A/N: In true WIP fashion, I have made a few changes. If you have already read the most recent update (posted Thursday 14th April, aka part one of Leah's graduation), then please disregard this repost. By the time you're reading this, you should have already received a notification for the next chapter.

The chapter posted on Thursday has been replaced with a new outtake/interlude (apologies if you have already reviewed and are unable to do so again).

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Just think of it as two updates for the price of one (or three if you've not read it already)?

forty-four.

(Leah)

"Kim, I really don't think—"

"Oh, hush. Sit still. Close your eyes."

"Kim—"

"Leah."

With a makeup brush in one hand and a palette in the other, Kim scrunches up her pretty face in a scowl. It takes Leah a second to realise that she's probably supposed to be cowering in fear, except it's downright impossible to take Kim seriously. The girl is about as frightening as a mewling kitten.

Less than that, even. So much so that Leah can't help but laugh, which only serves to make Kim even more annoyed.

The kitten growls under her breath. Leah laughs harder.

"Seriously," she says, still struggling to pull herself together, "you really don't have to—"

"No! You promised I could do this my way!" Kim argues, and she may or may not even stamp her foot a little. Leah (wisely, she thinks) chooses not to point that part out. "Now close your eyes, or I'll ask Emily to come over instead, and then you'll look horrible and you'll have to burn your graduation pictures!"

Leah gasps with slightly more theatricality than is strictly believable. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Traitor," she mutters, closing her eyes. "Fine. But if you make me look stupid, we are never doing this again."

Concerningly, Kim doesn't answer. Instead, she gets to work (or rather back to work) and she spends the next ten minutes diligently painting Leah's face, humming a happy tune underneath her breath as she brushes over Leah's forehead and her eyes, her nose, her cheekbones — more or less any part of her face that she knows she can get away with.

Leah keeps her eyes closed throughout, either because she's too damn nervous about the day ahead or because she doesn't want to receive her diploma bearing Kim's claw marks, she's undecided, but she doesn't dare kick up another fuss. Especially now she's witnessed how Kim wields that damned brush like it's a weapon.

Plus, she had asked Kim for help. Something about looking a gift horse in the mouth springs to mind; she is all-too-aware of how little she dresses up, how little the occasion calls for it. The looming apocalypse certainly doesn't count, and neither do the Pack bonfires she's become duty-bound to attend. The last time she made an effort as big as this had been for her father's funeral (although that had only stretched as far as brushing her hair and wearing a dress), and the time before that . . .

She can't remember. A date with Sam, perhaps.

Never mind that she's not even any good at any of this stuff: the dressing up, the make-up — let alone having enough patience to do it. She has no idea how to do hair treatments or how to contour or pick out colour schemes, and she's clueless about fashion. It's never been a problem before now because Rachel and Rebecca have always helped her with this kind of thing instead. Only they didn't respond to the graduation announcements she sent them, so Leah had been forced to swallow her pride and mutter a strained plea to Kim, who had shrieked with such indisputable glee that everyone in a fifty-mile radius probably heard.

Even with a week to spare, Kim hadn't wasted any time making plans. Despite all protests, the girl spent an hour deciding on hair and make-up before demanding to see Leah's wardrobe. And, honestly, that had been a disaster within itself, because it only resulted in a shopping trip that had lasted a whole afternoon spent in nine different changing rooms, ultimately leaving a serious dent in both their purses — because, apparently, Kim seized every opportunity to subject Jared to a fashion show, knowing that at least one outfit would end in the best five minutes of Jared's life.

(That was putting it politely. Leah seriously doubted Jared's skill, but she supposed the guy deserved a little credit. He made Kim deliriously happy, at any rate — not that Leah's stomach could handle thinking about such things. Not about Kim, anyway. She'd only entertained the conversation long enough to make sure Kim regularly visited the drugstore.)

(Kim had assured her that she did, and then asked her if they wanted to go together.)

(They had.)

"Okay, done," Kim announces, and Leah tentatively opens her eyes to see a compact being snapped shut in her face. "Now — hair!"

Leah groans.

Half an hour later, she's permitted to change into her dress before being guided across her bedroom to her standing mirror — the same mirror Kim threw a blanket over the moment she arrived, refusing to let Leah take even so much as a peek at herself lest it ruined the grand reveal.

Kim studies her masterpiece, practically beaming. "For the record, I think you look amazing. He's not going to be able to keep his eyes off you. Or his hands."

