Phew, finally got this finished! I'm back and definitely not dead :P So, I watched Adele's performance at the Brit Awards (which was almost a month ago, but people are still talking about it) and barely a minute into the song I was in tears and just completely lost for words. And I can tell you, that doesn't normally happen to me! :L But yeah, I just knew I had to write something for this beautiful song, and...out came this. I've been working on it for weeks, which is why it wasn't up ages ago when her performance was fresh in everyone's minds, but that was because I felt like I had to do the song justice and I gave it 110% for you guys :).

For anyone that hasn't heard her live performance of this song, I really, really recommend you look it up and listen to it, whether it's now or while you're reading or later, because it's just beautiful :) I listened to it while writing this, and, well...I'd love to hear your opinions on what you think. Did it work, did it not work...do you hate it more than anything else you've ever seen...? :L

Oh, and I should make it clear - there was NO Nessie Imprinting in this!

Hope you enjoy!

Em xx

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, and 'Someone Like You' belongs to Adele.

"Never mind, I'll find,

Someone like you,

I wish nothing but the best,

For you, too.

Don't forget me, I beg,

I remember, you said,

Sometimes it lasts in love,

But sometimes it hurts instead..."

Adele - Someone Like You.

I tried to stop my hands from trembling as I fumbled for my compact in the depths of my purse, pulling it out to check my reflection in the mirror. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here at all.

Around me all the other party-goers chatted and danced, grinning happily and having the time of their lives. Of course they were happy; this was a wedding. My little brother had just gotten married. It was supposed to be a happy occasion. And yet there I sat, alone in the corner with nothing but my nervous shaking and confused thoughts for company. Nobody had known that I would be coming...I hadn't RSVP-d to the invite, instead turning up just in time to slip into the church and take a seat at the very back, where I wouldn't be noticed.

No one had spotted me yet. Thank God – I didn't want them to spot me. I was confused because I wanted nothing more than to avoid speaking to distant relatives and old friends, and that was something I'd never been able to understand. I was nervous because, in being here, I was running a very high risk of seeing him again. Nervous, bordering on terrified. I hadn't seen anyone from the Rez in almost eight years, but it was his face that I dreaded seeing the most. That I searched the crowd for the most. The shards of my heart that still warmed at the thought of laying eyes on him again after all this time gave another one of their pathetic flutters, and I mentally cursed myself. Why had he had to leave something behind? Couldn't he have just taken the fragments, too? It would be so much easier if I was empty, incapable of feeling love or pain anymore. If I was numb.

A quiet, shaky laugh escaped my lips, and I reached for my glass. Oh, I was already numb, I reminded myself. Numb, alone and broken.

I was like a paper cut out, held together with threads of glue and bits of tape. I was waiting to crumble, and yet already in pieces.

I surveyed the gathered people for a few moments longer. Seth and his new wife were the centre of attention: talking to them were Jared and Kim. Three little girls and one boy, about eight or nine years old, were messing around at a table nearby. At least two or three of them had to be their children. My own Mom was with Charlie, Bella and a very grown-up Renesmee – it was so hard to believe that she could only be a ten year old in reality. The Cullens took up another table and part of the dance floor, either making small talk with some of our relatives or dancing to the music that blasted from the speakers.

Members of the Pack were dotted all around the room, and they were all smiling broadly. They were all very different, too. They looked older, but not just on the outside. They'd all matured a lot since I last saw them. Few of them were alone. Then, a sight that I hadn't expected, despite all the time that had passed since I left. Embry and Quil, inseparable as always, sat at a table together, but were accompanied by two smiling women, one Quileute and one not. The Quileute woman sat next to Embry, laughing as he messed around with tiny pieces of cake on a fork and made aeroplane noises for the giggling two-year-old boy on his lap. Quil was grinning and looking over the other woman's shoulder at the tiny baby she held carefully in her arms. She was unmistakably his wife. The little bundle in yellow was unmistakably his daughter.

Where was my marriage? Where was my family?

I regarded the surface of the table before me with broken-spirited acceptance, closing my eyes against the unbearable happiness of those around me. I was Leah Clearwater. I was meant to be alone.

Everyone that I loved was taken from me, at one point or another.

