A/N: This chapter is from Claire's point of view, and I must say that THIS has been my favorite chapter to write EVER. I love it, and I hope you guys do to! So, as always, don't forget to review and let me know what you guys think! Thanks, and happy reading! (I would also like to point out that I am thoroughly unhappy with the entire Eclipse trailer aside from the two seconds that Jacob Black is on a hill top without a shirt on. That was definitely my favorite part.) Anyhoo, enjoy! :-]

Disclaimer: I'm not Stephanie Meyer. I don't own Twilight.

Claire's POV.

From the time I was fourteen years old, my name might as well have been Claire "Emotionally Conflicted" Walker. No freaking joke.

You might be asking, "Claire, how could you be emotionally conflicted at fourteen?!"

And my answer would simply be, "Quil Ateara."

From the moment that man took his shirt off at the summer bonfire Emily threw to celebrate the end of my middle school career and upcoming promotion to high school, I was a girl possessed. Sure, I had had crushes on boys in my classes before, and I had even let one or two of them kiss me on the cheek, which gave me the tingly little butterflies in my stomach that one expects to feel when getting kissed at that age, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could compare to the switch that when off in my mind and body when Quil peeled that offending piece of material from his torso that day.

Basically, I felt like Mothra, one of Godzilla's arch-nemeses, was going to eat his way out of my digestive system, thus announcing that I, Delainey Claire Walker, was burning with desire for my much older, much, MUCH hotter best friend Quil.

And then, he had to go and ruin my moment by yelling out, "c'mon, Claire-bear! I need one more person on my team for beach volleyball!"

Eff. My. Life.

It was also in that moment that I convinced myself that he could never have any kind of feelings for me other than brotherly, friendly ones, not only because I was so much younger than him and because I was such a tomboy (and according to Embry, when Quil was younger, he preferred over-the-top girly girls-yuck!), but also because I was not his imprint. I knew the story behind the Sam/Emily/Leah love triangle, and I knew Quil well enough to know that even if he ever possibly managed to have any sort of romantic feelings about me, he wouldn't act on them for the sake of not wanting to risk me becoming like Leah.

So, since I wasn't his imprint, and since he'd never be attracted to me, anyway, because I wasn't hot like my sister Tallin or old enough or girly enough and didn't know how the hell to flirt in the first place, I decided to try and get over it.

But that didn't work. Quil was around ALL the TIME. It's very hard to repress your feelings for someone when they're always there for every step you take, and when you both pretty much hang around all of the same people all the time, and when they're always wanting you to come over to their garage to watch them work on your future car and they don't have a shirt on, yet there always manages to be an abundance of glistening sweat pouring down their gorgeous, muscular, freaking HOT body.

So I tried to convince myself to be a lesbian. I had the whole tomboy thing going for me already, so why not take it a step further?

But that didn't work either, because every time Quil took his shirt off in my presence, or ran his hand through his short hair as he leaned over me while he was helping me with my homework and his biceps bulged in my direct line of sight, or when he took me for rides in his wolf form and I could feel all of the contours of his body as he ran beneath me, I was painfully reminded of just how much I wasn't a lesbian, and just why I never COULD be one.

So I threw myself into school and softball. As I got smarter, I took harder classes, which took up more and more of my time. As I got better and better at softball, I got more field time and was eventually asked to play league ball during the summer. My sophomore year of high school, the coach put me on varsity as catcher, which meant more games, and as I proved myself, I got more field time, especially when I realized that I could not only catch, but pitch well enough to be a back-up. The more academic and athletic I became, the more popular I became at school, and the more involved I got with clubs and student council and other stuff.

