I start to drift into wakefulness when I hear Micah come in. He stops and converses with his mother for a bit, before coming into the room and turning on the lights. When he sees me peering up from the bedcovers, he smiles and comes over to the bed. "So little one, you met my mom! She really likes you too, so don't worry about staying."

I nod, glancing out the door to where I see his mother sitting at the kitchen table. She has a pad out, and seems to be negotiating with someone on the phone. Definitely efficient with a capital E, and I realize now where I know her from. It's actually interesting that the head of the sphere of love is such a good bureaucrat... former head, I suppose.

Poor Anael. I remember her much more clearly now -- she had been the one who had stood with my brother at the end. Evidently, she had taken her calling to heart -- once her heart was given, there was nothing else to it. There is still a gap in the heavens from when she'd exiled herself by following my brother's incarnations... I wonder if she had bargained for the fact that she would also forget all, becoming nothing more than a blind human.

I shake my head and return to the present. This human body is quite annoying that way -- it's much harder to think in the levels I'm used to when the shell is so weak and vulnerable. I'm almost tempted to change back to my true form, but I know exactly how ludicrous that would be. After all, the moment I did so, the power would alert the Grigori and I would be taken before my task was finished.

"Big brother-" Micah glances at me, surprise written on his face. Then he smiles, letting me know that he didn't mind my new name for him at all. "When can we go looking for Tomas again? I think that I remember him writing something about... um... someplace in this city." Well, Tomas will have a favorite spot, once I remember to change the letter...

"That's great! Let me look at the letter later and we'll go see, okay?" He sounds encouraged now, as well he should be. A slim hope is better than nothing at all, and this particular hope is much more than 'slim'. Try iron-clad, even if Micah doesn't know it.

I nod and then get up from Micah's bed. I walk out and go to Anael. She looks at me from her conversation and I smile up at her sweetly. Her face becomes soft and gentle, her hand coming over to ruffle my hair. I can almost hear her thoughts become more maternal as she looks at the new child in her life.

I nod, as I see that particular front covered, and then go to sit on the couch. I gaze around as if in amazement, while trying to See where Tomas is. My mouth draws into a thin line as I reach his thoughts, and I can't stop a quick, pained breath from escaping my lips.

Damn... I'm too late. Too late to make sure no harm comes to Tomas, to Tieral, in this life. Once again, my once-friend is the one tormented, in pain. Had I known that, when I'd come down? Is this why I've set up this sanctuary for him? Perhaps... although I'd like to think that I would have gone to the red-head first if I'd known that this is what his life is like.

I now see a whole new meaning into Tomas' dreams. He is indeed an old soul in a young body, but even this teenaged incarnation has known his fair share of pain. His peaceful dreams of becoming the hero, of rescuing the damsel in distress... how much would he have liked for that damsel to be him? Poor Tomas... I have to hope that what I've put into place is going to be enough to put him back together.

Micah has come over to me, his expression concerned at my blank staring. As he enters my field of vision, I grasp his shirt and start to cry. I am still in a child's body, after all. Few safeguards were put in it for controlling intense feelings, and this time, I am glad I can cry. I want to let the tears for all of them, and for the stupid, idiotic mistake that sent the light crashing down into this world.

He holds me as I sob, smoothing my hair just as Michael had done so long ago. That single act makes me want to cry even more, but I control myself and wipe my eyes. He doesn't say a word, but just bundles me into his bed. He stays with me as well, his form a warm, reassuring wall against some of my guilt. I almost regret making him fall asleep, and I take special care in making sure that he is comfortable on the bed.

I can't stay -- at least, not tonight. I have to go and arrange things, make sure that Tomas is in one piece. Closing my eyes, I let go of the physical form that I've been inhabiting, but I make sure that it doesn't disappear. Instead, I leave the peacefully sleeping shell in Michael's arms, and do a quick Spelling to make sure neither mortal in the house notices anything wrong. I don't know how long I'll be, so I'd better make sure everything is covered before I leave.

My form is still not my true one. Instead, it's an intermediate body that I had built some time ago in the shape I'd had as a youngling, looking about sixteen. It has access to more powers than the human-child form, even without wings or outside accruements of my true power. I'd made it much closer to my angel body, so that it didn't feel the cold or any silly things like that. There's quite a strong case to be made for invulnerability...

I let the form step halfway into the Immaterial Realm, so that I could wrap the shadows around me and walk out of the wall, onto the street. If I need too, I can make myself corporeal, but for now, this is best. I close my eyes to center onto Tomas' mind. I will myself next to him -- still invisible, of course.

When I pop into the dank, dark room that Tomas calls home, I can barely keep myself from crying out again. I am far from sheltered in the ways of human nature -- I've been around long enough so that I've seen just about everything there is to see. But to know that an angel is being used this way, being subjected to this kind of... Even the Fallen ones are still magnificent, in their dark, terrible way; it is only the lot of someone made no choice at all that had this mortal kind pain as their punishment.

