Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mary was tired, trying to get herself to keep upright in the train. Just a few more stations and she was where she needed to be. It was a little ridiculous to have to rely on this method of transport but then again, they had only so many cars at their disposal and right now they were all needed elsewhere and to be honest, Mary liked the leisure a train ride afforded her. Not having to pay attention to the road, just being able to get lost in her thoughts, even doze off if she was particularly tired.

Of course, there were downsides too. Specifically, the looks she got and the way people scrambled away from her as soon as they saw her, most not even trying to be subtle. She couldn't blame them. It wasn't like she had to wear her armor in public, but she still did. It was part of her, of who she was. And sure, it meant people were afraid of her but also that anyone looking for trouble immediately knew that she wasn't one to be messed with.

Right now, she was just trying to get to the Cradle, to check in with Suzanne and Shannon to make sure everything was alright. It had been quiet lately, ever since they had defeated Adriel as well as Reya, two of the most dangerous foes they personally had had on either side, but that didn't mean the war was over. Mary suppressed the urge to scoff. The war had been going for thousands of years and would still be going long after all humans were gone.

Trying to prevent that from happening sooner rather than later was where she came in. Where the Protectors came in, trying to protect humans from this war between heaven and hell. It had spilled over to Earth a long time ago, well, not that long in the grand scheme of things but long enough, long before Mary had been born, and it had left much of the world in ashes, humanity being collateral damage when angels, fallen angels and demons fought.

Mary was one of the few humans who tried to fight back, who tried to keep others safe, to help wherever she could. It was a thankless job, all most people could see was that the Protectors still got into fights, that they still interrupted the lives they were so desperate to try to live as peacefully as possible, even when whole cities were leveled and so many died on the regular.

Sometimes Mary questioned why she even did this, but then she thought back to all the people she had saved, Father Orosco, Mateo and so many others. She thought about Yasmina's face when she thanked her for helping them. And she thought about Shannon and Suzanne, about Camila and Beatrice. About her sisters, who were in this fight with her. Shannon because she had to, because she was an angel, born into this fight, her fate decided eons ago.

But the others because they had chosen this path, because they had seen what it did to humanity and couldn't stand not helping. Shannon had at first tried to stop them, but her fellow angels Areala and Reya had been eager to enlist humans to stand by their side, to do their dirty work. It had taken a while for them to learn that Reya was having her own motives, her own grudge with a specific fallen angel, Adriel.

That train of thought brought Mary to something she didn't particularly want to think about. Lilith. She had been by Reya's side, just as loyal as any other angel, just as loyal as Shannon, but when Reya had made it clear that she would sacrifice her if it meant getting to Adriel, she switched sides. It hadn't happened all at once, or immediately, it had been a progress, but it was still one of the scariest things Mary had had to witness, especially not being able to do anything about it, having to stand by helplessly while her friend fell more and more to Adriel's influence.

She knew in theory that the Fallen had been angels before, that that was what hell was all about, Lucifer's domain, her being the first of the Fallen. But to see it with her own eyes, to see Lilith's wings turn black and leathery instead of how they had been before, shining white and soft, it had been a shock to say the least. For all of them.

They hadn't seen each other since the day Lilith's wings turned black, since she fully became a Fallen. Lilith had been involved in the last fight with Adriel, but Mary had been busy with his servants and all Beatrice had said afterwards was that Lilith had ripped Michael's heart out of his chest but had spared her life after Adriel was dead. Michael had fought by their side, a human but made into an instrument of destruction by Reya, trained from childhood to fight Adriel.

His mother, Jillian, had been beside herself with grief and had been the one to ultimately kill Reya for all the pain she had caused. That had been barely a month ago and they were still recovering from all of this. From what Mary knew, Lilith had been fighting (she had seen the aftermath of that, wishing she hadn't) but nobody really knew which side she was currently on. And it wasn't like Mary knew all that well which side she was on herself either. Areala had left them, going back to heaven for further instructions and Shannon had made it clear that she didn't condone Reya's actions, that she didn't see humans as tools to be used and tossed aside. That she was on the side of humans even against heaven itself.

But Mary still didn't know how Lilith felt about all of this. How she felt about them. She knew the others missed her, as she herself did, but she didn't even know if her friend still existed. With Adriel dead, was the hold he had over her gone? Was she still on his side? On the side of the Fallen? Or would she come back to their side? Whichever side that was at the moment, none of them were quite sure. The side of humans, surely, but other than that, Mary didn't know. For now, the side of the angels still, just by virtue of Shannon being one and from what Shannon said, once an angel had fallen, there was no return, but Mary didn't want to believe that.

