A/N: Blackwater morale is low; HotD rules my life. Please accept this shorter-than-usual chapter as I take preventative measures like banging my head against the wall to stop myself writing Targaryen (literal) madness

Also: Jacob is bebe and is still learning how not to be an idiot, please be nice to him


fifty-four


(Jacob)

As with most things in his life—especially when Leah or Bella are involved, or both—the situation escalates quickly, swinging from a perfectly harmless moment (or so he had thought) to downright chaos before he can blink.

The door shuts behind Leah, the soft click of the latch infinitely worse than it would have been if she'd slammed it and left the window frames rattling in her wake, but it leaves Jacob wincing all the same—partly because he dreads the moment the outside world (or rather, the pack) learns of her disappointment; mostly because he knows that, when they do, he will be a dead man walking.

That is, of course, if Rachel does not kill him first. And he's still stuck in this fucking brace under the pretence of his unfortunate motorbike accident, not newborn accident, so he wouldn't even have both use of his arms to defend himself when she attacked. She'd probably go for his sling first.

"You're an even bigger idiot than I thought," his sister says, breaking the frozen silence of the living room. The expression on her face is eerily similar to the one Leah wears whenever Sam stands a little too close to her—the same look that suggests imminent pain and suffering and death is about to occur, and soon, regardless of how much time has passed and what tentative fragments of forgiveness may have been granted.

Jacob's head swivels from the door to Rachel and back, mouth gaping like a fish as he tries to form a response that won't immediately sound as if he's throwing his toys out of the pram.

He fails, a whiny protest tumbling out of his mouth anyway—a reflex, he argues, borne from years of defending himself against two older siblings who once found great pleasure in ganging up on him. "I didn't even do anything!"

"It was written all over your face!" Rachel yells back.

Jacob scowls at her, the only appropriate response to give in front of polite company—if Charlie can be considered such. Anything more, Jacob thinks, will only earn him another headache from his father before this one has had a chance to pass. It won't even help pointing out that Charlie has spent years listening to them bicker, or that it was only an hour ago Rachel's fervent need for violent retribution had instead been focused on Leah.

Now it has been turned on him, because apparently Rachel has suddenly decided that girls need to stick together, or something, and is determined to make up for the years she has been absent: she will not allow Leah to go unavenged, even if she does not know or understand the real problem here.

It is surely reasonable, then, that Jacob feels a little (a lot) petulant about the whole thing. Rachel has been home less than a few hours and he already feels outnumbered, even with Rebecca two and a half thousand miles away and his mom dead in the ground. He's barely had a minute to read the damn wedding invitation back to front, for God's sake, never mind having four pairs of eyes on him, watching, waiting for some kind of reaction that he wasn't even consciously aware he'd given before Leah stormed out.

He looks down at the ornate paper in his hand, if only to stop himself from arguing with his sister—or their father—any further, flipping it over and studying it. Then he frowns.

There is no doubt that what he is seeing is not a mistake, and yet he hears himself question it all the same. "Leah's name isn't on it."

"I'm sure it'll be on the Clearwaters'," Billy says hurriedly.

Rachel snorts. Jacob agrees.

Charlie shuffles uneasily on his feet. He may be duty bound to defend his daughter and her broken nose, but they all know he feels honour bound to Harry, too, and the look in his eyes is easy to read:

Guilt. Plain and simple.

Jacob asks anyway. "Is it?"

"Listen, kid, I know you two have had your problems—and I really tried—but—"

And there's the answer he was looking for.

"I'm not going," he says, throwing the invitation aside. He doesn't care where it lands. Hopefully the trash.

"Jake," his father warns quietly.

But he's in no danger of phasing; his hands are unnervingly still, his temper under control, his sling still perfectly intact. Not even being called out by his father whilst his sister continues to swerve any kind of reprimand could make him phase right now; there's bigger things, like Leah's being purposefully vetoed from a guest list.

(He's not bitter about his sister—much. But perhaps he should try taking off for a few years, if only to see whether Billy would give him any leeway then. It seems to have worked for Rachel, so God knows what liberties Rebecca will be given if she ever returns with her husband in tow.)

(In another life, Jacob thinks, maybe he would have. Maybe he would have skipped town the moment Charlie handed over the envelope. If he didn't have Leah to think about, to ground him, to stop him, maybe he would have disappeared and given himself over to the wolf. The Canadian wilderness has always held a certain appeal.)

"No, it's okay." Charlie sighs. "I figured as much. Alice suggested mailing them—"

That is no surprise; of course the bloodsuckers have taken over, because this is what they do. And Bella has bowed to them.

Again.

