The déjà vu was starting to freak Jacob out.

He was sitting in one of the plastic lawn chairs watching Jack pace back and forth in the pouring rain. Jack had been sitting and waiting for him to arrive. Jacob wasn't really sure what time it was, but it was very late. He's dropped Sam off at his place and told him to stay there. He'd asked, not ordered, Sam not to listen in. The boy deserved to hear, but Jacob wanted to give him the option of zoning out on what was about to happen.

As soon as Jacob had sat down, Jack had gotten up and began pacing. The alpha had instantly been struck by the memory of watching Sam do the exact same thing.

He hadn't expected Jack to be this confused. He'd expected Jack to pretend that nothing important had happened, and that he didn't really care that his friend had been driven to the edge of the state just to get away from him.

But Jack looked different. He didn't glare challengingly at Jacob as he had before. He continued to pace, but Jacob had a feeling that it was not going to be long before he spoke.

Jacob hated what Jack had done to Sam, but the man he saw before him now was a little broken. He looked even worse than Sam had, when Jacob had first seen him in the forest. Strangely, Jacob didn't want to punch this new Jack any less than he did the old Jack.

"Is Sam okay?"

That hadn't been the first thing that Jacob was expecting out of Jack's mouth.

"Yes. He's at home."

"Why can't I hear him?" Jack's voice was small, and he sounded truly concerned about the silence.

Jacob had isolated himself and Jack within the garden. None of the other wolves could hear them. It was an extra precaution, he knew that most of them didn't want to hear. Jacob would allow Sam to hear, though, if the boy tried.

"He doesn't want you to." Jack's face hardened, looking slightly angry. At Jacob, it seemed.

"How are you doing that? Packs are supposed to be connected whether they want to be or not."

"After what you did you don't deserve their attention." Jacob spat back. He was standing, without conscious decision of getting up. He reminded himself to have better control over his emotions.

"I didn't mean for it to happen the way it did." Jack said defensively. Jacob determined that he meant it.

"What did you think would happen?"

"I thought it would all be okay. I mean, I imprinted. There was nothing I could do about it. I didn't mean to tell everyone about Sam. What does it matter anyway! They were going to find out eventually."

"He trusted you. It was his choice, not yours. You don't just go and tell everybody, just because it doesn't apply to you anymore."

"What do you mean apply to me?"

"Don't act stupid Jack. Sam came to see me before I took my place as alpha. He told me everything."

"You knew about him? I thought he was just good at keeping it a secret, but…" Jack considered for a moment. "That was you, wasn't it? You helped him?"

"I helped you both."

"Both?"

"Your thoughts too. I stopped the group from hearing how you felt about Sam."

Jack looked as though he were about to argue more, but realised that it was pointless.

"But none of that matters now." Jack looked up at him, speaking in a soft voice. "I've imprinted. I don't feel that way anymore."

"It's a choice, you know."

Jack looked at him. Jacob continued.

"When I was in my old pack, the alpha imprinted. He had a girlfriend at the time. It was the girl's cousin that he imprinted on. The girlfriend ended up shifting, becoming the first, and so far only, female wolf. Being forced together into the pack ended up tearing the pack apart. For a while there were two separate packs. She left just to get away from him."

Jack didn't seem to get the parallels between his own life and the story Jacob was telling him, but Jacob continued anyway.

"He cared for her, but because of his imprint everything changed. She was lonely and bitter for a very long time. But not only that, it affected everyone. It changed everything."

"What-"

"You care for Sam. I know what you feel for him, and now everyone else does too. There is nothing that I can do to stop them from finding out, if they don't already know. Everything that he's feeling, after what has just happened, everyone is going to be feeling that. Kallem, Harley, Pons, Sam, you and me. They'll most likely come to hate you a little bit, especially if you keep acting like you were today. Like you don't care. And there is no other pack for either of you to escape to."

"I don't want-"

"Unlike them, I don't think that you were just being a jerk. I think that you're scared, and you don't understand any of it. But that doesn't excuse what you did. Being gay isn't a choice," Jack flinched at Jacob's use of the word, but he didn't contradict it. "But choosing to be who you really are can be. Your imprint can be broken."

Jack didn't look surprised. Jacob was pretty sure he'd been given the same reading material as Sam. Jacob was pretty sure that he would never be able to convince Jack to break the imprint. In the boy's mind he was free of the whole thing. Jacob was embarrassed to realise that the boy's thoughts were almost identical to his own. He determined that perhaps it would be best to re-evaluate his own decisions. It was proving impossible to put it all behind him anyway.

Jacob sighed and shook his head dejectedly. He didn't know how to handle Jack.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do. It's your choice. But what you felt for Sam was just as real and important as what you feel for Molly. You can't just forget it, especially if you are part of a pack. Whatever you do, you will be hurting someone. But you have to make the decision. Can you continue to lie to yourself for the rest of your life?"

"She's not a lie."

