One minute Sam is alone, stripping out of his clothes to grab a shower while he fumes about how much he dislikes his brother and the next there is a woman standing in front of him. A very short, very angry, very pregnant woman.
"This," she says, before Sam has a chance to react. "Is all your fault."
He wants his gun, but it's back on the table where he left it when he started stripping, and when he reaches for the knife the woman sends it to the other side of the room where it sticks out of the wall, parallel to the floor. She hasn't moved an inch besides to roll her eyes, and Sam takes a cautious step away from her.
"Really, Sammy?" the woman snorts, shaking her head. She's still glaring though, even if there is a bit of an amused smirk on her face. "First you decide we're going to do it in the backseat of your brother's car, then you try and stab me. You're going to be a terrible father, you know that?" She pats her belly for emphasis.
Sam just stares. "What?" He asks, blinking in slow confusion. If he stops to think about it, there is something vaguely familiar about the woman in front of him, but he doesn't know why or what. "Wait – are you saying that it's mine?" He blanches at the thought.
"Duh," she says, rolling her eyes again. "I don't exactly go around sleeping with every ginormous freak of nature I've ever met, ya know."
"Who the fuck are you?" Sam demands. He's still backing up, and when he feels the table press against the back of his thighs, he shifts his fingers behind him, skimming the surface for the gun he left there not five minutes ago.
"The mother of your child," the woman says, seriously. She pauses and then winks at Sam. "You can call me Gabriel, though."
"Gabriel is a boys' name," Sam says when his fingers close around the cool metal of the gun. It only takes a second to lift, aim and fire, but before he can pull the trigger the gun explodes out into a colorful bouquet of gerbera daisies. "What the fuck are you?"
"I already told you," the woman – Gabriel - replies, rolling her eyes yet again. "You think after all the trouble you get into you would learn to listen once in a while. You are worse than your brother."
Sam suddenly finds himself in a chair, practically stuck to it, not incapable of moving but he can't rise from it. "What do you want from me?"
"I'll show you," Gabriel says, and she moves across the room quickly for someone who looks ready to give birth at a moment's notice. She's in front of Sam in the blink of an eye, and her small palm presses against Sam's cheek, thumb swiping at his skin slowly, gently.
The first thing Sam feels is an explosion of warm light, spreading from where Gabriel's skin is pressed against his own. It spreads quickly, slow ripples that escalate into a tidal wave of emotions, of memories, of hopes and fears and thoughts and dreams. Everything Gabriel is telling him, showing him, is amazing. It's scary and open and honest and even though the flash of what he is getting is so much, so intense, he knows she's hiding something from him.
When the flashes trickle to a stop, Sam is shown the night he slept with Gabriel and it's weird, feeling it from her point of view, and even that fades to a memory of a ruined shirt and there's a flash of a Jack Russell and Sam is left with the feeling of a dog that isn't there being curled up on his toes. Even that fades, though, and Sam can't stop the strangled sound from passing through his lips.
"Do you understand, now?" Gabriel asks, pushing away from Sam and folding her arms over her chest. She still looks cocky and self-satisfied, but something is different now, Sam can practically feel her fear and nervousness.
'No,' Sam wants to say, and he shakes his head. "You're an angel," he breathes, and Gabriel nods cautiously. "You're an Archangel. You're the Archangel Gabriel."
"Didn't we just establish that?" Gabriel asks, quirking an eyebrow in amusement. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, Sammysaurusrex."
"Don't call me that," Sam says, but he's too stunned to be annoyed, to scowl. Something is bothering Sam about the flood of memories and feelings, and he tugs at it, trying to clear his mind and to understand it better. "You've been stalking me for months. Why?"
"I don't know if you're ready for that, kiddo," Gabriel replies, and her hands drop from over her chest to slip into her pockets. "I just kind of whammied your brain and you want to know why I've been following you around? You haven't even had the 'I'm going to be a daddy' freak out yet."
"I'm a hunter," Sam points out, "I always want to know what's stalking me."
Gabriel turns her back to Sam then, and he can practically hear the cogs turning in her head as she thinks, debates. "It's really too soon for us to be having this conversation," Gabriel eventually decides, and then she faces Sam and grins at him. "There are things that need to happen first, and if I step in, well, the world is going to take a turn no one is expecting. You need to play your roles. I should be leaving."
