Chapter 11

"You weren't wrong...you just took a risk...none of this is your fault."

Dean shifted in the bed and moved Sam's arms from his chest. His little brother must have been tired. Dean hadn't even woken when Sam had crawled into the large bed with him...and he really doubted that Sam had put his arm around him - nah he wasn't that sappy - was he - hugging him in his sleep? Nah. Must have just shifted in his sleep. Dean shook his head with a swallow. Sam wasn't going to leave his side apparently.

"I was wrong...you have no idea how wrong."

Dean clenched his eyes closed and stilled the flood of tears that threatened to take him as he wiped the rest from his face. He'd been crying in his sleep and the rest of the conversation was still filtering through his brain.

"I know you like to think that the world revolves around you and what you're capable of, but from everything you've said, It was a wrong place wrong time sort of thing."

Dean pulled the covers back and felt a shiver race down his spine from the fever still coursing through his body. As he looked down his bare chest he winced further at the gauze and tape...the stitches and staples peaking out of from under the white dressings...the weeping wounds. It was no wonder his body was groaning in agony as he moved stiff muscles and bruised limbs. His left arm felt awkward as it was heavy with the hard cast that went all the way around his hand to near his elbow leaving only his fingers and thumb exposed.

"Showering's going to be a bitch." Dean whispered with a scoff as he looked to Sam making sure he didn't wake him. Sam didn't even stir though.

"Come on I'm not that proud "

"No, no you're not proud at all...I'm just saying you can't possibly think that everything is your fault here Some guy you didn't even know started all this. You couldn't have stopped it...even though you tried. Dean, you did everything that you could...and it's alright to feel - and it's alright to mourn...and dammit you know you could let someone shoulder it with you every now and then...so quit being so thick headed and thinking that you can fix all of this yourself."

Dean got to his feet and hissed in a breath on the first step. God he hurt all over. The trip to the bathroom and back seemed to take an eternity of pain and by the time he was back in the main room, Sam had rolled over but was still sound asleep. Dean smirked - pain still lining his eyes in a near squint as he took in an untouched plate of food and some coffee sitting on the table with a note beside it.

Dean peered at the note and smiled as he shook his head again. "Bobby." he whispered.

Sam had told him that everyone was alright, eventually, after they had calmed down. Alturoc hadn't made another move yet. Dean was glad for that at least. He didn't think he could take any more abuse at the moment. Dean slipped into a T-shirt and some jeans - another long arduous process that left him near thinking of just going back to bed. Dean sighed as he took the cup of coffee and made his way out the door at a limp, hobbling slowly. He noticed that there were several rows of robed figures moving at a slow pace as if waiting in line headed down the corridors and wondered what was up. Dean scooted into line and began to follow the masses as he sipped on the coffee and held his broken arm protectively to his body.

Everyone was so quiet...reverent almost. They were moving with their hoods pulled over their heads - heads bent toward the floor - arms held in front of them and clasped together so that the longs sleeves hooked together and hid their arms altogether. "Where we goin'?" Dean whispered softly to the guy in front of him. The guy's head angled slightly to the right and back but he didn't reply...nor did he seem happy about the interruption to whatever it was that was going on here. "Ooook." Dean pursed his lips together and semi shrugged with a shake of his head to the right. He kept on following until they reached a large meeting chamber with what looked like stadium seating in a full circle around the room.

There were a tone of people already there, but everyone was eerily silent. Dean could tell the division in factions by looking. The guardians were at the back near the top looking like a bunch of misfit rejects from a biker bar trying to fit in at a school assembly. More towards the front in the best seat were the magus and the few healers sat in their own quiet group off to themselves.

"Huh." Dean unconsciously let the syllable leave his lips and then smiled awkwardly as the whole of the rooms attention turned to him. "Sorry - woops...getting quiet now." He whispered getting even more attention. He arched both eyebrows and listened to a small chuckle from high above. Dean looked to the Guardians - to where the chuckle had come from and smiled as his eyes settled on Nessa. She gave a small wave and put a finger over her mouth to tell him to be quiet. He nodded and made his way up into the stands with the rest of the magus.

