sam winchester (thesamsquatch) wrote in welcomethreads, @ 2013-12-25 11:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | jessica moore, sam winchester |
Who: Sam & Jess
What: Sam has a surprise question to ask.
When: Christmas Eve (yesterday)
Where: outside in Storybrooke
Warnings: fluff. sweet sweet fluff. with a side helping of feels.
Status: logged; complete.
It looked like a very stereotypical Christmas Eve outside. It had been snowing, and there were lights up all over the town. It was cold, but Sam had made sure they were both dressed for the weather before they’d left, so that they could enjoy the outdoors without being too cold. This wouldn’t exactly go the way he’d planned if either of them were shivering and freezing.
He was content for a while just to walk, holding her gloved hand in his, enjoying the twinkle of the stars above them and the lights. His face was cold, but he barely felt it. There was a strange buzzing sensation inside him, excited and nervous energy, that was in direct contrast to the stillness that was all around them. Because of the snow and the holiday, there was hardly anyone out right now, at least where they were. He’d hoped that the quiet holiday cheer of the night outside would still his nerves, and to some degree, it was working.
But as they reached the place he’d been looking for, a copse of evergreens near the edge of town that had been decorated beautifully with lights, the feeling came back, and increased. He managed it well, looking up at the trees, and then at Jess. “Merry Christmas,” he said, because it felt like the right thing to say, even if it also seemed, after the fact, a bit silly.
It was a good Christmas, though. So far, anyway. His family was here-- his brother, his dad, even his half-brother, and he didn’t care how weird that was because they were all alive-- and Jess. Jess.
He looked at her face, slightly tinged pink by the cold, and wanted to kiss her, so he did. His free hand that wasn’t holding hers came up to rest against her cheek, protecting her skin against the winter air. For a moment, he just allowed himself to feel, fully, that this was real-- Storybrooke’s sidewalk under his feet, covered in snow, the trees and the wind and the feeling of Christmas in the air, the feeling of relative safety that he’d never entirely trust but nevertheless allowed himself to enjoy. The feeling of being with the woman he loved rather than still mourning, still carrying the guilt and pain of her death around with him as he tried to save the world. That pain was still there, of course-- getting someone back again never entirely erased the feeling of having lost them in the first place, and he ought to know that better than anyone-- but it was so small that for the moment, he could pretend it wasn’t there at all.
And for the moment, his purpose in bringing her out here was forgotten too. That would be the next moment, or a few moments after that; it wasn’t fear or nervousness that stalled him, just the feeling of respecting a perfect, quiet moment with Jess, a moment he hadn’t ever expected to have, a Christmas present he really hadn’t seen coming. “I love you,” he said, smiling softly at her, and meant it. “I’m so glad you’re here. That you came back to me.”
---
Jess had only been outside of California a couple of times in her life, and never in the winter. She’d seen the stories and the Christmas movies with the snow falling outside, but never before had she really felt that she was in one. The way the snow clung to the branches, and the way the lights hit it, making everything shimmer and gleam...it was magical. She’d always thought that the joy that came from a snowy landscape was something the movies created out of nothing, but if anything, the moment was more perfect than any movie could ever express.
It was cold too, yes, but she was bundled up, and pressing against Sam kept out any stray draughts that might have ruined the evening. Her cheeks were red from the cold, but that was the only concession she made to it. The warmth inside of her was enough to keep the rest of her comfortable, whatever befell.
In contrast to Sam’s nervous energy, Jess felt solid. Sure. This felt right, as nothing else ever had. Being here with Sam was where she was supposed to be, she’d known that from nearly the point she’d met him. Their love...it wasn’t something shallow. It wasn’t something that had just come from physical urges at a time when such things were paramount in many minds. No, she loved him, in a very true and pure sense. They each gave each other something that they could get nowhere else - he gave her someone to come back to, who understood her need to seek out answers. Who listened to her ask questions deep into the night about the things she’d seen. Who actually tried to help her understand the myriad of things she didn’t know. And maybe never would. He was her partner, her friend, her confidant. Lover came so far down that list as to be almost inconsequential. It was simply another point of meeting, another thing that brought them together, that made them, in her mind, inseparable.