All of this gave me a plausible excuse to avoid Quil, but every single freaking day when I got home from whatever afterschool activity I was participating in, Quil would be waiting for me at my house to eat dinner with us and then he would drive the two of back to his house so he could work on my car while I did my homework. It never failed.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd rather have been doing than spending time with my Quil, but every time I looked at him it was just a reminder of what I would never be able to have. He wasn't mine, and he never would be. And, since life sucks, the more time I spent with him, the farther and harder I fell for him. I tried not to ever let my feelings show. I kept on being his little Claire-bear, his good-natured, light-hearted, fun-loving best friend. I tried to tell him everything about my day and everything I was doing and everything I was feeling about everything except for what I was feeling about him, and I think I did a pretty good job. He didn't seem to ever notice anything different, so I kept up my façade, desperately hoping that some boy would come along and help me forget, at least temporarily, about the man I couldn't get out of my head or my heart, even though I didn't understand why.

And then, when I was seventeen, after three years of covering up my dark, stupid teenage-girl crush, I met Chris Harper. He was new, and we sat next to each other in two classes. He was on the baseball team, and when we figured out our mutual interest he started sitting with me and some of my friends at lunch. We became fast friends, and I started to become kind of attracted to him. It was nothing like what I felt for Quil, but it was something, and I relished in the idea of liking someone who could like me back. The first month into our senior year, he asked me to go to the first formal of the school year with him. I told him I'd think about it, but I think a small part of me only waited to say yes so that I could see what Quil would say when I told him, clinging to the schoolgirl fantasy that maybe, just maybe it would make him jealous.

He'd been avoiding me that particular week because I'd been on my period, and I hadn't tried to go over there because, quite frankly, if he didn't want me around at that particular time of the month, I wouldn't make any effort to torture him. After Chris asked me to formal, though, I didn't care. I was hoping with everything I had in me that I'd get some kind of reaction from Quil. I knew it was wrong, immensely wrong because, again, I wasn't his imprint. I wasn't his and he wasn't mine, but after softball practice that day I hitched a ride from Paul to go to Quil's, anyway.

I found him in the garage, exactly where I knew he'd be. It was where he spent most of his time when he wasn't on patrol or working at the auto shop closer to town these days, even though I wasn't sure why. I made small talk with him for a little while, complaining about my day and telling him about some parts for the car that I'd asked Coach Davis to find for me since his family owned the only dealership in Forks.

Quil started staring at me really funny that day, but I figured he was just thinking about the dirt left on my face from the sliding session during practice or how smelly my feet were from being confined to cleats and thick cotton socks for the past three hours.

When I finally bucked up the courage to tell him about Chris, and tried to jokingly ask him if he was going to stalk us, he told me in sort of a roundabout way that he didn't have a problem with it, or rather, that he wasn't going to stalk us. My heart plummeted. In true, tough-as-nails-Claire fashion, I tried not to let him see how much it hurt me that he didn't show any negative feelings at all towards me going out with some other guy. I could feel the tears coming, so I improvised and threw my arms around his neck, thanking him and telling him how great of guy Chris was and what not.

Then, Quil got angry. He got REALLY angry. And I felt a glimmer of hope. I was too thrilled that I didn't even care that this meant he probably hadn't been listening to me the first time.

I put up a half-hearted fight against his furious questioning just to save face, but then, when I asked him who he thought he was and where he got off telling me I couldn't go out with Chris, he let the word slip.

Imprint.

Imprint, imprint, imprint.

"I'm NOT your father, but you ARE my imprint!"

I was his imprint. I was Quillian Elijah Ateara's imprint. His freaking imprint.

I had suffered in vain for three years, kept my feelings hidden for three years, been wallowing in agony for three years because I thought he wasn't mine, thought he would never be mine, when all along, he was.

And he never told me.

Then it was my turned to get pissed. And this time when I got pissed, I got livid.

I ran away from him. And then I cried. I cried for myself, for him, for my anger, for my relief.

I ran to Emily's. I ran to Emily and I told her everything. I was so angry with him that I asked her if he'd only been my friend because of the imprint, if he'd only stuck around because gravity was pushing him towards me, if he'd only ever pursue any kind of relationship with me because he had to. Yes, I was hurt, hurt and angry beyond belief, but I knew none of that could be true,knew that Quil hadn't felt like I'd been forced upon him, and Emily confirmed it when she looked at me like I was retarded. She told me that just because gravity had brought us together didn't mean that anything in our relationship hadn't been or wouldn't be just as real as any other normal relationship.

"You are everything to that stupid, stubborn man-child," she said. "From the time you were two years old you've been the most important thing in his life. Aside from his grandfather, you've been the only constant, reliable thing. He loves you. No matter what the initial cause of that love, it's grown into a love for who you are, Claire. He would do anything for you. Just go easy on him. He's an idiot for not telling you sooner, but in his mind it was the right thing to do."

I spent the night with my aunt and uncle and cousins. When Sam had heard what happened I'm pretty sure he wanted to flip shit on Quil, but I talked him out of it. Even if I was mad at Quil, he was still my Quil, and I didn't want anything or anyone to hurt him.

So I told Chris I couldn't go with him because, knowing what I now knew, it would have hurt Quil. I should've wanted to hurt him, but I couldn't. I just told Chris that I wasn't going to be able to go to formal at all because I had a scholarship interview that weekend, which was a lie, but he'd never know. He moved on to some other piece of ass, and I didn't care.

I couldn't look at Quil for months. I couldn't talk to him. I had no idea what to say. I was angry at him, yes, so angry, but I loved him. GOD did I love him. I still didn't know how he felt about me, though, or why he'd kept everything from me. He said he hadn't told me because he just wanted me to have a normal life, but was that really the case? What if he didn't tell me because he just wanted to be my friend? I knew that him imprinting on me meant that he'd be whatever I needed him to be, but what if, since I was so much younger than him, he thought that I only needed him as my friend?

I was ashamed. Ashamed that I loved him so much, ashamed that my family hadn't thought enough of me to tell me, ashamed that everyone in the pack knew that I knew, ashamed that they thought I hated Quil's guts when all I really wanted to do was kiss him until my lips fell off.

For my eighteenth birthday, I locked myself in my room. Quil wouldn't be there to celebrate with me, so I decided not to celebrate at all. Mom made a cake and my favorite dinner, and they got me a new laptop that I could use for college, but that was it. I refused to have a bonfire or a pack party, and no one pushed the idea because of what had happened that day in Quil's garage.

I got a phone call in November from some scouts who represented a school in the Southeast. They had one of the best softball programs in the region, possibly even the country, and they wanted me. I agreed to send them some tapes of me practicing. I didn't want to go that far, I didn't want to be that far away from Quil, but this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and I knew it. This was my dream. I told my parents, but decided to wait until Christmas to tell everyone else. Really, I just didn't want anyone else to know before Quil because I knew that it would eventually be slipped to him through the pack mind, so I figured I could just wait and tell them all at the same time.

Christmas rolled around. A week before the pack gathering, I decided I couldn't take not being a part of Quil's life anymore, so I went to Port Angeles to get him a Christmas present. My gift idea may have been a bit backwards, but I knew that I might as well have been the one to imprint on him, it sure felt like it, at any rate, so I thought getting him a leather necklace with a wolf charm seemed appropriate-something similar to what all the other imprinted wolves had given to their significant other.

I pretended to sleep in that morning so my family would go ahead of me to Emily's that afternoon. I was going to be wearing something that I knew my parents would look at me funny for and question me about if they saw me before I left the house. I was going to wear Quil's grandmother's pearl necklace. I considered it to be a kind of peace offering of sorts, and I wanted to let him know that he still meant something to me, even if I hadn't been showing it.

I also had the wolf necklace wrapped tightly around my wrist, hidden underneath my lightweight jacket in hopes that I'd get a chance to give it to him discreetly before the end of the party.

As soon as I walked through the door my eyes automatically sought him out, but I went against the pull and began to look for Nessie, hoping for a distraction so that I didn't spill my guts to him right there in the living room in front of everyone.

When it came time for gift-giving, I pushed Quil's aside for later, because I knew when I opened it I would bawl my eyes out and I wanted to save myself the embarrassment of doing it in front of everybody, especially Quil.

After everything had been unwrapped and the mess had been cleaned up, Emily brought out more food and I took the opportunity to make my announcement. Embry and Jake, being the idiots that they are, jumped up and started freaking out, running in circles around me and laughing.

