Tony Welker had never been a particularly lucky guy when it came to girls and the wooing thereof, which was why he was kind of surprised to find that this one had stuck around for the whole evening. They'd actually made it through a movie and a drive-thru meal together, which was something of a new record for him. Hardly the height of romance, and his mother's car hadn't impressed her like he'd hoped, but he was sixteen and on a budget so choices were limited. They pulled up, on her direction, not far from an old auto salvage yard Tony had probably driven (or been driven) past every other week, but he couldn't say he'd ever noticed it before.

"Why d'you want to stop here? Looks like a dump…"

"I'm staying here." The girl smiled at him, her dark hair shining in the light cast from the overhead bulb. "I know the owner."

"Oh, cool." Tony hastily backtracked. "It's nice. Cosy."

The girl raised an eyebrow and laughed (thank god she thought he was funny), before glancing awkwardly out of the window.

"So… I guess this is the end of the date…"

"Yeah… Can I…" Tony steeled himself, casually unbuckling his seatbelt to allow for maximum manoeuvrability. "Would it be cool if I gave you a kiss goodnight?"

"Ok." The girl gave a nervous laugh, and started to lean toward him.

"Oh shit yeah" thought Tony, as he rested his hand on her shoulder and leant in for the payoff.

All of a sudden, he found himself leaning into the space where a person should be but very definitely wasn't.

"Ahem."

Tony opened his eyes and found himself staring into an empty car seat. He looked up and saw the girl, looking utterly mortified, stood in the grip of a quietly furious man. Tony was probably about as tall as him, but damn if this guy wasn't oddly terrifying. It wasn't his raised eyebrow, his surmising sneer or his defiant body language that filled Tony with confused, awestruck terror; it was something far deeper and far more… the best word he could think of was "spiritual", but it wasn't quite right.

"Thank you for dropping her off." The man said, his eyes flashing as he levelled Tony with a forceful glare. "Now go home."

Tony gave a frightened nod, pulled the passenger door shut and drove off, making a mental note never to go near that salvage yard again.

Meanwhile, inside Singer Salvage and Auto-yard, a human and an ex-angel were watching through the window.

"I take it the human mating ritual isn't always ended by the paranoid father figure demanding the female return home?"

"No." Dean smirked at Castiel, before returning his attention to the argument that was taking place outside. "And it doesn't usually end with what looks like the female threatening to beat the father figure to death with a mailbox…"

From his place at the kitchen table, Sam managed to prize his face free of where it had been buried in his hands.

"You know, he probably wouldn't be paranoid if you hadn't kept calling it a "human mating ritual". You know how protective he gets…"

"Yeah." Dean glanced briefly over his shoulder, "And you know how hilarious it is. What's your point?"

Sam was about to tell Dean that he could take his point and stick it somewhere painful, when the front door swung open and slammed shut. Hella stormed into the room, glaring cold fury at Sam.

"You promised."

"I didn't tell him."

"You promised you'd keep this a secret! I can't believe you'd… betray me!"

"I didn't tell him!" Sam raised his hands defensively, caught between Hella's anger and Dean's contempt at his overwhelming need to grow a pair. "He read my mind!"

"And…" Gabriel was very suddenly stood behind Sam, and Sam was really wishing he'd just get used to that already. "You really don't have to slam doors like that, especially when we're guests in…"

"I do have to slam doors, otherwise you'd never listen to me!" Hella did not miss a beat in resuming her argument with her father, turning from Sam to Gabriel with a swift recalculation of the exact type of seething adolescent hatred she had to express. Yes, Sam knew that Hella was technically several centuries old, but she was still adolescent and therefore filled with all the angst and persecution complexes that the age group demanded.

"Like that makes her different to any of you guys." Gabriel muttered, picking up on Sam's thoughts. Sam shot the archangel an unimpressed glare. They had established that mind reading, among other angel powers, wasn't something that could be switched off, but that didn't stop it from being irritating. Especially when it got Sam in his current position.

"I can't believe you would do that to me." Hella crossed her arms and scowled at her father. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? I can never, ever see him again now, you do realise that?"

"Good." Gabriel crossed his arms right back, before catching up with the other half of her statement. "Wait, you were planning on seeing him again?"

