A/N: This is the big talk Jacob and Nessie have between chapters 9 and 10 of Possession, after Leah tells Jacob that Nessie has been asking questions about his feelings for her. In order to figure out Nessie and Leah's reactions to The Talk, I found I actually needed to write it, and it seemed a shame to let it just sit on my hard drive. I hope you enjoy.

All characters are property of Stephanie Meyer and her publishers. I'm not making any money - just having fun.

Jacob kept his eyes on Nessie as they wandered down the beach together. The ocean wind was blowing her curls around, and he smiled as she huffed and shoved them out of her face.

She bent over a pile of ocean-smoothed rocks and Jake crouched to help her find a good skipping stone. He knew his girl. Not as well as Leah did, apparently, and that was a whole new world of wrong and upsetting.

No two ways about it: Leah was right. Nessie was obviously upset about something, and he kicked himself for not seeing it earlier. Or maybe he had seen it, and just hadn't known what to do. He thought you were always supposed to know what your imprint needed, but maybe he wasn't trying hard enough.

"More like she doesn't know what she needs right now," Edward had said when he'd heard the thought in Jake's head. Jacob, desperate for any help he could get, hadn't even been annoyed at the intrusion.

"She's at a crossroads," Edward had explained, looking unhappier with every word. "Part of her suspects that you may have imprinted on her, and she doesn't know how she feels about it. More than anything, she wants things to stay the same, but she's changing every day. Inside more than out."

"You okay, honey?" Jacob asked now, trying to figure out how to even have this conversation. Edward and Bella had been firm: no talk of imprinting yet. And as long as there was any chance Nessie didn't want to know about it, Jake was 100% onboard with keeping that secret.

"Yes, Jacob," Nessie said, but it sounded more like a reflex than an answer. Jake felt a sharp twist in his chest as he started to understand where Bella was coming from. Edward said that hearing Nessie's thoughts wasn't the same as her sharing them, but at least Edward knew what Nessie was thinking.

"Okay," he said, feeling helpless. He'd never felt helpless with Nessie. "You know you can always talk to me, right?"

Nessie looked up, her eyes bright with that lightening-fast genius she'd always had. That light was tinged with suspicion now, and that was new, too.

"Did Leah say something to you?"

"No," Jacob said, hating himself for lying. "What would she have said?"

"I don't know," Nessie lied back. Jake couldn't help noticing she was better at it than he was. "I just heard Mom telling Aunt Alice you'd been upset by something Leah had said."

Great. Of course. Who better to eavesdrop in a house full of vampires than a stealthy little hybrid, who Jake suspected had much sharper hearing than she let on?

"Just pack stuff," Jake said, waving a dismissive hand. "Bella worries too much." As much as he hated lying to Nessie, the fact remained that Leah was apparently the only one she could open up to right now, and hell if he was going to take that away from her.

The suspicion went out of Nessie's eyes and she looked at him with heart-melting concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, Nessie, I'm fine," he promised, squeezing her shoulder through her wool coat. "Come on, let's keep walking – you look cold."

She rolled her eyes but didn't argue.

The beach was frosty, and empty except for them. A good place to have a heart-to-heart, he'd thought. Or a conversation about absolutely nothing. They'd never kept secrets from each other before. Well, except that one big one.

"You can talk to me, too, you know," Nessie said, squeezing his hand. Time was, she'd have left her fingers clasped around his the whole way down the beach. Not anymore. She was growing up, like Edward said. Jacob wished the idea didn't scare him so much.

"I know, honey," he said, pulling her in for a one-armed hug. "You know you're my best friend, right?"

Nessie didn't answer, and Jake looked down at her.

"Ness?"

Nessie dragged the toes of her boots in the wet, gray sand.

"Don't you think I'm a little young for you?" she finally blurted, and Jacob laughed. After all this time, she could definitely still surprise him.

"You calling me old?" he teased. She slid him a soft, sideways smile, but she wasn't laughing and he stopped immediately.

"You've always been old for your age," he told her. A question occurred to him and he stumbled over it, afraid of the answer. "Do you think I'm too old for you?"

"No!" she cried, clinging to his hand with both of hers, and she was just his little Nessie again, just like always. "Jake, you're my very best friend!"

"Good," Jacob said, pleased. He pulled her in for another hug and she threw her arms around his chest. "Settled, then."

Jacob wasn't quite on the far side of relieved just yet. Nessie was obviously still chewing on something, and he waited patiently for her to spit it out. He'd wait forever, and gladly. But that went without saying. Especially to Ness.

"Who was your best friend before me?" she asked finally.

Jacob remembered what Edward had said the other night – "she's thinking a lot about your relationship with Bella," he'd explained, looking unhappier than ever. "She wonders what it means about your friendship with her."

Danger, he told himself. Thin ice.

"Before you?" he echoed. It felt like forever ago. He'd lived a while lifetime with Nessie.

"Bella was my best friend for a couple years. Before that," he went on, so it didn't sound like he'd just transferred his feelings from Bella to her – which he hadn't, despite what Leah had suggested in some of her bitchier moments, "Quil and Embry were my best friends."

