FIVE: Rot.

Alternate title: The Most Disgusting Thing

Hmm. I heart Seth, so you get some Sethiness in here, too.

"That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen." The words slipped from Seth Clearwater's mouth with a low whistle as he gazed up an age-twisted tree. It was covered in mosses and lichens, the only green color splashed upon the nearly-dead tree. While the other trees around it had blossomed into spring with a healthy bright green color, it had decided to stay in winter slumber for a while longer, apparently.

Leah snorted from where she looked up at the tree, her fingers twined around the black straps of her backpack. "No, it it's not. You just haven't seen yourself in the morning," she informed him, heaving her backpack off of her shoulders. It was a surprisingly large backpack for such a surprisingly lean girl.

"Shut up," Seth called to her, scowling as he went to touch the tree. "I'm not nearly as ugly as you are in the morning."

She frowned, considering this. "True," she admitted after a moment with a grin. The dark-skinned woman turned to the twenty-year-old man next to her. "But Jake's the ugliest of us all in the morning."

Jacob rolled his eyes at her comment. "And you know this cause you're at my house in the morning all the time, Leah," he said sarcastically. Seth snorted as he started to climb the old tree, frowning as a branch groaned underneath his weight.

"If you climb that, you're an idiot," the woman said flatly, frowning as her brother still persisted to attempt to hoist himself higher. "It's all rotten and dead. Why do you think it doesn't have any leaves on it?"

"Nah, it has moss and stuff on it. They live off the trees, right?" he asked, pausing as he thought about it. "Or are those the parasite things?"

Jake laughed, picking up Leah's backpack. "You need to stop skipping school, you're turning into a freaking idiot," he ordered, before nodding his head at Leah. "Come on. Let's leave him here and find a better tree to climb."

She took the backpack from him, situating it over her tan bare shoulders. "Yeah. Don't go too far, though – I don't wanna miss the cracking sound when he falls and breaks his head," she said lightly. Jake knew her too well to know that there was a different meaning to her words. Though Leah liked to act like she didn't care, her words actually meant, 'Don't go too far in case he gets hurt.' Jacob was good at picking up her hidden meanings. He liked to use them, too.

He remembered when Nessie moved away as they walked down a sloping hill of mud and twigs.

"It's fine," he had assured his pack members a few days after it had happened. "I'm fine. I promise. I'm okay." Their looks had assured him that they didn't quite believe him. So the majority of the pack had spent the next few weeks making light-hearted, forced conversation, like they were concerned that the littlest mention of anything from diamonds to snow would set him off into an emotional whirlwind.

The only two pack members that were the exception to this were Leah and her brother. Seth was far too happy-go-lucky to let Jake slip into an era of self-loathing, so the day after the 'I'm fine' meeting, the two Clearwater siblings had shown up on his doorstep.

"Hey, Jake," Seth had said brightly, obviously oblivious to the fact that Jake was cursing under his breath at the hour that they had woken him up. "Ready to go?"

A few more curse words had slipped out of his mouth before he had responded. "What are you talking about?"

"Fishing," Leah clarified, motioning to a tackle box that she had in one hand. "We have some cheap collapsible poles, freshly bought a few weeks ago. You ready to go or what?"

He had stared at them, wondering why they were doing this to him. He didn't remember signing up to intrude on some sister-brother fishing trip. A million questions buzzed through his head. Oddly enough, though, not one of them had to do with Nessie or the Cullens. It was a nice change.

So he had spent his day catching fish from a river, while Leah and Seth fished him out of the era of sadness he had started to surrender to.

"Jake? Would you stop ignoring me?"

He blinked, looking up from the muddy ground that his eyes had been trained on. "What?" he asked, before slipping into a grin. "Sorry, Leah, didn't mean to ignore you… what'd you say?"

"I asked you if this looked okay," she said again, clearing her throat after she spoke. He frowned, his mind moving slower. So the woman laughed, before clarifying. "This tree. For climbing…?"

Tree. Oh, right. He nodded, before he actually stopped to survey the tree. It was a tall one, with plenty of branches. Not too many, though, as they both liked a challenge. They liked to have to stretch to reach a branch. Leah didn't want anything handed to her, that was for sure. "Looks okay."

She shrugged off her backpack a second time, nodding. Leah stopped to pull the band from her hair, letting her inky strands escape down to her shoulders. "Your hair is long," Jacob blurted out for some reason.

