The places she used to play.

By mrstrentreznor

Pairing: Sam/Leah

Word count: 2475

Rating: MA for sex and language, AU, set post BD

AN: written for the JBNP summer in La Push one-shot contest. I know, I wrote three entries… got a little over the top there…

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Sprawl 1 (flatland) by Arcade fire

Took a drive into the sprawl
To find the house where we used to stay in
Couldn't read the number in the dark
You said let's save it for another day

Took a drive into the sprawl
To find the places we used to play
It was the loneliest day of my life
You're talking at me but I'm still far away

Let's take a drive
Through the sprawl
Through these towns they built to change
Then you said, the emotions are dead
It's no wonder that you feel so strange

Took a drive into the sprawl to find the places we used to play. That line of the song echoed in her head.

The places she used to play.

Before it all went to shit. Before it went furry. She could remember when her life was normal… ordinary… not magic. People wanted their lives to be interesting but she would give everything for her life to be ordinary. Boring even.

And she nearly had it. She had the ring on her finger. She had the guy of her dreams. And he had loved her. Note the past tense.

Loved.

That was before he disappeared. He went into the forest and when he came out three weeks later, he was a different man. Literally different. He wasn't even a man.

But did he tell her? No.

The woman he wanted to spend his life with a month earlier now wasn't good enough for the truth. He wasn't allowed to tell her the truth.

And it just got worse. He had changed, more than she knew how to deal with. They were both young, change was supposed to be a gradual thing; something they were going to do together. And then her cousin had come to visit. And it had all spiralled off into … weirdness. More weirdness.

Imprint.

She hated the word.

So what if he was the first member of the new pack? So what if it was all new to everyone?

The wolf will be whatever the imprint wants. That was the rule. Did Emily say 'be the husband of my best friend; be my cousin's husband'… is that what she said? No. She had fucked him within 24 hours.

What did he tell her? 'Oh it's okay. Leah and I broke up.' Is that what he said? Did she ring Leah to ask if that was the truth? Did she ask Leah if she was all right? No. Some best friend she was.

Who was the bitch here? But Emily was so nice; make that Nice, with a capital N. No one could believe it. But then the worst had happened. He had phased too close and ripped half of Emily's face off. Karma is a bitch. Certifiably.

And then just for the icing on her weirdness cake; she phased too. Not only did she have to deal with a bunch of teenage boys sharing her head, and seeing her naked all the time. Now she had to see inside his head. See the truth. The imprint just overwrote whatever else was there. He still loved her. It just wasn't enough for the wolf. Or the wolf gods or what the fuck ever.

The Hallmark, obsessive thing that served for love in the imprint world, drowned out her real, ordinary love. Smothered it with a sickly, scented pillow of butterfly kisses and adoring glances.

It made her want to barf.

The weight of her anger and bitterness choked her. She tried to embrace it; to make the anger her friend. Fuck knows she didn't have any normal friends anymore. But that much rage just couldn't be swallowed. She had embraced the heartless bitch persona. Self protection. If I am such a complete bitch, not another soul is ever going to hurt me like that again.

Because no one is ever going to get close to me… ever again.

Not.

Ever.

Again.

And she had handled it; not well… but she had survived.

And then Jake had imprinted.

Jake. He had railed and fought and sworn all kinds of endless love for Bella Swan. And she had believed him. She knew Jake. He was strong.

And yet another fucking imprint had deleted it all. And to the devil spawn of a vampire. How did that fit with the wolf god plan?

And to Jake. The strongest of them all. The biggest wolf. The future leader of the tribe.

Please not Jake. The kernel of hope that had flared to life when Bella chose Edward was extinguished. She had hoped in some tiny fragile part of her mangled heart that he might choose her; damaged and bitter as she was. She knew Jake didn't see her like that. She had needed someone to touch her and she had so hoped it would be him.

Imprint.

She had run, just like Jake had that time. She had decided she couldn't stand it anymore. She had run as far and as fast as she could. Too much… too much…

She had run and she had hid. Like a pathetic child. And her tantrum had lasted for years. One thing you could say about Leah Clearwater was… she didn't give in easily. She hid so well that no one knew where she was. She had run west. All the way to Russia. Right across the Bering Strait. She kept phasing. In an odd way; the wolf now kept her sane. The wolf had loved the tundra.

Now it was 2011. Five years later. That song ate at her. Nibbled away at her walls. Her bitter edges.

Took a drive into the sprawl to find the house where we used to stay in.

She came back.

She didn't know why she was here.

She didn't tell anyone she was coming… who would she tell? And how would she tell them? She wasn't the letter writing type.

She had hired a cheap car; nothing out of place on the rez. She had crept in at dusk. She had driven the roads and marvelled. Hidden her head in a hoodie, so no one could see her.

She had been prepared for it to look different; what she wasn't prepared for was for it to be exactly the same… It was exactly the same. She parked the car and she walked down to the beach.

She was warring with herself. Should she find her mother; find Seth? Should she apologise? She didn't even know where to start.

She stood on the beach in the summer dusk and the wind blew her scent back onto the land.

A man, jogging along the street lifted his head. He increased his pace and changed his path to skirt closer to the beach. He froze when he saw the sole figure on the beach, hunched over and poking at something in the water with a stick. He slipped off his shoes and took silent, careful steps closer to her. She stood, dusted the sand from her hands and she turned to walk back to her car. She wasn't up for this shit today; she'd come back in another five years… maybe.

And then she noticed the silent figure, standing maybe fifteen feet away. She hadn't heard him approach.

She recognised him instantly. Her telltale heart slammed into overdrive.

