A/N: Hey! Uh, no Jacob in this chapter either but i promise he'll be in the next, i just hate when stories rush into things so i'm trying to take it slow, but this chapter is important to the plot. All the usual stuff applies - everything you recognise i don't own! The song belongs to Tomas O'Malley and his alley cats. And no offence is intended to 'tree huggers' - my brother reckons i'm one - but Alex definitly isn't, so... yeah. Read, review, enjoy - hopefully.

Supernova

Chapter 5: "Everybody Wants To Be A Cat, Because A Cat's The Only Cat Who Knows Where It's At." – The Aristocats, Everybody Wants To Be A Cat.

I was sat at the kitchen table of the Clearwater's home while rain was pitter-pattering against the window pains, but I was too intently focused on the two brown eyes before me to hear it. This was it – best of three. Leah coughed in a blatant attempt to distract us, but we weren't budging, it was all or nothing. The air was thick with a tension you'd need a chainsaw to cut through. This was war – I was not getting beat by a two year old – no way José – I had some pride... kind of.

The front door slammed open, bouncing against the wall and without my permission my eyes flickered to the doorway for less than a mini-second, but it was enough. My opponent threw up her hands with a joyful screech.

"I win!" she began chanting. "I win, I win, I win, I win!"

Leah burst into hysterics, clutching her middle. "You suck!"

"You could at least be humble about it," I grumbled, pushing the last piece of pie across the table at her. She grabbed it with both hands and began shovelling the desert into her mouth.

"Whoa! Calm down, Claire," Leah said in-between her chuckles, placing a restraining hand on the little girl's arm. "You don't want to get indigestion."

Claire stuck her pie-covered tongue out in a very un-lady-like gesture. I glanced at Leah who was staring in shock at the angelic child. She met my eyes and we both burst out laughing as two shadows filled the doorway.

"Hey Alex, Leah… Claire," Collin addressed us with a wave of his hand. "What you doing?"

"Staring contest for the pie," I informed him. "Claire won."

He was distinctly unsurprised. "Yeah, she's totally the best."

"Colwin," the girl in question said through a mouthful of pie. "I won."

"Yeah I can see that Claire." He shook his head at the state of her.

"Qwil?" she questioned with the most adorable puppy-dog eyes I had ever seen (and I thought my siblings were good). How anyone could resist them I had no idea.

The other boy took this as his cue to speak. "Nah, Claire, he'll be round later." Then he fixed his gaze on Leah. "Lee, we gotta go, Sam's called another meeting."

"What why?" Leah asked already up from the table and moving. "I thought you guys sorted it all the other day?"

"Yeah, well," he said with a nervous glance at me (I was probably looking a bit too eagerly between them), "there are some complications."

"What kind of complications, Seth?" Leah demanded, hands firmly on her hips.

"Outside complications that we really can't discuss amongst present company yet, so…" he nodded sharply at the door. "Lets get going."

Leah took a deep breath and ran an agitated hand through the cropped ends of her inky hair before turning to me with heavy eyes. "Alex," she said, "do you mind keeping an eye on Claire for a bit? I swear I'll be back as soon as possible."

"Sure" like I was going anywhere without her car.

Leah tossed a look at Seth. "That ok?"

He nodded. "They should be fine."

"Should?"

"Will." He amended. Then gave me what he must have hoped was a reassuring smile. "Just stay indoors."

Yeah, now I was reassured. "Great!" I said with false optimism and a roll of my eyes. "I take it I'm not going to be enlightened about this any time soon?"

Leah smirked briefly, apologetically. Then the three of them shot out of the house with surprising speed considering their size. Claire was tilting her head at me curiously. "Movie time?" I asked, grabbing my crutches from where they leaned against the table and struggling upright.

"Yay!" She agreed hoping down from her chair with far more grace. How exactly I was supposed to stop her from doing anything at the moment was beyond me, but so long as she wasn't aware of my shortcomings it would all be fine.

Don't let her smell the fear.

"Yeah!" I laughed. "You got it."

