Delays may be coming more often and I'm sorry for them in advance. Between essays and my own original writings, I don't have a whole lot of time. I'm determined to keep this fic going, though.

Thank you for all the reviews and love, guys, and I'm sorry it's been a while since the last chapter. Here we go!

"Dammit!" Dean pressed end call on his phone as hard as he could. "Why in the hell aren't they answering? I told them-"

"We don't know anything, yet, Dean," Sam tried to say from the passenger seat. He was pretty sure he couldn't convince his brother to not worry, because it was hard to convince himself. They had been trying to call for the last two hours without any answer. The sun was now beginning to climb a little higher in the sky as they sped towards Catherine and Balthazar's last known location.

Sam was taking deep breaths. Dean was fuming.

"Crazy ass angels, man," he began gripping again. "He probably ditched or something."

The younger one grimaced. "You really think she would have gone for that?"

"I don't know!" Dean burst, "I don't know her! All I know is that she hangs out with him and we're not exactly on great speaking terms right now!"

"Okay, okay." Sam straightened up in his seat. "It was only a recon job, though. Nothing's going on until tonight. There's still time."

The other was about to reply again until the undeniable sound of large wings made him pause. He glanced into the rear view mirror to see the Trickster smirking back at him.

"How's it hangin', boys?"

The car swerved across the opposite lane with shrieking brakes until it finally came to rest in the ditch, narrowly missing a nearby tree. Dean and Sam turned in their seats so fiercely, that they were more likely to get whiplash from that than the off-roading.

Gabriel raised his hands in surrender. "I guess the best time for Jesus to take the wheel would be when there's an archangel in the car with you, yeah?" He smiled, but only received the same stunned and horrified faces from before. No laughs here it seemed. He just frowned and waved his hand. "We need to talk. And can we keep going, please? I'm kinda in a hurry, too."

Aside from making sure both of them were more or less unhurt, the walk out of the forest was silent. So much so that Balthazar thought he'd go mad. It wasn't even just the fact that she was keeping quiet about the whole ordeal, but he was finding being suddenly thrust into humanity very hard to cope with. He wanted to talk just to hear his head roar with the sound of something, anything, making some sort of noise that could be counted as a distraction to... everything, but he didn't. He could read her even with his senses stunted and Catherine didn't seem to be doing much better than he was. Her head was kept low and she walked slowly, stumbling in slow motion. Her mind was elsewhere. He shuttered to think where. Yet he didn't speak due to a fear that he couldn't really pin down.

They kept walking on through the thinning trees until Catherine finally looked up and stopped walking, seeing the car still sitting there with the sun's light bouncing off of the paint. It took her a moment to realize her companion had stopped walking, too. Right. She nodded a few times, begging herself to keep going forward, and finally started walking again... After a few paces, she stopped. Balthazar hadn't followed her this time.

"Catherine." His voice was low and more troubled than she ever heard him speak before. "What are we doing?"

It took her some time to even so much as shift in place after the question. Eventually, she half turned to face him better, but still didn't look up to him. "We-" She cleared her throat again, voice still hoarse and painful. "We need to fix it."

It was silent again as he waited for her to explain further or move on or do something instead of just stand there. "Fix it?" he urged her on.

She sharply nodded several times again, continuing some even as she spoke. "Fix it... Find the Winchesters. Get your grace back. Sto-... Stop them... Fix it."

Cat wasn't stable. He could see that much. She almost looked shaky and scared, not to mention that she was just... too generalized about that grand plan of hers, but she knew all of this at the same time and that just made it all so much worse. "How?" It was a stupid question, because he knew that she had no idea. That wasn't why he asked, though. He didn't want her to stay in this state. He wanted her to come back.

She didn't move for a moment. Just moved her hands on her hips and looked at the ground. "I'll figure it out."

He blinked twice before answering back. "... You will?"

"I'll figure it out," she said quieter, nodding again.

Of course, Balthazar had no way of knowing her meaning and they hadn't really known each other all that long in the grand scheme of things, but he still knew and he still didn't like it. He shifted in place, licking his lips and looking over to the horizon, before finally growling, "I'm human, not useless."

Another silence passed between them and when she finally spoke, her voice was so low that he wondered if she even meant for him to hear it at all. "I know that," Catherine muttered.

