A few weeks before my mother died, she had sat down with Rebecca and I and gave us the full rundown on periods. We had known they were coming, of course, but we had learned about them in bits and pieces (brought about when Jacob had, as a toddler, emptied the contents of the bathroom cabinets onto the floor, liquids and all) and never the full story.
"Sue just about hit the ceiling when I told her I hadn't had this conversation with you two yet," she had told us afterward. "It's important for you both to have as much information as possible so that when it happens you aren't scared. Just come to me and I'll help you."
"Does it hurt?" Rebecca had always been terrified of pain; from when our little brother started talking he had demanded that he receive his flu shot first every year just so he could stick it to her when he didn't cry.
"Only a little, baby. It's mostly just annoying. But we'll get ice cream and watch movies and it will all be fine."
"And none for Jake."
Mom laughed and I remember now, it doesn't come all at once, she had been braiding my hair. In this one I can't tell you what she looked like.
"It's so someday, if you want, you can have babies, and when that happens you won't be able to remember any of the bad parts."
It was raining when they buried her. Four days later Rebecca had woken me up in the middle of the night and I helped her find where Mom had kept the pads.
So it had been like this: we took all of the moments with her that we missed and we kept going together.
"Are you for real?" I shouted, pulling Rebecca into a hug. We both started crying and laughing and I had never known that I could be so overwhelmed by my own happiness.
"Blacks make a lot of girls but this one's a boy." Rebecca stated confidently, putting a hand on her completely flat stomach. "I've always liked the name Finn, but Finn Finau, the kid would get his ass kicked."
I was still jumpy and happy and this had been the last thing I would have expected, I hardly knew what to say. Becca was going to have a baby.
"So how did that happen?"
My sister snorted. "Rachel. Do I need to call Dad? Did you lose that memory? Because I envy you if you did, oh my God."
"No! No no no no." I had almost entirely blocked that moment out. Our dad had faded in and out of all-consuming grief for a long time and in those moments when he was fully with us he had tried to overcompensate. We had quickly told him that we already had it covered and that it was probably Jake's turn. "I meant you would've told me if you were trying. So did you just wake up one day…"
"And say, 'Sol, I need you to put a baby in me right now. Whip it out." I still hadn't stopped smiling and laughing, my face was starting to hurt, but knowing my sister that image honestly didn't seem too far off.
"You know we wanted kids eventually but whenever it came up it wasn't like something that we thought would happen for a while. I wanted to get my degree first, at least. But I wouldn't exactly be the youngest mom ever, anymore, and Sol will be 28 by then. I had to switch over birth control and we kind of figured, I don't know, it probably won't take right away but there's a pretty tiny window and if it happens then I guess we're just really meant to have a baby."
"It's not the weirdest thing, it's just crazy."
"I know. It's really freaking early on too—I missed my period right before Sol flew out and it probably wasn't the best time to tell him but I had to. And then I couldn't wait for him to come back to know for sure, I didn't want to just keep taking tests, so I saw the doctor yesterday." She smiled even bigger. "It's going to be an April baby."
Like our mom.
My heart was so full in that moment that I couldn't think about her on top of everything else. I was only reminded once again that there was going to be so much of life that she would never get to see, that we would never get to experience with her. I swallowed.
"So, what are you going to do about school?"
"It's not like Sol works full-time. We'll figure it out, we're okay with money right now." I had seen Sol's apartment three years ago, if they had been able to move here they obviously weren't struggling. We had been raised to be obscenely careful with money. I wasn't worried about them.
"When are you going to tell Dad and Jake?"
"I guess I was still kind of hoping that they would come with you...I know, I know, it's not the right time but I wanted to tell them in person too. We can call them together later."
I leaned over the counter and hugged her again. "I'm so glad you're here," she said softly, rubbing my back.
"Me too." I pulled away, rubbing at my eyes. "You guys are good, though? This is a good thing."
"It will be. I'm happy, we both are, it's just never been the easiest but that's part of what makes it good. I don't want to scare you. I love him, it only gets better, just in a different way than I would have expected."
She set about pouring coffee for me but I felt like I didn't even want it anymore. I had slept well and I felt like I could burst, I certainly didn't need caffeine.
As I was handed a mug with a forest scene printed on the side she hesitated. "I'm going to sound like an old married lady for a second, so bear with me and then we don't have to talk about it. I don't see any point in waiting forever once you've found the right person, Rach, and if you think you have that you shouldn't worry what anyone else thinks. It's never going to be a Disney movie, the clouds aren't going to break open and birds aren't going to start singing, but I do think that when you know you know."
When Rebecca went upstairs to shower I started looking for stuff to start breakfast with, hoping to do something nice for her. I could tell Paul was back before he even got to the kitchen door.
