All storylines and characters in this story that bear a resemblance to the Twilight Saga belong to Stephenie Meyer. Everything else in this story belongs to me. No copying or reproduction of this work (or any part thereof) is permitted without my express written authorisation.

A/N There is now a songlist to accompany this story. It is set out at Chapter 16 if you want to listen in while you are reading.

1. The Blackest of Hearts

Jacob ran across the beach, the icy wind nipping at him as his toes raked across the sand. It didn't bother him. He never felt the cold.

Not on the outside anyway. Inside was a different story - a desolate place without warmth or comfort.

He'd given Bella Swan everything he had, and now that she was married to his mortal enemy and five days into her honeymoon, there was nothing left. No smiles, no hugs, no good natured banter. He was an empty shell of the boy he had once been.

Sam had always told him that he and the other werewolves couldn't age as long as they continued to phase, but Jacob knew that was a lie. He'd aged. The moment he'd left her wedding he said goodbye to his youth. It had already been compromised by the curse that made him a werewolf rearing its ugly head, but now it was all gone. He was a man - and a broken one at that. How could anybody still have any boy-like wonder when the girl they loved chose another, one that would turn her into a bloodsucking freak or (more likely) kill her in the process? It wasn't possible. Jacob grew up overnight.

His passage into adulthood made him reflect on everything he had done when he had tried to romance Bella. Every childish mistake. Every instance that probably made him seem so inferior to her precious Edward. He shouldn't have been emotional and impulsive. Bella clearly liked brooding and stoic. He shouldn't have made his love for her so obvious. Bella clearly thrived on a man conveying elusiveness. Her precious vampire rationed his kisses, left her and returned at his leisure. Jacob had followed Bella around like a lapdog and couldn't keep his hands off her.

The first time he really kissed her she punched him in the face. All of his pack brothers had watched his memories of that day and laughed as Bella clutched at her injured hand, gloating that Jacob hadn't even been hurt. They were fools. He'd never been so hurt and had never really recovered from somebody he loved so much rejecting him so badly. Just as Bella's vampire treated her mean and kept her keen, Jacob never stopped loving Bella – no matter how terribly she wounded him. He still dreamed about her chocolate brown eyes and running his hands through her silky mahogany hair. Still found his mind wandering back to that one perfect kiss on the top of a mountain, her hands plastered across his chest and fisting his hair.

The knowledge that he had been found wanting compared to Edward made Jacob doubt himself. He would find himself thinking that he shouldn't have hung out with her so much in the garage drinking warm soda – not when that rich motherfucker could afford to take her to fancy restaurants. He shouldn't have been so wrapped up in the Rabbit – not when that bastard was able, with a snap of his fingers, to buy her an Audi.

Bella had always claimed she was a no frills sort of girl, but then she picked Mr Frills himself as a husband.

It didn't make sense. So Jacob ran some more. The summer holidays had arrived and he had nothing to do other than grieve. He had been placed on double patrol duties as penance for his long absence after he had received Bella's wedding invitation. He knew he deserved it so he tried not to complain. Sam had decided to pair Jacob with Leah for the majority of his punishment. Leah was perpetually being put on double patrols herself for one infraction or another. Sam had said that the pairing was because her speed was a good counterbalance to his strength, but Jacob knew the truth. He and Leah had the most unpleasant minds in the whole pack these days and no one wanted to share headspace with either of them. Putting the two of them together left everybody else in relative peace. He knew that Embry and Seth had both questioned Sam after that decision. They saw it as cruel. Jacob told them not to worry. Neither he nor Leah could be any more miserable than they already were. What difference did it make if they were exposed to each other's pain?

Unlike Jacob's mental self flagellation, Leah's mind was awash with fury. She hated everyone so much that she could barely form proper thoughts about why they were all so deplorable. Jacob often only heard the specific insults she was hurling at him, with her rage forming a fuzzy white noise that blared all around him. Unlike his pack brothers, Leah's jibes didn't irk him. There was nothing nasty that she could say to him that he wasn't already saying to himself.

Jacob approached the cliffs and saw her sitting at the very edge, shoulders hunched over as her legs dangled off the side. A normal human wouldn't be able to see her at all, but Jacob wasn't human. He paused for a moment. They weren't meant to patrol together for another hour. She would be angry at him for bothering her before then.

"Screw it" he thought and kept running towards her. She'd be angry no matter what and he had planned to run this way. No way was he letting any more moping women dictate how he lived his life. That's what he'd done with Bella and look where that had gotten him.

He made what he thought was a noisy entrance at the top of the cliff path but Leah didn't stir. He plonked himself down at his favourite thinking spot several metres away and cleared his throat. When she turned to look at him he realised that he had been very wrong. She hadn't heard him at all. Her eyes were red and swollen, tears streaming down her cheeks. She immediately wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt, turning her mouth into a grimace.

