"What the hell?"

Since Baxter seemed to be the only one capable of speaking (Judy kept crying and Will started coughing up blood—Sam was trying to get him to keep still), I addressed him.

"I—they got into a fight."

"Who?"

"Will and Brian."

"Brian did this?" I think I might have laughed. "Your brother can't even fight Bert."

"That's not Bert," Baxter said. "They got into a fight. I pulled Brian off. You showed up."

There were scratches on the kid's torso that I hadn't noticed before. Will was shit when it came to fighting on the fly. I'd always wondered what would happen if he got caught off guard. I'd wondered, too, if Brian could ever get mad enough to fight properly. Now I had my answers.

Sort of. From the damage on my cousin, I was inclined to say it hadn't been much of a fight. Brian had gotten the advantage and pressed it until his brother realized Will couldn't actually take anything else.

"You have to be okay," Judy blubbered. "Okay, you have to—you have to—"

"He'll be fine," Sam assured her. But he kept glancing at the trees, looking for Seth. Sam didn't worry, especially not about my cousin, so it just freaked the two of us out more.

"Get her out of here," I told Baxter.

Where the fuck was my uncle?

Baxter accepted the order without complaint. With ease, he pulled my sister to her feet. She buried herself against him, sobbing into his chest. I wasn't sure how they were supposed to move like that, but the kid managed (he just picked her right up). "Come on, jelly bug. Let's get inside."

She just started wailing.

"Just in case you wanted a headache on top of everything," I observed while not looking at what was left of his shoulder. "You better be okay. I can't mock her without you."

The laughter ended with him coughing up more blood. It made all three of us wince. Thankfully, Seth finally emerged from the woods, a wide-eyed Bert behind him. I had been freaking out, but watching the kid have a full on nervous break in front of me snapped me out of it. It would suck for him to lose Will and his sister within a year—how in the world could I make that better?

"We need to get him inside," Seth said.

"My room big enough?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. We move slowly. Bert—" It took only a glance at Bert to tell he wasn't going to be able to move any time soon.

Sam called out: "Baxter!"

The four of us managed to carry Will inside without jostling him too much. Seth hadn't had time to grab much in the way of medical equipment, so he set about ordering me to go to the Cullen house. I wanted to refuse but Seth started being reasonable (I was the fastest) so I raced there and back again.

When I returned, Seth had Nessie on the phone, her voice coming over the speaker as Seth did her bidding. Now that I was back with supplies, she quickly ordered, "All right. Give him the morphine so we can—"

Whatever she said was cut off by this sound my cousin made.

"He doesn't want it," Sam translated.

"What?"

"Morphine," I supplied.

"Seth will monitor the dosage," she said. "Once the morphine's been administered—"

"No morphine," Sam said firmly. And my cousin chose now of all moments to agree with Sam fucking Uley.

"What if we gave him a non-narcotic painkiller?" Nessie said.

Seth cringed as he looked through the bag. "All we have is the morphine. We've never not been able to use it. Can we do this without anything?"

"Not if the damage to the chest is—I'm not helping you torture anyone. It's not a stimulant. Give him the morphine."

"Will," my uncle began, "I know you think you can take it, but, well, even if you could you shouldn't have to. Narcotics aren't—it's different. You can take this."

It was almost as if they had rehearsed it. Sam stepped in so seamlessly (one pack, after all) that it took me a second to realize Seth had stopped talking and wasn't the one saying, "We'll be careful. Watch how much you take. You need to relax. Trust them."

Will glanced at me, but if he was begging me to overrule the damn doctor, he should have tried to look like he wasn't in horrible pain.

"Give it to him," I said. He was too weak to even roll his eyes, so Will stopped fighting and let Seth give him the drugs. As he was doing that, my uncle ordered, "Get out of here, Levi."

"I have to stay."

"Levi," Seth said, "I don't exactly know what I'm doing. Not when it's this bad. I have to listen carefully. I can't do that if I'm also worried about you. Okay?"

"Send in Baxter," Sam offered. "He can come out with updates when we have them."

