Gabriel awoke to find black and silver wings gently tickling his face. Cas' wings were sitting on his forehead, just above his eyes and Balthazar's wings were laying across his chest, resting slightly on his chin moving with each breath Gabe took. He smiled as he saw Cas and Balthazar sleeping peacefully by his side, their faces calm and their bodies relaxed. Gabe felt a moment of peace before the events of the previous day came back to him in a crushing flood of memories. Gabe groaned and leaned back in his nest, waking Balthazar, but miraculously not Cas. That angel could sleep through just about anything.

"You okay Gabe?" Balthazar asked, concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine Balthazar," Gabe replied, but Balthazar didn't look convinced, "I just don't want to help out with cleaning up today, I promise. I mean, can you imagine what Zachariah is going to be like?"

Balthazar smiled at Gabe, trying to hide his laugh so he wouldn't wake Cas up.

Further conversation was stopped however, when the tan coloured mass between them opened his eyes and yawned, blinking his eyes tiredly. "Good morning Cas," Gabe said, "how are you feeling today?" Piercing blue eyes met warm honey brown and Gabe hoped that Cas would have somehow forgotten about the pain of yesterday and would be back to his usual happy and innocent self today.

Cas looked up at Gabe with a ghost of a smile on his face and Gabe felt a flicker of hope. That was extinguished however when Cas' face fell and tears threatened to spring from his wide eyes. Gabe looked alarmed and quickly hushed Cas, gathering him in his arms. "Hey Cas, it's okay, it's okay, I'm not going to leave you. I promise. Don't get upset. It's okay. We're here. We're not going to leave you."

Cas calmed, his breathing slowing and looked up into Gabe's face. "You promise Gabby?" Cas asked.

"Of course Cas. I'm never going to let you go," Gabe replied. Cas smiled and snuggled into Gabe, wrapping his small wings around his big brother.

Balthazar looked over, a sad smile on his face, and Gabe beckoned him over into the embrace. Balthazar quickly scurried into his brothers' arms and held him tight. Gabe pressed his face into this younger brothers' sandy blonde hair and whispered "And I'm never going to leave you either Balthazar." Balthazar nodded mutely, still tucked into his older brothers comforting arms, not being able to say anything without his voice breaking or crying.

They sat, entwined together, for a few minutes before Gabe slowly disentangled himself. Looking into his brothers' eyes he sighed and said, "I guess we better face the day. I'm sure your brothers and sisters need a hand in cleaning up. Zach won't be too happy if we don't show up and help." Balthazar stood up and stretched his wings out behind him, grinning again and Gabe did the same, shimmering silver feathers mixing with vibrant gold. Cas tried to do the same thing, his young wings only stretching a small way out from his body, not even reaching to brush with his older brother's wings.

Gabe looked down at Cas, smiling, and instinctively reached down to smooth his unruly black hair. Something else caught Gabe's eye when he reached down however. His hand had accidentally brushed Cas' wing and he had pulled it back. On closer inspection Gabe saw that a number of his feathers were bent out of place and one was missing.

Gabe looked down at Cas with worry in his eyes and asked "Cas, how did you hurt your wing?"

Cas avoided Gabe's eyes and answered "When I was running away yesterday, I hit my wing." Gabe looked at Cas suspiciously, sensing that it wasn't the truth but upon seeing Cas' wide blue eyes staring up at him Gabe relented and decided that he could find out the truth later.

Gabe hopped out of the nest, carrying Cas, and landed gently and elegantly on the ground. Balthazar followed suit, but didn't land quite as elegantly, instead falling over when he got to the ground, getting a mouthful of dirt. After all, he hadn't been flying for as long as Gabe and was still refining his skills. Cas however, found this quite funny and laughed at his older brother. Balthazar stood up quickly, spitting out the dirt and pushing his wings out. "Just wait till you're flying Cas and then we'll see how elegantly you land."

Gabe laughed ruffled Balthazar's hair, saying, "It's okay Balthazar you'll get better with practice. Now let's go and help everyone."

Gabe, Balthazar and Cas set off towards the place where they could hear their brothers and sisters working. They did not make a noise but they could all clearly understand just how bad the damage to their home was.

God saw his children working to clean up his – their – home and felt a pang of regret at leaving them at a time when they were so vulnerable. He wondered if he had done the right thing. Maybe he should have stayed and helped them to recover. After the war he had felt the change in some of his angels. They had become harder, battle-worn, cold-hearted soldiers. The fighting had turned them into soldiers who did nothing but follow orders. He just hoped that there would be some who still had enough love left in them to carry out the original mission, "Love the humans above all. Do everything to protect them." He hoped that some would keep the free will he had gifted to all of his creations and the heart to do what was right.

His gaze fell on his youngest archangel and two of his youngest angels. He smiled as he felt the love that was in their hearts. He knew that they could be relied on to protect his greatest creations. He knew that above all, they would be loyal to family. He knew that no matter what happened, they would never forget their family. They would never forget each other.

Author's note: Thank you to everyone who reads this! Let me know what you think!