Thanks for the reviews! Things are heating up for the ending and I'm getting really excited. Here we go, everyone!

Castiel scribbled on the walls, the marker squeaking against the metal. He drew the warding sigils over their dungeon as if he had done it every day for his entire life, hardly even thinking on it. Of course, his mind was elsewhere with everything going on, but Sam's voice from across the room made him come out of his own world and quietly listen in.

"I'm worried," the younger Winchester said, writing his tenth warding sigil on what was decided to be his wall to cover. "I mean, I'm sure Gabe has a plan and all, but it still seems a bit risky. The devil isn't exactly a low key kind of guy. Or merciful, for that matter."

Dean finished another one of his against the back of the room and scrunched up his nose at it. He blinked and turned to face his brother. "Did you just call him Gabe?"

"Dude," Sam groaned and turned to face him, "I'm trying to be serious here."

The elder shrugged and shifted in place. "I don't know, man. I mean... what else are we going to do? We're kind of stuck against the rock right now. We gotta do something."

"I know we need to do something. That's not what I'm saying." Sam ran a hand through his hair and stepped forward. "I'm saying that I don't know what that something is and I'm scared I'm not the only one. After all of this, sure, I trust Gabriel... enough, but what if whatever he's planning falls through? Where's our Plan B at?"

Dean blinked up at his brother again. "Since when have we had a Plan B for anything?"

Sam's hands flew back to his hair. "Again. Not what I'm saying."

"All right, all right." The eldest Winchester raised his hands, trying to calm the other. "Look, Gabriel isn't stupid and, by all rights, we have all the cards in our hands. Lucifer's got a big fight coming for him and I'm sure the old Trickster has several plans. I mean, who knows him better than his little brother, yeah?" Dean turned and pointed his thumb to Cas. "Other than Tweedledee and Tweedledum that is... Where is Tweedledum, anyway?"

Castiel didn't look away from his work, but he did furrow his brow. "I don't know any such person by the name of Tweedledum, Dean."

Sam decided to elaborate as his brother was shaking his head and rubbing his eyes again. "He means Balthazar, Cas."

The angel glanced over to him, then back to his work. "He went to get Catherine," he answered, then looked over to them again. "You knew that... Dean, are you losing your memory?"

"I- I know where he went, Cas," Dean sighed, "But it's been like ten minutes, at least. We're almost done. Mr. Born Again won't be able to come in here if he keeps waiting around."

Castiel gave Dean a sarcastic look before hearing footsteps outside of the dungeon. "I'm not waiting around," Balthazar grumbled, carrying the still unconscious Catherine and her old bag over his shoulder, "I was getting things together."

They watched him walk in, likely feeling the effects that their sigils already had, but still gently put his charge down on the mattress one of them had drug in there for her. Sam was the first to question, "Why were you getting things together?"

"If she wakes up before this is over," Bal sighed, pulling the bag off of his arm and placing it on her other side, "do you honestly think she's just going to stay put? I'd rather her be armed and stupid than unarmed and stupid." He looked down to her, wishing they could have another moment alone, then looked up to the walls. "It's going to be more than just that, right?"

"The whole thing's gonna be covered, Romeo," Dean said, waving his arm around the room, "There's even gonna be some up and down the halls. It'll take way too long for Lucifer to even think about getting in here."

Castiel nodded. "She'll be safe. He won't get in. He'll be too preoccupied with us than to try using her for leverage."

Bal nodded, too, and let out a somewhat relieved breath. The worry wouldn't go away until everything was over and he knew it, but Sam brought him back from his thoughts again. "Has Gabriel told you anything?"

This time, Balthazar shook his head and stood. "I haven't seen him." The others went quiet and he took the time to glance down to Catherine again. "I'll-..." He shifted, not wanting to leave but knowing they couldn't continue with him there. "I'll leave you to it, then." Bal turned and began to walk out of the room.

