Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and/or followed this fic!

.

Nominations are open for the twific fandom awards on twificfandomawards blogspot com / Nominate all your favorite fics! You can nominate as many fics/authors/fandom members as you'd like. There's no limit.

.

SPOILER ALERTFlowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald are discussed in this chapter, with the climax of Flowers for Algernon basically being given away. If by any chance you are reading, or plan to read that book, be aware I give away the ending in this chapter. (Read the book anyway. It's fabulous.) If The Great Gatsby is your favorite book ever, you are probably going to be ticked off at me.

.

This story is set in 2012.

.

A huge thank you to everyone who over the years has helped make this fic happen, from those lovely campers on A Different Forest who've offered their expertise on details, to the multitude of betas who've read a chapter or chapters from way back with Project Team Beta, to all those who've volunteered to help me since then. You're all stars! An especially loud shout out to Raum for her years - literally, years- of support and encouragement.

.

Disclaimer - All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.

.


.~.

Chapter 11

.~.

Gray skipped down the stairs exuberantly, hoping to hear from Edward before long. She was wearing Emmett's gift, and the moment she entered the dining-turned-meeting room, where Jasper and Carlisle were still in discussion, their conversation stopped.

"That's a new look for you," Carlisle said.

Holding her arms out to her sides, she slowly turned in a circle, the way the models showing off the latest fashions had when her mother and she had gone to New York City shopping nearly a century ago.

Emmett came in, hooting loudly when he saw her. Two fingers between his lips, he whistled.

"Alice seen that?" Jasper asked.

Her attention already having been caught, Alice answered from the second floor, "Has Alice seen what?" Her light-as-a-feather steps could be heard moving through the house. "Has Alice seen what?" she asked again, her steps speeding up. "Gray, what are you wear—" Her words cut off mid-sentence as she entered the room. "Where—did you get—that?" she asked, already glaring at Emmett.

Gray wore a purple plaid flannel shirt over a purple no-name t-shirt.

Emmett clapped his hands and laughed raucously. It wasn't often anyone managed to surprise Alice. "Set me back a whole thirty bucks, but it was worth every penny."

"If you wanted flannel shirts," Alice said, struggling on the word flannel, "we could've gone shopping." Her sense of style was appalled, but if Gray wanted flannel shirts, there were sure to be a number of designers . . . Various shops in Seattle passed through her mind.

"I thought I'd run by the reservation, see what I can hear," Gray said, so eager to head out—so she could get back—that she was bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"I'll come, too," Jasper said, rising. "Don't call the pack until we're in position," he said to Carlisle. "Give us ten minutes."

Carlisle nodded.

"If your ladyship is ready?" Jasper asked, offering her his arm.

"Thank you, kind sir," she said, wrapping her arm around his. While settled for the moment, Gray knew the matter of Edward's father's knowing her family's secret had not been resolved firmly once and forever, and Jasper's thoughts made it clear he intended to use the chance to talk to her alone to reason with her. Never before had Jasper and she been on opposing sides of an argument, and she did not like it.

"Be nice," Alice said, giving her husband a meaningful look and a kiss on the check. Both of you, she added silently to Gray. She looked at Gray's shirt and grimaced.

"It's purple," Gray said in her shirt's defense. "Purple makes everything better."

.~.

Jasper and Gray started towards La Push in silence, and Jasper's thoughts were trained on the upcoming meeting with the pack. The tenor of those thoughts, however, gave away what they hid.

"It's like déjà vu all over again," Gray commented, remembering the trip the two had taken only the other night to Forks. "I won't be swayed, Jasper."

"You would place Alice at risk? Esme?"

"You know I wouldn't. Would you, by acting rashly?"

"Not acting rashly is not the same as not acting at all."

"The resulting risk—between the pack's desire for vengeance and the human's inevitable search for Edward and his father—would be exponentially greater than the risk you believe exists now. You lay down very good false paper trails for us, Jasper, but are you sure they would stand up to an FBI investigation? What risk would Alice—and all of us—be placed in should they not?"

Jasper scoffed. FBI?

Five miles from the house, they climbed to the tree tops for the rest of the way.

Jasper looked at her from the corner of his eye. "You only thought of that argument the second before you made it."

"That doesn't make it any the less true."

"Would you have told us the pack had broken the treaty had we not already known?"

Mentally, Gray flinched. That was the question she had feared being asked, and now she had been. She hesitated before answering, and that alone was answer enough. Had it been in her power to conceal the truth from her family, she would have.

Overmastered, indeed.

"I thought not," Jasper said. His thoughts were not accusatory, as Gray would have suspected. He understood.

"It would have been impossible to keep the secret in any case," Gray said, going on to explain how terrified the man was.

Jasper didn't respond. His thoughts passed to Gray's fears for how Edward and his father would react upon awaking. They might not mind as much as you think, you know, he told her kindly. I didn't. By all accounts, Esme didn't. Emmett didn't. For that matter, you yourself don't seem to have minded.

"Rosalie," Gray responded, the single word not needing any explanation.

Jasper sighed. Rosalie. "Rosalie's was an extreme case."

