a/n: Twilight characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. The plot and characterization is mine. This chapter is shorter than most will be, but it is setting the stage for the story.

"Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man!" ~The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Chapter 2 – False, Disloyal Man

Bella handed the cab driver some money through his plexiglas patrician wall. The rest of the women had been dropped off at their homes and Bella was the last to exit the cab. During the duration of the ride there had only been glaring stares but no more conversation. It was obvious to everyone, including the balding driver, that the discussion was over and Bella was sinking back into her reclusive self.

The apartment building the cab pulled away from was average in its demeanor. Brick façade lined the outside of the building with white trim around the windows and door frames. Although a rather simplistic design that mainly served function rather then decadence, Bella was pleased with her space. She put in the key code for the front entrance and walked up the stairs to her second floor apartment.

The neighborhood was as safe as could be expected in the suburbs of Chicago, and her neighbors were pleasant. A retired couple across the hall would occasionally ask her to stop by to play cribbage when her shifts at work allowed. At least once a week Bella would hear the glorious knock on her door and open it to be greeted by the couple inviting her to dinner. They looked after her but never pried into her personal life. Bella's father Charlie had expressed how pleased he was that she had someone looking out for her when he lived so far away.

Bella unlocked her door and stepped inside the small three bedroom apartment. The interior was sparsely decorated and furnished, but she was proud of how she pulled it together on her own. Setting her keys down on the entry table, she turned on a light in the living room and found a body out cold for the night on her couch. The soft snores echoed of the bare walls and Bella simply smiled before pulling off her black pumps and walking into the kitchen to grab a water bottle from the refrigerator.

The smile was not for the sleeping body on the couch as much as the face paint littering her face and the drool coming out of her mouth threatening to mess up the masterpiece. It was apparent that all was well and normal in the Swan residence this Halloween eve. Bella decided to leave the sleeping body be and started to go down the short hallway to her bedroom when a murmur stopped her movement.

"Early night Bells?"

Early was in the eye of the beholder to Bella. Often times her shift would run through the night. Daytime and nighttime blended together so symbiotically that if it was not for the occupants of her apartment she would not know when one day ended and another began.

"I suppose."

"Well, did you at least have fun?"

"By the looks of your face, I would say less fun then you," Leah sat up from her spot on the couch and lazily touched her hand to her face. In that moment the events of the evening flooded back to her and she threw out a low groan.

"Then your evening must have been pretty damn crappy," Leah rose from the couch and disappeared into the bathroom. She swore again into the mirror before grabbing a clean white hand towel and scrubbing her face. Bella walked in and closed the cover to the toilet seat before sitting down and slouching her elbows to her knees.

"Did she behave?"

"Yea, yea – I lost a little bit of my sanity when I agreed to face painting though. Damn kid has me wrapped around her little finger," Leah looked down at the blue and red paint mess now decorating the sink, "But you are going to clean this mess up."

Leah was obviously referring to the paints that were splattered all over the porcelain, but Bella was reminded of another mess that had now presented itself this evening. She knew Leah would be none too pleased to hear about the unexpected person reappearing into her life.

"Leah, there might be a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

Certainly a loaded question, but she knew that Leah deserved to know after everything she had done for her. Not everyone would have made the sacrifices she did for someone she barely knew. Leah was crass and made tactless comments all the time to just about anyone, but when she was approached to help Bella after she just about crumbled there was no hesitation.

Leah knew that she helped rebuild Bella into the strong and pigheaded woman she was today. Although glancing over her shoulder to see Bella still flopped over in defeat on the porcelain thrown, she worried there may be a slight regression.

"Bella, I asked you what problem?"

Forcing her head up Bella finally looked at Leah and a load of tears threatened to overflow her eyes. She pulled off a wad of toilet paper before blotting each tear duct and spoke in a quiet voice.

"I saw Edward outside of the theatre and he tried to talk to me."

"Fuck," Leah sat on the cheap linoleum floor and took a similar stance as Bella, "What did you do?"

"He came up to me and I used my pepper spray on him. I kicked him and then ran off."

"That's my girl!" Leah was pleased that her friend had not lost all of her spunk. It took her a long time to engrain Bella with the take-no-crap attitude that Leah so easily maintained.

