Chapter 21 time and truth
Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer- this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.
Thanks to BanSidhe for betaing.
Time passes…
Marlena did not like Rachel. She did not like the way that Rachel could get Embry to do things she didn't approve of. First and foremost, was the obvious premarital sex they were indulging in; loudly, in her house. She had known that Embry had been out to nightclubs with the other boys, but she had somehow completely missed the idea that he might have been having sex. She always did have avoidance issues.
Rachel was the daughter of the chief and it did tend to give her some authority. Or at least it meant that Marlena had no one to complain to. Billy Black was not upset about the relationship; in fact, he seemed to heartily approve of it. Marlena was perplexed as to why he was behaving this way. He had let his son, who was the same age as Embry move into the Clearwater house with Leah and Seth. No sign of a wedding ring there either. And the other girl had married a surfer. A surfer… a professional surfer was just another term for someone who didn't work in Marlena's book.
And Sue Clearwater was just as bad. Clearly, the woman had lost her head when she had been accepted onto the tribal council. Maybe it was the shocking death of her husband, but she actually seemed to condone her daughter living with a young man while they were unmarried. It should have been a scandal. Marlena did not understand why more people on the reservation were not upset about it.
And Sue herself had moved in with Billy Black to nurse him. Sure. He seemed no more ill than he had been when he was living alone with his son. Surely, that boy could not have nursed him properly before, he was a child. It sounded like a feeble excuse to Marlena. Plus, Sue was seeing that Charlie Swan at the same time. It was scandalous.
And Seth was only seventeen and living with Jake and Leah. Who was making sure he did his homework and ate properly? She really did not think Leah was the best homemaker. She was not capable of looking after those two boys. And she was working as a policewoman! It was a dangerous job for a woman. How could her mother have let her do such a thing?
And the Ateara's were clearly insane as well. How on earth Rowana put up with that strange girlfriend of Quil's she just did not know. The girl was clearly on drugs or something. She was sure she had seen her burying a shoe in their yard yesterday. He had come back from that trip to Neah Bay with a girl who had just moved right into the family home. She had never seen her around the area before and her colouring was strange. Her hair was brown not black, with that weird light streak she must have bleached into it. It was a wonder she didn't have body piercings and one of those rings through her face. Maybe she did. She was sure the girl was not Makah. He must have picked her up in Clallam Bay, but to bring her home to his family was very odd indeed. Yet another couple living together without being married.
And no one on the reservation seemed upset about that either.
This next generation were behaving like animals.
Marlena did a lot of head shaking and tut-tutting over Billy, Rowana and Sue and their mysterious behaviour. It never occurred to her that her decision to keep the identity of Embry's father a secret from him and hide him from her family, caused the exact same reaction in others towards her.
Poor Embry, having kept his wolf nature secret from his mother, now couldn't explain about imprinting either. He could see that his mother did not understand why Rachel was so essential to him in what, for a normal person, would have been a ridiculously short amount of time to be dating. Let alone seriously dating. They acted and spoke as if they were in it for the long haul. There just wasn't another option for either of them.
And Marlena just did not understand.
Truths
"So this big wolf secret is a secret right?" Rachel asked Embry. She was sitting under his arm with her back against his side. They were watching some crappy movie neither could be bothered to turn off. They were comfortable together.
"Yep, only the wolves, the tribal members, some parents and the imprints know." His arm passed over her shoulder, straight down her chest and his hand rested at her hip. His fingertips brushed the skin of her hip under her shirt with ceaseless small motions.
"You said 'some'. Why wouldn't you tell your parents?"
"Well it is a huge secret. We can't have the whole tribe knowing about it… it could be disastrous."
"And Collin phased right there on the beach in front of me."
"Yeah; Jake is still shitty with me for that. I was supposed to be watching them to make sure they didn't blow it and hurt themselves, or somebody else."
"You couldn't have stopped it. Besides, he should be shitty with me… I distracted you." She shuffled around to look at his face.
He beamed at her. "You sure did. Have I told you lately just how glad I was that you distracted me?"
"Wait a second… you still haven't told your Mum have you?"
"No," he grudgingly admitted.
"Why not?"
"What did I just say? It's a secret." He was grumpy. He did not want to discuss this with her.
"Don't be a smart ass, why not?"
He sighed. "She has such a huge chip on her shoulder about me being a fatherless child… imagine if she finds out she cursed me with this as well."
"Yeah she would think like that, but it is odd that you think of it as a curse."
"No, Jake does too sometimes."
"Really?"
"Well think about it. We can't leave La Push; we are the 'protectors'. So no uni or college no matter how smart we are. No other life choices other than this one, which is forced upon us by the presence of vampires."
"That's what triggers it?"
"No vamps; no wolves. There hasn't been a wolf pack since our grandfather's time. Old Quil remembered, thank the Gods."
"What started this round?"
"The Cullens, but then they started the last round too."
"Oh…," she thought about it, "and Bella brought them here?"
"No, she didn't bring them here, but she certainly got caught up in their lives. They used to live here. That was when the original treaty was made with them. Exactly the same vampires. And they came back for some reason. Their presence is enough to trigger the change, if they are here for any length of time. And once it starts…"
"Wow, I wonder how many past vampire attacks were put down to animals? Before we knew…"
"The Cullens didn't attack people but Jake reckons Billy was damn near hysterical when Bella started dating Edward Cullen. Without actually telling Jake that he was a vampire; Bella knew, of course. He did everything he could think of without actually telling her the truth about the wolves, to warn her off them. Paid Jake to go to her prom to talk to her and tell her we'd be watching them."
"I bet that didn't work. She's fairly strong minded when she wants to be."
"Oh yeah. Besides, Jake was pleased to dance with Bella at the prom. It was win/win for him. And as a bonus, he pissed Edward off."
Rachel laughed. "That I can imagine, he can be truly irritating."
"Spoken like a true big sister," chided Embry.
"What about Sam? He's semi retired; he's escaped your curse."
"Jake and the tribal council granted him that. He turned first and couldn't turn back. Spent two weeks as a wolf in the forest. Leah nearly went mad looking for him."
"Yeah, she used to phone me and vent about how worried she was about him."
"He was never meant to be the Alpha and he did a great job, but it cost him Leah and half of Emily's' face. They let him retire. Plus two alphas is bad news. We are all hoping that Collin and Brady will be the last to phase. Plus they are so young too; barely fifteen. It's not fair to have it happen that young."
There was silence for a minute. "Sometimes imprinting is bad news. Bella imprinting on Paul almost killed Jake," Embry said. "But it saved Paul's life. He was on a pretty self destructive path before Bella straightened him out."
"Jacob loved Bella from the time he was little."
"Still does. Sam still loves Leah too."
"So it doesn't erase the old feelings; it just kind of overwrites them?"
"Something like that."
"But Leah is perfect for Jacob and they are so good together."
Another silence.
"Humph," she said, "so you don't like imprinting huh?"
"Can't complain, it gave me you," he pointed out.
"No, it gave ME you. Right when I needed you the most. Weird huh?"
"Perfect," he told her breathlessly.
She glowed.
"Besides, I hit the imprinting jackpot; you are like the La Push Kennedys."
"What the…? How do you get that?"
"Royalty baby; you are the daughter of the chief."
She giggled.
"Just call me Arnold Schwarzenegger," he murmured as he started to kiss her neck.
"So does that means you'll be back?"
FF_2154210_ - 23/01/2011 12:02:00 PM