A bit shorter of a chapter than what you might be used to for this story, but some good nuggets in here.

Embry

Watching Bethany and Sadie reunite after Bethany returned from Portland is enough to make a grown man cry. I would know; I sniffled a little. It's okay, because I don't think either of them heard me from how much of their own sniffling they were doing.

"What do you say," Bethany says after five straight minutes of hugging and kissing and tickling and squealing, "that we go visit Tiffany for a while?"

Sadie nods excitedly. "Okay! Can I bring my dolls? She said she wanted to meet them."

"Of course, munchkin," Bethany says, smoothing Sadie's hair. I tried my best to keep it brushed this weekend, but after a morning at the park, it looks a little worse for wear. I think Bethany might care more if that wasn't how she felt.

I hold her hand on the drive to Mom's, and it doesn't occur to me until we pull up that Bethany's never been here before. Whenever we've seen my mom, it's always been at a restaurant.

My childhood home is like many others on the reservation in the way that it's tiny and modest. I learned to ride a bike with Jacob and Quil in this gravel driveway (Mom couldn't afford to get me one of my own, so they took turns sharing with me). I learned the truth here when I phased for the first time, in the backyard.

When I'd landed on four paws – okay, more like tumbled for a few minutes before finding my legs – Sam and Jared had been phased, and Sam's thoughts went crazy.

Embry? But how—not possible—which one—I didn't see this coming.

I'd just started running. Running to get away from the voices in my head, running because I couldn't find my body and I desperately wanted to. I had fur, for fuck's sake. As I ran, Paul had phased in, and Sam explained his confusion to Jared and Embry. But he gave details it felt like they already knew, so I wonder if maybe he wasn't repeating some things for my benefit.

There are three bloodlines that have the wolf gene, Sam had thought. Ateara. Uley. Black. Wolves only come from these three bloodlines.

It didn't take rocket science for me to figure out what he was telling me, that my entire sixteen years of life had been shrouded in lies and deception. That I knew myself even less than I originally thought.

When I recognized I was nearing the borders of the Makah reservation, I was astounded. I'd been running for less than two minutes. I kept going. Right up to the edge of the world. Cape Flattery.

Sam and the others caught up to me quickly, began to try and talk me down. Explained in further detail. Sam's eyes held information I wasn't privy to yet. I needed it.

You don't, Sam had countered. It doesn't matter which family you come from, because you're a part of this family now. That's what matters. We're here for you. We will help you.

As Bethany, Sadie and I walk to the front door, I notice the improvements my mother's made in the years since I was little. Since gaining more responsibility at her store, eventually saving enough to buy a part of it, she's made changes.

There's an attached garage she added a few years ago, a luxury in La Push. The siding is pristine, the roof is new. The landscaping is perfect. It makes sense that this is important to my mother. Her house growing up may have been this size, but it was nowhere near as nice. Mom always told me her three biggest concerns were me, me, and me. Roof, check. Food, check. Clothes, check.

When I moved out, I assume she considered her work was done (or, knowing how she thinks, that she couldn't do any more to screw me up), and started redirecting her cash flow to this house. I don't know how much money she makes at the store, but it makes me feel secure knowing that my mother won't hurt for cash anymore.

I keep watch of Bethany in my periphery as we walk to the turquoise front door, the roses in her trembling hands. She'd held onto them for dear life with her free hand on the drive over.

Part of me is glad she chose not to burn them. It feels like progress. If I had known that they would trigger her the way they had, I never would have picked them up. I'd wanted to get that key holder hung up that Bethany had been wanting, clean the apartment, maybe have food ready for her. Whatever I could do to show her that she was not only missed but deeply appreciated. The key holder and the roses were as far as I got before shit hit the fan.

I was at Jacob's shop yesterday. He was helping me prepare to take over during his paternity leave, which I guess is officially active now. Because in the middle of our training, with Sadie tucked safely away in the reading nook watching videos on a tablet, Jacob got a call that Nessie was in labor.

I'd watched him phase on the fly to get out the door (after a friendly slap in the face to bring him back down to earth), and had turned to Sadie in a panic, worried she'd seen something. She was enthralled with her video and hadn't noticed a thing. At least that one crisis could be averted.

Marie Claire Black was born suddenly in the middle of Nessie's cabin, as she was visiting with Claire Young (hence the middle name). The entire thing was done in less than ten minutes – water breaking to baby crying.

I took Sadie to the hospital this morning before we went to the park, taught her how to hold a baby that isn't made of plastic. Nessie and Jacob were beaming; Sadie was terrified. My heart was doing somersaults.

And then when Jacob asked me to stay on full time at the shop, basically become his business partner, it damn near burst.

