Okay, another chapter from J.J's POV. Next chapter will be back on Dean's. Let me know what you think, okay? :)

I felt the water stream down my body, and I didn't fight it anymore. I slid down on the floor and my tears mixed with the warm water. Leaning against the wall, I cried. For today. For that day. For Julia, Mom, and Dad. Dean, Liam, Jenna. Today had been too much to handle.

We had left the hospital about an hour ago, and the doctors wouldn't let Dean go until later tonight. I hated that they wanted to keep him, but at least he would be home tonight. Thankfully.

I don't know how long I sat in the shower, but when my tears stopped running I got up and turned the water off. I wrapped a towel around myself and stepped out of the bathroom. I easily found some lingerie in my closet and put them on. I threw on a tank top and a pair of jogging pants before I tried to dry my hair with the towel. When my hair was dry enough, I put the towel back in the bathroom and then walked down the stairs.

I found Mary in the kitchen, where she was making dinner.

"Hey," I said as I grabbed a knife and helped her with the salad.

"Thank you," she said as she placed a piece of chicken in the frying pan.

"I'd like to talk to you about something," I said again. I still hadn't told her what had been on my mind before. I knew Dean was going to talk to her about it, but it somehow felt like I should be doing it.

"I wanna go home for a few weeks, over christmas. I miss my brother," I said. "And Dean said he wanted to come with me."

"No," she said and I looked at her. She was watching me as well.

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, you can't go. Not alone, and neither Keith or I have the time to come with you."

"Why can't we go alone? We're eighteen in three months!"

"You're still just seventeen, Jennie. Why can't your brother come here instead?"

"That's not the point," I argued, wishing that I wasn't raising my voice right now. "Sure he can come here, but I want to go to him. I don't only miss him. I miss everything. I miss the country, I miss the language, I miss the smell of fresh baked cookies that my aunt always makes. I miss the cold, I miss the rest of my relatives, and I miss everything. So you can't just say that we can't go."

"I know you miss it. But I won't let you go alone. You're only seventeen. Like you said, you're eighteen in three months and then I don't have much to say anymore."

"You don't have much saying in my decisions now either," I said harshly and put the knife down.

"I'm your legal guardian, so yes I do." Her voice wasn't calm, but at the same time it wasn't raised. Determinative, almost angry.

"You're not my mom," I nearly screamed and left the kitchen. I stomped up the stairs and threw my bedroom door closed with a loud boom. I wanted her to hear it.

I couldn't understand myself right now. I had never raised my voice at her before. It wasn't me to raise my voice at anyone. It was just… today was hard.

I sat down on my bed and reached for the box underneath it. I placed it on the bed in front of me, and watched it. But I didn't have the time to do more before I heard a knock on the door, and suddenly Keith was peeking inside.

"I heard screaming. Are you okay?" he asked and I shook my head. He walked inside and closed the door behind him.

"Feel like talking about it?"

"There's nothing you can do. I'm just having a bad day."

"Because of what happened to Dean?" he asked and I shook my head again.

"I mean, that too, but mostly everything else," I whispered.

He was quiet for a moment and then his eyes went to the box of letters.

"What's that?" he asked and I answered him.

"Three hundred and forty-five letters. And then seventeen more, which I found this weekend."

"From your Dad?"

"Yeah," I nodded and sighed. "I told Mary that I wanna go home. For a few weeks. But she won't let me. I didn't mean to scream, I just… Like I said, things are just a lot right now."

"It's probably because of that happened today," Keith answered me. I knew that was the case. "I have to get back to work, but I'll talk to her. Okay?"

"Thank you," I told him and then he left.

My eyes returned to the letters, and I found the seventeen letters that I found yesterday. God, was it only yesterday? Today had been so insanely long. Today had felt like a week or even more.

I took a deep breath and then found the first letter. I opened the envelope, and slowly took the letter out. It was only one piece of paper, and the letter wasn't long. It was easy to recognize his handwriting. It was beautiful, for being written by a man. It was easy to read, and his words weren't just scrambled onto the paper. They were thought out.

I unfolded the piece of paper, and noticed that it was dated. January 18th, 93. About two weeks after I was born.

