Welcome, new followers! I hope everyone had some happy holidays.

As a note, I've changed a few minor things, such as Kevin still being alive and Castiel staying with the Winchesters. Minor because this is still taking place early on in the season as far as timelines go. Gad- er um Ezekiel's still here, though.

"Sam?" Dean had just finished tugging his jacket on when he walked into the main foyer of the Men of Letters base, looking around for his brother. After a glance to his watch, the elder hunter reasoned that he had to be outside for a jog. Not still asleep or, worse, dead in a corner somewhere. The trials were still haunting the both of them.

Instead of waiting for him to come back in on his own time, Dean started taking the stairs two at a time to head outside and look for him, just in case. "Sammy?" He was relieved, once opening the main door, to find his brother outside. "Dude, where've you been? I was looking all over for-"

"Something's been here," Sam said in a low tone, looking off to the road.

Being cut off from his train of thought, Dean looked to the road and back to Sam. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Something's been here," he said again, looking to Dean, "and something's coming."

Realization washed over him as he looked over his brother again. "Zeke. What is it? What's coming?"

"Angels," Ezekiel said, looking away again, "One of them has been here and left beacons for others to come, but they're fading fast. They'll be here soon. This is because of Castiel. He should not have stayed, Dean."

"Whoa, wha- Slow down. Why didn't you sense-" Dean waved his arms in the air, trying to figure out what to do first. "We can't just run and let them have the place."

"We don't have time for that, anyway."

"All right, all right, fine. We'll just- Give me my brother back and we'll figure out what to do."

Ezekiel tightened his jaw, not entirely sure how that plan was going to work out, but handed over control of his body back to his unknowing host. When Sam blinked back into the world, he nearly jumped to see his brother suddenly next to him. "Dean?"

"Don't freak out," were the first words his older brother said. These words were never followed by anything good and Sam was already frowning heavily while Dean continued. "Cas saw something and he thinks it's some angel graffiti marking up the place. He says there might be some on their way."

"I- What?"

"Don't worry, we'll- Just don't worry. Come on."

Even Catherine had to admit, Balthazar was much more useful as a walking, talking compass. It probably would have been easier if he had driven, but then she reasoned that he wouldn't be near as talkative. Since she had woken up, something had been on his mind that he just couldn't shake and, despite her questions on the subject, he didn't seem to want to talk about it. It likely had to do with her near death experience, but shouldn't she be the one shaken up about that?

At least they had a distraction now as she pulled the car into the drive that he indicated, until he waved at her to stop.

"What is it?" Cat asked after pulling to the side, not seeing anything threatening in these trees.

Balthazar, on the other hand, could certainly see a whole lot more. "The signs are faded more here. We're close... We should walk."

"What?" There didn't seem to be a building for another mile, but even as she spoke, he was already out of the car and closing the door. With a quick roll of her eyes, she killed the ignition and got out, too; Balthazar already walking ahead of her to force her to catch up. "Why are we walking?"

"If I can see these signs, other angels can, too," he answered, not bothering to slow down or look to her, "If they have their little boyfriend with them, they may be ready for trouble."

Thankfully, he had mentioned Castiel when he filled her in on the Winchesters in general, but she wasn't sure which parts were true and which he was just exaggerating. "Well, we aren't a threat, so why should we act like we are?"

"They'll probably consider us a threat either way," he replied, roving his head around the stretch his neck. "We just need to be ready for anything until we can explain ourselves."

"Wait a minute..." Catherine grabbed his arm, which thankfully made him stop and finally look to her. "I thought you said you knew them and all this other stuff. Why do you think they'll attack you on sight?"

… He shifted in place. "Well, me and a friend of theirs aren't on the best of standings." She started rubbing her eyes again, but he continued. "Plus, I'm supposed to be dead. What would you do if you saw a dead angel walking around?"

She sighed "Why didn't you tell me this on the road?"

Balthazar gave a small shrug. "You would have just stressed about it."

