Thank you so much Jenjoremy for the fab beta job, and thank you Ncsupnatfan for the helping me iron out details and for your wonderful feedback.

Chapter Fourteen

The drive to the bunker seemed to take forever, and Sam didn't sleep at all, even though Dean had insisted that the radio was kept on a soft rock station playing quietly and they had barely spoken at all, usual sure ways for Sam to fall asleep in the car. He had remained staring into space, cold under his blankets. Dean had wished he would sleep, if for no other reason than to give Dean a break from seeing him looking like that—empty.

When they finally got back, Dean asked Mary to clear out the path to the bedrooms so that Sam didn't have to walk past anyone while he was vulnerable. When Mary came back and gave him the nod, Dean guided him into the bunker and through to his bedroom.

Sam showed no reaction to being home as Dean had expected and hoped for. It seemed he could have been anywhere at all when Dean stopped him in the bedroom and settled him on the side of the bed. He cranked up the heat higher to warm the room and unwrapped the blankets from his shoulders and took off the hat someone had put on him.

Sam's torso was dark with dried blood, and his jeans were stained with layers of bloodstains that told Dean almost as much as his blank stare that Sam had suffered more than just being locked in a cage in that place.

Dean filled the basin with warm water and used a facecloth to gently wipe the blood from Sam. There was so much of it that he had to change out the water twice, grabbing a new facecloth each time he did. When his torso was clean and dried, Dean dressed him with difficulty, choosing a t-shirt and thick hoodie in hopes that they would bring him some warmth.

When that was done, he stood Sam up and stripped him from the waist down. Sam's legs had lost the thick muscle definition he'd had before, looking almost skinny now with slack skin from where he had lost the weight so quickly. It was unhealthy, and the sight upset Dean almost as much as the way his skin felt against his hands as he cleaned the blood.

He finished washing Sam's legs and dressed him in a pair of soft sweatpants then settled him on the bed, leaning against the headboard. Sam moved with him, offering no resistance, though Dean thought even Sam fighting him would have been better than what he was now. At least then Dean would have known Sam was aware that Dean was there at all.

He laid blankets over Sam's legs and stomach, tucking them in tightly then opened the bedroom door. Castiel was waiting outside the room, and at Dean's nod, he came inside. Dean emptied the basin of the red water and wiped around for the remnants of blood and tossed the facecloths and towels he'd used into Sam's laundry hamper.

"How is he?" Castiel asked.

"No change," Dean said.

Castiel looked Sam up and down and nodded. "At least he will be more comfortable now. There is something very disturbing about being coated in your own blood."

That was something Dean, Sam and Castiel had all experienced before, and it wasn't pleasant. The pain was bad enough, but the physical evidence of what had happened was almost as bad sometimes. It made you feel vulnerable.

"Your mother is in the kitchen making Sam some soup," Castiel said.

"Good. He needs to eat."

"Do you think he will?"

Dean knew Castiel could see as clearly as Dean could that it was going to be a struggle to get him to eat anything if he stayed like this. He raked a hand over his face. "Honestly, Cas, I don't know. I hope so. We need to get something in him. If we can't bring him out of this, we're going to need medical supplies for him. We can't set up a feeding tube, so we'd be limited to IVs for fluids, and he needs more than that."

"Or we can take him to a hospital," Castiel said.

"I really don't want that. He should be here with us." Dean sighed. "What do you think this is? Is it shock or some kind of PTSD?"

"I don't know," Castiel admitted. "I have little experience with this kind of trauma. Sam is the only one I have seen experience something like this before, and that was different. His soul was so damaged."

"I remember," Dean said bitterly. "What do you think it's like now?"

"I don't know, and we will never find out. I would not put Sam though the kind of agony it would take to touch it and see again. He has been through too much." Castiel looked at Dean. "I know you want me to try to shift the experience again, and I want to, but I need to know what I am shifting. If this is a result of damage to his soul from what happened to him, if it's a physical thing, I won't be able to help. We need to know what happened to him."

Dean knew that he would need to find out eventually, but he was scared of it. As it was, he had nightmarish imaginings of what Sam had been through, but he thought the truth might be even worse. "I'll find out, just not yet," he said.

Castiel nodded. "You should sleep. You have been awake for almost two days now."

"You think I'll be able to sleep?" Dean said incredulously.

"I could help you," Castiel offered.

"Don't you dare! I have to be awake in case he needs me."

"He does need you," Castiel said gently. "He needs us all, but he needs us at our best, not collapsing from exhaustion. I don't need to rest. I can stay with him."

"No!" Dean snapped. "I'll sleep when he does."

There was movement at the door and Mary came in with a tray holding a bowl of soup and bottle of water. She smiled at Dean, though it was a forced thing that didn't meet her eyes, and said, "Tomato and rice. I used to make it for you. Do you remember?"

Dean forced a smile in return. "Yeah. That's good. He'll like it."

Mary sat on the edge of the bed beside Sam and said, "I've got you something to eat, Sam. You've got to be hungry." She lifted Sam's hand, poorly hiding a grimace at the touch, and manipulated his fingers so he was holding the spoon. She looked pleased and dipped it in the soup. "There you go. Try some."

When she released Sam's hand, he dropped the spoon back into the bowl without making a move to feed himself, not even looking down.

"That's okay," Mary said. "I can help."

She took the spoon and dipped it into the soup and brought it to Sam's mouth. Dean turned away. He couldn't bear to see this. His strong, virile, brother was reduced to being fed like a baby. It was so wrong.

"Please, Sam," Mary said.

Dean looked back and saw the soup dripping out of Sam's mouth and down his chin. He hadn't even tried to swallow it. Bile rose in Dean's throat and he walked quickly to the basin, avoiding looking at his reflection in the mirror above, and wet another facecloth and then handed it to his mother. She took it and wiped Sam's chin.

"I need to…" Dean broke off and fled from the room.

Of everything he had seen since finding Sam sitting by that campfire, nothing had affected him the way seeing his mother attempting to feed Sam like that had. It brought home to him just how damaged his little brother was. He was completely gone, not even able to feed himself or register someone else trying to. It made him wonder where Sam was within himself. Was it just darkness he saw, or was Sam aware but unable to reach out to the world again? Was his torture over now or was it just starting?

As little as he wanted to hear it, Dean knew he had to know what had happened to Sam so they could gauge what had put him in this state and work out what to do next. If they knew it was a spiritual problem, Castiel could try to fix it.

He reached the library and saw Charlie, Bobby, Rowena, Ketch, Kevin and Jack seated around a table. The woman that Jack had brought through the rift with him and Sam, Maria, was missing.

"Dean," Rowena said, looking up at him, her expression solemn. "How's Sam?"

"Not good," Dean said. "Mom and Cas are with him."

"And how are you?" Bobby asked.

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I don't even know properly myself. I'm still trying to process."

Bobby nodded. "Come sit down. I'll get you a drink."

Dean took a seat at the end of the table and asked, "Where's that Maria?"

"I gave her a room," Bobby said, going to the sideboard and pouring him a drink. "I hope you don't mind. She was dead on her feet, and she's one of my people. We can move her into the motel tomorrow if you prefer."

Dean didn't much care where she stayed. He needed her now though. "Charlie, go wake her up," he said. "I need to talk to her."

Bobby started to protest, but Dean spoke over him.

"She's the only one that has a chance of telling us what happened in that place, and we can't help Sam until we know."

Charlie slipped from the room and Bobby brought Dean a generous measure of whiskey. He sipped it, feeling it warm his throat and smooth the edges of his taut nerves. He wanted to slam it back, to get the relief quickly, but he needed his senses sharp for Sam, so he took another sip and set it down.

"Jack, what do you know about what happened there?" he asked. "What did you see?"

Jack looked almost afraid. "He was kept here," he said. "In the bunker from that world."

Dean felt a surge of fury. This place was supposed to be safety for them. What had Sam been through there that he would connect to their home now? Would he ever be comfortable here again? If they got him back, if he was Sam again, would he be able to bear being in the place that probably had horrific memories of what had happened to him?

"It was…" Jack looked into Dean's eyes and he seemed to be imploring with him. "It was all Lucifer. He had Sam there and he hurt him. He was the one that opened the rift. He's back now, with all those angels. I'm so sorry, Dean. I swear I thought he was different. I never would have defended him if I'd known…"

Dean wanted to be angry with the kid, but it really wasn't his fault. Lucifer was the original manipulator and prince of lies. Jack was basically innocent still. He'd been easy prey for him. Perhaps if he'd know the full story of Lucifer's crimes before he met him, he wouldn't have allowed him a chance to speak at all.

