A/N: So...it's been awhile. I've got nothing to say for myself. Except that school got hard and life got harder. There were some things in the real world that I had to take care of and handle. But they have fallen into place which has lifted my terrible writers block. So without further ado, the penultimate chapter. For real this time. The last one will be up in a week. Ish. ;)
Miss Imprint
By Savanasi
Chapter 30: Oh
The coffee shop in La Push felt abnormally small. I'd never noticed before. Then again, I'd never been to Europe before, or fought for my life in lavish underground palaces that were older than everything in the state of Washington. Except possible the ground and the mountains. Or something. Geology was never my forte.
The windchimes above the door sang as someone walked in. It wasn't Seth. I swallowed another gulp of coffee as I went over the speech I'd rehearsed last night. After the plane ride over and her letter and the almost dying, I'd wanted nothing more than to curl up in my bed and pretend none of it had ever happened. Which is exactly what I'd done. Seth had tucked a sleepy Ana under his arm and waved from driveway after I'd dropped them off and I hadn't seen him for a week. I'd spent most of it sleeping and trying to find concealer that covered tooth marks. I'd given up in the end. A white cloth bandage wrapped around my neck with copious helpings of Neosporin (even vampires could have cooties) fit snugly beneath the purple Burberry scarf my dad had sent from the city. Another apology present for not being able to make it home.
The chimes rang out again jerking me from my head and this time, it was him.
I caught a few stares, as he walked in, his cargo shorts and wife beater unusual amongst a cafe full of winter jackets. But he was only watching me, settling across from me with grace I wasn't used to seeing on him.
It felt so long ago that we had come here before the college fair, laughing and joking and chasing each other. The world had seemed so simple and straightforward then. I didn't know it, but I'd had everything then. College, my dad, a best friend to go with me, a plan. But now, everything was kind of grey. I was still going to go to RISD, but everything else was different. My dad, I hadn't seen in weeks, and Seth, I didn't even know what he was going to do. But that was the point of this.
"Hi." He said softly, breaking the silence. "I haven't seen you since...before." He trailed off.
I laughed at that. "Yeah, that weekend, total suck fest." I made a face. "Pun-intended."
Seth groaned. "Why are we friends, again?" And then he sobered up as the question hung between us.
I reached forward, threading my fingers through his, and gave him a reassuring smile. "I ask myself that, every fucking day."
He laughed then, loud and carefree and I realized it was the first time in a long time I'd seen him do that. "I've missed you, Kennedy."
"Likewise." I let out a long breath and pulled my hand back, trying not to think about how much I already missed the contact. "How's Ana?"
He shrugged. "She's processing. I think. Actually, I haven't really talked to her after that night. She said she wanted space."
"Oh." I bit my lip. Alice had said the imprint was broken but I couldn't quite believe until I heard it from him. I measured my words carefully. "Is that-are you okay with that?"
He stared at me for a long time. Then it was his turn to thread our fingers together. "Didn't really care either way. I was preoccupied."
"Preoccupied." I repeated, my gaze fixed on the way his thumb swiped back and forth across my palm, burning a path into my very skin. "What-what were you preoccupied with?"
His lips quirked. "You."
"Oh." I swallowed. "Oh." It seemed to be the only thing I was capable of producing. Oh.
"That's all you have to say?" He was leaning closer. "Are you feeling okay? Normally, I can't get you to shut-"
I cut him off with my lips, unable to wait any longer. The table between us was gone and somehow, Seth had maneuvered us past the cashier, out the door and into the alleyway. He pressed me back against the brick wall, his hands slipping to my waist. I could taste his grin as he picked me up easily, setting me on the ledge of the staircase going to the basement. With purpose, he stepped between my legs and pulled my bottom lip between his teeth. My hands were everywhere, buried in his hair, running across his back, under his shirt. His skin was unbelievably hot and even surrounded by snow, in below freezing weather, I could feel myself beginning to sweat under all my layers. His lips were kissing their way along my jaw, his teeth nipping lightly on my earlobe sending pinpricks of pleasure through me. I swore I could feel his kisses straight through my spinal chord, all the way to my toes. I could barely think, just knew that I wanted more. I pulled back for a second, unwinding my scarf, laughing when I caught his smug grin and then falling silent the moment his lips returned to my neck with new fervor. And then he froze.
"What?" I exhaled, loudly, watching as my breath crystallized behind him. "What is it?"
He pulled back and there was a tenderness in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. His fingers slipped up from my waist until they reached my neck, his thumbs tracing gently over the bandages. "They hurt you."
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. "I guess you were locked up for that part."
