Part 9

The house was small. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom. An open kitchen but little counter space and just enough room for a table and four chairs. The front room was the only extra room. John had found a sturdy but ugly couch to set in it. It took Liz two weeks to make a cover for it. The boys tumbled all over the small front yard, Dean pleading for a dog. Nights found Liz reading to the boys between their beds while Sammy dozed and Dean fought sleep. The door always kept open and the shade drawn with curtains pulled exactly from frame to frame. John was always the last to bed. Making sure every door was locked, window latched and doors cracked just enough to make noise if anyone walked through the house.

It took three weeks to fully predict the quirks in the stove but Liz made Christmas delicious enough. Had scraped her money together for recipe books, looking for anything that felt familiar but failing ultimately at memory retrieval. Dean made her a macaroni necklace at school and painted it all shades of orange and brown. Sammy had more fun jumping on his wrapping paper than he did with the fire truck he'd gotten to match Dean's. John had quickly covered his surprise at unwrapping a scarf but not quickly enough to tell his eyebrows not to give him away. He had gotten her a necklace, a locket, but hadn't made much fanfare over it or the pictures of them inside it; the picture of her one of John's favorites and the other was her favorite of him though he claimed to hate it. Dean was adamant that it wasn't Santa he had waited up for all night but had still whooped that Santa had known just which truck Dean had wanted.

Pastor Jim joined them for lunch and had offered to take the boys with him on more visits but John had insisted that the boys spend the whole day with him and Liz… just the family. Liz caught Jim wiping a tear from his eye as he walked out the door. She shut the door after him and turned to see what Jim had seen. John, playing with his boys and drinking soda… not whiskey. She could not remember the last she saw him drink liquor though he did take to beer when the game was on or he was working on the car. John with his beer and Dean with his root beer.

The boys were in bed by eight. John and Liz finished off the night with John's real Christmas present. The scarf had come in handy with that, too. Sitting in the middle of the bed, legs wrapped around each other, blessing the sugar crash that had knocked the boys out cold. Liz ran her fingers over his tattoo. Corporal. Sniper. Marine. "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Being part of a unit like that?"

"Sometimes. Always someone in command with orders to give. Always others looking to you for orders… An unbreakable chain."

"You only miss it sometimes?"

"Well, there are no women in the corp… at least there didn't used to be…" He pulled her tighter against him. "There's the fighting. The killing."

"You were good at it… though, right?"

"Unfortunately for some people."

"Think maybe that's why you were good at that other stuff…" He didn't answer. "That you do for Jim?"

"Maybe."

"Do you wish you hadn't gone?"

"No." He shook his head. "I wasn't drafted. I signed up. I needed to get out of town. I was failing out of high school because I was helping out at the garage with my dad… I'd just started dating this girl whose parents hated me… Uncle Sam was offering money for volunteers."

"God, I wish I had something monumental like that to look back on." She sighed and fell back against the bed. "It's so bizarre to be this person who came to in a demon trap without even knowing that's what it was." She felt his hands, warm on her belly. "To not know where I came from or why I ended up where I was."

"Come back here." He slid his hands under her back to pull her back up to him.

"It's just disconcerting discovering what you don't know about yourself."

"Hey, this about us?" John's forehead furrowed.

"No… yea…. No." Liz growled and draped herself over him. "It was a little weird, thinking and feeling that I'd had this experience and then realizing that I didn't."

"I tried to make it okay for you."

She smiled broadly at the defense in his voice. "And you actually made it very amazing… the whole night, actually." Bit her lip when his posture changed to her ego-stroking. "I feel a bit like a Midwestern cautionary tale, though. Lost my virginity in the backseat of a Chevy to a Marine."

"I lost mine in a Chrysler to a cheerleader."

"Was she at least the head cheerleader?"

"Of course."

"Did she break your heart?"

"Um…"

"John, you dog."

"It was before I dropped out. Before I enlisted."

"Now you're a gentleman."

"I try to be."

"Could have fooled me." She shoved him back but had no choice but to follow him down. She ran her hands up his chest and back down to his stomach. She bit her lip when she poked his smooth belly. "Someone needs to take it easy on the cookies and beer."

"What?"

"I do believe this belly has formed in the last couple of months."

"I'm not 20."

"It's cute." She kissed his chest, rubbing his sides up his ribs then gripped his arms. "These are…" She kissed each bicep in turn. "so not arms of a thirty" she dropped a kiss on his mouth, "two year old dad."

"Quit trying to make me feel better. You're not doing a very good job."

"How about I stop using words?"

"That could work. Need a demonstration."

Liz did her best to make the best quality of curse words flow out of his mouth. John could do nothing but hold on for the ride. Until both their voices were hoarse from keeping the volume down, til they were covered in sweat and John bore eight red welts from Liz's nails on his chest. It was only a slight movement in the doorway that broke into their world. Liz yanked the blanket to her chest. "Dean?"

John's head whipped back in time to see a socked foot disappear into the hallway. "Shit. What do you think he saw?"

--

John took Dean to the park with a baseball and a glove. Liz took Sammy to work with her. Angela cooed over Sammy's big hazel eyes and long brown hair. She gave Liz another talk about seeing John. The real lecture this time because Liz was really living with him this time. Liz let her talk but she still greeted John with a kiss when he and Dean ambled in sweaty and dirty. "Is he okay?"

"A little scarred for life, but he's okay." John took a deep breath and glanced around to make sure they wouldn't be interrupted. "He… figured it out pretty much on his own. He kind of wanted assurance that… it didn't hurt." He cleared his throat. "He still doesn't understand why I would want to do something like that with a girl."

"Of course." She wrinkled up her nose. "Did he make you get another cootie shot?"

"Talked him out of it."

"How'd you do that?"

"Logic."

"It's gonna take fifty million cootie shots to get rid of those cooties." Dean blurted out.

"I could give you cooties." Liz turned on him and had him wrapped in her arms and his face covered in kisses before the first round of protests could erupt.

"I think you're good and covered in cooties now, son." John saved him from the assault by sitting him at the counter. "There may be no hope for recovery."

--

Hot dog Saturdays. The boys loved 'em. John watched Liz dance around the kitchen while the pot boiled and Sammy banged on pots on the floor. Working like a normal man again. Being a father the way he'd planned. Liz had been a Godsend. Showing him just what he was doing to his family. Mary would forgive him for keeping his family safe… right?

--

John watched as Dean willingly cuddled next to Liz. After months of avoiding her, even Dean was getting back to normal. This was the baby Mary had given birth to and not the boy Mary's death had borne.

1986 was going to be a new and better year. Sammy was getting so big. Dean was opening up and John… was living in the world again. He and Sammy built a log cabin while Dean and Liz read a big boy story. None of them made it to midnight but they slept as a family on the floor in front of the television.

TBC