Chapter Summary: Just because everything seems like it should be all fine and dandy does not mean that it is.

What now?

Gabriel did not sleep. Lucifer fell asleep beside him without trying, nestled against Michael where he belonged. On his other side Raphael had also fallen asleep, assured by Michael that as the eldest he could keep them all safe. But Michael had been unable to stay awake, convinced the other three were asleep and would stay put.

But Gabriel was sneakier than that, and convinced this was a dream. There was no way he would ever be welcomed into heaven so warmly. Not after everything that had happened and everything he'd done. So no, he wasn't going to lie here and allow whatever plot Michael and Raphael had created come to fruition.

With Lucifer on one side and Raphael on the other, climbing out of bed without disturbing either was difficult. But that didn't stop Gabriel. He managed to wiggle his way out from between his siblings and stand on the ground. Now what?

"Gavri'el?" Raphael stirred, disturbed by the absence of someone next to him. Wait, Gabriel. The Healer sat up, careful not to disturb Michael or Lucifer. Both needed sleep more than anything else, and while he wanted to make certain that neither was injured, this sleep was too important. He saw Gabriel standing a few feet away, wings spread in a protective defense.

"Oh, Gavri'el," Raphael whispered, climbing down and approaching his trembling brother. "I'm not going to hurt you. Neither are Michael or Lucifer."

Gabriel didn't back away, though he considered it. "This can't be real," he replied. "It can't be."

Raphael wrapped his brother in a hug. What could he do? This was so real, but if Gabriel did something stupid because he wouldn't believe, he would never forgive himself. Wait, maybe… "Gavri'el, will you come with me? I want to show you something."

Gabriel was hesitant, and terrified, but followed as Raphael led him out of the room and through Heaven. "Where are we going?" he asked.

Raphael led Gabriel to the heard of Heaven, to The Garden once known as Paradise.

"Why are we here?" Gabriel asked as they entered. It was the heart of Heaven, but most angels rarely entered. Joshua had been the only gardener for a long time.

"I want to convince you that this is real. I thought this unchanging place would help." Humans who came to the garden saw it differently, in whatever way they could relate to the best. Angels, however, only saw it as it really was. An unchanging heart filled with celestial trees. It never spread and the trees never died. Joshua tended the garden, but he didn't change it.

Gabriel studied the trees as he and Raphael walked around in silence. Even though he'd tried, he had never been able to recall the Garden in his mind perfectly, and in no pocket 'verse had he been able to recreate it exactly. The only thing he hadn't been able to do. An illusion of their Father had also been impossible, but he'd never tried that. Why? Their Father was the reason everything had gone to horseshit and he knew it.

"Hello, Raphael, Gabriel," Joshua greeted. "I'm glad you've returned to Heaven."

The archangels acknowledged his greeting and moved on. The gardener appreciated his solitude and they wouldn't intrude on it.

Raphael sat among the roots of a tree that resembled a willow. It was the only one of its kind in the garden.

Gabriel stopped. Maybe there was a chance that this was no illusion, no lie, no trick.

"Gavri'el, won't you come here?" Raphael's voice was still quiet, endlessly patient in a way that no one else had ever been, and likely never would be.

Gabriel quivered. He'd been trying so hard to keep himself under control, but he'd been fighting for too long. He stepped towards his brother and then knelt next to him, not quite in Raphael's lap.

Raphael rubbed Gabriel's back, which caused the youngest archangel to lose it, breaking into messy sobs again as he allowed himself to express emotions he had hidden away for centuries.

Michael winced as he awoke. His wing ached . He should have known supporting so much of his brothers' weight when they had flown back to heaven would be a bad idea. But it had been necessary, and he had known that he would do whatever necessary to see Heylel and Gavri'el both returned to heaven. Maybe it would feel better if he let it rest awhile. He didn't need to fly anywhere right now.

It was easy to lean towards Lucifer. He might have slept for some indeterminate amount of time, he'd have to ask Rafa'el about that later, but that didn't mean his feelings had changed or that he hadn't missed Lucifer like he'd miss a limb.

As he almost drifted back to sleep, Michael realized that he and Lucifer were alone, and that Raphael and Gabriel had disappeared to parts unknown. He would know if they left heaven, but he hoped they didn't. Michael didn't think he would be capable of flying back, if he tried to leave Heaven now.

"Cold, Mika," Lucifer mumbled, only stirring enough to press further into Michael's side.

The eldest archangel pressed a sad smile against the back of Lucifer's neck. Lucifer was the Lightbringer and his grace had once been able to hold a candle to Michael's own supernova. But not now. Now his grace was as cold as the vast expanses of barren space.

Lucifer was lying atop Michael's uninjured wing, and he was loathe to move the slumbering archangel, so Michael shifted with the intent of folding his injured wing over them both.