So I left. Baxter had found some pants, but now had two sobbing kids on him (not to mention his three brothers standing down the hall, looking petrified). My sister had taken his lap; it looked like Bert was trying to crawl into her lap. Baxter didn't mind when we switched. Like me, I think he preferred doing something to just sitting around.

"Judy?" I had to calm her down before she terrified the rest of them beyond what I could handle. "Do you know what happened?"

Judy shook her head, sniffling but trying to focus. "We were just playing and Brian came home and they were just talking—they didn't even yell. I wasn't listening. And then all of a sudden Will just flew past us. Brian had phased and—I—I threw pillows and toys...I would have phased but—"

"You did the right thing," I said quickly. If they were doing that to each other, Judy would have been torn to pieces in the crossfire.

"I was just so scared. They just…it kept going on. It felt like forever and then Baxter was back—"

"Back from where?"

"What?"

"He told us to go outside," Timmy offered. "Told us to wait out there until he came to get us."

"Wouldn't even let us grab our coats," Tommy complained.

"And when Baxter came back?" I asked my sister.

"He phased and got Brian off Will and then—" Her voice went up three octaves, high enough I was surprised glass didn't break. "He just wasn't moving. He just…there was so much blood and he wasn't moving…"

We fought all the time. It hadn't been the blood that scared her even if she probably had never seen that much coming out of one person before. It would have been the way he couldn't just shrug it off.

"He's going to be fine," I reminded her. "Hey, Art? You got some music or something we could listen to?"

The kid stared at me, but when I repeated my request, he went to find something. "He's going to be fine, Judy," I said again, trying to make it as much of an order as I could. Bert needed her to not be flipping out. And maybe she got that too, because she finally started pulling herself together.

"Okay." Then she took Bert's hand and ruffled his hair and settled in his lap instead.

"I'm going to call Aunt Rachel," I said. "You five okay for a second?"

They nodded and I began spreading the news. Will had been in a fight, but Seth was looking after him and he'd be fine. My aunt came over anyway, but Seth kept her out of the room. She got the same updates I did. He'd be fine, if people would just let Seth do what he could. Having my aunt around was useful for dinner though; she did the cooking while I started cleaning up the living room and my father came over to figure out how the hell we were going to keep the winter weather out of the house.

Eventually, Baxter came out with actual good news.

"He's going to be fine."

I may have hugged the boy. Baxter patted me once on the back and I realized how lame this was.

"He's awake?"

"No. Seth says to leave him be for now." Baxter hesitated, then said, "I'm going to go find my brother, okay?"

The wolf part of me said it was my job, never mind that it bristled at the claim in his voice. It was the first time in a long while sine he'd said brother and meant it, so I made myself stand down. "What are you going to say?"

He just shrugged. "What the hell too blunt?"

"What the fuck was my first instinct," I admitted. "But after that?"

"I don't know. But he'll want to know Will is fine. If he wants someone to hit him, I'll bring him back to you."

"Okay. Go."

"Thanks."

He took off and I went see if my dad needed any help.


The combination of drugs and pain knocked Will out for a little while. It didn't last long; he'd never been big on resting. Around three in the morning Sam came to wake me up from where I was sleeping on the couch; Will was awake but wasn't going to take anything else until he saw me (yeah, nothing was going to beat the annoying out of him; I'd been trying for years). I went and woke Bert up because we hadn't been able to get the kid to leave the house just yet. He followed along after me and I understood why Dinah had decided to call him puppy.

"You look like shit," I said when I saw Will because it was expected (and true). I wanted to hit myself when I remembered the last time I'd said that to him, but he didn't see to remember, just turned to Bert and said, "I'm fine. I look better than Levi, right?"

Bert just nodded.

"Traitor," I said, ruffling the kid's hair. I don't know what we would have done if he'd started crying, but he didn't, so that was one less crisis for the night. "I can't believe you finally figured out how to turn him into a fighter."

"Good for me."

"What did you say?"

