PART II

The third time he awoke was by far the least unpleasant and Sam was fairly certain the heat was the main cause. He woke up, jiggling from side to side, as whatever he was in moved with some speed. He was no longer on a plane, he figured that much by the intermittent streaks of light that filtered in and the dull roar of an old car engine. His head was throbbing, as were his hands and ankles. Faint marks of deep, red bruising were already showing under the cuffs. Soon to turn blue and purple.

His shoulder felt stiff, but not as horrible as it could've and his urinary tract burned from the unpleasant experience of still having a catheter forced into it. The thought caused him to frown as he leaned back.

He'd just figured out what he was being moved in – a van.

Sounds of honking horns and other vehicles told him they were in a city. From the bright sunlight, it wasn't too far off noon. The heat told him that wherever 'Muwaffaq' airport was, they had arrived and left, all while he was asleep. Now farther away from anything he'd ever known and without any reasonable way of getting back. It even smelled different.

His warden was perched on a spare tire, still in the same suit.

Sam swallowed to speak, but only made a squawk the first time. His warden moved and pulled out a bottle of water, twisted off the cap and offered some to Sam. The feel of it on his tongue was the single greatest experience of his life. Cool compared to the heat surrounding him, and in plenty supply. He swallowed huge gulps of it before the bottle was removed.

"Won't do to get nauseous," his warden said quietly as he twisted the cap back on.

"What?" Sam whispered in surprise. He stared over at the guy as he wavered in the unsteadily moving van, but his watcher didn't elaborate. Sam carefully rotated his wrists and felt just as little give as before.

"Don't try to escape. I'll put you under again," he warned.

Sam stopped moving. "Where are you taking me?" A headache was making itself known and he wondered fleetingly if it was because of drugs, dehydration, malnutrition, or for lack of caffeine during however long they'd been moving him. Whatever the cause he felt grimy, sweaty and weak.

"Someplace safe."

He scoffed and let his eyes drift closed, working on calming his rapid heartrate and cool the heat that worked to burn off the drugs he'd been force-fed. "Where? Somewhere halfway across the world?"

His warden flashed a quick smirk, but didn't answer.

"Who do you work for?" He wondered how much was Men of Letters and how much was…someone else.

"I thought Lady Bevell told you who she was with."

"And are you with her?"

Again his warden flashed a smirk, though there wasn't much humor in it. "For now," he said eventually.

The van swerved and the sunlight was broken by buildings. Heading down an alley somewhere, Sam reasoned as he tried to crane his neck to look out the driver's seat window. The van pulled to a stop, but no one moved.

He noticed two guys in the front seats, both taking little notice of him or his warden as they waited. Men in shemaghs with automated rifles slung across their shoulders started yelling out amongst one another. Then a rotten looking gate was opened and the van was waved on. It drove into a shadowy and cold path and rather abruptly descended.

After ten feet light fixtures dotted the walls every seven feet or so. The driveway sloped down and shot an arrow straight tunnel underneath the ground. To someplace Sam was cautiously guessing at. They drove for almost three minutes by his count before the tunnel opened up to a spacious carpark, not unlike the one in the MoL bunker back home and he felt confirmed in his suspicion.

He exhaled, in part concern and part relief as the van was pulled to a stop.

His warden was up, unlocking the breaks on the hospital bed, and wheeling Sam to the edge of the van. The legs clattered as they were unfolded and he was jolted, making his shoulder twinge in protest. He was wheeled, without any regard for himself, past a group of soldiers, dressed in camo gear. Also bearing automatic rifles, though with far more poise than the previous guards.

They split up to precede, flank, and follow him as his warden pushed him through a set of doors, into what very much looked like another bunker. A map of Jordan, surrounded by Israel, Syria, Saudi-Arabia, and Iraq. "No…" he breathed as he was wheeled past with his armed guard, his stomach dropping. He looked up at his warden who was pushing from the foot of the bed. "Am I in Jordan?" His voice sounded small and vulnerable.

His warden never even glanced down, let alone answered his question, and Sam felt his frustration give way to fear. Tears burned their way up to his eyes and he closed them to be rid of it. No no no… He couldn't be in Jordan. He didn't have time to be in Jordan.

