Full of Grace

They didn't find the devil in Detroit. Dean was so sure that they would – Sam drank all four gallons of demon's blood in preparation, but the house they were sure he was using as his hideout was a bust. They found a host of demon attendants, but the devil himself was a no show.

They were not detained but were instead given a message:

Deliver Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery by noon tomorrow.

There was no 'or else.' The devil, Dean figured, didn't need to add an 'or else.' His reputation did all the threatening for him. This message coincidentally fell right in line with the eerie, repeated instruction Castiel picked up on Angel Radio: Deliver the prophet Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery by noon or face the full wrath of heaven. Whatever they wanted with Mary Anne, the boys agreed it couldn't be good.

Unfortunately, she had been missing from Chuck's house for a week.

They still had to try. If Stull Cemetery was where the big prize fight was supposed to go down and it seemed like both sides were trying to get Mary Anne there come hell or high water, then that was where they needed to go.

Sam motioned Dean over, grim and urgent.

"Not here," he mouthed, looking vaguely nauseous at the sight of what was presumably Michael wearing their father's young form.

Dean himself felt a little sick at the sight. What the hell had happened to Adam?

"It's just the Winchesters," a voice called flatly from behind them, making them jump in shock. Gabriel smirked, waving his fingers cheekily. "Hello, boys. Miss me?"

Castiel looked to Dean for some kind of sign. They had not been expecting three archangels to be present… was he still supposed to throw the molotov at Michael?

"Where is Mary Anne?" Lucifer asked, deceptively softly, soothing, as he took a step forward. "Castiel? It was you that spirited her away from Michael, wasn't it? Where are you hiding her?"

Castiel looked taken aback – floundering.

"We don't have Annie," Dean answered for him, drawing attention away from the angel before he folded. "We've been looking everywhere for her, but no dice. What do you want with her anyway?"

Gabriel pursed his lips in displeasure.

"That's none of your beeswax, Dean-o."

"You say that," Sam began, annoyed, "but we have it from a prophet that she was taken by an angel. From his house, right in front of him. Annie's been missing for a week. If you don't have her-"

"-who does?"

The last thing Sam remembered before someone's hand came down on his leather clad ass cheek in a resounding spank was Gabriel snapping his fingers and the words "grown-ups need to talk right now, you'll thank me for it later" ringing in his ear.

Mary Anne was really, really fond of those muttonheads (and, he expected, of his now practically human baby brother). Better for them to spend a little quality time together cooling their heels in one of Gabriel's favourite, eh, horizon expanding 'community service' experiences than to be smeared into finger-paint on a molecular level by his trigger-itchy big bro, right?

"Where did you send them?" Michael asked, distracted.

Gabriel didn't waste time with a fake, sunny smile.

"If she was taken in the presence of a prophet, it had to have been by one of us," he said instead, shrugging irreverently. "So, heaven."

Heaven. A daunting prospect. Maybe not for Michael, who stayed, but…

"Your negligence is astounding," Lucifer chastised Michael, clearly not above enjoying the opportunity to lord it over him despite the circumstances.

Gabriel wondered if old Luci would be piping the same smug tune when he found out that, until Mary Anne was seared into all their brains as a prophet and was thus made safe from all demons, she had actually been living with one of his noxious little creations.

"Perhaps one of our brothers has found her and took her to Raphael for safe-keeping," Michael reasoned, ignoring Lucifer. (Because that, Gabriel scoffed, would go down great, of course). "Perhaps she is simply with her assigned guard."

The word 'assigned' nearly made Gabriel shiver – because only one being in the universe was capable of dishing out the orders like that. The big kahuna. The-

"Gabriel." Michael's tone indicated impatience. "Are you ready?"

Lucifer met Gabriel's eyes briefly and then he was brushing past Michael irreverently.

"Better make sure they're ready for me, brother," he said casually, rolling his shoulders in a comfortable motion, as though getting ready to sprint a mile. "I would hate to have to defend myself."

He took off in a frantic flurry of wings, making Michael swear and chase after him.

Giving Gabriel a minute to breathe. Heaven. After – heck, he didn't even know how long it had been. Couldn't remember. Really, sugar snap? Heaven? You couldn't have picked, oh, I don't know, the Spearmint Rhino?

