Because I suspect the question may come up, and it's pertinent: yes, Matthew Pike is Alfie, the version of Samandriel we would see in canon in a few years.

Thanks for reading.

OF MUSIC & MEMORIES

Chapter Two

They called this town Oasis Plains, but Samandriel didn't understand why it had a name when there was nothing here. Didn't most towns have the homes that humans had built to protect themselves from the elements, or even larger buildings - the great huge reflective ones that were taller than some of his brothers? No, those went by a different name. Those were… cities.

But they still had more than this place - a grassy field with some strange metal contraptions sitting around. They had seats inside them, but they looked neither comfortable nor good for protection against the harsh wind or heat of this place.

He was confused, but that could be rectified. Samandriel had taken other vessels since his first. All of them animals, but he had learned to pick up knowledge from the mind of the creature, and humans could hardly be too different, except for that one small detail.

To take a human as a vessel, he needed permission.

He wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to get permission. He certainly couldn't show himself to a human. Naomi, who had informed a group of them about their assigned mission (passed to her by The Commander who, of course, was far too busy to waste time on a bunch of messengers), had given them some quick rules about going to Earth. Some of them were things he'd heard from her before - don't get comfortable, don't go native, don't mate with a human (why she bothered to mention that, Samandriel didn't know - all angels knew Nephilim were forbidden), and don't show your true form or speak your true voice to a human unless you wanted their eyes to burn out and their heads to explode.

Samandriel shook himself, trying to shake the image away from his mind, but of course it had been burned there. He sighed, his grace letting the breath burst out of him in an unseasonal scent of autumn leaves. Sometimes his imagination was terrible, but that wasn't something discussed with other angels. Thinking of things that weren't real was frowned upon in Heaven. Such things had been unofficially prohibited since the last animal was created on Earth, it's form designed by Lucifer. When he had fallen, none of the archangels had dared to raise their hands to create anything new. It was like Heaven itself had fallen with the Morningstar, and remained in mourning ever since.

It made him sad. He remembered how the messengers had followed Gabriel around as the youngest archangel created animals, laughing as they tossed out suggestions. Michael had been the one to create the western dragons, great fire-breathing quadrupeds with massive wings of leathery membrane rather than feathers. In response, Gabriel had created the bat, a tiny rodent with dragon-like wings, and laughed gleefully at the suggestions to make it eat fruit and bugs, or give it sonar abilities and make it active at night. Like dragons, they lived in caves and dark places, but they were tiny and adorable and oh, Michael had flushed with embarrassment, even his wings turning the color of apples. That, Samandriel remembered, was when the contest for animal creation had begun, and resulted in a number of very odd undersea creatures and the entire continent of Australia.

But that had stopped long ago. There hadn't been any new creatures crafted by the hands of an archangel in eons, and Samandriel suspected there never would be another. His memories of the laughter of Heaven and of his brother's' playful competitions were just that - memories.

Sometimes, it hurt almost too much to remember. Sometimes he wished he didn't.

It was only his close proximity that let him hear the prayer. It wasn't meant for him and so the words didn't reach him, but Samandriel recognize the music of a prayer being spoken, less like speech than a song hummed by a chorus. Surprised, for he hadn't heard a prayer in centuries, Samandriel angled his grace downward and flattened his wings, letting the air rush around them and accepting the gravity of this planet, letting it grasp him where it hadn't touched before.

He ignored the physicality of brick and stone and plaster, catching the wind beneath his wings as he leveled out and swooped into the large stone building, gliding with ease through a glass window depicting a human with large white wings. Was that supposed to be an angel? It looked nothing like them.

There were long benches facing a podium, but only a few people scattered here and there. The air was filled with the strangest sensation Samandriel had ever felt. It tingles along his grace, whispered against his ears - wishes and hopes and wants and fears and belief. Belief, so strong he thought he might have been able to take his true form here and harm no one, could have spoken his true voice and been heard, but of course he did not dare risk it.

