Warnings: Temporary Character Death, not-quite-vague references to a dead body (I mean, if you watch the show you should be okay).

Chapter 25

Fading of the Light

Lucifer woke with a jolt. It took more than a minute to reorient himself, the darkness of the room doing nothing to help him remember where he was. Even when it clicked that he was in his room in the Bunker (safe), he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

wrongwrongwrong—

He scrambled off of the bed and bumped into the doorframe as he hurriedly made his way to the kitchen. He hadn't checked the time, but someone was bound to be there if he didn't encounter them on the way. While his pace wouldn't be considered frantic, it was certainly borderlining worried.

Lucifer remembered Gabriel knocking him out when they'd been in the mountain. It was blank for a while, and then he vaguely remembered the car ride back to the Bunker. He'd fallen back asleep at some point before they arrived.

How much time had passed? Surely not more than a couple days.

Something in his chest clenched, and he let out a soft gasp at the odd pain. A sharp burst that echoed the feeling snapped his head back, making him stumble and hit the wall. His hands came up to grab at the area without his consent even as he tried to breathe through the slowly fading sensations.

What the hell had that been?! At the very least he could rule out a lot of things that it wasn't, which still left a few unknown causes along with the ones he couldn't outright dismiss. The one he really didn't want to think about (because that would be Very Bad, deserving both capital letters): a bond. But if it was one of the bonds he still had with his siblings, he couldn't tell which one it was, which wasn't all that strange since he could barely feel them nowadays, but the point was that he shouldn't have been able to feel whatever it was that came over a bond like that at all with the way he was cut off from his grace.

"Gabriel," he grit out as it felt like the floor decided to slip out from under his feet, though he managed to stay upright (or what seemed like upright) by leaning heavily against the wall. "Little help."

There was a long and stressful moment during which Lucifer contemplated 'yanking' on the bond he knew he still had with his brother – that would get the idiot's attention at the very least, though the pseudo-prayer should have been enough. But that would take a bit more concentration than he could spare at the moment. Seriously, this was like having heartburn and a migraine at the same time—

Without warning, hands grabbed at his arms. "Luci, what's wrong?" Gabriel demanded, eyes frantically searching for injuries.

"Check bonds," he responded breathlessly, biting back a choked whine as the pain in his head spiked. On a scale from one to agony, this was definitely ranking on worse than that bullshit with Crowley.

Gabriel stared at him with a helpless expression for all of a microsecond before his eyes widened. He didn't say what was wrong, but Lucifer had a pretty good guess – and it was the one that he was really, really hoping it wouldn't be. Because if that were true— If that were true, then Michael was—

The hands curled around his arms gave him a hard shake. "Snap out of it," Gabriel said sharply. "What are you feeling?"

"It just hurts," he snarled back, the instinctive pull on his grace to help aborted when his grace simply wouldn't respond to him.

"Right, right. Okay. Think, Gabriel, think," his brother muttered to himself, seemingly fine.

Which really wasn't fair at all since Lucifer felt like there was a hot rod slowly digging its way through his skull and into his brain. But then again, he'd learned that life wasn't fair. It wasn't like everything would balance itself out, and all the shit that had happened to him recently would finally equal to a nice and well-earned vacation to Hawaii or the Bahamas or wherever the hell people go to relax. Or maybe this was the payback for everything he'd done when he was younger, which really wasn't all that long ago.

There was nothing Gabriel could do to mute this pain. Not this. Not the breaking of a bond. Not one made between them. Not that kind of bond broken by death.

(If Lucifer still had full access to his grace, he would have been able to actually see what was happening to the bond between himself and Michael. The bond itself, which had been forged as soon as they knew of each others' existences, had long since fallen into disrepair after millennia of the two being separated, but it was still stronger than any of the other bonds they each had with any of their other siblings. In fact, with how strong their bond had been before, Lucifer loosing access to his grace and Michael being human didn't make the bond go away on either end. Each would have been able to feel any extreme sensations projected onto the bond – sensations that included but were not limited to stress, torture, and death.)

(But because Lucifer did not have full access to his grace, he only had the slightest inlinking to what he was feeling, not that it kept him from realizing exactly what had happened.)

"It's unraveling."

The words slipped out before Lucifer even had time to process the thought. Gabriel frowned, but he wouldn't have been able to see the way Lucifer could feel that bond with Michael fraying. It didn't take much longer for the archangel to visibly make his decision.

