temper

We were back on the private beach, just Jake and I. At least for the time. It was more than a week after my trip to Seattle, and Jake had been watching me like a hawk since. I knew he had questions, that he was upset that I'd just taken off like that, that he wanted to know what had been going through my mind... and part of me felt like telling him just to spit the questions out already, but the much larger piece of me was completely unwilling to discuss what I knew he was going to ask.

We hadn't gone hunting yet and I was loath to bring it up, but I knew I was going to have to soon as my eyes were dark, dulling to a black as I approached two weeks without feeding. It made it the longest I'd gone without hunting since I initially returned from Europe. Jake seemed to trust my control more than ever, at least as far as my blood lust was concerned, but I didn't. So I'd have to go hunting soon, either with him... or on my own.

I'd already gone to the Cullens and told all of them what Victoria had told me, giving a slightly truncated version that had left out the threats and the implication that she wanted me to return to the Cullens for the sole purpose of seeing me happy just in time to pull it out from under me. I knew her motives were important and that they'd deserved to know what she really wanted from me... but it was information that felt – in many ways – too personal to share.

I wanted to tell Edward the parts I'd left out, but I didn't know how to tell him that she'd figured out I loved him still and was putting myself through hell deliberately. I didn't know how to explain that I wished he hadn't decided to move on – but if it was what he needed than I was okay with it. After all, that was what even Victoria had said, hadn't it? That loving me had been destroying him? I didn't want that for him, didn't want him to have to be in pain because of me. I was okay with my own pain, as it was nothing more than I deserved, but I hated to even consider the possibility that I'd also been causing him agony.

Still, I knew I needed to go back and tell him, so he'd be prepared in case Victoria came for him, if nothing else.

I sat down on a rock to look out at the sea as Jake continued walking along the sand, away from me. We were both deep in our own thoughts, and I wasn't sure which of ours were more troubled at the moment – his, or mine.

The clouds were thin enough in the sky that it would occasionally make my skin sparkle, though they mostly were concealing me.

I picked up a flat rock and threw it at the ocean, watched as it skipped a single time before dropping into the ocean. Suddenly, I heard a squeal I recognized from the other end of the beach and turned my head to watch as Clay started running towards me from the far end. Quil shook his head before following the young boy at a walk.

I opened my arms just as the little boy jumped into them.

"Sparkles!" he squealed, patting my cheek as the sun's light streamed through the clouds enough to light me up like a Christmas tree.

"Yes, I sparkle in the right light. And you can't tell anyone." I put my finger to the boy's lips gently.

"No tell. No tell," He half-screamed, half-sang as I dropped my finger. His happy voice was loud enough to echo across the beach.

"Even if he did," Quil said as he squatted in front of us. "No one would believe him. He's at that age where he spouts all kinds of crazy things... like men with red eyes and giant cocoa wolves... His parents think Emily must not be paying attention when he gets his hand on the remote." Quil grinned lightly, but I still heard the undertone of concern in his voice.

"What are you going to do if they decide to stop letting Emily babysit?"

I was aware that they didn't know he was the one actually doing the babysitting. It was all part of a giant charade so he could spend time with him.

He reached out, grabbing the little boy's hand. "I don't know. I suppose, if I have to, I'll tell his parents the truth, everything. Not even Jacob ordering me not to could stop me, because it's about him. He's the one thing that trumps even an alpha order – the one thing that has complete control over me. But it all would depend on what he wants and needs. If it was better for him to be away from me... to grow up as a normal human boy that has nothing more than fleeting memories of the cocoa wolf-boy... then that's what I'd do. He calls the shots, ultimately. Not his parents, not Emily, not Jake, not even me.

"I don't understand it, don't know how to describe it, but I just know what he wants, what he needs, what's safe for him, what's not... That's why I don't take him from you and run, of course. I know he wants to be in your arms, that he like you. More than that though, I know he's safe with you. Even if you don't believe it... I know it. It's a hundred percent instinctual, but the knowledge is there all the same.

"None of the others have the kind of link I do, or at least they don't recognize it –" he tapped the side of his skull "– up here. I think though, because he can't really tell me his wants and needs yet in words, that the instincts are just more visible to me. It's all I have that tells me I'm doing right by him. The rest of them know because their imprints can tell them. Clay here might tell me he loves me, and he'd mean it in the instant he'd say it, but he's two. His mind is a sieve, everything he knows, believes and even wants changes on a whim." He reached down picking up a handful of sand and letting it slide through his fingers. "Today he likes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, tomorrow he could like Barbie or Tonka Toys. And for now... he both wants and needs me around. He knows I'm important to him in the same way he knows he likes sparkles. But that may change. He may decide he doesn't need me or it may come to a point where it's actually safer for him to be without me in his life. If it does, then I'll let him go."

There was a half moment of silence before Jake – who had walked back this way while he'd been talking – spoke harshly. "You wouldn't have imprinted on him if you weren't meant to be in his life."

"I know," Quil said, but he didn't sound certain of that fact.

Clay scrambled off of my lap and spun to Quil. He patted on his cheek in a similar way to how he had mine. "No go, Quil. No go," he demanded in his loud little voice.

I smiled. "I think he knows, even if you're not as certain."

Quil picked him up, wrapping his hands around him. "Yeah. He always knows what he wants." He stood up.

"What's prompted the doom and gloom from you?" I asked. It wasn't like Quil. Of all the wolfs, he was the biggest ray of sunshine.

He looked at Jake in surprise. "You haven't told him?"

"It isn't important." Jake shrugged.

"What isn't?" I looked between the two of them as Jake tried to stare Quil down.

It didn't work, because Quil looked over at me. "Brady imprinted on a boy in Forks when he went there a couple days ago. The boy is Keirnan Wells, one of Sean's little brothers. Brady's decided to ignore the bond, that it's the best thing he can do – for him. Paul and Jared both have voiced that he must be crazy." Quil shrugged tightly. "But if Sam had done that with Emily, then she never would have been scarred."

"Or she would have been out in those woods camping by herself and something else would have got her."

"Like what? She was on our side of the boarder that was instated at the time."

"The only vampires that has ever applied to are the Cullens. Besides, there are mountain lions and bears that could do that damage. Or she could have fallen off a cliff for that matter. The point is there is no guarantee. For all anyone knows, Sam being with her kept her from a far crueler fate. Besides, I may not know Emily well, but I know she doesn't blame him. It was an accident."

Jake's eyes flashed to mine and I could practically hear what he was thinking.

I got up from where I was sitting. "It's different and you know it. There was no accident in any of what I did." I turned my back to him and walked away.

I heard him curse under his breath before he quickly followed me.

I headed off towards the trees, ignoring his footfalls, because I knew I'd have to answer his questions if he asked, and the reality was that I wasn't ready to answer.

"I'm going to go hunting," I threw over my shoulder as I continued walking away from him.

"Okay, let's go hunting."

…

"Stop, Beau," Jake said.

I pulled up short of striking the deer and it fled into the forest. I turned to glare at him. "That's the third time you've made me stop. Why?"

"I'm not making you do anything, Beau."

I hissed in aggravation. "Are you trying to make me lose my temper and attack you?"

"You could try." The disbelief that I would succeed was clear in his voice. "Then I'll shift and tear your head off. Again. I'll then have a mental freak out till you're fully healed. Again. We end up going back to where you were two months ago... But if that's what you want, go for it."

"I want to hunt and feed before I end up losing it. It's been almost two weeks since I last fed."

"Then hunt, I'm not stopping you."

"But you are." I was really starting to get aggravated at him.

"I'm teaching you control, Beau. That's what you've been after all along, control – a hundred percent of the time – because you want to go back to the Cullens someday, and you think the only way you can do that is if you have complete control."

"What?" I was sure my face was shocked. "I thought we'd already established that there was no possible future with them."

"And I stand by that belief, but it doesn't change what you want. Learning this type of control isn't for me, Beau. We both know it. I don't need it. It's about them, and it's about you."

I looked away. "Why didn't you tell me about Brady?"

"Because I didn't want you to blame yourself. You seem to be under this mistaken impression that what Victoria has done is your fault. But she isn't you and she is wholly responsible for what she does."

"She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me." I paused, taking a breath I didn't need. "What does she have to do with Brady choosing to avoid his imprint though?"

"He's claiming he's avoiding him to protect him because our lives are too dangerous, but we all know it's because he's afraid of losing anyone else."

I understood then. "Because his mom was killed by a vampire that was made by Victoria."

"Yes, but that isn't your fault, Beau. If she wasn't hunting and killing around here then she'd be doing it elsewhere. At least here, we have a chance at stopping her."

"Do we? As she pointed out in Seattle. She's still here. And if her gift is avoiding potentially deadly situations than we apparently don't provide much of a threat." I moved over to the nearest tree and leaned against it, looking into the forest and away from Jake. "How do we kill someone that has an acute gift for evasion. Can it even be done?"

"We keep trying until she makes a mistake, Beau." He leaned against another tree, his eyes on the side of my face. "And before you say it, or even think it, it wouldn't matter if you died. The Cullens would still fight. So would we. No matter what Victoria believes, she's not gonna win this. There are eighteen of us between the Cullens, us, and you. It's only a matter of time until she dies."

I noticed how he put me in an unequivocal third party. "What am I to you really, Jake? Am I a fellow protector? Your boyfriend? The imprint you lost? Or some sort of pet project?"

He laughed and I turned my head to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

"A bit of all of it, I think. But, Beau, you're asking the wrong questions. It's not what you are to me that matters. It's what I am to you. And I can't decide that for you."

"Way to be equitable, Jake." I scowled.

"No, Beau, I'm serious." He looked me up and down. "I can't place you as a Cullen or as one of us, because you don't know who you are." He sighed and walked several feet away, putting his back to me. "Did you know that my tribe used to do spirit quests? They used to do it for lots of things, protection of the tribe, to gain insight, to accept grief... There were dozens of reasons. One of the big ones though, was coming of age. When a person learns who they really are. Usually that was the type of quest that came in two parts. Once, when they reached puberty and then again, a few years later, when they reached adulthood.

"In the modern day world, people do it all the time, though most people don't call it spirit quests anymore and, for the most part, people no longer need to smoke a hookah to figure it out either. Instead we usually call it rights of passage. We still do them though. For girls it's that first time they wake up finding blood on their bed and they cry to themselves because – even though they know what's going on thanks to health class – they don't really understand what's happening to them. It's that first couple of days after the first period starts when they're too embarrassed to tell the parent so they try to hide it with toilet paper. It's that first time they buy a bra, that first time they really ask themselves if that shade of pink looks good on their lips. For the record, it doesn't.

"Boys go through it too. When our voice first drops from a high alto to a tenor or a bass. That first time when we look at a girl or another guy and actually blush. That first time that we're watching tv with our mom and realize that maybe we like watching the Miss America pageant too – even if it is for a completely different reason than why our mom's watching it. It's that first time we wake up with morning issues – you know what I mean.

"We continue to go through those rights of passages as we grow up. We graduate high school, we go to college, we suffer our firs heart break, get married, have kids, etc... The problem is, Beau, and it's not just your problem, it's almost the entire Cullen clan. You never got to undergo that second half of those rights of passages. You suddenly went from being a little fish in a big sea still learning how to swim to being the damn eagle that swoops down and eats those little fish for a snack.

"I can teach you restraint, the gods know I have it, but I can't teach you what you missed out on. You may have always been meant to die young in some form, and I am grateful that it was in this way, but there's a price to be paid for that. You have to figure out how to grow into yourself, I can't teach you that. And until you figure that out... You could be anyone, from a Cullen to a protector to a killer."

"I don't think Native Americans smoked hookahs, Jake," I said the instant he stopped talking.

"Seriously, Beau? I'm spouting a ton of wisdom type crap that would make my dad proud and that's what you take from it?" he asked as he turned to give me an exasperated look.

I shrugged. "I get it, you think I'm a little kid still."

"I definitely don't think that, but I do think you still need to figure out where you belong in this world. And as much as I want you to decide that your place is with me and with the pack... you haven't decided that yet. You still need to find closure from whatever path you decide against." He sighed. "I want you to forget what I said before... about the Cullens opinion of what you did. Beau, I may not be able to forgive what you did, but we both know why I can't. The Cullens on the other hand very well might be able to, they are vampires and would probably understand the instinct that drives that kind of a decision, Carlisle especially. And if they don't..." He shrugged.

"If they don't, it's going to hurt me again. And though I deserve nothing less after what I was responsible for in Europe – I'm not sure I can handle it. Maybe that is the closure that I have to accept, Jake – that there is none."

"I can't answer that one." He turned to look at me. "I need to head back home, dad wants me home for supper tonight. Like I really need to see Paul and Rachel together again." He rolled his eyes. "You. Hunt. Then go home."

I watched him jog away for a minute before I turned to go further south and find more stinking herbivores.

…

It didn't occur to me until I was back at the cabin that he didn't specify where home was.