"The ultimate betrayal, committed by the one person in whom she ought to have been able to have absolute trust? You see no parallel? For Esme, Emmett, and for me, our human lives were over. Edward's is not, and I won't see him robbed of it."

Jasper let the matter drop. The wind blew from the south, and they stuck to a northerly route to direct their scents away from the reservation. Roughly two miles to the northeast of La Push, they settled into the topmost branches of a Western White Pine that reached almost one hundred and fifty feet tall. Even there, a trace of the wolves' odor wafted up to them. Could Edward really not smell that stench, Gray wondered? The limitations of the human olfactory system were astonishing.

.~.

With an expression of disappointment, Edward hung the landline phone in the kitchen back up and cleared the missed call from his cell phone. He'd texted Grace over half an hour ago but hadn't gotten a response back from her yet. He'd known he was being stupid even when he'd done it, but he'd called his cell from the house phone, just to make sure it was working. He looked back at his phone's screen—four bars. He pulled up Grace in his contacts, just so he could see the picture of her he'd taken at the Hoh yesterday. It was all so unbelievable, he needed to see her face to keep himself from beginning to doubt she was real, to begin to question whether yesterday had been nothing but a dream. But there she was, smiling up at him from the screen with her perfect face and her perfect hair. . . .

Maybe she was still asleep? They never actually said a time. Maybe she liked to sleep late? Maybe she was out of cell range and hadn't gotten his message? Cell service outside the city could be iffy. Of course, he'd gotten service from her house last night . . . Maybe she was in the yard or something? Maybe her phone was dead? Maybe she'd decided he was a total nerd and never wanted to see him again?

With nothing to do but wait, Edward returned to his room and picked up his copy of The Great Gatsby. He looked at it dispassionately. The book was the assigned reading over Easter break for his honors English class, and so far, he was about forty pages in. Unable to concentrate, he read the same sentence three times. Giving up, he tossed the book aside in frustration and flopped down on his bed. Maybe it was his mood—he felt jittery from head to foot—but he just couldn't concentrate on anything not named Grace. It didn't help that the damn book was boring as fuck. Whatever it was about the story that made it one of the greatest American novels, he just didn't see it.

When his phone suddenly vibrated, Edward grabbed for it, nearly knocking it onto the floor, and fumbling with it so badly, he nearly ignored Grace's call.

Charlie had ESPN on, but he wasn't watching it. Edward had invited that girl to the house. She'd been invited. Charlie knew damned well the idea that creatures like her had to be invited into a person's home before they could step over the threshold was a bunch of bullshit dreamed up by some lucky S.O.B. who didn't have the vaguest notion that creatures like her actually existed, but the idea that his son had invited that creature into their home, and that there was fuck all he could do about it, burned in his gut. But what else could he have done? Told Edward to go there? Jacob and another one of the pack boys were in the woods behind the house, near enough for that girl to able to hear them, Charlie knew, but it didn't make him feel any better.

Edward looked at himself in the mirror. Grace had said she'd be over in about twenty minutes—he checked his watch—twelve minutes ago. Okay. Relax, he told himself. Take a deep breath. Which he did. If she'd decided you were a total loser, she'd have come up with some excuse to not hang out.

She'd asked him to call her Grace, rather than Gray like everyone else. That had to mean something, didn't it? And the way she'd talked when they'd said good-bye last night—so seriously and even a little frightened. It had been as if she'd been afraid he would decide he didn't want to see her again. But that made no sense. She was amazing.

He looked at his watch again. Seven minutes.

Edward left his room and went into the living room. His father was watching TV, and Edward went straight to the front window to look out.

"Easter is next Sunday," his father said with a mild emphasis on the word next.

Letting the blinds fall back, Edward looked down at the dark red button down shirt and black jeans he'd put on. "I wanted to look nice," he said.

His father made a hmph sound, and Edward turned back to the window. He was so anxious, his fingers were tapping randomly on the window sill. When he caught himself doing it, he laughed as he pretended to play A, A . . .C, C . . .G, G.

"Something funny?" his father asked.

Edward answered without looking at him. "No." Fed up with his father's attitude, he said, "Please, be nice to her when she gets here. She's special."

His father sighed but drew a circle in the air over his head with his finger, as if he were drawing a halo.

Edward turned back to the window just in time to see a silver car with a bright yellow license plate pull up in front of the house. With a rush of excitement, he hurried out the door and down the front steps, jumping over the last three. Grace was just opening the car door.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi." He took her hand, their fingers lacing together. It shouldn't be possible, but she was even more beautiful than he remembered. He touched her face and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and she gravitated to his touch, just as she had last night. His attack of nerves was forgotten. Moving like one, he leaned down toward her as she stretched up to him, and they kissed. It was the most natural thing in the world. It was like breathing. Like putting one foot in front of the other.

"Hi," he said.

She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling in exactly the right way. "Hi."

"C'mon inside."

"Let me just get. . . ."

Grace opened the back door and retrieved a stack of papers. Print outs—worksheets, it looked like—and across the top was printed: MATHEMATICS IN FORESTRY.

Edward groaned.

Her eyebrow arched, Grace asked, "I'm sorry, did you not want to pass trigonometry and get into your college of choice?"