"I know. But he wasn't either."

Jacob sunk back into his chair. Jack sat down next to him.

"I don't know what to do."

"I can't tell you."

"How am I supposed to know what is right?"

Jacob didn't say anything. There was nothing that he could say that could make it any easier for Jack. His own secret would have no bearing on Jack's situation.

Jack could keep the imprint and hurt Sam. Or he could break it and hurt Molly. There was no easy for the boy.

(...)

"So he's not going to do it?"

"No. But I can't blame him. It was a difficult decision either way."

"But still. I remember what it was like for Sam, Leah and Emily. I felt it whenever I was near the pack, you guys think really loud. Well, most of you. But this is really not going to be easy for any of you."

Jacob sighed. He had phoned, actually phoned, all of the pack and told them to take the day off. It had been after midnight when Jack had left last night and Jacob still hadn't slept. He'd needed to talk so he had decided to head to Edward's house. It couldn't be worse than the stuff he was leaving behind, and Edward was the only other person he could talk to.

He'd realised halfway through the drive there that he was starving. He hadn't eaten since the morning before, so he'd stopped off at an all-night convenience store.

Now he was making use of the Cullen's five-star, barely used facilities. Edward didn't sleep, and he didn't seem to mind the intrusion. The power, which hadn't been used during the first few months, seemed to have made some sort of a comeback. Jacob had related to him the entire story while he had been cooking. Edward had listened, occasionally asking questions or complimenting him on the smell of his food.

They didn't talk about Jacob, or about what had happened only hour before. Jacob hadn't succeeded in pushing it out of his mind, but it was no longer the most important thing troubling him.

"Yeah."

Jacob plated up his meal and went to the table. Edward followed him and sat down in one of the comfortable chairs. Jacob had long since stopped wondering about the useless opulence of the Cullen household.

"I didn't know that there was such a thing as a half-imprint. I hadn't even considered what would happen if-"

"Yeah, me neither." Jacob cut in. Edward was veering dangerously close to subjects that Jacob was still avoiding.

Edward played with a fork while Jacob ate. Jacob was surprised by how comfortable he was. Just months ago, hours ago really, he would never had pictured such a pleasant scene where Edward was concerned. He'd mostly just pictured extremely painful scenarios for the vampire. Not sitting and eating dinner with him in his well it dining room.

When he was finished eating he returned to the kitchen to deposit his dishes in the sink. He began to run the tap, but Edward, who was standing in the doorway, told him to leave them.

"I'll do it. It's not like I have anything better to do. Besides, you probably won't do it right."

Jacob turned to glare at him, but couldn't help smiling. Edward's insult had reminded him too little of their past selves to have any real bite. As Jacob stood aside with an exaggerated bow, Edward moved forward, and Jacob saw him smile. It had been a long time since he had seen Edward actually smile.

"Besides," Edward added when he was next to Jacob, hands submerged in soapy water. "You would probably get old-lady fingers, whereas, I don't have to worry about that."

Edward lifted his fingers from the mess of bubbles and examined them. With a pleased expression he turned his hands towards Jacob, who saw that, as expected, the vampire's fingers were as smooth as ever.

"Well lucky you."

Edward went back to washing the dishes, which was taking surprisingly longer than it would have taken Jacob, given that there was only one plate, one set of essential cutlery and a single cooking pot.

Jacob leaned against the wall.

"So," he began conversationally. "How are you?"

Edward didn't look up, but continued to slowly scrub the dishes. Jacob waited.

"I'm fine." Edward's answer was terse, and Jacob knew that it wasn't completely true. Even though he'd just spent half an hour telling Edward all about his problems, he hadn't expected Edward to return his query, but he had nothing else to say, so he allowed the silence to grow slightly awkward. The storm outside the window had died down a while ago, and there was no sound other than the occasionally click of the cutlery against the stainless steel basin.

Jacob didn't want to find the scene uncomfortable. More than anything he wanted to be okay with Edward's presence. It wasn't just that he wanted to help the man, or that he found the man to be a great listener and the only one that he could comfortably tell about his current predicament. He deeply hoped that he and Edward could be friends. Everything that had happened in the past would stop them from being overly close, they would never be best buddies, but Edward was the only one who understood what Jacob had spent so long feeling. He was the only person that Jacob still had left that had known who he truly was.

But it was uncomfortable. Perhaps everything that had happened would mean that it would always be uncomfortable.

"Can I ask you something?" Without Jacob noticing it, Edward's hands had stopped moving slowly through the bubbles and Edward had turned to address him.

"Yeah, sure."

"You were helping Sam hide his thoughts right?"

"Yeah."

