Author Note: Just a little one-shot I came up with after watching Eclipse the first time round. It's slightly suggesting both Callwater and Blackwater, but neither are prominant enough for me to choose. I hope you enjoy it. :)
My Little Constant
"I could have taken him. I could have had that tick…"
"Shut up Leah!" Jared sneered.
I was quiet, but not because Jared said so, but because of the screams of pain coming from inside Jacob Black's house.
Jared was right. It was my fault that Jake was inside, writhing in pain and being tended to by the blood-sucking doctor. For once, I didn't try to argue my point, I just glared at Bella angrily.
If there was really someone I wanted to blame, aside from myself, it would be her. She was the reason we were in this mess in the first place, and besides the fact she ran with Vampires, I was sure she completely enjoyed trampling over Jake's heart and emotions, over and over again.
I sighed loudly. I was nervous, and some of the guilt I felt about causing Jake this pain started to creep back into my thoughts and take over my anger.
I was so much easier to be angry; bitter.
I was so used to it, and the Pack was so used to me being that way, it made it easier to keep them all at arms length, to not care 'too much' about each and every one of them; that was Emily's job.
'I wonder what it would have been like, had our roles been reversed?' I mused at the thought of being a mother hen to this pack of unruly teenage boys who ate far too much for their own good and had ego's to match.
I screwed my nose up in disgust. For one, I would be constantly losing my temper with them, and for two, I wouldn't feed a stray cat my cooking, so I'd hardly expect the Pack to indulge themselves with it.
"I'm sorry. I know I don't smell very good to you…" Bella stammered, noticing my disgusted expression. She; thank goodness, could not get inside my head and read my thoughts like the rest of the pack could.
"I know, You reek. I'm leaving." I said rudely back, and turned on my heel to leave, pretending to be annoyed, but truthfully, I just couldn't listen to Jake's pain any longer.
I phased, and pounded my way into the distance.
Inside my head, I heard Embry ask where I was going, and then heard Sam's response.
"Let her run it off Embry. Stay safe Leah."
I didn't answer; I just let myself get carried away by the wind and the blood pumping through my veins. There were some advantages to being a wolf, like the speed, the strength and the stamina. I couldn't really see many beyond that, but I was grateful for these ones at this particular moment. I travelled as fast and as far as I could manage in the darkness of night without feeling completely alone. I knew if one of those Italian Vampires showed up I could still get back to the Res in time to summon enough help.
'Vampires' I snorted and slowed to a walk. The very word made my skin crawl.
When I was sure the coast was clear, I phased back into my human form and sat myself down, now completely naked, on the beach. The surf pounded onto the black sand and the salty wind wiped my cropped black hair over my face. If I was a normal chick, I would be sitting here freezing my ass off in this cold, I guess that was another advantage of being a wolf shifter, I was a portable radiator of heat.
I sneered, if I was a normal chick, I wouldn't be sitting naked on a beach miles away from home in the middle of the night in the first place.
'Oh wait' I grinned to myself, 'No, I probably would.'
Sam and I used to get up to all crazy shit like that, back in our high school days – skinny dipping, playing chicken with our parents cars around the district, general wild crazy stuff teenagers do.
The memories made me smile.
And then the memory of Sam seeing Emily for the first time suddenly reared its ugly head and I pushed away the pain, my smile disappearing, like the sun going behind a storm cloud.
Before I knew it, I was thinking about Jake again. He was obviously a good distraction.
I didn't really know Jake that well up until recently. He was a few years younger than me, and when Sam and I would have been making out in the back of the school bus, he would have been one of the idiotic pimple faced boys that spat paper-bullets at the front.
I did remember his sisters though, at least one of them, Rachel, I think her name was. She was always a bit of goody-two-shoes at school. I remember how withdrawn she became after their mom died though. I never understood her then, but after losing my own dad only months ago…
The thought of my father started to choke me up. I felt the hot tears gather at the corner of my eyes and I quickly wiped them away.
My last words with him were not nice ones. In fact, I'm pretty sure that his heart attack was a response to the fact that I grew so angry and phased right then and there before him for the first time.
I didn't know what was happening to me then. I was hot, so hot, and angry. Angry over some stupid little thing and I just lost it. Completely freaked out, before I knew it, Sam and his gang of thugs were on my doorstep telling me that everything was going to be all right.
I sneered at the memory, a common expression on my face these days.
Everything was going to be all right was it Sam?
For one, I hated his guts, I hated Emily's too. Sam had been the only person to truly know me, more than I ever really knew myself. And Emily had betrayed me, my own cousin; close enough to be my sister, betrayed me with the love of my life. I still wasn't sure how I felt about her, even today and I know that made Sam upset.
And for two, my father was on the floor in my mothers arms, clutching at his chest and dying, his eyes looking wide in surprise… at me.
And to top everything off, I was talking to a giant wolf, and when I glimpsed myself in the mirror, I knew I had really lost the plot.
