Boy do I love snow days! I'm sorry it took me so long to put this chapter up. I do have a life (okay, I lie. I don't.). Oh, and if anyone wants to do me a favor, one of my friends has some weird vendetta against Twilight. I told him about this fanfic and how much I like writing and how it's becoming semi-successful. His reply? "That's not very successful. I've seen stories with way more reviews than that." Want to prove him wrong? Review!

Last time:

Maybe I was right earlier and I didn't deserve Seth. I wasn't going to dwell on that anymore, because he definitely deserved the happiness that being with me inexplicably brought him. I was going to (attempt to) let go of my insecurities and enjoy the blessing life had handed me. Him.

I woke up the next morning (okay afternoon) surprisingly well rested. I glanced at my clock and, quite typically, panicked. I had less than an hour before Seth was coming over.

I leaped out of bed and into the shower. I just had to choose today to sleep in until one o'clock.

Last night, Sophie had practically tackled me in her efforts to find out exactly what had gone down earlier. I felt almost sorry for the busybody. I wasn't exactly able to tell her anything without spilling the secret. I had filled her in on the movie and the name of the restaurant.

She had practically had a conniption fit. She was able to deduce a bit more from my appearance, however, even though I had hastened to brush my hair. A bit too smart for her own good, that one.

I stumbled out of the shower and into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt. It looked, well not sunny, but not rainy today. It must have rained out yesterday. This slightly overcast sky was a definite improvement. I dressed for the September day it was, or at least the way I would have in good old MA.

As I combed out my wet hair, Sophie popped in the room. She took a look at me and raised her eyebrows. I raised one back at her. "What?" I asked.

"Where're you going?" she asked innocently. Too innocently.

"Out," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"You're spending a lot of time with this guy. You haven't even known him that long. You think that's healthy?"

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Where do you even hear this stuff Dr. Phyllis?"

"TV," she shrugged. I shook my head silently and put the comb down.

"That stuff really is rotting kids' minds." I gave her a playful shove.

She shot me a look, the kind that seemed to say Oh, the things I put up with. She was actually pretty good at it too.

I followed her down the stairs, noticing that I only had a few minutes to grab something to eat before going over to their house. I doubted they'd have anything I really wanted to eat there. Eww, gross thought.

I slid some bread into the toaster and grabbed a jar of peanut butter from a cupboard. Sophie stared at me, he hazel eyes serious. "What now?" I asked.

"Just be careful," she said. "I can't explain it, I mean he seems nice and all, but I'm getting a weird vibe off of him."

I stared right back at her, dumbfounded. Was she just paranoid? Was she imagining things? Did it have something to do with Seth's being a wolf? Was I freaking out over nothing? The last one seemed probable.

"Okay," I said. I had no intention of following her suggestions but she had good intentions nevertheless.

"Just because you're a geek doesn't mean you're protected from creepy people, Haley. Be serious."

I snorted. "First of all, Soph, Seth is not creepy! Second of all, I'm not a geek!"

"Yes you are."

I considered her statement. "Okay, so I am but you don't have to say it!"

"Truth hurts." She smirked. "I think your toast is burning."

"What?" I whirled around and popped the charred pieces of bread out of the toaster. "Dang it!" I held it over the sink and started scraping off the worst burned bits off with a knife. Sophie stifled a giggle. I glared at her.

"Don't you have some TV show you're supposed to be watching right now?"

"Probably, but this is much more entertaining."

I spread some peanut butter on the bread and carried it to the table. I sat down and Sophie followed me.

"Aren't you kind of old to be playing copycat?" I demanded.

"Nope. Don't talk with your mouth full," she reprimanded. When did she start turning into Mom?

I scarfed down the toast and a glass of water to get rid of the peanut butter that was sticking to the roof of my mouth.

I put the dishes in the sink and walked into the living room. Watching TV was unfortunately out, since Chris and Dan were playing some sports-based video game. This was so typical of them I didn't even bother making a note of it, I just sat down and waited, trying to ignore the computerized cheers and cheesy music.

The doorbell rang and I jumped up off the couch like someone had electrocuted me. I grabbed the door before Sophie could (yes she had followed me. When was this going to end?) and peered outside. No one was there.

"You can go back in now, Sophie," I hinted. She shrugged and went back to the living room, shooting me a look that made it very clear that she thought I was crazy. Maybe I was, but I got the feeling someone was out here.

