Aaand welcome to chapter 2! I know you all are wondering how the next part goes. Well, here you go.

Castiel: What the hell Dean? Living humans aren't allowed in heaven!

Dean: This is heaven?

Castiel: Yes.

Dean: Oh! So that's why he's there. He's like, my memory of Sam or something? Like the last time I was here?

Castiel: O.o ... Yes, that's it. That's it exactly.

Dean: Oh okay, you can take me back now.

Castiel: -takes Dean back to Earth-

Sam: What was that?

Dean: Nothing. Cas is just weird.

The incident is never mentioned again and nothing is ever explained.

THE END

jk obviously. Now that you've been properly disoriented, here's the real one...

Disclaimer: I am one of the millions of fangirls that can't have what they want, Sam and Dean.

Thank you all to those beautiful six people who reviewed. I especially enjoyed the longer reviews of Shadow496 and my loyal reviewer, best friend, and older sister, DracoStarbo.

And for Shadow496, all will be explained... in time ;). If I tell it all at once, that just spoils the fun, now doesn't it? Hehehe...

Castiel grit his teeth and turned sharply to Dean.

"Why did you come here?"

"I wanted to see what the hell you were hiding that might save my brother. Good thing too, or I might never have found out about this…. That's SAM Cas! Or at least, it looks like him. What is it?"

Castiel glared at Dean. He cared a lot for the man. He was his friend and he wanted him to be happy and safe, but when he dared to talk about his child like that.

"Don't you dare call him an it!" he snapped.

"Dad?" the small child asked, looking wary of the man that his angel-father seemed to be arguing with. "Who is that?"

"Dad? You're not his… Dad, I mean, right? You told me you were a virgin, and angels don't have kids! And… why did he just call you Dad? And what the hell is a carbon copy of my young younger brother doing with you?"

Castiel ignored the older Winchester for a moment and turned to the small, scared child.

"Please go to your room Samuel. I just need a little private time with a friend. We have things to talk about."

The child shaped as the young form of Sam nodded before glaring at Dean, who, not knowing who or what this doppelganger was, glared right back with hostility that would make a demon shiver. The small version of Sam just walked up to Dean and stomped on his foot. Dean yelped and reached for his gun, but stopped when he saw the look of bloodshed in Castiel's eyes when he reached for the weapon. He left it then because first, the kid might be innocent for all he knew, one damn hell of a brat maybe, but innocent nonetheless. The second was because he'd only seen that look like that on Cas's face a very few times, and usually even then it didn't have that kind of heat.

Of course, his thoughts were interrupted as his ears got assaulted by a mouthful of child blabber.

"You better be nice to my dad or you'll be sorry!" he said with a fierce gaze to his hazel eyes.

"Samuel. I don't think you should be stepping on people's feet," Castiel remarked, though he didn't look at all angry with the child for this action.

The little version of Sam gave Dean a sharp 'I'm warning you' glare before turning and doing as his father asked, leaving the room. Dean watched him go in curiosity and disbelief, as if he still couldn't quite comprehend the sight before him; that a little Sam was walking around and, of all things, treating Castiel like a father. He quickly regained his senses though and turned back to his bombshell-secret-keeping-feathered-friend and glared, his eyes burning with questions and demanding answers.

"Cas… What the hell is going on?"

Castiel signed in resignation. He would have to tell Dean the truth. There was no way around it. He could wipe Dean's memory of the event, but Sam still remembered and he wasn't sure the memory thing would work on Sam. Of course, the soulless tall version would rat him out if it didn't and he'd be in even bigger trouble. Not to mention, Dean would realize a day had suddenly gone missing from his calendar and start hunting for whatever caused his memory loss. He wasn't unintelligent by any stretch of the imagination.

"Before Sam came to you, shortly after Crowley pulled his body out of the pit, he tried to find a way to make Sam more… believable. More like a real human being with feelings and emotions. Unfortunately, Sam's soul must have been irretrievable, probably smeared all over the walls in tiny little bits and untouchable, so he did something else. He made a copy of the most whole pieces he could find and put them together to create a feeling version of what Sam used to be. He created a new, impressionable soul through a ritual and filtered the copies of Sam's soul in hell to create an undamaged Sam. Unfortunately, because of the horrible state of Sam's soul, the filtering had to be so severe it would only create a young child version of what Sam used to be."