And they'd all been wrong in their lives. Sam had been tricked by Ruby and that had almost led to the end of the world. Castiel had worked with Crowley and absorbed the souls that ultimately set the Leviathans loose on the world. The Men of Letters had manipulated Mary into working with them. Dean had been so sure of himself that he had taken the Mark of Cain and believed he could control it. He'd been tricked by Gadreel and that had gotten Kevin killed. Jack was even less to blame than them. All he'd done was have faith in the wrong person.

He held up a hand to stall Jack's apologies and said, "It wasn't your fault. Do you know what happened to Sam there?"

"There was a rack," Jack said, tears welling in his eyes. "I think…"

"I need to know, Jack," Dean said when he faltered.

"I think Sam was on there sometimes as there was a lot of blood underneath it, and Maria said Lucifer hurt him. When I got there, he was in the cage in the dungeon. I don't know how long he'd been in there."

Dean nodded and looked around as Charlie came into the room followed by a terrified looking Maria and Castiel.

"You mother wanted some time with Sam alone," Castiel explained, pulling out a seat beside Jack and sitting down.

Maria was dressed in what looked like Charlie's clothes, and she winced as Dean pointed to a chair and said, "Take a seat."

She sat down and clasped her hands on the tabletop. Dean looked at her properly for the first time. He tagged her as in her fifties and she wore her hair in a ragged braid across her shoulder. Her eyes darted around the room as if expecting an attack at any moment, and when Dean spoke, she jerked.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"Jack said you're Sam's brother and the other woman is his mother."

"Yes," Dean said. "We're his family. And we need to know as much as you can tell us about what happened to Sam there and what Lucifer was doing."

"What were you doing there?" Castiel asked her.

"Lucifer said I was a prophet. The angels came and took me from The Northern Ice Fields and brought me to this place, or our version of it. Lucifer gave me a tablet and told me to find a spell to open a door to this world. I tried, but I couldn't find it, and it was so hard to read. It hurt."

"Yeah, tablets will give you a hell of a headache," Kevin said, then in answer to her questioning look, he said, "Kevin Tran. I'm a prophet in this world. Or I was. Not sure how that works since I died and you're here."

She showed no signs of surprise at the fact he'd died, and Dean wondered what she already knew of resurrections.

"When I failed to find anything, Lucifer hurt Sam," Maria said. "For every hour it took, he would hurt Sam more, and when I still hadn't done it by the end of the day, he would kill him." She wiped at her wet eyes. "He would always come back though. Lucifer brought him back from the Empty—at least that was what he called it. Does that mean Hell?"

Dean swallowed down the bile in his throat. Sam hadn't only been tortured, he had been killed, too. He had been in the Empty. But how did he get out? Billie said nothing came back from the Empty. Jack had been able to wake Castiel and make the Entity send him back, but he was more powerful than his father.

Dean looked at Castiel. "How did he get him back?" he asked.

"I don't know," Castiel said. "The only way to leave that place is to be sent back by the Entity. I wouldn't have expected Lucifer to be able to wake Sam."

"The Entity…" Maria said as if something had stirred in her mind. "Lucifer mentioned him once when talking to Sam. He would talk to him all the time, even though Sam didn't answer."

"He must be very strong to reach that place," Castiel said. "Stronger than he was before."

"But how?" Jack asked.

"Grace, perhaps," Castiel said. "Sam said he had drained angels before saving him in the tunnel. Perhaps he continued after. And if he's still doing it, he'll be more powerful here, too."

"I can still kill him," Jack said. "It doesn't matter how strong he is, I'll win."

Dean was surprised but pleased by the venom in his voice. He'd not given it much thought, he'd been consumed with Sam, but Jack had said he would kill Lucifer if he'd hurt Sam. Dean didn't think he could have hurt him any more than he'd done, and he was glad Jack was sticking to his word. Lucifer needed to die painfully for what he had done.

"But you figured out the tablet, so did he leave Sam alone after?" Bobby asked.

"I didn't," Maria said. "I tried so hard, but I never managed it. It was an angel that did it. Her name was Naomi, and she got it from him somehow. I didn't see what she did as they took him away, but I heard him screaming. Sam never screamed that I could hear before that. I think Lucifer stole his voice, as I heard them talking one morning. Sam tried to tell me something, and Lucifer did this thing to him with his hand. His screams were silent, and he'd already shut down by the time Naomi came so he didn't seem to feel the pain at all, but he made the most awful sounds when they took him away. I couldn't bear it. I went to my room and covered my ears with the pillow, but I still heard it. He was in agony."

Dean shuddered. It seemed Lucifer wasn't the only one that had tortured Sam; Naomi had taken a turn, too. How she'd broken him when Lucifer hadn't been able to, he didn't know, but he thought it was a sign of the agony Sam must have been in. It was no wonder he was the way he was. No one could have hung on after going through that.

As awful as the telling was, it gave Dean a tinge of hope. There was a good chance that this was a spiritual thing if Sam had been tortured as he had been in the Cage, and Castiel had been able to save him from that. Perhaps he would be able to again.

Jack buried his face in his shaking hands, as if he couldn't even bear to be seen as the story was told. Dean thought he was harboring guilt for his faith in Lucifer, perhaps even blaming himself for not stopping him sooner.

Dean would have liked to blame him, too, but his blame was assigned to himself. If he'd made sure Sam went through the rift, he'd have been saved. He could have gotten through, too, even. Rowena would have closed it and Michael and Lucifer would have been trapped together. Sam would have been safe, and the world wouldn't be at risk of destruction from two archangels.

Suddenly, Jack's head snapped up and he looked at Castiel. "Do you hear that?"

"Yes," Castiel said curtly. "Sam."

He jumped to his feet and Dean rushed after him along the hall. He heard Mary's voice, pleading with Sam to stop, to come back, and he jogged towards it to see Sam walking into the filing room that concealed the dungeon. He looked blank still, but he was moving purposefully, seeming to not even feel Mary trying to hold him back.

"Let him go, Mom," Dean said. "You might hurt him."

It would never be a risk usually, but Sam's muscles were wasted, he was obviously putting all his strength into moving away from her, and if she carried on, he could be injured.

Mary stepped back, looking aghast, and Dean followed Sam into the filing room and then to the end of the room where the shelves stood open. Sam walked into the dungeon and then paused in the middle of the room.

"Sammy," he said tentatively. "What are you doing?"

He heard a sharp breath behind him and Jack said, "I… I think he's looking for the cage. This is where it was in the other world."

Dean looked up at the ceiling and his mind filled with a vision of Sam, caged, hanging there, unable to even breathe without hurting himself as the cage moved. It had been an awful sight when he'd seen Mary in there with Jack's help, but Sam was, had been, much bigger. He would have been even more constricted. The pain it must have caused him to be pressed against those spikes would have been awful.

He walked to Sam's side and tugged gently on his arm, "Come on, Sammy. Let's get out of here. That's over. You don't have to be in here anymore." Sam didn't move, and Dean turned desperate eyes on Castiel. "Help me."

"I can't move him without risking hurting him," he said, looking as upset as Dean felt.

"Put him out," Dean said. "He needs to sleep anyway, and I can't handle him being in here another minute."

Castiel came to Sam and placed a hand on his back and then pressed his fingers to Sam's temple. Sam's eyes fell closed and he dropped against Castiel's supporting hand. Dean took him, noting the lack of weight. He'd struggled to carry Sam in the past when he'd needed to, but now he thought he could have carried him miles.

"Let's get him back to his room," Mary said.

Dean lifted Sam and said, "I'll do it. Mom, get his bed ready,"

Mary rushed out of the room and Dean pulled Sam closer, trying not to concentrate on how wrong he felt in his arms, how familiar it felt from when he had carried Sam from that deserted town in South Dakota after he'd been killed.

He reminded himself that Sam wasn't dead, just gone for a while, and they had a plan for him. He would have to talk it over with Castiel, to make sure he could do something, and then Castiel would be able to save him.

Sam would come back.

So… They know what happened now. It's time for them to start focusing on putting Sam back together again.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx