When Ashley finally woke up that morning, she was a little disoriented. The blankets were tangled around her legs and she was twisted within them. She had obviously had a very restless night. It was almost two weeks since Harry's funeral, and it hadn't left her mind, or her dreams.

Anxious to get out of her room, Ashley untangled herself from her blankets, and got out of bed. First, she looked out her window to see Daphne's car gone. She was probably at Paul's. Ashley felt a pain in her stomach at that thought. She was glad her sister was happy but she couldn't help wishing it was her at her boyfriend's house.

Ashley then went to check her mother's room, to see if she was awake. The bed was empty and she was nowhere in sight. She figured Terry was with Sue again. The thought of her mother being at the Clearwaters' without her made her very upset. It had been over two week since she had seen or talked to Seth.

When Ashley got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, she scared herself a little with her own reflection. The messy bun she had put her hair in last night was loose and her hair was tangled and wavy. Her skin was very pale, more than it usually was in the morning, and there were dark circles under her eyes. They were signs of her restless night.

After showering, blow drying her hair, applying make-up and getting dressed, Ashley decided she looked somewhat decent, and went down to the kitchen. As she went down the stairs, she noticed something was different about today. The house was oddly light. She ran to the window and ripped the curtains open. A smile lit up on her face. It was sunny for the first time since she had moved here, not a cloud in the sky.

Ashley changed into her capris and a tank top –it was still too cold for shorts- that were hidden in the back of her closet, and went outside to enjoy the day. She tried calling Kim a few times but she never picked up her cell. She also dialed Seth's number and after the first ring she remembered they weren't together anymore and hung up quickly. She thought about taking Rosie with her, but figured it would be easier to go alone.

It was nice to have some alone time just to relax and walk through the beautiful forest. She missed Seth and she needed the time to think after all the events that had happened recently. She was lost in thought when she heard a twig snap behind her.

At first she just ignored it, passing it off as a squirrel or something, and kept walking. She paid a bit more attention to her surroundings though, and realized she was hopelessly lost. Sure, she had lived here for nearly four months, but this has been the first nice day she had ventured into the forest.

Ashley was mentally scolding herself for doing something so stupid, when she heard more rustling from behind her that was followed by a quiet murmur. She resisted the urge to whip her entire body around to face the noise. Instead, she glanced around her, and subtly over her shoulder. She saw two shadows disappear into the tree line. She immediately knew she was being followed, and she had a feeling it was not by the good guys.

She took out her cell and dialed Seth's number quickly. Even if they weren't together, she hoped he would help her and he knew the forest better than anyone else. Ashley swore under her breath, no service. In the reflection of her phone she saw there were in fact two men following her. One taller than the other and yeah, they did not look nice at all. She caught the glint of something shinny in the taller men's belt, and Ashley starting walking faster. It looked like some kind of weapon, a knife or a gun. Or maybe she had imagined it, a trick of the light. Either way she wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out. She lowered her phone and started walking faster; not wanting to tip them off that she knew they were there. She knew she would never be able to out run them if it came down to a chase.

Eventually, Ashley got to the river, and she contemplated trying to swim across. She was a good swimmer, and had taken years of lessons, but she was alone, the current was strong, the water was cold, and the river was quite wide. She started to panic because if she tried going any direction other that straight, she knew the men behind her would easily cut her off. She heard a chuckle from behind her, and she spun around.

She could tell they weren't locals from their looks, and when they spoke, their accent. One was tall, dark skin, and had extremely short hair. He smiled at her with a menacing grin when he noticed her looking at him. The other was slightly shorter than the dark-skinned man, but still towered over Ashley. He was Caucasian and had longer brown hair.

"'Ello there," the shorter of the two men said in a voice that made her skin crawl. "Lost are ya'?"

"No," she lied smoothly, trying to keep her cool.

"I think you are," the taller man said, advancing on her.

Ashley started backing up, trying to put as much distance between her and the men as possible. She was only somewhat aware of her feet getting cold, literally. She quickly looked down only to realize she was standing in the river, the water was about half way up her calves.

Knowing she was trapped, she tried very hard to remember the simple self-defense techniques she was taught last year in gym class. When she was about to scream for help, she saw a flash of light brown in her peripheral vision. Logic was telling her she had imagined it or it was nothing that would help her at this point, but for some strange reason, she suddenly felt safer.

She turned her attention back to the men, and realized they were closing in on her, the tall man's hand near his belt, ready to grab whatever weapon he had on him.

He never got the chance to draw his weapon though, because as soon as he made a motion to do so, a sandy blur flashed in front of her. It took Ashley a second to realize it was a huge sandy wolf standing between her and her attackers. The wolf was roughly the size of a horse and had his back to her. He seemed to be bearing his teeth at the men. She heard a low, ferocious growl admitting from the wolf and jumped slightly.

The wolf paced in front of her but always with its tail angled towards her and its face towards the men. Every hair on the wolf's hackle was standing up. The wolf kept glancing her way but never long enough for her to catch its eye. The four of them stood there for what seemed like a very long time, but also could have only been seconds.

