Gabriel had never intended to live out his life as a farmer. He'd been a scientist; an engineer. He'd flown in the Air Force, and had been a breath away from becoming an astronaut. That had been once upon a time, when he'd been young and bright-eyed, and knew nothing about angels or demons. Before the angels tried to end the world.
Now, much like the world itself, Gabriel lived only in the spaces in-between, often when he slept deep enough to become dreamless. He lived in the moments when his daughter giggled and smiled at him; when his brother did his adorable little thing and grinned. He lived in-between the raindrops from the sky, and the fresh smell of the wet earth. He lived in the days when his lungs didn't burn after a day of labor, and he could pretend his daughter would grow up to have a full, happy life.
But he could pretend less and less. Others just milled about, worked their farms, believing the news and the government's constant propaganda. 'Just in: Scientists believe this latest blackout a turning point in the weather, and the environment now on the road to improvement!'
If he had to read that particular headline one more time, he might scream. He couldn't count how many times he'd heard it.
Gabriel hadn't learned much about botany in college,, but it hadn't stopped him from teaching himself the subject to study the blight. He'd fought hard two years earlier, with his last crop of soybeans. Gabriel had been one of the last farmers standing with soybeans, and he ran himself ragged trying to save even a single seed. But all became blighted in the end, and he'd cursed God and the angels and even himself.
He found out, after he burned it, the other two farmers in town had lost their crops, too. And the other crops, down in Oklahoma, and all the ones across the world, they'd gone out at the same time, too.
Their clock counted down slowly. Corn would fail next. The blight took more and more of it every year, and Gabriel knew one year it would take it all. Damn this this angelic pestilence. It set its sights upon whole swaths of crops, one at a time. Slow. Deadly. Calculating.
The blight definitely had Lucifer's spirit. Of all the horrors he'd rained upon the world, he'd probably not thought his slow moving, annoying blight would get humanity in the end.
Gabriel couldn't pretend at all, not when he knew better. Not when he'd tested the air himself, and seen the nitrogen levels rising, choking the oxygen from the sky. Not when he heard the withered gasps and coughs from the townsfolk.
Humanity had an expiration date, though, unless the angels came back and fixed their mess. And Gabriel now knew the angels hadn't spoken in metaphor about 'leaving the universe,' and from Sam's accounts of the difficulty trans-universal travel posed... yeah. Gabriel knew.
Oh, the Earth would survive. It'd keep on keepin' on, just as it always had. Just... without humans.
He felt an odd comfort at the thought of humans getting about just fine in other universes. Hell, if he'd understood Sam, they damn near thrived at hopping across universes. They didn't need angels to conquer the worlds out there. They could do better.
Maybe Paradise did exist in some worlds, places where maybe angels and humans got along. Infinite possibilities and all, right? He'd have to ask Sam about it sometime.
But it didn't bring a lot of comfort, because Sati lived here, not out there. And Gabriel would give up his soul and suffer a thousand indignities if he could only guarantee her safety. Somehow.
He stumbled inside, after Cas, rubbing at his tired, dusty face, the same as he'd done all day. "Jesus. I'm cleaning up and going to sleep."
"What about dinner?" Cas asked.
"I need sleep more than I need food," he groaned. "Sati needs to eat, though—."
"I'll take care of her," Cas said, putting his hand on Gabriel's shoulder.
"You are the bestest little brother ever," he replied, wrapping his arms around Cas for a brief hug.
"And you are the most annoying big brother one could ask for."
Gabriel snorted, and made his way to the stairs. He felt so tired he didn't even have a comeback. "Gonna check on Sati and give Sam his medicine."
He stumbled upstairs, and knocked on her door. When he heard no answer, he pushed it open, but didn't see her. But he heard her voice, soft through the wooden panels, upstairs.
He groaned. He'd specifically told her not to bother Sam. Irritated as he felt, he didn't worry too much, because he knew Sam wouldn't talk to her, especially since Gabriel had told him not to.
But all at once, his heart leapt into his chest as he remembered he'd never cuffed Sam again after the fight to get all his bones set.
Gabriel had never ascended the steps so quickly in his life, shouting Sati's name in near desperation.