His deep voice choked out her name, "L-lee lee."

She clutched her hand across her chest; she wished she could grab her heart and stop it from beating quite so hard.

She couldn't speak. She just shook her head mutely. What was she trying to say? No, I'm not her. No, please don't let it be you. You are literally the last person I wanted to run into.

She finally took in a gasping breath. She hadn't realised she had actually stopped breathing. And then she took another breath. And she didn't die. See it's not that hard. You are stronger than you thought.

Another breath. "D-don't fucking call me lee-lee," she growled at him.

She wanted to back away. She wanted to run. But the sea was at her back. Wolves were not keen on water. She glanced sideways, trying to judge if she could get past him. She was always faster than him. He was big, but she was fast.

He lifted his arms slowly in a gesture of supplication.

"Please…"

He took a step towards her.

She shook her head.

He took another step.

He was approaching carefully, as if she was a wild animal. In a way she was. But she couldn't hurt him. She could never hurt him. He was the one that did her all the damage. Tore out her still beating heart and stomped on it.

She shook her head again.

"NO!" she screamed at him. "No closer."

He stopped. He studied her; his eyes raking up and down her body; assessing her.

"Just the same," he whispered. He sounded incredulous. As if she was a figment of his imagination or something.

She blinked furiously. She would not cry.

"Now what?" he asked her.

She didn't know.

"You're talking at me but I'm still far away," she quoted from the song at him.

He frowned. Got that little M shape between his brows. So serious. The furred Sam was always so serious and so responsible. She suddenly wondered if he still phased. She gave him a raking glance of her own. He looked a little older. Maybe. Maybe her memories dated from an earlier time. A time when he laughed more.

She took another deep breath.

"I'm leaving now," she stated.

"No… you're not."

She snorted. He wasn't her Alpha. He couldn't order her. She was a lone wolf now.

"Not again," he said.

She frowned at him now.

"I broke it," he whispered.

She had no idea what he was talking about.

He was wearing a wife beater. He reached down his back with one hand and lifted it over his head.

She took an involuntary step back and got her feet wet. She let out an embarrassingly girlie noise.

"Stop it," she hissed at him. Sam had always affected her dramatically physically. She had the most trouble resisting him when he took his clothes off. He was her first everything. The irony that the pack spent 90% of their time with few clothes on, had not escaped her.

He slid it down his arms and dropped it onto the sand. His tall body, with its long rounded muscles was exposed. The familiar pack tattoo on his right shoulder.

Just like hers.

Is that was he was trying to say?

His hands reached for his cut-offs.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"No more talking… no more running away… no more… Leah."

He said her name. Her proper name. She was having trouble breathing.

He dropped his shorts on the sand and with another step, he stepped out of them. He stood in front of her naked and glorious and she couldn't look away.

"What the fuck Sam?" It was the first time she had said his name.

He inhaled and he shouted at her. "Five years!"

"What?"

"Five years you've been gone!"

"What the fuck do you care?" she screamed back.

"Don't you get it?"

"No, I don't! So why don't you explain it to me?"

He shook his head now.

"And stop shouting at me," she screamed at him.

"The imprint… its broken. I broke it."

"WHAT?"

"You were right."

Oh she couldn't do this. This was karma slashing her heart open again as effectively as it had slashed Emily's face open.

"It was that…" he didn't seem to have a word. "Thing… that abomination that Jake imprinted on."

He looked at her earnestly.

She made some kind of keening noise.

He took another step towards her. "That was just… wrong. It stopped us all killing each other but… it was wrong. Like you said it was." Another step.

She was going to faint. She had never fainted in her life, but Jesus she felt like doing it now. She sucked in a breath.

"Jake and I … the two alphas… we approached the council… we told them it was wrong… imprinting is just flawed… we found a way to break it."

She let out a sob. She couldn't help it.

"Nobody wanted it… not the tribe… not the Cullens… not Jake… not the thing when she could understand it…"

Another step.

"Emily started to hate being the pack cook and washer woman…"

She held her hand over her mouth before she made a truly embarrassing noise.

"I broke it… even though you were gone… because one day…"

She wailed. She couldn't hold it in anymore.

And he was there. His long arms wrapped around her, crushing her against him. She couldn't fight him. He had always been taller, stronger, and bigger than her. He wrapped her up against him and he felt warm and familiar and oh so right.

She took in another sobbing breath.

"Shhh," he comforted her. She buried her face in him and allowed herself to truly breathe; to breathe in the scent of him. Her mangled heart seemed to inflate with every pass of his hands over her body. That awful, tight band of anger around her chest loosened and she took in a great sobbing breath.

"S-Sam…" she sobbed.

"Shhh… I'm here… its okay."

He held her face in his big hands and he wiped her tears away with his thumbs. His dark eyes looked into hers as if he was trying to see right inside her. He pulled her face up towards him and he kissed her.

He kissed her.

And suddenly she had too many clothes on. She started tearing at her clothes and he started to help, while still trying to kiss her and something tore and he laughed.

He laughed. And she knew. She knew it was her Sam. Maybe he was still furry now and maybe he wasn't and maybe she didn't care… but it was her Sam.

They finally got all her clothes off and she just wanted to climb him like a set of monkey bars. So she did. And he made that delighted laugh again.

And he lowered her body to the sand right where they were standing, as if each of them could not wait to find a bed or to do it in her hire car or to take a single second to walk anywhere else. He lowered her to the sand and covered her with his body and she wrapped her legs around him and she took him into her again; where he belonged. Where he was supposed to be. The waves pushed at them as if they were trying to help.

And it was good.

FF_2154210_ - 11/08/2011 03:56:00 PM