Only At Night

Chapter One

Prologue

Everything that happened the last three weeks was still blurry around the edges. The chapel, people all dressed in black, my mother's sympathetic lawyer, and a man whom I only vaguely remembered from ten years before. Until now, it was difficult to process the fact that all the events of those three long weeks actually happened. It all seemed to take an eerie, dream like quality, but a bad dream that was one step closer to being a full blown nightmare. The events of my mother's funeral had been so hazy that I barely grasped the entire affair as it happened, couldn't get it to register in my head even now that it was over and done with.

My mother was dead; forever gone physically, to remain only pristinely clear in my memory. I was alone, in a sense, even though I was moving in with my father – a man whom I barely knew anymore, whom I had seen only a total of seven times, but that was not counting the first three years of my clueless infancy. I was not to spend my days of trying to get over my mother's death alone, that was true, but I was still too close to being as lonely as I'd ever been: sucked into a new place where I would have to temporarily reside until college, and just because my mother's last will and testament declared that I was to be placed under the care of my biological father should anything happen to her.

My biological father. Charming Samuel Uley, a married Quileute man who had an affair with a young, fresh graduate by the name of Anne. It was inevitable that everything would end with a kid, and it did. A few months into their secret relationship, I was conceived. Aiyana, I was named.

Aiyana, I guess, was supposedly a Native American name, but then I wasn't really sure. If it was, then perhaps my mother had been trying to please Samuel when she picked the name for me at the time, straight out of a list of other names from the internet. No doubt trying to get him to stay with her, with us, so that we could function like a family. But he wasn't going to stay, and not even my mother's love for him or the name choice would have made Samuel do so. My father had a family of his own, a life. His own kid. We were merely an accident, mom and I. He was not going to stick around. And although I hated him when I came to understand who he was in my life later on as I got older, I couldn't really blame him for making the choices that he had, one of which was returning to his original family.

He visited though. How he managed to have the time to be able to do so, I had no idea, but he dropped by during all of my seven birthdays, during random school events, and every Christmas, if only briefly. For seven long years, he was a constant delight to me: appearing during holidays like my own version of a dark skinned, long haired, giant of a Santa, only slender framed. After my seventh birthday however, he became nothing more than a figment of my childhood imagination. He stopped visiting, my dark Santa, and I never saw him again.

That was, until the funeral.

To say that I was surprised was an understatement. I was shocked. At the time, I was only running on adrenaline alone – barely eating and drinking, caught up with attending to all the guests on behalf of my beloved Mom, deprived of sleep and on the brink of suffering the depression of losing a parent as well as crashing in exhaustion. When I spotted him amongst a crowd who warily cleared a path for his intimidating frame, as I watched him approach me with an all too familiar hesitant smile on his face, my world literally spun. To my embarrassment I fainted. The rest – waking up in a hospital, catching up, hearing about my mother's last will and testament – was, as they say, history.

And now I was here in his car a week later, driving back to his home where his son also lived, and the earth I'd claimed as my own so suddenly revolved around another galaxy where it was always raining, where the beaches had dark sand and too much drift wood and where forests thrived around your very own or at least near your house. I was not supposed to be in this Milky Way; I was not welcome here. But Samuel… my Dad wanted to take responsibility. Out of guilt, out of his own free will, I didn't know. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to be introduced to, was going to be a part of his life because he was making up for something… what that was I had no idea, but I couldn't do anything about it.

And I knew that things were not going to be pleasant. More than anything, I was afraid of meeting my older half brother and my father's friends and neighbors and fellow Quileutes. What would they think of me? How would I be treated? Would I make friends, or would I be treated as an outcast?

I wasn't really listening to Samuel's deep, accented voice chattering away, too busy watching the scenery change outside through my closed window which was misty from condensation and rainwater. He was both amusing and alluring with that sweet voice of his, laughing and chuckling as he updated me about his life – a life that I had never known – and I found that he was so easy to like. I hated him but I loved him because he was my father, and because I had no one else. My mother was gone, and I didn't have a choice but to love him. He was all that I had left. I had to love him or risk being distraught for the rest of my life.

And if it was loving a father who never claimed me entirely until recently to dying inside, piece by piece, because of loneliness and depression, then I was going to take my chances with Samuel Uley. I would learn to focus on my love for him, what was left of it at least, enough to forget my revulsion towards him and the fact that he abandoned me.

