Chapter 22 : Family Dinner

Our reunion in the woods, after the boys were gone, was much more uneventful than I had hoped. Regardless, I was incredibly happy that Elcrie had decided to come, not just for the love he carried with him for me but also for the fact that it saved me from having to make yet another long trip back to Canada. I showed him the outline of the forest, areas where we could hunt safely as well as the beach. Considering he was staring at me with his large wolf eyes the entire time as he repeatedly asked when he could finally meet my family, I'm not sure how much information he really retained but I decided since the night wasn't going quite as I had hoped that we both needed to eat and more importantly sleep. It was time to head home. Elcrie was two paces in front of me the entire time and I had to keep redirecting him as he continued to get overly excited and went in the wrong direction. I laughed each time as he continued to get frustrated that I was moving at a "walking pace", which apparently was not fast enough for him.

"Calm down, we're almost there. We should probably stop and put clothes on, do you have an extra shirt? I kinda ruined mine on my way to you." I asked.

Elcrie shifted on cue and replied, "Of course I do, I packed you a dress just in case, here."

"Of course you did, thank you." I replied.

I then shifted out of my wolf form and watched as Elcrie struggled to get himself dressed as he was clearly too excited to think straight.

"Relax, you're not meeting the president Elcrie." I replied through a laugh.

"What's "the president"?" Elcrie asked as he put his shirt on over his head.

"Oh boy… We gotta get you some updated books." I said realizing in that moment that my family was probably going to realize how… Different Elcrie is much sooner than I'd like.

"Is it something I should know about?" Elcrie asked.

"No, not really. Come on, we're almost there." I replied not wanting to explain the politics of the world.

"Do you think Seth told them that I'm coming as well?"

"Oh Seth's not really one for secrets so I'm sure he did."

"How much do they know?"

"Enough I guess but don't share information about yourself voluntarily with anyone, especially not with my mother fiance, Charlie." I warned.

"We don't trust him?" Elcrie asked.

"No, we do, I just-It's complicated. Like really, really complicated. I'll explain everything tonight, just keep it casual for now." I replied.

"Casual? Leah I haven't spoken to more than 1 new person in 175 years. What is causal?" Elcrie asked.

"Just relax and go with the flow."

""The flow?""

"Elcrie. You're gonna be fine, just take a deep breath. We're here." I replied as we broke through the treeline to my mothers home.

As we came upon the house we could both smell meat cooking on the grill, Charlie was sitting with a beer in his hand and stood up slowly as we walked towards the porch. Charlie's eyes grew wide as he stood up and he dropped his beer as he stared into Elcries face. My heart began to race as I began to think of a defense, before I could say anything Charlie leaned back with a large smile and clapped his hands together.

"WELL! Look at you, you big old lug of handsome man! Sue, get out here! You're not gonna believe what Leah scored!" Charlie shouted into the doorway as he continued to shoot happy looks of utter disbelief at Elcrie, who's cheeks were slowly turning red.

"Excuse me?" I asked, confused by Charlie's comment.

"He thinks I'm handsome." Elcrie whispered.

"Yea, Elcrie I got that, thank you." I replied.

"Oh my word! Leah! You didn't tell me my new son was so handsome!" My mother shouted as he walked over to Elcrie with open arms. "Hi sweetheart my name is Sue, but I want you to call me Mama! Oh, we are so happy to have you here! We were beginning to think Leah was gonna keep you all to herself!"

"I was." I replied, folding my arms as my mother pushed me to the side and wrapped her arms around Elcrie.

There was then a long moment of awkward silence as my mother continued to hug Elcrie and he hugged her back. It was sweet to watch at first but the longer it lasted the more jealous I became. I asked Elcrie telepathically to let her know he was hungry so she'd stop but he ignored me of course.

"Alright Sue, let the man go. I'm sure he's tired and hungry." Charlie finally said. "Sue, come on now." My mother continued to ignore him. "Leah, would you mind?" Charlie continued motioning me to separate the two.

"Alright come on Mom. Time to set him free." I said as I unwrapped their arms from each other, only to end up in the middle of a hug-sandwich. "Well, that didn't work."

They both began to laugh as I spoke and finally let go of their embrace. I held Elcries hand tight as my mother held onto his other hand and began to pull him into our home.

"Nice to meet you son. You can call me Charlie but I'm open to Dad if you're into that." Charlie replied with a large smile.

"Charlie, stop being so weird." I ordered.

"I love you Dad." Elcrie replied looking at Charlie, sending everyone but me into a fit of laughter.

"Oh my god… Let's go." I said as I pulled him into our home.

