A/n: This chapter... is less cute. . You can't have one of my stories without there being a showdown in Bobby's yard, apparently. So warning, a bit less cuteness in this one.
-Sweet Dreams-
Dean has discovered that Tabris has some strange love for apples. He is sitting outside with her again, only this time it is the middle of the day and he is tuning up the Impala and occasionally staring with trepidation at the ridiculous pile of apple cores building up beside the empty industrial spool, once used for cable or wire. Tabris is just sitting, smiling and eating another apple out of the bag of them that he bought for her. Secretly he is wondering if she's high because this is starting to look a lot like the time in one of his numerous high schools, where they all actually stayed put for a little while and he got to stay at someone's house one night and watch them eat two boxes of Lucky charms and half of a large pizza with extra cheese.
That is minus the blank stare because Tabris seems very aware of everything going on and even giggles a bit every time Dean looks at her with suspicion.
"I can still hear your thoughts, Dean. I might be a weak angel at the moment, but an angel none the less," she finally says, getting off her spool and coming to stand by the older man. She gets up on her tip toes to look under the hood of the Impala and dean can't help but smile.
"So does that mean you're not high?" he asks, wiping his hands off on a greasy rag that really doesn't seem to do much to help in the cleansing of his fingers. Tabris just giggles quietly and shakes her head.
"No I am not. It has been a while since I've gotten high," she says and Dean bites back the urge to reprimand her because she is still tiny and cute and he can't picture her doing any sort of drugs.
She looks up at him and smiles softly.
"This isn't how I always look," she calmly stated, looking down at herself with a pout. "Normally I'm a good bit bigger…"
Dean cocks his head to the side. If he is honest he has been curious about her predicament for a while now and it seems like this could be a good time to ask. He reaches down and picks the girl up, settling her on his hip before he goes back over to the spool and makes himself comfortable with her in his lap. She's wearing a tiny pair of over-alls and a black shirt so he isn't too worried about grease stains on her clothes, she doesn't seem concerned either.
"So why are you suddenly tiny?" he asks quietly, letting his chin rest on her head while plays with a new apple.
"Well… The angels of Heaven are not fond of me or my kind. You see, Dean. The bible does not quite describe the creating of Earth and mankind accurately. You were told about the Adam, Lilith, the Lilim, and myself by Bobby and Sam last night, remember?" Dean nods his head and the girl nods hers in return, letting out a sigh as she leans back on the man's chest.
"Well we served the Lilim, under God's orders, and the rest of the angels were there strictly for God's use. The lot of us didn't really interact with the God's angels. Anyway, when the wars in heaven started Adam, Lilith, myself, and the other angels made to look after the Lilim refused to fight with Michael. When Lucifer was cast out of Heaven and God disappeared, sadden by the loss of his son, Michel tried to rally the angels and get some sort of order. Lilith was the first to refuse to follow him and she gave up her grace and went to live on Earth. She always did have a flair for the dramatic… Giving up her grace really wasn't necessary. Anyway, in a fit of anger because of her refusal Michael cast out the Lilim, they fell to Earth and lost their grace, becoming humans. After that Adam refused and allowed himself to be thrown into the ocean by Michael. After that I and the other fifteen refused him and left on our own to find Adam and to take care of the Lilim."
She twists the stem off the top of her apple and flicks it away.
"So… What does that have to do with Cas wanting to keep you safe?" he asks, a bit confused about how Cas factors into all of this. Tabris smiles softly and leans up, kissing Dean's cheek.
"Well Castiel loves you," Dean's cheeks heat at that and he screws up his face in confusion but he doesn't get a chance to ask anything else. "Because of you, Sam, and Bobby, he has found a great fondness for humans and he doesn't wish for this world to be destroyed. Neither does Gabriel. The angels of Heaven and the ones looking after Earth mostly ignore each other. However the ones up there have never been too fond of me and my kind and their dislike for me has grown very rapidly since the start of the apocalypse," she states, and Dean hugs her a bit more tightly. He hasn't known her long but He doesn't like the thought of anything wanting to hurt the little girl.
"But… why? What have you ever done to them to make them hate you so much if you've just ignored each other for so long?" Dean asks softly.
The young girl smiles and she shrugs.
"I've been very actively stopping the apocalypse. This Earth and the people on it mean very much to me. It is my duty to keep them alive and safe that means the apocalypse falls under my jurisdiction," she said, giggling softly and taking a bite of her apple.
Dean stares down at her for a moment, wide eyed and gaping like a fish.
"How are you keeping the apocalypse from happening?" he squeaks in surprise.
"Well… Michael and Lucifer can't have their big, bad, winner takes all throw down if they don't have their vessels, can they? I am the angel of Free Will, Dean. If you and Sam didn't have Free will do you really think that you could say no to Lucifer and Michael?" she asks, her voice soft.
Dean just stares for a moment then slowly shakes his head. Tabris nods and nibbles around the edge of her first bite mark on the apple.
