Baby steps
Michael stands at the edge of the abyss, Alex by his side. It feels different than he remembers. The last time he was here was with Helel. They had shifted reality to take this far, far away where Gabriel could never find it and stand on it's edge feeling is hypnotic peaceful pull to nothingness, contemplating consigning herself to the empty. It was the last time he and Helel really worked together, trying to protect her from it's all it's the last time they agreed on anything.
"How did Gabriel bring back everything from oblivion?" Though he thinks he knows at least part of it. The abyss used to have a calm hypnotic pull. peaceful, seductive, now it's abarely concealed bundle of frantic energy vibrating with a resonance more like his sister than he's felt in a while.
"They gathered seven sacred wines, consecrated with the seven virtues, then drank Lethe to remove her memories, had a pagan freind remove her metaphysical heart, her grace had already been lost when Lucifer killed her. Then drank some of each wine. When all that was done, she consigned herself to the empty, a sort of beacon, drawing everything to her and coalescing it into what I hear is a very strange place."
"You haven't been inside?"
"Not yet." Alex looks at the vast emptiness. Reluctant to step out into nothing.
"They just... let her do this..."
"Not really, they tried very hard to make it so she didn't. She had a special tether, but when they managed to pull it back, she was just gone. It took Sam months to find a way to get her memories and her heart so he could go in and get her back." Alex looks into the void.
"Sam Winchester?" Michael looks at her surprised. "Why would he do that? Was she needed for something as well?"
"No. she wasn't needed for anything." Alex replies not quite willing to get into more than that. "It took Sam, Dean, and Castiel to help Bree bring Raphael back."
"Were they all involved in killling him, then, or just one,or two."
"I wasn't there. I was.. still with my mother and brothers back then. I don't know first hand what happened only what I heard later. Didn't Raphael tell you?" She looks up at him. It'll be interesting if Raphael didn't or what reason he gave for not doing so.
"He didn't want to talk about it."
"We should respect that then." She's feels a bit flustered at his skeptical look in her direction. "I would imagine, or hope that he's ashamed or embarrassed about the whole affair. He thinks so highly of you, it might be a while before he feels comfortable talking to you about it. Plus he doesn't want to upset you."
"There is nothing he could say that could upset me more than knowing someone killed my brother and has not been made to answer for that." Is the heated reply.
"How do you know he hasn't?"
"Because I haven't crushed them with my own hands."
"That's just vengeance. And doesn't take anything else into consideration. What Raphael has done, what has been done for him and you since. Castiel, for example,helped bring him back, helped Sam rescue Bree, he helped Raphael and Bree to report the cage to get you out. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
"Raphael has saved his life multiple times. It's the least the ungrateful seraph owes him."
"Raphael also killed him with extreme prejudice. Did he owe him that, too?" This earns her an absolutely withering look from Michael. "An eye for an eye has to work both ways. Especially as Castiel was doing the right thing when he was killed."
"How do you know he was doing the right thing?" Michael challenges.
"Well, when God himself repeatedly ressurrects and promotes you, I think that's a pretty good indication. Not to say he didn't seriously screw up, but honestly? Who hasn't?" Alex takes a breath and holds out her hand. "I'm a little nervous about this. Do you mind?"
"No." He takes her hand and steps off the edge into a large open space. His hand is empty and Alex is no longer by his side. There's a faint prayer of reassurance. She's alright. Somewhere with wicker furniture and the angel of death. She doesn't seem concerned, just encourages him to snuggle a fledgling. Which makes himj give a small smile.
There's nothing but eggs and nests. Some are black and stained in varying degrees, fewer aren't. They grew slowly smaller and smaller until he hears the laughter of tiny angels and chaotic raises usually associated with Gabriel playing with the youngest ones. He goes as fast as he can, flying over to them in hopes of catching her before she can run again. But it's too late. She's not there, if she ever was. They're all playing and jumping and seeing who can stay up the longest, exercising their wings, tumbling in heaps onto their siblings wwaiting beneath them to catch them when they fall. One brilliant little one has six of her siblings make a web of their hands and crossed arm to both bost one of them into the air and catch them better. For some reason every single fall is rewarded with kisses for the ones falling and fallen on, especially if it was a bad one. Half end up in a wrestling match.
"MIQA!" One cries out, causing an uproar. All the little ones look up, and run over to him scrambling into an attempt at formation, though they shove to get in front.
