"It's a simple enough question." Ellen currently stood between Gabriel and the door. She really couldn't be escaped. "Do you want Sam back or not?"

"I'm not having this conversation, ok? If Sam has anything to say to me, he is welcome to…"

"Answer the question."

"No. You can't just…"

"Answer the question."

"I'm not…"

"Yes or no?"

"Alright, alright. Fine. Yes, I would love to have Sam back. I mean come on, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid."

"So why don't you just call him up, and…"

"He left me." Gabriel held up his hands, nudging past her to the kitchen. "He wants to come back, it's all on him."

Ellen stared at Gabriel for a moment, her eyes narrowed in shrewd calculation.

"Why do you think he left?"

"Coffee?"

"Please, hun."

Gabriel slapped half-heartedly at the coffee maker before slipping down into a seat at the table.

"It's my fault. I get that. I've… come to terms with it. I'm a lot of neuroses for one guy to deal with, especially when he's got as much going on as Sam has right now."

"Really? That's why you think he left?"

"Yeah, he pretty much said so himself. I'm paranoid, I have too much baggage, I'm not responsible enough…"

"He actually said this?"
"Yeah. Well… sort of. It was implied."

"So what did he say?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, realised he honestly couldn't remember, and then slipped further into his sulk when he saw Ellen still staring at him.

"It just was, ok?"

"Oh… Gabriel. Honey." Ellen smiled a thin-lipped, motherly smile, and sat down next to him, resting her hand on his arm. "You poor, sweet little thing…"

Gabriel was starting to feel a little comforted by her.

"You're an ass."

Then again, he thought, as Ellen slapped his arm, maybe not.

"Ow! Both my arm and my feelings are hurt now, by the way…"

"Get over yourself! It's not about you. It was never about you. And you've just been too wrapped up in your own pessimism to see it." She shuffled her chair around and leant in closer. "Look, you know you're probably the first person Sam's had any real sort of relationship with since Jess, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…"

"Jess who died in a house fire the night before he wanted to break up with her?"

"Yeah…" Gabriel dimly recalled swapping stories of exes on a rain-soaked night in the middle of a power outage. He much better recalled a slightly drunken make-out session, but that was neither here nor there.

"You know why he was going to break up with her?"
"He was cheating, right? Oh my god… is that what this is? Did he cheat on me?"

"No, you damn pixie, calm down."
"Well, you did… 'Pixie'?"

"Yeah, on account of you're too small and hyperactive to be a fairy. Now come on, Gabriel, use that brain of yours. How many guys would feel bad about not telling their girlfriend the truth? So bad that he never went back to the guy he was cheating on her with? There's not many who'd feel so bad about that for so long. And Sam's locked himself away in education. He works two jobs and still studies. He doesn't have to."

"He doesn't?"

"His father may have been many things, Gabriel, but he wasn't a poor man. Sam won't take his father's money out of the trust fund, and he won't let himself have any downtime. You know what he does when he's stressed out?"

"Screams into a cushion, then starts working out." Gabriel didn't like the sense of dull dread Ellen was giving him, or the slow sinking feeling he was getting in the bottom of his stomach. This really wasn't about him. And he didn't know how to deal with it. The look Ellen was giving him wasn't helping the confusion; forceful, kind, sad, and honest. There was so much damn compassion there, too much, and he wanted to make it better just to stop her looking at him but he didn't know what to do.

"Sam doesn't like being left alone with his thoughts. He likes to have something to focus on so that he can't think about himself. And to a point, that's healthy. But he's so committed now to making sure everyone else is doing ok that he just can't even start dealing with himself. That's why he needs someone like you. Someone who he can help, and who can help him back. The fact is, he's spent so long around emotionally stunted people like Dean… I mean, don't get me wrong, I love my boys, but they don't make life easy for themselves or each other. Sam worries too much about other people, and making sure they understand how they feel. But he won't admit to us the fact that he's failing his classes, or that he's tired from working two jobs. He's just too busy trying to live up to everyone's expectations."

Gabriel nodded, staring at the table top and ignoring the coffee maker which was humming away in the background.

"S'why he walked… All the time we were together… every big moment we had was me letting myself get into a relationship. He was just happy to take on whatever crazy I dumped on him. Or… y'know, that's what I thought… When I told him about my exes, my family… when he was there for me, and Pamela… He was always promising things he could do. Acting like he was a Knight in goddamn shining armour…"

"There's a person in that armour. And he hurts just as easy as the rest of them." Ellen sighed, stood, and headed for the door. "I think I'll pass on that coffee, actually. Got to get back to the salvage yard; Bobby's probably spitting feathers that we up and left like we did. Rumsfeld!"

The Rottweiler trotted obediently to her side, and she opened the door.

"Gabriel, honey. I can't tell you what you should do. And you're both adults, so I'm not going to. But I will say that maybe you've been looking at things the wrong way. Maybe Sam's not the one doing the rescuing." And with that, she left. Gabriel turned to the coffee maker, realised it had spilled all over the counter, and sighed.

Sometimes, he was pretty sure his life was a joke.

He grabbed a sponge and started scrubbing, laughing bitterly to himself.

