Jacob followed Edward into the house, pulling the door closed behind them. With a sigh, Edward fell into a chair, still exhausted, but no longer on his death bed.

Jacob stood around, unsure of what to do. He felt like he should stay, but he was obviously unwanted. Edward sunk lower in the chair, staining the upholstery with blood. He didn't seem to care. Jacob overcame his compulsion to get out, and sat down on the couch. Neither spoke for a long time. Jacob knew that Edward still needed to feed more, and wasn't going to leave until he was sure that he would.

Edward sighed, straightened up slightly and looked at Jacob.

"Would you just leave?"

"No." Jacob started simply.

"Just leave me be mongrel."

Jacob didn't respond. Edward growled. Jacob had to admit that the vampire did make a very threatening sight, covered in blood, muscles tensing fractionally even as he made a show of relaxing. Edward wouldn't attack him, Jacob knew that. There would be nothing to gain from a conflict between them, and Jacob doubted that Edward could ignore his instinct enough to place himself in that much danger.

Jacob ignored him. Even when Edward started growling.

"Will you please just kill me?" Edward said, trying to sound bored, nonchalant, but Jacob could hear the notes of tension behind the ease of his voice.

"No." Jacob repeated. Edward sighed again. He got up. Jacob stood too, slightly apprehensive about what the desperate man would do next. He didn't trust the bloodsucker one bit.

"Where are you going?" He asked, as Edward moved towards the doorway.

Edward didn't answer, but when Jacob took a step forward to stop him, he turned, exasperated.

"I'm going up to my room. I am going to get changed, and then rest for a bit. Since I'm very much alive, or living, I find that I'm rather tired."

"Vampires don't sleep." Jacob accused, not trusting the truth of Edward's admission.

'That's true, but I have a bed upstairs that's much more appealing than the floor. If you're going to stay," Edward added as he turned away again. "There are some clothes in the cupboards upstairs. Would you please dress yourself?"

"Why, am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No. But I would hate to have to explain to my family why our couch smells like a wet dog. Just put some clothes on." Edward was out of the door. Jacob heard his feet on the stair case, leading to the top of the house.

"Or leave." Edward called down as an afterthought. Jacob snorted.

There was no way he was going through the closets upstairs. Jacob shuddered at the thought of wearing clothes soaked in vampire smell. He let the air from the house fill his lungs.

Okay, the smell wasn't so bad. The vampires had been gone for a long time, barely a trace of them lingered. Except for Edward, who was merely a trace of everything he had once been.

Jacob tried to settle down in the house. He'd never just visited the house, he'd been here, but not in the capacity that he could look around and see only strategies and contingency plans.

Now, looking around, he remembered being here. In the light of day, seeing the dust covering all of the hard surfaced, being ground into the fabric by time. This house was going the same way as Jacob's own had been, only, instead of the empty cardboard boxes and empty cupboards, this house was filled with broken promised and empty memories. Or perhaps Jacob was just being overly dramatic.

Alec.

The call echoed out over the trees. Jacob's head snapped around. It was Harley, testing the mental link. He must have yelled pretty loud to have his message transmitted across the weak connection.

He had to go. The pack had arranged to meet for a training session in the afternoon, and Jacob hadn't thought that seeing Edward would take as long as it had. He had to meet with the boys.

Edward. Jacob thought, reaching out to the man upstairs, careful not to think too loud, in case Harley was out there listening.

He heard a crash upstairs, something heavy dropped onto a carpeted floor with a dull bang, followed by some choice cuss words.

Jacob ran up the stairs, taking them four at a time. He stopped at the entrance to Edward's room. He'd never been in this part of the house before, ever seen the inside of the vampire's room. It was more comfortable that he had expected, with a distinct lack of coffins or rafters. Edward was crouching on the floor, picking up what looking like a heavy speaker for an extensive sound system.

I didn't think vampires dropped things. And I didn't think that you swore.

Edward hissed, then stood up, returning the speaker to its place amongst the others. As Jacob looked around he saw that a thick layer of dust covered everything in this room to. Edward had been back for months and he hadn't even entered his own room.

"It's something I picked up recently, the profanities."

Oh.

"How are you doing that?"

Jacob realised that the speaker had been dropped in shock, when he had sent Edward the mental message. Jacob didn't answer. He had to leave, soon, but he wanted to make sure that Edward wouldn't try anything stupid.

"I'm coming back tomorrow. And probably the day after that. I'm not letting you try to starve yourself again."

Edward snorted.

"Alright mother." The vampire almost smiled, corners of his lips curling weakly, but then he turned away so that Jacob could no longer see his face.

Jacob turned to leave, not wanting to get into a fight, even a verbal one. He was at the door when Edward called out to him again.

"Okay." His voice was small, defeated. "Okay," Edward continued. "But why are you doing this?"

Jacob thought about it. He didn't have a good answer. He didn't have any answer.

"I'll be back tomorrow. Try to get some rest, or whatever it is you vampires do."

(...)