The astronomical pain was instantaneous. For the moment it took him to remember more important things, all he could focus on was how it felt like his wing was smoldering. He hadn't moved it very far and he knew he couldn't move it any further.

The door creaked open and Michael could only hold his breath, not sure who it was and knowing that if he tried to move for a better look he'd end up on the floor from the agony.

"Mikha'el?" Raphael stepped back into the room followed closely by Gabriel. He looked towards Michael when the eldest didn't answer. His eyes widened as he saw that Michael's wing was extended in an unusual way and that there was a look of discomfort on his face. He was taller than Gabriel and knew that his brother couldn't see the unnatural bend in the wing the way he could, and he didn't want Gabriel to have to see that.

He looked over his shoulder at the youngest archangel. "Gavri'el? Can you go find Samandriel?"

Gabriel took a step closer to Raphael, leaning against him as he sought comfort and acceptance from his brother. "Why?" he asked, unsure why he wasn't welcome here. Had it all been a lie after all? Not only that, but had he also been replaced by some other angel?

Raphael could almost feel Gabriel's self-hatred and it made him angry, because Gabriel should have never needed to feel that way. Never, ever. "No," he whispered. "We want you here, but Michael's wing is injured so I'm going to fix it, and I don't want you to have to watch because it's going to hurt."

"Lucifer's here," Gabriel whined, and he knew as soon as the words left his mouth that he shouldn't have because it was an inappropriate accusation. Lucifer was supposed to be Michael's mate, and he was supposed to be there. He didn't belong, and that he was being petty just proved it. He pulled away from Raphael, tears in his eyes. "I'll find Samandriel," he mumbled, leaving because that's what he did best,fleeing.

Raphael wanted to follow Gabriel, tell him that he was wrong about not belonging, because there were four archangels, not three, not two, four , and heaven had all but fallen apart because then there'd only been one, but he couldn't, because he could hear Michael shifting in agitation and the groan of pain that followed. So he turned around and looked to the bed.

Lucifer was still pressed against Michael's side, so Michael used a sliver of grace to push him into deeper sleep. It wouldn't do for Heylel to wake up if Rafa'el decided to fix his wings. No reason to worry anyone unnecessarily. Especially not Haylel. Haylel had his own problems to worry about.

The Healer approached Michael's side of the bed quietly, his eyes analyzing the damage to the wing. He'd known it had been injured once a long time ago, but this looked much worse. "Mikha'el, what did you do to that beautiful wing?"

"I don't know." Michael had not finished straightening out the wing when he'd adjusted it earlier, so he tried to raise it without jostling the injured section. The pain was less overwhelming this time, but it was still present.

Feathers fluttered towards the floor, disturbed by the motion of the wing. Michael couldn't see, didn't look, but he could hear Raphael's wince. Hopefully it wasn't that bad. If giving up flying was what it took to get his siblings back, it was worth it, but that didn't mean he wanted to have to give anything up.

"I need you to calm down," Raphael whispered. "Mikha'el, can you do that for me, please?" Without giving Michael the opportunity to respond, he ran grace infused fingers down Michael's spine, along the edge of his right wing. Michael was clearly in pain and resetting the bone that was definitely broken would not be a comfortable experience, so the Healer dulled all the nerves he could. It would almost be better to send him into a deep slumber, but he'd done that once and it hadn't healed the wing properly. Besides that, if Lucifer woke up while Michael was out, he might not react well. So imitating a local anesthetic would have to do. Fortunately, his grace could do that better than what the humans used for the same effect.

Michael let out a soft sigh of relief as most of the feeling in his wing disappeared. There was still pain and he could still feel that he had a wing, but Raphael had managed to relieve enough of it that he could think straight. "Did that bone break again?" he asked, morbidly curious about what could have caused that level of pain.

"Yes," Raphael answered. He had never seen a reason to mince words. There was no reason not to tell Michael exactly what he knew. There would be no sugarcoating, just honest truth. If he'd been more forthcoming the first time, would he have created less of a mess?

"Can you fix it?" Michael's tone conveyed no fear, only acceptance. He wasn't doubting Raphael's ability to heal but he also wasn't fighting what others would have feared to be inevitable. Either Raphael could fix his wing, or he couldn't, and it didn't matter.

Raphael held in a sigh. He'd have accused Michael of being melodramatic, except Michael wasn't distraught. The calm acceptance he was emanating was genuinely disturbing. Raphael could have lopped the wing off and Michael would have held no objection. Except he would have put up a protest concerning Lucifer waking up and worrying about it. Which he would have. Raphael was worrying about it and it was just a scenario he didn't want to touch.

