Samandriel pulled Adam from the Cage ("You have been saved, Adam Winchester.") on a blurry morning in October and set him up in a motel ("I promise, Adam Winchester, you're safe now.") He did all he could to let Adam know he was trustworthy, nothing like the archangels he'd been locked up with. When Adam tried to leave, Samandriel held him back by the shoulder ("Adam Winchester, you're not strong enough yet. You should rest here."), and so they stayed in a motel room, Adam pacing back and forth with annoyance rather than sit still and think about Hell.

"You should know," Samandriel said to him, "the other angels, up in Heaven- they were grateful for what you did. Saying yes. They consider Adam Winchester a hero."

"Stop callin' me that," Adam said finally, spinning on a heel to look at the angel. "Just stop, Samandriel, okay?"

"But you are a Winchester-"

"No," he said. "I barely knew John, I met Dean once, and Sam- Sam and I were more like cellmates than brothers. I'm not a Winchester." The finality with which he said it shut the gawky angel up for a moment.

Then- "But you're a hero. Winchesters are heroes."

"Maybe," he allowed. "They get there by bleeding and killing and giving everything up, though. And I don't want that. Too long, in that Cage, I was a Winchester. And I just- that's not me. I'm a Milligan. I don't want to do what Winchesters do, I want to do what Milligans do." Exhausted, he sunk into the couch behind him, a muffled quick breathing letting Samandriel know that he was upset.

After taking a moment to contemplate how best to act, how to be human, Samandriel walked around the couch to him and settled beside him, their arms touching. He looked ahead, not at Adam. Very quietly, less puffed-up than he'd been since rescuing the human, he said, "What do Milligans do?"

Adam's mouth turned up a little and he answered, "We watch crap TV. We eat pizza. We leave Post-It notes on the fridge for each other because we hardly see each other." And maybe there was a pang for his lost mother, but it was quickly diminished. Hundreds of years in Hell had done enough to eliminate any tendencies for nostalgia or grief that Adam had.

Almost like he really understood, Samandriel didn't try to tell him he was a hero again. He didn't call him a Winchester. He reached for the remote (taking a moment to figure out how it worked) and fiddled with the buttons until he pulled up some eighties sitcom on the scratchy motel television set. Neither said a word, just sat there with the TV buzzing, some story of a normal family with normal problems.

In the morning, Samandriel was gone, but Adam found a Post-It on the motel refrigerator letting him know the angel was out at the store.