A/N: Many thanks for all of the reviews and more importantly, for your patience! There'll probably be two or three more chapters after this one, I'm not entirely sure. Please be sure to take a glance at the note at the end and as usual, enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me

The blade flashed ominously, cutting through the bonds of hydrogen and oxygen molecules as it swept through the air in a wide arc and cut through the celestial being's throat, unraveling wide ribbons of grace and unspooling the threads that wove together an angel of the Lord and he faltered, falling from the heights and plummeting to the Earth below. Glorious, outstretched wings burned away, scorching ashes into the depths of the ocean floor as the creature sunk into the watery darkness, not dead because he had never really been alive, but simply no longer a part of this world; nonexistent.

Crimson beads slipped off the edge of the victor's blade, the lifeblood of his comrade in arms, his kin – and yet the lesser angel did not spare his brother another glance as he struggled against the remaining four members of the Host who sought to bring him to the same end, fighting as fiercely as he could. They were more radiant than the Sun, filled with the holy righteousness of Heaven's will; their faces blazed like burnished bronze and their eyes were rods of lightening, striking outwards in sizzling electric energy and more fearsome than beautiful, but beautiful all the same.

In comparison, Castiel knew he held no such light anymore, having already forsaken his Home for his charge and for his Father's Creation, for humanity and the Earth. His vessel's trench coat was a rag compared to the gleaming white robes and silver breastplates of the others; his eyes were but marbles sitting at the bottom of a muddy pond, and even his grace faded several shades paler than any son of sanctified fire. He had never been exceptionally strong or powerful before, and here, as deft movements heavy with judgment surrounded him, it was more evident than ever as the angels attacked fearlessly, emotionless and merciless.

But Castiel's one boon was one that no being could deny: it was his speed that he was lauded for, the speed that he now used to his advantage as he wove an intricate pattern in and out of clashing wings and striking swords that sent down showers of sparks mankind below would see as a surprise meteor shower unpredicted by meteorologists across the globe who would gasp in awe while simultaneously scratching their heads in wonder-

A blade pierced through his vessel's skin, slicing past muscle and skewering a lung before striking the hardness of vertebrae and Castiel cried out, feeling the edges of the sword morph while buried deep within his vessel's flesh, rearranging and jutting out at all different angles to cause maximum damage as it scraped dangerously against the fluttering of his grace. Wrenching away painfully he fled, flying as fast as he could, wings beating furiously against the air currents as he hurtled downwards and then pulled up sharply, sweeping over forests and through rice fields, reaching out unseeingly with his hands as he streaked through thirty countries and across an ocean, never slowing and nearly blinded by the pain that clouded his consciousness – until he collapsed from exhaustion, plummeting headfirst into a muddy ditch.

They were following close behind, of course. It was no easy task to hide from the Host of Heaven when one was an angel, and a rebellious outcast to boot.

Fingers clawed in the mud and the mire, but it was no use, for his vessel was already wounded and his wings twitched in vain. He was not as strong as he used to be – and so Castiel wrapped the trench coat tightly around his vessel's form and his wings tighter still around the flaming orb of his grace nestled deep within, dampening its glow in a pathetic attempt to hide from those who hunted him.

He knew not how long he huddled there, trying to seal the edges of the gaping wound and piecing back together the ravaged internal organs inside his vessel's skin, counting the beats of his borrowed heart when suddenly there was a gentle touch on his wing, a caress that instantly cooled and soothed the overheated feathers.

It was an instantaneous reaction – he jerked away, lifting the sword and preparing to beat a hasty retreat if necessary. When no further movement came, he raised his head to stare wearily at the little girl who stood beside him; all white ruffled taffeta dress and pigtails complimenting features that desperately needed growing into to even be considered cute – but her large brown eyes were dark and kind but immeasurably old, exuding something familiar from the very core of her being although it was a presence Castiel had not felt in countless eons. "Sister?" He whispered, reaching out a hand reddened with blood and smeared with dirt, his voice but a mere croak. "Ramiel?"