"You tell anyone and I'll kill you," she hissed at him.

"No one wants to talk to my miserable ass, so who am I gonna tell? Paul told me the other day that he'd rather hang out with you than me!" he replied. "Besides, part of me wants you to kill me," he added under his breath.

They sat in uncomfortable silence and Jacob watched the angry waves thrashing far below them. A storm was brewing and a stroke of lightening flashed in the distance.

"Can you push me?" she finally asked, turning her face back towards him. He saw the agony and desperation there, but he couldn't quite believe that he had heard correctly. He raised his eyebrow at her, full of confusion.

"I came up here to jump, but I can't because of Sam's stupid Alpha Order. Push me and put me out of my misery," she pleaded.

"What Alpha Order?" Jacob enquired.

Leah sighed and her shoulders fell, her chin almost drooping on her knees. "Can't you just push me - no questions asked?"

"Nope. If I'm gonna murder you I want to know why Clearwater," Jacob found himself edging over a little. She was still an arm's length away but he could now see that she was wringing her hands and that her fingers were red and chaffed from the force she was using.

"I told him I didn't think that I could come to his wedding on Saturday and that Emily would need to find another maid of honour, and then he ordered me to be there and do my best to make Emily happy." Another tear slid down Leah's cheek. She didn't bother to wipe it away. "I came up here to try and find a way out, but it turns out that if the mighty freaking Alpha gives you an order about what he wants you to do on the weekend, you can't knowingly take yourself out of the picture before then."

Jacob tensed. It didn't seem right to order Leah to do anything. Sam was usually pretty sparing with Alpha Orders. They had all had so many choices taken away from them already, but he knew exactly what would make Sam, who was ordinarily a good and fair leader, unreasonable and selfish.

Imprinting.

Woo-Woo stars and moonbeams love at first sight for wolves. Jacob wondered if the spirits had simply doubted the social skills of those with the shifter gene, because so far their choices made no sense whatsoever. Sam had been in a happy loving relationship with Leah until he imprinted on her cousin Emily. Then, bada-bing! Emily was it for Sam and he wanted to do whatever it took to make her happy. Leah, being a shifter and constantly stuck in Sam's head had to see the whole thing in technicolour. It was a disaster that had been followed by the pack's most flagrant womaniser, Paul, imprinting on Jacob's older sister. His sister. Quil had imprinted on a two year old, which, even if Quil's thoughts remained platonic, was undeniably creepy. Jared was the only wolf whose imprint didn't seem offensive to Jacob. He'd imprinted on Kim, a girl that sat next to him at school and was in love with him already. Even that was slightly off though. Kim and Jared had spoken hundreds of times and Jared had never paid the slightest bit of attention to her. It made Jacob uncomfortable that Jared's attitude towards a girl was so wholly altered by wolf magic. His non-relationship with Bella might have been a disaster, but at least it was built on shared experiences and grew over time. Imprinting was the opposite. The imprint was immediately the centre of the wolf's universe. The wolf was guided by an urgent need to protect the imprint and to give them their hearts desire.

Jacob hated imprinting. Imprinted couples seemed to think that non-imprinted people didn't know anything about love. He had often heard Paul and Jared criticising Jacob's obsession with Bella on the basis that she was "not his imprint". They acted like that fact alone negated Jacob's hurt. It was infuriating. They took the same approach to Leah. They assumed that, because she could see the experience of imprinting first hand through the pack mind, she should be more sympathetic to Sam and Emily. Jacob knew full well that that it was possible to love someone like crazy without an imprint. Even now, a part of his mind was always on Bella, wondering if she was drawing her last breath. Wondering if she had turned into a monster.

"Jacob?" Leah ventured, interrupting his thoughts.

"I had no idea that Sam was such a butthead," Jacob answered, returning his mind to Leah's dilemma.

"He's not," Leah moaned. "That's the problem. He's Sam. He'd do anything to make the girl he loves happy. He'd take on the whole world. I'm... just not that girl anymore."

"Why did you agree to be maid of honour in the first place?" Jacob asked.

"I never specifically agreed really. When we were little girls we had a pact that we would be each other's maid of honour. As nine year olds we didn't really think much about clarifying that the deal was void if on the big day we were both in love with the same person." Leah snorted. Jacob was surprised at the idea of Leah fantasising about her wedding as a little girl. She always seemed like one of the guys. Then again, how could she not be with nine dudes filling up her headspace twenty-four seven?

