Sam POV

Sam dismounted when he saw the pony that Gwen had taken loosely tied to a nearby tree. He led his horse over and tied it to the same tree, giving it some grain he'd brought like she'd taught him. He had been learning everything he could since he was going to end up being left behind to pretty much be Gwen's stand-in while she and his brother were in Purgatory. Sure he'd have Cas and strangely enough Rowena and Crowley to help but the main responsibility was going to be his.

Was she second guessing the trust she'd put in him now that she knew the complete truth about everything with Amara and the hand they'd all had in it? It had made him think of the thousands of people she'd mentioned that had died at the hand of The Darkness. How many others had died over the years because of something they had done without thinking about the consequences? Like when he killed Lilith and released Lucifer? There was no way to know just how many lives they'd caused to end. It made him sick to his stomach.

Cas had been against seeking Gwen out, saying that she needed time to come to grips with her anger and the truth of it all. While he was probably right, Sam figured the angel just didn't want to see that look of betrayal in the eyes of the woman that was effectively his daughter like he and Dean were Bobby's sons. He remembered when Bobby had told him he never wanted to see him again for his actions in starting the apocalypse. Granted, Bobby had been possessed, but just the same, hearing the words coming from the man who'd practically been another father had hurt deeply and still bothered him.

Dean was more angry with himself, as he had a tendency to do. He'd grabbed Gwen's Protector Guides that had been sitting on the coffee table and shut himself in his room. That morning, she'd quietly brought them out and set them there, telling the three that if they wanted to read them, they could. That had been really the straw on the camel's back that had led to them sitting her down and telling her. No doubt Dean was torturing himself by reading over all the entries and comparing them to their own journals and noting all the times they could have done something to help her or had inadvertently caused whatever heartache she'd experienced.

As many times as he and his brother had been tortured, no one could torture them better than their own minds.

He stood there a moment, her back to him. In front of and around her was a burial ground of a kind, the Lakota version. Instead of actually burying the bodies, they were placed on elaborate scaffolds roughly eight to ten feet high. They were tightly wrapped almost like what he had helped do so many times for Hunter funeral pyres. What made them different from the ones he remembered reading about when he was in school was that instead of just gifts for the afterlife like a bow for hunting, food and water, he could recognize protective herbs and weapons made of silver and iron.

He stayed outside of the actual grounds that were surrounded by stones painted white with various runes and other symbols he didn't recognize though he was sure they had something to do with protection and honoring the dead. His eyes moved to the ones that Gwen was sitting among and noted that instead of a wrapped body, there were clay urns. Counting them, he closed his eyes and felt his heart break a bit more. There were 16. She was sitting among the scaffolds of Amara's victims. He remembered her telling them when they first arrived that because their souls had been taken, the Rez couldn't risk something else taking over their bodies despite all the protections Three Meadows had so they had been cremated.

Amara had gotten in, hadn't she?

He stood there in the afternoon light and wished he knew what to say. What the hell could he say? Sorry, my brother wasn't willing to kill me to appease Death before being taken away so he wouldn't be a danger to the world? Sorry, we didn't listen to the warnings just about everyone who knew about the Mark gave us? We don't think about what impact our actions have on people we've never met or forgot we met?

"Don't just stand there staring at me, Sam."

Gwen's voice was weak and scratchy sounding and he heard a sniffle telling him that many tears had been shed. How many times was this woman going to be driven to tears because of her association with them? "Can I come over there? I don't want to be disrespectful." He winced, his mind telling him that he'd already been disrespectful to Gwen and those she sat among by not telling her the truth.

"Yeah. It's alright."

He walked over carefully, making sure not to accidentally step where he shouldn't or touch something he shouldn't. He took a breath before sitting down next to her in silence. It was a beautiful place, for a burial ground, surrounded by the mountains and on a hill that overlooked the lake that fed the Rez. Sometimes it was hard to remember what they were fighting for when they were stabbing and salting and burning. He and Dean didn't have graves to visit thanks to Hunter funerals being pyres. There was a stone in Lawrence that had their parents names on it but there were no bodies. Somehow that made a difference and he didn't know why.

It was the sound of Gwen's soft sniffle reminded him why they were sitting there to begin with.

"Don't think...I would trade you for my mom." Gwen said softly after a while. "I get that part of it. It's not about that."

