f you recognize it, it doesn't belong to me. I don't own Harry Potter. Or Supernatural. Or Norse mythology. This story uses the Norse mythology where Loki had seven children. It makes the Marvel adjustment that Loki was raised as Odin's son.

I would like to thank my diligent proofreaders, NathyFaith and ThallenCambricaltran. I'd also like to thank the discord group. They're an inspiration and a force of nature. This story would not exist if not for them.

This is AU, and a quick note before we start: Some timeline stuff had to be adjusted accordingly. Nothing prior to Changing Channels was changed. The horsemen were released, except Lucifer hasn't gotten around to binding/releasing/summoning death.

Abandon All Hope and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid didn't happen. The order of events was the following: 99 Problems, the first part of Dark Side of the Moon Happens right before the events of Trickster's Haven that could be considered my version of Hammer of the Gods. The second half of Dark Side of the Moon and Point of No Return... we're not there yet but we're about to be.

Summary: Michael and Gabriel bring home two fledglings and Zachariah has been misinformed about the current state of affairs. No, now is not a good time to get the vessels to say yes. There is also pain, because He left, and His children still have to find ways to pick up the pieces, even if they would prefer not to.

Gabriel and Michael knew the instant Raphael almost exploded in his efforts to fix Lucifer. Archangels and angels had always been connected to each other in one way or another. Part of the punishment in the Cage was being unable to hear or bond to the rest of the choir and the Morningstar was completely alone.

Father had decided to cast Lucifer out, what if he decided to cast out someone else? The youngest archangel feared his fate and decided to leave. He couldn't take his older siblings bickering anymore. Gabriel muted himself to the choir, mimicking an archangel's death. No one would look for him if they believed him to be dead.

Raphael's carelessness was known to the other two archangels for three reasons. The moment he expended as much power as he was able to, all the angels felt it. It was an explosion that echoed in their grace. This was followed by his own presence in the angel network diminishing. He had not died and his presence was not gone, but it had been a close call and neither Michael or Gabriel were happy.

The third significant indicator that something had occurred was the two archangels hearing the return of a voice to the host that they had believed they would never hear this way again. Only the two archangels could hear him yet, he wasn't connected to the complete angel network. It was Lucifer, but it wasn't Lucifer as he had been when he had been cast out of heaven. It wasn't even Lucifer as he had been in the days between being offered the Mark and taking it. No, Gabriel and Michael heard what they had believed they would never hear again. An incensed fledgling Lucifer was shouting about the injustice of finding himself all alone with another sleeping fledgling.

Michael and Gabriel flew, following the grace of their siblings to the room Raphael had mostly destroyed. The physical blast from his grace had burned the walls and floor of the room. The windows had shattered outwards.

Two little beings were near the center of the room. The three and a half foot child was standing, shouting in Enochian. Not all of it was intelligible, even to the archangels. Didn't children just scream to be screaming, sometimes? He seemed to have a vessel of his own, blue eyes and dirty blonde hair.

The second fledgling was even smaller than Lucifer, not even all of three feet. He was sleeping, lying prone on the floor, halfway between being on his side and his front. His head rested on his outstretched arm and one wing was draped haphazardly over his body like a blanket.

"Mica!" Lucifer exclaimed, "Gabby!"

Like Raphael earlier, Michael didn't have a vessel. As long as he didn't go near any humans, everything should be fine. Gabriel still had the vessel he had created for himself and was on the same plane as the fledglings.

"What happened?" Michael asked. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but it seemed like a good idea to get Lucifer's side, if he had any idea what was going on.

"Raphy bathed me," Lucifer grumbled. "I don't want baths from Raphy anymore."

Gabriel picked Raphael up from the floor. The fledgling shivered, wings shifting with an instinctual need to keep him warm. He was about the size of a human two or three year old and didn't wake. His fingers latched onto Gabriel's grace, seeking the warmth the other provided.

"Luci," Michael said, "Would you like to come visit an old friend?"

"Can we go see mommy and daddy?"

Gabriel grinned. Loki may have carried the twins in the first universe, but Sigyn had fully intended to do so. It didn't matter that she hadn't. To the twins, she was mom and Loki was dad.

