18

CHAPTER 1

Claire:

"Claire, do you want to be my partner?"

Claire's head immediately shot up to see Bennett Callahan asking her to be his partner for the major research project that Mr. Hillard had assigned. It would be due in three weeks and she knew that it would take almost all of her spare time from now until then to complete. She also knew how important it was to have a good partner if she was serious about getting a good grade. Not that Bennett would be a bad partner. She honestly had no idea. She'd never even talked to him before, none-the-less worked on a major project together with him. She didn't even know that he knew her name. But with no less than at least five people staring at her to see her reaction she didn't see how she could refuse. She could even see her best friend Macy staring at her from across the room with her eyebrows halfway to her hairline. Bennett was sitting three desks up and one over and had had to turned around and make quite the effort to ask her.

"Um, Sure!" she replied graciously

Bennett had moved to their Makah Reservation and enrolled at their high school about four and a half months ago at the end of the last school year. After his parents had had a pretty messy divorce, he and his mom had moved in with his grandparents. Or at least those were the rumors. Of course, Claire had seen him around, they went to a small school. They even had at least three classes together even though he was a full grade above her, and Macy had talked about nothing but how cute he was since the moment he had gotten there.

"Great." He responded casually with a smile at her

"WHEEEWWW!" cat called at least two students in the back-row.

Claire rolled her eyes.

Highschool, She thought to herself. Always so immature.

The bell rang saving her from having to respond and releasing them from class and school, since it was the last period of the day. Relieved to have made it through another day she sighed and got up while grabbing her bag to leave.

"See you later, Claire!" Said Katie, the girl who sat adjacent to her and who she had expected to partner with for this major assignment.

"See you tomorrow, Katie!" She replied as she headed toward Macy's desk in the back. They usually walked out together but Macy seemed a little perturbed at her and she knew she was going to get crap from her because of this new "partnership".

As Claire had predicted, Macy immediately grabbed her arm and steered her out the door and a few feet away before pinning her down by a row of lockers.

"Wow, Macy, chill. Ouch much?" said Claire rubbing her arm a little tenderly.

Completely ignoring her Macy immediately jumped down her throat.

"Why didn't you tell me you've been talking to Bennett!? I was just telling you at lunch how hot he is in his football uniform! You could have at least given me a heads up! We knew this assignment was coming for weeks!" Macy all but silently shrieked at her.

"I haven't been talking to Bennett Callahan. No Really!" Claire said catching the look of complete skepticism that Macy was giving her "I didn't know he was going to ask me to be his partner or I would have given you heads up. Look I'm going to be late for practice, and I still need to go by my locker. I'll see you tomorrow, Mace." And she walked away without looking back at her, hoping to end the conversation before Macy could continue.

Claire and Macy had been friends in middle school and then last year they had grown close when they had been the only two freshmen to make the junior cheer squad. This year had put a serious strain on their friendship when Claire had made the varsity cheer team and Macy had been cut all together. For such a small school, they had a very competitive cheerleading program. They didn't just cheer for their school's athletic programs but also competed with other school's cheer programs, sometimes even out of state. She and Macy had always roomed together whenever they went out of town to compete. Claire had had a lot of fun last year bonding with Macy while they traveled, and she was really going to miss her this year. She had wanted to tell Macy that, but couldn't think of a way to say it without it seeming like she was just rubbing it in her face that she had been cut while Claire was promoted.

Two hours later and Claire was in a mood. Practice had run long and not gone smoothly. The squad was still trying to get to know each other and see how they meshed together and it wasn't as smooth a transition as Claire had been hoping for, especially since she was the youngest girl on the team. She didn't even want to think about the fact that their first competition was next week.

She was one of the last ones left at school since all of the clubs and practices had already ended. Quil was supposed to pick her up today but he was late, another reason to be in a mood. Quil Ateara was the werewolf that had imprinted on her as a child. She knew that there had been a time before Quil was in her life, but she couldn't remember it. It seemed like every single memory she had (before cheerleading) had Quil in it. From pre-k to puberty, he had been there for it all, exactly the same, never changing.