"Something about the twins. He said something about me being a terrible influence. Nothing original. I didn't—I was looking at the bank statements. I wasn't paying attention to what I was saying."

"I always said you could be annoying without trying."

"I already knew that one, too." He managed to pat Bert on the arm, though I didn't like the sound of wheezing that accompanied the gesture (of course he would use his bad arm). "Where is Brian? I figured he'd be grovelling and I was kind of looking forward to it."

"Baxter's gone to get him."

"Dinah's going to kill him," Bert said for me.

Will sighed, closed his eyes for a second, leaning back into the pillow behind his head. There was blood on the sheets, but they'd get rid of that later, when he could move. "Remind me to laugh about that later, okay?"

"Levi," Seth said.

Right. Stupid limits.

"Try not to piss off anyone else," I said before I got kicked out of the room. He nodded and let Seth stick him with another needle—it helped the crease in his forehead relax a little, so I figured it was a good thing.


I stayed at the Uley house that night and when I got up the next morning, it was to find Brian and Baxter were coming in. Brian was scratched and bruised, but there was nothing that Seth had to look at immediately, so I gestured to the back yard and Brian followed without a word.

"So?" Then I quickly had to add, "You start crying on him, he's never going to let you live it down. Pull it together."

"He is going to be okay, right?" Brian asked once he stopped looking weepy.

"He'll be fine. You didn't even manage to scratch his face so it would stick."

His left shoulder and side would have a few scars, but nothing too obvious.

Brian looked like he was going to puke, but settled for saying, "Please don't joke about this."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

Brian looked at the picnic table that had gotten smashed in the crossfire. "Francy's going to kill me for breaking that."

"Brian."

"She used to tell me everything. But now...she's a stripper. She didn't tell me. She still doesn't know I know—" I did not point out that his attitude had probably tipped her off; also, Dinah "—but she hasn't told me. But she told Will."

"What?"

"He knows, Levi. She told him. She didn't tell me. Hell, you're her imprint and she did her best to avoid telling you."

I know he was suffering and depressed and miserable, but I ended up laughing in Brian's face.

"Are you jealous of Will and your sister? Seriously, Brian?"

"She told him—"

"Probably, he just figured it out because I have a big mouth," I admitted. "And even if she did tell him, Brian, who cares? It's not Will's fault you're fucking up your relationship with her."

"It doesn't bother you that she's telling him things she's not telling you?"

It really was jealousy. This was hysterical.

"No."

"It doesn't?"

"Why would it bother me? If she can't talk to you, at least she's talking to someone. If we need to know, he'll tell us—well, he'll tell me."

"It really doesn't bother you?" I just shrugged, starting to get unsure about what he wanted me to say. "I just—I can't believe I lost her, too."

"She's not going anywhere. She's still your sister."

"She doesn't want to be."

"Bullshit." I didn't say more than that because I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I was right. "Anyway, none of that's Will's fault."

Brian nodded. "I know. I was out of line. Totally out of line. I don't know what happened, I just—I got so mad and he was just there. He always—"

"Yeah, he goes around daring people to hit him. I know. Don't let it happen again."

Brian nodded quickly. If Brian ever forgave himself, I'd be surprised. Still, I wasn't above a little bit of cruel justice.

"Good. Now just go talk it out with him."

They didn't talk so much as Will just laughed at Brian. It was a special laugh, one he saved for when he thought someone was being particularly moronic. It warmed the cockles of my heart, or something, that it was directed at someone else (it worried me a little, too, because the effort seemed to take a lot out of him, but Seth said he'd be fine, so I had to trust my pack).

"All this because you're scared to talk to a girl?"

I corrected: "I think it's more because a girl isn't scared to talk to you."

Will just rolled his eyes. "I make everyone tell me about their work."

"She didn't have to tell you she was a stripper," Brian muttered.

"Go-go dancer," Will corrected absently. He paused over the words. "You put me through a wall because I said you were calling your sister the wrong name?"

"She hasn't told me either way."

"Did you ask her?"

"She's my sister."

