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Chapter Text

Leah’s paws pound across the ground, the lithe body of her wolf weaving seamlessly around trunks and thick underbrush. The sickly-sweet scent of leech is horrifically familiar to her now, though the Cedar undertones to these ones are foreign. Dangerous. The fire in her rages, bloodsuckers who dare to hunt on their land! Her mother, Charlie, Billy, Joy, Tiffany. They are all in danger because of the foreign clan. She needs to tear them apart, make sure her family is safe.

The growls of her pack brothers echo her sentiments.

Calm down, Jacob tells them, not quite an order. Don’t lose your heads. Focus!

The smell of burning flesh hits her nose and she recoils, almost crashing into a tree.

God, that’s horrific! Quil’s revulsion is clear, echoed by Embry, Seth, Colin and Brady. Her own almost matches his, before she slams the connection shut abruptly. Or as much as she could, being the Beta and not the Alpha. Only’s Jacob’s thoughts and emotions remain completely closed off, courtesy of the Alpha’s control.

Jacob’s russet-coloured tail swishes as he turns back to them. Come on, we gotta go.

That spurs them all into action. The sickening mixture of smells grows stronger as they approached the cliffs, until they finally catch sight of the group gathered on the jutting outreach from where the boys frequently go cliff diving. All sparkling marble skin and blonde hair, spinning around something in a circle.

“Do not break the connection!” one of them yells. “Whatever happens!”

What are they doing? asks Seth fearfully. Before any of them can respond, a loud cry of pain cuts through the air.

Embry growls, hackles raising. Jesus, is that a fucking kid they’ve got in there?

Go! Orders Jake. He doesn’t need to say it twice.

They spring into action, diving each at the closest blurs they can get their teeth around. It feels like biting into stone, as usual, but she ignores the unpleasant sensation in favour of ripping off the head and limbs of her leech.

Why are they still spinning in the goddamn circle instead of fighting back or running? Brady asks, a hint of panic lacing his tone.

Might be some sort of satanic ritual, muses Quil, tearing the left leg off his leech.

Someone get my leech, I’m gonna get the baby, orders Leah.

I got him. You go, says Jacob, barrelling to her side.

So she does, leaping into the ring of vampires towards the wailing toddler sat in the middle. Immediately, she is engulfed in pain. Red-hot searing pain like she’s never felt before, bringing her down to her knees. Her first instinct is to phase back to human, cut the connection as to not compromise her pack. It is no less bearable, but she forces herself to uncurl and drags her way to the young girl on the pedestal. Just as her fingertips reach the edge, the ground lights up, displaying golden runes carved where the leeches had been running.

A gust from the innermost circle sends both pack and vampire flying back. She is on her own now. With a last burst of energy, Leah grabs the toddler and flings her towards a gathered pile of leaves nearby, praying it would break her fall somewhat.

The pain almost impossible doubles. It feels like her very skin is trying to melt off her bones not unlike her first phase, burning and shifting and inexplicably wrong under her skin. She just about catches Seth’s terrified howl as the pack sprints towards her, before the world lights up a dazzling fiery red.

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She wakes up to screaming.

She’s still burning, the heat simmering under her skin as she fights to open her eyes. The ringing in her ears remains, along with the throbbing head and the sound of a woman screaming. Her panic peaks just as she realises it sounds familiar. It isn’t her mother, is it?

“Leah! Leah, baby, what’s wrong? Wake up!” That’s her mother, she knows it almost instantly. So who’s screaming?

“Dad, why is she shouting? What’s wrong with her?”

Oh.

She’s the one screaming.

She doesn’t know how long it takes for her to stop, only that her voice has gone hoarse when she finally does. It could have been seconds, minutes, but it feels like hours. She could feel her body still shaking, her chest heaving as her lungs try valiantly to fill with oxygen. The burning is still there, bubbling and simmering under her skin, and so very wrong.

Nausea stirs in her stomach, and she forces herself up onto an elbow. She leans over the side of the bed to retch just in time, pushing away the arm holding a damp towel to her forehead.

“Seth, get your sister a bucket. Now, quickly.”  She knows that voice.

It gives her the strength to force her eyes open, meeting the identical almond ones of Harry Clearwater. No, her father is dead. She’s dreaming, she must be. She isn’t dead, she knows that much, so he must be some sick hallucination she concocted in her pain. But the hand around her wrist is warm, the calluses are familiar.

“Can you hear me, Leah Bear?” the clone asks, the worry in his voice clear and potent and so painfully familiar.

This isn’t a dream. It is too real to be a dream.

Her strength crumbles from the shock of her newfound discovery and the elbow beneath her slips, pitching her temple-first into the corner of her bedside drawer. There is a spray of red followed by a stinging pain, a terrified scream that sounds horrifically like Seth’s, hands grabbing her and then finally, blissful blackness. 

Chapter Text

Her dreams being in wolf form seem to be an ongoing theme because here she is again, circling Sam standing on an elevated makeshift platform. Her brothers surround her as they wait for Jacob to return, thoughts running rampart with the growing tension.

They’d seen the horrors of it already, Bella Swan’s blue stomach and corpse-like body and the fetus’ thirst for blood. Surely, it could not get worse. They were wrong. So very wrong.

Jacob’s wave of pain washes over them like a tsunami, memories repeating over and over. Bella’s spine cracking as she plummeted to the ground. The sound of ripping flesh as her husband tore into her stomach with his teeth. The child covered in blood, wrapped in a blanket. Bella lying lifeless like a sunken corpse, blood staining her hospital gown. Jacob’s heartbreak at losing one of his oldest friends and the woman he loved, still loves.

She chokes back a sob of her own. He deserves better, and perhaps he will find it, but not yet. Not now. Now he has been ripped away, gone like he was never there, off to form his own little pack and taking Seth with him. Oh god, Seth.

She can’t feel her brother anymore and the terror almost consumes her.

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“-heart rate is rising agai-”

“-another hallucina-”

“-erature is a 105.1, should I get ice or-”

“-ir, we need you and the family to stay ou-”

“-t’s my daughter, I’m not going anywhe-”

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She’s groggy when she regains a bit of consciousness, and the burning under her skin has lowered somewhat. Thankfully, there is little to no pain left. She’s lying in sheets somewhere unfamiliar and covered in sweat; there are voices murmuring above her head and two separate hands clasped in each of hers. A stinging smell lingers around her, antiseptic.

“-en is she going to wake up?” She knows instantly it’s Seth, though his voice sounds different to her. Odd.

“I don’t know, baby.” That’s her mother. “Every time the sun goes down, her fever rises again. Until it breaks, there’s nothing anyone can do more than keep her temperature as low as possible, so she doesn’t end up with any permanent brain damage.”

“What happened that night? Do you think it’s something to with everything that’s happened recently?”

“It’s possible that it may have weakened her health, but the most likely case is fever dreams. I’m sure she’ll be ok.”

A dull throbbing begins at the temple, developing into a spiking pain as she shifts her head. Her abused windpipe makes itself known as she lets out a pathetic, involuntary whimper, instinctively squeezing the hand grasped in her left one.

“Her pain medication must be wearing off, I’ll call Stacy,” says her mother, rising from her chair.

 Another spike of pain causes Leah to squeeze Seth’s hand tighter. “It’s ok Lee,” he soothes, resting his hand on her forehead. “It’s going to be ok. They’re coming now.”

There is an unfamiliar voice followed by a prick in her arm, and then darkness.

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She’s running again, this time on a battlefield. Newborn vampires blend with her brothers’ and the Cullens in the clearing, and she focuses her attention on tearing apart the one already in her grasp.

As she deposits the last of his limbs on opposite sides of the field, her eyes catch onto another making his way towards her. This one is taller, burly like one of the Cullens they had practiced on. Emmett, the doctor had called him.

The leech grins at her approach, red eyes glittering with insanity.

Leah no!

Leah don’t!

Something warm and furry slams into her side, knocking her out of the way. She hits the ground dazed, watching through Embry’s horrified mind as the newborn wraps his arms around a russet-coloured wolf and squeezes. There is a series of heart- shattering cracks before Jacob’s overwhelming agony hits her.

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She wakes with a gasp, heart monitor beeping rapidly in the background. Her eyes sting at the bright white of the hospital room before they instinctively clamp shut again, her mother’s face swims into view the next time she opens them.

“Oh, thank the spirits!” she exclaims with visible relief, eyes swimming with tears. Her mother seems to have aged and gotten younger all at once, the wrinkles lining her face are prominent but there are less of them. Her eyes are rimmed red, and her hair is pushed back into a messy bun, still dripping wet.

Her mother has been grieving. Grieving what? Did something happen to Seth? One of the boys?

Leah pushes herself up on trembling arms, grasping hold of the neckline of her mother’s dress. “Seth?” she chokes out, throat burning.

“He’s ok, I promise. Have some water, please Leah!” Sue pleads desperately, as Leah bats away the water bottle.

“The others? Jacob?” Painful coughs follow.

“Jacob and everyone else is fine, please have some water.”

She concedes, taking gradual sips before collapsing back on the bed. She stares at her mother, waiting for the other woman to launch into a scolding fest. Sue misinterprets her expression for an explanation, which she quickly becomes grateful for.

“Your father went home to change and shower, took Seth with him. We’ve barely left your bedside all week. Always made sure at least one of us was here just in case you woke up.”

Her father? Her dad? Sue had never called Charlie that before, she had known that he could never replace Harry. She pushed away her anger in favour of answers.

“Is Seth hurt? Is he alright?” she asks urgently, pushing herself up again. If he wasn’t hurt, he’d be here. She knows it.

“Seth’s absolutely fine, now stay still! You’re still weak and you’re going to hurt yourself!”

“I need to see him!” She’s desperate now, unable to stop the tears she’s been holding back since the beginning. The panic is still coursing through her, she can’t feel him from the pack bond, and she could feel all of them since becoming Jacob’s Beta.

“Please Mama, I need to see him!” She hasn’t called her mother that since she was six years old, and she can tell that her mother knows by the way her own tears have started running down her cheeks. She simply holds Leah’s face between her hands and tries to reassure her Seth was ok and on his way, all the while trying to stop the sick girl from climbing out of bed and causing herself more damage.

Neither of them pays any attention to the eyes that have stopped to watch them in the clinic, not until two figures push through the small, gathered crowd and one wraps her in a hug. Seth wraps his arms around her and squeezes until she can barely breathe, his own tears hidden in her hair. Her eyes flutter shut at the familiar embrace, even if it felt off, there is no doubt in her mind it is Seth. It almost physically pains her to push him away and scan him over for injuries.

Her questions come in rapid fire. “Are you ok? Are you hurt? I know you hurt your arm; did you bandage it?”

“My arm is fine Leah, I promise, it was just-”

“Show me,” she orders, pulling up his left sleeve before he could finish talking to expose smooth, unblemished skin.

“See, I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

“What about the Jacob? Is he ok? And the others?”

“Jacob and everyone else are fine, Leah,” soothes her confused brother, almost as if she is a child. “You had fever dreams, they weren’t real. Everyone is ok.”

Fever dreams? She remembers them saying something about it when she first gained her senses back but it had to be impossible. There’s no way. She never got sick anymore, not since she shifted.

And then she notices everything else. Seth actually dressed fully, not barefoot in shorts like usual. The way his hair is still long, tied up in a loose ponytail at his nape. He’s shorter, less warm, like he was before they phased, she remembers.

And then she remembers something else. “Your father,” her mother had said. She hadn’t meant Charlie. Her eyes move involuntarily.

And he’s there. Standing at the foot of her bed looking exactly like he did before he died, with grey shot through his hair and a face full of wrinkles from a lifetime of smiling. He still favours his left leg, still wears oversized plaid shirts that make his hulking figure look even bigger, staring at her as if he’s seeing a miracle.

Her voice breaks. “Daddy?”

And then he’s wrapping her in his arms and she’s crying again, caring nothing of her reputation because her dad is here. He’s here and alive and warm and the fact that he still smells of fish fry only makes her sob harder. 

Chapter Text

Jacob’s asleep when the phone rings at mid-morning. He’s been on patrol with Sam the night before, and even with the Alpha’s ability to hide his thoughts and emotions, his worry for Leah seems to leak through and influence the rest of the pack. Jacob doesn’t blame him, he’s seen Leah’s condition in Sam’s mind when he went to visit her with Emily the day after the accident.

He’s seen the way the dried flakes of blood still matted her hair, the brown stain on the bandage around her head, the way she lay sweating and trembling in the white clinic bed. He saw the fever dream start, the way her face screwed up in pain, the way her body trembled enough to shake the bed, the sounds she made and the tears that slipped from the corner of her eye. Sam had left while fighting a phase but not before he saw her physically arch off the bed and cry out.

His howl of pain had been mistaken for a warning, and all of them had phased only to watch the memory of Leah in agony over and over again. It had taken a long while for everyone to calm down enough to phase back.

He lets the phone ring out three times, not in the mood for listening to Bella yell and whine over the phone because he needed some space. Was it selfish of him to ask for some space and hope that his wishes were respected?

There is a familiar sound of running outside his house. The footsteps of the owner are heavy, too heavy to be Bella’s and it’s further confirmed when he bangs on the door.

“Jake?! Jake, please man, open the door!”

It’s Seth.

Jacob practically flies out of bed when he hears him. For Seth to be here rather than at Leah’s bedside, especially sounding so panicked, is a cause for alarm.

The door almost breaks in his hurry to get it open. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? Is it Leah?”

Seth runs a hand through his hair, seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “It’s about Leah. I need to ask a really big favour of you.”

The second Leah’s name escapes his lips, it feels like someone has poured a bucket of ice-cold water down his back. “Yeah, of course, anything. Is she ok?”

“She woke up today. A few hours ago.”

“Oh thank god!” the relief in Jacob’s voice is matched to Seth’s. “Is she alright? What’s going on?”

“They’re going to keep her for a few days, monitor her,” the kid is crying openly now and Jacob wraps in his arms, pushing aside his own aching heart. “Jake, I need a favour man.”

His reply comes quick, automatic. “Of course, anything!”

Seth sniffles. “You know how she’s been having fever dreams? She thought that I was in danger or hurt or something and I heard the nurse tell mum that her lack of sleep is probably why her recovery is so slow and I know she mentioned you so I was hoping you might come see her so she might sleep easier, and I know you’re probably busy with Sam and stuff but I-”

“Breathe, Seth,” he squeezes the kid a little tighter. “Of course I’ll come. Give me a few minutes to grab some proper clothes, yeah? Go wait in the Rabbit, keys are on the hook.”

It takes everything in him not to phase and run to the hospital right there and then, but he can’t go in half naked and without warning anyone. He digs through the piles of clothes on his bedroom floor only to end up with an ill-fitting summer jacket and a longer pair of cut-offs than usual. As he hops around trying to fit his feet into a pair of sneakers, he dials Sam’s number on the landline. There is a click and then Emily’s voice comes through.

“Hey, Emily, it’s Jake. Seth came by, told me Leah was awake, I’m taking him back to the clinic. Might be a few minutes late tonight, can you let Sam know?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, only slamming the phone back into the receiver half-guiltily and making a beeline for the Rabbit.

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When they get to the clinic, Leah is asleep, uneasily shifting in the bed while Sue and Harry watch over her. They glance up at him for only a second before turning their questioning eyes to Seth.

“I brought Jacob. I thought it might help her sleep easier, because she asked about him before.”

“She has mentioned him twice,” admits Sue. “It may do her some good to see you, Jacob. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” he nods, trying not to wince as her disapproving gaze lingers pointedly on his tattoo. “If you want to go get something to eat or drink at the diner across the road, I’m happy to wait with Seth until she wakes up.”

“Can you bring me back a burger?” asks Seth excitedly, less distressed now he’s by Leah’s side. “And maybe fries or a milkshake?”

“Alright kids. Call us if anything happens, yeah?” Harry says, as he heaves himself out of the armchair and guides a hesitant Sue Clearwater out of the door. “Come on Suzie. Let’s get some food in you.”

It’s only five minutes after they leave that Leah starts stirring. Jacob doesn’t know what compels him, but he reaches out to push away the hair she’s trying to get out of her face. “Jake?” she sighs, as if she recognises him by touch alone. It makes the wolf in him purr with pleasure. Oh god, he’s not developing a crush on Leah, is he? Sam would kill him!

Just as he considers bolting out of terror, her eyes flutter open. “Jacob!” she says with a sleepy smile; and just like that, all rational thought flies out of the window.

“How you feeling Lee?” The use of Sam’s old nickname for her slips out without thought, and he regrets it almost immediately as it makes her brows furrow.

“I’m fine. Are you ok though, you’re not hurt or anything?” she asks, pushing herself up to sit against the headboard.

“I’m fine, Leah. I’m perfectly ok,” he tries to give her a reassuring smile. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m ok. Tired and desperately need a shower, but ok.” She laughs hollowly. “Billy here?”

“No, I don’t think he knows yet. He wasn’t home when Seth came round.”

Leah turns to look at her brother with furrowed brows, while he ducks his head sheepishly. “You mentioned him, and I thought it might help you sleep better seeing he was ok.”

The look Leah sends Seth in that moment is so full of fond exasperation that Jacob has to look away. “Thanks kid.”

Seth positively beams at her response.

“So how are the others? Quil, Embry? They’re ok too?” The way she speaks is casual but, while Jacob may not have known her well enough as his sisters, he has known her long enough to notice the steely edge of desperation that she tries to hide. Whatever danger he and Seth underwent in her fever dreams, Quil and Embry were there for it.

It makes sense considering the trio had been inseparable since they were seven years old, but a part of Jacob’s heart flares at Leah’s concern for him and his friends. They aren’t close by any means but she still cared, and it is a testament to the goodness of her heart, especially since she knows they’re running around with Sam.

“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 protests, though she’s not fully able to mask her relief. “They’re probably busy.”

“It’s the least I can do.” And it is. Leah has gone through so much in the past few months, Jacob can bring Quil and Embry down to visit to help her get a better night’s rest.

She’s quiet after that, searching his face as if to find some hidden message in his eyes. He tries to give her another reassuring smile, but it comes out awkward and to his alarm, her eyes start to fill with tears.

“Thank you,” she whispers with a wobbly smile, reaching out to grasp his hand.

When he hugs her goodbye, she squeezes him tightly and buries her face in his chest, almost as if she’s saying goodbye to someone she loves, and his only response is to hug her harder. Neither of them mention it when they pull away, just as Sue and Harry return. 

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. 

Chapter Text

The day she phases is the worst in her life.

A strange bout of anger flares to life as she catches sight of Sam jogging down her porch and back into the woods, barely sparing her a glance. Of course, why would he? He left her as if the last three years meant nothing and he has her cousin to run home to now.

Emily. God, she hadn’t thought it could hurt any worse after Sam left her sobbing and raging in her front yard, but it had. Finding out Emily had all but moved in with him barely a week after they’d broken up, especially after everything they’d gone through together, it practically shattered her. Emily had been the one to hold her all night when she cried herself to sleep after the breakup. It was her shoulder Emily had sobbed into when the doctors told her the scarring would be permanent. Had she already been seeing him then? Before, when Sam and she were still in relationship? Had they spent the two weeks Sam disappeared together, laughing at her attempts to rally search parties and hang up flyers?

As she stomps her way up the porch, she hears her parents talking inside. It’s about Emily, she can tell immediately when the words “sweet” and “generous” are thrown in. After all, it’s almost like they don’t have a daughter who’s worked her whole life for their approval. Good grades, good boyfriend, lots of extracurricular activities. A set future to join Rachel at college in Port Angeles and then settle down with Sam to have two kids. Now she has nothing. No boyfriend, dropping grades, the Reservation’s criticism or sympathy over being heartbroken and anger issues.

The rage bubbling in her grows impossible larger at the disapproving looks she receives  from her parents when the door slams shut behind her. Emily’s muffins are placed decoratively in the middle of the coffee table, the smell of them almost makes her hurl. They’re the exact same as usual, laden with blueberry chunks and risen perfectly. It’s as if nothing has changed, as if Emily hadn’t shattered her heart and ripped away Leah’s entire future.

She sees her mother give her father a pointed look. He sighs and opens his mouth to speak. “Leah, you need to stop banging the door. It’s not cheap to fix if you destroy it, and it’ll be cut from your allowance the next time it happens, do you understand?”

