Not gonna lie, I wasn't in love with Legion when I first saw it, but it grew on me, due in no small part to lilyfox (dA) and the power of the small, but devoted fandom. The great thing about this movie is how much emotion lies under it, thanks to the fantastic cast. Kevin Durand breaks my heart.

So here is my contribution to the archives.

A note: I omit the 'o' from the word 'G-d' for personal reasons. I'm sorry if it bothers you, and I'll explain if asked, but I am not in a position to make changes. Thanks for humoring me. :]

No one ever said how much it would hurt.

Audrey had long since given up screaming. She was gasping, now, just gasping for air through a throat bruised and raw and swollen. She couldn't feel her body. All there was was pain, searing, blinding, terrible pain, and as a fresh pulse of it ripped through her body, Audrey twitched and cried out. The cry died in a choke, a choke that made her cough, a cough that made her twitch, a twitch that made the pain surge afresh. She closed her eyes against the pain, gritted her teeth, and tried to ride it out, tried to stay calm and wait for it to subside just a little. Her good hand fisted in the sand, pressing the tiny granules against smooth, unbroken flesh. It felt odd—smooth, cold, a little gritty—and it was something different. Audrey opened her eyes, squinted at the sand, opened her hand and watched it filter out between her fingers. The sand was silver in the moonlight, and Audrey thought, briefly, that it was beautiful.

She'd always heard that death was peaceful, a soft movement; you died in your sleep, or in a split second of change. Death was a doorway—you were on one side, and then the other. No lingering, no agony, nothing. You were, and then you weren't.

A fresh wave of agony ripped through her and she screamed, screamed on a bloody, raw, and dying breath.

No one ever said how much it would hurt to die.

"I would not have shown you such mercy."

"I know. That is why you failed him."

Gabriel had never known the sensation of words echoing inside his mind. He knew what it was for them to resonate, humming with the pulse of his blood through his veins, full of the power and greatness that was G-d, but he had never known them to echo. They repeated, over and over, inside his head, as he stared out across the desert from his seat atop the billboard.

He had not returned to heaven. He could not. Michael's words haunted him, and his chest felt as if someone had carved out his organs and filled the cavity with cold air. He didn't realize it, but his shoulders were hunched, his body curved to protect the hollowness.

That is why you failed him.

Gabriel shuddered and tightened his grip on the metal edge of the sign. "I have done my duty," he growled, as if Michael could hear him, but even as the words left his lips, he knew it was a lie. Michael had spoken the truth. Gabriel had, somehow, in obeying G-d's command, failed him utterly. He had sinned.

And, he realized, in a sudden moment of bitter clarity, he must atone.

Archangels do not atone, he thought, his jaw clenching at the thought. They had never needed to atone before, as they had never sinned. But somehow, in this apocalypse, this second cleansing, everything had changed. G-d had changed. The world had changed. Michael had changed.

Gabriel didn't understand, and it made him angry.

He had sat and thought for too long. Restlessness burned under his skin, sizzled through his muscles. His wings twitched in a metallic rustle of feathers, and he stood, balancing with ease on the thin edge of the billboard for the single moment before he spread his wings and launched himself into the air.

He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he could not return to Heaven yet. Gabriel gritted his jaw and turned west, flying low, so his shadow skimmed across the black line of the highway below him. He followed the road, for the sake of a direction, not caring where it led him. The road continued on, unchanging, for miles.

And then, some fifteen minutes and three miles later, the dark grey of the asphalt was suddenly interrupted by a pair of black streaks, and an explosion of shattered glass. Gabriel frowned and banked, spiraling down to land softly on the highway.

He remembered, as he bent to touch the shards of glass: the police car, the three humans screaming, and above their pitch, that baby. The man had slammed down on the brakes, and the car had spun out of control, sending Gabriel, and the girlchild clinging to him, through the windshield.

Gabriel stood and turned in a slow circle, scanning the desert. They had bounced when they hit the asphalt, three times. The girlchild's grip had gone slack after the first impact, and when he landed the second time, he hadn't felt her arms around his neck. She would have been thrown into the air, ten or fifteen feet at least, when she let go of him. He thought for a moment, considering their velocity and trajectory, and then turned and walked into the desert.

He was right. A few yards from his location, the prickly desert brush had been disturbed. Gabriel picked his way over, mindful of the thorns, and found her.

She had skidded when she hit the ground, judging by the broken branches and streaks of blood. The path extended a few feet, from the first indent of her landing to where she lay.

Gabriel moved to stand beside the girlchild's body. The sun was rising beside him, slanting his shadow along the side of her body.

"Unfortunate," he murmured, noting the angle to her neck, the bend to her left wrist, and the protuberance in her right calf where the bone pressed against her skin. She had likely broken several ribs, as well. Gabriel was not surprised—Humans were fragile creatures, and this girl, with her thin limbs and elongated skeleton, was no exception. Her body was built for running, or perhaps dancing. She was not designed to survive any strong impact, especially not the one she had recently suffered.

Gabriel knelt, his knees digging into the blood-stained sand. He had to respect her strength. She was physically weak, but she had courage and persistence. She had held onto him until her arms failed to function properly. Gabriel reached for her skirt, which had flipped up, and replaced it over her posterior.

At the touch of his fingers on her thigh, goosebumps rose on her skin

Gabriel whipped his head around to stare at her face. That was impossible. No human could survive such an impact. She could not be alive.

Her face was absolutely still, her eyes closed. He couldn't hear any rasp of breath from between her lips. Gabriel shifted and placed his left hand over her heart, his fingertips light against the thin fabric of her shirt. For a moment, there was nothing—and then the barest flutter of a heartbeat.

Gabriel immediately moved and pressed his right palm to her chest. He could feel her soul moving under his fingers, restless, eager to be free of the broken body it inhabited. A few more moments, another broken breath, a handful of stuttering heartbeats, and her body would give out.

Gabriel frowned. Her soul was ready to be free, but her body was clinging to life, fighting fiercely. She was undoubtedly in excruciating pain. There was nothing good waiting for her, only a broken and bleeding shell and a world she would not recognize. He knew of her parents, had known of their story the moment her father was possessed. When his body came under the influence of the angels, his mind was present to everyone, for a moment. It had been enough. Both of this girlchild's parents were dead. She had no home to return to, and the new location they had been traveling to was useless to her. She had no extended family to live with, nowhere to go.

And still, she fought. Her heart was slowing, now, the ventricles' pulses mere flutters under Gabriel's hand. Her lungs expanded once, barely, and expelled the air more as a function of gravity than muscle. Her soul pulled against the bond tethering it, quivering as the chains cracked. It was so close to being free.

Gabriel decided that would not do.

He pressed his hand down, fingers curling as he caught hold of her soul and held it in place. "No," he Said, and his Voice resonated down through his hand, into the girlchild's body. "You will stay. Live."

The hum of the fricative burst from his lips, spiraling through his arm and pressing against her skin. A moment, and then her heartbeat came, strong and insistent. Gabriel lifted his hand, and her chest moved with it as her lungs expanded, filling with much-needed oxygen.

And that was where his abilities ended. Gabriel could tap into the electricity of the human body, speak to the mind and the heart, force muscles to contract and synapses to fire, but he couldn't regrow bone or restitch muscle. That would take time, and a careful hand.

Gabriel possessed both of these.

He gathered the girlchild into his arms, cradling her against his chest, careful not to compress her ribs, and with a single stroke of his wings lifted them both into the air.

She wouldn't die. Her body, the traitorous shell of sin and decay, had wanted to live, and he had listened. He would heal her, tend to her, act as Michael would have done. He would save her.