I hate writing bad and painful things. Ugh.

Also, we have reached 300 reviews! Oh my goodness, you guys are the best readers in the whole world. Thank you so much and enjoy the chapter!

oOo

Chapter 25:

"Fear both the heat and cold of your heart, and try to have patience, if you can." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales

On the fourth floor of the building that housed the main center of the Department of Justice, in an office lit up with yellow light that looked down upon the mostly deserted sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue, Daniel Callaghan was working late.

This wasn't exactly something that was unusual or unprecedented, since he and his colleagues often found themselves working through the late hours of the night when their caseloads became much too heavy or because they had simply lost track of the time and were too into their work to notice that they should have gone home hours ago. This was common, unlike in those other government agencies with the cushy nine-to-five careers where they could pick up their work the next morning after stopping by Starbucks for an espresso. No, the members of the DOJ were the determined ones. The ones who did their damn jobs. The ones that struggled to get things done, even if it meant getting home a little late. Or a lot late.

Not that Daniel had anywhere else to be, nor was staying late at work helping him make any progress with his task whatsoever. In fact, he was sure that he was progressing backwards with the way that his research was going. He had been looking at the same damn file for almost three hours, having shoved aside his other cases for the tragedy that had been making his brain itch for months: the infamous escape of Frankie De Palma and the sudden death of the Perdue family.

He had lost count of how many times he had actually read over the information – enough to know the case word for word, both backwards and forwards. From everything to the eyewitness accounts to the court testimonies to Audrey's own research on the bylaws that had pushed her case forward, Daniel knew it all. He considered himself an expert on the case even though he had barely glanced at it before passing it to Audrey when it had first come across his desk.

He regretted not taking a closer look. Maybe if he had, this whole thing could have been avoided.

Daniel liked Audrey and Audrey… well, Audrey didn't like anyone, but he was sure that she held some sort of respect for him, at the least. Daniel was the one to have hired her and he saw something in her when she had walked into his office for her scheduled job interview acting like she had already been hired. She had spunk, determination, and she was damn brilliant at everything she did, even if her social skills could use a bit of work. He figured that after everything that they had been through, he at least owed it to her memory – and to the memory of her son and brother – to catch that bastard and put him away permanently.

That was why he had dug out the file from Audrey's office before the contents of the room had been purged and packed away. He wanted to help in any way that he could, so he picked up the thick packet one rainy day several months ago and had barely put it down ever since, because…

Because…

Because something wasn't right.

Daniel had pored over every inch of the file and there were inconsistencies everywhere – little missing pieces that Audrey couldn't have possibly missed because they were so blatantly obvious. It was like someone had taken two puzzles and mixed them together and expected you to be able to combine the two to make a whole. Like someone had tampered with the files before he had received them, because he was sure that Audrey couldn't have passed over such blatant... wrongness.

Even Audrey's notes noted her own suspicions. 'Inconsistencies in witness statements may cause problems later, though they are relatively minor,' she had written in a neat, curvy script. "There's an insistence that De Palma had been working alone – and further investigation shows that there is no evidence to dispute this fact – but some of the details do not seem to add up. Someone would have had to shut off the alarms in the Mariani household for De Palma to enter the house in the first place. Fingerprints found at the scene match De Palma, but other prints near Eleanor Mariani's body do not match the fingerprints of anyone in any known database."

Really, he was stumped. It was no secret to anyone that De Palma was guilty of his accused crimes, so Audrey had apparently shoved aside her own doubts and stuck with what she knew. She had succeeded, for a time, but her suspicions had presented themselves once again.

De Palma couldn't have been working alone.

Of course, they had easily figured that out when the man had escaped, but the question was: Who? Who could have possibly helped De Palma escape from the prison transport van? Who could have let him into the Mariani home? Was it the same person that had a hand in the death of Audrey and her family? What about in the death of De Palma's lawyer, Damien O'Connell? Was it more than one person that they needed to catch? Was there a whole network of people of which they were unaware?

Daniel tossed the files on his desk and rubbed his eyes, taking a hearty sip from his glass of Scotch. It was truly a conundrum and he wasn't quite sure what he should do. Some would say that he was simply wasting his time, sticking his nose where it didn't belong and doing a job that should have been allotted to someone else. However, every time he put down the file, the little itch in the back of his skull returned and he would be forced to pick up the information once again to scan it over just in case there was something – no, anything – that he had missed.

