[ooc: ooooo super delayed post is super delayed, but, uh... here you go? <3!]
He almost said yes.
Not because he wanted to remember - not for himself, at least, because he had finally gotten to the point where he genuinely didn’t care what had happened in the past, he was all right moving forward where he was, missing year or not. He was okay with the things he knew, and the gaps were starting not to be much of an issue anymore. But... she seemed to be distressed, seemed like she really wanted him to remember, and he almost agreed, for her sake. It would help her, wouldn’t it? Having someone remember her as she was, that would help...
But he didn’t want there to be any unpleasant surprises, anything someone hadn’t told him - irrelevant or not - that he would get upset about. Because he would - he knew himself well enough by now to know that sometimes, yeah, he got irrational about stupid shit that really didn’t matter, little secrets that don’t mean anything now, have no effect on him whatsoever, but if he found out he would be furious. He didn’t want there to be anything that would make things bad, for him or for Sam or Jules or Mom, or anyone else, either.
“I can’t,” he responded, head tipping to one side slightly, offering an apologetic, sympathetic frown, “I’m sorry, Anna, I am. For... all of this. You and Cas falling, that’s on me.” It was, too - if he had just... held on, not broken, none of this would have happened. If he had figured out how to stop Lucifer sooner, none of this would be happening now. He shifted - uncomfortable with sitting on the ground looking up at her, uncomfortable here in this conversation in his dream, uncomfortable with the blood all over and the way the red of her hair made him remember a blond woman he’d gotten on the rack, torn her to pieces until she was so drenched in her own blood her hair was that same shade.
“We are friends, though, I mean,” he added, after he pushed the memory away (pushed it down deep, so it wouldn’t pop back up strong enough to turn into a dream-fragment right here in front of the angel), “I don’t need a random year’s memories back to know that. You saved my life, and all that...” He tried not to remember that - the Killiks, the poison, how sure he was that dying would make everything okay for everyone else; it was hard not to remember, hard not to think about it.
“I mean, if there’s anything else I can do, I owe you, for that - just, it can’t be this.”