Gwen woke to the gentle pattering of rain against the small house's window. While it was a pleasant commodity, the drops were not the first thing to reach Gwen's attention. In fact, her initial acknowledgement was what sounded like a machine running somewhere in the house. After that, she recognized sweat being present in its thick stickiness underneath her arms and knees. As she turned her neck, she could feel the moisture present in her hairline as well.

It was very warm in her bed, uncomfortably so. Despite its overbearing heat, Gwen felt a smile raise her lips as she reached a hand behind her drowsy body to touch the source of the odd noise. A completely unconscious adolescent werewolf laid snoring behind the young girl, one wrist accidentally sprawled over her back side. This was much too embarrassing for Guenevere to tolerate for even a moment, so with a flushed face, she reached a hand back to gently push Seth's heavy palm off of the area, hoping not to wake him. To her disgruntlement, it wasn't that easy, he continued snoring and nuzzled closer to the body in front of him.

Again, she tried to wiggle away, but Seth just exhaled loudly in her ear, his warm breaths blowing tendrils of her Gwen's hair around, tickling the skin underneath it.

Gwen whispered his name urgently, hoping to gain his attention. He didn't notice.

She tried to nudge him with the back of her foot against his calf. No luck, he didn't move a muscle, his breathing remained the same in slumber.

Huffing to herself, Gwen settled back down into the sheets, feeling a discomfort rising in her stomach that had nothing to do with the temperature. Then her eyes narrowed as she took in the gray light hazing in through the rain from the window on the other side of the room.

Oh, crap.

"Seth!" Gwen hissed, nudging him with her elbow more forcefully. The boy still remained asleep.

Her voice coming out much shriller and louder than she intended, Gwen brought her heel back against his ankle while shrieking his name.

Panicking, Seth sat up, wildly looking about the room for a threat. He immediately noticed Gwen, struggling to turn back on her side after neglecting to do her pain-relieving exercises last night. He gently assisted, noting her sweaty limps with a frown.

"You have to go." Gwen said, panicked, as he turned her onto her back, where she promptly sat up. She tasted the morning breath on her tongue and felt how ratty her untamable black hair was, but she shook the extreme self-consciousness aside to begin pushing a groggy Seth off of the bed. Or at least attempting to.

"Why? What's going on?" Seth asked, yawning widely and stretching out his thin yet muscular arms.

"Its morning! And it's Friday. Emily will be coming up at any minute to adjust the braces…"

Seth's eyes immediately focused on the faint light coming from the window, and with a rather childish squeak, he leapt from the small bed to race to the window. Despite how creaky Gwen knew the floorboards to be, they didn't make a noise underneath his heavy weight. Interesting.

"Wait, Seth!" Gwen called quickly, running her fingers through her hair as she slid as best she could to the edge of the mattress.

He immediately paused with his fingers perched on the window pane. "Yeah?"

"Can you at least…I mean…" Gwen regretted her words immediately, knowing that the last thing she wanted was for him to have to swallow his disgust of unpleasant tastes and kiss her morning breath lips goodbye.

Seth smiled wide before loping over to her bed to place a quick kiss on the lips hesitantly awaiting him, a feeling that sent butterflies to her stomach and a fog in her brain. For a moment she had completely forgotten her hair was a rat's nest and that her breath smelled like it homed decaying animals. The complete casualness of the simple touch had its own sweetness, that she as a person had someone in her life to offer her such affection.

She was still thinking of this when the window almost silently shut as the door to her left opened with a low moan.

A rather peaceful looking Emily stood in her bathrobe with her dark hair in a high ponytail. Her scarred face seemed rather contented, though her eyes were flickering over Gwen's frozen form, perched at the end of the bed, breaths coming in quick bursts from the younger girl's parted lips.

"…You seem happy." Gwen said rather loudly, hearing her morning-voice croak at the words and she self-consciously cleared her throat.

"I got to spend time with Sam, last night." Emily murmured quietly, walking into the room with her arms folded across her chest. The floorboards creaked loudly under her tiny feet.

"That's nice." Gwen said with a wide smile, knowing how suspicious she probably looked. Usually she was a much better liar than this, she supposed it was Emily's sudden appearance that had shook her up so. "I thought he wasn't going to be back until noon?"

"The rest of the pack made him go home for once, he was dead beat. Looked like Seth was the same way." Emily continued, leaning against the doorway.

"Everything okay?" Emily asked, quirking an eyebrow at Gwen. The older woman then shuffled in her slippers to an old wooden desk in the corner of the room, opening a bottom drawer to pull out the deadly-looking instruments used to adjust Gwen's braces.

"Yup, all good."

"Sam mentioned how Seth had the night off, too." Emily said offhandedly, turning Gwen gently on the bed so her back was more easily assessable. Gwen deflated at that statement, a sheepish look on her face.

"Oh, that's good to know." Gwen didn't know why she was keeping up the charade anymore.

Seth didn't show up the rest of the day, much to Gwen's chagrin. So the two females stayed around the house, doing what they always seemed to be doing at Emily's: Cleaning and cooking.

