Sam curled his hands around his mug of coffee and stared down at the dark liquid as if it would hold the answers to the universe. Right then, he could've used a few of those. Things had already been confusing enough to begin with. After yesterday…

He still couldn't quite process it all. It seemed, insane. Too good to be true, really. Just one talk with Gabriel and suddenly Michael was on their side? Sam wanted to believe it, he did, but things were never that easy for them. Winchesters never caught a break like that. He had a feeling this time wasn't going to be any different. Especially considering Gabriel's parting comment. What prophecy were they talking about? The fact that Gabriel said it 'trumps any pissing match my brothers wanna get into' wasn't all that reassuring. What could be so bad that it beat out the damn Apocalypse? Thinking about it had kept Sam up most of the night. Between that and the nightmares that were never far away, he'd barely gotten any sleep at all.

Judging by his brother's face as Dean came walking into the room, he hadn't done all that well on sleep either. Then again that could also be explained by the silent angel that followed him into the room. His appearance had Sam's eyebrows going up. Well then, it looked like someone had had themselves a visitor last night. Any other time and Sam might've had fun teasing his brother about this. For now he just logged that little fact away to bring up later along with a mental note to buy some lube and stick it through Dean's stuff and freak him out.

The older Winchester went straight for the coffee pot and Sam pretended not to notice the generous amount of alcohol that ended up in the mug with the coffee.

Castiel was the one to greet Sam. "Good morning, Sam."

"Mornin' Cas."

The kitchen was quiet for a few except for the shuffling as everyone got settled in at the kitchen table – which had returned to regular size overnight. It wasn't until the three of them were seated that Dean broke the silence. It wasn't any surprise that he did it in his usual blunt way. "So," He said, curling his hands around his mug and settling his elbows on the table. "You look like you slept about as well as I did. This shit keep you up too?"

Sam's lips quirked up and he huffed out a breath. Holding his own cup, he sat back in his seat and watched his brother across the table. "Yeah, a bit. It, I don't know, it seems..."

"...batshit insane?" Dean supplied. He snorted. "Yeah. This whole thing seems insane. We've got the archangel Gabriel on our side out of freaking nowhere, a fledgling wanting to help us, and now we've got Michael suddenly batting for our team all because he and his baby brother had a chat."

Sam shrugged one shoulder and took a drink. "He seemed honest." That was the thing, too. Gabriel had seemed honest. Sam wasn't trying to judge or gauge Michael's actions. Nothing about those seemed to make any sort of sense to him. But, Gabriel? Sam had studied him plenty of times. Everything about him yesterday had seemed to indicate that he was being honest with them.

The idea of Gabriel being honest had Dean looking at him like he'd just smelled something particularly unpleasant. "He's the freaking trickster, Sam. I don't care if he's an archangel, too – he's the trickster. Can we really believe him?"

"It's kind of hard not to." Sam said. His eyes darted over to Castiel, who was watching them quietly, and then back to Dean. "Michael was here, Dean, and he didn't do anything."

"Cause that's totally not worrisome."

"I believe Sam is right. If Michael wished to harm you, he would have done so." Castiel said, speaking up for the first time. His voice was low and serious, just as it always was, yet it seemed to hold an extra weight to it today. "Once he was beyond the wards around this property, he could have chosen to do anything to any one of you, and none of us, Gabriel included, would've been able to stop him. The fact that he stayed only to talk and then left again when he realized he was making others uncomfortable suggests that he was here with no ill intentions."

"You mean when he was making Spencer uncomfortable." Dean cut in.

"Yeah." Sam shook his head, still not quite sure what to make of that little fact. It was something he'd noticed as well and something that he'd thought plenty about overnight. "He sure seemed to have a thing for Spencer, didn't he? I thought he would've been focused on you," he gestured towards Dean with his mug. "What with you being his vessel and all. But he really had eyes for Spencer."

"Spencer is a fledgling. A human fledgling." Castiel said. "Fledglings are important to angels. They are loved and treasured."

Again, Sam shook his head. "It was more than that, though."

"Sam's right." Dean agreed. "There was something else there. You think it's got something to do with that prophecy he mentioned?"

