We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

~Maya Angelou, Touched By An Angel

Chapter Two

Pulling the door shut behind her as she stepped out onto the small porch at the back of the house, Dev's eyes were immediately drawn toward the barn and to a pair of magnificent black wings stretching upwards and outwards to their full breadth, cutting a stark outline against the faded whitewash of the old barn. A knot of tension—one of many currently residing in her stomach, but larger than most—slowly unwound at the familiar sight and she couldn't help but smile.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you," she called, voice brighter than it had been since the phone call that had rocked her world to the foundations. She bounded down the three small steps to the yard below with as much lightness as snow boots could afford. "All things considered, I wasn't sure I'd be seeing you again, but I've never been happier to be wrong, Michael."

The wings snapped down, folding onto a broad expanse of shoulders and revealing a chiseled profile that was most definitely not Michael's.

Dev froze, thrown. The recently released tension coiled anew inside her, twisting and squeezing and leaving her vaguely nauseated. "Gabriel?"

He half-turned toward her from where he stood, sheltered within the early morning shadows and met her eyes across the unbroken blanket of white between them. He said nothing, merely dipped his head in acknowledgment.

One heartbeat of silence stretched to two, and then Dev blurted out the foremost thought in her head. "You're not Michael."

The muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked, his head turned further toward her and steel gray eyes locked fully onto hers. "You are, as ever, observant, Navi."

Any other day, the condescension dripping from that sentence would have set her teeth on edge and sparked every last nerve in her body. Today, when she could only imagine his presence at her door meaning very bad things, she barely even noticed it. "It's Michael, isn't it?" The words came out rough and she took a step forward, boots crunching in the knee-deep snow. "He's dead, isn't he?"

If possible, Gabriel's expression turned bleaker. "Michael lives."

Relief poured through her and she let out the breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. "Oh thank God!"

At that, Gabriel let out a sharp bark of laughter that was utterly devoid of any actual humor. "Indeed," he rasped, cynicism turning the word bitter. "Thank God."

Dev arched a brow at him, surprised. "Resentment. Interesting. But I gotta say, really not the reaction I was expecting. Do I detect trouble in paradise?" She paused, quirked a smile. "Literally."

The joke was wasted on Gabriel, who shot her a look that was as cold and remote as the mountains in the distance. "Your humor is crass and ill-timed. It is also misinformed, unsolicited and presumptuous—though I suppose I should expect no less."

She'd never wanted to tell someone what they could do with themself more. Unfortunately, he wasn't just someone. He was Gabriel, the Original Archangel, the Left Hand of God, which she figured probably meant a whole lot of something. As such, she had always been loath to insult him, lest she incur the Almighty's wrath on his behalf. So instead of giving him a thorough demonstration of the more explicit side of her vocabulary, she stamped her anger down, down, down, took a deep breath and just let it go.

Mostly.

"So what's the deal then? Is this my 'all clear'? Who did I piss off that they sent you? "

There was another pause, another silence that stretched taut between them.

"I was not sent."

The words were spoken low; so low that Dev could barely be certain she'd heard them at all. And if she had heard him right, she certainly didn't understand him. She waited, having no clue what to say and every moment expecting him to say something else—something more—but it wasn't long before she began to suspect that wasn't going to happen. After several seconds of unbroken silence, she got tired of waiting for an explanation that probably wasn't ever going to come on its own.

"Sorry if this sounds rude," she prefaced, insincere as hell and sounding it, "but if no one sent you, then why the hell are you here?"

Another tick of his jaw and his gaze swung toward her and then away again without ever actually landing on her. "I...do not know."

He was being nothing more than his usual, infuriatingly uncommunicative self, but Dev's patience was running on empty. "Right," she drawled, arching a brow and looking him up and down in palpable irritation, "because you make a habit of…"

Her voice trailed off as her eyes fell upon the snow around his feet, stained dark against the shifting gray of the shadows. She looked back up at him, all annoyance instantly forgotten. "Is that blood? Gabriel…are you hurt?"

"It is nothing."

