This is the third part of the (Heaven Must Be) Missing an Angel series, after The Left Behind (2nd) and A History of Heaven (1st). It is strongly recommended that you read this first. Rogue will be 36 chapters plus one Interlude long, for a total of 37 chapters. Updates will be posted every M/W/F, except for this first one, because I don't want to be bothered trying to create a new story before leaving for work. Aren't you lucky!

Title: Rogue

Author: Crawler

Characters/Pairings: Various angels, demons, humans, and gods, Gabriel/Fergus MacLeod, Gabriel/Kali, surprise F/M

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers/Warnings: Characters through Season 9. Mild angelcest. Genderswap? (does it count if it's an angel?) Pregnancy. Mentions of and mild torture

Summary: Life as Heaven's #1 Most Wanted isn't easy, but Gabriel has learned to keep his head down and his wings tucked. All that changes when an old friend unexpectedly falls, and Gabriel's life is suddenly a lot more complicated.

Featuring an all-star cast with names such as Fergus MacLeod, Kali the Destroyer, and Samuel Colt!

Disclaimer: If the Supernatural writers ruin my story by making it incompatible with canon, I will cry. Sadly, I have no power over Supernatural and receive no money from this endeavor

Daniel, your unwavering consistency in your reviews has always put a smile on my face. This one's for you!

NEW LIFE

Name: John Skinner. Age: 28. Occupation: Shepherd. Crime: Lying, bullying, cheating, and general dickery. Punishment?

Gabriel snapped his fingers, watching the shepherd through the leafy branches of a tree.

Barometz.

A plaintive little bleat rose up from a bush on the edge of the field where shepherd Skinner kept his sheep, then another one. The shape of a young lamb could just barely be made out through the branches. Skinner was going to be scratching his head when he saw the little lamb, completely normal in every way save one: it was anchored to the ground by a root growing out of its belly.

Barometz, the vegetable-sheep. The people of Canisbay had only just heard about this phenomenon for the first time last week, when some sailors from the south told them stories about a fabric called "cotton," which came from lamb-like plants. Gabriel had laughed himself sick the first time he'd heard humanity's explanation for how fabric could come from plants, and he'd helped the idea along by planting barometz whenever he encountered a deceitful shepherd. The shepherd would be confused at first, but then delighted when he realized what a rarity he had on his hands. The little rooted lamb would stay exactly where it was as the shepherd ran off to find others to show it off to (perhaps for a couple coins?), but by the time he returned, he would only find a clump of wool stuck on the end of a stick jammed into the earth.

Gabriel liked helping spread rumors about the idiocy of dicks. It helped the centuries pass.

Centuries had passed since Gabriel's last divine mission. Ten of them, in fact. One thousand and thirty-five years. In the tree, Gabriel closed his eyes, indulging in a bit of remembrance. It had been one thousand and thirty-five years since he'd last stood in Heaven and felt the warmth of the Host wrapped around him entirely. Since he'd walked the halls of his tower. Since he'd spoken with his brothers, with Michael, with Cariel.

Angels were not meant to be alone. Gabriel had to keep the songs of the Host locked down in the very back of his mind to keep from being tempted back among his brothers. If he let their voices bubble to the forefront, if he started picking out individuals among the Heavenly chorus, he was hit with the crippling loneliness of a solitary angel. As long as he kept them locked down, and as long as he kept himself distracted, he could keep moving forward, one day at a time.

Distraction came in a variety of forms. Loki, the pagan god who had given his life in exchange for immortality, had a fascinating family. They loved to drink and fight, most of them too thick to realize their brother had been usurped by a foreigner. Gabriel had thought he had known hedonism before, but the gods' idea of a good party put his own prior experiences to shame. Loki himself wasn't always the most welcome guest, as he had a reputation for troublemaking, but he wasn't exactly shunned. It was said that a party in the Norse Pantheon never truly hit legendary status if Loki wasn't present.

