AN: I know it's been a minute. Life's been crazy!

Am I allowed to point out that my Detroit Lions are one win away from going to the Super Bowl? Holy cannoli...they have literally never done this before!

Anyway, more story, some new information and a face-to-face encounter.

Janice had to do a LOT of work to make this flow better! I'm lucky to have her.

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Sam was wearing his jeans and toweling off his hair before putting on his shirt so he didn't get it all wet when the walls began to shake. His first thought was earthquake – he'd only actually felt two his entire time at Stanford, but he was well-versed in what to do. He threw open the bathroom door to tell Dean to get his ass inside – there was no sturdy furniture a full-grown Winchester could fit underneath – when it occurred to him that the shaking wasn't quite right for an earthquake. The ground wasn't actually moving, just the walls. Specifically, the back wall.

"What –" Dean started, only to jump out of the way when the TV fell off the dresser that served as its stand. It was an old cathode ray tube type, so it made an impressive crash. "...the hell?" Dean finished as if he hadn't nearly had his feet crushed.

"I think something's trying to get in," Sam guessed, receiving one of Dean's patented, "Well, duh" looks in return. As if the words had inspired a new approach, the shaking turned to loud banging, moving back and forth along the back wall of their room. Sam pulled on his shirt, and ran for his boots, wanting to be ready if whatever it was got inside. The plaster near one corner of the room actually cracked. Dean tossed Sam his Taurus and he caught it automatically in the middle of his rush. And then...it stopped.

The sudden silence was almost deafening. Sam pulled on socks and stuffed his feet in his boots and Dean stood motionless, facing the abused wall with his own gun in one hand and an angel blade in the other. When his boots were on, Sam grabbed the Kurdish blade and mirrored Dean's position.

There were sirens outside but neither the banging nor the shaking started up again.

"Think it's gone?" Sam finally asked. "Think it's Hayes' ghost?" They had taken the precaution of lining the entire perimeter of the room with salt, as they occasionally did when they were pretty sure they were facing a ghost or demon, which could account for why the supernatural assault on the room had failed.

"Seems like it's gone," Dean admitted cautiously, though he didn't put down his weapons. "And if it's a ghost, it's got a helluva lot of mojo."

Sam shook his head. He didn't know any more than Dean did. The sirens were growing closer. "We better get moving if we want a look around before the cops get here."

In less than a minute, they were fully dressed and armed and outside. As Sam rounded the corner of the building (in the lead for once), he heard someone call out to Dean as "Agent Schon." With a silent apology to his brother, he continued on. He wanted to see what he could see before civilians started tromping around.

The first thing he noticed was that the Little Alpine was definitely worse for the wear, the entire building slightly off-kilter. Second, he saw that all of the damage originated from one area. There were no windows facing the alley in the rather gloomy motel, so, with growing unease, Sam mentally estimated how far from the corner he was. He wasn't the least bit surprised that the worst of the damage seemed to be right around where he calculated their room would be. In fact, it looked like a massive fist had repeatedly struck the wall, cracking it all way from foundation to roof. It was actually a very good thing there wasn't a window, because it would have shattered under the assault.

Sam stepped forward, the iron knife he had also grabbed held at the ready since it wasn't a great idea to fire a gun with a lot of police officers around even if they did think you were an FBI agent. Debris crunched under his boots as he walked up to one point of impact, wondering if they were being pursued by the Incredible Hulk, a la the poor hothead in Gabriel's trickster TV world.

With no warning, Sam had an impression of pressure, like his ears were about to pop. All too familiar with the feeling of something attempting to possess him, he spun to look for the culprit and started to recite, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus –" all while looking for the telltale black smoke.

Sam broke off when something very different from the typical "smoke snake" (as Dean called it) materialized.

It looked like a preschooler's drawing of a person – recognizable as such but completely out of proportion. For one thing, its chin was level with the gutter around the roof, putting it at maybe 15 feet in height. Its legs were elephantine, big enough around Sam would have a hard time encircling one with his arms. The torso was significantly narrower, though the shoulders jutted out to support heavy arms with layers and layers of muscle. Its head emerged directly from the body around about twice the width it should be. Its features were strange as well, its mouth nearly as broad as its semicircle of a head, nose merely nostril slits, and eyes with no obvious lids. The skin Sam could see had a light covering of wiry-looking hair not unlike a person's, and the hair on its head was long and thick and black. It was clad in shoes made of hide and a rough tunic with ripped holes for the head and arms.