"That's not a yes, Brian." It was reassuring to hear Will get angry. "Have you talked to your sister? Not had Dinah pass along messages or told her about your brothers, but actually talked to her? Spoken with the purpose of exchanging ideas? Because if it's bugging you that she won't talk to you, pick up the phone."

He wouldn't do it. Both Will and I could tell. It was too hard, not when he didn't recognize the girl on the other side.

Will continued, "Fine. Keep talking at her instead of to her. It's your business. But the next time you can't deal with her, don't put me through a wall."

"Turnabout's fair play," I reminded Will.

"I'm really sorry about that," Brian murmured. "I—"

"Well, I deserved it," Will said. "Not over your stupid sister, but—yeah, I deserved it. But I'll try to keep my mouth shut more, you won't rub it in that you totally kicked my ass and we'll be good."

"You really did." I couldn't help myself. "It was pathetic."

"Levi," Brian cautioned me, "Wait until he can hit you back. Otherwise, it's not nice."

"Bet you Bert could beat you," I told Will. He just flipped me off; he was too tired to do much else.

Brian realized it too. "I'll make sure the boys don't bother you. Get some rest. You look like shit."

"Both of you owe five bucks to the swear jar," Will reminded us as we left him alone with the pillows and the books his mother had sent over with his father.


One of the boys must have spilled the beans to their sister (I didn't really blame them; there was a gaping hole in their house that we were frantic to fix, for cheap, before Will got well enough to get out of bed and observed it for himself and then crucified Brian for the cost of the property damage) because Dinah showed up at my house the next morning.

"Not that Francy's freaking out that she left her brothers to the care of a drunk and an abusive prick, but she's kind of freaking out that she left her brothers to the care of a drunk and an abusive prick."

"Brian wouldn't hurt a hair on those kids."

"Brian just tried to kill someone."

"It takes a hell of a lot more than that to kill one of us."

"Well, bully for Brian."

"Will's fine, Di."

"Yeah, I don't care that our cousin is too fucked up to realize someone trying to kill him isn't a declaration of love."

"Right now Brian feels guilty enough without you being, well, you."

"Sorry accountability's a bitch."

"It wasn't personal, you know," I reminded her. "He was just trying to do what Sam wanted."

I'd always known psychic powers weren't real as a child because that Clearwater glare should have set things on fire. I guess she didn't want to talk about the break up.

"Sorry I brought it up."

"It's fine." Only she said it in the way even I could figure out she meant the opposite.

"Good. So, um, hey, Di? Have Brian and Francy talked since—"

"No," my big sister snapped.

"Right. Have Brian and Sam talked—?"

"Please."

"Francy and Sam—"

"Ha."

"Good talking to you."

With a little less anger, Dinah said, "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Mom doesn't really need me. I'll be at Sam's."

Dinah finally let me go.


We had asked around La Push, where someone always knew someone, and the repair guys were coming the next day. If Seth hadn't ordered Will to stay in bed for at least three days the house would have been deserted. I was trying to work out if having Will around was going to end up being very, very, very bad for convincing Francy we were totally harmless, or if I could use him to point out Sam wasn't entirely useless nowadays.

Only Will wasn't there.

Francy was alone in the house, stripping the bloody sheets off her father's bed when I arrived. She was in this extremely tight and fuzzy white sweater and these jeans that made her legs look never-ending and I couldn't even enjoy it.

"Please tell me he died during the night or I'm going to have to kill him." He was supposed to stay in bed.

"He might be wasting away, but William is still with us. He just decided he was going home," Francy explained. "The sheets are a write off. How am I supposed to get blood out of a mattress?"

"How'd he get out the door?"

"He wasn't limping, if that's what you meant. Water and soap?"

"How the hell he'd get out of bed?" His legs had only been a little scraped, but I didn't think he could have stood without more help than my imprint could provide (if she was dumb enough to help in the first place).

She brushed past me into the hallway; I followed her as she went looking through the closet for rags and some sort of cleaner. Bending over really worked for her.

