They'd agreed that it was impossible to make the entire drive back to the bunker that night, so when Dean felt his eyelids begin to droop, he decided to stop at the next motel he came across.

"Hey, Cas," he said.

"Yes, Dean."

"I need to stop and get some shut-eye. Is there anything coming up ahead?" He handed his phone over to the angel.

Cas muttered something under his breath that Dean liked to imagine was swearing in Enochian as he fumbled with the map function. "There's a motel in about five miles. It's called the Rodeo City Inn," Cas said.

"Great," Dean said in relief. Cas handed the phone back over his shoulder and their fingers brushed briefly, the sensation sparking down Dean's fingers and making him shiver. Gritting his teeth, he scanned the road ahead, looking for the motel's sign.

Rodeo City Inn was unprepossessing even by their standards, but Dean was dog-tired and didn't care. He shook Sam's shoulder and left his sasquatch brother to deal with Gabriel as he went to get a room. The clerk on duty was a older woman with thinning gray hair and a sour expression. But she was pleasant enough, if not exactly chatty. Cas wouldn't sleep but it seemed Gabriel did, so after wincing at the expense, he decided on two rooms. The arrested look on Cas's face made his stomach flip over when he handed the angel one of the keys and told him to give it to Sam and Gabriel.

"What?" he said pugnaciously.

"I was just surprised," Cas said.

"You think I wanna share a room with Gabriel? I'd rather saw off my own arm," Dean said grumpily.

"No, I understand that," the angel said. "But I thought you'd be sharing with Sam."

Dean scratched at his stubble and looked at him uncertainly. "We can do that if you want."

"No! No, this is fine," Cas said hurriedly. "I'll be right back." Dean stomped off to find their room, determined not to think too hard about why he'd made the arrangements the way he had.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Cas as the angel hurried over to where the car was parked, holding a motel room key like it was a live snake. He shoved it into Sam's hand.

"Dean says you and Gabriel get your own room," he said and fled. Sam stared after the angel in consternation. What the Hell? He turned and opened the back door and couldn't help but smile at the contented way Gabriel was curled up, fast asleep.

"Hey, Gabriel," he said softly. The archangel reacted immediately, his eyes popping open. "We're stopping for the night. Come on."

Grumbling, Gabriel stumbled out of the car and followed Sam to the room. As soon as Sam unlocked the door and opened it, he stopped and looked up at the hunter in confusion.

"Where are Dean and Castiel?"

"They got their own room, apparently," Sam said. He was just as baffled as Gabriel, but too sore and tired to question it.

"Right," Gabriel said, sounding disturbed. "Are you OK with this?"

"Me?" Sam said, yawning. "Sure. Why not?" He peered at the archangel. "If you're not happy about it, I'm sure we can switch."

"No, it's fine. It's just… odd." Gabriel sat down on one of the beds, jumping up and down on it experimentally.

"It's not a bouncy house," Sam chuckled.

"Just testing the suspension," Gabriel said, waggling his eyebrows.

"You do that," Sam said indulgently, grabbing his washbag and some clean clothes and heading for the bathroom. He heard Gabriel puttering around the room as he brushed his teeth. Then he locked the door and ran the shower, a pathetic trickle of lukewarm water that made him sigh. But it was enough to freshen up and remove the mud, blood and sweat of the day.

When he opened the bathroom door again, Gabriel had tossed his jeans and button-down shirt onto the floor and was watching TV in his t-shirt and shorts. Black and white footage of an airship crashing on the screen, Sam recognized it as the footage from the Hindenburg disaster.

"What are you watching?" Sam asked, as he pulled back the covers on his bed.

"Some drama about time travel," Gabriel said. "There's this woman who's a historian, and the cute guy there, he's special forces or something. And there's another guy not on the screen right now, he's the pilot of the time machine."

"Cool," Sam said, but he was already drifting off.

"Sleep well, Sammy."

"So, what do we think that thing was anyway?" Dean asked as he unpacked a few essentials from his bag.

"I'm not completely sure," Cas said. "But it did seem to have features of both sirens and banshees. It was a puzzling combination."

"So you do think it's another one of these hybrids?" Dean seemed tense and Cas knew his answer was not going to make the hunter feel any better.

"Yes. I think it's the only explanation."

"Great," Dean said sarcastically. "I mean, aren't there enough horrors in the world already? Why would anyone want to do this?"

"Eve created her hybrids to fight the leviathans," Cas mused. "Crowley suggested somebody's building an army."

"What, you think the missing angels and demons are related to these hybrids?" Dean asked, giving the angel a searching look.

"It makes more sense than the idea of manipulating bloodlines," Cas said reasonably.

"Is this Lucifer?"

"I don't know," Cas said. "But he seems the most likely culprit."

