It doesn't strike him for a long time, just exactly what he feels. He's not used to that. Feeling, he means. It's a very different situation. But he's lying in his brother's arms, bleeding out, when he starts to realize it. He'd like another go-around, Gabriel thinks. Another try to get that big fluffy unicorn from the carnival vendor (he's seen Despicable Me too many times, but doesn't care. It's just so very…him.) He wants another spin on the carousel, another chance to beat the utter shit out of both Michael and Lucifer, given the option. (Not Samael, he thinks. Never again, Samael. It's no coincidence that the younger Winchester's name is Sam. )

What he wants is so, so, invariably human.

The pain is more or less ignorable. He's not used to having to think about it, so he doesn't, but the lifeblood seeping from around the silver blade in his chest (his silver blade, an archangel blade) is kind of important. Honestly? He feels rather like Tuco at the moment. It's been a while since he's watched the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and it's really, really painful to be thinking of himself in terms of the Ugly, right about now, but it's the truth.

He walked in that room and he played his game, made a copy of himself, set the stage; his very own Ecstasy of Gold moment, complete with cockiness and epic Ennio Morricone orchestrals playing in the background. He can even visualize the petit brunette singing like she's an instrument. (Mmm she must taste like chocolate!) And then Blondie came up from behind and shattered the illusion. Only difference was that Luci pulled the trigger so to speak, and Blondie being the Good, not the Bad, hadn't. Besides, Luci is definitely a shoo-in for Angel Eyes. What a schmuk.

All his brothers are so very different. He's one of the original four Archangels, but that doesn't mean that he didn't get to know anyone else. His thoughts flit to Castiel (turns out you can think really fast when you're dying).

Gabriel wonders just how much the Winchester's know about Cassie. Whether they bothered to look up any lore. He envisions his little brother, running down the facts with encyclopædic skill . Castiel, sometimes known as Cassiel. One of the lesser Archangels. The Watcher. Tasked with looking, but not touching, forbidden, in fact, to interfere without express direction to do so. It's a wonder that he ever made it to earth more than once in his whole existence. The patron Saint of Solitude, Tears and Melancholy. Go figure. Only the likes of the Winchesters would require the Patron Saint of Sadness or whatever crap official titles he had. He doubted that they knew, and he figured that Cas would never tell them. Why? Though he obviously held a preference for humanity, Gabriel had spent a longer time amongst them; poor Cas had no idea how to fit in. And Gabe would never get to teach him. Gabe wouldn't get to brag about Cas to the two knuckleheads that were fleeing into the arms of safety as he lay dying. For them. Go team. Yay.

He's fading now. Gabriel figures that it's been less than half a second, and the thoughts are coming fast now, disconnected and rushed, in his hurry to fit them all in before he winks out of existence. She comes to mind. Lucifer has left him now, though, and maybe he's actually seeing her, with whatever is left of his eyesight.

Kali. The Destroyer and the Creator. He loves her. She is stunning in her true form, all arms and blue skin and red eyes (flaming, so bright it reminds him of angelic grace). He thinks that through his vessel he can feel her fingertip brush his cheek gently, just the nail touching.

His light is flickering out.

He's seeing red (it's not just her blouse) and then everything is white.

He wonders if this is what it feels like to explode, and then decides that imploding must be way cooler (he wishes he could try it out sometime).

Right before he is completely gone, he irrationally begins to freak out. Kali! Please don't forget to feed my dog for me! And then remembers that the little mutt was made of his own power. An illusion that he kept up so it he wouldn't feel it encroaching upon him.

The loneliness.

Whelp, I suppose that doesn't matter anymore, he thinks, and then, just like that, he's gone.

So of course he's an amnesiac when he wakes up in a hotel in the middle of Los Angeles, not knowing who he is beyond the fleeting memory of a name – Gabriel (whispered in fondness by Kali as his grace died within him, before being reborn at God's command).

The woman who checked into the hotel room found him there, called an ambulance.

Her name is Rekha Enoch and she's beautiful and he's smitten.

Three years later, they're married (he took her last name)and living in Los Angeles where he performs his magic act as Gabe the Trickster, and sometimes his fledgling stand-up routine, where he pulls from the hilarity that is life as full blown amnesiac. He doesn't know where any of these skills come from, doesn't' share with anyone but his wife that he doesn't know how he performs the magic tricks, how he intuitively knows how to play a good crowd.

Neither of them know who or what he is, and, in the back of his mind, Gabe know that it's a good thing, and he'd like to keep it that way. So he snaps his fingers, and below the fabric, the floating woman (pulled from random out of the crowd) disappears, the heavy fabric falling to the ground. She's somewhere backstage, disoriented but okay, and the crowd is baffled by this twist to a classic. Life goes on. They get a dog (fox terrier mix. He's a cutie and they comically decide to name him RCA). Nothing and no one bother them and for any other amnesiac it'd be sad, that no one cared enough. But Gabriel has just enough common sense to know that whatever happened in the past, its better this way.

Chuck thinks so too, but he's not about to tell his son that.