The alarm clock blinked away, keeping track of the minutes he had left. As he sat silently, absorbed in the feeling of being close to the gentle giantess, he looked down at her colossal hands and fingers, entranced by their size compared to his own.

Her nails were quite short, in fact, it looked like she had been biting them - a sign of nerves perhaps - but her fingers themselves were long and slender, very soft to the touch and quite pale. He could see the criss-crossed grain of her skin, freckles and small imperfections a bit like his own, only magnified in scale. 

Penny also had a distinctive, pleasant sort of aroma, which was weird to think about but perfectly normal - everyone has a kind of scent. Because of her sheer size, the sensation of being close was synonymous with the smell. It was hard to describe, it wasn’t overly flowery, or unclean, it was… sort of comfy. Caitlin had smelt aggressively of perfume and body spray and Penny just didn’t smell like those hyper-feminine things at all, she smelt more like soft fabric or something.

She was also warm, very warm, which, he was beginning to understand, was a trait common to all Alphas.

With a gentle squeeze, she released his hand, so he moved his head off from her arm to look up at her. She was staring straight ahead, lost in thought. He considered asking if she was alright, as she seemed a bit distant and he didn’t know why. Ultimately, he felt it was better to not draw attention to it.

“What do you have to do today?” he ventured, breaking the silence.

“Just… parent shit,” she said, rolling her sparkling green eyes.

“They want me to apply for this, and for that, and then we’re going shopping and I should probably think about how I can survive by myself at college, or get a part-time job, and I should be cooking more or doing more around the house…

“And then we need to move a load of stuff out of the spare room, and my Dad thinks he’s done his back in and I’m the youngest, strongest one so of course so I should do it…”

She looked down at him knowingly, “You know, parent shit.”

“Bummer,” he smiled.

“Yep,” she smiled back, “But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, unless I want to be out on the street.”

“True,” he replied.

Things went quiet for a bit.

“Jack?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Are you going to be ok going back to school?”

He sat for a second, he was almost certain it wasn’t an option for now.

“I… well, no, no I don’t think I can go back in for a bit,” he admitted.

“…oh,” she said, “That’s probably sensible though…?”

He nodded.

He still didn’t know how to avoid Caitlin long term, but short term he just had to keep clear until the fallout cooled down.

Not sure what to do with himself, Jack lay his body back on the bed, sinking into the duvet cover, and crossed his arms behind his head so that it was still slightly propped up. From this perspective, Penny’s torso truly looked like that of a giantess, not just a tall Alpha girl, but like a really colossal figure. Her back loomed over him like a sheer wall of fabric.

Penny didn’t notice at first, but soon turned her head around and spied that he was reclining. The boy gave her a little smile, which she reciprocated, and lay down next to him. She was careful not to bang her head on the far wall, or knock him with her long arms, such was her stature even in an Alpha-sized environment.

He closed his eyes, and wished he could stay right here, lying comfortably on Penny’s bed, for the rest of the day. He wasn’t ready to go, he wanted to be close to her for longer.

“Ok, lazy bones,” she announced playfully after what only felt like a couple of minutes, rocking the bed as she hauled her torso upright, “I should probably sneak you out of here…”

He sat himself upright, watching as the long, leggy girl effortlessly stood to her full height of 12’ 7” and stretched her arms, turning around and affording him an enviable view of her slender physique. She was so pretty, he couldn’t get his head around why this enchanting girl would consider herself a freak.

“How do we do that?” he asked, sliding himself off the bed and dropping to his feet, noting that he was eye level with the bottom of the pocket on Penny’s upper thigh.

“I’m hoping they’ll be eating in the kitchen, so if you follow me down the stairs, I can just say I’m popping out for a quick walk,” she explained, looking down at him.

He nodded up at her, and she shrugged at him bashfully, “I go out for walks… a lot!

“But… if anything goes wrong, just hang back, and go jump under the bed or something,” she continued.

“Under the bed?” he queried, turning around to look beneath it.

“Well, hopefully it won’t come to that,” she said brightly, holding her arm out and crossing her fingers.

She walked over to the corner of her room and reached deep into her rucksack, plucking out first one, and then a second shoe that Jack immediately recognised. The Beta sneakers looked almost comically small in her grasp as she brought them over, she could practically rest them side-by-side on her outstretched hand.

He took them gratefully and bent down to put them on and fasten them up, whilst Penny slipped on a pair of her own pumps by the door. She then removed the door stop and slowly opened it, listening intently and scoping out the hallway. Jack kept close to her, standing a few feet back from her lengthy jean-covered legs.

“Coast’s clear,” she whispered, taking long, but deliberately-placed strides towards the stairs as Jack kept a slight distance just in case he needed to sprint back into her room.

She took a few more careful steps down the stairs and craned her neck in the direction of the kitchen, before swiftly heading down to the bottom and waving for him to follow. He was able to walk down one side of the staircase using the Beta half-steps he had noticed the night before. As he got closer to the ground floor he could hear the sound of talk radio coming from the direction Penny had been focused on, though he couldn’t make out what was being said. As he reached the bottom, she allowed him to pass in front of her, and guided him round the corner to the front door, before crouching down to his height.

“Ok, just wait here, I’ll tell them I’m off,” she instructed quietly, her lovely face just inches from his, before standing up and heading back through the house.

He waited patiently, just about able to hear the faint sounds of conversation over the drone of the radio. A few short moments later, Penny returned and opened the large door for him, allowing him out into bright sunshine and fresh air.

God it felt good to feel even vaguely normal.

He heard the sound of the door close, and then a soft, giant hand place itself lightly against his back.

