So.

You guys seem a liiiiiiittle angry about the last chapter.

I REFUSE TO APOLOGIZE but also I need to know are some of you psychic because you are weirdly good at guessing what's about to come next. Like, seriously. How do you know these things. Good guessing skills? Black magic? Tell me.

And obviously Gabriel's not dead. Pssh. What kind of author would I be if I killed off Gabriel?

Beyond that, I am saying nothing.

Although I did momentarily contemplate having him end up temporarily human. And they don't find him for years until he grows up. But the important thing to consider here is that I didn't do that. I did not.

It wouldn't fit with the flow of the story.

I probably will post that in Alternate Vessels, though.

And I've probably gone way over the amount of italics any author should ever use in one chapter, but I need emphasis. So screw convention.

But guys. Guys. Guess what's in this chapter. YOU GUESSED IT MORE PLOT TWISTS YOU'RE WELCOME NOW I'LL STOP WRITING AND LET YOU GET ON WITH THIS CHAPTER ALREADY.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.

Gabriel wasn't unconscious, per se.

He wasn't not unconscious.

The new presence crashing into the warehouse did a good job of waking him up, though.

It was fire and blinding light and smoke. Probably from all the beams that had fallen. Michael, Gabriel thought muzzily. Why was ne here? He'd done it. Belial was dead.

"Fuck," someone - Michael - said. There was a scraping noise and Michael's hands were on him, pulling at his shoulder. Gabriel groaned as Michael pulled him onto his back.

"Fuck," Michael said again. There was a weird shakiness to nir voice. Or maybe Gabriel misheard. He probably couldn't trust his senses, because his perception of time was definitely shot to hell. Michael's hand was really tight on his shoulder.

"Gabriel?" Then, more insistently, "Gabriel. Look at me!"

Gabriel didn't want to drag open his eyes. It was too much effort. He managed to turn his head to where Michael was [probably], groaning again in place of words. That hadn't been intentional, but all that came out was "Nnnhh."

He was pretty sure that Michael swore much more vehemently then, but again. Senses. Weren't great.

Then hands were pushing under him and lifting up and Gabriel had never remembered gravity dragging at him quite that much. He pressed his arm into his chest and tried not to think about how it felt like his whole right side was soaked.

Something wasn't right, Michael was listing to one side, putting too much weight on nir left side. The fact passed through Gabriel's head in a haze.

He was weightless for a moment, space passing around him and he could tell Michael was flying. Michael landed unsteadily, already shouting.

"Aziraphale!" The noise stabbed into Gabriel's head and made him stiffen reflexively. He immediately regretted it when his fingers curled and dug into the sensitive injury.

"Ow..." It's more incoherent groan than actual word really should be but Gabriel just hurt.

There was rushed conversation over him and more hands, pulling his jacket off and making his shirt vanish and putting something vaguely soft under him. Gabriel's eyes were still squeezed shut, human reflex and plain not wanting to see what it looked like, how far Belial had cut-

Someone's hand skimmed over his hip, pressing gingerly and Gabriel screamed.

His Grace lashed out. The hand vanished, jerked away abruptly.

"Aziraphale-" There were more urgent voices and someone's hand was curled around his face but it hurt nodon't don'ttouchthatagain leaveitalone stopitplease-

Gabriel couldn't tell if he was actually saying anything. His mind was too muddled to make sense of anything.

Then there was more force pressing down on his arms and Gabriel thrashed, trying to push back but his Grace was torn and ragged and exhausted from fighting and it would have been a miracle if he'd managed to so much as shift whatever was pinning him down.

He was running on pure panic response. He didn't even know if Michael was still there. He was trapped and injured and he couldn't do anything about it and he didn't know what was happening.

"Please-"

What felt like lightning touched his wound.

Gabriel's back arched and his throat was hoarse as his true voice tore at it. His hands were scrabbling at whatever he was lying on and it was moving up his torso, it felt like he was on fire don'tpleasestopitithurts-

It didn't stop.