The never changing part probably had something to do with the fact that he wasn't aging. Nope, that sucker had been stuck somewhere around twenty-five (or his body was at least) since he was seventeen and would continue to be until he stopped phasing into the giant brown wolf he could become at will. But Claire knew he wouldn't stop. He couldn't stop, he would start aging again, and he couldn't age yet, he was still waiting for her.

Waiting for her. It was something that they had never actually talked about, but it was always just a little bit there in the back of Claire's mind. It wasn't that they couldn't talk about it, she could talk to Quil about anything. It was just more that she knew he probably thought she didn't know, and she would never want to make him feel weird by admitting that she did, after all it wasn't like they could be together now. Their age differences were still too big of a factor with her currently being half his age, so she didn't see what good it would do to talk about them being together in the future. It would probably just make Quil feel like some sort of giant creeper.

But she knew. She had been to every werewolf-imprint wedding and every Quileute bonfire since she was two. She saw how every other imprint pair were together. No, not pair. Couple. Every imprint couple. They were ALL together. There was that, and the things that every so often she would overhear, usually from the other imprints. "Quil is adorable with little Claire, too bad for him he has to wait so long for her to grow up" or "Whew. Emily said Claire just hit puberty, that's got to be fun for Quil, I'm so glad Jared hadn't imprinted on me at that phase, he would probably never want to touch me again."

Claire wasn't stupid, she was Quil's imprint, so he must be waiting for her so that they could be a couple. Sometimes it was a lot of pressure to be someone's soulmate, especially when that someone was over thirty and had already waited twelve years for her and she was still only fifteen. But it was her life, that was just the way it had always been. It was her normal, and she was used to it. Besides Quil himself never put pressure on her about it, he just seemed to love to be around her whatever age or stage of life she was in, and she liked having him in her life too. She would never trade away the pressure of being his imprint for not having him with her. What would her life even be like without Quil in it? Probably a lot more boring and a whole lot lonelier…. Something that most teenagers felt, but that she never had to.

Quil finally pulled up to pick Claire up after her cheer practice in his black Camaro. Claire loved that car and was secretly hoping that he'd teach her to drive in it in a few months. She hadn't asked him about it yet (not because he would be worried about his car, she knew he wouldn't worry or care about that) but because she knew that if she mentioned the fact that she would be able to drive in a few months he would just stress himself out, both about her potential safety and about the fact that she was old enough to. For someone who was technically waiting for her to grow up, he sure wasn't in a hurry for her to. In fact, she suspected that if he had the option to slow her growth rate down, he probably would.

"Hey, Nino," he said cheerfully as she got in. "sorry I'm late."

"Hey, Quilliam." She responded sarcastically.

She hated when he would use his nickname for her, so she was a little vindictive and used her nickname for him knowing that he hated it. He said it was the "white people" version of his name and he called it "just another bastardization of the culture the white people tried to steal from us" she would roll her eyes at that, he could be so dramatic sometimes.

She hated her nickname. Not because she minded being teased, but just because she found it so demeaning. Nino. It literally meant "child" and not just child but "male child". She had tried unsuccessfully to get him to at least switch to Nina, but it hadn't taken, and she had been stuck with "male child" as his nickname for her. Probably through eternity.

"Wow, you're in a mood." He noticed immediately, picking up on her tone.

"I can't help it! I've had a crappy day. Plus, now I'm on my …." She drifted off, letting her sentence hang.

"…..period?" He finished for her. "Here I got this for you." he said handing her a grocery bag with a bar of chocolate and a box of tampons that for some reason was black with bright colors for the wording, before continuing,

"Did you know that they now make tampons in neon colors?! PHEW!" he mimed his mind being blown.

She knew he was teasing her now. She usually didn't mind being teased at all, especially by Quil, she just couldn't currently handle it with how awfully crappy she was feeling. He had however also picked her up a chocolate shake as well, that was always a game changer even on her worst period days.

"Ah!" She said diving for it after rolling her eyes at his antics, "Thanks, Quil. Hey how do you always know when I'm on my period? I never tell you."

"I'm psychic."

"I'm serious, how do you ALWAYS know, without fail." She insisted.

"You really want to know?" he asked dubiously

She nodded her head as she continued to suck down the shake.

"I can smell it." He said casually

"You…..can….smell…..it!? she asked appalled suddenly abandoning the shake.