The wolf didn't snap or growl constantly at the men, only if one of them tried to make a move would he growl. It was almost as if he did not want to harm the humans. At one point the taller man moved his hand to his belt, looking for weapons, but the wolf snapped at the men.

The men looked at each other for a spilt second, fear clear on their faces, and both ran in the opposite direction. After they were plainly out of sight, the wolf turned to Ashley. She knew she should feel scared having a huge wolf staring her down, but she didn't. She raised her head and looked the wolf in the eye and almost stumbled back in shock. The wolf's eyes were filled with worry. Animals' eyes did not show emotion that way, did they? And they eyes were also so familiar. They were the exact same shade of chocolate brown that Seth's were and had the same protective glint.

Ashley approached the animal with caution, as not to scare it, but something about him reminded her so much of Seth. The wolf was completely still, not so much as blinking as she came forward. Slowly she raised her hand to stoke the beast's shoulder. The sandy coloured fur had a rough top coat but a soft undercoat that she dug her fingers into.

Suddenly she heard her name being called in the distance. The wolf quickly turned its giant head in the direction of the voice and looked back at her before darting of into the trees, leaving her standing there alone. She heard the voice again and recognized it as her sister's. She called back and followed the direction of her Daphne's voice.

When she came into view she saw Daphne looking frantic, then relieved, then angry. She was trying to decide whether to apologize, explain, or ask for an explanation. Her sister beat her to the punch.

"ASHLEY SOPHIA MONTGOMERY, where have you been?" her sister asked in a harsh voice.

"It was so nice outside, and I had nothing to do, so I went for a walk in the forest."

"No note? No call telling me or Mom where you would be? It is almost 4:00. I got home around 3:30 and found no trace of you, no clues as to where you would be. Nothing."

"I'm sorry I wasn't thinking clearly," Ashley said quietly, refusing to look her sister in the eye.

Her sister sighed and pulled Ashley into a hug. "Listen, we have already lost Dad, we can't lose you too."

Daphne wrapped her arm around Ashley's shoulders and they walked back in the direction of their house. "Just be glad it was me who got home first and not Mom."

Ashley sighed again and glanced over her shoulder, back at the forest. She could have sworn she saw the flash of light brown again, darting through the trees.

Ashley was lying in her bed in the dark, confused. She couldn't sleep because she had so many questions and so few answers.

The wolf was way too big to have been real, but she was sure she couldn't have imagined all of that. And what about the shocking similarity to Seth in its eyes? She could have died today, or worse, but she wasn't thinking about her attackers, only the wolf that saved her.

She knew it was crazy. A horse sized wolf saving her. Wolves normally didn't protect complete strangers or worry for them, yet she could have sworn she saw worry cloud the animal's eyes. And were Seth's eyes really that similar or did she miss him so much she convinced herself it was so?

Frustrated with all of these questions, Ashley decided to find answers herself. She grabbed her laptop off of her side table and turned it on. She opened Google and searched Wolf. The first hit was to Wikipedia. She read through the article and it confirmed what she had already figured out herself. Wolves generally weren't larger thank Rosie. She went back to Google and searched world's largest wolf. According to the website, that wolf was approximately 275lbs., way smaller than this wolf. It had to have weighed at least twice that. Ashley stayed up for hours on the computer.

She looked through pictures of wolves, and read everything she could about wolves. She read about their behaviour, their habitat, and even their coat colours. She could find nothing that resembled, or even came close to this wolf. Everything about it was abnormal, but the feeling of the animal's coat under her fingers was something Ashley was sure she couldn't have imagined.

Finally at around 2:30 am, Ashley decided to look up one more thing. Quileute wolves. Of course her mother had told her some stories but nothing too detailed. After her mother had moved away from her hometown, she had decided to raise her children like the kids they would live around. Ashley clicked on the first link and she sat up so fast, her laptop almost toppled of her lap. She quickly tried to recover and scanned through the article quickly. A few words caught her eye like transform or Alpha. Ashley tried to read the entire article calmly, but her eyes became heavy and she was fighting to stay awake. She resolved to read it the next day, not wanting to skip over something due to her tired eyes.

The next day when Ashley went to school, she rounded the corner to her locker and stopped dead in her tracks. She backed up so her body was back around the corner but peeked out from around it. She was surprised to see Seth waiting by her locker.

Not ready to confront him yet, she backed up quietly and as soon as she got part way down the hallway, she ran towards the bathroom. She could have sworn she saw him follow her, but she didn't look back.

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a while, trying to think of what to say to him. What was he doing back at school? Why did he come back now, almost half a month later? Where had he been? Why did he want to talk to her? Weren't they broken up? Was it just a coincident he came back the day after her encounter with the wolf? Would he think she was crazy if she told him her theory? Would he even listen? She never had the time to work out the answers because at that moment the bell rang.