"Could you hear anything?" My back was to him; I knew that Rebecca had never really liked eating meat—which hadn't been much of an issue in our house, we ate a lot of fish—but he was a serious carnivore and I didn't feel like having to go grocery shopping when this wasn't even my house.
"Nope." So he did phase, then. I wasn't surprised that he took the risk. "It was weird. I'm not used to that, after everything that's happened we try not to only have one of us phased. It was just like a dead signal. I didn't like it."
"Smell that and see if it's expired." I turned and shoved a package of bacon at him.
"I'll probably eat it anyway." He grumbled, but complied.
I would hate the sounds of other people in my own head. (Better stay away from the boyfriend, then, Sam had interjected. Fiancé, Leah had corrected him, and both he and Jake had gotten a sour look on their faces.)
Yet, I knew the sense of camaraderie within the Pack hivemind well enough that I could imagine what it was like to suddenly be alone. Isolation was something I knew well, though I was only just now starting to realize how much of that had been my own doing.
Leah and I had started talking more over the last few weeks and it was almost like how it had been before (but Harry was gone and Jake was always sad and Seth wasn't a cute little kid with missing teeth anymore).
"It isn't that you're different now. I think everything else is." She had told me, tucking her legs under herself and letting me hug her. I was happy to have her back.
"I think it's good." Paul had the package open and was sticking his whole face inside.
"Oh my God, don't eat it raw." I put my hand on Paul's shoulder and he interlaced his fingers with mine, squeezing gently.
"Too much?" He asked when I started to smile.
"No, just enough."
"So what's up?" He was still eyeing the bacon and I tossed it onto the counter.
"My dad's going to be a grandpa."
"Oh, shit. He'll love that."
"At this rate I'm sure he'll just be glad it's his married kid and not Jake, she'll suddenly be the good one."
"You're pretty good."
"Help me make breakfast. Stop stalling."
"And smart. That's three things."
I groaned despite the attempted compliment. "That bacon's going to start crawling away and trying to be cute isn't going to make me cook for you. You better get cracking."
"I can't believe you've never been to an aquarium," my sister tells Paul, who is sitting in the backseat of her car. Given the A/C situation, I had figured that it was smart to get him as far away from the both of us as possible.
There was a marine life center in Port Angeles that we used to beg our parents to take us to a few times a year. Becca's favorite had been the otters, I had liked the touch tanks and Jake had mostly just moped about there not being any sharks.
"I did go to the zoo in Tacoma on a field trip but we skipped that part." He shrugged. "My parents were never big on doing family things like that."
Paul's father was a decent guy, I had met him in passing. He had intimated to me that he drank too much and so I got the sense that he didn't exactly want us to spend a lot of time together.
"He did try, to do the dad thing, he moved us back here because he thought it would be good for me and his dad was sick. He's just never been a really happy person. I think he's just tired. He went off to college and got a good job and met my mom and she's Mexican native, you know, I think they bonded over that because they were both away from home. For a little while I think he felt like he was set for life but they fought so much, Rach. It was really bad. So he came back. I don't think he ever really wanted to. I know he cares, but we mostly just co-exist now. Sometimes we'll watch hockey together."
"I already felt like I couldn't tell him anything."
My heart hurt for him. It was so strange, this secret, how it bonded people like us together and made the ties between Jake and my dad and me even tighter but selectively excluded those like Paul's dad and Embry's mom. And Rebecca. None of us would ever be the same. Paul shouldn't have had to deal with the weight of protecting an entire town at fifteen. Sue Clearwater shouldn't have to worry if this will take both of her children, as it has already taken her husband. Kim shouldn't have to lie to her parents when they ask why she is insistent on attending Peninsula over the countless other schools that could have accepted her.
It had uprooted so many more lives than just the phased.
I knew it wasn't entirely fair to blame Bella Swan, but I did. And I would never understand why my brother refused to see how much harm she had done to all of us. How much harm she could still do.
We walked around the aquarium together, chatting about Rebecca's schoolwork and my graduation. I skimmed over the fact that Jacob didn't make it to the ceremony and told myself that if she saw pictures, the story would be that he had taken them. For the first time I was grateful that she lived so far away. We would never be able to tell her anything of what had been going on for the last two years. It was easier this way. I would rather know that my sister was happy in another state and what felt like a different world than have to lie to her face everyday.
I saw how she looked at the colorful fish with amazement, the same way we did when we were kids, and I was grateful that she was here, far away. Safe. That I was in the know, but safe and protected, and that my brother, though at greater risk, was backed by seven others who would risk their lives to save his if need be. That even he and Paul would put their occasional animosity aside to protect each other, so that no one has to lose anyone else.
Rebecca got distracted looking at a coral reef environment and Paul and I wandered into the next room, where there was a floor-to ceiling tank filled with moon jellyfish. It was darker in there. The jellyfish didn't seem to be very popular today, we were alone, but something about the little orbs of light moving around in forever-black water fascinated me.
