Author's Note: So the way I name each chapter is I write the chapter, read through it after I'm finished and try to find the theme that occurs the most, then proceed to name the chapter after said theme. The most reoccurring theme in this is "Sassie," as my brother calls it, which is the ship name for Sam and Cassie.

Chapter 37

Sassie

"You don't mean…" a lump formed in Cassie's throat.

Sam held her hand tighter. "Yeah, that one."

"Oh my God…" he had literally been possessed by the Devil.

Images from the Exorcist came to mind.

"I'm no stranger to possession," Sam said, still talking quietly in the darkness. "About a month before we found you, I was possessed by a different Angel named Gadreel. He'd lied about who he was, claiming to be named Ezekiel. Before that, I was going through a series of trials in an attempt to close the gates of Hell, forever. But it was doing irreparable damage to me. Dean tricked me into allowing him to possess me so that he could heal me. But to be honest, I was so tired and beaten and weak…I had been ready for it all to be over."

Cassie stiffened. There was a moment she'd been ready for it to be over too. Until Sam reminded her why it was she was fighting in the first place.

Because Sam and Dean were fighting too. And they fought to keep her alive.

"I understand what you're going through," he continued, rubbing his thumb over her palm. "Being stressed and scared, constantly anticipating more psychic attacks…and once you acknowledge in your head that they're real and have control, everything gets so much harder."

Tears sprung to her eyes. I should've confided in him sooner. He understands what it feels like. Sam could've talked me through it, helped me find a way to get a hold on this.

But now it was too late. Sarah wasn't just some voice giving snide comments, anymore. She had so much more power, and now Cassie was constantly living in fear.

"Dean told you about the four months he was in Hell, right?" He asked.

Cassie cleared her throat, trying to stop her tears. "Yeah," she whispered.

Sam bit his lip. "I spent time in Hell too."

Cassie didn't care about her leg and how it hurt. She moved so she could hold Sam head against her chest. She hugged him to her, stroking his hair, laying her cheek on the top of his head. "Tell me," she said.

It was hard for her to listen, but she didn't do it because she wanted to. She knew that Sam needed to confide in someone about it, and she had a feeling it wasn't something he could ever talk about with Dean.

It was easier to talk about it in the dark, with his eyes closed, in the warmth of Cassie's embrace where such things seemed distance and far away, like it had all been nothing more than just a huge bad dream.

"There's a cage in Hell…where they keep Lucifer. My soul was stuck in the cage with him for a year."

Cassie's heart stopped. Please tell me you mean in Hell time…

Dean had been in hell for four months, which equated to forty years.

If he'd been in hell for three days real time, that would roughly make up one year in Hell.

"Your brother had managed to save my body and bring me back to the surface, but my Soul had been left by accident in the cage with Lucifer."

Sam stopped talking for a minute.

"Babe?" He noticed how tense she was.

It took everything Cassie had to keep her voice even. "A year in Hell time or real time."

Oh, that's what this is about. "A year in real time, Cassie."

"Oh God…" NO! Her heart felt like it was going to combust.

Her sweet, caring Sam…always so protective and considerate of her and others, was in Hell, trapped, for…

"It would be over 120 years in Hell time," Sam confessed, wrapping and arm around her. "While I was in the cage, I was Lucifer's personal punching bag. He tortured me and abused me in ways you can't even imagine. When my soul was finally rescued and put back where it belonged, I was damaged. I was hallucinating, seeing Lucifer. He would talk to me, try to get my attention, and I'd see him in front of me when he wasn't actually there. I did a pretty good job of making him go away, but the moment I acknowledged him, he'd gained power, and I didn't have control anymore."

Oh God, Sam… She clung tightly to him, wrapping her good leg around his waist.

Sam was probably the only man on the planet who knew what it meant to share a body with another entity, and the pain of what it was like. She knew that he was getting closure from confiding in her about his experience, but it was also a way to comfort her, to show that she wasn't alone in what she was feeling. Cassie kept a hold of his hand.

"It got to the point that I had to be hospitalized. Lucifer wouldn't let me sleep, he'd make noise and sing songs to keep me awake. I couldn't eat, he'd messed with my mind to the point I'd see food as other things that I couldn't eat, just to torment me. He was killing me, Cassie."

She clenched her jaw, holding back tears.

Sam sighed. "Your brother saved me. He took on the madness and brokenness I was feeling to save me. He's saved both of us."

"Why." She was failing at trying not to cry. "Why do you all give so much of yourselves? Why? What's the point? Why do you, and Dean, and my brother all kill yourselves trying to help people? Why do you put yourselves through all of that suffering?!"

