31. Epilogue: Colours

Six years later

Leah pressed her hands against her mug of steaming coffee as she leaned her body forward against the porch railing of her home. Being cold was a new thing for her – a sensation that had caught her off guard more than once as summer drew to a close. She found herself wearing trousers and bulky jumpers for the first time in years to keep warm. Her hair now stretched down her back and she shook out the locks to keep her neck braced from the wind.

It didn't stop her from feeling him though. Seasons came and went, but she remained inexplicably aware of him. The invisible cord between them had only strengthened with the passage of time and she inclined her head in anticipation of his arrival long before the familiar Dodge Charger rounded the bend. It was one of three cars that Jacob was using at the moment (and the least practical), but she couldn't fault him for his growing collection; he always sold up if a decent offer was made to him and he always started with an unrecognisable shell that he lovingly restored for a fraction of the price it would cost someone else.

Jacob Black was good at fixing broken things.

He slammed the door and grinned at her as he made his way up the front steps. It was a smile that belonged to Leah alone and one that she effortlessly returned. He wiped a grease-stained hand on the flannel shirt slung around his waist and Leah noticed the black smudges on his white singlet.

She really needed to get him some dark ones. What kind of mechanic wore white anything?

"Hey," he drawled, pulling their bodies close as he embraced her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder so they could both stare out to sea.

"Hey yourself," she replied, wondering how his frame could still feel so heated. It had been months since he last phased but it seemed to be taking a long time for his supernatural traits to disappear.

"How was your day?" he murmured into her neck, his words tickling her flesh.

"Cold," she fretted. "It's getting really cold."

He pulled her tighter. "Jacob Black, eternal space heater at your service," he whispered in her ear.

She grinned. There was a warmth to Jacob that had nothing to do with his physical temperature. He was a balm to all ails, particularly on crazy days like the one she'd had today. "That's great," she teased, "But what do I do while you're at the garage? I'm getting old and it's Autumn, I can't just pick up a summer lover as easily as I used to."

They both knew she was teasing but Leah shivered at the way Jacob's eyes flashed at her words.

"Mine," he hissed as his hands found their way under the layers of fabric that swaddled her.

"Yours," she reassured him, lifting a hand to trail down the cheek not already pressed against her own. He purred in contentment and for a moment she just breathed him in, that familiar mix of sandalwood and rain, now doused in oil and grit, but still somehow irresistible.

"I miss the short shorts and flimsy dresses," he complained as he tried to poke his fingers down the waist of her jeans.

"Cry me a river, Black," she responded as she swatted his hand away. "We don't have time for hanky-panky. Instead, I'm going to tell you exactly what your son got up to this afternoon!"

He spun her around so that they were facing one another and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "There's always time for hanky panky... and why is he my son when he's been naughty? If anything, when our children misbehave, people are probably reminded of their wayward mother."

"I don't think so," Leah scoffed. She was increasingly distracted by the hand Jacob was slowly moving up her ribcage, although he'd removed the other to steal a swig from her coffee.

"So, where are the children?" Jacob asked, smirking at the obvious effect his roaming hand was having on her. She reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could gain any further ground.

"The twins are down for their nap and Em's in a time-out in the front room. I told him he has to stay there until he understands that he has to use his 'inside voice' at home."

"He was yelling?" Jacob's eyebrow's rose in surprise. Leah understood the reaction. Their eldest child was usually very well behaved, but today there had been extenuating circumstances.

"He threw a total tantrum," Leah responded, not able to contain the annoyance she felt at the way the afternoon had transpired.

"Why?" Jacob enquired curiously. He was leaning on the railing now, his arms still wrapped loosely around her.

"Well..." Leah began. "It's kind of funny actually. I mean it wasn't funny at all while he was throwing things and tearing around the house, but you'll probably think it's funny." Jacob shrugged his shoulders and tried to hide his smile. He thought that most things Embry did were pretty funny, but he was smart enough to know that Leah wouldn't react well if he acknowledged that right now. "They did show and tell today... he hasn't done that game before and one of the girls in his class got up and talked about how her family went to some restaurant in Port A last night. She went through all the dishes they ordered and Em totally lost it when she said her favourite was when they ate honey chicken." Jacob looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue. "Jake, Em thought someone ate Honey Chicken."

Understanding dawned in Jacob's eyes and he swore under his breath. "What did he do?"

"Well, he got upset and called the girl a few names that Kim had to reprimand him for. Luckily she understood exactly what he was worried about and kept trying to tell him that no one would ever eat his favourite pet chicken, but he didn't really understand the distinction Kim was trying to make. In the end, she called me and I went and collected him early. We looked at the coop as soon as we got home and I showed him that Honey, Satay and Barbeque were fine, but he wasn't happy with that..." Leah trailed off. Jacob was doing a poor job of hiding his amusement and she scowled at him as his shoulders shook with repressed chuckles.

