Everyone expected Gabriella to be upset after Lucifer's fall. The two were close, closer than any of the other angels. Perhaps it was because Lucifer was practically the one who raised her, although Michael tried his best to help but couldn't always because of her mischievous nature. All Michael knew was that, for a while, if you wanted to find one, all he had to do was find out where the other was, and they'd both be there, circumstances permitting. The thought cause Michael's normally stony expression to shift into a disgusted frown. He used to wonder vaguely what the two of them could be doing, but that was only when Lucifer seemed almost distracted by Gabriella. Now that he knows, he wish he never found out, never saw what he did.
Most of him believes that they would have been found out anyway, and it's better that he found them instead of one of the lower angels or Raphael. The consequences would have been worse. He can deal with losing Lucifer, knew he would have to with the way that their Father favored Lucifer, almost as if he knew the archangel's time in Heaven was limited, but he wouldn't have been able to deal with losing his little sister. Truth be told, he couldn't stand her and her flare for the dramatic, but she was still his sister, family. Better to lose one member of the family than two, especially since none of what happened was probably her fault, even though she tried to take the blame. She couldn't have, wouldn't have, done such a thing, not without Lucifer coaxing her into it. Besides, Michael knows that none of them would have lied, would have told Father that Lucifer's crime was not loving humanity as he should have, which was not a far stretch and no secret. They would have told what it really was.
When Gabriella's gone from Heaven for several days, Michael gets worried, more than he would like to admit. He goes to Father, mindful that He is busy and doesn't have much time for him, and asks if he can take the time to go and find her. Father gives him the permission faster than expected and adds that looking in Eden, around where Adam and Eve were, would be a good idea if Michael wishes to cut time. Michael nods and thanks their Father before telling Raphael he's going to look for Gabriella and telling him to cover for him while he was gone. Raphael looked rather gleeful at the prospect, but Michael brushed it off. Gabriella was his primary concern right now.
Finding Gabriella was harder than he expected, even with the hint as to her general location. It took him several days of hunting through Eden. When he did find her, he strode forward, intent upon just taking her back. Her words stopped him for a moment.
"Fuck off." Her tone is cold and detached, almost emotionless, something Michael never expected from her. She doesn't move from her spot on a rock, curled up into a seated ball, wings drooping sadly. It may have been his imagination, but her wings seem less bright, a yellow of sorts instead of the shade of gold that looked like sunshine. He's flustered him, but he doesn't let it show other than quirking an eyebrow. Patience was the key, and yet, with that one simple phrase, he felt all of the patience he'd mustered slipping out of his hands faster than sand. The gall she had speaking to him that way. While he's trying to pull himself together, Gabriella spins around, shooting him a glare of pure venom. Her eyes are ugly, red and swollen, and the tracks on her cheeks don't look dry at all. He has a feeling she only just stopped crying when he made his presence known.
"Fuck. Off." She snarls, the rage and fury she'd obviously been holding in for eons starting to bubble to the surface. "I don't want to see you ever again." Michael resists the sudden, and very strong urge, to drag her before Father as well and have her sent to Hell with her precious Lucifer. Only the thought that she would be happy, back with Lucifer despite being in Hell, prevents him from doing that.
"Gabriella." Michael's tone is a steely warning, an ugly and disgusting promise. "Stop right now. I don't want to-"
"Don't want to what?" Her voice reaches an ear-splitting tone, and she stands up, an unexpected flurry of movement. Michael is honest to Father shocked because he has a sudden revelation of what Gabriella's been hiding under all that cheerfulness. She's not the bright, joyful little sister he knew anymore, painted in light-hearted shades of gold and yellow and orange and just the tiniest bit of fiery-red. The red had bled through, but it's not the same tint. It's the color of blood, tinged with black and dark blue and hints of a royal purple. "Don't want to banish me, send me to Hell? Don't want to cast me from Heaven for the simple crime of honestly loving my brother? Loving him more than just as a brother?" She's screeching as she steps forward, but it's not mindless. Ugly and upset and furious are better words to describe the tone and pitch her voice reached.
