Disclaimer: Twilight isn't mine.

The Unscrupulous Council

Gail

Chapter 13

AN: Wow! Lot's of feedback. An interactive reader is helpful!

I've never been to Seattle or Sea-Tac Airport, I'm making up a lot of stuff here. I don't want anyone expecting accuracy on this stuff.

The sun would be rising soon and she still had to finish reports, email flight data cards and pick up the routing for morning start up before her replacement came. She glazed over for a moment staring at her three monitors in front of her. The STOC center was filled with co-ordinators for the airline with desks arranged like a small NASA control center, each row on a higher platform with stairs leading down the side. Management offices were laid out on the west side of the room, darkened windows lined the east side. Screens of scheduled flight plans filled the front wall. Schedulers, planners, T 'n F, line maintenance and break downs of domestic and international. Just then two phone lines lit up and she was being beckoned over wide body channel on her radio. Morning start up was beginning.

She answered the radio. "Go ahead." The guys found it amusing that she wouldn't use correct radio terms. But they were in ops and the tower didn't share their frequencies.

"I couldn't get stores, can you get the double lartay to order a part for me? Well parts ...foxtrot ..one ..two ..four ..five ..eight ..one ..nine ..zero ..zero ..one. For the second part ..two ..eight ..five ..whiskey ..zero ..zero ..two ..niner ..dash..four. This is for the triple seven on gate one fourty-one. Six am departure has already been delayed by crew scheduling." She took down the part numbers and made the order rather than hunt for the category one lead. She didn't think it was a good time to take advantage of a delay and replace parts. Morning start up was coming and if something went wrong they would have a maintenance delay on their backs. A wide body could be a nasty delay to explain to middle management given the number of people held up on a larger aircraft. But the mechanics were signing their names that the plane was safe. If replacing these parts made him feel more comfortable that the plane was safe, then who was she to argue? She only knew that she wasn't signing anything. Seeing the stress the mechanics felt any time the news carried distressed planes, she was grateful that she didn't sign anything. No ones lives rested on the weight of her signature.

During the night shift, the witching hour quietened down as the mechanics began to work on issues that day light hours didn't give time to resolve. Morning start up was a rush of information, activity, bright sunlight and noise. The airport came alive. She welcomed the ritual morning buzz of fresh adrenalin trying to make sure all issues from the night were resolved and everything they could safely get off the ground. It also made the long drive home easier with a good wake up to start with.

"Fin two twenty-nine is delayed. Fueler's screwed up." Barry told her sitting next to her. She rolled her eyes.

"Too much or too little?" She asked. Too much and the plane couldn't land without flying further too offload weight to land safely. Too little and it would run out before it reached it's destination, which of course is never what anyone wants to happen. Passengers don't tend to appreciate fast altitude dropping gliding landings on silent engines. They tend to think they're going to die even if the pilots would appreciate the challenge. She smirked remembering an empty airbus ferry flight she'd taken. With the pilots and a mechanic hitching a ride on an empty flight for positioning purposes. The pilots were bringing the airbus to a smaller airport after their wide body died with a lot of people waiting. She had training at the location and management had moved her onto the flight. At take off, the crew had gunned the plane to it's limits. At take-off it felt like they were almost taking off vertically and she'd fought to hold the contents of her stomach down. The pilots had been over the intercom joking back to her and her fellow passenger. Reaching altitude they had dropped off and she'd felt zero gravity much like on a roller coaster. The mechanic had taken ferry flights before on out of town rescues and had held a pen mid air. gotten a kick out of her exhilarated scream.

"They're offloading now." Too much fuel. If there was a mistake, it was usually too much and the crew would tell passengers that they were 'fueling'. She glanced over at the security screens across the room and flipped the fuelers the middle finger. Barry chuckled. Of course, we all made mistakes.

She set to answering her lines and assigning tasks that crews found as they prepared aircraft for take-off. Soon Chris arrived.

"Fin seven oh three isn't finished with their hundred hour check. They had a hold up with the fly away kit. And they're still unclogging forward lav e. Another diaper was flushed down the toilet." Everyday passengers backed up toilets with diapers. Was it that hard to understand regular toilets won't take a diaper. Why would they expect an aircrafts toilet take a diaper? She wondered. One flight she had been on, passengers had blocked all eight toilets before the end of the flight! A number of children had wet themselves by the time disboarded. She had been told of passengers jamming clothing, drugs, adult diapers and infant diapers, huge wads of paper towels, cartons of cigarettes and contents of food trays. The general public did some strange things.