Then again, he had nothing but time now that Dean was dead, God and Amara were AWOL, and he couldn't care less about anyone who wasn't either of them. He clenched his jaw when a tear rolled down the side of his face and into the pillow. An image of Cas flashed before his mind's eye. The last creature alive who cared enough to waste time searching for him, and he would too. Spend eternity searching for Sam.

It was about that moment he decided that everything sucked. Every single thing. Castiel wouldn't find him, or he'd find him too late for it to matter. Sam knew how to navigate on US soil, knew how to get oriented or back to base from almost anywhere on U.S. soil – whether by legal or illegal means. This was worlds beyond him. If he wanted to get back he wouldn't know where to start. A consulate? He'd need to know the name of the city they'd passed through and where the American consulate was in comparison. He'd need cash.

But then realized how exactly far beyond his range of options the official solution was. He wasn't even alive anymore, theoretically. And if they decided to believe his fake ID, which he no longer had on him, he'd still need to pass finger printing and facial recognition to even get a temporary passport.

No, he decided with a note of dry humor, definitely screwed. His best hope was to get as close to any kind of shore he buy his way on a freighter or tanker. Work his ticket off.

Or summon Crowley…

All plans of escape were jarred to a halt when he was pushed into a room and abandoned. A door slid closed behind them and sealed him in. There he lay, practically naked and trussed up in a foreign country - continent.

As he stared into the ceiling he wondered if his brother finally made it into Heaven.

Dean was pissed.

Furious and in good company next to his mother and Castiel. "So this is her?"

"Yes," the angel admitted.

A tiny woman, attractive in a politically correct kind of way and unassuming, was sprawled across the screen. "She shot Sam?" Mary asked with the same level of animosity in her voice.

"Yes."

Both mother and son nodded. "So what now?" she asked.

"We find everything we can about her," Dean announced and flipped the laptop around. He ran her personal information through the intricate search engine Sam had used - well designed, really. With a lot of help from Charlie though the nerd never admitted it out right. Dean smirked into the screen.

"What's funny?" Mary asked softly.

He glanced away and back before he wiped it off his face. "Jus' thinkin' about him."

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

The silence ticked on. Castiel left their side and began puttering about the room, stealthily moving on to the kitchen. Dean wondered if he might make them some coffee. "What's he like?" she asked.

The smile returned even as information was shooting across the screen at a pace Dean was woefully unaccustomed to. "He's stubborn," he said with a glance. "He's got this dry humor that's never really funny."

Mary snorted. "So did John."

Dean nodded with his eyes on the screen and smile straining his face. "Yeah, I remember."

Behind him Mary sobered. "Dean?"

"Yeah,"

"John is dead, isn't he," she asked, almost as though afraid to hear the answer.

Dean inhaled to speak, but found himself unable to answer.

Instead of asking again Mary put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "It's alright, bud. I figured he might be."

He nodded, still fixed on the screen. She was figuring out a lot of shit on her own and he wondered when exactly she'd discover something she disapproved of. "Just gotta get Sam back, Mom."

"Alright."

"Just gotta get him back," he muttered.

An hour passed as Dean grew more and more frustrated with the computer. It had spat out a couple articles containing the Bevell name from The Telegraph among others. Apparently the family donated to causes up the wazoo. Apparently Lord Bevell the Senior had died five years back from congestive heart failure and left his estate, money and charities to that woman. His daughter, Antonia. She now controlled an undisclosed amount of wealth and had enough sway to score an invite to the Queen's birthday.

But Dean had gone deeper. Looked closer at her travel itinerary, which was not readily obtainable, to find out where she'd taken Sam. Dug through shell companies and off shore accounts to finally discover the company that had flown her across the world, a company she owned by proxy of several others. Her flight log showed a course set for the Middle-East with layovers in Iceland and Italy.

"They landed in something called … the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base about forty miles east of Amman, but…" He clicked on a window. "There's zero information about the time they supposedly landed. No logs, no nothing."

"Jordan is a start," Castiel announced as he rather suddenly reappeared with, indeed, two sandwiches. "I've prepared food. You should eat, then we'll go."

"Go?" Mary asked, even as she stood to accept the plate he generously offered her. "Go to Jordan?" She looked back at Dean even as she took a huge bite of her sandwich.