She couldn’t understand what he felt, not exactly. There hadn’t been an extended absence for her. Only a few days, and then she had arrived here to discover what her future held. That was terrible in its own right, but nothing like what Sam had to face. She’d never had to live in a world where he was dead. She’d never had to keep living, knowing they could never be together. And she wouldn’t want to. Because that kind of world wasn’t right. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
She tightened her grip on his arm almost unconsciously, and smiled up at him.
“I love you too, Sam,” she said sincerely. “And where else would I go? I’ll always come back to you, as long as I can.”
---
Sam knew it was a hypothetical question, but his mind answered it anyway. To heaven, he hoped; she deserved heaven, and she certainly didn’t deserve hell. Yet he still remembered the very first demon he and Dean had hunted alone, the one on the plane, that had claimed she was still burning-- and he hadn’t seen her around, when he’d gone to heaven himself. That wasn’t really abnormal, according to what Ash had said. People only shared heavens when there were special exceptions, and it seemed that the only exception that had been made in his case was for him and Dean. On the one hand, he’d have really liked to know that he’d see her again when he died, but on the other, he understood that it didn’t really have anything to do with whether they wanted to be together, but whether heaven intended them to be together. Most of heaven’s intentions had run directly counter to Sam’s intentions over the years, so he didn’t take that to mean anything particularly significant. If anything, she had been made and matched up with him to be taken away from him, to break his heart enough to send him down the dark path that had been laid out for him.
But that didn’t account for the part that wasn’t painful. The part of him that hadn’t even been surprised when Lucifer had appeared beside him in her form, because she had still occupied his dreams, and not all of them were nightmares. It didn’t explain why, seven years later, even feeling as though he was an entirely different person in so many different ways, looking at her still made him feel more warmth than hurt. It didn’t explain how relatively simple it had been to just let her back into his life, grow accustomed to falling asleep beside her every night and waking up next to her every morning. He had moved on, but he’d carried her with him; he’d never really let her go.
And the warmth in her tone, echoing the sentiment back towards him, gave him the push he needed to get around to what he really wanted to say. He tried to navigate them around to the subject. “Well, I hope you only have to come back the once,” he said, with a hint of wryness in his smile. After all, coming back more than once was entirely possible and kind of a trend in his family. “I want you to stay here. I want you to have time, as much time as you should have, and I want… I want a lot of time with you, a lot more than I got before. I don’t really care how we spend it, as long as we’re both happy with it, and safe. But there’s one thing that I…” He trailed off, and tried to start again. “I spent a while wondering about when the right time for this would be, and then I realized that I just… if we don’t get as much time here as we’d like, there’s just one thing that I’ll really regret not doing. Again.”
That wasn’t exactly the kind of speech he’d imagined, probably because he hadn’t planned it. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things he didn’t even have words for. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and closed his hand around the small jewelry box he’d brought. Keeping his fist closed so that she couldn’t see what it was, he lifted her hand that he was already holding, and turned it over so that her palm faced upward. He put the box into her hand, still covered by his own, so that her hand and the unopened box were warmly sandwiched between his hands. Once he knew she had a hold on it, he moved his top hand away, leaving the other still holding hers from underneath. “I really, really want to marry you,” he said, heart beating too fast with anticipation and nervousness, and his smile was hopeful and warm, but questioning, too. “I’m hoping you want to marry me, too.”
He was fairly certain she’d say yes. Still, his breath all but stopped as he waited for her answer.
---
Jessica wasn’t surprised, exactly. Their relationship had been serious for a long while now, and they’d always kind of assumed that this moment would eventually come, although they’d never really talked about it. She’d seen her future with Sam for a long while, and marriage and kids were sure to be part of the picture. But it had never seemed so real until now. She felt her cheeks redden first - not out of embarrassment or anything like that, but out of pure, unadulterated emotion. She looked at the little box in her hand, and opened it, her eyes twinkling as much as the ring within.