"And Fin two oh eight FCU loaner part hasn't arrived yet. They swear it will be here before the twenty eighty-nine flight arrives. Can you pass that on to the day shift team leader? I don't think the night shift will get to it." She added.

"Got it Gail. Get some sleep 'kay?" Chris smiled up at her as he took his seat. She was younger than most of the guys at twenty-four and hugely in the minority as a woman in line maintenance. The women were outnumbered around sixty to one. She knew some of the guys suspected her of sleeping her way to this position. Most of the guys were mechanics or had been mechanics at some point. They worked long and hard to get to where they were and she slipped in there between ten and twenty years younger than them. She didn't honestly know how she jumped ranks quickly, but no one accused her of being incompetent. The guys were civil to her for the most part. But there was a fair amount of male aggression and swearing within the department. She'd found her niche and the guys had accepted her like they accepted the few female mechanics. What they didn't recognize was that her pay grade for doing the same job as them was much lower due to not being a mechanic and how fewer years she had worked in the company. She knew that they made a lot more money than she did.

Her job was on the line though. Probably because some of the guys suspected her of sleeping her way up, these men had likely approached the union and felt her position should belong only to 'qualified' people. There was word out that her position was going to become a licensed mechanic position only. That would take two or three years of school, years of apprenticeship and then going through licensing to be qualified for a job that she had been competently doing for two years now. She wondered where the union would send her. If it was another city, she wasn't willing to move her ten year old daughter any further away from her grandparents and her father. Gail's boyfriend was doing time in Steilacoom at McNeil. It wasn't like he could come with them. He had just less than two years left after repeated denials for parole. Ten years of dating and her parents still hated Carl.

At least she didn't have to worry about her green card if she lost her job. She was born in Bellingham to a Canadian mother and American father while her parents lived in Abbortsford BC. She carried dual citizenships.

Gail walked out wearing stilletto boots, dark wash jeans and a fitted silk red blouse as she pulled on her cardigan. A benefit of working night shift was that management didn't care what you wore. No office clothes for the night shift. On the other cycle night shift, Gerard wore stained jogging pants and ripped t-shirts. No one saw them holed up in there anyway. But Gail liked to look nice. She walked the labyrinth of hallways to the arrivals area, across to the employee parking lot. It was before morning gridlock, so she made the one hour journey from Sea-Tac to Olympia.

Walking in the front door, Lacey was just finishing getting ready for school. Gail kissed her daughter off to the school bus and watched from the front door. It was Friday and her days off for this shift fell on the weekend. Tomorrow she was going hiking with Lacey at the north west entrance of Olympic National Park.

Lacey climbed onto the bus slumping into herself in shame. She hated boarding the bus where kids could see her coming from the double wide trailer park. Her mother waved from the front door in tight clothing with big long curly blonde hair, blue eyes, stilleto boots, red acryllic nails, large breasts and a small waist. People assumed her mother had implants much to Lacey's chagrin. But this was just how her mother naturally was. Kids made fun of her about her mother. Her mother was very pretty. But they all knew her mother worked nights and slept all day from playing at her house visiting a few of the kids living in the trailer park. They had found out that her father was in prison. Putting these pieces of information together, the kids called her mother a hooker and her father a pimp. With a name like Lacey, that her mother had picked out when she was fourteen when she was born this hadn't gone over well. Lacey looked like her Quileute Grandfather, Gail's father and her own Blackfoot father. Her creamy skin reflected her European ancestry, but the rest of her reflected her aboriginal heritage.

She loved her mother. When she was small, she remembered her mother always going to school when they lived with her grandparents in Forks. Her mother had moved them closer to Seattle when she turned eighteen taking welfare while she went to college. For a year her mother hand been working nights at the airport while going to college. She knew her mother could be serious and competent when she needed to be. But socially her mother came off as an airhead. She was a sweet woman, but sometimes she was too much for Lacey. The ten year old girl shrunk into herself ready for another school day of humiliation.

