chapter one | homecoming
synopsis: reader returns to la push to make a decision to clean out or move into her late grandmother’s house. she’s quickly flooded with memories of the past, not all of them good, and struggles to come to terms with her grief.
warnings: SUPER plot heavy (sorry y’all lol)
word count: 4.3k
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having nothing but your thoughts to keep you company for the 4-hour drive back to your grandmother’s hometown left you somehow feeling more stressed than when you’d first gotten the call to come back 2 days prior.
although your grandmother had passed a year ago, the tribal council had only recently pressed you to either move in or move your grandmother’s stuff out, so it wasn’t just becoming some shell of what it used to be. you still weren’t entirely sure what your plans for the house were, but you’d quickly realized you’d need to make up your mind sooner rather than later before they moved a new family into it.
you’d spent most of your life in seattle but once every couple of years, your mom would drive you over to la push to visit your grandmother. both women had quite a strained relationship with each other, but your mom still felt some semblance of guilt when it came to making sure your grandmother could at least see you growing up, so she wasn’t a total stranger. with your grandmother now 6 feet under and you being in your mid twenties, you’d decided you two definitely didn’t have much of a relationship despite your mother’s minimal attempts. unsurprisingly, the lack of effort didn’t leave a lasting impact.
the last time you’d made the drive out west was just before you graduated high school, and you’d only stopped by for a few hours to visit before your mom was corralling you back into the car to make the drive back to seattle. so to say you didn’t have much connection to the quileute in your blood was the understatement of the year.
the closer you got to the res, the larger everything seemed to become. the evergreens seemed to reach the sky, blocking off most of the clouds but still managing to allow the near constant drizzle of rain through to patter against your windshield. as the roads continued to wind, so did your mind as you allowed yourself back into your thoughts while you ran through how easy it would be to just turn around and never come back. leaving your grandmother and all her things behind to return back to your life in seattle and just forget any of this ever existed.
…
since arriving on the res, an unfamiliar buzz in the back of your mind began to take root, your hips and back carrying the weight of it as you shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, deciding to blame the nearly 4-hour drive on your soreness. despite your discomfort, it turned out that finding your way through the res and down some beaten old road to your grandmother’s house proved to be much easier than you remembered it being. maybe it was your mother’s incessant complaining about how annoying the drive was echoing in your subconscious, or maybe it was just your own inner critic - at the end of the day, who really cares what it was? you made it, and that was what mattered.
her house was even gloomier than you remembered it. the drizzle that had quickly turned into pouring rain not helping at all as you sprinted to the front door, fumbling around for a moment before you’d found the keys about three feet behind the pot billy had told you they would be under. last you remembered he was in a wheelchair, so you figured it wasn’t him who’d hid the key given that there were quite a few steps to hike up to get to the porch, but whoever he did get to hide the key clearly wasn’t great at following instructions.
frustration and a surge of emotions flowing through your system, you turned the key with shaky hands and pushed inside. as you should have expected, dust flew around everywhere and you quickly found yourself in a coughing fit as you stumbled into the house with your bags, shutting the door behind you in a weak attempt to keep the rain out despite the fact that you were already soaked from the few short seconds outside.
“fuck me,” you groaned, fumbling your hands along the wall until you felt the lightswitch, flicking it on. after a few seconds of flickering, the entryway and living room were illuminated, everything in almost exactly the same place as you’d remembered it being nearly a decade ago when you last visited. coughing again, you made quick work of moving over to the bay windows looking out into the towering evergreens in the backyard, cracking them open just enough to provide some ventilation while you figured out how on earth you were going to tackle cleaning and clearing out this entire place. thankfully, the downpour had been reduced to a drizzle, allowing you to get some fresh air without risking adding flooding the place to your ever-growing list of things to do.
a heavy sigh left your lips as you brought your hands to your hips, gently massaging them and your lower back. that drive wasn’t exactly easy, but you never remembered feeling that sore the last time you drove down. maybe you were just aging worse than you thought you were and chose to blame it on not working out enough instead of digging deeper.
deciding a walk might help you get some fresh air and, more importantly, clear your mind, you headed back over to the entryway to dig through your bags to find your rainboots and windbreaker. you hadn’t packed too much, not expecting to stay here for more than a week, only a couple of pairs of jeans, some shorts you now realized you definitely weren’t going to be wearing anytime soon thanks to how much cooled it was on the coast than it was in seattle, and a few sweatshirts and t-shirts.
at the bottom of your bag, you pulled out the same run-down pair of dark green rain boots you’d had since high school, and the windbreaker you’d borrowed from a friend in college but had forgotten to give back to her before she’d moved back home.
