A/N: Thanks to all of you who have reviewed...you are my new favorite people!

"So wait, is Dean going to die?" The little girl asked and her father smiled slyly in her direction,

"I can't tell you Lucy, not yet." His eyes darkened as he gazed at the picture in front of him more intently before continuing.

"You did what?" Sam asked disbelieving,

"I may have touched it" he said and Sam gaped,

"May have?"

"Okay, I did but I didn't know" Sam groaned and covered his face with his hands,

"Okay, so you're going to die" Sam said scoping out his seriously disturbed brother,

"No shoes Sherlock"

"Dad...shoes?" The boy asked rolling his eyes and his father smirked,

"His words, not mine" he said continuing making a mental note that Dean probably said anything but shoes.

"Well, listen, all we need to do now is learn more about this sign….curse…whatever, and we can stop it before it stops you." Dean nodded, he wasn't really afraid, he had come close to dying more times then he could count and his family had always gotten him out of it. "Plus, according to the pattern, you have a week anyway." Dean grinned, one week to live, oh the possibilities. As if on cue John walked back into the tent a hesitant air about him as he spoke to the floor, not daring to raise his head,

"Alda wants to see you" he said to no one in particular, Sam and Dean exchanged skeptical glances and an awkward silence fell between the three. "Well go on then, Dean" John said again not looking up.

"Yes Sir" Dean said shaking his head and walking out of the surprisingly spacious accommodations. As soon as he was gone John lifted his head and Sam saw the reason why he was hiding his face. His eyes were rimmed with red and puffy, almost like he'd been….crying.

"Dad…what-" Sam was cut off as John raised his hand.

"Sam…I'm sorry" the youngest Winchester didn't know what to think, he never thought he'd hear his father say those words so long as both of them were alive.

"For what?" At this John let out a low sigh and eased himself down onto a small wooden chair that bore his weight quite well.

"For everything, for everything that's happened to you and everything that will happen to you….for your brother…" Sam knitted his brow in confusion and sat across from his father.

"What about Dean?" He asked, knowing the other two parts were self explanatory. At this John lowered his head into his hands and clenched his eyes shut to avoid shedding tears in front of his son.

"Alda is … gifted, she has an amazing sense of foresight and she showed me…." His voice faltered and he squeezed his eyes shut in anguish.

"What? What did she show you….Dad?" Sam was leaning foreword towards his father, who he hoped he would never have to see like this. He just lifted his heavy head and sighed,

"I'm so sorry Sammy."

Dean walked hesitantly into the large navy tent. He didn't want to see the brown eyes rimmed with makeup looking at him like it was his dying day. To his surprise when Alda did show herself she smiled and seemed happy to see him.

"Dean. I'm glad you've come, I have to show you something." Dean followed her to a round table with four smooth stones in a diamond on the almost glass-like surface. He sat down with a heavy dose of skepticism hanging over his head on a plush purple chair that was extremely comfortable. He looked over at the gypsy who was staring at the stones with a far away look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Dean" she said her voice still sounding oddly chipper, "I have lied to you…I know what the mark is, and I know why you have it….please, allow me to explain." She shifted in her seat and leaned over to him. He flinched slightly when she pressed her fingers to his temples, but before he knew it the room was spinning in front of his eyes. When it did come to a stop he was still sitting in the purple chair, and Alda was there as well. However, she looked much younger, possibly twenty years younger, and completely distraught.

"Please…" she said to another woman who seemed years older, but who was most likely the same age. She was shrouded in a white cloth-like dress and her black hair stuck out at all angles, and she seemed distant, almost ghostly. "Please, don't do this…it will ruin everything." The woman to whom Alda was speaking didn't seem fazed by her desperate pleas, and her eyes remained cold.

"He is dead, and now I have nothing…and it is your fault, the fault of this caravan…I will never rest until his death is avenged, until all have suffered like I have suffered." And with that the strange woman was gone. Alda sat down across from Dean and she seemed to look right through him, he cringed as shivers crept their way up his spine, but then the spinning was back and before he knew it he was facing modern day Alda again.

"What the hell was that?" He asked her and she grimaced.