Michael's concerning mental state aside, Raphael knew that he couldn't just leave the wing to mend on its own . He'd learned a lot in the aeons Michael had spent slumbering, and it would take everything he'd learned to fix Michael's wing. But he would. " I'm the archangel of healing, Mikha'el. If anyone can fix your wing, it'll be me." He tried to keep his true voice from wavering. The false sense of bravado was for Michael's sake, because the one thing Raphael knew for absolute certain was that Michael could not start believing his injuries were incurable.

Michael didn't answer, but Raphael wasn't really expecting one. He pushed a little bit of grace into Michael's spine. It wasn't mimicking the effect of anesthesia by knocking Michael unconscious, but it would mellow him out a little. A quieter Michael also made it easier for Raphael to figure out exactly what was going on with the bones in his wing and how to fix it.

The humerus bone in Michael's wing had been cleaved into two Michael had flown at all once it had rebroken was just shy of a miracle in and of itself. The first time the eldest had broken it, Raphael had not known how to fix such a thing. No one had ever damaged their wings so badly, and God had always healed wings himself. He had not allowed Raphael to learn how to fix any of the injuries beyond some minor fledgling scuffles. A broken bone in the wing had been beyond his capabilities, hence putting Michael to sleep and hoping it would fix itself. He should have known better.

But Raphael had learned a lot in those aeons He'd been gone. No one had cleaved any bones in half, but there had been a few minor fractures, some pulled muscles, a few damaged ligaments. How did they even sprain their wings? But they did. And Raphael had recorded every wing injury, written passages on what worked best for each one, drawn pages and pages of anatomy, injuries and recoveries.

The healer picked up one of Michael's fallen feathers from the floor. The feathers were a physical manifestation of grace even more so than their wings, but they also shared characteristics with mortal bird feathers and molted every once in awhile, but unlike birds, less often when they weren't taken care of properly. That happened more often than it should have, and now that Raphael was thinking about it, he'd have to fix that.

Raphael rotated the feather in his hands, watching as the vane fell away from the shaft. On the third rotation, the shaft no longer looked like a shaft, but longer and thinner like a piece of wire, though straight and unbending as a rod.

He repeated this process until he had a handful of identical rods. They were about the size and shape of uncooked spaghetti noodles. With a seventh feather, he rotated it until it lengthened and expanded into a flexible string as wide as duct tape. It looked like a piece of fiery ribbon, the same color as the rest of the pieces.

Raphael put the grace rods on the edge of the bed and focused on the wing. The bone was clearly out of alignment, so he used his hands to straighten it. Once the pieces were almost together, he held it with one hand and laid the ribbon over it like a piece of tape.

Celestial beings were made of grace, and their own grace could not be used to hurt them. As their blades were extensions of their grace, one's blade could not be used against one's self. Lucifer stabbing Gabriel with Gabriel's blade would not have caused his death. But their youngest brother was a master of illusion and manipulation, and he would have faked his death so well. So Raphael had seen the time to intervene, and doing so had worked well enough. They were all in heaven and they would all be better for it.

Because Raphael was using Michael's grace to heal Michael's wing, the ribbon dissolved through his feathers and skin, wrapping itself tightly around the bone in the way Raphael desired. Next he took each of the rods and inserted them the same way, this time into the bone itself as pins to the hold bone together while it healed. Raphael was not able to heal this kind of injury directly, but as a Healer he had ways to manipulate one's grace that no one else could use.

Raphael finished inserting the rods into Michael's humerus bone and stepped back to watch. The healing would by no means be instantaneous, or even quick, but it would happen. Michael would not lose flight, which he should have known, but hadn't.

"Mikha'el?" Raphael whispered, tapping his brother on the shoulder. "I set your wing. You'll be able to fly, but not before I'm certain you wouldn't break that bone a third time."

Michael nodded. "Thanks." He glanced towards Lucifer who was still sleeping. This was home. This was how it was supposed to be.

Raphael sat on the edge of the bed closest to Michael's head. "Would you tell me how your wing broke in such a unique way? I've seen many strange injuries, but it should not be possible to break the humerus."

Michael winced. He remembered, but it was one of the most painful memories he held. "I'd found out what Father did to Heylel, so I confronted Him." He winced again, image forming in his mind of the day he'd found out it had been Lucifer's intention to bond with him, and that he had begged for forgiveness, only to be cast out. "He said he'd give a demonstration of his power over us, an example punishment of where disobedience and pride would lead us." He swallowed, fighting the emotions this drudged up. "He asked me where Gabriel had gone, but I wouldn't tell him. I lied to him, Rafa, told Him I didn't know. And He was so angry. I've never seen Him so angry, and then he hit me." Michael flinched. All he could remember was how much it had hurt. It had felt like being hit with a star, hot and explosive. He'd heard the snap of bone with every fiber of his grace, pain resonating through every bit of his core.

