Sam woke with a gasp, sitting up with a knife in his hand and the smell of whiskey on his breath. The headache was merciless, blinding. He couldn't see, couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stand either and fell heavily to his knees on the floor when he tried to leave the sofa. He'd slept too long, been without his meds for too long. His fucked up synapses began misfiring. Some stopped firing all together. His mind lipped sideways, sending conflicting information to nerves and muscles throughout his body.

It took several minutes for the seizure to come to an end. He knelt beside the sofa, elbows on the cushions, head bowed as if in prayer, but no prayers came from his lips, only heaving gasps as he struggled to catch his breath. He wiped his nose with a shaking hand, leaving a smear of blood across his knuckles. The metallic smell of it sickened him and he rose to stumble to the bathroom, retching.

When he was done he dry swallowed the pill he'd missed taking but washed the taste of puke out of his mouth with more whiskey. He grimaced at the sight of daylight creeping in through the windows. It was past time for him to get back on the road.

Bobby called it a fuse. The doctors called it a stroke brought on by the bursting of a cerebral aneurysm. They couldn't understand why he wasn't dead and were mystified by some of the images their tests spit back at them. Your average human used ten percent of their brain. Thanks to Azazel, Sam used much more – but at the same time, had much more that could go wrong. His CAT scan lit up like a Christmas tree. It was impossible to tell what was actually damaged and what simply shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Fuse, aneurysm - same difference, same effect. Sam had gone more than a little wonky afterward.

"But hey, Lucifer's back in Hell," he whispered grimly.

"And we'd like to keep it that way."

Sam grabbed a shotgun from the table and turned around quickly – instantly regretting it as a wave of vertigo hit him hard. His vision skewed. He shook his head and refocused on the guy he had failed to notice before, the guy sitting nonchalantly in front of the dying embers of Sam's fire. Cocking the gun, he cautiously crept toward his unwanted visitor. It was no demon, he would have sensed it, but it wasn't human either.

It looked human. Its shell was human – a young man, a teenager, with light brown hair, high cheekbones and large, slightly luminous green eyes. He was good-looking, almost too good-looking, like he'd stepped off the pages of GQ magazine. He gave Sam the once over and a grim smile.

"Sam. You look like shit."

Sam growled. "Yeah, give me another reason to shoot you. Who are you? What do you want?"

"You can shoot me, but it would be a shame to put holes in this body. It used to be his bread and butter when he was a child star, betrayed him when he grew up and wasn't pudgy and cute anymore. Luckily he turned to religion instead of drugs and porn." The guy shrugged. "Personally I think this kid could use some drugs and porn, but then he probably would have told me to kiss his ass when I asked to borrow his meat."

"What?" Sam barely followed this discourse, and might have had trouble even if his brain wasn't damaged. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Vessel." Guy stabbed a finger at his own chest. "This isn't really me."

"I got that part. I know what possession looks like."

"I'm not a demon."

"I got that too." Sam slowly lowered the hammer back down on the gun, and then lowered the gun itself. "But that leaves only a half a dozen other things that can take over a body."

"Castiel sent me."

This brought Sam up short.

Castiel, the angel Castiel. He'd saved Dean from Hell once, brought him back. Sam had a bone to pick with him, but all the angels had vanished from Earth as soon as Hell opened up and Lucifer stepped free. Sam hadn't seen him, or any of God's warriors, for years. Had he been the man he was before he actually met an angel he might prayed for another miracle, but Sam was in no way that person anymore and he'd done more cursing than praying. He knew Dean wasn't coming back this time, but was his brother in Hell again, or someplace else? That's all Sam wanted to know. It was all he needed to know. So far the angel, and the answer, had eluded him.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "What does he want?"

The answer was blunt. "Ruby."

With a snort, Sam moved into the living room and settled himself down in the chair where he'd bound the demon. "And so naturally you came to ask me where she is, as if I know."

"Do you?"

The angel gave him an intense stare. Sam met it with one of his own and answered the question.

"No, and if I did, you wouldn't need to be here because I would have already sent the bitch back to Hell." Setting the gun across his knees, Sam leaned forward in the chair. "She won't be found unless she wants to be found, and I have better things to do than waste my time looking for her."

The fire hissed and popped as a log fell deeper into the flames. Rising, the so-called-angel moved to the hearth and picked up a poker. "That's a problem," he said quietly, putting on another log, rebuilding the fire that had nearly gone out while Sam slept.