"The woman was Mara, she was my best friend when we were children, and we grew up like sisters. She fell in love with a strange man, an outsider such as yourself and she wanted to marry him and bring him into the caravan. We didn't mind so much, we just wanted to initiate him…scare him a little before we would welcome him into our family. So…we sent him a nightmare…the most terrifying vision that I could muster as he slept. The next morning we found him dead in his bed…I had made a mistake, the images followed him after his waking eyes opened, and to end to horror he…" Her voice trailed off but Dean got the picture. "After that she came to my tent, that was the meeting you saw, and after she left I never saw her again. Shortly thereafter the killings started. It was obvious who was behind it, we tried to exercise her spirit from the place…we found where she had fled to, a nearby town where her love had lived. She had holed up with his family, but she had died a few years earlier."

"But she was so young, what did she die of?" Dean asked, puzzled.

"Love…love killed her" Alda could see that Dean was still confused so she explained further, "love is an intoxicating drink, for some it can be the elixir of life, sustaining them in bliss for as long as they have it. However, if love is shattered then that elixir can be a poison that can choke them with heartache." An image of his father flashed before Dean's eyes, but he shook it from his mind.

"So, where is she buried?" He asked and Alda smiled,

"I know what you are thinking, and it has already been done. We salted and burned her bones long ago, and the killings stopped."

"But they started up again, why?" Dean asked and Alda rubbed her forehead with her fingers,

"I do not know" Dean nodded motioning to stand up,

"Wait" Alda said not looking in his direction, "do you know how she kills them?" She

asked and Dean shook his head, "I do. And this will happen to you." Dean tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he listened, "not anyone can remove the mark of the broken heart from a dying man. Only someone who is about to lose as that man was to lose, only someone who is about to have his heart shattered himself." Dean shifted uncomfortably under the pointed gaze of the gypsy woman, feeling as if her eyes were drilling holes in his soul. "She will give you a choice…you may live but the thing that you love most in this world will die…" Dean began to open his mouth to protest but Alda interrupted him, "you will suffer as Mara suffered, or you will die quickly and leave those you love behind to suffer for you." A silence fell over them and Dean felt like he should speak, even though he knew that Alda probably knew what he was thinking anyway.

"I would never let Sam….my family…I…" To his surprise his voice failed him and Alda nodded knowingly. He cleared his throat and tried again, "is there any way to stop her?" He asked pleading with the cosmos to cut his family some slack.

"No."

Sam had turned white as a sheet and when Dean re-entered their tent he nearly tackled him trying to get answers.

"What did she show you, what's going on? Dean? What did she show Dad? Dean?" His inquiries were met with silence as Dean sat, dejected on the remaining chair across from his father.

"It's your turn Sam" he said, "she's asking for you now." Sam stormed out of the tent, wild with anxiety. "Dad…did she show you…" Dean didn't have to finish his sentence, John nodded and he sighed. "So there is no way?" He asked and John looked up at his eldest, a rare wave of affection overcoming his brown eyes.

"If there is a way, we'll find it together, son."

Alda met Sam with a serious look in her eyes, she didn't speak to him she just trusted that he would follow her back to her round table. He sat where his brother had once been and she took the moment of silence between them to realize how very different the boys were. While Dean had been reserved and almost pensive you could see a world of hurt in his eyes, Sam was antsy and fidgeting his hurt plain for the world to see, but there wasn't quite so much darkness in his eyes.

"I suppose you have some questions" she said and he opened his mouth, and closed it again like a caught fish gasping for air. Then, wholly unexpectedly tears came to his eyes.

"Is my brother going to die? Is that what you are showing everybody?" Alda didn't sugar coat it, she felt like that would be an insult to this bright young man's intelligence.

"Yes. He is going to die" she saw the tears in his eyes subside, replaced with raw defiance and she knew that he wouldn't let Dean go without a fight.

"But can you see every possible outcome? We can change what you see, can't we? We can make it so that he lives….we have to be able to do something." Alda smiled sadly at him,

"It is true that I cannot see everything" she said, figuring that it would be better to keep the hope alive in him. "But, I think, given the circumstances, Dean would chose to die." At this he became inflamed.