Alright so maybe his Mary Anne (yeah, he liked the sound of that) choosing a place like the Spearmint Rhino was probably a bit of a long shot (he could dream, though, right?). In his defence, it still beat having the whole 'not dead' chat with his literal host of little siblings after a few millennia of going native as a pagan on earth by a fucking landslide no matter how you looked at it. Not that there wasn't much that could beat that impending reunion.

Things I do for you, Mary Anne, sweetheart, Gabriel thought, cringing as he prepared to take the plunge and hoped that Luci had stolen the show being his dickish self.

(And cringed again because – Lucifer had had his back there. When Michael had gotten all 'commander' on him. He couldn't remember the last time Luci had actually had his back like that-)

Gabriel shook these thoughts away and squared himself to face his siblings.

And then, he flew.

Elsewhere

…don't know, the Spearmint Rhino? I heard, fuzzy and indistinct but still somehow like Gabriel in my head. Things I do for you, Mary Anne, sweetheart.

Gadreel? I whispered to him in my mind, tugging gently, so very gently on a feather from the damaged wing the gargantuan creature draped around me. Gadreel, I think… I think I just heard Gabriel.

It was the strangest thing – I'd been dozing off, and then I heard something about the Spearmint Rhino. I mean it sounded like Gabriel no matter how you looked at it, but…

The construct of grace that was Gadreel shifted around me, a half-formed cross of pure grace and heaven's attempts at making him fit what I expected to see when I looked at him – namely, the vessel he hadn't inhabited yet. The result was partially drawn from my memories and still monstrously large, framed in tattered wings.

He is coming, Gadreel returned, making me cringe at the pressure of his voice in my mind. Feathers brushed my shoulder in apology… Gabriel is returning. Michael is gathering the host. They say that-

I doubted most prophets could feel what their guardian angel felt, but I'd been hidden practically in Gadreel's grace since I'd arrived; I felt him around me and felt quite keenly the visceral reaction he had to whatever he was hearing over the Angel Radio.

Gadreel? His wing around me was trembling. Are you alright?

He was silent. Then-

Brother Lucifer is returning, he said, flatly, without a trace of, of some kind of discernible feeling in his voice. He is to be permitted to access to Heaven.

The news was like ice water dumped down my spine.

Lucifer was being welcomed into heaven. A coincidence? After I'd escaped him and Gabriel and gone on to taunt Michael and found myself magically snapped here, the wild card, the only difference from the show? There was just no way. I still wasn't sure of my significance – I was sure Chuck had wiped something from my mind because I'd been with him, then suddenly at the house where Michael was, and then out of nowhere, mid-sentence, I'd been looking up at Gadreel's gargantuan face…

A thrill of fear set me shivering closer to Gadreel.

Lucifer was looking for me before, I told him, trying to quash the desperation, the panic. Demons captured me and brought me to him. Gabriel helped me escape him.

I could feel his distress, greater now than it had been even at the mention of Lucifer. Demons in the presence of the prophet he had been assigned to guard. Even if it had been before his assignment – he was so fixed on being the model guardian angel that these past threats must have felt like a blemish on his record despite preceding him.

Thaddeus was unable to find you, he offered, but that was cold comfort, because Thaddeus wasn't looking for me. I will keep you safe, Mary Anne.

I believed he would try, that was for sure. But… well, I wouldn't let it come to costing him his life. I'd learned a fierce kind of loyalty to this angel who was just so sad and desperate to redeem himself that I honestly would deck my husband if I heard him call him 'the original chump.' I wasn't going to let him face Lucifer for me-

(Especially not when, deep down, I knew that Lucifer wouldn't lift a finger against me. How I knew, I didn't… but I knew. I knew he wouldn't.)

We need to get out of here, I decided, shivering. I couldn't imagine being around Lucifer again. Not Lucifer or Michael or – or even Gabriel, despite how he had done nothing but help me so far.

(He had considered what Lucifer was offering, after all – and now they were arriving together?)

Gadreel was silent and I instantly felt bad.

I'm sorry. It's not possible, I know, I soothed, stroking his sparse feathers gently, so gently that to think about it would have my heart breaking for him all over again. I'm just afraid. Ignore me.

