Pairing: Claire, Quil/Leah

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family (some tragedy, mentions of character death)

Rating: M, strong language

Origin: Tricky Raven's Weekly Flashfic Challenge Prompt #24, Uncle Quil

With huge thanks to CayStar for giving this a quick beta on the fly.

A/N: Just a heads up about some other fics while I have your attention. I'm making the most of the remnants of Spawn's summer vacation now that I'm recovering pretty well from my surgery last month. I've written about 25K words over the last two weeks for "Snowed In" and the auction piece I wrote for TR, "PB&J" as well as my collab with meliz875, "Brothers", so expect to see some fresh action on my multi-chapters soon. Due to waning interest in my short story omni, "Every Dog Has Its Day", I'm going to discontinue that on FFn. I'll continue updating it on TR. You can find it there, if you really want to keep reading those flashfics.

TR is having a Men in Uniform anonymous one-shot contest for Labor Day. I may be writing something for that, too, if my idea comes together in time, so be sure to check that out.

A Different Imprint

Claire slumped in her seat, legs crossed at the knee, swinging a pointed teal flat on the tips of her toes.

Running her fingers over the ancient pattern of their shabby kitchen table, she read a text from Cammie Littlesea and punched her calorie count into the new app she downloaded. Setting it aside, she stared into her cup at the creamy texture of the yogurt, swirling it with her spoon, brooding, and dutifully eating her Quil-approved after-school snack before her cousins came home.

She thought Quil was going a little overboard monitoring her diet with the required after-school snacks and the new calorie-counting app, but she'd brought it all on herself, she supposed, trying that stupid fad diet Beyonce swore by and passing out cold in gym class a month ago after a week of near-starvation.

Leah had been the PA on duty that day at the rez clinic. She lectured Claire up one side and down the other about healthy eating habits.

Quil was frantic when he'd run into the exam room minutes later, blaming himself for not putting a stop to it sooner. He was shaking so bad he cracked the door when he closed it.

Leah gave her the stink-eye, pointedly looking back and forth between the two of them until Claire dropped her eyes.

Shame ate at her when Quil picked her up off the exam table and sat right down on the floor with her in his lap, breathing heavy. He couldn't even speak at first, he was so upset.

That brought her to her senses.

If anything happened to her, Quil would never forgive himself, so here she sat, eating her yogurt and pomegranate seeds and dutifully tallying up her daily calories to show him that she was eating enough.

Claire never seemed to be able to make it any easier on him, though.

Poor Quil. He was so often right on the edge of being out of his element, even with the imprint.

He never expected, though, that his imprint would be so different from all the others.

Her biological dad was a deadbeat who took off when she was two and a half. He was young and the responsibility probably was too much for him.

Her mom … maybe she would have been okay, but then her parents refused to help her when Claire's dad took off and Claire's mom was really young, too, still just a kid at eighteen. She could barely take care of herself and her parents had washed their hands of the entire mess, and of Claire, too.

Her mom turned into a junkie tweaker by the time Claire was three and a half. She lived for two things; to get her next fix and forget everything that hurt so bad.

There were weeks at a time when the only food in the house was bought by Quil at his family's store and cooked by Aunt Emily. He made sure she always had fresh milk and clean clothes, and that she spent every day at the community-provided daycare in Neah Bay, even if he had to drop her off and pick her up himself.

And sometimes, when it got real bad, he was the only one there at night to make sure she had a bath and tuck her in.

He read her stories and told her Quileute legends, then crashed in the tiny chair by her bed until her mom came stumbling in sometime in the middle of the night.

He tried to get the tribe to intervene, but the Elders said he should mind his own business and go home to La Push.

They took Claire from her mom on a Tuesday, just scooped her right up at the Makah daycare and she never saw her mom again.

She became a ward of the tribe.

She spent a few days in temporary foster care and never did figure out what her mom had done that time or why she disappeared. The Quileute Council of Elders petitioned the Makah tribe on behalf of her Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily to place her with the Uleys instead of long term foster care since she had no family willing to foster her in Neah Bay.

Things got better for a while. She had a nice room at Aunt Emily's with pretty wallpaper—white with pink roses. The mint green sheets and rose quilt smelled fresh like lavender and someone was always there to hug her tight when she had a bad dream.

Sometimes it was Quil, but not always.

It was like they had a revolving door with all those big people coming and going all the time. Sam, Jake, Paul, Embry, Seth and others would pad into her room by the light of the moon, lift her into strong, caring arms, and hum Quileute lullabies until she drifted off again.

She still saw Quil the most. He was her special uncle, the one who always had time to color and have tea parties, and he made up the best games that he talked all her uncles into playing, too.

Hide and seek was her favorite because they were all so huge, they could hardly hide behind anything without being seen. She was good at that game because she was so small.

Sometimes she begged to play Sardines, though, just to see what happened. Her Uncle Paul was terrible at it because you had to get along and stay quiet and then one of her other uncles would poke at him and they'd end up wrestling on the ground and carrying on.

That was fun, too. Somebody was always covered in mud.

Then, just a year after she moved to La Push, her Uncle Sam died 'in service to the tribe'. That was how they said it, 'in service to the tribe'. They memorialized him like a hero.

He was a security guard, they said, but she guessed it was a pretty dangerous job if they needed big guys like Uncle Sam to do it.

Aunt Emily got sick when they were planning Uncle Sam's funeral. Real sick. Jake had to pick her up to help her carry out her widow's duties at the service while Quil sat with Claire and the little Uley boys.

Emily couldn't manage them on her own anymore.

She was wasting away to nothing in front of their eyes.

Later, they said she died of a broken heart.

Claire didn't like that she thought that was selfish, but Aunt Emily had had so much to live for. She couldn't understand how she could leave them that way, especially after Uncle Sam died.

She remembered that horrible day, rocking in Uncle Sam's old chair. She had cried in silence for hours in Quil's lap, holding onto Leah's hand for dear life. Leah couldn't have been comfortable, perched on the arm of the chair like that, but she never moved and never complained.

Her cousin, Jason Uley, was just two and his little brother, Kyle, wasn't even a year old. She remembered Jake holding them both and walking miles up and down the hallway, trying to comfort them with that weird rumbling noise he made. And when his arms got tired and his heart hurt too much to continue, Embry took over.

And, still, they cried.

Until Joy asked for the babies when Paul was taking a turn walking with them. She tucked them together into Claire's arms on Quil's lap and she hugged them to her. It was like they could finally breathe for the first time.

Attempts to separate the three of them resulted in disaster afterward. The pack was more than willing to take them all in, but three kids was a lot for any single family to absorb, so they didn't try at first.

Claire had nightmares every night sleeping at Paul and Rachel's house in that big bed all alone.

Jason and Kyle weren't much better off staying with the Clearwaters, even with the pack stopping by at all hours of the day and night to help.

It was Quil who first figured out their most basic need.

They had formed their own little pack in their grief and they needed each other, the pack pups.

Simple as that.

Jake ordered Paul to bring Claire over. They laid them all down together in Seth's old bed for a nap and Claire remembered how nice that was, like sleeping in a big pile of puppies. She hugged Kyle and patted Jay's back and told him it was okay, it would all be okay. That was what adults said to make you feel better when you were sad.

He popped his thumb in his mouth and drifted off to sleep with one of her curls wrapped around his finger.

That was when Quil really got involved and decided a family didn't mean you had to have a mom and a dad all under one roof. The pack was family even with Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily gone, so he thought we could figure out a way to make it work, too.

He did a ton of paperwork and talked to the social worker a lot in quiet meetings at the kitchen table. She, Jason, and Kyle were temporarily placed in the care of Quil's mom and grandfather as wards of the tribe since they were on the Elders Council.

At eighteen years old, Quil adopted her and both of her Uley cousins. He thought it was important to keep them all together and said that nobody was breaking up their little pack if they needed each other, especially if he could help it.

Quil took to fatherhood like a duck to water.

He was like a big kid himself.

There were still nights when dinner ended up burned and he forgot pediatrician and dentist appointments, but they were okay. She had a warm, safe place and she was never hungry and there were always aunts and uncles coming and going so they never had to go to daycare or a babysitter.

They had the pack.

Oh, there were still moments, though. After Old Quil passed, they inherited his house. Quil thought his mom might like a little peace and quiet in her life, so it was decided that Quil and the kids would move into his granddad's old place. The pack helped renovate and add an extra bedroom for Claire—a massive, girly space built over the garage with a loft bed and a rope ladder and a playhouse underneath for tea parties and board games.

When she outgrew the princess playhouse, she traded out the pink sheers for dark purple drapes she made from thrift store sheets and RIT dye. One weekend, she shoved a loveseat she found at a yardsale under the loft so she could close the curtains and shut out the world.

Quil worried that she was depressed.

Leah came over and crawled between the dark drapes, all hunched over and quiet like she gets sometimes. Taking a seat on the couch beside her, they sat in silence for a while.

No one understood moods like Leah.

She was full of them.

Leah asked if she wanted to talk about it.

Claire had crossed her arms, tucked in her chin, and snarled at the floor that she wasn't a kid anymore and that she'd take down the damn pink shit if she wanted to.

Leah had cocked her head, waiting.

And Claire burst into tears.

Her Aunt Leah, having been a pubescent teen girl herself once, gathered Claire up in a hug and rocked her, whispering that it was okay and everybody went through it and not to blame her Uncle Quil for not knowing. He'd never been a twelve year old girl and he'd certainly never gotten a period for the first time.

Claire laughed, a sniffling watery chuckle, into Leah's shirt.

In hushed whispers so those with super-hearing couldn't eavesdrop, Leah talked to her about all the girl stuff, promising to answer her questions, not just that day, but forever. She said maybe it was time to shop for bras, too, and that made Claire really happy. Every girl in fifth grade wore a bra but her.

Then Leah made up a big nest of blankets and pillows in Claire's little emo fortress and called her aunts, Rachel and Kim, to go pick up ice cream and chocolate and snacks. Her Aunt Bella came over with pizza, a laptop, and a stack of rom-coms on DVD. They crowded around the laptop in Claire's fort in the blanket nest with dozens of pillows—and one hot water bottle. Then they watched movies together and cried.

Because it felt good to cry because she felt like crying and sometimes a girl just needed to cry, okay?

It was exactly what she needed and none of her aunts thought there was anything weird about the fact that she just needed to cry for ten hours straight that one time.

They all shared stories about the crazy things their hormones had made them do.

Bella even made Jake drive her to Las Vegas one time when she was seven and a half months pregnant because she'd never been there and she decided she couldn't be a mother before she'd ever set foot in a casino or sat at a black jack table or eaten at a 99-cent Las Vegas buffet.

She said they got there and she didn't gamble so much as a penny. Bella was too practical to waste money like that.

She spent two days eating herself sick trying to keep up with Jake at the buffets.

Then they came home.

And they never spoke of it again.

When the aunts took their leave the following morning before dawn, Leah tucked her into bed with a fresh hot water bottle and a couple of Midol tablets. She fidgeted with a bottle of water, looking for somewhere to set it down by the bed, until Claire reached out and grabbed her hand, whispering, "Thank you, Aunt Leah."

Her expression softened to something tender and never before seen. Tears pooled in her eyes as she leaned over and pressed a kiss to Claire's forehead, "You're welcome. Love you, kiddo."

Claire watched her climb down from the loft and tidy up the room, gathering up trash the others missed as she padded around on silent feet. She set the full trash bin by the door.

Before she could open it, the door cracked open.

Quil peered in, mouthing, "Everything okay?"

Leah nodded, stepping out so they wouldn't disturb her, but Claire heard and saw it all anyway.

Quil wrapped Leah up in a hug, picking her up off her feet in those two massive arms, and kissed her breathless.

Her hands slid up over his broad shoulders and she buried her fingers in his hair for a minute, gasping for air against his mouth between kisses.

He pulled back and pressed a light kiss to her lips, trailing more of them up her jawline to her ear. He nipped the skin below and gave her another gentle squeeze as he nuzzled her throat.

She staggered like a drunk when he let her go.

The back door banged open, disrupting Claire's walk down memory lane. Quil came barreling through, still dressed in his work blues from the shop, her fourteen year old cousin, Jason, hanging on one arm, and his brother, Kyle, on the other. They were struggling, grappling with him, trying to tackle him to the ground.

Quil went about his business like he had no more than a pair of house flies on his back, filling a glass of water at the sink and chugging it noisily while her cousins grunted and huffed in annoyance. He eyed her suspiciously, "You remember to eat?"

"Yes, Dad." She stuck her tongue out at him.

He sighed, defeated, lowering his arms and letting his muscles go lax until Jason and Kyle dropped to the floor in a surprised heap. He shooed them out of the kitchen. "You can ambush me again later. I almost felt it that time, I swear. Let me talk to Claire alone for a minute."

Jason and Kyle took off, whooping like warriors and fighting over who got the blue controller before one of their uncles came over to plant a flag and claim PS3 rights until after dinner.

He leaned against the sink, rolling up the sleeves of his striped work shirt to hide the grease stains from the lube job he'd worked on that afternoon. He watched her for another minute, then pushed off, pulling out a chair at the table. He turned it around and straddled it, leaning across the table to lay a hand on hers. "Talk to me Claire-Bear. What's wrong?"

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Nothing's wrong. It's just … I've been thinking about things."

He cocked his head, waiting. He knew the way her mind worked. Sometimes she just needed time to say what needed saying. He was like Leah that way—endless wells of patience.

"I'm your imprint, right?"

Claire could have knocked him over with a feather right then.

His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

"C- Claire … where did you hear that word?" Quil's expression darkened like someone was going to get a beat down—some uncle with a big mouth.

"I've always known the word," she said, rolling the memory around in her head, "and I think I know what it means even though it's different for you and me, right?"

"It is." He confirmed with a slow nod, crossing his bulging arms over his chest. The fabric of his uniform strained, pulling across his wide chest, making him look huge and intimidating to anyone who didn't know better.

His eyes followed each of her minute movements.

"How?"

"How is it different?" he checked.

She nodded.

"You were a baby when I imprinted because the Spirits knew you would need a family one day, a dad."

"But not a mom?" she asked, not to be rude or sarcastic. She just found it odd that the Spirits thought she would need a dad more than a mom when Leah could have imprinted on her, too, if that was the whole point.

"I- I don't know, kiddo. I've tried to do my best—" He was getting agitated, upset.

"Uncle Quil, stop." She laid a hand on his, her heart breaking a little at the lost and uncertain look in his eyes. "I never meant to imply that you haven't. I love you. You're my dad in every way that matters and you're a great one. I'm screwed up. I did this wrong," she fretted, drawing her hand back into her lap, twisting the napkin in her hands. Her hormones made her stupid, though. She always got teary when she was mad at herself.

She tried not to cry. She was frustrated and mad at herself, not sad.

"Claire-Bear, talk to me. I can't help if you don't tell me what's on your mind," he begged, trying to restrain himself. She could see the taut lines of muscle flexing and tugging as the imprint compelled him to gather her close and make it all better.

But she wasn't four years old anymore and it was time Quil got his life back, at least a little.

"Why don't you date?" she blurted out. "Is it the imprint? Won't it let you?"

"Claire…" he breathed. "No, honey. No, not at all." He ran a hand over his face. "I don't know what brought this on, but I- I've gone out a few times over the years. It's just … difficult."

"Why?"

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, ending on a sigh.

"I'm thirty-two years old and raising three teenagers alone. Women my age… It's a responsibility most people aren't ready for until they're driving home from the hospital with a Graco full of screaming newborn in the backseat. I have responsibilities that they can't understand, can't even relate to."

Claire understood then. Self-loathing ate at her. Her lips tightened. "Baggage. We're too much baggage for someone your age, so they find out because you're an upright guy who won't lie about having three kids and they never call back for the second date, right?" She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it was hard. Quil should be happy, but there the imprint had screwed him over.

Everyone else got a lifetime of happiness with their imprint-mate. Meanwhile, her beloved Uncle Quil got a lifetime of servitude and three teenagers who ate him out of house and home and constantly grew out of everything they owned.

She said as much aloud and Quil got pissed.

"Do you hear me complaining, Claire? Have I ever once given you reason to think I regretted the gift the imprint brought into my life?" His face was red with anger, but she didn't back down, couldn't. The bond was strong for her, too. She needed him to be happy.

"Gift," she scoffed. "You got shackled to me when you should have been making out with girls in the backseat of some old, ugly car like Uncle Jake and Uncle Embry! Instead, you were braiding hair and changing diapers and potty-training everything that moved! The Spirits fucked you over every chance they got and you rolled over and just kept taking it from them! You keep taking it from them!" Her screech was loud enough to call every dog within a mile to their yard, including the three wolves on patrol.

Leah, Jake, and Paul crept as close as they dared, settling back on their haunches at the tree line to keep watch just in case Claire took off again. She never went far, but she did have a bad habit of running when she got overwhelmed by her emotions.

"You watch your mouth, young lady," Quil's open hand slapped the tabletop. "If I got fucked over, as you put it, it was of my own making. My choice. I chose this family. The imprint didn't force me to adopt three kids. I'm only imprinted on one of you. I love all three of you. My life has been complicated, absolutely, but it's full and I love it and I'm not going to listen to you disparage it just because it's not your ideal."

He got up to leave.

She scrambled to untangle her legs. "Uncle Quil—"

"Let it go for a while, Claire." He hung his head, shoving his grease-stained hands in his pockets, fisting them, the muscles in his forearms straining with his anger.

"Please, just let me say this, okay?" she begged. She was doing this because she loved him. She didn't want to fight.

She wanted him to be happy, dammit.

He nodded sharply once, his patience at its end.

She climbed out of her chair on shaky legs, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of him.

Wrapping her arms around his waist, she waited until he relaxed and his arms closed around her.

Working up her nerve, she murmured into his chest, "I think you should ask Aunt Leah out."

He froze, drawing his head back a few inches to look into her eyes like she'd lost her mind.

"I've seen you watching her when you think no one is looking. Your eyes follow her. I-" She swallowed before admitting, "I saw you kiss her that one time, like she was your whole world for that one minute and you were hers. She couldn't even walk straight after. I can tell you love her and … the thing is, I know—we know—she loves us, too, you know? All of us."

Quil sighed.

"Your Aunt Leah is as busy with her life as I am with mine. She works long hours at the clinic and she has tribal duties like the rest of us. Besides, if it were going to happen—"

"It's not like you've ever asked her," Claire interrupted to point out. She knew she had him there.

"Because she's as likely to kick me in the nuts as she is to say 'yes'," he snorted.

"She wouldn't kick you."

"Claire…"

"She might punch you, just for fun and because you waited so long and you were stupid." She tilted her head, pretending to give it some thought. "But probably she would just punch you for fun."

A reluctant laugh bubbled up that Quil couldn't choke down.

"But when your nose is bleeding and she's standing there with her eyes all snappy and pissed, she'd probably call you an idiot for waiting so long to ask."

He sighed deeply again, but didn't bother to correct her language. Paul would just undo all his hard work later anyway.

"Christ, you're probably right, kid." He laid his head on hers, stroking the long curtain of raven's wing hair at her back and rumbling a soothing purr deep in his chest.

"So you'll ask her?" She tried not to let the excitement bleed into her voice, but she was practically bouncing.

"I'll think about it," he promised, the way parents do when they want to change the subject.

But Claire was already ten steps ahead, her whole body thrumming with excitement. "Where will you take her? You'll go on a real date, right? Like dinner or something in Port A? Oh! You could go to Seattle for the weekend. Me and Jay and Kyle could stay with Uncle Jake and Aunt Bella. They won't mind. Oh, oh, you need a suit! You'd wear a suit, right? And shoes. You can't wear your old sneakers or work boots. What kind of date would that be? You should wear that cologne that Aunt Sue got for you for Christmas two years ago. You never wear it, but it smells so good. I mean, she probably knows what you smell like underneath it anyway, but it might be nice if you smelled different for once because it would be special just for her—"

The sound of a throat clearing broke into Claire's excited babble. Quil was grateful. He loved the girl, but she could make a saint's ears bleed when she was on a roll.

They looked up together, seeking out the source of the noise.

Leah Clearwater stood framed in the doorway in an old T-shirt dress, leaning on the jam just inside the screen with Jake and Paul peering in over her shoulder, wearing huge grins.

Leah cleared her throat again, picking the forest out from under her nails. "Maybe he should ask me first before you take him suit-shopping, kiddo." She finally looked at Quil, an amused sneer on her face. "I'm waiting."

"You heard." He smirked.

Leah said nothing, feigning disinterest and crossing her arms with an annoyed, "Hmph! Who didn't? You two argue loud enough to wake the dead."

Quil crossed the kitchen, whisking her up with a bold flourish, dipping and trapping her in the steel cage of his arms.

A laugh caught in her throat before she shut it down and put her serious face back on.

His hands roamed where the kid couldn't see, trying to make her crack. "Leah Clearwater, will you go out with me?"

After several humming moments of careful thought, she finally grinned.

And punched him in the face.

When Quil woke up on the cold kitchen floor minutes later, Leah was leaning over him as Claire looked on, blinking owlishly.

She pursed her lips. "Told you."

Leah patted his cheek. "That was for waiting so goddamn long without speaking up. I love your kids like they're my own, too, you idiot. Go put on a clean shirt and scrub all that shit off your hands. If your nose is healed by seven, you're taking me out for dinner."