As I stood in the kitchen, eating, I listened to the different conversations around me.

The one confirmed as Paul and the one I assumed had to be Jared were quite obviously talking about my family.

"How the hell do they live down there in Arizona of all places?" Jared questioned.

"I don't get it either, Jared. Do you think she knows about them? I can't imagine living with one never mind the whole family. It must stink like a mother in their house. I don't know how she could stand it."

"Well she probably couldn't smell it for long. She's obviously fairly new to shifting."

"Good point." then they concentrated on eating so I did the same. I finished my pasta so I threw my paper plate away and went to sit back in the living room.

"Hey, Ali right, I figured if you would like you could stay at our house for the night if you'd like. You would have to sleep on the couch but it'd be better than Jake's house." Emily offered. She had a good point. Jake's house didn't seem too appealing.

"I'd love to. Thank you so much." Sam told Jacob I was going to stay at their place and he didn't seem to mind too much.

I stayed until everyone had cleared out and Emily set up the couch with sheets and a pillow.

"I can get you a blanket if you want it but I doubt you're going to need it." since she mentioned it I noticed that I was comfortably warm despite the open windows blowing in the rainy fall air.

"I think I'll be fine thanks." she smiled as she left the room.

I fell asleep in my clothes with the light still on. I hadn't realized I was so exhausted.

~oOo~

I awoke with a start. There was a moment of fear before I remembered where I was. It was just barely morning. I thought it'd be nice if I made breakfast for Emily and Sam, as a thank you, but I didn't know when they were going to be up. I figured I'd make pancakes because those were easy enough to reheat if it was a while before they woke up. I padded into the kitchen and realized for the first time I hadn't brought shoes, but no one in the rest of the pack had been wearing them either. I was just starting to mix up the batter when I heard Haley start crying. A minute later Emily came into the kitchen holding her. I stopped what I was doing, not sure how she would react. She barely glanced at me as she got a jar of baby food and went back to the bedroom. It took me a minute to get back to cooking. I guess it was either earlier than I thought, or Emily wasn't much of a morning person.

I whipped up about fifteen pancakes. I was only going to eat a few of them but ended up eating ten. My new appetite surprised me, it seemed like it had come out of nowhere. I felt bad only leave five pancakes so I made fifteen more.

I felt bad just leaving, but I also didn't want to sit around, so I left the pancakes on the counter and headed out the front door. I hadn't really gotten any answers from Jacob's story last night and it seemed like there was no one else I could go to to ask about him and Mom. It was going to be weird, but there was just no way around it, not if I wanted to know the whole story.

I walked a bit into the coverings of the trees before stripping down and phasing. It only got easier each time I did it. I still hadn't gotten one of those fancy clothing holders, so my mouth was just going to have to do for now.

I ran through the woods as fast as I could, enjoying every minute of it. I would've kept on going, but skidded to a halt when I realized I had passed Jacob's house. I hadn't heard anyone since I had phased, so I figured he'd be home. After phasing back, I walked up to the door and knocked. I heard some shuffling and what I thought was a pile of stuff falling over, by Jacob's response of curses and "ows," before he appeared at the door. His hair was ruffled and his eyes were still drooping with sleep.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I can come back later."

"No, it's alright, I should've waken up a while ago anyways." He led me inside and we sat in the living room again.

"I suppose you want to hear the whole story, huh?" I nodded. I hoped he would just tell it to me, and that I wouldn't have to talk him into it, but I wasn't sure by the skeptical tone in his voice.

"Sure, sure, well you're probably going to find out one way or another so I guess I better just tell you...hm, where to start."

"At the beginning," I suggested.

"Well, Charlie, your, er, grandfather, and my dad have been friends forever. So when Bella would come up during the summers as required with the divorce and all that we would hang out and then when we got older she stopped coming every summer so we kind of moved on. Then when her mom got married again she came back up here, to live. We started hanging out again." He smiled, remembering what must have been good memories. "She really hated it here. We started dating soon after that, officially. And then when she was a junior and I was a sophomore-" He stopped abruptly, which didn't bother me any. I knew where this was going. "And then almost eighteen years later you show up. I just can't believe you were never mentioned by Charlie to my dad and then to me..." He seemed truly sad that he didn't know.

"Well he never exactly approved... I've only met him once and I don't even remember. I was like five." There was a thick silence that hung in the air as we both let our newly found information rattle around in our heads, trying to get some of it to absorb into our brains. Finally I broke the silence.

"So why'd she leave?" I asked quietly. I had a feeling this was going to be a tough one.

