Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is a few days late. My internet provider experienced a serious glitch this week and I was without service for a few days. Fortunately, we're back in business now.

As always, I have to thank everyone who took the time to review the last chapter, Fyrefly, ArmoredSoul, Lexicon, WithLoveFromTorchwood, little biscuit, moondawntreader, Yes-Man and dark's silver shadow. I cannot possibly express how much your kind words mean to me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all! Also, I'd like to thank everyone who added this story to their favorites/author alerts. Your support is very much appreciated. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Legion.

Chapter Thirteen Waiting

Like any uncharted territory
I must seem greatly intriguing
You speak of my love like
You have experienced love like mine before
-"Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette

Gabriel had never fully understood the perils of waiting. As an archangel, a being accustomed to the limitless sphere of Heaven, where the present reigned and the past and future were immeasurable, he had never experienced the anxiety of expectancy, the fear of what was to come. But things were different now. Having resigned himself to the domain of man, he was confronted by the complexities of time, the slow passage of hours, the breathless moments of anticipation, the surreal ebb and flow apprehension.

For three days Gabriel endured the waiting. His thoughts were scattered. The logic he relied upon fell away and he found himself drowning, being pulled down beneath the black. And he could not see what was beyond the dark. What was beyond the shadowy, sinister veil.

For three days he waited, unsure of what was to come, but knowing all the while that something was coming. The air still had the feel of the inevitable, the uncertainty of change. It was bearing down upon him, breathing on his neck, panting and gasping, promising a reckoning that he did not yet understand, that he would never comprehend.

And Gabriel waited. He did as his brother had instructed. He waited and he watched. And with each passing minute, with each torturous second, he tried to shield Max and Jack from his fear, from his very real and vibrant terror.

They must know nothing of his insecurity. They must know nothing.

Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to remain aloof from his human hosts. He had willingly insinuated himself into their affairs, into their very lives, and without his knowing, without any overt realization, they had accepted him.

And surprisingly enough, it was Max who now openly welcomed him into her home. Her gratefulness for him, for his presence, became apparent as she extended herself, exerting all her limited power to make his stay more comfortable. She tried to convince him to take up residence in their spare bedroom and even brought him pillows and blankets down from the attic. She continually offered him food, and when he gently refused to partake in their meals, she invited him to join them at the table while they ate.

And on the morning after his meeting with Michael, Gabriel had witnessed the woman wriggle beneath the house's crawl space like a burrowing rodent as she went to fetch his arms and armor.

It was an amusing spectacle to the say the least, although he had forced himself to remain passive as he watched her lug out his heavy breastplate, his pauldrons and vambraces and greaves. She brought him his mace last, dragging it from underneath the house with a loud groan as she struggled to lift the heavy weapon.

"I hope I don't regret this," she said as she let the great mass of spiked metal fall at his feet.

Gabriel said nothing, recognizing, at once, that Max always had to have the last word. In the past, he might have found her stubbornness irritating, but now he could only feel a certain mount of appreciation for it. Determination was something he admired, and seeing the little woman display such remarkable willpower gave him reason to respect her.

Yes, he could respect Max. It was harmless enough to offer her his grudging approval, although at times, he felt, no he feared that his approval was unsteady. Something that could be changed. Something that could grow until it became twisted and warped. Something that could transform itself until it became more like….

More like what? Gabriel didn't dare answer the question. It was a trap. A snare. A dangerous, albeit alluring mind game. But even though he tried to ignore his own sense of ambiguity, he did allow himself to worry. Worry incessantly. Obsessively. And in quiet moments, during the few minutes of solitude he had for himself, he began to wonder if he should have returned to the old house in the wilds of the Mojave.

His brother, at it was, had offered him the freedom of choice and although Gabriel wasn't familiar with the complexities of free will, he had accepted the burden. His heart, his strange notion of empathy, had begged him to stay with Max and Jack, although his sense of self-preservation argued for the opposite. And when he was alone, he questioned and he doubted and he considered, very often, that perhaps he should have returned to his home, where he would be freed from the pain of waiting and the responsibility of watching over two, weak little humans.