Did she want to marry him? Of course she did. She couldn’t imagine her life without him! He was a part of her, an integral part of her that she knew that she could never be truly whole without. In her studies, she had come across a Native American legend that had said that at its creation, every soul was split in half, and cast to the corners of the world. The legend claimed that it was the job of every soul to seek its other half during its lifetime, though few ever actually did.
She was one of the lucky ones.
She looked up at him, and a stray tear fell down her cheek as she slid the ring on her finger. She struggled to say yes, but no sound came out, not yet. She swallowed again, then looked up at him.
“Of course,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Of course, yes.”
And she threw her arms around his lip, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.
***
Most sentiments about ‘meant to be’ or ‘soulmates’ went against the way Sam viewed the world now; she might have managed to retain her beliefs after hearing his stories, but having lived through them, he was entirely changed on that point. What mattered to him was that his heart was set on her, his simple human instincts and emotions. No cosmic being had written it down, no legend about destiny foretold it-- or even if they had, he didn’t want to know it. He certainly wasn’t going to burst her bubble if that was what she wanted to believe, but it would have taken away from the specialness of it somewhat, for him. He wanted to be just his, chosen by him, intended by him, because his intentions were the only thing he trusted in anymore: his own intentions and those of the people around him.
Including, of course, Jess. He’d always trusted her, with everything; the secrets he’d kept had nothing to do with trust at all. His life was a million times better with her in it. He smiled more, he felt happier and healthier, warmed and soothed by her simple presence. And even though there was the gap of time between them, and the extra emotion that had accumulated in her absence, there was also the benefit of finally being honest with her-- with knowing that she could accept and love everything about him, including the darkest and least pleasant parts, which he’d never known before. Never gotten the chance to know, because she’d been taken away from him so quickly. If things had gone differently…
Well, there was no point in dwelling on that. He wanted to be right in this moment with her, feeling overwhelmed-- overjoyed, really-- that he had a second chance at having a life that was tied to hers. He watched her slide the ring onto her finger, where it belonged, and lifted a hand to brush the single happy tear from her cheek. When she moved to kiss him, he kissed her back passionately, lingering over it, one arm going around her waist and the other hand resting against the back of her neck.
When the kiss broke, he rested his forehead against hers, smiling breathlessly. “There’s more,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “You know I’ve been looking for ways to keep us here-- well, I didn’t find anything really strong, nothing I’m really sure will work, but I did find a few spells for binding and purifying magic… I put them on the ring. The binding spell should keep it, and hopefully you, in this world. The other one was for hopefully releasing any hold that the portal has on you already. They’re fairly simple spells, just from what ingredients I could get my hands on here in Storybrooke… not nearly as powerful as the portals, but I figured it was worth a try. They’re something, anyway.”
And unlike some of the options he’d considered, they had no potential consequences. Trying to mess with the portals directly, for instance, could definitely cause a lot of problems. But worst case scenario, the spells he’d used on the ring simply wouldn’t work. He’d have wasted a few herbs and candles and chalk, that was all. They certainly wouldn’t hurt her, which was the most important thing. Above all, even if he never figured out anything else about the portals, even if everyone else went home or somewhere else, even if he himself left-- he wanted her to stay. He wanted her alive and safe, more than anything else. If his attempts to keep her here in Storybrooke didn’t work, then there wasn’t anything else he could do.
***
The kiss, the snow, the Christmas lights strung around them...it was all perfect, and more than she could ever have hoped for. It was a fairy tale moment to her - appropriate, she supposed, since they found themselves in a fairy tale village.
The ring was beautiful, of course - as much for what it represented as for what it actually was. The symbol of her love for Sam, and his for her - the everlasting symbol of their union. Their marriage. But the other gifts were somehow more touching to her, and her eyes filled with tears again as he explained them. That he had gone to such trouble to keep her here, that he had actually worked on finding charms and protection against it - that in itself showed her how much he cared. It wasn’t that she had ever doubted it, but to have such a concrete demonstration of it...just seemed to bring her that much closer to him.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and her voice broke slightly. She cleared her throat, getting control of her emotions before looking up at him again. “If these won’t work, nothing will.”
