Nessie is far from understanding. She walks downstairs with a nasty switch of her hips, leans again the counter, and enquires coolly, "So did the bitch get the message?"

"Well," Jacob snaps, his eyes narrowing at his imprint, "I don't know. She's leaning against the counter talking to me, so I guess not."

Nessie's cheeks flare with spots of color, and instead of getting violent, her mouth drops into a little 'O' of confusion and hurt. "But Jake…" she whispers, and then changes gears with violent speed. Before he can blink she's crushing herself up against him, rubbing and whispering and smelling so, so want-able. "I love it when you talk dirty to me," she whispers throatily. Gulp.

"I wasn't talking dirty," he starts, and then she accidently brushes against a still rather sensitive spot. "OW!" Without thinking, he flings her backwards, and she smashes theatrically against the opposing counter. The force bends her backwards almost flat against the granite surface before she springs forward again. Suddenly her hair isn't quite a smooth and shiny, and her eyes definitely aren't big and romantic. Jacob feels a growing twinge of hate – how DARE she try to seduce him! For the first time, Jacob doesn't squash the hate. He doesn't tell himself, That's wrong to feel hate towards her, Jake. She's your soul mate. He stands very still and sees through her mask, into the rotting brat that lies inside, and lets his loathing grow and grow.

And then it starts hurting again. It starts as a vague tingle that rapidly dissolves into an ache that just as quickly gives way to a smashing blow to his chest. Once more, he doubles over. Suddenly something urges him, instinctively, to turn back. He's making a bad mistake. Turn back from what? Leah? Nessie? His yet-unborn child? Nessie makes no move to approach him; she looks confused, lost, almost like she's in pain herself. "Augh," he grunts, holding his chest and wheezing. Nessie is backing away, yelling for Edward. Thousands of things are spinning through his mind; a bridge collapsing, a tower falling, a window pane cracking. They all have a common theme of destruction.

Edward comes running in and looks merely confused and a little frightened. Bella is right on his heels, looking useless like always. "Jacob?" Edward demands. Jacob gargles because he's lost in images of Nessie and Leah. In his mind, they become one, merging into the most beautiful thing Jacob's ever seen. Leah's hair and eyes and facenoselipsbodyscent on Nessie's imprint. Leah's harsh, abrasive confused hatred stamped across her face flashes behind his mind's eye. It occurs to him that Nessie looked similar, just a few minutes ago, when he first confronted her. He realizes it's because she's trying to cover hurt. What interior motive would she have to cover her hurt? Nessie feeling hurt will only bring Jacob running to her faster.

He's lost it and is spinning into an abyss. It hurts like nothing else. Everything feels smashed and lonely. He sees a figure to his left – LEAH! – but she's retreating. He reaches for her, but falls deeper. When he looks up, he knows Nessie is just out of his reach.

He can't reach her, and that hurts him worse than anything else. Pain and pain and painpainpainpain…

****

She's tired. "Push, Leah!" somebody yells above her. "Push!"

Leah strains, but the baby isn't appearing, and it hurts so badly. She clings to Jacob's hand and sobs her exhaustion and fear. She needs him here. She'd rather sandpaper her eyeballs than admit it, but she needs him here. So big and comforting. So Jacoblack, so alpha-y. She knows Sam and Emily wanted to witness this, or at least Emily did. Leah refused.

Finally, the baby starts coming. She starts to strangle Jake's hand again, but he suddenly withdraws it and looks alertly outside the window. Leah knows that look.

"I have to go. Nessie's in trouble." Jacob snaps his hand away from Leah and bursts out the window.

Leah doesn't even have time to cough up a cry of desperation from her throat before he's gone.

"Push," says a suddenly horribly familier voice, and Leah realizes it's Nessie, grinning evilly from behind her mask. And Leah's child magically appears in her hands (this dream is so fucked up!) and Nessie cuddles her baby—LEAHS BABY -- close.

Leah flails madly in her bedsheets, and then suddenly jerks out of their confines and jolts across the room, eyeing them nervously. The hairs on the back of her neck are all standing up and sweat glitters on her arms in the moonlight.

She also realizes she's crying. Her pillow looks drenched and tears are sliding down her face at an alarming rate. "Damn, baby," she mutters, speaking to her stomach, "You're already messing me up." Wiping at her eyes the back of her wrist, Leah shakes her head and knows she'll never be able to sleep. Nessie's face in her dream is burned into her brain as she hugs Leah's child to her – a look of almost desperation, mixed with defiance and want. Leah heads down the stairs and into a darkened kitchen, pondering this. The orange juice is in her hand when she whispers, "Holy shit…" Putting the orange juice back, Leah closes the freezer and slides down the cool surface, slowly beginning to put things in order. Her subconscious knows it, it's absorbed it through common sense and Jacob.

