To my anonymous reviewers: I love you all so much. No pressure or anything, but feel free to sign in if you have an account with FFN because I'd love to reply to y'all! Or if you're too lazy, just tell me who you are and I'll PM you my reply.

To my signed reviewers: you all know how much I love you by now, hopefully :)

This is the last chapter, guys. It came as quite a surprise as I was writing then realized: holy shit, I just finished the story? I really didn't think it was that close to done. Unedited mess is, as per usual, unedited.

Thanks to those that have reviewed and invested time and effort into this story. I know it was special goings at times. And a big thanks to StealthLiberal. I bow eternally at the altar of her knowledge. Her assistance has helped me craft a story that, I hope, does not misrepresent or offend tribal communities of the Pacific Northwest. And without her uncanny ability to talk me off my ledge this shit never would've gotten done.

Internet hugs forever.

Chapter 26: The Crownless Again Shall Be King

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Friday, May 2, 2008 (cont.)

"Jake," Jezzie spoke, her hands feeling a little shaky as they rounded the bend to the Ateara place. "You know I might not be able to fix him, right? I mean… probably. If this is some kind of battle injury… I can't make him see again. I'm a med student, not Jesus."

"I know that, Jezzie," Jacob reassured her as he parked. "But it's better to get a semi-professional opinion before we resign the guy to a life of darkness. He and Embry are my best friends. Just... do the best you can."

Jezzie's eyes were red, but she showed no signs of tears. Jake had assumed that Seth told her about what happened. Jacob had climbed soundlessly back into the car after Leah shoved him away and told him to go help his best friend. Addie agreed to stay with Leah.

"Seth says Quil doesn't know," Jezzie mentioned quietly. "Maybe it's because he didn't see it for himself, but Seth says he hasn't really acknowledged anything that's happened."

"Maybe he doesn't remember it," Jake shrugged. "Leah said he was unconscious when her and Seth showed up. He didn't come to until they made it back to La Push."

Quil was inside, sitting on the couch with Veronica. There was a small bassinette near the armchair and Jezzie could hear Kim talking in the other room. Quil had that vacant stare she knew she probably ended up with during her last flare when she couldn't see anything. "Little Red, is that you? No one I know wreaks of so much of coffee."

"Hi, Quil," she grinned despite herself. "Yeah, it's me."

"Home for Spring Break, Jezzie?" Veronica asked quizzically. She looked confused to see her.

"Uh…" Jezzie faltered. "Reading period. Before finals? I have a week off before finals."

"It's really good to see you," Veronica stood up and offered Jezzie one of her full-body hugs. Jezzie tried not grimace or cry in pain. Veronica didn't know that Jezzie's entire body felt like it was slowly crumbling to pieces. Her Dad had been home when she snuck in the front door to get her med bag out of the foyer closet. She was going to have to wait until he left to sneak in the back and get her leftover meds out of the fridge. "I'm gonna take a bathroom break and grab some of that food. Want something furball?" she grinned ruffling Quil's growing hair.

"I actually think I'm good. No wait! We have leftover pizza!"

"Only if you promise to share."

"Deal!"

And with that Veronica was gone to the bathroom.

"Does she…" Jezzie asked.

"Know? Nope," Quil popped the 'p'. "Thinks I got shit in my eyes from work. Depending on your prognosis, Doc, we might have to tell her about this wackadoodle life we all live."

It was then that Kim peeked into the living room. Her face wasn't in the old expression of happiness, the one that Jezzie had known a while. However, it also was not the face of her emotional vacuum. That was a scary expression Jezzie hadn't gotten very used to in the weeks after Jared's death. However, the small time Jezzie had in La Push after Noah had been born seemed to uplift Kim. Jezzie didn't know if it was just the effects of having given birth, or if it truly represented a shift in her demeanor. Today, Kim's face was set. She looked tired, she looked like she was upset and hiding it – maybe for Veronica's sake if she was ignorant – but she looked strong. Kim didn't look like she was going to keel over like she did in the days after Jared died. She didn't look like she was going to burst into tears like she did the days before her son was born.

She looked like a woman – not a girl anymore. And she looked like she was shouldering a lot for the benefit of others. She had a dishtowel over her shoulder, and her hair was tied back in a long braid. She was holding a Phillips head screwdriver and a baby bottle in her hand.

"Kim, it's good to see you," Jezzie remarked. Kim offered an unconvincing smile and nodded.

"You too, Jezzie. I've been helping out," she indicated towards Quil. "Veronica's been lucky enough to visit this weekend but her semester isn't over yet. What with the injuries from those too closet to the fire recently and everything, Joy hasn't been able to get out of her shifts at the hospital. It's the least I can do. Besides," she chided nudging Quil with her hip as she walked past. "This goof here keeps knocking into things in his blind daze and breaking them. I'm currently reattaching the knob to the back door so we can actually use it again. No more hip checking the infrastructure, please, Quil?"

Kim nodded to have Jezzie follow her into kitchen so Jake and Quil could talk. "Here," she tossed Jacob the bottle, "if you're gonna occupy the living room, you can feed my son." Jezzie laughed and followed Kim. The girl kneeled back on the kitchen's linoleum floor and began to position the doorknob properly. "So," Jezzie began sitting down on the ground beside her. "Besides the obvious, how're things here in La Push? I haven't heard about anyone else?"

"Things have been better," Kim noted flatly. "The storm that swept through was pretty bad, though provided a convenient cover for the fires... Yeah," Kim nodded at Jezzie's surprised expression. "Everything at my end of the rez is too damaged from smoke to be inhabited."

