As always, I would like to thank the loyal readers and reviewers who consistently offer their opinions and support--in particular naruhina, sunglasses, biteorimprint, augustblack, snowfire, harleygreen, crazilyaddicted...I'm sure I'm forgetting many, and then again there are lots of folks who read regularly and review when they can, offering more passive support. So many of you guys are amazing writers, also. In addition a quick note to folks who pm me (writersblck?), make sure you have your ability to receive messages engaged or I can't reply (in short, though: I am honored you care enough to offer a direction, but my response is for you to write it! I would love to see your idea in your own words. This story has a shape of its own, but all of us could always use new interpretations of the original work).
*****
"Perhaps I can stay on the porch," he said, and he was gone before I'd turned back to Leah.
"I'm fine," she barked, and abruptly sat down with her back against the wall. Sure you are, I thought, and turned towards the same chest of drawers that had held the ragged shirt I currently wore. Her eyes closed as I approached her, and although she was still shaking her breath came more regularly. Even with the blood loss, she was better than when she'd arrived. "I wondered, when I saw you, why you didn't stink," she muttered, and peeled one eye open to look at me as I carefully wound the sheet around her leg, hoping the make-shift tourniquet would stem the flow. "And then I thought, it has to be buried under all that Jake hanging off of you." Her mouth twitched. I figured it was as close to a smile as I was going to get, and I couldn't tell if she was genuinely commiserating with me or just enjoying torturing Edward with her thoughts. Probably both.
"I'll make a deal with you," I said, and looked at her evenly. I could tell the exact spot on my head where she'd hit me; the swelling was spiraling pain across my scalp like the eye of a hurricane. She looked at me soberly. "I don't need an apology—god forbid a thank you--if you stop torturing Emily." Her eye roll began on the word torture and was still going strong after I was done.
"No deal," she said, and closed her eyes again. I nudged her with my outstretched hand and she opened them once more to eye the clothes I held. I nudged her harder, and she began to sit up. In spite of her grunted protests, I helped her pull them on and brought her the colander I'd filled with water for Jake the night before. She hungrily gulped it down.
"Why not?" I knew she'd know what I meant, even though minutes had passed in between. I stood up and walked back to the sink for a refill while she gasped and wiped her face with the hem of her shirt.
"Principle of the thing," she griped, and I turned to look at her with one eyebrow cocked. She shrugged at me from the floor; once again, she looked like a beautiful rag doll, emphasis now on the rags, as the clothes we'd found were musty and moth-eaten. "I can't forgive her. She's my cousin! She stole my boyfriend, it's the principle of the thing."
"She didn't steal him," I spoke sharply, the water sloshing over at her as I handed her the newly filled container. "And we're talking about something that happened a hundred years ago."
Leah barked her hard laugh. "Maybe time feels that way to you, vampy. But I don't age." She stared at me. I knew that if I hadn't been close to Jake before, Leah might be intimidating, but as things stood I just stared right back at her and got comfortable on the piled blankets and pillows surrounding us. She noticed and her look softened a little. "I can't forget it," she said, and her eyes wandered around the room before coming back to my face. "We don't forget things. We don't move on. The whole point of being a protector, the whole not aging thing, all of that, is to stay static." She shook her head. "I'm stuck being a dumped seventeen year old girl forever."
"You don't look seventeen. You don't sound seventeen."
"Swell then. I sound forty and look twenty—it doesn't matter. The point is that I'll never get enough space from them to move on. I'll always be stuck with an alpha that dumped me, and I'm the still the only girl around the bunch of them." She traded anger for sadness, and I found her pain much more difficult to dismiss. I got up to find a brush for her hair, tangled and wild across her body.
"You're not the only girl, Leah, that's what I'm trying to say—"
"What? You think you and Emily have something in common with me, because you're—you're, whatever the hell you're doing with Jake?" Fury shook her voice. I didn't turn around to look at her until I found the brush, and when I walked back across to her she had finished shaking.
