Decisions decisions
"I can't believe you did something like this." Raphael's voice pierces the emptiness. "What were you thinking?"
"I thought he would fit!" Gabriel, of course...
"Of all the thoughtless irresponsible stunts you have pulled this one is beyond the pale." There's a sound like creaking.
"Ow!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Hara. Hold on, it's okay, just... hold onto a different bar."
"I can't reach another one." Is that... is that the librarian? Michael feels a hand touch his again, though it quickly starts trembling.
"Alex don't... what are you a masochist? Holy fuck, girl!" Gabriel sounds upset. As Michael's eyes start to focus she can see someone covered in a red quilt, reaching out to give him a comforting touch. From the brightness in the cage he can tell one of his younger siblings is around without a vessel. They covered this girl with a blanket to protect her from his light?
"Do not waste time scolding her. Help us pull this bar off." That can't possibly be the rebelling seraph. But why would she hallucinate that one?
"Ow!"
"Dammit Hara stop squirming!"
"Don't yell at him. This entire situation is your fault, you little brat! What were you thinking?" Raphael yelling at Gabriel is almost comforting, though part of her wants to chide them for arguing. There's a crack like he only once heard before when the darkness broke loose and gaps started to form in the cage.
"I was thinking it was nice having a brother who wasn't just off sulking and pouting because life's not fucking fair and willing to DO something."
"I was not sulking." Castiel protests.
"Not talking to you, Cassie,"
"You know, you didn't actually give me a choice in this. You just pulled me out of my vessel and dragged me here." Harahel points out with no small irritation.
"Unbelievable!"
"Oh, fuck off, Raph. You're hardly one to talk about.... Ha! Yes! I got him!" Michael looks up to see a wingless Harahel being pulled up out of the bars and handed to Castiel. "Take him back to heaven and then get back here and help us pull this thing apart." Gabriel orders. Raphael is just pretending Castiel does not exist. This is the strangest hallucination yet. Why would a fallen angel be helping his siblings free her from the cage? Especially the one that threw a bomb of holy fire on him. How could they three of them actually pull the cage apart? If he and Lucifer combined couldn't do it, how could they? Both his younger siblings are in female vessels this time. But it can't possibly be them. They're both dead. And why would the librarian be here? With no wings? For that matter who's holding his hand?
"Michael?" A familiar but strained voice from under the blanket calls to him. "Are you alright?" She turns her head to look at the bundle. This illusion again? For the life of her she can't understand where this human girl came from or why.
"I know you." Is all she can bring herself to say.
"We just spoke in..." Her voice trails off, she sounds as if she's in pain. Michael becomes aware of the tongues of hellfire lapping at the bottom of the cage and remembers it's most insidious aspect. Hellfire burns, when coming closer to her own flames, become exponentially more painful. Aside from the locks keeping her from entering Hell proper, if she even approached it in an onslaught, her presence would hasten the corruption of souls into demons. The hand slackens and Michael quickly lets go of her, moving as far from her as possible. Why would this girl try to comfort her this way when touching her causes so much pain. Michael spent almost everything she had healing and protecting his own vessel from these effects. She doesn't have anything left to help this one.
"Michael!" Raphael calls for him. It's an illusion, a hallucination. It has to be. There's more creaking and finally several snaps. The human girls hand is still trembling slightly and he can see the burns of hellfire streaking through her essense, scarring her true face.
"I'm getting Alex out of here." Gabriel lights down, freezing as she sees Michael's eyes on her. The vessel is oddly close to her true form. Not an exact respresentation but like a cubist representation that somehow perfectly captures the subject. Is that a prosthetic leg? Why would she have a prosthetic leg? Gabriel picks up the human girl, who's fainted, and flees with her.
"Michael." Raphael drops down by her, embracing her. The touch is so familiar. It's his brother. It has to be. And yet he can't bear it.
"Help the girl." Michael orders. "If you're real... help her... you know your sister can't heal that." Raphael looks for a moment as if he's going to refuse. Raphael never says no to her. "Right now, Raphael. Before anything else."
"Yes, Michael." He gives that sullen yes that makes it clear he doesn't actually want to, and flies from the cage after their sister. The moment her baby brother is gone from sight, Michael feels an overwhelming feeling of despair descend upon her. Even if it was just a more intense illusion, she shouldn't have sent him away. Why did she have to push them away?
"Michael told me to heal her." Raphael informs his sister as he joins her in the small apartment. It's bare with a few trash bags of clothes next to a plastic air filled mattress the young woman is sleeping on. "This is Alex."