"Yup. Wolf senses, remember?" he said casually while tapping his nose

"Ah!..." All she managed to get out was an utterly appalled squeak. She had been expecting him to have tracked it on his phone or something, but this. This was SO much worse. She couldn't even fathom anything in her world being more embarrassing than someone smelling her period, even Quil, who she was closer with than anyone else.

"You can smell my period?" She asked calmly managing to fake a much more serene tone than she was currently feeling.

He nodded unconcerned, while breaking off a piece of the chocolate bar in her hand and throwing it in his mouth.

"On me?"

He nodded again

"Like…. a dog in heat!?" she asked completely mortified now.

"Claire, it's really not that big a deal."

"Not that big a deal!? It's disgusting Quil, not to mention completely embarrassing!"

A new thought had just occurred to her, one that took this awkward situation from a ten on the scale of embarrassment to about a million. She gasped as she dropped the chocolate bar on the seat and brought her knees up to her chest, ignoring the cramp in her gut as she buried her face in her hands and tried to disappear.

"Why is it embarrassing? You've never been embarrassed that I knew you were on your period before." He pointed out.

She pulled her hands down to look at him in slight disbelieve as she explained in exasperation.

"It's not embarrassing that you know! I don't care that you know,we've never kept secrets. It's embarrassing that you can smell it! And not just you, but EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of your PACK can smell when I'm on my period!"

She thought back to last month when she had her period and had gone with Quil to the end for summer bar-ba-que at Collin's place… there had been at least five wolves there. She put her face back in her hands, completely horrified. She felt Quil put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry, honey. If it makes you feel better, it's not just you. We can smell it on any woman. Rachel started hers on Tuesday." He said in a soothing voice still seeming unconcerned like he thought it wasn't worth her being upset about it.

"Great, now Rachel and I are synching up cycles. Even more to be excited about!" she said dramatically as she threw her hands up in the air.

Rachel was Claire's older sister. They were only two years apart but completely different people and had a hard time getting along, even on their best days, forget about both on their period days!

Quil just laughed like he thought Claire had the best sense of humor. He probably did, after all she had no secrets from him and he had none from her.

Quil:

Poor Claire, he knew that she was absolutely mortified that he, along with the other wolves could smell when she had her period. He shouldn't have told her at all and wouldn't have if he had been thinking, and not just in such a hurry to do whatever made her happy. Like always. He just couldn't help it. She was so perfect, of course she should be happy, and the imprint pull was a powerful force. Her joy was what he fed off of and her pain physically hurt him. Including her period. She was such a trooper about it though, she never complained, and he knew the cramps made her downright miserable sometimes and the mood swings could not have been fun for her to deal with. Unlike Rachel who Quil found to be a major whiner; anything but a trooper. ESPECIALLY when she had her period.

Like right then as she marched across the kitchen screaming that there was "Nothing to eat in this house!" He and Claire were sitting at the kitchen table where he was pretending to help Claire with her algebra 2 homework. Really, she was helping him study for his GED exam, between solving equations.

This girl is so smart. I swear I don't know how I'm going to keep up with her. He thought to himself. He had (like most wolves) dropped out of high school after he had phased for the first time, it was kind of hard to not fall behind in geometry when you were constantly fighting what seemed to be the ever-growing vampire population next door, and sometimes even assisting them in their wars with each other. When things had finally started to settle down and the bloodsuckers started moving away, he had gone to a trade school when Claire was still little and between what he had learned there and everything that his best friend Jake had taught him he had become the best mechanic for at least 50 miles. He even owned his own garage…. Well owned is a relative term. He was still paying off a small business loan.

But he was worried that Claire would want to go away to college in a few years and he figured he needed to be prepared to go with her or get left behind, which wasn't going to happen on his watch. But colleges, even the crappy ones he was sure he would be applying to, require a diploma or at least a GED. Besides how could he ever even consider himself to be worthy to even be around someone as awesome as Claire when he didn't even have a high school diploma? She was really the reason he was doing it, but really everything he did was basically for her in one way or another.