Nessie nodded, and Jacob held his breath as he waited for the next question.

"Were you and Bella," she hesitated, and Jacob frowned at the sound of Bella's name from Nessie's mouth, "just friends?"

Jake stopped and Nessie looked up at him, her face twisted in anxiety.

"Yes, honey," he told her, his voice as soothing as he knew how to make it. "Bells and I were always just friends."

He pulled her to a nearby hunk of driftwood and sat, patting the space next to him. Nessie sat, her eyes wary.

"Is that what you're worried about?" he asked. "That Bella might have… liked someone else other than Edward?"

Nessie looked momentarily stricken before her gaze dropped to her knees.

"Did she?" she mumbled. Jacob wished she'd just show him what she was thinking, but he'd never ask. Her gift was just that – hers – and it pissed him off how the vamps were always taking Nessie's hand and pressing her palm to their faces like she should want to share everything with them, all the time. Maybe it took being in a pack to understand how sacred privacy could be.

"Hey," Jake said, ducking his head to catch her eye. "Not even for a second."

Nessie didn't look that relieved, and he gave her shoulder a little nudge, hoping she'd keep asking.

"Did you ever have girlfriends?" she finally mumbled, so low he almost couldn't understand.

When he did, he struggled not to smile. The last thing she needed was to have him laughing at her.

"Nope," he told her, popping the 'p' to let her know it wasn't a big deal. "Not one."

She frowned at him.

"How come?"

He shrugged. "Never met anyone I liked," he half-lied. He'd loved Bella, of course, but that was all kinds of complicated he didn't want to get into. And now that he knew what real love was, he knew that nothing he'd ever felt before compared.

"But when you meet your imprint," Nessie said, her voice firm and clear, and he knew this was the conversation they'd been dancing around all morning – this was the part she'd rehearsed. "She'll be your girlfriend."

Jacob hesitated. This was the big lie, the one he'd have to take back one day, and he'd be happier if he could keep as close to the truth as possible.

"If she wants to be," he answered carefully. "Nessie, you know I'll always love you, right? No matter what happens. If you grow up and you want to have a boyfriend, we'll still be best friends, and if you want to have another best friend, I'll still always be here for you. No matter who you meet or… or who I do, I'm with you forever."

"But why?" Nessie sighed, and Jacob was horrified to see her eyes fill with tears. How had he let her worry this much?

He hugged her against his chest and she buried her face in his neck, although her hands stayed clenched in her pockets. He kept hugging her anyway, scrambling for an answer, trying to separate the concepts of Nessie and imprint in his mind. Nessie didn't need to know why he loved her – she needed to know why he liked her.

"Before you were born," he said, pulling back to look at her, "we were all really scared. We'd never heard of anything like you before, and Bella was so sick."

Nessie's eyes were wide, but she'd heard all this before. He powered on.

"I already knew Bella had decided to become a vampire and… I guess it hurt my feelings." He shook his head, correcting himself. It was hard to remember how much hate he'd felt before he met Nessie. "No, it did hurt my feelings. A lot. Things were different between your family and the pack back then, and I thought that once Bella was changed, we'd be enemies forever. I hated that she chose the vampires over me."

Nessie did put her hand against his cheek then, and he saw Bella, her marble face breaking into a smile as he walked into the cottage, Bella cooking his favorite meal before he came over, Bella worrying about him when he was out late on patrol, and he smiled.

"I know," he said, patting Nessie's hand. "I know now, but I was so angry then. At her, at Edward, at everyone. And then you were born, and Edward changed her, but at first, we thought he was too late. That she was gone." Nessie's hand tightened in his.

"Then I saw you," he said, squeezing hers back. "You were with Rosalie, and as soon as you saw me, you reached for me. She let me hold you… eventually. And you showed me…" He smiled, remembering. Every second with Nessie was etched into his memory, but those first moments of excruciating bliss were still precious.

"You showed me your memories of my voice before you were born, and how you'd known Bella was happier when I was there… and you showed me what it felt like when Rosalie held you, and what it felt like when I did. Not bad, either one – just different. And I realized that all the things I'd thought were the end of the world were really okay. That everything was okay. And I thought that if you could teach me all that when you were barely five minutes old, then you were really someone special.

"You've always been like that, Nessie. Just so… intuitive," he said, fumbling for the right words. "So considerate and loving of everyone, even people who don't deserve it. So smart, and so funny, and so good at reading people, especially me. And unless you suddenly decide to stop being so awesome, I'm sticking with you."

Without warning, Nessie threw her arms around his neck, nearly knocking him off the log. Laughing, he hugged her back, kissing her cheek.

"Okay?"

"Okay," she said, beaming.

"Want some lunch?"

"Can I cook?" she asked slyly.

Jacob laughed. "Not a chance."

"I'm getting better," Nessie protested. "Mom's been teaching me."

"Nessie, I'm pretty sure you could burn soup."

"That was one time!"

Laughing and teasing, they headed home.