Chapter Four – Etiquette

Title: Through the Window Came the Wind

Author : lifelesslyndsey

Disclaimer: It might not mah sandbox, but I'm building castles. But I'm not profiting from them.

Pairing: SamxBella

Rating: NC-17

Warning: language, and adult concepts in probably graphic citrusy detail.

Summary: He fought to do what was expected of him and she did the opposite. If love was less about finding that perfect someone, and more about finding that someone who makes you perfect, you never know who you might find. Love might bring out the best in us, but first, it brings out the worst.

"Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential." - William Cuppy

Previously,

"Alpha rights," I replied, cutting through the yard toward Jake's. "I do what I want."

"Right," Paul laughed, and I had to laugh too.

I never did what I wanted.

Jacob opened the front door, shoulders squared and tense. "You told her," he said quietly, as I pulled open the patched-up screen door.

And now,

"I did."

"There's only one reason you could have told her," he replied just as quietly, staring holes into the floor. "So it's like that?"

"You've read your lore, then," I replied, surprising pleased in my...my pup. They were all my pups in a way. But this one, well even I would admit he was special. He was made for Alpha in a way I wasn't; bred for it, even if he didn't want it. He'd be my second eventually, but I'd deal with that then. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I know you...cared for her."

"You know that's why Dad was keeping us apart, right?" Jacob replied in a murmur, casting a look over his shoulder. I could hear Bella in his living room, huffing impatiently. "He was afraid I'd imprint."

"Any attempt to keep you from Imprinting is a slight against the tribe," I said mildly. Billy knew better, not that it mattered now.

He nodded and sighed, stepping aside to let me in. "I knew something was off when I saw her and I just...couldn't love her like I did. I don't know...I want to love her like that, but something won't let me. She said she saw you. That's how I knew."

"As part of Pack, you know by instinct that she's mine," I replied, feeling a shiver race through me at the admittance. "Had you not phased, your feelings wouldn't have changed...yet. It doesn't mean that you don't care for her," I added. "In fact, given time it's likely you'll become more protective. It's part of the Pack imperative to protect it's imprints, all of them."

"And you don't mind?" Jake asked, leaning against the kitchen archway. "I mean, I still care about her."

"You'll never love her like that," I replied evenly. "Nothing can be done about it. It's in favor of me so I can't spite it. But I appreciate your friendship with her," I said slowly, feeling the words unfurl from my mouth awkwardly. "Because..." I blinked, frowning. "Because given that she trusts you, you're better suited to protect her. I...I'm kind of at a loss with her."

"She doesn't know you imprinted."

"I hadn't told her, no," I replied, shrugging. "Didn't seem right. I don't even know her, Jacob, and...outside of the imprint, I'm not sure I even like her. She's..."

"A frigid bitch?" Jacob offered, raising his hands up in defeat and grinning when a growl, tiny but there, escaped me. "Yeah, I get that. She was worse before though. She's getting over it, I think. I don't know, I think she's mostly over it...over them. She just not sure what comes next. Got all these...guards up. Makes her prickly. She wants to go against everything for the sake of rebelling," Jake laughed, quiet but bright. "She's the total opposite of you. You're so compliant..."

"I do what needs to be done," I replied sharply. "For the tribe; for the pack."

"For every one but yourself," Jake said, nodding as of he were agreeing. "She'll be good for you, I guess. I uh...I feel like I should be angry, but I don't know how. I'm not mad at you at all."

"Well, be angry about getting afternoon patrols then," I said, following him through the kitchen. "And because I don't want you alone with her. You're not ready."

"Sam," he began to protest, but stopped himself. "Alright. But uh...you're not going to keep her from me, right? I miss her." He spoke quietly, to quiet for Red's benefit.

"Like I said, you're friend ship is good for her, so it's good for me," I replied. "Plus...I'm going to need to see her, and I'm going to need you to do that."

"Right," Jacob laughed, speaking to quietly for any one but myself to hear as he lead me around the corner of the narrow hall. "Just...get to know her. She's not always so...hard, I guess. She's just strong."

Red bit back a wince as I stepped into the living room. "You said you would listen to me."

Her expression hardened, shoulders pulling tight as she sat up straighter. "Yeah, well. You freaked out on me and left."

"I told you that I would take you to visit Jacob," I replied. "You couldn't wait ten minutes?"

"I don't get why this is such a problem," Swan replied, shaking her head at me. "He's fine. I'm fine. We were just talking."

"It's a problem because I told you not to come without me," I snapped, watching her flinch. I expected guilt, but it never came. Instead I felt...right. "And you didn't listen."

"You're not my fucking father!" She all but screamed, pushing up off the couch and crowding against me, mouth pulled into a frustrated moue.

"Bella," Jacob warned pushing forward, but I stopped him with a single look. This was between she and I and it was better he learn those lines now, rather than later.

"I don't have to do what you say! I'm not part of your Pack!" She continued, cheeks bright red as she narrowed her eyes.

But she was.