"Really?" Claire said with bright eyes. I nodded, relieved, I had been teaching her the same song for the past hour and she had only just got the words vaguely right. Tilly was way slower, but Livi had a memory like an elephant, which wasn't so great when I accidentally swore in her presence. "Where Qwil?"

Shrugging I paused the DVD we had been watching. "I don't know Claire, but I'm sure if he said he'd be here he will." That was some strong attachment this little girl had to the obnoxious guy. She'd been asking after him ever since the others left. Still it sort of made sense that he could connect with a two-year-old girl better than those nearer his own age. What was it that they said about girls developing faster – mentally – than boys?

Claire's mouth opened to say something further, but I never found out what, because it was at that moment that a swarm of different voices drowned her out and the front door swung open once again. A large, jumbled group filed into the fairly small house. I recognised Collin, and Seth as they made their way straight into the kitchen. Then Embry and Jared flopped down on the empty sofa (I was on the floor with Claire), their faces were bookends of exhaustion, they flicked the TV onto sport. Paul stood in the corner glowering at everyone and everything (someone seriously needed a happy pill).

"Hey, you ok?" Leah asked coming to rest in the doorway.

"Yeah I'm good. You alright?"

She grinned a little ruefully. "Been better." Her eyes fell on Claire – who was peering about her expectantly.

That was when Quil himself swept into the room and made a beeline for the girl whose chubby arms were ready and reaching out to him, both of them ignoring everyone else present. He swept her up into his arms with the most blinding smile I had ever seen. It appeared that Claire's attachment was completely mutual. "How's my little Claire bear?" he asked, rocking her gently.

"I know new song," she informed him proudly, but then let out a huge yawn, her eyes scrunching up.

"How about you sing it to me on the way back to Aunt Emily's?" he suggested already making his way to the door.

"Mmmhmm," Claire mumbled, snuggling her face into his shoulder. It was just too adorable, and I found myself garnering a new respect for Quil. Then, just before they disappeared she lifted her head up to look at me. "Night, night, Alex."

I smiled and sent her a little wave. "Night, night, Claire."

And they were gone. Seth and Collin had now entered the room with another guy I didn't recognise, all three of them stuffing their faces with giant sandwiches. It seemed like everyone was here – everyone except Sam, Emily, Kim, and Jacob. I frowned, finding myself oddly disappointed. There was no reason for it; I should be glad that I didn't have to contend with him tonight.

But I wasn't, and I still had Molly's stupid words ringing in my head, and they just would not go away. Maybe if I just sleep with him it would prove to her that there is nothing different about him and that he's just the same as every other guy walking this earth.

When I glanced up I saw that Leah was giving me her patented calculating stare. "You want to get going?" She asked.

"I think so." I hoisted myself back onto my one working foot and smiled when Embry handed me my crutches.

"He's giving you space," he told me, cryptically, so low that the others who were engaged in some boring conversation about American Football wouldn't hear.

"What?" I stumbled. Was I that obvious? "Who?"

The corners of Embry's mouth twitched. "Jacob. He's got to sort some" pause " things out, so he's giving you space… time."

"Time?" I choked out. Damn Molly.

Embry frowned at my odd reaction, but before he could proceed any further Quil swung back into the living room, sans Claire, and with a horrified expression on his face like he just heard that the world was about to implode. Immediately the entire room was on high alert.

"What is it? What's happened?" Jared jumped from the couch firing out his questions in quick succession leaving barely enough time for air let alone answers. "Is it Kim? Is Claire ok? Where are Sam and Jacob? Quil! What is the matter?"

But Quil was still as stone, staring at me with his wide appalled eyes. Everyone followed his gaze. "You." He accused, pointing a finger at me.

Leah shot me a bemused look. "What did you do?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I have no-"

"Tell them! Tell them what song you taught Claire!" Quil cut me off sharply.

I couldn't help it – I laughed. "Are you serious?" He certainly looked it. "What is the problem? 'Everybody wants to be a cat' is a classic Disney song-" But I didn't get much further as there was a collective gasp from every occupant in the room. "What?" I puzzled.

Deafening silence stretched on.

Then Seth snorted and the others soon followed.

