Thank you MaggieMay17 for beta'ing, Ncsupnatfan and VegasGranny for pre-reading, and you all for reading.

Chapter Eight

Sam set himself down beside Castiel at the foot of a towering rock, one of the most amazing formations that Sam had ever seen. They were under a hot afternoon sun, and the lightest breeze stirred Sam's hair.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Don't you know?"

As soon as the question was asked, Sam realized he knew the answer. He huffed a laugh. "We're in Australia. You know, the furthest place outside the US I've ever traveled before, before I became an archangel, is Scotland."

"Not technically true. I took you and Dean to White Russia once." Castiel frowned. "Didn't I? It's confusing with two sets of memories at once."

"Yeah!" Sam said with a dawning memory. Castiel had taken them there to escape Atropos when she had been trying to kill them. "We didn't really have time to sightsee, though."

"No," Castiel agreed. "Perhaps that's something we can do now. This is Wave Rock. It's one of the many things I have always wanted to show you and Dean before, but there were always more important things to do."

"There are now, too," Sam pointed out.

"Perhaps, but they're not the same things as they have always been. Thanks to you, Michael is dead. I know you need to find Violet, and Michael's monsters are still in the world, but we will have time afterwards, Sam."

Sam sighed. "Yeah, we'll have forever."

Castiel considered for a moment, and then he sighed, too. "Yes. I suppose that seems very real to you now. I am at risk of being killed; still, there are threats to me in the world, but you are invulnerable."

"I don't know about that. Chuck might get bored with my story and take me out. I don't know that I'd mind."

Castiel frowned. "Is it truly that difficult for you?"

"Not right now, I guess. It's harder when I'm around Nick because Chuck gave me back the full Cage Experience to back up his story of me being tortured by Lucifer and Crowley; he needed me weak to be believable. But one day, Dean is going to be gone, and I don't want to live in a world without even the fake relationship we have now." He raked a hand over his face and said, "He loves me, Cas."

"Dean?"

Sam smiled slightly. "No. Well, he does, too, but not the right version of me. I meant Nick. He really loves me. I saw it earlier when I was looking at him, seeing how he reacted to me. And when I was searching for the Cage experience, I saw so much more. He loves them all, Dean, Mom, you and Jack, but he loves me, too, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle that. Lucifer always played it like he cared at first, as if I mattered; even in the beginnings of the Cage, he pretended. It was only when I went back to him for help with Amara that he was properly honest. But with Nick…"

"I know how much he cares," Castiel said. "But, Sam, you need to find a way to live with it if you want to be around the rest of your family. I hate to say it, but they're a package now."

Sam bit his lip. He hated that he knew Castiel was right. He was going to need to spend time with Nick if he wanted to see the rest of his family. That would be hard enough even if Nick didn't care, but Nick loved him—Sam was going to have to see that when he looked into his eyes.

"You saw his thoughts," Castiel said musingly. "Did you see what his dream was?"

"Yeah. It was kind of blurry, but it was something about the Cage that scared him. I think…" He shook his head. "I thought it was something real, a memory of his life as Lucifer, but it was hard to grasp as he was denying it so hard that it was almost gone."

"You told me Amara was going to set a wheel turning. Do you think it was something she did? Perhaps she unlocked some of his memories of being Lucifer."

"I want to think that, but I can't let myself. If I get my hopes up that it all might come out, that he'll remember, and I'm wrong, that'll be harder than anything else. I knew from almost the very beginning what my situation was; I didn't really have hope for more. I can't let myself have that hope now."

Castiel looked sad. "I can't imagine how hard this is for you."

Sam shrugged. "It is what it is. I'm the one that was stupid enough to piss Chuck off." He stared off into the distance again. "I didn't want to come back, Cas. I knew how hard it was going to be if I did, so when Chuck brought Dean to me, I refused to give my consent. But it was never really consent Chuck wanted. He was just playing a role. When he saw I wasn't going to do the same, he controlled me. I was saying things I didn't want to say, doing things I didn't want to do. And I can't even let on that it wasn't what I wanted since I saw how happy Dean was when I said yes."

