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: Hemmed
Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say, "I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now."
Hosea 2: 6-7
He found her perched atop the roof of the car, a heavy book in her lap.
She didn't look up. "I found this in the last house we were in," she said, and lifted it. He saw it was leather, and the cover was stamped with the words HOLY BIBLE. "I was looking for a certain verse, a certain prophecy. Do you know where it is? God talks about—isolating Jerusalem, hemming it in, until its people can only turn to Him."
He slid a hand sideways to indicate a vague dismissal. "I do not know the Book by verses and page numbers," he said, and she chuckled wryly from her perch.
"Why read the Word when you can hear it directly?" she suggested lightly, and he felt an unfamiliar twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was a strange sensation and he touched his lip wonderingly, but Bethany still had not looked up.
"Why do you pursue this particular passage?" he asked.
"I was thinking about it yesterday, after…" she trailed off, and he knew she meant the night in the abandoned shrine, when he had wept in a dried-out pool, and she had slept at the foot of a broken angel. He had felt—lighter since that night, and also more anchored. The void that had filled him since being turned from Heaven had not disappeared entirely, but the edges had smoothed over. He thought he was not so alienated as he had once believed—surely his Father had been present that night, when His archangel and His scarred daughter had held each other in that abandoned shrine and holy place, when he had finally embraced his own deep sorrow, and felt regret not for the pain he caused his Father but for the pain he had caused in general. Surely He had been there.
As He surely had every moment before.
Gabriel no longer felt purposeless, but focused, intent. Father had given him some respite, some precious gift in Bethany and her sister—a brief, bright memory of Joy—and he would not squander them.
"I remember hearing somewhere that it's, well, literal—but also that it's how God works in our individual lives too. He isolates us from all our escapes until we're—compelled to turn to Him. For our comfort, for our needs, for everything."
"It is so," he acknowledged.
"What do you suppose He means to accomplish by turning us away?" she asked softly.
He started. He had never turned the question this way, had never examined it from the opposing angle. "It is abandonment," he said, and then shook his head, because he knew—especially after the other night in the sacred, dying shrine—that such a thing wasn't so.
She shook her head as well, and now she did look at him. He thought even the starkness of her scar was strangely beautiful. What caused this? he'd asked once, and she'd answered, Love.
"When He turns us away from all other escapes so that we might return to Him, it makes me think that He only turns us away from Himself so that we are forced to turn to each other."
Gabriel blinked.
"To remember to value each other, to love each other, to cherish our human relationships as well." I think sometimes"—and he thought here that perhaps she was speaking of Joy—"sometimes we have to lose the things we love in order to really see them, to really love them, to…draw closer to the source of them."
"You are still searching for a reason for Armageddon?" he asked in bewilderment, and she eyed him with a familiar and unexpected shrewdness.
"Among other things," she echoed, and shrugged. "I'm sure it's all much more complicated than my feeble human brain can imagine, but…yes. I'm searching for a reason."
"And you still have faith that there is a reason, and that the decision was not made in cruelty or rejection?" he asked wonderingly, though of course she was right. Her family had been taken, her face had been wounded, her sister had been brutally stolen long after the danger was supposed to be over, and yet—and yet—
He's a loving God, she'd said once, and Sometimes you have to break a thing down before you can put it back together as it was meant to be.
The realization came slowly, like dawn.
"You are searching for a reason for my exile," he said abruptly, and the words were out of his mouth before he could second-guess them—but he knew them to be true.
She ignored his assertion, laughing instead. "Of course I still have faith," she teased, answering his previous question. "I don't know if you noticed, Gabriel, but I tend to hold on past all reason."
She sucks at knowing when to let go, Joy had said, and still further in the past he heard Bethany's voice: We can't give up on the things we love—nothing is more certain to destroy us.
Word Count: 836
Completed: May 30th, 2011
Apologies to all those who might have received multiple copies of the same PM from me. Sigh. I am struggling with the new private-messaging system here on . I would like to thank you all, again, for such incredibly lovely reviews. Sometimes it can be disheartening to receive so few reviews/favorites for a piece you've poured your heart into when your other, less-thoughtful and less-meaningful 'fics get a lot of attention. But the comments people have sent me for this story have just been mind-bogglingly considerate, thoughtful, evocative, kind, sweet, and personal. Thank you all for the time you've taken to really tell me what you think of this story and to encourage and inspire me throughout the posting of it.
In other news, I imagine the end of this story will be posted inside of a week. Upcoming chapters are as follows:
XXXIV: Metatron. Gabriel is called home.
XXXV: Psalmist. Gabriel tells a story.
XXXVI: St. Peter at the Gates. Reuniting with a brother.
XXXVII: Prodigal. God speaks.
XXXVIII: Joseph, Reuben. Another reunion.
XXXIX: The Stone is Rolled Away. Gabriel comes home.
Epilogue: Seventh Day. A couple enjoys each others' company in a Garden.