Charlie held my mother back, most likely to gossip about how they both apparently have the hots for my fiance. Seth was sitting on the couch. Still clearly angry for no good reason. He sat up when he saw me and Elcrie heading for the couch and scooched over to the end to be as far away from us as possible. What a jerk.

"You made it back… Wonderful." He said as he continued to watch the television.

"What is that?" Elcrie said as he pointed at the television.

"Um… Soccer?" Seth replied confused by Elcries question.

"What?" Elcrie asked.

"The game, it's soccer-"

"He's talking about the television Seth, he doesn't have one where he lives." I chimed in.

"So now you're into poor men?" Seth whispered under his breath.

"I will kill you." I replied.

"What does my wealth have anything to do with a soccer box?" Elcrie continued.

"It doesn't Elcrie, don't listen to him." I replied. "He's just upset that he's not going to be Mom's favorite anymore after today."

"I hope we're all getting along in here," My mother said as she walked in to check on us, "Seth are you being nice to Elcrie?"

"Eh."

My mother then walked over and smacked Seth on the side of the head and warned him to be kind. It brought me joy but clearly made Elcrie slightly uneasy as we sat down on the couch and I climbed onto his lap.

"Don't worry she's a saint, she just really likes you already and she knows Seth's being an ass for no reason."

Elcrie ignored me and the second my mother walked back outside, after grabbing trays from the kitchen for the food, he put me to the side of him and scooched near Seth and stole his pain without warning.

"Elcrie! He is fine!" I whispered.

"Dude, what the hell are you doing!" Seth shouted under his breath.

"I'm just making sure." Elcrie assured Seth and I.

"Oh my god…" I replied, rubbing my forehead.

"Uh, thanks. Also don't ever do that again." Seth said as he turned his attention back to the screen.

"Is this what you do in your free time? Watch a soccer box?" Elcrie asked.

"It's called a television and yes sometimes I watch soccer on the TELEVISION." Seth said while rolling his eyes.

"What are you 15-16? My father insisted I train every waking moment in the art of hunting werewolves at your age. The first time we went on a true hunt for one however I was only 10 years old. It was a lot less fun than it sounds." Elcrie said.

"Elcrie! What did I say about not volunteering information!" I said to Elcrie telepathically, annoyed that he had disregarded my advice clearly.

"First of all I'm 20, it's a wolf thing, you wouldn't get it. Second, what the fuck did you just say? You hunt what?" Seth said, turning off the TV and turning to face Elcrie.

"I'm not sure I enjoy your tone." Elcrie replied as he settled back next to me.

"Neither am I. Seth Clearwater, what did I just say?" My mother said she must have overheard Seth swear at Elcrie.

"It's alright- Mama- I just told him he- wasn't as pretty as Leah. My fault, he's a lot more sensitive than I thought he'd be." Elcrie replied, with a simile that could melt a heart instantly, in a creative attempt to save Seth from getting smacked again.

I began to laugh watching the entire altercation and my mother noticed and must have decided that we were messing with Seth.

"Calm down Seth, we're all pretty. Elcrie is the prettiest of course, but regardless, dinner is ready, so come on kids." She ordered.

The dinner table was filled with food that I hadn't had in what felt like forever. My mother cooked more meat and sausages than she ever had. It was smart of her considering Elcrie could easily eat all of this on his own. Elcrie started to make my plate and was upset when I told him I'd rather make my own. It was a lie and he knew it but didn't understand why I wouldn't let him do this for me. I felt bad even though it was a little thing and let him know that I would explain that later as well.

"You have a lot to "explain later" my love." Elcrie replied.

As we sat down at our rickety old picnic table my mother positioned herself directly in front of Elcrie and Charlie and Seth sat on either side. They all stared at us as Elcrie began to eat the way we almost always did, in silence.

"So? How is it?" My mother asked before she had even taken a bite.

"Wonderful, thank you so much Ma." Elcrie replied.

"Let the man eat Sue." Charlie said.

"Alright, fine, just checking to make sure." My mother replied.

We continued to eat with small talk here and there but for the most part they could tell Elcrie was very hungry and left him alone as he ate through a majority of the meat in record time.

"So what are you 7, 8 feet tall?" Seth asked Elcrie.

"I've never measured my entire height before. So. I suppose I'm not sure." Elcrie replied with a smile.

"What? You've never had a doctor tell you how tall you are? What does your driver's license say?" Seth asked, confused.

"Seth, leave him alone." I ordered.

"So, I'm not allowed to ask him questions now?" Seth responded angrily.

"You can, just don't ask stupid ones." I snapped back.