She slipped her small soft hand into his, melting away the mud as soon as they touched the skin of the other's vessel. "Castiel," she breathed, the voice that Heaven had not heard after being silenced by hellfire, the voice that sang to the newly created souls as they first emerged from beyond the gulf of darkness and into existence. The angel of joy reached out with her vessel's other hand and cupped the back of her little brother's head, gently bringing his head forward as she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his forehead in an act of startling intimacy that burned with trust and healing-

-and they burned, twin brands of unconditional love so pure that it hurt, scorching through the skin and fragility of human flesh to seal and mend, rejoining neurons and patching the ragged gaps in cerebral tissue, replenishing glial cells and relubricating the fatty acid walls of each individual myelin sheath. Flashes of fragments of thought melded together with networks of axons, dendrites that carried electro-chemical signals and it all came rushing back like a flood trying to enter a sieve, clenching and unwinding at speeds unknown and he shook because it was simply too much after losing it to the demon's torture.

"Can't you go any faster?!"

"We're going a hundred and fifteen down the interstate; we're lucky we haven't been pulled over yet!"

The ability to conduct rational, higher thinking processes and to hold control over his own movements struck each other and then fizzled in spits and sparks, peeling apart in mica-thin coats and splitting right down the middle. His limbs contorted, muscles contracting involuntarily and the violent force struck at him from all sides like waves, crashing in upon each other and upon him, threatening to drag him under.

"-not gonna make it back to the motel, that's still almost an hour away-"

"-have to take him somewhere where they can get rid of-"

Voices floated around him and he tried to reach for them, tried to find an anchor with which he could pull himself up but his grasping fingers caught at nothing but air; darkness weighed heavy all around him. His mind was clearing now though, transcending the realm where only the dead of soul tread and crossing over a flow of grainy imagination trickling memories and nightmares in the same river, breaching into a certain, distinct and yet unnamable sharpness.

"Cas, hold on, you hear me? Hold on."

A touch on his shoulder and he scrabbled for it, seeking leverage in the warm, solid weight but it did not come. The human body is an intricate network of systems all attempting to work in tandem with one another – motor functions, consciousness, the central nervous system snapping into place in the alignment of the brain-spine-nerves centralizing upon the concrete feel and narrowing down to the plane of his back, honing in intently, with purpose.

Until it exploded.

"CHRIST Almighty- Sam, pull over!"

He made a wild grab for Castiel's floundering arms, narrowly missing getting clipped on the chin by the flailing limbs and hardly noticing the groan of rubber stripping against the tarmac as the Impala screeched to a stop on the side of the interstate. All he could hear were the wheezing croaks escaping the angel's throat, the type of sobbing, ragged breaths formed in the gut and swelled in the chest, bursting out in wild and unashamed heaves; the sound of agony stripped bare and shit, Cas was burning up-

Sam propelled himself around the front of the Impala, fingers slipping slightly on the handle before finding a hold and wrenching the car door open with so much strength that it creaked in protest. His brother had both hands on Castiel's shoulders, trying to hold him down as the angel bucked upwards, arms pushing weakly at Dean's chest while his upper body jerked in sharp, desperate movements, twisting and turning as if he was lying with his back pressed against a bed of hot coals.

It sure as hell didn't look like a seizure, but Sam's mind kicked into overdrive, modifying the situation to be of assistance and so he restrained Castiel's legs – which were actually quite still compared to the rest of him – and tried not to look at the way purple-black irises that should have been a clear sapphire blue stared blindly upwards at absolutely nothing, tried not to listen to the rattle of ancient languages older than dust falling in gasps and choked, unintelligible pleas from the mouth of an angel's whose voice had once been powerful enough to shatter glass and eardrum alike.

"Oh, fuck."

