Title: Home

Summary: "Where do you go when your whole world falls down around you?"

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. This story is produced without profit.

Characters: Sam/Leah/Emily

Genre: Angst/Imprinting/Romance

Rating: General.

Warnings: ~

Status: Completed.

Archiving: Please PM me.

Inspirations/Dedications: ~

Author's Notes: ~

Home

There is no big moment; no flashing lights or great epiphany. One minute he feels fine, then he looks around him and his stomach drops as he thinks, "Hang on a minute, this isn't right."

He swears his heart stopped for a second.

Maybe he should have seen it coming. He's been unsettled for a while now, kinda restless. He puts it down to the the wolf. They all do. You can blame a lot of things on having a beast running wild inside of you.

Sometimes, he just feels lost. His whole world has shifted underneath him and left him free falling. At first, he was so desperate not to hit the ground. Now he just wants it all to be over.

He clings on for a while.

He spends every spare second he gets with Emily, willing himself to love her and want her like he used to. He wants it to be right again. He wants that moment when his body left the ground and the earth twisted around him.

All he feels now is loneliness and so completely disconnected from everything that he finds himself wondering what the point is at all.

"Things have changed, Sam," Emily tells him one day. She loves him, he knows that but not in the same way that she used to. Something has broken between them.

After a long moment of silence, she speaks again. "Maybe we could make it work?"

He wants to say yes...instead he says, "I don't think I can."

She cries and he almost caves but he doesn't because at the back of his mind is the persistent, niggling thought that has been tormenting him since this whole thing started.

There's somewhere else I have to be.

He feels like a man who has woken up one morning in a foreign land and doesn't recognise the scenery. Home baked muffins for breakfast, flowers on the kitchen table; none of it is familiar anymore and it leaves him with a choice. Does he stay or does he stumble along some path he doesn't know?

His gut tells him that he has to keep moving.

He ends up at a house he remembers all too well and it's like breaking the surface after being underwater for so long. The smell, the sounds, the girl sitting on the front step; he breathes it all in like a man starved of air.

Speak now and tear your whole destiny apart at the seams.

"Leah...,"

She turns a blank face to him. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

She stubs her cigarette out and raises her eyebrows. "You high?"

He shakes his head. "No, not anymore."

Her confused grin fades out as she sees the expression on his face. He wonders if he looks as pathetic as he feels. How could he have ever done that to her? He wants to disappear into his own shame.

She pulls herself to her feet with plenty of grumbling. The hem of her night shirt barely skims her thighs and just watching her sends a spike of primal need right through him. She looks like a goddess with her fiery expression and brown eyes catching moonlight as she picks up something in his voice.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Sam?"

Is that hope he hears in her voice?

He knows he doesn't deserve it. Not her hope or her concern and certainly not her love...but he wants it all back so badly he's willing to do anything. He will die on the spot for just a chance.

"It's all changed. The way I feel...it's gone." Even saying the words makes him feel weary and old. It's been such a long journey and the worst thing about it that he never even realised he'd set off.

"Lee-lee...," he moves towards her and she pulls back like a frightened animal.

"Fuck you, Sam! You can't do this...not now," Her voice is thick with emotion but he knows there will be no tears. Not on his account.

"I promised, remember?" He is desperate now. "I promised that I would always come back...no matter where I went or how long I had to leave you for."

"You can't just show up here and think everything can go back to normal," she is yelling now. "What about Emily, huh? Did you just walk out on her like you did me? Does she even know you're here?"

He wants to forget Emily. He wants to hate her for holding him so long but he can't, not after what he's done to her, and he can't stay with her out of guilt. Neither of them stood a chance. Not against fate. "She knows."

Leah is quiet and solemn but she doesn't move away this time.

Sam takes her hands, slowly so as not to startle her, and rests his forehead on hers. "I know things have gone so wrong, I don't expect things to change overnight. I just want to talk to you. I need you to...I just need you. I feel like I've just woken up from this crazy dream to find out that everyone hates me."

Leah is still angry, he knows that won't change, but she grips his hands and lifts her head. "I don't hate you. Nobody does. I'm sure everybody just thinks you're an asshole like I do...but we don't hate you."

He laughs at that and she takes his face in her hands and looks him in the eye. "We'll talk. Not tonight, tomorrow."

"Okay."

Before he leaves, she let's him kiss her forehead and moves into his open arms. He buries his nose in her hair and her arms tighten around his back and for the first time in a long time, he feels like his feet are touching the ground.

In her embrace, he is home.

~fin~