Chapter 53 - I'll be home for Christmas

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 [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.


Josh and Izzy were walking back to their cabin after eating in the communal hall. "Compare dicks?" She was a little annoyed with him. "What on earth, Josh?"

"He's so… frustrating." He gave her a scathing look. "Well what did you do? And don't tell me you did nothing. I know you would have spoken to him. He was making you crazy, as well."

I…" she stopped.

"What?" He sidled in close to her. "What did you say?"

"I told him I scratched your back during sex."

He grinned. "Uh-huh. And?"

"How do you know there is an and?"

"Answer the question."

"I made him sniff your blood under my nails."

He guffawed. "Oh, the poor bastard. I feel sorry for him, honestly I do."

"What else did you tell him?"

"I told him that you felt pity and guilt over him. No love."

Her face twisted but she sighed in a heartfelt way. "Yeah…"

"Izzy, this isn't your fault."

"I know."

"What else did you say about my dick?"

She huffed at him. "I told him he'd missed something if he didn't check it out."

"God, I love you."

"You owe me big."

"What would you like?"

"For you to talk to Sam."

"Oh, come on… no fair."

She gave him what she hoped was a stern look.

He sighed. "It's arranged for tomorrow at sunset. Good enough?"

"That's good."

"I can't make it up to him, but I can apologize. In fact, that's pretty much all I can do."

"It's a start."


Not unexpectedly, Sam, Embry and Josh met back where Josh had performed the spirit stick ceremony. He drew a large circle around them and isolated them from the rest of the pack with a few muttered words and a thought that closed the line; they felt the tingle in the air. This was not something that any of them wanted to share with the pack. The sun was setting and it struck him that this was almost he opposite time to the spirit stick ceremony. The end of the day, not the start.

"Embry goes first," he said. "Is that okay with you, Sam?"

He nodded.

"I won't share any of my memories, this isn't about me." Josh knew Sam was still unsure of this and he hoped if he could share Embry's memories first, that might give Sam the impetus to do the same. "We need to phase. We can talk wolf mind and the circle keeps the pack out."

They both nodded and prepared to phase.

Embry.

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start at the beginning.

The story passed in scattered visions and feelings; sometimes with an emotional undertone. Not having a father didn't seem to be an issue for little Embry until he got to school, and then he noticed that other people had one and he didn't.

He had been friendly with Jake and Quil from the time they were all very young. They were friends because their fathers were, and Embry just kind of tagged along. As they got older, and people teased Embry about his missing dad, Quil would leap to his defense, with fists if necessary. His father had drowned in a fishing accident, and if you picked on Embry for having no dad, then you picked on Quil, too. That was what he reckoned.

Then Jake's mother had died, and the three boys were united by more than friendship. They were all missing a parent. Embry had issues with any holiday that celebrated fathers or families, but so did they, so it didn't seem like a big issue. He tried to ask his mother more than once, and got nothing. He was so glad that he had his two best friends.

Then he had become a wolf. He had hated Sam's gang. Joked to Jake that they were hall monitors on steroids. He was terrified. The process freaked him out and more so the secrecy. His life long friends couldn't know about this and it was killing him to hide it from them.

Nor could he tell his mother. She shouted at him all the time. Everything he did was wrong and when he started sneaking off at night and refused to say where he was or what he was doing, the shouting got worse. Tiffany made his life Hell. She thought he was in a gang; ironic, as he had hated Sam's gang.

The pack begged Sam to allow Embry to tell his mother about the wolf pack. None of them could stand being in his head. But Embry wouldn't let them. He said the secret was important. If he couldn't tell Jake and Quil, he didn't want to tell his mother.

Jake was obsessed with Bella and spent less time with Quil anyway.

But then Jake phased. Things were a little better but Quil was just lost without them. Embry's heart broke the day Quil tried to chase them into the forest, and Sam ordered them to all hide from him. Jake railed at him. He wanted to see Bella; he wanted to tell Bella. Sam said No. He was too young; too volatile.

Embry yelled at him. Look at Quil - he's huge. He's an Ateara, of course he'll phase. Sam said NO.

Then, finally, Quil had joined the pack and time passed. They fought newborns and saved Bella so that she could marry a vampire and Jake's heart broke. He ran away.

He skipped over his relationship with Leah; probably for Sam's sake. But they saw his worries about imprinting. Wondering if he was defective somehow. Was that why he didn't get an imprint?

Who was his father? Embry compared himself to everyone; did he have that guy's eyes or that one's ears? It could have been any male of the tribe, but once he phased, he knew it had to be a wolf descendant. The money was on Billy Black, Quil Ateara IV or Joshua Uley. Jared's father Steve Cameron straight up told him it wasn't him. He wondered if Jared had talked to him about Embry's concerns. He thanked him, anyway.

Niki Lahote had moved to La Push from Tacoma when Paul was about eight years old. Embry asked Tiffany if she had ever been to Tacoma just randomly one day and she said she hadn't. So that kind of ruled him out. Harry Clearwater just seemed too much in love with his wife to have ever cheated on her, so he thought he was out, too.

His mother just refused to discuss it. She didn't even make up some fanciful lie. He knew she was Makah and she had moved to the Quileute reservation pregnant with him. They never visited family so he had to assume that her relationship with them had broken down. Probably over her pregnancy with him.

Was that why she hated him? He'd cost her her family? At least, that's how it felt to him.

But it was all guesswork. He didn't know and she wouldn't say.

It was a toxic relationship and if it wasn't for Jake and Quil and their families that embraced and adopted him, he would never have known what real love looked like. But it made him tend to be very docile. He didn't pick fights, he accepted what he was given.

Then Bella had come back and brought this older guy with her. He played the memory of her being concerned that the unconscious Josh was his father. He sat and stared at him and found things the same in their faces.

He observed Josh and then the meeting where Josh had just told him to sit with the Uleys. Embry thought his heart would burst or he would cry or maybe both at the same time. He sat there and held Bella's hand and looked at Leah.

Leah. He loved Leah.

He let loose a little here as if he had gone too far and couldn't dial it back. He blamed himself for the missing imprint. He should have been more forward. He should have pushed her harder. Made her marry him or date him publicly. He should have been the more dominant wolf that she clearly needed. What self respect did it show to be happy to be her fuck buddy? He wanted more, why didn't he take it?

Because he was sweet and nice and not aggressive at all. He wasn't an alpha and never would be. He answered his own question.

The memories dwindled to a trickle and stopped.

They all took a deep breath.

Embry: Sorry.

Josh: don't ever apologize for being who you are, Embry.

Sam: I was a dick over Quil. It was obvious he was going to phase. I wouldn't make the same decision, now. I was just so new to it all myself.

Embry: I know, thanks Sam.

.

.

.

Josh: Okay. Are we ready? Do you want to take a break?

Sam: No, let's just get this done.

Sam was thinking of Emily and his kids and then he seemed to make an effort to rewind; pushed it back to his own childhood.

He went almost too far. His first memory was of playing a with a dog on the ground in the yard; it was a puppy with enormous paws that it still had to grow into and every time it licked his face he would laugh. The yard was dry and dusty and he got picked up by people with older faces. Allison's parents and glimpses of Josh's.

In Sam's memories his father was bigger and taller than he was in reality. Was it that he was smaller and all adults looked like giants to him? There were flashes of moments; him being hugged or cuddled, by either or both parents. He was happy.

Then Josh fighting with Allison. Shouting at each other in the kitchen as Sam sat in his high chair. Josh storming out; doors slamming. Lying in his crib, looking through the bars and listening to more shouting; the sound floating down the hallway and making him cry. His mother crying.

Sullen anger replaced the shouting. A small boy looking for attention. A broken toy that he wanted fixed, snatched out of his hand and thrown in the trash. He dug it out later and got someone else to fix it for him.

Josh appeared less and less in these memories, until he just faded out. There wasn't a solid memory of his departure.

Then the pin pricks started. Like Embry. The hurdles. Father's day breakfast at the school. Bring your dad.

The gifts the class worked on; lop sided baskets made out of Popsicle sticks, wobbly brightly painted pots or badly sewn felt pictures. Sam gave them to his mother. 'The world's Best dad' banner hung on the fridge with a shot of Allison on it where the pic of his father should have been.

A few guys flashed past, but Sam didn't like them and they moved on. He did wait at the mailbox, just as Josh had imagined. Waiting for birthday and Christmas presents that often never came and when they did, they were wrong. Gifts too young for the age he was when they were sent. Sam tried to like them. Hung the Thomas the Tank Engine clock on the wall. But they were all wrong.

And then they stopped altogether.

He was a quiet kid at school. He worked hard, did part time jobs and gave his salary to Allison. Leah flashed past, looking younger and utterly beautiful in his memories. She was so happy that Josh almost didn't recognize her. They talked about getting married.

Then he started to change; night sweats, weird dreams and increased appetite.

He phased and had two weeks of abject terror. Hiding in the forest, unsure of what had happened, until he turned human in his sleep.

He fought with Leah. She was so angry with him. He broke up with her; she shouldn't have to date an animal and he couldn't tell her where he had been for those two weeks. He struggled along on his own and then Jared joined him. Then Paul phased and by that time he started to put it together. He was their leader at nineteen and he barely knew what he was doing. He worried about them all.

