((Man… this chapter was hard… I'm so sorry for the wait and I really appreciate the reviews and faves. You all are amazing!))

xXx

I am alive… that alone is something of a miracle. I feel the scratchy cloth covering the thin mattress and hear the rhythmic hum above me… combined with the distinctive smell of dust, old books, and alchohol… There's only one place I could be, Bobby's panic room.

Another miracle. I have no idea how I would have ended up here. I wanted it more than anything, but my body was so destroyed that it wouldn't have moved a foot, much less to South Dakota. But if I hadn't gotten here under my own steam then how did I arrive?

My throat tightens and I shake my head weakly. How foolish of me to think of the Winchesters. How arrogant of me to think that they would still think of me enough to come looking for me. I finally open my eyes, my vision blurred and darkened. I can only make out a figure standing over me… I can only make out those eyes.

"Dean?" My voice comes out scratchy, so weak that for a moment I wonder if it's my voice at all. Those eyes definitely belong to a Winchester and I want it to be Dean so badly… I want to apologize to him before I succumb to that fearful darkness once more. I want to see him, even if all he feels towards me is hatred.

"Sorry to disappoint." It isn't Dean's voice, and I feel my stomach drop. Out of all the people who have a right to kill me without a second thought, Sam Winchester has the most. And it is Sam Winchester who stands before me now.

There are so many things I want to say. I want to explain, to apologize. I won't ask for forgiveness, but Sam… Sam deserves something. Actually he deserves more than I can possibly give him, but he'll have to settle for a weak excuse from a broken shell of an angel.

I open my mouth, but Sam stops me. "Don't… you'll only exhaust yourself," he says sharply. "Besides, I get it."

"Get… it?" I repeat weakly, whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that. "But Sam-"

"Look I'm not saying that I've forgiven you, because I'm not sure I can do that just yet," he pauses and I steel myself for the tirade, the great condemnation. But instead, Sam only smiles sadly. "Yeah, Cas, I get it. You were faced against all this crap, and you didn't see a way out. Dean doesn't get it, because Dean's always just barreled through whatever stood in his way. He finds allies wherever he goes… he doesn't understand what it's like to be alone standing up against the end of the world. He doesn't understand how easy it is to lose sight, to fall down some dark hole, blind to the fact that you aren't saving anything- that in the end you just made things so much worse. So, like I said, I get it."

I look at Sam, finally understanding the guilt and self-hatred that he always carried around him- that had become a part of him.

I close my eyes, knowing that soon, my regrets would morph me into someone else entirely. Never again will I be able to act with such certainty, with such purpose. The only question remaining is whether or not I can survive the loss of that purpose.

"So why?" I ask finally, my body aching under the pressure of my question and the answer I might receive. "Why are you watching over me, if you haven't forgiven me?"

"Because…" Sam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Because I can't condemn you without damning myself, and we both deserve redemption."

I fall silent. For one so young, Sam Winchester has become one of the wisest beings I have ever met.