"What the hell am I supposed to ask him then Leah?! What his favorite color is?!" Seth continued.

"Seth what the hell crawled up your ass and died? You've been a complete ass since the moment I got home!" I snapped back.

"I like the color blue." Elcrie replied politely to Seth who rolled his eyes.

"Seth, Leah that's enough!" My mother shouted at us. "Elcrie is our guest and our family now and is going to be treated with respect. I don't know what the issue is Seth but you need to work it out and quick! Leah you left your brother alone with hardly even a goodbye of course he's upset with you! Now you two are gonna work this out while we go inside! Charlie, El- I hope it's okay if I call you that," my mother said, shooting a smile at Elcrie.

"Of course, it's what my own mother used to call me." Elcrie replied with a smile.

"Good, now the two of you let's go inside. El I'll show you where you'll be staying and where everything is. Kids when you're done bickering you can clean up this mess." My mother ordered.

With that the three of them headed inside, Elcrie gave me a kiss on the head and asked me to be kind to my brother. As if. If Seth wants to be an asshole he can pick a new target, I'm not letting him bully Elcrie just because he's upset that I left town. It wasn't Elcries fault and he wasn't going to continue to put the blame on him without suffering the consequences of his actions. I stared at Seth as he looked away from me, the silence between us was clearly becoming increasingly uncomfortable for him. I began to think of what to say and how to say it but every option was too angry. I don't want Seth to think I'm still who I was before I left town because I'm just not. When I left La Push I was angry, lonely, and fleeing from unhealthy attachments that I no longer carried. All I wanted was for Seth to love Elcrie as much as I did or welcome him as well as my mother and Charlie had. Just be calm Leah, just be kind.

"Seth." I began, "I am sorry for leaving the way I did. It was wrong but if I hadn't done it I would still be the same miserable woman who still lives with her mother and has zero hope of anything ever getting better. I had to leave… It took me a while to figure out why but I can pretty confidently say that mystery has been solved. I know you're not happy about it and I get that it's a big change but Elcrie is the kindest man in the world if you give him a chance, you won't regret it."

"Right. I don't know if you saw what I saw but the way he threw Jake was the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life. Like newborn Bella, 7 million." Seth replied.

"Yeah… Well Jacob shouldn't have put any of you in a position to fight something that large without more information on what it was. Elcrie didn't want to hurt anyone; the situation escalated before he could even try to stop anything without someone getting hurt. It was a lot but it's never going to happen again so can we please move past it or at least try to?" I begged.

"Yeah… I'll get over it. How did you two meet anyways? You find a "imprintees are us" dating site or something?" Seth replied.

I laughed for a moment then continued, "No-no um. Well… When I was in Canada he-Elcrie saved me. I got attacked by a group of bloodsuckers." I continued as I began to show him my extremely light bite marks on my arms and legs.

"Holy shit! Leah! You're covered!" Seth shouted under his breath. "How the hell are you still alive?!"

"Yeah I know and like I said Elcrie he saved me. He killed them, all 5 of them and took me back to his home and healed me. The amount of venom they injected into my body made me pretty much unconscious for a month. It was terrible but the way he fixed Jacob's shoulder that's basically what he did, times 7 million." I replied with a smile.

"Wow… I guess that's about as lucky as it gets." Seth smiled back now.

"Yea, I think so."

"So why doesn't he know what a TV is and how exactly did his sister die 175 years ago?" Seth continued.

"Elcrie… is half shape-shifter." I whispered. "He's 244 ish years old. Oh and don't quote me," I looked at the door to confirm we weren't being listened in on then continued, "I think he might be somehow a 4th or 5th great Uncle of Sam and maybe Jacob too? I'm not sure but it's a working theory I have."

"What the hell… That is so weird." Seth said as his eyes widened.

"Just don't say anything to anyone. Actually pinkie swear that you won't." I said while sticking out my pinkie finger to Seth.

He laughed and we pinkie swore.

"So are we good now kid?" I asked.

"Yea Leah. We're good and I promise I'll be kinder to Elcrie." Seth said as we stood up to hug each other.

"Okay let's clean up I guess." I said.

"Yea that was one hell of a family dinner. I don't think I've ever seen a man eat that much meat in one sitting." Seth replied.

"Leah! They got the phone you mailed them!" Elcrie shouted, smiling from the door while holding up our landline.

"That's great honey." I replied with a smile, too full and tired to educate him on how wrong he was.

"Um?" Seth began as he stared at Elcrie who was now walking back inside.

"Don't Seth, it's not worth it." I replied as I began to clean.