Quil Sr was suspicious. He'd woken up and Leah wasn't as angry as he had expected after their first night in the tent. She had seemed broken. He thought she would have some fight in her. In a way it was disappointing. If she had been her usual hostile self, he would have felt justified reacting in kind. But seeing Leah broken made it clear that he really had done something horrible. He felt something that he rarely felt; guilt. And so he soothed her as best he could. To make it worse, he had assured her that he would wait for her to ovulate before he tried again. He thought that would be another day. But her scent had changed that afternoon. His wolf told him that it was time. But she didn't seem any better. He assauged his wolf with promises that he would wait until nightfall.

He stood at the entrance of the cave while Leah watched the ground at his feet curled in a ball of blanket. In the distance, there was a faint glow from Seattle that he could see with his wolf enhanced eyesight. The night sky was filled with a crescent shaped moon and stars. It was beautiful. He looked down at Leah's covered form. It was time.

"Leah." Quil spoke softly. Her eyes met his. "Undress for me." He saw a split second of resistance in her eyes. An ounce of fight and his hope for a fight returned. But then hesitation and a look of defeat took it's place. If she only fought he wouldn't feel guilty.

She stood, letting the blanket fall to the ground. She shivered against the cold as she undressed before his eyes. He slipped a hand into his pants and began to stroke himself. He looked over her and pointed into the tent.

Leah had felt a knot of fear and anticipation all day. She wanted to fight back, but that wouldn't get her out of here. Deceit would be her fight. She lay down and focused on her favourite memories.

Two hours later, he had fallen asleep holding her on top of him. She woke him briefly. "I need to wash myself."

Quil grunted and she carefully made her way down to the shore in her pajamas. She knew with a short explanation, he would continue to sleep without her for hours.

It wasn't as cold as the night before, but still cold. She removed her clothes and prayed that this wasn't a death sentence. She made her way carefully into the water. She took fast gasps for breath. Get tough or die. She told herself and continued the painful journey into the water. She forced herself to begin swimming to the mainland. She felt like she couldn't breathe in properly. She forced breaths in and out keeping her head dry.

Bella woke up to warm hands shaking her. She could smell Paul standing over her.

"You were screaming. I couldn't listen to it anymore." He whispered to his imprint. She remembered the dream and shuddered. He felt need radiating from her.

"What can I do?" He asked.

She remembered all of the nights that Renee had cuddled with her in motel beds after bad dreams. Would Paul be able to take the place of Renee? She would find out. She moved over and looked down at the space beside her.

Paul smirked. "The lady would like to share her bed." He chuckled. "I think I can accommodate that." He climbed in feeling a moment of guilt that he was taking a break from searching for Leah. But he had been searching all day. One hour to spend with his frightened imprint would have to be accepted.

The bed warmed greatly under Paul's heat. His imprint felt delicious in his arms wearing a thin cotton shirt and shorts. Her young supple body in his arms. He fought the urge to run his hands up and down her body, kneading and tugging his way. He felt the urge feel her writhing underneath her. He wanted to make her scream his name. But he knew she wasn't nearly ready for all of that. She had only just had her first kiss. He would need to exercise patience. It was nice that she was reaching a point that she trusted him enough to share her bed with him.

Building a physical relationship was going to be the longest foreplay of his life. He fell asleep dreaming about her soft, tight and wet center.

Bella heard him groaning and rubbing his hardness against her back. She wasn't sure if she was scared or turned on. She decided that she was safe and ignored his behaviour. She enjoyed his body wrapped around her keeping her safe in a way that Renee had never been able to.

After some time she realized that her muscles weren't responding anymore and her breathing had became so difficult that Leah was going to suffocate before she could drown. Her entire body was numb and she was looking without seeing. Suffocating seemed preferable at this moment to going back to the tent in the cave.

A lead clamp pulled her through the water. "That was a big.. fucking.. mistake." A man's voice spoke gruffly. Quil Sr took her back to the tent and nursed her back to health.

Going back to school was not a moment that Bella was looking forward to. She entered the school, still wearing her bandages. At her locker she saw Lauren and Jessica approaching. She had thought they were mostly harmless before. But now she knew they were as much of a threat to her as the man who attacked her when she was stealing auto parts from his car. She couldn't physically eliminate this threat in this environment. She made a decision. She did what she knew best. Intimidation tactics that she could follow through on.

Lauren and Jessica were confronted by a dark and deadly Bella. They found their backs up against the locker as the smaller and younger looking girl intimidated them.

