Jake

"I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me." – F. Scott Fitzgerald

I laid asleep for hours that night, replaying the conversation in my head with Sam. He'd had a lot of good advice on how his wolves operated. I'd decided that Leah would be my Beta, and Jared would be my Third. Hopefully, Jared's anger had subsided enough to be receptive of the demotion. I shove it aside for the night, trying to get some rest. I am almost asleep when I hear Leah's howl of distress. I throw the covers aside and waste no time in running outside to phase.

Leah, what's wrong? My paws pound the ground beneath me as I call to her.

Just leave me alone, Jake. Go home. I continue faster toward her despite her plea, and I watch her replay her evening, over and over and over.

I take the stairs up to his apartment. I'd only been here once before, when I'd drove up for lunch and he brought me back here after, promising his wife was at work and wouldn't be home. He'd never told me her name, and I didn't ask. If she had a name, then she was a real person. A real person with real feelings and the potential to feel real heartbreak. I'd felt it. I didn't want to cause it for someone else. The guilt had gnawed at my stomach— but not enough for me to not have sex in their bed.

I was mad at myself for how I had acted, how I had let him control me. If I knew imprinting would have caused me to abandon what limited moral compass I had, I would have rather just sat at home, alone. Okay, maybe not. But still, what the actual fuck? What kind of sick joke was this, Universe?

I give three quick knocks on the door, and as I hear someone shuffle inside, I realize I had no idea if she was here. What if she answered the door?

I turn to leave when Adam opens the door. "Leah? What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?" I ask, glancing down the hallway.

"Yes, of course." He swings the door wider for me. She must be out of town. She's out of town a lot. But, then again, so is Adam. I feel his eyes on me as I pass through. He closes it softly after I've entered. We move to sit on the sofa, and he places a kiss on my lips before settling down next to me. He runs his hand down my arms. "Were you painting?" He asks, fingers brushing over the paint caked on my hand and under my nails. My body aches for him as he touches me. No. Not now.

"I need to talk to you about something," I say, shifting slightly so he can't touch quite as much of me.

His eyes grow wide. "Are you pregnant?"

"What? No." The thought throws me off and stabs at my heart, but I continue. "Adam, listen. Do you remember the stories I told you, the history of my tribe?" When he nods, I continue, "They're true. All of it. The shapeshifters."

I give him a recap of what we'd already discussed during our pillow talk sessions. He'd had questions then, and I gave him the truth, with a "Legend has it" in the front to soften the blow. I watch him process what I've said now, that it was all true and not just legend. At first, I see that he wants to ask me if I'm serious. And then, he pulls his hand back from mine like I'd scorched him, as everything I'd told him comes flooding back. The first time he'd touched me, he'd done the same thing. I'd made up a really bad lie about why I was so hot. I don't think he'd bought it, but he didn't question me aloud. He hadn't connected the dots until now.

"I need to hear you say it exactly," he says, voice riddled with disbelief.

"I'm a shapeshifter. A werewolf."

He is silent for a long, long time. He starts a dozen sentences but trails off before finishing a single one. He stands and paces the room, looking back at me every few steps. I stay seated, hands in my lap. The inside of my cheek is raw from where I've been chewing it.

"Anything else?" He says finally, staring out at the Space Needle that is visible a few blocks over.

"Funny you should ask," I say with a dry laugh. He turns to face me, as if he didn't know what else I could possibly have to say, and why in the hell any of this was funny. I continue anyway. "With shapeshifters, there's this phenomenon. It's called imprinting. It's like love at first sight but so much more powerful. For a long time, we didn't know if female wolves could even imprint. Until now. Until me."

His chiseled face is taut as he tries to process everything. I go to stand in front of him; he drops his head to avoid meeting my eyes. I speak again, "An imprint becomes the most important person in the world to the wolf. Their happiness is what matters, above all else. They would be whatever the imprint needed. Friend, lover…"

"And you…?" His eyes dart up to mine with the unfinished question. I nod, kicking at the carpet. He runs a hand over his evening stubble, and then down the back of his neck.

"Because of the physical changes, it stopped my..." I trail off, but then I decide I'm tired of beating around the bush. "I don't know if I can have kids." His brow furrows, but he stays silent. I wish he'd say something, anything. "Adam?"

His shoulders move up and down in a deep, heavy sigh. "What am I supposed to do with all this?"

My heart sinks. The words that come out of my mouth next surprise me – they didn't feel like they belonged to me. "You don't have to do anything. I just… wanted you to know. You needed to have all the facts." What I leave unsaid is, so you can pick me. So you have a good reason to finally leave her.

"Leah, I'm sorry, but this is a lot." He throws up his hands before crossing his arms.

"Trust me, I know," I respond. He looks at me like he doesn't believe me but doesn't call me on it. I plead, "You can take your time. Nothing has to change if you don't want it to." Nothing has to change? I was the definition of a masochist, standing here, in his apartment, when his wife could walk through the door at any moment, begging him to keep me around as a side piece. The possibility made my head pound. My head wasn't the one running the show these days, though. And in my heart, I knew that I'd be whatever he needed me to be. I'd keep doing this forever if it meant he was happy. My stupid little heart. "I love you," I add feebly. While it wasn't the first time I'd said the words, I think it was the first time he realized I had meant them.