Because it just… Didn't. Make. Sense. And each time he read through it, he continued to come up empty.

Daniel heaved a heavy sigh, drained the rest of his drink, and pushed back from his desk to refill his cup. He felt like a failure, and the guilt flooding through his chest was almost overwhelming. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the information that he was seeing, or even where to start to find a solution to the madness.

A knock came from his closed office door, and Daniel's gaze narrowed in suspicion at the wood as if he could see straight through it to the other side. He waited for a moment before the knock came again, a trio of insistent, pointed clicks against the clouded glass window embedded in the wood. "Come in," he called out, closing the file on his desk and shoving it in his drawer.

The door swung open to reveal someone that he hadn't seen in months, since the quiet, close-casketed funeral for Audrey and her family – Monique Hathaway. Daniel didn't know Monique as well as Audrey had known her; they had worked together on several occasions, but only enough for him to reach the point where he would give her a nod of acknowledgement if they happened to pass each other in the halls.

Now that Daniel thought about it, he didn't think he had even spoken to her at Audrey's funeral. The tall, sturdy woman with her Amazonian like features had stood silently in the back of the room throughout the entirety of the short service, gaze like steel as the casket had been lowered into the ground. At the time, he had just attributed her behavior to grief – everyone experiences it differently, and it wouldn't be so far-fetched to imagine that one of Audrey's only friends chose to experience her grief by putting herself in a defensive stance in the back of the room where she wouldn't be bothered by anyone else. He hadn't thought anything about it then, but now… her presence here was suspicious in and of itself.

Daniel leaned back his chair and raised an eyebrow at the woman, her form taking up most of the doorway. She didn't bother taking one of the chairs on the opposite side of his desk; instead she simply stood, ramrod straight and clutching something in her hands that looked semi-important. "Well, this is certainly a surprise," he drawled lazily, lifting up his glass in greeting. "What are you doing here so late at night? Care for a drink?"

Monique wrinkled her nose in distaste as the liquor sloshed around in his glass. "Had to drop off a few files to the mailroom that couldn't wait until morning; I'm taking a flight out to New York for a meeting. Saw the light on under the door when I passed on my way out, so I thought I'd come and see what you were doing. Thought I would say hello. What were you working on that's so important that you had to shove it in your desk so I wouldn't see it?"

Daniel frowned. "You know I can't discuss a case with someone who isn't a client, Miss Hathaway."

"Hm." She studied him for several moments. After a moment, she said, "Little late to be drinking, don't you think?" A glance at the clock on the wall behind his desk made her change her statement. "Or I guess now it would be a little early. What is that?" She snatched the glass out of his hand and smelled the liquid, grimacing. "Scotch? Must be a hard case for you to be here past midnight, drowning yourself in expensive liquor."

He pushed back his chair and took the glass back from her hands, placing it back on the desk where it belonged. "Did you need something, or did you just stop by to say hello?"

"I figured that I could drop something off while I was here," she said, finally pulling out one of the chairs and settling down into the leather. Monique took the stack of documents in her hands and placed them on the desk, primly crossing her legs. "It's something about Audrey's case. The De Palma case."

He didn't speak.

"Don't pretend like we both don't know that was exactly what you were looking at, Callaghan," she smiled grimly. "I know you snuck the files out of Audrey's office before they cleaned it out and I know it's been driving you nuts – the inconsistencies. The confusion. The… supposed accomplice."

Daniel knew it was pointless to even pretend that she was wrong. His hands itched to grab at the files, but he crossed his arms over his chest to prevent himself from picking them up and absorbing them like he had done with the original stack of information. "What do you know that I don't?"

Monique didn't bother to answer his question. "You shouldn't blame yourself, you know. For Audrey's death, I mean. It wasn't anyone's fault except for De Palma's and we're on the path to catching that bastard permanently. You know how Audrey was just as much as I do. She was stubborn until the very end and wouldn't go out without a fight. If you would have even thought about giving that case to someone else, she would have gone ballistic."

Daniel sat on the edge of his desk and rubbed his eyes. "It's been driving me insane," he admitted. "It's got to be an inside job; I know it is. I can't – I don't have the means to piece it all together. Audrey –" He grimaced. "Audrey would know what to do. She always did – even though she didn't have much tact when telling you exactly what you were missing."