Something in her snaps. “Fine! Cut it completely, I don’t care! It’s clear who’s side you’ve chosen!”

Her mother shoots up, outraged. “Leah, there are no sides! Emily is your cousin and she’s going through a lot right now! Her love life is none of our business anymore!”

“That bitch stole my boyfriend and you’re standing here defending her because what, karma caught up to her?! Go to hell!”

“Watch how you speak to me, young lady! You’re grounded, for a-”

“Fine!” she screams, making for the stairs where Seth was watching nervously.

“I’m not finished! Come here, Leah, now!”

The sound that escapes her is animalistic, a howl mixed with a raging shriek. The heat that bubbled under her skin was searing hot now, dancing along her body like invisible flames as her body cracked and twisted. Her mother stumbles back, face painted in terror. She doesn’t notice her father’s wheezing breaths and rapidly paling face until there is a thump as his body hits the ground. She hears his heartbeat stutter to a stop just as the voices in her head begin, and she doesn’t notice Seth until she can feel him with the others in her mind.

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The next morning brings her immediate family and Emily, as promised, with a thermos of chicken strained broth which, try as Leah might, she cannot refuse after a ridiculously bland dinner and breakfast at the clinic. She can’t bring herself to regret the way she practically inhaled it either, especially after she sees the bright beaming smile that breaks out on her cousin’s face.

Billy is the next to drop by, wheeling in with a familiar smile. He, like her mother, looks younger with less wrinkles and the missing streaks of grey painting his hair. He brings Charlie with him, who gives her a small yet genuinely relieved smile and a box of fresh-chocolate eclairs that her mother snatches away as soon as she can.

“Liquid diet, Leah!” she scolds, as her dad’s shoulders shake with concealed laughter. “Do you want to be emptying your stomach again?”

“Worth it,” she mutters and rips open the box only to have it snatched away again. “But they’ll go off or Seth with steal them by the time I’m even allowed to go home.”

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll bring you another box when you can actually eat it,” Charlie chuckles quietly. 

“You’re my favourite Charlie,” she tells him, ignoring Billy’s cry of outrage. The room seems impossibly brighter with all their laughter.

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When Quil trails in after his mother and grandfather, Leah knows instantly Jacob has either told him to or showed him of their strange meeting the other day. Nonetheless, she can’t stop the way her heart jumps into her heart as he crosses the threshold and doesn’t stop its rapid beating until she’s scanned him head to toe for injuries or pink scratches that may have been a serious wound earlier.

“How are feeling Leah?” asks Joy, resting a plastic pot of chicken soup on her bedside.

“A lot better, thank you for coming. It’s good to see you.” Her words are genuine and while she turns her head to face the older woman, her eyes remain on Quil. Something Joy doesn’t seem to miss, judging by the amused smile she sends her mother. Quil ducks his head sheepishly, a red flush covering his cheeks. Her own face and neck flame red when she realises what Joy misinterpreted her look as, but attempting to explain herself would only lead to more questions so she hurriedly tries to pitch a distraction. She can see Seth grinning like a maniac out of the corner of her eye.

“How’s the shop, Joy? Anything interesting happen while I’ve been out?”

The conversation starts up about some new stock in the cereal aisle, which Leah tries to follow along with eagerly, desperate for the distraction, but Joy’s amused smile remains during the duration of their visit, and she can’t stop herself from sneaking glances at Quil leaning against the door.

When the family say their farewells, she gives both Joy and Old Quil half hugs. Unexpectedly, Quil wraps in a careful yet awkward embrace, and she can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face. This Quil barely knows her, he hasn’t spent over a year in her head but still, he bothered enough to come visit her at Jacob’s request after patrol. She knows its after patrol because she can still see the stray leaf stuck to the side of his hair, which she brushes away on reflex as he pulls back.

“Thank you.” She doesn’t know why she whispers, or that she’s even said it until it’s out of her mouth.

“Of course.” His eyes are soft as looks back at her.

The door barely shuts behind them before Seth pounces gleefully. “What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” she asks, fake cluelessly. The Atearas are still in earshot, especially Quil with his wolf enhancements.

“You and Quil being all blushy at each other! Do you like him?”

“He’s two years younger than me!” she exclaims, his smugness almost forcing a laugh out of her.

“That wasn’t a no!” he all but yells triumphantly, pointing an accusing finger at the smile tugging at her lips.

“Shut up Seth.”

“Still not a no!”

Leah doesn’t respond, simply sliding down the bed to lay down and pulling the covers over her head. She knows arguing is futile against her brother. Once Seth got something into his head, it was impossible to convince him otherwise. The stubbornness is something they both inherited from their mother.

She forgets Quil and his wolf ears were still within earshot.

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“So, Leah looks like she’s doing better,” says his mother casually as they make their way home.

Quil mind involuntarily takes him back to night he phased and saw her in Sam’s mind, back when she was still unconscious. “Yeah, she looks a lot better. It looked real bad while she was still asleep,” he says absentmindedly.

His mother’s lips pull into an amused smirk. “Didn’t realise you went to see her. She certainly seemed happy to see you just now.”

“Mom, it’s not like that,” he protests weakly, recalling her conversation with Seth after they’d walked out. Despite her protests, she hadn’t denied it. It makes his cheek glow all over again. His mother notices, of course she does, and doesn’t fail to point it out which makes his grandfather roar in laughter.

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Embry saunters in just ahead of him mother that evening with a bouquet of wildflowers in hand and a fluffy white teddy bear tucked under his arm.

“How you doing Chica?” he asks, dumping both items in her lap to ruffle her hair. “Murder anyone yet?”

“If the doc tells me they’re keeping me another night, I just might,” she complains. “I stink worse than Seth after he spends a full day at the beach, and I didn’t even think that was possible.”

“Will you be able to shower with your stitches?” says Tiffany after she greets her parents.

“I can shower, I just need someone to make sure I don’t fall. Haven’t used my legs properly for week so…” she shrugs.

“You’ll be back to your usual independent self in no time,” assures Embry with no hesitation.

Conversation with Embry has always come easy to her, with his sweet and carefree attitude that he undoubtedly inherited from his mother. It’s a breath of fresh air to the usual abrasive teasing and crude remarks she’s used to from the rest of the boys on the Reservation, which was probably why he was her first ever crush. She hadn’t realised it, of course, she was only thirteen at the time and he was 16 months younger than her, so she’d assumed she was simply embarrassed to be seen as friends with a younger boy and stopped going over to Tiffany’s house with her mother.

He, like everyone else, hugs her goodbye with his mother before they leave and the twelve-year-old in her squeals. She doesn’t blush this time, thankfully, but her heart rate spikes, and she knows he hears it. 

Chapter Text

Leah has never been more thankful to be taking a shower in her life, even if her mother is standing on the other side of the shower curtain. For when she needs her help, since her legs still aren’t up to their usual strength due to the lack of super healing. In her past life, she probably would have been embarrassed by it but after a year of being near naked around a group of teenage boys, she has very little shyness left.

Her body is different though, shorter and softer with traces of baby fat that still linger despite her many attempts to lose it by dieting. Her body when she was a wolf was all long limbs and lean muscle, only accentuated by her love for running both in wolf and human form. Her hair is longer now too, a bit greasy but still healthy, thick and to her waist. She’ll have to cut it soon before she phases, Sam had cut it so badly the last time that she’d almost been reduced to tears.

The phase. That’s a problem within itself. She needs to phase, she knows it’s coming whether she wants it to or not, and it’s better for it to be staged by her rather than accidentally bursting into fur in the middle of the grocery store or something. It definitely has to be far away from her family and pack. She hadn’t learnt how to fully shield her memories back in Jacob’s pack but especially now, she can’t let anyone know who she is and where she came from. Perhaps if she puts some distance between herself and La Push, the connection would be weak enough that they won’t notice when she phases for the first time? It was certainly weaker when Jacob had run off to Canada.

“Leah, you almost done in there?” Sue calls, sounding worried.

“Yeah, just got shampoo in my eye by accident so I spent a bit too long washing it out.” Lying is becoming second nature to her now, especially regarding the people she loves, but she wills away the lump in her throat. She needs to get a grip, or she’ll never be able to pull this off, and inevitably end up either getting herself killed or getting someone she cares about murdered as bait.

As her mother tucks her into bed that night, her own thankfully, she hypes herself up to take the first step. “I want to cut my hair.”

“I can trim it for you tomorrow,” her mom says from the doorway.  “After I get back from Billy’s.”

“No, I don’t want to just trim it, I..” she swallows nervously. “I want to donate it.”

Sue turns to eye her suspiciously, but not unreasonably. In her last life, she’d kicked up a fuss every time she had to get a trim, for the sole reason that Sam had liked her hair long. “Why the sudden interest? You’ve never wanted to cut your hair short before. Am I going to come home and find you with a messy pixy cut sobbing in front of the mirror if I don’t cut it?” The ‘over Sam’ goes unspoken.

“I want to do this for me,” she says insistently, only half-lying. “I kept my hair long for him, but I don’t care about his opinion anymore. I want to donate my hair to so some little girl can have a wig because she lost her hair, or something.” Her mind takes her back to Judy, Mr Markesh’s little girl who lost her battle against Leukaemia, not long after the family moved in next door to Charlie. The entire Rez had attended the funeral because the Markeshs’ had little family left, and even they were overseas. Charlie had asked them to come, and while he was not a citizen of the Rez, he was family. Judy had only been 6 years old, and her gap-toothed smile in the portrait frame had washed a pain over her heart strong enough to bring Leah to tears, over a child she’d never even met before. “Like if she has cancer or something and doesn’t get better like I did? I want to make her smile even if I don’t know her.”

She sees her mother’s defences crumbling. “We’ll go tomorrow,” she promises. “There’s a salon in Seattle where they donate hair, best to get it done before I have to get back to work.”

“Thank you,” she chokes, praying her mother doesn’t notice the stinging buildup in her eyes.

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Seth knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, he’s got more important things to do (like a week’s worth of homework) but he can’t help it, especially when he sees Sam’s truck pull up from his window and the jackass himself clamber out, followed by Emily. It’s common knowledge amongst the Rez and even most of Forks now that Sam and Emily are dating; hell, she’d practically moved in with him less than a week after Leah and Sam had split. And yet, despite his parents’ forgiveness and acceptance of their relationship, Seth can’t quite bring himself to do the same. He tries, he really does, eating Emily’s food eagerly and greeting Sam in passing, but as soon as he lays in bed for the night, guilt churns in gut. He remembers the day Sam left her, her tear-stricken face and shaking sobs as her father half-carried her back into the house. He remembers the betrayal, the rage and the nights she spent vomiting in the sink trying desperately not to wake anyone up with her sobs, while he faked sleep and fought tears of his own. Leah had been Seth’s hero all his life, stepping up and showing him how to tie his shoes, waking him up for school, making him breakfast before teaching hm how to do it for himself while his mother had been sleeping or working twelve hour shifts at the hospital. His father, despite his big heart, could not cook anything other than fish fry and could barely dress himself so Leah had stepped up since he was born. His sister had been his hero, she still was, and Sam had broken her.

His parents greet the couple enthusiastically at the door. “How’s Leah doing?” he hears Emily ask from where he’s crouched at the end of the hallway.

His mother responds cheerfully. “She’s alright, she’s gone to bed. It’s her first day back at home and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?” The confusion in his father’s voice is evident and Seth doesn’t blame him. He’s certainly not the only one confused.

“Leah and I are going to the salon in Seattle! She’s planning on donating her hair!” Sue sounds proud, practically bragging. “We thought it was best to do it before I had to go back to work.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of her!” gushes Emily, and he can almost see her beam and clutch her chest in his mind’s eye.

Though Seth knew he was there, Sam’s deep timbre still shocks him when he speaks. “Did she mention why the sudden interest?”

He understands Sam’s confusion, Leah had been insistent on preserving her hair length all their relationship, and he didn’t know she had kept it long because Sam had said he liked it.

He hears Sue gives a wistful sigh. “She said she wanted to give a little girl her smile back. Just in case she doesn’t get a chance to get better like she did.”

Seth slaps a hand over his mouth a second to late as a choking sob erupts from him, luckily drowned out my Emily’s cooing. The reminder of Leah in her hospital bed, surrounded by his parents and nurses while she arched in pain, paired with the thought of her dying made him sick. Leah had almost died, or at the very least, almost suffered permanent brain damage. And in light of her miraculous survival, she decided to give up a part of her she loves, in the hopes it brings a stranger somewhere in Washington some small nugget of happiness in their darkest time.

This is Leah. This is his sister, his selfless wonderful sister. This is the girl who has raised him, taught him to be kind but not a pushover. The girl who, despite getting her heart broken by Samuel Uley and going through horrible trauma, has come out on the other side still kind.

This is his hero.

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When Sam joins the Infamous Trio on patrol that night, aka Jacob, Embry and Quil, he’s silent. It works in his favour, as it takes him little to no time to understand they were talking about Leah. The easy affection that colours their voices gives rise to buried jealousy. 

I think it ‘d be cute if Leah has a crush on you, teases Embry.

Leah? Have a crush on Quil or Jake? He almost wants to laugh at the thought, they’re both two years younger than her and she’s known them practically her whole life.

Yeah, you’d be at the envy of every man on the Rez, continues Jake. You remember how many admirers she had before Sam? No wonder Harry and Sue are so overprotective.

Sam is no stranger to Leah’s many admirers, he’d heard her name in the locker rooms at school, at bonfires with friends and even with others at the store.

Leah Clearwater. Hottest girl on the rez. Daughter of councilman Harry Clearwater and esteemed Nurse Sue Clearwater. La Push’s star athlete. Smartest in her year. Third smartest in the whole school, coming only after the Black twins a grade above than her. Planning on joining Rachel Black at U-Dub next year.

His friends had talked about her legs and body relentlessly, the definition of her muscles from playing so many sports, her natural beauty without makeup. The adults had talked about her, about her helpfulness to set up bonfires and the charm she inherited from her father. Seth had gushed about her at every opportunity, the sister who raised him and taught him to play sports, came to all his soccer practices and took he and his friends down to an indoor tennis court she booked in Seattle for his birthday. Hell, even his mom talked about her, telling their neighbour how wonderful her dance was at the last big beach bonfire and how lovely it was of her to bake some of her special brownies. He remembers Emily had brought her signature blueberry muffins, not that the Uley family had paid attention at the time. There isn’t a person on the Rez who hasn’t sung her praises at least once.

When Sam had asked her out for the very first time, his hands had been sweating. Nobody had ever tried to date Leah Clearwater before, she was too popular and high up in social circles for anyone to get the courage. But Sam had done it, and the blinding smile his mother wore and the gobsmacked looks on his friends’ faces when he told them she’d agreed to get coffee with him had made smug satisfaction curl up in his gut. They were ‘THE’ couple on the Rez, talk of the town for three years. And then he phased, and everything fell apart.

She does not have a crush on me! protests Quil. His thoughts betray him.

Leah looks healthier and she’s sitting up in the bed; the bandage is gone, replaced by a large white plaster that looks far less daunting. She locks eyes with him, and it roots him to the spot, they don’t stray even when she greets his mother. He feels his face burn at his mother’ amusement, oddly flattered at having such a beautiful girl like a man like him. She blushes when she realises too, and the steady flush across her face make her all the more beautiful.

Something dark churns in Sam’s gut, almost unrecognisable. He knows that look; Leah is not one to trust or get attached easily but she’s also never hesitated to express her care for those she loves. And somehow, inexplicably, Quil has made it onto that list. Quil, who is two years younger than her. Quil, who has never even tried to befriend her. Quil, who is his pack brother.  

He knows that that there was always a possibility that Leah would move on after him. That all their little spots, like the cluster of bushes and grass under the cliffside or the clearing with wildflowers, she would eventually share with someone else. Like he had, pulling out the same chair Leah had always sat in at his mother’s house when he first took Emily over, or the window booth at Lily’s diner, where they had their first date.

He didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

But it shouldn’t matter anymore, because he has Emily now, right? Emily, the centre of his universe, whom he loves with all his heart. Emily, who is waiting for him in the house they share, with lunch for the boys and dessert too. Emily, who has piled furniture into the living room, the one that Leah had always wanted to keep sparsely decorated so everyone could sit together on the floor or on beanbags instead of taking it in turn to eat. Emily, who makes him mother smile where Leah made her laugh. Emily, who has decided his mother’s engagement ring is more of a placeholder until they can afford a better one, rather than a symbol of their love and commitment like Leah had once shyly whispered, while they drove along the quiet streets of Forks. Emily, who his wolf loves. Leah, who Sam still loves, even if he did not realise it until this very moment.

Sam? Comes Jacob’s hesitant voice. You ok, man?

His grief has bled through their connection, and he’s been discovered.

I’m fine. Just out on a run. Cary on with your patrols. They know he’s lying; he can hear them but mercifully, they don’t comment as his connection to the pack mind seals closed. And then he acts.

He goes through Embry’s mind first, the memory of his visit to the clinic loiters at the forefront.

Their conversations are wild and playful, but there is nothing incriminating. Embry has  always been easy to get along with, a skill Sam desperately wishes he had inherited too.

They talk about anything and everything, her recovery to gossip on the rez to Tiffany’s job. She pays the tiniest bit more attention to Embry than she does Tiffany, but he dismisses it as her getting along with someone she’s grown up with compared to an adult. Embry had been her friend since he moved to the Rez, there was a point where she was closer to him than she was Rachel and Rebecca. He pays the smallest attention when Embry hugs her goodbye and her heart rate picks up, but he’s quick to brush it off as surprise on her part at the hug. He moves on to Jacob.

Seth is banging at the door, and then he’s crying in his arms about how Leah needs sleep and mentioned Jacob. Leah recognises him before she even opens her eyes, and the soft smile she gifts him when she does. Her fond exasperation at Seth. Leah on the verge of tears, squeezing Jacob’s hand and thanking him. Her hugging him goodbye, holding on tight like she can’t bring herself to let go. Holding him like she loves him.

Jacob had been in her dreams is the first thing Sam registers. Him in danger gave Leah nightmares. It doesn’t matter how close they are or how little they interact; she considers him a ‘loved one.’ The thought of her with him alone makes his blood boil, but he squashes it down. Leah has known the Black family all her life, she was and maybe still is the twins’ best friend. Jacob could be a loved one in a brotherlike way rather than romantic; the same way Seth considers Jacob family.

That stings more than he expected. It wasn’t just Leah he lost when he imprinted on Emily, it was the entire Clearwater family. Harry had been the one to introduce him to more Quileute family traditions, taking up the place his father should have stood. Sue had been the one to trim his hair, gossiping about school and her colleagues. It was his arm Seth used to cling to whenever he came over, chattering excitedly until Leah pulled him away. Emily’s family had cut all contact with both of them, and while the Clearwater’s still spoke to them on a regular basis, they were still noticeably subdued compared to their earlier interactions.

Quil is the last mind he searches, and what he finds almost breaks him.

Leah is distracted, her eyes flicking over to him periodically even as she talks with Joy about the shop. The feeling of his arms wrapped around her narrow shoulders, his concern at how thin she seems after a week of not eating properly. Her reaching up to brush something out of his hair, the soft ‘thank you’ she utters and his whispered reply. The way the rest of the world falls away in that moment. Her lack of blatant denial at Seth’s accusations of a crush. The teasing from his mother on the way home.

It feels like his heart is tearing apart. Was this how Leah felt, when she saw him Emily? He cannot blame her for her hatred if it is, it feels like he’s choking on the pain. He phases out before he’s caught again, shaking and crouched on the forest floor as he tries to control his breathing. There is so much heartbreak and jealousy and grief that he doesn’t know how long it takes him before he becomes aware of his surroundings again. Eventually, they all fade into the same thing. Guilt.

He should have fought harder for her. Should have tried to be Emily’s brother or her friend, like Quil’s imprint on Claire. Should have told Leah the truth, or persuaded Harry to do it. He should have fought for her, like she would have for him.

And now it was too late. 

Chapter Text

When Kelly answers the phone and accepts a last-minute appointment from a ‘Leah Clearwater’ that morning, she doesn’t think much of it and pencils her in with Sasha. Last minute appointments happen all the time, and Miss Clearwater is certainly not the first teenager she’s come across to book a spontaneous hair appointment, at her workplace. As long as she shows up and pays, Kelly couldn’t care less, even if she is a bit surprised that Miss Clearwater isn’t bothered much by Sasha doing her hair, given she was still an apprentice.