Jezzie was surprised at how much anger she heard in Kim's voice. "Fuckin' psychopaths," she muttered. "Like we don't have enough shit to deal with? Now we have half a dozen families with unlivable homes and goodness only knows what they'll be able to salvage of their belongings. It was lucky, actually. I knew a contingent of them had arrived when I saw Anna and Seth bolt through someone's yard phased. Fortunately it was only two rogue ones. But I couldn't sleep after that obviously. Later I saw the smoke, and it got way too close, too quick. I strapped Noah into his back carrier and ran up and down my street banging on doors at 3AM. By the time the street was empty, I could see the flames in the treetops in the distance. And Anna, Seth, and Brady were running up the street to warn us to get out."

"Is everyone all right?"

"Yeah," Kim nodded. "Where the hell everyone will live in the meantime is another thing. A few of the families are still holed up in QTS. I made Seth watch Noah for an hour and broke into Paul's place." Jezzie couldn't help but grin at that.

"He's been gone anyways, right? We were roommates once under much more unpleasant circumstances, he can tolerate me again for a week or two. Plus – and he'll swear otherwise – he loves Noah. Paul's a hardcore baby guy. Little known fact. I'm lucky. Not everyone else is. Emily," Kim grinned in an odd way and laughed once. "Emily and Sam live way down the end of the street from me. I had to drag Emily out of the house. She was losing it. Has been losing it since Sam left for Alaska. It only got worse when…" Kim paused and Jezzie looked up.

"She knew," Jezzie mumbled in recognition. "Just like you knew." Emily had known the moment Sam had died.

Kim nodded evenly. "Yep. I didn't have the heart to tell anyone. Leah and Seth were already gone to help Sam and Quil, anyways. I can't even imagine… Anyways, after the fires were out, Emily just drove back to Neah Bay. When Anna went to check on her, she said she was fine, but she wouldn't open the door. Apparently she's in the process of losing her shit. Like full-on nervous breakdown."

"Wow," was all Jezzie could get out before Veronica entered the kitchen and began looking around the fridge. Kim tightened the last screw in the doorknob and the two seated girls stood. Jezzie leaned close and discreetly whispered. "I gotta check Quil out. Keep her busy for five minutes?"

Kim nodded seriously and Jezzie ducked out of the kitchen and back to the living room. Jake was sitting in the armchair and had helped himself to baby patrol. Apparently, Noah had yet to fully master bottle manipulation. Jezzie gave Jake a pat on the head and a smile as she sat carefully on the couch with Quil and pulled her bag close.

"All right, let's make this quick." Jezzie opened her bag and yanked out her penlight on top. "Can you see anything, Quil? Shadows? Changes in light? Movement?"

"A little bit," he nodded. "Like I can kinda tell when you move a lot – I could tell Ronnie stood up to hug you. But… I don't know if that's all the other senses compensating. It feels different – better – than when it first happened."

"Are you seeing darkness or shades of gray?"

"Neither," he shook his head. "It's like when you close your eyes. You don't actually see 'black' when you close your eyes. You see… whatever it is you wanna call it. It looks like that. Except I know my eyes are open."

"And you said it's getting better?"

"A little," he agreed. "Now it's kinda foggy. It's clearer if I concentrate, but that gives me a killer headache."

"Any idea what caused it?" she asked.

"Probably that spray of vampire venom I got to the eyes," Quil mentioned nonchalantly.

Jezzie tried not to swallow her tongue. "Oh… How'd that happen?"

"I was too when one got torn into. I don't know if it was because it had sucked someone dry too recently or what, but something spewed out of the body and it burned like a motherbitch and I haven't been able to see since. I don't remember anything after that either. Or anything much before it for that matter."

Jezzie grimaced. For all intents and purposes, it sounded like a chemical accident, a burn. And if that was it, he probably wouldn't get his vision back. There was also the issue that Quil was apparently still oblivious to the fact that Sam was dead. "Okay," she mumbled. "I'm going to check your eyes out, is that okay? I don't want to hurt you further."

"No that's cool."

Jezzie moved closer on the couch and carefully lifted one of Quil's eyelids. She flashed her penlight to peer inside. "Hey I can kinda see that! Was there light?"

"Yeah, my penlight," Jezzie nodded. "You can see that?" Quil nodded happily. That was a moderately good sign. "Not too shabby."

Jezzie could see obvious burn scar tissue in his eyes. It wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before. She wasn't quite ready to chalk that up to vampire venom, given her limited experience with optometry. But it looked to be healing quickly enough. It concerned Jezzie though, that for all the healing Quil still couldn't see anything worth a darn.

She sat back and thought for a moment, hearing Veronica in the kitchen she knew she had to do it quick. "You're healing part way," she noted. "The scar tissue in your eyes is obvious but healing. What concerns me is that your vision isn't returning on par with your healing like all other wolfy injuries tend to do. But you are regaining some vision."

"So what do we do about it, doc?"

She mulled it over. "This is completely ethically unsound, but do you think we could get Sue or Joy to write a script for some steroids? If we add those into the healing process it might help jump-start your vision. Honestly, Quil, I don't know if you'll ever get it all back but maybe with the steroids you'd at least be able to get around without trouble."

"Time for a visit?" Jake offered.

Sue was amenable to writing Quil a prescription for some basic steroids. However, Jezzie – ever the moral high ground – insisted that he do take them properly. She wanted it to be as legit as possible. Something about not fostering a lax approach to the abuse of prescription medication.

Jezzie took the car back to her house to sneak in the back door and get the last of her meds out of the fridge while her Dad left to grocery shop. Veronica asked for a ride into town to pick up some stuff. Jacob told Jezzie go 5MPH under the speed limit to give him time to tell Quil about Sam.

Jezzie was glad she didn't have to stick around for that talk. Jacob got in the car later, shaken. Quil really hadn't remembered a thing. It had all been news to him.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

"Fuck it," Quil sighed in exasperation as he fired an article of clothing across the room. It missed the hamper by at least three feet and flopped to the floor.

"What's up?" Veronica leaned out of the bathroom across the hall, toweling her hair dry. Joy Ateara had been monumentally kind in allowing Veronica to spend an undetermined amount of time at the Ateara's. Veronica had the sneaking suspicion that Joy knew more than she let on, but her brain was not up to processing capacity and there was no way she had time to pester the woman. She was at the Ateara's for at least half the week and she had everything and nothing to do.

"I can't even fucking see straight enough to dress like a normal fucking human." He gestured indiscriminately towards the wall where the hamper was. "Is it blue? Is it purple? Do I even own purple shirt? I don't remember! And now I'll never know! All I can see is vague blurs of something that might've once been color. Just figuring out it was a fucking shirt has given me the worst headache I've had in really long time."

Veronica just listened to him rant and rave. She didn't think her heart could fall any further than her knees but it did. She watched him. All six and a half feet of him looked so small for the first time. He was sat on the edge of his bed, his head was in his hands as he tugged at his hair. She watched as he rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and blinked.

She padded across the small room and approached him carefully. He stilled as she came close, sensing her presence. She tucked the towel wrapped around her body into itself and reached her hands down. She wrapped her fingers in between his and gently worked his hands out of his hair. Her fingers wrapped around his wrists and down his forearms.

He slid from her grip and took her hands in his. "Your hands are cold," he said.

"Yeah," Veronica offered a half grin. "Mom's got awful circulation. I'm lucky enough to have her singing voice, but cursed with terrible blood flow."

He nodded and pursed his lips, appraising the trade off. He brought Veronica's hands to his lips and cupped them together to breathe warmth on them.

"I'm going to be trapped in my head for the rest of my life," Quil admitted quietly. And now her heart was in the foundation. She was going to have to get a leash for that thing.

He stood quickly, and she stepped out of his way. He moved across the room, like he might've been pacing, and only just barely missed the dresser. She didn't know what his intention was or where he wanted to go but he nearly fell inside the open closet as he groped for some portion of wall as an anchor for his whereabouts.

She stepped in front of him quickly and grasped at the hand that fell through empty space to catch his fall.

"For fuck's sake – I can't even walk!" He dropped to the floor without flourish, and Veronica made a much more graceful crouch until she was on her knees. She pulled him close and he buried his face in her abdomen, wrapping his arms around her. It was unexpectedly intimate, and felt very vulnerable. It felt soul-bearing the way he just submitted to her touch like that.

"I am stuck inside my body…" he muttered in defeat. "I'll never see anything worth seeing ever again. I won't see you ever again. I won't see my Mom, my sister, my friends, nothing…"

"No, it's not true," she rebutted quickly. "Really."

"Really, Ronnie? Because if you've got a miracle cure, I'd die to find out." He sniffed and she crouched lower. "I used to be able to do shit. I could function like a normal human being. I used to–" He growled in frustration. There was still a lot he couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell her that he was born and bred to protect, and now he was the one that needed to be watched. He needed a handler. And as much as he knew it was stupid to feel like less of a man and less of a human with no sight, he felt that way anyways. He felt like an invalid and a child.

"Quil," she continued in desperation. She was desperately plumbing her reserves of comfort for something to say that didn't sound stupid or completely wrong or offensive. "You're gonna have a hard time with this for a while. I mean, you can see a little bit and your going to have to learn how that works. But you have other senses, Quil. It amazes me sometimes how you can hear me before I even enter the room, or you can tell what your Mom is cooking before you're even in the house. You have so many other ways that you perceive the world."

"Still doesn't make me not blind, dear," he replied bitterly.

"Well," she fumbled. "Maybe not in the strictest sense of the term, but you'll learn. You're not gonna be helpless, I promise. Okay? It's going to be really hard, but I'm here, all right? I'm here and I love you and I'm not going anywhere and we're going to figure this out together. I know that waking up and being able to see the time on my alarm clock and walk to the bathroom without needing full arm extension is a gift, but you can still function, Quil."

Quil didn't respond, but her babbling didn't seem to be uplifting him yet. She suddenly felt like she was drowning – more so than she'd been until this point anyways.

"You can still hear me, right?"

"Clear as day," Quil's muffled reply came.

"And you feel me?"

"Definitely."

"Can you smell me?" He nodded soundlessly. She carefully made to stand, and brought Quil with her. "Okay. Close your eyes. I know it sounds stupid – don't roll your eyes at me – just do it."

He obeyed her and stood in the middle of the floor with his eyes closed. She released his hands and stepped away, she backed to the far side of the bed, around its corner.

"You can't see me, but you can hear me. You can smell me. You can feel me. Take a deep breath, try not to psyche yourself out, and come find me."

Veronica was surprised that Quil actually listened to her, but she watched him visibly exhale. He paused for a moment, only to make a rather smooth if slow progression towards her. She backed in towards the wall with a small grin before his hands pressed into the sheet-rock on either side of her. "Gotcha."

"I know it's going to be hard, Quil. So hard I will never have any idea how hard it is. But you have some pretty weird preternatural sensory skills. Being blind isn't going to trap you inside your body."