He waited for his temper to die down rather than for her to say anything else. It was clear she wasn't going to anyway. Balthazar bit his cheek and shifted again, realizing that he really didn't know what to do with his hands. He was cold, tired, hurting, and his emotions felt like they had been pumped into overdrive. The way they changed directions in such intense manners was unlikeable to him, especially now with so much going on. It was hard to really think rationally anymore.

Finally, he took a deep breath and realized it actually did help a little now. He had to try. "We need to talk about what hap-"

"No!" Such an outburst from her while she had been like this since sunrise gave him pause, but she waved her hand and looked up to the sky as if she knew it, too. "No. It's fine. It's over. It happened. I'll fix it."

"You said we will fix it," he growled again. That anger was clawing to come back, but he had no desire to stifle it again.

She just nodded. Again. "It'll get fixed." And she never looked at him. Balthazar ground his teeth as she turned away from him and continued speaking while moving to the car. "We just have to keep going and find the boys again. We'll fix it."

Suddenly, the we held new meaning. "Catherine." She didn't stop walking. "Catherine!" She stopped that time. He closed his eyes, trying very hard to not really start screaming about all of this. "We will fix it," he finally ground out, opening his eyes again, "Me and you. I won't stand by while you run off with the boys who are infamous for killing all of their allies. How did you even think I would agree to something like that?"

She shifted and looked around before finally turning to look at him. Finally. He bit his cheek harder and tasted copper. "You didn't have to agree," she told him with anger and a coldness he didn't know she possessed. "You're human now. You don't know what that means. Everything's changed. Not just how you see things or smell things or whatever the hell angels do. You're vulnerable to everything and you need to stay safe until-... until we can fix it." She looked away from him again and back to the ground at his feet. "It's my fault and I need to make sure it's fixed."

As much as he did listen to her side, he couldn't help but turn his head and twitch his jaw to that last part. "This is not your fault. It's Michael's."

He was surprised when she looked back up to him again with such an unreadable face. Most of all, he hated that he couldn't read her like this, but couldn't tell if it was because of him or the situation. Her next words took his mind off of that. "You didn't have to do what he said."

Words like that had a lot of potential, especially to start making him scream just how he tried to not do a moment ago. Balthazar licked his lips again, but didn't break eye contact this time. "Are you placing the blame on me now?" She looked away, but his voice rose anyway. "What should I have done? Left?" He expected something. Another outburst or maybe she would start walking away again. Maybe she would start screaming first or perhaps she would walk right up to him and hit him. Something. What she did do was exactly the thing he didn't expect.

Nothing.

She didn't move; didn't answer; didn't even seem to breathe. It wasn't anger he felt this time. It was something cold spreading through his chest and threatened to choke him. "Do you wish I had?"

Catherine's eyes fluttered closed and she bit her lip. It took a moment, but she did look back to him again, trying to muster up the same defensive expression. It didn't really work this time. Even her voice sounded a bit broken and hurt. "Yes." It was short and true, but she wasn't sure if she should have said it or not.

He stared back at her, trying to figure out if this was even the real world or one of those dreams that humans always had. He couldn't believe it and just waited for a confirmation that she actually meant something else or said something else, but- Balthazar smiled and let out a little laugh. "I saved you." She looked down to the ground and closed her eyes, as if she were hoping to crawl inside of herself. His smiled twitched away and bled to anger, then he finally started screaming. "I saved your life, you ungrateful bitch!"

She looked up to him again and he was at least happy that he could read the expression on her face this time. Anger. "Why?"

He faltered. Why? Why? "What?"

"Why in the hell did you save me?" she screamed back, throwing her arms up.

He was stunned for a moment. "Because you're my damn friend, that's why!" It was the only response he could dig up in the moment and he didn't want to get any deeper than that.

She fidgeted in place for a second, hands moving from her face to her forehead. "No, I'm not," she finally answered back, tone back to normal again. The words caught him so off guard that he didn't answer back as she moved closer. "I'm human! I- Why don't you-" She stopped again for a second, still moving around like she didn't know what to do with the rest of her body as she tried to speak up. "I'm human," she tried again, looking up to him. "You're an angel. You're supposed to be- Why don't you get it? Why don't you understand? I'm just a human. I'm like an insect to you. I'm nothing to you! Why would you-"

"After all of that, you're going to do this now?" This was... ridiculous. And such a ridiculous notion. He wasn't even sure where she had gotten it from. "After all of- After everything! I should have just let you die? Is that it? I should have let him torture and kill you when I could have done something about it? Do you think I'm that sick and heartless?"

