Chapter III

A/N: I used several lines from the actual 9.11 (First born) episode in here, just because they were relevant to the story and I like to keep it as canon as possible.

Thanks for the reviews, follows and favorites :).

Dean stood up and started pacing the length of Sam's room back and forth. "So let me see if I get this straight someone is siphoning human and angelic grace out of Sam? Who?"

"Why?" Asked Sam from his sitting place on the bed.

"I don't know if there is someone or something siphoning it or the grace its just leaking out of him." Cas' voice was quiet, almost apologetical.

Sam stretched his palm out questioningly. "Why? Why is this happening?"

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and then moved his hand violently. "Who cares why? How do we stop it?"

"I don't know Dean, I am sorry." And Cas truly sounded sorry from his chair. "I tried healing it, sealing the leak somehow but I just couldn't."

Sam's face clearly stated, stop listening to Dean, I am the smart one here. He enunciated each word, like talking to slow people. "But if we figure out why this is happening, we might be able to figure out how to stop it. So, do you have any theory of why this is happening, Cas?"

Dean stopped for a second, turning towards his brother and wagging his index. "You are right, Sam. Did Gadreel do this to him?"

Cas shrugged. "I don't know, he could have, he could be using his grace to power himself up. Or the leak could have been there before and that's why it took him so long to heal Sam."

"Why wouldn't he tell me if something like this was going on?"

Sam looked at him incredulous. "Why would he tell you, Dean?"

"He might have had some hope of fixing it from inside." Cas added. He elbowed his knees and placed his chin on his knuckles. "For all we know it's because he was about to let go and say yes to death and he got tricked out of it. Or it could be something residual from the trials, that is serious magic, it could have caused it easily. It could even be that something has been draining him since he got back from the cage. He was locked with Lucifer and Michael for centuries, who knows what that can do to a human being? Maybe whatever it was was there before and only got exacerbated with the trials. And his body is so depleted by now...:"

Dean stopped pacing, rolling his head back and running his hand through his hair, he stared at the ceiling for a moment. He stood in front of his brother and exhaled loudly. "Ok, lets start tracing back then. Have you felt sick since you got back from the cage?"

Sam shrugged.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Sam's massage his temples and his voice was small. "I don't know Dean."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't have a soul, then the wall fell, and then the hallucinations and before anything could get better you disappeared. I don't know Dean, I've been so damaged through it all, that I can't really tell if it ever got better."

Dean was getting angry, probably out of worry, but angry none the less and Sam didn't know what to say to stop the attack. It wasn't his fault that he was sick! "But that was mental, emotional. What about being psychically sick?"

He shrugged again and shook his head with his eyes closed. "Sometimes the line is so thin, Dean."

"And what about the year you spent with what's her name? Amelia?"

Sam's voice was tired, Amelia's name was a synonym to 'my brother doesn't care about me' on Dean's mind. "My brother had disappeared without a trace, right after I had been locked in hell for centuries. Dean, you were gone. Do you really I felt OK through any second of it?"

"Then why didn't you look for me?"

Sam sighed, tired of this conversation. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"I thought you were in heaven, Dean. In a better place where you didn't have to live this crappy life; A life of carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders every day, with a brother that keeps on screwing up and disappointing you. I hoped you were in a place where you weren't chased, hurt, and tortured one way or the other every other day. I told myself over and over that you were in a better place, because...I just couldn't… I couldn't do it again. After what happened when you went to hell, I was scared of doing something that would make you hate me for it again. I was scared of reliving those three months of endlessly looking for you and feeling like I was letting down at every corner. Reliving the impotence of not being able to do anything to save you. I was so drain mentally, emotionally, and psychically, I just couldn't go through that again. So, I chose to believe you were in a better place, better off without me."

Dean looked at him for a minute, like evaluating his answer, but then continued, "So, you are telling me that you have felt mentally and psychically ill non-stop for the past, what? Five years?"

Sam looked away but his silence spoke volumes.

Dean shook his head. "Son of a bitch! So what now?"

"We could try to find Gadreel, ask him if this is his doing or if it was something that was there before him, you know..." Sam volunteered pointing at himself at the end of the sentence.

Dean nodded approving. "Sounds like a good plan, but how are we going to find him? Also, Cas, you mentioned a continuous and rigorous healing plan, how often does that mean, really?"

Cas thought about it for a second. "I would expect every eight hours would ensure Sam doesn't lose a lot of his strength but I would still have enough time to regain mine back after each healing session."

Sam pointed at the shortest man in the group. "You said that when an angel heals or occupies a vessel, a part of their grace remains with the vessel, correct?"

The angel nodded. "Yes, that's correct."

