A.N: Happy Sunday. Thank you to my wonderful beta, and to the two lovely people who commented: sarah0406 and Leigh-Annette. I was thrilled to read your reviews :D

There is angst in this chapter...so...yeah. I hope I do it well. I'm never very conscious of when I actually write angst or hurt...

We're almost at the end of this 'arc' that I wrote. Four more chapters and then it'll be onto a different dynamic between the characters *mischievous grin*

EIGHT

a tearing,

It was another one of those rare sunny May days where Sam found himself at Naima's house, only now it was almost done. Between his help, Paul's, Jared's and the occasional visit from the twins (only so they could earn some money) their house was almost at the place that Naima wanted it to be.

Sam knocked on the door and waited for a few moments and, even though there was no answer he heard someone milling about inside. A moment later, he distinguished the person as Naima. She was humming.

He checked to see if the door had been left unlocked. It wasn't usually – something about habits from big cities dying hard – but when she knew he was coming over she'd leave the door on the latch.

He opened the door and stepped inside, following the voice to the kitchen where he saw her preparing a dish - something Indian if the base ingredients were something to go by. He was about to go up to her - maybe scare her a little bit because why not - when she started singing.

They say only fools fall in love,
well they must have been talking about us
Sometimes I feel like I've been here before
I could be wrong but I know I'm right
We're gonna be lost if we continue to fight
Honey I know, we can find our way home.

He didn't know the song but Naima was ok at singing. There were parts he assumed were a little bit off-key - but there was gravel to her voice that made something click for him.

It was a love song - obviously - but it didn't resonate with traditional love. Something was missing from it. Or…suddenly he could tell that there was something missing for her. And as he looked over his memories of the last few months, he saw it.

It showed in the way that her smile was still a little bit hollow - even though she was immensely proud of her accomplishment - any time she looked at a finished room. It was there in the way she talked about her father and he hadn't noticed it. Not till now. The tone of her voice had been just shy of flat. Like she was injecting something into it that shouldn't have been there. And it was in the way she didn't fully talk about why she'd moved from London.

In all the time he'd known her, Naima wasn't a particularly cheerful person. Her wit was dry, and her sense of humor came from sarcasm and the occasional thought of someone physically hurting themselves. It was slightly dark, but Sam appreciated it was her sense of humor all the same. And he had to agree that there was a certain charm to watching Jared get hit on the head with something Eve had chucked at him because he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings.

But she laughed. She joked around, she insulted those she felt close to and in all of that, she did it with more openness - truthfulness - than quite a few people he knew other than his Pack.

Except in those moments when she looked on with a pinched face and a slightly glazed over look. Sam didn't like seeing that look on her face. It didn't suit her and it made him itch. Unbidden, he realized that he hardly ever saw it because she was fighting something.

"Naima?" he called out, loudly enough that she could hear him over her earphones. She turned, startled.

"Sam! What's the time?"

"Past three."

"Ah man! I lost track of time. Sorry."

He smiled and shook his head, letting her know it was fine. But all the while, it was niggling in his mind and he wanted to know what she wasn't telling him.

"Can I take you somewhere?" he asked.

She looked taken aback. And she bit her lip. She did that a lot around him he'd noticed recently.

"I have to finish this…"

"Please?" he asked gently. "I'll get you back before your dad is home." Her lip twitched and he tried very hard not to narrow his eyes. "Please."

Slowly she nodded. "Alright - but let me text Eve so she knows where I am."

She followed him to his truck and hopped in, texting Eve and then buckling herself in. She smiled at him and tilted her head.

"Where are we going then?"

"Somewhere that's special to me."

"Why?"

He smiled - such a typical response. Sometimes she reminded him of a child with her blunt curiosity but he appreciated it anyway. There had been a few times over the last few months where her bluntness had forced him out of a stupor or an annoyance.

"I guess I wanted to congratulate you for getting your house up and running in such a short amount of time."

"It's not done yet," she said with a huff. "And besides, that doesn't answer my question."

"Well, since you moved onto the Rez, you haven't been to the beach yet. And what better way to see it than with a local?"

Her smile was wide and excited. Her eyes lit up and from then on, he was met with an almost non-stop chatter.

Sam hadn't meant to take her to the cave; his intention had really been to just get her out of the house so that they were on neutral ground. He had a feeling that this was going to be a difficult conversation.

But the cave was important to him. It had been the one place he'd found solace after his father had left, after he had phased for the first time. The cave was deep enough that when you went inside all you could hear was the sound of the waves rolling around the rocks. It was soothing, comforting.

He hoped some of that could brush off on Naima.

"This is a pretty awesome place. How'd you find it?"

"I was lucky I guess. I found it one day when I was an angry kid and when I came in here, there was this perfectly soft patch of sand that hadn't been touched by the tide. I came in here, sat down and cried for hours."

"What happened?"

He looked down at her. It was a much smaller space now that he was large and there were two of them, but somehow there was still enough space for the two of them to move comfortably around each other. He was grateful for that seeing as she hardly touched him more than a high five or a handshake now and then.