Raphael wasn't sure whether he wanted to hug Michael to pieces or curl into a sobbing mess. He had once suspected their Father had caused injury to Michael, but he'd never had enough proof to entertain it greatly.

Gabriel couldn't stop the tears of hurt and frustration that fell as he flew through Heaven trying to find some angel called Samandriel. He'd spent aeons wanting to come home, thinking he'd never be able to, and then he couldn't even behave when he was finally there. He didn't deserve his family and he couldn't even keep from feeling pointless jealousy over someone he hadn't even met yet. How stupid was that? He wasn't supposed to be some petty human, he was supposed to be an Archangel! But he'd never acted like the awesome creature of divine right that he was supposed to be, just a pitiful child notorious for running when the going got tough. Why would his siblings want him when he couldn't even act like a mature adult? With his luck, Samandriel was going to be some super powerful and strong seraph who was capable of the most ingenious plans and who Raphael liked best because he was also super well read.

"Are you okay?"

Gabriel stopped, blinking as he found himself having to look down at the fledgling he'd been about to run over in his haste. The fledgling didn't look frightened, only genuinely concerned with a hint of curiosity, and Gabriel was even more curious about the fact that there was a fledgling. This child didn't look to be more than a few years old, but he knew God had only created one final batch of fledglings, which had included Castiel and Balthazar. They'd still been fledglings when Gabriel had left, but there had been no more after that. He knew that. But the child has also asked him a question, and he was going to answer it. "I've been better," he mumbled, wiping his face because he didn't want this incredibly observant fledgling to ask why he was crying.

The fledgling stepped towards him and wrapped his arms around Gabriel's waist in a hug. "Its okay. A good cuddle makes everything better, and I've been told I'm a really good cuddler."

Gabriel closed his eyes. The fledgling's grace was warm, not burning, and it was a pleasant feeling to be hugged by a fledgling. "What's your name?" he asked, realizing he had forgotten his manners.

"I'm Samandriel," he said. "Rafa says snuggles make the burdens feel lighter."

Gabriel knelt, returning the fledgling's hug. Rafa'el hadn't replaced him with a fledgling. He wanted to snuggle his siblings, but Michael's wing was injured and he would have been in the way. Lucifer had still been sleeping, and waking up to find Michael so injured would have sent him into a panic attack. And Gabriel would have been in the way. He had helped Raphael a little bit with healing once, but that had been a long time ago, and not for anything like a broken wing. So really, finding the fledgling was a good thing.

"Who're you?" the fledgling asked curiously.

"I'm Gabriel," the archangel answered. "Rafa asked me to come find you, he's fixing Michael's wing."

The fledgling lifted his head to grin at Gabriel. "That's so fantastic! Mika's wing was really broken and he was taking a long nap, but Rafa wouldn't let me wake him up because he was healing, but it didn't look right to me. Do you think he's going to really really heal it this time? I hope so, Mika slept for such a long time, it was so boring!"

The archangel smiled. How could he not? The fledgling was so enthusiastic and happy. It was contagious, almost. Except none of that explained why there was a fledgling. He'd just ask Raphael later, he didn't want to upset the fledgling.

"Come on, kid," Gabriel said, meeting the small one's eyes as he spoke. "Let's get back to Mica, we don't want to keep him waiting too long." The smile he'd plastered to his face felt fake even to him. But he was trying not to upset the fledgling dammit. It wasn't the little tyke's fault that everything had gotten so messed up, and, and confused, and-...

"Gabriel?" A small voice asked timidly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just, adjusting still I guess." He reached out to the fledgling, offering a hand to hold on the way back. He'd always found that children could understand a surprising amount, and appreciated being treated like adults. Like equals. Because they were. Smaller, usually messy and confused equals, but equals none the less.

Samandriel nodded wisely back at him and accepted his extended hand, bringing a small smile to Gabriels lips. This kid was so damned cute.

"Come on, Gabriel. We don't want to keep Mica waiting."

A little while later, after a long walk back through heaven with a distractible fledgling in tow. Gabriel managed to get the fledgling back to Raphael. The healer had finished fixing the eldest archangel's wing, and Lucifer had woken up so they were talking quietly on the bed. "I was hoping you'd come back soon," Raphael said. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, no, it's okay." Gabriel moved to join them on the bed and they moved so there was space for Gabriel in the middle. The fledgling followed him.

Raphael snuggled into Gabriel's back and Lucifer into his front. Samandriel curled around Gabriel's toes and Michael settled on top of Lucifer where his wings were out of the way and the least likely to be bumped.

"We're home," Lucifer whispered into Gabriel's ear. "We're home, and we're so, so loved."