"He actually…" Castiel's hands fisted. "That was a terrible violation!"

"It was," Sam agreed. "But that's what Chuck does."

"I knew God wasn't what I wanted him to be. When he refused to intervene for the apocalypse, I saw that he wasn't who I always imagined. Then he came for Amara, and I believed he was good, even though he was selfish. When I thought he was going to die, I grieved a father, but now…"

"What?"

Castiel's eyes darkened with anger. "If I'd had that gun in your position, I would have shot him, too."

Sam was suddenly overcome with the realization of just how absurd the situation was, and he huffed a humorless laugh. The image of Castiel doing it was so real, so potent, that he felt hysteria rising. Once he started, he couldn't stop. He bowed at the waist and clutched his stomach as the sound of laughter exploded from him, and he convulsed.

Castiel sensed the hysterical note to it and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sam…" he said, his tone steeped with sadness.

Sam shook his head and tried to find words to reassure him, but there were none.

"I wish you were still a human," Castiel said. "Then I could help with this."

A sob bubbled up Sam's throat with the laughter, and it worked like a bucket of cold water, swamping the mirth. It left only sadness behind. "What the hell am I supposed to do, Cas?" he asked desperately. "How do I keep going like this?"

Castiel grasped his shoulders and helped him straighten up. He stared into his eyes and said, "You keep going by thinking of Dean. He needs you. Your mother and Jack do, too. I need you. I understand that you might want to escape this, to not come back and see us ever again, but you have to. They might not know what they're really missing, what it was replaced with, but I do, and you can't leave me alone in it."

Sam wiped a hand over his face. "I know. God, I know that. I have no choices left. All I can do is face it, face him."

"You've faced worse," Castiel reminded him.

"Have I? It doesn't feel like it."

Castiel's fingers tightened on his shoulders, and he growled, "Sam Winchester, you are Dean Winchester's brother, John and Mary's son. You're Jack's father and my friend. You are one of the strongest men I have ever known. There is nothing on earth you can't face."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and marshaled himself before fixing his gaze on Castiel and said, "You're not just my friend, Cas. You're my brother. Not because we both have halos now, but because that's what we became over years of fighting together."

Castiel's eyes shone, and he nodded. "Yes, we are brothers, and I am going to be with you for every step of what comes next. I know the truth now, so I can help you. When you need a break from your family, I can make excuses so they don't push for more. When you need to talk to someone about what's really happening, I'll be there. You won't be alone anymore, I promise."

Sam drew in his words, taking them like air and filling his lungs with them and their meaning. He had two brothers now who were real; he could bear having a third that didn't belong. It would be hard to be around Nick, but he could do it for the ones that mattered. He would handle it with Castiel's help, and he would make the best of what he was left with.

"There is hope, though, even if you can't let yourself feel it," Castiel said. "Amara's interference might be the thing that sets things to how they should be. If Nick remembers the truth…"

"He'd have two sets of memories, too. He'd still love them all as well as remembering when he hated them, and they will all love him still even if they knew who he really was. You do. You know the truth, but it doesn't change how you feel about him. It would be the same situation we have now. Maybe it would make things easier for me with Dean, Mom, and Jack, but Nick would still be there." He spoke through his teeth as frustration rose in him. "He'll always be there."

He would fight back and have a life with his family, despite the fact that Nick would come with it, because he was a Winchester and fighting, overcoming obstacles, winning these battles, was what they did.

Dean yawned widely as he entered the library and caught sight of Nick sitting at the table with his laptop open in front of him.

Nick looked up and frowned. "You look like hell."

"Didn't sleep much."

He'd not been able to get to sleep again after Nick's nightmare until long past dawn. His worries about the Cage experience had been eased thanks to Sam, but their interaction had added new deep thoughts to mull over.

Sam had been so distant. When he'd taken off on them after Chuck saved him, he'd been obviously freaked, and when he'd come back, he'd been so calm. Nick had been thrashing around the bed, those chilling cries ripping from him, but Sam hadn't seemed upset.

