you can call it love, if you want

mumford & sons, "wilder mind"

chapter 18.

if things had been different

(leah)

"Sleep or shower?"

"Sleep."

"Okay, then."

"There's clothes in Rach and Beck's room, if you want."

"I'm not—" The words catch in her throat, and she shrugs limply. "Y'know. Don't want to give your poor old man a coronary."

"Oh," Jacob says. "Right."

"I should really go see my mom, y'know?"

And Seth, too. Leah wonders if her little brother has forgiven them yet for pushing him back to Sam, who had been more than willing to kill the parasites he considers his friends. If Seth is still pissed with her and Jake, then there's absolutely no chance that Embry will speak to them either.

"I'll come with you."

"You need a decent sleep in your own bed," she tells him as insistently as she dares, whilst still trying to be gentle. The more Jake fights his wolf, the more exhausted he is, and he is obviously fighting extremely hard now that he is only a few miles from Renesmee after a month or so of being separated. Leah doesn't want to — can't — make this worse for him than it already is.

"Oh," says Jacob again, unable to hide the emotion in his voice. "Sure."

Leah feels bad, and she is tired, too — enough to crawl into his tiny bed with him and sleep for the next week, the next year, if they can — but her mom had sounded a little unnerved over the phone. As much as Sue Clearwater ever allowed herself to be, anyway. Leah knows it's probably just down to what the bloodsucker has threatened should Jacob continue denying the beloved demon child, but family is important, and both she and Jake have responsibilities to remember. She needs to go. He needs to stay.

But it's not a surprise when she ends up staying for another few minutes, knowing that Billy is trying to listen to every word they say (and perhaps don't say) in the confines of his youngest child's bedroom.

"Take the car," Jacob says into his pillow after unceremoniously falling onto his tiny mattress. "I'm going to—"

"Sleep. You're going to sleep, Jacob. You're no good to anyone like this."

Leah is certain that if he intends on facing the bloodsuckers now, without either of them getting at least four hours rest, she will most definitely lose it; they are both dead on their feet, and the phase she has been denying for weeks and weeks burns underneath her skin, begging for release on familiar land. Jacob has not phased for nearly as long.

It would have been the perfect opportunity for them to just give up their wolves completely, if things had been different.

"I was going to say sleep." Jake rolls his eyes as he gets comfortable. "Geez."

He might be telling the truth, but when Leah slips out of the room and walks back through the house, she stands in front of Billy's rusty wheelchair and points in the direction of his son. "If he goes anywhere," she tells him, "you call me."

Billy cocks an eyebrow.

"Please," she adds, because while her mother taught her how to win an argument, her father managed to instill some manners in her.

Billy's grunt is noncommittal. Clearly, as a tribal elder, he would never do something as sacrilegious as keeping a cherished spirit warrior from their imprint, and, by the looks of it, not even when his only son is miserable because of it.

It has her scowling as she leaves. There's a reason that, out of her dad's best friends, she's always liked Charlie Swan more.

They negotiated the whole way home.

"You don't go to see them without me," she told him after refilling the tank at a stop in Kansas City and getting back into the car. They'd driven through the night, unable to sleep even when in the passenger seat. "I mean it, Jake. No more leaving me behind at the river."

"Fine," he agreed after a long moment. "But you can't kill Edward."

"What about Bella?"

"No."

"Blondie?" she asked hopefully.

Jacob sighed, though his lips twitched in spite of himself. "Well — okay, maybe you can tear an arm off, or something. They can put themselves back together, right?"

"Not if you burn them first."

Leah ignores the black car outside and instead stalks across the reservation on foot, just as unhappy about being away from Jacob as he was with her for leaving him behind. After more than a month in only one another's company, it is strange to be walking alone. No longer are they in their own world.

And so, naturally, it is not long before someone takes the opportunity to track her down and remind her of this.

Paul Lahote trails a few short steps behind for a few minutes while he tries to work up to what he wants to say, his face as stony as Billy's had been. Usually the asshole has no problem with expressing himself — a trait she begrudgingly shares with him — and his silence makes Leah wonder whether Sam has warned him to tread carefully. It will not take a great deal of effort to fracture what little understanding remains between the two Packs, and they all need to keep their tempers.

But Leah's always been one to break the rules. If she ends up reducing the Uley Pack by one, Sam will deserve it.

"Spit it out, Paul," she says after waiting another frustrating minute. "You've got until I get to my door."

He clears his throat. "Are you back?"

"Obviously."

"Obviously," he repeats, voice hard with annoyance. "But for how long?"

"Until someone jerks us around again, I guess. Why Sam didn't come to ask this himself? Scared?"

Paul strides forward, falling into step alongside her. "Dunno," he says, not rising to the bait. "Maybe he thought sending his Second to Jake's Second would be a better idea, seeing as they can't really be in the same spot without wanting to kill each other."

"And what makes you think we're going to be any different?"

"I guess I don't hate you as much as I hate Jake." Paul scowls at the name. "Leaving Rachel to look after Billy like that, without even—"

Outraged, Leah nearly loses her footing in her disbelief. "Like she and Beck left Jake?"

Leah loves Rach and Beck. Really, she does — they were as close as she and Emily were, growing up — but she will never forgive them for leaving their kid brother to take care of their disabled father. Rebecca has not been home once since she got married to Solomon the Surfer Dude, while Rachel has only stuck around for as long as she has because she's turned into a complete fucking sap.

Paul seethes beside her, but Leah thinks it's only because she's insulted his imprint. Paul's only good for a rip-roaring fight these days if you make sure to spit when you say Rachel (after she tested the theory, Sam made her run double shifts as punishment), whereas before all it took was to smack the side of his hollow head.

"You know how hard it was on Rach when their mom—"

"Yes, Paul, I know. So hard that she made sure to pick up extra shifts when school let out so she didn't have to come home for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Give me a break. Didn't see me runnin' off as soon as I could when—" Leah tries to keep her voice steady "—when my dad died."

Harry Clearwater had been her hero.

"Wish you had," Paul mutters as nastily as he is able.

Once upon a time, Leah might have instantly broken his jaw for something like that. Maybe she's like him now. Maybe all it takes is for someone to spit when they say Jacob. That's a strange thought. But she's so, so tired, and scrapping with Lahote now that he's no longer Pack and she can't hear him thinking about his next move is something she wants to try when she can walk in a straight line. He should have found her a little earlier if he wanted to get a rise out of her.

Maybe that was what Sam wanted. To prove something. She'd like to know what they're getting out of this.

So instead she just says, "Yeah. Me too, once."

It is not the first time Leah remembers how she'd almost turned her back on the Rez, but it is the first time she thinks that she is glad she chose to stick around.

"There's my front door," she announces unnecessarily. Her eyes are burning, and she thinks she will probably be asleep before her head hits the pillow. "You can go now. Run along back to Sam. And make sure you tell him that he's got some fucking nerve dragging my mom into this."

"She gave him hell for it already. So did Seth."

Leah makes a note to give her mom a hug when she gets inside.

Seth, too. If he'll let her.