It didn't stop and he couldn't move not even to curl in on himself, and it was such a human, pointless move that Gabriel didn't know why he thought it would help. There were tiny, pained noises being forced out of him that scraped against his throat and when they - Michael? Aziraphale? Someone else? - finally drew back he gasped and sagged into the bed.

His mind was a mess of pain and fuck and everything else tangled up in between so that it barely processed that his torso hurt less, now, than it had before. Gabriel felt limp, like something had been removed [well, something had] and his body refused to cooperate.

He was too hot but there was a chilly sensation that swept over his body and made his skin stick to whatever he was lying on [a bed?] and the duality of it made no sense because he couldn't be both, temperature didn't bother him, except it was.

There was a hand on his forehead that was way too hot, like something was burning underneath the skin, and Michael whispered, Rest.

Gabriel let himself fall away.

Michael knew Aziraphale was watching nem.

Ne pushed himself away from the bed, worn and wondering if this was what people meant when they said 'tired to the bone'. Nir exhaustion certainly felt like it went that deep, and further.

First Paimon, then Gabriel...

Ne could guess why Aziraphale looked unnerved. Ne was, too. Seeing Gabriel laid out bare - partially literally - like that was...

It hadn't seemed like Gabriel in the slightest.

Nir panic was only now fading, tingling along nir bones like the aftermath of a burst of adrenalin. Michael had panicked when ne'd arrived in the disastrous aftermath of Gabriel's fight with Belial. They'd arranged to meet each other afterwards. Michael had persuaded him to agree. Ne wanted to be able to make sure Gabriel was all right.

He hadn't shown.

When ne'd gotten there, Gabriel had looked dead. Bloody and his blade discarded, not three feet away from Belial, and for a moment Michael had really believed that they'd killed each other.

There was probably some ironic statement ne could make about this, about history repeating itself, Belial and Gabriel and Gabriel nearly dying - again - but it seemed wrong.

Gabriel was the one who made jokes. And he was spread out on a bed in the hospital wing with a gash that had gone nearly all the way through.

Nearly, Michael told nemself, and only in one place. He's not dead. You just made sure of that. But healing Gabriel, going in and 'stitching' him back together had caused more pain than it had fixed. The fact that anything in the room made of glass had shattered when he screamed was a testament to that.

He'd lost control enough for his true voice to leak through. Michael didn't even want to imagine the kind of pain Gabriel had been in.

"You're hurt," Aziraphale said, and Michael remembered nir leg. Right. Belial wasn't the only one who had gotten in a lucky shot. Ne groped around for a chair, reaching behind nem, and one obligingly slid up.

Michael dropped into it, giving Aziraphale a grateful look. Aziraphale just nodded. Taking weight off nir leg didn't seem to help much. Ne'd fixed the damage to nir body - body, not vessel - but the real damage went deeper.

"Do you need-"

"I'll take care of it." Michael said. "You're the one who got thrown into that cabinet."

"Ah. Well." Aziraphale shifted on his feet uncomfortably. "I probably should have considered that putting my hands on an injured archangel wouldn't end well."

What had worried Michael about that was how uncontrolled it had seemed, but ne wasn't going to say that to Aziraphale's face. Ne glanced at Gabriel, impulsively.

"He'll be alright," Aziraphale said, guessing at Michael's thoughts. "You did heal him."

"Not all the way," Michael murmured. Ne didn't have enough energy to fix it completely. It had been a clean wound - from an angel blade, ne'd seen another on the floor near Belial - but ne doubted ne would have been able to do much more even at full power.

Aziraphale shifted again, then leaned over, fingers trailing over Gabriel's chest. Gabriel stirred, head turning to the side with a faint, huffed groan of complaint, but stayed unconscious. The now-thinner gash in his vessel closed, leaving only bloody traces that it had ever been there.

"His vessel seems a little fragile," Aziraphale murmured, then shook his head. "I suppose it's nothing."

He pulled Gabriel's shoes off, leaving them neatly by the foot of the bedside table. Aziraphale managed to tug the blanket out from under Gabriel in one seamless move and drape it over him, hiding most of Gabriel's chest. It didn't do much to hide the blood that had puddled on the bed. A reddish, browning stain still covered most of the top half of the blanket.

