Thanks to Jenjoremy for the awesome beta job—she really is brilliant—and to Gredelina1 for all her help and support. Also, to all of you that are reading, reviewing, fave'ing and alerting the story. I really appreciate it.

Chapter Eleven

The library and kitchen were empty when Cas arrived at Bobby's house again. He peered out the window and saw that the Impala was gone, too. He glanced at the digital clock above the stove and saw that only hours had passed since he'd left. Sam shouldn't be well enough to be out of the house yet. He needed rest still, he knew that, so what had been important enough to make him leave?

He heard the sound of a booted foot scuffing carpet and then heavy but careful tread coming down the stairs. Sam entered the library a moment later with his duffel slung over his shoulder. He didn't notice Cas standing in the kitchen as he stopped in the library and looked around. His expression was sad, almost yearning, and Cas needed no more explanation of what he had arrived in time to see.

"Going somewhere?"

Sam visibly started and the duffel slipped from his shoulder onto the floor with a heavy thump. He looked at Cas for a moment, explanations and excuses dancing in his eyes, and then he ducked his head.

"Do you have a destination in mind or is anywhere better?" Cas asked sardonically.

"I was going to tell you," Sam said quietly.

"No, you were going to wait for me to find out for myself when you weren't where I expected you to be," Cas corrected. "Is that the same for Dean, or will you at least give him forewarning about this latest stupidity?"

Sam looked up, his brows coming together and his eyes sad. "It's not stupid, Cas. I'm doing what needs to be done."

Cas felt a wave of anger that he tamped down quickly. If he reacted with anger, Sam would return it, and all chances of talking him around would be lost. Sam had more than his fair share of Winchester stubbornness.

He took a deep steadying breath and walked into the library to stand closer to Sam. "Why would you leave?"

Sam raked a hand through his hair. "Because it's the best thing. Because I need to. Because I'm hurting people being here. Because… he can't even look at me, Cas," he breathed.

"Have you given him a chance to?" Cas asked reasonably. "Have you even tried to talk to him?"

"Yes," Sam said quickly. "When I came up, he and Bobby were here, and I told them about the feral children hunt we needed to take. Other than to say he didn't want me going along and to rag me out for saying how we should deal with it, he didn't talk to me and he barely even looked at me. He hates me, and I can't stay here when he feels like that."

Cas listened, hearing more than what Sam was actually saying with words. Sam had come out of days of screaming and crying in the panic room and his first attempted discussion had been about a hunt. He didn't try to reassure his brother or make amends for what he had done—that had to have rankled Dean given the hell the days had been for them all. He had apparently thought it was a good idea to go on a hunt even though he could barely walk in a straight line from sheer exhaustion. Of course Dean had refused him. As for how to deal with the hunt, Dean wasn't the same man now that Sam and Cas had left in the future. He had a different morality and set of values in each life, especially given his own recent experiences in Hell. Sam had surely advocated killing the children, as that had been the only solution last time. Dean didn't know what he was facing yet. As for hate… Cas just refused to believe it, especially given the Dean he had last spoken with.

"I don't believe you," he said mildly. Sam looked stung, hurt that Cas would say it. Cas continued before the young hunter had a chance to marshal his thoughts into a reaction. "Dean does not hate you. You are displacing your own feelings onto him, and that's not fair to either of you."

A muscle twitched in Sam's jaw. "I don't hate him."

"I know, I mean that you are displacing your own feelings about yourself onto him." Cas sighed. "I didn't think before I brought you back here of what you would have to deal with. I knew about the blood, but I didn't consider the triggers of this time, even before the wall came down. You are forced on a minute-by-minute basis to deal with your mistakes all over again. You have to try to correct mistakes you made before, even while you're in the process of admitting them and seeing how you could have done things differently then. As if that wasn't enough, you have just had eighteen months of soulless memories returned to you. Everything you did in that time has spilled into your mind, along with the cage. There is so much guilt in there, Sam, so many crimes. It is any wonder you can't cope? I would hate myself, too."