"But he is," I said instead, pointing to Jake. " If you want to see him, you go through me. And as chief of this tribe, my word is Law. You want to come to La Push, Little Red, you're going to fucking listen to me. Any measure I take, whether you like it or not, is for not only your protection, but the protection of my tribe. You not coming here without me, it's as much a protection for Jake as it is for you. How would you have felt if he had hurt you? How do you think he would have felt?" I snarled, and she sank back. "If you can't listen to me, I will ban you from La Push."

"You can't do that," Red replied incredulously, looking to Jacob for conformation.

"He can," he replied, though he knew it would never come to that. He looked a little...flabbergasted, for lack of a better word. He looked it, and I felt it.

This wasn't how imprinting was meant to go, or so I thought. We'd been put under the impression we'd be devoted to our imprints, and their whims. All I wanted to do was tell Swan to shut the fuck up.

Huh.

"Go to the cabin," I said, pinching my nose. My skin felt tight, and I needed to phase, if just to let loose a little energy. "Swan! Go to the cabin!"

She glared at me, but left. We watched her through the living room bay windows make her way across my hard, slamming my front door behind her. "I can't believe she listen to me."

"I can't believe you yelled at her," Jacob said, brow furrowed as he stared at me. "You never yell Sam,ever. All you have to do is look at us all silently disappointed, and that's usually enough to put us in our places. What the hell crawled up your ass?"

I didn't have an answer to that. He was right, I wasn't acting like myself. Or I was acting like myself, more then I ever had, maybe. But she just made me so fucking mad. "I'm stuck with her for the rest of my life," I said eventually, sounding not a little disparaged. "I'll be damned if I'm going to let her talk to me that way. I'm fucking Alpha; I'm nobodies bitch."

He cracked a grin, bright white and just like his fathers. "About damn time, Sam."

She glared at me from where she was propped up on one of my barstool's at the counter, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap. "Where do you get off telling me what to do?" She asked, eyes narrowed.

"My Rez, my rules," I replied in kind, dropping in the seat across from her. "You want to come here, you better learn to respect me and my Rez."

She licked her lips, a slow slide from one corner of her mouth to the other before she spoke. "Why now? You never gave me a passing glace before."

Leaning back in the chair, I folded my hands before me on the table. "I think you know why," I replied, watching her gaze flitter to the left, to avoid my own. "You can't claim ignorance any more."

"Because you told me," she all but snarled, lips curled back. "I didn't need to know."

If I smiled, it was cruel. "That's where your wrong," I said, watching her fidget. "The sharing of our legends is vraja, forbidden; save for some special few who must know in order to keep our people protected. You come with foreknowledge. You would lead the enemy to our doorstep. Would you have told us of your Vampires, not knowing what we were?"

"No," she said stiffly. "I swore never to tell a soul. I didn't even tell you; you knew."

"Then you would endanger our people," I replied quietly. "I knew this, and yet I let you come."

"It isn't like that," she argued, brow furrowed. "The Cullens are...good."

Nodding, I agreed. "I will attest to that, but there have been others; you've said so yourself," I explained, watching her lashes flutter against her cheek. "So if you won't speak, then you must listen. If you want to come here, you'll obey the rules. It's my job to protect this tribe; I make the rules for a reason."

She dared a look at this, eyes locked with mine. "You mean I'll obey you?" She asked, as if daring me to deny it.

Quirking a small smile, I intoned my head in answer. "Yes, as a matter o'fact. These are my woods Red, and I'm the biggest, baddest wolf of them all." It was cheesy enough to earn a reluctant, begrudging quirk of a smile from her.

"Whatever," she huffed, pushing her frown back into place. "I'm going to the beach."

I let her leave, pulling her jacket snug against her body as the wind tore at her hair. She'd be feeling confused I was sure, torn with the urge to hate and not hate me. I'd give her the benefit of being suddenly in disarray, but not for long. Eventually, she'd need to own up to herself. Rebelling would get her no where. There were just some monsters you couldn't run from.

It was several hours later that she managed to find her way back to my cabin. It was a rare dry day on the Rez, breezy but clear. I caught glimpses of her perched on a sand-smoothed piece of drift wood from my window, and forced myself to let her be. By the time she bothered to grace me with her presence once more, I was knee deep in little sisters.

She stood in the door way, shoulder pressed against the frame watching as I situated my sisters at the island counter with their lunches. Paul had already come and gone, ruffling the girls hair as he breezed on out. "No chocolate milk until you eat at least half your nuggets," I explained as I gathered up there drinks. "Who wants ketchup?"

The chorus of 'me-me-me' was cut short as both the girls eyes fell upon Red. "Saaaaaammy. There's a lady in your kitchen." This was pressed upon me in the most imperial of whines, as if having any ladies in my kitchen was inexplicably naughty.

If they only knew.

"I'm aware. Now who wants ketchup?" I replied, plunking the bottle down between them. "That lady's name is Bella Swan. That's Sheriff Charlies daughter."

"Hi," Red finally offered with a little wave.