He looked up and saw Dean's eyes widen with the sudden realization that came with getting conked over the head by a two-by-four or maybe the whole freakin' forest and the elder Winchester's hands flew away as if scalded with boiling oil, curses rolling off his tongue as fluidly as any other native language. Uncomprehendingly, Sam stared as his brother moved to quickly flip Castiel over so that he lay on his stomach, head lolling limply over the edge of the seat as he shuddered, not so much going still as he lay boneless and exhausted against the leather interior, ragged rasping unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.

Sam found his voice. "Dean, what the hell-"

Hazel green eyes were squeezed tight; his Adam's apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow and Dean shook his head once, exhaling shakily instead of answering. A speeding driver honked his horn obnoxiously at the Impala and its occupants, gracing them all with a nasty expletive and the bird, but the elder Winchester either didn't hear, or really didn't give a damn at this point in time. In the two-second window of the passing moron's headlights, Sam swore he could see moisture at the corner of his brother's eyes, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest.

Dean pointed wordlessly, like the act of speaking was too difficult to even attempt and Sam glanced downwards to the oversized shirt – white, of course; everything about Castiel had always been too pure or too alien to be contaminated with color and indications of humanity – that had ridden up a bit in the struggle. Castiel's vessel was a pretty slight guy, and Sam felt unnaturally awkward and clumsy as he reached out and gently lifted the edge of –

"Oh, God."

God's left the building, the little voice in the back of Dean's head said smarmily in a singsong tone, and the hunter had to resist the urge to materialize a harp to mentally chuck at the Zachariah-shaped nuisance as he too stared at the ugly tie-dye of purples on tops of blacks and blues signifying deep tissue damage that covered the entire length of Castiel's back, but it was more than mere contusions or hematoma. Both Winchesters could see the angry welts that seemed to lie beneath the skin, red and inflamed and spanning from hip to neck, bleeding out under the flesh in a way that no strip of gauze would ever staunch, and no surgery would be able to fix, much less the clumsy and calloused hands of a man who once inflicted torture such as this upon the souls of others.

Castiel moaned suddenly, shivering despite the unholy heat radiating from his skin and Dean's hand moved on its own accord, instantly descending to his friend's neck and resting there, fingers finding the pulse that was too jumpy and thready to be healthy under any circumstances. Please, he begged silently, not knowing who could or even cared enough to hear, praying that he wouldn't have yet another friend's blood on his hands. Not again. Please.

Deep within his own mind, Heaven's renegade soldier too prayed, but it was a wretched supplication of a different kind; he felt tattered and ashen wings holding him close and cried out for Ramiel, sister, my sister.

She had no name.

The forms identified her as Jane Doe, which was unfitting to say the least, given that Jane Doe was hardly an adequate definition for anyone still alive and breathing. It wasn't even a proper name for those lying downstairs on cold metal trays with tags tied around their big toes or those cold cases that reached backwards ten, twenty, thirty years back into the past, much less a little girl lying unmoving and unconscious in the huge hospital bed, paler than the sheets and stiller than Death itself (not that any of them knew Azrael or the Fourth Horseman on a first name basis, anyway).

She was an odd case, this little girl. The EMTs had already given her a once over and proclaimed her hale and hearty in the ambulance, but they'd brought her to the hospital because she simply wouldn't wake up. CAT scans and MRIs revealed the diagnosis to be the same as the prognosis because there was nothing wrong with her – not physically, at least. Child services had been contacted but they could find nothing about the girl as to what her name was, where she was from, or if she had any family. Missing persons and digging through all the sadly countless lists of Amber Alerts had turned up nada, zilch, nothing, and given that she had no known family to contact, the staff at Kindred Memorial Medical Center had no idea what to do with her.

And of course, there was the conundrum of why in the world she'd been in Prowers County Psychiatric Ward in the first place. So far, no one had been able to answer that one, given that the mental asylum's patients were all well out of childhood, the youngest one being twenty-four years old. So where did this white-robed comatose little angel come from?