She took his hands in her mittened ones, looking down at how they were clasped.
“Christmas couldn’t be more perfect, Sam. We’ll tell your family tomorrow, when we get together?” After all, she had planned a party for all of them, and now it would be all the more magical because of this surprise they had to give to everyone.
***
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Sam said with a slight smile. Maybe because he had more experience with magic, had actually gotten a sense of how powerful the portals were by talking to people about where they’d been before it had taken them-- out in space, from thousands of years in the future-- and because he knew that two different kinds of magic didn’t always cancel each other out, but he didn’t have as much confidence in the spells as he’d have liked. Part of that might also have been his fear of losing her again, though; even now, his guard was still up, still trying to prepare himself for that possibility despite knowing that no amount of preparation would make it any better. What did make him feel better was knowing that he’d at least tried something to save her, by keeping her here. “But you’re welcome.”
He raised their clasped hands to press a kiss to her knuckles, allowing himself a moment to revel in the simple fact that he’d gotten the chance to ask her to marry him. That, despite finding out his darkest secrets, she’d said yes. But the moment was shorter-lived than he’d have liked.
“Yeah,” he said, more steadily than he felt, “I think that’s a good idea.” It was what he’d expected, assuming she said yes, but that didn’t stop him from being flooded with discomfort at the idea of telling his family. He’d already told Dean that he was going to ask, so that somewhat assuaged his nerves on that front, but… his father was here. And even though he’d learned more about his dad, and understood that he could have actually been proud of Sam for his goals if not for the fact that he’d been so terrified for Sam’s safety (and rightly so, as it had turned out), life hadn’t stopped piling on reasons for him to be insecure about making choices that might even appear as if he was choosing something or someone else over his family.
But it wouldn’t go the same way this time, he had to believe that. This was a different place, a different time, different circumstances. He just missed the days when he had actually felt certain of his choices and prepared to pay the consequences. There were a lot of ways in which this could go disastrously and end in heartbreak for everyone involved, because his family was… his family. But he wasn’t going to run away from them this time, couldn’t run even if he’d wanted to, what with Storybrooke being sealed off from the outside world. And he wasn’t proud of the fact that he’d considered it, even for a moment. “Just… you know what my family is like. Or, well…” He supposed she really didn’t know, not entirely. “What I’m trying to say is, don’t be surprised if telling them doesn’t go… as magically and perfectly as you expect.”
As long as it didn’t end in a fight, or anyone getting hurt, then he’d consider it a win. Then again, if Dean was going to be hurt over it, that had already happened. His father was still up in the air-- and he didn’t know about Adam, but Adam had been surprisingly willing to try being brotherly even after what Sam had told him when he’d arrived. So while he didn’t know his younger brother nearly well enough to predict him, he also had hope that the news would be received relatively well on his end. With his father, he just didn’t know. And that was… well. Normal, for them. He’d deal with it somehow, one way or another.
---
“We don’t have to, Sam,” she said sincerely, looking him in the eyes. She didn’t want to do anything that might upset him, that had never been his intention. But even if they had...problems, she knew his family meant a lot to him. Especially his brother, Dean. And his father, even if he wasn’t, ah, in the prime condition to be socializing with his family. She walked with Sam a few steps, holding his hand.
“If you’d rather, we could just have Christmas the two of us. I don’t mind. I just thought it might be something you’d like.”
Jess loved Sam, any version of him, but it was taking some trial and error to come to terms with all the changes that had come over him. She’d been saying things the wrong way, and there had been times she hadn’t been able to anticipate his reactions like she’d once been able to. It was sad, to think that he’d grown, that he’d gone on without her, but that was life, and that was how it was, and she was going to have to learn to deal with things the way they were.
She sighed a little, but it was a happy sigh, looking at the ring on her finger.