I've been hoping he'd ask me for a while now, but it wasn't ever anything I felt confident enough to seek out for myself. I was content to be his right-hand man, watch it for a week here and there when they went to Chicago to check on the baby, or Mexico for their honeymoon.

It means a lot to me that he thinks so highly of me. It's stability I haven't really ever had in a job before, with flexibility that will come in handy if it's ever needed. Like if, for example, Bethany was to have a baby. If we were to need a honeymoon.

That's a long way off, I realize (again), as I watch Bethany's fingers get tighter around the vase as we hear footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.

Mom doesn't even attempt to hide her excitement at the flowers, and it makes Bethany's racing heart mellow.

"Hi Tiffany!" Sadie says excitedly, holding up her backpack. "I brought my dolls!"

"Fantastic," Mom says, holding the door open. "Why don't you come in and tell me all their names?"

I help Bethany out of her coat and scoop Sadie's discarded one; she's already running ahead toward the living room like she owns the place.

"Show Bethany around," Mom says. "I'm going to put these on the kitchen table."

Bethany's quiet as I lace my fingers through hers. Aside from the bombshell she dropped about the flowers and her father, small comments about her trip here and there on the drive over, she's been quiet.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer, leading her down the small hallway. "Bathroom. Closet. Laundry. Mom's room on the end." I point at each room, and she pokes her head in respectfully.

She doesn't answer, just studies the pictures on the walls, and I wish more than anything I could read her mind. There are embarrassing pictures of me in every frame. My diploma hangs on the wall.

"You were a cute baby," she says, reaching up with her free hand to run a finger over my face pressed behind the glass. "Your cheeks still fill out the same way when you smile."

I tune out Mom and Sadie's conversation, clear as day from the living room. When Sadie squeals loud enough that we can hear it in the hall, Bethany smiles, her heart fluttering.

"Where's your room?" she asks quietly as her grip tightens on my hand.

It's a small house, smaller than the rental I share with Quil but still bigger than Bethany's apartment. It takes two steps to get to my bedroom.

For all the changes Mom's made to this house over the years, I think my room is still exactly the way it was when I moved out. It's pretty similar to the room I have at my house now, if not a little more cluttered.

"You're the first girl I've had in here that's not my mom," I admit, flipping on the light.

Bethany gives me a small smile. "I'm flattered."

I study her as she studies these pieces of me. There's a basketball trophy from the second grade perched high on the bookshelf. A few books dot the other shelves, although I've never been much of a reader.

There's a framed picture of Quil, Jacob, and me on my nightstand, next to the lone lamp. It had been a gift from Sarah Black, given to me the Christmas before she died. We're sitting on a fishing pier at the Marina, waiting for Quil's dad's boat to come in. Maybe I'll bring it back with me.

"Same smile," she comments, giving me another grin before her face falls grim. "I was serious, earlier, Em. About the therapy."

"Okay," I say, closing the door softly behind me. I reach for her other hand. "Of course. Kim knows someone at the hospital. I think I remember Nessie talking to someone a while back."

She nods, steps closer. "I don't know if it will make a difference, but I want to try. For us. For this," she says, squeezing my hands. "You deserve my best effort. Actually, you deserve someone who has their shit together."

I drop her hands, but her face hardly has time to fall before I've captured it between my palms gently, raising her face to mine. "Bethany, I'm the one who doesn't deserve you." My forehead rests on hers, and it's a struggle to dislodge the lump in my throat so I can speak again. "Not ever in a million years will I deserve your love."

Her heart thuds in her chest as her eyes close. "Embry, will you kiss me, please?" Her voice is barely a whisper, the words breezing across my lips.

Yes, ma'am.

The kiss is gentle and sweet. It feels an awful lot like two people trying to show the other person how much they care, but with their mouths.

Maybe that's why it disintegrates so quickly, from soft and slow to hard and hungry. Because we have a lot to say.

Bethany pulses her tongue through my lips as she reaches up to grip my hair with a clenched fist. In turn I press my hips to hers, walking her backward until her ass bumps the nightstand. I swallow her responding moan. I think the picture frame falls over.

Her fingers clutch at my shirt, then lower, to the fastening of my pants.

I know we shouldn't – I know it with every fiber of my being – but for some reason, instead of pulling back, my lips move to her neck, and I let her unbutton my pants as I work on pulling her leggings down.

"Hurry up," she giggles loudly.

I shush her with my mouth, but I'm smiling against her lips. "We have to be quick. If you don't get there, I'll—"

"Less talking, more fucking." Her eyes are dark and hooded. Her voice is raspy.

We emerge five minutes later after a detour at the bathroom to clean up – because apparently, all I need is five minutes (humble brag) – to find Sadie and Mom still on the rug in the living room, surrounded by what looks to be every single one of Sadie's dolls.

I pull Bethany down next to me on the couch, and she settles comfortably under my arm.

