~Jacob's point of view~

Eighteenth birthday party? Check. Guest list planned and sorted? Check. Bella wouldn't be invited. She and her leech family could remain well enough away from the reservation. A single whiff of their stench would send the pack into high alert, Sam had guaranteed that. Mom's wedding ring set? An absolute check. That ring had been burning a hole in my bedside drawer for over a week after Dad had given it to me, and after I had received a more than enthusiastic promise of permission from both Ellie's Dad and Grams.

Was it uncommon to get engaged at seventeen as opposed to an other age, an older age? Yes. Well, I would be eighteen, considering I was planning it on my eighteenth birthday of all days, but she would be seventeen. That had been one of a few conditions from both her Grams and her Dad. I had to wait until she was eighteen to marry her, which would be on or after the 30th of July, and I would have to wait at least a year for her body to completely heal before any thoughts of children came about. That didn't bother me, any of them, one little bit. I wouldn't be planning on children so young anyways. Hell, we hadn't even done the deed yet, so that would be virtually impossible for such a thing to happen.

The squeak of Dad's wheels told me he was approaching before I saw him, the older man pulling up onto the porch beside me. He gave my knee a pat. "You got nothing to worry about Jake. You know she'll say yes anyways." He hinted at the question I had asked just two weeks ago on Christmas.

I nodded, staring across the yard to the treeline, knowing I had patrol in just ten minutes. "I know. I was just wondering what Mom would think if she were still here, what she would think of Ellie, of the better person I'd became since I met her." I answered honestly, seeing pain well up in his own dark eyes before he pushed it down. "You know she's watching." He answered thickly, patting my knee again. "She would be proud of you. You know she'd love Ellie. Your mother knew about the legends as well as I did, that there would be a possibility that you might become part of them. She would be happy you found your soulmate, you know that."

My throat constricted as I nodded. "I know. But further down the line, if Ellie and I have kids in a few years time when she's better, I can't help but think they'll have been robbed the chance to know Mom. Hell, Ellie doesn't even have her mother because she's a waste of oxygen. Her Grams did most of the mothering while her Dad worked his ass off for sixteen years to support them, hardly seeing his own daughter as a result of that." I pointed out.

He nodded after a moment. "Then the girl is lucky to have us all: our family, what is left of her family, the pack and their families. We protect our own, Jacob, just like your mother and I protected you and your sisters, just like I did after her death. Its what family does as a whole."