"Yes. I can't fix hellfire burns like this but I can keep her asleep so I did that." She looks down at her. Raphael isn't sure what he expected but he's not surprised the girl has such strong attractive features. It's harder for ugly people to manipulate others into trusting them. "Raphael?" He kneels down and touches the girls forhead. The pain he feels at the touch is quickly erased as he sooths and heals the scorches. They were just surface burns, not truly reaching the depth of her, but her true face is hardly pristine. Wharped around the neck and wrists in a way no one this age should be. What has she done to earn these scars? Something terrible. And he's supposed to trust her with Michael's well being? Not a chance. though oddly enough, where the hellfire burned her the scars disappear along with them. He's not entirely sure what that means. But it doesn't matter. He is not bringing his sister to this person. How could any of his brothers have trusted her?
"She will be fine." He informs Gabriel and returns to the cage. She quickly catches up to him as he lights down beside their sister, who's lapsed back into unresponsive silence.
"Can you carry her yourself?" Gabriel asks as he picks up the faded archangel. He doesn't reply and just takes her back to their quarters in heaven so she can regain her strength. "Hold on." She darts to Raphael's room and drags the round large fluffy bed over.
"How did she get so weak? I don't..." Raphael puts Michael down on it.
"I don't know."
"What were you thinking? Sending a human girl into the cage? And trying to shove one of the little ones through..." he vents his frustration on his reckless, thoughtless younger sibling. Not that she doesn't deserve a scolding.
"Just take care of Michael, alright?" she gives him a petulant scowl. "And maybe if you get a chance, open the damn gates as you promised so we can save humanity from extinction? Or have you decided on a full out rebellion now, too?"
"Excuse me?" He turns, but his sister is gone again. Typical. She appears, throws the world into chaos and vanishes, leaving them to pick up the pieces. Raphael looks down at his elder sibling. Michael's not hurt, just drained, exhausted. And there's no sign or illness or injury or anything that would explain her current state of unresponsiveness. Maybe she's just tired. She's so weak, she might be that close to her vessel as to need sleep, though the thought is frightening. The vessel itself is not even close to fatigued though and is operating perfectly. Perfectly unharmed, perfectly preserved, just silent and still. "Please say something." But there's no response. This is his fault. Everything he did, how he just pushed and pushed the inevitable. Only it wasn't inevitable. If he hadn't... But he did. He knew she wouldn't approve and he still did it anyway.
As he waited, trapped in the ring of holy fire, he had nothing to do but think of things he had desperately refused to consider. He knew that Michael had to have heard what he said, what he admitted to. And he was terrified of what would happen when Michael found out. He wasn't sure what she would do or say. Michael would never have hurt him, he knows that much. Not really. And she didn't. She just burned the house down around him, making the ring of holy fire drop away and suffocate in her own flames and when he returned to heaven... there was just silence, ripe with disappointment for the longest time. He felt as if he was dying inside just waiting for the rebuke that never came.
Instead she just gave a weary sigh and kissed his head and said 'It's alright, Raphi. Just stay out of this from now on. Go to your quarters and rest and think about what you've done and we'll talk about this when it's finished.' Only they never did. She was pulled into the cage with Lucifer, trapped and broken. Because of him. He could have stopped it. He could have done things right, but he didn't. He pushed and pushed.
What was he supposed to do? Everyone was suffering and breaking around him. Everything was falling apart and he couldn't fix it. No matter what he did or how hard he tried he couldn't fix any of them. No matter where he went or what he did there was just so much pain and suffering. Everywhere with everyone. Why did they want to preserve that? Why did they object to a life of peace and happiness? Why didn't anything work the way it was supposed to?
Their father never taught him how to heal hurts like these. He never taught him they were so unbearable, so hopeless. Of course, Raphael never asked. He always had to ask if he wanted to know something. Their father never volunteered information to him once he was able to fly on his own, not that he ever did much before that. He always had to ask. And he didn't. Because he didn't understand.
Maybe there isn't a solution. Maybe Michael is just broken beyond repair. Maybe this is his punishment to forever see the most important angel to him broken beyond repair because of his own actions. Maybe he wasn't ressurrected after all. Maybe this is Hell. His own personal hell, where nothing ever gets better only worse and worse until... until never.
Babe lights down in the garden next to Rye as he gently treats the seared marks and bruises left by the cage on Hara's body.
"Are you okay?" She asks the librarian. Rye just glares at her, accusingly. "Where's Castiel?"
"Your shoddy work has started collapsing throughout heaven at the slightest touch. He's taking care of it."
"Is Alex okay? And Michael?" Hara asks, though he doesn't seem much happier with her either.
"Raphael took care of Alex. Michael... She's not doing so well. Whatever happened in the cage left her very weak, so if you could just let her rest and regain her strength. Keep the chatter down and arguments to a minimum."
"How did you convince Raphael to leave the abyss?" Hara looks up at her.
"He just needed to cool off a little that's all." Babe shrugs. A half truth. She honestly doesn't know, though she feels maybe the begging for help and the mess she made of it combined with actual tears are probably what did it. He really is just a big old softie at heart after all. "Do you want me to take you back to Saul?"
