Disclaimer: All characters belong to S. Meyer. Lyrics belong to Owl City.
Meteor Shower
They met when they were kids…well she was three and he was barely ten days old. Sarah Black propped a young Leah Clearwater up in a faded plaid chair and put a wiggly baby Jacob in her arms. Jacob let out a small yelp and Leah froze, hoping she hadn't done something to upset the small wonder-child in her arms. Because of her jilted nerves, her hands grew clammy and the baby slid from her arms, just an inch but enough to terrify her. She grasped him a little tighter and prayed that she wouldn't drop him on his black-feather covered head. Then he opened his surprisingly dark eyes and his tiny mouth spread wide in a grin. Leah couldn't understand the warmth inside her at being on the receiving end of Jacob Black's smile, but she knew there was no way anyone could refuse to love this little boy.
When Jacob Black was nine, he pushed a slightly taller, but strikingly beautiful twelve-year-old Leah Clearwater in the giant mud puddle right by their bus stop. He laughed at the screech that flew from her lips upon impact and his shorter friend Quil gave him a high five. Then Jacob's laughing abruptly ended when he saw Sam Uley stop in front of the soaking girl and offer his hand to help her up. He watched as their eyes met and her cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of pink while Sam smirked brazenly at her. He couldn't exactly why his stomach turned when he saw the two walk back towards the Clearwater house, hands still tightly clasped, but he could admit that the new development made that the worst day of his life. Hands down. (Of course, he ended up being poorly mistaken when a week later his mom was in a fatal accident on her way home from work… and through the haze of pain and tears and funny smelling casseroles, he felt the warmth of Leah's hand wrapped around his own and tried not to compare himself to Sam Uley.)
When he was sixteen, Bella Swan came back into Jacob Black's life. He was love struck, almost to the point of complete oblivion to anything outside of the realm of clumsy brunette, but he did somehow notice Leah Clearwater standing beside a proud Sam Uley at his graduation party that June. He still had that smirk on his face, and Leah still gazed up at him like a puppy adoring her master. He couldn't help but wonder how long her leash might be. (Don't ask how, but he knew she wanted to go to college in Colorado, and from what he heard through the grapevine, he didn't think Sam had any plans to leave the reservation in the near future.)
For a very short period of time, Leah Clearwater forgot all about Jacob Black. It wasn't during her high school years while she was dating Sam, because how could any not take notice of the handsomely brooding boy with the soulful dark eyes, the same ones that had little crinkles around the edges when he laughed. (She noticed him growing, changing, muscles filling out, jaw sharpening. She noticed him chasing Bella Swan, although Leah never understood how he couldn't catch the Swan girl. It's not like she could really get away from him, she could barely put a foot in front of the other without falling on her face.) No this is not when she forgot about him. She forgot about him the night she found Sam in bed with a girl she recognized from a high school upstate. Emma or Amanda or something. And she forgot about him while she cried herself to sleep over the loss of her first love, and then cried herself to sleep over the fact that she wasn't even sure she was in love with Sam, and how dare he be the one to end things between them. She was too young to settle down, everyone knew this, but did he have to take away her pride as well? She could feel the whispers as she walked along the streets of La Push, and soon she made the decision to just not go back to her hometown for a while. She took up French in college and threw herself into philosophy club and working for the women's lit magazine. She learned about experimentation, meditation, and finally liberation.
Leah Clearwater finally went back to La Push, the land of her ancestors. Home. It was six years after she had left, and she had a bachelor's in Women's Studies, a minor in French, and a master's in French Feminine Literary Theory. (Post second wave, of course.) She had kept in touch with one person over the years, a pen pal of sorts. He kept her updated on the reservation's news and she complained to him about Monsieur D'Amic and how there were no really good, free trade, coffee houses on the west side of Broad, where she had lived the past two years.
They hadn't seen each other in over half of a decade, but she easily found the little apartment he was living in on the outskirts of town. He was sitting on porch steps, a wolfish-looking dog lying next to him, and looked like a man who was waiting on something, anything. When she got out of the car he just stared at her, and both of them seemed to realize simultaneously that whatever he was looking for he had finally found. It just took a while to get back home.
She walked up to the steps slowly, carefully, because it no longer seemed to be solid ground she was standing on. The earth was tilting, and something was shifting.
"You know, I almost dropped you on your head when you were a baby." She said, randomly remembering that day twenty-one years ago when she first thought that refusing to love Jacob Black was impossible.
"Guess that makes up for when I pushed you in the mud by the bus stop back in elementary school." He grinned at her before jumping off the porch steps and sweeping her up in a bear hug that lifted her off her feet. She let out a laugh as he spun her around, both still holding on tight.
When he set her down, she swatted him on the shoulder and rolled her eyes. "You were such a brat."
"Nah, I just wanted you to notice me." He replied cheekily.
She couldn't help laughing again at his immature response and hearing her throaty chuckle he just had to pick her up for one more hug. He couldn't go for long without touching her, the two holding each other close.
How much time they had wasted along the way didn't matter now, because they were back where they started, where they were meant to be.
This time she was in his arms, and she let out a small yelp when he pretended to drop her just a few inches before hugging her tighter.
"You were impossible to ignore, impossible not to love…even then." She murmured before gently pressing her lips to his and running her long fingers through his black-feather hair.
I can finally see,
That you're right there beside me,
I am my not own,
For I have been made new
Please don't let me go,
I desperately need you.
I am not my own,
For I have been made new
Please don't let me go,
I desperately need you.
A/N: Something short and sweet after a long week. Reviews are love!