Disclaimer: There are some lifts from Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, but they have been left unmarked. I do not own the Twilight Saga or the novels. Title from "From the Inside" by Linkin Park.

Warnings: Language. Angsty Leah.

A/N: Dirty and unedited one shot, but I couldn't help myself.

take everything from the inside (and throw it all away)

or: seven times leah wasn't just angry

1. The End

When she follows Sam from the porch, all the way down the path and halfway to Third Beach, she knows something's up. Everything's been a bit wrong for a long, long while — even before he disappeared for two weeks and four long, awful days, and it's been even worse since he came back. Suddenly he's become all short hair, long legs and defined muscles, with an unchecked temper and brand new secrets. He's never kept anything from her before.

She knows something's up because Sam stalks ahead of her, clenched fists buried deep in his ripped shorts and head down, not waiting for her to match his stride or to take her hand. He doesn't so much as look over his shoulder to see if she's following, and a part of her is glad; he won't see the worry on her face or the tears which are already threatening to spill over.

She knows something's up because he's heading towards Third Beach, where it's always quiet and the place to go when you don't want to be disturbed. When you don't want to be overheard. Sometimes they go there when his mom is rip-roaring drunk, or when her mom wants an argument about state college applications, not community college applications.

But he stops, nowhere near Third Beach but still far, far away from her house, and he turns around to see what she's been trying to hide. "I'm sorry," he says, his arms beginning to shake.

She reaches for him, and thinks she could be sick when he jerks away from her, his head shaking and face tight.

"No. No, Leah. Please don't make this any harder."

"Make what harder?" she demands, but her voice betrays her. It comes out as no more than a frightened whisper.

It was hard when he started getting sick, when his skin burned and his body ached. It was hard when he left, when nobody seemed all that worried and wouldn't call the police. It was hard when he came back, when he was suddenly angry all the time and would barely come near her. It was hard when he ran out yesterday, and she had to make excuses for him to her visiting family. She can't think how this is the same. It's worse.

"We can't — I can't. This has to stop."

He says it like they've been fooling around, as if the past three years have been nothing more than — well, just nothing. As if she doesn't secretly know that two months before he asked her dad for his blessing. As if they've not been talking about their life together after college.

She sniffs, and wipes lamely at her eyes as her heart beats frantically and her stomach rolls. This has not been nothing. This has not been for nothing. "If this is about you going to college, and maybe wanting—"

"It's not. I'm not going to college anymore. I can't." He steps away again when she inches further towards him. "Please, Leah. I know you don't understand."

"Please," she repeats after him, but whereas he sounded as if he were politely requesting for a bit of understanding, she sounds like she's begging. And she is, unashamed and desperate. "Please don't do this."

"And maybe you won't ever understand," he muses aloud, as if he's not heard. He stares at something behind her, over her head and far away. "I'm still having trouble with it. But I know I don't feel the same anymore. I'm not the same."

"Nothing's changed—" she starts, even though she knows it's a lie.

But he says, "It has. Everything has. I'm sorry."

He takes another step, but she's not moved, and then another, again, and again, until he's gone, and she's left frozen.

2. The Red House

Once, after a spectacular tantrum about school and grades and detentions with her mom, her dad came to her room and admitted that he had a running bet with Billy that her wildness, Rachel's head strong attitude and Rebecca's willfulness would one day end with the Reservation burning. And Rachel's strength is exactly what she needs right now, if only to kick her ass back into gear and remind her that she's above crying over a boy.

"Do you want me to call your mom?" Billy asks, looking at her tear-stained face with a little bit of fear, but this is why she has come, why she banged on the door until he answered; he's dealt with daughters and their upset hearts. He might not know what to do, but Rachel will even if they're all miles apart and miles away from each other.

"I don't have Rach's new number."

Rachel was the first person she tried to call once she managed to start moving again. She might have been a bit shaky and she might have had to gather enough strength to press the buttons on her cell a few more times than is really normal, but she knew she needed Rachel, who is the kind of person you need in a crisis. And her crisis had only gotten worse when the number hadn't worked.

Billy lets his confusion show, probably knowing as well as she does that she's not spoken to either twin in months because Rachel loves her college life and Rebecca loves her married life and neither want to be reminded of Reservation life. But he seems to be willing to indulge his best friend's daughter, and nods before rolling away.

When she tries to call again, Rachel doesn't answer.

3. The Cliff

She sits on the edge of the cliff, her hands gripping rock and grass as the waves lap at the sand underneath her dangling feet.

