ten.

(Jacob)

"You gonna tell me what that's about?" Billy asks quietly. His eyebrows are high as he looks pointedly between where Jacob stands at the side of his wheelchair, arms crossed, and the doorway which Leah disappeared through as she trailed after her mom.

"What's about what?" Jacob replies with as much innocence as he can muster. He feels shaky, but not like he does when he's trying to fight a phase triggered by his temper. This is something else — something much more akin to the feeling of standing on the edge of the cliffs before he dives into the grey waters below.

(Adrenaline, he vaguely recalls with some difficulty. Being so close to Leah, so . . . familiar with her in a way he's not been for years has his heart in his throat and blood singing.)

"You run off when Quil's standing on her doorstep with his arms around her—" his dad begins, and it's an effort from Jacob to keep a snarl leashed at the reminder "—and now you're staring after her like you'll never see her again."

His eyes snap back to his father. He knows he really needs to leash more than a single snarl, especially if he's going to try and keep this a secret for much longer. He can't afford to be defensive.

"I'm not," he says in spite of himself, arms still crossed over his chest and his fingers curled right in his armpits.

Billy's smirk is uncomfortably all too-knowing and, Jacob thinks, slightly smug. "You can't fool this old man, son."

"She's having a hard time. I know what it's like. That's all."

"Is it really?"

Jacob scowls, dropping his hands. "You get all weird and intense when you're being cryptic. Kinda reminds me of when you were trying to tell me your superstitious nonsense wasn't really nonsense at all — and doing a bad job of it, too," he replies hotly. Unkindly. Defensive again. Damn it all to hell.

Nonplussed, Billy sits back in his chair and folds his hands in his lap. "Nonsense or not, I know what it is to keep a secret. And for what it's worth—"

"You don't know anything, Dad." He really, really doesn't. He might be on the Council, might be held in a higher regard than the rest of the men that sit there, but Billy knows nothing of what it is to be . . . this.

"I think you'd be surprised."

Calming his face into something a little less hostile — and doubtful that he'll be able to manage it — Jacob changes the subject before he gets himself in deeper waters. Billy has raised two daughters; he knows how to get information if he really wants it, especially from their brother who always covered for them, and Jacob refuses to fall into any kind of trap his dad might be trying to set.

Jacob blows a breath that betrays his frustration. Too bad. "Do you need me to take you home?"

"Why, where are you going?" Billy asks quickly, jolted from his private conspiracies. "You were on patrol all night."

Yes, Jacob thinks, and I was less than an hour into my sleep when you woke me up for a ride here. But instead he says, "I'm coming back. Sam wants me to stick around. Keep Quil away."

"How long will it be?"

"Soon," Jacob tells him, knowing what his father really means. "A few days, maybe. Less. So if you're going home—"

"I wanted to head over to Charlie's, actually," Billy says, and he sounds a little apologetic about it now that he knows Sam's orders are involved. Billy might be the Chief, but only in name — Sam is the real Chief, the real Alpha, for as long as Jacob refuses the title. It would be kind of weird, anyway, Jacob thinks, to have his dad looking at him for direction if he assumed the job.

"I was hoping you might come, too," Billy continues within the quiet of Clearwaters' kitchen. Jacob doubts that his father can hear Leah talking to Sue upstairs like he can, nor that he can hear the stutter in Seth's low snores as though the kid is dreaming. "Charlie's been going out of his mind, and considering you were the last person to see her . . ."

Bella. Has she saved her bloodsucker yet, who she is so willing to die for? Maybe she's already dead.

Jacob swallows uncomfortably, feeling more terrible for Charlie than he does himself. It's a far cry from the mess he had been in his garage two days ago, and the sudden change might have seemed jarring if the imprint hadn't completely obliterated his growing feelings for Bella.

"You know she might not come home, right? We'll be going to another funeral within the week, only this time it will be a sham."

He regrets the words as soon as he says them, hearing Billy's sharp intake of breath. He also feels like he's betrayed Leah somehow, saying something he knows she'd hate, using her father to drive his point home about Bella and the choices she's made. It feels wrong, too.

Jacob swallows, appropriately shamed. "Sorry."

His dad reaches up and pats his arm. "Don't worry about it," he says. "You know, maybe I'll just call ahead first and see if he's home. Don't think Sue will mind if I use her phone, do you?" he asks then, but he's already pushing his chair over the tiled floor and towards the wall where the phone sits in its cradle.

"'Kay. I'm gonna check on Seth, see how he's doing."

Billy turns his head back. "I think Leah might have that one covered, Jake."

"All the same," he mumbles, shrugging. He can't tell anyone that the silence upstairs worries him, that it's not really Seth he's worried for. That after standing so close to Leah without her protesting, her scent in his nose and her warmth against his side . . . it hurts now, her absence.

The piercing look Jacob receives from his father is just a raised bushy brow shy of curious, but he ignores it and escapes from the kitchen before he has to explain himself. It would be just the damn pinnacle of his life if his father really knew what was going on.

Was that what the smug look had been? Shit, Jacob hopes not. The Council, Sam, the pack — they will all know before the sun has set, if Billy has figured it out.

Jacob's gut clenches as he takes the stairs two at a time. His father is a proud, traditional old man; he was damn near triumphant when his son phased for the first time, and he will be freakin' euphoric if he's ever able to announce that same son has imprinted. God knows what he would have done if Jacob had asked Sam to step down and returned home as Alpha.

It doesn't bear thinking about.

So he doesn't. He listens for Leah, for Seth, and stops short just before he reaches the top of the stairs when he hears the kid's sleepy, muffled voice.

"Leah?"

