found you when your heart was broke

I filled your cup until it overflowed

I said I'd catch you if you fall

and if they laugh then fuck them all

Embry Call hadn't ever been particularly fussed with how his life had unravelled. He was relatively smart, and passing classes just enough to go to college if he wanted to. He was, to Quil and Jacob's fury, the type to pass even when putting in the bare minimum. His mother bragged about how he'd already been accepted into Seattle and Washington, but he didn't have the heart to tell her that he probably wouldn't go.

The likelihood that he'd just enroll into community college in Forks, grab a business degree and graduate debt free was the most appealing path for him.

The truth was Embry liked the mundanity of his life, save for the shapeshifting part, but he liked La Push. He had never been one of those people eager for more, desperate like Jacob's sisters had to get out of town and live a bigger life. Somewhere, deep inside him, he knew he needed to stay, and not just because he had to protect the reservation from bloodsuckers and the like.

As Embry had grown older, he'd slowly begun to understand the damage that had been inflicted on the reservation and the tribe. The alcohol and drugs that had been brought to their beaches, the land being slowly taken away from them, with the hopes that they'd be driven away. What was left of La Push was a fraction of what their ancestors had, and the thought that their histories and culture could possible fade away into nothing terrified him.

With Sam and the pack came the promise of rebuilding their community, of pushing out unwelcome visitors and reinvesting in their land. If tourists wanted to come and stare at everything their ancestors had raped and pillaged from them, then Sam argued that they'd have to pay.

He wanted to help with that.

Apart from Jacob - who'd eventually leave if Renesmee did - the others all had a similar desire to stick around. Sam had focused on crowdfunding to restore their old community centre, providing a place all the kids could go to. He'd reinforced a strict no drugs or alcohol policy when Forks kids visited the beach, and Jared, Paul and Embry were looking into setting up a repairs garage off of the 101. It would mean more frequent customers, and something they could expand on when they aged out of phasing.

So that was as far as he'd planned his life, imprinting hadn't been in the mix of that. Sam had always said it was supposed to be rare, though the amount of members that had imprinted in the last four years disputed that fact, but after Jacob things had quietened down. The truce that had realigned Jacob's pack with Sam meant that they were all linked once more, though the packs operated separately in theory - on different sides of the treaty border - and things felt marginally normal. A sense of security swept over the pack, and Embry was pleased about it. He'd found his place, and though it wasn't a particularly noteworthy life, it was his life.

Then the bodies started turning up, and she came along.

Embry had seen the memories of those who had imprinted before, had been given a slither of the emotions that overwhelmed a person when the moment happened. Yet it still paled in comparison. Alina was pretty from what he'd seen in Sam and Brody's memories, but he hadn't been beyond that thought. Initially, he'd thought Alina would be a footnote in this part of their lives. That she would move on after they discovered what was going on, but he quickly realised that wasn't the case. Through Sam's memories he suspected that this was different, that Sam held an amount of protectiveness towards her, because how she was feeling held similarities to when he first phased. Emily was attached, and evidently so was he.

So, he thought it seemed like a natural progression that someone would imprint on her. That someone would counter her scowls and silver tongue, and she'd fully integrate into the family.

He just didn't think that it would be him.

Alina's eyes flickered between the occupants at the table, whose expressions all differed from humour and discomfort. Sam's face was unreadable as he ate, and only Quil, Brady and Seth offered to fill the silence with conversation. Leah appeared mostly relaxed, and by that Alina meant she didn't seem to care what was going on, which the teen assumed was her natural disposition.

Paul lounged back in his seat as he chomped on his burger, never bothering to hide how his glee at whatever was going on as he watched Alina. Embry, who unsettled Alina the most, made a conscious effort not to get caught staring at her - though he seemed incredibly pitiful at it.

She didn't know who to address first, Paul or Embry, but the reassuring smile Emily sent her way made Alina reluctant to make this dinner anymore uncomfortable for her. Instead, after only taking a few bites from her plate, she stood and excused herself from the table, thanking Emily.

Alina placed her plate in the kitchen, feeling the eyes on her back as conversations became stilted. Her fingers gripped onto the plate for a moment, hating the idea that there was something else she didn't know, and that they were all aware of it. She moved towards the sliding doors that lead to the porch, intent on seeking out air and no longer being confined to that suffocatingly awkward room.

Embry made to stand, but a soft and small hand wrapped around his forearm, halting him in his actions.

'Not yet, I don't think she's going to react particularly well to this. I think I should talk to her first.'

Embry's eyes flickered to Emily's, and they became almost pleading, she pitied him. 'But I haven't even talked to her yet.'

Her eyes softened, all too aware of the longing he must have already felt. It was instantaneous for the wolf, and gradual for the imprintee, she wouldn't be anywhere near Embry on the scale of desire. It would build slowly, and so he needed to go slowly with her. Regardless of the bond, Alina would not trust him as easily as Embry hoped she would, she had to ease into it.

'Emily's right, just take a backseat for now. Alina's ... difficult to get through to.' said Sam.

'You mean she's an asshole.' Paul snorted, and the comment went ignored by his alpha.

Embry sat back down in his seat, battling his feelings of rejection and forcing himself to understand that Emily and Sam were right. The trauma of what she'd been through would already be plaguing her mind, barging into her personal space with the claim that he was her soulmate wouldn't exactly be received too well.

As Emily patted his shoulders softly, she waved a finger at the rest of the occupants at the table. 'Clean up!'

She followed Alina outside to the porch, sliding the door shut even though she knew the pack would be able to hear every word.

Emily took a tentative seat beside Alina on the steps of her porch, wrapping her arms around herself and shoving her hands beneath her armpits to stave off the cold. Their breaths visible in the November air, and she watched as Alina breathed out dramatically to play with it.

'Are you going to ground me for being rude?' Her tone was sarcastic.

'No,' Emily replied, 'but you will need to work on your table manners. Your manners in general are terrible.'

They descended into silence as Emily awaited Alina's response, for the inevitable moment she would relax and allow herself to be open to Emily. It was a repetitive cycle that she knew would only weaken, her defence mechanism was no match for Emily's patience, and she would learn that the hard way.

'Today's been ... a lot.' She said quietly, and Emily nodded in agreement. 'Please don't tell me there's more.'

'There's more.' Emily said, and she laughed softly as she saw the teen scrunch up her face in annoyance out of the corner of her eye.

'Is it gonna' piss me off?'

'You might want to have an early night and sleep on it after we're done.'

'Fuck,' she said tiredly, turning to face Emily. 'It sounds bad, is it bad?'

'Depends on how you decide to look at it,' Emily shrugged, choosing to ignore the expletives for now. 'It really is what you make of it.'

'It's something to do with Embry, right?' She said, her voice skeptical before she snorted out her next words. 'Don't tell me he's in love with me.'

A new chapter, these are really fun to write. I enjoy Alina as a character, and I mainly wanted to get this filler out before I start going ahead with things in the coming chapters.

hyacinthed: thank you so much for enjoying it, and hahaha yes you're right! I didn't even pick up on my mistakes, I've amended it now!