Troublemaking was another good way for Gabriel to distract himself. Loki was not as powerful as Gabriel in terms of sheer strength and endurance, but Loki's power was different. Loki couldn't swim through time or fly, but he could alter reality. The first time Gabriel had snapped his fingers and summoned up a strawberry, he had genuinely felt like a god. Now, he considered strawberries child's play. He had spent the past ten centuries practicing with Loki's reality-bending powers, creating entire pocket realms with the snap of his fingers and controlling lifelike puppets with little more than his mind. Thanks to Loki's magic, Gabriel could now literally be in two, three, or four places at once (though the more he fragmented himself, the harder it was to control all his different parts). More than once, he had allowed puppets of himself to be killed, infusing them with enough power and grace to be mistaken for the real deal. This was especially fun when dealing with nosy hunters. Gabriel approved of their work in general, but he disliked it when they targeted him specifically. By allowing them to kill "him," he could reinforce their feelings of awesomeness while simultaneously surviving. Best of all worlds, he figured.

Really, though, Gabriel didn't think he deserved to be hunted by the hunters. His worst crime remained his exodus from Heaven. Maybe he'd also admit to a little blasphemous speech. But what he did to humans as Loki shouldn't count against him. He wasn't hurting anyone who didn't deserve it, after all, and he wasn't even directly hurting those who did. All he was doing was giving them a length of rope. It was their choice to hang themselves. Like that baker in France. All he had to do was be honest, and his oven would have worked just fine. If he hadn't been pinching dough from the loaves brought to him, then they wouldn't have burnt, and he wouldn't have had to climb in to try to clean it.

And really, who climbed into an oven that was perpetually overcooking things? Especially after beating their apprentice repeatedly for things that weren't his fault? Gabriel hadn't told the boy to light the oven. He hadn't even put the idea in the boy's mind.

No, those types of side effects weren't his fault, so Gabriel didn't think he deserved death sentences. Despite that, hunters still perked up whenever they realized he was in the area, and they still hounded him until he "died."

If Gabriel was completely honest, he'd admit that maybe he did intentionally needle hunters when he knew they were near. When they were aware of his presence, they were always more fun than when they were oblivious. The challenge made it a game. Once, four hundred years ago, Gabriel had an entire family of Cambels hunting him across Europe. Gabriel had allowed that game to last for two years before he ran into a young man named Mervyn Cambel. Mervyn's soul had glittered with all of the icy brilliance of Gabriel's long-lost brother, Lucifer. He was a true vessel of the devil, a descendent of the bloodline of Cain, Lucifer's first vessel. Gabriel had been so stunned to see his brother's spirit reflected in this human that he had nearly forgotten to fake his death. If Mervyn had been in possession of a weapon capable of actually harming an Archangel, Gabriel might have died all those centuries ago. Instead, he waited for Mervyn to turn away before vanishing his "corpse," and he had to blanket a room in anti-angel wards that made his wings crawl and itch before risking some of his grace to heal the wound.

It had been over a thousand years since Gabriel really used his grace. The most he ever allowed himself was a bit of flight, because that used his wings and not exactly grace. Raphael would never give up hunting him, Gabriel knew. Even though his twin had eventually returned to Heaven in defeat when Gabriel first escaped, he would have bet half his wings that Raphael had at least one entire garrison dedicated solely to checking Earth for Gabriel's grace signature. He could pull most of it within himself and veil it from angelic eyes, but as an Archangel, Gabriel was unable to hide his grace completely. He simply had too much of it. Thankfully, Loki's pagan magic had enough glitter and sparkle to hide the bit of grace that seeped out of Gabriel's tight hold. A mere human would have lit up on an angel's radar, but Loki was overlooked as someone who was supposed to be magical anyway. If Loki hadn't agreed to let Gabriel take over his body, Gabriel wouldn't have lasted a week before Raphael had brought the entire vengeance of an angered Archangel down on his head.

