"Where the hell could he have gone?" Dean shouted into the phone. He was parked in the Impala on the edge of the road several miles away from the bunker.

On the other end, Sam, wincing at the noise, tried to respond calmly. "I've no idea, but I'm sure that he can't have gone too far. He doesn't have his wings anymore, so he had to have walked. If we have to, we can call Cas, and I'm sure he could find Gabriel, but he's busy." Sam had stayed behind at the bunker in case Gabriel came back. Neither of them thought that was very likely, but it was better to be safe.

Gabriel had left the bunker right after saying his remark about nothing being real. Sam and Dean had tried to go after him but even in the light of day Gabriel had disappeared. And though he couldn't have literally disappeared because he didn't have wings, he was still very good at hiding.

Gabriel wasn't hiding. He was walking. Staying just out of sight, sure, but not hiding. Certainly not hiding from anyone in particular. Why couldn't he have kept his wings in this dream? It was very irritating. He could be pulled back to Hell at any second, and he preferred not wasting his time with something as pointless at walking. He had never really gotten the hang of it. As long as he had lived on Earth, he never really had to walk to get from Point A to Point B.

Not that he had a Point B in mind right now. Somewhere he could rest, maybe. He'd been in this dream for almost a day now. This was confusing; he obviously wasn't going to be playing the game he was supposed to, so why let him stay? Usually his torturers were more intelligent than that.

He couldn't think clearly. Was that normal for humans? It wasn't very comfortable. Suddenly, Gabriel was very, very tired. How long did humans usually go without sleep? Was it a couple days? He wished he had paid more attention. This may all have been fake, but it still felt real. And the heat radiating off of the black road felt all too real. His head hurt. Everything was blurry. This probably wasn't normal.

All of a sudden, the ground looked really, really nice. And that's when it hit him.

Or did he hit it? He couldn't exactly tell.

After that, he didn't care. Darkness was quite welcome to come and stay awhile. And it did.

After Sam hung up, Dean decided that it really was time to call Cas. He didn't want to think about what would happen if Cas popped in and they had lost Gabriel. Still sitting in the Impala, Dean closed his eyes. Cas, Gabriel's gone. We don't know where he went. We need help.

"I'm here, Dean."

Dean looked to the passenger's seat quickly. Sure enough, there was their friendly trench-coated angel. "Can you find him?"

"I can try. I'll meet you and Sam back at the Men of Letters' bunker." And he was gone again.

Castiel found Gabriel easy enough. What he found concerned him, though. The ex-archangel was curled up in the grass at the side of a road several miles from the bunker. He was deeply unconscious, and Castiel wasn't sure, but he believed that he was running a very high fever. Gabriel didn't stir as Cas knelt down, lifted him halfway off of the ground, and cradled him in his arms. "Hold on, Gabriel," Castiel murmured.

The next instant, they were in the bunker. "Help!" Cas called, hoping that at least one of the brothers was there. Sam came running.

"Cas! What happened, is he okay?"

"I don't know, Sam. He's very warm." Cas looked down at the unconscious Gabriel. "I am worried. He didn't respond at all to my healing."

Sam was taken aback. "Whoa. That isn't good. What do we do?"

Cas looked around. "Where is Dean?"

"He was out looking for Gabriel! I should call him."

"No, he knows that I'm here. He was the one who called me. I told him that I would find Gabriel and be here. Sam, we need to get him cooler."

"Right!"