With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel whisked them away somewhere Lucifer didn't recognize. "I let Castiel know what happened and where we are. He'll tell the Winchesters," Gabriel said over the bond that he and Lucifer shared, which was thankfully still whole and well-cared for despite any… hiccups.

"And where are we exactly?" Lucifer asked quietly, sweeping his gaze around the dimly lit room.

"This is the British Men of Letters' American outpost. Or, well, it was," an accented voice answered from somewhere— There! At the other end of that conference table.

Gabriel was tense beside Lucifer, but Lucifer didn't understand why… until he saw the other figure in the room.

"He'll still be out of commission for some time, gentlemen. You may as well have a seat," the man suggested, waving a hand at the rows of chairs nestled along the side of the table.

Out of commission? Lucifer thought wildly, staring at the body – which was sprawled out on the table itself, blood pooling around the head and dripping onto the floor. It wasn't something he had never seen before (he'd seen worse, honestly), but that was Michael lying on that table, and all Lucifer could see was red—

~o-O-o~

Ketch gave the two archangels a little smile. It was all rather amusing, being on this side of the table (literally and figuratively). The knowledge that came with it was invaluable. Of course, it also helped that he'd known about this since the beginning.

So, he wasn't particularly concerned (or surprised for that matter) when the taller one – Lucifer – lunged at him in a rage. He knew from several sessions with some nameless demons that Lucifer was essentially powerless after his wings had been cut off. Which, in turn, meant that Lucifer was closer to human than he ever had been before, and it took Ketch as little effort to pin him down onto the table's surface as he would with a human.

Ketch was more intrigued with the way the other one – Gabriel, of course – held himself back, honestly. A wayward thought reminded him of all the times he'd seen the look on his face before. It meant Gabriel was taking him seriously, and the fact that the archangel hadn't said a word yet meant very, very seriously – enough to drop all pretenses of humor.

Lucifer thrashed in his hold, and Ketch shifted his weight to slam the annoyance against tabletop, stunning him. "Down, boy," he mocked shamelessly. "I thought I'd taught you better than that."

That got their attention. It was one of God's great wonders to watch the pieces fall into place behind Gabriel's eyes. Ketch couldn't help but let that small smile grace his lips again.

"But wasn't..?" Gabriel's gaze left Ketch and Lucifer in order to rest on Mick's cooling body.

Ketch made a noncommittal hum but sighed and rolled his eyes when the expectant silence continued. "Oh, he's Michael— you didn't get that wrong. It's just, I'm Michael too."

There was another silence that followed, though subtly different from the previous one, and with this one, Lucifer had stilled beneath him. Ketch didn't have to explain everything, did he? For being ancient beings of the universe, one would think it wouldn't be so hard as to put two and two together. But as the silence dragged out, it was looking like Ketch would have to monologue, which didn't so much bother him as much as it was that he found it a waste of time since it would only be a little bit until Mick was finished being dead. If he had to explain it all now, he would just have to repeat it all again later.

"Well—" With a nod of his head, Ketch gestured to the chairs again. "—go on. Have a seat. Not like anyone's going anywhere."

He released his hold on Lucifer and backed away to his original position in the chair across from Mick's body. As he sat, he kept a careful eye on both archangelic beings. An odd feeling flickered in his chest, and he noted its presence before he dismissed it as something for Mick to deal with later.

"He's dead," Gabriel said bluntly.

"Yes, and I imagine feeling a bond like Lucifer and Michel's tear itself apart because of a death on one end was what sent you running here," Ketch replied, easily ignoring the sharp, golden-eyed look that was leveled on him.

Lucifer, having picked himself off of the table, let out a snarl. "I didn't think you'd have the guts to literally kill yourself, Michael."

Ketch waved a dismissive hand. "Only a part of myself, and really, it's not like none of us have done it before," he leered.

Gabriel stiffened at that, and Lucifer rallied in his place. "Michael—"

"Not Michael," Ketch interrupted. "Michael's an archangel. Mick Davies and Arthur Ketch are very much human, as demonstrated," he finished, pointing to Mick's body, and then paused for a moment before adding, "Or we were."

"What are you now then?" Gabriel asked, eyes still narrowed, his head tilted to the side in contemplation.

Ketch matched the archangel's expression as he met the other's eyes. "More," he answered simply.

"I'm not following. You're Michael but not Michael. Ketch but more than Ketch?" Lucifer cut in, incredulousness coloring his tone.

