It takes two hours of white knuckled driving, foot pressed hard against the accelerator, speeding through the empty country roads, until he gets there, skidding the car to a halt with complete disregard to the allocated parking spaces. What did it matter anyway? Not only was it into the early hours of the morning, but no one else came here anyway. He highly doubted a traffic warden was going to come wandering by at two am to tell him off for parking across three spaces.

There's an ache in his fingers when he finally unfurls them from gripping the Impala's slim steering wheel. He flexes his hands for a few moments, getting the blood flowing in the digits once more. It's a minor issue, nothing compared to the pounding in his temples, the tightness in his chest. His legs are shaking when he finally opens the car door and steps out.

It's cold. Maybe because it's night and still in the last remnants of winter, or perhaps because it's always cold here. The wind was blowing his hair in his eyes. He stuck his hands in his pockets, though the chill hardly bothered him. Either way, he hadn't come to stand around in the parking lot. He shouldn't have really come at all, but he was here now, he told himself, so there was little point to not going inside.

The door isn't locked, of course. What would be the point? Not only was the place abandoned, but now half-destroyed. The roof had been blasted off a few years back. The media had claimed it had been some kind of explosion, cause by an electrical fault maybe. Sam had never heard of an electrical fault blasting a whole roof off before, but he supposed they had to say something. Of course they didn't understand what had really happened.

He made his way through the building, steps echoing on the stone floors. The corridors were generally intact, though plagued with dust and debris. There was the angel statue, standing still, though a crack ran down its face. Broken angel. Fitting, really.

The door to the main room was splintered, barely holding on its hinges. The first time he'd come back, Sam had genuinely expected it to fall off in his hand, but he didn't worry anymore. The whole building seemed unsound, but there was nowhere he felt safer.

It's hardly warmer inside with the open roof, but the moon provides some illumination. The old pews are all broken, the floor clear, sealed again where once a gaping doorway, formed from blood, had opened.

He crosses the floor, going over to the altar and reaching behind it for the box he long ago stashed here. He'd have to stock up on supplies soon; they were running low.

But there's enough. He puts the box on top of the altar and takes out a few things: a bronze bowl, a jar of demon blood, chalk, holy oil. The candles are already laid out around the room. He'd put them there the first time and left them. He'd cleaned up this room too, pushing the remains of the pews back against the side walls. He wanted it to look nice, just around the altar, at least. Convents were supposed to look nice, weren't they? He'd lain a red cloth out, made of velvet. He felt bad using up his and Dean's money, but sometimes he saw these little things, and they just felt right, so he brought them here. Like the mirror. That had been an expenditure, but once he'd figured out what he needed to do, it didn't feel right just bringing any old slab of glass. It was beautiful, polished, though old fashioned. The frame was metal, with a pattern of twisting roses. He left it propped up on the altar whenever he left, but now he picks it up and takes it to the centre of the room, setting it on the floor.

He places the bowl just before it, unscrewing the lid of the jar and pouring the blood neatly into the dish where it settled, garish and red. Next is the chalk, which he uses to draw a circle, big enough to surround him and the mirror inside. He used to have to bring a book with all the sigils in to copy them accurately, but now he knows them by heart and it takes a mere few minutes to draw them around the edges of the circle. Then around this, he carefully traces another circle in holy oil. He lights it carefully with his lighter, not even flinching at the sudden eruption of flame. Once satisfied, he sits down, cross-legged in the centre so he can see his reflection in the mirror. Taking his knife from his belt, he hoists up his sleeve and cuts a small sigil into his arm, careful to put it where Dean won't notice, along with the fading scars of the same symbol, over and over again. He leaves the wound open as he speaks.

"Bvtmon tabges babalon, vin nonca aspt poamal de zizop ar nonci adgt ef." *

He closes his eyes. The air seems to still around him. It's subtle, almost unnoticeable, but he can feel it. It spreads out, seeming to hover and swell about him. The candles around the room flicker and light. Something stirs inside him. Almost. The shadow of something. But it's there.

He opens his eyes and smiles into the mirror. "Hi."

His lips don't move except for in his reflection. It still looks like him, but there's something different behind the eyes. It's not quite his voice as it speaks. "Hello, Sam."

He feels stupid for almost wanting to cry with relief. Every time, he's so scared it's not going to work. The voice is faint, weak, barely able to come through, but it's there.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, voice thick. "Am I disturbing you?"

"Of course not. You're never a disturbance, Sam. Not to me." The presence shifts a little within him, as if trying to get comfortable, trying to reach further inside him. "You seem troubled," it notes, contorting the reflection on his face into something of a concerned frown.

Sam sighs. "It's no big deal."

"You're here. It's clearly a big enough deal that you wish for someone to listen."

Sam feels the guilt pass through him, the shame at how absurdly ridiculously this is. He's coming running here, again, like some schoolgirl come to cry on a friend's shoulder. "I'm being stupid," Sam declares, more to himself than anything, glancing around at the artifacts and sigils and holy fire. "All this, just to whine about my problems to you. Why would you even care? Maybe I should just go and-"

"No." The voice is firm. Something within him tightens, as if attempting to hold him in place. "I do care, Sam. You know I do. Stay."

