(A/N- To everyone who commented on the earthquake- sorry. I did not research fault lines in Washington state and therefore I have no idea how large or small the earthquake would be on the Richter scale. I know this proved to be a bigger issue than I would think with some people while reading the story, and I hope you all can put my science and geography skills aside so we can all enjoy this together. Hope you can forgive me.)

"You- you what?" Maybe I didn't hear him right. Hopefully I didn't.

He looked confused... as if he wasn't expecting my reaction. "Are you angry at me?"

"No. Not angry," I decided, "Just... er, surprised." And a whole hell of a lot of other emotions. "What're my parents going to say? Or uncle Sam? He's very protective of me, you know, and-"

"Are you kidding? They were the ones who gave me permission to tell you. They let me say it a little early; they knew how hard it was getting." He shook his head.

Okay, I'll admit it. I kind of had the hots for Quil. But I wasn't... in love with him. I hadn't let myself! He was almost thirty , and I was 15. He was one of those crushes you get, the ones that no one ever really acts on. Like when you have a crush on your big brother's best friend. "Umm... so no one thinks this is creepy at all?"

"Well, that's sort of..." he bit his lip, trying to find the right words. "Remember after Nadina was born, and I told you about my condition?"

The one that made me special to him. "Yeah, I remember."

"As you know, practically everyone around here is in on it." No kidding. "So for them, this isn't... this is what they were expecting."

"Yeah. What they were expecting. I had no idea..." I trailed off, trying to imagine an actual relationship between me and someone who was, technically, old enough to be my uncle. And who I'd always thought of him as. "I just don't know. This is a lot to take in. That was very abrupt."

He just smiled while I sat on the cool ground, pondering my options. I could either tell him to screw off and go find Mulva, or be with someone I knew would always protect me, love me, and care for me. But... it was Quil!

"Claire, can I-" he looked uneasy for a moment, as if wondering if he should tell me something. "Would you like me to explain my condition to you? Would it help?"

Yes! I would finally be able to know the secret! And why no one thought Quil loving me was creepy. I nodded.

"Okay." He sat in front of me, grabbing my hands. "Where should I start?"

"How about when you first found out about it?" I suggested.

"Okay. Let's see... I was sixteen. My best friends were Embry and Jacob. They had both joined a gang... or that's what I thought, anyway." He laughed at the memory. "I was so scared I'd be recruited. I was living in fear. But then... something I wasn't expecting happened. One day, when I was angry, I went outside. I started pacing around, wondering about what my friends were doing. Not knowing what their future held. Hating your uncle Sam for 'ruining' all those boys' lives."

He snapped back to this time, and looked me in the eyes. "Do you remember the Quilyeute legends?" he asked.

"Yes. With the werewolves and the cold ones. Blah Blah Taha Aki Blah Blah Third Wife. What does that have to do with your story?" I was angry he'd interrupted his explanation.

He sighed. "It has everything to do with my story."

I blinked. "I don't get it."

He grinned widely. "I could just tell you. But I could also ask you to take a guess, and I think the second would be more amusing."

"Quil! I'm dying here. Please just tell me?"

"Nope. Take one guess and I will."

I thought hard for a minute, trying to put two and two together. "When you were angry in the woods, you took a knife and stabbed yourself, then the 'gang' showed up and stuffed you in a canoe, tied you to the top of a tree, and you went insane and since you... didn't shower for so long whenever someone came to save you they plugged their nose and said you made their nose sting, but then I came up when I was two or whatever and you didn't sting my nose which made you become really attached to me?" I tried to put in as much from the legends as I could.

Quil started howling (A/N: hahahahaha) with laughter. I pouted.

"Shut up! You didn't give me much to work with, and I barely remember those legends anyway." I just wanted to know the point of all this.

"Wow. The guys are gonna get a hoot out of that one. But no." Yeah, I figured it was a no when the laughing started.

"So I took a guess. Can you tell me now?" I asked impatiently.

He composed himself and took my hands again. "Okay. I'm going to tell you something and I would appreciate it if you didn't run away screaming."

Crap. Was he going to propose now? "I promise."

He took a deep breath. "In my enraged state, something happened that I wasn't ready for. I found out that those legends weren't just legends."

"What, so someone came by with a picture of a horse-sized wolf from a hundred years ago?" I giggled. "Is that what the 'gang' does? Collect artifacts from the spirit wolves?"

Quil didn't join in with my laughter; he face was completely serious. "I didn't need a picture to figure out it was real."

That stumped me. "How would you find out werewolves actually existed, then?"

He looked at me intently for a while. I gasped as realization hit.

"You- you're... the gang? They're all-" I was hyperventilating.

He nodded.

"You're a werewolf." An almost thirty year old werewolf was in love with me. I was waiting to wake up in my bed from a crazy dream.

We sat in silence for a few minutes while I digested everything.

"What does that have to do with me?" I finally asked.

"Some werewolves imprint." Ew! I learned all about imprinting in school.

"You think I'm your mother? That is sick and wrong, Quil."

He laughed. "That's not what imprinting means for us, Claire," he explained. "Jared imprinted, and so did Sam and Leah. It doesn't mean they think they found their mom. Otherwise, it would be weird for me to imprint on a two year old like I did."

"So imprinting means falling in love? You fell in love with me when I was two?"

"It doesn't mean falling in love," he corrected. "It's hard to explain."

"Well it seems like everyone who imprints ends up being with that person. That sounds like love to me." Weird, weird, weird!

"It isn't always love. It's just... your world completely changes when you see that person. Your life purpose becomes trying to keep them safe and happy. Whether that be acting like a brother, friend, or lover; whatever your imprint wants from you, you give them." He reached out and touched my face. "So I'm willing to give you whatever you need from me. Whatever makes you happy is yours."