"We're all female," I said as I sat down and looked at her. She snatched the brush up from where I'd put it on the floor. "And I'm not trying to say that either Emily or I have anything like your experiences, I'm just trying to say we have that in common." She didn't look at me, and began to tug the brush through the very bottom of a fistful of hair. "I wasn't trying to talk about myself at all, Leah, actually, but you and Emily have a lot in common."
"Oh Jesus!" She snapped. "Like being in love with the same guy? Thanks, genius."
"No, you jerk!" Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me, but I continued. "Like being women from the same family and culture and constantly surrounded by terrifying danger! Besides, Leah, even if it hasn't been a hundred years Sam and Emily have been together now for longer than you and Sam even knew each other, what's it going to take for you to finish punishing her just for saying yes?" I could tell I was still tired; I wasn't angry with Leah, but I had nothing to lose by being honest with her. She didn't like me, we were trapped here together, and Emily was my friend. "Jeez," I muttered, and grabbed the brush from her frozen hand. "I can do a better job of that anyway, turn around," I finished, and although her mouth snapped shut and her expression told me she might bight me, she did.
"You think the guys didn't think all of that junk at me every single day for years?" She was whispering, and I suddenly understood that turning away had allowed her to be able to cry. I kept my hands methodically busy with the strands of hair before me. "You think I don't know all of that crap myself? Of course I do." Her voice became even lower, hissing out at me, but she refused to face me. "The only one, the only person who ever understood, was Jake." Her head bowed. "You don't know what it's like, to be humiliated, to be despised, and worst of all, to know why—to even agree, and not be able to stop yourself." I stopped moving, and I watched her shoulders shake helplessly. Without asking I knew she didn't want me to hug her, so I hugged myself instead, wrapping my fingers around the deep bruises on my forearms and listening for her breath to calm.
"You're not right about that, Leah," I whispered. "I know what that's like. Heck—you hate me now, and I don't even blame you." This made us both snicker, and to my surprise Leah began to turn around and face me. She was much taller and my eyes only reached her chin; the purple under her own was rich and frightening, and I immediately rose to get more water for her. She used it to wash her face, and I continued once she drank the rest. "I'm serious, Leah. I'm serious about being a despicable, selfish person who hurts other people."
"Couldn't have said it better myself." We snickered again, and then looked at each other. "Okay, I guess I would never have said that," she said, and reached for the brush again. I pulled it back from her, raising my eyebrows and she nodded her assent before turning around again. "Jake would have killed me," she shot at me over her shoulder, and I pulled a little harder than necessary as we both laughed again.
"Well, I think it's pretty apt." We were quiet for a minute. "But I'm trying to fix it, you big jerk." She shrugged, and bowed her head again. "That's what I'm trying to say, Leah—it's worth it to try. It wouldn't kill you to try something new." She sighed in exasperation and I pulled her hair to make her look at me, and she let me. "Honestly, hating people isn't working for you. It hurts Emily, granted, but it also makes you lonely."
"The whole reason I'm second is because I'm this way," she said in a low voice, and this time I sighed with exasperation.
"You're second because you're the smartest." I leaned forward. "You're just as smart as Sam, and you're a better leader than any of the other guys. You're smaller Leah—" she turned to look at me face to face—"if they didn't know you had the brains, one of them would've tried to take your place by now." I looked at her knowingly; the nervous tension in the air at the La Push Bar and Grille had taught me a lot about rank in the pack.
"I don't remember you being this observant," she said, her eyebrows lowering, and I shoved her shoulder to turn her back around. "I must not hate you as much if I'm letting you brush my hair." I was almost done, and I tugged just a little harder as I moved towards her crown.
"Well, we can't be friends until you make up with Emily," I said, and she sighed and took the brush from my hand and stood in one movement, so fast I blinked. I'd forgotten she was a werewolf, for a moment there; part of me thought she had too.
"We can't be friends," she said, and moved to a corner of the house and laid down. I looked after her for a moment and then stood up to check on Edward. My bones creaked, and I felt older than I had in a long time; it was hard to believe I'd only been in Washington for three days.