Sam nodded, remembering the beat down Dean had given him and trying to prepare himself for death to try and save Dean from murdering the world.

"And I don't...I don't blame you for the people who died. For what that bitch did, not just to my people but all the others. You didn't know, there was no way you could." She took a deep breath. "Even Crowley with all the resources of Hell didn't know."

"And by the time he started to figure it out, it was too late." Sam said softly.

She nodded. "Just like," Her voice choked and she closed her eyes before looking up at the scaffolds, a tear making its way down her cheek like others had before it. "It's not about that. Not really." She turned her head and looked at him not with anger but with absolute sadness. "It's been months since Arizona, Sam. Months. I've told you everything and shared my home, my people have welcomed you and helped save you. It's been months."

Sam let out a breath, feeling even more like a piece of shit. "I know. There's nothing I can say that will take that back. We should have told you right up front. That first night when we were eating fast food and telling stories in the hotel room in Arizona."

"Why didn't you trust me?"

"Gwen no, no that's not it. We trust you, we do. Believe me, we wouldn't have brought you back to the Bunker or instinctively made our way back here, back to you, after everything with the Annihilists if we didn't." He took a breath, trying to make some sense of the noise in his head. "I think we were just...afraid. I don't know."

"Afraid? You two? Right." Gwen scoffed in disbelief.

"It's been known to happen. Maybe it wasn't fear at first, more of a let's see what happens kind of thing. Later it was fear. You have to realize that we have a really really bad track record with keeping the people around us alive and in one piece. People who had completely uneventful lives until they meet us and then somehow, they end up dead as a result. And with you, you got past our defenses so fast that it became more of a fear of losing you." He shrugged, embarrassed as he ran his hand through his hair.

She was quiet for a long moment before she spoke. "Tell me about Charlie, Sam."

He almost physically flinched, his mind flashing with the grin of the bubbly redhead who had wormed her way into their hearts only to be another victim thanks to her association with the brothers. "Charlie? Umm, she was, she was the best. Went from being a computer hacker to a hunter pretty quick. Met her during the whole thing with the Leviathans." And then his mind flashed to the image that he was pretty sure was etched into his soul, finding her in that motel bathroom, hacked to pieces. He'd nearly thrown up at the sight and he hadn't done that since he'd been a kid.

"No, tell me about her. Why did she become a hunter?"

"She ran into us more than once and I guess learning there's a bigger darker world out there got under her skin. She was incredibly smart, too smart and she wanted to help people. I don't know if she really understood just how dark the world was or how much danger she was truly in. That it wasn't a game she could just reset."

"And her death?"

He sighed, shifting his legs and absently plucking at the grass. "She was trying to translate the Book of the Damned. She'd stolen it from the actual Frankenstein family and they caught up to her just as she'd managed to translate it. She had a chance to run but we wouldn't have gotten the translation. The translation we needed to figure out The Mark." He took a deep breath. "We found her not long after the Stynes did. She'd locked herself in the bathroom and managed to send the file and then destroy her tablet to prevent them from getting the information. And they...they killed her. They practically ripped her apart. There was blood everywhere."

He stopped, feeling tears coming to his eyes and knowing that Charlie had died for them, for Dean and for him. She must have been terrified and he hoped that it had been quick but considering the sick bastard her murderer had been, his hopes were probably in vain. They'd given her a Hunter's funeral and he remembered the utter hatred in Dean's voice, blaming him for her death. Dean had told them to stop looking for a way to get rid of the Mark and he hadn't listened. And she'd died. And consequently because she did succeed, they got rid of the Mark and that was why he was sitting in a Lakota burial ground with yet another young woman hurt thanks to the brothers.

"Do you think if you could speak to her that she would blame you? That she would be angry?"

Sam pushed aside those bad thoughts, that awful memory and focused more on Charlie's bubbly personality, the way she was quick to hug and the way she'd baffled a heavenly being like Castiel with one of those hugs and a declaration that they were best friends. I really miss you Charlie. "I don't know. I'd hope not. We didn't ask her or really encourage her to become a hunter. She chose it." He looked up at the scaffolds wondering which one was Gwen's mom and which was Angela, Briathos' vessel. Which one was Lily's mom? "Still doesn't make the guilt go away."

