Chapter 24 First phase

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute and the Makah that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe for betaing.

Seth and Rose were watching television together.

"Seth, can I ask you something?" Rose asked. She looked really nervous and he panicked for a second until he remembered that she can ask him anything and he will tell her the truth.

"Sure, Honey. You can ask me anything."

"How did you find out you were a wolf?"

He laughed, it sounded almost bitter. That, in itself is unusual enough coming from Seth. He was always so happy and unsinkable.

"I guess it wasn't a good thing then?" she tentatively asked. "You don't have to tell me… if you don't want to."

"I'm sorry," he apologised. "It's not your fault that it is such a bad memory and you have every right to ask… it's just…" He reached for her hand and held it in his. Staring at it as if the answer is written on the back of her hand.

"Seth?" she asked.

He heaved a sigh that sounded painful. "It was my dad…" he started; but then he ground to a halt again.

"Seth if it is that bad… please don't try to tell me…"

He looked up at her face. She looked upset for him. "No, its funny… in one way, Leah got through it … if she can do it… I can." He looked at her again.

"I'm sorry. I will just start again… okay?"

He huffed out another breath and she just waited for him. She was still holding his hand.

He spoke but it sounded as if the words are being dragged out of him. "Leah and I phased… that's what we call it when you change… we both phased the same night… My father was a tribal elder; he knew the stories about the wolves and he had been involved when the others phased, but…"

He twisted his body as if he was literally wringing the words out.

"Our phase was a little unexpected… for two reasons: one, I was only fifteen and that was really young and two, because Leah was female. There had never been a female wolf before. That was the one story that Harry Clearwater did not know."

He rose to his feet and he started to pace; it was as if he needed to do something physical. He needed to move.

"It was such a shock… I mean nobody knew about a female wolf… it wasn't in any of the stories… dad had a heart attack…" He just kind of added that bit on the end; as if it was an extra.

She gasped. "Oh Seth," she sympathised.

He kept talking but he can't look at her now. "I can barely remember now… that whole night was such a mess… I think it was Leah phasing that frightened him so badly… and then I saw them and I…"

He inhaled heavily. "I got such a shock too… I mean it was such a bolt from the blue… I knew the stories… we all knew the stories… but who the hell actually believes that there really are things like werewolves and vampires… I mean all that shit is just in story books… you know… legends… fiction … TV shows… they were supposed to just be legends… silly stories… stories the old men told around the campfire to frighten us when we were kids…"

She can't speak. There was nothing she could say.

"I panicked… there is a giant wolf…inside the house… my father is gasping on the floor clutching his chest… my sister's clothing has been torn to shreds… I can't see her anywhere, but there is no blood… and I thought… fuck, I don't know what I thought… I screamed and I …I ran into my room … and then…" He did some more pacing. He ran his hand through his hair.

"And then I just… I wasn't me anymore… I've torn my clothes apart… and it hurt … it hurt so much … and there are voices in my head… my sister's voice is in my head … and she is just screaming because she thinks she killed our father… and nothing makes any sense… and I just panicked… I can hear Sam Uley… his voice is just in my head… Sam who dumped Leah… and he was trying to calm us all down… but it was just chaos…"

He looked down at her.

"I just had to get out of there… I actually just smashed through the wall… left this massive hole in the timberwork… just had to get away… I couldn't work out why I could hear them … Sam kept saying he was on his way… but how could he help?"

"And then in the end… Sam just said something … he told me to stay," he almost laughed. "Sit, stay, don't run… and I couldn't move… I am flattened on the grass in the back yard and I can't even make these new limbs do what I wanted them to… they are just glued to the ground as if I was caught by a magnet… and that was even weirder… that some guy miles away can command me to do stuff… you know… and I have to do it…"

He finally sat, but he was still restless; his leg was twitching. "And Sam is ordering us around and Leah hates him… you know… so she is just screaming at him… and it was just such a complete mess…" His voice finally trailed off.

There was silence for a minute or so.

"What happened to your father Seth… did he make it?"

"No."

Just one word, but it held everything.

He looked at her face and his is grief-stricken.

"And I didn't run towards him… I ran away… and hid in my room."

He leapt up again and resumed the pacing.

"He had to be buried the next day… and we could barely hold ourselves together… I mean that literally… Leah was just phenomenal… I couldn't believe how strong she was… for me… for mum…" He looked at her. "I guess I should explain… strong emotions make it easy to wolf out, to phase… especially anger… and we were both so angry… we didn't even make it to the hospital to say good bye… we were still wolves when he died…"

"Seth… I can't imagine how that felt…"

"Well you kind of can understand… I mean you don't have all of it… but you know, better than anybody else how hard it is to be that different … to not be like everyone else… to do weird things that other people can't do… and to not be able to control it…"

"Your poor mother," Rose said.

He gave a bitter chuckle. "She was always on him to eat more healthy food… to look after his body… Leah blamed herself for the longest time… she and Jake kind of dug her out of that hole … that's one of the reasons why she was so bitchy… you remember I told she was in a bad mood for years… I wasn't joking… she made everyone's life hell… even Embry and he is just so sweet…"

"Why did she hate Sam?"

"Oh Jesus… that is another whole saga…" He grinned at her and 'her Seth' was back. "Can I save that nightmare story for another night?"

She held her arms out to him. He knelt on the floor, in front of her and she wrapped her arms around him. She cuddled him in close. "You poor thing… that is just awful," she tried to comfort him. He snuggled up to her.

"It took Mum the longest time to make jokes about the Seth wolf shaped hole in the wall… she said it looked like one of those cartoon holes… you know the ones… that Daffy Duck makes…"

She snorted at the image. "I'm sorry," she apologised.

"No, it's okay." He smiled at her. "Leah gave me shit for years too." He did a passable imitation of his sister's voice. "Jeez little brother… you couldn't go out the window like a normal person?"

They both laughed.

"I want to meet them all," she said.

"I can bring you to the next bonfire… you know… now…"

"Now I have joined the club," Rose commented.

He gave her a wide smile. "Yeah."

"I am so glad that it happened … well not the accident... but I am so glad you are mywolf," she told him.

"I loved you before then," Seth said. "But I am glad I am your wolf as well. It gives us certainty, you know?"

"I know you feel bad because you didn't help your father… but you've helped me… so much… I couldn't have done this without you. And you make me want to keep on trying. It's you Seth… you make me want to be a better person," she told him.

FF_2154210_ - 4/5/2011 02:15:00 PM

FF_2154210_ - 8/31/2011 03:24:00 AM