He snapped his fingers, conjuring a blanket to wrap around Raphael. His brother needed to sleep and keeping his temperature stable would help. "Shall we, then?"

Michael flew them back to Sigyn's house. He hesitated on the stoop. Raphael had been ready to raise Lucifer himself if this happened and if Sigyn wanted nothing to do with a fledgling. Michael knew Sigyn better than Raphael and that she would have nothing against fledglings running around, but this was still the archangel that had almost killed her. Could that be forgiven?

The door opened. Hela was still sitting cross-legged on the counter nearest the stairs with a book in her hands. She was looking at the door, and them. "Well don't just stand there," she insisted. "You all live here, don't you?"

Michael didn't really have an answer to that. He thought he might want to live here, maybe, but somebody had to run heaven. With Lucifer and Raphael both fledglings again and Gabriel with no interest in returning, who did that leave in charge of heaven except himself? Wasn't heaven his responsibility even when things like this came up?

"Hela!" Luci shouted. The fledgling burst forward, but instead of running across the floor as he may have intended, his wings flapped twice, launching the fledgling up and over towards Hela. Lucifer crashed into the woman, sending her tumbling off the table towards the floor as he clung to her.

The moment before Hela's head could hit the floor, she stopped falling.

"Hela, haven't I asked you not to sit up there?" Loki finished descending the stairs and stepped out into the kitchen. His black hair was more disheveled than it usually was, locks of hair covering the scar on his forehead. "I can't make dinner when you're on the counter." he turned his head, looking at the archangels standing at the threshold. "You're not vampires, are you? I was sure I heard Hela invite you to come inside and please close the door."

Gabriel and Michael stepped inside and the latter closed the door.

Lucifer scrambled off Hela's chest. "Daddy!"

"Please don't fly in the house." Loki looked from Lucifer to the other two.

"That goes for everyone," a lilting feminine voice added. Sigyn stepped around the corner, joining her husband in the kitchen. Taking in all the faces, she grinned. This was her home as it was meant to be. Two faces were missing, but she knew Jor and Fen were around here somewhere.

Lucifer ran towards Sigyn. "Mommy, I sowwy," the fledgling wailed.

Sigyn knelt to eye level slowly. "It's okay. Your brother healed me, no harm done. Don't do it again?"

Lucifer agreed easily, curling himself into Mama because he needed a hug. Sigyn put an arm around him, knowing that's what he wanted.

Michael approached Sigyn. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

Sigyn nodded. She might have spoken something, but she didn't get that opportunity.

After spending weeks in the presence of his siblings, Fenrir had been able to leave behind some of his rigid training from heaven and join his siblings in acting like the exuberant immortal children they had never had the opportunity to be.

Tag had always been a favorite with Sigyn's children. That it was played by her children who would shift, solely because they could, was inevitable.

Jor was at home in any snake shape. He had once been born as a snake, after all. Fenrir, a wolf. No one had expected the twins to return now, and the two boys had been too involved to consider how their actions would be viewed.

Fenrir was chasing Jor, who had decided that if all of his siblings could fly in their own ways, he would as well. The flying and feathered Quetzalcoatl flew through the hallway and around the counter in the kitchen, headed straight for the door.

Hot on his tail was a giant wolf. Sigyn's house was designed with their shifted forms in consideration. The reaction of the twins was unexpected, but not a surprise.

Lucifer screamed, assaulted by memories of another wolf and another child.

Michael had been stoic since Lucifer fell and managed to remain silent. That did not mean he did not remember all of it.

"How will Loki feel if one of his children dies as one of mine has died?" Two little boys, kidnapped from their beds, listened as those who should have treated Loki better plotted their destruction.

One boy was bespelled wolf and the other was the boy. Even in that moment, neither could remember their own name.

The nature of the wolf opposed the desire of the boy that was the wolf. The wolf was frightened, angry, out for blood. The only target available was the other boy, trembling in terror, fear scent delicious to the wolf.

But someone misunderstood. The boy who was also wolf and the boy who was boy, they were twins. They were twins who could not stand to be separated because it left them feeling like half a person.