"We've all made mistakes. I don't think my mom ever forgave herself for my dad being attacked by that werewolf. I'm sure he knew the danger but she probably still blamed herself. And then there's what I did in The Arena. None of us are without blood on our hands. But we can't lie about it." She looked at him with those wide almost hazel eyes, only lightened thanks to the angel grace she'd be bound with to save her life. "If we aren't honest with each other, all of us, we put each of us at risk. We put the Rez at risk. Do you understand?"

He nodded. "I do. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the role we played in what happened to your people and I'm sorry we didn't just come right out and tell you. I really am."

She nodded in turn. "I know. Your aura is sick with it."

"What's the color?" He asked, unable to hide his curiosity.

"A really ugly yellow green. Completely not your color at all."

He couldn't help the little snort he only just barely held back. "But my normal caramel aura is?"

"Yep. Brings out the highlights in your hair." She stood up, took a deep breath and held out her hand to him. "Truth from here on out, deal?"

He took her hand and got up, only to pull her into his arms in a very Charlie-esque way. "Deal."

She hugged him back and he could have collapsed from the relief of it and hugged her just that much tighter in thanks. It felt like a huge weight was taken off his shoulders. "Let's not go back yet, alright? I'm not ready."

"Ok. Do you want to stay here or walk?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't even remember getting here very well." She let go of him and looked away, absently tucking hair behind her ear. "I'm tired. Just exhausted, you know?"

"I understand. Do you remember using grace?"

Her brow furrowed and she looked up at him confused. "Wait, what?"

"Back at the house, Dean got up to either hug you or give you a chance to hit him and you used Bria's grace to hold him back. To hold us all back. And then you were gone. I ended up having to track down Rowena and have her do a locator spell to find you. You don't remember?"

She shook her head and put her fingertips to her forehead. "I remember being at the stable, having to stop and calm down so I didn't spook the horses. I guess that explains a lot."

"Maybe it's a good thing. You used it without trying, like Cas has been trying to teach you."

"It's also a dangerous thing. I shouldn't be using it like that. Not against you guys, no matter how much you piss me off."

"We would deserve it in this case. Let's not worry about it right now, okay? Tell me about some of the people here. Where's Lily's mom?"

Dean POV

Dean sighed as he finished another walk around the Rez, waving to a few of the defenders that he'd gotten to know while they were here. He'd been tempted to just get in the car and go to a bar and get destroyed just so his brain would shut off for a while. All he kept seeing in his head was that look in Gwen's eyes and all he could think about was what an asshole he was.

He hadn't helped his mood by going through Gwen's journals. Well, at least a few of them. Just by the dates alone he'd found at least a dozen or more times that she'd had to deal with the fall out of something caused by either himself or Sam.

As he made his way back to the house, he wondered just where Gwen had gone or if Sam had been able to find her. He didn't even know what he'd say to her when he saw her again. How could she trust him after this to have her back in Purgatory? He hated being lied to and he still had anger over his father keeping the truth about why their mother had been killed from them for nearly their whole lives and how he'd made a deal using his own life to save Dean's.

Flash forward about twelve years and he lost count of how many times he'd kept something from Sam or Sam had kept something from him. And what about all the people they'd lied to or put directly into danger?

It was giving him a headache and he considered doing another lap around the Rez when he saw that the lights were on in Gwen's house. It didn't necessarily mean it was Gwen, but there was a chance. He took a deep breath and headed toward the house. He thought about how he would have reacted if he'd been in her place. He had been with a few detail changes. He'd barely been 30 when he found out that not only was his baby brother the born vessel for fucking Lucifer but here he was, the born vessel of friggin' Michael. He remembered what a mindfuck it was when he was told only he could stop the Apocalypse.

He sighed and opened the door, more than prepared to get his ass kicked or told to leave the Rez. He didn't want to leave but if it helped Gwen deal with this whole thing, he'd go.

The sound of voices in the kitchen confused him and he found Castiel chopping up tomatoes with Elizabeth Sings in the Grass sitting at the table shucking peas and little Lily No Clouds in a high chair playing with a pod. It was kind of domestic and funny at the same time to watch someone who was effectively a celestial being that was billions of years old with an apron on and his sleeves rolled up making what Dean guessed was going to be dinner.