He folded his long legs so he sat in an approximation of the angle of the benches, though of course he was not truly on the same plane. A few of his ears lifted, listening to softly murmured words. Sounds of grief, whispers of hope, prayers spoken in a human tongue that he could hear, directed to a Father that had left a long time ago.

Samandriel felt grief touch him and his ears flopped back down against his neck. Father had left Heaven after Lucifer had Fallen and he hadn't been back since. No one talked about it but it was always there, an unspoken knowledge. The favored son had been cast down and none of them were worth remaining for.

Perhaps his Father had gone to another world and made new children. Children who wouldn't disappoint him and who he could love without needing to run away to escape their faults. Samandriel wanted to not care. Or, barring that, he wanted to wish his Father happiness, but all he could think of was that the only time he had looked upon the one who created him was the moment he first opened his eyes, lying in the still-glowing hands that had formed him. The rest of the time… none of the lesser angels had been worth their Father's notice. They were not important enough.

So why would this human be?

Something inside him hurt at the thought and he frowned, his wings quivering. It was a feeling not unlike the hungry sensation of an empty stomach - a churning need and want and pain, but his true form had no stomach, nor a need to eat, so of course this could not be hunger.

"What's that?" a small voice asked, and Samandriel looked up to see a pair of eyes staring back at him.

"I don't see anything. Matt, come on, we need to go." An older man said. Samandriel studied him. He looked similar to the boy, though the child had some differing facial features. Perhaps he appeared more like his mother. "I don't know why you wanted to come here, anyway." There was a pause and a sigh. "Tell me you weren't looking for spiders in a church."

"I wasn't looking for spiders in a church," The younger boy parroted, and then smirked at his father's groan. "I just wanted to look. I wasn't going to do anything."

"It's a place of worship, Matthew. Not a playground." A hand on the child's back ushered him forward, though his walk was reluctant as they left the building. "I wish you'd get over this obsession with insects. It's not healthy."

The boy didn't answer his father. As they passed by where Samandriel rested, a pair of dark brown eyes turned to look at him, and Samandriel felt the touch of Sight burn across his skin like sunshine. His wings flared open in surprise. The boy could see him.

What are you? he heard against his grace, similar to a prayer and yet different.

His ears came up, riveted on the boy's strange mental voice, as he spoke back quietly, brushing against the boy's mind without thinking about it, instinct carrying his words in a way that would not harm.

"I am the angel Samandriel. Will you help me?"

Taking a human as a vessel was beyond anything Samandriel had expected. It was far different from taking an animal vessel. For one thing, the mind of an animal was general rather simple.

That could not be said even in jest of Matthew Pike.

The boy's mind never stopped. Animals didn't have thoughts. They lived on instinct and learned knowledge that manifested more as feelings. Hunger was a feeling, which caused them to use their learned knowledge to fulfill the instinct of eating. The same with thirst or the need to nurse young. Their wants were linked to requirements for their survival. Everything was cause and effect by the need to continue the existence of themselves and their species.

Humans were weird.

For one thing, some of their wants had absolutely nothing to do with their continued survival. In fact, they were directly opposing the potential for their continued existence. Yes, the hunger was still there, as well as the instinct to fulfill that hunger, though it was quieter, more subtle, overrun by the noise of constant thoughts and wants and fears and wishes and dreams. It was inescapable, maddening, and so, so familiar.

When Matthew had given him permission to use him as a vessel, Samandriel had expected the thrum of various needs and instincts in the back of his mind, physiological aches and burns to tell him things, nothing altogether different from an animal.

But then he was inside Matthew, his grace wrapped around the boy's bright soul, and his thoughts were searing their way into his own mind, terrible and merciless.

