This little story is set in the (Heaven Must Be) Missing an Angel verse, between chapters 36 and 37 of Rogue. It probably won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't read that first. The dream is set in 1706.

I put a little series guide on my profile, so you can see at a glance where all of these little pieces fit.

LOCH NESS

"I love Scotland!" Jane declared, skipping along the mountainside. "It's so pretty, Papa!"

Behind her, her papa laughed, the great curves of light that always wrapped around him now curled forward, swirling around her in wisps like the ghosts of flames. He was holding her back, Jane knew, keeping her from slipping and tumbling down the mountainside. He was protecting her. He always protected her. She always felt safe with him.

"The weather is cooperating for you today, angel," he declared, tipping his head back to look up at the sky. There were a few clouds, but that only made the blue of the sky that much more brilliant in comparison. "Thor knew you wanted to see this place, so he holds his mighty hammer at bay."

"Don't be silly, Papa," Jane called out over her shoulder. "Thor's not the weather god here. People here believe in Jesus Christ. But he's not a weather god. He's god of everything! Or his papa is."

"Father," her papa corrected gently, just two steps behind her. "His papa is called Father. Now here, help me over these rocks."

Her papa held out his hands to her and she took them, puffing her chest out proudly as she helped him over a hump in the mountain she had scrambled over easily. Her papa was an adult, and so much slower than she! He needed help sometimes, needed her to keep him steady while he—

Jane's pride in being able to help her papa was quickly cut short as he lunged forward, catching her in his glowing energy and attacking her with both hands, all his fingers finding her most ticklish spots beneath her chin and arms. Jane squealed in laughter, falling to the ground and rolling down the mountainside, a controlled fall with her papa wrapped around her and keeping them out of any true danger.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Jane squealed, breathless, when she couldn't take it anymore, squirming and kicking and trying to protect all of her most vulnerable spots. Her papa stopped, sitting back with a wide grin of his own, chuckling as Jane sat up and brushed bits of grass and dirt from her mussed hair. "Oooh, you always do that!"

"I can't help it!" her papa said by way of apology, holding out his hands to her. "I love hearing you laugh too much!"

Jane crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the ground, pouting out her lip as much as she could at her papa. He frowned in sadness at her and stretched out his arms further, a silent ask for a hug that Jane could never deny... or so her papa thought! As she moved to hug him back, suddenly she jumped, landing on his legs and tickling her fingers in against his own unprotected belly and neck.

Her papa laughed and folded her in his arms and energy even as he fell back against her onslaught. "Ahh, Jane, no! No, you got me, I'm dying, I'm dying!"

"You're not dying, Papa!" Jane declared, propping herself up on her defeated papa's chest ."Nobody dies from tickles!"

"Nope, definitely dead," her papa assured her, closing his eyes and poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. "Uggggh. See? Dead."

"You're still talking. The dead don't talk!"

"Also not true!" Her papa cracked one eye open and looked at her all squinty-like. "Who's been telling you all these lies? The dead definitely talk! You just don't listen!"

Jane giggled and reached up to pinch her papa's tongue, but he sucked it back in his mouth before she could grab it and snapped playfully at her fingers. "No!" She swatted his nose. "Bad dead papa! No biting!"

"No biting?" Her papa cracked his other eye open.

"No biting!"

Her papa opened his eyes fully and let his hands rest lightly against her back. Jane smiled back at him (still alive, she wasn't silly, she knew she couldn't kill her papa by tickling him!), folding her arms over his warm chest and resting her chin on her crossed wrists. "I love you, Papa."

Jane loved watching her papa when she said she loved him. He had lots of laughs, loud and long, some deep and from the belly, others light and floaty like a crackling fire. He had lots of smiles too, big grins and snarky smirks. But when Jane said she loved her papa, he got this tiny little smile on his face, like he couldn't believe how lucky he was, and his eyes went all soft and old, and Jane felt like all of time was looking at her and smiling right back.

"I love you too, Jane, my angel." Her papa pressed her close against his chest and Jane sighed happily, snuggling her cheek past her arms to rest it against his heart, listening to the steady beat beneath her ear.

They couldn't stay in the mountains forever, as much as Jane wanted to. Her papa picked her up as the sun started to sink in the sky, carrying her around the mountain so they could descend on the other side. A long, sparkling lake—no, a loch, it was a loch in Scotland—came into view, and Jane gasped at how pretty it was with the setting sun catching the waters. "Oh Papa! It's lovely!"

Her papa looked at her, then at the loch, and then he sat down and settled Jane in his lap. "This is a very special loch. Do you know why?"

Jane shook her head, tearing her eyes away from the glittering waters to look up at her papa. He was going to tell her a story! She loved his stories! One of his strong arms wrapped around her back, and she drew a piece of his energy over her legs like a blanket. He smiled at her and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek.

"Once upon a time," he said, "there was an angel. His name was Cariel, and he served at the right hand of the angel Gabriel."

"From the Christmas story?"

"Yes, that Gabriel." Her papa closed his eyes, remembering how the story went just like he'd do at night, when he told her the stories of Castiel and Balthazar, the most troublesome brothers that ever lived. "Cariel loved Gabriel very much, and Gabriel loved Cariel. They were happy in Heaven."

"But then trouble came." Jane knew how stories were supposed to go. Trouble always came. "And they weren't happy anymore."

