A/N: If you recognize it, it's not mine. Simple as that.

Chapter 14

Perci POV

The next morning, when we got back to Sam and Emily's, the entire pack was there, staring at the door, as if waiting for us. Once we were inside, they all stood from their various seats and converged on us, practically shouting their questions.

"You actually spent the night in the lost city of Atlantis?!" Jared demanded, being the first to have their question understandable. Paul and I shared an amused glance, having agreed at breakfast with my family that we would not be telling the pack that my father had let us sleep in the same room, as it would lead to much teasing. Triton was bad enough with his own teasing this morning, we didn't need the pack to get in on it, though they would find out once they were phased.

"Yes, Jared. Perci took me to Atlantis to meet her brother Tyson, and I sparred with him and Triton for a bit before Poseidon came and got me, letting me know that Perci had gotten too tired to bring us back, so he took her to bed and sent Triton to let you guys know. I also got to meet Lady Amphitrite, Perci's step-mother." Paul said, giving Jared a deadpan look, as if our adventure last night was no big deal.

"Dude, not fair! You got to spar with a god and a cyclops, now you're gonna be stronger than the rest of us!" Quil whined, making Jacob smack him on the back of the head.

"Shut up, Quil." He grumbled, as Emily came out of the kitchen, a large tray of eggs in hand, which she set on the table.

"Ladies first boys! Perci, help yourself, I've gotta grab the sausage." She said, pausing as Paul shook his head and stepped forward.

"Go ahead and get yourself going, Emily. We ate in Atlantis, so Perci and I will grab the rest of breakfast. Thank you for thinking of us though, we appreciate it." He said, gently moving past her and into the kitchen, while I followed with a smile on my face. Paul was turning into such a gentleman, and I was loving every shocked look he got with his slowly changing attitude. When I got into the kitchen, Paul had grabbed a large serving tray of bacon, and I grabbed one full of sausage, and we both took them out to set them on the table.

"Help yourself, Emily. You should be the first to enjoy your hard work." I said, before moving to take a seat on the couch, squealing in surprise when Paul picked me up to plop me back down on his lap.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Paul?" Embry asked, earning a glare and the finger from my wolf, while Emily was quickly plating herself some food and moving off to the side.

"I'm still Paul, you ass, I've just been mellowing out now that I have Perci. I'm gonna have her forever in fact, and that's enough to help cool my temper." He said, making my head whip around to face him. My dad had mentioned telling Paul about the vote the council was considering to grant him the immortality I had, but Paul hadn't said anything about what his choice was on the subject.

"Yeah, we know. You're gonna keep phasing, and she's immortal, we get it." Seth mumbled around a mouthful of eggs.

"No, Seth. He means my dad has talked to the council, and there's a vote in place to grant Paul the immortality I have. A lot of them are seeing my father's side, and it's a strong possibility that it might be approved by graduation. The choice of accepting it is completely up to him, but it looks like he's gonna be offered immortality in the next two months." I said, making silence fall over the room.

"What? That's awesome man, congratulations!" Jared finally exclaimed, breaking the silence as he came over to give Paul a fist bump and me a kiss on the cheek. The rest of the pack quickly followed in giving their congratulations, and the rest of the day was spent training. Having Victoria evade capture and destruction had the pack on edge, and they insisted on training more so they could catch her next time. The rest of the weekend passed by pretty much the same way, with the pack training, and me helping Emily plan the wedding in between study sessions for my finals, which she was gracious enough to help me with.

When Sunday evening finally rolled around, I found myself surprisingly reluctant to leave, and insisted on Paul driving me home. He refused at first, not wanting to run into Edward, but I was quick to inform him that I was supposed to get home with enough time to make dinner so Bella didn't have to cook when she got back. It had been planned that she would have dinner when she got back home, so I was supposed to get back sooner than her so I could cook. After hearing that, he agreed easily, apparently eager to spend more time with me, not that I minded.

Once I got home, Paul took my bags down to my room, while I went to the kitchen, pulling out the ingredients I needed to make spaghetti, since it was an easy enough meal while catching up with Charlie. He had informed me that he had, in fact, spent the weekend fishing with Billy Black, while I told him about the progress Emily and I had made with planning the wedding, and the fact that I would be getting a dress myself as she had asked me over the weekend to be a bride's maid. After a little while, Paul excused himself, giving me a quick peck out of respect for Charlie before heading back to La Push. I would have found the timing odd, with five minutes left until dinner was done, but Bella arrived back home barely a minute later.

"Welcome back, dinner's almost done, so you can go ahead and take your bag up to your room if you want." I informed her, casting a glance at her and feeling a small sense of relief that her eyes were still brown. I trusted the Cullens about as far as Grover could throw them, so I worried a little bit that Bella wouldn't come back human, a worry the pack shared as well, despite the fact that we knew for a fact that they were with Renee and her husband.

"Thanks." She murmured, before stumbling up the stairs, jet lag apparently making her more clumsy than usual. By the time she got back down, dinner was finished and set on the table, as she apparently took the time to change into pajamas.

"Tired much?" I joked, making Charlie chuckle.

"Jet lagged. I'm probably gonna go to bed after dinner to sleep it off since we have school in the morning." She said, making Charlie and I nod. I understood jet lag perfectly, since it happened even when traveling by bus.

"Well, did you have fun with your mom?" Charlie asked, earning a nod from Bella before she launched into a short story about her weekend with Renee, saying that Edward had some homework to do, so he spent most of the time inside, which was unfortunate as the sun never went behind a cloud once. I nearly laughed at that information, since I hadn't had the chance to ask Apollo to do just that, not even in a prayer. I guessed he just wanted to mess with them as well. At Charlie's prompting, I told Bella what I had told Charlie about the weekend, subtly enjoying the jealous look when I mentioned that Emily had asked me to be a bride's maid in her wedding. Soon after dinner was over, Bella went up to bed, leaving Charlie and I to put up the leftovers, before we decided to head to bed ourselves.

The following day, I managed to time my arrival to school at roughly the same time as Bella and her boy-toy, wanting a front row seat to the show that would happen when Bella found out why Edward really wanted her out of state during the weekend. Luckily, they seemed to have just walked up to Jacob by the time I managed to get there.

"I'm here to warn you. If any of your coven come on our land again, the treaty will be void." Jacob all but growled at Edward, seeming pissed off.

"What's he talking about?" Bella asked, looking up at Edward in confusion. Sharing a glance with Jacob, I stepped forward, a gleeful smile on my face as I was about to out her so called, 'perfect' boyfriend as the liar he was.

"Victoria toyed with both sides of the line on Friday night, didn't your boy-toy tell you? That's why he wanted you out of state, and why he wanted to stay behind. The redhead has been back, and it seems he didn't want to tell you about a threat to your life being so close. The big brute of the Cullen clan got overzealous and nearly crossed the border, but Paul stopped him. Due to the near fight that happened due to the stupidity of the vampire, Victoria got away. Luckily, the pack was ready for something this weekend since I gave them a head's up that Alice had a vision and Edward got pushy about getting you away for the weekend. I would have figured that it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something was up, but since you didn't figure it out with your apparent straight A's, I guess it takes someone with world experience to figure simple things like that out." I said airily, smirking at the growl Edward gave in offense on Bella's behalf, while Jacob seemed to choke back a laugh, despite his crush on her. Once I noticed Bella's angry look, my smirk turned smug as I looked to Jacob.

"Tell Paul I'll see him later, yeah?" I asked, receiving a nod, before I flounced off to my first class. By lunch, I noticed that I hadn't seen Bella since the parking lot and snorted in amusement. She was going to be in trouble when Charlie found out she ditched during reviews for finals. Shrugging it off as not my problem, and ignoring the pissy look Edward sent me the moment he saw me in the cafeteria, I walked over to the swim team's table and happily started in on my lunch, which was once again packed by aunt Hestia. The swim team just laughed at the array of blue foods before talks of potential college majors came up.

"What about you, little miss mermaid? What do you think you'll major in?" Todd asked, looking over at me in curiosity. I paused in eating my blueberries to look at him before shrugging as I popped a few into my mouth.

"Maybe marine biology, I don't really know. I'm taking a gap year before I even think about moving to the utter hell that is college. High school is bad enough, I think I deserve a break before college. And besides, I've got to think of schools that won't laugh at my record the second they see it. I already know Ivy League schools are out, but I've got to figure out where I want to go." I said.

"Are you gonna try to stay here, or go back to New York?" Stacy, one of the only other females on the varsity swim team, asked, looking just as curious, making me shrug again.

"I don't know. I'm dating someone from the reservation, and I don't know if he wants to leave it. I know I love him, and want to be close to him, so I guess I might stay here. New York does get a bit boring if you've lived there your whole life, so maybe a change of scenery for a few years is just what I need." I said, knowing that my mom wouldn't even mind if I chose to stay in Washington to go to college.

"Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot you were dating Paul Lahote. When's the wedding again?" Todd asked, a joking smile on his face.

"Hopefully soon." I replied simply, looking him square in the eye, and prompting choking noises from a few other members of the team.

"Wait, what? You two are already talking marriage? You haven't even been dating a year, isn't it a bit soon, Perce?" Rich, one of the mother-hens of the team asked, looking at me in concern, making me shrug.

"I love him, he loves me. When you know, you know right? My family approves of him, even my mom and step-dad, and they haven't even met him in person. My half-brothers on my dad's side like him, and so does my dad and step-mom. With every threat against him hurting me, he just says that if he hurt me, he would be hurting himself just as bad if not worse. To be honest, if Paul asked me to marry him tomorrow, I would say yes in a heartbeat." I said, knowing my face was softening with every word. It seemed that everyone else's worries were cleared right up with that, and the rest of the day passed by without a hitch.

When I got home, I cracked down on the ridiculous amount of homework that had been shoved onto me, only stopping long enough to greet Charlie, who'd had today off. After an hour, I could feel my head pounding with the amount of information I was trying to process and shoved my books away with a groan.

"Homework trouble?" Charlie asked, an annoying smile on his face, making me glare at him.

"You have no idea." I muttered, rubbing at my eyes, hoping to clear all the math from them, as it was the subject I had been working on. Before he could make fun of me some more though, the sound of the front door closing alerted us to Bella coming home, and Charlie went to go greet her.

"You know, Edward could at least respect meal times." I heard his voice deadpan.

"I was with Jake." Bella's voice responded, making me snort. Showtime.

"Yeah, you were. You ditched school to hang out with him, after all." I called, getting up to watch. She glared at me before hearing Charlie sigh.

"Bella, while I said I wanted you to spend more time with him, you do not ditch school, alright? If I hear of another instance like this, you'll be grounded again until graduation." He said sternly, making her look down in apparent shame, before the sound of someone knocking on the door echoed around us.

"I guess Perci and I will leave you two to talk." Charlie said, gently pulling me back into the living room. I heard the murmuring of conversation between Bella and Edward, before catching a near blur of pale skin rushing up the stairs soundlessly, with Bella following as quietly as she could. A few minutes later, they both came back into the living room, with Bella trying and mostly failing to hide a scared expression. Catching my eye, she mouthed one thing to me that had the blood draining from my face. 'Vampire in my room'. A vampire had been in the house at some point today, and Charlie had been alone with it. Paul was going to be pissed.