(Very) Short Story: "Sometimes". Rated G.

Author's Note: This isn't from the novel I'm cowriting with jerusalemorbust, but it is a semi-reflection of the story we're working on. Michael in this guise is entirely her creation, Gabriel is mine. Together, they fight crime.

Well, maybe not fight crime, but close.


Title: Sometimes.
By: misslj_author
Rating: G.
Summary: A moment of melancholy reflection shared by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel.


Sometimes there is failure. It's never easy, Gabriel knows, yet it happens, even to beings who are nearly omniscient. There is always a reason for things, even if no one understands what the reason is or why.

Reasons never make things simpler or satisfactory. Reasons never make the weight of pain and guilt any lighter. Reasons simply are, a stone weight around one's neck, reminding one of everything that would perhaps be better forgotten.

Her name was Theodora. Gabriel isn't looking at Michael. He can't. He wants to say so much about this, more than just a name, a phrase that is a slipstream of movement against the tide of his life. She was the harmony to my rage. She was a maid to a lesser noblewoman in Constantinople. It was the twelfth century, the Varangians were under my command and I failed them.

Michael is silent and Gabriel is grateful. Platitudes won't help; they both know that. Empty words are just that: empty. They both live with their grief and their guilt and their pain, burying what they can and continuing on with their tasks. Only one who has lived forever could truly understand the complexity of the weight they carry, the weight of memory and melancholy and fragments of joy and hope.

Michael does. Gabriel does. The Host do. Probably, too, some of the residents of Hell, if Gabriel were to think about it. However, at that moment, he isn't thinking about anything other than war and battles, death and blood, tears and anguish.

Sometimes, of laughter. In the infinity of memory, laughter and joy occasionally bubble to the fore.

But only sometimes.

"Sometimes is enough," Michael says quietly.

"Maybe," Gabriel answers.

(Very) Short Story: "Sometimes". Rated G.

Author's Note: This isn't from the novel I'm cowriting with jerusalemorbust, but it is a semi-reflection of the story we're working on. Michael in this guise is entirely her creation, Gabriel is mine. Together, they fight crime.

Well, maybe not fight crime, but close.


Title: Sometimes.
By: misslj_author
Rating: G.
Summary: A moment of melancholy reflection shared by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel.


Sometimes there is failure. It's never easy, Gabriel knows, yet it happens, even to beings who are nearly omniscient. There is always a reason for things, even if no one understands what the reason is or why.

Reasons never make things simpler or satisfactory. Reasons never make the weight of pain and guilt any lighter. Reasons simply are, a stone weight around one's neck, reminding one of everything that would perhaps be better forgotten.

Her name was Theodora. Gabriel isn't looking at Michael. He can't. He wants to say so much about this, more than just a name, a phrase that is a slipstream of movement against the tide of his life. She was the harmony to my rage. She was a maid to a lesser noblewoman in Constantinople. It was the twelfth century, the Varangians were under my command and I failed them.

Michael is silent and Gabriel is grateful. Platitudes won't help; they both know that. Empty words are just that: empty. They both live with their grief and their guilt and their pain, burying what they can and continuing on with their tasks. Only one who has lived forever could truly understand the complexity of the weight they carry, the weight of memory and melancholy and fragments of joy and hope.

Michael does. Gabriel does. The Host do. Probably, too, some of the residents of Hell, if Gabriel were to think about it. However, at that moment, he isn't thinking about anything other than war and battles, death and blood, tears and anguish.

Sometimes, of laughter. In the infinity of memory, laughter and joy occasionally bubble to the fore.

But only sometimes.

"Sometimes is enough," Michael says quietly.

"Maybe," Gabriel answers.