Author's Note:

I've decided to write this story for myself since the characters just won't leave me alone! If you enjoy it too, good. I am always open to ideas and comments and questions. I will try my hardest to answer any and all questions you have for me! I will be writing this story from three different point of views, alternating every chapter. Hopefully you will begin to notice the difference between Leah's 'tortured soul' voice, Alexandre's 'taking it all in stride' voice, and Aiden's 'logical' one. Happy reading!

Almost 3 years later

…Alexandre…

I had always felt guilty rummaging through my mom's stuff. We didn't really have a choice, though. We'd been lied to for 17 years now. Alright, so 'lied' is probably not the right word to use, but Mom had been keeping things from us. Sneaking around was our last resort since she wouldn't tell us anything. Our sneaking had to be done in stages because Mom was never gone long enough for us to do a thorough search before having to put everything back where we found it. Truthfully, I had never really wanted to sneak around anyway. I figured that if we had just kept pressuring Mom she'd give in eventually. Aiden wasn't so sure. All of this digging had been his idea. He said that if we could find one clue to who our father was, we could find our father. Even though he was impulsive at times and really impatient, he was the smarter of the two of us, so I went along with his plan.

"We've only got about 20 minutes left to look around, have you found anything yet?" Aiden asked me as he strained his neck to look on the top shelf of Mom's closet.

"No" I replied. My head was underneath Mom's bed, looking for any suspicious boxes. I found the boxes that she kept our winter clothes in, the boxes that our cameras, mp3 players, and DVD players had come in, and some other storage containers but nothing that screamed "secrets".

"Help me." Aiden said calmly. I pulled my head out from under the bed and grabbed my brother around the knees to lift him up higher so he could see the shelf. It reminded me of the all the times I had lifted him to reach the cookie jar when we were younger. I felt just as guilty then. Somehow I knew that whatever we found wouldn't be as satisfying as those cookies were. I could hear Aiden fumbling around on the shelf. His uninterested sighs and grunts informed me that he wasn't finding what he was looking for. I felt him lean back into me a bit and knew that he was ready to come down. Just as I was lowering him he threw his hands back up to the shelf.

"Wait!"

I grunted and lifted him back up to his original spot. The saying goes: "He's not heavy, he's my brother." Well, let me tell you, even brothers get heavy. He leaned back again after grabbing a box from the far corner of the shelf. I dropped him back on the ground and he had to bend his knees to absorb the shock. He gave me a little glare but I just rubbed my arm muscles and ignored his expression. I was more interested to see what was in the box.

"It was all the way in the corner and the only one that wasn't an old appliance box." Aiden said to me and I nodded. Our mother had a weird habit of keeping all the boxes of anything electric or electronic she had bought. Did she think she was going to return them to the store after having used them for a few years? We pried open the box unceremoniously and our mouths dropped at what we saw.

Pictures, letters, trinkets, and a wool blanket lay inside the box.

"Jackpot" I muttered. Aiden didn't respond but instead dug right into the box and took out the pictures. He began flipping through them quickly, looking for any clue he could use as to the whereabouts of our father. I started to pull out the numerous objects at the bottom of the box. There were a few pieces of hand carved jewelry, a miniature totem pole and quite a few wolf figurines.

"Help me put the box back. Mom'll be home soon." Aiden told me, setting the pictures and letters aside but leaving the rest of the contents of the box alone. "We can look at all this in our room." He said while we closed up the box. We performed the cookie jar routine while he put the box back in its corner. We went straight to our room and huddled on my bed looking through the pictures and letters more carefully. Soon after, we heard Mom come in through the front door and she announced that dinner would be ready shortly. We responded in kind but were too caught up to properly greet her.

"I think I found something," Aiden said, holding a photo up as close to his face as he could. I leaned over and we looked at the picture together. We could pick out our mother easily. She was the only girl in the picture. She was surrounded by several buff looking men in their 20s. That wasn't what caught our interest though. They were standing in front of a wooden building that had definitely seen better days. The building had a sign on it: Quileute Tribal School.

"Google it." I said, reaching across my bed for my laptop and shoved it into Aiden's lap. I took the picture from him and began to study the faces in it. "Do you think one of these guys is our father?" I asked Aiden as he typed away on the Dell I had gotten for my 17th birthday. We had both gotten one. We were told not to expect something too big for Christmas or Graduation though. Our mother was a full time manager at a local diner, which didn't bring us in a huge income. Aiden and I had started working when we turned 14. Work was readily available in L.A., especially for kids who didn't have to be insured.

"Maybe," Aiden responded absentmindedly. His eyes searched the computer screen and wasn't really paying attention to me or the photo—just his internet search. "The Quileute Tribal School, (QTS), is located in La Push, Washington. La Push is a small Indian village located on the western border of the Olympic Peninsula." Aiden read from the screen.

"So Mom grew up on an Indian reservation?" I asked out loud.

"With a population of 350 people." Aiden answered with a nod.

"Now what?"

"Now we go to La Push."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. It's our only lead, Xan. What else are we supposed to do?"

"Talk to Mom."

"We've tried that. She's uncooperative."

"Uncooperative? And running away to go find a father, who doesn't know that we exist, against Mom's wishes is being cooperative?"

"No, but it's all we've got." Aiden responded. His tone suggested that the conversation was over. I groaned. I was not keen on this idea but once Aiden set his mind to something, it would never change.

"Boys, dinner!" Mom called loudly. I placed the pictures and letters under my pillow and we left the room quietly. Our silence carried into dinner.

"You two okay?" Mom asked us after she had tried to start a conversation with us for the third time without results.

"Yeah, Mom" Aiden said.

"Just fine." I finished. We both gave her identical weak smiles and finished our dinner of spaghetti silently. I was staying quiet because I was afraid I'd slip up and tell her what we'd been doing. I'd never been very good at hiding things. I knew Aiden was quiet because he didn't want to yell at our Mom. Aiden always got angrier than I did. I never really saw the point of anger.

After dinner, Aiden and I rinsed our dishes and put them in the ancient dishwasher and returned to our bedroom. Aiden got back on the computer right away while I began to read some of the letters. The letters were mostly from her parents or her brother (we had grandparents and an uncle!) and they were also useless about whom our father was.

"What are you doing?" I asked Aiden after he had been silent for several minutes.

"I just got us train tickets."

"Train tickets!? Are you crazy? We can't just go to La Push, Aiden!"

"Look, I took what you said into consideration. I got Mom one too. She can decide whether she wants to go with us or not, but we're going regardless."

"Great compromise," I told him sarcastically. He just nodded as if he thought I was being serious. He printed off the ticket confirmations with all of our names on them and after our Mom went to sleep he put them on the kitchen counter for her to see in the morning. It was a cowardly move, but we both figured it would be easier for our mom to deal with the situation without us there.

We knew she had found them when at seven in the morning we heard the coffee pot fall and shatter on the ground in the kitchen.

Author's Note:

Who do you want to hear from next? Leah or Aiden? Let me know or I'll pick for you.

Here are the songs I was listening to while writing this. They may or may not have affected what I was writing…they're from Pandora so they're really random.

Push by Matchbox 20

Home by Jack Johnson

Wordplay by Jason Mraz

In Your Atmosphere by John Mayor

Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison

Better Together by Jack Johnson

Absolute Zero by Jason Mraz

Something's Missing by John Mayor

The Horizon has been Defeated by Jack Johnson

Last Request by Paolo Nutini

Plane by Jason Mraz

Bubbly by Colbie Caillat

Collide by Howie Day

After Tonight by Justin Nozuka

A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall by Jason Mraz