Sam sat in the passenger seat of the Impala and stared out the window. He'd stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket because he knew if he didn't, Dean would see them trembling, as they had been doing since they left the mental hospital.

Dean thought it was all over. Sam was no longer hallucinating Lucifer. Cas had taken his insanity on himself. But what Dean failed to understand was that the insanity was a blessing in disguise.

The Hallucinations were terrible. Sam could honestly say he hated every single one, but now that they were gone, he was all too aware that they served a purpose. They kept memories away. Well, they didn't exactly keep them away. He still had them, but with Lucifer in his head, it made it easier not to dwell on them. But with Lucifer gone, all he had were those memories that would never fade.

Dean looked over at his brother. "Hey. You're okay, right?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Sam said. Dean didn't want to know how he truly was. He didn't want to know that what he was dealing with now was worse than the insanity. Dean wanted to hear that the problem was solved. Maybe he actually thought it was. Maybe he thought that Cas took his memories of the Cage, along with the hallucinations. If only that was the case.

"Look, I didn't like leaving Cas behind, but we didn't have a choice," Dean said. He could see that his brother was uneasy. He could only guess it was leaving Cas at that hospital.

Sam nodded. Truthfully, he had mixed feelings about that. A part of him hated leaving Cas alone to deal with his hallucinations. He'd even said that as they were leaving. But the other part of him didn't care what Cas was going through. The other part of him hated Cas for tearing his wall down. He was okay then. There were no memories or hallucinations to haunt him. He could be who he was before he hurled himself into that cage.

"You're not saying a whole lot. Are you sure you're okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, I'm just tired. Its been a long few days," Sam said.

"Right. You haven't gotten any sleep. You should do that now," Dean said.

Sam knew sleep wouldn't come to him, but he closed his eyes anyway, deciding to at least fake it. And the Cage was all he saw.

Flashback

The decent into the cage was a long one. Sam felt like he'd been falling for days. But eventually, he hit the bottom.

Michael fell next to him. The eldest archangel could not hide his horror at what had happened. He'd clearly never expected this possibility, not even as he grabbed Sam to stop him from jumping.

Lucifer exited Sam body at this point and stared down at Sam with nothing but rage.

Sam gulped. He knew he was about to experience more torture than anyone had ever faced. Even Dean's forty years on the rack would pale in comparison.

"Run!" an urgent voice said next to Sam. It was Michael's voice. Well, it was Adam's voice, but it was Michael. Sam knew this because he'd seen Michael expel Adam's soul as they fell.

"Run!" Michael yelled at Sam again.

Sam clumsily got to his feet and started running. It was then that he realized how big the Cage was. It wasn't a typical one. It seemed to go on for miles. Not that it mattered. It was still a cage, and Lucifer still caught up with him.

Lucifer appeared in front of Sam. He lifted him up by the throat and choked him. "You thought you could run from me, Sam? You are in my domain. We are going to have some fun, seeing as you've trapped us here for eternity."

Sam gagged and choked as Lucifer cut off his Oxygen. He knew he wouldn't die. He was already dead, really. But it was still extremely painful.

Lucifer smiled cruelly and waved his hand. Fire immediately surrounded Sam's entire body.

Sam would've screamed if he could've.

Flashback

Sam's eyes popped open and he shuddered. He didn't even have to be asleep for the Cage to plague his mind. That memory had only been the first of centuries worth of nightmares.

"Hey, I thought you were going to go to sleep," Dean said.

"I can't. I guess wired at the same time as being tired," Sam said.

"Yeah, I guess I would be too after none-stop hallucinations. We got lucky to get you rid of those. We really owe Cas for taking them," Dean said.

Sam glared at his brother, though the older man didn't notice, as his eyes were on the road. He'd didn't owe Cas anything, and he found it annoying that his brother could just forget what the angel did to Sam. Cas had destroyed him just so he could literally play God, and the more Sam thought about the Cage, the angrier he got about that.

"Hey, so I say we get some miles between us and that hospital and then we'll check into a motel. You should be able to rest then," Dean said.

"Sounds good," Sam said almost numbly.

"We could stop at a drive-through and get some food if you want first," Dean said.

"I'm alright. Let's just drive," Sam said

"Look, man, everything's okay now. We'll take a few days for you to recover and then everything will be back to normal," Dean said. His brother seemed a bit weird right now, but he was sure it was just from the hallucinations. He just needed to time to recover from them. After some rest, things would be fine.

Sam wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. The idea that anything was okay or normal was laughable and maddening. Like anything could ever be normal after the Cage. Like they could ever be okay. Things weren't okay. They never would be again.