"Like how you can avoid my mindreading?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Oh. Um…"

"You don't have to tell me. It's just that you're only the second person who could ever-"

"No, it's fine. I just…practiced, I guess. For a really long time I was hell-bent on revenge. And…ah…the mindreading thing is one of your greatest strengths. I thought that if I was actually going to do it, I would need to find a way to get around it. So I practiced with the pack, when I merged back into it. I found that if I practiced and focused I could stop them from hearing my thoughts. I trained in other ways, of course, since I wasn't completely sure that it would work on you the same way that it worked on them. Turns out it does. It took me a really long time to get right. Once the pack had been dissolved and everyone had stopped shifting I had no one to practice on. I kept trying to strengthen my mind, but…"

Jacob trailed off as he realised that he was rambling a little bit. Edward had turned back to the sink and to the dishes, but Jacob could tell that he still had the man's attention.

"I didn't know if it would really work when you came back."

"You knew I was coming back?"

"Not really. It wasn't like someone faxed me your travel arrangements. I just always felt that one day you guys would be back. I was willing to wait."

"You expected all of us to return?"

"Yeah. I thought that you guys always travelled together."

"We usually do. Sometimes we travel independently, but we like to be close to each other. Usually." Edward's hollow smile struck Jacob's curiosity, and he wondered what had happened between Edward and his family. Maybe he would ask some other time. "What would you have done, if they had've been here? When you came to find me?"

Jacob felt his guilt rising as he looked at Edward sheepishly. He remembered Edward's silent plea from the funeral. Edward's wish to save his family, even if he had no interest in saving himself.

"I had planned everything out," Jacob said, choosing to avoid an explicit answer. Edward could know what he was implying. 'Every single possible outcome. I had a hundred different plans for what I would do under different circumstances."

Jacob tried to keep his voice level, as if he were not talking about plans to murder a whole family. Edward just nodded, still looking down at white foam. Jacob hoped that the man understood that he had changed, and that his admission now was only possible because Jacob himself was a different man.

"You know," Jacob continued, "The one thing that I didn't plan for was-"

"Me." Edward finished.

"Yeah." Jacob said lamely.

"You never expected that I would come back when I was still grieving."

Jacob stiffened. He was exponentially more uncomfortable than he had been before Edward had spoken, but what he was saying was true. Jacob's shoulders had unconsciously crawled up and he had crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yeah."

"I guess my lack of defence was my best defence then."

"I guess."

They fell back into silence. Jacob fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt and wished that he had of insisted on doing his own dishes. It would have given his hands something to do, and besides, it was extremely unnerving to be admitting one's homicidal tendencies to the object while he was washing away the evidence of your last meal. It was too late now to stop talking or change the subject. Besides, there were things between them that needed to be said.

"When I came here and saw you like that…When I realised that you still hadn't been able to move on, I was so shocked. But it made me realised that I was exactly the same. I know that we loved her differently, and I know that you lost more than I did, but I hadn't been able to get over it either. And I realised then that who I was, what I had become, it was wrong. It was never what Bella would have wanted. I knew that I had to do what I could to change."

Edward was silent. Jacob wondered if he had said too much, but couldn't bring himself to wish the words back. He'd meant what he had said, and he hoped that one day Edward would come to see it the way he did. It seemed, though, that it wouldn't be today.

Edward finished washing the dishes. They were incredibly clean, since they had been scrubbed to within an inch of cracking, but as Edward set them on the bench to dry, Jacob couldn't help suspecting that, due to the abundance of soap bubbles still clinging to them, they would probably dry with marks.

Edward pulled the plug out of the sink and Jacob wondered if he should leave. His car was sitting in the driveway, and he needed to get some sleep at some point in the new day. It was probably nearing mid-day and Jacob was probably about to fall over from exhaustion. Not physical, but mental, as always. Edward avoided looked at Jacob while he lead the way out of the kitchen and into the lounge room.

Edward seemed to be leaving the latter part of their conversation to future contemplation, but he looked satisfied with having one mystery solved. He slouched back on the cushions, but then sat up straight and leaned towards Jacob, curiosity revisiting his expression.

"What about your scent?"

"What do you mean?"

"How did you change that?"

"I didn't."

Edward looked confused, but his expression didn't even come close to what Jacob was feeling. He had no idea what Edward was going on about.

"You smell different."

"Oh."

"You didn't change it intentionally?"

"Why would I do that?" It was news to Jacob. He didn't think that he smelt any different, but then again, he'd never been able to detect the odour that the vampires had complained about. He supposed that his scent could have changed without him noticing it.

"I don't know. So that I wouldn't instinctively identify you as an enemy?"

Jacob thought about that. Whatever had changed, he hadn't done it on purpose.

"So I'm guessing that I don't smell disgusting anymore?"

"Ah…no." A furrow established itself between Edward's eyebrows. A mystery that wasn't easily solved.

"So tell me, what do I smell like now?"

"I don't know."

"Come on."

"Just different." Edward evaded.

"Okay."

Edward sat back a little, almost lost in thought. Jacob knew that he should go, but he couldn't really help himself. A huge grin was threatening to split his cheeks.

"But it's a good smell, right?"