A Winter Storm (SEQUEL to A Summer Dream)

16 - What Happened In Five Years

Day 5, Friday

Cas, Luci and Michael had stayed awake through the night keeping Sam and Dean warm. Sam was definitely in danger of hypothermia, and they'd stayed by his side throughout the night making sure he didn't fall asleep until he was warmer and then keeping him warm.

Right now Cas was asleep while Michael and Luci were watching over the Winchester's, who had also fallen asleep in the night.

Gabriel hadn't returned...they noticed but were too focused on getting the others warm. Gabe wasn't stupid enough to get himself killed out in the cold.

Sam woke up slowly, blinking his eyes open to the world around him. He felt warm, which was different from the last thing he could remember...which was darkness and cold. Nothing else.

He sat up slowly, and saw Michael looking over at him.

"How are you feeling?" Michael asked.

"I've been better," Sam said. "What happened?"

"The ice broke," Michael said. "You fell in and didn't come back up. Dean jumped in and dragged you to the surface."

Sam looked down, remembering. "The skates weighed me down," he said. "I tried..." He looked around the room, seeing Cas asleep next to Dean, Luci not paying much attention and Michael. "Where's Gabriel?"

"He ran off after you fell in," Michael said. "I think he freaked out at seeing you almost die..."

"I almost died?"

"Well you could've, it was a possibility. We haven't seen him since."

"What?! Is he okay?!"

Michael sighed. "We don't know...we were too busy trying to get you two warm to look for him."

"He's not an idiot, he'll be in one of the other cabins," Luci said.

"But you don't know for sure," Sam said, standing up. He walked over to his room to get his jacket.

"Where are you going?" Michael asked.

"I'm going to find him," Sam muttered. "He shouldn't be left alone right now, he'll be blaming himself."

He walked out of the front door of the cabin, looking up at the sky. It was pretty early in the morning, the sun having just risen. Sam looked at the many cabins and sighed.

So he started going through all of them. And almost all of them were empty. There was no sign of anyone having being in there for half a year.

Then there was one. Snow littered the ground around the door, signs that it had been opened recently. Sam walked in quietly, glancing around. The cabin was almost identical to theirs, so he walked into this ones equivalent of him and Gabe's room.

Curled up on one of the beds was Gabriel. He was awake but not moving.

"Gabriel?" Sam said softly, and Gabe jumped up, looking at Sam.

"Sam..." Gabe said. "You're okay, thank god you're okay." He looked almost scared...

"Why'd you run away?" Sam asked, moving over to sit beside Gabe on the bed. Gabe shied away from him almost.

"I couldn't...I couldn't bare to see what would happen if you weren't okay," Gabe whispered. "I...stood there and did nothing, I didn't even try and help, I couldn't, I was frozen..."

"It's okay, you were in shock," Sam said, putting a hand on Gabe's shoulder. Gabe flinched around from the touch and Sam tried to hide the hurt in his expression.