Title: My Soul to Keep
Pairing(s): Bonnie/Jacob, Bonnie/Leah, Jacob/Leah, Jacob/Bonnie/Leah, Caroline/Embry, Paul/Rachel, Bonnie/Jeremy (Minor), mentions of Sam/Emily, Edward/Bella, Charlie/Sue, ect.
Prompt: The soulmate you found in this lifetime is different than the one you had in the last one.
Summary: An enchanted dreamcatcher causes Bonnie to relive memories of a past life with one soulmate at the same time she finds the soulmate she's destined to be with in her present life. Bonnie thinks things can't get any more complicated until she realizes that her soulmate from the past has been reincarnated, as a woman. (Canon through Eclipse and TVD 2x22)
Warnings: Language, Sexual Content, Explicit Sexual Content, Imprinting, Pre-Polyamory, Polyamory, ect.
Author's Notes: Okay so this won't be updated for a minute due to Klonnie week monopolizing the rest of my week fic wise but I wanted to post this anyway. This is mostly canon through Eclipse in the Twilight verse some mix between movie and book and its pre-season three of TVD. I used some snippets of one canon convo but I am basically doing what I want so whatever. Lol. If you are reading Metamorphose this is basically so that I am no longer tempted to add Jacob to the mix so that one will remain Edward/Bonnie/Bella. I wanted to do a poly fic and so who else would I choose besides Leah Clearwater by angry angel baby sweetheart. Alright so I went a kind of different way with this and so I hope ya'll like it!
PART ONE || RECOGNITION
A soul mate is not found. A soul mate is recognized. – Vironika Tugaleva
Dewey Beach, Delaware
Bonnie Bennett walked across the sand on the beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The summer would be coming to an end soon and she would miss the calm she had found in the weeks she had stayed at her father's family home on the waterfront. She had been for so long amongst nothing but horror and chaos. It had felt freeing to spend her days lounging on the beach with her cousins and exploring the town around her.
She had stopped calling home after the first week. She'd stopped missing her friends as much after the second. They had stopped retuning her texts after the third and Bonnie had stopped caring if they did after the fourth. Bonnie had even been relieved to let her powers take a back seat for once, at least she had at the beginning of the summer.
The powers of the dead witches she had been channeling were long gone. She still had her own but she was blocked and for some reason, although she could feel them beneath the surface, she still couldn't reach them.
Bonnie sat down in the sand and closed her eyes as she felt the ocean breeze blow through her dark curls. The blue sundress she was wearing, she'd bought shopping with her aunt and her cousins. It was all a distraction at first but she had begun to enjoy the normalcy of it all. Though, her father wouldn't have called it that.
Over the summer Bonnie had discovered the reason behind her father's unease in terms of magic. The reason he had been on edge each time she had spent nights at Sheila Bennett's house before her Grams had died. The reason that he would clench his teeth and walk away whenever her powers were brought up. Even the reason that Rudy had fallen in love with Bonnie's mother in the first place. She had been able to relate to him, he'd thought, he too had a mother that rambled on about the paranormal and the supernatural. He too, had a mother that embarrassed him in front of his friends when he was young that the townsfolk thought was crazy. He too had to live under the stigma brought on by a parent whose beliefs were outside of the norm, who wasn't shy about sharing them with anyone else. He hadn't known until it was too late that Sheila Bennett's ramblings were real and that was a part of what had led to their separation even before Bonnie's mother had left for parts unknown.
Rudy's mother was named, Maiana Crowe-Hopkins. She was a tall muscular woman with thick black hair streaked in gray that curled and hung down her back. She had almond colored skin and dark hazel eyes and a smile that had many of the men in the small Delaware town falling to their knees at the sight of it, even with the odd things that sometimes left her mouth.
Maiana was part black and part Native. Her family had originally come to Delaware with a group of runaway slaves. The fugitive slaves had been harbored by the Nanticoke tribe and integrated into their fold. They had been in the area ever since. Maiana whose name meant, "a woman of great wisdom", still kept some of the Nanticoke traditions and stayed in communication with the tribe that lived in the area. So where Abby had grown up hearing of Salem witches and witch trials and burnings, Rudy had grown up hearing of powwows, learning traditional dances and escorting his mother to ancient rituals and tribal council meetings.