"Don't worry. We won't be traveling by conventional means," Dean assured as he stood and grabbed the second plate. Just watching someone else eat made him hungry. He winced mentally for not thinking to ask her sooner if she was hungry. He supposed she hadn't really noticed either.

The loss of a child had tended to do that to John as well and he was starting to realize exactly how many of his mannerisms his Dad got from his Mom. What would Mary have done? He smirked into a second bite and smiled fully when the dressing Castiel had made from scratch smeared across her cheek. She licked it off and took another bite. The rate they were both going, they'd be ready to leave in minutes.

Mary still needed a change of clothes.

"How are we getting there if not by plane?" she muttered through the food.

Dean gestured with the sandwich to the angel. "Perks of running with angels, Ma."

Mary looked up at him in surprise before she too smiled. "You've got food all over your face, kid."

"Look who's talkin'," he countered in a soft voice.

"You should pack only what you might need of weaponry," Cas announced, even as he began picking up their discarded guns around the room. He paused, looked at Mary and asked them to hold on. He blinked out of existence so suddenly that Mary jerked with a slight 'woop', nearly dropping her food in fright.

Dean steadied her with a hand as Cas made an appearance that was just as sudden. In his arms the angel carried clothes. "Mary should change."

Dean looked at her in her nightgown and nodded. His focus on Sam was coming at the expense of his Mom. His very recently returned Mom. Flesh and blood after thirty years of being not so. "Yeah, he's right," He shoved the last bite into his mouth and pointed down the hall. "There's a bunch of bathrooms down that way. Could take a shower too if you want."

Mary, similarly done, exchanged her plate for clothes and made for the direction Dean had indicated. "No need. I'll just splash some water in my face and we can go."

She hopped off and Dean once again marveled at the ease with which she adapted. He wondered what was going on in her head. She didn't show one trace of suspicion or mistrust and it appeared every ounce of Hunter she had hidden away and forgotten after she made the deal was making a very rapid resurgence. Dean felt tired just thinking about it all. He wondered how she was still functioning at a basic level.

"Dean?" Castiel asked.

He turned to look. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," Dean frowned in incomprehension. "About Sam."

He shook his head. "Don't blame you, man," He walked over and checked the guns Castiel had lined up. "I blame them," He waved blindly towards the computer. Well, the bunker in general. "You have any idea why she took him? Or how?" he added as an afterthought. Sam was heavy sucker. She'd had to have help carrying him out.

"I believe they've known about you for a while," He looked around with a small frown. "Dean, there is something I should do before we leave."

"Yeah, what?"

"Check the London bunker," And with that he blinked away, leaving Dean with his arms out in incredulity.

"Cas!"

Mary came jogging back in, dressed the part of a hunter. Dean wondered how Cas figured her size, drew breath to explain his shout, but stopped when Cas blinked back in. "Anything?"

"No. Nothing. It is very similar to this one."

"But there was no one there?" Mary asked, already on board with the conversation, having caught the gist on her way back. The woman was a quick dresser.

"It was devoid of humans," Cas confirmed. "But very much in use."

She looked at her son with a strange light in her eyes. "We should check it before we go looking for Sam. Might have something useful."

"Yeah," Dean drawled. "Yeah, yeah ok," He invited her over. "Ok, Cas let's go."

They reappeared in the blink of an eye, Mary in one hand and Dean in the other. Mary made a little sound and stumbled, but was stabilized by the angel. Dean glanced over, but was rather consumed by what he saw. "Holy shit," he whispered. "This place…"

He took in the floor to ceiling shelves, full of books. Twice as big and lavish as their own. He took in the modernized map-table and the updated computer banks on the second level. Is that Apple? He even took in the pool table in the nook, surrounded by yet more books, what looked like a bar-globe, and an expensive record player. "It looks like yours," Mary muttered. "Only bigger," He voice sounded small in such a large space.

"Yeah, well they performed pretty much the same function as ours did, I suppose," He made a mental note to tell her all about Henry and the fact that he and Sam were legacies. "I didn't know they still existed to be honest."

"They're doing more than that," Cas muttered as he fingered through a stack of manila folders.

