Beyond Redemption

Michael's eyes widened in shock and disbelief as Gabriel's blade pierced his chest. His brother's nose was a mere inch from his own and the expression in the dark eyes before him was one of anguish and regret.

"I'm sorry that's it's come to this, Michael," Gabriel said, his face sombre, "I didn't want this...but I don't have a choice..."

"Wh..." Michael breathed as he looked down. That was his worst mistake.

With the full realisation of what had happened, the pain hit him full force and he could only emit small whimpers and shallow breaths as his own blades dropped from his unresponsive hands. They smacked onto the sand on which they stood and the sound was more deafening than the roar of the ocean across from them. Even the blistering heat of the mid-morning sun wasn't enough to distract from the all-encompassing agony he felt.

"I'm so sorry, brother," Gabriel repeated, "Please...forgive me," he whispered and quickly pulled out his sword from his brother's torso.

"G...Ga...briel...wh..." Michael breathed, falling to the ground now that there was nothing to hold him up.

"When father returns...you'll see that I was right," his brother said with a stray tear falling from his eye, "I'm sorry, Michael."

Michael brought a hand to cover the wound that lay right above his heart and he could feel his blood pouring out. A wound to the heart was fatal even for Archangels. His brother meant to kill him, and he had. He watched as his brother knelt down beside him, placed a gentle hand beneath his neck and kissed his forehead before standing back up.

Gabriel elegantly waved his sword in the air to remove the blood and he sheathed it before he took off into the sky, taking one last look at his dying brother as he disappeared.

"Where is he?!" Alex frowned as Noma flew them both thought the sky.

"Will you stop squirming?" she sighed again. "I don't know how Michael manages to fly you anywhere, you're so damn heavy and you move too much. It's not easy flying a grown man a thousand feet in the air, you know. You could be making this easier for me, but oh, no. Heaven forbid something be easy for the Chosen One," she rolled her eyes.

Alex only glared at her for a moment before he went back to searching the land beneath them for any signs of the Archangel. "He's gonna get himself killed," he muttered.

"Michael can take care of himself, Alex."

"Not against Gabriel, he can't. He won't fight him, you know that," Alex replied sadly.

"Let's hope we find Michael before he does, then," Noma answered heavily.

They both knew that Michael had made it clear that he didn't want to fight his brother since their last encounter. They'd discovered that his sister Uriel had lied to both of her brothers and though that day had proved that Gabriel cared for Michael, it had only served, in the end, to show just how much he believed in his crusade against humanity. And his willingness to fight his brother when all was said and done.

"There!" Alex called out over the wind soon after, pointing down at the darkly clothed figure against the golden sand. From such a distance they couldn't yet discern why the Archangel wasn't moving, but as Noma swooped in closer, the growing red stain beneath him made it clear enough. "Oh god," Alex breathed, "Hurry up!"

Noma landed quickly and Alex all but fell to the ground, scrambling to kneel beside the wounded Archangel. He quickly assessed the gaping hole in Michael's chest and saw that the angel was unconscious, his face contorted in pain and his breathing weak.

"Michael...Michael, look at me!" he yelled, moving to alloy pressure to the wound. It was enough to elicit a hiss of disapproval from the Archangel and he tried to move away. He forced open his eyes and found a blurry Alex kneeling beside him, propping up his head with a hand over the bleeding wound. He tried to speak but found it all but impossible, what he did manage to mutter wasn't very intelligible to their ears at all.

"Do something!" Alex turned to Noma.

She was already tearing off a feather from her wing and held out her hand to him, "Give me your lighter," she demanded.

"What?"

"Your lighter, give it to me! Hurry!" He did as she said and watched as Noma burned the tip of her feather and held it over Michael's wound.

"What are you doing?" he shook his head, confused.

"This worked before," she said simply, "It'll heal him." *1

"Nothing's happening!" Alex snapped quickly.

"Give it time," she replied.

"We don't have time."

"It'll work...it has to," she muttered but furrowed her brow when nothing happened. "...Why isn't it..." Noma looked down at the wound which wasn't healing, "I don't...

"S...stop..." Michael breathed, "...Won't...w...work..." he told her.

"What? Why...oh," she let out a shaky breath and moved aside, dropping the feather and lighter.

"Whoa, wait, what are you doing?!" Alex demanded.

"It won't work, Alex, the blade pieced his heart...even the oil can't fix it," she closed her eyes in realisation, "There's nothing we can do."