Sam and Dean sighed, sparring a glance to Catherine before getting back to their work, but Cas stood still and watched Balthazar until he was gone. He wanted to follow, but... he was more useful to him here. Cas turned back to the wall and began on the sigils again.

Balthazar walked around the base for some time trying to relieve his anxiety, but instead he just felt the sigils becoming stronger and stronger, slowly becoming a force physically pushing against him and he hated it. He hated feeling her soul behind that barrier, knowing full well that he couldn't get to her if he tried... Well, he probably could if he tried hard enough. He would really like to believe that.

He took a deep breath. Cat was safe. He knew where she was, he knew that she was alive, and he knew that she was safe. That should be enough, but after everything that had happened it just wasn't. Maybe he just hadn't been able to resolve all of this yet. She was alive and yet he still missed her. It still felt like she was gone in an extremely frustrating way.

Eventually, Balthazar decided to change his game plan and look for Gabriel instead. Keeping himself busy would help... maybe. It didn't take long to find the archangel, though. Really, he was in the first place that Bal looked and that was outside. Gabe stood a few feet from the bunker, watching the sky. The sun was finally starting to set on the very long day, making Balthazar think back on what all had happened in those hours... He idly remembered that he had left her car behind... And yet he still wished that she was awake to fuss at him.

Balthazar walked out of the building and towards his brother, not bothering to speak up yet. The other obviously knew he was there. Even while standing beside him, Gabriel didn't react to his presence in the least, so Bal continued to stand there in contemplative silence for several minutes until he couldn't stand the need for a distraction any longer.

"Please tell me you have a plan," he eventually muttered, just loud enough for his brother to hear.

Gabriel still didn't move or blink, but he at least answered at a normal volume. "Sort of," he said, "The best prize is a surprise, you know."

Silence prevailed for another moment, until Bal groaned and bowed his head. "That joke has absolutely no context, but sure. Yeah. Good prizes."

Gabriel finally looked over as Balthazar shifted in place. "Really," he said, trying to sound a bit more hopeful, "Lucifer doesn't know about our secret weapon. We'll be just fine."

"And what is our secret weapon?" Bal chuckled humorlessly, "You?"

Gabe frowned. "I'm awesome."

"We're screwed," the other said, rubbing his face. "We're screwed and you've only just decided to tell me."

"We're not screwed," he said, then turned and clapped his brother on the back. "Why don't you and Cas have a heart to heart or something? They're about done in there."

With that, Gabriel started walking back to the entrance of the building, confusing Balthazar and worrying him more at the same time. Was the archangel trying to avoid the subject? Were things that bad?

Time passed and he had been sitting outside, watching the sunset through the trees, when he heard the door open and close again right before a pair of feet stood beside him.

"Gabriel told me to come out here," Castiel said, "but what he suggested sounds extremely painful."

That almost made Balthazar smile. "Heart to heart is a figure of speech, Cassie."

"... Oh." After a pause, his brother sat down beside him and squinted at the trees. "What does it mean, then?"

"It means-..." Balthazar sighed and decided to change his answer to something more accurate of the situation, as their older brother had obviously sent them both away for one reason or another. "It means we're screwed, Cas," he finally answered. "It means we're screwed."

The other blinked at the trees and stayed quiet for a long time before replying with another, "Oh."

Sam was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, suddenly afraid and flicking his eyes between his brother and the archangel. There was some sort of argument going on, but he couldn't get a word in edgewise to figure out what it was over for the life of him. All he knew was that he didn't know and that was the basis of the fighting.

Gabriel wasn't angry yet, but he was quickly going down that road and felt like it would just be easier to smack Dean and get this over with... but it wouldn't work out well like that. "We have to tell him," he stressed again.

But Dean shook his head violently, threw his arms up in the air, and paced around the room. "No!" he said, pretending that would be the end of their discussion. "No!"

"If you don't," Gabe continued, staying by Sam's side, "I will."

"I said, no!" Dean nearly screamed. "Do you know what that would- Can we talk about this somewhere else?"

"No," the angel said with a real finality that was completely unlike the human's tantrum.