Even Quil's mouth twitched and his eyes softened. "I'm having words with Jacob about this," he warned, darting back out of the house as suddenly as he'd arrived. "It's just plain sick!"

"What the hell?" I said, getting the distinct feeling that I was missing some big joke.

"Don't worry about it," Leah grinned. "He's just allergic to cats."

Later that week I was stationed back in the library because Diana had decided that I was spending far too much time around Leah and La Push. She was clearly getting a little bit nervous about it. What exactly she thought we were getting up to I couldn't determine, but what I did know was that around Forks the group of guys had a pretty rough reputation – and Leah, being the only girl, was given an even wider birth. I could understand why because meeting one of them in a dark alley would certainly scare the hell out of me, but when in reality they were as harmless as all the other teenagers bumbling around I found it a bit annoying and told Diana so. To which she insisted she wasn't condemning them, just that she'd heard of some funny goings on. Which, considering my own experience, was hard to argue against.

So I was put at the front desk by a less than pleased to see me Enid and informed a little tersely that I was not to mess up the system. Luckily it was Carol who showed me the ropes of how to issue out loans and sort out all the returns. Once she had finished, patiently watching as I demonstrated what I'd learnt correctly, Carol then joined the weird sisters in the back room for a much-deserved coffee break. Which would have left me all alone out front if it weren't for the brown haired guy stacking the shelves to my left.

Callum Mallory was not exactly what I had envisioned Enid's grandson to be – I was still puzzling how it was at all possible that he shared genes with Enid.

He was 24 for a start, I was expecting a greasy 13/14 year old. Enid had told me when we made our brief introduction that he had graduated from UCLA where he had been doing ecology, behaviour, and evolution – I think – and was now looking for work with the state Conservation Commission. Callum had the misfortune of being back for the summer to see his parents and help his younger sister get off to college in Seattle. Strangely enough he was glad to be of use. I'd have hated him if he weren't so damn pretty.

While I was admiring him I chose to ignore the fact that he was leaving a trail of discarded books behind him wherever he went like breadcrumbs in the forest, and that he would frequently trip up. And I don't only mean over the scattered books – I mean anything – his feet, the edge of a shelf, the carpet – anything. Luckily he was clumsy but agile (or well practised) because he made it out of each incident unscathed. It was beginning to make me a little sour about my own twisted limb so I focused on the pretty.

It wasn't that I was interested in him (although Enid's warning glance did seem sort of like a challenge) it was more that while I was admiring Callum's sun kissed profile against the midday light I wasn't thinking about another guys profile and how I hadn't seen it for days. In fact, Callum was the perfect distraction from the knowledge that he hadn't once come by to check that I was ok. I mean I knew that Leah and the others could probably fill him in on the basics – yes, she's alive – yes, she's still tripping us up with her crutches – yes, she still whines about the pain – but that wasn't the same as seeing and hearing it for himself.

Leah got the funniest look on her face when I tried to not so subtly point out that Jacob hadn't bothered to check on me. We were in my room at the time and her eyes flickered to the window above my desk, then back to me, and she grinned. "I wouldn't be so sure about that… Now lets get a move on or we're going to be late."

She was feeling irritable so I decided not to press it.

"Oh, Janice, it was lovely!"

"So you liked it?" Janice asked, her watery blue eyes brightening.

"I got so many compliments about it," the other old lady continued, I think her name was Margaret, she'd been in twice today already.

"Well the colour was just perfect with your skin tone," Janice explained. I tried not to snort out loud, because Margaret's skin tone was one shade away from grey – like the rest of her.

"And it's cotton," Margaret added in, just in case we were all wondering. "Such a pretty sweater set."

Janice was now nodding enthusiastically, her four chins shaking with the movement. "I do love them," she confided, "because I don't like things tight around my neck, and they make them nice and low – but not too low. The variety of colours is superb." Margaret made an agreeing sound in the back of her throat. "I can put in another order for you, Margaret, if you like?"

"Please do," Margaret said eagerly. "Tell me, Janice, are you off to church now?"