Thoughts about being in a new town, so far away from the only home he had ever known. The grief of leaving behind friends he didn't remember a life without, the loneliness of not knowing anyone. The fear of going to a school where he was the new kid, unknown and prime for attack, with no one to talk to or spend time with or to stand with him against the inevitable string of bullies who would turn their predatory focus on the fresh meat. The fears that it would never change, that he would always be the odd one out, either for being the new kid or for his dreams, so huge dreams. Thoughts like stories that unfolded in Samandriel's mind, where a young boy wore a white lab coat and fed crickets to a glass aquarium filled to the brim with spiders. Where plaques covered the wall, emblazoned with words Samandriel could not read, but glowing with the dream-logic-feeling of success and amazement and wonder. Dreams of a boy looked up to for his fascination with and knowledge of insects. And yet underneath every glow of wish-dream-want, there lurked a thought, like a seal under thin ice following a herd of penguins - my father is ashamed of me. My father is disappointed in me. My father doesn't want me, wishes he had a different son, a better son, and not-weird-not-broken-not-strange son.

Matthew had stumbled but caught himself, as Samandriel's grace ripped away from the thoughts, from his mind, curling right and small within an already small body, crying out in anguished grief at feelings and fears that were too familiar, put into terrible words in the mind of a child.

He vaguely heard Matthew's father (Larry, the boy's mind supplied) ask him if he was okay, but he couldn't bring himself to come out yet. Not yet, when he knew he couldn't control himself and did not know how he was supposed to pretend to be a boy he didn't know. So he kept himself tucked away, curled into a ball around the child's soul, until Matthew and his father had returned to their house and the boy had retreated to his nest.

"Are you okay?" He felt and heard the mumble of Matthew's voice. "Samandriel?"

Oh. Samandriel uncurled himself from his right ball, tentatively reaching out to touch the boy's mind. Worry blurred yellow across his grace, writhing like worms in putrid mud, and Samandriel brushed a wing against the shining soul, soothing the concern instinctively. He felt Matthew's sigh of relief like a cool breeze. Funny. It almost felt like his grace.

"I am unhurt."

"You were crying," he said, and his voice trembled slightly. Not concern this time. Remorse and loss.

"I have never taken a human vessel before," Samandriel admitted, slightly chagrined. "I was unprepared for the vastness of your mind."

"But you're an angel. Your mind must be huge."

"It's not the same." He tried to think of how to explain it. The mind of an animal is like a single drop of water fallen from a cloud. It exists only in the place where it is, focused on its present. Sometimes it's catches grains of dirt - knowledge obtained from past encounters - that it carries along with it, but it is never more than a single drop of water. It has no care of where it came from or where it is going to. It simply is." For a moment, he let himself focus on the breath entering and leaving Matthew's lungs. Like the sauroposeidon from so long ago, every breath made a whispering sound and both it and the repetitive act were soothing. "Humans by contrast… you are an ocean. The tide goes in and out in constant motion, touching a thousand shores in a moment, grabbing grains of sand from a million past deeds and carrying them along. Your minds are made of as much of your past as your present, and yet you reach also for the future. You are everywhere, and yet also within yourself, so vast that sometimes you touch nothing of the world and are a world alone. It is…" Exhausting. Amazing. Wonderful. Terrifying. Beyond anything he had expected from a creature he had heard often called mud-monkies. This human, whose mind was so like his. Breathtaking."

Matthew face warmed with startling heat and Samandriel's wings rose in agitation, his grace reaching out to heal a wound or still a fever. Instead, embarrassment and pleasure and uncertainty met his grace and he searched the emotions for the source of this strange physiological response.

"Matthew, what is a blush?"

Matthew's resulting laughter was loud enough to summon his dad.

It was only after Matthew's embarrassment faded that the excitement flushed through them. "You said… animals. You possessed them?"

Possessed was a word always associated with demons and Samandriel winced to hear it. "I have taken numerous animals as vessels in my past visits to Earth." he admitted.

"Like what?"

"My first was a sauroposeidon. He was the largest animal I had ever taken as a vessel."

"A saur—A DINOSAUR?"

"Alfie?" a female voice called from another room. "Who are you talking to?"

"Myself!"

A soft laugh and then, "Okay, sweetheart."