But when the client and another woman walk in at noon, Kelly has to stop her jaw dropping. The duo is quite obviously from the reservation nearby, their beautiful copper complexions standing out starkly against Settle’s pale monotony. The elder of the two women has smile lines that crinkle when she catches sight of Kelly. The younger, Leah, is looking around the salon in disguised interest. Her hair is hip-length and thick, and the inner child in Kelly is both gleeful and awed.

“I have an appointment with Sasha in about five minutes?” says the younger of the two. “Leah Clearwater?”

“Yes, of course. If your mom wants to take a seat, you can follow me to the back,” Kelly flounders, slightly breathless in her presence. “Sasha probably wants to have a chat about what kind of style or haircut you’re getting, maybe finding a few pictures for reference.”

The smile Miss Clearwater gives her is dazzling as she agrees.

Her colleagues’ reaction is priceless, especially Simone’s. The gay panic their second apprentice is so blatantly experiencing is nothing short of hilarious, though neither Kelly nor anyone else can blame her. 

The groupchat is buzzing by the time she gets home that night.

Hair Hoes

Simoneeeeeeee: @Sashashashasha Plz tell me u home now and not busy

Sashashashasha: Yeah why?

Simoneeeeeeee: Spill the deets on the hottie u got. plz tell me she don’t act as gorgeous as she looks. don’t think my poor lesbian heart can take it.

Teenie: @Simoneeeeeeee You got a new crush every other day, hoe. And most of them are ugly. Remember Riley?

Simoneeeeeeee: @Teenie this one different

Kelly’s Wellies: @Teenie why u using proper punctuation weirdo? also Simone’s right, this one’s smoking. she’s from the reservation.

Teenie: The rez? STFU! No way!

Simoneeeeeeee: @Sashashashasha SPILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Teenie: ^

Kelly’s Wellies: ^^

Sashashashasha: Kay, so we were talking about her cut and she said she wanted to donate her hair and get a pixie cut or smth rlly short

Simoneeeeeeee: That’s so cute of her but a pixie cut? She got hair long enough to donate and make two wigs

Sashashashasha: Yh I told her and then she said she wanted to donate her hair twice! Like to sisters or some shit, it’s so cute

Kelly’s Wellies: ASDFGHJKLGHFKDLS THAT’S SO ADORABLE!!!!!

Sashashashasha: IKR!!! And I was doing her cut and she went to her mom ‘two little girls get their smile back’ and I was like ‘what?'

Sashashashasha: And her mom told me about how she just got out of hospital and wanted to donate her hair so some little girl gets her smile back.

Teenie: ASDFGHJKL THAT’S SO FUCKING CUTE BRO

Simoneeeeeeee: GOD I’M SO GAY! TELL ME U GOT HER NUMBER!

Sashashashasha: No :( she said she just got out of a long-term relationship so she’s gonna take some time to herself. But I got a picture of the note she left the girls, that has her number on it.

Teenie: Wait, @Simoneeeeeeee Aren’t your sisters next on the list for the wigs? They’re going to have matching ones thanks to her, that’s so cute!

Simoneeeeeeee: STFU! NO WAY!

Sashashashasha: BITCH U BETTER CALL HER!

Kelly’s Wellies: SHOOT UR SHOT FOR ALL OF US, LUCKY HOE!

Kelly’s Wellies: Also, send the pic of the note @Sashashashasha

Sashashashasha: [1AttachedImage.Img]

Hi, you don’t know me, but my name is Leah Clearwater and I’m the girl who’s hair you’re wearing. I just wanted to let you know that I’m very honoured to be able to help you regain your confidence a bit more, but I would also love you to remember that a person’s best feature is always their smile. I hope you never stop smiling and I’m sure you look radiant with or without the wig. If you ever need me for whatever reason, even if it’s just to talk to a friend for a while, my number is down below. Wishing you every happiness, Leah.

+1 ---------------------------

Teenie: Help, I think I’m getting a crush too.

Kelly’s Wellies: ALICE CULLEN YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND!

Teenie: Jasper won’t mind ;)

Simoneeeeeeee: LMFAO BUT BITCH HANDS OFF, THIS ONE’S MINE!

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“Carlisle, do we know a ‘Leah Clearwater’ from the Reservation?”

Esme’s head shoots up as Alice walks into the living room, phone in hand.

“Clearwater?” muses her husband, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Harry Clearwater is an elder on the council, I believe Leah is his daughter.”

Emmett’s brows furrow.  “Isn’t she Sam Uley’s ex? She was with him for three years and then he shacked up with her cousin?”

Alice gives a cry of outrage. “Oh, Leah deserves so much better than that man!”

Edwards brows furrow, clearly searching his way through Alice’s mind before he relaxes, giving his sister a nod of agreement and being met with her satisfaction.

“Didn’t realise the two of you were so fond of her,” comments Rosalie, eyeing the exchange of her magazine.

Alice doesn’t respond, simply sliding her phone across the coffee table towards the blonde, screen still displaying a thread of text messages. The family crowd around her to read them, Esme’s curiosity getting the better of her.

What she finds is the pinnacle of humanity. Compassion is so very rare amongst mortals anymore but occasionally, Esme comes across something so genuinely pure-hearted that she craves to be human again, pass on the kindness in a way she can’t do as a vampire.

“Well, she’s certainly something special,” Rosalie comments dryly. It doesn’t disguise the way her face has softened though. “Who’s to say she’ll extend the same kindness to us? Everyone on the Rez hates us, last I remember.”

Jasper combs a gentle hand through Alice’s hair. “She’s right. Maybe trying to befriend this Leah isn’t the best option right now. Let’s leave it to Simone.”

The blatant dejection on Alice’s face makes Esme’s frozen heart ache.

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“So are we going to talk about it?”

Jacob looks over from the TV, evidently confused my Embry’s serious tone.  “About what?” Next to him, Quil lets out a victorious whoop as he crosses the finish line. Jacob pays the game no mind; Embry was rarely serious, and he was already losing anyway.

“About Sam’s feelings for Leah.”

That got Quil’s attention. “He imprinted on Emily, it’s none of his business what Leah does anymore! He doesn’t need to care!”

“Well, he obviously still does,” pointed out Embry. “So evidently imprinting doesn’t take away old feelings. He’s bound to do something stupid and hurt her even more.”

“Then we’ll protect her! She deserves that much, and besides, she’s basically pack already. Harry’s on the council and Seth’s going to phase eventually, if the Cullens stay longer.”

“Obviously!” dismisses Jacob. “Question is, what’s going to happen to you now that Sam knows Leah likes you? He might Alpha Order you to reject her if she asks you out.”

“He can’t do that!”

Embry raises a singular eyebrow, looking remarkably like his mother. “Can’t he? He throws around Alpha Order for every other little thing. He’s not above being possessive; we all know that.”

“Love makes you do weird things,” says Jake gently. “They were together for three years. He still talks to the Clearwaters too. Harry basically stepped up after Josua Uley left, taught Sam all he knows about Quileute family traditions.”

“That’s probably the only reason they haven’t kicked him out on his ass,” muses Quil, tilting his head slightly to the right. It’d been a habit of his as long as Jacob could remember, so he and Embry always know when he’s kidding or when he’s seriously considering something. “Imprint or no, I was so sure they would have tossed him or at least maintained some kind of professional distance with him for moving on with Emily so soon. Like, I don’t feel any attraction to Claire and I’ve always brushed it off as her being too young, but what if it’s possible to be a brother or a friend to an imprint? The wolf will be whatever she wants, right?”

“But that would mean Emily ripped Sam away from Leah on purpose! She wouldn’t do that!”

“Jealousy can make you do horrible things,” says Embry consideringly. “We all know Leah had an almost perfect life. And Emily was having a difficult time with finding a good boyfriend or gaining any popularity. Taking Sam seemed like an easy way to secure a relationship and make Leah a little less perfect.”

Quil matched Jacob’ look of dawning realisation and disgust. Embry just looked resigned, like he hated being right. Jacob didn’t blame him.

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“Where have you been, I’ve been so worried!”

Emily’s hands are on him as soon as he walks through the door. The wolf in him arches his back like a content cat under his imprint’s touch, wanting nothing more than to sink into her embrace and let her wash his doubts away. But he rebels, tamping down the beast and pulling away from her. He has to know if he can fight it, fight the imprint bond as a man rather than a wolf. He has to know if he could have loved Leah and committed to her, if this could have just been another bump in the road of their lives, another obstacle that seemed so daunting until it had passed.

Pulling away is easier than he thought it would be. The knowledge hurts no less.

Emily is confused, her bow creasing in concern. She reaches out again with a soft “Sammy?” but he takes a stumbling step back. ‘Sammy’ had been Leah’s nickname for him, a childish retaliation to LeeLee on one of the many afternoons they’d spent lying in the wildflower field, trading soft kisses over snacks and distracting each other from homework.

“I need to go.”

He barely makes it to the treeline before he’s falling on four paws.

Chapter Text

The first thing Leah does when she clambers back into the car is take a nap. The morning/afternoon spent gossiping with her mum and getting gawked at while Sasha cut her hair left her social battery drained. She understands the stares, it’s rare for people from the Rez to go to Seattle’s mall, and especially rare for them to splurge money on something as menial as a haircut. The people of La Push are by no means struggling but they’re definitely not the type to spend carelessly.

Children forgo videogames and PlayStations in favour of running around outside until the sun goes down, and those going to college tend not to return unless it’s for holidays. Many don’t go at all, not able to afford the cost even with student loans.

Her family certainly couldn’t, though her parents tried valiantly to hide it. It was one of the reasons she was so focused on Sports, hoping that she might get a sliver of a chance to earn a scholarship to even a minor college.

When Sam had stepped down with Paul and Jared, Jacob had granted her his permission to attend Peninsula’s online courses or even community college in Port Angeles. She’d undergone the arduous task of graduating high school, even if she was a year late; college wasn’t accessible with just a GED, and she was determined to get her life back on track. She’d finally graduated with a GPA she was proud of a week before she was thrown back in time; her own pack had thrown her a surprise party to celebrate, though it wasn’t much of a surprise considering the Hive mind. It was her last happy memory of the time.

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She knows something is different this time, she can feel it in her very core. It’s as if her body isn’t entirely there, detached from her mind and soul. Shapes blur around her, swirling and moving past in all different directions until they grind to a halt in a clearing. She doesn’t know why it all seems so familiar, but it does. The people round her are solid and real, unlike her own translucent form, and they wander around in finely crafted garments like the ancient Quileutes she’s heard about from her father or in school, there are thin clothes and lightweight ponchos are far as she can see.

She is drawn immediately to a woman dressed in a flowing white dress, standing at the cliffside. The dress is clasped at her right shoulder with a metal brooch, a similar belt wrapped around her waist to keep the skirt in place. Her body is strong, lithe and awfully familiar.

She is a wolf, Leah knows it, she can almost feel the warmth she radiates, hotter than the summer sun the trees try valiantly to shield her people from. There is no history of female wolves, she would know, she’s scoured every diary and textbook she can get her hands on regarding Quileute history. And yet here she is, in clothing that would not look remiss on a Greek goddess.

“Scio te aspicere.”

Leah understands the words even if she has never spoken the language before, they resonate with her very soul. Ancient Quileute.

I know you’re watching.

She turns her head until she’s staring right at Leah, knocking the breath out of the younger girl. Her eyes are familiar and icy, the same eyes she’s seen staring back at her from the river’s reflection or the windows of the Cullen house. Somehow, this woman, this goddess, shares the piercing blue eyes of her wolf.

“Mea paenitimus, Domina Mea,” comes a voice by her ear, startling so bad Leah jumps about a foot in the air. There is a younger woman stood directly behind her, dressed similarly, though missing the elvish, wooden circlet that stretches around the lady’s head like a coronet. “Chief auditorium petere vellet.” {My apologies, My Lady. The chief would like to request an audience.}

“Nunc videbo archimagirus. Redi ad studia tua, Apprentice Sylvie.” {I will see the chief now. Return to your studies, Apprentice Sylvie.}

Sylvie bows lowly. “Nempe, Domina Kathani.” {Of course, Lady Kathani.}

Lady Kathani turns and swiftly sets off towards the top of the hill, weaving gracefully through the brambles and bushes with the kind of grace that can only come of being a wolf. Leah scrambles to follow, drawn to the woman’s compelling aura and eternally grateful that she was… whatever she was. If she hadn’t been able to walk through bushes and trees, she’d probably have been caught within seconds and killed for being an assumed spy.

The chief’s tent comes into view within minutes, tapestries and stories woven into the thick fabric. This era she’s been sent to is, undoubtably, the beginning of the Quileute’s height of power.

The chief is bent over a scattered pile of papers on a makeshift table of pillows and blankets, not looking up to address Lady Kathani (and Leah)’s entrance. He is dressed in simple clothes, but there is a grand headdress with red-tipped feathers and a fur-skin cloak hanging on a pole to his left. The rug-covered ground is scattered with leather bits of fabric, tossed carelessly.

 Armour, Leah realises belatedly.

The older woman pays all it no mind, gliding over to rest her hands against the back of his hunched shoulders.

“Quid solliciti estis, Amica Mea?” {What worries you, My Love?}

The chief simply reaches up to pull one of her hands down, brushing a kiss to it almost automatically. “Domina Mea,” he murmurs against her knuckles.

The smile that breaks out across his face is serene and heartbreakingly recognisable. It’s a look of utter devotion and love, not remiss on most of her packmates around their imprints, but there is another part to it. A childish, mischievous grin; the kind that implies days full of teasing and playful arguments. Days of dancing under the stars and gushing behind their backs to friends. Days of playing it cool and serious arguments that always end eventually, because breaking up is not even a possibility. The kind of smile that shows loving someone is a choice to make over and over and over again.

It's the kind of smile that Jacob Black wore, still wears, for Bella Swan. Her heart cracks.

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And then she wakes up.

The first thing she registers is the sound of rain. It’s no phenomenon for Forks, of course, sunny days are sparing and fleeting. The next is her location, she’s less than a minute from her house.

Sue looks over at her fondly when she realises she’s awake, “Perfect timing.”

“Hm.” Her head is still swimming with exhaustion and questions, still getting used to having a physical body again. She doesn’t even notice Sue leaving the truck until she knocks on the other side of her window, startling her.

“Come on, sleepypants.”

She’s dragged out of the warm car reluctantly, biting back a hiss as the cold air hits her. Her mother keeps a guiding hand on her elbow the whole way up the porch and even opens the door for her, until she eventually shrugs away. She’s a wolf, for spirit’s sake, she has enhanced senses and strength! She can walk on her own!

“I can do it myself,” she groans sleepily. “I’m tired, not invalid.”

SLAM.

Her right shoulder, knee and half of her face connects painfully with the doorframe, sending her stumbling back. Yeah, she’s definitely not a wolf.

Her mother snorts, amused. “You were saying?”

God, she misses her enhanced senses, the natural grace and strength that came from being more in-tune with one’s surroundings. She’d gotten used to it after an entire year, so being back in her pre-phase body is unbalancing and unnerving.

The living room is full of people when she walks in, because of course, she can’t possibly go through her most embarrassing moments without an audience.

Embry is, unsurprisingly, the first to pipe up among shaking shoulders and suppressed smiles. “Trying to actually get memory loss there, chica?”

“Maybe I was trying to forget your ugly mug?” she retorts on instinct.

He scoffs. “Please! Where you going to find better than me?”

“Honey, I wouldn’t even have to look further than this room.” Bantering with Embry is as reflexive as always, he was one of the first people in Jacob’s pack she really formed a friendship with. Embry always has been a people person, all easy-going smiles and charm that sweeps adults and teenagers off their feet. Every girl and even some boys around their age on the rez had crushed on him at some point or the other, herself included.

“Your brother doesn’t count,” he singsongs.

“I was talking about your best friend.” Both Quil and Jacob flush at that, and laughter breaks out again. “Don’t worry Em,” she teases. “I’m sure you’ll find someone eventually.”

She starts her journey greeting everyone in the room with a hug or kiss on the cheek, belatedly regretting it when she realises Emily and Sam were included in the group. Still, she persists, dropping a featherlight brush of the lips to Emily’s scar and briefly squeezing Sam in a one-arm hug. Her hesitancy is noticeable, but nobody mercifully mentions it. The dormant wolf in her rebels at their touch, they were not a part of Jacob’s pack and her mind still convinces her that they are the enemy, no matter how hard she tries to fight it.

She drapes herself over Seth’s shoulders to keep herself away from their attempts of conversation, idly playing with hair as he chatters to Colin and Brady, occasionally offering solutions and suggestions while they bemoaned about the hardships of school life. She doesn’t blame them; school was hell for her too and she’ll do anything to keep her boys happy. They may not have phased yet, but they’re still her boys, and they’re Seth’s friends. She can wake up early on a Saturday to drive them down to Seattle Library, or help them study for English Lit.

By the time the last of the guests have trickled out, Leah’s exhausted. Sue orders her to bed immediately to nap before dinner, and it’s a testament to her lack of strength when she doesn’t even bother to argue, simply turning on her heel and tripping up the stairs. The first time she almost faceplants, Sam steps forward with Emily to escort her, which sends a bolt of horror through her. Her bedroom is her safe space right now, the only time she doesn’t have to hold onto an act, she doesn’t ever want them there. She pushes away the hands with false smiles and assurances, silently relieved when they step back reluctantly.

The second time she slips, Sam starts towards her with determination but Jacob, thankfully on his way back from the bathroom, loops an arm around her waist and pulls her into him before Sam can reach her. She relaxes into him, relieved when she hears Sam’s footsteps stop, and allows him to walk her to her bedroom door with no complaints.

Before she lets herself collapse onto the bed and sleep the week away, she digs out the black binbag at the back of her wardrobe. It doesn’t have much in it, just a few trinkets and clothes gifted to her by Emily or Sam that she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Her favourite cardigan from Emily for Christmas last year. A picture frame with her and Sam that Allison, Sam’s mother, had given her. Her mum’s old sewing kit she’d saved with Emily. Various makeup that was too expensive to throw away.

At last, she pulls out a diary with a matching pen attached, sleek and forest green. Flicking it open, she jots down the date in the margin before hesitating. How should she record her thoughts? Or should it be just her dreams? Should she write it like a letter or like notes? How should she format it?

It doesn’t matter, she decides soon. It’s for her anyway, nobody else was going to read it. The words flow easier after the first few stilted sentences.

Dear Diary.

God, that sounds so cliché.

My name is Leah Clearwater and I’m 19 years old, almost 20. I arrived back in the past in my younger body 3 days before I phased and caused Dad’s death.

The first thing I’ve learned from movies is the future can’t be changed. Evidently, that’s not true, because I’ve been in the hospital all week, so he’s already lived longer and neither Seth nor I have phased yet. I can feel mine coming, it’s different to the first time though. It feels more like she is dormant rather than being born or emerging, my reflexes and enhancements may not be there but it is harder to be around Sam and Emily, and strangely easy to interact with my boys. It’s as if my body recognises them as an enemy pack, Sam and Paul and Jared never did join Jacob’s leadership. Not that I blame them for wanting to grow old and settle down with their imprints, of course, but it will make things harder. My control on my emotion is certainly getting better, but it is by no means perfect.

School will be easy enough to catch up with, and studying is a good excuse to put some distance between me and the girls. Quitting basketball will make my parents freak though, so I’ll just have to stay on until the end of the season. There’s only a few months left, I’ll make due. I’ll have to work on controlling my thoughts once I phase, however, and start wearing baggy clothes to cover up the sudden change in appearance. Maybe I should start working out in the front yard in the mornings, say it’s for building back my strength. I might be able to brush off the changes in build and height because of it.

Then there’s the problem with my metabolism. Suddenly eating a ridiculous amount more is going to be obvious, and there’s only so much time before my parents catch on. That leaves the option of eating out, but I’ll need a job to make the money for that. Maybe one in Forks, so my parents don’t notice. It’ll be easy enough to hold down a job and school, I’ve already graduated once.

