Hi, so here is another story and it is an episode based story like the last few this time in the later series.

I do like the later series and this episode The Lost Sheep in particular however I really struggled with the character of Olivia when she came back from Arizona this episode in particular, as a parent I don't understand her actions, I mean she basically belittles Erin, bullies her out of marriage, all but spits on Ashley and gets John to cover for her. Erin in the later series is basically an afterthought, they never seem to know quiet what to do with her and they create man after man to throw at her and to be honest Ashley was the best-granted Paul was quite good (until they ruined him in the movies) but this is a fix it basically for Erin because she deserved to marry the man she loved and she deserved to marry him despite her mother throwing an almighty temper tantrum (to be kind). Seriously...Olivia did twenty plus years married to John and despite everything I thought it was always pretty clear how he viewed religion...

On that note this does mention atheism, war, PTSD and trauma-basically all the good stuff the series doesn't cover. If this is a hard line for you then maybe stop here. I do not wish to offend anyone but this is based off the episode and nothing more. Personal beliefs don't come into it.

If you've read my work then you know spelling and grammar are not my strongest so please keep that in mind.

This is not going to be word for word cannon either. This story should be about eleven chapters long.

I will try and update when I can but with work that might be a bit sporadic so apologies in the meantime.

I have also brought back the original John Boy. The first five series were the best and it is arguably down to Richard Thomas, Ellen Corby and Will Geer being just as involved as Micheal Learnerd and Ralph Waite.

The Same Coin

Chapter 4-Don't Mention The War

Ashely Longworth JR turns up to speak to John. Jason calls John-Boy. It's the war you see. It's always the war.

"Wow"

"Yep"

"Wow, I mean…just…and Erin doesn't mind?"

"Erin says she's compromised. She says she will be in charge of any of the children and their religion and she will take them to Church etc and Ashely can do what he wants"

"So a bit like Daddy"

"It's exactly like Daddy but heaven forfend—and I say that reverently—that you tell Momma that. She's dead set against it, to the point where she said she might not even go to the wedding."

John-Boy gave a long whistle down the phone. Ike who had let Jason take the phone call and had been half listening into the conversation raised one eyebrow but carried on weighing out the coffee beans. Jason could only thank whoever it was that was up there looking down on them that CoraBeth was not there. Love her though he did the reality was between CoraBeth and Fanny Tatum there was a very good chance this would be all over the county by the end of the working day and that was before you factored in the war gossip. Jason wore a uniform, John-Boy wore a uniform now. They both knew that the gossip in the United States military far outweighed anything that had happened in their little mountain school. Board soldiers lived for stuff like this—hell he was sure that somewhere some solider was clinging to the photo of his little sister in shorts just to get through the day.

"So it's bad"

"I don't know. Mary-Ellen took the baby and went to the Baldwin house to see if she could help Erin with her dress. I don't know if Mary-Ellen is going to do something about it, I don't know if Mary-Ellen is going to say something. God knows that subtlety isn't something that our dearest sister is fluent in. And even if she did…I don't think that Erin would listen. They've both got their heals dug in over this issue and it's not like I don't see why. Love is love at the end of the day"

"It's that simple for you huh?"

Jason thought absent mindedly about Toni and her dark hair and her dark eyes and the fumbling that they had done in the dark and the fact that she had told him flatly that if she had gone back to Europe she'd be dead right now. She had told him in no uncertain terms what was happening to her people in those camps and it made him sick to his stomach to hear about it. She had told him that Jewish and non-Jewish people were not allowed to marry and he had thought that was a load of tosh. He was not a man for the hard and complex questions. He was a man for the piano under his fingers or a guitar string or the recorder. So no…religion in that sense didn't matter to him. Call him naïve but Jason just thought that they should all try to get along at the end of the day. Surely the world was big enough for people to worship what they wanted, when they wanted and according to their own believes?

That being said he was not sure what his mother would have said if he'd had brought home Toni, he was not entirely sure deep down what Cindy had believed or Curt. Both of them had and were lazy with Church attendance but then again, Curt had been a Doctor and Cindy had been…well…Cindy. They were both impervious to disapproval on the best of times.

"Would it have mattered with you?" he countered. He was not sure in terms of woman what his brother had been doing. He knew there was Daisy, suspected deep down that there still was Daisy in some secret place of his brother's heart. He knew that Seleina Lindville had gotten married last year, knew that Marcia was widowed, Jenny pregnant with her second child and Olivia Hill was engaged again. In terms of woman that had always circled his brother like a honeypot they'd mostly moved on. Hell even Sarah-Jane Simmons's husband had come back after a two year absence to be a father to his toddling daughter and a husband to the wife that had never lost faith in him.

"No" John-Boy said quietly. "Sometimes I think other things that I thought wouldn't matter to me now that did matter back then were pointless—"

Here Jason got the impression his brother was talking about Daisy and her love child.

"I guess being shot out over the ocean does that too you"

"Don't joke about that"

"I am not joking—look—I have three days leave coming up, why don't I come back"

"Well I thought you were coming back for the wedding?"

"I was but I wasn't planning on staying longer than I had to do but now I might. Might help Momma to hear it from someone else. Does Grandma know?"

Jason closed his eyes. That was his next phone call and he was dreading it to tell the truth. His grandma might be incapacitated still from her stroke but her disapproval was clear down the phone line and clear in person as if she was still the same young woman who had threatened to box his ears for swearing that one time.

