Title: Tongues of Men and Angels

Rating: TA for implied?romance.

Summary: Glimpses of grace: the story of one brother and two sisters. Through the grace of God, all things are made new.A series of drabbles. Ish. Gabriel/OC. Ish.

Disclaimer: *obligatory insert*

Interlude: The Fall
I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.
Genesis 3: 10

She woke in the night, and she was unsure why—perhaps Gabriel had landed with a thud on the roof, though she couldn't imagine it. He was so silent, all the time.

Her scar ached and itched, and she slid out of the bed, careful not to wake Joy, and moved down the dark-shadowed hall to the bathroom. She soothed her face with cool water, her fingers creeping lingeringly over the rivet in her forehead, deep and furrowed. The skin rippled around the wound, ragged and tattered. She followed the scar through her eyebrow, sending up a prayer of thanks that it had missed her eye, that some instinctive twitching of her head had kept the heavy glass blade from burrowing into the socket.

Instead the wound began anew on the crest of her cheekbone, sluicing through the soft, plump skin there, pulling through the flesh of a pink mouth that had once been her favorite feature, back when she had time for things like cosmetics and dates.

Ah, vanity. She kind of missed it.

Still, in the silence, in the darkness, out of sight of Joy and their heavenly companion, she sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to the cold porcelain rim of the sink, closing her eyes and allowing the weariness to seep in. Had she done the loving thing, or the selfish thing? And which time? Doubts plagued her; regret assailed her. She drew in a shaking breath. She was glad that Gabriel and Joy were becoming—friends to each other. Family to each other. She thought they needed that, both of them.

Gabriel needed to see something beautiful here, on this planet, in this barren desert—and Bethany thought there was no-one better to illustrate that than her little sister, who stole her breath daily.

And Joy needed someone besides Bethany. More than Bethany. The older girl knew that as much as they loved each other, seeing her scarred face every day was a perpetual reminder of the unspeakable horrors that had befallen them. Joy needed someone else to look at, to be with her in her pain, in the places Bethany wasn't welcome and couldn't go.

Even though it cut her to the core to know she couldn't be—enough—for her little sister.

"Always lacking," she whispered into the night. "Always—too slow to catch her, to hold on."

"Bethany."

She startled, jolting backward and falling onto her tailbone on the cold porcelain tile, and stared up—and up, and up—at the imposing silhouette of Gabriel the archangel, God's messenger. "Oh," she said from her place on the floor. "Hi."

She thought he was too beautiful, so sharp and painfully cut against the stark and barren wastelands that it hurt her to look at him. Her fingers crept again to the destroyed corners of her face, and for the first time she was self-conscious of her scar, and ashamed. His wings shifted behind him, rustling and clinking in the shadows, as though there were metallic chimes hidden among the feathers. How free he was, and how sad—and if only he hadn't been so sad, and injured, and lost; if only his freedom hadn't seemed like such a burden to him; if only he didn't want, so desperately, to belong to a home that wouldn't have him—if only, then she wouldn't have bound herself to him now.

The reality of it was like a knife-wound all over again.

"Ungh," she gasped, crumpling over her stomach at the sudden nausea there. With a suddenness that shocked her and almost sent her scurrying backward, she felt his hand on her shoulder, then her brow. It was heavy and dry, the palm as large as her face. She lifted her gaze to him and stared as his eyes lit up the darkness, blue lightning and meteors. The brightness of them illuminated the planes of his face, his high cheekbones, smooth and slanting.

He had the end of the world in his eyes.

He searched her face, then lifted her easily, his hands gently gripping her shoulders. "Go to bed, Bethany," he said, and in the darkness she thought his voice sounded confused—but surely she was mistaken.

She looked up at him slowly, the bright light of his eyes—like lighthouses, like beacons—and the softness of his mouth, which seemed perpetually poised on the edge of a frown. She had never seen him smile—not even once in the last few days—and the realization made her heart plummet in her chest, leaving a gaping void.

"Oh," she said, looking up at him, recognizing the feeling of it. "Oh. Well…hell."

Word Count: 778
Completed: April 19, 2011
I like to play with double-meanings in titles; they are fun. This one might be a triple. You get electronic cookies if you send me your interpretations in a review, haha. I hope everyone liked this chapter—it is my favorite so far (the end makes me giggle) and also, I will be away for the upcoming holiday, so it is a brief little gift to you to tide you over till Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, ladies (mostly) and gents (maybe), have a happy Holy Week/Passover.