That was the big question, wasn't it? When it came down to it.

"Why didn't you ever finish law school? Why do you both hunt in the first place? Why is my brother the one fighting to reopen the gates of Heaven? Why is it up to Dean to kill Abaddon? Why him? Why you? Why do you all think it's up to you to save the world?!" Her voice was broken.

Sam just replied with, "Why do you?"

The question baffled her. "What are you talking about?"

"Cassie, you gave away your home to a complete stranger because they needed a safe place. You rushed to Magnus' to save me and Dean, and I bet you didn't think twice about it, did you? That's why you didn't bring weapons. You were in such a rush to get to us that you forgot."

In the darkness, she felt Sam clasp something cold and metallic onto her wrist.

Her watch.

"Why did you think it was up to you to save us? Why did you leave your home to wander the country at sixteen years old, sacrificing any chance of a normal life? Why did you run to save me When Magnus was cutting me up when you knew there was a chance you'd get hurt?"

She couldn't answer any of those questions. "I…"

"I'll tell you why," Sam said, kissing her forehead. He whispered, "It's who we are."

Cassie was exhausted and she wasn't fully processing everything Sam was saying, but he took the opportunity to update her on everything that they'd both been through over the past nine years. The yellow eyed demon who'd killed their mom, and their life long quest to find and kill it, their mission to find the Colt, going back in time on more than one occasion, being Soulless, Killing Lilith, Gabriel, Ruby, Balthazar, Lisa, Ben, Bobby, Garth, Kevin, Charlie, Jo, Ellen, Amelia, Mary being a hunter, Crowley's deception, all the run ins they'd had with supernatural creatures, Benny the Vampire, how they stopped the Apocalypse, meeting Death, Castiel opening Purgatory and becoming God, the Leviathans, everything he could possibly remember to bring up to tell his story.

Piece by piece, the gaps were filling in for Cassie and she was starting to understand just how amazing, strong, resilient and wonderful Sam and Dean were as human beings.

They sacrificed so much to help others.

To help her.

Before Sam could finish, she had fallen asleep.

And before he'd finished, Sam had too.

Cassie slept in the following day, and woke to find that Sam wasn't at her side. But there was a note on the side table with the lamp.

Cassie,

Just went to go shower. If you need anything, text me, DON'T GET OUT OF BED.

-Sam (heart)

Cassie giggled, kissing the note and putting it back down.

Her leg was throbbing with pain, but it was nothing compared to the agony she felt yesterday.

She needed coffee. And…

Wait a minute…

She felt wet.

She threw off the comforter…

Son of a bitch. "Shit, really?!"

Of all times to have Mother Nature remind her she was a woman.

Dammit.

She had to get Sam's sheet washed before he noticed.

And she was in her underwear.

Of course. It made sense. They probably needed to get my pants off to bandage me.

Could she walk?

She moved to a sitting position, wincing. Ow.

She could do it. She just had to hop and she could make it to the laundry room.

Cassie had found a copy of the blueprints for the Bunker, so she knew there was a laundry room around the corner and down a set of stairs.

She stood up on her good leg, leaning against the night stand for support, then gathered up the stained bed sheet. It hadn't bled through to the mattress cover, so she probably got it a few minutes before she woke up.

I can do this, I can do this. She started to hop, leaning against the wall with one arm, and holding the balled up sheet in the other. She focused on not bursting her stitches. "Fuck," it was a dull throbbing that was more annoying than anything else rather than painful.

She made down the curve of the hall and she was about to descend down the stairs when someone called her.

"Cassie!" It was Dean's voice.

Shit, no. "Hey, I'm fine! I'm just –"

"What the hell are you doing out of bed? You shouldn't be walking on -" Dean walked down the hall and froze.

Cassie froze too.

He was in a pair of sweatpants…

And nothing else.

She immediately turned bright red and looked away.

"You're bleeding!" Dean rushed over to pick her up –

Oh God this is SO embarrassing! "DEAN PUT ME DOWN!"

"I need to check your wounds, the stitches probably burst - "

" – Dean I'm fine please please please put me down – "
" – You're BLEEDING, CASSIE!"
"DEAN IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF BLOOD!" She screamed, scrunching her eyes shut.

Oh God please just let me die right here right now oh God…

Slowly it dawned on Dean what she was saying. Color immediately rose to his entire face. All he said was, "Oh."

And then for an unbearably long time they were both just frozen like that in the hallway.

All Cassie could focus on was the fact that she was being held by Dean, while he had no shirt on, which oddly felt weird, and he was holding her while she was covered in blood. "Please put me down," she said with less fervor than before, completely and utterly mortified.

He slowly bent to place her feet on the ground and then he let go of her. She winced as she put weight on her left leg but to her credit, she didn't complain.

Dean's wide eyes shifted from her, to the bloodstained bed sheet, back to her, back to the sheet again, and wasn't sure what to say.

He finally blurted something. "At least this means you're not pregnant."

Did he actually just…

Cassie's mouth dropped in shock and she immediately flooded so readily with anger she was two seconds from slapping him.

Without her realizing it, her watch transformed on her wrist and fell into her free hand as a blade.

Dean stared at it in even more shock than the bedsheet.

It was at this time Sam decided to finally step out of the bathroom into the hallway, dripping wet…

In nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist.

Oh…my….Cassie couldn't help but stare.

His body was contoured like it had been chiseled out of marble. He had the type of six pack that you didn't notice unless his waist was twisted, but there was just enough definition that you'd know he had one. He also had that V shape that men have in their hips, and collarbone was well defined…

Not to mention the rippled shape of his arms and his slicked back, soaked hair.

And there she was, unshowered, in her pajamas, no pants, blushing like crazy, clinging to a bloody bed sheet.

There is definitely no God, she thought. If there was this occurrence would never ever ever have happened…

'What's going on?" he asked, his eyes darting between Dean's red face, and Cassie's Angel blade.

Dean chose that opportunity to bolt. "I uh…I'll let uh…you guys…" he turned bright red and went into his room.

Sam looked to Cassie, then the bedsheet and his eyes widened. "Cassie -"

"– It's not my leg," she mumbled, staring at the ground. "I um…"

Between Dean's expression, the bed sheet and how awkward Cassie was acting, Sam pieced together the situation pretty quickly. Surprisingly, he broke out into a smile. "Oh," he said.

Ugh, that's what DEAN said. What is it with these damn Winchester Men?!

"Hold on just a second," he said surprisingly calm, and then went into the room they shared. Ten seconds later he was out again with a pair of jeans on –

Oh Jesus, she thought, unable to look at him. He still wasn't wearing a shirt.

He scooped her up, bed sheet in tow and the gesture was so quick and sudden she squeaked. Her blade immediately shifted back into a watch and morphed itself onto her wrist in half the time it took for it to transform. Sam bit back a laugh and trudged down the stairs as he carried her.

What is it with these guys and picking me up? I'm not helpless, I'm just wounded! UGH! AND WHY DON'T THEY WEAR SHIRTS?

Once they reached the laundry machine, Sam plopped Cassie back on her feet gently, then grabbed the sheet from her and threw it in the wash with a cup of bleach and a scoop of detergent, starting it up.

Cassie just stood there, unable to look at him, and too shy to talk.

Sam turned to her after the wash was started and was confused as to why Cassie looked so uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "About your sheets," she specified.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Cassie, this isn't something you have to apologize for. I was just worried your wound had opened back up."

She shrugged, still not looking at him.

Sam bent down to her level and looked her in the eyes. "This is not something you should be embarrassed about. Seriously. It's just your body." He kissed her forehead, then bent down to kiss her lips.

She kissed him back, feeling loads better. Oh God, he really is perfect…

He pulled away to look at her, smiling warmly. "Do you need anything? Underwear, tampons, are you craving anything in particular?"

Cassie willed herself not to turn red. A man asking openly if I need tampons…

She could believe that he was part of the Dynamic Duo that saved the world from the Apocalypse.

Sam laughed at her expression. "I'm really not daunted by this. Compared to werewolves and poltergeists, this is nothing. It's just biology. Plus this isn't my first Rodeo."

Cassie breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. In that case, I need um…pads. I can't use tampons, they hurt."

Now it was Sam's turn to blush and look away. "N-no problem," he said, clearing his throat.

Wait, what? She raised an eyebrow but he didn't elaborate.

"Let's get you to the bathroom and run a bath. Then I'll head to the store to pick up everything." He picked her up again bridal style and headed back up the stairs.

His chest was warm against her side and she snuggled into it.

She shouldn't be shy about him not wearing a shirt. They'd had sex for crying out loud. Yeah, but I don't think I'm ever going to get used to having such a sexy, hot…

But she had to stop thinking about it or she'd have to ask him to join her in the bath.

He dropped her off at the bathroom, gave her a quick kiss and then headed back to their room to finish getting dressed.

Before she closed the door she heard what sounded like a smack, and an "Ow!"

"What the hell was – "
"Seriously? You gank monsters on a daily basis and menstrual cycles skeeve you out?"

"SAM!"

Cassie snickered, closing the door so they wouldn't hear her.

God they're a handful…but I can't imagine life without them.