He took a break from his stupid GED prep course book and looked up after Rachel stalked out. That was when he noticed how even while she was intently working out a problem in her homework, Claire had one arm wrapped around herself squeezing the life out of her tiny waist and her other elbow propped up on the table, supporting her head in her small hand while she stared down a problem that looked like it had personally offended her. She was obviously uncomfortable, if not in serious pain. She had changed when they got there into a pair of leggings and a giant gray Seattle Seahawks hoodie that up until a year ago had belonged to him. It was at least as old as she was; he had bought it as a teenager. But she had loved it. So, he willingly parted with it for her. But be honest, what do I own that I wouldn't give to Claire if it made her happy? He mused to himself as he got up from the table and grabbed the bottle of Midol from the cupboard and the rest of her shake off of the counter where she had left it.

"Here, take this Claire. It'll help." He said as he set them down in front of her on the table. She hadn't looked up in at least five minutes and hadn't picked up her pencil to write anything down in all that time, so he knew she wasn't actually working on her homework so much as suffering through her period in silence.

"Thanks, Quil." She sighed gratefully.

He sat down next to her and started rubbing his hand up down her back in the soothing way that he knew usually comforted her while she popped two pills in her mouth and drained the rest of her shake in one big pull from her straw.

"You doing alright?" He asked her concerned.

"I'm fine, it's just this stupid homework."

He knew that wasn't true, but she was such a soldier about it all. He wondered briefly if she was truly as impressive as he believed or if it was just the imprint making him biased towards her. But then Rachel walked into the kitchen practically screeching that she was hungry, and he thought Nope. Not biased. She really is that impressive.

Claire's dad Robert walked through the door with a tired look on his face. He seemed to just be getting home from the community college two towns over where he was an Art History professor. He was at least three hours later than his usual arrival in the middle of the afternoon.

"Hey, Dad." Claire acknowledged him at the same time that Rachel started whining "Dad, I'm STARVING, what's for dinner?"

"Hey guys." He greeted Quil and Claire at the table, and then "Rachel, it's your night to make dinner."

Yikes, um no thanks. Quil thought to himself before quickly saying,

"Why don't I go pick up some pizzas? It's getting late and I think everyone's already hungry."

Robert shot him a look like he was drowning and Quil had just thrown him a life preserver.

"Great idea, Quil!" He said while handing him twenty bucks. Just enough to cover two large pizzas with the understanding that he would have to cover the cost of the other two pizzas that would more likely than not be entirely consumed by him. Claire's parents had given up on trying to feed Quil's massive appetite years ago.

"Yeah, I could definitely use a break from this." Claire said with a sigh as she gestured towards her algebra homework. "Besides then we can pick up Jamie from the Calls on our way." She added as an afterthought.

"Your mother hasn't picked up Jamie yet?" Robert asked concerned about Claire's four-year-old brother who practically worshipped her as much as Quil did.

"I don't think she's gotten off of work yet." Claire answered.

"Oh really?!" He asked perturbed.

Uh-oh Quilthought, he had noticed a growing tension between Robert and Susan (Claire's mother) for about the last six months. But Claire hadn't seemed to pick up on it and if she hadn't noticed than he wasn't going to add stress to her life by pointing it out.

"We'd better hurry if we want to pick Jamie up before we grab the pizzas" Quil said as he started steering Claire toward the door before Robert could say anything else that might enlighten Claire to the troubles in paradise.

They quickly grabbed Claire's shoes and headed out the door. Once in the car and with a twenty-minute drive to La Push (to pick up Jamie first) Quil finally asked her,

"So, you never told me why you'd had such a crappy day."

"Oh well... practice didn't go well, and our first competition is next week... So that's stressful, plus I have this huge history assignment due in three weeks that was assigned today, and I don't even know my partner. And of course, Macy is mad at me. Again!" She told him simply.

Yikes he thought. He hadn't remembered high school being this complicated when he was in it, but maybe being a teenaged girl was just a lot harder than being a teenaged boy. He wasn't sure which thread to even pull first so he just went for it.

"Macy is mad at you, again? Why? Is this still because she got cut?" He asked.

