It's been too long since I've updated. I felt like I wrote my fic into a corner and just don't know how to progress. I kept starting a new chapter but nothing worked. I have 6 drafts sitting and waiting but none were right for the plot. So unfortunately this is more of a filler chapter.
Sorry everyone for the inconvenience.
I really appreciate everyone who waited and continued to support me.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Embry's POV
It was just as bad as waking up from a nightmare.
The type where you start to fall, where your brain tips over into a free fall then you're plunging face first towards waking up. I roll over, feeling the other side of the bed empty, then I jerk up.
Always a heavy sleeper, I can sleep through anything but realizing Winnie isn't in bed sends an uneasy jolt all the way up my spine.
Disappointment sinks low in my gut. I'm not even sure Winnie was even here last night. A part of me thinks I missed her so much I dreamt her up. Balancing on my palms, I fight the sheets on my way to sit up then spot the neatly folded stack of fresh laundered sheets at the far corner of the bed.
Winnie was here.
And she's already left for work hours ago.
Falling back into the pillows, I try not to let the disappointed feelings eat away at me, but I'm too mad that I was too tired to set an alarm the night before. Patting around for my phone, I'm already thinking of the voicemail I'll leave Winnie when I smell smoke. Just as I open my bedroom door, the smoke detector starts, sounding off in high urgent pitches.
There's clattering in the kitchen, the sound of pots and pans bumping into things along with the sound of someone hurrying. Rounding off the hall I walk right into a cloud of smoke, hazy and gray and smelling like burnt toast. Winnie is propped on her tip toes on a chair, fanning a dish cloth in urgent strokes under the smoke detector.
I've never been so relieved with a near fire in my house.
"Are you smiling?" Winnie goes a shade of red when I take the dish cloth out of her hand with a quiet chuckle. Not needing the chair, I fan away the smoke with a stretch of my arm. In a minute the alarm quiets down.
"You were trying to make breakfast," I deduce. Winnie doesn't answer, just hides her face in her hands to mumble some curse words at herself. "What were you making?"
"Eggo Waffles." My laugh only helps eases her embarrassment into her own laugh.
"I'm impressed you keep trying breakfast foods even after that fiasco with the eggs."
"I was so sure I couldn't mess up with a toaster." Winnie sighs, dropping down from the chair in a defeated hop. She drags the chair back with sagged shoulders and a frown.
"Toasters burn toast all the time." I point out to cheer her up which does get the frown off her face. "I was so sure you left." I admit to Winnie. It's eight in the morning, Winnie is suppose to be at work right now.
"I switched with someone to get the closing shift tonight." Winnie explains, dumping the toaster's mess into the garbage.
"That means you're going to close tonight then open tomorrow." I realize. Winnie hates closing. Doesn't matter if you need her before sunrise, she'll always show up. Closing shifts? She loathes it. Less tips, more cleaning, and having to drive back late. Then have to go back and open the next day? She's moving around her schedule and jumping through hoops just to see me.
"It's part of the waitressing gig." Winnie tries to shrug off. Sensing I'm not happy about the situation, Winnie offers me a big smile, one of those beams that lights up her whole face and sends my stomach into flips. "It's almost the end of the week. You only have two more shifts then you're back to your regular patrols."
"I need to talk to Sam, but I should be." From the look on Winnie's face, I will definitely be telling Sam these double shifts are ending no matter what.
"You haven't been over my place in a while." Winnie's bright smile dips slightly, the corners of her mouth faltering a bit. "When you come back, I was thinking we have a nice dinner together. Take out, I promise I won't cook."
"I'll cook." I promise, taking her hand.
"I want to show you something when we have our dinner." Is it me? Or do I hear 'We need to talk' in the middle of her words.
"You can't tell me now?" I question with my best pair of puppy dog eyes.
"I could," The puppy eyes don't get Winnie to budge, but get her to come in close to rest her chin on my chest while she looks up at me with a nervous but excited grin. "But I want to show you. I need to see the look on your face when you first see it."
"Okay," I promise her, my hand running down the length of her hair. When the strands end, my hand finds the small of her back, and I just want her back in bed.
"I have to patrol around noon." Her eyes immediately fill with disappointment. "Let's go back to bed and I promise I'll make you whatever you want for breakfast."
"What if I want to go for run for breakfast?" She jokes, never one for sleeping in. The only time I've seen Winnie take a nap is when I got her drunk with cooking wine.
"Ask me around noon."
••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Embry's POV
Even though Jacob hadn't patrolled last night, his car is in Sam's and Emily's drive way. Rounding the rabbit, I know the two of them are definitely not hanging out.
