Shuffle Me Silly

I don't own any of this, all belongs to SMeyer, and the artists listed below. And the title is a song by Lynn Anderson.

SOMEDAY WHEN I STOP LOVING YOU - CARRIE UNDERWOOD

That has already happened, she would say to herself.

She never thought about Sam Uley anymore, or hardly ever.

Well, it didn't count as thinking about him if you were trying not to, she decided. Thinking about someone was active, you had to try to do it, you had to want to.

And since she never thought about him, it was a clear sign that she had moved on. June eighteenth, she decided, was the official date of her not having any emotional feelings towards him, which, conveniently, was the date of his wedding.

She sang to herself, as she stood not four feet away from Sam at an altar, an altar that was supposed to be hers. While Emily walked down an aisle that was supposed to be hers. On a day that was supposed to belong to her. She sang louder…

"Does anybody have any reason to object to this union?" "…desert floods and grass turns blue…"

During the reception, she went out back with her friendly flask, and took a couple of swigs. She felt him before she saw him.

"Emily really appreciates that you came." His voice was low. She stayed quiet.

"I know it must have been hard for you…"

"It wasn't." She spoke up. "I had already done my laundry so today was open." Then she addressed what she knew Sam meant. "I've moved on Sam, I don't need your pity." Her lips stayed firmly pressed together as she smiled, and left.

Leah stepped around the corner, feeling for some reason, that Leah-Is-Over-Sam-Day, it didn't quite turn out how she expected. And that there was a hole in her chest, that couldn't be healed, only covered.

REPTILIA - THE STROKES

The water felt cool, even to her, which wasn't surprising, given it was the middle of January and all.

She waded in a little further, until it was up to her knees, she got goose bumps all over her bare back. Whether it was from the temperature, or the fact she was in control this time she wasn't sure.

Leah breathed in the air, four, she counted. Leah had started at twenty. The water rippled behind her.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked her.

"Do you want me to tell you the story, because…you know it's not boring." She sang out the last part, only able to see Sam's eyes roaming her body because of her enhanced eyesight. It was funny, that the very genes that had ruined her life allowed her to do anything at all.

She smiled, feeling wicked. Even with Sam there, she was in control.

Three, she breathed in again.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" He demanded, actually having the audacity to sound mad.

"Hmm." She only said, laughter at the edge of her voice. Two. She was having a hard time keeping track of her breathing, since she was talking to Sam.

Her muscles tensed, getting ready for what she was about to do.

One. And done.

Leah dove into the water, without all of the theatrical arches, just propelling herself as deep as possible, as quickly as possible.

She knew Sam would come in after her, he always did. He did the year before, and the year before that. He was the reason she came here in the first place. He had killed her metaphorically, but he wouldn't let her kill herself in the technical sense.

That's the problem with drowning, it's never fast enough.

PAPER PLANES - M.I.A

"Swear to god, if you make another one of those, I will fucking kill you." Leah said to John.

"But it's my dad's store." He whined, throwing another paper plane, that this time, instead of hitting her in the side of the head, went winding neatly around the pole of the number of her register, before landing of the cash box itself.

"Like. I. Give. A. Fuck." She said, and she didn't. This job was just an excuse to get out of patrols. To get away from a certain alpha in particular.

"You know one of these days…"

"You'll stop porking other men in the ass?" Which was enough to shut John up, only a few employees knew John invited his "friends" to the store's supply closet on slow days.

An older lady stepped up to Leah's cash register. She was missing her left canine tooth, and had lines that you only get from experience. She was skinny, but far from scrawny.

"Hello." Leah said, smiling slightly. The woman only nodded, and Leah realized that she was only about fifty.

She was buying a bag of marshmallows, a bottle of Tylenol and fifty pound thing of cat liter.

"Are you going to need help carrying this out?" Leah asked.

Ka-ching. The register went, as she finished the order.

The woman shook her head, and walked out.

Even through the middle aged fat chick buying condoms, the three thirteen year old boys who ogled her boobs, not much of a sight though the polyester vest, and John's fuck-buddy, Leah still thought of that woman.

She wondered about what had happened in her life, how she got to look so weathered, so old before her time. If maybe her boyfriend had left her for her cousin, then her dad died, and then she became a werewolf.