Somehow that just makes him feel worse. You're not supposed to care, he wants to say, but he doesn't. Instead he finds tears stinging at his eyes, hands shaking as he clenches them in his lap. "Lucifer..."

The presence within him stirs, seeming pleased to finally be addressed directly. It feels as if it's trying to embrace him from within, and Sam smiles weakly at the attempted comfort.

"Tell me what's bothering you, Sam," Lucifer presses gently. A sharp anger swells inside Sam's shared body suddenly. "Has that Gadreel come near you again?"

"No," Sam says quickly, shaking his head. "I haven't found him yet."

Lucifer's anger continues to write inside of him, and Sam makes a conscious effort to reach out to the presence with him, as if to reassure it. "Kill him," Lucifer hisses. "Believe me, if I have the slightest opportunity, I will do it myself."

"I know." He pauses, waiting as Lucifer's presence slowly settles inside of him. "I don't care about Gadreel, not all that much. I just... feel betrayed."

"By Dean?"

"Yeah. I... I know he thought he was doing what was best for me, but it was like, he didn't even care about my opinion. He never thought to ask me, or to hear me out."

"I know, Sam." Something uncomfortable flickers through Lucifer's being. "Michael was always much the same with me. Our brothers do not trust our judgment, it seems."

Sam sighs. "Tell me about it," he mutters.

A cool wind shifts through the open room of the convent, making the candles flicker, but they remain burning strongly.

"Is there more you want to talk about, Sam?"

Sam shakes his head, mildly fascinated as his reflection does not move, simply staring back at him. "No. I'm sorry. I guess I just wanted someone to listen who... gets it, you know."

"I'll always be here to listen, Sam."

"I know." A shaky smile touches his face. "I know."

He's sure Lucifer can feel his anxiety, the shameful, shaky state of his mind, the desperation. The words escape his lips before he can stop them.

"I miss you so much..."

Lucifer seems to sigh within him, what sparse presence manages to bring itself through brushing against Sam's soul in an attempt at comfort.

"I thought..." Sam's voice is thick, shaky, the tears falling now. "If Dean had just let things be, if I could have just died knowing I'd done some good at last." He breathes in deeply, a weak attempt to calm himself, but the words continue to spill out. "I could have come back," he says.

"I miss you, too, Sam," Lucifer replies simply.

Sniffing back tears, Sam finds the words spilling from his mouth with little restraint. "It's... pathetic, I know. But you're the only person I can talk to. Dean, you know, we've been with each other so long and I trust him, I do. But there's just some things he can't seem to understand. I've always been okay with that, but..."

"I know, Sam. You shouldn't feel ashamed for wanting someone to understand."

Roughly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Sam nods, forcing a grateful smile. "Thanks... Lucifer. Honestly."

He feels Lucifer's smile through their connection. "I'm glad to have made you feel better, Sam. I appreciate that we're getting past the whole devil stigma enough that you feel able to talk to me."

Sam looks down at the floor, shifting a little uncomfortably. "Sorry. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. It's just... natural caution, I guess. You know, I grew up being taught not to trust anything paranormal."

"It's alright, Sam."

Sighing, Sam lifts his left arm to look at the watch on his wrist. It's late. Too late and Dean would be waking up soon. "I should go," he mumbles.

There's a flash of some kind of reluctance from Lucifer, but the archangel says nothing.

"I'll... see you soon, okay?"

"I would like that, Sam."

"I'll make sure there's plenty of supplies stocked up," Sam continues, more speaking his thoughts aloud to fills the silence than anything. He doesn't like time to think when hear, afraid that he might end up saying something he shouldn't, something he wouldn't be able to take back. There's a lot he wants to say. "And more candles. Pure white ones. They... They remind me of you."

He feels Lucifer smile once more. "That's good of you, Sam." He pauses. "Take care of yourself, Sammy."

Biting his bottom lip, Sam nods, studying once more the eerie non-reflection of himself in the mirror. "Bye, Lucifer."

"Goodbye, Sam."

Refusing to allow himself to stay any longer, no matter the desire to, Sam quickly gets to his feet and steps out of the circle, the touch of the holy fire quickly burning away the connection and forcing whatever presence is left out of him.

Now feeling distinctly empty inside his own head, Sam gather an old jug long left behind and fills it with water from the still barely working old tap in the back room. He puts out the fire, letting the water run to clear the sigils for the floor. Letting anyone mess around with this stuff would not be a good idea.

He tidies everything else away carefully, placing the box of supplies neatly back behind the altar. He takes his time going round the room, carefully extinguishing each candle one-by-one.

Once finished, Sam pauses in the doorway, looking back at the room with something close to longing. Eventually, he sighs, pulling the door closed behind him and leaving the place where not many knew that the devil had once risen out of his cage from.

