Welcome to Pieces of You and Me!

This is a series of one-shots (some may have 2 or 3 parts) that tie into my Erin Black Series, which is SethxOC. Erin Black is Jacob's cousin, technically, but they grew up like siblings. She is a year younger than Jake, as well, and Seth's imprint. Please go check out the books, starting with Times of Change if you haven't yet.

Requested and dedicated to inuyashademons14

Title: Our Blood

Timeline: Directly after Without You (Book 3).

Character(s): Embry Call, Sam Uley

Siblings: (n.) a combination of a best friend and a pain in the neck, might be the most annoying people around you but still loved endlessly

Third Person's Point of View

Sam Uley couldn't actually remember the first time Erin Black debuted in his life. Not because she'd just always been a part it or because he had a bad memory, but because her first appearance had honestly left no lasting impression on him. Thinking back on it, knowing her as he did now, Sam wasn't really sure how that was possible.

He figured he had to have seen her around when he was with Leah; she never left Seth's side after all. They'd probably crossed paths for the first time at a Clearwater family bonfire or a trip to First Beach. She would have been eleven or twelve when he'd begun dating Leah.

He found himself, from time to time, trying to comb through the painful memories of his time with his first love with new eyes. Eyes seeking out curly brown ringlets as they whirled around a corner or icy blue eyes, just like his deceased grandmother's, peering at him in the rearview mirror as he and Leah helped Sue get Seth and his 'little friend' around town. But even though he knew these things had to have happened, he couldn't recall them at all.

Sam couldn't remember his own younger sister and despite their delicate relationship, he felt like one shitty older brother. Granted, he hadn't known she was his sister then, but it felt like he should have. She was a part of his family, a part of him and his history, and he couldn't remember her.

His first memory of Erin hadn't even been focused on her. He'd just been observing Seth, who was tottering on the edge of shifting for the first time, when he had noticed the short wild card of a girl that always seemed to trail after the boy wherever he went. A quick question to Emily had gotten him an eye roll and a name.

Erin Black, she was Seth's best friend, how could Sam honestly not know that by now?

And then the little girl who'd never caught his attention was suddenly the young woman demanding it. Seth shifted and had pulled Erin, head first, into the world of the supernatural alongside him. No one in the Pack had been even slightly surprised, the boy was head over heels for the girl before ever imprinting. They seemed to embody the phrase 'two halves of a whole'.

But then, within weeks, he found out he had not only a younger half-brother in Embry, but a younger half-sister in Erin. Maybe it was because Sam could actually see in his mind, but Embry was easier to deal with… Erin, however, was a bull in a china shop, crashing into everything that wasn't her business.

Did she understand that everything he did, everything, was to protect the Reservation and keep the Tribe safe? No, she didn't. She was too stubborn and childish to ever even try understanding. Hell, Erin still was a child.

And now she was apparently having one…

Sam shook his head, running a hand over his cropped hair. His shoulder sharply protested, bleeding lightly from the half healed wound Jacob had dealt before Sam had finally managed to calm him after Erin's 'big news'. He ignored the pain; he was pretty used to it after training up over ten newly transformed wolves.

Erin was fifteen. If his memory served him right, that meant the girl would be a year younger than her own mother had been when she'd delivered her when this new baby would be born. Goddamn, Sam, at twenty and engaged to the woman he knew he'd be with forever, couldn't even imagine becoming a parent.

It was dark out now, hours had passed since he'd seen Jacob, Quil, or Embry. He hadn't even considered going with them to the Cullen territory; he knew he wouldn't be wanted. Leah would be there and Erin hadn't spoken to him since their fight weeks before. A rustle came from the trees behind him and Sam snapped to attention out of instinct.

His younger brother slipped from between the branches, nodding to him in greeting before finding a fallen tree to sit on. It was still odd to Sam that he could no longer sense Embry's presence around him as he had before, but that must have been what happened when a wolf left a Pack.

Keeping his voice demanding and controlled, Sam broke the silence, "How's Seth?"

"Couple of broken ribs, some blood loss." Embry shrugged, messing with his hair that he kept longer than any of the others, "He'll be fine."

The Alpha hesitated, "And Erin?"

The sixteen-year-old boy rolled his eyes with a small endearing smile on his face, "She's Erin. She's pretty damn tough."

"She has to be now." Sam commented, thinking for a moment of his own mother. She had more strength in her little finger than most people he knew. Good mothers have to be strong. It's what she always told him.

Embry's smile wavered and he nodded, slowly, "Yeah, but I've known Erin practically my whole life. She might not be able to shift like you and me, but we've all got that natural instinct to protect in our blood."

Our blood.

Sam didn't think about being related to Embry and Erin often. It was still hard sometimes to acknowledge what a complete asshole his father was. Joshua Uley had cheating on his wife and gotten not one but two teenage girls pregnant before skipping town, leaving all three mothers and their children behind, leaving Sam behind.

When he was little, too young to understand any of it really, Sam had blamed his mother for his father leaving. Dad had always said she yelled too much, nagged too much, she didn't understand him. To a four-year-old, she had seemed the logical person to blame.

When he got older, Sam realized his mother had done nothing wrong. She had only tried to give her son a good home and a stable family. It was his fault Josh left them. He had never done anything right, he was too clumsy, and he took all his dad's money.

When he found out about Tiffany Call and Emmie Black, Sam thought maybe it wasn't his mother's fault, or his, after all. Maybe it was Embry's; it was Erin's. Or at least they were the final straws for his father. Doing the math, Erin wouldn't have been born when his—their—father was packing up his stupid, junker 'hot rod' and Embry would have still been in diapers, but still…

Some dark, angry part of Sam blamed them for ruining his childhood, for breaking his family. It was easy to forget that Joshua had left both of them behind as well, worse he'd left without ever claiming either of them in the first place. When he was reminded of that reality, his fury at the teenagers tended to fade.

Because the only real person to blame, was Joshua Uley himself. The man who brought them all into the world.

Our blood. The Uley bloodline. The reason all three had a role to play in protecting the Reservation. The one thing that made the trio into a united front. The unspoken connection that tied Sam Uley, Embry Call, and Erin Black together, irrevocably, for the rest of their lives.

Sam sighed and nodded, not having the right words for his little brother, just like he never had the right ones for his sister. Blood connected them, but it didn't it any easier to understand each other. He knew he would never be Embry's best man or the godfather of Erin's child, but he would be there for those moments, for the things that counted. Because protecting was in his blood, their blood.

Erin was a fierce, natural guardian, just like him and Embry. She would set herself aflame to protect those she loved, risk any personal injury, jump in front of a train if she had no other choice. The strength she possessed, that they all had inherited, was something old and magical. It gave him and Embry the ability to change into wolves and it gave Erin the ability to face down any opposition.

Good mothers have to be strong…

Erin would be a good mother.

So, what do you guys think of this first one-shot? If you liked it, send me more requests, if you didn't, send me more and I'll try to get better! Haha, I hope this kind of fulfilled what you wanted, inuyashademons14. I know you said like a whole conversation between Embry and Sam, but in my depiction of them, they aren't close. And Sam has never come off to me as much of a talker, especially about feelings, so I tried to stay true to that…