A Story of Love
Chapter 1 – Family Breakfast
12 Years Later
In the past twelve years since she'd been living in this house, the Uley's were some kind of headquarters for all the big, tall overheated guys in La Push. It was a Monday morning three weeks into the school term and Claire Young did not want to get out of bed, even though she heard a lot of commotion downstairs. In a climate such as the one this place boasted, snuggled in bed was the best place to be in her opinion.
But tell that to the man persistently knocking on her door, saying that she'd be late for school.
"Go away, Quil!" she groaned softly, knowing that he'd hear her no matter how quiet she was. It made things handy since she never had to strain her voice. "Let me stay home today, please?"
The door opened and Quil Ataera, the man who'd practically raised her (despite the fact that she lived at Uncle Sam's and Aunt Emily's house) strolled in. He was a big man, just passing the 6 feet 5" mark, and like the rest of Uncle Sam's friends, he had russet coloured smooth skin, bulging, sharply defined muscles, and short dark hair. That alone made him divine, but combined with his own individual characteristics, he was more than enough to make Claire melt.
She peaked at his grinning face from under the covers, drinking him in for a short minute. Recently she'd begun to see her best friend in a different light; she was beginning to see him as a man rather than an asexual being who was always there for her every need and want. She was beginning to see what the girls at school talked about when they spoke of a 'hot' guy – something that was abnormal for her. In fact she'd confided in Quil for years that she thought there was something wrong with her because no boy ever made her feel the way those girls said he was supposed to make her feel.
And here she was, feeling those intense, mysterious things for a man she'd known her whole life. Quickly, she turned over before he saw her blush.
"Claire! Get ready for school and get downstairs!" Uncle Sam's voice floated through the open door from somewhere in the house. Claire groaned – stupid Uncle Sam; didn't he know when a girl was going through a crisis on a cold day that it was preferable she stay in a warm bed.
"Don't groan at me, young lady. Get up for school."
She didn't have to respond to her uncle because Quil ripped away the covers from her and stood, staring as she faced the cold air. At times like these, when that weird, unexplainable gleam surfaced in his eyes and he looked down at her body the way she looked at his when he wasn't watching, Claire almost thought he was beginning to feel the same way about her.
"What are you wearing?" he growled, a weird note in his voice.
Beginning to shiver, she just glared at him. "I'm in bed. I'm allowed to wear whatever I want." So she was in a short shorts and her bra; who cared? "Besides, it's just you – so who cares? Now give me back my blankets! I'm freezing here. Not all of us have inbuilt heaters you know."
Quil ignored the censure and gripped her by the waist to lift her out of the bed and set her on her feet. It was nothing unusual; he'd been lifting her like that for as long as she could remember. "Put on some clothes and get downstairs," he hardly looked at her as he threw her some pants and a large tee shirt from her dresser. "Your breakfast is going to get cold," he said as he ran out of the room so fast, it could only be called an escape.
"Well I didn't know I grew a tail and two horns in the middle of the night," she muttered, bewildered, then she began washing and getting ready for school, ignoring the muffled yelling delivered by both her cousins.
Downstairs, the place was teeming with people but Claire didn't even stop to think why Uncle Jared and Uncle Paul were over here when she was sure their wives had cooked them breakfast. She did, however, wonder why Paul was here and his seventeen year old son, Cain, wasn't. He was supposed to drive her to school.
"Sit," Quil nodded at the empty space beside him on the table. A glass of milk and pancakes with syrup were already laid out for her so all she had to do was eat it. As she sat, Embry came out of one of the spare rooms in the house, scratching his armpit. He'd crashed there after patrol last night, she was sure. That was why those spare rooms existed.
"Ew!" Claire had to exclaim as Embry scratched under his arm and yawned, even though she'd seen this sight about a million times before. He went to the counter to grab his food before joining them on the table.
"What?" Embry asked stupidly.
Claire just shook her head at him and turned to Quil. "Where's Aunt Emily?"
"She's at my house," Jared answered. "Airini was acting up this morning and I had to leave before I killed someone." As he said that he turned to glare at Paul as if he'd like nothing better than to kill him.