"'ean!" Lily declared, throwing her now uninteresting pea pod in the air upon seeing him.

"Hey kiddo. Hey Cas. Hi there beautiful." He greeted Elizabeth with a flirt he didn't really feel, his heart still in his feet because of the pain he'd helped cause Gwen.

"Don't you hi there beautiful me, boy." Elizabeth said with a surprising bit of anger in her tone. "I am very very disappointed in you. Our sky spirit Castiel told me what happened."

He let out another sigh, seemingly the only way he could breathe in the last couple hours. "Disappointed would actually be an upgrade from the utter self loathing I've been dealing with." He sat down at the table and looked at his hands for a long minute before looking up at the old woman who was simply waiting for him to speak. "We didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't mean to. How do I fix this, Liz?"

"Oh cante skuye." Elizabeth began, reaching out with her old withered hands for his, the contrast striking. "It's not something you can simply fix, you know that and so does our Protector. You didn't purposely release the beast and send her to us. You had no idea what this Darkness was capable of just like The Crow didn't and The Red Witch didn't. Gwen knows this. You know what the real problem is, don't you?"

"That we weren't honest with her from the start."

"Ya hey, that's right. The life of a Protector is hard enough, I should know, there have been five in my lifetime here. They deal with horrors that no one should ever have to deal with. You and your brother are the same and yet you have had it so much worse. Gwen chose to be a Protector. You and your brother were forced into all of this by forces beyond this old woman's comprehension." She gave his hands a squeeze. "But you are old enough now. The choices are yours and the effects of those choices are yours. Gwen's heart is aching, again, because of your choice. Now, you need to deal with that."

He sat there for a minute, Cas not saying a word but going for another tomato.

"You think she'll ever forgive me? Forgive us?"

"With time. She's a smart girl, our Gwen. She's had to make choices like yours too and hurt others in the process. Give her time."

Dean nodded and took a deep breath, looking to Lily who was watching him intently. "What do you think, Lily?"

"'ean good. I like 'ean lots."

That put a bit of a boost in his soul. He got up and stepped over to the toddler, orphaned because of the very being he hadn't been able to put down and pressed a kiss to her head. "I like you lots too, kiddo." Turning to Cas, he asked, "What's on the menu there, Emeril?"

Cas turned, the angel's eyes looking probably as haunted as his were. Cas was almost like Gwen's dad in a way even though he'd been forced to leave her for over 20 years and even to forget her. Dean knew that even the idea of having hurt Gwen like they had was tearing the angel apart. "I thought it would be nice to make Gwen some of her favorite food. She likes pasta and that is easy to make. I didn't have the funds when I was human to truly explore the skill of cooking. Elizabeth has been most helpful in that regard."

"Alright man, good thinking. Want some help? I'm a pretty decent cook when I have a kitchen to use."

"I would appreciate the help, Dean."

They worked side by side while Elizabeth occupied herself at the table with Lily in relative silence before Dean felt the need to say something to their resident angel. "I'm sorry, Cas. You didn't want to lie to her that first day back in Arizona and you were right. I'm going to let her know that when we see her. You didn't want to lie to her, that was my choice."

Cas paused before turning to face him. "It was but it was my choice to go along with it. We are all guilty in this situation, you cannot take all the blame."

"I agree with him, Dean. You already have so much of the world on those shoulders, do not add more weight." Liz spoke without looking up from her peas.

If only it was that easy.

Gwen POV

After putting back the horses, the walk back to the house was a quiet one. Gwen was glad that Sam appreciated that she had a lot on her mind with everything she learned. Part of her for some reason wasn't that shocked. If she'd investigated, talked to hunters and did research she could have put it all together herself. Then there was the way the boys and Castiel avoided talking about the whole thing with the Darkness. She'd initially thought it was because they didn't want to bring up painful memories but she should have known better.

She could almost hear her Unci in her head teasing her about becoming soft over the pretty white men.

As much as their dishonesty hurt, she understood it in a way. How many times had she kept the truth from someone to try and protect them and how often had it backfired? How many times had she told the truth and had it backfire? She'd been lucky that growing up on the Rez and living there meant she never had to pretend to be anything but herself and a Protector. But the boys, as hunters always had to be on their guard. Hunters were often hunted themselves, not just by demons, monsters and the like but also the authorities and even the people they failed to protect.

The lights in the house were on and the Impala was still in the driveway so that told her Dean at least hadn't decided to bail. Sam had warned her that Dean had a tendency to run away from things he couldn't just punch, stab or kill, especially feelings. That didn't surprise her in the least.

As they walked up the driveway, she looked to the younger hunter who still had utter apology in his eyes. "It's alright, Sam. I'm a big girl, I can use my words."

That put a touch of a smile on his face. "Yeah, I know you can. Somehow I think that's worse sometimes. Are you sure you don't want to just knock the two of us on our asses for old time sake?"

She shook her head. "No. That's not who I am. Maybe if this happened right after everything with the Darkness I would react differently but not now. There's too much at risk." She stopped and put her hand on his arm. "You understand that even with all of this, I'm still going to trust you to take on my duties when Dean and I go to Purgatory, right? We've never, ever, put the safety of the Rez in the hands of an outsider, let alone a white hunter. What does that tell you?"

"That I need to give better than my best to help get the Rez ready for you to be gone and make sure not a blade of grass is out of place for when you get back?"

"You bet your ass, you giant washitu. Now come on, let's get inside."

They walked inside and at first Gwen was a bit confused. Someone, probably Castiel, had brought Lily back and even Elizabeth was there, giving the toddler a piece of cucumber from a salad her withered hands were putting together. Dean was checking on something in the oven while Castiel stood to the side, his eyes on the two pots cooking on the stove top. She could smell garlic and other spices.

"So either we're having Italian or there's a vamp nest no one told me about in the area." She announced rather than make things too awkward.

Of course Dean hadn't heard her come in and very nearly burned himself while Castiel's eyes widened in something close to panic. If it had been any other day, she'd already be laughing.

"Gwen, hey..umm, hi. Cas, he thought it'd be a good idea, you know, that you'd be hungry maybe. He's not much of a cook but he can boil water and stuff. And you had the stuff for garlic bread so I figured..."

Wow. Dean Winchester, the scourge of demons and monsters alike and the bane of most of angel kind was actually nervous. His aura was screaming his guilt and anxiety. What stood out though was that touch of hope toward his center, a small but bright white beacon.

"Dean, stop. Come on, let's go sit outside and talk. We have some time before everything is done, right Castiel?"

"Yes. There's time." The angel kept his words short but the eyes of his vessel and the way he held his wings in supplication told her everything.

"Okay. Sam will help finish up, won't you?"

"Sure. Someone's got to make sure Lily doesn't eat all the cucumbers."

The toddler laughed, unaware of the tension in the room and made a playful grab for the cucumber that Elizabeth had been slicing but stopped with the new arrivals. "Cumbers all for me!"

Gwen nodded to Dean who headed for the backdoor and moved to follow. First she stopped at the table and gave Elizabeth's shoulder a rub. "Thank you, grandmother."

"That's what we should say to you Protector, you know that." Elizabeth put her hand over hers. "Don't scare the boy too much. A little, but not too much. I got him started for you."

Gwen chuckled. "Thanks." She turned to Castiel who was trying not to be too obvious in his observation of the whole situation but was failing miserably. "Breathe, old man. It's alright."

"Child, I...I don't have the words that can express how sorry I am."

She shook her head. "I know. I can see it in your wings." She reached out and gently touched a wing that looked much better than it had in Arizona. "We'll talk after dinner okay? I promise, things are alright."

He nodded.

She headed for the backdoor, pausing a moment to watch Dean as he sat on one of the patio loungers, his elbows on his knees, hands clenched and head down. She wondered what was going through his mind and took a moment to push back the auras. This needed to be a conversation on equal ground. She opened the sliding door and closed it behind her, taking a seat on the lounger next to Dean, turned to face him instead of laying on it like she normally would have.

She was quiet. He needed to start this talk she felt, the guilt she'd seen in his aura wasn't anything new and something he carried around with him all the time. Somedays were worse than others. She knew that all too well from personal experience.

"Did...did I ever tell you about how Cas sent Sammy and me back to save our parents? Back to 1978?" Dean said finally after long minutes.

She nodded. "It's been mentioned but no big details. The angel that was Castiel's garrison superior was going to kill them to stop the Apocalypse. Annael. Michael stopped her."

