"I'm sorry, Dean. Sam doesn't want to see you just yet." Amelia Richardson stood facing him on the flagstone porch of Camp Chitaqua's infirmary, huddled in an oversized cardigan sweater against the late October cold.

"You said that yesterday," Dean pointed out, his anger rising, "and the day before that, and every goddamn day since Sam woke up."

"I'm sorry—"

"You keep saying that, too," he cut in. "Let me tell you something, sweetheart, I'm running out of patience with 'I'm sorry'."

"Dean. I'm just following Sam's wishes. I'm not the enemy here."

Her brown eyes were sympathetic. Thanks to Cas's angelic perceptions, Dean could feel the sincerity of her words, but that only angered him more. His fists clenched. He didn't want her sympathy. He wanted Sam.

Dean, Castiel spoke up in his head, concerned.

Not now, Cas. "You're the enemy from where I'm standing," he told Amelia, "seeing as you're the one keeping me from my brother." Dean folded his arms across his chest, telegraphing belligerence toward the much smaller woman, who lifted her chin defiantly. "Here's the thing. You're, what? One hundred pounds, maybe one-ten soaking wet? You really think you can stop me from just walking in that door?"

She shrugged. "Sure, you can shove me out of the way and barge on in. Force him to do things your way, but you know what that will accomplish?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "No, but I'm sure you're going to enlighten me."

"All that's going to do is show Sam you're just like Lucifer."

"What the hell? Is that what he's been telling you?" Dean shook his head, deflating a bit as anger turned to confusion. "This grudge he's got against Castiel has got to stop."

"It's really got nothing to do with Castiel—" Amelia began.

"Then what is it? No, you know what, never mind." Dean held up a hand, silencing anything the veterinarian might have said. "I'll just talk to Sam and straighten this whole thing out myself." He took a step forward.

Amelia put her back up against the door, blocking his path. "Great idea. Just do whatever the hell you want without any regard for how Sam feels about it," she spat, sarcastic. "Just like Lucifer."

He reeled back, torn between rage and hurt. Dean felt Castiel in the back of his mind. The angel was holding himself in check, resolutely refraining from any interference. "Why would he think that?" he demanded of Amelia. "Did you tell him I was—"

"Of course not." Amelia laid a hand on Dean's arm. "Stop the macho posturing and let's go someplace and talk," she suggested.

Reluctantly, he let her lead him to a group of picnic tables under the shelter of a pavilion. Indian Summer had departed Camp Chitaqua along with sunshine and blue skies. The little community of survivors, originally a summer camp, had taken on a desolate air with the onset of fall. Dismal rains and biting cold had already started to take a toll on morale. They'd won a major battle against Lucifer in depriving him of his chosen vessel, but the country was still caught in the grip of the demonic Croatoan virus... And Sam had refused to even see Dean since his rescue, making the hard-won victory seem hollow.

Amelia took a seat on one of the picnic benches and Dean warily sat down across from her. "Why won't he see me?" he asked, his voice coming out far more unsure and pleading than he'd intended.

Amelia sighed. "I don't know as it's so much that he doesn't want to see you. More like Sam's afraid for you to see him. He doesn't want to be pitied."

"I don't. That's ridiculous," Dean scoffed. "Look, I know the guy's been through a lot—"

"Do you really? For five years, Sam had no control over anything. The devil didn't just control his body. Mind games, that's how Lucifer entertained himself whenever his supply of demons or humans to torture ran low. Sam couldn't escape for a second, not even inside his own skull."

Bile rose in Dean's throat as he remembered his battle with the Father of Lies. The way Lucifer had humiliated him, stripped him of all sense of himself in the hallucination of the psych ward. He'd been trapped for weeks inside that mind game, when outside, in reality, only a few seconds had passed. Lucifer had had total control of Sam for five years, an eternity of hell that Dean had abandoned him to. Dean felt heat behind his eyelids, a warning of tears gathering, and focused on his frustration and anger to hold them at bay.

"Sam told you all that? When he won't even give me the time of day?"

"He doesn't tell me anything," Amelia said gently.

"Then how—"

"The nightmares. I'm kind of amazed the whole camp doesn't know." She let out a weary, humorless chuckle. "Four, five nights a week, Sam screams loud enough to rattle the windows. He mutters things in his sleep every night, yells out…After a while, it starts to paint a pretty vivid picture."

It's true, Castiel spoke up inside Dean's mind. Sam's nightmares... I shield the rest of the camp from them.

I run this damn camp, Cas! Dean felt betrayed and made sure Cas knew it, sending a blast of hurt and annoyance that bounced harmlessly off the angel's imperturbable grace. He's my brother, damn it. You should have let me know.