Jacob lined the troops up in front of him. Which, in reality, meant getting everyone to at least sit down and shut up long enough for him to get a word in.

"Okay guys, it's sharing time. There is some stuff going on here that I haven't exactly told you about."

He paused to take in the mixed reactions in front of him. Pond looked outraged at the mere suggestion of information being wrongly withheld. Sam glanced at Harley, who looked extremely interested, and rather expectant. Kallem looked surprised. Jacob didn't recognise the look on Jack's face.

He looked at them, still unsure of where to start. Basics, he supposed.

"Okay. My name isn't Alec. I'm not Jacob Black's son, I am Jacob Black."

Harley looked pleased. He had had his suspicious all along. Kallem looked at Harley, impressed. Clearly his friend had shared his suspicion. Jacob cursed his luck at having the gotten the smart kids. Everyone else just looked stunned.

"I'm sixty eight."

Pond was the only kid who hadn't grasped this implication of his true identity. The kid was now looking betrayed, as well as shocked. Other than that, the revelation seemed to be going down well.

"I shifted when I was about, I don't know, eighteen? Since then, I haven't stopped shifting. It was really difficult, painful, and I want you to think of it as a cautionary tale. We're not meant to be immortal, only invincible for as long as we're needed. To protect the community."

Harley raised his hand. Left over habits from school. Jacob nodded towards him, hoping that it would be a question that he could handle.

"Is that why you didn't take on your full role as alpha straight away?"

Jacob nodded, but figured that the group before him deserved more than that. They deserved to know what they were dealing with.

"The Black family are born alphas. It's in their blood. In my blood. But when I was being recruited for the pack, the first time, I resisted. There was...there were other things that I didn't want to let go of. I broke the rules a bit too much, and I didn't understand why I could, when none of the others could. I wasn't the first of the pack to change, and by the time I got there, they already had another alpha."

"My Grandfather." Sam whispered reverently. Sam Senior was a strong personality on the community. Everyone knew who he was, even if they didn't know how he had achieved the power he held.

"Yes." Jacob was at a loss for what to say. How much he should tell the kids. He didn't want them to have all the facts, but opening a mental connection with them, when Jacob had memories enough to fill three of their lifetimes, it could overload them. He knew that he owed them the whole truth, and that he would need to tell them about Edward sooner or later. He sighed. From the beginning then.

"When I was about sixteen, maybe younger, the cold-ones returned to Forks. They call themselves the Cullens. There were seven of them. Carlisle and Esme, kind of the parents of the family. Alice and Jasper. Rosalie and Emmett. And Edward. They lived just out of town, close to the reservation, but not too close. Just secluded enough that they had privacy. The 'kids' all attended Forks high school. I think that it was about that time, maybe a bit later when Sam turned."

It was Jack who raised his hand this time. With a disdainful note in his voice, he spoke when Jacob indicated.

"Family?"

Jacob nodded. Everything that they had told these kids about vampires, in general didn't fit with the Cullens. All of the Quileute youths knew the stories of the Cullens, the 'vegetarian' vampires, but hearing and believing were two completely different tasks.

"Most vampires are extremely loyal. They form groups, clans, covens, and in some cases families. The Cullens were definitely a family. Ask your relatives about them sometime. Anyway, Bella came back to town. Bella Swan. She attended Forks with the Cullens. And she fell for Edward. He fell back just as hard. But Bella," Jacob chuckled at the memory. "She was a klutz, a trouble magnet as well as a supernatural one. I swear, vampires travelled all the way across the country to pay her a visit, and I'm not talking the congratulatory kind. Trying to contain her wedding was difficult enough with all the vegetarian bloodsuckers, but-"

"Wedding? She married that monster?" It was Jack that spoke again, the discrimination even more evident in his tone. Jacob understood the boy's anger. He didn't know the Cullens like Jacob did. And all of what Jacob was telling him went well against what he had been taught to believe.

"Yes." Jacob shot back, feeling his own anger rising. He knew what it was like to hate them, but he couldn't stand hearing it form Jack. Saying it, believing it in his own mind, was one thing, hearing it from another was completely different.

"But they-"

Jacob shot Jack a warning glance, and Sam leaned back a little, giving Jack a look. It seemed to work, as the boy quieted down and let Jacob speak.

"They planned on turning Bella after the wedding. We were going to allow it-" Jack nearly interrupted again, but Jacob growled, low in his chest and barely audible. Jack shrunk back. "It was her choice. Sam thought that the pact, the contract that we forged with the vampires, could be twisted, as long as the bite wasn't involuntary. I was just as disgusted as you, believe me. I begged Sam to stop them." Jacob couldn't stop the memory of pain seeping into his words. He had wanted Bella to stay human, to stay with him, to be happy, but she had chosen her own destruction.

When he looked up, he could see five pair of eyes blinking at him. For once, they all held the same expression. They shared Jacob's pain, even though the very weak empathic link.

"She went away with him, some sick, twisted concept of a 'normal' honeymoon. I thought that when she came back, she would be…" Jacob trailed off remembering his darkest fears from that time. He shuddered when he thought about what had come back instead.