"Jesus, imagine getting caught in one of those things." A clump of a few jellyfish were tangled in each other's tentacles and jerking each other around. I couldn't tell if they were actually fighting or if it was only over food. It reminded me of what happened on the daily in Emily's kitchen.
"When we were all little Quil found a jellyfish that had washed up on First Beach and I guess it was still alive because he screamed bloody murder. After that we all had to wear shoes."
"He touched it with his foot?"
"I never said he was smart." He laughed and I'm reminded yet again of the gap in the ways we know each of the guys and Leah. Aside from Jared, each of them played some role in my childhood. I was varying levels of close with each of them, but of course it was different now. (Jared was teaching me how to play poker, and if I had known him three years ago I probably would have found him insufferable. That would have been on me.)
But Paul was able to see what they kept hidden from the rest of the world; he knew even those things that they may deny to themselves. It made trusting him easier. I knew that if he had even the smallest bit of ill will towards me I would be defended. The desire to protect extended out to the rest of the wolves as well. I knew this because both Seth and Leah were set off when I dropped a glass at their house last week.
This is bullshit, Leah had grumbled, even as she dug up a band-aid for the cut on my hand.
I would feel more secure if I could tell what he was thinking, but I guess we had enough supernatural interference going on as it was.
"Wonder what it would feel like, though."
My curiosity was satisfied, though that revelation left something to be desired.
"You can ask him, I bet he remembers."
"I doubt it." A passing jellyfish illuminated his face enough so that I could see his smirk. I suddenly wasn't so sure that we were talking about the same thing. "Do you think he'll be the same as Sam and Jared? When she's older."
Quil had imprinted on Emily's three year old niece, Claire, a few days ago and everyone was confused—except for Quil, who was so over the moon happy that he didn't even realize how strange it all was. Though Sam hadn't killed him yet (and so it obviously wasn't anything remotely sexual) I was glad to get away from that mess for a little while.
Did it happen in twos? Would it stop, now that four pairs had been made—exactly half of the Pack?
I didn't know how to answer his question; it held too much that we had both been hesitant to address.
"You were the one who told me that it sometimes involves feelings from before. And there is no before, for him." I said measuredly. "I guess we'll have to see."
He nodded and I wasn't sure if this was the kind of answer he was expecting or the one he had been hoping for. I still didn't know where his head was.
"They don't have any of the touching stuff. Not like…not like the others. Just closeness. I haven't seen him touch her at all, he doesn't think about it either."
"Well, I guess that's your answer."
"But that could change."
I looked at him and he raised an eyebrow. I couldn't tell him he was wrong.
While Rebecca poked around the gift shop Paul and I wandered over to the opposite wall to look at an educational display on whales.
"What would you think if we phased into these guys instead?"
I supposed that given our tribal history whales might make more sense than wolves, but he was being ridiculous on purpose. I didn't like to give him the satisfaction of laughing at his jokes and he knew it; he had gotten in the habit of presenting them more frequently and with increasing degrees of absurdity. The over-confident front he had put on in front of me at first had melted away to reveal more self-deprecation than I expected, but I liked him best when he wasn't trying to be funny or even trying at all. He didn't need to be anything more than what he already was.
"I feel like I'm going to not be able to go to sleep tonight now."
"Like, how do you think that would work logistically?"
"I really don't think it would work at all, actually."
"I guess it's a good thing then." He grinned at me.
Farther down on the wall the display changed its focus to endangered whale species, I leaned in to look at an artist's rendition of a beluga whale.
"You're thinking about her again."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"You get this lost look on your face, I haven't seen it for a while is all."
This was one of my favorite things about him, that he at least knew when to be quiet.
"We had a book when we were little, baby beluga, you know, that Raffi song." He remained silent and I continued, avoiding his eyes.
"I'm thinking about how far away ago that all feels and how I'm never going to get it back. I'm never going to get any of them back. Nothing's the same. Nothing's ever going to be like that ever again."
"I know." Usually his attempts to understand me were comforting, but I had started to realize that there was no way to explain how jarring coming home had truly been for me. So much of it was good that I felt selfish to be at all sad at how things had changed. The Pack existed for the good of the tribe and none of them could help that their priorities needed to be different.
But I was still bitter. The more time I spent with him, the less sure I was that anything real could be this good. The ball would have to drop sometime. I could want to stay in La Push for now, but what if the switch flipped? What if this—the feeling I got when he looked at me, the way he was now—wore off?
"You don't know, you're just like everyone else. Jake and my dad and Leah and everyone else aren't the same people anymore. I didn't know you before. I don't know who any of us are going to be when all of this is over. We might not even like each other."
He got a weird look on his face. I could tell he didn't believe me; I didn't want to think that that last part was true either. "So what, then?"
"I have no idea. That's the point. For all you know this could be a waste of your time and at least you could still cut your losses now."