Matthew look a deep breath and let it out. He was jittery and couldn't seem to stand still.

Samandriel was a little confused. "Alfie?"

"It's a nickname my parents use sometimes. Mostly my mom. Unless I'm in trouble. Then it's Matthew Alfred Pike!"He snickered a little.

"A nickname. So it is a shortened version of your second name?"

"My middle name, yeah, but sometimes nicknames are random, too. Like my friend from back home. Her name was Cassidy but everyone called her Beetle. I don't even know why."

The name Cassidy sounded so similar to Castiel that for a moment, he was lost in the thought of what his brother would be doing at that moment. It also reminded him of another rumor that had been circulating Heaven, that the vessel of Lucifer has mentioned an angel, but he had used the name "Cas."

Samandriel hadn't understood why he would only use one syllable that could refer to multiple angels, but this actually explained a lot. "Are nicknames common for humans?"

"Yeah, especially ones that shorten a name to just a single sound. Like my friends call me Matt, instead of Matthew. It's quicker." He climbed onto the bed and laid down, staring at the ceiling. It was covered, Samandriel realized, in light-green pieces of plastic in the shape of stars. Not real stars, of course, since they were actually balls of gas, but he recognized the star shape from some Enochian wards his brothers had created. Castiel was particularly talented at creating sigils and wards. He wondered if his brother would know where the humans picked up this shape from.

"Do you like them?" Matthew (Matt, Samandriel reminded himself) asked quietly. His voice was a little subdued. "My dad thinks they're childish but… I like them. I tried to put them together, to make the constellations, but I'm not very good at it."

"Why are they green?" Samandriel asked.

Matt laughed and rolled to his feet. He pulled the shades down over his windows, closed the door, and shut off the lights. Then he walked over and climbed on the bed again, rolling onto his back.

Samandriel's wings flared open in surprise and he stared. "Father… they glow!"

Matt laughed. "Yeah, they do. Like stars."

Samandriel stared at them, at this wonder, the innovation of these humans, who were so much more than he realized. ""I love them," he whispered.

Samandriel wasn't sure what to do when Matt fell asleep.

At first he didn't realize what was happening, and he panicked when the boy's heartbeat and breathing both slowed, and his body temperature began to drop. He'd been inside injured animals before, had felt them dying and used his grace to heal them, but they'd always had a wound. His grace scoured Matt's body for a wound but it couldn't find one and he felt his wings shivering in fear. Why was Matt dying? Did Samandriel do something? Was he hurting him? He didn't want to hurt him!

In a panic, he sent out a rush of healing grace to infuse all of Matt's body, hoping to catch whatever injury he couldn't sense and fix it.

Matt's leg twitched and his eyes opened, blinking blearily. Samandriel felt his heartbeat pick up slightly.

"Smandril?" he murmured, his words running together.

"Are you okay?" Samandriel asked, his grace probing, searching for a recently-healed part of Matt, but there was nothing. What was wrong?

"Sleepin'."

Samandriel grace quieted. This was normal? "What's sleepin?"

Matt opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Samandriel could sense, somehow, that he was doing this in lieu of being able to stare at Samandriel himself. "Sleep's… when you sleep? Rest. So I can be awake."

"So you're not… you're not hurt?"

"No?" he asked, confused. "Everybody sleeps. Don't angels sleep?"

"No."

"Mm… when you sleep, you dream. S'nice."

"Dream?"

"Mmhm," the boy murmured, but Samandriel could feel his consciousness slipping away again. He forced himself not to panic this time, just watched.

Matt's breathing evened out again and his heartbeat slowed, but that was all. Neither stopped. His body temperature lowered but not dangerously. And when his eyes began to move strangely, rolling beneath his eyelids as his mind worked hard, Samandriel reached out and touched his mind.

It wasn't unlike the dreams that had fell upon him when he first entered Matt's body. Standing in the center of a large room with long lines of tables covered in equipment, dressed in a white labcoat that was too big for him, Matt fed his spiders and taught crickets how to sing a song about how they could be heroes, which didn't make any sense to Samandriel, since crickets couldn't sing, or be heroes.

