Chapter Five: The Past

"I have been talking of the past (your past and mine) only in order that you may turn from it forever. One wrench and the tooth will be out. You can begin as if nothing had ever gone wrong." - C.S. Lewis

Jael is completely out of sorts. She has never taken a vessel, never confined herself to a human body. The Rit Zien's are known to be the smaller of the angels but what they lack in size, they make up for in power. Even though her vessel contains her well enough, she still feels constricted.

The worst part of fall, other than the broken wings, is listening to angel radio. So many of her brothers and sisters were injured, damaged and crying out in pain and confusion. She had been too wounded herself to go to any of their aid at first. Then when she was healed up, she had to track down as many Rit Zien's as she could find to prevent another incident like Ephraim's rampage from happening again. Add the finding of Addison Weaver and making an anchor out of her, Jael actually finds herself content to explore Addison's home.

Sam seemed curious about the missing photos in the living room and so Jael starts the search for them. Castiel and Dean were out talking to the community about Addison and any place she may be hiding. Sam is upstairs monitoring any and all financial data that might pop up. But Jael knows it's going to be a few days before anything solid to track comes their way. She followed Addison for two weeks, the girl is highly intelligent. Broken, but intelligent.

She finds a box of framed photos in the basement and since it is one of the few boxes without dust collecting on it, she assumes she's found the missing pictures. She carries the box up the stairs and sets it on the end of the table where Sam has set up his computer.

He stands up and stretches. "Did you find them?"

"I think so." She starts to take a few out of the box and set them on the table. "It looks like it's just of her parents and brother though. No other family members."

Sam flips through some that are still in the box. "It's worth a shot though. You mentioned something about picking her because of her bloodline. What bloodline is that exactly?"

Jael almost drops the picture she is holding. He doesn't know that Addison is related to him and Jael isn't sure how to go about telling him. Thankfully she's saved by Dean and Cas who return noisily through the front door and make a bee line for the kitchen. Sam's still waiting for an answer from her so she greets Dean and Cas instead.

"Did you find out anything?"

"You could say that." Dean pulls a couple of beers out of the refrigerator, hands one to Sam and opens his own. "Apparently, we have a sister."

Cas continues the explanation. "We met with a store owner who had hunter symbols on the door and he told us the whole story. There was a hunter who lived not that far from here, a Jennifer Palmer. She kept her lifestyle a secret from everyone, including her family. She came across a nest of vampires and needed some back up so she sent out a call which John Winchester answered."

"Good ole, Dad," Dean chimed in. "Nine months later, Addison Jean Palmer is born. Two months after that, Jennifer gets taken out by a vampire that survived the year before. But Jennifer had a sister, Cynthia Weaver, who had just had a kid of her own."

"Addison's 'twin' brother," Sam concludes.

Dean nods. "Yup. Cynthia and her husband raised the two of them together as if they were siblings so Addison wouldn't know what really happened to her parents."

Sam turns to Jael. "Is that why you didn't answer my question about what bloodline Addison is from? Because you already knew she was a Winchester."

"In my defense, I thought you and Dean were already aware of her relation to you."

"What made you think that?"

"You showed up. I thought you were coming to protect and collect her."

"And you would have just let us do that?" Dean asks. "Pack her up in the back of Impala and ride off into the sunset?"

"With my coming along to properly explain the matter and help her through this, yes." Dean openly scoffs and Jael looks to Sam. "Why wouldn't I do that?"

"Our interactions with angels usually don't go smoothly."

"Why am I not very surprised by that?"

"Any financial movement yet?" Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head. "No, not yet. My guess is they're either driving through the night or they paid cash somewhere. I don't know if we're going to find them this way. All the tricks we know about flying under the radar, Gadreel knows. If he wants to go underground, he very well could."

Dean sets his beer down on the kitchen counter. "Here's the real question of the day. Does Addison know who she really is?"

Jael shakes her head. "No, she doesn't. Which is imperative that we find her. If she finds out on her own, there's no telling how she is going to handle it."

"Well, if she is a Winchester," Castiel says, "she'll handle it just fine."

Sam raises his beer. "And it might be Gadreel's safety we need to be concerned about."

Jael hopes that the momentary good humor will last but not distract them from finding Addison. An angel anchor had never been made before and there were so many unknown factors concerning it. There are too many things that could go awry and Jael didn't want to a massacre on her record thanks to Addison being unable to control herself.

They are on the road before the sun has broken over the mountains. Addy barely slept through the night, her mind trying to process too many things. Angels, long lost brothers, staying on the run from those who want to kill her or use her. It makes her head hurt and her stomach knot. She needs to focus on something else, something mundane.

"So what did you do last night while I was sleeping?"

Gadreel glances over at her briefly. "I found a book in the dresser drawer and read the majority of it."

"You read a phone book?"

"No. The Bible."

Addy tries not to laugh. "Aren't you an angel? Don't you already know what's in there?"

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. "I was detained for most of the events found in that book."

"Detained? Doing what?" He doesn't answer her and Addy understands that detained wasn't used to mean busy but rather he was locked up. "I'm sorry, forget I asked."

They drive for almost two hours before Gadreel stops to refill the car. Addy gets out and goes into the small connivance store to stock up on snack food and other necessities. She sees postcards and touristy knick knacks that have "Yellowstone National Park" emblazoned on them. So they were heading west now. She goes outside to find he's parked the car in the corner of the lot and is sitting on the hood, looking at the scenery. She hands him one of the two cups of coffee she bought and joins him on the hood of the car.

"Welcome to Yellowstone National Park. Well, the outskirts of it anyway."

"The terrain in this country differs greatly depending on where you are."

"That's one nice thing about living in this particular part of the world. There are many different landscapes to choose from. Mountains, beach, plains. Hell, you can even live in a swamp if you want."

"And what landscape do you enjoy the most?"

Addy thinks about for it a moment. She has always loved the outdoors, the wildness of nature. It was difficult to choose. "There's this little town in California, not too far from San Francisco, called Olema. It's in an area where there are hiking trails through forests and you can see the rolling hills that are inland. But you can also drive half hour and be on the rocky coastal beaches. It's a little bit of everything and I like that. What about you?"

He shakes his head slightly. "It does not matter to me. I like open spaces. Whether they are filled with trees or mountains or nothing at all, I enjoy it all."

Addy keeps her mouth shut. She is dying to ask him about his past, what great crime he committed that sentenced him to be imprisoned. From his desire for open space, she can only imagine how long and terrible his imprisonment had to have been. It seems as though he picks up on her thoughts because when he speaks again, it takes her completely off guard.

"I allowed the Serpent into the Garden."

She can't figure out if it's code for something or if it's to be taken literally. "I don't quite understand. Are you talking about Eden?"

He's no longer staring out at the scene in front of them but rather directly into the cup of coffee. "I am. I let Lucifer into Eden."

"Why did you let him in?" Addy wraps her hands around her cup and keeps her tone as flat as possible so he won't think she is being accusatory. The distress in the line of his shoulders and tension in his jaw told her she was one of the very few people who have ever heard the story first hand. Quite possibly, she's the only one who has listened to it from start to finish.

"Lucifer had not rebelled yet, not completely. He told me that he had spoken to his Father, repented and asked for restoration. In order to attain it, he was to befriend the humans. Live among them for a period of time to show the change of his attitude towards humanity. I checked with other angels to confirm if it was true and they repeated back the same story as Lucifer had told me. I did not know that their loyalty was to Lucifer already."

"So you let him in."

He grimaces. "I did more than that. I showed him the entire Garden. I showed him the trees and the flowers and the animals. And then, I took him to the humans and left him there. I thought…"

"You were putting the family back together. And they locked you up for that?" If that was true, then he had been locked up for more time than Addy cares to count.

"I destroyed humanity."

Addy feels tears pricking the back of her eyes. He sounded completely despondent as if he were the one who set out to destroy Paradise. "You offered your help to restore a fellow angel. It's not your fault he lied to you."

"I believed him."

"So did Eve. So have a lot of people. You may have been the first one Lucifer lied to but you certainly aren't the last."

He looks close to tears himself but they're held at bay from sheer confusion. "My mistake destroyed the world. How can you not be angry with me? Everything that is wrong with the world, the war, death, illness, that is because of what I have done."

And in that moment, Addy realizes she is looking at herself. The car accident that took her family happened on the way back from a celebratory dinner for her acceptance into graduate school. If she hadn't asked to go, her family would still be here. But she didn't know that was going to happen, just as he didn't know what Lucifer was planning. They were different sides of the same coin. Perhaps that is why they survived their ordeals, to help each other. He promised to protect her and she will remind him daily that mistakes can be forgiven.

"Look out there. Look at the mountains and the meadows. There's probably wildlife we can't even see roaming around down there. Does that look like a destroyed world to you? Look at those people over there, buying gas, getting coffee and going about their day. They look relatively happy, don't they? Sure, there's pain and suffering in the world but it would have happened sooner or later. If Eve hadn't taken the fruit, one of her descendants certainly would have and we would still be sitting here on the hood of this car having this same discussion."

"It was not my intention to upset you."

Addy wonders what he means but realizes that she is crying quite steadily. She hastily wipes at her face and jumps down on the hood of the car. "Give me the keys."

"What?"

"The keys, give them to me."

He looks resigned as he hands her the plain metal ring with just two keys on it. Addy throws her coffee cup out in the dumpster beside the building before getting into the driver's seat. She adjusts the seat and looks up to see Gadreel is still standing outside the car, still under the belief that she is leaving him behind. She rolls the window down and shouts to him.

"Are you getting in or what?"

He lurches forward and gets in the passenger side. "I do not understand."

"We need a day to regroup, reassess things. We need a day to relax." Addy puts the car into gear and pulls out of the gas station. "We're going to spend the day in Yellowstone. We're not going to be a scared angel anchor whose life just got tipped on its head or the angel who broke the world. Not today."

"Then what are we going to be?"

Addy rolled his window down as well and turned on the radio, cranking up the volume. "We're taking one day to be happy and enjoy ourselves. I think we deserve that. Besides, if Sam and Dean are tracking us, they're going to expect us to run as far away as possible. Putting on the brakes and blending in with some tourists might shake them."

"You are not angry with me?"

It breaks her heart to hear the disbelief in his voice. That he's surprised she didn't leave him behind in a fit of disgust and rage. She swallows her tears and watches for the signs for the park. "Of course I'm not angry with you."

He's quiet for a few moments before he reaches for the map in the back seat. "This Olema you spoke of. I would like to see it."

Addy smiles for the first time in what feels like forever. "I would like to show it to you."