Heart of Gold
"Hey, boss." Claire smiles, a little surprised as the gate sends her to where Death is speaking with his angel instead of the nursery.
"Boss?" The angel of Death raises an eyebrow at her.
"Well, former boss. I was trying to get to the nursery to look around but it brought me here instead. So, what's up?" She sits down on the nearby wicker lounge chair. "Do you need me for something?"
"Actually we could use you, once Azrael comes to terms with her situation." Death looks to his angel, who just sets her jaw and crosses her arms. "It seems I do not qualify as alive enough to take Azrael from the abyss personally and properly return her to life an work."
"Oh, cool. Sure thing." Claire nods. "You should have said when you laid me off."
"I was unaware. You were also in the middle of a hunt. In truth you have no further obligation to me."
"Don't worry about it. Having Death owe me a favor can come in handy, right?" She winks at him much to Billie's displeasure. "Oh, Ihave another deep frying idea. Pretzel dipped in peanut butter dipped in chocolate dipped in batter."
"Didn't we try that?"
"No. We did shortbread, caramel, salt and chocolate. And pretzels peanut butter and nutella rolled in crushed hazelnuts before battered. But somehow we missed the obvious." Claire shakes her head. "Billie. No hard feelins?" She offers her hand hopefully. The angel just gives her a steady look for a moment before shaking it. "I've me a minute though. I do want to make sure Hara's okay. Krissy got chased down by storks and had to go home."She laughs. "Plus they're bringing Raphael back. I thought you might like to see him. You know, seeing as you two had a thing." She offers.
"We did not have 'a thing'. We worked together to train the ritzien. We were fond of each other but it was not 'a thing'." Billie rolls her eyes. "He has not respect for the natural order."
"Huh, sounds like he'll fit right in, then. Want to say hi anyways?"
"No." She says curtly and turns away from the both of them. Death heaves a sigh.
"I still need to have a word with my reluctant lieutenant." Death looks over to her. "The current situation is... difficult for her to come to terms with."
"Okay, um, how do I get back to the fledgl..." She finds herself back instantly in the feild again, sitting on the ground. "Thanks?"
"That didn't take long." Gadreel walks over to her and offers her a hand up. "Did something go wrong?'
"Yeah, it decided that I should pay a visit to my old boss instead. Where's Harahel? Is he okay? Have they come back yet?" She looks around the fluffy mass of angelic fledglings.
"He's still reading to the few willing and able to sit still for it. And, no, Raphael has not arrived yet. I hope he consents to heal him. It hurts my heart to see my brother shorn of his greatest attribute this way." Gadreel looks sadly at his wingless sibling.
"Man, you are lucky Krissy didn't hear you say that. She'd go all mother hen on your ass." Claire whistles.
"What did I say?"
"That Hara's greatest asset is his physical appearance? We don't even see that part of him and we consider him pretty damn valuable. Yeah, he's a bit of a pain in the ass at times. Especially as I'm used to a completely different kind of angel, the badass warrior type...."
"To be fair, there are very few of us that are not to some degree. We are the soldiers of heaven, after all."
"Yeah, well, he fixed our fake id's and FBI badges and stuff. He can research like nobodies business and he may not be a good fighter or a fighter or even have his blade." Claire rolls her eyes. "Or be even close to a good soldier in any way, but he's trying and giving it all he has. I don't care if he never gets his wings back he is always welcome on my team."
"I didn't mean it quite that way." Gadreel protests weakly.
"Yes you did. It's okay. Hara's... a special little angel." Claire wrinkles her nose. "Someone really should have been looking out for him all these years."
"I was being tortured in prison for my crimes." Gadreel reminds her.
"Did I say you?" Claire looks back at him, slightly annoyed.
"Hey, Kiddo." Babe appears beside her. "Sticking around, I see. Where's your partner? I thought she was holding Hara's hand for this?" Claire opens her mouth to reply when the fledglings rise up in a delighted uproar, crowding an angel with rich earth brown skin as dark as the most firtile soil and mossy green wings. Various cries of 'brother' and 'Raphael' along with not a few crying 'Labbiel' for some reason, which makes the angel give Babe an irritated glare as she snickers.