Catherine allowed her arm to fall as she shot him a look, when something caught her eye behind him. Bricks, it seemed like, to some building that she couldn't see the entirety of. That was all that could be seen through the foliage in the wood.

He turned to see what she was looking at and began moving off of the road after glancing back to her again. "Good eye."

"Is that it?" she asked, following after him again. She would certainly argue that it was well hidden and off the beaten path, but the road had to stretch around to it eventually, right? Not that she was complaining about the shortcut either.

"Seems that way," he sighed. "Only place in miles, I think." The building itself didn't seem to be marked by the archangel, but Balthazar could think of several reasons why that wouldn't have worked out. Instead, as they both grew closer, the building was revealed to be much larger up close. Even though it looked abandoned for years, he figured they were in the right place and nodded to his confirmation to his companion.

Catherine moved to walk ahead of him and towards the large set of double doors at the entrance. "No one looks to be home," she said, not bothering to even touch the doors yet. "Should we knock?"

In answer, he moved an arm around her to knock loudly on the door, but both of them grew confused faces at the sound they received, which wasn't as hollow and deep as it should have been. Cat tried the handles, but groaned. "The doors are fake. We are in the right place."

"Fake doors?" Balthazar stepped back to look up at the rest of the building. Seems the Winchesters had gotten some better accommodations, at least. "How much are you willing to bet that their base is beneath this building?"

Catherine sighed and stepped back, too. "Let's split up and find the entrance."

She could have sworn she had just struck him by the sound he made in response. "What is up with you and splitting up everywhere we go? Every single time you end up in some sort of strange fatal predicament."

"We had split up once," she told him slowly, "and it was on accident."

"You were across the room last time. I'm counting that." Mostly because it hurt more to think she was nearly killed while he was in the same room, but he wasn't even about to voice that, especially with her glaring at him like she was.

"Well, we could always stick together and waste more time," she shot back, "If they're here, they're not outside or they would have heard us arguing already."

He hated her logic and groaned about it. "Fine, but we meet on the other side. If you find something... I don't know. Scream bloody murder or whatever."

"Yes, dear." Despite his annoyance about splitting up, Balthazar was already moving away by the time she started walking. While arguing with him was a normal occurrence, it was also more irritating than usual at the same time since she knew something was actually deeply bugging him.

Catherine shook it off by the time she rounded the corner, opting instead to just find these Winchester people as quickly as possible to move things along. Whatever had been between her and the angel had been growing and his new tense nature wasn't helping anything about it.

Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked along the side of the building, but upon hearing the sound echo behind her, Catherine stopped walking and listened closely. Could it be one of them? Something else? It wasn't Balthazar and that gave her enough reason to be alert. Her hand slowly snaked around to her back, yet her finger barely traced against the angel blade before the footsteps rushed toward her and she barely dodged the opponent's same blade.

Balthazar stopped his angry pacing around the building, as well, though it wasn't from hearing anything out of the ordinary. He sensed something near... and if he sensed it in his current state...

He turned in time to parry another blade that nearly drove into his back, but a hand quickly wrapped around his throat and pinned him against a tree. Of course, he could have very easily done something about that, but Catherine was right. They weren't a threat so they really shouldn't act like it. Still, this was the warm welcome he had expected.

Sam looked at the angel up and down, keeping the blade to his neck. "... Who are you?"

Bal rolled his eyes. "Beyoncé. Who the hell do I look like, boy? Mind shoving off?"

"Balthazar...?" Sam looked him up and down again, as if this was the first time he had seen someone be resurrected. "No, he died. Who are you? Who do you work for?"

"Oh, gracious," he muttered under his breath. "This isn't the first time you've seen an angel rise from the dead. You can't actually be serious right now."

Finally, Sam seemed to reason this occurrence with himself and finally met the angel in the eye. "Balthazar..." he said again, but pressed the blade closer to his throat. "What are you doing here?"

