Third Person POV:
It was late in the evening at NCIS, the agents had just finished their paperwork from the latest case. DiNozzo had just asked Alex something, it was apparently a good question since Alex burst into laughter. That laughter had always made Gibbs' days better. As he rounded the corner into the squadroom he heard her start telling McGee and DiNozzo a story.
"... Man, Dad always said Gabe and I were the troublemakers in town, he didn't quite know the extent of it," Alex chuckles nostalgically, "we were inseparable. This time though, I really thought Dad was going to lose it. Gabe came to me and said that we should prank the others. Now I was never one to back out, but the last time we started pranking, it turned into a full on prank war."
DiNozzo chuckled at that, "Where did you live? And why won't you ever help me prank Probie?"
"It was a long time ago, and far away."
Gibbs always wondered about Gabriel, Alex would wake up screaming from nightmares calling his name. She always told stories about him, but never gave a last name, never where they grew up, or what happened to him. Gibbs was lost about the mystery man that plagued his girlfriend's dreams.
"Anyway Tony, anytime something happened in the neighborhood it was just assumed that Gabriel and I had something to do with it. So when people were waking up with dyed wi- hair, of course everyone knew it was either Gabe or me. I got in a whole lotta trouble that time."
By the end of her story, the entire team was smiling or chuckling; until McGee asked, "What happened between you and Gabe? You're always telling stories about him but it's never anything recent."
After that Gibbs watched as she lost the happy look on her face and lost herself to the memories, likely the ones that kept her awake at night. While he was watching her he heard Tony slap Tim in the arm for asking something like that.
"I don't really know. I woke up one morning and went to find him, the past few weeks had been rough. The town was in turmoil, there was so much fighting. I knew it was affecting him, but if I'd known… if I'd known I would have paid closer attention those few days. I went to find him and he was gone. He left without a word. My best friend left without saying a single thing to me, I haven't seen him or heard from him in years."
"Do you know if he's still alive or where he would go?" Tony asked quietly.
"I have no idea, I can sometimes feel him you know? I round a corner and there's a man who could be him, but he's gone in the blink of an eye, or I pass someone on the street and they smell just like he always did. I checked every place I thought he could have possibly gone, I think he knew that I would because he was nowhere to be found. About a week after he left, I left too. I came and applied to Georgetown; eventually, I graduated and joined NCIS but… nevermind."
"I'm sorry I asked Alex, I didn't mean to bring up memories you didn't want to remember."
"No, no Timmy, you're fine. Sometimes a trip down memory lane is a good thing."
Gibbs knew she was lying, Alex took a bad trip down memory lane in her sleep at least once a week. Sensing that story time was over, he put his arm around her and they left for the night.
"I'm sorry about tonight Baby."
"It's fine J, really. I needed it ya' know? I dream about the horrible things that were happening and that I saw before Gabe left, and then I dream that those things happened to him, that's why I could never find him. Tonight was a good reminder that while those horrible things happened, they didn't happen to him."
Even in the light from the fireplace Gibbs could see the tears in her eyes and could hear the way her voice broke when talking about those horrible things. While he was curious about what kind of things happened and what exactly his girlfriend had witnessed, he knew she didn't need those questions tonight. Instead, he put his arm around her and just let her sob into his chest. After a while Alex fell asleep with her head in his lap and he fell right along beside her.
Alex POV:
Everything is quiet, too eerily quiet. The thing about Heaven is there is always noise, Angels were just all around noisy creatures. But not today, no not today. Being the youngest of the Archangels, I should know what's going on, but I don't and on top of that, I can't find Gabriel anywhere. I'm flying when I notice it, a huge crowd of angels trying to get into Father's courtroom. Something was definitely wrong.
As I walked through the parting crowd I finally saw Gabriel. Instead of his normal silly self, he was somber. Right, I knew something was wrong, but this must be awful.
"Michael, you don't have to do this! I did nothing wrong!"
"Father gave the command Lucifer. Grab him, don't let him escape your hold."
No. No, not this, the fighting was getting bad, but these are my brothers. Michael wouldn't do this. Raphael just looked on with indifference, Gabe looked stunned and sad, but Lucifer? No. This isn't right, Lucifer is Father's favorite, he's the Morningstar; the most powerful archangel with the most beautiful snow white wings. This isn't right.
"Gabe what's going on?"
"It's over. The fighting is over. Father gave the command, Michael is to take Lucifer's wings and send him to rule over Hell."
"No! Lucifer is his favorite! He would never condemn him!"
"He did. Lucifer refused to love the humans more than Father. Father condemned his favorite of all of the angels."