The deal with Loki had been simple enough. Loki was completely willing to surrender his life in exchange for immortality, and he defined immortality as never being forgotten. Too many pagan gods were swept away with history, their names lost, their images destroyed. Wars between the gods often killed them off as well, as larger gods like Apollo consumed smaller ones like Vindonnus. Loki had seen the tenuous grasp a god had on life and had asked Gabriel for permanence. Gabriel had promised to deliver.

It was easier to keep Loki's name alive than to keep him worshiped. Gabriel carefully slipped through history, making little tweaks and revisions here and there, erasing most of the facts about the god. This had felt contradictory at first, but Gabriel had discovered through long observation that humans loved nothing more than a mystery. If they had known exactly what Loki was the god of, they would have labeled him and stuck him on a shelf. Without that knowledge, scholars kept debating Loki's role in the Norse pantheon. Loki was easily the most talked about minor god in existence today. It helped that new "lost" texts had recently surfaced, drawing new scholars and new discussions.

Discussion didn't lead to worship. Gabriel's attempts to keep Loki's fanbase strong were thwarted at every opportunity by the Christian church, of all organizations. The little group of loyal followers that Jesus had preached to all those years ago had exploded into a massive religion that was stretching its reach around the world. Gabriel heard prayers sent to him, Saint Gabriel, patron saint of messengers, even as he cursed the Church for discouraging pagan worship.

He never answered the prayers. He didn't know how many other angels could hear the words whispered into his mind by thousands of humans every day. Some of them broke his heart, pleas for aid and mercy and knowledge, but Gabriel never dared to go anywhere he would be expected. He couldn't make things easy for Raphael, after all. He couldn't risk it.

Despite his fear of being found by one of his brothers, Gabriel did sometimes fantasize about it. He wouldn't ever want Raphael to find him, but there were a handful of brothers whose absence in his life ached more than the others.

He missed Michael, his beloved oldest brother. Would Michael try to smite Gabriel, or would he welcome Gabriel back with open arms? Michael had once promised that he would still love Gabriel even if he left, but Gabriel wasn't sure if Michael remembered his words. So much had happened since then. They had both lost so much.

He missed Castiel, the little Angel Gabriel had taken under his wing millions of years ago. Castiel would accept Gabriel's return without attempting to carry out the death sentence Heaven had undoubtedly placed upon his head. Castiel had always looked so trustingly toward Gabriel, and Gabriel had once promised Castiel could always turn to him for help. Could he still uphold that promise? If Castiel came to him now and asked for his help, could Gabriel give it?

He missed Barachiel, the Seraph who shaped the Earth. Barachiel laughed and smiled and didn't wish harm upon anyone. He and his garrisons only concerned themselves with the shaping of the world and the care for the physical aspect of it. Barachiel cried for every human who perished when his angels were forced to trigger a volcano or hurricane. He would never raise his sword against Gabriel.

He missed Cariel, his second-in-command. Raphael had made Gabriel doubt Cariel's loyalty at the end, but Gabriel still considered Cariel his best friend in Heaven. Cariel had done everything for Gabriel, had been everything. He had been Gabriel's confidant and supporter, had organized his choir and been his secretary. Cariel had always stood at Gabriel's right hand, listening, laughing, and loving him.

Cariel had loved him.

Gabriel curled his fingers around the branch of the tree he rested in, squeezing the green wood tightly. Cariel had loved Gabriel, and Gabriel, like the fool he played now, had ignored it. Gabriel had let thousands of years pass pretending Cariel only adored him like a brother. Thousands of wasted years, because as long as Gabriel was being privately honest, he had to admit that he had loved Cariel too. Even with all of Raphael's scheming (and it had to have been scheming by Raphael, Cariel simply would not have betrayed Gabriel like that), Gabriel still loved his lieutenant.

In Gabriel's long life, there were many things he regretted, many things he wished he could take back or undo. Never confessing his own love to Cariel was only just beneath helping Lucifer create Hell on his list of regrets.