"It's a problem for you maybe. Leave me out of it. I've got enough on my plate, and the last time I got between Heaven and Hell it didn't end well." Sam rubbed his temple. Pain stabbed at him from someplace behind his eyes. He shot a glare at the angel who now stood as if warming himself in front of the fire. "Give her my regards when you kill her."

The angel turned away from the hearth, and for a brief moment Sam could see the lazy stretch of shadowy wings arcing out from his shoulders; reminiscent of a bird sunning itself on a warm summer day. Sam had every reason to hate an angel of God as much as he did a demon, but despite this deep-rooted bitterness he couldn't help but admire the air of serenity that seemed to accompany them. Soldiers of God, they existed without all the baggage carried around by man, baggage that often ended up dragging humans down to Hell.

Sam had a lot of baggage and the more time passed, the more convinced he became of where he would spend eternity.

"You don't want revenge?" the angel asked. "She murdered your brother."

"Revenge is overrated," Sam murmured. "Anti-climactic. People get their revenge and find out it doesn't stop the pain. Why do you think there are so many murder suicides?" He raised his head. "And I doubt revenge is Castiel's motivation. Why does he want Ruby?"

"Castiel gives orders. I obey orders. I don't ask and he doesn't tell."

"You know," Sam said abruptly, rising to his feet. "If you don't mind, I'm right in the middle of something. I was due in Idaho hours ago and..."

"If you're talking about the rift I already took care of that." As he spoke, the angel approached. He was taller than he first appeared, and although still shorter than Sam, he seemed somehow larger. His eyes were a dark shade of green, but deep within them a fire smoldered. They studied Sam carefully. "What has made you so bitter, Sam? This is more than just grief."

Sam's first instinct was to turn away, but he couldn't, held in the angel's gaze. It pissed him off, this angelic mojo. His lip curled. "Where do I start? Look, like I said, I don't want to have anything to do with you, Ruby, or whatever bullshit God's got cooking this time."

The angel's eyes flickered sideways. He focused on a point just beyond Sam's shoulder – the table. Sam turned as he pushed past to investigate the items laid out there, picking up each prescription bottle one by one by one. Annoyed at the additional intrusion into his privacy, Sam crossed over to where his unwanted visitor stood and plucked the last bottle out of his hand. The angel turned to look at him, frowning.

"You're sick?"

"No, I'm dying." Sam slammed the bottle down on the table. "Do you mind?"

Head cocked, the angel continued to stare at him. Sam shifted his weight uneasily, and began putting his things away into the duffel. He tried to ignore the other's presence but heard, very softly, the angel whisper to himself:

"Cas, you son-of-a-bitch."

Sam zipped the duffel. "Didn't tell you that, did he?"

"No."

"Probably didn't tell you he and his buddies cut and run when it got bad either. The angels, God's warriors left only a handful of humans to stop Lucifer."

"They were ordered..."

"Then God is a damn coward!" Sam raged, surging forward to get in the angel's face. "And I won't do him any favors. My brother died..."

He stopped, stumbling backward a step as his vision skittered off track and flashed dark and light, then dark again. A hand steadied him, or tried to anyway. He shoved it away and sat down in one of the dining room chairs. The headache wrapped iron bands around his temples, growing tighter and tighter with every breath he took.

"They could have saved him," he gasped, attempted to shove the hand coming at him away again and failed. "Dammit! Don't touch m..."

Sam didn't know what it was like to live without pain anymore, dealing with it on some level or another every waking hour for the past five years, so when it suddenly ceased, he had a hard time understanding what happened. One moment his vision was gone and his head felt like it was being crushed in a vice, and in the next, nothing but pain-free clarity. He could see again, he could breathe easy again, and the utter exhaustion that had been pulling him down for so long, was miraculously gone.

"Don't get used to it," the angel said quietly. "It's only temporary." He shrugged and gave Sam a small, wry smile. "I'm your bargain basement variety angel. I call for lightning and I get static cling. I call for healing, and I'm handed a box of Hello Kitty Band-Aids."

"What did you do?"

"Pain block. It'll wear off in about twenty minutes." Putting his hands on the back of another chair, the angel stood at the table opposite where Sam sat. "About your brother..."

Pain of a different sort stabbed Sam in the gut. "I don't want to talk about my brother. I don't want to think about my brother."