When he crashed through the half-open doorway, he saw his daughter sitting cross-legged on the floor, a book in her lap. Sam laid stone-still in the bed, and for all intents and purposes, did not seem conscious at all. In the lamplight, Gabriel observed a fine sheen of sweat, and worried it might signal a fever.
Gabriel heaved a shaking breath, and turned an angry glare on his daughter. But before he could think to lecture her, Cas' footsteps thundered up the stairs behind him. He looked all the world ready to fight, an angel blade in his hand. And… okay, Good form, Little Bro, but when had he taken to carrying the blade around?
And just what had Gabriel intended to accomplish, bursting into the room, if the archangel had gotten violent? Shout at him?
"What's wrong?" Cas demanded, not the least bit winded from ascending from the ground to the top floor within seconds.
"Nothing," Gabriel huffed. "I'm sorry. I panicked." He glared back down at Sati. "And this one doesn't know how to do what she's told."
"I was just reading to him," she said, voice soft and worried. "He doesn't look like he's feeling well, and stories always make me feel better."
Gabriel wanted to feel angry. He really did. He tried, but Sati's expression held no lies, her eyes shining with innocent honesty. She'd thought reading him a bedtime story would help.
"I'm sure if he were awake and well enough to hear you," he croaked, "he'd appreciate it."
"Samael is too sick for visitors, Sati," Cas told her, stealing a quick glance at Gabriel. "You can read him a story another time, if he doesn't mind."
Gabriel flinched. He hadn't meant for Cas to give her permission. But in the long run, keeping Sati out of here forever would prove impossible. And who was he kidding? Sam couldn't go anywhere. He'd had chances to free himself, chances to hurt them, and if anything, he'd only sought to gain Gabriel's trust. While he still hadn't gotten used to the idea of trusting an angel, Sam had sort of grown on him.
As she made her way to the door, Gabriel snaked a hand out to stop her, and turned his most serious Dad Voice on her.
"Sati. You keep doing what I tell you not to do," Gabriel warned her. "Do not come back up here without permission. Is that understood?"
She seemed to deflate, but nodded. "Yes."
"To your room until dinner."
"Yes, sir."
As she slumped her shoulders and left, Gabriel shuddered under a wave of self-reproach, because he felt like such a terrible father. He loved her so much, and had no idea how best to handle her sometimes. How did one properly discipline a child? He felt like he had no idea.
"Samael seems quite ill," Cas stated, staring at him. "He weathered much discomfort earlier, but…"
Gabriel stared at the angel's profile, where he lay on his back, sweating in the light. He remained in the exact same position he'd passed out in earlier, and it made him frown. He should have woken up at least once...
He paced over to Sam's side, and tore back the covers. He'd splinted the top of his leg, where the bone had torn through the skin. But it had more or less seemed a simple enough break. It certainly seemed he'd popped it back in correctly, and as well as Sam's angel senses worked, he had confirmed it. But...
The wound had lost its heat and redness, which made Gabriel cross his arms and frown. The lack of symptoms suggested good things; excellent things, in fact. But if the fever didn't come from that injury...
Hell, it meant horrible things. It meant something deeper. Torn muscle. Maybe even the core of the bone itself. Or maybe because it had been exposed to a friggin' dust storm for two days.
"Infection," Cas commented, from just over his shoulder. "But which wound?"
"Isn't that just the question," Gabriel groused, kneeling beside Sam.
He checked his arm again, because hell, Gabriel might have missed something. But the skin didn't feel hot or otherwise suggestive of an infection. And without advanced medical equipment at his disposal, Gabriel couldn't figure it out.
"There's still a hospital in Saint Louis," Cas said. "And in Indianapolis. We could remove his Grace and take him."
Gabriel made a face. "Those would have been serious drives even back when the Interstates were passable. Now, it'd take days, and I don't know if he could survive it."
Gabriel frowned, staring at Sam's pale, sweaty face. Just what in the hell was he supposed to do? This angel had fallen out of the sky right in front of them, and hadn't even asked for their help—though, in all fairness, he didn't seem capable of asking for anything. If the angel up and died on them, they didn't bear any blame, right? Gabriel didn't have to pull out every stop to save a total stranger's life, especially an angel's life, right?
Right?