The Winchester paced around again, the younger one watching very worriedly. "I don't care," Dean finally said. "I don't care what happens. I don't care about you. I don't care. That's a bad plan and we aren't telling him jack! Got it?"

Gabriel watched and waited until Dean stopped fidgeting around before speaking up again. "Billions will die," he said slowly and carefully, "I need him."

"Need him?" Dean screeched in anger. "You're the one who told me he had a crap rep and left it at that! You're the one who convinced me to not tell Cas or Balthazar! Why in the hell should I trust any of this crap when it sounds so damn fishy from the start?"

"Seriously?" Gabriel tilted his head. "You're the one who let him in in the first place, moron."

"He was dying!" the elder Winchester screamed again, "He was dying. I was desperate. He gave me a name that Cas trusted! I even tried the background check, man! What the hell do you want from me now?"

The angel stood his ground again. "I want you to admit what you did and tell him the truth."

"It would kill him!"

"He's been healed, Dean!" Gabriel finally raised his voice, causing the other to back off a step or two. "You think I haven't been checking up on this? Sam's been healed for weeks."

"Um." The younger Winchester leaned forward in his chair. "I'm sorry. Sam's been what now?"

Dean waved his hand at his brother. "It's not important."

Gabriel growled in return. "It is important!" he said, gaining attention again. "I need him in this fight, Dean. Now, he can take complete control any time he likes, but I won't like that and you definitely won't like that, so we need to calm down and tell him what happened."

"Oh," Dean nodded, "and once we explain everything, we can magically trust him? He gave me a fake freaking name. I can already tell you that he's going to screw us! What we should be doing is forcing you to kick his feathery ass out of there!"

"We can trust him," Gabe spoke calmly. "He's made mistakes, but that was because he was always trying to do the right thing. Are you going to tell me you're not guilty of the same, Dean?"

The Winchester groaned. "So instead of stabbing me in the face, he's going to accidentally stab me in the face?"

Sam shook his head, trying to raise his hands between the two of them. "Who the hell are you talking about?"

"No one!" Dean yelled again.

Then Gabriel sighed and looked down to Sam. "We're talking about Gadreel." The elder brother stepped forward angrily, but Gabe raised his hand. "He needs to know, Dean," he said as calmly as he could, "Whether he ends up helping or not, Sam needs to know what happened and what's going on."

There was a beat of silence that Sammy quickly interrupted. "What is going on?"

"All right, fine! Look," Dean knelt down on one knee in front of his brother and began trying very hard to find the words. "Sam... I'm sorry. First and foremost, I'm... very sorry... But I had to. I had no choice. The trials-... They messed you up real bad. Like really really bad... I had no other choice."

He stopped from his brother's very confused look. Sam glanced between the both of them. "What are you talking about?" he asked, his eyes going back to Dean, "The trials didn't mess me up. I'm fine."

"No, you-" The elder brother took a deep breath and Gabriel subtly stepped back. "You weren't fine. You were dying, Sammy." The other looked between them again, but Dean continued. "You don't remember. I got an angel to help you. He said he was Ezekiel and Cas told me that guy was cool so I let him do what he had to do, but he lied."

Sam furrowed his brow, still failing to follow. "What?"

"The angel lied to me," Dean said, looking away. "He's not Ezekiel. He's this other dick. Gadreel. Gabriel figured it out when he found him."

"Found him?" Sam looked up to the angel, then back to his brother. "What? He's- He's here?"

Dean rubbed at his face. "He, uh." The Winchester groaned and tried to look his brother in the eyes. "He was weak from the fall. He was hurt and he couldn't heal you the normal way, so he-... He possessed you... and let you take the wheel."

The younger brother blinked and shook his head. "That's impossible. I would have to say yes to him."

"You did." Dean took a deep breath. "I tricked you into it..."

Finally, Sam was speechless and glanced quickly between the two of them. Neither said anything and he didn't know what to do. His mouth opened and closed like a fish before words finally started to come out. "You-... You let an angel possess me? You let an angel into me?"

