There Are Such Things As Angels

Warnings: Violence, child abuse, character death.

Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.

There Are Such Things As Angels

Bella could hear Dean screaming near her, and her guilt in him being there only doubled her anguish.

As Dean lay there on the barbed wires of Hell, his voice began to grow hoarse from screaming and he quieted as he wore out. He might not have a body anymore, but it sure felt like he did. He was torn, bleeding, in pain, and his mouth and throat felt dry.

Gradually, he became aware of the sound of soft sobbing near him. He turned his head slowly to see the form of Bella stretched out nearby. She was in the same condition that he was, and staring straight up hopelessly, with tears coursing down the sides of her face.

"I know I deserve to be here," she said in a voice just loud enough for him to understand. "I've done bad things, and I was stupid. I was stupid enough to sell the thing that could have saved us both."

Dean knew that she was right, and he supposed that he should've been angry and filled with hate towards her, but he was too tired and in too much pain.

"Do you want to know why I saw the ship?"

He didn't particularly care, but he supposed it would help distract him from the pain. "Sure."

And so Bella told him how she made the deal with a demon when she was only a child, to get away from the abuse her parents did to her.

"I didn't really understand then what the consequences would be. I just knew that I didn't want to be hurt anymore, and after they were gone, I only cared about myself, because no one else had ever cared about me."

Dean could only feel a vague sort of pity for Bella. "And when you were old enough to really understand what you'd done?"

"I suppose I thought that since I was bound for Hell anyway, I might as well live it up while I could." She chuckled bitterly. She was surprised when Dean seemed to fall asleep, or maybe pass out, she couldn't tell which. She thought in Hell they'd be forced to constantly be kept awake to feel their tortures, but then someone suddenly appeared in front of her, and she nearly screamed from the suddenness of it, for this was obviously not another Hell bound soul.

"Well, well, Bella, I see that you've gotten yourself into a fine mess, haven't you?"

The man was well groomed, with an amused smile on his face. He was sitting Indian style, legs folded, right in the air, watching her.

"Who are you?" She looked at him warily, wondering if he was someone come to torment her, as this was Hell after all.

"They call me the Trickster, and I am the master of manipulation of time and space, and Bella, your choice that you made ten years ago made a big tangle of things. I've come to try to straighten it out."

"What do you want from me?"

"To send you back in time, so that you can change the choice you made."

"The choice I made?"

"Don't be stupid. You know I mean the deal you made with Lilith."

Realization was dawning. "You mean I can not make the deal… and not die?"

The Trickster seemed to be examining his nails nonchalantly. "Hmm? Oh you'll still die, but at least your soul won't end up in Hell."

Bella bit her lower lip for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"You were meant to die, not Dean, you screwed everything up. In fact you should've died years ago, but then you made the deal, and you lived past your expiration date, and made sure that Dean's didn't get canceled like it was supposed to." Seeing her confusion he huffed and rolled his eyes. "Because you sold the pistol you idiot. The one they could've been used to break Dean's deal."

"So you're saying that you can send me back in time, and I can NOT make the deal with Lilith, and Dean won't die, but I'll die even SOONER? What kind of bargain is THAT?"

"Haven't you been LISTENING? You won't be going to Hell, you'll be going to the OTHER place."

"The other place? You mean… Heaven?"

"Uh, YEAH."

"I used to wonder if there really was such a place…"

"Well wonder no more, it exists. Think of it. You do this, you get a transfer. No more sadness, no more pain, yadda yadda yadda. Dean and Sam get him out of the deal, they won't have met you, they won't remember you, you won't remember them, and you'll be up there instead of down here."

"Why do you care so much what happens anyway?"

"Oh now that would be telling." He smiled smugly.

"So what's the catch?" Because in her experience, there was ALWAYS a catch.

"Before you get your wings you'll have to suffer a bit more, and the way you die won't be pretty, but after that, it'll all be sunshine and rainbows, so what do you say?"

She didn't have to think twice. "I'll do it."

The trickster snapped his fingers, and instantly she was sitting on a swing, back in time, as a little girl again, and another little girl, her eyes glowing red, was sitting on the swing next to her.

"So what do you say? Do we have a deal?"

Bella shook her head and quickly stood up. "No deal." She ran away not seeing the demon girl frown in disappointment.

Her mother beat her that night for coming home late, and she fell into the pain, already forgetting that in another time, another life, that she had grown up and away from this nightmare. The next day she hurried to get ready for school. She didn't see the faded form that followed her, watching her tenderly, though she thought she could faintly hear a soft voice singing on the breeze…

When she sat at school she didn't notice when one of her sleeves hitched up slightly. The teachers eyes lingered over it a moment, suspicious, but not enough to do anything about it, not yet, and Bella thought she could still hear the singing…

"The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask

Its hard to see the pain behind the mask

Bearing the burden of a secret storm

Sometimes she wishes she was never born"

When school was over Bella lingered there as long as she could before she walked on home, but she refused to cower, keeping her head high and her back straight. She looked up at the clouds in the sky, watching a bird flying away, and wishing she could join it… And still she heard the singing.

That night, her father came home drunk again. He charged into her room and beat her brutally before throwing her against the wall. She screamed in pain when she felt something crack and fell to the floor. Her father kicked her again and again in the side before his boot finally connected to the side of her head, and everything went black… Yet still, the singing went on.

She faintly heard sirens sometime later, and her eyes cracked open to see a paramedic above her, but beyond him she saw something that was worth looking at much more. A beautiful woman with blond hair, and she appeared to be glowing and had white wings, and now she realized that she was the one who's voice she had heard on the wind all day, and that she was singing to her…

She was too weary to speak, but she thought, "You're so pretty."

"I can stop the pain forever. Do you want to come with me?"

"More than anything in the world."

The last words she heard while still living was the paramedic saying, "We've lost her."

She barely noticed the shell of her body that she was suddenly standing beside. She no longer hurt, she was clean, and she felt peaceful. She looked up at the woman who was still glowing softly, realizing that she was now glowing too.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Mary little one, and thanks to your bravery, my son will live."

Bella didn't understand, but it didn't seem to matter. When the woman held out her hand, she took it trustingly. She felt a wonderful warmth and smiled as their feet left the floor and they slowly floated away.

Bella's parents were jailed for child abuse, and all of her classmates attended her funeral, her teacher feeling horrible guilt for not reporting her suspicions, and resolving to always do so in the future.

A decade later Dean and Sam used the pistol to kill Lilith and her Hell Hound. They had never remembered meeting Bella, in fact they never knew that she had even existed. Bella didn't remember either, for her change of decision had changed all of their fates. Mary smiled lovingly as she watched her sons from above, but Bella was standing at her grave watching an old child hood friend of hers standing there and singing softly.

"No longer broken," She told her friend softly. "Healed, and with an important job to do." Her friend felt an unexpected bit of comfort, as if she could feel Bella right beside her, she looked, but saw nothing. She looked back to the grave and managed a small smile. "Rest in peace my friend."

Bella smiled and unfurled her wings and flew to land beside a house a few miles away. She quietly followed a little girl walking to school in a faded dress, who pulled down her sleeve to hide her bruised arm. Bella sang softly.

The little girl looked around tiredly with a puzzled look, and Bella smiled a little sadly. Today, she would give the little girl comfort, and tonight, she would take her away from the pain for good.

For though Dean didn't believe in them, and you would never think that Bella could or would become one…

There are such things as angels.

The End

(I had to reupload the story without the lyrics, which unfortunately takes away from the story, but it's now against the rules to have copyrighted lyrics on this site. You can hear the song everyone was singing Concrete Angel, by doing a search for it on youtube.)