Note: This story is for dovetales, with extra love for marcicat who is awesome and also fixed the title. I went to a Supernatural convention in Boston and Jason Manns was there, right? He signed his second album for me like this, and dovetales recognized it. The request that followed inspired this story.

***

Sam thinks supermarkets are like casinos. Walk into a supermarket and it could be two-thirty in the morning or four o'clock in the afternoon. It could be in the middle of the midwest or somewhere off the coast of Florida: the only difference is that the midwest has better parking.

Except when it's raining, maybe. Space is at a premium on the island, so supermarket parking is underground. Ironically, given the climate, weatherproof.

It doesn't snow in Florida, either.

Sam is here specifically because it doesn't snow. Because he can't tell what time or even what day it is. He can tell where he is whenever he steps outside, because nothing about the states he's spent most of his life driving through makes humid warmth smell this fresh… but when he's standing under fluorescent lights in the baby food section of Bailey's? He could be anywhere.

"Sam?"

Anywhere they know who he is, apparently. Florida isn't supposed to be one of those places, but they're still discovering the extent of Castiel's background sweep. It turns out "clean slate" means something else to angels.

He puts on a neutral expression and turns around. The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but that doesn't guarantee anything these days. Some of the voices he knows best belong to people who want him dead.

"Rebecca." The name slips out before he can stop it, and he winces. "Rebecca" is Lucifer's name, and "Becky" is someone else. There's nothing he can call Zach's sister without evoking weird associations... and she can definitely tell.

"Samuel," she replies, giving him a funny smile. "You're not dead."

"Right," he says, suddenly very aware of the baby sling and the jar of applesauce in his hand. "Yeah." He has no idea where to go from there. If she's been keeping track of him, he's got quite a record, but he probably can't look much less threatening than he does right now.

"I assume it's not true." She's got a shopping basket with greens in it, vegetables and leaves and it actually looks kind of like his, except for the baby food. "The stuff on the news, I mean. A few years ago."

"Uh…" The back of his neck prickles, but he knows enough to recognize embarrassment instead of danger. His hands are full, so he settles for shrugging. "Not that part about us dying?"

"Really?" She raises her eyebrows but she doesn't back away. "The rest of it?"

He makes an apologetic face, but what can he say? There's a reason the FBI was after them. He thinks she probably won't make a fuss, and even if she does, who's going to believe her? The records are gone.

"I guess you ran into a lot of stuff," she says at last. "Like the thing that came for Zach."

Sam doesn't mean to laugh, so it comes out kind of choked. "I wish that was as bad as it got," he says, and it's the truth.

Only not, because wasn't the trickster worse than a skinwalker? And he can't imagine his life without that. He can't imagine any of their lives without that.

It's possible they wouldn't even have lives if not for Gabriel.

Rebecca's kind of smiling again, and she doesn't know she's echoing him when she says, "I can't imagine." It sounds about as honest as he does, though, so he smiles back.

"You still in the business?" she asks, after they've stood there staring at each other for longer than is really comfortable. She nods at the baby sleeping peacefully against his chest when he frowns.

"Oh," Sam says. His hand goes to the sling, protective against Maru's back. "Sort of. I guess? It's kind of… complicated."

"That I believe," she says dryly. "Is it yours?"

He can forgive her for asking, since even when he was with Jess he was adamant about children. About not having them. There are things he doesn't want to pass on, and hunting was such a small part of the yelling and drinking and fear that made up his childhood: how does he know which parts of it are genetic?

"Yeah," he says, but it's mostly overwhelmed by Gabriel's arrival. She's hard to miss, wheeling one of those giant kid-friendly carts with the plastic truck cab on the front. Maia's sitting on top of it, which is probably against several store rules of safe conduct.

"Coming through!" Gabriel calls. The cart swerves back and forth recklessly, enthusiastic and a kind of cheerful that Sam can't ignore. Their daughter isn't even holding on and she still looks like solid enough to be a gargoyle.

She has the wings for it, pretty wispy things extended over her shoulders like sails, but Sam's pretty sure Rebecca can't see that part.

"So's that one," Sam says, because Rebecca's about to be introduced to the rest of their little family whether she cares or not. Gabriel isn't one to ignore a chance like this.

He sees Rebecca's startled look out of the corner of his eye, but he's busy putting a foot out to stop the cart before it can mow them down. "I can't believe you haven't been kicked out," Sam tells them. He includes Maia in this because she's totally an enabler and she knows it.

Gabriel scoffs. "They tried," she says, leaning on the bar of the cart and smirking at the back of Maia's head. "But we got away."

Wonderful. She's either lying, which means Gabriel's setting a bad example for basically everyone -- as usual -- or she's telling the truth and the reunion with Rebecca is going to be interrupted by authorities.

At least Rebecca's used to it, Sam thinks.

"Hi," Rebecca says, waving at Maia and smiling at Gabriel like they're a couple of the non-crazy friends Sam doesn't have. She really has no idea.

"This is Rebecca," Sam offers, because he knows there's no saving her now. "We went to college together. Rebecca, this is my partner Gabriel and our daughter Maia. And this is Maru," he says, pointing to the baby still curled up against his chest.

Rebecca doesn't even blink. "Hi, Gabriel," she says, and she doesn't hold out her hand until Gabriel does, which makes Sam think she took him seriously when he said it was complicated. "Hey, Maia," she adds, when Gabriel lets her go.

"Hello," Maia says politely. She doesn't move at all.

That's when Sam notices what's in their cart. "Gabriel," he says. "You were supposed to be getting something for dinner."

"Uh, no I wasn't," Gabriel says. "You're getting something for dinner. I'm getting dessert."

"You suck at being the mean parent," Sam informs her.

Gabriel's grin is a mile wide. "I know!" She's proud of this, and all Sam can do is roll his eyes. It's not like they haven't discussed it before.

"Hey, you want to join us for dinner?" Rebecca says. "Me and Zach are tied up at the other end of Captiva. I mean--" She seems to realize what she's asking, because she adds quickly, "You probably have other plans?"

"We're here because we don't," Sam promises.

"We're here because Sammy hates Christmas," Gabriel says. "Word to the wise: don't do anything crazy like trying to give him a present or something."

"I said I was sorry!" Sam exclaims. "Let it go!"

Gabriel smirks at him, but he feels bad about it so maybe he's overreacting. She was just trying to do something nice. Probably. It's still hard to tell when Gabriel is mocking him because she thinks it's funny and when she's mocking him because she doesn't know how to do anything else.

"Okay," Rebecca says. "No presents. We're just gonna grill some tofu burgers, have some salad, maybe a little cranberry from a can? Nothing too festive. You're welcome to join us."

"You expecting anyone else?" Gabriel asks bluntly. Sam has given up asking her to be polite: the kids listen to him, most of the time, and he appreciates that Gabriel doesn't directly contradict him when it counts. The rest of the time he figures a millennia-old archangel has earned a little impertinence.

Or a lot of impertinence. Whatever.

"It's just me and Zach," Rebecca says. "We do have a tree, but it's tiny and we could hide it if you're serious about avoiding the holiday."

"Will there be cake?" Gabriel wants to know.

"You have cake," Sam interrupts before Rebecca can try to answer. "You have several kinds of cake. And pie. And we can't get ice cream if we're not going straight home."

Gabriel is already pouting unreasonably. "Why not?"

"Because it will melt," Sam says.

"No it won't." Gabriel doesn't even pretend to be confused, which is obnoxious but honest and Sam does appreciate that there's at least one thing he doesn't have to second guess about her. Dean puts up with Castiel's occasional attempts at innocence, but it drives Sam up the wall.

Mostly because he always falls for it and Dean doesn't, because Dean is an insensitive jerk, but whatever. Gabriel tired of games like that as soon as her trickster cover was blown. Whatever else Sam can say about her -- and there's a lot -- Gabriel has largely stopped hiding.

"Ice cream left outside in Florida for long periods of time tends to melt," Sam says more carefully. Because that statement is actually true.

Gabriel grins at him unrepentantly, but it's Rebecca who answers.

"I can give you directions," she offers. "If you want to drop things off before you come over. Or you can store them in our refrigerator… but we don't have a lot of space."

She's eyeing Gabriel's cart, and Sam shakes his head. They don't have a lot of space either, according to the rental blueprint. Living with Gabriel means that he's learned to ignore trivialities like space and time.

"Great," Gabriel says brightly. "We'll stop back home first and I'll quiz Sammy about your tempestuous college affair. It should only take a couple of hours."

"Ignore her," Sam tells Rebecca. "I do."

"At your peril," Gabriel reminds him.

He has to admit this is true, but he tells Rebecca, "How's seven? Should we come over around seven? We can bring dessert. Apparently."

"Sure, yeah," Rebecca says, smiling. "That'd be great."

Directions on Captiva aren't hard: they basically consist of the distance from one end of the island or the other along a single road from Sanibel. Gabriel recognizes the marina as soon as Rebecca mentions it and refuses to listen to the rest of the conversation. Sam thinks it might be important to know which boat is theirs, but obviously archangels aren't concerned with these things.

Maia flits away the moment Rebecca turns her back. Maru is still sleeping, though, and Gabriel trails after Sam long enough to at least pretend to pay and exit the store like a normal family. They don't do normal very often, and Sam only asks that the kids obey human rules when they're being watched by human observers.

He's not sure even that would hold them if Gabriel didn't agree that subtlety was an angelic virtue. Which is hilarious, coming from her, but Gabriel takes great delight in saying it over and over again: always while the kids are listening, so that Sam can't contradict her.

He figures the kids know what she's really thinking, but he's trying to instill in them the difference between what people share on purpose and what they share by accident. Human or angel.

"Maia!" Gabriel yells as soon as they get home. Sam doesn't know why she waited until she adds, "Tell Sam before you disappear, please!"

Sam stops where he is, shopping bag in one hand and the door propped open with the other, just staring at her. He doesn't know whether he's more surprised to hear her say "please" non-ironically, or to realize that she must have been thinking about that the whole way back. She was talking to him, but she could have been talking to Maia at the same time and he would never have known.

Sam can't hear them in his head. He doesn't like it, but he gets it. Gabriel tries to make the kids get it too… and it still surprises him how far she'll go. How much she'll limit herself to make him more comfortable.

Maia appears in front of them, and Sam remembers to close the door.

"I didn't disappear," she tells Gabriel. "You said I should stay on the island. I did."

"If Sam can't see or hear you, he doesn't know where you are," Gabriel says. "How was he supposed to know you were still on the island?"

Maia frowns at her. "You told me to stay here," she says again. "Sam must have known I was here unless you told him you'd said I could leave."

Unless you lied, is the unspoken reprimand.

Maia has a lot of attitude for an angel kid, and half the time she doesn't seem to like Gabriel's. The other half the time they're getting into trouble together and making Sam wonder what he did to deserve two of them. Their daughter looks five and sounds twenty, but Sam is starting to suspect they have the human equivalent of a preteen.

Gabriel sighs. "Tell him before you go somewhere," she says, and it's clear she doesn't expect any backtalk.

Maia's gaze flicks to Sam. "I'm going to the kitchen now," she says. There's no hint of sarcasm in her voice, but Sam is used to that. She and Gabriel can deadpan each other to heaven and back.

Gabriel lets it go and Maia's wings make the air swirl through the place where she stood. Sam tries not to smile, because it isn't funny and what does he know about disciplining an angel child, anyway? What does anyone know?

Angels are obedient. Angels had always been obedient, until Castiel remade the nephilim in his own image. Now they're as lost as any other parent.

Well. Any other parent whose superhuman kids have angelic powers and a direct line to God. Sam wonders, sometimes, how Amelia is managing these days.

"I'm going to interrogate you about Rebecca now," Gabriel says.

Sam rolls his eyes. "We're not having sex so you can distract me from someone I never slept with," he tells her. "Also, Maru is right here. I hate that you just made me say that in front of him."

"Whatever, he's asleep." Gabriel points at him anyway, then at the playpen. It's not a suggestion: she's letting him know what she's about to do. When Gabriel snaps, Maru's weight against his chest is gone and Sam knows without having to look that the baby is curled up with a dozen stuffed animals on the other side of the room.

"I met her through her brother, Zach," Sam says. "We were friends. After Dean came for me and Jess died, a skinwalker got Zach's girlfriend and he got the blame. She e-mailed me, and me and Dean helped them out. End of story."

"Somehow I doubt that," Gabriel says. "Nothing about your life is that easy."

Sam scoffs. "You call that easy?" But of course she does, and after the last few years he knows she's right.

"If it helps," he offers, "the skinwalker impersonated Dean and Dean took the fall for Zach. When we killed it, we figured being dead would clear Dean's record. Turns out not so much."

"Yeah," Gabriel says. "I can see that didn't come back to haunt you."

"It cleared Zach's name," Sam says. "That was important."

Gabriel is quiet a second too long, and Sam knows she knows something. Something he's not going to like. He has to ask, "Why do you ask me if you already know?"

"I didn't know," Gabriel says. "Now I do. And I can tell you, cleared or not, you don't just walk away from a murder charge. Not in Normal Town, USA."

"Oh, you've been there, have you?" Sam retorts.

He gets a shrug from Gabriel, and he knows that wasn't fair. He also knows it doesn't bother Gabriel. She won't tell him if he doesn't want to know, but she was making an effort to share and if he doesn't appreciate it she'll stop.

He appreciates it. He just wishes he could have kept Rebecca and Zach in the "saved" column in his mind, instead of the "mostly saved" column.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be, you know." Gabriel is watching him like she can read his mind. She complains that she can't often enough that he's starting to believe it, but she definitely gets something from his expression.

"Normal?" Sam says.

Gabriel holds her hands out to her sides, raising her eyebrows with a sort of careless "ta da" look. And yeah, okay. Sam takes her point. If he'd known what he was doing, he never would have made the choices that led him here.

"Yeah," he says aloud. "But we can't all have our own personal archangel."

Gabriel scoffs. "She's got a boat. Don't be so picky."

She also has Zach, and Sam knows there were times -- most of his life -- when just having his brother had been enough. Maybe it was enough for Rebecca too.

They both avoided the obvious questions, he realizes now: "Hey, how are you," and "what's new?" Sam was so busy making it seem casual that he hadn't even noticed her doing the same thing. Maybe she did it because she thinks he doesn't want to talk about it -- or maybe she did it because she doesn't want to either.

"So," Gabriel says, when Sam is silent a little too long. She's always prodding him to talk. It makes him wonder how much she picks up from everyone else that she can't stand him being quiet for two seconds.

Everything, he supposes. She probably picks up everything.

"She'd ask, right," Gabriel is saying. "I mean, she did before. When she needed something."

Sam blinks. "Are you trying to make me feel better?" he blurts out. It's not the first time he's caught her at it, and he knows his efforts to make her admit it aren't helping. But he can't not acknowledge it.

"Obviously not," Gabriel says. She makes it sound like he's not only saying something stupid, he's saying it in entirely the wrong language. It kind of worries Sam that maybe he is, that somehow there's a secret Gabriel-language he'll never know and the more he relies on plain English the less they actually understand each other.

"If I was trying," Gabriel continues, "it would have worked. Hello, phenomenal cosmic powers!"

Or maybe he is learning, stumbling into her language the same way she fumbles with his. Because he gets that. And she meant him to. She doesn't even roll her eyes when he smiles at her.

"It's working," Sam tells her.

"We should bring a hosting gift with dessert," Gabriel says. "Are either of them diabetic?"

"I think you should kiss me," Sam says.

He can see Gabriel's wings unfolding, stretching forward, curling around him until they're both hidden from the host. And their children. He feels a gentle push against his back, and he steps forward obediently.

"I think you should be more bossy," Gabriel says, sliding a hand around behind his neck and pulling him down toward her.

"Forget it." Sam kisses her, because otherwise they could be here forever. Asking for a kiss rarely works; when he wants one he has to take it. "I'm not playing your brother in some creepy incest fantasy."

Gabriel smirks at him. "Not even if I ask nicely?"

"No," Sam says, kissing her again. "The day you make me an angel is the day hell empties out."

"Really?" Gabriel looks speculative. "Is that correlative or cause and effect, do you think?"

"You don't want me to be an angel," Sam reminds her.

"But I do like you bossy," Gabriel counters. "Are you sure we can't have sex to make you forget about Rebecca?"

He's already forgotten. Just like that, just for a fraction of a second: she asked about Rebecca and he heard Lucifer.

Gabriel sees the revelation on his face, and it isn't comforting but he knows she's been aware of it all along. Everything about Rebecca -- with the possible exception of who she actually is -- reminds Gabriel of someone else. Her history with Sam, the trouble with Dean, a brother she gave it all up and moved to Florida for. Maybe even the invitation to a private party.

"I'm sorry I mentioned brothers," Sam says suddenly, wondering if that was out of line. She never tells him when it hurts, just smirks and snaps her fingers and he's left to second-guess himself hours later.

This time it's different. She just raises her eyebrows and says, "Are you?"

So maybe it wasn't wrong?

"Are you okay?" he asks, because someday she's going to save him a lot of grief and just tell him.

Then hell really will empty out.

"I'm awesome," she tells him, and yeah, Sam expects that answer now. But then she adds, "It's superficial, if that's what you're worried about. The Rebecca thing. The name. That's all."

He has to call Lucifer "Rebecca" around town now, because that's who the devil looks like. Sam doesn't like it, and Gabriel doesn't like that Sam can't let it go.

Sam wants to call her on this: no way is Gabriel hung up on a name -- just a name -- after everything. But they're standing close and quiet in the circle of her wings, and Gabriel just tried to reassure him not once but twice: awkward and kind and Sam doesn't want to do anything to make her feel self-conscious about it.

"We called her Becky in school," he says at last. "But I'm not sure that's any better, honestly."

Gabriel laughs. It surprises him and he can't help but smile: Gabriel likes Becky, the Becky who made Chuck stop drinking and introduced Sam to Muffin and still brings her fan club to Ellen's place every Friday night. And Gabriel finds it hilarious that Sam is uncomfortable around her, even now.

This wasn't exactly what Sam was going for when he mentioned her… except that maybe it was. Gabriel isn't smirking and she isn't rolling her eyes. She isn't even awkward. She's just amused. Again. In a genuine, non-cynical way.

This time when he kisses her she twines her other arm around his neck and holds on. He hasn't been startled by that gesture since the first time, when everything she did that seemed even vaguely feminine was a surprise. Now he likes it, loves it even if he doesn't tell her, and if he's wondered how demonstrative she'd be in a male form, it's only because that's the sort of thing he asks himself sometimes.

By the time she pulls her wings away, the ice cream at least should have suffered irrevocable damage due to inattention. But this is an archangel's ice cream, so of course it stays politely frozen where it sits in a shopping bag on the kitchen floor.

Maia is eating out of one of the other cartons, licking her spoon carefully while she stares at the comics section of the newspaper.

They don't get a newspaper here. Sam thinks if he looks closely he'll see the same newspaper that's delivered back home, which is kind of charming considering she could read the Wall Street Journal just as easily. Maybe the comics aren't as good.

Gabriel makes a sarcastic comment about groceries belonging in the refrigerator, and just like, they're all gone. Sam doesn't even know who did it. Which isn't completely unusual, so he decides to ignore it.

"Okay," he says aloud. "Let's meet back here in fifteen. Gabriel, a gift is a great idea and no, no one's diabetic." Yet, he adds in the privacy of his own mind.

The way Gabriel grins at him makes him think she probably knows what he's thinking anyway.

"Back in a few," Sam says unnecessarily.

Their hosting gift ends up being cookies, which Sam thinks is unusually restrained coming from Gabriel. All he says is, "Nice choice," and pretends not to notice when Gabriel gives Maia several cookies from the still-full gift.

Maru is awake by the time they get there, but he might as well not be. His eyes are open, but otherwise he does a great sleeping baby impression. Gabriel says this is normal. Sam doesn't believe her, because there aren't any normal angel babies, but it's true that Maru does this a lot and Sam can only worry about so many things at a time.

Rebecca pretends it isn't strange when she notices, catching sight of Maru's open eyes when she goes to hug Sam on arrival. She smacks Zach when he calls it weird. It is, and they all know it, but somehow the kids have made it onto the list of things no one asks about.

This works right up until Maia wants to go swimming and Sam says "sure" without thinking. The Warrens have a slip at the end of the marina, and a ladder off the back of their boat. The water is night-dark under the starry sky, opaque with the bright dock lights that glint off the surface, but she's an angel and it's not like she's going to drown.

She's an angel who looks like a little girl, and Rebecca is nervous. Zach is totally against it. "Dude," he says. "I don't want to freak you out, but that water's deep and there's sharks and shit down there."

It's not polite to glare at Zach, so Sam frowns at Gabriel instead. "This is why I don't want you swearing in front of them," he says. "Then other people think it's okay."

They're sitting in a mismatched array of lounge chairs on the tiny deck, empty plates and half-full glasses tucked anywhere within reach. Rebecca threw a tarp over their little metal tree, made out of an upside-down anchor, even when Sam laughed and said it was fine. Now it's just one more bump in the inner hull, washed out white under the bright lights that drive back the night.

One of the other boats on their dock is lit up too, tinny holiday music spilling across the water and planks to remind them anyway. The Shanahans stopped by earlier to drop off frosted brownies and share macaroni casserole, so as far as Sam is concerned, all is forgiven. He wonders if they worry about sharks.

"Sorry," Zach says. "Guess I wouldn't have made it in law school after all."

"You're not actually allowed to swim in the marina," Rebecca says, and okay, that's a better argument even if she doesn't know it. Sam does want them to obey some rules of human behavior.

Maia stops at the back of the boat because she knows. She's waiting for him to change his mind, to revoke permission. But she asked, and Sam's a little bored with sitting around anyway.