"No. Well… that's still probably an underlying reason but this time it's because this kid that she has been majorly crushing on for the past few months is going to be my partner for that project that was assigned today. I mean I guess I see her side, it MUST be frustrating to constantly see me "getting" (she did little air quotes around the word) the things she wants, but at the same time, what am I supposed to do about it?" She explained and Quil could tell there were some definite feelings of frustration there. He knew that this strain on her friendship with Macy had been weighing on her lately and he'd hoped that by now it would have cleared itself up. Quil was definitely starting to feel like now that Claire was in the middle of high school and in the thick of things he was out of his depth when it came to helping her navigate these waters.

"Well that's really unfair." He replied.

"What do you mean?" She asked sounding confused.

"How can Macy be mad at you because you were assigned to the kid she likes?"

I'll never understand teenage girls…he thought to himself, luckily Claire always still made sense to him, but a big part of that was probably just her willingness to share everything with him.

"Oh, well it wasn't an assigned partnership, and I'm sure she was hoping to get to work with him on it herself." She responded

"Well if it wasn't assigned than how did you end up with him as your partner?" He asked curiously. The warning bells had started ringing in the back of his head. That happened any time he felt like something that might be threatening to Claire's welfare came up.

"He asked me to be." She responded simply. "Made quite the little show of it actually."

Bells getting louder…

"He made a show?" Quil asked confused

"He just asked me in front of a bunch of people, like half the class heard him. There was no way I could say no without looking like a total jerk-face. He did it first thing too when Mr. Hillard told us to find partners, so it wasn't like I could say that I already had one." She explained

Yeah, he understood now, and it definitely explained the warning bells. But he wanted to see Claire's take on it.

"Why would he do that?" He asked pretending to be innocent about it.

"I don't know, probably because I have one of the best grades in the class. I mean I've never even spoken to him before, so I can't imagine why else he'd want to be with me." She responded

Sure, (he thought sarcastically) THAT'S why.

"Well it's still not your fault, Claire, I think Macy is being pretty unfair about it."

"I get it though, it's a crappy situation for her and I'm sure I'd respond the same if I was her." She said resigned.

Quil seriously doubted that.

"Maybe tomorrow I can suggest to him we switch partners. I could just pretend I promised to work with her partner and then she'd get to be with him." Claire mused to him

"Yeah, I doubt that would go over well." Quil said. "But this is Macy's problem, not yours, don't let it get to you."

"I just wish she hadn't been cut! Everything would be so much easier if she was still on the squad." Claire sighed frustrated at the situation.

"So, why did practice not go well?" He asked distracted by her cheerleading struggles, and they spent the rest of the short drive discussing it until they got to La Push.

As they pulled up in front of the Calls house Quil couldn't help but think about how strange it still was to him that Embry's mom had gotten married and then had another kid. Especially since Embry's (much littler) brother was only a year older than Embry's own child. After years of being a lone wolf (literally) Embry had finally imprinted on a girl a few years ago. Arabella was actually a white girl (so that surprised everyone) she was a student at the University of Washington and had come up to the reservation to do research for a Professor who she was actually dating at the time (Embry didn't find that out until later though). Quil guessed that she'd had a thing for older guys. After all Embry was close to ten years older than her, even if he did look closer to twenty than thirty. They got married all of 3 months later and had had a little girl a year after that.

Claire had run into the house to grab Jamie while Quil waited in the car, he would have gone with her, but Embry's mom had a tendency to want to reminisce about the "good ol' days" which took about twenty minutes every time and he really was starting to get hungry. Two minutes later Claire was back with Jamie in tow, carrying his backpack, his car booster and his jacket while Jamie himself just wandered behind as if he didn't have a care in the world (to be fair, he was only four and probably didn't) Quil just laughed and hopped out to help Claire by grabbing the booster and putting in the back seat before grabbing Jamie unexpectedly and throwing him in the air while making rocket sounds, Jamie laughed hysterically and Quil kept going until Claire said,

"Quil, you better put him down before he gets all worked up and ends up screaming the whole way home."

That seemed like a fair point, so he quickly passed him off to Claire who buckled him in behind her seat before climbing back in the car.

Quil had been thinking about when Claire had been that age and how much fun they'd always had together, he kind of missed that, but then again, he really liked Claire now and figured that he wouldn't trade her, even for adorable toddler Claire.

Everyone who knew the truth about their situation (that he was a wolf, and that Claire was his imprint) had always had this attitude that he was unfortunate to have imprinted on such a young child. But he had never felt that way. He had loved watching Claire learn and grow and he felt like he had been blessed to have so much more time with her than all of the other wolves got with their imprints. He had had a lot of flak about her teenage years too, like he would just have to suffer through them until she was an adult, but he had really enjoyed Claire these past couple of years and had never wished this time away.

Claire had been talking calmly to Jamie in the back seat as he had been almost screaming at her to give him his "doll" from his "packpack". Technically it was an action figure in his backpack and Quil usually found Jamie's small discrepancies hilarious but tonight he was stoned face as he was musing about Claire and her ages.

"Hey, Mr. Serious, why so intense tonight?" Claire asked while poking his side good naturedly.

"Sorry!" He said coming out of his small trance, "I was just thinking."

"What were you thinking about so seriously?" She asked perplexed

"You." He said with a smile towards her.

Well that wasn't unusual, Quil thought about Claire almost all of the time.

"Me? What about me?" She asked.

"Just your age, I was remembering when you were Jamie's age and how much fun we had."

She rolled her eyes at him as she finally found Jamie's "doll" of Batman and handed it back to him. He couldn't do anything without that thing.

"It's kind of weird. Most kids have a comfort item, like Jamie's 'doll'. You never had anything like that, I guess you've just always been kind of independent." He mused out loud to her.

"Yeah I did. I had that one stuffy that I couldn't do anything without. I couldn't even sleep remember?" She replied.

"What? What stuffy?" He couldn't recall Claire being extra connected to any stuffed animal. He was suddenly worried that he was forgetting things about Claire's childhood.

"Yeah that really fluffy wolf. I never did anything without it remember?" She was starting to laugh now. Quil was feeling boarder line panicked that he couldn't remember this, what else had he lost in the sieve of his memory?

"What wolf!? What did it look like?" He asked probably too intensely

She was definitely laughing now. And so was Jamie in the backseat. What!? Jamie was only four, how could he remember something and Quil forget it?! It must have been really important to Claire for Jamie to notice; how could he have forgotten something that important to her!?

"Oh, you know, it was big and dark brown and really soft and fluffy." She said while laughing

"Claire, I'm so sorry! I don't remember anything like that! I must be forgetting things…. I can't believe-"

"Quil!" She cut him off, he was obviously getting worked up and Jamie was laughing so hard in the backseat Quil wasn't sure he was getting enough oxygen.

"It was you!" She laughed. "You were my wolf!"

He was frozen for a second as that sunk in, then a smile spread across his face.

"Are you calling me a stuffy?!" He asked in feign indignation. Jamie shrieked with another pearl of laughter.

"Yeah, and soft and fluffy!" Claire responded. Laughing harder at Jamie's reaction.

Quil had never considered that he'd been her comfort item but in retrospect he realized that that was true, he had been. He'd even been known to phase into his dark brown wolf-self just so that Claire could snuggle in his fur and play with him like some giant overgrown dog. He smiled just remembering how she couldn't get enough of it.

By the time they got home with the pizzas Jamie had fallen asleep. He thought Claire was grabbing his backpack while he grabbed the pizzas but when he looked over he saw that she had unbuckled Jamie and was pulling him out of his booster and flopping him onto her shoulder.

"Claire, I'll grab him, you just get his stuff." He said in a stage whisper

"I've got him." She told him with a wink.

Jamie was at least half her size, if not more. After all he was a big kid for his age and she was not. But his head was shlumped on her shoulder as she shifted his weight up a little higher so that her arms were locked around him under his little butt.

Claire was always very maternal with Jamie. She was probably his number one caregiver with her parents taking second place when it came to meeting Jamie's needs. Quil knew that if she hadn't wanted him in her arms than she would have waited for Quil to grab him, though it was still more weight in her arms than Quil was comfortable seeing. But then when did he not give Claire whatever she wanted?

Claire:

Claire didn't know if she had ever been so full in her entire life. For whatever stupid reason she had decided to keep up with Quil in pizza eating. Even if she couldn't eat as much she figured she could at least eat as fast. She had been wrong. She wished that she hadn't even tried. She got two and a half slices in when she knew she would puke if she kept going. Quil had been on his sixth slice at the time and continued through about ten more. She was currently laying on her back on the family room floor wanting to die. Quil thought it was hilarious that she had made such a "cute" attempt to keep up with him and she was feeling pretty stupid about the whole thing.

