Layers
Chapter Twenty Three
By: Brenli and Jael
The Fire Angel's knuckles cracked as he prowled in a wide circle, just outside of the circle of light shining down on their captive. Blood was smeared across them, and though earlier it had been his own blood because the terrible woman they'd subdued had beaten him, this time the blood was hers. Michael paced, his face momentarily distant, but the vibrant green of his eyes gave him away. He was livid, and he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to revisit how she'd broken him in every way… how he'd roared out, 'End me!' He refused to discuss how his Fire Sword now existed as metal shards piled into a big chest with a lock on it.
There was a more vital issue at hand. An opportunity he refused to let go of… though yeah. Oh yeah. He was going to beat the living shit out of her in the process of latching on to this opportunity.
"Not so mighty right now, huh?" He circled Serissa, Celestiel, whatever - he was happy to call her 'traitor' like that was the only name she deserved, but others felt less cruel, apparently. He stopped behind her and roughly tugged on the clear, crystalline cuffs binding her to the unforgiving and uncomfortable steel chair. "Bet we don't even really need these Angel Crystal cuffs on you, without the Spear in your hands."
"Want to test that theory?" Her voice was cracked from being beaten, and she grunted when she felt him kick the back of her chair. Michael was certainly enjoying playing interrogator, and if Celestiel hadn't gone slightly mad already, she would have been intimidated. And yet, all she felt was amused by his thinly veiled desperation. She may have been tied to a chair, her eyebrow split, cuts and bruises on her arms... but she was the one with the control. Because she was the one with the knowledge.
"You know what I fucking want!" The moment of cruel calm disappeared with a wild roar. "And I will keep you here and I will beat you just enough until you tell me where they're being kept. Azrael fucking had me with that 'burned them to ashes' bullshit." He circled back around to glare at her, crossing his arms and not caring that he smeared blood on his biceps. "But that doesn't make much damn sense, and I could kick myself for not realizing before. What, you two have access to funeral homes, now? You can't just toss bodies onto campfires and call it a fucking day." Michael wasn't too proud to admit he was pissed he didn't realize it before running Azrael clean through with his sword. He ought to have realized… fire being his domain. It was a testament to how much he hurt that something he should have innately known utterly escaped him, at that moment in time… "I want them back, Celestiel. And you're not leaving this room until you tell me where they are. So, here are your options: You can tell me now, and keep all of your teeth in your mouth. Or you can refuse and I will knock them out one by fucking one and make you swallow them." His bloody fingers drummed against his arms. "Which will it be?"
Celestiel let the copper taste of blood overwhelm her mouth before she spit it out onto Michael's already blood speckled shirt. And she just smiled. "I'm not going to tell you where they are, Michael. You can keep me here all day and knock out as many teeth of mine as you want... I won't tell you."
"Wrong!" He hit her hard across her face with a tight fist. "Answer!" He hit her again. "I guess somebody doesn't like their teeth, then!" Michael punched her twice more before standing and pacing yet again, circling her like a predator circles prey. "Try again, traitor!"
"No." She said simply, licking a bit of blood off her lips as she straightened herself in that chair, to stare at the one-way mirror in front of her. She idly wondered who was on the other side of it, if anyone at all...
Michael suddenly hooked his boot against the leg of her chair and knocked her right onto her side. The urge to just… stomp on her head was too heavy within him, and he let out a frustrated snarl and tore his hands through his hair. "The only thing keeping you alive is the fact that Azrael is dead! I hope you realize that! If I had to choose between beating the information out of you or him, I'd choose him! You're so fucking stubborn that I don't think you deserve all this fucking mercy!" If being handcuffed to a chair and beaten could be called mercy. He reached down, curled his fingers tight into her dark hair and yanked her back upright. "Wanna tell me 'no' again? I'd love the opportunity to keep punching your face until your eyes swell shut!"