"Children." He chides them. They stop shoving and straighten up. They all look either happy or concerned. All little pent up bundles of energy. "I'm so happy to see all of you again." He kneel down before them, to be at eye level. The smallest ones run and throw their arms around him.
"Oh, Miqa we missed you so much." They all pile on and start talking at once, telling him the games they're playing, who they're playing with, asking to play and hear stories and sing. Hundreds of tiny voices he never thought he'd hear again. Angels still untainted, unhurt by everything. When they start to tell him, in awed voices about human beings and how they can make other human beings inside their own bodies it's hard for him not to smile. And apparently the librarian has brought them copies of books to answer all the detailed questions they have as a few hold up picture books of human and animal anatomy to show him. It's all noise and chaos and disorder and he hasn't felt this happy in days.
"Can I help you?" Billy looks curiously over at Alex as she folds her hands in a quick prayer, reassuring Michael that everything's fine.
"Yes. I'm sorry. I got separated from Michael on the way in. Hi." She walks forwards holding out her hand. Billy just nods to her, so she awkwardly takes her hand back. "I have no idea what I'm doing here or why. I don't suppose you could help me get to the fledgelings?"
"No." She leans back in the white wicker lounge, putting her feet up.
"So, um, you're not with your... Death." Alex observes sitting down in the empty chair. Billie makes no reply. "I'm supposed to be here, since I'm here instead of there, and that's always meant that before. I don't know why or how but..." She gives a shrug.
"Do tell. Well, there is one thing you can do for me. You can tell your freind Claire Novak to keep her hands off my job."
"Claire? She doesn't want you job." Alex frowns. "What's going on? I thought she was laid off becauce you're back."
"Maybe she was but she's trying to take my place." Billy leans forwards a little, reaching down for something. "Sure she's trying to make it seemlike she wants me back but she knows what she's doing." Billie pulls up a fifth of whiskey and drains it as Alex just tilts her head and stares at the angel in a black leather coat and frazzled silver wings.
"I'm a little lost." Alex finally says as Billie finishes it.
"If you're in the abyss you're more than a little lost." The angel comments dryly. Alex just gives her an unamused look. "He just... left me here. Told me to enjoy my 'eternal reward'." She actually makes the air quotes. "What reward? I love my job. I want my job. Nobody takes this job as seriously as I do. Nobody!" She slams the bottle down on the table smashing it, and brings up another one. The oddest thing about that is that the bottles are apparently made of safety glass.
"I thought you were ressurrected."
"No, I'm not. I'm dead and need to stay dead because that's how it's supposed to be."
"I didn't realize dead people could get drunk," Alex watches her drain another fifth. "Or angels at all for that matter. Cas killed it at the vodka drinking contest."
"The what? No, never mind. The only good thing about this is that there are no winchesters here fucking up the natural order. And as far as I'm concerned that angel is definitely a Winchester."
"Can't argue with that." Alex concedes. "So, you don't want to be alive?"
"Yes! I do! I want it more than anything! I want my job and my life nad my children and my boss. I want it back but I broke my rules and now I'm dead and I'm not breaking them again."This empty bottle gets thrown aside. "The rules here... there may as well be no rules. Do you think I want to stay in this.. chaotic mess for eternity? No! But it's right. Maybe the rules have changed and the order has changed or evolved or whatever you want to call it, but that's just for humans not reapers or angels in general. But that doesn't mean I can't... do things or help him or work with him. I can, and they both know it."
"What do you mean the rules have changed? Are you talking about reincarnation?"
"We don't reincarnate. Angels don't. We get one shot that's it. I had mine and I blew it and I won't cheat him..."
"Well, no, you don't reincarnate, but what do you think the whole egg and nest thing is for? And Castiel got brought back, and Harahel and Rye. There's a system in place for reincarnation of course, but there's also one for angelic ressurrection." Alex points out. Billie just looks at her unable to argue with this. "You do know that, though, don't you? What's really going on?"
"I don't have to explain anything to you." She gives Alex a disdainful look that seems to be a special one angels have for mortals who disagree with them.
"No, of course not. But you're frustrated and unhappy and you don't need to be."
"What do you care about my happiness? And since when is happiness the most important thing? Integrity, virtue, responsibility, purpose, those are what matter. The only happiness worth having is gotten through them, the only pain and sorrow worth having as well." Billie declares firmly.
"If that's what's important to you, then how is staying nominally dead helping you fulfill your responsibility and purpose. I get where you can claim integrity and virtue, but given the reality of the situation, they're tenuous at best." Alex asks, leaning forwards, resting her elbows on the table, avoiding teh little glass cubes.