She was shaking. "I'm human...! Why don't you get it? I'm human! You're supposed to be an angel, and now you're a human, too! Humans die!" He lurched away like she had hit him, but she continued before he could rebuke her. "Angels are supposed to be immortal. If they're careful, they'll be safe. You could have lived forever. You had a second chance... You had a second chance and you blew it on a human who's going to die anyway...! Hunters don't last long. I will die. If we don't get your grace back, it doesn't matter what we do. You'll die, too!"

Balthazar didn't answer or do anything really. He just stood there and looked back at her like she had actually struck him. She didn't know if the point had sunk in or if he even considered such a thing before agreeing to Michael's blackmail. In fact, his silence – the whole two seconds of it – was just making her angry again.

So, Catherine spoke up again, wanting-... begging for any sort of reaction out of him at all, but backed away a step first. "So," she took a breath and met his eyes, unable to stop fidgeting around, "was your human friend worth the next several billions of years?" A completely rhetorical question, but a part of her wondered if he would actually answer.

There was a response dancing across his tongue, but even he wasn't entirely sure what it was, so he bit down on his teeth harder and stayed silent while watching her... On the other hand, saying nothing was worse. He grimaced and took a breath to answer, when a familiar black Impala entered his vision as it came down the road. She looked back to it as he did, but he glanced back to her before she could realize it. She was tired. Incredibly saddened. He remembered the story of how her lover had died.

Balthazar cast his eyes downward and didn't say anything.

Familiar wings sounded beside them and Catherine jumped back in fright. The other didn't move. He knew who it was. Gabriel, remembering that the female hunter had yet to meet him, raised his arms in surrender for the second time that day, but she calmed once she realized Bal wasn't reacting. Speaking of-

The archangel looked over and then stared at the other man in shock, a pained expression taking his features. Finally, Balthazar looked up and met his eyes, but only reflected a seriousness of the situation and not the remorse that was expected of him.

By now, car doors to the black car slammed a good distance away from the Challenger, right before Dean and Sam hurriedly jogged closer. Gabriel had filled them in on the gist, but they didn't know if they were supposed to be expecting the other two walking around like ghosts or two dead bodies in the woods. "What happened?" Dean asked first. Michael and Lucifer weren't there, that was for sure, but something definitely went down. The boys glanced between the other two before looking at Gabriel, who was still watching his younger brother.

Catherine cleared her throat and spoke, glancing up to the angel a couple of times. "Abbadon opened the cage. They got away."

"What's wrong with your voice?" Sam asked her, immediately noting how weak and scratchy it sounded. She looked up to him dangerously, shifted, and looked down again. The Winchesters glanced back over to the angels, wanting a better explanation now.

But Gabriel and Balthazar still stared down each other as if they were having a conversation. Eventually, the archangel looked to Catherine, who kept her head bowed even as she knew he wanted her attention. When he looked back to his brother, Bal had turned his head to look away. Gabriel shifted his jaw and took a deep breath. "We should all get back to your little clubhouse," he said, addressing the boys, "It's safe there and we need to make a plan." Before they could agree or disagree to his orders, the archangel pointed between the pair looking shell shocked "And I definitely need to talk to you two."

After a second, Balthazar and Catherine looked up to each other. Both desperately wanted to say something, but neither really managed to get the words out. They just stared at each other until, finally, she broke the contact first and turned away, weaving between the Winchesters to go to her car. Bal watched after her for a moment until he turned and walked around the group, but didn't follow her. He headed to the Impala instead.

Sam and Dean watched them both walk away, but Gabriel just tilted his head, annoyed. "Or maybe just one at a time," he grumbled.

A tiny bit shorter than my usual, but the last chapter was exceptionally long, so I'm allowed. That's how it works. Anyway! Sorry again that this took a little while to drag up, but this chapter is packed to the brim with emotions. I think you're all going to like the ones to come.

Also, Gabriel is FINALLY going to be living up to his name being on the main character list. He's probably going to be the central figure of the next one or two chapters and then he'll probably have a few just for him. Don't quote me, yet. It's still being worked out. You'll see. I promise, you'll love it probably maybe. OKAY!

Thanks for reading, reviewing, following, etc. Really. Thanks a whole lot.