A/N: Some lines taken from 7x1.

Chapter 4: Broken Pieces

Sam whirled at the sound of rusted hinges creaking, and his hand went to his hip where Ruby's knife rested in his belt. Could demons or angels still be lurking around this place? He strained his ears, but didn't hear anything more. After a long moment, Sam turned back to face the chamber he'd stepped into. Where was the damn supply closet? He'd gone down the hall like Cas said, and hadn't he found the blood? He thought he had…but then somehow he'd gotten turned around. And he didn't even have the jar anymore.

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Cas needed him, dammit! If his head was playing tricks on him because of the stupid wall… Just pull yourself together! Sam snorted. Right, because that always worked.

Something skittered across the concrete, and Sam spun so hard it made him dizzy. "Dean?" he hissed. He wanted to curse at his brother for sneaking up on him, but that would just alert Dean that something was wrong, and they could not afford the distraction. But when Dean didn't show himself, Sam felt a tendril of ice slither down his spine. He should just get back. Now…which way had he been headed?

He turned into the adjacent laboratory, and came face to face with his worst nightmare.

Lucifer stood before him, smiling with Nick's face. "Hi Sam."

He sputtered, and took a halting step back. "You're not here. You're in Hell."

Lucifer wagged a finger at him. "Now that, you're right on."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam spotted curved metal barbs swinging from the ceiling, yet when he flicked his gaze straight on, they were gone. He shook his head firmly. "Meat hooks…chains…you. It's not real. It's just my brain leaking memories from the Cage 'cause of the wall breaking down. That's all." That's all.

Oh shit, he was going insane.

"Hmm, that's very good, your little theory," Lucifer hummed, and then shrugged blithely. "It's wrong. Sam, this isn't you going guano. Everything else is."

"What?" Dude, don't you know you shouldn't talk back to hallucinations?

"Everything…" Lucifer replied with a smirk. He spread his arms to encompass the grungy room with its cracked tiles and moldy fixtures. "From the second you sprung out of that lock box."

Sam's breath froze in his lungs. "That's impossible."

Lucifer angled a forbearing look at him. "No, escaping was impossible. I have to say, I think this is my best torture yet—make you believe that you're free and then…yank the wool off of your eyes." He laughed. "You never left, Sam. You're still in the Cage… With me."

Lucifer surged forward then, and before Sam could react, the Devil had shoved him against the wall and wrapped a hand around his neck. Sam kicked and flailed and clawed at Lucifer's arm, but the archangel's hold was intractable.

"You're not real," Sam wheezed. Oh god, but his lungs burning and the sparks igniting in his brain certainly felt real… No!

"You're still in my cell," the Devil taunted. "You're my bunkmate, buddy. Sam. Sam."

Lucifer's tone started to change, less high and sing-songy, and more deep and frantic.

"Sam! You hearing me?"

Something pressed against Sam's chest, and with that contact, the hand around his throat suddenly vanished. In the blink of an eye, Lucifer was gone and Dean was staring at him wide-eyed, inches from his face, hand pressed to Sam's sternum. Sam gulped in a lungful of air.

"Whoa, look at me. Hey!"

"Dean?" Sam's stomach clenched. Dean was real, Lucifer wasn't. Or was it the other way around? He gave himself another sharp shake. Dean was real.

Dean's expression scrunched up in distress. "We got to button this up, man," he said, voice wavering slightly. "Come on, let's get out of here." He tugged at Sam's sleeve. "Come on."

Sam let his brother lead him out of the dingy lab and down the corridor like an errant child. When they reached the other lab where Purgatory had been opened and found Bobby kneeling next to an unconscious Cas, Sam felt guilt stab him through the chest.

"What happened?" he asked, voice coming out gruffer than he wanted.

"Purgatory souls are back where they belong," Dean replied. "And Michael got blown back to Oz."

"And Cas?"

Dean didn't respond, and Sam flicked a worried look at Bobby.

"Not sure," the older hunter admitted. "Just help me get him up and to the car. Panic room is probably the safest place for him."