"Listen you little speck, who are you to leecture me on what I should or should not be doing? What do you know about any of this?"
"I'm not lecturing you. I just want to understand, that's all. If I understand, I could help Claire understand and your boss too maybe, and if they understand then maybe you can work something out you like alot better than whatever the hell nonsense Claire is up to."
"You'd turn on your own freind?" Billie gives her a penetrating look.
"No, but I will go behind my sister's back to stop her being a stupid jackass and getting in over her head doing a job she doesn't want and doesn't need to do anymore." Alex sighs, shaking her head. Billie laughs. "I'm sure you understand pain in the ass siblings."
"Yes, I certainly do. I have a million of them. They're not all little rays of sunshine, either."
"Oh, you poor angel." Alex puts a hand to her chest. "And hee I thought having four older brothers was bad."
"The older ones can be the most difficult. I only have four elder sibings, myself. The archangels are the only ones I don't out rank. They make it impossible. And now the worst of them is back. That alone is enough to stay dead." She snorts and takes another bottle.
"Who, Lucifer?"
"No. I mean worse as in most difficult to deal with. Lucifer's simply the one I hated the most. Oh,that angel, just because she's the oldest she thinks she should have a say in what my reapers do as if that's not a completely seperate domain and when she finds out I tried to kill Gabriel, she'll just be outright impossible. Not that she isn't. They're our babies, not hers.
"Well, you could just not tell him about that. I know Bree isn't too eager to bring it up because of Raphael, you know because of that thing you two had." Alex suggests gently. "Plus Michael really needs to get more stable before he gets all this stuff piled on."
"For the last damn time! Raphael and I did not have 'a thing'. He's a sweet angel, but he doesn't appreciate Death in the slightest. The stubborn thing fights him at every turn. just delaying the inevitable. No respect for my work."
"Well, he is a healer, right? And he got over that particular dislike of death, I think." Alex rolls her eyes. If you hate death you don't start a civil war.
"Not really, no. He really thinks Death is the worst outcome possible, especially for angels. He doesn't know how many of the siblings he failed to fix, welcomed me when I came to take them away. How grateful they were. He doesn't understand anything."
"Eternal damnation aside, death is hardest on the living. For someone tasked in keeping everyone alive, that takes on an additional aspect of death being a personal rebuke." Alex points out. Billie does not look enlightened.
"I know, that doesn't mean he's right. What are you anyway, some kind of junior therapist or something?" Billie rolls her eyes and drinks her whiskey.
"Kind of. I am going to school for it. I'm also the only one with practical experience counseling angels. They want me to counsel Michael." Billie gives an amused grin., "Raphael does not."
"No surprise there."Billie chuckles. "It's all talking and trying to change someone's point of view with the right words and suggestions. Kind of Lucifer's speciality and he hates that bastard about as much as he loves Michael. Always has."
"Oh my god," Alex grimaces. " What, he thinks I'm trying to brainwash his sister? He does, doesn't he?"
"Probably not. He's just being a stubborn jealous brat, that's all. He probably just resents being replaced." She drinks the last of this bottle as well. "As if what he does is just so... simple and insignificant that some little blonde human mortal twinkie cna just... step in... and..."
"No one could ever replace you, Azrael." Alex looks back to see Death standing behind her.
"Oh, Bull, you didn't even want an adjutant at first." she accuses. "You were just humoring your brother, playing with the toys he made specially for you."
"True. I didn't want an adjutant. I didn't think I needed help and it's true that I didn't. I don't need anyone to help me do pick up my brothers broken toys. It's much less work now that the darkness isn't around to break it even faster. But I did need help if I ever wanted anything else. I didn't realize I did want anything else until you. You and our children enable me to enjoy life and creation, to appreciate this complex system we are such a vital part of maintaining, and one day of ending. It's inevitable, but I finally understand the human need to put off that final end as long as possible. Because I have something I don't want to loose. I didn't have to have an adjutant that wasn't you, either. But if I wanted to have the time to try and coax you out of your shell, I did. That doesn't mean they could replace you. No one could replace you, my angel."
"Awww." Alex gives a soft sigh despite herself. Death actually blushes slightly and looks away. "I'm sorry. I'll um, I'll leave you two alone. How do I get back to the baby angels?" Death waves his hand and Alex finds herself sitting on the grass by a small regimen of brightly colored tiny angels with little wings. They're all reaching up into the air then hopping on one foot. For some reason they start waving one hand around, a few fall down. Then they shake the raised foot at the same time, several more fall down. They start bobbing their heads and finally only one is left standing.