"One small step," he acquiesced.

"Next the giant leap," she smiled, reaching up to brace her hands on each side of her neck. However, before she could say anything else, she felt Quil's muscles contract underneath her touch. His breathing grew shallow and when she drew her hands back he took a small step away from her.

"Quil?" she asked tentatively.

"I don't know where that came from…" he admitted worriedly.

Jezzie spent the interceding weekend at Jacob's. She didn't want to impose another appetite on Sue Clearwater or Joy Ateara, and Jake's bigger couch combined with his apparent ability to cook good food ("Jezzie, I've lived alone with my Dad for five years, now. It was either learn to cook, or die.") was splendid. She felt bad not going home, but she would have absolutely no way to explain to her Dad why she was home for a random week in May. She'd just as soon let that one lie.

It was interesting living with the Alpha – even just for a weekend. Jezzie watched him single-handedly orchestrate final peace negotiations. With Paul in Boston for the time being, Jasper and Embry on their way home, and Quil slightly less than focused on his Pack-duties Jake was the one-man show. It was Jake and Leah – with some occasional input from Brady and Anna. And a lot of input from Kim and Rachel. Leah was moderating the Plains Pack and was focused entirely on being able to get them to come back out West.

Watching Jacob talk on the phone to the remnants of the Volturi and the Romanians and the Egyptians was about the weirdest thing in the world. Until then, the Egyptians were allowed to consolidate power insomuch as preventing the remnants of the Volturi from running rampant across the planet. Again. Because like hell was Jacob sending shape-shifters to keep track of their shit. And they all had to listen to Esme. Though that was understood more than spoken. Jacob got the impression that Esme Cullen scared the shit out of most of the European vampires.

"Look," he said, pacing across the kitchen floor while Jezzie indulged in his pulled pork. "I'm not giving you carte blanche, here. We haven't even agreed to peace terms yet. But neither of us want those Italian bats going berserk again. Keep them in check until then and leave the other covens alone. If they get out of line, let me know and we'll decide what we're gonna do about… I don't care how old you are and I don't care how long ago you were in charge. You lost the war. You lost a couple of wars. La Push calls the shots now. This isn't an unreasonable request… Okay, okay… OKAY! Can we just stay calm please? It's not to say things won't change but this is just until our little peace summit in June when we can hash things out for real. Okay? Yes. Esme is in charge until June. Why? Because I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. A single toe out of line and she will make the perp regret their existence… Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah… Call me if you need anything…"

Jacob hung up his phone and his head drooped against the counter top. "Tell me you had better luck with the shifters than I had with these emaciated bats?"

"If it's any consolation," Jezzie offered, swinging her feet around from the too high stool. "This sandwich is really good, Jake."

"It's all in the oregano," he mumbled to the formica countertop.

"Really?"

"Uh huh," he mumbled. "I learned when I was fourteen that everything except baked goods is better with oregano."

"Hm," Jezzie hummed appreciatively and flicked her phone to life. "Well, I just got an email from the Valkyrie flock in Greenland and—"

"They emailed you?"

"Yes, Jacob," she replied. "They're from Greenland, not yurts of Siberia. They do the internet thing in other parts of the world."

"Anyways."

"Anyways," she continued. "They're good to go. They'll be here on the… thirteenth. They're flying in. And then they're flying in, so no one needs to go pick them up at the airport or anything. We'll need accommodations for… three."

"The skinwalkers don't want any part of it but I think that's because I freak them out a little bit. I feel like they're a little cynical, so Leah's gonna chat them up. And I should hear back from the Nagual Pride in the next hour or so. How're the vampires?"

"Pissy as ever."

"How many are coming along?"

"Between the Romanians, the Cullens, the Volturi, and the Egyptians? Eight."

"That's a lot of vampires so close to the rez."

"They'll be in Seattle. Any closer to La Push and we'll have grade school phases popping out of the ground like daisies."

"Do you think we'll have enough time between now and then for me to go home and fail all my finals?" she asked.

"You're not going to fail, Jezzie," Jacob rolled his eyes.

"I missed the last week of school, and my entire reading period. This batch of exams is not looking good for me."

"Go home, Jezzie. Pass your exams. We'll see you in June."

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Veronica was convinced she was one hundred percent out of her depth. Her and Quil were up talking for quite a while – it was mostly lighthearted for once in a long time, since they'd learned of Sam's death.

Anna was asleep, and Joy had gone to bed hours ago. Veronica had stood to make for the couch, when Quil refused to release her fingers. She folded like a napkin to his teasing and had ended up falling asleep right beside him.

She had also woken abruptly when he'd sat bolt upright in the middle of the night gasping like he'd just surfaced from the bottom of a lake. He was alternating scratching at his own throat and reaching out frantically into the nothingness.

She glanced around blearily. "Quil?" It took a few moments for her to realize that he was still asleep. "Quil!" she reached out to grab ahold of his wrists as Anna came crashing through the door.

When the door crashed against the opposite wall as Anna slid on the rug, Quil's frenzied movement slowed and he seemed to slowly awaken. Veronica just sat there, her hands still around his wrists – a cold sweat had broken over his whole body – she was now also out of breath.

"Holy shit," Quil muttered.

"What just happened?" Anna muttered. "I heard something, then I felt something…"

"No, no, no, no, no, no," Quil muttered to himself as he reached around without purpose. Veronica thought this was a gesture that had nothing to do with his inability to see. "That can't be right. Oh, fuck… who am I kidding? Leah!" he shouted the last.

Veronica jumped. "What?" she asked in confusion.

"Leah!" Quil repeated as he jumped ungracefully out of the bed. "Where's Leah? I need to talk to Leah. Right now."

"Quil it's 2:37AM."

"Right now!" he insisted.

Anna raised her hands in defeat. "I'll go give the woman a call."

Quil had not the patience to wait, so Veronica followed him out the door and halfway down the street. He seemed to be channeling his other senses well, as he made his ungainly though thoroughly upright way towards the Clearwaters. Leah came jogging up to meet them.

"Quil what the hell is going on?" she demanded. "I just got a call from your sister…"

"I need to talk to you!"

"I… think I'll leave you two be," Veronica nodded, extricating her hand from Quil's and backing down the road.

Leah watched the girl retreat back down the road and into the Ateara's house. She flipped the porch light on and closed the door.

"Had a burning question at two in the morning, Ateara?" Leah asked sourly.

"It's about, Sam."

"What?" Leah choked.

"I… I don't know. I was asleep and it's like it all just dumped on me like a backhoe full of shit. I didn't remember what happened, Leah. I really didn't. I wasn't making that up. Jake had to tell me all about it and it was awful… But I've been feeling weird, and getting like these déjà vu moments. And… my dream… that shit wasn't a dream."

Quil could see her, but he could smell the salt in the air and he could hear the shake in her voice. "Tell me, Quil. Just… just tell me."

"I think I have to show you."

Leah steered Quil into the woods and the two phased. Quil could see for once. He might've been blind, but Leah wasn't – and his brain still worked well and good. He could see everything she saw. But he'd focus on that later.

What is it, Quil? Tell me, or I swear I'll hang you from a flagpole by your hamstrings. I don't care if you're fucking crippled.

Okay, please stop with all the aggressive juju, I can't concentrate.

Leah calmed her mind, and let Quil's presence take over. Once she opened her mind, she was flooded with the image of woods. Not unlike the woods they were currently in, but the snowpack was thick. Wherever his head was, it was further north. They didn't get snow like that in La Push. She couldn't smell the sea, only the pine. It occurred to her just how all-encompassing and forceful this thought or memory of Quil's was.

She gasped and tried not to react when the fast and blurring visuals revealed a jetblack wolf. She saw him only briefly before things scattered and turned to chaos. She smelled the sickly sweet stench of leech and she had to open her own eyes just to remind herself it wasn't there. She felt the sensation of being choked, of oxygen deprivation, and through Quil's mind she could see that his throat was being crushed under a vampiric iron grip.

The black wolf bit the vampire around the middle, but she wrapped herself around his snout, clawing at his eyes and his throat.

There was wheezing and coughing and a dizzy feeling as the visual portion of the memory went fuzzy. Then a pair of hind legs kicked the leech off a crumpled, dark, furry form. The claws of those hind legs caught the throat and must've sliced the jugular. An awful, putrid liquid spewed from the wound where blood should've been. Leah winced as she felt the acid burn across her face and her eyes, feeling it seep into her nose and down her throat. She gagged a bit. She felt the cold snow beneath her paws as the blinded wolf whose head she shared crawled towards the downed black wolf.

The snow was stained blackish red, and the sticky fluids were tainting the ground in abundance. The crawling wolf whined as his partner struggled through a gurgle. Her vision of the black wolf was momentarily cut off as it lifted its paw to press the burned wolf's nose into the snow. The smaller wolf quieted and listened to its dying brother's last thoughts.

And then she saw herself… No longer was she viewing this entire scenario through Quil's consciousness. Now she was seeing Quil's memory of Sam's memories. It was in a strange form of third person, like she might've been a fly on the wall. Her hair was long and braided. She laughed from the table as Sam dropped a half cooked pancake on the ground with a splat.

A fading blur and she held her face firm as she told Sam his mom was a bitch anyways and hung his Stanford acceptance letter to her refrigerator – the Clearwater place of honor – with a Donald Duck magnet next to hers from USC.

Then like a flash her smile and her hair were gone. She looked a bit sickly, and she looked mad as hell. Her shorts were ratty and she was visibly dirty. She sat in Emily's living room with the rest of the Pack but refused to look at Sam. She saw now that he watched her intently. He wasn't staring, just watching. But he looked so miserable. Why had she never noticed that?

Then it was wet and cold and muddy. They were sat on the ground in the mud outside Jezzie's Jeep as the rest of the Pack gathered around the open hood and Embry pulled the girl out of the truck and off Jared's body. And even through the pain of losing a packmate Leah could now feel the relief in Sam's disposition as he finally relaxed into her semblance of an embrace.

The last glimpse of herself she didn't quite recognize, though. Her hair was still short, as it was now, and she was buckled in half with laughter on pebbly First Beach. She looked so happy. She hadn't seen herself like that in a very long time. She didn't know when this was… She started backing away through her laughter but was unceremoniously tackled by Jacob with Nessie on his shoulders. Her butt hit the smooth rocky surface and as a small wave washed in, she shrieked when it got her butt wet. She only remembered the day after she saw recalled getting soaked in the seat of her pants, because she truly did not recognize the happiness in her own face. She didn't know when it had returned… Apparently Sam did.

The secondhand visions of herself disappeared and Quil's own bleary vision of the drowning black wolf returned.

Tell her one last time that I'm sorry. Make sure she's happy…

And through the slowly deteriorating vision of the second wolf, she could see as it crawled close and into a protective position around the its dying packmate, laying it's muzzle across the wolf's shoulder and issued a whine that echoed with sadness from the caverns of its soul.