Nothing was ever going to be all right ever again.
I remembered that evening like it was only the one before last, and I knew if I continued to dwell on it, I would end up bawling my eyes out, so I tried to concentrate on something else.
Rosalie Cullen.
I knew as soon as I thought the name; a look of surprise graced my face.
What the hell made me think of her?
I wasn't sure, but I was intrigued and so I continued along that line of thought.
She was always the angry one of that Bloodsucker family. I didn't get why, but it seemed like we shared some sort of common ground, some sort of sense that we were both angry with the world, or with our lot.
I wonder how she became a vampire in the first place?
I wasn't stupid enough to think she actually chose the life given to her, unlike the whiney Bella Swan who seemed to want to throw away her very existence for the chance.
The pretty blonde, okay, the extraordinarily pretty blonde vampire was sarcastic in humor and seemed to loathe Bella as much as I did.
It's not so much that I hated Bella, in fact, if we lived in a normal world I probably would have seen it fit to just ignore her, but the problem was that I just didn't understand her.
I didn't understand why she tortured Jake so much. I didn't understand her compelling hold over Edward Cullen and I sure as hell didn't understand why on earth she wanted to BE one of them.
I think that was what spun me out the most. Why would you chose, to die? To give up your loved ones, your prospects of having a family, of growing older?
I hated Bella for that much at least. She was a normal girl. Able to have children, a family, a man who loved her, a father who adored her and I was no longer a normal girl.
"And neither is Rosalie…" I muttered, sympathizing with the vampire for the briefest moment.
I no longer had a father, no longer had a man who loved me, and I wasn't even sure anymore that I could ever be able to have children and a family of my own!
I was the first female in the whole history of our tribe, to ever be able to shift into wolf form. Even if turning into a wolf was a normal thing amongst my people, ME turning into a wolf was definitely not normal and definitely unexpected.
Nobody knew what the future held for me. There were no stories to guide me, or to tell me how to make things right again. I was walking blindly down a path that I was forced to choose, and there was no way of getting off and turning around.
A noise from the bushes behind me suddenly had me on alert, but I relaxed, as I saw a large grey wolf with faded shades of black on his back come forward.
He came up and simply sat beside me.
"Embry," I said out loud, acknowledging his presence.
He turned and looked at me inquisitively, I knew what he was thinking.
"I'm fine, I fine. I'm not running off any further if that's any consolation, although I don't see why any of you would care much anyway."
He got up slowly, and disappeared back into the bushes, emerging minutes later in his human for and in his cut off cargos.
"Jake's gonna be ok Lee," he said, sitting back down.
I felt my insides relax. I was probably going to get a big talking to by Jake when he was well enough then, mind you, it would turn into an argument, and we all knew I would win… or at least, I thought I would.
The silence was awkward for a moment, but it then turned into an easy peace that comes between two good friends, although Embry and I were hardly what you would call 'good friends'.
It made me think, for a second.
Embry never seemed to get on my nerves very much. He stayed out of my way mostly, just sat back in the corner during my outbursts and watched quietly. He rarely told me what to do, and only now did I realize, he never spoke to me the way the others did.
I sighed.
But then again, Embry rarely said anything to me at all.
"What's up? You know I can't read your thoughts when I'm not crusin' around on all fours," he gave me a lopsided smirk.
I found it almost irresistible to smile back, but I reigned myself and my emotion in.
"Not much," I replied, surprised at its lack of sarcasm. "Just thinking about stuff."
Embry nodded understanding, but didn't push me any further.
After a few moments, he gazed up into the clear night sky and pointed out the smallest star he could find.
He tried to show it to me, but I grew impatient when I couldn't see it.
"What is the purpose of this 'small star'?" I said somewhere between frustration and boredom and giving up completely in trying to find it.
He grinned again, but didn't take his eyes off of it.
"Every star has a purpose Leah," he started.
"This one, it's small, insignificant, or at least, to you, to others it is."
"But?" I added, annoyed, wishing he'd just get to the point and leave me alone again.
"But it's there. It's a constant. It never moves. It never shines any more or less than what it is now, in fact, in the next hundred years or so, it'll be shining just as it is, even when all these other, bigger and brighter stars begin to fade."
He was trying to make a point. Some metaphoric answer to all of my problems, I suppose. It was nice that he tried, but really, stars?
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I guess I'm lucky you paid attention when studying astronomy in school then smarty pants, where would I be without my Little Constant Star?" I teased as I stood to my feet.
He looked, not hurt, but rejected somehow, and that made me feel a little bad for being so ready to make fun of his philosophical pep talk.
I punched him lightly on the arm. He looked at me, slightly confused by the contact, unsure whether it was a sign of affection or a contest to fight.
"Race you back?" I said, lightening the mood.
He smiled, a genuine smile and nodded.
Funny thing was, I found myself smiling back.