Saving Grace

Heaven and Hell -- Grace

~*****~

Dean rubbed at my back distractedly as I held an ice pack to my pounding head. "Don't be afraid. I'm not like the others." Anna answers.

"I don't find that very reassuring." Ruby retorts.

"Neither do I." Pamela adds.

"So... Castiel, Uriel-- they're the ones that came for me?" Anna asks.

"You know them?" Sam asks.

"We were kind of in the same foxhole." Anna answers.

"So, what, they're like, you're bosses, or something?" I ask.

"Try the other way around." Anna says.

I snort. "Well, look at you."

"But now, they want to kill you?" Pamela asks.

"Orders are orders." Anna shrugs. "I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head."

"Why?" Pamela asks.

"I disobeyed... Which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do." Anna retorts as she glances at me. "I fell."

"Meaning?" Dean asks.

"She fell to Earth, became human." I retort.

"Wait a minute, I don't understand." Sam says. "So, Angels can just become human?"

"It kind of hurts," Anna explains. "Try cutting your kidney out with a butter knife. That kind of hurt. I ripped out my grace."

"Come again?" Dean asked.

"Grace," I retorted. "It's energy." I snap my fingers, and a small spark explodes from the skin of my fingers. Dean shunts back a little. "Don't ask me how I know, I just do, okay?" I turned my gaze up to Anna. "Did you remove it? Or did someone else?"

Anna shrugged. "I hacked it out and fell. My mother, Amy, couldn't get pregnant. Always called me her little miracle. She had no idea how right she was."

"So, you just forgot that you were god's little power ranger?" Dean asks.

"The older I got, the longer I was human, yeah." Anna nods.

"I don't think you all appreciate how completely screwed we are." Ruby puts in.

"Ruby's right. Heaven wants me dead." Anna states.

"And Hell just wants her." Ruby adds. "A flesh-and-blood angel that you can question, torture, that bleeds. Sister, you're the Stanley Cup. And sooner or later, Heaven or Hell, they're gonna find you."

"I know." Anna hums. "And that's why I'm gonna get it back."

"What?" Sam asks.

"My grace." Anna retorts.

"You can do that?" Dean asks.

"If I can find it."

"So, what, you're just gonna take some divine bong hit, and shazam, you're Roma Downey?" Dean asks.

"Something like that." Anna shrugs.

"All right. I like this plan." Dean comments. "So, where's this grace of yours?"

"Lost track." Anna answers sheepishly. "I was falling about ten thousand miles per hour at the time."

"Wait, you mean falling, like, literally?" Sam asks.

"Yes." Anna nods.

"Like the way a human eye can see?" Sam continues. "Like a comet maybe or a meteor?"