"I'm sorry there's not more interesting things to do around here." Emily said apologetically as she cleaned out the oven. Watching the Quileute woman disappear into its dark depths made Gwen slightly uneasy.

"It's all good." Gwen replied, though she was quite bored. However, something was pushing at the back of Gwen's mind, demanding answers. She couldn't do much at this point, being wheel chair bound made it very difficult to be of any real help. Not to mention she was still fairly knew to the whole navigation-by-wheels sort of thing. So she was left to sit there or aimlessly wander the tiny house, allowing the word Seth had used to burn in her mind like a hot coal. Of course, she could mention it to Emily, but that would give away her poorly designed bluff that she hadn't seen Seth since he turned into a canine last night.

"Can I call Carlisle?" Gwen asked suddenly, later into the afternoon. Emily straightened from the armchair she was reading a book in, for once in her existence having seemed to relax for a moment.

"I…" Emily started, then narrowed her eyes at Gwen.

"I don't want to do anything that's going to make it hard for me to see Seth." Gwen stated firmly, yet her cheeks still turned crimson at the confession.

Emily seemed to warm then, obviously believing Gwen's heated words. With a nod, Sam's fiancé reached down into her shirt, much to Gwen's surprise, and pulled out a cell phone from her bra. This act stunned Gwen for some reason, knowing that this was the only place she would have never looked for a phone in the house. Why the sneaky little….

Smiling, Emily handed the awkwardly warm flip phone to Gwen's open hand. Gwen tried to hide her slight revulsion at knowing where it had been. As she opened it, she looked for the contact list button and was unable to find it.

"I'm assuming Carlisle's number is in your contacts, but I have no idea how to…" Without another word, Emily pulled the phone from Gwen's fingers to push a button on the right, then handed it back to her. With a smile of thanks, Gwen turned her chair around to press the send button, listening to the rings that followed. There were only two before a smooth, unmistakable intonation answered with a greeting.

"Carlisle?" Gwen asked after he answered.

"Ah, hello, Guenevere. What's going on?"

"Seth mentioned…some things." Gwen murmured, looking over her shoulder. To her surprise, Emily was gone, and there was a faint sound of plates being moved around in the kitchen.

"What kind of things?" Carlisle inquired, voice steady.

"What's been scaring everybody."

"Go on?"

"You know…" Gwen suddenly felt silly exclaiming the word blatantly, almost afraid he would laugh at her. She said it anyway. "Vampires."

There was no laughter, only half a moment of quiet before Carlisle's voice returned.

"So Seth told you." His voice was thoughtful.

Gwen let out a breath. "Yes. He's not here though, so I can't really ask him anything else."

"Yes, I know. He's actually on our property with his sister and Jacob, right now."

"Can I see him?" Gwen asked excitedly.

"I don't think that's possible. He's quite busy at the moment." Carlisle answered sadly. Gwen felt a moment of shock when she heard something that sounded like a combination of falling water and bells over the line.

"….What was that?" Gwen asked in wonder.

"Bella's child." Carlisle answered with a smile in his voice. Gwen was speechless.

"It appears Seth has returned." Carlisle stated, pulling Gwen out of her stupor. "Would you like to speak to him?"

"Y-yes." Gwen choked out, mind reeling. A moment after that, there was a soft shifting noise as the phone switched hands.

"Hey, Gwennie!" Seth's perky voice called over the phone. Gwen didn't bother to try to hide the beam that lit up her face. After all, there was no one there to see it.

"Ugh, please stop calling me that." Gwen laughed.

"Why? I think it's sweet."

"Oh and by the way, I think Emily is totally onto us. I feel really bad." Gwen mentioned, getting off topic and dully mentally noting it.

"Yeah, Sam kind of knows but they seem to be pretending like they don't…."

"Okay, okay, Seth!" Gwen interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Vampires. Talk. Now. I have so many questions!"

"Alright. Ask me anything!" Seth said cheerily.

Gwen was about to begin her series of inquiries when she unwittingly asked a question she knew she was going to regret.

Strangely, she would not end up regretting it at all.

"Absolutely anything?" Gwen asked, her voice heavy with implications, knowing that he'd pick up on what she meant.

To her surprise, he agreed heartily. With a smile slowly pulling at her lips, Gwen realized there had been a change on Seth's attitude, and for once in this entire ordeal, she was finally going to be able to get explanations for the bizarre chain of events that had been occurring since the day she woke up beside an expecting-yet-emaciated Bella Cullen.

Though her mind had been filled to the brink with questions since her wake, suddenly she had no idea what to ask. She paused a minute.

"Why can't I see Bella?" was the first question that popped itself out into the open chasm of possibilities in front of them.

A/N

Here you go. The horrible story I started when I was thirteen, haha. It is actually proving difficult to write. Confession time: I went through something in the past few years that I stopped writing, and I learned a lot more about what sexual trauma actually is and what it results in. I don't know if I'm going to be continuing with this story after all. I'll give it some consideration and keep you guys updated. Thanks for all the love!