Fallen Angel

Chapter 40.1

Gabriël recoiled when the creature before him drew closer. Whatever or whoever it was, it certainly wasn't Joan of Arc. It couldn't be.

"Stay back," he warned.

"Gabriël, it's me," it spoke.

"Sure it is. And I'm the risen Christ."

"Archangels really shouldn't blaspheme."

"I said stay back!"

The woman bearing Joan's face halted before him. 

"When you came to me at Resia, I didn't want to believe it was you either," she spoke calmly. "You told me things only someone who truly knows me would say."

She smiled, and Gabriël felt a pang in his heart. 

"I first heard your voice when I was sixteen. It was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard, and I had been hearing Michael, Marina, and Cate for almost three years by then. My first question to you was if you would be my friend. You answered you could be more to me if that was what I wanted. I told you that a friend was all I needed."

She raised her hand. Gabriël stiffened when her fingers touched his face.

"Yours was the first face I saw when I woke up in the Vale," she continued. "You held me close, and your ocean blue eyes reassured me I was safe. I immediately knew I was because I was with you."

Her fingers moved to his lips.

"Our first kiss was in the Hospitium, after the attack at the Gates. I thought I'd lost you. Then you opened your eyes, and you pulled me close. I was so scared of what might happen, so I tried to stay away... but I couldn't."

Their eyes met.

"I know every part of your body, Gabriël. I know it drives you crazy when I touch you on your shoulder blades where your wings are, just like it drives me crazy when I feel you move inside me. The moment we were finally together was the happiest of my entire existence. It was the moment I realised you had become more to me than I ever hoped you'd be. I realised... I love you."

Gabriël shut his eyes as he felt the gentle touch of her lips on his. Every moment he'd ever shared with Joan flashed through his mind. Meeting her in the field near Domrémy, guiding her through her teenage years and through her campaign as the defender of France, helping her adjust to life in the Vale, the kiss in the Hospitium, finally making love to her after six-hundred years of silent longing, seeing her fall only to find and lose her again...
The tears Gabriël didn't know he was holding back rolled down his cheeks. He took his lover and the mother of his child in a fierce embrace, kissing her passionately. As her body pressed against his and his hands gripped her, Gabriël truly grasped the gravity of the moment. Joan was in his arms, alive and well.

"This is impossible." Gabriël's voice trembled as he leaned his forehead against hers. "You died in my arms. H-How are you here?"

"You, Gabriël." Joan smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.

"Me? I don't understand. How did I —?"

"When the Messenger no longer spreads the Word, when Mercy and Peace take up Justice's Sword, when the heart is stirred and what was broken is mended, through Heaven's Water, the Gift of Miracle is bestowed."

Gabriël gasped when he recognised those words. Uriël and Metatron wrote them for him in the Archangel scroll. It was the prophecy for the Messenger of the Lord. He looked down at his arm and removed his cuff. It had been some time since he had last looked at the rune, but there it was — whole again.

"You forgave Michael for what he did," explained Joan. "It was the last step after you took up the role of Lord Protector. Your bond with him was renewed, and your love for me never wavered. When you put me to rest in the Lake of Nevaeh, your tears mixed with the water, and I lived. I woke up on the lakeshore, where Uriël was waiting for me. He explained everything and said you came to the Circles to look for our daughter."