"When she…When she did come back, it was much worse than what we had expected. They said she was sick, I thought that that meant she was dead, but…" Jacob could barely continue. Talking about Bella had been bad enough, but these memories…they still felt so new, so raw, and he didn't want to be sharing them. Like an injury or a weakness, Jacob just wanted to curl up in some dark corner and lick his wound until they festered. But the boys in front of him were enraptured, hanging on his every word, and he had started his story. He had to finish it.

"She was pregnant." Jacob's heart rode out the shocked gasps, trying not to be too jostled. He was wearing it on his sleeve. He questioned his choice to share this with the boys. Openly and willingly he was giving them power over him. Perhaps it would have been better just to show them in his mind. It was too late now, but dredging up these memories was almost as painful as having lived through them. Jacob sighed and continued.

"I was the first one to find out. I went and told the rest of the pack, I had no choice. Bella was intent on getting her way, and she wanted to have the baby. One of the vampires was protecting her. When I got back to the wolves, they all knew what had happened. Sam wanted to kill it. He was afraid of the child, of what it would do. I didn't want to let them hurt Bella. I was already broken at that point," Jacob suddenly realised what he had said, that he had been broken, but he pushed on anyway. "They planned to go after the cold-ones, forbade me to warn them. It would have worked, too. I was not alpha, but I realised at that moment that I was the grandson of Ephraim Black. It was my rightful position. So I rebelled. For her. For them. I ran away from my pack, after demanding obedience from Sam. I ran right back to her. A few wolves came with me."

Harley was looking up with pride. No doubt he knew that at least one of those wolves had been his blood. The other wolves in the room were looking stunned. It had probably never occurred to them that they could question the power of their alpha. Jacob worried a little at having given them the idea. There was still a lot that he wasn't telling them, and if he didn't learn how to hide it, he might had a munity on his hands. Even his bloodline might not stand up to the disobedience of all five younglings.

There was no stopping the words as they flowed, however.

"We came to a sort of uneasy stalemate. We protected the Cullens, while they hunted, and while they waited. It wasn't the best situation that I've ever gotten myself into, but I just kept telling myself that we were there to protect Bella. In the end, none of it mattered. The baby was growing fast, too fast to be human. For the first time in a long time, the Cullens were unsure of the future. When the baby came, it was unexpected." Jacob spared the horrified boys any description of the messy death, the baby chewing its way out of Bella's stomach, the blood and the screams.

"Bella died, and the Cullens took the baby away before I was able to find it. Sam had been right, it was dangerous. We should have just…Anyway, shortly after, the Cullen's left. Like I said, vampires are extremely loyal."

Jacob realised that despite having covered barely a third of his lifetime, he'd almost come to the end of his story. He had wasted so much of his life and had nothing to show for it.

"I dedicated myself to waiting for Edward to come back. I was determined that he would pay for what he had done to her. That's why I didn't turn, even though it's been about fifty years." Jacob didn't know what else to say. He wasn't ready to tell them about Edward, not while the looks of disgust and anger still lingered on their faces. He wasn't going to let them kill Edward, but right now they looked like they would love to pick up where he had left off. He still needed time. He just hoped that he could get Edward to leave before any of the boys got too enthusiastic.

No one spoke. Jacob fidgeted uncomfortably at the front of the room, no longer the focus of their attention. He knew that they were all busy trying to digest the story that they had just been told. It was a lot of information. Harley, of course, recovered first.

"Did you ever find him?" Jack nodded, glaring maliciously out of the window, as if hoping a vampire would materialise. Harley's question held none of the aggression that Jack was running on, but Jacob still wished that the boy had never spoken. He didn't want to, couldn't really, lie to the boys. He was already picking up words, emotions, the stuff going on in their heads. Jacob couldn't hold up the dam that separated his mind from theirs for much longer. They would know soon enough. He could only censor the information he was giving them for so long.

"Yes."

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Why?" It was actually Sam who had spoken. He was radiating a silent anger that didn't look quite right in his small frame. There was something up with the boy. Jacob's eyes flew to Jack, whose entire body was quaking with his own anger, maybe seconds away from shifting. Sam was the same, though his anger looked…borrowed.

"Outside, now."

The alpha tone worked, and Jacob was grateful that they were all out of his house within seconds. He followed them outside. Jack was already in wolf form, running around the clearing in the garden. The others were standing together. Sam looked contained, controlled, but strained. Jacob knew that he was holding back the change.

"Alright guys, we may as well try to work off some of this aggression."

All of the boys looked relieved as they shifted into wolf mode. The next two hours were spent in a frenzied training session. The more Jacob looked, the more he felt that he had to speak with Sam. There was something up with the boy, but he couldn't quite tell what it was.

He'd go see Edward once more, see if he could train his mind to do what he wanted, and then he would have to activate the mental link. Fully. Accept his place, officially, as their alpha. Jacob was beginning to worry that his hesitation was doing more bad than it was good.