I ambled around in front of the house for a few minutes before I heard a rustling noise coming from the woods. I circled the house and glanced over the landscape in front of me. All I saw was green. Did I need a stronger glasses prescription?

All of a sudden, someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind. I jumped and turned around. It was Leah, looking kind of mangy in a wrinkled pair of shorts and a tee shirt. Her hair looked incredibly windblown. "Hi," she said carefully.

"Where did you come from?" I asked. Where was Seth?

"The woods, you're pretty easy to sneak up on. I'm faster than the rest of them. They'll be here in about five minutes, in case you were wondering." Good to know I was that obvious.

"Oh." I had no idea what to say to her. Last time I'd seen her she was angry with me, and now she looked positively serene. Way to send mixed signals.

"Listen, I just wanted to say that I was sorry. I heard what you tried to do and I know it was my fault. I had no right to do that. I was just… jealous of you." She was jealous of me? Jealous of her brother I could understand. Envy always happened between siblings, as I knew only too well. A thought occurred to me.

"Wait, how did you hear that? He said he wouldn't…" I broke off.

"Seth? Oh, he didn't. Pack mind, he couldn't really help it. The whole pack pretty much knows everything that goes on in each other's lives." Hmm, that made sense. I guess he wasn't to blame or anything. Wait. Did she say…?

"Everything?" I was feeling incredibly awkward at this moment. Leah grinned as if she knew exactly what was going through my mind. She'd known what was going through Seth's mind, anyway.

"Yup. Everything." She snorted. I flushed hot pink. There wasn't much I could say to that.

"But you don't have to be sorry," I tried to get back on a less embarrassing track. "You didn't tell me to do anything stupid. I overreacted." Did I ever.

"Yes, I do. Just accept it. None of it would've happened if I hadn't tried to intimidate you."

"Okay, then," I said slowly, just as a bunch of footsteps sounded behind me. I looked quickly behind me. As I'd thought, it was the rest of the pack: Jacob, Embry, Quil, and (wait for it) Seth. I had also never seen so many shirtless boys, aside from at the beach. I guessed it made sense; they had to carry their clothes around with them when they phased.

Furthermore, I had never seen so many six-packs in one place. Each and every one of them looked like a candidate for steroid testing.

I ran over to them, and practically slammed into Seth. He didn't seem to notice the impact, however and embraced me back. He lifted me up and gently pecked me on the lips. I realized I didn't care if the rest of the pack saw. They'd seen worse.

"I'm blind!" exclaimed a voice (I think it was Embry). Seth released me and shot him a dirty look.

"Yeah, I thought we'd have to wait a few years until Claire and Ness grow up before having to go through that again," Leah agreed. Jake and Quil didn't comment. I was guessing that they knew that if they did, the others would tease them worse once their imprints grew up.

I had to say though, that it was really weird to picture those two little girls grown up and in relationships with two guys who were so much older than they were. Then again, the freaky wolf magic had worked pretty well for me thus far. It was probably best to trust in it.

"If you guys are done, maybe we should get a move on," Jake hinted. I kind of agreed. I didn't much like being the center of attention.

Out of nowhere, Seth swept me up like I weighed nothing (I wished) and the whole group dashed back into the woods.

"Hey!" I protested. "A little warning?"

He laughed. "Next time. You don't go nearly as fast as us."

"I'll say," I commented.

After about two minutes, I was deposited back on firm ground. "Okay, go do your freaky morph thing," I sighed.

"Wow, you picked one with a sense of humor. How unlike you," Quil said. He ducked to avoid Seth's cuff to the back of his head.

"Stay," Seth said. I laughed.

"Aren't you guys are more closely related to canines than I am?"

Quil and Embry burst into guffaws. Seth winked at me as they ran off to get behind some trees.

A few moments later, they all came back. There was a reddish-brown one, a regular brown one, a silver one, a smaller gray one, and my favorite sandy one.

"So… how fast do you go, exactly?" I asked. A few of them made some hoarse sound that I took to be laughter.

I walked up to Seth. "Hello, again." I waggled my fingers at him. "Any particular way to…um, get on?" The wolf laughter grew louder. I was glad they were getting a kick out of this.

He lay down on his stomach, not unlike my dog (despite the variance in size). This greatly reduced the height needed to get on his back. I held on tightly around his neck. I didn't really want to pull his hair.

Wow was this weird. Then again, didn't normal boyfriends give their normal girlfriends piggyback rides sometimes? This was just a twisted version of that, right?

