At first, they all just sort of stood around guardedly, either staring at each other, or pointedly not staring at each other. They had nothing to do, and it rapidly became apparent they had a lot of time in which to do it. Eventually, the bewinged Castiel from the other universe flitted off and came back with a bench he had either confiscated or constructed himself. He deposited it partway between the road and the lake, and the other Dean sat on it. His Angel stood behind him, still except for the wings that shivered and twitched in response to everything and apparently nothing, like the sensitive ears of a cat listening for a mouse somewhere out of sight. Each time the wings shifted, the light of the moon and stars played anew across the glossy feathers, creating false (were they false?) patterns of color and light.

Meanwhile, Luke (Sam could hardly think of him as the Other Lucifer, for he was nothing at all like the Lucifer Sam had come to know so unpleasantly well), had actually gone into the lake until he was standing knee-deep in water. After some cautious investigation, Luke had partially spread his wings such that the tips of the flight feathers were in the water. He periodically flapped them gently and, though it looked like the earlier action that had sent them all tumbling back from a blast of wind, he did nothing more than generate ripples that slowly spread out across the lake's surface.

The Other Sam stood on the bank and watched, though he seemed to watch the Angel more than the ripples.

Sam ignored them for awhile, but finally boredom and curiosity conspired with the thought that he should learn all he could about these guys just in case things went from passively uneasy to actively bad. It not being the first time Sam had approached himself, it wasn't exceptionally awkward. Standing alongside the other, Sam was aware of how much he had changed in the last ten years, and how many of those changes weren't about his age, but the life he'd led.

A gauntness had come to his face after the Trials that even the healing of Angels had been unable to rid him of. There was a shadow of anguish after Hell that was never fully out of sight no matter how many years passed or how hard he'd tried to hide it, even though Cass had lifted the burden of actual insanity from him. The Other Sam had never experienced either of those things, nor had he ever so much as tasted a drop of Demon's blood. Sam could see it in his bearing, in his face, in his eyes. He could see the same kind of differences in the Other Dean and the Other Castiel. They simply didn't carry as much weight on their shoulders, had not taken so many beatings nor been so far past broken.

But Sam knew looks could be deceiving. He didn't know what these four had been through that he might not have, and they didn't strike him as soft. Assuming Cass had been truly surprised to be faced with himself out in those woods, Cass was still a better than average fighter, even by Angel standards. Yet that Other Castiel had managed to take him in a fight that was fair at the start, which were better odds than this reality's Cass was accustomed to. That alone was enough to convince Sam that these four were a force to be reckoned with, one he would prefer not to fight if he didn't have to.

For awhile, Sam just stood next to his doppelganger and watched Luke flap around in the water. But finally he couldn't take just watching in silence anymore.

"What's he doing?" Sam asked.

His counterpart replied, "Reading."

"What?"

The Other Sam shrugged, "That's what he tells me when I ask."

Sam watched Luke in silence for awhile longer, trying to fathom what the Angel could possibly be 'reading' in the water. But the habits and abilities of Angels in his own reality were hard enough to understand. These otherworldly Angels, with their Masters and Earthly bindings and big fluffy wings, might as well have been a whole other kind of creature for all the ways they resembled Angels as Sam knew them. A creature on which, obviously, there was no lore available.

He decided to change the subject, "Not to put too fine a point on it, but… why are you guys here?"

The Other Sam shifted his weight uncomfortably, looking at the ground. Embarrassment colored his face, and Sam half-wished he hadn't asked the question.

"That's a long story," the other said finally.

Sam looked around and gestured broadly at the emptiness around them, evidence that Dean and Cass were nowhere to be seen, "It looks like we have time."

Unhappily, the Other Sam tilted his head in acknowledgment of this, obviously wishing it wasn't true, but seeing clearly that it was. Perhaps he also sensed that the wariness of this world's Hunters might be lessened if he were honest and open with them. In any case, he began.

"Luke and I… we had a bit of a falling out."

"Sounds ominous," Sam prompted tensely when the other did not continue.