"No. I do.

She handed him the papers as she took two steps toward the house. "Then let's get started." She turned and faced him, continuing to walk backwards, just as she'd done at the Hoh the day before, and touched his stomach. "So we can finish."

The muscles in Edward's stomach twitched at her touch.

"You look very nice, by the way," she said. "Very handsome."

Edward felt heat spread up his neck, and he was sure he was turning pink.

"You—you look nice, too," he stammered. "Beautiful."

He opened the door for her, and they entered the house.

"You have a pool table?" she asked, catching a glimpse of it on the lower level.

"Do you play?"

Grace smiled and shrugged. "After a fashion."

"Dad," Edward said, all the nervousness he felt earlier returning with a vengeance, "you remember Grace." He held his breath, silently pleading with his father to be nice.

After a pause that was too long for comfort, his father said, "How could I forget?"

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Chief Swan," Grace said.

His father didn't respond, and Edward saw a vein on his forehead begin to bulge.

Grace laid her hand on his arm. "I thought we could go outside. I found some examples of using trigonometry in forestry. Why don't you get a pen and some paper?"

Edward looked between his father and Grace. He was uncomfortable leaving her alone with him, and the fact twisted his stomach.

She smiled reassuringly. "Go."

They held each other's gaze, and their hands lingered on each other's arms.

"I'll be right back," he said.

.~.

Edward turned down the hall, and Charlie watched as that girl's eyes followed him. He'd seen them outside—fuck, he'd nearly jumped through the window when Edward actually kissed that creature. And just now, all the light touches. It came as no surprise, not with the way his son had been acting since he'd laid eyes on her, but that it was no surprise made it no easier to see. What kind of sick game was that creature playing? Did she enjoy toying with boys' feelings? He'd checked up on what she'd said to him earlier, about how Emily Young had really been injured. Billy'd admitted it had been others of her kind. He'd also said the girl had taken advantage of the situation to take revenge for something the two had done to her mate. If there was one thing Charlie knew about her kind, it was the lengths they would go to when their mates were harmed. He knew the story of the Third Wife as well as any Quileute. This creature might think dicking his son around was funny, but when her mate showed up, he sure as fuck wouldn't. The danger she was putting his son in for her own entertainment meant nothing to her. Charlie leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "A couple of the boys from the pack are just outside."

"I'm aware," that girl responded, calm as could be, as if the presence of two of the Quileute wolves was nothing to her. "Subtlety is not their strong suit."

"What are you playing at?"

"I'm not playing at anything, sir. I know what you believe of us, but that is not who we are. Edward told me he was having difficulty with trigonometry. I hold a DPhil in Engineering Science from Oxford. Granted, it's out of date by a couple of decades, but I'm sure I can handle high school trigonometry."

Before Charlie could respond, Edward returned. He looked between the two of them uneasily. "Ready?"

"Sure."

Charlie seethed at how helpless he was as he watched his son with that creature. How could he keep Edward away from that girl without telling him what she really was—but how could he tell him what she really was without risking retaliation against all of them?

.~.

Grace and Edward sat together on the patio. Edward looked over the printouts she'd brought for him. Yeah, he was going to fail, and he was going to be working at the True Value for the rest of his life. "I've studied all this before. It just doesn't stick in my head. I don't get it."

"Seeing what you're studying put into use in practical ways in your field of interest might help you understand it better, which will help you remember it. And there are little tips and tricks that can help you." Grace drew a right triangle on a piece of paper. "We'll review the basics first and build from there. Simply put, trigonometry deals with measurements of the angles and sides of triangles."

Edward watched her hands as she labeled the sides of the triangle X, Y, and Z. She had such pretty hands. Long, slim fingers, short nails with no polish, and on the third finger of her right hand she wore a ring with a deep purple stone set in swirls of gold. Edward took her left hand and wove their fingers together. Her hand looked so delicate; his looked so rough in comparison.

"Edward."

"Hm?"

Her jaw curved softly down to her neck, and Edward's eyes followed along the smooth skin to the bottom of her ear where it peeked out through her hair. She wore earrings that matched her ring and had a thin ribbon of gold that wrapped under her earlobe.

"Pay attention."

"I am."

"To what I'm saying."

"The angles and sides of triangles."

He leaned forward and kissed the spot just below her ear.

Grace laughed. "You are incorrigible." She angled her head to give him better access, and she slid her hand from his shoulder up his neck and into his hair. "I do hope it wasn't a similar distraction with your former teacher that led to your difficulty with the subject in the first place."

Edward's entire body stiffened, and he sat back. He groaned. "I think I just threw up a little."

"So, now, as I was saying. Imagine we want to determine the height of a tree." She pointed with her pen towards the trees at the back of the yard. "We'll assume the tree stands at a right angle to the ground, and isn't curved into an arch." She drew a small square in the right angle corner, next to which, she drew a tree.

Edward laughed.