Most curious of all though, was the single most puzzling factor that any physician had seen in all his or her years of practice – that of the little girl's right hand, which was clenched into a fist tight enough to emulate the state of rigor mortis. Diagnosticians had been consulted, chiropractors called in, and pediatricians all gathered around the patient's bed to stare, dumbstruck at the little fingers closed so firmly that, short of breaking bones, that was no way to loosen her clutch. All of them were unable to provide any even slightly credible reason for this. They all saw the leather cord that didn't fit entirely into her small palm, but no one could remove it from the unconscious child's grasp. One nurse had already tried to do so, an action that resulted in a drastic and alarming drop of the girl's blood pressure, a spike in the heart rate that nearly reached tachycardia (although those two combined pretty much flew in the face of practically everything known about the anatomy of the human heart) and triggered terrifying amounts of bleeding from behind her closed eyes.

Needless to say, no one tried to attempt that again. What kind of trinket was so precious to this unnamed, unclaimed child that she involuntarily defended it from strangers with bloody tears?

"Dr. Abunasser, please report to the third floor; Dr. Nisrine Abunasser, please report to the nurse's station on the third floor."

The woman sighed, flicking a quick glance at the silver watch encircling a dark and slender wrist as the elevator doors slid open up onto the Pediatrics Ward, giving little Johnny Walker a kind smile as his nurse wheeled his chair into the lift. Henry over in the Oncology department was only giving the young patient six more months to live, and the rounds of chemotherapy took so much out of the ten year old that it was painful to witness; she dropped a hand onto the boy's shoulder and squeezed gently, reassuringly before stepping out with a click of high-heeled pumps against linoleum.

Dr. Nisrine Abunasser was a lucky woman in many ways: she was blessed with comely features, a sharp wit and even sharper mind, the patience and tenderness needed to work children on a day to day basis, and the staunch determination and courage to continue on even when those under her care passed away, something very few even in the same line of work possessed. Many children cycled in and out of Kindred Memorial Pediatric Ward for a wide array of reasons and illnesses, but one common denominator among them all was being graced with the pretty Dr. Nisrine's smile day in and day out, a flash of straight, white teeth set against mocha brown skin communicating warmth and encouragement.

The smile was somewhat wan now though, because talk about one shitty day. You know, those days that are defined by Murphy's Law when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, some idiot spills coffee over you as he crashed into you on his stupid skateboard, when three of your interns show up with hangovers and you nearly lose a child to some stupid mistake and half a milligram too much of medication – honestly, what did they think this was, Grey's Anatomy? Seriously? Then the cherry on top of it all was getting summoned to the office of the Dean of Medicine and receiving the news that as the Head of the Pediatrics Department, budget cuts meant that you had to pick five of your hardworking subordinates to let go.

Nisrine glanced down at her white blouse and rubbed at the large brown stain as she walked down the hallway, attempting to adjust her lab coat over it, irritated. Lovely. She was raised to be genteel and forgiving, to let bygones be bygones – but she was going to hunt that little skater punk down and have him foot the stupid dry cleaners bill, because getting coffee stains out of silk wasn't going to be easy. She loved her job, but there was only so much a woman could take in a single day and given that it was already half past midnight, there was no good reason why she shouldn't be at home right now, curled up in bed with a glass of Pinot noir rogue – "Well, I'm here. What is it, Suzanne?"

The nurse on the graveyard shift waved a hand down along the other side of the hallway; she couldn't be bothered to look up from her trashy romance paperback. "It's our resident Jane Doe, Dr. Abunasser. She has a visitor; said he was her brother." Suzanne peeked up suddenly from behind the well-worn pages of Dark Desires after Dusk, eyes bright with interest. "He's pretty cute you know, in a rugged outdoorsy type way. I think he might've been in the military or something at one point. "

"That's nice. Did he have ID?"

"Hmm?" Suzanne tilted her head in thought. "Yes. Um…I think so." Her eyebrows drew close together in the frown of someone who knew they had some important piece of information to divulge but had forgotten. Or perhaps whose mind now bore the fingerprints of one who had the power to both take and supply information to the fragile and easily manipulated infrastructure of the human brain. "I'm pretty sure he did. He said he wouldn't take long."

