Author's note: Thanks so much to larkafree2, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, Nicolene B, QuietCrash, CherylB1964, LeeMarieJack, Crazy as a Cheshire Cat, kjboulware, Sandra Marques, AliMagna, keacdragon, Lady Grelka, The Third Biker Scholar, random yet lovable and Sabriel's child for last chapter's reviews!

Special thanks to Treeni for beta-reading!

Epilogue

"Tell me again how this turned into such a huge affair," Gabriel huffed out a chuckle as he walked into the bakery next to his fiancé.

They both were carrying various bags full of things they needed for their wedding that was only two days away. It wasn't exactly a surprise that Dean wanted nothing to do with the wedding preparations, besides making sure he would be Sam's best man and planning the stag night of course. Luckily the pastor Bobby recommended to them knew a lot about local hauntings in addition to giving Sam and Gabriel pointers for their wedding, so Dean and Castiel were ridding Massachusetts of all ghosts while their brothers got their shopping done.

"My brothers, a couple of your brothers, Bobby, Chuck, Garth, everyone plus one or two," Sam replied with a slight shrug.

As weddings went, they were still speaking about a relatively small group of people. However, it wasn't so long ago that Sam believed the hunter lifestyle was bound to be a lonely one. Sure, he always had Dean and Bobby, but that had been about it. Until Gabriel decided to become a part of Sam's life. Their social circle wasn't huge, but it was much bigger than it had been for a long time and most of all it was rock solid.

"So in summation we're loved and popular," Gabriel grinned. The fact that circumstances had forced them to postpone the wedding a couple more times and prolong their engagement to around a year and a half had added a couple more people to their guest list as well. A couple of new connections had been made and somehow Gabriel felt the need to invite them all to the wedding. So maybe he quite liked the fact that there were a bunch of people they were close enough to for issuing an invitation like that, sue him.

"Yeah, actually... yeah," Sam agreed with a dimpled smile.

"Gives us a good excuse to buy a huge wedding cake at least," Gabriel stated gleefully, as he put the bags he was carrying down in favor of grabbing the folder next to the decoy wedding cake the bakery put up for demonstration. The former archangel guessed the folder would hold some information on the kinds of cakes they offered. It would be good to have a general idea before they talked to the pastry chef. Besides it looked like they managed to visit the bakery at a really busy time of the day. There were quite a few people waiting for their chance to buy some of the delicious looking and sweet smelling pastries. "I'm thinking five tiers, five different flavors. What d'you think?"

Sam couldn't help laughing at that. Not that the younger Winchester ever assumed that Gabriel would allow them to get anything other than a huge cake. Chances were they would still be eating cake days after the wedding. Or rather, Dean and Gabriel would, Sam was quite sure that he would have enough of cake after sampling different flavors today and then eating some at the wedding.

"Can one of those be carrot cake?" the younger Winchester asked innocently. With five tiers there should be space for one slightly healthier alternative to the overly sweet buttercream stuff Gabriel preferred.

"Muffin, I love and adore you, but that's a deal breaker," Gabriel retorted in a scandalized tone, before he amended, "We can have pie on the side for Dean, though. There's fruit in that."

Sam snorted. Like they were ever going to get away without having pie on the menu! Dean already announced that he would bring his own, if they were mean and insolent enough not to think of the needs of all their guests.

"Hey, if you were serious, we can have carrot cake muffins on the side too, how about that?" Gabriel added after a moment of consideration. The former archangel assumed that his partner was only making a joke, but with Sam you never knew. He might actually want some carrot cake. In which case he would of course get what he wanted! It was their big day after all!

"The pastry chef is going to love you," Sam laughed, even as he shook his head over Gabriel's antics.

"Too bad I'm already taken," Gabriel quipped, before he grabbed Sam's neck and pulled him into a short kiss. They were here to choose a cake, not to get sidetracked. There would be time for all that later. After they made sure that the wedding would go as planned, they could practice some more for the wedding night and honeymoon.

The grin on Gabriel's face told Sam everything he needed to know about the turn his partner's thoughts had just taken. The younger Winchester shook his head with a snort once more before he started to leaf through the folder of potential cakes and flavors.

"Will you be able to choose only five flavors?" Sam asked after turning a couple of pages and finding out that there were more than thirty options to choose from. The younger Winchester could already see their cake gaining a couple more tiers. Surprisingly enough, Gabriel didn't comment. "Gabe?"

"Huh?" Gabriel replied, clearly distracted by the baby who was looking at him over her -if the pink bow was anything to go by- mother's shoulder. The former archangel had realized that the baby was watching him a minute ago and decided to first wave at the kid and when that earned him even more attention from the baby girl, pull faces for her amusement.

"The flavors for the cake," Sam repeated with a slight smirk. Sometimes the younger Winchester couldn't help wondering when Gabriel would start talking about adopting a kid of their own or something alike, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it. Sam was pretty sure that they would come to it eventually, given Gabriel's love for children.

"Okay, okay, one can be carrot," the former archangel gave a long suffering sigh that lost all effect in combination with the funny face he pulled to get the baby to laugh again.

"Thanks," Sam shrugged. He was willing to take his victories where he could get them, especially if they came as easy as that. The younger Winchester felt silly, but he gave the baby a small wave as thanks for distracting Gabriel enough to shorten the carrot cake discussion. Actually, the girl was just too precious with her dark eyes and toothless grin. If she took after her mother -or who Sam assumed was her mother- she would have quite the majestic afro one day as well, instead of the little tuft of black hair.

Gabriel was in the middle of pulling the most spectacular duck face of the century when the woman turned around to see what her daughter was laughing at.

"Your daughter is precious," Gabriel chuckled awkwardly, while next to him Sam tried not to laugh at his fiancé's predicament. At least catching the attention of the baby's mother gave the former archangel the chance to get closer to the kid without feeling like a creeper. Gabriel kept some distance to be polite until the baby made grabbing motions toward him and he extended his arm toward her to let her shake his hand, or rather his finger.

"Thank you," the mother replied with a bright smile, before she added a little thoughtfully, "Usually she doesn't like strangers this much."

"Oh, I love kids, she probably has a sixth sense for that or something," Gabriel shrugged lightly. Sometimes the former archangel wondered if children -and some animals- could still sense something angelic about him. Their generally positive reactions to him hadn't diminished after he gave up his grace, but then maybe it was just the general vibe he gave off angel or not.

"Smart girl!" Gabriel praised the baby, carefully patting her head with his free hand.

"That you are, right Raphy?" the woman laughed. It was a moment before she noticed that the man whose finger her daughter was still holding captive and the taller man next to him were looking at her with wide eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"No... no, actually..." Gabriel managed to stammer, before a wide smile spread over his face, "That's a beautiful name, 's all."