Thank you so much VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading. This chapter is un-beta'd, so I apologize for all remaining mistakes.

Chapter Five

Sam's eyes opened, and he frowned as he looked around the room and recognized his surroundings. He was sprawled on the couch in Rufus' cabin, and he didn't understand why. They'd not been here in a long time, not since they'd settled in the bunker.

"Dean?" he called.

There was no answer, and he sat up quickly, feeling the pain in his chest and side. He looked down at his bare chest, seeing the bloodied dressing over his heart, and the facts of his new situation rushed back at him.

"Shit," he groaned.

He'd hoped that it had been a bad dream, but the bloody evidence pointed the flaw in that. He was still bearing the wounds Castiel, Jody, and her deputy had caused; he still felt the same strange awareness that made the birds singing outside the cabin louder than they should be and the tap dripping in the kitchen echo.

He was still an angel. Nick had still taken his place family with his family. He was still living with the consequences of shooting Chuck. His life was still in tatters.

He stood up and looked around. The detritus of his field surgery session in the night was on the table, the bloodied gauze and needle with a small remaining scrap of thread still attached. The dappled light beneath the trees outside was brighter than he'd expected. He'd slept far later than he thought.

The fact he'd slept at all was both strange and comforting. He was pleased to still have some aspect of the humanity that had been stolen from him, but he shouldn't be able to sleep as an angel. Towards the end of the apocalypse, when Castiel's batteries were almost spent, he'd slept, but he'd been pretty much neutralized at the time, and Sam still felt strong. Perhaps it was just because he was stronger than a human that he noticed it.

He considered his situation and broke it down to his immediate needs, which were clean clothes. He thought he'd left a couple of changes when he and Dean had been there last, so he made his way up the stairs to the bedroom where he found two clean shirts, jeans, and underwear in a drawer of the dresser. He stripped off his bloodied clothes, went to the bathroom and cleaned up with a washcloth, and then went into the bedroom again and dressed in clean and dry clothes, tossing the ruined ones into a corner.

He went back downstairs and dropped onto the couch, wincing as his wounds pulled, wondering what he was supposed to do next. He felt at a loss. He didn't know what the next step was. He didn't feel hungry at all, so he figured that particular part of humanity had been left behind. But what else was there?

He put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Really, you're going with defeat?" a voice asked. "You can't think of anything more useful to do?"

Sam's head snapped up, and he saw Billie standing on the other side of the small coffee table.

He jumped to his feet, making his wounds sear with pain. "Billie!"

"Hello, Sam."

Sam gasped. "You called me Sam! You know who I am? How?"

"Did you forget who you're talking to? I'm Death. No parlor trick of God is able to interfere with my memories. I can see the dual memories that he tried to create, and I feel which one is true and which bears the echo of a lie. What I don't understand is why he did it." She lifted her chin. "Feel like explaining?"

"I shot him," Sam admitted. "It turned out he was screwing with us all this time, telling a story. Every bad thing that happened to us, all the death and loss, was down to him. And then he killed Jack. I lost my head. I just wanted him to hurt the way we did after what he did to us." He clenched his jaw as the memories flashed through his mind. "He brought me back here, a year behind where I was then, and swapped my place with Lucifer. 'Nick' gets a new life, and I get…" he spread his arms "…this."

"He brought you back a year?"

Sam nodded. "Back to yesterday, when Lucifer took Jack's grace. I was there, me, and then suddenly I was Lucifer."

She smirked. "He really pulled out all the stops for you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, it's hilarious," Sam snapped.

She raised an eyebrow, and her lips pressed into a thin, unimpressed line. "Have you forgotten who you're talking to again?"

Sam blew out a heavy breath. "I'm sorry, Billie. I'm just dealing with a lot of crap, and I'm pissed. I'm a damn archangel with hardly any grace since he drained my batteries. I've got a stab wound, I've been shot twice, and I've got two bullets lodged in my heart since I can't exactly dig them out myself and it's not like I can go to a hospital."

Billie considered him a moment and then circled the table and pulled open his shirt.

Sam took a step back. "What are you doing?"

"Be still," she commanded and tore off the dressing.

Sam tried to flinch away, but it was like her hand had a magnetic pull as she placed it on his chest. The sensation was increased when he felt a sharp pain over the wound and the sense of something being drawn out of him. The pain increased, and he cried out, falling back onto the couch when she removed her hand and held it out with two slugs on it. The stitches were torn, but the skin was holding together without them, though it was still raw and sore.

Sam reached out and took the bullets from her and held them up to his eye. "They sure hurt for something so small," he said.

"Imagine how the monsters you've unloaded guns into felt when you did it."

"They were monsters," Sam said.