It's the first mention they've made of Jacob — or any of the wolves, for that matter; Seth has wisely avoided coming upstairs the whole morning, whilst the rest of Pack are off doing — well, whatever it is they're normally doing. Jacob, in particular, has been banished from the Clearwater house by Kim and Sue both. He had been all for coming to pick Leah up and driving her to school on the back of his Harley Sprint, "in style", and as much as Leah could rarely deny him anything, she knew her mom had been harbouring a quiet hope to make the journey with both of her children one final time. They're meeting before the ceremony instead.

"I'm just graduating," she says, rolling her eyes. "I'm not trying to get laid."

"Never say never." Kim waggles her eyebrows. "After you might. If I were him and you were my imprint . . ."

"Kimberly!"

Kim blinks a few times, feigning sudden innocence, a look that Leah much prefers over being reminded exactly how active the youngest imprint is. "Well, why else did we go to the drugstore?"

"That was for you!"

"Whatever you say. I know you walked out with a bag." The wink the girl flashes is practically conspiratorial. "Are you ready?" she asks then, though she doesn't wait for an answer and is yanking the blanket off the mirror before Leah can even open her mouth.

Leah gapes at her reflection. Despite the amount of time Kim has been dabbing at and sweeping a brush over her features, almost nothing has changed, except she looks . . . good. The first thing she notices is the lipstick, a subtle shade that's not too dissimilar from her usual colour and yet gives her some shape. Her eyelashes are infinitesimally thicker, longer, darker; her cheekbones stand out; and though nothing has been over-coloured, her eyes look brighter, larger, somehow.

Her favourite part (as if she could ever say such things out loud) might be her dress. Nine changing rooms later and Leah is finally certain she made the right choice. She had been so close to wearing the black dress — the funeral dress, as she calls it now; the only other formal dress she owns — but it hadn't felt . . . right. She wanted something she could wear again, if she wanted, without any upsetting memories following her around.

When they'd been in the store, Kim had described the teal dress with a long-suffering tone that had even made the saleswoman laugh. All Leah knows is that it's got a high neckline, it's half-sleeved, and the knee-length a-line skirt is appropriate for an event like graduation — or so the Resident Expert otherwise known as Kim told her, anyway, which is supposedly totally different to the style that's required for a typical prom event.

(Leah considers it a mercy that she doesn't have to worry about things like prom. Eight seniors and their plus-ones would make for a truly boring party, anyway; she would probably end up skipping it just to avoid the embarrassment of having to ask Jacob to be her date.)

Suddenly, Kim gasps from behind her and rushes out of her room with a high-pitched "Oh my god no wait, this is the best bit!". She's absent for all of ten seconds before she's running back in at lightspeed with another mirror Leah recognises from the bathroom.

She holds it up behind Leah's head, beaming with pride as Leah studies her hair. She already knows she's hit the mark, but she still asks, "Do you like it?"

Leah is . . . Okay, she's fucking impressed. Kim has swept the top half of her hair into an ornate yet elegant braid around the back of her head, low enough that she will still be able to fit her graduation cap on, leaving just a few strands to frame her face. The rest of her hair hangs down to her waist in loose, shiny waves, brushing her back with the gentlest touch.

"Come on — admit it," Kim says, biting her lip and practically bouncing on her feet with genuine glee. "I did great."

Leah's smile comes unbidden. She manages to twist it into a smirk that doesn't give too much of the game away. (She will begrudgingly admit that her dress is nice, and maybe she looks nice, too. All the same, she knows she's going to be pulling all the pins out of her hair before the afternoon is over, effectively ruining all the effort that's gone into her appearance.)

"Okay, okay! You did great." Leah looks closer at herself and decides that, yes, she likes what she sees looking back at her, and yes Kim has done a wonderful job. "More than great, actually."

Kim squeals, throwing the mirror onto the bed before all but leaping right at her. Leah only just manages to catch her in time; Kim is so much smaller than her that she practically hangs off her neck, feet swinging in a wide circle in the close quarters of her bedroom and yet still she takes care to not ruin The Look.

"I'm so glad we're friends," Kim gushes.

"Yeah, yeah, me too, you little weirdo," Leah huffs around a laugh, trying not to sound too sentimental about it.

She'll never live it down, otherwise.

Predictably, after Kim leaves with a skip in her step and Leah awkwardly descends the stairs in strappy three-inch heels, her mom cries and insists on taking pictures for the next thirty minutes. Pictures in the yard, pictures by the front door, pictures with Seth. She even calls on the neighbours to spend five minutes taking pictures of all three of them.

By the time they all get into the car, Leah's cheeks are aching from the force of having to smile a hundred times over. Seth's, too, if the way he's working his jaw is anything to go by. He barely smothers a groan when their mom leans around from the driver's seat and shoves the camera in their faces again, but they dutifully spend the next few minutes posing with their heads together before Leah finally puts her foot down (much to Seth's relief) and begs Sue to start driving, or they'll never make it.

"You just look so grown-up, both of you," their mom sniffles from the front. Leah and Seth share an easy eye-roll as they pull on their seatbelts, and they even manage to not squabble like kids the whole way to school as they have done for practically a decade.

Leah can't even argue with her mom; Seth does look grown-up, annoyingly so. He has been wrangled into a shirt and tie, and she recognises the jacket as one of their dad's. It fits him perfectly. That, along with his short hair, sharp features and athletic build, makes Seth look far, far older than his fourteen years. Most days he can easily be mistaken for being the same age she is.

He nudges her across the middle seat. "Are you crying?" he asks, sounding slightly incredulous about it.

"Maybe," she mumbles back. Of course, in the face of everything that she's got to get through today, it's the image of her little brother in their father's suit that manages to start the waterworks. "Who gave you permission to grow up?"

Seth produces a tissue from his pocket and passes it over. "Okay, Mom," he snickers quietly as she begins carefully dabbing at her eyes. Kim will quite possibly murder her if she turns up with her mascara all over her cheeks or even a single hair out of place.

Miraculously she manages to pull herself together as her mom finishes parking, and she makes a quick escape to the school's front office where she has to stand in line with the other seniors to receive her graduation robes and cap — which, much to Alex Dunne's visible irritation (and her satisfaction) comes with a golden-coloured stole that he eyes with blatant envy. And if she clutches it a little tighter against her chest as she passes him, there isn't anyone nearby called Quil or Embry to tease her for it.

Or so she thinks.

Leah meanders back out into the parking lot to wait for Jacob, noting that the crowd has grown considerably: teachers, families, friends and Council members are all arriving and beginning to file into the hall so they can grab the best seats, and she spies her mom and brother in the queue with Quil's mom and his grandpa.

Naturally, he is not far behind.

"Whatcha holding there?"

The scream that tears out of her is more than indecent, especially in public, though the same could be said about the string of curses that tumble out of her mouth as she struggles to regain her balance in the ridiculous heels Kim's put her in. "Quil!"

Warm hands grab her shoulders, steadying her. "I hope you don't talk to your mother like that," he says disapprovingly, though he's laughing, too. "Though I bet Jake would like it."

She spins around, only just managing not to fall — again. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"Easily done." His lips twitch at the corners as they regard each other for the first time, and he says, "Wow, look at you. So . . . fancy. What's the special occasion?"

"Shut up," she mumbles, shoving at his shoulder, and only then does she realise that there's something a little different about him, too. "You dressed up!"

"Nice of you to notice." He straightens to his full height as if to give her a better look at his garish tie, jerking his head back. "We all did."

Sure enough, when she peers around him, she sees Jared, Paul and Sam standing just off to the side, all wearing far more clothes than they usually do on a normal day.

(It's funny — most of the boys have hardly been seen on school property since they dramatically disappeared and flunked out one by one. Not to mention that the pack keep to themselves so often that they're hardly seen about the Rez, either. They appear totally oblivious to the stares coming from all corners of the parking lot. Even Paul, who usually acts up to a crowd, seems to not notice the looks he's receiving.

Fleetingly, Leah wonders how many lies about homeschooling Billy is going to have to tell to explain away their sudden reappearance after months and months of absence — although, considering his influence as Chief is taken so seriously that he thinks he has a say on who valedictorian is going to be, then perhaps the board of governors won't ask too many questions.)

Leah is so overwhelmed by the sight of them there that she's able to forgive Paul for being in shorts — the fact he's wearing shoes is more than she could have asked for. He catches her eye and grins. Beside him, Sam stands with his arms crossed, talking quietly with Jared and looking more nervous than she's ever witnessed. She suspects it's because he thinks she doesn't want him here and she's going to kick him off the school grounds as soon as she notices him.