"We could take a walk up the beach," he offers. "If you guys want to hang out here, I'll go with Maia." Maru is crawling around the deck, surprisingly content with Gabriel's constant attention, and Sam's pretty sure they can handle one kid each for half an hour.

He doesn't envy Dean and Castiel their distant, self-reliant children. Much. One of them's his, anyway, and Adamel's better at babysitting than he is at actually being a child.

"No, we'll come," Rebecca says immediately.

"I'm in," Zach agrees, though he doesn't get up. "But seriously. Sharks."

"At sunset," Rebecca says. She's giving Sam a funny look that he can't interpret. "I'm getting that you're not worried."

He could say, Maia could kick the ass of any shark that looks at her sideways, but what he says instead is, "Maia's a good swimmer."

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but Sam isn't asking anything about Zach or Rebecca that they don't volunteer. He's sure they're returning the favor. Which should make this kind of reunion awkward and uncomfortable at best. Somehow, though, in a way he can't explain, it feels almost... normal.

Even if he is walking a dark beach with an archangel, a couple of humans, and a baby who's somewhere in between. The sand is cool beneath his feet and the shells jingle every time a wave rolls in. There's some artificial light from the marina, and from the houses that sit back from the beach, but it's mostly turned in on itself to keep from confusing the sea turtles.

Maia's wispy wings mark her progress in the water, and it takes him almost a full minute to realize there's more to the glow than that. When Rebecca finally says something about the phosphorescence, he can't believe he missed it: it's not just her wings. All of Maia is glowing, a dull glow that swirls through the water in her wake, running off of her skin and hair in sparkling waves.

The rest of them trail after her to the water's edge, kicking along in ankle-deep water to watch the bioluminescent algae gleam like mica in the sun. Each one is bright and fast, but altogether it's a quiet cloud of light that follows their every move. Sam wonders idly if that's what humanity looks like to heaven.

He feels Gabriel's arm tense against his just before Maia appears, swift and startled, close enough to both of them that Gabriel can pull her in between and pet her hair reassuringly. Neither of them say anything, but there's no missing that a child just appeared next to them. She was in the water and now she isn't, with them without crossing the intervening space.

Rebecca and Zach both stop where they are, but neither of them yell. Sam figures Rebecca's seen weirder, and Zach was always hard to surprise. Phosphorescent sparkles are still dripping from Maia's skin, but he can feel her apologetic look in the darkness. She didn't mean to look inhuman.

"I stepped on a skate," Maia murmurs. Then, proving she knew exactly what she'd done, she added softly, "I'm sorry."

"Sam," Rebecca says evenly. "Good weird or bad weird?"

"Good weird," Sam says. "It's okay," and he means this for all of them. For Maia, for her apology, and for Zach and Rebecca who are getting a crash course in not freaking out.

"Huh," Zach says, like he hasn't really thought this through. "Guess you can't live it without, you know. Living it."

Sam is surprised to realize he knows exactly what Zach means. He's doesn't know how he feels about that, because he's passed it on after all. He grew up in the life... and now his kids will too.

"Yeah," Gabriel says. "Humanity is annoyingly contagious."

Sam blinks.

"So," Rebecca says carefully. "That's… you?"

"Oh, please," Gabriel says, and Sam can hear her rolling her eyes. "That's totally him. If they were all mine, they wouldn't even have physical form."

Everyone is quiet for a moment, and then Maia says, "May I go back in the water?"

"Yeah," Sam says, brushing a wet strand of hair back over her shoulder. Because, okay. It's about what meeting in the middle gets you, not about what you give up to be there. "Watch out for skates."

"If you drag your feet when you walk," Rebecca says, "they'll know you're coming and get out of the way."

"Okay," Maia says. "Thanks."

"Sure," Rebecca says, and Sam can hear the smile in her voice.

They all watch Maia dart back toward the water, and Zach offers, "Cute kid."

"Yeah," Sam says softly, and he's embarrassed that his voice doesn't do what he wants it to do but Gabriel just scoffs.

"That's what I say about Sam," she says. It makes Rebecca laugh, and they're okay again. Just like that.

It's a kind of acceptance Sam always associated with family: because they have to, because there's no other choice. He thinks maybe, finding it in friends? People who don't have to, people he hasn't even seen since school, people who never really knew him… but maybe would have, if he'd let them.

Maybe that makes it easier to accept that his family doesn't have to, either.

They just want to.