"What? Why would he choose to die? What could possibly be the other choice?" Alda met his gaze and sighed,

"Oh, Sam. I think you know."

"Wait, Dad…what would Dean die for? I don't get it." The man looked at his son, his own eyes coming dangerously close to being clouded over.

"His brother" the man said and the boy shook his head,

"That doesn't make sense, why would he die to protect his brother?" The man grinned at his little man but before he could explain his wife spoke up.

"Love…He would gladly give up something as temporary as life for something as infinite as love." She shot her husband a meaningful glance and he nodded.

"You might be a little too young to understand just yet" he said but his boy shook his head,

"No. I do." He said, and as he said it, the man could swear he saw his son's eyes flicker over to his younger sister for just a moment…but maybe he imagined it.

"Keep going, Daddy" Lucy spoke up at last, and he smiled down at his girl.

"Okay…where was I?"

Sam returned to the tent to find his brother and father in a cloud of silence, both having equally depressed faces.

"We can do something" Sam said his voice sounding raspy and strained. They looked up at him, seeming wholly unconvinced.

"Did Alda tell you something?" John asked and Sam shook his head,

"No, but she did say that it was possible, there's always hope." John muttered something that Dean could have sworn was,

"Hope's a dangerous thing, son." But he let it go, instead he said,

"Like what?" Sam turned to his brother and bit his bottom lip nervously,

"I don't know, but something, something has to work."

For the next three days Sam became a hermit, searching every book in their possession, calling every living contact they had that could possibly help but it all came to nothing. John and Dean had indulged him throughout his whole process but finally, at the end of the third day Dean saw that his brother was close to a breakdown.

"Sammy, chill out…give yourself a break." He tried but Sam just looked at him like he was a madman.

"How can I do that? I'm not going to stop until I can fix this….I…" He just shook his head and didn't finish turning back to a large leather-bound book he was reading from.

"Sam, this is not your fault….and it's not your responsibility" Dean said, still trying to take the pain away from his brother's eyes.

"Not my fault? Not my fault? Dean…if it weren't for me, you could choose to live, if you didn't…" he couldn't bring himself to say it, but Dean gathered what he meant: if you didn't love me. Dean shook his head and put a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder,

"Listen to me Sammy…I know I don't show it sometimes, but I would die for you because in my mind, it's the least I can do." Sam opened his mouth to speak but Dean cut him off, "let me finish, you have been my reason for living since I was four…you have kept me alive for twenty-eight years, Sam…so you can be the reason I die in an instant. I can't imagine dying in any better way. So…don't beat yourself up, Sam…my death is not for you….my life is." Completely and wholeheartedly uncomfortable with the amount of brotherly love in the room Dean cleared his throat and exited awkwardly. However, his little speech had the opposite effect on Sam then what was intended. He was even more determined to find some way to save his brother. Finally, with one day left, Sam believed he had found a loophole, an incantation that would make Dean completely devoid of emotion, so he would have no suffering and the ghost would have no purpose for hurting him. However, the idea seemed to scare Dean more then anything.

"Please, Dean. It would work, it would keep you alive." He said begging his brother to let him save his life,

"I don't know if I would want to live like that, Sam" Dean said doubtfully but his brother was persistent.

"Please, Dean….you wouldn't feel anything….literally. Please…" His eyes were so big and begging that Dean felt his resolve dwindle. He looked at his father for guidance, but John merely shrugged.

"Plus…after the spirit is destroyed, we can reverse it…I promise…please." Dean scratched the back of his head and he allowed one of his fears to escape his lips,

"But what if I don't want it to be reversed?" He asked and Sam smiled,

"Then I'll tie you down." Dean nodded biting his lip in contemplation,

"Alright, I'll do it…so long as you promise not to let me stay that way…like a shell." Dean shuddered but Sam didn't see it, he was so eager to save his brother's life.

"He was so eager to save his brother's life; he didn't realize that without any feeling at all….it's not really a life anyone wants to have saved." The man concluded with a thoughtful tone.

"But, if his love for his family is what is keeping him alive now…what will he live for when he has no love, no feelings at all?" The boy asked and his father nodded to him,

"That is exactly the point, son….nothing."