(AN) Wow, this chapter gets a little steamy towards the end . Hehe, sorry! My favorite part of the chapter is the Eva/Paul/Zack action down at the bottom. Someday Zack is going to hit Paul, just because it'd be amusing for me to write! But don't worry, they'll figure it out, probably…Also, the blonde and redhead jokes are my tribute to Jake in Breaking Dawn :-) Also, if you go on my profile, there's a link to a photo bucket album with a whole lot of WWR/EoF icons. I've actually done character icons for almost all the kids (can't find someone for how I picture Blaze, grr.), and a couple quotes. There's a couple really cute Eva/Paul icons too. Check it out!

Disclaimer: I don't own twilight…sadly…

Chapter 8: Tattoos

I glared out at the yard, decorated into some children's play land. Echo was climbing a rung ladder up to the top of their swing set, laughing loudly as she scrambled like a monkey. I had to admit, I was proud, she scaled it like nobody's business and much quicker than her mother had been able to. That had been funny, when Echo had begged her mother to go up to the "tree house" with her. Cassie now sat on the wooden platform, her legs swinging as she watched Echo climb the ladder.

Looking at Cassie's face was all it took for me to be happy. She was talking to Alice and beaming brightly, like she'd just gotten the best Christmas present in the world. Alice scaled the ladder next to Echo, letting my girl beat her to the top. Echo threw her arms around her mother and kissed her on the cheek, before disappearing into the little house. Alice was giggling as she threw herself down beside Cassie.

So, I found myself once again accepting spending the day with leeches. I even accepted the fact that my children were easily bribed, because it made my Cassie happy. Even Echo and Blaze were having a good time. That's all that mattered.

"Hey, c'mon little man!" Emmett yelled as Blaze raced down the lawn, a big ball in his little hands. He threw it at Zack, who managed to catch it even though it went a foot or two to the left. Zack had good reflexes, good instincts. He would have made a better wolf than a witch. Zack threw it to Stella, who tossed it to Jasper, who threw it back to Blaze. Emmett had a pouting puppy face on, which only made Blaze laugh and toss it back to Stella. She caught it on the tips of her fingers, but Emmett moved fast, taking it from her hands and nearly knocking her over in the process. He threw his arm around her waist to keep her upright, earning a scowl from Zack.

"Watch my wife!" He griped.

"Yeah, she's monkey in the middle now!" Emmett declared as he danced around. He slowed when he caught sight of Zack's face. "Aww, man, look, she's fine, I caught her…"

Stella quickly picked the ball out of Emmett's grip, laughing as she threw it to Jasper. "Emmett's the monkey again, Blaze!" She said, tousling his hair. Emmett growled playfully.

I turned my attention from the game to the people in front of me. Esme, Carlisle, and Rosalie surrounded Eva. The only vampires she'd warmed up to at all were Esme and Carlisle (although she had let Alice carry her around for fifteen minutes), and we'd been here two hours, but Rosalie had eventually bribed her. She had sat down on the grass in front of the porch with a little blonde doll beside her and a mountain of doll clothing. Echo had blown right past it in pursuit of the swing set, but I'd noticed the looks Evie kept casting over her shoulder. Eventually, she'd dragged Esme over to the doll and asked Rosalie if she could play. Now, her and Rosalie were dressing and undressing the dolls quietly (they'd managed to drag out four more, but my tomboy still wasn't interested). Eva had even spoken to Rosalie, which made the dumb blonde glow with happiness.

Dumb blonde. I glanced up, Zack was pretty far away. "Hey Blondie, what do you call a blonde with half a brain? Gifted!" I murmured so Eva couldn't hear. Carlisle pressed his lips together to keep from smiling, but Esme shot me a disapproving look as she looked down at Evie. Rosalie simply turned to glare at me.

"Why are blonde jokes so short? So stupid dogs can remember them." She hissed back. I grinned.

"Why did the blond climb the chain link fence?" I asked.

"I heard this one before." Blondie answered.

"To see what's on the other side." I finished for Carlisle's sake.

"Hey." Rosalie said, louder this time. I grimaced, I was in for it now from Cassie or Zack. Cassie's eyes flicked to the porch. "How do you know if a guy at the beach has a redhead for a girlfriend?" I looked at her silently, afraid to look at Cassie. Rosalie looked smug as she continued. "He has "Stay off my turf!" scratched into his back."

Everyone was silent for a moment and then Cassie started to laugh. "I tried that once, Rose. He heals too quickly." She admitted with a big grin. "What's safer, a redhead or a piranha?" She asked, her eyes sparkling.

"A piranha. They only attack in schools." Zack answered, laughing. At my confused look they both broke into peals of laughter again.