And Yasmine, their historian, someone whose family had been studying angels and the Fallen much longer than most humans even knew of their existence, had fueled her hope that there was a way to bring Lilith back, to get her to see humans as her friends again, not just tools or enemies as the Fallen saw them (and most angels too, to be quite honest). Cora, an angel Yasmine's family knew a thousand years ago, had fallen, after having been friends with Areala, but had still continued to support humans, to help them.

Areala herself hadn't commented on that, but Mary wasn't sure if she could even be trusted more than Reya. So she still carried hope in her heart that Lilith could be coming home. She just wanted her friend back.

As if fate had heard her thoughts, when she idly looked towards the other side of the train cart, her eyes found those she had been thinking of, the eyes of her friend, eyes she remembered could be full of laughter, sparkling with joy. Now they were cold, boring into her like ice. It felt like her blood ran cold just from looking into them and for a second, she couldn't move, couldn't even think.

At first, she thought it was a figment of her imagination when she took in Lilith, who was just standing there, in her black leather outfit with a cloak draped over it. Mary shook her head, assuming it was all in her head because she had been thinking about Lilith too much, but then the air around Lilith shimmered and every muscle in Mary's body tensed when she disappeared, the people around her gaping but also used to things like that, so most only mildly interested and some anxious for seeing a Fallen or an angel disappear like that. The people around Mary who had seen it went even further away from her, clearly anticipating a fight.

Mary's first thought was that they were wrong, that this was it, that Lilith had recognized her and ran. It made her torn between wanting to sigh in relief that she didn't have to fight her and cry in sorrow that she didn't get to talk to her. But she knew she couldn't do either, she needed to tell the others that she had seen Lilith, so she took out her phone.

But before she could even turn it on, the air around her sparked with electricity and Lilith appeared right next to her. Reflexively, Mary went in for a jab, one that Lilith easily blocked and in the next second she felt her phone being ripped out of her hand and thrown to the ground, while she was pinned to the wall of the train car by arms that were far stronger than hers.

"If you want to kill me, you need to try harder than that."

Lilith's voice was barely above a whisper, coming out harsh and cold and Mary felt a shiver run down her spine.

"Lilith, I…" she started, glancing around her at the people in the train, all of which had now caught onto what was going on. Lilith hadn't unfolded her wings, but it was still obvious who she was. What she was.

Following her gaze, Lilith scoffed.

"You only care for them," she snarled, taking one arm from Mary's chest to indicate the scared people around them. "I should have known. You always chose them over me."

"No, that's not-"

She couldn't finish the sentence, feeling the air around them spark again and a second later she found herself in a completely different place, one that she didn't know. There were ruins of buildings around them, the rubble on the ground showing signs of the destruction having been fairly recent. She didn't know how far Lilith had transported them but she didn't get to think about it before Lilith attacked again and she had to defend herself.

For what seemed like an eternity she dodged blows and tried to get as many in as she could herself, all the while pleading with Lilith who just seemed lost in her rage. Rage at what, Mary didn't know, but when she unfolded her wings and used them to throw her through the air against one of the still standing walls, Mary heard and felt several bones in her leg break. And possibly one or two ribs too. The pain was quickly overwhelming her and when she saw Lilith come closer, with the same cold look in her eyes, she suddenly was afraid that she would kill her right here and right now.

Desperate, she took out the one weapon she had against both angels and fallen angels, the weapon Camila had recently designed with Shannon's help to use their powers against them and simultaneously shut them off. It was deceptively small, just a little disk, smaller than her palm, but it was designed to give off an electrical impulse that would trigger their powers and transport them far away and shut off their powers for at least a short time.

Mary had never used it in practice, had never been desperate enough. It could only buy her a few minutes, up to an hour maybe, if she was lucky. The tests had been inconclusive as to when the powers would exactly return. She only hoped that maybe that time would shake Lilith out of whatever rage she was in right now instead of making her even angrier.

When Lilith approached, slowly, like a predator stalking its prey, her wings proudly extended, her lips curled up in a cruel smirk, Mary activated the device in her palm, hoping she'd get a chance to plant it on Lilith. And for once, luck was on her side, when Lilith bend down for whatever purpose, to deliver the killing blow or to mock her, she pushed her hand forward as if wanting to hit Lilith. Of course, she blocked her hand easily with her own, but that was what Mary had wanted. She stuck the device on Lilith's arm and she disappeared immediately.