"Oh, I bet you would." Celestiel said, her voice calm and even, in spite of the abuse her body was suffering. "I love that you call this mercy. And I especially love that there's a part of you that regrets killing Azrael. You fucking deserve that. You deserve to be reminded of how fucking stupid you are. I won't tell you where he hid the bodies, and I won't lie and say I don't know. Because I do know. I know exactly where he put them... Do you know why I won't tell you?"
"Because you enjoy being beaten within an inch of your life?" Michael tasted the sourness of his sarcasm, and it made him sneer.
"Within an inch of my life? Please. Your little love taps are a long way away from ending me." Celestiel laughed. "I won't tell you because why should you get to have your family back when so many others have lost theirs? At your hands? People like Chiyo... and like Azrael? They get to have their happiness ripped away and you get a pardon? I don't think so..."
"Why should you be the one to choose who lives and who dies? Fucking news flash, bitch - You're not God! It's not your fucking decision who gets to die, who you get to stab with a God damn spear you don't even deserve!" He ranted and roared. "Don't act like you wouldn't do the same if our positions were switched the fuck around. It's not my fucking problem that I see a way to get my family back so I'm taking it! I'm not gonna fucking apologize for that! Throw all the fucking blame you want at me, but I'm not here to justify myself to a woman who almost fucking deleted everything! This isn't a conversation I want to fucking have!" He leaned down, and the sharpness of his fiery green eyes cut into her. "The conversation I want to have is the one where you tell me where my wife and son are, so that I can find them, have them live again, and then I want to never see your fucking face for the rest of my family's very, very, very long lives. That they deserve to live, whether you agree or not."
The fire in Michael's green eyes only met the icy coldness of Celestiel's blue ones as she stared calmly back at him. "It must be terrible... not getting what you want, isn't it? It absolutely fascinates me... You think you're the good one, here. The mighty hero, out to rescue his family from the grave. But you're too twisted to see that I'm not the villain here. You are. You always have been. And maybe you're right... maybe your wife is the righteous one and she deserves to live. On the other hand, I think I did her a favor. This way, she doesn't have to be married to someone so disgusting." Celestiel's shackles clanked when she tried to lurch forward in her chair towards the Fire Angel. "You're the one I should have killed."
His back suddenly straightened, self-disgust hitting him when the ugly inner voice started. Who said Nema was still going to be married to him? Who said that? The last time they'd spoken it was more like screaming. Nema dropping her wedding ring into a bowl of broken glass. Nema leaving through the door. He didn't stop her. He should have stopped her, but he didn't stop her, so now here they were. Who said that they would still be married, the moment she took a breath again?
And then he was hitting her. Hard. Over and over and over again. But who said Nema would still be married to him? Who said he'd still be able to call her his wife? What gave Celestiel that idea? Because he wanted to believe that, too.
"Tell me where they are! Now! Tell me where they fucking are!" Still he was hitting her. "I'm the one you should have killed? Guess what? You didn't! So now I'm here beating the fucking blood out of your body! Sucks to be you! Now tell me where they are!"
"Not a fucking chance." Celestiel said, and she laughed. She fucking laughed.
Michael's fingers curled like claws into the shoulders of Celestiel's shirt, and he shook her for all his rage. If only he already had Nema and Nathan back… he would have set this bitch on fire. "What is all this? Revenge? Justice? How? By killing a woman who's trying to make the world better in a sane fucking way?" He shoved her away in disgust, so hard that her chair tipped back, and he yet again righted her by yanking her back by her hair. He immediately released her, not wanting to touch her unless it was to pummel her ruthlessly. "By killing children? You killed a fucking child! Yeah, that's justice, all right! Way to fucking go!" He could hear the quiver in all his yelling, but whenever his thoughts drifted toward his son in particular, it hurt him in a whole other way. He was so young… too young…
In mentioning Nathan, Michael had found the one blade he could use to actually, truly hurt her. A frown curled Celestiel's battered and bleeding mouth. "Don't you get it?" She said, her voice dropping from something cold and cruel to something much softer. "It isn't about justice. Or revenge. It's about equality. It's about what's fair. To everyone else, besides you. To Azrael, to Chiyo... to me. To everyone who's lost the people they loved to this... idiotic feud between White Wings and Rabbits. To let you pluck them back from death would be a spit in the face to every single one of them... So I won't tell you. You might as well just kill me."
