With All My Heart - P.01
This is the epilogue to Dear Dean.
Grant that I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or to be loved as to love, with all my heart.
Pairing: Dean Winchester x OFC (Jamie Blum)
Warnings: Flangst
WC: 2645
A/N: This is the first part to the epilogue. You might see some other parts because I can’t stop coming back to them whenever I’m inspired. As always, thank you @themoonandotherslikeit <3
May 2nd, 1946
Hi Sammy,
I’m writing to you on the first page of the new notebook Jamie gifted me.
She’d caught me scribbling notes on papers around the house-- habit I picked up while I was a prisoner in camp, I guess. I just feel like it’s the only way I can tell what’s really going on in my head. I’ve seen things, Sammy, and I’ve done things I’m not entirely proud of.
I remember there was a day when I woke up and my boots were gone. Apparently, if you don’t tie it to yourself at night, you will wake up without them. I’ve learned it the hard way. I spent a couple of days walking bare feet in the freezing cold. I almost lost a fucking toe, can you imagine? I can be thankful that I was an officer and didn’t have to work outside. I walked upon a dying soldier one day, his boots were still intact. I took it from him, Sammy. Of course I waited until he was gone. I still feel bad about it to this day, but those boots were the only thing that kept me from losing my feet. I tied them tightly around me ever since. I know you wouldn’t be proud of what I’ve done, but I just had to survive. I promised Jamie to come back and that promise was literally the only thing that kept me alive.
You remember the feeling of hunger we had while Dad was gone for a long period of time? Where we barely had enough to get by and we ate cereal with water because milk was just too expensive? Now, take that and make it 10x worse. The feeling of hunger in camp is always present. There was not a day, an hour, a minute where I wasn’t hungry. You adjust through time, but the road from being hungry to your stomach feeling numb, that’s the worst.
I don’t even know why I’m writing about camp because it’s basically the only thing I don’t want to be reminded of. Back to the notes, shall we?
There were a couple of notes around the house, that always started with Hi Sammy, but I’ve never gotten around to write more. I just couldn’t, Sam. I didn’t know what to write to you, since I know that you won’t ever get to read them anyway.
On my Birthday, Jamie had the wrapped up notebook in her hand and told me that she wants me to write down my thoughts. It should be some kind of therapy, she said. I know she’s right, but I just couldn’t start to write anything in it until today.
Hope’s sleeping on my arm, by the way, so I’m scribbling in here one armed, hope you can still read it. I know that you won’t, but let us just pretend that you will, alright?
I’m sitting in our study, that used to be Jamie’s old room. There’s a window by the desk, and I can see our garden from here. Jamie’s tending to some crops, leaving me to take care of little Hope. I still don’t know if I’m doing a good job with her, but Hope doesn’t complain, so I’ll take that as I’m doing alright. She’s almost a year now. Her Birthday is a couple of days away, and we invited people to come over. Trenton’s Mom is coming, and some neighbors with their kids. Jamie didn’t want that, though. She said Hope’s too little to know it anyway, but Jameson insisted. Maybe he thought that he could score it with one of the single moms, I don’t really know.
I live in her house now, and her brother Jameson (who’s apparently is a real charmer with the ladies) is living with us. He’s a war veteran, too. He had lost a leg, but he’s cheerful as fuck. I built him a new room downstairs next to the living room, at least now he doesn’t have to sleep on a couch. He helped me build it, too. The two of us were working well into the night every night for two weeks. I also took care of Hope during that time because Jamie attended nursing school in the evenings. During the day, I found work in a nearby Garage. The owner liked me enough to promote me, can you imagine? Me, looking over 20 people? Yeah, you’d have a field day making fun of me.
