Don't own anything except OC's.

Chapter 10: Maturing

2017: Claire 14-15

Quil's POV.

"Hey, we did a good job, didn't we?" I asked as I walked into Claire's reformed bedroom. The room had been complete for a week and a half but I hadn't been able to come down to see it due to Claire having her 14th birthday slumber party last weekend. Oliver and Jasmine had let ten teenage girls sleep for the night and I could quite easily say I had not envied them.

The room was now yellow and white instead of baby pink and purple. Her new double bed had arrived, taking up much more room than her previous single bed had. Claire had opted to have two thin white curtains that she could pull around her bed for privacy when she was sleeping. She now had a study desk and a yellow chair against the wall filled with school work and hair accessories, while two white coloured shelves settled above filled to the brim with all of Claire's junk. Like Nora had promised, there were stencils of funky looking flowers just above the head of the bed.

"Yeah, I love it," she nodded, taking a cushion from the bed and hugging it to her chest. She looked a little nervous about something and every time she looked at me, she blushed. I had been here for fifteen minutes and she had yet to look me in the eye.

"Did you enjoy your birthday party?" I tried to ease the tension that was settling in the room.

"Oh, it was really fun! We had a pillow fight and Behati broke a lamp in the living room," she giggled lightly. She looked up to smile at me, but then quickly retracted when I smiled back. Sighing, I settled onto the end of her bed and stared at her for a while.

"Claire, what's going on? You're acting a little strange. Is there something wrong?" I asked worriedly.

Claire cleared her throat uncomfortably and twirled a thick chunk of her hair around her finger. "Nothing's wrong," she stressed. The free hand she had fiddled with the end of her pillow. "But the girls and I were talking at the sleepover and Gabby mentioned you being my best friend and obviously I said it was true," she scoffed like that was a world-wide fact. "But then Mia mentioned...something and I wondered if you had done it because Nikki said you would have—"

"Claire, what is it?" I asked, a little amused by her ranting.

"Have you ever had sex?" she blurted, her face turning bright red.

"What?" I blanched, my voice catching a little in my throat.

She shuffled awkwardly. "Have you ever had sex?"

I was too shocked to even think straight, never mind say anything back to her, which was why I was left gaping like a fish for at least three minutes. When did my Claire-bear find out about sex? Shouldn't she still be playing with Barbie's and playing with colouring books? She was far too young to know about sex. She shouldn't even know what kissing means.

"Quil, are you okay?" Claire questioned anxiously after I stayed silent.

"Mmhmm," I mumbled about ten octaves higher than my normal voice. "Where—where did you learn that?"

"What?"

"You know, that."

Claire's eyebrow's scrunched together. "Sex?" she wondered, cocking her head to the side. "From sex ed," she muttered. "They teach you it at school. We were talking about it at the slumber party and I just wondered about you because you're, you know, older than I—we are."

"No," I answered honestly. Lying to her wouldn't work out, anyways, so truth was the only way out of this one. Unless I jumped out the window...

"You haven't," she gasped, eyes wide. "Why? Nora said all guys love sex!"

"She what?" I cried, getting more horrified by each passing second. Now Nora knew about sex? "Oh, God," I sighed, dropping my head into my hands. "I—I've been waiting for the right person," I whispered in answer to her question. I knew I had promised to answer anything she wanted to ask, but this was crossing some kind of line. "And I've never really been interested in…doing it."

"Oh." She nodded, looking far away in dreamland. Then her lips split into a broad, happy smile. "Oh, okay. I just wanted to ask, you know? I was curious cuz Nora talked to me—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," I held out my hand, feeling a little sick. "It's fine. You can always—always ask me anything, Claire-Bear."

She looked ecstatic, a lot more ecstatic than she should about finding out I was a 27-year-old virgin.

"Thanks, Quil," she chirped, jumping up on her knees to give me a brief hug. "Want to watch a movie?"

I nodded blankly and leaned back against the wall. Claire shuffled up beside me and leaned her head against my shoulder, laughing at parts of the movie that weren't even that funny. She seemed ten times happier than normal, which meant she was acting like Seth on drugs. By the time the movie ended my mind was in turmoil so I bid goodbye to Claire and rushed home in wolf form. No one was phased, thank God, so I had some time to think.