Dean nodded, swallowing. "Yeah. Anna. She was...she had been someone I trusted. She'd given up Heaven, ripped out her grace and became human. She was hunted by the angels like we were." He ran his hand over his hair. "And after everything we went through, she was going to kill our mom and dad to prevent Sam from ever being born."

"I'm sure in her mind she thought she was doing the right thing. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."

Dean sighed, a reference to Star Trek not even touching his mood. "That's always been the problem, you know? The greater good. A few sacrifice and suffer and die so that billions can live on. Save the Titanic and you create 30,000 new souls. But those Winchesters were never very good at following that. I was willing to have Death fling me into the ether, just throw me where I couldn't hurt anyone with the Mark. It was taking over and after what happened to Charlie, I couldn't ask anyone else to suffer and die because of a choice I made."

He took a deep breath, his hands clenched into fists, his eyes avoiding hers.

"But Sammy, Sammy couldn't just let me go and I couldn't do the one thing Death demanded, to kill him." A scoff. "I killed Death to save my brother. I potentially doomed the world to die at my hand because I couldn't bear to end my baby brother."

"Something tells me Cain could sympathize with that. Michael too probably."

Dean nodded, finally looking up at her with pain his eyes. "Today, the look in your eyes when we told you? I've seen that look before. Too many times but one night back in 1978 in particular. When we managed to save my dad and he saw how my mom could fight, how she managed to hold her own if just for a little while against something that wasn't human. And I saw that look deepen as he learned that he didn't know his new wife at all. Not at all. All he wanted was to start a family and move on from the war. Be the dad he didn't have. Not that he ever knew the truth about his father of course."

"He didn't take it well."

"No, not at all. It wasn't that there were monsters and demons and his wife grew up hunting them. No, it was that she never told him, felt she couldn't tell him. She never lied but she didn't tell him the truth and that was what was tearing him up. I could see it. And I saw that same look in your eyes today. I didn't want to keep the truth from you Gwen, I didn't. You'd been through so much, so much because we released Amara, because I couldn't destroy her when I had the chance." His head dropped. "I failed you then and I failed you today and I'm sorry. I failed everyone she killed and everyone they left behind."

"And if you hadn't, maybe the outcome could have been much worse." She sighed, the thought having been one running through her head ever since she'd learned about The Darkness being the "sister" of the Great Spirit. "If she is the yang to the ying of the Great Spirit, destroying her, if that's even possible, could have had catastrophic results. Who knows if one of her victims would have been the next Hitler?"

Dean sighed, raising his head and looking out into the twilight. "Doesn't make up for what I did to you. Not by a long shot."

She took a breath and prepared herself to tell the man in front of her something that no one else knew except for her. Dean, I told you that when Briathos and I did the spell to expel Amara that it nearly killed me and it all but destroyed Angela as a vessel. That the only way for both Bria and myself to survive was for her to bind her grace to me." She looked up to see him watching her with confusion. This was something he knew. "That's not exactly the whole story."

An eyebrow went up. "It's not?"

"The backlash of the spell and whatever Amara tried to do to fight it, I don't remember it. I remember a wave of darkness and then I was sitting on the shore of Healing Waters. I was at peace, it was calm. I figured, I was dead and this was where my journey to the Happy Hunting Grounds would begin. I didn't fight it. I didn't want to. I'd watched my mother's soul consumed and then her head crushed against the Post Office. Somehow I knew Angela was dead because if I was there, it was doubtful even an angelic vessel could withstand whatever happened."

Dean filled in the blank. "You didn't want to live anymore."

"I didn't have a reason to. My family was dead, the Rez was in ruins and I didn't know if we'd succeeded or not. Not many Protectors end up surviving as long as I did or my mom or even Unci. I was ready." She took a breath. "Then Briathos came to me, in her true form and not Angela. She told me I wasn't dead, I was on the verge and she could save me with her grace. I told her no, I was ready to move on."

"And she told you that it was the only way both of you would survive?"

She shook her head. "No. The vessel, Angela, was gone but Briathos was alright. The only reason I hadn't been obliterated was that she'd left Angela and shielded me. She was weakened but not dying. I told her she could go on as the Protector for the Rez until Lily or someone else with Sight came along. There were other potential vessels and it wasn't like she could age or anything."

