Mornings pretty much sucked for Baylee as far as she was concerned. Most people her age could sleep in on a weekend or a day off such as this. Instead, she had to wake up bright and early thanks mostly in part to the two year old that would jump up and down on the bed until she did. It was her own fault. The two shared a room, mostly because there was no other place in the house for him to sleep and she couldn’t exactly afford to live on her own. She would need a roommate and who wanted to have to deal with someone else’s toddler? Once Rafe had outgrown the crib, Baylee resorted to just letting him sleep with her. She didn’t have much of a choice. It was that or she let him have her room while she slept on the couch. It may have been selfish, but that had been her room for twelve years now. There was no way she was going to give it up. And there was no way she was ever going to be mean and horrible to her son either. Baylee had two very good reasons for that. One reason being that she didn’t want to hurt his feelings like hers had been by her inconsiderate father. Second, it was hard to do that to the person that reminded her of someone that made her completely happy.

”Rafe, stop,” Baylee complained from under the covers. Two seconds later, she felt him jump down in the sitting position on the bed. ”Sorry, mommy,” he frowned slightly. She caught the end of it when she threw the covers off of her. ”I’m hungry,” he pointed to his stomach. She refrained from giggles. Rafe looked just like Gabriel, but he had picked up a lot of Baylee’s habits, that being one of them. At least he had gotten something from her if only because he had seen her do it before. She nodded, ”Ok, I’ll get you something to eat.” Before she could even sit up, he was out of the room. She heard him downstairs greeting her aunt. That woman truly was a blessing. Without her, Baylee wasn’t sure how she would have made it through the first year of motherhood, pregnancy, or even just life. She was lost in thought until she heard her name. ”Baylee! Get down here and feed this child of yours.” Without any sort of hesitation, she jumped up. ”Coming.”

It didn’t take long for Rafe to finish his food and he was off like a ball of energy. Did Baylee ever have that much? She couldn’t ever remember being like that. While he sat in the living room and watched Saturday morning cartoons and played with whatever he could get his hands on, Baylee sat at the bar in the kitchen. He was in her view, but she wasn’t over his shoulder. She liked it that way when she was reading something for school. He felt safe because she was there, too, but she wasn’t overbearing him. It was how her mother had raised her and it seemed to do ok. Therefore, she was not afraid to leave him like that, not for now. If it had been good enough for her, it was good enough for him, right? Well, not all things she had to put up with would he ever have to go through, she would see to that.

Baylee was reading a book for her history class. She wasn’t sure how she got so far behind on everything aside from the fact that her life away from school was busy. She did have a child to care for and a job to work. So, it made sense that somehow she forgot she had to read half a book before the next week started. But as she did that she heard a very loud thud followed by an earsplitting scream. She looked up to not see Rafe anywhere. She was smart enough to know to follow the crying to the staircase where he sat at the bottom of it holding his head. ”Rafe,” she said as she sat down on the stairs and picked him up off the floor to sit him in her lap, ”Why did you have to go where I can’t see you?”

Rafe couldn’t respond before the doorbell rang. And of course Baylee had to be alone now. ”Come on.” She picked him up and threw him on her hip in order to answer the door, at which point he buried his face in her shoulder. ”Oh my God,” were the quiet words that escaped her mouth when she saw the face on the other side of the door. Never in her life did she ever think she would see the face of Gabriel Lucas Valentine ever again. Yet, there it stood in front of her.

Gabriel, it had been so long since Bayle had seen him. If she was being honest with herself, she was pretty sure he wasn’t coming back any time soon, if at all. But that didn’t mean she missed him any less. Oh, no, with him standing right at the door she wanted to put Rafe down and reach up to kiss Gabriel. She couldn’t. She suddenly remembered Ryan, the guy she was currently dating. Why couldn’t Gabriel have come back two months ago when Ryan was still trying to chase her? She would give up that idea in a heartbeat for the beautiful face standing right there in front of her. She wasn’t quite so sure she could end a relationship, not that she didn’t want to. All Baylee could remember was the way they were and the simple fact that she wanted that again. Let’s face it, she didn’t have with Ryan what she had with Gabriel because Ryan didn’t know half the things about her that Gabriel did. That made the difference.

Baylee gave Gabriel a smile. She couldn’t stand there and look absolutely shocked. He may think she was mad or that she didn’t want to see him at all. That wasn’t the case. She was just shocked that after almost three years he was back in La Push. ”Hey Gabriel.” There was a bit of happiness in her voice, but her smile was not as big as one would associate that sound with. Then again, she just kept going over the fact that she was with someone else. Not for a second did it dawn on her that in her arms was the son that, two years ago, she and Gabriel had conceived. She had all the wrong things on her mind, but mostly because she certainly wouldn’t mind taking Gabriel in that moment and recreating that one night they spent together. The night that, coincidentally, was the reason for that boy she was holding.

