Hey there! A bit of a fluffy chapter; mostly setting things up for the future (hint?).

Seth

Even with my mind racing and my heart hurting, I still manage to feel rested when I wake up on Christmas morning, sleeping in one of Sam and Emily's spare beds.

But then again, I usually always wake up well rested when I sleep next to Katie.

Our morning is hectic. Katie and I try to scarf down breakfast, and I attempt to wake up Leah before we leave to tell her goodbye, but she just flips me off and rolls over.

It ends up being a good thing Katie packed so early, because I hadn't yet finished when I left yesterday after Jared sent the distress call. Katie helps me finish shoving an unnecessary amount of winter clothes into my suitcase, and we agree to take a quick shower to freshen up.

Which turns into a long shower, because I'm not sure how Katie's going to feel about hooking up in her family home with her sisters sleeping down the hall. And I'm still not convinced her dad's going to let us sleep in the same room.

It nearly puts us behind schedule; we still have a four-hour drive to Seattle ahead of us. Even with that and airport security, flying will cut our travel time in half.

And Katie needs every second of family time she can get.

Katie and I spend most of the two-hour flight discussing plans for the national parks we want to visit next year and worrying about Sam and Emily and their little baby.

When we land in Great Falls, I turn on my phone, and a voicemail dings before the time zone has time to adjust. I give it a listen while Katie sends a text to her mom to let her know we just landed.

A grin takes up root on my face as I comprehend the message.

"What is it?" Katie asks softly.

"That was Embry," I say, slipping my phone in my backpack. "You'll never guess what just happened."

Confusion makes Katie's face twist only briefly, before her features set in disappointment. "You've got to be joking. And we missed it?"

I chuckle, giving her a shrug. "Embry said everyone was getting ready to leave, and Nessie just ran after Jacob out of the blue."

Katie's mouth is still hanging open as she responds, unclicking her seatbelt as we prepare to unload. "And what, she just professed her love right there?"

"No. She asked him if he loved her." I look around. The plane is buzzing with passengers and flight attendants helping with overhead baggage. I'm confident we won't be overheard. "Like how all the other wolves loves their imprints. Apparently, they talked about it at our wedding."

Her eyes are wide. "Our wedding at the end of June?"

I can't tell if Katie's just frazzled, or upset she missed Nessie and Jacob finally getting together when it seems like everyone else was there to witness it, but she's trying to pull her sweatshirt out of my backpack, and it pulls everything else out with it.

"Maybe I should just let you listen to the voicemail," I offer, reaching over and stilling her trembling hands.

She shakes her head fiercely, and a few shorter pieces of blonde fall out of her short ponytail, brushing the nape of her neck. "No, keep going!"

"Embry said Nessie asked Jacob something along the lines of, 'Do you love me like Sam loves Emily, and Jared loves Kim, and Seth loves Katie, and Paul loves Rachel?'"

"And what did Jacob say to that?" she asks, shoving the loose items back in the backpack.

I laugh. "He asked her if she wanted him to."

"Cut to the chase, Seth!" Katie's voice is high and tight.

"Jacob kissed her. But she basically asked him to."

Katie's face fills with confusion again, disappearing from view briefly as she pulls the sweatshirt overhead. "So… who won?" I hear her mumble from inside the fabric.

"According to Embry," I say, "you did, Katie Kat."

When her head emerges again, she's grinning ear to ear, despite the use of her less-than-desired nickname. "What's the pot?"

"Five," I say, standing to my feet now that the aisle is mostly clear, extending a hand for her.

"Hundred?" She clambers out into the aisle. "How'd it get so big?"

"Twenty dollar buy-in, and Embry let people place multiple bets."

We follow the hoard of people off the plane.

Katie slots her fingers through mine effortlessly. "Then I guess Embry bought our plane tickets."

I chuckle, pulling us toward baggage claim. "I think I financed a big chunk of it, too. I placed four or five bets."