Michael knows that he could easily take Gabriella if it gets to a fight, especially since she's distraught, but he feels almost afraid. Such a foreign word and emotion for him. Yet he'd been feeling that recently. She's so clearly affected that, given the opportunity, she would hurt him, rip him and his Grace to tiny little shreds and scatter them to the wind, even though it would hurt her so much later and the penalty of doing such a thing would be beyond severe. Even though she hates fighting the most out of them, despise hurting almost anything, he knows that she is perhaps the most violent of them. He'd seen her before, waiting as long as she could to draw her blade in a fight, until she was forced to. Michael pretended not to see the butchered body, worse than what Raphael had done, pretended to not see how Gabriella shuddered and wept once she saw what she'd done. He downright ignored Lucifer holding Gabriella, whispering words of comfort as she buried her face into the crook of his neck, telling her that no, she wasn't a monster, she shouldn't hate herself, and she needed to stop lying about herself because she knew what she was saying about herself wasn't true. The only thing that Gabriella whimpered that Lucifer seemed to agree with is that she was cut out to be the Messenger, and only that, but he didn't agree with her reasons.
"I didn't have a choice." Michael snaps. "You know as well as I do that it couldn't go unpunished." He softens, mouth shifting from a fine line into the hint of a frown and the perfected steel in his eyes slipping into something less sharp, for a moment. "You know I didn't want to. It hurts me as much as it does you, perhaps more. He was my brother as well." The moment is gone as soon as it happened. "But I had to. If Father had found, if anyone else did, the penalty would have been much worse. Not only would both of you have been cast to Hell, but I'm sure that the Cage would be stronger and both of your Graces destroyed utterly. You two probably would not even be in the same Cage. You and Lucifer would have been cut off in any and all ways from Heaven." He falls silent. As much as he wants to tell her that he couldn't lose both of them, or just her for that matter, he can't find the words. Yes, he did find her annoying. Yes, he wished that Father had not seen fit to make her so talkative and rambunctious and mischievous. Yes, he labelled her as a pain in the ass more often than not. But she made most people smile.
Lucifer was the Light-bringer, the Morning Star. Gabriella was a light in her own right. Not as brilliant, not as blinding, not as breathtakingly beautiful, but a light of her own. The light that came from the hint of a smile, the light of a good laugh despite everything falling apart and shattering, the light that radiated from within someone who was happy with themselves and everyone else. Lucifer was the sort of light that one would miss instantly when it was snuffed. Gabriella was the the sort of light that one began to miss gradually, feel empty without. Losing Lucifer hurt, yes, and it would for a while, but losing Gabriella was something that Michael knew would fester and could never be fixed. He might be able to fix things with Lucifer, although he doubted it would happen. Fixing things with Gabriella would be an entirely different animal.
"You had a choice." Gabriella is shaking, her hands balled into tight fists. If she turned her hands, he was sure that he would be able to see her Grace bleeding through her palms. "You had a choice from the very beginning, the moment that Dad created you. And you know what you did? You decided to be an insufferable asshat." Michael opens his mouth to defend himself, but she plows right through whatever he was going to say. As she speaks, her words become louder and angrier, until she's screaming so loud that Michael is certain all of Creation will hear her. "No, don't you even try to fucking defend yourself. I am so sick of you and Raphael and everyone in this place. All of you are insufferable dicks, especially you. I swear, sometimes I wonder if you even realize that Dad is still alive and right here. The only way that I know that you do is because you constantly kiss His ass. That's how I make sure that Dad is still with us. Is Michael walking around, telling everybody that he's on some important mission that Dad sent him to do? Oh, good, Dad's with us, and Michael clearly hasn't fallen ill lately."
Her words begin running together because she's speaking fast, faster than he could have ever thought possible. All of her rage and frustration spilling from her mouth, finally given life. The longer she goes on, the more her tone changes, until she's just screaming and growling and crying all at once. It's very primeval.