But I just wanted to know what Quil thought. I didn't care about anyone else's opinion, not even my parents', just his.

He looked dejected. I didn't know whether to feel triumphant or to have an emotional breakdown. Unexpectedly, though, he crossed the room in two long strides, congratulated me and enveloped me in a hug. Then he kissed my forehead gently, sending my poor little heart into overdrive, and fled the house before I could even move a muscle.

I stood shocked for a moment, and then took off after him, running faster than I ever had in my life and not caring about any of the reactions that I left behind in Emily's living room.

His body called out to me, and I flew down the dirt road that led away from the house, screaming his name for everything I was worth.

He turned swiftly, saying something to me about not wearing a coat, but it barely registered as I flung myself onto him, latching on with a pitiful cry.

He just held me as I sobbed into his shirt, telling him how much I missed him. He told me he missed me too, and kept apologizing, telling me what an idiot he was.

I untangled the necklace from my wrist and gave it to him hesitantly. No other "wolf-girl" had done this before, and I didn't want to look stupid, but he WAS my best friend, no matter what happened, so I gave it to him anyway.

Hearing him tell me it was the best present he'd ever gotten brightened my mood considerably, and after he showed me MY present-my completely refinished car that he'd installed a bangin' stereo system into and painted the exact black tint that I wanted (and he had even had the grill and muffler CHROMED, for God's sake!)-he was completely and totally forgiven.

We fell easily back into our old routine, I just avoided him much less. Unfortunately this routine also included us being just friends. Neither one of us had the guts to bring the subject up, I guess, so nothing was ever said. I wasn't sure how he felt about me, so instead of facing crippling rejection, I opted once again for suffering in silence.

He cried when I graduated with all honors. I thought it was hilarious. He just pulled me-boisterous laughter and all-into an enormous hug and told me to shut up because he was so proud of me that he was allowed to cry. The rest of the pack didn't see it that way, though, and ribbed him all day about "how much of a pussy he was."

He looked like he was going to cry the day he and my parents had to leave me in Georgia. As soon as he left, I had a freaking panic attack, and it was still going full-force when he called me to let me know they made it back to Seattle. As soon as he heard my voice he said he was getting back on a plane to come and get me, which made me laugh and I was able to convince him to stay put, because this was my dream. That was only half the truth, though. If I'd have told him the whole truth, he'd have known that what I really dreamed of was being with him all the time and marrying him and having his children and growing old and wrinkly with him. But I didn't. I couldn't. I wouldn't.

As time wore on and my freshman year of college turned into my sophomore year, I was busier than I thought one person should ever have to be. Between softball and trying to keep my grades up, it was all I could fit into a day. Quil called me every single day, though, and he eventually got us both webcams because he told me he couldn't stand not being able to see my face for such long periods of time. As soon as I got off the phone with him after he told me that, I did a freaking Irish jig. My roommate looked like she was going to call campus police for a while, but we'd become pretty good friends, and even though I'd never told her how I felt, she knew. It wasn't that hard to see, I guess, considering I talked to Quil and about Quil more than anyone else.

A few months into my junior year of college, I got called away from a late practice to the coach's office for a phone call. It was my aunt Emily. She told me that it was finally Old Quil's time to pass on, and before she could even ask me, I told her I'd be back in La Push in two days, and asked her not to say anything to anyone else because I didn't want anyone to leave to come and get me. I'd just take a taxi from the small airport in Port Angeles.

I explained to the coach that there was going to be a death in the family soon, took a two-week leave of absence from school, and hopped on a red-eye flight back to Washington because I knew that Quil would need me there now more than ever.

The whole flight back I cried, because not only was I losing someone who I'd grown up around and who'd practically been my grandfather, but I cried also because he'd as good as raised Quil when Quil's father was too devastated over his mother's abandonment to be the dad he needed to be. He meant so much to Quil, and I knew how much losing his grandfather was going to devastate him.

I could tell he hadn't been expecting me when he opened the door to the hospital room to reveal me standing there fidgeting.

All I could do when I saw him was hug him and breathe him in.

Old Quil gave me an imprint bracelet that had been passed down through his family for generations, and after I promised him that I'd do my best to keep the tradition alive in his family, I made a silent promise to myself that after everyone, especially Quil, had gotten over the initial tidal wave of grief, I would tell Quil how I felt.

I spent the rest of the night, Old Quil's last few hours, in the hospital room on the opposite side of the bed from my Quilly. I hummed my favorite lullaby as I held pop's hand and I could feel Quil's gaze on me every time he'd look away from his grandfather, which wasn't that often.

After the heart monitor flat-lined and the doctors rushed us from the room, Quil and I stood alone together in the hallway outside the room, me on one wall and him staring into my eyes from the other.

When he slumped down to the ground and put his hands over his face in defeat, I slid down beside of him and wrapped my arms around his calf that was closest to me, resting my forehead on his knee and just being there with and for him.

I held his hand when we left the hospital, during visitation, and during the graveside service. I didn't leave his side the whole time we were at the pack bonfire, forcing him to eat, knowing that I was the only one who would be able to get him to.

Before we parted ways that night I just hugged him for awhile. My body seemed to instinctively know that that's what he needed, so that's exactly what I did.

After I got home, I couldn't sleep at all. There was an unusual feeling gnawing at the pit of my stomach, and it refused to go away. So I got up and decided to go to the only place that made sense at the time. I threw on some warm clothes over my pajamas and hopped on Blaze, the four-wheeler that Quil had gotten me when I was younger. I hadn't been on it in years but my little brother Fyn kept it in tip-top shape, so it still ran pretty decently.

When I got to Quil's, I grabbed the spare key from under the mat, quietly slipping into the house. I could only hear one set of snores, so I figured Embry was with Layla, his super nice, incredibly awesome imprint, at her apartment in Port Angeles. I tip-toed down the hallway to Quil's room, and as I opened the door I heard his snoring halt. I was startled when he flew into a sitting position.

"Claire? Claire, geez, you scared me! What are you doing here? It's five a.m. Are you okay?" His eyebrows had shot up almost to his hairline and his face was pulled into a grimace.

"Sorry, Quil. I'm fine." I hurriedly tried to calm him down before he went into frantic over-protective Quil mode. It worked and he flopped back down onto his pillow with a relieved sigh. "I didn't mean to alarm you. I just—I didn't want you to be alone tonight, Quilly." I stripped off my sweat clothes and crawled into bed, snuggling into his side to get warm again.

"Are you okay?" I asked, already knowing the answer as I stared into his chocolate eyes that had slowly begun to fill with tears at my question. When he nodded, trying to hide it, I admonished him. "Don't lie, Quil. You can't lie to me. You're my best friend. I know you better than that." And then I felt myself tear up. When he saw that, he grabbed me, rolling over onto his side and burying his face into my neck.

I just held him as he cried, knowing it was something he needed to do this one time so that he could feel better. I cried with him, not sure if I was crying because of pop's death or because Quil, who very, VERY rarely ever cried, was crying, or maybe it was for both reasons. I just laid there surrounded by his intense heat that I'd grown accustomed to over the years, rubbing his back and running my fingers through his hair just to let him know I was there and that I understood.

When he pulled back from me I wiped the wetness from under his eyes with the tips of my fingers, and as I looked at him, I knew it was now or never.

"I think there's something I should tell you, Quil."

All of the words that I wanted to say jumbled together in my head and got stuck in my throat, so I proceeded to do the only thing I physically could at the moment. I took his face between my hands, gently caressing his cheeks as I kept staring at him, hoping that if I looked at him long enough I could convey what I was feeling, that I could make him understand, that I could muster up enough courage to take the plunge and do what I'd wanted to do since before I was old enough to understand why.

I kissed him.

And then, he kissed me back.

There you have it! I hope you liked it, and please don't forget to review! Thanks for reading, guys! The next chapter should be up within the next few weeks or so...

~darkgoddess