First of all, I am so SO sorry about how pathetically long this has taken. The combination of life and writer's block isn't the best for speedy updating. I hope at least some people are still here and still reading...

The song for this chapter is Bargain by The Who.

And just so you know, Claire's sixteen now, she was for a while...actually, she's almost seventeen. Sorry about that.

"What are you thinking?"

My eyes wandered over our legs tangled in the sand as I tried to think of an answer to that. Brown on brown on golden-gray...

"Nothing."

"Huh."

"Really. Just...nothing."

"Yeah, I know. Me too, actually."

"Mm. No, wait, there's a pink elephant."

"What?"

"You know, when someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant and then you can't stop thinking of a pink elephant and--"

"No."

"Oh, Quil." I sighed heavily, and he sighed as I moved my toes against his legs, his hand on my arm.

"No, really," I began. "This is nice. The sun, and stuff."

"Yeah." He looked down, running his finger over the small, pale scar on my wrist. It sparkled slightly in the sun, and I didn't like the way his expression changed as he looked at it, filled with pain.

I turned my head slightly, and he followed my gaze to the cliffs, where someone had just launched themselves off the lower edge.

"Hey..." I sat up suddenly.

"What's wrong?"

"Is that...no...hey, Quil, is that Matt?"

"Huh? Where?"

"Up there. With the girl."

He looked up to the cliffs, squinted in the direction of the blurred people on top. "I dunno."

"Don't you have like super werewolf sight or something?"

"Yeah, I guess." He looked harder. "Yeah. Matt. And the girl looks familiar...huh. I dunno."

I grined as the shapes melded together into one. "I need to have a talk with him about his PDA."

"You shouldn't really be talking, Claire," He told me.

I let out a short laugh, glancing at him sort of embarrassedly. "Quil."

"What?"

"He can't see us..." His responding "what?" was a little hoarser than the last time.

My cheeks flooded with color. "No--what? Oh. I didn't mean...oh, God, no..."

"It's okay, Claire, really, you should know by now that I really don't care if y--" He broke off awkwardly.

"What?"

"Never mind," he muttered.

I was opening my mouth, about to say something, when someone--Embry--said, "Hey! Claire! Quil!"

I jumped away from Quil. "Embry!"

Quil looked at Embry questioningly. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, no. Not at all..." He grinned, and Quil raised his eyebrows at him.

"So?"

"Oh, we're having a bonfire. So if you can be back here tonight? Both of you? Or just stay here...no doubt you'll find a way to occupy yourselves..." He winked exaggeratedly. I groaned.

"Thank you, Embry," I said dryly, standing up and brushing sand off my legs.

Embry was gone as suddenly as he had come. Quil scrambled up to join me.

We walked along the beach slowly, and the sun shone down almost too perfectly. Quil jumped at every slightest movement, and I gripped his hand tighter. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, his eyes focusing back on mine. "Sorry."

The sun slipped down, and for the first time in months we could actually see it, see the red gold streaks on the blue-gray sky.

"It's beautiful," I mumbled, and he glanced at me.

"Mm. Yeah."

"Not in, like..." My eyes flickered to his briefly, my cheeks tinged lightly with color. "Not in a cheesy way, you know, just because, well, it is, and we never see this..."

"Soon it'll be gray."

"Way to be optimistic, Quil," I muttered, and he laughed.

"You know what?" I asked a few seconds later. He looked at me questioningly. I glanced up to the now-empty cliffs and along the deserted beach. "I think I'm going to go...swimming..." I tugged at my shirt, pulled it over my head, and Quil's shocked expression registered only a bit too late.

"Claire! What the hell are you doing?"

I looked at him and grinned slightly. "Swimming. What does it look like?"

"It looks like you're taking your clothes off," Quil mumbled so low I hardly heard him.

"Oh, Quil, come on." I was tugging at my pants now, and he caught my wrist quickly.

"Claire. Just..." I looked at him and he muttered, "just keep your pants on, at least. Please."

I rolled my eyes, started to protest, but then just sighed and nodded, then reached for his shirt.

"Claire, are you sure you're feeling okay?" His voice trembled slightly as my fingers brushed his chest.

"What? Yeah." I rolled her eyes at him again. "Relax, Quil." He let me pull his shirt over his head, then grab his hand, pulling him to the water. When he resisted, I said, "Come on, it'll be fun. Plus I'll freeze if you're not there."

"Oh, fine," he grumbled, smiled, and jumped in after me.

It felt as if my heart had stopped when the water covered my body, and I gasped involuntarily. I swam out farther, faster, trying to keep warm, but it was like there was an iron grip around my chest.

"Claire--" Quil wrapped his arms around me, and I pressed myself to his warm body, splaying my fingers on his back as if to pull out the heat, not caring if it was too close. "That was stupid, Claire, jumping in the water in La Push at night..."

"It's not night, and you're here," I said, burying my face against his shoulder.

"So? I'm not immortal," he grumbled. "Just..."

"Extremely hot."

I felt his lips, against my hair, stretch into a smile as I laughed softly against him.

"F-fuck, it's fr-freezing," I said, my teeth chattering loudly. I clenched them together tightly and pulled away from him a little, yanking off my soaking jeans. "But this is ridiculous, I can't even move." I threw them the short way to the beach, and Quil swallowed, glancing at my eyes.

He pulled me closer, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. His fingers ran in circles on my back, fingering the clasp of my bra, moving slowly around. I sighed into the heat of his shoulder as his fingers brushed the sides of my breasts.

He whispered my name in my ear, his breath sending shivers down my spine, and I dug my fingers into his back.

We floated in the water for a while, silently, my breathing coming faster with Quil's agonizingly slow fingers hot on my skin. I pressed closer to him, told myself it was just for warmth, and his breath spilled quickly onto my skin, his hands moved rougher. My head spun.

"Dammit, Quil, you tease," I muttered under my breath, felt him grin into my hair.

"You shouldn't be talking, taking your shirt off like that...shit." His voice was so quiet, and he didn't move a bit. His hands fell to my hips.

"What?"

"They're here." He jerked his head towards the shore.

"Who? There's no one there...oh."

"Yeah."

"How did you...know?" I struggled to get the words out right as his hands brushed up my stomach.

"I could hear them." I took a deep breath, tried to control my frantically beating heart to no avail.

"We could just stay here...for a while..." I suggested tentatively.

"We could," he agreed, nodding. "We could."

"Very easily could. It's not that cold."

"It's not that cold and Sam isn't there at all, ready to murder us both once we show up..."

"No, he's not, is he?"

"Not at all."

"And this is nice. And we're not in the Nile at all, we're just in the tiny little Pacific." I said the the before Nile like a da.

"Ah, shit, Claire, you're awful, you're awful and you make no sense." He pushed away from me with a groan and started swimming for shore, still keeping his arms around me.

Standing in the water, half-covered, half-naked, Quil blocked me from the rest down the beach. Only the pack would really be able to see this far, but only the pack would also see Quil's thoughts on...this. Something I had finally gotten over. Except Sam.

"Uh, Quil?" I whispered.

"Hm?" His fingers skimmed my back, splashing cold water.

"Um...I was just wondering...if Sam..."

Quil groaned. "Oh please, don't ruin the moment with talk about him."

"What'd he do?"

"Sam? Oh, he's your uncle."

I rolled my eyes. "Really? I didn't know."

He chuckled softly. "He's just being Sam."

"Which is...?"

"Okay..." He let out the air in his lungs in a long, slow breath. "He gets...really, really angry whenever I think about you. Which is a lot." He pulled back, blinked at me. "But it's okay. You don't need to worry about it. He just..." He shook his head. "Crazy. He's disgusted or something, and he turns it into anger."

"I don't see why...I mean..." I swallowed.

"Yeah?"

"He imprinted, right? I mean, doesn't he know...? What...it's like?"

Quil snorted. "Know? Damn right he knows. He's constantly thinking about her. And Ja--Jared and Jacob..." he frowned suddenly. "But anyways, I mean...yes, Claire, he knows. Also, he's been in my head for almost fifteen years and...well, seen my thoughts. Which have been nothing but...pure!"

I laughed. "Oh, I'm sure."

"Claire." He ducked his head slightly, his hair flopping over his eyes. "Up until a little while ago, okay?"

"Sure, sure." I grinned, then looked down, embarrassed. "We should go." I splashed out of the ocean and started pulling on my wet clothes.

"You want to?"

"You don't? I mean, Embry said..."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Let's go." I shook my head at him, smiling, and we headed towards them.

Everyone was there except Jacob, and I muttered something about "scardy-cat werewolf..." under my breath, making Seth burst out in loud laughter. I felt Sam's eyes on me, taking in everything, from Quil's hand in mine to the outline of wetness on my shirt, unfortunately light and showing, but I brushed it off.

We ate, talked, laughed, like every other bonfire we'd ever had. But there was something else here--something about the tension in Sam's eyes, in Jared keeping glancing around for Kim, and Seth jumping up every five seconds, trying to pass it off as getting more hot dogs. And Quil.

And then, of course, there were the usual jokes about, well, 'hot dogs.'

Matt showed up a few hours later, dragging some girl and mumbling something about "saw you guys and didn't want to go home," to me, but I was too busy staring at the girl to respond.

"Claire?" Quil asked me. "You okay?" The girl just grinned a little sheepishly at me.

"What? Oh, yeah..." I turned purposefully and walked away from them, and he threw a last glance at them as he left.

"Who's she? You know her?"

"Yeah, it's Annie's sister...I was just surprised, they always hated each other--" I broke off, looking back in their direction. "What the hell are they doing together?"

He just shrugged. "They probably just pretended to. Hate each other, I mean."

"Yeah, but...oh well."

After that the tension was even higher, as Matt kept glancing at me and Quil nervously, me at him and the girl at his side with disbelief. Jared and Kim left, then Seth with Sue, and Sam and Emily, and mostly everyone else--Matt and Annie's sister finally left, leaving me and Quil alone--I didn't miss Matt's look at me as they left, but I just rolled my eyes.

Quil prodded the fire with a stick. "We should go. Your mom will want you home."

"Oh, she'll live." I shrugged.

"Claire..."

"You really think it'll make that much of a difference? She knows you spend the night...sometimes, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, yeah." He looked slightly uncomfortable, but I leaned against him as he kept turning over the dying coals, and he wrapped his arms around my stomach.

"So," he said. "Matt and...what's her name?"

"Celia."

"Celia. Hm. Strange."

"Yes. Strange." I tilted my head up and glanced at him, then burst out laughing, and Quil, who had been holding in his laughter, joined me.

--

We walked back slowly, stopping and swerving and going roundabout ways. I had no idea what time it was, and, frankly, didn't care. It wasn't raining, for once, and it was night, and it was dark, and Quil was right there and why would I worry? The thought of what would happen if I came home so late didn't really daunt me from this, which felt so perfect, so right.

We stopped at Quil's first, and when he let us in I looked through his kitchen cabinets, not looking for anything in particular.

"What're you looking for?"

"Hm? Oh, I dunno. Nothing." His hands slid around my waist and I felt his nose and lips skim along my neck, felt my heart speed up. I twisted around, meeting his lips with mine, his tongue with mine. It was like fire, like lightening, every time his tongue touched mine. I explored the corners of his mouth, tasting him, slowly, softly.

I felt my back hit the edge of the counter vaguely. His fingers ran through my hair.

"Oh, jeez. Yes, doing it is one thing, but in the kitchen? Come on, I eat on that counter..." Quil's hands dropped to my shoulders and he moved about a millimeter away from my lips.

"Go away, Embry," he muttered, then kissed me again, regardless of who was standing there. I had a feeling that if it were Sam, he wouldn't care.

Not that I did. I didn't, not one bit.

"Quil! Honestly, just let her be for one second..."

"What?" Quil turned to him. "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I just thought I'd tell you that I'm taking your patrol tonight."

"Oh." Quil looked slightly sheepish. "Oh. Thanks, Em."

"No, no. It's fine. Just..." he looked a bit pained. "Just don't go anywhere near my bed," he said, and before Quil could retaliate, he was gone.

"I didn't know you had patrol tonight," I told him.

"Neither did I. Well, I guess I did, at one point." He frowned. "You make me forget everything."

"Sorry."

He chuckled. "No, no. Silly Claire. I love it. See? I can be irresponsible for once in my life."

"You like that?"

"I love it."

And he was kissing me again, hard, and we were stumbling down the hall.

It was so hot, he was so hot. His breath was ragged against my own, and he ran his fingers through my hair, sending shivers down my spine even though his hands were so warm.

We ended up in his room--his bed--his hands running up and down my sides, under my shirt.

It was like the pent up sexual energy, as I can just imagine Embry saying, (but hoped he never would) from before. I pressed my hand over his heart--it was flying away beneath my fingers. His lips trailed down my neck, his teeth grazing my skin slightly. The heat was overwhelming--drowning, sweating, burning. I shivered again.

My brain shut down, and I didn't think, couldn't think, didn't want to. Why would I? There could be nothing better than this, so why would I be anywhere other than here, body or mind?

The corner of something sharp was sticking into my back painfully, and as I twisted to move it I heard, I felt, him groan softly against my lips. I was pressed up against him so closely it felt like we were one person--I could feel every bit of him through our thin, partially wet clothes, and his burning hands, well, burned...

I threw the book aside and my fingers roamed acorss his chest of their own accord, brushed along the waistband of his cut-offs. I heard him hiss in an intake of breath. His fingers gripped my wrist tightly, would have been at least a bit painful if I could have felt pain, but it was like I was numb and hyper-aware of every touch at the same time...

"Claire." His voice was low, urgent in my ear. "Claire." Of course, he can touch me all he wants in the freaking water in my underwear, but I just hardly even--

"Hm?" I murmered. His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath, swore, kissed me again.

"Claire." He pushed me away so gently I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't recognized the tone in his voice. His hands trembled slightly, like his voice.

I didn't trust myself to speak, just looked at him with wide eyes, dropping my arms, standing up, the embarrassment starting to work its way into my cheeks and mind.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Just give me a second." He leaned against the wall diagonal from me, shutting his eyes tight, breathing hard.

"What's wrong?" I ventured.

"Nothing, Claire, nothing..."

"Then what--"

"I'm just having problems with my...self control. It's okay, it's fine, you didn't do anything wrong, I just..."

"You mean you...? I didn't mean to make you angry, I swear, I mean I didn't even say anything..." I frowned. "At least I don't think I did."

He let out a shaky laugh. "Not that kind of control."

I blushed. "Oh. Sorry."

He shook his head violently, pushed himself off the wall, hugged me with shaking arms. "No, I'm sorry--I came so close to--oh, God, Claire, I'm sorry." His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.

"So close to what?"

He laughed into my hair, pulled away. "So close to--you don't understand how hard--how hard it was to tear myself away from you." His hair fell into his eyes. "I should be able to do this," he muttered to himself.

"So why did you?"

I didn't mean my question to...well, do anything, really, but his expression was alarmed. "I don't think your mother would appreciate it much if we--well, here, now--" Color crept up his face.

"I don't give a crap what my mother would appreciate," I muttered, and he smiled, a look passed across his face, hands curled into fists.

He closed his eyes, blew out air slowly. I felt it on my face. "You want to, then?" He whispered so softly I barely heard him.

I froze, nodded. His eyes met mine, and I regretted it immediately. "I mean, I--" I do. "I don't--I--if you don't want to--me--we don't, I mean--" I shut my mouth. I was just humiliating myself more.

His arms wrapped around me. "What?"

"Nothing. We don't need to--never mind."

He raised his eyebrows, sat down on the bed, and I followed him, trying to forget what happened about two minutes ago right there. I felt that damn blood heat up my face.

"It's okay, Claire, you don't need to be embarrassed."

"Uh, yeah I do." I'd think I would, seeing how I'd just admitted to wanting--to wanting to--I groaned softly.

"What, would it help if I said the same thing? Easily. I want you, Claire, more than you know, and it hurts so bad knowing I can't have you."

If possible, the blush on my cheeks got worse as his eyes burned into me. "And why not?"

"As much as I don't want to admit it, you're still young."

"I am not," I protested stubbornly, just proving my point perfectly.

"You are, Claire, even if you don't look it, and even if I was sixteen--"

"You are. You don't age." His other words didn't escape me. Even if you don't look it.

"I don't even know how old I am. I don't know what counts. But that's not the point! The point is you're still just sixteen and even if I was some boy, human, sixteen year-old boy, I wouldn't want--I couldn't do this to you."

"What's...what's wrong with me, then?"

"Oh, God, Claire, wrong with you?" He smiled slightly, rolled his eyes. "Nothing. It's just that I don't want you to regret anything, I don't want you to regret--you need to be sure, of what you want, and I don't want to ruin your--your anything..."

"What about what you want?"

He brushed his fingers along my cheekbone. "I know what I want and it's not going to change, ever."

"Well, same with me."

He sighed. "Claire, I just--"

"No, I get it. You just sound like my mom," I grumbled, and he laughed. "I just don't get why it's such a big deal, I mean, honestly." I rolled my eyes. "We both know it's going to happen eventually, so why does it even matter?"

He grinned sort of happily, and I could see his eyes shine through his hair. He reached across, pulled me closer to him, burrying his face in my hair. "Thank you," he murmured, pressing his lips to my neck, making me shudder.

"You're not doing a very good job of convincing me," I muttered.

"Sorry." He didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "I just can't keep my hands off you..." I made a face and he laughed, kissed me again, long and deep and slow, and he twisted his fingers in my hair to prevent them going anywhere else, while I did the same in his.

He pulled away with a long, shuddering breath, muttered, "Holy shit," under his breath, and I looked at him quizzically.

"Nothing, you're just--you."

"I'm so sorry about that."

"Oh, you should be." He let out a short laugh, then sighed. "So much for being irresponsible."

"We could be irresponsible," I said, reaching for his hand.

"How?"

"Well, it is La Push, so there's not much to do that's so irresponsible." I stood up, leading the way down the hall, out his house, down the street.

"Where are we going? It's late--"

"What happened to being irresponsible? I'm not a little kid anymore, I don't need to be protected against the world."

"No. No, you're not. But where are we going?"

"The beach."

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "The beach? We were kind of just there, for...the whole day. You want to spend the whole night there, too?"

"Yeah."

He stopped. "Claire, I was joking."

"I'm not. Come on, Quil. Irresponsible, remember?"

"There's a fine line between irresponsible and stupid. Actually, they sometimes overlap."

"Stupid? What could possibly happen? Those vamps aren't coming back anytime soon, and it's not like La Push has the highest of crime rates, and even if there were a murderer-rapist-theif-whatever else you can think of, I'm pretty sure--"

"Okay, okay. You've proved your point." This time he tugged me towards the beach, past the remains of the bonfire, to an empty, secluded area of sand.

We sat down and I ran my fingers through the sand. He lay back, pulling me with him.

"Look." He pointed. "It's a full moon."

"Nice. I won't get hurt, will I, when you change? Big scary claws and teeth and all that good stuff?"

"That was hilarious," he said in a monotone.

"Oh, you know it was," I teased him, letting my eyes flit over him, and as I looked my smile faded. "Quil..."

"No! No, Claire." His hands shot up and gripped my wrists. "No seriousness, please, Claire."

"I wasn't going to be serious. I was just going to tell you I love you."

"Oh." He was silent for a minute. "Well, okay. I love you too."

"That's nice to know."

"Isn't it?" He mumbled, and I lay my head half on his chest, half on his arm, and looked up into the sky.

"No clouds," I said.

"No, Claire. No weather. Please." His hands toyed with my hair.

"No seriousness, no weather--whatever shall we talk about?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll be able to find something," he sighed, sounding slightly forlorn.

"Or..."

"Or we could just not talk at all," he whispered, his breath rushing over my face.

"We could." His hands found my stomach and his lips my neck.

"Quil--"

"Shh..."

"What is with you today?" I wondered.

"What? I..." His lips brushed my shoulder, pushing aside my shirt with his fingers, but I hardly felt it. "I...just love you."

--

Quil's POV

"But--"

"Just love you...a lot...very much..."

"Quil, are you drunk?" She asked, and I laughed softly. She shivered. The scent of her skin, her hair, her, was quite like a drug, only so much better.

"Quil, I--" Her hand found mine on her stomach and I grasped it, moving them up towards her face. Looking at her in the long, silvery light, half her face light, half dark, she didn't look real, and on an impulse I touched her cheek, her nose, her lips, with my fingers just to make sure she was really lying half on me, half on the sand, lying with me on a beach in the middle of the night and letting me kiss her, lying with me on the beach and making jokes about werewolves.

It literally felt like my heart was about to explode, with this feeling, and I felt so strong with it and yet so vulnerable, because with one look, with one word...she could do anything.

It was scary, loving someone this much, and god, I felt for Jacob at that moment, because I couldn't imagine the pain of this not being me, this not being her, seeing her lying with someone else and loving someone else and...

"Ah, damn it, Quil, you're--" And she stopped, and she was on top of me, really, seriously, fully on top of me, kissing me as if her life depended on it, her hands running up and down my body.

I sunk into the sand, sunk into an almost-half-oblivion-filled-with-fire, a different kind of fire, not a phasing-angry kind of fire, the fire that was for Claire, only for Claire.

And I was about to push her away, push her off, but I stopped, hearing her, her words, irresponsible, irresponsible, be...and I thought, what the hell, what the hell can possibly go wrong, and I didn't care about Sam or anyone, anyone except for her at that moment, even when her hands were getting dangerously low and her lips soft and hard and her tongue...she was magic and I was so far gone, so far past any control I could have summoned up and it was scary, again, scary, being so out of control, it was scary but it didn't scare me because Claire was here, right here, so close...

And she sat up, rolled up, away from me, and I couldn't help a groan of protest.

"What about me being too young, huh, Quil?" She asked, and I closed my eyes.

"I don't know, nothing, I was being..."

I said "stupid" and she said "wonderful" at the exact same time and I laughed loudly and pulled her closer, kissing her again.

"You're wonderful, Claire, you're wonderful."