kansas.

[Sinclair] To be strictly honest, Sinclair considered mentioning that very word: gross when she suggested this plan of inaction, thought about saying it's okay that we're gross or I don't mind being gross with you or something, but none of it made much sense and she didn't want him thinking she thought his cum was gross, or that he was gross, or that she feels gross after they make love. So she smiles when he says they can sleep in a pile of gross, hugging him close, nuzzling against his cheek and neck again while he snuggles to her.

She likes that. That this total asshole who enjoys beating people, winning -- often by any means necessary -- is so warm. Is so tender. And not because he thinks he should be, not because that's what you do, not because she's his tribemate and so he owes it to her Big Bad Garouness, but because there is simply, with her, a desire in him to be warm. To be tender. And she'd be lying if she said that some part of her wasn't delighted that she's special to him like that. That she brings that out -- probably more than even Alex has ever seen it of himself before.

Sinclair, too, has a bit of a competitive streak. A bit of an ego, somewhere in all that insecurity and fear. It used to be overblown, overdone, to compensate for her ever-growing self-loathing. Now, with that exacerbated confidence gone, all the neuroses come spilling out. But the core of her confidence didn't go anywhere. She's finding it. So is he, truth be told; neither one of them can truthfully say they don't have a few chips on their shoulders they have to work to shrug off.

That's work, though. And they don't have to work at this. They don't have to struggle right now. Or anymore. Still, it's not in them to be complacent, so Alex starts talking about yelp and breakfast buffets and getting up and Sinclair is smiling and nuzzling him and about to agree, okay, they can get up and go eat cereal and fruit or whatever, but Alex

zonks.

She literally has to bite her lip to keep from laughing, holding it in so she doesn't shake overmuch and wake him. She grins though, more pleased than he could probably imagine her having the energy to be right now. Sinclair kisses his temple when she's got her humor under control and closes her own eyes, tucking herself around him. "Okay, baby," she whispers, and doesn't let go.


Of course sometime later she does. Sometime later Alex stirs with a muffled groan when she eases their bodies apart and turns them on their sides. In the dark he or she or they grab a pillow and pull it under their heads. They don't move too far away from each other. As soon as his cock has slid out of her, his eyes are half-open, his hands searching, til they're back together. Sinclair entwines with him, grateful, and falls asleep facing him just like they do at home, the very reason they've never wanted or needed a larger bed.

It says something about the trip they've taken that, alarm or no, Alex wakes at seven. Two and a half hours left for breakfast. More than enough time for a shower, for a run, for another shower. More than enough time to wake Sinclair up at nine and make sure she doesn't fall back asleep in the shower.

She doesn't, but while she's getting clean he runs down to grab her some food, make himself a plate. Other than a few protesting murmurs and insistence that she's tiiiireeeed, one of the first things Sinclair says coherently comes when her hair is still wet, her body wrapped in a towel, a plate of breakfast in front of her. She wraps her hands around a heavy stoneware mug of black coffee and tugs it towards herself across the tabletop, making a low, pleased noise and saying Cooooffeeee. Coffee gooood.

They don't hurry. They're close enough to Wichita now that they'll get there in time for a late lunch. But after being bolstered by a shower and food, Sinclair finally rouses a bit and they throw their stuff back together -- not that there was much to 'pack' other than the clothes they discarded -- and she insists on leaving a tip for housekeeping. No explanation necessary.

When they leave the hotel room, Sinclair is dressed in shorts and a red t-shirt with a screen print of a silhouette: a vicious-looking dog, barking into the air. Her hair is down for once on this trip, her sunglasses are almost as large as a sleepmask, and she's wearing flipflops. Tripoli, who showed up sometime during breakfast and kept banging on the air conditioning unit til Sinclair yelled his name, is in one of his smallest forms, dangling from Alex's backpack strap, looking like a very large keychain if one doesn't look too closely.

It's east to Salina after that, then south towards Wichita. They won't have to go through the city, not with their route. Sinclair seems to get more awake and more excited as they drive, so Tripoli gets more excited in his little playseat in back, so the music gets louder. She starts talking about how she doesn't want to text her folks anymore because she sort of misses that about pre-cellphone days -- I know, it's like Walker blasphemy -- when you took a road trip and called from rest stops and gas stations. She says she doesn't think he'd like living in Kansas much, it's too wide open, even the suburbs and neighborhoods, but she thinks he'll like her parents' house.

After nearly eighty-two miles on I-135, Sinclair starts to all but say eeee. Tripoli covers it. Alex knows all this from GoogleMaps, but she still makes sure he takes Exit 14. Next one! Eeee, she says, and this time Tripoli claps his hands, thrilled that she's using his words.

Very soon after that they leave 61st and turn left onto North Grove, and Sinclair is sitting up in her seat, looking out the window. She hasn't been out here since Christmas. They pass a park on the right, a park which is mostly just a huge pond and a little gazebo at one end, and then take a right onto East Ventnor.

The area is almost utterly treeless, the ground endlessly flat. The houses are, to be blunt, cookie-cutter, but they're charming and almost all of them have tidy fences around the back yards. "Here!" Sinclair says, after passing just one house. She grabs Alex's sleeve and tugs, beaming, pointing at the pale yellow house on the corner of one of many cul-de-sacs. There's an old dark blue Land Rover on one side of the double-wide driveway, a second-floor deck in the back with stairs leading down to the yard, and a couple of small trees in the front yard.

Sinclair bounces in her seat and claps her hands. So does Tripoli.

As soon as Alex pulls to a stop in the driveway or along the curb, Sinclair all but bolts out of the car.

[Alexander] Red is probably Alex's favorite color. That, or orange. Same might be said for Sinclair. So in the morning, totally by chance, both of them are in red. Her shirt has a vicious barking dog-silhouette on it. His is a shade darker than hers, and there's a single line of small-font Cyrillic lettering across the chest:

&+1043;&+1072;&+1088;&+1074;&+1072;&+1088;&+1076;&+1089;&+1082;&+1080;&+1081; &+1091;&+1085;&+1080;&+1074;&+1077;&+1088;&+1089;&+1080;&+1090;&+1077;&+1090;

On the back, much larger: DRS. On the way out to the car, Tripoli hanging off his backpack strap and the little gaffling's portable playpen in one hand, Alex explains it to Sinclair. It's the shirt that got passed out at the Slavic Lit honors retreat his senior year. It stands for Dead Russians Society, he says, and when she quite possibly fails to get the reference, he explains the movie to her as Robin Williams inspires the future Dr. Wilson by standing on a desk.

Later, in the car, they discuss pre-cellphone, pre-GPS days. It turns into a rant; they agree that some of the excitement and anticipation is lost when you can plan your arrival down to the minute, when you can follow a computer all the way from home to destination, when you can text ahead or even just post your GPS coordinates online so everyone knows where you are at all times, when you don't need to think anymore to go anywhere, when you don't have privacy anymore, goddammit!

I'm gonna stand on a desk! he yells over the music, blasting down the I-135. I'm gonna lead the counterinternet revolution!

And from the backseat: EEE!


When they get closer, Alex turns the music down a little. Sinclair's all but vibrating from excitement, but on Alex's part there's some jangling of nerves to go along with the anticipation. Exit 14's coming up, and then 61st, and then North Grove, and --

East Ventnor. Cute little cookie cutter houses with clean yards and tidy fences. Alex is boggled at the few houses that don't have fencing, even around the back yards; he can't conceive of it. Then she's tugging at his sleeve, pointing at the pale yellow house like it's a cake on her birthday, and he laughs and turns in and says okay, okay, I see it!

The engine isn't even off when she bursts out of the car. He expects her to go pounding on the door. He kills the ignition and unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out after her, tucking his sunglasses into his collar as he reaches into the backseat to let Tripoli grab onto his wrist and wheel up to his shoulder, clinging to his ear for balance. He gets up to the door right as they hear footsteps coming, and Sinclair can hear him blow out a quick here-we-go breath before the door starts opening.

[Sinclair] Sinclair does ask about his shirt, given that she doesn't read Russian any more than she speaks it, and when he begins to explain the reference implied by Dead Russians Society, she laughs at him and leans over while still on the staircase, kissing his cheek. "Who's Dr. Wilson?" she asks, though, and when he says it's from House, she just shakes her head, saying dryly: "A medical procedural with a cranky genius! What will they think of next."

In the car it's really Alex who goes off on the rant. Sinclair, rage-borne thing as she is, isn't really prone to them when she's in a good mood or if she's not lecturing someone she's about to bitchslap, and she's in a good mood today, and not prone to lecturing or bitchslapping Alex regardless. So she laughs at his rant, his thump of his hand on the steering wheel, his bellowing that he's gonna go stand on a desk! He's gonna! He's gonna do STUFF.

And Tripoli is very happy because Alex is being noisy, though secretly very resentful that someone doesn't get yelled at when he makes noise, oh no, maybe not-wolf-loud-noisy-male-making-wolfgirl-happy is allowed to bang on metalboxes.


From getting dressed to now, Sinclair's been moderately aware of some of Alex's nerves. He didn't agonize and beg for help on what to wear, but she did notice -- silently, to herself -- that he picked a Smart Guy See I Went to Harvard shirt, and she wonders if he meant to do that or if he just chose the color he's most comfortable with, feels strongest in. When they get to her old neighborhood -- she's lived here since early childhood, since her parents had a kid and realized they needed a bigger place and wanted to move out of 'the city', even a city like Wichita -- he can see that just by riding her bike down the culdesac and across a yard or two she could be at that pond, hang out with a friend at that gazebo. That those trees weren't there when she came here as a toddler, excited about her New House and her New Room and her Big Girl Bed and her Little Mermaid undies.

Tripoli gives a startled ee! when Sinclair jumps out of the car and bounds towards the door, but soon he has a familiar hand to grab onto and puts cold, articulated fingers on Alex's cartilage to hold on as they get out of the car.

But Sinclair doesn't pound on the door to be let in. She opens the glass screen and then the main door, which is white, only giving it a few knocks as she takes a step inside. Unlocked doors, he might think. Well, it's about two o'clock, middle of the day, bright and sunny and there are people in yards with wading pools and kids in bathing suits splashing around and chasing each other with squirt guns. Alex comes up behind her when Sinclair is hollering inside: "We're here!"

The air conditioning inside is nice, even after just a few steps from car to door out in the earth-baking heat. To the right of the entryway is a carpeted stairway going up to the second story, and directly in front of them is a hall leading towards some bedrooms. Sinclair holds the screen til Alex gets it and takes a couple more steps in, setting her backpack down inside, stepping out of her flipflops.

"Hey, baby girl!" says a bright, friendly voice, and upstairs over a low wall there's a woman Alex has only seen a few pictures of, but they were recent. She's a handsome woman, was probably quite beautiful when younger, with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, which go over to Alex, sparkling a bit. "And you're Alex?" she says, but it's not really a question. She starts to head for the stairway but Sinclair is bounding up, glomping onto her mother at the top of the stairs.

"Eee," Tripoli whirrs in Alex's ear, as though sharing his nerves a bit.

[Alexander] Needless to say, Alex doesn't go bounding up the stairs to glomp Sinclair's mom. No. Wait. Mrs. Sinclair, he reminds himself silently, though he'll doubtlessly forget this again in a second: And she's Heather.

He's in red, which is a bold, strong color, and his favorite for all those reasons. The color that he, in fact, does feel strongest in; just as this is a shirt that he feels smart in, a shirt that reminds him of some enjoyable past intellectual pursuit -- mentally strong as well as physically. His choice was likely instinctive. He certainly didn't do it to impress her parents, or he would have walked in here with a giant collegiate H on his chest and all his MMA belts over his shoulders.

Even so, when he's addressed Alex stands a little straighter, shifting his backpack on his shoulders. Sinclair can see the tendons in his forearms flex as he unconsciously grip the straps, but when he smiles it comes easily enough.

"Yes ma'am," he says, more play than cower in the honorific. "And this little guy on my shoulder is Tripoli, S-- Heather's pet."

[Sinclair] Tripoli, for his part, waves meekly up the stairs. He's met them before, but Mrs. Sinclair still looks a bit bemused by the ...robot, and by Alex's introduction and doesn't look like she quite knows what to do: wave back to the thing she's not sure whether to disbelieve or make a book out of, or ignore it. In the end she just shakes her head at Alex, smiling. "Please. Samantha," she tells him, as her daughter steps away. She beckons with a full-arm motion to Alex. "Well, come on upstairs, you're acting like a nervous prom date down there."

Sinclair hasn't stopped grinning. Her head comes up like a shot when she hears some distant patio door slide open, hears her dad come inside, beaming, but she doesn't run off to the kitchen, waiting instead in the living room for Alex to come up and join them. When he does, there's a tall, rather imposing man stepping in from the kitchen, his hair already gray but still thick, his eyes as blue as his daughter's and his wife's. His wedding band is just a simple gold ring, counter to his wife's set, which has likely been upgraded in thirty-odd years of marriage.

The Sinclairs are dressed simply, but hardly in the shorts-and-tee combo that their child chose. Her father wears a pair of chinos with a woven belt and a subdued blue polo shirt. Her mother is clearly the one with some modicum of style, walking around in jeans bought primarily for their successfully subtle not-mom-jeans advertising and a dark green sleeveless top. They did not have Sinclair when they were young, fresh out of college, freshly married. They are as old as Alex's parents; maybe a few years on top of that.

Sinclair crosses to her dad as soon as he's there, hugging him around the waist and putting her head on his chest like her hugging style has not changed in twenty years. Her dad looks a bit awkward about it, his brow set with a perpetual furrow that's somewhere between deep thought and bewilderment, and gives her a squeeze -- the awkwardness seems to come from the fact that there's someone here who is a stranger to him, and one can just as easily see how he reminds himself that this guy isn't a stranger to Heather, so.

"Hi, darlin'," he tells her, and Sinclair beams.

"This is Alex," she answers, reaching out to hold his hand and still glowing with pleasure. "Alex, this is my dad, Ken."

Ken gives him a nod, stepping forward and offering his hand. "Alex, good to finally meet you,"

and if there's reproach in him, in that word 'finally', in his eyes, then it's quite likely just Alex's imagination.

[Alexander] If there's an echo of potential Fenrir past breeding in Sinclair, it's twicefold in her parents. Both of them are tall, blue-eyed, with strong nordic bones and echoes of an athletic youth. Alex looks at them, sees the resemblance, sees the open warmth in the way they embrace their daughter, and is glad of it.

Then he gets called a nervous prom date, and laughs a little. Shrugging out of his backpack, he drops it on the floor and steps out of his shoes, coming up the stairs as Sinclair's dad is showing up. That flare of humor tucks itself away again; Sinclair can see uncertainty in him. He doesn't really know how to interact without his typical mockery and bravado, neither of which is appropriate in this situation. He's never, plainly put, had to treat strangers with real respect. The friendships he forms -- and there aren't that many of them, to be truthful -- are all with people who, for whatever reason, could withstand his abrasive manner long enough to get past it.

He's being introduced to her father, then. His spine straightens another notch. The offered hand is taken and shaken. This time it's a little more serious: "Sir." Releasing Ken's hand, he scoops Tripoli off his shoulder and hands him to Sinclair a little distractedly. "It's nice to meet you guys. Oh -- hey, thanks for letting us stay here."

[Sinclair] All the way up the stairs, Tripoli clings to Alex's ear. His wheel slips a bit, but he grabs onto the shoulder seam of that Harvard shirt and flops over Alex a bit. In utter humiliation, he eees dejectedly, as though sharing a murmured I can't believe I just did that. In front of her parents with Alex. He's handed over to Sinclair, who bends a bit and puts him in a cargo pocket of her shorts. They aren't the most fashionable thing she owns, though Sinclair doesn't pay too much mind to fashion -- the reason she wears these is partly so that she can, when necessary, tuck Tripoli away and carry him around. Tripoli peers out from that pocket, safe and sound with his BesFren(tm) again.

He waggles little fingers at Kenneth Sinclair, but Ken doesn't notice him, his eyes on Alex. He is not the first boy Sinclair's ever brought home, but the last time this happened was so long ago he only barely recalls that poor kid's name. Those weren't serious, because Heather was just a kid, too. Truth be told, she's still something of a kid, at least to her parents. But she's out of the house. They understand dimly that she has responsibilities, that she has a mission, that it's not college or a job but what she does is important. They try to remind themselves that she's Sort Of An Adult Now, and try to react accordingly.

This, though it might not assuage Alex's nerves to know it, matters most to them: there's a great deal more happiness in Sinclair today than in the last time her parents saw her, back in winter. There's also two new tattoos on her body, lengths of rich black script up her forearms. While Alex is shaking Ken's hand, her mother reaches over and takes Sinclair's wrist in her hand without hesitation, permission, or second thought -- the sort of gesture that would get most people's arm broken if they just grabbed the Galliard's arm and started turning it over to look at her ink. Sinclair just quietly turns it so her mother can read it, then shows her the matching one on her other arm.

Past Ken, Alex can see Samantha look at the tattoos, and look at Sinclair, and raise her eyebrows, and ask, without reproach: "What's that about?"

Sinclair just smiles. It's a soft thing. The way she smiles at Alex is an offshoot of that expression. There's a shadow sadness behind it, but he knows why. "I'll tell you about it later if you want," she answers, but meanwhile

Alex is shaking Ken's hand, calling him sir, thanking them for putting he and Sinclair up. Ken's grip is a hard thing, used to working with tools, but it's also brief, the sort of handshake given by someone who doesn't linger much on sentimentals -- or empty gestures. He, unlike his wife, doesn't correct Alex to call him Ken instead. He just accepts the 'sir', grasping with some sort of unconscious masculine intuition the necessity of it between them for now, but he does shake off the thanks. It's Samantha that answers though.

"Oh, we wouldn't have you stayin' over in the Comfort Inn or something after driving all this way," she says, shaking her head at the thought. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to stay in the guest room or in Heather's room -- they're both made up, but she's only got the little bed."

They all have a bit of that midwestern twang to their words. And Ken more than certainly tenses a little at his wife's carefully manufactured ease at talking about this tanned young man strolling in and occupying a bed with their daughter under their roof, but they talked about that. He doesn't stamp his foot and snarl that Alex will be sleeping with his baby girl over his dead body, but he grunts a little and changes the subject: "We're not grillin' for another couple hours, but you care for a beer, Alex?"

[Alex] Alex will never win any Most Astute awards, but it'd take an idiot not to notice -- or intuit -- that neither of Sinclair's parents are one hundred percent okay with Alex sharing her bed. Under their roof. In her old room. In her little bed. If they were okay with it, the guest room wouldn't be an option. And truth be told, some part of Alex is a little relieved the guest room's an option. It's not that he doesn't want to stay with Sinclair; it's that it'd be just a little awkward.

Okay. Maybe a lot awkward. Right now, anyway. He thinks maybe if they stay a few days, maybe if he doesn't jam his foot down his throat on the first day, maybe, maybe it'll be okay a little later on. But for now --

"I'll take the guest room," he says without much hesitation, "and thanks, that'd be good." There's a quick glance at Sinclair -- then he follows her father toward the beers.

[Sinclair] There's a hitch when Alex says so soon that he'll take the guest room, and it comes from all three Sinclairs. The one he was inside last night blinks, taken aback. The one whose appearance is the best indicator of what his girlfriend will look like in her fifties (if she's lucky enough to live that long) stalls for a moment. The one who is destined to be quite good friends with Tripoli if they ever get in a garage together is evidently trying not to smile in a satisfied fashion.

"Oh," Samantha says a bit awkwardly, speaking first while Heather just stares at Alex, "I meant... because the guest room has a queen bed."

And the matter is just as quickly swept under the rug, because Ken isn't going to give anyone a second chance to stick Alex in a bed with his daughter. He claps Alex on the back, heading towards the kitchen, and the fridge, and the deck that overlooks the back yard. "So Heather says you're from Florida orginally," he says, pressing a cold can into Alex's hand as they head out.

Behind them, a low: "Mom...!"

[Alex] "Oh, well, in that case -- "

he doesn't really get farther than that; he's getting hustled toward the kitchen, Kenneth's hand landing with a meaty slap against his back. Well; at least one of the three Sinclairs was pleased with the proceedings. There's a cold can in his hand, then, and he flicks the top open almost out of instinct. Odd, because when he's at home he rarely drinks. Beer gut was not conducive to the whole ripped washboard abs look.

It's hot outside. Having lived in San Diego for nearly a year now, Alex subconsciously expects the deck to overlook something. An ocean, a canyon, distant mountains. He instinctively looks for the view -- finds nothing but flatness as far as the eye can see, a slight haze on the horizon. He takes a swig of beer, and truth be told the brand doesn't really matter because he can't really tell the difference. This is ramen-man we're talking about.

"Yeah," he says. "Miami. My folks still live there. My twin brother too. We're gonna go see 'em next, I think."

[Sinclair] Alex doesn't get the chance to take back his answer, change his mind, or say that then Sincl-- Heather should stay with him, or he with her. He wisely doesn't bring up the fact that 'at home' 'they' have a smaller bed because 'they' like to 'sleep really close'. Or anything of that nature. Out on the deck, past the curtain and the sliding door, they can't hear Sinclair fussing over the fact that her dad thinks she's twelve or her mother soothing her or Tripoli clapping because Alex apparently successfully navigated some very confusing situation that made all the two-legged soft-things act tense.

It is, indeed, hot outside. Hot and baking. They haven't gotten much rain lately, and Ken mentions so, shaking his head at his dying grass. Only June, he says, half to himself, and sighs as he cracks open his own beer and takes a drink. There's a bit of a garden down there in the yard, and -- of all things -- a playhouse that is either high quality or home-built, made of wood. Wanting for a fresh coat of paint. The door is cut in half, the sort that can swing open up top. Tiny flowerboxes on the windows. There's an apricot tree. It's not a very lush back yard, but there's a compost bin out of the way that looks new, and an odd pressed-down spot where a wading pool might sometimes stand.

"Twin brother?" he says, followed by a huh. Takes another drink, one hand in his pocket. There's a little table with an umbrella and some chairs, but he doesn't head for it yet. "So are they, uh... is your family like ours, or..." a hand waggle. "What's the story there?"

[Alex] Alex is immediately curious about the playhouse. If he weren't so uncertain of where he stood with Ken -- or so uncertain, period, of where he's standing -- he might flip over the side of the deck, land in the yard and go explore. His attention pulls back when Ken asks about his family, though. He thinks he hears the question between the lines.

"My parents are kin, like me," he says. Straightforward, that. "My brother's Garou, like Sinclair. But a Philodox. He's born under a half-moon. It makes him sort of a justice, sort of a peacetime leader.