"He's not going anywhere right now." Rye snaps. "You know how weak he is without his wings. He needs to rest and regain his strength as well. Not to mention how badly he was damaged. And none of that was at all necessary. How could you have done this? Shoving him in there like that? What were you possibly thinking? You could have killed him!" Rye snaps. "You haven't changed at all. You're still as thoughtless chaotic and destructive as you ever were. What kind of leader would... you're not a leader though, are you? You're just a selfish coward who doesn't care who she hurts. Just go away will you? So I can finish fixing this." he turns back to Hara, ignoring his younger brother's reproachful look. Hara is too nice, too forgiving. There's no excuse for Gabriel risking him in such a stupid way.
"Is there anything I can do to..."
"The only thing you've ever done worth anything was leave!"
"Rye, don't say that!" Hara speaks up but it's too late, Gabriel is gone. "Why would you say that? You know that's not true."
"It feels true."
"That's not the same thing." Hara turns away and starts praying for his big sister to come back, but there's only silence.
"What do you think?" Sam looks across the table hopefully, as Dean looks over the plans.
"Man, this is really detailed."
"Babe and I worked on it a lot when I was in the hospital. She even got me this architectural program and we designed pretty much the whole town. Obviously we can't do it all right away, but it's planned so we can start small and add on."
"I don't remember her getting you an architectural program." Dean looks up. "I'm pretty sure you would have told me."
"Oh, the program was last week." Sam looks over the specs for the day care. "We worked on it in between."
"In between wh.. nevermind." Dean catches himself when Sam grins. "You're really serious about this."
"I am."
"Hunters families and vessel's families." Dean looks over the set up. It's nice, centralized, easily defensible. The roads are designed as a giant protective circle. there's even a plan for demon traps made of tile.
"Yeah." Sam carefuly watches Dean's expression. He doesn't look too thrilled, but he doesn't look dismissive either.
"I have no idea how we're going to afford this, Sam. Credit fraud and gambling... it's fine when it's just us, when we're moving around, but this is stationary. And so involved. How will we avoid attention from the authorities? They're going to think we're some sort of militia or sick doomsday cult."
"Well, maybe, but if we have angels around they can help us control what investigators remember about it and for the armory and pantry and the more suspect features, there are wards and spells to hide things. Do you remember Sinclair?"
"Yeah, the crazy man of letters who tries to collect me. Families shouldn't have to deal with all this, though. Moving, training, uprooting everything just because one of them starts hunting or hosts an angel." Dean shakes his head.
"And hunters and vessels shouldn't have to sacrifice everything to try and protect the ones they love and save the world. Especially when there's no really protection at all in leaving them ignorant and unprepared." Sam points out. "We're not kidnapping people and forcing them to come here. We're just providing options. Better ones than abandoning their children and families or dragging them off on the road with them."
"Right." Dean goes quiet and looks at nothing on the table for a moment. "She doesn't have many good options, does she?"
"You mean Krissy? No. Honestly an abortion is probably the most sensible choice for everyone involved." Sam sighs. Dean just stares dumbfounded at his sensitive empathic little brother. "What?"
"I can't believe you just said that."
"C'mon, Dean, you know I'm pro choice. You are, too, aren't you?"
"Well, yeah, but... this is Krissy we're talking about. She's a good intelligent generally responsible young woman. She deserves a family and a normal life." Dean explains.
"Yes, she is and she does and she can't have that right now. The father is a greed god, Dean. She has no training to do anything but hunt, she's too responsible and smart to think she's in anywhere close to a good place to have a child right now. And weren't you saying that children shouldn't have to live this kind of life?" Sam challenges.
"Yeah, but that doesn't translate to shouldn't live at all. You know what, it doesn't matter what we think. It's her choice. Whether she has it or not, she probably won't be keeping it anyways. Thanatos will probably want to raise it himself. Though I'd really hate for it to grow up as fucked up as it's uncle. Wouldn't that just be some bullshit, Krissy's child having to be hunted one day?"
"If we get this thing up and running maybe she can keep it though." Sam's response elicits a confused expression from his brother. "Just because I think an abortion is the best option doesn't mean I don't want her to have more than one. If she decides to have the baby and to keep it or whatever she ultimately decides, I want us to have as much in place as possible to help her do what she feels is right. That's what pro-choice is, supporting every possible decision a person can make including abortion in whatever way you can."
"So, definitely set up the childcare first, then." Dean flips through the binder. Sam smiles and nods.
"I'm glad you agree with me on this. I was a little nervous about talking to you about this." He confesses, a little sheepishly.
"Really? Why?"
"Well, we won't be able to hunt while we're setting this up." Sam says cautiously. "Not for a while, or at least not both of us. And... it is my project."