"Leah," a voice says cautiously, so gently as if a single word will force her to fall. To make her throw herself towards certain death, even though it feels like she already plummeted months ago. "Whatever you're thinking—"

"I'm not thinking anything," she replies, the desired bite to her words lacking. Her head snaps around to see Jacob, his arms outstretched and his hands splayed. He looks a little frightened, which seems strange on the face of a boy who has suddenly become a man. He's filled out, cut his hair and gained a few hard lines. She knows what it means and wonders whose heart he had to break for his initiation. And she knows he's not the only one; she's seen Paul hanging around Sam, too, with Jared and Embry, their chests bare and their eyes dark with something she never wants to understand, even if it means she will never understand Sam. That's Emily's job now.

"You're making me nervous."

"What do you care?"

Jacob's always been a little annoying. But he's just a kid, like Seth. It's not his fault. He's Rach and Becca's little brother who pesters everybody, like Seth is her little brother who pesters everybody.

"More than you think," he says begrudgingly, like it's not his fault he's talking her out of whatever it is he thinks she's about to do. "Just — just come back from there, alright?"

She turns back to the beach below, and when she leans forwards she hears Jacob's sharp intake of breath. "Get over yourself. I'm not going to jump." That would be too easy for Sam, whose life probably wouldn't change except for no longer having to see his bitter ex-girlfriend. "Just needed a bit of quiet."

"You can have all the quiet you want, I swear. Come back, and I'll go."

The only sound for a long while is of the waves crashing, until she scoots back, if only to prove a point and to have a bit of peace. "Happy?"

"No," he says as she gets to her feet, "but it'll take a bit more than you not killing yourself."

"I wasn't going to do anything, Jacob." She sighs. "You worry too much."

"Maybe," he agrees, finally dropping his arms but still seeming cautious, as if she's going to do a one-eighty and run over the cliff. He jerks his head back towards the trees. "C'mon."

"I thought you said you'd leave."

Jacob pulls a face. "I lied. Come sit," he says, and he's not as surprised as she is when she eventually drops beside him and leans against the bark.

They don't talk, which is fine, but she catches him glancing at her every few minutes and he pretends not to notice when she curls her legs up a little too close to his warmth and starts sniffing.

4. The Pack

She can't run fast enough.

People yell and howl and scream, for hours and hours and hours, until finally something breaks and she collapses onto two legs. She sobs into the dirt and thrashes against the two who are suddenly holding her down, screaming through tears as her insides burn, as her whole body vibrates and her stomach tightens.

"You'll thank us later," one says with great effort as his knees press into her shoulders. "Embry, pass me the scissors."

"Make it quick. I don't think we've got much time until—"

She screams again.

"Jesus, Paul, cut her hair, not her ears!"

"Do you wanna — for crying out loud, stay still or I'll stab your brain!"

She tries to kick with what little strength she has left, because she's been running for a lifetime, away from the yelling and the howling and the screaming, away from the death and destruction she's caused. She still doesn't understand what the hell has happened, but she knows it's all her fault, and whatever's happened to her is about to happen again because her vision is going and she needs to be sick, so sick —

She scrambles to her feet, no longer held down, and then she's flying. She can hear the two behind her following, trying to be quicker than she is so they can block her escape, speaking to one another while everyone else cries out over the commotion. Whatever's happened, whatever's going on, it sounds like it's an utter shit fest. And she's caught up in it. Maybe she's part of the reason it all seems to have gone wrong. So she needs to get away. She needs to go faster.

He said herd her back, not further across the state!

I said keep her safe!

They're back — the bloodsuckers, they're back, they took her, they took Bella!

Not my dad not my dad — where's Mum — where's Leah — not my dad please no —

Sam, it was the redhead. Must have realised we're so split up and saw an opening —

Are they really back? Was the little one definitely on her own, Jake?

Seth, c'mon kiddo, please come out. I know you're scared —

Leave me alone leave me alone — please stop — go away — what is this —

Where's Mum — where's Leah —

There's so much. Too much. There's so many memories and feelings bleeding through, taking root within her until she's not sure whether they belong only to her or someone else. She sees flashes of white skin and dark eyes, and then a car speeding away, followed by panic and disappointment. She sees a mane of red hair leaping over the cliff. Defeat. Frustration. She sees a small grey wolf running, and another hiding in a cave. Worry. Desperation. She sees from another's eyes as her whole self blinks right out of existence before it's replaced by a snarling monster, just as her dad falls to the ground. Rage. Anguish.

She can't run fast enough.

5. The Red House Again

Doctor Fang has overdone the morphine again, she thinks, when Jacob greets her with a wide smile and shining eyes.

