This chapter is a set up for something in the next story as well as the next chapter, which is gonna be al kinds of fluffy. Special thanks to SciFiNutTX and laceym for putting up with my insanity, you really should go read their stuff too. I would also like to give a special thanks to Ezraduke and fairyofmusic, they always leave me such great reviews on every chapter. Thanks to everyone else for reading.

Chapter 14

Two weeks later, Katie took John into town for some x-rays. She wanted to check the progress of the breaks in his arms and legs to see how much longer it would be till she could take his casts off. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that she could remove the casts that day. A full two weeks earlier than they had expected. She decided however, that they would stay in Kila till the end of the month to do a little psychical therapy so John could get the rest of his strength back. John reluctantly agreed.

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It felt good to him to finally be able to walk. He was finally able to check out his surroundings. Katie had gone into town to fix a couple of cars and he was bored, so he decided to check out every room in the house. What he found there actually surprised him.

The first floor of the house was just like any other, but something still felt off to him. There were no pictures of family anywhere that he could see, until he came to the room at the end of the short hall. He was completely shocked when he opened the door. The walls were completely covered with paintings and pictures of his family.

He recognized a few of the paintings because he had seen them before. Laura had done them herself. The photographs were mostly school pictures of the boys he had given to Caleb to keep safe for him. He had never expected to see them framed and hanging up.

John walked into the room so he could look at all the pictures more closely. When he turned to his left, he got another shock. There was a large painting of his whole family together. The girls looked to be about fifteen in that picture, Sammy was thirteen, and Dean was seventeen. Surrounding the painting on three sides were five 5x7 picture frames. The boys on one side, girls on the other, and a picture of himself and Mary at the bottom. Laura must have used those pictures to do the large painting.

Below that were four file cabinets. Each cabinet had three drawers and a word written in black marker on the top of the first drawers. The first cabinet had Laura's name on it, the second was Katie's, the third was Dean's, and the last said hunting. He opened the first drawer of the cabinet with Laura's name on it. Inside he found stacks of white envelopes written in Dean's childhood handwriting. He then opened the top drawer on the three remaining cabinets. It took John a minute to realize that he had found their letters.

Every letter Dean had written to his sisters and vice versa was right in front of him. He couldn't believe it at first. All those letters had actually survived everything his eldest children had been through, including Laura's death. He grabbed the first letter from Katie's cabinet and began to read.

Dear Graceful,

Things are mostly ok. Dad is gone a lot because of his new job. Sometimes he comes home with bruses and stuff, but he always says that he's fine. I'm not so sure bout that sometimes. He still drinks a lot, but nowheres near as much as he did after mommy died. I wish he would stop it, but I don't think that will ever happen. I wish you and Daisy were here. It's hard taking care of Sammy all by myself. He cries a lot more than he used to, but I think that's cause he misses mommy and Daisy. Don't tell her that though cause it will only make Daisy sad. I miss haveing you to play with. I hope you can write me back, but if you can't that's ok too. I just wanted you to know that I was ok, a little sad, but ok.

Hugs and kisses from me, dad, and Sammy.

P.S. Pastor Jim helped me find you and Daisy in case you were wondering. If you can write back, send the letter to the address on the enlevope with his name on it. Oh and one more thing, Happy Birfday. How does it feel to be 3?

John turned the letter over and on the back was a small picture of a cake with 3 candles on it. The cake was drawn so that it looked like some one had taken a piece. Underneath it was written:

I hope you don't mind, but I kept a pece of cake for me and Sammy to share.

John folded the letter back up, placed it back into it's envelope, and put it back on the stack he had taken it from. He then closed all of the cabinets and left the room, making sure to close the door behind him. He went back into the living room and tried to watch some TV, but his curiosity got the better of him. He decided he wanted to know more about the contents of those letters so he went back into the room at the end of the hall and settled himself on the floor in front of the file cabinets.

He restricted himself to reading the letters Dean had written to Katie. Laura had always told him everything when he called her. Dean had always been closed off to his father and brother when he was growing up. John thought it was about time he really got to know his oldest son, specially after nearly losing him a couple weeks earlier.

A few hours later he heard his truck pull into the driveway. He had been careful while he was reading to put each letter back where he had found it so all he had to do was replace the current letter he was reading and walk out of the room before Katie walked in. It was easier said than done. Five weeks in casts had made his muscles a little stiff. He had just enough time to open the door before Katie called out to him.

"Hey, John. I brought back a present for you."

"Oh, why would you do that?" John asked.

There was a flash of anger when he looked at his daughter's face, but only for a split second.

"I see you found our picture room." Katie said coolly, "You didn't get into the file cabinets did you?"

"No," John lied, "I was looking at all the photographs and paintings. Where did you get all that stuff?"

"From Caleb and Dean mostly. The paintings Laura did herself from the pictures."

"Exactly who does this house belong to anyway?" John asked, trying to change the subject.

"Dean and me." Katie replied, "It didn't look like this when we first got it, we've put a lot of money into it to make it look like this."

"Wait, you mean that you and your brother own this house? How long have you had it?" John said in a mildly shocked voice.

"Yes, we bought it about 8 years ago." Katie replied.

"Huh, the things you learn about your kids."

"Yeah, well. Anyway, I rented a couple of those movies Dean said you liked and bought some beer. Thought we could just hang out tonight."

"Sounds good to me." John said happily.