He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

I will keep you safe, Mary Anne, he repeated, and I could hear the suicidal resolve behind the words that I'd been afraid of. My grace is much stronger than it was. This prison holds me only physically now. He didn't hesitate. Should there be no other option we will escape.

I was shivering so he conjured a blanket for me to use – a soft, plush blanket taken straight from my memories of home with Crowley. I took it gratefully and settled into him, wrapped up tight in my new blanket, to try for a little nap.

I had a splitting headache, probably from all the stress of Lucifer and Michael and Gabriel arriving hopefully not to find me. I tried to get some solid rest.

Fitful sleep won out.

The dreams of a prophet are a disjointed mess of images and sounds and people and happenings that are crammed into your brain in a way that forces perfect recall where there shouldn't be because it was never processed that way – as a cohesive whole, a narrative - in the first place.

I dreamt of falling and screaming and my own brother casting me into the darkness and I dreamt of Sam and Dean and how they were never truly meant to be Lucifer and Michael's vessels – they were meant to be the start and end of everything, and they had been. The first seal, the last seal. The beginning of the end, and the ones that averted the apocalypse.

I dreamt of all these things in flashes of nonsensical thought, scenes so out of place and melding so seamlessly (incorrectly) together that I was Dean being cast down by his brother, I was Sam, the viceroy of heaven, I was running from the end because I couldn't bear the fighting, running home – nothing that made sense, just a tangled web of people and places and things that had nothing to do with me, that I was being forced to live and experience regardless.

And then I dreamt that I was myself only not myself, shrouded in silver moonlight and the golden sun, wearing a halo of stars, finally, utterly complete amidst tangled wings.

Mary Anne, Mary Anne, you must wake, Gadreel commanded with urgency, making me snap upright with a shuttered intake of breath.

Gadreel, I managed, trying to blink away the onslaught of – of memory.

Mary Anne, Michael has commanded the host to search for you here in heaven, Gadreel intoned unsurely – because I was a prophet, his charge; what could Michael want with me? Angels are scouring the personal heavens for you as we speak.

A fucking manhunt in heaven. For me. Had my name been changed to Winchester?

(I could joke all I pleased but it didn't change the fact that I felt like I was going to be sick.)

We had no opportunity to say anything further because no sooner had I managed to get my unadulterated fear under control that suddenly the door to Gadreel's cell began to open.

Gadreel- I began, burying my face in my hands as I tried to sink into his grace before Thaddeus could discover me, unable to do more than trust Gadreel to hide me as he had each time before.

Fear not, Mary Anne, Gadreel offered, an eerie sense of calm falling over him. I will keep you safe.

I trusted him. I did. With all my heart. Even so, I was utterly and completely taken aback at the searing white-heat of his grace, building, building, until his blade manifested in his hand after who knew how many millennia, fading out even as he cut Thaddeus down without even a split second's warning, without a chance to fight back.

I stared at him in shock, disjointed for a moment, my limbs not wanting to obey my commands as I moved to – to what? What could I do?

If I was in shock, it was nothing compared to his state.

How long, I wondered, had he been capable of that? Of overcoming and killing the angel who had tortured him, of freeing himself. Perhaps he simply hadn't been able to imagine an 'after' and that was why he hadn't done it, or he was still holding on to the hope that one day someone would walk into his cell and tell him he had a chance to redeem himself…

Where must I take you? He asked, too calmly for someone who had just done the unthinkable. On earth. We must go, now, Mary Anne. The others will look for him when he does not return.

Mind scrambling, I hurriedly sorted through places that I could be taken to – but none were truly safe.

Your vessel, Gadreel, I started, I don't know where he is, but if you just leave me wherever until you have him – I want to stay with you.

We didn't know it, but Thaddeus had been sent with orders to question Gadreel on his knowledge of his new status as the guardian of a prophet, namely to see whether he was aware or not and if he was, could he find me, etc etc. Fortunately, it was the expectation that it was impossible for me to meet Gadreel that seemed to preclude the idea that I was with him, so no one thought to find me there, nor to find me with him once he escaped.

Gadreel, as far as they were concerned, was likely scouring the earth for the prophet that literally everyone knew was his shot at redemption, no doubt confused as to why he couldn't instantly locate her. Which worked out, because if they hadn't followed this reasonable train of thought, they might have been more inclined to hunt him down, getting both of us in a lot of trouble.