"Exactly. I give humans free will. If Michael and his angels or Lucifer and his Demons were to let's say, kill me… well then they could just easily bend you and Dean over and you'd be their bitches, " she says calmly and dean can't help but laugh simply because even though the idea of her getting killed his horrible the fact that such a little girl just said what she did makes him smile.
"If could I have a kid I wish she or he would be like you," he teased, tickling her sides a little and making the girl squeal.
After that they sit in silence for a moment, sobering up to the situation that Tabris is in.
"I'm actually a little surprised you still like me so much, Dean. I would think you would be quite angry, figuring out that there are fifteen angels who are meant to look after the Earth, that I am one of them, and such horrible things still happen in it," she says softly, looking down at her small hands.
Dean squeezes the girl and kisses the side of her head.
"Well there are only fifteen of you… and there are millions of people in the world. I guess even angels can't do everything, right? Besides, you're cute and you're keeping me and Sam from being used as meat suits for Lucifer and Michael so I think I can forgive you… Speaking of your size you said you were bigger, how did you get so small?"
Tabris sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, shaking her head as she does so. The action is adorable for someone her age. Or Dean thinks so anyway and he can't help but smile. The girl huffs and glares over her shoulder.
"I know you're grinning at me and think I'm cute… Stop it," she demands, only getting a bigger grin from the man. With a sigh she just flumps against his chest and pouts, earning herself a chuckle, "You're lucky I like you, she said, with a tiny glare. Anyway, I got this tiny because I got caught by some of Michael's little angel friends." She frowns and looks away, her small body tense. "I am a powerful angel, Dean. It took a lot to take my down and by the time they finally caught me I was weak from fending off so many of them. They basically took me off to be tortured until I either died or agreed to take away yours and Sam's free will. Before either happened Cas created a distraction and Gabriel set me free then turned me into a little kid because they hoped it would make me harder to find. Then Castiel brought me to you. I'm still not quite strong enough to throw off the changes that Gabriel made to my body but once I get my strength back I am going to go help Cas. Now he has a bunch of angels on his ass because they know that he helped set me free," she said softly, seeming sad as she stared down at her apple. It was starting to turn brown, the way apples do.
Dean frowns and gives the girl a squeeze. He can feel guilt and shame over her capture rolling off of her. He is also worried about his other angel friend. The man isn't disillusioned into thinking that Cas is invincible. The hunter knows that there are more powerful angels out there that could hurt or kill his friend. Silently he prays that Castiel is alright.
A tiny hand rests on his arm and he looks down at Tabris who smiles up at him softly.
"He can hear you… and I'm sure it makes him happy to know you care about him so much," she murmurs and Dean wraps her up in a fierce but caring hug.
-Raindrops Prelude-
Later that night Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Tabris are outside, sitting on the porch while Dean man's the grill. The sun is setting and Tabris is between Bobby and Sam, talking about the differences between her angels and the angels of Heaven. Dean almost feels like they live a normal life at this very moment, if he tunes out the conversation about how the angels looking after Earth are more human in the way they act. Dean is happy, Sam is happy, Bobby is happy, and Tabris is happy. Dean loves it.
However, when there is a quiet rustle of displaced air, the fun, happy atmosphere seems to vanish. Everyone turns their heads and only feet away there are three angels. Two are wearing black suits, looking imposing and emotionless as any other angel that they have come across thus far.
One is a man, his dirty blond hair cut short and dark, almost black eyes glaring. The other is a woman with a thin face and her hair pulled back into a tight, high ponytail. There is another in a familiar tan trench coat, kneeling between them. The male of the black suit duo has he hand firmly planted on Castiel's back and the woman's lips twitch into a shadow of a smirk when she sees the angry and worried faces of the men before her.
"Give us the girl-"
"No way in fucking hell!" Of course Dean has to cut the woman off.
The man with his hand on Cas' back seemed to curl his fingers around something and give a sharp tug, making the smaller angel cry out in pain. Dean looks torn between lunging at the man hurting his angel friend and punching him in the face until he's knocked all the man's teeth down his throat… or kneeling before Cas and offering him comfort.
"As I was saying," the woman continues, " Give us the girl or we rip his wings off," she states calmly.
"Don't, Dean!" Cas calls out, looking desperately at the hunter.
Said hunter clenches his jaw and his fists and feels torn, wanting to save his friend but not wanting to betray him or hurt the girl he's come to care for. Either way he doesn't get the chance to choose because Tabris stands from her seat on the porch and marches forward, head held high and proud, despite her small form. The female angel lets out a little humming noise that seems like it is almost supposed to be a laugh.
"And so the mighty have fallen. The angel of free will has been turned into nothing but a child," the woman sneers and Tabris says nothing. The girl just smiles widely and tilts her head to the side.