When Matt turned, he saw Samandriel, which surprised him just as much here as it had in the church. "Wanna see my lightning bugs? They can change colors."

"What's school?"

"Um… calling it Hell probably isn't a good idea, since you're an angel, is it?"

"Hell isn't on Earth," Samandriel said. "It exists on a separate plane, like Heaven. So this school can't be Hell." He frowned, searching the connotations of the word. It was becoming clear to him that humans were not very literal. Matt, at least, seemed very prone to colloquialisms, exaggeration, and misnomers. Hell, however, was where humans who sinned too badly to be saved were taken for punishment, and that was concerning. "Is it a place of torture?"

"My English class sure is," he muttered, but Samandriel could sense the irritation there, not fear or pain. "It's a place where we kids go to learn."

"Oh!" Samandriel felt his grace thrum with pleasure. "Lessons!"

Matt laughed and it occurred to Samandriel that he could probably feel his pleasure. "You like school, then? Lessons, I mean."

"Very much. My older brother, Castiel. He is the one who taught me how to fly."

"You're… wait. You have brothers? You have other angel brothers. And sisters?"

"Lots of both. All angels are siblings."

The emotion he felt then from Matt didn't feel good. It was a twisting, dark feel that swirled in his chest like a greasy shadow. Samandriel shied away from it, curving his grace so it didn't touch the foul essence, his wings shuddering at his back.

The feeling gave way, then, not quite dissipating, but fading enough that he could sense the wishfulness beneath. He didn't understand until Matt's subdued voice said, "I don't have any siblings."

"Did you want some?"

His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "I don't know. I mean, my friends complain about their siblings a lot. Their big brothers are jerks or their little sisters are babies, but… they do stuff with them, too. They play games or just talk. They're friends." The wishfulness lingered even as the sadness took hold. Humans felt so much! "A brother would have come here with me, when we moved. Instead all my friends are back home and I'm here and I don't know anyone except my parents." He picked up his back-pack and slung it slowly over his shoulder. "I would have liked to have a brother or a sister, I think. Even if they were a jerk or a baby."

Samandriel didn't say anything for a while. He thought through what Matt had said as the boy left his house, climbing inside a great yellow transportation device he called a "bus." Samandriel murmured a quiet thank you as the boy whispered the word. Once he realized Samandriel didn't know what a lot of things were, he had started explaining them, or at least relaying the names. It was interesting and Samandriel took immense joy in learning all of it, but his mind was focused elsewhere at the moment.

They were pulling into the parking lot of a school before Samandriel spoke. Matt was sitting at the back of the bus, so he had to wait until everyone else got off before he could.

"Angels don't have physical forms, you know," he began slowly. "We have a True Form, made of grace, which is like your soul." He could sense Matt's attention and curiosity focused on his words, so he continued. "Your parents, of course, created your physical body with theirs."

"Ew, Samandriel!" Matt hissed. "That's gross!" A girl a few seats ahead of him turned around and gave him a confused look, but she hadn't actually heard his words, only that he had spoken, and was soon distracted by a friend. "I don't wanna think about my parents… making me."

"It's simply nature-"

"Dude. No. It's gross." He shuddered. "Skip that part, okay?"

His revulsion was clear, even if Samandriel didn't really understand it. The creation of a human form that permitted a soul to be placed inside was a wonderful gift. But he accepted that Matt had to interest in discussing that. He could ask why it was gross later.

"Your… physical form is human, but souls are… different." He decided to explain the lack of permanent link to species later. That wasn't pertinent. "Your body might have been created by… nature."

"Gross," Matt whispered.

"But your soul was created by my Father, the same as my grace. So… if you think about it… that makes us brothers."