"Don't look at me like that," Paul defended. "I'm not the one who imprinted on your daughter."
"Will you two stop it?" Quil stopped inhaling food long enough to demand. "Jared, it's been two years – get over it. Look at Claire – she was a baby imprint and she turned out just fine."
Jared looked Clair over then bluntly informed Quil, "She's spoiled rotten."
Claire, who took no offense, grinned at them all, "But everyone loves me more!"
"See what I mean?" he told Quil, who just reached over, hooked his arm over the back of her chair and continued on with the food.
"Who could ask for more?" she grinned cheekily at him. "Such devotion is a godsend, you know."
"I can't take the constant crying!" Jared half-shouted, frustrated. "If she's not with Cain she asks for him all the time and she cries and cries and cries… I've got to say, Quil, I have a new respect for Claire's parents – it definitely was not easy for them."
"Look at it this way," Paul said to his best friend with a hopeful grimace. "Claire's parents had the brat" ("Hey!" Claire objected) "dropped on them with surprise. You knew before Airini was born that Cain was going to imprint of her."
"I thought it was going to get easier with time," Jared looked forlorn. "But it's been two years and it just gets worse!"
"Didn't I say I hate imprinting," Embry mumbled over his food. "Now you see what I mean."
"I'm feeling very discriminated against," Claire, the only imprint in the room, frowned at the three grown males. Of course Quil was exempt from any reproach.
Any reply was halted when Uncle Sam thundered down the stairs ushering his two children, fifteen year old Denali and twelve year old Ilima, ahead of him. "Now sit down and shut up both of you!" Denali opened his mouth but Uncle Sam threatened, "Not another word. I have had enough. Eat."
Nobody needed any explanation of what happened upstairs; Denali and Ilima had been fighting since they were born but the weird thing about it was that they got along just fine when Aunt Emily was around, but when she wasn't, war was somehow declared. They unashamedly took advantage of Sam since he was a notorious softy where his children, Claire included, were concerned. But even Uncle Sam had his breaking point.
Sam grabbed his pancakes and harshly sat at the table, glaring at both teenagers who were sullenly eating the food he had placed in front of them. Helpfully, Claire grabbed the syrup and spread it generously over his food, just the way he liked it. "Here, Uncle Sam. The kids giving you problems this morning?" she turned to give them warning, big sister looks. The two squirmed, but glared at each other; clearly the fight would resume at school.
When she looked away from her cousins, she caught Quill shaking his head at her, an indulgent smile playing about his lips. "What?"
"You amaze me sometimes." Uncle Sam growled quietly next to her but everyone ignored it. "You'll cook, and even help someone with their food, but you wait for me get your food for you." So? She shrugged, feigning a blank, what-are-you-talking-about look. Leaning closer to her, so close that she could smell the musky, woodsy, manly scent of his chest, he reached across Uncle Sam's plate for the cartoon of milk and refilled her empty glass. "This is what I'm talking about," he whispered into her ear.
Claire melted. That was the only way to describe what she was feeling. Suddenly, a breakfast tradition that took place every morning since forever was weird and strange, with bizarre and confusing feelings attached.
Hastily, she addressed Paul, "Where's Cain? He's supposed to pick me up in fifteen minutes, but since you're here…"
"You still aren't driving," Jared teased with a bit of surprise as a pained expression covered Paul's face. "Man, Quil, it's been six months, let the kid drive again."
"No!" Uncle Sam grumbled the same time Quil snarled the word at Jared. "Claire ran the car into a river on her first solo drive. She's not driving until she's twenty-five."
"Well if you don't give me a chance how will I learn to drive properly?" Claire questioned in a tone teenagers perfected solely for use on their parents.
Sam looked over her head at Quil, seeming to commute 'take over' telepathically.
"Claire-baby" – she shivered a little because lately that fond, familiar evoked new feelings in her – "you've been driving with someone next to you since your sixteenth birthday. You crashed my car when you were seventeen and driving alone for the first time. That does not speak well for your driving skills; you've had a lot of practice already."