Jacob almost reached out to Leah's face as a fresh wave of tears began, but thought better of it. Just because she had a fantasy about weddings once didn't mean she was the type of girl who wanted to be held while she cried. He was pretty sure that she was going to tear into him once they were in wolf form just to prove that she wasn't weak. Maybe he would let her. Jacob didn't care about much these days, but hers was pain that he could understand. He knew what it was like to be overlooked in favour of another. He knew what it was like to have it rubbed in his face and still not to be able to look away. Maybe he was the only person in the pack who really got just how much Leah was struggling. He felt startled by the stab of protectiveness coursing through his stomach.

"Emily should have known better. I don't know about the girl code, but if a bro steals another bro's girl then all bets are off," Jacob said darkly.

"You just let me know when they release the version of the girl code that covers appropriate etiquette with regards to imprinting," Leah retorted.

"It feels like your pain has gotten worse since before I left. Is it just because the wedding's coming up?" Jacob asked tentatively. They were having a real conversation about feelings now. It was uncharted territory for them – and for him. Bella had always clammed right up when anyone mentioned her vampire. He had supported her while the leech was gone by distracting and entertaining her. For a moment he wished that Embry, who was infinitely better at this stuff, was up here with Leah and not him. Embry even had a not-so-secret crush on Leah and would be able to convincingly give her the spiel about finding new love. Embry had already tried to give Jacob that speech twice before Jacob had threatened to give him a concussion. Jacob wondered if Leah found those sorts of speeches as annoying as he did. Not only did they trivialise the situation, but they were setting people up for failure. Maybe Jacob would never find anyone else. There were plenty of lonely, sad people out there. Why should he assume that he would be any luckier than any of them?

"It's because of Quil and Claire," Leah responded, distracting Jacob from his racing thoughts. "After Sam wrecked her face and I phased and Dad died, it was getting harder to hate her. Everything was too chaotic. When Quil imprinted I realised just how much it was possible to despise someone, but no one else seemed to even clue in to what it all meant."

Jacob wasn't sure he understood the issue either. Quil and Claire's imprint was different because she was a toddler. His feelings for her were brotherly, almost paternal. He just wanted her to be safe and happy. Everyone assumed that in fifteen or so years that would change when Claire's needs did. Until then Quil was the werewolf equivalent of a monk.

The penny dropped.

Emily had needed Sam as a lover. On some level she had craved it. That was what Leah was upset about. In a matter of weeks, Emily had been able to shack up with Sam because that desire was more important than any loyalty she felt for Leah. On some basic level, Emily had let her own romantic needs trump Leah's feelings. Emily didn't need Leah to be happy in order to be happy herself.

Jacob let out a cry of disgust. "She wanted him more than she wanted to protect you. Sam was ultimately responding to that, otherwise he would have been friend-zoned just like Quil".

"Yup," Leah said. "No one cares though. They all think I'm a bitch and that I deserved what happened. They love Emily with her muffins and constant need to coddle everyone. She's the golden girl."

Jacob knew Leah was right. Everyone loved Emily. She nurtured all the boys, nursed wounds and provided each new wolf with immediate and unconditional love. Even after Leah had pointed out that Emily had some pretty obvious short comings, he was still finding it hard to think ill of her.

"Do you think..." Leah trailed off before finishing her question. She bit her lip uncertainly.

"What?" Jacob prodded.

"Do you think that the imprint goes on after people stop phasing?" Leah whispered.

Jacob closed his eyes and drew in a sharp breath. Was Leah really imagining that in five or ten years Sam might come home to her? He chastised himself for being surprised. He would have waited a lifetime for Bella. Ironically she was in quite a hurry to die.

"I think-" Jacob started, pausing to choose his words carefully. "I think that even if the imprint goes away, people are left with a person they have bound themselves to through marriage and sharing a home. The woo-woo stuff might go. Who knows? But it would be hard to leave the life you built with someone else." He winced as he said the words, expecting Leah to strike him, but she stared vacantly into the distance.

"I kinda already worked that out," she muttered. "He's never gonna leave her, especially after what he did to her face. On top of it all, he's never even going to work out that it didn't need to happen like this."

Jacob couldn't help but feel a surge of admiration for Leah. She wasn't just going through the loss of a lover, she'd lost her best friend in a brutal act of betrayal. Emily had sent Sam away initially but caved not long after. Leah deserved a friend who didn't covet her former flame while she was still in mourning.

"So..." Leah looked at him expectantly.

"So," Jacob replied confusedly.

"So, will you push me off this damn cliff already!" Leah snapped.

Jacob thought about how much he had wanted to die just five days ago when Bella married Edward. He certainly understood the urge. Embry had stayed there with him in wolf form sending him images of Billy, Rebecca, Rachel, Quil and Seth. It had taken hours but eventually Jacob had realised that he couldn't take his own life. Even though he was probably ruined forever, there was more to his existence than Bella. He remembered what it was like when his mother died. He wouldn't knowingly make any of his friends or family suffer like that.

"I get where you're coming from, believe me. I've lost everything too – but Seth and Sue already had to deal with losing your father. Do you think they'd cope with losing you too? It would destroy them!"

Leah frowned. "Maybe you could just rough me up really badly then. Enough that I won't be healed by the wedding. Emily would have to back off if I was oozing pus and blood and on crutches."

Jacob felt his mouth quirk a little at the edges. Leah was the only girl he knew who would ever want a beating over being a bridesmaid. He clapped his hand over his mouth in surprise. It was the first time he had smiled in days.

Leah mistook the gesture. "Come on, you know that we heal anyway. I'm asking you to do it. It's not like you'd be a woman-beater or anything."

"How about I think about it?" Jacob said carefully. "We've got two days, if you still feel the same way right before the wedding then maybe I can think of something."

"Whatever," Leah said sullenly.

"Leah," Jacob said, steeling his resolve and bringing his hand to the side of her face. "Is there anything I can do for you, anything at all that doesn't involve inflicting bodily harm?"

Leah met his gaze sadly. "Nope. Not unless you can think of how to stop Sam bossing me around."

Suddenly she gasped and clapped her hand over Jacob's own palm on her cheek.

"Jake! Jake you could do that!" She was gripping him tightly now, excitement shining in her eyes.

"What are you talking about woman?" She really was impossible to follow.

"You could step up. Be Alpha-"

"No! No way Leah!" Jacob interrupted her. "I don't want to be Alpha. I'd be hopeless at it. I'm not saying Sam's doing a great job at the moment, but what he's doing is ten times what I could. It's a good thing that we walk around half naked because I have struggled to dress myself this week. You're the only person in the pack who can bear to share thoughts with me and I think you'll agree it's not pretty. I can't be a leader right now. Probably not ever, but definitely not now."

Leah began to shake. He watched her convulsing and realised that thinking of a solution and having it taken away so quickly had pushed her over the edge. He grabbed her and threw her away from the cliff face moments before she phased, shredding her shorts and shirt as she did. Jacob tossed off his own cutoffs and felt the ripple as he took on wolf form. Paws racing on the ground, he headed north knowing that Leah would run south.

You two are early, Quil said.

Out of my head paedophile, Leah snarked. Take an early mark to look at some kiddy porn.

Jacob felt Quil's annoyance, coupled with the thought that he could make it to Neah Bay to visit Claire if he left now.

Bye Jake. Enjoy patrolling with the bitch,Quil thought as he phased out.

You guys okay? Embry was not as easily distracted as Quil.

Yeah bro, just peachy. Jacob tried to keep his thoughts away from Leah's suicidal mind and crying fit by singing the most annoying song he could think of.

Why are you reciting the lyrics to "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?"

Time to phase out Em, Jacob ignored his question. He knew that his friends were surprised by how unpleasant he was recently. They didn't seem to understand that his misery over Bella seeped into every single moment. Embry phased leaving Jacob alone with Leah. She was emitting the same buzz of rage that ordinarily paralysed the others. Jacob let it wash over him.

I am sorry, Leah.

Spineless piece of shit, she roared at him.

I meant what I said about considering helping you out with a broken leg or two though, Jacob tried to placate her.

If you're too gutless to be Alpha, how the hell you gonna break any part of me, Black?

She was setting a cracking pace as she distanced herself from him. Maybe it was because she was leaner than the rest of them, but she often seemed faster than the wind. She carried herself differently too. Jacob felt a wave of pride flow through Leah, having heard his thoughts. He tried to send her visuals of specific times when she had done something impressive.

Nice try but I'm not an idiot. You still owe me some assault and battery seeing as you're too pussy to help me out the only way you can as a pacifist.

I don't owe you jack Clearwater.

Bet Bella's enjoying fucking Cullen right now. Jiggling right on his shiny ice-cold cock.

Jacob let out a roar. He knew she was trying to goad him into hurting her, but he wasn't sure if he could stop himself from actually murdering her if she hit him with those sorts of thoughts. He turned around to follow her.

I'm going to make you wish you were never born, he yelled.

Already there Black, already there.

Jacob seized at the most obvious response to Leah's jibe about Bella. Emily would never say something so purposefully hateful. He tried to snatch the thought back but Leah heard the words just as Jacob himself was regretting them.

Leah, I'm sorry, he thought. God I seem to spend all our time together apologising.

Leah? Jacob slowed as he processed Leah's silence. She was sniffing the edge of a tree carefully. He could feel the exact moment when she realised what she had scented.

Vampire.