Andy isn't home when she wakes up. She isn't at the Cullen's either.

Dread floods through her and she jolts to up in the bed she was in, a hand coming to rest on her ribs with a gasp. They were so tender, an annoying ache radiating from her side each time she breathed too deeply or moved the wrong way.

She presses down on her side, sucking a sharp breath in between her teeth as she looks around slowly.

Her face pales, cold sweeping through her as anxiety jolts through her.

The last thing that Andy could remember was the way Bella's spine had snapped and the quick delivery process that came after. The rest came to her in blurs.

Crashing down of the front lawn. Crying. Wolves and fighting. Bella dying. Her killing Sam in turn.

Her hand shakes as she lifts it to stifle her sobs. She killed someone. She killed someone even if it was just for a few seconds.

What's more, is that she didn't understand how or why she was in Quil's bed. She didn't end up here and she found it hard to believe that they would just let him take her.

And Andy didn't want to be here. She wanted to be with the Cullen's, with Bella and Renesmee and her pack, Alice and Jasper. Or at least be home with Charlie where she knew that he wouldn't let anyone bother her when she didn't want them anywhere near her.

Dragging herself from the bed as quietly as she could, she checks the window and the height from the ground. Somehow, she's disappointed by how high the second floor is. She could always jump out damn the consequences just so she didn't have to see him...

But knowing Quil and how attuned one could be to their imprint, she didn't think it was much of a good idea. He probably already knew that she was awake. He probably wasn't going to give her the chance to run away.

Andy was good at running away, though, she had been since she first set foot in Forks. Anything that made her feel too deeply, too painfully, she would run and deal with it later when her head was clear and her heart frozen from emotion -- blind from influence.

She was so easily influenced after all.

So easily influenced that she had allowed herself to kill Sam.

Even still, Andy knew that she would do it all over again, that his life meant nothing to her in the end. He was nothing to her in the face of Bella.

She pushed away from the window, letting herself fall heavy into his bed as she took a deep breath. She drew in a sharp inhale, letting the scent of him surrounded her as she held it in her lungs -- stealing a moment of comfort just for herself.

It had been a long time since she had been in his room, or rather it felt like it's been a long time. It's been a long while since they've been civil, at the very least, and that fact made her miserable.

Because she loved him, she really, really loved him but that wasn't always gonna be enough -- it wasn't enough to keep things from falling apart the first time, for their differences in mortality paired with her ability to make him feel like he was less important and his willingness to hurt the people she cared for... Andy didn't think it was enough and she didn't want to go through that conversation again knowing how it was just going to tear her apart all over again.

She could put together the pieces that tore apart in a mismatched, jagged excuse of somethng called art, of something called beauty and romance, but it wasn't and she was hurting -- he was hurting, and there was no returning to what they had anymore. It wouldn't work. again.

And as much as she really truly didn't want to do it, she would have to face the music at one point. Would have to say the words to him and watch his face crumble just as hers was sure to do.

The door creaked as she opened it, the sound bringing her to flinch as she slowly inched her way out.

Pushing out with her senses, she could hear the stilled breath caught in throats as they heard the sound just as surely as she had. Her enhanced senses from officially joining a pack coming in handy just this once, it seemed, as she counted the heartbeats that carried on steadily downstairs.

She was certain that once was Quil and another was Lynn by the risiing tension that assaulted her the moment the door was out of the way. It would make sense for her to anxious surrounded by people that viewed her as a traitor.

Part of her, an intrinsic part, told her that Sam was down there; and another part, darker, deeper, reveled in the thought of facing him head-on once more, as if he was her rival and not a neighbouring alpha.

Picking through her own mind, Andy pulled on her confidence before she continued out into the open without hesitation.

Still, each step was loud, echoing in her ears as she waited for that moment where she would finally see them -- see someone.

Gathered in the living room that looked far too small for so many people, were five grown boys, men, spread about in various positions that could only be described as an attempt at a power pose.

By the entrance, closest to the entrance of the room, but not closest to the stairs, was Lynn. The girl jumped to be at Andy's side automatically. Their fingers linked on instinct, both ignoring the way the tension in the room spiked almost suffocatingly.

It was a wonder that she was able to ignore them all so well.

A wonder that she was able to ignore Quil that stood by the stairs just waiting for whatever it was she was going to do.

If she knew him as she thought she did (and she did), then he likely wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let go -- just as Andy wanted him to do but wasn't liable to admit at this time.

With a deep breath to brace herself, she cast her eyes over the room, lingering on Sam before landing fully on Quil.

"What am I doing here?" she asks in a steady tone.

Hurt spasms across his features and he uselessly tries to hide it from her. "What do you mean 'what are you doing here?'" he says in disbelief. "Andy, you passed out. You killed yourself and then you passed out! I wasn't going to just leave you there!"

"That wasn't your call to make!" Lynn hissed.

"His call?!" Paul bursts out. "He was near feral by the time that bloodsucker stepped in and let us take her!"

Andy's head snaps in his direction, eyes narrowed. "Watch it," she seethes.

"Enough," Sam orders.

The girls roll their eyes in tandem.

"That trick never really worked on me in the first place, why would it start now?" Lynn taunts.

Paul snarls.

Silent until now Embry snarls back.

With a heavy exhale, Andy knocks the boys off their feet, forcing them back into their seats with a wave of her own anger and exasperation.

For a moment they're left speechless, as if they've all forgotten that she could do that. Only Lynn remains standing. Only she stays at her side as Andy can even sense Quil's torn feelings about viewing his imprint as the threat.

But that was what she was now, though, wasn't she? A threat to the pack since they have never had a Valerian work against them.

"You shouldn't have brought me here, Quil," she says softly. "I should be back home, back with my pack."

"Don't you mean the Cullens?" One of the younger boys grumbles. She doesn't recognize him but she remembers seeing him around Seth before. Why they would bring some random boy here was beyond her.

"I said what I said. My pack," she emphasizes.

"They're vampires! They aren't normal!" Quil cries, throwing his hands in the air.

"And neither am I!" she shouts. "Neither am I and neither are you! Why is this still an issue?"

"They kill people, Andy," he argues.

"Quil," Sam warns, but it's too late.

Something snaps in her and she spirals back, falling into emptiness as her carefully organized thoughts spin wildly around her -- dissolving into nothing as everything implodes, her world shatters.

A distant part of Andy knew he was only saying these things to hurt her, that he was hurt by her actions and wanted to hurt her back, but she couldn't really understand that because Quil would never do something like that -- he wouldn't try to hurt her needlessly or argue for the sake of arguing...

Unless the time apart had really fucked them both up and this was who he was now, she didn't buy it.

In an instant she's slamming back into place, pouting at him with all the mourning she didn't want to hide from him. "So do I, Quil. I kill people too," she whispers, voice trembling. "And you almost did, too, remember? My little newborn niece, a little baby, do you remember that?"

He flinched away from her and a current paces through the room as the emotions are echoed.

Andy takes a deep, steadying breath as she cuts herself away from her emotions cleanly. It takes only a push of sleepiness as the shifters start to slowly flutter into drowsiness.

Quil doesn't react to them in the slightest, eyes refusing to leave her face. Lynn places a comforting hand to her shoulder before she leaves and begins to drag Embry outside and out of Andy's reach.

She waits until they're gone and the boys are fully asleep before she speaks.

"I wish I could release you from your burden. I know I'm not the easiest person to be tied to, that I'm probably the last person you want now as your imprint--" she holds a hand up to silence him-- "but I can't set you free because you're the one bound to me. I can feel the depths of your emotions for me and I can only conclude that you have to be the one to let me go or you'll be stuck with me forever--"

"What are you even talking about?" he bursts. "Why would I ever want to be without you, Andy?"

She chuckles emotionlessly. "That has to be the imprint talking. Any normal person would want nothing to do with me after everything that happened--"

"Don't make assumptions!" He snaps.

"And that's okay!" she shouts, eyes falling shut as the words come tumbling free. "That's okay because maybe we weren't ready or maybe it was the wrong time."

"It wasn't the wrong time and it wasn't that we weren't ready," he says vehemently. "We fought. That's it. It was just a fight, Andy. We don't have to give up. Don't give up."

"Do you think that I want to give up?" she snaps. "Quil, I- Iove you. I love you, I really do, but we can't keep being together if all we'll end up doing is fighting and coming back to this."

His pain ripples across her skin. "Please, Andy, don't say that, please. You're acting like you're leaving me for good."

She flinches. "I- maybe not for good, but for a little, at least. We have to separate properly, with no bad blood between us, or we might not ever be able to be together properly."

"Don't say that! Don't go making excuses for not wanting to be me with me. If you don't want to be with me anymore, just say it."

"Is that what you think this is? That I don't want to be with you anymore?" Andy demands, stepping closer into his space so that she could feel the heat radiating off his skin. "I want nothing more than to be with you forever. I love you. I love you enough to not want to hurt you anymore because I know that I will hurt you again."

"You won't," he swears, grabbing her fingers. "I won't let anything get between us."

"But I probably will, and you know that. Things will continue to come up and get between us and I won't be able to stop it from happening. There's no guarantee that I won't put something else before you again and I won't let you be hurt by it anymore."

He chuckles bitterly, tears shining in his eyes. "'It's not you, it's me,' that's what you're going with?"

A sob leaves her, even with her emotions dampened. "It's always been me, Quil. I've never been good for you. I'm always going to be dragged into something or forced to help someone and it will get in the way. Something will always be in the way."

"Not if you don't let it," he swears. "If you just try a little. I know that you'll love me. I won't get mad again."

"You can't control how you feel and I won't regulate you or control you like that. I swear, I- I- I just... I don't want you to be stuck with me before you realize that you loathe me, Quil, we need a break, at the very least," she swears. "I don't want to be not with you but if you really want to try that bad then we need to have at least a break. We need to be apart without fighting. We need to- to introduce ourselves to each other because I won't live through another thing like the Bella, Edward and Jacob special with just the two of us playing all the roles."

"But that doesn't make sense, Andy, why can't we just be together?"

"You aren't giving me any options! You refuse to admit that we aren't good for each other and I accept that, I really don't want to break up with you for good so I can't fight you on that, but you refuse to even consider giving us some distance! We need time, I need time to work through myself, to fix myself into more of a person instead of some mess of what different people want and need shoved together, and I don't know what you need to do but there has to be something."

Quil's silent as he pulls her hand to his face, kissing the tips of her fingers with such care and reverence that she nearly gives into his wants and wishes. 

"I'll give you all the space you need so long as you promise that this isn't you permanently beaking up with me." 

Andy sniffles. "You know I can't do that, Quil." 

He drops her hand. "Okay," he whispers, voice tight. "Go. Just go before I chance my mind." 

Her chest quivers as her heart spams with their combined pain. "Quil..." 

"Please, Andy. Just go." 

Nodding slowly, she takes a few steps away from him and towards the door. She can feel the sleepiness start to reverse back on her as it pulls away, slowly rousing the boys with enough time for her to be long gone. 

"I love you, Quil," she says. 

His smile is soft, delicate with the tears in his eyes. "I love you too." 

With a quivering breath, she takes one last good look at him before she turns and leaves the house. 

And Andy runs. 

***

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unedited 

posted: 2020-09-04