"Don't scratch the wall."

The first thing he remembered in his newest lifetime was hearing Death's voice.

It was an undisputable fact that rebirth was a difficult process; the readjustment between soul and body was already hard enough without factoring the massive desynchronization of two halves that had both being functioning as wholes for as long as his had been. So many things could go wrong, so many delicate pieces had been strong-armed into position that some confusion was really not worth of much note in the grand scheme of things and maybe that was why it was so badly overlooked by everyone else.

The truth was that the soul had spent so much time in agony that anything from before the pain had long since burnt away from his memories; his few years as a human couldn't compare to the eternity of his torment and so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that, upon returning to the mortal plain with that core part of him blocked out by Death's wall to give him a slim chance of surviving, it would eventually latch onto the only thing he could find to preserve his sanity.

His soul searched the body and found new memories that still meant something, that he could accept as his own: a muscle car from the sixties he had nearly crashed into a tree while learning to drive; sitting in a crowded bus to college but wondering if leaving his only family behind had been the right decision; a soccer match were he proved that he was more than just the weird nerdy kid living down the street.

If he didn't quite know what to make of the other memories, like those of the pretty blonde he had planned to marry but couldn't remember loving, the absence of a Mom despite feeling she should have been the most important person in his life or the fights he remembered having with his father even if he had barely known the man… well, he was told not to pry. It was easier to adjust to being human, after he accepted them all as his own, anyway.

So, he kept on living. He hunted. He was thrown into alternate universes, he travelled back in time and fought against the forces of Purgatory, and it was somewhere along the struggling against the bizarreness of his world that the initial feeling of not quite fitting into his own skin began fading away; though it never felt really right, he got used to it just enough to relegate his doubts to the back of his mind, right by the Wall, where they would have been left untouched for the rest of his life, if it hadn't come down.

But come down it did.

… … …

He didn't really notice anything out of place at first; the hours he spent at that bar and in the motel room had been filled with the urgency of finding out what had happened to him, where he was; even the vision of his doppelganger in that alley didn't alert him on the change that was threatening to destroy his life as he knew it. It wasn't until he reached the forest, and felt a gun pressed against the back of his head that something started to churn uncomfortably in his gut.

"My God… Am I really that cocky?" His own voice remarked dispassionately behind him; he turned around, just in time to see another Sam, whose expression immediately shifted into something uglier. "Or rather, are you?"

The soulless piece was merciless, even crueler and deadlier than he had imagined it would be; but for him, running was instinctual, easier than anything else he knew. He knew how to move fast, without noise, following unpredictable patterns and he knew better than to become complacent at any time; it was because of that that he was able to fool the soulless part in their shared space, and shoot it from behind.

It let out a weak cry as it collapsed to the ground, but still managed to laugh with his last breath, cold but with much more triumph that should have been possible, "You think I'm bad? Wait until you meet them."

The other dissolved into light, and he barely had time to brace himself before pain engulfed him completely.

… … …

The house was dark, lit only by candles and the moonlight. It looked exactly the part of a haunted house from a B-rate movie. He moved hesitantly, waiting for the next attack, but nothing came as he reached the last door.

It opened to an even darker room, barely lit at all, and once he was inside he could barely see the two people occupying it. The one by the window, with his long hair and his stature, he had grown used to that form to know him well; the other one sat in front of the desk, his face cast in shadows however… he could see the lighter shade of hair, the way he barely seemed out of his teens yet; and he knew him, he was sure of that, but why didn't he remember… he moved further inside, trying to get the attention of the other Sam but only the boy looked at him.

"Please, leave."

"Who are you?"

"Don't you know?" The boy stood up, swallowing his answer with a quick glance to his silent companion, but the man didn't react, still scanning the outside for danger. Both of their faces were scarred and disfigured, and he could feel the truth just out of his reach. But the boy continued to plead, "You don't want to remember, not this. Just leave it be; this is what we wanted. This was… this was Sam's choice."

"I have to do this," he pleaded. The boy just looked sad.

"You have to go through me. I am the only piece left."

"But he…" He waved his arm in Sam's direction, confused. The boy laughed mirthlessly.

"He's watching for danger, guarding this room; he won't react to you. If you want to leave, you have to get past me, but if you do... you will have to remember everything. You'll remember Hell, all of it, and, well, you're just not strong enough to face the truth." The boy's stare was old and pained, and he had to resist the urge to look away. "Trust me, you don't wanna know any more than this. S… Sam… stay here. You can have a new life, go to m… go to school again. You could… you could find anyone you needed, just turn around and leave this house behind."

The boy was clearly begging, nearly tripping over his own words just to get them out in the open; even knowing deep inside that those words were nothing but the truth, his life didn't amount to anything if he couldn't save his family, who by now was probably fighting for their lives back in the waking world. The man ruefully smiled before pulling out the knife, "You know me."