When Monique didn't immediately respond, he looked up. She was staring at him intently, understanding and some sort of foreign recognition dawning behind her eyes. "You loved her," she said softly, voice filled with realization. Then she seemed to realize what she had said and a heavy beat of tension fell over the room. After a short moment of silence, she added, "I'm sorry. Audrey was –"

"Audrey is dead and my feelings for her are irrelevant." Audrey was long gone, and she wouldn't ever be coming back. It had always been a fool's dream, anyway. There was no way on earth that Audrey Perdue would have even considered a relationship with him, no matter how much they respected each other, how close they were in age, or even that they had similar interests. No, Audrey would have considered it a joke; she probably would have laughed in his face. "Not having that man brought to justice is driving me absolutely insane. I have to do what I can, even if the only thing I can do is scrutinize a bunch of files."

"I figured that there's no way possible for me to get you to leave the case alone for the sake of your own sanity." She shifted in the chair and the leather squeaked under her. "That's why I brought you some more information. I thought it might help you figure some things out - things that I wasn't quite able to piece together. This is more of your area of expertise than it is mine."

"I'm starting to think that I'm not much of an expert, anymore," he stated, almost to himself. Then he cleared his throat and shook his head, finally picking up the top paper on the stack. "Credit card activity of the De Palma family?"

"When I was doing my own research, I tried to come at this from every angle I could think of," she said. "It's probably nothing important, but I just figured… any little bit helps, right?"

Daniel nodded in agreement. "It's something," he said, placing the paper back its place. He watched as Monique headed toward the door, hovering in the frame. For the first time, he saw a hint of doubt on her face. "Why did you really come here, Monique? It couldn't have just been to drop off some files to me or to the mailroom. What's really going on? What aren't you telling me?"

The moment that Monique broke eye contact, Daniel knew that he had hit the nail on the head. He waited for her to speak again, letting her organize her thoughts before she answered his questions. "I…" she chewed on her lip, awkwardly rubbing her arm. "I don't know. I just have this feeling that…" She tapped her foot against the side of his desk. "I just have a bad feeling. I don't know why, but something told me that I needed to give you everything I have on the case."

"Why me?" he asked. "Why now?"

When she met his gaze again, her eyes were like steel. "Because if I didn't give it to you now, I have a feeling that I might not get the chance again. There has to be someone else that knows what I know, and I don't trust any of the people in my office anymore. They –" She shook her head. "I mean, I trust them, but they wouldn't understand my actions. I could probably get fired for even telling you anything."

"What do you have to tell me? Why don't you just say it?"

She surreptitiously glanced around the room, but he didn't miss the way that her eyes wandered. "Ears everywhere. Just read through the files, and after you learn what you need to know…" Her eyes told him everything that she could not put into words. After you learn what you need to know, destroy the evidence.

His heart pounded. Could it be…? "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," she corrected, rising to her feet. She shoved aside a stray strand of her hair as it fell into her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. "Just read through my research and don't make too much out of it. It's not much, but it's what I could find. Don't know when I'll be back or if I'll be able to help you out, so you're on your own with putting the puzzle together – if we even have all of the pieces."

That would be fine. He had already been doing all of the research on his own. "Okay. Next time you get back in D.C.," he said, words giving a hint that he was demanding instead of simply inviting, "don't hesitate to stop by. I'd like to have a chance to discuss this further, if you get the chance."

There was a pause, like she didn't know how to answer, and Monique eventually nodded and gave him a slightly bitter smile. She turned to leave but stopped mid-step, swinging her head in his direction. "Take care of yourself, Daniel. Get some rest before you drive yourself insane with grief."

He cocked his head to the side, the corner of his lip twitching skyward. "I think you're the one who needs to follow that piece of advice."

When the last of her footsteps retreated somewhere down the hallway outside of his office, Daniel settled back in his chair and struggled to process the sudden input of information. For several moments he simply stared at the stack of papers on his desk, pondering. Then he quickly snatched up the stack like it was a fresh breath of air to a man who had previously been drowning, and scanned through the papers faster than his eye could actually perceive.

While he flipped through the stack of credit card bills, home foreclosures, juror information, and lawyer fees, a small slip of yellow paper fell from between two pages and slowly curled in the air as it fell toward his desk. He stared at it when it caught his eye, reaching out to pick it up with unsteady fingers.

