AN: I'm sorry for the first person. I tried writing this in third person, but it just didn't have the same impact. On another note, I am in the need of looking for a Beta, message me on here, I have a rather strange schedule though.

I met her in the street, standing in front of a light post waiting for the bus stop. She was just waiting there at two-thirty in the morning and I imprinted, my whole world burst from under me and her being prevented me from falling. Her name was Aurora Lotte, but everyone that knew her, which wasn't many, knew her as Rory. It stuck with me. She was beautiful, smart, driven, strong, wonderful and two years older than me. I was only nineteen.

We got married months later when we found out she was pregnant. My family and Pack disagreed, but they would just have to get used to it. My sister felt as if I'd taken advantage of Rory. The day we got married, the Pack gave us an ultimate gift. A house of our own, near the beach and my mother. She didn't even know the secret yet, I didn't even know her hometown. Somehow, it still worked.

Her parents wrapped their minds around the idea quickly. They hosted the wedding, and my friends and family were already comfortable with the idea of it. A lot of people resented our union, unable to find how I would marry her without being on drugs. I found out that day she was a Marine and it struck me how little I knew about her.

I grew to know her more and our baby was born after that. I wanted to call him Harry, but she refused. She didn't want to name him after the one of the best men I knew, and my hero she would never get to meet. Jake was next, but she shot that down as well. In the end, we called him Lenox Harry Lotte Clearwater.

The pack duties were getting strenuous as well as my full time, twelve hour-round the clock job was getting in the way and with all the free time she had, I was worried. I trusted her but I couldn't help it. She was beautiful. She assured me everyday when I was able to sleep at home or whenever she was able to.

Lenox was three by the time we had our next child. She agreed with the first name I wanted, Marci, and Leah wanted to cry. Who said she didn't have a heart? Marci was the name of her first miscarriage. We didn't know shapeshifters couldn't have children. They couldn't deliver, they wouldn't survive the three trimesters, and it was just heartbreaking. When Rory started to wondering if she was enough for me, why I was gone at night, never slept at home, and would never let her converse with my friends I decided to tell her the secret. She didn't take it well but I gave her space and we got over the milestone together.

For a year after that, that was my world. And I was never happier.

Then... Everything changed. Terrorists attacked our nation. The nation we loved and cherished. I was outraged, caring about our nation more than ever thanks to my wife's influence. But she took it to an all new level. Rory told us she was going back to the Marines. She wanted to fight back; she knew we would retaliate, we couldn't afford not to.

It scared me, I couldn't support the kids with my job, as well as my responsibilities in the pack. Marci was only eighteen months old. Lenox was coming into his own and testing all his limits. He had another six months or so before we would send him to kindergarten. I couldn't work or take care of them on my own. I told Rory this. Truth be told, I was only covering up the obvious reason. I didn't want to lose her.

She just smiled. "Don't worry Seth, I'll be okay. And you can handle it."

I couldn't talk her down, but I did tell her she didn't have to go. She got mad, said she had a duty. It's her right to do what she wanted. I wanted to go with her, I felt as if I had a duty too; but it was not as strong as the duty to my family.

The day she shipped out we spent most of the day wrapped in each others arms. I didn't want to let her go. I never envisioned my life like this, if anything, it should be like those romance movies.

I told her this, "This is all backwards, Rory. I'm supposed to go away to war, while you cry over me after at home with the kids."

She laughed. "Seth. If you cry today, I'll kick your ass."

"Yes ma'am."

She wrote to us everyday. I found a better job. We got a new neighbor - sweet lady, a retired teacher – who watched the kids for me whenever I couldn't get home. The Pack went easy on me on my duties. I would always have nightmares of Rory dying over there. I would scare myself awake and cry myself back to sleep.

When it happened for real... I just shut down. The Elders never told us what happened when imprints die before their partners. It's never happened. The shifter would always die first, to prevent the pain of losing their loved one. Of course, they would always be sure the imprint would die not long after. So they didn't inflict pain, or sorrow. Leaving them would probably be the worst part.

It may be stupid, sentimental but I knew. I felt it in my chest and had a dream. I dreamed of Rory; she was sitting beside me in bed, singing softly. For most of the night, she just sat there and sang to me. She loved to sing. And then, just before morning, she leaned over and kissed me. "I have to go now. Stay strong for me, wolfie."

I slept better that morning than I had in months. In the morning I just knew; she was gone. I just felt empty.

I tried to give Lenox and Marci one last normal Saturday. We watched cartoons. Then Lenox 'helped' me in the backyard while Marci would put her toothless- save for one tooth or so- mouth on everything, trying to fit anything in her mouth. We planted daffodils for next spring. We mulched Rory's tulips. Then we all played in the yard until dark.

The contact team came just after supper. With two uniformed Marines in our living room, I hugged Lenox, who was crying, while Marci looked at the Marines with doe eyes, as if begging them to say that it wasn't so. I tried telling them as easily as I could that their mom wasn't coming home. I didn't cry, but I wanted to. Many men, shapeshifters, who would have been in my position probably would have cried. I needed to show Lenox it would be okay. Yet, I knew it would never be okay. I called my mom, Rory's mom, and the pack.

Jake was the hardest as well as the last. He was one of the most selfless people, he approved of their union in the beginning.

"Hey brother," with the best hearing in the pack, I heard the Cullens in the background.

"Jake..." I swallowed, "Rory's gone."

"No..." He went quiet for a long time. I could picture him struggling with what to say. Finally he came back; "Do the kids understand what's going on? They didn't really cover this when the Elders say you're alpha... Well that doesn't really matter, I couldn't imagine how you feel. How are you handling it?"

I couldn't speak. Just saying it out loud felt like someone stabbed me. I forgot to breathe.

"Seth?"

"What do I do?" It was just a whisper.

Very quietly, firmly, very alpha-like but with that gentle care still there in his voice, "Hug your kids like you'll never let them go man, everyone is gonna be there, you hang on. I'll be sure of it."

Lenox and Marci huddled up to me on the couch. Leah had came minutes later and I got up and hugged her. Mother was right behind her and I hugged her too. People started piling in while my kids happily greeted them all. Jake was one of the last, having to run here all the way from Alaska. He came six hours after Leah. I hugged him tight and he hugged me. So tight I felt as if I were human my ribs would break. But it wasn't tight enough. I came real close again right there. My eyes stung.

"Her parents will be here tomorrow," he assured. At some point, we all sat together and he asked the question I couldn't.

"How did she die?"

They didn't have details. They did understand it had been a RPG, fired at Rory's convoy vehicle. I shut my eyes, unable to picture her beautiful, sleek body, her sweet face, mangled and bloody in the dirt. I felt sick and enraged. I went outside to be by myself. I knocked down some trees and broke my knuckles, but refused to cry.

In the morning I left the kids with Leah and Jake and drove into town by myself. First stop I made was at the barber, got myself a proper high-and-tight. Somehow it was comforting. I went into the pharmacy and bought a peach scented soap, her favorite. I went to the grocery and paced the aisles for too long. I bought bread, peanut butter, milk, eggs, carrot sticks, orange juice, toilet paper, cereal, oatmeal, bananas, pears, broccoli, celery, cheese, hotdogs, bologna, pickles and mustard. I got my heart set on watermelon, but it was out of season. I bought a six-pack of Sprite; a six-pack of beer. I drove myself home, very slowly.

I washed my hands with the soap, and the peach smell was comforting. I hugged Rory's parents; they had arrived while I was out. And I found myself apologizing to them. They looked hurt. "It's not your fault."

We sat outside and drank a beer each, while we warmed up the grill for hotdogs. The contact team was still there. I liked having them around. They made me feel secure. I think even then I was thinking about joining the Marines.

The funeral was hard. I felt fragile and empty. I finally cried a little; but it just scared the kids.

It was difficult for me to adjust. Rory's letters kept coming in the mail for days after the funeral. It was like touching a ghost. But after they'd stopped, it was worse.

