Just an idea I got that I couldn't let go of. Not a huge "Sam" fan, to tell the truth. Let me know what you think.
All is Stephenie Meyer's.
Beautiful Nightmare
It was the worst type of dream; it was the thirty year old Sam talking to his seventeen year old self.
"What the fuck are you trying to say to me?" Seventeen-year-old Sam yelled.
"It would just be better…for both of you, to leave Leah now. Before she gets hurt. Before you both do."
"I wouldn't hurt her, asshole."
"But you do." Old-Sam whispered. "You do, you…we break her. We destroy her. And there's nothing we can do to prevent it."
"I wouldn't do that to Leah I love her-"
"Yeah so did I, I still do, but it doesn't change anything."
Young-Sam looks distraught. "What happens?"
"We," Old-Sam almost says imprint, but thinks better of it. "Get together with Emily. Her cousin. We marry Emily."
"I leave Leah for her cousin?" Young-Sam sounds disgusted, and for some reason that gets to Old-Sam more then anything. "No. No way. I would never do that to Leah, Emily is her best friend."
"Yeah."
"She's her fucking cousin. Who wants to fuck their girlfriend's cousin?
"It's not completely our fault."
Young-Sam snorts.
"And it turns out okay."
He snorts again.
"Seriously, we marry Emily. And have two kids. Girls. We really love them. Sally and Rose, after Emily's grandmothers. They're cute, they are the apple's of our eyes. Every Tuesday we go out for ice-cream with them, and Sally always gets mint, Rosie has to have vanilla bean. And they fight over who gets to ride on top of our shoulder."
"So, we're happy?"
"Yeah, mostly."
"And we like the kids, and her?"
"We love them. They are the reasons we wake up in the morning."
"But…what about Leah?"
Old-Sam feels his face pull tighter, as it does whenever he thinks of Leah.
"You said, you said we destroyed her. How the fuck do you expect me to be happy if Leah is broken? How the fuck can you be happy? What type of fucking monsters do we become?"
And now Old-Sam can't help but smile, because Young-Sam is so dead on.
"At first we don't really care about Leah, because we love Emily so much. And then…I don't know, and then it's too late to try and help Leah. She doesn't want out help. You remember how she is."
"Yeah." Now Young-Sam smiles. "She's really stubborn."
"Yeah, she was."
"She's trying to get me to agree to get matching tattoos. Small ones, you know. On our-"
Old-Sam wordlessly holds up his left hand, and removed his wedding bad, under it there's a fading tattoo going around his finger, in fancying writing is Leah & Sam. It seems sickeningly appropriate; that the symbol for his relationship with Leah is under his wedding band from Emily.
"Can't say I'm surprised how that turned out." Young-Sam guffaws.
"Do us a favor, Leah too, and don't get the tattoo."
"But-"
"Trust me." Old-Sam says. Because he knows how Leah rubs it, he knows that she has made a dozen appointments to get it removed, but has yet to go through with it. He knows, because he knew her, that she hates it as much as she loves it, and that it tears her up inside. That maybe, he can even things off a little bit if, just save her the tiniest amount of ache, by not getting this tattoo.
"Okay. Fine."
A seventeen-year-old Sam looks at the clock, it's flashing 2:42 AM. The sleeping Leah next to him tugs on his arm a little tighter around him, and he leans down to inhale her hair.
"Mmh." She sighs.
"Love you Lee-Lee."
"Sleepy time Sam. Night, no more wake Leah."
He grins, and buries his head by hers. He vaguely remembers a dream, but it's so far off from him. Right now he feels so happy…
Sam wakes up from the nightmare he was having, only he cant remember it.
"Sam? It's nearly three in the morning, what's wrong?" And then Emily is rolling over to face him. Her scars look pale in the moonlight coming through their window. "Bad dream?" She asks, seeing his face.
"No, it's alright, go back to sleep."
She turns, and moves closer to him, he reaches up with his left hand to stroke her hair.
He looks at his wedding ring, and has the sudden urge to take it off, because it feels like his finger is stinging underneath it.
After he removes the band of metal, he's surprised to see that there's nothing there; and equally surprised that he expected something.
Odd. He thinks.