"Are there any other betting pools I need to get in on now, before it's too late?" Katie says, her tone flirty and joking and happy. I wonder if her just winning five hundred dollars has anything to do with it.

"Let's see," I say. "There's a pool on whether Embry's gay."

I see something flicker across her face. I've all but forgotten about Shelby, and I wonder if that's where Katie's mind is, too. But the look passes, and she scrunches her nose, shakes her head. "He's not."

A relieved grin escapes my lips. "Agreed," I say. Plus I share a mind with Embry, see the way he thinks about girls but never approaches them, never dates. Because what if his Katie is out there?

"Who the next wolf to leave the pack will be," I prompt Katie next.

"Not counting Sam, you mean?" she says with a grin. "Probably Paul."

"Why Paul?"

She shrugs, readjusting her purse over her shoulder. "Sam will leave, Jacob will be Alpha, and I just don't know if Paul will do well with that."

This is one of the smallest airports I've ever been in. When we'd flown to upstate Alaska this summer, the charter station was questionable. But somehow this one feels smaller.

This one is packed to the brim with people, maybe that's why. I tighten my grip on Katie's hand as we exit the terminal, thrust into the throng of holiday travelers.

I make my voice just a hair louder so she can still hear me over the buzz of chatter. "Whether Emily's having a boy or a girl."

I think I would have caught Katie's heavy sigh even if we were the only two people in this building. I don't need to look at her face to know what she's thinking; it's the same thing I'm thinking.

Maybe neither.

Despite us being surrounded by noise and laughter and obvious love, the silence that stretches between us is thick and heavy. Jarring. It lasts until Katie's parents come into view.

It's late on Christmas Day by the time we get to Katie's childhood home, and Katie doesn't talk much through dinner. I fill in the gaps for her parents and sisters as to our hectic night last night, our last-minute change of plans.

When my phone chimes in my pocket, though, I can't resist peeking under the table at it.

Big Sis: Baby and Emily are okay and home now. Don't know if anyone told you. Sorry for being grumpy this morning. Hope you got in safe.

My sigh of relief doesn't go unnoticed, and Laura clears her throat.

"Emily and the baby are doing good," I say, looking mostly at Katie next to me. "They're home now."

I see Katie's eyes well with tears as she gives me a slight nod, and Laura croons across the table from Katie.

"That's great news," Katie says quickly, wiping at her eyes.

Laura nods. "Babies are just a blessing, aren't they?"

Katie's cheeks go pink, and her heart starts sputtering in her chest.

Greg clears his throat from next to Laura, draining his nearly full glass of bourbon. "Laura, please."

But Katie's mom only waves her hand toward him in dismissal. "So does anybody have any news they'd like to share?"

The question isn't directed at any one person, but it may as well have Katie's name written on the envelope for the way it makes her heart near stop in her chest.

Had Katie mentioned something to her mom about the mess of things she'd been dealing with at Thanksgiving? I know she'd told Bailey in passing, who likely told Shelby.

Bailey and Shelby look mortified and terrified all at once, just like Katie.

"Katie?" Laura prompts. "What's been going on with you? Anything new? Big or small."

I wish I could say my mother has more tact when it comes to begging for grandchildren. I think Leah told her privately to knock it off, because I'm not sure if Katie would have been able to.

Katie shrugs, cheeks turning a (gorgeous) cherry red as she stares at her picked-over plate. "Just working. Won the contest for the Oregonian, but you knew that. School starts next Monday. That's about it."

I'm about to open my mouth, take all the blame for us not having any babies just so Katie doesn't have to field uncomfortable questions from her mother, when someone else takes a breath.

"I'm going to be center stunt for the cheer exhibition next week," Bailey chimes as she cuts off a piece of lasagna. "They announced it in practice on Tuesday, but I wanted everyone to hear the news at once."

I visibly see Katie's shoulders relax in my periphery, and I can't resist reaching under the table to rest my hand on her leg. It causes her to relax further.

"That's amazing, sweetheart," Greg says earnestly. "I can't wait to come watch."