"We should probably clean up," Michael muttered. "Madam Pomfrey won't appreciate the mess."

Aziraphale glanced at an open door, beyond which lay an empty office. "She's the doctor, I assume?" He ran an absentminded hand over the blanket, restoring it [and probably the mattress as well] to a pristine white. Drops of blood on the floor wiped themselves away.

Michael nodded. "We're lucky she's not here." It would have been too complicated to explain, to keep her out of the way and fix Gabriel.

"I don't suppose anyone's about to show up and be horrified by what they see."

"No. I don't think they know we're back yet."

Aziraphale nodded. Then he said, "Give me your leg."

"What?"

"Prop up your leg." Aziraphale pulled up another chair. "I know you don't have enough energy to heal yourself. I'll do it."

Michael stared for a moment. Then ne put nir leg up on the chair.

The anxiety winding through Aziraphale's Grace eased somewhat. He paused before putting his hands on Michael's leg. "You'll have to promise not to throw me into any cabinets, though."

"That's a promise I can make."

It was tricky to try and identify exactly when awareness started seeping back to him. Gabriel was first aware of how weird his surroundings were - he couldn't tell what color they were, like they were no color at all but constantly changing hue.

There was a presence near him, like someone sitting next to him.

Correction.

There was Someone next to him.

Gabriel bolted upright like he'd been shocked. "You?!"

His Father smiled at him. "Me," He agreed.

"I - what - what are you-" Words piled up in his mouth. "You're - here?"

"Yes." Why was He so calm?

"Where have you been?" Gabriel didn't remember standing up, but he wasn't entirely sure he'd been lying down in the first place. "You just - you fucking left us! And now you're - you stroll back in like nothing happened? I - Raphael thought you were dead, Michael didn't even tell me you were gone until - until ages later! They tried to start the Apocalypse and I almost died and you - you're here now?"

At that point Gabriel remembered who he was yelling at and snapped his mouth shut. His Father didn't seem fazed by it.

"You've got every right to be angry," He said. At least three retorts jumped to Gabriel's mind and he bit them all back, looking away from Him. It had been a long time since he'd been in this position. He'd forgotten how small it made him feel.

Being told he was right didn't make him feel any better, either.

"You can say what you like." He wasn't smiling, but He didn't need to be for Gabriel to be able to tell that He wasn't upset. "I know it's been difficult."

"That's an understatement." Gabriel knew he sounded bitter. "Maybe it would have gone better if you'd stuck around."

God sighing was a peculiar thing to be in the presence of. "I did have my reasons."

"Reasons for ditching us?"

"I never left you," He said. "Not fully."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gabriel bit out. "That you were there 'in spirit'? Fat lot of good that did. Or are you just ignoring how without you Michael had to bullshit their way through running Heaven? Was that not big enough for you to worry about? If the Apocalypse isn't-"

"Gabriel." The way He was looking at him made Gabriel feel suddenly, intensely out of place. It was like something had brought every un-angelic part of him to the forefront - all of Loki, of the Trickster. And they didn't belong in front of someone like Him.

"I know what happened after I left," He said softly. "And I do regret what happened. It was never my intention of any of that to happen."

"You're God," Gabriel muttered recalcitrantly. "You knew it was going to happen."

"I saw that it might happen," He agreed. "But it was not the only possible outcome. I hoped, perhaps, that Michael would choose one of the better routes."

"So it's Michael's fault."

"No," God said. "Mostly my own, I think, for placing too much onto nem too abruptly. I should not have left without a warning of some kind."

Gabriel didn't question the odd pronoun - he'd never asked Michael what ne preferred, but if anyone would know, it would be Him. "But you left." Gabriel tried not to sound like a petulant child.

"Yes." God nodded. "So did you."

Crap.

"I'm hardly in a place to reprimand you for doing so," He said before Gabriel could speak. "I am the one who left first. My regret is that events led to a place where you felt you had no choice but to leave."

