these colors of feeling
give me love, i'll put my heart in it

Dermot Kennedy, "An Evening I Will Not Forget"

thirty-five.

(Leah)

Leah wakes before the sun, her eyes opening to darkness as soon as her mind catches up to what her body has long already known even in unconsciousness.

Jacob is home. Finally.

They are all tangled limbs and heat on his bed, her head on his bare chest, her body almost entirely atop of his as if they have been this way for hours. As if she tried to climb over him during the night and use him as her personal pillow — not that he seems to have noticed. He is deep into his sleep, his chest rising easily, his breath even, his face free of the stress he usually carries.

Once, she would have been embarrassed to wake up sprawled over him like this, but with both of his arms around her back, keeping her soundly in place and leaving no room for such things like embarrassment to work its way in, thoughts like that are far away. And she is long past being ashamed.

It is almost always this way now. She either falls asleep with him, or she wakes up with him. She's rarely lucky enough to have it both ways — falling asleep without his solid weight beside her and the heavy weight of worry in her stomach is still harder than she'll ever admit, although waking up alone is always worse. She had thought last night that he might never come home. Now she wonders how long it is since he climbed into bed, what it was that made him so late.

Usually, she makes him promise to wake her when he's leaving, or when he comes home, even if it's at a ridiculous hour. He never listens. He certainly didn't last night. Or maybe he did, and she was just too out of it to know better, bone-tired as she is these days. Balancing her life around a new routine of studying for finals that are a matter of mere weeks away is beyond exhausting.

(She feels a fool for convincing herself that she can graduate — something else that she will never admit. At least, not out loud, and certainly not to Jacob or her little brother. Sometimes it feels impossible that she'll be able to get her GPA up in time to be able to confidently walk across the stage and get her diploma. She's missed so much.)

Jacob doesn't wake as she carefully extracts herself from his arms and slowly eases herself off the bed. His dirty face and hair that's sticking up on end is enough to tell her that he must have had a rough night on patrol if his first thought was to fall into bed rather than a shower. Without even a pair of boxers on, at that, but she's long learned that nakedness doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to the pack. It certainly doesn't mean much to Jake — especially not after that day she'd seen him by the garage.

It's hard not to look. It's been two months since he imprinted — less than six weeks since she found out; only five weeks since coming to terms with it — and the physical effects are becoming harder and harder to ignore. And she has absolutely nobody to talk to about it. Nobody to assure her that she's entirely normal and she's not going crazy.

She's certainly not going to talk to anyone in the pack about it. They wouldn't be able to keep anything she said a secret. And she's certainly not going to talk to anyone like Kim or Emily, even though they may just be the only other people in the whole world who understand what it's like. Although according to Embry, who is always willing to share as much as Leah wants to know (much to Jacob's chagrin), they cemented their imprint bonds within only a couple of weeks.

Leah drapes the sheets over Jacob's waist and gathers her books from the bedside table. The sun might not be up, but she'd rather study for her AP classes without a full eight hours of sleep than think about cementing anything.

It's not that Jacob is hinting, or pushing her . . . He hasn't even mentioned or suggested anything untoward, and she knows he'd torture himself if she so much as thought that he was pressuring her. He's just comfortable — in himself, in their relationship. And, honestly, nudity is the last of his worries. Leah would bet that he doesn't even think about it. Hardly any of the boys do.

But she's not ready. Even though her body — or, rather, the imprint — is telling her otherwise. So she shuts the door behind her and quietly pads down the hallway to the kitchen, determined to get at least an hour or two of studying under her belt before the rest of the house wakes up.

Deep in thought, she all but jumps right out of her skin when she reaches the end of the hallway and almost walks right into Charlie Swan.

"Leah?"

She freezes under the lift of his eyebrows, a mix of shock and rising suspicion as he stares at her, and she fights the urge to sprint right back down the hallway and into the box bedroom for cover. She's in her sweatpants, but the oversized black t-shirt she's wearing evidently does not belong to her — it's got some kind of race car printed on the front of it, ugly and unmissable. Jacob loves it, and it's comfortable, but she might as well be wearing a huge neon sign.

Leah hugs her books to her chest to try and cover the evidence, but she knows Charlie has noticed it already. It's a fool's hope to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary is happening. He's a cop. He doesn't miss anything.

"What are you doing here? Bit early for house calls, isn't it?" she asks, summoning bravado he undoubtedly sees right through. Her voice is still too high, too nervous. "Is everything alright?"

