TIC Extra #7

Timeline: The scene is set during TIC: B2, while Paul and Cassie take Sims and Jack on their road trip.

Characters: Embry, Jake

Rating: T

Word Count: 2263

Warnings: Mild language, references to euthanasia


He was standing on the cliffs of their tribal home, taking deep breaths to control the fear that showed in his chocolate eyes. A storm was coming, rolling in from the west, dark clouds across the ocean, but it wasn't the only storm that was coming.

Today Embry Call was a storm all of his own.

It was a hard thing for Jake to watch, knowing that he had absolutely no control of the outcome. They had decided that the only way for Embry to keep control of his wolf was to let it loose, let it free, and to teach himself to both live with it and control it at the same time. But both brothers knew that the instant Embry let the wolf go completely, he might never get himself back again. And if that happened, Embry had both stubbornly and bravely made Jake promise to kill him to keep everyone safe from him, especially Samantha. But just because he was brave enough to do it, didn't mean that Embry wanted to die.

It was hard to watch, from where the Alpha stood several yards off to the side, but it was even harder to watch Embry run his thumb over the creased photo he kept tucked in his back pocket. It was a picture of Embry and Samantha on a little boat, their cheeks pressed together and their mouths making fishy faces. His girl and his brother…those were the only two things Embry had brought up here today, asking that the rest of the Pack stay away. Jake knew that they would try, but if things got bad, they wouldn't be able to help themselves. Already, Seth and Leah were prowling the woods around them, worried and unable to separate themselves from their worry.

Worry was a soft term for it. All of them, even Jake, especially Jake, were scared.

The crinkling of paper pulled the Alpha's attention, and he saw that Embry was looking at his picture again. Emb had shown it to Jake, and it was the only time Jake had seen Samantha's eyes looking soft and happy. Jake's imprint was a pretty girl when she was happy, unfortunately Jake seemed to have only brought out the ugly in her.

He had to give her credit. Breaking her arm might have been ridiculously stupid, but her point had been made. Jake wasn't dealing with a passively weak girl who would lie down and take his orders the way the rest of them did. The low murmur of her in his soul told him this volcano still hadn't come close to bursting. Samantha's fight for Embry wasn't anywhere close to what she was capable of, and Jake wasn't sure whether or not to be impressed or horrified by it. One thing was for certain, if he loved his brother and if he wanted to be good to his imprint, separating them until Embry could stand back on his own two feet was necessary.

A man needed a good woman at his side, but men like them couldn't live behind one's back. Sam would never hide behind Emily, Jared and Paul would always put themselves between Kim and Cassie and the world, and Embry was pre-dispositioned to protect Samantha. The poor guy had it on three levels, the need to protect his Alpha's imprint, the need to protect his blood's imprint, and the need to protect his own girl, the girl he loved. Jake hadn't thought this through, how the three things would affect Embry. He was being pulled too hard at Samantha, and it was causing problems. Maybe the wolf inside had known Samantha was Pack even before it had been cemented. Maybe Jake should have told Embry everything from the first.

Maybe Jake was an even crappier Alpha than he was a brother. Maybe if he had, he wouldn't be standing up here, trying to hide the fact that he was trembling with the weight of his own actions. Yeah, Jake hadn't had any choice in the matter, but it didn't change what he had done to Embry. And if his brother was going to die today, he needed to know partly what for.

"Embry?"

"Yeah?" His head was bent, and Embry was just staring at the picture, barely blinking.

"I'm pretty sure I know what Samantha told you that set you off," Jake said softly, and Embry turned his head. "And I'm guessing your wolf wasn't very accepting of it. Or maybe it was a defense mechanism from you yourself, I don't know."

Maybe someone else would have demanded to know, but Embry just grunted. His face was grim as he fingered the photo again.

"Is it something I should know?" Embry asked in a quiet voice, "Or is it one of those things that's better to not? Because I'm all for honesty, but I'm more for not losing my damn mind." Embry's eyes rose to Jake's. "I gotta admit, Jake, before I was pretty freaked out. But seeing Sims like that, how desperate she looked, how messed up she was…maybe being in the dark is better if it keeps her safe from me."

"Seth and Paul already know, and the rest of them either know or suspect, so you need to know too. Samantha's my imprint, Embry."

Apparently Embry's wolf was more scared of facing Jake alone than it was in hiding the information from him. Embry stared at Jake for a long, hard moment, and then he bowed his head. It was the first time Jake had ever seen his brother cry. His tears were silent, but that didn't make them any less real, and Jake waited until Embry stopped trembling enough to be able to speak again. It took a long time.

"Well, then I guess it's good I told her I needed time, huh?" Embry whispered lifelessly, wiping at his face roughly with one hand. "I guess that explains the whole breaking her arm thing, huh? To keep you off me. Fuck, Jake. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have…if I had known…"

"You probably would have felt the same about her as you do now, Emb," Jake said gently. "Because the girl's in love with you. She's Pack and she's Pack so strongly that it would have been hard for you to not be drawn to her. She's been disrupting all of us from the beginning, making the less dominant wolves uncomfortable, making the strongest ones grow attached to her. Hell, the only one that seems mostly unaffected by her is Paul, that's why I put her with him for now, while we get you figured out, man. Paul will be good for her, and maybe without her around, we'll figure out how to make you good for her too."