He looked furious suddenly, his fingers slipping back to my waist and tugging me closer until our foreheads pressed against each other. "Tell me."
"It was Aro. He kept drinking from my neck, and he'd keep biting me over the old wounds so they never got a chance to heal, and…" I shut my eyes, seeing him come towards me suddenly, his eyes so red and for a moment I was back in that room.
"Cassie?"
I forced my eyes open and the ones that met them were brown, so wonderfully, wonderfully brown. Relief flooded through me, warming me to the core. "Sorry, I just…" I didn't know how to finish so I just shrugged.
He shook his head. "Don't apologize." He pressed his lips to mine, softly, like a promise. "You don't have to be scared, again, ever. I won't ever let anything happen to you."
I smiled at that. "You know, I actually did pretty well on my own. I don't mean to brag, but this girl turned a thousand year old vampire human and then killed him."
His answering smile was at once possessive and proud. "That's my girl."
"Am I?" I asked, quietly, suddenly less amused by everything. "Your girl, I mean?"
He pressed his forehead, harder against mine in response, his fingers twining into my hair as his thumbs swiped across my cheeks, catching tears I didn't even know were there. Seth was great like that. Nobody looks good with mascara running down their face. "I was hoping we could discuss it."
"Discuss." I swallowed. "What would you like to discuss?"
"Marcus?"
"Never actually happened." I laughed. "Believe it or not, it really was Alice Cullen's fault."
His eyes shut at that and when they opened, they were the warmest brown I'd ever seen. He kissed me hard, and tore himself back before pressing his forehead against mine again. "I knew it, I always fucking knew it."
And I believed him. Seth knew me better than anyone, and the fact that he'd never believed I'd do that to him meant more than anything else. It was my turn. "Ana?"
"It was all the imprint." His hands dropped to my waist when he felt me shiver, pulling me closer to him, his arms winding around me. "That day, it was like a switch. One minute, she was all I could think about, and then the next…" He looked at me smiling. "The next, everything was back to normal and all I could think about was how I'd almost killed you, how you were the only thing that mattered."
"I'm okay." I stroked his cheeks. "You have to know, I knew I what I was doing, the whole time."
He nodded. "I know, but it doesn't change the fact that I almost killed you."
"I think there's a special allowance in the friendship contract for that," I said, trying to lighten the frown on his face. "It's in the My-Best-friend-Turned-Into-A-Wolf section."
"Oh, I guess I never got that far." He replied, his eyes twinkling. "Silly me."
"Lucky for you, I'm here to clue you in."
"Yes," he agreed, kissing me soundly, "it is very lucky for me."
That afternoon passed in a blur, quiet and strange. We'd known each other our entire lives but somehow, it felt like we were learning each other for the first time. We walked through the cold, icy beaches, letting the air flush our cheeks. I spent a great deal of time melting snow on his neck, and feeling how quickly the skin returned to scalding with my fingers. He returned the favor by sticking a handful down the back of my pants. I kicked him into the Pacific ocean in retaliation. I think he let me. I'm not as strong as I think I am.
Night found us lying on my couch, the TV on mute as it played reality show after reality show. I was curled around his head as he stretched out, his feet hanging off the edge. I let my fingers trace through his hair, marveling that we'd somehow found our way back to each other. We hadn't kissed after the coffee shop but we hadn't been able to stop touching each other.
"What was in the letter?" His voice came slowly, sleepily from around my navel.
"Alice's letter?"
"Yeah."
I let out a long breath. "A lot. I don't know that I understand all of it really. Just that-" My voice broke, surprising me. And the wetness sliding down my cheeks surprised me even more. My strange, slight friend, always more trouble than she was worth but how I missed her. It wasn't any of her fault. I wished I could have told her that.
"Cassie?" Seth was watching me from where he lay, his brown eyes thoughtful.
"Sorry." I cleared my throat and rubbed my nose. "I miss her." It seemed like the only important thing in that moment. "I miss her so much."
He slid upwards then, wrapping himself around me as I leaned against him. "She's special."
"She broke it you know." My fingers wound into Seth's tank top, the ribbed edges rubbing soothingly against my palm. "She made this crazy deal with this seriously messed up chick to get you off the hook. All because she thought it was her fault."
Seth froze slightly. "I didn't know that."
I looked up at him, smiling. "I probably owe her a fruit basket or something, huh?"
"Alice?"
"Ana." I corrected with a sigh. "She's probably confused, like really confused. And you know, if you think about it, this, what I'm doing right now, isn't any better than what she did to me. Or I did to you." I exhaled, frustrated. "You'd think, by now, I'd have a better idea of how this works."
