Midterms are over and finals are looming on the horizon. But, until then, I want to hand out at least one more chapter. I hope that this one isn't crazy long. Unless you like the crazy long stuff. Let me know if you do, otherwise, I'm going to try shortening down chapters. Maybe. I hope.

A big thanks again to all the new followers. :)

Balthazar followed behind Catherine while she led the way to wherever Gabriel had told her to meet. In all honesty, the whole deal threatened to put him in a foul mood, but he refused to let it. Things were... sort of trying to look up and he needed to stop thinking such senseless thoughts.

When they both arrived in the common room, Sam was to first to notice them. The hunter looked up from a book he was reading and furrowed his brow. "Is that my jacket?"

The angel just tilted his head with an annoying smirk. "Was, maybe."

Sam frowned, but Balthazar ignored him to glance around the room. They seemed to all be there, even Castiel, who hung to the back and stuck to Dean like glue. Bal shifted his jaw, but his attention was drawn back to the archangel who jumped on to the table.

"Hello, boys and girls!" Gabriel announced with a big grin, then waved and nodded to Catherine. "Er, girl." She just gave him a tight smile in return.

Kevin shifted his weight and pointed to the table. "I... don't think you should stand on that."

"I don't care. Okay!" Gabriel clapped his hands together. "I'll try to make this short and sweet. What do we know so far?"

Dean helpfully chimed in. "We're screwed."

"Other than that. Let's try to be a little optimistic here." The archangel looked around for another volunteer.

Sam sighed and spoke up. "Michael and Lucifer are free and they're wanting to start the Apocalypse all over again. We need to stop them. What else are you trying to fish for?"

"A way to stop them. Now," he looked around again, eyes landing on Balthazar. "What else do we know?"

The other angel rolled his eyes. "Luci said that both armies are in tatters, so they're collecting the graces of fallen angels to be as powerful as possible to kill each other and take the planet with them." He paused and then groaned, "Michael has mine, obviously, but we can't assume they both haven't gotten more since last night."

Gabriel pointed at his brother with a smile. "That's right. They can both zip around as much as they want, but Michael still has his wings, so he's faster. He also has a backing. There's still angels that want the show to go on, but there aren't many that want Hell to win. It's safe to say that Lucifer's trying to catch up right now."

"Okay," Catherine sighed and titled her head. "How does that help?"

Sam was the first one to shrug. "We do have the King of Hell locked in our basement. He probably has a better following since Abbadon's gone. He could probably help track Lucifer. Maybe."

"He can give us ideas, but not directions," Gabriel agreed, but looked around them again. "They want the graces of angels and they both want to be way more powerful than the other guy. So-"

"He wanted you." Balthazar cut in and the other angel stopped talking for him to go on. "Lucifer wanted your grace more than mine. An archangel's grace."

Gabe smiled broadly and almost wanted to applaud them. "That's right! That's right. That's the only way they're going to get more powerful. Normal angels are just chump change for them. They want the big guys."

"So..." Dean nearly smirked, but just tilted his head back and bit the inside of his cheek. "You... They want you."

Sam chuckled. "I guess we have bait, then."

"Hey, hey!" Gabriel's smile vanished into a frown. "No one's talking bait here. Seriously."

Catherine folded her arms while the others talked over themselves for a moment. "They know you were with me and Balthazar," she said, gaining the others' attention, "If either of them did any digging, they would know about the Winchesters and this place, too. If they don't know where you are now, they will soon."

"But they won't come for me. Not yet," he answered back.

She was about to ask him why he thought so, when Kevin chimed in for the first time. "Because we have you, and they know we won't let them take your grace without a fight."

Gabriel put on his big smile again and turned back to Sam. "It looks like someone here cares."

"It was an idea," the Winchester defended.

Catherine stared down to the table, lost in thought after Kevin's words until she spoke. "He mentioned another." The others turned to look at here and the archangel even hummed for an elaboration. At first, she only tried to think and didn't really speak until she turned slightly to Balthazar, eyes still looking back to the table in thought. "Michael. He mentioned another. Said that he wasn't far. That they could be useful."

Once she spoke, he immediately remembered what she was referring to and a flash of anger shot through his eyes. So, she remembered all of that. Terrific. But he ground his teeth and just looked up to Gabriel and took a deep breath. "Raphael."

Kevin looked confused, but Dean just let out a very loud groan from hearing the name. Gabriel nodded to them. "Raphael would willingly hand over his grace to Michael in a heartbeat, but he'd hide from Lucifer. They're both going to be looking for him, so... we gotta find him first."

"And do what?" Dean groaned again, not happy at all about Raphael walking around again. It made him remember that they were all back. Anna. Zachariah. Uriel. All of them. Not to mention that he didn't enjoy the other archangel the first few go arounds.