"Yes, and technically, to the world, so are you. I have the full memories of the world God recreated, and even though I see it's false, I remember all your crimes."

Anger rose in him, and he shouted. "They weren't mine!"

She narrowed her eyes, and he drew a calming breath.

"To the rest of the world, they are your crimes." She lowered her voice to a warning tone. "To Dean, they are."

Sam ran a hand through his hair and looked away. That was perhaps the worst part of this. He'd lost Dean, and that hurt, but Dean thought he was the devil, which was so much worse. All the awful things Lucifer had done were down to Sam as far as his brother knew. When he looked at Sam, he saw Satan.

The memory of the way Dean had looked at him, the open hatred, burned like acid. Of all the beings Chuck could have swapped him with, it had to be the one they hated above all others; it was the monster that had broken Sam's soul.

"I didn't come to make you see the truth of your situation," Billie said. "That would have been obvious to you after a few more interactions with your family, since we both know you wouldn't have been able to stay away from them. I came to warn you of something so you can protect your brother."

Sam's head snapped up, and he quickly got to his feet again. "What's wrong with Dean? Is it Lucifer? Will he hurt him?"

"You are Lucifer now," she said impatiently. "It's not just a change of memories God created. Nick Winchester is Dean's brother now. He is Mary's son, Castiel's brother-in-arms, one of Jack's surrogate fathers. He has the place you once had. You were the one that was overpowered and dragged to the Cage with Michael by Nick. And you were the one that tortured him for almost two centuries. Nick is the one with the ravaged soul. Just because you don't remember doing it, it doesn't make it any less true."

Sam waved away her words. "Sure, yeah, I did all that, but Lucifer, or Nick, is still bad news."

"He's really not. He is a good man that loves his family. Actually, his love for his family is his most defining feature. He would die for them in a heartbeat, and he would kill to protect them. He hasn't just taken your place in that life; he's his own man with shared experiences with different choices made."

"Like what?"

Billie tapped her chin. "If we go right back to the beginning, there's college. Nick went to Stanford, but he remained in contact with Dean while he was there. He never gave up his brother for a different life."

"It wasn't like that! I didn't give Dean up!"

She looked amused. "That must be why you called him so often."

Sam bowed his head so that he didn't have to see her knowing gaze. That wasn't how it had happened. It wasn't like he ever stopped caring about Dean or thinking about him; he'd just known he couldn't have both.

"What about my dad?" Sam asked. "Did Nick stay in contact with him?"

"He did. Nick was as devoted to him as Dean is in your story. When John disappeared, Nick gave up everything to help Dean to find him."

Sam's heart skipped as a wonderful possibility occurred to him. "And Jess?"

Billie looked oddly sympathetic as she said, "Alive and well. Living in San Francisco and working as a pediatrician."

Sam closed his eyes, and he absorbed the shock and joy. Jess was alive. Nick hadn't cursed her the way Sam had.

"There was no need for her to die as Nick didn't become the civilian you did," Billie went on. "Azazel was able to be patient, as Nick's path was always on track to him." She tilted her head to the side. "I think he was an even more promising candidate than you as he was a better hunter. He did have Jessica in his life, they dated for a while even, but he never gave himself over to her the way you did. They even stayed in touch for a while after Nick left Stanford."

Sam forced himself to look at her again. "It really is a better world for them all, isn't it?"

"It is," she said with a small frown. "Does that change your mind?"

"About what?"

She tilted her head, her brows knitted together. "No. Perhaps not. I thought you would already be decided. I expected you to be dedicated to getting your own life back, killing Nick and taking his place."

Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "I was kinda dealing with the small steps. I hadn't worked out what to do next."

"Then this is your chance. You know now that was God telling a story, which you should have guessed a long time ago; even I knew, and I was just a reaper. He wants a good story, and so has set in place an end for your situation.

"What is it?" Sam asked eagerly.

Billie shook her head. "I don't know what it is, or even exactly what it means for you, I just know that it exists."

Sam drew a breath in hopes of calming his racing heart. His overwrought mind was presenting in his body as uneven breaths and tingling nerves. There was a loophole, maybe a way he could have Dean back, all of his family, but he didn't know how to get it. And it wasn't just about him getting what he wanted and needed. According to Billie, he had to protect Dean.

"What am I protecting Dean from?" he asked, knowing that was the more pressing question.

"Michael."

Sam's flinched In the overwhelming nature of his own situation, he'd forgotten that Lucifer wasn't the only threat in this time and place. Michael was out there, the archangel that had already destroyed one world. Even more pressing was the fact he had no vessel. He'd taken Dean before, broken their deal, and Dean had been gone for weeks. It had cost him so much to beat him down and trap him, and it had taken Jack's soul to stop Michael in the end.

"I've got to kill him," he said.