"But the car is repaired now and I wasn't hurt!" Claire protested.
"For the last time, Claire, that's not the point!" Quil yelled, frustrated.
"Then what is it!" Claire yelled back.
"No shouting at breakfast!" Sam himself shouted.
Claire huffed at him and Quil both. "I don't like you!"
"Quit the sulking, young lady," Sam told her. "You're a grown woman."
She ignored them both to focus on Paul who still seemed in a private anguish. "So you were saying where Cain was?"
"Claire, I don't know when he's coming or what his plans are. I spent the night here."
Uncle Paul stopped phasing years ago so the only reason he spent nights here anymore was because… "Another fight?" Quil asked with sympathy.
"Yeah," Paul tossed down his fork in obvious frustration which was clearly directed at the situation with his eldest son. "The boy won't forgive me. I try my hardest, man, I do, but he just…"
"He's a teenager," Sam said with a sideways look at Claire, which she ignored as well. "They're dramatic and difficult. Just give him some time."
"I've given him three years! How much more time does he want?"
"Did I mention that teenagers are stubborn too?" Uncle Sam quipped.
"Keep that up and I'll tell Aunt Emily what you said about her apple crumble last week," Claire informed him mischievously. Her uncle scowled at her clearly thinking ungracious things but kept his mouth shut.
"I don't know what to do anymore!" Paul agonized. "I don't think he understands that I'm his father!"
No one had anything to say. Well, Claire did, but she didn't think she could ever tell Uncle Paul that her next best friend (Cain) thought that since Paul hadn't been a father to him in the first fourteen year of his life, he didn't need one now. He would never acknowledge the older man as his father and nothing would convince him to do so – least of all the reality that Cain Applegate was the spitting image of Paul Tama.
The result of a fling Paul had engaged in when he was sixteen, Cain was going to be seventeen today. He never even knew about Cain until three years ago when, upon her death, Dixie Applegate's lawyer had personally handed him a letter giving him custody of their son. There was even DNA proof of the biological connection, which, the Boston lawyer said, was obtained with the help of Salmon Grier, a woman from another area of La Push. Cain and his mother obviously had a hard life, something Cain would never forgive his father for because, while Dixie was struggling to raise her son in the slums of Boston, Paul was in La Push with his wife, more than comfortably raising their two children.
When Paul went to eagerly collect his son, the boy had disappeared, and he and Rachel had to relocate to Boston for two months until they found him and convinced him to come back home with them. Quil had shared with her the absolute astonishment in Paul's mind when he saw his son for the first time in a police station. The boy had a worn, cynical look that most people didn't acquire until twice Cain's age, with a hard, dark look in his eyes that they had not seen before. He looked like he was capable of murder, as young as he was. But the most astonishing thing was that he was six and a half feet tall, his body was heated, and though he was stick thin and had muscles that looked out of shape with his lanky form, but he was obviously strong. When they had arrived at La Push, Paul tried to guide his newfound, antagonistic son through a transformation, only to be sardonically told that said transformation had happened months ago.
So now Paul was the father of a seventeen year old shape shifting wolf whose only confidant was Claire, and also who had imprinted on Jared's youngest daughter practically the moment she was concieved. But Paul, no matter how frustrated and worn out he was, had to admit that Cain was a little more mellow and trusting after he imprinted. And Jared, who resented Cain in some small way, had to admit that Airini, his two-year-old baby girl, couldn't be more loved and protected.
"If he's not here in five minutes, you'll have to take me," she turned to Quil and said.
"Ahhh…"
"He's up for patrol in an hour." Sam said in a no-nonsense voice. "I'll drive you three to school today if Cain doesn't show up."
No! Claire wanted to say; somehow, when Uncle Sam drove them to school they were always late. Claire hated to be late – she liked to start school at least ten minutes early. But she suffered in silence seeing as her driving privileges were non-existent and she needed someone to drive her to school.
"Cheer up," Quil bent and bumped her forehead with his. "I'll pick you up from school and we'll go shopping for Cain's birthday party this evening.