"She refused?"

Gwen looked down, remembering the calmness of those moments. She knew now that it was something Briathos created in her mind to help her keep a grip on everything but it had felt like so much more at the time. "She told me that my mother...that my mom wasn't dead. That Amara had messed with my head in the hopes of distracting me enough to stop our spell."

Dean sucked in a breath. "She said your mom was alive?"

Gwen nodded. "She said Mom was waiting for me, that the Blessing Way had begun and she needed me to come back. The only way to heal me was to be bound with angelic grace."

"Was that true?"

Another nod. "That much was true. I was much worse off than Sam was after the Trials and I know it took time for Gadreel to heal him as a vessel. I didn't have that kind of time. Bria..." she paused, actually knowing why her friend had done what she did. It was still strange to have memories and feelings of both sides of something. "Bria had just watched the antithesis of her long lost father come and lay waste to a place that had become another home for her. She'd watched Jeremiah and Ruth sacrifice themselves to try and save the Rez. And she didn't make the decision to leave Angela to protect me on her own. Angie..." She took a shaky breath. "Angie told her to go, that the Rez needed me, that it was okay."

"Gwen...I..."

She held up her hand. "What I'm trying to get to is that after all of that, after all we had been through, I had no reason not to believe Bria. I agreed to what she wanted. Do you know what her last conscious thought was before the end, before I woke up?"

He shook his head. "No, what?"

"In time, you'll understand why."

He closed his eyes. "She was apologizing for lying to you."

Gwen nodded. "I woke up and when I saw Albert Holsteen's face and not my mother's, I knew the truth. The memories rushed at me, both mine and Bria's." She wiped at her eyes, remembering how overwhelming it all was and then to realize the truth. "I woke up to find out my mother and best friend were dead along with 16 others and that Briathos had lied to me and I couldn't even confront her. I was so angry. I felt so betrayed but in time, I did understand. I wish she'd told me the truth but I know why she didn't."

Dean's hand reached out and she took it, their two loungers really not that far apart. "I'm sorry for what you went through. I was in Briathos' shoes with Sam, after the Trials. He was ready to die and I helped Gadreel, who I didn't know was Gadreel, trick him into saying yes." He shook his head. "It's strange how we hate being lied to but we are willing to lie our pants off if it means saving someone we love. You do realize that Briathos loved you, right?"

Gwen looked up, having been focused on Dean's rough hands and the way they contrasted with her own. His hands were rough and his fingers long where hers weren't quite as rough and her fingers small. "Oh I know she did. I imagine it's something like the way Castiel feels for you and Sam. She was my sister, my family. We gave her a home and a purpose she'd thought she'd lost after the wars in Heaven and then the Fall."

"Is that why you aren't kicking my ass up and down the Rez right now? I still don't get how you are sitting right here with me like this after what we did. What I did."

"Dean, you are human and so am I, well mostly anyway. Humans make mistakes. Believe me, I have vague memories of thousands of years of human history and that is one thing that never changes. But you know what else doesn't change? Most of the time, we try to make up for those mistakes. We learn. Maybe things had to happen the way they did so I would run into you boys and we'd lead the fight to save the angels."

"Yeah. Maybe."

"Listen, does it hurt that you weren't honest with me? Yes, it does. But you didn't straight out lie to me and you knew that being dishonest was a bad thing. Let's learn from it and be honest from here on out. That's why I told you the truth about Briathos. No one else knows that except the two of us. Okay? I'm trusting you with my life when we go to Purgatory and Sam with my home and my people. Don't make me second guess that trust."

He nodded, the evening light still enough to show him clenching his jaw. "I won't. We won't. I promise."

"And I should apologize to you too."

His head shot up at that, confusion all over his face. "For what? You haven't done a thing that even remotely needs an apology."

She shook her head. "No, I did. I used Bria's grace against you boys and I shouldn't have. I let my anger and hurt take over and I used that power in a way it shouldn't be and I'm sorry."

"You could have kicked our asses from here to Chicago and that would have still been something you'd never have to apologize for." He paused. "But if it bothers you that much, I accept. I'm just sorry I got you upset enough that it happened at all. It won't happen again. No more lies."

She nodded in return and stood up. "Good enough for me. Now come on, let's get some dinner and just try and relax."