It was too late now. Gabriel had left Cariel in Heaven, their relationship shredded by years of suspicion. Raphael had known of secrets shared only between Gabriel and his second, secrets he should only have been able to learn from Cariel. At the time, Gabriel hadn't found any explanation other than that Cariel had been reporting to Raphael. He had fought his suspicions, but they kept rearing up whenever his lieutenant was near. Gabriel had withdrawn from even his second in the years before he left, and Cariel had not tried to pull him back. Cariel had not tried to follow him to Earth either. Gabriel had chased after the first dozen or so angels who had fallen after he did, but none of them had been Cariel. Gabriel had eventually given up. He had squandered his chances with Cariel, and Cariel had been too upset (Hurt? Disgusted? Confused?) by him to give him another. It didn't matter that Gabriel had finally allowed himself to believe that Raphael had simply found another way and Cariel had always been innocent. A great yawning gap of space and empty planes stood between them now, and Gabriel could not cross it.

"It's been a thousand years," Gabriel muttered to himself, opening his eyes and glaring at a leaf that had the misfortune of being in front of him. "Cariel's gone. Let it go."

"If you let go, you're gonna fall!"

Gabriel almost did fall out of the tree at the sound of the childish voice below him. He had to catch himself with his wings, making all the branches around him rustle and shake. The freckled boy on the ground looked up at him from beneath a mop of dark red hair that had probably never been brushed in his life, and he giggled, his mouth stretching wide around a gap-toothed grin. "I didna know growned-ups climbed trees like that too!"

"Who said I climbed?" Gabriel asked, folding his wings and sitting up straighter, squeezing his legs around the branch to keep himself from another awkward near-tumble. "Maybe I flew."

The boy laughed again, shaking his head. "Nah, growned-ups can't fly! Unless they're demons. Are you a demon? Is that how you flew?"

"Not a demon." Gabriel pushed himself sideways, flipping out of the tree and stretching his wings out to land lightly on his feet in front of the child. "But sort of close, I guess." He leaned down, touching a finger to his lips to indicate secrecy. "I'm a god."

The child reacted appropriately, his dark grey eyes going round and wide, delight and awe both warring across his freckled face. "Wooooooow! A real live god? Like Manannán?"

"Very much like Manannán, actually." Manannán was a god of the sea around here, and a trickster in his own right. Gabriel had met him a couple times. Aside from Manannán's affinity for water, he was a pretty fun god to hang out with. "My name is Loki. What's your name?"

"I'm Fergus!" The boy stepped back and looked Gabriel up and down. "I've heard about Loki! Mam and Uncle Brody have talked about you before! They say you're an old god, and you left these lands long ago to go back home!"

"Your mam and uncle talk about the gods like we're real?" Gabriel was surprised at that. Most people these days, especially in the Christian Scotland, made a very clear delineation between the one true God and all of the old fairy stories of the pagans. The Church did not like people who believed in the pagans.

"You are real," Fergus pointed out, folding his slightly-chubby arms. "Duh. You're just as real as demons."

"Demons again, huh?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow before folding his own arms, adopting Fergus' posture. "What do you know about demons?"

"Demons are powerful. And smelly. They stink like eggs gone bad. But they're really strong, and they can do magic, and Mam and Uncle Brody can do magic too. I'm going to be a demon when I grow up."

Magic. Just as Gabriel had feared. This boy was the son of a witch. From the sounds of it, witchcraft ran in his family. He probably was already promised to a demon as a future witch himself. "You know," he started, blinking so he could see the boy's soul and check for demonic taint already, "demons aren't very ni… ce."

The boy glowed. His soul shone out from his body in a massive corona of power, brilliant and unblemished. This wasn't a standard human soul. This was the soul of a fallen angel.

Gabriel swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat, his fingers itching to reach out for the boy. He was more than just a fallen angel. He was the fallen angel, the angel whose fall Gabriel had hoped and wished and almost prayed for over these past thousand years.

Cariel.

He had fallen.

He was a human.

He was here.