Ketch held back a sigh. It seemed he really was going to have to explain this anyway. Ah, the things he did for his little brothers. "Both Mick and I are two parts of Michael. I have his memories, Mick has his, well, soul, and the remaining bit being his grace, of course."

"You were the one who took the grace," Gabriel mused with a calculating look, casting his golden gaze about the room and returning to pin it on Ketch. "And you've been taking it with you. That's why I felt it in Washington. It's here now."

"Obviously," Ketch confirmed.

"How did you manage to contain it without absorbing it?" Lucifer asked with a scowl, though he was following along now at least.

Ketch glanced at the depowered archangel briefly before looking back to the fully powered one. "There are ways, but this time it was mostly because dear Mr. Davies wasn't there."

"If you need him to reabsorb the grace," Gabriel began slowly, "why kill him?"

Ketch reached down and unlatched the lid of the box containing said grace. "That is an excellent question," he replied, opening the top to let it flow out unhindered. "Shall we find out?"

The grace rose upwards, drifting like a fog across the free space. On the other side of the table, Mick's body began to glow – or rather, the 'soul' inside of it began to make its appearance outside of the body. Ketch himself could feel his own 'soul' – if it could be called that – reacting.

Everything turned white – for but a moment or perhaps an eternity – before he (they?) opened their (his?) eyes and blinked the physical world back into focus.

Michael the archangel smirked as his brothers stared at him in shock. "Do pick your jaws off the floor. It's most unbecoming, honestly."

Lucifer – and Michael could've sworn that it felt like ages since he'd last laid proper eyes on him – had the most outward reaction while Gabriel – the one brother Michael actually hadn't seen for ages – barely kept up his stony façade. Michael could feel the slight frown forming upon his brow. It was almost as if they had no idea what was going on when they should have been told by now— Oh, wait…

"Raphael," Michael called to their sister, who he knew to be in Heaven to keep it running properly. "Be a dear and join us, would you?"

"Took you long enough," came the responding scoff immediately following the brief rustle of feathers which signaled Raphael's arrival.

Michael glanced over to Raphael's current vessel, a 'gift' from their Father upon her resurrection no doubt. She seemed comfortable enough in it, which should have been a given since the body had literally been made for her. Michael was almost envious. Almost.

After all, now he was operating through two vessels. Was that headache inducing? For a human, it would be, but Michael was an archangel – a being of pure energy capable of operating on multiple dimensions. Not to mention that his consciousness had already gotten used to being in two different input sources. Speaking of—

Mick's body let out a low groan, startling those who weren't expecting it (i.e. Gabriel and Lucifer). Blood still drenched the man's (archangel's) frontside, but he no longer had two holes in his head, all of his brain matter intact and the rest of his body whole. It was akin to a miracle, not that it would have been particularly hard to fix him up now that Michael was Michael again.

"An explanation would be great right about now," Gabriel said flatly, staring at Mick, though his eyes quickly shifted to narrow at Michael – Ketch, in this case.

"Was the earlier answer not enough?" Ketch asked rhetorically. "We're both Michael, and now we – he and I – have our grace back. He had to die because the human mind doesn't process archangel very well. I'm used to it, but the transformation back would have been absolutely agonizing for him."

"Let me get this straight: your solution was to kill him, just so that he wouldn't have to feel the grace burn through his soul?" Lucifer shook his head, letting out a bitter scoff. "You're so messed up," he muttered under his breath – not that it kept any of the others from hearing the comment.

Michael tilted his head to the side. "What did you expect?" he retorted. "He's fine. I'm fine. Everyone's fine."

Both Gabriel and Lucifer stiffened at the burst of grace that left Michael – defensive and final, daring to be questioned. Raphael barely blinked at the display; she was far more occupied with checking on Mick himself. Ketch could tell that Mick was confused and sporting one hell of a headache (or what felt like one), but he would come around shortly as the pieces fell into place.

"So we rushed over here for nothing, huh," Gabriel mused in an attempt to break the tension.

Michael allowed it. "To be fair, we didn't plan on staying long, but you could have dallied a little longer if you needed to."

Raphael let out a derisive snort, two fingers pressed to Mick's temples. "If you'd waited any longer, this one would have more than the whiplash you gave him," she informed them.

"Anything else you'd like to add before you have to go," Michael inquired politely, reining in a reflexive wave of spite.

"Let's just get this over with," Raphael huffed, removing herself from Mick's side to slap a hardcover book down onto the table with the succinct explanation: "It's from God."

