twenty-three.

(Leah)

There's a wolf at her door.

She knows this, because only a wolf who has the means to defend himself would dare to press a Clearwater's doorbell over and over whilst simultaneously yowling her name through the letterbox. A very annoying wolf. One with a death wish, even, who stands in the middle of highways waiting for oncoming cars so he can earn nothing more than ten bucks.

"Lee-aaaaah," he calls. "I know you're in there, loser, I just saw your mom on her way to the Atearas' place. C'mon, or I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll—"

She flings the door open. "What?"

"—blow your house down," Embry finishes, straightening up with a grin. "Hey, beautiful. Is he here?"

He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the Rabbit which is parked at the end of the drive. It hasn't moved since yesterday — the day she decided to make her life impossibly harder, all because of a little integrity. She's gotten absolutely nowhere with this 'I need to figure it out' spiel she gave Jake.

"You tell me, genius — you're the one with superior senses."

"Nah, my hearing's not as good as Jared's," he says dismissively, craning his head through the doorway to peer up at the staircase. "Seth?"

"Sleeping." Leah rolls her eyes as she fruitlessly tries to push him back by his shoulder. Goddamn wolves have no concept of personal space. Or how to wear a shirt. "Peacefully," she tacks on pointedly.

"Phew." Embry leans against the doorframe, cocksure, and mimics wiping sweat from his forehead. "Sam said we had to stay away from Jake 'til the bonfire. He didn't say anything about staying away from you, though — so here I am! Ta-da." He stretches his arm out with a flourish. "Are you pleased to see me?"

Leah just groans in answer.

Embry chooses to ignore her. "Come on, chiquita, get your coat. I'm taking you out."

"Chiquita?"

"Don't like it? What about 'chiquitita'?" he asks, emphasising every syllable.

"That's even worse. And it's a song," she accuses, although she finds that she's all too-willing to indulge the kid. His appearance has brought on the first real smile she's managed all morning, and it's past lunch now. She's done nothing since yesterday afternoon except clean, clean, clean. It's a time-tested method. The kitchen is spotless; she's washed and organised all of Seth's clothes, now separated into piles for normal living and wolf living; the bathroom is shining; all the bedsheets have been changed. And yet she is no closer to feeling as if she can provide Jacob — or herself — any closure.

"Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong."

"Your singing is as terrible as your Spanish accent."

Embry pokes his tongue out. "You're so cranky today. How many hours has it been since you saw Jake? Are you missing him?" he teases, crooning.

"No," she insists, knowing that she sounds a little too adamant about it. She attempts a scowl for effect.

Embry only barks a laugh. "Yeah, 'kay. Let's go, liar. Chop chop."

She doesn't have any reason not to grab her parka and follow him, so she does.

They walk the deserted Second Beach Trail, which is finally free of tourists and Forks high-schoolers now that Spring Break is over. It's not raining but it's still wet and muddy, exactly as Washington always feels, and she wishes that she'd slipped on her boots instead of her sneakers. She's wearing the same ones she trekked through the forest in to find Jacob, and they're beyond salvaging.

Embry offers his hand to help pull her up a steep, slippery incline, and afterwards she shoves her fingers deep into her pockets. She's not cold — she probably could have forgone the jacket — but holding onto Embry and feeling his blazing skin is a reminder she does not need.

"So where's Quil got to?" she asks. They have been talking about everything and nothing so far, sticking faithfully to neutral subjects — mostly for her own benefit. "I thought you two were joined at the hip."

"Patrol," Embry answers, tone light, but she knows he noticed her haste to pull away from him. "I was getting bored without him, to be honest, especially now that Sam's grounded us from seeing Jake. It's bad enough that my mom grounds me as it is." He pauses. "But don't tell Quil I said that, or he'll never let me live it down."

Leah frowns at the ground, watching her steps. She hadn't been all that surprised when he'd first mentioned not being allowed to see Jacob, and it wasn't as if she'd needed to press for an explanation of Sam's reasoning, but she hadn't expected Embry to be finding himself in such trouble. He's so easy-going, so laidback. "Your mom?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's not as if I can tell her what I'm doing all hours of the day — and night. She'd freak."

Leah's ashamed to realise that she hasn't considered it before. "She doesn't know."

"Nope, and she never will," Embry says, though he seems calm about this and even cracks a smile. "In the early days, after I first phased, she'd catch me climbing through my window butt-naked some mornings. Luckily we can carry our clothes with us now."

Leah tries to return his gesture, but it feels weak on her lips. "Poor Tiffany," she says, and he chuckles. "Maybe you should go home, Embry? If you have downtime, then maybe you should be—"

"Nah. She's kinda pissed with me all the time, anyway. It's not like we can have a nice conversation or anything when all she does is shout."

"But—"

"S'fine, honest. She doesn't get it, y'know?" He picks at passing shrubs, wild and overgrown, and starts pulling the leaves apart in his hands. "She's Makah," he says, almost like it should be an explanation.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything. Come on, you're Quileute, you grew up on this."

He speaks like there's a distinction between the two of them, and Leah does not like it. Her pace slows, and Embry struggles to match it with his long legs. "You're Quileute too."

"Half, anyway," he says quietly, his usual happy and carefree nature which she has come to know suddenly glaringly absent. "At least that's something I know for sure, I guess."

"So your mother's Makah," Leah says, willing her words to be steady; she doesn't know what it is that he's trying to tell her — she knows his father is absent and has always been so — but she is still unnerved by it, by the way his face has settled into an awful mixture of agony and anger. Resentment? Loathing? She can't tell. "That shouldn't matter, Embry. She's lived in La Push for long enough. She might as well be one of us, anyway."

Leah doesn't know Tiffany Call very well, but the woman's as much part of the community as anybody else; she has lived here for seventeen years, has worked at the souvenir shop on First Beach for almost as long.

Embry doesn't answer. He throws down the leaves he has been tearing up and picks up the pace again, just enough that Leah has to skip a few strides to catch up with him, and he keeps his eyes trained upon the path.

"Embry, wait." Leah pulls her hands out of her pockets to hold onto his arm, if only so she doesn't lose him. "What's wrong? Has someone been saying something to you?"

He looks down at her arm and then away again before she can catch his eye. "They didn't have to."

"Who is it?" she demands. She's going to kick their ass. "Because I'm telling you now, it doesn't — Embry. Hold up."

He takes a deep breath and finally relents, slowing, and the anger in his face fractures enough to allow an apology to bleed through as he looks down at her. "I didn't mean to bring it up like that, I'm sorry. I try not to think about it too much. Honestly, it really doesn't matter."

"It does matter, because you haven't grated on any of my nerves for nearly five whole minutes now," she jokes, but he doesn't react at her attempt for humour. "Something is obviously wrong. Tell me. And then I'll sort it, I promise."

He smiles with a hint of sadness. "You can't sort this one, Rocky."

"Will you let me try?"

"You don't even know what it is." He drapes his arm over her shoulder and pulls her close. She thinks it might be more to comfort himself than anything else. "C'mon. We're nearly there now."

They break through the trees and start wandering down Second Beach together, the entire stretch of sand and stone entirely deserted save for them. It's the end of March, which means endless clouds and torrential rain, and clearly she and Embry are the only ones crazy enough to take a hike when there is a storm brewing. The sky is grey, dreary, and the waves are crashing against the cliffs as if they have a score of their own to settle. A storm is brewing.

Embry pulls away after nearly half a mile of contemplative silence and starts collecting up rocks, throwing them one-by-one into the raging water. "So, tell me. How mad are you at Jake?" he asks.

She wants to ease the tension out of his eyes, and so she accepts the question as the distraction he's looking for. His upset still troubles her, though, and she's not going to let it rest permanently.

"Not really," she says honestly, shrugging. "You think I should be?"

He looks vaguely surprised. "Everyone else is."

"Are you?"

"Sure I am. I mean, yeah, he's my friend," Embry says, "—my best friend, but . . . Let's just say that I think it'll be another week or so yet before any of us can look at him without wanting to break his nose for not telling you the truth straight off the bat."

"Us?"

"Seth, mostly. Me, Quil. Even Paul."

Leah wrinkles her nose. Her brother hasn't displayed anything other than pure delight that Jacob is 'really part of the family now'. And she can believe such things of Quil, especially after how freely he'd offered his friendship — it had taken nothing more than her cleaning his sneakers up and a shared hatred of casserole — but . . .

"Paul?" she asks a little disbelievingly.

"I know, right? I think he shouted at Jake more than Quil did, after the fight. He wasn't happy about being sworn into silence."

She is stunned and a little flattered, by Paul and Quil both. She patched up her fledgling friendship with Quil on their way to Forks a few days ago, but she still hasn't yet allowed herself to believe all was truly forgiven — despite lack of apology on her part and his odd offer to walk a dog she doesn't own.