He was about to sit down when one of them quickly gave him a light shove and pointed him to a row of chairs that were empty and solitary. Dean glared at the guy before he sank into the seat next to him anyway. "No offense - not moving any further then I have to." Dean whispered to him as he held up his broken arm. "Get over it." Dean was even more surprised at the glare he received from the guy. He supposed you didn't get the royal treatment if you weren't carrying a God.

Everyone's attention was drawn to a podium situated in the center of the circle as the last Magus entered the room and took a stand there. The guy looked vaguely familiar. He didn't get much of Dean's attention though as they led a man bound in shackles and sporting some nasty bruises.
The prisoner was only wearing some dingy white gown that resembled a burlap sack with a place for a head and the arms cut out - that only went to the knees.

"What the..." Dean started but got quiet instantly as he heard the rustle in the back of the group of guardians. 'Gabriel?' Dean thought to himself. God no...he forgot how divided the foci and the rebel factions were. But to arrest one of the rebels? Dean sighed in exasperation.

"This trial was called by the Foci general assembly to assess wether or not Gabriel is guilty of treason against the high command." The figure at the podium spoke up loudly.

"Oh this is bullshit." Dean shook his head as his whisper was lost in the shifting of the crowd. The rustling died down again and the figure looked over a list that he was about to read to the group. Gabriel stood silently with two figures on either side of him. Dean leaned back with a sigh and took another drink of his coffee.

"Gabriel, You are charged with three counts of treason. Including aiding in efforts to steal sacred manuscripts with Vanashi, performing magic without a license and in a way that compromised the integrity of the command organization, and finally accosting a guardian under this command." The man looked to Gabriel and took a breath before continuing. "How do you plead to these charges?"

"I'd take a rain check on that, but something tells me you want a yes or no." Gabriel spoke up with a glimmer of a growl just under his smile. He looked to the guardians lining the top and kept right on talking defiant of his predicament as a certain passion took him over. "I plead guilty, though you have no right to regulate the sacred duty of guardians and magus charged to uphold the rights of the innocent!" Gabriel called out getting an immediate response from the magus who started calling out for action.

One of the guards grabbed Gabriel roughly as the man behind the podium started trying to ring in a sentence now.

"Then under the authority of the Foci..." Gabriel cut the bastard off.

"The Foci has no right to judge me...none of you do! We're all responsible for our own actions and you cannot tell me that this is the way things were meant to be! All of you watch! This is injustice!"

"I sentence you to death by bleeding." the man continued on trying to out scream Gabriel.

"I die free then!" Gabriel screamed back. "And more will desert you son of a bitch. You know I was only protecting your own interests...this world...these innocents...this is bullshit!"

"Remove the prisoner!"

"He's right!" Dean suddenly screamed out garnering the rest of the groups attention. "This is bullshit!" Dean rose to his feet as the man of authority turned to look at him in shock.

"Insolence!" One of the magus cried out directly before the crowd broke out into an uproar.

"Hey! He's innocent...and you bastards need to start working together with the rebellion if you ever hope to defeat what's coming!" Dean screamed out at a complete loss for the stupidity of the group. This was just whole heartedly the dumbest thing he'd seen. What did it take a world wide disaster to get these people to make up and quit killing each other for rule infractions?

"Sympathizer!"

"Blasphemy!"

"Seize him!" The man behind the podium screamed out pointing to Dean. "You dare to speak against an official Justicar of the command...you will serve in the same sentence as Gabriel for treasonous acts against the command!...My blood is my bond! This trial is over! Clear the Court!"

Dean felt the men on both sides go to grab him and instantly started fighting. Even in his current condition he took down ten magus before they overpowered his already weakened body through sheer numbers. By then he had put up such a fight that he was barely holding to consciousness.

ooooooooooooo

Sam woke with a start and instantly felt the emptiness beside him. "Dean?!" Sam looked around the room frantically and found only his plate of food long sense cold and a note from Bobby. Sam tossed the covers back and got to his feet trying to shake the sleep from his body as he sluggishly pushed through the fog in his brain. He shoved his way out the door and made his way down the empty corridors toward the courtyard where Bobby and Ben seemed to spend the majority of their time.