"I can't believe I have to leave tomorrow. I can't believe I started the letter by writing that. But it's the truth. I have to go tomorrow, and I wish that I didn't. I've only known you for eleven days, and I already have to leave. I have to admit that when your mother told me that she was pregnant, I was scared. I was not scared about being a father. I was not scared about the responsibility it would leave me. I was scared because I was away, and I knew I wouldn't be able to spend every woken second with you, and your mother. I know I should probably not be a marine with you in my life, but I can't find it in me to stop. It's my job, my life. But so are you. Enough about that. I'm your Dad, so I'm supposed to teach you everything I know. But my job is risky, so I guess I'll teach you some parts now. In this letter. I'd start with the not-so-hard-parts. You were born on January 7th at 11:20 pm. You weighed 7,5lbs, and measured almost 22". It took your mom almost two days of contractions before you were finally ready to come out, and when you did, you tried to tell us that you're bigger than life. Which is true. We picked out your name fairly easily. Jennie, originally spelled Jenny, was picked because your mother had a best friend named Jenny when she was young. We choose to spell it Jennie because we both know that some day, probably soon, we will move to the U.S. Especially now with you in our lives. It would make things easier. Then I won't have to chose between going to Sweden to see you and your mom, or to go home to Vermont to see my brother and my parents. Moving to Vermont would make things easier, but it would be hard for your mom because of your brother. I was supposed to have a little sister, but she died at birth. Her name would have been Jaquelin, so that's how you got your middle name.

There is a lot more you don't know, and right now as I'm writing this I'm not ashamed to tell you that I cried when you were born. I might change my mind in a few years, though, and wish that I didn't write that. But it's the truth, so I won't take those words away. You also don't know that you weren't our first positive pregnancy test. Your mom had a miscarriage about a year ago, but that's behind us. She already has a beautiful son, and now we have you. I'm not so used as your mom is in that sense. She's done this before so I'm alone when I jump at every new noise you make. Your mom always reassures me that it's alright though, and I'm grateful for her. I love your mom a lot, and I already love you so much. You have completely wrapped us all around your little finger. I can't wait to tell you all about the world. I can't wait to show the pictures of you to all of my friends back at the base. I can't wait to play for you. I can't wait to do a lot of things, but I will try, because I don't want this to go any faster than it already will. I love you, Jennie Jaquelin Walker. And I always will."

"I'm sorry about before," I said as Mary walked into my room, but she shook her head.

"I should apologize," she said. "I don't ever want you to think that I want to take your mother's place. I know I can't, and I honestly don't want to. But I didn't hesitate when Dean asked me to bring you in under my roof, because I know how it feels to loose a family. I know how confused, and angry, and sad I was when I lost my parents. And you had to go through that twice. I know that the feelings after losing your mother and sister is there to haunt you still, and the feelings after your dad's death must be even more on the surface. I know it's hard, and I don't blame you for raising your voice. I would have done the same."

I didn't know what to say, and she sat down on the bed next to me before she continued to speak.

"I can't promise you that I will let you go to Sweden, but I will think about it. I know you are mature, and I know that in a way you have been forced into prematureness because of your parents death. You have always been mature, but losing a parent at young age… It makes you grow up faster in some ways. But you are only seventeen, and I'm not comfortable with letting both you and Dean go."

"You and Keith might need some time alone," I tried and she chuckled.

"That, we need. But you shouldn't have to leave for another country just because I need more time with my husband."

"Thank you for… everything. For thinking about this. For letting me into the house."

"Honestly, I think I was too much in chock to actually think about offering you a room. It probably would have crossed my mind, but it was really because of Dean. As soon as he heard, he was all over me."

"Did he really?" I didn't doubt it, but still…

"You didn't know?"

"No," I shook my head. "He's never told me. And besides, we had that big fight at the time…"

"He loves you," Mary answered simply and I felt myself smiling.

"I love him too. Speaking of that… I.. We… I might need contraceptive."

Mary watched me without saying a word, and I felt the blood raising to my cheeks. This was awkward. It would have been easier to talk to mom about it. I mean, I could talk to Mary… But her son's girlfriend asking about birth control; it was humiliating.

"We'll fix it tomorrow after school, okay?" she asked after a while and I nodded. Then she stood up and told me that dinner was done.

"I'm not hungry," I said and she told me I could eat later.

"And Mary?" I said right before she left. "I don't know if Dean have told you, but he's excited about your pregnancy."

She smiled again before she left and closed the door behind her. As she left, I folded the letter again and put it back in the third envelope. I had already read three letters, and it was enough for tonight. Or at least for right now.