I’ve been considering some online college courses for community college, or maybe some with primarily coursework. It’s a good opportunity to have a stable career or options when the pack eventually stops phasing, the Cullens have to leave sooner or later. The redhead is still a goddamn problem though, but best to let it play out for now. She’s probably already started building her army, and if I kill her now, we have about 20 or more loose vamps housed somewhere I have no idea.

I had a dream tonight; different than the memory ones I keep having. This time it was of a woman, Lady Kathani. She was in relationship with a chief, who may have been Jacob’s ancestor. I understood what they were saying even though it was older Quileute, which was so strange. It was like she was talking to my very soul. Lady Kathani was a wolf, she didn’t transform but I knew it anyway. She looked like me, her body and build. There was another, too, dressed like her. She called her an apprentice. I always thought I was the first female shifter, I scoured ever book I could get my hands on to see if I was wrong, but there was no mention of them. But they existed, I have seen it. So why is there no record of them, and why are they so special and different to the other protectors of the tribe? The men patrol, and they fight, but the Lady and apprentice were dressed like goddesses. People moved out of the way for them like Moses parted the red sea. Like they were something to revere.

I don’t understand. Not the history and certainly not why I had this dream.

Until next time.

Leah

She tucks the diary and pen under the pass of papers in her bottom bedside drawer and collapses back onto the bed, out like a light within seconds.

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When Harry wanders past Leah’s slightly ajar bedroom door, he can’t resist the temptation to peek inside. Leah’s walls are still bare of the pictures and posters that had once decorated them, marks from where the blue tack (or sticky tack) ripped off the paint with its removal still glaringly obvious. But the room finally looks lived in after a week, her wardrobe door has the brown sleeve of her sweater trapped in it. There’s a new, faint stain at the corner of her bedside drawer where she’s hit her head, and his wife couldn’t fully scrub away the blood stain, but other than that, everything looks as it did before the accident. 

The terror Harry had felt when he’d heard her scream that night was something that would haunt his nightmares. The run from his bed to Leah’s had been far too long, one horrible thought after the other surfacing. A break-in. A heart attack. A kidnapping. She was hurt. She was dying. She was being attacked. By a monster. Then a wolf. Then Sam. Emily’s scars had given him nightmares.

When they’d burst in, she was still screaming. Sweaty and writhing and crying and so burning, burning hot. She couldn’t hear then, couldn’t see them, didn’t even notice Seth when he stumbled in with a damp towel. When she’d finally stopped screaming, her voice was hoarse and she’d vomited over the side of the bed. And when she’d looked at him, god, he’d never seen his baby girl so terrified or distraught.

He thought it couldn’t get any worse. And then it did, because she was bleeding and rushed to the clinic in the middle of the night, and he spent the next week watching her cry out in pain and burn hotter and hotter every time the sun went down. When she woke up, he could barely see through the tears of relief. Because she was alive and awake, even while she cried and trembled against his chest, he was so very grateful she was alive and awake.

His wife resting her head atop his bicep snaps him out of his thoughts. She smiles at Leah’s slumbering form atop the still-made bed, legs hanging off the side, still fully clad in her jeans and loose tank. “Help me get her properly into bed,” she whispers.

And so he does, lifting an shifting her while Sue pulls out the duvet from under her until they can tuck her safely into bed and drop a kiss atop her head like they did when she was younger, still insisting she sleep with her toy sword just in case the monsters in the wardrobe decided to come back.

He loves her, and a part of him will always hate himself for stepping up in Joshua’s place. If he hadn’t, he’d throw Sam and Emily out on their ass for breaking his baby girl’s heart, imprinting and the council be damned.

But he did, and now he is honour bound to care for the man who broke her while he pretends it isn’t breaking his heart to watch her pull away.

Chapter Text

When his mother mentions Leah needs to be woken up for dinner, Seth is the first to volunteer, halfway up the stairs before the words are even out of Sue’s mouth. After a week of visiting her in the hospital, he’s been itching to spend as much time with her as possible, especially to see the old Leah shine through the more he did.

Coming home from school to find a room full of all the people he knew and barring the one he wanted to see the most, put a damper on his plans. Still, he plastered on a smile and tried to lose himself in conversation with Brady and Collin, who arrived not long after. And it worked, for the most part.

He didn’t notice his dad’s truck pulling up in the driveway or Leah and Sue entering the house until his sister, still evidently half asleep, walked straight into the doorframe with a hilarious amount of force. Her easy banter with Embry, the scarlet flush spreading on Jacob and Quil at her remark, the way she glowed with every compliment to her new pixie cut, the lack of reaction when it came to Sam and Emily, had him beaming. She was moving on, no more late nights crying over man- no, boy, who didn’t appreciate her, no more bitterness.

A horrible part of him is grateful for her cool demeanour towards Sam and Emily, because they deserve her ire after everything they put her through. They deserve to know and feel that things will never be the same as before, and Leah deserves to have some dignity and self-respect.

When she draped herself over his back for the entirety of the two hours, he grinned so wide it made his cheeks hurt, even if he knew part of the reason was because she was avoiding Sam and Emily. Leah had protected him his whole life, and now he got to protecting her, so kept up eager conversation with Brady and Collin, despite being exhausted talking to them for so long, and restrained himself from wrapping her up in a hug every time she pitched in with ideas or offers to help.

But now that he’s standing outside her bedroom door, he’s strangely nervous. He doesn’t want to disturb her, she’s had a tiring day, but he knows deep down that his hesitancy comes from the fact that he hasn’t been in Leah’s room since the incident. After a pause, he knocks, hoping she’ll just come to the door, so he won’t have to go in but he knows it’s unlikely. Still, he tries. No answer.

The door squeaks as it opens, hinges dry after not being used in a week, but not overly so. The room is the same, but there are two key differences. The first is a small stain on the corner of her dresser that his eyes immediately go to, yellowy brown against the white paint. The next is Leah, curled up under the blankets like a cat, hair sticking up all over the place. She’s calm and serene, starkly different from the sweating and screaming and vomit of that night, it makes the frantic beating of his heart finally begin to calm.

“Time for dinner,” he whispers apologetically s he shakes her awake, and then sits on the edge of her mattress while she rests her head against his shoulder and gets her bearings. It’s a habit of their childhood, when he’d rest his head against her waking up for school while she combed through his hair patiently. He does the same for her, working the small knots out of her short strands that had gathered while she shifted in her sleep.

She’s quiet for the rest of the day, much to their parents and his worry, but she joins him on the floor of the living room with her school textbooks and supplies, diligently working. Before that, however, she retreats to her room for a strange hour of silence. He presses his ear to the door, tying to listen out for footsteps or rustling sheets, but hears only a sound of a page being turned and scribbling.

At first, he assumed it was homework, but that soon diminished when she joined him downstairs, because what part of her homework did she have to do behind a locked door?

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She’s back at Lady Kathani’s side again, surrounded by stone. She is no older, has no new wrinkles, so Leah assumes that the time is around the same. This time, however, the Lady is accompanied only by Apprentice Sylvie, though Leah can hear the steps of wolves circling the entrance to the cave they’re in.

Lady Kathani watches as Sylvie observes the artwork carved and painted meticulously into the walls, and Leah follows her gaze, brushing her eyes over the depictions of tribes and wars, treaties and celebrations that tell story after story she aches to understand. She lingers especially on one particular section, a woman dressed like  Lady Kathani carved into the stone, a painted and flaming blue phoenix stretching two metres tall and wide behind her. The sheer magnitude of history and power it radiates leaves her breathless.

“Estne tu?” asks Sylvie from beside her. {Is that you?}

“Ita.” Lady Kathani rises and glides over to the apprentice. “Scin quid ostendit?” {Yes. Do you know what it shows?}

Sylvie shakes her head, clearly confused.

“Initium. Priusquam uxorem duxerim, Makah eram. Vātēs me nominarunt, et phoenix mihi signum dedit.” {The beginning. Before I married the chief, I was Makah. They named me Vātēs and granted me the symbol of a phoenix.}

“Nam renascentiae,” nods Sylvie. “Sed quid blue?” {For rebirth. But why blue?”

“Vātēs nexus spirituum antiquorum censentur, non interni sicut Quileute. Non solum occurrit in morte. Artissimum animal quod phoenix advenit. Et caeruleo Makah populus aquarum semper fuit.”

{The Vates are considered to be a connection to the Spirits of old, not the internal spirits like the Quileute. They are only met in death. The closest a living creature that comes to that is a phoenix. And as for blue, the Makah have always been a people of the water.}

And then she sings.

It’s a song Leah has heard many times over, but never like this and never with so much understanding. Her voice rises and falls, the vibrations and echoes brushing over the walls of the cavern and Leah’s form, seeping under her skin and settling into her mind, her soul, her heart, the back of her throat. It is so different from all the times she’s heard it before, the words pronounced melodically and passionately compared to Old Quil’s rehearsed tone. It entrances her, the story she can now understand almost vividly playing out in her mind’s eye.

A young girl pure of heart, raised in an unforgiving world. A girl who grew to womanhood and remained passionately kind, despite the many hardships life threw at her to harden her heart. A woman who brushed an unfair death at the hands of jealousy, but the spirits healed her and bestowed the power of foresight to her, one that would eventually be passed down to the one she chose, who she believed also pure of heart. A woman who married a chief she did not know for the safety and security of her tribe, who tied together the Makah and Quileute for eons to come. A woman who fought to love her husband, rather than let her marriage stay loveless like all other arrangements. A woman eventually coming into the power her sons and husband had, the ability to shift into her inner wolf at will, to protect both tribes. Both are her people, after all.

When she finishes, the song remains so ingrained into Leah’s mind she doubts she will ever forget, even after she wakes up.

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Dear Diary,

I learned more from today. I dreamt again during my nap, this time in a cave with just Lady Kathani and Apprentice Sylvie. The walls had depictions of Quileute art like I’d never seen before, especially the one of the phoenix. It was three metres tall and wide, burning blue with Lady Kathani carved in front of it. She told Apprentice Sylvie she was originally from the Makah tribe. They called her a Vātēs, and the phoenix is because she was considered a connection to the spirits of old and the closest living creature to death was a phoenix. Blue because the Makah were people of the water. It’s a different connection than the ones we have, ours is a connection to our internal wolf.

She sung the song Old Quil does at the bonfires, but I understood it this time. It was about her, her life of difficulty and her pure heart. She almost died and the spirits granted her a gift of dreams, foresight. She married the chief for her tribe and loved him with all her heart, so she gained the power to phase like her husband and sons. She can also pass on the gift with a girl she deems worthy and with pure heart. I remember the song even now, I feel like a million miles, like I could just think and sing it from memory right now. Maybe I would have tried, if my family were not downstairs.

I have to go now, I need to catch up with homework and sit with Seth, I can hear him shuffling outside my door. It’s an early morning workout with the radio tomorrow, I need the excuse of why I bulked up and my neighbour are nosy enough that word will spread. I’ll write tomorrow morning if I dream again tonight. Maybe. Still not over how cringey it is writing in a diary, for spirits’ sake.

Leah

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She’s quiet that afternoon and mercifully grateful Seth allows her to be, she needs to throw herself into something mundane like homework and missed lessons to tether her back into her own time, her reality lacking anything supernatural for a little longer. It’s only because of her parents’ worried gazes over dinner that she even brings her work downstairs, she’d already gone back on her promise to distance herself from Seth this afternoon, even if it was to avoid Sam and Emily.

It's alarming how fast she’s gotten used to her father’s presence again, sitting in his spot at the table and sprawled in the same armchair watching the game on low volume while the siblings work away.

Her work is basic, if only partially unfamiliar, but she is quick to get back into the swing of things, making diligent notes on biological molecules that was still as dull as the first time. By the time she finally packs up for the night, her butt is aching from sitting in the same place for so long without break, unlike Seth, who took no less than six opportunities to get up for water or food or the bathroom. She can’t bring herself to judge him, she probably would have done the same if she didn’t need the distraction so desperately. And it worked like a charm, there’s nothing in her mind but the goddamn structure of glycerol.

It's humiliating how much she’s adapted to her wolf senses and the few extra inches of height because she’s ridiculously useless without them, tripping over air and banging into the stair railing. And the couch. And the doorframe.

Again.

At least no one saw her faceplant in the threshold of her room. Though they probably all heard it.

Ugh. 

Chapter Text

There is a five-year-old boy stood in front of her. His hair is messy, hiked up like hers does when she first gets up in the morning, and he has visible traces of baby fat. He stares up at her with Jacob Black’s signature, beseeching brown eyes and glowing grin. They’re standing in the water, bare feet and the bottom of her new dress utterly caked in seawater and sand. Rachel stands before their clasped hands, her serious baby tone nothing short of utterly hilarious as she recites some story of love between a hot chocolate and a marshmallow. Rebecca stands opposite her with a tiny bouquet of wildflowers she picked from the underside of the cliff, some of the roots and grass still attached.

Rachel guides her and Jacob through the basic vows of marriage, which Leah repeats distractedly, too focused on the stray point of a leaf that was sticking out of her flower crown and tickling the back of her neck.

“You may kiss the bride!” announces Rachel gleefully, while Rebecca throws flower petals at them, which just turns out to be a handful of grass and 3 daisy petals.

Their lips barely touch, noses smashing awkwardly before he jerks away and knocks her flower crown into the water. There are flashes going off and a very distinct laugh, and she turns to see her mother watching them from the sidelines, completely exasperated. Sarah Black is doubled over in laughter with her, still as radiant as ever, her trusty black camera hanging around her neck. Even when her laughter fades out, her grin remains, the same one Jacob has somehow inherited despite looking like Billy’s clone. It’s a smile of pure, unadulterated glee, which promises a lifetime of embarrassing stories.

The two women herd the children back home, all the while attempting to scold them for ruining their new clothes before the bonfire tonight, but their efforts are futile as their laughter and grins only return with full force.

When her father finds out, he marches her playfully over to Billy and Jacob that night and spends the entire night playfully arguing with the chief, going on and on about how Jacob ‘corrupted his daughter.’ Billy doesn’t hesitate to tell him it was more likely Leah who corrupted Jacob, like she did with Rachel and Rebecca.

She’s too young back them to understand the protective edge and worry his banter covers, but Billy quite obviously notices, and mercilessly teases him to hell and back for it, despite everyone knowing he’d do the exact same if it were one of the twins who’d fake married and kissed a boy on the beach.

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Dragging herself out of bed early is as difficult as she remembers, but she persists for the sake of her secret. The Fullers always took out the trash at around quarter to eight, so she needed to be dressed, awake, and working up a sweat by the time they got out.

She chooses a thin grey shirt and leggings, not entirely willing to be seen in a sports bra or more revealing clothes until the last of her baby fat disappears and her new/old body comes back.

She props the radio on a chair by the kitchen window, the lead trailing inside leading to the closest socket it can reach. The early morning radio is loud but not overly so, it won’t wake anyone up, but she and her neighbours can hear it just fine. As the music begins, she takes a few walking laps around the side of her house, gradually progressing to a quick jog. It takes her an embarrassingly short time to get out of breath, but she persists. By the time the front door of the Fuller household swing open, she’s moved on to sit ups, and Seth is kneeling on her legs and high fiving her every time she comes up. She doesn’t even notice Brady until he lets out a wolf whistle, and Seth flips him the bird without breaking eye contact with her. Her workout leaves her drained, but she pushes herself to do the last sixty second plank hold of her planned routine until she retreats to the shower. Seth graciously offers to take the chair and radio in for her.

After a shower, breakfast and a few hours of studying, she stops in front of the closet at the end of the hall. The picture is still exactly where she remembers it being, tucked in the third blue album out of five, placed carefully in the chest with Sarah’s signature black camera, hidden under the mountain of jackets and old shoes. This picture is one of the few in colour, a perfect capture of Leah and Jacob’s attempted kiss. Her flower crown is unravelling, which is probably why here was grass poking her, everyone’s feet have disappeared under dirt and water. They’re covered in roots and dirt and grass along with a stray buttercup thanks to Rebecca, who’s back is to the camera. Rachel is facing it head on, though, expression positively gleeful. There are a few copies, one where her flower crown was sitting in the water next to Jacob and another two black and white copies of the pictures. She doesn’t know why, but she slips the original picture out of its place and takes it with her instead of putting way very carefully with the rest.

She remembers the first time she found it, clearing out the gathered clutter with her mum and Seth. The chest had been untouched since Sarah’s funeral, the ache of losing her sister in all but blood being to much for her mother to bear. They’d saved the photo albums until after dinner, when the Black pack communed at the Clearwater household with Billy. Leah had all but buried her face Nessie’s hair while she and Jacob got ribbed to high hell, marriage jokes and God knows what else. Nessie had giggled madly and waited until the laughter died down to ask, rather loudly, who she would be living with if ‘Leah and Jakey ever divorced.’ Quil choked on air so hard he almost suffocated.

Her face was still bright red by the time they dropped Nessie off that night, Edward had taken one look at them and doubled over in laughter. It took weeks for the teasing to die down, but Jacob had a copy made to gift her on April 16^th, the date marked on the back with Sarah’s messy scrawl. A quick glance at her calendar confirms that in twenty-seven days, it will be exactly ten years since the picture was taken.

She doesn’t have the gaudy frame Jabob had gifted her the last time round, so she digs out the elaborate one in the binbag Emily had gifted her, that still held her and Sam, and replaces the image without hesitation. The frame takes mantle once more on her nightstand, this time containing a happier memory. She can’t say it was untarnished, her relationship with Rachel and Rebecca has certainly been a turbulent one, but she’s made her peace with it. It had hurt, at first, her sisters in all but blood pulling away at her worst moments, her calls after the breakup going to voicemail and again before her father’s funeral. Neither of them had attended or called her back. Rachel hadn’t even offered condolences when they did eventually meet again, too wrapped around Paul like the other imprints.

 “Thought you got rid of that,” comments Harry from the doorway, starling her out of her memories. Seth peeks out behind him curiously.

She furrows her brows in confusion. Why would she get rid it? Sure, it’s a bit embarrassing and heartbreaking but it’s also one of her happiest memories, especially because it was one of the last she has of Sarah.

“Do you want me to burn it for you?” asks Seth, wandering over to peek. “Oh, you changed the picture!”

“You have a new boyfriend?” her dad jumps up, suddenly protective. “Is it of Quil?”

“No!” her face burns, she had forgotten her dad was in the room when Seth accused her of a crush. “It’s Jacob!”

Seth’s head whips towards her, eyes alight. “You’re dating Jacob?!”

“I am not dating Jacob, the picture is of Jacob!”

“Why do you have a picture of Jacob on your nightstand if you’re not dating Jacob?”

“It’s not just Jacob in the picture!”

“Is Jacob the one you’re kissing?” Leah sends Seth a poisonous glare, to which he responds with a mischievous grin.

Harry stalks over and snatches the frame up, relaxing minutely when he sees what it contains.  “If this had any other picture of you two kissing, I swear, I would have killed that boy.”

Sue laughs, startling everyone in the room. “Oh, I forgot about that,” she says, wandering over. “You had your fake wedding vows and everything, it was so adorable.”

“It’s a nice memory,” admits Leah, before proceeding to kick everyone out of her room.

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“Hey Harry, Charlie,” greets Jacob as he returns from Emily’s. “How you guys doing?”

“As long as you don’t kiss or marry my daughter again without telling me, we’ll be fine,” remarks Harry casually, eyes still on the screen.

Jacob trips.

“What?” exclaims his dad and Charlie, eyes swivelling to the older man.

Harry doesn’t address him, instead turning to Billy. “Remember that picture Sarah took of the time they got fake married at the beach with the twins and kissed? Leah has it framed on her bedside. Hang on, I’ll have her send me a picture.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and shoots off text after text, chuckling all the while. Most likely arguing with Leah. Eventually, he gets what he wants.

Jacob walks around the back of the couch to peer at the screen, tinted blue. It’s him and Leah, clearly, locked in an awkward brush of the lips. Rach looks on gleefully with her hands raised, like she just chucked a bunch of grass and dirt at them, which she obviously just did. Leah has an unravelling flower crown in her hair and their noses are squashed together. He doesn’t remember the moment, but it makes him smile anyway.

“What are you hiding, old man?” asks Charlie, squinting jokingly at Harry. “Did you blow a gasket again?”

“Yeah, but it’s not that,” Harry glances at Jacob before turning back to Charlie. “I’ll tell you later. Can’t expose all her secrets.”

