Moonlight in Forks
Disclaimer: all characters and copyright belong to SM.
Understanding and Loss
Jacob took off early, just as the golden light of the sun dribbled over the land like syrup on oatmeal. The Fall leaves shimmered like a mirror flecked mosaic and the morning dew sparkled on the bejeweled cobwebs and grass as he ran. It felt good to get back to his animal self. He was stiff from being hunched over the hood of the Corvette for most of the night, putting the finishing touches to the engine, ready to hand over to the owner later on that day.
He was glad the project was finished. It had taken up a lot of his time. Time he could have been spending with Bella. But he couldn't turn down the money. He had earned a tidy sum for the quick restoration; the owner had paid up front and handsomely. It meant that Jacob had a little extra cash to take Bella out and spoil her. Something he had been wanting to do for a while.
"Morning, Jacob." Leah greeted him in a sing song voice.
"You're up already?" Jacob was surprised. "I thought this was Seth's shift."
"It is." Seth chimed in. "She insisted on coming with me."
"Of course." Jacob thought wryly.
"Why are you out?" Leah asked curiously. "Shouldn't you be catching up on the Z's."
"I've been up most of the night working on the Corvette." Jacob admitted. "I'm past tiredness now. I thought an early morning run would freshen me up before I go and see Bella."
Seth appeared, skidding to a halt in front of him. He shook out his sandy fur, making it stand on end. "What is the plan for today, boss?"
"Will you stop calling me that!" Jacob complained irritably.
"Sorry, bos…um…Chief." Seth stumbled over his words, making his sister snicker. "Shut up, Lee Lee." He thought darkly.
"Oh, chill, little brother."
"Let's make the deep run." Jacob ordered them. "I want to make sure there has been no vampire activity further from the borders."
"You still don't believe the little pixie about them being watched?" Leah questioned.
"I don't trust that coven full stop. I think its just another excuse they're using to stay in the area." Jacob answered. "Seth take the perimeter. Leah and I will go over the border."
"Gotcha, boss." Seth said, he broke into a jog when Jacob growled at him.
Leah chuckled in her mind, amused by her younger brother's discomfiture. Seth looked up to Jacob like an older brother, he just couldn't help slipping up.
"Are you up for a race?" Jacob challenged. "I feel like stretching my legs."
"I'm definitely up for that!"
Leah took off at once, racing away toward the far western rim of the perimeter. Jacob leapt after her, his longer strides meant he soon outdistanced her. Rather than cut close to the Cullens' house, they stuck to the circle. Jacob sprinted ahead, enjoying the ache in his muscles as he pushed them to their limits.
The she-wolf had to sprint hard to catch up with him. She strained her body, her limbs shaking with the effort.
"Nose to the ground, Leah." Jacob reminded her. "This isn't just a race, it's a reconnaissance mission."
"I can do both and still kick your butt."
Jacob laughed. "In your dreams. Now concentrate."
They took a winding path through the eastern mountains. It was a familiar route. They had run these same mountains when the vampires had left a year ago, making it part of their patrol route to better protect the people there. Then they had pulled back the lines when the Cullens has returned. This was part of their treaty land.
But that didn't mean anything to Jacob now. In his mind the treaty was dead. He wondered if Sam was thinking the same thing. He smelt traces of him and the other imprinted wolves along the same route, faint, but it was there, at least a few days old. Sam had to be spreading his force pretty thin, just like he was, there was a lot of ground to cover for too few wolves on either side. The never-ending silence between the two packs was proving a costly hindrance. At some point they were going to have to try and work something out between them.
But that day was not today.
Jacob and Leah got deeper and deeper into the mountains without finding a trace of the rogue vampires. However, he did pick up residual traces of Sam's pack. He found a heavy, somewhat recent concentration on one particular trail-all of them coming and going. It seemed they had gathered there, perhaps for a meeting? Whatever the reason, it was none of his business now what Sam's pack did now they were separated.
Surprisingly Leah didn't push past him while he was so preoccupied, though she could have. Jacob was paying more attention to each new scent than he was to the speed contest. Leah kept to his right side, running with him, rather than against him.