"I won! I won!" The little one crows before falling down himself. He's all white and brown and golden like a little toasted marshmallow. Michael flies over with his six birght white wings, and scoops him up. "What did I win?"
"What did you want to win?"
"I want to fly!" though even Alex can see the tiny golden brown wings are too small to lift him up for long if at all.
"Alright," Michael flips him upside down, catching him by the ankles and hurls the infant up into the air so high he's just a mini marshmallow in the sky. Michael takes flight after him, catching and tossing him over and over again. The infant manages to do some loops and twists as he falls, prompting Micheal to hold him lightly as he does larger ones in the sky. The other fledglings watch in awe. After pretty much every possible aerial manuever has been made, Michael catches the child for the last time and lights down next to Alex who enthusiastically claps her hands in appreciation. Toasted Marshmallow laughs and staggers, falling down when he's let go, laying happily prostrate on the soft grass with a contented sigh. "Here, sit with Alex for a minute." He rubs his cheek against his baby brother and places him in Alex's lap. "She's a girl human, and she already knows how babies are made." He pats the angel's head.
"Hi!" Toasted Marshmallow looks up at her. "Did you see? Did you see me flying?"
"Yes, I did. That was amazing. You did those flips and turns and everything and even glided a little. I was so impressed. You are going to be an awesome flier."
"I'm going to be fast too. So fast I'll break things just by flying by them just like Gabriel!" He raises his hands in the air.
"Oh, really?"s
"Yes! But I'm going to pay attention next time so I don't go to fast and go too far and fall out of heaven and die again and miss everything fun." He leans forwards reaching for his toes and spreads out his wings. "How do my wings look? Are they any bigger and stronger yet?" Alex gently runs her hands over the soft downy feathers making the infant giggle. "Stop that tickles."
"They looks very strong to me. I don't know how much stronger they ahve to be. How big are they supposed to be?"
"This big!" He spreads out his arms as wide as possible. " Maybe a little bigger. Is it closer? I can't see."
"Stand up." She instructs him. He does so. "Keep your arms out. Now spread your wings as far out as they can go." He does , the little ruffled yummy looking wings spread as far as possible just barely pass his elbows. "Hmmm. I think you're halfway there."
"Aww, I was halfway before. I'll never fly on my own." he sighs turning around, looking dejected.
"No, I'll never fly on my own. You just have to wait and grow up a little more, my little toasted marshmallow." She tweaks his nose. He just gives her a confused look at this before looking back as the fledglings start to move.
"Oh no! I'm missing the race!" The little angel exclaims and runs off after his siblings as they start to run around the outside edge of the clearing.
"You can run but you already won once, so you don't get a prize again this time." Michael calls and sits down beside Alex. He looks exhausted. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. You?"
"I'm tired. " he confesses.
"You should go back to heaven, get some rest." She suggests. He just grows silent and shakes his head. "Okay. I could give you some energy. Bree showed me how."
"No. Thank you." Alex is kind of out of ideas after that, so she turns the conversation back to the fledglings.
"You're good with them," '
"I certainly have enough experience. I raised over a million angels. I'm counting the reapers in that even if Azrael disagrees." He rolls his eyes. "It's been such a long time since I had the time to play, or young ones to play with." He watches them running around. "Much less ones as restless and energetic as their sister."
"You mean Bree?"
"Gabriel, yes. She and Helel were closer... she and Raphael are closer than she and I are, but I was the one who figured out how to keep her occupied enough to keep her in heaven before we faced the darkness. She always wanted to leave heaven, see what our father was doing, what he was making. She was as curious as Hele but faster, more reckless, and so restless all the time. I was the only one who ever managed to exhaust her for any length of time. It was almost impossible."
"But fun?" Alex smiles up at him.
"Yes, sometimes." He gives a small smile of his own.
"You have to know that she loves you, right?" Alex nudges his arm. He doesn't reply. "She does."
"Then why won't she even speak to me?"
"Because she's an emotional coward with avoidance issues? Just because she's afraid to see you doesn't mean she doesn't care. I mean, come on, she tried to leave the country when she first ki...uh, never mind, bad example. The point is that she's not good at this sort of thing. Why don't you try reaching out to her? It might be the encouragement she needs." Hopefully he doesn't ask about the example she aborted. He doesn't. He doesn't say anything, just watches the fledgelings try to out run each other.