"When William informed me he was going home or going off the painkillers, I called Paul to come get him. Yes, he probably shouldn't have been out of bed, but while I capable of many things, talking William out of his idiocy is not one of them." She looked triumphantly at a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and then glanced over at me. "He said it was only a couple broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder."

"Mostly." She was my imprint—and she gave good glare. "Dislocated was more partially bitten off. But they aren't sure how many ribs broke and how many just cracked, exactly, so it might have just been a couple. Something that created a lot of blood and some organs were hit, but that's all covered by the broken ribs. He did leave out the collapsed lung."

The initial impact hadn't helped him but the real problem was that Brian had tossed him around like a ragdoll because my cousin was an idiot who didn't know how to defend his left side.

Her knuckles turned white around the hydrogen peroxide but Francy continued looking through the closet until she had a bunch of rags, before she walked back to her father's room. For whatever reason, she pulled her sweater off, showing off her perfectly toned stomach before she readjusted the camisole she had been wearing underneath.

"You can't have been home for more than thirty minutes," I said because I had to say something while she undressed. "How fast did he get out of here?"

"Apparently, in less than thirty minutes." She was on all four right now, on a bed, though turned so I couldn't see right down her shirt. "Levi. Is there something you want?"

"You didn't have to come home."

"I didn't?" Her voice got cold and I was reminded why she was going to make a great teacher—her 'that was the dumbest thing I've ever heard' look was spectacular. "I was under the opposite impression."

"All you have to do is tell me what your problem is and I can fix it for you."

"You want to know what my problem is?" Francy asked, disbelief ringing in her voice as she left the blood stain and got to her feet. "You want to—there is a hole. In my house. Made by my brother. With a person. I don't think my problem requires much more of an explanation."

"He lost his temper. It won't happen again."

"Oh, now that you've promised me that I feel so much better," she assured me.

It may have been sarcasm.

"Brian would never lay a finger on your brothers. Baxter spent months trying to pick a fight and he never managed because Brian would never hurt them. Will's just—it's his magical power. But Brian won't hurt the kids."

"I thought my brother would never, ever hurt another person."

"What we do to each other doesn't count. We know what each of us can take. Fighting's just our way. We're not the same."

"Because you say so?"

"Because if I knock too hard on your door it's not my knuckles that are going to get hurt, it's the door. If there's nothing to fight, we need to train with each other. I'm not saying Brian didn't go too far. Just that what we do to one another isn't a sign of what we'll do to a human."

"And what happens the day you forget the person you're with can't take it?"

"We're careful around them."

"Don't." The word cracked; I think she was going to cry. "Don't tell me—I know what a werewolf can do even if they're careful, so don't tell me it couldn't happen."

I liked it better when she was mad; I couldn't handle her if she was crying.

"We know more than they did." It was all I could offer. "Maybe it is still just a crapshoot, but at least we've got better odds."

She just looked miserable, arms wrapped around her, almost whispering, "And if something goes wrong, just shut about it? Sorry it happened but keeping it secret is more important than—than anything?"

"That's not what I said. If something goes wrong, you come to me. We'll fix it. Francy, I'm not saying everything's going to be perfect, I can't promise you that, but Brian is sorry and he won't hurt the kids."

"And there's nothing I can do anyway," she concluded.

"You mad at me?" I asked hesitantly when it didn't look like she was going to say anything else (or, thankfully, start to cry).

"It's not your fault. It's no one's fault, really, just..." She sighed. "Timothy's too good at telling stories. I may have...it doesn't help that I should have been the one looking after them while Brian went to school."

"Says who?"

"Everyone. No one. I don't know, Levi." She glanced back at the bed. "I should get back to that before it sets forever."

"Sure. But when Brian gets home from work, I think the two of you should use that alone time to talk."

"Levi—"

"All Brian wants is to know you don't hate him. Explain that there are some things you might not want to tell him, but that he's always your brother and then listen to him tell you that he loves you, even if he's worried and it sometimes comes out wrong. Okay?"

"Does anyone ever say no to you?"