"We wouldn't go out looking of course, but if there's an emergency, I don't see why we should igno.."Dean starts
"Don't mind me." Babe pops in putting her hands on Sam's shoulders. "I'm just here to borrow a cup of Sam." They both disappear without another word.
"That's more than a cup!" Dean yells after him and just shakes his head, turning back to the plans. It's pretty good but there are a few places he could make some minor improvements.
"We were kind of in the middle of an important conversation." Sam admonishes his fiancee as she takes him to her little love nest, completely negating the impact by kissing her. There's a heart shaped bed which is still a bit of a mess from the tickle fight they ended with last time.
"Yeah, it's kind of hard to shut him up, isn't it?" Babe grabs one of the long candy ropes covered in nerds from the 'bouquet' on the table, and starts to pavce. "So we got Michael out."
"How is she?"
"Bad, very bad."
"Is she... violent bad?"
"Worse, she's.... still."
"Still?" Sam asks for clarification as he's not sure how that's worse than mindlessly violent.
"It's... it's just wrong. You see this?" Babe holds out her hand and a flame lights up just above it. "It's not still. It's never still. Michael, even when she's not moving, she's moving."
"Like you?" Sam's question makes Babe raise her eyebrow. Even suggesting she and Michael are in any way similar is just beyond comprehension.
"What are you talking about? I sit still. I can be still." She paces restlessly.
"No, you can't. You weren't even still when you slept, little miss fidgety. You're always moving or tapping your fingers, jiggling your foot. I'm fairly sure if you look like you're still at all you're rustling your feathers in the veil like you did in the abyss." His eerily accurate assessment is only slightly annoying.
"It's not the same. Trust me Michael and I have absolutely nothing in common at all. But even When Alex took her hand she wouldn't move or speak more than a few words. She didn't even try to get out of the cage on her own, even after that.
"Alex? Alex was in the cage with Michael? You put her in the cage?" Sam stands up. "Where is she? Are you alright?"
"Yes, Raphael took care of her once we got her out."
"How could you put her in there? Take me to her. Right now." He looks positively furious, but Babe persists in trying to just talk him out of being upset.
"Sam, she's fine. Lucifer wasn't there. Michael didn't do anything to her... she..."
"Lucifer was not the worst thing about the cage, Gabrielle." Sam struggles to control his voice. "Take me to her. Now."
"Okay." Babe gives in and brings them to Alex's apartment.
"The hallway would have been fine." Sam looks around the empty main room. "Alex? Are you here?"
"Nosy neighbors. and she might still be asleep." Babe starts over to the bedroom door. "Alex!"
"Hold on." They hear from the bedroom and Alex comes out, rubbing her tired eyes. Her clothes still smell slightly of brimstone. "Ughh, is that me? I need a shower." She mumbles and looks up, turning a little red. "Sam?"
"Are you alright?" He's instantly beside her, his hands on his arms.
"Um, I'm okay." She turns a little redder.
"Are you sure?"
"She's fine. She's not even scarred." Babe gestures to her. Alex looks down at her hand.
"It wasn't that kind of fire..."
"I mean underneath. Not that either of you can see." Babe frowns. "I told you not to touch him, didn't I? Didn't I tell you it would hurt? Did you think I was exaggerating?"
"No. But he needed it." Alex hugs her arms to her chest. "Is he alright? Where is he?"
"His room in heaven, getting some of his strength back." Babe rubs the back of her neck and looks around. The place is ridiculously empty. She'll have to help Alex pick out furniture before she starts counseling Michael.
"You should go be with him, Bree. He needs you." Alex urges but this gets a derisive snort from the angel.
"No, trust me. Michael does not need me. At all. She has her special little guy. She'll be fine. I'll have her come down as soon as she's well enough. I don't know why she's so weak, but Raphael will make sure she's okay physically."
"You should go be with her, Babe." Sam touches her shoulder. "You know she'll be glad to see you again."
"Yeah, right. Like your father was so proud of you for getting that scholarship to Princeton."
"She thought you were dead. And you're alive. It's a little different."
"Yes. It is different. You hadn't actually done anything wrong. I did everything wrong all the time. I still do. So just butt out!" She dissappears. Sam sighs and rubs his eyes.
"Need a ride back to the bunker? I can borrow Jodie's car I think." Alex offers.
"No. I'll call Cas in a bit. And she might remember she wanted to talk to me and come back. Are you sure you're alright?" He turns back to the tired young woman.
"Better now that I'm not here. It kind of... creeps in on you doesn't it?"
"Kind of. Yeah." Sam looks around at the boxes. "Want some help unpacking while I wait?"
"Sure, thanks. just... let me take a shower first." Alex points back to the bathroom. "I kind of reek like hell. Literally." When Sam nods she grabs a few things from her room and retreats to the bathroom.h