Great response last chapter! I'm glad you guys enjoyed the little Red Riding Hood portion of it; I didn't realize it would get so many comments when I was writing it. Thanks to J'sClearwater for her review serving as the inspiration as to why Vinnie didn't talk to Leah that night. Little warning: some harsh language towards the end. Nothing to major, just… well, you'll see for yourselves. Enjoy!

Vinnie's POV

Chapter 15

It was her.

It was my Leah.

To think that the wolf that I had spent every waking hour thinking about was in reality the girl I was in love with could not have been a more perfect situation. I was filled initially with guilt when I had began running that first day of the silver wolf and me together over and over again. Now, knowing that the undeniable connection I felt towards the wolf was actually her changed everything.

I needed the wolf because I needed Leah. It made sense now.

I had so badly wanted to change back into a human when I was with her. But at that moment in the woods, I knew that she didn't really want to talk with a human. She just wanted someone –or rather, something –to talk to that, in her words "wouldn't judge her". I wasn't going to ruin the moment of having her closer to me than I had in over a week. And when she just completely broke down and cried, there was nothing I could do but let her hold onto me. It hurt beyond what I could understand when I felt her hot tears trail through my coat and onto my skin. I was not going to interrupt her moment by moving away from her and phasing.

Plus, it didn't help that I once again forgot my clothes back at Sam's. That pretty much solidified the fact that last night, I was not going to reveal who I was.

When I left beck to see Sam, he was less than pleased in his human form. Phasing back, I changed into the clothes he threw at me.

"I'm not your nanny," he complained. "Keep track of your stuff."

"Sorry." I was too ecstatic to care that he was saying. What she had said had not gone unnoticed by me. She had a "perfect" boyfriend. And she was in love. Leah could very possibly be in love with me. That was mind blowing enough as it was.

He must have noticed my demanor, though, since he looked at me with a weird expression and said, "What are you so happy about?"

"Nothing," I said maybe a little too quickly. "Just everyday happy. Happy to be alive, happy to be a wolf. Just happy."

"What the hell are you hiding, Call?"

"None of your damn business, Uley." I walked past him and out of the woods.

He followed behind me, not letting the subject go. "I'm your alpha. I have the right-"

"Oh, calm down." He was ticking me off, acting like some child who couldn't get his way. "I'm just happy that I get out of imprisonment tomorrow, I guess."

That wasn't a lie. I could see Leah face-to-face for the first time in over a week tomorrow. I had been waiting so long for tomorrow to come that I wasn't really sure what to do. I had been planning an extravagant and nearly over the top romantic dinner in Port Angeles, and then planned on telling her I was a wolf while we walked the pier that was in the area. But now that my secret was more like our secret, something else needed to be planned. I had a few ideas up my sleeve, and I was determined that no matter what, twenty four hours from now, we wouldn't have some stupid secret getting in the way of us. Since she was a wolf, it wouldn't be so surprising to tell her I was one, too. Well, besides that initial shock that everyone around here seems to have when they found out about me: The fact that I'm not Quileute, and yet, can still phase.

"Well, don't get too excited," he muttered under his breath.

My face went pale. "Why not?" Now, I sounded like the child who didn't get his way. But it was justified. Nothing was going to ruin tomorrow if I had any say in it.

"We found some stuff on your dad finally. I think it best to pursue it."

To be honest, I could not care less where that man was. I guess it would be nice to figure out where I came from and my past, but besides that, I did not see the point in him raining on my parade.

The elders –mostly Sue Clearwater –found out somehow from UCLA that my father's name was possibly John Stateman, a guy who's name had come up in conversations that Sue had when she contacted some of my mom's family on the Makah reservation. It's only possibly him, because Sue swears that Alyssa used to brag about how she got herself a "full blooded Latino" for a boyfriend.

John Statemen was a pretty non Latino name.

So now, Sam was determined that him, Embry, and I do some work figuring out who this guy was and what he had to do with my mom. I, however, felt like that task could go on the back burner.

"C'mon, Sam," I complained and borderline whined. "I've been in practically solitary confinement for over a week. I want to get out of here."

"It's not as if you actually have learned anything in this past week. You don't do a thing I say."

Because I don't feel the need to, was what I wanted to say, but instead, I said, "I've done a lot. I learned about vampires-"

"Leeches," he corrected, almost as if it was a reflex.

I rolled my eyes. Leeches, bloodsuckers, vampires: was there any real difference? "Yeah, sure. I learned how to protect the rez from them. I've learned how to better control my anger so that I don't phase all the time. I've learned how to try and protect myself from a bite. I even learned how to track them. That's something, isn't it?"

"The tracking comes by instinct, so it doesn't count."