He growled in frustration, staring at the angel's still form. "He's really out of it if we can move these limbs around and he's not shouting." He touched Sam's forehead, and sure enough, it felt boiling hot. Probably the bone in the femur had gotten infected, which of course, probably spread easily into the bloodstream. Which meant...
"Sepsis," Gabriel growled, a deep furrow forming in his brow.
"If such is the case," Cas stated, "I imagine we can do little for him." He paused, and seemed to shift behind them. "Will his Grace sustain him?"
An excellent question, but one Gabriel couldn't answer. "He told me before he's sorta died at times when his vessel sustained injury beyond what it could hold up to. So he went into a coma-like state and hovered there while his Grace patched up the messy pieces."
"So, it should sustain him," Cas said.
"He also said he burned out a lot of his own Grace—the stuff from his own universe—when he fell in front of our truck. And without it, he might die for real."
"So then, we do not know."
"No." Gabriel brushed a strand of sweaty hair off the angel's brow, in an strange show of tenderness.
Hey, he could be nice if he wanted, right? Angel or not, it didn't mean anything.
"I'm not sure surviving is the kindest option. If he had just enough Grace to survive the infection, but not beat it back... I don't know, Cas. Do you think he could get stuck like this? In some semi-permanent state of sepsis?"
"You're the scientist. I only deal with field wounds."
Gabriel shook his head. "Yeah, where you used dental floss and whiskey to knit everything back together." He sighed, and stared at the shivering angel.
"If you think death a more humane option, we do have his archangel blade."
The words made his blood run cold, and he didn't know why. After all, he'd shived angels before. The other two had been trying to kill him at the time, so okay, he'd felt plenty justified. But Sam posed no current threat. So far, he'd shown no aggression and no ill will.
But Sam couldn't even if he'd wanted, Gabriel reminded himself. The angel remained too sick to do much more than mumble. And now, he couldn't even open his eyes.
"Let's wait and see," Gabriel told him. "He doesn't want to get stuck in some repeating state, but I don't think he wants to croak just yet, either. I mean, he's on his way home."
He glanced back at Cas, whose eyes squinted in some unreadable emotion. Cas approved of angels even less than Gabriel did, but his little brother had a way of compartmentalizing things and accepting them. He more or less had accepted Raphael's and Hannah's work with humans easily, when they had still been alive, since they'd proven themselves. He had, thus far, seemed irritated but accepting of Sam's presence.
"Very well," he finally answered. "How will we explain this to Sati?"
Ah, yeah. That.
"I suppose we'll tell her the truth," he answered. "Tell her angels can survive even when their bodies become overwhelmed, but Sam is so sick we'll just have to wait and see." His lips curled into a frown. "It wouldn't be the first death she's seen."
And he hated that. He hated his little girl had already seen death; hated how she knew the raspy sound of a child suffering with dust pneumonia. He wished she didn't know the blue and black dappled skin of someone struggling for oxygen.
He had tried to keep her away from Sam, mostly for safety, but also because he didn't want her to get attached, just have him die. She'd feel devastated. But maybe it hadn't happened yet.
Oh, who was he kidding? Of course it had. Sati had seen Sam as the exciting new guest, and no matter what Gabriel or Cas said to her, she'd probably been counting the hours until she could sit down next to him and make him her new friend. She'd get upset.
"Sam said he'd been traveling to get back home for more than two-hundred years," Gabriel said, standing. "Let's not count him out yet."
He set about giving the archangel another shot of antibiotics, but they would run out soon. Maybe tomorrow soon, despite Cas' supply run.
"Do you need help?"
"Nah," Gabriel dismissed. "Go on. I've got this."
Cas drifted out of the room, his soft footsteps disappearing down the steps as he left to go make dinner. Gabriel, instead of retreating to his bedroom, sank down in the chair near Sam's bed. Entirely without intending it, he fell fast asleep.
Late during the night, something woke Gabriel up. He roused easily enough, but he had no idea at first why he'd awakened. He glanced around, and felt unsurprised to realize he'd fallen asleep beside Sam's bed. Again.
The oil lamp burned low, and he had to readjust the wick to get more light. It was some ungodly hour of the night, and he didn't want to bother Sam, but...
He stared down at the archangel, and realized the labored, awful sound of his breath had awakened him. Sam's unsteady respiration broke the silence of the room, strained and rattling.
Oh boy. He'd heard the sort of awful breathing before. A respiratory system gone haywire usually meant an approaching death. He laid a hand flat on Sam's chest, light and gentle. He sounded as though he were drowning.
The noise stirred awful memories. Gabriel had been there when Kali died, when the dust pneumonia had taken her, and he'd had the misfortune to know too many others who had gone out the same way. Yeah, Sam had a death rattle, no doubt about it.
The angel laid before him, maybe dying, and Gabriel could do nothing.
Well, maybe he could help a little. He could give him some more morphine. Not so much as to hurt his ability to breathe, but enough to take away some of the agony. If he were dying for real, it didn't seem fair to make his last moments so horrible.
Gabriel reached over and pulled the blanket over Sam's body, and turned to the cabinet behind him and took out the medicine. They didn't have a lot left, but they could find the stuff easily enough.
The angel stilled somewhat, but his breathing did not improve. But his twitching, tight muscles relaxed, which was about the best Gabriel could do for him at this point. Besides, well, maybe stay with him. He had no idea if Sam didn't want to die alone, or if he might like someone to say a prayer for him. Not that his own Father could hear it, but the God of this universe, wherever He might have gone, might.
He didn't even know if any part of Sam remained awake and aware. But just in case...
He moved to pull his chair right next to the bed, and... well, he tried to offer comfort. Brushed his hair from his face, held his hand... Gabriel had never been good at these sorts of things, but he knew the necessity of it, the pants-shitting fear of being absolutely certain of one's imminent death. He knew the terror, and no matter how bitter or mean he'd ever been, he'd never wanted to die all alone.
Sam was the epitome of alone. Literally no one he knew could comfort him now. He had no angels to help him, and he had no human charges or companions. If he'd had friends or family or lovers, if angels even did those sorts of thing, they all remained a thousand universes away.
Gabriel didn't want to drag anyone else up here. Sati would cry, and he didn't want to expose her to the situation any more than he already had. And Cas, well... he could probably care less whether an archangel lived or died. His genuine concern remained somewhat muted on a good day, but he lacked ability at all to fake concern, which Gabriel could sorta do on a good day.
But his concern wasn't fake, which surprised him more than anything. If he took stock of things, he didn't want Sam to die. His story seemed so damn unfair Gabriel wanted him to live just so the archangel could stick his middle finger up at the multiverse when he finally got home. He wanted some sort of justice or triumph in all the suffering.
Instead, Sam gargled and choked beneath him, lacking the ability to cough.
Jesus. This all seemed so unfair. Sam seemed kind enough, and maybe he'd started out as a regular douche angel and had to get all the nasty stuff knocked out of him, but didn't it matter he'd eventually gotten to the nicer end of the spectrum? But when did anyone care about kindness in the real world, among the brutal, bitter swirl of survival?
He sat with Sam, and eventually scooped his arm under the back of his neck, elevating him slightly so he could breathe easier. And he tried to reassure him and say kind things, but mostly, he just wanted the angel to know he didn't rest there, suffering all alone in a dusty, cramped attic room.
Sometime, just after midnight, Sam took a sudden, sharp breath, and stopped breathing all together. He fell into his Grace-induced stasis.
As Gabriel set his head back upon the pillow, and covered his body with the blanket, he frowned. Now they played a waiting game to see if the angel had died for real, or if the vessel had just gone into a deep state of healing..
If Sam hadn't actually died, his body did a damn good impression of it.
It had taken actual force to keep Sati out of the room, involving picking her up and carrying her out to the truck, and snapping the seatbelt in place (followed by Cas hopping into the driver's seat to take her to school).
As Gabriel set about the usual morning tasks on the farm (as much as he kind of wanted to keep a constant eye on Sam, he just couldn't afford the time. The farm needed maintenance, and he'd put it off for too long), he kept thinking of Sam's body up in the little spare room. The seven-hour interval he had mentioned before had come and gone just after Sati awakened, and there had been no sign of life in the angel yet.