Lucifer didn't see Michael much anymore. The cage was vast, not even constrained by the kind of physics there were on earth. It was an ever shifting reality, and after their initial angry scraps after falling into it, the two brothers had separated to opposite sides of their prison. The little human, Adam, followed after Michael, scared and lost. And once, Lucifer had had Sam, before he was taken away.

But Sam was hardly enjoying his escape to freedom. Not that he'd had much choice in Death taking him away. But the hunter had a habit of playing with the idea of coming back, using complex spells and rituals to be able to keep in contact with Lucifer.

Lucifer appreciated that. The cage was hardly a pleasant place, and to hear his true vessel's voice, no matter how faint, to know that after everything, he had still been right in that Sam could understand and feel at home with him, for all that, Lucifer was grateful.

He was not, however, pleased to hear of Sam's hardships. And certainly, he was not pleased to hear another angel, one of his own brothers, had violated his vessel by tricking his way to Sam's permission. Lucifer had always known Sam would come to him eventually, but he had never forced it. He could have tricked Sam, but the idea repulsed him. He had wanted Sam to say yes because Sam understood and agreed with him, not because he was forced to. And the idea that someone else had taken Sam's consent so lightly stirred within Lucifer an anger that boiled within him restlessly.

Eager to aid their connection however he could, Lucifer was currently clinging to the very roof of the cage (not that Hell had any real concept of up or down, but this was where the door was located). He gripped the bars, tightening his hold, but knowing it was no good. For years, after he had first been banished to this place, he'd struck the walls over and over in a fury, but built as they were by God, they would not break. And like binds, clamped around the edge of the door and holding it to the frame were the seals, all six-hundred of them.

Of course, any sixty-six broken would unlock the door, but they had resealed themselves once more.

Looking up, he could see the diminishing opening that had connected him to Sam briefly. It was like a bad telephone line, only able to transmit his voice and vague reflections of his feelings. A similar thing had once been used by Azazel to communicate with him.

Lucifer sighed. It was rather like looking out a prison window. A dirty, almost opaque prison window. Nonetheless, he tried to push closer, as if up against the metaphorical glass, reaching out for the last, fading sense he could get of Sam's retreating figure. If he really concentrated, he could hear his footsteps, getting quieter and quieter. He must be almost outside by now.

Lucifer was about to give in and retreat back to some lonely corner when a flash of something else caught his attention. Snapping his attention quickly to the fading open line, Lucifer searched his mind for the familiar presence. He knew this, this sense of power. What was it?

Another angel? No. No, it wasn't alive, not in its own right. Some object? A heavenly weapon? No...

It was the rings.

The horsemen's rings.

Did Sam have them on him? He didn't think so. He certainly would have been able to sense them through the open connection, and this was too faint. But Lucifer pressed closer nonetheless, desperate not to lose this sensation of...

Hope?

It was like a magnetic impulse, the rings toward the cage. It unlocked through something otherworldly and magical, not physical. Their presence nearby caused a spark, like the presence of heat near a candle wick, but not quite strong enough to ignite a flame. This was only as weak as that. It didn't even feel like all four rings. Death would have taken his back, but it wasn't out of the question that he would have charged the Winchesters to guard the other three. That idiot Dean probably left them in his precious car. Yes, and if Sam had driven the car here...

Gathering his strength, Lucifer threw his power at the cage door. It rattled, but remained as hopelessly closed as ever. No, there was no chance of the door itself opening, and besides, Michael would surely notice and Lucifer was still not at all keen on the whole apocalypse idea. But the rings, the connection, it was like the binding around the cage disintegrated just a little, just briefly. Time was longer in Hell, of course, so what it would take Sam to get into the car and leave, taking the rings with him, could, just maybe, give Lucifer the time he needed.

He threw himself at the door, again and again. It rattled, quivered, shook, but remained locked. And the connection that Sam had left behind was ever fading. But it was no good, his power was too great for such a small opening anyway. The true form of an angel was both colossal and dense.

The whole true form, at least.

Lucifer paused, mind racing. Having taken the tablets from that idiot scribe, Metraton, Lucifer knew more about his own kind than most. Angel forms were diverse, metaphysical, like the particles of gas. And the connection was closing.

Gathering every inch of his archangelic power, Lucifer drew a swelling cluster of his fractured grace together, drawing it out in a shifting, golden mass of smoky energy. After years of Hell and demon blood and being cut off from heaven, his grace had never been whole since. He'd twisted his own powers with those of the demons to keep strong, but this here, in his hand, was the source of his archangelic fury, the initial power bestowed on him by God at the moment of his creation. It looked like an orb, almost like a human soul. But humans souls were pitiful and tiny. This would have been the size of a large human house, and it was only a part of him. He could divide his power, strip it down into two bits much smaller than usual, small enough to fit through that fading gap.

Lucifer paused, looked up at the thin opening. Sam's heartbroken, exhausted voice echoed in his head, desperate for some comfort. It was with that in mind, that Lucifer gathered this mass of power and cast it up and out into the world. And as the thin, smaller and depleted remains of himself, he clawed his way up after it.