Matt's school was amazing! Samandriel was only sad that this was his last day attending until after their Yule celebrations were finished. The teachers, Matt said, had given them quite a bit of homework over the holiday, but the final day of classes before break didn't have a great deal of learning from the majority of the classes. Some of them only had the students sit quietly or read, while others watched a movie, which was a story told on a screen with people acting it out. The one they watched in Math and Study Hall was about a mermaid who fell in love with a human. The colors were vibrant and unrealistic but that was easy to ignore because there was singing.

It was nothing like the singing in Heaven, spoken in Enochian and telling old, long-known tales, or whispering songs about learning or healing or lessons that needed remembered. Some of the songs were downright jaunty, done to a tune that was as jumpy as a lemur in a tree. Even after the movie ended, Samandriel found himself humming the songs. He would stop for a while, but then he would become distracted and find himself singing them, his grace humming along, wings twitching to the tune.

He could feel Matt's amusement burning bright in his soul, and in a moment between classes when they were walking through a crowded hall, the boy murmured, "Wait til we get home and I introduce you to my DVD collection."

Samandriel's favorite class was Science. It was amazing! Humans knew so much! The classroom was filled with pictures of planets named after the Roman gods. Samandriel had met Venus once. He thought her planet was lovely. It was no wonder they had named it after her.

There were also pictures of dinosaurs all along the walls near the ceiling. Samandriel could barely contain himself as Matt scanned the pictures so he could see them. There wasn't a sauroposeidon listed, though the apatosaurus was similar in physical shape, if smaller. The sight of the dorudon and tyrannosaurus rex was wonderful, however, and he gleefully told Matt about the time Castiel and Gabriel had taken each as a vessel.

And when Matt asked him what other animals he had taken as vessels throughout the years, Samandriel happily recalled his visits to Earth, listing them off. There was the fruit bat (Gabriel's creation) and the lemur (Raphael's), the penguin (which led to an explanation of exactly how terrifying leopard seals were), three different species of owls, the mongoose, a chameleon, komodo dragon, and a basilisk lizard (which meant he had to tell Matt about the time a bunch of his brothers had a contest to see who could run on water the furthest).

"Castiel won, of course. Gabriel said it was because of his grace. He connects with water creatures."

"What do you connect with?" Matt asked quietly.

"What was that, Mister Pike?" the teacher asked, and Matt cringed in his seat. His teacher raised an eyebrow. "Share with the class?"

Matt blushed warm and scarlet, but before he could say anything, Samandriel said, "Oh! Oh! Ask him why you humans haven't explored deeper into the oceans! You've gone into space!"

Matt could barely contain his laughter, but he managed to say with a mostly-straight face, "I was wondering why we haven't explored the oceans as much as we have space."

The teacher looked surprised. "An excellent question, Matthew. Much of it has to do with pressure."

By the time class was over, Samandriel's grace was practically vibrating in excitement, and the students were all very excited, because their teacher had taken the entire class period to explain the various reasons humans couldn't delve too deeply into the oceans, and no homework had been assigned. Matt got a few slaps to the back, which was apparently a physical way for humans to show their gratitude.

"What class is next?" Samandriel asked excitedly.

"That's it. Science is my last class for the day." He couldn't contain his groan of disappointment, but Matt just laughed. "How about… and my mom's gonna think I'm sick but, when we get home, I'll do my homework, and we can read the chapter in my science book about tornadoes."

"I've been inside a tornado before," Samandriel said excitedly. "I'm an element of Air."

"Well, maybe you can explain the weather to me, because I think it's just weird. Thunder's not really angels bowling in Heaven, right? Because if it is, I owe my gram an apology."

"What's bowling?"

"What are we watching?" Samandriel asked, as Matt placed the thin disk into a slot and let the draw slide closed.

"This is one of my favorite movies," he said, flopping down on the couch and picking up his drink. He called it a Coke. Samandriel liked the taste of it, sweet, and it bubbled hard on Matt's tongue, almost burning. The sensation of swallowing a mouthful of bubbles made Samandriel laugh. "I think you'll like it."

They turned their attention to the television as the movie began, playing in bright colors.

Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind.

Or forgotten.