For a moment, none of them moved, but then Gabriel stepped forward and picked the book up to look at, opening it and flipping through the initial pages. He stopped with a frown firmly etched on his face. Michael privately thought that his younger brother needed to smile more. It wasn't like this was the end of the world or anything.

"This is—"

"His Will," Raphael confirmed. "And yes, the rest of it is blank."

"It is this world's guarantee that it is its own," Michael continued. "No matter what happens in other universes or alternate versions, this one will remain… so long as that book remains intact."

"Which is why I've been keeping ahold of it while keeping Heaven up and running," Raphael ended the line of commentary, crossing her arms expectantly.

Lucifer finally decided to insert himself back into the conversation. "But if it's blank… Dad just…" he trailed off, unable to finish.

"He's leaving us to make our own future," Gabriel concluded. He closed the book, turning it over in his hands with a distant look in his eyes. "He's leaving, isn't He? Actually leaving."

Michael shrugged callously. He'd already had this conversation with Him. He knew that He – God, Father, Chuck, whatever He'd be going by in whatever universe the Creator they had been born from went off to next with His Sister – wasn't gone, not yet. But the departure from this world was imminent and probably would take place as soon as the four archangels left this room.

"He was upset," Mick said, a hand on his head and the other on his chest as he slowly sat up. All eyes turned to him. "So many worlds were going wrong… He thought that maybe if He removed Himself from one of the ones that was okay, then maybe it could turn out right."

Then he looked up to glare very sharp metaphorical daggers at Ketch, who withstood the brunt of Mick's ire with stoic dignity. "It still hurt, arsehole."

"Not nearly as much as it would have," Ketch pointed out.

Mick didn't refute that, instead grumbling about communicating ideas beforehand – not that it would be particularly hard now with their shared consciousness. They could work on it later. For now, they had other, more pressing matters to deal with.

"If that's all, Mick and I should be off," Ketch went on with a charming smile that quickly turned rather sadistic. "Places to revisit, age-old societies to destroy, restoring order and whatnot."

"He doesn't mean that literally," Mick cut in at Gabriel's concerned raised eyebrow.

"Only some of it," Ketch corrected, which didn't exactly help his case but it was true. The British Men of Letters could stay mostly intact if that's what Mick wanted, but the Old Men were about to get a very rude awakening.

"Just— I can't believe I'm telling you this…" Gabriel let out an exasperated sigh. "I guess we'll see you around. Try not to destroy the world while you're doing… whatever."

Raphael tapped her foot impatiently, her shoe clacking on the tiled floor. "As enlightening as this all is for the two of you, Michael and I do have places to be."

"Yes, now that everyone's caught up, we should be on our way. Give a shout if anyone needs anything!" Michael exclaimed cheerfully.

~o-O-o~

"Uh, hold on. No, I am not caught up— And they're gone."

Gabriel collapsed down into the nearest of the conference table's chairs as Lucifer burst headlong into a full-winded rant. He only paid it half of his attention, the rest on the book he still held. Raphael would expect it back whenever they happened to meet again, no doubt. But until then…

Gabriel traced a finger over the edge of the front cover. He and Lucifer would have to show it to the Winchesters and Castiel eventually. That part would be easy. Explaining what happened would be another matter entirely, especially when Gabriel wasn't all that clear about it anyway. The bare basics were simple: Mick and Ketch were both actually Michael, who now had his (their..?) grace back and seemed to be set on some sort of world tour (possibly also out to take down the British Men of Letters); Raphael seemed to be watching over and maintaining Heaven while Michael, Lucifer and Gabriel were all on Earth; God was… gone, leaving behind only a book with one page filled out and the rest of it empty.

He could already hear Dean letting out a snort with a remark about it all being anticlimactic as shit. It would either be Sam or Mary who would roll their eyes – probably both, depending on how well they took the news. Castiel would either get all broody or move on in less than a second. Lucifer was having the most difficult time, but that may have been because he'd been expecting worse. They both had.

After everything, getting such an easy break had them on edge. But…

Gabriel softly tapped a finger on the cover.

There was someone he needed to talk to.

A/N: Uh, hi. Not dead. Just... busy. Yeah, let's go with that. I totally didn't forget about this. It's actually been done since... April? April-ish. Anyways, I'll post the last chapter/epilogue before the end of the month, and then the story will actually be done.

Try not to cry to much. (But it's okay if you do. Just don't forget your tissues if you need them.)