In the middle of the street in the town of Chester, Pennsylvania, a weary angel and a Fate at the end of her tether were currently participating in an irritated argument – well, 'irritated' was quite an understatement, considering the nature of their conversation.
"I'm sorry. But your services are no longer required." Castiel (the aforementioned angel) stated in a rather ominous tone of voice as he paced around the Fate.
"You know what?" Atropos asked rhetorically as she ceased her pacing to face Castiel directly. "I've kept my mouth shut. I could have complained, I could have raised a fuss, but I didn't. But you know what the last straw is? Un-sinking the Titanic. You changed the future. You cannot change the past. That is going too far!"
Castiel interjected with his withstanding explanation. "It's Balthazar. He's erratic-"
"Bull crap." Dissatisfied with the excuses, Atropos finally snapped. "This isn't about some stupid movie. He's under your orders. You sent him back to save that ship."
"No, I didn't. Why would I?" Castiel remained smug, however he was past the point of convincing the Fate.
"Oh, maybe because you're in the middle of a war and you're desperate?" As Atropos spoke, the angel halted, turning away to avoid eye contact with her. She continued nonetheless, her resolve unrelenting. "Come on. This is about the souls."
"You don't know what you're talking about." Cas' tone was dark, reluctant, almost.
"That angel went and created 50,000 new souls for your war machine."
"You're confused." It became obvious that Castiel had sunk to a new low due to the fact he was now defending himself by attempting to make Atropos doubt her own mind, though she knew this, so refused to let him get to her.
"No. You can't just mint money, Castiel. It's wrong… It's dangerous. And I won't let you."
Closing his eyes as if he no longer wished to be in the position he was in, Cas then sighed, opened his eyes and finally turned to face Fate. "You don't have a choice." He remarked.
"Maybe I don't. So here's a choice for you: if you don't go back and sink that boat, I'm gonna kill your two favorite pets." Atropos glanced over to Sam and Dean Winchester, who were suspended in time, their eyes permanently stuck gazing at a piece of machinery that was inevitably doomed to crush them, that was, if Cas couldn't prevent it.
"I won't let you." The angel proved his determination, however Atropos refused to back down.
"Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do?"
"Do you really want to test me?" Castiel replied without missing a beat, glaring intensely at the Fate. In response, she realised that she was actually dealing with an angel, one of the most powerful supernatural creatures, therefore she took an intangible step back and accepted her situation.
"Okay, fine. But think about this – I've got two sisters out there. They're bigger, in every sense of the word. Kill me? Sam and Dean are target one. For simple vengeance. You're not fighting a war or anything, right? You can watch them every millisecond of every day. Because maybe you've heard – fate strikes when you least expect it."
Before Castiel even had the chance to process Atropos' words, he spoke to someone situated behind her. "Balthazar, stop."
Whirling around rapidly, Atropos discovered the angel Balthazar stood directly behind her, a Fate-killing blade in his hand, prepared to stab her. At Castiel's command, he naturally ceased his oncoming attack, his arm still raised.
"Ah. Awkward." Balthazar chuckled nervously at Atropos as she twisted back around to face Cas, more furious due to the fact that he'd hired an angel to kill her, despite knowing he'd called it off.
"Set things right before I flick your precious boys off a cliff just on principle." Her gaze was stony and as cold as ice.
Balthazar interrupted, unable to resist having one last dig at the Fate before they departed her company. "Uh, sweetie, before we go, um, I could remove that stick from your-"
"Don't try me." Atropos narrowed her eyes.
"Oh. We'll leave it inserted, then." There was a rather uncomfortable silence while the Fate glared at him, which the angel filled by addressing Castiel after receiving a nod of approval from him. However, he spoke in a bitter tone, evidently reluctant to undo his actions. "All right, then. Let's sink the Titanic."
Meanwhile, Gabriel was still trapped in the 'afterlife' (he mentally used inverted commas when referring to it because he was struggling to wrap his head around the concept), and starting to get seriously annoyed with it. Of course, he figured he should be incredibly concerned about the fact that he was, you know, dead, but he was more pissed off about being stuck there than anything else. Because the voice had long since departed, the archangel only had his own company, therefore he did a hell of a lot of thinking to himself.
History's changed, I know that for sure – I can feel it, he speculated internally. I can't do anything about it while I'm trapped here, so I suppose I'll just have to ride it out until the dumbass who screwed time up in the first place fixes it. Great.
He'd already been pacing up and down (though technically he wasn't moving because time and space was sort of frozen there, but he gave the impression of pacing) for an unknown amount of hours, however it was around a day in earth time. Seriously, if he had to spend another half-hour, earth time, in this immensely perturbing place with only his thoughts keeping him from solitude, he would go insane.
Thankfully, Gabriel blinked at that exact moment, and when he opened his eyes, he was suddenly back in the barn, perched on the same crate that had been there when everything had changed. He clearly wasn't dead anymore, that was, if he ever had been in the first place, which he highly doubted. Being brought back to real life also caused the archangel to gain a sense of clarity in his thoughts that he didn't have when he was in the 'afterlife'. He considered what could have created such a mess in altering time and reality, and the second he started speculating on this, the penny dropped. It was only when a certain angel had left his presence that everything had gone to hell – not literally, for him – and he had the strangest feeling that said angel would have returned now things were back to normal.
Gabriel's frustration and irritation abruptly sparked, to the excess that he decided he had to visit his companion instantly; disregarding the realisation that it could cause him danger from Raphael's army of angels, he scraped off parts of the paint in the sigils on the floor and walls using his archangel blade, and punched holes through others which was possible due to the fragility of the wood. The archangel continued to do this until he felt his powers return enough to perform his angelic skills without restriction. As soon as this was the case, he teleported right to the three-mile border of the barn. Sure enough, the angel his fury was channelled towards was stood right there, looking rather surprised to see him, yet still vaguely smug.
"Balthazar." Gabriel growled, full of rage. His fists were bunched as he strode furiously towards his friend. "What the hell did you do?"
Balthazar sighed melancholically, which startled Gabriel as it was so unexpected. "Well. I'm afraid we have to talk."