The wolf overpowered the boy that was wolf. It's easy to manipulate and control that which was not whole to begin with. Overpowered and attacked, viciously, the twin. There was blood as the wolf clawed and scratched and devoured because the wolf was beyond reason.

The boy that was boy surrendered easily to the wolf. Didn't move, didn't struggle, couldn't, wouldn't. He couldn't fight back. He was screaming, even as the boy trapped in the wolf was. This was not supposed to happen. This was not the way it should have been.

"Michael. Michael, you're safe here. Do you remember where you are?"

Michael exhaled. This was home. This was home that heaven had never and would never be. It was quiet. Lucifer was no longer screaming. Jor and Fenrir had slipped outside. Gabriel had taken Raphael upstairs and Lucifer must have gone with them.

Michael inhaled and wiped his mouth. The coppery taste lingered. He blinked.

Sigyn's hazel eyes were inches from his face, brow furrowed as she eyed him with knowing concern. "Michael?"

He took another staggering breath. He was safe here. None of them would let anything happen to Sigyn or Loki, and nothing would happen to them here. If ever there was safety in numbers, it was going to be Sigyn's home. "I'm…." He was far from fine. It would take time, for all of them. And he wasn't about to lie to Sigyn. She'd suss out the truth as good as any feather of truth. Hadn't Sigyn been….? "I'll be alright."

Sigyn kept staring at him, but she didn't repeat herself. Loki made a small amount of noise as he set to work preparing some meal. Hela helped with the preparation. Loki cursed as he dropped something on the ground, ruining the dinner he was trying to make.

Sigyn glanced in Loki's direction. "I'll check on Slip, see if the kids are settling in. Will you make sure Fen and Jor haven't destroyed my yard?"

Sigyn went upstairs. Gabriel came downstairs and sat with Michael at the counter while Hela finished dinner preparations.

Loki went outside. Jor and Fen were sitting on the bottom stair of the porch in silence. Fen looked up at the sound of the door closing, giving Loki his best rendition of a kicked puppy expression. He'd possibly stolen it from Sam Winchester.

Loki sat on the top step, letting his feet lie between the two boys. "You two know you're not to blame for that, right?" Fen blinked. Loki sighed. "You two shouldn't have been playing tag in the house, but it's not your fault the twins couldn't handle seeing a wolf, Fen. Not your fault. You're not the one who transformed one of them into a wolf."

Fenrir nodded. Loki looked over at Jor. "Lucifer knocked Hela off the table, so Sigyn and I are in agreement that there's to be no flying in the house. You can all fly as much as you want inside the wards, as long as you do so outside. You should probably not play tag inside either, isn't 'No running in the house' a normal rule?"

Jor gave a wry smile, while Fen was still tense. "Are we normal though? Eight immortal godlings… We're probably not going to injure ourselves."

"Let Sigyn have that," Loki suggested. "Besides, what if anyone who is not immortal comes here? If Lucifer had knocked anyone else off that counter it could have ended worse than it did."

"Fledglings can't always control their flight," Fenrir said. His wings twisted, acknowledging his own distress. "Human children sometimes run when they're trying to walk. Fledglings… They're adding flying into the mix."

Loki shrugged. "Okay. So don't purposefully fly in the house." The two boys didn't say anything in response, so they sat there in silence. "You don't have to stay out here if you don't want to," Loki finally said. "But I'm going to see how Hela is coming with dinner."

Fenrir went back inside a little while later. Gabriel was entertaining Lucifer in the next room and he could hear quiet talking from upstairs.

"Please don't send me away," Raphael was saying, "I don't want to leave." Along with Michael's response, "Oh, Kiddo. We want you here. We won't keep you against your will, but we'll never push you out of the nest before you're ready, either."

"Why does Raphael think we don't want him here?" Hela asked, looking up from the meal she was making. "He did so much for Mother because he thought we wouldn't accept him unconditionally. Even after he healed Mother just because Slip asked him to."

Gabriel looked over from where he was playing with Lucifer. "Michael didn't say as much, but I think Raph may have spent the last few millennia mostly in solitude. That'd be hard on anyone."