"She solved the fertility crisis." Claire grins, breaking into laughter again a second later. "She was chased down by storks." It takes a minute before she can speak again ."Carrying human souls. Oh, my goodness. I guess they can't get out of the abyss to make their deliveries. We need to do something about that."
"What do you mean 'we'? I have my hands full with heaven." Babe reminds her.
"Babe, this is your world. Made from you. Who the hell else would be weird enough to understand all this nonsensical crap it's doing."
"Oh, for..." Babe covers her eyes. "I can't... I'm barely managing heaven. Most of what I'm doing is just asking them what they think they should do and saying 'so do that'. And I have to do something about the pagans, too so hunters don't fucking kill them all and they stop killing humans. I am only one angel, Claire. even Michael didn't try to manage three damn realms at once."
"Well, is your brother going to help us?"
"If we can get Miqa out of the cage and well enough to come in here himself and talk to him, he will, but until then, he won't even leave the abyss."
"Apparently Billie's reluctant to leave the abyss as well." Claire shrugs. "Maybe if you apologized."
"Ha! She's just faced with a dilemma of principle. She's not sulking because I was mean to her." Babe looks over at the babies who are all tumbling over Raphael, apologizing for misbehaving or not listening or whatever they did or didn't do to end up dying so very, very young.
"Brother, brother! Hara needs you." Toasted Marshmallow tugs on his lower left wing. "He lost his wings. Can you fix him?" The surrounding siblings all look up at Raphael beseechingly. The archangel is clearly realizing that he's now in the position to have to explain why if he says no and can't think of an explanation as to why that won't break dozens of tiny angelic hearts.
"He just got up. Let him relax a little." Hara speaks up as Babe just enjoys her big brother's discomfort. It serves him right, the stubborn dick. Maybe that should be a punishment now, having to explain yourself to an innocent fledgeling.
"But your wings.."
"I'm fine. I can wait. It's not as if I'm in pain."
"What happened to your wings?" Raphael asks. Hara looks over at Babe who quickly shakes her head. Better not to open that can of worms just yet. Unfortunately Raphael notices the exchange.
"Oh no!" She exclaims suddenly, putting her hands to her cheeks as Raphael turns to look at her suspiciously. "Do you feel that?" A light breeze starts to blow. "I think we're about to get a BABYNADO!" A whirl of wind encircles the fledglings whipping them all up into the air, with Raphael at the eye of the storm. In the chaos, Babe snaps herself, Claire, Hara, Rye and Miti back to the bunker.
As soon as his sibling is gone, the wind storm stops and it takes all his concentration to create masses of vines and plush meadow grasses to catch them and cushion their falls. Apparently Gabriel has not gained any semblance of maturity of decorum in the Days she was gone. While he shouldn't be surprised at her running from the possible consequences of her own mischief again, a deep pain and lonliness wells up inside of him. The innocent glee of the little angels around him can't drown it out.
He should have healed the librarian. Refusing to do so was petty and spiteful, punishing a weaker angel for things not of his doing or even remotely in his ability to affect. And still, he spared him embarrassment. Is that what he's become? Something so small and mean and unkind? No wonder so many of his brothers sided against him, though all he ever wanted was to help them.
"Brother, are you sad?" Ariel reaches up to touch his cheeks. he just gives her a small smile and pats her head.
"I just miss my sisters." He says quietly. "You needn't concern yourself."
"That's a bad feeling, right?" Malachi pipes up from nearby. That's an odd question, the way he accents 'feeling' especially.
"Yes. Very bad." he replies truthfully, refusing to either lie or respond to the kindly asked question with a demand to just be silent.
"Well, I hope the girl human was really telling the truth." He climbs up, standing on his big brothers lap and kisses Raphael's cheek. "Did that help? Do you feel better?" It takes Raphael a second to realize they must have been exposed to the human custom of kissing minor injuries and declaring them better. He has to smile at the sweetness of the application. Of course, this affirmation of at least a small effect makes all his little siblings clamor over each other to give him loving kisses, and not a few more traditional, angelic rubbing of the cheeks. The contrast of this to his last days is so sharp and painful he tries not to think of it. How did everything go so wrong?
