Notes: Ahhhh, the first chapter of part III Enjoy guys!

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine.

CHAPTER 1

The hold of the Impala is buzzing with adrenaline and fight. Dean is slammed hard against one the walls, sweaty and panting, but his eyes are alight with the fire of a good fight. Sam, who is in a similar state slams against the wall next to Dean, his long hair practically plastered to his face with sweat. They stand there for moment, heaving shoulders touching, trying to catch their breath.

"Dude, we are so dead," Sam panted out.

"We still have a shot Sam. Don't give up yet," encouraged Dean. He slapped a friendly hand to his brother's back and pushed off the wall and back into the fray. He jumps onto the back of a perspiring Balthazar as he enters back into the fierce battle. Sam sighs dramatically and runs forward as well, to block Balthazar's pass of the ball to Gabriel. From somewhere on Sam's left, he hears his teammate Bobby's shout of availability.

"Pass it here boy, I think we've got them now!" The preacher never looked or sounded so young to Sam before, and he didn't disappoint the smiling Sheppard and passed the now stolen ball to him.

The whole game looks like some mutant version of ancient basketball, and Sam isn't actually sure what rules they are following besides having two teams, and the goal is to get it in the basket. Anything else seemed to be fair game….like how Gabriel is now on Balthazar's shoulders blocking Sam's shot at the basket.

"C'mon Sammy, I think our strategy of getting our asses handed to us is finally starting to confound them!" Dean hadn't smiled this much in a long time.

Sam could hardly remember the sound of Dean's happy laugh until the last few weeks with the new crew. Sam couldn't even remember the last time that the original crew just played around. The very thought of it all warmed Sam all over. He hadn't even seen Dean drink for a while. He had been so used to seeing a cup in his brother's hand each time he went to bed. Sam knew he had nightmares and that the alcohol helped, but something seemed to be helping. And Sam had a few ideas as to what it was.

Off to the sidelines are Meg, Anna and Castiel. Anna is laughing happily at the chaos on the "field" and at the antics of the team members while Meg is trying her hardest to look uninterested with the activity, but anyone can see her gaze drawn to the game every few seconds. Some could even see how she perked up every time one of the teams neared the net.

Castiel is simply confused. There seemed to be no pattern or rules to this game and it was mind boggling to him. He was able to figure out the teams at least. It seemed to be Gabriel, Balthazar and Chuck vs. Dean, Sam and Bobby. Castiel was pretty sure that his brother's had cheated multiple times during this game as he recognized a few of the tactics from their own games when they were children. He thought of informing Dean, but he was stopped every time when he saw how happy everyone was. He wouldn't interrupt that.

Castiel lifted his head further and widened his eyes, Gabriel, who was on Balthazar's shoulders again, had the ball and they were running awkwardly towards the make-shift basket, which Castiel was sure was just some old metal cylinder. Chuck looks like he is about to try and block Sam who was moving after the double stacked brothers, but thought better of it and decided to just move under the basket, waiting to try and retrieve the ball.

Sam is in front of Balthazar now and being so ridiculously tall he is easily able to knock the ball out of Gabriel's hands and towards Bobby who scoops it up quickly and moves closer to the basket. Dean has made his way closer to the goal and the ball is tossed to him from the preacher.

Castiel watches as Dean catches the ball deftly and simply launches over Chuck to slam the ball home! Castiel surprises himself by yelling in excitement along with Anna and the rest of Dean's team. Dean looked over at his yell to wink and return to playing, and Cas looked a little bashful.

Now Chuck had retrieved the ball from the floor and is dribbling over to Gabriel who he hands it off to.

"Somebody cover Sam!" Gabe shouts at his team members. Balthazar smirks as he runs over to the taller Winchester and replies, "It would take two of me to that and four of Chuck," he says jokingly over his shoulder.

"Guys, you're dampening my team spirit here," Chuck complains as his height is once again picked upon, Gabriel was shorter anyway, but he moves to help Balthazar. He had given up finishing his latest chapter where a demon lurked beneath the skin of an innocent man, to play this game with the crew.

With Sam out of the way, Gabriel easily sidesteps Dean and Bobby with an unnatural speed to make a basket. Off to the sidelines they hear more cheering.

Dean circles around to meet up with Sam and Bobby, "Don't suppose I could threaten firing him if he keeps on doing that?" He jokes with them, smile still in full effect.