"Can you tell me the rest of your story?" I whispered.

"Of course. So, I exploded into a giant wolf. Suddenly, I could hear a bunch of voices in my head- Sam's stuck out. 'It's happened', he told me. 'You're part of us now'. I was so scared, I didn't know what I was part of. Their gang? What had they done to me?

"I started running, and I saw my feet. They were paws. I could smell things, hear things, see things that I had never been able to before. It was amazing. I saw my reflection in some water and knew what I'd become.

"Sam told me to come to him. At first, I wanted to run away. But I couldn't. I felt myself searching through his eyes for his location, and running toward it. My free will had vanished."

I was so captivated by his story that I didn't notice how hungry I was. It must have been at least an hour or more since I woke up, and my stomach grumbling interrupted him. We both laughed and he helped me up.

"What are you in the mood for?" He asked. "I have cereal, cereal, and cereal at my house. Take your pick."

He lifted me back up and started running towards his little house, and once again I had to try and ignore the hot (in both ways) body that was right in front of my face.

"Quil, why are you so warm?" I asked.

"So we can't catch illnesses," he explained. "It's worked out wonderfully for me- remember when you had the stomach flu and no one would come near you for a while?"

"And why don't you ever go to the hospital?"

"I don't ever need to."

"Yeah you do! Remember when we were setting the table when I was nine and I accidentally cut your arm with the steak knife? I started apologizing like crazy and you laughed with my dad and said 'You're right, Claire! I should get a band-aid for that.' Which you never ended up doing, by the way."

"Like I said before- I don't need to."

"You should have needed stitches."

"We heal quickly- a broken bone takes a day, and even the worst gashes and cuts take a few hours at most. The only time any of us needed an actual doctor was when Jacob broke the entire right side of his body. We probably had one of the best doctors in the world with us and he still had to re-break some bones that had healed wrong." He laughed.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

He shook his head. "That's a story for another day- and one Jacob should probably tell you himself." We had arrived back at Quil's house and he set me in front of the giant cereal collection.

"You do have alot," I said as I inspected the different boxes of sugary goodness.

"I don't like to cook," he told me. "And this stuff is awesome."

I grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and poured some cheerios in, then grabbed a jug of milk from the fridge and added it. I sat down with a spoon and began to eat.

"So Quil, go on with your story."

"Alright. So Sam explained everything- he told me that he was the Alpha, that everyone had to listen to him. I was okay with that. The only real downside to any of it is that when you're in wolf form, everyone knows everything going through your head. Any thought, idea, or memory is public business. But when you get over that... it's amazing. The speed, the strength. I was a sixteen year old boy with not a care in the world. Nothing would be able to stop me. I would run and fight with my friends, go anywhere, do anything. Life was perfect. And that is the story."

It didn't seem finished yet; I wondered what else it was missing. "Quil, what happened when you imprinted on me?" I asked.

He grinned widely, as if it were one of his favorite memories. "Sam and Jared described how imprinting was. I didn't pay it much thought; I believed it was just love at first sight, or something equally as corny. Only two of us had done it, and it seemed very rare, so I didn't bother myself with it. I was," he made a face, "happy I hadn't imprinted. I believed that a girlfriend would slow me down, would take away from my freedom. All I wanted was to be a wolf. I ran free, happy to do what I pleased. I loved it."

"You loved not having me in your life?"

"At the time, yes, I loved it. I had no idea what it was like. And then...

"And then, one day when I was running, Sam invited us over for lunch. He told us to be quiet though, because Emily's nieces were visiting. We walked into the house and dug in. We heard screaming from upstairs. Two toddlers were fighting over something; it annoyed us all." he rolled his eyes. "We all heard a 'thump' followed by crying. We tried to ignore it, but then the crying girl started coming downstairs.

"Her hair was all messy and her face was red. Tears were streaming down her face as she cried, 'Aunt Emawie! Jackie hit me!' Everyone turned to face the crying toddler, laughing a little bit. But I couldn't laugh. Not when I saw you in such distress.

"I don't know what came over me. It was like the gears shifted in my brain; you were my number one priority. All I knew was that I needed to comfort you, to make you smile. I ran over, squatted down, and just looked at you. You stopped crying to look curiously at me for a moment. Then you did the cutest thing. You stuck your little pudgy hand and said, 'Hewo, Mister. I'm Cwaire.' I didn't know what else was happening in the room; all I knew was that you were suddenly scooped out of my sight, my little angel gone." I found it extremely hard to swallow my last bite of cereal past the lump in my throat. Quil continued.

"Emily was yelling at Sam. I knew that much. I turned around to see my brothers looking at eachother, in shock and confusion. I tried to find you, to see you again. I felt an overwhelming need to protect you." He finished his story, reached out, and cupped my face in his warm hand; I realized we were only a few inches apart. "And I still do. After everything was figured out, your parents were told. They reacted as everyone thought they would, but let me be around you if they were. When I offered to babysit you instead of going to a huge bonfire, they were amazed. They really knew that you meant more to me than a stupid party. And so I cared for you, your entire life. Everyone told me you had to be sixteen before I told you anything. But Sam let me tell you early. And here we are."

I was horrified when I felt a little moisture in my eyes. I blinked it away, trying not to make myself look like an idiot during this moment. I breathed in one ragged breath, trying to get a grip. Slowly, surely, I leaned forward. His hot breath tickled my cheek, and my stomach dropped through the floor. Closing my eyes, I leaned forward, tasting his lips on mine.

"I love you, too," I whispered.