"A stand up comic, a law student, a closet-case, a mechanic and his wife all go to see a blind woman perform stand up…"

It was either a joke or a student movie inspired by 'For the Benefit of Mr Kite'.

(-*-)

Sam stared thoughtlessly at the smug, smiling faces on the motivational posters in the student support annex. He heard the door buzzer go, and trudged wearily into his student advisor's office. He really didn't want to see his student advisor, fortwo reasons.

First, his actually advisor had left several months ago, so he was currently assigned to one of the worst advisors there while a replacement was found.

And, second, the advisor he was currently assigned to was Crowley.

As in, 'I fucked your brother and his current crush' Crowley.

Dick.

Crowley was sat behind the laminated Ikea special desk that each advisor in the annex was given, and looked about as out of place as a vintage wine in the quik-stop bargain bin. He smiled his wolfish smile up at Sam.

"Ah. Sam Winchester, is it?"

"Yes." He hissed, rolling his eyes and sitting down heavily in the seat opposite the desk. Crowley's smile only faltered for a second.

"Oh, please, do sit down. So, what can I do for you?"

"I'm supposed to be here to talk about my grades."

"Ah. Well, what's wrong with them?"

"They're bad." Sam scowled, fully aware he was acting like a sulky teenage girl, and really not giving a shit.

"Wonderful. Thank you for being so helpful. Hang on a minute, let's find your file…" He clicked at his computer a little, before sucking air in through his teeth. "Yes… that is looking a little grim, isn't it? So what are you going to do about it?"

Sam blinked, stunned out of his sulk and into shocked outrage.

"Aren't you supposed to advise me about that? Being my advisor and everything."

"You're twenty five years old; surely you should be making your own decisions by now."

"Well, I'd appreciate your opinion." It was through gritted teeth. Crowley smirked.

"Alright, then… it appears you have two options. Study hard, take the bar, scrape by and maybe get a low level job at an average firm, or pack it all in now and get a frankly unimpressive day job."

"Yeah. So?"

"So pick one. And do it."

Sam paused, waiting for the rest of the advice that was supposed to calm and reassure him. Crowley stared at him.

"That's it?"

"That's it. Now unless you have something more important to say, could you be a sport and bugger off?"

"But… you can't… I mean, it's not that simple."

"Certainly it is." Crowley nodded. "Go out there, do what makes you happy. Aim for the stars, follow your bliss, and all that other hippy crap I'm supposed to say to you."

"But I can't just…"

"Well then, go out there and do what makes you miserable. Makes no difference to me or anyone else in the world. What you do is your problem. So go do it."

Sam scowled, stood, thought about arguing, and left. Sometimes, certain people just weeviled their way right into your head.

(-*-)

Trash was strewn all over the kitchen floor. Murdock sniffed inquisitively at one of the piles of paper and old pizza boxes, before glancing at his mater who was rummaging through it all like a crazed raccoon. Murdock snorted derisively and trotted off to spend some quality time with his teddy.

Gabriel cursed quietly to himself as he waded through his accumulated kitchen trash. His phone rang, and he answered it with no short amount of annoyance.

"Yeah?"

"Gabriel?"

The bottom fell out of his stomach and he fell still.

"Hey, Sam."

There was a pause, filled with such uncomfortable, awkward silence that Gabriel realised he'd never felt around Sam before.

"I don't know why I called you. I guess I wasn't thinking…"

"It's ok. If you want to talk, you know, I'm not busy or…"

"No." Sam sighed. "I'm sorry, I can't… I thought I could but I just can't yet."

He hung up.

Gabriel sat back, the kitchen swimming slightly around him. Sam had sounded sad. And confused. But overall, the thing that had stunned Gabriel the most, was how tired he sounded. He sounded utterly weary, like the last few weeks had put years on him. He sounded like he needed someone to make him sit down, have a hot cocoa and chill the hell out.

And, Gabriel realised, although he would die before admitting it, he really wanted a hug.

He put his phone aside carefully, before beginning digging through the trash with renewed fervour.

"Shit… shit shit shit, crap dammit…"

There was a knock at the door.

"It's open."

"From all the scratching and scuffling going on up here," Pamela called, moving towards the kitchen. "I'm going to guess either Murdock's digging up the floorboards, or you're looking for something."

"Well done, Sherlock." Gabriel muttered, glancing up at her. "Careful where you step, there's trash everywhere."

"I'd guessed that from the smell." Pamela sniffed, reaching into her handbag and producing a familiar looking notebook. "Wouldn't be this you were looking for?"

Gabriel stared at her from the kitchen floor.

"I don't know whether to hug you or hit you."

"Either way, I'd appreciate it if you showered first."

"Yes." Gabriel stood, shepherding Pamela through to sit on the couch. "Sit, stay, I'll shower, then we can talk. Actually, you might want to summon Balthazar up here too, I might need his connections."

"Gabriel?" Pamela smiled, happy to hear a familiar, lively note in her friend's voice which had been absent some time. "Are you planning something?"

"You could say that." Gabriel nodded, already half way to the bathroom. "I just hope I didn't leave it too late."