"You can always find a distraction if you're looking for one."

Tom Kite

It was as if it never happened.

There was no melt-down on Red's behalf, as I'd almost expected.

There was no more partying, no more drinking or drugs.

There were no more insults hurled and truths cut open.

There were no more kitchen doors slammed.

There were no more coffee cups thrown.

There were no more cigarettes smoked.

There were no more tears.

There was just suddenly a whole lot of nothing.

Red still came to the Rez, working steadily with the boys when she could. I saw her on around; at Sue's house or at the Black's, even, on occasion, the beach. The lack of Forks kids made the shore seem quiet; part of their punishment had been a temporary ban,along with a hefty amount of community service, and a few fines. It was more or less a slap on the wrist for what it could have been. If the fire hadn't been contained quickly, they'd be looking at jail time for destruction of a government-protected national forest. In the end, they'd gotten off easier than she did. Unlike her friends, Red was not in control of her punishment.

I was, and it caused me no little stress.

She could usually be found in Jacob's garage, legs straddling her old bike as she watched him work. She didn't ignore me, didn't snub me. Instead she treated me with a kind of sheer indifference that hurt more than any words she could hurl at me. It sat between us, our mistake, like a door locked. The proximity kept us sane, but it didn't keep my fingers from itching. She looked good, possibly more content if not disturbingly quieter, than I had ever seen her. It was as if her storm had finally settled, but I'd been tossed to sea and forgotten.

I missed her. I missed her messy hair and her freckles, and her mouth and the way it was just constantly swearing. While I didn't care for her shitty goddamn attitude, it was a part of her. I missed our fights, because at least they were something. At least they were something more than the desperate awkward way she fought to never look at me. I hadn't seen her eyes in two weeks.

Her not-looking was almost as noticeable as my blatant staring. The pack was curious, but they never asked; from the few times I was forced to phase with them, they picked up enough answers. As alpha, I had managed to keep the sex to myself, but the crippling emotional torment was harder. It was just constantly there, vibrating across my skin.

Weeks, fucking weeks went by like that; where she was always right there, but an arm's length might as well have been a mile. It took so much out of me not to push her, not to pick a fight just to hear her yell at me. I didn't, figuring I'd pushed enough. I got what I wanted, a calm and collected Red who managed to smile and wash her ass at least once a week.

Her indifference was torture, pure and simple. At least when she was angry with me, she was feeling something. Her brush-offs left me decidedly nervous. Had I done the right thing? It felt right, and she was certainly better for all my pushing. In the end, that was all that could matter. Instead of dwelling on what wasn't, I poured myself into the Pack and work. We hadn't scented another vampire since the fire, but it didn't keep us from looking. I pushed myself harder in every aspect, pouring myself out across the tribe, pack, and company like a machine. Back to business, this wasn't new. This was how I was made to run. No more distractions, no more backyard nights behind Red's house. Red was...content, or so it seemed, without me. Whatever her shit was, she'd dealt with it, apparently. I'd push on, as I always did.

The Whitman house was finished, wrapped up with a bow and lots of fine-print paperwork. It had been a massive project, one of the larger for my budding company. The boys had done wonderfully, both my Pack and any other Quileute who made their way across my job sites, ready to work and work hard. It filled me with no little pride, watching them hammer away on our new site, the Eastwick property. Jacob was at my side in the little trailer we called an office, white-hard hat tucked under his arm.

"She asks about you, you know. Almost every time I talk to her," Jacob informed me, as I stared down at a rolled out sheet of blue prints. My skin still itched, distracted. He smelled like her, and I knew that he saw her regularly. I needed him out of the fucking office; I needed him to take her with him. I needed-"Normally I don't have a clue what it is she's asking, but...she's asking."

Looking up from my schematics, I gave him a wan smile. "I'm sure you're full of just nothing but compliments on my behalf, huh?" I asked him, looking up at the naked frame of the house. We were right on schedule; the owner would be pleased. At this rate, we could get the flooring in by-

"Sam," Jacob breathed, slapping his hand down on my papers. "You can't bury yourself in work like this."

I looked up at him, feeling cold and angry all the way down to my bones. There was no need to be angry, I reminded myself. Jacob's concern was for me as his Alpha, as his brother. It was to be welcomed, not spurned. At least, that was what I told myself, hands curling over the edge of my desk. "I'm just doing my job, Jacob. I suggest you do the same."

He sighed, slow and hard, shaking his head at me like I was a fool. "You're hurting, Sam, I get that. No one knows what went down, but we can feel howdevastated you are. I want to help you Sam...for Bells, for you. Just tell me what happened."

The poor kid didn't get it. No one could help. There was nothing left to fucking help.