Several moments went by and he didn't move. Then without missing a beat, he reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a lighter, and lit the corner of the note on fire. The flimsy yellow paper slowly burned in front of his eyes, the words hastily scribbled on it going up in red flames. He wasn't sure if he was more relieved or dismayed at what he had seen, the eight simple words echoing like gunshots in his mind:

Katherine Montgomery. La Push, Washington. Tell no one.

Daniel sighed and buried his head in his hands, feeling as if he really needed another drink.

oOo

The days leading up to Christmas Eve were busy, to say the least. Between helping Isaac study for his midterm exams and preparing his applications to more universities than I could actually count, finishing up with setting up Christmas decorations, doing research on the De Palma case and effectively coming up with little to no information whenever I looked, and dealing with Paul's incessant tendency to show up when he wasn't expected (to my exasperation and the amusement of both Luke and Isaac), I barely had time to even breathe.

Christmas Eve had snuck up on the residents of La Push amongst the plethora of tangled Christmas lights and college brochures, dawning on a bright and sunny day that didn't quite take away the chill in the air. Instead, the blinding rays gave nearly every snow-covered surface a cheerfully shiny sheen.

The plan for the day was simple: relax as much as humanly possible in preparation for the hectic day that tomorrow would bring. I woke up that morning, made breakfast, and prepared for a day curled up on the couch with Luke and Isaac watching Christmas movies on the TV in our pajamas.

Of course, Luke had other ideas planned.

"Excuse me, Mister, but just where do you think that you're going?"

From where he was trying and failing to sneak past my bedroom door, Luke froze. He was clad in a heavy winter coat, his knitted gloves, and a puffy hat, obviously up to no good with the way he looked up at me with a sheepish expression. "Nowhere, mommy."

"Uh huh," I pursed my lips, hands resting on my hips. "And why are you dressed so warmly inside the house?"

It was obvious that he was having difficulty lying, but then something in his expression scrunched at the stern look on my face and words suddenly started flowing out of his mouth. "Claire told me about how she always makes a snowman around Christmastime and I never made one before but I really want to 'cause we have snow now, so can I make one? Please, mommy, pleeeeaaase!"

Man, the wide, puppy-dog eyes were hard to resist, but as someone who's seen those eyes every day for six years, I was happy to announce that I had grown some semblance of a resistance to them. "Sweetie, it is way too cold outside for you to be running around and playing in the snow," I told him, reaching down to pull him into my arms. "You're going to catch a cold and then have to stay in bed on Christmas tomorrow without opening your presents. You don't want that, do you?"

"Nuh uh, I won't get sick!" He argued determinedly, turning in my arms to look me in the eye. He spoke with the confidence of someone who thought he knew what he was talking about, and I was honestly too amused to correct him. "Not if I wear my gloves like you always told me to do and then have hot cocoa after to warm me up!"

"You know," I said, pinching his slightly chubby cheek, "just because mommy used to argue for a living doesn't mean that you should try and outwit me, Mister."

He simply grinned widely, reaching out to hug my neck. Then he suddenly stopped and frowned in confusion, tiny fingers tugging at the thick collar of my shirt. "Where's your key, mommy?"

That was a really good question. The key had been missing for weeks now and I had searched the house from top to bottom in order to find it but effectively came up empty-handed. I had lost it around the same time that I had gone to the hospital, and I expected to find it somewhere in the living room or the yard, but it was nowhere to be found. If I had lost it in the yard, I figured that some wild animal had carted it off somewhere and I simply mourned its loss and moved on, but the empty feeling around my neck still felt more prominent than it should have been.

"I don't know," I said thoughtfully, leading him in the direction of the living room so that I could grab my coat and boots if he still wanted to go and play outside. "I lost it and couldn't find it when I looked. It's okay, though," I added when he gave me a sad look, "I'm just glad I haven't lost you."

My words were effective; he giggled. "It's okay, mommy. I'll make you a new necklace and it'll be the best necklace in the whole wide world."

I kissed his cheek. "I bet it will be. Now, do you still want to go make your snowman, or what?"

He appeared to be thinking very hard about his answer and finally shook his head. "No, thank you," he replied, and then began to squirm as a signal to me that he wanted to be placed back on his feet. "I gotta make you a necklace for Christmas."