I went back to clear our old house, Sammy. I took your belongings with me. I hope it’s okay that I kept some things that were hard for me to part with. I gave some of it to Jess. I’ve contacted her after I settled with Jamie. I couldn’t do it before, there was just too much going on and my leg was still in a cast. I’m sorry. She’s doing good, Sammy. Did you know that she too was pregnant? I guess it happened on that last furlong back to the states, huh? I don’t know if she told you or if you held back this big news from me until you were ready to tell, and frankly now, it doesn’t really matter anymore. She had a little boy, he has the same eyes as you. There was no doubt that it’s yours, Sammy. Congratulations!
I felt so proud, but also sad that you’ll never get to see him, never get to see him grow up, and he’ll never know how wonderful you are. His name is Samuel Jr. by the way, but if it’s true that the dead are watching over us, you might have heard it from Jess already. She told me she prays to you every night. We keep in touch and we had them both here for Christmas. We talked about you most of the night (apart from Jim and Jack, Jamie’s brothers who didn’t make it back home). It’s good, Sammy. Don’t worry about us. I’ll promise to look out for Jess and little Sam. You have my word. That’s the least I can do.
Jamie is pregnant at the moment. We’re expecting twins in about a month and a half. I should have known that there were chances that we will end up with twins since Jamie herself is a twin and her mother and grandmothers both were twins. I’m scared, to be perfectly honest with you, Sam. Imagine me with two tiny babies. Yeah, that’s a really good joke, isn’t it? Except it isn’t a joke.. Jamie is freaking out, since her mother died in childbirth, she’s afraid that she’ll end up the same and has written a will and what not. I don’t really know how I can help her get over the fear, since my head is not really the right place for fucking rainbows. It doesn’t mean I don’t try, though. We talk a lot when we get a quiet moment in bed. Her head on my chest, painting figure eights on my skin. It’s good if the subject of the discussion wasn’t so dark.
The girl is fucking huge, by the way. That’s the reason we cleared out Jamie’s parents old room and bought a new, really big bed. There was no way we could have fit in the old bed they had, with Hope occasionally coming in to snuggle with us during the night. Next step would be to clear out Jim’s room. But we’re in no rush. It seems like Jamie needs time, and who am I if I don’t allow her the time she needs to grieve Seeing that I’m still writing to you, I’m not exactly the poster child for it, right?
Should have seen us when we went furniture shopping for a new bed, Sammy. Jamie waltzed through the store, and I carried Hope around. I think we were in there for hours, and Jamie still hadn’t found a mattress she liked. I let her, even if my arms were numb from carrying Hope, but she’s carrying two babies, so who was I to complain, right? The salesman though, he was so sick of us, I could tell. He pulled me aside, asking if I had no say in this. I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course I didn’t have to help Jamie put him into place. I just told him that maybe he should think about women as something else than a homemaker, then maybe we wouldn’t want another salesman about now. We found another sales clerk, the only woman working in there. Mom would have been so proud. It wasn’t an expensive bed, so the commission for selling ain’t that big, but we sure will have to go back there a couple more times and he can be sure that we won’t be asking for him. So, there’s that.
Actually, the salesman asked me if my wife could maybe make up her mind because he could have sold three beds (at least) during that time. I was a little taken aback when he said wife, not gonna lie. I asked Jamie to marry me, I really did. Jameson offered to babysit when there was a fair last autumn. I didn’t have a ring because I kinda spent all my money l on the new room for Jameson and nursing school for Jamie. Plus I gave Jess some, to help her get by with the little one. I gave her your ring which they handed me after they went through your belongings. I was surprised it was still intact. You shielded it pretty good from the blast, Sam. I gave it to her anyway, said that you wanted to propose and as a symbol, she could keep it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jess cry so hard. It’s good Sammy, I’m good with it. The ring was supposed to be hers.
Anyway, I asked Jameson if it was okay for me to ask Jamie, because I was being polite and that’s what they do, right? Asking the dad’s? But since there’s only Jameson, I went along with it. Jameson just bent over laughing, asking me what took me so fucking long and honestly, I didn’t know. It was good as it was at first, but then I thought about Jamie writing to me once that Jim sent her the silk fabric of his reserve parachute so she could walk down the aisle in white silk. Yeah, I thought about that, and I knew that I had to because I wanted to see that, too. There’s no question that I love her though, so.