"You were dying!" Dean argued. "It was either that or lose you. I couldn't tell you about it. He said if you knew and kicked him out, then you would die. He was all that was holding you together."

The other just kept shaking his head, unbelieving and repeating himself. "You let an angel possess me?"

"I had to!," he said again, "Besides, Cas told me he could be trusted! I didn't know about all this baggage crap."

Sam leaned forward. "Cas knew?"

"No. No no." Dean shifted in place, trying to steady himself. "Cas knew that Ezekiel was gonna heal you, that's it. Only me and Gabriel know."

The younger blinked and looked up to the angel. "You found him," he said, not saying that as a question before looking at the space between them. "He was still in me when Gabriel got here?" There was no answer to the rhetorical question and Sam quickly began to look around the room before landing his eyes on his brother again. "Where is he now?"

Dean didn't say anything. He squeezed his hand into a fist over and over, pursing his lips worriedly, but didn't speak. It was Gabriel that finally said something, turning completely to face the younger brother. "He's still here, Sam," he said levelly. "He's still in you." Sam didn't move or say anything, seeming to be momentarily shocked and Gabriel took the second to continue. "Lucifer doesn't know about any of this and Gadreel still has his grace. Maybe not his wings, but... he can still help in this fight. He can turn the whole freaking tide, but you need to let him take full control for a little while and not fight him on it."

Sam blinked up at Gabe and slowly looked down to the floor. Dean, on the other hand, turned his head to the angel. "He can't have him," he said sternly. "This Gadreel dick can't have him. Don't start with that."

"Sam can throw him out after," the angel answered back, "He's already agreed to it. We've... talked."

"Talked?" The younger Winchester's voice was low and he imagined having no control of his body while the angel inside of him and the archangel he had been trusting had a casual conversation. "Why did he lie?" he said, swallowing a lump in his throat and looking up to Gabriel. "Where did he get his crap rep? Why did he lie?"

Gabriel fidgeted, playing with one of his hands. "It was something that happened a long time ago," he said, but neither Winchester looked away or allowed it to slide. The angel sighed. "He was tricked, too," he answered after a beat of silence. "He-... He was in charge of guarding Eden... You know, Paradise. The Garden and all that." Both of them furrowed their brows, but he continued on. "Anyway... He was the one who, uh... let Lucifer into the Garden. Castiel and Balthazar wouldn't recognize him. He's been in Heaven's dungeons since then, but they know his name. They know the story."

"You-..." It was Dean who was gaping now and he quickly stood up to face the angel head on. "You want the devil's sidekick on your team, in my brother, with the hope that he'd fight against Lucifer?... Are you freaking insane?"

"Okay," Gabriel agreed, "It doesn't sound good at all, but the guy had good intentions all around. He knows that Luci used him now. He knows what that brought him. Let him help. Let him do something right and fix this."

Dean shook his head, not wanting to hear this. "How can we trust him, Gabriel? Tell me that!"

"Sam needs to trust him," he answered back, looking down to the other Winchester, "and because we don't have any other choice right now... Me and Balthazar might not be enough if he's really angry."

The elder rubbed at his face again and turned away. Sam just blinked and looked up to the archangel and to his brother. There wasn't a lot of choices and there definitely wasn't a lot of time. He can be angry later. "Gabriel." He tried to think this over properly again, but just closed his eyes. "When it's done, can you promise that he won't stay in me? Even if he takes control?"

Dean stopped moving and looked back to Sam, a little stunned, but Gabriel nodded. "He won't. You have my word."

The younger Winchester looked up at him and eventually nodded. "Then make sure you don't lose."

His brother turned his back on them, bowing his head to the ground. The angel raised his chin. "We won't lose."

Balthazar stood as the world quickly went quiet. Nothing moved and everything stilled. Castiel, even without his grace, felt the immediate difference and stood up with his brother. "Is he actually coming here?"