He was lying next to her holding her hand with his four giant fingers wrapped around her four small ones while using his thumb to rub circles over the entire back of her hand. That was how he always held her hand. She actually felt a little better on her left side, with his too hot skin warming her from a few inches away, than her right side did all alone. She wondered, not for the first time, how much affect the imprint magic had physically. They always did better when they were actually touching. She knew how important it was to Quil, that he needed to have some form of physical contact with her each day. It was as if he couldn't trust his own eyes, that he needed to feel her to know that she was there, safe and close to him.

She was debating asking him to switch over to her other side so that she could receive a more even coating of his healing love radiating over her. She chuckled to herself a little, reminding herself of one of her mom's recipes for baked chicken that she had made the other day. Bake for twenty minutes at 375 degrees and then flip chicken over and bake for twenty more minutes. He looked at her when he heard her laugh and smiled at her like he was just enjoying the sound of her.

He sighed and said, "Alright sweetheart, I got to get going."

"What!?" she asked, immediately grabbing her phone out of the pocket of the massive hoodie she was wearing. Yup, right there on the lock screen was a notification from her calendar that Quil had patrol with Leah tonight.

"Crap! How did I miss that?" she asked while dropping Quil's hand and smacking her forehead.

"You forgot?" he asked looking concernedly at her.

"Yeah, I guess I did. Alright…. well I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." She told him trying not to feel too distressed by his unexpected absence tonight.

"Tomorrow?" he asked skeptically "You don't want me to stay over tonight?"

Quil had started sleeping in Claire's bed with her when she had turned three and started waking up and calling out for him in the middle of the night. Her parents would try to sooth her back to sleep but after an hour or two would inevitably call Quil. He was still living with his mom in La Push at the time and would either have to drive the twenty minutes up to the Makah Reservation or run as his wolf-self and make it in about three minutes but be stuck without a car in the morning. Eventually when he finished trade school and bought the garage there on the Reservation he had moved into the studio apartment above it. That way he was never more than a few seconds away from Claire.

Over the years as she started sleeping better he had cut down to only one or two nights a week staying over. But when she had turned twelve and then eventually started puberty her parents had put their foot down and deemed it in understandably inappropriate for a grown man to be sleeping nights in their twelve-year old's bed.

That had worked for all of a month and then she got her period again, this time with some major cramps. She had cried herself to sleep missing him and in pain. The next morning Quil had taken one look at her, knew exactly what happened and was not happy about it. That night was the first time that Quil had spent the night there behind her parents back. Claire knew that if he felt that she truly needed him, there was really nothing that would stop him. He had spent the whole night holding her and rubbing her back while she used his giant hand as a heating pad on her abdomen. From that night on, he snuck in at least once or twice a month to comfort her and hold her until they both fell asleep. That had been over three years ago, and her parents still had no idea. They always seemed to underestimate Quil's super natural abilities, even forgetting that he was a wolf sometimes. If he couldn't sneak past them, he would just scale the siding of the house and come through Claire's second story window. They had been caught one time last year by Jamie, when he walked into Claire's room unannounced at six AM but he was too used to always seeing Quil around, and too innocent to think anything of it. Plus, Jamie would never want to get Claire in trouble.

"You don't have to stay over. You won't even get off patrol until three. You should just go home and get some rest; besides I still have homework to work on. I'm sure I'll just crash halfway through it." She lied casually.

He just rolled his eyes at her less than honest response. "Just take some Midol before you go to bed and try to fall asleep as best you can and then I'll come over as soon as I get off my shift, alright?" he said while pulling her head over to meet his and then planted a kiss on her hair.

She did a quick cough to indicated that he should stop talking about it as her mom walked in the door. She didn't even seem to notice them as she walked past into the kitchen. That was odd. Her mom wasn't usually so out of it, even when she had long work days. But before she could dive into thinking about it Quil was standing up to leave. He quickly used their connected hands and pulled Claire up with him. She immediately gave him a full hug around the waist. She wasn't usually so touchy feely, but she still felt a little sick and crampy and not happy about his leaving her unexpectedly. The top of her head just reached his collarbone and she leaned against his chest as she pressed her head against his heart and listened to his, always over-fast heartbeat. He just pressed the side of his face to the top of her head and stood there holding her for at least three more minutes, until they heard Leah's always impatient wolf howl cry for him through the night.