However, his body had an utter lack of rigor mortis, which suggested good things, he hoped. It took a few hours to set in, but after seven hours, Sam's body had remained completely limp. It either said something about angels in general, or stood as a testament to his Grace maintaining and repairing the body. It still counted as a human body, right? Sorta?
Well, Gabriel wasn't sure which, but he chose to believe it meant good things.
He had the farm mostly automated during the growing seasons. Scavenged computers controlled the combines and tools, usually powered by solar collectors. Gabriel spent endless mornings checking and double-checking hard drives and driving systems, ensuring everything performed as programmed. He needed new solar cells, but it would never happen. Nor would he likely find enough crap to scrape together a makeshift solar cell anytime soon. So, like everyone else, he had to resort to oil at times. Not exactly an environmentally conscious choice, but if it came to that or starvation…
Around lunchtime, he trotted back inside. Cas had not returned from town yet. On Fridays he stayed gone most of the day—though Gabriel had no idea where he vanished to.
After scrubbing the mud off his hands, he made his first stop in the spare room upstairs.
Sam remained entirely stationary and did not breathe, and Gabriel felt the tiny bit of hope he'd nursed start to wane away. A check of the unbroken arm, and he'd still not shown any signs of rigor mortis. At twelve hours in, he found the lack of it impressive.
He returned a few hours later, and sank down in the chair next to him. He'd have to come up with something to explain to Sati when she got home. And he'd promised Sam he'd wait twenty-four hours. Which would pass in another nine hours, about.
While he sat there, considering all the horrible things that came together to end in an archangel's death, the bed creaked.
Gabriel froze, his eyes flitting towards Sam.
He remained still, but only for a moment. All at once, his eyes flew open, and he inhaled with such force his back arched off the bed. Gabriel rushed to his side in an instant as the angel sucked in a second, desperate breath, and a third. And a fourth. All as though he could not suck in enough oxygen.
Gabriel rubbed his back and told him everything would turn out all right—a total lie, because he had no idea.
After several pained breaths, Sam began to cough violently, a fit so terrible it made Gabriel's chest hurt in sympathy.
Slowly, he began to settle down, his entire body trembling.
"I'm not even gonna lie, kiddo. It's great to see you awake. I thought you'd gone and died on us."
Sam continued to draw in deep, half-panicked breaths, but his eyes met Gabriel's. They were cloudy; maybe in pain, maybe in oxygen deprivation.
"How long?" he croaked, his voice an awful rasp.
"Fifteen hours. Gotta tell you, kiddo, that was the best impression of stone cold dead I've ever seen. Scared the hell out of me."
Sam let his head fall back on the pillow, and his breathing turned shallow. "Never so long before."
"What can I do?" Gabriel asked, sliding closer. "Is there anything I can do?"
Sam shook his head, his breath now rapid.
"Take it easy," Gabriel said, and reassumed the role he'd taken the night before, brushing Sam's hair from his face. "There's plenty of air. You're gonna make it worse..."
Something akin to a whine sounded deep in Sam's throat, and it tore at Gabriel to hear it. The angel sounded so small and pained.
"I do not care for this experience," Sam finally managed. "It is terrifying."
"I don't doubt it," Gabriel replied through a grimace. "But you're okay now. You're here. And your fever has gone away."
The angel swallowed, and seemed to choke on it. Gabriel about fell over trying to get to his own glass of water, and offered it to Sam, who drank every drop.
"I am slightly more aware and capable than before," he said, his voice much improved after the water. "The fever has dissipated, and the bones have returned to their correct positions. However, a miniscule fragment has splintered off and jutted into the surrounding muscle."
Of course something else had gone wrong..
"Don't suppose your Grace managed to fix that...?"
The lines of Sam's face tightened. "Not yet, but I shall try. Otherwise, it will again cause another infection, which shall overwhelm me."
Gabriel frowned, staring down at the aforementioned thigh. "If you were human, you'd need surgery," Gabriel commented.
"I am aware."
God. He sounded tired in incomprehensible ways. But both of them had to be thinking the same thing, right?
"I don't have an x-ray or anything, but if you could guide me, or somehow lead me, I could cut it out."
Sam's face remained distant, but he nodded. "Yes. I believe you could."
He grimaced at the tone of his voice. "I promise, I'm not trying to inflict pain on you every time we meet."