When Dean asked for help, Sam had just moved him aside and set to work trying to wake Nick. There had been no concern in him. It had just been a task to complete. He'd shown no sign that seeing his younger brother so distressed bothered him at all.

The relationship between Sam and Nick had always been different from Dean's with them. They'd rubbed each other up the wrong way too often to connect on that level. They loved each other, Dean had never questioned it, but last night Sam hadn't seemed to care at all when he'd been helping Nick.

The last time he'd seen Sam show concern for Nick was when they'd been forced to lock Nick in the panic room at Bobby's place, to detox him from the demon blood he'd gotten himself hooked on. Sam had sat in the library with Bobby and Dean, his teeth clenched and hands shaking each time Nick cried out. It had been obvious then how much Sam cared, but there had been nothing that followed to show he still did.

After Lucifer was freed, they'd had less than a week together before Nick stepped down and went to live away from hunting, as a civilian, in an attempt to protect the world from him. During that time, things had been strained for them all. Then, within a matter of days, Sam was Lucifer, and they'd not had a chance to make things right, for Sam to accept and forgive what Nick had done the way Dean had.

A part of Dean wondered if Sam was still angry at Nick. For Sam, freeing Lucifer was the biggest and most defining thing Nick had done before he was taken over by the archangel and then trapped in two kinds of hell. The first hell was the torment he went through as Lucifer's vessel, punished for his fight by having to watch Lucifer taking it out on the rest of the world. After that, Sam was in actual Hell with Crowley. It was only when Lucifer was gone and Sam in control that there had been a chance for them to reconnect, but Cuthbert Sinclair's spell had stolen their memories. The next time Sam saw his family, they'd been staring at him with the hatred they reserved for Lucifer.

It really wasn't hard to understand Sam's reticence with them, but it was hard to bear. Dean wanted Sam back properly. He wanted Nick to see that same love he'd seen when Chuck had facilitated their conversation to persuade Sam to give Chuck the go-ahead to bring him back. Dean hadn't doubted that Sam loved him in that moment, but Nick hadn't had that same experience.

He shook off the thoughts and leaned on the table beside Nick. "Where's my waffles?"

"In the freezer in the Eggo box," Nick said without looking up.

"I thought you were making real ones."

"I did this for breakfast, this morning. It's past noon, Dean."

"Why didn't anyone wake me?"

Nick shrugged. "I told them not to. You're were deeply under, and it's not like there was anything we had to do today. The Big Bad is dead, so we've probably got a few days to breathe before the next apocalypse."

Dean shook his head. "There's no next apocalypse. Michael is gone. The most powerful being currently on earth is Sam, and he can take care of anything that shows up. Chuck and Amara are taking care of Lucifer, and Chuck swore he won't be back."

"Sure," Nick said, turning back to the laptop.

Dean snapped the laptop closed over Nick's hand, earning a glare that he ignored, and said, "What's going on with you? Things are finally good for us, Nicky. We've got no huge fight to face. We're all together. Hell, man, we've got Sammy back. It's all good. Is this about what happened last night? That nightmare?"

Nick stared at the case of the closed laptop for a moment and then met Dean's curious eyes. "In a way. That was bad enough, even though it was just a nightmare, but it's the rest of what happened. The way Sam was…"

Dean moved around the table and pulled out a chair to sit opposite Nick so he could see his reactions as he spoke. "I was thinking about that, too. It's why my sleep was so crappy."

"I've seen him twice," Nick said. "The first time he looked scared of me. The second time he was like a didn't even seem to be really there. He helped me, and I thought that meant something, you know, but the more I think about it…" He looked sad. "I really don't think he wanted to be there."

"He probably didn't," Dean said. "He needed space but was dragged back to deal with a drama. I don't think it was about any of us as much as it was him having to face us all again. He's got to be twisted up after everything that happened. Think, Nick, we didn't know him. We thought he was the Devil, the creature that tortured you—his own brother—in Hell for nearly two centuries. Can you imagine how it would feel to face us with that level of open hatred on our faces?"

Nick's eyes widened, and Dean saw that his words were reaching him.

