At first, he had had high hopes as to the location of this particular hunting ground he had chosen. A University steeped in tradition and archaic beliefs was the perfect spot to find high and mighty douche bags and give them their just desserts…and for six years he had derived endless hours of entertainment from showing the 'good-old-boys' that populated this place the truth that was woven into every inch of this word. The very Truth his Father had given him when he had taken a rare moment and sat with Gabriel and the two had talked for well over two hundred years, that everything had a purpose and a consequence…and that no one and nothing was safe from it.

Yeah, he had been living the good life and then one fateful night the Winchesters had rolled into town and ruined a six year winning streak. He knew that he only had himself to blame, he had let himself get distracted and given in to temptation that would most likely end up coming to bite him in the ass. If he had learned anything from living the past two thousand years as a pagan trickster god it was that tall drop dead gorgeous amazons were ruthless and would inevitably end up trying to kill him.

And boy how that lesson had been driven into him this time, he rubbed the spot above his heart that the eldest Winchester had pierced with her blood soaked stake. If he had actually taken the blow it would have hurt like a bitch, though wouldn't have done much other than piss him off and he hadn't lied when he had told Deanna that he liked her and her sister…especially her sister.

He still felt a rush of heat when he thought back to that night when he had listened to his inner trickster and had taken Samantha Winchester home. She had been like a shooting star, bright hot and intense but gone far too soon. He had known the minute she had slipped from his bed, and though usually he always ended up silently thanking his bed partners who had the stones to leave before things got awkward, this time he found he had to hold himself still and not pull the fiery tigress back into his bed.

For weeks afterwards he had found himself checking in on her and her sister, something he had quickly put a stop to when he had almost burst in on Sam and that wolf bitch. The red hot rage and soul crushing sorrow that had filled him when Madison had asked Sam to be the one to kill her had shaken him to his core. He had forgotten himself for long enough that Madison had spotted him before Sam pulled the trigger and her brains had painted the walls, and the smile she had given him had made him wonder at who the real monster in the room was…something he knew Samantha thought every day. He had quickly snapped himself away thought the sight of Samantha standing stiff and alone next to the corpse of her latest lover broke something deep inside of him, something he had thought had died when his Father had left and his brothers had begun killing each other.

He had forced himself to put her out of his thoughts, that becoming obsessed with a woman who was literally destined to end the world was the worst idea he could ever have. Not even adding to the fact that he had spent the past two millennia running away from the battle she would be front and center for no matter what she did. He pushed aside the unrest that swept through him at the thought of her haunted eyes as she sat and told him in a few simple words the horrible truth that was her life…his heart twisted and he scowled in disgust.

But nothing he could do could stop his mind from thinking of her, when he brought home a dark-skinned amber eyed beauty he always found himself envisioning dirty blonde hair and laughing hazel eyes that turned from a dark stormy green to a bright jade as she came apart in his arms. Or if he caught the eye of a petite Irish girl he would miss the feeling of legs wrapped around his shoulders and crushing his head as he greedily ate her up. Every sweet he indulged in was bland compared to the taste of her, hot and sweet with just a hint of spice that drove him crazy, he actually craved that taste and it was just one more reason to be as far away from her as possible.

He hadn't had this much trouble forgetting someone since his intense fling with Kali. Now there had been a woman who knew her mind…so much so that when it came to abandoning her worshippers and fleeing to Pandora with him or standing and facing the encroaching Christians she had chosen to stand with her faithful. She was one of the few pagans who had a far more balanced relationship with her prey, and had fought side by side with her legion even as the enemy beat them back until only a handful of her most loyal servants were left. He still remembered the rage that had screamed through her soul as she railed against the wretched Westerners and their God who would show no mercy even to the young and the sickly. When he had shown up to try and convince her to come with him one more time she had turned on him, ripping into him with a vengeance that he hadn't seen since the first purge his Father had committed of this world. That had been the last time they had seen each other, and even the pain of that night was nothing compared to the ache that was now a constant throbbing in his heart.

So he ran, he popped open a door into Pandora and went on the biggest bender since he had first taken Loki as a vessel and discovered the joys of fighting, sex, and food. Eve had sent him a knowing smile as she opened her home to him and let him into the gentler side of her paradise. Here she kept her most gentle children, the ones that had been created from when she still had such feelings as tenderness, love, and empathy…before the Father had cast her into this hole with the abominations he had first created. Her children had rejoiced that their favorite Loki was once again in their midst and the party had lasted for weeks, but no matter how many he bedded or how much he imbibed he still saw a pair of hazel eyes and long lean legs that were soft and warm but could lock tight around you trapping you within her fiery embrace.

So he had returned topside, as it were, and had gone to check on the Winchesters. But instead of the usual tacky motel room on the side of some interstate he had found himself in an abandoned ghost town that reeked of sulfur and death and staring at the cold dead body of the woman who had managed to worm herself so far under his skin he couldn't dig her out. She lay still on a dirty old mattress laid on the floor, blood covered her front but the skin had been lovingly washed clean and now only the tattered remains of her clothes really showed the battle she must have fought. Singer was in the other room curled in on himself in the corner rocking back and forth on the dirty floor, which somewhere in the back of his mind there was a warning that something was off about that…Singer was anything but a passive mourner, but his attention was focused on the woman on the floor.