"You're okay," she murmurs, and Jacob cranes his head around the banister, feeling like an intruder.

Her back is to him as she sits on the edge of Seth's bed, the door slightly ajar and blocking the kid's face from Jacob's view. She shushes her brother, her hand reaching out to soothe him. "You were just dreaming. You're okay."

"It . . . It was so real . . ."

Seth gulps, his breathing coming in fits and starts, and Leah keeps up her constant murmur of nothings and smoothing his hair down as he slowly but surely calms down. Jacob can't bear to imagine trembling limbs and how close Seth might've been to—

No. He refuses to imagine it. Not after just barely getting over seeing her with Quil, who could have cracked at any God given moment.

Jacob wants to trust Leah. He does. He's going to have to if he has a chance at surviving being away from her, because she'll surely kill him herself if he hovers around her for any longer — not without him being able to provide her a better excuse than Sam being concerned for her safety. He's sure of this, because he has known her for all his life; he has long learned that she likes her space. When they were younger, she had a habit of going off for hours on her own until Harry started calling around the Rez, looking for her, only to find her sitting in a tree or on one of the beaches.

And yet . . . Seth is young. Quil hasn't even been broken in. Does she even realise what could happen to her if—

Jacob sits at the top of the stairs and takes a quiet, steadying breath, painfully aware that it's the imprint which has him so concerned and frightened that she'll be hurt like Emily. Worse than Emily. No wonder Sam's tail is so bent out of shape after what happened, what he did.

"Come on," Leah says, her voice the kind of soft which Jacob knows it only ever is when she's talking to or about her brother. "Try and go back to sleep, yeah?"

"It was so real," Seth whispers again. "I thought . . ."

Leah doesn't ask, but Jacob can feel her worry. "Sleep. It's okay," she says instead.

He sniffs. "Lee?"

"Yeah?"

It takes a minute for Seth to speak again. And when he does, his words are hesitant. "Does Mom . . . Do you hate me?"

"No!" The sharp sound from Leah is just on the edge of a yell. "No. I don't hate you, Seth. I hate what's happened to you, but I don't hate you. Never."

"But if I hadn't—"

"You couldn't help that," Leah tells him firmly. There is a long, sad moment of silence, and then, "Seth, you know it's not your fault, right?"

"But—"

"No, Seth. He had a bad heart since he was a kid, way before he married Mom. And he didn't look after himself like he should have. You know that. He liked fish fry too much."

Either realising that he's fighting a losing battle or he's too upset to answer, Seth is quiet again. Jacob, meanwhile, shifts his body quietly down several stairs. Partly because he is an intruder on this moment, and partly because he doesn't want to be found so blatantly eavesdropping.

"It's not your fault," Leah says again. "If anything, you should have been told. Warned, I don't know."

Seth's harsh gulp is audible from where Jacob sits with his keen ears. "They didn't know. I remember . . . they all thought I was Quil." There is a prickle to the words, and Jacob recognises it as the same automatic defensiveness the pack has for one another whether Seth intends it or not. It's instinctual for him, now, and Jacob is proud.

It doesn't lessen Leah's resent, even though she's already more or less been told the same thing. That they weren't watching or waiting for her little brother because he is so young. "Would it have made it easier?" she asks. "If someone had told you?"

"I wouldn't have believed them."

"If they had," she persists, "and then you realised it was all true. Whether you believed them or not. You think you'd feel differently now?"

"Dunno," Seth mumbles. "Maybe, I guess, if Dad had been the one to . . . but—"

"But he didn't," she finishes for him.

"Doesn't matter now, does it?" Seth sighs with what sounds like hopelessness, and Jacob hears a shuffle on the bed as though the kid is rolling over, turning his back to the world.

Leah stays with him a while after that, long enough that Billy has finished his phone call with Charlie and has pushed his chair down the hallway from the kitchen. Jacob stands on the stairs and squares his shoulders, meeting his father's gaze, ready to be told that they need to leave and drive to Forks.

But Billy shakes his head and, after what he's been listening to, Jacob can't care less if his relief shows.

"Gonna coast it home," his father says, weathered hands on the wheels of his chair. "Charlie's gonna meet me there."

"Is she home?"

"No. He hasn't heard anything, but it's not doing him any good sitting at home and waiting for her."

Charlie will be doing a lot of that, Jacob thinks, if Bella's eyes are red. But this time he doesn't voice his bitter remarks and instead he dutifully helps his father over the doorstep before waving him off down the drive.

When he turns back into the house, Leah is sitting on exactly the same stair he'd been on not two minutes ago. There's some sort of twisted satisfaction in it, where she sits and stares at him, and it belongs wholly to the imprint. The reasonable part of Jacob — however small it might be, now — resents the sense of possession. The other part of him revels in it.

Leah purses her lips together thoughtfully as she considers him. Jacob finds that he quite likes that, too. "I want to do something you're going to think is stupid," she says in response to his questioning look.

"You want to tell Quil."

She's not even a little surprised that he knows what it is she wants to do. Instead she nods, her resolve clear and bright in her tired brown eyes.

"You're right," he agrees, sounding a little resigned about it even to himself. "I do think that's really stupid."

"Are you going to stop me?"

"Since when has anyone ever been able to stop you from doing what you wanted?" Jacob almost laughs, and a small smile plays at her lips. But she seems pleased, either with herself or what he's said. Perhaps even both.

"I thought it might fall into your whole 'sticking around and keeping Leah out of trouble' thing," she says. "You're not even going to talk me out of it?"

"Nope." He might have known what she was planning to do as soon as he'd heard her question Seth, but she doesn't know what he's going to do. "I'm coming with you."