He let me adjust a little, probably making sure I wouldn't fall off, and then the whole pack set off. And when I say, set off, I mean like a speeding bullet sets off. This was faster than any Olympic sprinter could go. It might have been faster than some cars could go.

The wind whipped my hair around and into my mouth and eyes. The world streaked past. I saw large blurs on either side of us, so I presumed that my weight wasn't slowing him down much.

I resisted in letting out a whoop of joy. This was the biggest adrenaline rush I'd ever felt! I only didn't start screaming like I was on a roller coaster was because I had already made a laughingstock out of myself. The rest of the pack must be sick of each other's jokes because I knew mine weren't that good.

It was like the best amusement park rides in that just as it seemed it was going to last forever and I would be running into the wind on the back of a wolf for all of eternity (poetic, huh?), it stopped.

I looked beyond the trees. Yup, it was a mansion. White, old, and classic. I didn't know until I saw it that I had been expecting a dark, gothic style house with a few cobwebs, complete with coffins.

My head was spinning a little, but I managed to swing my left leg over to Seth's right side and slide down to the forest floor. I leaned against him slightly until my balance came back.

"Jake!" came an exulted cry. I looked over towards the mansion as Jessie came running at us (she was outrageously fast too, what did I expect?). She wrapped her arms around the front leg of the reddish-brown wolf. I guessed that was Jake. Two down, three to go, identity-wise.

Behind her was a dark-haired girl who appeared to be in her late teens. She was about my height, maybe a little shorter and she was drop-dead gorgeous. Then again, she'd probably had to drop dead in order to become a vampire, which, from Seth's description, I assumed she was.

"Hi Haley," said Jessie. "So he told you."

"Mom hmm." I didn't really have it in me to say much more yet. My legs were still a bit wobbly.

"Mom, this is Haley," Nessie said politely. So this was Bella. Funnily enough, I'd pictured her a bit older. She certainly didn't look like she could be Nessie's mother.

I straightened up and took a step away from Seth and the pack dashed back into the woods, most likely to phase.

"Hello, I'm Bella Cullen," said the girl. Her voice sounded ridiculously like music. She held out her hand for me to shake. It was icy cold.

"Haley Adams," I said. "Nice to meet you."

Seth and Co. came back from amidst the trees. Jake and Bella hugged.

"So what'd you think," Seth asked, putting his arm around me.

"That you could put amusement parks out of business," I said. "That was wicked."

"I try," he said. "Come on they're heading in."

Once inside the house (ah hem, mansion) I was subjected to more cold handshakes. I may have been picturing Dracula before, but everyone here looked as if they'd stepped out of the pages of an airbrushed fashion magazine. Actually, they put the airbrushed models to shame.

A small, waif-like girl practically pranced up to us to shake my hand. "Hi, I'm Alice. You don't have to be scared of us, you know." How had she known? Was I that obvious?

A cloud of calmness and tranquility seemed to settle over me. I was no longer jittery anymore. Yes, I knew that these were vampires, the monsters that gave me nightmares whenever I watched scary movies, but I no longer felt so nervous.

"Jasper!" she exclaimed, looking behind her at the tall blond man. So that was the emotion-manipulator person. "She wasn't that scared, you know."

I stifled a giggle. More of the beautiful, cold people introduced themselves. I met Carlisle and Esme, and Emmett and Rosalie. All I could say was that I was going to suffer self-esteem issues very shortly.

All of them seemed to receive me well, or at least weren't bothered by my presence. Rosalie seemed a little haughty, but as she appeared to be the most gorgeous out of all of these gorgeous people, I guessed she had a right to be.

I went through the list of names in my head. I knew there was someone I hadn't met. Oh, dang it was the mind reader. I had to say I wasn't extremely comfortable with the idea of someone reading my mind, snooping in on my private thoughts. Invasive.

"Earth to Haley," Seth said. "Are you okay?"

"Sure," I said bemusedly. "I've only been scarred for life by a couple of scary vampire movies. This is nothing like those. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay, if you're really sure."

Dang. Nessie was leading mind reader (her father, if I remembered correctly) over to us. Think neutral thought, think neutral thoughts. I tried repeating the mantra over to myself but found myself pondering what it must be like to read minds. I bet it got annoying. I mean, half the time all I thought about was completely boring, well before I got swept up in Forks' own fantasy tale.

I glanced at mind reader. He looked like he was trying hard not to smile, or perhaps laugh. Great, even when I was shutting up I was still making an idiot out of myself. I guessed I was just destined to be a clown. I could picture the red nose and huge shoes already.