I took as much time from work as I could. The pack didn't rely on me for duties, they were doubling up on my behalf. I stayed at home with the kids. I drove Lenox to school, and picked him up, played sports with him after school, took him to movies. I played with Marci, and prepped her meals, changed diapers, gave her her naps, nursed her through a fever. I read her stories, and taught her new words.

My babies. I felt so torn. I wanted to be there with them, always, but I also wanted to fight! I wanted to go over there and take some back for Rory. I wanted to finish what she started.

I talked this with Jake, my parents, and Rory's parents.

"I want to join the Marines, they're practically taking anyone. I need to finish this, not for me, for Rory."

Jake was dead against it. "You can't do that against your kids, Seth. They've already lost their mother."

"I know..." It was like a killing pain in my chest. I hated the thought of leaving them at all. And leaving them to go risk my life; to go and die half-way around the world... that was even worse. But I couldn't shut it down. I still had that need.

My mom was more open, but it was easy to see that she didn't want to lose her son. "You're a fighter, a protector. I understand why you need to do this."

I felt like she'd articulated something I'd been feeling for months, but couldn't put into words. I wanted so passionately to fight back because I felt that if I'd been there I could have protected Rory. It was stupid, but it was extremely powerful, and I couldn't shake it.

Jake as Alpha tried to tell me not to go. He ordered my not to. The duty to my wife, my imprint, was so much stronger though. Stronger than any Alpha.

"Mom", I would call Rory's parents that too, they were family, "I feel really strongly that if I do this, I won't come back." My voice was deathly soft. It scared me badly. "I feel like I have to do this."

The sadness in Rory's mom's eyes, it broke my heart. "I can't stop you Seth. It's your right, it's your life."

"If I go... It's not like I'm abandoning my kids."

"I know."

"I don't want them to hate me."

"Seth, don't you dare talk like that." Jake interjected. They just didn't know what Lenox had been saying about his mother these days. That she left us on purpose. That she hated him and Marci. It just killed me.

Before I went too far, I explained it to Lenox. He immediately resisted the idea. As soon as I told him he pulled away from me. "You're gonna leave us too?"

"Lenox, it's not like that."

"Why do you have to go? Why can't you stay here with us!"

"I want to, but if we don't fight, the terrorists could attack us again. They could hurt more innocent people."

This got him quiet for a while. "Is that why mom left? To fight terrorists?"

"Yes." It shocked me that I forgot to mention such an important topic. Why his mother had gone to war.

"But she didn't win."

"No. Sometimes... sometimes the bad guys win." Seven years worth of Saturday-morning-cartoon feel-good logic out the window. Sometimes people really do get hurt. Sometimes the enemy wins. Sometimes mothers – and fathers – don't come home.

He stares at me, very serious, maybe a little afraid, his face like stone. Like a man who had seen too much already. Rory always told me that he was more like her father. They were both men who had been born with a lot of pain and sorry. With the wisdom and the thoughts of a man who had seen too much. She felt that Marci would be like her brother. Instead, with the knowledge, not the pessimism of her brother, but the optimism. The intelligence of a woman who was already grown.

"Who's going to take care of us?"

"Grandma, Grandpa, maybe Jake and Leah. Would you like that?"

"Maybe." He was so cautious. "What if you don't come back?"

What if I don't come back? What if I die over there? Those questions haunted me for weeks. I felt very powerfully that I was going to my death. "If I don't come back... that means I'm with Mom."

"Mom hates us."

Tears burned my eyes. "Don't ever say that." I hugged him tight, and after a minute he relaxed and hugged me back. "Your mother loves you so much. If there was any way she could come back to us she would. But they took her away from us."

"And you have to go there and hurt them, since they took her."

"Yes." Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was dumb. It was plain and simple though. I wanted payback on those sick bastards.

Lenox is seven. Marci is three. I'm twenty-seven, and foolish. Today I ship out to war. I hug my babies like I'll never let go. But I don't cry.

I can hear Rory laughing. "Seth. If you cry today, I'll kick your ass."