For a moment, Cas thought Sam was going to punch him, but Sam did something worse. He turned away and wiped carelessly at the tears pooling in his eyes. He seemed to want to speak, so Cas stayed silent and patient, but every time he tried, he faltered until Cas could take no more.

"I don't hate you, Sam, and neither does Dean."

"How can you know?" Sam asked in a choked voice.

"Because I just spoke to him, and the last thing he said to me was a message for you. He said to make sure that you knew you have a clean slate with him."

Sam looked hopeful for a moment, but then he frowned again. "That's my Dean though, Dean from our time not now. How do you know this Dean doesn't hate me?"

"Does it matter if he does?" Cas asked.

"Of course it matters," Sam snapped. "He matters. It's Dean."

"I'm sorry. I know he matters. What I mean is that this Dean is not the one who counts. The aim of everything we have done and are doing is to create a better future, not past. The things that happen now are incidental. It is what we return to that counts. Besides, I do not believe that Dean in any timeline is capable of hating you. He is angry, that's undeniable, but he has good cause to be. We threw an apocalypse at him as well as demon blood and your own sacrifice in one go. Can you blame him for needing a while to come to terms with that? Especially what happened to you in the cage?"

"You're kidding, right? That was the only redeeming thing about what we told him. I screwed it all to hell, but I didn't get away with it. I paid the price."

Cas groaned. How was it that Sam, knowing Dean as well as he did, missed this? "That was not the redeeming thing, Sam," he said with a bite to his tone. "Not for Dean at least. For him, that was his greatest failure. He couldn't save you from that. He couldn't stop you. Can you imagine how that must be tearing him apart?"

Sam looked stunned, as if the idea truly hadn't occurred to him until then.

"Really, Sam," Cas said impatiently, "you used to know better."

Sam smiled a little, but then he stubbornly shook his head. "Okay, so maybe he doesn't hate me, but that's not the only reason I should go. He can't even look at me. I make him uncomfortable being in the same room. I should give us both a little time to… work through it, some space."

Cas's anger rose again and it made his tone harsher than he intended. "You're a coward, Sam." At Sam's incredulous look he went on. "Not with the big things. I know how brave you are better than anyone given what I witnessed in the cage, but with things like this… Perhaps Dean cannot look at you, perhaps he doesn't want to be in the same room, but that is no excuse for you running away. I know you are living in an impossible situation. You have come from a place where your crimes are known and atoned for and more importantly forgiven to a place where they are fresh and raw, but that is the price you have to pay for our future. I have seen so many times how strong you are. Show that strength again and stay."

Sam stared moodily out of the window, biting his thumbnail. Cas could sense in his silence the battle raging within him. He wanted to be away, to have some peace alone, but he wanted to live up to Cas's expectations of him, too. He wanted to be brave.

After a long time he dropped his hands back to his sides and said, "I can't. I need to get out of here."

Cas sighed. "Then I apologize for this."

Without giving Sam even a chance to resist he reached up and pressed two fingers to Sam's forehead. The tall man crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Cas caught him under the shoulders and dragged him over to the couch. He set him down roughly but moved him into what looked like a comfortable position before straightening.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he said quietly. "But this is how things must happen."

He brushed his fingers once more over Sam's forehead, ensuring that he was in a deep sleep that would last, and then he took flight.

Cas found Dean and Bobby a motel room in Stratton, Nebraska. Dean was clutching a rag to a wound on Bobby's arm and cursing under his breath while Bobby tried to slap his hands away, grumbling about how he was fine and could sew himself up. On the table beside them were a spool of thread, a pack of tapestry needles and a bottle of whiskey.

They didn't seem to hear Cas's arrival as neither of them looked up until Cas pushed Dean aside and laid a hand over the bloody wound on Bobby's arm. Flesh and skin knitted together under his touch and when he moved back, there was a clear expanse of skin where the wound had been.

"Well… thanks," Bobby said a little grudgingly.

"You're welcome," Cas replied serenely.

"What are you doing here?" Dean made no attempt to hide the rancor in his tone.

"Is Sam okay?" Bobby asked, giving Dean a sour look as if Dean should have asked that question first.

