Umm, yeah, don't hate me for this one? Please? It took a little longer because cowboy!Dean and Sam broke my brain. Really broke my brain. With all that yummy it was hard to concentrate on the angst.

Madness.

Gabriel feels the frantic press of Hecate's magic against her bond to his grace as he is returning to their home. The fear and panic there almost knocks his feet from under him. His first thought is that she has gone into labour, that she is about to give birth to their premature child and given her last experience he can understand why she would be afraid. He very rapidly concludes that this is not what has caused her to call for him, this is not why she is so panicked. Hecate knows how to react to the birth of their child, she would know to call for Isis and to return to their home.

That she has not come back is Gabriel's primary cause of worry. Even in labour she would have enough presence of mind and magic to return to a safe place. It has always been that way among the gods and he cannot think why she would not immediately come to him.

Instead he reaches for their link, lets it pull him to where she is and what he finds brings a mask of red fury over his eyes. His first instinct is to kill the humans before him and it is with a great deal of difficulty that he restrains himself.

It is bad enough that hunters would kill one of the pagan gods, bad enough that Aphrodite lies still and vacant eyed at Hecate's feet. What makes it worse is that they have a crossbow loaded with an evergreen stake pointed at her abdomen. Pointed at his child. He can acknowledge that it is the natural instinct of the hunters to kill pagan gods, flesh eaters, but seeing them threaten his bonded mate is too much.

"I'd let her go if I were you," he tells them. His voice is low, deadly, a threat that does not need words to be put to it.

"You're supposed to be dead." Sam Winchester is one of the culprits, the spent crossbow in his hand evidence that he was the one to kill Aphrodite.

"So are you," Gabriel responds, regarding Sam warily and finally putting a name to the face of his companion. "Both of you."

"Who is this?" Campbell demands, taking hold of Hecate's arm as he swing his crossbow to point it at the archangel. Gabriel smirks at him.

"Don't waste your arrows," Sam cuts in. "What's your interest in her?" His attention turns back to Hecate and Gabriel sees a light come into his eyes that the archangel finds disturbing. This is not the Sam that he knows.

"None of yours," his reply is short, curt, his anger still tightly reined in. Gabriel has only lost control a few times in his existence, most of them involving Hecate in some way, but he knows that this time he cannot afford to. If he moves the wrong way, says the wrong thing, both his mate and his child will be murdered and not even the death of the two hunters responsible will satisfy him then.

"Then us asking her a few questions shouldn't be a problem," Campbell replies, missing the dangerous way that Gabriel's eyes narrow. "If you can't tell us why you're interested in her then you won't mind us borrowing her for a few days."

"Loki..." Hecate's eyes are wide and frightened, it is an expression that he had hoped never to see there again and it makes it harder still not to shove Sam out of the way and go to her.

"Does she even know the truth about you?" Sam asks, his eyes sparkling with a cruel light that Gabriel has never see there before and cannot fathom where it has appeared from.

"I know everything about him," Hecate replies, her voice trembling a little. "I know more about him than either of you could hope to."

"You know how dangerous he is, then," Sam tells her. "You know that he's been lying to you for centuries, you know that Lucifer should have killed him. You know that it was his brilliant plan that got me shut in Hell."

"I know it all," Hecate hisses, eyes flickering to the crossbow that Campbell still holds pointed at Gabriel. She could tear her arm out of the hunter's grip in an instant, the archangel knows, but that would prompt the man to fire his weapon and there is no way of knowing which way it would go. Either way, Gabriel knows that Hecate would end up hurting and he has no desire for that. With a physical anchor to her location, however, there is no way for her to simply vanish. Gabriel will have to get to her so that he can send her away and that is going to be hard.

They stare at each other for a long moment and he sees something in Hecate's face, something that worries him. The pained cry she lets out startles him, has him moving towards her before he has even thought about it, watching in almost panic as her free hand goes to her stomach and she doubles over.

"Gabriel," her voice is soft but anguished. "The baby, oh Hades, the baby."

"You don't come any closer," Campbell warns as Gabriel steps forward. The archangel glares at him and then carries on moving, brushing Sam out of the way with a careless gesture as the younger Winchester approaches. The man goes flying back against a tree, hitting it with a crack and a thump and Gabriel does not care. He has killed many in his time and if this is the action that finally takes Sam's life for good then the archangel will not regret it. He will never regret it if it saves Hecate and their baby.

Campbell obviously recognises the threat that Gabriel poses now, because he points the crossbow back at the goddess he is clinging to.

"I will kill her," he threatens.

"If you kill her I will make sure that you spend the rest of eternity screaming," the archangel's grasp on grace and blood magic is coming unravelled now, causing a glow to fill his eyes and cover his skin. "All of your worst nightmares, every moment of pain you've ever experienced, all the loss and grief from your whole life played over and over again for the rest of time, amplified a thousand times. I'll drive you to madness, restore your sanity and push you over the edge time and again and it will never stop."

The hunter stares at him, eyes wide, then the crossbow swings and the bolt is loosed. Hecate shrieks as the bolt pierces Gabriel's chest. He has never seen her react to his getting staked before, but seeing the way that she is clawing at her chest and how her eyes roll back in her head as she falls to the ground is enough to make him resolve never to let it happen again. He does not even bother to remove it, simply covers the remaining distance between himself and the hunter and picks Samuel Campbell up by his throat. For a very long moment the life of Sam's grandfather hangs in the balance, his breaths becoming gasping chokes as the archangel squeezes. Then Hecate lets out a shuddering scream and Campbell is tossed aside, the bolt pulled from his chest and his goddess scooped up in his arms.

He can come back and deal with the two hunters later. Right now his mate and their child need him and Gabriel has no intention of failing them. As he leaves the scene he sends out a frantic call to Isis and for the first time in centuries he prays to his Father that he is not about to lose the only things that he cares about.

Like I said, don't hate me...

Artemis