At times, Gabriel's body would respond to his regret, the joints in his wings stretching, promising to bear him away from the dust of the earth, his legs aching with unused energy. He could run, he could fly, he could leave Max and Jack behind.

The allure of release was tempting, too tempting….

To keep his body from betraying his indecision, Gabriel remained in the house as much as he could. Since Michael had left the pantry well stocked, Max no longer went on scavenging trips. Instead, she spent her days indoors and as Gabriel watched her move about, watched walk through the halls and the rooms with no purpose or path, he wondered if she too experienced the agony of waiting, if she was also just as lost as he was.

"I feel useless," she said to Gabriel on the evening of the third day. "What am I supposed to do now?"

They were standing together in the hall outside of Jack's room. Max had just put her nephew to bed and as she closed his door behind her, fresh worry puckered her brow. She had not failed to recognize how quiet the boy had grown, how withdrawn and solemn.

And Gabriel found that as much as he wished to relieve her concern, he could not bear to tell her that Jack knew of his parents' passing. For some reason, he did not think she would be pleased with his intervention in the matter, and he wanted, with all his heart, for Max to trust him.

After all, hadn't Michael admitted that the woman needed Gabriel more than she could ever need him?

Gabriel stood straight, the tops of his wings grazing the ceiling overhead. Max was right in front of him, leaning against Jack's door, her eyes on her feet.

And there was so little space between them. He could touch her if he wanted to. Could reach out and lace his fingers through hers….

"You should not feel useless," he said. "Find some comfort in these quiet moments. I told you that I would remain with you. Does that make you happy?" His voice was neutral, eternally impassive, but inside, in the innermost sphere of his soul, he wanted Max to tell him that she was happy…

…that she was so very happy to have him with her.

But she didn't. Instead, she rubbed her hand over her arm, unconsciously ironing out the unwashed wrinkles in her shirtsleeve. "Do you think Michael will come back?" she asked him.

Gabriel's heart twisted and the familiar taste of jealousy pooled in his mouth. "I do not know," he said shortly.

He was hoping her subsequent reaction would be telling. That he'd catch a glimpse of her private yearning and in seeing it, find some understanding himself. But Max was a mystery. She shrugged her shoulders, her expression far-off and wandering.

"So what happens now?"

Gabriel sharply through his nostrils. He didn't know what to tell her. Their world was a world of impermanence, a world of uncertainty and dark, dangerous questions. And how could he be expected to guide Max while he himself knew nothing, while he existed on the edge of the unknown?

Gabriel folded his arms together and watched as the woman slumped against her nephew's bedroom door. "I do not know," he repeated, hating the vagueness of the words, hating his own impotency, his powerlessness.

There was no direction in this wandering. There was nothing.

His answer, however, seemed to be good enough for Max. She waved her hand at him, parting the air between them with the flailing of her wrist.

"I'm going to go crazy," she said, "staying in the house like this. I feel like I'm not doing anything."

"Maybe there is nothing to do," Gabriel counseled, disgusted by the hopelessness and resignation in his voice.

Max shrugged her shoulders once more. "There has to be something. There is always something. Wanna go for a walk with me? I know I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. And what's the point of sleeping when you don't have anything to wake up for?"

This frightened Gabriel and he was troubled by this sudden uprising of despondency in Max, she who had been so resilient. "You have Jack," he told her with some urgency. "You live for him."

But Max only shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't being literal. It's just…I hate this waiting. You know what I mean, don't you? You have to understand."

There was a real hint of desperation about her now, Gabriel realized, although he could only feel relief. Wild, reckless, meaningless relief. Yes, he did understand. He understood it all. And she, Max, must understand him….

"We will go for a walk, then," he said. "And we will find something to do. Anything to do." And as he spoke, he offered her a smile, a real, genuine smile that sprang up from some hidden wellspring of unknown joy, expressing his pleasure to find some kinship with this strange, little woman.

Max looked a perplexed at his sudden enthusiasm, her thin eyebrows jumping together as she gazed at him. "All right," she muttered, pushing away from the door until she was a step closer to him, the top of her head a good foot underneath his, her living, breathing body within reach if he only choose to touch her….

"Sounds like a plan," she said and then breezed past him.