"Luke… he wanted something from me, and I… didn't say Yes."

Sam exhaled sharply, "Unbelievable. Even in a completely topsy-turvy universe where everything's so different, Lucifer still wants to possess his Perfect Vessel," he spat the last two words with no small amount of bitterness.

"What? No, it's not like that," the Other Sam said quickly, sounding genuinely appalled by the notion, "Luke would never… no Angel would. Their vessels are chosen for them from among volunteers. People who don't have family or loved ones who would miss them, who want to make a real and lasting difference in the world. Not only do I have a brother, which disqualifies me outright… I'm an Angel Master."

"And Angels don't possess those?" Sam guessed uneasily, trying to picture the inner workings of this other reality and not managing it very well.

"Never," The Other Sam replied firmly.

"So what then?" Sam asked, mystified, "What does he want?"

"He wants me to set him free."

This seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to want, but Sam figured there had to be a catch, "And if he's free… he'll be able to use his Angel powers as he sees fit."

"Absolutely not," The Other Sam said, "When an Angel is set free, he gets a choice: return to Heaven and serve its purpose to the end of all days, or stay on Earth and become human."

"So why don't you want to set him free?" Sam asked, his bafflement deepening.

Instead of answering, the Other Sam asked, the words tumbling out quickly, "Have you ever loved someone, but you weren't sure if they loved you back, and you were scared to find out because you weren't sure you could live with it if the answer was No?"

Well that took a turn. Sam stumbled over the implications of the extensively worded question, at first unable to understand what was meant, trying to see what it had to do with Luke, failing because his mind was unwilling to come to terms with what the Other Sam had just indirectly told him. He decided to answer the question. Maybe he was misunderstanding something. Maybe he was missing something. Maybe he was reading too much into it. Anything was more believable than what it sounded like.

"No," Sam answered, "Not really."

The Other Sam took a deep breath, and it was a little while before he spoke again.

"He says he does," The Other Sam said, "But he's not willing to do anything about it. Not until I set him free. And I just… I have this feeling like maybe he's lying to me, trying to manipulate me into setting him free. And when I do… he'll just leave and I'll never see him again. And I can't..." he shook his head, "If I'd known it was possible to feel this much about an Angel, I never would have put this on," both of his hands had been hidden in the sleeves of his caftan, but he removed them now, to reveal an ornately crafted gold ring which Sam assumed was the object to which Luke was bound.

Sam felt like he was stuck in a quagmire. Not only was he the last person someone should go to for relationship troubles, he certainly could not condone ever giving Lucifer anything substantive like what his doppelganger was talking about. Manipulating people, twisting their feelings and perceptions around to get what he wanted was Lucifer's signature move in this world. What if it was the same in the other reality?

Then, with sudden relief, he realized it wasn't a problem he needed to solve.

"So what happened?" Sam asked.

"We had a fight," the other explained, "And as usual Dean and Cassie had to put in their two cents. They both object, of course. Cassie says it's unseemly for an Angel and a human to… you know. Says if Heaven ever found out, it would disown Luke at the least. And that they'd demote Cassie just for being unable to stop it. Luke's more powerful than Cassie, you know. In fact, I'm not really sure why he's on Earth at all. It's way below his pay-grade."

"Angels get paid?" Sam asked, trying to find something he could cling to.

"Figure of speech," the Other Sam replied, "There's different classes of Angels, and Luke is of a much higher one than you'd typically find in an Earth-bound Angel. Dean says he must've really pissed someone off in Heaven to get stuck down here. Cassie refuses to talk about it, but I'm sure he knows. Anyway," the Other Sam shook his head, "Cassie's all worried about getting his wings torn off and being sent to keep the Demons of Hell in order, which as we all know is an impossible task, which is presumably why Heaven sends their most disgraced Angels down there. All I know is that it must be pretty miserable, since Cassie says he'd rather spend the next thousand years trapped in his amulet without a Master to let him out than go down there."

Sam was still caught in the imagery of an Angel having its wings torn off. He shuddered, though he wasn't sure if this was a literal part of the demotion, or just another figure of speech.