"Are you saying that that… is part of Sam's soul walking around and you didn't tell me?" Dean accused, seeming furious at the idea.

"No, it's not Sam. I believe I told you Crowley couldn't retrieve Sam's soul from hell. He could only make a copy of the bits and pieces he found in hell."

The talk of his brother's soul and what Sam must be going through brought obvious pain to Dean's eyes, but he tried to hide it, pushing it aside to deal with later, or never. Right now, the older Winchester needed more answers.

"So what? It's like Sammy the mini-me clone?"

Castiel blinked. "I do not understand that reference, but the soul was indeed a clone of Sam's in some ways."

"But… how would that help Sam get his soul back?"

"It wouldn't. Crowley just wanted to make you think Sam had his soul back."

Dean took a moment of silence to adjust to this information. It was a lot to take in after all and he was still trying to make sense of things. And really, who could blame him? After a silence, Dean finally spoke again.

"Well, it's obvious I wouldn't believe it if all I got was this child version, so how was this supposed to… trick me?"

"Crowley had Sam's real vessel with the memories of his life in it. The soul was… is, still moldable. He was planning to…"

This time, Castiel was the one who needed a moment as pain hit him hard at the thought of his poor child going through anything horrible, and what he'd walked into. That torture, the poking, prodding, ripping. He felt tears come to his eyes and, surprised at the liquid, gathered them on the backs of his fingers and brought his hand down to look at them. Little leaks of liquid from his eyes… He had never experienced the sensation of weeping and he didn't much like it. It wasn't the most pleasant of sensations, but for Sam, his poor child, he would cry.

Dean was looking at Cas, giving him an odd glance. To see the angel he knew as a mostly emotionless, but passionate dude crying took him back. And he didn't understand exactly why. Still, seeing his friend cry brought sympathy to Dean and he put out a supporting arm on Cas's shoulder. He had done a lot for him and Sam and did deserve something in return.

Cas seemed to soak up the comfort offered and after a moment, was able to talk.

"He was going to rip the soul from Samuels form and blend it in with the adult Sam's memories and body in hopes that the soul would recognize learn them and grow on the adult Sam's personality."

Dean took some deep breaths, trying to understand all of this. Cas continued to talk.

"I interrupted them as that demon was… t-trying to rip Samuels soul out."

"Jeeze Cas, are you okay?" Dean asked, worried for his friend.

"This emotionally affects me," Cas responded before continuing. "I stopped him, the demon Crowley. I took Samuel away and into my care. I've been looking after him ever since."

"I'm sorry, but I gotta ask," Dean said after a few moments. "Is he… safe? Is he even human?"

"He's just a child Dean," Cas said with a fierce glare.

"Yeah Cas, but so was that other kid, that anti-christ son of demon kid we still haven't found and you were ready to kill him because he was too powerful. How powerful is this… soul with little Sammy's body? Do you know? Is he dangerous?"

"He's just a child! He has no powers that I can see and has been nothing but a traumatized little boy who doesn't know what's happened to him or why. All he knew was that one minute, he was having breakfast with you and your father and the next he's chained to a rack, watching in terror as some unknown mad man with black eyes pokes at and prods at and tortures him! Then, when he's finally saved, he can't even go home to his family because they've apparently grown up in his absence and never even worried about him or bothered to look for him due to the fact that there was another version of him that grew up with his family and was loved by and cared for from them."

The intensity, anger, and frustration in Castiel's voice had grown and grown as he ranted and by the time he was at the end, he was biting out the words as if they were laced with venom that he wanted to pierce Dean with to get him to understand. Dean's questions fell quiet, for the moment anyway, because he had no idea what to say. He felt pity for his brother, or rather, this kid that was sort of like his brother and thought he was his brother. Whatever, it was too confusing to think about at the moment. He imagined that happening to Sam as a kid, being taken away and tortured by Crowley and his blood boiled. He also realized that, basically, in this kids mind, that was exactly what happened to him because of that son-of-a-bitch Crowley!

He almost wished the demon were still alive so he could kill him himself.

He still didn't know what to make of this situation, but for now, he'd back off of Cas's case. He saw the passion in his friends' eyes in the way he looked at the kid and talked to him, even though he'd only seen less than a minute of interaction between the two and he could tell in the way that Cas spoke about him was like the kid meant the world to him. Dean recognized the look from the mirror. He'd felt the same way about Sammy and, for a time, Ben.

And it was then that he understood why the kid had called him Dad and why Cas accepted it as truth. There didn't have to be blood shared to be family. It was an absolute truth he'd learned from Ben, who he'd thought of and still thought of as his son, and Bobby, the man he saw as a father. Neither of the two shared blood with him, but they were both as real of a family in his heart as his blood-brother Sam was. And it didn't take much time either. Dean had only spent a year with Ben before he thought of the kid as his own. Hell, even when he first met the kid, in the small time he'd spent on that hunt, he felt as if Ben were his own, even after he learned that in blood, he wasn't.

This child version of Sammy hadn't had anyone else, and Dean knew as kids, their father was too busy trying to track down the thing that killed Mom that he didn't have time to be much of a father. He was more of a drill sergeant than anything else. Cas had looked after the kid from what Dean had seen, and so, he became the father Sam never really had. Not to mention Cas was basically his savior.

"How is he doing?" Dean asked.

"He's fine. He's gotten a lot better than he was when I first found him."

Dean felt a need building up in his chest, a curiosity and a bit of longing.

"Can I see him?" he asked.

Castiel looked at Dean with suspicion in his eyes. He'd just talked about not being sure if Samuel was human and there was an undertone of hostility in his voice when he'd mentioned it, as if he were thinking of killing the boy if he wasn't "safe". Then again, Dean was one of his few friends. And his friends really consisted of three people, Sam, Dean, and Samuel. So he had a lot of faith and trust in the oldest Winchester. Still, a part of him didn't even want to take the chance. He gave Dean a warning glare, a threat that if he brought any harm to the child, he would rip his head off, and Dean met Cas's eyes and gave the slightest of nods. He'd behave.

"Fine."

He took Dean to Sam's room and Dean stopped in the doorway to take in the sight of the room. He took in a deep breath.

"Uh, Cas, where exactly is this?"

"Heaven," Cas answered, then looked back at him with another glare. "You are definitely not supposed to be here. I know you've been here on quite a number of occasions, but frequent visitations or not, it's highly forbidden for living humans to be here."

Dean looked over to Sam. "But he's-"

"An exception," Cas cut off before Dean could finish.

Little Sam was sitting on the floor playing with some little plastic green soldiers with a look of nostalgia and longing on his face. He bit his lip slightly as he looked down at the toys and frowned. It struck Dean hard because he knew why he was looking like that. Those were the soldiers Sam and Dean used to play with together. Dean looked around the room with a similar pained nostalgia that was on the little Sam's face. He knew this room.

A long time ago, when they were so young and Dad was still alive, they squatted in an empty house and stayed there for a few days. Sam had loved it, an actual house rather than a small motel room. Sam told him he wished they could stay in a place like that for good, to stay and settle and make friends with the kids around him. He'd been five at the time.

This was a memory room, where Sam was living. He wondered if this Sam would at times imagine Dean as a child in the room with him or if Cas being there stopped the memories from playing out. Also, while this was that exact room, some changes had been made. For example, there were pictures on the wall where there hadn't been before. One was a picture of little Sam in Dad's lap on the bed with Dean sitting next to him. Sam looked happy and he was smiling at Dean and Dean was smiling back. Sam was five and Dean was nine, the same ages as when they'd been squatting in the house.

Dean felt hit with hard emotion at the sight of this little version of Sam feeling for him and Dad so strongly and missing them so much that he wanted a photo of Dean and Dad up on the wall to look at. The poor kid… Poor Sammy, except it wasn't Sammy, but… He looked over at the kid, who was looking over at dean with suspicious eyes, not knowing who Dean was, not recognizing him. Of course he wouldn't. In his mind, he'd only ever seen Dean as a child. The man before him was just a stranger in his eyes, a man he'd never seen before in his life.

And that hurt. That hurt, and there was another thing that hurt too, this pain bitter-sweet. He'd been with the soulless version of Sam for a while now, months. Before that, he hadn't even seen the feeling version of Sam for a whole year, believing him dead. So basically, Sam was dead for a year and when he 'came back', he was nothing but an empty shell of what the Sam he remembered used to be, more of a mockery really. Sometimes, it just plain hurt to have this stranger that looked like Sam but was nothing like Sam staring him in the face every day. It reminded him constantly that the real Sammy was in hell, suffering, being tortured and his brother was stuck with a heartless parody of him.