My heart felt full as I watched him trot to his bedroom, loudly humming some unidentifiable tune under his breath. With a shake of my head, I headed toward the kitchen to fix him his cup of hot chocolate – with that good soul he had, he deserved it.

"Hey," I stopped in the doorway of the living room to peer in at Isaac, who was lounging across the entirety of the couch in his pajamas. When he saw that I was leaning into the room, he lowered the volume of the TV and turned to me. "I'm making some hot chocolate. Do you want any?"

He nodded, standing and stretching his arms into the air. "Sure – extra marshmallows, please, if we have them. Do you need any help?" he asked, trailing after me into the kitchen. When I shook my head, he added, "Are you sure?"

"Not as if it's hard to make hot chocolate," I replied, "But I would like the company if you can pull yourself away from the TV for a few minutes – I know that those Hallmark Christmas movies are hard to miss, so I won't be offended if you want to get back to watching them for the rest of the day."

"Considering the fact that they've been rotating through like the same six movies for the past month and a half, I think I can miss one scene." Isaac plopped himself down onto one of the chairs at the table, stretching his arms out across the wood. "So, I know Christmas Eve always ends up being a lazy day for us since we always have to mentally prepare ourselves for Christmas Day, but what are our plans for tomorrow?"

I shrugged, pulling three mugs out of the cabinet as the water began boiling on the stove. "Same as every year, I suppose. We'll wake up early in the morning to open presents after we eat a nice breakfast – I was thinking about making pancakes, or maybe French toast if I feel up to it – and of course, Sam and Emily invited us to go over for Christmas dinner, so we'll be stopping by their place later."

"Hm – a busy day like it always is, then." His nose crinkled. "Is Paul still coming over tomorrow morning?"

"As far as I know," I said after a pause, frowning as the kettle began to whistle loudly on the stove. "He hasn't told me anything otherwise, so I'm assuming he still plans on coming over. Don't know what time he'll be here, though I assume it'll be a bit before breakfast. He always likes to come over early just to aggravate me."

Isaac shifted in his spot, obviously uncomfortable. "How are things going with you and Paul? Anything I should know – any happy announcements that should be made any time soon?"

I blanched, making a face. "Of course not. Paul and I are… well, I'm not really sure. I'm not sure what the protocol is for this type of situation – this half-friendship wariness with my supposed shape-shifter imprint. It's not like they make a book for this sort of thing." I frowned. "I mean, he wouldn't be spending Christmas morning with us if it wasn't going well – and I use the term 'well' in the sense meaning that we haven't had any knock-down, drag-out fights. Which is progress, I guess."

The expression on his face told me that he was struggling to hold his tongue – as if there was something that he wanted to say but didn't want to cross any boundaries, or maybe he simply couldn't find the words to sort out his thoughts. I waited patiently for him to speak, busying myself with adding the sweet-smelling cocoa powder to the steaming liquid in the mugs before dropping a handful of marshmallows into each.

When I passed him his mug, he spoke. "I can't stop thinking about what you said about the conversation that you had with Sam the other day. I know what you're going to say – that I shouldn't be worrying about things that don't concern me – but it's really been bothering me, Katherine. They're not stupid. If Sam knows, it's only a matter of time before Paul finds out that you're hiding something, too –"

My eyes narrowed, fingers clenching around the mugs in my hands. "Aiden, we talked about this already."

"I know, I know, but hear me out, okay?" he urged quickly, gesturing wildly with his hands in order to somehow emphasize his point. "You said it yourself that you and Paul are getting along really well, and he's supposed to be your soul mate anyway, right? Which means that you'll most likely be with him forever, so he's going to find out eventually. What are you going to do, get married to the guy and sleep next to him every night and make it so that he still doesn't know your real name?"

"Aiden!" I slammed the mugs on the table so harshly that the hot chocolate splashed over the rims. "Stop it. Right now. I don't want you to even so much as bring up the topic again; do you understand? No more. This is the end of it."

His eyes flashed. "Why?" he argued, not backing down like I expected he would. "We're hiding a huge secret for them so why can't they do the same for us? Sam was right – all you're going to do is cause everyone a lot of pain in the end. What the hell are you so afraid of?"

The tension in the room was high and I could feel my nerves being stretched a little too thin. It took all my willpower not to just yell in his face, telling him how he had no idea what he was talking about and that he was simply too young to understand… but this was Isaac. He knew me; he did understand. He may have been a teenager, but he was more observant and intelligent than I gave him credit for. He had hit the nail on the head, and from the look on his face he was beginning to realize it.