Gabriel clenched his fingers into fists, the fine, dark hairs on his arm standing on end.

Too close, he told himself. And yet not close enough.

He followed her outside.

They decided they wouldn't go far. It was late, close to three in the morning, and even the light of the full moon seemed uncertain as it bled the desert colorless with pale shadows. Max didn't want to leave Jack alone for long, so she led Gabriel to the old bridle path that went behind the house and curved away past the paddocks. The walk would take them an hour if they hurried, although as soon as they were on the trail, which hadn't been properly maintained in years and was littered with rocks and branches and tiny burrows, they intentionally slowed their pace. Whatever urgency had driven them from the house died away quickly, leaving their steps heavy and hesitant.

Gabriel felt himself ease into the steady rhythm of walking. The constant movement of his feet over the rough terrain cleared the bothersome cobwebs from his mind. His thoughts turned meditative and his spirit and stilled as the great tide of his worry ebbed. The night was soft and drowsy. Misty. Shapeless shadows crawled in-between the stunted shrubs and scattered rocks and colored the space between Max and him, the small, but definite barrier.

But such thoughts were treacherous. Gabriel dispelled them swiftly, casting them back into the gloom where they belonged as he forced his head to empty. And although he was practiced in control, although he knew how to ignore the useless ramblings of an unchained mind, he found it difficult to concentrate whenever Max stood by him, whenever she was near enough to touch….

As it was, the woman also seemed to be in a reflective mood. She walked next to the large angel, coming close enough, at times, to press the sharp edge of her shoulder against his flank as she side-stepped to avoid the debris on the trail. Her expression, Gabriel observed, wasn't so harried as determined. There was no peace in her eyes, but a faint, restless stirring, a resistance to apathy that gave her features a hardened cast, molding worried lines into her brow and pinching her lips. And even now, in the middle of the desert, at the very end of the world, she still wore her policewoman's uniform, still wore the shield and the dark shirt with the patch sewn onto the shoulder and the heavy belt with her gun hostler and handcuffs and flashlight.

It was an act of defiance, Gabriel realized. Her uniform had assumed an identity that she took solace in, that she obviously found comforting. As he walked besides her, he developed the habit of sneaking cautious glances at the woman, watching the way she swung her arms when she moved, the way she trembled when the wind swept down upon them from the mountains, the way she turned her head back to the house every now and then, guarding her little nephew with unparalleled ferocity.

And as Gabriel studied her, as he noticed every facet of her form and face and figure, he saw that she was missing something. Her neck was bare. The St. Michael medal was gone.

He didn't know why, but the discovery pleased him, assuaged some of the roiling jealousy that had taken hold in the pit of his stomach, the envy he even now denied.

But then she turned her head away from him, obscuring his view of her neck. They had come to the end of the trail and the path looped back, meandering over the flatlands as it stretched around towards the tiny house and the empty paddocks.

Max stopped at the curve in the trail, jamming her hands in her pockets. She was looking at the land beyond, at the space of wild, untamed nature. Rock and shrub. Windswept sand and dust. And the mountains, far-off, veiled in a gossamer moon mist.

"I guess I was lying," she said, her eyes widening as she took in the stark landscape. "I don't really hate this place. It's kind of nice when you think about it. And kind of sad."

"Hallowed," Gabriel said, adding his own opinion. "There is a terrible beauty in the places man hasn't ravaged."

"Like the Garden of Eden?" Max offered.

"Yes," Gabriel replied. "Like that."

They let the quiet envelope them for a minute, smother them like an unwanted shroud. And then Gabriel remembered something. He remembered what he had wanted to ask her.

"I have a question," he said, keeping the tone of his voice low. "Will you answer it for me?

Max half-turned, plunging the right side of her face into shadow. "Feel like playing twenty questions, do you?"

He lifted his head. "I do not-"

"Relax." She emitted a weary sort of chuckle. "I was only joking. Sure. Why not? Ask me anything."

Gabriel raised a brow. The sudden change in her nature, her open, carefree turn of phrase, surprised him. Tonight, he thought, was a night of closed windows and locked hearts. Of barred minds and resistance. He himself did not feel inclined to be open, but rather, guarded his own treacherous secrets with a strange possessiveness. His thought were weighed down with an unnatural burden and Gabriel feared that if he opened his mouth, if he probed and questioned and sought vulnerability where there should only be strength, he would welcome a dangerous sort of truth.