The unsettled question that plagued both Leah and Bella was left unspoken. Edward Cullen was supposed to be attending medical school in Seattle. Some mystical force brought him to Chicago with a population of over 2.8 million notwithstanding the suburbs and landed him on the same sidewalk as Bella Swan. Leah never believed a lot of the mythical parts of her Native American heritage, but she suddenly gave credence to the fabled pull individuals can have toward one and another through the force of nature. Be that an attraction that will be mutually beneficial, or mutually destructive.

Leah's mother, Sue, would have been gloating if she had heard this concession. Of course she would never learn this revelation because Leah was too pigheaded to ever admit she was wrong.

Leah Clearwater had lived on the Quileute Reservation from the day of her birth to the day of her escape years ago. Her father, Harry, was a respected elder and tried to instill a sense of pride in his heritage with his children. Leah's younger brother, Seth, was a willing pupil. He loved the legends that his people were descended from wolves. The thought he was a protector of his people strengthened his young resolve and propelled him into learning all of the customs of his people. Harry and Sue Clearwater were pleased.

Leah rebuked the teachings of her past. Not at first, when she was younger she would go to tribal council meetings and watch the proceedings with vigorous interest. The sense of order and decorum thrilled her, and to an extent that still carried with her to her adulthood. The traditional ceremonies and superstition were what lost their appeal into her later teen years.

Like many stories of being jaded in life, Leah's centered on love lost. In her early teens she fell in love with the handsome, although notorious bad boy Sam Uley. He took her under his wing and made her adrenaline soar every time he drove his beat up truck into her driveway. Sue had been none too pleased with his constant presence, but when she tried to put a stop to the relationship, Leah went behind her back and secretly met up with Sam. He would repeatedly tell Leah that their heart and soul was connected in a way no other human beings could fathom. It was a gift from their ancestors that made two people so perfect for each other.

Leah shared herself wholly with Sam, basking in his warm embrace and strong arms. As the years pushed them toward adulthood, Leah granted him her most sacred gift. On a moonlight evening overlooking the bluffs of La Push beach Leah loved Sam so much that she allowed him to enter her body and consume everything that she could ever give him.

Three weeks later Sam began acting distant and aloof even when they performed the most intimate of acts. His erratic behavior was explained when he stopped at her door for the last time and announced that their four year relationship was over. She screamed at him and mocked their traditions because it was obvious that the bonds from their ancestors were only stupid tales. The love of her life left her sobbing as he took off with his mistress in his beat up pickup truck. After the break up, Sam and his mistress openly flaunted their relationship around the reservation, laughing communal events and relegating Leah to the shadows.

Harry told Leah that at his daughter, she was expected to participate in the wedding ceremony of Sam and his mistress. It was the first time in her life that Leah openly argued with her father and in no short order told him where he could stick his tribal position before spitting at his feet and storming out of her childhood home. To this day she could never understand how her family could be so insensitive to her heartbreak.

Of course, Leah would never even have the opportunity to apologize because Harry would die of a heart attack only a week later while she ran away from La Push and refused to answer her phone. Only when her meager savings ran out did she return home to find that she had missed her father's burial and the wedding of Sam to her cousin, and onetime best friend, Emily.

Sue and Seth were devastated that Leah had not been with them during their period of mourning. A great number in the tribe considered her actions shameful and pushed her further away for dishonoring her father. With nothing of consequence for her in La Push, Leah headed to Seattle to start over and pull away from the traditions that had taken her hostage.

She had just finished law school on loans and minority scholarships and had taken her first job in a small firm on the outskirts of Seattle when she received an unexpected phone call from a familiar person of her past.

"Leah Clearwater?"

"This is she, who is this?"

"Umm, it's Jacob Black," Leah pushed back her instinct to simply hang up the phone. Jacob had never really done anything to wrong her, and considering his father had been best friends with her own gave him plenty of ammunition. The fact he remained indifferent during the whole fiasco surrounding Sam boded well for him. She took his call.

"Why are you calling?" Although she accepted the call, she did not have to patronize him and the edge to her voice proved that is what she intended to do.

"Calm down there," he took a deep breath, "I see that we're not going to exchange pleasantries. Here's the deal—," Jacob launched himself into the story and Leah surprised herself by actually listening.

