A.N: Happy Sunday.

First off - so SO sorry about the unscheduled two weeks absence. I went back home and too many things happened in those two days...but I think that this chapter will make up for it, some. Hopefully.

TWENTY-NINE

I am here

"You owe me cliff diving," Naima said.

They had been sitting, watching a movie on his couch and Naima had been unusually quiet. She had a bad habit of talking throughout a movie, whether it be exclamations of surprise, sarcasm, annoyance or glee. And it didn't matter if she'd seen the movie or not; when it was one she'd seen, she would laugh at the characters actions or comment on the good writing. If it was new, she would guess based off of the plot beats she'd seen earlier.

It had been a bit annoying at first. Sam was normally the type to just watch a movie quietly, and surprisingly, so were the Pack - Colin and Brady excluded, but they never stopped talking anyway - so to hear a semi-constant flow of comments had left him feeling somehow mentally exhausted. Because she wouldn't just comment, she would theorise.

But he was used to it now. And he'd realised she didn't really need an answer or a response, she just had to do it, so he could tune it out.

It probably also helped that, after he'd invited her to the first Pack movie night they'd had to celebrate, she'd talked throughout the movie and the others had used it as an invitation to give their own thoughts and opinions. Apparently, his Pack was just as chatty as Naima, they just needed someone to jump-start the conversation.

Sam had found Paul's eyes and rolled his own. Paul had grinned, knowing that Sam had found it annoying back then, and very pointedly turned to Kim to give her his own stupid theory.

Paul was an asshole. But seeing how much fun everyone was having kept the annoyance to a minimum.

But she'd been quiet during the movie until that.

"I do, don't I?" he said. Sam looked down at her to see that she was pretty fixated on his TV but she was biting her lip again. "You still want to do it?"

She nodded, still biting at her lip. He'd thought he'd smelt the metallic blood smell a couple of times but he'd ignored it. It was just common now. A thing that Naima did.

"I know you said Spring, but that's so far away. And I was researching the beach and saw that it was pretty calm until the end of October."

"And you want to do it now," he said.

"Yeah," she said. She looked up at him then, steadfast and very sure of herself. "I keep thinking about the whole...Newborn thing."

She meant that she'd been thinking about how he and Jacob had been hurt, but she wouldn't say it. Sam knew she tried not to think about how close they'd been to death. He tried not to think about it either.

"And you're right. I don't deal with fear very well. I just...bottle it up and pretend. But I want to. I want to be better at facing down things that scare me, so...why not a giant cliff?" she tried to smile, to lighten the mood a little bit but he could see how much it was scaring her to even admit it.

Sam smiled. "Alright. We can go next week if you want? It's supposed to be fairly warm."

"Ok, next week," she said. She turned back to the screen and she pressed herself a little bit closer into Sam - which he was very happy about - but stayed quiet through the rest of the movie.

"Taking her cliff diving, are we?" Paul asked with the biggest shit-eating grin Sam had seen on his face in a while.

"Shut up."

"Hey man, it's fine. It's not as if you're not the most honorable mother fucker I know. But it is a make-out spot," he said, still grinning.

"I'm going to actually kill you," Sam growled.

"You even sound like her. Remind me how you're not dating?"

Sam rolled his eyes and chucked a spoon at Paul. He grabbed it mid-air and placed it in the sink, still grinning. "It's not like that and you know it."

"But you want it to be."

For the love of all that was holy! Why was Sam there again? It wasn't like he didn't have better things to do with his life than listen to Paul talk shit. He could be sleeping. Or working on the company's finances. Or literally anything else.

"Are you scared she doesn't like you back?" he asked. "Because I don't think you need to worry about that. I don't think I've seen you separated for the last few weeks - other than the whole bonfire and Newborn thing. So why don't you tell her?"

"It's not that simple," Sam said. He took a handful of chips from the open bowl on Paul's table and chased the snack down with a beer, for all that it did for his nerves.

"No, I guess it's not," Paul acquiesced. "But what's the harm in telling her? Shouldn't she get a choice in it?"

Probably. In an ideal world religion, culture, race...none of it would matter. People would be able to love who they wanted. But it wasn't an ideal world. And those things did matter to people. And as much as Naima said she wanted to break away from her dad - and as healthy as that probably was - Sam didn't know if she would be able to do it. It was a hard thing to do at the best of times. He'd forged so much of his own plans on how much he hadn't wanted to be like his father.

"I don't want to complicate things for her," he said. And he didn't want to make himself hurt any more than he already was.

It was so much harder now. Especially when she would come around and they would hang out. When she would bring lunches for him at work, or when the whole Pack did something together. In those little moments it was so easy to see her as more than just his best friend. To think about the two of them living together, working together, eating together. Being together.

But he doubted it would happen every time she told him something about Islam, or her dad called, or Eve looked at him with her intensely judgy eyes.

He didn't want to make her choose him over her family, and he couldn't bear the thought of her telling him she was choosing her family over him. Even if she should.

"You're such a fucking martyr, Sam," Paul said and sipped his beer.

Sam shrugged. "We all are, aren't we?"

Paul snorted. "Try getting Jake to be a martyr where anyone other than Swan is concerned and let's see what he has to say about that!"

"Jacob's seventeen. He's a prime candidate for narcissistic assholery." Even as the words left his mouth Sam knew they were empty platitudes.

"See, I would agree, but he's the one this will all fall onto eventually," Paul said bitterly. Paul had done a fairly good job of keeping those thoughts in check when Sam put him on patrol with Jacob, but it was easy to see how much his friend was thoroughly pissed off by the teen's behaviour over the last year and a half.

Sam couldn't disagree but before he could say anything else, they both heard the jingling of keys being inserted and turned into the lock.

"Hey Mom," Paul called out as soon as the door was open.

"Oh, honey! Come get the groceries. I'm exhausted!"

Paul swallowed down the last of his beer and set it on the table. Sam followed suit and they both went to help Trisha with the bags.

He gave her a list of everything she would need, including a spare set of clothes to change into, just in case. Meanwhile, Sam found himself bringing a spare set of everything, and double and triple-checking the weather forecast over the days leading up to it because Forks was temperamental as fuck and he didn't want her first experience of something so cool to be overshadowed by rough waves.

He checked that she could swim, and she could, but she was never going to be as good as the kids who grew up swimming in the sea. So he checked the forecast again.

Finally, though, the day came and he picked her up in his truck. It was easier to carry everything in his truck and it also meant they could leave the wet and sandy things in the trunk without it getting all over the truck floor.

Naima was nervous and excited; she kept talking, and was continuously fiddling with something, biting at her lip or rubbing the tips of her fingers together in an effort to mask her nerves. Sam tried to calm her down but he knew it wouldn't do very much until she was in the ocean.

She got progressively more anxious once he stopped the car.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Her head twitched like everything in her was trying to say no. Instead, she opened the truck door and jumped out. Sam followed her. "We don't have to do this," he told her again. "If you're that scared -"

"Shut up. We do," she said firmly.

Sam laughed and then nodded. He took off his shirt and placed it inside a little hole that was often used to keep things from flying away; it wasn't in particularly good condition so if he had to leave it for some reason then he knew it wouldn't be a problem.

Naima had, in the meantime, taken off her maxi dress and tied her hair up into a pineapple and when Sam looked back at her he was floored.

Her swimsuit wasn't the most revealing. In fact it probably covered up more than most swimsuits he'd seen. It was a one-piece and a simple design. It looked like she'd put swim shorts on top of her swimsuit as well but it was the most he'd seen of her...ever.

Her legs looked particularly long without her normally large hoodies covering her, her arms were toned and shapely and her skin seemed to glow.

"Where do I put this?" she asked, holding her dress. Sam showed her. "What do we do now?" she asked.

"Now I explain what's going to happen," he said. Naima nodded. "It's going to look really high - and it is - but it's not as high as you think. When we get to the edge, hold my hand. It's just a jump down, nothing fancy. You need to make sure you take a breath at the edge because you can't when you hit the water. It's cold. You'll want to breathe in instinctively but you can't, ok?"

Naima nodded again though she seemed a little more ashen than she had been before.

"When we hit the water I'm going to hold on to you and swim us both up until we're close enough to the shore for you to swim comfortably and then I'll let go."

"Ok," she said. "Ok...ok...ok." Then Naima walked to the edge of the cliff, looked down and squeaked. She stepped back and seemed like she was shaking.

Sam joined her. "Look at me," he said. She did. "Breathe in and out. Count to ten. We only have to do this once, alright?" He waited until she collected herself and nodded. Then Sam began to guide her to the edge of the cliff. When she looked down again she clutched his hand tightly and swore loudly.

"Fucking hell!" That was a long way down and she was freaking out about it so much! Why was she doing this? She could prove this to herself another way - she didn't need to fling herself off of a cliff into tepid waters!

Actually, when she thought about it, there wasn't anything she needed to prove. She didn't need to justify how she felt to anybody - she was allowed to do what she wanted!

She heard her name being called above the panic in her head and she shook herself out of it. Her heart was racing. It was stuck in her throat and seemed like she would never be able to speak again. She'd only felt that way once before - just once. And she hadn't said the words she'd needed to say back then.

She couldn't let herself be so voiceless. She couldn't! And if it meant that she needed to throw herself off a cliff to tell her dad to stop, then she would!

So she broke her eyes away from the - horribly high, so high, fuck! It's high! - drop and she turned to Sam. She was already gripping his hand so tightly. She couldn't bring herself to loosen the grip at all, but he didn't seem to mind and for once she was glad Sam was a shape-shifting wolf because otherwise, she might have been bruising it. Or cramping it at the least.

"Let's do it," she said. Her voice came out distorted and shaky, but that was probably because her body was trembling with fear.

Sam took it in stride, for which she was grateful, and he nodded. "On the count of three."

"Do you actually mean on three or are you going to do that thing where you attack on two and I won't know?" she interrupted.

"Which one do you want?"

There was a moment when a show she'd watched when she was younger flashed through her mind. It was Adam's World. A frankly weird show where the main character was a yellow puppet surrounded by humans and he would interview people about things in Islam. It was how she'd first learnt the Arabic alphabet. But there had been a scene where these little kids were laughing at something. 'It's as easy as one...two...three,' they'd said laughing.

But it wasn't. Was it?

She didn't know what was worse; to have time to prepare or to be flung into the abyss with no warning. Neither! Neither is good! Her brain seemed to be shouting at her that she was stupid and she was going to die.

But she wouldn't die. Sam wouldn't put her in danger, she trusted that. She trusted him! And if she was paralysed by fear it wouldn't matter either because he would just have to pull her with him and they'd both be falling.

"Count to three," she said in a rush.

"Alright then. On the count of three. One."

She felt his grip on her hand tighten and they were moving even closer towards the edge. He was getting ready.

"Two."

She was still freaking out. And she had forgotten to take in any air. Actually, maybe she was taking in too much air. Was she hyperventilating?

"Three."

She felt him move and on instinct, she followed him. She jumped.

And then she was falling.

Naima couldn't see anything because her eyes were closed but for a moment it felt like she was suspended in the air. Like that moment on a trampoline when you reach as high as you can and then there's a split second where you're suspended.

She felt it, and then that moment passed and Niama could hear the wind as she cut through the air. It was only a moment because the next she felt Sam pull her closer to him in the air.

She could feel his arms wrapped around her, her stomach in her throat and she could smell him. It was exhilarating and terrifying and terrific all at the same time.

Then they hit the water.

The cold didn't register at first, but once it did it was horrible. But she didn't breathe it in and she didn't open her eyes. She refused!

And then they broke the surface. Naima gasped because she could and she felt Sam moving them closer to the shore. It didn't take too long before she felt the resistance lessen and Naima could feel the waves move them forwards towards the shoreline.

She opened her eyes, blinking them rapidly to keep the saltwater out of them, and she started swimming until her feet could touch the sandy bottom.

Then she stopped, her body adjusted to the temperature and she was just floating backwards and forwards with the tide.

She hadn't ever felt so alive!

"Naima? How was it?" Sam asked.

Naima looked at him trying to collect her thoughts. She felt light-headed and calm. Somehow she was tingling all over but the sea seemed to wash that away as well. But one thing she knew for sure was that she felt brave. She felt free.

Sam walked closer to her, tilting his head to make sure she was fine. "Naima?" he asked, placing a hand on her cheek, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

The touch seemed to break her out of her stupor because Naima felt her eyes focus on him and his face. Something about the way he looked at her told Naima that he wanted her safe. Happy.

Sam's worry, his care, was moving and she'd not noticed it before. Not like this!

The thought came unbidden and without very much drama. Naima hadn't realised it had been there for a while, just hiding behind a hell of a lot going on in her brain and she had never just looked. It was easier not to.

But somewhere between that moment in the cave and jumping off the cliff, that implicit trust she'd felt around him had grown into something more. It had taken jumping off a cliff to recognise it, but it was there.

Naima had a strong notion that what she was feeling wasn't love. Not yet. But it was stronger than liking him. Much stronger. It was some sort of in between thing and she knew that if she let it, it would grow into love for the man that was still cradling her face so gently it almost hurt.

And it would grow much sooner than she would expect it to.

"Sam?" she whispered. Her breath hitched in her throat so that she could barely hear herself above the sound of the waves. Naima reached her hand up and lightly touched the hand he'd placed on her face. His hand was so much warmer than hers, even in the cold sea.

His eyes flashed to a lighter, more amber, brown. It was mesmerizing.

Naima brought her other arm up so it was resting on his shoulders. He was so much taller and the movement caused the sand to shift under her toes, digging in between them and scratching slightly, but as soon as her hand was on his shoulder she felt herself steady.

She was so close to Sam that she felt his breath hitch and she took that as a sign.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked.

She saw his own eyes fall to what she assumed were her hips but she stayed still. She didn't want to assume anything and there was still a chance for him to say no.

Naima felt it more than heard the words. Sam put a hand on her waist and pulled her closer to him. He moved his face towards hers slowly, excruciatingly slowly. The hand that had been on her chin slid along her jaw until he was holding her head gently, as though she were made of glass and might break at any moment.

Finally, his lips met hers. He was gentle. She could tell he was still hesitating, holding back, afraid that she would decide she didn't want this after all.

But she did. She wanted it. She wanted him.

This was her first kiss. She had been scared that she wouldn't know what to do but something instinctive and primitive came over her and it felt as easy to kiss Sam as it was to let the waves move her back and forth.

Her hands had moved to the back of his neck. She felt the short wet strands of hair in between her fingers and she used it as leverage to pull him closer; to mould her body to his.

In response, Sam became less hesitant. More urgent.

The hand that had been on her cheek slid to the back of her neck and threaded his fingers through her hair as best as he could, loosening the curls and letting the shorter ones fall.

His other hand started trailing up her back. Piercing tingles followed the trail of his fingers over her swimming costume until it reached just under the seam that separated material from skin. Sam rested his hand there, just under her ribs, and the fact that she could just feel his fingers on the skin of her back sent shivers through her.

It felt like a promise of what could come and in that moment Naima wanted it all.

It was all adrenaline and salt and Sam and she wouldn't have had it any other way.

At some point she needed to breathe and she pulled back. Sam was staring at her, his warm brown eyes seemed blown wide and she imagined hers were probably the same. But it trilled deep in her chest when she saw that he was as affected by her as she was by him and she grinned, the both of them trying to capture their breaths.

"I want to try this," she said, after what seemed like an eternity and a second. "I've never done this before and I'll get it wrong. There'll be things I'm going to get scared about but I want to try."

Sam brushed away a loose tendril that had come out of her hairband and smiled. His eyes lit up and she found herself seeing a different side to him, something easy and carefree. She wondered how long he'd been keeping himself back.

"I want to try as well," he whispered back. Then he kissed her again and the second time wasn't any different to the first.

This time when they pulled back she found herself grinning. She pulled herself out of his arms and then looked up at the cliff front. It was high and she couldn't believe she had done it. "Let's go again."

Sam laughed loudly and splashed her with water. Naima squealed, holding one arm up to protect herself from the attack and used the other to push water at him.

The two of them laughed for a long time.

A.N: SQUEEALLL! What did you think?!

The next and final chapter for this section will be up within the next two weeks as next week I'm pretty busy but the week after I have leave from work (and I still haven't managed to finish it).