The sound of Gabe's voice was different. It wasn't him, normally full of warmth, and love, and happiness, was now detached and distant. I watched in horror as my brother condemned my second favorite of all my siblings to an eternity in the worst place Father ever created.
I'd never screamed as loud as I did that day, when I watched Lucifer scream in pain. His wings were cut off and he fell. Falling from Heaven is the most painful thing for an angel. Their Grace is torn from their body and locked away in Heaven, so that the angel must live as a fragile human if they even survive the fall.
All of a sudden I wasn't in the courtroom anymore, I was at Gabriel's door. The past week has been hard. Really hard, our brother wasn't there anymore and the other two were cold and callous. I knocked on Gabe's door, but instead of my best friend and favorite brother, I was met with silence. I searched his favorite places on Earth, when he didn't turn up, I searched every other planet in the universe. My best friend was gone, life as I knew it was over. My favorite two brothers were gone, the remaining two archangels were different; being the baby, they were always kind to me and made sure I was included, but that was over now.
The day I left was the day Michael struck me. I -
"Alex! Alex, you need to wake up, it's just a dream!"
I shot straight up and felt the hot tears running down my face.
"I'm so sorry J. I don't know why you stay with me, I never let you get a good night's sleep," I sobbed.
"Alex, sweetheart look at me," I looked up with tears still freely flowing, "I love you. I am with you because I love you. I can handle being woken up once a week if it means that I can make you feel better okay?"
I just nodded non committedly. "I really love you too Jethro."
As we went back to sleep, I ignored the pain holding steady in my back. The only thing I thought of as I fell asleep was, "I really hope my wings don't decide to make an appearance. The Great Leroy Jethro Gibbs won't know what to think."
Alex POV:
As an angel I don't really sleep. I can put myself into a state of calm, this way I can dream and it appears as though I'm sleeping like any normal person. I pull myself out of the state every single morning at the exact time the sun starts to rise. I've done this for eons, anytime I'm around humans, I "sleep," and wake up on my own every single time.
This morning was different, I woke up earlier and my back still felt like something was clawing me from the inside out. Jethro would be asleep for another 2 hours, so I decided to get up and find some place where I could stretch my wings.
Flying to a secluded spot wasn't a problem, the problem was that the pain in my back was coming from my wings, and it was only getting worse. This was definitely not good.
Third Person POV:
Alex didn't notice that when she got out of bed Gibbs woke up. Figuring she couldn't sleep and went for a run, he didn't pay much attention; until Alex still hadn't come back from her run to get ready for work.
When he called her, it rang one time before she picked it up, sounding out of breath, "Hey J, I'm at work already. Don't worry about me being late."
"Okay Love, I haven't seen you this morning," Gibbs said somewhat suspicious.
"Yeah, I woke up early this morning and went for a run, I ended up here."
"The Navy Yard is almost 10 miles from my place, and you ran all the way there?"
"Yep! I have to go, Ducky just got here. I love you!" With that she hung up and something just wasn't sitting right with Gibbs.
When he got to the squadroom half an hour later, he saw Ducky telling Alex a story about his younger days. Not to his surprise but he saw his girlfriend listening intently, it was always this way; his best friend would vividly recall stories to his girlfriend and she would love them.
Watching her, he noticed something was wrong. Looking a little closer, it seemed like she was in pain, but she wasn't letting it show. Choosing to keep an eye on it as the day progresses instead of mentioning it, Gibbs walked over to his desk and set his coffee cup down, then walked over to Alex's desk and handed her a cup.
When he got closer he could definitely tell that she was in pain, her back he assumed. She was a slightly slouched, but Alex always had perfect posture, with her desk right beside his it was something he noticed.
She smiled at him in thanks while still listening to Duck's story. When he left, she got to work on paperwork until her other team mates arrived.
Throughout the day, Gibbs noticed her pain was getting increasingly worse. It was now late afternoon and Alex had her head leaned on her desk, and her breathing was erratic. Gibbs noticed Tony trying to get his attention from across the walkway. When he asked if something was wrong with Alex, there was nothing Gibbs could really say.
After 10 minutes, Gibbs went over to Alex and simply put his hand on her back to say something to her; the moment his hand touched her, she cried out in pain.
"DiNozzo call Ducky, tell him something's wrong with Alex!"
Alex was whimpering quietly until Ducky had Gibbs move her to the elevator. The second she was in his arms he heard her saying, "Gabriel, if there was ever a time I truly needed you in all these years, it's now."
By the time they made it to Autopsy, she just began to call his name. Gibbs was slightly hurt that she was calling out for another man, but he was soothed when Alex began to tell Gibbs how much she loved him.
