A/N This is my first ever fanfic, and I'm not terribly familiar with the Twilight franchise, so please give me some leeway! This is a work in progress. I have a few chapters ready to go, and they get longer the further I get into the story, but please be patient if it starts to look like I'm slacking off LOL

Mid New Moon

I own Nothing

Things get lemony later, be warned!

"Here, boy! Come on! Come get your dinner!" Rachel playfully slapped her knee and called to Jacob as she set a steaming pot roast on the yellow table. He hated this, which meant she loved it.

"Rachel, that's enough," Billy said, rolling his wheelchair to the head of the table.

"Yeah, Rachel. You're lucky I don't have the whole pack over here for dinner every night." Jacob took his seat beside Billy. The old chair creaked beneath the weight of the now muscle-laden wolf.

"Ha! You can order pizza for your puppies. There's no way I'm cooking for that group, I've seen them eat." She put the butter and rolls on the table beside the sweet corn and took her usual seat, leaving one open for her mother to her left. "Try not to inhale this roast in three seconds. It's been cooking for an hour and I'd like to take my time and enjoy it." she quietly added, " It's Mom's recipe."

"It looks delicious and smells just like Sarah's cooking, Rachel. She'd be proud of you." Billy never avoided the subject of his late wife. The Quilleute tribe's chief believed the dead were best honored by remembering them, not pretending they'd never existed. "Shall we?"

Billy cut the meat, Jacob worked hard to not inhale it, Rachel savored it and they all tried not to let the fractures of their family ruin dinner.

When she came home from college a week ago, Rachel accepted a job down at QTS teaching art in the fall. Having taken a job on the reservation meant she would be living at home again where she'd be exposed daily to pack business. Rather than try to keep it a secret, Billy thought it best to tell her as soon as she was settled. She took the news that her brother turned into a giant wolf so well that Jacob wasn't sure she understood them, and repeated the whole thing again. The entire second time through she was plotting ways to tease him about it, and since that day she has teased him mercilessly. It was hard being here without her mom or twin sister, she needed a distraction.

Later, as Jacob and Rachel did the dishes together, they heard a howling in the woods behind the house.

"Sorry Rach," Jacob shook the bubbles from his big, tan hands into her long, black hair and jogged out the back door shouting, "duty calls!"

"Yeah, yeah, go sniff something," she called after him.

Once Jake was gone, the house was suddenly quiet. Billy's TV mumbled quietly in the living room, but tucked away into the woods as it was, there was very little outside noise in this house.

A soft, woodsy breeze wafted through the open window over the sink as Rachel slid over and sunk her hands into the wash water. She breathed a deep sigh. She always found the warm, soapy water soothing. Some of her best thinking had been done in this spot. Tonight, she wonders why she has felt so out of place since coming home.

She was happy to be home, sure, but she hadn't expected such a boring life on the rez to be so tiring. Yes, her brother was a shape-shifter, but that didn't really make her life any more interesting. He'd refused to even let her see him as a wolf because she'd been teasing him so much. What was she supposed to do, though? She was so bored here. She loved the people and the reservation, but it just felt like something was missing.

Rebecca had seemed so happy and fulfilled when she called that evening. She and Solomon were both working at a little restaurant near the beach. It wasn't how she had wanted her life to turn out, but she reasoned that she was still young and they had plenty of time to get somewhere. Right now Rebecca just wanted to be where Solomon was.

Rachel wanted that. When she graduated she had nowhere else to go, and no one to follow anywhere, so she just came home. She enjoyed being home, she just wished she could put her finger on what she was missing.

She paused her washing to take a deep inhale of the cool breeze. What is that hollow feeling in my chest? She wondered. How does a person fill such a thing when they don't know what is missing?

Placing the last glass in the dish drainer, she let her water out, rinsed the sink and grabbed a beer from the fridge for Billy. He wouldn't be drinking it tonight, though.

He was slumped over in his chair, already snoring gently when she entered the living room. Clicking off the TV and setting down the beer, she slowly wheeled Billy to his room and gently woke him to get ready for bed.

She enjoyed caring for her father like this and she didn't like the thought of him being alone while Jake was out on pack business. If she weren't here, how long would he have sat there like that? He wasn't that old, but his diabetes had taken its toll and his chair didn't have a place for him to rest his head.

As Billy got ready and got himself into bed, Rachel returned the beer to the fridge and turned on the back light for Jake.

Smiling to herself, she grabbed the yellow pad of sticky notes from the organizer by the phone and drew a picture of a pair of flip-flops on one of them. Then, she stuck it to the outside of the sliding door as a reminder for Jake. He'd forgotten them last night and she woke to a terrible mess this morning. Half dog or not, she didn't want to be cleaning muddy footprints off the floor every morning.

She stood for a moment in the open doorway and looked out across the the back yard, now flooded with light. That empty place in her ached and pulled at her a little, and before she knew it, she was standing at the tree line. It dawned on her then that she had spent a lot of time in these trees over the years, never knowing the reality of the danger there. Could it be that she just missed these woods? She inhaled deeply and whispered to the trees that she'd spend some time there tomorrow. Taking one last breath, she returned to the house.

As she undressed and washed her face for bed, she decided that it was just being so far from Rebecca that had her feeling so strange. That had to be it. Right?