"Yeah, okay." Except, when Sam stepped forward to help lift Cas, Dean cut him off and grabbed the angel's arms instead. Sam opened his mouth to insist he was fine, but clamped it shut at the last second. Who was he kidding?

Bobby was giving them strange looks, but neither brother made a comment. Sam gathered up Bobby's notes and stuffed them in the folds of his jacket; no sense leaving the pop Purgatory spell around for someone else to find. They got Cas to the car and then booked it back to Bobby's. Sam kept twisting around in his seat to see if the angel was coming around, but as yet there were no signs, and Sam's gut was starting to churn again.

"You saw how he was with all the souls in 'im," Bobby spoke up from the back. "Guy took a cosmic beating and probably just needs to recover."

Sam glanced at Dean and saw his brother's knuckles whitening around the steering wheel.

"And if Michael killed Cas the moment he took over again?" Dean said so low that Sam almost didn't hear him.

Bobby let out an audible breath. "Just give it time."

Right, time. Sam leaned his forehead against the window, relishing the touch of cold glass that seeped into his skin. Time could maybe make things better in Cas's case. But in Sam's, it would only make them worse.

They made it back to the salvage yard, but Cas still hadn't regained consciousness, so the brothers carried him down to the panic room and laid him on the cot. The one Sam had occupied when he'd been trapped in his head. Now it was Cas's turn.

Dean rubbed his face and then turned to walk out. Bobby had disappeared, mentioning something about strengthening the angel warding around the place.

Sam cast a regretful look at Cas before following. "Dean?"

Dean paused at the foot of the stairs, hand gripping the railing like a vice. Sam closed the distance between them, but didn't attempt to reach out and offer his brother comfort. That wasn't what Dean wanted at the moment.

"What happened back there, Sam?"

He held back a sigh. Great, Dean's method of deflection was gonna put the spotlight on him instead. "Nothin'. I got a little lost, is all."

Dean tossed his 'don't-bullshit-me' look at Sam. "You were hallucinating. Stuff from the Cage, right?"

Sam shook his head, exhaustion creeping in, and he slumped against a support beam. "It wasn't that bad."

Dean snorted in disgust and turned away. "Not that bad? You looked like you were having a seizure standing up."

"I snapped out of it, Dean."

"And what about next time? Dammit, Sammy! You shouldn't be going through this!"

Sam felt a stir of bitterness. No, he shouldn't. He'd done the right thing, saved the world, and what had he gotten for it? But he immediately shook off that train of thought. Sam knew what he was sacrificing when he jumped into the Cage. Hell, he wasn't even supposed to get out. Cas had done that for him, and ended up suffering horribly for it. So Sam couldn't complain if he ended up saddled with his own memories.

"Look," he said. "I'm alive, and I'm not in Hell." You're not, he mentally insisted. "So even if I've gotta deal with the Cage scars, it's still better than actually being there."

Dean flashed him a look that said he wasn't fully convinced.

"I'll be okay, Dean. I'll deal with it." He'd overcome the addiction to demon blood; he could overcome this. Of course, one was a chemical problem and this was a seriously messed up psychological one…

Sam thunked his head against the wood at his back. He was so tired. "Dean, look, you don't have to worry about me right now. I promise I'll go get some rest, but you should sit with Cas. Someone should be there when he wakes up."

Dean didn't say anything for a long moment, but simply stared through the open door into the panic room. When he finally did speak, his voice came out hollow. "I just keep thinking about what Michael said, about letting Cas see those moments with the holy fire and…you know. I just…maybe Cas waking up and seeing me wouldn't be the best thing for him right now."

Sam's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, though I'd probably be a worse choice, considering I'm the one who stabbed him in the back." And in spite of that, Cas had still come to them for help, had still answered Sam's prayer.

"We thought Cas had gone off the reservation; you did what you had to," Dean said automatically, always the consoling older brother.

