Michael loved Talia, and he couldn't have been happier for their child to finally be born.

But Auntie Ama's return was foreboding, too. Her presence was a reminder that their Father had been interfering with their lives and happiness since the literal beginning of existence and that He was still very much a real threat to their continued happiness.

And then there were Sam's Psychic Visions and frequent nightmares. He could see how wrung out both his brother and his brother's mate were.

Even as he watched his own mate showing their beautiful offspring the Garden of Heaven, there was a piece inside that ached with the newfound knowledge that there was more likely than not, an injured and lost fledgling somewhere.

And while his siblings may not have seen it yet, it stank of a trap. One that would work, too. Because there was no way either he or any of his flock would suffer a fledgling to live with such peril. Not on their lives.

Before he could dwell further on the possibilities of the fledgling or lack thereof, the scent of the best chicken noodle soup in all of Heaven assaulted his nose, and his stomach growled. But then it was gone, and Michael wanted nothing more than to have eaten all of it.

"Mikha? You okay?" Heylel asked from where he was sitting a few yards away.

Michael glanced at his mate. Sami was sitting next to Heylel with Talia in his lap while he braided wild flowers together and draped the flower chains over her. It was adorable, and yet, his own discomfort was making it difficult to concentrate.

He was almost nauseous with hunger, and he was confused. He was certain the phantom pregnancy symptoms he had shared with Heylel were supposed to have ended once Heylel had given birth. And there was no way he was going to ask Raph about it. Not when his brother's understandable discomfort had been palpable. He'd just… deal. And maybe go looking for a snack.

"Mi?" Heylel repeated. He looked concerned, and Michael didn't want it because they were supposed to be worrying about the safety of the fledglings, and their flock.

"I'm hungry," he admitted quietly. "I think I'll go walk around a little, maybe bring back a basket of fruit for all of us."

Heylel raised an eyebrow, but didn't question it. "Okay," he said instead. He still looked concerned, but Michael was glad that he wasn't being further questioned.

Michael turned around and walked deeper into the garden. There had to be something to eat around here somewhere.

A few minutes after he was out of sight, he smelled something divine. It was sweet with a slight tang of almost citrus. It smelled familiar, but not something he could place, and certainly not something he had ever tasted before.

He could not leave the Garden without tasting it.

The tree bearing the unfamiliar fruit was at the very center of the Garden. They were red and smelled sharp as citrus but looked more like pomegranate.

Michael was sure he was supposed to remember what this was but he was too hungry to care and he was sure it was edible. Even if it wasn't, there was no way that it could hurt him.

The branches of the tree were so heavy with fruit that the branches draped downward. It was easy for Michael to reach up and pick one of the fruits.

He tore it in half, watching in fascination as the juice dripped down his arms. And then he tasted it. It was sweet with a hint of tang and there was nothing more that he wanted in the moment than to eat every fruit on the tree.

A few feet away from the tree there was a basket lying on its side, so Michael took it and began picking the fruit. For every fruit that made it into the basket, he ate at least one, and after the first few, he decided that it wasn't necessary to break the fruit open because the peel was either edible or it wasn't and it didn't matter either way. It was slightly bitter, but he didn't care.

Joshua had never eaten the fruit of the tree in his garden called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He also had no intention of ever doing so, however that did not mean that he did not know the list of beings who had at one point in time all eaten from it. Even though most of them had not picked it themselves, he knew who all had tasted it, and the misery that might have come to them in one way or another because of it.

But the fruit itself was not inherently evil, and so it could not really be the cause. Just a superstition.

None of these things were relevant to why Joshua was concerned. But he would have been concerned regardless of what tree Michael decided to eat all the fruit from. He was just extra concerned because none of the individuals who had eaten from the Tree of Forbidden Fruit had ever eaten an entire fruit. Let alone more than one. Or a whole basket.

"Heylel, I think you should go make sure your mate is okay."

Joshua had no qualms about going to Michael's mate because if anyone could provide Michael with whatever it was that he needed, it was probably him. Or at least, he hoped so.

Heylel looked away from watching the two fledglings so that he could see the Gardener. "Is something wrong with Mikha?" he asked.

The Gardener glanced at the two fledglings as the elder of them stopped what he was doing with the flowers to stare at them, and rethought exactly what he wanted to say. "Michael is eating an unusual quantity of fruit from the tree at center of Heaven and I was concerned that it was not the most appropriate snack. He's also collecting a rather large basket of it."

The third eldest being in all of Heaven nodded his head, picking up as much on what Joshua implied as what was explicitly stated. Michael was eating more of the Forbidden Fruit than anyone else had, and was collecting it, which was slightly worrying, if only because Michael should not have been so hungry as to need it for nourishment.

"Thank you, Joshua. If you could stay here with Sami and Talia for a moment, I will bring Mikha back." He looked over at the fledglings. "Sami, will you and Talia be okay here with Joshua while I go make sure Mikha didn't get lost looking for a snack?"

The older of the two fledglings blinked at Heylel and then returned to braiding the flower stems together. "Tali and I will have fun with Joshie." He held up the newest flower chain in Joshua's direction. "Can I make you look pretty?"

Joshua glanced in Heylel's direction and was met with an encouraging nod, so he walked over to sit down in front of the children. "I would like that, I think."

Once upon a time, Heylel had wanted all of the other archangels to eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree. He had only been mostly successful, as he had lost the opportunity and desire to share it with either Mikha or Raph after the rest of their family had been broken apart. He wasn't sure whether or not the fruit could be blamed, though the Creator had once tried to pin it on exactly that. But why create the fruit in the first place if absolutely no one was to ever eat of it?