Michael's glare narrowed into needle-thin slits in his face as he listened to her. Equality. Fairness... "So because others have their dead, I need to have my dead, too? That's what you're telling me, right now." He struck her again. It was not enough. "Fuck you, Celestiel! Like I don't know people have died because of this stupid fucking shit and it's not fucking fair! I know it's not fair! Life's not fair!" He struck her again and watched the blood stream from her nose. It was not enough. "We take advantage of what we have! I have a way to bring my dead back and I'm not gonna fucking give up on it because you don't think it's fair! It's what I have! I'd be a shitty fucking person if I didn't fight for this and it's not my problem that you don't think it's fair!" He pulled back his fist and heard the blood dripping off of it, hitting the floor with a sickening spattering sound. "I might as well just kill you? We'll get there, bitch! One way or another we'll fucking get there!"
"I won't tell you." Celestiel repeated, her eyes finally growing glassy and weary from all the strikes he had dealt. "I have to live knowing I failed my child... So you will, too."
"Uriel, don't go in there!" On the other side of the one-way mirror, Raphael suddenly jumped when he saw the imposing form of Uriel's body move from the corner of his eye. He'd had the feeling it wouldn't be good to allow his fellow Elemental Angel to watch the interrogation taking place… but with no way of explaining the foreboding feeling, Uriel got to stay, to watch Celestiel be beaten nearly to a pulp. He thought to reach out and restrain him in some way, but the man was as strong as rock and impossible to stop when he had the conviction. And oh… he had the conviction.
"Get out of my way!" The voice that tore through the door wasn't anything like the Uriel Michael had known before. It was savage and brutal, and that same level of severity nearly blew the door off its hinges. The door banged open and in the threshold stood over six feet of very, very angry Earth Angel. "Michael." Uriel breathed his name, and his tension and rage hung so thick in the air. "You have three seconds to leave this room, before I decorate that wall with what's inside of your head."
Michael immediately released his captive to stand and stare at the Angel taking up nearly the entire doorway. A rare sight, Uriel with his rage embraced and unleashed… and in the past, Michael had enjoyed and even encouraged that. But that was before the Fire Angel found himself the target of such ire… "Sympathizer here to buy the traitor five minutes of rest?" His fists clenched and unclenched. "Because that's all you'll get. She doesn't deserve even that much, but you don't seem to realize that."
"You will not come near her again." Uriel said, those green eyes of his, usually so calm and gentle, blazed with a malice and aggression that gave the Fire Angel goosebumps. "I will not say it again. Leave. Now."
Only a short moment more of fiery eyes meeting the rock hard glare passed before Michael finally relented. The softest, "Feh…" of a scoff hissed out under his breath as he moved around the Earth Angel and left, immediately falling into an argument with Raphael over letting Uriel come and watch, in the first place.
Uriel shouted over their bickering. "Raphael! Heal her."
"What?" Bewildered, Raphael's eyes darted from Michael to Uriel, and back again.
"No fucking way! That bitch deserves every bit of what I gave her!" Michael yelled.
"That wasn't the deal! The only reason I agreed to let you interrogate her was because Raphael would be here to heal the damage. So do it."
Raphael was quick to rest a hand on Michael's shoulder, to temporarily silence the angry Angel. "He's right, Michael. That was the deal." Raphael was strangely desperate to placate both men. He had never seen Uriel so angry. Even in the days when Uriel would frequently lose his temper and accidentally destroy full city blocks... That wasn't as terrifying as the chilly brand of anger that was coming off of Uriel in waves. A part of him almost wished Uriel would have lost his temper, at least that would have felt familiar.
