"You're going to what?" I screeched dropping the wrench I was holding as I tried to patch a leaky pipe under the sink.

"Face down an army of about a hundred newly made vampires. No big deal. I just wanted to let you know."

I just looked at him like he was absolutely insane. Because he was absolutely insane.

"But!" I stammered from the floor, "But... but..." I was trying really hard not to cry but it wasn't working out so well. I was scared and worried and angry. Over the past few months I had become ridiculously protective of this boy. I can't explain why, but everyone was all over his case all the time.

His packmates. My very own brother. Jacob had lightened up actually, since I scared him within an inch of his life screaming one night. Jake was getting better. He told me it was beyond weird to see Paul hug someone and actually utter no crude humor for the entirety of one of his visits. But things were improving; that's all I could ask for.

Paul spent a lot of time at our house. Like a lot a lot. I felt really bad because I wasn't about to starve him but there was another wolfboy appetite in my house, too. Plus me and my dad who still ate in the human capacity. Jake and I had to take to grocery shopping twice a week.

I had absolutely no cooking prowess to speak of. I am the only person I know who can screw up toast. I don't know how to sew either. Or do laundry. I can fix a leaky toilet or patch the roof though. I am not domestic. So Jake and I usually make a field trip to the market in Forks and just kind of stand confused and lost for a few minutes in front of the aisles. Two hours and and one hundred and fifty bucks in our combined funds of wrinkled bills and change later we have food for the next four days. Anyways…

But I really liked having Paul around. He made me laugh until I cried. It was an ab workout whenever he was around. And he didn't treat me like a wimpy girl. That concept had not really existed long at all. Because I had initiated more than one physical altercation. He inevitably won by either tickling me into submission or simply tossing me over his shoulder.

I also wasn't blind to the fact that our place was one of the only ones that allowed him any peace at all. His father was nice enough sober but a few drinks turned him into a mean man. I went over to see Paul once after dinner a not long after I'd attacked him in my shower. Big mistake. His dad was in there screaming and raging incoherently – this I could hear from the road. I watched with my hand poised over the screen door as Gene Lahote staggered down the hall hollering obscenities. As far as I could see his mom wasn't home.

"Christ alive, Dad! It's only four fucking thirty – are you serious?" My eyes flashed to the kitchen and I could see an empty bottle of scotch on the table. "I don't know if you got the memo but you have to pay mortgage every month! Where the hell is the rest of your paycheck?"

"Waste of fucking space!" his dad slurred as he came back down the hallway. He was carrying something heavy and I could hear it banging off the wall but it was too dark to see. "Should've dropped you in the goddamn river when I had the chance... Stupid runt pup... Useless piece of shit. Get a damn job—"

At this point in time I kicked the screen door open and stormed inside mustering all my one hundred and forty pounds of pure fury. Paul's reflexes were unmatched so he reacted about four seconds after my crashing through the door. Plus, he was well aware of how psychotic I could get when people jumped on his case (he may or may not have walked in on a few of Jake and I's screaming matches).

"Who the hell do you think you are?" I screamed at his dad. But Paul had me around the waist before I could get very far in the door.

I was in a blind rage and was kicking my legs trying to get free. I pushed on his muscle bound arms futilely still tearing into his father. Gene had begun lumbering towards me, and I saw that he had the metal sliding door stop in his hands. I can't say I really cared that he was holding a ten pound steel shaft, I just wanted at him. "Let go of me!" I yelled at Paul before looking back to his dad, "Oh, I'ma smack you so hard, your dentist is going to feel it!"

Paul, however, did care that his father was wielding a ten pound steel shaft in his drunken stupor and was finally able to pry my fingers off his door frame. He stumbled back down the steps and I continued to thrash like a fish until he threw me over his shoulder and began down the street. I finally just crossed my arms and propped them against his back, looking down the way we just came.

"Are you done?" he asked after about half a mile.

"No!" I insisted, "Put me down!"

"Are you going to bolt?"

"No," I extended to the monosyllabic word. "I'm going to walk next you and be pissed instead of having all the blood rush to my head and be pissed."

The pavement stopped moving beneath me and I watched Paul's back as he heaved a sigh. My anger began dissipating and morphed into a deep sadness. I reached down and rested my hand gently on his back. "Hon," I said quietly, "I'm not going anywhere." The muscle beneath my hand loosened infinitesimally and he bent over placing me on the ground.

For a moment I just stood there and watched his face turn to stone. His mouth was a harsh straight line, his eyes creased around the corners and his bright blue faded to a steely gray. I could see his jaw muscles taut beneath his skin.

I reached up and grazed my thumbs beneath his eyes, hoping my touch would soften his expression. If anything it made it worse. "Look, I'm sorry," he told me through gritted teeth.

"What are you sorry for?" I wasn't playing head games. I was genuinely confused as to what - specifically - he was apologizing for.

He looked at me like I might've been a little slow and signaled back in the direction of his house. "You were just... You were with me that whole time right? Drunken father, screaming girlfriend, panic stricken boyfriend, near acts of violence? Any of this ringing a bell? I'm sorry you were exposed to that."

My shoulders sagged, realizing he was apologizing for something he had no control or blame for. I looked up in his eyes. He may not have held the control or the blame but all the guilt sat on him. I could see it weighing on him.

I shook my head. "Come here, you idiot," I said fondly. I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry for," I said deliberately. I took a deep breath enjoying his smell of pine and cotton and must, hoping the sentiment of my statement sunk in a bit.

I picked my face up after a moment, my nose just grazing his, not realizing he was so close. "Does he always talk to you like that?" I ask quietly focusing on the decal on his t-shirt and not the feuding tides of sadness and anger in his eyes.

