Disclaimer: I used to own supernatural, the boys, the Impala and everything else on the show. But then, the men in white gave me my meds and I had to take them.

Summary: What was going on in Sam's mind when he decided to go with Dean. Spoilers for 6x07.

So this was what it was like. Being stuck in the middle of family feud. This was what Dena must have felt like all those time he fought with Dad.

Or maybe not. Sam guessed he could appreciate Dean's position better if he had a soul. But without one, all he felt was annoyed at being forced to choose sides. But it had come down to that. Pick a side. Dean or Samuel. His brother or his new family. The people he had been hunting with him for a year, people who respected and trusted him as an equal or a brother who had been there for him all his life. He had to choose and he had to choose now.

There was something really wrong with him if this decision wasn't as easy as it should have been. Dean had been there for him, protected him, watched out for him. Dean had never failed him, ever. But Dean had also lost his game. The Campbells provided a better chance for him to hunt down the Alphas. They had strength in numbers as well as knowledge. Dean was- well Dean was weak.

Sam couldn't remember thinking like that since he'd been trapped in Bobby's cellar, but he could face the facts now. Dean was weak. He'd always been. He had never been as good a hunter as Dad or Bobby or the Campbells or Sam as he was now. He always got too involved in the hunt. He could never do what needed to be done. He always survived by the skin of his teeth. Without Sam or Dad watching his back, he'd have been dead long ago. Yes, the Campbells were definitely the better choice.

He was making the right choice by going with them. Dean wasn't up to this challenge. He needed to be protected from everything. And the hunt needed to be protected from him. He'd just barge in recklessly, guns blazing, and ruin everything they have worked for. That's why Sam hadn't told him about capturing the Alphas. That's why he had kept everything else a secret as well. He knew that Dean would never understand. And Dean hadn't. Instead of accepting Sam as he was, Dean had beaten him up and tied him to a chair. So what if he didn't have a soul. It didn't make him any less of a hunter. And that was all that mattered. And the Campbells, his new family, were accepting of him in a way that Dad and Dean had never been. Samuel treated him like a son. Christian was like a brother who respected his opinions, like Dean never had. Gwen looked up to him. Trust Dean to ruin everything with his paranoia. Gwen was right. Dean was just a reject.

They were all right. After Dean had refused to come back hunting, they were all there to support him. Dean just couldn't stand not having his family on his side in a fight, could he? Couldn't he see that they were good people? That they were better hunters than him? And it wasn't like they hadn't tried to welcome Dean into their fold. Dean was rusty, out of his game. He had been practically useless in all their hunts. He had been whining on and on about how something was wrong with the family. The way he had treated them when they had the shapeshifter baby was downright unacceptable. And inspite of it all, they had tried to welcome him. Granted it was only out of deference for Sam, but they had tried, hadn't they? But that stubborn, arrogant ass had been set against it from the get-go. No wonder Christian hated him. No wonder Samuel didn't trust him. No wonder Gwen called him a reject. Right now Sam wasn't that fond of Dean either. If Dean dared to give him an ultimatum after the act he had been pulling, well, he'd be exactly one brother short.

No face time till the soul situation is fixed, he says, Sam thought as he walked out of Samuel's office. He'd almost made the wrong decision. Thankfully, Samuel had cleared the matter up for him.

It all came down to logic. It didn't matter who trusted Sam. Dean clearly didn't and since the soul situation was out, the Campbells wouldn't either. It all came down to who he could trust. And the Campbell's weren't it. Dean might be rusty, he might be a screw-up, he might be a lot of things, but first and foremost, he was loyal. He'd always have Sam's back, as he'd always had in the past. Sam wouldn't have to worry about a knife in the back when he was with Dean. He couldn't say the same for the Campbells. They were hunters first and if they thought that Sam was dangerous, they'd have no compunction in putting him down. Dean on the other hand, would go to the end of the world to get his soul back. And he wanted his soul back, didn't he? Why else would he have begged Dean to come back and hunt with him? Dean was his best shot at getting his soul back, so he'd go with that. Besides, Dean's instincts were usually dead-on. If Dean thought something was wrong, something was usually wrong. So if Dean said that Samuel was hiding something, ten-to-one Samuel was hiding something important. Sam liked those percentages. It all came down to numbers after-all.

A/N: I really hated the way Campbells treated Dean in this episode. Infact, I hate the way the show is treating Dean right now.