Leah's cousin came over to commiserate with her. It was Emily and he imprinted. The vague hold he had on what was happening shifted again. Emily rejected him.

She went back to the Makah Rez. Sam followed her. She told him to leave her alone, but he couldn't; the imprint was so strong. He visited her every day. Every day she refused him. Weeks later, she was back for a family function in La Push, he tried again and she told him he was a liar and he had treated Leah badly.

She screamed at him 'You're just like your father. You're a liar and a cheat just like Joshua Uley!'

Sam was so angry. He was nothing like his father. He had tried so hard his entire life to be nothing like his father.

The anger took over; he phased and then there was only screaming and blood everywhere.

Emily bleeding out on the floor with half her face missing. Jared shouting in his head; trying to calm him down and work out what had happened. Jared leaving him alone as he phased back to call Sue Clearwater and then the wolf was running.

Days hiding and trying to kill himself. Paul finally phasing in and telling him that Emily wanted to see him, before Sam could order him to phase out again. He had to go; his imprint wanted to see him.

She forgave him and he cried. Her face a ruin. His claw marks cutting down her face; dragging down her eye and her mouth on that side of her face. Her eyesight thankfully not damaged. Scarred for life. People recoiling in the street at her ravaged face. A scar so bad, the only way to explain it was a bear attack.

Embry shouting: NO Sam! STOP IT! STOP IT!

Josh, still in wolf form, backing away from his sons. The black wolf shaking its head as if it could throw the images off. As he pushed over the line of the circle, it broke and a spike of raw anger and emotion roared out into the pack mind.

Sam phased human; it was the only way he could shut it down.

He was on his knees, head hung forward. "I hated myself that day - but not as much as I hated you."

"Jeez, Sam, that's not fair!" Embry shouted at him. "It wasn't his fault!"

Josh's wolf let out a mournful howl and ran.

Jake and Leah arrived within minutes.

"What the fuck is going on?" Jake asked.

Embry and Sam were still arguing.

"You cannot blame Josh for what happened to Emily," Embry said.

"Shut up, Embry. This was your idea," Sam retorted.

"What? So now you are going to blame me?"

"What is going on?" Jake demanded, now with an alpha tone that they could not ignore.

Embry tried to explain. "Josh wanted to see our lives, you know when we were kids and Sam just flooded him with shit."

"It wasn't shit - it was my life! Without my father!"

"And then he hit him with him phasing too close and hurting Emily. Why, I have no idea."

"Oh, fuck!" said Jake.

"You saw the memory, Embry. She told me to go back to Leah."

Leah sucked in a breath.

Sam was crying as he tried to talk, "I said that I wouldn't. That I loved her. That she was my imprint." He gasped in a breath. "She said I was a liar… just like Joshua Uley. You're just like your father, Sam. A-And I phased. She said I was just like him." His voice got smaller as he kept repeating Emily's words.

Leah and Jake exchanged a look. "I didn't think he knew about that one."

"How did she even know about Josh's history?" Jake asked.

"Leah told her," Sam murmured.

"You gonna blame me now, Sam?"

"Where is he going to go?" Embry asked.

Jake was already dialing. "Bells. He'll go to Bells."

"Sam you have got to forgive yourself," Leah said.

"I thought I had. This brought it all back."

"Emily doesn't blame you."

"But I do. I kiss the scars first - every time I see her. I'm still trying to apologize."

"Oh, Sam." Leah hugged him. "She loves you. She's about to have your third kid."

He started to sob.

Leah rocked him.

"Fuck. There's no answer." Jake looked panicked.

"Do you reckon he's with her already?" Embry asked. "He's fast and he knows exactly where she is."

Jake's phone rang. "Dad?"

"Why did Josh just kidnap Bella? Do you know? He's locked us out of his head."

"She's all right? He didn't hurt her?"

"No. She seemed to just go with him. Knew it was him. Climbed on his back and went. What happened?"

"He's upset."

Billy could probably hear Sam crying in the background. "He's not the only one?"

"That's Sam. Things got a bit emotional."

"Ah. Right. Everyone is tired and emotional." A pause. "Is Leah okay?"

"Leah's fine."

"I'm good," she said knowing her mate would need to hear her.

"Okay." He hung up.

"Should we look for them?" Jake asked Leah

She shook her head. "If he's got Bella, he'll be fine. She'll talk him down."

"He won't hurt her," Embry said.

"If he does, that'll be my fault, too," Sam muttered.

"Shut up, Sam," Leah said. "She'll handle it."