Sorry. Baylee didn’t like hearing that word. ”Why are you sorry?” Ok, maybe Gabriel had a very big reason for being sorry, but he didn’t know that one yet. She hadn’t exactly yelled out that he was a father yet. She felt it best not to, not then. Then he really would be sorry or would he be angry instead? Yeah, maybe he would be angry that Baylee hadn’t gone out of her way to find him to tell him. Then again, when it all started, she intended on adoption. It just didn’t end that way.

”You have no reason to be sorry. You had to leave. I understood.” If that was what he was sorry for, he shouldn’t have been. Gabriel didn’t know that by leaving Baylee he was making her a single, teen mother, but two year olds were not exactly quiet and didn’t know when situations were awkward. Rafe was probably as quiet as they got, but when something was wrong, he made sure his mother knew about it, regardless of who was around her or how odd things seemed to be.

Baylee felt as he lifted his head from where it was buried. ”Mommy.” She cringed before looking over at Rafe. Upon seeing his bright red eye her mouth fell. ”Oh my god, Rafe! That’s what happens when you don’t stay where you’re told.” She put him down on the ground. ”Go to the kitchen. I’ll get you some ice in a minute.” He nodded and then ran away, at which point, Baylee turned back around to face Gabriel. She was ready for hundreds of questions and some screaming. ”Want to come in? It’s kind of cold out. I mean, not like that matters to you. Still a werewolf, right?” She pulled him in and hugged him quickly. ”And just as warm as you always were.”

Baylee let go. She didn’t want to feel like she was trying to avoid anything. She was just welcoming him and showing him that she was glad she was there. ”So,” she paused, ”Come on. Let’s get the ice before he tries. All he can do is reach the button to press it. Last time, we came in and there was a puddle everywhere.” That was one way of teaching Gabriel things about Rafe. She liked it. "We can talk in there."

Gabriel couldn’t honestly hold himself responsible for that, could he? Baylee hadn’t exactly done the world’s finest job of keeping in touch with him, and she was the one that had something important to tell him. She shrugged, ”I should have, too, not that I had a clue in this world as to where to start, but I should have.” But I’m sorries didn’t justify any of the acts. Everything had happened and with reasons. Whether or not they would ever be able to know those reasons was a different story. ”I guess neither of us can fix that, though, and it’s ok.” Those close to three years had been hard as hell, she’d admit, but she managed to make it through them somehow. They would have been a hell of a lot easier had he been there, but she wasn’t going to stand there agreeing that he owed her an apology, look for sympathy, or blame everything on him. Gabriel may take all the blame, but she refused to let him.

Baylee frowned slightly at his words. ”I don’t think you’re a scary monster.” Any other girl would have. The second he had phased for them, they would run away scared, but she was different. Sure, she didn’t exactly know what to think about at first, but he was the one person that protected her most of her life. When he had phased into a wolf, it gave her more reason to feel safe when she was with him. It wasn’t something she ran away from. It was something she fully embraced. And she could never regret embracing him. It brought to her the love of her life, and, even if it was frowned upon, it gave her that little boy. ”Well, I’m pretty sure dogs don’t get so warm, but you are not a dog,” she shook her head, ”Canine, maybe, but you are not a dog.” She chuckled at the end as she teased him and continued on the way to the kitchen where there her son was sitting at the table waiting for her to come in and get him some ice for his eye.

”Rafe Ezekiel Warner,” Baylee recited his whole name as she filled a bag with ice and wrapped it in a washcloth to keep it from freezing his face. ”I was two days from my due date with still no idea what I was going to name him. My aunt read every boy name from the book one at a time. She got to Rafe and I knew that was it.” She knelt down in front of Rafe and put the ice to his face. ”Go sit on the couch and watch television. I’ll be in there in a little bit. You move and you’ll get to sit in here with me and watch me do homework until Aunt Sarah comes home.” He nodded and made his way to the living room.