"When Cassie was a teenager, I used to tell her redhead jokes all the time." Zack explained. "If you love a redhead, set her free…if she follows you everywhere you go, pitches a tent in your front lawn and puts your new girlfriend in the hospital, she's all yours!" He said with a grin as he went back to tossing the ball back and forth with my son and the vampires. Cassie just laughed, her eyes sparkling. Rosalie and I shook our heads in unison.

"She's something." She murmured with a sense of fondness I couldn't quite be mad about as she turned her attention back to Evie.

"Yeah." I said dreamily as Cassie hopped off the tree house. "She's pretty awesome." I watched her as she took Echo's hand, leading her to the swing. Echo giggled as her mother pushed her back and forth, demanding to be higher. I watched as this gathered Evie's attention. She looked at the doll in her hands, then up at me.

"Uncle Jake, will you push me on the swing?" She asked sweetly, her dimples showing as she smiled. I got up slowly, stretching. I scooped the little girl into my arms and crossed the short distance to the swings.

"Careful Jake, don't push her too high." Stella warned as she knelt next to Blaze.

"Sure, sure." I said with a grin as I placed Eva gently in the swings.

"Why are they so overprotective?" Alice whispered from where she sat. "She's a little small, but she's not porcelain." Huh, I wondered if it bothered Alice that people always assumed she was weaker because she was small.

"Stella had a lot of problems with her pregnancy." Cassie answered for me in a whisper. "They thought they lost her twice and then she went into premature labor and had to have an emergency c-section." Cassie pushed Echo up higher in the swings.

"Then when she was born, she was sick for awhile, bad immune system is what the doctor's said. She still gets sick really easily, and she bruises really badly from normal stuff like falling or bumping into things. She bleeds easily too. Her new thing is not sleeping more than a couple hours a night, which makes her immune system even worse…" Cassie trailed off, looking at Echo, healthy and glowing. "She's fragile. Zack and Stella worry constantly."

Alice looked thoughtful. "Why doesn't she sleep?" She asked.

"She has nightmares." Stella had appeared beside Cassie, leaning against the wooden post. "She won't say anything more than she dreams about monsters. I don't know how in the world she even learned what monsters are, she's never seen anything scary that I know of and she's hardly been out of my sight since she was born."

"She seemed to sleep alright with Echo last night." I commented. Stella smiled sweetly.

"I know, thank goodness. Maybe she's getting past them…" She sounded hopeful. I smiled at her.

Two more hours, and I was finally pulling into my own driveway. I was never going to get the leech stink out of my clothing, and I'd kinda given up trying. Cassie hummed lightly in her seat, twirling her phone in her hands as Blaze and Echo chattered away about the Cullens in the back seat. I groaned as I saw Paul, Leah, and Seth standing on my front porch.

"Huh. Guess they didn't believe you when you'd said you'd call if anything happened." Cassie remarked. I glared at them from the driver's seat as I switched off the car. I was swamped by werewolves before I could even open the door.

"Jesus Jake, you guys stink." Seth remarked casually, opening up the door to get Echo as Leah ran to Blaze's side. Echo began to yammer away to Seth, describing in detail every member of the Cullens and their big play set. Seth chuckled. I often felt bad for Seth…Leah liked to take Blaze for the day, but my kids were nearly inseparable, which meant that Seth often got dragged along as a plaything for Echo. Happy little punk didn't seem to mind, though, he doted on Echo like a favorite niece. Poor Seth was like an imprinted werewolf with none of the benefits.

"We wanted to take the kids to the beach, make sure they didn't forget us." Leah claimed as she hoisted Blaze into the air.

"Lela! I wanna go to the beach with Lela!" He demanded, I rolled my eyes. Leah seemed all too happy that his affection for her still remained. I didn't answer, instead eying Paul and Zack. He seemed to be hiding his enthusiasm for Zack's sake. In reality, I couldn't blame Zack for feeling a little resentful of the imprint thing. It would have been different if somebody had imprinted on Echo, worse for me than Leah imprinting on Blaze. I preferred to think Echo would never date, let alone get married, and now for Zack is was a sure thing. And she was only four.

Eva didn't feel the same need to not give her dad a heart attack. As soon as she saw Paul she smiled and stretched out of her mother's arms. "Paul!" She cried out, smiling widely. Paul returned it, looking at Zack hesitantly. He nodded curtly and Paul took Eva into his arms.

"Hey Evie. How were…the Cullens?" He asked. Eva played with the sleeve of his shirt.

"They were nice." She responded. "They had dolls, and they let me play. And there was a swing."