She tells him about how terrible of a brother he is, tells him about how fucking flawed he is, tells him about anything and everything about him and Raphael and Heaven that has made her mad. Gabriella even says a few choice things about their Father, and it's all Michael can to do not hurt her right there and then. As much as he hates to admit it, half of what she says, if not more, rings of a painful truth. He lets her scream, lets her rant, though. She clearly needed to get this out of her system, and perhaps what she ranted about needed to be said, although not in that manner.
The worst part, the one that stays with him forever, is when she spits out that Lucifer was the only reason she stayed in Heaven. Lucifer was the only one who loved her. Lucifer was perfect. He was her brother, he was her mentor, he was her lover, and no one could ever compare to him. He had been her comfort, her solace, her inspiration, her everything and more. Lucifer was everything that Michael and Raphael and even their Father had failed to be with her, and so so so much more.
Michael couldn't help himself. After she spit out that hateful speech, her voice cracking as she did so, he backhanded her with all of his strength. The sound was deafening. What made it worse was that nothing could be heard after that. No birds sang, no insects chirped. All was silent. The mark on Gabriella's face is ugly, a red mark. Her jaw is off-set too. She stares at him, and if Michael weren't so upset, so furious, he'd feel worse than he did. Hatred and betrayal are clear in her eyes. She's clearly too shocked to cry. As it is, he can't bring himself to look at her.
"I understand that you're upset because Lucifer is gone." His tone is measured, unapologetic. He's not going to apologize for something she deserved. Well, it was the mildest form of what she deserved for all of the blasphemies she spewed. "We all are." Finally, he lifts his head to look at her, looks directly into those red eyes. "You can have a couple more days here, by yourself, to collect yourself. You only have those days, and when you come back, I expect you to have a handle on yourself. Understand?" He doesn't need to add that it will be beyond awful if she doesn't. Gabriella nods, the first time that Michael has ever seen her not verbally respond to an order. He nods and flies back to Heaven, trying to ignore his heavy heart.
She comes back three days later. Well, her body does. Gabriella looks like herself, but she's not Gabriella. She empty and careful and everything that she wasn't before. Michael tries to ignore the hurt looks she sends his way, tries desperately to unsee the way that she skitters away and does her best to not be caught in a room with him, even if there are other angels present. The worst to ignore is when she cries when she thinks no one is listening or pay attention. It's silent, but he still knows she's doing it. He'd be a fool if he didn't notice.
Eventually, after months of it, he can't deal anymore. Michael corners her when all of the other angels doing something else, ignoring the way Gabriella stiffens and glares at him. He wants to reach out, to touch her gently and tell her it will be okay, but he doesn't. He knows better.
"Come back." It's both a plea and a command. Michael keeps on before she can say anything. "Don't do it for me, don't do it for Father. Do it for you. Do it for Lucifer. He'd want you to be strong." He's silent. "Bring back the Gabriella I knew." He feels vulnerable. He's never said anything so heartfelt before, and it hurts, physically hurts, to put himself out there like that.
He sees something in Gabriella flicker as she lifts her chin, tossing her hair back in defiance. Michael wants to believe that what he said brought her back just as she was, but he can tell before she opens her mouth that it's not going to be the Gabriella he knew.
"You don't know what he'd want, and you don't know me." She hisses. She storms off before he can say anything. He knows better than to go after her.
He doesn't go after her then. He doesn't go after her when no one can find her later. He doesn't go after her when it's been years. He figured that she'd come back, but as the centuries went by, and no one heard a word, he began to second-guess himself. He hears stories, about a pagan God named Loki, who thrives off of chaos and is mischievous. Michael refuses to find out more, refuses to listen to the stories.
He never goes looking, never listens to the stories, simply because he can't bring himself to. He can't bring himself to think that, somewhere out there, his little sister is happy, and it's because she's not with her family.