Here, this Sam, although he wasn't his Sam, wasn't the real Sam, he FELT like Sam, even if it was only a younger version of him. This little guy didn't just look like Sam; he was Sam, or rather, just like him. Dean was looking, staring in the face of the feeling younger brother with warm, though hurt (and hell, at least hurt was an emotion), hazel eyes, expressive hazel eyes. Every movement this child made was like Sam. He was looking like Dean with the same look he used to give strangers when they approached Sam and Dean as kids. When they did so, Dean remembered that Sam would squeeze his hand ever so slightly; looking for comfort, protection, reassurance… and now he was looking at Dean that way.

Dean looked away, unable to take it any longer and he saw a second picture by a nightstand on the bed. It was one of Sam, as he is now, being held by Cas in his lap. His eyes were lit with such joy as he hugged the winged teddy-bear Sam now had beside him. Cas was wrapping his arms around the child with eyes lit up in a complete happiness Dean had never ever seen on his face before. Both the older and younger looked as if they loved being exactly as they were right now with not a care in the world to anything else going on around them.

Dean looked back at the picture of Sam with Dean and Dad. Sam was happy, but held a sort of sad look in his eyes because he knew this moment wouldn't last, that Dad would leave them alone and go out on a hunt.

"Dad…?" Sam said cautiously, still eying the tall strange man before him.

"He's okay Samuel. He's… a friend of mine."

Why didn't he tell him who Dean was?

Sam put his green soldiers-toys down and grabbed the arm of his teddy before walking over to Castiel and reaching out to hold his hand. Castiel took it with a light smile and Sam looked up at him smiling brightly, eyes lighting up. He moved a little so he was behind the man he viewed as a father and partially blocked from Dean's view, hiding a little.

Dean felt hurt again and also anger. Cas was bringing Sam joy and it felt wrong. Dean should be the one Sam was trusting, not Cas. When they were kids, Sam would always count on Dean and Dad, their Dad when the man was around. Mostly Dean though. He'd hold Dean's hand and look at him with dependence, with love. The love he was giving Cas was equal and even maybe above that he'd given Dean. That wasn't right. Dean was Sam's family, not Cas. Dean had grown up with Sam and cared for Sam, not Cas. Blood or no blood, Dean was the one who raised Sam. Hell, Dean had been almost a father to Sam, a father that he missed from the absent one and an older brother on top of it.

It felt like Cas was taking that away from him.

But no, Dean reminded himself. He had to stop thinking like that. This wasn't Sam. It wasn't his little brother. His brother was in hell, burning, screaming. This was just some kid who looked… and thought just like Sam. And hell, they hadn't even been through everything him and his Sam had been through. His Sam had done all the things this kids false past and so much more. Sam and Dean grew up together, side by side. Sam looked up to Dean and was brought by him many memorable moments like the fireworks Dean had snuck out and set off to watch them with Sam. They'd gazed at them together and little Sammy had given him a big hug and thanked him, looking up at him with those adoring eyes, like Dean was the best thing in the whole world…

And then, when they were adults, they fought side by side battling demons and creatures and other nightmares. Dean was there for Sam when Jess died. Sam had died in Dean's arms. Dean had died for Sam. Sam had been there for him or at least listened when he came back and talked about hell. Of course, he was also being manipulated and drugged by the bitch-demon Ruby's blood. If he'd have caught the warning signs early on, maybe he could have stopped what happened after.

They started the apocalypse together, Dean in hell and Sam on earth. They broke together, suffered together. And hell, Sam was there for dean through it all. When Dean had lost all faith and hope, when he'd tossed the necklace Sam had given him in the trash just to show Sam how much he didn't trust in Sam or faith or anything anymore, how none of it mattered, how their once-strong bond was dead and gone, Sam hadn't lost faith in Dean. He was there; he chased him down when he'd run from him. He gave him those eyes, those trusting eyes, depending eyes. When it came down to it, to saying yes to Michael, Sam had changed his mind with a single look.

After that, they'd bonded right back together again and the bond got stronger than ever. Then with Sam at his side, they fought on and eventually stopped the apocalypse. Neither could have done it without the other.