Definitely possible, because how that woman looked like, that was how Leah figured that was how her soul looked like. That the young woman she saw in the mirror was a lie.

That she was just passing for someone else.

Leah was passing off as a normal person, when inside she was just a cracked mess.

When inside she felt completely dead, not like buried dead.

Like she didn't care, like she was an emotionless…thing.

When all she wanted was to just be, if she couldn't be with Sam, then she wanted to be alone.

Ka-ching. She processed the next order then the next.

Ka-ching.

GIVE ME THE MELTDOWN - ROB THOMAS

It will happen. It will, it has too. She says, the sink's still spraying water in her face. She tries to turn the wrench, but the damn thing wouldn't…quite. She gave it one last tug.

"Hah!" She called triumphantly, but no, the washer thingy has just snapped, and Niagara Falls had relocated to her kitchen.

It was her father, who had taken care of this type of shit before. Or it was…well it was him. But since one was dead, and the other engaged, and Seth had about as much aptitude for plumbing as he had for nuclear sciences, Leah was left to take care of it.

"Hello?" Someone says from the doorway, and she knows, because she's Leah and he's him, she knows that it's Sam.

"You okay down there?"

"No, my monkey just died." She says, let him puzzle that one out.

"Sink's broken?" He asks, ignoring what she said, crouching down next to her.

"No I'm just installing a shower." Because this type of emotion is easier for her than the alternative. She continued trying to do something with the pliers she was now holding, but not exactly sure what to do.

"Do you want me to fix it?" He asks again.

Leah doesn't say anything. Mostly because he could be referring to so many different things. "Nope. I am doing just…fine…FUCK." That would have been a lot more convincing if she hadn't have happened to clamp her index finger with the pliers instead.

She stood up, and threw the demon tool away from her, as to avoid causing any more damage.

Which would have, again, gone a lot better if she hadn't thrown them through the window.

Leah was never one for a graceful meltdown.

CLEAN GETAWAY - MARIA TAYLOR

The music in the club was turned way up. It was a pack bonding night, in other words the thing that cause Leah to think that suicide should be made legal.

She was standing in the doorway, scoping the whole piece of shit night out.

Sam and the rest of the guys had a table, and were ordering drinks. And a lot of them because it took a lot for a werewolf to get drunk. There were plenty of girls floating around the table. Too bad, Jacob, Quil, Paul and the alpha were already in relationships.

Yeah, too bad for the women and for Leah.

She went out to the dance floor, she knew it wasn't going to be long before she was swarmed. She wore tight jeans, and a small, very small, black tank top. But this was the reason why she agreed to come to this "blast", because there was a second, every time, there was a second when she would agree to go home with whichever guy was dancing with her and she would feel him watching.

She could feel Sam's disapproval from across the room, over the railing, behind her, or whatever it may be. And, though she hadn't ever brought it up with him, though she knew he had imprinted and was happy with someone else, part of that disapproval was spawned right from jealously.

And jealously meant you cared. And Leah needed him to care.

This time it was Josh/Jason/John something who whispered the five most common words at these sleazy clubs. "Let's get out of here."

"Alright." She nodded, breathing hard into his ear, she could practically feel his boner from here.

They walked out to his car, she risked a glance back at the table, and Sam was staring at her. She looked forward and smiled just a little. Because, right now, she was free, she had made her clean getaway from Sam.

What's-His-Name was pulling out of the parking lot when she directed him to the left. "My place." Was all she said, not bothering to tell him he wouldn't be staying there as well.

They drove in silence. And it felt like it took a long time to get home.

When they pulled up into the yard Leah opened her door, and as her driver was going for his she shook her head.

"No, thanks for the ride though. Have a nice life, asshole." She waved a blew a kiss, he drove off, damning her to hell. Which was better than some of the others, with whom it had almost gotten physical. Guys didn't take well to rejection in the first place, and when you dangled it right in front of them before snatching it away, they got especially pissed off.

Leah went on to the porch, and stopped short of her door. That familiar burning was in her thought, and that fuzziness behind her eyes. She tried to inhale, but wasn't getting air.