"Sam, you have got to let me go."

He narrowed his eyes. I guess that ticked him off. "I don't 'got to' do anything."

"But I've made plans already for tomorrow."

"Like what?"

Surprising the love of my life/ your ex girlfriend, of course. "Dinner and stuff."

"With who?"

"God, who do you think, Sam? I feel like I can't say her name in front of you because you might blow a casket or something."

"No, no. Go ahead," He insisted. "You have my permission."

"Thanks, but I didn't need it in the first place."

"I hate to burst your arrogant bubble, but you need my permission for everything."

I actually laughed at the statement. But instead of going back at him, I just looked up at him. He looked stunned. I didn't understand his appearance at first.

"Oh," I said when I finally had the realization. I guess no one had really laughed at him before, much less someone who was supposed to be a follower.

I sighed. "Look, Sam, how about we go look up this stuff tomorrow for, I don't know, and hour. Then I'll go do what I want. Will that please you, oh mighty alpha?" Yeah, I was being a kiss ass, but I didn't care. I needed to see Leah tomorrow, and I would reduce myself to enduring saying that awful "A" word a few times if it meant I'd be able to see her.

He let a smile crack through his serious façade. "God, Call, I really can't stand you."

I took that as a "yes". "Believe me, Sam dear, the feeling is completely mutual."

The next day I woke up nice and early –well, twelve noon; I had ended up getting patrol last night with Colin and Jared, which I didn't mind so much; somehow, Jared and I managed to make it so Colin ended up working by himself, and Jared changed so that we could talk with each other.

"So, how's Kim?" I asked him. Whenever I had seen him outside of all this wolf stuff, he was mostly always with his girlfriend. The two of them seemed so in love that it sort freaked me out. Same went for Sam and Emily, who I tried very much to dislike because of what happened with Leah, but found it very hard to when she was the one who had been cooking a majority of my meals lately.

An instant, cheesy grin went on his face the moment I said her name. "She's great. We're great. She's going to move in with me soon."

"Really?" For some reason, I had assumed that they already did live together, the way they were always with each other.

"Yep. Can't wait. How are you and Leah?"

I looked at him. I didn't remember telling him I was with her. "How did you-"

"I can just tell, I guess. Besides, that's obviously part of the reason why Sam seems to dislike you so much. My advice: just try and butter him up. He's very corruptible," he laughed. "I've gotten out of many nights of patrol just because I didn't get an attitude with him. He's actually a good friend once you get pass the fact that he's pretty the equivalent of your boss at work."

Yeah, I didn't really take to that advice.

I rose out of my bed and took a quick shower, heading out for the door when I was stopped by my mother.

"Where are you going, sweetie?" She said sweetly. "I made you lunch."

Ah, I hated when she did this; acted like that generic mom you see on TV who makes cookies for her full grown son. I wasn't one to refuse, but I really needed to leave and meet up with Sam at the small library in the rez; we needed a computer, and my laptop was broken while his modem wasn't fast enough for my patience to endure.

"I gotta go… job hunting, Mom. I'll be back later, okay?"

"Alright. You be safe, Vincent."

Just as I was about to walk out the door, Embry came running down the stairs. "Hold up. I'm coming with you. Later, Mom." He shut the front door behind us.

"Em, you really don't have to come with me." I unlocked the doors to my truck and started it up as he climbed in.

"I'm your brother, Vince. Of course I'm gonna help you find your dad. Not like I have any idea who mine is. Plus, there's no way in hell I wanna leave you and Sam alone in the same room together. Who knows what those poor books will have to endure if either one of you ticks the other off."

When we finally arrived at the library, I immediately headed for a computer. Putting his name into Google did not come up with anything, and neither did trying to search it against anything having to do with Mexico. But as I browsed an alumni MySpace for UCLA, I got a picture of a guy with the name John Stateman under the caption.

It was weird. I did not have to read the name to know the guy was related to me in someway or another, let alone possibly my father.

He looked like me, how I looked now. Not exactly the same; I had many features, like my nose and hair, from my mother. But everything else could be explained by this guy's looks. He was like the missing link. You could even tell in the black and white picture from the eighty's that his eyes were light.

Maybe even green.

"So, that's him?" Embry asked, looking over my shoulder and unto my computer.

"Yeah," I said, "that's my dad."

"So, this is really it, right?" I asked Sam as I began to leave his house. "No take backs. I can go now?"

"He rolled his eyes. "Yes Vince, get your ass out my house. Sooner rather than later."

"I hope to see you soon, Vincent," I heard Emily call out from the kitchen. See? It was stuff like that that made it really hard to hate her, though I kept it more on an internal level rather than her noticing. The last thing I needed was for Sam to think that I hated his fiancée. Which I did. But it wasn't really personal, in my eyes. More like an automatic reflex thing: she hurt Leah. Of course I wasn't going to like her a lot.

I just really liked her cooking. Not as good as Leah's, but it was pretty good.

"Yeah, I'll see you later, Emily," I said.

Right after that, he slammed the door on me.

I was finally free from him, and immediately following this realization, I dialed numbers that seemed automatic on my fingertips.

"Today's the day," I heard her voice answer in a relieved tone.

"You think I haven't been counting down the hours, Leah? Because I can assure you that I have."

I heard her chuckle. "You're so corny sometimes, Vinnie."

I laughed. She had no idea how bad I had it for her. "So, I was thinking that instead of picking you up like I planned, we could maybe meet somewhere."

"Oh, this sounds exciting," she laughed.

"It will be, don't worry. You're going to love it."

"Alright. Where should we meet up?"

I gave her directions to get to the woods around our spot. Not our spot at the cove, but in the woods where I became so attached to not only the grey wolf, but where this strange connection started with her.

"Are you sure you wanna head out there?" she asked me. "I heard sometimes there's big animals out there."

I tried my best not to laugh. "I'm sure. It's another place I wanna show you."

"I've been around there before, actually."

"When?" Maybe she'd admit to it before I even asked her, though I highly doubted it.

"Um, nothing important. Just wandering around."

I guess I would have to dig it out of her.

"I'll see you in a few," she told me.

"See you soon, Leah."

"Bye." She hung up the phone.

Now, it was time to see her. And tell her the truth.

I drove to the spot I had asked her to park her car, though I didn't see any method of transportation she had left. I grinned to myself. Maybe she ran here, like I was tempted to do.

The first detection I had of her when I came out of the car was her scent, the cinnamon and wild flowers that were so true to who she was. I saw the back of her, leaning against a tree with her iPod in her ears. She was wearing a light green dress that seemed appropriate now that the temperature was more like spring. It nearly came to her knees, elongating her already long legs.

Since she had the earphones in –and listening to whatever rock song was on at a pretty loud volume –she didn't hear me sneak behind her. My arms slowly made their was around her waist, her intake of breath coming in harshly as I pressed her back to my chest. To have her in my arms again was by far the best feeling I've had in awhile. Now that I was finally with her again, I wasn't really sure how I was able to go so long without her with me.

After a second when she completely relaxed into me, I gently pulled out one of her earbuds. "I missed you, Leah," was the first hing I said in her ear.

"I missed you, too," she said quietly. Then she turned around in my arms and looked up at me.

The sensation her eyes gave me nearly knocked me off my feet. I thought seeing her when I was a wolf just the day before was a pretty powerful experience, but it paled in comparison to that moment I saw her eye to eye. It was weird how so suddenly, the world just completely disappeared. We could have been in the woods like we were, or in a crowded mall, or at her house, but it would not have made a difference. Nothing was really there except her. Nothing else mattered except her.

She was everything to me.

She smiled up at me and wrapped her arms around my neck, nuzzling a spot where my neck met my shoulder and kissed it softly. "Oh, God, Vinnie. I know I just said it, but I seriously missed you. I think I was kind of pissing Seth off because I was so miserable. You're feeling better, right?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm feeling better. A lot better." A lot more complete, too.

"Good." She leaned off me a little so that she could look up at me. "So, are we going on this hiking trip or what?"

It was a challenge trying to think of words while I was looking down at her beautiful liquid brown eyes. I had to literally look away from them to actually get my words together. "Yeah, I'll lead the way." Looking away from her had helped me with the words, but not so much with everything else.

For example, the moment her hand wrapped around mine as I started walking nearly had me stop breathing. I wasn't sure if it was this "Leah's all of a sudden my gravity to this earth" thing going on, or more akin to simply "Leah's touching me" sensation that I still haven't gotten used to since I came back to La Push.

"So, what have you been up to anything lately?" she asked me. "I know that we talk on the phone everyday, but it just feels different when I ask you in person."

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

"How's Embry? I haven't seen him in forever. Well, actually, the last time I saw you was around the same time I saw him."

"He's been tending to my every need. It's pretty great." I hated lying to her, but I was rewarded with a laugh from her. "What about you, Leah?"

"Hmm… Wallowing around, eating, complaining to Seth and Jake, eating, sleeping, wake up and do it all over again."

"That sounds miserable." Now, I was feeling guilty I had waited to see her again. I should have made Sam just let me leave, no matter what the consequences. What was he going to do, kick me off the rez?

Well, I guess that wasn't that farfetched.