And so it was that Gadreel secured his vessel and then, after much roundabout explaining and cajoling, (because he didn't need to know I had sold my soul either), I finally got in contact with my husband. Which was an exercise in patience on both sides. A very trying exercise.

"I do not like this," Gadreel uttered deliberately, his hand twitching as though seeking his blade.

"Yeah, well you're not exactly my idea of a good time, either, chump," Crowley shot back, looking distinctly unimpressed and unhappy to be in the presence of a clearly smite-happy angel.

"Boys, please, you're both pretty." If there was too much fondness in the words for them to really be teasing, only Crowley recognised it – and it was obvious from looking at the peeved expression on his face that he didn't appreciate it.

"You're awfully cheeky today, darling," he murmured 'innocently,' as though he didn't notice how the intimate tone and the step closer he took set Gadreel on edge.

"I'll catch you up on what I know," I told him, a little breathless at his proximity. "Gadreel is my guardian. That normally doesn't entail him following me around, but… things were happening in heaven."

I swallowed.

"Lucifer was permitted into heaven by Michael's order," I told him quietly, wishing I knew something more than what I had understood from Gadreel to offer him. "There was a search for me and everything and I know Lucifer being around wasn't… wasn't a coincidence."

For a moment, I thought Crowley was going to kill me. It was difficult to explain how I knew, exactly, but I was sure. I had lived with him as his wife for five years. I knew him better now than I'd known the better half of the people in my previous life, my family even.

And I knew the only thing running through his mind in that instant was the carefully considered, all options, disadvantages, and advantages methodically, efficiently laid out question of was it better to kill me now and lose my soul to spare himself the possible trouble of what might come should he uphold our deal to protect me, or was my soul, to him deliciously, fascinatingly pure, worth the danger, the repercussions?

It might have been wrong, but part of me was warmed that he would stop to consider it, that he was actually thinking about it, despite what he would be up against. I was sure he was fond of me in his own way, and this proved it.

Otherwise, he would have cut me loose without a second thought.

"You, Mary Anne, are by far the costliest soul I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with," he said after a moment, the double entendre perhaps lost on Gadreel but very obvious to my ears.

"Yours to deal with, though," I soothed quietly. "All yours. You won't cut me loose now, will you? Because I'm a package deal with an angel?"

He scoffed.

"If you think I'm letting go of a prophet, you're off your head, darling." He didn't even hesitate and I loved him for it. "No, the question now is what to do with you…"

The answer, as it would turn out, was very simple. Crowley's properties were warded against angels and thus not an option on account of Gadreel. Not that Crowley wanted to live in close quarters with an angel anyway. I had my ring back, though, so at least I would have the chance to call Crowley should the need arise – although Gabriel's knowledge of my rings and how they worked gave Crowley pause. He considered Gabriel a liability. I couldn't.

I couldn't believe that Gabriel would take my rings away. He'd helped me run from Lucifer, after all. My thought process was that, had he intended otherwise, all he would have had to do was keep the ring he had to prevent me from leaving. Instead, he gave it to me and provided me the opportunity to use it. If he'd really meant for me to stay, I couldn't see him just letting me do that.

Crowley gave me a tracking coin to keep on my person at all times in addition to the rings, so that if I were taken somewhere I wasn't supposed to be and didn't check in with him within a certain period of time, he could come and save the day. My hero.

Castiel had rebelled against heaven. He, I knew, wouldn't rat us out. So the best place for us came back around to traveling with the Winchesters. Ironic, because of how much trouble they usually got themselves into.

"Sam!" I exclaimed, surprised and delighted by the way he wrapped his arms around me, looking so relieved it was heart-warming.

"What happened to you, Annie?" He asked, holding me at arm's length briefly, looking me over for damage, for some indication of where I had been and what had happened to me there.

I shook my head, full to bursting with relief at seeing him alright, him and Dean, who watched us with tense shoulders, itching for my answer because he had to know.

"Nothing," I told them, trying hard to think of how to frame the words I wanted to use. "I mean – I got bounced around a little bit, met Michael – I'm sorry. He was in Adam."

I couldn't implicate Chuck, but I could give them that at least.