"It's Sunday," Charlie says slowly. "We fish on Sundays."

Leah doesn't answer. Shit. Stupid, stupid. They've been fishing on Sundays for decades. But without her dad coming home with his own haul for fish fry at the end of every weekend, she'd just . . . forgotten.

Charlie's eyebrows rise higher still. "What are you doing here?"

Outside of the pack, the Council, nobody knows about her and Jacob. Not even Rachel and Rebecca. Their phone calls with Billy are short, entirely non-existent with Leah, an exchange of few mumbled words with Jake. And, for some reason, Bella still doesn't know either — the bloodsucker still hasn't told her, otherwise her phone calls would be of a different sort entirely. Which means that Charlie definitely doesn't know; her mom and Billy haven't breathed a word. Not because they all want to keep it a secret, but because nobody else would understand how quickly things are moving.

How could they explain it? Dating from basically living together within less than a few months? He might be as good as family to their tribe, but not even Charlie would understand that.

Leah isn't ready for a lot of things, and having to fumble for answers to the kind of questions he would have is one of them. Neither does she want to lie. She hates lying. Especially to family.

Mostly because, in spite of all her tenacity, her confidence and snappy retorts, she's actually really terrible at it.

"I'm — uh. Study group," she says quickly, dipping her chin down to the textbooks in her arms. "Yeah, study group. Finals coming up, last minute papers, you know."

"Study group," Charlie repeats, disbelieving. He checks his watch. "At half past five in the morning? With a sophomore?"

She does her best to ignore the feel of heat creeping up her neck and over her face. ". . . Yes?"

But he already understands. He fixes his glare on a particular door at the far end of the hallway, eyes narrowed. "I see."

The bathroom door suddenly swings open with a bang, and Billy shoots her a grin as he wheels himself into the narrow hallway that is only just big enough for his chair. She hurriedly side-steps out of the way, cheeks still aflame as her heart pounds a second time from fright.

"I hope you're not accosting my daughter-in-law, Swan."

"Daughter-in . . ." Charlie's head spins, eyes bulging from their sockets. "Leah Clearwater, you better not be about to tell me you've eloped since I last saw you."

"No. No! God, no," she says, but in spite of her protest she is sure she spies Charlie's fingers twitching at his waist — habit from a lifetime of being a cop, perhaps. But he settles for clenching his fist instead, and Leah wonders whether he regrets leaving his house without his gun. She has to mould her lips together to quiet the uncontrollable nervous laughter bubbling in her chest.

Charlie goes still. "Are you pregnant?"

She sputters, indignant. "Charlie—"

Billy snorts. "Get a grip, old man."

"Well, it sounds serious enough," the other man mutters. His cheeks turn pink with embarrassment, but he is still on his guard. "Do I need to talk to him?" Then he directs another pointed look at Billy and demands, "Did you talk to him? Why didn't you tell me they were dating?"

Billy snorts a second time, outright laughing now and leaning back in his chair. "Because I knew you'd act like this! Tell me the truth — you're already considering arresting my son, aren't you?"

"Of course not," Charlie insists, but Leah thinks he might be lying and drops her head to hide a smile behind her textbooks, remembering his awkward questions when she had visited him last. He had asked if Embry or Quil had been her boyfriend.

"Liar," her Chief accuses.

"Harry would kick his ass, though." Charlie looks at her, squaring his shoulders like he's about to march into battle. "You want me to kick his ass, kiddo?"

It's sort of heart-warming, really. She has a fleeting sort of urge to hug the man and thank him. God knows that she yearns for her dad's reaction to all of this.

"No," she says, not bothering to hide her grin now. "But thanks. I'll let you know."

"Well, make sure you do," he grumbles. "I suppose Sue knows about . . ." He gestures with jerky movements between the hallway and where Leah is still standing like a deer in the headlights with her books to her chest.

"Threatened him, didn't she, honey?" Billy is still chuckling between them. "Jake was looking mighty pale by the time I got there for dinner."

"Something along the lines of, 'If you hurt her, I'll let her kill you first, then I'll make sure you're really dead'," Leah says with a nod.

Charlie looks both pleased and impressed. Then, hesitantly, he asks, "Does Bells know?"

"I don't think so," Leah replies carefully, risking a glance at Billy. They're all out of guesses as to why the bloodsucker is still keeping the imprint a secret. Nobody can figure it out. "Don't tell her, okay? I think Jacob should tell him herself. You know, considering . . ."

"I didn't realise they were talking again."

Billy harrumphs loudly, pointedly, and Leah struggles to compose herself. "They're not," she says in the same careful tone. She doesn't think Charlie knows anything about what happened behind his house after Motorbikegate. "But it should still come from him."

It takes a few seconds, but eventually Charlie nods in defeat and pats her shoulder. "You're a good kid."

"Maybe Jake can go over today," Leah suggests, though it's only for show. Jacob has the whole day off and she has no intentions to share him, especially not if he had a bad night on patrol. She has barely spent any time with him this week, not on their own. "We'll see."

"She's not home. She's in Florida to visit her mom with — with Edwin," Charlie says unhappily, scowling again. "They're not coming back until much later tonight."

"Edward."

"That's what I said."

"Maybe they've eloped," Leah teases.

Charlie holds up a finger, briefly closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Don't . . . Don't even go there."

"Bet you called Renee the second they landed though, just to make sure," says Billy, grinning with the same type of wickedness that's still on Leah's face.

"I hate you," replies Charlie. He waves a hand. "Come on. Let's go fishing so I can drown you. We're already late for our spot, and I want to be home when my girl arrives."

"Jake has some sandbags in the garage," Leah says cheerfully as she sets her books on the kitchen table and opens the fridge, making a beeline for the juice, hovering in front of the cool air for a second longer to cool her still-flushed face. "You could tie them to the wheelchair. He'd sink right under."

"You, I like," Charlie says over the sound of Billy's outrage.

"Whose side are you on here, exactly!"

Leah simply grins and drinks the juice straight from the carton, unapologetic and pleased with herself, wholly at home.

It's always best to keep them on their toes. She does the same with Embry and Quil.

Ten minutes later, she is waving them off from the doorstep like she used to with the twins when they were kids. Billy is in the passenger seat, still pouting, and Charlie is laughing.

When the cruiser has disappeared, Leah shuts the door, dry-eyed and smiling. She feels less sad than she thought she would have, being around her dad's best friends again without him there too. Knowing that he would never be there again. But it hadn't been as painful of a reminder as she'd feared.

She makes herself some toast and opens her books, and she only manages half an hour of fighting her way through molecular models for her AP Chemistry class before Jacob appears, his expression sleepy and his hair looking worse than it did when she left him.

It's been an experience to learn that whilst she is a morning person, he is not.

Leah doesn't look up from her notepad as he grumbles his way over to the table, his eyes barely open and his nose scrunched up unhappily, and she makes a show of turning a page as he bends over the back of her chair and buries his face in her neck.

"S'too early for studying."

He's not wrong, but she needs to spend every minute catching up on a month and a half of missed school that she can. She'll earn a GPA she can be proud of even if it kills her. "Someone's got to earn the big bucks so you can be a kept woman," she tells him with a small hum over her pen scratching against paper.

Jacob leans further into her, swaying on his feet, and mumbles something that she thinks translates to something along the lines of 'live in the woods'.

She feels a smile playing at the corners of her lips. "And what would we eat?"

"I'll hunt."

"Game? Firstly, yuck. Secondly, we'd get rabies. I think I'll pass."

"S'fine if you cook it."

"Big strong man, protect woman, make fire," she grunts, deepening her voice. But she's still smiling.

Jacob winds his arms around her and plucks the pen from her hand. He throws it across the room, all the way to the opposite wall where it lands by the loveseat.

"No studying," he grunts right back at her in the same voice she used. "Bed."

Leah pulls away and turns her head to meet his look with one of her own. "Oh no," she drawls, voice flat. "I'll never graduate without a pen."

"It's Sunday. No studying," he repeats, and then he scoops her up from the chair and carries her back to bed.

(Jacob)

When he opens his eyes again to early afternoon light streaming through the window, he is laying on his stomach between Leah's thighs, his head in her lap and legs hanging off the mattress, and he has the vague notion that she is using his back as a desktop.

"I'm not studying," she proclaims innocently as soon as she feels him stir. "I'm reading."

"'The Crucible' again?" he guesses.

Her silence is answer enough, and he huffs with amusement into the fabric of her sweats. "You have another test on it, don't you."

"Maybe. Or maybe I just like this play."

He chuckles again, stretching out and shifting onto his side, ignoring Leah when she tuts in reproach and has to readjust her book on his shoulder.

"You like that play because you call that woman — what's her name, you think she's Emily incarnate," he says when he's comfortable again. What he doesn't say is that he accidentally thought of this whilst he was on patrol the same day that Leah came to this conclusion of hers, and the guys all heard it.

Paul and Embry laughed. Sam and Jared did not.

Leah turns a page. He can't see her expression, but he imagines her pouting and lifting her chin in defiance.

"She's called Abigail."

Jacob snorts, circling one of his arms around her waist to pull them closer together. He lives for days like this. "Whatever. It's a crap name for a villain."

"She's more than that — she's a homewrecker. Plus she sends a bunch of people to their deaths. And she drinks blood to try and kill her lover's wife," Leah says in her usual haughty way, sniffy and deprecating. "She's a total witch."

"Sounds like she's a vampire to me."

Leah swats him half-heartedly, though he'd bet her eyes never leave the page she's on. "Smartass," she mutters, flicking his ear when he only laughs at her. "Go and have a shower. You're filthy, and you smell."

He presses his face into her stomach. "Don't care. Keep reading about your vampires; I'll just be here, wasting away."

She sighs, finally relenting and putting the damned book down. He hears it drop onto the table, and then a second later feels one of her hands drifting over his scalp, running through his hair, lower and lower until her warm fingers are brushing the back of his neck. "Are you happy now?"

He truly is.

Feeling a slight triumphant, Jacob flips back onto his stomach and wraps his other arm soundly around her middle, fingers locking at her back. He keeps his face buried if only so that he can disguise the hum of pure pleasure bubbling in his throat. He could drown in her scent.

"What time did you get in?" she asks quietly after a while, breaking their comfortable silence. "I waited up for you."

"Late," he mumbles. He is too relaxed with her fingers in his hair to be talking about anything relating to the bloodsuckers, the redhead, and the showdown they all had last night. He'd meant to finish patrol with Embry and Quil not long after midnight, but Sam had kept them running until the darkest hours were over, too suspicious and superstitious and everything in between to let anyone go. They had marked all their usual patrol routes thrice over and dug two new whole trails before he declared the Rez safe.

"What happened? Not . . . Someone didn't phase, did they?"

"No." Worse, he wants to say, but he's not going to worry her any more than he has to. He's already debated not telling her about the redhead, if only because he knows how she's going to react, but if doesn't tell her then someone else will. Probably Embry.

Embry absolutely loves having a sister to complete the set of siblings he has amassed in the pack. Jacob privately thinks it's because he grew up an only child who still shoulders the responsibility of looking after his single mom, because Embry seems to have appointed himself Leah's advocate in everything. He gives her whatever she wants, whenever she wants. And in spite of that, because of that, he's just about the only person in the world (other than Quil) who Jacob and Seth can unanimously agree upon trusting to keep her safe.

Leah's heart thuds with anxiety, her blood pulsing loudly underneath his ear. "What, then?"

"The redhead came back," Jacob tells her, because he has just about as much restraint as Embry and has kept enough secrets from her to last him a lifetime. Not telling her about the imprint taught him that.

His bedroom goes deathly quiet save for shallow breaths for several long seconds, and he feels her get a fraction tenser with every breath, her fingers stilling in their tracks within his hair.

And then—

"That bastard," she hisses, hands dropping as she shifts and sits upright against the headboard. "That's why they skipped town. What a fucking coward!"

Jacob lifts his head to look up at her. "You've lost me."

"What happened?" she demands with new fervour. "Did you get her?"

With a sigh, he pulls himself up and tells her about the chase, about Paul and Emmett's near fight and Jasper putting that dampener on the pack. She looks as murderous as they all felt last night, her furious disapproval rolling off her in waves, but he hazards a guess that it's mostly because Seth had been dragged into the whole mess.

"But they were waiting — they were expecting her, weren't they? Because of the psychic."

"Kind of the whole reason we lost her, yeah. If that big one hadn't made the breach and gotten into it with Paul, we might've stood a chance. It was hard enough without having Bella's bloodsucker there to translate — Sam had to phase and do it face to face. Wasted so much time."

Leah smirks. "Did you just admit to Edward being useful?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," he grunts.

"He's in Florida," she says when she recovers after a loud snort of laughter, crossing her legs on the mattress and leaning back. "That's why he wasn't there. Took right off with Bella the first chance he got, I bet."

"How d'you know that?"

"Charlie. I saw him this morning."

Jacob frowns. It was barely dawn when he'd found her in the kitchen. "But they leave at like . . . Did you even sleep?"