Sam let out a humorless, self-derisive snort. "Did I? On some level, yeah, but…I was also angry, Dean. I think…a small part of me wanted Cas to suffer like he'd made me suffer." Sam closed his eyes for a moment in grief.

"He'd just taken down your wall, Sam. Or, Michael did. You weren't thinking straight."

Sam opened his eyes and found Dean looking at him with similar anguish.

Dean shook his head. "What I did was worse. When you first got back from Hell and were acting all weird, I knew something wasn't right, and I chased down answers until we found out your soul was missing. But when Cas was acting like a dick, when we found out he was working with Crowley, I didn't even once consider something was up. I just got pissed." Dean ran a hand down his jaw. "Cas was my best friend, and I ignored him to the point…" He let out a shaky breath. "I couldn't even tell his actions from Michael's."

Sam dropped his gaze to the floor, the silence hanging over them like a noxious shroud. "He still is your best friend," he finally whispered. And mine. Sam looked up to find Dean's eyes glistening. "And at least we have a chance to fix this."

They both turned their heads toward the panic room, anxiously waiting for their angel to wake up.

Somehow, the feeling of surfacing from a sea of blackness was becoming familiar to Castiel. He didn't move though, afraid of what he might find. Images of blood and death stirred in the depths of his memory from the last time he woke up dazed and confused. What had happened this time? Nothing good, judging by the ache pulsing throughout every inch of his body, not just his true form, but his vessel as well.

Wait, vessel…it was his again. There was no more raging deluge of voices and beings, no explosions of power as souls fought against each other. And most reassuring of all, there was no Michael. Overcome with relief, Castiel extended his senses outward, and felt the angel warding pressing in upon him. For a terrified moment, he thought he was a prisoner, the memory of holy fire and acrid smoke filling his mind. But then he heard quiet voices a distance away, and recognized the auras of Sam and Dean. He was safe.

Peeling his eyelids open, Castiel found himself facing the back wall of Bobby's panic room. There were no flames, and the warding was heavily concentrated around the perimeter of Bobby's salvage yard. So the Winchesters probably just wanted to make sure they were secure against Michael re-possessing him.

Castiel was about to try getting up, when the brothers' muffled voices started to become distinct…and their words paralyzed him. They thought he had opened Purgatory? So, they hadn't known about Michael? But why…

Castiel's heart seized—Sam's wall was gone. All the horrors the younger Winchester had experienced in the Cage were now unleashed in his unprotected mind, and Castiel knew they would drive him insane. Michael had done that to Sam? Why? Out of spite?

"A small part of me wanted Cas to suffer like he'd made me suffer."

No… The Winchesters thought Castiel had taken down Sam's wall, not Michael. It sounded as though they hadn't even known about the archangel…but Sam's prayer had mentioned him. Castiel squeezed his eyes shut. There were obviously gaps in his memory, things Michael hadn't wanted him to be aware of.

"When we found out he was working with Crowley."

Working with Crowley? Castiel would never! So…had Michael…? Of course, how else could the souls have gotten inside him? Michael had been working with Crowley, and Castiel had never realized… What else had the archangel done while possessing him?

And then Dean's confession registered in Castiel's mind. "I couldn't even tell his actions from Michael's." 'His actions.' Castiel's actions. Crowley, Purgatory, Sam's wall, they believed Castiel had been behind them all.

His head reeled from the revelation, even as it clove his heart in two. His friends believed he had done all those terrible things—believed him capable of it without a second thought.

"Did you bring me back soulless on purpose?"

They'd left him in that ring of holy fire, and at the time Castiel had thought it was due to that accusation alone. But maybe it was because of other things too. And the only reason he must have escaped was because of Michael's deal with the demons. It was only sometime after that they'd apparently found out about Michael…

Castiel hadn't felt this physically sick since he'd consumed a pan of raw beef under Famine's influence. He lay on the cot perfectly still, eyes squeezed shut and trying to fight the urge to expel his guts, or what was left of them. His head was pounding, and he suddenly yearned for the blissfulness of oblivion again.