"You're coming?" Bailey asks, nearly choking on her fresh bite of pasta. "But it's on a Wednesday."

"New Year's Eve," Greg says, nodding. "We're closed. And I can't resist watching my littlest baby girl be center stunt. It's taken you years to get there."

"I quit my job," Shelby breathes.

The more that Katie's sisters talk, the more I'm sure Katie had filled them in, that they'd been keeping things tucked away just in case they needed to come to the rescue.

Leah would have done the same thing for me, and I for her.

Shelby's admission seems to do the trick, because Laura's fork clatters to the table. "You what?"

By the time Katie and I make our way to bed – together in her childhood bedroom that still holds academic trophies and pictures of high school friends I haven't met yet – we're dead on our feet.

There are others still awake in the house. Shelby's confession at dinner had opened the floodgates between her and her parents.

Apparently, in the six months since we've last seen Shelby, she had broken up with Jenna (messily), realized she was completely unhappy with her job and most of the other parts of her life, and had quit a month ago, using some of her savings to take an impromptu trip to Puerto Rico.

And I thought Katie had reckless abandon. Now I know where she learned it.

Shelby's still up talking with Katie's parents now, but with our long day of travel and the added stress of yesterday's events still weighing on our shoulders, Greg suggested we go to bed. Everyone agreed we'd open presents in the morning.

As we're heading toward Katie's room, I hear him mention he's going to call in tomorrow to help get Shelby straightened out.

Katie tells me he's never called in a day in his life. And then she mumbles she's glad that her parents don't know her mess.

"I thought it was getting better," I urge as we dress for bed. "You look better. You're sleeping better."

She nods slowly, and I watch as her fingers twirl her wedding rings around her finger. "I do feel better. But school starts up again soon. I'm just worried it will be like before."

"I won't let it," I tell her, taking a second to wrap my arms around her waist.

She sighs, melting into my chest. "How are you going to do that?"

I want to tell her I don't know, but that I'd do anything to keep her from slipping back into the shell of the person she was before.

That I'll work three more jobs and run her to work myself if it means that she feels safe and secure and doesn't have to drive that deathtrap car of hers.

That I'll give up dreaming about babies forever if that's what it takes. Lord knows the pack will have enough without us contributing. Emily, Kim, Rachel, Nessie. Surely there's enough women to carry on the gene that Katie doesn't need to.

What I say instead is, "We'll figure it out. We always do."

"What are you all getting in to today?" Laura asks over breakfast on Sunday.

Bailey's still sleeping; Shelby left early this morning to go back to Missoula. Early enough that she didn't have to say goodbye to her parents.

Katie shrugs, sipping her coffee. "I don't know. We might go up to the Portage. I showed Seth some old pictures of the dams there, and he was interested in seeing them in real life."

"Actually," I say, taking Katie's hand, "we're going to Glacier National Park today."

Katie's eyes go wide. "We are?"

"How could we not?" I say, giving her a wide grin. "It's only two and a half hours away."

Greg grins knowingly at me. "Katie's always wanted to visit all the national parks."

"I know. We've done, what, eleven already this year? This will make twelve." It's definitely a record-setting pace; there's no way we can see this many every year. But two or three for the rest of our lives sounds pretty freakin' incredible if you ask me. Especially if it means I get to be with Katie.

"That's impressive," Laura says. "It's a shame you can't get too far up into the park. The main road is closed in the winters. Maybe you can come back in the summer and go again."

Last night, while Katie had been up late talking with her sisters and saying goodbye to Shelby, Greg had been scolding Laura for her constant hints about a baby, gently (and then more pointedly) reminding her Katie was still in college.

And I was in Katie's bedroom, staring at her walls and trying to remind myself of that same fact again. Hopefully when Emily's baby is born, it satisfies a bit of whatever I'm feeling.

"How long have you been planning this?" Katie asks once we're on the highway. She does a bad job of hiding the excitement in her voice.

It sounds similar to earlier, right before we'd left, where I'd started to look up directions on my phone, and Katie told me proudly she knows the route by heart.