Hella fell silent. Gabriel most emphatically didn't.

"For… Hel, you risked enough already! I can't believe you would be so stupid as to…"

"Not everyone's a demon, Dad! Not everyone's a witch trying to hunt me down, not everyone's an ex-angel with a vendetta…"

"No, you're right, not everyone is out to kill you, Hel, but there are enough things out there that are and I don't…"

"If I could…"

"Keep out of this, Cas, before I smite your ass for letting her out in the first place…"

"'Letting me out'?" Hella repeated, indignant, ignoring her Uncle Castiel who shrunk quietly back in his seat. "What am I, some common animal? I'm you daughter, I'm not a… a canary or something."

"And don't I know it! At least then you'd stay where you were at and like it…"

"ENOUGH." Bobby, who had been working in the basement and apparently wasn't any more, used his newly cleaned and loaded shotgun to punctuate his statement. Everyone stared at him, their eyes training down from the slow trickle of disturbed dust and plaster. Bobby dropped the shotgun on his desk, along with a large book he had been carrying.

"Buncha idjits take over my damn house and don't even have the decency to keep it damn quiet while I'm working… And feathers, fix the damn ceiling, would you?"

"Why should I?" Gabriel had long since given up on protesting what he claimed were racial slurs against those of a holy nature, but still bristled with indignance. "It was your shotgun…"

"And it was your daughter I gave sanctuary to, your ass I helped resurrect, and generally your damn fault I haven't had a moment's peace in the last three months." Gabriel was a fool to think he could out-bristle Bobby. The old hunter glared at him. "Fix. The damn. Ceiling."

Gabriel could have argued, but knew it was a bad idea. He clicked his fingers, and the ceiling was once again shotgun free.

"Good." Bobby nodded, sitting down behind his desk. "Hella, go to bed."

"What?" Hella squeaked, half angry and half imploring. "Bobby, he…"

"I don't care who did what to whoever else or what they were saying while they did it. You were supposed to be grounded because of your unsupervised magic lessons, you crept out, and you made that schmuck dad of yours so worried that I could barely focus on my work. Not to mention you'll have a whole list of chores tomorrow, so you'll want your beauty sleep."

"But…"

"Go."

Hella, knowing better than to argue with the man she had essentially adopted as her grandfather, trudged sulkily upstairs. Bobby raised an eyebrow at Dean and Cas, who had been watching the scene unfold with smug amusement.

"Don't know what you two idjits are grinning at; last I looked the travel kits were still in the basement and still unpacked. Whose job was that again?"

Dean's smile dropped, and he and Cas hurried meekly to the basement. Bobby turned his attention to Sam.

"Research?"

"I was trying! Then…" Sam gestured at Gabriel and the general space they were in. "Then that happened."

"Yeah, well try harder." He tapped the book he had set down on the desk with one grubby forefinger. "This has pretty much everything you need, and before you ask, it was right where I told you to look before you thought you could find better on the internet." Bobby shook his head and picked up another book from his desk, leaning back in his chair.

"Go for a walk and clear your head, you're stressing yourself out, y'idjit."

Wordlessly, Gabriel took Sam's hand and led him outside. As the sun set over the autoyard, Sam got the distinct impression they'd worn out their welcome at Bobby's.

"I think I'm black-listed." Gabriel sighed, curling himself into Sam's side with an ease that usually came from years of practice, not mere months. Sam rested his arm around Gabriel's shoulders, his lips resting thoughtfully against the arch-angel's brow as he took in the evening air.

Twelve weeks. It had been twelve weeks since Gabriel had dragged Castiel down from his deified insanity, and twelve weeks since they began this bizarre parody of domestication. Hella and Castiel had been trained sufficiently (if not comprehensively) in the ways of hunting, pop culture and human behaviour, and now they were planning to head out and face whatever nasties were dying to rip 'em various new holes. Some had already tried, hence Gabriel's earlier paternal fury.

"She had a point." Sam said, as he and Gabriel wandered the edge of the salvage yard together. "She knows how to spot just about any monster you can name; even without using her powers… she can take care of herself."

Gabriel gave Sam a disgruntled glare.

"But she's... he was a punk, Sam, a nasty teenage punk."

"You don't know that."

"Uh, yeah." Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Mind reader? Plus, all those millennia of being a bringer of justice? I think I can tell a douchebag by now, thanks."

Sam hugged Gabriel a little tighter.

"You're scared."

"I'm a holy soldier of the old guard, I don't get scared."

"You're scared of losing her." Sam nudged Gabriel against his hip. "You just got her back, and now you're worried you're going to lose her again. Am I right?"

Gabriel said nothing, but ducked out from under Sam's arm. Sam sighed, wondering if he was ever going to have a straightforward day where he didn't end up pissing off some mystical creature or other.

"She still dreams about it." Gabriel said, turning his back on Sam. "Gets flashbacks."

"About what?" Sam said, though he had a good idea.

"Crowley. Torture. The whole capture and punishment thing. Between her finally getting to cope and Castiel…"

Gabriel looked up, glancing quickly over at Sam.

"What's wrong with Cas? Is he…"

"Forget it." Gabriel cleared his throat, slipping back into Sam's arms. "I shouldn't… it's nothing. I'm just getting anxious, being stuck here all this time. Need to get out on the road again, hit those wide open skies. Stretch the wings."

Sam didn't buy it for a second, but he was too tired to pursue it. Instead, he looked down into Gabriel's eyes and kissed him.

Twelve weeks since they first fell into this weird relationship situation. He didn't know what it was; it was more than friends with benefits, but they weren't exactly dating either. They were just… them. And, in standard hunter protocol, no one questioned it. Bobby, Dean and Cas just let them get on with it. Hella seemed accepting enough of the situation, although Sam felt more a friend than any kind of parental figure. He supposed that would come with time. Gabriel nudged him before leading him back into the house.

"You're getting introspective. Time for sleep."

Sam was about inclined to agree.

(-*-)

The world was fading away from her. That was interesting. The whole thing was new. She didn't like it. She didn't like being back in Helheim, either, but that's where she was. And she really didn't like that the walls were covered in blood.

It made her feel sick. The smell was everywhere, heavy and cloying, and plucking at her with invisible tendrils. She couldn't breathe.

The walls so wide, the hall so gaping, but she was still stuck, still chained, still suffocating. The smell was bricking her in, closing her in, the smell of death and pain and blood…

There he was. A shadow, slim, and distant, but there he was. And the sight of the shadow was all she needed to shatter the glass walls that imprisoned her. Gulping air in a way that demigods didn't need to, Hella ran and stumbled, desperate to find the shadow, catch the shadow…

Stop.

Stop.

Stop…

"Hella!"

She jerked awake, blinking as reality reconstructed itself around her. She saw Sam leaning worriedly around her door.

"We've got to go… are you ok? You're not usually a deep sleeper…"

"No, I'm… I'm ok. Rested and ready to go." She smiled, awkwardly, before teleporting herself into the bathroom.

Sam shrugged, as he heard the bathroom door slam and Dean swear loudly as he cursed Hella the Norwegian bathroom ninja.

Bobby stood in front of the car, watching as Dean and Sam loaded up the trunk.

"And don't hurry back."

"Aw, Bobby, I thought we'd really made progress." Gabriel pouted, earning himself a punch on the arm.

"We're not even on the road yet; can we hold off arguing for a while?" Sam sighed, pressing a quick kiss to Gabriel's cheek as the travel-sized archangel picked up three of the heavier suitcases and flew ahead to secure them motel rooms, quickly followed by Hella. Bobby watched Castiel climb quietly into the back seat of the impala, before patting Sam's arm gently.

"Keep an eye on Dean and Cas."

"Dean can look out for himself…"

"You know what I mean. Gabriel said, if Dean doesn't treat Cas with kid gloves, he's liable to go off the deep end again… just… watch out for them."

"Yeah." Sam nodded, feeling a little abashed that Bobby had seen the need to tell him. "I will."

"Alright. And don't get yourselves killed."

"We won't." Sam pulled Bobby into a quick hug before slipping into the passenger seat. "We'll tell you how it goes."

"Enjoy your peace and quiet." Dean grinned, as he shunted the car into gear and hit the road to their first hunt in three months. Sam just hoped the world was ready for them.