"What?"

"They're fully functional, Dean."

He gestured around. "Well yeah…"

"No. These are reports from around the world," He looked up. "Latest is from this week."

Dean was frowning even as he began moving. "What?"

"They are all business sections."

Dean picked one up and only had to read the front page to understand the scope of that "full function". "Loss of citizens in American town."

"Nebraska. Seventy five died in that town from Amara's fog."

"That's a while ago, dude. It's not even the headline. This only mentions some local plant."

"Yes. A local factory that manufactures and ships ready-to-eat meals to the Offutt Air Force Base, among others, which in turn houses the northwestern Strategic Command center for nuclear and missile defenses," Castiel was staring straight at Dean when he looked up. "The loss impacts one, then two, then two hundred."

"So it'll cause a dip or climb in Wall Street. Still don't see your point."

"What's happening?" Mary asked, in clarification. Cas opened his mouth to reply, but Dean interrupted him.

"I don't see the relevance, Cas," He shook it off and left the folders, inviting his Mom to join him in search of anything useful. "We need to find an inventory list or somethin'. Sam found ours in a store room," He made for that direction. "If the layout's the same, it should be down here."

Mary followed with backward glance at Castiel. The angel was staring at the newspapers with a concerned frown on his face.

The two hunters traipsed down a vacant hall side by side as Dean scoured the room numbers, looking for one corresponding to the room Sam found the logs in. "Here we go," He pushed open a door and took a look around. It was an office, but seemed promising. Far more pleasantly decorated than any room they had in their bunker, it looked like a private office.

"What are we looking for?"

He sighed. "Anything that catches your eye, really," He glanced back at her. "Anything that might be a weapon."

She nodded and zeroed in on a stack of files. She began flipping through them with only mild interest. "I found something," she said the next second.

Dean stopped to stare at the object in her hand. It was a black notebook.

"I'd like to discuss your dealings within our bunker," the man said with a British accent. His wavy hair was combed back and he wore a lab coat over a fine suit.

Sam pegged him as the local branch of MoL. Sam, himself, was still strapped to the bed with his new best friend lingering just out of sight along with three soldiers. "I'd like to discuss your dealings in yours," he fired back with a pointed look at the men and women who were guarding him. Three of them looked like military. Well, military branches, seeing as the three of them in combination wore insignia from two different military commands.

The Man of Letters glanced up from a report, probably on Sam and everything he'd done since unlocking the door to Lebanon. "Yes, well you'll have ample chances to have all your questions answered if you answer ours first," He angled his wheeled stool a bit closer. "How was it you became aware of the bunker in the first place?"

Sam frowned at the increasing discomfort of being restrained to the bed. "Let me take a shower and I'll tell you."

Behind him his warden snorted in amusement and Lab-coat glared at him over Sam's shoulder. "Your brother is dead, you reported?"

Sam's desire for sarcasm fell away and was replaced by a bleak void. He didn't answer and in response Lab-coat scooted a bit closer. "Sam, you have to tell me what you've been doing if we're to help you."

"Your English is almost perfect," he commented, hoping to distract.

"As it should be for someone raised in Manchester, Mr. Winchester," He looked non-puzzled. "I should warn you that a failure to cooperate will result in a more aggressive approach."

Sam glared without raising his head. His entire shoulder had stiffened and a deep ache was running up and down his spine. "Go to Hell," he muttered.

Lab-coat closed the folder and wheeled back to his medical table. "So be it," He looked up and addressed the warden. "Please release Mr. Winchester from his restraints and inform Lady Bevell that he's refusing to answer my questions."

He stood up, taking the folder with him and looked straight at Sam. "See what happens."

Sam expected to be wheeled out, but instead his warden came over and flipped aside the sheet with zero concern for his modesty. "Hey!" he barked and yelped when his catheter was carelessly removed. A low whine escaped despite his jaw that slammed shut.

The sheet was flipped back and the breaks were removed before he was pushed out. He breathed deeply and focused on summoning a sense of calm he didn't feel. The air became cooler as he was wheeled into the hall and by a strange route.

"Don't worry. Nothing will happen for the first twelve hours," his warden muttered.