"But do you know yourself?"

Without allowing himself to doubt any longer, he stabbed the boy, who made no move to defend; and like a freight train, the truth hit him so hard he nearly rocked on his feet. In that suspended moment it was so obvious he wondered why he hadn't guessed it before; it had been written in the boy's hesitation when referring to him, in the older man whose eyes had never once looked his way and in every day he had lived after Death had put a foreign soul into an unwilling body. His realization left him breathless, and he couldn't recognize his own voice anymore as he finally put it into words.

"I am not Sam."

The man by the window started and he had just enough time to send him a bewildered look but in the span of a second he was gone, like he had never been there in the first place. The younger boy slumped to the floor, his eyes open for one more second,then he too was gone in a flash of light.

Then, Adam remembered.

... ... ...

It was more painful the second time, perhaps because there were more memories stored away, or just for the sheer gravity of them.

First, he remembered the Fall. Ironically, it had just felt like that split-second of apprehension one would feel when missing a step in a staircase; only the feeling had stretched on and on and, though harmless, it had been enough to steal his breath away for the next few decades.

After that, the memories started to blur together. They might have been slightly separated from the archangels as they landed, and he thought that Sam would probably have tried to drag him further away from them, but there was no point in trying to discern specific moments of the time after they were inevitably caught (had there even been a before?) and their existence was filled with the same cycle of burning, dying, fleeing.

Maybe the worst torture was the one coming from inside, his emotions that became hopelessly out of control after a while. And yet through it all that old, wounded soul was always by his side. Sometimes, Adam loved it, for protecting him, for comforting him in the lull of the chase; others he hated it, for putting him through the terror of waiting, the despair of hoping and for drawing them to him. And yet others he couldn't stand to be separate from Sam, even as the claws and teeth tore him apart only to be put back together just to start again.

Adam and Sam existed in a state of eternal motion, where the only rest came with the last breath they did no longer need to take. Their bodies had kept them tethered, at first. Human. The bodies took the brunt of the damage, and the brothers' souls kept surviving; and then, (when?) Sam's body was taken away. It was different, then. Sam was closer to the true afterlife in spite of his very unconventional death. He could slip through paths that had been closed to him before; he could lure them away from Adam, with nothing to buffer his soul from the angelic sights. The scars began piling up, some shallow, others jagged, most painful and yet Sam still shone like he had done (solongago) before.

Even so, Adam could feel Sam's soul weakening with every passing cycle; he kept going through the motions, dragging him away whenever there was an opening, yet slowly but surely the torture was breaking him; only Adam's safety seemed enough to get any reaction out of him, and even that was wavering. Adam's own body was finally breaking down, his soul beginning to bear his own scars, and he could only hope that Sam would survive another cycle, that he wouldn't simply disappear in one burst of light and leave him alone in the vastness for (decadescenturieslater) however long it took him to burn to ashes as well.

When Death had come for Sam, and just for Sam, his big brother had refused; more than that he had resisted, with strength neither knew he still had. He couldn't retaliate of course, couldn't really cause the being any harm; still he grabbed Adam, enveloped him just like those few, few times when the blows had been light enough that his hold could keep Adam relatively safe and unhurt, and he refused to let go, a constant hum of sound coming from his abused throat.

"Please," the litany steadily increased in tempo, finally becoming loud enough to be understandable, but by then it seemed Sam had finally run out of defiance and for better or worse this would be his soul's last effort, "please, please, take Adam, save Adam, please..."

Adam woke screaming to an empty panic room.

… … …

Finally it was over and Adam opened his eyes to the iron walls of the panic room and the fan moving lazily over his head. He tried to get back on his feet and stumbled when all the memories from two people and too many lifetimes to count slammed into him at once. Her reached the cot and more importantly the bucket by its side before it all became too much and his knees buckled as he got sick, and not just because of the torture he could feel lying in wait for the moment his guard dropped.

Sam had saved him. He condemned them both for Dean and the world's sake, and yet he had immediately turned around and sacrificed the only chance he would have to get out of the Cage, the only way to have stalled the oblivion of his very being... all for a brother he had known for a day. Only that wasn't quite right either, was it? Adam and Sam had known each other for so long, for centuries, longer than any human had known anyone else. In a sense, Adam was the being who knew Sam best in the whole universe, even if he had never seen the Sam of this body's memories, the one happy and carefree...

He had been given another chance. Sam had given him this chance, and now Adam had to decide what to do with it. So he would keep moving forward, and one day, Adam would find his way back to Sam; he would find a way to get back the Sam that he should have been allowed to know from the start.

For now... for now Dean and Bobby needed him.

… … …

Death calmly stepped out of the scrap yard, and soon after he had left the mortal plane altogether. His lips twitched upward in what could almost have been a smile, and his fingers reached for the ball of light inside his suit-case.

"Well then, what am I to do with you now?"