Finally, Mary felt like she could breathe again, but she knew she wasn't out of the woods yet, far from it. Her leg was shattered, breathing was difficult because of the broken or at least bruised ribs, her arm wasn't faring very well either and she had absolutely no idea where she was and no way to communicate with anyone.

Well, fuck. First things first, she needed to get out of here, to get away from the place where Lilith would be looking for her first, if she wanted to come back and finish her off. But trying to stand just ended with her crumbling down again, breathing heavily in pain and cursing under her breath. After a small break to catch her breath, she used her arms to leverage herself along the wall she was slumped against and while it hurt like hell, she eventually managed to make at least some distance.

But she knew she couldn't keep this up. She didn't have weapons that would be effective against Lilith, nothing other than the one she had already used and she doubted she would get the opportunity to plant one of those devices on her again.

There didn't seem to be anyone around, neither human nor otherwise. She knew that there were often scavengers and the like living in these kinds of ruins, but so far she hadn't seen or heard anyone. Of course, her and Lilith's fight hadn't exactly been quiet, so most likely, if there was anyone who lived here, they all ran when they saw a Fallen fighting with a Protector.

She heaved herself up on a pile of rubble a short way away from where they had fought, knowing that this was all she had in her. Closing her eyes and trying to breathe through the pain, she pondered her options. She could scream for help, but she had no idea who that would attract. The others would realize she was missing eventually but they had no idea where she was, hell, she had no idea where she was, and her phone had most likely been taken by someone on the train by now.

Even if they tracked it down and were told what happened, they would only know that a Fallen had attacked her. Maybe they would even assume it had been Lilith but that didn't help her at all. They still had no way to find her and she had no way of contacting them.

Desperate, she felt tears starting to leak down her face, exhaustion, bone deep, all encompassing, threatening to take her over. Her only hope was that Lilith would deem her not worth the effort to come back and finish her off and that then someone would come by here at some point, someone she could persuade to contact the others for her. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Not able to do anything right now, she kept her eyes closed and let the darkness swallow her.

Chapter Text

Ava had gotten used to life in the rubble and the ruins, scavenging what she could and stealing or begging for the rest. It got rough some days but she had managed to keep herself and Diego alive for the last year, and it beat the hell out of life in the orphanage. When they finally had been able to escape, she was seventeen, Diego barely eight.

Two kids alone on the streets of Spain wasn't a rare sight and for a while they had joined some other kids, some street gangs but eventually had decided it was better to fend for themselves, to be on their own. They had found a good place here, in the ruins of what must have once been a very nice town but was now nearly only blown out walls and piles of rubble.

But they had found enough to make their lives at least marginally comfortable, a few mattresses to make beds, even running water and a toilet. All in all it really wasn't that bad, except for the days when they couldn't find or steal anything to sell and had to go to bed hungry.

Still, she would never trade it for what they had to endure in the orphanage. And at least here no one told them that they needed to be grateful for the angels who were fighting their war all over the world, not caring for the damage they caused. Ava had seen one angel, from a distance and she definitely didn't care for them and their ridiculous war.

But when the Fallen appeared just a few dozen meters from their home, or well, what passed as their home, she couldn't help but stare at her in awe, hidden behind a wall of course, having signaled Diego silently to do the same. Nobody really knew what powers the Fallen had, for all Ava knew she could kill them with one flick of their finger even from this distance. Not that this specific Fallen seemed to be interested in doing that, far too concentrated on the Protector they were engaged in battle with.

Ava watched as they traded blows and couldn't help but admire the Protector for at least trying to stand their own against the Fallen, who seemed to toy with her, at last tossing her against a wall, thankfully far away from Ava and Diego's hiding place. The impact seemed nasty and Ava winced on the Protector's behalf. She wasn't dead though, at least not yet, but from the way the Fallen advanced on her menacingly, Ava felt like that was just a matter of time.

She heard Diego gasp next to her.

"Is she going to kill her?"

Ava turned around and shielded Diego with her body.

"I don't know, buddy. But we can't help her. We would just be killed too," she said, quietly, even though she doubted they could hear her from this distance.

He nodded solemnly, not trying to peak around her, instead throwing himself into her arms and burying his face in her shoulder, not crying but trembling slightly. They both knew that this world could be cruel, but at least neither of them had ever seen someone die. For a long moment, they just remained like that and only after she was sure that whatever would happen had more than enough time to have happened, Ava turned around again, only to see that both the Protector and the Fallen were gone.

She smiled at Diego, who just looked at her with sorrow, still not looking beyond her.