"Go on," he said. "What happened next?"

"He wanted to bring the damn birds inside so that he could 'protect them' and when I wouldn't let him he went berserk! He threw a tonka truck at the wall and now there's a hole in the gyprock!"

Jacob frowned and Leah knew that despite his earlier laughter he was beginning to see why she was so very frustrated. They'd never had much money and they'd built the house they lived in from the ground up. Every wall, every floorboard had been lovingly crafted by them with the help of the pack. It had saved them substantial sums but had the effect of causing them to be unusually attached to every inch of the place.

"I'll talk to him, but honestly Lee, we've still got leftover paint in the garage. A bit of filler and a touch-up and it will be as good as new." He kissed her forehead and she closed her eyes. There were some days were having three children, the eldest of whom was only five, pushed her past her limits, but there were no days where Jacob's love didn't remind her just how lucky she was.

It had been a hard slog from the moment that news about her first pregnancy spread outside the pack. The rumours about Leah increased tenfold and she struggled under the weight of the guilt she felt at putting Jacob in a position where he had even more responsibilities – especially when he told her that he had gotten an apprentice position at an auto-shop in Forks and he wasn't going back to school.

Jacob told her she was crazy to think he was anything other than ecstatic. He worshipped her and she'd always wanted to have a child. The fact that he was able to give her one was a blessing for both of them. She moved in with him and Billy – who took their relationship and her impending motherhood in his usual quiet stride - and they began building their own house and future.

She wasn't sure how Jacob managed to work, run the pack, supervise the construction of their home and still find time to spend with her, but he did.

A cry from inside the house interrupted their embrace and Leah sighed. All her children were conspiring to drive her nuts today.

"I'll get it," Jacob offered, stealing another mouthful of coffee.

"No," Leah shook her head, "I'll take the twins. You go and explain to Em why he's not getting any dessert."

Jacob raised an eyebrow. "On top of the time-out?"

She pecked him briefly on the lips. "Wait 'til you see the wall before you decide I'm being harsh."

The wailing intensified and she scurried back into the house. Once one twin got going it was only a matter of time before the other joined in. She scooped up her little girl and carried her to the rocking chair that Billy had built for them – sometimes it was the only thing that calmed her.

"Come on Sarah," she cajoled. "Back to sleep before you wake Harry up." They named their children for the ones they lost too soon. First Embry, then the twins three years later. The movement of the chair swayed her daughter back to sleep and Leah cast her eye over the familiar photographs. The lounge was her favourite place in the house because it was so thoroughly decorated with mementos of everything that was important to them.

There was the photo of Jacob, Quil and Embry at the beginning of their sophomore year of school, as well as the one of Seth at his high school graduation. Both sat next to a blown up image of one of Leah's favourite snapshots: the picture of Jacob shirtless in the armchair in the hospital where she birthed their eldest child, his gigantic hands holding a tiny Embry against his chest. Leah remembered watching while Sue took the picture – she had felt like her heart was going to explode. She didn't know there could be that much happiness in the whole world, let alone inside of her. Her eyes drifted to the cluster of photos above the sofa: weddings. For a while there it had felt like all the pack had done was plan weddings. There was the photo of her laughing at Emily's wedding, as well as Kim and Jared on their big day. There was the picture of Paul, looking like he might burst into tears when he first saw Rachel walking down the aisle, as well as Charlie and Sue dancing clumsily after their own ceremony. Then of course there were the most recent wedding photos, the ones that Leah liked the most.

Her wedding photos.

It had been a long engagement.

She had said 'yes' when Jacob asked her one day at the cliffs, their cliffs, but she was four months pregnant with Embry at the time and had promptly informed him that they would have to wait until she was back to her usual size. The resumption of phasing had meant that she'd gotten her body back faster than most, but then they'd been busy with their son, busy building a house and then busy having more babies and suddenly the twins were one and she had no excuses left and they'd planned a modest ceremony - different from the one she'd imagined growing up - and infinitely more perfect.

Embry, who had been four at the time had pranced down the aisle as their ring-bearer, flinging rose petals every which way because Tiffany Call, who had been minding him earlier that morning, had told him that you were allowed to throw flowers at weddings.

Leah had peeked out from behind the double doors of her home watching him before the music started and she had stepped out into her backyard.

There were a lot of people that were looking at her that afternoon, but in the walk down the garden path she hadn't seen anything other than her mate's face beaming at her. She would later be told about Sam's hidden tears and Bella's prominent ones, but on her big day she saw only the important things: Jacob Black; Alpha, lover, and husband.