Paul, though, she doesn't understand. She remembers catching his eye at the funeral, the sympathy she'd found there. . .

"But why?"

Embry shrugs, smile a little lopsided and wrong on his face. He's still not happy. "Search me. Knowing Paul, it's probably because he wants to get in your pants." Leah pulls another face. "But he's also like, really, really loyal, too," Embry continues a little begrudgingly, almost like he would be defending a brother he finds annoying but loves anyway. "There's nothing he won't do for the pack."

"But that's — why?" she demands again. "I'm not one of you. Jacob — he said I am, but how can I be? I can't . . . you know. Phase, or anything."

"Of course you are. You're my pack, our pack, just as much as the others. Maybe more, even, because we actually like you. All of us do. Shit, sometimes I forget you can't phase. S'not like you've not got the temper for it," he adds cheekily. He is obviously aware of the last two times she has seen Sam, probably almost as if he was there witnessing it himself thanks to their shared minds.

She shoves him, and is unsurprised when he doesn't move a muscle against her.

"Honest," he says, a grin blooming. "You'd shake things up a bit, if you could. I reckon Quil's old gramps would go nuts."

She speaks the truth she has been harbouring for days. Weeks. "I want to be, sometimes. One of you. I did when we were in Forks. Just so people would listen to me, y'know? That they'd look at me and see me, not Sam's pathetic ex-girlfriend. And I wouldn't be left behind then, either."

Embry slings an arm over her shoulders once again. His fingers are caked in sand, but she doesn't protest — she can only think that his weight feels wrong. He's not Jacob. He's the wrong temperature, the wrong shape, the wrong height.

That, she decides, is most definitely the imprint part of her rebelling. But she also knows that Embry doesn't mean to be anything other than reassuring, comforting — it's no different than affection she might share with Seth. And wolves are all about touch; she knows this. It's how they communicate. And she's part of the pack now, apparently.

Sam's pack.

"You're not pathetic," Embry tells her as rain starts drizzling down upon them. "You're too frightening."

Leah scoffs, yanking her hood up. "I don't feel very frightening. Honestly, I just feel . . . weird most of the time," she admits, staring down at her battered sneakers as she steps precariously over a scattering of embedded rocks. "Since Harry died."

"Since Jacob imprinted on you," Embry amends.

She nods. "How much of what I feel . . . Do you honestly think it's real?"

"I don't know. You're going to have to talk to him about that one."

She sighs.

That's what she's afraid of, that she can't figure this one out on her own without him — especially when that's her whole reason to stay away.

She spills all to Embry as they wander towards the driftwood. A tree, bleached white and buried in sand. "I told him that I wanted space yesterday. And I don't know if it was the right thing to do," she admits quietly. "It's only going to end one way, anyway, isn't it? He swears it doesn't have to. I'm just unsure if I believe him."

Embry takes a seat on the tree and stretches his legs out. He doesn't seem bothered by the rain, welcoming it instead. "I don't know how it works, only how it's happened with the others," he says carefully, as aware as she is that they have struck dangerous territory.

"How did it happen with Jared?" she asks, saving them both a headache.

Embry relaxes. "Easily enough. Jared sat next to Kim at school every day for a year. She had this huge crush on him." He smiles at that, almost like there's a joke to the story. "But he never really noticed her, I guess. Then he joined the pack, saw her again, and it was plain sailing from there. It only took him until the end of the day to tell her everything. She was over the moon."

Leah can't believe it. "And it was all fine? Just like that?"

"Yeah, pretty much. She didn't have as many questions as you do, if that's what you mean, and she didn't exactly tell Jared to take a hike or anything. They moved pretty quickly after that."

A brief silence lapses as Leah considers this. And then, "I don't think I'm going to like Kim very much," she finally says from underneath her hood, adopting her best haughty tone.

Embry's laugh is a boom, and it makes her smile. "No. I don't think so, either."

Leah recalls the day she found out about imprinting, and all that had ensued. The whole pack has probably seen all of that, too. There's not much that isn't a secret anymore. They'll all know how she reacted — how she reacted to learning about Sam and Emily, and their betrayal.

The problem is, Leah is struggling to see it solely as betrayal anymore. Maybe it's because her throat doesn't seize up when she thinks about Sam these days. Maybe that's why she has put so much distance between her and Jacob, just to prove that it can be done — that it is betrayal, because an imprint can be refused.

But does she want to refuse it? How can she, and then tell Jacob that she's only doing it as a massive 'fuck you' to her cousin and ex-boyfriend? Even she can't be that cruel. Not to Jacob.