"—but Bells thought it would be rude," Charlie continues, "'specially given the state of your friendship at the moment; she didn't want to make things worse, so she asked me to bring them over personally. She wants you there, Jake."

It's hilarious that anyone actually believes Bella wants anything to do with her wedding, let alone his presence in the pews. She didn't even want to say yes to the proposal, only she wouldn't have had a fallback plan then.

Or—maybe she thinks she still does. Maybe she thinks he will stand up as the minister asks anyone who objects to speak now or forever hold your peace—

There's only one thing he objects to here.

"Doesn't change my answer. Sorry," he says, not sorry at all, not even as he turns his back, ignoring the protests from his father and Charlie that follow him out of the door.


Halfway down the road, he realises that Rachel is chasing after him. "Hey, dipshit!" she shouts. "Wait for me!"

Jacob mutters a few unsavoury sentences that would undoubtedly result in bruises if she heard, the kind that would heal too fast and be too difficult to explain. And then: "Go home, Rachel!"

"No way!" She skips to his side, barely winded, all peppy and—annoying. "If you're going to find Leah, I wanna be there when she dumps your sorry ass."

"She's not going to dump me."

Rachel laughs. "We are talking about Leah, right?"

"It's like she said," he grumbles. "Things are different now. You wouldn't understand."

"That's sweet. You really believe that, huh? Come on, little bro—it's Leah. You might be all—grown up now," she says, scrunching up her nose with distaste as she pokes his bicep (he really needs to ditch this fucking sling), "but she's still going to kick your ass. Maybe she'll break your nose, too. Or your other arm. I'm good with either."

"Gee, thanks for the support. Some sister."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to pick up the pieces. Whatever she leaves of you, that is."

"Once you're finished laughing, of course."

Rachel grins. "Of course," she says—

—and Jacob decides that okay, yes, having his sister home again isn't too bad. Despite how much she gets away with under their dad's nose, and for all she annoys him and will probably hog the shower for hours, clogging the drain with her hair, he is glad that she is home. Still mad—a little—but overall . . .

He'll get over it.

Not that he'll tell her. He'll never live it down.

"Sooo-oooo . . . Speaking of broken noses, and Leah's love for violence . . . You finally gonna tell me why she hit Bella, or do I have to go back and ask Charlie?"

"The first time, or the second?" he asks, smirking when Rachel's eyes go wide.

She gasps. "You're telling me she hit her twice? And I missed it? Damn. If I'd known there was this much drama, I'd probably have come home sooner."

"You would have just made it worse."

It's true—Rachel has the worst temper of them all. Even Leah, whose anger reveals itself often and mostly in short bursts, lashing out at all those near regardless of who is her target, determined to be seen and heard by the world. Jacob can deal with that. His sister, however . . . Her fight with Leah notwithstanding, she tends to leash her temper until she reaches breaking point, meaning the consequences tend to be far worse.

Suffice to say, Bella wouldn't have stood a chance.

Rachel grins and winds her arm through his, pretending as if she hasn't heard him speak. "Who'd have thought it? My baby brother, the most sought-after idiot on the reservation," she says, quickly avoiding a well-aimed flick to the side of her head. "Come on, then—you have to tell me now. What did Bella do?"

"Kissed me," he says, and Rachel's smile falls, her jaw practically colliding with the ground. "Second time—I don't really know what she did, I wasn't there." It's not a complete lie; he knows exactly what Bella did, only he was too busy getting his bones broken to witness her ass being handed to her at the time. "Leah says she deserved it, though."

So do the rest of the pack. Jacob included.

"Holy shit. Do you think she'll do it again if I ask nicely? I always hated that girl—"

"No you didn't, you liar, you played with her every summer—"

"She never joined in; she always preferred reading her books, or making mud pies with you—"

"It's not my fault I'm more interesting than watching you and Beck painting your nails—"

"Interesting! Like anyone wants to watch you drooling over a bit of scrap metal!"

And so they go, taking chunks out of each other until they reach the doorstep of the Clearwaters' house. It's only when they can physically walk no further that Rachel calls a ceasefire, declaring they're not finished but she'd quite like to watch Leah skin him alive now, please and thank you, so can he save his best insults until later—

"—assuming you survive, obviously."

"I hate you."

"Please," she says, rolling her eyes, "—you love me, you missed me, you never want me to leave."

He knocks on the door, less than confident that Leah's usual come-and-go-as-you-please rule currently applies to him, and he takes the chance to aim one last cheap shot at his sister before his world goes to shit.

"Is that your way of admitting you're staying?" he asks. "I mean, considering you only know how to book a one-way ticket, I already guessed that you were staying a while."

Rachel goes for his sling.

Never let it be said that he doesn't know his sister.