The words were indifferent but Dev paid them no mind, wading quickly through the snow that separated them with the sure steps of one born and bred to the harshness of a Rocky Mountain winter. Once she reached his side, she reached down and drew a hand through the distinctly not-white powder beside one tall, leather boot. She straightened, eyed her glove, and then held it out for him to see.

"That sure as hell doesn't look like nothing to me."

Gabriel cast a dispassionate glance down at the dark-stained leather of her battered old Manzella's, his upper body curling even further away from her. "Do not trouble yourself, Navi."

Dev ignored him with the ease of long practice and darted around in front of him to confirm her already well-formed suspicions. That too-casual-to-be-coincidental withdrawal had been telling, but she was the kind of girl who liked real, solid proof. When she found it, her eyes widened and she gasped, horrified by the steady flow of crimson seeping out from beneath the arm he held banded across his midsection. "Gabriel," she snapped his name, reaching out toward him and attempting to pull his arm away so that she could get a better look, "that's not nothing!"

Gabriel drew sharply away from her touch. "Forgive me...I misspoke," he said and the words were as icy as the late December air. "I should have said that it is nothing you need concern yourself with, Navi."

Under the circumstances, Dev decided to let the rudeness slide. That name though…from the very first time they'd met, he'd never called her anything else. At first, she'd kind of liked it; it had made the teenager she'd been feel all kinds of grown up. Now that she actually was grown up—and fully cognizant of what it meant and the burdens it entailed—she found her appreciation for it waning. "I do have a name, you know; a real name, not just some antique title. I'd appreciate you using it."

"I have no doubt that you would. You may favor banality to exceptionality if you choose, Navi, but I shall continue to address you as I see fit."

And there it was again—that spectacular rudeness of his.

"You know, Gabriel, you can be a real jerk."

His brow knit, confusion creasing his face momentarily before being swept away by something that looked oddly like indignation. "And you, Navi, are particularly gifted at finding insult where none was intended."

"Right," Dev scoffed, "because who wouldn't want to be called banal? How could I possibly have read that as an insult? I swear, you make it impossible to like you sometimes."

There was a flash, however quickly, of something in his eyes—something different than icy distance, at least, though she counted herself in no way qualified to decipher the enigma that lay behind that forbidding façade. When that fleeting look was gone, it left again that absolute nothingness in its place.

"Then trouble yourself with me no further," he said quietly. "I shall go…and more fool me for having come at all."

He turned away sharply, his dark wings flaring in preparation for flight. He made it two whole steps before coming to a stumbling halt, a stifled grunt of pain slipping past his lips. Dev was already moving toward him when his legs buckled a moment later. Throwing herself against his side, she managed to keep him from toppling over completely, though the both of them still ended up on their knees.

"Damn, you're heavy" she cursed, wincing beneath the press of his weight across her shoulders. She pushed herself hard against his side, lodging her shoulder firmly beneath his triceps. Once they were steady, she reached up and grabbed the hand that had clamped down hard upon her shoulder when she broke his fall. "Ok, up we go," she said, hoping she sounded encouraging.

As soon as they were back on their feet, Gabriel immediately tried to extricate himself from her supporting arms. Dev tightened her grip. "Deal with it," she commanded, "because I'm not letting go. You need help and whether you like it or not, I'm all you've got at present, so stop arguing, don't fight me and once we get you settled inside I'll call for Michael and…"

"No."

"Didn't I just tell you not to argue? This sounds a whole lot like arguing to me."

"You will not summon Michael."

"Don't be stupid."

"I said, no!"

"But, Michael can…"

"It was Michael who did this!"

That pulled her up short.

Dev leaned backwards far enough to see Gabriel's face clearly, though she kept her grip on him firm. "You know, Michael actually called to warn me right before all hell broke loose. He explained the basics, so I know he broke ranks. But since even lone-wolf-Michael doesn't strike me as the randomly murderous type, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that he had a pretty good reason for doing it."

"The best, I assure you." Gabriel looked down at her, the picture of composure despite the fact that he was bleeding like a stuck pig. "I killed him."

Oh. Well.

"You…"

"…killed him."