Sam opened his eyes and looked straight up at the underside of his chin. "How do you know that?" he muttered, coming to identify a sense of comfort whenever he was in his presence, in spite of himself. His shoulder was throbbing along with his groin.

His warden shrugged and declined to answer.

Sam was wheeled through a set of glass doors that opened with a swish. He stopped when they reached a cell with one glass wall. A regular key opened the heavy-duty lock and the door slid open with much the same sound as the others. Sam was wheeled in and forced to force down a surge of unease when his warden stopped and stared out the door.

Sam swallowed, trying to think what they were waiting for, when footsteps echoed down the hall. An armed guard of six soldiers stopped in front of his cell before his warden turned to face him. "These men and women are trained by some of the world's finest military forces. They're here to kill you if I can't."

Sam watched him with bated breath as he unstrapped both his ankles.

"Nothing will happen if you remain calm."

Though his voice stayed soft and easy he moved with a sort of purpose that left Sam wondering about his training. Before the wrist restraints were removed he pulled out a bundle of clothes from under the bed and placed them on the cot in the cell. "Those are for you. Privacy is in high demand for you these days so I suggest you get over your modestly as quickly as possible."

Sam hadn't been modest since his first demon blood detox, but felt no need to disclose that. He watched his warden as he undid one wrist and moved around the bed to get the other. Looking around the cell Sam discovered it had a washbasin and a toilet bowl, both in plain view by anyone standing outside. No shower, he realized with appropriate sarcasm. Figures. His other wrist was released and his warden gestured to help him out of the bed.

Sam declined the help, but reached out when his knees buckled.

"A side-effect of the drugs is unfortunately a bit of vertigo. It'll wear off," he said as he helped Sam to the cot. "You'll be brought an evening meal in about three hours and I imagine they'll wait till tomorrow to question you further."

He wheeled the bed outside to the waiting hands of the soldiers before he turned back to Sam.

"I've been told as much about you as they know, which is a great deal, Mr. Winchester. I believe them when they tell me you're not to be underestimated."

He stepped out, facing Sam, and locked the cell door in front of him. Taking a moment to watch him through the glass with the soldiers. Sam sat with his feet on the floor and stared back until his guards turned and left.

As the last of them cleared out of sight he took a chance to look around the cell again. Bare concrete walls with one light fixture in the ceiling and a small camera mounted in the hall across from his cell. One toilet with sink, one cot, and that was it. No handle on the door and no lock on the inside.

He could see out and everyone could see in. He lay down on his back and pushed the clothes aside. It appeared he'd earned a little reprieve.

He looked around again.

At least it's quiet.

It turned out that twelve hours was being generous when more visitors came about an hour after Sam received his meal. Four soldiers took up spots directly outside his cell, tactical rifles in hand. He watched as one of them opened the door, but stayed outside.

"Please step out of the cell," she said with traces of an accent.

He stood warily, watching them all, eerily aware of his new clothes, and approached the cell door. "Where are you taking me?" At least he'd changed before the food arrived and was now wearing pants.

They gestured him into their middle. "Move."

He followed with a glance at the two behind him before he turned to the two in front of him. Together they walked him through hallways that were vastly different in appearance from 'his' bunker. More bare concrete and less attention to detail. He figured it was newer than the one in Lebanon, or remodeled at some point.

Or it had served a different purpose until recently, he added, as they walked him through a hallway that opened up on one side to a high-ceilinged room slash garage. Not the one he'd arrived to.

He was led left, through a door, and into a room. What he saw had him bolting. "No! No no no-"

Someone grabbed him from behind in a reverse hug when he flinched back.

"Wait, waitwait- just,"

He was shoved into a reclined chair and held down.

"No no no listen to me-" His head was held down as a strap was fastened across his forehead. He panted as his wrists and ankles were strapped in as well, leaving him prone and defenseless. Breathless against the fear curdling through his stomach. "Please, please…"

The soldiers backed off and took up sentry positions along the wall as a man in a lab coat – much like the first guy Sam was introduced to – walked around and fixed odds and ends. "Mr. Winchester," he announced jauntily. "I hear we have a common friend," He looked over and smiled.

Sam grit his teeth and jerked the restraints which prompted a response in his guard. Their grips on their weapons tensed.

"Lady Bevell tells me you are an exemplary traveler?" he said with a distinct middle-eastern accent.

Sam frowned and groaned into a second jerk. The restraints were nylon, but were pinching his already bruised skin through the bandages. "Fuck you!" he barked.

The new Lab-coat snorted. "Apparently that doesn't extend to being a patient."

"Of what?" he spat. He glanced over the four soldiers, all just standing there as the Lab-coat cleared away a row of medical tools and grabbed a blood pressure cuff. Needle and thread, a syringe, a pair of tweezers. "What are you gonna do to me?"

"I'm very glad you ask that, Sam," He took a seat on a wheeled stool, just like the other one had, and rolled closer. "I'm here to monitor your vitals."

Sam frowned when he raised the blood pressure cuff.

"I guess you could call me the assisting physician although my colleague is not technically medically trained."

Sam's heart bounced and he swallowed convulsively.

"He does have a PhD, but I'm afraid it's in archaic languages," He looked up with a smile like the two of them shared a secret. Meanwhile he fastened the cuff around Sam's upper arm. "I'll take your blood pressure now and then again after Mr. Hjelmgaard is done."

"What?" Sam huffed, but flicked his eyes when another man entered the room.

"Apologies," he said in a rush, removing a smoking jacket and setting a leather bag on the table. He glanced over at the Lab-coat. "I was told we would be ready to start?"

He sounded German or Scandinavian as far as Sam could tell, laying there, panting away his unease. His face folded when the Mr. Hjelmgaard pulled a bronze bowl out of his bag, along with a pouch of herbs.

"Hello, Mr. Winchester," he greeted with a carefree smile. "I'm afraid proper introductions will have to wait until the next time we meet. I was summoned rather urgently," He too hopped onto a stool and looked Sam in the eye as the Lab-coat finished his check and removed the cuff. "I was quite disappointed when I heard we wouldn't have much time together, after all I've heard. I promise we will have the time at a later point."

He took out individual compounds from his satchel and set them on the table, still holding the bowl. Cradling it between his legs with both hands as he smiled openly at Sam. "Who are you?"

"I'm like you, Mr. Winchester. A Legacy, that is," He grabbed a sprig of sage and crumbled it in. "I was inducted by my father who was inducted by his father and his father before him. Sadly I have no children of my own, but my sister assures me hers exhibit an interest in my work," He opened a Ziploc baggie and tweezed, what looked like, a pinch of red ochre. "And in the service of hospitality I can tell you that I'm here to perform a spell."

A flutter of real panic made Sam clench his muscles, which again prompted a minute and controlled response in his guards. "What spell?" he breathed out.

Mr. Hjelmgaard looked up from what he'd been doing and smiled again. "It is…a little tricky, see. I've performed it before on smaller animals and once on a lady, not far from here, who had been abandoned by the Holy Roman church and left to her own devices."

"You work for the Catholic church?" His mind was spinning, attempting to keep up with Hjelmgaard's hands and mouth at the same time. His mind spat out exorcist.

"No, rather I compete with the Catholic church," he said before he broke into yet another smile. "Our services often collide, despite our different approaches," He added a pinch of magnesium shavings and lit the mix on fire. It flared and died. "Where the church deals in biblical affairs, we attempt to grasp a bit…wider."

He set down the bowl and leaned over his knees, smiling. Then he looked up at Lab-coat 2 with arched brows.

"We're ready," he assured.

"Very well, we shall proceed."

"What-" was all Sam got out before Hjelmgaard began chanting into the bowl. Sam recognized it rather distantly as Persian and began panting in honesty. "No-"

But nothing else made it out when a strange wave suddenly crashed over him. His chair fell away and his spine arched on its own accord. It felt warm and uncomfortably tingling as tension snapped tight all throughout his body. His fingers and toes curled inward. Hjelmgaard muttered a phrase and poured blood from a small phial into the bowl, which was when Sam in all honesty rethought the situation.

The tension in his spine doubled and the tingling sensation suddenly localized above his diaphragm, forcing its way deeper into his skin. The warmth became heat that followed the tingling, as both dove deeper. The tension was so strong that the base of his skull lifted from the chair, strapped down as he was across the forehead. His mouth opened and a strange gargle escaped him as a strange pressure felt like it was snapping him in two.