When everything dies down, the fledglings loose focus and start to play, as this group of difficult unmanageable children often did. In truth, their distractibility and tendency to be impulsive and wander, were in large part responsible for their deaths. Very few died due to the inability to fly when they were required to leave the garden for the next batch. In truth that only happened in the first batch when they were convinced that they only needed proper motivation, as physically there was no reason why any of them should have been lagging behind. But still, each loss was almost unbearably painful. It had been so long since he'd let himself think of it. Eclipsed by ever greater more complex pain just building upon the last hurt until everything just seemed hopeless, pointless with the only hope being to do whatever it took to bring it all to an end. By the time of the apocalypse he's not even entirely sure he believed there would be peace, that anyone would survive it, but it was promised and he held onto that like a life line, despite just wanting to fade away into nothing like all those before him that he failed so greatly.
But the lost babies are here, just as he is. They're not lost to oblivion and gone for all of eternity. Seeing them before him, being given a second chance, brings a feeling of hope, joy, and possibility to his heart that he hasn't felt in so long. Much to his consternation it expresses itself in molten tears that he hasn't been able to shed since their father left. It's harder than expected to convince his siblings they're happy tears. Maybe because its so hard to believe it himself.
"You know, I still have to help bring Billie back." Claire points out to Babe as they appear in the bunker.
"Trust me. They're going to be a while. Little miss 'natural order' is going to take a lot of convincing to allow her own completed resurrection. It's a major crisis of principle or something." Babe shrugs. "He'll get you when he needs you. So, how are you and my daughter doing? Still madly in love?"
"We're doing alright. I take it by our abrupt departure that your apocalypse hungry brother is being uncooperative?" Claire refuses to allow the change of subject.
"No,no, he's being exactly as cooperative as I expected. I didn't want to bring up the whole my killing his ex, thing. He just somehow knew I was in love with Sam after watching us interact for like, five seconds in a totally unromantic manner. Stupid perceptive ass. I was trying to act casual, too."
"Oh, is that what that was." Sam sounds amused as Claire's expression implies her belief that Raphael would have had to be blind deaf and dumb not to see it in an instant no matter how 'casual' she thought she was being.
"Hey, Sampi."Babe turns and smiles at him.
"You know, now that I know you're trillions of years older than me, I don't think that's an appropriate nickname." he walks over to give her a kiss. "So, are we hiding the full extent of our relationship?"
"Well, not immediately mentioning that we're not just screwing but engaged would probably be a good idea."
"You're engaged?" Rye exclaims, sounding as horrified at the thought as Dean feels. "You can't get married!"
"At least not until I get divorced, anyway." The flurry of enochian that follows is loud and Castiel is soon drawn into the argument as well, as Miti and
Hara try to play peace makers.
"Where's Krissy?" Claire asks, moving away from the argument, not regretting the fact that she spent most of her life as an only child even slightly.
"You know they are starting to sound like a real family." Dean comments to Sam who grins at the statement.
"She's in the bathroom. She seems upset, did something happen?" Sam asks. Claire's face twitches as she represses laughter again.
"Um, that's really for her to..."
"She's pregnant." Harahel pauses to inform them. Claire shoots him a look. Little blabbermouth angel.
"Well, it won't take, right. Is that why she's upset? She wants it?" Dean rubs the back of his neck. There's a moment of awkward silence. "That's the whole deal now, isn't it? The current end of humanity situation? World wide infertility and miscarriages and stuff?"
"Yeah, well, Alex found out from Anansi's mother that it's because there are no more souls and when we were in the abyss, with all the human souls? Krissy... got a delivery." Claire informs him. Dean's eyes go wide.
"Where's my shotgun?" He turns but Sam grabs his arm.
"Really? If you're referring to a shotgun wedding, Krissy's the one you'll have to hold it on, not Thanatos." Claire rolls her eyes.
"What? No. I'm just going to shoot the bastard. Sam, how do we kill the greek god of Death?"
"Nobody is killing my lover." Krissy comes back out, her eyes a little red. "Hara, did you get your wings back?"
"Not yet." Harahel replies regretfully.
"Young lady, we need to have a little talk." Dean turns to her.
"Like hell we do. I have a really difficult decision and the last thing I need is a lecture from someone who has never and will never be in the same position. I'm calling a cab and heading home. Hara? Will you come with me?" She gives him a completely unnecessary pleading look as he's at her side in a minute.
"Of course." he sounds almost offended she'd have to ask.
"Where are you going?" Claire asks.
