Ella admits that she's never seen Michael quite like this. He's struggled with his powers before, both his Fear and his Creation. And, honestly, she figures this is in a round-about way due to his Creation run amok. Not that she thinks month as her period as much more than a monthly pain in the ass, but it is, technically, about life or at least life not made for the cycle. Better luck next time. But Michael's not quiet. It's both part of his charm (granted an acquired taste kind of deal) and just the general rhythm of him. Honestly, until the latest hiccup happened, she wouldn't have believed he could be this quiet.

This still.

She's anxious about it, worried what this means for him, but she's trying to help him through this whole shock to his system. After all, if she woke up a guy one day, mind totally blown. But there's something a completely different level about menstruation, and she knows this, definitely all the cramps and feeling like your body has been hijacked for a week almost that was hard to adjust to even at eleven. She doesn't know how an archangel—who was both male and never planned on having to do anything really human before—is coping with it.

Based on how Michael is curled up at her side with a heating pad on his back and a hot water bottle over his belly because Advil just isn't going to work on a Celestial being, Ella is thinking not great. It's the deafening silence of the last two days that is the biggest tip off.

That and he hasn't even bitched when she takes Pepe out to pet him on the bed. And Michael pretty much detests the, okay, slightly lumpy chinchilla.

She's let him zone out this afternoon on whatever the motel's HBO had to offer. She's pretty sure it's the Fantastic Four movie, the really bad one with the actual number in the title, but she hasn't really paid attention either, just watched him and worried.

But she needs to do something. They can't get him to Georgia and to see the wizard…warlock…whoever, if he's basically catatonic. He's not as big as he says he was, but she can't exactly drag him either even in this shape.

So, Ella takes a deep breath and does what she does best: talk.

She starts by setting her hand on his shoulder, carefully because it's his right one. "Corazon, hey, we need to talk."

"I'm fine," he says, but his voice is empty, and her heart breaks for him.

She moves her hand to stroke through his tangle of curls as best she can. "Dime otra vez con emocion. Sure, buddy, once more with feeling."

He rolls over and regards her, and as always, she's overwhelmed by how large and luminous his eyes are. For about the billionth time since this bizarre road trip started, she wonders who he was before, if his eyes were as large…if anything about the Michael she knows matches the one he was for literally—still fucking weird to think about—billions of years. She hopes for his sake that some of it matches up because it would be jarring to be trapped in a body so alien to all he'd ever known.

"What do you want me to say, Lopez?"

That you're okay.

But she knows that he's not and that's too much to demand of him. She strokes his cheek. This time, it's the left side she can reach. Probably for the best. He's more squirrelly about his right cheek, where his brother's scar is cut deepest.

"I was worried you were dissociating. I've seen people at crime scenes go into shock before."

"Enough blood to have a crime scene," he huffs.

"It's fine. Got it all clean, and you're figuring it out."

Pads, simple enough for the first time. If this continued, well, she'd have to explain the more complicated stuff to Michael too. And being an archangel's earthly guide just kept getting more complicated, especially since she liked him so much. Worried about him so much too.

"This," he says, tone pinched, "should not be happening. It's just one more bullshit indignity Dad thought would be funny. Has no purpose but to make me cramp up almost as bad as my phantom wing pain and…it's humiliating."

"You know, not to paint you a huge picture, Mike, but I get this too."

"You're mortal and female; it's your lot in life ever since Eve fooled around with my brother."

She sighs dramatically. "Ugh, was kind of hoping that the whole 'in sorrow shall you bring forth children' part wasn't as literal, like it sucks to know that all this bullshit wasn't the original plan."

"I told you my Father was an asshole, right?"

"But he's the Big Guy and—"

"Yeah, and the Old Testament wrath? It was not an exaggeration, chica," Michael says sadly. "I'm so tired of things changing. I don't know what's going to happen to me next, and I don't want to know." He swallows hard and looks away from her. "You shouldn't have had to clean that. You are better than dealing with any of this, with me."