"It's a skill," I said. It made her laugh. "Seriously, though. Talk to him. It'll make you feel better, too. They'll be fine without you. Your dad really is getting better, Baxter's eighteen in two weeks and Brian's having a bad month but I think...I think this was good for him. He got it off his chest." I snorted. "Hopefully next time he'll just use his words, but at this point I'll take what I can get. Baxter's really talking to him again, he's finally got Will's respect—it'll work out. It's not as bad as it looks. It's all good here."

"You're very good at that," she murmured. "You should have been a motivational speaker. Or a physical trainer."

"Thank you?"

She just laughed.

"So, uh, is Dinah going to be okay?"

"Dinah's always fine," she said flatly. Perhaps she realized how not reassuring that was because she continued, "It scared her more than she'll admit but she knows Brian wouldn't have—without sex complicating things, I think they'll remember they're best friends eventually. It'll just take time."

"Don't say sex and my sister's name in the same twenty minutes. It makes my brain hurt."

"Sorry. I forgot you were a prude."

"You really want to go there with me?"

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asked instead of dignifying that with a response.

"I don't just talk at you, right?" Her dark eyes (brown, thank you very much) just looked confused. "If you told me what you needed me to fix, I'd do it for you."

"Levi, I—" She spoke slowly, hesitating over each word. "If I told you something, it wouldn't necessarily mean I wanted you to fix it. I'm very grateful for what you do for my family, you know. Very grateful. I just...I don't need you to take care of me. And I'm not sure you could help yourself if you decided I needed help."

Okay, so that wasn't totally inaccurate. "What if I decided I needed your help?"

"Then I would help you, I guess."

"Okay, help me."

"Do what?"

"I don't know. Any advice?"

"I can't say I know anything about killing vampires."

"Well, what about your brothers? You know them. They annoy me sometimes. Advise me about them."

"Well." I didn't think she'd do it, but it turned out my imprint was competitive. Who would have thought? "You really should talk your sister out of that party because Baxter hates surprises. He really, really hates surprises; it would be a huge mistake. And Thomas has a crush on this girl who likes Timothy, so he feels like he can't tell his twin and its breaking his heart."

"Nothing I can do about that."

"My very good advice is that the solution he comes up with better not be share."

"We didn't—I do watch what I say around them." Okay, fine. "I try my best. I'll do better. Give me something I can actually fix."

"You serious about this?"

"I don't joke around when it comes to my pack. Okay, I do, but—I'm serious. When it comes to them, I take all the help I can get."

"Okay. Talk to Bertrand."

"Will's handling that."

"Yes, but, just, Levi, there's only so much that we remember. I mean, all Lena and I talked about were guys and her brother doesn't want to hear that. And Will—I'm sure he picked up a lot but it's not—how is he supposed to know what song she danced to at her tap recital when she was twelve?"

I couldn't help laughing because Marley trying to dance was always funny.

"Just talk to him," she suggested. "Because he's picked everyone else's brain. Also, Judith is more grown up than you give her credit for and you should leave Arthur to Baxter and me, okay? But start calling him Art."

"What? Fine."

"And...well, you haven't called your girlfriend in a long while and she's spent the last twenty-four hours in a state of panic so—"

"Wait, what?"

"Kara?"

"Thank you," I snapped. "I know her name."

"Yes, well, she started hyperventilating the last time I was talking to her."

"What? Why?"

"Because after William and Brian comes you. And it wasn't me she wanted reassuring her."

We'd been having a crisis; I was busy.

"But you did, right? You told her—"

"Yes. The same way I am going to tell Brian that I understand what he does to his pack brother doesn't really count and that I know he'd never hurt my brothers. They're perfectly safe in his care. You know, I think I came back because if I'm going to lie to my brothers I'm going to do it to their faces."

"It's not—"

"It's impossible for you to be as careful as you need to be for it to be true. You do your best, right? I'll make myself be okay with that."

"I am sorry."

"I know." She gave me a tired smile. "It does make a difference, knowing that."

"Cancel the surprise party?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Right. Talk to Brian?"

She nodded. Slowly, but it was definitely a nod. I'd take it.