"That's it, isn't it?" he said in realization, drink all but forgotten as he stood. He was several inches taller than I was, with the embarrassingly lanky build of a teenager who hadn't quite grown into himself yet. "You're afraid. You keep saying it's against the law for us to tell anyone and that you're trying to keep everyone safe, but that isn't the whole story. You're just scared."

My face burned in a combination of rage and shame.

"But why?" he added, mostly to himself. "Do you know something that I don't know – about De Palma, maybe? Or… are you afraid that he won't want to be with you when he finds out you're keeping things from him – which is total bullshit, by the way. He won't ever leave you so it's –"

I couldn't take anymore. The words came flooding out of my mouth more harshly than I actually intended, breathing heavily as if I had just sprinted ten miles. "Is it killing you? The fact that you can't simply comprehend the truth?" I spat in my fury. "Well let me enlighten you since you obviously think that you know what's best for this family. Say we tell them – any of them, all of them, or even just one of them – who we are. Maybe things will be fine for a while – peaceful, no secrets? Whatever, right? We explain and things are all incredible and everyone really understands and it just turns into this happy ending. But guess what: someone who's out to hurt us will eventually find out or someone will let something slip and the Marshall Service will get wind that we're spreading the word around. Guess what happens after that."

He stared at me, mouth partially open in surprise at the anger in my tone.

"We will have to leave!" I shouted, voice rising with every word. "Pack up everything and leave to another place without saying goodbye to anyone. We would have to change who we are again and move to a new place under new names and we would never be able to come back here. Ever. So you know what? Congratulations. Yes, you were right. I'm scared. I'm fucking terrified of what will happen if we say anything. One wrong move and everything we have here will just fall apart. I refuse – utterly refuse – to let us destroy the life we've built here, and if it means that we can all continue to have a good life in La Push, I'll take the secret to my fucking grave."

oOo

The edges of the blanket felt rough under the tips of my fingers; the makeshift patchwork quilt felt warm though not as comforting as it usually was. Heavy lumps of snow fluttered against the living room window, sending a chill throughout the room despite the fire in the hearth that sent a hearty glow across the walls. The clock on the far wall told me that it was nearly midnight, and I was utterly drained. I had tried to get some rest several hours ago – knowing that I would be waking up in the early morning because of a rambunctious child – but my brain refused to shut down.

Instead I found myself dragging my blanket through the house and to the living room sofa, where I sat and stared at the cell phone clutched in my hand for much longer than I actually should have. Paul's name stared up at me on the dim screen, and my fingers kept hovering over the 'Call' button before I eventually chickened out and changed my mind. It would be stupid to call him so late, no matter how much I wanted to speak with him. He was probably asleep, like normal people were, and I would see him in the morning, after all.

But… I don't know. A part of me wanted to hear his voice, to seek that comfort that speaking to him brought to me.

Without waiting for a chance to second guess myself and chicken out of doing what I actually wanted to do, I dialed the number on the phone and pressed it to my ear. It rang several times, enough for me to want to hang up and pretend I had never called at all, but before I could give up, Paul's voice emerged from over the line. He sounded groggy, as if I had just woken him up from a deep sleep. "Hello?"

"Hey," I chewed hesitantly on my lip. "It's me."

"Katherine?" I heard the rustling of sheets on the other end of the line, as if he was shifting around in his bed to glance at the clock that I knew was sitting on his bedside table. "It's pretty late. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's completely fine," I was quick to reassure him, fingers absently twiddling with the stray pieces of thread hanging on the edges of the blanket. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted to – I mean, I didn't want to wake you up, but…" I swallowed. "I just couldn't sleep. I'm sorry."

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line that lasted long enough for me to believe that he had fallen asleep and hadn't actually heard a thing that I had said, but then he replied, "You don't have to feel bad about calling. I'm here any time you need me. What's wrong?"

"I got in a fight with Aiden this morning," I admitted, nervously biting one of my fingernails. "He's holed himself up in his room and hasn't come down ever since. I'm not used to fighting with my brother so I guess the silent treatment is bothering me a lot more than it actually should. I mean, he's a teenager so I guess should expect temper tantrums, but… I just don't like it."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. Then he yawned, voice laced with the hazy daze of someone who was struggling to keep himself awake. "What did the two of you fight about?"