Cas nodded. "I left him resting." There was no need to tell them he had left him unconscious against his will. "I came because I thought we should talk."

Dean started packing the makeshift suture kit in his bag again, turning his back on Cas. "What do you want to talk about? You got some other bomb to drop on us?"

Bobby kept his eyes on Cas, and it was him Cas chose to address. "Sam is planning to leave."

As Cas expected, Dean spun on his heel to face him. "You mean go back to his time and give us back the real Sam, right?"

"No. I mean he intends to leave you and live alone for as long as our mission takes."

Unlike Sam, Dean didn't redden when he became angry. Instead, he paled slightly. The color change was subtle enough that only someone who really knew him would notice. He was paling now, and his hands were clenching into fists. "He's going to what?" he hissed.

"I believe you heard me correctly. He intends to leave."

"Why would he do that?" Bobby asked.

"Because he's a damn coward," Dean spat.

Cas didn't like the accusation, despite the fact that it was the same one he'd leveled on Sam only a short while ago. "Sam is brave," he countered.

"Doesn't seem like it to me," Dean said. "He screws us over, screws himself over, lies to us for months, and when it's time to face up to what he's done, he runs. What's brave about that?"

"Sam's mere presence in this time is a sign of his bravery," Cas said. "I am not denying he has made his mistakes, we all have, but he is trying to atone for them now."

Dean didn't look impressed, and Cas decided it was time for a brutal honesty. "I rescued Sam from the cage, you know," he said conversationally. "You, Dean, have been to Hell, and so you have some understanding of the myriad of ways there are to draw pain. I promise you the archangels know more. Lucifer and Michael worked in tandem over Sam, two masters of the art in their element, punishing him for what he did, and he barely made a sound."

Dean shook his head in disbelief. "Everyone screams," he said, "every single soul."

Cas knew he was speaking now not of his own time on the rack but the time he presided over other souls. Cas remembered well the sight that had met him the moment he reached the level of Hell that housed Dean, deep in the depths—the Righteous Man standing on his own two feet with a straight razor in one hand and a soul in front of him on the rack. He remembered placing a hand on Dean and dragging him away. He remembered that Dean's first instinct upon rescue had not been to drop the blade but to cling to it tighter. He also remembered the screams.

He pushed away the memories. "Sam didn't. He had someone to protect."

For the first time since Cas's arrival, Dean didn't look angry. He looked confused. "Who was there?"

"Michael's vessel," Cas said somberly. "He was someone Sam knew, someone Sam wanted to protect, so he did. He protected him from the rack as much as was possible by goading the archangels, and while they tortured him, he fought to remain quiet for his friend's sake."

Dean shook his head wordlessly, and Cas could imagine the struggle within him as he tried to imagine the strength that it would take to hold in the screams for someone else.

"Who was Michael's vessel?" Bobby asked. "It wasn't…" He cast a glance to the side at Dean.

"It wasn't Dean in the cage with Sam. It was a young man called Adam; he was someone Sam cared about. You haven't had a chance to meet him yet."

"Okay," Dean said, gathering himself again. "Sam was brave in the cage, I get that, but it doesn't mean he's not being a coward now. He's just running away from what he's done, and that's the definition of weak."

Once again, Cas had to summon patience to speak evenly. He reminded himself that Dean didn't know better. He didn't understand what Sam was going through simply by being awake now, all the worse because of the time he was living in. "Every moment Sam is here, in this time, is a trial. He is faced with all his mistakes and he is doing his best to fix them, but all the while he's living with the crippling guilt and fear that he might fail and do it all over again. Think, Dean, you have made some difficult choices in your life and you have done things you are not proud of. How would you feel if you were faced with those choices again?"

Dean had the grace to look away, ashamed.

Bobby, who Cas hadn't been paying much attention to until then, cleared his throat and spoke in a rough voice. "It would be the most amazing thing."

Cas frowned. "Yes," he said slowly. "There is a certain awe that can be gained from this chance, but the cost is…"

"It's high," Bobby agreed. "I get that. It's got to be killing him, but… I never thought. If I could, I'd save her, and not give a damn if I changed everything that came after."