A surprised, yet amused expression was resting on her features. "Yeah? Well, I haven't cut it in a long time. It used to be a pain, you know? But, you know… now it's not," Leah explained, pulling her hair back into a less-messy ponytail as she began to climb the tree.

He started after her a moment later, letting her long legs disappear out of sight before beginning. "Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Now that the Cullens are gone and we aren't changing, you mean?"

There was a moment of silence. He said their names, she couldn't help but think. She tried not to miss a beat in their conversation, but he had caught her by surprise. "Yeah," she clarified, clearing her throat. "That's what I meant. Are you okay with that?"

He frowned, not quite understanding. "Okay with what? Not changing? Yeah, it's kind of a nice change. Or do you mean your long hair? Cause, er, I think it looks nice, so – "

"No, no," she interrupted, reaching for a thicker branch. "I meant the Cullens. Moving. Are you okay with that?" And here was another example of Leah's special way of hiding meanings. It had been a few years since Nessie had left and she was wondering if Jacob was finally starting to be okay with it.

"Uhhh, yeah," he said. It felt good to talk, to say what he actually meant. Weird, but… nice? God, he didn't know how to explain it. "I… I don't know. I'm okay with it, I guess. I mean, what am I going to do? Go after her? Two years later? Don't think so…"

Leah nodded, taking his trailing off as a sign that he was done with talking. For now, anyway. Maybe someday she'd get the full story of what had happened. All Sam had said was that 'the Cullens left. They're not coming back.' After their strange looks, he had added, 'Nessie, too.'

They climbed in silence for a few more minutes. It wasn't an uncomfortable one, just… silence. They were both thinking over what had (and had not) been said. Finally, Leah broke the silence.

"You think my hair looks nice?" she asked with a laugh, looking down at him from her higher position on the tree. Leah stopped climbing, instead choosing to sit on a sturdy branch and wait for Jacob to catch up with her.

He laughed, too, a weird sensation growing in his stomach. "Yeah," he said awkwardly, taking his time with the task of climbing up to her. Finally, he reached her. Jake didn't sit on her branch – he stopped to stand on one a foot or two below it. With her sitting and him standing, they were nearly the same height. "It looked nice when it was short, too, but I like it better now."

"Oh," she said, pursing her lips as she thought about what he had said. "Thanks. Seth says it makes me look like Emily." Leah laughed at the absurdity; she didn't think she looked like her cousin at all.

Jacob studied her, drawing up an image of Emily in his mind. They had the same hair color, the same hair texture… it was very shiny. He imagined if he touched it, it'd be soft as well.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" she asked him suspiciously. He smiled, shrugging as he joined her on her branch.

"I don't think you look like Emily," he answered her, before hesitating. "I know you're cousins, but you don't look alike at all… you're both – "

He stopped speaking, his eyes going wide as he heard a splintering noise. It wasn't his imagination, either; Leah's head snapped in the direction that the noises were coming from. If he strained, he could hear more thuds and finally a louder one. Then, silence.

"What was – " Jake began to ask, but Leah was already starting to climb down from her spot on the branch.

"Seth," she whispered, a look of horror on her face as she started to bolt down the branches. He wasn't far behind her, his foot replacing hers as soon as it lifted from a branch. The pair tore down the branches, their breaths hitched as they frantically tried to reach Seth and whatever had caused the noise.

About halfway down from the tall tree, Leah slipped. Her hiking boot skidded off of a wet branch and her heart lurched in her chest. She was going to fall, she could feel her balance leaving her and her breath frozen and –

Jake's arm slipped around her waist, strong as it hoisted her back up so she could regain her footing. "Careful," his breath in her ear reminded her. She took it slower after that (though she was still going down faster than was probably smart), allowing Jacob to pass her in their descent down the tree.

He hesitated about thirty feet from the ground, perched on the balls of his feet. "Jake, don't be stupid, don't – " Leah started to yell at him, only a few branches higher than he was. But, he tipped forward and jumped anyway. He landed gracefully enough; evidently there was enough werewolf left in him to be able to do stupid things like that and live.

If he hurt himself, I'll kill him, Leah promised, quickening her pace down the tree. Jacob yelled up at her, something she didn't quite catch. "What?!" she called down, pausing. But her mind screamed at her. Don't stop, Leah! Seth! Help him! Go faster! She continued to go down the branches.