He knew what he was supposed to say. They weren't a threat, so they shouldn't act like it. Yet, his jaw tightened a margin more. "Why?" he asked in a low voice, "Is Cassie home, too?"

Sam only had time to tighten his grip around the sword, when a short scream broke out behind the building, gaining both of their attention. Balthazar was the first to speak. "Move!"

The younger Winchester didn't seem like he was going to have any of that, but only readjusted himself. "Who's with you?"

"I said, move!" Balthazar had to only push Sam against his chest to fling him to the ground, and he didn't wait around to see what the hunter would do when he got up again. If only his stupid wings worked like they used to.

However, once he reached the other side of the building, Bal found an image he was more than happy to receive. Catherine was still standing with Dean Winchester beneath her boot and laying on his stomach. She was also quite angry, which he was thrilled about, to be quite honest.

"Yeah, okay," Dean mumbled into the ground. "I'm willing to believe you're not an angel, but I'm in a bad position to really give the benefit of the-..." At that, he manged to glance up to the actual angel standing before them and became speechless as his brother rounded the corner.

Sam held a sword against Balthazar before he noticed Catherine, who was already pulling out her gun until the angel raised his hands and stepped between them. "Let's all just calm down, yeah? As much as it pains me to say it, we didn't come here to start a fight. Finish one, maybe, but... well, you know."

Sam glanced between Balthazar and Catherine, before lowering his weapon by a margin. Dean, on the other hand, was still on the ground. "You're alive?"

"You tell me," the angel answered while his companion slowly removed herself from her opponent. She walked closer to Balthazar, keeping a close eye on the brothers.

Dean rose to his feet and nodded over to Sam while brushing himself off. "So..." There were only a million questions running through his head, so he just latched on to the most immediate one in the moment, while Sam slowly moved over to his brother. "Who's the chick?"

She growled out, "Catherine," before looking over to Balthazar. "These cannot be the idiots we were looking for."

"Unfortunately, yes," he groaned. "Also, by the way, since we're on the subject, I'm going to say I told you so. Splitting up never works."

"What?" In all honesty, she should have expected that to come up again, but her day was long enough already. "In case you didn't notice, I had it under control."

"You screamed like a banshee."

"I yelped in surprise," she argued back, "Besides, wasn't I supposed to scream if I found something?"

"I didn't think you would take that literally!"

Dean cleared his throat loudly. "'Scuse me. Hey." He smiled between them awkwardly as they both stopped arguing to glare back at him. "Um... What the hell's going on?"

Catherine just sighed, the anger from arguing already slipping away. "That's sort of what we came here to find out, I guess." Still annoyed, she looked over to Balthazar to try figuring out where to start, when he suddenly grabbed her chin and twisted her head back to face the Winchesters. "Can I help you?" she asked in confusion.

The angel tilted his head to the side as he observed a fresh bruise on her jaw. "Did he strike you?"

"No," she said with a sigh, "The building jumped me."

After a beat of silence, Balthazar turned to look at Dean, who swiftly stepped behind his much taller brother. "Hey, no. I thought she was an angel. I don't know if you've heard or not, but they're sort of out for our blood, okay. I was in the right."

It took another moment, in which Catherine said nothing in the hopes that something might actually happen for once, but Balthazar eventually released her after healing the bruise away. She rubbed at the spot, as the angel smiled. "How about we just have a chat, hm?

I was going to add more to this chapter, but it already ran pretty long, not to mention that it's been a little while since the last update. It seems like I write all the time, but I always end up being about 4 or 5 days in between chapters.

If you guys do want longer chapters, let me know, but keep in mind that they'll take longer to produce. Anyway, I'm really hoping we'll get to see Crowley in the next chapter. I'm gonna start on it asap.

Also, out of curiosity and want of feedback, what have been your favorite scenes so far? Fave types of scenes? Things you'd like to see more of or something you'd like to see in general? Alternatively, anything you want less of?

Anywho, thanks for reading!