Chapter 19 verity and balderdash*

*it means truth and silliness

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer- this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute which, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe for betaing.

Leah woke up, got dressed in one of her functional sundresses and ate breakfast.

She popped into her house to see Seth. Her mother was out, staying at Charlie's again Seth informed her.

"Those two are getting pretty serious," Seth commented. "I swear I was nearly blinded the other night when I came home and they were making out on the couch. I mean it's just wrong… on so many levels… wrong," he muttered.

"If he makes an honest woman of her, then Bella will be our stepsister," suggested Leah.

"Yeah, that would be really cool!" Seth sounded ecstatic at the idea. "And your new boss would be your stepdad," chortled Seth. "I don't know if they will actually get married. I mean where would they live? Hey, I should ask right? I'm the man of the house." Seth puffed up his chest and tried to look manly.

"Seriously? You are going to ask Charlie Swan what his 'intentions' are towards our mother?" Leah looked incredulous.

"Why not?" Seth had his usual eager puppy look. "It would be damn funny anyway, just to ask. Can you imagine Charlie's face? I bet he blushes just like Bella does on the embarrassing stuff." He put on a serious face and folded his arms. "Should I ask if you two are being safe? There are a lot of sexually transmitted diseases around these days…"

They both shuddered at the thought.

"I am going to check on Jake, I'll see you later," she hugged him and headed off to the Black house.

Jake wasn't in the house, he must be in the garage.

She called out as she approached even though she knew he could tell it was her.

"Hey Leah," he said as she came into the garage. She threw herself onto an old bench seat that was up against the wall. She watched him work on a car. He was having trouble getting around properly with the leg still bandaged.

"How were the x-rays?" she asked; small talk was safe.

"Good." He looked at her and wiped his hands on a rag. "Charles said to leave it bound another twelve hours and that was up a while ago, but I reckon it can probably come off soon. I feel fine and it is seriously pissing me off to deal with the brace."

He was watching her again. It made her feel nervous.

"Why don't you come inside and have a sandwich and a cool drink? It's all I can offer right now." It wasn't really lunch time, but they were always hungry.

She smiled at him. "Okay."

They moved to the kitchen and Jake made sandwiches while she made a jug of iced tea. They sat at the battered old kitchen table.

"So how was your day, Cupcake?" Jake asked with a smirk.

"Fine, Petal," she answered. "I have the day off today which is cool, but yesterday I had to beat up a bully, but it worked. It's all better now."

Jake frowned. "What did you do?"

"It was the usual boy thing; you are just a girl, you can't do a man's job. You know the stuff, just like the pack does. So I challenged him to a fight." She grinned at him mischievously. "Laid him out cold on the mats. Once I had proved myself, they have all accepted me now as one of the boys. They can stop worrying about me not having their back, you know." She ate her sandwich. She collected his plate and washed up the few items in the sink.

"Do you think it will be okay to unbind this leg? I am so sick of it."

"Sure, it should be fine, it's been days now and if the X-ray was good…"

He unwrapped it and flexed it a bit. "It feels all right. It feels so much better with that brace off anyway." He wriggled his toes and bent his leg up and down.

They sat there and she fiddled with the corner of the tea towel.

He gave her a penetrating look. "Is there something you wanted to say, Leah?"

She inhaled and let out a gush of air. "I thought I ought to talk to you about my dream vision spirit quest… thing. Whatever you call it." She was suddenly nervous. She was babbling. The poor tea towel was getting a work out in her hands.

"Aah… okay… if you want." He was rolling the bandage up neatly; probably just as nervous as she was and needed to do something with his hands.

"It took me a while to get into it… I was lost for a while in the same endless patch of forest… until I stopped trying to find the way out… and then I sat down and tried to think about why I was doing it … what I wanted from it… I thought of a few things I wanted answers to…or at least problems I had …that I wanted a solution to. First was the job and admitting my guilt about my father's death. And I have done both of those, so that is two down."

She thought she should hang the tea towel up before she tore it in half.