"We loved each other, but she was mad because I couldn't tell her about the whole werewolf thing. Speaking of which, I guess you should know about the whole alpha power thing. If Sam tells you to do something, or not do in this case, you absolutely have to listen to him. There's no way around it, trust me I've tried. Anyways, she went down to Arizona with her mom.

"I eventually figured out a way around Sam's orders, so I flew down to Phoenix, was completely broke afterwards and had to run back. I reminded her of some of the old Quileute legends I had told her before, told her they were all true, which they all are, by the way. At first she forgave me and...oh sh- uh, crap."

"What?" I wanted him to keep going because felt he was finally opening up.

"Don't get grossed out or anything okay?"

"Alright," I said skeptically, not sure I'd I wanted to know anymore.

"That was probably when you were," I could tell how uncomfortable he was, "well, 'made.'" It was odd that I didn't find it gross, maybe it was because this man, my father, didn't look much older than me. Blaire and I talked about this stuff all the time. Although, my parents didn't look much older and when they tried talking to me about all that stuff it was gross.

"Ah. But she didn't come back with you."

"No, I stayed for a day, helping her pack because she was going to come back, but the morning we were going to leave she freaked out and ran. I never found out where to, but she didn't go back to Renee's until I was gone."

"And this is how it's been ever since?"

"Pretty much, until you showed up." He said, smiling at me this was the first paternal feeling I had gotten from him since we got here.

I sat there for a moment, pondering. I decided I had probably tortured him enough and changed the subject.

"So what's with the wolf thing anyways? I found some of the stories online, but what triggers it?"

"Oh, well that's a fun one, especially for you and your home situation. To be honest I'm surprised you didn't phase sooner," He looked side to side like he was telling a scary story in front of a campfire. "It's triggered by being in close proximity to vampires."

"Wait, so there were vampires here?"

"Sure, sure. There were three of them that came through here a back when I was sixteen or seventeen. The thing was though that they stayed quite a while. That's why there are so many of us. After Seth turned we eliminated them." I looked at him in shock for a moment.

"Whoops, sorry I forgot about..."

"It's okay." I said, but I was still a little woozy. I could only think of Mom and Dad and the rest of the family I loved so dearly absolutely devastated that I was gone.

"Oh, and I wanted to tell you about another thing. We call it imprinting and I figure it might be good to know incase it ever happens to you. It's a little hard to explain, but I'll try. So basically you find this one person and they become the center of your universe. Sam imprinted on Emily, but that's another story. Quil imprinted on her niece Claire, Jared imprinted on a girl he went to school with, Kim, and Paul on my sister Rachael." I could tell he was a little annoyed about Paul. Imprinting seemed a little scary. If they really do become the center of your universe, imagine if they didn't love you back? I feel like that would be crushing. It reminded me of Trevor. Would I have been able to imprint on him last time I saw him? Or did it only become possible once I had turned into a wolf? I had no clue, but I felt like it would be awkward to ask Jacob. We talked for a while longer about this and that until our conversation drifted to an end.

We stayed in the living room, but after a while I was no longer content just sitting and thinking.

"So, what do we do now?" Jacob looked up, I doubted it, but it seemed like he had been sleeping with his eyes open.

"Wha-oh, I don't really know, what do you normally do during the day?"

"Go to school." Speaking of which, there was going to be a lot of make-up work that I'd never do when I got back.

"In that case, shouldn't you go home? You got everything you were looking for right?" I nodded, but I didn't get up to move. It wouldn't feel right just leaving. I had just gotten here yesterday, and really just gotten to know my father today and barely at that.

I realized that I didn't actually know how long it had been since I left. When I was running here in wolf form, I hadn't kept track of the days.

"How long did it take you to run from Arizona?"

"I don't really remember, three or four days maybe. Why? You're not thinking of running back are you?"

"That's how I got here."

"What! Did you phase at all in between?"

"No."

"What did you eat?"

"Nothing…"

"Wow, I can't believe that. That's crazy."

I half shrugged. I didn't exactly get what he was so amazed by. The running felt natural and I wasn't going to stop, so that's why I didn't eat.

"Why?"

"I guess you're just naturally good at this. It takes a while to get used to it. I could barely stand a few hours, never mind a few days when I was new to it."

"Hm," I said, not really sure how to respond. "Well since I came all the way out here, is there anything for me to do?" I asked, I felt like just sitting around in the house would make for a useless trip.

"Well there is one thing..."

Can anyone guess where they are going? I'm excited for this next part!