The dead look in Embry's eyes wavered as hope took a tentative foothold. "Jake? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that after the other day, Samantha Carter has cemented herself as my ideal imprint. Neither one of us want anything to do with each other, at least not romantically. But she is my imprint, meaning that I'm not letting her near you if you're not safe." Jake slanted a sideways look at Embry. "What's interesting to me about it all is that she's convinced that we're out to get you. That little girl threw down over you, Emb, when she hates everyone else's guts. How did you pull that off anyway?"

"Jake? You really want me to tell you how I fell in love with…with your imprint?" Embry stumbled over the words, and Jake grinned at him.

"Nope. I want you to tell me how your girlfriend fell in love with you, because I gotta admit, finding out a way to soften some of her harder edges could help this Pack a lot. It's a little embarrassing to be the Alpha and have your imprint attempting to beat the whole Pack up out of sheer spite."

"It's not spite," Embry said quietly, wiping his face again. "It's fear. I'm the only thing she's got, and she's scared of losing me. She could survive alone, Sims is tough as hell, but she's so lonely. And it makes sense, her being so upset recently, if she thought your imprinting would mean we would be over. Thanks for telling me right away, asshole."

"You're only over if you can't get your shit together, and as for the rest of it, little brothers are a pain in the ass, huh?" Embry actually half smiled at that, and Jake gave him a reassuring look. "Emb, the imprints don't get used to being Pack. They are Pack, and that need to be with each other is built in to them just like it's built into us. If Samantha doesn't know how to not be alone, but she's supposed to be Pack, it makes sense that she's having a hard time. But being around you and only you is helping her isolate, and it's fucking you up when you need to focus on you. This isn't punishment."

"Does she see it that way?"

"No clue. Like I said, she wants nothing to do with me. All I know is that her arm hurts, she misses you, and she stopped being thirsty ten minutes ago. But I would say that she's not on the same wavelength as me with this. You never did tell me how to soften those edges."

Embry sighed and straightened.

"It's us, Jake. We did that to her," he said, then his eyes narrowed. "Actually, you guys did that to her. At the beginning she was reserved, quiet, lonely, and a little hard, but you guys made her a fucking stone. That day up on the cliffs, you guys pushed her in the wrong places, you changed her, showed her that sheer strength of will isn't enough. You didn't break her, not completely, but you came close. And she hasn't bounced back. You're asking her to depend on people who hurt her, who threatened her, and you ordered it. She never liked the idea of imprinting, and she's the most loyal girl I've ever known. Damn, the more I think about it…with what's been going on with me, I'd say you guys are lucky she hasn't actually managed to off one of you yet. Better warn the pups, they're most vulnerable."

"Is she that good?" Jake asked, intending it to be a joke and finding that his voice was completely serious. That he was completely serious.

Embry snorted under his breath, and shook his head. "Ever snapped your own arm just to prove a fucking point, Jake?"

"Touché.

"Dude, you don't even know what that means."

"Yeah I do."

"What does it mean?"

"It means I'm the Alpha, and you're not, so shut up. I'll blame that on your wolf being off his rocker, Emb, but no more freebies after this."

A small chuckle from Embry, and then quietness. Finally he sighed. "Jake? Do you really want to know how I got the girl?"

"Yeah. I really want to know."

"I got her because I never betrayed her. I have her loyalty because I'm loyal to her. I have her trust because I have trust in her in return…well founded too because you can't have imprinted on her before the day you came back and we had everything happen the next day. If I really lost control because of this, well then, she didn't even last a whole day keeping it from me. And there aren't hard edges when she looks at me, there's just Sims, my girl. Your girl, I guess. Fuck, that sucks."

"Embry," Jake said very firmly. "We're not spending the next fifty years fighting over this. You know me. If I want a girl, I'll throw down over her, I'll go to the ends of the earth and back for her. But Samantha's not that girl. I don't know why I imprinted on her, but that instant attraction? It's not there. I can respect her gutsiness, and maybe if she was in my corner, I'd appreciate it the way you do. I'm completely locked in on her all the time, even when I tried to shut down the imprint with her, but I don't want her the way you think I do."

His brother closed his eyes. "It can't really be that easy, Jake."

"It won't be. I just…I think I just want her to be happy so I can continue being myself, and I know I want you to be happy. And I need you both to be safe, so we need to do this." His voice softened, and Jake walked over to Embry's side, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He was the Alpha, and he had to say it, even if he was shaking with the need to protect his brother, his Packmate, his friend. "Emb…we need to do this. For our people, for our Pack, and for her. We have to do this, even if neither of us want to. And if it goes bad, I'm going to take care of it. I'll take care of you, and her, and it'll all be okay. Don't be scared."

"I know."

Silence, and then Embry turned, hooking an arm around Jake's shoulders. For a moment, they stayed like that, older brother and younger one, both taking deep, steadying breaths. And then Embry pressed his girl into his brother's hand and walked away from both, higher up on the cliffs.

A storm was about to hit, but he'd have to face it alone.