"No he wasn't," Dean said grimly, voice brimming with resentment before Sam could but in, expression growing even more tense, angry somehow. "We saw him at Stull Cemetery. He was wearing our dad from the past as his meatsuit."

My mouth fell open in a surprised intake of breath.

"He was… in John? You went to the cemetery where the prize fight was supposed to happen?" I repeated, heart racing as I tried very hard not to focus on the fact that – that Michael had changed vessels coincidentally after what I had said, instead glancing a little wildly in Sam's direction as I sought some kind of escape. "What about Sam – did he, was he with you?"

Sam looked miserable even as Dean's look turned a little more sharp, a little less concerned.

"The prize fight was supposed to happen at the cemetery?" His face was blank. "We drove all night to get there, Sammy and I, because heaven and hell were both dead set on anyone listening delivering Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery before noon."

I froze, and of course Gadreel took that moment to reappear, holding my ludicrously girly, soft pink overnight bag in his hand with a dead serious expression.

"Mary Anne, I have your things," he intoned in his dramatic fashion, glancing between me and Dean with a growing frown. "I should not have left."

I cringed.

"No, no," I soothed, fighting the urge to wring my hands helplessly. "Everything is fine. This is Dean, Dean Winchester. And Sam Winchester, his brother. They're my friends. They've been very good to me, Gadreel. It was kind of them to agree to have me along, even with Crowley trying to twist their arm about it."

Sam looked ready to object but Dean didn't, which made my heart sink. So my husband had twisted his arm. He certainly hadn't looked happy but I'd hoped it had been with the situation, not with the idea of me joining them…

"You're, uh, Gadreel, right?" Sam asked awkwardly, heading Dean off before he could speak. He offered his hand out to shake before withdrawing it. "Sorry. Angels don't shake, right?"

Gadreel surprised me by reaching forward and giving Sam's hand a good shake. Down and up and done. Like a professional. Dean raised an eyebrow at the action, the tension in his shoulders easing a bit despite himself.

"Right, so not all angels are standoffish dicks," Dean muttered, turning his attention back to me. "Good to know. So what, Mr. Kotex over there is just tagging along for the ride?"

"Gadreel saved my life and is protecting me from demons and angels alike," I said firmly, my fingers twitching anxiously at my side for want of being closer to Gadreel than I was at present. The time in his cell had done a number on both of us, it seemed. "He's coming along to protect me."

It was a situation everyone was unhappy with – with me unhappy because everyone else was unhappy – and honestly, it wasn't until I was bundled in the back of the Impala with a tense Gadreel who was not about hurtling around at sixty miles an hour in a metal enclosure that I thought that there was a joke in this whole situation that I was missing.

There was a reason, I was sure, I'd never read a fanfic featuring Gadreel sitting in the back of the Impala. Because it didn't work.

"How long until we reach our destination?"

"Are you sure this machine is safe?"

"I do not understand why we must travel with Sam and Dean, Mary Anne."

"Flying is more efficient."

I cringed as Dean didn't slam on the breaks, per se, but definitely stopped the car, on the edge of losing it.

"Dean-" Sam warned, no doubt recognising the twitching muscle in Dean's jaw for what it was.

"I swear to god, Sam," Dean began, having absolutely had it with Gadreel's constant stream of questions and high-handed criticism.

I buried my face in my hands and wondered what the rest of the trip would have in store for us.

By the time we reached our destination, Dean was happy to splurge on a second room just to get away from Gadreel (and me). To be honest, I was relieved to have an opportunity to just breathe away from him and Sam. I had spent days in Gadreel's cell with him and being out of that tiny space – tiny because of how gargantuan his true form was in comparison – well, it almost made me feel agoraphobic. Being tucked into Gadreel's side, basking in his grace, it had been the realest comfort I'd ever known. The way his grace was contained in his vessel was startling and discomfiting in a way.

It was a relief to be just him and I again.

"What will you do all night?" I asked him gently, hugging a pillow to myself and rather wishing I didn't still feel strangely cold without the warm presence of his grace.

"I will wait until you rise in the morning," he said simply, his brow furrowing. "No harm shall come to you, Mary Anne."

A fierce and terrible flush came to my cheeks. Surely he hadn't thought I'd been looking for some kind of, of reassurance – had he? I wasn't sure what to think but I knew I desperately needed his thoughts to not have just assumed I'd been asking because I was scared or anything like that. I was worried for him. I was so very worried…

"No, I just don't want you to be bored," I forced myself to say lightly. He didn't notice. "Why don't you try watching tv or something?"

