Thank you Jenjoremy for beta'ing and fixing the oversights. Thank you Ncsupnatfan and VegasGranny for prereading and finding the places I go wrong.

Dear Guest reviewer, thank you so much for your prompt. I wish you had an account so I could reply privately. Your prompt was great and it is actually very similar to a story I have almost completed. It's not quite what you suggested, but it should deliver what you wanted. It's a two parter - original and sequel - and the sequel is about 5 chapters away from being complete. It's what I was working on before I lost my flow and things went downhill. As I don't have an account for you to let you know, keep an eye on my stories in the new year for it to post. I'm not sure what its title will be yet, but it will have Nick as a featured character for the first time in one of my stories so you should be able to see which it is.

To all reviewers and readers, thank you so much for your support. Posting chapters is a highlight of my week as I get to chat to some of you through reviews and others I see logged as views on the chapter. It means so much to me to have that to look forward to when things get rough. I appreciate you all.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Dean woke, he was filled with a sense of foreboding that he didn't immediately understand. It was like there was a heavy weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He got out of bed and was halfway across the room, catching sight of his pale face in the mirror when he remembered: Sam knew the truth.

His breath rushed out of him as if he'd been punched and he closed his eyes. The memories of the night that had passed rushed at him, making him feel sick.

He'd always known it would come out eventually, but it had still been hell.

Sam had handled it better than he had any right to expect. He'd not thrown punches or taken off straight away. Dean and Castiel had spent another hour in the library after Sam left the dungeon, neither saying it but both of them wanting to be there to have a chance at persuading Sam to stay if he decided to take off alone, but there had been no sign of Sam. When they'd gone to his room to check, Castiel had listened at the door and said he was sleeping.

Dean had gone to his own bed then and lain awake for hours. He thought Castiel might have had some influence on his falling asleep in the end as it had been after his last visit to check on Dean that he'd lost track of time. He was awake now, though, and he had to face his brother, to see the hate and accusation in his eyes again.

He grabbed clean clothes and went to the bathroom to clean up. It was empty, and he was able to rush through his morning routine without having to talk, to pretend.

When he was done, he dropped his laundry off in his room and made his way to the kitchen. There were signs of people having already eaten, and when he checked the clock over the stove, he saw that he'd slept later than he'd thought. He wondered if Sam would see that as him hiding.

He poured coffee and decided to skip breakfast, not sure if his roiling stomach would be able to handle food. He drank it leaning against the counter and then put the dirty cup in the sink and made his way back through to the library. Unexpectedly, it was empty, and he was on the point of going looking for others when he heard the voices approaching and a moment later Mary and Jack appeared.

"Dean," Mary said. "It's late. Are you okay?" She scrutinized him closely. "You look pale. Do you feel ill?"

The concern, the basic love in her voice and face made him feel awful as it meant she didn't know. Sam hadn't shared his and Castiel's betrayal with her. Dean was sure it wasn't to spare them their judgment; Sam just didn't want them searching for the angel when they looked at him. He felt guiltily grateful for it. He didn't want them to know what he had done. He wasn't sure they would understand why he'd lied.

"I'm fine," Dean said. "Just had a rough night. Where is everyone?"

"Bobby isn't back from Oklahoma yet, and Castiel is in the file room. I'm not sure what he's doing though. He's been a little shifty this morning. Do you know what that's about?"

"No," Dean lied, assuming Castiel was looking for something to heal Sam. "Where's Sammy?"

"Here," Sam said, striding up the stairs from the war room and clearing his throat. "I was getting something to eat."

Dean knew that was a lie as he'd just come from the empty kitchen, but he had no right to question Sam about anything. He hoped that Sam would keep to his careful diet, though he would now know Jo could probably smooth any complications—if she chose. None of them knew whether she would continue to try to help Sam now that she was trapped inside.

"Rowena called," Sam went on. "She and Charlie are taking off again—Vegas this time. They'll both come back if they're needed, but they said they'd rather they weren't needed. They plan to party." He looked at Dean. "You okay? You look kinda rough"

Dean's jaw dropped with shock, and it took a supreme effort to snap it closed again. Sam was acting like he was fine. The carefully restrained anger of the night before was gone; he seemed like Sammy again. There was no way he'd forgiven Dean what he'd done, but he wasn't showing how he felt. Dean assumed it was because they weren't alone. He didn't want anyone asking questions about what was wrong between them.

There was no way he wasn't angry still. Dean would be if it was him. He would have struggled to stick around for more time than it took to rage at Sam and Castiel for their betrayal. And last time… it had taken Dean's own death for Sam to forgive. That couldn't solve it this time. If he died, Sam did, too.

"I'm fine," he said. "Just had a bad night."

Sam nodded slowly, clearly knowing the reason behind it and showing no sympathy.