It felt like an electric shock and came to a similar relieving conclusion the second Hjelmgaard stopped chanting.

Sam panted, deep and desperate, not caring about the tears that dripped down the sides of his face or the moans that escaped him. He groaned lowly when Lab-coat replaced the blood pressure cuff around his arm. His skin felt like a raw slab of meat and the sensation of nylon on it like acid. To his surprise a sting of loneliness suddenly washed over him.

He started sweating until it rolled off him in rivulets, despite the fact that the void left over from the pain only gave way to relief. He was trembling and had lost the overpowering connection to his own skin from only seconds before. In its wake he had now gone numb, quite removed from the processes that had begun in his body. His mind drifted once again to his brother as Lab-coat 2 checked his blood pressure, jutted something down, and removed the cuff.

"Done?" Hjelmgaard asked, lifting the bowl as he did.

"Done," Lab-coat confirmed, and stepped back. "I'll leave you to it," he said with a polite smile. He skirted past the soldiers on his way out.

Sam watched him leave before he clenched his eyes shut over the weird reactions his body was having. He was fairly sure he was shaking although he couldn't actively feel it. It was more a vibration in the muscles along his jawline that left him suspecting. Tears rolled one by one past his temples and into the chair even though he struggled to stabilize his breathing despite the overwhelming sense of longing.

"That was that, Mr. Winchester," Hjelmgaard announced, smiling despite his victim's tears.

Sam inhaled and swallowed in lieu of snapping off something that might prompt a negative reaction. Not in so much pain as he was unnerved by the complete lack of control. If saying nothing got him the Hell out of that chair, all the better, but he had to know.

"What did you do?" he forced out in between stutters, now confirmed that he was shaking rather alarmingly – and worse yet, that he couldn't feel it. His stomach began roiling with nausea. Flash memories of a demonic brother mixed with reality.

"It is known commonly as the Hand of Ahura Mazdah," He spoke as he packed away his things. "It's not confirmed to have Akkadian roots, but it most definitely resembles something from that region, in that period."

Sam couldn't care less. "What does it do," he begged.

Hjelmgaard stopped from collecting his things. "In you?" Sam looked up. "I'm honestly not sure. Which is the reason for all these extra measures," He pointed at the bed, Sam, the room in general.

Sam clenched his jaw and glared for all he was worth, but Hjelmgaard hardly seemed to notice.

"Well, I leave you now. Till next time, Mr. Winchester," He swung into his smoking jacket, saluted the soldiers and left.

Sam began panting again the second he was gone and closed his eyes against the uncontrollable reactions flaring through his body, the deep sadness that was digging roots into his mind and refusing to be pushed away. His cuffs were undone and he was hauled out of the seat with his eyes closed. When he put weight on his legs they folded beneath him.

Again, despite an absence of pain, he was struggling to regain control.

He was shuffled out between two guards, with the remaining two following behind. It was somewhere past the loading bay when he stopped trying to lift his feet and simply allowed the men to drag him. It wasn't energy he lacked, nor strength of will really. It simply felt as if someone had cut his strings and left him just shy of paralyzed.

"Almost there," one of the soldiers grunted as he was dragged along. Sam wasn't sure if the comment was meant to ease him or motivate the one helping to drag him.

Control was rapidly slipping between his fingers leaving him without even the will to raise his head. Perhaps it was a bastardization of the spell Magnus performed on Dean, perhaps something not meant for humans. "Here we go," the soldier grunted.

Sam felt a moment of spite. At least he was heavy enough to make it bothersome to drag him back and forth all day. Dean's voice sprouting slurs at his captors sent a sting through his chest. He hoped it meant they wouldn't just leave him in the chair the next time. If there would ever be a next time-

He was dumped on the cot with a pitiful groan and left, arms and legs akimbo, face down. The two soldiers shuffled out whilst their friends trained their weapons on him. He had half a mind to snort at their paranoia, except he was afraid the sound might jar their trigger fingers.

The door swished closed and he exhaled in relief. Or sadness.