"Is she dead?"

Ava shook her head.

"I don't know. She isn't there anymore. Neither is the Fallen, so, maybe she took her or something."

She didn't have to specify what the 'something' could be, Diego knew that well enough. He looked at her with a frown.

"But what if she's still here somewhere? What if the Fallen just left her, but she's not dead, just injured. We should help her."

Ava frowned too and shook her head. She understood Diego, but this was far too risky.

"I don't think that's a good idea. What if the Fallen comes back?"

"But Protectors are like, rich. If we save her, we'll get a reward," he said, trying to sound sure of himself, but his voice still quivering.

Somehow this made Ava want to laugh, but she swallowed it. She didn't have the heart to tell Diego that the Protector would probably just tell them to fuck off. Whatever they tried to tell people about their priorities, everyone knew that Protectors were always either in the angels' pocket or in that of the Fallen. There was no third side, no one to truly defend and protect just humans.

But Diego also wasn't wrong, if they saved the Protector and she was with the angels, at least they could probably bargain for some money or food. There was no one else here and if the Protector was as badly injured as it had seemed, they would hopefully be amiable to agree to give them a nice sum for alerting their people of the situation.

Of course there was still a risk, but Ava hadn't kept herself and Diego alive this long by never taking risks. So she nodded.

"Okay, we'll look for her, but I need you to stay behind me, okay. I don't want you to see…" She trailed off but Diego understood and nodded solemnly. Still not sure if the idea was so great, Ava set off slowly to look through the rubble.

With Diego trailing behind her a few meters, she looked around every corner very carefully and eventually, a little bit away from where the fight had taken place, she saw the Protector, lying on a pile of rubble, her eyes closed, her body looking broken. Ava swallowed thickly and took a deep breath, signaling Diego to stay back, and advanced slowly, carefully.

When she was already close enough to touch the Protector, she hesitated, not knowing exactly what to look for or what to do. She couldn't tell whether she was breathing, the armor heavy on her chest and a shotgun lying over it, her hand gripping it in a way that looked like it was natural to her, so Ava couldn't tell whether this meant that she was still alive.

"Is she dead?"

Diego's whisper shout from a few meters away distracted Ava and she turned her head around, only to freeze when she felt the muzzle of the shotgun being pressed into her chest a second later.

"Who the hell are you?'

The voice was raspy, laden with pain, but still more forceful than Ava would have liked seeing that she had a gun being pointed at her. But after a moment, the pressure of the gun slackened and she could hear a moan, daring to turn her head around again. She saw the Protector's face twisted in pain, the shotgun falling to her side uselessly.

Okay, so maybe Diego had been right and there was a deal to be made here. After all, the Protector's clothes looked expensive, as did her weapons. And she clearly needed help. So Ava plastered her best innocent smile on her face and nodded towards the Protector.

"I'm Ava," she waved towards where Diego was, not caring about giving their names since there wasn't anything she could do with them anyways and it might make her more inclined to trust them, to give them money for helping her. "And this is Diego. We can help you. You know, get someone for you or something." She contemplated already asking for money but decided that it was probably better to leave it at that and maybe even let the Protector come up with the idea of compensation.

But the Protector didn't seem very inclined to trust her or even care about her offer, instead, something akin to panic rose on her face.

"You gotta get out of here. If she's coming back, you can't be here when she does."

"The Fallen? We saw the fight, she's like, really cool. She kicked your ass."

The Protector scoffed.

"She's my friend. But you need to leave before she comes back."

Ava raised her eyebrows.

"Your friend? Are you sure? Cause it really didn't look like that."

Now the Protector sighed.

"I know, but it's still true. I don't know what happened to her, what he did to her. If she'd just listened to me, I'm sure I'd be able to convince her to come back home," she said, in a tone laced with sorrow and desperation.

"Why? She clearly doesn't want to," Ava said, frowning. She didn't know much about Fallen and Protectors, but this didn't look like friendship to her.

Another sigh and then the Protector just repeated what she had said before.

"Because she's my friend. My sister. Just because she's fallen, doesn't mean she's beyond help. I just want to help her."

Ava shrugged.

"Sure. I always thought the Fallen were cooler anyways. Like, the wings are so much more impressive."

The Protector let out a dry laugh, which ended in a wince, clearly having caused her pain.

"Okay, kid, look, I'm assuming you don't have a phone." Ava shook her head and the Protector continued. "If I give you a number, will you go and call them? I can give you money, just, you gotta get out of here."

Ava's eyes lit up. Now they were talking.