Cas knew some of Bobby's history and he assumed he was speaking of Karen, his wife.

"For you, it would be the most amazing thing," Cas said. "You have only one mistake to correct. Sam has many. Add to that the recent bombardment of Cage memories and the fact he believes he has lost his brother, and—"

"What the crap?" Dean snapped. "Lost his damn brother?" He looked outraged, as if he couldn't imagine why Sam might be feeling like that.

"Yes. Think, Dean. What reassurance have you given Sam since his confession? You knocked him unconscious and left, and now, according to him, you're refusing to look at him. What other conclusion can he draw from that?"

"Wait one damn minute," Dean said angrily. "I don't know you, I barely know the Castiel that's flapping around in this time, and I get that you've got a few years knowledge of me and Sam that I don't have of you, but you don't know us. Sam earned that punch and he knows it. I had to walk away when I did or I wouldn't have stopped there. You don't get to drop an apocalypse, demon blood, and time travel on a guy and expect him to be able to just shrug it off without some sort of reaction. Sure things aren't exactly great between us now, but we'll work it out. Sam knows I'm not giving up on him, because I don't, never have."

"That's where you are wrong," Cas said. "You of this time perhaps hasn't yet, but the Dean that Sam knows best, the one he left behind, does give up. Sam has very clear memories of that Dean walking away from him when things get tough."

"That's not fair," Bobby said reasonably. "How are we supposed to work this out if Sam's holding things against us? Things that we haven't even done yet?"

Cas couldn't help but smile. "Isn't that exactly what you are both doing? Demon blood is in the here and now, that he has done, but Lilith, Lucifer, the apocalypse, none of that has happened, and yet—"

"And yet nothing," Dean growled. "You don't know us. You don't know what we're thinking."

Bobby nodded his agreement. "We've been careful, like Sam said, not to talk about the things Sam told us away from you because your younger version might be around listening, but I do know Dean, and I know he's not fixated on the things you believe he is, because I'm not either."

"Enlighten me," Cas said stiffly. "If you're not fixated on what Sam is yet to do in this time, what are you fixated on that has Dean incapable of looking at his brother?"

Bobby shook his head. "No. That's not your business. It's Sam's, Dean's and mine. We'll talk about it when we're ready and we'll talk about it together."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Dean's mouth. "You heard the man."

Cas would have liked to react with anger, but was this not what he had been hoping to gain when he entered this motel room, some understanding for Sam and a chance for them to convince him to stay? He schooled his features into a smile instead and said, "As long as you do talk to Sam, I am satisfied."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Which I'm sure is what we're both worried about, satisfying you."

Cas ignored him. "Change your clothes," he said briskly to Bobby. "If my other self comes he will notice the blood and lack of injury. He might be suspicious of who healed you if not him."

Bobby nodded. "Can do. What are you going to do?"

"I am going to wait with Sam. I left him unconscious by my hand, but if he wakes before your return, he might leave regardless, so I will keep him there."

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. "What are you going to say to him?"

Cas merely smiled as he took flight again.

Sam felt eyes on him even before he was fully awake. His mind filled with horrors of who it could be—Lilith, Lucifer, Walt and Roy ready to kill him again—and he jerked upright, almost headbutting Dean who was leaning over him and shaking his shoulder.

"Whoa, easy," Dean said, holding his hands up in front of him. "It's just me."

Sam took a deep breath as he relaxed back against the couch and tried to collect himself. He was in Bobby's house. Dean was there. He looked over Dean's shoulder and saw Bobby and Cas, too. They looked worried, all of them, and he felt like he was missing something. Had he been hurt somehow? He ached, as if he'd taken a beating to the ribs, and he felt weak but… Oh. Demon blood. Lilith. Lucifer. Apocalypse. The Cage. He remembered. He also remembered Cas reaching for him. He'd obviously knocked him out so he could fetch the cavalry.

He suddenly couldn't meet anyone's eyes, even though he had been hoping for Dean to be able to look at him ever since he woke in the panic room. He looked down at his tangled fingers in his lap instead and tried to calm his breathing.

"We need to talk," Dean said, his voice gravel and tension.

Sam nodded without looking up. "Yeah."

Dean gripped his shoulder and gave it a rough shake. "And I'm not having this conversation with the top of your head."

Sam looked up at Dean. Something was different. He met Sam's eye without flinching and there wasn't anger in his expression now. He wasn't smiling, but then he had no reason to smile. He looked like he was dreading the conversation that was coming but was determined to have it regardless. It was an expression Sam was familiar with.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"Yeah, we'll get to that," Dean said. "Drink this first and wake up." He handed Sam a mug of coffee.

Sam sat up and sipped the perfectly doctored coffee, trying to not squirm under their combined gaze. He wished Cas would go. He had a feeling this conversation was going to be uncomfortable, and he deserved everything they threw at him, but Cas would try to defend him and that would make it worse. Dean would get angry and he'd say crap and Sam would feel like he was having his ass handed to him all over again. He wished he could have gotten away when he had the chance. He scowled at Cas who looked indifferent to his anger.

While Sam drank his coffee, Bobby pulled up a chair and sat down and Dean perched on the edge of the desk. Bobby hated that. He said it messed with his paperwork system—a chaotic system in Sam's opinion. The fact he didn't say anything to Dean made Sam sure that there were more important things on his mind.

When he couldn't drag it out any longer, Sam set the mug down on an overflowing side table and looked up. "You want to talk, I get that, but you've got to let me have my say first."

Dean gestured expansively with his arms. "Go ahead."

Sam took a deep breath to prepare himself and then spoke in a rush. "You hate me, I get that, and I don't blame you because I hate myself, too. But you have to know I never meant for any of it to happen. Apart from the demon blood, I guess. But even that I thought I was doing for the right reasons at first. But I know, okay? I know how bad I screwed up and how wrong I was. I know that even better than you because I actually lived it already. I was stupid and arrogant and so damn sure I was the one in the right, and I didn't listen to anyone, and I should have."

Dean's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Why didn't you listen?"

"Dean…" Bobby chided.

Both Sam and Dean ignored him. Sam answered, forcing himself to look into Dean's eye as he did. "I was arrogant. I was so sure I was right. I thought it was all down to me. Even Chuck thought I was right."

"Who the hell's Chuck?" Bobby interjected but Sam went on without answering.

"I was so angry with her for what she did to you. I would've killed her, even without the seals as stakes. I was crazy with the need for it." He sucked in a shaky breath. "I was high. The demon blood didn't just give me the power to draw and kill demons; it gave me… a buzz. I felt strong and powerful and right and… high."

Dean nodded, his suspicions apparently confirmed.

Cas leaned forward slightly, breaking into the conversation. "And there was Ruby."

Sam nodded, clinging to another explanation for his horrific crimes. He wasn't making excuses. He just needed them to know what had happened. "She was lying to me all the time, feeding my own feelings of superiority. She made me believe it was me or no one." He trailed off, panting.

"Anything else?" Dean asked in an even tone.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I am so damn sorry you have no idea. There are so many lives on me, so much blood on my hands that it will never wash clean. There is nothing you can say to me that I haven't already said to myself, but I know I deserve it all and more, so go ahead. Tell me." He spread his arms as if presenting a target for them to aim at.

Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Okay. My turn. I'm pissed, I don't think I've ever been more pissed, but not because of the reasons you think. Cas filled us in as much as he could about that time and what happened after, and I know how it must have been for you with the angel dicks flapping around and me… otherwise occupied. I think I understand what you must have been thinking and feeling, but…" He shook his head. "Demon blood, Sam. That's the thing I keep coming back to. You did that and lied to me again and again. You hid it from me for months, and then you came back to change things, and yet you sucked down the damn stuff all over again. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't," Sam said quickly. "We couldn't risk the angels finding out what we're doing."

"That's an excuse," Dean said without bite. "You found a way to tell us now so you could have earlier. So tell me, what were you thinking when you started up with it again?"

Sam wanted to duck his head and look away as he made his confession, but he forced himself to look into Dean's eyes, addressing him and him alone. "Alastair. I knew I had to kill him. The knife wouldn't work and we don't have the Colt, so I had to be the one to do it."

