IT WAS ENCHANTING TO MEET YOU

If it were left to me, Fluffy and I would spend the rest of the dream standing awkwardly waiting for it to end. You know, like how sometimes while waiting for an activity to start, you start a friendly conversation with someone only to find yourself left hanging because the activity was delayed and you realized your small talk ability was only a pathetic 1.5 minutes long. Then you'd look towards where you think the activity should be starting from, hoping for someone to step up and tell everyone to stop talking and gather around.

But of course that never happens.

"He's not coming, you know." Fluffy told me.

Who? For a full moment, I couldn't remember who he was.

"Rebel." Fluffy told me, all the while with his smiling mask on. Smiling, smiling, always smiling. In my mind, Fluffy was always smiling, but only less than a handful of his smiles in my last life were genuine. In this life… I took a moment to regard his face. Fluffy had a very beautiful face. It was the kind of face that total strangers would take out their phones to photograph when he was in public. I knew, because I've heard the guys in our pack tease him about it. His face was so beautiful that even in my previous life, I had known he was beautiful.

The difference was that back then, Fluffy's beautiful face was just a fact. Right now…it made my heart flutter. WTH.

Okay, calm down, Sam. Pretend this whole dream was just a temporary spell. I'LL WAKE UP AND IT'LL BE OVER.

Wow, I was becoming such a liar that I even lie to myself.

"Let's go sit by the lake for a bit." Fluffy told me, "I was told it's a beautiful sight."

I think Fluffy's face was a beautiful sight. (Just kill me.) And who told him that? Was it a young she-wolf? Maybe she told him, "Hi beautiful, let's go see the lake together one night." Would that count as a pick up line? O.o

I was probably not thinking straight. (See above.) Or perhaps it was the spell in the dream, but I ended up meekly following him to the lakeside. We sat down on the grass and watched the water lapping along the bank. So beautiful.

Why had I never seen this when I was here? Why had I never experience this quiet tranquility?

Oh yeah, because Bell and I were always too busy arguing.

Fluffy and I sat, almost shoulder to shoulder, just watching the way the night sky and all its lights danced on the surface of the water.

This happy feeling tinged with inexplicable excitement and wrapped in a warm sense of safety. Was this what Esther meant when she said Hank gave her a sense of security? Was that why most of the mated wolf population didn't block out their mating bond ever?

I wouldn't know. Bell had always barricaded our mating bond from his side, and the only regular feelings that seeped out to me ranged from mild irritation to pure fury. Over time, I had done the same, just to keep my own messy feelings to myself. I mean, I usually blocked all my mindlinks anyway. I say it's noisy, but if I had to be honest, I was also being careful not to leak anything weird out to the whole pack. It just didn't seem alpha-like.

Luckily, I was still a pup. As long as I didn't shift, I wouldn't have to deal with mindlinks or mating bonds.

"Do you see that?" Fluffy's gentle voice pulled me back to the lake, "The moon is the goddess, and the stars are the wolves. They are dancing at the ball of the full moon."

I watched the reflection bobbing on the water, "Who told you that?"

(Was it the same she-wolf who told you the lake was a beautiful sight?)

"Hm?" Fluffy looked lost in thought, and then he answered, "My mother."

"Mum?" I was surprised. Mum had never told me that story before.

"No, my birth mother." Fluffy laughed, and then his expression softened, "She used to tell me stories, although I don't remember much, I remember the stories..."

"YOU REMEMBERED YOUR MOTHER?" I pretty much flared at that. And then I stopped flaring in surprise. My hair! My blue hair was back! That's right, in the shifting dream of my last life, I had also appeared in my shifted form.

"MY HAIR IS BACK! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" I flared some more.

Fluffy laughed and then he smiled, his eyes bending into crescents. His smile - the real one that he didn't use since he was a pup. In Lala's memory, Fluffy used to smile at her like this when they were much younger. When did he stop?

"I DIDN'T NOTICE AT ALL." Fluffy wasn't shouting. He was lying.

"Don't lie!" I yelled accusingly, "You're always lying to me, and keeping secrets, and hiding your feelings. I hate that!"

"If you accept me as your mate, I'll never lie, or keep secrets, or hide my feelings from you for as long as live." Fluffy told me.

"I can't do that." Was the first thing that came out from my mouth. The moment it did, I wanted to kick myself. You know all the times I asked to be shot/killed in this dream? I was wrong. NOW, please just kill me.

Fluffy's smiling mask reappeared, "Ditto, Pretty Alpha."

I supposed I deserved that. I felt my mouth turned down, and took a shaky breath and tried not to think about it. We were going back to our original timeline in a day or two. I can't… I can't… I felt the tears burn behind my eyes. Even though nobody actually showed up to kill or shoot me on command, inside, it felt like I was dying.

And then I woke up.

ARUGGGHHHHHH!!!!! I threw my pillow off the bed. Arugh! Arugh! Arugh!

And then the tears rolled down my cheeks as I curled up into a ball in the middle of my bed. Goddess, why were you so cruel?

The alarm on my phone started going off cheerfully. I think Lala had meant to wake up on a good note, but it didn't even give me more than a few minutes to wallow in my sorrow. DAMMIT! ARUGH! I threw the phone across the room too.

I hate you goddess!

I heard Kenna come out of her room, "Sam?"

She had called from outside my door. The doorknob turned, and I pulled the blanket over my head to hide the tears.

"La? Are you okay?" Kenna asked. She looked to the pillow and the phone on the other side of the room. I don't think someone like Lala would ever throw things around her room. This wasn't ladylike at all.

"I don't want to wake up." I said into my blanket.

Kenna cackled, "Too bad. Who asked you to transfer schools?"

Yeah, who asked me to transfer schools? Silly Lala! What's the point of all your hard work? I was going back to my original timeline anyway, and its not like Bell cared if I could pour tea or not. In my original timeline, I had betas to pour my tea, and… and why were the tears not stopping?

Who asked me to transfer timelines?

Kenna pulled off my covers. I think she was just playing at first, but one look at my tear stained face and she was yelling at the top of her lungs, "Mum? Muuuuum!!!!!"

I quickly swiped off the tears, "Shhhh! Don't call Mum!"

"What?" Kenna was completely baffled. When did the silly girl Lala ever not want to call Mum to come help her?

"It's just a dream." I told Kenna, "I'm okay."

And because I couldn't quite stop the tears, I quickly jumped out of bed, "I'm going to wash up. See you downstairs for breakfast!"

"Okay." Kenna must have decided it was a false alarm, "But I'm going back to sleep."

Oh right. New Leaf Academy was on term break.

"Yeah, okay." And I slammed myself shut in the bathroom before I accidentally leaked more tears or worse, accidentally released one of those pathetic whimpering sounds.

Okay, Sam. Just cry it out in the shower, and then slap on a smile and get out there. I was the Alpha, or at least I would be once we get back to the original timeline.

But I don't think I could protect anyone's happiness anymore. I don't seem to be doing a very good job.

I found myself standing in the shower on full blast as the tears continued to flow. I replayed everything that happened, the brief happiness between us, the warmth in the space between us when we were almost touching, the beautiful sight of his smiling face (yes, the lake was beautiful too), and then the heartbreaking reality that I couldn't be the one keep that smile.

I replayed the things he said, and the things he didn't say. I replayed all the truths and lies and considered what they meant. I wondered what other stories Fluffy remembered. I guess I'd never know.

I hated the goddess for doing this to me. But I hated myself more for what happened in the dream, for what I did, for what I didn't do, couldn't do.

At the same time, I refused to consider what would have happened if I accepted him. I did wish at least a thousand times that I had answered him differently.

I wanted to go to him (his bedroom was just three doors down the landing), like burst into his room and grab onto him and cry for all the times he had been hurt, both in his past life and this one, but he wasn't mine to comfort or protect or hold or be held by.

I still had to go back to our original timeline. Bell was probably waiting for me, furious black fumes and all. I already had a soul mate.

I needed to draw clear boundaries so the two timelines didn't get mixed up. I was doing this to protect the both of us.

At least for the next two days or until we had made a decision on whether to stay or return to the Undo Point, I should carefully observe the invisible boundaries and play all my cards with care. The less I interact with Fluffy, the less I would hurt him...and the less I would hurt when this was over.

Oh yeah. And no matter what, I better not shift. It would be unimaginably disastrous for our two wolves to meet. I knew the mating bond was no joke.

Even now my mind would keep drifting back to sitting by the lake with Fluffy, watching the Ball of the Full Moon as the stars danced on the water and oh, my heart would yearn for... I'm not entirely sure what. I didn't dare to open that can of worms.

I mean, this dream had already been a surprise can of the worst kind. I couldn't even call it a bad dream... I would never be able to admit it, but it was honestly the best dream that I had ever had. I blamed the mating bond. The dream had sown the mating bond. I must not shift and allow it take root.

Because I would not be one of the wolves that would dance like the stars in the Ball of the Full Moon. Not in this life, anyway.

So I mustn't want it. I mustn't want what I cannot ever have.

Face it, Sam. This was a lose-lose situation, no matter what would happen. The best I could do was minimize the hurt all around and keep all my emotions securely under wraps.

So put on your best smile, it's time to get on with your day! You've got breakfast with the family, and then school...

Suddenly, I understood why Fluffy owned a smiling mask. It was really the most convenient way to hide your pain and prevent it from spreading.

And even though I had spent the last 20 minutes in free flow tears, I suddenly wanted to cry all over again.

But I didn't. I was Sam, and I was stronger than that. I couldn't protect Fluffy's happiness, but I had to minimize his hurt... And my hurt too, because it did hurt.

Its just for a couple of days. I could do that much. So smile Sam and don't think about it. After we return to the undo point, none of this would have happened and we might as well regard these couple of days as a strange dream... Like last night's strange dream. I'm sure it would haunt me for the rest of my life no matter which timeline I was in.

Arughhh! Excuse my language, but I'm so f***ed.