Ashley took her time getting to English class, but not so long that she would be late. When she walked in she saw Seth in his desk next to hers. She quickly looked away from him and walked with her eyes down to her desk. Seth was about to say something when Mr. Strouds walked in, quieting the class. Mr. Strouds was never her favourite teacher but right now she liked him very much.

English went by very slowly. Ashley noticed Seth trying to catch her eye, but Ashley kept her head down and used her hair to form a barrier between them. Finally class ended. Ashley grabbed the books she had stacked on the corner of her desk earlier on in the class and rushed out of the classroom. She had just gotten out of the classroom when she felt someone grab her wrist and pull her back. "It's me," she heard in her ear.

When she turned around she saw Seth looking down at her, really looking down at her. When she saw him this morning, he was so far down the hall she didn't notice the differences, but now, here, face-to-face with him, she could see how different he really was. The last time she had seen him he was taller than her by about half a foot, not by this much. Now Seth was a good foot taller than her. He was also a lot broader and his touch felt hot on her skin. At first, her instinct was to be nervous, but when she looked in his eyes, they had the same affect they always did and she instantly felt calm and safe. But she also felt angry at the same time.

"What do you want?" She tried to sound cold, but it was hard with the happiness that she felt by being this close to him again.

"Can I talk to you?" Seth asked quietly so no one else could hear.

"I have a class to get to," Ashley tried to pull her wrist away, but Seth had a tight grip on her.

"Ash, I really need to talk to you."

Ashley sighed. "Fine, talk." She yanked her wrist away from him again, and this time, he let her go.

He looked around uncomfortably. "Alone?"

She answered him by walking in the direction of her locker. Seth caught up to her easily. After putting her things away, she locked her locker and walked out the side doors. Ashley's next class was math. She didn't have as much of a problem with skipping it since she was still ahead of the rest of the class.

She didn't stop, look at him, or acknowledge him at all until she had crossed the road and reached the beach. Then she turned on Seth.

"What?"

"I'm sorry." He had his head down when he answered her.

"You're sorry? You ignore me for days, refuse to talk to me, and don't even show up to school. You give me no explanation, you never called me, and yet, you have the balls to come here after weeks of nothing and all you say is sorry?" Ashley was angry now and he could tell. She knew she was probably over-reacting, but she had so many emotions to get out and so many thoughts going through her head at once. She couldn't pick just one.

"Listen, Ash. I know I messed up, but please let me explain." Seth stayed calm but he looked extremely upset.

Ashley stood there, staring hard at him. His words came out in a jumble.

"I am so sorry for what I did. For leaving you, for ignoring you, for convincing you I didn't love you anymore. I didn't mean any of it, I swear. I only did what I did to protect you, and look where that got us. If I hadn't been walking by at the right moment, I don't even want to think about what would have happened." Seth covered his face with his hands and collapsed onto their tree branch. With that, Ashley lost any anger she had left and sat down next to him.

"What are you talking about?" Ashley asked. When he didn't answer she wrapped her fingers around his wrist, trying to pull his hands away from his face. His hands didn't budge, and his skin was burning hot, but she kept her hands there. "Hey, look at me," she said softly.

Seth slowly allowed her to pull his hands away from his face and looked her in the eye. She saw a tear in his eye and Ashley opened her mouth but nothing would come out. She just collapsed into his arms, her eyes watering. Seth wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her hair.

"Why? Why did you think you needed to protect me? Protect me from what?" Ashley's voice was muffled by his tee-shirt.

Seth raised his head, but held her tighter to him. "From me. I couldn't put you at risk. I thought I could do it, stay away from you, but that day, in the forest, when you looked in my eyes, I knew I had lost it all. I had lost any self-control I had. I physically could not be away from you any longer. I guess I already knew. Before that, I would run outside your house at night, just to make sure you were okay, but I was always careful not to be seen. I didn't want to freak you out, and I couldn't have told you even if I wanted to. I guess I was overreacting because you handled it pretty well. But then again, I should have known, you have always been good at handling things. I guess I was just scared."

"Seth, you aren't making any sense. Calm down, breath, and start from the beginning." Ashley took his hands in hers. His hands were burning, so she took one hand and put it to his forehead, checking for a fever. He was burning up. "Wait, are you sick?"

He caught her hand with his free one and held it to his cheek. "No, not exactly. But there is some something wrong with me."

"Will you please explain what is going on?" Ashley stressed.

Seth took a deep breath and took Ashley hands in his.

"You aren't going to believe me but…"

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day my lovely readers! I hope you all enjoying your day. If you believe in Valentine's Day, happy Tuesday! Anywhoo, I hope you enjoyed this chapter because I think I spent the most time on this one out of all of them. Ohh, and I hope this doesn't sound creepy when I say I was so glad some of you got a little emotional during the last chapter or two. I hope it is a sign of my decent writing skills. :D

A/N: Thank you to Sam0728 for catching that! I changed it a little because if I didn't the next chapter would not be consistent. Sine I have already written chapters nine and ten with the idea that Ashley would be shocked, I changed it a bit. Sorry guys. I hope it will still work.