Chapter Text
Leah doesn’t remember dropping off from emotional and physical exhaustion, but when she comes to, she’s lying down again, and her dad is gone. She must have been shifting around in her sleep because her hair is bunched to the side and probably knotted, as it was still long and loose. Half conscious, she moves her head away from the prickling sensation against her cheek only to end up with hair in her mouth instead. Just as she’s about to yank it right out of her scalp in a fit of annoyance, a hand reaches out to push it away.
She knows his touch, better than anyone else’s except maybe her mother’s, even if they’d exchanged them so sparingly. He had a shifter’s heat and rough fingertips, often dirt or oil or grease staining his hands no matter how many times he bathed.
“Jake?” she sighs contently. Her Alpha is here, watching over her as she rests in the absence of her family.
Her eyes flutter open without rush, catching sight of him sitting in the armchair her mother had earlier that day. He looks almost the same as she remembers, hair sticking up all over the place, dressed in a flimsy jacket and cut offs, even a pair of shoes. He’d dressed with dignity to come visit her.
“Jacob!” she says sleepily, lips tugging into an involuntary smile.
“How you feeling Lee?”
His use of the nickname Sam gave her makes her brows furrow as reality crashes into her sleepy haze. Of course, she has time travelled and this is not her Alpha. This is still Sam’s Beta.
“I’m fine. Are you ok though, you’re not hurt or anything?” she asks, pushing herself up to sit against the headboard. Sam had run them into the ground when she was in his pack, spirits knows how Jacob is holding up while their numbers are still low.
“I’m fine, Leah. I’m perfectly ok,” he tries to give her a reassuring smile, which comes out as more of a tight-lipped grimace. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m ok. Tired and desperately need a shower, but ok.” She laughs hollowly. “Billy here?” She’s surprised the old man’s wheelchair isn’t parked right alongside Jacob, he didn’t seem the type to leave if he found her sleeping.
“No, I don’t think he knows yet. He wasn’t home when Seth came round.”
She sends Seth a confused look to which he ducks his head sheepishly. “You mentioned him, and I thought it might help you sleep better seeing he was ok.”
A small part of her is flattered he took notice, but a bigger part of her is concerned. If Seth noticed, how long would it take for others to do the same? To realise she was not the woman they knew, to know she came here by some vampiric witchcraft that involved burning a child alive? She can’t let them know, she has to put some distance between herself and others.
But she cannot be mad at Seth. Her sweet, baby brother who went out of his way to make sure she would get a better sleep tonight.
“Thanks kid,” she tells him, equally fond and exasperating.
Seth positively beams at her response.
“So how are the others? Quil, Embry? They’re ok too?” She phrases it casually, as if it’s nothing but small talk and prays that Jacob doesn’t catch the steely edge of desperation in her voice. She has never been close to them, even while Pack, but she considers them her boys and she worries about their state as much as she does Jacob’s and the kids’.
“They’re ok, absolutely fine. I’ll drag them over if they don’t come to see you tomorrow.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” she fake protests, masking her relief at his words. “They’re probably busy.” Sam is probably running them into the ground with patrols, especially if the Cullens are still in town.
“It’s the least I can do,” Jacob tells her. There is a familiar fire in his eyes, one that ignited every time he thought Renesmee was threatened, and the one time he caught Sam looking at her longingly.
He looks so much like her Jacob like this, but she knows he’s not. He’s not the same man she followed onto Cullen territory, the same one she yelled at Bella Swan for, the one who raged at Sam when he tried to call her LeeLee. She knows this Jacob, she has grown up with him, but her is not her Jacob and the knowledge makes her heart clench painfully.
He gives her another one of his awkward smiles just as she blinks back a fresh wave of tears, and the growing alarm on his face makes her reach out and grasp his hand in reassurance.
“Thank you,” she whispers with a wobbly smile.
When he hugs her goodbye, she squeezes him tightly, burying her face in his chest and makes herself a promise. This is the last time she holds him so close to her heart, the last time she takes comfort in his arms, the last time she accepts his friendship.
His only response is to hug her harder. Neither of them mentions it when they pull away, and he leaves just as her parents return.
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Emily is the next visitor she gets, walking in with an overflowing basket of breads and cakes. Her cousin barely drops them in her mother’s arms before she’s throwing herself at Leah and sobbing inconsolably.
Leah sits for the next five minutes as her Emily’s sobs fade into hiccups, occasionally patting her back awkwardly but not putting her own arms around her.
Eventually, she reaches up to unwrap Emily’s arms from around her neck. “I have a week’s worth of sweat and blood all over me,” she says to Emily’s hurt look. “It’s not personal.”
Just as Emily opens her mouth to probably say something along the lines of, “You’re my sister, I don’t care, bla bla bla,” her stomach lets out an embarrassing rumble. Emily jumps up immediately to receive the basket she’d all but thrown at her mother, but her father’s words stop her in her tracks, much to Leah’s relief.
“I’m afraid Leah’s on a strict liquid diet for a while,” says her dad apologetically. “She was throwing up from the fever and her appetite has lessened all week. No solid foods, though it does all look wonderful.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know!” exclaims Emily. “I would have brought over some soup otherwise. Or chicken broth. I can run home and-”
“It’s fine,” interrupts Leah, before Emily can work herself up any more despair. “There’s only ten minutes left of visiting time. Besides, Seth will probably finish the basket before tomorrow afternoon anyway.”
Luckily, her brother takes the bait and argues vehemently back while their parents try and calm them playfully, and that distracts Emily for the next ten minutes until one of her mother’s colleagues comes to tell them visiting time is over. It doesn’t stop Emily from squeezing the life out of her on her way out and vowing to come back the next day, much to Leah’s horror and Seth’s eternal amusement.