It was a simple ceremony. Jacob was barefoot and wearing jeans. She wore a red sundress. They spoke vows they wrote themselves, and as they said them a light rain began to fall.

They didn't falter.

They didn't need the sun to shine on them to know how lucky they were or how right their union was. There were some things they just felt in their bones. Lightning flashed and the sky was grey, but they were radiant.

The shot that Leah loved so much was of her first dance with Jake. That ridiculous song that she'd listened to on endless repeat in Hawaii played, and Jacob had wiggled his unfathomably large frame around while gripping her hips and singing a cringe-worthy and off-key rendition of the chorus.

Best. Wedding. Ever.

Her eyes flicked over to the biggest item on the mantelpiece, a housewarming gift from Rebecca that was almost a metre by a metre. Rebecca had given it without understanding what it was: a huge painting of Embry's wolf. No one had ever told her about the imprint – it seemed cruel and unnecessary given that she was married and had a life in Hawaii – but that picture had changed a lot about how Leah had looked at the world.

"I see wolves all the time... even in my dreams," Rebecca had confessed as Leah and Jacob had unwrapped their present. To Rebecca it was simply the result of being exposed to a supernatural war, but Leah and Jacob both knew that Rebecca had never seen Embry in his other form. The picture was more than just a lupine likeness of the boy they missed so much, it was a sign of the power of imprinting. Leah had realised in that moment that she no longer resented Emily or Sam for what had happened. She didn't think of Emily as a best friend (that role had long been filled by Rachel) but she considered her family and accepted her back into her life.

These days even Bella was family. Sort of. Part way through her College degree, she'd come home and announced that she was done with Edward, and that she wanted to meet with the pack to give everyone a full apology for everything that had happened because of her relationship with him. The apology hadn't really changed the wary way that people regarded her, but it had been a start. Isabella Swan was still a work in progress, but Leah knew with the shy glances she had been throwing David's way that it was only a matter of time before their pot-smoking video gaming nights morphed into something entirely different. Charlie had made a number of comments about how he would always worry that "that damned Edwin might come back," and Leah wished that he wasn't such an upstanding member of the Police Force so that she could tell him that the Paul had taken care of Edward years ago. Leah suspected it was one of the few things that David would never tell his imprint. An old score had been settled between the wolves and a creature that had threatened them all and not one of them questioned the justice that had been dispensed.

Bella was true to her word and never spoke to any of the Cullens after her divorce came through. In fact, Leah and Jacob were the ones who received the odd postcard from Rosalie or Jasper here and there, always signed with the same farewell "see you never."

"You working tomorrow?" Jacob murmured as he padded into the lounge, with a drowsy Embry nestled at his hip.

Leah nodded, "In the afternoon." Over the past few years she'd managed to get a counselling qualification by studying long-distance. She had worried that she wouldn't have much luck finding work in such a small town, but she'd impressed people when she did practical training experience and had gotten a job with a telephone help-line for kids at risk with a service based in Seattle. Her boss allowed her to work from home – which was realistically the only way she was ever going to be able to juggle a career along with everything else. Leah often reflected on the irony of someone that had been so thoroughly regarded as a "bitch" being involved in listening to worried young people. Still, she'd been a second mother to half the pack and more than that, she knew what it was like to feel scared and alone, like no one would understand her troubles.

She could do more than sympathise - she could empathise – and kids could tell the difference.

She had a talent for helping people not give into darkness. She and Jacob had fought that battle together. Sometimes the losses they had endured ripped at them - a bruise on their soul; black and blue, but ever fading through the passage of time.

Today was one of those days where the memories were spinning inside Leah mind, forming a collage. Jacob hummed tunelessly as they fed and bathed their children and put them to bed.

"You're quiet tonight," he observed once they were seated on the sofa together. "Are you still pissed about the wall? Really, Em is very sorry and I'll fix it in the morning."

Leah shook her head. She felt oddly emotional and she couldn't put her finger on why.

"Do I have to go and hunt down a coin?"

Leah smiled. They played the penny game all the time. It was a family tradition, after all.

"Nah, I'm fine. Just feeling a little queasy... I must have eaten something a little off today."

He put his arm around her and pulled her closer. "You've been pretty tired lately. Maybe we should try and plan a little break? I bet Paul and Rachel would look after the kids for a weekend."

Leah laughed. "We'd last about five hours before we came racing back." Neither she or Jacob handled being away from their children well. They used to claim it was a wolf thing, but it was getting harder and harder to rely on that excuse.

"Do you miss phasing?" she asked him. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

Jacob smiled warmly. "Not as much as I look forward to growing old with you."