hasperkynipples | civil war au } { meddling mothers

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civil war au } { meddling mothers

Her son received a letter from a woman.

Not that the idea of Dean having female suitors is unheard of in the Winchester household, but before the war they weren't particularly ones to write. After the war - well, they were almost non-existent. Mary isn't one to deny the fact that her son came home different, a little bit colder but still gentle in the ways that mattered. He grew up in his time away and while the things he's seen were likely not pleasant, he isn't letting them mar him. At least, not in ways that she can see.

All the same, the letter from a woman, a Miss Christine Chapel, finds its way to their front door, and the inherent curiosity gets the better of her. She informs him of the letter, lets him read it, and waits for him to do something in response. In fact, she waits an entire week, and when he doesn't give her a return letter to put through the post, she takes matters into her own hands.

John will probably scold her for it later, but she also saw the look on her son's face when he read it. This meddling is worth doing.

It's takes some time for mail to travel, so much so that she almost completely forgot about the invitation she extended this "Christine Chapel." So when the blond woman appears at their doorstep while she's tending to the flowers in front of their home, she can't help but blink at her in surprise.

"Can I help you?"

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He nods a bit in agreement. Things aren't always as straight forward as he may like, but there are ways around that, things they can work on to try and pursue what he's looking for. It's just a matter of figuring out what it is he wants.

Though he may have a few days.

"Perhaps I will."

Christine smiles at that, since it's a start, and then she sits up straighter to take a sip of her lemonade before speaking again.

"If it's not too much trouble, would you show me around the farm? It doesn't have to be right now; I know you just came in from working and you must be tired."

He shakes his head. "No, not at all." He gets to his feet, grabbing his glass to take with them. "Follow me."

She takes her glass as well, moving to join him at the door.

"Thank you. How many acres d'you have here?"

"Only about two. Not a large as some farms but enough for us to get by. We don't need much." He starts down the stairs, before extending a hand back to her to help her as he does.

She looks up at the offered hand and smiles at his manners, placing her hand in his.

"It sounds a very good size for your needs. Now, let's see. Did you ever tell me what you grew? I remember you said your mother had her vegetable garden."

He nods. "She grows smaller stuff like beans and squash. Out back we have corn mostly. My dad's tryin' to get into wheat, but a good crop of that takes time to grow. It may be a few years before it does really well." But at least they're trying something new. With the way the economy's changed after the war, it's hard to really tell what will work and what won't.

"Oh, that must be difficult, having to wait for it to flourish while it takes up space in your fields." She lets him help her down the steps, liking the feeling of her skin against his. It reminds her of when he'd brushed away her tears, or when she'd held his hand while the doctor sewed up his wound. Idly, she wonders what the scar looks like now.

"This looks like a lovely place to grow up. It doesn't seem so..." She hesitates, searching for the right word. "So stifling, like my home was."

"It is, but in the end it should be worth it. We're hoping that it gives us a little more stability, if nothing else." Not that they aren't stable now - they're actually doing fairly well - they just could be doing better. Maybe even well enough to hire a few extra hands. He lets his hand fall gently once she's on the ground.

"And it was. I can't imagine growing up anywhere else."

"You must have wonderful stories from your childhood. About you and your brother?" Christine wishes more and more that she'd had a sibling to grow alongside.

Beside him, her fingers twitch slightly, missing his hand, but she moves to switch her lemonade to that hand instead and takes a sip.

He nods, a bit of a laugh as he does. "Oh, we have a few. Not ones that we're particularly proud of, of course, but we had our fun when we were younger." He misses his brother like crazy sometimes, but he's also equally proud of him for what he's accomplished.

Christine turns her head, delighting in the sound of that laugh, small though it is. The way he smiles simply makes her stomach feel fluttery, and she works to stop herself from blushing. Even long after they last saw one another, she's still taken with him.

"Well, I shan't make you recall anything too embarrassing then. But tell me more about this place? And about Lawrence too. I'm terribly curious. As the coach passed through town, it looked to be a very nice place."

At least as nice as where she currently lives. She's found that small communities suit her better. She no longer wants to be a high society hostess or any of that nonsense. Christine merely wants to help people feel better.

Dean nods a bit as they walk. "I can do that." In his own time, in his own way. First things first, he nods towards the large barn. "Would you like to meet the horses?"

"I'd love to! How many d'you have?" It seems Christine is full of questions today, but she just wants to keep the conversation between them flowing. She wants to listen to the sound of his voice and hear about his life here.

"Three or four," he says with a nod as he leads the way. "One of them is too old for field work. We keep her around because my mother's too sentimental to sell her, but the rest are work horses. Without them half this field wouldn't be handled the way it should."

"How sweet," she replies, looking touched at how the old horse hasn't been given up. "I'm sure she brings your mother a lot of enjoyment, doesn't she?"

Christine never had a horse of her own living in the city, and she certainly can't afford one now with no place to put it, but she thinks they're wonderful creatures.

"Oh, she's got personality," he says with a grin as he pulls open the barn door, gesturing for him to go in ahead of him. "And she was a good horse, healthy. She still gets ridden sometimes when one of us needs to go into town."

Once they're both inside, he takes the lead again, moving over to a beautiful sleek black mare. "Sammy wanted to name her Impala when he was younger. After those deer, in Africa?"

"Did he?" she asks, laughter in her voice. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with them." but it goes to show how smart his brother is. "Are they fast, the Impalas?"

"From what he says, yes. It's hard to tell with how accurate his books are, but he ... practically consumed them when he was younger. He wanted to know everything about everything." The pride is clear in his voice. Sam was always the smart one, the one who was going to make something more of himself, and Dean never told him otherwise. Now that he has, as much as he misses his brother, he knows that it was the right decision to make.

"That's how I am now. Or at least everything to do with medicine." Her cheeks go a little pink, because even though women made great strides during the war, talking about medicine isn't something they're supposed to do.

"What d'you like to study?" she asks, keen to know his interests.

"I was never really one for school," he says, shaking his head. "I was always better with my hands. I didn't study much." Not that he didn't read, when he had the chance. He liked books, fiction, but knowledge was never really one of his pursuits. "It was better that my parents saved the money for Sammy, rather than me."

"I like your hands," she blurts out, and that just makes her face turn even more pink. "I mean, before-- well, I've held your hand."

She has no idea why she's being so forward with him. Maybe it's because she fears she'll go another few years without seeing him after this visit ends.

"So, what do you do with your hands?" she continues. Might as well go all in, right?

His head turns to her at that outburst, and there's a look that crosses his face that's just shy of being flirtatious, but he knows better than to push too far.

"I repair wagons and things when it's needed. Make sure all the equipment is maintained well. And then there's the plowing and seeding and such." He gives a bit of a shrug. "General farming work."

If he became flirtatious, Christine would recognize it. Men flirted with her in the medical tent at the army camp, and she knew not to indulge that sort of nonsense. But now they're no longer in a war. The same rules don't apply.

"A wagon? All by yourself?" She looks impressed. She doesn't even know what wagons look like underneath. Just that there's two wheels and something that attaches to horses and some place to sit and carry a load.

He gives a bit of a shrug. It's not that impressive and he knows it, but he likes that she seems impressed. "It's pretty simple, once you figure it out. All that theory and philosophy that Sammy studies, I don't really have a head for. This I do, though."

In fact, he's more comfortable with it than a lot of other things he could be doing.

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