Mom's eyes scan Bethany and her reddened cheeks and gives me a knowing look. It takes everything in me not to duck my head. "What have you all been up to this weekend?" Mom asks. She keeps her tone relatively flat, but I know her well enough to know that she's suspicious as hell. Not necessarily disapproving. But still, suspicious.

"I went to Portland with some girlfriends," Bethany says, tucking her foot up underneath her. "Kim and Rachel?"

Mom nods and smiles, working to dress the doll Sadie has charged her with. "Nice girls. How are those babies of hers?"

"Nessie had a baby," Sadie remembers excitedly. "Her name is Marie. I got to hold her. Embry, show them the picture!"

With a chuckle, I pull out my phone and display the picture of the three of us – me holding Sadie and Sadie holding Marie. I think this might be my new wallpaper.

Mom coos and awws appropriately. Bethany's eyes go sparkly, but otherwise she's speechless. Her hand comes to rest on my knee.

"How is she doing?" Mom asks. "Nessie."

"Oh, it was crazy, Mom," I say, slipping my phone back in my pocket. "She had, like, the world's fastest labor, the way Jacob told it. She had Marie in their cabin. On the bed."

"Oh, goodness," Mom says, her eyes wide. "I bet it's a mess in there."

"We should go clean it," Bethany says. "There's no way they remembered to ask someone to do it. And if they're coming home tomorrow, I'm not sure there's time to hire anybody or anything."

Mom nods. "I had to clean up my own broken water," she says.

Bethany gasps. "Really? Where were you when it happened?"

"Working. At the store."

I don't actually know if I've heard this story. Mom usually doesn't offer details so willingly. Which is why I'm doubly surprised when she continues unprompted.

"I thought I'd been having contractions on and off all day," Mom says. "But I didn't get any more time off until I went into labor. My mom told me that spicy foods can induce labor, so on my lunch break I went and got a bottle of hot sauce and forced it down."

"You did?" I ask, my voice dripping with skepticism and a bit of sarcasm. Mom hates spicy food.

Mom nods, handing Sadie the doll she asked for, now fully clothed. "It could be coincidence. But I swear by it."

Bethany's laughing. "That's a little different than my story." When Mom and I both look expectedly at her, she takes a deep breath. "Okay, so I was in class. Biology, of all the choices. And unlike you, Tiffany, I had no idea I was in labor until my water broke.

"I asked the professor to leave, trying to be discreet because unmarried pregnant girls get enough attention by themselves, but he shouted it at the top of his lungs. I think he would have made it a lesson if I hadn't started playing up how much it hurt. He drove me to the hospital himself.

"By the time I finally got there and checked in and everything, I was already six centimeters dilated. My mom hardly made it there."

For some reason, that detail over all the others is the one that makes my heart twist. She was almost alone for the scariest, hardest day of her life. Almost no one there to hold her hand, whisper words of encouragement in her ear.

Next time will be different.

Mom only nods, an understanding one, and I realize that was almost her exact story. She had almost no one. Her mother wasn't super keen on the idea of her having a baby out of wedlock, but it was still her daughter, and no one should be alone to do that.

Is it coincidence that Bethany and my mother share so many similarities? Or is it some supernatural cosmic karma thing, where I've been given the chance to undo generations of fuck ups and bad parenting decisions?

I must have kept Sadie more entertained than I thought this weekend, because she falls asleep on the ride home, although it's not late enough for dinner.

When we get to the apartment, I deposit Sadie on the couch to finish her nap.

"Do you want to stay with her while I go to the cabin?" Bethany asks softly, hanging her keys on the newly installed hooks by the door. She runs her fingers over the installation briefly, a small smile on her lips.

I shake my head, pulling Bethany into my chest. She inhales slowly, breathing me in. I do the same into her hair. I was miserable this weekend without her, muscles tense, mind hazy. And although I don't want to be apart from her again today, I know what she needs. "You should stay here, spend some time with your girl."

I plant a series of kisses. Bethany's hair, forehead, each cheek, nose. Her lips. She smiles against me, and neither of us pull back for several minutes.

Bethany finishes our series of kisses with a final chaste one, giving my waist a squeeze. "I missed you, you know."

I nod, pulling my keys from my pocket. "I missed you, too. Maybe next weekend Sadie can stay with your mom?" I don't do well in hiding the hope in my voice.

Her neck flushes, and as she turns away her lips are twisting into a cheeky grin. "Maybe. Now," she says, throwing open the cabinet under the sink. "For the cabin."

Half an hour later, I'm pulling up to Jacob and Nessie's cabin, parking next to an older red truck that I recognize immediately.

When I let myself in, Sam Uley is standing in the kitchen, a damp rag in hand. "Hello," he says with a grin. "Fancy meeting you here."