"Usually not until six or seven. Four thirty is a bit early for us," he informed me.

"Paul," I sighed, finally meeting his gaze, "I'm being serious."

"So am I," he heaved a single humorless laugh. "Why do you think I convinced my mom to pick up second shift at the hospital? That way he's passed out when she gets home, sober when they wake up and I deal with his shit at night."

I dipped my forehead to his own and closed my eyes. "He could hurt you or your mom. What I just witnessed was not an agreeable drunk."

"He can't hurt me. That's the beauty of it." I didn't want to mention to Paul how much his dad could potentially screw him up beyond simply smacking him with some piece of the house. There was a shit ton of mental baggage that came with that. It was the principle of the matter.

"You know you're not stupid right?" I said the echo of Gene's diatribe still reverberating through my skull. I didn't want that sticking with him and who knew how long he'd been hearing it. I hadn't known him that long and I didn't know if anyone had ever refuted his father's sentiment. Argued to the contrary. "You're a truly fantastic person, Paul. I don't know what I'd do without you sometimes."

"Thanks," I felt him nod, "and yeah... I know I'm not stupid. I used to wonder when I was a kid but I've learned to rise above it."

"Or are you just numb?" I asked my eyes still sealed.

He chuckled once more. "Smart lady I have here. Maybe a little of both."

I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

That's my first exposure to the insanity that is Paul's home life. He gets shit from the pack because he is honestly a pain in the ass a lot of the time. Most of their crap seems mutual. It's like they just all bitch at each other all the time; there's not much ill intent behind it. That's why I say the pack is the best thing to ever happen to some of them. You get a family by default, because no matter how stupid they act, the others will always be there to drag their ass home. And without imprinting who knows if Paul and I would have ever dated. Probably not because in my former reality he was too young for me.

And that's why I really would rather Paul crash on my couch after patrols or eat dinner here. The less he's at home the better. It's going to poison him and he just doesn't need it.

So I was kind of protective of this guy. I can't help it. It's reflexive now. So when he comes home, kisses the top of my head and tells me he's going to 'the most epic battle La Push has ever seen' I get a little concerned.

I know he and my brother and the rest of them are made of tough stuff - tougher even then those vampires sometimes - but I just want to chain him to the house sometimes.

The unnecessary risk taking worries me. I enjoy a good adrenaline rush. We all do stupid stuff for fun, but sometimes I think he takes his resilience for granted. And no, I'm still not attached to him the way I know he is to me, but I would be a mess if he got himself truly hurt. Or worse.

I had heard blips of this from Jacob. Something about "newborns" as he ran around the house looking for stuff and talking on the phone before leaving again. I was also beginning to sense a serious amount of tension between my brother and the rest of the pack. I usually saw things from Paul's perspective in regards to 'the rest of the pack'. I didn't have quite the same amount of leeway inside anyone else's mind.

In the end all his time at my house was well spent. After he told me he was going to take on a bunch of monsters he insisted on showing me how to defend myself. Because after all these years of life, I was going to get attacked by a vampire now. So that afternoon, he and my brother gave me the run down.

"You're one of us, Rach," Paul told me as he and Jacob led me to the backyard. "It's totally possible for any of them to pick it up. My smell, Jake's smell… it's all over you and this house."

Jacob shrugged and nodded his head. "If any of them have some kind of insane stroke of luck and actually make it into LaPush, the house is sitting bullseye. And so are you, unfortunately…" he finished that last part quietly. I had a double whammy. I was coated in the aroma of two pack boys. One brother, one boyfriend.

"What about Emily?" I asked. "Is she getting taught this stuff? She's the Alpha's fiancée. I feel like she's worse off than me."

"Yeah," Paul said, "if any vampire were to figure out that the big black dog was Alpha and then trace her all the way back here. There's a lot of thought involved in that."

"Finding you," Jake continued, "doesn't require much thought once they get close enough. All they know is that there's a powerful scent of a couple guys on you. She must be important. Get her."

"Fine!" I threw my arms up in surrender. I plopped down on the grass and the remainder of the afternoon was spent learning.

I learned that you can kill vampires with big werewolf teeth – which I have no of – or if you yourself are a vampire – which I am no. After hearing all the way that I was incapable of killing a vampire we got down how I could at least maybe defend myself for a few minutes.

"Fire!" Jacob said in epiphany while he snapped his fingers. Remember that Jasper-kid?

"Dude," Paul responded, "I'm pretty sure he's like twenty-five. Or a hundred and twenty-five… depending on how you look at it."

"Who the hell cares," Jake shook his head, "The point is you kill a vamp with fire. So I'm pretty sure that narrows our range of weaponry."

"Matches, lighters, firearms, hand grenades, napalm…" Paul began listing as my mouth dropped open.

"And where, pray tell," I asked, "are you keeping your hand grenades and napalm?" We had a few shotguns, a rifle and few handguns stowed in a gun chest in Billy's room. They had only ever been used for shooting ranges. Not shooting the undead.

"My dad may or may not have some Vietnam-era paraphernalia in our shed in the backyard."

"So," I continued trying to ignore the fact that Paul had a small armory going, "Are they like zombies? All you need is fire?"

"I guess so," Jake shrugged again, "Except they have brains, they don't eat them."

As the sun went down and we finished I felt like a fully licensed pyrotechnical genius. I had to talk them out of the whole 'napalm' idea. I already knew how use all the guns we owned and I got some basic DIY flamethrower knowledge.

In the long run, though – they both assured me – no one the res would really actually need it, because there would always be a few on patrol and the chances of a newbie slipping by were slim to none.