"Wait, so you're just going to leave me here?" He asks, furrowing his brow. "What's the point of showing up in the first place, then? You drop this baby bombshell on me, then the Archangel of the Lord stalker one and now – what? You're just going to take off?"
"One day you'll learn that I don't play by the rules," Gabriel says, grinning wider. "Life is no fun that way. I just thought I'd stop by and say 'hi', fuck with Castiel's brain a little. I left enough of my Grace on you to have him howling for weeks." There's a wink then, and it makes Sam flush. "Oh, and if you know what's good for you? Don't tell your brother about the stuff I showed you."
Sam isn't sure if he's just been threatened or not, but before he can decide Gabriel is gone with a rustle of wings, leaving Sam alone. He sits in the chair for a good few minutes just staring at where the Archangel used to be before shaking his head and getting up to shower. His life was weird and unnecessarily complicated but having an Archangel stalker could be helpful in preventing the apocalypse, if he could convince her to stick around.
When Sam tells Dean what happened, his brother flips. There is a lot of yelling between the two of them. Dean yells for Sam being stupid, for letting a strange pregnant angel woman into their room (like Sam had a choice) and for having sex in the Impala (months ago) and Sam yells at his brother for being an untrustworthy ass.
Castiel is eventually called in and he really does nearly die from shock when he sees Sam. The story starts over and Castiel watches him with hawk like eyes, scrutinizing Sam's every movement, and when Sam finishes, Castiel declares he's going to follow the trail. He too leaves with a flutter of wings, then it's just Sam and Dean.
"So," Dean says eventually. "You got an angel pregnant while cheating on your demon girlfriend. Classy."
"Shut the fuck up," Sam groans.
That night, when Sam is staring up at the ceiling debating calling Ruby, he realizes something Gabriel had said. She was pregnant with Sam's child. Sam knew it was his, had seen it in the memories. He was going to be a father to some half angel half human hybrid and it's his.
Sam was going to be a father but Gabriel had taken off without leaving any sort of contact information at all. Yeah, it was hinted she'd be back in his life eventually, but there was no guarantee. He might never meet his own child. After everything thing else that has happened, Sam can't bring himself to work up anger and disappointment.
He's too exhausted to feel anything right now.
When Sam sleeps he dreams about Gabriel and a little girl. She's tiny, impossibly small when Sam cradles her in his hands, but she's beautiful when she's smile and it warms Sam, from his heart to his toes.
He starts seeing Ruby more and more because he can't bear the thought that he might have a child out there and he'll never get to know her. Ruby understands, she calms him and soothes him, takes care of him and his need. She doesn't care he cheated on her because they're not together. She doesn't care about anything other than making sure Sam is okay.
It hurts more than it should when she betrays him. Dean has been right all along, and that hurts almost as badly. Sam is a monster. Sam set Lucifer free. Without Ruby to ease him to sleep though, Sam dreams of a little girl with amber eyes and he wants to die.
Castiel tells him about a spike of Grace that had all of the angels surging to one location, but by the time they tracked it, it was gone. He gives Sam a look then, like he's expecting something, but Sam has nothing to say. Castiel leaves him. He and Sam were never close so he can't bring himself to care.
The dreams are more intense after that, more real. It's a constant face in his mind now, the same amber eyes and a tiny smile. He has to drink himself to oblivion if he wants to hide from them, but he hates to do it. He wakes up with cotton mouth and headaches from Hell.
Splitting from Dean helps for a little bit, but it's a short while before he's back with his brother. When his days are spent with fear of the end of the world, his nights are spent with the fear of a little girl, dependent on him to make things right. Some nights, Lucifer visits him, and Sam almost welcomes it.
And despite it being the end of the world, things are almost normal. They still hunt things, they still save people, and there is always a demon ready to stab them in the back. It's strange how this has become routine, comfortable even, but Sam doesn't want to dwell on it.
He's kind of glad he doesn't know his daughter, he decides – because he knows without a shadow of a doubt it's a little girl, it has to be – because this is not the life, the world, he would want her to live in. He doesn't want her to know that this is all his fault. His only hope, the only thing he can bring himself to pray for, is that Gabriel is keeping her safe.