"Not right now, but I'll be along to the sale later because Harold…"

How long was this going to go on for? I was sat at the front desk as I had been all day, with one elbow on the counter, my head propped up by my hand while I waited for the women in front of me to finish their conversation. The library was pretty empty now – there was one other person in here besides Callum and myself. A middle-aged man who was perusing the travel section. The three witches were out for their break – they'd chosen to treat themselves to lunch at Fork's only café – so we had been left alone. Apparently Callum was in charge, which I thought was a little sexist, or ageist or something, because I was just as competent as him – if not more judging by the shelf he almost toppled over 5 minutes ago. But hey, he was in with Enid so what could I do? It was blatant favouritism.

As Janice and Margaret launched into yet another subject topic that would be sure to blow their frail minds with its intrigue, I had had enough. Lifting my head I let my hand fall to the hard surface with a loud slap that sounded even louder in the quiet room and all eyes turned to me. I smiled – sort of.

"Excuse me, but can I actually help either of you? Or are you just using the library as a gossiping stop out of the rain? If so could you please move your discussion away from the front desk so that I don't have to listen to it?" They blinked in unison. "Thank you."

"Well, I never," Janice huffed her jowls vibrating. "You need to learn some manners, missy."

"As do you," I smiled sweetly.

For a good minute they huffed and puffed and I was beginning to wonder if turning that red was healthy. Then, finally they decided that they really didn't have any purpose for being in the library, so they left in a flurry of grey hair and stale perfume, shooting me death glares as they went.

When I finished boring holes in the back of their hideous perms I swung around feeling rather pleased with how that had gone only find Callum was regarding me from behind his stack of books. His mossy green eyes had widened considerably and his jaw was definitely on the slack side.

"Yes?" I inquired, garnering a raised eyebrow.

"You're mean," he pointed out, the corner of his mouth twitching.

I shrugged. "They were annoying me. Besides you can't tell me you wanted to hear about how Janice's appointment with the doctor to check out her weak bladder went?"

He actually blushed – it was strangely adorable. The colour spread from his temples and across his cheeks. Then, sending me a wicked grin I hadn't previously thought him capable of he said. "Maybe I did. Janice is a very dear friend of mine."

I laughed. "Well, in that case I apologise."

"Accepted," he chuckled. That was when we noticed the odd look the man by the travel books was sending us. Callum managed to compose himself first and while I was snorting into my hand he addressed the customer. "Can I help you at all, sir?"

The man was taken aback (probably by the genuine politeness of Callum's question) and shook his head quickly in a negative, fixing his eyes back on the spines stacked before him. Every so often he would peer at us from the corner of his eyes.

Callum grabbed a great pile of information books and strode over to me, propping them up on the counter. I lifted one from the top and turned it over in my hands 'Happiness for Dummies'. Unsurprisingly when I looked up at him his eyes were glittering down at me. "I thought you might want to reserve it."

"You are just too funny," I grumbled, shoving the offending book back. "Haven't you got work to do? Carpets to trip over?"

That wiped the smile from his face. "That's not funny."

"It kind of is," I disagreed, "I've watched you trip on the exact same patch of carpet at least five times today. What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" he protested, clearly affronted by my comment. "I'm not the one with the dud ankle."

That was almost insulting, and besides my ankle was much better today. "You're the most spatially challenged person I've ever met."

"I've always been like it," he said, as if that was a reasonable defence, "I can't help it. The only time I ever feel comfortable when I'm taking pictures."

I could try to pretend that I wasn't intrigued, but that would take more effort than I could be bothered with. "Pictures? Like photography?"

"Yeah," he confirmed with a shrug. "I took a course at College."

"So what do you take pictures of?"

"Wildlife mainly – that's what I'm most interested in."

I wanted to slap my own forehead. The ecology major taking wildlife pictures – duh. "Oh… I bet there is a lot of good stuff around here."

He shifted awkwardly. "Yeah… not bad. Some really interesting… discoveries."

I frowned. What was he implying? There was something suspect in his tone. I opened my mouth ready to find out what it was exactly when they returned. Diana and Carol smiled at us as they came in the door, but Enid had an expression on her face like she had just caught The Devil chatting up Jesus. What had Diana told her about me?