The last two years between Sam and Jacob have been strained—friendly on the of best days, cordial but tense most. They only really speak to each other when necessary; just hellos, goodbyes and pack business. Only having something to say when the rest of the pack is present. No insults, no malice, but there's always a challenging undertone between their words about patrolling shifts and pack business.
When Bella first became pregnant with Renesme, Jacob and Sam's relationship went over the ledge. Jacob left the pack to go defend Bella. Sam saw Jacob's choice as desertion—a betrayal to the entire reservation. Jacob found Sam's expectations to be domineering, and a command to kill his childhood friend. They were fighting about authority verses duty, and no one won that fight but the Cullens.
After the battle with the Volturi, Jacob came back but nothing has been the same since.
"When was the last time you saw the Cullens?" Sam's question comes from his living room, the room immediately to the right of the front door in Emily's house. The entire house feels thick with charged energy, as if an argument is about to begin any moment.
"A few days ago." Jacob and Sam don't take a minute to greet me, a signal to me to wait till they're done. Our duty is to protect the entire reservation from vampires, though the Cullens insisting to call this part of Washington state their home, we have to keep a constant eye on them if they ever lose control. It could be Jasper, or Bella, whose only outgrew being a newborn less than a year ago. It could be her hybrid daughter. Since the council who oversaw the treaty with the Cullens in 1936, every council member has taken that 'What if' very seriously.
"How old does she look now?" Sam questions, his face a heavy expression.
"She still looks about nine." Jacob sounds completely miserable. Sam and Jacob take up the entire living room, standing at full height instead of sitting, just about squaring off. Sam's usual glower is deeper, madder, more serious.
"Renesme keeps asking when she can go to school." Jacob answers. "She wants to be around kids her... age. She asking for friends like... her. She doesn't like only being around the adults anymore. She wants to be around other kids. She asked if she could join after school programs like soccer or soft ball."
The tension in the air immediately sizzles away, its place being taken by a wave of unease. It's as if the room is tipping on its side.
Renesme could kick a soccer ball so hard it'll knock someone's head clean off.
"Bella's daughter wants to go to public school?" Sam's repetition wasn't for either Jacob or I. It was to himself as if he can't quite stomach the idea.
"Her argument is that she'll have to attend one day, and she should start getting use to being around humans sooner rather than later."
"That's manipulative for a nine year old." Sam doesn't sound impressed, he sounds sick to his stomach. "Bella and Edward are not letting her go, are they?" There's an edge in Sam's voice, an edge that's ready to run straight to Forks if the answer is not what he needs it to be.
"No." There's a collective air of relief from Jacob's answer. It's short lived. "But Renesme will keep asking. For now they're bringing her into town more, trying to get her more acclimated to being around humans."
My gut twists up at the memory of Paul telling me how Winnie ran into the Cullens at the Forks Supermarket. No, nothing happened, but anything could have. With Winnie spending more time in Forks than the Res, I can't have her all the way out there if something does happen.
"Is Bella's daughter showing more signs of control?" Sam asks, then thinks better of it. "What's the last thing she hunted?"
"A mountain loin," Jacob sighs, "It's her favorite to hunt since she likes taking something so big down."
"And humans?"
"She tried to bite Charlie the other day." It takes lot of effort for Jacob to admit this. The entire room flinches.
"When?" Sam demands more than questions.
"This past weekend." Jacob answers in a disappointed voice, looking down at the ground. "Charlie invited them over to his house. I tagged along because Renesme asked Bella to call me. We were watching the game, then Charlie dropped a bottle of beer. When he was cleaning it up, Charlie must have scratched himself. We thought everything was fine, Charlie wasn't even bleeding. Bella's control was fine, Renesme seemed okay, but one second she's hugging Charlie... the next her teeth were a few inches away from his arm."
The entire room goes silent. All the concern from when Bella was first pregnant doubles down into full stomach dropping dread.
"I pulled Renesme off before anything could have happen." Jacob adds under his breath. There's more pressing issues that need to be addressed. Did Charlie notice? Has Charlie figured out what happened to Bella instead of ignoring that she's a creature now?
"This is why Bella's daughter makes the council incredibly uneasy." Sam nods. "Keep me updated if the Cullens decide to bring her into town more."
Jacob leaves with only a nod and a tired look on his face. He's been in the middle of the Cullens and the pack for years now. Being the peace maker, the messenger, the defender... It must be exhausting to always have to go back and forth.
"Give me one more minute, Embry." Sam has me wait while he dials the landline and repeats back everything Jacob had said to a council member. When they end the call I know it's a very bad idea to talk about my patrolling schedule.
"That's why we patrol, Embry." Sam says when he hangs up the phone. "It's not a matter of if those leeches will lose control, it's about when they'll hurt someone, and we have to be on guard for when they do."