Yes, Sam's brain said quickly. But Sam kept that thought to himself. He wasn't entirely sure about the prophecy yet and he didn't want to say anything until he had more facts. "I get the feeling they aren't gonna be telling us anything about that anytime soon. Not that we don't have enough on our plates already."

"So we just let it go?" Dean demanded.

It was Castiel who answered that with a simple "Do we have any other choice?"

Bobby eventually came downstairs and joined their group in the kitchen. More coffee had been made and everyone except Castiel had a cup as they all sat around and discussed their plans for not only trying to catch the Horsemen, but for also trying to figure out where the Devil was even at. Eventually they were going to have to go after him if Gabriel's whole plan here came together. "We wanna stop him, we gotta know where he's hiding at." Bobby said.

"Why?" Sam asked, surprising them. All eyes turned to him and he shrugged a little under those looks. "Does it matter if we know where he is if we have nothing to stop him and no way of locking him back up yet? We should do what we can in hunting down and stopping the Horsemen. I'm sure once we have all that, either Gabriel or even Michael now would be able to help tell us where Lucifer is. But there's no real point in finding him and going after him before we're prepared. We have nothing to use against him right now."

"We could go after the Colt." Dean suggested. "We know who has it now. We can track it down and use it against him."

Another voice entirely answered that. "Won't work." Gabriel said. They all looked over to find him sitting on Bobby's kitchen counter with Spencer beside him, the fledgling leaning back against the counter and just a little against Gabriel. He looked so different from the kid that Sam first remembered meeting. Circumstances, events, or maybe Gabriel, had all combined to change Spencer. He didn't look like the same nerdy kid in slacks and sweaters that they'd met in Bennington. This kid looked, different, and it wasn't just the clothes – though those were different. Spencer was dressed like he was on some island vacation. Khaki colored slacks, much better fitting than what he wore before, and a long-sleeved white linen shirt like you'd wear in a place with a much warmer climate. His hair was loose and shaggy like normal, half hiding his face as he tilted his head.

Wherever they were staying, it was obviously warmer than South Dakota, and yet Spencer didn't seem to notice a chill in the outfit he wore. Another change coming over him as he learned his powers? Sam remembered Gabriel saying something about Spencer probably not needing sleep back when he'd had them in his 'lesson'. Maybe, as Spencer's powers grew, he was slowly becoming more and more angel. The thought was intriguing and one that definitely bore thinking about.

The archangel, however, looked just the same as always in his jeans, t-shirt and canvas jacket, with a candy bar in hand that he was unwrapping. Sam watched him pull the wrapper free and then break the candy bar in half, offering part of it to Spencer. As the kid took it, smiling faintly, Gabriel smirked up at the others. "There very few things that Colt can't kill – an you better believe archangels are one of em."

Dean, idiot that he was, seemed intent on pushing his luck pretty much every time he encountered Gabriel. Sam had a feeling his brother often saw the trickster and forgot that, all the trickster stuff aside, this being was an archangel and therefore just as deadly as Raphael, Michael and Lucifer. Somehow Dean managed to have some proper sense of fear for them, even if he didn't admit to it, but he got around Gabriel and he just seemed to see the trickster and forget about the fact that said trickster could choose to smite him if he pissed him off enough. Case in point, Dean glared at him now and said "Maybe we'll test it on you."

Instant tension snapped through Spencer's body and wide brown eyes narrowed right on Dean. However, Gabriel's hand settling on his shoulder kept him quiet. The room seemed to crackle with an energy that left the hairs on Sam's arms standing on end and had Castiel making a small move towards Dean's side. Gabriel paid none of them any attention; his eyes sharpened and stared right at Dean. "Go right ahead, bucko." The light in Gabriel's eyes darkened and twisted into something more, something edgier and a lot more dangerous, and his smirk was razor sharp. His inner Loki was showing through and reminding them all that he was dangerous for more reasons than most. "But when I get back up – and I will get back up – you had better be long gone, cause then it's my turn."

He was quiet for a moment as his words sank in. Then he sat back and the crackle was gone from the air just as quickly as the deadly look was wiped off his face. In their place was his familiar mocking smirk. "Besides, you guys don't need to focus on Luci. I know how to find him. You just focus on getting the rings from the other Horsemen. Mikey and I are gonna handle Death."