"So, I have Gadreel's grace in me?"

Castiel nodded again. "It's fading too, but he occupied your body and healed you for a long time, there is plenty of his grace in you still. Actually, I believe the only reason why you are still alive is because of his grace."

Sam had stood up in the middle of the angel's sentence and was walking towards the door.

"Where are you going?" His brother asked.

"Library, I think I have an idea." Sam cried from the hallway not checking to see if the other two were following.

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Sam was carefully reading the spines of the books lined in the library. Once in a while taking a tome and more often than not, just taking small files the men of letters had intercalated between books and then putting it back in its place.

Dean walked to the dry bar he always kept fully stocked in the room - he usually required some help with library work- and poured himself a dose of Whiskey with three cubes of ice. He took a sip, stared at his glass for a second and then doubled the amount of alcohol. Sam caught from the corner of his eye as his brother looked at him clenching his jaw but didn't say a word. 'Thank god for small favors' he thought as Dean left his line of vision to sit in one of the most comfortable arm chairs in the back room and presumably have his drink.

Cas stayed right behind him, looking at him with interest and once in a while spying on a book himself.

Ten minutes later, Sam finally found what he was looking for. "Aha!" he said, handing Cas a manila folder.

The angel opened it and read. "'On the Inner Workings of Angels', the men of letters have interesting and comprehensive collection."

"Now that you found the holy grail, can you, please, sit down at least?" Dean half commanded, half begged, while he walked towards them with the drink still in his hand. Sam ignored him. "What is it?" He placed himself behind the other two men trying to decipher the content of the folder.

Cas took a second to skim the document. "According to this, we may be able to use the grace that remains inside Sam to track Gadreel...If we can extract it."

"How would we do that?" Dean asked taking another sip of his whiskey.

"Well...painfully." The angel added showing him a page with a picture of a huge syringe with a 4-inch long needle. "The Men of Letters believed that you could perform a tracking spell with extracted grace, but they were never able to test the theory."

Sam placed his hand on his hip. "Well, they didn't have a guinea pig, but we do."

Dean choked on his drink but manage to sputter. "NO! No, no, no way."

"You have a guinea pig? Where?" Castiel asked clueless.

"Sam, Cas. Sam wants to volunteer himself as guinea pig."

"Ohh." The angel finally understood.

"And no, it's not happening." The shortest Winchester added.

Sam tried his best puppy dog eyes. "Dean." He held them for a long time.

"No."

Sam's eyes meant business, his jaw clenched. "It's not your decision."

Dean placed his drink on the table and walked on his brother's personal space. Even if the youngest one towered over the other brother, family dynamics that had been ingrained for decades made Sam feel small in comparison. "You are dying Sam, DYING, because grace is siphoning out of you like a leak in a toilet. And you want to go and insert the mother of all needles inside of you to take away more grace? No. You can throw all the temper tantrums you want. We ain't doing that."

Sam fumed and ignoring the tantrum insult he just went for the more effective. "And again, there you go making decision for me."

"Well, someone has to inject that torture device on you and it ain't going to be me!" Dean pointed at the angel. "And Cas, if you try, I swear I'll cut your fingers off."

Sam raised his arm and let them fall down in surrender. "Well, if you have a better idea, please, enlighten us."

Dean smirked. "Sure, I will. I will come up with something that doesn't put your life in danger!"

Sam huffed and strided passed him and towards the other end of the room.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from you. I just need to get as far from you as possible right now, Dean!"

Dean covered his face with his hands and sighed. "I can't do it, man" He shook his head. "I can't." When he removed his hands and looked at Castiel his eyes were glassy. "I can't put him one step closer to his grave."

Cas just looked at him through understanding and compassionate eyes.

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In the infirmary, Sam winced and massage his temples. His headache was slowly crawling back in and he could feel his strength abandoning him minute by minute. He ignored the already so familiar discomfort and continue looking for the syringe on the endless line of drawers full of supplies and strange devices. These men of letters sure were preppers.

"Sam, may I ask you a question?" He heard Cas' voice behind him. He didn't look at the man before answering.

"You just did."

"Can I ask you another question?" Cas voice sounded even closer now. He turned around.

"Well, technically, you -" He sighed, giving up on the angel ever catching the joke. He was too tired to keep on trying. "yeah, go ahead. What's up?" He opened a promising box but it just contained a strange device or relic he had never seen before.

Cas started opening drawers on the opposite end of the line. "Sam, the trials. You chose not to go through with them for a reason, didn't you? You chose to live rather than to sacrifice yourself. You and Dean...You chose each other."

Sam rubbed his eyes and shook his head as he moved a step sideways to open another drawer full of supplies. "Yeah, I did. We did. And then, Dean made a choice for me."

