Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; the original concept of this story was inspired by 'To Hell & Back' by EventRider87, but I've added my own spin to things and have received EventRider87's permission to use their idea for this
Feedback: Much appreciated
AN: As we move into 'Heaven and Hell', I'd like to just make it clear that some parts of the episode will be skipped over if they didn't really differ from what took place in canon, but I'll focus on what's important and clarify what happened in the 'missing' scenes; hope you like the result
The Corrupted Innocent
As she sat on Bobby Singer's porch, contemplating what had just taken place as the Winchesters carried out research while Deanna sat with Anna in Bobby's panic room, Bela wondered how things had come to this.
She might not have been involved in many hunts prior to her brief period of time in Hell, but she had still been around the supernatural long enough to know what certain creatures our people should be capable of. She'd encountered a few psychics over the years, whether as potential sources of information or just 'marks' she'd had to get past for her current clients, and those encounters had been enough to give her a clear picture of what psychics were capable of.
Pulling angel-banishing sigils out of thin air when they were needed most wasn't something that a conventional psychic should be able to accomplish, even before you acknowledged Anna's ability to 'hack angel radio' as Dean put it; something about her clearly disturbed the angels.
Even if he'd stated that Anna 'had' to die, Bela couldn't believe that Castiel would just decide to kill someone like that; he'd said himself that he wasn't a 'hammer'…
Still, so far the best plan that they had for the current situation was keeping Anna on lockdown until they could work out what was happening to her and how best to stop it without killing her. The wards in the panic room and assorted hex bags should hopefully be enough protection to keep the angels and demons away until they were ready, but Sam's research into Anna's background hadn't turned up anything more distinctive than a previous breakdown when she was two where she claimed that her 'real' father- without ever identifying who he was meant to be- was angry with her for some reason. She had apparently gotten over the issue after some appointments with a child psychiatrist, but even Anna couldn't remember anything else from that time, which was why they had been forced to send Dean out to pick up Pamela, who was currently 'assessing' Anna in the panic room.
As if Bela didn't have enough issues with the angels right now, she had to be faced with the reminder that Castiel had actually hurt someone; Pamela's new dark glasses didn't detract from the knowledge that blank white orbs lay behind those black lenses…
"Are you all right?" Deanna asked, as she walked out to sit beside Bela. Dean and Sam were staying in the panic room with Anna and Pamela as Pamela 'tested' Anna, but Bela had declined to participate and Deanna had decided to join her in waiting; the older woman had claimed that too many people in the panic room wouldn't help anything, but Bela was starting to wonder if the older woman had an ulterior motive.
"It's…" the former thief began, wondering how she'd reached this point- walls had been so easy for her before, and now she seemed to be letting more of them down every moment she spent with the Winchesters- before she just bit the metaphorical bullet. "I'm not ready to see Pamela."
"Why?" Deanna asked. "If this is about her injuries-"
"Not the way you think," Bela interjected. "I know that I couldn't have done anything to stop her getting injured in the first place- none of us knew what Castiel was or what seeing him would do to her, and Castiel explained why he couldn't appear earlier- but after… well, after seeing what Castiel was willing to do to Anna…"
"You don't like the reminder that he sometimes forgets that we're people?" Deanna asked, smiling slightly in understanding.
"I just… I know it's strange after the way I've acted in the past, but Castiel was the first person who actually acted like I might be worth something," Bela said, looking almost pleadingly at Deanna. "Dean and Sam helped me once before… everything… but that seemed to be more based around the fact that they default to try and save lives, so I pretty much used up my good will with them after I stole the Colt, and then… well, when you're in Hell…"
"You're pretty much resigned to the fact that everyone worthwhile gave up on you?" Deanna said, still giving Bela a sympathetic smile. "For what it's worth, sometimes people aren't everything you hope they'll be; what you need to do is recognise their faults and accept them for everything that they are, rather than focus on their occasional issues."
"Speaking from experience?" Bela asked, grateful for anything that would take her mind off the issue of the angels.
"You met my husband; do you really think that he and I always agreed on everything?" Deanna pointed out, smiling wistfully at the memory. "I admired Samuel's dedication to his lifestyle, and I couldn't fault his skills as a hunter, but he could be a bit controlling when it came to protecting his family. I never doubted that he had good intentions, but he could overdo it at times…"
With that said, the two women sat in contemplative silence until the sound of footsteps was heard from behind them, prompting them to turn to watch as Sam Winchester came up the stairs, clearly shocked at whatever had happened down in the panic room, .
"What's wrong?" Bela asked, looking curiously at him.
"Pamela figured out why the angels want Anna," Sam said, as he looked between the two women. "She was one."
Bela blinked.
"She… Anna was an angel?" she said, looking at Sam in shock. "How-?"
"She was about to fill us in on the rest; I thought you'd prefer to hear the specifics," Sam explained, indicating the door leading to the house's library. Her mind already made up, Bela stood up and walked through, Sam and Deanna close behind her, finding Dean and Pamela already sitting there while Ruby stood by the door to the kitchen, Anna pacing in the middle of the room.
"Don't be afraid," the red-haired girl said, looking up with a smile at the new arrivals. "I'm not like the others."
"I don't find that very reassuring," Ruby said, clearly sceptical of Anna's statement.
"Neither do I," Pamela added.
"So," Anna asked. "Castiel, Uriel… they're the ones that came for me?"
"You know them?" Sam asked.
"We were kind of in the same foxhole," Anna replied.
"So, what?" Dean asked. "Were they like your bosses or something?"
"Try the other way around," Anna said with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"You were in charge of Castiel?" Bela said in surprise. "But… why would they want to kill you?"
"Orders are orders," Anna said. "I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head."
"Why?" Pamela asked, her tone a grim one that made it clear she had little interest in talking to even an ex-angel.
"I disobeyed," Anna replied, "which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."
"Fell?" Deanna repeated, looking at Anna in surprise. "As in… you fell to Earth? You became human?"
"That's possible?" Sam asked.
"I did a bit of reading on angels while Bela was teaching me about this world; most of it was theoretical, but they did agree that angels could become human," Deanna explained, before turning her attention back to Anna. "What did that actually… involve?"
"I ripped out my grace," Anna explained.
"Your 'grace'?" Dean repeated.
"The source of my angelic power," Anna explained. "It kind of hurt… try cutting out your kidney with a butter knife."
"Ah," Dean said, wincing at the imagery. "So… you took out your angelic battery?"
"Exactly," Anna replied. "My mother, Amy, couldn't get pregnant; always called me her little miracle… She had no idea how right she was."
"And then you just forgot what you were?" Bela asked.
"The older I got, the longer I was human, yeah," Anna confirmed.
"I don't think you all appreciate how completely screwed we are," Ruby interjected, glaring at the assembled humans.
"Ruby's right," Anna said. "Heaven wants me dead."
"And Hell just wants her-" Ruby began.
"I can see that; what I don't understand is why you're in trouble with Heaven for disobeying," Bela interjected, looking firmly at the angel. "Castiel mentioned that he wasn't meant to rescue me from Hell, and nobody seems to have objected to what he did…"
"The difference is that I went against everything we're meant to be as angels," Anna explained. "What Castiel did in saving you went beyond his remit, but he wasn't actually disobeying anyone; I actually got the impression from what I overheard that some of the other angels actually… approved of what he did."
"Some of the angels approved of it?" Bela repeated, looking at Anna in surprise. "Why-?"
"Can we worry about psychoanalysing Heaven's motives when we don't have both sides on our backs?" Ruby interjected. "We have a flesh-and-blood angel here; what do you think Hell would give for an angel that they can actually torture? Call me a pessimist, but sooner or later, one of those two is going to get you."
"I know," Anna said, still pacing. "And that's why I'm going to get it back."
"It?" Bela asked. "You mean… your power source? Your grace?"
"You can get that back?" Dean asked.
"If I can find it," Anna said.
"And that's not going to be simple, I assume?" Deanna asked.
"Considering that I lost track of it while falling, yes," Anna confirmed. "I was moving at around ten thousand miles per hour at the time."
"Wait," Sam interjected. "You mean you were falling literally?"
"Yes," Anna replied.
"As in, falling the way a human eye can see?" Sam asked thoughtfully. "Like a comet, maybe, or a meteor?"
"Why do you ask?" Anna asked.
"Because," Deanna said, smiling as she followed her grandson's reasoning, "if we can find out when you fell, we might be able to work out where your grace fell at the same time…"
The subsequent research session was nothing like what Bela had done in the past, but she actually appreciated the chance not to think too much about what Anna had told her (As well as Dean taking Pamela home; apparently she didn't want to spend any more time with an angel than she had to).
While a part of her appreciated the fact that Castiel wasn't going to be hunted by his fellow angels just for saving her life, the rest of her had to wonder what made her so distinct. Castiel had made it clear that his decision to rescue her had been done on impulse when he had been sent down to Hell to resurrect Dean, but if the angels were so strict about rules, why would some of them approve of his decision to rescue her…?
Still, they had other issues to focus on right now, and worrying about the angelic reputation of one of the people who was currently trying to kill the person they wanted to protect wouldn't help them get that done. Sam had eventually managed to identify a pair of meteors that had fallen nine months before Anna's birth as the likely signs of Anna and her Grace falling to Earth, allowing them to at least guess that her Grace had landed in Kentucky, but the question was what they were going to do about that. Ruby had made various ominous comments about the danger they were facing with both Heaven and Hell looking for Anna, but the Winchesters and Deanna weren't about to abandon the former angel, and even Bela had to admit that the idea of leaving her didn't feel right even if she didn't know the angel that well (She must have been picking up more of a conscience than she thought; she wasn't even faking being concerned right now).
She agreed with Ruby's concern about the fact that they had Alastair on their back, but she had other things to be concerned about right now; she didn't want to remember any more about her time in Hell than she absolutely had to…
Glancing out of the window as she studied another book, Bela noticed Dean and Anna talking outside, sitting against one of the cars in the junkyard. Bela couldn't hear what they were saying at this distance, aside from a moment when Dean obviously laughed, but something about the way that Anna was looking at him just made her feel… feel…
Bela pulled the curtains shut and turned back to the book; she was not going to go there!
All right, so she and Dean had been pulled out of Hell by the same angel and gone through the same time-travelling escapade; he was still the same frustrating idiot who'd let her get cursed by that rabbit's foot (He'd been saving his brother), who couldn't let her just take the Hand of Glory and leave it at that (He'd saved her life when he didn't have to), who'd continued to express resentment at the loss of the Colt after they'd literally been through Hell together (He might have been able to kill Lilith with that gun), who'd tortured her in Hell (She had already forgiven him for that; anybody would have taken the chance to turn the tables down there)…
No.
She couldn't deny it.
He might be a perpetually broke hunter who had a seriously unhealthy co-dependent relationship with his younger brother and little class beyond what he needed to get the job done, but Dean Winchester was also the bravest, noblest, most loyal man she'd ever met…
"Oh, God…" Bela groaned, leaning her head against the table in frustration at herself.
Like things weren't complicated enough, now she had this to deal with?
They were facing the end of the world, and she picked now to start developing deeper emotions for other people? Dean could never see her that way after everything she'd done- and that didn't matter anyway-!
"Bela?" Deanna asked, the older woman providing a welcome distraction from her thoughts as the former thief looked up. "Sam thinks he's found something."
Right now, Bela didn't care what Sam had found; she would be interested in anything that allowed her not to think about what she was starting to suspect about herself…