Again, not sure how often updates are going to be from now on, but stay strong, guys. We're getting to some really really good parts here.

It was daylight when the Winchester boys found their way back to St. Mary's in Ilchester. Or well... the site of the old St. Mary's. It was just a construction area now that was vacant of workers, building a new cathedral in place of the area that Lucifer had decimated.

For a few minutes, they stayed in the Impala to glance around the area. Dean blinked for a minute and rose his hand. "... Where is everyone? I was told there'd be a party here. Cake and everything."

"Maybe Crowley was lying," Sam offered, but didn't look to his brother. He was still looking out to the streets for a sign of anything. Crowley couldn't be lying. "Or maybe we should take a look around?"

The older brother sunk into his seat... before something caught his eye and he straightened up again. "Someone decided to go to work today," he said, pointing to a young man in a black hoodie, giving shifty looks as he moved down the sidewalk and into the unfinished cathedral. "Let's go."

Dean and Sam quickly got out of the car and followed after this person as quietly as possible, hoping this was exactly what it looked like to the two hunters.

The guy walked down the middle of the large cathedral as if the church pews were already set into place while he moved towards the stage area. He turned at the echoing sound of a door closing somewhere within the unfinished halls, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. When he turned back around to face the altar again, he was met with Dean standing there, grasping Ruby's knife.

The man's eyes flicked between the knife and Dean's face, backing away as the hunter moved closer.

"Don't play coy," the Winchester said, not stopping his approach. "Spill the beans, kid."

Opting to turn around and run, the man was then met with the younger brother on his other side. "What do you want?" he finally asked, shaking a little.

"Where's Abbadon?" Sam asked of him.

"Wh-Who?"

With the man's attention on his brother, Dean took a flask out of his back pocket and splashed a little holy water on to the guy's arm. He immediately hissed and backed away, baring his teeth as smoke rose from his jacket.

"Where's Abbadon?" Sam asked again.

The demon looked between them both angrily, flashing his black eyes for a moment. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do," Dean grimaced, "And we don't have time to screw around."

Glancing between the two brothers, the demon began backing away to a wall.

Sam suddenly straightened up, eyes momentarily flashing a bright blue. "I'll have him talk," Ezekiel said quietly and approached the demon.

He cowered into the wall. "You're a-" Without another word, he opened his mouth and spewed out black smoke in an attempt to escape, but the angel caught the smog and pushed him back into the vessel.

Not unlike the night before, Catherine still had her face buried within one of the older books from the Winchesters' library. The only difference was that she now sat at a table in their kitchen with a plate of untouched toast across from her. She had only seen Balthazar when she initially woken up to find him flipping through the same books that put her to sleep. Kevin, as usually, might as well have been as lively as Castiel since he didn't even seem to have moved since the night before. She had come to the kitchen for food, but eating hadn't happened in the last twenty minutes since she had been sitting there.

Balthazar walked in, not that she really noticed beyond hearing the footsteps, but he made his presence known quickly enough when he stopped at the door. "What happened to eating?"

It still took her a minute until she registered that there had been a voice to accompany the steps at all before she looked up to him. "Hmm?"

"Never mind." He shook his head with a sigh and moved over to the cupboards. "Did you happen to spot any liquor on your great search for bread?" he asked, beginning to rummage through them.

"No, but that sounds nice," she absently answered with her full attention back on the book, flipping to another page. "If you find any, fix me some."

He stopped moving, hands still on one of the cupboard knobs. "You just woke up," Balthazar finally said, turning to look back at her.

It took Catherine another minute or so until she looked up to him again. "Huh?"

"Good lord," he muttered to himself, turning back to his search. He couldn't wait for this to be over and done with.

She hardly had time to look away and turn back to her reading when a phone somewhere in the base started going off. Catherine immediately jumped off of her chair to chase after the sound, leaving Balthazar behind who only glanced down to her phone left beside the open book. As he followed her at a more leisurely pace, he picked it up and brought it with him.

Kevin had already answered the call, looking very confused when Cat barreled in on the scene. He looked to the tablet and his notes, shaking his head. "No, there hasn't been anything like that," he told the voice on the other end. "It might just be a ruse or something. We could ask Crowley?"

Balthazar walked in to find the hunter practically jumping in spot, eager to know what the conversation was over. Kevin looked over to the both of them and just said, "Yeah, hold on." He held out the phone and pressed a button. "You're on speaker, Dean. They're both here."

"Cathy!" Dean's voice barked out of the phone. She was so on edge that she didn't bother correcting him again, so he continued. "Did you find anything about Springfield, Illinois?"

