In The Shadows (Re-written)

-FIVE-

Something changed between Coda and I after the storm.

Then again, how could we possibly go back to the way we were before? I had sobbed for hours in his arms, through the worst of the storm, and he had just held me, whispering that he was there with me and I was safe. The beta was the only reason I had made it out of that blizzard alive and we both knew it.

He had seen what I was about to do. He had glimpsed my intentions through the storm as I had risen from my crouch and began to pull off my hood and just let the cold take me.

He'd known what I was going to do, I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me now. Somehow those grey-blue eyes had thawed towards me and they looked upon me with concern, if only for mere moments before the beta masked it and we carried on like always.

Except we didn't carry on like always.

We never spoke of it, but there was no denying about how I felt towards Coda and he towards me. I depended on the male to keep me alive after that day. Actually, for a while now I had been depending on the beta to keep me waking up every day. It was just that neither of us had realized it until that blizzard.

The beta had seen then how close I was to just giving up. How close I always was tottering on that edge of moving forward or just stepping off the cliff. Now he would look into my eyes every day to search for whatever expression it was he had seen on my face when I had been seconds from walking to my death in that blizzard.

Coda knew now that the few minutes of his time he gave me every day was my lifeline and the moment he took that away from me, I would have nothing left to grasp onto. Yet, instead of shrinking away from having that kind of responsibility, the beta accepted it.

He didn't look upon me with disgust for clinging onto his scraps of attention. I had been scared that he would, that he would cut me off and tell me to fend for myself.

He didn't, though, and I never dared to ask more of him. What he was giving me was enough. More than enough.

I was grateful beyond words for the beta. Whenever I tried to speak with my father and he would simply ignore me and act as though I'd never approached him in the first place, it lessened the ache to know that if I went to the beta he would give me just a second of his attention to come up with a task for me to complete and give some value to my otherwise meaningless existence.

I felt indebted to Coda, not for only saving my life in that winter storm, but also for all the days he had being doing that very same thing before and after it.

The beta was the only semblance of a friend or family that I had, and I wanted to repay him for that. I wanted to show him that I cherished it and would try to be worthy of it.

Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was a gift. I'd seen the other people in our community exchange gifts. Gifts conveyed affection in many ways. From a friend to a friend, from a mother to her son, from sister to sister, and of course from lover to lover.

So, I wanted to gift Coda with the best I had to offer.

I poured in hours of time for the minutes he spared me and finally by the end of winter it was completed.

I neatly folded my gift and tied it with twine, making a bow at the center. I left it for the beta on the table in his small kitchen. He'd know who it was from because my scent was heavy on it from the oils of my hands that had meticulously stitched and seamed it. I didn't need to give it to him personally or leave him a note because of it.

I didn't want to risk public humiliation. I didn't want to be humiliated and laughed at in front of the other werewolves if he rejected my gift, and I didn't want Coda to be humiliated by a human thinking their gift was something worthy enough for the beta to wear.