"Go ahead and tell them it's my fault, if you wish," Belthazar told Castiel, as they stood a little ways away from the motel, where he'd been summoned. "I don't give a flight what the little twits think of me, anyhow."
"That isn't true," Castiel replied.
"Well, it's true enough. Anyway, I don't mind. They already believe it was me who changed the time-line. That was my own doing." Castiel looked away from the other angel, at the comment. "Well, I'll be off. You know where to find me." With that, the angel was gone, leaving Castiel alone.
He looked up at the spot where Belthazar had been standing, and thought for a moment. Squaring his shoulders, he came to a decision, then willed himself into the Winchesters' room...
*~.~*
Sam was restless, where he sat back against the headboard. Trying not to think of anything but the stupid creatures on the screen, was a lot harder than Dean made it out to be. All he could think about, was trying not to think. While that thought kept him from delving into anything specific, it didn't make it any less stressful.
His periodic glances to his older brother, proved that it wasn't so easy for Dean, either. Anyone else that might look at the man, might be fooled into believing that his mind was on the program in front of them. But Sam knew his brother; knew that his thoughts were far from the dancing sponge and his idiotic starfish buddy, who chased jellyfish around with butterfly nets.
Sam and Dean were so preoccupied with not thinking, that they missed the fluttering sound that announced the arrival of Castiel. The angel stood, quietly; patiently, waiting for them to take notice of his arrival. He became distracted by the strange show on the screen.
"Is it not disturbing to you, that the crab is serving up his own kind for profit?" Castiel's voice caused them to jump and turn to face him.
"Damnit, Cas!" Dean half-shouted, holding a hand to his chest, where his heart pounded. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Only a minute or so," he replied, calmly.
"Did you find anything?" Sam inquired as Dean turned off the TV.
Castiel briefly met Sam's eyes, before averting them, and moved to slowly sit down in one of the chairs at the table. "It is...as I feared might happen," he told them.
"What the hell does that mean?" Dean pushed up off the bed and moved toward the table.
The angel looked up at Dean as he approached. "I should have taken this into consideration, beforehand," he told him. "The change in the time-line..."
"But you fixed that," Dean narrowed his eyes.
"Yes. And that's precisely why things have become slightly...rearranged."
"Rearranged? What kind of rearranged?" Dean asked as he sat down on the edge of Sam's bed, closer to Castiel.
"When putting the time-line back into its rightful place," the angel explained, "Allowing you to keep both sets of memories may have caused a slight...shift in the placement of Sam's wall."
"What?" Dean's eyes widened.
"Shift?" Sam almost squeaked from where he sat. "What does that mean for me? Does this mean the wall is weaker now?"
"No," Cas shook his head, "Not necessarily. Only that it seems to have relocated, the smallest fraction of space imaginable. Luck would have it that it didn't move in the wrong direction."
"It sure as hell didn't look like the right direction, to me," Dean grunted.
"What I mean to say is," he clarified, "It's better that it moved where it did, as opposed to a place somewhere amidst his experience in Hell."
"And how, exactly, can we be sure that it didn't?" Dean inquired.
Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean before replying, "Sam would know." Both of them slowly turned their gaze to the younger Winchester.
Sam raised his brows, knowing that they were looking for some kind of confirmation from him. "Guys...what do you want me to say?"
"That you're not preoccupied with memories of Hell, for starters," Dean replied.
"I'm not," he clarified.
"But you could've been," Dean said before turning back to Castiel. "He could've been half-way to vegi-land; is that what you're tellin' us, Cas?"
"The outcome wouldn't be good," the angel agreed.
"That sonofabitch Belthazar," he hissed as he pushed up to stand, and began pacing. "Of all the irresponsible-"
"It's not his fault," Castiel interrupted, his eyes suddenly fixed to the floor.
Both brothers fixed a questioning gaze on the angel. "What the hell do you mean, 'it's not his fault'?"
"He's the idiot who changed the time-line," Sam added. "You had to fix it..."
"He was under orders," the angel admitted, ashamedly.
Dean moved to take a seat in the other chair at the table, not taking his eyes off of the pensive being before him. Sam moved across the bed, relocating to where Dean had been before.
"Cas?" Sam's concerned voice pulled the angel's gaze up to meet his. What both brothers saw in them, was something they were fairly certain they'd never seen before; guilt, shame, regret... Sam's face grew slack with understanding. "It was you," he surmised. "You gave him the order..."
Tbc...
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A/N: More to come, tomorrow! Hope this little revelation can hold you over until then ;).
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