Once again he was fixed with an intense stare, and felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He knew better than to believe the angel could know what he was thinking but it didn't stop him from wondering just what the creature saw. There was sorrow in the angel's expression. Sam also knew better than to assume what he saw was what the angel truly felt. They could be cold – they were cold – obedient, and for as long as they were dedicated to God, without free will. In that way they could sometimes be worse than demons.

"Why?" the angel asked softly.

Sam turned his head. "None of your damn business."

Just go, he thought viciously. Go away. Leave me alone. I don't need any of your sanctimonious bullshit. I don't need your sympathy.

"I'm sorry, Sammy."

Infuriated at hearing Dean's pet name coming from a creature he abhorred, Sam opened his eyes and surged from his chair. He had never attempted to use his abilities on an angel before, but he figured at this point he had nothing to lose and he wanted the angel gone.

He didn't have to go that far. The angel had gone on his own accord.

The summons was probably expected. It was answered almost immediately.

Out upon a long stretch of Kansas prairie, empty save for the birds and the buffalo as it might have been hundreds of years earlier, the angel Castiel came forth in all his glory. There was no one there to see besides a young man sitting cross-legged upon the hood of a vintage car. The car was a Camaro, silver, fast and sleek, with an ivory statue of the Virgin Mary on the dash and a rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror.

"You stole a car," Castiel said flatly, obviously disapproving.

At the moment Dean didn't give a shit about what Castiel thought. "Borrowed."

"Dean...

"Why didn't you tell me about Sam?"

"What about Sam?"

Unfolding his legs, Dean slid from the hood of the car and faced his superior. He couldn't actually see Castiel, only a bright aura of light, but his human host's eyes were unable to accommodate more than that. It was enough that they were spared the fate of most human senses when confronted with the true form of an angel.

"Don't play dumb with me, Cas. He's sick, dying, and you knew it."

"I told you not to go to him."

"He's my brother!"

"He was your brother."

The prairie grew silent. Dean slumped back against the car.

"He's going to Hell isn't he?"

Castiel was non-committal. "It's not my call, Dean. My best guess would be yes, but who am I to say? It is our lord who will make the final judgment and he..."

"Just shut up with the mysterious ways crap," Dean murmured, swinging open the Camaro's door and slipping inside. "You know I can't let that happen."

"So you would disobey God to save Sam's soul?"

Dean slammed the car door shut. "Yeah, and at the very least he'd have some company in the Pit." He shook his head and gave up a wry smile. "Come on, Cas, you know me, I'm not that stupid."

"You do have a penchant for getting your way without direct disobedience," Castiel admitted. "Just don't abandon your assignment, Dean. Ruby must be found."

"Yeah, about that, you want to tell me why we're suddenly so interested in Ruby?"

"No."

"Figured."

The light flickered in what Dean recognized was good humor. "You want to tell me why you're driving a car?"

Dean grinned as he turned the key and gunned the Camaro's big engine. "I'm afraid to fly."

The church in Arco was a ruin, a jumbled mass of charred wooden beams and scorched piles of broken bricks. It had burnt down back in the sixties and had never been rebuilt. No one knew it protected a secret, a place worn thin in the fabric of time and space that separated Earth and Hell. The demons had chipped away at it for a long time before they managed to open a rift. More than the one Sam dispatched had escaped from it before it was sealed. Wasn't that just peachy; he had more work to do then.

"So," a voice chided softly. "You didn't believe me."

Sam didn't even turn around. "Angels can lie."

"Yeah, I'm real aware of that."

There was an edge to the angel's tone that caused Sam to look up at him. Annoyingly the sanctimonious creature was sitting on the Impala like a giant hood ornament, watching Sam with that odd, unblinking gaze he'd affected before.

"Sins of omission," he continued. "Depending on just what was omitted, God tends to look the other way on that one. I gave Cas some shit for it."

"His omission regarding my health – or, as the case may be, lack thereof?"

"Yeah."

"Bully for you," Sam grunted, picking his way back toward the Chevy. "You know, I told you before I have no idea where Ruby is and I want no part of the latest divine plan. Why are you here?"

"I need help."

"Get off the car."

"Sam, look. We can limit your involvement to helping me find Ruby. Once we locate her, you can be on your way to wherever and whatever. Okay? Just work with me on this. I'm a junior exec just trying to make my way up the ladder. I don't have any divine plan at my back – that I know of anyway – so cut me some slack."