"What Dean did…"

Cas started but Sam didn't want to hear it. He was starting to feel terribly ill and didn't want to hear excuses for his brother's behavior. He turned to face the angel one more time grimacing. "It doesn't matter what Dean did. Look, I could have put a stop to all this, Cas. I could have closed the gates of hell..." He sighed, turning back to the drawers. Another promising box.

"Oh, Sam."

He shook his head. "Dean doesn't see the big picture, ever. Dean has…" He was tired and didn't want to explain to Cas. He didn't want to dish on his brother just because he was angry and sick, whatever problem he had with Dean is was his and Dean's. All he wanted was an hour without a headache. All of a sudden, jackpot, there was the syringe, much bigger and menacing than it looked in the drawing. "I love my brother, Cas, but he is never going to see me as grown man. For him, I will always be a little scrawny boy in need of protection. I need to do this. If I can find Gadreel, we might be able to figure out what's going on with me and we can make him pay for what he did to Kevin."

"Sam," The angel said grabbing the wrist that was holding the needle. "I want Gadreel to pay as much as you do. But nothing is worth losing you." He looked up to meet his eyes. "You know, being human, it changed my view of the world. It changed my view of you. I mean, I can relate now to how you feel."

"What are you talking about?"

His eyes got even more intense. "The only person who has screwed things up more consistently than you is me. And now I know what that guilt feels like. And I know what it... I know what it means to feel sorry, Sam. I am sorry."

Sam nodded, he had forgiven the angel long time ago and it was not his place to judge anyone. "I know."

"That's why," He place his free hand on Sam's shoulder. "I can't let you do this. We'll find another way. Give me the syringe, Sam."

Sam placed the lid back on the box and gave him a quick, caring smile. He started nodding but suddenly raised his hand to the bridge of his nose and started swaying.

"Are you ok?" Cas steadied him and helped him walk towards the gurney in the middle of the room.

"Yeah, just a little dizzy." The taller man said sitting down. "A little headache. Do you mind giving me one of those painkillers over there and fetching me a glass of O.J from the kitchen?"

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"You got it?" Dean asked raising his head from the book he was reading when he heard Cas approached him in the library.

Cas lift the box up and shook it with a smile. He walked to sit beside him, placing the box on the table and looking at the books splattered all over.

Dean frowned in skepticism. "Sam didn't fight you for it?"

"We had a nice talk, very human. He understood why it's important to us that we find another way."

Dean's mouth went downwards and his eyebrows shot up in utter surprise. "Huh!"

Cas grabbed the nearest book and inspected it's cover. "What's with the sudden interest in Oz?"

"You said that when someone is healed by an angel, some of the grace is left in that person, like forever?"

"Well, no, not forever. Eventually the human body regenerates human grace and that human grace pushes the angelic and more foreign one out, but for a while yes, until the body has the time to regenerate it's own grace."

"Ok, so how long does it take for it to fade?"

Dean was getting impatient and Cas shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had no idea where this was going so there was no way for him to answer what was really in Dean's mind. "Well, it depends, depends on the severity of the injury and on the strength of the person being healed."

Dean sighed. "Let's say someone dies and an angel brings them back. Would the angel's grace last a few months in that person's body?"

"Yes. Definitely. If an angel raises someone from the dead, their grace would remain with that someone for at least a couple of years."

Dean closed his fist and raised his hands in victory. "Yes! I know who we are going to use you with, sweetheart!" He said opening the box that Cas had placed in front of him."What's this, Cas?"

Cas looked inside the box, a strange relic that resembled the syringe in nothing except weight was staring at him from the container. "It doesn't make sense, I saw him put the syringe in there." His mouth opened wide in realization. "And then he felt faint and asked me to retrieve a glass of orange juice from the kitchen."

He stood up and stormed out while saying. "Son of a bitch, he played you!"

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The sight of Sam when they finally found him - in his bedroom- would haunt Dean for decades to come. He was sprawling on his bed, totally still. His eyes were closed and blood was streaming out of them. The color on his face has passed white and had stopped at a mixture of blue and purple. Blood also trickled from his mouth and nose. The syringe still stuck to his neck, blue glow filling not even a fifth of it. Sam's hand still clutch to it.

"Sam! Sammy!" Dean ran to him, placing one ear on top of his brother's mouth as his hand searched for the wrist to check a pulse. Damn it Sam! It took him a while to find any. "He is not breathing! SAM!"

A/N: If anyone has a suggestions as to why this is happening to Sam, please, let me know since I have no idea myself.

A/N 2: Ding, Dong, guess who is coming to dinner, bitches?