Sam exhaled, a soft chuckle. "I know. It simply becomes... tiring." He sighed. "But removing the fragment will help. I can repair tissue more easily than I can force the fragment back into place."
"Isn't it an important chunk of bone?" he asked. "A big guy like you needs all of his skeleton."
"I am uncertain. Probably. Eventually, this universe's Grace may help me restore it."
Probably. Ha. As Gabriel sat there, trying to think of the logistics of the thing, Sam turned his head to the window.
"What time is it?"
Gabriel glanced down at his watch. "Just after two. In the afternoon."
He grimaced, and stared again at the window. "I am as strong now as I shall be."
Gabriel sort of stared in confusion for a minute, and nearly quipped 'good for you' before it occurred to him what Sam had suggested.
"Waaaait, you want to do it right now?"
Sam met his eyes, and it seemed the word ''yes' sat upon his lips, but he faltered. "At your convenience." He hesitated again. "If you have any desire to continue this arduous task, that is. I do not blame you if you do not."
"Let me tell you something, kiddo. It's never convenient or fun for me to start digging inside of someone's body. But what do you think I'm gonna do? Just dump you on the side of the road and leave you to die?"
Sam seemed entirely unfazed, and gave him an undramatic, muted shrug. "I would not blame you if you had tired of me by now."
He paused, frowning as he stared down. "Jesus, Sam. What sort of people do you normally run into? I mean, if you expect treatment like that..."
Sam leaned back against the bed, a tired sigh slipping from his lips. "All sorts. Some are kind. Some are less than. I suppose I am used to the 'less than' variety." He paused, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. "I also do not know how to accept selfless charity when so freely given, such as in your case. Being an archangel, I've always been the one giving favors and granting healing. Even after nearly three-hundred years of wandering aimlessly, it has not been easy to learn to accept."
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, and didn't know what to say. Not that it mattered, not that Sam expected an answer, but still.
"Well, just... lay there and try to get better. You can pay for it by living."
He felt a bloom of surprise in his gut by how much he meant it. He dropped his hand to his lap.
"We're gonna figure this all out. We'll get you sorted out and all, and you'll be up and moving again soon. If you're so worried about paying us back, well, you can help out or something for a while when you're back on your feet. There's a million things to do around here all the time."
Sam gave him a stupidly grateful gaze, and Gabriel had even less of an idea what to do.
"I thank you," he said, his voice strained with emotion. "I would be honored to assist you."
It seemed almost funny, hearing the angel talk about some point in the future when he might be able to move around well enough to do some work, as though Gabriel might grant the greatest honor they could possibly bestow upon him. So in his head, Gabriel skipped right over it. He didn't want to talk about it yet.
"So you really want to do this now? I mean, you just sort of died, and you want me to start slicing into you already?"
"I'd rather you not do it at all," Sam replied, and a hitch in his voice; hesitation. "I do not enjoy all this pain. But if it is not done, I will only experience more to come."
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck again, and sighed. "Well. Can't argue with logic like that." He mentally surveyed all the tools he had for the job, and remembered a stainless steel scalpel in the emergency first-aid kit he kept above the second-floor closet door. The Big First-Aid Kit, as he called it, because he'd packed it with all manner of sterile things after happening across a destroyed clinic in Texas one time, and finding some things in the rubble.
He left the room to retrieve the kit. The scalpel could be purified again later. Easy enough. Boil it. Let it soak in high-proof alcohol for a week.
"I'm no surgeon," Gabriel warned him as he returned. "Are you sure you want me to do this?"
"You have steady hands," Sam commented. "I've watched you work with them."
Had he, now? Huh. Well, maybe it seemed a bit creepy, but then again, Sam hadn't had anything else to do while he'd been here except observe his visitors—which primarily consisted of Gabriel.
"If you do not mind the question," he asked, "are you a hunter?"
Gabriel swiped the lid of the kit, and tried not to howl with laughter. "Me? Oh, god no. Could you imagine me with a collection of guns and demon-knives, all ready to go and kill a bunch of monsters?"
"I need imagine nothing," Sam answered. "I have seen it many times."
