A/N: The epilogue of the Forever series. Now it's done, and that's a strange, strange thing for me considering how long I've been working on it. If we include brainstorming and playing with the idea, I've been living with this series for more than five years. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this!
"You know, most of the world's caviar comes from Iran," Mason informed Athena from the backseat of the car. I glanced back to see my daughter staring down at her phone instead of looking at her cousin, but she muttered an acknowledgement of his words.
Mason's sister, Mallory, was far more intrigued by what he had to say, leaning forward in her car seat to better watch him over Athena's head.
Athena may have been competent enough when it came to dealing with her cousins, but her temper with Mason had always been on the short side. She lifted her gaze to meet mine through the rearview mirror, and I gave her a stern look, reminding her of the conversation we'd had that morning.
She wasn't going to do anything to disrupt what was already a stressful day. She'd agreed, and she knew what the consequences would be if she disobeyed. Sighing, she looked back down at her phone, her nods the only indication that she knew Mason was speaking.
Soon enough, an unremarkable building came into sight, and I pulled into the half-full parking lot. Athena let out a judgmental scoff. Ever since she'd learned that this was where Claire was getting married, she hadn't been afraid to let her older cousin know just what she thought of the choice of venue.
This time, I ignored her, focusing instead on unbuckling Mallory from her car seat.
"Let's go find one of your dads," I said, setting her down on the asphalt. At the mention of her parents, she took off for the door of the building, not waiting for me.
With one last look at Athena, telling her that she needed to get out of the car, I followed after my brother's kids. It really was a marvel that Athena had developed the pouty teenager's outlook on life before she was thirteen.
She was a decent kid when it came down to it though, and I heard the car door close as she followed behind us.
"Grandma!" Mallory had found Mom and thrown herself into her arms before I was fully in the door.
"Hi there, sweetheart," my mom cooed at her. She bounced Mallory up and down in her arms while Mason began sharing his many facts with her. She smiled at Athena when she came in the door, but all Athena offered her was a slight nod of the head. Mom took it in stride, not looking upset or offended.
With a sigh, I wandered past them, leaving the kids in the care of their grandmother while I headed towards the guys. The building was mostly one open space, which meant that finding the others wasn't a difficult task.
It was only made easier by the fact that Quil was jumping around as if he couldn't force his body to be still. As I walked over to him, Embry, and Jacob, he was doing some sort of bobbing that made it look like he had to pee, though I doubted that was the case.
"Calm down," I admonished him as I approached. "She's getting married. People do it every day."
"Eva's dress got a slight tear in it earlier," Quil said, not calming down in the slightest. "Her mom stitched it back together, but what if it tears again during the wedding? God, I told Claire that nothing good would come from marrying a vegan."
"Jesus Christ," I muttered underneath my breath.
Claire's fiancée Eva was the manager of a vegan restaurant in Port Angeles, a profession that Quil had been judgmental of since the day the two girls had begun dating, but we all knew that he was actually quite fond of the girl and impressed with her goal of opening her own vegan restaurant chain. Not that he'd ever admit as much to anyone.
Before any of us could say anything else, Seth came hurrying over, looking disheveled. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been hours since he'd stood still, although his sense of dishevelment was different than Quil's. He was being ordered around by the people who were as nervous as Quil was.
"Claire needs you in the back," Seth informed Quil in a rushed voice.
"What?" Quil asked, voice rising. "What does she need?"
"I don't know." Seth looked panicked that he didn't have an answer, as if Quil had flipped out at him earlier for the same transgression. "She was so demanding that I didn't think I should ask any more questions."
Quil cursed under his breath as he hurried off towards the room that Claire must have been holed up in. I watched him go with a roll of my eyes and flinched when he nearly ran into the door in his eagerness.
Seth's shoulders relaxed as soon as Quil was gone, and his lips quirked up in amusement.
"I think he might collapse from all the stress by the end of the night," he commented.
"It is the biggest day of his imprint's life," Jacob pointed out, though he appeared as amused by Quil's antics as the rest of us.
"Yeah," Seth said, "but he's a bigger mess than Claire and Eva are, and it's their wedding. If anyone should be freaking out, it's them."
"Quil might be why they're so calm," Embry said. "There's no time for anyone else to be losing it like Quil is. The wedding would fall apart if we were dealing with more of him."
It was quiet for a moment as the four of us looked around the fully decorated space, ready for the ceremony that would take place in an hour. The space was beautiful, designed primarily by Claire herself. Despite Quil's assurances when she was an elementary school student that she could take as long as she wanted to figure out what she wanted to do, Claire had settled on being an interior decorator by the time she graduated from high school, going immediately into a program after graduation.
From what I could tell, she was going to be successful at it. The place was immaculate, the sort of ideal decoration that so many brides dreamed of having. Even if my daughter was less than impressed by the venue itself.
"Who would have thought we'd be here?" Jacob commented, breaking the silence.
I glanced over to see him looking at the door that Quil had disappeared through.