I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a sledgehammer.

When had Claire gotten to the point when she was wondering about sex? When had she started talking to Nora and her friends about it? Also, why were her friends talking about my (lack of) sex life in front of her? Did this mean that she was thinking about having sex? Did she have a boyfriend I didn't know about?

Before I knew it, I was walking into Emily's house. She was laid on the sofa watching TV with six-year-old Tyrone and four-year-old Nathan sharing the small sofa beside her. She looked tired, no doubt from her new addition to the family, three-month-old Evelyn, and it didn't help that Sam was still in a mood about Brady imprinting on his daughter.

"Oh, Quil, hey. What are you doing here?" Emily asked when I stood near the arm of the sofa.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Sure," she got up and made her way to the kitchen. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Claire asked me about sex," I blurted without hesitation. "When the hell did that happen? She's all of a sudden grown up and I don't know what to do. She's not Claire-Bear anymore and it's freaking me out! She's wearing make-up and she's blushing a lot and she's—"

"Quil, you're going to pass out soon," Emily put in amusedly. "Calm down, you sound like you're having a mid-life crIris."

"This isn't funny."

"It is a little bit," she grinned. When she seen my serious face, she sighed. "She's growing up, Quil, everyone goes through it. If I remember correctly, teenage girls are confused, curious, moody and hormonal. You just need to be as understanding as possible."

"What? I need to understand why she asked me if I've ever had sex?"

"She asked you that?" she giggled, "sorry. Like, I said, Quil, she's curious and you're one of the most important people in her life, of course she's going to ask you. You're one of the people she trusts the most and that's who she's going to gravitate to. The fact that you imprinted on her is just highlighting all of that."

"But—"

"Have a drink, Quil. You need it," she handed me a beer from the fridge. "Hang out with Jake for a while or something to clear your head. Handling a teenage girl is one of the hardest things to do and everyone needs a break, even imprinters. You need to accept Claire is growing up and move on."

Grunting, I took large swig of my beer and nodded. I felt guilty when I looked back at Emily's tired face. She already had three kids to take care of, she didn't need to handle my problems on top of that. Emily had just always been my go-to person when I didn't feel comfortable talking to Jake or Embry about something. It was almost automatic to go to her with my imprinting problems because not only was she an imprint herself, but Claire was her niece and Emily was one of the people that knew Claire best.

I finished my beer and kissed Emily's scarred cheek as I headed out the door, shouting over my shoulder for her to have a nap. Taking her advice, I popped over to the Cullen's house and hung out with Jake, Seth and Harry to watch a football game. It was nice, but all I could think about was how much I missed Claire.

I ran up to Makah on the night and watched as Claire did her homework and watched telly, taking comfort in her breathing and the small sounds she made. This little spot near Claire's window had become like a second home to me, in a sad, sad way. I had slept here more times over the past years than I had at my home. I remembered listening as Claire shouted for her mom to get out of the cot, and when she would have nightmares and run into her parent's bedroom. I missed those days but maybe Emily was right, I had to move on.

Just how hard would that be?

Claire didn't mention sex again to me after that. She rang me the next night and we talked for three hours about nothing and everything. We were going back to normal again, kind of. I could tell she was maturing even more not only in looks but mentally. She no longer prattled about teenage dramas of the latest gossip, instead opting to ask me about my life, tell me about her studies and new projects while mentioning little things about her friends and family.

As the year went on, things didn't change much for us. She was still my best friend, my Claire-bear and I was still her Quil. The only thing I did notice change in was Claire. Her faces had lost its childishness, she had grown taller, she was getting curves that were too good not to ogle sometimes. She was becoming more aware of the opposite sex and how they reacted to her. She knew how to flirt and lick her lips in just the right way to bring attention to them.

It was mind boggling.

It was a few months after her fifteen birthday when I went down to Makah to see her. Her parents had gone out for the night with some friends and even though Claire and Nora were old enough to be left alone now, I still wanted to pop in. I had rung Claire before and she sounded excited to see me so that only encouraged my visit.