We were at the fair, and I only had money for a toy ring. You know those from the gumball machines? It’s not romantic at all, I know, but I guess when you’ve been through war together, you can look past that. I got on one knee and she almost said yes. She was beginning to show already, and she said that even if she wanted to marry me, there’s no way the fabric Jim sent was enough to wrap around her so we kinda haven’t set the date yet, but it’ll be after the twins will be born. It kinda gave Jamie some hope and will to get through childbirth, I guess. I bought her gum later too, so there’s that.
Cas stayed in Germany, but not for long if you were wondering. He went back into combat and was leading a battalion in Japan. I wrote to him regularly, because if someone deserves to come back it’s Cas. I was rooting for him. He came back, which I still don’t know how he pulled it off because I heard that 8 out of 10 people weren’t gonna return.
Remember Harvelle? He went back to France and married Lisa. He told me to come visit, but you know me, flying is not really my favorite. I guess I just need time, maybe someday we will. I know Jamie wants to. She wants to visit Jim and Jack, and I really wanna visit you, Sam. I really do. I hope one day I will be able to.
The war is now over, Sammy. Had been for about 6 months. We won, even if we’ve lost so much along the way.
How naïve were we to think that we’d get out of there alive? Remember, they prepared us pretty well, didn’t they? We thought it would be a piece of cake. Go in there, kill some Krauts, come out unscattered, and go home with a fat paycheck for the ‘service’. The moment I saw people being shot at when we got off the landing craft, I knew that this is no fucking piece of cake, and they’d been lying to us all along. But what could I do? You just have to keep on going, keep on fighting for a chance to somehow get back home. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t really fair to lie to us about how big it really was. It wasn’t really fair to let us think that we’d get to go home as soon as we did our deeds. It also wasn’t really fair to think that the war would be over by Chrsitmas and not handing out clothes to shield us from the cold. Nothing was fair, was it?
Well, some of us did get back, but we’ve all lost something in the war. Some a limb or two, some their hearts, and some did lose parts of themselves. We’re not the same person we went in as. We came out broken and bend. We can’t even get it fixed because nothing could fix what we’ve lost.
There’s really nothing I could do other than carry on. I carry on for the ones who aren’t as lucky as me. The ones who won’t get to marry their loved ones, the ones who won’t get to see their children grow up, the ones who had their lives cut short, the ones who got their young adult lives stolen from them, most of all, Sammy, I carry on for you. I’m doing all the things you will never get to do, only because I know that you will come back and haunt me, maybe smack me over the head for being a jerk, if I don’t do it. I’ll do you proud, I promise. It’s the only thing I can do and think about. You were always the voice of reason, weren’t you? Even now if I have to think hard about doing something, there’s a voice in me asking “What would Sammy do? What would Sammy think? What would Sammy want me to do?”
I miss you so much, Sam, you have no idea. If it wasn’t for Jamie, I don’t know if I’d be here. It’s her voice that guides me out of the dark whenever I wake up and think I’m still in Normandy. It’s her embrace that pulls me out of the water around me that threatens to drown me, whenever I have weird thoughts. It’s her, who carries me up to the bed whenever I look too far into a bottle because I can’t shut off the noises of shells exploding around me. I don’t think I even deserve her, but she’s an anchor to me and Jameson. I’m only a little sad that you guys never got a chance to meet, Sammy. If you did, I’d probably be too jealous of the bond you would have. No offense, but I’m greedy, and I want her to myself. I’m just being honest.
Hope’s awake, as you can see from the saliva smeared on the ink. I need to go get something into her belly.
I can’t believe how much I drifted off when all I wanted to say is Happy Birthday, little brother! I love you.
Dean
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