Author's Note: Hello and welcome to part three of "Hallelujah". Before we begin, I would like to thank everyone who read the last installment, including saichick and jokerfest, who both reviewed. I do hope you enjoy this chapter! ^_^

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Legion.

Part III Plucked Feathers

Michael had been almost certain that he was going to die that day. He had been almost certain that his soul, which he had been promised was immortal, would whither and with it his body, his broken body…

He fell and witnessed the glory of the sky rushing past him. He fell and was aware of the earth, which stretched out beneath him in an unforgiving canvas of stone and hard soil. He fell and knew that no one was going to save him, no one at all. And it was only at the very last moment that he saw Heniel reaching out her hand towards him. It was only at the very last moment that he dared to hope.

Michael flailed wildly, stretching out his arm until his shoulder was nearly pulled from its socket. He tried to touch her, to feel the slipperiness of her sweat-greased palm as she grabbed him. But his fingers latched onto her wing. Her feathers cut into the meat of his flesh and blood ran down his wrist.

They both fell then. Heniel and him. They fell and he was almost certain that they were both going to die that day.

And the fault, perhaps, was his.

Michael remembered little after the impact, except for her scream, which rang like an unwelcome death knell in his ears. A final wave of unendurable agony washed over him, pressing him deeper into the dirt and the rocks and then all was blackness. Indefinite space. Oblivion. It was some time before he woke and he was surprised when he woke at all.

"Were you dreaming?"

Raphael's voice reached Michael through the dark, a beacon of silvery words and legato tones that shook the sleep from his mind and from his aching body. He stirred, immediately aware of how delicate his bones seemed. His flesh was a silken shroud, torn in places, dyed with blood.

Michael opened his eyes.

Raphael's face hovered over his and he smiled, soft lines forming around his firm mouth. "Were you dreaming?" he asked again. His cool hands touched Michael's shoulders, easing the pain from all his tensed muscles strained joints.

"I was," Michael replied, his own voice inelegant, a harsh grating that resonated in his dry throat and hummed behind his narrow, clenched lips. "I dreamt of falling."

Raphael exhaled through his long nose, his gaze eternally benign. "And of broken wings," he added. "And plucked feathers."

His wry humor helped to shake the last of the lingering cold terror from Michael's mind.

"I was certain I would die," he said and in speaking, the notion lost all its power, becoming weak and tepid. He felt truly ridiculous then.

Raphael seemed to agree. "No," he said with a jovial laugh. "You are not dead, brother. But perhaps you hoped?"

And then he disappeared, lifting his hands from Michael shoulders and drawing away into the light, for there were no shadows to be found in their Father's house, no darkened rafters and gloomy corners and blackened halls. Only light, which streamed in through high, wide windows and seeped through the floors and echoed in the wind, which perfumed was with flowers from Eden. It was late springtime now and the lilacs were blooming.

Michael realized that he was lying upon his bed, although the place had a certain air of unfamiliarity about it. His mind remained on a mountaintop. On a cliff side. On a stone that had shattered his body when he fell from the sky, when they fell…

He remembered Lucifer's legion. The ambush. The hot spray of angelic blood on earth's soil. Screams. They had been outnumbered. They had been wretchedly outnumbered.

"The others?" he asked at once, their faces so clear in his mind. Gabriel, his brother. Sariel, who was kind and always laughed. Heniel, the brooding warrior.

Heniel, who had been with him when he fell.

Raphael stirred, his movement heralded by a rustling of fabric and feathers. "Sariel's leg was slashed down to the bone, but she is healed. She will not even have a limp."

Michael swallowed, a burning knot rising in his gut, sending tendrils of fire throughout his chest. "Heniel?" he asked and he could only think of her eyes when they fell, when they both fell and she had screamed before the ground came up beneath them.

"Healed," Raphael said simply, "but as sullen as ever."

That brought Michael no peace. The heat in his chest had burned down to mere ashes, although the cinders still smoldered, leaving him restless…haunted.

I am sorry, that was the last thing he had said to her, wasn't it? I am so sorry. Something squeezed his throat, the tightness verging on suffocating. He had almost killed them both.

