Infrastructure
Heaven is almost entirely devoid of angels. Six batches of a hundred fourty four thousand angels each. Four thousand seven hundred and sixty three fledgelings lost in infancy. Two hundred eighty thousand angels lost to Lucifer in the fall. A hundred thousand seventy three of those left killed in the civil war. Five thousand four hundred and eleven deserters after the war. Four hundred sixty seven angels executed for irredeemable corruption. Seven hundred ninety lost to Uriel's defection. Three lost raising hell to save Dean Winchester. That left four hundred seventy one thousand four hundred and ninety three alive when he was caged.
Now there are less than fourty thousand of them. They lost over eight hundred twenty four thousand of their siblings.. And the ones that are left are all hiding and terrified. Michael can hear them whispering to each other. They're frightened of him. And Raphael. he had always told himself that the individual was important, couldn't be important, because they were all important. He had to make sacrifices, go for saving as many as he could, even if that looked to long term gain and not short term. And he kept over half of them alive. Half.
And now because he had somehow chosen the wrong path, not even five percent of the siblings left under his care are still alive. 4.2 percent. So many dead and gone, lost to eternity. Because of him. Because of his choices, his failures. He has no right to set foot in those halls ever again.
"Michael?" Raphael turns to him as he pauses his flight.
"I'm sorry. I can't." Michael turns and flees back to the apartment, before the pain in his heart can freeze his wings and send him falling.
When Alex returns to the apartment, she finds Michael curled up against the wall trembling, as Raphael tries coaxing him out of his distress in enochian. But Alex can see the archangel getting more and more distraught himself.
"Raphael." Alex walks over to them and places her hand on his shoulder.
"Do not touch me." He stiffens.
"Sorry." She takes back her hand. "Can I talk to you? Privately?"
"No."
"Alright. You need to go. I know you're worried about Michael but you're too close to the situation to help right now. Your distress is distressing him which is distressing you and you need to step away and calm down. I'll stay with Michael. Go find Bree. Here, text her on my phone so she'll answer you. I'll stay right here with Michael." Alex holds out her phone.
"You arrogant whelp." Raphael gets to his feet, not bothering to take the phone. "Do you really think that you can help my sibling when I can't? I have been at her side since before time began. I have done everything for her. No one cares for Michael the way I do. No one knows Michael better than I do. And you think that you, a speck briefly floating in a blip of time can do anything for her that I can't?"
"Yes." She looks him in the eye. "You love him. I don't. He loves you. He doesn't love me. He cares what you think of him. My opinion doesn't matter. you know who he used to be better than anyone. You know the Michael that existed before the cage. I know almost nothing and can see who he is right now, broken and in pain, with out that past knowledge blinding me to the present. His crippling pain doesn't cripple me. You are too close to him not to be devestated by his suffering and crippled by it every bit as much as he is."
"I don't trust you with her."
"You don't have to. I'm human. He's an archangel. So are you. you can both easily reduce me to molecules with a snap of the fingers. Or you could let me try to help him."
"You aren't even a 'lisenced' therapist." Rapahel says it the way he'd say 'liscenced' snake oil salesman.
"No but I have more training in the field than you do." Alex retorts. Raphael clenches his jaw and just looks at her. "I've even counseled more angels than you have. Of the two of us I'm the most qualified to try and help him through this, even if I am just a half trained blip of a speck. now please leave my apartment an don't come back until one of us asks you to." There is a long charged silence, but Alex does not back down. And why should she? As much as he hates to admit it, everything she has just said is true.
"If you do Michael any injury at all, mental or physical. I will destroy you." Raphael vanishes, taking her phone with him. He's tempted to just destroy it, but uses it to call his sister instead.
"Nyello, Barbara's Bariatric Bypass Babes, Sensual strippers with sexy surgical scars for your next celebration."
"Is that how you answer a phone? Do you do anything at all that is not completely absurd?" Raphael snaps, voicing his irritation without thinking.
"Raph? Why are you calling on Alex's.... Please tell me you did not kill her and steal her phone. That was so unneccesary. They have them at every corner store."
"Will you be serious for one moment. And If you hadn't shut down communication I wouldn't have had to call from her number."
"Forgive me for not wanting another person yelling at me right now. I am stressed out and need a break."
"Didn't you just end a break that took two entire Days? I need you, Gabriel. Your sister needs you. Will you stop running away and come speak with me?" The hint of pleading in his tone in enough to make her overlook the two Days break comment.