One of its legs was halfway inside a dumpster that stood in the alley. So, a ghost after all. Just … the ghost of what? But how had it damaged the wall? Sure ghosts could move things around and had certainly flung them into innumerable walls and furniture over the years, but this level of power was something way beyond the norm. It was almost as if the apparition was able to make itself corporeal with enough strength to batter walls. Sam tightened his grip on the iron knife.

"I am no demon," it rumbled, the voice not matching the movements of that long, flat mouth. Witchcraft, Sam thought. A spell to be understood, maybe. "Though I use their tricks." The thing bared large, blunt teeth. "You broke the summoning circle and you wear a strong sigil. I thought I might find a worthy opponent, but you are as puny as the rest."

"What...who are you?" Sam asked. Hey, if it was going to give him information, he'd be happy to chat with it for as long as it wanted. It would be hard to find bones to burn if they didn't even know what they were looking for.

The giant began to slowly circle, and Sam matched the movement to keep their distance the same, though he was hindered by his physical form while the other thing seemed to waver between corporeal and incorporeal and simply moved through obstacles – except for the wall at the back of the Winchesters' room. Sam noted that. Ghost or not, this guy seemed to be affected by their salt lines.

"You would call me Humbaba." The figure announced proudly. "And I have learned much since I was summoned." He flexed his massive hands.

"Where did you come from? What do you want?" Sam prodded, still maintaining the distance between them. "And, while you're at it, who summoned you?"

"You humans are so tiny, yet you build so much! You are like fleas – you spread everywhere and are hard to eliminate." Humbaba ignored the questions and showed his teeth again in a twisted version of a smile. "I thought you were worthless, but I have learned that you have one great power. Your belief can power much. So much power." He stopped walking and narrowed his gaze.

Sam had mentally calculated how much the giant's size would slow him when he decided on the distance he wanted between them and didn't realize how wrong he was until there was a blur of movement and he found himself being lifted by a giant hand around his neck. Perhaps Humbaba wasn't hindered by his weight because he wasn't entirely substantial, or perhaps there was some supernatural quality that allowed him to defy physics, or some unseen physical adaptations. But the how didn't really matter as much as Sam's sudden predicament.

He'd buried the iron knife in the now-solid arm on instinct, but then had to use both hands to clutch at the one holding him or his entire weight would be hanging from his head and neck. The stab merely prompted a grunt from Humbaba, who pulled the knife out with his other hand, then shoved Sam against the wall hard enough that his vision grayed for a second. His feet were dangling five or six feet above the ground. The hand around his neck wasn't tightening any further, but it was restricting his breathing enough to make the sound of his blood rushing loud in his ears and what breath he could manage to draw in wheeze in his throat. Sam tried to speak and couldn't.

Humbaba leaned in close and squinted at Sam. "I see you now," he said. Instead of ghostly, he was now all too solid. "My old enemy." He snarled like an enraged pit bull. Humbaba drew a finger through his own blood which dripped from the place Sam had stabbed him. He touched Sam's forehead with the befouled finger and said a single syllable, something like ta.

Sam heard the words, but they didn't really penetrate. He didn't know what the giant meant, and besides, he was quite distracted fighting for air. He lifted his chin as much as he could in the iron grip and tried to say something, but all he could get out was an abortive wheeze. Despite his predicament, he felt the tendrils of something sink into him. Spell, he thought vaguely.

"Now you are truly helpless. Your precious humans dared bring me here and now they will help me bring my brothers who yet live back to this plane. We will conquer this world as we did before." Sam's vision was tunneling now. No matter how he dug in his nails and pulled on Humbaba's fingers, he couldn't budge him an inch. His legs were starting to twitch as his brain stem went into panic mode. As if from a great distance, he saw Humbaba lean even closer, growing more and more solid.

He wasn't finished with his soliloquy. "Tomorrow we return to our rightful place and rid the world of our insignificant and unworthy successors."

Sam's hands were slipping, strength draining from him. With one last effort, he pulled the Kurdish demon knife from his pocket and swung, slashing Humbaba's face mostly by luck.