Jacob takes that as his cue to leave, rushing up briefly to change his own Jorts instead of Embry’s before heading out. He doubles back halfway, however, curiosity getting the better of him.

“He’s gone,” confirms Charlie. “Now spill.”

“I think my girl might like your boy, Billy.” Shock sings in Jacob’s veins, heat spreading from his face to his ears and neck. “That frame’s sat on her bedside for the past three years with Sam Uley in it.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, and she let him help her to bed the other day. That girl is stubborner than Sue, she’d sooner crawl there herself.”

His father cackles gleefully. “It would be nice to be Brothers officially.”

“Easy Tiger. She’s got her whole life ahead of her yet, and I’ve gotta make sure your boy’s worth her.”

There’s silence for a while, so Jacob assumes they’ve returned to the game and sets off towards the forest again, phasing just as he reaches the treeline.

Paul, Embry and Sam are in the Pack mind when he phases, and the first two don’t pause to rib him within an inch of his life. He knows that everyone in the pack including imprints will know by the end of the day, nothing stays secret for long. Sam stays quiet throughout.

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Brady: Guess the view I got this morning ;)

Collin: What? Some hot girls by the beach? And u didn’t invite me?

Brady: Seth’s sister working out by the side of my house.

Collin: Detailsssssss

Brady: Planks, Sit-ups, jogging.

Brady: Squats

Collin: ASDFGHJKL LUCKY BASTARD

Collin: Was it a one-off?

Brady: She said she tryna build up her strength again. So I assume no. 

Collin: Pics????

Brady: No, Seth was there when I went out. And he gonna kill us if we take them. Sad, for u :) 

Chapter Text

She’s back in the cavern, deeper inside this time, though. There is a pedestal like a sacrificing altar where Apprentice Sylvie lies, completely naked and trembling. Sweat beads across her brow and tendrils of fire seem to burn under her skin. Lady Kathani flinches violently as Sylvie arches in pain, crying out.

“Noli pugnare!” she tells the apprentice tearfully. “Maternitas tantum est donum temporale, quod debes immolare pro lupo tuo.” {Do not fight it! Motherhood is only a temporary gift you must sacrifice for the sake of your wolf.}

Blood begins to trickle down, slowly becoming a steady stream. Sylvie sobs and then she erupts, growing until there is a tawny grey wolf slumped where a girl once lay.

Howls echo outside, joyful to her ears.

Welcome sister, they seem to say.

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She wakes with a jolt. She phases tonight, she knows it, her wolf will not stay contained for long. The house is silent as she leaves, stumbling her way to wildflower clearing she’d spent the last three years of dates with Sam in. She doesn’t even need the torch of her phone, her senses sharpening with every passing step.

But the fever under her skin grows and grows, and it blurs her vision until she’s staggering away to God knows where. Blood is running down her legs now and she falls to her knees against leaves and roots rather than grass.

Sacrificing motherhood. It is no less painful this time.

The sickly-sweet stench of leech vampire is pungent in the air, so she assumes that she’s either near the treaty line or just over it. It’s not as if I can move now, she thinks, laying back with closed eyes and trying to control her breathing.

Cold brushes over her bloodied legs, and it is such a relief to the heat that she almost cries. Until she remembers she shouldn’t be feeling the cold. Then all that’s left it horror. Her eyes snap open to meet red irises and she freezes as the dreadlock vampire surveys her and the blood she’s still covered in.

Oh, God, he’s still touching her.

She screams, loud and terrified, and then her skin splits and she lunges. His head is gone before either of them gain their bearings, the rest of his body is quick to follow. Someone howls the alarm from the treaty line just behind her, and she phases back in a panic, desperate to conceal her thoughts.

Her chest is still heaving, limbs still trembling from the chaos going on in her head. The pain, the overwhelming thoughts, the grief. The terror. She can still feel his hands on her. It makes her want to claw her skin off, she feels dirty, tarnished.

Through her tears, she sees the Leech’s newly attached arm shoot towards her, only to be knocked out of the way by a Cullen. The rest of the clan appear within seconds, and the dreadlock leech’s remains go up in a blaze. 

She knows Edward knows what Laurent did when his face changes. Everything else is a blur.

She remembers pulling away from Carlisle’s grip with a hysterical cry of “don’t touch me!” She remembers clinging onto the blonde female, Rosalie, like a lifeline, because her hands are soft and cool compared to the icy roughness of the males. Remembers the hot water of the Cullen house as the girls help her wash and dress, with soothing words of comfort.

“I know you feel like you want to tear your skin off right now, but it gets better, I promise,” Rosalie tells her. “Every cell in your body is replaced every seven years. One day, you will have a body he has never touched.”

The entire pack is waiting for her outside the house when she steps outside, still gripping Rosalie’s hand like a vice. Other than the Cullens, only Sam and Jacob stand on two feet, both clearly fighting a phase. Edward is nowhere to be seen.

Sam starts towards when he sees her, but she flinches, and Rosalie jumps to defend her with a loud hiss. Sam growls right back, refusing to back away.

“Maybe male company isn’t the best for Leah right now,” says Carlisle placatingly. “There are plenty of spare bedrooms here-”

“No! She comes with me!”

“Sam, maybe-”

“Back off, dog!”

She doesn’t want to go with him, and he knows it, but his possessive streak to keep her under his thumb persists and he is on the brink of ordering her. But she also knows she can’t go with him. Can’t sit in that house, with Emily puttering around her like she has the right to care about her, while she’s grieving and suffering all over again. There’s only one person Sam will listen to despite everything, and that’s-

“I want my dad.”

Her voice comes out as a broken whisper, but they all hear her anyway. The fight drains out of Sam almost immediately. “I’ll take you to him, I promise. Come with me.”

He’ll deliver her home eventually, she knows that much, but not until he forces her to spend the night as his own house, under the guise of an unexpected transformation at night or a council meeting or whatever. She’s already trapped under his thumb. It’s happening all over again.

“I want to go home. I’ll talk tomorrow, I swear, I just want to go home now.” There are tears in her eyes again that she tries to blink away, but it’s no use. One of the wolves, Quil, lets out a low whine.

“We’ll take you right home,” promises Jacob, and she knows he means it. Even if Sam tries to take her, he’ll tear apart everything in his path to keep his promise. It’s finally what gives her the strength to release Rosalie’s hand, who stares at her in concern.

 It makes her abused heart ache even more, that this incredible woman has gone out of her way to defend Leah, who should be her mortal enemy. She can’t ignore the urge to wrap her in a hug, determinedly ignoring the stench that encases her. Rosalie gasps in her ear, and the cool marble of her skin is a welcome feeling to her scorching shifter’s heat. She wonders if her warmth is as pleasant as Rosalie’s cool is to her. She wants to say yes, judging by the way the blonde sinks into the hug and doesn’t let go until Leah pulls herself away. She hopes Rosalie understands the emotion she’s trying to express.

She manages a small smile to Esme and Alice standing with the male vampires before she grits her teeth and brushes past Sam, marching towards Jacob with disguised desperation. He offers her a hesitant hand in advance, but she tucks herself under his arm and clings to her former alpha’s shirt like she did with Rosalie, drawing comfort in his heated and familiar touch. He may not be her Jabob, but he’s close enough.

They leave in silence, the wolves unusually sombre as they flank the trio. Her legs buckle just as they pass the dreadlock leech’s ashes, the smell of her own blood mixing with his churns her stomach. She’s grateful when Jacob doesn’t say anything about it, simply lifting her into his arms and walking on.

Somewhere along the way, she falls asleep to the steady sound of his heartbeat, and the comforting presence of Embry flanking him. There are no dreams this time, just the jolting of her body and exhausted blackness.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he phases that night, Sam believes himself prepared. After all, he’s helped all the other boys of the pack. He’s wrong.

So very wrong.

The first thing he clocks is the pain. Guilt and grief and fire, so powerful it brings him to his knees, far bigger than any of the other cubs. He alpha in him roars, rage colours his vision. His pack is hurting. One of his cubs is hurting.

And then it’s gone, abruptly cut away from the connection until only a sense or direction remains. They phased back. So early? It takes days or at least hours for cubs to calm down enough to phase back, something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Embry and Jake are furious, terrified, aching. They pace and they snarl at the treaty line, praying for a miracle to cross over and retrieve their terrified new brother. There is the smell of leech and blood mixed together. He gets there in seconds.

The first thing he clocks is the pup, trembling on the ground just out of his reach across the treaty line. He’s trembling and sobbing and butt naked, but the last one was expected.

The next is the remains of the dreadlock leech next to him, head and limbs torn off and trying desperately to stitch themselves back together. A small amount of pride wells up at the instinct, before it’s squashed down. Killing is never something he’s wish on any of his pack, instinct or no. Especially if they got injured enough to be bleeding.

He almost says, ‘fuck it’ and jumps over the treaty line when he sees the newly attached arm of the leech lunge at their newest cub, but the Cullens knock it away as they arrive, and the remains of the body go up in flames.

The mind reader, Edward, stares down at the pack’s new brother. He looks horrified, like he’s about to throw up, the first human emotion Sam has ever seen on him. He whispers a name Sam’s keen ears pick up even in the chaos. “Leah?”

His blood turns to ice.

What?! Some cries in his head.

The more he watches, the more the pieces fall into place. The cry is female, one he hates that he recognises. Her scream of “Don’t touch me!” as Carlisle wraps a hand around her. Her signature pixie cut, that she only got three days ago but was already associated to her in everyone’s minds. The smattering of beauty spots on her left shoulder blade, that is trembling like the rest of her body before it’s covered with a blanket. The tears and dirt that cake her face, not bothering to hide her expression underneath. The blood that is running down her legs from no visible wound.

It all paints a horrifying picture. He feels like he’s going to throw up. Or cry. Jared does both behind him. He doesn’t remember crossing over onto Cullen territory with the doctor’s permission, or Edward leaving for Bella. Doesn’t remember phasing back to human form with his Beta. He only registers the anger burning in his gut and the stinking smell of sickly-sweet bleach. The way his heart thumps rapidly and the primal urge to protect.

When she flinches at him, his heart twangs, but only for a moment. The blonde leech steps in front of her with a hiss, and then anger returns. How dare she? Leah was his pack, his family, she was going with him tonight, no matter what the doctor or even she said about it.

The alpha order is on the tip of his tongue but then Leah speaks, sounding broken and fragile and so damn young.

“I want my dad.”

The fight drains out of him like a dam bursting, immediately followed by guilt.

Harry. Of course, how could he have forgotten? Leah Clearwater has always been her father’s daughter, tough and kind and willing to take on the world. Harry is probably going out of his mind with worry, his daughter disappearing in the middle of the night right after she spent a week in the clinic for fever dreams. How was he going to tell him that his little girl was a wolf now? How was he going to tell him that Sam wasn’t there when she phased, couldn’t get to her fast enough? That a leech had gotten his hands on her, and now she was scarred in a way nobody would see except herself?

How was he going to tell Harry, who’d been all but a father to him in the most important years of his life, that it as his fault Leah ended up like this?

When her eyes fill with tears and she starts pleading to go home, he almost breaks. Quil whines in pain behind him, and he understands. Even before Leah became their pack sister, they cared about her, and seeing her like this is heartbreaking. Even when she wraps her arms around the leech, as if she was the one who was family, his anger doesn’t return. There is only the same, steady ache.

He tries to keep the hurt off his face when she brushes past him straight to Jacob, tucking herself under his arm. The leech doctor did mention that she may not be comfortable around males for a while, but she holds onto Jacob like she did with the blonde leech. Like he’s her lifeline. Sam knows what it means. She trusts Jacob, she feels safer with him than Sam. The possibility she loves him is only growing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They walk into chaos at the Clearwater house. Sue is pacing frantically, phone pressed to her ear and surrounded by his mom, Allison, Tiffany and almost every other woman on the Rez. Harry, Charlie and Billy are piled into the living room, loading their hunting guns with a group of other men Quil pays no mind to.

Seth is the first to spot them, rushing over to Jacob with a cry of “Leah!” The room freezes, and then Harry stands, face hardened and icy. It’s nothing like Quil has ever seen before.

“Take her up to bed,” he orders Jacob. “And then explain.”

Nobody contradicts him, and the silence is suffocating. Jacob’s every movement can be heard amongst the rapid heartbeats and panicked breathing. The creak of the door as it swings open, the rustle of sheets as he tucks her in, the strange pause before retreating footsteps as he comes back down. Only when he’s standing back next to Seth does Harry speak again.

“What happened?” The ice in his voice as he stares down their Alpha surprises everyone.

Sam swallows. “The Cullens found her. She was…”

“What?” demands Billy. “Is she hurt? Did they do something to her?”

“No, they helped her. She was…” he stops, as if trying to drag out the words. They all do. In the end, it is only Embry who manages, even then in a roundabout way.

“There was blood running down her legs when we found her. And she flinches around men every time they move. We think she was-”

Sue’s phone slips from her grasp and plummets to the floor, screen cracking on impact. Seth’s knees buckle half a second after, Jacob just about catching him like he did Leah, just before he hit the floor. Nobody speaks, or yells, or blames, but they cry silently and somehow that’s worse.

Someone throws up on the porch as they leave. Joy has to steer him home and straight to bed; he hears her sniffling as she tells his grandfather. Jacob doesn’t move from where he’s wrapped around Seth all night. Sam stays behind to tell Harry about Leah’s phase.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Harry sees Leah come down the stairs the next morning, Charlie is sitting on the couch with him, Sue and another female officer, both police in full uniform. His girl is still in the same rumpled clothes as yesterday, hair mussed up in all directions and crust in the corners of her eyes. Everyone’s eyes flick to her the second she’s in sight, and it makes her visibly uncomfortable. Seth is the only one missing, he’s at school.

“Leah,” Charlie greets, standing up. His professional tone seems to scare her, it makes his heart ache. “Please, take a seat.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asks, visibly fearful.

“No, honey, you’re not,” reassures his colleague. “I’m officer Amanda, I’m a colleague of Chief Swan’s. We just have a few questions.”

Leah’s eyes flicker to her mum, who beckons her over with an outstretched hand. She sits on the edge of the couch, carefully further away from himself and Charlie.

“We heard there was an incident last night regarding Sexual Assault,” Amanda begins gently. “Can you tell us what you remember of the perpetrator? Or the events?”

Leah’s silent for so long that Harry’s heart almost beats right out of his chest. Finally, she speaks.

“I don’t remember much.” Her voice is faltering and quiet, so unlike her usual fire. “I think I was sick. I left the house, went to the woods. He was there. Rosalie saved me. She took me to her house, helped me shower. Alice gave me the clothes. Esme checked me over instead of the doctor because…. She called Jacob. The boys brought me home.”

“Jacob as in Jacob Black?”

“Yes.”

“And these other women? Do they have a surname?”

“The Cullen family. They live in Seattle.”

“OK.” Amanda jots down a note. “And the perpetrator? What happened to him, what did he look like?”

“I don’t know. Dreadlocks. Dark eyes.”

“What did he do to you, Leah?”

“He…” she doesn’t talk for the longest time, but her breath quickens and eyes flicker until she’s hyperventilating frantically under Sue’s arm. ‘Panic attack,’ Amanda says rather unnecessarily, as Harry kicks them both out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Diary, I don’t know what to do. There’s so much going on that I just want to crawl into bed and not come out for an entire week. Let me start at the beginning.

I dreamt about Sylvie’s transformation last night. She bled heavily; Lady Kathani called it a sacrifice of motherhood. And then I woke up, and I knew I was going to phase. So, I left, but I got a fever again and ended up bleeding and shaking on the other side of the treaty line. A leech found me, the one with the dreadlocks, but I realised too late.

He touched me and I ripped his head off. God, I can still feel his hands on me every time I close my eyes, or I think back. It’s humiliating, I was lying there sobbing and completely naked. His fucking arm came at me, and Cullen had to save me from it. The girls of the clan helped me. Specifically, Rosalie, she’s different. Nice.

I don’t know how much the pack know, but I remember hearing them when the leech went up in flames. They were waiting outside when I came out from a bath. Alice lent me clothes, they’re so high quality I feel spoiled. Jacob brought me home, even though Sam didn’t want me to be here before. I had to use dad to convince him. I fell asleep on the way here, so I don’t know what happened, but Officer Amanda was here with Charlie and my parents when I woke up. She said I’d been sexually assaulted.

I’m just grateful I was a wolf. He may have touched me, but I can recover eventually. I wouldn’t have been able to if he went further. I can’t believe I didn’t notice. God, when did I get so weak? I’m trapped right under Sam’s thumb again. God, what a mess. Now to deal with the phase and pack explanations. I want to get Embry to do it, he was in my head, and he was pack before. I don’t think I can face Sam yet, not like this. I had a panic attack in front of the whole room, for spirits’ sake. God knows how many other people know now too, not just them. The boys never were one for tact.

I’ll write if anything changes.

Leah

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the landline rings shrilly halfway through the pack meeting, Sam almost jumps out of his skin. He’s quick to dismiss it, however, letting Emily stride across the room to answer instead.

“Uley residence,” she chirps with her usual sunny disposition. How she can be so happy right now, especially after finding out about last night, he will never know.  

“Leah!” she cries suddenly, and silence falls. “I was hoping you’d call, how are you feeling?”

There is chatter on the other end he can’t distinguish.

“Oh,” Emily says in a small, confused voice. “Jacob’s out on patrol right now with Embry. Do you want me to leave a message for him?”

More chatter. Emily’s confusion visibly grows. “Paul’s right here. Do you want me to hand him the phone?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees Quil’s eyebrows shoot up. Paul jumps to his feet instinctively, halfway across the room in the blink of an eye.

“Hey Leah Bear, what’s up?” Sam bristles at the nickname.

“I don’t know, you calling me Daddy doesn’t sound so bad.” There is angry screeching on the other side as Paul laughs. “Ok, ok, just Leah then. What’s up?”

There is quiet chatter.

“I’m free from eleven till twelve in the morning or after 3, if it’s going to take longer.”

“The Diner? Sure. See you at eleven. Bye.”

“What did she want?” asks Quil, almost the second the phone was back in the receiver.

“Said she needed a favour. Wanted to meet me at Lily’s.”

Sam’s eyes narrow. Lily’s diner is Leah’s second favourite date spot, and whatever she was talking about with Paul certainly wasn’t innocent. “What kind of favour?”

“She said it’s complicated. Wanted to say it in person, but in a public place. She’s still kind of weird around… you know, males.”

“Hm.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It takes Leah a ridiculous amount of time to gather the courage for calling Emily’s house, and resisting the urge to swear as soon as she answered the call.

“Uley Residence,” she chirps, and Leah resists the urge to hang up right this second.

“Hey, it’s Leah-” She’s cut off.

“Leah! I was hoping you’d call, how are you feeling?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says quickly. It’s the last thing she wants, she’d rather plummet off a cliff headfirst than talk to Emily about her problems. “Is Jacob there?”

“Oh. Jacob’s out on patrol right now with Embry. Do you want me to leave a message for him?”

Damnit! Just her luck, honestly. Ok think, who else was on patrol when she phased?

“Is Paul there?”

“Paul’s right here. Do you want me to hand him the phone?”

“Yeah, please,” she tacks on, because Sue Clearwater raised her daughter to have manners, at the very least.

“Hey Leah Bear, what’s up?” comes Paul’s usual tone.

“Unless you accidentally want me calling you ‘dad’, don’t call me Leah Bear. He’s the only one who calls me that.”

“I don’t know, you calling me Daddy doesn’t sound so bad.”

She lets out a screech of outrage as he laughs. Of course, Paul was dirty minded. The stupid fucker only laughed harder at her slew of swears.

“Ok, ok, just Leah then. What’s up?”

“Listen, I need a favour. It’s kind of complicated.”

“I’m free from eleven till twelve in the morning or after 3, if it’s going to take longer.”

“No, it’ll only take half an hour, max. Can we meet at Lily’s? I’m still kind of weird with guys and-” She’s rambling now, that’s not good.

“The Diner?” he cuts her off. “Sure. See you at eleven.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Paul walks into the diner an hour later, his eyes clock on immediately to the girl sitting in the corner booth. Leah seems to be in her own little world, oblivious to the worried glances and whispers that the patrons send her way. Because of course, everyone in this bloody town knows already and it’s probably their fault. (Mama always said he had no tact.)