But Max was willing to be honest and he decided to take his courage from her. Her self-assuredness steadied him somehow and Gabriel felt his resolve rally.

Flicking his tongue along his lips, he looked towards the moon, which was even now losing some of its silver radiance as it drifted closer to the horizon. Time, he felt, was against him.

"The other day," he began slowly, "you quoted Shakespeare to Jeep and Charlie. I did not think you would be familiar with his work."

Her potent umbrage, which followed quickly upon the heels of his question, left him in a state of shock.

"Why? Because I'm a dumb, blue-collar cop," she shot back, her arms immediately crossing her waist in challenge.

"No!" Gabriel took a step towards her, instinct urging him to soothe her and allay her unfounded assumption. "That was certainly not what I meant."

Max raised her left shoulder in a shrug. "Yeah, well, I get that a lot. Even my sister-"

"Your sister?" he prompted.

Max shook her head. "Never mind. Let's talk about Shakespeare. I don't like Shakespeare myself, but that doesn't mean I've never read him. In college I minored in English. Took a bunch of literature classes. Drama was one of them. I don't know, there's something about Shakespeare that's overrated."

"Agreed," Gabriel said, even though he had no idea what he was agreeing with. Human literature did not interest him, but it was pleasant to converse with Max, and for some odd, undefined reason, he wanted her to believe that he was truly interested in what she had to say. Her language, though plain and plebian, was invigorating in its abruptness. He enjoyed the way she cut off her words and spoke in short, choppy sentences, her tongue forming the phrases and spitting them out before she even seemed ready to begin.

"Tell me more about your college," he said, worrying that his own speech patterns were too stilted for her ears.

Max laughed again. "Why do you want to know?"

Gabriel didn't have a ready answer. Instead, he studied the awkward patterns in the hard-packed desert soil. There was a small burrow hole nearby and he wondered just what sort of animal was slumbering beneath in its den. A field mouse, perhaps. Or a snake….

Max moved her weight from one foot to the other, causing her hips to shift beneath the bulk of the police belt. Her gun had been safely returned to its holster.

"I don't know," she said, working her words around a sigh, "I never liked college. Maybe that's why I didn't bother to go to graduate school like Laurie did. You know, now that I mention it, I remember that drama class more clearly than the others. We read a lot of plays. There was this one by Samuel Beckett-I don't care for him either, by the way-called The Endgame. It was all about waiting, waiting to die, waiting for the end. And there is nothing to do while you wait. Just mindless tedium. Just the heaviness of knowing that everything is about to end and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. When I was a young kid in college I thought Beckett was full of crap. I mean, there's always something, isn't there? Now I'm not so sure. Now it kinda seems like there's nothing left…nothing left but the waiting."

Max trailed off and rubbed her arms fiercely. Gabriel wondered if she was cold.

"Do you think there is anything left?" she asked him at length.

This time, he had a ready answer for her. "You have Jack," he said, echoing his earlier sentiments, the same, simple words he thought would give her failing human heart hope.

"Jack," Max said. She had turned and was facing him fully now, her features caught in the dying moonlight which cast a sharp shadow along smooth cheeks and curved jaw. Her unkempt blond hair, which usually fell down to her shoulders, was pulled back in a messy ponytail at the base of her neck, making her look tired and drawn and washed out. Pitifully faded.

"He is a good boy," Gabriel said, thinking of the child now, the scrawny, unassuming child who might very well have the mind of a prophet. It all seemed like a dreadful paradox…one that reminded him of yet another unanswered riddle.

"I have noticed," he continued on, choosing his words carefully, opting for delicacy in what was an increasingly sensitive conversation, "I have noticed that you have a fair amount of maternal instinct about you. How is it, I wonder, that you never bore any children of your own?"

"Kids?" Max pushed her chin down to her unbuttoned shirt collar. The movement was defensive, a tortoise ducking inside its shell, a rabbit darting within its hole. "I don't know, I'm not exactly mommy material."