You did not immediately share your experiences with Sam when you returned from hell, Cas replied, and Dean had to suppress an involuntary shudder as memories of the white-eyed demon Alastair and his torture rack flooded his mind. There are still many things about your time in the pit that you refuse to talk to anyone about, even me. Sam deserves the same consideration.

And I deserve the chance to at least argue with you about it before you just go off and decide to set up some sort of angelic sound-proof booth around the infirmary, Dean groused. He shifted his attention back to the pavilion, where the veterinarian sat eyeing him quizzically. His silent, internal conflicts with the angel who coexisted in his body got a lot of looks like that, Dean thought dryly. "I want to see Sam."

"You want," she mocked. "What about what he wants?"

"Talk to him, then," Dean insisted. "Talk him out of this bullshit he's dreamed up. Tell him I don't pity him."

"But you do," Amelia said softly. "I see it in your eyes. And Sam will, too."

"Sweetheart, I spent four months in hell. That's forty years by human standards, and I had hell's chief torturer riding my ass, figuratively and literally, for thirty of those years," Dean growled, the memories Cas had stirred up fresh in his mind. "I think I can feel a little sympathy for whatever Sam's been through."

Amelia shook her head. "The difference is, you walked out of hell. It's taken Sam all this time just to be able to walk the length of the infirmary with a cane and Mikey at his side to help him keep his balance."

"I don't care about that," Dean began, impatient, but Amelia cut him off.

"You might not care, but Sam does. How many times do I have to explain? This is about Sam, not you."

"So somehow you're qualified to be the freakin' expert on my brother? You were a civilian before Croatoan went down, an animal doctor. Hell, the scariest thing you ever met on the job was probably a Yorkie with a bad case of fleas," Dean scoffed. "You can't begin to understand what he's been through."

Amelia shifted, pulling her sweater tighter around across her chest, turning to gaze out at the dark pine woods surrounding the clearing. "You know, Croats weren't the only monsters that came to town when civilization fell apart," she said with quiet composure.

Dean frowned as he caught on to what she was implying. Another unwanted memory surfaced, Alastair pressed up against his back, crooning love songs into his ear as he sliced into his flesh. He felt an unexpected flare of rage from Castiel as the angel witnessed the deeply suppressed memory, but ignored it, focusing his attention on Amelia. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly.

She turned back to face him, her smile a false, brittle thing. "...And there it is. Pity. And you wonder why I don't want you to waltz in and look at Sam like that," she scoffed. "He deserves better."

Dean leaned across the table, bringing his face close to hers, looking directly into her eyes. "You're confusing pity with basic human compassion, sweetheart. So you've survived some terrible shit. Doesn't make you less. Hell, in my book that makes you more. And the same for Sam," Dean said. He sat back and paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "You ever meet an archangel's vessel? Besides Sam, I mean?"

Amelia shook her head.

"I have. Raphael's vessel. Poor bastard was brain-dead after just a couple of months. So my brother's having a little trouble walking straight after five freakin' years of hosting Lucifer, and you think I'll pity him because of that? Sweetheart, I don't care if he wets the damn bed and sucks his liquor out of a sippy cup, he's my freakin' hero. You tell him that from me."

"I'll try." Her expression had softened. She reached for his hand, folding her own smaller one over his rough, callused fingers. "It might be a while, still, before he's ready to listen. Be patient?"

"I'll try." Dean gave Amelia's hand an answering squeeze. A peace offering...Of sorts. "Don't make me wait too long." He stood up and walked out of the pavilion.

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed, or are at least intrigued, by this preview of the sequel to Winging It. Sam and Dean are reunited, but as usual for the Winchester brothers, there's unresolved issues aplenty, and they've still got Lucifer to stop. So what's going to happen in the sequel, you ask? For starters, the dead will rise again, and I'm not just talking the usual Croatoan zombies. Brace yourselves for the Four Horsemen with a twist. You know I wouldn't make you sit through a mere rehash of season five! Kevin Tran will have more prophecies, Cas and Dean will celebrate their first Christmas together, the Impala will get rescued from that overgrown ditch, and Sam will have a fling with... Amelia? Yeah, yeah, I know everyone hated her in season eight, but give her a chance, all right? The story will remain primarily focused on Destiel, but I promise the Sam/Amelia sideline won't be nearly as pointlessly emo and annoying as it was in canon, and I'll give the veterinarian some better pick-up lines. No calling our darling Sammy creepy! Plus much, much more, but you'll have to read to find out. Thank you all for your support of Winging It!