Dean sat down on the edge of his bed, his hands dangling loosely over his knees. "And this soulforge. You think he made one to create these monstrosities? Are we gonna meet a half-angel half-something else at some point?"

"If we're right that the maker of the hybrids and the kidnapper of the angels, demons and vampires are one and the same, then it seems inevitable." Cas's mouth twisted in distaste. "Such an abomination would be almost unthinkable."

"You're telling me," Dean agreed. He began to unbutton his shirt and Cas watched him silently. "So tell me more about making a soulforge. How difficult is it?"

"Very," Cas said. "Purely from a technical perspective, that is. You have to gather a certain weight of souls and then hammer them into a single mass using a sort of enchanted hammer."

"An enchanted hammer?" Dean frowned.

"It's not really a hammer. More like pure energy, shaped by magic. The souls are bonded together into a sort of amorphous mass, and then distilled. It's an abstract concept and rather difficult to describe." Cas made a helpless gesture.

"So what does it look like?" Dean asked, leaning forward.

"You can bind the soulforge into any physical object. Historically, anvils and similar objects have been used. But it's not actually important." Cas's gaze was steady on his.

"Is there a way to recognize one if we find it?"

"If Gabriel or I are with you, we will be able to see it. If we're not there…" Dean could see Cas considering the matter. "I will talk to Gabriel. Perhaps there is something we can do. An amulet that would glow in the presence of a soulforge. But the power of a soulforge means there will be local effects that we might be able to use to find it."

"Like demon omens?" Dean asked.

"That's a good analogy," the angel allowed. "Soulforges need feeding. That has several effects on the local environment. Suicide, murder and violent crime rates all increase, but that can be difficult to spot. Spontaneous fires occur on hallowed ground, trees die and animals flee the area. People living nearby will report depression, hopelessness, insomnia. Weather patterns may even change in unpredictable ways."

"Not as easy as identifying demon omens," Dean commented.

"No," Cas agreed. He looked pensively down at the floor. "Dean, I should focus on finding Lucifer. If he's behind this, we need to stop him. And if he's not behind this, we may need his help."

"Ask Lucifer for help again? No. Oh no. Seriously, Cas, no way. If we need an archangel, let's work on fixing up Gabriel, OK?"

"Sam," a voice said urgently, shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, Sam!"

Sam opened his eyes to a darkened room and rubbed his face in confusion. His face was wet and his chest was aching. There was a weight on the side of the bed making the mattress sag. "Gabriel?"

"You were sobbing in your sleep," the archangel said. Sam reached out to turn on the lamp and blinked at him in the soft golden light.

"I must have been dreaming," he said, his voice blurry.

"You don't remember?" Gabriel asked. Sam was aware of the archangel's leg pressed against his own and thought vaguely that this seemed somehow familiar.

"No," he replied. "But… uh… have we done this before?"

"Done what before?" Gabriel's eyes were bright in the lamplight and his pupils large and black.

"I dunno, you sat on the edge of my bed. It's like deja vu or something." Sam struggled to remember but he couldn't focus, not with the way his body seemed acutely aware of Gabriel's presence. "It's not important."

"No," Gabriel agreed. He reached out and tucked Sam's hair behind his ear and Sam's mouth fell open in shock. The gesture had been intimate and unexpected and by the look on Gabriel's face, he was almost as startled as Sam. So startled in fact that he froze, his hand resting on the back of Sam's head. Almost as if he were about to kiss him, Sam thought in a muddled way. He wondered why he couldn't think straight but with Gabriel's eyes on him, it just seemed both impossible and unnecessary.

"I should let you get back to sleep," Gabriel croaked. He withdrew his hand and Sam noticed it was shaking. He wanted to stop him, wanted that hand back where it had rested. It seemed right, natural, even desirous. But the archangel was moving away and Sam couldn't seem to break out of this odd passivity. He let his eyes slide closed and slipped back into sleep.

The next morning, Sam awoke to find himself alone. He stumbled through his usual routine only skipping washing his hair because the shower was just too pathetic. Outside he found Gabriel perched on the roof of the Mustang, his eyes closed and his head tilted back. The early morning sun illuminated his face in red and gold. The effect was a little peculiar, like he was a golden statue covered in blood. Sam shook his head to dismiss the weird illusion and cleared his throat. Gabriel opened his eyes.

"Morning, Sammy," he said brightly. Sam wasn't fooled, there was that brittleness again that he wished he understood.

"Hey Gabriel," he said. "Did you sleep OK?"

"Yeah, great," the archangel declared. "Dean and Castiel went to get coffee and pastries from the diner over there. They'll be back soon and then we'll hit the road."

"OK," Sam said. "Look, are you all right?"

"Never better," Gabriel said, not meeting his eyes. "Well, except for my Grace still being bound of course."