She’s staring out of the window, eyes glazed over and expression far away. She looks so impossibly small that the brother in Paul aches, the signature Clearwater fire that had once burned so brightly in her has extinguished completely, leaving behind nothing but remnants of what had once been. 

Leah looks…lost.

And for a second, Paul almost wishes that the leech hasn’t gone up in flames, just so he could put him together and tear him apart all over again for what he’s done to her.

He knocks on the table before he slides in opposite her, grateful he has the forethought when she jumps about a foot in the air and knocks over the saltshaker. “Shit!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he responds easily. No point making her feel worse about herself. He waits while she gathers her mind long enough to talk. The waitress wanders over in the meantime, eager to listen in on their conversation, no doubt. They order and wait.

“When I changed,” she begins hesitantly. “You were in my head. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t think I’m the best person to tell you this,” he says. “Sam-”

“No.” She looks horrified at the very thought, but it slips from her face so fast he almost misses it. “I can’t be there right now. I can’t even be near my dad and Charlie, it’s nothing personal.”

So, he tells her, about shifting and protectors and the legends she’s heard so much about growing up. He hesitates when it comes to imprinting, but she insists and the fire in her sparks. He cannot bring himself to deny her. Their food comes halfway through, and he stops, waiting for the waitress to be out of earshot before he continues. When she finds out about Sam and Emily, her face closes off, suddenly cold. He’s been talking for twenty minutes before the end of his tale comes into sight.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks her during her long, pondering silence.

“Hm?”

“You were comfortable with Jake that night, but you’re not with your dad or anyone else. How come?”

She’s silent for so long he almost gets up to leave.

“I trust Jacob. I know he’ll keep his promise, and he won’t hurt me.”

“And…Sam?”

She sighs heavily, sounding far older than she should. “Sam seems to only hurt me and break his promises to me, even if it’s not his intention. My dad, he did that too. Maybe I didn’t understand back then, maybe I’ll forgive him now, but I can’t seem to forget just yet.”

Honestly, he was expecting a slap for that question. Maybe a glare and silence. He most certainly wasn’t expecting an answer, a rather honest and vulnerable one at that. Leah’s out-of-character behaviour scares him, he hates to admit it. He misses her fire, her snappy retorts and the arguments they get into at any given moment, over absolutely nothing at all, that make him want to tear his own teeth out. Even a week ago, he’d rather die than admit it. But now… now he just wants her back.

And he’s terrified, terrified that this version of Leah will be all she is now. She never snapped back after Sam broke her heart, and he’s afraid she never will from this either. He picks up the check as he leaves, pretending not to see the way she flinches at his proximity. Only a few days ago, she’d kissed and hugged Emily and Sam in greeting, briefly and awkwardly, but still, she had done it. Only days ago, she’d draped herself over Seth like a limpet at a gathering, and bantered the hell out of Embry, embarrassing both Quil and Jacob. Only five days ago, he and Embry had ribbed Jacob within an inch of his life because she’d replaced a framed picture of her and Sam, with a childhood one of their fake wedding.

Now that girl is gone, and Paul fears, above all else, that she’ll never come back.

Chapter Text

Leah spends a solid two days in her room, panicking and plotting to no avail, before she snaps. Enough is enough. She is Leah Clearwater. She is a daughter, a sister, a protector and a goddamned good one at that. She is the only female wolf in the La Push pack AND the Black pack, she is a fucking TIME TRAVELLER. She has been through too much to give up now, especially because of some insignificant little leech.

So, the next day, she packs up the freshly washed clothes that Alice lent her, throws on her workout clothes that are a little too snug now, and makes her way to the Cullen house with a swift jog, leaving behind a note for her parents and Seth. Halfway there, she makes a detour to Joy’s store for coconut water. She remembered reading that it could sometimes be used in transfusions in place of blood plasma, but she had never managed to convince Jacob to gift it to one of the Cullens as a Christmas present. She might as well try it.

It's surprisingly Quil who meets her at the counter, with a proud grin and bright eyes. “Nice to see you out and about,” he comments, scanning her bottles through.

“Out on a jog.” It’s not technically a lie, she is jogging, just with a set destination in mind. She pays with the money she would have used on herself and Paul at Lily’s Diner, and he waves her out with a smile. After almost three weeks of not having her wolf senses, hearing the water sloshing from side to side as she jogs down to the treaty line is both strange and comforting.

Esme opens the door when she knocks, eyes blowing open in surprise despite Leah knowing she heard her jogging up. “Leah! What a surprise!”

“Sorry for dropping by so unexpected,” she pants, suddenly self-conscious next to the gorgeous woman dressed head-to-toe in designer. “I wanted to return the clothes.”

“Oh, honey, you didn’t have to do that!” she gushes, taking the offered bag. “Alice has so many clothes it’s impossible to wear them all. What’s this?” She picks up a small bottle of coconut water.

“I read somewhere that it can be used in transfusions. As blood plasma. I thought it might…well, it’s kind of stupid,” she backtracks at Esme’s sympathetic look.

“We appreciate the gesture. I’m sure Emmett will try it anyway. He’s a bit wild.”

There is an awkward silence before Leah’s stomach rumbles, registering the fact that she skipped breakfast and there was something delicious cooking inside.

“Come on in, have some breakfast!” cries Esme, suddenly excited. “Please, I rarely get to cook for anyone. Bella eats like a bird.”

In the name of good faith (and definitely not free food), she accepts.

Esme zips around the room with what can only be described as glee, whipping out some kind of lasagne from the oven and plonking a heaping of it on a plate, then decorating with parsley and mash and veggies. It’s all set out on the kitchen unit before she can blink, let alone make it over to the kitchen.

Esme pats a seat with an excited “Come sit!” so Leah awkwardly wanders over, sliding onto the barstool next to her. She picks up the fork under Esme’s eager gaze and takes a hesitant bite.

“OH. MY. GOD.” The expert yet simple blend of flavours that explode on her tongue almost make her groan. “This is so good, Mrs Cullen!”

Esme looks delighted. “You can just call me Esme, honey, no need for that! I’m so glad you like it, I love cooking but we can’t eat or drink other than blood so…”

“Have you heard of the soup kitchen?” she asks consideringly. The Cullens certainly had enough money for food to be wasted and ridiculous designer clothes, maybe the meals Esme cooked should go to good use. “A lot of people cook different foods for them and hand them out there, mainly for the homeless and others who are struggling. One of the girls on the basketball team volunteers at the one in Seattle on the weekends.”

“A soup kitchen?” Esme muses consideringly, “I hadn’t heard of that before, but I’d love to try it. Do you know where it is, or any contact information?”

“I’ll find out for you,” she promises, standing to wash her empty dish. Esme takes it from her and asks if she wants seconds, which she declines. It’s best she gets going before her parents begin to worry. Still, Esme walks her to the treaty line, listening to her talk about the most mundane things with the upmost fascination. She supposes that after a lifetime of living as a vampire, one forgets the smaller parts of being human.

She ignores Embry’s russet wolf watching her as she jogs the first mile over the treaty line leisurely, but she’s exasperated by the third as he’s started following her. “Come here,” she groans at the grey wolf trying to hide behind the trees.

When he doesn’t move, she sighs and stomps over to him, hands on her hips and a stern stare like her grandmother. He wilts under her look, and she ruffles his fur before patting him twice. “Go on, get out of here, you adorable basta-bitch.”

Embry had drawn a line at the beginning of their friendship regarding his parentage, and she’d done her best to respect it. Even if this wasn’t the same Embry, the reflexes were there. He bounds off, and she makes her way home covered in sweat and dirt.

Seth is coming up the street when she makes her way out of the trees, and he speeds up in a playful attempt to get to the door first. She does the same, letting him win by just a second.

“Ha!” he crows in delight, flinging open the door. “I beat you!”

She rolls her eyes at his smug smile while her dad looks on fondly from the couch, not having the heart to tell her brother otherwise. If only he knew, she could outrun cars. “Whatever, short stack.”

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“What is that?”

Rosalie glances at her sister before turning back to the road. “What?”

“It smells like wet dog. A shifter was here,” says Alice, sounding worried.  “It’s coming from the direction of the house.”

“Esme,” breathes Emmett.

Half a second later, Rosalie is alone in the car. It doesn’t bother her; the road is clear, and she stomps a heeled boot down on the accelerator as far as it will go. The tyres screech as the car speeds towards the home, she’ll have to replace them before the next time she drives, but it doesn’t matter right now. The steering creaks under her grip, her worry getting the best of her despite knowing the others would have gotten home in no time. The second the car screeches to a halt in the driveway, she out, following the distinct smell all the way to the door. She doesn’t stop to listen to the chatter inside.

“Esme!”

“I’m fine!” cries her exasperated, adoptive mother, throwing her hands in the air. “Leah came by. I was cooking at the time and invited her in, we had a lovely chat.”

“What did she want?” asks Rosalie, trying to seem uninterested. And failing, judging by the looks her family were sending. Ok, maybe she was a little annoyed that she missed the female shapeshifter, but who could blame her? Leah gave great hugs, even if the stench was almost unbearable for the both of them.

“She came by to drop off the clothes. And some coconut water, weirdly enough. Something about it being used as blood plasma.”

Jasper tilts his head, confused. “Does that mean we can drink it?”

“Well, you never know until you try!”

“Emmett, wait!” But it’s too late. Her ridiculous husband zipped to the kitchen and downed half the bottle before Rosalie can knock it out of his hands. “Idiot! You’re going to have to throw that up later!”

“No, I’m not!” he grins manically. “Because I swear that thing just affected my thirst.”

Alice’s squeal is so loud Rosalie swears she could have heard it all the way from the Reservation. “It worked?!” Somebody breaks the wall frame as the trio fly into the kitchen.

Jasper clinks an open bottle with Esme before they both take a tentative sip. “Alice, I take back everything I said about Leah not extending the same kindness to us as she does strangers,” he marvels, slightly breathless. “She’s incredible and you need to befriend her and bring her around more.”

Esme just laughs as Alice smugly steals the bottle off Jasper. “We need to get more of these. I wonder if it’ll taste different if we get them from a different place. Where are these from?” she checks the label, “Joy’s Specialty Store.”

“We have to tell Carlisle! And Edward!”

And so, Rosalie loses herself in the excited chatter, mentally thanking Leah Clearwater for the small sliver of happiness she gifted her family, even while she lacked the lavish lifestyle and riches like the Cullen family did.

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Leah’s room is a tip. And somehow, in her two days wallowing in it, she has never noticed how all the contents of her wardrobe have found themselves on the floor, or how the meticulous revision notes have been crinkled and scrunched, or even how her calendar has fallen off the wall and straight into her laundry basket. Oh well, it needed a deep clean anyway.

It takes her all afternoon to properly clean and put everything away, and the only things she learns from the infinitely boring experience so far is 1) Music covers up hours of boredom and 2) her room is dirtier than she thought. There are cobwebs under her bed. COBWEBS. She’s just grateful there isn’t a spider.

She finds her mini graduation picture from Nursery amongst the scraps of old homework and spare paper, a nice top and matching skirt that Becca- no Rebecca, had once gifted her that was too big at the time (she tried it on and it fits perfectly, thank God! Now she has an emergency outfit for a birthday party or whatever) and a carrier bag.  There is a small set of basic candles inside it, fake flowers from Rebecca’s wedding, and a picture frame.

Sarah Black’s smiling face stares back at her when she turns it over. She looks stunning, not young or unwrinkled by any means, but stunning, nonetheless. Leah’s three-year-old self is cuddled in her arms, perfectly content and dozing. Sarah’s eyes are trained solely on younger her, expression open and kind. It’s the same way she’s always looked whenever Leah went to her with a problem, understanding and empathetic. Sarah had been the one to take care of them all when they were younger, and both her parents worked. Sarah was the one she used to run to for help, even before either of her parents. It’s one of the reasons Leah still struggles to ask her mother for help, one of the reasons she tried so desperately to remain friends with Rachel and Rebecca. To a certain extent, even if she didn’t remember her much, Sarah Black had been important to Leah Clearwater, enough for her to subconsciously hold onto any traces of her left behind with desperation.

There’s thirteen days before Sarah’s birthday. She can take out her black dress in that time.

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The night before Sarah’s birthday, she sneaks out of her window in typical teenage fashion.

Perhaps it isn’t the best solution, considering the amount of worry her parents have already gone through, but this is something important to her, and Sarah is worth all the trouble she’ll get into later and more. The pillows stuffed under her sheets cast an odd shadow in the moonlight, but she’s left a note too, just in case she’s discovered. Her phone is tucked into her left pocket, fully charged and ringer on.

She’s ashamed to say it takes her a while to find it, peering at the dates of people’s graves like she’s looking at the expiration date on milk bottles. But at midnight, and in the graveyard. She lights the candles with the lighter she swiped from her father’s stash, he needed to lay off the cigars anyway, and props them around the frame sitting in front of the headstone. Bec-Rebecca’s flowers are twisted together until they form an arched chain, which she drapes across the top of the headstone before plopping down in front of it.

She pays no mind to the dampness soaking her dress from the grass, or the slight chill in the air that she no longer feels with her shifter’s heat, simply picking at the sleeves of her cardigan nervously. She doesn’t know why she feels like this, so overwhelmed with emotion one second and completely devoid of it the next. It fluctuates like English weather, and it frustrates her to no end.

 For Leah, her emotions have always come from memories rather than gravesites. Even after her father’s death in the last reality, his armchair or the seat at the head of the table had always choked her up more than his resting place. When Charlie started dating her mother, he still refused to sit in her father’s spots. It was one of the reasons she respected him so much.

So, Leah closes her eyes and remembers. Pulls on every thread or snippet she can, memories upon memories upon memories. Because that is what Sarah Black deserves, she deserves to be mourned and loved, deserves better than to be actively ignored by Sue and Harry and all those she considers friends, deserves better than her children trying to forget her and run away. Because Jacob and the twins aren’t the only children Sarah Black has raised. She’s raised Leah too, and Leah loves her for it. She mourns her for it. If there is one person Leah would go to, one person Leah would tell everything to, time travel, vampire rituals, magical dreams, all of it, it would have been Sarah. Sarah always knew what to do, what to say, even just how to make Leah feel better if nothing else.

But Sarah Black is not here, she’s dead and never coming back, and Leah feels like she’s choking and all alone in a world that’s swallowing her up. She didn’t cry like this for anyone else. Not even for Sam or her father. She’s cried tears of anger, sadness, fear. But not grief, never grief and certainly never love.

That night, Leah loves and grieves Sarah Black.

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“Leah?”

Billy isn’t expecting this day to go any different that the last few years. He expects to wake up, have Jacob drive him to the gravesite, and stay there for a few hours with his wife. He’s long since given up hoping someone would join him there, one of his children or his friends. Sue, Harry and Charlie would come if he asked them to, undoubtably, but they’d come for him, not for Sarah.

Either way, he’s not expecting to find anything special. He’s not expecting to find the headstone decorated with flowers and candles, topped of with a picture of his beaming, beautiful bride. He’s certainly not expecting to find Leah Clearwater sat cross-legged in front of it, dressed in all black and tear tracks dried on her cheeks.

“Leah?” he calls again, after she fails to respond, wheeling himself forwards. Jacob has long since disappeared.

Billy?” She looks startled this time, glancing up at the sky with wide eyes. “it’s morning already?”

He frowns. The wax of the candles is lumpy, like they’ve melted only to have dried again irregularly, and the wicks are completely burnt out. “Have you been here all night?”

“I lost track of time,” she whispers quietly, pulling the cardigan tighter around her. “I didn’t mean to. I’ll give you some time alone.”

“Stay.” The words escape him before he realises, and she freezes from halfway standing, before settling back down next to him closer than before.  They sit in companion silence for a while, his toes slowly turning into icicles. “I didn’t know you remembered her so well.”

“I miss her anyway,” she admits after a pause, sounding far too old for her years. “I kept clinging to Rachel and Rebecca because of it. I still can’t talk about my problems to mum like I could her.”

“Why now?” He pinches his lips as if it will take the words back, angry at himself for pushing her. She is as entitled to mourn Sarah as anyone else, but he cannot shake the resentment that it is Leah here with him, and not Jacob or Rachel or Rebecca.

To his alarm, her eyes begin to fill with tears. “I found the picture a few days ago,” she confesses, as if it were a crime. “And I just couldn’t help but think that Sarah would have known what to do, or what to say, after…everything that’s happened.” Her voice breaks, and out of instinct, he reaches out to rest his hand of her head in comfort, forgetting Harry’s warning until she flinches away. He retracts him arm, swallowing painfully around the lump in his throat as he looks away. He can still hear her shuffle around next to him, and he braces himself for her excuse and departure, but it never comes. Instead, he feels a hesitant, warm weight settle against his thigh, and he looks down to see Leah has shuffle dover to rest her cheek against him. The heat radiating from her warms him from hips to toes within seconds. They don’t speak for the longest time after that.

“She loved you,” he confesses into the quiet.

“I love her too,” she whispers back.

She takes him to her home after, driving Jacob’s Rabbit far slower than he does, and makes sure he’s settled in front of the fire before she retreats to her room. Neither of them notices Jacob Black watching carefully from the cover of the trees.

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Dear Diary,

I haven’t had a dream since I phased, and it’s starting to concern me. I’ve also not had the urge to phase since then, so I’m starting to think that maybe my wolf spirit is the same as before rather than the one of this new reality. She recognised Sam and Paul as threats and I’m not getting angry and phasing all the time like before, not even around vampires. It’s weird.

I went to sit with Sarah last night because it’s her birthday today and ended up staying there and getting caught by Billy. We didn’t talk much, but it helped a little. I think it’s the first time I’ve properly cried in my entire life. I miss her, and I think that’s why I wanted to stay friends with Rachel and Rebecca so badly, even after they made it clear it wasn’t reciprocated.

It’s time to let go now, anyway. I have bigger things to worry about, mainly Sam Uley and the fact that I can’t touch Seth or Harry. I managed to lean against Billy today, but that was the extent of it. I felt like springing away the entire time. Praying something changes soon,

Leah.

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Jacob doesn’t know why he goes back but he does. His mother’s grave is exactly like he saw it hours before, flowers draped over the headstone and candles lying at the base, scattered around the picture. She looks exactly like he thinks he remembers; with Becca’s eyes and that little fond grin he’d taken for granted so often. She’s smiling down at Leah, who’s wrapped up in her arms, fast asleep.

Before Rachel and Rebecca could escape away for college, they’d done their very best to hide away any memory left of her. Every photo, album, book, scrap piece of clothing was packed away tightly and either donated or shoved in the storage cupboard. At the time, he’d been grateful for it. It made the tear in his heart ache a little less without all the reminders. And then the twins had left, Becca eloping with a surfer, Solomon, in Hawaii, and Rach running to Port Angeles for college. And suddenly, Jacob was stuck caring for his disabled father and taking up a part time job as a mechanic, all the while staying in school, and there had simply been no time to stop and think about Sarah Black anymore. And that didn’t change when Patrol and phasing replaced school.

But now, as he stares down at Sarah Black’s smiling face, he suddenly wishes it had. That maybe, amongst the many arduous tasks he’d undertaken, he’d taken a minute to breathe and remember her. To look for the scrap books and photo albums she’d so painstakingly compiled for him and his sisters, to remember her and mourn her and love her.

“Do you think Leah has any other pictures of her?” he croaks to Embry, who stands a few steps away in silent support.

“I’m sure she’ll let you see them or even take one if she does.”

“I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.” And he wouldn’t, because Leah had been doing exactly what Jacob had not. She had been remembering while Jacob forgot, mourning while he ignored. He doesn’t feel like he deserves to see them, let alone take them from her.

“Maybe. But she’s not that type of person.” He’s right. Leah, perhaps, is the best of them all. She has a quiet sort of strength that people often don’t see, it’s very easily clouded by her abrasive and headstrong nature that she no doubt inherited from her mother. ‘Sue Clearwater’s daughter,’ they always say. They forget she’s Harry’s daughter too.

He doesn’t disturb the array, simply stepping away and back to Embry, who had moved down to the gate. He hopes his pack brother knows how much Jacob appreciates his silent support, now and during their patrol. He has a feeling he does. At least the Hive mind was good for something.

