A/N: This chapter lives up to its T rating. Hopefully this is a fair warning. There is another short, but semi-important note at the end of this chapter. Also, this is my last prewritten chapter so I apologize if my updates are a little slower.

Two weeks. That's how long my perfectly blissful, fairy tale world lasted.

I was living with Quil, which months ago I was only dreaming about. I had my own room and my own bathroom, but I seldom slept in my own bed. Sam knew, of course, and constantly gave me shit for it but every night, after begging and pleading, Quil always let me crawl into bed right beside him.

It was my favourite place in the world. Getting teased by Embry everyday was so worth it.

There were no vampire threats, there was no more waiting around for me to be able to touch Quil and kiss him the way I wanted to. The only things I had to worry about were school, homework, remembering to keep in touch with my mother and her new family and trying not to tie Quil up to the bedpost and have my way with him.

He refused to have sex with me. No more how many times I suggested it, or tried to lead into it, I got stone cold rejected. I didn't understand why he was so scared, there's no way that he'd never done it before. But he just wanted to wait, he wasn't ready is what he told me.

Well he better get ready soon, before I explode.

And this is what I found myself day dreaming about while I was sitting at Emily's table, trying to hold a conversation with her while she force-fed Carson his vegetables. "Claire, are you even listening to me?"

"Nope, not one bit." I told her truthfully and I let out a long sigh as I stared at Quil, who was playing multi-player video games with Embry. I was trying to have bonding time with my aunt, but the fact that she was constantly running after her four kids was really distracting. And I kept thinking about Quil. And Sex. And sex with Quil.

I could hear Sam talking to Seth in the other room and Carson jumped out of my aunt's lap and ran over to him crying. I chuckled to myself. He knew who the pushover was. "Just go hang with Quil." Emily sighed as she once again got up and ran after him.

I grinned and launched myself over the arm of the couch and into Quil's lap. Suddenly, Embry cheered and Quil groaned. "You made me lose." He whined, looking down at me and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. "Not that I mind anymore."

"Gross. Hey, Claire, wanna verse me? You're better than Quil is." Embry said and I agreed, taking the controller from Quil's hand. Just as I was about to press A, there was a knock at the door.

I looked at Quil, and he looked at Embry and we were all thinking the same thing. Nobody ever knocks at Emily's. "I'll get it…" I said hesitantly and made my way to the door. I opened it to a familiar face, and a not so familiar one. "Hi Dr. Cullen, nice to see you again." I swallowed. The vampires never came into La Push unless there was something wrong.

"Hi Claire, glad to see you're feeling better. This is my son, Edward." He introduced me and I suddenly saw the resemblance to Nessie. I was nervous. "Is Sam here?"

Oh no, they were asking for Sam. Something was wrong. "Yeah, I'll go get him." I slowly walked into the other room, aware that Quil was watching me. "Sam…" I trailed off. He saw my face and his smile dropped. "Carlisle and Edward are here. They want to speak to you."

"Dakota, Kayla, take your brothers upstairs and play. Don't come down until I tell you to." He said and ushered Emily and I back into the front room. "What's going on?" He immediately asked them, without a greeting.

"Maybe we should sit down." Edward said and motioned for everyone to sit at the table. I went to sit down, but Quil pulled me straight into his lap. He was scared too. I rubbed his arm and I silently reached out to grab Embry's hand and he squeezed it tight.

Seth joined us on our left and Emily and Sam on Embry's right. The Cullen's sat so that we could see them. "Sam, you have always been there for us when we needed you." Carlisle started off and my heart almost stopped. I had heard many stories about the battles that they had participated in for the Cullen's. "That is why we are not here to ask for your help. We are just here to inform you of the situation."

"With all due respect Carlisle, you should know us better by now that if there is a threat to our homeland, we will not hesitate to join you." All the wolves at the table nodded their heads almost without thinking and I shot Emily a panicked look. She tried to look reassuring, but she failed. She was grasping Sam's arm for dear life.

"Of course we know that Sam, but the threat is not here." I relaxed a fraction of an inch. "But, if it escalates, it could become a world problem."

Embry's grip on my hand tightened, Quil pressed me harder to his chest and Seth's fingers looked like he was going to puncture the wood of Emily's table. "What exactly is going on?" Sam asked, sounding almost stiff because he was speaking through his teeth.

"The Volturi have been overthrown." I'd heard that name before somewhere. It had to be the reason why there were shivers going down my spine. "But, there's chaos. The vampires who did it are even worse than the Volturi. There are many of them. And we need to go to Europe, to Italy, to contain it before it escalates around the world. These vampires need to be taken down."

"But there are only eight of you. How are you going to take down so many outnumbered?"