Night had only just started to set in, ensuring that the humans on their side would be more or less blinded in the dark. "He thinks Gabriel's dead," Bal answered, watching through the trees for a sign of anything. "He thinks it's only the four of us."

"He's just coming here to finish it..." Cas stalled and turned to his brother. "He's coming to finish you."

Bal shrugged. "Catherine mentioned before that she would love to tie me to a stick and dangle me out in front of her on hunts. I guess you lot get to test drive that idea for her."

Castiel smiled then scrunched up his nose. "We need a really big stick..."

Balthazar looked over to his brother just as the door opened and the trio came out to join them. Dean and Sam looked quite tense, but Gabriel looked to the angels. "I got a plan," he said, walking over to them, "but you gotta trust me."

Cas nodded. "Of course." Bal just shrugged and said nothing.

Still, Gabriel took that as a good enough sign and looked between them. "You're staying with Team Human, Cas. Listen to whatever Dean says for now. Me and Balthazar are going ahead."

"Going ahead?" Bal asked, "Both of us? I thought secret weapons were supposed to kept secret."

Gabriel tilted his head. "I said I'm awesome. Not that you were right." Balthazar and Castiel both looked confused, but the older brother looked off into the distance and over to the Winchesters. "We need to hurry."

Dean nodded and began to walk with Sam by his side, Cas reluctantly following behind. Gabriel glanced over to Balthazar and they both vanished in a small gust of wind.

Several minutes passed as the group followed after Lucifer's trail and the silence over the area became more and more haunting. From the opposite direction the boys were heading, black smoke started to crawl over the walls of the bunker and four angels with bloody anti-detection sigils etched into their skin walked around the side of the building.

The different smoke lines circled the structure, faster and faster, until frustration made them rotate in place at not being able to find a way in through the wards. But Gabriel and Balthazar had been allowed in. One of the angels pressed against the door, still warm from a human's touch, but discovered it to be locked. Another rammed into it and slammed the thick, heavy door to the ground.

The smoke quickly billowed in first, the angels walking much more cautiously behind them. The black smoke flew through the hallways, finally finding the angel wards and slamming into each one, cracking the walls and erasing the ink. The angels began to move swiftly, staying close to the smoke as all of the sigils broke apart around them, finally coming to the storage room. The smoke rammed the door in and went around the room in a flurry, scattering trinkets and papers everywhere to get all of the sigils destroyed, but there was a confusion. What they were looking for wasn't there.

One of the angels stalked forward to the far wall, placing her hand against the cabinets. "There's more wards," she muttered to the others. "Behind this wall. There's more."

The smoke circled in place, finding they were unable to get into this room and the angel growled in frustration.

Another one stepped forward, a man, and he placed his hand over the cabinet as well. "She's back there," he said to the others, "I can sense her faintly... The walls must be made of this flimsy material. We'll just break it apart and collapse it all."

A younger man frowned. "Lucifer said to keep the heretic alive," he argued, "He can't have Balthazar without her."

It was the first woman who turned to him angrily. "You're on Lucifer's side?" The young one didn't stay anything and the last girl remained quiet beside him. The woman stepped back from the wall, along with the other male. "We've come here to destroy the heretic. Not win Lucifer's war. We'll crush her with or without your help."

The smoke began to circle erratically before it quickly left the room, likely to tell their master. The man looked at the other angels. "Hurry!" he ordered and began to put pressure along the walls and the next room. The others joined in, but their work was slow with the sigils in place.

Eventually, the metal of the small dungeon began to creak deeply and bend slightly against the warping. The light burst into sparks and the walls groaned as if they wanted to buckle. The sliding door to the dungeon shook, rattling loudly, but most of the sigils still held in place.

With a slight twitch and a jolt, Catherine's eyes opened to the darkness, the echoing roar of thunder surrounding her.

Finally! A long chapter! Oh and Cat's finally awake, too.

This is it, guys. This is really it. I hope you're as excited as I am.

Review, follow, etc. :)