"Jump! I'll catch you!" Jake promised, holding out his arms. "It'll save time! Jump, Leah, trust me!" Trust him? Trust him to catch her when she was still nearly thirty five feet up in the air? He had survived, but if he didn't catch her, she would land on her back and how stupid would she be to put her trust in –

Leah jumped, forcing her eyes to stay open and her mouth to stay closed as the tree whooshed past her. The fall lasted a fraction of a second – soon Leah found herself in Jacob's arms.

"Thanks," she managed breathlessly as he sat her on the ground. He simply nodded, grabbing her hand and pulling her along with him as he started to run up the path they had made coming to the tree.

In a few minutes, Seth came into view. He was underneath the tree, gritting his teeth as he clutched his arm. The wrist was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken.

"Seth!" Jacob yelled, releasing her hand to instead sprint over to him. How he had enough energy to sprint those last fifty feet, Leah didn't know, but he did it somehow.

"You idiot, what the hell were you thinking, going up a tree like that!" Leah scolded, but she skidded to a stop beside her brother, clearly distraught at the sight of her brother's broken wrist. "We have to go to a hospital."

Hospitals normally weren't the place for werewolves. Their high fevers caused trouble all the time, but thanks to the Cullens moving away, they could go to the doctor. Or, in this case, the emergency room.

The trip there was not fun. They had to walk out of the forest, the whole time with Seth's background noise of, 'It's fine, you guys, and I'm not a baby!' Jacob just let his lips press together, wondering if that was how he had sounded when Nessie left. He had lied better than that, right?

Once in Jacob's car, Seth's complaining hadn't ceased. "You guys are lame, just let me go to the doctor tomorrow, I don't need to go to the freaking emergency room!" He continued to whine even as his sister and his friend dragged him out of the Rabbit and into the emergency room.

"Just shut up and let them fix it," Leah scolded as he was pulled into a treatment room. To set the bone or something, she had heard them say, but she wasn't listening. She looked down at the forms they had forced upon her, wanting to know his birthday and his social security number.

"That was a fun trip," Jacob said half-heartedly, offering a smile to try and ease her tense face.

It worked. She laughed slightly, sitting down in one of the plastic chairs lined up against a wall in the waiting room. Jacob joined her, sitting in a matching one next to her. "Yeah, fun," she said, starting to fill out the forms. "Fun like smallpox."

He snorted, absently picking up one of the magazines they had on their tables. Sexually Transmitted Diseases Weekly. Awesome. He set it down, opting to read the Car and Driver next to it, instead. He was absorbed in an article about the pros and cons of foreign cars, until the hairs on his neck rose.

He tore his eyes away from the magazine and they instead settled onto Leah, who was looking at him with an odd expression on her face.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" he asked with a grin spreading across his face as he teased. She didn't smile in return, causing his to vanish rather quickly. "Did I do something?"

"No," she said quickly, before setting the clipboard on her lap and the pen on top of the half-finished forms. "I mean, yes. Thank you."

He frowned. "Why are you thanking me?" he asked, his magazine being set down onto his knees. "For the Seth thing?"

She nodded, biting her lip. "Yeah. I mean, you didn't have to jump from the tree or anything. Which reminds me – thanks for, um, catching me. And when I slipped, thanks for that, too, I really thought that I was – "

He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't be stupid," he ordered, turning so that he faced her in the chair. "I wasn't going to let you fall. You should know that."

She laughed slightly, looking down at her papers with her cheeks looking pink. "Thanks, Jacob, for calling me stupid. Just what I wanted to hear. Thanks. You jackass."

He rolled his eyes again, catching her arm and making her face him. "I said don't be stupid, stupid. I didn't say you were. Cause you're not."

"Yeah? What am I, then? I was stupid enough to let Seth climb that tree, stupid enough to leave him, stupid enough to actually trust him to not kill himself – "

Jacob didn't roll his eyes again. No, she wouldn't believe him if he just flat out told her that she wasn't stupid for doing that. So he leaned in, gently touching his lips to hers. They stayed there for a good ten seconds, before he pulled away slowly from her.

Honestly, he was expecting her to frown and punch him or something. What he wasn't expecting her to do was simply gaze at him for a moment, before quickly pressing her lips to his again. This time, the kiss wasn't a mere ten seconds.

In fact, by the time Seth had his arm fixed, he had to clear his throat to pull the two apart.

"That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen," he declared flatly, his wrist in a cast as he mimed puking. "Gross. Don't do that while I'm around."