"Quil was the first of us to imprint on someone who wasn't his own age," Jacob continued. "We were all so weirded out by it and had no idea what it meant. Now here we are at his imprint's wedding, and she's not even marrying him."
Seth sighed. "I think the strangest part of all that is that you and Nessie have such a perfect relationship." Jacob glanced away, looking bashful at the compliment. "It makes Quil and Claire never becoming a thing look even more like an anomaly among all the imprints."
"Nessie and I have always been different," Jacob muttered.
It was true in some strange way I couldn't put my finger on. Both Quil's and Jacob's imprints had always stood out because of the age differences, but aside from that, they were undeniably different from each other.
Nessie and Jacob had taken years to get together, with Nessie completing college before she would even think of dating. Still, we'd all known that it would happen eventually. As Claire had gotten older and older, it had become increasingly clear that there was no such future for her and Quil.
Claire had never developed an obvious crush on Quil like the one Nessie had held for Jacob for years, and Quil had always appeared relieved not to be on the receiving end of such feelings. They were comfortable in the sibling-like relationship they'd developed when she was a child. They wanted things to stay that way.
I was amazed that Claire had managed to find someone who wasn't weirded out by the whole platonic imprint thing. It was shocking how well Eva had adapted to Quil being a crucial part of her life. Despite Quil's continued jabs at Eva's choice of profession, we could all see that he was close to being as fond of her as he was of his imprint.
Eva regularly made comments about finding Quil a girlfriend so he'd back off a bit, but said comments were always made in a tone of voice that hinted she didn't really plan to do anything of the sort.
"Quil and Claire are definitely special," I said quietly, not expecting a reply.
We were still watching the door when Al appeared out of it, looking as harried as Seth had before. His eyes scanned the hall frantically before they found us, and he stumbled over as if he were escaping from someone.
"Note to self: Quil panicks more at weddings than he does while fighting vampires," Al said as if this were new information. "Stay as far away as possible."
With an amused grin, Seth reached out to fix his husband's hair, which had somehow begun to stick up in random places. Embry and Jacob both laughed as Al blushed, realizing how disheveled his appearance had become.
"I felt like I was being attacked," Al mumbled in a halfhearted attempt to defend his noticeable fear. "Quil's like one of those momzillas you hear about with weddings, and he's not even one of the brides' parents."
"Might as well be though," Seth murmured, which Al shrugged off.
"I'll be back," I said abruptly, having spotted someone else arriving.
And with that, I wandered off, leaving the others to deal with the aftermath of Al's traumatic experience.
Rachel and Paul had already been accosted by my nephew when I reached the place where they had taken a seat.
"The artistry of Persian rugs is incredible," Mason informed Rachel, sounding like a salesperson. He was remarkably good at parroting back language that he didn't fully understand yet. "I tried to get Dad and Papa to get one for the living room, but they won't. Not a real one, and there's no way they're getting an imitation Persian rug."
Paul and Rachel both listened, offering nods in the right places to show that they agreed with everything Mason was saying. He began trying to convince them to buy a Persian rug of their own as I sat down beside Rachel.
"You should get one, Uncle Paul!" Mason rose to his feet in his eagerness.
Paul nodded along, a serious look on his face that suggested such a thing was a possibility. Mason didn't pick up on the look though, he only continued to look at Paul in anticipation of a straight yes or no answer.
"Sure, bud," Paul told him, even offering a small smile. "We'll get a Persian rug."
Mason beamed, causing Paul to look quite proud of himself. I wasn't sure how he planned to handle the fallout when they didn't purchase a Persian rug. Because Mason was sure to follow up in the not-so-distant future, and there was little likelihood that the rug would be there.
There was commotion at the door, and the four of us turned our heads to see Sam and Emily arriving with all four of their kids.
"Franklin!" Mason exclaimed. He jumped out of his seat and urged Paul to go with him to greet the other boy.
Mason and Franklin were three years apart in age, but that seemed to be what Mason liked about Franklin so much. Unlike Athena, who was Franklin's age, Franklin was much more likely to listen to Mason speak with genuine interest and ask questions, something even the most patient of adults didn't often do. The fact that Franklin treated Mason as if they were equals strengthened Mason's fondness for him, as he enjoyed the ego boost it provided. Having a tagalong never seemed to bother Franklin, and he smiled as he saw Mason heading in his direction.
Rachel laughed as we watched Paul get wrapped up in the conversation the two young boys had begun having.
"He gets so soft around children," she said, her voice reaching a level of fondness that I never would have expected from her in years past. "Who would have thought?" She glanced at me with a roll of her eyes. "I wouldn't have when he first imprinted on me."
"It's weird," I agreed, thinking back to that same Paul who Rachel was remembering. "He was never one that I would have pegged as being able to spend five minutes in the presence of a child let alone become competent with caring for them."
Rachel sighed. "Sometimes it makes me entertain the idea of having kids." Her whisper was possibly an attempt to keep the few guys who still phased from hearing her words, but it was a futile effort. "I can't lie and say that seeing him like that isn't sweet. The idea's only ever in my head for a few minutes at most though before I remember how much I don't want kids." She let out a bark of laughter. "Hell, Paul would be a much better father than I would be a mother."
