Exiles From Delight
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight to liberate us into life
~Maya Angelou, Touched By An Angel
Disclaimer: I own nothing except what is mine.
Chapter 7
She could tell as soon as she walked into the living room that things had changed. Again.
Gabriel stood at the far side of the room, arms folded across his chest as he stared silently out at the yard from between two hastily nailed up boards. He looked grim—which was nothing new; he usually looked grim—and everything about him once more screamed unapproachable. It was a little bit jarring, because for a little while there, he…hadn't been either. At the same time, she found she couldn't truly regret the regression.
Because while it was a little saddening, it was also a whole hell of a lot reassuring. This was the Gabriel she had known. This was the Gabriel she knew how to handle. That other Gabriel was an unknown quantity.
And she was too tired to even attempt that kind of math right the moment.
On a lighter note, he'd found something to wear—another relief. All that pale skin and stunning musculature was now hidden away behind a well-worn gray and black plaid shirt. It was too tight across his shoulders, hung like a tent around his midsection and looked entirely out of place on him, but it was imminently better than him wandering around half-naked.
"I see Old Uncle Samuel came through in the end," she said, breaking the silence. "Though I'm not sure you're really a plaid kinda guy."
Gabriel didn't even turn, just continued to stare out into the yard. "It will suffice."
Dev sighed, at once disappointed and comforted by his detachment. "Michael's gone," she said, rather than running once more into the brick wall of his fatalism.
He nodded once, barely. "I know. I saw. You have my thanks, Navi."
"Yeah, well…I'm not so sure I deserve any," she warned, perching herself on the arm of the sofa and planting her hands on her jean-clad thighs. "It wasn't exactly a mission accomplished moment, I'm sorry to say. My plan was to go full Sergeant Schultz—all 'I-know-nothing' minus the German accent. Unfortunately though, my mouth got ahead of my brain and I wound up singing like a damn canary. He knows you're here."
Gabriel still did not turn, only shrugged, the movement looking decidedly odd on his wingless form. "I am hardly surprised. Your tongue has ever been your downfall, Navi."
Dev narrowed her eyes, nonplussed by that assessment. "Gee, thanks."
He ignored her sarcasm. "That he knows where I am is immaterial. That he is gone is all that I care about at present."
"In that case, you're welcome."
He did turn around then, and she couldn't pretend that she wasn't at least mildly disappointed by the distance in his eyes. "I am tired. I would sleep now. You will tell me where."
Dev's eyes narrowed. At the best of times, his tendency to order her around like a servant got her back up. And today was hardly the best of times.
"Sure thing" she threw him a wide and entirely fake smile, "but I'm pretty sure you're not gonna like where I tell you to go."
There was a flare of something in his eyes at that, but it was gone again almost instantly. "I am sorely lacking in patience at present, Navi. Do not mistake my earlier…"
The pause was telling and she watched him search for an appropriate word—excuse—with an arched brow and a growing sense of satisfaction. It was sad to admit, but knowing he was just as thrown by…whatever that had been…made her much more willing to forgive him for being such a prick.
That didn't mean she was going to let him off easy though.
"What?" She gave a small shake of her head, her expression challenging. "Don't stop now. Don't mistake your earlier…what?"
Gabriel's expression hardened even further, until he was once more all Archangel. "Lapse of judgment," he bit out, voice cutting. "Do not mistake my earlier lapse of judgment for anything but what it was…an error. A reckless, ill-considered and utterly inconsequential error."
She told herself it didn't hurt to hear it, because she knew that deep down, he didn't mean it. But it still stung a little and she couldn't keep the frown off her face. "Yeah, I figured it would be something like that."
Standing up, she stalked over to the box that was still sitting in front of the couch. Reaching in, she fished out the first pair of pants she found. "My room's the first door on the right down the hall. You're welcome to it. But change out of those pants before you touch the bed," she snapped, balling the faded old Levi's up and tossing them his way with just a little more force than was absolutely necessary. "I'd rather you didn't get blood on my sheets."
He plucked the jeans out of the air, tucked them beneath his arm without even glancing at them, and was staring at her now with an odd air of reluctance. "Is there nowhere else?"
"No, there's not," Dev said, entirely unapologetic. "Not since I've gotta start getting the guest room ready to receive visitors."
Gabriel frowned, the chill thawing slightly. "Visitors?"
She'd been trying to figure out how she was going to relay this little nugget of information, knowing very well that it was going to cause all kinds of issues. For the first time, she felt nothing but thankful for his withdrawal. Being pissed at him allowed her the freedom to just toss it out there without feeling the least bit concerned about how he was going to take it.
"Yeah, visitors," she crossed her arms over her chest. "I've got that whole sacred purpose thing to do, Gabriel. Don't tell me you've forgotten about it? You've only been trying to pound my responsibilities into my head since I was sixteen."
She hadn't thought it was possible, but he paled even further when her meaning became clear. "The child is coming here."
"Got it in one," she said with a nod. "According to Michael, the baby, his mother and the protector should be here sometime in the next week. It's kind of a big window, so I figure it's best to get everything ready as soon as possible."
Gabriel was staring past her and she could almost see all the wheels turning inside his head. "It will be best," he said eventually, "if I left before their arrival. They will not appreciate my presence."
Dev refused to contemplate why that bothered her, though she couldn't pretend that it didn't. "Probably not," she acknowledged, "but you're not going anywhere. They might not like it, but they'll learn to live with it."
"You wish for me to stay?"
She only barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I thought we'd already covered that? You're a…well…you're sort of a friend, Gabriel. I'm not about to kick you to the curb after what you've been through. And besides, you and I both know that things are gonna get real dangerous for that kid, real quick. Having you around to play bodyguard while we figure this whole thing out will be a huge weight off my shoulders."
That got him thinking; she could tell by the tiny line that creased the skin between his eyes. She let that primeval brain of his whir away for a few long moments.
"So what do you think?" she asked once she figured she'd given him sufficient time to ponder the subject. "Would you mind being the muscle of this operation for a little while?"
He didn't answer right away, but after another lengthy pause, he nodded. "If they can be persuaded to accept it, I will stay. I believe I owe them that much at the very least."
The creak of a door sounded through the otherwise silent house like a gunshot. Both Dev and Gabriel turned toward the sound instinctively, two sets of eyes drawn down the hallway.
"Devlin, honey," Pops called, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, "you there?"
Dev moved to the end of the hallway, smiling at the sight of her bold, brash grandfather peeking out from behind the half-open door of his bedroom like a truant child. "I'm here, Pops."
"This room's feelin' smaller by the second, baby girl. Think I might come out now?"
She looked over her shoulder, the question in her eyes. Off Gabriel's single, sharp nod, she turned back. "Sure," she said with a beckoning wave, "so long as you're feeling up to it. Now's as good a time as any for introductions, I guess."
The door swung all the way open and Pops was down the hall faster than she'd imagined he would be, a mixture of eagerness and wariness on his face. He paused just at the threshold where hallway became living room, sucked in a deep breath, and then stepped forward into the room to stand just beside Dev. She could see the moment his eyes found Gabriel—was thrown by the look of almost child-like wonder that lit his face.
She forgot, sometimes, that her Heavenly visitors were something amazing. They'd become such a fixture of her odd existence that she was no longer floored by their very presence. But this moment, seeing him like this, it reminded her of those first few meetings all those years ago. She imagined she'd probably worn a similar expression back then. My, how things did change.
"Pops," she said softly, reaching out wrap a hand around his plaid covered bicep (blue and white and orange and as natural on him as stripes on a tiger), "this is Gabriel. Gabriel, this is Nathaniel Jacobs…my Pops."
Gabriel, to her surprise, dipped his head—deferential where she'd expected aloof superiority.
"It is a very great honor to meet you, sir," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand in unmistakable greeting.
Pops, his company manners well ingrained, immediately reached out and clasped the proffered hand accordingly. "I thank you for the kindness, but I really think in this case the honor's all mine…"
There was a pause and Pops frowned, the old gears quite obviously cranking hard.
Dev was just about to jump in when Gabriel beat her to the punch.
"Please…call me, Gabriel."
The old fashioned etiquette that Pops had been raised on clearly balked at that, his expression going taut with discomfort. "Don't know if I'll manage that, but I will surely try if that's what you'd like."
Gabriel, surprising the hell out of her once more, actually smiled. "I would…but I shall appreciate the attempt, even should it ultimately prove futile. Now if you will excuse me, sir," he turned slightly, dipped his head in her direction. "If you have need of me, Navi, do not hesitate to wake me."
