Chapter 3:

Dean waited a good hour before heading back down the stairs, hoping that Sam would be down for the count for the next day or so. He needed to recharge, they all did before they continued this fight for a planet that had done nothing but hurt them. He frowned when he heard Caleb talking to someone in the kitchen. After all, at this point in their lives they were short on friends and family.

Dean was shocked to see Castiel sitting at the table, for him and Caleb had both admitted their dislike for each other. Yet, as Castiel had gotten more human, he had attempted to befriend Caleb, even though the angel in him had a hard time seeing past the demon taint in his DNA. Castiel's eyes drifted to Dean as he came into the room and gave a half smile.

"How is Sam?" Cas inquired.

"Sleeping, he should be fine in a couple of days." Dean sat down across from the angel and poured himself a generous helping of whiskey. After all this, he deserved it God Damn it.

"Did you talk to him?" Caleb asked.

"Yeah." Dean answered. "He is pretty messed up, I told him I didn't think it was his fault… but I think it will take him awhile to recover from this."

"You need not worry Dean, Sam is strong. Famine proved that."

Dean grimaced at the mention of the Horsemen Sam had destroyed in moments with the power of the demon blood pulsing through his veins.

"Yeah… You don't need to remind me of how strong he is… I saw what he did that night." Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side.

"I believe you have misunderstood what I mean Dean."

"I tend to believe that too." Caleb said. "But what exactly do you mean Feathers?"

"Most people in Sam's life underestimate him. That includes both of you." Dean tried to interject but Cas continued on with a placating hand in front of him, attempting to explain what he meant.

"It isn't that you don't try, but you all under estimate Sam's goodness, we all did, we thought the boy with the demon blood would be evil and powerful, but it isn't that Sam is powerful because of the demon blood that makes him special, it is amazing because of the power he holds in spite of that."

"We know… His goodness pulled him away from the hunt when he went to college, he was afraid of being one of us, he didn't want to become numb to the blood and pain." Caleb said. He remembered the first night he saw the coldness of a hunter in Sam, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, it scared him to see that in the eyes of a seventeen year old boy who just wanted to go to college and chase normal.

"Do you actually believe that Cas? After all you were told about Sam, and the darkness within him?" Dean asked. Castiel thought on that for a second.

"In theory, Sam should have been the greatest enemy of God and the Angels. After all, he is Lucifer's vessel. As an angel I understand it takes a certain level of darkness in a person to hold Lucifer… yet here I sit an angel who has been able to befriend Sam Winchester, and see him the way you do… and suddenly I have extreme doubt about the master plan and everything that was told to me."

"So you believe he can beat this?" Caleb asked.

"I believe you three can beat anything as long as you are fighting on the same side. It wasn't just him we underestimated. We underestimated the one thing that holds all of you together. It is something that as angels we will never understand the complexity of."

Dean frowned trying to think of something that a creature thousands of years old would never understand.

"What's that exactly?" Castiel smiled and looked at the two men in front of him.

"We underestimated how much family meant, how even though you may not all share DNA you became one of the closest families I have ever met. Somewhere along the line we forgot that you would all live and die for each other without a look back. In essence we completely underestimated how deep your loyalties ran. We underestimated a brothers love."

Caleb felt a warmth growing inside him, he knew that love, had felt it since he met a silent 4 year old and a wriggling baby in his apartment as a teenager.

"Damn right you underestimated us." Caleb said roughly. "People always do, and this time that will be Heaven and Hell's greatest mistake, because that will never be taken from us."

"That's right." Dean raised his glass. "To family."