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

Chapter Nineteen

Sam heard the Impala approaching long before it came into sight. It was followed by Mary's car, and both were moving at a steady pace, neither seeming to rush, which he assumed meant they were wary.

It would be stupid for them to not be on guard with him, and none of them were stupid. He was pleased that they were playing it smart; it meant they would be with Michael, too, if they faced him. He wanted to do this without them if he could.

When the cars pulled to a stop and they climbed out, he did a quick headcount. Dean and Nick climbed out of the Impala, and Jack and Castiel got out of Mary's car with her climbing from the driver's seat. They gathered, and he heard Mary's murmured reassurance to Nick that he answered with a growling, "I'm fine."

He guessed Nick was the most nervous of all of them. Sam's face he saw as the devil that had tortured him the same way Sam saw his as the face of the creature that had put him through almost two centuries of hell in the Cage. It felt strange to see Mary's concern for her 'son' though. It reinforced what he should already know: Nick was their family now.

It was hard to bear, but he had to push it away and focus on what mattered.

Sam didn't feel fear when he first saw Nick taking the lead towards the trunk—he knew Nick was no threat to him anymore—but that was until he saw Nick grab the duffel from the trunk and take out an angel blade, instructing Dean, Mary, and Jack to do the same. Then he took two beer bottles with rags sticking out of the tops, and Sam winced. He had seen what a holy oil Molotov could do to an archangel before.

They would be a risk with those as weapons, but Sam still wasn't properly scared. He could fly away before any of them got close enough to hurt him. He also thought the fact they'd wanted this meeting would protect him. If he was in their place, he'd want to come with something to defend himself, too.

When they were all armed, Jack and Mary carrying the molotovs, they started towards him, Nick taking the lead and Dean quickly falling into step at his side.

Sam waited with his empty hands at his sides, watching their faces carefully. Nick looked defiant, which Sam thought was his way of hiding the fear he was feeling, and Dean kept chancing glances at his brother. Mary and Jack looked nervous. Only Castiel seemed calm. If Sam had to guess, he would say Castiel was the one championing Sam as an ally instead of a threat. That made sense with Castiel's guess about him being the vessel, not the devil.

When they were a few yards from him, they came to a stop in a line facing him, and Castiel took a step forward and said, "Hello, Sam."

Sam nodded. "Castiel. Dean, Mary, Jack… Nick."

Nick flinched and then quickly stiffened, perhaps angry at his body's automatic reaction.

Sam had made a mistake putting emphasis on his name, but it had been unconscious. Looking at that face among the ones he loved was wrong on many levels, most of all, the place where his heart longed for them to know him for who he really was.

Mary brushed her hand against Nick's, and he yanked it away, not wanting to seem weak, Sam guessed.

"There are things I need to tell you," Sam went on when no one spoke.

"We've got questions first," Dean said. "And since you see them, I'll tell you we are all willing to use these weapons. You touch one of us, we'll make sure you'll pay for it."

Sam held up his hands, palms facing them. "I didn't come here to hurt you. I came to help."

Nick glowered. "Why should we trust you?"

"You trust me enough to come here, so we're already halfway there."

"I don't trust you," Nick stated.

Sam could say the same in return. He didn't trust any of them not to attack him, not completely, but he did trust Nick in a different way. He trusted him with the most precious thing in Sam's world—his family.

A part of him hated that, but another saw the positive of it, even though he hated it.

It wasn't Nick's place with them that gave him that trust. Nick loved them. Sam had seen that in the way he'd set himself in front of them defensively in the bunker, the way he'd looked at them. Worse, he saw they loved him, too. He really had taken Sam's place.

"I think this would be easier if we could establish who we are talking to," Castiel said. "You are Sam, not Lucifer?"

Sam nodded stiffly. "Yes."

"How?" Dean asked.

"I'm sure you have your theories already," Sam said.

"We do, but we want to hear your version," Dean answered.

Sam took a breath and launched into his carefully prepared tale. "Lucifer upset Chuck. They had a… disagreement… and Lucifer found a way to hurt him."

"What was the disagreement?" Dean asked.

"It doesn't matter," Sam said.

It did matter, but they'd never believe that part of the truth. He couldn't tell them he was the one that upset Chuck, when he shot him, as it would destroy their belief that he was Sam. He could tell them Chuck was playing a game with them, that they were a story, a show to watch, but they wouldn't believe that.

He wouldn't believe it in their place. He had needed to see the real truth in Chuck's eyes when he'd been claiming the opposite; when Sam's first suspicions had caused him to question Chuck's motives.