"Trust me. That's our subject tree. Now, in relation to the tree, we are here." She drew two small stick figures beside another corner. "Our position, the base of the tree, and the top of the tree are the corners of the triangle." She pointed to each corner as she spoke. "The hypotenuse, or Z, is the side across from the right angle. Think of the other two sides in relation to our position." She pointed to the stick figures. "The opposite side of the triangle, or Y—which is our tree—is opposite where we sit, and the adjacent side, or X—which is the ground between us and the tree—is adjacent to where we sit. The line between the top of the tree and where we sit is the hypotenuse. The words 'opposite' and 'adjacent' both have eight letters. Hypotenuse has ten. It is the longest of the three words, and the longest of the three sides."

Edward's posture changed as he followed along. He nodded his head. "Okay."

"We want to calculate the height of our tree, or Y. If we knew how far we were from both the base and top of the tree, X and Z, we could calculate the length of Y using the Pythagorean theorem, but we don't. All we can know at this point is how far we are from the tree. To use a round figure, let's say we're one hundred feet from the tree. The adjacent side, X, which is the ground between us and the tree, is one hundred feet. What else can we measure to calculate Y?"

Edward scratched his shoulder. "I know we need an angle, but I get screwed up. I can study functions for an hour and then try to work problems, but I just can't," he held up his hands and laced his fingers together, "take what I just read and use it to figure the problems out. It gets lost between reading it and trying to use it."

"Foresters have equipment they use to determine the degree of the angle where we stand. Knowing that, we can use the tangent function to determine the length of the opposite side—or the height of our tree."

"Tangent equals . . . ," Edward pressed his fingertips against his closed eyes, "adjacent over opposite?"

"That's cotangent. Tangent is opposite over adjacent. Some old hippy caught another hippy tripping on acid."

Questioning whether he'd heard Grace correctly, Edward blinked, then laughed.

"What?"

"You've never heard that before? All saints take cocaine?"

He shook his head.

"Small wonder you're doing poorly. What did that man teach you all year?"

.~.

Grace ducked under a low-hanging branch as she walked a little ways in front of him. After spending over an hour working on trig, they were now slowly picking their way through the woods behind his house, talking about random things and asking each other all sorts of questions. To someone not familiar with them, all woods looked the same, but Edward had spent countless hours exploring these woods growing up, and he knew all the landmarks to keep an eye out for to not get lost. Just in front of them, a recently fallen tree lay in the very early stages of being reclaimed by the forest.

"When did you start running?" she asked, continuing their conversation.

"My dad says about a minute after I took my first step," Edward said with a laugh. "I used to run laps through the house when I was, like, two," he said, drawing a circle in the air with his finger.

When they reached the fallen tree, Grace leapt up onto it as easily as if it was no more than a couple of inches off the ground. He stopped and stared. Laying on its side on the forest floor, the fallen tree came to above his knees. "Um, be careful," Edward said. Worried she would fall, he held his hand out to help her down.

She smiled at him. "I won't fall. I have very good natural balance." Even so, she took his hand and jumped down. "A half-marathon is a tremendous achievement. Thirteen miles is no small matter," she said.

His mind was still half on the ease with which Grace had leapt onto the downed tree—graceful, like a deer—but when she smiled at him, it was hard to think about anything else. "You know how far a half-marathon is?"

"Will you tell me about it?" she asked.

Edward basked in her smiles and her interest in his running. "It was really cool," he said. "They've got live bands playing, like, every mile or so, so it's like you've got this great live soundtrack, and there are all these crowds cheering you on. It's really great. I really underestimated the hills, though. I mean—it's Seattle, so I expected hills, but—man, they were killer! Seriously, an incline on a treadmill just isn't the same. Part of the course was on the freeway, which they closed down. That was cool. And you run by Seward Park and Lake Washington. Then, at the end, was this great view of Safeco and Quest stadiums. And they have this really cool Expo thing at the end where you get your medal, and they have all this food and all these places giving stuff away. Odwalla bars and Lara bars and drinks and stuff. My best friend and his dad went with us, and we stayed in Seattle and went to a Mariners game the next day."

"Are you going to do it again this year?"

"Oh, yeah. It's in June. I'm working on getting back into condition for it. During most of the school year, I ease way up and only do, like, three miles or so. Yesterday morning was my longest run since last year—six miles. I'd really like to run in Boston one day," he said.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that you will."

The way Grace looked at him, like he was telling her his plan to both cure cancer and bring peace to the world singlehandedly, made Edward's insides do backflips.

Changing the subject, she asked, "You're undecided about Falling Man. What book is your favorite?"

After a moment's thought, Edward answered, "Maybe Flowers for Algernon."

"Not one for light fiction, are you?" she asked. "Towards the end, when Charlie wrote 'Todays Sunday' in his journal, without the apostrophe, that was the most devastating moment to me. He was so excited to learn about punctuation."

"You've read it?" Edward asked. He remembered the moment Grace mentioned. He remembered when Charlie realized it was inevitable that he would regress as Algernon had, then during the regression when he realized he could no longer understand German or remember what a favorite book had been about. Please, God, don't take it all away, he'd prayed."To have had the chance to gain so much, only to discover you're going to lose it, and there is nothing you can do to stop it . . ." He stopped and picked at a bit of bark on a tree. "It would be awful—like knowing you were going to die." He thought it might even be worse than that.