The men were silent as they looked to her very confused face. Catherine nearly blanched. "... What? No. Why?"

A voice in the background – Sam's – spoke up to his brother. "It probably wouldn't have modern place names."

"Dammit," Dean muttered, but came back quickly. "What about the cage in Hell? Location? Mortal world? All that jazz?"

She thought back to her readings. "It's... very big." Dean groaned, but she stepped in before he could curse again. "No, I mean very big. An average angel is at least over a thousand feet high by human standards and this thing is holding two archangels. They're much bigger than the normal ones and it's not exactly breaking at the seams or anything."

Sam said something again that they couldn't hear, but apparently threw Dean into a tantrum. "Son of a bitch! It's as big as the freaking continent! They can't open the first door again, so they're opening another one! I- Dammit!"

"Another?" Catherine mumbled, not remembering anything about a second door in her books.

The Winchester's voice continued on in anger. "Balthazar, I swear-!"

"Don't look at me! I didn't know!" the angel jumped to defend himself. "All we knew about in regards to the cage was that you two were going to open it once. In case you forgot, Team Freewill here ripped the script apart."

Dean growled. "Where's Cas?"

Bal rolled his eyes. "Hiding. As usual."

"Fine," the Winchester sighed, "Look, we think Abbadon's somewhere outside of Springfield. Me and Sam are already doubling back, but you're closer."

Catherine grabbed her jacket off of the table that she had left there the night before, remembering that everything she owned was, thankfully, still back in the car. "That's where she's opening the cage?"

"We think so," Dean's voice answered, sounding distracted for a moment. "You two can probably get there by tonight. Me and Sam won't be too far behind. It's recon only. Find Abbadon and don't do shit without us there."

Balthazar frowned and looked around the room. "I can find Castiel."

"Don't need him for this," his voice said through the phone. "You and Catherine. I know you two can handle yourselves. It's the best we got right now."

The angel growled and rolled his eyes. "Fine."

Adjusting her jacket, Cat gave him a look of confusion before talking to the phone again. "We're gone, Dean."

"Call when you get close. We'll rendezvous." He hung up on the other end before anyone could say any words of parting. Not that it seemed to be on anyone's tongue.

Kevin looked up to the pair. Catherine had already turned to the entrance and Balthazar... looked a little furious, actually. "Anything I should do?" he asked her when the angel finally began to follow.

"What you've been doing," she suggested, turning back for a brief second. "Watch the news for anything crazy, though. If you don't hear from anyone in about two days, I would probably ditch." Balthazar silently tossed her phone to her, which she caught on reflex. The only thing she really did notice was that he seemed to be back in the same mood as before. Deciding to save it for later, she turned back to take the stairs two at a time, the angel quick on her heels.

"Be careful!"

A new voice stopped them both, and they looked over the balcony to see Castiel there, looking very worried. Not really knowing what to do with the well wishes, Cat gave the same look to him in return and continued on. Bal stayed in place for a second and looked to his brother, features finally softening a margin until he turned away and followed her.

It took a little over seven hours to get within Springfield's limits from the Men of Letters base. They had called the Winchesters, who instructed them to find Abbadon or any demons they could spot. Balthazar easily picked several out thanks to his ability to see them for what they were, so the two had followed them to an outcropping of trees off of the interstate. The angel argued that they should get any closer, so they sat still in the car. Catherine played with the fingers of one hand, occasionally biting at her thumb nail, while watching the wood intensely. The angel, still in his mood, watched with little interest and just propped his head against his arm that leaned on the car door.

She couldn't stand the silence or her partner's strange choices as of late, so she decided to bring up something that had bugged her hours earlier. "Why did you want Castiel to come instead?" Any topic was better than thinking about this stuff constantly.

Balthazar looked to her for a moment, but shifted in the passenger seat as he looked back to the trees again. "I didn't say I wanted him to come."

"You wanted to look for him." That alone was odd for him. He seemed to enjoy the fact that his brother always remained out of sight.

But he just shrugged as if it had been nothing. "Grace or not, he's still an angel. He knows plenty more about demons than humans do."

It wasn't that she could really argue that, but she knew enough about demons to kill them and he should have known that by now. "So, you're wanting to work with him now?"

"Why are you trying to start a fight?" he asked almost angrily, still refusing to look to her.

"I'm not," Catherine answered back, only getting more confused and a little hurt. "I'm just trying to... figure out what changed."

His jaw twitched, but Balthazar rubbed at his chin and didn't answer. He had been more or less silent since they had set out, only bothering to speak up when absolutely needed, keeping anything he had to say sharp and to the point.