He wasn't sure how long it took before his heart rate and breathing came back under control, but he was greeted with heavy silence. He opened his eyes, shamefully hoping the Winchesters had left. But soft footsteps on concrete alerted him that he was wrong.

Dean came around the end of the cot, and pulled up short as his eyes met Castiel's. "Whoa, hey man, you're awake." Dean stepped closer, but hesitated, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his head. "Um, it is you, Cas, right? Not…not Jimmy?"

Castiel furrowed his brow. Jimmy? Oh, the sigil to banish an angel from a vessel. That's how they'd gotten rid of Michael. "Yes, it's me," he said around a parched throat, but he didn't ask for something to drink. He slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing as every minute movement sent daggers through his spine. "Michael's gone," he felt the need to add, to assure Dean he was no longer a danger—no longer a threat to them.

Dean let out a breath of relief. "Good, that's great." He frowned as he studied Castiel. "How you doing?"

He felt as though someone had taken a shredder to his internal organs, a drill to his head, and a blowtorch to his mouth and throat, yet Castiel didn't say any of that. The question was probably meant more out of politeness or Dean's desire to fill the silence than genuine concern.

"I will be fine," he said instead.

Dean shifted his weight awkwardly, as though he didn't know what to say next.

"And I promise I'll fix Sam's wall when I'm strong enough."

"Sam's wa—" Dean blanched. "You, uh, remember stuff?"

"No." No, there was still a wall in his mind, keeping him in the dark about what Michael had done. "I heard you."

Dean swore softly. "Um, how much?"

"Enough," he replied bitterly. He wasn't even fully sure who he was angry with. The Winchesters for doubting him? He couldn't really blame them though; who would think an angel being possessed was even possible? Still, the fact that they had so easily believed he would betray them, after everything they'd been through together… There were two things in this world Castiel had ever had absolute faith in—God, who turned out to be a cosmic disappointment, and then the Winchesters, who had filled that hole in Castiel's heart when his heavenly family had cast him out.

And here he was again. After trying to do the right thing by saving Sam, his family had once again turned on him because he'd messed up, so caught up in arrogance and vanity after being resurrected that he failed to realize he'd raised the wrong soul. Everything Michael had done was because of Castiel's grave mistake. He was a fool, and had no one to blame but himself.

Dean held a hand out helplessly. "Cas, I'm so sorry I didn't realize what was happening sooner."

"You couldn't have known," Castiel hollowly echoed his inner thoughts. He swallowed, the burn in his throat making it uncomfortable to talk. "When…how did you find out about Michael?"

Dean looked away, aura radiating guilt. "He told us, right after he killed Raphael. Bastard was positively gloating."

Castiel stiffened. Raphael was dead? Then what had been Michael's goal? Why had he taken those souls and gone to slaughter a bunch of humans? What had all this been for? Castiel had so many questions, but he didn't want to ask Dean. He wasn't sure he'd get a straight answer from the Winchester on everything anyway. No, he had to figure out another way to make sense of the mess in his head.

"I need to rest now," he said abruptly, and lay back down on the cot.

Dean gave him an anguished look. "Cas…"

"The sooner I recover my strength, the sooner I can fix Sam," he cut the hunter off. And as Castiel knew would happen, Dean clamped his mouth shut at that.

"Sure, Cas. Take it easy." He left then. Castiel supposed there was small comfort that Dean didn't lock the panic room door behind him on his way out. Was it a gesture of trust? Or something the hunter had to force himself to do, against his instincts?

Gazing at the concrete walls streaked with anti-demon, anti-evil, protective, and concealment warding, Castiel's chest constricted. He had once called this place sanctuary, and he supposed with an ex-god archangel probably out for revenge, this house was the safest place for him to hide. Yet the things that had made it…home, before, were nothing more than broken pieces on a scuffed floor. When Castiel instinctively reached out to sense the Winchesters, whom he'd always taken comfort from in the past, his heart quailed with the knowledge of what he'd done—and the terror of what he still did not know the full truth of. Castiel curled up on his side and stared at the wall. He had never felt so alone.