Chuck had played his part well in the contact they'd had with him before. Also, if Sam tried and managed to plant even the smallest seed of doubt in them, Chuck might come back to steer the story again. He said he was letting Sam control his own actions, but if the story took a direction he didn't like, Sam was sure he'd intervene.

"I think it does," Mary said.

Sam's eyes drifted to her, and he thought he'd failed to keep his longing from his expression as she frowned, and Dean's eyebrows rose.

"Lucifer was upset that Chuck abandoned him," he said. "And when they met again, he lost his temper. He attacked Chuck. It was a show of anger, not a practical threat, but Chuck acted in return. He yanked Lucifer out of the vessel and left me behind with grace."

Castiel jolted as if given an electric shock. "Lucifer isn't in there with you?"

"No," Sam said.

He'd decided that would be a part of his story as it would cancel out the risk that they would come for him because they thought Lucifer would take control again. From the look on Castiel's face, he'd made a mistake.

"Then where is he?" Nick asked, his eyes narrowed.

"With Chuck and Amara," Sam said, sharing the next part of his carefully prepared plan. "Chuck is trying to… rehabilitate him."

"So Lucifer is with his dad, getting a second chance, and you're the one running the switches now?" Dean asked skeptically.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell Michael?" Nick asked. "He knows you're Sam, right, so why didn't you explain?"

"He knows who I am," Sam agreed. "But I didn't tell him everything because he didn't need to know. I am only telling you because I figure you deserve to know. Lucifer did as much to you as anyone."

Dean glanced at Nick, his eyes dark with pain, and nodded. "He did."

"But you have an archangel's grace," Castiel said, his tone indicating that he wanted to bring them back to the topic at hand.

"Yes. Well, some of it. It's coming back slowly. I had more, but I… lost some." He shot Jack an apologetic look. "I don't have yours. I can't give it back."

Jack looked pained, but he nodded.

"How did you lose it?" Dean asked.

"Chuck took it. I guess he didn't want me fully-powered from the beginning. I was a wildcard."

"Because you let Lucifer in?" Jack asked, speaking up for the first time.

"No, because an archangel has immense power and needs to learn how to control that power," Castiel said. "Am I right?"

Sam nodded. "I had help from Violet. I've got a handle on it now. And it is coming back."

"Okay," Dean said slowly, clearly working through the information and trying to make sense of it. "Lucifer is in rehab with Chuck, and you've got the power now. But why?"

"Why what?" Sam asked.

"Why leave you with power? What are you to him?"

Sam hesitated before offering up the next part of his story, wondering if it would be accepted. "Because he doesn't want Michael destroying this world. He won't kill his own son—"

"We know," Nick growled.

"But he needed someone to stop Michael," Sam went on. "I was his choice."

"Why you?" Castiel asked. "If he needed an archangel to fight Michael, why not give that power to Nick or Dean? Or to me? Why did he let Jack lose his grace? Or was that you?"

Jack fixed his eyes on Sam, and he had to fight the urge to squirm with the intensity of dislike Jack was feeling for him. It was so wrong. Jack was like a son to Sam. He loved him, and he'd known Jack had loved him, too. That was all gone.

"It was Lucifer," Sam said. "The moment we were exchanged was at the point at which I healed Jack. Chuck took me back in time to make the switch, from my point of view. Lucifer had already taken Jack's grace and killed you all in my timeline. I'd seen it happen from within Lucifer. After that happened, Lucifer attacked Chuck. Chuck chose the moment Lucifer took Jack's grace and exchanged us then. Everything froze, and then I found myself in control. I was confused and healed Jack automatically."

"Why did you attack Nick?" Dean asked.

Sam offered up an answer that was closest to the truth, "I thought he was Lucifer. Nick was the only other vessel I'd known Lucifer take. I saw him and thought he had done it to me. It wasn't until later that I saw Chuck again, and he explained what had happened."

"But why you?" Mary asked. "Why not my sons? They have proven they can save the world. You were just a man that gave consent." She shot a look between Dean and Nick and said, "I'm glad he didn't, they've already given too much, but they would have been the obvious choice."

"I don't know," Sam said. "Maybe he wanted to give me a chance at redemption. I was the one that screwed up. I hear God's thing is redemption."

Dean snorted. "Not so much."

Sam held up his hands. "Look, I don't know what else to tell you. I don't have the answers you need to these questions. If you want information, ask Chuck. He can explain more than I can. I'm as lost as you are. I didn't ask for any of this. My time with Lucifer was… hell."