Grace's breath shuddered. She touched his arm, and her fingers slid up to his shoulder. "Something rather worse, I should think," she said in a soft voice, as if she'd read his mind. "'Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit.'" The corners of her mouth twitched as she looked at him, but a real smile never formed.

The breeze blew a strand of hair in Grace's eyes, and Edward tucked it behind her ear. That little bit of hair had a habit of falling into her eyes, he'd noticed. "Okay, least favorite this time," he said. "Least favorite book."

"Oh, easy. Gatsby."

"Really?"

"To call it the Superficial Gatsby would be more accurate. And, lucky me, we came just in time for it to be the assigned reading. Pity it wasn't assigned a month ago. I'd have been spared."

Edward felt a thrill at hearing that—if Grace knew it was the assigned reading, she had to be taking honors English, too, and seeing as there was only one 11th grade honors English class, there'd be at least that class they'd share.

"I just started reading it this morning," he said.

"Perhaps I ought not have said anything. I don't want to influence your opinion."

"I can't say I like it myself so far either. I'm about forty pages in, and we haven't even seen Gatsby yet. And it's not a long book."

"No. That it's mercifully short is the best thing I can say about it, but I will say no more until after you've finished it and formed your own opinion."

"Um," Edward said. He couldn't have asked for a better segue. He rubbed the back of his neck. He was nervous and excited at the same time. "Favorite way to be asked to prom?" he asked, butterflies swarming in his stomach and hoping he hadn't sounded totally lame.

Grace raised her eyebrow. "That's two questions in a row." She clasped her hands behind her back and looked up at him coyly.

Edward laughed nervously.

"I didn't get my turn to ask you a question." She tapped her finger against the corner of her mouth, and Edward squirmed. "Hmm." She tipped her head to the side. "What is the theme for prom this year?"

"Um, Gatsby, actually," Edward said.

"Oh?" Grace's honey-colored eyes sparkled. "As it happens, I happen to have something laying around that I believe can be made to fit the theme. That is, of course, if you're asking me, and I'm not letting wishful thinking carry me away."

Exuberant, Edward wanted to pump his fist in the air. "Um, yeah. If you'd like to go."

"I should be delighted."

She touched his arm near his elbow, and her fingers trailed down to his wrist and the back of his hand. Their hands slipped one into the other, and their fingers twisted together. At the same moment, they both took a step toward the other. He touched her face, and they looked into each other eyes, holding each other's gaze for several long seconds as Edward's pulse speed up and every nerve ending in his body tingled with anticipation. The air itself felt electrically charged around them.

Like one, they moved to close the space between them, and their lips met in a long series of light, teasing kisses. Grace's arms slid around his waist, and her hands ran up his back. Her arms were strong around him, and he held her tightly as both their kiss and their hands grew bolder. Any other kiss he'd ever had, anything he'd ever felt for another girl—fuck, any other fantasy he'd ever had—was eclipsed by the intensity of kissing Grace. With their bodies pressed so firmly together, Edward felt the curve of her chest against his, and he ached with the desire to run his hands up her sides and over her breasts. As deep in the forest as they were, no one could see them. They could do anything they wanted to.

A sudden, strong gust of wind blew through the trees, and rainwater that had collected on thousands of newly emerging leaves showered down on them in a burst of cold droplets. They gasped in surprise and laughed.

Grace's fingers traced patterns on his back. She kissed his chin, then pressed her forehead against his shoulder and whispered something. Edward heard his name, but the rest hadn't even sounded like English.

"Just a line of poetry that passed through my head," she answered with a sigh after he'd asked her what she'd said. "'Kissing Edward, I had my soul upon my lips.'"

Edward felt the breath leave his lungs, and he stood agape. He had no idea what to say. That was just . . . wow.

"I did take liberties with the original," Grace said, her fingers moving up and down his arm. "Plato's inspiration was not named Edward. He will have to forgive me. Kissing you is what kissing a man is supposed to be."

"Plato. Ancient Greece, that Plato. You can quote . . . Plato."

"I'm a treasure chest of useless information, remember?"

"Don't say things like that. You're . . . amazing," Edward said, growing suddenly shy at the last minute. He swallowed and repeated himself more confidently. "I think you're amazing."

"You do?" Grace spoke with an awed voice that both warmed Edward and gave him chills.

"Yeah, I mean, God, Grace, you're . . . I mean you're—you're kind of freakin' mind-blowing." Could she really not know how incredible she was? "You're perfect," he whispered.

Grace dropped her gaze for a moment. "I'm far from perfect." When she looked back up at him, the depth of emotion in her face rocked Edward to his core.

The errant stand of hair blew across her face again, and he tucked it behind her ear.

"I envy girls with short hair," she said in exasperation as she tucked more of her hair behind her ears. "I'd cut it all off, if I could."

"Why don't you?" he asked, even though he hoped she wouldn't. He loved her hair. He twisted a lock it round his finger.