Gabriel's idea was simple enough, though. He shrugged, but the sigh he gave was heavy and the expression he presented was in no way a good mood. "Kill him."

There weren't many ways to kill an archangel, but the group had been through that more than enough. A silence passed over them for a second until Sam quietly spoke up again. "How do we find him?"

"With this." Gabriel stomped down on his platform. Inside of the table, a map of the world was lit up on a computer screen. "I know this place," he said, looking down to the map. "The old Men of Letters. They built their fancy computers to track high energies, just like the kind we give off. All we gotta do is reverse the programming and find his happy ass."

He hopped down from the table and Catherine rolled her shoulders. Kill an archangel. Right. Balthazar pushed his arm against hers to gain her attention. "We need to talk while they're fooling around with that thing," he told her quietly so that only they could hear.

She glanced over to him and back to Gabriel. The eldest angel had volunteered Sam to help him with the computer hardware and no one seemed to object. Her eyes roamed over to Castiel, who seemed to have been staring at them but glanced away when he was noticed. Finally, she looked back to him and nodded. "Yes, we do. Let's go back outside."

Catherine walked around him before he could fully believe that she actually agreed to talking... then realized she likely had something else in mind before following.

Sam showed Gabriel to the computer room that connected up the rest of the place. He did recall that, when the angels fell, Kevin said the whole place went crazy and the map lit up. If there was a way to track the angels, then that sounded great to him.

"Don't have a screwdriver with me," he said, looking at the back panel of the computer and dug in his pocket, "but I do have a pocket knife. You sure you know what to do with this thing to make it work?"

"Nope," Gabriel admitted, squatting down to help with the screws. "Can't hurt to try, though, right?"

After some working, the panel popped off and Sam moved it to the side. "In your case, it probably could," he mumbled and knelt down next to the angel.

Gabriel's eyes moved over the hardware. "It's not why I asked you in here, though," he sighed, before looking seriously over to Sam. "I think it's time we finally had a talk."

The Winchester, confused, looked to the door before looking back to the angel. "We are talking."

The other tilted his head and frowned disapprovingly. "Don't screw with me, kid. You're secret isn't safe with me."

Sam's brow furrowed for a second, until light suddenly shot through his eyes. His back straightened and his jaw clenched. "Gabriel," the other angel muttered.

The archangel shifted to face the one in Sam's body, but his looks betrayed no humor or kindness. "So, how'd you pull this one off?"

"I had to," he immediately defended himself. "Sam was dying and I was too weak to heal him normally. Dean helped me trick him into saying yes. He's still too weak to abandon now, even with Lucifer out there."

"How noble of you," Gabriel answered back sarcastically.

The other shifted. "I wanted to do the right thing. It's all I ever tried to do."

"Sam doesn't even know you're there-"

"He would reject me if he knew," he argued back. "It would kill him."

"It would give away your hiding place, is what it would do," Gabriel growled. "Dean doesn't know who you are, does he?" There was a silent pause. "What name did you give him?"

"Ezekiel." He looked away from the archangel. "I know that he died in the fall and he had a good name for himself. It was the first one I came up with."

"How convenient," Gabriel replied with no change in his voice.

Still, it brought the other to glare back up to him. "I did not kill him."

The two glared at one another until a voice met them from the doorway. "Kill who?"

Gabriel looked over the angel's shoulder as the other turned to meet the voice. Dean stood there, a little confused from the sudden tense atmosphere. The archangel spoke before anyone else could. "Ezekiel."

Dean's face, predictably, fell and grew pale. "What?"

The angel being spoken over looked to the ground and took heavy breaths, trying to not betray any emotion.

"I could sense Crowley in your crap dungeon," Gabriel said, now glaring to Dean. "You thought I couldn't see an angel hiding out inside of a Winchester?"

The eldest brother didn't move. Just stayed silent as his shoulders fell. He was trying to get an argument together in his mind about how Ezekiel needed to stay and Sam couldn't know about him, but the conversation he had walked in on caused too many questions for him to figure out a starting point.

Gabriel looked down to the angel who glanced to him and back over to the hunter. It was clear what he had to do. "I am not Ezekiel." Dean looked to him, still silent for the time being. "My name is Gadreel."

"Ga-" The hunter looked between the two of them. "Why did you lie about your name?" There weren't many reasons why someone hid their identity and he was about to go into a panic over the matter.

Gabriel managed to speak up first. "Because he has a crap rep and thought you wouldn't let him help if you knew."

Dean immediately asked the obvious question. "What kind of crap rep?"

Gadreel looked to the archangel in a silent plea, but Gabriel paid him no mind and just addressed the eldest Winchester. "It's over something that happened a long time ago, but I think he can still help."

Shocked, the angel didn't say anything. Dean, however, looked between them again. He was entrusting his brother's life to an angel that lied to him on a first name basis. He wished he could feel better about it with Gabriel's seal of approval, but he didn't trust his feathery ass either. There were too damn many angels here... The only one he did trust was-

"Let's keep this between ourselves," Gabriel said, already knowing what Dean was thinking. "Just for now... I'll watch him."

Gadreel frowned, noting that the archangel was finally looking at him again. Again, no humor or anything casual about his glare. This was a command coming from something more superior than himself. He didn't know if he had just been given a chance or put on death row.

Silence fell over them and the archangel waited for his threat to sink in before speaking again. "You can go."

Gadreel's jaw twitched and he took a deep breath before allowing Sam to take over once again. His frown was immediately back on his face. "What secret?"

"Please," Gabriel scoffed, going back to the computer. "Doesn't everyone got one. I'm just trying to bond here. Geez."

Raising an eyebrow, Sam began to rise, but stopped short when he noticed his brother standing in the doorway. Rather, it was the look on his brother's face that made him pause. "Dean?"

The eldest brother took in a deep breath and caught the angel's eyes before trying to compose himself. "Just wondered if you two needed some help, that's all."

The sun was finally starting to set on the already long day. Catherine knew she was hungry and tired but didn't feel either anymore. She also knew Balthazar was probably the same, but she wasn't sure that he even knew what things like that felt like. It didn't matter, though. They were both thankfully distracted with the simple task at hand.

"You need to be a little tense for the recoil," she chided, "Straighten your arms out a little."

He grumbled, but did as told anyway. That fine line between being too relaxed and too tense seemed a bit hard for him to find. One of those things about humanity, he supposed. Balthazar held her gun with both hands, aiming down the sights to the small target she pointed out for him.

She looked over his posture and grip. "How old are you again? I'm surprised you've never shot one of these."

"Never needed to," he grumbled again, but opted to continue on with their lesson rather than make small talk. "Is this position good for you, dear?"

Catherine hummed, giving him another sarcastic smile, before moving closer and looking over his arm with him and down the sights of the gun. He could feel the closeness of her body to his and her light breath grazing across his neck. It was the first time someone had gotten a little too close for him, but at the same time he didn't care for her to move away either. Definitely a strange sensation. Humans were weird.

However, she didn't seem to notice that he was distracted at all and just gave a little nod against his shoulder. "All right. Squeeze the trigger when you're ready."

Balthazar blinked and realized what was happening again. Right. Gun shooting or something of that extent. He readjusted himself and tried to push away the thoughts that had just decided to invade his mind. Just like she had told him, he released a breath and pulled the trigger. The recoil did shock him a bit, but he still hit the target in the center.

Catherine was pleasantly surprised and smiled while he lowered the gun. "You're sure you've never shot a handgun before?"

"I said I was new, not bad," he defended himself, looking down to the gun and turning the safety on like she had lectured a moment ago. "Still held worse."

"Yeah," she shrugged, stepping away from him to look closer at the shot target, "but you're more vulnerable now."

"Swords still hurt," he sighed, handing over the gun. She was a little surprised he didn't want to continue for the time being, but didn't say anything of it and took the gun back. "Speaking of," he continued, "You don't know hand to hand, do you?"

Cat holstered the gun with a raised eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"You're always throwing the bloody things like Mardi Gras beads set to detonate." She gave him a look, so he shrugged. "You do it beautifully, but still."

At least it got a smile out of her and she nodded in submission. "I don't know hand to hand when it comes to sword fighting, so I keep my distance."

"Good tactic," he said, looking to the ground and picking up a stick. "You may not have a choice one day, though."

The stick thing was new, but she played along and picked one up for herself. "I didn't know angels were vulnerable to flimsy pieces of wood."

"It's just stance," he grumbled, but with a smile. "It's all in the foot work. And wrist... You'll see."

Being taught sword fighting from Balthazar wasn't something she expected and – even though they were playing with sticks – she didn't expect him to be too gentle of a teacher. Not that she minded, so long as she learned something. Still, before they began, she lowered her mock sword and looked to him seriously again. "Was this what you wanted to talk with me about?"

"No," he answered honestly and raised his stick in the comfortable stance he was used to, "But I prefer this."

Sorry this took so long to put out. I'm hoping things will ease up soon.

Anyway! We're going to have more Castiel next chapter, finally. And things are slowly going to get more fluffy and romantic between Catherine and Balthazar as time goes on. Also, maybe in the next chapter or the one after, the plot is going to start moving along quickly again.

Let me know if you guys prefer the longer chapters since I've been updating so sparsely lately.

Review, follow, favorite, all of that good stuff. Thank you for all the feedback. Sincerely.