pulling on the boots and windbreaker, you mentally cursed yourself for losing touch with her and so many other friends from college. sure you all kept up with each other’s lives through social media, commenting on each other’s photos and messaging each other videos you’d found funny that reminded you of each other, but you rarely texted or called. you could be a better friend - actually, you would be a better friend when this was all over and settled, you decided. once the house was left behind you and you were able to cut off this part of your life for good, you’d reach back out and apologize for all the lost time and hope they felt the same.
no wonder your hips and back were so fucked up - carrying all that extra stress would be enough to make anyone break down. though, despite your explanation for the pain, you couldn’t shake that incessant, low buzzing noise in the back of your mind that had refused to leave since you’d set foot back on the res. it wasn’t particularly loud or annoying, but it was always there.
deciding against putting some headphones in, you headed down the short trail to the beach, the distant crashing waves doing more work for your nerves than any music ever could. the dirt below your boots and soaring evergreens canopying your view of the sky only lasted for a few moments before breaking away, rather suddenly shifting to wet, dark sand and cloudy skies that matched the deep ocean blue.
you paused for a moment and sucked in a few deep breaths, the salty air clearing your lungs and mind. you’d missed this. missed hearing the waves crashing against the shore, the soft swaying of the forest behind you, the wind brushing against your cheeks, along with a few raindrops here and there. it was peaceful, only a few other people walking up and down the beach as you began your walk down, sticking close enough to the water that the tide could wash waves over your boots every time it rolled in.
the last time you’d been on the beach was over a decade ago. your grandma had taken you down here for a walk, not unlike the one you were currently on, to help you clear your head while you two talked about all the different colleges you’d considered applying for and which ones you thought could be your top contenders. at the time, you’d been pretty insistent on traveling somewhere far away, looking way beyond seattle and instead looking across the country at colleges on the east coast. you’d insisted it was just because the better schools were on that coast, but you and your grandmother knew you just wanted to get away. you weren’t sure if your mom had understood that at the time, she seemed to view it more as a stupid way for you to drive yourself into an insurmountable amount of debt before you’d even hit 18, but then again, you two never seemed to see eye to eye on much.
your grandmother seemed to empathize with you a little more. as far as you knew, she’d never moved off the res, so you were surprised when she’d vocalized her support for you to travel while you were still young enough to do so. thankfully, you were able to attend a little college on the east coast and spent 4 years over there learning more about yourself and the world than you ever would’ve had you stayed in what you’d always known. as luck would have it, you landed a full-time job teaching in seattle shortly after you graduated so, even though you’d loved the few years you’d spent away, you found yourself back on the west coast.
when you first went to college, you used the distance as an excuse not to come home and visit ever. but even when you moved back, you couldn’t seem to bring yourself back to the res to visit your grandmother. it wasn’t ever intentional, at least not after a few years. by then, it had just become habit, the way things were with your life. you weren’t tied to la push at all, seattle was your home, and that was that.
continuing your walk down the beach, a familiar face waved at you. although you hadn’t seen her since you were in high school, sue clearwater had hardly aged, “oh sweetheart, how are you?” sue’s warmth radiated off of her as she called to you, quickly striding over to pull you into a tight hug.
of course she’d know you were back, she was the one who had originally reached out about your grandmother’s house just a few weeks ago and had helped with nearly all the funeral arrangements over a year ago when you couldn’t muster the strength to come back yet.
wrapping your arms around her to hug her back just as tight, you sucked in a deep breath, “hi sue,” you mumbled into her hair, tears forming in your eyes for just a moment before you blinked them away. no way were you about to be the girl who had a meltdown on the beach as soon as she came back to the res, “i’m okay,” you finally answered her original question after a moment.
although you didn’t have many memories of her from your minimal visits to la push as a kid, you did know that she had two children of her own, but you couldn’t remember who they were for the life of you.
she released you from the hug after another tight squeeze, sliding her hands to your shoulders to get a better look at you. looking at her up close, you could see how she’d looked a bit older than the last time that you saw her, though she was still just as beautiful as you’d remembered her. crows feet had formed at the corners of her eyes, likely from smiling so much, and the sun had darkened her skin to a much deeper olive tone. her eyes remained as kind as you’d remembered them being, if not more now that you too were older and could appreciate it more.
“did you just drive in?” she asked, the corners of her eyes crinkling in concern as she frowned when you quickly nodded, praying she couldn’t read you as well as you figured she could.
