John left before she did, and so Elizabeth took a few minutes to get herself ready to go home. It was going through the motions for the sake of her sanity; she could have easily used her powers to summon all that she needed to her hands. But she didn't want to. She needed to unwind from the trauma. That kid... that little Sarah stayed with her. All of the children that she treated stayed with her. It was one more soul that she saved.

At one point, she looked into the mirror above the sink. This vessel was the same one that she had chosen for the four thousand years that she had served her Father. Her brown hair was combed back off her face and cut short to frame her oval gaunt face; there was some grey hair at her temples and some flecks throughout her hair, a necessary part of her disguise, for who would believe a person not to age for the fifty years that she had stationed herself in New York for? Icy blue eyes looked back at her, but they were warm when she smiled, which was often; she always wore a smile for every time that a patient was under her care. Her face was clean, free of blemishes. Small lips opened slightly to reveal straight white teeth.

Her vessel's body was nothing to shake a finger at, either. Her muscles, hidden under taut tanned skin and her scrubs (they were stained now with the blood of the girl) were toned from constant exercise: fifteen hours a day for the past four thousand years of on-your-feet walking, running, lifting equipment, moving patients, and taking the stairs would do that. On some days before she would come to work, she would run up and down the stairs of her apartment building a few times to keep the heart in shape.

Shaking her head, she checked her pockets once last time and walked out of the hospital via the ambulance bay. For five in the evening in the middle of the week, it was quiet on the roads. She never drove around, instead choosing to walk around to all the places that she needed to get to. Why bother with it, when her Father had given her a vessel with a functional set of feet to use. Besides, the small apartment that she kept was just a twenty minute walk down the street.

On the way home from the hospital, she stopped off at the pub for something to eat. The owner and bartender, Zach Aries, saw her and waved at her as she sat down at the bar. "Long day, Doc?" he asked as he poured her out a glass of water. It was a tradition of theirs: every day for the last fifteen years, she came in for a glass of water and a bowl of taco salad.

"Too long, Zach." She sipped at the water as he made her food with practiced comfort. He knew exactly how she liked it.

"Well, did you save anyone?"

She nodded her head. "Yeah, I did. A little girl. She's probably in Recovery now with her parents and brothers, talking to them." She shook her head. "No little kid should have to go through something like that."

"Was it a bad one?" He poured off a pint of stout for one of the waitresses waiting impatiently for the drink. "Relax, Sheila. Rick's going nowhere fast with the amount of booze in him." The young girl simply huffed and served the drink. "Sorry about that."

"You did nothing worth apologizing, Zach." He placed the salad in front of her. "Yeah, it was pretty bad, but if you saw the look of her face..." She bit into the salad, relishing the taste of the meat and salty chips. "It was completely worth it. Every second of it." For the rest of the time, she just sat and ate the salad quietly, watching the world go by and the people about their daily business. She placed a twenty on the bar for Zach and took off, heading back home for some much-needed rest.

She was just closing the door to her apartment when a breeze ran over the back of her vessel's neck; she just shrugged it out and looked around her lodgings. To the human eye, it was comfortably sparse. There was a futon couch that served as her bed underneath both a window and a wooden crucifix. In the middle of the room was a small wooden table, a cold cup of coffee sitting from last night. Along two walls were textbooks and journals from over the decades of her current medical career. There was a small kitchen, and her fridge was filled with healthy foods.

She was an anomaly among her kind, in that she ate. None of the angels ate; then again, they hadn't spent as much time as she had. At first, she didn't eat much beyond bread and water. Around the turn of the millennium, she tried food and found that she performed much better. It wasn't that her body needed the nutrition to function, but she found that the additional resources helped her. She was careful with what and how she did eat, however: going into excess and disrupting the careful homeostasis of her body's system was both harmful to her and detrimental to her work.

She scoffed for a moment as she poured herself a glass of water, thinking about her younger brothers and sisters for the first time in a long time. Humans thought that her kind would fly down from the skies with a prayer to help them in their hour of temptation or need. Well, some were like that. A few were like her, gifted with the powers to heal and empathize. Gabriel was their Father's messenger, or at least, he was before he disappeared. The majority of them, like Castiel and Uriel, were the warriors, who served under... him. Michael, her brother and the second angel ever created.

She had lovingly devoted herself in the service of her Father for all her life; she had no other choice. Being born an angel (if you wanted to get technical, she was the third archangel ever created and the first female of their kind), she rose through the ranks until she was considered to be the right hand of her brother. Where he was the sword of God, she was the healing power of God. When people called and petitioned for healing, their Father would send her to help the humans. But she would be lying if she had told anyone that she did not miss Michael.

Michael... her beloved brother. He also brought back painful memories of her other brother... Elizabeth shook her head. She tried so hard not to think of him, but every time that she thought of her incarceration, she thought of his as well.

Breathing to chase away the tears, she got down on her knees and began to pray over by her bed. She had been away from home for so long without any chance of a respite, but she trusted in her Father to know that what he was showing her, what her service had entitled her to do, was the right path and that she would not stray from the plans that her Father had in store for her. For a moment, she laughed at herself. Her Father certainly held all of the cards when it came to her, but she never expected to learn what he told her. That she was... no, she refused to think about it.

When she prayed right now, she let her Father know when and why she had used her powers. Unlike Castiel and the other warrior angels who could use them and then leave without considering the consequences, she had to use her judgment and discretion when she used her powers. She could not let that child die on her trauma table, so this time, she was covered. He probably knew already, but it felt good for her to talk to him like this, even if he never talked back, per say. It was a rather one-sided conversation, because he told her that, as a condition of her service, she would be completely removed from all of the Citadel's powers, including the ability to talk to him directly.

She did not hear the door open, nor the footsteps toward her that stopped two feet behind her. She did, however, hear the voice. "Ariel." That single word, spoken with a voice so familiar, caused tears nearly to come to her eyes as she turned to gaze up at him from her knees.

Castiel stood behind her, as stoic as ever. He had chosen the vessel of a tax accountant, but Ariel could see through that to his true beauty. His wings, pure white for the moment, were tucked neatly behind his back. His black hair and blue eyes shone with a rare emotion for him: longing. It was no secret among the angels that they were mates. Her Father had arranged it when they were both younger, and they loved each other so much. She had missed Castiel so much, almost as much as Michael and her Father.

Ariel stood slowly, making sure that this was not just simply another dream, that he was really there. Tears finally rolled down from her eyes as she placed her hand against his cheek, feeling the rough texture of the vessel's skin. This was real. Her mate was truly standing before her, and this was no illusion.

He took her hand and held it in front of him for a moment. "Ariel, Father has deemed the term of your service over. You can come home." His tone, so casual and deep, bruised her heart with its familiarity. She wanted so badly to wrap her arms around him, to hug him and for him to reciprocate. However, patience was one of her strong suits. "You will have a week's respite in the Citadel to recuperate from your service. Then both Michael and Father want to talk to you. Let's go." Taking a firmer hold of her hand, they both looked skyward.

A light slowly enveloped both of them, filling them with warmth. Ariel closed her eyes, and let the vertigo take over as they catapulted through the ceiling and into the sky. The mist of the clouds stuck to the face of her vessel as she began to shed it into her real form. It felt like the trip took five minutes as they zoomed through thousands of miles of sky, wind, and cloud to come... home...