And as Gabriel observed her, as he studied her sudden modesty, her reticence, he thought he caught a sign of something deeper. Something that pulsed just below the surface. Something that was raw and volatile and very real. Something he perhaps should have noticed before but had been blind to up until now.

"I beg to differ," he said slowly, his eyes stinging as a bitter wind rose, howling out its agony as it swept along the still sleeping desert. "You are a consummate mother. You would sacrifice your life for that child."

Max shook her head. "But he's only my nephew."

Gabriel, however, would not be deterred by her feeble explanation. "Come now," he said. "There is little reason to deny your gift for nurturing. I saw the way you looked at Charlie's little son. Motherhood suits you, Max. It lives and breathes in your soul. It stirs in your eyes whenever you glance at Jack. You have wished for children of your own, that I can tell. It is a mark upon your countenance. Even a fool might see it. Even a fool might know that-"

"All right." She put up her hand to stop him, her fingers looking pale and boney against the dark of the night. "All right," she repeated, sucking in a shuddering breath. "Yes, I'd like to have kids, but it hasn't happened. I haven't…I haven't had time to find a decent guy or get married-"

"I do not see what time has to do with the matter," Gabriel interrupted. He gazed at her sorrowfully, hating the way she shrank away and folded into herself, resisting some uncomfortable truth that he did not yet understand. He wanted to reach out to her then, to touch her hollow cheeks and tangled hair and run his fingers along the gentle curve of her jaw. Just to touch her…just to touch….

"It's not that easy, you know," Max blurted out. "I work long hours. I have a stressful job. Marriage and…and love aren't things that you can just wish for, that you can just pray for. Believe me, I've tried."

Gabriel's senses were alive now, attuned to her empty excuses . He dared to approach her, coming close enough to tower over her, to consume her with his overwhelming, otherworldly presence.

"I believe," he said, a small, useless smile cracking the corner of his mouth, "that you humans have a word for such occasions. Bullshit. You're talk is bullshit."

Max's jaw snapped open, her mouth yawning wide as she gaped at him. Her incredulity was violent, as was her anger, which broke over them both with the unforgiving power of a tidal wave.

And Gabriel realized then that he had wounded her, had hurt he because he had unturned the final stone to reveal her greatest weakness, her deepest and most lasting sorrow.

But Max obviously wasn't ready to go down without a fight.

Determination, Gabriel thought even as she railed against him. He could love her for it.

"Just who the fuck do you think you are?" she asked him, throwing her head back until she resembled a rearing horse, a powerful mare with flaring nostrils and wide, wild eyes. "I don't know how you can stand there and just…just assume things. You talk about me like you know absolutely everything, every little thing about my life and what it's been like for me these thirty-six years I've lived and breathed and walked on this fucking horrible planet. I don't know if you find me interesting, if you think it's fun to poke around my brain and my heart and my soul. Maybe your kind do this sort of thing all the time. Maybe you're waiting to see me crack. Maybe you'd get a real kick outta seeing me squirm. What do I know, I'm just a dumb blue-collar cop who couldn't get her shit together and make it in the world like a real person. But I know one thing. I know I'm not gonna stand here and take such bullshit, yes, bullshit from you, even if you are an angel. And I'm sorry if that pisses you off, but you know what? That's too fucking tough. I'm tired of being a little pawn in your great, cosmic game. Because you have no idea what it's like….you…you have no idea what it's like to be human."

And just as suddenly as she had began, just as readily as she had picked up her sword to do battle with him, she stopped. Her strength deserted her. She fell silent and clenched her fists and shook her head and tensed her jaw to keep back the sobs. But even in her silence, she raged and her fury was a storm. The lashing of a troubled sea against a face-cliff. The flash of lightening. The long, moaning call of thunder. Gabriel realized then how false peace was, how intemperate. The sky might be clear and the wind might blow sweet and soft and the sun could shine from its highest point, but it was all a lie. A deception.

And looking at Max now, seeing her pant and pace and shake, he realized that there was more truth to this moment than there had been a few nights before when she had cried in his arms. When she had confessed her sins to him. When she had sought redemption and healing. Her choked sobs, her weakness, her complete and utter acquiescence paled when held against the violence of her doubt. The unforgiving, merciless flood of her regret and fear.