"Feh. Just hurry it up." Michael grumbled.
Raphael stepped into the interrogation room, tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind his ear and approached Celestiel. Michael had certainly done a number on the poor woman; her eye was nearly swollen shut and her nose was most likely broken, leaking blood down her split and swollen lips. As he circled around her to assess her condition, he noted the blood dripping down her arms, pooling around her Angel Crystal restraints before sliding off her fingers and pooling with the red speckled on the floor. "Please..." He said to her, too quiet for Michael or Uriel to hear. "Just tell us where they are."
Celestiel was eerily silent, her icy blue eyes staring straight forward, her battered mouth frozen in a determined, stoic frown.
Raphael's hand was shaking when he rested his palm on her forehead, and after a brief flash of light, Celestiel's lips were healed, her eye no longer swollen.
"Now, get out."
Uriel's authoritative voice made Raphael keep his mouth pinched shut, and he turned and left in a hurry, making sure Michael followed him.
"I'm sorry." Uriel's tone instantly changed when he was alone with her in the interrogation room, to something soft and as comforting as possible. "It wasn't supposed to go this far."
"You mean the plan wasn't to let Michael beat answers out of me?" Celestiel said moodily, licking a bit of remaining blood off her healed lip.
"The plan was just for him to question you. I had a feeling he might be violent, but... not to this degree." Uriel grabbed a chair from the corner of the room. The legs squealed loudly as he dragged it across the stone and placed it in front of her.
"So what's the new plan? Michael beats me up, then you lend me a shoulder to cry on, afterwards? And in all my gratitude I open up to you and tell you where Nema and Nathan are?" Celestiel scoffed. "I'm sorry, but that's not going to work."
Uriel released the cuffs from Celestiel's wrists and sat down in the chair in front of her, so close his knees rested between hers. "I'm not here to ask you questions."
"Sure, you're not." Celestiel tried to look him in the eye, but found that she couldn't. Discomfort and awkwardness made her look away and distract herself by rubbing her sore wrists. "Was anything you said to me before even true? Or were you just trying to get me to put a stop to the program?"
Uriel took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to gently wipe away the blood on her neck and cheek. "Celestiel, you know me well enough to know that I'm not capable of guile." He hooked a finger against her chin and gently turned her face to meet his gaze. "Everything I said to you was true. I do love you. I want us to be together, now."
"I don't know how you can still say that. After everything I've done."
"Your name never meant anything to me. I saw you for who you are a long time ago, and that hasn't changed. Things are just a lot clearer, now. That's all."
"I wish I could believe you." Celestiel said quietly, managing to hold his gaze, if only to convey the anger she felt. "But I can't trust that you're not here to just get information out of me."
"Celestiel, I don't care about Nema. Or Nathan. They can rot in their graves."
Celestiel was so stunned by the bluntness of his statement that her head jerked backwards and her eyes widened.
"I know, it's terrible of me to say. But if you're honestly okay with how things happened, then I'd be happy to just put it in the past and move forward. I have you... that's all that matters. But Celestiel...? I can't believe that you're okay with it."
Celestiel swallowed, and was still so frozen by his words that she was afraid to blink.
"Killing Nema? I can believe that she was just a casualty of war. But Nathan? Look me in the eye and tell me that you can live with yourself after what you did to him."
Finally, a brief flicker of emotion on Celestiel's face showed that Uriel had tapped a nerve. In an instant, her surprised blue eyes were shimmering with tears.
"You see, it isn't about giving Michael what he wants. I don't give a damn about Michael, either. I just want you to be happy. That's all. So tell me... are you okay with what happened to Nathan?"
Uriel's voice was so gentle, and it still managed to cut through every bit of Celestiel's carefully constructed armor like a blade. A soft sob erupted from her dry throat and she hung her head. "It was an accident... He... He fell on me...!"
