Aziraphale sees Crowley standing next to his their car and he hesitates; this is his last chance, the last possible moment to change his mind about leaving.
Do you think he feels the sunshine on his hands, against his stomach, and remembers how warm Crowley had been in his arms? How warm he had felt beneath his palms even through several layers of fabric?
How for the first time in his existence his body had felt complete, like there was no longer something— someone missing?
Do you think he sees him standing in the sun, all shining fire-red and hidden golden eyes, and regrets not sliding his hand to the back of his neck, up into his hair? Do you think he regrets not taking the chance to feel it silken soft and familiar between his fingers?
Do you think he remembers all the times they enjoyed a warm, sunny day together and the way the star seems to remember that Crowley had put its siblings into the sky? Do you think he remembers rays of sunlight caressing his cheekbones and wishes it had been his fingertips instead?
'Anything you need?' the Metatron asks him, and he is still looking at Crowley with the sun on his skin.
I need you, he thinks, and even though his eyes are hidden away, he knows Crowley is looking at him.
Do you think Aziraphale remembers the kiss, remembers the love he could taste on his tongue, the six millennia of do that, please, kiss me, the slow, painful minute of do that again, please, right now?
(The realization that he won't.)
He almost stays. Almost. But the Metatron is already walking away, and he looks at Crowley again, looks past sunset conversations and sunrise breakfasts and the heart-shaped star in Crowley's chest, and feels his pain.
(Their pain.)
Do you think that's why he leaves anyway? Not just because heaven needs fixing but because all that pain, all the hurt they caused each other, can't have been for nothing?
I can't leave him— no, I don't want to leave him.
No.
No, I want to go back to him.
Do you think he takes his anger and holds onto it until it burns his palm because it is easier to be angry at Crowley, at himself, than to think about everything they just took from each other? Everything they just lost?
Everything they could have been?
Aziraphale takes the memory of sunshine on his skin (Crowley's lips on his) and locks it away in a golden cage made out of faith; faith that Crowley will be there when he comes back.
Once he does (because he will, he will, he has to), there will be sunshine and warmth and Crowley, and they will finally be able to love each other with the sun and the whole universe as their witness.
No more shadows or shades of grey. Just the two of them in the light where they belong.
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