It would have been unnerving, being read so easily, but from Him it was different. That was simply how He worked. "I-" Gabriel didn't know what he'd expected, if he'd ever been really confronted about his leaving [not that he'd ever imagined this scenario] but unconditional acceptance without any kind of blame was not it. "You - know what I did. Right?" How much did He know?

God nodded. He looked almost amused, if that could describe what it was like. "You found another family," He said softly, and Gabriel shifted, discomfort welling up in him again. "It's not a bad thing. You wished for one that would give you what your siblings failed to."

"Yeah, well, turns out they were a crappy family too." Gabriel didn't want to think about Odin right now, much less any of the rest of them. "Didn't do much to stop my other family from fucking things up for me anyway."

God's amusement dimmed. "It was not supposed to happen then, you know."

"Then why not come back and stop them?" Gabriel retorted. "If it wasn't supposed to happen then why not come back and stop it?"

"Tell me, Gabriel," He said. "You know what Michael intended. You can guess what Lucifer wanted. If I had returned to fix the situation, how quickly would the two of them have realized exactly what they needed to do every time they wanted to see me?"

They'd have been dealing with Apocalypses every month - week, maybe. Gabriel didn't doubt that. "Why leave in the first place, though?" He asked quietly. "You knew this would happen."

"Gabriel," He said softly. "My Messenger...you all had so much potential. So much that it took me far longer than it should have to realize what I'd given you. You could never have pursued that with me hovering over your shoulder, directing your every move."

"That's it?" That was... "That's just something - our potential? For what? Free will?" It was a rhetorical question.

"Perhaps," He said mildly, shocking Gabriel. "I don't believe I quite got the hang of that until the humans...in you, it takes a while to manifest, and the trigger is usually some unfortunate circumstance."

"We don't have free will," Gabriel said automatically.

"Then what have you been doing all these years?" God asked - not unkindly. "Taking orders from whoever you could find?"

Gabriel opened his mouth to reply and then closed it, unsure. What was he supposed to say to something like that?

"Why?" He said eventually.

"Why not?" His Father was smiling at him again, even if it wasn't a smile by conventional definition. "Do you regret it?"

Becoming Loki? Everything he'd done on Earth? "No," Gabriel said softly. "I just - couldn't you have just told us this?"

"And then you would have asked me what you should do with your free will," God said. "No, Gabriel. A warning, perhaps - a note that I would no longer be there to tell you what to do - but it was never the leaving that was my mistake."

"Mistake?"

"I can make those," He said, something like laughter in His voice at Gabriel's surprise.

"You're God."

"Yes," He said, "and just look at what I've made. Don't you think an absolutely perfect being could make something equally perfect?"

"No." Gabriel had made things, even if most of them weren't actually real. "There's always something missing."

"Perhaps." Gabriel had a feeling He had known the answer before He asked. "Perfect beings would be rather boring."

"You're not."

"Well," He said. "Maybe there's a different definition of perfect for what I've made."

"Humans think angels are perfect." Perfect and holy and good. Gabriel had considered the irony of it before. "I think it varies between species."

God was silent for a moment, merely watching Gabriel. Then- "You have something on your mind."

Gabriel glanced down, then back up. "It's not important." Not really.

"Isn't it?"

"I - no, it's just..."

It was debatable whether either of them really had physical bodies at that moment, but Gabriel still manged to wrap his arms around his Father and squeeze.

There was something like a chuckle from Him. No one actually chuckles, Gabriel thought, but he was too relieved to care.

This was all he'd wanted. For Him to be there. It wasn't about free will or taking orders or who left first.

It was just family.

He was hugging back, and Gabriel practically melted into Him. It was like - there wasn't even an equivalent. Nothing on Earth could compare to it.

Eventually, though, He drew back, and Gabriel tried to hide his disappointment.

"You get into so much trouble," God said fondly. "Even when you were younger. I used to wish I could just do that all the time to keep you still and in one place."

"You could have." Gabriel probably wouldn't have objected.

