All Dean could remember was screaming, Micah's crying and then nothing but a buzzing sound in his ears and darkness.
They had made their way to what Dean now understood had been the last lock, at the clinic where Micah had been born.
After reuniting with Bobby who showed up a few hours after them, they had gone straight for the ritual where they had all needed to participate.
Dean had thought the worst had been over then, that they had actually managed to break all the locks and that everything that had followed them hadn't managed to catch up with them in time. Experience should have thought him that it was never that easy.
It wasn't a demon or a witch or an angel that had gotten to him in the end, it was the damn lock, the trial.
It had been too much, too many emotions that Dean had failed to deal with. The love he had for his soon was thankfully the strongest of them all, but mixed together with the physical pain, the emotional trauma, the fear and the guilt that had followed the birth of his son, it had been too much handle.
At first he thought that he had blacked out, as he could still hear Sam's voice echoing in his ears as he opened his eyes, but then he couldn't see Sam, or anyone else. Everything was dark.
He was surrounded by darkness and it felt consuming.
"Sam!" he shouted, but his voice only echoed on invisible walls. Was he dead?
No, he'd been dead before, this wasn't death.
"Micah!" He yelled then, but got no response. He started walking, even though there was no floor beneath him, there was just… nothing.
"Cas?" he tried, hoping that someone would hear him, wherever he was. Maybe it was a dream?
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, focusing on willing himself back to the life of the living. When he opened them again, he was in a nursery.
Sam's old nursery.
"What the hell?" He murmured, as he took a look around. He heard crying. Sam's crying? No, wait, Micah's?
He ran over to the crib where the sound was coming from, but when he reached for the baby, he realized that the crib was empty.
What was going on? He was really starting to freak out when he heard another familiar voice call out his name.
"Mom?" He whispered, and sure enough, his mother was standing in the doorway of the nursery, smiling at him.
"Yes." She said and then tipped her head to the side "and no."
"What's going on?"
"We're in your head, my darling." She said then and offered her son a comforting smile.
Dean wasn't sure if this was a trick or not, but it wasn't exactly hard to believe "Why?" he asked then.
"Don't you find it odd that you've never even asked why you are doing all of this?" She asked "You did inherit your father's curiosity you know."
"Shoot first, ask questions later." Dean reminded her, even though he should probably know that if they were in his head, he was only arguing with himself. "We're doing this to protect Micah."
"Yes, but how?"
Dean was about to answer when he realized he had no idea, he had just gone along with Cas this whole time, he thought he remembered asking about these locks, but he'd never gotten a straight answer and he'd never demanded one.
"You're the one who have to save him." She said then "All of you."
"What are you talking about?" This was getting really confusing, if they were in his head then why didn't he know the answer to these things?
"What did Castiel tell you these locks were?"
Everything that had made Micah what he is. Everything they had brought in his life.
"Sam, Bobby, Castiel, they all know their parts in Micah's life, they have come to terms with everything, but you, you who Micah has this special bond with, you have not." His mother kept explaining to him "You needed this, you needed to deal with all these emotions that you have crippled both yourself and your bond."
"That's not fair, I'd do anything for him."
"I know." She said, still as calm as ever "But now that you have, your bond is stronger than ever."
Dean was hit with realization then.
The trials, the locks, they were for him. They were so that he could remember everything he felt, and deal with it so his bond with Micah could be repaired, so that his son would know the goodness and light that Sam and Dean had tried to bring to his life with their love for each other and him, for everything they had sacrificed. The demons wouldn't be able to get to him as long as he was good.
"Dean?" He heard a voice say and quickly turned around to see Sam standing beside the crib, Micah in his arms. "It's time to wake up now."