"We have managed to gather up the same vampires who gave witness to Renesmee, many years ago, and also a few more." This time it was Edward speaking. "Like my father said, we are not asking for your help, we are merely leaving the situation out on the table for you to do as you will. Bella, Alice and Esme are speaking with Jacob and Nessie right now and my other brother and sister are on their way here from Nevada."

All the wolves were staring at Sam, waiting for him to speak. I was looking at the ground. "I am not your Alpha," is what he started off with. It was true. All the wolves present belonged to Jacob's pack. "But I will tell you that I am going to fight. I am not going to force my pack to come with me, I will let them make their own decisions and I am going to let Jake choose for his pack. But I am going."

My heart sunk into my stomach. I wanted to throw up when I heard Emily catch her breath. "Unfortunately, this is exactly what we were hoping you would say." Edward said solemnly. "We are taking residence at Renesmee's, so you know where to find us when your pack has come to a full decision. I'm terribly sorry." They got up and left so fast that I barely registered it.

My aunt was crying into her hands. "Come on, Emily." Sam said softly. "Let's talk upstairs."

I didn't want to look at Quil. I didn't want to hear him say it. "We need to go talk to Jake." Embry muttered.

"We will drop you off at home on the way there, Claire." Quil said to me in a hard voice.

"No." I said immediately. I refused to let Quil out of my sight, especially because I felt so close to losing him. "I'm coming too."

"Please, Claire. Please stay home."

"Don't leave me. Don't make me leave you." I begged. Embry gave Quil a look that clearly pitied me and they both agreed that I could come. We piled into a car, I don't remember whose it was, but I was sitting in the back with Quil in his lap, trying not to cry. He was holding me like I was about to disappear.

When we got to the giant fortress that was Nessie and Jake's house, I could hear her screaming from outside. I followed behind Embry through the front door. "I won't do it!" She was screaming. "I won't sit here and wait while everyone I love goes out to get slaughtered!"

"Nessie calm down." Jake said.

"Shut the fuck up Jacob Black, don't you dare talk to me!"

"Renesmee Carlie Cullen!" A voice I didn't recognize said sternly. "You stop this instant, you are not a child."

She was crying. "If I'm not a child, why can't I come with you!"

"Because it is not safe out there for you! Do you think I'll be able to focus and keep my shield in place while I'm worrying about you getting killed! Do you think that Jacob will be able to fight and keep his pack in order while trying to protect you as well!"

I followed the voices and opened the door of what looked like a study. Nessie was sunk against the wall, crying into her hands and Jacob and a woman, probably her mother, were standing across the room with their faces creased in worry. Jacob looked over at our arrival, locked eyes with someone above my head and nodded once.

I fell to my knees. They were going.

"When do we leave?" Embry asked Jake under his breath, crossing the room to his side.

"The Cullen's are leaving tonight. We leave tomorrow morning."

I didn't realize that I was crying, until a noise that sounded like a strangled cat came out of my throat. "When do we come back?" Quil muttered. It sounded like he had something stuck in his throat.

A minute of silence passed. "I don't know."

Nessie screamed and bolted out of the room. The other two quickly followed her, calling for her. I could hear her throwing things around. Seth had left, presumably to go home to Megan and Embry knelt down in front of me. "Claire, please breathe. You're turning blue." He murmured. I finally got rid of the numbness that had engulfed me and inhaled. "There you go, good girl." I just continued to stare at him blankly. "I need to go for a run." He said, but he wasn't talking to me. "Are you okay to get her home?"

Quil said nothing, but they shared a moment because Embry leaned down, pressed his warm lips to my forehead and then he was gone. "Claire…" Quil trailed off. "Come on, get up. We're going home."

I didn't fight him and he lifted me off the ground bridal style and buckled me into his car. I watched the trees fly by me until Quil pulled me out of the car again, into the house and into his room. I sat on his bed. "Please talk to me." He whispered, grabbing my face in his hands. "You're scaring me."

I opened my mouth. "I…" That was all that came out at first. "Please… Please don't leave me. You can't go. I… I love you." Ah shit, I was crying again. "I just got you back."

"Don't make me choose." He whispered. "Don't make me choose between you and what I was born to do. It's not fair. I can't… I can't abandon my pack like that."

"But you can abandon me."

"Damn it, Claire!" He cried. "I don't want to leave you okay? I didn't choose this!" I stared at him as he gripped his hair in his hands. "I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this so that you can live in a world where you're safe. I was born to protect you, Claire, and I will forever do that. I have to go."

I crushed my lips to his, tears streaming down my face mixing with his. "Please be careful." I gasped out between kisses. "Please come back to me."

"I will." He let me take off his shirt and run my hands all over his body. "I will always come back to you."

I took off my own shirt and my bra. He went to speak, to put up the boundaries, but I put my finger to his lips. "Please don't stop me." I whispered.