She was sat on the sofa watching telly when I entered. Somewhere upstairs I could hear Nora moving around and talking to someone on the phone. Smiling at the sight of Claire, I sat down next to her and ruffled her hair in greeting. I had stopped kissing and hugging her when I noticed the indent of her waist.

"Hey Quil," she greeted happily. "Wow, it didn't take you long to get here."

"No traffic."

Telling her I had phased into a giant ass wolf and sprinted over her as fast as I could in anticipation of seeing her didn't seem like the thing to say.

"Oh, okay," she bent over to pick up a bowl of popcorn. "Want some?"

Smiling, I took a few and threw them into my mouth. She was watching a family sitcom that actually looked quite funny, though I didn't pay much attention to that. We talked for a while and settled into our usual comfortable ways.

"Done anything this week?" I asked casually.

To my surprise, Claire flushed bright red and sank low in her seat. "Um, no, not really."

"Liar." I said with a smirk. "You're blushing, what's up?"

She put the bowl of popcorn back onto the table and slapped her hands together as if they were covered in dirt. "Nothing...much," she got up. "I'm getting a drink, want one?"

I shook my head and watched as she walked away, my eyes drifting down to the swing of her hips and the way her skinny jeans clung to her long legs.

Stop it, Ateara. You're being a weirdo.

Coughing in embarrassment, I turned back to the telly and idly watched the programme. It had changed to David Letterman now and some celebrity was getting interviewed about her new movie. Claire came back in with a can of soda, sat back down on the opposite end of the sofa and ran a hand through her hair.

"I went to the cinema with my friends," she stated suddenly. My attention turned to her as her cheeks lit up a lovely pink colour. Had she always been this pretty? "And Bruno kissed me."

I was going to punch him in the neck.

"What?"

"Bruno kissed me," she repeated shyly. "Well, it was more like making out, really."

Anger bubbled up inside me. "Did he do it without you wanting it?" I hissed with the intention of hitting this kid with a pole stick if he did anything to upset her.

"Oh God, no. We were waiting for our rides and he leaned down to kiss me," she paused. "It was kinda nice."

Oh.

I gulped back a vile of anger that threatened to explode though I didn't know why. She wanted it, so why didn't I feel any better? She was free to kiss anyone she liked...as long as they don't force her into it. "Yeah?" I breathed after a pregnant pause.

"Mmhmm."

"Do you like him?"

She wrapped her arms around her knees and flushed. "A little."

"That's cool, then."

It wasn't. It wasn't cool in anyway, shape of form.

She turned to look me in the eyes and I was surprised to see she looked sad...almost disappointed. "Cool?" she huffed questionably. "Oh, right," she sighed shortly. "I might ask him out, then."

"You should, you know, if you like him."

"Right, well, I will."

"Good."

She stared at me for another couple of seconds, tittered and stood up to take the empty popcorn bowl into the kitchen. I made a pointed effort not to stare at her as she walked away and came back. She was silent after that, only the occasional laugh or grunt escaping her cupid-bow lips. I tried to make conversation but she would just shrug, nod or shake her head. The tension was slowly growing around us, by the time it was dark outside you could cut it with a knife. Feeling dejected, I turned to examine Claire to see if she had eased up at all, she hadn't. She was still curled in the corner mindlessly watching the telly. The glare from the telly was highlighting her face, making a shadow form on her cheeks from the length of her eyelashes. Her tongue peeked out and slowly licked her lips, creating a thing layer of shininess over the perfect pink—

STOP!

Feeling like I had been electrocuted, I jumped up to my feet. Claire gasped at the sudden movement and blinked at me when I looked at her.

"I just remembered I need to do something. I gotta go, bye." I kissed my hand and laid it against her forehead before I ran out the door.

I felt sick.

Why was I noticing all of these things? I shouldn't have been noticing anything other than the fact that she was my best friend. My best friend that had the most gorgeous brown hair I had ever seen.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

There was nothing different about Claire. Nothing at all. That was all I needed to tell myself. She was still Claire-bear. She was still the girl that I took to the zoo and let cake my face in make-up. That was it.

I raced home and into my bed, trying to escape my thoughts and feelings for a few hours. It didn't work, Claire was in my dreams, too.

Thoughts?

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-Laylax