But that didn't matter. It didn't even matter that Michael was eating it, except that eating so much of anything would not be particularly healthy, and more importantly, he was worried about why his mate was so hungry to begin with.

Heylel hadn't bought Mikha's flimsy excuses of his distraction being related to hunger. There had been a glint of determination which suggested he had been thinking about whatever Sam and Sami were having visions of and he was concerned about how it was affecting his mate. It would be just like Michael to find it necessary to go after a threat to a fledgling all by himself.

He found Mikha exactly where Joshua had said he would be, picking fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and either shoving them whole into his mouth or placing them in the very full basket he was holding.

"Mikha, Sweetheart," Lucifer said quietly, stepping forwards to wrap his arms around Michael. "Do you think we can find you something else to eat? You're worrying Joshua."

"But… so hungry."

"I know." Lucifer gently put a hand around the fruit Mikha was in the process of trying to eat. He pressed on Mikha's fingers and the elder archangel released the fruit into his hand. Against his better judgement, he took a bite out of it. There were too many bad memories associated with it for the Lightbringer to take enjoyment from the taste, but he knew it had been necessary. "Sweetheart, do you know what tree this is?"

"No." Mikha frowned, and looked down at the basket of fruit he had picked. "I can't remember, but there's something about it." He worried his lip. "This might sound odd, but…. I think Sam needs to eat a slice of it."

Heylel honestly thought that sounded like a terrible idea. Gabriel would murder them both. But he also trusted his mate. Mikha's plans didn't always make sense, but he was the Viceroy of Heaven, and if he really thought it would help, maybe it was worth a shot. "If you're sure this is going to help, I think it should be a very small slice."

"Okay." Michael handed Lucifer one of the fresh fruits from the basket he was holding.

Lucifer took it and cut it. "I think you should leave the basket here."

They left the center of the garden.

"How are we supposed to find a missing Fledgling when no one else with greater magics than us has able to locate it?" Fenrir asked.

"Their powers aren't inherently greater, for one thing. Different, perhaps, but not greater. Or lesser, either. I'm also not sure they've started properly looking. As for why I think this will work, well, I'm sure Dad would have done it already if he'd thought of it, but from what you said, he's probably been really busy making sure Sam's okay after what one of you did to him."

"It wasn't me!" Fenrir snarled.

"It happened weeks ago, he should be fine!" Jormungandr hissed. "Not that I'm the one who might as well have poisoned him. That's not my MO!"

Hela rolled her eyes. "I didn't imply that it was. But Dad still said all five of you are grounded. But anyway, let's just see what this spell tells us."

She held up a feather, but it wasn't any feather. It was clearly a feather from one of Gabriel's wings. She dropped it in a glass petri dish on the table. Next to it, there was a very large map of the United States.

"Like calls to like, right? So let's see what happens if we go like this…" She added a square of snake skin, a hair from the mane of a horse, the tooth of a wolf, and a drop of her own blood. Then, she struck a match and dropped it in the petri dish. "Let the archangel of pagan fosterlings lead me to an Earthbound Fledgling."

It took more than a moment, and long enough for everyone to stare at the map worriedly, before two glowing circles appeared on the map. One was a mix of amber and orange and the other was green.

"Is that it?" Fenrir asked, pointing to the red dot somewhere in Nebraska.

"No, you idiot, that's Alliance, Nebraska, where the American Antichrist was born? Don't you keep up with any current events? No, I think what we're looking for is here." She pointed to the green dot. "Let's go check it out."

Sam was still lying on the floor when Michael and Lucifer returned to the large nest with the children in tow. Heylel was carrying Talia on his hip with one arm and holding Sami's hand with the other while Michael held only a very small slice of fruit that had been cut for Sam.

"Sam," Michael said, instantly crossing to the hunter. "Can you eat this for me?"

Gabriel's eyes widened as soon as he saw the slice of fruit. "Michael, no…"

But Sam was already sitting up and reaching for it. He wasn't sure what it was or why this was important, but he knew all the way to the core of his very being that he had to eat this, right now. He hadn't been able to stop the thoughts swirling in head. Amara, the Creator, the missing fledgling, and he was more certain now than he had been before that there was a piece missing in the puzzle of visions and nightmares.

Sam swallowed the fruit slice without thinking, the taste so bitter and sour that he couldn't help but swallow it as quickly as possible. But he held no regret. This was significant.

"Sam…."

Sam closed his eyes. Missing fledglings and demon blood visions. He'd never figured out how to control what he saw in the visions, but what if he could? What if he could find the fledgling that way?

"Sam!"

Fledglings and dark spaces. Aching backs and sore skin and fear so strong it was palpable. It had been difficult to differentiate the fledgling's prison from Amara's, but he'd been to hers.

He exhaled through his mouth and ignored the sting of copper in his nose. It would be worth it.

And then he saw it. Three children he knew about to walk into the trap laid so perfectly for the archangels, as the woman reached to knock on the front door of the dilapidated house he had once been inside of.

"No!" he was screaming. "Gabriel, the fosterlings!" It didn't matter that they hadn't liked him, that one of them had possibly tried to get him blackout drunk. They were Gabriel's, therefore they were his.

"Where?!"

Gabriel was shouting, scared, but Sam was already rattling off the address he didn't need to read off the mailbox to know. Photographic memory had never been the greatest of his skills, but he would never forget the address of the man who had written his entire life into a series of books.

Michael drew his archangel blade and was gone almost before Sam could finish rattling off the address. He was the Viceroy of Heaven, and no harm would come to any children. Not Gabriel's fosterlings, a question for another day, or Heaven's missing fledgling.

Children were sacred to humans. And even more so to the Archangels.