He sighed. "I gotta go, hun. I'll be back as soon as I can." and then planted another kiss on her head. She just nodded her head against his chest and dropped her arms from his waist.

Claire knew that it was essentially his sacred duty to protect his tribe, and now by extension her tribe, he ran patrol at least once or twice a week, but he always gave her his schedule ahead of time and she would put it in her calendar and be prepared for it. That way she would always know where he was at any given time. She had just assumed because she had started her period and would be uncomfortable that he would be there with her the whole time and hadn't thought to look at the schedule to check his shifts.

She started to shake out her arms and neck, trying to get out of the funk that Quil's leaving had left her in. She needed to help Jamie get ready for bed anyways. She could hear him upstairs splashing around in the bathroom she shared with him, her room technically had a Jack-and-Jill bathroom that she was supposed to share with Rachel but sharing with Rachel was so uncomfortable that she preferred sharing with Jamie. Even If his aim was terrible when it came to the toilet situation.

Her dad had obviously stuck him in the tub and then forgotten about him when he got distracted talking to her mom in their room. Claire went upstairs and into Jamie's room where she grabbed him a clean pair of batman briefs to go with his clean Spiderman pajamas (he could never wear the same super hero at the same time) she made a mental note to make sure to change the sheets of his bed on Saturday when she did laundry and changed her own sheets. She then went into the bathroom to make sure that some soap was involved in his bathing process. She brushed her teeth and washed her face as she supervised his bath and then helped him towel off and get dressed. She quickly brushed his teeth for him and then lovingly did a quick swat on his butt and told him to go pick out a book.

She realized that she had left her backpack on the kitchen table and went downstairs to get it. She spotted the Midol bottle on the table where she had left it and remembering the advice that Quil had given her, stuck it in the pocket of her hoodie while she grabbed a glass of water. She took everything upstairs and left it all on the desk in her bedroom before she went back into Jamie's room to find him sitting on his bed with five books surrounding him.

"Come on, James. Only one book tonight. You know it's a school night and that I have to get up early tomorrow." She told him sternly.

He started to whine at her but then caught the look on her face and realized she was serious.

"Okay…I want this one!" he said pointing at a book that had something to do with Goofy and some sort of haunted pumpkin.

As soon as Claire closed the door to Jamie's room a few minutes later, she could hear some whiney music coming from Rachel's room. Who even listens to Avril Lavine anymore? She asked herself as she walked past her door and headed into her own room. She wanted to grab the video baby monitor they still used to watch Jamie, from its cradle in her parent's room but could still hear them locked in there, speaking in hushed voices, so instead she went into her room and pulled her algebra homework back out.

An hour later, with one impossible assignment completed, she was exhausted. It was already after ten and she had another full day tomorrow that started with packing his lunch and making sure that Jamie got off okay since her mom had an early shift checking on the infants at the hospital in Port Angeles since her mom was a pediatrician. Claire would be annoyed that Rachel didn't take more responsibility when it came to Jamie but if she was being honest with herself she didn't actually trust Rachel to take care of him.

She changed into her pajamas and then decide to put her hoodie back on. It still smelled vaguely of Quil from when she had hugged him before. She climbed into her bed and popped another Midol in her mouth before she took a drink of water to swallow it down. She turned off the lamp on her bedside table and tried to go to sleep.

It took about an hour of tossing and turning but she finally fell into a fitful sleep dreaming of Quil teaching her to drive his Camaro. She woke up about once an hour and checked the clock. 12:30. 1:27. 2:15. She kept tossing around until she got comfortable and then would finally go back to sleep. Eventually, she woke up to feel Quil getting into her bed and pulling her into his chest, she hadn't even heard him come in through her window, but she was so relieved that he was finally there that she didn't care how he'd gotten there. He didn't say anything, he just kissed the top of her head as he started rubbing her back and allowing her to place his hand on her stomach to heat it. She sighed deeply and finally fell into a deep sleep.