Nessie is infertile. Leah remembers a day Jacob phased in hysterics, (something about Nessie and babies, she'd thought at the time) and she actually had to be nice to calm him down. She remembers because it was the day that she was too nice. She remembers because she told him to come get some ice cream at their house where they could talk. She remembers he couldn't talk, but he ate the ice cream and looked tragic.

She also remembers because it's the day they conceived the child in her stomach. They pressed right up against that counter, and…

Leah sinks down till she's sitting. It's why Nessie, who kind of idolized her before, suddenly turned into a super-bitch. Because Leah got dealt another shitty hand in the game of life. Only this time, it was the card Nessie desperately wanted. And the only card in the entire world she couldn't have.

Leah is still sitting there when her mother slips in to the kitchen. "Leah, sweetie?"

Leah's stomach lurches, and not from baby, but from nerves. "Sue?" the response is automatic, but her mother's eyes soften with sadness.

"You used to call me mom." Her voice sounds bruised.

And Leah feels a strange desire to cling to her and cry. Call her mommy and wrap her arms around her neck. Instead, she whispers it into her lap, because it's the only thing she can say to fix anything while simultaneously destroying it. "Mommy, I'm pregnant."

Sue's hands snap up to her mouth. "Wha…oh, Leah. It's Jacobs'." That's the thing Leah loves about her mother; she's intuitive and she doesn't need the whole story.

"Well," Leah says, struggling to put humor into her voice, "It's also mine. But yes, he gets half the credit."

It's a useless attempt to put on her game face for her mother. Sue sits down next to her and pulls Leah into her lap. "Okay." Her voice is softly brisk. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

"You aren't aborting it. This baby didn't do anything wrong. And it's already part of our family."

"I know!" Leah is sickened by the thought. "Plus, it…it ties…" She can't make herself finish the needy sentence.

"It ties Jacob to you. It's something better than the imprint Nessie has." Her mother's smile is sympathetic. "That's what Katrina Call's reason was, too. I will never truly forgive her for that."

"Huh?" Leah fails to see the relevance, and it isn't just because the kitchen is dark.

"Leah, long ago, when you were just a baby, Harry and I got in a fight. It was silly. It was about his fishing, and how he seemed to love fish more than me and you. I can remember it perfectly. I started throwing vases at him and he hit me. We were both completely out of control. In the end, I evicted him, got completely drunk, and cried with you in my lap the whole night. Harry went to a bar." Here Sue hesitates. "Where he also got completely smashed. Katrina, also drunk, was there. She told him she could help him. They got in bed together. The next day, Harry and I apologized and…erm…we brought Seth about, if you get my meaning."

Leah cringes. "Oh. Ew."

"But Katrina Call was pregnant. And she kept calling Harry, telling him, grinding it into my face. She told him to leave me." Sue shook her head. "He refused, but when Embry was born, he started to send her money every month anyway."

Leah has been sucker-punched. "Wha…WHAT? Daddy…Dad is Embry's…"

Sue's voice shakes. "I didn't want to tell you. But I suppose you deserve to know. He left Katrina quite a sum of money when he died, actually. Less than he left us, but enough to get her through. And it explains Embry's shift. Katrina has no wolf at all, Harry was full wolf – it all works out." Sue's smile is thin. "If enough vampires move in, do you know, I would actually probably also turn into a shapeshifter? I've got the bloodlines. It's a fate I would never wish on any female though. Especially not my own daughter."

Leah feels confusion, fury, and stares at her mother. "Seth and I are Embry's half-siblings?"

Sue nods.

Leah realizes something she hadn't before; this pregnancy is going to be bringing thousands of ugly secrets into the light, things that otherwise would stay buried.

At least her mother handled it well. "When are you going to tell Sam?" Sue asks gently.

Leah's breathing hiccups. "Never, hopefully." She pauses, looks rueful, and groans. "Probably tomorrow, if Jake gets his way." Her mother smiles, kisses her forehead, and steals the orange juice to drink straight from the bottle. Leah squeals in fake anger, and they wind up playing keep away from each other for several minutes before heading back to bed, where Leah's dreams all involve Embry imprinting on her, except he's her half-BROTHER. Sick.