"That's what I'd do if I were you," Billie said. "No matter which direction you choose, to fight for your old life or to let them carry on without you, Michael should be stopped."

"How do I do it?" Sam asked. "I'm weak. Chuck left me with hardly any grace. I can't even heal myself. All I can do is fly, and it's not like I have any control over that. I've only done it twice, and it was a gut reaction to being hurt. I reset to places I felt safe—Bobby's the first time and then here."

Billie eyed him for a moment and said, "You're not as weak as you think. And Michael isn't at the peak of his power now either. He's weakened after Jack's attack, and he doesn't have the army he had in his own world. He's never had to act alone before. If you strike sensibly, it will be close to an evenly matched fight."

"Only close to?"

"He's the older brother, Sam, the first archangel. You have the power of your strength of will and inner fight, but he's more practiced at battle and ending worlds. He succeeded where you—where Lucifer—failed." She stopped a moment as if struck by an idea. "He is fighting for himself and his own plans. You are fighting for something more important—your family. It would be an interesting battle."

Sam's mind was processing the information and bringing new questions to the fore. "What about the world? When Michael and Lucifer were destined to fight here, it was supposed to destroy half of the world." He paused and thought over what he'd seen in the year he'd now lost. "Dean killed Lucifer without damage, but if I screw it up…"

"The only way you can minimize the damage is to make the battle as quick as possible. It's not the death of an archangel that would do the damage. It's the impact of two archangels battling. Perhaps if you can find a way to stack the odds in your favor, you can do it without costing other lives."

"How?"

"You have allies, Sam."

The only allies Sam could think of that Lucifer had were demons, and he could think of no use for them against an archangel, even if he was willing to stoop to using them.

"What allies do I have?" he asked.

"Do you always skip to the last page of a book?"

"This isn't a book," Sam growled. "It's the world."

"Be that as it may, I'm not skipping to the end of that particular tale. Just like God, I enjoy a story. I'll watch you work it out for yourself."

Sam's hands fisted, and he felt the weight at his back as his wings spread in an unconscious show of force.

Billie laughed. "You can puff yourself up as much as you like, I am not afraid of you. The only threat to me comes from my own scythe, which my predecessor learned the hard way. I am smart enough to make sure that it stays out of your hands. I will tell you the end to one story, though. I read a few books before I came here today, a few shelves of them, in fact. Your stories, Sam. Of all the multiple ways you could die that were there before, there is only one source to that end now. It could happen in any of a hundred different ways, but it will happen at your brother's hands."

Sam's heart lurched. "Dean's going to kill me?"

"Yes. In every outcome, it's Dean's hands that end your story."

"How? He can't use the archangel blade."

She smiled. "You're right. He can't use that blade. But that's not the only weapon available, and death isn't the only way to end a life."

"Then what is there?"

Billie shook her head slowly. "That's a plot twist I'm not going to spoil. You'll find out in the end."

"You've got to give me more than that," Sam said desperately. "Please, Billie. I'm alone in this, and I've got to save them."

"Save who? The world or your family?" she asked.

"Both."

"I won't spoil the story, but I will give you one advantage. You're next to useless as an archangel until you learn to use your power. Contrary to popular opinion, angels have to learn to control their abilities; they just don't remember doing it. They are too old to remember their beginnings, and that's without that Naomi delving into their minds at every available opportunity."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "So, I have to learn how to be an angel?"

"Yes."

She snapped her fingers, and a woman appeared beside her. Sam recognized her as the reaper that had saved them when Michael's monsters had been at the door in Kansas City. "Violet?"

"Lucifer!" She looked between Sam and Billie, her eyes wide and fearful.

"Only technically," Billie said. "Violet, I want you to teach him how to use his abilities. Lucifer has had a… downgrade of power and knowledge. Give him everything you can. I promise you'll be perfectly safe."

Despite the reassurance, Violet looked scared, but it was clear that Billie's authoritative air wasn't going to allow her to ask for more information. She nodded dutifully and looked at Sam warily. "What do you need to know?"

"Everything," Sam said.

"I suggest you start with flying," Billie said.

Violet looked puzzled and still wary, but she looked at Sam and said, "Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere," Sam said. "I just need to know how."

"Violet, report back to me when you're done," Billie said. "Sam, I will be keeping an eye on you.

Billie disappeared and left him standing alone with Violet.

Sam looked at the reaper, seeing her fear, and wondered how he was going to make this work. It was hard for him to be around someone that was so scared of him, but he needed the knowledge she had.

He needed all the tools available to kill Michael.

So… Sam got a little more information, and his lessons are about to begin. I enjoyed writing Billie as it was nice to have someone that saw him as Sam, but it was also fun to have Violet's fearful reaction. Was it weird to read?

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx