennis court or something ridiculous. Just us living there. Quietly. With books and plants and stuff."
He looked thoughtful.
"Mind you," he went on, "I was considering a greenhouse. Nothing too ostentatious. Fancy widening my repertoire."
She remembered Karen saying something about one of them being an avid gardener. She would never have pegged the man in front of her as being one though.
"My father loved the garden," she said lightly. "It was his domain, just as the house was mother's. It was his pride and joy."
"It's a good garden," he agreed.
"It's overgrown," she said.
"Has potential," he conceded.
"My mother's favourite was the lavender."
She eyed him carefully. His dark glasses gave little away.
"Good choice," he said mildly. "Lavandula angustifolia, most commonly known as English lavender. Was hard to miss, what with the bees and the smell. Shrubs looked healthy enough. Could do with a prune though. In the early autumn, after they've finished flowering, but with enough time to recover before winter."
She stared at him.
He stared back.
"You would keep them then?"
"If they behave, no reason not to."
She felt a little overwhelmed. It was then that Mr. Fell returned, bearing a tray of cakes saying something about them looking far too tempting not to try and that they would go nicely with their drinks.
She got the impression that Mr. Crowley had rolled his eyes under those sunglasses, but his tone was teasing as he accused his partner of being able to resist anything except temptation, especially when the temptation came in the form of sweet food.
"Hush you," Mr. Fell shot lightly back, "or our new friend here may actually believe you."
New friend?
The cakes were actually very nice, and they ended up sharing them between them, although Mr. Crowley spent more time watching his partner eat than actually eating himself.*
* Something that could well have accounted for why Mr. Crowley was as skinny as, well, a snake.
Another hour and it really was now time to go. She was oddly sad about that.
"It really has been delightful to meet you," Mr. Fell declared as they walked her out.
In a surprising way she found herself agreeing with the sentiment. For the first time in years she felt lighter. Eden Cottage, she was sure, was going to safe, if eccentric hands. More than that though, it was going to be loved and that was all she could have really asked for.
"Can I ask," she said finally, hesitating as she had turned to go, "why did you offer so much? I mean, you must have known you could have had it for less."
They looked at each other.
"That may be true, my dear," Mr. Fell admitted after a moment, "but that would not have been the right thing to do."
*-*-*
"Now she was lovely," Aziraphale declared as he pulled the seatbelt over his shoulder.
"You think everybody is lovely," Crowley muttered as he started the engine.
"I do not," Aziraphale protested.*
* This was perfectly true. For one thing, he currently thought Gabriel was a bit of a bastard - and not in a good way.
"She was quite lovely though," he continued, "and I know you agree with me."
Crowley made a noise suggesting that he didn't not agree with him.
"Adam and Evelyn though," Aziraphale continued to muse. "Do you think they realised?"
"I hardly think it could have escaped their notice," Crowley said, "what with them calling the place Eden Cottage."
"No, not about that," Aziraphale said dismissively, "of course they knew about that. No, I mean about Linda."
"What about her?"*
* Crowley was honestly a little lost by this point, but when it came to Aziraphale it was a state he was quite used to.
"Her name," Aziraphale continued. "Do you think they knew when they gave her that name?"
"Knew what? How popular it was? Lots of Lindas her age I'd imagine."
"Yes, but, the meaning."
Crowley sighed. "Alright, I bite, what does it mean?"
Aziraphale wiggled his shoulders. "Well the origin is Germanic and has two main possible origins; the first is in association with the Germanic lind meaning "soft, tender", and the other is from the Old German word Lindi meaning-"
"Serpent," Crowley breathed out.*
* Languages tended to come and go in his mind, but there were a few words that made a point of sticking, especially when you're having to flee for your life from a hoard of angry villagers screaming that particular word.
"Right," he added for good measure.
"It could have been nothing more than a remarkable coincidence," Aziraphale tried - and failed - to argue. "Or it could be something somewhat more-"
"Ineffable?" Crowley added.
"Precisely. And you did accuse the Almighty of not saying anything about Armageddon. Well, now apparently She's speaking to us."
"'Well done guys, knew you could do it, have a retirement cottage on me'?"
"Precisely."*
* This was, incidentally, exactly what the Almighty was telling them. The LORD, after all, works in mysterious ways, and honestly, how did they think Agnus had got all those prophecies in the first place?
"I can't help but believe that we really do have Her blessing," Aziraphale continued. "I know it's hardly a secret anymore, now that both our sides - former sides - know what we, well, what we mean to each other, and I know we figured that She probably had far more pressing things to deal with than little old us, but it's nice to know, that maybe, even after everything we did, everything we went through, that maybe She's actually pleased with us and that we have her blessing to be, well, us. Together.*"
* Contrary to their beliefs, She didn't have more pressing things to deal with than them. It was one of the side effects of being omniscient, omnipresent and many other words starting with 'om'. She knew all things, at all times and all places, with all possibilities. She had time for all of her creations, from the highest of Angels** to the lowest of demons, and all the humans in between, she just did not often reveal Herself or intervene because of that pesky little thing called free will. She did, however, nudge a little where needed, and these two had certainly needed a little nudging, although, bless them, they had got there in the end. In this case, involving an advertisement in a newspaper that just so happened to be left in the bookshop open on the right page and in clear sight.
** In truth, she found Gabriel a bit of a conceited bastard as well, so She usually let Metatron deal with him. Well, there had to be some perks to being the big Boss. She was also still somewhat pissed about the whole heavenly judgement thing, which she certainly had not commissioned. That had been all Gabriel. One of the only reasons she had allowed it to go ahead was so that the whole face swapping thing would teach him a little humility. (And to see his face when it all went wrong). I'm the Archangel fucking Gabriel indeed. Really!? Who in Her name did he think he was? Other than being the Archangel fucking Gabriel of course. Which he might not be for much longer.
"A cottage and garden for her 'soft' angel and his serpent?" Crowley asked archly.*
* Well duh, thought God.
"Crowley dearest, you're not my serpent."*
* Yes, he was.
"Oh, angel, I've been yours for a long time."*
* Yes, he had.
"I suppose you are right. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realise, and even longer to be able to tell you just how much, how much I do love you and have loved you."
"Love you too, angel."
Aziraphale's smile was brilliant. "I know, dear boy. And now we needn't fear it again. She knows, and She approves. All of it."*
*Even the ridiculously soppy bits, but then She was a romantic. She had invented it after all.
"So I can stop fearing I'm going to be smited for defiling an angel?"
"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed. "It's love, you could never defile me."
Crowley arched an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge, angel?"
"Eyes on the road, you incorrigible wily thing."
"Been called worse."
"I'm sure you have, you gorgeous, generous creature."
"See, exactly."
They drove in silence for a while, Crowley almost* keeping to the speed limit.
* Almost. He was still a demon after all, even if he was unemployed at the present. Some habits die hard.
"Linda was rather lovely though," Aziraphale commented after a while. "And so was Ms. Loeffler. Do you suppose Little Aven is made up of similarly lovely people as well?"
"I hope not," Crowley said scornfully. "Or else it's going to get very boring very quickly."
"Boring sounds rather lovely actually," Aziraphale said. "What with having spent all that time stopping Armageddon. It's been nice having nothing pressing to do."
"Sampling tea, feeding ducks, chasing off potential customers, come on, admit it, you're getting bored already."
"Well, I suppose that shall hardly become an issue now we're moving, especially if this is all part of the ineffable plan. We may even find that Someone has other things in mind for us."*
* She did, but that's another story.