I was bored, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. It was almost two hours left until Dean would get back home. Usually when I was bored, I would clean. Or do homework. We didn't have any homework, and my room was cleaned. But Dean's wasn't… Could I do that? Clean his room? I knew he probably wouldn't care, I mean, he practically forced me to help him clean his room whenever he did so.

I walked through the bathroom and entered his room. There wasn't much to do. I quickly made the bed before I walked over to his desk. Mary had put a pile of newly washed clothes on it, and I decided I could put them in his closet. After that, I cleared up his desk. I opened a drawer to put some papers in it, and noticed that it needed some cleaning. So I emptied it and put the things down in order. As I opened the drawer underneath the one I had recently cleaned, I was surprised at what I saw. Well, okay, not really. I figured every teenage boy would have at least one of these magazines. And Dean had three. They were all dated before he told me about his feelings for me, and I didn't care that he had them when he was with Olivia. Or single. Or even when we weren't having sex. But now we were, and him having them…

"These are going," I said and threw them in the wastebasket before I closed the drawer and walked back into my room again. There was about twenty minutes left until Dean would come home, and I took my guitar from where it was hanging on the wall. I sat down in the window and sighed.

How the hell was I supposed to play in front of the entire school in just a week? I had troubles playing in front of Dean when he found out I could play. And it took me a while before he found out I could sing. He only found out I was writing two years ago.

And if I did manage to play, what would I play? Did I have the courage to play one of my own songs? Or should I play safe and take another song? It couldn't be too famous, because then people would compare me with the person who usually sings it. And it can't be not famous, because then people would have no idea of what they were listening to.

I groaned as I thought about all of this. I mean, I knew I could sing, it wasn't that. It was just… I don't know what freaked me out exactly. And I honestly didn't know how I would figure that out.

Instead of thinking about all of that, I started playing the song that had been on my mind the entire day. I started at the refrain, because honestly, I had forgot the rest of the text.

"I wanna love you but I'm growing old," I didn't get any longer before I heard Dean's voice.

"If you think seventeen is old, then you should know that you turn eighteen almost three weeks before I do."

I put the guitar down and watched him where he stood in the opening to the bathroom.

"Did you clean my room, by the way?"

"I didn't have anything to do," I explained and he chuckled as he walked up to me and sat down in my couch. I scooped down so that I was next to him, letting the guitar lay in my window.

"How was your boring day?" he asked.

"Long," I told him. "I read three of Dad's letters. Before that, I screamed at your mom, and right before you got back I tried to figure out how to sing in front of the school."

"Back up; you screamed at mom?"

"It's nothing, really. Like I said, today has been long. The conversation started with me talking about going home, and it ended with me screaming that she's not my mom."

Dean held my gaze for a long time before he said anything.

"Are you alright?"

"Not really. Are you?" I changed the subject.

"I'm fine," he said and I felt myself smiling.

"Stiil wanna be a firefighter?"

"I think I'm more convinced now, seeing it upfront," he chuckled and I sighed.

"What happened in there?"

"I don't really know. We were on our way out, and then the fire was blocking the exit."

"I would have panicked," I said and he bit his lip.

"I never got that far, y'know. I thought I would, but it never happened. I was almost extremely calm."

"There is something you're not telling me," I told him and I felt his arm come around me.

"In the middle of trying to calm Liam down, I started thinking. About everything. About you. About how worried I was when I heard about the accident. How would you feel when you heard about the fire? How would you react? How would Mom react? Would you be…"

"Don't finish that sentence," I cut him off and he didn't finish. "I wanna tell you something. After the accident, when I woke up and the doctors told me that Mom was dead, and Julia was close to it… When most of the shock was gone, I thought about you. I know we had that big fight - over Olivia of all people – and I told you I didn't want to see you again. But still, you were the first person I thought about. And I thought today. I thought a lot today."

"About what?"

"You, mostly. How easily I fell for you. It got me thinking that maybe I felt all of those feelings before, but that I didn't know about it. That I didn't let myself fall for you properly. Because as soon as I did let myself fall, as soon as I opened myself up, it was so easy it's insane. I've been with you for a month, and I love you Dean. So much. And I'm scared. Because it's like I have a curse over me or something. Everyone I love – Mom, Dad, Julia – they're gone. And then your Mom told me about the fire, and I thought you were gone. And I was scared."

He grabbed my face and his eyes were penetrating mine.

"I love you. And I'm not going to leave you," he said and his voice was so convincing it was hard not to believe him.