She hugs his shoulders and kisses the crown of his head. "Corazon, you know that's a package deal right? I take the good and the bad with you. Besides, I might not have sisters, but I have younger cousins and this is just a girl right of passage."

"But I'm not."

"No, but this is the reality for now, until maybe we can find a way to fix it. And if you think helping you when I find you passed out and bleeding, however that started, is something I wouldn't want to do or find awful…Michael, you don't get it."

He shifts, and she lets him, so that he can look her in the eyes. "I do. My Fear is a mess, and I keep having to do awful things to keep me from cramping up. You know that. My Creation isn't any better, either making a rat like Pepe—"

"I love Pepe."

He snorts. "You would. Ella Lopez, patron saint of lost causes."

She kisses him then, trying to put him at ease. "You're not a lost cause."

"Maybe not a cause, Scraps. Probably just lost. Tossed out like Father's trash, just a different way than Samael was. Maybe as diabolical." He rubs his abdomen. "You all really do this every month?"

"Yup, like clockwork and for about forty years."

"Wow, sex with my brother is not worth it. Eve really screwed you guys and not in the fun way. Fuck." He curls up again and shakes a little.

"Well, Advil and stuff helps but you can't feel drugs…"

He nods. "I might ask you to take our spoils and just buy a few or a half dozen cases of vodka."

"You could not possibly drink all that in one go."

Michael laughs, and Ella relaxes because it's the first time she's heard that sound in days. "I can try. I have to drink truly inhuman amounts of alcohol to feel a buzz. Again, see my idiot twin and his bar."

She frowns at him, and everything about the demon…about what almost sounded like "Maze" being on the tip of his tongue and now the admission about Samael—the Devil—who owns a bar just to facilitate his own drinking…it pings so much in the back of her mind. But she'll press later. Right now, she's just glad to see Michael talking, even laughing, considering the latest mindfuck that's been foisted on him.

"Right. So heaven breeds lushes?"

"Of course not. But Earth has its perks. Mostly drinking but I think sometimes humans too. I know, shocked the fuck out of me. I didn't think that I could care about humans till I met you." He reaches out with his good hand to stroke her cheek.

"Do you like any humans not me?"

"One day I might. Sky's the limit, Scrappy."

She laughs and kisses him again. "I am not sure I'm flattered that so far I'm your asterisk on humanity. We're not so bad."

"You can be brutal with each other, but since I barely survived my twin's rebellion and one of his generals getting even more violent, fucking Sandaphalon…I don't think I can say great things about Celestials either. Not all the time." He sighs and pulls his hand away long enough to run it over his face, to dwell over his scar. "We judge everything, all the fucking time. All of us trying to guess what would or wouldn't make Father happy. He never tells us, so we just cast stones at each other."

She frowns and relaxes into his touch, now that his hand is alongside her cheek again. "And the one with the bad wings got the most of it."

"Of course. I'm always an eyesore, Lopez. My lot in life since I kicked Sam out."

"And you feel that way now. I mean, because you made a mess and because this is so human really, what you're doing now. You feel like even if you were home, like your brothers and sisters would make even more fun of you."

Michael quirks his head at her. Again, he swallows hard. "Of course they would. And they can see me. You can look down if you're an angel and see how it's all unfolding. It was how I knew chunks at least, enough mostly to slip into messing with Sam's life. To give me leverage and knowledge to hurt the Miracle."

Ella sighs but keeps her soft smile on her face. What he tried was horrible, but he's clearly sorry. It doesn't make it right, but she can see him trying so hard, and that has to matter for something. Even if it's complicated.

Everything with him always is.

"So they know?"

"Probably. Probably find this whole thing a laugh a minute: me, the former Sword, now just a chick; the hunting and the pain; now this weird Creation side effects bullshit. Yeah, I bet Gabriel especially finds this hysterical. He always wanted my job, and when Sam injured me and Menny finally defected or at least left the Silver City…well, he got his wish. This would just be a cherry on the shit sundae."