When she does that the small girl's body seems to glow for a moment and then it starts to grow. The clothes she was wearing tear and fall from her body and from her back six wings stretch and then fold against her back. In a matter of seconds the angel has transformed from a little girl… to a wounded woman who looks as though she is about to fall apart once the light fades and she can be seen clearly again.
However, despite her nudity and the fact that she looks as though she will fall apart at any moment, considering the way she is shaking, Tabris gives off the feeling of a righteous, avenging angel. Her wings stretch out behind her and dean can see that the tawny brown appendages have been torn to shreds. All along her massive wing span there are clumps of feathers missing and blood that is slowly starting to ooze through them and drip on the ground. And on her body there are bruises in various stages of healing, burns, cuts that bite deep into her flesh and even welts from a whip.
If this is what she looks like after having time to heal Dean can only imagine the bloody, mangled mess she was before. She is breathing heavily as she extends a shaking hand, keeping it parallel to the ground. The blood dripping from her wings and the wounds on her body flows across the ground and pools under her hand. Then a pinprick of light shines in its center and from it a two pronged lance is lifted.
The female angel sniffs and glares hard at Tabris.
"What are you going to do with that? You can barely hold yourself up," she says coldly and the man twists his hand, pulling on Castiel's invisible wing once more.
Tabris smiles, a little blood drips from the corner of her mouth as she draws in a rattling breath.
"That's what it is here for," she said softly, shakily lifting the lance then slamming it down against the ground. A shockwave seems to come from it, like a ripple after a rock hits the water.
Everything is silent and it seems as though nothing has happened until Sam pipes up.
"What is that?"
Everyone looks to where he is pointing and all Dean can make out is a vaguely humanoid shape, with glowing, pink eyes and wings that are stretched out and arched back like an angry parrot's. Slowly Dean looks around and he's noticing that there are more of them. Some are at the tops of stacks of cars in the salvage yard; some are on top of Bobby's house.
Bobby count's fourteen in all and for the first time the two angels with Cas look frightened.
The man holding onto Castiel's wings loosens his grip and Tabris hisses.
"Kill them."
With those two words thirteen of the creatures fall upon the other two angles before they can even think of moving. The fourteenth drags Castiel out of the fray before joining in. The 'creatures' turn out to be angels like Tabris, though now they look like animals, vultures tearing apart a bloated, dead deer. Sam and Bobby look away. Hearing the screams of the angels being torn apart his bad enough without having to watch.
The lance that Tabris is so desperately clinging to keep herself upright melted back into her pool of blood and she collapsed, though she didn't hit the ground, being caught by Dean who rushed over as soon as she started to go down. He watches her breathing raggedly and she just looks up at him and smiles, her head tilting to the side.
"I told you I was bigger," she says softly, turning her head to kiss Dean's shoulder as he holds her up in his lap.
Even though she's no longer a small child she still doesn't look to be older than eighteen at the most. Her eyes close and her head lolls back and Dean panics. His eyes go wide and he shakes her a little.
"Tabris?" he calls as he shakes her limp body yet again.
The call of the other angel's name seems to break up the gore-fest because suddenly everything is silent. Then all of the other fourteen angels start to move again. Blood and mangled body parts are magically removed from sight and then Dean finds himself surrounded by winged men and women. One of them, a tall, dark skinned man kneels before him. Their eyes lock and stare at each other for a moment, Dean's green eyes boring into the angel's. Reluctantly the hunter gives the young woman to the other angel who gives him a silent smile.
The other angels converge upon Tabris and the man holding her, slowly forcing Dean out, much to his chagrin. Gradually they start to glow, and dean frowns, lifting a hand to shade his eyes when it gets to be too bright.
The group of angels just looks like a writhing mass of light now and Dean slowly backs away from it, moving to kneel by Castiel. He gently pulls his friend up into a sitting position and cocks his head to the side.
"Cas, you alright?"
"I am fine, Dean. Is Tabris still living?" he asks and Dean smiles some, happy that his friend is okay.
"I don't know. The other angels took her," Dean answered softly.
The angels behind him suddenly stop glowing and separate from each other. The tall, dark skinned man who took Tabris from Dean stands in the middle of the loose circle of angels stands, helping Tabris up as well. She is now clad in a white dress like the one that she was wrapped in when Castiel gave her to the Winchester brothers. The young woman smiles brightly. Now healed and also still the shortest person present.
Dean stifles a laugh at that and just smiles as she comes closer and drops down on Castiel's other side. She leans down and kisses his forehead and the angel's injuries just disappear, leaving Dean feeling awkward as he holds onto his friend as he is. Tabris just giggles and lightly kisses Dean's cheek.
"Everything's okay now," she murmurs.
"Well…" Bobby says, getting up and off the stair he is sitting on. "We're going to need more food to feed this many people," he said, heading toward his old truck, all the while muttering about damn angles dropping in unannounced.
-Angel Eyes-
A/n: Songs used as line breaks are as follows: Sweet Drams, by Eurythmics. Raindrops Prelude, by Frederic Chopin. Angel eyes, by ABBA.