The ground crashed up to meet Sam (or more likely he fell onto it), and he spent a few eternities trying to draw enough air into his aching lungs. He heard Humbaba say something – you're a flea with a powerful bite, he thought – then nothing but his own gasping. He knew without looking that the ghost/giant/demon was gone.

Still not really able to see, Sam got his hands underneath him and got onto his knees. He felt around for his knives, still wheezing. Even as he struggled to get his breath back and assess his condition (does my throat feel swollen or just bruised? Did I break anything in the fall?), he was also trying to remember exactly what the monster had told him and trying to discern what the spell had done to him.

"Sam!"

Sam held up a hand to reassure Dean, but of course it didn't work. He heard running steps then Dean was on his knees right next to him and lifting his chin to look in his face.

"I'm fine," Sam grit out. Talking felt like drinking sand, but his voice didn't sound too bad. He used Dean's shoulder to help leverage himself to his feet.

Dean didn't stop him, but he quickly stood up too, staying right in Sam's face. "What happened?" he asked too quietly for the cops Sam now saw were just around the corner of the building to hear. Keeping an eye on their surroundings, Dean added, "You have blood on your forehead."

"It's not my blood. I'm okay – really. I'll tell you about it when we're alone," Sam assured Dean under his breath. Louder, he called, "I just startled a junkie and he knocked me down running away. I'm fine and I'm sure he didn't do this." He waved at the savaged wall doing his level best to look steady on his feet. He coughed a few times and winced, quickly composing his face. It was embarrassing enough that they thought a trained federal agent had gotten dumped on his ass by some druggie. It would be much worse if they knew how beat up he really was. (Not to mention it would probably send Dean into panic mode.)

Dean got it without Sam having to say a word and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him to offer support without seeming to offer it. Sam knew he'd have to pay the piper later when Dean would demand to know every detail of what had happened. And Sam might find himself benched again. He pushed aside those concerns for the moment and gave the cops a short (and entirely specious) explanation for him being on the ground with dirty knees. Danielle cast him several worried looks, but the rest of them seemed to think it was kind of humorous.

Then they all had to talk about what had happened – and nobody had any idea. The damage inflicted would have required the force of a car crash or a wrecking ball or something similar, but there simply wasn't room for anything like that in the alley. Nor was there damage on the building that bounded it on the other side.

They talked in circles for a little while as Sam grew sorer and Dean grew impatient, and finally they decided that the most important thing to do was to get everyone safely moved out of the motel until it could be evaluated for structural integrity.

"We need to get to our things," Dean said then. "We only have a limited amount of time to try to solve our case, and as far as I can tell, this incident has nothing to do with it." It was a good line, Sam thought. By this point, he was in desperate need of some ibuprofen for his aching head and the clock was ticking more than the cops, or even Dean, knew. Humbaba had indicated that they only had one day to figure out how to stop him before something big happened.

Once they'd extricated themselves and loaded up their things and all the stuff they'd liberated from Hayes' house and moved it all into a new room in a totally different motel, Sam felt like throwing up or sleeping for a week. Or both. Dean handed him the bottle of good painkillers, but he shook his head – and immediately wished he hadn't. "I have to stay alert. We've got a lot to figure out," Sam demurred. He swallowed a couple generic ibuprofen and held the bag of ice he'd coaxed from the ancient ice machine against the lump on the back of his head. He sat on his bed and leaned against the headboard with the ice propped between his head and the wall.

Of course, that made Dean really want to check him over. Sam didn't have the energy to fight him on it, so he simply closed his eyes and told Dean what had happened while the latter poked and prodded.

"I don't care if he's a demon or what – he's going down. And you need more ice to put on your neck before it swells," Dean decided after seeing the deep purple bruises that had formed in a circle that almost encompassed Sam's neck, his visage dark from his with anger at whatever had dared to hurt his brother like that. He went and got more, but Sam just set it aside for the moment. He didn't have time to lie down with ice everywhere he hurt. Hell, that old ice machine probably couldn't make enough ice for that.

"He didn't choke me, really," Sam protested. "Just held me up by my neck."

"Just," Dean parroted, scoffing. He picked the ice back up and put it against the growing ring of bruises, lifting Sam's hand to hold it in place.

Sam ignored him. "And then he said some really strange stuff. He called me his old enemy and said he was going to use human belief to get himself and his brothers fully to 'this plane' so they could conquer the world again." He closed his eyes again and rubbed his forehead, trying to remember everything. "He didn't react to the iron knife, but he didn't like the demon killing one very well. Though he didn't react to it like a demon, either."

"Could really use some angelic input on this case," Dean said.

Sam opened his eyes. "Huh? Wait, yeah, we should call Cas if you don't think he'd mind. I know he's basically human now, but he might have heard of something like this. After all, it must be something very, very old, because Humbaba implied he and his kind were predecessors to humanity."

Dean was giving Sam a very confused look. "Um. Yes. Cas," he said as if he hadn't just suggested asking their friend.

"Yeah, unless you have another angel on speed dial," Sam teased lightly.

Dean shook his head with an expression Sam couldn't interpret. "Yeah. No. I'll call him. Wait, did you say Humbaba?"

"Yeah, he said to call him that," Sam didn't recognize the name, but it seemed Dean might have. He couldn't quite figure out what Dean was thinking. He was acting out of sorts, like Sam had pulled something completely unexpected, which didn't make any sense at all. "Does that mean something to you?"

Sam could see when Dean pulled his attention fully on their conversation instead of whatever was throwing him off. "I literally just read that name, or something really close to it. In, uh, The Epic of Gargamel."

Now it was Sam who was blinking in confusion. "Humbaba is a smurf?"

"No. Gildylocks. Gildymesh. Uh…"

Understanding dawned. "The Epic of Gilgamesh?" Sam asked, not even trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Oh! Humbaba was the giant of the cedar forest, right? Or ogre or something?" Sam tried to remember the stories he'd read way back in high school, but the thing he remembered the most was that Gilgamesh's sidekick always got screwed over. Sam's look went from amused to something close to incredulous.

"When the hell were you reading The Epic of Gilgamesh" anyway?" he asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

Dean shrugged broadly. "I think I read something about giants in Hayes' stuff, so I was trying to look them up when Hum-baby started punching our wall."

"Well, if he's this dangerous when he's not completely corporeal, we really need to stop him from completing his spell or ritual or whatever to be 'fully on this plane' and have his brothers here too," Sam concluded.

"You up for it?" Dean asked in a voice that made him sound angry though Sam knew he was actually just worried. "Cuz you kinda got the shit beat out of you." His lips pulled taut and tipped down at the corners.

The back of Sam's head and his entire throat hurt like a bastard and his knees ached from crashing into the ground, but the dizziness was subsiding now that he was sitting down and none of his hurts would stop him from doing what he needed to do, so he nodded. "You couldn't have stopped him either, Dean," Sam reassured him, assuming Dean was pissed at himself for not having Sam's back. It was typical Dean to blame himself when Sam got hurt even if it wasn't his fault or he couldn't have done anything to prevent it.

"No, I guess I couldn't have stopped him," Dean said with emphasis Sam didn't understand. He almost felt like they were having two different conversations. Dean ran a hand over his hair and his expression changed to one of disgust. "And we gotta figure out what he did to you when he put his blood on your forehead. Maybe he's some kind of witch-demon-ghost-giant. A...witmon ghosant?"

Sam couldn't help but smile. "You're such a dork, Dean. As for the spell, that's low priority right now, since I can't tell if it even did anything and we don't have a lot of time to stop Humbaba. Besides, you know the fastest way to stop a spell…?"

"Kill the one who cast it," Dean answered with grim satisfaction. It didn't always work, but usually, especially with blood magic. And Dean was always up for killing witches.

"So...you wanna see what else you can find about Humbaba or look into Hayes' list of people from history?"

Dean sneered exaggeratedly making it clear he'd rather not have to do any research – though he was damn good at it. "The list," he said reluctantly. "I'm not reading any Babylonian or whatever."

Sam didn't bother to correct Dean about the Sumerian. Honestly, he wasn't really looking forward to it, either, since Sumerian is a language isolate, meaning that there are no extant languages related to it, so there's very little contextual help to decipher it. "Go for it," he said, waving at the laptop and picking up one of the books of Hayes' he'd set aside. It was a nondescript thing, small and dark with no title, but Sam had glanced inside and seen cuneiform.

They worked in virtual silence for a while, Sam well able to tune out the sounds of Dean's fidgeting after many years of practice. He did notice that Dean cast more glances his way than usual but chalked it up to what was undoubtedly lurid bruising on his neck. Sam pushed back his renewed worries that something was seriously wrong with him even before this new attack and fears about why Humbaba had seemed to imply that Sam wasn't human. Your humans, he'd said. Or Sam thought he had. He hadn't been completely aware at that point as he was on the verge of passing out.

Luckily, the book and another just like it were a treasure trove of information and took Sam's full attention. They fell somewhere in the realm of "Sumerian mysticism for dummies" and actual grimoires. Soon, he was completely absorbed and jotting notes rapidly, aches and pains mostly forgotten. He could see pieces falling into place, his eyes darting from the book open in front of him to the one next to him to his notes and finally to his phone where he'd pulled up a picture of the summoning circle. "Holy shit," he whispered.

"I hope that means you got something, because I think I got bupkis," Dean complained.

"Tell me what you found," Sam asked absently, needing one more minute to organize his own findings.

"All these people were born on Friday the 13th, no surprise. And all of them died young and in weird ways or that were totally depraved. Or both. Like, Bob Dalton was a bank robber who died in a shoot-out when he was 23. Oh, and that Forrest dude was the first grand shithead leader of the KKK. Leopold whatever killed himself on the 10-year anniversary of his brother's suicide." Dean wrinkled his nose. "He thought his brother was speaking to him telling him what to do. And that, uh, Ken Sitzenberger was this Olympic diver who was pretty much the straightest arrow you could find. He dropped dead when he was 38 with head trauma nobody could explain." Dean held his hands out in kind of shrug. "I'm pretty sure Hayes thought they were cursed. I know you saw giant man, but could Hayes' ghost still be killing these people born on the 13th? I mean, maybe he summoned Hamburglar and was forced to hang himself, so now he's making others hang themselves."

"I think that's exactly what's happening," Sam answered. "It fits." He held up the picture of the circle. "This is a really really old way to summon something from a different, uh, world or plane or whatever you want to call it. Hayes seemed to think it meant summoning an angel. Anyway, he substituted some things in the circle, and he screwed it up."

"Figures," Dean muttered. Amateur witches and demonologists and the like had a very short life expectancy.

"As far as I can tell, he wanted protection," Sam pointed to one symbol, "via a hero," he moved his finger, "from the number 13. Or from the 13th year." He pointed to the largest symbol. "But we aren't quite positive what these mean. The one he thought was 'hero' could mean just a strong being or even a monster. The symbol for protection looks almost like the one for banished or banishment or rebel. And worst of all, this is the cuneiform '13.'" Sam zoomed in on the last one. "And here's the one for Humbaba." He rotated his wrist 90 degrees.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "So...he wanted an angel to protect him from 2013, and instead he got a witmon ghosant that hung him or made him hang himself and now decided he likes it here and wants to bring his buddies?"

Sam nodded. It wasn't a half bad summary. "If they really were on Earth before humans, I'm sure they were banished for a good reason. It's time to call Cas to see what he knows about it." Sam chewed the inside of his cheek.

"What else?" Dean asked, knowing his tells.

"Call Cas, will you?" Sam prevaricated. "Let me think for another minute."

Dean frowned. "Fine. You think while I call." He took his phone and left the room, which was weird. But then again, it was no weirder than the rest of their day.

Sam put down both melting ice packs and paced in thought while Dean was gone. He only then realized just how drained he was. His thoughts went in circles, trying to find a solution for the problem. Time was running out and he didn't know how they could defeat this enemy.

The opening of the door startled him. He hadn't realized how much time had passed.

"Sam?" asked Dean, concerned. He had a new bag of ice in his hand.

Sam managed a smile. "Thanks. What did Cas say?"

"Nothin' good. This Humbaba is probably one of a race of giants that were too full of themselves and challenged the angels, so they were eighty-sixed down below. They actually dug out Hell, made it as big as it is now. Sometimes they kill demons, sometimes demons kill them, but they're freaking powerful." He narrowed his eyes and looked at Sam intently. "Cas figures it would take a fully powered angel to fight one. He doesn't know of any real weaknesses they have, and he has no idea how many are left."

"Shit," Sam sighed. "Well, there's one more problem. The summoning shouldn't have worked. Hayes should have needed some powerful object to make it work at all, much less draw something as powerful as Humbaba, and we didn't find anything like that in his stuff. But, uh, Humbaba said something like belief is the most powerful thing humans have. I think Hayes' lifelong belief about the number 13 literally fueled the spell. Meaning we don't have a way to send Humbaba back."

"And…?"

"And I figure he's using Hayes' ghosts to do the killing – that's probably what the symbol he carved on his body does, makes the ghost follow his orders. Since all the Sumerian spells having to do with numbers talk about the power of exponents, I think now that there have been 13 deaths, maybe there have to be 13 squared to complete the ritual."

Dean dropped into a chair. "You're saying if we don't figure out how to stop this bastard before tomorrow, 169 more people are going to die, then he and his whole army of indestructible giants will come back to Earth with an eons-long grudge against humanity?"

Sam took the ice and put it against his throbbing neck. "Yup. To all of it."

"Shit."

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AN: Gargamel was a bad guy on a cartoon from the 1980's called The Smurfs.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a very, very old Sumerian story or myth. Gilgamesh was a great hero a la Hercules (though also a big jerk, IMO) and killed a giant or ogre named Huwawa or Humbaba.

It really is true that all of the people on JR Hayes' list were born on a Friday the 13th, as are the circumstances of their lives and deaths, as far as we know. For the record, my mom was born on a Friday the 13th (and, in a fun coincidence, so was Janice's mom!), so I certainly don't demonize anyone who was. Heck, Mom considered 13 to be good luck, since her parents were both also born on 13's.

Jenjoremy: I used to be good with numbers, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten a lot dumber as I've gotten older! With that said, I still like numbers. I like your theory! Danielle showed up in this chapter too, so she may well have some kind of involvement. But...to quote River Song from Doctor Who, "spoilers!"

sfaulkenberry: I think I was in college when Friends started (yes, I'm old), meaning I didn't even have a TV at the time. Then I just never started. It wasn't anything deliberate – I wasn't watching any TV at the time. Yup, Dean has an awful lot to carry. Of course, now Sam's a lot more likely to believe him about giants!

Colby's girl: The more I described Humbaba, the more creeped out I got! Thanks for your kind words, especially being so specific about what works. I take that very much to heart and am convinced it helps me be a better writer.

Natylop: It's great to have you reading! You were absolutely right about the tremors being caused by one of the 72. You are usually pretty spot-on with your guesses!

Timelady66: Thanks! Yeah, Dean is very good with witnesses. And I completely agree with coffee first – everybody in my family is aware of this. I definitely thought Gadreel was scared a few times and thought it plausible he'd be afraid here too. I haven't had time to read anything lately, but I'm looking forward to your story!

ncsupnatfan: Thank you! It's a lot of fun to make up my own lore. LOL.

scootersmom: Aw, thanks! That is such a sweet thing to say! I get so bogged down in details sometimes – it's great to know that you enjoy them.

Christine: She sure is! The details are so much fun for me. I was just told that I know a lot of weird crap (though nicer than that) and it's true.

stedan: Janice thought the shedim too! It's not the same thing, but a similar idea in some ways. You couldn't guess because I made them up. LOL.

muffinroo: I had to laugh at the comment no house in its right mind would kick Sam out! I mean, right? Sam is my soulmate in some ways with his enthusiasm about research and details. The building was all shook up...and now poor Sam took it on the chin (figuratively). But really, what else would you expect from me?

Shazza19: Not only is there a ton going on, Sam has no idea, so he's confused over and over again at the way Dean reacts to certain things. Also, Dean is so good with kids! And Friday the 13th is definitely the reason those particular victims were chosen.

Kathy: At least Dean has a solid reason to look into giants now! I can so easily picture a little Sam using his hands for emphasis as he talked. This chapter is from Sam's POV, but Dean seems to be trying to figure out why "Zeke" didn't step in to help at all. Poor Sam is just confused.

Spnlady: Right? I'm personally not very coherent until I'm 2 cups of coffee into my day!

Visionary: I'm so glad! The angel-banishing symbols certainly make sense. I love hearing your theories...though I cheated with this story by making up a monster, making it impossible to guess exactly what it was. In some ways, it's hard to write this time period because there's always the undercurrent of Gadreel being there, but for the same reason, it's very interesting.