You can’t tell by looking at him?” Baylee questioned, ”Everyone else can.” She sat down adjacent to Gabriel at the table. She held her hands together for a moment and stared at them before looking up to Gabriel. ”You are.” She swallowed hard. ”It was maybe a month after you left that I found out. My dad was irate, my aunt and uncle disappointed, and I was so lost and scared. The one person I wanted and needed wasn’t anywhere that I could find him and no one would tell me where to find him.” She could feel her eyes starting to get wet. She wasn’t sure she could hold back those tears. ”I almost gave him up for adoption. My aunt and I spent months trying to find the perfect parents. The day before I was supposed to meet them, the doctors told me I was having a boy and I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Baylee wiped away what tears had managed to escape her eyes. ”He does know who you are, sort of. Your picture sits on the bedside table in our room for us to see, and he knows that that’s his dad. He’s just not exactly aware of that with you in person.”

”I’ve known you were a werewolf for what? Three years now? If I was going to run away, I would have done it by now.” If she was going to run away Baylee would have done it long before they started dating, actually. She wouldn’t have let their relationship get too far. In fact, she probably would have pulled away from Gabriel, but she was much strong than that. She was a rational thinker as well. Just because he was a werewolf didn’t take away from the fact that he was the guy she loved and that took such good care of her while she was growing up. She took all of that into consideration. It wasn’t like he was a monster. ”Hm? Do you want to be considered untamed?” she smirked.

Baylee nodded, ”Me, too, and it’s not bland like David or Brian. It’s original and different.” A lot of careful consideration went into naming their child. That was why she was so close to her due date thinking of a name for him. She didn’t want it to be normal. She wanted it to stand out. It most certainly did. Everyone told her how unique his name was, that was anyone who she would let close enough to him. Usually she wouldn’t let guys close to the little boy. It was all because of that guy sitting across from her. She didn’t want anyone trying to replace him. She always told herself it was because she wanted Rafe to know that he had a father that couldn’t be around. She wanted him to know his real dad, but in reality she didn’t want them to because she felt as if that would mean someone was replacing Gabriel in her life. The last thing she wanted was for someone to replace him. She fought hard to make sure no one did.

Gabriel’s hands were over Baylee’s in a matter of seconds after she had explained everything. She hated the word sorry. It wasn’t like either one of them could fix what had happened. Things were what they were and she had learned to accept them years ago that she was going to be a single mother unless some miracle brought Gabriel back to her. Why did the miracle have to occur at the wrong time in her life? ”Don’t be. It’s your parent’s fault you left,” she swallowed, ”My aunt and uncle tried everything to find you, but, well, you see how well that one worked. But don’t apologize. The whole thing is you didn’t know I was pregnant. I didn’t know until after you left.” She sort of shrugged it off.

”I love you.” Why did Gabriel have to say that? ”I still love you, too, and I do want you to be a part of Rafe’s life, but,” she searched for the best words, ”You’re right. It won’t be in the same way. It can’t be, not right now, because I’m dating someone else.” Those words were hard to say. She almost wanted to just call Ryan and tell him they were through right then and that she didn’t want it anymore, but that wasn’t fair, not just because Gabriel had returned. Baylee had to consider that. ”But that’s for another conversation. Um? Rafe. Hold on a minute.” She walked into the living room and a few moments later walked back in holding her son’s hand. She sat down back in her chair and pulled him into her lap. Instantly, she hid his face inside her hair. ”Sorry, he’s a bit shy. That’s sort of my fault.”

Baylee looked at the little boy as best she could from where he sat. ”Rafe, I have someone I think you need to meet.” She took the ice covering half his face and placed on the table and turned him slightly so that he was facing Gabriel. ”Rafe, sweetheart, this is your daddy.” As much as she fought against ever saying those words to him, she couldn’t deny how great it felt for her to say them about Gabriel.

”Untamed it is then,” Baylee said with a nod. She didn’t really consider how much it would hurt for her to tell him she was with someone else. It wasn’t exactly like she had moved on, not when the constant reminder stared at her every day. It woke her up every day and was the one thing she held closest to her. Getting over him was probably never going to happen. Moving on from him wasn’t exactly going to work either. Baylee had an unnatural attachment to Gabriel that no one quite understood and that her aunt gave up trying to understand. It went way beyond the fact that they had Rafe. It started long before then. She couldn’t tell people what it was about Gabriel that always had her happy or why she would jump off a cliff to her death for him without a single question being asked. She just loved him. That was all there really was to it. Sometimes that was all there ever was to it.

But Baylee did try to move on. She tried extra hard to move on from him. Sure she dated. She was dating, now. But she never imagined it would hurt as much as it did to tell him that simple fact. She couldn’t take back the fact that she was in a relationship, but she surely wished she could just take back what she said and how she said it. Was she a bitch or what? If it hurt her, she could only imagine how much it hurt Gabriel to hear how she was with someone. It wasn’t necessarily something she could help. Well, she could have had she known he was going to come back, but for two years she was uncertain if she would ever see him. Baylee just finally decided she would never see Gabriel again, all for him to show up at her door like he had. Things definitely would have been different if she had known. She would have worked hard to maintain being single, then.