"Rach—"
"People change their minds. Shit happens. You can't pretend like nothing will ever happen."
"You can't detach yourself from people because you're afraid of them leaving, damn it, Rachel."
For the first time since I met him I could see him getting visibly angry but we were in public and I was too close to him, too freaking close. He took a minute with his eyes closed, inhaling and exhaling, and when he opened them again he has re-centered himself.
"I'm not going to leave." He tells me solemnly.
"You can't be sure of that and you know it. You're seventeen, do you really think that if you stop phasing you won't stop feeling the way you do now-" I'm not thinking; I still don't know how to rationalize any of this, it's all spilling out.
"I won't."
His hand brushed against my arm and I could have pulled away (I knew I could) but I didn't want to. If I wanted to give this a shot I would have to trust him. Up to this point he had had blind faith in me, and I knew I would do everything in my power to keep from hurting him even if I changed my mind later. I would just have to trust that he would do the same. He deserved this much.
"I'm the one who should be afraid that even after everything, you're going to leave." He continued.
"But you're not afraid of that."
"No, I'm not." His touch trailed down over my wrist, pausing briefly, and then to my fingers. I instinctively folded my hand over his. "Of course, you can. If you want. I wouldn't stop you. But you're the only person since all of this started that has never once looked at me like they're worried I'm going to hulk out and break something. I think you're curious and we get along and for now that's enough to make you stay. And I'll take that, I'll take it for as long as you need, Rach."
"But you need to know…you think you have years and years with a person and it doesn't always work out that way, you're lucky if it does, but I want that with you. I do, not only the wolf." It had taken a lot for him to say this, I knew, and I couldn't help but believe him.
If it was naïve of me to hope that I would be able to see this out over years and maybe even a lifetime—to believe that he would always be there in some respect—then I suppose that I wasn't as smart as I had thought. I would take that, if it meant I could have him.
"I can't promise you anything." I told him.
"I haven't asked you for anything." Touché. "The world's so freaking weird, Rach, but if there was ever anything good...You can't tell me you don't feel that." That electric feeling, smaller and easier to ignore when it was just our hands touching, but it leapt up when he moved his thumb across the back of my hand. "I don't even want you to feel like you have to try, I just really need you to know that I'm open to it and that if it doesn't work out that's fine. I'll be fine and you'll keep going but I think this could be alright too. So I'll be around."
"Right now you literally can't leave unless you want to swim."
He looked me in the eye and smiled in the way that was throwing-sand-on-a-fire, talking me down from my deepest fears. "I'm cool right here."
I was scared to lose him but the flipside of that was worrying that if I let him go I would be making maybe the biggest mistake of my life. We were both here for each other. For now, that was enough.
If Rebecca felt the shift between us now she didn't say anything. Something had changed. I could feel it. I didn't know quite what this would be just yet, but we had settled on that it was there, and meant something, and that was a step.
When I came to him again that night he was waiting in the dark and had already made room for me.
"You want me to close the window?" Any bravado he had shown me during the day was gone now, he seemed uncertain, and I realized that this was completely new for him too. Whatever girls there had been before (and I truly didn't want to know names or even a number, not now) hadn't had him in the way I could, if I wanted.
It was misting outside. Rain-on-a-window with me safe inside had felt like home all my life. I had gone away to school and found that I could replicate that feeling anywhere, it wasn't special. I wanted more than just that feeling; I wanted warmth from the inside out but I had had it for weeks and had pushed it away like it was more than I deserved. It wasn't fair of me to expect some kind of dramatic soul-bearing from him when I hadn't even been honest with myself. I was so sick of being careful.
"No."
I moved closer and as he opened his arms to me I felt needed and hoped-for and good. For the first time since I had met him I felt like a real person again. I had control over this thing. I could harness it just as the wolves had all had to learn how to discipline themselves.
This is what I been craving, heat on skin, and I never wanted to leave.
A/N: I think it would be easy to jump from reading the above scene to assuming something else, but just to be perfectly clear…Nothing happens. Just cuddling. In my head, this is the kind of choosing to accept the imprint that Emily talked about last chapter. If you're hoping for lemons, go back and look at that T rating. (I don't feel comfortable writing it and I promise you that if I tried you would be disappointed anyway.)
If you can find the Taylor Lautner-related Easter egg in this chapter you may reap the never-ending rewards of understanding how dumb I truly am. That thought must have come from somewhere in my subconscious and I hate it.
My life is about to get much more busy so I'll write when I can but I can't give any kind of publish schedule right now except that this will have at least three more chapters plus an epilogue. That being said, if you don't want to miss the next chapter it would be a good idea to follow. 😊 Any kind of affirmation I get from you guys really makes my day, I put off writing this for so long because I didn't know if anyone else would actually care about these guys so long after the books and movies ended. You reading this at all means the world!