"But…you…," she stuttered, almost comically aghast at his revelation. "I thought you said…"

"...that Michael lives. And so he does." A strained smile, almost entirely devoid of any true humor, lifted the corner of his mouth. "That does not change the fact that I killed him. Or that I might well have done so a second time had not my anger driven me to recklessness."

Dev shook her head, frustrated. Talking to him had never been easy; more like beating her head against a brick wall than actual conversation. She supposed she should be thankful that some things really never did change…but quite frankly, all she was at that moment was tired.

"You know, I didn't think my head could hurt any worse than it already did, but you've managed to find a way," she complained uncharitably.

He said nothing to that, but a moment later, the hand resting on her shoulder lifted. She almost snapped at him about being stubborn again but before she could say a word, his palm was pressing between her eyebrows, his fingers splayed up and over the curve of her forehead, spanning from temple to temple. Dev's eyes fluttered shut as a tiny ball of warmth suddenly sparked to life just behind her eyes and steadily grew until it filled her entire head. A moment later, the weight of his hand disappeared and took the warmth—and her headache—with it.

She blinked a few times, enjoying the unexpected relief. Pursing her lips, she lifted her head to give Gabriel a look. "You just had to go and be nice, didn't you?"

Silence.

Dev sighed, resigned. "I'm not gonna lie—I absolutely want to know what happened, but since you're kinda busy bleeding all over my jacket, here's what were gonna do: I'm gonna pretend I don't care about the details, you're gonna pretend I never asked any questions in the first place and we're just gonna focus on getting you fixed up, ok?"

He was surprised by that and showed it in the arch of one dark brow. "I tell you I killed Michael and still you offer me aide?"

"We need to work on your listening skills," Dev huffed. "I just said that I don't want to hear about it right now. What I do wantto hear, Gabriel, is you telling me what I can do to help."

All emotion was once again wiped clean from his starkly handsome face. "Time will, as time does, heal these wounds," he said with customary stoicism. "Your concern is admirable but ultimately immaterial, Navi—I neither need nor want your help."

That stung when it shouldn't have. They had never been anything even remotely like friends—had, in fact, been at odds with one another more than a few times over the years—but they had always managed to stay cordial. But that had just been downright mean, especially since she was only trying to help him.

And then, just as quickly as his rudeness stung, it began to chafe. Because if he'd had anything to do with what had happened yesterday—and she knew that he had—then she was already being far nicer to him than he had any right to expect. That he could be that much of a prick to her, on this of all days…

"You don't want my help? Fine!" Devlin threw his arm off of her shoulders and watched with something like satisfaction as he staggered sideways, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "You know, I've had a fucking awfulcouple of days, Gabriel. It's been 48 hours of blinding pain and constant, horrific terror, punctuated here and there with watching a whole bunch of really good people get splattered all over my front yard, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't have patience or the energy to deal with your sanctimonious bullshit at present. And since you don't need anything and you don't seem to be here for any reason besides pissing me off, how about you just take your superior-in-every-fucking-way self right on back to where you belong!"

There was a very pregnant silence after that outburst. She spent it watching him. He spent it staring at the snow.

"I have offended you," Gabriel said eventually, voice flat. "That was not my intent, Navi."

"Then what was your intent?" Dev planted her hands on her hips, glaring at him through narrowed eyes. "What is any of this? Why the hell are you here, Gabriel?"

If possible, his expression turned even more desolate, his eyes going dark and hollow. "In truth, Navi, I do not know. After my confrontation with Michael…" his voice trailed off and he looked very pointedly away. "I…did not know where else to go."

Dev was not, in general, a particularly empathetic person. She had more than enough of her own burdens to bear and was in no particular hurry to waste precious energy worrying about other people's problems. So she was surprised to find that his quiet confession and obvious distress hit her square in the heart.

Of course, that might well have had something to do with the fact that she was fully cognizant of just how huge an admission that was for him to have made.

Michael talked. Michael communicated. He was, to all intents and purposes, an open book—readily accessible and easily read. He was pleasant and friendly and had an easy carelessness to him that was infectious.

Gabriel…wasn't any of that.