But she doesn't care. They had promised each other once — before Jacob; before Emily — that they would be there for each other's graduation. She upheld her end of the promise. Now it's his turn to fulfil his, even if it's not quite under the same circumstances they imagined it would be. Even if it's one of the only promises he's been able to keep. Even if he can't look her in the eye.

"Quil . . ."

"I'm sorry about him," he mutters, following her gaze and mistaking the thick emotion in her voice for something else. He steps a little closer, effectively blocking her view, and lowers his tone. "We told him it wouldn't be a good idea, but he insisted."

"No." She doesn't tell him about the promise, though he is sure to find out sooner or later. "It's okay, it's . . . nice."

He recoils. "Who are you, and what have you done with Leah Clearwater?"

She looks up at him and plasters on her best shit-eating grin, though it feels a little wobbly on her face, and she's completely helpless to the fact her eyes are beginning to well up with a fresh set of tears. All in all, she's a complete failure.

"Oh, God, please don't cry," he whines, "I can't stand it."

Wishing she'd kept the tissue from Seth, Leah awkwardly dabs at her eyes with the side of her fingers in case Kim is lurking in the shadows somewhere, ready to bludgeon her. "I'm just proud you managed to get yourself dressed, that's all."

"Ha, ha. I didn't hurt myself, don't worry — just my wallet. Luckily Goodwill had a sale on ties," he quips, as skilled as deflecting any show of emotion than she is. That's why they're such good friends. "Nevermind that Embry pretty much threatened to throw his toys outta the pram if we didn't make an effort for you. I was all for turning up in my birthday suit before this morning — but it's probably for the best, really. I would've only stolen your thunder."

A wet laugh bubbles out of her. "You're such an ass. Where is he?"

The snort he makes sounds somewhat unconcerned. "Idiot was banging on my door at the crack of dawn to make sure I followed the dress code, so he probably went to Jake's to do the same thing. They'll be here any minute, don't worry."

She tries not to. Instead, she holds out her graduation garb and says, "Help me put this shit on then, quick. If I hold onto it any longer, Alex is going to steal it right off me."

They spend the next few minutes hurriedly trying to figure out the robe's fastenings and make her look presentable for her grand entrance, bickering quietly over how exactly she's meant to wear her cap — string left or right? — until Paul loudly complains that everyone is starting to head inside and they're going to miss a chance at getting good seats, so will they hurry up and get their shit together already?

After another minute of Quil telling him to wait, Leah is nearly ready. The cap feels funny on her head, and it probably makes her look as silly as she feels, but she's more grateful for Kim's judgement skills (and that her mom is not around to take any more pictures — yet); Quil confirms that not a single hair of her braid is out of place, and no, she doesn't look sweaty, and—

"For God's sake, woman, stop stalling."

"Do I have lipstick on my teeth?"

As she bears her pearly whites, she thinks that Quil's laugh is caught between frustration and affection. He squeezes his hands into fists and waves them in her face, looking like he wants to strangle her. "No! Honestly, do you want to graduate or not?"

"Not looking like an idiot, I don't!"

"You don't look like an idiot," he insists, taking the golden stole from her and carefully draping it over her shoulders.

"Quil!" Paul hollers from the entrance. "Come on, man!"

"Hold your damn horses!" he yells back, earning a handful of affronted looks from anyone who is still nearby. He ignores them and turns back to her, huffing dramatically, and begins to make a show of adjusting the string on her cap and fluffing her hair out over her shoulders with a critical eye that suggests he actually knows what he's doing.

After long moments of allowing him to fuss over her, she finally asks, "So? How do I look?"

Quil adjusts her stole, his eyes gleaming with a mix of pride and something else as he appraises her. Something which warms her and makes her eyes sting all over again. Something that only Quil can give her in the absence of her father, something that only Quil can understand.

And she knows that he is thinking it, too, that he's doing this on purpose, stretching out every second he can before he has to leave because that's what her dad would have done, too. What both their dads would have done for them.

"It's okay," she says, breaking the moment before they both end up weeping over each other. "You can tell me. I look like an ass."

His smile is gentle. "You look wonderful," he promises, sealing it with a kiss on her cheek. "That Alex kid is going to hate you so much."

Leah grins. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Quil gives her shoulder one final squeeze before he turns, darting towards the overflowing auditorium.

(Paul's long since given up waiting at the entrance. Quil may as well embrace the nosebleed section.)