Michael wondered if she would forgive him, although he had reason to doubt. Heniel was very much like Gabriel, only twice as severe. She spoke shortly. She was rarely content. And she was (ah, he hated to be unkind!) a bit simple. She had a heart and a mind that were easily connected, that she did not rightly know the difference between. He did not think she would ever understand.

And he knew she would never forgive him.

For a moment, he felt a shadow of sadness, but it slipped away like smoke through his fingers.

"We were attacked," he said. Raphael was somewhere in the room and his sandaled feet pattered on the smooth floor, his robes sweeping across the stone. "It was-"

"Unexpected," Gabriel said, his tone that of muted thunder.

Michael lifted his head off the pillow, his muscles bunching. Pain trailed down his back, along his spine and to the very tips of his wings, which felt heavy, which felt…

"So much blood," Raphael interrupted. He approached the bed with measured step, Gabriel by his side. They were an awkward pair. Healer and Warrior. Protector and Avenger.

And yet Michael could overlook the paradox for the quiet comfort their presence brought. He was a small child swaddled in linen, all bruised flesh mottled with blood. All splintered bones and gasping breath.

He looked to Gabriel and tried to find some pity in his brother's hardened eyes. There was none and Michael was surprised when he felt shamed.

"You brought us to the wrong place," Gabriel said.

Michael chewed on his lip. He knew well enough not to feel offended by Gabriel's acerbic accusations. They were commonplace and he had come to anticipate, if not welcome his brother's astuteness.

"It was not intentional," Michael said plainly. He looked down the length of his body and saw the deep scratches imprinted on his arms and chest. Demon claws, he thought, were nearly as sharp as angel wings.

Gabriel pressed his lips together. His tense expression softened a shade. "I was worried for a time" he said, his sympathy still grudging, "You were thrown from the mountaintop."

"Yes," Michael said, recalling the treacherous rush of air around his body. "The legion-"

"They knew we were coming," Gabriel replied. "Lucifer cannot be denied his guile. His treachery." He spat out the last word, running his tongue along his teeth as if he wanted to get the taste of it out of his mouth.

"One battle of many," Raphael added. "Only our General was nearly bested this time."

Michael bit down on his tongue when the Healer lifted his right wing, pulling it out from underneath him and straightening the stiff joint.

"They broke your wings, brother," Raphael said lightly, although there was a sinister insinuation in his tone. "And they were quite deliberate."

"They were quite foolish," Gabriel said with a jerk of his chin. He had folded one of his heavy hands into a fist. "We slaughtered them, Michael. They are all of them back burning in the Pit. Lucifer, perhaps, will understand that he cannot benefit from such brashness."

Michael closed his eyes. He thought of blood…and Heniel's final scream before they hit the ground. "That is," he paused, "that is well."

The silence around him was thick. He was swathed in empty air, in the dust of memories which made him nervous. For the first time in ages, he found that he did not trust himself.

"There is one thing," Gabriel said at length, "that I do not understand."

Michael opened his eyes reluctantly.

"Heniel tells me you would not let her go," Gabriel continued.

Raphael muttered indistinctly.

Michael felt his heartbeat rise, bringing a terrible wave of blood to his pale cheeks.

"She said you would have killed her too," Gabriel added. His voice was oddly unsteady.

"Perhaps," Michael replied and said nothing more. He turned his head away until his cheek touched the soft fabric of the pillow.

His eyes felt as though they had been washed with sand and he could not deny what grew within him, the unease, the unpleasant throb, the sickly residue of something that had settled in his mind when he fell…when they both fell.

Gabriel touched his brow, the pad of his thumb calloused and rough on his skin. "It is over," he said and Michael thought he was trying to be comforting, but there was no balm in his words, only a question that had arisen and would remain unanswered.

Looking down his bare arm, he noticed that a bandage had been tied neatly over his right palm, the place where Heniel's feathers had cut into his flesh. He closed his hand, made it into a fist and clenched his fingers until the wound began to bleed again.

It was only then that Michael realized how truly frightened he was.

Author's Note: Thanks so much for taking the time to read! If you have some free time, please do leave a review. I cherish all the comments I receive and would be entirely grateful for any feedback.

The next installment has already been written and should be posted shortly. Until then, take care and be well!