"He's a good guy," he adds. "He's not a lot like me. He likes computers, he likes fiddling with things and puzzling over things. He likes teaching and guiding. He helps run a lot of the rites of passages in Miami -- the uh, I dunno, the ritual coming-of-age quests the cubs go on to become full-fledged Garou."

Maybe that's a little too much about the brother, not enough about himself. He rubs the back of his neck for a moment, then takes another swig of beer, squints at Ken in the bright sun.

"Listen, I get the sense -- actually, I hope -- you're a pretty direct sort. So if you want to ask me anything or say anything to me, I'm cool with it."

[Sinclair] Sinclair has mentioned, though perhaps only once or twice, her extended family -- Will, the cousin whose mangling brought her to San Diego, and his family, his sister's baby. It's not hard to imagine kids playing in this yard. Running in and out of the playhouse. Splashing in a ten-dollar wading pool from Home Depot or Wal-Mart. Or Sinclair herself, small and devoid of ink or metal in her skin, hair bleached even brighter blonde by the sunshine, face freckled, running through the slow wave of a sprinkler.

It's such a different image of her than he ever had. When they were 'friends' but not really. When they were friends who moments after bringing it up ended up in bed together. When she was this wild, volatile thing who was hurt by him and falling for him all at once. When she was his girl, grinning where she sat on his lap, happier than she thought she was ever going to be.

That last one, though -- that fits this place. That fits this idea of an only child growing up with a Normal Childhood, with cousins, with friends from school, with several years of carefree happiness before the rage began to set in. Before she and everyone around her became confused, wondering what had happend to that sweet, joyful thing she used to be.

Alex uses terms like Kin, Garou, Philodox easily. Ken, for what it's worth, doesn't seem instantly bewildered. He's been kin for a few years now, and he's a smart man. He just takes it in, and doesn't mention what's new information and what's something he already gets. Alex tells him about his brother. Not like me, he says, and after what follows, Ken wonders if Alex is saying he doesn't like fiddling with things or puzzling over them, if he doesn't like to teach or guide. Or if Alex simply doesn't think of himself that way.

Ken just listens. Turns to look at Alex when he feels the younger man's eyes on him. He isn't coy, doesn't ask Alex if there's something he's expecting to hear, doesn't laugh it off or dismiss it. He looks at him, listens, then takes a drink of beer and nods his head at the umbrella'd table. Heads that way himself and settles into a chair, putting his beer on the glass tabletop, leaning back and looking out at his neighborhood. They say this place is so flat that you can stand on a rock and see forever. It's just about true; without much effort they can make out what's going on in distant yards. The lack of trees doesn't help.

After Alex has settled himself, if he in fact does so, Ken gives a stifled clearing of his throat. "I don't mean any offense by this, Alex, but you seem kinda anxious about bein' here. What's got ya so wound up?"

[Alex] As they descend the steps into the yard, Alex strays a little closer to the playset than Ken does, putting his hand on its sturdy beams to test its texture, its heft. Then he follows Sinclair's dad over to the table, and no matter his best attempt at being the respectful, mindful guest he's not too polite to reach up and adjust the umbrella a bit so it shades them both better.

Then he sits. His eyes follow Ken's for a moment; seeing nothing out there to see, they come back. It's a fair question, and one that Alex, in all fairness, asked for. Even so, when it comes, it gives Alex a bit of pause.

"Well," he says then, "I guess I'm expecting you guys to dislike me. Not because you're mean people or overprotective or whatever. It's just -- well. I'm dating your daughter. More than that, actually. We're kinda ... we're together for the long run. We came here, or I did at least, to tell you that. If we were human, this would be where I'd ask you for your daughter's hand and promise to do right by her.

"But you know last year we broke up and it was rough. You know I probably made her sadder than anyone else ever did, and now it looks like I'm back for round two. I've given you no real cause to trust me or believe I won't f-- screw up again down the road, but here I am anyway. So... tell you the truth, if I were you I'd run me out of my sight."

[Sinclair] Inside the house they can dimly hear Sinclair and her mother talking, up and down the stairs, Tripoli adding his commentary here and there. There's a slight breeze, fluttering the edges of the umbrella Alex adjusts, flicking the leaves on the apricot tree. It's otherwise still, though. Calm.

Ken's a pretty quiet guy, all told. He listens, sipping his beer, and he gives a faint huff when Alex says he doesn't think they're overprotective or whatever. But he gets a bit quieter when Alex mentions the long run, and very quiet indeed when Alex says your daughter's hand. After that his sips of beer are slower.

last year we broke up and it was rough, says Alex, and Ken looks out over the yard again, thoughtfully rubbing his tongue against the inside of a molar, making his jaw jut to one side a little. He's not imagining it a moment later when he senses a small depth charge of anger at the reminder of how sad Sinclair was. Sadder, Alex acknowledges, than anyone else ever did. "I don't know 'bout that," he gruffs intermittently at that, but doesn't stop Alex in his tracks to explain that statement.

If Alex were him, he'd run himself out. "Don't think it hasn't crossed m'mind," Ken says, but the half-joke falls flat, because, well. It's not very funny.

The older man -- he's got to be nearly sixty, though he's in decent enough shape for his age -- frowns at the flat line of the horizon and taps his finger against the side of his beer can. After awhile he does look back at Alex, and takes a breath. "Look: I'm not gonna ask ya 'bout why ya broke up or got back t'gether or any a'that. Ain't my business and I don't plan on makin' it my business. I hope you two worked out whatever it was y'needed t'work out, and we'll leave it at that."

He stops there, which is abrupt, and shifts slightly in his seat, leaning on the armrest a bit. "Awhile back -- this was 'fore Heather got her head outta her ass and came home -- there was this mess on that net thing we all got. Sam, uh..." he grunts, frowning. "Some virus got on her computer, but it made stuff pop up an' weird noises come out and it... did stuff to her, too." He does not go into what 'stuff' it did to her. "So I called one'a those numbers we had from the tribe an' they sent this kid out. Wily little scrap of a thing, I tell you what. He comes in, an' he's cussin' and wirey and a right pain in my ass, but soon as he sat down at that computer it was like he was a different kid. Had this... trinket of a thing around his neck and I tell you right now I was standin' right there the whole time and I still don't know what I saw. But come the end of it, he was sweatin' blood -- I'm not bein' metaphorical here, he was sweatin' drops of blood -- and that thing he had was glowin' and the computer was cleaned right out. So was Sam. I don't know what in the blue hell happened, but I know if he hadn't done it, my wife'd be a vegetable now. Or worse."

Ken pauses. Sips his beer and meets Alex's eyes. "Might be best," he says a bit lower, "if you don't bring this story up to Heather. She'd just get fussy over it and kick herself through a goalpost, and it's all long past, so there's no point in gettin' her all riled over it."

Clears his throat. "But anyway. So that Christmas rolled around, not six months later, and we went tryin' to find this kid so we could have him come back over and maybe have a meal, or give him a card or somethin' --" he huffs, as though fully aware of the futility of a card to thank this young Garou, this technoshaman, for saving Samantha's life, "-- and wouldn't you just know it, they come back and tell us he's passed. Like nothin'. Somethin' came 'long that was just enough bigger than him, and"

Ken snaps his fingers. "Like that." His hand drops to the arm of his chair again. He shrugs and shakes his head. There's anger there. Anger at the world. Anger that covers over something much harder for him to touch on. Hence the story. Hence this roundabout way of saying what he's trying to say, avoiding the reality of it. Avoiding saying flat-out

and that was when it finally hit me that I was going to outlive my only child. That was when we both realized what we're a part of.

If Alex thinks about it, that must have been summer of '09. Sinclair had just come to Chicago. He'd just met her. He didn't know her at all. That fight with Marrick at the autumn bonfire happened sometime between her mother nearly getting eaten by a Wyrm-virus and their 'wily' savior getting kakked. And Sinclair was so much younger than she is now, in a lot of ways. A Cliath, and a fresh one. Now she's a Fostern, and on the higher end of her rank.

"What I'm sayin' is," Ken goes on, a bit tensely, "we both know she can't promise she's gonna come visit next month or in six months. S'like findin' out she's got cancer, when she found out what she was, only nobody can tell us how long she's got, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And this girl," he says, shaking his head with the exasperation only a parent can find in the depths of intense love, "when she's upset she just... goes off and hides somewhere like a dog lickin' a wound. Did it for years after she went off and changed. Did again a bit last year when you two split. Didn't even tell us what was wrong til her mother asked, wouldn't talk about it."

He shakes his head, and there are elements of Sinclair in his expresion, in his frustration with his own tension, his struggle to control emotions that seem a bit too wild, a bit too deep, like they'll get away from him and he's not sure where he'll end up. Takes a last drink and sets the can aside. Looks over at Alex again. "I don't dislike ya, Alex. I just met ya. An' I'm not gonna sit here or go in there and start tellin' you two I don't approve and you best just move on, cuz just... look at 'er. She's all lit up, just like last summer when she told us about you the first time." He shakes his head, as though to doubly negate the idea he'd suggest that maybe that's not good for her, maybe something that makes her that happy should go away.

"But I'd be lyin' if I said I ain't a bit nervous," he finishes. "An' I don't know what to say to ya except maybe... are you dead sure you wanna be with my daughter this time?"

[Alex] Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind, Ken says, a half-joke, but Alex doesn't hear a joke there at all. It's not a smile but a shadow of a wince that crosses his tanned face. Tanned skin and white teeth. Miami, San Diego, sunlit reaches.

Ken abruptly changes tack. Now there's a story coming at him, and Sinclair's dad is quiet enough that Alex doesn't immediately write it of as bullshit, doesn't immediately tune out and think of something more interesting until it's over. He listens, actually. He figures Ken must have a point, and by the time he gets to did stuff to her, his attention is firmly grounded, his brow furrowing.

He knows where the story's going by the time Ken gets to not six months later. It gets painful there, not least of all because this kid Ken's talking about is exactly the sort of techno-shaman his brother runs with; not least of all because when Ken snaps his fingers,

like that,

he flashes to a face so like his own, slimmer build, younger eyes. The quiet brother. The man of thought to his man of action; the priest to his conqueror.

His eyes come back to Ken's after a while. He wants to interrupt, to say I know what you're saying just to keep Ken from saying it, but he doesn't. So Kenneth goes on, and Alexander listens, and has a sip of beer, and leans forward to set the can on the tabletop. And eventually there's a question, which is perhaps -- as far as Ken is concerned, anyway -- the only question of import in all this.

Alex's eyes are fast on Ken's. They're dark in this brilliant light, and quite unwavering. "Yes," he says, "I am."


And that sounds so absolute, so deliberate, that he's almost a little embarrassed afterward. He clears his throat, moves a little in his seat -- restless, endlessly energetic. He has a gulp of beer, bigger than the last, not so much tasting it as feeling the coldness against the dry heat of the day. When he sets the can down again he continues,

"I wasn't always. I used to dread the thought of getting ... 'mated' to a Garou. Claimed like chattel. And after it got more than obvious that Sinclair -- Heather -- would never do that, I hated the idea of ... well, what you just talked about." He snaps his fingers too. It's a crisp, brutal shorthand for what neither of them really want to say:

we're going to outlive the girl we love.

"That." He says, and shrugs. "Plus there was all this other crap. Issues and baggage and ... I know you didn't ask why we broke up, and I'm not gonna get into details, but bottom line is you're right to be nervous. 'Cause I wasn't always sure of myself, and maybe Sinclair wasn't always sure of me, either. And vice versa.

"But I am now."

[Sinclair] I am, is the answer, but they both know that isn't the end of it. There aren't any words that are going to take away Ken and Samantha's uneasiness that something might hurt that deceptively tough girl of theirs again, that her inexplicably tender heart is going to get broken again and she's going to retreat so deeply they might not see her for another few years, and Christ only knows what might happen in that amount of time. It's a paralyzing prospect, letting someone in who might go away again, whose loss might cause so much pain.

But the truth of the matter is that Ken and Samantha are much older, and much wiser, than their renowned little girl. All the knowledge that applies to her rank doesn't mean a whit against what they know about life from the thirty-odd years they have on their child.

The truth of the matter is that Ken and Samantha know that's the way it is no matter what, no matter who: you don't let someone in, anyone in, without the chance that the loss of them isn't going to hurt like a bitch. And no one on earth can swear they'll keep the promise that they won't go away, they won't mess up, something won't happen. You do what you can

when you can.


The other truth of the matter is that Ken wasn't expecting to have any kind of talk like this right off the bat, not ten minutes since Alex and Sinclair walked in the door. Maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow. He's a little uncomfortable about it, but as he digests the conversation so far, he's grateful to have it out of the way. He's grateful that Alex was so flat-out, so direct. And, frankly, so honest about what's gone on. No simpering. No flattery. No empty promises.

He makes a little noise of amusement when Alex messes up and calls Sinclair...well. Sinclair. What he calls her. The amusement is gone at the fingersnap. Brutal shorthand, indeed.

Ken glances over. "You think she is?"

[Alex] "Yeah, or I wouldn't be here any more than I would if I weren't sure," Alex replies. But right on the tail of it, "But I think you should her that, all the same."

[Sinclair] Ken just chuckles at that. He'd sip his beer, but his can is empty. "I know my daughter," he says. "That wasn't my point. I was asking what you think."

It's a bit quieter inside now, which is a hint that Sinclair and Samantha have long since figured out that Alex and Ken are having A Talk and shouldn't be interrupted just yet, or that they're in some other room anyway and could not care less what the menfolk are chatting about. Without much pause between his words and this, Ken levers himself up out of his chair, claps Alex's knee brusquely, and picks up his can to take it inside.

"Let's go back in. It's too damn hot out here."

[Alex] "Hah," Alex barks, a white flash of teeth heralding the first and -- so far -- only flash of his usual brashness, his usual bluster, "this would be nothing in Miami." He gets up all the same, picking up his beer can, which he's managed to nearly empty in the time he's been out here. "Pretty hellishly bad for San Diego though," he admits, and follows Ken toward the door.

"Was that Sinclair's?" he adds, hiking a thumb toward the playset in the yard. Apparently he's given up calling her Heather.

[Sinclair] "Well we ain't in Miami!" Ken tosses back. He reaches for the sliding glass door to tug it open, then glances back when Alex asks about the playhouse. He doesn't seem confused by the nickname, or put off -- that started long before Sinclair went off to college, really, though she'll always be Heather here. "Who else's would it be?" he asks, barking a laugh. Chuckles, as he heads back into the A/C. "Built that for her ...fifth birthday, I think?"

Just a little bit of pride there.

No sign of his and Sinclair's backpacks; must have been taken to various rooms. No sign of Sinclair or her mother, either, til Alex shuts the patio door and the girl they love hollers through the house: "Alex! Come down and see my room!"

And there she is, traipsing up the stairs. Tripoli is taken out of her pocket at the top of the stairs and set down. He zooms over the carpet with minimal difficulty and zips into the kitchen to go look at himself in the glass window in the front of the oven. Kenneth just looks at him bemusedly, passing by as Samantha comes up the stairs. "No funny business," he says, kissing Sinclair on her head again, which makes her pull a face.

"I put your things in the guest room," says her mother, smiling. "So don't forget to show him where it is, sweetie," she tells Sinclair, who just hees and grabs Alex's hand to tug him downstairs.

[Alex] The Alex that comes back in from the overheated yard is quite different from the one that stepped out for a beer with Sinclair's dad. He's not a subtle creature by any stretch of imagination, and there's absolutely no disguising that he's -- well. It's not even really relief, though perhaps that is there on some level. Mostly, he's just happy now, as if whatever tension that had been keeping that down has been lifted.

Sinclair calls to him. He grins stupidly, bounds down the stairs two or three steps at a time: the sort of athletic alacrity that might make the parental units worry -- particularly when he fairly glomps Sinclair, who's still pulling a face in the wake of her father's smooch. He picks her up, more or less tossed over his shoulder, and run-jumps down the last few steps to land with a bonejarring thump at the bottom of the stairs. No funny business, Ken (half-)jokes, and Alex turns -- narrowly missing smacking Sinclair's head on the wall -- and holds up a hand solemnly.

"Scout's honor," he says, then sets Sinclair down, grabs her hand instead, and goes to see her room.

[Sinclair] It could be that Samantha's mention of not forgetting to show Alex the guest room is a hint. Probably not, though.

Alex is far more relaxed than he was before, glad to have that conversation out of the way if not ending with tearful hugs of fraternity and instant trust. Sinclair, it seems, is just happy to be home. She's got a quieter smile going on, after whatever conversation she had with her mother, and though she welcomes the bounding kinsman into her arms happily when he comes downstairs, tossing her arms around his neck and giving him a smooch on his forehead, she does not go easily over his shoulder. Laughs when he picks her up, squeezes him, but waggles her legs and jumps down before he hauls her up like that.

Feet on the ground, she still keeps an arm around Alex's waist even so, and eyerolls at her dad's 'warning', her boyfriend's response. "You were never a scout," she says, as they turn and head down the hall. "Were you?"

[Alex] "Nope," Alex replies cheerfully, and even though his energy says he wants to bound ahead, go ahead of Sinclair and pull her eagerly after him, he ... well, he doesn't know which way to go. So he sticks by her, and her arm is around his waist, and his is around her shoulders. "I wasn't. It seemed kinda prissy to me, those stupid khaki uniforms and all. Me and my friends had our own clique going for a summer, though. We wore black and red. And like, practiced swordfighting.

"Well." After a pause. "Stick-fighting. So where's this room of yours?"

[Sinclair] Downstairs, behind the stairway, a short hallway beckons to a sunny family room, where another set of sliding doors open out to the brick porch beneath the deck. Through the glass Alex can see a hammock hung between a couple of posts, a worn little pillow waiting for the next person who feels inclined to take a nap in that shady spot.

"First half of the grand tour," Sinclair announces. "The entryway you've seen, and living room and kitchen and deck. This! Is the den," she says, having walked all the way down the hall with him. The furniture here is leather, aging but cozy. This is where the television is, a flatscreen hanging on the wall that is neither the newest and best nor the largest but still pretty damn nice. Her parents apparently have a Wii, and there's a board for the WiiFit underneath the sideboard-like cabinet where the various games and movies and DVD player and so forth are housed. There's a recliner. There's also a miniature kitchen in the corner of the large room, outfitted with a minifridge and a microwave with a sink and some cabinetry.

Sinclair takes him through and shows him the half-bath, as well, commenting on little things as she goes rather than describing what he can see: "My mom made this," she says, fingering a knitted afghan tossed over the back of the couch. "I painted that when I was four," she tells him, of the neatly matted and framed work of abstract art hung in the half-bathroom. "My blue period," she adds archly, holding his hand now as she weaves him back out through the den. "Dad got that for me for my thirteenth birthday and hung it up, but he's used it more than I ever did," she says, pointing through the glass at the hammock.

"That's my parents' room there," she says, as they pass a closed door, which she does not push open to show him the interior of the master suite. "This is my bathroom," she tells him, flattening her hand on the door of what is more than likely just called 'the' bathroom now that she doesn't live here anymore. It's very nice, with walls in a light, dusky blue, white cabinetry, blue-grey granite countertops, circular mirrors. It's no longer primarily used by a teenage girl -- it's no longer primarily used by anyone but guests, so at the moment it's pristine, the towels fluffy and white and neatly hung up on bars.

"And thaaat's the guest room," he's told as they cross the hallway again. This door is still open, from when Sinclair and her mother brought Alex's things down. It's as nice as a bed and breakfast, a hotel, and just as carefully neutral. The bed is a rich, dark wood, the mattress thick, the sheets a subtle white-on-white oxford stripe. A tan throw is folded at the foot of the bed, and plush shams in a deep chestnut red cover the large square pillows behind the crisp, regular white ones. The lamps on the nightstands have sienna-colored shades. There are pictures on the pale umber walls in distressed wood frames, images of cardinals and robins. At the foot of the bed there's an old wooden chest, and atop the chest is his backpack, and a few other things apparently grabbed from the car.

She smiles at him, then gives a little hop and yanks him back out, takes him across the hall one more time, and all but kicks open her door, which he knows is her door because it's the only one left.

It's not exactly a 'shrine' or a time capsule as an explosion. Somewhere under all Sinclair's Stuff there is some very nice furniture that she has had for most of her life. Against the wall by one corner is her daybed, close enough to the window that she'd be able to look outside. There's a desk on the other side of the room with a big rug in the middle, and there's a huge bean bag, and there's stuff all over the walls and on the closet doors and stuck to mirrors. One of her walls is bright, rich red, and that's the one with the least stuff on it.

'Stuff' being everything from posters to photographs to drawings to ticket stubs to pages ripped from magazines or newspaper clippings or greeting cards. There are at least a couple of paper dolls, and pages torn from notebooks that have notes written to Heather on them. There are stickers stuck here and there, and places where stickers were carefully -- and not as carefully -- pulled off. There are white Christmas lights strung up along the corners of the wall where her bed is.

It's obvious enough that there are empty spots -- places where she took what she wanted to take with her to college. For example, there's a bulletin board missing. There's a few blank places on the wall where she took down things she wanted in San Diego with her all those years ago. Sinclair's things from the car are in here now, too, next to Tripoli's basket.

"Ta-da!" she exclaims, flourishing into the room.

[Alex] The minute Alex sees the hammock, he snaps his fingers and declares that's what they're missing right now, that's what they're gonna get when they get home.

And sometimes, even now, he gets a little afterjolt of pleasure when he says that: home. He never called the Brotherhood that; he called it his room, the BroHo, TB, or sometimes - when he was feeling like a grade A jackass rather than just an ass - tha Hood. He called his shoebox apartment, which became their shoebox apartment, home.

And he calls the slightly larger shoebox they live in now -- home.

So: when they get home, they're gonna get a hammock. And hang it outside, downstairs in that little patch of grass between the two palm trees, and hope no one steals it. Well; padlock it down and then hope no one steals it. He's not as interested in the den, though he goes over to check out the TV; glees over the Wii. "Dude," he says, "they even have Wario's Smooth Moves. That's the most random, awesome game ever."

He loves the minikitchen. He says if they ever get a bigger place, they're gonna have minikitchens everywhere, too, so they never have to walk more than five feet for a snack or a brew. Though, this being Alex, what he actually says is ramen and kielbasa and vitamin water.

He picks up the afghan and shakes it out, then folds it instinctively as he tosses it back down. The abstract art makes him tilt his head, then laugh. Their hands lace again as they pass her parents' room, and he pauses to pull her closer for a second and kiss her, a light, sweet little touch on the lips.