"Help you up the ladder. That's my incentive?"

"You do realize you need all the Brownie points that you can get, don't you?"

Sam paused with his hand on the Impala's door handle. His head was pounding. The headache had come back with a vengeance after the angel's pain blocking trick wore off halfway to Idaho. He felt tired and ill, but then, that was normal.

"I'd guessed," he said softly. He leaned against the car, laying crossed arms upon the roof. "There are worse things."

"Worse than Hell?" The angel's soft snort of derision was not quite a laugh, but then the grim look on his face did not warrant laughter. "No, Sam. There isn't."

"Debatable. At least I'll have good company."

"There is no good company in Heh…ell." Cocking his head slightly, the angel appeared puzzled, then, as realization dawned, he appeared shocked. "Dean? You think Dean is in Hell?"

Sam didn't respond.

"So all this time you thought…Sam…" The angel leaned his elbows upon his knees, his expression full of sorrow. "Why did you assume he wasn't saved? Why would God go to all the trouble of yanking his ass out of Hell only to throw him back after it was all said and done? His sacrifice wasn't just for you this time. That meant something don't you think?"

Sam bowed his head. He hadn't been there, not in the very end, when it was all over and Dean lay dying with Ruby's knife in his back. Sam had been laid out unconscious, half dead himself. It had been Bobby who filled him in on what happened afterward. Dean's last words had been so typical, so like those Sam had heard countless times before, he had totally dismissed them.

"Tell Sammy it'll be all right. I promise...we'll be all right."

Despite his best efforts Dean couldn't always make everything all right. Sam hadn't believed things would be all right, not when his faith had become so jaded. After the betrayal of both Ruby and the angels, why should he have believed his all-too-fallible brother?

Because when had Dean ever let you down before?

Eyes burning, Sam found himself unable to speak. He pushed away from the car and headed back toward the ruins of the church. Very little of it still stood, but in the midst of the wreckage one heavy oak pew remained, as well as the wall behind the altar. Where once there had been a large stained-glass window there was now just an empty round hole. His heart felt like that anymore. It was empty. All his hopes and dreams had been shattered, just like the beautiful colored glass.

"I don't know," he said finally, "if that makes me feel better, or worse."

"Hell corrupts even the gentlest soul, warps love into hate. You should know that, Sam. If Dean were with you in Hell, who do you think would be wielding the knife that strips your skin from your body, and cuts your heart from your chest? Who do you think would be torturing him?"

The angel's voice came from somewhere in front of him. Sam noted he had come to stand where the altar had once been, right below the open window, where he used the waning afternoon light to dramatic effect. Once again reality slightly overlapped the illusion, surrounding the human figure with a halo of light, picking out the arc of feathered wings over each shoulder, casting a magnificent shadow across the cracked wall. Sam wondered if he did it on purpose, or if it were some carry-over from the actor turned vessel that he wore. Cas had never been such a ham.

"I don't want to go to Hell."

"Then help me find Ruby."

Sam laughed bitterly. "And that will save me?"

This time it was the angel who looked away, and the light around him seemed to dim. Only a young man stood there now, a young man surrounded by the ruins of a small, nondescript building. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and furrowed his brows. He sighed, and spoke in a nearly inaudible voice.

"I can't make any promises."

"I thought as much." Rising, Sam went back to the car, the angel following in his wake. "Fine, whatever, I'll help you find Ruby," he said, "if you do something for me."

"Anything - well almost anything. Bargain basement variety angel, remember?"

Sam turned around and brought them both to an abrupt halt. "Can you deliver a message?"

The angel's lips parted, releasing a little "huff" of breath. His green eyes were searching, his expression apprehensive. "To your brother?"

"Yeah. Tell him..."

What? I miss you? I'm sorry? Thank you? There was so much Sam could say, so much he wanted to say, needed to say, and yet he had to admit even if Dean were standing right in front of him he probably wouldn't be able to say anything at all. Dean hadn't been much for sentimentality – at least out loud sentimentality. Admitting he felt anything other than casual indifference had always been difficult for him. It didn't really matter though because they both knew instinctively what the other was feeling at any given moment. Sam knew his brother had been far more sensitive than anyone would have given him credit for, and sadly, more than once in their past it had been used against him with agonizing results.

"Never mind," Sam muttered. "Forget it. Just get in the car."