Dean decided to test the depth of this act, to see if maybe Sam would give him a chance alone to apologize again and try to make it right.

"You got a minute, Sammy? There's something I want to show you in the range."

"Maybe later," Sam said. "I've got to check in with Nick."

Without another word, he took his phone from his pocket and wandered away along the hall.

Dean felt a pang that Sam would rather talk to Nick, the closest remaining person to the monster that had tortured Sam and almost ended the world, than him, but he supposed he deserved it. Nick wasn't the one that had betrayed Sam.

"Is he okay?" Mary asked when his footsteps had faded. "He seems… different today."

"Yeah, he's just a little stressed," Dean said, marveling at the understatement.

"What's he stressed about?" Jack asked.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "The djinn. The super-monsters. Michael. There's a lot going on."

Unexpectedly, Jack smiled widely. "Michael."

"What about him?" Dean asked.

"I think I'm ready for him," Jack said. "I feel the way I did before, when I had all my own grace and power. I think it's time to start looking for him properly."

"Jack…" Mary started, her voice soft.

"No, I really am," Jack said.

"But we can't be sure, and we're not pitting you against him until we are. You could get killed or your grace could be taken again."

Jack frowned. "I beat him last time. I would have killed him if I'd kept going. I have my grace now. I'm not useless anymore. Isn't it worth the risk to stop him?"

Dean pointed a finger at him. "You were never useless, Jack. And no. We're not sacrificing you. Sam was almost killed going after him. I'm not letting anyone else near him until we're sure they can handle it."

"How can we ever be completely sure though?" Mary asked.

Dean considered. The only way he could think to find out was to ask Billie.

"I have tried everything I could before except one thing," Jack said. "The hardest thing, other than facing Michael, was opening that rift. I need to do that again."

Dean shook his head slowly, "No, Jack. You said you were groping around in the dark to do that before. We have no idea where the rift you open will end up. We'd be risking Godzilla ending up here, or Michael's army of crazy angels. The last thing he needs is backup."

"But they weren't all bad places," Jack said. "I saw some with Kaia that looked beautiful."

"No. If you can't aim, you're not doing it."

Jack smiled smugly. "Then we find a way to aim. I need a dreamwalker. If I have one, I can open a rift to one of the good worlds."

Dean considered. It seemed like a good idea, as long as Jack really could aim properly, and it would be a good test of strength, and he could back it up with Billie's opinion, too.

"Okay," he said. "We'll find you a dreamwalker and you can open a door to paradise. We'll all take a vacation and then come home rested and deal with Michael."

Jack grinned. "Okay. I'll find one. What about the woman that killed Kaia? If they're the same person, she should be able to guide me."

"She won't help," Mary said confidently. "She wanted nothing to do with us. She's got her own problems."

"Mom's right. But you found two last time, so they can't be that hard to track down. And we'll all help." Dean smiled, feeling reassured, and then he tensed again as Sam came back, tucking his phone back in his pocket.

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

"We're going to find a dreamwalker to help me open a rift," Jack said happily.

Sam frowned. "Are we shoving Michael through it?"

Dean huffed a laugh. "That's a damn good idea. We can find somewhere extra nasty and send him there."

"Somewhere without people," Mary said. "He can't be allowed to destroy another world."

Dean nodded eagerly. "Yeah. There's got to be loads of places. We didn't see anyone apart from Kaia's killer and Godzilla in The Bad Place. We can stick him there. That's it. If we can't find a way to kill him, we're doing that."

"How are we getting him through though?" Sam asked.

"We'll find a way," Mary said confidently, and Dean could tell she was as infected by Jack's excitement as he was.

Sam considered a moment and then nodded. "Yeah. Okay. Makes sense."

Dean grinned. They had a workable plan now. They could deal with Michael and then focus on their other problems, like saving Heaven and healing Sam—getting Jo out of him and starting to make things right between them again. That might be impossible, but Dean had to try.

He needed his brother back properly, healed and happy, not hating him for what he did, not pretending that everything was fine for the sake of others. He wanted Sam to be his brother again.

Sam cupped his hands under the faucet to collect the cool water and then brought them up to scrub at his face. He had been crying, and he wanted no sign of it left for anyone else to see. He rubbed his eyes and cheeks, washing away the tears that had fallen, and then turned off the faucet and patted his face dry with a towel.

He hated the tears as they were a show of his weakness, but they came at inopportune moments and overpowered him. He'd felt them coming when he was faced with Dean for the first time since the dungeon, and he'd had to leave with the excuse to call Nick before they fell. It was the second time that day they'd come, and both times he'd had to escape to let them fall.

They weren't tears of sadness; they were tears of helpless anger. It wasn't what had happened to him, the people that had lied and not trusted him to do the right thing; it was what he could feel inside him, the angel, that was getting to him, making his anger surge and his tears fall.

