Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree2, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, Nicolene B, QuietCrash, LeeMarieJack, SummerMistedDragon, CherylB1964, yet again, LadyGrelka, yeahscrewthat and Crazy as a Cheshire Cat for last chapter's reviews!

This one was written by yours truly again and beta-read by the wonderful Treeni!


[takes place between "46 Days Later" and "46 Problems]

"Why do we have to concern ourselves with this?" Balthazar asked with a groan and in a not at all whiny tone. The angel was after all fueled by righteous indignation over having to run small, inconsequential errands when he -and Castiel for that matter- had more important things to do. They had only just more or less taken over heaven! "Why can't Mr. Ballcap just throw this stuff on top of all the other stuff he already has in his dump of a house?"

"Mr. Ballcap?" Castiel cocked his head in confusion. He was reasonably sure that despite his ignorant words Balthazar knew exactly why they had to come to a conclusion concerning the three artifacts that were left intact even after Gabriel worked his spell to make the archangels fall. Apparently, fruit from the tree of life, the Holy Grail and the philosopher's stone were not spell ingredients of the variety that would simply disappear or be destroyed once their purpose was fulfilled. Not that the fact was overly astonishing.

"I was going to say Mr. Flannel, but that could have been anyone," Balthazar retorted with a shrug, "The same goes for Mr. Terrible Fashion Sense."

Thinking about it, there were quite a few other names that applied to basically everyone on the team. Mr. Self-Sacrificing Idiot and Mr. Overly Cocky came to mind. The last one even Balthazar could identify with.

"These are artifacts of great power and they need to be taken back to their rightful storing places!" Castiel insisted after a moment of silence. Castiel had given his brother's words the consideration they deserved -the full split-second of it- but they had to get back to their original discussion.

Balthazar rolled his eyes, but eyed the three objects on the table between them with new interest. Granted, he had always known that they were talking about exceptional and powerful things, but the fact might have slipped from the forefront of his mind for a bit in favor of complaining about the prospect of having another duty placed on his already far too high stack of duties. Balthazar signed up for stopping the Apocalypse and for reforming heaven -or had been conned into these things depending on who was asked- but the latter especially was proving to be far more of a fulltime job than Balthazar was comfortable with.

"Do you ever wonder what would happen, if an angel ate one of those?" Balthazar pondered as he reached for the fruit of the tree of life. The -unnecessarily hard- slap on the hand Balthazar received for his considerations was all the answer he needed and likely would get.

Castiel quickly put the fruit in the pocket of his trench coat. Clearly he would take care of this one. Castiel trusted Balthazar with his life, but it was much harder to trust Balthazar with anything else. In all honesty, Castiel had no idea what would happen if an angel took a bite out of a fruit from the tree of life, but it stood to reason that it couldn't be good. Humanity was still paying for their one taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

At least returning the fruit to Joshua would lead Castiel back to heaven. He had important business to attend to. Gabriel's message had made it easy enough to convince most of the other angels that things had to change, but implementing that change still took a lot of work.

Thinking about it, Castiel could take the Holy Grail as well. It had to be brought back to the heavenly armory. Balthazar would only have to get the philosopher's stone to its storage place in Iceland. Castiel reached for the Grail, only to have his hand slapped away.

"No, I am taking care of this one, Cassy," Balthazar announced with a smirk that couldn't possibly mean anything good. It didn't look like Balthazar's all too apparent mirth was in any way connected to a possible use for the Grail, so Castiel, while slightly skeptical, was willing enough to allow it.

"Very well then," Castiel stated with a small nod, before he quickly took the philosopher's stone, passed it over to Balthazar and disappeared in a flutter of wings.

"Those Winchesters have a bad influence on you!" Balthazar yelled at... nothing. Whatever! He would concern himself with the stupid stone later. For now he had plans for the Grail.


The heavenly armory looked as pristine as ever. Somebody must have cleaned up after Gabriel and Raphael had their little fight, though that probably didn't disturb the inside of the armory too much. What little of the fight took place in heaven happened in front of the door after all.

On second glance, Balthazar realized that one of the items he had purposefully misplaced the last time he had been in the armory was not where he put it anymore. Balthazar smiled and nodded to himself when he saw that the second and much more inconspicuous misplaced item had been returned to its rightful place as well. Somebody must have indeed reorganized the inventory, which was quite a huge and tedious task.

When Balthazar reached his destination he put the grail back on its rightful place, like the good upstanding angel and brother he was.

On his way out he grabbed a golden orb with a none too subtle cross on top and passed it from one hand to the other a couple of times as he took it from H for Holy artifacts, subdivision A for Antioch to E for Extermination, subdivision B for biological warfare, or B for bunny as Balthazar would refer to it from now on. It was too bad that whoever would right that little misplacement eventually would most definitely not get the joke.

"Greetings, brother!" Balthazar addressed Otheos, as he passed the guard by in a demonstratively casual stride. Balthazar still had another artifact to return and while he was already back on Earth he might as well take the weekend off and check out the sights Iceland had to offer, especially when it came to the local population. Nights in Iceland could be quite long, which promised to be a lot of fun given the right circumstances and company.

"Balthazar!" Otheos bellowed after he took the time to do a double check. No, his mind was not playing tricks on him by conjuring up the image of the one person he wanted to see least, especially around the armory.

"Ah, don't fret brother, I was only in there for a minute, or five, how much damage could I have possibly done?" Balthazar asked casually and with a reassuring smile, before he quickly made his exit. The change of color in Otheos' face promised a world of hurt, if the guard got his hands on him and Balthazar could live without having to pay for his transgressions, like ever.