"But why?" Dean asked plaintively. "Did you even know what you were risking? Cas said that the wall thing could have destroyed you for good, turned you into a drooling mess. I've heard Cas' theories, but I want to know the truth. What was so bad that you had to do it?"

"I didn't know," Sam said, "not really. I knew it was a risk, but there was no other way. And he had to die. He… destroyed you, Dean. He hurt you so much. I knew you would never even have a little peace knowing he was out there still, so I killed him."

Dean bowed his head and sighed heavily. There was silence for a long time. Sam couldn't bear it. He wanted accusations and attacks, anything to ease the burn of shame in him. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I know you hate me, and I don't blame you, but you have to know I'm sorry."

Dean looked up and Sam saw something in his expression that made him feel both confused and hopeful. "You're wrong," he said dourly. "I don't hate you, Sam. Never have. Never could. No matter how much you screw up and piss me off. I'm not even angry really, not now that I understand."

"But… you can hardly bear to be around me."

"You think that's because of what you did?" Dean shook his head, laughing softly. "No, little brother, that's me. I am pissed, so pissed that it burns, but not at you, at me. I know I haven't been the same since I got back, and now I'm seeing just what that's cost us, and what it will cost the world. You should never have gotten that deep; you never should have been able to get that far into it without me noticing. If this had happened even a year ago, I would have known. I would have seen the signs that you were hiding something and I'd have found out what the hell it was. I'm pissed because I failed you."

Sam didn't know what to say, though he thought he should have expected it. Dean always found a way to turn things around on himself, to take the blame when it wasn't deserved. It was even worse since his return from Hell. He carried so much guilt for what he had done there that a little more wasn't an issue for him.

He looked to Bobby for support, but he was nodding his head and saying, "Me too. I'm just as culpable. I knew something wasn't right, I damn well knew it, but I didn't look hard enough because I didn't want to know. I figured we had enough to deal with. I failed you, Sam."

Cas was standing against the wall, nodding agreement, and Sam felt like he was drowning. How could they think that? He had done this, not them. It was all on him, not them, and the mere fact they thought they deserved even a portion of the blame was unbelievable. Even the first seal hadn't been Dean's fault. He had been broken and tortured for thirty damn years before he'd come off the rack. He had no idea that making that choice was going to break a seal; he didn't even know what seals were then.

"No!" he said hoarsely, refusing their absolution. "You don't understand. You tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen. You locked me up, and Bobby begged me to stop when I got out, but I wouldn't. That's all on me."

Bobby smiled slightly. "We're never going to agree. I think we all take our blame and stow it. We've still got a lot going on and self-flagellation isn't helping anyone."

"Very wise," Cas said, nodding his approval.

Bobby cast him a mistrustful look and then went on. "We've still got an apocalypse to avert, and angel dicks flapping around. Now, Cas said that it's important you two don't get found out, so I say we end this conversation now and not have it again."

Sam nodded a little reluctantly. He wanted to press on until they admitted they were blameless, but he knew them both well enough to know that would never happen. They'd set their hats to being the guilty ones and nothing he did or said would change that.

Dean nodded more firmly, probably just to appease Bobby. "I'm up for that."

Cas looked approving. "Good. That's settled then."

"What's up next, Sam?" Bobby asked. "You're living the rerun, so what comes next?"

Sam considered for a moment, searching back through his memories. "Uh, oh yeah. How do you feel about icing a magician that's killing people with magic?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Sam laughed softly. "Yeah. There's this dick bag that's going to be killing people soon."

"Cool," Dean said. "Let's kill Voldemort."

So… Things are looking up, right? I know it's been a long, hard road to get Sam and Dean to this point, and I want to thank you all for sticking with me.

The 'everyone screams' idea is shamelessly taken from Agelade's wonderful Lustra verse, stories I cannot recommend highly enough. Seriously, they're awesome. Go look them up. Now.

There won't be an update until Monday at the earliest now as I am going to Asylum 14 this weekend. I will update as soon as I can when I get home.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx