By Their Grace

I'm Sorry

"There is no way." Gabriel whispers under his breath, thanks tothe music Dean was playing no one heard him but Castiel. The youngerangel looked at the archangel confused about his speaking and shookhis head as he heard him continue on. "There is no way I amapologizing."

"When the humans say to apologize, it's best to apologize."Castiel pointed out being quiet enough that the mortals couldn't hearthem over Dean singing. It made Castiel glad that his close boundwith the human who sang so much. He could sing and Castiel liked hissinging, but his singing was so very loud. Which luckily drowned outthe angels conversation.

Gabriel grumbled the entire way there as they got to a hotel and madeup the story of why four men were going into a hotel. It wasn'texactly easy to explain away a 'yeah well me and my brother need aroom, and the other two guys are angels and don't sleep at all, so,two queens please.' and there was no way he was going to pay for twohotel rooms. So instead had to get a two queens and let them thinkwhat they may.

Why people always thought he and Castiel were getting it on?! Grantedit was much better then when they thought he and Sam were doingsomething. That was just disturbing considering they were brothers.And with Castiel it...it wasn't so bad.

Of course he didn't want to think about that anymore and so got inand lead them to the room. Going in he goes in with his normal thingof emergency weapons, fake IDs to prove them to be police, FBI,contractors, whatever they needed to. He also grabbed the toiletries;toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, deodorant, shampoo and soap as wellas fresh clothing and the bag that held their dirty clothes that wasgetting pretty full.

"You know we need to wash these. Cas? Come on." Dean called andthey all looked at him shocked.

"You need me to clean your clothes?" Castiel sounds affronted andDean rolls his eyes.

"Getting the clothes sprayed for blood and having two washers goingat the same time will half the time. I need at least two people to dothat. Sam needs to do the research while we're doing that andGabriel...I wasn't planning for him to be here but he can help Sam.Who know's where he was hiding out, Sam's research might trigger anidea." He points out walking out and Castiel did, despite hisprotests, followed Dean.

Sam shook his head at his brother's antics and headed to the set ofbooks opening up the first one and looking at the list of informationhe had to slowly knock off what it could not be, he kept a list thatweren't proven wrong.

"So...how has these years been?" Gabriel asked and Sam didn'teven look up when he answered.

"Not as good as yours, I'm sure."

"Oh come on Sammy! How mad can you really be at me?" He asked andSam looked up to glare at him.

"I thought you were dead, we thought you were dead, that yousacrificed yourself for us. You have any idea how guilty we feltabout that?" He glared but coming to his senses he shook his headand went back to the current book he was thumbing through. ForGabriel this is the first time he had thought of it from that pointof view. To him it made sense, he didn't know that he would be ableto survive going up against his older brother. By the time he managedto get out the brothers had already saved the world and he still wasmessed up by the slow draining of his grace so he didn't want to gothrough that fear anymore.

So instead he went on a sabbatical thinking about a lot. About eonsof things that happened that he never really realized how much pentup emotions he had about his entire family and about the bookwormhunter who was the only human that was stuck in his head forever.Maybe it was the soft way he spoke, yet it was so strong, as hebegged him to talk. It called to him so much that Gabriel even lookedinto his soul past his body and found a familiar puzzle piece, thejagged ends would fit just right with his own grace.

The bond, it was strong, all consuming. Profound.

"Look Sam," Gabriel sighed not being able to look up. Apologizingwas never the angel of fertility's strong suit, and he defiantlydidn't like it. "I'm sorry, I guess I knew after I was sure you andyour brother did it that I needed time to heal and I just disappear,I didn't stop to think how you would feel about it." He managed toget out and he hated it but it reminded Sam for just a moment aboutwhat happened to Gabriel, the way he would flinch just from somewords.

"What did you just say?" He asked and Gabriel shook his headlooking up at Sam.

"I'm not repeating myself." He said and Sam closed his book.

"Listen, I'm just glad you're okay." Sam assured and chuckled,"you're a little bit too much, always joke even when it is serious,and are your own worst enemy but I am glad you're okay." Heexplained and Gabriel was able to give a smile.

"Thanks Sammy. So...what are you thinking this thing might be?"He asked walking over to get onto couch Sam was sitting on, only hesat atop the top of the couch, his feet resting on the cushions.

"Oh well I was thinking maybe it was a..." Sam began going overthe different ideas he had it might be by what he had discoveredabout different things the Winchester boys had gone up against thatwere or were not in the book. Gabriel wasn't really listening beyondthe sound of his voice but just smiled at him.

Finally someSabriel. I liked writing this chapter and hope I made it fellnatural, since no one ever pretended to be dead to me.