"Of course I want to," Jana replied, before kissing Xander. Of course she wanted to marry Xander, it was what she'd wanted all along, however she still felt uneasy. They had only been together roughly three months, and then there was the attack… to Jana it felt like she was being asked to run when she could barely walk, and worse still she felt cornered by her friends as if she had to just go along with everything.
Everyone cheered and Rhydian and Maddy hugged both of them before Ellie came rushing over and, of course, demanding that she would be the one to organise the wedding (well, all of the weddings) and that if they tried to stop her then all hell would break loose.
Jana smiled as joyfully as she could despite her anxieties and spent most of the remainder of the night dancing and talk with her friends. She knew she should have asked to talk to Xander in private, no one would have raised an eyebrow about that. Of course she wanted to marry him, but she just wasn't ready to stop being his girlfriend and start being his fiancé.
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"It's not going to fit," Jana announced as Rhydian struggled to zip up the suitcase. Rhydian and Maddy had stayed for well over two months now- much longer than they'd originally planned- and had accumulated a large amount of gifts, new clothes from the many shopping trips Ellie had forced them to go on and some baby items that Jana had already bought for them (with the promise that she'd post more to them later on).
"It is," Rhydian argued as he sat on the suitcase, finally managing to close it, "See."
"I wish you would have stayed for your birthday," Jana replied, "And for Yule- I mean Christmas."
"I have to go back and get a job, and Maddy misses her family," Rhydian said, "It won't be the same without you and my family around me, I don't think I'll ever adjust to not treading on empty fizzy worm packets."
Jana stuck out her tongue, "And stealing your Cheetos."
"How could I ever forget?" Rhydian asked, "Well we still have this evening. I'm sure you'll love bowling."
It had been Maddy's idea that her, Rhydian, Jana and Xander went bowling and then went somewhere nice for dinner. Jana of course had no idea what bowling was, and from what she could gather it sounded like lobbing balls with holes in them down a road and knocking things over.
"After all," Rhydian continued, "I won't be long before we have kids."
"For you maybe," Jana said glumly.
Rhydian ruffled her hair, "I'm sure you and Xander will, I mean if Dr Whitewood doesn't find a way then you two will probably adopt."
Jana's eyes glistened with tears and Rhydian looked at her in confusion, he thought Jana wanted nothing more than to be a mother, but then again she had just lost her baby and maybe it was the wrong thing to say.
"Jana," Rhydian said, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.
"I don't know what to do," Jana said in a chocked voice, "I've made a mess of everything. Of course I want to marry Xander but it's all just moving too fast and I'm only sixteen and I don't know if I'm ready yet. And then there was the attack, and Xander and I- we don't even live in the same place anymore. I wanted to tell him but I just couldn't, not with everyone there."
Rhydian let out a sigh, "Jana, it's ok. Trust me, last night wasn't about trying to force you to say yes, the only reason why Xander decided to ask you at prom and not at a nice little restaurant was because he was scared he would get nervous and stumble over his words and make a mess of it, he was ready to ask you last night and so he just asked you because he thought if he didn't then then it would be harder later on. Also, it's not like the wild pack, when someone wants to marry someone in the human world they ask them and then they often wait months or years until they get married, Xander will be more than happy to wait until you're ready. But you need to talk to him about all of this."
"What happened when you proposed to Maddy?" Jana inquired.
Rhydian laughed, "Well what you have to understand is that Maddy won't finish school in Canada until she's eighteen- she's decided that she wants to stay on at high school and work part time for Segolia, after the babies are born- but she has lot of friends in senior year. The night I proposed to Maddy, well it was after a house party, we'd left early deciding to go to a restaurant, and to be honest I was a little bit drunk- which was intentional because I knew I would panic over the words if I was sober. At first Maddy thought I was just fooling around and said we should head home so I could sleep, I had to ask her five times before she realised I was serious and then of course she said yes."
Jana laughed, "Of course you were drunk."
"You can shut up, Jana," Rhydian replied, "I remember my first night with wild pack when we had that home brewed beer and you ended up stumbling into my tent at three in the morning asking me how to find a toaster and what they were used for."
Jana blushed, "I didn't know I was that bad, I mean I can remember falling over some tent pegs but I thought that was it. I'm surprised my father didn't punish you for it."
"We suffered enough the next morning," Rhydian recalled, "And Mum punished me. I guess even some wild wolfbloods have rules about underage drinking."
"Dad never did," Jana replied, "He only ever told me I wasn't allowed to drink anything Meinir brewed because it would likely have all kinds of unmentionable things in it."
"Yeah, I won't be drinking pack brew anytime soon," Rhydian added, "You should probably start getting ready for the double date night, I know how long you girls can take."
Jana rolled her eyes, before heading towards the door, "Not as long as you do."
BREAK_BREAK_BREAK_BREAK
"So what you do is you bend your knees and then you bring your arm back and then you let go of the ball and make sure it doesn't go down the sides of lane," Xander explained, "If it does we can always put the barriers up."
"Yeah, but that's cheating," Jana protested, as she tried to aim accurately. The first few times hadn't gone too well, she'd stepped over the line the first time and then picked up a ball that was too heavy and ended up falling over. She let go of the ball and watched as is slowly drifted from side to side before knocking over six of the bottles- Jana couldn't remember their proper names.
Jana looked up at the scoreboard, Rhydian was in the lead followed by Xander and then Maddy and then her. Jana was going to change that, there was no way she was just going to let Rhydian win.
They took in turn watching and cheering each other on, in between their goes they ate hotdogs and burgers (although Xander warned them not to spoil their dinner they had reassured him that wasn't possible for wolfbloods).
Finally they reached the final set of goes and much to Jana's irritation Rhydian was eight points in the lead- at least he had finished playing now- but now she was in second place with Xander close in third and Maddy in fourth. Jana was impressed that Xander had managed to stay out of last place the whole time, wolfbloods definitely had a lot of the skills necessary to play bowling.
Jana crouched low, eyeing up the centre bottle the way she would a deer if she were trying to shoot an arrow, behind she heard Rhydian laughing at her intense concentration but she didn't let it distract her.
"Oh, hurry up," Rhydian nagged light-heartedly as Jana released the ball and it sped in a straight line towards the centre bottle making all of the bottles fall over.
Jana jumped up and down cheering before yelling, "Who's the alpha, huh, who's the alpha?"
"Jana!" Rhydian snapped, "Not quite so loud yeah? And you're not actually an alpha, even if you have sort of won, come on let Xander and Maddy have their turn."
"Does the winner win something?" Jana asked.
"Yes, a gagging order," Rhydian said, "Jana, you gave me a headache with all that cheering."
"Aw, you're just a sore loser," Jana replied, "Just the way you always were when we played alpha of the pack and I always won."
"You didn't always win," Rhydian replied, "Your father made it illegal for us to beat you in games."
"But I'd still have won," Jana argued.
Rhydian shook his head, cheering as Xander knocked over all of the bottles too, and securing third place-two points behind Rhydian. Maddy then took one of the balls and threw it, knocking over five of the bottles and came in fourth, and one point behind Xander.
"That was close," Maddy said, a little tired, "I'm starving, I bet you all are too."
Xander nodded and so did Jana.
"I don't know how you can still be hungry," Xander joked to Jana as they changed their shoes, "You ate like five hotdogs."
"Four," Jana corrected him, "And I'm always hungry. Do you remember that first meal at work and how surprised you were that I could eat so much?"
"I know, I thought you'd packed enough for a week," Xander replied, "What was it? Chicken drumsticks, roast ham, sausage rolls, pork pies- oh, and not forgetting the three bags of fizzy worms."
"Hey, no fair," Jana sulked, "Those bags of fizzy worms are kids size portions- three of them is an adult size portion."
"That's rich coming from someone who barely scrapped past five foot," Rhydian replied.
"Oh stop winging," Jana answered, "Just because you didn't win."
"We should come back some time when we're next over here," Maddy suggested, "We could play boys vs. girls. Although I'm sure Jana and I would win."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Rhydian replied.
"You really rate yourself don't you?" Maddy answered.
"You know I do," Rhydian replied, "And don't pretend you don't like it."
Maddy rolled her eyes, "Let's just get going, Adrian and Cassidy don't appreciate your jibes any more than I do."
"I'm not sure about that," Rhydian replied, helping Maddy with her coat, "Adrian's going to grow up to be just like me."
"Don't worry, I've already looked up the number for the SWAT team," Jana replied.
"Thanks, Jana," Maddy replied, "Well Cassidy is going to be like her mother. All sensible and well behaved."
"She's a Morris," Rhydian replied, "Sensible and well behaved are alien concepts to us."
"Well if they behave like you used to at school they'll be grounded forever," Maddy replied.
"I wonder what our kids would be like," Jana mused to herself quietly, before brushing away the idea.
"I can imagine them being little brown haired and ginger haired kids with sapphire eyes and green eyes," Xander replied, "And they'd be running around in this big old farmhouse in the country making mud pies and playing alpha of the pack. And we'd constantly have no food in the cupboards and have packets of fizzy worms everywhere and we'd spend every weekend baking or hiking through the woods. And we'd go on camping holidays ever year so they could learn more about their Mummy's life in the wild pack and how to find their way without a compass."
"That sounds brilliant," Maddy replied, "We should try to have a camping holiday every year, no matter what we're doing or where we are we should all try to meet up for a week each summer."
"Yeah it sounds like a plan," Rhydian agreed, "I'm sure Shannon and Tom will agree with us too."
"Yeah it sounds cool," Xander replied, "What do you think Jana?"
Jana smiled, "Yeah it sounds great."
Maddy and Rhydian began to head towards the bus stop, Xander and Jana following a few feet behind them.
"Xander?" Jana began suddenly.
"Yeah," Xander replied, putting an arm around Jana's shoulders.
"I know I should have mentioned this earlier," Jana began, "And I know I definitely want to marry you but I was wondering if maybe we could wait a while before getting married, it's just I don't think I'm ready yet."
"Of course," Xander replied, "I know everything's been fast with us since day one and it's been a little crazy. The reason why I asked now is because, Jana, I really do want to marry you a lot, and I know we're not living together yet and we're not as close as we used to be, but we're getting there, I know that much. We've been through possibly the hardest things that a couple can go through and we've weathered all of that. If those things weren't a test of the strength of our love then I don't know what is. What I'm trying to say is if we can get through everything we've been through already, then I trust it won't be long before we're back to the way we are before, and even if you never want, you know, again in your life then that's ok, I'll be fine with that because I love you and that's all that matters. And I don't want you think that because we're not doing all of that that there's anything wrong, because I'm happy just having you in my life and being able to love you and I think it would be ungrateful for me to ask for anything else."
Jana smiled, "I'm going to try to be the way I was before, but I'm glad you'll still love me either way."
"Of course I will," Xander replied, like it was the most insanely obvious thing in the world.
Jana stood on tiptoes to kiss Xander, and wrapped her arms around him, she could feel his fingers wrapped up in her curly hair and completely and utterly felt at ease around him. This was where she belonged and she would try as hard as she could to make everything perfect for the both of them.