He swallowed hard as the force of emotion rose in his throat. He wasn't lying. Lucifer had been a nightmare to him for almost two centuries, and that wasn't negated at all by the fact they didn't know the truth of it. It was still Sam's life.

Perhaps his show of emotion reached them as they all seemed to share a moment of communication in shared looks, and then Dean cleared his throat and said, "Okay, you're Sam, not Lucifer, we believe you. But you do have Lucifer's power, and you're supposed to stop Michael?"

"I will stop Michael," Sam said. "I'm the only one who can."

"You know that for a fact?" Nick asked. "Because you told Michael you can send him home, too. I heard you."

"I lied," Sam said. "I will be the one to kill Michael, that's set-in-stone. I told him I could send him home because I needed more time. I am not strong enough to fight him. I needed longer for the grace to replenish." He sighed. "I still need that, but there's something more pressing for the world than me killing him. He's got his own plans that you need to know about if you're going to protect yourselves and others."

Dean looked nervous. "Another apocalypse?"

"Perhaps. He's been experimenting with monsters, giving them grace to power them up."

"He's giving them grace?" Castiel asked, aghast.

Sam recognized the reaction Violet had also had to the 'abominations.' He supposed it was something about being a true divine being with that history that made it so much more shocking to them.

"Yes. There were bodies of werewolves and at least one vampire, but I didn't check out all the bodies. I think they were experiments that failed as they looked like angel kills. The vampire that survived, though, was stronger than anything I've seen since Michael himself."

That wasn't technically true, it was nowhere near as strong as Amara, but since they didn't know he'd had contact with her himself, he couldn't use it as evidence.

"I questioned it and killed it, but it wasn't an easy kill. If you come up against one, and I think you will if Michael carries on making them, you need to be prepared. I killed the vampire by decapitating it, and I think that's your best bet against any other grace-powered monster you face. They'll look different to the ones you've fought before; their teeth are bigger. You need to warn other hunters, too."

They all looked moderately horrified at the idea of super-monsters, which pleased him as it meant they would take them seriously.

Dean pulled himself together first and spoke. "Why is he making them?"

Castiel answered before Sam could. "He will want troops. He had a legion of angels in that world. There are so few of us left here. If he is anything like the version of himself of this world, he will want to command others. If it means giving his own grace to monsters, he will do it, even though it goes against every instinct of an angel, let alone an archangel that witnessed creation."

"Awesome," Dean said. "We're going to be facing an army of super-monsters as well as the crazy archangel."

"You're not facing Michael," Sam said. "All you'll do going after him is make it easy for him to kill you. He wants Jack and you, Dean. He's got a vessel, but you would be a stronger one for him. And he wants to punish Jack. You have to stay away from him. Leave him to me."

"You want us to take a knee and let you handle it all?" Nick said incredulously.

"I want you to live!" Sam snapped, his worry for the people he cared about shredding his patience.

Nick seemed to be verged on the edge of speech for a moment, wanting to ask something perhaps, but with a sideways glance at Dean, he clenched his jaw and remained silent.

Sam wondered if it was something to do with what he'd overheard when eavesdropping on him and Michael before Michael had stabbed him. He would know Michael thought he owed him that attack. Did Nick remember what he'd said, or had the trauma driven it from his mind?

Did Nick have suspicions he wasn't sharing with his family? Was it possible he knew who he really was on some level? Did he have his own voice whispering the truth, the way Sam had Gabriel's?

Hey look, Sam, here are some more straws for you to grasp at, Gabriel said, his amusement obvious.

Sam pushed aside the snide words, knowing it wasn't the time to let the voice of a ghost distract him, and said, "You need to stay away from Michael, keep yourselves safe, and leave me to deal with him."

"Okay," Dean said. "We'll trust you on this, but you've got to share information. Anything you learn, we want to know it, too."

"And you'll do the same in return?" Sam asked.

"We will," Castiel said.

Sam smiled his satisfaction. "If you need me, pray. I'll be listening."

They each nodded and shifted nervously, perhaps wanting to get away from him now they had what they needed from him.

Sam spread his wings and took flight, coming to an empty beach. He stared out at the ocean and considered what he was going to do next. He needed to find Michael and stop him, but he needed to build his strength first.

He needed to be ready for the fight when it came, whenever that was, and hope that Michael couldn't cause too much destruction in the meantime.

So… How was that? I really enjoyed writing it, even though it was a strain to have Sam and Dean together but with no connection. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx