Title: Tongues of Men and Angels
Rating: TA for implied?romance.
Summary: Glimpses of grace: the story of one brother and two sisters. Through the grace of God, all things are made new.A series of drabbles. Ish. Gabriel/OC. Ish.
Disclaimer: *obligatory insert*

Chapter XXIII: Salvage
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts:
Be strong, do not fear; your God will come; he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution he will come to save you.

Isaiah 35: 3-4
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Psalm 91: 11-12

"I'm glad you're here to look after her," Bethany confided one afternoon. "I worry about her."

Baby's back tire had blown, and Gabriel was stoically lifting the side of the truck with one hand so Bethany could change it. Her hands looked very fragile against the tire iron. On the other side of the road, Joy stared into the distance, her eyes unblinking, her mouth a hard line. Gabriel's gaze flickered back and forth between the two sisters. He'd been holding on tight to the knowledge of Joy's possession, clutching it stoically in the dark recesses of his heart. His own role in their private tragedy had once seemed so removed; now it was strangely and painfully personal. He'd expended considerable effort in his moments of solitude, trying to fold it tightly into a secret place in his heart, next to a hundred other secret and unacknowledged wounds.

Perhaps, he realized moodily, this was why Bethany had given him these words now, like a gift. While the secret places inside his heart clamored that he did not deserve such praise, he nevertheless felt something unfurl inside himself at the gentle honor she had paid him.

"She has so much pain," the older sister said softly. "And she needs"—she touched the place where her scar ended, just below her chin, with something like regret or doubt—"she needs someone besides me, I know. And you—well, Gabriel, I don't think there is anyone who could be better for her. Stronger, kinder. More patient."

The warring sides of his heart both clung to and rebelled at her words, and Gabriel allowed his brow to furrow. He had been coming to realize that the scar was only a shallow wound. All that went with it—all the things left unsaid—had clearly cut Bethany open, and these hidden wounds were far worse. You can only tell someone you forgive them so many times, she had told him later, her eyes—for just a moment—utterly broken. Or tell them that there is nothing to forgive. Sooner or later, hearing it said—it only hurts them more.

And then, haunted and hunted and as still as a small mammal in the sights of a predator: Sometimes, Bethany had breathed, she can't bear to look at me.

And so the rift, which ran deeper and more painfully than any scar, lay between the sisters much like the wound on Bethany's face: kept clean of infection, but unstitched and unmended, healing slowly and painfully on its own. The edges had peeled back, and everything underneath seemed so exposed and vulnerable.

Michael, he thought, and he wasn't sure if the name brought with it anger or anguish.

"You don't?" he asked. You don't have pain? He knew she did—knew it by the way he saw her hands linger on her sister's brow, the hidden sadness at the corner of her mouth, the strange and bitter urge he had to take all these sweet small pieces of her in his arms and carefully try to put them back together.

He looked down at his mace-calloused hand, gripping the edge of the truck. He did not think he was capable of such a delicate thing, but oh, he ached to try.

She smiled at the rusting wheel-well, then at up at him. "It's different for me."

"Her pain is your pain."

She looked up at him. He made a dark shadow against the sun, his wings arched and formidable, but she heard something vulnerable in his voice, something sad, and it was similar to the sorrow he showed when he spoke fleetingly of his Father, or his brother.

He had lost his dearest sibling, while she had held on to hers.

"Oh," she said softly, achingly. "Gabriel."

He turned away, training his eyes instead on Joy, whose hair fluttered in the stale desert breeze, whose eyes did not blink.

She braced her hands on the tire and rose. "It's different for me," she repeated, dusting herself off as he gently lowered the vehicle. She moved to stand next to him to watch Joy, and she gently bumped her shoulder against his bicep. This time, she didn't move away, leaning against him instead. He found her nearness and warmth strangely perturbing and for a moment, he could not focus on her words at all. "I don't turn away from the world. I find my safety in turning towardit."

"You have proven yourself selfless," he said tonelessly, his eyes still on Joy, though his attention had been caught and held by the roundness of her shoulder against him. Bethany didn't know if he saw her sister, or his own brother, standing there at the edge of the road. "You are—merciful." He seemed to choke on the word. "I confess," he added quietly, "that I covet your…benevolence."

How lost he was. How abandoned. And she thought it was staggering and sad that he didn't seem to understand the thing which had been apparent to her from almost the beginning.

"Well, selflessness or selfishness: who can say?" Her shoulder moved gently against him as she shrugged again. "Aren't they the same thing?" To this day, she couldn't say if she had saved her sister out of altruism, or out a deep and abiding need to keep Joy in her own life.

He didn't answer. She thought of herself, and him, and her sister and his brother, and what it meant to be benevolent, to be strong, to be merciful. She turned toward him—reached down and took his hand in hers, ignoring his jolt at the contact. With one hand she cradled his, ignoring the grease beneath her fingernails and his own shocking and immaculate cleanness. With the other, her fingers traced the sinew and tendons in his hand. His hand was made for gripping a mace, for meting out holy justice. She flattened her palm to his, lifted it between them.

She peered up at him between their splayed fingers.

"Gabriel," she asked, "which of us is stronger?"

"I am," he said automatically. But then his brow furrowed in confusion, and his soft mouth curved into an even more-prominent frown. "You are," he corrected himself, and the words were very quiet and certain.

She sucked in a breath. She had hoped to make a point about different kinds of strength, and different kinds of selflessness, but now—in the wake of his unexpected admiration—she found herself confused and conflicted. "You think so?"

He nodded once, firmly. "Yes."

She groped with the sudden uncertainty of the honor he had bestowed on her. "I'm very easily wounded, Gabriel," she protested softly, confused.

With his free hand he pressed one finger very gently to the place where her scar began, where the gouge ran deepest and reddest. She closed her eyes at the unexpectedness of his touch, and the warmth of it, and the tenderness. He watched, and curved his palm to rest along her temple and cheek, and he thought of human sin, and human grace, and human fragility, and human courage. He thought of Bethany pulling her sister out from the darkest night and into the dawn, and he thought of Joy holding her hand out to him and saying, We're family now.

"Yes, you are easily wounded," he agreed readily, and she heard something that sounded lost in his tone. "I believe that this is what makes you strong."

She opened her eyes, penny-bright and glossy, and leaned into his hand against her better judgment. "We're the same, Gabriel," she said gently, a little desperately, a little needily, as though she were clutching to believe it, as though it would make her feel less alone. "We're the same."

"Are you two finally ready?" Joy interrupted, not batting an eye at their joined hands, or the way her sister was leaning into the angel as though pulled there by gravity. Bethany reared back, and Gabriel let his hands slowly fall away.

"Yeah," Bethany said. "Yeah."

"Well, good," the teenager said, and there was a teasing and entirely-too-pleased glint in her eye. "It's about time."

Neither Bethany nor Gabriel was entirely sure what she was referring to, but they didn't think it was the changed tire.

Word Count: 1,374
Completed: May 10
th, 2011
This was a difficult chapter, because it's kind of a bridge. I had to move our characters from the aftermath of the revelation into the next scene. I am also trying to develop an atmosphere where Gabriel's own sorrows can be explored a little more in-depth. Unfortunately, I probably have not done as good a job as I would have liked when it comes to focusing on the reasons why Gabriel is like he is. There are really only two chapters that explore this issue explicitly (Interlude Seven, coming up shortly, and Chapter 32). However, as usual, I am trying to pour a foundation for this exploration so that you're at least peripherally aware of some of his, uh, dysfunction, and so that if you ever choose to reread the fanfiction you will notice little vague "hints" that suddenly make more sense. As a bit of a prompt, note that Gabriel thinks a few times about his relationship with Michael "before." I assume (it was intended) that most of you read this as
before Gabe killed him, or before Michael fell. But they've been brothers a very long time, you know. The destruction of a bond like that doesn't happen overnight.
Anyway, I hope this chapter was not too awkward or stilted, and that the little bit of levity at the end made you smile. :)

**** "Salvage" is only a variation on the word salvation or save, and can be used as a noun or a verb. What do you think this title means? Of course, I was only referring to them saving the truck. :)