Carol came around behind the front desk. "Thank you both for looking after the place for us. If you like you can both go home now," she shot a checking glance at Diana, wisely avoiding Enid's eyes – or at least the death-rays where her eyes should have been. "Is that ok?"

Diana pursed her lips and I wondered if she was going to make me stay here for the entire day. "You don't have a ride home."

Crap. Then my hero stepped surprisingly up to the bar. "I can give her a lift. You only live a few doors down from my parents, so…" Callum trailed off obviously feeling the heat of Enid's stare.

Diana was clearly a little bemused by his gallant offer but looked placated by it. "If Alex doesn't mind…"

"Nope, sounds good to me." I hurriedly assured, grabbing my bag from the back of the chair and standing up to balance on one leg while I hooked the crutches under my armpits. "Lets go."

Callum tugged his jacket from the coat hooks by the door and together we made a speedy exit. Once out on the rain slick street he let out a long breath of air. "Man, they're seriously scary all together."

"No kidding." I followed him slowly down towards where he had parked. "Why on earth would you choose to help out?"

He grinned ruefully. "Mom made me. But I'm used to fierce women. You should meet my sister."

"Please," I snorted, "I'm fierce, Leah's fierce, your granny? She is ferocious. Like a little pit bull with a perm."

"Fair point." He stopped and unlocked a beat up green ford focus. "Hop in." And yes the pun was intended. "Don't mind the mess."

Don't mind the mess? What I wanted to know was how to avoid the mess. It looked like Callum hadn't been informed that there were vacuum cleaners and bins in existence. Dry mud scuffed the carpet, and there were empty drinks bottles scattered across the floor with scraps of paper – receipts. He took my crutches, leaving me to hang onto the car frame for balance, and chucked them on the back seat. I hopped around so that I could lower myself onto the seat without having to dive in headfirst. I managed it, but I also managed to sit on something hard. Shoving a hand under my bottom I tugged out the large dog-eared scrapbook.

"Hey," Callum breathed out settling into the drivers seat. He slotted the key into the ignition and cast a quick glance at me, which turned into a double take. "Oh. Yeah. That's my scrapbook, you can throw it in the back if you like."

"Your photos?"

"Uh, yeah." He pulled out onto the quiet road. "I was thinking of taking them up to Port Angeles. There are a some galleries up there and I was going to see if I could sell a few – you know, make a buck or two."

I looked up at him. "Why haven't you?"

He ran a hand through his short hair, messing it further, and gave me a half smile. "I… uh…"

"Can I look? I mean I'm not an expert, but if you want an honest opinion I can do that." I really, really wanted to see them.

"I guess so. I just wasn't sure if I should."

I flipped the cover open, the photos were not taped in rather they had been sandwiched loose between the thick pages. "Why shouldn't you?"

"Uh…" he hesitated, and then trailed off.

Most of the pictures were stunning sunsets and rises over the beaches down at La Push like the one I had witnessed. They weren't amazing, but they captured the colours and the unearthly aspect of that time of day and that place. He had a few shots of birds and insects, some of the forest; the huge majestic trees covered with green, towering up to the sky. "They're nice," I said and he laughed. "Good for tourists – and that's not a bad thing. You could…" I lost my train of thought. I was coming to the end of the pictures and I had found a set of maybe six. The first one was of a butterfly sat on a pretty white flower. It was a beautiful soft blue, almost silver, with a fuzzy body, and darker spots on its wings. Its wings were shut – then I flipped to the next and they had opened – and then the next and they were closed again. This continued through the six photos, each a snapshot of this one butterfly. "Cool…" I murmured. Callum turned to see what I was looking at. "How'd you do that?"

He grinned. "I brought this really awesome camera just before I came out here. You can place it on a stand and set it to take pictures at say 5-minute intervals for like an hour. So you can hide it away from the wildlife, and leave it there, even at night, but still get the shots kind of unobtrusively. I was just messing around with it, getting the settings…"

"Bloody hell!" I cut him off, finally at the last page. "What the?"

"Oh," he said. "Uh, yeah, those were the ones I wasn't sure about."

I was staring at them bug-eyed, no doubt, flicking over them repetitively. "Where?"