I chuckle, shutting the door behind me and dropping the bag of supplies and a six pack of beer on the kitchen table. "Sam Uley, joking? Fatherhood made you soft."

He shakes his head, but he's grinning. "And what are you doing here?"

"Same as you, probably," I say, gesturing to the rag. "Cleaning?"

"Cleaning," he nods. "They, uh… Jacob did it for us when we had the scare. It was Emily's idea."

That Christmas memory is one I think everyone wants to forget, but Sam can't. Emily is fine now, Levi happy and healthy. I bet it still hurts to think about, and I can't imagine having to come home and deal with the aftermath. I'd want to repay Jacob, too.

"Bethany's, too" I say, and we share an awkward chuckle. "Much more to do?"

He shrugs. "I could use some help, yeah. It's a big job."

He eyes the pack of beer, and I raise my eyebrows in question. Sam's not much of a drinker, but he lets loose sometimes, more now that he's not Alpha. He nods, laughs. Our friendship is majority nonverbal.

I grab my supplies and two beers and follow him to the bedroom. Bethany was right. It's a mess in here. I can see where Sam started, but that he got a little overwhelmed. It's understandable. There's a lot of… fluids, I guess, in a rainbow of colors.

I have to start breathing through my mouth, because my wolf senses pick up every single particle of odor. Sam's got it easy.

"Is it always so…" I trail off. I think I'm grimacing.

"Yeah," Sam says, filling in my blank with his own guess. I'm sure he's right, whatever word he's chosen. "Perks of a hospital birth. They do this part."

He gathers the dirty sheets and towels, probably intending to start a load of laundry. I sop up the water he used to rehydrate the stains, and we work in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"How's Little Man?" I ask, pulling the heavy-duty stain remover from the bag. "Bethany says this is the best. She uses it to get stains out of her scrubs."

He nods appreciatively. "He's great. Did you hear?" A smile lights his stoic face. "Emily's pregnant again."

I stop spraying the stains, straightening over the mattress. "No shit? That's awesome, man."

Now Sam's relaxed posture, the little grin he can't wipe off even as he scrubs at the whatever that red-brown stuff is, makes sense. I clap him on the back. "I'm really happy for you."

"Thank you, Embry," he says honestly. "It means a lot."

We go back to our respective tasks. "Does it get easier?" I ask.

Sam laughs, loud and hearty. "You mean, does being a dad ever stop being terrifying? No. Never."

I roll my eyes, exhale a laugh through my nostrils. "Great."

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see his mouth twist like he's thinking of what to say. "Sometimes I feel like a fraud," he says slowly. "I honestly have no idea what I'm doing half the time. It's not like I had…"

And now I'm the one to finish his thought. An example. "I know," I say. "Did you know that kids are supposed to learn about sex between the ages of six and eight? Anatomical parts, sperm and egg, all that?"

"How'd that conversation go?"

"Awkward as fuck," I say with a chuckle, "but necessary. Bethany wants to create open lines of communication early, so if Sadie needs help or has questions, she can come to us."

"It's good Bethany's including you," he says with careful consideration.

I know he's saying it means Bethany's warming up to the idea of forever. But I'm still not quite sure.

"I'm on Sadie's school forms," I say. "I've watched her for the weekend. I'm sure I'll cry like a baby the first time she calls me Dad."

"You will," Sam confirms. "Levi's first word was Dada, and I was in tears on the phone with Emily when I told her. She laughed, but she did the same thing when it was her turn."

"I cried in the bathroom when Sadie lost her first tooth," I admit. That's something I don't think I even told Bethany. "There is so much of her life I've missed already. I just… I want her to be mine all the way, you know? I want to be her dad."

The stains are thoroughly saturated now, and the solution has to sit for a while. We straighten and take generous chugs of our beers.

"She will be," Sam assures me. "That fraud thing I mentioned earlier? That piece of your brain will do a great job of convincing you that it's not going to happen. But it will."

I'm not sure what he's referring to – Bethany, moving in, getting married, adopting Sadie. But I think maybe he means it for everything.

Sam's really good at giving advice. I don't know if it's his many years as Alpha or his life experience. But he is good at it. It's very big-brotherly, without rubbing it in your face that you're a mess and have no idea what you're doing. I really appreciate that.

"Oh, and Embry," Sam says slowly, straightening his back. When I meet his eyes, I notice hard lines, rough edges and stubble on his jaw. I don't know when life caught up to him, but he has smile lines now. Forehead wrinkles. He looks older. Distinguished. Tired.

"Yeah," I say, dropping the wet rag onto the stain.

He looks down at it, then back up at me. "Dad's just a title, you know. Actions are what matters. And in my book…" He doesn't finish his thought, just shrugs.

It says everything.