He looked puzzled by the concept of being bored and I realised he had been planning on spending the whole night just watching me. To keep me safe. Which was flattering, but uncomfortable as hell. I cleared my throat as though to rid myself of the thought and reached for the tv remote.

"At this time of night you could catch some Frazier or something. Learn a little about humans, even," I hummed noncommittally, then catching his expression and thinking the better of it. "Here, I always liked National Geographic as a kid, maybe you'll like some of the documentaries on there. About your father's creations and how the world has evolved from humans and stuff."

It took me a few minutes to find the channel number on the guide, but the documentary about the African savannah seemed to catch Gadreels' attention almost immediately which put an easy, content smile on my face before I finally gave in to the stress of the road and fell asleep right there with my hand on the remote.

And immediately woke up in – in the kitchen from my old house, from my old life, my heart racing as I thought am I back?

"Back where?" Someone asked lightly from behind me, making me jump.

"What-" I whirled around with wide eyes only to meet warm, whiskey-coloured ones and a mischievous smile. "Gabriel?"

"The one and only," he said, cutting a sweeping, theatrical bow before wagging a finger at me. "Now you, missy, are in big, big trouble. Where have you been for the past week, honey bunch? Believe me when I say me and my big bros have been driving all the little fledglings nuts trying to find you!"

I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around his neck and hold him until the hint of forced cheerfulness in his voice was gone and he was just himself and real again – almost as much as I wanted to run away because the feeling was so odd and disjointing.

"Why are you looking for me?" I asked despite myself, just taking one measly step away from him because I couldn't bear to back any farther away.

He looked so sad and lost for a split second at the question that I wanted to beg for his forgiveness just to know what I had done to put that look on his face. It made my heart clench and my breath catch in my throat. It was terrible.

"Because," he said, shooting me a little winsome smile, trying to reassure me despite the fact that it had been me that upset him- "Well, it's a long story, sugar snap, that all starts with an ancient angel bed-time story and a little word that, uh, carried over to human language from Enochian. You ever heard of the concept of bashert, sweetheart? Because it has a lot to do with everything, with you and me and my loser brothers that are probably still arguing about who should come visit your dreamland."

I knew without any shadow of a doubt that I'd never heard the word before in my life, and yet it was so familiar I could have sworn that I'd once known it-

"What does it mean?" I asked almost childishly, like I was in a different place, a different time, asking the kind of question I didn't know would change my life.

Gabriel contemplated this for a moment, before gently taking my hands in his as his wings settled around us like a shower of gold.

"Destiny, Mary Anne," he said softly, the word ringing with the kind of finality that lingered in the air long after the following hush had taken over. "It means destiny."

I stared at him with wide eyes, entranced by his nearness, by the soft glow of his golden wings around us, by his whiskey coloured eyes and the sheer, unadulterated fondness I saw within them-

-and then I woke up, shooting upright in bed, clutching at the front of my shirt like I was having a heart attack.

"Whoa," Dean said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You okay, Annie?"

I looked at him with a wild expression, for a moment not recognising him, and then-

"Dean?"

I'd been dreaming, I'd dreamt of-

"The one and only," he said lightly, his expression growing serious after a moment. "You okay, Annie? The winged freak didn't do anything, right?"

I blinked at him, confused.

"The – what?" I said, my brow furrowing as I slowly realised what he'd meant. "Oh my god, no, I just-"

Bashert. The word might as well have been carved into my ribs. I wouldn't forget it.

"I just had an odd dream is all…"

A dream that may or may not have given me the key to all the answers I needed.

"Right," Dean said, no doubt making his own assumptions but clearly relieved that I was alright. "Well, we were going to head out to get breakfast, if you want to come."

"That sounds great." It was a new day and answers would no doubt soon be forthcoming. An angel bedtime story? Who better to ask than my resident guardian angel? "Where are we heading?"

I was sure I had spoken to the real Gabriel in my dream. I was sure that the clue he had given me would lead me to the answers I desperately needed. Things were finally looking up.

It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do for you, isn't it?

To be continued in Full of Grace II.