"You'll let me drive?" she gave him her best hopeful, pleading look. It usually got her anything she wanted.
Hastily, Quil straightened away from her, starting to fill his face with more food. "No."
"Stop harassing the man, Claire," Sam ordered before she could beg some more.
"I honestly don't get why you have to insist on driving," Embry watched her beg Quil with her eyes while he stared determinedly at his pile of food. "You've got your own personal driver plus the rest of us when he's not around. I don't get it."
"Is it too much to ask to be a little independent? That's all – I want some independence. Every time I want to do anything, I've got a pack of wolves breathing down my neck. I should really get a boyfriend for some originality."
The whole table stared at her, even Denali and Ilima, who were both wide eyed with disbelief. "What?" Claire squirmed, "I can get a boyfriend if I want!" That only had them sniggering at her; the three were close so they knew that she never had a boyfriend and probably never would as she had a habit of unconsciously freezing out any boy who had interest – or so Denali said.
Jared, in a pacifying manner, patted her hand, looking her in the eye, "Now Claire, just because you're upset doesn't mean you can go off and do stupid things. Think about this for a moment."
"Think about what? I never said I was going to get a boyfriend. I just said I should – preferably one who'd let me drive."
Quil grinned down at her, not at all upset by her small show of defiance. "Princess, no one in La Push would ever let you drive. Every single person has heard about your er… skills… and no one wants to be er… let me put it this way – Old Mrs. Hyuna down the road often tells Sam 'I hope you still have the good sense to keep that Claire of yours away from cars, dear. She's a hazard.'"
"I'd go looking in Forks for that boyfriend then, just see if I don't," she muttered back just as Embry, Jared, Ilima and Denali cracked up over Quil's impersonation of Mrs. Hyuna.
Thankfully, Cain's car pulled up in the driveway at that moment, halting let's-tease-Claire time. A second after the engine shut off, Cain walked into the house, crossing the large living room to stand uncomfortably in the doorway. He was no longer stick thin and his muscles now sat comfortably on him – in fact, with his green eyes, light brown hair and smoothly rippling body, all the girls in La Push thought he was the sexiest guy in the county and his attitude was that of an irresistible bad-boy's. To Claire, he was just Cain with an attitude that needed a washing sometimes.
To prove the attitude part, he totally ignored everyone in the kitchen, especially his father, to address Jared and then walk out again with a confident swagger. "Jared, Kim said you could go home now. I've been over to see Airini and she should be calm for the rest of the day."
That was Cain at neutral. He was worse at his worst, and not much better at his best.
Paul was left looking as dejected and hopeless as he was feeling. As Denali and Ilima got up to go to the car, Claire patted Uncle Paul's hand and mustered up a bright smile for him. "Don't worry so much Uncle Paul; he was a lot worse when he just got here. And now he's imprinted, he's not going anywhere so I'm sure he'll get better with time. Besides, he's one of the best people I know – despite his prickly attitude."
"You do know he can hear you, right?" Embry had to comment.
"Don't worry; he and I have an open, honest relationship. Bye everyone, Uncle Sam." Then she got up, hitched her bag on her shoulder, kissed Quil on the cheek as was routine, and raced out the door before Cain left without her – she wouldn't put it past him to do so.
Outside, she slid into the passenger seat of the old, black Sedan, calling a cheerful hello to Kei, her friend's thirteen year old half brother.
"Happy Birthday!" she called to Cain while blowing him a kiss as he pulled out of the driveway. Not a single cheerful muscle was on his handsome face. Claire couldn't have that! Before Illima started in on her brother again, she hastily cheered, "Come one everyone let's sing the old, miserable, Scrooge the Birthday song!"
A/N: For clarity and future information here is a list of the families -
Sam and Emily Uley – Denali (15), Ilima (13)
Jared and Kim – Nayeli(15), Estela (15), Adra(13), Airini (2)
Paul and Rachel Tama – Cain (17), Kei (13), Vailea (8)
Jacob and Renesmee Black – Koda (10), Karik (9)
Collin and Sienna – Dale (12), Amari (5)
Brady and Farah – No Children
