Bessie and Joey are singing, terribly off tune, while they are organizing the boxes Pacey is passing them. They are renovating their house to make into a b&b and they have decided to clean out the attic in preparation for the addition they are adding on. They have been at it for about two hours, boxes of holiday decorations stacked in the living room to be stored in the shed, then Pacey stops laughing suddenly and Joey leans against the pull down stairs. The attic is more of a crawl space, only tall enough for a box or two high.
"I found something." Pacey sounds unsure suddenly, then he is coming down the stairs, dust and cobwebs stuck to his shirt and in his hair. Joey is about to make a joke when she sees the look on his face. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs he puts the three shoe boxes he was holding down on the table.
Joey watches, unsure if she wants to know, afraid of the look on his face. Bessie turns from the box she was taping and hurries over when Pacey speaks again. "It's your mom's handwriting."
"Most of these boxes have her handwriting on them." Joey tells him, crossing her arms. Pacey opens the top box, pulling a couple envelopes from the top, looking at who they are addressed to, handing one to Bessie who takes it with a shaking hand before she slides into one of the chairs.
"They look like letters, a box for each of you." Pacey explains, holding one of the envelopes out to her. Joey takes the few steps closer to him, tucking the letter to her chest when she has it in her hand. She looks at Bessie before looking back to the boxes.
"Whats in the other one?" Everyone can hear the tears in her voice, but thankfully no one comments.
"Letters for everyone else. Dawson." He is flipping thru the envelopes, trying not to focus on the letter that he has set aside that has his name on it. "One for Gale and Mitch. Some for your father. One for each of your future husbands." He forces himself to laugh, trying to lighten the mood. "More for Dawson." He catches Joey's eyes, glancing to where she has the letter still crushed to her chest.
"For you?" She asks, her eyebrow furrowed in the middle. He wants to joke that if she keeps making faces it will get stuck like that. The words get stuck in his throat.
"Yea." He whispers, nodding his head in case he wasn't loud enough for her. He breaks their glance when he hears Bessie quiet crying and then Joey is tucking her letter in her pocket, wrapping her arms around her sister. And he runs his finger over his name written in the most beautiful handwriting he could of imagined. He pockets his letter, closing the box and leaving the letter for Dawson sitting on top. Then he goes to the kitchen to make lunch, catching Joey's watery smile as she holds onto her sister.
Authors Note: So this idea keeps annoying me while I am trying to write the other fic so I had to put it down. My idea is to write the letters out - at least the first few that she left when for when the boxes were found. I might add some chapters about where they are in their lives and such, or I might even make it into a whole story with a full plot. I honestly have no idea where I am going with this. I may not even do it in order, though I will try to make it make sense at least.
I also want to warn you that I like to write a few chapters in advance so I always have something to update with but I don't plan on doing that with this one. So there may be periods of time when I don't update this one.
Let me know what you think? If you have any ideas about what the letters should be about - right now my ideas are letters to everyone when the box is found (which I am writing now), letters for Joey's first heartbreak, letters for senior prom night, for after her 'first time', for marriages, both to the girls and to their husbands, and first kids (which Bessie would obviously read now that they found the box), graduation, first day at college, college graudation. It has to be something that Lillian would have known about before she died.