"Sounds pretty cool." Paul answered, twirling one of her blonde locks around his finger. "You had fun?"

"Mmmhmm. But I missed you." She said with another startling smile. I could practically hear Zack choking on his own bile.

"Do you want to come to the beach with us, kiddo? If mom and dad say it's okay." He added hastily. I laughed a little to myself. It'd be fun to watch if Zack and Paul got into a fight, I'd place money on Zack, he was lethal when he was mad.

Zack looked like he was about to say something rude, but Stella stepped in, smiling peacefully. "It sounds like fun. How about we go too?" She asked. Paul nodded gratefully as Stella linked arms with Zack.

"Well, hold on and let me get out of these clothes and we'll make it a family affair." I said as I stepped onto the porch.

"Oh no, you guys should stay here. Alone time and whatnot." Stella offered. "Since we're intruding so much. We can watch the kids for the rest of the afternoon."

"Stella, you're not intruding, I love having you here. But I won't argue against a kid free afternoon." Cassie said. Stella smiled knowingly.

"More than I needed to know about my sister, thank you very much." Zack said, eying Paul and Eva. "Let's get this over with."

I watched as the group walked off, laughing and talking, kids in tow.

"So, when do you think Paul and Zack are going to come to blows? 15 on Paul." My wife muttered softly into my ear.

"I'd bet on Zack. He's a fighter." I answered.

"Yeah, but you've never seen a wolf fight for someone he loves." She said softly. I turned to look at her.

"You've never seen it either. You were unconscious." I pointed out. A ghost of old sadness reappeared in her eyes.

"I didn't have to see it. You came, you saved me forever." She whispered. I squeezed her hand in mine and turned to kiss her, but ended up cringing at the stench coming off her.

"I smell that bad, huh?" She asked with a laugh. "I'll go take a shower." I nodded, not bothering to argue with her. She darted into the house quickly and I followed her, stripping out of my clothes and throwing them in the washing machine. I stopped to get new ones from our room just as the shower turned on. I slipped in the bathroom and grabbed her stinky clothes as well. I poured more detergent than I probably needed to in the machine and then turned it on. I picked up the kid's toys as I made my way though the house, depositing them back where they belonged. I even made myself some sandwiches, plowing through them quickly. I heard the shower shut off and Cassie's voice singing something I didn't recognize.

Her voice was like a siren's song to me still, and I found myself following it up the stairs. The door to our bathroom was wide open, giving me a good view of Cassie's artwork on the walls, mermaids, seashells, and bizarre looking fish swirled around in blue waves. Cassie stood at the mirror, a towel wrapped around her body, combing her hair.

I took a moment to compare what I was seeing to the girl I'd met ten years ago. Her hair was still the same vibrant ruby, but she seemed even more beautiful to me. Her violet eyes were shining bright, and her body was softer now after two children, her curves even more defined. More than that…she was happier, anyone could see that. The whole world seemed to benefit from her happiness, each room she was in seemed a little brighter than anywhere else. People gravitated to her, basking in that glow.

Cassie, my Cassie.

"You're beautiful." I said reverently as I watched her. She turned to me with a smile.

"You're horribly biased." She remarked with a smug smile. I shook my head, glad once more that I had fallen in love with her. I couldn't have chose a soul so warm, vibrant, and tender myself.

"Maybe." I walked over to her, brushing her hair to her left side so I could kiss the little tattoo on her shoulder. Lucy, Kim, and Cassie had all gone to the tattoo parlor as a surprise, and all came back with identical paw print tattoos. Lucy's was above her heart, the same place where Embry had tattooed her name, Kim's was on her thigh (the only reason I knew that was because I'd caught Jared fantasizing once while switching off for patrol. Who knew Kim had such a wild streak.), and Cassie had gotten it on her shoulder. Sam liked to joke that if we didn't look like a gang already, we did now. Emily had rolled her eyes when we suggested she go get one too, Jared had caved and gotten Kim's name tattooed on him in return. I highly anticipated when Quil and Claire finally got together as a couple it would be back to the tattoo parlor for the girls.

I kissed that paw print lightly, working my way over her shoulder and up her neck, covering her jaw in kisses. Her eyes drifted closed in pleasure. "Jake…" She moaned softly. I bent down and swept her off her feet, literally, as I carried her to the bed.

"I love you." I whispered in her ear. Her lips were on mine instantly, and fireworks were exploding in my blood. Everything about her was perfect, the sound of her voice, the way her hands slid down my body like wind over the earth, and the sweetness of her lips as she pressed them wherever she could find skin. We were perfect together. We fit like two halves of a puzzle. And as we lost ourselves in each other, we were on fire, yet again.

Burning up never felt so right.