“do you want to talk about it?” her voice softened, and you knew she’d read you like a book. you took in a shaky breath, fearing your voice would betray you, so you just settled for shaking your head.
she gave you a sad, knowing smile before pulling you back into another hug. disguised as a simple gesture of affection, you knew she was also giving you a much-needed moment to compose yourself before you really let your suddenly rampant emotions get the better of you.
sue ran her hand up and down your back soothingly, “i know honey,” she murmured, “i just had a long talk with seth about life today. sounds like you both are going through it,” she chuckled softly, “except he wants something to change in his life and it’s looking like you need yours to calm down,” she mused, lips curling into a small smile when she heard you let out a breathy laugh.
seth was 100% the name of her son, and now you felt slightly worse that you couldn’t remember the name of her daughter. you knew they were both around your age but never had the chance to really interact with them, only seeing them from afar once or twice during your rare visits to the res.
confident you weren’t going to have a complete meltdown on the beach, she released you from the hug again, giving you another knowing smile when you sniffled and quickly brushed away the few tears that managed to escape your waterline.
“have you gotten settled yet? eaten anything since you got in?” her concern was evident in her tone, and before she even offered, you knew she’d be offering to bring you over some food. from the few times you’d seen her, you always remembered her bringing over some chicken and dumpling soup to your grandmother’s for you when you visited. you also remembered how much you loved it, so, despite feeling selfish for it, you were pretty hopeful she’d offer.
“i just got here and wanted to take a walk before dealing with everything in the house,” you confessed, unable to even try and offer an excuse as to why you hadn’t eaten yet when she jumped in.
“sweetheart, no wonder you’re so wound up,” sue soothed, and, if it were anyone else you’d have taken it personally but, from your minimal interactions with her, you knew she only meant well, “i’ll have seth or leah bring some dinner by the house tonight, okay?” she suggested.
“you really don’t have to sue, i’m sure my grandmother has something-” you started, but she cut you off with a quiet tut that only mothers seemed to know how to do successfully.
“you and i both know there’s nothing edible in that house except maybe those god awful canned sardines she insisted on eating,” you and sue both let out laughs at that before, her lips twitching in amusement before she continued, “it’s really no bother, seth needs to get out some more anyway. i’m sure he’d love to meet someone new,” she reassured, smiling when you conceded with a small sigh and nodded, matching her happy expression.
she gave you a moment to let it sink in before she was pulling you back into a hug, “are you okay heading back to the house? i can walk you back if you need someone, you know your grandmother was a close friend of mine,” she reminded, giving you another tight squeeze when you hummed and nodded.
“i’ll be alright,” you reassured, “but i have your number if anything comes up,” you added after a moment, knowing she likely wouldn’t let you go back on your own if she had even the slightest suspicion you’d break down on the walk back.
she gave you a satisfied hum, “i’ll have him run it by in just a little bit then, okay? and you let me know when you need help with anything. you’re a part of this community and we support each other,” she reminded again and you nodded.
“even after everything?” you whispered after a moment, tears clouding your vision again as you recalled your complete refusal to return to la push and help when your grandmother had originally passed, instead passing it all onto the community.
“especially after everything,” sue reassured, offering you that sad, knowing smile when a few more tears skipped past your waterline and ran down your cheeks. if you knew anything from your grandmother’s relationship with her, you knew it was okay to cry in front of sue.
she gently thumbed away the stray tears, “you get home safe, okay? seth’ll be over soon and you can keep him as long as you want. or kick him out right away if he starts talking too much,” she teased, smiling again when you giggled and sniffled, quickly wiping away the stray tears with your windbreaker before nodding.
“thanks sue,” you murmured, letting out a heavy exhale when she squeezed your shoulders one more time for good measure before sending you on your way back down the beach and down the trail leading back to your temporary home.
…
the walk home gives you a much-needed reality check. you were never this emotional. you’d learned to keep a tight leash on your feelings at a young age, fear of adding to your mom’s stress keeping you a mostly docile and happy kid, turned teen, turned adult. so your little meltdown in front of sue (it was just a few tears but you definitely treated it like a monsoon had hijacked your emotions in front of her) was a shock to say the least.
you still couldn’t shake that nagging in the back of your mind or the dull ache in your hips and back, and now, post-meltdown, they seemed to be irritating you even more. so when you got home, you were quick to lock yourself inside and figure out where you were going to be sleeping for the night because it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the bed your grandmother had died in.
it took some dusting and quite a few disinfectant wipes but soon enough, you’d managed to clear the couch in the living room to some sort of hygienic standards, along with the side table. in a vain attempt to bring some normalcy to the situation, you began unpacking a few belongings. notably adding your hydroflask to the side table, phone charger, your favorite throw blanket, along with a few books you’d vowed to yourself you’d actually read this summer break.
getting settled on the couch didn’t take long, the exhaustion from the day shutting down any qualms you’d normally have about staying alone in an unfamiliar (could you even call it that?) place and, more concerningly, the home of your dead grandmother. you got on your phone, sending sue a quick text that you’d gotten back okay before scrolling through tiktok to numb your thoughts while you waited for sue’s son to come by.
