Author's Notes: This chapter is a big pile of failure. Yay for crappy writing!

Chapter Thirteen - The Worst of Times

Three weeks later…

When I walked into the Clearwater's house, complete chaos met me. Endless papers and boxes were thrown haphazardly across the floor and part of the curtains on one of the windows seemed to have been torn off. Worst of all, Sue sat on the couch with tears streaming down her face as Seth, obviously distressed, gave her back a few gentle pats and tried to calm her down.

"Mom, it's okay," he said again and again. "She's fine. She'll come back."

"I should have never said anything…I'm such an idiot…" sobbed Sue. I'd never seen her so upset and it frightened me a little.

"Please, just listen to me, Mom. It'll be--"

"I'm going to try someone's phone," Sue interrupted, standing up. She brushed past me as though I wasn't there and exited through the front door.

"Um," I said, having nothing to do but stand there awkwardly. "Is this a bad time?"

Seth put his head in his hands and sighed. "Yes. Awful, really." I stepped over a phone that lay in pieces - I had a feeling it had been thrown against the wall, as it was under a scuff mark on the wallpaper - and sat next to him.

"What happened?" I asked, hoping that nobody had been murdered or eaten by a bear or something.

"It's Leah," Seth replied tonelessly, lifting his head from his hands. His face was as blank as his voice.

Time stopped all at once.

"Leah?" I breathed.

Seth nodded and bit down on his lip. He looked like he might start crying, and I was suddenly reminded, with a pang in my heart, of the time after Heather had been raped. I didn't know why, but something in his expression was just like it.

"What happened?" No answer. "What happened to Leah?" He stayed silent still. "Seth, what's wrong?"

"Well, for one, Leah loves Sam."

I had no idea, and I was sure my face matched my thoughts.

"Two, Emily is pregnant."

My mouth dropped open. Since when? I wondered.

"And three, Leah overheard my mom telling me about it an hour ago, wrecked the house, and ran out the door."

My head was spinning with all of this new information. Emily was pregnant. Leah loved Sam. Leah was gone.

Leah was gone.

I couldn't think of anything to say besides, "Is there anything I can do to help, Seth? I - I'm sorry."

"Well…I don't know." There was a pause as Seth thought about my question. "I guess we could start cleaning the house up."

"Oh, yeah, of course." We stood up in unison and looked around the living room. It really was a disaster, so we agreed on leaving it for last and started on the kitchen instead.

The chairs that used to be around the dining table were now in a pile, a few broken or otherwise damaged. The table itself seemed to have been snapped in half, and I had no idea how Leah had done that one. Maybe it was lighter and less tough than I'd thought.

"I don't think there's much help for this one," I said, running my hand over the wood.

"I don't either," agreed Seth. Together, we picked up the pieces of the table and carried them (or, in my case, dragged) them outside, deciding to put them in the dumpster later. After we went inside the house and sifted through the heap of chairs, we threw those outside, as well.

It just got worse. As we tracked upstairs, I noticed more and more papers torn to shreds and tossed around. A book that seemed to have been soaked through by water leaned against a step and I tripped over it. Seth caught me and set me upright, mouth forming into a tight line as he looked at a piece of paper at his feet.

By now I was scared to go into Leah's room, but Seth barged into there as easily as though he did this every day. A huge hole was in the door, which had fallen off of its hinges and crashed against the wall, making a dent. How in the world had Leah done this? I knew she was strong, but this was insane. If, say, Sam was mad, then yeah, I could see this much destruction, but I'd never thought Leah to be capable of it.

Inside of her room, more papers were strewn about. I looked down at one and felt a strange lurch in my stomach; it was a love note, directed to Sam, from Leah. Next to that, a picture was ripped in fourths, and as I carefully put it together, it showed Sam and Leah at some park or another with a violin player in the background. They were both smiling, arms around each other's shoulders, and for some reason, this made my heart ache.

"This is terrible," I said to Seth.

"I know." His voice sounded choked, from Leah or something else I didn't know, and I automatically turned to him. He was sitting on Leah's bed, misery written all over his face.

"Oh, Seth," I breathed, sitting next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. "I'm so, so sorry that this had to happen."

Seth wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned his head against me. "It's not like you could have done anything about it," he said flatly.

"Yeah, but…still. She'll come back fine, though," I tried to add reassuringly. Seth obviously didn't buy it, and sighed. "Well…how…um…how far along is Emily, anyway?"

"About a month."