Embry tips his head back against the driftwood, up to the spitting rain, and stares at the overcast sky.

It would be very, very easy, she thinks, to ask him to tell her about the other imprinted pair in the pack. And he would, she's sure of it. She knows the beginning to Sam and Emily's story, thanks to Jacob. And she knows how it ends.

Ask, don't ask. Ask. Don't ask.

She almost does, her lips parting to speak, except Embry cuts the silence first.

"I don't know who my father is."

When he doesn't say more, Leah looks up at him. He's still staring at the clouds, though the weight of the confession seems to have lifted from his shoulders — it's almost like he's relieved that he's finally said the words to her, out loud.

Leah feels tears prick at her eyes, unwanted and unbidden. Because for the first time in her life, she is truly able to empathise what it's like to be missing a father, and the realisation is painful. As painful as these last few weeks have been.

She takes her time answering. "Do you want to know?"

"I know who it could be," Embry mumbles, and his hands start trembling in his lap. He balls them into fists, and Leah finds herself putting her own hand over one of them. She's not scared of him phasing, but then she's never had all that much self-preservation. Their friend Quil is proof of that.

"Have you spoken to Tiffany about it?"

"Can't," he says, sniffing. "How can I tell her without telling her what I am? That's the only reason I ever found out."

Leah is . . . confused. She sorts through her memory as quickly as she can, gleaning through all the snippets of information she has learned since her brother exploded in the living room.

And then it comes to her. Jacob had said something about it yesterday — about the wolves passing on the gene. As long as future generations have the gene . . .

The legends she has grown up hearing are not pack secrets. The two are a different kettle entirely. But she knows lineages. Knows all the families who take pride in descending from Taha Aki — her own included. Her great-great-uncle is, was, none other than Levi Uley. Uley is her mom's maiden name.

Uley, Ateara, Black.

She can't speak. Only her slight, sharp intake of breath gives her away.

Embry hears it. He straightens his back, looking towards the water now the rain has stopped. "I thought Jacob would have told you already, but then back on the trail you had no idea . . . Surprised me, is all."

"It didn't really come up in conversation," she offers weakly.

"No. Don't suppose it would have done, really," Embry mutters wryly, "not when he can't even bring himself to ask Billy."

"Do you want to know?" she asks Embry again, pulling her hood down and looking up at him properly. It's hard to put his sixteen years into the face the wolf has given him. Whose brother is he? Sam's, Quil's, or Jake's?

"I think," Embry says slowly, mulling over each word despite the evident agony within the lines around his eyes, "it would ruin everything, if I did. It almost happened, you know. After Quil phased, the first time he could truly look me in the eye was the day we ran into you. His bad mood that day wasn't entirely about how he'd been so mean to you." He shrugs. "S'pose nobody wants to think ill of their, uh — you know."

"Of their dead dad," she finishes glumly.

"Yeah. Sorry. That's the second time in almost as many days that I've put my foot in it about Harry, haven't I? I don't mean it."

"Don't worry about it. You can help Quil walk that dog I don't have to make up for it." Embry manages a grin at that, which she returns, and says, "We can start a club, us three."

"What, with secret handshakes and stuff? That'd so piss off Jake, you know." But the familiar glint of mischief in his eye has returned, and she is relieved. "What should we call ourselves?"

She doesn't miss a beat. "How about 'Dead Dads and Absent Fathers Anonymous'? We can get together on anniversaries, and stuff."

Embry chokes on his laugh. "That's . . . dark. You're so twisted, you know that? I don't care, I like it. I'm in," he declares, and, on his insistence, they spend the next half an hour developing a handshake.

Pushing all of her pending problems aside, Leah thinks that it's the least depressing afternoon she's had in a long while.

A/N: One of two updates planned, in case you miss the notifications! I'd already written half of the next chapter before I decided Leah should have time with Embry, too, only proving once again that I am a massive panster. I know how this story is going to end and a vague idea of how I am going to do it, but I have no idea how long it will take. So for those who have asked, I honestly can't tell you how many chapters are left. I'm just enjoying the ride, and I hope you are too. Thank you for being here this far down the road.

I go back to work next week, so things will slow slightly, but I'm determined to get this done — which means everything awaiting an update is on the back burner, sorry to say; this one takes up a lot of my free time and remains the priority (unless I decide to give myself a break and pick up from where I've abandoned Lee and Julie). Maybe one day I'll change my panster ways and figure out a schedule. See you soon!

Next: Jacob.