Otheos' rage filled shout was loud enough to let all of heaven know that something had upset the guard greatly and given his reputation most of them could guess what it had been. Not that Otheos would ever confirm any of the rumors. He would however hand in his resignation and ask to be reassigned to another task as soon as possible. Regrettably, Otheos found he obviously wasn't fit to guard the armory. With a deep swallow Otheos resigned himself to his inevitable termination. It was a safety hazard to heaven if he continued on.


"Castiel," Joshua greeted his brother with a slight nod, as he leaned on his rake.

"Thank you for letting me enter," Castiel replied, mirroring Joshua's small nod.

Once upon a time the Garden of Eden had been open to all angels, but that changed when the fighting among angels became a threat to the garden. It was up to Joshua to decide who could and could not enter and it was only a very recent development that anyone was allowed inside again.

"You are a fascinating specimen, aren't you Castiel?" Joshua suddenly asked with a smile as he looked around himself, "The woods close to Bobby Singer's house, correct?"

Castiel frowned deeply for a moment, before he took in his surroundings and nodded his answer. The garden looked a lot like the part of the woods Sam and Dean did their weapon training at. Castiel and Gabriel had tagged along on one of the rare, calm days they got during the Apocalypse. Even though firing some of the guns the Winchesters used only occasionally to make sure they still worked properly was a much louder activity than Castiel preferred, it had still been a very enjoyable afternoon. Between Sam and Dean's bickering over who was the better shot and Gabriel's casual flick of his wrist that made a couple of the bottles used for practice explode via angel mojo just to show off, it had been one of the afternoons that saw Castiel smiling more than he usually did in a week.

"You of course realize that angels usually don't shape the garden -or any place in heaven for that matter- the way you just did," Joshua pointed out, clearly amused. The gardener once told Sam and Dean that the Garden looked different for everyone, but strictly spoken that was mostly true for the occasional human that ended up in this part of heaven. Angels generally saw the Garden exactly the way their father made it once upon a time. It could be seen as a lack of imagination, or experience, if Joshua felt like being slightly cynical about it, though somewhere in the very back of his consciousness God agreed with him.

"I came here to return this to you," Castiel stated instead of answering the question as he handed the fruit to Joshua. If he was completely honest, Castiel would have to admit that he wasn't sure what Joshua was hinting at. It wasn't like Castiel made the conscious decision to have the garden represent the woods behind Bobby Singer's home.

"Thank you," Joshua replied, nodding toward his brother before he took an unceremonious bite out of the fruit. Apparently, nothing at all happened when an angel took a bite out a fruit from the tree of life after all.

"Castiel," Joshua called after his brother when the other angel got ready to leave again. There was something else that should be said here while the chance presented itself. Joshua wasn't exactly sure when he would see his brother again. "I take it you will leave us."

"I don't..." Castiel started instinctively, before he allowed the words to fully sink in. He knew exactly what Joshua was talking about, even if Castiel felt that this was not the time to talk about it. "I have work to do. Heaven needs restructuring."

"Of course, but your work will be done eventually," Joshua pointed out.

The small smile that automatically spread over Castiel's face told them both what they needed to know.


"Now this is a nice surprise," Balthazar stated with a charming smile that hid most of his actual surprise over coming face to face with a woman who could only be described as beautiful. Granted, she had a bit of medieval chic going on, but there was something to be said for long tunic dresses made of heavy fabric that hid by far more than they revealed, but still showed just enough to be promising.

Of course, Balthazar knew that the woman in front of him only appeared to be a woman and was in fact... something else, something not human, but still not demonic or monstrous. Balthazar decided that somehow she just was. That was the best he could do to describe her. Still, the being was in the shape of a beautiful woman with long, flowing light blonde hair, strands of which were held back to keep them out of her face.

The woman raised an eyebrow at Balthazar, but remained impassive otherwise until the angel produced the philosopher's stone's twinkling form from his pocket. After that display she nodded toward Balthazar with a slight smile and gestured for him to enter the cave.

"Oh no, darling, I've heard enough of your little cave to know I don't want to set foot into it," Balthazar stated definitely, though with a tinge of regret in his voice. It stood to reason that she would not come outside and that severely limited the options of what they could do.

A half-smirk appeared on the woman's face as she shrugged lightly as if to say "The last one of you guys who was here wasn't such a coward".

It really was her loss and Balthazar's luck that he could live with being a coward as long as it allowed him to live. Though he would be lying if he said he wasn't slightly tempted to just take a couple of steps into the cave. It was less a matter of principle as it was a matter of curiosity. A beautiful woman -technically, kind of, whatever- all alone, all by herself, for however long... this far she seemed unimpressed by Balthazar, but he was positive they could change that.

"What are the chances you long enough for a solid, warm, manly touch to let me in there and then out again without facing any tests of character?" Balthazar asked with a charming smile. Not that he had anything to fear if faced with any tests of character. Not at all. Absolutely. Period.

Every last tiny bit of temptation Balthazar felt just a moment ago vanished when the woman pulled back her heavy coat and demonstratively put her hand on the handle of her sword while giving the angel a pointed look.

Balthazar straightened his shoulders, nodded to himself and then threw the philosopher's stone over to the woman who caught it easily. This was definitely a risk not worth taking! There were other woman -and men for that matter- in the country who would be more open to his charms. Preferably some that were not armed with magical weapons of unknown origin.

That Balthazar was nearly completely sure that while whatever magic the woman was made of had not seen it necessary to give her a voice, somehow didn't keep him from feeling like she was laughing at him when he retreated.