"Anna's on the right," I explained, gesturing with my finger at the pair. I popped the tab on a luke-warm can of coke, taking a drink before finishing. "And the left is Nora. They're identical so if you don't get it, don't worry. They're use to it. You can just call them 'girls'."

"Are you Sam's wife?" Anna asked around a mouth full of McNugget, forcing me to sputter and choke.

"Anna!" I said, more sharply then she was use to. "That's rude. You know I'm not married. Bella is...uh. Jacobs friend. Why would you even ask that?"

"Well," Nora cut in, ready to explain her sister's logic. "Momma's always going on and on about how you need to find a wife to help you in your kitchen because your cookin' is a hot mess. And we heard you tell Uncle Paul that you found her on the road so we thought that maybe you finally found one."

"We all know momma will never keep her nose out of my business, but you two are just too young. Bella isn't my wife, she's Jacobs friend. Enough of that."

"Then why is she here?" Nora, the interrupter, cut in. "She didn't even knock. That's rude, you know," she added, raising a brow at Red in perfect imitation of our momma.

I snorted, and Red frowned. "Well it is," I said with a shrug. "Sit down, I'll make you lunch."

"I'm not hungry," she mumbled, eying the empty stools across from Anna and Nora. She was curled into herself in her jacket, obviously uncomfortable but with what I had no idea.

"You skipped breakfast," I said in way of answer. "You need to eat."

"You're not my fucking father," she snapped suddenly. "You can't tell me what to do."

Twin gasps escaped my sisters and I turned to Red, my own anger rising asI slapped my hand down on the counter hard enough to make the girls jump. "Do not swear in front of my sisters. Unless you want to explain to my mother why her six year olds are dropping f-bombs tonight?"?" Turning back to the girls, I gave them a stern look. "If I find out you're swearing, I'll wash both your mouths out. Understood?"

"Are you going to wash her mouth out?" Nora inquired, peering over a ketchup soaked french-fry.

"No," I said easily. "Because adults are allowed to swear. They should just know better than to do it in front of impressionable children."

"God," Red huffed. "I'm sorry, alright?"

"Good." I set a sandwich down in front of her, cut in four pieces and de-crusted more on habit than anything else. I realized my mistake as soon as the plate touched the table, but couldn't help but be curious at her possible reaction.

She glared at it, and then at me.

"Whats up with the finger food?" She asked, as ungrateful as ever. "I'm not a little kid."

"Well considering the way that your acting, it's no surprise I mistook you for one," was my reply, as I dropped down beside her with my own lunch. "You could say thank you."

"I could," she said, shoving an entire quarter into her mouth and smirking around it.

"She's like...really rude," Anna commented under breath, to Nora who nodded vigorously, dark spiraling curls bouncing all over her face. "She's so totally rude."

"Momma would bust her butt," Nora agreed, and they both turned to me as if asking my opinion on the matter.

"She'd deserve it too," I replied easily, earning another glare from Red. She was blushing faintly, either in anger or embarrassment at being schooled by a pair of kindergartners. "You know how momma is about table manners. A woman's table manner say a lot about her."

"We're not a bunch of monkeys," the girls recited in unison. "We're ladies."

Chewing, and sub-sequentially spitting what had managed to make it into her mouth back into her napkin, Red took a deep breath and forced out yet another empty apology. "Sorry, but isn't that a little sexist?"

"Whats sexist?"

Lovely.

"It's when a boy thinks he's better than a girl just because he's a boy, or a girl thinks she's better then a boy just because she's a girl. Silly, huh?" I asked, reaching back onto the counter to grab their milk. "And it isn't sexist. My momma raised me the exact same way. I'm a beast," I said pointedly, taking a neat bite from my own over-stuffed sandwich, "and I still managed to chew with my mouth closed."

"Well maybe my mother just raised me wrong," Red said, killing the conversation with brutal efficiency. But the girls in all their tiny wonder couldn't have felt the tension rising.

"Well," Anna said, pausing to take a very long drink of milk. "What about your daddy?"

"Charlie didn't raise me," Red replied shortly, burning a hole through her sandwich with her eyes.

"Oh so he's like Josh," Nora said reasonably, dipping a fry into her ketchup.

"Charlie Swan is nothing like our father," I said sharply. Red looked up, eyes curious. "Charlie is a good man."

"Well, if Sheriff Charlie isn't like Josh, why didn't he raise Bella?" Anna asked, brown eyes flickering from Red to me.

"Why are we talking about this?" Red asked suddenly, looking to me. "I don't want to talk about this."

"You certainly don't have to answer them," I agreed, easily. "but if you don't, they'll just go asking my momma. And my momma's always been real fond of Charlie."

It was easy to see that Red knew how the Rez saw Renee. Charlie was an honorary member of the tribe, and he'd give a whole lot to our community. La Push loved him, and it had hurt to see him mourn the loss of his wife and child. Still did, from what I understood; Charlie was damn near burnt out on women all together.

"My mom didn't like the rain," Red said at last, tearing the bread to bits on her plate. "And my dad did. So my mom left."

"It does rain here a lot," Anna conceded, and that was the end of that.

TBC