Chapter Forty-Five

Kim had never been to a funeral before.

That being said, she had very little idea of what to expect of one, let alone a funeral for a tribal elder. Of course, once all was said and done, she was pretty sure the only thing she'd really ever remember from the whole day was the overwhelming sadness of it all.

The ceremony itself was beautiful. But as members of the pack, Jared and Kim were seated directly behind the Clearwater family. Seth spent the entire time with one arm wrapped around his mother and had the other hand in a white-knuckled grip with his sister's hand while tears dripped freely down his cheeks. Leah, on the other hand, sat in stony-faced silence the entire time—due in equal part to the angle Kim had of her face and the lack of barrier from Leah's newly-shorn hair, though, Kim could just make out the haunted glint in Leah's eye. From what little Jared had told her, Kim was sure Leah blamed herself for the circumstances of her father's death, which was the saddest part of this whole situation, in her opinion.

Kim spent most of the ceremony with her hand tightly clasping Jared's and her head resting on his shoulder—and if he took advantage of her hair being there to hide his face in when he was overcome with his own tears…well, she was there to support him in any way she could.

Hours later, once all of the final goodbyes were said and only pack members and elders were left in the community center (the only building in town other than the school gymnasium large enough to fit all of the people who came to remember Harry), Jared came up to Kim with a pleading look on his face.

"Come walk outside with me?" He requested. "I think I'm going to go mad if I stay in here for much longer. Besides, they aren't going to need either of us while Sam, Billy, and Old Quil are talking to Sue."

Kim did not need to be asked twice. She'd already attempted to help Emily and her mom clean up earlier (the latter had left twenty minutes ago to bring the leftovers to the Clearwater house) and had been politely rebuked (because Emily and her mom were quite simply scarily efficient in a kitchen together) and that left Kim at loose ends. She wanted to be helpful, but there had been little for her to do while Jared talked in a corner with Sam except sit awkwardly with Jake (who, now that the funeral was over, was clearly allowing himself to be in a bad mood about Bella Swan running off with a Cullen the day before) and Embry (who appeared just as ill-equipped to deal with his friend's bad mood and whom Kim had learned early on was just as bad at striking up small talk as she was). She probably could have struck up a conversation about something meaningless with Paul, but he was currently on patrol.

So when Jared asked her to go for a walk, Kim was beyond grateful to finally have something meaningful to do.

Within five minutes, the pair was walking aimlessly down First Beach, their hands clasped tightly together once again.

Kim gave it a few minutes before breaking the comfortable silence that had stretched between them.

"What were you and Sam talking about?" She asked lightly.

"Patrol schedules," Jared sighed. "Embry should be taking over for Paul right now. And Jake is going to sit with Leah and Seth while Sam helps the elders explain everything to Sue—there hasn't been much time for an explanation beyond 'All the legends are true,' yet. Later on, Jake and I will patrol with the Clearwaters; take some time to teach them stuff."

Kim frowned slightly. "Have they not phased since that first time, yet? That seems like pretty remarkable control for them being so new at it…"

"Oh no, there have definitely been incidents. There was actually one early this morning, right around the time I started my patrol," Jared said.

An 'incident?'

Kim didn't much like the sound of that, so she asked, "How are Seth and Leah handling all of this wolf business?"

"Seth is handling things pretty well, all things considered," Jared answered honestly. "I mean, I still feel pretty bad for the poor kid: his dad died, he's a teenaged-shape-shifting-wolf, oh, and his sister's a bitch."

"Jared!" Kim's reprimand was a gut reaction. Poor Leah—she also lost her dad less than forty-eight hours ago and now had to deal with turning into a giant wolf if she had anything less than perfect control over her emotions at all times. Plus, Kim imagined Leah wasn't overjoyed at the prospect of being in such close proximity to her ex-fiancée for the foreseeable future. Kim couldn't blame her if her transition was going less than smoothly, and she told Jared just that; all of that, in fact.

He clearly remained unsympathetic to Leah's plight, though.

"You haven't been stuck in her head," Jared informed Kim. "Yeah, she's pissed about the Sam situation, and now she also knows the whole story about him imprinting on Emily so that definitely didn't help anything. So I get some animosity on her part. But all she's done so far is bitch about everything and everyone. Hell, she even managed to get in a few jabs at Embry when he phased in, about the whole situation with his dad. And you know how non-confrontational he is; he definitely didn't do anything to her to deserve that. She only shut up when Seth finally managed to talk her down and get her to phase back. I get that she just lost her dad, I really do. But you don't see Seth flying off the handle, and he lost Harry, too. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to any part of having Leah in the pack."

Kim honestly didn't know how to respond to all of that. So maybe Leah's adjustment period was going to be more difficult than Kim thought; she clearly wasn't handling things well at all. And yes, she could imagine that any dig even remotely in Embry's direction was completely unwarranted. But everyone dealt with grief differently. Maybe all Leah needed was some time (alright, a lot of time where Sam and Emily were concerned) to work through things for herself. But Jared didn't seem very willing to give her any.

"Maybe things will get better," Kim offered weakly, because it couldn't hurt to try.

Jared merely gave a non-committal grunt in response. Well. Kim definitely didn't need anyone to tell her this line of conversation wasn't going any further today. And maybe that was for the best; maybe Jared needed some time to work through things, too.

And so Kim decided to go a different route instead.

"I'll leave my window unlocked so you can stop by when you're done tonight," Kim told her boyfriend. "And if you want, I'll let you complain to your heart's content about how awful it was, or…if you're not up for that, I'm sure I can come up with some way to distract you."

The small smile seemed to come unbidden to Jared's face, and Kim had the brief thought that it was the first one she'd seen on him since Harry died, no matter how small it was.

"I think I'll probably go with Plan B."

"Yeah, I had a feeling you might."

Their conversation turned infinitely less heavy from there—Kim doing everything she could to keep Jared's mind off anything pack-related for a short time. And so, by the time they eventually turned around and were nearly back to the community center, Kim could see Jared was more relaxed than he'd been when they escaped for fresh air earlier.

There was still something important Kim was concerned about, though. And she wasn't quite sure how Jared would take it.

"Do…" Kim hesitated only briefly before continuing, "Do you think Harry's death in going to affect the rest of the pack very badly? Not-not personally," Kim stumbled slightly, "Not quite, anyway. I mean, I know what he meant to you, at the very least. It's just…do you think it's going to be a lasting…distraction? I guess? I'm not one-hundred percent sure I even know what I'm trying to say here…feel free to just ignore me."

Jared, to his credit, simply looked thoughtful, though—clearly he'd understood something from Kim's garbled rambling.

"I think we're all coping right now," Jared finally stated. "Like you said earlier, it hasn't even been forty-eight hours yet. And Harry…yeah, he meant a lot to the pack. But I think we all recognize what he'd want more than anything else in this situation is for us to keep carrying on and not get distracted, especially with everything today already behind us. From here on out, Harry would want us to be responsible and do what we're meant for: protect the tribe at all costs."