It was honestly bugging the hell out of her and was a far cry from the angel she originally set out on this journey with. She couldn't blame him if he was tense or worried about the archangels, but his actions weren't suggesting that was the problem. This mood swing of his came as quickly as it would leave. She didn't like it. Then again, if she had died and had to face her murderer, it would definitely cause problems, but... even that didn't seem to be the issue.

Catherine watched him for a moment until she looked away in thought. "Did you see him back there? Did he say something-"

"Who was he?" Bal cut her off. He didn't want to talk about Castiel, so he decided to switch to something else that had been on his mind. Considering his agitation with everything going on lately, he didn't mind finally bringing the issue up again.

Except that she just frowned in confusion. "He?"

Before she could jump to any conclusions regarding their former topic, he finally looked to her and elaborated. "The man in the pictures." Something flashed across Catherine's eyes and she looked away to the trees again, but he refused to let it go this time. "You know, the one that would drive your car, share those male IDs with you. I can only assume he was a hunter or did it not stop there?"

Catherine bit the inside of her cheek to try and ignore that last question. "Why are you bringing him up?"

"Because I want to know!" Everything was telling him to stop. Her low tone, the look in her eyes, his own pain and doubts about the topic. Still, those same things spurred him on. A part of him wanted to find out even if it meant hurting her. If he hurt her enough, perhaps all of this would go away and he would only have his brothers to worry about again. He still regretted the outburst, though.

Catherine couldn't figure out if it hurt or annoyed her more, but she tried to quell any anger she had. It wouldn't do any good now, when they were supposed to be doing something else entirely. So much for professionalism. "Sidney," she finally answered, though figured that it would have been best for everyone if she didn't speak at all. "His name is Sidney. Yes, we hunted together. It's how we met."

He almost wanted to laugh, but it would have come out cynical. "Right, I've heard this story. Man saves woman. Woman devotes her life to aiding his every need-"

"I saved him," she corrected, shooting Balthazar a cruel glare that he more than deserved. "I didn't get to his friend in time, but I at least managed to save him." She stayed quiet for a second, but decided to beat him to his own question. "Since you were going to ask anyway, we were together."

He wanted to say a lot of things. Things he would more than regret later and would probably make her stop talking to him at all. Still, he scoffed as if he had seen that coming a mile away. Of course he did, but the way he acted suggested that he came to the conclusion through different means. "What happened to paradise, then? Finally lost his interest?"

Closing her eyes, Catherine rubbed at her face and took a deep breath. "He died," she told him. To any hunter, the answer would have probably been obvious, but she shifted in place despite that annoyance. "I got in trouble with some vampires and he died saving me."

As much as Balthazar wanted to make a quip about his death at least being a good thing, he didn't. Instead, he shut that thought away when he glanced to her again, knowing that the memory had hurt her greatly. He had hurt her greatly, just like he wanted. His eyes closed and his hand swept across his face. "Sorry," he mumbled out, half hoping that she didn't really hear. Much to his annoyance, the angel had hurt himself in the bargain, but he couldn't tell if it was because of what he had done, from the guilt she held that he couldn't fix, or from the extremely high possibility that she still loved this Sidney.

Her fingers slowly danced over the steering wheel, unintentionally forcing him to hide his eyes after opening them to keep from watching. "What's gotten into you?" Catherine asked quietly, not accusing, but not sounding very worried either. Not as worried as she had sounded before. Now it was just distant and he bit his tongue before answering.

"I don't know." His voice didn't raise any higher than her own, but he knew that he was at least lying. He just didn't know what to do about it. Things seemed so much clearer the night before and now-... Now he was scared and he didn't know what to do. They shouldn't even be here. He should have left her in Sioux Falls. No, he should have knocked her out and drove them both somewhere far away. She would hate him. The world would hate him. The archangels would likely run free, but he left his post before for less reasons than-

Catherine sighed next to him, seeming to announce an end to the conversation and allowing the silence to come pass them again. She regretted trying to talk and he knew it. He hated it.

After a few minutes of neither of them moving, Catherine straightened up. "They're moving."

Balthazar removed his hand to see the same shifting of shadows that she had, but his attention was drawn to something she couldn't see. "There's an angel with them." Again, neither moved, but the tension in the car only grew heavier. "He said to stay put."

She watched the shadows for a second more until they vanished back into the trees. "I know," Cat muttered and opened her door.

Finally! Another new chapter! Definitely getting into some bigger stuff here, guys. And so many emotions there. Oh man.

Thanks for reading! Follow/Review/All that good stuff. Love you, guys.