Chapter Text

It’s on one of her morning jogs, a couple of miles away from the treaty line, that Leah catches her scent. She is no stranger to sickly-sweet and bleachy stench, but this far across their boundary line is a death sentence. It’s not the Cullens, that’s for certain.

Acting on instinct, she strips down and buries her clothes in the underbrush before phasing. Quil is the only one on patrol when she does, running the far side of the perimeter. At her entry, he greets her enthusiastically, before he realises her reason why. She hears him sound the alarm- a singular, long howl- and echoes him, careful to keep her thought focused on her surroundings and the task at hand, tracing the smell.

Sam is the first to join her, followed closely by Embry, Jared and Paul. Jacob takes a minute, still struggling with sleep.

Don’t throw your back out, old man, she says. He doesn’t bother to grace her with a response, only grumbling.

The stench grows stronger the more they advance towards the direction of the cliffs. All the while, Leah keeps her thoughts firmly on her surroundings, even with her shields still in place. Her wolf is the same as before, the size, colour and mental walls identical to her Beta status in Jacob’s Pack. There is something else there too, a shimmering layer of protection between her mind and the Hive mind, thrumming with power. Her wolf keens with satisfaction when she finds it, and she makes a mental note to study it later.

A tinkling laugh comes from above, and it sets her hair on edge. The redhead leech comes into view above her, jumping from tree to tree like effortlessly like some fucking fairy.

Come down and run, Tinkerbell, she thinks tauntingly, re-joining the Hive mind. We don’t bite.

Somewhere in her mind, Embry cackles.

The trees are rapidly thinning in front of her, the cliffs coming into view. The redhead takes a running leap and dives straight into the water, knocking a brunette right off the cliff.

Bella, she thinks, and dives right after her, shifting back just before she hits the water. She doesn’t feel the cold much anymore, other than vampires, so it doesn’t bother her much. Bella Swan is struggling and sinking, so Leah takes a deep breath and dives down to grab her, getting knocked in the face by her flailing arms in the process.

Disgruntled, Leah carries the coughing girl to shore, bridal style and dripping wet, and deposits her on the sand. “Vomit,” she tells her in a flat voice, poking her hard in the stomach. Swan does, luckily to her left and not all over Leah.

“Why are you naked?” is the first thing she asks, after catching her breath.

“I didn’t have time to grab any clothes before rescuing your dumb ass,” retorts Leah. Wow, no thank you for your saviour?

“Bella!” Jacob Black comes sprinting up the beach, followed closely by the rest of the pack. “Are you ok? What were you thinking?”

“I’m fine, Jake. I-” she glanced back at Leah, unsure of her name.

“Leah,” she supplied dryly, amused.

“-Leah saved me. Thank you, by the way.”

Leah raises an eyebrow, debating telling her it wasn’t personal. But that wasn’t true, was it? She hadn’t just saved Swan only because she just another human, had she? She’d saved her for Charlie, who had already grieved his daughter once, for Esme and Rosalie and Alice, who were Swan’s future sisters-in-law. Even for Renesmee, who she had grown fond of, despite everything, and for Jacob. So, in a way, it was personal.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says finally. She didn’t want Swan showing up on her doorstep like she did with Jacob, trying to make it up to her. Or, God forbid, have the Cullens try and make it up to her. “I need to go get my clothes. Don’t stare at my ass.”

They all advert their eyes, as if suddenly noticing she was naked. She climbs to her feet and jogs towards the cover of trees, waiting until they engulf her to phase back. Paul lets out a wolf whistle behind her, and it’s followed by a resounding smack and an exclamation of “Ow!”

She grins.

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“Why are you all wet?” Harry asks, as soon as Leah gets home.

“Chased a vampire,” she calls distractedly over her shoulder, missing his look of panic.

“Are you ok?” he calls after her.

“Fine. The pack was there. We lost her though, but she’ll be back. I’m going to shower; I smell like seawater.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do, thanks.”

God, that girl is going to be the death of me someday, he thinks. Well, at least she’s safe and somewhat happy now.

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When Leah shows up at his doorstep that evening, Sam doesn’t know what to expect. All morning has been a whirlwind. The unexpected warning that came with intruders, followed by the knowledge that it was Leah who had issued it, had floored him. She was already comfortable in her wolf form, single minded and ruthless. Fast too, far outstripping all of them in the chase. When he saw her leap off the cliff, his heart had jumped into his throat, and he would have dived right in after her if not for the Hive mind, seeing Bella Swan tumble off the cliff and her determination to save her.

Seeing her kneeling on the sand, completely naked, over the coughing form of the chief’s daughter, had made him stumble. Even after his imprint, even after her body had changed, she still took his breath away.  It shouldn’t be like this, he’d thought. I should be feeling this way about Emily.

He’d watched her walk away completely bare, confident and natural, so very different to the way she’d blushed and peeked under her lashes every time they’d kissed or touched under the cover of night. When did it change? With the leech? Or before then, with other boys playing to be men?

He wants to be mad, wants to be furious at her and demand answers, demand she pull her weight and join him, but then she gives him that tiny smile and a soft, “hey,” and just like every other time, his feelings melt away.

“There’s something I needed to talk to you about,” she tells him, once the small talk is over.

Anything, he wants to say. “Sure, what’s up?” 

She takes a deep bracing breath. “I know that with the redhead, you could use a few more hands on deck. But I also know that I’m not entirely ready to be around you guys, or any guys for too long yet. But I don’t want to leave you with this all alone, and I need to start adjusting somehow. So, I came to this compromise where I would patrol, preferably at night because there’s less likely of a chance people drop in to the link and I get overwhelmed, but you text me my schedule instead of meetings; because I can barely be around Seth for more than a few hours, but standing in a room full of men is… well, you know.”

A range of emotions cross him all at once. Elation, because Leah is joining the pack. Worry, because she’s going to be running after the redhead, and she could get hurt. Disappointment, because she’ll be keeping her distance from him, and he misses her. Hope, because she’s patrolling, and he can spend time with her. He wants to say no, demand she join the pack like everyone else, let him protect her from harm. But he knows that it won’t work, Leah is vulnerable right now, and Harry may have accepted his imprint with Emily and kept in contact, but it wouldn’t stop him from showing up at Sam’s doorstep with gun in hand if he ever did that to Leah.

So, he agrees, because there really is no other choice. There never has been, for him. And then he heads back inside to change the patrol rota.

He announces it that evening, met with varying degrees of disgust. That is, until Her name is thrown in.

“Quil, you’re with Leah on Wednesday-”

“Wait, what?!” Paul cries, jumping to his feet. “Leah’s joining the pack?!”

“She was pack the second she phased, dumbass,” intones Embry, pulling him back down to his seat before turning to Sam. “She doesn’t seem ready yet, man. Even if she was pretty good with the redhead.”

“She’s not coming to meetings or anything, just night patrol,” he shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. “Besides, she asked me to. Now, you gonna let me finish this or what?”

“I understand she needs a bit of training, but I want to have you with me for the nights. It makes me uncomfortable to know you’ll be spending so much time together,” says Emily. “Can Jacob train her instead? He’s your Beta, it’s kind of his job.”

“I don’t mind,” Jacob jumps in. Of course he doesn’t. And he obviously can’t deny Emily anything, so he changes the schedule once again, and tries his best to mask the bitterness.

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The next time Jabob sees Leah is on Thursday. She joins for patrol and stays surprisingly closed off from the Hive mind, though she seems to hear his thoughts perfectly fine.

“I’m more focused on my surrounding in this form,” she mentions, when she hears him. He tries it for himself, and he is pleasantly surprised to find it does indeed grant him a sliver of privacy.

Thank you, he thinks to her.

No problem, she says, before the connection shutters closed.

He guides her along the treaty line, pointing out the scent markings that she picks up with ease, whereas he fully expected to let her get used to them in the coming weeks.

You’re a natural already, he compliments. How’s your control?

Pretty good, she says. I went to the Cullen house and didn’t phase so…

You went to the Cullen house? Alarm flares in his chest. Why? Did you go alone?

She rolls her eyes next to him, looking as exasperated as a wolf can. Chill, I went to return the clothes. Besides, it was only Esme home. She makes a mean lasagne.

Sam’s not going to be happy, he warns her.

Sam’s never happy. Ever since he phased, he’s been acting like a single mother, or an enchanted simp.

He tries not to laugh and fails. It doesn’t matter anyway, they were alone. They’re almost at her house before he remembers.

His mom. The picture. Watching Billy and Leah sitting at the gravesite. Embry saying Leah would lend him pictures if he asked.

I hadn’t realised you were there, she comments quietly. I found a few albums of old pictures the other day. And her camera. If you want to see or borrow.

Thank you. He doesn’t deserve her kindness.

Of course, Jake, she says, and phases out.

Jake. It sounds so different coming from her than it does with all his other friends. Maybe it’s because there has always been a distance between Leah and him, even while growing up. They didn’t share the comfortable silences that she had with Emrby while they played as children, or the casual conversations about everything under the sun with the twins. Having Leah call him Jake was different. It felt kind of like when Bella called him that, a new, special connection only they shared.

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Hi, this is Simone, I’m the older sister of Lila and Mira. They got your hair and note today, and they were very excited to call and thank you, but we figured maybe we should text first, just in case you’re busy. Mum and I would really appreciate the chance to get to speak to you too, if you’re comfortable with that. If not, it’s totally fine. Thank you again, Leah.

She smiles down at the test sleepily, before dragging her butt out of bed and into the shower before Seth woke up and hogged it. She didn’t bother shaving, she was planning on wearing a hoodie and leggings anyway, but she did want to scrub down after her ‘first’ patrol last night. Sam had called Harry to let him know her schedule, and while her father had been wary at first, he’d showed nothing but pride when she returned from her ‘first day as a protector.’ As much as it made her warm inside, the sinister voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she had been responsible for his death last time. That maybe, if she had been quicker to get out of the house, he would have been there and proud in her first life too.

“Going on a jog?” asks Harry from the table, while Sue flips the egg in the pan.

“Going to school,” she responds, sticking her head in the fridge to hunt down some orange juice. She can practically see the glances her parents exchange behind her back.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, honey?” Her mother speaks hesitantly, as if trying to spare her feelings. It almost makes Leah laugh at the thought, she never bothered to do that before, always jumping to defend Emily’s honour.

“My patrol shifts are all at night. If it’s an emergency, I have to problem bailing out of class. Besides, I can’t just avoid guys forever. Exposure therapy, and all that lot.” She is going to graduate if it kills her. Besides, studying is a good excuse to avoid people, and she really does miss basketball. She’ll have to be careful with her speed when she re-joins the team. If she re-joins the team.

“If you’re sure, Leah Bear,” reassures her dad. “I’ll come take you to the office, get everything sorted. Ok?”

“Sure.”

Seth doesn’t realise she’s going back to school until she clambers out of the truck with Harry.

“You’re coming back?!” he exclaims, bouncing on the spot.

“Yeah, just gotta get my stuff sorted,” she pushes past her inhibitions and ruffles his hair. She’s noticeable still uncomfortable, and she knows he sees that. But he smiles, nonetheless, and she’s grateful she’s trying. “Get to class, twerp.”

She is no stranger to people staring at her, or whispering rumours behind her back, but it still never fails to set her teeth on edge. It makes the walk to the head office practically painful, more so with the sympathetic looks from strangers and classmates she knew. She’d caught on fast enough that most of the Rez had some idea of what happened with Laurent, Mrs Fuller had been in the room when the boys had brought her home and told her parents Laurent had all but felt her up, but the rumours will have escalated, as they often do in La Push.

But she isn’t a Clearwater for nothing, so she grits her teeth and looks straight ahead, ignoring the student body as best she can.

Principal Janice Connors welcomes her and her father in with a proud smile, quick to reassign Leah her timetable and fill out the necessary forms to explain her medical absence. “The basketball team will be grateful to have you back,” she beams, shuffling around the papers. “They’ve been struggling to fill your spot for a while now.”

“I’m happy to be here too.” It’s not a lie, and she knows Principal Connors and her father hear it. She’s getting far too comfortable at half-truths and roundabout lies.

“Well, I’ll excuse all absences as long term medical and recovery. If you could get a report from your designated doctor regarding the time, it’ll be done and dusted, and your record is clean.”

“Leah, why don’t you get to class? I need to have a quick word with your principal.” Her father gives her a tight smile, and Principal Connors grows serious.

“Sure.” As soon as the door shuts behind her, he brings up Laurent and she tunes out. Nope.

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She’s grateful for the reprieve lunch brings, that allows her to retreat to the back of the library, away from the peering eyes and strange looks exchanged around her. Many of her teachers fluctuated between ignoring her and dropping her name in sentences like, “Don’t worry if you don’t understand,” which irked her to no end. After the fifth time Mrs Conweller said it in her simpering, sympathetic tone, (as if the cow hadn’t actively gone out of her way to try and humiliate her the entirety of her time at school,) she’d had enough.

“I appreciate your concern with my academics, Ma’am, but it’s not necessary,” she’d said icily, expression perfectly blank. “Also, Zero Order has no effect on the rate, it’s First Order with respect to Nitrogen Dioxide that’s directionally proportionate.”

Snickers had erupted and Mrs Conweller had gone purple from a mix of embarrassment and rage. She’d then proceeded to grill Leah within an ich of her life regarding rates of reaction and the Boltzmann distribution graphs, to which she answered all questions correctly and very, very smugly.

While her popularity status is effectively restored, it’s also drawn unwanted attention. More specifically, male attention. It almost makes her recoil in disgust, especially since one of them had the nerve to try and ask her out. Granted, he was younger than her and very shy, but still.

She’d tried to let him down easy, blaming her aversion to dating on studies and basketball, and it had worked, to some effect. But Eliza had been standing nearby and let out a squeal of “you’re coming back to the team?!”, so now she has even more on her plate to deal with. At least basketball was easier than dating a pubescent boy.

She spends the entirety of lunch in the library and even the free periods after instead of running home, not willing to abandon the solitude she’s so painstakingly found near the back corner table. Her final period is thankfully more relaxed, the thrill and enthusiasm of rumours lessened after a full day of school. When the bell rings, she flees for the auditorium, hanging by the edge until Coach shows up.

“Leah!” she cries, when she catches sight of the shifter. “Welcome back! You’ve been missed! Are you planning on rejoining the team?”

“If you have the spot, coach.” The last thing she needs to do is get caught up in teenage drama, all because she accidentally stole someone else’s place on the team.

“I’m happy to be backup, coach. I need the time to get my GPA up, anyway,” pipes up Lindsey, sending Leah a teasing grin. “I heard you don’t have any problem with that though.”

Leah smiles back at her. She likes Lindsey, always did. Very self-aware and straightforward. “Not much else to do but study, when you’re stuck recovering.”

“And the workouts we’ve all heard about from the guys?”

“Rebuilding strength. Hadn’t used my legs in a week.”

“You do have great legs,” chimed in Eliza, playfully. “And a figure. I’ve seen it on one of your little jogs, talk about muscle momma!”

The girls laugh, oblivious to the slight panic that Leah has to stamp down. “Drop the workout routine, Clearwater!”

“Maybe some other time,” she turns back to coach, who’s grinning widely. “When do I try out?”

“Bring your kit tomorrow, and you can play.” Tomorrow? She needs a new kit, her cropped top wouldn’t fit across her shoulders anymore, not with the newly added muscle. And some new shoes, her feet were aching in these already.

Ok, Leah, don’t panic, she reminded herself. You can buy some shoes with your allowance and take out the shoulders of the top. It might take all night, but you’re a shifter. One night without sleep won’t do you much harm.

Before she leaves, she makes sure to pull Lindsey aside and get the location of the soup kitchen off her, also being wrangled into a promise of helping with deliveries on Saturday.  

Chapter Text

“Hi, is this Leah?”

“Yes, it is, and you must be Simone!”

“I am! It’s so good to hear from you, the girls will be so excited! Let me hand you over to mum first, though, one second!”

A few seconds later, a woman’s voice comes over the speaker of her phone. “Hi, Leah, I’m Angela. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you, before the twins find out. Lila and Mira are both turning fifteen soon, and they’ve lost their hair to Alopecia. Being a teenager with no hair is very difficult sometimes, and showing up with different hair is always a dead giveaway to wigs. So having them identical is a big deal for all of us, and we really appreciate it. Thank you, my darling, if there’s anything I can do to repay you, please let me know.”

Leah flushes scarlet, unused to all the praise. “It was my pleasure, no repayment necessary. I’m so glad they like it!”

“They really do love it! I was wondering if you’d be willing to come down to Seattle for their birthday party in a few weeks, I’m very happy to organise transport! A little surprise for them!”

“I’d be happy to! Feel free to text me the details!” The Cullen house is only a mile away now, so it’s best she hangs up soon. Walking in on the phone would be so very rude.

“I will do! Thank you again; take care, honey!”

“Bye.”

She ascends the driveway steps, tucking away her phone and fishing out the slip of paper with the contact details of the soup kitchen for Esme. The door flings open the second she turns to face it, revealing a beaming Alice Cullen.

“Leah!” she squeals, bouncing on the spot. “It’s so good to see you again, we missed you the last time! Come on in!”

Before she has the chance to object, she’s ushered inside, and the door is shut behind her. Edward and Carlisle are bent over notes on the coffee table when she enters the living room, across the room from Rosalie and Esme, who are lounging in armchairs pushed together, flipping through a magazine with glasses in hand. Coconut water, if her nose is still working. Jasper and Emmett are occupied with the TV, fingers flying on the controllers to the PlayStation. All of them simultaneously glance up at her, which freaks the shit out of her so bad she backs up into Alice.

“Oh, God, I am so sorry!” she stammers, pulling the pixie to her feet. “Are you ok?”

Alice just gapes, eyes alight in somewhat childlike wonder. “Rosalie was right, you are warm.” And then suddenly, she has an arm full of vampire, that’s clinging to her middle so tightly she’s afraid she’ll break in half if she tries to pull away. The immediate cold is a soothing balm to the itching heat simmering under her skin, especially after a day of wearing such thick clothing and sitting in heated classrooms, so she opts not to remove herself. Besides, Alice is rather like Rosalie, in the way she is cool to the touch rather than icy, like Laurent had been. She ponders the fact that it could be because she was female, after all, her body temperature was lower than the boys of the pack too, which she’d discovered a while back with Embry.

“Interesting,” remarks Edward. Fear jolts through her, Spirits, she’d forgotten he was a mind reader! The shimmering shield that had separated her from the Hive mind pulses, and she feels its unique spirit spread from her right temple to her left, and the all the way over her head to the back of her neck, before settling back into a content hum.

“You have a shield,” Bella’s future husband breathes, jumping to his feet. “That’s incredible. I didn’t even know that was possible in shifters. Can all the Pack do it?” He’s in front of her within the blink of an eye, and she physically flinches back at the intrusion to her space. Her back hits the wall, dragging Alice with her by accident.

“Edward!” Carlisle sounds scolding and upset, but it is no match for Rosalie, who shoves him so hard he makes a dent in the wall all the way down the hall.

“Are you ok?” she pants, scanning Leah over rapidly.  This was getting too out of hand for her.

“I- I need to go,” she shoves the crumpled note onto Rosalie’s hands, staggering down the hallway to rip open the door. “The address for the soup kitchen is on there, for Eme, I need to leave.”

“Leah wait!-”

But she’s already gone, bolting down the driveway, past the treaty line and the wolves, even her father. She doesn’t shift even after she crosses over into La Push, her wolf mind is not safe for her as it once had been, and she doesn’t come to a stop until she’s closed into the confines of her room, the only safe place she has left anymore. She ignores the rapid knocking from Seth, then from her parents and even Charlie once too, choosing instead to curl up under the cover with a set alarm for Patrol, and drifting into uneasy dreams.

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“Have you ever actually talked about it?”

Jacob’s eyes are bright and clear, despite the lack of moonlight under the protection of the woods. They’re laying half a metre away from each other, Seth snoring up a storm and no doubt scaring away any wildlife within a fifteen-foot radius. They’re as far from  the boundary line as they can get, camping under the stars after declining the offer of a room at the Cullen house. Bella Swan is no doubt still wasting away for her demon child somewhere inside, probably in the arms of her leech husband.

“About what?” she grumbles back, shifting to face him.