She wrung her hands together nervously. "I still don't know what to do about going home; I mean I have to do it eventually. I can't live with Paul and Bella forever."

"Whenever you are ready," he stated.

"But, how will I know when that is?" She looked at him. "I'm a mess, Jacob."

"No, you're not. You are getting there. We have all been through a lot in the last few years, Leah. Everyone deals with things in different ways and at a different pace. You are doing the best that you can."

"Yeah… maybe." She rubbed at her arms, she was still nervous. She blew out a breath. "So I met my spirit guide or whatever he was; my dad, and he gave me water and we talked. I suppose we forgave each other. He said he didn't want me to carry the guilt of thinking I killed him, because then he would blame himself and it was too much for him to bear."

"You're lucky." Jake looked serious. "Sometimes I wish I could see my mother. Talk to her like you did. You are so lucky that it happened like that."

She hadn't thought about that. She couldn't help herself; she reached for his hand and squeezed it sympathetically. He gave her a small smile.

"I spent a hell of a lot of time wandering around lost. I thought it was ridiculous and I was stuck and I couldn't get out of the stupid vision quest. It didn't really start to give me any answers until I stopped being so shitty with the whole process." Now she had started to talk about it, she felt like explaining more of it to him.

"I kind of worked out to follow my instincts. Keep away from places that didn't feel right and stay near places that felt good or felt right, I suppose."

She looked up to see if he was still listening, and he was staring at her again. She lowered her head and kept talking.

"I ended up on James Island; Akalat. You know, where the chiefs are buried."

Jake nodded.

"I thought of you then," she admitted. "It occurred to me that I thought I had no destiny and you thought you had too much." She risked another glance at him. He was looking interested and intrigued now.

He just waited for her to continue speaking. Damn him; he must have learnt that from his dad.

She blustered on; she felt that she had to get this all out. "I thought of you and I thought that maybe I was supposed to help you somehow."

He raised an eyebrow. "How?" he asked.

She was too nervous now; she got to her feet and started to pace back and forth in the tiny kitchen. "Well, I don't know. But the reason I thought of you was because I heard your voice."

"My voice?" he queried.

"I couldn't tell what you were saying but I could hear you."

Jake looked surprised.

There was a silence while they both processed what she had been saying.

"Praying," he breathed.

"Pardon?"

"I was praying to the Gods," he admitted. He looked a little embarrassed. "I was so worried about you and we didn't know what was wrong and I didn't know what else to do."

"Oh," she said. He had prayed for her; it touched her in a way she hadn't anticipated.

He was watching her again. "Anything else?" he asked.

"Yeah… I had a kind of a vision."

The eyebrow again.

She sighed. "I saw a female wolf and her cubs. It was a pack with a few older animals too, and then I saw her male come with food for them all. One of the older cubs was just like Quil."

"Quil?"

She blushed. "The two leaders were really affectionate with each other. It was kind of cute."

"Cute?"

"Will you stop repeating everything I say!" she frowned at him. "And then they stopped and they both stared at me like they knew I was there the whole time. Like the whole thing was a show, they had put on for my benefit."

"Okay David Attenborough; what does it mean?"

"I don't know."

He got to his feet. He moved pretty well now with the brace off.

"Okay… what do you think it means?" he asked her in a deep, low voice.

She was having serious second thoughts. This was a very bad idea. She was going to die of embarrassment. She was sure she was going to die of embarrassment. This wasn't like her. She was Leah fucking Clearwater. Lately, he constantly made her all upset and on edge. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could deal with him. She stood with her back against the sink. She could still feel him, and she could scent him. She knew that he had moved closer to her. He was standing right in front of her now.

"I thought that it might be telling me… that I should be the alpha female." There was a silence. "That I should be your alpha female," she finished in a rush. She was so mortified that she had actually said that out loud, that she tried to run away a little, before he boxed her in. She moved to the other side of the table and he watched her go; his eyes half closed and predatory. As long as she was away from him. At least until she sorted out what she was trying to say; and what it was supposed to mean.

And how he was going to react to it.

FF_2154210_ - 2/12/2010 08:05:00 PM