"I see." The doctor pursed her lips. She briefly considered asking why it had been necessary to call her then, but chose instead to turn on her heel and move along down the corridor, heading toward Jane Doe's private room. If the little girl's elder sibling was here (and gathering from Suzanne's brief description of this individual, Nisrine gathered he was of legal age), then it would only be proper to inform him of the patient's odd situation and perhaps receive authorization or some sort of verification on what could be done next. But how do you explain to a brother that his little sister is more or less in what amounts to midway between a coma and a vegetative state?

Besides, there was also the difficulty of having to tell him that no physician knew what was physically wrong with the girl. Nisrine had dealt with more than her fair share of anxious, confused parents and guardians in her years as a practicing physician and the second thing they always wanted to know after whether or not their baby was going to make it was what was wrong. As if they could fix the situation with tears and distress, or pacing endlessly and yelling at the physicians and nurses who were trying to save their child's life in between sobs.

She stopped outside the door, silently and respectfully waiting for the proper moment to enter, watching through the glass observation panels. Suzanne was right, there was a definite fetching quality about the man standing by the patient's beside, a down-to-earth appeal in the jeans and corduroy jacket – and yet Nisrine could not find it within herself to feel any sense of attraction. Not when he was laying his hand gently on his sister's head, shoulders slumping and chest heaving in a desolate sigh, not when a tanned and work-calloused hand reached out for the little girl's clenched hand, brushing against the fist-

-and the small fingers fell open immediately, revealing a small trinket that glinted gold in the darkness of the room.

What in the name of- Her own fingers were closing around the door handle, pushing inwards with one sharp movement, because since she had no kids to call her own, these children were precious to her and as the Head of Pediatrics, she would be damned if anything happened to them while she just stood there. But the door shifted no further than an inch at most, and Nisrine Abunasser would never be able to explain what she saw next.

The man raised a hand over the little girl's still figure, moving his fingers about and drawing water from the very air around them, twisting and melding vapor and invisible moisture in a complicated sigil above the entire hospital bed, a measure of safeguard more permanent than any security system or IDs or drawn protective spell. The lights in the entire hallway flickered once, twice; lightening flashed through the night sky (or was it just in her mind?) and she saw them then, she saw not two but fifty, a hundred, six hundred…

"…and then the Messenger of Allah saw the Herald in his true form. He had six hundred wings, each of which covered the horizon. There fell from his wings jewels, pearls and rubies, only Allah knows about them."

"Jibral," Nisrine gasped aloud, knees buckling at the sight of the God's Herald, his archangel of revelation and Messenger to the Nations, authority over the waters of the Earth, peace be upon him. He turned toward her, eyes of silver catching dark brown, a pillar of white fire and holiness that hurt to behold – and then she was falling, falling into a spiral of shadow that stole memories and replaced them with dreams of a Righteous Man and of angels and demons, of tears and screams and a world perishing in hellfire and destruction, falling down around the ears of all men, everywhere.

The world is ablaze with the sanctified fire of Heaven, wrath poured out of golden bowls and resounding from trumpets fashioned from the breath of the soldiers of the Lord, spilling out magma and white fire into those below. The Sun burned and bubble and boiled, exploding in waves of ultraviolet light and scorching the surface of the Earth, leaving behind nothing but is wake; ash and soot surrounded his form as he threw his head back and howled at the red sky, screaming, screaming, screaming for FATHER, ABBA, FATHER.

"SHIT! Sammy, come help-"

See, the Lord is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

"-we've gotta get some liquids, maybe antibiotics-"

For with fire and with his sword the Lord will execute his judgment upon all men.

"Cas listen to me, listen to me; you've got to calm down – it's not real, it's not real!"