••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Winnie's POV
"No, you carry the two."
"No Paul, he subtracts by four." Leah corrects while glaring down at Seth's homework.
"I'm not even doing my pre-calculus homework." Seth's head hangs between his hands, looking as if he wants to be swallowed by the floor. The entire counter of the Lodge is buried under Seth's homework. Piles of papers, stacks of notebooks and textbooks are sprawled out from one end to the other. They're the only occupants left in the restaurant, but aren't anywhere close to leaving. After a phone call from school to the Clearwater house, Leah brought Seth here to catch up on all the homework he's missing.
Paul, who was already here, just happened to hear I was closing and came for some free food. Now he's fighting over assignments with Leah like a divorced set of parents.
"I thought you were working on your chemistry homework right now?" I ask Seth while keeping an eye on Leah and Paul's argument so it doesn't turn into a whole fist fight. Though I'm not sure how I could break up two werewolves.
"I am." Seth clarifies in an exasperated huff. Between all the bickering and homework, Seth's famous puppy dog eyes stopped hours ago and he's been absolutely miserable despite how many plates of fries I've brought.
"Ignore them." I reassure Seth who responds with a weak "I'm trying." before dropping his head over his folded arms. "Would ice cream help?" I offer like a desperate babysitter trying to bargain a kid to cheer up.
"No it wouldn't." Seth sigh, lifting up his head. "But I'll take some anyway."
"You got it. What flavor?"
"Anything caramel." Seth rubs at his temples. When I come back with the largest ice cream sundae the Lodge has probably ever served, Paul and Leah are still arguing over the same question.
"I swear to god Paul, I'm going to shove this highlighter so far up your nose you're going to be shitting neon yellow for weeks!" Leah seethes, looking ready to hit him with a very thick textbook.
"Okay," Deciding it's time to intervene, I shoot them the serious glare I give particularly bad customers. "You both know you're not being graded on this, right?" They both speak over each other, resembling something like a little brother and older sister who have no idea how to get along. Closing up the textbooks, I clear up this side of the counter as fast as I can. "Paul you're going to help me with putting the chairs on the table. Leah, I'm going to have you help me count out the till."
"I don't work here." Paul argues while Leah doubles down with "But Seth's homework!"
"Paul it's closing time and I want to get out of here as fast as possible, help me out a bit." He doesn't look happy, but when I bring up needing the favor, he gets up without any protest and starts flipping over the nearest set of chairs.
"And Seth is doing his homework, so it's getting done anyway." I point out to Leah, nudging my shoulder at Seth's direction, whose concentrating so hard he hasn't notice the gallon sized serving of ice cream melting next to him.
"Fine." Leah looks absolutely mutinous with crossed arms and burning eyes that I know aren't really aimed at me but the nearest thing. Rounding the counter, she practically punches the register open. "But only because I was doing math anyway."
"You're the best person for the job." I grin which succeeds in cooling her annoyance enough to stop counting as if she's going to rip the bills in half. Neither of us being the touchy-feely hugging type, I brave the subject, working around Leah as an excuse to linger. "When I was in high school, I hated doing homework. I wasn't a straight A student or anything, so homework was hard. I got even more upset than both you and Paul combined."
"Yeah?" Looking unconvinced, Leah gives me a look as if I just told her Santa Claus is real.
"Oh yeah. Lots of crying." I admit.
"You? Crying?" Leah pauses her counting to peer at me, the heat of her anger gone, now a look in her eyes that reminds me she's older than me.
"Every time when I had science homework, balling my eyes out." I continue with a nod, doing my best to keep the story a funny antidote not a pity fest.
"Why?" Her face is still tight, but her voice gives her away, bleeding with concern.
"Honestly, there wasn't anyone home to help me. My aunt was out a lot when she moved to the Res, and she didn't care if I even did my homework. I only did it because I didn't want to flunk out. Most of it got done, but math? Science? I would be up till 2AM sometimes just trying to get enough to hand in."
I don't tell Leah the rest. How I would be back up at sunrise to drag my drunk aunt inside, holding her hair up while she puked up her spirits all before rushing to school.
Leah's count stops, her hands dropping down to her sides as her face knots up into a wordless hard stare. She's thinking something over, before nodding and continuing the count as a signal to me she's listening. Not because she doesn't know what to say, but Leah is the type to not want to say the wrong thing.
"It's really nice that you're helping Seth." I add, ready to talk about anyone but me.
"Even with me being a hard ass?" She quirks a brow in my direction. "Did you see me threaten Paul?"
"Only someone that smart could come up with such a creative threat." I point out.
"It wasn't very nice." Leah scolds herself in a self depreciating way.
"But it was pretty funny and we all know you didn't intend to kill him. Just bruise him." I point out, glancing over at Paul who completely forgot about their math debate and is now helping Joel in the walk in freezer with the biggest grin. Turning back to Leah, whose still mad at herself, I know stories and nudges aren't helping. "Are you trying to make Seth into a straight A student?"
"Definitely not. I wouldn't put him through that kind of pressure." Leah does a double take at my face, seeing the sarcastic but pointed look I'm staring her down with. "Okay, not more pressure than I'm already putting on him."
"That's very honest of you to admit." I nod along, changing the garbage bags so she can't say I'm sticking to her.
"My dad was the one who helped us with homework. No matter how tired he was from work, he'd would stay at the kitchen table with Seth and I for however long it took for us to understand, not just finish it, but comprehend it. We could be doing rocket science and our dad would just get it. Made it so easy. Almost made homework fun."
A very small part of me, the part of me where I'm the size of a five year old wonders if my parents would have been like Harry Clearwater if they hadn't passed so early.
"I'm definitely not making homework fun," Leah sighs, deciding she's done counting the money despite never getting pass the piles of ones. Taking over for her, Leah instead starts scrubbing down the counter with a fierce pace while I count out the rest of the till.
"Homework isn't suppose to be fun, Leah." I remind her softly, wanting to tell her she doesn't have to be her dad for Seth to pass. That gets her to ease up on the rag before she wrangles it into bits.
"I fucked up." Leah sighs so low under her breath, I have to go completely still to concentrate to hear her. Glaring down the counter with the most torn, guilty expression it leaves me wobbly on my legs for a moment. "I should have checked—"
"Leah! Winnie! I finished my chemistry report!" Seth beams, his face bright with accomplishment and pride.
"That's great, Seth!"
"Good job, kid!"
"See we knew you'd get it done." Seth is beaming at his paper like it's the Nobel prize.
"I think that deserves some ice cream, and a good night's sleep." I suggest, which finally gets Seth to notice the sundae. His eyes light up like only a teenager's can, bright and full of sheer excitement like a sundae is the closet thing to solving world peace.
"He still has to hand in all the rest or they won't let him go to the end of the year dance." Leah eyes the rest of the pile of work anxiously. It's evident on her face how bad she wants Seth to go, even with how lame the school dances are. She doesn't want him to miss a minute more of school.
"If you stay up all night with Seth trying to force him to catch up all in one night, he's going to eat his homework." Which gets Leah to crack her first grin in hours.
"Well," Leah's shoulders relax the slightest bit. "Chemistry is out of the way now. Just four more subjects left to go."
"He'll go to the dance." I assure her, absolutely sure of it. Leah takes the statement with a grateful expression, accepting it like a prayer. Her improved mood helps speed up closing. With Paul and Joel closing up the kitchen in ten minutes.
Paul struts up to me with his most determined smirk that he'd use whenever he asked a girl out in high school. "So, for helping out can I get a free slice of pie?"
"The entire chicken pot pie you had was already comped, Paul. Plus the turkey legs you ordered." If Joel wasn't part owner of the Lodge all this free food would be coming out of my check.
"Aren't you just gonna throw out that peach pie?" His finger points right at the half eaten pie that was baked fresh this morning.
"How do you keep eating?" Joel questions as he walks pass with a load of garbage for the dumpster.
"I do a lot of cardio." Paul lies with a cocky shrug.
"Paul, if you let me throw a pie in your face, I'll buy a whole pie right now." Leah offers in a completely serious tone, her dark eyes bright with mischief. It's a look so evil it reminds me of Enola.
"Do I get to pick the flavor?" Paul considers it.
"We literally just mopped." I warn, hands braced on hips.
"How about we do it outside?" Paul offers, really wanting pie, even if it's face planted into his mouth.
"Then you're going to hose down the mess off the sidewalk." I give them a flat look, a very silent cue to not make a mess inside or outside of my workplace.
"So no pie?" Paul laughs to himself, taking the hint to either behave or leave altogether. Leah knows me well enough by now to know I'm not joking and goes to help Seth pack up. If they make a mess I will lock them outside right after I make one of them clean it.
We thankfully finish up without any pieing incidents. It's a satisfying feeling when we hit the lights and lock up. Though not the best knowing I'll be here in a matter of hours to open.
"Hey Paul," Between the goodbyes and good nights, I catch up with Paul before he climbs onto his bike. "Here, a thank you for helping me close."
"The peach?" He's trying to smirk but there's a genuine excited grin to his face.
"Apple." I clarify. "It was the freshest one. The rest were all old."
"Thanks, Winnie." Paul looks like he's debating eating a slice right now.