"Since I booked the flights." I reach over, taking her hand in mine and resting it on the center console of Katie's father's large and sturdy SUV. "I wanted to make sure I could use this car, so I cleared it with your dad."

"Where are we going?" she asks. "What peaks?"

"I figured you'd want to see Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, or Heaven's Peak. Aren't those everyone's favorites?"

Katie makes a noise of slow contemplation, and when I look to her, she's chewing her lip. "Those are good."

I chuckle. "I hear a 'but' coming."

Her lip tugs through her teeth as she smiles, meeting my eyes briefly. Hers are filled with something akin to mischief.

"But if you phase, we can go to my favorite spot."

And so, once we've parked the car and are far down a path and away from onlookers, I do just that.

It had taken Katie and I a few tries for us to figure out how to have her guide me. Paul thinks it's demeaning to have her ride me like a horse, pulling on my fur and spurring her heels into my sides to change direction, slow up, speed down.

But it works for us – works for Katie – and so I don't really care, especially when it brings such a huge smile to her face.

I never broach my full speed, maybe only sixty or seventy, but I do speed things along quite a bit, allow us to reach heights and depths in parks we wouldn't normally be able to in a day.

"Stop up here," she says into my ear, pointing off to a small clearing on the left.

I slow to a stop, lowering down to let her off.

"Go ahead and phase back, and then close your eyes," Katie says firmly. Excitedly.

Katie watches me phase back, bouncing on her feet with anticipation. "Hurry up!"

I chuckle as I pull on my shorts, and they're hardly on my hips before she's grabbing my hand.

"Close them tight," she says. "Promise."

"I promise, I won't peek," I assure her.

Despite my words, I still sense her waving her hand in front of her face, and I can't stop my responding chuckle.

She pulls me forward and sideways, and the wind nips at us as she squares my shoulders in her chosen spot. "Okay. Open."

My eyes flutter open, and the scenery before me takes my breath away. "Whoa. Where are we?"

I don't really care where she tells me – this is the top of the world. It has to be. I can see the whole park from here, clear to the end of the range. All the way to Canada and then some, probably.

I've never been afraid of heights, but the ground beneath me feels unstable, and I reach for Katie's hand, tugging her back from the edge.

Katie's giggle centers me quickly. "This is Chief Mountain. Now turn around."

When I follow Katie's instruction, the remaining oxygen in my body escapes. Because facing this direction, there's nothing before me but vast, open plains, as far as my eyes can see.

The top of the world, definitely.

Being here makes me understand Katie's drive to see the world, capture it through pictures. I could never see enough, could never go enough places to see it all. How many more places are out there, just like this, ready and willing to leave me breathless, in awe?

"This used to be my favorite place in the world," Katie says, dusting snow off a nearby rock and sitting down facing the mountain range. "We hiked here once on a family vacation, and I just remember feeling so… inspired."

Katie keeps talking as I clear off a spot for myself. "But my parents didn't remember which mountain I was talking about. So I spent my entire summer after my senior year hiking all of them."

"All the what?" I ask, plopping down next to her. "All the mountains?"

She nods, but her gaze is still trained out to the mountain range. "I found this one two weeks before my semester started. At the time I was still undecided on where I was going to school. So I used this place as a coin flip."

"How?"

She giggles. "I spun around and counted to ten. I decided that if I saw mountains, I'd go west to Washington. Plains, east to Maine."

"And you saw mountains," I say, ignoring the fact that Katie just told me she made herself dizzy on top of a several thousand-foot mountain ridge on purpose.

"Nope," Katie says. "I saw plains."

"But then why did you come to Olympia?"

"I have no clue."

Her confession makes my head spin. I know she didn't choose to go to college in Maine, and I don't really want to think about that alternative. Never having known her, met her. Loved her.

Or maybe we would have. Maybe she'd have been miserable in Maine, realized she made a mistake, and we'd have met a semester later. Maybe I would have been miserable in La Push, hoofed it to the east coast for some soul searching of my own, and met her there.

There's not an alternative in my life that doesn't lead to Katie, no matter how hard I try to imagine it.

I take her hand in mine. Even through her gloves, her fingers are turning cold quickly. I inch closer to her. "My dad always told us that it's when the coin's in the air, that's when you actually decide what you want."

"I love that," she breathes. "I wish I could have met him." Her eyes are watering, and I'm not sure which element is making it happen. The biting wind, the raw emotion. The alternative path she'd almost chosen.

When my voice finds me again, it's gruff. "He would have loved you, Katie. Your spunk. Your heart. Hell, even the way you fight with Leah."

Katie laughs, and the sound is loud and honest.

"What's your favorite place in the world now?" I prompt.

"What?" she asks, shocked and maybe a little embarrassed.

I finally decide there's too much distance between us, so I pluck her off her rock, pulling her to my lap instead and winding my arms around her tiny, winter-coat-clad waist. "You said this used to be your favorite place in the world. So I just wanted to know where in the world Katie Prescott found that was better than here."

She doesn't answer for a long time, and I can tell by the way she's shifting in my lap, fidgeting with the strap of the camera situated around her neck that she's deep in thought.

"To be honest, this might still be Katie Prescott's favorite place in the world."

"But you said—"

"Katie Clearwater," she continues, tangling my fingers with hers and tightening my hold on her, "thinks there's a little blue house with a tin roof in La Push that wins every time."

Elation thunders through my chest, makes my wolf puff up with pride. "You mean that?"

She shrugs, leaning back farther against me. "I've just been thinking a lot lately about when Ashley came to visit, what she said. She was right. I'm different now. I mean, Katie Prescott was content to work on the floor in her bedroom. Katie Clearwater has a home workspace."

"That you haven't used yet," I remind her.

"Hey now," she says defensively, "I haven't been in school since we got it set up."

I chuckle, burying my nose in her hair and enjoying the scent – vanilla citrus. It always gets stronger when she comes back to the place that made her. When we're home, it's closer to vanilla pine.

"I don't care. I love every single bit of you, Katie Prescott or Katie Clearwater or whoever you are."

The remainder of our days in Montana are relaxing and mellow and light – exactly what the doctor ordered for Katie and her stressed little self. Well, Dr. Cullen's words were more along the lines of Try not to think about your responsibilities. For a whole day, if you can manage it.

We bake cookies, visit with Katie's extended family, and I get to meet family members I haven't met before, ones that weren't able to make it to the wedding. And we end up visiting the Portage and the dams that create the great falls of Great Falls, like I told Katie I wanted to.

Katie and I even go to Bailey's cheerleading exhibition with her parents. I didn't imagine there were that many teenage girls in the country, let alone in Montana.

Throughout the competition, I hear some of the girls on Bailey's team whispering about me, so when Bailey finds us after the competition with a few of her friends, I make sure to give her a big hug, and I don't even ruffle her hair (not that I would be able to with all the hairspray; I'm practically high from the fumes).

We make it home to La Push late the next afternoon, on New Year's Day.

I turn to Katie as I'm pulling our bags from the truck bed. "Any new year's resolutions?"

Katie shrugs, reaching for her bag. Both our bags are heavier now thanks to the barrage of gifts Katie's family had bestowed upon us for the holidays, and so I kiss her hand instead of handing her the bag, walking both of them toward the door.

"I guess," Katie says, laughing, "I want to try and practice that thing Rich told me about. The living life scared thing. Doing more stuff that scares me. What about you?"

Katie unlocks our front door and I follow her through.

"Nothing really," I say as we move toward our bedroom. "Usually when I make a resolution, I jinx it."

She laughs. "Come on, one thing."

I deposit our bags on the floor by the dresser. "I guess maybe get closer to Leah. Spend more time with her. I feel like we haven't seen enough of each other since we moved out."

She nods as she collapses onto our bed. "See? Nice and sweet. Don't know how you could jinx that."