"It's no big deal. I'm better now. Jake talked some sense into me a few times, and so did my mom and Quil."

"What did Quil say?"

"Um, nothing really."

"What about your mom?"

"Just, you know, 'Get it together, Leah'. Stuff like that." She was definitely hiding something.

"You know, you can tell me, right?"

She nodded her head. " I know. I... Hey, are we going the right way?"

I looked around. We were finally at the spot next to the little creek. "Yeah, this is it actually."

"When have you been here?" she said hesitantly.

"A few days ago."

"When?" she asked.

I finally looked back down at her, and she looked a little worried.

"What's the matter?" she asked before I could.

I tried to put my words together, but it seemed impossible.

"Vinnie, what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?" she nervously laughed.

God, I might as well just come out and say it. "Leah, I have something to tell you."

She looked at me confused, her eyes squinting a little in the corners. "Go ahead. Nothing's stopping you."

I took her other hand in mine and held them gently in mine.

Where to start, where to start…

"So, I kind of have been lying to you."

Why the hell did I just say that?

She looked as if I had struck her. "Oh," she said quietly. "When? About what?"

"Pretty much everything this past week."

Wow, this word vomit is great.

"Could you get a little more specific, Vinnie? You're kind of scaring me."

"I'm so sorry. This is coming out all wrong. Um…"

"Well, how about you just start with the last lie you told me. When was that?"

"About a minute ago."

She looked stunned.

"Embry hasn't really been tending to my every need. I haven't even been sick. Well, not with anything I told you."

Her grip on my hands loosened, and she looked a little angry. "Why would you lie to me about that? I've been worrying about you like crazy thinking you could die or something, and then you wouldn't even let me see you. Are you trying to get rid of me or-"

Great, she thought I was breaking up with her.

"No!" I squeezed her hands, making up for her lack of grip. "No, I'm not trying to get rid of you. I would never do that, Leah."

"Can you just tell me, Vinnie?"

"I…" Why did I think this was going to be easy?

"Vinnie!" she cried.

"Ok. So, I saw you yesterday."

She looked confused. "What? No you didn't. I wasn't even home most the day. I was-"

"Here. You were right here, Leah. In your pretty red dress."

She looked like I had knocked the wind out of her. "What?" she said quietly.

"And the day before that. I saw you here, right here." I looked in the direction of the creek. "You pushed me into the creek after you attacked me."

She didn't say anything.

"And yesterday, you held onto me so tight. And you cried as you laid your head on my muzzle. And you called me Goldie Locks. And-"

She threw her hands out of mine and stepped away from me, looking more afraid than I had ever seen her before. "Have you been following me, or something?"

I shook my head. "Leah, I'm that wolf. I'm a werewolf. Just like you."

She looked down at the ground as her breathing became more and more shallow.

"You said that you wanted to meet me outside of my fur." I shrugged and smiled. "Here I am. It's me, that stupid wolf who went on your property."

"But… you're not even-"

"Quileute? Yeah, I know. I get that a lot. But Sam, Embry and I are trying to figure everything out."

"Sam and Embry know." It was more of a quiet statement rather than a question.

"Yeah. And your mom has been helping me figure out who my dad is. Leah, what's wrong? Isn't this good? There's no secrets now."

I reached out for her hand, but she flinched away from me.

"Leah, what's the matter?"

"All this time, and you… You're a wolf."

"Well, yeah. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. Sam made me not say anything. Believe me, I would have told you sooner if I could, but I couldn't. I was planning on telling you everything tonight, but then I saw you two days ago. You make a pretty hot wolf, Leah," I chuckled more to myself.

"You're a wolf."

"Yes."

She covered her mouth as I came up to her, pulling her face up by her chin.

Tears were running all down her cheeks.

I was in horror. "Leah, what-"

She pushed me away with both of her hands. "Don't touch me."

Now, she was the one scaring me. "Leah, I know I lied. I really am sorry."

I heard soft sobs escape her body and I had the automatic reflex to embrace her.

"Get the hell away from me!" she screamed.

"Leah-"

"Just… go away." She started to walk away.

"But-"

"I swear, if you follow me, I will beat the shit out of you. I am not even joking. Just leave me the fuck alone." And with that, she turned and walked off into the forest, back onto her land.

And I stood there, not sure what to do.

What do you do when your whole world has left?

~need (verb): to have a requirement, necessary duty, or obligation.

He needs to figure her out. She needs him not to.~

And thus ends the second portion of this tale. You can see why I kind of put that little warning before the start of the chapter. Nothing terribly serious, but whatever.

So, can anyone tell me why Leah completely lost it? I mean, I know, but I want to see if any one else can seem to know. It's more obvious than you would think.

Cocoa