"Alright. Hold on I'm finishing a French Dip. Which is a sandwich you dirty girl you. I'm making it for my brother."
"None of us eat and why would you assume I was thinking it was something obscene? I didn't say anything." Raphael demands.
"Your silences speak volumes and it's for my other brother. Alright, I'll meet you at our place in a few minutes. Give Alex back her phone."
"Thank you."
"What do you think about a fence? Just all around the property?" Sam asks tracing the property line with his finger.
"Yeah, that doesn't scream doomsday cult." Dean attempts to toss the soda into the trash. It misses but falls into the recycling so he pretends that's where he was aiming in the first place."We need to make a place to store weapons first and foremost and spell components. There's no pointin making a safe haven that can't be defended. How did you get this land so fast?"
"Babe sold some jewelery. And a couple feathers. Not her own, of course,. So John Samuel Singer now owns the entire woods surrounding the bunker in a five mile radius."
"That must have been some awesome jewelry." Dean whistles. "I hate to admit it, but that feathered pest comes in handy sometimes." Sam doesn't say anything either to agree or to rebuke his brother for the insult, not even with his patented bitch face. "Trouble in paradise? Was she trying to buy forgiveness or something? She was, wasn't she?" He leans forwards as Sam studiously ignores him. "What did she do? Catch her fooling around with someone? Still didn't get that divorce? She kill a man? Again. What?"
"No to all of that. Everything's been resolved." Sam sets his jaw. "Everyone is alright. I'm just not happy with their choices that's all."
"Alright. Spill."
"Dean..."
"C'mon. I talk to you about Cas all the time. You can't talk to me about her?" Dean nudges Sam's arm.
"That's different. I like Castiel. You can't stand Babe." Sam reminds him
"You're still calling her that? Not Gabriel or Gabrielle or however you pronounce it."
"Yes. I'm still calling her that. At least I don't give my lover the same nickname as my car."
"You don't have a car and shut up."
"Dean, discussing problems in my relationship with you will only make things worse and things are fine. I just need to cool off. That's all. Okay?" Of course Sam's statement doesn't help things any.
"If it'll only make things worse maybe that's because they are that bad and you just don't want to see it. Why would you want to keep things from me if they're not that bad? Huh? I'm your brother, Sam. You should be able to talk to me about these things."
"Because when it comes to my fiancee, you're an asshole, alright? And yes. I should be able to, shouldn't I?" Sam straightens up. "I'm going out for a walk. I'll see you when I get back." Sam walks out of the bunker. Fiancee. Dean still can't get used to that. He just leans back in the chair and crosses his arms.
"Testing, one... two... Hey, baby, you busy?" he calls, looking up at the ceiling. Castiel hasn't left heaven since helping retrieve Michael. The other angels are understandably nervous and have of course, changed their tune on their controversial brother yet again, the ungrateful fickle brats.
"I can spare a moment." Castiel appears behind him and kisses Dean on the lips when the hunter leans his head back to look at him. "Gabriel's repairs don't seem to be able to hold the weight in many places. My siblings are also worried about what will happen when Michael regains his strength. Beyond that Gabriel's left heaven without notifying anyone and isn't responding to prayers. Have you and Sam heard from her?"
"No. She and Sam are having a tiff. So she did a half ass job repairing things? I can't say I'm surprised."
"No, I think she just underestimated what was needed and stretched herself a little too thin." Castiel shakes his head.
"You don't know what they fought about, do you?" Dean turns around.
"No, but I have an idea. She recruited some assistance in helping to retreive Michael from the cage. It was very poorly thought out and impulsive and in trying to avoid trouble, she accidentally caused more of it."
"Sounds like par for the course." Dean rolls his eyes. "What assist.. she didn't get Claire involved, did she?"
"No. She sent Alex into the cage to try and get Michael's attention and offer some of her soul as energy if he needed it to help break himself out. It did not go as planned."
"That little shit!" Dean is instantly at his feet. "Alright. What do we do? How do we get her out of there?"
"They already did. Michael is freed, Harahel's wings have been repaired. Alex is unharmed by her experience as well. I brought her home myself and stayed while Raphael tended to her injuries."
"Injuries!" This has failed to mollify Dean in any way. In retrospect Castiel realizes that probably wasn't the best way to phrase things. But scorching hellfire burns on her innermost self hardly sounds less alarming. "That bastard hurt her? Take me to her. Now."
