Chapter 7: Psalm 91:11

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways - Psalm 91:11

Lately, whenever Gabriel stopped by he had been bugging Riley more and more about testing her powers. At first it was a gentle prodding, but he'd been getting insistent as of late.

Sometimes this came in the form of pranks. Like when he filled her room with feathers. It had been an explosion of them when she'd opened the door. Unfortunately, it had just been after her shower, so the feathers had stuck to the still damp parts of her body. It also made the worst of messes. She was still finding feathers in odd places all over the bunker.

Or there was the time he'd changed all of her clothes into toga like creations…. Yeah, that had not gone over well with her. Especially since he hadn't left any undergarments.

Her favorite, secretly, was when he'd changed all the food in the bunker to angel food cake. Dean had been pissed!

It had been three weeks since she'd moved into the bunker. Three weeks without doing anything angel like. Sam and Dean hadn't exactly been pushing her. So she hadn't felt any sort of urgency. Especially since she'd been still trying to ignore it.

Castiel had come and gone a few times since she'd seen him in the hallway. Each time he'd give his look, like he was disappointed. Riley wasn't sure why, but she felt kind of terrible for not living up the angel's expectations. She was the wunderkind who'd survived, so shouldn't she be able to angel by now? Whatever that entailed. Shouldn't she be able to go help Heaven, like Jack had wanted when he'd changed her? Well, it wasn't like she'd tried much of anything. Actually, she was kind of doing the opposite and hiding in a literal bunker.

Today, she was sitting in the library eating breakfast with the boys. Castiel had actually hung around for a bit, and was sitting next to Dean, discussing his ongoing search for Jack. After the last lead on the prophet had turned up nothing, they'd switched most of their focus to Jack. It was becoming increasingly difficult trying to split their time between the two goals. Plus Jack had stopped trying to turn people. So they'd hoped he'd finally realized he wasn't actually succeeding and would be willing to come home.

It was a pretty quiet morning. A bit lazy. The boys were going to be hitting the road again that night.

But Riley's day changed when Gabriel popped into the bunker, sent a wink at the guys, grabbed her arm and transported them to middle of nowhere.

She was still in her pajamas.

At first, she stood stock still taking in her surroundings. They were on a hill in the middle of a range of rolling hills. These were surrounded by mountains and wide stretch of blue sky. There appeared to be no civilization around. Slowly, Riley turned to stare at the archangel.

He was smiling at her, same old Gabriel. "Hi, kitkat. Ready for some angel training."

Riley sighed, overall she still had mixed feeling about the archangel, torn between crush and annoyance most of the time.

Today though, today annoyance was winning. "Good morning Gabriel. Nice day for a walk."

Gabriel's smile seemed to fall.

Riley crossed her arms in annoyance, "I hadn't finished my breakfast yet. And I have a super busy day of legal writing. Plus I promised Sam I'd make up some chicken and biscuits for dinner. I was also thinking I'd catch up on this lore book I've been reading, it's super interesting by the way. So I don't really have time for this today." She wasn't sure why Gabriel had dragged her to the middle of a mountain range, and her frustration was leaking through.

"Make time."

"I really…." She met his gaze and stopped talking.

By the look in his eyes, Gabriel was no longer in his normal joking mood. Nor the sweet one he sometimes treated her to, like when they'd first met, or sometimes when the Winchesters weren't around. Nor the flirty one he used when she swore he could read her mind.

No, this look was terrifying.

"Riley." It surprised her when he spoke, his voice different. There was power there, ancient and terrifying. And all he'd said was her name. He was almost like a different person.

As she watched, he seemed to unravel before her, becoming more. It was the first time Riley saw him as something more than the trickster or goofy angel that popped in from time to time. No, this was the Archangel Gabriel in all his terrifying beauty.

It was like she was staring at the sun, and she couldn't look away. His eyes were molten, liquid sunshine. His wings were no longer just translucent phantom things, but were there, a physical presence. Feathers in an array of golden hues – amber, caramel, bronze, like shifting sunlight. And he was bright, so bright, it almost hurt her eyes. All in all, he was breathtaking and petrifying. It was the first time Riley felt even a drop of fear from the man she considered a…. friend. This was not her friend, this was a creature ripped from the pages of the bible, come to smite the wicked.

Even when he'd first appeared in her apartment, even when she'd seen his wings the following morning, he'd still be the sweet as candy Gabriel she knew and…. Liked. This wasn't him.

"Riley, I need you to stop running from this."

She wanted to respond, but her voice failed her. She knew exactly what he meant – hell, she'd been thinking as much earlier. For three weeks she hadn't even tried to understand the changes. Which was what she was supposed to be doing. Why he had taken her to Dean and Sam in the first place.

All she could do was stare as he took a step closer, intruding on her personal space. She wanted to move, to run, but it was like she was stuck. Despite not make a move to physically harm her, she was fairly sure her ears would bleed from the sheer magnitude of his voice. Or her skin would burn from coming too close to him.

"You were, are, a surprise. A strange twist of fate. As Castiel put it, a miracle, that could actually help with whole saving heaven thing. Considering how few angels we have. And Father damn you for denying it. You may have started out human, but now, now you are much more, much bigger, than human. You are an angel of the Lord. You need to get a handle on your powers."

Riley felt her knees go weak half from fear and half from something she couldn't name. She probably would have sunk down to her knees if Gabriel's arm hadn't snaked out and caught her around the waist holding her up.

The aura of power seemed to dim, and his voice was softer when he spoke again. "Don't be like me. I ran when things got hard. I kept running. But I've stopped now. And I need you to stay with me. Don't run away. Don't hide from this." He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers. "Heaven needs all the angels it can get. Even with me spending a ton of time there, the lights are still going out."