He'd thought something had happened to her, but he noticed that Eve did it as well; he'd asked her about it one day and she'd shrugged. "Most Muslims don't. When my dad used to come to Parent-Teacher meetings he would never shake a female teacher's hand. It's sort of respectful - you don't touch anyone who's family you aren't."

It hadn't explained everything to him, but at least it wasn't what he'd thought it was.

Naima was far less practising, in her own words, but even still he'd noticed that she didn't do more than a quick hug - but only when she was incredibly happy or comfortable. She'd hugged him twice.

Naima looked up to him, catching him in his thoughts. He smiled and laid his back against one of the smoother sides of the cave wall.

"It probably hasn't escaped your eagle eyes that my dad isn't seen around the Rez."

"I wondered - but I figured it wasn't my business. Especially when you've been so helpful."

"Yeah well, he used to be. Before I turned twelve, my dad was always there. He wasn't the best dad but you could see that he tried hard with me and my mom. It didn't matter so much because my grandpa was always there. He sort of picked up the pieces my dad didn't, so between him and my mom I was never left wanting for affection, love - or the occasional disciplining."

Naima grinned and he joined her, remembering all the times he and Paul would get into trouble and the stern talkings to, the cleaning of fishing equipment and the manual labour his grandpa would serve them.

"One day, my dad just disappeared. No note, no money taken - just his clothes. They'd been fighting. I knew that, but mom and dad were careful to make sure I didn't overhear the bad ones. But still, I would listen in at the stairs or the door because I hated not knowing."

Naima nodded. He felt her do it more than saw her but it let him continue. It was harder than it should have been, baring himself like that, especially because it was so difficult not to bare himself to his pack.

"The last thing they fought about was how my dad had found out she was cheating." That had thrown him. For years he'd built up his mother into an untouchable figure; she had been so thoroughly a housewife though and though and it had been easy to see that she loved it. But hearing that hadn't meshed with the image in his head. He wasn't able to come to terms with it for a while after that either.

It wasn't until one drunken night, before she had died, that she had told him everything. The whos, the what's and more importantly, the why's.

"My dad had been cheating for months - maybe even a couple of years. It was like they just couldn't find whatever they needed with each other and the both of them knew it. But I never thought dad would just leave.

"When my dad left, a switch flipped in my grandad. He became closed off - more punishing when I was around. I figured he was just angry, just sad about my dad leaving. Hell, I was too! But he...it was like he became meaner."

Sam let out a sigh and halfway through his breath caught. It made it sound like a sob, just out of synch as it bounced around the cave walls.

"You don't have to tell me," Naima said softly.

But he did, he realised. Now he couldn't stop. "One day he stormed into the house. I was sick - supposed to be at school. He was yelling about something, I couldn't hear it properly. So I got out of bed and opened my door just enough to hear what they were saying. He yelled at my mom - he said he wouldn't support a two-bit whore anymore and then told her she was the reason my dad had left. I'd never seen my mom so upset before. Never."

Another breath bounced against the walls of the cave and Sam felt his fingers clench in the sand. There were tiny bits of stone in the grains and he could feel them pressing against his knuckles.

The air felt heavy and as the waves rolled over the walls again and again; Sam felt a little bit like he was suffocating. He'd thought he'd come to terms with it. He'd thought enough years had passed that it didn't hurt as much anymore. But there he was, sitting in almost exactly the same place as he had at eighteen and he couldn't stop the roll of sadness and anger from brushing up against his stomach.

He heard Naima shift. For a moment he wondered if he should be telling her all of this; it wasn't a comfortable conversation to have with someone, and he and Naima weren't all that close as friends. Not yet. Was he sharing too much? Did she want to hear it?

Then he felt her hand next to his.

It was just the side of her pinky finger resting up against his fist, but the contact was deliberate and Sam couldn't help but take that to mean that she was telling him it was alright.

"She started to wither. That's the best word I can use. She waited until I was sixteen and then she started killing herself slowly. She didn't eat, she didn't sleep. I think it was depression but she wouldn't let me take her to the doctors to diagnose it. She just wasted away. By graduation, she was dead."

He finished speaking and she was quiet. They both were.

But her hand never left the side of his.

Sam wondered what she was thinking, what was going through her head. And it was easier to imagine what was going on in her mind than consider what was still roiling around in his.

When she finally spoke it was blunt. "Your grandad is a prick."

Sam laughed because it was such a Naima thing to say. And the tension and anger all but evaporated.

"He is," Sam said.

"And I'm sorry for your loss," Naima replied.

"Thanks."

She was quiet for a moment longer and Sam wondered if he should just ask her - get it over and done with. But something held him back - Instinct told him that she was stronger than that, that she wanted to talk - to tell him something dark, something deep.

"I think I hate my dad."

A.N: Obviously, the song is not from 2005 but I was listening as I wrote it and I couldn't help but feel the feels for this chapter. So I added it in. It won't be a common occurrence on this fic, don't worry.

I'm actually going to upload the next chapter on Thursday because it's a wee tiddly thing - even compared to my smaller chapters - and then it'll be back to the usual update schedule.