He didn't stop me. We didn't stop. We made love and it was painful and beautiful and everything I ever wanted.

Afterwards, I lay naked on his chest, wrapped in his warm arms, trying not to think about what was next. He was stroking my hair and we were just lying there together. "It's very late, Claire." He whispered. "Please go to sleep."

How could I go to sleep? How could I go to sleep knowing that this is my last moment with Quil for who knows how long? How could I sleep knowing that when I wake up, he'll be gone? I fought my heavy eyelids. "Tell me a story." I whispered.

"One time, when you were three, I took you to the beach." He started, without skipping a beat. "You wanted to go out on the rocks that led out into the water. I didn't want to take you out there, because I was so afraid of you getting hurt, but you cried and pouted so much that I gave in."

Despite myself, I smiled. "That sounds like me."

"I put you on my shoulders and told you to grip onto my head for dear life as we went out. You were so happy out there and it made me happy knowing that I made you like that. But then, you decide that you were bored up on my shoulders and wanted to get down. Before I could even react, you had jumped off my shoulders in a single leap and into the water." Unconsciously, his arms tightened around me. "I jumped in right after you and pulled you out of the water."

"I was a pretty dumb kid huh?"

"You were." He said with a slight smile in his voice. "But as I held you, your clothes soaking wet, to my chest to try to warm you up, I asked you what you were thinking. You told me, 'I knew you would save me.'"

I ran my finger down his arm. "I guess I wasn't so dumb after all."

"I tried to follow you, you know." He said. "When your parents took you away… I chased after your car to the airport. I don't know what I was going to do, maybe try to run to California and find you, but Sam pounced on me and had to drag me home by the muzzle." He laughed, it wasn't a happy sound. "I had no idea what part of California you lived in, but I swore to myself that I wasn't going to stop searching until I found you."

"What about after? When my dad came back? Why didn't you ask him where I was and come find me?"

"I would of." He murmured. "I would have done anything to see you. But your mother was a cunning lady. She threatened to move you somewhere where no one could find you, if she ever saw me again. I couldn't let her take you away from your father… Although she ended up doing that anyway."

"I wish I found you sooner." I muttered. "I wish that we had more time."

"We will have all the time in the world when I come home." He stroked my hair even more. "I will make you my wife one day, Claire. I love you more than anything." I lay there silently, letting his promises sink into my skin.

I wanted to tell him to stop stroking my hair like that, to stop running his fingers down my arm because it was making me sleepy, but I couldn't figure out how to make my voice function. My eyes were closing and when they shut, I jerked myself awake.

But it was almost two in the morning, and my eyelids were winning. "Quil?" I breathed sleepily.

"Mmm?"

"I don't want you to go."

"I know, beautiful. I know." He murmured and the sound of his voice, his heartbeat and the feeling of his warmth surrounding me quickly lulled me off to sleep.

I woke up immediately, when I felt the warmth leave me and I heard voices and movement. "Is it time?" I heard Quil murmur sleepily.

"Yeah, it's time." Embry muttered. "All of us are going, except for Paul, Brady and Seth. Jake decided it was a good idea for each pack to have one person to stay behind, for protection and communication. Paul just couldn't leave his kids."

"We don't even know if our ranges extend that far." Quil said. He was going through his drawers, probably putting on clothes. We had both fallen asleep naked.

"I know, but we can hope." I kept my breathing even as they started talking about me. "Are you going to wake her up to say goodbye?"

"No." Quil breathed. "We said our goodbyes last night… I don't think I'll be able to do it again."

My stomach was hurting. "I'll wait for you outside." And then Embry was gone, and it was just Quil and I.

I felt his body heat as he made his way over to my side of the bed and the bed dipped down with his weight when he sat down. "I love you, Claire." He whispered. His hand was brushing pieces of my hair away from my face. I kept my eyes shut and tried to stay perfectly still. "So much. Please don't disappear while I'm gone."

He pressed one soft kiss to my lips and then he got up. When the door closed gently, I let my eyes open and the tears that had been threatening to ruin my sleep façade spilled out onto my cheeks and Quil's pillow.

I got out of bed, grabbed the shirt that was lying at the foot of the bed and put it on. It was still warm, it engulfed my whole body and it smelt like Quil. I crawled back into his bed, too big and too cold, and looked at the clock. It was a little after five in the morning.

I was exhausted, but as I lay there, my thoughts caught up with me and reality set it. Quil was gone. The house was empty.

I was alone.

A/N: I didn't want to give anything away at the beginning so here's my question. I didn't want to have to change the rating so I did not actually include the sex scene BUT I will do an outtake if anyone wants it (:

And if you don't read Butterflies, I have a poll up on my profile on which story I should start next.