It was one of those times that she knew she was supposed to be with Sam right then. Not in the future they were in now, but in the one they had planned, the one she had been promised. They were supposed to be together, being together.

But they weren't, and Leah was lucky, because she had made it, she had made her clean getaway.

"But I miss you." She whispered. "I miss you every single day."

DRESS UP PARTY - ONE FOR THE TEAM

Leah was literally in hell, or at least her hell, because it was her least favorite place in the world, and that, she was sure, was never going to change.

It was Sam and Emily's house, and reminders of their love was everywhere.

Pictures of them holding hands, and kissing and hugging and looking like overall douche bag fucktards plastered the house.

Their stuff was just…everywhere, and it screamed that it was their stuff, in their house, due to their happy never-ending-couldn't-be-better relationship.

It was like the tenth circle Dante didn't dare to write about.

Leah wandered around the house, because no matter how much it hurt her, it pissed Sam off. And she figured she wouldn't like it here no matter what was going on, and she had to be there for pack meetings, so she may as well enjoy Sam's unhappiness a little.

She walked down the hallway she had yet to explore, and went into the small room at the end of it.

It looked like a study of some kind, and she guessed from the Quileute: A History and Deciphering Native Legends, that it was Sam's study.

She opened up the second one, checking all of the pages he had dog eared.

There was one about the cold ones, one about the protectors, and a more specific category in that one, imprinting. Leah thought she felt some vital organ drop a couple of feet.

When one 'protector' imprints on another it is as if they have found their other half…

…other relationships at the time are inconsequential, the bond will break all other ties…

…is permanent, even after phasing stops…

Leah stopped, and read twice, what Sam had highlighted and underlined, just to make sure she wasn't misunderstanding it.

There is no way to break the imprint, once it has taken hold.

Leah quickly shut the book, causing one of the papers that was face down on Sam's desk to flutter on to the floor, Leah reached down to pick it up.

It was her and Sam, a couple of weeks before he…before he left.

She was wearing one of her three dresses, and he was dressed up as well. They were standing in front of a movie theater smiling. Leah remembered some annoying old guy had insisted to take the picture, and then he would mail it to them, since he was an "aspiring amateur photographer, and it would be great to get the practice!" Smiles and nods enthusiastically.

Leah forgot all about it, since it didn't come before Emily had.

But apparently Sam didn't.

Leah set the book back were it was, and the picture laying down on the desk in it's place.

She went into the living room, unnoticed by anyone, and took a seat on the sidelines, while Sam called the meeting to order.

But she never heard anything he said, she only had her heart, hammering in her ears.

EAZY SPEAKS - APOSTLE OF THE HUSTLE

Could he have broken it? Sam didn't know, he really didn't.

He never thought to, right after he imprinted. He thought about how much he was hurting Leah, but he mostly thought about Emily. He thought about how much he loved Emily, how much he wanted to be with Emily.

But now Leah was in the pack, and he couldn't help but ask himself that question, could he have broken the imprint if he had tried, if he had really tried, could he have made it work with Leah?

Because now he shared her mind, and although she hid everything almost completely, and it was completely from the other guys, he could still see it there, her suffering. The suffering he had caused, so was there a chance he might have prevented it?

Without hindsight, you're blind, he thought. It never occurred to him, that he could try and break the imprint, that he should have tried.

But now, it was all he thought about, how he should have tried harder.

It was just easier not to.

And now it was too late, because he was with Emily, who was pregnant, and they were happy. So happy.

The only person who wasn't was Leah.

And that small part of Sam, the part that was still Leah's, the part that should have fought for Leah. The part that Sam never deserved to have.

HOSPITAL BEDS - COLD WAR KIDS

It was not the first time Leah had been to the hospital. This time it was because she had jumped into the water too many times from the highest point on the cliff.

She was nearly killing herself and didn't notice. But this family camping did, they pulled her out of the water and called 911, telling them to hurry, hurry up because she's almost drowned and was burning up.

Of course Leah was completely healed after about two hours, but they were keeping her there for overnight observation.

When Leah woke up there was a heart monitor going, but no temperature was displayed, Leah refused to let them take it, because she didn't quite know how she would get out of that one.