He hasn't gone out again tonight because of the livid bruises on his face and arms. If it had just been on his body, I think that he would have borne it and gone to eke out the living that a young body and lovely face allows him. Tomas had been unlucky in the choice he'd made earlier this evening; the man had been brutal and unkind, using Tomas' body without any thought to the young man under him. When it had been over, he had tossed a few bills onto the battered body before staggering out of the cheap room.

I'm tempted -- so tempted -- to comfort him, soothe his pain, but I can't. Not yet, not when I'm so close to being able to make up for some of what I've done. Instead, I watch quietly as a large man steps into the room. He is dressed in an expensive suit, but he's the type that cries out shark, predator.

"Heard you picked a bad hustle, Red." Tomas is silent, as if trying to detach himself from the world, from this intrusion into his space. He looks altogether too thin and vulnerable in his thin T-shirt and jeans, and is quite still on the bed as he lies with his face toward the wall, his red hair covering his startling green eyes while he stares blindly at the peeling paint.

"Look at me when I talk to you." The dangerous edge in the voice makes Tomas sit up from the bed, hunched over in a telling way. As if expecting another beating, another unkind word, the ingrained stance is enough to tell me everything about his life. Tomas stares up at the larger man in silence, his expression blank.

"Good. So Red, got your rent?" Tomas hands over a few crumpled bills from his pocket, and the shark grins. It's a cruel, taunting smile, full of pain promised and already given. "Not enough. You know this isn't enough."

Tomas stirs at this remark, and looks as if about to challenge the statement. The fire I see in his eyes remind me of Tieral at his finest, and I'm so happy, so glad to know it's there. My friend is not dead yet, then. That is something to give thanks for. One of the few things in this sorry scenario...

"You're wrong. That's how much it was last month." He says it simply, as if saying it would change it back into truth, but the hopeless undertone makes it obvious he knows what's going to happen next.

"Well, boy, I know how much it is now, and this isn't enough. You know what happens, don't you, when kids like you don't pay." This is said with such a gleeful air that I want to strike this mortal down _now_, no matter what will happen to me. I am tempted to throw the shadows away and burn him with my light, my presence. Only, I can't. Not yet. Not if I want... If I do it that way, then I'll be aiding the wheels of fate already coming into play. That, I will not do. Not again.

Tomas lowers his eyes, his whole body screaming of defeat. With a satisfied smile, the too-well dressed man nods. "You come work for the boss, and we consider this closed. He'll pay for your place, you know, and treat you real good. Trust me. Now, if you'll just stand and-"

"No." It's said vehemently, with all the strength desperation can give. "I have another day. I don't owe you until tomorrow. I'll make enough -- I swear." I feel like crying, like cheering. The fire -- oh, how can it still burn so brightly? How could it have survived through so much... and how much pain must he have been through so that this was his only recourse into empowerment?

The shark raises an eyebrow. "You really think you can blow enough marks to make three hundred?"

Tomas' eyes turn bleak at being told the amount. Then he squares his shoulders and stands from the bed. "I can try."

The shark's eyes turn speculative as he assesses the boy in front of him. "You're not bad, kid. How about an easy hundred now?" Tomas stiffens, and then shakes his head. At that, the larger man laughs. "All right, Red. You'll just be regretting it later, I'm telling you." Tomas walks out silently.

I follow, more because I cannot leave without witnessing it all. I had thought, in my earlier trip into his mind when I had violated his memories and laughed at his dreams, that he was just another young, disaffected soul. One of the millions of kids who were rebelling by cutting school, overspending their yuppie parents' credit cards, and pretending to be tough.

Is it to my credit that this had never occurred to me at all? That I had ceased to associate humans with sin, with pain, accepting each one as with the potential for purity and goodness? I'd like to think so, but I doubt it. I truly doubt it. I think that I had just been blind, unseeing of the depths of darkness that a child alone can fall to. Only when I had tried to see into Tomas again, in the comfort of Micah's home, had I witnessed the beating, and the tired acceptance it had elicited from Tomas. That was when I knew that I had not been seeing, had not wanted to see.

So I follow, coward and powerless, as Tomas attempts to pay for his meager freedom with the only card he has. He radiates desperation and a willingness to do anything, anything at all. If I don't do anything, then he will attract someone that might do him as much harm as the shark. I don't know... I just don't know what to do, and then it hits me.

I will give him back some hope, some kindness. I will give it to him in a guise that he will trust instinctively, that will give him back more of his dream. I step away from Tomas as he hustles on the street, into an alley. There, I make sure that no one is present and then step out from the shadows into the darkness.

Glancing down at my shell, I know that it won't do. The good thing about this form, of course, is that it is quite close to my true form. That means that I can manipulate it quite easily into a shape that is more suitable for what I am about to attempt. Cloaking my power with a shield that will hopefully keep the Watchers away, I start to mold. First, I let my hair grow longer and lighter. After that, a few changes to my face -- a smaller nose, deeper blue eyes, faint laugh lines -- and to my body -- a head taller, somewhat broader -- makes me into the image of the man in Tomas' dream. Makes me into Michael, without the wings, into the man Micah will grow into. I am Hope, and I go to help my friend as I should have, so long ago.