unsurprisingly, tiktok didn’t seem to work to calm your anxiety and after seeing one too many ill-timed true crime videos about single women going missing, you decided to set your phone back on the side table and take a shower instead.
if there was one thing you were grateful for about your grandmother’s house, it was her disproportionately large bathroom, the clawfoot tub in the back taking up most of the room. one of these days, before you headed back to seattle and once you cleaned the place out and scrubbed the tub enough that you were sure there wasn’t any weird shit growing in there, you’d make sure to take a bath in there. for now, though, you settled on the shower in the corner.
it didn’t match the extravagance of the clawfoot tub, but then again, how many things in life could compare to a good clawfoot tub? not many you decided as you got the shower turned on, pulling the handle all the way over so get it as steamy in there as possible.
you headed back into the living room to grab some pajamas, settling for some plaid boxer shorts and a sweatshirt from your college before padding over to the bathroom to get undressed. peeling away your hoodie and jeans felt cathartic in a way, physically allowing the chaos of the day to be shed from your skin despite the incessant ache deep in your bones and nagging, buzzing anxiety in the back of your mind.
stepping into the heat of the shower, you let out a heavy sigh of relief when you felt the way the water immediately encompassed you, enveloping you in its warm embrace. before you could even think about beginning to wash your hair, your fingers found their way to your hips and lower back, eyes falling closed as you slowly kneaded at the tender flesh there.
although it didn’t relieve the ache, the combination of the heat from the water and your ministrations dulled it enough for it to be bearable for the time being. you weren’t entirely sure how on earth you were going to sleep with that pain, but decided that would be a problem for future you to figure out as you pumped some shampoo onto your hands and brushed it through your hair.
taking your time, you lathered some conditioner into your hair next, making sure you focused all your energy into that instead of allowing your thoughts to continue wandering since that clearly wasn’t doing you any good these days.
getting some body wash onto your loofah, you steadily scrubbed yourself, gradually washing away the stress of the day in a thwarted try at physically and metaphorically cleansing yourself enough to wash away the pain of the past and present. the more you washed, the more you realized just how much grief was coming back now dug up and exposed.
you’d buried your past alive and it was now clawing its way to the surface as you were forced to deal with your grandmother’s untimely death, the stagnant memories of her from your childhood, and the grief you carried from it all.
“for fuck’s sake-” you snapped, your tears once again pouring down your cheeks and mingling with the condensation from the shower.
you didn’t even bother attempting to calm yourself down, throwing the loofah down like it had personally offended you and turning the shower off rather abruptly. your fingers wasted no time finding their way to your hair, wringing it out before grabbing a towel so you could dry yourself off with it.
had these things even been washed since your grandmother died? what if this was the towel she used before she died? oh my fucking god.
your thoughts spiralling out of control, you made a halfassed attempt at drying yourself off before tugging on your shorts and sweatshirt, “fuck this fucking house and this town-” you angrily rambled to yourself as you stumbled out into the living room, the wood creaking underneath your feet just adding to your rage.
you seriously needed to get it together before this clearwater kid came over and saw you like this. with your luck, he’d probably tell the whole town exactly what he saw, and you’d be exiled before you even had the chance to spend a night here.
your feet sticking to the wood thanks to your shitty dry job only brought fuel to the fire while you vainly went in search of your phone to look up some youtube meditation video. maybe some random white guy on the internet would be able to talk you out of the rage. yea. right.
out of the corner of your eye, you caught movement in the backyard through those big bay windows you’d cracked before your walk.
“oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me right now,” you started, almost immediately getting redirected when you saw a man nearly double your size stripping out of his clothes in the middle of your grandmother’s backyard, just past the treeline.
before you could even form a rational thought, you were storming outside yelling, “what the fuck are you doing? what is this? some kind of strip club? it’s fucking la push bitch!”
apparently, taking your anger out on the random, half-naked man in your yard was your new form of anger management. real mature.
you weren’t entirely sure he’d even heard you because, as he turned around to face you, he looked more shocked than anything. though, you didn’t have to ponder his emotional state for long before he was shaking, his expression almost immediately morphing into one of anger.
you weren’t sure who was angrier, you or him. you weren’t shaking, but your hips and back felt like they were going to explode from the pressure and pain. you also couldn’t recall a time when you’d felt this much fury before. it was seeping into your bones, and you were suddenly flooded with memories, some you could absolutely identify as yours, but some others you couldn’t quite place your finger on, despite how familiar they felt to you.
the final straw came as the man in front of you, seemingly defying every physics law imaginable, transformed into a giant silver wolf right before your eyes. it didn’t help the rage coursing through your system, and your vision was quickly spinning, only lasting a few moments before fading entirely as you collapsed to the ground, your last view one of the massive wolf towering over you.
