Author's Notes: Wow, on this site it looks all official and stuff. Neat.
Chapter 1: Rebirth
Los Angeles, Ravenscar Hospital
Two years of courtship, a year of marriage and nine months of pregnancy later and he was a father. An honest to God dad.
He was also considering taking up smoking again just so he'd stop pacing in the waiting room. The gore of birthing a child he could take, but Angela's psychic backlash was giving him a headache from here, never mind being in the same room with her. He'd nearly fainted.
A nurse came out of the swinging door and his head shot up, scowling at her face to see if she was one he could recognize. He couldn't, so he went back to his pacing, chewing on the painkillers he'd juts popped into his mouth and swallowing their chalki existence without water. He gagged slightly when the remains stuck in his throat and glaned around for a vending machine where he might get a soda. He was relatively sure he could hold down a soda, even though his stomach was knotted almost to the point of pain.
It felt like the motion sickness he used to get as a child in the car, small and apprehensive as his mother drove him to the psychiatrists, some years before his internship as a full-time patient in the dilapidated sanitarium.
He made a disgusted noise at the memory and jammed his change into the machine, reaching down to retrieve his pepsi when he noticed a pair of white tennis shoes coming toward him. The nurse, this one he remembered, was practically beaming. He paused in opening his soda to let her speak, his throat tight.
Please let them be all right.
An unnecessary prayer. She wouldn't be so damn jovial otherwise.
"You have a healthy baby boy, Mr. Constantine. Come and see," she said, her voice cheery as she motioned him through the swinging doors to the maternity ward. She pushed him through the doorway and took his soda away before he could drop it like he almost dropped his jaw.
On the white bed, tucked gently against the pillows was Angela, tired and sweating and beautiful with new motherhood. It was a change in her eyes he had noticed developing from the past few months, now fully awakened as they gazed down at the tiny face bundled in her armful of white blankets. He moved closer and sat down on the side of the bed, peering down at the closed eyes and bulbous nose that would most certainly turn out to be his once the fat was gone.
"John," Angela whispered softly, the smile in her voice as evident as if he'd looked up at her. He hadn't, his eyes caught on an oddity he hadn't noticed before, a change in the air around the small form. She lifted the child up, asking if he would hold him. He didn't move, frozen, furious and terrified.
"John?"
He got off the bed quickly, shooing the nurse out and shutting the door behind her. He turned around, facing the bed, able to see it now that he could clearly look at it.
"It isn't human," John whispered, horrified. Didn't God like him now that he'd saved the world? Why would He do this now? Why now?
Angela frowned at him, holding the creature against her chest protectively.
"I know. But he is still our child, John."
"You've gotten over the shock pretty quickly," he threw out, eyes narrowed in suspicion, "You knew ahead of time…"
"Yes. Midnight told me a few months ago," she admitted, glancing down at the child. She stroked its forehead gently as it shifted and whined softly.
"You didn't tell me."
"You would've reacted like this no matter what I'd done."
John scowled at the child, his child…Venturing closer. His shoes clicked loudly on the cold linoleum floor in the waiting silence. He reached out for the child, taking it from Angela's cautious arms and arranging it until it was safe in one arm, it head balanced against his chest and bicep as he tucked the blankets tight again around the small form. He carried the child to the window, opening it to let in the breezy morning air and harsh fumes.
He knew the aura that came from this creature. He'd met it once before, in his childhood days when he still believed that was he saw was all an act of the imagination.
"Welcome to Earth, Michael," he sighed, a slight smile creasing his face, "I hope you do great things."
"Michael?" Angela's voice came, breaking into his thoughts pleasantly, "That's his name."
Not a question, a fact, a realization, a truth. She smiled at them both.
"And he does have pretty wings," she added. John only nodded and leaned down to kiss that bulbous nose.
Fin Chapter 1
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