(A/N: Sam and faith. In honor of Sam's birthday, which was May 2nd. Happy Birthday Sam! References to seasons 1, 2,5 and 7. More than a little disjointed and could use more editing, but I wanted it up on May 2nd.)

A fundamental principle of classical physics that matter cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system

-The Law of Conservation of Mass

"He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well-even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly"

-B.C. Forbes

The Law of Conservation of Faith

1988

"And as I lay down to sleep, I pray that my family and me are safe and happy." A small pause. "And that Dean gets a huuuuge zit on his nose. Bigger than the one he drew on me. Haha."

Pastor Jim chuckled inwardly at the attempt at revenge from the precocious five-year old. "Sam." He admonished quietly, still kneeling next to the bed, hands clasped. The child next to him had his posture mimicked, correcting it every so often as his legs began to tingle.

"Sorry." Sam whispered back. "Uhh…Amen."

Jim smiled. "That's a good start, Sam." He said genially. "But next time, no praying for zits on Dean, okay? It doesn't quite work that way."

Sam nodded, clearly taking careful notes in his head on the process. "So, if I do this every night, God hears me? He listens? What if He's busy? Or I'm being bad? What do I do then?"

"He always listens, Sam. Always. Even if it doesn't seem that way sometimes, He will be there to guide you. You just need to have a little faith." Jim picked up the child and placed him on the bed. "When you wake up tomorrow, your father and brother will be back, okay? Don't worry."

Sam grinned, face lighting up. "It's okay. I prayed for them. They'll be fine."

Jim flicked the lights off as he exited the small room, giving Sam another small smile as he left. The child was young, but something sincere resonated in his belief. It was rare to see and heartening to witness. Jim just hoped Sam would be able to keep it, despite the hard life that was looming ahead. He would just have to find a little faith himself in that.

1989

The first time Sam got lost, he was six years old in the middle of a mall bustling with people that were not Daddy or Dean. He'd ran ahead to look at the displays in the bookstore window and looked back, and poof. They were gone.

Sam would never admit it to anyone, ever, but the first few seconds that he'd registered that he had crossed the line from separated to lost, he'd panicked a little bit. Okay, more like freaked out. But whatever.

He just kept hearing Daddy's voice in his head, saying stick with me Sammy and that's dangerous and don't go anywhere by yourself and now that he was actually in the realm of "by himself" he was scared that all of Daddy's warnings would come true. That he was in big, big trouble and there was nobody to help him out of it.

After a few seconds, when he'd managed to calm down a little, more of Daddy's lessons and words filtered into his mind. Words like calm down and it's gonna be okay and don't panic and, most importantly, when you're lost, Sammy, just sit down right where you are and I'll find you.

Sam's heart swelled with hope. "Daddy's gonna find me." He told himself confidently, plopping down right there, in front of the bookstore. Daddy knew what he was doing. He was strong and smart and awesome and the best dad in the world (according to Dean), and if he said he'd find Sam, then he'd find him. All Sam had to do was sit here and wait.

About twenty minutes later, when he began to receive weird looks from the store-owner-person and annoyed looks from the people who had to step over him to get in and out of the store (so he'd been in front of the door. But Daddy had said to sit down right where he was. So there.) Sam finally spotted Dean, weaving in and out of crowds, searching frantically and hollering his name.

Sam stood up carefully (still in place) and waved his arms in the air like a windmill. "Dean!" He yelled. "I'm here!"

Dean heard his voice and zeroed in on his location, and was at his side in a matter of seconds. He poked Sam's forehead and sighed. "Jeez, Sammy. Don't run off like that anymore, okay? Tell us exactly where you're going next time. Or I promise you the zit monster will be making a return and it won't be pretty." He grabbed Sam's arm and tugged impatiently, moving him from his sacred spot. "Come on, Dad's near that big sports store. Thought you'd be over there for some reason." Dean grinned, casting a knowing look at the bookstore behind them.

Sam was just happy he'd been found. "I did what Daddy told me." He informed his brother promptly. "I stayed right where I was. And you found me."

Dean nodded, imparting the wisdom of his ten years onto his younger brother. "Good job, Sammy. Dad or me will always find you. Eventually." He ended with a wicked grin, but his eyes were sparkling.

And as Sam let himself be pulled along through the crowded mall, he'd never been surer of anything else in his life.

1996

"Dad…are you sure about this?"

Sam could see his dad gritting his teeth at his continued inquiries. "Yes, Sam. I'm sure. This spirit was one of those soul-stealing-psychics in its lifetime. Therefore, it had a talisman that it used to store the energy of the souls it collected. Therefore, all we need to do is destroy it and it'll all be over and done with. It's simple."

Sam frowned. Sure, it sounded simple, but…"Dad? What happens to the energy that escapes? What are we gonna do about that? I mean, the people are dead, so the souls can't return to their bodies. They've been converted into this energy thing, so they might not just disappear. What do we do with that?"

Dad sighed irritably. "That's just ridiculous, Sam. Of course they'll vanish. I've seen it happen before. You know, sometimes I think you argue just for the sake of arguing." He shook off Sam's protestations and barked "Go help your brother with the setup, Sam. And come on this hunt with a better attitude. Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"But, Dad," Sam just had to get this in, it was killing him. "At school, we learned about the transfer of energy in physics. When energy changes from one form to another, it doesn't just disappear. It has to convert into a different form. What if the soul-energy stuff is volatile? What happens the…?"

His Dad had hit boiling point. "Sam." He snapped sharply. "Not another word. Do you really think that your school education applies to hunting? With these things, different rules exist. None of your teachers are even aware of the existence of the things we hunt. Science classes in the eighth grade have no say in this stuff. I'm going to say this one last time: I know what I'm doing better than school does in these matters. Are we clear?"

Sam shut his mouth and nodded sullenly. His dad wasn't going to listen anymore, that was for sure.

"Good. Now go help your brother and get ready to go."

Five hours later, Sam was dead-tired and didn't even have enough strength to throw out an "I told you so".

As he'd thought, when Dad had broken the talisman the energy that had been encased exploded out all at once, creating something like a sonar shockwave and blasting them back. This resulted in the massive heat energy produced by the talisman to spark out a flame on the cabin's wooden supports, making it catch fire in an instant. They'd barely made it out in one piece.

Dad wasn't looking at him, but Sam didn't care. He was going to put more of his trust in science from here on out. It seemed that even the world of the supernatural couldn't trump the world of science, no matter what his dad seemed to think on the matter.

2004

Sam decided that Jessica was really, really cute when she was frazzled. She was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, books spread out all over the place and her hair frizzing out in crazy directions. She was studiously copying down notes, mouth moving as she wrote like she intended to repeat the whole lecture to herself.

Sam sat with her, pouring over one of his textbooks and watching her with amusement. He'd thought he was the stressed-out person in this relationship, but it was clear that he was far, far outdone in this case. Jess was a professional.

She was demonstrating her hard-earned talents now. "Sam," She squeaked suddenly, moving frantically towards the paper-covered mound on her right. "Have you seen my schedule? I know it was here, I put it there a second ago…"

Sam grinned into his coffee. "Under your arm, Jess."

Jess glanced down, and then looked up sheepishly. "Oh. Yeah. Thanks."

A few seconds passed. And then…

"Sam…"

"Planner's on the table next to the laptop." Sam said patiently. "You took it with you to write those deadlines, remember?"

"Right!" Jess stood up and weaved her way over to the small dining table. "I knew that. I was just testing you." She looked up at him with a grin, hand curled around her messy, battered notebook. "What would I do without you, Sam?"

Sam's lips quirked. "Crash and burn." He said casually, tipping his head back against the straight-backed chair, feeling its sturdiness support him. He could always count on Jess to make life normal, and fun. This was what he relied on.

2009

Angels.

The very word generally brought positive images in Sam's mind: pictures of beautiful creatures with cherubic faces and Pastor Jim's kindness and wisdom. He'd always been a believer because, well, in this life, how couldn't he be? Bad had to be balanced with good, and good had to come from somewhere.

Dean's confident assertions of the opposite did not plant the doubt they usually did. "They're real, Dean." He stated calmly. "Why wouldn't they be?"

That's where he found that faith could be siphoned off slowly, too. It had begun to rub away from him with Father Gregory's appearance, slowly leaking out of his soul and into the gloom. It was a painful process, and was fully completed by the time his handshake had been rejected by the very being that he had always prayed to.

The images of praying at nights, of giggling under Pastor Jim's watchful gaze, and zit monsters in the night had shattered completely and utterly without a single thought of farewell.

2010

And then there was Dean.

He always managed to pick up any leakage of faith Sam experienced. He was like a giant trust sponge, soaking up everything good and strong and keeping it there.

It always came back to Dean. Always.

"But how do you know?" Sam exclaimed, frustrated. "It happened to Ava. How could it not happen to me? How? It's illogical, man! You've got to be prepared for…"

Dean cut him off. "No, Sam." He said simply. "Not gonna let it happen."

Sam sat back "How?" He repeated quietly, watching the world go by from the window. He saw Dean's hands tighten around the steering wheel of the car, but his voice remained as clam as ever.

"Trust me, man."

And Sam sighed, whispered "okay" because he was never going to say no to that. It was a scene that had played out a multitude of times in their lives, childhood and adulthood, and it always ended the same way. There was a certain comfort to be taken from that. There was something stable in his life, at least.

Even now, five years after it all began. After everything. It still worked.

"How do you know, Dean?" Sam asked quietly, tiredly. "It's the Devil. This isn't your run-of-the-mill demon. Which, by the way, I wasn't able to shake off at all. I don't know, man. How do you know we're going to beat something that powerful?" And, as an aside: "How am I gonna do this?"

And Dean, despite his aches, pains, and self-destructive memories, did not miss a beat.

"Hey." Fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Don't doubt yourself now, man. You can do this. Trust me."

And as they hurtled down towards the end, Sam found himself marveling on how even after all his faith in everything had vanished, Dean had never really broken that faith. Even when it he had lost it in himself.

2012

Water dripped from his face, splattering into the sink and decorating it with droplet pictures. He stared at his blurry reflection tiredly in the spotted bathroom mirror, contemplating the events of the past seven years. He blinked tiredly, allowing all memories of the hellish time spent at that hospital to flood his mind without the burden of guilt. He had paid his penance. He had Dean, he had hunting, he had his life and sanity back thanks to Cas's dedication to their friendship. It was time to get back to the real world.

He heard a muffled shout of "Sam!" from outside the bathroom door. With a final glance at the mirror, Sam stepped back and offered a quick, automatic prayer upwards. He then straightened up, put back his shoulders and with a final you can do this he stalked out to where Dean was waiting, ready to tackle anything that came up next.

END

(A/N: Right…so this was an idea that was supposed to map out Sam's transference of faith: from religion to his dad to science to Jess and normal to angels to Dean and finally, to himself. I hope that came across. I love the character development in Sam. It's so genuine and subtle, yet hardly touched upon. His growth in self-confidence is really worth paying attention to in the show. Oh, and I was thinking of doing more of the laws-of-physics-based fics like this. Do you guys think it's worth pursuing?)