This was written really late last night right after I first heard "Scared" by Three Days Grace (the best band in the entire world, mmkay), because I decided it was a really good song and it totally seemed to fit my idea of what Leah must've felt like right after she phased. This is my first songfic ever, so it probably sucks. So constructive criticism would be appreciated, kthxbai. :D I have a really lame pun somewhere in here, too. Mm-hmm. Oh, and keep in mind that this is practically just after when Leah first phased, and she hadn't been in Sam's head for two years or so, and so she's not as bitter and tough and everything as she was in the books. And so she's a little more prone to being scared and crying and stuff. Uh. Yeah. Also, this is not in Circles 'cause it's not less than 1,000 words (dude, it's 2k+ words), the length I like my drabbles to be, and it's a songfic, not a drabble (ha). So. Review, please?
Leah's heart thumped.
Thanks to her new, oversensitive werewolf hearing, she heard it thump, a loud, wet pulse that seemed to echo throughout the room in time with the blood rushing through her ears.
Of course, that might have been just her imagination. Lying flat on your back in the dark, with all the lights out, blankets thrown off, skin burning, it was hard to reign in your imagination and keep it from running wild. Leah failed at that, and so run wild her imagination did.
At night I hear it creeping
It was raining, which only added to the fear factor. Something howled in the night―a wild animal? A member of her new pack? The wind? Or… something else? One of the "cold ones," the vampires, bloodsuckers, leeches, parasites she'd been told about?
At night I feel it move
She realized she wasn't the same anymore. She wasn't the same Leah who had slept in the same bed for the past almost-twenty years, the same Leah who had sat at the same desk in the same room, which currently looked grotesquely misshapen in the dark, the same Leah who had lived here… The room, the bed, even the sheets below her body, felt different now.
I'll never sleep here anymore
But there was nothing different about the room. Only she was different.
The werewolf gene ran through the blood in her veins, her cells, her DNA. She still remembered Sam's voice, hoarse and husky, telling her that; his voice, just as she'd imagined it―what, a thousand times?―after he'd disappeared for two weeks and then came back broken and haunted, after he'd left her for her favorite cousin… "imprinting," she now knew it was called. Something to do with the werewolf genes well.
I wish you never told me
I wish I never knew
She'd just had a dream about that. No, a nightmare. It was the reason she was unable to fall back asleep now. A large black wolf had been glaring at her from the dark of the shadows in the forest. Its eyes had been red. Leah knew it was Sam, and that his eyes weren't really red, but the nightmare had portrayed them that way, and looking into those unfathomable, dark, blank pools in the dream, she'd been scared, so scared…
I wake up screaming
It's all because of you
And there was so much more to the whole "werewolf" thing, besides just the fact that she now had the ability to burst into a gigantic wolf at will, and when she got too angry… she had to control her temper. Something she'd never been good at.
Now, apparently, every time she was a wolf, her thoughts would be heard. By everybody. In the pack. Who was a wolf at that current time. And that included Sam.
So real, these voices in my head
Sam, the leader of the little "pack" she was now in. So that had been why he'd disappeared for two weeks. No wonder he'd looked so drained, so dead after he'd come back…
And then he'd imprinted on Emily.
When it comes back, you won't be
Scared and lonely
Now he had someone to share his fears, his worries, his life with. And that someone was not Leah.
You won't be scared, you won't be
You won't be scared and lonely
Now Leah was condemned to the same fate, and she did not have someone to share it with. Sam had Emily. Sam could deal with the pressure, the requirements for his job. Leah could not, and now she had to see his… fulfillment… every day, in his mind.
You won't be scared, you won't be lonely
It was like a living nightmare.
The wind shrieked again outside, rustling and whipping through the trees. Rain pitter-pattered still, soft, darting footsteps, hitting the ground without a care in the world. Leah thought she could detect something else creeping out there, something coming to get her…
I know there's something out there
I think I hear it move
Her heart thrummed again in what seemed to be fear, and her pulse throbbed. Leah touched it, gently, willing herself to calm down, and marveled yet again at how hot her skin was, not to mention how hard it was to kill her now. It was such a strange feeling, running around on temperatures that should have killed her, nearly indestructible, and it only served to make her feel alive, more alive than she'd ever felt in her life, but it wasn't a good thing…
I've never felt like this before
Yet again, she cursed her blood, her body for doing this to her. It was the damn werewolf genes. Genes she'd gotten from… her father, apparently…
I wish you never told me
I wish I never knew
Her father. He'd seen her change into a wolf and had died from the shock. A heart attack.
It was her fault her father was dead.
I wake up screaming
It's all because of you
It's your fault, a nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispered. Your fault your father died. He could've lived longer, but you killed him.
"No," Leah whispered back, but her voice sounded weak and unconvincing, even to her own ears. "He… they said he had a bad heart…"
The voice sounded amused at her pathetic attempt to defend herself. You can't really believe that. It's just your fault, Leah Clearwater. It's your fault. Your fault.
So real, these voices in my head
It was her fault her father was dead, and now she had been properly punished for it. No more boyfriend, except an ex who loved her ex-favorite cousin (and she loved him back), no more private thoughts, no more girl friends because she couldn't keep a healthy relationship with them when she couldn't even tell them the truth, a body that had betrayed her…
Sam was good. He was the alpha. He was the leader of the pack. He protected innocents. He didn't deserve any punishment, and he hadn't gotten any.
When it comes back, you won't be
Scared and lonely
You won't be scared, you won't be
You won't be scared and lonely
You won't be scared, you won't be lonely
No. Sam had left her. He'd broken her heart―no, he'd pulled it out of her chest, stomped on it a few times, and then thrust it back in. He deserved at least some punishment… but he hadn't gotten any. Fate was cruel and unfair.
"It's all your fault, Fate," Leah said out loud into the menacing darkness of her room.
It's all because of you
Why did Fate have to write her life story like this? Why did Fate have to tell her life story like this? It probably had an audience, too, thousands of little minions called Misery and Grief and Sadism and the like, all laughing and jeering at poor little (not so little anymore: she was a freakishly tall werewolf now) Leah Clearwater down there on earth, poor little Leah Clearwater who had gotten the short end of the stick in the long run.
I wish you never told me
I wake up screaming now
She didn't deserve this punishment. Yes, she had killed her father, but there were plenty of murderers and rapists and arsonists and thieves and hell, bloodsuckers out there who lived happy, rich, successful lives. Why did she have to be punished so grievously when they were free?
So real, these voices in my head
Your fault, Leah Clearwater, your fault, the voice in the back of her mind whispered again, and Leah could've sworn it was Fate itself.
So real, these voices in my head
She saw the giant black wolf with the red eyes in her mind again, and choked back a sob. Why did she have to see these things? Why did she have to know these things?
I wake up screaming now
I wish you never told me
I wish I never knew
Leah realized she was more scared than she'd ever been in her life before, and that included when she'd first phased, disoriented and lost and confused and wondering why she'd just seen her father staring at her in shock and horror and why there was dozens of shouting voices in the back of her mind…
Scared and lonely
Back then, it had just been confusion. She'd been too confused to feel anything other than… confusion.
You won't be scared, you won't be
Now that three days had passed, three days of confusion and hysteria and explanations, the fright had caught up with her.
You won't be scared and lonely
That was all Fate allowed her. Three days of grace.
You won't be scared, you won't be lonely
And now it was over, the rain beat down on the roof in a sole, lonely rhythm, something prowled in the dark outside, and Leah Clearwater was scared.
Scared and lonely
You won't be scared, you won't be
You won't be scared and lonely
You won't be scared, you won't be lonely
"Scared" by Three Days Grace