Gabriel was dogmatic and unyielding and aloof to the point of being rude and he had a way of making her feel utterly insignificant. He never said a word that wasn't carefully considered and he never committed an act that wasn't meticulously planned.

But here he was, admitting to weakness; allowing her to see that yes, there were chinks in his armor (the icy, figurative kind rather than hard steel and stiff leather). And then there was the other part.

The part where he'd come here. He'd come to her—for help, whether he would admit it or not—because he didn't know what else to do.

It really was a big deal. Seriously.

"Well…fuck," Dev huffed out, her righteous indignation spent.

Gabriel snorted at that. "Indeed," he agreed, tone an odd combination of humor and misery. "Fuck."

She couldn't help it; she laughed—a good, honest, full-out belly laugh that was probably completely inappropriate given the state of the world in general and the state of their conversation in particular. But that word coming out of his mouth was just wrong; it was so wrong, in fact, that it was downright hilarious. She'd probably offended him, as she usually did, but how could she not laugh at something so stunningly funny?

"Why, Gabriel," she choked out, not even attempting to hide her mirth, "don't you know that's a very bad word?"

He grinned then, a sly twist of the lips that softened all of his habitual sharpness and rendered him utterly…approachable. Suddenly, he was an entirely different creature to both the rigidly contained acolyte she had known for years or the lost and miserable creature that had stood hunched before her only seconds ago. His eyes were warm with humor when they met hers on the rebound of a small, swift nod of acknowledgment. "Yes," he mused, seeming more at ease within his own skin than she'd ever seen. "So it fucking is."

She laughed even harder this time.

And then it happened.

It was the work of an instant, and it hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks. In the nearly infinitesimal space between one heartbeat and the next, Dev went from being willing to help him, to wanting to help him. And there was, she realized, a staggering difference between the two.

"You're staying here," she blurted out before she had time to talk herself out of it. "You're staying here, and you're not leaving until you're all healed up. Got it?"

And just that quickly, his mood swung sharply the other direction. The levity of moments before fled and all that stunning emotion was swiftly locked away behind the steel of his eyes. He stiffened, his spine straightening even more than usual. "If this is pity, Navi, then you may keep it. I want none of it."

"Well that's a relief," Dev shot back as she moved to his side once more, determined now not to let him rile her, "since I'm all out of it at the moment."

"I am quite serious, Navi."

"So am I. You're welcome here, Gabriel. Honestly."

She kept her eyes on his, let him read the truth of her words in the openness of her expression. Once he had apparently satisfied himself with what he found in her face, he released a long, sighing breath.

"My thanks, Navi."

"My pleasure, Gabriel." Devlin stepped back toward him and once more slid beneath the arm not clutched to his middle, this time wrapping her arm around his waist. "Now that's settled, let's get you inside. It's freezing out here, and you're not anywhere near properly dressed for a Wyoming winter."

"Your concern is appreciated, but I do not feel the cold," Gabriel sniffed, shrugging her off and taking a faltering step away from her. "And I need no crutch."

He couldn't make anything easy, could he?

"All right then." She refused to get angry, but she wasn't about to let him turn everything into a battle of wills. And if he had to fall on his hallowed ass to figure out that even he needed help from time to time, then so be it. She pointed across the yard, expression carefully neutral as the image of his grin lingered in her mind. "The door's that way."

Gabriel turned round sharply, booted feet disappearing into yet more fresh powder as he took one, then two tentative steps toward the door. On the third step, he let out a hiss of frustrated pain and staggered to a stop.

Despite her determination otherwise, Dev was at his side in an instant, arm once more about his waist. His arm fell heavily upon her shoulders and his hand wrapped around her bicep, his grip like a vice. She tilted her head back and hoped the "I-told-you-so" she was holding on her tongue was clearly visible in her eyes as they sought his.

Apparently, it was. His jaw tensed, ticked yet again—she seemed to be particularly good at making it do that—and he very pointedly turned his face up and away from her.

"Perhaps I spoke too quickly."

Dev snorted out a laugh. As an apology in general, it was pretty much nonexistent. But as an apology from the second oldest being in all of Creation…it was actually pretty damn good.

