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The story was one Sam had heard before, though from a different point of view. Almost five thousand years was a very long time to be with someone, after all, and history lessons had been a good way to pass the time. Lucifer’s version had been the same, though he’d told it with a lot more feeling. He'd been bitter that God hadn’t told him what the Mark was, hadn’t really gotten His son’s informed consent before attaching it to Lucifer. Sam had suspected at the time that was at least partly where Lucifer’s fixation on Sam’s consenting to everything had come from.
As Sam knelt on the dirty floor he wondered if Death’s offer still stood, now, when the Horseman was clearly so bitter towards Sam. Sam’s Heaven was Hell, and once, just two years ago, Death had told him he could go back. The look of greedy triumph, the sick pleasure Death was taking in this made Sam suspect the offer would not be extended again, that cheating Death once, even if it hadn’t been Sam’s own idea, would have consequences.
It became a moot point as Sam heard Dean swing the scythe, and the blow never came. Sam opened his eyes in time to see Death dissolve into a pile of dust, his thin face registering nothing more than mild surprise and irritation.
As Dean stared blankly at the scythe in his hand, Sam searched the ashes, looking for the one alternative they had now. If the Mark couldn't be removed, maybe Lucifer could move it to another host.
It was there. Sam grabbed it and shoved it into his back pocket, straightening before Dean turned, and forgot all about it as a bolt of lightning punched a hole in the ceiling.
When the darkness had cleared and they were on their way home, Sam remembered it. He could feel the ring in his pocket, like it was much heavier than it should be. He wondered whether Dean would ever forgive him.
The other three were in a storage room in the bunker, behind a hidden wall, one that thankfully had escaped the Stein’s notice during their raid. Sam tried to ignore the devastation to his home, as there were more important things to focus on for the moment. Dean seemed unwilling to let Sam help with the clean-up, though Sam suspected his brother’s guilt-fueled attitude would turn to apathy by tomorrow evening at the latest, and Sam would end up doing the bulk of the work, no matter what Dean said now.
The rings snapped together as if magnetized the same way they had last time, now emanating an aura of power that was tangible even to Sam’s human senses.
He wondered if Lucifer could feel that the keys were together. He wondered if Lucifer could feel that the Darkness was free, that the angels had fallen, that the last Prophet was dead. He wondered if Lucifer had felt Sam's Wall break, had felt the torment caused by the Hallucinations; whether Lucifer had forgiven him for the cruel, angry prayers whispered in his weakest moments, during the long, sleepless days and nights in that hospital, when Sam had forgotten the difference between the illusion tormenting him and the real thing. He wondered a lot of things.
Dean was back to his old self, the dark, alien version of him from the past year gone. The elder Winchester still wasn't carefree- there was the guilt and self-blame to deal with, and his worry over Castiel. The warehouse had been empty when they’d returned, save for the body of a human (as far as they could tell) and a lot of blood. Rowena’s chains lay on the floor, broken, and of Crowley and Castiel there was no sign.
Sam was trying not to worry. If Cas was dead, Crowley or Rowena would gloat about it next time the Winchesters encountered them. If he wasn’t, they would find him. And if his plan worked they would have a huge advantage soon anyway.
Dean’s change made Sam wonder. The difference was tangible, him being in a funk or not. Sam wondered if Lucifer would be similarly changed now that the Mark was gone. He wondered if Lucifer would be disappointed in him.
It was two weeks after the Darkness had been freed, and Sam finally had a chance. Dean was tracking down a lead on Cas, and Sam was meant to be doing more research, looking for something that could help them. Thin justification though it may be in his brother's eyes, “finding something that could help” was exactly what Sam was doing. It wasn’t his fault there were only two beings in existence that fit that description.
Sam hesitated when he reached the main road. Left, to Stull Cemetery, or right, to St Mary’s? Or should he keep driving all the way to Detroit?
He could just as easily do it right here, but Sam wasn’t particularly eager to give Michael any hints about the bunker’s location just yet, and he knew the chance he’d be able to free Lucifer without Michael coming along too was non-existent. Besides, it didn’t feel right, doing it here in this place that had no connection with Lucifer.
In the end, Sam opted for Stull cemetery. It was hours closer, after all, and there wasn’t really time to waste.
The incantation was burned into his mind, fresh as the day, more than five years ago now, and almost five millennia for him, the Apocalypse hadn’t happened.
Michael was first out of the Cage, still wearing Adam. He glanced around him, taking in the world. Sam thought, by the look on the oldest Archangel's face, that they must have been cut off from current events down there after all. He wouldn’t really know. Nothing that exciting had happened during his tenure, brief as it was in Earth time.
Michael’s gaze fixed on Sam, and he seemed about to say something, but then he glanced behind him, into the still yawning gateway, and vanished. A second later the field was suffused in light so bright Sam knew he shouldn’t be able to see it.
Sam smiled, joy rising in his heart. It had been so, so long.
‘Yes,’ Sam said.