"Hey, I'm the problem, and I don't even know how it works." Seth reached down and tweaked my nose, laughing as I swatted his hands away.
"Yeah, talk about useless." I shook my head at him. "Alice told me you imprinted on Ana because she was a reason to stay. Here, I mean."
He let out a long breath as he thought about that. "It's so fucked up. It was so fucked up." He corrected. "It wasn't like I forgot about us-or you, it's just that I couldn't stop myself. I tried, so hard, but I just-"
I hushed him with my lips, gently withdrawing his guilt with each kiss. "I know it wasn't your fault. It's not like you could…"My words died away as a thought struck me with eerie finality. That was just it wasn't it. He couldn't control it. "Seth?"
"Yeah?"
"It can only happen once, right?"
He looked sick, scared and nervous at once. "I don't-I don't think so. I mean no one's ever, fuck, I don't know."
My heart was racing suddenly. If it happened again-it killed me to think that it might-then all of this would have been for nothing. Alice would have sacrificed herself and Jasper for nothing. It couldn't happen again. It couldn't. But then, I'd never really thought it would happen once. And life was strange that way. Never what was fair, or what you deserved, just what you didn't know that you wanted it until it happened. If Ana had never happened, I'd never make the greatest friend I'd ever had. I'd never learn to be myself without Seth. To welcome the idea of leaving La Push without him. "If you left, it couldn't right?" I said quietly, the idea sparking as I spoke. "That's the key, you being here, that's why you turned why all of this started. If you go to Brown, it would stop."
"I can't go." He wasn't looking at me, only at his hands.
"What?" I slid backwards away from him, wrapping my arms around my knees. "What do you mean you can't go?"
"Cassie, it's not just Ana, it's this whole thing, I can't just leave my brothers."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "You've never wanted to stay, you've always wanted-"
"It was you." He interrupted, quietly. "You always wanted to leave. You always knew what you wanted and I couldn't ever seem to figure out what I wanted until I met you. And then it was so easy to want what you wanted."
"Don't you dare put that on me." Suddenly I was standing and yelling. And it felt good. All of that pent up anger. "I pushed you to be better, not keep you here in this fucked up place like your brothers. They're holding you back. You're supposed to be more."
"Maybe I'm not." He was still just where he'd been, sitting on the couch, his fingers wrapping and unwrapping around each other. "Maybe that's you. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to do."
I let out a bitter laugh. "You're just like him, aren't you?"
He knew who I meant. I could tell by the way his shoulders went up to his ears and his fingers stilled. Sam.
I hadn't meant to say it, but then it was in the air between us. I couldn't apologize. Not when it was true. But I could stop this, this ugliness that I'd started between us. "I don't want to fight. I just want everything to stop being so damn hard."
He looked at me then, smiling wryly. "Life's hard, get a helmet."
I laughed at that, the reference calling back to long summers with only each other for company. We'd fed off each other and we'd never known life apart. But maybe that was what we needed. "I'm going to RISD."
"I know you are." He said, softly. "I would never ask you to stay."
And I would never stay. But I didn't say it. I think he knew my answer. "I think you should go to Brown-"
"Cassie-" He began, but I cut him off.
"Let me finish. I think you should go to Brown, but," I sighed, "but if this is what you want, to stay and to be with..." her, I finished in my head but swallowed the words. It wasn't fair. He never said anything to imply it was to be with her. He wanted to stay for his brothers. Brethren? Wolf pack? Who even knew anymore. I just knew that if that's what he wanted, I wouldn't color it. "...to be here, then I guess I can live with that."
He pulled me next to him, wrapping his overly warm hands around mine. "I don't deserve you."
"I know." I laughed as he poked me in response.
"It's not what you think." He began quietly. "It's not because I want to be with her, or because of something left over from the imprint. There's more to this than all of that. I just don't know who I am without you and I think I need to figure that out."
I nodded. "So where does that leave us?"
His lip quirked and he held out his hand. "Friends, for now?"
I smacked his hand aside before wrapping my arms around his neck. He sunk into me, careful as always, of my neck. "Don't be ridiculous, Clearwater, I'd never be friends with someone as dumb as you. I mean who would pick staying here over going to Providence. Lame."
He picked me up easily, spinning me over his shoulder and laughed raucously. "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. What was that?"
"Put me down!" I yelled between panting laugher as I scrambled to hold onto his hands, "You're such a little bit-"
He lifted me higher. "What was that, Kennedy?"
I reached down and grabbing his ankles, tickling the sides and then we were both tumbling to the ground in a mess of arms and legs. "You are the worst."
He swiveled so he could see me and winked. "You love it."
I did.
