How could I not tag that epic freaking finale? So much intrigue, so many plot twists... and so much angst for my favourite archangel. :)
For a long time, Michael felt numb. When he had left the city he had flown without thinking, without plan or direction, just needing to get... away. But, as he knew all too well, you cannot run from yourself. So it was no real surprise to him when he found himself dropping out of the sky to land on a familiar rocky outcrop, the ocean waves crashing far beneath.
He hit the ground harder than he intended, his concentration lacking, and stumbled a little as his wings retracted. A dull flush of pain across his mid-section brought memories flooding back; the bite of Alex's blade across his ribs, the look of betrayal in his charge's eyes, the burning heat of righteous anger flooding through him, Becca's crumpled body, her eyes empty and sightless. He looked down and was almost surprised to find his sword still in his hand. Its blade was edged with blood. The blood of soldiers, members of his own Archangel Corps, men he'd hand-selected and trained. The blood of Alex: the Chosen One, his self-appointed charge... his hope for redemption. The sword fell from his hand, metal clattering on stone. He turned his eyes to the empty heavens, the salt-spray stinging his skin, as tears welled in his eyes. "Oh Father," he lamented, "what have I done?"
He sank to his knees on the unforgiving rock, his coat fluttering in the sea breeze, the numbness turning to a dreadful, hollow realisation of the damage he had done. All the years he had waited, planned and prepared, seeking redemption in the single-minded task of protecting the child, raising him, training him, so that he would fulfil his destiny to unite humanity, to save them... all destroyed in the heat of anger and vengeance.
"Everything you taught me... everything... and this is how it ends?" Alex's words, his disappointment, burned like bitter gall and Michael put his hands to his face and wept.
He wept for the future, for the death and destruction that would surely now follow. He wept for humanity, for the curse of free will that seemed to continually lead them astray, for the depths of depravity and cruelty to which, despite all his hopes, all his belief in their innate goodness, they still somehow contrived to sink. He wept for his friends, for the angels whose bodies were desecrated and dissected; for gentle Louis, tortured and maimed by the very people Michael had asked to protect him. And he wept for himself, for the redemption snatched from his grasp, for the realisation that, despite all he had done to atone, he was still the same archangel who for decades had revelled in his father's vengeance, who had gloried in blood and death.
The sting of the already-healing slash across his abdomen was a harsh reminder of his failure, of his loss of control. For a few dreadful, critical, moments he had lost himself in the righteous anger, in the remembered exhilaration of destruction and killing. He'd seen the world again through a bloody haze of furious vengeance and only the sudden pain of Alex's blade slicing through his flesh had brought him out of his fugue.
That same anger still burned within him, muted now by shame and regret... and sorrow. Becca's betrayal was still fresh, a pain that cut him to the core. The memory of how she had promised, only that same morning, to protect Louis, and how he had thanked her, gone as far as to profess to her, in some small way, the love she had seemed to crave from him, was bitter indeed. And the things she'd done... the secrets she'd kept from him. How badly he'd misjudged her, that she could lie to his face while Louis lay strapped down, dissected, mutilated in her laboratory. Had everything between them been a lie? She'd claimed not, but in his anger he'd crushed the life from her... and now he would never know for certain.
He shook his head. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? He scrubbed his hands through his hair distractedly, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying as much to blot out the memory of Becca's lifeless eyes, of the bloodied bodies of his soldiers, as to dry his tears. And Alex. In his inconsolable rage, he'd attacked Alex. He'd tried to kill him, had drawn blood from him.
Was this his destiny all along? Was this simply what he was, an instrument of death and destruction, condemned to destroy even what he tried to protect? Despite everything he'd done, despite turning against his own brother, despite giving up everything he'd ever known to protect humanity, when it really mattered he had become again the thing he had tried all these years to atone for.
Perhaps he was at heart, and always would be, what his Father made him – His sword of vengeance, His wrath, His fury.
Fin.