"Then we get past that, find out that Lucifer was gone, and that was probably pretty great for him, but then we were talking to him as if he was a stranger. On top of all that, he was building up to fight another archangel without his full grace. He must have been terrified."

Nick sucked in a breath. "Michael couldn't kill him."

He didn't sound as if he was stating a fact or dismissing part of Sam's fear. He looked as though he'd just been punched by realization.

"What?"

"He knew, Dean. He said he knew who would kill him, remember?" Nick said intensely. "He must have known it would be you."

Dean's breath whooshed out of him in a rush, and his lungs seemed unable to inflate again. He just gulped at the air, and his eyes watered.

"Dean!" Nick came around the table and slapped Dean's back hard. The air rushed back into his lungs and his swimming head settled with the influx of oxygen.

"He knew I was going to kill him," Dean whispered.

"He must have; he said it would be someone he loved. God, I've been so stupid." Nick's hands fisted, and he fell into the chair beside Dean. "I've been so wrapped up in what it's like to have Sam back and trying to figure out why he's so distant with me." He huffed a laugh. "I was so damn focused on what I was feeling that I didn't connect to what he was feeling. He went from Lucifer to Crowley, racking up all that time in Hell, then got dumped back as an archangel that found out his family didn't remember him. And all that time, he knew his own brother, the one he loved more than anyone, was going to kill him—you killed him."

Dean flinched. "I know what I did, Nick."

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm just saying that Sam is probably going through all kinds of stuff. Me and you have been through a lot, but we've had each other to help get through it . Sam didn't have that. He was all alone."

"But he's not now," Dean said defensively.

"Yeah, but does he see that? He was without us so long, and then we were hating him. Even at the best of it, I didn't trust him. I tried to send him to the Cage. We've given him no reason to lean on us. Well, I haven't." He raised an eyebrow. "Have you?"

Dean considered the time they'd had when he'd been alone with Sam and Chuck. He thought he'd said enough for Sam to know how much he cared, how much he needed him, but he'd been making demands, too. He'd wanted Sam to come back and so pushed him for that outcome, even when Sam obviously didn't want it. He'd not listened to that as he'd been consumed with what he needed.

"I tried," he said honestly. "But I made it tough on him, too. I pushed so hard. I think…" He winced. "It's down to me that he's back. Chuck performed the miracle, yeah, but Sam was set on saying no until I started in on him. He might not even want to be here, Nicky."

Nick clenched his jaw. "Then we make it right for him. Whatever he needs—him, not us—we give it. We tell Mom and Cas, too. We let him come to us in his own time, and we don't push for more."

Dean nodded eagerly. "Yeah. We can do that. If we give him that, he'll be able to relax and see what being back really means. He'll come when he's ready, and it will be for him, no one else." He slapped his hands down on the table. "I'll tell Mom. Where is she anyway?"

Nick smiled slightly. "She and Jack have gone to the store. I lied about the waffles."

"You didn't make them?"

"No, I did, and they were delicious, but there's none in the freezer."

Dean punched his arm. "You're an asshole."

Nick huffed a laugh, a look of real happiness in his eyes now. Dean thought it was because of the fact they knew what to do for Sam now instead of the lighter moment between them.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder. "Okay, Nicky, since I've missed out on your waffles, you can take me to IHop to get me some."

"Dean, the nearest IHop is an hour's drive away."

"Then I'll drive fast, and you can pay."

Nick grinned and got to his feet. "Sure."

As they walked towards the garage, Dean asked, "What were you doing on the laptop anyway?"

"Looking for a hunt."

"Find anything?" Dean asked.

"No." He grinned. "I guess this really is the flipside. If things keep going like this, we can do that beach and beer trip you always talk about."

"Hell yeah, we can!"

But it was going to wait until Sam was with them again. Dean had missed years of his brother's life, so many memories that he shared with Nick that Sam had no part of. He wasn't going to waste the chance to build new ones with them all.

So… Some insight and bonding for Sam and Castiel, and a realization for Dean and Nick. We're back to proper plot progression in the next chapter.

Until next time…

Jadey xxx