"No!" he shook his head and looked down at Michael, "There has to be something...you can't just die!"

The Archangel gave a shaky, sardonic smile before it morphed into a painful cough and grimace, "...A…Alex..." he muttered.

"What? Michael, tell me how to save you! Tell me!"

"...Y...ou...you...can't..." Michael clumsily moved one of his blood stained hands and placed it atop Alex's which covered his wound, "...I...I'm...s...sorry..." he spluttered, "S...sorry..."

"What?!" Alex exclaimed, "Don't..."

"Stop...my...b...brother..." Michael said, before closing his eyes, his head lolling back against Alex's knees.

"No! Michael!" he shook the angel, trying to wake him again but it was to no avail. Michael had stopped breathing.

Noma's tears fell freely for her fallen General and she lightly placed her arms around Alex, gently prying him from Michael's body. "Alex...he's gone..." she whispered as they wept.

"...No...Michael can't just...die," he said.

"...Yes...he can..." she replied sadly.

"No!" he yelled, pushing her away, "I never asked for any of this! I didn't want this!" he cried, pulling back his sleeves and glaring down at the tattoos, "It's all my fault! These marks have brought nothing but pain and death!"

"Alex," Noma pleaded, watching as he began starching at the black markings as well as tying to rid his hands of Michael's blood.

"Why won't it go away?!" he cried, rubbing frantically at the marks.

"Alex...please," she begged again, trying to calm him but he ignored her.

He suddenly stopped his frantic movements when the tattoos began to worm around his wrist, spinning on his skin elegantly while at the same time, emitting a faint golden light.

"Wha..." he muttered to himself. He examined his hands before him and they both saw that the light was becoming stronger and that it seemed drawn to Michael's body. As the gold light shone, Alex found himself suddenly assaulted by memories from the past, memories not his own.

"He likes you," Jeep remarked, watching as his infant son slept against the wings of an Archangel. Both he and Michael were sat in a rather dingy apartment that Alex recognised as his father's Vega home before he'd left.

"I..." Michael breathed quietly, staring down, confused, at the child that refused to let go of his feathers.

"Guess it's no surprise," Jeep hummed with a smile, "He's only alive because of you, after all."

"He doesn't know that," the angel said.

"No, but kids aren't stupid. Just because they can't talk doesn't mean they don't know things."

"I don't understand," Michael furrowed his brow, "He is mortal. He has no special abilities..."

"Michael," the mortal man sighed, sitting down across from his friend with a sigh of exasperation. "You're probably the smartest guy I know...but even that kid knows more than you sometimes," he said.

"You're being decidedly unhelpful, Jeep," Michael replied, prompting his friend to laugh.

"Yeah, I know," he chuckled, "Just let me have my fun," he said, still smirking at the angel's confused expression.

Michael once again glanced down at the sleeping Alex and gently brushed a hand against his face, smoothing the growing hair from his closed eyes in a rare gesture of tenderness.

"This has to stop," he said, "I can't keep coming here."

"Why not?"

"He can never know that you're under my protection," Michael told him, "This...all of this...everything that happened has to be kept a secret. Until he's ready."

"I don't like this...this plan of yours, and Charlie wouldn't have liked it either."

"She gave her life to save Alex. This is the best chance that he has for survival."

"...I know...I just...He's my son, Michael, I don't want this for him."

"I'm...sorry," the angel met his gaze.

"Yeah...me too."

Jeep, now looking much older, was standing wearing a thick jacket with a rucksack slung over his shoulder as he stood across from Michael in a darkened area of a large warehouse beside a truck that had clearly seen better days.

"I'll watch over him," Michael told Jeep, "He won't be alone."

"I...errr..." Jeep sighed, "I tried to write him something...just somethin', y'know...didn't even know what to say. How am I supposed to tell him I'll probably never see him again?"

"Human emotions are...difficult," the Archangel admitted, "Even after all this time I still can't comprehend them."

"Don't play dumb, Michael, we both know that's a lie...deep down, you understand us, otherwise you wouldn't be here...Promise me...promise me that you'll protect him," he begged, "Please."

"You have my word," Michael nodded.

After everything blurred out, Alex briefly saw Michael sitting at an elaborate desk writing with a confused and thoughtful expression, staring down at a piece of paper that he would later come to recognise very well. *2

Alex then saw himself sleeping, shivering on the ground with only an old, thread bare jacket he remembered finding to ward off the frost. After Jeep had left, Alex had had nowhere to live, nothing to eat and no one to turn to, not knowing of course, that he'd been left in Michael's care.

He saw Noma and Michael standing not far away from where the younger version of himself was sleeping and he could hear her speak.

"Over there," Noma pointed, "You can't leave him like this, Michael, he's only a child. You have to do something...I..."

Michael said nothing as he strode past her and approached the sleeping child. He stood over the boy and tilted his head, his dark eyes taking in the small form before he let out a sigh of resignation. The angel sat beside the child and used his own long brown jacket to cover the shivering human,

At the sudden contact, Alex had stirred awake and his blearily stared up at the Archangel.

"You've nothing to fear from me," Michael told the young Alex, "Sleep, child," he commanded and the boy seemed appeased enough. He shuffled closer to the warm body of the Archangel and fell asleep again, leaning against Michael.

The angel shrugged out his wings and let them fold over the two of them, warming the boy that he held in his arms. "It won't be this way forever, Alex," he said quietly to the sleeping boy.

Alex didn't know why the markings had shown him visions of the past, now of all times, as Michael lay dead in his arms, because it only served to emphasise what the world had lost now that the Archangel was gone.

Their silence of mourning was suddenly broken by a deep, shaking intake of breath, the sound pained and shocked, startled both mortal and angel and they opened their eyes to stare down at the Archangel. He was breathing rapidly and his eyes were frantically searching their faces as his whole body shook in uneasy tremors.

"...Michael?" Alex furrowed his brow, now seeing the last of the golden light vanish from his hands, "...How?"

"Look," Noma gestured to the tear his the Archangel's shirt where the wound beneath had now completely vanished, as though it had never been there at all. The amount of drying blood around them, however, proved that hadn't been the case.

"Did I..." the mortal trailed off as Michael began to move frantically, like a frightened animal, trying to get away from them in his state of shock. "Michael...Michael, calm down, it's me...it's Alex...you're safe," Alex said quickly as he gently tried to hold the Archangel still.

"...Alex?" he questioned quietly, his voice strained and hoarse, "...W...how did you...I'm..."

"I can't believe it," Noma breathed, "He's alive."

"Yeah, and he's completely out of it," Alex replied. "We gotta get outta here," he said, "Once Gabriel finds out he's still alive he'll come back...You can't fly us both, can you?"

"I'm not a taxi, Alex," she rolled her eyes, "But no, I doubt it and I can't leave either of you alone."

"I can handle myself," he replied quickly, "But we have to take Michael someplace safe..."

"If I fly him away and leave you alone for even a minute, he'll skin me alive," Noma hissed.

Alex threw up his arms in frustration and he spun on his heels, taking in the length of the beach around them. "Well...we'll just have to stay here till he's well enough to fly," he said.

"We're right in the middle of an open beach, we're sitting ducks!"

"Maybe we can find a cave or something," he shrugged.

"Oh, great idea, mighty Chosen One," Noma sighed, "Let's leave Michael to heal up in a cave. Just brilliant."

"You got any better ideas?"

"...Fine...cave it is," she mumbled in defeat a second later. When she saw that Alex wasn't going to move from his position at Michael's side she sighed again, "Guess I'll go find one then," she said before flying off.

"Michael?" Alex turned his attention to the Archangel, "How d'you feel."

The Archangel let out a deep breath through his nose and raised his hand to examine the area around his heart that had been stabbed. When he found no wound his eyes widened as he still felt the blood on his clothes. "I don't know what happened," Alex told him, "You were...gone, and then you weren't. The tattoos glowed...and then you..."

"...You...brought me back..." Michael whispered.

"How?" Alex asked, starling as Michael tried to sit up on shaky limbs, "Hey, careful," he quickly protested, helping to prop the angel up.

"Those are...my father's markings," Michael hissed, wincing when he moved, "They have memory," he muttered, grimacing for a moment.

"What d'you...oh..." Alex breathed. He remembered that the markings had shown him Jeep's memories and now they'd shown him even more. "But I still don't..."

"He brought me back before," the Archangel replied. *3

"Before?"

"Mmm," Michael have a small nod. He thought he'd had the strength to sit up properly, but found that he'd been very wrong. His vision began to blur again and he fell against Alex despite his best efforts not to. Luckily for him, the mortal caught him before he could fall back to the ground.

"Hey, whoa," Alec called out as he caught the Archangel, "Maybe you should just rest for a minute," he worried, "You were just stabbed in the heart."

"...I'm fine," the angel said through gritted teeth.

"The hell you are?! You just died!" Alex yelled at him, "You died, okay?!" he said, the angel slowly blinking to look at him.

Michael only sighed deeply and a minute later, Noma returned after finding a small cove a short distance away. Together, Alex and Noma helped the Archangel with his arms over their shoulders, to walk down the beach.

They made slow progress but they could see just how much effort that Michael was putting into each and every small that step he took. More than once Alex suggested that they stop, but Michael refused each one. He was nothing if not stubborn. The distance that taken Noma mere minutes to fly, took them over twenty minutes of walking with Michael in tow but finally, they entered the cove. It was small but it was enough to give them some cover from the wind and from the sky above.

Alex helped the Archangel to sit against the wall of uneven rock and he fell with his eyes closed, exhausted, his breathing heavy and laboured again.

"Michael?" Alex stared at him.

"...I didn't mean for this to happen," he whispered sleepily.

"You...just...okay, look. This has gone far enough," Alex sighed, "I know he's your brother, and I know you still care about him...but you can't just let him do this to you."

"You think I 'let him' kill me?" Michael frowned.

"I think if you'd been fighting seriously then it wouldn't have happened at all. I've seen you fight Gabriel before and you never mean it, even when you're angry. Now, I don't know how many 'get outta jail free cards' you Archangel's get, but we've come too far for you to just throw your life away because you won't defend yourself properly."

"...He's my brother..." the Archangel said, in an almost childlike innocence.

"And he just killed you," Alex countered bluntly.

"...Yes..." Michael sighed deeply, suddenly looking like a very old, tired man.

"I don't even..." the mortal man ran a hand through his hair.

There was only so much of Michael's bipolar attitude that a person could take, and Alex had already seen enough of it. He'd seen Michael fight bravely to protect people and himself, but against Gabriel, Michael seemed to lose his abilities. It wasn't that Gabriel was the stronger of the two, far from it. It was simply that Michael would rather die than kill his brother...and he had. "D'you want to die? Is that what you want?" Alex asked his friend quickly.

"...What?" Michael furrowed his brow at him.

"Alex, what are you..." Noma began, but was quickly interrupted.

"You said 'before'...back there, what did you mean?" Alex snapped at Michael, "Tell me."

"It's not important..."

"Oh, I think it is."

Michael turned away from him but this only served to anger Alex further, "Tell me, Michael...or I'll just use these damn tattoos and make them show me what you meant."

"You can't control what visions they show you," he replied tersely.

"I can try," Alex empathised, "And I will."

Michael inhaled deeply. He knew that Alex would indeed try, he would try and force the markings to show him what he wanted even if it drove him to the point of exhaustion. "...When you were born...I'd fallen to earth...I'd made myself...essentially...mortal..." he murmured.

"...How?" Alex asked.

"I...removed the burden of my wings," Michael answered with a grimace. *4

"You...removed your wings...as in...permanently?"

"Yes."

"Why? Why would you do that?"

"I was trying to convince my father that mankind was undeserving of Gabriel's wrath. What better way to do that than to become one of you? If I was powerless...bound to this world as you...well..." he gave a sardonic scoff. "It worked...for a time...I prolonged the inevitable. But it wasn't enough to prevent my father from leaving us all again."

"...And you..died? That's what you meant when you said...he...brought you back?"

"Yes. I had to die for the markings to be transferred to Jeep until you were ready."

"Great...so you're a martyr, huh, Saint Michael?" Alex mocked.

"All Saints are martyrs, Alex," Michael said pedantically.

"Most other Saints I heard of only die once," Alex snapped back, "They don't get to come back for more!"

"...I hate to admit it, Michael...but Alex has a point," Noma said quietly. "We were lucky this time...I don't know what happened but he managed to bring you back, but you can't take that risk again."

"...I know," he breathed.

*1 So, this is another reference to the deleted scenes from episode 8 when Gabriel possesses Noma and forces Alex to attack her. Obviously I changed things a bit.

*2 I watched an episode of AfterBuzz TV a while ago and someone there brought up the idea that Michael could have written the letter to Alex rather than Jeep. I don't know whether it's actually cannon, but I think Jeep would have written something more heartfelt than 'You'll be an orphan now', and because Michael doesn't completely understand human emotions, it seems like a plausible idea that he'd write something so bluntly to a child. I like the idea that Jeep is so distraught that he doesn't even have the words to describe what he's doing.

*3 & 4 Reference to 'Legion.'