The cold has not let up, and Constantine insists that the cab
driver drop him and Kitty off as close to Mount Caith as possible. The
driver gives the pair an odd look as they get out and pay. Damn weird
place to conduct a clandestine love affair (which is obviously what
they're doing), if you ask him.

        The climb up the mountain to the little cave in its side is
tedious and tiresome, but not too strenuous. John, like some warped
British version of Hansel and his bread crumbs, leaves a trail of
cigarette ends behind him. He speaks little, sunk in his own thoughts.

        The cave is all but entirely dark. A thin, uneasy glow gleams in
its entrance. "Hullo," John calls casually as he approaches.

The fact that Kitty dealt with dressing by pulling a pair of jeans and a
leather jacket on and just /leaving/ on the oversized T-shirt she was
using as a nightshirt probably didn't help. Nor did the faint feverish
look brought on by using coffee and a bottle of Jolt to counteract her
exhaustion. Her fingers stray absently to her cellphone once or twice,
reassuring herself that silence doesn't mean it's gone missing. She
doesn't interrupt John's silence, but she's not passive, either. Watching.
Alert. Occasionally a crunch of snow and last fall's leaves, or a tiny
cascade of pebbles, betrays her presence - but the further up the mountain
they get, the quieter she is. Once she bends down and picks up a rock,
carrying it absently in a hand the rest of the way. Just in case of crows.

The thin, uneasy glow isn't what's best noticeable; it's the smell of
cooked meat and burnt hair that pervades the area that is what can be
noticed first. Or, perhaps, what should've been noticed first. The fire's
mostly disturbed, chalked markings and incense scattered, black feathers
smoking and curled up, laying about all over. A small figure lays, curled
up and twitching, skin blackened in some places, cracked open and weeping
blood, mewling like some lost kitten, sure to be drowned.

Constantine does not look at all sympathetic. Nice? Kind? Gentle? What do
those words mean? "Oh, get up, will you? Didn't you learn not to play with
fire?" John never learned that himself. "Kitty, anything you want to ask
it?" he murmurs.

Kitty wasn't terribly disturbed at tentacled demons in Bermuda. She
handled hordes of animate sculptures in the dreamscape. She dealt calmly
with Ichor's attempt at slaughtering a few hundred people. She didn't
panic when Pete came home bleeding profusely from the neck after a vampire
attack, or when Kurt rigged explosives to take out the building she and a
couple of dozen unconscious people were in, or ... the general idea is
gotten.

It's the burning that gets to her, far more than she'd want to admit, and
far more than she can /avoid/ admitting. She comes up beside Constantine,
and the blankness of her features and eyes is as sure a sign as any that
she's not coping well: there's no expression there at all. She'll only
cross the glow if he will. But she tries to angle to see, in its light,
that curled-up figure. Because she's entirely not sure it's still an
angel.

Shadows on the wall of the cave seethe and roil, and the small creature
utters a desperate bleat of agony, one hand reaching up toward them. Thick
and black, the darkness beyond it seems to reach for the smoldering ruin
of a body, but it pulls back from that hand. In it, stuck to burned flesh,
a single white feather rests. "Did. Just now," it sobs, the words muffled
as it shivers and keeps its face hidden.

Constantine's expression goes distant for a moment as he stares at that
one white feather. Then he steps across the threshold. The cold look is
gone from his face, although he hasn't gone so far as to show sympathy
yet. "What are you trying to do?" It's a general question, and his tone is
*almost* gentle.

One white feather. "Life," Kitty whispers behind Constantine; it isn't a
question, not quite, and then there's one step, and another, and she
crosses the glow in the same place Constantine did. If she were clever at
the moment, she'd stop there, not come closer - as close as she can
without crossing or disturbing any of the chalked marks.

They're already disturbed, smeared by sooty, bloody hands. "Get free," it
says, and it's voice is a useless gargle. The whining, mewling sounds are
something like sobbing, and it writhes on the cave floor, half convulsed.
Against the reek of burned flesh, the funereal scent of roses comes, thick
and sweet and cold.

Constantine shudders very slightly, unable to restrain himself. "Why are
you trying to bring the Tower down?" Yes, it's time for the direct
questions. He looks slightly sick.

Kitty's expression hasn't changed. She reaches out one hand half-toward
the angel. Were you one of the ones that went after Lindsey? Does that
even matter just now? "We've got to help it." There's no tone in her words
at all.

"They don't see," it says, coughing wetly, something like bloody saliva
drooling from cracked lips to slick the floor. "I'm /not/," it whimpers,
shifting against the cold floor. Wind kicks up outside, and the faintest
eddies of brisk winter wind dip into this small cavern, whirling up a
handful of black feathers into a tiny little cyclone. Round and round and
around. Ever chasing one another.

Constantine slants a tired look at Kitty. There's no irritation or
contempt in his expression, but there's no pity there either--just
weariness. "How? By bringing it to the hospital? If you can think of a way
to help it, be my guest."

Kitty's eyes widen, ever so slightly, at what the angel says.
"Self-defense," she says aloud, talking more than half. "Self-protection.
Need. Hunger. Lust. *Want*. Anger and Hatred and Loathing. Not crows,
/ravens/." She takes a quick breath, then glances back at Constantine.
"Stop me if this seems to be going horribly wrong, all right?" And then
she moves to kneel down beside the burned angel, trying to find a patch of
skin that's not charred, not oozing, to place her hand upon.

Arching into the touch, the charred thing draws a ragged breath, and its
hollow eyes search for Kitty as though blind. It stares, blank and hollow,
and begs, "Can you see?" What are you looking for?

Constantine starts. "Kitty? What the--" He cuts off, staring, then says
quietly, "What do you know about these creatures? What's all this about
ravens?"

"There are - crows - associated with them." Kitty's fingertips are careful
against the broken creature's skin; she cradles its head in a hand,
supporting it. "One of the medallions in the dream - not one of ours, one
of the other ones. Wasn't it a raven? Nine of them came after Jack and
Liam and me - it seemed familiar at the time, but I couldn't figure out
why. They were bleeding from their hands. Rose petals. Those mean blood,
sometimes. The way a lot of us cut our hands, in the dream." Her words
aren't certain at all: guesses at best, hesitant. "After the attack, we
were told - this /is/ a dream, right now, that we're standing in." Or
kneeling, in her case. "The dreamer is Truth." You remember who she is,
don't you? And no: Kitty can't see, not yet. Pete's the one with an eye on
his medallion. She hesitates again, and asks the angel something she's
not, at all, sure is wise. "What should we be /trying/ to see?"

Constantine stares at Kitty and the angel-creature, not completely
comprehending, but not wanting to seem as if he doesn't. "And who is
Truth?" he murmurs, the question half-rhetorical.

Oh, you remember who Truth is, don't you, John? "God," it whispers, that
word torn from its lips as though it were giving up such /secrets/. Such
awful secrets. "Try to see the joy," it pleads. Beneath her touch, it
sobs, attempting to move as though to get closer to her, as though seeking
comfort. "What are we but facets of the same thing? Two sides of a coin?
All her angels," it mumbles, shivering, body still weeping blood against
the floor from split, burned skin.

"Sera." Kitty's laugh is shaky, as she gathers the burned figure carefully
closer. "It was Sera. God, Pete was /right/ - he said that that had to
mean more than we were seeing. He talked about it weeks ago... She's got
to be so scared. Shh. It's okay. We're here, you're not alone, you don't
have to -" Which is when her voice gives out; she's not really sure when
she started crying. Can't look at its eyes. Or its hands.

Suspicions tumble together in John's mind and click. He's powerless to
stop them. "Jesus Christ," he says softly, still staring at the
angel-creature. "Sera." One hand creeps to his chest, and he presses
there, feeling the outline of the medallion against his skin beneath his
shirt.

Shivering against Kitty, the creature sobs, and its tears become clearer,
its body moving a bit more fluidly, a bit less painedly. "The world is
waking," it says to them. "/See/," it pleads. "With.. with eyes like the
sky," it chokes. "Look from far away to see a bigger picture. Is it so
naive to find the beauty? So wrong to pick the love to hold to, instead of
the fear? We failed," it sobs. "No one will see, and the light /leaves/
you."

The world's waking - it takes Kitty a moment to interpret that, and she
swallows and whispers. "We're trying. We're /slow/, but we're trying.
Listen. What's the heart /for/? What's it supposed to /do/? Or is it
enough that it /is/?" Because everything, everything seems to revolve
around that. Or maybe it's just that it's her and Constantine there, and
their perspectives are skewed. Absently, Kitty phases out of her jacket -
it flops on the floor - she lays it over the angel. She'll probably freeze
that way in not too long, but it seems to need it more.

Constantine doesn't say a word. He seems to sense that this is Kitty's
moment, Kitty's and the angel's, and he doesn't belong in this strange
dream at least for now.

"For all of us who've had our own broken," it whispers, turning its
seemingly blind gaze toward John. Not a part of this dream? Are you so
sure? The compassion, the gentleness showed the angel... there's something
about these moments where it seems, broken and dying, that it may be as
pure as it could be; beneath the blood and soot, the ragged stumps of
wings attempt to shed their shadowed hue.

And now it's Kitty's turn to be silent, not looking at John. Not looking
at anything. Not saying a word. Her head's bent, eyes closed, expression
hidden.

Constantine is stunned into silence for a moment. When he speaks, his
voice is hesitant, a little broken. "*Should* I have made it? Was it the
right thing to do? Or was it another mistake, like all the rest of my
life?"

There are some questions people should never want the answer to... But
John Constantine asks them anyway. "Those are things /you/ decide," it
whispers, resting its head in Kitty's lap. "Dreaming," it murmurs,
shivering once more, clinging to Kitty as it looks up to her, and John.
"Only wanted to show you."

That's what makes him himself, isn't it? Kitty strokes a careful fingertip
over a ragged feather. "No plague ships, John," she says, very quietly,
and without lifting her head. "Just people."

Constantine closes his eyes and swallows hard suddenly. There's a wetness
beneath his lashes. Hastily, he swipes a hand across his eyes and opens
them again. "Just tell me how we can help Sera."

"/See/," it pleads. "Only have to see. But her might-have-been. Never tell
him. And the Father. Never tell him. Let it be our dream," it whispers,
its eyes closing as it shudders in Kitty's gentle arms. "It isn't
rose-coloured glasses. S'just twilight eyes. /See/. Joy." Another shiver.
"/Life/."

Kitty doesn't say anything, but she opens her eyes, searching up to the
angel's face for the first time. To /its/ eyes.

Constantine starts to close his eyes again, but resists. Instead he stares
steadily at the angel, not flinching or looking away. "I'll try."