“Do you want to get married soon, Sam? Here?” She didn’t say it, but the subcontext was obvious - did he want to get married before this place ripped them apart yet again?
---
“No, I do-- you’re right,” Sam said. And it was true; he did want to have Christmas with his family. He wanted to tell them and have them share in how happy he was to have Jess here, to be building a new and different kind of life with her here, for as long as they had. “I want to spend Christmas as a family, I want to tell them. It’s just… you know, when we were together before, it was at the cost of leaving them behind. Not directly, and not really by my choice, but… they might still see it that way. Or my dad might. Dean… already knows.”
He hoped she wouldn’t be upset that he’d told his brother first. It wasn’t something he could have done, at this point, make as big a life decision as this one without finding out what Dean thought. He wouldn’t have necessarily taken back the decision if Dean had disapproved, but… well, it would’ve been something he’d have had to sort out. He didn’t just follow his brother’s lead, but Dean was always a consideration. He was the most solid part of Sam’s life, and one that Sam wasn’t willing to lose.
Not that he was willing to lose Jess, but he’d already lost her. A part of him might always consider her lost, even when she was right here in front of him. Even when he had managed to do something to try to save her. Even when, if she stayed here, and he stayed here, their whole future stretched out in front of him. It was the same for his father, for Adam, and to some extent, for Dean. He didn’t know how to erase the feeling of loss, he never had. The difference between Dean and the others was that he just kept coming back, which meant that he still associated the sense of loss with hope of seeing his brother again.
“Yes,” he said, curling his hands around hers. “I do. But I don’t want to rush it. I… want to do this as if I really believe that it’s the start of a long, real life together, not as if it’s a last chance before I lose you again kind of thing. It’s… not. I have trouble trusting that any of this will last, that’s why I waited this long to ask.”
He’d waited until he believed it enough to fool himself, or to talk himself into thinking that the possible happy ending was worth the risk. The fact was that building anything came with the risk of losing it, and the more he built, the more it would hurt to lose. He’d waited until he wanted it enough-- or until he could allow himself to want it enough, more accurately. “I’m not just trying to reclaim lost time or fit as much of a life as we can into a short amount of time. I want you to know that, alright?”
---
Jess actually wasn’t at all surprised that he’d told Dean first, actually he would have been surprised if he hadn’t. Even when they were living in Stanford, Jessica knew that Dean was important in his life, even though he very rarely talked about him. And from the stories he’d told her since arriving here, the two of them had only become closer after her death. Which was good. She was glad Sam had Dean to turn to after that, glad that he hadn’t been alone in the world. He was glad that Dean had kept him going, kept him strong, kept him fighting. Glad that he’d had something to do and something to strive for to keep him from falling victim to the despair. She would always be grateful to Dean for that.
The family thing was a bit harder, though. Jess had never been a part of Sam’s family. She’d been...purposely distant from it. He’d kept her aside, never introduced them, talked to them only in very small bursts when she’d insisted. And to cross that divide, to actually form a relationship with his family, wasn’t going to be the easiest thing she’d ever done. In fact, it might actually be one of the harder things. But she’d do it. Because she knew how important family was to him, and if she was going to be his wife, then she wanted to be a part of that. Desperately. It might take time, but she’d find a way to be a part of the Winchester clan, even though they scared her more than she was willing to admit. She was far from being weak, but the things they did were...intense. To say the least.
“We don’t have to rush it. We shouldn’t rush it,” she agreed. As long as they were here, they had all the time in the world, and if she were sent back, it wouldn’t make any difference either way. There was really no reason to hurry, no reason to rush into things. They should do it right, with the full belief that they had the rest of their long lives to enjoy being together. That was what she wanted. Of course, in some ways, she believed that she had the easier end of this - if she was sent back, she died. And went to Heaven, probably. Wherever she went, it wouldn’t matter to her anymore. Sam, on the other hand, would have to live with it.
“We’ll take our time. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, squeezing her hand. And she desperately hoped it was true.
***