It took Jacob just under twenty minutes to explain the problem and what he needed. Leah only interrupted him a few times, and they were mainly points for clarification.

"It's an awful lot to ask, but I needed to give it a try. Do you think you can help her Leah?"

"I am positive I can," even fresh out of law school she was a cocky and confident woman. During her schooling she reinvented herself to become an independent and cold person. With those walls up there would be no one coming in to tear down her carefully created façade. Even now it was what made her an absolutely lethal predator in the court room, and also the reason she was so rarely inside of it. Her persuasion and reputation would often settle disputes long before they made it before a judge.

Five years ago Leah handed in her resignation for the small firm after only working with them for a grand total of two and a half weeks. She packed up her moving truck and drove down toward La Push area for what she hoped would be the last time in her life. Instead of turning on the country road to head to her childhood home, she took the literal fork in the road drove toward another offbeat location, the town of Forks.

She pulled into the driveway of a small two story home and made her way to the front door. After a few knocks she was greeted by a familiar middle aged man, scruffy beard and beer in hand.

"Good afternoon Chief Swan."

"Leah," he nodded his head before turning in and leaving Leah to let herself in.

"Bella!" Charlie yelled up the stairs, "Leah's here!"

Charlie walked toward the living room before reappearing with a large cardboard box. He silently walked out the front door and deposited it in the back of the small moving truck. The box was heavy, filled with Bella's favorite books. Charlie wiped his brow, not to clear any sweat but more of a nervous reaction to what was about to happen. In his mind he was still just getting his little girl back, and he wanted to kill the bastard for ripping her away from him.

Charlie took a deep breath and walked toward the house to grab another one of the hastily packaged boxes. He wanted her to wait and think things through, be he also knew that she had an even great responsibility now. If he was in her shoes he would do the same damn thing.

Bella approached the top of the stairs and slowly descended with a tattered suitcase in tow.

"That's the last of it Dad."

Charlie took the suitcase from her hands and made his way back outside to load it up. After he and the girls grabbed a few more boxes from the living room he turned to his daughter and showed her more emotion then he had in years. He hugged her and let a few tears fall into her hair as he whispered softly, "Whatever you need Bells, call me. I love you."

He turned to Leah and patted her shoulder, "Take care of my baby." Leah simply nodded as if he was passing the torch of responsibility.

With those simple words from a simple man, Leah and Bella stepped inside the cab of their rental moving truck and backed out of Charlie's driveway. Bella was leaving behind her old classic Chevy since she probably would not need it anyway in Chicago and doubted it could even make the trek across country. A part of her liked the idea of leaving a piece of herself behind for Charlie too, even if it was a rusted pile of useless crap. It was a rusted pile of useless crap—that Bella loved because Charlie had given it to her. She hoped he understood her sentiment.

The moving truck pulled back onto the county highway and began its laborious trek through the winding forest roads. In all the years that Leah had lived in La Push she never was introduced or carried on any semblance of a conversation with Bella Swan. The fact that her father and best friend entrusted the meek girl to her might perplex most people, but the underlying rational made perfect sense.

The two women remained silent for just under an hour when Leah heard the faint sniffles begin. In her seat, Bella pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs. She looked so diminutive against the cheap upholstery. Leah hated it, not because she held any ill will against the girl. No, she hated how her body folded into a defensive stance because it was the same way she looked right after Sam cheated on her. It was time to start working with her; after all it was why Jacob called her in the first place.

"Sit the fuck up Swan and stop the crying. We both start over today, and I am not going to have your ruin it with your little pity fest."

Bella simply looked up and her eyes filled with shock, "Well!" Leah barked and Bella unfolded herself before wiping her face with her sleeve.

Looking back five years, Leah felt like all the work she had put forth had fallen apart. Bella was crumpled in the same position that she did in that moving truck and it would only be moments before tears threatened to leak out. Leah was about ready to throw her hands up in the air and give up. This was the ultimate test to see if after five years Bella could pick herself up and walk with her head held high—and it appeared that she was destined for failure. Leah sighed and put her head in her hands in defeat.