I didn't argue with her because we both knew it was true. It wasn't that Rachel would have been incapable of rising to the challenges of motherhood if she had to. It was that she didn't want motherhood, and for that reason, we both knew she was better off not having it.
"Paul doesn't want them either," she continued. "He likes kids. Obviously, just look at him." She inclined her head towards her husband, who was laughing along with a whole group of the pack's children. "But he doesn't want any of his own. Spending time with the kids of the pack is enough."
I hummed in agreement. There were more than enough children among us to satisfy anyone who didn't have kids of their own. Someone always needed a babysitter.
Athena wandered over to us, giving me the stink eye even though I was clueless as to the reason for it.
"They need you in the back with Quil," she informed me, immediately turning on her heel to head back from where she'd come from. Her crossed arms continued to show how offended she felt over being relegated to the role of messenger.
"See you later," I told Rachel, offering her one last smile as I followed my daughter.
We encountered Quil standing on the other side of the door from Claire. Jake and Embry stood with him and were watching him with cautious expressions, as if they weren't sure what he was going to do next. Quil was biting at the skin around his nails, making them bleed, and he looked up at us with a panicked look in his eyes as we approached.
"They won't let me in," he said to me. Athena rolled her eyes, having witnessed enough of his dramatics since we'd arrived.
"Claire said I was making her too nervous," Quil continued, oblivious to how little any of the people he was ranting to cared. "Sasha said it might be better if I wait outside. How the hell am I supposed to stand here without losing my mind?"
"Well, it doesn't sound like you were doing a great job of keeping it in there anyway," I pointed out, earning myself a glare.
The glare quickly disappeared, with Quil whimpering like a wounded dog as Athena pushed past him to open the door to the room Claire occupied. She took a few steps forward as if she were going to go inside, but she lingered instead.
For the few seconds that the door was open, I took in what was happening inside. The room's lack of space was emphasized by the sheer number of people packed inside it. Claire sat in a chair near the center of the commotion, surrounded by both parents, one grandmother, Emily, and my mom. They each glanced over, quite a number of them giving Quil warning looks when they saw him.
Embry tugged Athena back from the door, giving her a disapproving look, and the door swung shut again, cutting off our view. Athena had obeyed Embry's silent order easily enough, but her smirk showed how pleased she was with herself.
Some of the other guys were standing in close enough proximity to have seen what had transpired, and several laughs could be heard at Quil's expense. None of them seemed to phase him as he was too focused on his own struggle.
"Leah," Quil began, looking at me with pleading eyes, "they'll let you in."
I shrugged. "So what? That's not going to do you any good."
Suddenly, Quil look conflicted, like he hadn't thought that far in the future and I'd shattered his plans. He recovered quickly, still pleading with me.
"You can make sure everything's okay," he said. "Let me know if anything happens."
"There are enough people back there already doing that, Quil. Emily or Mom or someone would let you know if they needed you."
While Quil remained silent, he frowned at me in what I knew was disapproval. If I hadn't known that his mood would lighten considerably once the ceremony was underway, I might have been preparing myself to be on his bad side for a long time. And Quil didn't really have a bad side. He had a slightly grumpy side.
With a slight laugh, Embry reached out to take my hand.
"Come on," he urged. "We don't have much time before it starts. We should go find our seats."
Athena trailed behind us as we went to find seats on Claire's side of the aisle. Once again, I found myself settling in beside Rachel, who had been rejoined by Paul. The kids were no longer hovering. Mason sat between his fathers, Mallory on Seth's lap, several rows in front of us, and I assumed that Franklin was off somewhere with other members of the family.
There had been a rush for the chairs as the time of the ceremony approached. All around us, our family members filled the available seats, only Claire's closest family remaining behind. Jake and Nessie slid into our row on Embry's other side, Nessie leaning over to send a bright smile down the row. She was beaming, showing how excited she was for the wedding of her closest childhood friend. Simone slid into the seat beside Nessie, eager to receive attention from the adult she most admired, and Nessie turned towards her instead.
I looked down at Athena, who was settled between Embry and me. Her eyes were wide as she looked around. It had taken a while, but it seemed like the magic of the day had penetrated her mind. She no longer looked like the skeptical teenager from earlier.
Embry caught my eye, offering a smile as his eyes glanced down at our daughter too. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. We often did that these days. After more than a decade together, we'd developed the ability to scare Athena by sharing our thoughts. We joked about it with her, but I had yet to reveal to our daughter how precious that ability was to me. I'd never thought we'd be together long enough to achieve such a thing, and now I knew that it would only become stronger in time.
Reaching out, I put an arm around Athena's shoulders, tucking her into my side. She came willingly, not bothering with the sarcastic eye rolls she was fond of these days. My hand brushed Embry, and I could see him grin from the contact, causing the corners of my own mouth to tilt upwards.
I could only hope that Claire and Eva would be as happy as we were. If they were, I'd say that they were getting a pretty great deal.