He threw the towel down into the basin and turned away, freezing as he caught sight of the glow in his eyes in his reflection and the strange smile that he knew was not mirrored on his face.

He gripped the sides of the basin and squeezed his eyes closed.

"I'm not going anywhere until we talk," Jo said.

Sam looked into the mirror again, his own face stiff with anger but the reflection smiling.

"You're not in control," he said, a reassurance to himself. "It's not possible."

"No," she agreed. "It's not. But I wanted to talk to you, and I thought this was the only way we could be face-to-face. It's all in your head really."

"I don't want to talk to you," Sam growled. "I've already heard enough from you."

She had been whispering to him on and off all day. The only time she truly stopped and listened was when Dean and Jack had been sharing their plan to stop Michael. Then she had been attentive and quiet, focused wholly on what they were saying as that was what impacted her, too.

"Well I want to talk to you," she said. "And I'm not stopping until you listen to me."

Sam rolled his eyes and his reflection scowled. "I had Lucifer in my head for months and I didn't break. You have no chance."

"I'm not trying to break you. I'm actually trying to help. And you would have broken then had Castiel not saved you. I know that you know that. It's your head that showed me exactly what happened."

Sam hated the reminder of what had happened then and what was happening now. He hated it all. It wasn't just his body that had been violated by Jo, that was still being violated, it was his mind, too. She could see and feel everything he felt and experienced, and she was using it against him.

"What do you want, Jo?" he asked.

"I want to talk about Dean and Castiel."

Sam frowned. "What about them?"

His reflection's eyes became intense. "Don't hate them."

"I don't," Sam said automatically.

"No? I know that's what you want to believe, but I also know what you really feel. Put yourself in their position, Sam. They thought they were going to lose you. And they weren't the ones that did this to you."

"No," Sam growled. "That was you. You tricked me into letting you in, and you were the one that made me think I was losing my mind when I kept losing time. You made me think I was damaged."

"You are damaged. You can't see it, but I can clearly. Without me, you would be nothing but a vegetable. I saved you. I was trying to help, just like Dean and Castiel were. They would have lost you forever, and Dean would have needed to die to make things right for you! How long do you think that would have taken? How much longer could he have gone on knowing that he was the one trapping you inside yourself? He would have killed himself to let you go."

"Dean would never do that," Sam said angrily.

"No? Like you wouldn't? You killed yourself taking Lucifer into the Cage."

"That was different! That was to save the world!"

"And to repay a debt to your brother," she said calmly. "I know why you did it. You were saving the world, and that helped, but it was also for Dean. You had to repair what you did to him, and that was the only way he would accept. You died to save him. Do you really think he wouldn't do the same for you? He made the deal for you after all."

Sam closed his eyes, hating that it was the truth. It would have cost Dean's life, and that would have been a tragedy.

"Don't hate them," she said again. "They were scared and didn't have a choice."

"They had a choice!" Sam snapped, his eyes flying open and fixing on the sad face in the mirror. "If they'd been honest with me, given me the same option to lock you in earlier, I would have done it."

"Perhaps. Neither of us are sure of that."

She was right. Sam couldn't be sure he would have done it, not deep down. This, feeling and hearing Jo inside, was a kind of nightmare to him. Though he knew she couldn't hurt anyone now, not even him physically, there were things she could do, and he hated it. Even feeling her pushing against him made him want to scream.

"I hate the situation," he said. "But I don't hate them. I hate you."

Jo sighed. "It was self-preservation. I was scared of Michael, and I did want to help. Have you never done something stupid to survive? Or done something you thought you had to do only to find yourself living with regret?"

Sam winced as he thought of Lester Morris. He had used the man to attract a demon, and he hadn't been able to stop him making that deal. He was dead and in Hell because of Sam. He had done it in an attempt to get his brother back, but it had still been an awful thing to do.

"You can understand why I had to do it, right?" she wheedled. "So you have to let the hatred go, and the anger."

"Like it's that easy?" Sam snorted. "You might be the one with insider access to my thoughts and feelings, but you don't know everything. Now get the hell out of my head."

With a force like a punch, he shoved against the pressure in his mind and his reflection became his own again. He was alone.

He didn't hate his brother or Castiel. He was just angry at the situation. He couldn't hate them as that would mean it was over. Whatever it was between them, whatever made them family, would be broken and Sam couldn't let that happen.

His anger was for Jo and the situation. His hatred was for her alone. To allow it to be anything else was to tear away a vital part of himself and to never be able to get it back.

So… Was that what you were expecting? In the original outline for this story, there was a lot more anger shown from Sam towards Dean and Castiel. I think that would have been obvious, and I was glad when Sam steered the story in this direction.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx