AN: JK on that previous chapter here, super high on cough meds. Might not have been able to read as well as I thought. WHOOPS.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Living the Dream

With an empty house everything was calmer. Anna had her lazy mornings and I had time to do whatever I wanted. The house stayed clean by some kind of miracle, actually I was pretty sure it was Anna and her not so lazy mornings but still there wasn't as much of a mess as there was when my mom was around.

Anna liked making the bed in the morning and making sure all the pillows were lined up, but never yelled at me when I crashed on the bed in the middle of the day, after a shower or just because. She thought it was hilarious that I could not put anything away. Sometimes she would put things in a different spot just to see if I would notice. And I would.

Others would come over to the house a lot too, but it was easier to kick them out now. My mother was a good enough host to make them want to stay forever, but when my imprint started getting tired, they knew it was time to go. She liked entertaining the pack there. None of the vampires had come back and I knew she preferred it that way. Jake didn't, and couldn't, blame her, but he wouldn't be visiting any time soon.

But as much as I loved my new set up, there was still something eating away at me, the engagement ring hiding in my sock drawer. I didn't know if it was right to ask her to marry me, since we had only been together for less than a year and only been living together because it was convenient and I convinced her.

Really, looking at my circumstances on paper with her, it actually looked shitty. It was just basically a girl and her stalker werewolf. What could go wrong? Why would anyone say no to that? Other than the obvious life-threatening reasons.

I had gotten to a point where I had convinced myself she wouldn't even continue to live with me past her getting on her own two feet because of the fact that vampires liked to randomly attack. If someone cared about self-preservation in anyway, it would be a safe practice to stay away from creatures trying to eat your face.

She doesn't care about that. Seth tried to tell me. We were on patrol just after dinner.

I could only think about the day she was cornered by the vampire bitch.

Just ask her already! He tried to insist.

I had heard all the arguments by now. Sam even tried to order me to propose as an alpha, but Emily made him take it back because she was the only one who understood my fears. She still told me I was an idiot, but she at least understood.

When Quil and Embry took over patrol I ran back to my house, in my wolf form. Anna was waiting for me, but now that it was later at night, she was probably sleeping, or at least in bed. I stopped outside the back door to put shorts on and then went inside. I showered and then, still damp, fell into bed with her.

Since it was winter now, when I fell next to her wet she woke up and started shivering. "How are you not freezing?" She asked as she shook her head and moved closer to me. I had explained the heat thing before, but it still confused her. I held her close and soon everything was a lot warmer than it had been.

I held her close because I was now afraid she was going to leave me at any moment, and took in her scent in. She had her arms curled close to herself and she started drawing circles on my skin.

"Why are you so tense?" She asked concerned.

"Just on guard." I answered quietly.

She sat up a little then. "Is there another vampire in the area?" She asked worried.

"What? No." I said shaking my head.

She sighed and relaxed. "So what are you on guard for?" She asked confused.

"Stuff," I shrugged.

"You're a bad liar." She said as she shook her head and laid back down.

"I'm not lying." I muttered, which was getting harder to answer because I really was lying.

"So what is it? You've been far away lately." She pressed.

"Don't worry about it." I tried to brush it off.

She huffed and sat straight up, detaching herself from my grasp. "Why wouldn't I worry about you?" She asked as looked down at me.

She looked worried and afraid but I still couldn't tell her. "I can handle myself, just forget about it." I told her trying to keep my cool demeanor that I was losing quickly.

Her eyes looked broken again, like they did before she left her parents and her lip started to quiver. "Is there another girl?" She asked quietly.

I scrambled to sit up then. "What? No way, you are my forever. Why would you think that?" I asked shaking my head.

"You've just been so sad lately and you won't talk to me and I don't know what's going on." She was crying then, nothing she could control, just tears running down her face. On instinct I pulled her onto my lap and held her close. "Just tell me please." She begged.

I had to hold her for a little while before I could speak again. It was hard to because my stomach was in knots around my lungs. "I just started thinking about what's gonna happen when you get on your feet." I murmured to her while I started rocking with her on my lap.

"What do you mean?" She asked confused, looking up at me.

"When you can be on your own and you don't want to be here anymore." I answered quietly because I was losing my voice.

She shook her head a few times and moved so she was facing me. "I want to be here, this is the best place I've ever been." She told me as she tried to wipe off her tears.

"There is better." I tried to tell her because she deserved everything in the world she wanted.

"Not to me. I want to stay here because you're here. No one else wanted me before but you. Why wouldn't I want to be here? Can't I just be happy here?" She asked tiringly, clinging to my arms.

I just stopped talking then, I was obviously fucking everything up and I just wanted her to not cry anymore. I don't know how long I sat there with her in my lap before she fell asleep clinging to me. I didn't sleep at all. I couldn't when I felt so shitty.

I pulled away and slipped out of bed and went to the living room and started dialing my mom, I didn't know if she'd pick up but I needed to talk to her. I couldn't say I was surprised when she answered in a panic.

"Is the house on fire?!" She asked, nearly screaming in my ear.

"No mom." I answered quietly.

She huffed. "What's wrong?" She asked a little more calmly.

"What do I do when she moves on?" I asked sadly.

"Oh, honey. I'm going to tell you something, that I'm sure you've heard a few times already but in a way that I know you'll understand." She said with a knowing tone. "She isn't your dad." She told me bluntly.

I almost wretched away from the phone, hearing it out loud. "She isn't going to drop when things get hard because you pulled her out of the worst part of her life, when she couldn't do it herself. You are her rock, her happy place, and where she goes when she's lost. You make the best part of her. And as long as she has a choice in the matter, she will never leave you." She rushed out all at once.

"What if-" I tried to start, but my mother steam rolled through anything I was going to say.

"Stop! Right there. You are ruining this for yourself and more importantly for her. Tell her the truth, you tell her you love her and your life would be nothing without her I promise you, she will say the same thing." She ordered like she was telling me to do yard work.

"Fine." I snapped.

"Goodnight, I love you, this better be resolved by the morning cause I will call her and make sure." I could hear her smiling knowingly as she spewed all this off.

"Love you too." I huffed and the line disconnected.

I put the phone down on the coffee table and went back into the bedroom. I expected her to be asleep still but when I got there she was sitting up in bed with her arms around a pillow. Anna looked up at me as soon as the door opened and she had tears in her eyes for sure.

"I thought you were running." She rushed out, wiping her eyes.

I shook my head. "No, just talking to my mom about things." I muttered as I went to the dresser I kept my socks and pulled out the little box my mother had given me and then I sat on the end of the bed.

"I'm sorry, I said some really stupid things and I won't open my mouth again after this. I love you so much that if I lost you I'd be nothing, not even a shadow. You are the best part of me and I'll never go anywhere." I told her as clearly and concisely as I could.

I figured I did pretty well because she crawled over to me and hugged me tightly. "You're not stupid. I love you too." She murmured as she pressed her face to my neck.

I held her with one arm, while the other awkwardly hung over the bed and I took another breath in to try and stabilize myself. "This probably isn't the best time to ask this, but its been bothering me for a while, and I need to do it before my head explodes." I said nervously as I looked down at her.

She rested her head on my shoulder and looked at me confused. "What's that?" She asked curiously.

I brought my arm up and rested it on her lap with the little box sitting easily in my hand, she wasn't looking at my hand though, she was looking at my stupid face. I flipped open the little box easily and there sat the tiny ring that had my future on it.

"Would you marry me?" I asked her slowly and awkwardly as I looked at her.

Her eyes got big and she looked at the little ring in the palm of my hand and looked almost confused as she looked between me and it. I still felt pretty stupid for asking and tried to cover it up.

"You don't have to say yes-" I rushed out, just so she didn't feel the need to have to say something now. But she grabbed my face and kissed me hard, like she did when she was excited.

"Yes, I will and it would make me even happier than I am now." She said with a huge smile and I'll admit, I dropped the stupid ring because I picked her up and dropped her on the bed and didn't let her out of my arms until the sun came up because she was mine for the moment. No one else was going to interrupt she was only Anna, my fiancée and that sounded damn good.

AN: Review!