"You're gonna 'handle' Death?" Bobby repeated skeptically.

The archangel grinned. "Yep! Between us we can summon him and get him to let us borrow his ring for a bit. Better than letting Lucifer do it. Trust me, you would not like the way he'd raise Death, I promise. So Mike and I are gonna beat him to it. Then we're gonna go and try and have a talk with Raffy and see if we can't get the Heaven end of things taken care of. Which is why," He lifted an arm now, wrapping it around Spencer and squeezing him before ruffling his hair. At the glare that got him, he smirked. "I'm gonna leave my little sparrow here with you folks. It's safer for him here and he wants to stay and help. So, what say you make sure he doesn't get hurt, hm?" He looked up and his gaze didn't go to Castiel or Bobby or Dean – it landed right on Sam. And there was something there, something just a little electric in that gaze. "I'm trusting you with him. Don't screw that up."

They held gazes for one long second before Gabriel's grin flashed on his face once more and he vanished with a snap.

In the quiet of the kitchen, the annoyed sound that Dean made was loud and clear. "That's getting really old, really fast. For someone who's not in charge he sure gives a helluva lot of orders."

"He's an archangel, boy. What do you expect?" Bobby asked him. The way he said it and the way he looked at Dean clearly asked just how stupid he was. "Besides, it aint like you've come up with any better plan. He's got plans and so far they all seem to be working. Seems to be that's something we should be happy about."

Sam could only nod his agreement. "I don't like the way he goes about it, Dean, but you have to admit that he's gotten results so far. An sure, he's a bit of a dick about it, an we know he's got some other game plan going on here that we don't know about, but right now the things he's doing are actually helping to stop the apocalypse. Can we really complain about that?"

Their words seemed to have shocked Dean. He looked from one to the other like he couldn't believe that they weren't siding with him. When he looked at Castiel, the angel was silent, saying absolutely nothing. But apparently Dean read something in his expression because the older Winchester looked disgusted as he spun to look at Spencer next. "What about you? Doesn't this bother you?"

Shrugging, Spencer put the last bite of the candy bar Gabriel had given him into his mouth. "No."

"He doesn't tell you everything." Dean pointed out, voice sharp.

If he thought that would deter Spencer, he was wrong. "I know." The kid said. Then he shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest, settling back a bit more against the counter. "He's not doing it maliciously, though."

"Oh, yeah, cause it's always a good idea to keep things from people."

Spencer raised his eyebrows at the hunter. "Did your Dad ever tell you everything? Do you tell your brother everything?" At Dean's surprised look, the young genius flushed a little and looked away, shrugging one shoulder uncomfortably. "I get the feeling that's kind of like what he's doing. He's not keeping things from me to be cruel or to trick me. He sees me as a kid in a lot of ways. I think it just doesn't occur to him to tell me some things, and other things he probably keeps from me in an effort to, I don't know, protect me or something like that."

"You are his." Castiel said lowly. Sam counted it an improvement when Spencer only slightly flinched from the angel's voice. If Castiel noticed it, and he had to have, he chose to ignore it. "He's Claimed you in the eyes of all angels, made himself responsible for you. Though we have no parent except for our Father, you could say it is almost like being a parent. He's taken you under his wing and into his nest."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound creepy." Dean mumbled.

Spencer, however, looked almost – pleased by that description. There was just a faint hint of something happy around the edges of his eyes as well as something else that Sam wanted to label as wonder. Like he couldn't quite believe that what Castiel was saying was true. Was it just the idea of an archangel 'Claiming' him that got that reaction, or was it deeper than that? Did Spencer really have that hard of a time believing that someone would want him? Sam hated the thought that maybe that was true. It was just, everything he'd seen so far suggested that Spencer was someone who wasn't really used to affection and things like that.

"All of this is well and dandy, but why don't we try focusing on more important things for the moment?" Bobby interjected, drawing them back onto what was important. He pushed up from his chair and took his empty coffee mug over to the sink. "There's only so much research that can be done here and you boys are starting to drive me crazy, getting in my way while I do it. I got a call about a case that I thought you should go check out. Might be connected to our Horsemen, might not. Either way, it'll get you outta my house for a while."

"A case?" That had Dean perking up. Really, it had Sam perking up as well. They'd been cooped up here a while and that just wasn't their style. They needed to be doing things. Bobby was right, there was only so much research that could be done here, and the group of them all trapped in one place trying to research wasn't the best way to go about it. Sam and Dean always did better out on the road. Then they could at least hunt and help people while they played the waiting game on finding the Horsemen.

The idea of a case sounded great. But, as Sam followed Bobby into the living room, he cast a glance over at their extra companion and wondered how exactly this was going to work out. Gabriel had left Spencer in their care - in my care, his brain reminded him, thinking back to the way that Gabriel had looked at him when he'd spoken of trusting them with Spencer – and taking Spencer out on a case wasn't exactly the safest thing in the world. They couldn't just leave him here, though. Something told Sam the fledgling wouldn't exactly go for that plan.

Sam wasn't the only one that was surprised when Dean didn't even put in a token protest about Spencer coming with them. In fact, he seemed almost eager about it, which had Spencer feeling just a bit cautious. Why on earth would Dean want him to come along? The young fledgling watched him with a furrow between his brows that showed just how strange his found this. Seeing that look, Dean snorted. "What? If we're gonna be working together on something like the apocalypse, don't you think it's a good idea to see if we can even manage working together on a simple hunt? It's the best way to figure out if we can work with each other without killing each other."

Underneath that Spencer heard the words that Dean wasn't saying. Working on a hunt would be a great start to building trust between them like they'd talked about before. They needed to be able to trust each other if they were all going to potentially go into battle together against the Horsemen, let alone against Lucifer and then whatever came after that. A hunt was a great way to start building the trust they'd need for that. When put in those terms, Spencer couldn't protest it.

At least, not until Dean said "But before we go I wanna go outside with you and see just how well you can handle yourself."

Oh, no. No, no, absolutely not. Spencer felt his eyes go wide and his body took an instinctive step back. "Excuse me?" There was just a hint of a squeak to his voice that he couldn't quite keep out. They wanted him to do what now, exactly? Spencer's eyes darted over to Castiel, who was in the living room with Bobby looking at a map of something or other, and then over to Sam, who was watching him with a calm understanding on his face. "No, no. I have no problems coming and helping with the research of a hunt, or with talking to people, but I don't, I mean I'm not a fighter. I can if I have to but I don't need to. And I really don't need to against you."

"Spencer, we're not trying to be jerks." Sam said. "I know you're not comfortable with this. But we just need to make sure that you're ready for what's coming at us. I get that fighting isn't something you usually do, but these aren't the usual circumstances."

"You don't understand." Spencer told them, looking from one to the other. He chewed on his lip and his hands were twisting together in front of him in a familiar, nervous gesture. "I just…I'm not graceful, okay? I'm just as likely to hurt myself as I am to hurt you. That's why I'm great at researching and all those other things." Things that didn't involve him getting beat up by someone like Dean Winchester.

"You're not gonna hurt me." Dean said confidently, almost sounding offended at the very idea. "Didn't you have to have training anyways to be an agent?"

"They had to make exceptions on most physical things just to allow me into the field."

Dean's eyebrows shot up at that. "Great. You're only making me want to do this more and more, Doc."

That was how the three of them ended up outside together and Spencer found himself holding a gun in his hand and facing a freaking line of cans set on the side of a truck bed. This, at least, he could do somewhat. He wasn't the best shot but he'd improved over the years. Aaron had made sure to train him after that last time that he hadn't passed his gun qualification and Spencer drew on those lessons now as he set his body into the stance that his boss had drilled into him. In his head he heard Aaron's voice – 'Front sight, trigger press, follow through. You do those three things, you'll hit your target every time.'

All right, Spencer thought to himself, lifting his gun in his hands. Front sight, trigger press, follow through. Front sight, trigger press, follow through. He drew in one last breath to steady himself and then took aim and fired.

When he was done, he stood there and stared, just as stunned as the two men beside him. He'd done it. He'd hit the cans. No, correction – he'd hit every can. Perfectly.

He stared as Dean held up can after can and showed a perfect hole, dead center on each one.

The shocks just kept coming. Spencer was tried out on every gun they had and on each one, including the shotgun, he tested perfect. His aim had never been like this before.

"It must have something to do with you becoming a bit more angel." Sam suggested, watching Spencer's face and most likely seeing his open shock there. "I don't think I've ever seen an angel miss any kind of shot they take, with anything. Your grace enhances you in a lot of ways. It make sense that it would enhance your senses, which in turn would make your ability to aim a whole lot better. You already had the mechanics of shooting down before. This just, improved it."

"I guess." Spencer said slowly. It was worth thinking about, at least.

"Yeah, well, let's see how you do in a little hand to hand." Dean called out as he tossed down another can. His grin was wide when he strolled up to Spencer and took the gun from him, passing it to Sam. "C'mon, Poindexter. Let's see what you got."

This was the part that Spencer had been looking forward to the very least of all. "Dean," he tried to protest, voice just a bit weak, but the hunter was already shaking his head before Spencer could even get out anymore words. "Uh-uh, kid. You wanna come with us…" Stopping in front of him, Dean slipped into a defensive pose and grinned at him, "…then you gotta prove you got what it takes. So c'mon, let's do this."

"You look far too pleased at the idea of hitting me." Spencer felt the need to point out. Still, he shifted his own stance. This was going to suck, and it was going to hurt.

The hunter grinned even more. Then, with barely a warning, he moved.

For the first few blows Spencer fought hard to dodge out of the way. Derek had once told him that there was no shame in dodging a blow in a fight. "You're scrawny, kid." He'd told Spencer, grinning when it had earned him a protest. "Hey! I'm not insulting you. You're small, that's just the way it is. That means you aren't gonna be able to throw a punch like me, or hit like Hotch. You gotta learn to use what you have. You're small and you're fast. That means you dodge out of the way and use your brain. Make your hits count."

That's what he tried to do now. He dodged out of the way of the hits that Dean threw and tried to wait for his opening or for something else to happen. It came a lot quicker than he'd thought it would and in a way that none of them had expected – not even Spencer.

Spencer saw Dean's fist flying at him and instinct took over. He took a step to the right and twisted his body in a way he hadn't even known he knew how to do, neatly dodging the blow with a move much smoother than any he'd showed so far. It was easy to see that he and Dean were both surprised. However, Dean recovered quicker and followed it up with another blow. This one actually managed to connect. When it did, they all got their second surprise of the night. The force of Dean's fist slammed into Spencer's shoulder – and Spencer didn't move. The blow didn't even make him stumble back.

It did, however, have Dean quickly yanking his hand back in and cursing, long and loud.

The sound that Dean's fist had made as it connected with Spencer's shoulder was an unmistakable one. Spencer would think in a moment about how the hell Dean had managed to break his fingers by punching Spencer in the freaking shoulder, but in that second all he felt was guilt and a tiny bit of panic. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Spencer reached out, running solely on instinct once more, an instinct that had yet to steer him wrong, and he curled his hands carefully around Dean's hand. Before he could think about what he was doing he sent a cooling wave of grace over the broken bones and felt them knit back together.

"Damn." Sam murmured as he walked up to join them where they'd been fighting only moments ago. His eyes were locked on Dean's hand, which was back to normal when the hunter drew it free from Sam's grip. Seeing no bruising, no broken bones to go with the crunch they'd all heard, he let out a whistle and looked up at Spencer. "Apparently you're more angelic than we realized."

"I'm so sorry." Spencer repeated. He was staring at Dean's hand and he knew his guilt was written all over his face.

Dean shook his hand out and flexed his fingers as if testing them. Then, with a half grin that was part amused and part wry, he reached that hand out and clapped Spencer on the shoulder – gently. "It's no problem, Doc. Better we know. Now, let's go get our shit together so we can go. I'm ready to hit the road."

Before they could get too far away, Spencer concentrated and focused his grace like Gabriel had been teaching him, and then he lifted a hand and snapped. The boys looked back at the sound of his snap and found him standing there with three bags beside him. Two of them the boys recognized as theirs. At their surprised looks, Spencer smiled shyly. "I figured it was the least I could do."

"Oh that's definitely gonna come in handy." Dean said with a grin.