"We're getting pretty far out here." Leah commented. "How much further do you want to go?"
"Just a little further."
"Sam's scent is everywhere." Leah said quietly. "I wonder what he was doing all the way out here. I thought he would stay hunkered down in La Push, now that…" She stopped speaking, instead ending her sentence with a weary sigh.
After Bella had confided in Jacob about her confrontation with Sam and Emily, they had debated whether to tell Leah about the pregnancy. They were worried that the news would send the she-wolf spiraling again.
After mulling it over for a night and a day, they decided it was only fair and right that Leah should be told. Bella offered to be the one to tell her, but Jacob thought it was better coming from him, and secretly Bella agreed. He was Leah's Alpha. So as soon as he had some free time, Jacob had called at the Clearwaters' house, sat Leah down, and gently broke the news to her.
It had gone better than expected. Leah had fallen silent, her head bowing, her eyes becoming glossy with tears. She didn't let them fall, though. Instead, she took a deep breath, pulled herself upright, and thanked Jacob for being honest.
"It was always going to happen sometime."
It was the last time she had spoken about it…until today.
"Are you okay, Leah?"
Leah didn't answer his question directly. "You've changed so much, Jacob." She said instead.
"You're not exactly the same Leah I've always known and loathed." Jacob joked.
Leah appreciated his lame attempt at humor to distract her from her morbid thoughts of Sam and Emily and the pregnancy. "True." She said, joining in. "Am I less annoying than Paul now?"
"Amazingly…yes."
"Ah, sweet success."
"Congrats."
They ran in silence again then. It was probably time to turn around, Jacob was pining to get back and be with Bella, but he sensed that Leah needed his company just a little longer.
It felt nice to run like this. Jacob had been staying within the same small circle of a trail for too long, always attempting to avoid Sam and his pack. It felt good to stretch his muscles and take the rugged terrain.
"Thank you." Leah said suddenly, in a much gentler tone than the brash one he was used to.
"For?"
"For letting me be. For letting me stay. You and Bella have been nicer than I had any right to expect, especially after what I did. I don't think anyone else would have been so forgiving."
Here it was at last, an honest, heartfelt apology. Bella had told him it would happen eventually; he just hadn't allowed himself to believe that Leah was capable of it. As usual Bella was right.
"Er…no problem." Jacob wasn't quite sure what to say. "Actually, I don't mind having you here like I thought I would."
Leah snorted sarcastically, but it was a playful sound. "What a glowing commendation, almighty Alpha!"
"It's the best you're going to get from me."
"Okay." Leah laughed. "I think you make a pretty good Alpha, Jacob. You are worth following."
Jacob's mind went blank with surprise. It took him a minute to recover enough to respond.
"Er, thanks. What's with all the compliments?"
Leah didn't answer straight away, so Jacob had to follow the wordless direction of her thoughts. She was thinking about the future-about what he had said to Jared the other morning in her defense.
"I'm glad I joined your pack." She finally spoke her thoughts aloud. "I'm happier now, as a part of your pack, than I have been in years."
"Me, too, boss." Seth piped up suddenly.
Jacob was startled, he hadn't been paying enough attention to realize that the young shifter had been listening in.
"Well, that's good to know, Seth. Thanks."
"You're such a suck up, Sethy." Leah teased her little brother.
"Shut up, Lee Lee." Seth whined in protest.
Jacob rolled his eyes at the sibling banter. "Come on now, enough of that. We all need to focus."
"Yes, boss!" Leah and Seth sang together, making Jacob growl.
Bella knelt on the bed, her hands on Jacob's shoulders trying to work out the knots while he checked the business accounts on his work laptop. Billy was doing an exemplary job on the admin side, but he still liked his son to double check things to make sure he had dotted every I and crossed every T.
"Are you nearly done?" Bella's fingers were feeling the pressure as she tried to ease the tension in his muscles.
"Now I am." Jacob hit save and shut the computer off.
"Yay!" Bella cheered as she leaned down, her lips finding their way to the back of his neck and then trailing down his shoulder.