First Sam. Imprinting took him away from me, gave him to Emily while I spent years trying to recover from the pain and heartbreak that it had caused. I'd gone down a long, rocky road after losing him, and finding my way back to the life I used to know had taken a lot of time. It had been my first real experience with being hurt that way – before it all happened I was just a happy, carefree 18-year-old. I hadn't known what it felt like to be shattered on the inside, to have a person break you so badly that ever healing again became near impossible.

My father had been taken from me, too. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and too, too soon. I took his death even harder than anyone had expected. Because it was my fault. At least, that was what I continued to tell myself as the years went by, and the grief I kept bottled up inside chipped away at any hope I still had for being happy again one day. Eventually, when I had been pieced back together, I was finally able to understand that it wasn't my fault that he died. He'd had a weak heart – my sudden phasing probably had very little to do with his heart attack. It was most likely coming before I'd even started shaking.

And then...him. Losing him had been even worse than losing Sam, because I'd had a choice. We'd had a choice. I'd known what I was pushing away every time we argued, or I got all wound up over the tiniest of things and let my temper get the best of me. But I just hadn't been able to stop myself. We hadn't been able to stop ourselves. Every time we fought we forgot about all the wonderful moments we had together when we weren't arguing, when we were relaxed and smiling and happy and so in love we didn't care about the rest of the world anymore. I'd been stupid and stubborn and it was my fault that I lost him. Nobody could disagree with that. I was the one who started the argument that ended it all.

Quietly, I sighed, my eyes flickering open. Even now, when I was terrified to see him, so nervous that it made me shake, I knew that I wasn't just here to see my brother get married. There was a part of me, the part that, like the rest of me had accepted that my love would never be returned again, and yet still craved the sound of his voice, the feel of his skin beneath my fingertips, to look into those chocolate brown eyes and know that he was all there was for me, now. I hadn't been able to stay away. I'd heard rumours...bits and pieces, fragments of gossip and conversation here and there...I'd secretly hoped that I might get a chance to find out if they were true, before I left the party. But obviously not, because I was leaving right now. I couldn't stand to sit here any longer. This had been a very, very bad idea.

I stood up, grabbing my purse and smoothing out my short, simple black dress as I turned to walk out of the room. I gave one last, quick sweeping glance at the rest of the party-goers. They were all pretty much absorbed in their own happiness; I was certain I wouldn't be missed. It was better this way. I could disappear, fade out of the picture once again. Nobody else would be affected, only myself. It was much, much better.

I had only gone a few paces when I heard an abrupt squeal of laughter. The sound made me glance up, to find that it was just the kids still messing around. But then, as I went to look down again, I quite suddenly found myself staring into the eyes of the one man I'd been trying so desperately to avoid.

Caught unawares, I froze, my breath catching in my throat. He was staring back, a look of shock and bewilderment on his face. He, too, looked older, though I knew that in reality neither he nor the others were really that old. It was the time apart from them that made the slight changes seem so dramatic. In a couple more years he would turn thirty – but that still wasn't old.

He stood there, just a few feet away, his eyes locked on mine and I saw him say my name. Saw his lips form the word, but didn't hear it. No, it had been a long, long time since I was able to hear every little thing that went on around me.

While I remained fixed in place, not daring to move for fear of the floor falling out from underneath me or my heart giving one too many a painful lurch, he took a single, tentative step towards me. And then another. And another. Slowly, so slowly that I wondered if time was actually on the verge of standing still, he made his way across the space between us and stopped in front of me, as if he still couldn't believe that I was there. There was something unnameable in his eyes, and something familiar, too. Something that I couldn't quite place. I'd forgotten how big he was. My heels weren't very high, but I was naturally just a little taller than most other women, and still he towered over me. He was close, but not close enough for me. He could never be close enough.

He licked his lips nervously, and if I hadn't been shocked into both silence and complete stillness I probably would have smiled against my will; I remembered seeing him do that, so many years ago, whenever he was trying to work up the courage to tell me something meaningful, in one of those beautifully romantic, deeply special moments that we often had when we bared our hearts and souls to one another. "Leah," he murmured, voice low. His tone was different, I noticed. His composure was different. Tense, but not in the way I was.