You. Everything. Everything that I wish with all my heart that I could tell you, but I don't have the courage to do so because I'm a greedy coward. "We've been arguing back and forth about something ever since we moved here. It's stupid, and we've had the discussion a thousand times before. I was just so furious that he kept bringing it up that I just snapped. I've never yelled at him like that before," I murmured, angrily rubbing at my eyes. "Then he stormed off and now I feel awful because I know he means well but he doesn't understand. He doesn't… know what I know. Does that make sense?"

"I think it makes perfect sense," Paul said. "I'm sure Aiden understands a lot more than you give him credit for. He's a very intelligent kid. Whatever your argument was about, I'm sure that some part of him understands that you're only trying to protect him or do what's best for him. He won't be mad at you forever."

"How can you be so sure?"

"This may come as a sudden surprise to you, but I used to be a teenage guy, too, so I have a pretty good idea of how he's feeling right now," he explained. On the other side of the receiver, I heard the squeak of bedsprings as he moved. "If you yelled at him like you said you did then I can tell you with full assurance that his pride is probably hurt. Just give him some time to nurse his own wounds and I'm sure he'll come around before you know it."

I didn't exactly hold Paul's confidence, but I guess that, being a guy, he had a better idea of how Isaac's brain worked than I did. Plus, I was pretty happy that he didn't press for an explanation about the argument, so I was practically ready to agree with everything he said. "I guess."

"Do you need me?" Paul's question was immediate and rushed, and I supposed that he probably heard the doubt in my voice. "If you need me to come over, I could be there in like ten minutes. Five, if I skip the truck and just run."

I barked out a laugh because of course that would be his response. With a single word from me, Paul would probably jump out of his bed and be at my front door in a heartbeat. I almost let the word 'yes' slip out of my mouth without any sort of hesitation whatsoever, ready to let him drag himself through the wind and the snow just to soothe my own unease. Then I stopped myself. I had already called and woken him in the middle of the night. No need to burden him any further by making him come over, even though I knew he would say that it wouldn't be an issue. "As much as I'd love to have your company, I'll pass. It's getting pretty late and I need to – I don't know. Try and get some sleep, I guess."

"You're sure that you're going to be okay? That you don't need me to come over and give you a bit of company?"

His concern was positively touching, and I felt my heart beat a little faster against my ribcage. "Yeah, I'll be completely fine, I promise. I'm a pretty tough girl, you know. I can take care of myself."

"And yet you called me in the middle of the night just to talk," he mused. "Hm."

"Yeah, well," I looked down at my lap in what felt like an unsteady combination of both pure guilt and shame, clenching my jaw before admitting, "I think I really just needed to hear your voice." Then I cleared my throat, cheeks burning. "But don't go and get the wrong idea about that, Lahote."

I expected him to sound cocky in his response, but his voice showed nothing but understanding and kindness. "Of course not."

Feeling both angry and disappointed for reasons that I couldn't quite explain, I slightly wished that he had said something sarcastic and biting and smug. It would have made it easier for me to handle – lessened the guilt that I felt in a way that I could have just balled it up and shoved it inside my chest to deal with at another time. "I think I'm going to go and try to get some sleep. You're still coming over in the morning, right?"

At the mention of sleep, he yawned again. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. I'll be over at around seven. Or maybe eight; I have to run a quick errand before I come over but I'm not sure how long it's going to take. Is that okay?"

"That's perfect," I answered. "I'm looking forward to it."

"So am I." There was a heavy pause, neither of us quite willing to end the conversation and say goodbye so quickly. "Katherine," the voice was whispered in a breath of air from his lips, the passion in that single word sending a chill up my spine, "everything is going to be okay."

His words made me believe that he knew a lot more than he let on, or maybe that he knew my worries were about a lot more than just a silly fight with my brother that would surely blow over as the days went passed. My hand fell limply into my lap as one of the logs in the fireplace cracked to cinders from the heat. "I hope you're right."

Later, when we had both begrudgingly hung up our phones and I pulled myself through the house to my bed with my blanket dragging across the floors, I fell asleep with Paul's rumbling voice still ringing in my ear and a heavy feeling of dreadful anticipation settling in my heart.

Next Time: In which there's an adorable present wrapped with a single red ribbon and Seth discovers three unfamiliar names thanks to a little help from Isaac.