"You're not gonna let me wake up?" Dean clarified, masking his unease with a raised eyebrow.

Bobby shook his head, his eyes brimming with sorrowful compassion. "I'm sorry, son, but it's for your own good."

"You couldn't handle it if you woke up," John added, his voice oddly gentle.

Dean looked from one father figure to the other, trying to understand, trying to quell his rising apprehension. "You're saying I'm, what, in a coma?"

They nodded.

"And if I wake up I'll go crazy or something?"

"Or something," John agreed.

The hilt of the short sword was smooth and warm in his sweating palm. He gripped it more tightly, using it as an excuse to break eye contact with the mind-ghosts or whatever the hell they were and watch as the razor-sharp tip of the weapon gleamed subtly in the darkness.

"If we're in my head, you two are me, right?" he asked, watching the point of the sword swirl in a lazy figure eight, sending eddies of the cool air rippling through the navy-green grass. He heard Bobby affirm his suspicion somewhere to his right.

Dean smiled humourlessly at the gently waving grass. "If you're me then you know there's no way I'm leaving my brother alone out there."

"Even when you know that's what I want?"

Dean looked up. "Oh, come on!" he groaned. "What is this, some kind of family reunion?"

Sam had joined the small circle, standing opposite Dean between John and Bobby. He was far younger than the last time Dean had seen him. His hair hugged his head, hanging low over his eyes, and his cheeks were slightly rounded with a layer of baby fat. It took Dean another long moment to recognise the beige jacket Sam wore. It was the same outfit he had worn the day he'd been stabbed ten feet in front of Dean.

"Cold Oak?" he asked guardedly.

Sam nodded. Dean noticed that he, too, was armed. This time with Ruby's Kurd knife. Dean gestured to it.

"Then you shouldn't have that thing for another few years, don'tcha think? Continuity, man."

"Dean." Sam fixed him with eyes that looked uncomfortably similar to a begging puppy. "You gotta listen, buddy."

"We're here to help you."

Dean's jaw dropped as Ellen Harvelle stepped out of the shadows to stand by John, gripping a handgun in her right hand.

"You trusted us once." Jo took her place between Bobby and Sam, one thumb tucked into her jeans pocket, a rifle slung with a thick leather strap around her torso, and her father's knife held delicately in her palm. "Trust us now."

Dean took a step back, his eyes flicking madly from face to beloved face. He didn't understand what was happening here, but he could feel his walls crumbling into dust. These faces, these voices should be locked away deep inside him, not standing here looking as vivid and real and alive as they had in life.

"You need to come with us, Dean," added a new voice that sent an ache through Dean's heart. He turned around, hating how desperately he wanted to see her face standing behind him. She stood with black hair falling in soft curls over her shoulders, a baseball bat held casually in her hand.

Lisa Braeden looked every bit as beautiful as the day Dean had first seen her. Her dark eyes were watching him with that unbelievable look of love that had sustained him through one of his worst years.

"We'll take you some place safe."

Ben came to a halt beside his mother, holding a sawn-off Dean recognised as his own. He hadn't aged a day and his eyes shone with the admiration Dean always felt was undeserved when directed at him.

Dean couldn't speak. He couldn't think. He turned on the spot, dropping Bobby's sword as he drank in all the faces he had lived for, all watching him with such tender, sorrowful expressions. All his loves.

Well, nearly all.

Dean turned to his father. "Mom?" he mouthed, unable to catch enough air to form the words.

John shook his head sadly. "She wanted to be here, Dean. She did. But she couldn't bear it."

Dean turned to Sam. "Cas? Charlie?"

Sam's eyes were wet with tears. "They tried. Kevin too."

Dean felt a tear escape and run down his cheek as though wanting to reunite with his lost loves. He understood what his father had meant now. He had no defense against this. He was helpless before these people he had loved and failed and lost.

"What," he whispered, "what do you want me to do?"

Sam stepped forward. "We need you to die, Dean. We need you to give in."

"Give in," he breathed. "To what?"

"To that darkness that's always been inside you, kiddo," John answered, stepping closer and clapping a hand to Dean's shoulder. "That power that you've always been so afraid of."

"It'll be so much easier," Ben added, "to just let go and embrace it."

"You'll be at peace, Dean," Ellen said, the smile Dean had almost forgotten brightening her beautiful face.

"No more fear." Bobby's beard twitched into a small smile.

"No more seeing your friends die," Jo continued, her eyes twinkling above the big front teeth that were prominent in her grin.

"You'll finally be safe," Lisa promised, beaming at him with wet eyes.

The words fell like sweet-smelling petals on Dean's ears, the voices that carried them making them almost irresistible. Dean glanced from weapon to weapon. It could be so quick. One buck shot to the head and it would be over. He could finally rest.

He felt unease squirm inside him as tears skipped and fell from his eyes. These people, his family, had never before asked such a thing of him. Sam and Bobby had begged him to continue; John had sold his soul so that Dean might live; Ellen and Jo had given their lives so he and Sam might fight on.

Sam.

His brother's tearful face flashed across his eyes like lightning. His hand had held the trembling cheek. He had seen the terror in the familiar hazel eyes. He had felt the hands he had always relied on holding him up as his strength failed.

How could he leave him?

But then, Sam could have a life if he were gone, a proper, rich, happy life. He could be safe, raise a family. Who was he to deny his brother their greatest wish? Maybe Sam was right. Maybe it was better one of them broke the cycle of sacrifice. Or maybe one of them should end it with one last surrender.

Dean looked up to his little brother's tear-stained face, afraid to say yes, scared to say no.

"It's okay, Dean," Sam reassured him. "Just give in to it. You'll be happy. You'll be invincible. I promise."

Invincible? Dean's brows pulled together a twitch. Give in to it? Was that right? Did you really give in to death? And how would death make him invincible? Souls could still be destroyed; he'd seen it happen. They could be used and burned and tortured beyond recognition. Death himself had said that souls were vulnerable, impermanent.

Dean looked more closely into his brother's eyes. Sam would never ask him to die. He may allow it to happen, but he'd never beg Dean to 'let go'. And he had never, in all their years, told him to 'give in'. He had been Dean's rock, the one person for whom he would keep going, the one reason he would never give up.

Sam would never ask this of him.

"Who are you?" Dean asked, his voice low and resigned. "And don't tell me you're meant to be Sammy."

Sam's lips curled into a smile that would halt most men in their tracks.

"I'm you, Dean," he said confidently as his eyes blinked to black.