Now that move definitely got him to relax. Why hadn't she thought of that before? She felt the tension ooze out of him as soon as her lips touched his skin.
"I'm a miracle worker." She laughed.
"In so many different ways." Jacob laughed along with her as he stretched his arms above his head. "It's been such a strange day. I can't get over Leah apologizing like that."
"I'm not going to say I told you so." Bella teased, running her skillful fingers down his naked back. "She just needed time, that was all."
Jacob couldn't contain his groan of pleasure as she let her fingers slide around to his stomach. His muscles tightened under her hand. "That feels so good."
"Good."
Jacob pulled her around to sit in his lap and kissed her, full on the lips. Heat rushed through her body, racing along every nerve. It was times like this that Bella wished that her parents were out of the house. Renee had roped Charlie into helping her cook some of the fish that was clogging up the freezer-that was a feat in itself.
"I'll be glad when I get this damn cast off my leg." Bella complained as she felt the usual twinge. She tapped it with her hand, like a magician tapping his wand against a top hat, hoping to make the cast disappear like magic.
"Only a few more days." Jacob reminded her.
"Thankfully."
Bella went back to her favorite pastime-ogling Jacob-marveling at his skin, so perfect and flawless, as it always would be. She leaned down to kiss his breastbone and followed the line of his stomach. She tried to straddle him but the annoying cast hindered her movement.
"Ugh!"
Jacob laughed at her annoyed sigh, his breath hot against her skin. "We better slow down anyway, honey. Otherwise, we'll have your old man up here with the shotgun."
Bella flopped against him in defeat. "Oh, Jake, I feel like I'm on fire. If I get any more frustrated, I think I might just explode."
"I feel your pain." Jacob agreed.
Just then there was a frantic knock on the front door. Jacob gently lifted Bella off his lap and placed her on the bed, before heading to the window and peering outside to see who it was.
"Are you expecting anyone?"
"No." Bella pushed herself to the end of the bed and looked at him expectantly. He was suddenly frozen in place. "Jake? Are you alright? Who is it?"
Downstairs she heard her father's heavy tread on the wooden floor of the hallway as he went to answer the door. Seconds later there was an exclamation of surprise from him.
"Sam? Sam, are you okay?"
"I need to see Jake. Is he here? I know he's here." Sam gasped.
There was an almighty thud, as if something heavy had fallen onto the floor. Renee's startled voice joined the fray as she ran up beside Charlie. The police chief warned her to stay back.
"This is the young man who Bella went to see the other day."
"What?" Charlie couldn't hide his surprise. "Why?"
"She wouldn't say." Renee explained.
Bella stared at Jacob in alarm. He stared back at her. He was still frozen in place. Sam's unexpected arrival had thrown him. "Jake, you better go down and see what he wants." She urged him. "Something must be really wrong if he's come looking for you here."
"Yeah." Jacob shook himself, bending down he pressed a light kiss into Bella's hair, then hurried down the stairs.
What he saw when he reached the bottom took his breath away. Sam was on his knees; his head was bent and his hands covered his face.
It took Jacob a few seconds to see the reason why. Sam Uley was crying. He let out a strangled sob, his shoulders shaking as he cried into his hands.
"Hey, Sam, its Jake." Jacob stepped past Charlie, (who stood aside to give them more room), then hunkered down and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "What is it? What's wrong?" He was deeply alarmed to see the normally stoical young man in such a state.
Sam moaned, and raised his tearstained face to look at Jacob, his shoulders trembling with the force of his emotions. "I didn't know where else to go."
"I'm glad you came here." Jacob reassured him. "I'm here for you. Tell me what's wrong."
"It's Emily." Sam whispered brokenly. "I kept telling her to go and see Sue. She has been so ill. Hospitals scare her…otherwise I would have taken her there… I would. She started hemorrhaging in the night. She lost our baby, Jake. She lost our baby."
At Sam's last heartbroken cry, Jacob grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a bear hug, trying to hold him together while he fell apart.
A/N-thanks for reading!