Heat surrounded him like fetters, binding him to his corporeal frame as his soul thinned out, stretched too much and too far, having undergone too much toil and the pain – it was the pain that penetrated through everything, reminding him that he was still human, only human, just a human now. Vaguely, he could feel himself disconnecting from everything, cell by cell and particle by particle, scattering across the universe because pain was all he knew as a human and he saw and felt nothing but pain here so what was so worth saving?

Thunder rolled across the landscape, the fist of an angry God – or was it merely the sons and daughters of light, raging across the firmament as they tore it apart, trying to find Michael's vessel and not one, but two rebellious disobedient-wayward-disgraceful blasphemies to strike down and destroy, no matter at what cost.

"Go get more ice-"

Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.

"-can't stay here, people are already complaining about screaming-"

As a fire consumes the forest or a flame sets the mountains ablaze, so pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm.

"We can't move him anywhere like this-"

He hurtled through time and space, reaching out blindly with groping fingers and searching hands because he cannot see anything, cannot stretch out with the grace he'd kept at the core of his being since his creation, seeking a way out of this unnamed, foreign labyrinth created by the weakness of soul and fragility of the human body, seeing with no sight and feeling that which he wasn't sure had ever happened or was even real.

The young fledgling burrowed tight in the archangel's grace and Gabriel wrapped his wings tightly around the little brother he loved so, whispering the lesser angel's name over and over again: CastielCastielCastiel-

Heaven's mission was to rescue the soul of the Righteous man so he looked neither right nor left as he shot through the fires of Hell, streaking past fallen angel twisted demon, climbing over the bodies of his slain kin with nary a wayward thought besides the purpose as he neared the flaming purity amongst a sea of evil because he was Castiel, the angel of Thursday and loyal soldier of the Lord, for His will and His way.

"You spineless, soulless son of a bitch."

Dean was an unbearable, crass, stubborn, disobedient man and Castiel was – he was – the angel of the Lord was frustrated at his charge's lack of foresight, at his inability to take into consideration that there was more in the world than his own happiness and comfort. The sarcasm and derision Castiel had endured and taken in stride because he was patient and understanding and a silent warrior of righteousness. He could accept the other's disbelief because man was of little faith and disbelief was commonplace among their feeble-minded kind. But what he would not accept was Dean's ridicule of Heaven's plan and all that his brothers and sisters were trying to do in stopping Lucifer; he would not take another word of derision out of the mouth of this insufferable man who tried to deny the existence of his Father.

And that was all Dean Winchester was, a ragged hole of an ungrateful mess Castiel had taken care to piece back together himself even after Raphael had restored the hunter's soul, that was all he was ever going to be: a mere man. The man Castiel had pulled out of Hell bucking and screaming and clawing at the angel's wings screaming no, no, no, put me back where I fucking deserve to rot; I'm not worthy, I'm a monster – I'm DEAD-

Castiel had dragged this wretched sinner out of Hell, and he could throw him back him.

"What do you care about dying, the Cas I thought I knew is already dead – we're done."

It weighed heavily on his tongue although he had said not a word, staying silent because they were welling up in him anyway; his vessel's throat was closing up like a dying man's, coated with the implications of the act instead of blood bubbling out of collapsed lungs and holes where flesh should've been. His skin and flesh was unmarred except for where he had dragged the blade deliberately across the skin, and the acrid bite in his mouth was not the copper of blood; that was dripping from his fingers and slowly down the white plaster of the wall as he drew the sigil and gave up himself for the sake of the wretched sinner, for his charge, for the Righteous Man.

And disobedience was the pain of torn wings, the howl ripped from his chest as Raphael's hand descended to strike and burn and destroy; disobedience was the name of the bittersweet taste of breath and life stripped away as the archangel incinerated his grace into oblivion and Cas willingly sacrificed all of himself, losing everything.

"Don't you dare die on me, you son of a bitch!"

That voice, that voice – he knew it. If there was nothing else in the world he knew right now, he knew this… Dean.

Dean.