Baylee couldn’t change her current state of affairs, now. It was far too late. She smiled to Gabriel. ”If there was one thing I wish he hadn’t picked up from me, it was that,” she laughed. She really didn’t want her son afraid to socialize with people. Yet, there he was doing just that. It was her fault, though. ”I may have contributed to that by keeping him away from people.” It was more than heredity. She wouldn’t tell Gabriel exactly why she kept people away from him because she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know she still had some sort of attachment to him rather than living a happy life, but she didn’t want people to be Rafe’s father. That wasn’t a position for them to take. She would rather he have no father than have a fake one. ”Quiet and shy can be bad, though. Sometimes we forget where he is and he tends to get into things or fall down stairs,” she glanced down at her son.

Rafe wiggled away from Baylee once Gabriel had said something to him and pushed his own chair over between the two of them. At least he knew how to be cute. It took Baylee’s help to get him into the chair, but once he was sitting in it, he looked between Baylee and Gabriel. She peered up at Gabriel. ”You can ask him questions. He may seem shy, but he’ll answer you as best as he can,” she looked back to the little boy, ”isn’t that right?” Knowing he had his mother’s consent to talk to Gabriel was enough for Rafe. So, he nodded. ”Yep,” he spoke in his quiet little voice.

Despite the fact that Baylee was feeling completely sick with herself, she refused to let it show on her face. She kept rationalizing with herself. Gabriel left her, and she had no means of contact with him. He hadn’t written or called her to let her know where he was and his family was just as bad at keeping her updated. She had tried several times to figure out how to find him, but they always told her no. Gabriel left Baylee. It just happened that she moved on from him, sort of. She could feel this major aching in her heart just by looking at him. And she would have turned away, but the upsetting thing was that she couldn’t. She wanted to look at him. She would endure any sort of pain for him, even if she was causing it to herself. It irritated her that she felt that way, though. She shouldn’t have felt that way, but Baylee had always been in love with Gabriel, even though she hadn’t admitted it for a long time. Telling him she was with someone else was extremely hard to do. Still, Baylee’s face never faltered. She wouldn’t let it do that with Rafe around. She didn’t care if Gabriel saw her emotion. They spent years with each other. He had seen her at her worst and crying her eyes dry. But she would not let Rafe see that, not now.

Baylee rolled her eyes, ”Oh God that would be horrible! I would throw him out if he turned out like that.” Of course she was only joking with him. She wouldn’t honestly throw her son out because of who he was. She would have just pulled out all of her hair by now. Baylee was not well with handling stress. Being a mother was enough stress for her. She didn’t need the added stress with him being rebellious, though he was still young. He could surprise her one day. ”Yeah, I hope he will. I mean, he’s quiet and all. I enjoy that, but he does need friends when he gets older. Maybe school will change him.” Now, she was absolutely afraid of school changing him. She liked her quiet little boy who did nothing to step out of line unless his curiosity got the better of him. However, she knew she couldn’t keep him locked away forever, though that was a great idea the more she thought about it, but she wouldn’t do that to him, never.

Now it was Rafe’s turn to speak. This could be rather interesting. He answered questions ok. The only problem was it usually took a lot to get him to say things to people he didn’t know. She only hoped he would feel ok talked to Gabriel. Rafe looked at Baylee and she nodded. That look on her face told him he was completely unaware of how to answer that question. And the shrug he gave reassured that fact. ”You do know, Rafe. Quit being shy.” He pouted just like she would have if she was being asked to do something she didn’t want to do. She really had to learn to not be so herself around Rafe. ”You can’t pull my tricks on me.” His arms that were wrapped tightly around his chest fell beside him and his blue eyes gazed at Gabriel. ”Stuff,” he started in his cute little voice, but it almost had Baylee irritated. However, before she could say anything to him about how obnoxious that was, he continued on. ”I like the color green..and cartoons..and Christmas…and that movie Cars…and superheroes…” By now, Rafe was standing up in the chair full of excitement. This was odd. Even when he finally did answer someone’s question he never got this way. It was reassuring. ”Lots of things,” he finally nodded and sat himself back down. ”Sorry, I didn’t think he would do that.” Yet, Rafe smiled at Baylee with a very satisfied look on his face.