“I told Delon to meet us round the corner from here, it’ll only take a couple of minutes to walk there,” Penny said, stooping once more to his level. Some strands of her hair not tied back in the bun she had fashioned were blowing gently in the breeze, catching the sunlight and occasionally falling across her face.

He felt the urge to tell her that she looked very beautiful, and in a brief moment, he thought it might even be a good idea, but then his more pragmatic senses caught up with him and quashed the urge out of existence.

“Ok, thanks Penny,” he said sincerely.

Standing up again, she started to walk and he picked up his pace to make sure that she wouldn’t have to dawdle too much.

It was honestly stunning weather, super warm and bright as if to herald the oncoming summer. They walked past a couple of houses and Jack, despite having fuzzy-ish vision without his glasses, could see well enough to tell that he was in an area of overflow housing that dated back to the onset of growth hormone adoption. It was a nice area, but nothing like as well-maintained and pristine as Caitlin’s rich neighbourhood had been.

There were a handful of people around; a guy washing his car, a couple of women chatting across the road, but he couldn’t really make out their faces. Nobody appeared to look in their direction, maybe they thought he was a little kid walking alongside his much older sister. That’s what it would look like, he guessed, not two teenagers…

Penny kept checking on him to make sure she wasn’t walking too fast, but he was doing fine. He did ache, and he was not 100%, but he liked walking places, and being with her seemed to energise him a fair bit – he didn’t want to appear too slow for her, even if she was deliberately walking to his pace and not her own.

As they approached a slightly shaded area by a crossroads, situated beneath several trees, Jack was pretty certain he recognised the familiar gangly outline of Delon loitering by a pair of benches of either scale.

As they approached, he appeared to notice them and walked out into the sunshine.

“Hey, how you feeling?” his friend asked, in an affable enough way, but there was a detectable hint of concern. They embraced, slightly self-consciously in front of the towering girl.

“I’ll be ok, thank you,” he replied, stepping back from Delon and looking up at Penny, momentarily catching a frog in his throat. He had clocked the anxious look on Delon’s face and it only made the situation worse; it made the reality sink in. His friend never looked concerned, and he didn’t really want to look at him for a moment because it might set him off.

Fighting back a sudden onset of emotion, he took a deep breath and introduced the giant girl and the gangly Beta to one another: “Penny, this is Delon. Delon… Penny.”

Delon reached up and shook Penny’s hand awkwardly, though he was friends with a few Alphas they tended to be at the shorter end of the crowd, Penny was quite a bit taller than what he was used to.

“Nice to finally meet you, Penny,” he said politely.

“And you too,” she replied warmly, “Jack is very lucky to have a friend like you.”

He saw Delon look away, a broad smile spreading across his features.

“Aw no, don’t be like that,” he grinned, embarrassed, clearly uncomfortable with wearing such a compliment, “This loser’s been keeping me down for years.”

Delon’s smile was like a tonic for Jack. The guy would find humour in anything, and whilst the seriousness of what had occurred was palpable, the lightening of the mood felt very much-needed.

“Thanks,” said Jack, glaring at Delon in mock annoyance.

“Joking aside though,” Delon carried on, his smile fading away as he turned back to Penny, “Without your help, Jack would still be in there. And Alex’s too, of course… I didn’t do a lot, you have these girls to thank, Jack.”

Penny’s face flushed slightly pink, though it was hard for him to see as it was a good 6 and a half feet up from his own.

“It was nothing… I’d hope anyone would do the same,” she said quietly, holding her hands together.

“Penny pretty much organised it,” Delon explained, looking up at her, “Obviously Alex was reluctant but we persuaded her, eventually.”

“I thought it was Alex’s plan?” asked Jack.

“Well sorta, she knew how to get in, but only after Penny and I insisted we had to do something drastic,” said Delon, expanding on things.

“I think Alex knows some stuff about Caitlin, and in the end, that’s why she agreed to help us.”

Jack fought back a tear.

“Well, I just… I… can’t thank all of you enough,” Jack said, looking from Delon way up to Penny.

Her head was silhouetted in the sunlight, her loose hair still dancing in the breeze.

“And in due course I’ll have to say thank you to Alex too,” he added, looking back to Delon.

“I think she wants to keep a low profile,” Penny said, turning to Delon.

“Yeah, Caitlin can’t suspect a thing, so don’t contact Alex just yet,” he warned, “She said that none of us should.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jack concurred.

It made perfect sense. He couldn’t afford to implicate Alex, she had risked more than any of them, in some respects.

“Well, I probably need to get back fairly quickly,” Penny said sadly, looking down at the pair of them, “But I will try and speak to you later, Jack,” she added, smiling at him sweetly.

His heart jumped at the thought of her not being there.

He didn’t want to leave her side, she made him feel so much safer, like her mere presence could keep him out of harm somehow. Delon was his best friend, and probably who he needed right now to keep him sane, but with Penny, it meant everything to him to have someone like that who actually gave a shit about him. He hadn’t known a feeling like that was possible.

 “Take care of him, Delon,” she added, kneeling down, and embraced Jack.

He thought it might be awkward, in front of his best friend, with this enormous girl, that he’d feel embarrassed or something.

Not a chance.

He felt himself melt into her long arms. He could feel her strength, how careful she was being, how incredibly, indescribably wonderful it was to be held by her.

And then it was gone.

She stood up and shook Delon’s hand very gently, gave Jack one last heartfelt smile, and quickly set off back to her house.

He looked at Delon, fighting, the whole time, the urge to turn back to Penny. Fighting and fighting. His friend smiled at him, “Shall we get you back home, then?” but all Jack could think about was Penny. Was she out of sight yet? Could he get one last look?

“Let’s go,” Jack said abruptly, stepping off so that Delon would turn to face that direction. As his friend turned to walk alongside him, he quickly span his head to look back.

It was too late. She was already gone.