[Edit: 4 Sep 2021]

[A/N: I had to completely re-do this chapter. It was so clunky and awkward.]

TW: mentions of suicide ideation

The hours tick by slowly. The trees are alive with an assortment of buzzing and humming even as the branches creek high up in the air. Fresh and clean air fills me with each breath until I'm weightless.

Evening comes fast, dying the sky and the first few evening clouds indigo and the sky beyond it as dark as the ocean depths. A stray star twinkles in the east, shining like it knows the clouds will consume the sky. Sirius, in all its splendor, a welcoming of the night and symbol of the wolf. With it's wink, my skin itches. I want to run, to howl at the absent moon.

I blink up at the Cullen house, lit from within it is almost star-like - warm. Somewhere inside Emmet is laughing and Seth is talking about a seal stealing Billy's fish. Renesmee's voice is distant and soft, joining smoothly with Esme's in a humming song. The air hints of parsley and tomato, and an oven hums.

My stomach turns, grumbling at not having eaten all day. It smells good, better than food made by vampires should.

I shift against my tree, the calm of earlier fizzling away as the cold sets in. While not feeling cold myself, it's a matter of principle. I tell myself I am not lonely, not envious, but I'm marginally too self-aware to completely sell it. It is lonely out here, merely because feet away is laughter I'm not part of, warmth I cannot indulge in, and comfort I cannot receive.

"You're ridiculous," I say and twirl a leaf between my fingers. Closing my eyes, I breathe deep, trying to smell beyond /food, Seth, vampires/. The scent of soil is always rich and filling, but tonight it is hard to concentrate on it. I try to focus on the chill of the air, the feel of the tree behind me, the promise of ferns on the tip of my tongue.

Shouts sound from inside and my eyes snap open. Apparently Jacob lost some or other game.

I sigh, why am I even here? Seth is clearly safe. My presence changes nothing if I'm not with him either way. I should just go home. He doesn't need you, they don't need you.

A niggling voice says, no one needs you or wants you.

I cringe from the thought, heart pounding. Not that I haven't thought about it before, because I have. So many, many times. I've considered what it means - lying awake in the middle of the night, mind racing, paralyized by the knowledge that I am inconsequential. That if I just...disappeared no one would care.

I think of mom, barely home as she works at the resort, unwilling to spend time in a house where her husband died. Seth, who is grown despite my every attempt to treat him as a child, bitter and frustrated at having to tiptoe around an overly-sensitive sister. The pack - well, it needs no explanation.

I think of what it would be like to stop. No more hurt, no more heartache, no more voice in my head. Just stillness, darkness. It would be peaceful to not face this world each morning.

And just as horrifying as it feels, it makes me fume. Why should I feel this way? Why can I not accept that biology and some messed up magic have chosen me to be the exception? Imprint? Ha! I shouldn't exist, why would the universe allow me any kind of closure?

Love him completely, wholly, but you cannot have him.

Be powerful and fast, be the protector of the weak, but no one wants your help.

Feel deeply, with every fiber of your being, and then some, but no feeling will ever be one of joy.

I want to run from it, the bone weariness and shadowed thoughts. I can't run though, not while that means leaving without Seth - the one good thing in this forsaken world. A sneaky thought whispers, you don't have to run to make it stop, and that thought is dangerously tantalizing. I push it away.

Somehow being this beast means a longer life, more time than I could ever want or know what to do with. The first 26 years of this existence have not been particularly good to me, who is to say it can get better. It feels unlikely, improbable. I know I can stop it, stop the elongated lifespan, wither away and die, human. I would be human, completely, no more howling into the night sky or pushing my body across the land at top speeds.

While others would kill for the youth of the wolf, I rather think losing it would be worth it to not constantly hear Sam's thoughts of Emily, feel his disdain, the pack's exasperation at my pain.

Perhaps then I could move on, find a human's love (lose my heritage, my link to my brother, never feel the the crush of leaves beneath my paws). I could study, travel, be someone new (someone with no roots, the ancestors renouncing me for giving up their gift).

It is an option.

I smile, it's laughable.

"Yo," I look up at Jacob, his head sticking out a window. "You want some grub? Esme's making spaghetti."

My stomach growls in answer, I shake my head "Not hungry." I look away, berating men and wolves and men-wolf packs in general for the entirety of my life's suffering. "I think I'll head home, let Seth know, will you?"

He blinks, "Are you... sure, okay, whatever." he opens his mouth but snaps it closed right after. I hear the low murmur of voices behind him. "By the way, the bloodsucker says you should get out of your head.."

"He should get out of my head," I snarl, mentally I offer feck right off and die.

There's faint laughter from inside before Jacob disappears.

Pushing off the ground, I stretch my arms. The muscles stretch and ligaments pop, satisfying.

There should be enough time to slap together a sandwich before checking on Billy and taking a late border patrol. If Sam isn't going to mess with the Cullens' staying on the fringe of pack territory then fine, but the others should stay away. The coven is lucky to be linked through an imprint. If there's one thing I agree with Sam on, it's that.

I jog into the treeline, run a few feet before undressing and folding my clothes. The change comes as naturally as breathing. Immediately I'm stifled by an onslaught of images and smells and overlapping thoughts, it would seem Paul had already started the perimeter check with Quill. My jaws snap down over my clothes and I begin to weave around fallen logs and craggy old bushes.

Leah, Jake is at the Cullens'? Quill more huffs than asks.

With Seth, I add because he is my only real concern. All I really have on my mind though, is how brilliant it is that Sam isn't on patrol. Score one for bitter ex-girlfriends.

I found new scents at the east border. Vampire.

We're trailing it at the moment, but we'll need you later. Have something to eat first. Paul's suggestion is coloured in the warmth of amusement; his own mind plays out his dinner with Rachel and her parents. The images are warm and flooded with Rachel's scent.

I shake the image away, I'll check on Billy as well- my thoughts are interrupted by another image in Paul's mind. So that is why Sam isn't patrolling, it's 'bore Billy to death with our love-story' night. Never mind, I'll be there in ten.

No one protests, so I speed up from my lope.

The rest of the run blurs by and I push the thoughts and banter between Paul and Quill away, white noise. My own mind is a mess of 'don't think about Sam and Emily holding hands, don't think about their kisses, don't think at all'.

[A/N: friends, please ask a friend for help or seek out a professional if you are having suicidal thoughts. Much love.]