Gabriel felt his eye twitch. "Seriously?" He turned his head to glance back at the angel. "I can't even imagine."
"I am glad you've not borne such a burden in this world."
He snorted. "Oh, I've been plenty burdened. Just not with a hunter's job. That honor went to Cas. He became the prodigy hunter. I mean, I did a stint in Purgatory this one time with him, but I never did any real hunting."
"How did you end up in Purgatory?" Sam asked, his jaw slack in amazement.
"That's a long story," Gabriel answered, after a long moment of consideration. "When I was in the Air Force, after they scrubbed me as a pilot, I spent time studying all sorts of supernatural stuff, trying to find some order in it. I mean, we had the Apocalypse raining down on us, and everyone panicked because we had angels and demons flying around, and monsters galore. So, I ended up working with an angel to find a way to suck all the monsters into Purgatory."
"Did it work?"
"Yep. But we got too close, and it sucked me and Cas right along with all the monsters," he answered. "It took two months, but we found our way back out. Purgatory doesn't like human occupants, turns out."
He pulled out things from the Big Kit he thought he would need. The scalpel, all packaged up and sterile. Gauze. Yeah, probably needed towels and everything...
"You were a pilot?" the angel asked.
"Used to be," Gabriel answered, "when there were still planes to fly. Guess you've met similar versions of me, eh?"
"No. You are the first."
And at that? Gabriel snorted. "Well, all of those Gabriels made better choices. I sucked at it. My brain always did better in the laboratory than the air."
It wasn't entirely true, but he had no reason to go digging up old wounds.
"Are you a scientist?" Sam asked.
"Postdoc in mechanical engineering," Gabriel answered. "Studied a lot of physics along the way. I always did enjoy building things other people thought were weird." A chuckle slipped past his lips, tired and bitter. "Should have gone into biology or biochemistry, or something useful instead."
When he glanced back at the angel, he'd furrowed his brow, lips parted.
"I can hardly think of a situation in which a mechanical engineer could provide no utility," he said. "You may work a farm, but I imagine your skillset has many applications here."
Gabriel turned back to the countertop, because he didn't enjoy staring at Sam's expression. He appeared interested and warm and a lot of other things Gabriel didn't want to think about. And maybe just a little bit right, too, because Gabriel did build a ton of things to try and make life easier for Sati and Cas. And maybe himself, too, if he answered honestly.
"Maybe a few things," he admitted. "But I still wish I'd gone into one of the biological fields."
He took his tools and set them on a stool near Sam's bedside. The angel eyed them warily.
"What did you fly?" he asked.
Gabriel worked with Sam to maneuver a thick, old towel beneath his leg to catch any dripping blood.
"Airplanes, jets. This one classified thing called a Ranger, once upon a time."
Sam's eyes narrowed, and Gabriel worried he could read right through his short answers.
"Tell me about this Ranger."
"You ask a hell of a lot of questions," Gabriel growled, but at Sam's expression, he just sighed, and gave up. "The Ranger was designed to be space-capable."
"Did you fly it that far?" he asked.
"Once," he answered, tearing a package open. "Flew it just past the rim of the atmosphere... just before I crashed it."
Sam just stared, his face softening. "What happened?"
"You're not going to drop this, are you?"
Sam hesitated. "You do not have to speak on the matter. I am sorry if I've made you uncomfortable."
Gabriel sighed, and rubbed his face, eyes fluttering shut.
"Something went wrong," he shrugged. "It seemed like mechanical failure, but it was probably pilot error—I screwed up, somehow. Anyway, one minute the ship flew, the next, we were diving from the stratosphere with virtually no control." He paused. "The co-pilot died in the wreck. Somehow, I didn't."
Sam said nothing, but stared with sad, sympathetic eyes. Gabriel turned away.
After a long moment, Gabriel laughed, bitter and hateful and awful, and he pressed his face in his hand. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this. It's not like any of this is your problem."
"Perhaps that makes it easier."
He had to admit, Sam had good point. "Maybe."
The failure still burned at him, bitter and hard and strong. He tried not to remember it.
"Listen, we've got maybe an hour before Sati and Cas are gonna be here," Gabriel said. "If we're going to do this, we should just get on with it."
Sam made a noise, and stared down at his leg. And nodded.