Maybe they'd leave him alone until the morning? If it even was night time. He wasn't banking on his circadian rhythm right now, not with more than twelve hours, a thousand miles, and fifty meters of earth between himself and his last undisturbed rest. He smiled very briefly, and very bitterly, into the mattress and twitched his nose, on the brink of sleep. The mattress was softer than it had any right to be.

Then, just as he teetered on the brink of sleep, a saccharin voice hummed out a familiar lullaby like the gentle slip of a knife through butter. The air grew warm, unnaturally moist, and carried a sickening whiff of ammonia and sulfur. For a long moment he hardly even realized the change, then suddenly his stomach bottomed out and every single inch of him tensed.

In less than two seconds flat fear had pumped enormous amounts of adrenaline through his system and triggered a long-suppressed response that had him rolling off the cot, onto the floor, and curling up in a half-fetal position without conscious command. His hands were in his hair before he realized what he was doing, stopped, and looked up to find Michael with his back turned a raised eagle's perch. The angel was sitting on an overhang, gazing over a vast ocean of writhing smoke.

Hell.

The screams of terror were far removed and lightning flashed far away in a purple sky with a mean wind blowing the sounds and smell their way once in a while. Heavy clouds, akin to slowly surging arches of earth, coiled suspended over the obscured landscape. With a melancholy sigh the angel very slowly angled towards Sam and lanced him with a peripheral glance.

"Hello, Sam," he greeted out the corner of his mouth.

Sam's breaths were whistling in and out in climbing panic and disbelief. This isn't real-

"If we were but one mile higher, this would be our view," he said with his eyes on the abyss. "What do you think?" His voice was soft, but still somehow carried over the thousands and thousands of screams they could hear below. Then he turned and revealed a face with one side, disfigured beyond comprehension. A sickening smile curled upwards in a stiff, violet scar and one eye was missing, leaving behind a black gap of folded skin.

Sam's breath caught and he pushed up from the floor.

"This is the price for sheltering you," he spoke, still softly and without malice until his voice lowered to a growl in his next sentence. "But I grow weary."

And suddenly Sam remembered it perfectly. It was an old memory of Hell. It was from after he had regressed into something almost animal, after nine decades of torture. Torture by Lucifer's hand, not Michael's.

But he remembered well that this was the moment it all changed.

"It costs," Michael whispered into the ether.

Sam looked up now with far more comprehension of the imminent danger, than he had felt then. Sam then hadn't sensed anything beyond pleasure or pain at that point, or reacted to anything outside the screams of terror and growls of pleasure. Hadn't been able to function beyond cowering from raised fists.

"But I'm done," Michael muttered into the writing upside-down landscape. This world was chaos, designed to unravel the mind as it unraveled. "And I think you know that," he said as he turned fully and descended his perch. This Sam knew intimately what came next. Past Sam hadn't. Michael stalked closer, more like a predator than ever before and the sight had barely seeped through Sam's addled mind back then.

"I think you've secretly been waiting for this moment," the angel menaced. "Conspiring with my brother…" His voice dropped and became inhuman. Sam quivered and tried to retreat. "Drowning me in this place!" he hissed.

Sam felt the cot against his back. He felt the cold floor underneath his hands. But it wasn't there when he looked.

"Do you like this view, Sam?" the Michael-creature hissed.

The view melted away even as he spoke, to be replaced with the only place in Hell he ever really knew. One mirage after another had rendered him without a working mind. Had rendered him without himself and open to Lucifer.

An electric hand snaked out and grabbed Sam's chin. He froze and stared into eyes that weren't seeing him as he was now. This was a memory.

Just a memory!

Something black dripped from his chin and Sam realized the angel was grinning. The torture that followed was what eventually twisted him into something less than before. It lasted for years and carried a touch of sadism Lucifer on his best day had never delivered. But Hell had corrupted the purest angel. And worse yet, Michael had known it. He had known what his protection of Sam had cost him and when he finished Sam had crawled back to Lucifer and licked his master's feet for a promise of respite.

Pointed nails dug into his stomach, through muscle like it was nothing.

Sam realized he remembered this perfectly.

The cramping agony made him screw his eyes shut and flinch back with no hope of escape.

"You betrayed me," His voice became an earthquake. "Let me show you what that feels like."

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