"He said Bella was going to visit her mom — at least, that's what he thinks is happening," Leah carries on, skirting around the question, ignoring the deploring look he sends her way. She knows how he feels about her overworking herself for something that's already in the bag — it is as far as he's concerned, anyway. She was absent six weeks, not six months, and if she carries on the way that she's going then she'll likely be dragging herself across the stage like a zombie to get her diploma. Or worse, she'll miss her graduation ceremony because she's too exhausted and has slept through the whole thing.

"Edward went with her," she continues. "They're coming back tonight. Apparently."

His stomach sinks at the tone of her voice, both sceptic and suggestive. "You don't think . . . ?"

Leah shrugs. "It's a good excuse, isn't it? Maybe she got bored waiting for graduation. Wouldn't put it past them to fake a plane crash, or something. Especially if Victoria has come back. They wouldn't have to protect her if she becomes one of them. You wouldn't have to protect her," she says, scowling.

He shakes his head, more because he doesn't want to believe it than because he disagrees. "That'd break the treaty. It'll mean . . ."

"War," Leah finishes for him, pursing her lips unhappily. "But they broke it last night already. They might have already. It's not like the treaty has a geographical limitation, does it? I thought it just applied to them, not where they break it."

"No, you're right," he assures her. "I just don't . . . I don't think they'll risk that. Not yet. When I spoke to them, I got the feeling Bella had some sort of plan. Maybe I was wrong, I don't know. It's a bit sudden."

Leah hums noncommittally, but he knows she doesn't believe him. They lapse into a brief moment of thoughtful silence.

He's going to have to go and check. For his own peace of mind. And . . . and if Bella doesn't have red eyes, if her heart is still beating, then Sam will have to decide what he's going to do about last night's breach. What he's going to do when her eyes finally do turn red and their numbers get even closer to being even on both sides. Jacob doesn't imagine that they'll be hanging around for too long once the change is made and they're holding a fake funeral.

If there'll even be a funeral.

"You saw Charlie?" he asks finally, pushing away thoughts about the man standing over a closed casket.

She nods, and he looks at his favourite NASCAR t-shirt and the grey sweats she's wearing. "Dressed like that? Coming out of my room?"

"It wasn't the highlight of my morning, if that's what you're asking," Leah replies a little dryly. "He was very put out that nobody had deigned to tell him his two best friend's kids are dating and having sleepovers."

"Oh. Awkward."

She huffs a laugh. "Tell me about it."

"What did you say to him?"

"Nothing, really. Your dad fuelled the fire more than anything else, so there were a few questions about eloping and pregnancy," she tells him, as if that's a completely reasonable assumption to have been made. Jacob's stomach gives a tiny flip at the thought of such things. "I suppose he'll have Charlie thinking we're having an arranged marriage and that Mom's been given a huge dowry for her only daughter by the time they're done fishing. Your dad is a menace."

"He thinks he's funny, at least."

Leah scoffs. "He'd be better off just telling Charlie about the imprint — it'd seem less outlandish, compared to all that."

"If he finds out about that, then you might as well tell him about the bloodsuckers he welcomes into his house."

"Don't forget the wolves," Leah adds.

"That's different, honey. He likes us."

"Me, not you. He offered to kick your ass for me. It was kind of sweet, actually." Leah smiles, pleased, laughing when he adopts a look of being offended. "Don't worry," she tells him, "I convinced him that there was no need. Told him not to say anything to Bella, either."

"You know that I don't care if he does."

"I know. But if she starts up the phone calls again, then Billy might have the service disconnected and then you won't be able to order pizza," she says teasingly.

"Fair point." Bella stopped calling after he returned her motorbike. Jacob hasn't seen or heard from her since. "What would I do without you?"

"Wither and die?" she suggests amicably. "Cry into your pillow? Live in the woods?"

"Hey, I still think that's a good idea. We could build a treehouse."

As if in answer, Leah reaches for 'The Crucible' on the bedside table and gives him a knowing look. "Sounds like a plan for you dirty drop outs, not me," she says, settling back in.

She kicks him out of the bed and into the shower a few minutes later. He maintains that living in the woods is a valid option if she decides to flunk high school along with the rest of the pack, but Leah simply turns a page of her book and chooses to ignore him. So he stands in the tub and sings 'Dirty School Dropout' to the tune from that seventies musical his sisters used to love at the top of his lungs, over and over and over.

That is, until, he hears his imprint go into the kitchen where she turns the tap on, and his shower suddenly turns stone cold.

He sings louder.