March 1850
Independence, Missouri.
Jennifer LaMontagne hurried eagerly through her shopping, going as quickly as she could with her young son's hand clasped in her own. The quicker she and her husband, William LaMontagne Jr., were done here in the general store, the sooner they could get back to their wagon and claim a place in the line of wagons that were gathering to comprise the latest wagon train to begin travelling the Oregon Trail. She made her way through Cramer's General Store, half dragging, half prodding four year old Henry along.
Jennifer gathered up the last few things that she needed and then fell back to stand against a wall where she could see Will but still stay out of the way of the store's many other Oregon Territory bound shoppers. She watched intently as Will haggled with Mr. Cramer over the price of a pair of shiny, new, black boots for Henry. Her son, on the other hand, stood as close to the counter as he could get while still holding her hand, hungrily eying the glass jars of candy lined up in a row beside the register.
At length, Will approached her and Henry, proudly slinging their son's new shoes over his shoulder.
"Did you get everything that you need, Darlin'?" Will asked.
Jennifer nodded and the two of them gathered up their wares in their arms, heading to the register to pay.
"Then off we go to Oregon Country!" Will replied merrily.
"Did I hear you were travelling the trail?" the stern-faced Mr. Cramer asked as he begun to ring up their purchases.
"That's right," Will answered with a brisk nod.
"I saw that there was another wagon train getting ready to go out today. Who's your wagon master?"
"We're traveling with an agent – a man by the name of Hotchner."
"I'm familiar with them. They're a nice enough group, I suppose. They're not government guides, but they've been at this long enough that they might as well be," Mr. Cramer said, though he frowned a bit as he said it.
Catching onto one word in Mr. Cramer's sentence, Will inquired, "You mean there's a group with Hotchner?"
"Yeah. Man and his wife – the Rossi's – took in Hotchner and a slave of his when both were just boys."
"Slave?" Jennifer echoed in surprise.
Mr. Cramer shrugged, full of devil may care as he listed the price of their purchase to Will before answering her question, "Yes, ma'am. Hotchner and his trio are good and steady business, though, whenever they come through here, and I'm afraid that's all that I can afford to care about."
Again Jennifer frowned. If you asked her, this man seemed more affluent then most of the people on the forming wagon train combined. Biting her tongue, she only nodded.
"Surely you're not trying to give me bad name again, are you, Mr. Cramer?" A man spoke behind the LaMontagnes, causing Jennifer to start.
"I didn't mean to frighten you, ma'am," the man swept his hat into his hands, revealing a head of thick black hair as Jennifer turned to face him. "My apologies. I'm Aaron Hotchner."
Will paid Mr. Cramer and turned to the wagon master, shaking his hand. "William LaMontagne, Jr.; we met when I signed me and my family here up for the trip." He gestured to his family, introducing them, "This is my wife, Jennifer, and my son, Henry."
"Ma'am," Mr. Hotchner said to her again, everything about him oozing seriousness before he turned to Henry and slid a gentle smile onto his face. "Young man."
Henry grinned shyly up at the man. "Hello."
"Can I ask how old you are?"
It surprised Jennifer that this man who had to be busy at the moment was taking time to talk to them, especially her young son, but Henry only held up four fingers obligingly, brushing a shock of his blond hair out of his hazel eyes with his other hand.
"Four's a good age," Mr. Hotchner said, his smile wavering for a moment towards an inexplicable edge of sadness.
Behind the counter, Mr. Cramer cleared his throat, his eyes clearly conveying the message that his polite reminder might not have - they were holding up the progress in his place of business.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Hotchner. 'Scuse us," Will muttered before guiding his small family out to their Conestoga wagon.
Jennifer yelped as she stepped off of the boardwalk and into a puddle of slush on the street. She bit back a sigh as the water began to seep through the thinned, used leather of her black shoe.
"Well, Mr. Cramer seemed nice," Jennifer muttered dryly, stopping by the back of the covered wagon as Will hefted Henry up into the bed of the old thing.
"Here, son," Jennifer handed Henry his new shoes. "Let's put these on. You'll wear them instead of your old torn up ones, okay?"
Henry nodded enthusiastically, pulling at the tattered shoes on his feet. As JJ busied herself with hers and Will's son, she didn't notice when her husband slipped back inside the general store. Henry insisted upon undoing his old shoes himself as well as personally putting on his new ones, so by the time that he was done with that extremely time-consuming task, Will was already back outside.
"Do you have your new shoes on, buddy?" he asked Henry, coming around to the back of the wagon.
"Yep," Henry grinned. "And I took as long as I could, just like you told me to."
"What?" JJ asked, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion as she looked between the two men in her life.
Will didn't answer her question; instead he picked her up around the waist and lifted her into the back of the wagon beside Henry before climbing in himself.
"Will, what are you doing?" Jennifer asked. "Don't we need to get going, join the wagon train?"
"In a minute," Will answered softly. "You need these first before we leave."
"I need what?" Jennifer asked, more confused than ever.
In answer to her question, Will produced a pair of shoes that were her size and laid them down in the bed of the wagon.
"Will," Jennifer said, her eyes widening a little. "We don't have the time, let alone the money, for those shoes right now."
"You need these, Jenny; we'll make the time for them."
"And what about the money," Jennifer hissed, knowing that Henry was hearing every word of this conversation and hating that fact.
Will sighed. "Jenny, would you please just let me take care of the woman that I love? They're shoes – completely practical because you need them."
"No, I don't," Jennifer argued.
"Oh, really?" William asked, raising his eyebrows. He reached over and slipped one of her shoes off of her feet before she could object. Looking first at her stocking – soaked through to her foot thanks to the slush that she had stepped in – and then back up into her eyes, she blushed, knowing that his point had just been proven. His voice became tender as he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek and said, "Come on, Jenny; I know life is tough out here, but I love you. Let me take care of you like I ought to. Please? I love ya', and I want to take the best care of you and Henry that I can. I know that life's rough out here, and it's about to get a lot harder when we hit the trail, but please, can't you let me see to it that you've got a decent pair of shoes without fussing about it?" His final statement was, "You deserve it, Darlin'."
Jennifer smiled at her husband – her wonderful, loving husband – blinking away a sudden onslaught of tears that startled her more than they appeared to surprise him. "Alright," she whispered.
Will grinned, a smile that lit up the dark bed of the wagon. "Good."
He leaned in and kissed her softly, their spat long forgotten, and then reached down to divest her of her other shoe.
"I love you, Will," she told him softly, letting him slide the new shoe onto her foot.
"And I love you, Jenny," he replied, barely glancing up from where he was fastening the new shoe.
She reached forward and tilted his chin so that she had his full attention and he was looking her in the eyes, and said with a loving smile gracing her lips, "I know you do."
One of the strangest things that I've written for FF; this was originally supposed to be a JJ/Hotch multi-chapter, but I lost the want-to for it before I was even finished with writing what you read above, so I turned it into a Willifer one-shot. Anyway... What do you guys think?:)