Ducky had concern written all over his face by the time he could finally examine her. Anytime he touched her back she screamed, this was scary to the men because even when she was shot, Alex didn't cry out. She was back to just calling out for Gabe, saying things like, "Gabe it's really wrong…. He's taking them from me Gabe, I didn't do anything... I've been gone for lifetimes, why now? Gabe I need you please." Ducky had no idea who Gabriel was, apart from the childhood stories he'd heard. So he felt bad for his friend whose girlfriend was calling out for someone else.
Third Person POV:
Gabriel heard her. He heard his best friend, his little sister, the only female archangel. Now he'd heard her for eons, but staying gone was best for both of them. He didn't have to be reminded of all of the things he left behind, and she could make friends with angels besides him, some that wouldn't get her in trouble with Father.
He'd been terrified when he'd heard that Alex was missing from Heaven, a short time after he left. It took a couple days but then he'd heard her pray to him, she was on Earth, things changed in Heaven.
After that, he'd come check up on her at least once a month. Since he'd taken over as Loki, he'd learned a lot of new tricks to disguise himself, so that she'd never know. Sometimes, she'd look back because she thought that she saw him or lost herself in what was probably a memory of them, but he never let her see him.
Gabriel had been so proud when she found love, and got a job doing something she loved after being on Earth for eons. Pride changed to fear when he heard these new prayers. Something was seriously wrong, he had to help.
Gibbs and Ducky had both been beyond startled when the doors to Autopsy opened, revealing an unknown man.
"Who are you and what the hell are you doing here," Gibbs barked.
"My best friend needed help, I thought it was high time I show up."
At hearing the oh so familiar voice, Alex opened her eyes for the first time since going to Autopsy.
"Gabe?"
"Heya Sugar, ya miss me? No time for that now, what's going on?"
"They don't know… they don't know what I really am Gabe. Father's punishing me."
"Darling, I know that they don't know, I keep up with you. I'm so proud, but we'll catch up later. What could Father possibly be punishing you for? You haven't done anything wrong!"
"Luci did nothing wrong, and we both saw what happened that day."
Gabriel moved towards her, ignoring the guns that Tony and McGee had trained on him, when did Gibbs have time to call for backup? Right more important things, "Sugar, I'm going to look at them now okay? Let's see what I can do to make this better."
What Gabe saw when he lifted the back of her shirt and ran his hands over her wings made his blood run cold.
Gibbs watched as the man he'd heard so much about touched his girlfriend's back without her screaming. No one had been able to do that throughout this entire ordeal. He watched pure anger wash across the face of this unknown man and then him pulling his hand back. What the hell was going on?
Her wings were in awful shape, the once magnificent wings were battered and scarred, but now they were being destroyed.
"I can fix it. I- I can fix it, but it's going to hurt."
"Do it Gabe, please…. Please help."
The NCIS agents watched as Gabriel put his hands on their friend's back, and both his hands and her back began to glow. The whole thing only took a minute, but they'd never seen her in that much pain and it broke their hearts. After Gabriel moved his hands away, they watched as Alex sat up and a pair of beautiful wings emerged from her back.
Gabe smiled gently at his long lost friend before pulling her into the tightest hug he could manage.
"Gabe, I missed you. Things changed after you and Luci left, Michael and Raph got cold, there was no more joy, Father disappeared. I left the day Michael hit me."
"I'm sorry Sugar, I had to go. If I would have told you, you would have tried to stop me, or wanted to come with. I joined the Pagans, did some fun things, but it wouldn't have been fair to you."
Gibbs broke up the reunion with, "Will someone explain to me what the hell is going on, and why my girlfriend has wings on her back?!"
When she realized her wings were out and visible to everyone instead of just Gabe, Alex quickly put them away. "Guys this is Gabriel, Gabe you probably know who all of these people are."
"Of course I know them Pumpkin, but I don't think that's quite what they're asking."
"You have wings? Like actual wings? Show them again!" Tim exclaimed.
Alex looked at Gibbs and then Gabe, he said, "If you show them yours, I'll show them mine."
Alex nodded for a moment, then revealed her wings while looking at Gibbs. The team watched as Gabriel produced a pair of wings right after Alex did.
Gibbs walked closer to his girlfriend to really look at her wings. Her wings! He never thought he'd ever do that. When he looked at them he saw that while they were black, when the light hit them there were hints of red, but mostly a shimmering navy blue. He noticed Gabriel was looking at him with somewhat distrust when he reached to touch them. It was then that he noticed the man's wings. His were different from Alex's, they were a shining, shimmering gold.
"Hon? Can I touch them?"
Alex nodded tearfully.
The feathers were easily the softest things Leroy Jethro Gibbs had ever touched, they were a little warmer than the average skin temperature and tougher than he thought they would be.
"I think you have some explaining to do."