He stood in the chill air of a place that did not exist, somewhere between reality and imagination, actuality and illusion, real and unreal. There was nothing here; the cold wind whipped at him and tried to propel him either one way or another, because no one was meant to be here, no one was supposed to be here. The differentiation was important, because all too often there were those who misconstrued what was meant to be with what was merely assumed to be on the basis of evidence without proof or knowledge.

Neither living nor the dead, neither demon nor angel, man or woman – and certainly not the mighty messenger of the Lord, whose purpose was defined in his title, his name, who he is and who he was created to be. He was a ribbon of unwinding light, the word to mankind and to the soldiers of Heaven; he was a never-ending sentence crawling on through all of eternity, sometimes dry and sometimes monumental, filled with ellipses to break up the stillness when there was silence from the throne of YAHWEH Lord God Almighty.

But there had been silence for a while now and the pencil hovered hesitantly over the page, the herald's breath catches in his throat; was this where the period was placed? Were all things truly now at an end? It should have been a time of great celebration, of rapture, of the blowing of the trumpet and clashing of the symbol as the Earth was made purified and all things were made new – and yet there was nothing, and he realized that he was tired. He had seen much, spoken much, delivered much – and now, the steadfast soldier found that his soul was weary. Were all things truly meant to come to this? To have broke strike down brother, abandoning ties of family, of love, of soul – was – is this a part of the plan of the all-merciful Father?

God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.

He'd been the thick strokes of ink upon parchment and tiny perfect script in a discrete and careful hand, arching up over the bow and swooping down to make the next character; he'd been Times New Roman marching up and down and across a page. They were not his words, they were him, for he was the message and that was his function, his purpose. He was a mouthpiece, a scroll of words, dear woman, be not afraid for I bring good news of great joy and that was all.

But how long before the messenger fell silent, before the message lost meaning?

"The Lord shalt always guide thee, Castiel. Nothing shall ever distance ye from the grace of our Father, nor from my love, little brother."

Gabriel turned and faced the trickle of water seeping out of a crack in the sky from the east, a mere droplet compared to the deluge being kept at bay behind the floodgates; he closed his vessel's eyes but could still see within, and his soul stretched in anguish, for was this the will of the Lord? To bestow upon his servant a little brother that the archangel took under his own wing when he was but a fledgling, whom Gabriel had come to love only a little less than God and Master of all, and then to take him away?

Castiel's gaze was one of adoration as the lesser angel followed him around, reaching out to grasp a handful of feathers and tugging gently, please brother, until Gabriel gave in and scooped up the fledgling in his arms, his fledgling; the angel of Thursday had no time now for such frivolities, he trained and fought and did battle and Gabriel missed the days of innocence from young Castiel; his little brother fell into the fires of hell as but one blazing star among the multitude but brighter still to the archangel's soul, burning burning burning with unquenchable duty and love that Belial's evil had not managed to steal-

Was Castiel simply yet another message for the Herald archangel? And for what purpose? Gabriel had never before questioned any of his orders or pushed against any of Heaven's authority, he had never before broken his word. But as he fell silent and no message curdled in the air, Castiel's cry for him, for Gabriel, brother Gabriel struck his soul and the messenger raised his face to the immutable grey sky and wept, golden amulet clutched to his chest.

A/N: I'm sorry for this sub par chapter, midterms crept up on me before I realized it, and that among other things like currently attempting to balance out some personal matters made for one very stylistically awkward chapter. But that's not the important part.

In a review, a reader asked if it was possible to offer up suggestions for what to right and then expressed hesitation for fear of having offended me. I would just like to say that short of completely bashing anything and everything I've written, it is highly unlikely I would take offense to anything. I write partially for my own enjoyment but also partially for all of you dedicated readers, and I love your reviews and your input, your criticisms and suggestions. Please don't feel shy when reviewing and after I pull myself together, I would most definitely love to take any ideas or requests, just supply me with the prompt and details and I'll still what I can do; until the next chapter then, please drop a review!

Scripture used in this chapter: Hadith 4:54-55 (from the Koran), Isaiah 66:15-16, Psalm 83:13-15, Job 37:5