Sam blinked a few times to take in his surroundings. He didn't recognize anything and had no clue where he was. "Gabriel? Where are we?" Sam asked in a hushed tone.
"Heaven."
"Heaven?" Sam asked in disbelief. "You brought me to heaven?"
"Yes, now come on," Gabriel said, leading the way down a long, narrow hallway.
Sam hurried quickly after Gabriel, desperate to keep up and find his brother.
"Gabriel?" Sam asked. As they moved through hallway after hallway, one thought constantly pushed its way to the forefront of Sam's mind.
"What?"
"I gotta say that this is definitely not what I expected when you say heaven," Sam responded, hoping that Gabriel would elaborate as to why heaven seemed to look like nothing more than an average office building.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. As he kept leading the way, he explained, "Heaven is huge. This is just one part. When humans die, they each have their own piece of heaven. It's different for each person. But then there are some parts, like here, that aren't for humans."
"So it's literally just an angel workspace?"
"I guess you could say it like that," Gabriel responded, not really elaborating too much more about how heaven was made up.
"So, uh, they have no problem with you just bringing humans into heaven?" Sam asked. He couldn't help but feel that he was completely out of place and that he wasn't supposed to be here. With every step he took, Sam kept looking around, completely paranoid that someone was going to find them. He didn't know what would happen if someone were to find them, or if it would even be bad, but he just had a really bad feeling that it wasn't going to end well if they got caught.
"What they don't know won't hurt them and besides I need back up," Gabriel said simply as they came to a fork in the hallways. He looked down both hallways, before choosing the right one and taking off quickly down it.
"Other angels?" Sam suggested. Angels definitely would have been more powerful than Sam.
"Enough of my brothers are involved in this mess," Gabriel explained quickly. "I don't want to drag anyone else into this."
Sam remained silent at this comment and continued to follow Gabriel through the maze of hallways, wondering how anyone would be able to find their way through this maze. There were no doors or windows, just what appeared to be endless hallways. Part of Sam wondered if Gabriel even knew where he was going. But Sam had to trust him because right now, Gabriel was the only hope he had of finding his brother.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Sam asked. He just had to be sure. There was too much on the line right now for this not to work.
"Yes, now zip it," Gabriel whispered as he continued to lead Sam through hallway after hallway.
Sam shut his mouth and followed Gabriel.
As they moved through the halls, Sam could feel his body start to become exhausted. He didn't understand it. He had gotten plenty of sleep the night before Dean went missing, and that had only been just over two days ago. He had worked plenty of jobs where he had gotten less sleep than that. So why was he so tired now? Glancing at his watch, Sam saw that it had barely been thirty minutes since he had left the motel with Gabriel. Sam stifled a yawn and continued to follow Gabriel.
Finally, Gabriel came to a stop, although it didn't look like anywhere important. Sam looked around and still wasn't able to figure out why they had stopped.
"Uh, Gabriel? I thought we were going to get Dean."
"We are, but there's something you need to understand first."
"Can we deal with this later? I need to find my brother. If he and Cas are separated—" Sam started, but Gabriel interrupted.
"Your brother will get sick and have to deal with a bunch of nasty things. I know, that's what I need to talk to you about."
Sam looked confusedly at Gabriel. "What are you talking about?"
"Time passes differently in heaven. A day on Earth is like weeks in heaven," Gabriel explained as he watched the realization spread across Sam's face.
"So, Dean doesn't realize that it's only been two days…" Sam said, trailing off and starting to think about how bad it really was.
"Basically."
"But…" Sam trailed off. "So that means that he hasn't been with Cas for several weeks?"
"I'm guessing they would have kept them separated," Gabriel said.
"But no one's ever been separated from their soulmate for that long."
"Well, congratulations. It looks like our brothers were the first."
"What's going to happen to him?" Sam asked fearfully.
"That," Gabriel said, "I don't know. It's not going to be pretty though."
"Is he… is he going to…" going to be alive? Sam couldn't even bring himself to finish the question. He didn't even want to think about the possibility of his older brother not being alive. It hurt too much.
"I don't think so, but it's not going to be pretty. I can't really guarantee much of anything."
"You can't guarantee much of anything?! I thought you were an archangel! Shouldn't you know these things?" Sam asked angrily.
"Sam, I don't know. I'm not human and believe it or not, this kind of thing doesn't happen all that often. I can get you to your brother, but I can't give you anything other than that."
"Where is he?" Sam asked, with a new and sudden burst of energy. He knew that he needed to find Dean, and find him quickly.
Gabriel, once again, started to lead Sam through more hallways, though this time he seemed to move at a faster pace. Maybe it was because Sam was nearly stepping on Gabriel's heals and was therefore forcing Gabriel to move faster. Or maybe it was because Gabriel wanted to find Dean as much as Sam did. Gabriel may not have been related to Dean, but Sam remembered Gabriel saying that he was Cas's brother. Maybe Gabriel wanted to help his brother as much as Sam wanted to help his own? Sam honestly didn't know, but at this point, all Sam cared about was getting to his brother as fast as he could. Now that Gabriel had told him that time works differently in heaven, Sam was even more desperate to find his brother.
Eventually, after wandering through seemingly endless hallways and corridors in heaven, Gabriel finally came to a stop at a fork in the hallways. Sam looked around, but didn't see anything besides empty walls, just like he had been seeing since he first got to heaven.
"Gabriel?"
"Shh," Gabriel said, effectively quieting Sam.
Sam watched as Gabriel leaned back against a wall and then slowly peeked around the corner, trying to be as discrete as possible. As soon as Gabriel was abel to get a good look around the corner, he quickly pulled back and leaned against the wall.
Sam looked at Gabriel, confused. Gabriel responded by making some strange hand motions, making Sam even more confused than he already was. Gabriel rolled his eyes and then tried to again sign something to Sam. As Gabriel worked through it slower, Sam understood the basic of idea of what Gabriel was trying to say: there was someone or something guarding Dean. That was something that really should not have surprised Sam. If the archangels were going to take his brother, surely they weren't going to just leave him unattended.
"What do we do?" Sam mouthed to Gabriel, hoping that the archangel had some kind of a plan.
"You stay put," Gabriel mouthed back, using hand motions for an added effect.
Sam didn't understand. Didn't Gabriel bring him here for back up? So why did Gabriel now insist on doing this alone? Sam figured that Gabriel must have had a reason, even if Sam didn't understand it himself. Instead of questioning it, Sam made a mental note to ask Gabriel about it later, presumably once they had Dean and knew that everything was going to be ok.
Sam carefully and quietly walked over to the wall that Gabriel had been leaning on, and tried his best to keep himself hidden. He figured as long as he stayed out of sight, he would be fine and Gabriel would be able to take care of things and then they would be one step closer to finding Dean and bringing him back to Earth.
"Gabriel?" a surprised voice asked. "Why are you here?"
"My brothers should have told you that I was coming," Gabriel answered. Sam stayed exactly where he was, trying to figure out who Gabriel was talking to and why he was talking to them instead of finding Dean.
"Uh, no," the voice said. "I was told to stay here and inform them if anything happened."
"And I suppose me being here is something happening."
"Well, yes," the voice said uncertainly. "I suppose I should." With that the angel disappeared.
"Sam!" Gabriel said urgently.
Sam immediately ran around the corner and came face to face with Gabriel.
"Dean's here," Gabriel quickly informed Sam. "But we don't have much time. That angel just went to get my brothers and they're not going to be happy."
"What? Where?" Sam asked frantically, ignoring everything except that Dean was here. There was nothing around him.
"Heaven has its own ways of protection. Your brother is in one of the most secret cells. Not many angels would have been able to find it," Gabriel explained quickly.
"So how do we get to him?"
"Ok. I'm going to take you to him, but you have to remember that he's going to be completely out of it. I don't even know what he will be like and I don't know if I'll even be able to help him."
"Yeah, yeah. Just get me in there so I can help him," Sam said in frustration. He was losing patience quickly, now that he knew that he was so close to Dean.
"Ok," Gabriel said, placing his hand on Sam's shoulder.
In the blink of an eye, Gabriel transported himself and Sam into a tiny prison cell.
Sam looked around the room quickly as his eyes fell on his unconscious brother, slumped over against a wall. "Dean!"
The door's to Michael's office burst open and a small angel came running in, clearly running out of breath.
Michael looked up from what he was doing, confused as to why the angel was here.
"Mariel? What is the meaning of this?" Michael asked.
"Gabriel is here. He was by the room you told me to guard," Mariel explained quickly, hoping that Michael wouldn't be too upset with the news. He knew that Michael got easily quickly when things didn't go exactly according to plan. Mariel didn't know what the plan exactly was, but he was assured that it was none of his business.
Michael's eyes widened, clearly furious. Mariel shrunk back, hoping that Michael wouldn't take out his frustrations on him. Michael let out a long, deep, and frustrated breath before he turned to Mariel and said, "Go get Raphael. Bring him to the room."
Michael then quickly left the room, leaving a confused Mariel in his wake. As Michael ran down through the hallways, he tried to figure out how to this happened. Gabriel apparently had not only known that he and Raphael had taken Dean Winchester, but had also been able to figure out where they had taken him. He didn't understand it.
He also didn't understand why Gabriel was trying to help the Winchester brothers. They were just two ordinary humans. There was nothing special or spectacular about these two humans. Why focus his attention on trying to save one of them. Unless… Unless it wasn't helping the humans. What if Gabriel was trying to help Castiel? Michael knew that Gabriel had a soft spot for their youngest brother, but was Gabriel really ready to risk it all for their younger brother? Apparently he was. But why go through all the trouble to save the human? Why didn't he just save Cas and leave? Cas could figure out the human if he was that desperate, right? Michael just accepted that he wouldn't understand and would just have to stop it.
Michael knew that he had to put a stop to Gabriel quickly. He continued rushing as fast as he could to where Dean Winchester was being kept.
A/N: I feel so terrible because of how long this took. With moving back to the US and a huge case of writer's block, this wasn't easy. However, I'm about 95% sure that the multiple months between chapters is over. Writing, while there's still some issues, is actually happening and I'm starting to make some progress on this again. That being said, we are nearing the end of the story. As of right now, there's seven chapters left, but that may change depending on how and where I split chapters.
I say thank you every time and I mean it. If you have just a minute to drop a review and let me know any questions, comments, concerns, or what you liked about the chapter or the story in general, it would really mean a lot. Those reviews definitely help keep motivation going. Thanks again!