She rolls her eyes. "You can still be a great general and be a girl, technically, Mike."

Despite everything, he laughs. "I have this feeling this is a trick question, Scraps. I'll shoot my mouth off, and you'll get the brass knuckles out, even if I can't feel them."

"No, but—"

He kisses her again. "I get it. You're tough. Remiel is too. Barachiel come to think of it. I just…feel demoted. Not even demoted, just like some science experiment Dad decided to play with. I figured it's all just to humiliate me, but I don't get why Creation has to go nuts. I thought it was gone. It's not, but now if I get cut, there's random mostly animals sprouting up and this…" Michael sighs and gets settled against the headboard. "You shouldn't have to ever clean up after me, whether that was thinking ahead to steal an Impala at all, a way to carry passed out or catatonic people after I Feared them, or what you did for me a couple nights back. It's not just beneath me. It's beneath you too, Scrappy."

She rolls her eyes and settles her head on his shoulder. "First, I was a forensic tech for way over a decade. I have seen every bodily fluid all over and taken samples from them. That's nothing. Second, that's not how a relationship works. When you need my help, that's what I do. You help me, and I help you, and I don't get all like full of myself and think stuff's beneath me. Just, be honest—"

"Not always in my nature," he admits.

"Fine, but go with me on this. If it were reversed, and you'd found me passed out on the floor and bleeding, would you have walked off cause it was too gross or whatever?"

His eyes flash a brilliant gold, and it's just another reminder of how much more he is than she. How much Creation thrums under the surface of his skin. "Never. But you're…you're everything, Ella."

She smiles at the mention of her real name. Michael says it so rarely, after all, not that she really minds being compared to a cartoon dog. Somehow Mike makes it endearing, though she has no idea how. "Then, I feel the same way, Corazon. I meant it. We're still figuring everything out, and I figure we'll have more to decide whether that warlock can help stabilize you or not, but you and me and Pepe? Total package deal."

"We could just let him off in the woods somewhere."

She slaps his shoulder lightly. "Don't you dare!"

"If he's not radioactive, it's just a miracle."

She chuckles and kisses his cheek. "I think, technically, Pepe is an unintended miracle, right? Holy or divine blood or whatever and poof! Pepe."

"Yeah, it's not exactly parting the Red Sea, is it?"

"You're working up to better miracles maybe?"

Michael rolls his eyes and resettles the water bottle on his stomach. "Doubtful. Not exactly in the business of it. I just…I want to be better for you, you know? Who you deserve."

"I'm an unemployed former CSI, who hustles Black Jack and almost kicked a guy to death. I'm not exactly leading with high standards."

"Pete would have deserved it; I just didn't want you to have that guilt on you, to damn yourself. Probably don't agree on shit but your actual resume? Yeah, even the Devil and I would agree someone as sunny and nice as you are about 95% of the time doesn't deserve Hell. But Pete was a piece of shit."

"Sure, but neither of us, Corazon, deserve a pedestal. And you've cared when I felt like no one else did, and that means everything to me."

"Yeah but I'm banged up and at the mercy of whatever Dad or my self-actualization or both decide to do to me, and I just feel…lesser."

She hugs him tighter and kisses his cheek again, maybe if she does it enough, he'll understand that she's sincere.

Maybe.

"You're not. You couldn't be, not to me. Now, I can app us some food—lots of chocolate—and maybe we can find something decent to watch."

"Dear Dad, chocolate is pretty helpful."

She laughs and snuggles up to his right side. "I know? Total surviving Aunt Flo 101."

"What?"

"Euphemism. Anyway, you try and find something on cable, and I'll find a place that will sell us a chocolate cake or two."

He laughs and pinches her hip playfully. "And they say I'm the angel. You, Lopez, feel heaven sent."