"Suppose you could, but he's the only one who can really fly this bird," Bobby replies his teeth visible past his beard with his own huge smile.

Sam gave them both looks, "Man's got a point, Dean. Besides, he'd probably threaten crashing the ship right back at you." Dean considered this, and then turned back to the game, Sam was probably right like always. But he wouldn't tell him that.

He moves to play keep away with Balthazar who now has the ball. The posh man had surprised Dean at first with his athletic ability, but then again the whole family of Novaks was full of surprises. He shoots over Dean's head and it goes through the basket easily. While Sam is heckling Dean for letting him shoot, Bobby picks up the ball and with the agility of a man half his age, he moves past the Novak brothers and barrels through Chuck to make a score of his own. The cheerleaders on the sidelines shout even louder than any of the other baskets made.

With this score, Dean thinks that they have a chance, and he catches his next wind!

Beep beep beep!

An electronic beeping interrupts the game and everyone stops moving and cheering.

"Proximity alarm. Must be coming up on something," says Sam disappointed. He was really having fun, and he wanted this time for his brother. Behind him Gabriel let's out a comedic loud gasp and shouts in a panicked voice, "Oh no! What could it be!? We're doomed!" He runs over to Castiel and grabs him in a tight hug "Oh protect me Castiel! Who's flying this thing anyway?!"

A confused Castiel tries to move enough in his brother's hold to look at his face, looking extremely confused. Before he can reply to his older brother's outburst, Gabriel lets go and ruffles his hair again.

"Oh wait, that's me!" And he runs off to the bridge to investigate.

Shaking his head as the pilot disappears from sight Dean turns to Balthazar and Chuck, "Guess that leaves you guys a man short!" He grins at them evilly.

Meg piped up from the side, "They were a man short since they chose Chuck as their teammate."

"Play nice, Meg." Dean scolds lightly.

"Let's just wait till Gabriel gets back," Sam suggested and sits down to catch his breath. Chuck and Bobby following his example. Anna is now talking with Castiel, trying to convince him that Gabriel is not suffering from memory loss, just a bad sense of humor. Dean smirks at this and moves over to Balthazar.

He lowers his voice when he approaches the middle Novak brother, "So, how is he doing? It's been a few weeks now. Any improvement?"

Balthazar took a moment to respond, glancing at Castiel first, "He's good….Better I suppose. He has his days."

"Don't we all?"

"Perhaps. There are moments that he's the little brother that I used to know and tease….but then it passes and all I can see is the shell that was left behind. He still won't talk about what happened to him at the Host. Even Gabriel can't get him to open up about it." He looked so lost, thought Dean. Not unlike himself when Sammy has shown up after Jess had been killed. Dean hadn't known how to help his brother then.

"Maybe even he doesn't know for sure what happened?"Dean suggested.

"I can't even begin to imagine what the government could do to him that would…" He trailed off and took a breath to try and grab hold of his emotions again. "Did you know I supported Unification? I know that you fought in the war against it, but for us on the inner planets…it seemed like a good thing. I had faith in everything the Garrison told us. How they would solve all the world's problems. Right the wrongs, I believed in that. We even wanted to be a part of it at first." He glanced at Dean as if to gauge his reaction to this.

But Dean wasn't angry at all, "Things did get better for a lot of people, just not all of them."

Balthazar nodded back at Dean thankful for his understanding. "A few years ago, before Gabriel disappeared, I would have thought it unthinkable that I would be here, and not at my father's side running his business with my brothers. But I am…so grateful to you and Sam and….everyone else on this ship for letting us in, even with the danger we bring. I will try to help here, and I will try to help him," he promised.

"You are helping him. You got him out of there, you left your world behind…"

"I turned us both into wanted fugitives," Balthazar responded with a tone that sounded like he thought Dean was an idiot. But Dean paid it no mind.

"Well, we're all running from something I guess," Dean said while his eyes scanned over the crew in the hold. Suddenly, the entire ship lurches to one side and sends everyone sprawling.

Dean is the first one up again and looking around at his crew for any injuries. He helps up Balthazar who was next to him. He appears fine and heads over to his little brother to help pull him off of Anna who both look flustered at the position they found themselves in. Sam, Bobby and Chuck were already seated and had only toppled a little bit. Meg hopped up from her fallen position so fast she almost fell over again.

With everyone appearing okay, Dean was left to wonder, "What the hell was that?"

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! More to come very soon! =D