"Dean, she's currently with Michael. It would be best if we did not interrupt them."
"Crazy show tune singing, touching himself Michael? And you're letting her... Where the fuck is the holy oil?" Dean heads to the store room.
"I'm fairly certain that Lucifer's depiction was at the very least misleading if not an outright falsehood."
"Crazy is crazy, Cas. Of all the irresponsible reckless... that bitch is a bad influence on you, Cas. I mean it." Dean snaps, unconcerned or at least unaware of how much he's just pissed off his boyfreind.
"That 'bitch' is my sister." Castiel reminds him cooly. "And the same thing has been said about you. I am my own angel. I make my own choices and form my own opinions. Alex is also a fully autonomous adult who chose to do this. Beyond which Michael is not some mindless killing machine. She is weak and in pain and reaching out with kindness, empathy, and compassion as Ms. Jones is doing is not going to provoke a violent response. Where as storming in with threats and weapons and accusations will almost certainly do so."
"I just want to make sure she's safe and can protect herself, that's all." Dean takes a small clay jar from the shelf. "And Michael is absolutely a mindless killing machine and you damn well know it."
"Again, the same thing has been said about you." Castiel retorts. Dean stops and turns to look at him, not a little pissed himself. "That's not true either. After everything we've done, the choice we've made, the mistakes, all in the persuit of what we thought was right, how can we condemn others for the same?"
"Because we were right. And they were wrong. You're just feeling guilty for killing Raphael, that's all." Dean brushes aside Castiel's objection.
"I am guilty. Of that and more. Gabriel may have wiped the slate clean for us all in heaven's books, but it can't silence my conscience. And that is not a voice to be just dismissed as irrelevant." he snaps, "I have done more harm to heaven and destroyed more of my siblings than Lucifer himself."
"Okay, that can't possibly be true." Dean challenges, turning to face him.
"Two hundrens eight nine thousand two hundred and seventy one of my brothers and sister slaughtered without mercy. In the entire civil war with Lucifer, heaven only lost a hundred thousand."
"Only a hundred thousand defected?"
"No, two hundred eighty thousand did. We only lost a hundred thousand from our side."
"Lucifer's angels survived?" Dean prods as clearly, there's some skewed math going on here.
"No ,of course not."
"So that's three hundred and eight thousand lost because of him, not counting the angels who left or were lost to Uriel later on. And you can't take full responsibility for that war in heaven, Cas... yeah, so maybe we both fucked up, big time, but we're making things right." Dean puts a hand on Cas' cheek. "We're trying to make things better, and we always were."
"Don't you think my siblings deserve the same opportunity to make things right?" Cas puts his hand over Deans, looking at him with those big blue eyes the hunter finds so hard to resist.
"Not at Alex's expense I don't." he manages to still protest. "Michael wants to make good? Fine. He can do it while staying the hell away from the girls." Dean takes his hand back and grabs a grill lighter from another shelf before heading to the garage. "Are you coming? Or am I doing this alone?"
"I will accompany you." Castiel sighs, and takes Dean to Souix Falls, arriving in the hallway of outside Alex's apartment. Dean knocks firmly on the door.
"Hi. Um, now's not a good time." Alex cracks the door open and slips out into the hallway.
"Are you alright? Are you still hurt?" Dean demands.
"I'm fine. Just a few mild burns, they were gone when I woke. Thanks for your concern though. You didn't have to come all this way. You could have just called." Her tone clearly indicates that by 'could' she means 'should'.
"I can't give you this over the phone." Dean holds up the holy oil and lighter. Alex just looks down at it not entirely thrilled with the offering.
"If I accept this will you feel comfortable enough to leave me to my guest?" She asks after a minute.
"It's a start. Can we come in?" His question almost sounds like a demand.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Alex looks to Cas who quietly shakes his head. "Especially not Castiel. If you understand my concern." She says pointedly.
"What, because of Rap.." Alex's hands are quickly over Dean's mouth, as are Castiel's.
"We will go." Castiel says firmly. "If you need us, we will be here immediately."
"Thanks." Alex nods, taking her hand back. Dean, while still unable to speak, practically shoves the oil and lighter into her hands. "Okay. I'm okay. Everything's okay. I promise. Bye." She goes back into the apartment and locks the door behind her, then drops the oil and lighter into the trash before going back to Michael, who's silent but alert, and beyond that looking rather pissed off. "They worry." She explains, sitting down in front of him again.