"Gee, you think," she said, lacking as much grace in her acceptance as he had in his repentance. "Now, let's take it slow and watch out for ice. I don't really feel like taking a fall and getting squashed beneath your venerable self."

He responded with a grunt that may or may not have been agreement. When he didn't haul her across the yard as fast as he could, she figured she had her answer. Arms around one another—and discomfort radiating from him in waves strong enough for even her to pick up on—they shuffled their way slowly across the distance between themselves and the door, eventually making it there without even the slightest hiccup.

She threw the door open, cringed as it banged hard into the wall behind, but didn't stop to see if she'd knocked a hole in the wood. Gabriel was leaning on her a little harder with every step they took, and being that he was as heavy as a damn ox, she was far more concerned about getting settled than about the fifty year old timbers. He had to duck to make it through the doorway, but soon enough they were securely inside with the door shut behind them. She led him through the living room and into the kitchen where she nodded toward one of the stools at the counter.

"Sit down there while I dig out our first aid gear. Those wounds need cleaning."

Gabriel lifted his arm from her shoulders and dropped heavily onto the stool, looking—she thought, now that she could see him in the more direct light streaming in through the kitchen windows—more than a little gray around the edges. He was in far more pain than he'd been letting on.

"As I told you, they will heal on their own, in time. You need not..."

"Call me stupid, but I'm pretty sure we already had this conversation." She gave him a barbed look, waited until he looked away, then started toward the hallway that led to the back of the house, self-satisfied and smiling. "I'll be right back. You don't move from that spot."

His only response to that was a nod and it felt like yet another hard won victory.

One more point to me, she congratulated herself.

In fact, she was happily contemplating just how many points she'd scored on him so far that morning when reality decided to rear its ugly head once more. She was elbow deep in the cabinet beneath the sink in the larger of the two bathrooms—the tally running ever higher on the scoreboard of her mind—when she heard the connecting door behind her creak open.

"I thought you were gonna get some sleep, Pops."

"Thought you were gonna come and tell me when everything was...clear."

Finding the last bits that she had been looking for, she rocked back onto her heels and stood up, arms full of medical supplies. "About that, Pops…change of plans."

Her grandfather took in the various and sundry medical gear she held and chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "He hurt?"

She nodded. "I'm gonna patch him up best I can. He's gonna be here for a while though...a couple days, at least, I'd guess."

Pops' eyebrow arched so high and so hard she was surprised it didn't jump off his face. "I believe you're serious, baby girl."

"As a heart attack," she affirmed, shifting the supplies awkwardly. "I know I didn't clear it with you first, but I figured you'd be fine with it. Couldn't see you telling me that he wasn't welcome!"

Her grandfather gave a low whistle. "Surely not, darlin'. Can't be kicking the Archangel Michael to the curb...your Grams'd skin me alive soon as I reached the hereafter!"

"She certainly would," Dev agreed. "But it's actually not Michael, Pops. It's Gabriel."

To his credit, Pops barely even flinched. "Don't rightly know why that's a scarier prospect," he said, tense now, "but it is."

"You don't know the half of it." Dev edged toward the door to the hallway. "And speaking of the giant pain the ass, I need to get back out there and fix him up before he changes his mind about letting me."

"Devlin Anne! I know you don't talk to him the way you talk about him!"

Dev laughed and then leaned up on her toes to buss a kiss across her grandfather's weathered cheek. "You worry too much, Pops."

Slightly mollified but still anxious, Pops shook his head. "That wasn't nearly the answer I was looking for, baby girl."

"It's ok, I promise," Dev assured with a grin. "Trust me, Pops…Gabriel and I," she paused, grin widening to a smile, "we're good. And I'll prove it to you later when I introduce you. For now though, I think it's best if you just stick to your room for a little while longer. Think you can handle that?"

Pops shooed her off with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry 'bout me. You just go do what needs doin'. I'll be here if you need me."

Dev's smile shifted, turned soft. "You're the best, you know that, Pops?"

"Not so bad yourself, darlin'."

And then the door snicked closed behind him and she turned around and headed back to the kitchen.