Again, the corners of her lips twitched, as if to smile, but the smile never broke through the haunted look he'd seen on her face so often in the short time he'd known her. She let out a breath and shook her head. She placed her hand over his heart and stared unblinkingly at her hand on his chest. She looked deep in thought, like she was considering something of vital importance, until suddenly, as if she'd come to a decision, she began to speak. "Edward, I'm—"

Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by the most ferocious sounding growl Edward had ever heard. A growl that was low and deep and menacing and that made his blood freeze in his veins. A growl that was unmistakably canine. He jumped in front of Grace and held one arm behind himself, keeping her behind him as his eyes darted wildly through the woods.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Grace said unreasonably and in tone that conveyed that even she didn't believe was she was saying.

Edward closed his hand around her wrist, holding her tightly, keeping her behind him. He could still feel the vibrations of that growl in his bones. At that moment, aell he could think about was Emily Young. "That wasn't nothing."

"It was probably just a coyote," she offered, her free hand stroking his arm before tugging on it gently. "Come on, let's just go back to the house."

"That wasn't a coyote." Edward shook his head. "A coyote's howl is nothing like that." Wolves? There hadn't been a confirmed sighting of wolves west of the Cascades in a hundred years.

Were they sure it was a bear that had attacked Emily Young? What if it hadn't been? What if it was what had just growled at them? What if the thing was rabid?

"Whatever it was, I'm sure it's gone," Grace said, giving his arm another light tug before squeezing it softly. "Let's just go back to the house. Please, Edward."

Edward squeezed her hand and nodded. He knew fuck all about wolves, but he pushed thoughts of Emily away and concentrated on remembering everything he did know about staying safe when you encountered a wild animal in the woods. Hoping to scare the animal away, he waved his arms to appear as large as possible, and spoke loudly in what he hoped was an imposing tone, "Stay close to me. Walk slowly—don't try to run. Watch your step."

Edward stood motionless for several seconds longer, his eyes searching. There was nothing. Whatever it was doing, he didn't think it was moving in their direction.

"Okay, come on," he said. Turning his back on whatever he'd seen went against everything he knew, but he couldn't keep his eyes in one direction and get them back to the house in the opposite direction. He kept his eyes trained in the direction the growl had come from for three more pounding beats of his heart, then turned away and, standing behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders, began to guide Grace back the way they'd came. He looked over his shoulder, not wanting to see so much as a fern blow in the breeze, and he didn't. The forest was silent and still.

"Truly, Edward, I don't believe there's any cause for alarm. Whatever it was probably ran off, if it even noticed us at all."

One step forward, one glance back. No small animal had made that growl. It had to have been big enough that had it run off, he'd have seen it. And as for not noticing them, that growl hadn't been over a squirrel or a raccoon. Two more steps forward, glance back. Making their way back out of the woods felt like it took impossibly longer than it had making their way in. It wasn't until they reached the fallen tree they'd passed earlier that Edward felt himself begin to breathe easier, and when they were finally close enough to the end of the woods to see his house through the trees, he had to resist the urge to break into a sprint.

Another few yards, and Edward heard a sound that was music to his ears—the familiar sound of wood being chopped. He pulled Grace's arm toward the sound, and called out, "Dad!" He could see his father in the distance through the trees now, standing straight and looking in their general direction, the ax raised and ready to swing. "You won't believe it!" Edward shouted, taking Grace's hand and hurrying towards him. "Wolves! We heard a wolf!"

His father'd had a hard expression on his face, but his entire demeanor changed in an instant. His face went slack, and the arm holding the ax almost like a baseball bat dropped to his side.

"Imagine our surprise," Grace said. "I understood there were no wolves living in this part of the state."

"You probably heard a coyote," he father suggested.

"No way. That thing—Christ you should've heard it!" Edward said. "It growled at us like nothing I've ever heard before. It was, like, seriously ferocious."

"Perhaps the authorities should be alerted," Grace said.

His father looked at her, and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Seriously—you gotta call Fish and Wildlife." Edward said. "That thing—I swear, it didn't sound normal. Animals just don't, they just don't sound like that. I don't know, but I mean, what if it's rabid or something?"

His father began to speak but didn't. He grunted and ran his hand over his face.

Now that they were safe, Edward thought about Emily Young again. She was far from being among Edward's favorite people, but that didn't matter. If there was a chance whatever had attacked her had been rabid . . . He asked his father if they were sure it had been a bear.

"They know what attacked her," his father said in a hard tone. "And it was destroyed."

"I'm glad to hear that," Grace said. "After such a traumatic event, I believe the human mind can sometimes remember details inaccurately."

"Come on," Edward said to Grace, feeling uncomfortably jittery. "Let's go inside." He looked all around them at the seemingly endless expanse of forest, and he shivered. He felt claustrophobic. The woods were normally his favorite place to be and he knew them as well as he knew the streets of Forks, but at that moment, he felt like the familiar terrain was an alien landscape, and an unwelcoming one at that. When Grace didn't respond, he looked down at her. She was staring back into the woods in the direction they'd walked, a sneer on her lips and her eyes narrowed.

Gray relaxed her features immediately, but she knew it hadn't been fast enough. Edward had once again seen the monster that shared her mind and body with the humanity she clung to. And again, he hadn't pulled away from her, hadn't even flinched.

"If you wish," she said pleasantly. Though, physically, she turned her back on the vitriolic, violent thoughts being screamed at her from the two Quileute wolves a hundred yards away, coupled with those of their littermates lurking farther in the distance, she was acutely attuned to every last syllable that passed between them. Outwardly, her entire focus was where it belonged—on Edward. She didn't need to read his mind to know how deeply that mangy mutt had frightened him. There was nothing in her body language or demeanor to give away the fact that she was, at that moment, debating just how many pieces she could rip each of them into. "Perhaps we could play a game of pool," she suggested as a means of returning Edward to familiar, comfortable ground and giving his mind something to occupy itself with.

"Yeah," Edward said, already sounding more like himself. "Yeah, that sounds great."

"We can explore the relationship between mathematics and pool. For example, the angle at which the ball banks off the rail. Through the principle of reflection, we know that the angle at which the ball strikes the rail will be exactly equal to the angle at which it ricochets off." Edward groaned, and Gray grinned. She'd have preferred spend their time together in a far different way as well, but she could hardly suggest anything of that sort with Edward's father present. "It's geometry as opposed to trigonometry, of course," she said, "but a better understanding of one will help you with other." She shrugged, then continued, saying as if an afterthought, "Of course, it can also help improve your bank shots, if that interests you."

.~.

Charlie watched his son walk back to the house with that creature, feeling like someone was stabbing a white hot poker in his chest. He was absolutely powerless. He knew it, and he hated it, and the gall of that creature to stand there and say the things she'd said pissed him off even more. He inhaled and took his fears and frustrations out on the piece of wood on the chopping block, grunting as he swung the ax down on it over and over until it was reduced to toothpicks and he was sweating and panting from the exertion. He ran his arm across his forehead before throwing the ax at the ground. He sat down on the old stump and picked up several pieces of chopped wood, hurling them one at a time before dropping his head into his hands.

"Hey."

Looking over his shoulder, Charlie saw Jacob approaching, but he didn't responded to the greeting. He wasn't in the mood for 'Hey's. Just last night, both Billy and Jacob had sworn they'd keep that creature away from Edward, that none of her kind would come anywhere near either of them. So much for that.

"We have a meeting with the leader of their coven in two hours," Jacob said. "I intend to make it perfectly clear they are to steer clear of you both."

Charlie nodded his head and stood up, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the lower level of the house. If that creature had heard the boys in the woods earlier, she'd sure as fuck heard that. Good. He was glad she'd heard it.

"What's this?" Jake asked. "It's got her scent all over it."

Looking, Charlie saw that he'd picked up the book that girl had given him that morning and had held it up to his nose. Charlie waved it aside with a dismissive response. Quite honestly, with as preoccupied as his mind was, he'd forgotten about it, and the dark brown cover had blended in with the ground so well, he hadn't noticed it laying there.

Jake opened the book, and his eyebrows drew together as he flipped through the pages. "Drawings?" He held it out to him questioningly, and although Charlie didn't give a damn what was in the book, he held out his hand for it with an exasperated sigh. "Mean anything to you?" Jacob asked.

The first page of the book was a colored sketch of three little girls, all in matching, old-fashioned looking dresses and with their hair in braids, jumping rope. The second was of a group of young boys playing stickball in an open field. Charlie shook his head. The sketches looked like scenes from a Normal Rockwell calendar, idealized images of the past. They meant nothing to him. He flipped through pages of sketches of children playing or carrying school books, about to shake his head again and say he had no idea what they were of until one sketch made the words die in his throat as the realization of what he was looking at hit him. A man and woman stood side by side behind the counter of an old time, small town general store. The man had dark, slicked-down hair parted not quite down the middle of his head, and he wore round glasses. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves pushed half-way up his forearms and a dark tie that hung a bit crookedly, the top hanging a bit to the left while the bottom hung straight down. The woman wore an apron over a colorful, flower pattern dress. Her hair was lighter in color than the man's, and she wore it loosely pinned up. Behind them, boxes, jars, bottles, and cans stood neatly arranged lining shelves across the wall.

"Charlie?"

Charlie exhaled. He studied the woman's face. The resemblance of the mother to the daughter wasn't overwhelming, but it was certainly there.

"Charlie?" Jacob asked again.

"My grandparents," he whispered. He flipped back to the first page, and looked closer at the three little girls. If there was a sketch of his grandparents behind the counter of their store, then the children playing had to be . . . But there were three little girls, which was his mother? The boys playing stickball, one of them was his father. But which one? Charlie looked back up at the house, then back at the book he held. There had to be more than a hundred pages, and there was a sketch on every page. There was one of his father going into the Odd Fellows Hall with his parents and brother. At least there he knew which of the boys was his father. Uncle Charlie had been several years older than his father. Charlie turned back to the picture of the stickball game and studied the faces. His father was the boy at bat. There was a patch on his knee, and his sweater was too big. Hand-me-downs. By comparison, there was a sketch of his mother's family looking like they were dressed in their Sunday best. His grandmother wore a coat with a fur collar and a hat and she carried a small handbag in a white-gloved hand.

That girl had given him a book of pictures she'd drawn of his parents and grandparents, moments of their lives she'd witnessed decades ago. Charlie sniffled and let a breath out slowly. He cleared his throat and looked back toward the house.