"Your parents seem really awesome," he says, and then they go on. Her bathroom: "Surprisingly unpink," he quips. The guest room: he goes inside, pushes his fist on the mattress, then grins at her over his shoulder. "So, you're gonna sneak into my room tonight, right?"

And then they're going on to her room. She all but kicks open her door. He ... actually lingers a moment in the doorway, because this of all places feels like something that belongs so utterly and completely to her. More importantly: to a her that existed long before he came along. He follows her in when she flourishes her way in, though, running his hand over the bright red wall that reminds him, somehow, of her. So much.

Unbidden, he flashes back to her father, snapping his fingers: just like that. He thinks of how it would feel to come here not to look back at Sinclair's childhood with her, but to look back on her, period. A sudden ache, almost out of place for its intensity, rips through him. She's so happy, so pleased-proud to be showing him the room where she grew up, that he almost feels bad to walk to her like this, suddenly, and wrap his arms around her and give her the sort of tight, fierce hug that he hasn't given her since --

well. Since the time they fought the wyrmhounds in the abandoned lot after burrito bowls.

"I love you, baby," he says, muffled against her neck, the side of her face as he kisses her. "You know that, right?"

[Sinclair] When she was 18, Heather went away and her room didn't change much because they figured, well, she'll be back for Christmas. And she was. Then she went back for the second semester and they figured well, she'll be back for summer.

But she didn't come back. Even when they knew why they hadn't heard from her in close to a week, even when some very crisply dressed people from Kansas City arrived at their door to take them on a walk and explain to them what their daughter was, what they were, they figured, she'll be back any day now.

But their daughter didn't come back. Talked to them on the phone a few times, answered texts sometimes, but she stayed so far away. They didn't know she'd moved to Chicago til she was already at the Brotherhood, thinking maybe she should let them know she wasn't bumming around SoCal anymore. It wasn't until last June that Heather came home, and they all took a trip to the Arapahoe Basin to ski and snowboard. They counted the time she'd been away in years, and she stayed in this room, which they left the way it was because... maybe. Maybe she'd come back.

They never stopped thinking she would. And then she did. Vindicated, proven right, they leave it as is. She can change it herself when she's around, they say, whenever the topic comes up. It's still her room.


Walking through the house, Alex keeps coming up with things they can do to their own home. Get a hammock. And if they get a bigger place one day, build it with minikitchens, like either of them are ever going to have the income to buy, build, or renovate a house. But it makes her laugh, warms her inside because he's talking about these things like they can have them. Can have anything.

"They are," she says quietly, when he gives her that small kiss and tells her that her parents seem awesome.

"There is nothing wrong with pink," Sinclair adds at his comment in the bathroom.

In the guest room where he's set up, she smacks his arm at that grin of his, that question of whether she'll sneak in or not. "Well not now," she huffs. "You just ruined the surprise." There is a slight color in her cheeks then, as though she's not kidding at all, as though that's all she's been thinking of since getting over the shock -- and frankly, a bit of a sting -- that he said he'd take the guest room to begin with.

But then they're in her room. Or she is, striding in with the instant, thoughtless comfort of someone who goes a little bit back in time whenever she's here. Sinclair notices that he hasn't followed her though, and looks back over her shoulder at him, waiting, her eyes curious at his hesitation. He's walking in then, though, so she smiles, unaware of his thoughts.

Until he walks to her with two long steps, wraps her tightly in his arms, and holds her like that. Pushes his face close to her skin and lays a kiss there as though to imprint the hug, or his words, right into her. Tattoo them into her flesh, there forever. She's a little caught off guard, confused at the ferocity of his attention, but her hands are so gentle when they touch him after that, lay on his back and hold him there. So tender, so inexplicably soft in counterpoint to his intensity.

"I know," she murmurs, her brow furrowing, her tone bewildered but reassuring anyway. "I know you love me, Alex."

[Alex] She's a little bewildered. Of course she is -- she was showing him around the house, he was going on happily about hammocks and minikitchens, and suddenly

he's holding her like this, like they're survivors of a train wreck finding each other in the aftermath, and he's telling her something that -- frankly -- he doesn't say very often. It's all out of nowhere to her, and he knows it. He can't help it; he wants her to know. Know this, if nothing else, always.

"Good," he says, and this too is spoken directly against her skin, as though only by pressing his words into her can they be spoken at all. "Because ... I do. And sometimes when I think about stuff and what might happen I get a little scared and ...

"I just want you to know. Okay?"

[Sinclair] Instinctively, when the word scared mutters past Alex's lips, Sinclair's head turns a bit and her eyes check the door, if only to look and listen and make sure that no one is nearby, no one is there to overhear even this quiet vulnerability. No one is. She closes her eyes and lays her head close to his, staying right next to him. Her arms hold him a little tighter for a minute.

She nods against him. "Okay," she says, and a little while later: "Come sit with me."

Sinclair reaches out and closes the door to her bedroom. No jokes about keeping it open so her parents don't think they're fooling around, no childlike hesitance about the forbidden nature of the action. She just closes it, and holding his hand, goes with him to her bed to sit on the edge of it. Sinclair stays close by, and when they're sitting next to each other, she turns her body and puts her legs over his lap, their shoulders touching.

"I know you don't need me to try and tell you that it's going to be okay, or lie and promise that nothing's going to happen," she says, keeping her voice relatively quiet for the sake of their nearness and the sake of her parents, who are upstairs and likely can't forget any more than Alex does that she's so young. She doesn't sound young right now, though. "But I'm very strong, and part of a very strong pack. And I'm very fast, and I'm very smart. I don't always... plan things out perfectly, or react to things the right way, but I don't fight stupidly. I don't insist on fighting battles I can't win, and I have no problem with the whole goddamn nation thinking I'm a coward -- I'm not going to throw my life away for the sake of honor or something."

She takes a breath, holding his hand in her lap, warmed by her abdomen. Looks down at it, examining his hands, looking at their fingers beside one another. "I really never thought I'd have this, Alex," she says quietly. "Even before I Changed, something just kept telling me that I was gonna be alone. And I don't think it was always this weird self-loathing crap, either, I just... couldn't see myself having this. And even after we met, and even after I realized how much I wanted you, and even after we had sex, I was just waiting for the end."

That is, in a way, a bit of a revelation, something she's never said before, or perhaps even admitted to herself. She lifts her eyes and looks at him. "It's hard for me to stop doing that. Not just because of stuff we've been through, and not because some part of me keeps believing that you're going to leave me. I gave up on so much during my fosterage. I was like a walking dead man. I changed all the time because I didn't know who I was or where I was going. I could do anything, because I had nothing to fear. I could make any mistake I wanted, and... it was like it just didn't matter if I screwed up, or if I hurt others, or if I got hurt."

Her eyes are a bit pained, her brows tugged together. "When I first met you, Alex, I wouldn't have given much of a fuck if I'd died."

Sinclair's thumb rubs against his knuckles, and she looks down again, thoughtful and quiet for a moment. "Now I'm starting to know who I really am, and where I might be going, and it makes me feel stronger, but it's also frightening. I'm more afraid of the mistakes I make. I regret them so much more when I see them. Sometimes I get scared that I don't have what it takes to be who I want to be. I'm scared of losing you again." She looks at him. "I'm scared that I might die, and there won't be anyone who ...knew me, the way I want you to know me. Deeply.

"I don't want to be so scared of losing you that while we're together we miss out on what matters. I don't want to be so fixated on just being happy and having fun that we ignore all the dark, hard parts." She pauses then, and adds: "My parents don't like to talk to me about the fact they know now that I might die so much sooner than they ever thought, but I'm not going to try and get them to deal with it. I'm their kid; that's not my place, really, y'know?

"But you're my mate," she whispers, like the word itself is still taboo, unallowed because it's not official. "You're mine. You're my partner and ally. I want you to deal with everything with me. I don't want you to bury all the scary or vulnerable or hard stuff. And I know that means that being with me is going to be this intense, visceral experience, but it also means that when I die, you won't ever wonder if I knew how much you loved me."

[Alex] The truth is sometimes they're so playful, so carefree, that it's hard to remember this side. Not just the happy and the fun, but the dark, hard parts. The visceral. The intense. The brutal.

And to some degree, that's deliberate. Neither of them are the Very Serious type. Alex doesn't deal well with it at all. Most times he finds it uncomfortable, a little embarrassing, to talk about tough, serious things like fate and feelings. Sometimes, he simply finds it frightening. Reminders of a life he never asked for, and is only now beginning to be able to say:

yes. i want this. the good and the bad, the sweet and the sharp. all of it.

for her. for us.

He sits down with her when she asks, though. His free arm wraps easily, thoughtlessly around her. She doesn't quite sit on his lap, but it's a near thing. They're near each other. He listens to her, and sometimes, when it's particularly hard -- when she speaks of waiting for the end, or not caring if she died -- he tips his brow against her temple, closes his eyes for a moment. In her hands, his is tanned and strong, the knuckles prominent from years of fighting, the palms calloused from lifting weights, making fists; from bandaging and gloving.

"I'm scared of losing you too," he says quietly, though perhaps the kind of loss he's talking about is a little different. "And I don't wanna ever have to look back and realize I didn't know you as well as I could have. But I feel like I know you. I'm learning to.

"Am I?"

[Sinclair] There's going to be a point when she's gone. And maybe that's forty years from now, and she'll be older than her body in terms of spirit, she'll be scarred and missing pieces of herself. And maybe that'll be next week. Maybe it'll happen on the road to Florida.

There are Garou who never seek mates, who just get pregnant or sow their seed and move on, because loss is more frightening than death. Because being held to this world by someone else's love is more damaging than any fomor's claws. Then there are Garou who, like Sinclair and her closest packmates, can't resist forever. And can't hold themselves back from love when it's offered freely. And can't stop themselves from loving, either.

She leans forward suddenly at his words, putting her hands on his face and kissing him. It's a rush, a physical act not unlike the unspoken sentiment he feels, that he wants this life he used to actively avoid, if it's the only way to have her. She kisses him, held in that circle of his arms, and her mouth tastes a little bit like water.

"Yeah," she says when she lets go of him, touching her brow to his temple and nuzzling his cheekbone gently. "I think you're learning to know yourself, too," Sinclair adds, just as soft.

[Alex] Perhaps oddly, that makes him happy. Makes him break into the sort of smile -- quick, a little lopsided, genuine, almost a little shy -- that really, only she ever sees. Or that's only ever really directed at her. He nods a little against her nuzzling, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head. Gently. Holding her as she holds him, close.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I think maybe you're right."

A moment of so goes by, then. They stay close. She's kissed him, and he's returned it, and the memory of that lingers still. Eventually his hand passes down her back and joins his other, looped around her waist. He draws back far enough to see her eyes, smiles again.

"You know what," he says, "let's go tell your parents later that maybe we'll just stay in here, little bed or not. I'll just explain I had a moment of meeting the parents panic, but it's pretty silly for us all to pretend like we're Amish teenagers or something."

[Sinclair] Sinclair laughs and kisses him again. She's an athletic thing, and he can feel the strength in her torso, feel it in her arms and even her hands. She's stronger than any woman he knows, and a great deal of that is sheer tenacity, unbridled ferocity. He knows, however he feels about it, she could fight women in weight classes above her own and put them down without ever calling on her totem, without shifting. Just because she fights that hard, that brutal. Just because Sinclair won't give herself the option of losing.

She nuzzles him, smiling at his statement, his realization that no, they're not Amish teenagers. They're both consenting adults, in her parents' house or not. And yes, it's true that once upon a time Sinclair and her parents went to church, but they stopped really doing that in high school or sometime when it became evident that they didn't need religion to instill morality in themselves or their youngster, when it became clear that the church deacons were mostly pricks. Then it was just Easter, and then

their daughter's people came to them and explained how things really are, and it was Samantha who absorbed all of that talk of spirits and Gaia and just gave a little huff of breath and shook her head, saying

well that explains a lot, doesn't it?

before getting up to offer the Kansas Walkers some coffee.

Sinclair just smiles, snuggling close to him. "That is silly," she agrees wholeheartedly. "But baby, I don't think we need to explain anything to them. Nobody's gonna do a bed check to make sure you're not getting fresh, and nobody's gonna bring it up at breakfast if we end up in the same room. It's gonna take my dad a long time before he's okay with the fact that I'm, y'know. Not twelve. But let him be grumpy, I think he needs it." She grins, play-biting his shoulder, tugging on his shirtsleeve. "Plus, if you do that, then you can't sneak in here late at night and crawl under the covers with me."

[Alex] Frankly, Alex knows Sinclair could fight men in weight classes above her own and still put them down without ever calling on her various gifts and blessings. He knows because -- well. He's sparred with her. Once upon a time that was intimidating, or maybe it was just the fact that she was so much stronger, period. These days

if truth be told, it's not like Alex relishes the idea that gender roles are so utterly reversed between them; that he gets dewy-eyed at the idea that there's never going to be a day where Sinclair will actually need him to defend her honor. He has his pride. He has his streak of machismo, or maybe it's just the instinct of a species where sexual dimorphism skews toward the male. But he's made his peace with the idea. Deals with it, and doesn't get threatened by it, simply because, for the most part,

he does whatever the fuck he'd do whether or not she outclasses him. Prime example: the douchebag in hicksville, a night or two ago.

And he laughs, now, as she says let him be grumpy. "Well, now you've gone and blown the surprise, too. Now neither of us can do any sneaking tonight."

[Sinclair] They have not discussed -- and perhaps will not discuss -- the discomfort between them regarding how strong she is. In homid, giftless, Sinclair is a fair match for Alex, but only up to a point. They did spar like that once.

And he put her on the ground, her head bloodied from the impact.

Still the fact remains that she is garou, and he is kin. He could very well become her property, in the eyes of the nation. A part of her protectorate. A part of her responsibility. And he doesn't want to be someone's responsibility. He doesn't want to be someone's property. The truth is that Sinclair doesn't want that, either. She doesn't want a mate she can beat up without effort. She doesn't want a male that she's stronger than, and it has less to do with animal instinct than eons of conditioning and fifteen or so years of upbringing that told her what to look for in a man one day.

The truth is that they both feel discomfort with it. With her strength. With how far it outclasses his. With the fact that she's both his girl and a monster. With the fact that he's her boyfriend and also her kinsman. On Sinclair's end, there is discomfort simply with the fact that she's not supposed to feel discomfort with any of this. And frustration -- she wouldn't want a man like many garou females end up with, the sort who is always so ingratiatingly supportive and understanding and patient and castrated.

They haven't ever talked about all of this though. She hasn't talked about it with her dad, either, and lord knows he's got some problems with the changes in traditional dynamics, too. Maybe they will someday.

Not right now, though.

Right now she's grinning, and leaning upward to kiss his mouth, nip at his lips gently like she play-bit his shoulder. There's no mistaking the way she pushes against him, as though to urge him to lie back, lie down, let her crawl on top of him. "You'll find some way to surprise me, I'm sure," she says breezily, kissing him again,

this time slower, tasting his mouth this time.

"Or I can surprise you."

[Alex] Her hands urge him to lie back; her mouth makes a request of its own, that kiss slow and opening to him. And he responds -- momentarily, at least -- his hands pulling her closer, his mouth meeting hers with rising, silent fervor, until

he remembers where he is. Then it's one hand planted on the bed behind him, resisting her push on his shoulders; a wary glance at the door. They're in her childhood bedroom. He just met her parents. He doesn't really expect her mom to pop through any second on some premise of bringing them cookies and milk or something, not really, but still --

"Isn't your dad firing up the grill soon?" he whispers. "Maybe we oughta wait til tonight."

[Sinclair] There's nothing overly forceful about Sinclair's body pressing against his; she'd never slam him to the mattress, mount him, use him like that. Truth be told -- and perhaps twisting uncomfortably in the winds of the things they aren't talking about -- Sinclair likes it when Alex is the aggressive one. The instigator. When he touches her like he wants her. Like he wants her, now.

But: kissing him the way she does, the push of her form to his is unconscious, as though she doesn't quite realize she's doing it until he braces his arm against the mattress and whispers his lips away from her mouth, mentions her dad -- which sounds momentarily to her ears like

Sinclair just smiles, and there's a distant trace of sadness too it, braided tightly with nothing more than tenderness. "Baby, as much as I would like to lay down and make out with you until dinner, I had no intention of fucking you within earshot of my parents being confused by Tripoli."

Her hand goes to the back of his neck, rubbing gently there a moment, and then -- oddly, really -- she curls close to him and puts her head against his shoulder, next to his neck. She can smell him like this. Not by sniffing him, not by coming to him like an animal. Just by being there, and breathing. She gives him a little kiss there, on a soft spot between his clavicle and his throat, and nuzzles him once or twice in the same spot as though to rub that kiss in, smooth it into his skin.


They get up some time after that and continue the tour, Sinclair trotting up the stairs with his hand in tow. She sniffs at the kitchen, where apparently potatoes are in some kind of work, and where Tripoli has been accepted as scenery by Samantha and entertainment by Ken --

the former is simply stepping over him and around him as she traverses the kitchen, and the latter is watching from the breakfast nook with amuse and a beer

-- and drags him around the corner to see the real Dining Room, which they almost never use and it shows. It's a tidy room, with a nice table and chairs, a runner, a rug, a china cabinet, dark red walls. But it's formal, too, and this isn't a formal family. Sinclair isn't very interested in showing him that room so it's out again and down the hall to peek into the upstairs bathroom, which is a little water closet done up in bright shades. She saves her mother's studio for last. The window has been enlarged. There's both a drafting table and a desk, and a wall taken up by shelves broken into neat squares. From the look of things, Samantha arranges her books, magazines, and everything else by size and color more than category or alphabet.

It is the messiest room in the house, though Sinclair says it had fair competition when she lived here. That's familiar enough -- the man who keeps his body like a temple never leaves clothes on the floor long, never lets the hamper overflow, does dishes in the morning even if he ignores them at night. But Sinclair is lucky she doesn't have much Stuff to begin with -- she's never had more than she could transport in an El Camino. She's not a slob, per say, but she cares far less about all that than her boyfriend.

By the time they walk back down the hall to the kitchen, Ken is taking a platter of steaks with some heavy-duty tongs outside, Samantha has cracked open her own beer finally, and the oven is warm with foil-wrapped potatoes baking inside. She has a basket of corn against her hip to take out and grill, waving Sinclair and Alex over.

"You enjoy the tour?" she asks him, smiling. "Maybe later you two can drive around and see some of Heather's old haunts." It's clear enough it's an attempt at conversation, a reaching out, even if the truth is that she has no real idea who he is yet,

or how he's going to fit. Only the acceptance that somehow, he will.

[Alex] A little blurt of laughter at that -- and he does, in fact, lie back then. He relaxes, and she nuzzles against the base of his neck, and really

a creature of lesser will, a creature that wasn't half-wolf himself, would be terrified.

He's not. He's oddly comforted by this; warmed by it. She smooths that soft little kiss into his skin and he smiles, hugging her to him. And stretched out on her little bed, they just ... chill for a while. Unwind for a while, because this is, in effect, the end of a rather long cross-country jaunt. Or at least the midpoint.


Some time after that, the tour continues. There's cooking going on in the kitchen, and Alex feels a little bad that he's not contributing, but Sinclair's dragging him to see the Real Dining Room, and in truth he's just as uninterested in this as she is. Upstairs, he mentions that it's so weird to him to have the bedrooms under the main floor, but that he kinda likes it, and when they get to her mom's studio he's positively gleeful.

"This is awesome," he keeps saying. He says it about the room as a whole, about what she's making, about her books and her paints and her sketches on the wall, on the drafting table. "This is so awesome."

Ken's taking the steaks out to grill by the time they come back to the kitchen, and the potatoes are already in the oven. Alex takes the basket of corn from her with a sort of unspoken, instinctive familiarity, as though he'd do something like this at home, too.

"I love your studio," he says. It's not an empty compliment; he's all but buzzing from enthusiasm. "It's great. Do you do illustrations for books or something? And yeah, I totally wanna see Sinclair's preschool and sh--tuff. Maybe tomorrow though?" -- a glance at Sinclair to see what she thinks of this -- "I figured tonight we can just hang out."

[Sinclair] "There's a basement, too," Sinclair says at some point upstairs, when Alex is commenting on the weirdness of the house layout. "The laundry room is down there and it's mostly storage but we went there for tornado warnings and stuff. There's this little area dad always talked about turning into another bathroom, and really finishing it up nice, but it's not like he's got loads of free time."

In her mother's studio she's laughing. The only framed art on the walls in there is more of Sinclair's preschool and childhood work. Here and there he can find handprints hidden in big swaths of color. She tells him she liked painting as a kid, but had no patience for drawing or learning technique. All of her motions were broad and wild, even the bits she did with charcoal or pastels

She shows him some samples of fabrics her mother designed, the sort of thing they'd make high-end children's clothing out of. She shows him the shelves of books her mother illustrated. Beams when he recognizes a couple, awestruck that her mom did that? Really? She's tickled pink, to put it frankly, at how impressed and happy he is in there. When they leave she's swinging their arms, holding his hand just as before, a bounce in her step that is a simple reaction to the fact that when he spent some time with her dad he was so relaxed afterward and he saw her mom's studio and he's so keen on it.

He likes her family. He likes her first pack, her dam and her sire. It makes her scoop up Tripoli when they get to the kitchen, hugging him like he isn't made of hard-edged metal, while Alex takes the corn to go out on the deck where Ken is opening up the heated grill.

Samantha smiles warmly at him. "Well, isn't that a nice thing to say," she says, and somehow it doesn't seem empty coming from her, even if it is the sort of politeness one might expect from midwesterners, stereotypically. There's no resistance in letting him chip in, even belatedly -- that, she understands intuitively, though if he weren't Sinclair's boyfriend brought all this way to meet them she might insist no, no, he's a guest. "You can go in there and paint or draw if that's something you like doing," she tells him, clearly fishing for more information on what he likes, what he does, who he is. "Long as I'm not working," Samantha adds with a wink, heading outside.

Sinclair is beaming over Tripoli's head, hugging him like a ragdoll as she follows. "Yeah, I'm kinda beat," she agrees with Alex. "We can run around town tomorrow or something. Hey, maybe we can even swing by the college and see dad's office. Hey, Dad!"

Ken looks up as they exit, peering first at the metal gaffling with his single wheel dangling down. Tripoli extends an arm meekly and waves with wagglings of his 'fingers', then suddenly lets out a long

aaaaa

of greeting, much like the central noise of what Sinclair just called to him.

Sinclair's eyes turn into saucers and she startles so much that she drops the gaffling

who eeee!s loudly and vanishes in midair.


About five or ten seconds later, the three Sinclairs are all still staring at the place where Tripoli used to be. Two of them are just stunned at the way he vanished. Only Alex knows why Sinclair is in shock.

[Alex] All the way over -- and all the way until he had that brief but frank little talk with Sinclair's dad -- Alex was, somewhere in the back of his mind, a little worried. Not just: what if they hate me? but also: what if I hate them?

He knows how much family means to Sinclair. Her father, her mother, her mom and dad. Even if she spent years deliberately away from them, years in which she was struggling to figure out just who and what the hell she really was, he suspects there was never a moment when they weren't somewhere in her thoughts. Somewhere in her heart, the way he is now, and if, if, if they didn't get along...

But they did. They do. He's discovering, moment by moment, that he likes them. Not just because they're Sinclair's mom and dad, but because he likes them. He likes that Sinclair's mom is nice, and mom-like, and friendly, and outgoing. He likes that Sinclair's dad is thoughtful and straightforward and blunt. He even likes that Sinclair's dad is a little bit grumpy. So he never even had to follow that heartbreaking train of thought to its uncertain conclusion:

if we hated each other, she'd be caught between us.


"Aw, no," Alex is saying, carrying corn out to the grill, "I can't draw worth squat. My brother can, but I'm sort of the jock of the family. Anything having to do with running around and sweating, I can do, but I'm not so good at sitting down and being creative."

Which, in truth, might be selling himself short, a bit. Because when he went off to college -- when Aaron had gone off and become Nightfall's Edge, when he was truly and genuinely independent, and lost the ever-present foil of his brother -- he didn't choose to go off to some school known for its sports teams and not the quality of its education. He didn't pursue some sort of professional sports career. He took a modest rugby scholarship and a rather shockingly stellar academic record and went to one of the finest universities in the world. And when all the gathered wisdom of mankind was all but laid out for his learning -- he didn't choose something simple; he didn't float through college on beer and girls. He got a degree in Slavic Lit. And Theoretical Astrophysics.

Still. Look at what he does now, and it's pretty obvious how Alex sees himself. Physical, aggressive, prone to action more than thought; an athlete and a fighter. For what it's worth, he doesn't seem self-effacing about this; there's no undertone of inferiority complex: just a dumb jock isn't quite part of his self-image.

"I guess I just don't have a lotta patience," he's going on to say, and then they're talking about running around town tomorrow, and --

hey dad!
aaaaa.

Sinclair's not the only one shocked. Everyone's shocked, but -- well. The younger pair are agape, staring at one another for a good five or ten seconds before Alex blurts out:

"Did he just grow a new vowel?"

[Sinclair] This midway stop in their long cross-country journey is the relief for Sinclair. She never thought that Alex might not like her parents. She never thought once they might not like him. She likes them all. They all like her, and a great deal. Call her naive, but it simply never entered into her thoughts that there was a significant chance that one set or the other of those she loves might not get along. And if the idea ever had, she likely simply would have decided that whether they got along or not, they would somehow make peace. They'd be civil, and stick to safe topics, and be nice, and they would do it for her sake.

Call her selfish, but she knew that, too: they love her. And for her heart's sake, they'd try.

She knew Alex was nervous, but chalked it up to anxiety over the breakup, the fact that she's their little girl, the fact that he wants to take her away and get mawwied and all of that and it's a big deal. Alex never brought up that he was worried he might hate them, but all the same, the fact that he genuinely likes them makes Sinclair bounce while she walks, happy and delighted that her almost-mate and her first pack, her family-pack, are happy together and if they were all wolves they would share meat and then curl up in the dark to keep warm and bite each other gently to make each other stop wriggling and then they'd settle down and sleep and it would be warm and close and yay.

Her mind goes these places. Finds the animal in them, so deeply hidden in their tribe. Carries it in herself, even as she's snuggling a gaffling of Metal and heading out to have steaks and grilled corn on the cob in the middle of suburban Kansas.

"That is bull," Sinclair chimes in as Alex is insisting that he can't sit still and be creative. "That's as much bull as me saying the same thing," she adds, and her mother's eyes glint with amused understanding, because Sinclair is so often the one running around and sweating, the jock, the only really athletic one even in the Sinclair Household of Three. But she's also the writer, the programmer, the singer. Just like Alex is the writer, the philosopher, the astronomer as much as he is the athlete and fighter and conqueror.

"That's right," Samantha says, instead of arguing with either of them, "Heather told us you have a twin brother. Do you have any other siblings?"

But Hey Dad! happens. And aaaaa and then eeee and then --


Ten seconds pass. Then another couple. Then Alex bursts in and Sinclair just widens her eyes further. "I... think he did!" she finally stammers out.

Samantha and Ken are bewildered. Sinclair shakes it off in a minute, and manages to explain to them that's where his name comes from, that he's never said anything but eeee before. She also explains his disapparation as best she can, but then: "Oh, man," she says, her face pulling in an expression of worry, "I think he was trying to say 'dad' and now we all freaked out and he's probably thinking he did something wrong. I gotta go find him."

She hop-steps over and plants a sudden, unbidden kiss on Alex's cheek, and gives her dad -- who is trying to get her to explain how in the blue hell a creature like that feels and worries about things like that, her dad who is simultaneously flattered and flustered that Tripoli was trying to say his name -- a hug. Then she's clambering over to the kitchen window

and climbing up the sill

and focusing on the glass, vanishing through the reflection in the dimming pane so suddenly that Samantha yelps.

The Sinclairs stand quite still and silent for a moment or two before Samantha clears her throat and looks at Alex, lifting her eyebrows a little. "So... we were talking about your family?"

Ken looks around, not sure quite what to do, and finally just begins grilling the steaks.

[Alex] The weird thing is, Alex has been around Garou -- namely, Aaron -- for so long that he's forgotten what it's like to be shocked when they do things that science and logic dictate to be impossible. He's forgotten what it's like to be shocked when a Garou stares at her reflection and just vanishes into thin air. He's forgotten what it's like to be shocked when they incapacitate machinery with a touch and a thought, or turn their fur to steel, or make friends with a living, eeeing lump of metal. He's forgotten what it's like to be shocked when they pop out of telephones, though that's still a little startling.

He has not forgotten what it's like to be terrified in some lizard-brain part of himself when they turn to monsters.

Still. Compared to Sinclair's parents, who really aren't around Garou all that much, he takes her vanishing in stride. She smooches him on the cheek, he grins, she hugs her dad, and then poof.

Samantha yelps. Alex feels a tug of sympathy, but it says something about who he is and how strong he thinks Sinclair's mom is that he doesn't rush to comfort. She gets ahold of herself a few seconds later; conversation resumes.

Alex puts the bowl of corn down on the side of the grill. It's hot outside, but he doesn't duck back inside. It'd seem rather selfish, leaving Ken out to roast. Besides that, he kinda likes the heat, the way it seeps into the bones. He leans on the deck railing and tucks his thumbs into his pockets, facing Samantha.

"Just a brother," he confirms. "Aaron. He's Garou, lives down in Miami where we grew up. And my folks are there too. So," grinning, "how much did Sinclair tell you about me anyway? Just so I know where to start filling in the blanks."

[Sinclair] "That's what Ken was telling me," Samantha answers, regarding Aaron, his Garou brother. She's recovered quite quickly, more surprised than upset by anything her daughter does -- one has to wonder how much leeway Sinclair had growing up, where the line was, and it's not hard to imagine either of these two putting down a very firm hand whenever that line was reached.

Despite the searing midafternoon sun, they all stay outside. They sweat and don't seem to mind. There's no cooler, as the fridge is literally around the corner inside the kitchen, but Samantha is drinking what looks like lemonade instead of a beer. She offers Alex some as they're all getting settled, and laughs a little at his grin, his question.

"Oh, not a whole lot. She didn't even tell us about you until I caught her texting and looking all glowy," she says, easing into a chair. "When we tugged it out of her she told us your name, and said you were kin like us. We asked what you do and she told us a bit about that, but she tried a little too hard to gloss over the prizefighting bit,"

her eyes are atwinkle with savvy, and Ken gives a little huff with his back turned,

"and what else? It was a long time ago now," Samanatha pauses a moment to think. "Hmm. Well," she goes on, sipping her lemonade, "I think she told us you were from Miami. Told us you went to Harvard, said she didn't know much about your family but she'd heard things about your brother. That's what she says her 'job' is, really, is knowing things about people and saying things about people." Samantha shrugs, smiling over at him. "We really just wanted to know if you two were serious, and, if so, when she was going to bring you around."

Sinclair's mother raises her glass a bit. "Better late than never," she says, and Ken adds a grunted hear, hear, holding out his bottle of beer to tap against Samantha's glass.

"Other than that," she shrugs, "I can't think of much." A sober moment: "We know you two broke up for awhile. She was of course in touch when she went out to help her cousin Will, though it took her awhile to admit you two got back together. I think she was a little worried we might try telling her to run the other way."

[Alex] Alex gets that slanted grin on his face when Samantha says Sinclair tried a little too hard to gloss over the prizefighting bit, and that she told them about Hahvahd. He doesn't quite get around to telling her what he does with himself these days, though, and what exactly he did with all that education, because

then they get to that subject that gets them both sobered up a little.

Alex had, in fact, helped himself to lemonade when it was offered. He's okay with just one beer. He might project a cocky, over the top, larger than life persona, but he's almost monkishly devoted to regiment and temperance sometimes. He doesn't overindulge in liquor. He certainly doesn't whore and gamble. He gets up at six in the morning, and he works out all the time.

He sips a little of that lemonade now as he listens. "I wouldn't have blamed you at all for telling her to run the other way," he says, and in a way this is a continuation of the conversation he'd already had with Ken. "But I'm glad you didn't. That you ... trusted her enough to let her decide?

"'Cause honestly, I think Sinclair would've done whatever she wanted to, regardless. But that's not me saying ha ha she would've stayed with me anyway, neener! I'm actually trying to say -- well. She'd do whatever she wanted? But I think what you guys think does matter to her. It matters a lot. So I think it would've hurt her, and ... " he trails off, shrugs those solid shoulders of his. "Yeah, you know what I mean."

A small pause. Then:

"I wish we hadn't broken up for a while. But at the same time, I think it did ... let us figure a lot of stuff out. About each other, and ourselves, and ... 'us'."

[Sinclair] If he knew them well, Alex would know that Ken and Samantha have a manner about them that may explain how well Sinclair gets along with an aristocratic Fang and a Philodox-trained Lord. Put in the position to do so, they can and will let people talk themselves into their own graves, remembering much, forgetting little. There's a grace to Samantha, in particular, waltzing with her hospitality, that Katherine Bellamonte would understand. The truth of the matter is, much of Sinclair's own tenderness comes from her father. She wears her predation over her gentleness like he wears his grumpiness, and she says of him

let him be grumpy. I think he needs it.

They let Alex talk. Ken grills and Samantha sips lemonade, relaxing on the deck, and she doesn't respond to a lot of what he says. Her eyebrows flick a bit at a few points, and though it's not a displeased look, it's a hard one to read. And Ken is focused on the steaks, so his back muscles aren't saying much.

In the end, Samantha sips her drink again. And smiles. And glances over at Ken. "Did he just say 'neener'?" she asks her husband.

"I think he did," answers Dr. Sinclair, flipping a cut of sirloin. "But that's not on the list on the swear jar, so that's okay."

Samantha looks back to Alex and shrugs. "There you have it. Come on, sit down. Any idea when she'll be back?"

It's perhaps the most raw question she's asked so far -- she really has no idea. And it admits, in the asking, that this is one area where Alex understands their daughter, understands what she is and how she works, better than they do.

[Alex] Alex seems a little uncertain again at the end of that. He said a lot. He wonders if it was too much -- there was so little reaction, so little he could glean. He laughs a little as Samantha jokes gently about the 'neener', but it's a little unsure.

And it's a raw question she asks, but in a way it gives Alex a bit of solid ground again. He's not sure either, but -- he's a little more sure about being unsure, if such a thing could exist. "I don't know," he says, and goes to take a seat, "but probably not long. She just has to find Tripoli and calm him down. He's ... really young, in a sense. I think. So sometimes he gets easily spooked.

"I'm pretty sure she'll be back by the time the steaks are done," he adds. "Anything I can do to help, by the way?"

[Sinclair] "Oh, it's fine. Just putting things on the grill and turning them over," says his girlfriend's mother.

"I'm intensely focused right now," says his girlfriend's father, in the tone one can imagine him using with students trying to interrupt him even within office hours.

"Where she went," Samantha goes on, switching a bit, shifting around so she can see Alex more clearly. "Is it dangerous there? I never..." A pause. It's clear enough that family is family to these people. He's not 'in' yet, as much as Sinclair adores him. They don't know him. They just met him. And they're protecting her. They always have. It can't change just because she is what she is. "From what she's told me about it," Samantha decides to continue, "it sounds like it's very wild."

[Alex] "Hey, it does take intense focus," Alex agrees. "You gotta flip them at exactly the right time to achieve the optimum level of awesomeness."

The truth is, both sides are shifting around a little. Alex feels like he connected pretty well with Ken, whose gruffness and straightforwardness and innate gentleness were easier for him to navigate and understand. Samantha's a bit different. He thinks she's nice. He knows she is. But she's also so hospitable, and that, oddly, opens a bit of distance between them. The jokes feel just a little manufactured. The questions are just a little delicate. They're trying to see each other clearly, trying to understand each other a little better, and Alex sort of wishes he'd just launched into his life story like he'd meant to, but that opportunity passed and hasn't come around again. And anyway, he's not sure that would help, either.

Samantha doesn't want to know his life story, he intuits. She wants to know who he is, and he doesn't quite know how to express it.

"I, uh," he shifts a little -- physically -- setting his lemonade down on the nearest available surface. "I don't actually know. I mean. I've never been there, and I've never really asked about it. It's too ... metaphysical for me. From what I hear there are all these layers, like going up through the atmosphere and into space. Near the ground -- near our side of things -- it's pretty much like a spiritual reflection of what we see here. But the farther out you get, the weirder and more alien things get.

"But I doubt she's going very far, and this place doesn't seem like it's going to harbor nasty spirits or whatever. Plus -- Sinclair's tough. Really tough." A glance at her father -- "I know there's bound to be something bigger and tougher somewhere, but truth is she outclasses most the trouble she runs into.

"And that is something I've seen."

A pause, and then a little overture of his own: "I guess you guys didn't really have much to do with the Garou Nation and all the supernatural stuff before Sinclair Changed, huh?"

[Sinclair] Ken chuckles at what Alex says, clearly in agreement on that, at least. Corn has entered the grill as well, and later they'll slather it in butter and eat it grilled and crunchy and sweet. Right now there's little difference between the heat on the porch and the heat in the kitchen thanks to the oven. Samantha handles it gracefully, all her bearing and hospitality the product of, perhaps, a more southern-gentry style of upbringing. Women do their hair and put on their faces as a matter of course, as a way of showing the world they respect themselves. You don't ask questions that are too personal,

and yet there's a streak of Sinclair's sometimes vicious pursuit of truth in her too. Except with Sinclair, there's almost nothing holding it back. One gets the sense Samantha, in a way, would be more like her daughter if she had been born thirty-odd years later. There's a hint of wildness in her eyes that's familiar, but it's so banked as to be forgotten, like so many ancestral memories of the Walkers.

And there's Ken. Blunt. Hiding a tender spirit under a rough exterior. More sensitive than he lets on. Straightforward and more relaxed when he doesn't have to play a game, put on a show. And like Samantha, he doesn't want to know Alex's life story, except for the clues it might give them both as to who he is. They've waited a year to meet this young man who seemed to turn their girl inside out, in both good and bad ways. Talking about him, saying his name, has made her eyes shine with secret inner delight and unbidden tears, and now he's here. On their deck. About to have dinner with them. And they have a hunger to them, only their eagerness is tempered by age and, one hopes, wisdom.

They listen with interest. Samantha's eyes darken a little about the mention of nasty spirits, but she doesn't know that Ken told Alex about that virus. She doesn't say a word. Then her eyes lighten a bit, even gleam somewhat, when Alex talks about how tough Sinclair is. That she outclasses so much of what she runs up against. That it's something he's seen. Ken is hidden, but one might imagine a faint smile on his face,

tinged with a reminder of his anticipation of brutal pain. Ken does speak up though, saying: "She always was a fierce little competitor."

There's pride in both of them. Pleasure at their daughter's strength. Pleasure, too, that Alex sees it. That Alex knows it's a good thing. That he speaks so freely about how badass their kid is.

What is most important, though, is that Alex doesn't assure them that the spirit world is fine. That no, it's perfectly safe, it's just like the world. He doesn't pretend to understand. The truth is, Ken appreciates that more openly than his wife does. She doesn't quite know how to wear her appreciation of it outwardly, but it's there.

Her eyebrows hop up at the question though. "Oh, no, not at all. We had no idea." There's a pause. "Well, there were signs we look back on now and understand a little better. But when your eight year old is having nightmares, you think maybe it was something she ate, or something happened to her you don't know about, which is a scary enough thought as it is, as a parent. When she starts eating meat like it's going out of style, you think maybe she has an iron deficiency or is hitting a growth spurt. And when your teenager is having mood swings you just chalk it up to hormones. You never stop and ask yourself, hmm, is our daughter a werewolf? It just wouldn't have ever occurred to us what was really going on."

Samantha's thoughtful a moment. "We were angry for a long time after it happened," she says quietly, as though Sinclair might be inside just now, eavesdropping, hearing her Change being just called the 'it' that 'happened'. "Angry at everything, really. And it came out in all sorts of ways. We were angry at her, too, for a long time." She stirs her lemonade with her straw. "But we've gotten very active in the community," she goes on, a note of pride -- or at least optimism -- in her tone. "We've been introduced to several other parents who've gone through the same thing, even. We Skype with some of the friends we made on the net, and it's nice to be able to talk to people who understand.

"Heather tries, god bless her," she says, a tender, slightly sad smile on her face. "To explain things and not scare us. But she doesn't know what it's like to be a parent, yet."

[Alex] It's pretty easy for Alex to see Ken in his daughter. It's there in his surface toughness; it's there in the gentleness, the tenderness, guarded carefully within. It's a little harder for Alex to draw the parallels between ultra-laidback Sinclair and her country-gracious mother,

but when Samantha's eyes gleam for a moment with ferocity and pride, he sees it. And he's glad for it.

He's glad a little later, too, when Samantha speaks of getting active in the community. He's glad because this time, he sees a parallel between himself and this woman that he's still trying to understand, trying to become friends with, family with. It's one thing to like someone on instinct; it's another to slowly forge those ties. Alex doesn't do slowly well, though. Which is why he was so happy, so effusive, about her art. Which is why now, he all but blurts:

"I totally get that. And to be honest that's something I've just started getting into myself. My family's always been kinda wrapped up in the community." Usually he'd say the tribe. The Nation. 'Community' seems to work better, though. Because of who Sinclair's parents are, and also because -- it seems less formal. Closer. Warmer. "We weren't ever blissfully ignorant. And especially after my brother Changed, my parents were pretty hooked in. But I guess I didn't really want to get involved for a long time. I mean, when I went off to college I made sure I did what I wanted, not what would be useful to anybody else. Russian Lit, theoretical astrophysics and prizefighting, who does that? But I guess it just seemed like ... well, I'm sure you've heard the horror stories yourself, about the kin that get treated like second class citizens. Servants and baby-makers. Plus --

"Well, growing up, it was me and my brother, you know? So I guess maybe I was angry at ... Gaia, or whatever, that now suddenly we weren't a unit anymore."

He takes another drink of lemonade. He keeps going off on these little tears: talking about himself, his past, his feelings, trying to put himself out there so they could understand him. So they could see who he was. He thinks maybe he's trying a little too hard. He does it all the same.

"Anyway. My point was just, it really took a long time for me to kinda come around. I think actually ... knowing Sinclair helped a lot. Knowing one of 'them'," airquotes, "and being close to her, and not getting completely bulldozed made a huge difference. It kinda made me wake up and go, hey. It's not us and them. And plus, if I don't wanna be useless, then maybe I shouldn't be useless.

"So these days I'm trying to be more active in the community too. I set up a little safehouse in San Diego. I'm helping some kin learn to protect themselves. I help the Garou on light jobs when I can. Mostly driving, couriering stuff, dumping stuff. And at first it really just to be useful, but ... yeah. It's nice to know people who understand. And who want to not be useless, too."

[Sinclair] If there aren't warning bells going off in Alex's head when she says that yet, there should be. Because instead of turning around and steering the conversation away from talk of potential grandchildren and babies and continuing the family and giving them small things to play with and take care of, Ken turns around and looks positively delighted at the idea of -- well. If not his Little Girl being a parent, the idea of parenting. The idea of grandchildren.

"Oh, she'll get there," he says,

but Alex is bursting out in a different direction, warning bells or no warning bells. Trying, in essence, to connect. Trying to understand and be understood. Caring, which in a way is new to him -- understanding other people because he cares, or wants to care. And not just to have something to use against them later.

Truth be told, Sinclair herself doesn't know if Alex has changed or not. She never lied to herself and pretended he was secretly a Nice Guy who just needed the love of a good woman to stop being an asshole to everyone. At first she just wanted him to be her friend, as small and sad a wish as that might sound. She wanted his strength and his heat and his energy, was drawn to it more powerfully than she could ever explain. It didn't much matter if he was involved in 'the community', or if he was nice. She just wanted him, senselessly and totally.

Still does. Whoever he is. Whatever he's becoming.

There's an eyebrow flick at the word choice at one point during his sudden burst of words -- blissfully ignorant, simply because that isn't even how Ken and Samantha would describe it. But there's so much else that comes after that that neither parent chooses to interrupt Alex. It's a minor faux pas, all told, and even they know he wouldn't say something even a little bit insulting to them. Regardless of how he is with others, they are fully aware of the position he's in.

Even without his skewed history with Sinclair, he's the young man at the door holding some flowers and trying to convince them his intentions are honorable, that he truly cares for her, that he just wants to make her happy. And that's the truth of the matter, Nation and tribe and nature aside.

Mostly they just listen. Ken lets the steaks and corn cook, turning around finally. He picks up his wife's drink with a glance at her to make sure she's not gonna swat him, and sips at it. He leans against the railing now, next to the grill, sweating in the sunshine and extra heat. Samantha and Alex are mostly shaded, but Ken seems to like being in the light, near the work to be done.

Russian Lit, Alex says, explaining the Cyrillic on his chest. Who does that? he asks rhetorically, and there's a gentle, understanding sort of smile on Samantha's face, of all places.

Horror stories, he says, and there's a mutual frown from the couple. Either they have, or this is news to them, or they've simply never been treated like that and so they're apt to dismiss the stories as whining. Four years -- three? Not long in this life. Even if they've heard the stories, they can't begin to understand how someone might work their life around resisting what's expected, fighting back against that pressure. It's miles away from their own lives.

He mentions his anger about his brother and he being broken up. And it's this small thing, passing because the words are pouring out of him so fast and not leaving much time for hand-holding and reflection, but

that's when they understand him. That's when they know that he knows what they feel. That's when it sinks in, indelible, and stays,

even as the conversation moves on.

There's a bit of quiet when he's done. Digestion. Ken is the one, surprisingly, who answers. "We wanted to be involved as soon as it all sank it," he drawls, his voice low, the steaks' sizzling almost covering his voice. "Just to... do something. Cuz she wasn't comin' home."

Samantha picks up where he leaves that, as he pushes off the railing to tend to dinner once more. Her eyes are on Alex. Her voice is quiet. "So we could ...feel close to her."

[Alex] Surprisingly -- considering he's done almost nothing but talk and talk and talk since he got here; talked because he wants them to understand him and like him and because he is, in essence, the nervous young man at the door wearing a suit, holding flowers, assuring them of his honorable intentions and asking for their daughter's hand

(even if the topic of marriage hasn't even come up yet)

-- surprisingly, Alex is silent now. He just watches, listens. His expression changes. A bit of ache. A lot of understanding; more than he would have guessed. So we could feel close to her, Sinclair's mother says. And Alex wonders how much of his own actions were driven not only by dawning maturity and understanding, not only by finally getting over himself, but by the fact that

they'd broken up. And were apart for good, as far as he could tell. And she was out there still, fighting, possibly dying, and

the least he could do was be a part of that war. The very least.


"Yeah," is all he says in the end. Quiet. "I hear you."

[Sinclair] These two did, in fact, live together before they got married. Their parents, Sinclair's grandparents, were not happy about it. They had people telling them left and right it was going to ruin their relationship, ruin their marriage. They know this is the second time Sinclair has lived with Alex. They think that's the least of their worries in terms of whether or not this is going to be good or bad for Heather in the long run.

But they don't know what it means to be Garou any more than Sinclair can understand what it is to be kin. She didn't grow up thinking she was one and discovering later she was the other. She didn't grow up knowing she'd be Garou. She didn't have a sibling Change. She can't explain to them that she genuinely doesn't know if she'd survive that long if she lost Alex, is wary of telling him that, of sounding like some codependent human when all she's trying to say is that it was like walking with a permanent wound, always

draining the life out of her with grief. That even if she survived it and just kept going, she'd never take another mate. Even if Alex never was, and still isn't, official. Even if they never said I love you til he took her home from the beach in San Diego and it came out of her mouth in a laugh, a breath, without even a thought. Her heart and body and spirit knew: this was it. This was her mate. And though she'd never for a second wish him to stay alone if she died, if she was gone, if she'd actively hope that he'd find comfort and partnership and love with someone else, she also knew that for her, he was the only one.

Sinclair can't explain that to them. And they can't explain to her what it's like to be what they are, doing what they can, because somehow it lets them be near her.

The mood on the deck is quiet now, suddenly, but it doesn't last long. There's the sound of tromping footsteps up the stairs, and a clanging of metal. There's Sinclair, seen through the door and the kitchen coming up into the living room, carrying Tripoli's playpen, with Tripoli in it. Tripoli is slightly larger than before -- wouldn't fit on Alex's shoulder now -- and waving. "Hey!" Sinclair says, breathless, striding into the doorway unaware of the mood around her. "Found him. And guess what." She grins down at the gaffling.

iiiiii, he says, waggling his 'fingers' at them. It is so close to hi that Samantha and Kenneth seem overcome by the cuteness of it. Well, Samantha is overcome, and laughs outright in enjoyment, saying why hello there! back to Tripoli. Ken just laughs.

Sinclair catches Alex's eye. And smiles at him.

[Alex] Truthfully, the mood is quiet, even a little somber when Sinclair bursts back in, and even though it changes like that, changes because when she comes back she brings her brilliance and energy, changes because Alex, quite simply, lights the fuck up when he hears her and sees her come back -- even though it changes, perhaps Sinclair has some faint notion that they were having a rather serious discussion.

Maybe later tonight, as they're brushing their teeth side by side or while she's drying her hair and he's shaving, he'll tell her about the conversations he had with her father and mother. Maybe he'll tell her later on this week, when they've left this home and started out on the road again for another. Maybe he won't tell her until they're back in San Diego, but --

one way or another, he'll tell her. He'll tell her that he and her father had a little talk, and both of them just wanted to get it clear and simple and straightforward. He'll tell her how much he appreciated that. Liked that. He'll tell her that her father just wanted to know they were both sure, and that when he told her father yes, i'm sure, he was. Absolutely.

And he'll tell her about the conversation with her parents on the deck, too. About ... community, and getting involved, and growing up a little on his part, and not carrying such a damn chip on his shoulder, and realizing that if he didn't wanna be useless, then he shouldn't be useless. And -- about realizing, there on the deck, that maybe, just maybe

he wanted to feel a little connected to her, too.


That's later. Right now, Alex fairly lights up, and Sinclair tromps out on the deck with Tripoli in his playpen. The little gaffling waves at them. He's discovered another vowel,

iiiiii,

and Alex's surprised laugh bursts out of him even as Samantha's letting out one of her own. He goes over to the little thing, picking it up and tossing it gently in the air, catching it on the way down. "Lookit you," he says. "Three whole vowels!"

And the conversation, and the mood, goes on from there; lightens up. The steaks are almost done, and the hottest part of the afternoon is starting to slide into a long, late evening, and three Sinclairs and one Vaughn are helping to set the dinner table -- not the Real Dining Table but the casual family one -- and pour the lemonade and ferry the corn and steaks over and set out the butter and sauce.

Then they're all sitting down, and if Ken and Samantha want to say grace Alex is cool with it, though he wouldn't be surprised if they don't. Or if they said it to Gaia instead. Then everyone's picking up knives and forks or just cobs of corn, and Tripoli's over there eeeing and aaaing and iiiing in his playpen while the wolfgirl and her dam and sire and male-that-she-likes-very-much are talking over lemonade and steaks and corn,

and somewhere in there they talk about the prizefighting that Sinclair tried a little too hard to gloss over the first time 'round, and maybe the elder Sinclairs are a little bemused and shocked by the idea of making a living on the amateur fight circuit, but maybe, just maybe, something of Alex's dedication and devotion to what is, in the end, his chosen 'career' shows through. He's serious about this; he's no street brawler. He's a fighter, but he's also, well -- an athlete.

And somehow that leads to him talking a little more about the team he's put together, and the lessons he gives out, and he mentions that he's actually thought about training for money, but that he wouldn't really feel right doing that. He mentions the tribe in San Diego's starting to subsidize his activities a bit, though, which is helpful because really, the more he gets involved in 'the community' the less time he has to train in the ring, and the rent on their two-bedroom shoebox isn't exorbitant, but it is a constant drain on their resources.

And that leads to a conversation about San Diego, and how close to the beach they live, and even though the neighborhood isn't the best it's still awesome because, well, cross the street and there's the pacific, and plus neither of them would really feel 100% comfortable in some posh million-dollar neighborhood like La Jolla or Del Mar. And they talk about the cantina down the street, and Alex pulls out his smartphone and shows them the wonky, dorky little webpage it has, and

that leads to them showing Ken and Samantha some of the pictures they took on the way over, and in San Diego, and on Sinclair's birthday

this year and last.


Eventually everyone's full, and conversation's slowing down a little as everyone settles into food coma. And it occurs to Alex, briefly, that maybe he should finally broach the topic that was a significant part of their decision to finally come visit one another's families. But he's feeling warm, and full, and lazy, and truth be told -- there have been a lot of serious discussions already, and they only just got here. They'll be here another day or two, at least. They've got time.

So eventually they bestir themselves, and Alex does the dishes while Sinclair helps wrap the leftovers. When everything's nice and packed away the party moves to the den, where Alex tries his hand (or foot) on the balance board before Sinclair channels her inner rock star on Guitar Hero. At some point Alex ducks outside to call his brother and his own folks, which is really just an excuse to let Sinclair have a little bit of alone-time with her parents. When he comes back in, he asks about Sinclair's childhood here, her middle school and elementary school and what sort of kid she was, really, and

around this time, photo albums might just get dragged off the bookshelf.

[Sinclair] They all light up. Alex, because Sinclair's here. Samantha and Ken because... well. Sinclair's there. Because she brought something cute and for a second there they were thinking about the possibility that Alex sounds like he's the first and will be the last contender for Future Father Of Our Grandchildren. They thankfully make no comment that Tripoli doesn't count, or that they hope Sinclair doesn't start acting like this thing is her baby, because he might just zip off into the umbra again, all butthurt --

everyone just gathers around and thinks he's cute. Tripoli's eyes flash bright blue when Alex throws him up in the air, and the next thing everyone knows they're trying to get the elemental to unwrap his vise-like metal cords-for-arms from the kinsman's neck. He clings, eeeeeing in terror, til a note of upset enters Sinclair's voice,

Tripoli, please, you're gonna hurt him.

Of course when the gaffling unwraps, he's very worried that he's messed up again and Sinclair has to assure him it's okay, and so does Alex, who also insists he was fine, he was laughing the whole time.

Tripoli doesn't need dinner, so he zooms around inspecting the grill while the family sits down around the table under the umbrella with iced lemonade and steaks and corn and baked potatoes brought piping hot from the oven, butter over everything, A1 at the ready. No one bothers with grace It's cooling off a bit as the sun starts to ease downward, and it cools off further when it starts to get dark. Tripoli knocks over his playpen so he can roll into it, and then it's a cave and he finds his Coke can shield to show it off to Ken.

"Alex made him that," Sinclair puts in. They talk about Tripoli's full Roman garb, and that leads to one thing and another and then the prizefighting. He can feel Sinclair's tension, and the truth is that the illustrator and the professor don't quite... grasp... what's appealing about Alex's living. There is that underlying sense of a bit of judgement, a hint of bewilderment at his dedication, but for what it's worth, they don't disparage it. They ask questions. They try, though it's completely outside of their realm, to be interested and even supportive. To find the good in Alex as it relates to what he does with his life, and not rest on their own unfamiliarity with it. Or him.

Oddly, it's easier for them to be interested and gung-ho about the training he does. This is the first time Sinclair discovers that her parents have both taken extensive self-defense training at this point. She's shocked, demanding to know who is teaching them and where and what their names are, and her overprotective shock as much as her third degree sends her parents into fits of laughter, which Sinclair is ever so indignant about.

It's Samantha, determined not to be treated like a porcelain doll by her own child, who wipes away a tear of laughter and changes the subject back to Alex. She asks about San Diego

and Ken says he'd like to see that shoebox of theirs,

so the Android comes out and so does Alex's photo gallery. Then the for-real-real digital camera gets grabbed from downstairs and everyone's sitting outside as the sun is going down til a moth dive-bombs the LCD screen on the camera and makes Alex nearly drop it, just barely stopping himself from swearing. And makes everyone else laugh. Ken suggests they head inside for awhile, go down to the den where it's cooler.

"Alex wants to play Smooth Moves," Sinclair insists, carrying platters inside. Ken, actually, helps Tripoli pick up cans and such, and carries the playpen inside. There's a moment when he picks up something to inspect it against the light and there's something in his expression that makes Tripoli look at him as if to say

my brother.


Later on, leftovers wrapped up -- there weren't many -- and family gathered around Guitar Hero, Alex steps outside onto the brick patio. Maybe he tries out the hammock while he talks to his folks. Maybe he can see through the glass his girlfriend curled up on the couch next to her mom, her mom's arm slung around her, Sinclair's head leaning against the older woman's shoulder in a position she's probably taken up since childhood,

and it's not so different from the way she curls up next to Alex sometimes, really. And maybe he can see her burst into laughter when her dad shows them how to fly a plane in WiiSports Resort. And maybe catches her looking over at him.

Because she can't not.

Inside again, Samantha is refusing to get up and make a fool of herself, so Sinclair hops up again and is grabbing a little toy guitar-troller while they all talk about her childhood. But she's in the middle of a song when her mom sneaks out

and comes back with photo albums.


About an hour later, Sinclair has been sufficiently mortified, and Alex has seen a video of her having her first bath in the actual bathtub, which was so big and so exciting -- even with only a few inches of water and her mother sitting there with her in a swimsuit -- that at one point this very small, still almost-bald thing is kicking her legs and smacking her hands on the water and shrieking with laughter. It isn't until her mom trickles water onto her head that baby Heather gets confused and upset, screws up her face, and starts wailing. Water runs down her face, she tries to stand up and ends up toppling onto her mom, and both her parents can be heard in the video trying not to laugh and trying to soothe her at the same time.

On the screen, Samantha wraps her arms around the not-yet-toddler and holds her close until she realizes that the water is not hurting her and sucks on her fist, head laid comfortably on her mother's shoulder.

The adult Sinclair is all but wailing, too, begging them to turn it off, stop. Her mother shushes her. "Oh, hush," she says, and just pats Sinclair's thigh.


He sees so many ages of her. Dressed up to be a junior bridesmaid when she was a teenager, her hair in a curly updo and her lean body in a pale blue gown with a bow draping down the back. Her first day of kindergarten, her face a mask of hiding how petrified she was, her backpack straps held tightly as though she thought it was going to fall off, wearing knee socks and a navy blue dress. The one period when she was 11 and had an unfortunate, very short haircut. "Everyone thought I was a boy," she claims.

A trip to California when she'd finished fifth grade, lazing on the beach with her cousins. Lots and lots of pictures from the various teams she was on. Pictures of her when she was seven and got her earlobes pierced -- there are sparkly pink butterflies in those ears, not titanium rings. So, so many pictures of Sinclair. Scrapbooks. Videos. The utter portrait of an only child, tip to hilt.

She starts to yawn. They start to say their goodnights. "Sleepy munchkin," her mother says fondly, kissing her cheek when she leans over the couch to hug her mom goodnight. Ken shakes Alex's hand, hugs his daughter. Samantha gives him a quick hug and says they can just get up whenever they wake up; sleep in, they can just heat up breakfast later.

And without anyone bringing it up, Sinclair and Alex go to wash up. They brush their teeth and he shaves and she debates showering a second time or just waiting til morning and eventually decides to sit on the counter while he takes a razor to his face so she can talk to him til they go to bed. He tells her about talking to her parents, because she asks. She wants to know what happened on the deck when she wasn't there, too.

They spend a lot of time in the bathroom just talking, the door open a crack. Beyond it they can hear her parents going into their own bedroom after shutting off the lights, closing up the house. Goodnight, Tripoli her mother tells the gaffling, who says iiiii again, though this time it's bye.

Some time after that, Alex gets around to mentioning that he realized that maybe, just maybe, his interest in being a part of a community of other kin, of not being 'useless', had something to do with wanting to be close to her. Connected, he says. Sinclair ends up slipping off the counter and wrapping her arms around him from behind, laying her cheek on his back.

"You were always with me," she says, and it sounds soft and sentimental and

because it's Sinclair,

impeccably true.


They both go into her bedroom tonight. There's no sneaking. No rushing across the hall to grab his luggage, even. They just turn the corner and close her door behind them, knowing they won't be woken up because Samantha and Ken want 'them' to be able to sleep in if they like. Sinclair undresses him, and he her, but they crawl quietly under the covers of that tiny, soft, familiar bed in that cool, dark room. She faces him, like always, and she whispers to him as they share a pillow

I'm so happy you're here.

Lays her head against his chest, her arm draped over his waist, their calves crossing each other, his arm over her shoulder,

and sleeps.

[Alex] At some point during dinner, when the last of the twilight is fading, Alex gets up to hunt for the light switch on the deck lamp. At some point, Tripoli brings his Coke can shield out, and Sinclair says Alex made it, and Alex puts in, rather proudly, that he's also made the little gaffling a fork-spear. He's working on a helmet now, though this is where he and Sinclair bicker goodnaturedly over whether they should give Tripoli a helmet or just a crest.

His head is metal, Alex points out. That'd just look silly.
If he doesn't have a helmet, Sinclair retorts, it'd be a MOHAWK.
Well, maybe he'd like a mohawk!
Romans don't have mohawks!

... and so it goes, until they're moving on and talking about prizefighting, and training, and shoebox apartments, and

Alex is inviting Ken and Samantha out to visit, and he comes very close to saying maybe when we get married! but then he remembers that a) they haven't told them yet, and b) he hasn't even proposed yet. Proper-like. When Sinclair least expects it.


Smooth Moves totally happens. Sometime between WiiSports and Guitar Hero, they pull the offbeat little game out and test their wits on the most absurd tasks possible. They drive a cab. They fly a paper airplane. They chug a glass of milk. They balance a stack of plates. They pick a nose.

They laugh. A lot.


Later on, there are photos. And then videos. And Alex sits next to Sinclair, who sits next to her mom, and he laughs often, but once in a while he just smiles, just looks happy, glad that she grew up in such a warm, happy family, glad that she was loved, just a little tiny bit sad he didn't know her sooner, wasn't there or that junior high dance or the first day of kindergarten or her ninth birthday, when she got that huge cake and ate so much of it that

somewhere out there, a black-haired, blue-eyed boy in new york would have totally understood how she felt.


And still later, in the bathroom, while he shaves and she sits on the counter and they talk -- somewhere between when he tells her what he talked about with her parents and when he tells her what he thought tonight about community and connection and being with her even when they were apart --

somewhere in there, he stops shaving for a moment to lean his brow to hers, smiling, and says

I like your parents so much. I'm so glad you have them. And I'm so glad I'm meeting them.


There's no sneaking. There's no hushed laughter, no whispering, no dashing around grabbing his luggage. They just turn the corner together and close the door, together, and she undresses him and he undresses her and even though there's a moment where they hold each other bare or mostly-bare, a moment where a flicker of desire runs through them like current down a wire,

they crawl quietly under the covers together, and they curl together in that small space the way they always do. He thinks of Sinclair growing up in this bed, and smiles. She shares her pillow with him and whispers that she's so happy, and smiles.

He stays awake just a little longer than she does. He listens to the house popping quietly as it settles, talking to itself. He thinks of all the house has seen, all the laughter and joy it has contained even through the hard years, even through the events that left Sinclair a little wary, a little wounded beneath the surface, a little heartbreakingly certain that she was unlovable. He thinks of all the house has borne quiet, sheltering witness to, all the indelible proof that Sinclair was, in fact, very much loved. And lying there, falling asleep, Alex feels so close to her past, so close to her family, so close to her home,

so close to her.

[Sinclair] Morning comes, but Sinclair and Alex don't notice it. There's one window in her bedroom, one bright and shining pane of glass that looks out not on the back yard but out the side of the house. There's some blossoming bushes outside, and a fence, and looking straight at it that's all you can see. Sitting beside it, though, there's a view up to the sky. That's where Sinclair's old desk is, placed between two bookshelves, the side of the desk near the windowsill so that she could sit in her chair and lean right against it. That's where the morning sunshine comes in, wind moving the branches of the bush and daylight filling her room like water filling a bowl.

In that daybed of hers, though, they're snuggled together as though on a couch. She has lots of pillows, but most of them got tossed out of the way and onto the floor. Their blanket is askew, covering Alex's legs more than Sinclair's body, because she gets hot when she sleeps and sprawls all over him, and they usually wake up a little sweaty for it. Her head is on his chest but he's rolled onto his back, one arm around her, the other flopped over his midsection.

Nobody knocks on her bedroom door, nor the guest room door. Morning goes by, and Tripoli clambers out of his playpen to discover that wolf-girl and almost-wolf-boy are still in Slumber, so he zooms around quietly til the air vents get boring, then vanishes into thin air so he can get out of this room and go find the more interesting, awake male and female.

Sinclair sniffs at some point later, smelling not just Alex but meat cooking upstairs. She rubs her face on his bicep, inhales his scent instead, and never once opens her eyes, never once fully wakes up.

Alex, of course, likely wakes up shortly after the sun, his internal clock confused by all this driving and occasional sleeping in. And Sinclair is, as she is most mornings, dead weight that he rather easily disentangles himself from to get up. Nobody is downstairs, so it's easy enough to shower in the bathroom next door, change into clean clothes grabbed from his luggage across the hall, and head upstairs where Ken and Samantha are sitting in the breakfast booth across from each other.

Ken wears reading glasses and is looking through Popular Mechanics on a Nook, wearing jeans and a short-sleeve button down shirt. They both use mugs clearly painted by a 3rd grader, and somewhere in all the bright mottled color -- his is (mostly) green, hers is (mostly) purple -- there are the words World's Best Mom and World's Best Dad. She takes coffee; he drinks tea. Samantha's hair is pulled back in a ponytail, a wavy burst of blonde behind her head. She is doing a crossword puzzle from a worn-out yellow book that probably cost $2.99 at the grocery store.

"There's bacon if you like it," she tells him when he enters the kitchen, not looking up from her puzzle. Ken only glances over and then returns to his reading. Samantha finally pauses and smiles over at Alex. "Help yourself, sweetie, plates are in the cupboard to the left of the sink," and goes back to her puzzle.

Breakfast in the Sinclair household is a quiet one. Ken and Samantha, perhaps still in recovery from 18 years of a zonked-out daughter who gave them a hell of a battle every damn morning, don't force conversation. Neither of them are eating any bacon, but there are scrambled eggs and hash browns and the bread is still out by the toaster. There's fruit in a wooden bowl on the breakfast table. It's only after Alex gets whatever he likes and takes a seat with them that Ken starts showing off his Nook, which is clearly still a new and shiny enough gadget of his that he's quite proud of it. Samantha just smiles to herself while she does her puzzle.

When Alex has eaten, Sinclair still isn't awake. Tripoli is nowhere to be found, but that's never a concern. The day outside is bright and warm and there's only as much wind as there are trees. When he's lacing on his sneakers, though, he finds Dr. Ken Sinclair at the foot of the stairs as well, changed into knee-length shorts and a t-shirt and running shoes.

"Thought I'd go with you," he says. "If you can keep up."

"Be good," Samantha says warningly from downstairs, and Ken just laughs.


The truth is, he doesn't eat bacon and they cook with less salt and he takes medication now for his heart. Even his blood pressure isn't great anymore, though it's better than that of a man with more stress and less of a relaxed attitude. He doesn't drink caffeine anymore, and though all of his clothes have disguised it up til now, he's in very good shape for a man of his age. The fact that he jogs helps. He's healthy.

Healthy enough that he did the Prairie Fire Half-Marathon last year, and this fall he full intends to run the full marathon. He doesn't pound himself along trying to kill himself next to Alex, but he shows his daughter's boyfriend the course he runs every day -- well, close enough to every day -- and he doesn't try to hold a conversation while they're running.

He competes with Alex a little. But only a little.


Back at the house, it's quiet until the door closes behind them and Sinclair hollers: "We're up here!" followed by some muffled muttering from Samantha about yelling in the house. An awake, showered, clothed, fed and generally quite perky Sinclair trots to the stairs and seems delighted that they went on a run together even if she doesn't say it right out. She hugs them despite their sweatiness and wrinkles her nose at her father's stubble, then drags Alex -- sweaty or not -- upstairs to see what her mom is doing.

Which is watercolors. She's doing final pages, she says, for a children's book coming out in Christmas, we hope. From the look of things it's a book geared more towards secular or even New Age and pagan families about the winter's solstice and different world holidays. "I think the title they settled on was 'Celebrations of Light'," she says, dipping her brush into a pot of gloriously bright orange and thoughtfully sweeping it across the page, her tone distracted. "I'll send you one of the copies I get."

Of course by then it's clear that She's Working, and that Alex is about to crawl out of his own skin if he doesn't shower, so Sinclair goes to wait as patiently as she can while he gets the gross off.

It isn't that patient, and she sits on the counter again while he showers, raising her voice to tell him she thought maybe they'd go down to The High School -- living in southern Park City means she was in the Wichita district and living in the Wichita district of Park City meant that she went, in order: Chisholm Trail Elementary, Stucky Middle --

"And before you even think it, believe me, I know alllll the cheers and nicknames and crap you can do with that name, I was a cheerleader for god's sake,"

-- and Heights High. And everyone she knew and grew up with went to those same three schools because they all lived in the same neighborhoods and that was kind of neat but it also means everyone always knew everything about everyone and if nothing else that was pretty good training for living as a part of a sept, which is just like a small town only with more drama.

When he gets out of the shower and wraps a towel around himself, she sits on the counter and wraps her legs around his waist, her tattooed arms around his still-damp shoulders. She kisses him meltingly until it becomes dangerous to do so, and until she's pressing herself to his abdomen slightly, her thoughts unspooling into ideas of fucking on the bath mat or getting back in the shower. That's when she makes herself pull back and breathe, her brow to his, laughing a little.

Kisses him one more time, softer. Sweetly. And hops off the counter, prancing out again.


The stories at the schools are varied. Sinclair doesn't want to spend much time at Heights. They take a quick loop around and she points out the field and says that's where the stoners all hung out and that's where the jocks would sprawl around with the cheerleaders and that's where the girl jocks hung out and that's where all the goth kids got stared at for wearing black in 90 degree weather. She doesn't have a lot of stories. She says, not wanting to get out of the car and look around more,

"I don't know. I liked a lot of high school. But it was hard for me. I had friends but a lot of them were people I'd always been friends with, so even when I was flipping out I wondered if they were scared of me, too. And even when I was around people I just felt so messed up and lonely." She has her chin on the heel of her hand, her fingers curled towards her mouth, her elbow on the edge of the window. "It was okay. It was just hard. And now it feels kinda weird to look back on it, now that I know what was really going on and why I felt like that. I know a lot of Garou who got taken by their tribes younger wish they'd been able to like, have a Normal Life and go to high school and do all that stuff, but... there's a reason we do that with cubs. It scares me a little to think of the fights I got into here and know, now, what could have happened. How bad it could have been. How I'd still have to carry that with me, if I hadn't been very, very lucky."

She muses aloud like this. And when it's done, she seems to have reached some kind of epiphany. Understood something. Turning from the window, she smiles at Alex. "We can skip Stucky. That was just three years of being awkward and melodramatic. But I kinda want to see my little school again. We can go play on the swingset."

[Alex] A week crossing the country has been enough time to let his system slowly adjust to the earlier hours, but even so Alex is up a little later than six. Sinclair's folks are up by then as well, sharing breakfast in the sort of peaceful mutual-ignorance of a long and comfortably married couple. There's bacon and hash browns and other hearty breakfast foods, and Alex sort of wishes there was fruit and protein mix so he could just blend himself a shake, but really that's just habit talking. Once he digs in, he clears his plate without a moment's hesitation, then goes back for seconds.

On the trail with Ken, Alex isn't such an ass that he forces a grueling pace, puts Ken either a half-mile back or on his back in an ambulance. He doesn't coddle Sinclair's dad either, though, and when he feels Ken competing just a little bit he doesn't just let the older gent win.

By the time they come back the sweat soaking through his shirt is real, and Sinclair's up, and they go look at Samantha's latest project but then she's obviously Working and anyway Alex is crawling out of his skin from the gross, and

on the way to the showers Alex smirks at the names but Sinclair cuts him off at the pass and

after the shower they spend a little too long kissing, winding together, getting a little too into it until Sinclair makes herself pull back and breathe, breathe. Alex leans into her for a moment, nuzzling her like he might try to convince her otherwise, but somewhere in the house Ken and Samantha make some small sound -- reminds him where he is. They share one more kiss, softer, before they come apart.


Sinclair drives the first leg to her high school. And she shows him the field and they drive around the outside a bit, and Alex notices that -- wonders if -- Sinclair was subconsciously taking him around only the places where she felt even a modicum of comfort. He knows high school was tough for her. They never really talked that much about their Ancient History, but he can intuit it; can piece it together from what he watched Aaron go through, though Aaron was luckier in some ways. Unluckier in others.

Later, back in the car, he's driving, she's riding, and they're heading out from her high school. How bad it could have been, she says. And if she looks at him, she can see the way his eyebrows tug briefly together, and the way his mouth moves a little like he wants to say something and -- for once -- decides not to.

He reaches out to her, though. Puts his hand out blindly, finds hers, and holds hers for a moment while they cruise toward her little school.

[Sinclair] "What is it?" Sinclair asks quietly, her fingers interlaced with his across the center console.

[Alex] "Nothing," he says. It's instinct. A moment later, though: "Just thinking about my brother in high school, and how it went down for him. Kinda qualifies for 'having been bad'."

A beat of pause. A glance at her, not too long because he is driving. Old habits die hard, even though the streets here are straight and long as lines of latitude on a map. "It's not that I don't wanna tell you all about it. It's just -- I don't know; maybe it's something you should ask him about."

[Sinclair] That 'nothing' gets her eyebrows flicking upward, an expression he now knows comes straight from Samantha. It's not quite as harsh as a look that says Excuse Me Young Man, but it's across the street from that. On Sinclair's features, though, looking at Alex, it looks more like surprise.

Then he tells her, and her brow furrows with a look of, well... empathy. She squeezes his hand gently. "No, I get that." She doesn't mention if she's going to ask Aaron or not; Aaron knows the worst -- literally the worst -- she's ever done. It is, in a manner of speaking, a matter of public record. They've even had an exchange about it. But for now: this is enough.

"Turn right onto Hydraulic -- yes, I know -- Avenue. It's just up ahead here."


Then it's Cloverdale, and then they're turning onto Independence Street, and there's her school. It's empty now, and quiet. There's a residential area across the street where there is at least one lemonade stand, but Sinclair gets him to park the car and then leads him around the buildings and towards the playground, which is a set of swings and two slides, some monkeybars and a bright blue-and-silver climbing structure. She heads for the swings.

"I went to pre-K here, too," she says. "I didn't ever have to go to daycare since my mom works at home. I liked it because they let me nap, and when you woke up you had snacktime. I don't think I was ever nervous about it until I went to Kindergarten, because that was like... real school and you had to learn stuff."

[Alex] The truth is, how Aaron first changed and What He Did is a matter of public record as well. If Sinclair were so inclined, she could probably dig around. Find out. Somehow, Alex doesn't think she will. She might ask his brother when she meets him. She might not. But he thinks the same thing that makes her quietly and simply get that would keep her from prying around in Aaron's files even if Aaron didn't quite afford her the same respect.

It could be argued that was a different case, though. She's not the wolf responsible for Alex's safety and wellbeing, checking up on a wolf who might want to take over that duty. Come to think of it -- she's never really tried to protect and keep Alex even the way Aaron has.

That's something to consider, too.


"Y'know, I hated naptime," Alex is saying as he parks in front of her elementary school. "I could never fall asleep. Plus they put naptime right after free time, and during free time you could play with legos. So it really sucked that that got interrupted just so I could lay there for thirty minutes being bored."

They get out. It's pretty early in the day still, not yet noon, but already scorchingly hot. Alex is eager to get in the shade, but once there he starts peering in the classroom windows, observing the alphabet banners over the blackboards; the projects on the walls. Little school, she calls it, and really -- that's what it is. Little classrooms, little doors, little desks, little chairs, even little bathroom stalls.

"It's weird," he notes, "how schools always look so big to you when you're going there. Then when you look back they're so tiny." He straightens up from the window, smiling, jogging a few steps to catch up to her on the way to the swings. "Let's check out your classroom later, okay?"

[Sinclair] The truth is, later on Sinclair will go pull up that record. She'll find out What Aaron Did, because she's packed with a Shadow Lord and has been for some time now. It isn't to assuage her curiosity. It isn't to get dirt on him to use against him later. She'll go and find it, and she won't tell Alex that, and she won't tell Aaron that, either. But she'll know, in case it comes up -- or in case she asks -- so that she can be prepared for how Aaron might react to talking about it.

Though it might not come up. She might get home and change her mind. But what she gets, more than anything, is Alex not wanting to be the one to talk about his brother behind her back. If it weren't Aaron, it would frustrate her that he won't. If it were anyone else, she'd wonder why he couldn't tell her, her of all people. It isn't Aaron's privacy she's respecting. It's Alex's relationship with his brother.

They're walking towards the swings, and Sinclair is reaching out for his hand as they talk. She laughs at the idea of tiny!Alex being interrupted during LEGO TIME and lying angrily on his mat staring at the bin where the toys were, waiting for the teacher to turn the naptime music off. She smiles at him looking in windows, and goes with him. "Well that was one of them," she says of the classroom they just peered into. "I think that was...well, it's different now, but when I went here that was Miss Farrell, my third-grade teacher. Third grade was when I got interested in cheerleading, but of course you don't really do that when you're that little, so that's how I got into Cheer Eclipse. By the time I got into middle and high school, cheerleading for a team at a school was sort of just extra practice for me."

They head to the swings, and she plops down in one, holding onto the chains, which creak. She smiles at him. "It's nice having you here," she says. "Just... everything seems so chill with you and my folks, and... I feel like you're getting to know all these other parts of me. It's nice."

[Alex] There's some irony to Sinclair talking about things being chill when -- while she's plopping down on the swing seat -- he's vaulting himself up to stand in one, hands gripping the chain. She sits. He starts swinging, flexing his body to and fro to gain ever greater momentum.

"Yeah," he agrees, though. This is Alex at leisure: still active, still using his muscles. Just not his mind, as much. And certainly not his prickly sense of pride. "I really like your folks. I like seeing little glimpses of where you came from. Who you were. It makes me feel..."

what he thought in the moments before sleep last night comes back to him, then. The peace and quiet of it. The closeness.

"...close to you," he finishes, and smiles. Stops swinging for a moment, letting his own momentum carry him in ever-diminishing arcs. "Like I was there with you, a little bit, in retroactive."

He reaches up, then, grabbing the chain as high as he can on either side. The swing set isn't very tall; it's for little kids, after all. Still, it's a feat of strength, impressive to see, when he simply hauls himself up by the hands, one after another, his body taut and counterbalanced as a gymnast's. He climbs all the way to the top, grabs the top bar, tucks into a curl, flips his legs over and hangs upside down by the knees, face starting to turn red.

"I was never much of a swing person," he says. "I liked the monkey bars."

Obviously.

[Sinclair] It's not rare to see Sinclair so... peaceful. Her life since her Change has been a gradual reclamation of, interestingly enough, peace. Of realizing why she was so angry and hungry all the time. Of coming to understand the fights she does and doesn't have to start. Of growing up. Of earning wisdom and honor. Of realizing what it means to be a Galliard.

Strange to think of it sometimes. She's twenty-three. She's lithe and athletic and covered in piercings. There's ink up her forearms and on her biceps, around her thigh, on her hip and ankle and the back of her neck. There's scars over her back, and he feels them with his fingertips every time he slips his hands up the back of her shirt, feels the faint texture of those carefully, intricately done marks -- they're no thicker than braille would be, and look pale against her tanned skin. She's young and her smiles flash and she has freckles across her nose and he just saw her third grade classroom.

Saw a video of her sucking on her hand because she was too little, then, to know how to suck her thumb. Curling against her mother the way that all children do, because their mother is everything good and comforting and beautiful and warm to them.

This girl on the swings isn't really a girl. And she's not really that young. She's almost an Adren, renowned almost as much now for her strength of will and mind as for her prowess in battle. So strange to think it.

She smiles, when he talks about feeling close to her.

And then Alex climbs the swingset.

Many a girl her age, and younger, would squeal, tell him GET DOWN! or you're gonna break your neck! or just Eeee! but Sinclair is just watching him as he hauls himself up. As the muscles in his arms tighten, quiver a little, then stretch out and relax as he pulls himself up and then dangles upside-down. They gleam in the sunlight, both of them, tanned and athletic and strong. She lifts an eyebrow at him, then gives him a little nod with her chin.

"C'mere."

[Alex] Even upside-down, the look on Alex's face is recognizable: the way his smile gets a little lopsided, a little lazy, a little playful. He's wearing shorts -- apparently those jeans he put on yesterday were considered formal, and for the purpose of meeting her parents -- and the top bar of the swingset is hot behind his knees as he scoots over toward her.

"Now," he says, only half-teasing, "did you want me to come down, or are we gonna try to spiderman this thing?"

He's hanging upside down over her swing now. When he reaches down, his hands find hers on the chain. The chain's hot. Their skin is hot, too. They're fire and steel, both of them, tough and tensile and bright and burning.

[Sinclair] "I'm not a redhead," Sinclair says, her voice the same tone -- the same feeling -- as the breeze going through this place. She smiles at him, warmly, as he scoots over and puts his hand on hers on the chain. "Come down here where I can feel you," she adds, that smile growing a little. Getting lazier.

[Alex] "Spiderman's a wimp anyway," Alex pronounces, grabs the chain in both hands, and swings down.

When the swing stops swaying, when the chain stops rattling, he's standing in front of her, shoes planted firmly in the playsand under the swing. And he reaches for her, putting his hands on her face, stroking back her hair, pulling strands of it free from whatever clasp or braid she might have put it in today.

When they kiss, it's a mutual thing, meeting in the middle, warm and lazy and slow as the day.

[Sinclair] It takes surprising balance, agility, and perception for Alex to swing off like that and not smack into Sinclair. He's aware of his surroundings. He knows his body. She doesn't flinch. He could knock her off her swing and smack her in the face and she'd probably fall over laughing. She doesn't get up off her swing, either, holding onto it like

he met her when they were teenagers, and went on a drive in someone's dad's car and ended up here. It's not twilight, though, it's full-on sunlight, not yet lunchtime. And they aren't teenagers.

When they kiss, there's no hesitance to it, no uncertainty. There is exploration, though. His hands on her face, then in her hair, loose and freeflowing, pin-straight and straw-colored. For awhile her hands stay on the chain of the swing, then reach for him, touching his shoulders, fingering his shirt a moment before her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him down, pulling herself up. The chain rattles as Sinclair stands up, pressing against him like she did when they were undressing each other last night, and when they were kissing earlier this morning at the bathroom sink.

She pants away from it only after a moment, dazed eyes looking for his for a moment. Then, after a blink, a breath: "Come on. Come on, come on," grabbing his hand and tugging him away from the playground, away from the school, ducking through a covered walkway and running towards the street to cross it. They aren't heading back to the car, though. From the look of things, she's looking at the pond over yonder, separated from the residences that surround it by grassy banks and copses of trees everywhere.

[Alex] They run like the giddy teenagers they aren't -- hand in hand, the female's stride long and quick, the male's feet beating concrete with more irrepressible energy than sheer speed. Alex isn't really built to be a sprinter. His limbs aren't long enough, his body too solidly muscled. Even had he tried to genuinely show Ken up this morning, it wouldn't have been through velocity but tenacity.

They race down corridors that seem just a little too low-ceilinged for full-grown adults. This place is built around the children; built with an eye to make kids as young as five feel comfortable. They run past classrooms and bathrooms and janitor's closets and the teacher's lounge, the principal's office -- past the bungalows around the side and across the street. When he catches site of the open land, the pond there, he laughs.

"Did you know that was there?" he asks, and then the grass is up to their ankles, then up to their knees. They tug each other around the side of the pond, splashing through the shallows; they pull each other into the shelter of the trees, and he knows what's on her mind and she knows what's on his. He starts reaching for the hem of her shirt even as she's stopping in the green shade, and even before she's fully turned to him he's stripped it up and off her, dropping it to the grass.

[Sinclair] They could have sauntered. They could stroll along like nothing whatsoever is going on, like they're just talking a walk. Let the tension build. That isn't what they do. That isn't who they are, and, quite frankly, that isn't what they need. There's an exhiliration to her in the way she runs, hair behind her, catching the gold from the sunlight.

Around the side of the building they flash past windows, dark inside, chairs on top of tables and desks, but they don't stop. And across a parking lot, into the trees right away. They never get to the pond proper, never need to go all the way down to the water to find shade. To find shelter. Sinclair's pulling him against her, pulling him closer, breathing more from him than from the run over.

"Oh, yeah," she says, instant and flippant, lifting her arms so he can pull her shirt off. Her bra is blue and black tartan, her hair sweeping upward and then swooshing across her shoulderblades as it swings back down from the neck of her t-shirt. She reaches for him, pulling his face to her to kiss him, warm and hard, but before their mouths part again she's reached down between their bodies, catching his lower lip on her teeth as she reaches into his shorts.

"God, Alex, I want you so much," she says softly, almost shuddering from the truth of it. The words rush across his jawline, humid and aching, like the last thirty-six hours or so have just been too long. Her hand is warm when it undoes the single button on his shorts and slides inside to touch him. When she feels him growing hard on her palm she moans, burying the sound in the side of his neck.


There are no ancient palm trees towering over them here. It isn't a February summer in Rio, and it isn't a twilit garden far away from the teeming masses of Carnival. No spray-painted torque on Alex's chest, and no gold body paint transferring from his skin to hers with heat and sweat. They're not so far removed from the world that Sinclair can even cry out. They can hear cars on a road not a quarter-mile away. They can hear people in their yards. The trees and bushes are thick enough that they're covered, the grass high enough, but it's not so soft and so welcoming as that night in Brazil. It's not the same at all.

But it never is. Oh, their lovemaking has a rhythm to it, a familiarity -- particularly for Sinclair, who knows nothing else when it comes to sex. She knows how Alex moves, and she knows how he likes her legs high and tight around him, knows how hard it is for him to hide his own hollering and moaning in her shoulder, or by taking her breast in his mouth while he flexes his hips between her legs. Their lovemaking is athletic and eager, always so fucking eager, like they're fulfilling some snarling hunger in themselves. Which they are.

Never quite the same as the last time, though. They play and they explore and there's waves of delight every time they make each other come. That grinning, ferocious look he gets on his face when he's eating her out and she tips her head back and starts wailing, clutching at their pillows. The way she whimpers and rides him harder when he groans baby at her, as though pleading for her to give it to him, bounce on that cock. Sometimes he grabs the sheets under her when he starts going at her a little harder, his mind blown by how fucking sweet she is, how tight she is, how good it feels to fuck the way they do, playful and cheerful and exuberant and loving, which he hasn't known in a very long time. If he ever had it like that, even with that girl whose name he had etched into his shoulder a long, long time ago. Forever.

Sinclair never has it in her to wonder if there's more. She loses her mind so quickly when he touches her, when he bows his head and kisses her neck, puts his hand on her breast, opens her legs and fits himself between them like he was made to be there. She can't think of anything then, can't remember her name, can't remember anything but how it feels to be like this.

So: they make love the way they always do. It's eager and hungry and loving and playful and laughing, shushing each other as they tug shirts and shorts out of the way, as he flicks the clasp of her bra open with two fingers and pulls it off, descending on her nipple with his mouth and a low moan of satisfaction. By then they're lying in the grass, Sinclair on her back, and when he starts flicking her nipple ring with his tongue she arches, shuddering. Her eyes roll back. They make love the way they always do, and when they come she's holding onto him, whimpering into his chest, and he's gasping and muttering shh, baby, shh, just let me fuck you,

except that only makes her moan louder, her pussy clenching around his cock as he rocks into her.

And: they make love the way they always do, differently than the last time, neither one of them really aware of how much they're learning, or how much they have to learn, how much is still out there. Different because they try to be quiet -- really quiet, not there's-people-in-the-second-bedroom-who-can-go-fuck-themselves quiet but we-could-get-arrested-and-have-to-explain-this-to-parents quiet -- and they've never really had to do it like this before, grinding together and gasping and not allowing themselves much else,

discovering that he likes telling her to shh, baby,

and discovering that Sinclair all but dissolves when he starts thrusting faster, whispering right by her ear that's it, baby... that's it, that's my girl, that's my good girl.

Learning, too, what it feels like to grasp a handful of grass and tear it out of the ground by the roots when their orgasms topple into one another, making the world fall dizzyingly apart while they cling to the earth and to each other.


Awhile later -- still not quite lunchtime, still not even noon -- they lie entwined. It was quick, all that: a gasping question if they had a condom, which they didn't, and neither of them bothering to ask if the other really cared much anyway. Sinclair's mind has passingly entertained the thought of how they're going to sneak back into the house and clean up when they've both already showered and now have grass in their hair and are both a total mess, but she let the thoughts go, uncaring. She nestles against him in the grass, drowsy with afterglow, touching his hand against the light that comes in through the tree branches.

"I just really needed to fuck you," she muses aloud, thoughtful and soft, stroking between his fingers with her own. "I like watching you work out. And play." She's silent a moment, eyes drifting closed, nose rubbing against his chest. Naked like this, he can see every mark on her. Every ring, every bar, every piercing. The names on her bicep, the poetry on her hip, everything laid out as bare and unsubtle as her breasts pressed against his flesh. "Sometimes I just look at you and I just... have to touch you. I love feeling your whole body against me."

And, because she's drowsy, because she's lazy, because she's so relaxed: "I love your cock. I swear, I just... don't think you have any idea how fucking amazing it feels when you start fucking me."

Which makes her grin, lazily, eyes still closed, chuckling at herself. But it dies a soft, gentle death, and she slips her arm over his waist. Softer, now, the words dropping slowly into the air: "Sometimes.... all you do is lay a fingertip on me... and my whole body just... gets hot."

[Alex] It's not quite noon. They've only been up a handful of hours, but they're so lazy now. Summer is in full swing here. The heat, the golden haze in the air. Insects whirring in the brush; the grass turning sere with the season except where it's shaded by trees.

Like here. Here, in a humid warmth, the air itself green with the smell of plant life; the grass they crushed beneath their bodies and pulled out by the handful when they came together and came, together. It's never quite been like that before, but then that's always the truth. For creatures of the most Weaverlike tribe, they are so wholly wild. Mutable. Never-still, ever-changing.

He's overheated and replete, his body still echoing from what they did to each other. Her body is bare beside his, bare except for the way she's decorated herself -- drawn her life story onto her skin. Sunlight comes through the leaves in tiny, myriad spots, moving over her in what little breath of breeze there is. He moves his hand and watches the sunlight slide onto his knuckles, off again,

remembers suddenly and vividly riding a schoolbus home with his brother, catching a spot of sunlight on their toes, trying to balance it there, trying to pass it to one another as though the light itself were something tangible.

Alex lifts his head and kisses Sinclair: her collarbone, her breast. He molds his mouth around her nipple lazily. She talks about how much she loves his body, wants him; he lays his head down again, eyes half-closed, listens, too lazy even to smile. Just fondness on his face. Just warmth, and a sort of warm satisfaction.

"I like it here," he whispers. He lays his hand against her cheek. Touches that bright hair of hers. Touches her skin, cups her neck. When he kisses her again, there's a new flicker of desire, leaping between them like a spark. And again, "I feel close to you. I feel close to the earth, and you."

His eyes close; another kiss, softer, deeper than the last.

"Again?"

[Sinclair] How long does a tour of Sinclair's old schools take? Nobody really told them to be back at a certain time. Samantha said they'd just have leftovers or something for lunch whenever they got back, and Sinclair told her not to wait, and the truth is that Ken is probably thinking about football back in college and how they'd have those ice baths and how good that felt sometimes and his legs are about to fall off but damned if he's going to let Alex see how worn out he is.

All that is behind them right now. Back at her childhood home, her parents' home. They're right here, warm and languid and barely hidden by the trees, in a tangle of limbs amidst the grass. Sinclair's breathing is steady, almost sleepy, content. She opens one eye and watches Alex play with the light. Watches him flick it between his knuckles like a coin.

And she loves him.

"I love you," she whispers to him, and he comes back to her, kisses her like an answer. Kisses the bow of her clavicle, drops his mouth to her breast. Sinclair shudders, trembles at what he does to her, and settles again when he lets her go, lets her drift back down to earth after making her soar like that for a moment. She watches him, and lifts her hand as he lays his head down, the back of her hand soft against his cheek. He touches her, too.

Kisses her again, moving half over her again, and it strikes her that he's never like this. He's sleepy and happy and so many other things, but there's this side to him she can't remember seeing but once,

and that was in those gardens in Rio de Janeiro, when even after having her his want for her seemed boundless, when not even humor or happiness got in the way of this gentle, languid openness. She's a Galliard, and she can't find the words for what's different. For how he is right now, and how it fills her with this deep tenderness like an ache. The thought to protest, to say no, no, my god, someone could walk by any minute --

goes away.

She lifts her mouth to his and kisses him, her eyes closing, too. She lays back, her leg sliding up his side, and nods a little, whispering:

"Yeah."

[Alex] Close, he says, over and over. It's the only word he has for something he can't rightly put in words, either. Only that something's different here, something's different now, something changed on the road or in her childhood home or out here in the fields, on the plains.

Close is what they are, over and over. Close is how they stay, and closer is what they become. Her leg slides up his side and her arms enfold him and he comes over her, their golden bodies screened by grass; turned green and gold by the season and the sun, the shade of the trees.

He moves over her and there are her fingers tracing his shoulderblades; there's his hand pushing through her hair. There are their mouths, passing slow, soft kisses one to the other. They move together, their quiet gasps and low sounds hidden beneath the sound of summer leaves swaying in the summer wind.


This time there's no hurry.


The second time he comes inside her, he kisses her all through it, panting and gasping into her mouth, burying a groan in her breath. He moves in her like he might die if he doesn't get as close as he possibly can. He grips at the earth like he might fall off otherwise, gets soil on his fingertips and under his nails, and that's okay, too.

Afterward, resting over her, too spent and too languid for words, he thinks of ancient man wandering these untouched plains; the grasslands that spanned half a continent. He thinks of early civilizations; the rise of agriculture. The uprooting of the grass. The tilling of the ground. The planting of the seed, and the moment man became singular amongst all animals.

He shifts a little, lifts himself from her just enough to move to the side, to sprawl tangled beside her, to open his eyes and see her. They're so close they could still share a breath. Share a kiss.

"My mate," he whispers. His hand on her face is very warm. "Marry me."

[Sinclair] This time the edge of their eagerness for each other has dulled a bit, and they slow down. He runs his hands along her sides, and she strokes his back. She wraps her long, lovely legs around his tapered waist and he holds her hip, lifts her up to meet his thrusts, swallowing the little cries she makes by kissing her, over and over, sipping those sounds out of her mouth. There's no rush. Summer seems to have slowed down everything around them. The sun itself is the laziest of all, hanging in the endless sky like it has no intention of moving.

Sinclair holds tight to him when she comes this time, gasping his name because it feels right to do so, not because someone might hear. Anyone who might hear would end up walking away, and she and he would laugh about it later and they can lie here all damn day if they please, naked and replete. She comes and remembers the way he held so still, held himself over her that very, very first time, held her until she was coherent enough that he could ask if it was okay, if she minded, if he kept fucking her. If it was all right if he fucked her until he came, that he wanted to come while inside of her.

And she didn't say yes. She said she wanted him to.

Sinclair remembers that even hotter afternoon with striking clarity. Remembers how he was with her at first, mistaking her nervousness for unnecessary restraint, as though she was afraid of hurting him and not of what was about to happen. Remembers, too, how deeply she slept after the second time, lost in that big, soft bed. And how every time she looked at him her desire woke again, how they kept reaching for each other under covers and in at least one nightclub and, some time later, in the lush emerald grass of a garden. She remembers all of it. Like she remembers how he was on her birthday -- the 22nd, and then the 23rd -- when he wrapped his arms tight around her and called her his girl, like hearing himself say it surprised him.

Her duty and gift is memory. Not secrets, though all these things have and will stay private between the two of them. She'll remember, tomorrow and a week from now and two years from now, the way he laughed as he brushed torn grass of his hand, and how he kissed her shoulder, her breast, laid his brow down as he caught his breath. She'll remember the way he smelled when she curled ever closer to him, brushing her mouth in soft, sweeping kisses along his arm, murmuring nonsense, except some of it wasn't nonsense, just

i love you. i love you, i love you, i love you

because if he or anyone else thinks saying it like that robs it of meaning, well. They can hang. She nuzzles him and murmurs to him, drowsy all over again in the unfurling aftermath of loving, and being loved.


The air somehow feels cool, but only just, when Alex moves off of her a bit, props himself up a little. She smiles lopsidedly at him, lazily, her eyes blinking half-closed and open again, staying on his face. All he can see is her face, freckled and fresh and bright. A lock of hair that is as much summer-colored as the rest of her. The very edge of green, and sky, that frames her cheek.

She thinks he might tell her he loves her. Tell her my god, we need to get back or we have gotta shower, this is insane or something like that, and make her laugh. She's thinking that she's an idiot, she can probably gift-open the lock on an empty house or the school and they can duck inside and shower quickly before going back to her house, if they really want to avoid walking in looking like they just fucked twice in the grass. She is also thinking that the earth teems underneath her, alive and busy with all the things burrowed in it and growing atop it, and it's a very interesting feeling to be filled with her mate and with warmth and be limp and warm from sex while resting on all that constant life and growth.

The last thing she's thinking about, truth be told, is the last stop on this journey of theirs -- Miami. Aaron, Nightfall's Edge, her senior in the tribe, twin brother to the male she wants to mate with, and while she knows he has at least a few good reasons that he could deny her, she also knows she's a damn good candidate. She's strong. She's fit. She's young and ferocious. She's blisterningly smart. She's a member of a pack of incredibly high standing, a pack that makes up much of the eldership of her sept. She knows she's pretty, and loving, and that there's not another Garou on earth that Alex would be happy with. She knows that Aaron may very well be shocked Alex wants to be with her. She knows Aaron should damn well count his blessings.

But this part of the trip is a break. Being with her parents, showing Alex off, showing him around. She's home for awhile and it's calming. She wants to ask him if they can go to Massachusetts so he can show her Harvard, because she's not sure she'll ever have another chance and she wants to see that part of his life as much as his youth. In a way, though, that's also one more stop before Miami. Before the possibility, however remote, that Aaron might tell Alex he's insane and tell her to go to hell.

Or even tell her okay, but just... not like her. She can't even think about his parents yet.

And then, in the midst of thinking about silly things, about running around clutching their clothes and laughing and shushing each other, thinking about how good it feels to just lie here and if anyone shows up she'll just scare them off so they can laze about forever,

there's a small solar flare that blinds her for a moment.


Blinking her eyes, her lazily smiling mouth shifting to a small o, Sinclair looks a little stunned for a moment. She blinks a few more times, rapidly, staring at Alex. It's a few moments that are likely interminable. Enough to make his heart start to calcify in his chest, tightening and hardening with trepidation.

She gives a soft huff of laughter. "You would ask me that," she whispers, smiling, "while we're lazing about after having sex." After all, that's how he first brought it up. She leans over to kiss him, tenderly, closing her eyes for it. When it ends, she's touching his face, smiling, her cheeks flushed still from pleasure, both old and new.

"You know I want to marry you," she tells him, still quiet. Smiling. "And wear a pretty dress and have flowers and everything." For a moment her smile is a grin, a flash of that future. It fades to something gentler: "And do it outside, where we can feel the sun and the wind on us. Like now. Somewhere warm and bright."

She rolls a little closer, their fronts touching now, her arm wrapping around him. Sinclair adjusts herself, nudges his arm if necessary, to rest her head on his bicep. "So yes, I want to marry you. So much," she breathes, those two words a rush of warm air from her lips. "But... I know it's silly," she adds, an apologetic, sad furrow of her brow wrinkling her face, "but I don't want to say yes until I know, til it's absolutely certain, that I can. That you'll be mine, and nobody will ever be able to stand in the way of that." That expression flutters a little, the surface moving from some turbulence below. "I just can't stomach the thought that there's even this chance that I might promise you something and then... then not be able to."

[Alex] That soft laugh of hers, that soft kiss, that soft smile -- they make him flush with pleasure, but they also ground him a little. Bring him down out of the floating pieces that remained in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Reassemble him, bring him out of abstract thoughts of the past, the history of this land that's older than he can imagine, the history of this girl who is also a wolf, who is his

mate.

And he laughs a little, too, when she chides him gently for asking in the afterglow. "I know I wasn't supposed to ask while naked," he whispers back, smiling, "but I wanted to."

Which says so much, really. Not supposed to, wanted to, did: the story of his life. His smile grows when she goes on. Outside. Sun and wind. Warm and bright. He agrees; he doesn't even have to say it for her to see that he agrees. Of course he does. Alex is a creature of the outdoors, a creature of the summer, as much as Sinclair.

That smile fades a little; doesn't sour, but merely tapers away, when she goes on. He wraps his arm around her as hers wraps around him. She lays her head on his bicep and he touches her hair, his expression softening, aching with fondness; adoration.

"Baby," he murmurs, "I understand wanting to do things right. But you don't have to worry about Aaron. He's never tried to 'save me from myself' because I just don't know better. He's not like that. And he's not going to deny you out of pettiness either.

"He's not like that. We can wait until we're sure, but ... I don't want you to worry about that. At all. I just want you to meet him. Because he's my brother."

[Sinclair] "It's weird," she murmurs, curled close to him as though in every way he actually is the stronger one, the protector, the guardian -- because when she's like this, when it's matters of the heart and so forth, she does indeed entrust herself to him the way she hopes he trusts himself to her when there is something with sharp teeth and claws that wants to tear them apart. "But I'm really not," Sinclair goes on.

"Worried, I mean. I don't really think he's going to say no to all this. I don't think he's going to stand in the way. But..."

She brings her hand close, balled into a fist, and between the two of them he can feel it like a knot, pressed to his solar plexus and her own, like a swallowed stone. "I feel it. I don't want you to think this is about trading you around like property or something. It's not. And it's not even about doing it right or by the book, not just that."

Sinclair lifts her eyes to him again. "I want to meet him because he's your brother, Alex. But I have to meet him because he's Nightfall's Edge, and other than you he's the only one in the world who could stop me from being with you. I have to settle that. Even if it's just a matter of meeting him and having a beer and knowing he blesses it. But there's... a very real letting-go he has to do. And a hard truth that if he doesn't, you won't ever really be mine.

"And I need that," she whispers, laying her head on his chest, burying her face against his neck, breathing him in again. "I need it like... like meat."

[Alex] To that, there's only a quiet for a long time.

Some hard truths in there. That if Aaron doesn't let go, Sinclair can't have Alex. Not until she makes him, at least. Another hard truth: that something like that could shatter something fragile and precious between the brothers, and between wolf and mate. Might make him feel exactly like the possession she doesn't want him to be.

So she doesn't worry. But it's there, like a swallowed stone, like her fist against their solar plexuses. He reaches down with his hand after a moment, covers hers. Smooths her fingers out, until it's not a fist but a hand pressed to his chest, covering his heartbeat.

She entrusts her heart, her emotions, to him in so many ways. And in so many ways, he trusts her with his freedom, his body, his very life. It's a strange mutuality that they don't really discuss, ever, but it's there the way his love for her is there: moving warmly under the surface, almost but not quite hidden.

"I understand," he says, and this time that's all. "I do."

[Sinclair] [EMPAFEE: DO YOU REALLY? spending WP cuz she REALLY CARE]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]

[Alex] [1. he does absolutely understand. and he did in the previous post!
2. he really does not want her to worry that maybe aaron would say no, but
3. he also kinda gets that she's not REALLY worried. it's just a thing she still Has To Do.
4. on some very deep level, he does chafe a little at the thought that this is something the Nation requires her to do. but that's directed at the Garou Nation, not really at her or Aaron.
5. on a very deep level! he gets that even if the Nation didn't require it, she would still Need To Do This. and this, tbh, he doesn't understand as wholly. but he does understand, and intuit, that it has to do with who she is and what she is. and that this might be something he'll never really understand, because he's just not Garou.]

[Sinclair] Like meat, she says, a bloody little reminder of what she is. Not just Garou, not just Galliard, but predator. A skilled hunter she is, sharp-toothed and acquainted with the dark. He's seen her in other forms so rarely. She doesn't hang around the apartment in lupus. She doesn't show up in hispo, dropping something bloody on his kitchen floor. There's really no reason for her to take any of her other shapes around him.

It isn't as though he's ever going to forget what she is. What it feels like sometimes to wake in the middle of the night and find himself lying next to -- holding, entwined with -- a living, breathing personification of rage and hunger. Even the way she breathes in her sleep, sometimes, is more reminiscent of a beast than a child. And he chooses to love her. To ask her -- twice now, really -- to be his wife.

The fear that Aaron might arbitrarily, pettily say no doesn't exist. The awareness that he might wonder what in the hell his brother wants to do with a twice-corrupted Garou is there, but not a great worry. Truth be told, the obstacle lies within Sinclair, and Alex can sense that, deep down where the space between what he is and what she is aches. She needs him to be hers. Like she needs meat. Like they need air. And that deep, gut need filters up through all the layers of humanity and sentience and Garou law and tradition to her highest levels of reasoning and emotion,

and makes her think that it would itch at the back of her mind constantly if she didn't do this, didn't do it right, would always be bothered by it,

and she really doesn't want to feel like that on her wedding day.


She looks up at him when he unfolds her hand and holds it there to his chest, grateful to him -- and flickeringly, almost embarrassing in its sweetness, she imagines being able to see her hand covering his heartbeat like that, imagines a little ring on that hand. She smiles at him, somewhere between tenderness and ache, searching his eyes while he promises her he understands.

"I'm not really afraid," she whispers. "You'll never be far from either of us. Not in truth."

Sinclair leans up and kisses him then, softly. She realizes something, like she did while looking at her old high school. One more truth about herself, and this one she'll keep in her heart: that her duty to her mate isn't just to protect him, love him, keep him hers and keep him from harm. That whatever she does, she has to preserve his heart. Protect the bond between he and his twin, and resist any instinct that snarls at her to sever him, take him, hide him away in a cave where no one else can reach. To resist any instinct, period, that would damage the trust he places in her.

The trust that they never need to speak of aloud.

[Alex] "I know," he whispers back, just as quietly, until the wind through the leaves overhead almost steal his words. "I know, baby."


A lot of fuss is made about how difficult it is to be a kin, how hard it is to live the life of loving someone so different, so dangerous, so doomed. The truth is, it's just as hard the other way. To suppress certain instincts that have a place between one wolf and another, where the balance of power is so much more equal -- but no place between a Garou and kin, where such a balance is sickeningly skewed. To deny certain parts of oneself, really, even as you hope -- daily -- that your partner will be able to accept all parts of you.

They rarely think that far ahead, though. They're still learning about each other, and even more so about themselves. They take things one day at a time, and even though it can be hard,

there's just so much joy in it as well.


And a little later:

"I think I want to talk to your parents tonight all the same, though. I think we should both be there to talk to them. Just let them know ... we're mates, and we want to get married." He smiles at her, leaning forward to smooch her between her eyebrows, gently. "Y'know, just so we don't end up skyping them out of the blue one day and going hey, by the way, you're invited!"

[Sinclair] They can't just lie here forever. For a long time, they already have. And Sinclair is getting closer and closer to that point where she'd be content to lie here with him and go to sleep. She's already starting to let go of all those darker thoughts, those ones that lead down difficult paths that leave aches in the soul like rocks pressing into one's feet. She's happy with him. She's smiling as she cuddles with him in the grass, tickled by it here and there. A ladybug crawls through the very tips of her hair, and she doesn't notice.

They've both spent so long aware of how hard it can be to do this that both of them, at one point and for a long time, gave up on having it. He didn't want what a Garou had to offer, and there were no Garou with whom the tradeoff would be worth it. She thought herself unlovable, and really, she hadn't met anyone who really set fire to her. What was the point in pretending that either of them were meant to be anything but alone

til they ended up like this.

She drowses with him, rubbing her feet lightly against his, and when he brings up talking to her parents -- both of them -- and telling them that they want to get married, she nods. To her, it's a sort of sealing in and of itself, a proof to herself and even to Alex that she isn't seriously worried that Aaron will say no. And, in a deeper way, acknowledgement that if the worst should happen, she could still talk to them about it. That her relationship with them is repaired -- that nothing she did ever really damaged it that badly to begin with.

Sinclair laughs when he kisses her between her eyebrows, as though forestalling any furrowing. "I think they already know we're that serious," she says, squeezing him, then relaxing again. "But we're going to tell them that we want to get married one day, in the future, because technically, you haven't asked me right yet." She turns her head and gives him a gentle nomf on his shoulder, grinning. She's quite pleased with herself and her own demanding, grinning up at him without a trace of shame.

[Alex] Little by little, they're ascending from that sanctuary, that sanctified core consciousness they seemed to dwell in in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Little by little awareness, humor, human trappings return to them. She says he hasn't asked right yet. She nomfs him, and he grins; he nuzzles her and plants a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"Oh right," he says. "I forgot. No asking after sex, while nekkid, and not on bended knee."


They can't stay there forever. They lie there a little longer nonetheless, sprawled together, and gradually conversation moves on to other things. He talks about the blue of the sky here, and how big it is. He withdraws from her after quite some time, turns on his back and stretches in the grass. A ladybug -- maybe the same one that was on her hair -- alights on his arm, and he picks it up gently to hold on the tip of his finger while she tells him that there's a rumor running around GWNet that some packs follow a ladybug totem. That they paint their backs black-dotted-red before going into combat, and that they taste really bad and fancy themselves matchmakers.

You're shitting me, he says, half-believing, and as though affronted, the ladybug opens its wing casing and whirrs away into the gold-hazed air.

They decide maybe they ought to get going as well. They try to figure out what to do about the mess they've made of each other, and it's Alex that comes up with the idea of going back to the high school and sneaking into the gym locker rooms to take a shower. It's Sinclair that opens the lock with a touch, prompting Alex to call her catwoman until she splashes him in the shower, and then

they chase each other around the shower stands, slipping on the wet tile, until they corner each other against the wall, kissing.


Some time later, they take the long way back to the Sinclairs' house. They go through the tiny downtown of Park City, and they stop for a sundae at a little diner so charmingly old-fashioned it prompts Alex to muse maybe they should follow Route 66 for a bit. It'll take them northward though, he says -- right to Chicago, in fact -- and that's when it comes up that maybe she'd like to go see Massachusetts and Boston and Harvard.

We can totally do that, he says. I can even get you in the alumni clubhouse. OoooOOoo.

On the way out of the diner, they grab some food to go. Only fair, Alex says, that your folks not have to cook again tonight. It's the hottest part of the afternoon when they return to her parents' home. They're even more tanned than they left it, and Ken and Samantha can hear them pulling up in the driveway; can hear his loud voice and her happy laugh as they come to the door.

"We got dinner!" Alex calls as they tromp in the front door. "They said we can just stick it in the oven to reheat when we're ready."

[Sinclair] "And a ring!" Sinclair laughs, on his litany of her requirements for a proper proposal. "Some huge, fat diamond that comes on a litter carried by four strapping young men who buckle under the weight." She even extends her hands to show him just how big this ring needs to be, seriously, we're talking a gemstone the size of both their heads, if her hands are to be believed.

She kisses him back, grinning, laughing, rolling around with him in the grass. Whispers to him, her hands soft on his cheeks, her lips so close to him he can feel them as they move with something like a secret: "I don't need anything special," though he already knows. Kisses him again, soft. "I just want to be able to tell my parents." She grins, close to him, her hair falling all around them, smelling like grass and sunlight. "We can be as naked. And you don't have to kneel."

Kisses him. Again, and again.


For awhile she lies atop him, so lazy it feels like she might fall asleep on his chest. And he's staring at the sky and stroking her hair, talking about the difference between Kansas and California. They both agree that either place, in terms of sky, is vastly superior to Chicago, just because you can see the sun more than two or three months out of the year. She rolls off of him later and listens briefly for the sound of people coming down to the pond. Some teenagers. She shhs Alex for a moment, then covers her mouth and laughs as the teenagers talk about how boring and gross the pond is and wander off again.

He shows her the ladybug that landed on his finger and she does indeed tell him about the spirit of Ladybug having decided to grace packs with its blessing. Alex hardly believes her, and she laughs as the Ladybug flies off. "I'm serious. They're actually quite well-received wherever they go. People think they're lucky. Or at least friendly."

Eventually her head resting on his shoulder gets heavier and he nudges her, whispers hey til she stirs and stretches, as though waking from a deeper nap, and props herself up on her elbows. Her breasts give the softest little bounce with the movement, and his eyes track down her body thoughtfully a moment before, yes, they decide they need to figure out what to do with themselves. Sinclair gets hung up on the details. Change back into their clothes, getting them all kinds of dirty, only to shower and then climb back into the filthy clothes -- she gives a full-body shudder and a gak! at the thought, but Alex reminds her that she was perfectly happy to sleep in a pile o' gross the other night, and she wrinkles her nose and pulls on her clothes again.


They break into the high school and discover, to Sinclair's delight,

the laundry room.


They don't need an excuse to play in the shower or take their time, though. She shows him her locker that was once stuffed with all kinds of gear for different sports, and is delighted to find that the sparkly smiley face sticker she once slapped on there is still present. High school was five years ago for her. It's mindblowing. She finds some towels, clean ones even, after they've thrown their stuff in the washer.

They actually wash up, and splash, and run around, til Alex corners her. Back to the tile, Sinclair grins, telling him she had to try pretty hard sometimes not to fantasize while in here if she was showering alone. She kisses him, and the washer's buzzer goes off.

"Be... right back, stay right here," she tells him, running off -- dripping water -- to go throw their clothes in the dryer. When she comes back

he's not there,

so she hunts him down, and shrieks when he comes out of some steam and splashes more water on her. They turn on several spigots so no matter where they go there's water. Alex ends up picking her up, lifting her onto his body when he 'catches' her. She wraps her legs around him again, her arms, leans over him and kisses him, moaning,

"More."

Her back goes to the tile again. Later on, the dryer's buzzer goes off. They ignore it.


Much later on, Sinclair hangs her legs out the car window and lays her head on the center console atop her little car-nap pillow, looking out the window at the passing day while Alex meanders around the roads, following loose directions but mostly just letting themselves get lost for now. She gets a text from her mom and passes along that she wants to know when they'll be home, and Sinclair says they're gonna go to the diner for a sundae,

which is when Alex gets a lightbulb over his head that they should pick up dinner. Sinclair grins as she swypes back to her mom to not cook tonight, puts the phone away, and laughs as a corner Alex takes allows her to stick her leg out and feel an overhanging branch sweep its leaves over her foot.


At the diner, it turns out that it's not so small a town that everyone here remembers Sinclair. There actually is a family of four, the youngest one very tiny indeed, his mother has big hair, and Sinclair tells Alex don't look don't look don't look I hated her. But nobody recognizes her. It's been a long time, and even if they thought she looks just like they don't approach. She can't be Heather Jane. She just can't. Heather Jane would never get a huge snake tattoo up her thigh like that, wouldn't be sitting across an ice cream sundae with a guy like that. She doesn't look like a Keisha, but whatever.

He mentions driving along Route 66. She says I was actually thinking of asking you if we could go north before we go to Miami. Visit my pack a little. Maybe, um... look at places we could maybe move to when we're ready. Quiet a moment, then: But what I really wanna do is go to Boston. And see Haaahhhvaaahhhd.

Which, it turns out, Alex thinks is a great idea.


So, too, is bringing home dinner from the diner. Sinclair's hair is dry, their clothes are clean as anything, and there's no grass stains in their hair or suspicious flush to their bodies. "Have a good day?" Ken asks when he hugs his daughter hello, laughing. The house is shut up, the windowshades pulled and the A/C on to try and keep it cool. She just beams at him, hops up to kiss his cheek, and takes the bags upstairs to stick in the fridge.

Tripoli peeks out from behind Ken's pant leg, waggling fingers at Alex and saying iiii! again. It's his new thing.

Samantha comes out of her studio and downstairs with Sinclair. She's changed out of the clothes she works in, the ones covered in paint stains, and let her hair down. "You know," she says, seeing the elemental, "he was following your father around all day today. Cute as a puppy."

Tripoli's eyes sparkle blue. Eeee, he says sheepishly, rolling back and forth a bit.

"I think it's cuz I was making him this," Ken says, showing them what looks like a carefully cut watch-strap that has a tuft of red bristles out of it. "Here," he says, grunting as he hunkers down and ties it carefully onto Tripoli's head. Looks down at the crested elemental with subdued and restrained pride then. "So it's not a mohawk or a helment, really," he says.

Sinclair looks at Tripoli, who is waggling his arms over his head as though to say lookit meeeee,

and she squeals, picking him up.

[Sinclair] [We can be naked. Not as naked. *throws up hands*]

[Alex] Alex laughs aloud to see what Ken's made for Tripoli. Sinclair scoops the little gaffling up and hugs him; Alex reaches over to gently scrubs his fingertips over the red crest. "Perfect," he says. "Now all we gotta do is figure out a miniature gladius for him and he'd be ready to march on the Gauls."

It's possible that Alex and Ken will have a conversation later, one that Tripoli will be very very very interested in because it'll be all about him, and all about how one might be able to fashion a little sword out of common household items. It's also entirely possible that by the time they get home Tripoli will more or less want Roomba to be run every single day just so he can climb aboard and ride the whirring little chariot-of-war around in his centurion getup.

For now, though, Alex is greeting Ken with a smile and a wave as Sinclair greets him with a hug. Alex couldn't hug if he wanted to; he's carrying food from the diner, which he takes into the kitchen. There's still a bit of leftover steak from lunch, and he cuts himself a piece and noms it while he's unpacking dinner-to-be.

They tell Sinclair's parents about their day. They tell them about the tiny classrooms and the swing set, the high school field and the pond. They tell them about the diner. They leave out what happened beside the pond, and in the shower, which they only went to because of what happened beside the pond.

It's still early enough, and they ate recently enough, that dinner is out of the question. There's not a lot to do here, but Alex sort of likes it like that. No tourist attractions to rush around trying to see. No huge sprawling network of friends to visit. Just them, and this airy, pleasant home, and Sinclair's parents doing their thing.

Alex wants to explore that playset out back. So maybe Sinclair goes to talk to her parents a while, or to watch her mother paint, and Alex clambers all over that playset, squeezes himself into the hide up at the top. When Sinclair comes out to find him, he's still chilling in there, stretched out on his back, his feet propped up in the little window. He looks out as she's climbing up to join him, holding out his hand to pull her up.

"This is so totally what I always wanted as a kid. My brother and I made a fort when we were little, but it was like... five pieces of plywood. Nothing like this." A pause, and then he smiles up at her from the floor. "Your parents really love you. It makes me happy."

[Sinclair] Neither Sinclair nor Alex notice Ken and Samantha glancing at each other while Sinclair cuddles the metal elemental and while Alex scrubs his hand over it. Neither of them have the opportunity to wonder if they may as well resign themselves to never having grandchildren, if Alex and Sinclair seem perfectly content to baby a sentient, spiritual robot.

Indeed, later on in the evening, Ken probably will show Alex to his workshop in the garage where he made the little crest. He's quite a tinkerer, Sinclair's father, and has some suggestions that if they really want something to last, they can probably mold it. And all the while, Tripoli will be discovering that Sinclair's toolchest in the back of the El Camino is nothing compared to this place.

But meanwhile they're milling about talking about her schools and a few more memories crop up, the names of teachers and friends that Alex hasn't met and never will, people Sinclair goes Oh, right, I remember her! and Ugh, don't even remind me to think about. Mostly, they... well. Chill out. Certainly the Sinclairs have friends about town, but they made no plans tonight. No one from the tribe is going to visit. They are just. Going. To relax.

Sinclair likes it that way. It's different from relaxing at home, or relaxing on the road. She goes outside with Alex when he decides he wants to play, and sits down in the hammock under the deck to watch him poke around the little playhouse until he ducks his head and squeezes in through the child-sized door. It's cramped in there, and dusty, and it's obvious no one has been using this thing for some time. There's a tiny ladder that goes up to a miniature loft, a crawlspace so small that Sinclair probably outgrew it when she was ten or eleven and couldn't have done more than lie on her belly even when she was tiny, but there's a little circular window that looks out over the yard up there.

It's been cleaned out of almost all her old toys. There's a built-in toychest with a padded seat next to the back wall, and a little drop-down table. A pretend sink and cabinets. Enough floor space for maybe two child-sized sleeping bags to roll out side by side, corners nudged up against the walls. Nothing more than that. And the paint job inside was obviously done by a little girl who put on one of daddy's old shirts and used a bunch of leftover paints from various neighbors' garages to roll and slap onto the walls willy-nilly.

Alex vanishes into that space, and when the little red door smacks shut behind him, Sinclair huffs a laugh and swings off the hammock, walking across the lawn til she can see him through the little windows out front. She knocks neatly, then squeezes in and laughs to find him with his feet propped up, shaking her head and crawling down on the floor beside him.

"Well I'm sure you wanted yours like... in a tree or shaped like a pirate ship or something," Sinclair laughs, leaning against his side. "And to be honest, you probably enjoyed making your own a lot." She smiles, laying her head on his shoulder. Looking through the tiny four-square window they can see her real house. That one is yellow. Hers is -- or was once -- a sort of creamy white, with a purple door. The paint on the outside has been well weathered though. "I didn't understand at all when I was little how much work it was for my dad to build this. I just knew I wasn't allowed in the garage for a long time, even to visit daddy, and then I wasn't allowed to go in the back yard or look out the windows for two days before my birthday party."

A beat. "I think I screamed when they finally showed it to me. And bounced up and down and cried." She shakes her head, grinning. "Such a girl." Turns her head, kisses his chest through his shirt, smells him and the school's laundry detergent and everything else. "They do," she muses softly, but without doubt. Without there ever having been doubt.

[Alex] "I wanted it shaped like a castle, actually," he says, smiling. "With arrow slits and crenellations and boiling oil over the door. Though intergalactic dreadnought sounded pretty good, too. But yeah. It was fun building it, and letting our imaginations fill in the details."

She tells him about her dad making it for her. She wasn't allowed to go in the garage. She couldn't even look at the back yard, she says, and he laughs. "I can't believe you actually listened," he says. "I would've snuck a peek, I think. And then played all over it and totally ruined the surprise."

He welcomes her against his body, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as she kisses him through his shirt. The school's laundry, truth be told, is probably industrial-strength Tide or something similarly uninventive. Not that Alex uses premium shit at home. Pure Costco crates for him. So all told, the smell is oddly familiar -- reminds him, at least, of their little apartment in San Diego, by the sea.

"I like that you were such a girly girl," he adds, quieter. It's too warm, really, to shut themselves up in a little playhouse; to cuddle on the floor like this. He nudges the door open a little with his foot but otherwise doesn't move. "I just like you."

[Sinclair] "I was a very obedient little girl," Sinclair says tidily, of the fact that she actually listened to her parents telling her not to peek outside. "And also, I think I got spanked once when I was four and it put the fear of god into me for the rest of my life."

She slips her arm behind him, around his lean waist, and then her other arm over his abdominals. "God, I'm glad we came here," she murmurs into his chest, holding him like that, feeling a faint breeze from the half-open door.


The afternoon drowses by, lazy as it was next to the pond. Sinclair dozes on his chest, even in as awkward a position as they're in, using him as a pillow. Tripoli appears in that wooden monstrosity, a little nervous due to the lack of metal around him til he finds Alex and bumps his head under the kinsman's hand again to have his new crest ruffled once more. Sinclair, opening one carnivorous eye, smiles at the sight of her elemental demanding attention. But eventually they stir, having spent all morning away from the house already, and clamber out of the playhouse.

Sinclair blushes at a sidelong joke from her mother about what they were up to in there, and Alex can read easily enough in her eyes what she's thinking about. But he sees the memory differently, sees her lying back in the grass instead of what she remembers, the sight of him outlined by the sun and treebranches.

Alex and Ken go out to the garage for awhile. Alex and Sinclair play Wii for a little while, and Samantha brings a basket of laundry to fold in the den while Ken takes a phone call. Dinner comes later on, which means Sinclair has to be woken from the nap she went to take on the hammock, and it's Alex and Samantha up in the kitchen heating things up and Mrs. Sinclair saying that was very thoughtful of you, bringing dinner home like that while out on the deck Ken and Sinclair sit side by side, watching the sky get a little bit dimmer in the back of the house as it heads towards the western horizon in front of it.

Tonight they eat inside, not in the formal dining room but around the breakfast table, nestled together on the booth's benches and passing platters of food around, drinking iced tea and water from pitchers. Once again Alex, the newest to the table, is the topic of most of the discussion -- they want to know everything. Stories. About school. About his parents. He and Sinclair tell them they'll probably head up to Boston and even Chicago before going down to Miami. It's nice to have the life they do, no steady jobs to worry about,

and the conversation skirts dangerously around how they manage to keep paying rent, and how it's still awkward for the Sinclairs to get used to what Alex does For A Living, and how far, far away her life and her choices are now from what they always envisioned

when they were doing things like building a white-and-purple playhouse in the backyard for a little girl who described every dress as her 'princess dress' when she was three years old.

When plates are scraped and seconds had, Samantha gets pretty glasses out of the fridge with parfaits made in them. It's nothing more special than chocolate pudding, sliced bananas, and a little bit of whipped topping, but it's cold, and tasty, and brings up memories of finding desserts they could make in summer that never needed the oven. Sinclair recalls one that she says was basically getting a box of ice cream, slicing it into layers, putting fruit filling in the middle, and adding frosting.

Spoons clink softly aganst glass while they share dessert. Everyone is full. Everyone is quieting down. Tripoli's off somewhere, likely banging around in the garage making friends with dormant space heaters and an old bicycle. Sinclair finishes off her parfait, nudges the glass away, and leans against Alex, slouching down in the bench and putting her hand on his leg under the table.

Gives it a squeeze.

[Alex] For his part, Alexander doesn't mind that dinner conversation's almost all about him. He doesn't feel pried into; he doesn't feel like he's under the microscope. He understands. They're curious. They're inquisitive. They care enough to ask, which on some level, he's grateful for.

And he answers. Easily, without shyness or subterfuge, even when the topic skirts a little close to something he knows Sinclair's parents aren't 100% on board with. Or at least -- don't 100% understand. He tells them about growing up in Miami, the beaches and the streets, the hispanic-caribbean influence over everything. He says it's a superficial city, sure, but he also tells them about growing up in the suburbs where it wasn't all that wild, wasn't all that different from any other suburb in america. He talks about the fort he and his brother built, and about learning to drive, and about learning to ride a motorcycle, and how he rode a motorcycle in Chicago and damn the snow and ice.

I still have it, he says, smiling, but I have a car too now. It's hard to play getaway driver if you don't have one. And then they have to listen to him rave about his car for a while, and how overlooked and underrated Hyundais really are.

Toward the end, Sinclair talks about childhood desserts. Alex has a new idea for what to try when they get home. Dinner is winding down, and everyone's getting quiet and full. Time to curl up in a den, if they were wolves. Time to lie down and be still and rest their muzzles on each other's fur, nudge and lick and bite each other gently to make everyone be still, be still, be sleep, shh.

They're not wolves, though. Not entirely, anyway, and so Sinclair leans on Alex, and Alex sprawls in his chair, and the last of the parfait is gone and dinner is almost gone and

it's not really that he planned it, had it in the back of his mind all along, but when Sinclair's hand squeezes his leg, he covers it with his own, then lifts his eyes to Sinclair's parents. She can feel him take a breath differently, and knows what he's going to bring up before he even speaks.

"So," he says, quietly broaching the topic, "Sinclair and I have been talking about getting married soon."

[Sinclair] That squeeze was, in a way, a signal. That it was okay now. That, in case he'd forgotten, he wanted to do this, and now might be a good time. A reminder, if nothing else, that she's with him. That she wants this.

For what it's worth, Ken and Samantha Sinclair don't look the least bit surprised. though there's some amusement -- and perhaps even pleasure, even resepct -- visible in Samantha's eyes at how Alex just lays it out there. A moment, on Ken's part, where he takes a sort of internal deep breath. They both flick their eyes, though not exactly at the same time, at Sinclair, who is fighting a grin and looking at the edge of the table.

Not surprisingly, it's Sinclair's mother who speaks first. She gives a little nod. "We did get that feelin'," she says kindly. "This somethin' you're talkin' 'bout doin' soon, or...?"

[Alex] The truth is, he's a little nervous again -- not nearly so relaxed as he was during that meal. Under the table, his hand stays on Sinclair's. His voice stays level and calm, though, and he shakes his head.

"We don't really have a date yet. We're actually going to go talk to my brother about it. And if you're both on board, then we'll start thinking about dates." A glance to Sinclair, a quick quirk of a smile, there and then gone again. "I think we both want it to be warm and outdoors, so ... unless we go to Hawaii, it'll probably be late summer or early spring.

"We just wanted to let you know. And I just wanted to make sure you were both okay with it. Because if you're not -- well. Okay. The truth is I'm not just going to walk away, even if you're not. But I'll do whatever it takes to ... y'know. Prove myself."

He's gripping Sinclair's hand under the table now. He doesn't even seem to realize it.

[Sinclair] Sinclair is smiling, but it's hard for Alex to see that. He's sitting next to her, holding her hand under the table, and she's leaning a bit against his shoulder while he -- there's no 'they' about it thus far -- tells her parents that he wants to marry her. That is is going to marry her. At some point, probably spring or summer -- which means not right away, not tomorrow, not even this year most likely.

There's that flick of a smile at her somewhere in there, and she smiles back up at him, as thought saying yes with those fair eyes of hers.

Ken and Samantha look at each other after that part when he says that if they're not okay with it, he's not going to walk away, that he'll prove himself. Sinclair squeezes his hand back, and holds. This time it's Ken who answers him, a furrow to his grumpy old brow. "Son, you shouldn't feel like you have to prove anything to us," he says, with as much difficulty as any emotional, sensitive topics cause him. "Heather's always been pretty smart about losers. She wouldn't be back with you if you were garbage for her. And she says you make 'er happy."

Samantha smiles broadly and reaches across the table, taking Alex's free hand and giving it a brief, friendly squeeze. "What he means is that we figured that's where you two were headed, and we think it's very nice," she says, though there's emotion in it, and brightening her eyes, emotion she's thoughtfully restraining. Lets his hand go and leans back beside her husband.

[Alex] It says something about Alex, how he lived his life, what he expects from life, that he came into this expecting resistance despite all he's seen of Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair so far. Despite the warmth and the acceptance they've shown him, despite the conversations on the deck and in the kitchen and around the dinner table, Alex still expects terms, or frowns, or disapproval, or just -- anything but this easy, warm welcome he gets. He looks faintly startled when Ken speaks, and then more so when Samantha squeezes his hand.

A pause. Then a faintly taken-aback laugh. "...oh," he says. "I thought I'd at least be asked to reap a field with a leather sickle or something. Well." He shifts a little. "Thank you. I'm really glad you're so -- you've been so --

"I mean, I'm just glad to have met you. I'm glad to be here and be ... part of this." He ends with a clearing of his throat, the words awkward with their sincerity.

[Sinclair] Perhaps tonight, it won't occur to him to be offended when they laugh -- and they do. At the reference, and at his awkwardness. Samantha's just smiling, eyes sparkling slightly with that emotion she's wrapped up in herself so it doesn't pour over. Ken is gruff, as uncertain as Alex is with all this sincerity, and he's the one that grunts and breaks it. Sinclair, meanwhile, is grinning, holding Alex's hand like she's about to pull a Tripoli and just squeal.

"Well, it was about time she visited again, and if you two had to start talkin' 'bout marriage to get her to bring you out here --"

"Dad!" Sinclair laughs, but her defensiveness is a joke, as light as her laughter.

"We're happy for you," he says, patting her hand the way that Samantha squeezed Alex's a moment ago.

"Thanks, guys," Sinclair says, softer, smiling. Ken gives her a little wink, and she grins like a goof, and nudges her head against Alex's side like an animal. "C'mon. Let's get the dishes."

Samantha protests, but not much; there's no heavy pans to wash out, just some plates and cups and the like, so she scoots out after Alex and Sinclair are up and suggests they put in a movie. They just got the remake of 'True Grit' on DVD, she hints.

[Alex] Sinclair's not the only one grinning like a goof. Somewhere between Samantha saying they think it's very nice and Ken saying they're happy for them -- somewhere in there, it finally sets in for him that,

yes, they're actually cool with the idea. More than that: Sinclair's parents like the idea, they're happy about it, they were expecting it, even, long before he drummed up the guts to just lay it out there. And that's when Alex, too, starts to grin, echoing Sinclair's thank-you with one of his own.

And:

"I'm really excited." He gets nudged. He wraps his arm around Sinclair and smooches her temple, then laughs. "We're really excited. We'll be in touch about, y'know. The date."

And then they go do the dishes, and there isn't a lot. There are some leftovers to put away, some trash to take out, and while Sinclair's soaping the dishes Alex runs the garbage out, then comes back to rinse while she dries. When they're all done, there's True Grit on DVD, and Alex mentions that he hasn't seen it, didn't even know there was an original. When they gather in the family room for the movie, Alex notices the Sinclair were still on DVD, haven't gotten a bluray player yet, and later on, maybe tonight or maybe somewhere between here and Boston, he'll mention that maybe they should chip in and get a bluray player for Sinclair's parents for christmas.

For now, though, it's the four of them in a room together, relaxing on the couches, and if that conversation with Sinclair's dad the first day was a load taken off his shoulders, tonight might be doubly so. For what might be the first time since setting foot on Sinclair's first-pack's territory, he's completely, utterly relaxed -- feels, for the first time, a part of the unit, and not merely the hopeful suitor on the doorstep.