"Home. I need to talk to my friends."
"Hold on, I'll come, too." Claire checks her pockets for her keys. "I'll drive you. Um, Bree. I don't suppose you could help me get my car?"
"I don't think so." Krissy quickly says. "I am not riding in that death trap. I might as well take up horseback riding while I'm at it. Seriously, do you even have shocks on that thing?" Krissy grumbles rubbing her neck.
"Don't get snippy with me just because you got knocked up." Claire puts her hands on her hips.
"Cas, Claire, C'mon. We'll go bring your car back to the bunker and I'll see what I can do with it. Sam?" Dean looks pleadingly at his brother nodding his head towards Krissy in a remarkably unsubtle manner.
"I'm going back to our brother in the abyss. Someone has to tell him what's going on." Rye glares at Babe who just crosses her arms.
"I did. Why do you think we took so long?"
"Because he was thrashing you for dereliction of duty?" Rye retorts. Babe doesn't answer. "And maybe I can talk him into doing the right thing without conditions, or at least for Hara. Since I'm the only one outside his batch who seems to care about that." The angel disappears.
"I can take you and Krissy to where you need to go." Miti puts her hand on Hara's shoulder.
"Thank you."
"Is that okay? Transporting her like that while she's pregnant?" Sam asks cautiously as Cas takes Claire back to where she left the wagon.
"Of course." Amitiel sounds surprised. "I would never risk an innocent child."
"I'll see you later, Sam." Krissy waves.
"Krissy, if you need someone to talk to about this..." He offers. "Or someone to go with you when you go talk to Thanatos."
"Thanks but I'm good; I have my angel." Krissy nudges Hara who gives a pleased smile and draws himself up.
"I'll make sure to take care of her and the baby." Hara vows. "I'll get all the books on pregnancy and child birth there are." He's deadly serious so Krissy forces herself not to smile.
"There are classes you can take, too." Sam informs him. "So.. you're keeping the baby?"
"I don't know yet." Krissy looks away. "I'm a hunter, Sam. I can't be anything else. And I won't bring a child into this life. Abortion or adoption, I haven't decided yet."
"Krissy, remember I'll be building the hunter's school and safe haven. You'll have options."
"Yeah, well, honestly I'm not holding my breath. You and Dean, I doubt anything can really take you away from hunting, no matter what you want." She shakes her head. "Even if you do manage it, the time I have to make these decisions is limited. Miti, can you take us to Conway Springs?"
"Of course."
As soon as they're gone, Babe turns to Sam, giving him a thoughtful look.
"So, you still want to do that? The school, everything?" She asks him gently.
"Yes."
"Does Dean know that?" she leans back against the table.
"Well, we haven't had the chance to talk about it, but he should." Sam sits down in the chair next to her. "It's important. And something that should have been done a long time ago.
"You know it's something you have to give all your attention to. Especially in the beginning. Meaning, no hunting for a while. I can't say I object to you trying to stay out of harms way for any length of time, but I don't know how Dean's going to handle it. Especially when a hunt comes up. Or someone asks you two for help. He can't say no. I don't think he'd be okay with you staying behind."
"I know."
"And you know he'll guilt and manipulate the hell out of you to get you to do what he wants you to do. Because he thinks it's right." She watches Sam carefully as he looks down at his boots and shakes his head. "He does it all the time. That's one of the reasons I don't like him."
"He doesn't manipulate me." Sam protests quietly.
"He knows what to say to tug at your conscience and heart strings because all three of us know that you want to help them. You want to help everyone just as much as he does and you'll feel guilty for not acting, especially if people die. And even if you successfully refuse once, all it'll take is a death you could arguable have prevented and you won't be able to say no again." Babe reaches over and takes his hand. "If you want to do this, you need his full cooperation and agreement of you'll drive yourself nuts."
"We do still have alot to take care of still." Sam tightens his lips.
"I'll talk to Cassie when I get a chance, see if he can think of any way to help us approach this and win him over completely."
"Thanks, Babe." Sam bends down to give her a kiss. "And if you need me with you when you go talk to Raphael again..."
"Mmmm, no. It'd probably be better if you didn't for now." She wrinkles her nose. "I love you, Sam. No matter what our brothers have to say about it."
"I love you, too, Gabrielle."