She's been in his bedroom before, when Rach and Becca dared her to put sand on his sheets and the underwear in his drawers. It had been worth Mrs. Black shaking her head, and her dad cutting her allowance, and she'd gotten her own back by making Rach and Becca eat a worm each because you couldn't play Truth or Dare with them as separate people.

Only the posters on the walls and the books on his bedside table have changed, as has the boy who the room belongs to (because Jacob is still a boy, sixteen years old and dealing with more shit than even she is). His nearly seven foot frame is sprawled awkwardly on his bed, his legs too long and the rest of him floating on cloud nine.

"Leah," he says happily after he sees her leaning against the door frame. "We kicked ass today, huh?"

She nods, because she's not getting in the whole I had it, you moron, argument with him right now, nor the fact that the whole kicking ass thing turned a little bit scary for a moment. She only wanted to check in. Annoying little brothers might be the one thing she has in common with Rach and Becca these days, but she has a lot more in common with Jacob than even he's willing to admit and his tolerance of her is a lot higher than Sam's or Paul's. Besides, it wasn't like anyone else had jumped in between her and that bastard newborn whether she needed the help or not.

Jacob pouts. "You look unhappy. You're always unhappy."

She nods again, because he can't know that she's unhappy because he almost died on her and she'd felt his pain as vividly as if it were her own, or that she's particularly unhappy there's a strong stench of leech and Bella lingering in his tiny bedroom.

"What about you?" she asks before he can prod at the things she doesn't want to talk about. She forces her lips to pull into a tiny smile. "You look like you're having your own party in here."

For someone who they're all convinced has a death wish, he's not doing so bad. He's got the good stuff.

"Not so much." Jacob rolls his head on his pillow, turning his eyes back on the ceiling. "Bella came by. Did some ass kicking of her own."

Well, it's about time. She's saved me a job, she wants to say. "How'd that go?" comes out instead.

He huffs loudly and closes his eyes, giving her his answer, which will be something else completely once he's up on his feet again, she's sure. Hopefully, he won't remember the leech lover breaking him into pieces again, and with a bit of luck he won't remember her coming by and trying to be nice to him, either.

With his eyes shut, it's easy for the morphine to pull him into sleep, and while his breathing remains steady she picks up his battered copy of Christine by Stephen King from the bedside table and makes herself at home on the end of his bed. He'll probably give her shit when he wakes up, but it's better than listening to Seth moon over Edward fucking Cullen.

6. The Cliff Again

She stops long enough to spit in his face before running away.

Jacob laughs. "You missed," she hears him say from behind, and she has half a mind to go back and do it properly, but that would mean giving him another minute of her day.

She fights the oncoming phase as she bolts through the trees, her eyes stinging with tears while the rest of her erupts in fire she thinks she'll never be able to control for as long as she lives. She'll never go back to being the girl who sat with Jacob on that cliff for the very first time ever again. She'll never be wanted. After all, who would want this? The one person who promised to stay with her forever no matter what is now the one who keeps her in another way entirely.

With that, she can't hold out any longer, and her last pair of decent sneakers shred along with everything else.

Oh, good. You're back, Paul drawls. We missed you.

Back off, Sam says, though the order in his words lacks the weight of an Alpha. Unlike when he's telling her to shut up and leave everyone the hell alone.

They're running patrol with Seth, who knows better than to pipe up and who should be in his room studying because there's absolutely no way that he's going to be dropping out, too. But she keeps quiet about it, knowing that he can feel her disapproval anyway, and instead she chases the wind all the way down to Oregon and tunes them out of her head.

You can try, Paul tells her, but you'll have to go a lot further than that.

7. The Start

The note she leaves is hurried, scrawled before anyone turns up and tries to change her mind and hopefully just enough to stop her mom from marching up to the bloodsuckers herself to demand her kids back. There's no doubt that Sue Clearwater would face a newborn army alone if it meant her babies would live.

Mom,
I'm going after Seth. Don't worry. I'll look after
him. The tick family might have suckered Jake
but they won't get us.
Wish Sam good luck from me if he comes
looking.
Love, Leah

She learnt loyalty and love from her dad, but being bold and having nerves of steel is something you learn after years of living with someone like her mom. She tries to imagine the shit Sam's going to get if he comes by, and she's smiling when she steps over the treaty line.

Only then does she dare to phase, and she knows it's worked because she feels something very small and yet very poignant shift in her mind, and because she's being pulled to someone new, something better. Jacob Black, of all people, who most definitely has a death wish, who does not remember smiling at her with drugged eyes, and who understands loneliness better than anybody else this side of Washington.

When Seth howls a warning, she has to stop herself from responding with her own sound of triumph.

Morning, boys.