She blinked a couple of times, before she saw Sam sitting across from here. The only person who had come. He looked tired, and different. Maybe because he was actually wearing clothes, a long sleeved shirt and jean pants, as opposed to cutoffs.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him, her throat was still a little hoarse from all the salt water.

"I could ask you the same question."

"I was just…having fun." She said, there was no way she was about to try and defend herself to Sam.

"You could have been hurt Leah…"

"That's already happened." She snapped, then looked down at her hands.

Rule number one for surviving your ex-boyfriends rule as alpha werewolf was to never show him the full, or any for that matter, extent of the damage he had done.

"One day Leah, you'll meet someone else, and you'll be happy, happier then you ever were with me." He said it slowly, and looked down the whole time.

This was the closest they had ever gotten to talking about the past, usually it was just the snide remark from Leah, and Sam, telling all the other guys to just "back off". Each of them avoiding talking directly to the other.

"Right." She said, rolling her eyes.

"You will." He said it, not sure of who he was trying to convince.

I doubt it.

Even at their most honest, even when they were the only ones there, everything between them was left unsaid. The joy and misery.

MERCY - ONEREPUBLIC

Leah was dreaming, she knew, because she was crying. And she never cried, not when Sam left, not when her dad died, not even at his stupid ass wedding.

But here, she was balling, she was outside, she was fairly sure. It was bright, so bright she couldn't really see anything, but it was a safe place, a fortress.

She was waiting for him to come, because he always did, he always tried to help her, he was an angel, he told her, so it was his job.

But he was her dad, so it has always been his job.

"Dad?" She called, between the sobs.

He appeared, he wasn't wearing robes, didn't have any of those stupid wings, he was wearing his plaid shirt and had a fishing vest over it, with his old cap on his gray head.

"Leah." He said quietly sitting down. "Do you see that?" There wasn't anything there, until he pointed, and then there was a grassland, with a giant dip in the middle. "Do you know that used to be a lake, until one winter it got so cold, so quick that-"

"Dad," She interrupted. "You don't need to quote Fried Green Tomatoes to me, I have seen the movie, and I know it's your favorite."

He had always acted like Sue made him watch it, but one day Leah got home from school early, and he had it on the television, with a Kleenex box on his lap.

Her dad only coughed. "How've you been, Lee-…Leah." He amended, remembering what the nickname did to her.

Leah tried to wipe the tears from her face but they kept coming.

"I hurt Dad." She admitted. "All the time, I hurt. All the time."

"Shhh." He patted her on the back.

She leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I miss you." She said.

"I miss you too." He patted her once again. "How can I help, hmm? How can I fix this?"

"You can't." She sighed, knowing it was true. "Because it can't be fixed, and because you left me."

Harry frowned.

"I know, you didn't want to, but you did. And you know what Dad? It's really shit that I am always the one being left behind. I think it's my fault, that I'm just really messed up or something."

"It wasn't you Leah, it was the-"

"Imprinting, right. But there had to be a reason, that he didn't imprint on me. A reason it wasn't me."

And to that Harry couldn't say anything, because his daughter like this, it was a tragedy.

Leah woke with a jolt. It was dreams like this that left her unsettled, it was like getting a taste of what she had lost, and a taste of what it would be like to mourn it.

To actually be able to move on.

EVERYBODY LOVES ME - ONEREPUBLIC

She swayed her hips to the music, her hands above her head, and everybody was watching her.

Everybody loves me. She thought, and they did. She was beautiful, untamed and free. She was dancing, and she was just that girl, that girl that everyone was looking at.

The one that the girls wanted to be, and they guys wanted to be with.

But there was one guy, he wasn't there and he wasn't watching, and that's why she was dancing.

Swish, swish, snap.

She was the type of beautiful that the guys didn't even dare to join her, that the girls didn't even dare to try and outdo her. She was the one everybody's minds would be on, even days after everyone had left.

Leah had learned to come to the club, without the pack, because she got attention there, she felt wanted, and they didn't know her. They didn't look at her like the girl who got dumped on her ass for her cousin.

The girl's whose dad died.

The girl whom had lost everything.

There she was just a girl. A girl who had options and who could do anything, and get anybody she wanted.

Swish, swish, snap.

Everybody loves me.

Because nobody knows me.