She was standing before him on the desert plain, striped nude, a creature of painful vulnerability and insecurity and shame and forgotten hope.

And this moment, yes, this moment of rage, of agonized, tortured protest, came from her soul. From the innermost room, the deepest well of her humanity. It was her strength and her weakness. Her triumph and her defeat. She was alive and she was dying. She was reaching towards him and yet falling away, falling back into the dark.

A roar sounded in Gabriel's ears, drowning out even his heartbeat which had begun to trumpet in his chest.

This moment, yes, this moment was theirs. Hers. His. And he must surrender to it.

He stood still, stood quietly, his body like the great standing stones of the Celtic isles. Immovable. Ageless. Lashed by wind and rain and even hellfire. And as he stood, as he stood so close to her, to her trembling, shaking, tormented little body, he felt the last of his restraint give way and he readily surrendered. He surrendered at last.

"Yes," he said, speaking with the same voice he had used to instruct prophets and to whisper to sleeping children and to deliver the most glad tidings to a beautiful, blessed Virgin. "Yes," Gabriel said. "I do not know what it is to be human."

Max looked at him, her expression reflecting no little amount of distrust. She was judging him, considering him, attempting to see past his celestial shell to what lived inside him, the doubt and worry and fear that beat within his breast, the love as well.

But even she did not have the strength to see him as he truly was.

She turned away. She put her back to him. She crossed her arms over her middle and faced the east, faced the wispy traces of clouds that drifted over the horizon and caught the first light of the dawn. Faced the slow, steady ascent of the sun which bleached the black from the night sky, turning it a milky, uneven blue. Faced the coming of another day, of another long, desperate stretch of waiting and ruined hope and shattered, broken dreams.

But even while the world waited, even while it breathed and sighed and floundered in the nothingness of a shriveled existence, the sun still rose, the moon still fell and life continued on. It was a faint pulse. A dying heartbeat, but a heartbeat nonetheless. And Gabriel found some promise in it, if only because he could find nothing else.

The shadowy silver of the moonlight that had colored Max's face and made her look death-like and wooden was gone now and Gabriel saw the full flush of the dawn warm her flesh and put blood into her cheeks and fire into her eyes.

She looked to the side, offering him a view of her profile, her long nose and thin, taut lips giving her an air of solemn dignity. The storm was waning and once again, she stood before him as tired, lonely woman. A woman driven only by instinct and determination and the love of a child that was not even hers.

"I want you tell me something," she said to him. "I want you to tell me what it's like to be an angel."

And Gabriel could only think of something Michael had said to him, some insignificant little thing that had been muttered in a moment of equal desperation and despair.

"A burden," he said.

Tears formed in Max's eyes. "Do you feel guilt like we do?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand," she said, her voice thick, a sob rising up in her throat even as she tried to choke it back down. "Then you understand how sick I feel…in my mind. Gabriel, I think I've made a mistake. I think I did the wrong thing. Those two young kids, Charlie and Jeep, I don't know if I should've sent them and their baby away. If I'm such a good mother then why did a turn a helpless infant away? I don't know. Gabriel, Gabriel, please help me, please tell me, did I do the right thing?"

Here it was, he thought. Yes, here it was. And even as he stepped towards her, even as he moved into the eager light of the morning sun, Gabriel thought of what his brother had told him so many, many times before.

They are just lost. It is our place to guide them.

But he did not know how to guide Max. And so he kissed her instead.

Author's Note: I think this is the first time I've ever given a substantial description of what Max looks like. Most of the time, I prefer to let readers form an image for themselves, but for those of you who are curious, I have to say, I've always pictured Max looking slightly like Milla Jovovich from the Resident Evil series.

In the next chapter, Max reacts to Gabriel's kiss. Jack confronts his aunt and demands to know exactly how his parents died, leading Max to suspect the worst of Gabriel. With any luck, chapter fourteen should be posted in roughly 10-12 days.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I cherish any and all feedback. Take care and be well!

P.S. I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a Michael/OC one-shot entitled Hallelujah. If any of you are interested, it should be posted by the end of the week. ^_^