Of all the reactions Gabriel had expected from his display of power, the single tear that ran down Riley's cheek was not it. Gabriel pulled her to him, letting her sink against his chest. "Easy now, cupcake. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's not, I mean. Yes, you did. But that's not….." Riley stopped, sighed, and started again. "You're terrifying." He flinched, "But you're right, I've been hiding from this." She made a vague gesture. "But it's not because I don't want to help. Gabriel, I'm afraid."

He looked perplexed, "Of what?"

"You. This. That there are actual demons running around. That Heaven might be dying. That God is running around the other end of the Universe, has a sister, and is calling himself Chuck." She pulled away from him and turned to look out at the landscape. "I've been going to Church my whole life. Praying to God. Praying to you." She turned to stare at him. "You want to know why I've been running? It's so I can pretend, because apparently what I believe is meaningless. I run so I don't have to deal with the reality of this really messed up thing where no one is actually listening to my prayers, or the prayers of the millions of people out there who believe." Although no more tears escaped her, there was such sadness voice that he wanted to her pulled back into his arms. "It's easier to pretend then to deal with the heartbreak." Riley let her eyelids flutter closed and she sighed.

"It wasn't all a lie." He frowned back at her. "My Father, he was there for a long time. And after him, the Angels protected humans, listened and answered prayers. You haven't been alone. No one has been alone." He took the step that bridged the gap between them, hands coming up to lightly touch her shoulders. "Until the apocalypse, things were pretty damn close to biblical. But in the last few years we've lost so many angels. And, if we turn back to my speech, is why we need you. You can help answer prayers. You even have the power to answer some of your own, whatever they may be."

Riley opened her eyes and gazed up into his, giving him a half-hearted smile. "Okay." Her voice had a waiver to it, but at least she was able to speak. "Okay. I'll try"

"We are going to rebuild heaven. You and me." This time his voice was cheery, normal. "So strap in, grow a pair, and get on board. You're an angel. Be a Father damned Angel." He gave her a cheeky grin.

Riley smiled back, "I said okay, didn't I."

"Right then, let's begin."

Gabriel at least magicked her some clothes. Though she was honestly surprised he didn't make her do that. When queried, he responded: "Creating things from thin air is an archangel thing." He winked as he snapped his fingers and magicked up a bag of M&Ms.

Even though he was still the same old trickster with his teasing, he was a surprisingly hard taskmaster. She had to give him respect for that, though what she felt mostly was not respect considering he made her practice flying, and practice flying, and practice flying.

For the rest of the day all she did was fly. Gabriel would take her somewhere and tell her to fly back to the place she just was. And so it went. They flew and flew and flew. For not wanting her to run way, Gabriel sure spent a lot of time teaching her how.

At one point she stopped and didn't follow him when he deposited her in a wheat field. She let her self slide down to her butt in the dirt and lean back, enjoying the sunshine for a moment.

Gabriel wasn't pleased when he reappeared. He had a very trickster like smile on his face when he grabbed her and pulled her through space to the middle of a glacier, where he promptly pushed her off into the freezing water below. He then disappeared. It took her over an hour to work out to get out of water. Apparently taking off while submerged was not an easy feat. Wet wings were not fun. But she finally managed. Though it was nice to know she wouldn't freeze to death or apparently drown thanks to the new angel mojo.

She found Gabriel hanging out in the field, laying on a picnic blanket with a large piece of cake and a cream soda. He raised a brow at the state of her, her clothes sticking to her sopping wet body and hair still dripping.

He took pity and snapped her dry. He didn't apologize and neither did she strangle him. Though both thought for a moment about doing those things. Instead they started again. Now though, she kept up an inner monologue of curses.

At points he'd send her the oddest looks, and Riley wondered if he could hear her cursing. So she upped the ante and though some really creative curses involving him and things that weren't physically possible. After one particularly good one involving some inspiration from Norse myths and banana, Gabriel had openly gaped at her and growled. "We're going to deal with prayer pretty damn soon, sweetheart."

She grinned back and thought about throwing every piece of candy she could find into the nearest volcano. He laughed.

It was moments like those that made Riley think they were still going to be okay. He wasn't just the scary archangel that demanded she be better, nor the angel who threw her into the ocean, or shoved her off a cliff (that was terrifying) and made her fly back up; he was still the guy who'd appeared in her apartment to hold her while she struggled through the pain, the same guy who teased her and the brothers, who flirted shamelessly. He was just now more. And damned if she didn't still like him. For all his stupid ass faults. She just had to hang onto to that when he did things like pulling her into the middle of rodeo right in front of a charging bull.

Plus, the training was effective. Riley could fly herself a decent distance after the second day, though she got tired easily. And her shoulders and wings ached from the workout. At night, he'd allow them a short reprieve, grabbing her and transporting her to her room in the bunker. The dizzying feeling associated with being pulled through the sky by someone else's wings was still weird. But it was nice for the reprieve of not having to fly herself.

She'd sleep for about six hours, then the moment her eyes opened, he'd be back and grabbing her. They'd take quick breaks for food. Breaks for stretching. But that was really it.

They covered most of the U.S., covering a lot of ground. Though it wasn't like she had time to see anything. Which was too bad because she'd always wanted to laze on a beach in Hawaii. Instead she had time to register the sandy beach under her feet before she felt Gabriel disappear and had to chase him.

At least he didn't go full on archangel or make her do anything else. Riley was fairly sure she'd go into a cardiac arrest if he expected more than flying at the moment. She was bone tired and even the sleep she was getting didn't seem to be enough.

After the third full day, Gabriel finally dragged her back to the bunker where she collapsed into a deep sleep. She didn't even change, just collapsed onto her bed.