"Of course," Sam agreed. If Gabriel didn't want to talk to him, he couldn't force the issue. "Here they are now."

Dean and Cas were crossing the road, juggling cups of coffee and and unfeasibly large paper bag. Dean was talking animatedly and Cas was smiling, his shoulder bumping companionably against Dean's. Sam watched them wistfully for a moment, a sensation somewhere between envy and joy at their odd, utterly unique relationship. When he turned his head, it was to see Gabriel watching them too, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Disconcerted, he reached out to touch his arm and Gabriel flinched.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I just… you looked…" He couldn't seem to articulate what he was feeling but he knew he hated seeing Gabriel look so distressed.

Gabriel dashed the tears away with a swipe of his hand. "The sun's bright, that's all," he defended. He slid down off the roof and opened the car door, climbing inside and closing it behind him.

"Morning, Sam," Dean greeted as he approached, but he'd clearly not missed the little scene with Gabriel, by the looks of the line that had appeared between his eyebrows.

"Hey," Sam said, feeling wrong-footed and unsure what he would say if Dean asked what was going on. But Dean just exchanged a look with Cas and then handed Sam a coffee cup.

"What would you like to eat?" Cas asked him, offering him the paper bag.

"It's all sweet pastries, I suppose," Sam sighed.

"No," Cas said. "I made Dean buy you fruit salad and yoghurt. But you can have a pastry too, if you like."

"The fruit and yoghurt sound perfect," Sam told him, finding them at the bottom of the bag. Cas nodded and handed over some plastic utensils. He smiled in response, aware it probably looked a bit fake and walked around the car to the passenger side.

"Dean?"

"Uh, the chocolate thing," he said, accepting the proffered pastry with a smile and balancing it in the empty slot on the tray where Sam's coffee had been. He opened the driver's side door and placed his cup in the cupholder. Looking over the seat at Gabriel, he held out the final cup. The archangel eyed it for a moment and then accepted it.

"It's got my name on it," he said, sounding nonplussed.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Cas ordered you this ridiculously sweet sounding latte thing. So we needed to be able to tell them apart."

Cas opened the back door and slid in next to Gabriel. He offered the paper bag to Gabriel, who dived in and selected a large pastry covered in sugar.

Dean leaned over and opened Sam's door. "Get in, slowpoke." Sam grimaced at him and then climbed in.

When they stopped for gas, Dean made a gesture at Sam and then headed to the restroom. As soon as they were inside the small bathroom and had checked the two stalls were empty, Dean folded his arms and looked seriously at his brother.

"Did you and Gabriel have a fight?" he asked without preamble.

"No," Sam said. "I don't know what's going on. He was fine last night. I woke him with a nightmare but he didn't seem mad, just worried." His face flushed as he remembered that strange, almost dreamlike encounter with Gabriel. "But this morning, he was like this."

"OK," Dean said. "Well, you know me, I hate this chick flick stuff. But Cas is worried about both of you and when he gets worried he chews my ear off. So, I don't care what you have to do but fix it, will ya?"

"I would if I could," Sam promised. "If I knew what was going on. But I'm just as in the dark as you are. One minute he's laughing and joking and the next he's distant and cold."

"I think you freaked him out at Cumberland Lake," Dean said, looking uncomfortable. "You came pretty close to buying the farm and after Cas healed you up, he just kinda… had a mini breakdown, I guess. Bawled his eyes out all over Cas, and right in front of me."

"What?"

"Yeah, I was weirded out by it too. You'd think he'd just lost… his dog," Dean said. Sam frowned at that odd pause in the middle of the sentence. What had Dean been going to say?

"Look, I'll talk to him," he said. "But if he won't talk back, what am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe Cas can get something out of him," Dean said, looking sly.

"Oh so that's why we're hanging out in this grim men's room," Sam said. "God, Dean, you are about as subtle as a brick to the face."

Dean grinned at him, unrepentant. "I get results."

"Talk to me, Gabriel," Cas said as soon as the Winchesters were out of earshot.

"What about?" the archangel said through a mouthful of croissant.

"Oh I don't know," Cas said sarcastically. "Why don't we start with the emotional meltdown at Cumberland Lake? Or if you prefer, why not tell me what you and Sam fought about."

"We didn't fight," Gabriel said airily.

"Right," Cas said. "That's why you're not speaking to him and you look like the world is ending."

"You're seeing things that aren't there, little bro," Gabriel warned.

"Am I?" Cas said. "Did I also imagine you weeping all over my coat yesterday?"

"No," Gabriel replied sullenly. Cas eyed him expectantly. "All right, Sam gave me a scare. When that guy hit him with that tree branch, I thought he was a gonna. And even after he survived the initial blow, he was in bad shape. If you hadn't got there when you did…" He drew in a shuddering breath. "Why are you putting me through this again?"

