Disclaimer(s): I have no rights to the Twilight Saga or the novel series, nor the movie Life As We Know It. I make no claims of originality. I am probably not the first to tackle this scenario. Please note that there will be some direct line lifts, which make sense for the story's direction but are definitely not my own. Lifts and verbatim will not be marked, because marking is silly.


Steps of Grief


"The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come."

Jodi Picoult, "Lone Wolf"


Prologue (Leah)


An officer stands with her. Officer Josephson, she thinks vaguely. He found her name and number on an insurance card.


Seth is the first at her side, and then Jared and Kim, who are followed by Quil and Brady, but it is only when the roar of the motorbike can be heard from outside that the tears which have been threatening to spill over for nearly an hour now finally stain her face.

His bike left tossed and abandoned, Jacob is too quick for the automatic doors. His face hardens as he waits for the glass to slide open, and for just a moment she thinks that he's going to break through, but then he sees his family standing together at the front desk. She knows that he is counting, figuring out which of them are missing. One, two, three.

He looks for the person he knows who will always tell him the truth. Four, five, six.

Their eyes meet. "Emily," she whispers.


The doctor comes to the seating area and asks to see the immediate family in private.

"We are their family," Jacob says from beside Embry. They are finally all together as they have not been since the day after Sam quit cold turkey. "All of us."

Seth stands up. Paul sits on the other side of him and looks unsure because Rachel is gone, searching for coffee after being unable to stand the bouncing of his knee any longer. Kim is on Jared's lap, wrapped in his arms and sobbing the loudest of all of them.

"I'm sorry," the doctor begins, but he doesn't need to say anything else.

Somebody wails.

"Sam," she whispers.


Seth is throwing up. Brady and Collin are on the floor. Kim is inconsolable, but now Jared cries with her. Rachel has dropped her coffee.

Leah has grabbed onto whoever is close—Embry, and Quil. They hold her tight as she fights the phase she has painstakingly refused for two years.

Paul's bolted. There's nobody left to keep Jacob on his feet.

But an Alpha is always able to find impossible strength. Chief Black. "Where is the baby?" he demands. "Where is Joshua?"

Officer Josephson is quiet as he steps forward. He has been here for as long as she has. "He was in the care of a minor. A babysitter, at the time…" She vaguely registers somebody murmuring Claire's name. "We have placed him with CPS for the night."

Her eyes are puffy but as murderous as Jake's, though her body trembles harder. "CPS?"

"Child Protective Services. They take cases like this. They deal with the welfare of children in these times." The officer straightens himself and looks at each of the brothers and sisters who have refused to leave the waiting room. "Of orphaned children."