"My back yard," he answered the vague question correctly. "I set it up so it looked over the fence into the trees to see what lurks about at night – an experiment of sorts."

"And this is what creeps around our houses at night?" I tried to keep my voice on a level but it was becoming increasingly harder the longer I looked at the image in my hands. "Are they supposed to grow that big? It's like a horse."

He let out a breathy laugh. "No. They're not."

"But it's huge. I mean I heard someone talking about there being possible wolf sightings around here a few months ago, but this is definitely not a normal wolf…"

"It's definitely a wolf." He confirmed – a little unnecessarily because there was no way it could be anything else. "I've done some research and there are no wolves recorded anywhere near that size. Ever. Some grey wolves get pretty big, but that's just… I mean the Dire wolf was a bit larger, but it's been extinct for 9,000 years, so…"

I'd heard someone chatting to Enid about the strange animals sighted and whether they were wolves or bears. How anyone could mistake a wolf for a bear was beyond me, they had two completely different body shapes – even if the wolf was massive with glinting black eyes and shaggy thick fur. Actually the eyes weren't glinting – well, they could have been – but it wasn't looking at the camera so all I could make out was the shape of the creature between the trees and that it's coat was of a dark red-brown looking colour. I couldn't seem to drag my eyes away from it. I shivered. "Shouldn't you inform the sheriff or something so they can shoot it before it kills someone?"

Callum whirled his face around to me, horrified. "No!" he said so passionately I felt kind of bad. "You can't tell anyone. Not yet."

"What? why?"

"Firstly it's a living creature. Secondly it could be a brand new species; people will want to study it. And thirdly – is there any real proof it's harmed anyone? Maybe we should just keep quiet and leave it in peace."

"Are you serious? Its right outside your house – the size of a horse – you can't keep that secret. It might not have hurt anyone yet, but I bet it could, some poor unsuspecting hiker…" I couldn't believe he was even considering not telling anyone, he had to, this was news worthy, he could go down in history for providing proof of a brand new species – although how anyone had not managed it before beat me because it was pretty hard to miss. I stared at the creature and another shiver ran up my spine.

"I just wish I'd never seen it." He sounded genuinely upset about the thought of outing this beast.

"Yeah, me too." I said shutting the scrapbook and turning to gaze out the window in the hopes of erasing the image swimming in front of my eyes.

"You don't like wolves?"

That was an understatement. "Not really. I'm a cat person. I watched this movie when I was a kid – The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – gave me nightmares for a month afterwards."

"Because of a movie?" He chuckled, shaking his head at me like I was some silly little girl.

"Look, we don't even get the normal sized ones in England, let alone super sized ones, so excuse me if I find it just a tiny bit alarming!" I defended my reaction fiercely, not everyone was an avid tree hugger.

"Sorry."

"Besides," I added, staring out at the passing buildings, "they do that scary head thing. You know – when they turn to the side to look at you but keep running forwards – its really freaky."

"Come on," he laughed.

I think he said something else but I stopped listening to him because that was when I saw them. They were outside the hiking outfitters shop next to a parked motorbike. Even though I had never met her before I recognised her immediately. They didn't notice me staring as we passed them by, but I found myself leaning back in my seat to try and keep myself from view. It didn't matter, I could probably have jumped out in a clown suit singing 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor' and they wouldn't have batted an eyelid. They were completely lost in each other, oblivious to the outside world. Just before Callum turned to see why I wasn't answering him, I watched with narrowing eyes as she placed her pale little hand into his darker and larger one and he tugged her forward into a big bear hug.

Dragging my eyes from the sight I blinked at Callum who was giving me a bemused smile.

"You all right, Alex?" he asked as I continued to stare through him, determined now not to look back.

"Yeah, fine…"

After dinner that night I sat at my window for the first time since I arrived in Forks and gazed at the trees through the misty rain. They were shadowy in the dark, and foreboding, rising up like great pillars of the forest. I wondered if it was out there right at that moment, staring back at me through the dark.

But when I fell asleep it wasn't the wolf I dreamt of.

The image of Jacob Black embracing Isabella Swan burned to the insides of my eyelids and just would not leave me alone.