"I was frost bitten. I could have lost digits or died. You will not approach me, talk to me for reasons aside from classes, interfere with my life, gossip about me, threaten my happiness or disturb me again. I will not have patience for you a second time. If you fuck this up, I will fuck you up slowly and painfully while your parents sleep in the next room." Her eyes flashed for a moment. Her low, dark and sure voice dropping to a whisper. "Don't fucking doubt me. Eleven years off the radar and I was found only because I had a psychotic episode after my mother died." She leaned up close to Lauren's ear. "I will use my teeth to rip the skin from your flesh, strip by strip if you cross me again you stupid bitch."

Bella backed up, smiled sweetly. She felt so much better for that. Then slipped into the crowd and disappeared. It was disturbing to Lauren and Jessica how Bella could seem to disappear and appear without notice. They shared looks and silently agreed to never talk about this again. Bella and the girls had come to an understanding.

Jacob and Embry made a quick run into the grocery store. They avoided all topics that might broach Leah. They talked only about food.

Gail and Lacey were stocking up on water and snacks for the hike that Gail had forgotten to pack leaving home. Gail was ogling a tall dark and handsome man. She hadn't slept with Carl in a long time and while she managed to keep her eyes on her work around the men at work. Outside of work she enjoyed looking at men and imagining what they could do to her. The hot young man met her eyes with a smirk before they widened into awe and wonder. Gail snorted in an unladylike manner at the strange response. Lacey tugged on her mother's arm. She didn't like the unusual flirting and wanted to take off for their hike. Gail grinned mischievously at the man and glanced at his handsome companion who was laughing at them both. She followed her daughter to the check out.

"Hi, I'm Jacob. The guy staring at you is Embry." The handsome companion greeted Gail at the check out line with humour.

"Mom, no flirting. We're hiking, let's go!" Lacey insisted. Jacob looked down at Lacey bemused.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Lacey, she's Gail. She'll flirt with you but she won't date you because she loves my Dad." Lacey informed him impatiently. She knew her mother's routine with men all too well. Her mother loved to flirt. But she never cheated on Carl. She also knew another nugget of information that scared men off who weren't scared off by a ten year old daughter. "My Dad's in prison right now, but when he gets out he'll hunt you down and kick your ass." She said crossing her arms and glaring at him.

Jacob fought a laugh and smiled at her. Of course this would be the situation of Embry's imprint.

"Lacey!" Gail admonished. "I am so sorry! She's right, I have a boyfriend. I'm not looking for a relationship." She'd only ever been with one man. The same man since she had turned fourteen even though he had been in and out of prison for most of those ten years.

"You look so young, how do you have a kid this big?" Embry woke up and blurted out. His imprint was clearly older than him. But how much older?

Gail and Jacob laughed at him awkwardly. Lacey glared at him realizing that she was losing valuable hiking time on these idiots.

"I er..." Gail hated to share this with people. She made a wonderful mistake as a kid and she was going to have to keep explaining herself for the rest of her life. "I had Lacey when I was fourteen. I'm twenty-four and she's ten years old."

Embry was putting together the information presented to him. His beautiful imprint had a baby at fourteen years old with a guy who's in prison. She was wearing cargo pants, hiking boots and a tan coloured raincoat. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her blue eyes free of make-up. She looked a bit like Kate Hudson with her disarming smile. She had a pretty daughter who looked Quileute. It looked to Embry that his imprint already had a thing for Native Americans. Based on what he saw and heard he wasn't sure what to think. But he needed a last name and hopefully an address or phone number. At a volume only Jacob would hear, he spoke.

"I'm following her for the rest of the day until I find out where she lives." Jacob's mouth twitched as he fought to keep his smile without breaking into a fit of laughter. This was the nicest thing that had happened since Leah had gone missing. He pushed that thought aside.

"Well, I should get moving. Looks like you're going hiking. Embry here knows some really good trails if you're interested." Jacob suggested.

Lacey cringed. Gail with her bubbly and trusting personality beamed. "Can you find the Dranga trail? We're looking for it again. We're saw it years back and now I can't find it for the life of me." And then she launched into a conversation with Embry about some of the trailsin the area.

Jacob politely retreated back on the search for Leah and Lacey followed her mother and Embry through the check out while seething. So much for her mother daughter hike.

AN: I know, I know. Poor Leah and when will Quil Sr just die?