"Because I want to understand what's going on with you," Cas said. "You're confusing the Hell out of Sam, and he's not in a good place to begin with. Dean and I are worried about him, and if you're making things worse, Dean will kick you out."

"Thanks," Gabriel said drily.

"Don't make me choose between them and you," Cas warned. "You're my brother, and I love you. But I love them too, and I owe them everything. Dean, especially."

"I'm surprised at you, Castiel," Gabriel said snidely. "Whatever happened to pretending there was nothing between you and Dean than friendship?"

"You understand nothing," Cas said loftily. "Certainly not the value of true friendship. Do I wish I could have Dean's love too? I do. But I accept that it's not possible and must cherish what we have."

Gabriel looked away, the starkness of the similarity between their situations causing him physical pain. "I shouldn't have mocked you," he apologized softly. "I guess I'm jealous."

"Jealous?" Cas said in astonishment. "I don't understand."

"Your friendship with Dean. It's real, honest and if it's not everything you could wish it to be, you at least know that he values you in his life. What do I have? I'm hanging out at the bunker because Sam convinced Dean to tolerate it. But if I get access to my Grace back, that's all over. And if I can't touch my Grace ever again, how long before he gets tired of me and kicks me out anyway?"

"Gabriel, are you telling me you're in love with Sam?" Cas said, his voice tinged with wonder.

Gabriel bowed his head in shame. "Yes. Sometimes I think our Father has a really spiteful sense of humor."

"I think you're mistaken," Cas said seriously. "I don't know how Sam feels about you, or if any such thing is possible between you. But I do know that he likes you. In the time they've lived at the bunker, there aren't many who even get to visit, let alone live there."

"Doesn't that list include Crowley?" Gabriel said disbelievingly.

"Yes," Cas said thinly. "He and Dean were… quite close at one time, and they remain friends despite everything." Disapproval marked the angel's every line and Gabriel found himself speculating on just how close Dean and Crowley had been when Dean had spent time as a demon.

"You're not filling me with confidence here," he said.

"I'm not trying to," Cas said in that literal way that made Gabriel want to smile despite how he felt. "I'm telling you that you and Sam are already friends. It's early days, and you don't have the advantage of the bond I have with Dean that formed when I raised him from perdition. But Sam's also less guarded and more open than Dean is."

Gabriel swallowed as he digested the seraph's words. "OK. You'd better not breathe a word of this to Sam or Dean."

"Of course not," Cas said. He spotted Dean coming out of the restroom, making a sign to indicate that he needed to wrap up his conversation with Gabriel. "But you have to promise me you'll stop mistreating Sam."

"Mistreating!" Gabriel exclaimed. Cas glared at him and he subsided. "OK, fine."

As Sam approached the car, Dean was leaning on the roof, watching him. "You wanna drive for a bit?"

"Sure," he said, catching the keys when Dean tossed them to him. He blinked as Dean walked around the car and opened the back door. Gabriel looked up at him in confusion.

"Out," Dean commanded. "Sit in the front, and annoy Sam. I wanna talk to Cas."

Gabriel was too stunned to do anything but obey. He climbed out and opened the front passenger door and slid in. Sam gave him a sidelong glance he couldn't interpret.

Dean was sprawled on the backseat, one arm resting casually along the back. Sam eyed his brother for a moment, wondering what the Hell he was up to. Cas looked equally baffled.

"OK," he said. He started the engine and pushed the transmission into drive, accelerating smoothly away.

Dean's phone rang and he answered it. "Hey mom."

Sam relaxed, she was probably just checking in to say she'd got back to the Banes.

"God," Dean said, sitting upright. "I'm sorry."

"What's up?" Sam said over his shoulder.

"Mel's dead," Dean said shortly. He hit the speaker button on his phone. "What happened?"

"According to Alicia, her heart couldn't take the strain. It's apparently not uncommon but Max is distraught." Their mom sounded exhausted, Sam thought.

"OK," Dean said. "You did everything you could."

"I know that," Mary said. "That's not the point. Constance McBride is the point. A lot of people are dead because of this damn Hyde curse. I'm gonna track her down and this time I'm putting that bitch in the ground."

"You're not coming back to the bunker," Dean said, dismayed.

"Not until I finish this," Mary said crisply. "I'm sorry, boys. I am. But I have to do this. If I'd managed to kill McBride all those years ago, those seven people would still be alive. And she's probably responsible for other deaths too."

"I guess we can't stop you then," Dean said. "But why not let us help?"

"Because you have other work to do," Mary said reasonably. "Weren't you going to go looking for Lucifer?"

"All right," Sam said over his shoulder. "But call us if you need help, OK?"

"You know it," she said. "I love you." She hung up.