Hearing him say my name again after all this time, even if it wasn't the same way that he used to say it, made my heart stutter painfully in my chest. Did he know that he still had me at his mercy? Did he know that I would always, as long as I lived, belong only to him? He continued to hold my gaze with eyes that were beginning to seem less surprised as he recovered from the apparent shock of seeing me for the first time in eight years. "You're here." It was a statement, albeit one that seemed said more to himself than to me. For the first time, his eyes left mine to travel quickly up and down my body. "You look...great."

Beautiful. Stunning. Amazing. I'd never believed that I was any of those things, but he had.

Once upon a time.

The air around us suddenly became awkward and uncomfortable, when he seemed to get over his surprise at my presence and realised that he was standing right in front of me. He cleared his throat and looked down at the ground, while I swallowed hard to try and get rid of whatever it was that was stopping me from speaking. Up until now, words had simply refused to come out. Not even his name, which I wanted so badly to whisper that it was hurting almost as much as being this near to him was. I wished that this didn't have to be awkward. I wished we could relax and just be comfortable in each other's company, like we used to be. Now, though...so much time had passed, and we had ended on such bad terms...it was too unforgettable for us to ever be able to pretend that it didn't happen.

I was aware, dimly, of the music changing. Seth and his new wife had already had their first dance, but now the party tracks faded away, replaced by a calmer, smoother slow song. The beginning piano notes began to play and the brightest lights went off, leaving us standing in semi-darkness broken by pools of warm, low golden light. I looked to the dance floor, where a few couples were now choosing spots to dance and some laughing parents had gotten up to dance with their children, and then back to him. He was still standing there, looking like he was lost for words and like the tension between us was killing him. "Dance with me."

The words were barely more than a breath, but he heard them. He looked confused, as if wondering if it would really be such a good idea. Maybe it would be. Maybe it wouldn't. I wasn't sure I even cared anymore. I had to get rid of this awkwardness. I wanted to be closer to him, to speak to him without this uncomfortable problem of having no idea what to say, to smell his scent and touch him and recommit everything that made him who he was to memory. "Dance with me," I repeated, still whispering. "Please." The confusion left his eyes, and his expression relaxed. He swallowed, just once, hesitating. And then he gave one, little nod. I set my purse back down on the table. More out of old habit than intention, I stepped forward and took his hand, gently pulling him out onto the dance floor where there was a space. Now that we were away from the light a bit more it was harder to make out his expression, but I didn't need to see the look on his face to know how he was feeling.

He was still all tensed up. Even when he wrapped his arms around my waist and I rested the palms of my hands against his well-muscled chest he was acting like he was on edge, like he was wary of being so close to me. A soft sigh slipped from my lips before I could help it. "You don't have to be so tense," I murmured, closing my eyes and moving just a little bit closer so I could rest my head on his chest, too. "Relax." I could tell he made a real effort to do so. He took a deep breath and let it out, tightening his hold on me just a fraction. Moment by moment, the tension began to leave him, and soon we were relaxed into one another and things were much more comfortable.

A few seconds of silence passed, and I didn't feel the need to speak. After all this time, I was finally back in the one place I had always wanted to be – in his arms. It was him who spoke first, deep voice reverberating through his chest even though he was speaking quietly. "I didn't know you were coming," he whispered, and still his tone wasn't the one I'd loved so much to hear him use. I held in another sigh, instead settling for just closing my eyes a little more firmly. He wasn't mine anymore, I reminded myself, and tried to ignore the painful ache in my chest. I took my time in replying.

My right hand rested on the exposed white shirt and black tie where his jacket was open at the top, and beneath my fingertips I could feel the steady beating of his heart. The sound was soothing and familiar in my ear, causing me to unwillingly remember happier times. The times when he used to speak to me like a lover, when touching me hadn't made him uncomfortable and my presence had made him feel whole. The times when our hearts would beat perfectly in sync. Finally, I breathed an apology in reply. "I'm sorry for turning up out of the blue," I told him, and I was. How could I not be? My heart, mind, body, soul – they were all his. I hated anything that caused him discomfort or inconvenience. Even myself. Especially myself.

"I just couldn't stay away." Did he appreciate my honesty? Did he feel the heat that filled every part of me, now, at his touch? Did he understand how much it hurt to have to ask him the question I was about to voice?

I was drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. He had been a light in my life through the darkest years; he had been my saviour.

Still, I didn't have a choice. I took a shallow breath of air, feeling as though I was on the brink of falling off the edge of the world. I needed...I needed to know...

"Is it true?" The voices and people in the background were blurred together, indistinguishable, unimportant. There was only he and I, his still slightly hesitant hands on my back and my cheek against his chest, trying desperately to memorise his scent, the feel of his arms around me, the soft sound of his breathing...An inexplicable electricity held my body prisoner as we swayed gently to the music. I could feel his eyes on me and his body tense once more at my question, but I remained unmoving, eyes still closed.

"Is what true?" he asked, sounding wary and puzzled.

Unwanted tears filled my eyes, the only physical sign of the pain I felt inside. But I held them in. Now was not the moment to break. I had only minutes, if not moments, with him.

With what felt like an enormous effort, I swallowed down the lump in my throat long enough to answer his question. "I heard...I heard that you're married, now." I left the statement to hang awkwardly in the air between us. I was already sure of the answer, but I needed to hear him say it. Needed to hear him voice it, so that when I looked back on this moment in years to come I would know that he had at least, at the very least, been honest with me. His reply was a moment or two in coming. Finally, I felt him give the tiniest of sighs.

"I met her at the garage where I was working," he answered quietly. "It's been six years this month."

I said nothing, did nothing. I had no right to tears, I told myself. I had no right to cry when I had helped to cause this in the first place.

And I would hate myself for it, always.

"She's not here," I commented, certain that I would have seen them together if she was, my voice even quieter still because of the pain and despair that was gripping my heart. Suffocating me, slowly, the way my love for him had done so every day since I realised that it was love. The one unfaltering, untainted thing in my life, and it was killing me.

"She's at home..." he replied, and for a split second I thought I felt his arms tighten almost imperceptibly around me. "...looking after the kids. They weren't feeling very well." The tension left him again, and I could picture his features relaxing and softening in my mind. But, in true Leah Clearwater fashion, my own expression never changed.

On the outside I was nonchalant, a perfect mask of indifference. On the inside I was a broken mess. The scars on my heart were open and bleeding, the parts that dared to exist for any other reason than him withered and dying, while the pieces that would chain me to him forever remained whole. I was falling apart at the seams, after all these years. "How old are they?" The whisper slipped from my lips before I could stop it, and I cursed myself for being so weak. For wishing so badly that I could wear his ring. Have his children. Again, he hesitated.

"Three and one," was his eventual answer.

I was trying so desperately to hold it together that I didn't risk moving, didn't dare to do so much as whisper in reply. I was unravelling, crumbling so fast that keeping my mask under control was becoming close to impossible. There was another stretch of silence that seemed to last forever, though it could only have been seconds in the reality that I was trying so hard to come to terms with. Behind my closed eyelids flickered images of russet-skinned, dark-haired children, the family we could have had if I hadn't ruined everything. He was relaxed, now, but I sensed his uneasiness, and it only added to the pain burning through my chest at the thought of him kissing and holding and loving another woman, of his hands on her and his happiness at knowing he would be with her, always. Until death do them part.

"That's...wonderful." I tried not to trip over the words, hoping I sounded like I meant them but knowing that I couldn't possibly. "Congratulations."

Through the pain that was tearing my damaged soul to pieces, I couldn't tell if my heart was still beating or not. I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to be. All these years he had been in my thoughts, had had my love, but he wasn't mine. The heart he'd once given to me belonged to her, now. She was the one who got to wear his ring, call herself his wife, bear his children and know that he loved her more than his own life. She was the woman who was allowed to spend long nights with him, and wake up next to his perfect form every morning. Not me. Never again would that be me.

"Leah, you don't have to pretend that you're okay with this – " he began suddenly, an unnameable emotion in his voice, but I forced myself to speak and interrupted before he could continue.

"It's alright," I lied, trying to reassure him. Thankfully my voice remained steady, calm. "It is. I understand. Things are different now..." I trailed off as talking started to become increasingly difficult. Blinking a few times to clear my eyes of tears, I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat and convinced myself not to glance up at him. I couldn't look at him, not now. Seeing pity in his eyes would destroy me. Instead I closed my eyes once more, preferring the reassuringly isolating darkness to the scenes of love and happiness that filled the room around us.

His body shook just a little as he shook his head. "No," he replied, sounding firm but not annoyed. "It's not alright. I...I can tell that you still...after all this time..." He took a deep breath in, and it came out as a slow, soft sigh. "I'm so sorry, Leah," he tried again. "I'm sorry that you had to find out this way. I'm sorry that you've had to stay...that you still...love me." A fresh jolt of pain shot momentarily though me at his words. He knew. He knew, but it didn't change anything. "I'm sorry that you still feel that way, when I don't lo – "

"Don't say it." My plea was murmured and sudden, abrupt enough to make him stop speaking completely. "Don't say it," I repeated, this time in a whisper. "I know that you...I know. And I do understand." I swallowed hard again, fighting to keep the tears at bay. "But please, please don't make me hear you say it. I can't hear you say it, I...please."

Falling for him had been the best thing that ever happened to me, in the beginning. Now, though, it was slow, bittersweet torture. Destroying me from the inside out.

My pleading seemed to work. He fell silent again, and I concentrated on keeping my breathing even. I should have expected this, anticipated it. I was Leah Clearwater. I wasn't good enough, wasn't...wasn't deserving enough to be allowed love. Allowed happiness. If I was a better daughter, sister, cousin, then maybe...but I wasn't those things. And I'd never known it more than in the weeks that had followed the end of...of him and me. He left La Push so suddenly that I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. Everything was falling apart around me, and soon it was too hard to ignore the comments of the Pack, their pitying thoughts at my being broken again, the disappointed looks that I caught in my mother's eyes. I left to escape. I left to forget.

But you can't run from your past. It had haunted me all these years I'd been away, and now it had finally caught up with me. Allowing me to cling onto him and have just these few, short minutes. Knowing that, though his feelings for me had long since faded away, he was still my only reason for continuing on. For enduring the loneliness, and the knowledge that I would always be so, all my life.

My dreams were my one source of relief and comfort. There I could smile and be truly content, spend time with the wonderful husband and beautiful children that I would never have. The family that, one day, might have become a reality. Had things happened differently.

An iron hand around my chest was choking the air from me, making it harder to breathe, but I no longer cared. My time was limited – every second was precious. "Imagine the possibilities," I began in a low murmur, almost as if I was talking to myself. "Imagine...we could be married...we could have a family..." My fragile soul's deepest desires drifted to the forefront of my mind, where they were never allowed to be, before I could help it. Regret and guilt crashed down on me like a wave as the knowledge of what I had been stupid enough to give up brought down the last of my defences, and I was overcome.

The tears finally spilled over and ran, burning and bitter, down my cheeks, my heart thudding as if it was trying to outrun the agony that engulfed it like darkness swallows the sun. I turned and hid my face in his shirt while my hands closed just a little tighter on the fabric of his jacket. In my newly shattered state, he was everywhere. He was all I could feel, all I could see in my mind, and his steady breathing blurred into the rhythm of the soft piano notes in the background. This was the moment that I had been waiting for. The moment where I turned finally to dust and disappeared into the wind, nothing more than a shadow of my former self. The ghost of a woman broken too many times.

He held me tightly, and for that I was grateful. We had always promised that we would die in one another's arms.

How could we have known that only one of us would keep that promise?

When he spoke his voice was unsteady and desperate, full of a guilt that he didn't need to feel. But I heard the undertones clearly. I wasn't the love of his life anymore. I was just another wounded woman that couldn't gather the strength to let him go.

"Leah, I – "

"Say my name," I whispered, begging now. "Say my name the way you used to when you were mine. When we made love outdoors in the summer and lay awake planning our lives together. Say my name the way you used to when you loved me." I stopped before my voice cracked, taking a quiet, shuddering breath. Everything seemed still, and I didn't dare to breathe while I waited. This one thing...it was all I would ask, if he would just grant me this one moment. I heard him swallow, felt his hot breath on my ear. It was all I could do to try and fight the tears that were already falling. Then all at once his grip tightened and I felt a different, liquid warmth fall on the exposed area of my neck, and he gave in to my request.

"Leah," he whispered, and my chest ached with a deeper burn of pain. "Leah."

A sob escaped me, quiet but forceful enough to make my body give a small jerk in his embrace. "Jacob," I replied in barely more than a breath, and then my ability to speak was gone. I trembled and sobbed into his shirt as more of his tears fell on my skin, wishing I was numb or in shock or dead. Anything, I would rather be anything else than have to endure this torture. I would rather he killed me than have to know that he didn't want me anymore.

While I wept , Jacob tried to calm himself. He took a deep breath, letting it out as a half-sob before swallowing again. "Do you remember what I said?" he asked in a whisper, and his voice was less hoarse and regaining its usual huskiness. "Do you remember what I told you, that day after we...after it was over?" I swallowed, slowing my now silent sobs gradually, but said nothing. He continued anyway. "Sometimes it lasts in love," Jacob breathed, and my shattered heart clenched painfully in my chest. "But sometimes...sometimes it hurts instead."

I remembered. I remembered it as clearly as I remembered the look that had appeared in his eyes when he registered what I had said next through the tears that been running down my cheeks. "And I told you," I whispered, managing to find my voice. "That I would find someone like you." He nodded, and I knew what he was trying to tell me. He had found a woman like me, and it had lasted. He wanted me to forget about what we had been, and find someone like him. I didn't waste my breath on telling him that I wouldn't.

There would never be another man like him. I felt it, sensed it deep in my soul. Jacob was it, for me. I would always be his.

The atmosphere around us was changing. I turned my head again, opening my eyes, and even in the darkness could just make out figures standing and looking our way. Most of them were unnaturally tall. My time was up.

I would not cause trouble for him; he was a married man, and I wouldn't allow rumours to circulate because he had been seen dancing with a woman who was not his wife. I wouldn't let his wife be put through the worry and heartache of wondering if Jacob's heart didn't really belong entirely to her. And I wouldn't let his children grow up questioning their father's love. I had had my chance, and I had thrown it away. And this was the price I had to pay. "I have to go," I breathed, knowing that he would still hear me. "I...I don't think..." Determined to say the words, I swallowed and tried again. "I don't think that it would be a good idea to see one another again, Jacob. You...your family...it wouldn't be right. And I wouldn't...I can't..."

He saved me from myself by nodding, just once. A dull throb of anguish coursed through me as he lessened his hold slowly, eventually letting go altogether. I forced myself to take a step back, away from his comforting familiarity, and wiped at my eyes even though it wouldn't really make much of a difference in the darkness of the spot where we stood. I refused to look at him until his large, warm hand reached out and touched my face. Jacob softly ran his fingertips over my skin, brushing away my tears with the pad of his thumb. His touch sent a pleasant shiver through me, and I couldn't help myself; I looked up and met his dark, pain-filled chocolate eyes, gently covering his hand with my own.

"Don't forget me," I found myself whispering, and the desperation in my voice was plain even to my own ears. "I wish...I hope that you'll be very happy, Jacob...but please, don't forget me."

"Never," he murmured back, his hand leaving my face to take the hand that I had placed on his. "But Leah, you...I know that..."

"I'll find someone like you," I finished for him, so quietly that only he would hear, as one last tear escaped and I tried to memorise his face. I studied his perfect russet skin, his oh-so familiar lips and then his troubled, soul-searching eyes, and I wished that I could drown in them. I would rather spend an eternity lost in their depths than have to suffer without him.

And then the piano notes were slowing and I broke our gaze, my eyes sliding shut once again and my heart starting to thud faster as the inevitable finally happened. I had to let him go. His, "Goodbye, Leah," echoed in my mind long after it left his lips, my breath catching in my throat as my chest constricted with pain and raw grief.

Even after this was over, I would still love him. Always.

And then the music faded into silence, and the warmth disappeared from my skin as his fingers slipped so easily from my own. A moment later, I opened my eyes.

Light filled the suddenly cold room, and he was gone.

*Heart breaks* I know, I know - another angsty one? Why! Because this is what the song inspired in me :L Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it and I'd love to hear what you think of it, so leave me a review and let me know! :] xx