All of that? THAT was Sam. This kid was only seven years old, a mockery to the real Sam. If he wanted to bond with Cas and view him as his father, he could go ahead. Cas was caring to the kid. He gave him a roof and shelter in the safest place he could possibly bring him, his own personal heaven. After that, the angel deserved some love.

"Dad? Your friend stares a lot," the kid said

"Funny, he says that all the time about me…" Castiel replied.

Dean blinked and realized he'd been battling with himself for over five minutes and shook his head a little to clear it. "Sorry."

"Who are you, friend of Dads?" the child asked and then turned to his 'Dad'. "Who is he Dad?"

When Dean saw little Sam looking up at Cas with such trust, such bond, and such emotion, Dean felt another surge of jealousy and a sense of wrongness, despite the fact that he'd reasoned with himself that this wasn't Sam at all, just a copy. He was nothing. The real Sam was the one he should want looking at him like that, not this random kid. Sam looked over at Dean with a small smile and then shrunk back a little. It was then that Dean realized he was glaring unintentionally at the poor kid and stopped. He didn't want to be cruel to the poor kid.

"I'm Dean Winchester, your brother."

Dean said it because despite everything, he wanted Sam to feel something for him, even though it wasn't really Sam. He wanted to see warm hazel eyes looking at him with something other than distrust and mild curiosity even though this Sam hadn't been with Dean for his whole life, in fact technically hadn't been through any of it. He hadn't even really been alive for as long as he was old.

And Dean got his wish. Sam's eyes welled up with emotion, happiness, but also pain. Tears were brought to his eyes and he gave Dean a bit of an accusing look. He was still heart-broken with Dean. How could he not be there for him? How could he grow up without him, and with another Sam at that? Why couldn't he be Dean's Sam? But then all of that faded and was overcome with happiness so powerful it hurt and an answered longing to see Dean again, to see his brother here and paying attention to him. He ran to the older man and hugged him tight around the waist, his eyes leaking with tears as he sobbed quietly into Dean's shirt. He buried his face into Dean's chest (he was so small) and held on like he never wanted to let go.

Dean felt overwhelmed that Sam was here and cared about him. He was so used to him being gone or not caring, not even if he died. He hugged the kid back and stroked down his back.

"Where were you? I missed you so much!" Sam cried.

"Shh, I'm here now Sammy," Dean soothed.

He shouldn't be doing this. This wasn't really Sammy. He shouldn't be taking in the comfort and let himself feel as if this were real, as if this were really his Sam, but dammit! He couldn't help himself. He wanted this so bad, even if the kid was only seven and missing so many years his real brother had on his life. Hell, maybe that was even better. He could spare him the pain his Sam had went through.

No, he should be thinking about his Sam, not this one. His Sam was in desperate need of help, of saving. This kid already had Cas.

But he was. He was loving this Sam, this little kid in his arms, like he was his brother, like he had a second chance at making things right, at giving Sam a better life. One with a normal childhood, friends, a good school, everything he wanted. He could see Sam grow up without pain and loving him, depending on him, not just as a brother, but his father. If Dean stopped hunting, he could raise this Sam, give him a normal life. And if he had a normal life, he would love it and love Dean and have no reason to want anything else.

Oh, he'd get to see Sam so happy like he'd wanted for a long time. He could go to college and meet someone and get married and have kids. This wasn't like when the Djinn had been draining him of his life's essence and taunted him with his deepest desires. This was real. This Sam was real.

But he wasn't real. He might have a form, physical and whole, but he wasn't Dean's Sam and when he looked up at Cas, his friend, he saw anger in the angels eyes. Because he had no right to make Sam feel this way, to feel loved and like he was going to be there for him now when he was on a hunt to get a soul back from hell, when he could die at any minute.

He couldn't even really bring this Sam back with him. To do so would be needlessly dangerous to the kid. It would mess him up more then he'd already been through the over a year of pain and confusion the kid had to go through.

And there was another look in Cas's eyes, a second reason for the anger. It wasn't just that this wasn't Dean's Sam. It was that this was Castiels Sam, the reason for happiness that Castiel had never before known, the precious gift that had come out of taking the abandoned child out of hands of fire and into the hands of heaven. He was Sam's father. Sam was his child.

And Dean looked like he wanted to take that away from him.

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