"Anyway, Luke gets upset. He says Cassie only cares about himself, that he's simple and boring and will never find love," the other shook his head, then added, "All true, of course. Cassie's good at his job, and I can't imagine another Angel managing to put up with my brother for long, but he's also got an entire tree up his ass, and he's no fun at parties."

It took Sam a second to realize the last line was a joke. The Other Sam probably didn't go to parties any more than he did.

"So from that point on, the whole discussion falls apart," The Other Sam continued, "It always does. But this time I said something really stupid. I told Luke not just to go away, but to go as far as he could. You know how you say things you don't mean? Well, you obviously can't really do that with Angels. They take you seriously. Next thing we know, there's a giant rip in reality. Luke's torn his way right through the wall of our universe and into another one."

Sam had heard of worse fallout from family disagreements. God and The Darkness came to mind.

"I told Dean to stay put while I went to get Luke. Usually not that complicated, but usually I wind up sending him off to an oil field or something. And this time he was really upset. He ignored me when I prayed, and you can't order an Angel through prayer anyhow, so I had to find him," he sighed heavily, "Eventually, Dean got tired of waiting."

"Sounds like him," Sam put in, feeling he should be contributing to the conversation somehow.

The Other Sam nodded, "Anyway, it took a while to find Luke, and even longer to convince him to come back without actually ordering him to, because that would only make things worse for both of us. In the meantime, Dean and Cassie are running all over trying to find us, and Dean hates looking for things. Of course, Luke can track Cassie if he wants to. Perks of being his class of Angel. So once I convinced him to come back home, we caught up with Cassie and Dean. Which is when I found out what they'd done to your-" he hesitated, correcting himself, "-to Cass."

So Cass had just gotten caught up in a family drama that shouldn't have concerned him and came out the loser. That sounded about normal for him, actually. Sam decided not to say as much.

"What are you and Luke gonna do? After you go home, I mean?" Sam asked.

The Other Sam opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shook his head miserably.

"I don't know. I just… don't know. More than anything, I want him to stay. But of all the things I can make him do… I can't make him love me. Not really. And… I don't want to pretend. I want it to be real. If I don't let him go… I'll never know if it is. But if I do let him go..."

"You may never see him again," Sam said, "Yeah, I get it."

Sam was deeply grateful that this wasn't the problem he had with Lucifer. He'd take all the literal Hell Lucifer had put him through, all the torment and madness and scars any day over the Other Sam's problem. At least with this world's Lucifer, he knew exactly where he stood. Same with all the other Angels. So they weren't what he'd expected or wanted? So what? As bad as Angels were sometimes, they would probably be much worse subjected to the whims of short-sighted and short-lived humans who would so eagerly use the power of Angels to settle petty squabbles of all kinds.

Freedom came at a great cost, Sam knew. Freedom meant being able to have civil wars in Heaven, to unleash Leviathans, to battle for the throne of Hell, to put Fate out of a job, to have death not always be the end (Hell, to be able to put an end to Death without also ending death), to have Heaven go out of business. Eve, Abbadon, the Mark, Amara… everything that had come after the Apocalypse. All the violence, the pain, the killing, the death, the absolute chaos. That's what it was to be free.

But, as awful as it could be sometimes, Sam knew he wouldn't trade it for anything. This other world was bound by so many rules and restrictions, yet seemed to be no less chaotic or any better than the one Sam inhabited. Only it sounded infinitely less interesting, and ultimately less satisfying too. You wouldn't get smited by an Angel, but it might turn you into a dog, then someone else could come along and make you their slave, or else just eat you with a baked potato and some broccoli on the side.

It sounded entirely hideous, completely miserable, and utterly without hope.

All the burdens Sam had to bear, all the pain and guilt and fear and… all of it. He'd take it all over the life of this Other Sam, and he was most grateful of all that this Other Sam's problem was not his.

The choice to never be sure if what he had was really love or just an illusion, or to set Lucifer free to fly to Heaven or walk the Earth was like having no choice at all.