God shook His head. "However much trouble you caused, I never wanted to limit you," He said. "Even if you seem to have gotten into worse situations now."

"...Yeah." A phantom ache passed over him, making Gabriel shift to try and get rid of it. "You don't...what about the Knights?"

"I believe you've already taken care of that," He said.

A flash of memory passed over Gabriel. Hadn't he collapsed...? "I'm not-"

"Dead? No, of course not." God reassured him. "You're going to be fine, Gabriel."

Coming from Him, it was actually very reassuring.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have another situation like the Elysian." His Father did sound relieved. "I'm glad you won."

"Faking my death would be kind of pointless," Gabriel said, wondering if He had intended it as a joke. Bringing up the Elysian was...anyway. "And she would have realized that the blade was fake."

"A fake blade," God said. There was something unusual about the words. "At the Elysian?"

"Yeah," Gabriel said. Shouldn't He know this already if He was, apparently, watching? "That's how I got out. Did you...skip that bit?"

His Father didn't answer.

"...What?"

"Gabriel." There was something heavy about his name. "There was no fake blade."

"I-" What? "No, I remember-" What had he made it out of? "If it wasn't fake then I would have d-"

He couldn't say it.

A hand - or something like it - cupped his face, his Father looking down at Gabriel with sympathy. "Your Grace," He murmured. "With so much of it gone, you had such a human reaction...I'd nearly forgotten that you didn't remember."

"Remember-" No. This wasn't - he hadn't-

God gave him a sad smile. "I may not have shown myself publicly, then," He said, "but that does not mean I didn't interfere at all. My best work is when no one realizes I am there."

"You-" Brought him back. He didn't need to be brought back. "I'm not de-" Gabriel broke off mid-word.

"No," He said. "And I expect you to stay that way for a long time yet."

Gabriel clutched at the hand on his face. "What is this?" He asked. "Why come talk to me? To - fix things? Are you even really here or am I just dreaming?"

He hadn't even finished the sentence and he could already feel His presence fading. "Of course it's a dream," his Father said, "but why on Earth should that mean it's not real?"

OhGod this was so stupid.

Lucifer was already there, he'd seen him, Gabriel couldn't turn back now. He could hear the screech of tires outside, but he didn't dare look farther, didn't dare take his eyes off Lucifer for a second.

"You disloyal-"

"Oh, I'm loyal." Fuck fuckfuck why did he let Dean Winchester persuade him that this was a good idea. There were bodies scattered everywhere, dead gods, not dead for good but dead for now and bloody and broken.

He didn't have anything left but the faint hope that his illusion would actually work. Please, please, let it work. Let it fool him.

"So you're willing to die for a pile of cockroaches...why?" Lucifer was curious, his distraction was working, he just needed to get behind his brother without Lucifer noticing-

Gabriel didn't know if he could actually kill him.

His vessel was reacting weirdly, heart going faster than normal, and he knew enough of humanity to know that it was reacting to him. His emotions.

He'd been in this vessel for a long time.

Hopefully he would stay in it.

"But a lot of them try. To do better. To forgive." He can see Lucifer pause at that, an tiny, tiny shred of doubt, and Gabriel is suddenly, sharply pleased with himself. He put that doubt there.

If only the rest of his plan would work, too.

"Brother, don't make me do this."

"No one makes us do anything." It's a smartass, whip-fast retort, and Gabriel doesn't want to think about Lucifer calling him brother, not with what he's about to do.

"I know you think you're doing the right thing..."

Gabriel's behind him, now. Lucifer's still facing the illusion.

"But I know where your heart..."

He raises the blade.

"Truly lies."

Hesitates.

It's that which costs him.

Lucifer turns sharply and Gabriel freezes and there is an ice-cold hand around his and the blade and ohGodnoplease thathurts

His own blade is sinking into his vessel and Gabriel's true self screams with pain, atoms and bits of himself are breaking apart around the silver sharpness and Lucifer keeps holding it there.

"Amateur hocus-pocus," he croons, looking down on Gabriel with shadowed eyes. Gabriel can't say anything, there's blood in his throat and he's clutching at Lucifer's arm because he can't stay standing and his brother - killer - is all that's holding him up. "Don't forget, you learned everything from me, little brother."

There's affection in his voice, and that pains him just as much as the fact that Gabriel is literally breaking apart and burning up, particle by particle, around the sword in his stomach.

Lucifer's hand tenses and the blade twists and goes up and deeper and Gabriel screams and burns.

Gabriel jolted upright, eyes shooting open and hands flying to his chest and fuck, ow-

There was a sharp scuffle of movement and someone grabbed his hands [theirs are warmer than Lucifer's ever were] in the time that it took Gabriel to realize that the pain in his chest was a steady, dull ache that only sparked into real pain when he moved.

Not the piercing pain he'd remembered.

He wasn't burning up.

"Gabriel?" Michael - ne sounded anxious, and ne was holding Gabriel's hands like ne thought he was going to injure himself with them.

"I - I'm - I'm okay," Gabriel gasped out.

"No, you're not." Michael sounded really worried. "Lie back down."

"I-"

"Lie down, you're going to open that up if you're not careful."

Gabriel let Michael push him back onto the bed, looking down at his chest. There was a pale, white line where he'd been cut - the barest scratch over his heart down to a thick, raised part just over his hip.

Gabriel ran his fingers over it experimentally and winced when probing sent a flash of pain up the scar. Ow. Mental note; don't do that. His true form didn't look nearly as good.

"Stop it." Michael batted his hand away.

"I'm kinda wondering," Gabriel said, feeling oddly breathless [probably because his lungs were in his chest], "how you think I'm gonna open that."

"It's just the vessel that was healed all the way." Michael was leaning on the side of the bed, giving Gabriel a glancing once-over. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit." The scar marked a constant, dull ache in his body that made Gabriel think it was probably a bad idea to try and sit up. Gabriel made a face at Michael. "Don't hover. It's weird."

"You almost died." Gabriel wasn't expecting Michael's sudden anger. "I'm allowed to be worried, you - do you even remember how bad you were hurt?"

"Yes," Gabriel said. "It kind of happened to me."

Michael groaned and sank into a chair that Gabriel hadn't noticed before. One leg was extended awkwardly, like Michael was trying not to use it.

"Don't say 'I told you so'," Gabriel said.

"I'm not going to say 'I told you so'. I'm not five," Michael said. "Never do that again, Gabriel."

"I don't need you to tell me to stay out of life-threatening situations."

"I'm serious," Michael said. "I cannot show up somewhere and find you looking half dead again. I can't."

"...Right." This was straying into touchy-feely territory that Gabriel was not entirely comfortable with. "Um. I'll keep that in mind next time I run into someone like that. I didn't hallucinate killing her, did I?"

Michael frowned. "Have you been?"

"No. I just thought I'd make sure."

"They're both dead."

"Fabulous." Gabriel looked at his surroundings properly. The hospital wing seemed to be empty, apart from him and Michael. "Where's everyone else?"

"Gone," Michael said. "I asked Castiel and the rest of them to make sure no demons managed to escape. And term's over, so there's not many people still in the school."

"Hogwarts after dark," Gabriel muttered. The windows cast a frame of reddish light on the walls that told him the sun was setting. Wait. Setting? "How long have I been here?"

"Almost an entire day," Michael said. "Are you tired?"

"No, Michael." Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I am lying in a bed and not moving. Isn't that what people are supposed to do when they're hurt?"

"As long as you actually stay in bed," Michael said. "I think 'still' might be a little too much to hope for."

"Pffft." Staying still was boring, anyway. "Seriously. What do you think's going to happen to me?"

"I'm trying to make sure nothing else does," Michael said. "At least let me feel like I'm doing something to help."

"...Fair enough."

Did I make up for the cliffie yet? [Still not sorry].

BTW, during the God 'n' Gabe scene, whatever you do don't listen to 'Noble Maiden Fair' from the Brave soundtrack. Don't do it [do it].

Read and review, please!