I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 46

Chapter 46 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.

[AN: people asked about Alex and Kaylee.]

Alex sat in the Clearwater kitchen feeling completely out of her depth. She had met a guy at the store and gone home with him. That was a new one, even for her and she had done some dumb things in her life, but this? It had to take the cake. And for some reason she couldn't even explain to herself, she didn't want to leave.

Seth was the sweetest, nicest guy she had ever met and he had an amazing body; he looked like an underwear model. She did not understand why he was so attracted to her. Not that he had done anything; no attempt to kiss her; no pressure on her to do anything with him, but she noticed that he constantly watched her with a look of utter adoration on his face. She'd seen the same look on the faces of other people. Sue, his mom, looked at her guy Charlie like that, too. From the moment he had met her eyes in the parking lot, he had looked at her like that. Something had happened; she had felt it. She could not explain it, but she knew it was real.

Kaylee adored Seth and she had done so right from the start.

The family had all gone off to some meeting this afternoon and Alex was watching Nate and Kaylee play and taking the time to have a long hard think, as her grandmother would have said.

When they had walked into the house that first night, his family had terrified her. Some of Alex's dumb things had put her in violent relationships. A life of flinching was not an easy thing to lose and Seth and his family were all so big and so physically intimidating. Even Leah, his sister looked like a tri-athlete. She had muscles on her muscles. And Alex had never been very strong or very aggressive. And it wasn't just his immediate family, he seemed to have a much larger group of people who cared for him and because she was with Seth (even if she didn't know how) they cared for her, too. Maybe it was the small town thing? But she didn't really think that was the answer.

New Year's Eve had been very different. She had gone to the bonfire and listened to all the stories and then the guy who seemed to be their leader had said something about fights and enemies. It was very late by then and she was tired enough to convince herself that she must have misheard. But she was now certain that he had said it.

And it was stressing her out.

She felt safe here; safer than she had felt for weeks. She and Kaylee had run away from her last boyfriend. It was the scariest thing she had ever done, but she just knew they had to go before they passed a point and were unable to leave. And now Kaylee was happy and she was… yeah, she was happy, too. Just the thought of running again made her mouth go dry and her heart pound in an erratic way.

The door opened so unexpectedly that it made her jump nervously.

Part of her was not surprised that it was Seth.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, before he even saw her face to work out that she was upset.

"How did you know?"

He waved a hand as if that wasn't important. "Tell me what's wrong?"

She had an urge to touch him. That was something else that had come with meeting him at the store. She couldn't explain that, either. "What is going on, Seth?"

He got a pained look on his face as if he had gas, but didn't answer her.

She stood, folded her arms and walked into the bedroom. She sat on Seth's bed with her knees bent and her feet on the edge of the mattress. Her arms wrapped around her raised legs. She had folded herself into a small ball. It was nuts that she felt safe in this room when it wasn't even her room. It was clearly the space of a boy just out of his teens; still a few band posters on the walls, some photos from school and a few games magazines and comics scattered around.