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SAM. Breathe. Now. Do it. Listen to me.

[She gets up and rounds the desk, putting a bracing hand on his shoulder.]

I can tell you nothing unless you breathe. Listen. He can't get to you here. You haven't said yes here. He cannot get you.

[Naomi understands enough from having been in Castiel's head, who was in Sam's head enough. She understands from having been in the minds of countless vessels over the centuries. She knows what the old fears are, what the old buttons are. It's like riding a bicycle.]

How? I wouldn't. I wouldn't make that mistake. I know what happens.

[He twitches at Naomi's hand on his shoulder, instinctively wanting to swing at her - but he swallows hard and looks up, torn between calling her a liar and denying it all and asking her as many questions as his lungs would allow. He is breathing - right? He's pretty sure he is. His face flushes red against his cheeks, biting out as angrily as he can:]

How? That's not possible.

[Only it's half angry and half desperate, more than anything.]

I will tell you, but-

[She searches his eyes intently, looking for some indicator of what to do. Dealing with sobbing, blithering humans she's old hat at. Actually making them feel better? That's some uncharted territory.

Maybe something basic.]

Sit. Drink some water. Let me tell you the story.

[Suddenly there's an empty wine glass and a pitcher full of water on the desk. They're both suspiciously fancy and look like they might have some actual religious use - and the wine glass is, in fact, a glass chalice - but whatever, Naomi doesn't really care at this point.]

I don't want any goddamn water.

[He's not sure he can drink it without his hands shaking anyway, sickness and panic combined as it is. He's trying, though. He's trying really hard to be calm, if only for knowledge, more knowledge on home. On what's happening, how Naomi knows, what he needs to do next.]

Just tell me — whatever you know.

[Okay, so calming humans down isn't her forte. Whatever. She backs off until she hits the desk and leans against it. What follows is the three worst possible words to ever lead in a story about the Winchesters:]

You were dying. [Then the other three worst.] Dean was desperate.

So he prayed. An open prayer to any angel, as Castiel was unable to come. The first to arrive were violent but Gadreel fought them off, posing as Ezekiel.

[Sam closes his eyes.

Of course. So stopping the Trials didn't save him. It was completely pointless.]

... So?

[His hands clench the chair's armrests, white-knuckled.]

He convinced Dean that the only way to fully heal you was slowly, over time. From within.

[He suspected that would be the answer. He's just not sure how any of this works, how he'd ever agree to it. It's something that nobody can truly understand unless they've been possessed — but even then... it's a topic that dates back to when he was just a baby.]

How? What, I just... agreed to their plan?

[He doesn't exactly realize he'd been indisposed completely and utterly.]

Not exactly.

[Mmm. This part will be unpleasant. She pauses, wondering at the wrongness of it all.]

You were in a coma.

[He's confused. Jerks his head faintly as if he didn't hear her right.]

If I wasn't — but that's not, angels can't just possess an unconscious vessel.

[Demons, sure, but angels need the vessel's word.]

No. And normally, that is the way it should be.

[That part is honestly felt- she clearly finds it distasteful, what Gadreel did. It was crass and tacky and wrong. The entire point of being angels is that they can't invade humans like that. It's the entire governing divine principle behind the existence of free will, and the importance of obtaining a true consent from a vessel before entering.]

Dean agreed to allow Gadreel to walk in your mind and obtain your consent in that way. However, they knew asking simply was a lost cause.

[To walk into his mind? He feels horrified too easily, because it's not like it's the first time an angel has messed around in his head. He rubs at his arm, probably hard enough that it'll bruise; it's not like it takes much to cause them, these days.]

I still wouldn't... I wouldn't agree.

[He just wouldn't. No way.

Never again.]

How?

[Because that was always the main question. The biggest one.]

[Mm. This part is the clincher. She knows it will destroy him, just as Dean predicted it would.]

He posed as Dean in your mind to have a conversation with you about your relationship. The false Dean pleaded with you to open up to him and let him in.

As I understand it, Dean was aware of the nature of the deception.

[He's quiet for a moment, gobsmacked into silence.]

Dean wouldn't — do that. He knows I would never...

[But Sam knows, deep down, that Dean probably would. As long as Sam has known him, no matter what Sam's told him, he's always done stupid shit — he'd brought Sam back knowing Sam would suffer, knowing that Dean's soul was earmarked for Hell. And he hadn't cared about what Sam felt then. But this... He wouldn't manipulate him, would he? He wouldn't...

No, no. He wouldn't. He knows. He should know how much it hurts him.

He should know.]

As I understand it, he was desperate. Gadreel pressured him to maintain the illusion for an exceptionally long time.

[Talking feels like a challenge now, and he falls silent for a long beat of time.]

I never knew? How long did this go on...?

[He feels sick. Is sick.]

Did he just - keep wiping my memory?

Yes. At the time I visited, it had gone on for several months. As to how long it went on in the true version of our world- I honestly don't know.

[This. This is somewhat less dispassionate than she had expected. She isn't usually effected by displays of pain or by suffering, but Sam Winchester has been through enough. He was bound for Heaven even in the days of drinking demon blood. Heaven recognized and decreed long ago, years before even he accepted it, that Sam was a pure soul who had suffered and bled and sacrificed and agonized in the desert long enough and at great enough cost that, by rights, he had earned death and Paradise. It pulls at some small shriveled part of her that hadn't completely died inside, even in the slightest way.

Her brows furrow, some thin ghost of honest compassion moving over her.]

From my understanding, he kept below the surface most of the time, but wiped your memory when he came up for air. If you ever lost time or thought things weren't right- it was most likely him.

[He bows his head, the information like a punch he can't recoil from, has to just accept. He's not sure what to say, how to even react - can he even? This is a nightmare right out of a book of fears he wars with. He slouches forward, curling his hands over his bowed head, the fight and willpower drained out of him in an instant. His heart is beating too fast and hurts, thudding in a hollow ribcage half-burning from the Trials as it is.

This can't be real.

This can't be real.

This can't be real.]

[Freaking out humans. Freaking out humans that she's actively trying to help. How do. What do!! She stands up and makes a useless aborted motion towards him that dies in midair, staring a moment before she sits back down.]

Sam. Do you want to go back to the Temple?

[He squeezes his eyes shut, hands clasped into white knuckles, fingers squeezing the blood from each other. There's a long silence, and he tries to control how those very fingers shake.]

Just - send me back.

Okay.

[She stands again and walks around the desk, pausing in front of him.]

He cannot touch you. You are still invisible to angels and he can't get in without another yes. From you, here. You can ward your home. You can be safe.

[Knowing that the open windows in the Cathedral will let her, she touches his forehead and flies them both to the Temple, deposits Sam on the Temple front steps and returns home in one flight that, to Sam, will feel like being zapped across the city in one nauseating, disorienting fashion. In short, she sends him home.]

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