"Wow." Even under the situation we were in, that was amazing. New life always was. I remembered when Ciara was pregnant with CJ, how excited I was even though I had to stop her from smoking as usual. As the months passed, I forced her to go to doctor's appointments to make sure everything was okay and felt a wonderful thrill at the sight of every ultrasound. I hoped things would go okay with Sam and Emily's baby…or babies. What if they were having more than one?

We sat in silence for a little while. From outside, birds chirped and sang as though it were a perfectly normal, wonderful day, which, to them, I suppose it was. I thought about Ciara; I hadn't heard from her ever since she left La Push. I hoped she was okay. She was probably out there getting her heart broken, driving the roads to new places alone in the dark of the nights. The thought made me shudder.

"Well, there's no point moping around when all we can really do is wait," Seth said suddenly, breaking the silence and scaring me. I looked up at him and he smiled, like everything was okay - and it was, I kept trying to convince myself, it was.

"Yeah. I don't know about you, but I need some fresh air." I stood up and left the room, as it was starting to get stuffy in there. Seth followed me. The house was looking better after our cleanup, but the living room was still a mess, and frankly, I don't think either of us felt like fixing it. We went outside and the smell of flowers and sea salt immediately cleared my slight headache.

A little while down the road, we met Paul, Quil, and Embry standing in a circle. They were arguing over something (probably dumb; Seth and I rolled our eyes in unison) and, as we got closer, we heard Paul shout,

"Yeah, well, he knows he wasn't supposed to do that!"

"Get over it, Paul. You're making a scene," said Quil, putting a hand on his shoulder. Maybe it was just me, but he looked nervous, quite the opposite of Paul, who was shaking because he was so mad.

Jared suddenly stalked out of a nearby house. "Excuse me?" he growled to Paul.

"Guys. Shut up." Quil whispered something to everyone else, something I couldn't hear, though I thought I heard "Willow's around."

"Seth?" I asked, and Seth turned to look at me. "Why are they talking about me?" I demanded, putting a hand on my hip. "Just so you know, when gossip comes my way, I'm not afraid to fight back. I am a girl, after all."

"They're not gossiping about you," said Seth. He grabbed my elbow and turned around, obviously trying to drag me away. "So, the weather's looking rainy today, isn't it?" he boomed enthusiastically.

What in the world…?

Just then, Quil shouted something really loudly as there was a kind of soft, exploding sound. Growling echoed over everything, and, confused and startled, I turned around.

My mouth fell open. Seth was trying to get me away, but I was rooted to the ground.

"Crap," whimpered Embry. "Crap, crap, crap. This is not good."

"Well, don't just stand there!" Quil shrieked, running into the madness I could only identify as fur. Fur and a horrible growling that sent shivers up and down my spine. After a moment of confusion, I realized that the growling fur was two huge wolves, attacking the crap out of each other in the exact spot Paul and Jared had stood seconds before.

Seth gave up on pulling on my elbow and picked me up bridal-style, running away at the speed of a bullet. I protested with a million 'Put me down!'s until, frustrated, I snarled, "Explain to me what the hell is going on back there. And stop running, for God's sake."

"It was nothing," Seth said, still running. He was starting to get on my nerves, though I couldn't really explain why.

"Yes it was something, so tell me what was happening. Wolves don't appear out of thin air."

He looked down at me and halted his running, slowing to a walk and turning at some corner. "Actually, they can."

I snorted. "Sure, right, in Houdini World, but not in ours, Seth."

"It's a long story," he said, and unceremoniously set me down. I stumbled a bit and glared at him, but his focus was on the house in front of us.

"I don't care. Tell me what happened. And where the heck did Paul and Jared go, anyway?"

"It's a long story," Seth repeated, just as Emily came around the side of the house.

"Hey, you two," she said with a warm smile, and suddenly I remembered the baby. I had the feeling she'd just gone through a round of morning sickness, as she was pretty pale and there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead. I thought, Poor Emily. And then: Poor Leah.

"We need to talk to Sam," Seth blurted out.

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Sam? Okay, then. He's in the living room. What do you need to talk to him for?"

"Err…certain people…getting mad and doing certain things…" Seth met Emily's gaze with a hard look and she nodded, once.

"Ah, I see."

We were about to go into the house when Sam opened the door and stepped outside. "Oh, hello, Willow," he said. "And Seth. I heard that there's something you need to discuss with me…?"

Seth nodded. "Yeah. About…you know. Because Paul and Jared…yeah." He paused and quickly added, "But she was going to find out soon anyway, Sam, right? So it's okay?"

Sam nodded. "Yes, she was. Well, come on in, you two, and make yourselves comfortable. This might take a while to explain."