What was she up to?

.~.


.

Chapter 12 will post in two weeks, and a teaser will be given the Wednesday before it posts on Facebook groups Twilight FanFiction Pays it Forward, The Twilight Fan Fiction Finders, Twilight FanFiction Recommendations II, Tufano79 Twilight Fanfiction Appreciation, & The No Rules Twilight fan fic Recs Club.

.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this fic. I respond to all reviews, so please go ahead and tell me what you think so far. Criticism is as welcome as kudos. Reviewers also get a sneak peak at the teaser.

.

Nominations are open for the twific fandom awards on twificfandomawards blogspot com / Nominate all your favorite fics! You can nominate as many fics/authors/fandom members as you'd like. There's no limit.

.

Author's notes:

.

Thank you to Eli M from A Different Forest for finding me the absolutely perfect PDF of Using Mathematics in Forestry.

.

ESPN is an all sports channel, and S.O.B. stands for son of a bitch.

.

"It's like déjà vu all over again." Is a quote from Yogi Berra, Major League Baseball player, manager, and coach, most well-known with Yankees. (But we won't hold that against him.)

.

"After a fashion." A little, but not very well. Very outdated. I think more British English than American English, but I'm not completely sure. In any case, Gray's father was British, so it fits she would use some British English expressions too.

.

"Some old hippy caught another hippy tripping on acid." Mnemonic to remember the sin, cos, and tan functions in trigonometry.

.

"All saints take cocaine." Mnemonic to remember that all functions are positive in the first quadrant, Sine is positive in the second, Tangent is positive in the third, and Cosine is positive in the fourth.

.

Dphil – Doctor of Philosphy from Oxford

.

Pierced ears were not the norm during Gray's lifetime. Some considered women who pierced their ears to be fast or loose, so she's wearing clip ons.

.

The marathon Edward is talking about is the Rock 'n Roll Marathon. A half marathon is actually 13.1 miles. I based what he has to say about it from runners comments on Travelocity. (That site is my bible. Maybe someday I'll get to use the reviews to actually freaking go somewhere rather than just to get some colorful details.) Some reviews were favorable, some less so. I'm leaning much heavier on the favorable because I think Edward would just be thrilled to be there and very willing to see the favorable over the less so. Consensus on the hills was split from killer steep to rolling hills. Maybe there were two different courses?

.

Please, God, don't take it all away – quote from Flowers for Algernon. Charlie is the name of the protagonist.

"Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit." Partial quote from Flowers for Algernon that I think fits Gray's position rather well. She's thinking about how much she stands to lose, not the character in the book. She left a bit out. The full quote is "…Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit."

.

"Kissing Edward, I had my soul upon my lips."

"Kissing Agathon, I had my soul upon my lips; for it rose, poor wretch, as though to cross over." Lover's Lips, largely attributed to Plato but debated. I don't pretend to spend my leisure time studying Plato. I read that line a couple of years ago in a book by Tasha Alexander, the Lady Emily series, but I can't remember which book in particular, and I have had it in my head for this fic ever since. The inclusion of the story of the Judgment of Paris a few chapters ago is also due to the Lady Emily series.

.

This story is set in 2012. It's completely true that as of that time, there had been no confirmed sightings of wolves west of the Cascades for nearly 100 years. "The gray wolf (Canis lupus), a native species that was nearly extirpated early last century, is returning to Washington on its own, dispersing from populations in other states and provinces. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is working to manage this recovering endangered species, guided by a citizen-developed plan to address conflicts with livestock and impacts to other wildlife species. Citizen reports of wolf activity and problems are encouraged as WDFW staff monitor the growth of Washington's wolves. . . . Citizen reports of wolf activity and problems are encouraged as WDFW (The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff monitor the growth of Washington's wolves." The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website identifies 20 wolf packs in the state as of December 2016, primarily all in the Northeast with one center state and two in the Southeast.

wdfw wa gov

Edward making his father call the Department of Fish and Wildlife to investigate the sighting of a wolf, which was really Jacob… HAHAHAHA!

.

The girls in the sketch book are all wearing dresses made from the very large cotton bags flour and livestock feed came in, as the woman may've been as well. ""Repair, reuse, make do, and don't throw anything away" was a motto during the Great Depression. Very few farm families had enough money to buy new clothes at a store. Mothers mended socks and sewed patches over holes in clothes. Clothes were "recycled" and reused as younger children "made do" with hand-me-downs. When farmers brought home big sacks of flour or livestock feed, farm women used the sacks as material to sew everything from girls' dresses to boys' shirts and even underpants."

living history farm dot org /farminginthe30s/life_

"…the Flour Mills realized that some women were using sacks to make clothes for their children. In response, the Flour Mills started using flowered fabric…

With the introduction of this new cloth into the home, thrifty women everywhere began to reuse the cloth for a variety of home uses – dish towels, diapers, and more. The bags began to become very popular for clothing items."

kindnessblog dot com 2015/05/06/flower-sack-dresses-from-the-flour-mills-historical-kindness/ (There's a picture of the flour sacks and examples of the patterns on this site.)