I'm really sorry, Leah, Quil told her – though it felt distinctly dreamlike. I'm really, really sorry. For everything.

Monday, May 5, 2008

"Emily," Leah yelled through the door her cousin refused to open. "So help me God, if you do not come out of this house to attend your husband's funeral I will tell the Fuller brothers to make another casket, because I will drag your lifeless corpse back to that reservation!"

"Leah," Anna reached for the older she-wolf's elbow. "You're going to get us arrested."

"It's fine," Leah turned to Anna. "Embry and I know enough people in Neah Bay at this point."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Kim sighed in annoyance. She pushed the door of the Clearwater deathtrap open and stomped up the driveway. She was here against her will and wasn't shy about letting the others know. Jacob and Jezzie were taking care of Noah and had conspired with Leah and Anna to get her in the group of emissaries that was due to drag a slowly spiraling Emily to Sam's funeral. Emily hadn't answered any phone calls, and refused to open the doors. She showed no signs of life, but almost everyone – and Leah especially – refused to let her crazy her way out of Sam's funeral.

Like hell did Kim want to go to Neah Bay and drag the crazy imprint to her own husband's funeral. If Kim wasn't fond of Emily before, she downright hated her now. Kim knew exactly what was going in Emily's head. Kim had dealt with it more than a year ago. However, Kim never considered not going to Jared's funeral. Ever. She would've gone vomiting on everyone's shoes like she thought she might've until Rachel showed up. Kim never would have run away, never would have run out like Emily did. Kim did a lot of things, but running was never one she even considered. Kim lost all respect for the first imprint when she fled La Push – after all the fighting was over – and refused to even acknowledge that she was married to the man the entire population was mourning.

Anna was along to make sure that Leah didn't kill Emily and leave her body in the woods. It was considered a very real possibility, given the way her screaming at Emily over the was heard – quite literally – halfway across the reservation. No one was going to be able to stop her from dragging Emily from Neah Bay, but someone had to go with, and Jacob had just looked and pointed. He was mastering that Dad shit.

Leah was understandably not in a good place, but was at least now consuming more than scotch. Since Emily had flew the coop and Sam had no immediate family to speak of, Leah – and the Council due to Paul's long-distance strong arming – was orchestrating funeral preparations. Leah felt better being busy. Constructively busy. Her and Sam had never had a chance to hash out their issues totally and really make peace, though things had calmed significantly after the first Volturi attack last winter, when Sam had been hurt. And after seeing what Quil had shown her… she knew she'd be okay. She knew Sam would be okay. Leah made peace with herself, and her ex-boyfriend, by preparing a proper funeral befitting of a tribal protector.

And as much as she loathed Emily and would've been glad to never see her again, there was no way in hell that Leah was going to allow the woman that planted herself so steadfastly in all their lives during all that turmoil to skip her own husband's funeral. Leah was dragging her back to La Push for Sam's sake, and no one else. She wouldn't have the girl shame a dead man.

Kim didn't agree with Leah's logic, but she certainly didn't see it as her place to argue. Emily had been an ever more infrequent socializer after the first Volturi attack. Kim hadn't seen her once – except for Rachel and Addie's wedding – after Jared's funeral. She didn't fault anyone, really, for avoiding her like the plague for the months up until Noah's birth. She hadn't exactly been a pleasant person. But Rachel was the only imprint to help Kim. Claire and Ness didn't quite count, yet, but even the two young girls refused to let Kim sulk when they chose to play. Kim thought that it wasn't worth the effort to drag Emily back to La Push to make her pretend to be normal and strong when anyone that mattered knew she was anything but. Kim thought she had serious meltdown potential, and didn't think it was worth embarrassing Sam and his brothers and sisters during a memorial service should Emily decide to totally lose her marbles.

But Kim knew better than to argue with Leah. Especially about this particular topic. So she helped. Rachel – and the entire Pack, really – helped her when Jared died, so Kim was going to give a little back and help out Leah.

Kim stomped up the steps and unzipped her sweatshirt. She wrapped the fabric around her arm and hand, stepped around Leah and proceeded to put her fist through the double-paned glass on the front door. She reached around inside and undid the lock, and the door fell open a few inches. "After you," Kim insisted retrieving her arm from the shattered pane.

"You're all right, Connweller," Leah nodded once before marching into the dark home.

Five minutes later, and Anna and Leah were bodily removing a very thin, very pale, very unstable Emily from her parents' old house and dropping her into the car.

She hyperventilated and babbled half the way back to La Push until both Leah and Kim told her to shut up at the same time.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Quil got better. Slowly but surely shapes started to come back in the days leading up to final negotiatons. Then colors. Then larger details. He hit a plateau about four days after starting the regimen and didn't get any better afterwards. Jezzie and Joy – the supernatural medical contingent – assumed that his healing ability and the drugs restored as much of his vision as possible.

He could get around mostly fine. He could make out shapes and colors to the point where he knew if they were people or shrubs, houses or cars, streets or rivers. He couldn't tell people apart without a voice, and he couldn't tell forks from spoons. Details were all lost. He also couldn't see road signs. That was a lesson learned the hard way. The day before she left for Boston to finish her semester, Jezzie gave him a final eye test – as best she could without any machinery of her own – she concluded that if he walked in to an optometrist off the street he would simply need a glasses prescription. Some really, really, really thick glasses – and even then his vision would still be severely impaired – but as far as legal blindness went, it could've been worse.

He wouldn't have to live in the dark.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Pack had not been expecting the Cullens to roll back into town. At all.

"Why – for fuck's sake – are you here?" Jacob deadpanned when Jasper approached the Treaty Line with Rosalie during his patrol.

"Would you please put some pants on?" Rosalie requested with a grimace.

"Only if you say 'please'," Jacob muttered as he stomped bare-ass naked towards the tree he'd dumped his shorts at.

"We need to speak with you and Leah," Jasper said.

"Uh, we have phone numbers. You guys don't need to turn up in the flesh with all your vampire juju poisoning the kids on my rez."

"This is important, Jake," Rosalie explained calmly. "It pertains to upcoming treaty negotiations with the Volturi's alliance."

"You shitheads ran the show last time and almost got us all killed. Jasper, you're the only one in your family with a lick of tactical sense. The rest are fucking nuts."

"We've been dealing with these things for far longer," Rosalie reasoned.

"And look where it's landed all of us?" Jacob seethed. "How long have some of you been around? A couple hundred years old. The youngest in your coven is a hundred? You've had long enough to sort this bullshit out. No, now it's our turn. We're calling the shots now. If you're cool with it, Jasper, we'll still consult with you and Alice's visions can be helpful but we're leading the charge on this one."

"And if we refuse?" Rosalie spat.

"Then you can leave and never come back. Or if you want to fight us for it, well, bring it on."

Rosalie glanced towards her brother and finally Jasper took a measured step forward.

"What are your demands, Alpha Black?" he asked slowly. He held his hands behind his back and addressed Jacob evenly. Military days had done quite a number to Jasper Hale.

"If you're staying, you're going to start pulling your weight in patrols. I can't keep running my wolves into the ground to protect the land we'll inevitably share. We could use your numbers and your skills – but I'm not going to force you guys to stay here. If you choose to leave, I ask you don't come back."

Sunday, June 29, 2008

"Hi there," Jezzie smiled as the sound of the screen door banged closed. She took her water bottle off the table where she left it and undid the cap, catching her breath as Embry - drowning in spreadsheets and graphs and charts - sat on her living room floor. He'd come home for his reading period, the last study week before his finals. Jezzie was skeptical about his avoiding his mother, but he explained that he just really needed to study without feeling mean by openly ignoring her. Apparently, if she thought he was spending his reading period in Seattle it wasn't as bad.

Jezzie just rolled her eyes and smiled. Embry was a grown man, but she knew he could only avoid Tiffany Call for so long.

Jezzie had finished her finals a month ago, and Collin's school year only lasted through June. They'd been home since the middle of the previous week.

"Whatcha goin' over?" Jezzie asked as she perched on the clean coffee table. For some reason, Embry liked doing his work on the floor.

"Factor endowments..." Embry muttered as he scribbled down one last thought. He dropped his pencil and glanced up at her. "Good run?"

"Seven miles," she smiled. "Not bad."

Embry reached forward and moved Jezzie's arm from her lap to glimpse her abdomen, exposed thanks to her only wearing shorts and a sports bra. His hand glanced carefully over the healing wounds that started at her hip and drew jagged fault lines below her belly button.

They looked nothing Emily's. If Azrael had caught her any deeper or if Collin had been the one to snag her flesh in the same place, they would've spilled her guts all over that parking lot. Embry never mentioned it - it gave him enough nightmares - and he largely suspected Jezzie was aware of how close she came of either dying or changing species. She subconsciously guarded her belly all the time.

"Healing well," Embry smiled.

"Considering the amount of Neosporin you slather on me on the daily," Jezzie smirked, "I would hope so."

"Only because I care," Embry nodded. He knew Jezzie was quite capable of taking care of her own scar tissue, but she'd indulged his need to help and protect her and let him be hyperfocused on her healing regimen. Truth be told, Jezzie loved having Embry focus on her stomach like a confused mother hen. At night he'd lean over from the floor as she read sprawled on the couch and he'd observe the way the lines moved arbitrarily over skin, his lips quirked in concentration. He read and compared the instructions and results of Neosporin and Mederma. One day he even came home with Echinacea. It was endearing.

Her Dad had been the one to come up with the Mother Hen analogy, though he still thought it was because of her - now entirely disappeared - MS flare. Jezzie had no way to explain her scars to her Dad, so she didn't. And in the meantime, Embry got plenty of well-intentioned ribbing from Al Sullivan.

"I know," she nodded, reaching down to hold his chin. "It's cute," she grinned placing a kiss on his lips before standing. "I'm gonna hop in the shower and then we can head to Seattle. Ready to watch some international relations?"

"Darn..." he wrapped an arm around her waist, preventing her from leaving.

"You'd like to go to an international treaty settlement between four different species and god knows how many countries with me drenched in sweat?"

"Mhm," Embry nodded, burrowing his nose into her abdomen. "It's one of your best smells. That and post-orgasm."

Jezzie could feel him smiling against her skin. "Embry Call, there is no way I'm going to this thing smelling like sweat and orgasm when everyone else present can smell it too."

"Agreed," he conceded. "There aren't a lot of people I want smelling that."

Jezzie rolled her eyes. "You wolves are so weird. I'll be out ten."

A handful of minor guards had shown up to represent the Volturi. By Leah's tabulations none of their particularly skilled or ranked members were left. The Romanians were present as well as Amun and Demetri from the Egyptian coven. The Volturi and Romanians were mostly unpleased to find that Jacob decided to keep them under supervision and let the Egyptians and Esme Cullen play the watch dog. The Volturi were clearly afraid of the woman – something Jacob found to be novel – though, Demetri assured him that Esme was a force to be reckoned with.

They could create no more members. They had to keep to their predetermined laws of secrecy. They had to cease all their warmongering and land grabbing. There wasn't much arguing or bartering from the clearly defeated Italians.

Both Jacob and Leah were mutually exhausted from orchestrating the treaty settlement, and were in no mood to play nice. Leah opened the negotiations by telling the Volturi that they sucked, ruined lives, and dragged the majority of the supernatural world into civil war. "So I baked you this thank you cake…" she told them. "And peed in the batter. In wolf form. You're welcome."

They clearly did not understand her form of sarcasm. The Volturi had put up little fight, though the Romanians were constantly hedging for more land or influence. They were all eventually dismissed and Jacob charged Demetri and Amun with making sure they made it out of the Americas and back home in a timely fashion.

The remainder of the winner's leading members were gathered around a Cullen dining table again. They always seemed to end up around a Cullen dining table. Except this time they were in Seattle. Jacob and Leah patently refused to allow any vampires besides the Cullens on the Olympic Peninsula. The Cullens had a conveniently located high-rise in Seattle that was used for negotiations. "And how will we be fashioning our postwar world?" Jasper asked quietly.

"We plan to head back home," Damian spoke. "We are agreeable to patrolling the Midwest and continuing to work with you. We'll watch out for new wolves and we'll keep an eye on your Packmates on the coast. Should anything come up we'll let you know posthaste. But we mostly we desire to be left to our own devices. We have no delusions of grandeur."

"No biting anyone," Jacob added.

"Of course not."

"Just throwing it out there," Jacob insisted.

"We will also return home," Kari replied serenely, from beside Liv. "We do hope you will keep in touch about any happenings here on the West Coast. We shall do the same for you about business in the East. This is an alliance that our flock would like to maintain."

"Agreed," Leah nodded. "If you need anything let us know."

Kari nodded her thanks. The Nagual pride voiced almost the same sentiment.

"We," Wyatt informed Jacob and Leah in a manner that reminded them far too much of Paul, "are going the fuck home. Praise be god that Mexican bitch is dead. We're awful pen pals. So don't expect to hear much from us. No offense."

"None taken," Jacob replied. "We don't have to be best friends to stay out of each other's hair. Not that we travel very far out of La Push, but we'll make sure none of our phased wolves end up further South than Reno and Salt Lake City. Your land is your land."

"Sounds good," Art agreed. "You folks are welcome to pass through, if need be. We're hardly an iron curtain. Just give us a ring so we can call off the hounds."

"Much appreciated."

"And you," Jacob turned in the direction of Jasper. "I don't care if you stay or if you go. If you stay, you're taking land patrol. Because like hell am I continuing to make my wolves pound the treaty line to make sure no bullshit gets through. You all can put in some man hours on security. I'm letting Leah and Embry go to college like normal people. Quil and I and Anna and Seth and even Brady are going to fucking graduate high school. Paul is going to finally get to hold down a steady job."

"Not unreasonable at all," Jasper nodded. "Is there anything else?"

"Don't try and pull a fast one on me. I'm eighteen, awfully young compared to any of you but I'm not stupid. The on-the-job training around here is pretty thorough. If you have any issues, any problems or plan on making any major decisions, I want to know about it. Because when you decide shit, you inevitably end up screwing us over in the process. Capiche?"

Monday, June 30, 2008

"Hi Mom," Embry greeted his mother as Jezzie pulled away from his lawn. Jezzie simply waved and smiled.

"Hi Emb," she smiled slightly from the porch, waving to Jezzie as she left. She was sitting by her garden boxes with her gloves and gardening tools out. Not much grew in their yard, but every year Embry's Mom invested in some good potting soil and planted enough wildlife to hang from every inch of porch rail and cover most of the perimeter of the porch. She grew herbs and flowers and creepy crawly plants that stuck to the side of the house. Some smelled good and others were really brightly colored. A few would last for weeks and some only a couple days. Embry would still check on those ones every morning when he woke up – just like he did when he was a kid. Waiting for the temperamental plants to bloom was always the most fun, because they always looked the coolest. It was hard to wait sometimes and when he was young he got really impatient. But over the years he learned that the best ones were worth the wait.

"How was your final?" she grinned up at him as she pushed her bandana back with her wrist, clearing the few stray hairs from her face.

Embry sat on the steps beside her. "It went well," Embry nodded, thinking over the peace summit he'd just come from. His last final was yesterday but he'd used the excuse of an exam as a way to get another full day in Seattle to finish up negotiations with the rest of the supernatural world. He felt bad lying to his Mom – as usual – but was slightly appeased in knowing that his answer applied to both realities – invented and otherwise. "It went really well, actually."

"Very good," she nodded as she continued to pick the small weeds that had found their way – by bird or critter or wind – into one of her planters. "How does it feel to be done your freshman year of college, huh? That's a big step, Embry. I'm proud of you. I know it wasn't easy."

"Definitely not," he agreed and leaned back on his forearms. He was quiet for a moment, watching his Mom groom her little sprouts. "Hey Mom, can I tell you about something?"

She perked up in response and her hands stilled. "Of course you can, Embry." She reached up with a gloved hand towards his face, pushing a stray strand of his own growing hair out of his eyes. He had inherited his mother's unruly hair. He was at least lucky he didn't have her cowlicks. She accidentally left a few grains of soil behind. "I'm your mother, Embry. You can tell me anything."

"Okay," he nodded. "It's a really long story. And it's gonna sound really strange and really weird, but if you give me a while I can explain all of it. As long as you promise not to freak out."

"We've got all night, honey."

The End.