"I think…" he trails off, and my head spins waiting for him to finish this thought. He glances at the clock. Was she coming home soon? Part of me wanted her to. So he had to admit what I meant to him, if anything. "You should go; you have a long drive back." He turns away from me as he says it. And for what feels like the millionth time in my life, everything shatters into a thousand tiny pieces.

When I reach Leah's house, I see Nessie pacing out front. I approach her, giving her a quick nuzzle and a tilt of the head. She takes a breath, explaining, "She phased as soon as we got back. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't even come near me."

Go home, Nessie, I tell her with my body language. She rests her head on my shoulder briefly in an embrace before heading to the car.

I find Leah curled up along the side of her house, shaking. I told you to go away, she says. I can hear the anguish in her voice.

I give the orders, remember? I sit on my haunches next to her. Would it be stupid of me to ask how you're doing?

She huffs, Very stupid.

I settle down in the grass next to her. Alright, I won't ask then. She turns her head away from me as if she didn't want to look at me. I'm totally comfortable just sitting in silence for the rest of the night, I advise her.

What is there to say? I told him everything and he kicked me out. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. She remembers the last time she'd been to the apartment, how they'd spent the afternoon tangled in sheets, that he'd cancelled appointment after appointment to stay with her longer. And then, again, she replays him turning away from her tonight. She continues, the worst part is, I can't even be mad at him. If this is what he wants, if this will make him happy, then that's all there is to it.

I sigh heavily, and we settle down into the silence and listen to thunder roll in the distance. Eventually, it starts to rain. She stands, stretching. Great. So fitting.

I know you're not now, but are you going to be okay?

She tilts her head. I have no choice. Now, please leave. I'd like to cry in private and I shredded my clothes.

I stand, shaking the rain from my fur. She growls as the droplets land on her. I'm coming back tomorrow to check on you. Don't run off. That's an order. I command, heading for the trees.

She growls lower. I hate you sometimes.

I give her one final half-hearted grin before turning to run back home.

The next morning, I pull up to Leah's house and am surprised to see Nessie's car already parked in the driveway.

After Sue and Charlie got serious, Sue made the move to Forks and let Leah and Seth continue to live in the family house. When Seth and Katie got married, they found a house of their own closer to the beach. Leah lived here alone now, which is part of the reason I was worried about her. The memories of her father saturated every inch of the house. It wasn't entirely healthy, but it was the only home she'd known.

I walk through the door to see the two girls sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. "Morning," I say, my chipper tone earning a glare from the she-wolf. Nessie fills another mug with coffee and hands it to me before taking her seat again.

I can tell Leah has been crying – her eyes are bloodshot and the areas around them are swollen and red. I wonder if she'd slept at all.

"What's on the agenda today? What do you want to do?" I ask. I didn't really remember much about my own past heartbreaks – mostly because when I imprinted on Nessie they all flew out the window.

"Honestly, I feel like destroying some shit." Leah responds, gripping her mug so hard that her knuckles turn white. Nessie raises an eyebrow and gives me a half shrug.

That is how we find ourselves at the cabin an hour later, Nessie and I watching from a nearby log as Leah as she axes a piece of siding to death. There were lots of cabinet doors, planks, and drywall pieces that I'd needed to get rid of. I gave Leah no instructions other than to separate what was safe to burn and what was not. She had plugged her ears with headphones, blasted heavy metal, and got to work.

"When I got there this morning," Nessie mentions softly, "I found her just laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She was a zombie. I made her get up, take a shower, eat something. I don't even know if she noticed I was there at first."

I slip an arm around her waist and slide her closer to me on the log. "You did more than I would have thought to."

She rests her head on my shoulder. "I thought imprinting was supposed to make things easier on everyone, not harder. Take the guessing out of it."

"It was never meant to be easy. Think about Sam and Emily, Quil and Claire, you and me…" I rub circles on her lower back and continue, "Sometimes the beginnings are tough. And the middles. But the ends are usually good." Usually, unless you were Leah, so it seems.

She turns her head to place a kiss on my shoulder, and then asks, "What do you think our end looks like?"

Well, that's a loaded question if I've ever heard one. "Our story doesn't have an end." And as cheesy as it sounded, it was true. Nessie, at least as far as I could imagine into the future, was frozen in time. And as long as I kept phasing, I'd be frozen with her.

"Do you want what Sam has? A wife, a home, a baby?"

I glance down at her, head still on my shoulder. I know that she can hear my heartbeat thumping in my chest as I consider her words. Sometimes, in moments like these, I wish Nessie was the one who could read my mind. "I want… I want whatever you want, Renesmee." This time it is her heart that skips a beat as I use her full name.

Her hand finds my cheek, and she shares with me her deepest, most intimate desires. She shows me carrying in boxes of her things, setting them down next to mine in the cabin – our cabin, she corrects in her thoughts. She shows me picking her up, carrying her to my bed – our bed –in the room with floor to ceiling windows. She shows me touching her in ways, in places, that made my neck flush and my pants tighten.

She pulls her hand back, dropping it in her lap. "I haven't thought about anything past that, really." she admits, blushing, hiding her face in my shoulder.

I reach over with my free hand and lift her head from its hiding spot, so I can look into her eyes. "Okay, so we start with you moving in when the cabin is done, and we… go from there."

I lean down, but right as our lips are about to connect, there is a large bang as Leah throws down the last piece of wood onto the pile. "Now what?" She yells loudly over her music.

"Now," I respond, turning away from Nessie and forcing a tight smile, "we haul it to the truck."