AN: This chapter is pretty long, hopefully it will make up for the possible wait time for the next one. I thought that you guys had waited long enough for answers...

IntotheNothing: Dean's not so good an verbalizing his emotions. I figured this was like his monologue to Sam when Sam was lying there dead.

Rose could feel herself starting to go insane. Every vision she would ever have, could ever have, millions of images flooding through her mind at the speed of light, faster. She struggled to understand, to exert some control, but she couldn't.

She did not know how long she spent trying, but it felt like eternity. It felt like she was seeing all of eternity laid out like a billion photographs stretching through her brain.

Eternity hurt like Hell. Literally.

She could feel her mind slipping away from her when a soft whisper entered her consiousness. She could not discern the actual words, but the tone was soothing and encouraging. It gave her something else to fixate on, helped her ground herself a little against the swirl of light and color and thoughts.

Then, something like a scream reverberated though her skull, making her grit her teeth and screw her eyes shut against the sudden pain of it. The scream died as quickly as it started.

She took a deep breath and then another, then realized that she couldn't see anything because her eyes were still closed, which meant that she had some control. Slowly, she opened them, a little worried about what she would see.

She was standing in what appeared to be a large room, enormous even. She could not see walls or doors or windows, but she could feel what appeared to be a very solid floor under her feet. Everything was white. White like a styrofoam cup or paper, but much brighter. It was that same artificial, never-found-in-nature type of white. There was no furniture of any type that she could see; just her and the startling, glaring white.

Rose was fairly certain that she'd finally gone completely off her rocker. Still, it was clean and warm and she was halfway tempted to just close her eyes and rest in this strangely stable mental instability.

"You are not mad," said someone behind her.

For some reason, she was not at all surprised to hear Castiel's voice. Instead, she turned around almost leisurely. "Dean's right, we do need to get you a bell."

For some reason, Rose thought it amused him. He did not smile exactly, but he looked more at ease so Rose thought it was a win. "I take it you are no longer angry with me."

She shrugged. She wanted to be, but it all seemed so long ago. What was the point of being angry when you were nuts and couldn't do anything anyway? "I guess not. I'm too luneytoons to be pissed." Her reference clearly puzzled the angel. He cocked his head to the side like a puppy and that thought made her giggle. For some reason, the Kryto the Superdog theme started running through her head. Great, even her crazy brain was going crazy. "I always thought that the inside of my head would look like a Jim Morrison acid trip, not an Eric Clapton." A thought occurred to her and she frowned. "This is the inside of my head, right?"

"In a manner of speaking...yes."

"Okay, just making sure I didn't go crazy in someone else's head-psychic and all that. Now, why are YOU inside my head?"

He started to reach for her, then stopped and let his arm fall to his side. She noticed that he did that a lot. "You were right."

"I usually am. What was I right about this time?" Suddenly tired of standing, she dropped onto her butt and crossed her legs Hindu style. "Have a seat."

Out of nowhere, Castiel conjured a bench. It was a little irritating that he could make things in her head, but she was not too proud to scramble up to park it next to him. "It was your mind, your life. You deserve to know what is happening to you." He turned his face to really look at her, his blue eyes brighter than the room. "But you were also wrong. I am not a hammer, Rose. I have...doubts. I recognize that we have the power, the authority to do what we deem necessary. That does not always give us the right."

"It doesn't," she agreed. She did not say anything else, understanding somehow, just how hard this was for him.

"You are not mad," he said again. "This room, it is my creation, a place for us to talk."

"You built a conference room in my head?" She made a face that she learned from Sam. She thought it was Bitchface number nine. "That's kinda disturbing."

"No one else, not even an archangel, could do this," he assured her. "We have a special connection."

"Yeah, yeah," she said with a smile and a fondness in her voice that surprised her a little bit. "You're my guardian angel."

He shook his head. "It goes much, much deeper than that."

"Ooookay," she said, eyeing him warily. "I'll bite. What does that mean?"

"Your father..." Castiel paused and gave her a look she understood less than normal. "He died in Vietnam."

"Uhmmm...No. No, he didn't." It was the most intelligent thing she could think to say at that moment.

"Yes, he did," Castiel insisted gently. "Mary made a deal. With Azazel, the Yellow-Eyed-Demon."

"That's not possible," she said numbly, unable to fully process what the angel was telling her. "She wasn't dragged away by Hell Hounds, and she had more than ten years."

"That is because, ten years after the deal, Azazel did not come for your mother," Castiel said sadly. "She did not deal away her own soul. She gave him Sam."

Rose just stared at him.

"When your brother was an infant, Azazel took his prize. He..." Castiel paused and put his hand on her shoulder. It was nice, sitting there with her in that bright place of his own creation, hearing her heartbeat and looking at nothing but clean whiteness. He did not want to cause her more pain. But he knew that he had to. "Your brother is infected with demon blood."

"No!" Rose protested, jumping up and pointing a shaky, accusatory finger at the angel. "No...You're, that's not true! You're wrong. Sam, Sammy is not part demon!"

"You know that it is true," he said softly, eyes searching her face, looking deeper than the skin. "You have felt it. You know the darkness that fuels Sam's abilities."

She wanted to argue more, to scream and shout. But...she did know, she had sensed it. "Oh, God," she moaned, all but collapsing onto the bench. "Sammy." She lifted tear-filled eyes to meet his and he felt an unfamiliar pang in his chest. "My brother is a good person."

"And he is not damned," Castiel assured her.

Slightly mollified, she turned to face the white. "What, what does that have to do with me?"

"We found out about the deal too late to save Sam. Rose, your family will decide the future."

"How?" she asked in a very small, tired voice.

"I honestly do not know."

She must have believed him, because she nodded. "Go on."

"In order to, hopefully, counteract the demonic influence, it was insured that John and Mary would have a third child."

"Me." It was obvious, but she said it anyway.

"You." He put his hand around her shoulders again, knowing that physical contact was often a comfort to humans. She all but melted into his embrace. "When you were created, before you truly came into being, Heaven gave you a blessing, a gift. We touched your soul with grace."

"Grace?" she asked, leaning her head against the back of the bench, the hard feeling of it the only thing that seemed real.

"Energy, power..." He struggled to put to words what was the most basic knowledge to him. "It is what makes an angel essentialy. Our source of power and our connection to Heaven."

"Source of power?" Her eyes, beautiful mixture of green, gold, and brown, widened and she looked at him again. "My psychic stuff-"

"Is your own, inherited from your father's side," he clarified. "As is Sam's. They way that they manifest, however, and their potency are influenced by the Grace and blood."

"But, if I've had this Grace my whole life, then why are my powers going all," she made a violent fluttering motion of her hand.

It took him a moment to interpret that. "Because, it lay mostly dormant, acting in the place of instinct occasionally, its main function keeping you safe."

"You make it sound like a creature," she said with a small smile. "And you still haven't answered my question."

"When you went to Hell, I told you, a human could not survive that sort of pain. Your grace had to become more...proactive. Your life depended on being able to resist the demons."

"So, when the demons stripped away my physical strength, the Grace had to compensate. Like, when someone goes blind, their hearing gets better," Rose said beginning to understand. "And when I got back..."

"The floodgates had opened," Castiel said, pleased that she was understanding. "Increasing your powers to their fullest levels, while not giving your mind time to adjust. There is only so much humans can know, and you are able to push those limits." He gave her shoulders a little squeeze. "We never anticipated that you would go to Hell. You were supposed to learn about your Grace and begin using it under supervision. My supervision."

"Ah." She noticed the almost possessive way he said 'My,' and it was both worrying and comforting. "Why your supervision? Because you're my protector? How did you get that job anyway?"

He paused, trying to decide if that would be too much to tell her. "Your Grace, it came from me. I carved out a piece of mine to twine with your soul."

She looked at him again and blinked owlishly at him for several long moments. "What?" It came out more of a croak. "I don't...How much?"

"Only God can make grace, Rose," he said quietly. "We knew what needed to be done and, when I saw your soul, I volunteered." Her soul was a beautiful thing, slightly cracked like all human souls, a little faded in the brightness of the Garden, but more beautiful than most. He remembered feeling that there was a strength in that soul that was unusual for mortals, something compelling. "I did not give you much. Humans, even one such as you, cannot fully comprehend our power. What I gave you did not even diminish my own abilities." That was true, what he gave was a tiny amount, but Castiel still remembered the pain that came with the act of literally cutting, slicing away that piece of his own soul. He looked at his charge and thought, not for the first or last time, that it was worth it.

"Thank you," she said quietly, a little overwhelmed. She was pretty sure she did not deserve anything like that. She knew her own frailty and weaknesses, could feel them when she closed her eyes. "What do I do now?"

"I can lock most of it away inside you again," he said. "Back inside your soul, so that we can work together as we were supposed to do."

"Will you?" she asked, a little scared at the prospect of training in the Angel Olympics. "As nice as this place is, going crazy doesn't have much appeal."

In answer, Castiel put one hand on her forehead and the other over her heart. A warmth flooded through her, a sense of peace and her soul almost sang a song of recognition. It was one of the most intimate moments of her life, as part of her soul came into contact with the giver of a part of it.

He withdrew his touch, and she left shaken and oddly bereft.

"Is that it?"

"Yeees..." he answered slowly, staring at his hands deeply puzzled. She wondered if he felt anything like what she felt. "Are you ready to go back now?"

"I guess." She rubbed her face, suddenly wanting to stay in this safe place with her friend. But she couldn't leave her brothers out there. Nothing could make her really want to abandon them. "I am not looking forward to telling Dean and Sam this story."

"I understand." He put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her in to kiss her forehead. "I will see you soon."

"Not too soon. We need sleep. And food." She smiled at him, wondering when this comaraderie had really started. "Humans have needs."

"I will take that under consideration." She could not tell, but she thought he looked amused.

Everything got very bright very quickly, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was lying on a couch in a strange room, and Dean was sitting on the floor next to her head between his knees. She reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Deano."

"Rosie?" He looked up at her and a mixture of emotions crossed his face. "Are you back? Ok?"

"I think so." They were speaking quietly, but Sam apparently heard them from the other room, because he came skidding into the room, pen in hand.

"Rose? Are you okay?"

"I tihnk so," she repeated, sitting up. "Ow, my neck hurts."

"Easy," Dean said, sitting next to her and putting his hand over the sore spot, thumbs digging in to work out the kink. "Easy now."

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"That's kind of a long story."