"I know..." Uriel brushed pieces of her black hair away from her neck. "I know you wouldn't hurt a child. It's not who you are."
"He wasn't supposed to be there."
"Tell me where he is." Uriel said quietly, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks, not caring that she was still speckled with blood. "Tell me where he is, and we can put this right. And you don't have to feel guilty, anymore."
"If I tell you..." Celestiel said, gazing at him with a subtle dread in her eyes. "They're going to kill me."
"Nobody is ever going to hurt you, again. I swear it."
Celestiel's chair screeched when she lurched forward and threw her arms around Uriel's neck. She was covered in her own blood, and he didn't care. He held her tight, even as she started to cry. He murmured softly in her ear, words of comfort and promises. And when Celestiel had finished crying, she turned her face into his neck, and whispered in his ear.
She told him exactly where they could find Nema and Nathan. At a graveyard in Assiah, in Azrael's family mausoleum.
"Wait here." Uriel said, slowly releasing her. "I'm going to tell Michael what he wants to know, and then I'm coming back for you." He tilted up her face again and kissed her. "You and I are getting out of here."
xXxXxXx
"Michael."
The redhead didn't reply, staring at the locked chest that contained his shattered sword, pulling hard on his dog tags and the pink, heart-shaped wedding ring that hung alongside them.
"Michael," Raphael tried again. "I need to know if you want to be immediately present for this."
"Jibril? Setsuna?" His voice was so war-torn, it was hard to tell if he was still angry or if sadness had become the primary emotion.
"They told me it was hard enough with that video... they want to wait for when they're back, and when they're ready to see others." Moments passed in silence. Very, very few times was Michael ever like this, and it set Raphael's every nerve on edge. "Mika-"
Even the nickname which normally aggravated him went ignored. "And you think they're ready to see me?"
The Wind Angel had never learned what happened to make Nema pull her ring off and leave. Even now, especially now, it seemed very inappropriate to ask. "... Your son will need you. He's been through a lot. He'll want his father to be his anchor."
A laugh. Short. Hurt. More like a grumbled sigh than anything else. "He was there. He ran out of the room. I was too... I don't know. Too stupid to at least stop him."
Raphael felt the frown pulling on his lips. "... It's not a wrong decision if you want to wait here-"
"No." Suddenly he snapped and became firm in his resolve. "I need to do this; I need to be there. I can handle it." But the moment he turned his head to face his dearest friend, was the moment every little bit of fear showed itself too well in his eyes.
Yes, of course, he wanted Nema and Nathan back. He hadn't unleashed his brand of divine wrath to not enable them to breathe and be once more.
But the moment they returned to him might be the moment he would lose them in a whole other way. He felt Nema's diamond nearly piercing the skin of his palm...
A jerk of his closest friend's head was enough to suddenly set Michael marching toward his bedroom. He didn't know where else to put them. Leaving them on the floor of any room was disrespectful, and though they still had belongings that they needed to retrieve from the mansion near London, the idea of bringing them back there made the bile rise up in his throat. Putting them in a hospital seemed sensible but it would have been hard to keep them hidden... no, for some reason, he could only think to bring them home. To allow them to have a home all together, for at least the next few moments...
He walked in, and immediately his gaze moved up to the ceiling, a low and mournful kind of groan building in his mouth. It had nothing to do with death in itself. It had everything to do with seeing them dead. It was all he could do to not weep when they'd first pulled them from the crypt. It was all he could do to not weep now.
And Raphael could do no more than be quiet and allow Michael all the time he needed. Time to take the waves of different emotions and attempt to even them out before he moved this any further. "They're going to live again, Mika-chan." Another attempt to try and knock away the conflicted anticipation of it all and replace it with a more normal feeling, even if it was an annoyed feeling. But also, an attempt to comfort his hurting fellow Elemental.
"Is this gonna..." He spoke over the nickname. "Is this gonna put you out again?"
The Holy Healer knew what he was referring to. "Considering I'm not mortally wounded, myself...? No. I don't think so. I'll be exhausted but okay." He paused. He knew the next question could be construed as insensitive. "... Which one do you want brought back first?"
Michael's eyes shut and his head turned away, rejecting the weight of the decision being put upon him. Was there even a right answer? But Raphael couldn't assume the decision himself, he just couldn't. If he brought back Nema first, he'd be subjecting a mother to look upon the lifeless body of her child. If he brought back Nathan first, then a child would look upon the lifeless body of his mother...
"If I could resurrect both at the same time, you know that I would-"
"Nema." The name came out choked and twisted around a flurry of warring emotions. The choice was at once both torturous and relieving. His eyes opened again to look at Raphael. "Nema first." His eyes were blue and green and unsure.
Raphael tried to validate his decision. "She's strong. She can handle it." He didn't voice what 'it' was, because it didn't need to be said. He gave Michael a single nod, and then placed his hand over the open gash in Nema's throat.
As soon as the blue-toned pallor became pure ivory with the tiniest petal pink tinges in all the right places, the War Angel dropped to his knees beside the bed. This was the Nema he fell in love with. Some people might have said she was pale as death; they didn't know what they were talking about. Her skin was so alive. It was so full of light, he couldn't understand how anyone could think someone like her was anything but holy.
Her snowy lashes lifted, and her eyes were red as blood, red as life, red as the love that had been cutting him open and somehow managed to cut him all the deeper, once her chest rose to take in a breath.
Raphael's hand left her throat, and that was all it took for raw, instinctual action to take over. For Michael to rise just enough to sit on the edge of their bed. For his hands to cup her face, no longer cold and mottled. For hers to rise in an automatic reaction to being so suddenly touched, and rest upon his own face. The bewilderment made her hold her breath, made him hold his breath, even as her finger brushed a familiar path down the line of his dragon tattoo, from cheek to jaw. And he'd missed that touch, he'd needed that gesture like oxygen, because it was their gesture, and her eyes were wide and his eyes were wide and she was still holding her breath and that was when he kissed her. She sat up, and he moved with her easily, lips still locked. No amount of arguing, or a ring dropped into broken glass, would take away how well they knew each other. Well enough to move as one, even if they were angry at one another... But he wasn't angry, he wasn't angry anymore, and he hoped his kiss said that along with all the other things that needed to be said.
And then she pulled away, and the first word to leave her mouth was a name. "... Nathan."
Did Nema know that their son had also been murdered? He had no idea how all this death had occurred; hadn't wanted to know the details. But suddenly he was afraid to release her face. He didn't want her to see the wound in their young boy's chest, to see him cold and lifeless. He opened his mouth, though no words left him.
It was both a blessing and a curse that Raphael could say the right things, in as delicate a way as possible. "Nema, you were hurt and so was Nathan; I'm going to save him." He had to make sure that reached Nema, somehow.
But when her head turned toward the Wind Angel, who'd moved to the other side of the bed... she saw her son and immediately let out an outraged mourner's cry. "Nathan...!"
What else could he do but repeat himself? "I'm going to save him, Nema...!" He immediately laid his hand over the boy's chest.
The words did nothing to placate her. Nema had already turned and begun a desperate lunge for the child who lay beside her, and Michael had to hold her back.
He would have given anything to go back to the kiss, to that brief moment where for all their fighting, they were still together in the way that only those who'd been in love for so long were together, were connected, were in tune with each other. Yet now all he could do was hold on tight as she struggled to leave his embrace, crying out the name of their son. Trying to leave him, again... "Nema, let him work!"
The plea only set her off in a whole other way, her direction changing so fast that he'd ended up pulling her straight into his lap. She struck him hard across the blue dragon inked onto his face, hard enough to force his head away, hard enough to draw a tear from his eye. The silence was more painful than her prior cries, her sudden glare stinging him in the heart. She would not be kept from her son. He released her.
