InsaneJournal

Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	challenge: hetfic, character: anna milton, character: dean winchester, fandom: supernatural, pairing: dean/anna, title: grace

Grace
Title: Grace
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean/Anna
Word Count: 793
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or the characters, and I will put them back where I found them when I am done playing with them.
Summary: What happened to Anna after she restored her Grace?
Author's Note: Written for scoob2222 for hetfic@LJ Valentine fic exchange with the prompts of "baby." Thanks to ladybug218 and larah33 for the beta; any remaining mistakes are mine, all mine.


She rose, spiraling up into the air, human flesh seared away by her restored Grace. She was energy; she was light; she was an angel again. But this was not what she wanted. It was sheer preservation. She was sacrificing everything just to live -- friendship, chocolate cake, cuddling under soft fleece blankets, bacon, hot tubs, pizza and french fries and ice cream, puppies and kittens. And love. That was the worst of all to give up. In her human life she had had boyfriends, but none of them had made her feel like Dean Winchester had. None of them had known the real her, though that had not been entirely their fault; she hadn't known her true self, either. Dean had known, and for a brief moment they had shared passion and comfort. But now she would never be able to see what might have been or experience that kind of pleasure or contentment again.

The Gates of Heaven were still closed to her; that was no surprise. Restoring her Grace did not change the fact that she had questioned God and disobeyed Him. She did not expect Him to welcome her with open arms, nor did she want to return to an existence of blind obedience and emotionless watching of the struggling of humans. At least demons could not take her now and use her as they might have used an angel trapped in a frail mortal form. But that did not mean other angels would not seek her out to punish her for her defiance. A rogue angel would not be allowed to live.

Part of her almost wanted to let them. Maybe oblivion would be a better choice than the life of a fallen angel.

Then two things struck her at once. The first -- she did still feel. It wasn't the longing to feel that had caused her to pull out her Grace and become a human being, it was actual feelings. She still worried about Dean and Sam, she felt rage at the demons and Castiel and Uriel for hunting her down, and she felt sorrow for the loss of her innocence. Her time as a mortal, it seemed, had irrevocably changed her.

The second realization was that she was not alone. It took her awhile to realize exactly what it was, but when she did, she was filled with joy. There was life inside her. Before she had restored her Grace, she had become pregnant, and the baby's potential life force was still within her, waiting to be born. She cast aside thoughts of oblivion and became more determined to survive.

Castiel and Uriel had taken human form and retained their Grace. If they could do it, so could she. And so she watched and waited and listened as she continued to avoid the angels that hunted her. Finally, she heard what she was waiting for, the voice of dying woman raised in prayer, begging God not to save her, but to save the baby inside her. She had been shot by a mugger, and though doctors were frantically trying to safe her life and her child's, she had lost a lot of blood, and the damage would be fatal.

God would not answer the woman's plea, but Anna -- she still thought of herself as "Anna" and not by her angelic name -- would. She merged her essence into the woman, and at the same time, her child and the woman's baby became one. The pain was incredible, almost as much as it had hurt to rip out her Grace. She could not heal her host, but she could give her the strength to survive while the doctors did their work.

She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl a few days later. Her swift recovery astounded the doctors who had been so certain she was going to die. A few weeks later, once the hospital released her, she went in search of Dean. She found him in a hotel off Highway 30 outside of Grand Island, Nebraska. After waiting for Sam to leave -- it would be better to talk to Dean alone first -- she knocked on the door.

She heard him moving behind the door, peering out through the peephole to see who was there. After a moment he opened the door and looked at her and the baby she cradled in her arms. "Can I help you, miss?" he said warily, not recognizing her in this body.

The human heart within her fluttered. She had told Dean that when her Grace was restored, she would no longer feel again, but she had been so very wrong.

"Dean," she said. "I'd like you to meet your daughter. I named her Grace."

X-posted to hetfic (here)