There was a quiet conversation between Michael and Sigyn, which everyone politely pretended they couldn't hear, but then Sigyn asked, "May I hold Raphael?"

"Sure," Michael replied. There was shuffling as he would have passed the fledgling over, and then he came downstairs.

"Is Raphael alright?" Hela asked.

"He thinks we would send him away," Michael said sadly. "What did I do wrong?"

"It's not on you," Gabriel said. "It was Him. He shouldn't have left."

Fenrir perked his head up at the mention of Him, but tried not to look like he was more invested than idle curiosity would account for. He wondered if Sam and Dean had made it to Joshua yet. What would Joshua say? Could Joshua tell them where He was? He'd suggested it to the Winchesters before Lucifer had stabbed Sigyn, and before Raphael had done whatever it was that he had done to Lucifer. He should tell the Winchesters the apocalypse was cancelled. He realized that it had been several days since he had contacted them in heaven. Had everything gone well?

"Castiel? You alright?" Michael asked.

Fen swallowed. He turned his head in their direction, but wouldn't meet Michael's eyes. He could still hear the twins screaming in his mind. He'd caused that. He may not have been the one to turn one of them into a wolf, but his own wolfish nature had certainly not helped anything in a playful moment of impulsivity. It didn't matter whether he or Jor had started that game. What mattered was in that moment of foolishness, he'd scared them. Not anyone else.

He almost flinched when feathers brushed against his shoulder. How long had it been? Fen wondered. A long time. Before Anael was promoted to garrison leader. He couldn't remember, and as he made an effort at doing so, he found that a lot of his memories were fuzzy or blank.

"Fenrir?" The feathers brushed his shoulder again, and it must have been Michael because that voice was so close. "Will you tell me what you're thinking?"

Fenrir wanted nothing more than lean into Michael's wing. It had been too long since he'd been able to fully appreciate the closeness of another angel besides Gabriel that didn't want him dead. He might have been Sigyn and Loki's son first, but that didn't suddenly eradicate the last few millennia of this universe and by Father, he missed them. But Raphael had smote him. Raphael had smote him, and Father had brought him back, but Raphael hadn't believed it because he had still thought He was dead. Fen had Sigyn and Loki now, but he hadn't had them then, and he'd just wanted to do what was right.

Michael hugged Castiel. "Talk to me," he whispered.

Fenrir let out a shuddering breath. "I looked for Him. He brought me back after Raphael smote me and I had thought that He might help end the apocalypse because I didn't remember yet and I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted to do the right thing, but heaven didn't want me back, and our angelic brothers and sisters were dying..."

"I'm sorry, Fen. I'm sorry," Michael said. He ran a finger along the edge of Castiel's wings. They weren't especially disheveled, but they were still quivering and Michael wanted to soothe them. Where had he messed up? How had he gotten so off track pretending he wanted the apocalypse just so he could get his twin back that he'd allowed this to happen to his other siblings?

"I'm sorry too," Fen mumbled into Michael's shoulder. He was still tense, but Michael's embrace was tight and comforting. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Hey, don't apologize," Michael said. "You were a wolf before any of that other stuff happened and if you want to be a wolf, you get to be a wolf."

"Help! Castiel, if you can hear me, help us, please! Zachariah-" Sam Winchester was praying for him? Usually, he left it to Dean. Fen wondered if he should apologize for calling Sam an abomination that one time. Sam had prayed frequently from childhood, and he had always been told by his superiors that Sam didn't deserve anything from them because he was an abomination, but he wasn't sure he agreed. Sam's soul had always looked old, but even with the tain from the demon blood, it hadn't looked broken or damaged. The strength of it was inspiring. Even after everything it had ever faced and been poisoned with, Sam's soul had only ever come out stronger.

Fen pulled away from Michael, wings bending, ready to go to the Winchesters' aid. Then the next whisper reached him. "Cas, I'm sorry, but I have to- Yes, Michael. Yes! A thousand times yes, if you'll just bring them back!"

Fenrir froze. He glanced at Michael, who was already looking at him.

"I'll deal with Zachariah," Michael said. "You should stay here, Castiel. I will not harm the Winchesters, and I would not take a coerced Vessel."