Nema fell upon her child no sooner than Raphael's hand lifted, weeping as the poor boy blinked bleary and bewildered eyes at her. The dying memory was all too fresh in her mind... pleading for her son to run. Using every last bit of energy she had just to point back up the stairs, back to some semblance of safety. Yet even as she'd died, a part of her knew her son would suffer. Seeing the proof of it, though he breathed again, sent wild tears from her eyes. How could Serissa do this to her little boy? How could she...?
"Ma...!" Nathan's voice croaked from being unused for so long, but that one syllable was the precursor to his own tears. "Ma, she...!"
"She killed you...!" The words were a shared cry between them. Their snowy pale arms clung tightly to each other, and they simply cried. Unleashed all the hurt and the worry and the relief, too. She'd killed them, yes. But they were here, again...
And all Michael could do was watch the reunion of mother and child, like a dog kicked out into the yard and left to stare in at it's family through the window. He felt the heavy weight of Raphael's hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his friend looking utterly spent. "Getting Barbiel. She'll bring Isobelle." Short, clipped, fatigued sentences. He owed his friend so much... even if he was still losing his family.
Raphael left, and he thought to follow him. He wasn't wanted, here... But no sooner than Michael stood, a terrifying snarling of words left Nema that caused him to look down at her with surprised eyes.
"I want her dead!"
He wasn't the only one shocked; Nathan's tear-stained face was pressed to his mother's collarbone, but his ruby eyes were round and turned upward to her quivering chin. All of Nema was shaking, her body hunched over her little boy like a protective mother bear, arms clamped tight around him, her breath leaving her in seething hisses.
And even if Nema wouldn't let him hold her, he could at least fulfill her wild, raging demand. "Consider it done." He'd already killed the traitor hundreds of times, in his mind; he'd happily do it for real, this time.
Michael turned to complete the task, and felt the shaky, needy tug upon his hand. Snowy pale fingers, clinging to his own, and he could have sworn he felt one of them brush against his rose gold wedding band.
The rage left Nema's eyes, only to be replaced with confusion. Despair. Her white hair slipped over her shoulders as she shook her head... No. Though she felt her heart cry out hard for revenge, no. Nema knew it wasn't the answer...
That was what made Nema so much better than him. That was why he needed her.
He sank back down onto the bed with her, with Nathan, and didn't lean into them until Nema pulled him against her side. She wept. Nathan wept. Michael could feel the wetness of his own tears... they were together. They were broken.
When Barbiel stepped into the room with Isobelle in her arms, Michael was desperate in reaching out to his little girl. Like she might be the glue that could hold this mess of a family together, who might make everything normal again. He felt guilty for daring to put such expectations on his daughter, who was so young that her short little sentences were still peppered with double-syllables and scribble talk. He was supposed to be the one to save his Bell. She wasn't supposed to save him.
But she curled up perfectly against his chest and gave him a questioning, "Papa?" And soon she was in tears, because everyone she loved was in tears. And Michael kissed the crown of her head, and Nema kissed her, too, and Nathan reached to take her hand, which curled into a chubby white fist around around his thumb. She wasn't supposed to save them all, but without her they'd be lost to the sea of unsaid things and warring feelings...
Eventually the outside world came through. "Michael..."
He gave Barbiel little more than a glance before returning to his confused and needing family. Just long enough to see that Raphael had joined her, leaning heavily against the doorway, his phone against his ear. "Go lie down before you fall over, Raphael."
"I will. But you need to know. Serissa-"
The very last name he wanted to hear, right now. "Make sure she's tossed into a holding cell; that bitch is going to answer for what she tried to do!"
"Michael, that's what we're trying to tell you." Barbiel moved over an inch, just close enough for Raphael to lean on her. "We just got the call. She's gone."
"Uriel took her." The Wind Angel seemed tired for more reasons than physical exhaustion.
That was enough to make Michael's and Nema's heads lift, tears suddenly running dry for all their shock. "... What?"