Gabriel slowly inched to her side, confident that any moment she would open her eyes and start trying to kill him, despite the fact that he had made sure to appear invisible. But she stayed still, cold and pale in the gloom of the decrepit house she had been laid to rest in…which sent another alarm off in the back ground of his head – where was Deanna and why weren't her and Bobby giving Sam a proper hunter's funeral - , but right then he didn't care. He reached her side and gingerly kneeled on the floor stretching out a hand and resting it gently on her cheek. His gut wrenched at the once warm skin being ice cold to the touch and he sent a piece of his Grace into her before he could think. Her skin warmed slightly in response and her wounds slowly began to close but he felt nothing else except for flesh and he pushed his Grace deeper into her desperate to catch a fragment, a glimmer of the soul that had once shined so brightly within the shell she wore so very well. Grief and rage rolled through as he reached and reached and felt only the rotting remains of her shell and made him realize that she was beyond his reach, while he had been off trying to forget her she had been forced off of her painstakingly short mortal coil and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

He bowed his head, his Grace still coiled tightly inside the shell of the woman he had become so entrapped by and did something he hadn't done in two thousand years, he prayed, 'Father, please…I know you can hear me, please…bring her back.' He used every bit of his Will to make sure that his Father would hear as he reached across the old and unused path in his head. When he had created Gabriel and the rest of his siblings he had formed a mental link with each one of them, completely individual and private so his children and he could communicate with only each other and not be overheard by the others. Those 'roads' as he liked to think of them hadn't been used since his brothers began to fight and Father had fled, but he had nothing to lose with this. If his Father heard him and did nothing it would be the same old, but if his Father did hear him and responded…well then that would be a whole other can of worms. But even knowing the odds of anything actually coming of this he used everything he had to reach out to the warmth and Grace of his Father.

There was silence for a few moments and for a second Gabriel thought he felt a flickering glimmer in the distance but then the essence of Sam he had been looking for slammed back into her body and consequently his Grace latching on tightly even as Samantha jerked awake and sat up clutching her stomach and taking deep gasping breaths. Gabriel's head snapped up and for a second he could swear his heart stopped, and before he knew it he was snapping himself visible grabbing her frantic hands and pulling her into his arms. She stilled in shock and disbelief and he sagged in relief when her warm breath ghosted along his neck. "Am I dead?" She asked, her voice hoarse from being so dry for so long.

Gabriel tensed and pulled her head down before she could think and latched onto her lips. He kissed her like he had been wanting to since she had snuck out of his bed and left him wanting more. Fire and passion flared between them and before he knew it he had his arms full of Winchester. Samantha surged from the bed and latched onto him giving as good as she was getting, her tongue wrestled with his and she growled as she wormed her hands under his shirt and twisted, the fabric strained and the buttons flew off. Her frantic push to get closer faster drove him wild and his Grace responded flaring brightly and wrapping itself around her soul, Gabriel was dimly aware that he would curse himself for this later but he had denied himself for too long and she had started it dying like that and completely fucking with the great Plan. They shone brightly, brighter even than the sun to those that could see it…and he knew that if any of his brethren were watching right now his cover was blown, but he couldn't bring himself to care as the very essence of Samantha Winchester flowed and mingled with his Grace.

The slam of the Impala's doors followed by the heavy stomping footsteps of the elder Winchester brought him back to himself enough to realize just what he was doing and with whom and he abruptly tore his Grace away from her wincing at the backlash of too much energy not having an outlet and snapped himself away before he finished what had been started and irrevocably sealed his participation in the annihilation of his brethren.

Samantha blinked at the empty space that he had occupied but before she could come to her senses enough to piece two and two together Bobby was in the doorway holding a wailing bundle and she remembered what had happened before she had woken up to find the father of her child alive and well…and apparently still as interested in her as she was in him. Her water had broken, her child was coming into the world and if Yellow-Eyes had anything to say about it into the great Plan he had ranted and raved about. Fear had filled her even as joy at the prospect of finally being able to see her baby bloomed in her heart, but it had been short lived before she felt the knife pierce her back and the world had exploded into a million different pieces of pain. She vaguely remembered Deanna screaming as she ran toward her and the knowledge that she was going to die had filled her, she had managed to make Deanna swear to protect her baby before darkness had claimed her and she had died.

Her child wailing combined with Deanna's frantic dash into the room that Sam was sitting in snapped her out of her thoughts and between the knowledge that she had a healthy baby boy and that Deanna had done something horrible and irrevocable in order for Sam to meet her child pushed all thoughts of a ghost whose lips were just as warm and soft as when he was alive out of her mind.

Slowly, carefully, Samantha Winchester held her newborn baby and as she looked into a pair of wide hazel eyes she felt something within her unfurl and reach out to her son. She laughed and sobbed at the same time and tucked the blanket tighter around him, "Hello there, John Isaac Winchester." She said softly and felt the rightness in the name fill her, the future was full of darkness and uncertainty and she knew no more than a lot of pain, but right now she was alive and so was her family…and that was enough for the moment.