"What's done is done," I said darkly. "I mistook something Red wanted for something she needed and I made a mistake. She said so herself. And now...she's happy now. She's...more alive, or something. I've seen her Jacob. She isn't suffering any more. That's all I wanted." Maybe not all, but it would be enough.

He licked a long his teeth, eyes narrowed at me the way they did when he was thinking too much for anyone's good. "She is alive again," he conceded, slowly. "She's...awake. And you did that; whatever you did, good or bad, it woke her up. She's not happy."

"What?" I asked sharply, hand clenching on my flat white dry-wall pencil. It snapped, and I growled, chucking the pieces into the plastic waste bin beside my chair.

Holding up his hands in caution, Jacob reiterated. "Wait, wait. She's not unhappy, she's just...I've never seen her so...contemplative, or whatever." He shrugged. "She's...not sad, but quiet, like she's always thinking. She even calls me Sam sometimes, on the phone and stuff. Doesn't even notice she does it."

"Great," I said snidely, swallowing down a mouthful of bitterness threatening to rise up and escape. "That's exactly what I want. For her to replace me with you." The Eastwick job was due to be finished by the end of September. If everything went right, I could start work on the next house by early September without stretching out my work lo-

"You've got it wrong. She's replacing me with you, Sam," he snapped back, mouth pulled tight. "She just hasn't realized it yet. She's trying so hard lately, to make us what we were. She's trying to shove me into a Sam-sized hole. I'm just waiting for her to figure it out. God Sam, she came on to me. Just...dropped her ass in my lap, shaking all over the place, so nervous. I knew she didn't want it, whatever she was asking for. I had to shoot her down, and...wow, you don't know how badly I want to hate you for that, but I can't. I can't even hate you. She's...she's missing you Sam, and she doesn't even know it. "

Swallowing again, hard and dry, I shook my head at him. "Why are you even telling me this shit?" I asked in a rush. "I can't think about her. I have to focus on th-"

"No," he replied, dark and harsh. "Bella is priority, Sam. Over everything."

"You don't think I don't know that?" I breathed out in a choked rush, cocking my head at him. Everything all at once bubbled up inside me like boiling water. "You don't think that she doesn't fill every fucking thought in my brain? Because she does, Jacob. I wake up, I grab a red coffee cup. I even drank it with sugar. I hate sugar in my coffee, but she doesn't. I get dressed; red shirt. Grab a pen? Red. Bought the girls new shoes? Red. I cut myself shaving this morning, and watched myself bleed because it was red. Red, Jacob. Red. Red. Red. She's all I fucking thing about. And I can't take it, because she hates me. She hates me. I did that, made her hate me, because it was good for her. Do you even know how fucking hard it was to do? Not at first; at first it felt right. It always felt right, knowing that I was chipping away at her goddamn walls. Because she needed that, she needed to escape from herself. But then I had to see it, Jacob, on her face, all the tears and the screaming, and the fucking pain. I did that,so she could get better. The whole time all I could do was hope that the end was worth the journey; that the juice was worth the squeeze. And now she fucking hates me because want and need are not the same thing and sometimes, just some fucking times I 'want' too. And I made the mistake of letting...us both want the same thing and-"

"Sam," Jacob breathed, hands curled over my biceps. He shook me a little, rattling my teeth. "Breathe. Breathe, Sam."

I sucked in a deep breath, feeling the cold rush of horror and shame wash over me. My mouth snapped shut as my eyes narrowed. Embarrassment: I forgot what it felt like to be so absolutely embarrassed. "Let me go, Jacob," I said, low enough that my voice shook over his skin. He couldn't disobey, not with an order like that, and his hands fell to his side.

"Sam, Sam wait!" he said suddenly, catching my elbow. I growled, lips curling back in a way that only truly frightened animals manage. I wanted to run. "You uh...you did wrong by her, right? That's what you're saying?"

I nodded, slowly. I had done wrong by her. But she seemed...so much better for it. Still...I had hurt her in my desperation to make her better and it...ate at me.

"So...you should be punished," Jacob offered slowly, dropping his arms. "Dad said...that it couldn't wait much longer. I was just...waiting for you, really."

"Oh." I'd forgotten about that. Something strange and hot clawed up inside my stomach, not quite fear, but anticipation. "Yes. We should..."

"Tonight," Jacob muttered slowly. "In the clearing behind your house. I'll get the guys together. "He paused, sucking in a breath. "Will it help?"

"Yes." I wasn't so sure, but I needed it. I needed it like I needed to phase, or I needed to bite every member of the pack right on the neck as soon as they turned wolf for the first time. It was instinctual, the desire to do right. I needed the punishment, the atonement. "Yes, I think so."

tbc