"Well…if Erin can withstand Grandma's disapproval of her marriage an atheist then I think Momma wont be too much an issue" John-Boy said finally. "And the Baldwin House is a really lovely place to hold a wedding, I bet those two old ladies are happy"

"Thrilled"

"I bet" John-Boy said and Jason could hear the love for those two woman in the tone his brother used and it warmed his heart. John-Boy loved the woman, Jason did as well but that was nothing compared to John-Boy who loved the woman as if they were his own grandmothers.

"I'll come back" John-Boy said quietly. "Let me square some stuff away with my commander and I'll ring back Ike and have him tell you. Don't tell Erin though I don't want to get her hopes up if it falls through"

"Military planning at it's finest" Jason said with a nod. John-Boy laughed but it was forced.

Neither one of them commented on the news that was coming out of Europe, of the Pacific, of the far off corners of Africa. There was a very real sense for all of the Walton sons that they would soon have to take a uniform and go overseas and there was a very good chance with that, that they might not come back. Jason only had vague memories of his Uncle Ben as being tall and a redhead while his Daddy had been tall and dark haired. He didn't want Erin's children or John-Curtis to remember him as the red headed uncle that might have once upon a time had a recorder.

"I'll come back" John-Boy said quietly. "I'll come back Jason, see you soon"

"See you soon brother"

And then he hung up the phone.

"You okay?" Ike said quietly.

"Sisters" was all that Jason said.

Ike tapped his nails on the counter top for a second and then.

"I know you don't want to hear this Jason but I do think Olivia might be onto something. My mother and father rowed about religion quite a bit you know. My mother didn't believe and my father did. It can be confusing for a child"

"Well maybe Erin will be the exception"

"Maybe" Ike said but his smile was forced and Jason didn't comment on the deflated feeling that hit him like a bullet from a snipers gun.

He had work to do.

"Mr Walton"

"Ashely"

Ashely Longworth Jr looked as if he was heading to the gallows. Considering the morning that he'd had and what Ashley had no doubt woken up to he wasn't surprised and more than a little impressed with how much fear he could inspire.

Or maybe that was his wife?

"Mr Walton, I wanted to talk to you"

"Better late than never" John said fiddling with a hinge. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me for my permission to marry my daughter but then that went out the window when you abducted her from her room. So now I guess you want to talk about God and Ashely I will be honest with you I am not the right man for that conversation—"

"Did you serve?"

"Yes I did."

"The whole thing?"

"Yes, France 1917-1918 and then six months after that which took us to 1919. I lost my brother in 1918, he was killed by a sniper six days before the war closed. I didn't get his body back, it's somewhere still over there rotting in some turnip field"

Maybe this was a lot bitter than he had intended it to be and maybe Ashely had noticed that because he sighed.

"I lost a lot of men too" he said quietly. "We were in Italy and I had this replacement kid, green as anything, I don't think he had ever held a gun before and he wanted to go to college after the war and become a brain surgeon, he was telling us about the different parts of the brain and a sniper got him, shot out half his own brain before he had ever finished talking. I sat there with his blood on my face watching his brain matter dry on the snowy ground and I thought to myself what a fucking waste this was. And that was when I knew that I couldn't reconcile myself to a God that would let this happen to a kid like that."

John sighed and put down the hinge. Unbidden the image of Ben's face came to mind, the last laugh on his brother's face, the ghost of happiness as he had ribbed John about getting Livy pregnant again, the promise that he would name his kid Ben and John's harsh swearing and laughing at the thought. Then his big brother had been dead and John had screamed and screamed and screamed at him through the mud and the rain begging him to get up but to no avail. He had been desperate, aching, screaming through the mud and he'd had to be dragged away from the body the dog tags clenched in his hand.

And then there had been coming home.

God he had not been able to look his Pa in the face for weeks after that.

He too had not been able to believe in a God after that, because what God would take away his brother when he was so young and so full of life? What kind of God would take away one of his twins, one of his little babies before he'd ever gotten a chance to take his first breathe?

"Your preaching to the choir here" he said quietly. "Don't ask me what I believe Ashely cause you won't get an answer. I hope that you and Erin can find a compromise. I believe that you do love her"

"I do" Ashely said and John eyed him for a second trying to read between the lines. He was out of practice. Curt had been the dream son in law because Curt had been easy to read, there was no beating around the bush with him, Curt just said what he had to say and that was the end of it. He was rough around the edges in the same way that Mary-Ellen was and between the two of them they had both smoothed out the rough parts of each other.

Cindy had been different too. Mainly because Ben had just brought her home (and here he had wished he could send his parents a card) and that had been the end of that. Cindy had tamed Ben a little and it was a triumph to see Ben mould himself to protect her but weather or not he could read Cindy was another story. He shot Ashely a look and ran his eyes up and down him like he would if he was in the trench and the officer over the line had stuck his head over the top like an idiot.

"I believe you do" he said truthfully. "And I won't say I don't understand why you are the way you are. But it's different for my wife. I won't tell Erin what to do when it comes to you. But I do hope you know what you are in for"

"For Erin It's worth it" Ashely said and John looked at the house over the distance from the mill.

"Yeah" he said finally. "It is"

Ashley offered him a small smile and John managed a small one back and they stood there in an awkward silence before the topic of conversation turned towards other things that they could both agree upon and neither one of them mentioned religion again.

And neither one of them mentioned the war.

And there you go, hope you enjoy. Only a couple more chapters until the actual wedding.

Next Chapter-Mary Ellen sits and works on her sister's wedding dress but it's a bit of a ploy cause she wants to know just what the hell her sister is thinking. Cause you know...sisters.