They had been granted limited access to a few places and this was one of them. Sure enough Bobby and Ben sat at a table in the center of the lavish garden playing chess with a couple of beers between the two of them. "Bobby, have you seen Dean?" Sam called as he rushed the table in a panic.

Bobby and Ben both looked to him their smiles slowly fading. "He was asleep last I looked...Why? Did he wake?" Sam nodded.

"He woke up for about half an hour then passed back out. When I woke up he wasn't in the room." Sam couldn't shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. Maybe it was the dream...it hadn't made any sense and wasn't quite like a vision - but still. It had him more then unnerved. There had been so much blood...like a fountain of it...and so many people on the ground...dying. "Something's wrong." Sam could finally feel the vision wavering through his head and flinched.

"Sam, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." Ben had been saying until he notice the pallor of the boy and Sam gasped out grabbing a hold of the side of the concrete picnic table for support. Bobby was up with an arm around him in an instant - guiding him onto one of the benches.

"Sam, what is it? What do you see?" Bobby's voice faded in his ears as Sam watched a pale Dean laying sprawled out on a floor his wrists bound to some sort posts set into the circle that he occupied on the stone floor. Two deep gashes were set into his forearms - the cast removed - and his blood was running freely into small grooves in the floor completing some intricate pattern there.

Sam jerked out of the vision. "Dean, we have to find him...something's wrong."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dean slumped against the wall as the last manacle was clinked into place adhering him to the cold stone at his back tightly. It was so tight in fact that he had to straighten his slump almost instantly to keep the sag of his body from cutting off his airway. The position of his arms outspread bore the brunt of the weight of his body and every time he sank too low and stayed there very long his breathing became shallower. He was just having trouble keeping his bound feet under him and the pain that was wrought on his broken arm under the strain of his weight on it was beginning to threaten his ability to keep his eyes open. He was so winded that he scarcely managed to get out the well intentioned. "Bite me." that passed his lips at a pant.

Gabriel occupied a stretch of wall nearby in the same cell and now looked to Dean as the guards left. "So you have a death wish?" Gabriel asked disgusted that a human would be the only one to stand up for the rebellion...though he had a feeling that in his own way it wasn't the rebellion that this man was standing up for.

"Not really...it just looks that way." Dean replied quickly with his own pain laced smile. "I'm Dean by the way."

"Gabriel." Gabriel nodded. "Are you some peace loving freak or just nuts, human?" Gabriel sneered.

"Uh - I've been called both." Dean sighed as he pushed up on his feet again. "Though I prefer hunter. Overprotective brother...I've been called a few other things - but I don't think they would help me out much here." Dean smirked. " Oddly enough I know a little bit about you and this just seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You're an imbecile." Gabriel shook his head in disgust.

"Hey - I just stood up for you in there. You could be a little bit nicer about it...at least quit with the name calling." Dean replied, hurt that this man was so rude.

"Why did you really do it?" Gabriel dropped some of the pride from his voice tiredly.

"There's this guy - saved my life...wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try the same for him." Dean whispered out after a moment of thoughtful silence.

Gabriel cut his eyes at Dean in confusion. "You make no sense. I hope that this sacrifice makes you're friend happy."

"Probably wouldn't." Dean laughed out a small laugh then thought better of the action as it caused him a world of hurt. "But it's not about what he thinks...it's more like some sick moral obligation."

"So why me and not your friend." Gabriel still wasn't clear on the reasoning here.

"You are the friend...in some other life...makes no sense I know, but still. I respect you, man. Couldn't just sit there and watch them kill you." Dean met his eyes and watched as more confusion yet a measure of respect wavered through Gabriel's features.

"You're crazy." He laughed out finally turning away.

Dean chuckled to himself beginning to question the decision to stand up for the guardian himself. "You may be right...you may be right." Dean nodded slowly still laughing slightly disturbed that he may have completely screwed up this time. God he hoped Sam was alright...that Ambre wasn't in danger...that someone got him the hell out of this.