He hesitates, biting his lip in a manner that reminds her of Rebecca. (That she picked up from Sarah, she now realises.) “About Sam. Like, I know your thoughts have been broadcasted most of the time, and you’ve had some arguments, but have you actually, properly, talked about it to someone? Like, a friend? I remember thinking it was kind of fucked up for Sue and the elders to brush it off so easily, especially when you didn’t know about the imprint, so I guess your anger was kind of justified.”

“Thank you for your forgiveness,” she intones sarcastically, stomach clenching when he sighs. She really is a fuckup.

“No, I haven’t talked about it.” Her voice comes out quieter, more vulnerable than she expects.

He shifts entirely to face her now, openly attentive. He doesn’t need to speak for her to understand. I’m listening.

“When I found out… It felt like someone ripped my heart out. I didn’t want it to be real. Because, you know, we had these plans and these dreams, for kids and college and a future together. Everyone couldn’t wait for us to get married, so he would officially be family. And then he went missing, and I was so worried! I was putting up flyers, organising search parties, spending time with Allison, and it was hell. My grades dropped; I stopped eating! And then…he came back. But he wasn’t the same, kept disappearing and dropped out of school. Grew six inches in two weeks and got buff. I thought he was on drugs, but I didn’t want to scare him away. And then he was sneaking around with Emily behind my back, and I caught them. My sister and the man I loved. And then everyone sided with them, like my parents, and I lost my support group all in the space of an hour. I was alone. All alone, and I had this anger that I couldn’t control, and it kept hurting me and everyone around me. I hated myself, Jake.” She’s crying now, trying to control her breathing and blink back tears, but she knows he can hear her breath hitch. “Right up until the moment I left that pack, I hated myself. And not just for killing my dad, but for everything else too. Being a freak of nature, the only female shifter. Trapped under the thumb of my ex, in a home that hated me, it was the worst pain. I thought I’d never be able to move on, I still can’t move on after Sam, because I shifted, and now I can’t have kids anymore. The plans, the life I had, all of it gone. And now, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“I’m sorry you were hurting.” He means it too.

“Don’t be. You helped me run. Get away. Some resemblance of peace. I’ll owe you forever for that.”

He reaches out to close the gap, grasping her smaller hand in his. “You owe me nothing. You’re pack, family. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there before.”

She doesn’t comment on the sheen of tears over his eyes, and he doesn’t comment on the ones trailing down the side of her face.

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The tent she stands in is brighter than the one last time, and yet no less grand. Tapestry after tapestry inscribed stories and legends on the thinnest of fabrics, delicate and detailed. A war. A peace summit. A gathering of tribes.

A circle of wolves facing a coven with topaz eyes. The russet wolf stands at the front, taller and deadlier than any other. He is flanked to the right by a black wolf, and another sandy one to the left. Leah recognises the scene before her. This was the night Ephraim Black forged the treaty with the Olympic coven. It was Levi Uley and Quil Ateara II.

“Scisne quid omnes depingant?” asks Apprentice Sylvie, from her spot on the floor. {Do you know what they all depict?}

Lady Kathani gives her an indulgent smile. “Omnia somnia. Aliquot annos posthac occurrent, quaedam jam occurrunt. Alii non per decennium, alii per centurias fient.” {They are all dreams. Some will occur years from now, some have already occurred. Some will not come to pass for decades, others, centuries.}

“Unde scis, cum advenerint?” {How do you know when they approach?}

“Eodem modo facis. Unum in eodem sumus, puer.” {The same way you do. We are one in the same, young child.}

Sylvie shakes her head, incredulous. “Non sum potens sicut tu.” {I am not as powerful as you.}

“Solum experitur ubi te excellam. Veniet, tempor cum. Illius copia sumus, nunc tu et domine et protector es.” {It is only experience where I excel you. It will come, with time. We have plenty of that, now you are both Lady and Protector.}

“Doce me cantare sicut facis??” Lady Sylvie looks so hopeful, and Leah finds herself echoing her excitement. After all, nobody could hear her here, it would be the best place to learn. {Will you teach me to sing as you do?}

“Oculos tuos. Musica pars vestrum est, fabulam quam conaris communicare, nuntium portat quod aures acutae audiunt. Impactful esse, scire debes. Animi tui, cordis, vocis et toni. Quomodo singula verba afficiunt. Crede te ipsum perferre nuntium, et animi tui noli oblivisci. Facilis ceteros veniam.”

{Close your eyes. The music is a part of you, it tells a story you are trying to share, carries a message that keen ears listen for. To be impactful, you must be aware. Of your soul, your heart, your voice and tone. How each of them affects the words. Trust yourself to carry the message, and do not forget the emotion. The rest will come easy.}

Lady Sylvie’s voice is halting at the beginning, nervous and unsure, but the longer she sings, the more emotion bleeds through. The tone is different, and so are the words. She knows this song too, never sung like this. The feelings, though, the raw emotion and the story that plays out before her eyes, is still something to revere.

She tries, near the very end, to let go of her inhibitions and sing with them. She doesn’t know if she succeeds, but the feelings are there.

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When she wakes, it’s late. Very late. She has forty minutes before she is needed at patrol, so she digs out her diary. But as she scrawls the date in the margin, she hesitates. Her family is asleep, she can hear the steady heartbeats from where she sits, so it’s unlikely anyone will hear her if she decides to try out Lady Kathani’s advice. Worth a shot, right?

She takes a deep, soothing breath and leans back against the headboard, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. She focuses on the steady beat of her heart, the slight dryness of her throat, the phantom feel of her soul, nestled contently under her ribs, next to her heart. She feels the vibrations of her throat, her body, as she begins the song, slowly growing more confident until the words flow out of her like a river that never runs dry. The story plays out in her minds eye, and her voice rises and falls as the emotion wavers. When it comes to a slow, mournful end, she breathes a sigh of relief, and laughs slightly to herself.

Wow, I didn’t even know I could do that.

She flips open her diary and begins to scribble down her dream, single minded until she finishes and glances at the clock. Shit, she needs to change. She’s only got a few minutes before she has to meet Paul, and she’s sitting here in her underwear singing and writing in her diary.

She throws back her covers and climbs out of bed, heading to her closet when she hears a squeak of embarrassment from outside. It’s then she clocks onto the extra heartbeat outside her window, and whips around to find Paul sitting in the tree next to her window, hand over his eyes and face flushed red.

“Are you spying on me?!” she yells, outraged. “How long have you been there?!”

“You didn’t show up and I got worried!” he defends, peeking at her. “Can you put on some clothes please?”

“We still have five minutes before hand-over,” she grumbles, pulling off her underwear and slipping into a loose tee and leggings. She grabs a thick hair tie to wrap around her clothes when she phases, so they don’t get blown away in the wind. “Ok, I’m done.”

“We have to do it a bit earlier today. Embry needs to get home before Tiffany finds out he’s snuck out again. We called and told Harry to tell you, did he forget?”

“I was asleep.” He probably did tell her through the door, but she’d been actively avoiding everyone and sleeping for the last couple of hours. The hunger was practically gnawing at her from the inside, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since lunch. She snagged a muffin off the kitchen counter, uncaring they were probably from Emily’s house, and stuffed it all unceremoniously in her face. Paul runs around the side of the house as she jogs down the porch steps, and they strip and phase as soon as they hit the treeline.

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The barrier that overlays her mind almost completely cuts her off from the Hive Mind and the rest of the pack, much to Paul’s concern. She spends the entire, first part of patrol convincing him that it was probably a female wolf thing, and there was no need for him to bring it up with Sam because there wasn’t anything they could do about it anyway. At least, there was nothing Paul and Sam could do about it.

The barrier shifts with her intent, thinning or retreating where she commands it to, allowing connections when she wishes, and even completely masking her from scent to mind link when she didn’t. It lifted a weight off her shoulders, but now she had to intentionally focus to share her thoughts, and that would draw away her focus from other things, which could be dangerous in battle.

Paul spends the next half of patrol teasing her about her diary, which she makes a mental note to hide somewhere else as soon as she gets home, and she responds as minimally as she can without flat out ignoring him. She’s hopeful he didn’t hear the song, but she’s proven wrong when he nervously broaches the topic as he walks her home, like a ‘proper’ gentleman.

“Harry would have my hide if I didn’t,” he grins, to her teasing scoff. “Even if you can defend yourself just fine.”

They walk in companion silence for only a few minutes before he remarks, “I didn’t know you could sing in Quileute. You’re very good at it.”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying out,” she mumbles, speeding up as if it would cover the flush spreading across her cheeks. “I’m not that good.”

“I’ve heard that song dozens of times, but never like you sing it,” he jogs beside her quick strides, smirking as he catches sight of her blush. “You should replace Old Quil at the next bonfire. I’d love to hear you sing again.”

“Maybe some other time,” they ascend the steps to her porch. “You give me too much credit.”

“No, I don’t think I do.” There is no trace of arrogance in his voice anymore, only quiet honesty. It makes an old emotion stir up under her sternum. Happiness? Pride?

“Thank you,” she whispers, slipping inside and shutting the door behind her. She rests her head against the door for a while, breathing deeply and listening to the rapid heartbeat on the other side, basking in the old feeling she hadn’t fully felt for the last couple of years. She doesn’t hear his footsteps retreat until she does, and she wonders, briefly, if he had done the same thing she had, on the other side of her front door.  

Chapter Text

Run. Run. Don’t let them catch her, she needs to draw out the vampire army.

She’s on four legs, weaving seamlessly though the woods that make up the majority of La Push.

Watch out for Paul and Emmett, the tensions begin there.

The redhead lets out a tinkling laugh as she leaps back to their side of the treaty line.

Don’t let it happen again. Don’t let Paul’s leg break. He helped you avoid Sam; you owe him.

The leech jumps ahead of the Cullens, twirling in the air like fucking Tinkerbell. Emmett growls, frustration evident.

Now, speed up, get between them.

Emmett moves just seconds after Tinkerbell, Paul leaping off the cliffside to match him.  She jumps too, propelling herself directly between them in midair. Paul’s claws sink into her fur only seconds after Emmett crashes into side, and the impact send them all sprawling on their respective sides of the boundary line. The redhead escapes, just as planned.

The scene changes.

They’re on no-man’s land again, except this time, the wolves are human. They interact easier, not weighed down by the previous conflict that occurred, because Paul wasn’t injured, and therefore didn’t hold a grudge. There’s one less of them. Seth isn’t there.

The scene changes.

The battle of the Newborns emerges. Seth is there this time, still as gangly and awkward as before. He hovers near the back with Jared, picking up strays and generally having the time of his life. This is different, better.

This time, it is not her that loses focus. Embry runs for the blonde leech. Jacob turns to intercept him. He dies in the process.

Time reverses.

Embry runs for the blonde leech, Jacob turns to intercept him. He doesn’t get there fast enough. Embry loses his leg, infection sets in hours later.

Time reverses.

Embry runs for the blonde leech, Jacob turns to intercept him. She sprints for the legs, tearing them off and distracting the leech. Arms wrap around her middle and squeeze. Blackness.

The scene changes.

Everything is slightly foggy. The pack sit around her bedside, as Doctor Cullen checks her ribs. Something is cooking downstairs and her stomach rumbles. The doctor laughs, and tells her Esme was determined to send over some food for her and the Pack, wishing her a speedy recovery.

Paul makes a weak remark about the food smelling like leech. Jacob tells him he’s welcome to leave it, he’ll finish his share. Paul whacks him lightly, and some of the stress lines disappear from Sam’s face as he laughs with the others.

Blackness.

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She wakes up gasping.

The sun hasn’t risen completely yet, the light still crawling across the horizon in a relaxed pace. Her body is wound with tension, but a jog would take too long for her to expel it all before school.

She opts instead for music, finishing her bathroom routine and humming all the while. She takes the time to pluck and restitch her kit, grateful for remembering to do so now and not the second she left for school. The more she sings, the more the tension bleeds out of her, until there’s nothing left but a tranquil sense of peace. Still, she doesn’t stop as she finishes, so relaxed that she forgets she’s not the only one in the house. It’s not until she swings open her door to find a grinning Seth that she stops, shocked. He’s already dressed, with his bag over one shoulder, and a quick glance at the clock confirms it’s time for breakfast.

“How long have you been… How much of that did you hear?” she asks, horrified.

“Not much, but it’s good.” He’s a liar and they both know it, which is probably why he redirects her attention as soon as possible. “Dad told me to call you down for breakfast. We’ll be late if we don’t eat now and get going soon.”

“Give me two minutes, I’ll be right there.”

“Ok.”

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School is no less daunting on her second day back, but she’s grateful it flies by. Soon enough, she’s changing into her kit and running laps around the pitch outside, Lindsey chattering by her side about them going down to help at the soup kitchen tomorrow. The timing clashes by an hour with her patrol shift, Saturday is one of the only days she patrols early, so she makes a mental note to switch her shift with Quil’s earlier one; she knows he’ll appreciate sleeping in.

Eliza wolf whistles behind her. “Hot damn, Clearwater!” she appraises, eyeing her up and down. “Where the hell have you been hiding all that?”

The girls laugh as Leah flushes, unused to all the positive attention on her looks. In her past life, she’d dropped school until her last year before being transported back, and the girls of the basketball team had all graduated by then. In her isolation, she’d had very little female company, having to spend all her time with the pack. After her phase, she couldn’t fit into any of her old clothes, instead having to opt for ‘jorts’ and men’s shirts that hung off her frame awkwardly; her shirts didn’t fit around her shoulders anymore, and the jeans couldn’t be tugged past her developed glutes. Now, she sticks mainly to baggy sweats and stretchy leggings to hide her new body, but maybe it isn’t necessary. She’s managed to roughly fix her black dress and kit, after all. Who said she couldn’t do the same to her other clothes, or any more she buys?

A whistle blows shrilly across the pitch. “All right ladies, circle up!”

Lindsey gives Leah a friendly nudge as she heads to the benches that nearly makes her jump out of her skin, but none of the girls comment on it, even if a few side-eyes are exchanged. Not for the first time, Leah is so very grateful she’s decided to come back to school; she’s missed these girls more than she thought. The match goes off without a hitch, and she’s careful to manage her speed, though still at an advantage to the others thanks to her increased strength and reflexes. None of the girls are frustrated though, their delight only seems to grow as she moves and scores around the field.

“We are so winning the next match against Forks,” one of the younger girls grins, as they circle up at the end.

Coach barks out a laugh and raises her water bottle like she’s making a toast. “Hell yeah!” 

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Lee-Lee

Can u switch my shift with Quil on Saturday morning?

Why?

Is something wrong?

No, just promised Lindsey I’d help with deliveries at the soup kitchen. Shift clashes.

Quil won’t complain, he gets to sleep in. I’ll ask him.

Let me know if you need a hand.

We’ll probably be ok, thanks though.

“Quil, Leah wants to know if you’d be willing to swap shifts tomorrow?” Sam hollers across the noisy room, eyes still glued to his phone.

“Sure, what time?”

“She was supposed to be on right after you. She wants to do the 4-6 and you do 6-8, she’s got plans that overlap her shift.”

“I get to sleep in?” Called it.

Paul makes a face. “Who the hell has plans that early on a Saturday?”

“Nice people, Paul.” Sam sends him a disapproving glare. “She’s helping out one of the basketball girls at the Soup kitchen in Seattle.”

Embry grins. “That is such a ‘Clearwater’ thing to do.”

Emily frowns as the guys voice their agreement. “Did you ask her where it is?” she chirps. “I’d love to take down some baked goods for them all.”

“They’re doing deliveries, so I don’t think they’ll need it right now,” smiles Sam, only slightly confused. He wraps his arm around his imprint and tucks her into his chest. “Besides, Seattle is dangerous. Neutral ground. You should stay on the Rez.”

Emily doesn’t voice any opposition. She never has.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leah will never admit it, but she shows off a bit when helping. Lindsey reacts as gleefully as last time, as she carries four laden bags in at once, two on each arm. In all honesty, she could probably carry five times the weight and more, but she’s not about the risk the secrets of her tribe for praise she’s getting anyways. But that doesn’t mean she can’t show off a little skin in a tight, cropped tank and short shorts. Though the tank was unintentional, she just didn’t want to help looking like a homeless woman in men’s clothes.

Esme unexpectedly drops by as people start trickling in, arms laden with a giant box of plastic containers. Each container holds a generous helping of meat pie, mash and boiled veggies. Emmett walks in with her, carrying three more boxes, much to the organiser’s delight.

“Leah!” greets Esme, as soon as she walks in. “I was hoping to see you here. I didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday, and apologise for Edward-”

“It’s really not necessary,” she stammers breathlessly, mind searching frantically for an excuse to leave. “I’m sorry to rush off but I really should get going, before my parents get worried. It was lovely seeing you, Mrs Cullen-”

“-Esme.”

“…Esme. Lindsey, can I get a lift?”

“Sure thing! Let me go grab my bag.” Her teammate- no, her friend gives her a look that screams ‘we’re talking about this in the car,’ but runs to grab her stuff regardless. They shake hands and wave goodbye as they leave.

Lindsey doesn’t even bother to put on her seatbelt on before she begins the interrogation. “What the hell was that about?”

“Floor it,” Leah mutters, through clenched teeth. “I’ll tell you as soon as we’re in La Push.”

Lindsey does just that, slamming down on the accelerator and staying mute until they cross the ‘Welcome to La Push’ sign.

“You remember when I told you I needed the details of the place for a friend? Yeah, it was her. She likes cooking and she’s got money, all that food goes to waste usually. Told her to bring it here, dropped off the address yesterday.”

“I thought the Cullens didn’t come to La Push?”

“They don’t. I went to her house. Big mistake.”

“Did she do something to you?” demanded Lindsey, visibly fuming. “Because if she did, I’ll turn this truck around right now; go back and deck her.”

“No, I have issues with her son. He has a… lack of understanding when it comes to personal space.”

Lindsey’s fingers tighten around the wheel. “Beefy or blondie?”

“Neither. Bella Swan’s ginger boyfriend.”

Lindsey whips her head around, incredulous. “The one who dresses like half-and-half coffee creamer? He got a crush on you or something?”

Leah dissolves into laughter. “God, I hope not,” she sniggers. “Would be hilarious though, but really unlikely.” She could barely stand the smell of him most days, and that’s without the controlling attitude.

“If there’s anyone who can bag a Cullen, it’s you,” grins Lindsey. “Have you seen yourself, girl, you’re sexy, sporty, kind. We all knew Sam Uley didn’t deserve you, but then again, nobody did. We didn’t say anything because he made you happy. Glad you’re out of that relationship and back with us now, though. Complacent housewife really doesn’t suit you.”

“Yeah?” she asks, trying to stamp down the bitterness thumping under her ribs. “What am I then, if not housewife? Because I don’t know.”

“I always saw you as the kind of girl who’d go to college. Be successful, maybe not rich, but earn good money. Have a man who adores you, family man or stay-at-home husband and father for your kids. Maybe he has a job on the side, mechanics or carpentry. Kind of like Sue and Harry, I suppose.”

And as much as Leah hated it, it made sense. She has always inherited her mother’s strong personality, always valued that Sam had been a family man from the start. She’d thought, for some reason, that her future was limited, but that wasn’t the case anymore, was it? She didn’t need to study much anymore, already knowing most of the content of her last year, so she had the time for basketball, for hangouts, for a job, even with Patrol. Maybe she could have the luxury of the life Lindsey described, she wasn’t restricted to Sam’s wants and wishes anymore.

Leah gives her friend a small, genuine smile. “Thanks, Sey.”

Linsey gives her a grin back, holding out a hand for Leah to squeeze. “I got your back, girl. We all do. We’re rooting for you.” 

Chapter Text

Hi everyone!

So this is a bit weird but I have a new Fic out that's also Leah Clearwater, if you'd all like to go check it out!

Summary down below!

Hope you all love it as much as you like this one, would really love your feedback.

Don't worry, this fic is still going to be updating and written alongside the other one!

Thank you all, and I love you!

Zaya.

Summary: Reality can be a fickle thing. For every right turn one makes, there is another realm where they turned left. Correspondence between the different worlds was rare, but not entirely non-existent. Leah Clearwater has two instances in her lifetime where she travels across worlds, but only one of them she remembers. In the end, home lies where the heart is, but the question remains, does she know where her heart truly lies?