Disclaimer: I don't own any of Supernatural
She tells him to make it later, because she'll be damned if her last act of willful defiance against the world doesn't keep them all safe for at least a little longer. Jo knows it's time for her to die, she knows she won't make another hour, but she would do anything if it meant Dean Winchester could keep fighting. So if taking herself out with those goddamned mutts is what it takes, she will clutch that trigger with every drop of strength left.
His eyes meet hers, and he looks at her with all the guilt and sorrow and helplessness he can manage. It should be me. It shouldn't be like this. Run, we should have run, run so fast so far until you're whole and sparkling and someone else is laying here in a puddle of broken legs and fading eyes oh god why isn't it me.
It's okay. I'm okay. She's dying, bleeding out and fading before his eyes but they both know that. This is what we do. Let me do this. I can do this. I have to do this.
His eyes, god those eyes she mooned over for months, melt from icy flint to the soft gleam of spring grasses birthdayspringbirthdaysnomoretoofewitshouldbehim meeting hers. I could love you. We could love each other. Two flickering beacons in a sea of darkness, I could be yours. I should have been.
You are. And I am. We will be. Her eyes smile at him, no fear leaking through.
He presses his lips to her forehead. Nothernothernothernotlikethis. It's a benediction, a blessing, a farewell to a warrior on her last battle. Her last rights, a requiem rolled up in gratitude and severity. Her hold breaks, her lips crumble and the tiny weeping girl in the corner of her mind wails that this is it, she is done and he will leave and maybe there isn't anything but darkness after this.
She can't stop the twitch of her lips when he pulls back, he's fighting so hard to let her go and every drop of terror and despair she lets through is an ocean over him. She tries, tries with everything she has JoannaBethyouwillnotcry but it will never be enough to keep him out.
He presses his lips to hers and it's a promise. Her life is a scatter of random points and Dean Winchester's lips on hers is the marker of what could have been, the slamming door on what never happened. She will die and he will fight. If she's lucky, heaven will let her see him, but if she isn't she'll wait until he comes home. This is not a love story, there is no happy ending, but it's her ending and she will play her role. She's Joanna Beth Harvelle and hellhounds be damned if they think they can take her down unscathed.