"I know, I know. Sit up and stop crying," Leah looked up to see Bella standing over her and slightly pacing. She silently prayed to whatever god or spirit that made Bella strong enough to pass this test before standing up as well.

"This is what you are going to do," Leah looked Bella in the eye, "You are going to go into that room, give your little monster a goodnight kiss. When you are done with that, draw yourself a bath and soak in the suds. Do whatever it is you have to pleasure yourself, because we know you aren't bring any booty back here. And then go to bed. Alright?"

"Okay," Bella's voice, while not its usual strong tenor, conveyed that she was not going to fall apart—at least not this evening.

Bella walked out of the bathroom and to the bedroom across the hall. She opened the door slowly, aware that she still had to take some WD-40 to the top hinge if wanted to continue her late night spying sessions without waking its occupant.

The faint night light cast shadows across the room. Although she lived in an apartment where painting the bland beige walks was not allowed, Bella did indulge in hanging a royal purple fabric with 3M sticky tape to give it a less sterile feel. The small white bed rested underneath the lone window of the room and held the one thing in the world that Bella actually cared about.

Bella moved quietly to the edge of the bed where she admired Ellie, her daughter's, long curly hair. It draped across her cream colored pillow and onto her matching duvet. Bella did not mind having thrift store quilts on her bed, but this bedding set had been a splurge after her first promotion. When she went to the department store, her then three year old daughter had jumped on the display model bed and rolled around on the soft fabric.

"Feel mama, feel!" Bella felt the cream fabric with embroidered butterflies with a smile and glanced over to the price sign next to the bed listing the various cost for all of the bedding accessories. Costs too much, simply too much.

"We'll come back and sit on it again some time?" Ellie, the ever content child just nodded and slid of the edge of the bed. Bella could not help but notice that as they walked away her little head turned back and looked at the fabric longingly.

It became an obsession for Bella, every other week she would stop in the department store located so conveniently next to the grocery store she shopped at. Every time she went in with the hopes the bedding would be on sale.

Three months of checking, Bella walked in to find the display taken down and replaced by a Spiderman set. She panicked and looked up and down the aisles. With tears running down her face she finally went to the end of the last row and was greeted with a yellow clearance sign and the cream colored bedding lying on the shelves below haphazardly.

With a joyful glee, Bella pulled off the duvet, pillowcases, sheets, and even little bed scrims. She was a sight for the poor cashier who checked her out, tear stains lining her cheeks, red puffy eyes, and armfuls of bedding.

Looking back now Bella knew that it was not the bedding that she had been sad about losing; it was the subconscious thought of losing her daughter. These cream colored linens were nestled around the most precious person in her existence, and they hugged and held her when Bella was across the big city taking bad people off the street who could harm her. Bella was her protector, and in turn Ellie was her savior.

Bella leaned in to kiss Miss Elizabeth "Ellie" Marie Swan but swooped in further to hug her tight. Ellie was dead to the world at that moment and did not even bat and eyelash as her mother cradled her daughter and held her even tighter. Bella skipped the bath and decided that this spot was much more comforting then any amount of warm water would be to her stiff muscles. The physical pain she faced time and time again could be overcome, but the emotional pain is what she needed the most comfort from.

In the warm cream colored bedding mother and daughter fell restfully asleep in each other's embrace. Leah passed the open bedroom door on her way to her own room and quickly chastised herself. How could she have given up hope that Bella relapsed into her old ways? There was something in her life now that she did not have five years ago when she fell apart in that moving truck, now she had a rock of sorts. That small child was Bella's oath that she would not fall away from the strength and resolve she built within herself since they drove away from Forks.

Leah knew that Bella faced some serious tests now that would challenge that resolve, but she was not going to let her battle them alone. As hardnosed and uncaring to almost everyone in the outside world, that little monster curled under those sheets who had massacred her face with paints earlier this evening meant more to Leah then her own life. Ellie was not jaded or left without love, and both Leah and Bella protected her from ever feeling that way despite their own inhibitions to open up to others.

So while Leah left Bella and Ellie to continue with their sleep, she headed to her own bedroom not to rest, but research. It appeared that a former threat of a disloyal man had come to town and Leah was going to find out his purpose for being in Chicago.

Then she was going to channel her ancestral inner wolf to hunt him down and tear him to pieces.