"No, they weren't." Her papa opened his eyes and smiled sadly at her. Jane didn't like it when he had a sad smile, so she leaned against his side and hugged him, making his smile turn a little happier. He petted her hair and sighed. "The older angels, they were..." He sighed again, ducking his head. "Mean. They said things like 'No angel can go to Earth!' and Gabriel was very sad. He loved Earth very much, and he hated to be away from it."

"So Gabriel broke the rules and ran away to Earth!"

"Have I told you this story before?" her papa asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jane giggled. "Noooo... but it's a story! All stories go the same!"

"Well then, maybe I shouldn't tell you!"

"No!" Jane twisted up onto her knees, throwing both arms around her papa's chest. "No, please tell me! Please!"

Her papa smiled at her and shifted her back to sit on his legs instead of digging her knees into his thigh, and he wrapped his energy around her himself. "Gabriel ran away to Earth," he confirmed, "but Cariel stayed in Heaven, to protect all of their little brothers Gabriel had to leave behind."

"Didn't he miss Gabriel? Didn't Gabriel miss him?"

"Yes. Yes, they missed each other very much. And every day, Gabriel would pray for Cariel to come back to him, until one day..."

"Yes?" Jane bounced a little on her papa's leg, excited. This was the best part of the story, when something good got to happen!

"One day, Cariel said 'If I cannot be with Gabriel, I do not want to be an angel!' And he ripped off his wings and fell out of Heaven. He fell, down, down, down, and he became human."

"Did he find Gabriel on Earth?"

"He did," her papa assured Jane, kissing the top of her head. "And they lived happily together until Death took them both."

"I like happy endings," Jane declared. "But... why does that make this loch special?"

"Because when Cariel fell out of Heaven, he dropped his wings. And they fell too, fell and fell, blazing through the sky with a great light, until splash!" Her papa clapped his hands together. "They fell right here, right into Loch Ness!"

Jane gasped, turning quickly to stare into the lake. She could picture it now, beautiful glowing angel wings, falling through the sky, and the big splash as they crashed into the water, droplets flying high in the air. "Are they still there, Papa? Can we find his wings?"

"When an angel's wings touch the Earth without being attached to an angel," her papa said, leaning against her back to look at the loch himself, "they turn into life. A great big swell of life. Cariel's wings are still in this loch, but they don't look like wings anymore."

"What do they look like, then?" Jane asked, looking back at her papa. "What do they look like?"

Her papa only laughed, one of those deep rumbles from his belly. "You'll just have to look and see for yourself!"

Jane woke up from the dream with a smile on her face. She lay in bed for a while, one hand thrown back over her forehead. She remembered that trip to Scotland. Gabriel had promised her only one day there, until she was older, but she hadn't understood why at the time. Now she knew that he had been afraid his brothers would find them. He had spent far too much time in Scotland with her father. Every day he spent there now, even now, centuries later, put him at greater risk for discovery.

She sighed, letting her eyes slowly drift closed before they suddenly snapped open. "Loch Ness?" She rolled over, fumbling around for her lamp switch and picking up her phone.

You have reached the telephone of Loki the Indomitable. Her papa's cheerful voice answered on the second ring, but Jane could hear music in the background. He was lonely, then, entertaining himself with his puppets.

Jane always felt bad when she thought of her papa on his own, the last angel on Earth. Maybe it was time to suggest another joint vacation. Perhaps skiing this time, since surfing in Hawaii was such a bust (he had loved the islands and lying on the beach, but Gabriel had wrinkled his nose at the sea and had taken over an hour to be coaxed onto a surfboard). Jane loved her papa very much, but occasional vacations were all she could stand with him now that she'd had a taste of her own freedom. The angels were looking for Gabriel, but they didn't know Jane existed. As long as she stayed good, they would never know. Away from Gabriel, Jane could be a bit more daring, a bit less conservative. She could wear the latest fashions (she owned six different miniskirts!), flirt with all the handsome young men, and move or stay whenever she wanted to, and not when her papa was getting that itch in his wings from settling down for too long in one spot. Thankfully, Gabriel understood Jane's love of being in control of her own life, and he kept himself at bay, only pestering her with phone calls and only visiting uninvited once a year, on her birthday. All other contact had to be initiated on Jane's end, when she was ready to run with an angel again.

Since it's my real phone, clearly you are one of only a small handful of people who know who I am, so I don't have to fake this being an answering machine.

"Hello, Papa." Jane closed her eyes and smiled as she heard her papa's joy fill his voice.

Jane! I thought it might be you, but then I remembered the time difference! Isn't it four in the morning for you? Is everything all right?

Of course concern was the first thing on her papa's mind. That was the other big reason why Jane couldn't travel with Gabriel. He always worried about her, and while it was touching, it was also very stifling. "I'm fine, Papa. Just had a dream."

With the ice or the fire or the wings?

"Not a nightmare," Jane assured him. The music had stopped in the background, which meant Gabriel was concentrating on her, not on his entertainment. She could imagine she felt his grace probing against her, thousands of miles away. It was no stretch at all for an Archangel to reach across the galaxy. Across one country was child's play for Gabriel, but he restrained himself out of respect for Jane and to keep his brothers from noticing her existence. "I dreamt about Scotland. Remember the first time you took me there?"

Ah... Her papa's voice warmed up, losing the concern and replacing it with fond recollection. It was probably the only fair-weathered day Scotland had all year, just for you!

"I still think you had something to do with that!" Jane laughed, shaking her head. "No, but Papa, what I really wanted to ask was... did you honestly say that the Loch Ness monster was a fallen angel's grace!?"

And Gabriel's laughter filled Jane's ears.