"I love you too," I whispered and then I felt his lips against mine. They were hard, but still soft and slow. The kiss lasted for a moment before he moved us to the bed and laid us down and his lips came down on mine again. He darted his tongue into my mouth, but I could feel that he was tired, so I knew it wouldn't lead to anything. Suddenly his lips froze on mine and he got up on his elbow, watching me.

"Did we fight over Olivia?" he asked as his brows furrowed.

"You don't remember?" I laughed and he shook his head.

"No, I don't. Why did we fight over her?"

"I might have mentioned that I didn't like her, and it ended with us fighting."

"I didn't like her, so why was I pissed at you?"

"Because you're stubborn," I told him and captured his lips with mine again.

My neck was aching, and my eyes were sore. Shit, I shouldn't have fallen asleep with my lenses in. I could feel Dean's head against my chest, and I could hear soft snores coming from him.

"Dean? You're snoring," I said, still half asleep. But I got no answer. "Dean?"

I raised my hand to his head, pulling my fingers through his hair.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled and I chuckled as I opened my eyes. And I jolted up, making me almost fall out of bed.

"We don't have five minutes," I said, realizing that we had slept in. We were supposed to be at school in twenty minutes.

"I do. Mom won't let me go," he mumbled again as I hurried into the bathroom. I quickly brushed my teeth and then tried to make my lenses not hurt so much. It didn't work and I cursed as I realized I would have to wear my glasses to school. I took my lenses out and then found my glasses in my bookshelf. I quickly changed my pair of jogging pants to a pair of jeans and put on a pair of socks. As I walked out the door, I was putting my hair up in a bun.

"I'll see you later," Dean murmured from my bed, and I felt myself smiling.

"I threw away your porn," I called over my shoulder and I could easily picture the expression that came with the voice.

"What?"

I laughed and hurried out the door without taking anything to eat. As I reached school I felt a slight pain in my foot. It's been two weeks, and I still felt it. It was irritating, but I knew I would feel it for a while longer.

As the classes went by, I realized how hungry I was. I never ate last night, and I didn't take any breakfast this morning. And when I'm hungry, I'm not really in the best mood.

As Jenna and I walked to lunch, I could feel several eyes on us. Actually on me.

"Why does it feel like everyone is watching me?"

"They probably are," Jenna said and I knew she was hiding something. We sat down at our regular table where we joined the rest.

"Why?"

"Because Olivia might have told the entire school that you and Dean were sleeping together when they were still together," she said hesitantly. She knew me. And she grabbed my wrist as I was about to walk away and find Olivia and kick her five foot ass. I knew she was an idiot, that that big? I had always disliked her, but now there was hate.

"Sit down, and go be your Dad some other time," Jenna said and I sat down.

"What the hell is wrong with her?"

"She's Olivia, that's what."

"Where's Dean and Liam?" Joey asked shortly after that and I looked at him. He didn't know about the fire? I thought the entire town knew.

"You haven't heard?" Emily asked and Joey wasn't alone when he shook his head. I turned the conversation out and listened to Jenna instead.

"So, Liam finally agreed on letting me donate. The surgery is tomorrow."

"That's great," I said, distracted when I saw Olivia walk into the cafeteria.

"Later," Jenna said and grabbed my wrist again as I made a move.

And later it would be. As we changed for gym I heard her talk to her friends, and they were all glancing toward me. So it was easy to know that they were talking about me.

Today we were playing basketball, and as soon as the teacher walked out of the gym Olivia tried to trip me again.

"Really? Again?" I asked as I managed not to fall, and she watched me.

"Sorry," she said, a fake apologetic smile plastered on her face.

"Sorry? About what? Tripping me, or making up a false statement and spreading it all over the school?"

I knew that everyone was watching us, but I didn't care.

"False? We all know it's true."

"True? God, you're such a bitch!"

"Whore!" Olivia screamed back and I felt myself laughing.

"Whore? I'm a whore? You lying scumbag, I really should kick your ass right now!"

"Try," Olivia said calmly and I smiled.

"Gladly."

"J.J, calm down," I felt Jenna grab me from behind as I walked closer to Olivia, ready to beat her down.

"Why should I calm down?" I turned to Jenna now. "You know what today is. You know, and I don't want to calm down. I've turned my emotions off for a year, and I can't do that anymore. I can't."

"You don't want to do this."

"Maybe I'll regret it later, but right now it would help a lot."

Jenna let me go and I turned to Olivia again. God, I just wanted to wash that smile away.