Thrown by this downright polite version of himself, Devlin could only nod and her eyes never strayed from his back as he retreated down the hall and disappeared behind the door of her bedroom. The man was full of enough twists and turns to make a mystery writer cry uncle. She knew there was far more to him than there seemed to be, but if he didn't slow down with all this to'ing and fro'ing, she was afraid she was gonna come down with a bad case of emotional whiplash.
"You weren't foolin' when you said he was a big man, were you, baby girl?"
Shaking off her reverie, Devlin turned to face her grandfather. "Gabriel inspires a lot of things, Pops…foolin' around isn't generally one of them."
Pops grinned, weather-beaten skin crinkling all over. "A stern one then, huh?"
Dev snorted out a laugh, moving forward to throw her arms around her Grandfather's neck, hugging him tight. "You really have no idea," she muttered as she settled her cheek into the hollow beneath his ear.
Most days, Nathaniel Jacobs was not the hugging type. He would accept them because he loved her, but he'd been raised on a steady diet of old-fashioned masculinity and pure, rugged individualism, which didn't leave a whole lot of room for public displays of affection. But today, he didn't even flinch, just slid his arms right back around her and squeezed her just as tight.
"How you holdin' up, honey?"
Dev let out a deep sigh, snuggling even closer into the simple comfort of his embrace. "As well as I can," she answered honestly. "This…all of this…it's a lot to take in. I mean, I've barely managed to wrap my brain around yesterday and now tomorrow is already banging hard on the door."
"I heard you mention somethin' about visitors to…" he paused, swallowed, "…to Gabriel."
She felt again that fierce swell of pride—he was handling it all so much better than she'd ever dreamt he could and she had no words for how much that meant to her. She decided then and there that, from that moment on, it was all honesty between them, all the time. He'd proved himself more than capable of dealing with anything she threw at him. "I did," she acknowledged. "They'll be here sometime soon—three of them; a baby, a mother and a protector. In fact, they're the reason all that happened yesterday. Or, at least, the baby is."
Pops just kept hugging her. "What's wrong with the baby?"
"Nothing," Devlin said, voice turning bleak, "aside from God deciding that he shouldn't be born."
Pops squeezed her a little tighter, sharper. "Don't know that I like that tone of voice when discussing the Almighty, Devlin Anne."
Now Dev pulled back, giving Pops a look. "Well since it was the Almighty that sent armies of Angels to end the world because He decided to downgrade humanity from hot to not, I think I have the right to use whatever tone I see fit when discussing Him."
"The Good Lord works in mysterious ways, honey. It's not up to us to question His wisdom."
Devlin laughed, but it was a brittle thing. "I'm the prophet and you're the one sounding like a true believer. I think I might be doing this wrong."
Pops shrugged. "It's been a hell of a time," he said, always, always on her side. "I'm sure He understands, though I'd prefer you didn't get too blasphemous."
"He sent Gabriel to kill a baby, Pops. A baby. I don't know how to be ok with that."
She could see that left a mark; could see the way Pops flinched. She wasn't proud of it, but she needed him to see things a bit clearer.
"I'm sure He had His reasons."
Dev snorted. "You've got way more faith than I do these days. After everything I've heard from Michael and Gabriel…" she trailed off, shaking her head.
Pops leaned back away from her, eyes on her face. "Well then I reckon you best fill me in on all the details while we spruce up that guest room. Your Grams'd have my head if I didn't at least make an effort to have the house all set to rights when the Savior and his Mama are on their way." He quirked a grin. "Or at least, I assume that's who we're talkin' about here."
"Look at you, being all insightful."
"Don't worry, darlin'," Pops said as he ushered her ahead of him toward the hall and the haphazardly put together guest room, "I'll do my best not to make a habit of it. I know how much you count on me not to ever figure out that two plus two equals four."
Devlin tossed him a dark look. "That was sarcasm. When did you learn how to use sarcasm?"
"Round about the same time you learned how to tell the truth, I reckon."
She pushed open the guest room door but paused to turn and her right hand over her heart. "Ouch, Pops. Ouch."
Her Grandfather gave her a wicked smile and a small nudge. "Oh, you're fine and you know it. Now stop gripin' and let's get a move on. This room needs to be fit for a King and you've got a world of talkin' to do."
And for once, all that talking didn't sound like such a bad idea after all.