One minute Sam is standing in a spaceship, trying to explain why Reavers are a very bad thing and the next he's alone in a room in a place he doesn't recognize. He doesn't watch a lot of TV, not like he used to, anyways, but he's never been alone before –not in TV Land, anyways – and he's suddenly scared. His palms are sweating and his heart is jackhammering and when he shouts, no one answers.
At least, no one Sam wants to see does. Suddenly before him is the Trickster, all bright eyes and cocky grin and there is something about him, something so eerily familiar that it's driving Sam crazy. He's looking at Sam like he can read Sam's mind and that Sam should know why he's so familiar.
"Long time no see, kiddo," the Trickster grins, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. "You should get a haircut. You're starting to look like Cousin Itt. Ooh, wouldn't that be an interesting place to send you next? Dean can be Lurch and Castiel can be Thing! "
"Where are they?" Sam demands, then, "What do you want from me?"
"Dean and Castiel are fine," the Trickster says, rolling his eyes at Sam. "They're playing together in a skin flick right now. And when I say playing together, I mean, playing their roles together." He winks and Sam flushes, but there's something oddly familiar about his word choice, something nagging at Sam. "As for what I want from you? What I've always wanted."
The look the Trickster gives Sam is dark and hungry. He prowls across the room towards Sam, and tugs the Hunter down by the front of his shirt until he can push their lips together in a heated kiss. Sam jerks back immediately, but the room he was in is suddenly replaced by the Impala and it's not the Trickster in front of him anymore it's Gabriel and –
"Oh my God," Sam gasps, and he lurches away from the female trying to crawl into his lap. "You!"
"I can't believe you didn't even recognize me!" Gabriel snaps, and she shifts back to being male, to being the Trickster, and Sam's brain just exploded a little bit. "I look the same!"
"You killed my brother," Sam says, his voice trembling. He can feel the rage bubbling up just beneath the surface of his skin, pumping through his veins and making his cheeks flush. "You killed my brother time after time and then you slept with me!"
"I was trying to teach you a lesson!" Gabriel snaps, scowling, but he stops trying to clamber onto Sam's lap. "If you had just listened to me, none of this would have happened! Besides, I'm making it up to him. He's got his hand down Castiel's pants as we speak – "
Sam can't help it, he winces.
Gabriel huffs a breath of laughter, but he calms down, resting one hand on Sam's knee gently. "Relax, Sam, I'm not going to hurt you," he says, "I'm never going to hurt you."
There's something about the way Gabriel says it that make's Sam's insides clench, "You said that before. Or, something similar. Why am I so special?"
For a minute, Gabriel just watches Sam, his expression contemplative. Then he leans forward (Sam winces, he can't help it, and even though Gabriel's expression tightens, the Archangel doesn't say anything) and presses his palm against Sam's face, much like he had the last time they met.
Sam is expecting the rush of warmth and emotions that cascade from the touch, but he isn't prepared for the feeling of wantyouneedyoumineallminedon' that washes over Sam. It's so sudden and so overpowering Sam can't help but gasp as the air is practically punched out of his lungs.
When Gabriel pulls back, it's too sudden, and Sam's trembling and nearly cries out at the loss. "So you see, I never really had a choice. I knew from the beginning."
"You're saying we're soul mates," Sam asks, and Gabriel looks away, biting at his lower lip and shrugs. Sam doesn't think, just grabs the front of the Archangel's jacket and tugs him into his lap. It's an awkward angle, but Gabriel is so small compared to him, and he's a perfect fit against Sam's body.
Sam has never been attracted to boys, not really, and he doesn't know if he can be to Gabriel but he can't let go of him now. The overpowering feeling of Gabriel's Grace is smothering Sam with his undying love and Sam never wants to lose that feeling, even though he doesn't deserve it. He's replacing one drug with another but he doesn't even care. He can't care.
The only thing left for Sam to do is ask, "where is she, Gabriel?" and Gabriel's face lights up like it's Christmas, like he never expected Sam to remember or care and Sam can't help but think that yeah, he can fall in love with this face.