I snuck a glance at his face from my peripheral vision, recognizing my own face in his features. I was him in a sense, with feminine attributes thrown in thanks to my mother's genes, as well as her nose. Although to my utter horror I was rather strong jawed like him, dark haired with even darker eyes, and I also had dark skin, not dark as his but close. I looked like the half Native American that I was, and that in itself was proof enough that I was his daughter. I belonged to him but… not his world.

I was just his illegitimatedaughter who was going to crash into his and his son's life just because my mother died. My stomach churned painfully at the thought that I was going to be forcing myself into another family's existence, and I was just about to plummet into crazed anxiety when his voice decided to pull me out of my dark musings.

"Aiyana?" There was a soft chuckle as we turned a corner, getting closer to what appeared to be a residential area in the La Push community. My new home in Washington. I could spot one-storey houses now, built in the middle of vast lands with the forest acting as the backdrop of many homes. I'd never been so close to nature before, and amidst the worry, I couldn't help the spark of excitement I felt about my new environment. "You're not listening, are you?"

Slightly out of my reckoning, I managed a weak smile towards his direction when his words finally filtered inside my head, before I was looking out the window again. "A little. I'm just worried, that's all." I replied in a small voice, my stomach protesting once more as though I was being tickled, although repulsively, on the gut. I wanted to go home… but home was here now.

Samuel's chuckle suddenly morphed into chortles at my reply and he shook his head slightly, his hair bouncing with the peals of his laughter as he reached out to tousle my hair. "Relax. It's going to be okay. Sam has known you for years now… it's still hard for him to accept that you'll be moving in, but he'll deal. If he doesn't, I'll take care of him." And even though he had that stupid grin on his face, I couldn't help but sense that Samuel was as troubled as I was and only trying so hard to reassure me.

I totally understood his own worries of course, the mirrored mine somewhat. For how exactly was he supposed to force two people who didn't know each other, who had their own mothers and who had lived separated lives without the knowledge of the other's existence until a few years back, and who shared a father and nothing else, into a single house? That was asking for trouble right there.

But I didn't argue to his statement as I nodded silently, although I couldn't help but make a suggestion I'd made about a dozen times since I'd learned about my mom's preparations if she ever passed on before I was ready to set out on my own. It was a choice, this suggestion, but I was scared of this because it was being by myself.

"I can always… you know. Find a part time job and do night school Samuel. You don't have to do this. I don't want to be a burden to you and Sam. I'll survive, you don't have to worry about me."

There was another chuckle in reply, and I wondered why Samuel was so happy all the time. All my memories of him were the same, as a child: he always laughed and smiled and was eternally happy. Perhaps that was why my Mom loved him so much. I would never know, and my chest constricted at the thought. Samuel's answer to me stopped my tears, and I was glad.

"You know my stand kid, the answer's still no." He turned to a property, pretty much like everyone else's, and pulled into a driveway. I looked up and found myself looking at a two-storey house, so weathered and worn that it seemed to be a miracle that it was still standing. My new home. With a dad I was only forcing myself to accept as my own flesh and blood despite his short comings, and a half brother I was scared of meeting and who probably had no interest in ever getting to know me… I bit my lip, Samuel's words only affirming what I already knew.

"We're here."

I gulped, not trusting my voice, and only nodded as I opened the passenger door. Stepping out, the light drizzle allowed for rain drops to land gently on my skin, as if in reassurance… and I closed my eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath as I shivered both because of the cold and what was in store for me. When I opened my eyes, I found someone who looked like Samuel Uley peeking out from one of the windows through a gap in the curtains, and my heart jumped as his hard, expressionless face registered in my brain, before he disappeared. Sam. My half brother.

If running was an option, I would have bolted. But Samuel was beside me, an arm around my shoulder, and I knew there was nowhere else to go. He was smiling. "Well… welcome home Aiyana."


Author's Notes: So I hope I did that right. Tell me what you think. But please remember that there's a fine line between letting me know your opinion kindly and shoving it in my face to get your point across. The former is much more appreciated, of course. I don't mind criticism, as long as they're not flames. Both readers and writers would know the difference between the two I'm sure. Thank you.


Also, I would just like to say that I'm not a Twilight fan, so most of what I know is based on research and is hopefully correct. I found Sam's father's history intriguing, and since Seth is such a loveable character, I decided a story about him imprinting wouldn't be so bad, mixed with the older Uley's history. As for the name Samuel, I usually just come up with common names, so we all have to make do that he's named such. And anyway, his name's near Sam's so yeah. The name Aiyana was founded through research btw. Just type in "Native American Names" in Google and click the first result you find there. Aiyana sounded better than everything else, so I chose it, not special reason. Yes, I suck at names, what can I say. :)