"And why would Castiel's presence be especially a problem?" He looks at her, almost as if he knows already. But Alex quickly reminds herself that if he did, then he wouldn't be asking.
"Well, that holy fire thing." She scrambles.
"I do but why would you? I don't recall you being there at the time."
"It's in the Winchester gospels." Alex gives a sheepish smile. Michael winces and looks away. "As is how Raphael absolutely destroyed Castiel when he helped Dean try to stop Sam from freeing Lucifer." He is going to find out eventually, so she might as well bring other pertinent facts back to his attention. "Did you know about that?"
"I knew Castiel had rebelled against heaven and was with the prophet, so Raphael eliminated the threat as he was supposed to do." Michael's response is just slightly defensive.
"That's probably true in the absolute loosest sense of the world."
"I know. And I knew then, too. I didn't want to know more. I didn't... I didn't want to loose him, too." Alex doesn't say anything to this confession, keeping her face carefully nuetral. "Raphael is a good angel." he insists like one of those mothers you see on crime dramas. "You have to understand...He's loving, faithful, responsible, constant... if he hadn't been there I don't know what I'd have done. Everything he did, every mistake he made, is my fault. He was my responsibility. Every single one of them and I failed them all."
"Maybe. But not completely." Alex says quietly. He just looks at her. "Nobody is a hundred percent responsible for anything. Especially not the actions of others. You are not to blame for what other's chose to do. Just for what you did. If you were neglectful that was your part, but it's not your fault that in your neglect he decided to torture, mind wipe, kill anyone, or spur on the apocalypse. His decisions were his fault."
"I raised him. Just like I raised Lucifer and to a lesser extent Gabriel. I was responsible for all of them." Michael insists.
"To a point, sure. But they're their own people. With their own will and experiences and choices and thoughts. And making mistakes is a part of life. So is being wrong."
"I was still responsible. I was supposed to train them in the way they were supposed to go. The fact that they went astray is my fault."
"I know, everyone blames the mother." Alex rolls her eyes. Michael just raises an eyebrow at this. "I know they're your siblings but really you were their mother, you taught them, loved them, cared for them. You're the one they want when they're scared or in trouble. The one they listen to. The one they're afraid to let down."
"All this time I was trying to be a father to them and here I was actually a mother." Michael gives a wry grin. "I take it my siblings have been voicing their opinions on the whole gender nonsense."
"It's all complementary, in regards to how awesome they think you are and in what ways. I actually kind of like the idea that you're a girl. Faithful, righteous, badass, strong, wise, indisputably in charge. Kind of counteracts Eve and Lillith and Jezebel and all those other bad examples. But I do know that angels don't actually have a gender." Alex sighs. Michael just reaches over and pats her head.
"It's no more ridiculous than considering me male. But this is a male body. Thank you for sending them away. And for throwing out the holy oil. I appreciate the vote of confidence that I won't destroy you in a fit of rage."
"I only even took it so they'd leave. I trust you. I know you're a good person, angel, whatever. And I think the fledglings deserve their Miqa back. If I may be so bold."
"Fledglings?"
"There are several dozens of them who hatched in the abyss. Would you like to go see them? I know they'll want to see you. Honestly I'm kind of curious myself. Thanks to Sam Dean and Castiel, Gabriel was able to pull back every piece of creation lost to oblivion, Of course it was made into a really weird place, where size isn't constant, language is automatically translated, and angels can interact with humans at the same scale and without blinding them with their presence. Also the angels are apparently in giant eggs in nests and human souls are in cabbages harvested by storks to await reincarnation."
"I see." he gets a small, slightly amused smile.
"I'll ask Bree to take us there. She can just blip us in and out. Otherwise we have to open this portal and walk off the edge of the abyss and it may not take us to the flegelings. It does whatever the hell it wants, really." She starts texting. There's no response. There's no response when she calls either.
"I can take us to the abyss." Michael looks away.
"Okay. Just let me go to the bathroom first." Alex gets to her feet. Michael just leans back against the wall again looking not a little hurt and disappointed. But not surprised. Gabriel had her reasons for leaving, and he knows very well that he was one of them. She never loved Michael like she loved their brother anyway. It's doubtful she'll be anymore likely to forgive him than he is to forgive himself.