When Rudy had moved to Mystic Falls he had left the past behind him but, apparently Maiana had kept in touch with them and kept tabs with them through Sheila. The women had found more in common than even their children had and at the beginning of the summer when Maiana had caught Bonnie on the deck overlooking the beach pouring over one of her grimoires in search of answers on how to get back in touch with her powers, Bonnie had been quick to cover it up, thinking that her secret was still a secret from the Hopkins family. Maiana had simply sucked her teeth and shook her head.
"If you're blocked, nichan," she said, frowning, "then it's in here," she pointed to her head, "and here," placed a hand over her heart, "There's no book that can help you with that. I don't care how old it is."
Bonnie's eyes had widened in surprise, it wasn't just that Grandma Maiana knew what she was, it was that her words were so much like something Sheila had told her before. It was almost as if her Grams were speaking through her. Her grandmother had laughed at her long and hard. "Young ones always think they know more than everyone else and can keep their secrets better than the rest of the world," Maiana sighed, "One as strong as you needs support. Not the kind from a grimoire. The kind from a counterpart." She studied Bonnie for a long time. "Or maybe more than one. You're too powerful to handle your gifts on your own. Not to worry though, Ketanëtuwit, will send you who you need. Put that away now. Enjoy your summer. Leave the hard stuff to the Great Spirit."
Bonnie hadn't exactly adopted Maiana's set of beliefs but she had decided to take her advice and enjoy the summer. She hadn't looked at a grimoire since. She'd decided to take pleasure in just being free. Being alive. She wanted to enjoy not having to look over her shoulder for the next threat and she had. She had gone swimming, shopping, gone to parties, ate real family dinners with her father and his family, and she had let the events and the terror that Mystic Falls held, slip away for a time.
However, the summer was coming to an end and Bonnie missed her powers. Not because she wanted to rush back home and into her role of the resident witch of Mystic Falls, but because they were a part of her. Because they were her last connection to her Grams. Because without them she wasn't whole.
Maiana had suggested that they go to the Nanticoke Indian Museum and that Bonnie be around their people. "I know your magic is different than our tribal magic and rituals but they may be of more help than your think, nuxwiti," she'd said. It had been fun. She had enjoyed learning the history and being around the artifacts. She'd enjoyed talking to the people and looking at the art. They'd gone to the gift shop before leaving. Most of the merchandise was handmade and handcrafted.
Bonnie hadn't planned on getting anything but then something had caught her eye. A dreamcatcher. It was white and large with beautiful white feathers. She had been eyeing it when she was approached by the woman that had been behind the counter. She was short and stout, her long graying black hair tied back in a braid. "Sometimes we find what we need and sometimes what we need finds us," she smiled up at Bonnie.
Bonnie had smiled back politely. "It's beautiful," she said, "Bigger than the others. Different." The other dreamcatchers near it were colorful and in a variety of sizes but the one that Bonnie had been drawn to was the most elaborately done.
"It's special," the woman told her, "Like any other dream catcher it functions as a talisman to protect people as they sleep from not just bad dreams but evil spirits. The night air is filled with dreams, good and bad. The bad get trapped in the web and the good flow down through the feathers. The night air is also filled with spirits good and bad. The bad are caught in the web and the good, if they see fit, offer blessings to those that sleep. In the morning as the first rays of the sun hit the web the bad disappears and the good shines through. This dream catcher is said to have caught blessings from the Great Spirit himself. Those who sleep under it are said to find their counterparts in their dreams."
Bonnie had remembered what her grandmother had said, her words coming back in that moment. "Counterparts?"
"Soulmates," the woman beamed, "Those we will walk with in this life, and those that we have walked with in others. Our mirrors. Our home. Soulmates expand your capacity to love and be loved. They strengthen you. That is why we connect with them and find them again and again. Some of us have more than one. More than one soul with the power that makes us whole, more than one that we have found over different and many life times. But even then we don't always have the means in which to find them. We sometimes live and die without knowing them and live life after life without finding them again. This dream catcher, is worth much more than the others for that reason. It can give you the gift of sight. The gift of knowing who you are meant for and through dreams, draw them to you."
Bonnie had had to give it to the woman, she had a nice sales pitch. The speech sounded well-rehearsed and as the dream catcher was still there, she was sure it was the most expensive one. They likely had a box just like them in a back room somewhere and they would put a new one out for every gullible tourist that would spend fifty dollars on the "special" one as opposed to getting one of the others for ten or twenty.
Besides that Bonnie didn't expect that she would find a soulmate of any kind no matter what method she was using. It didn't matter what Grandma Maiana chose to believe, Bonnie didn't believe in that particular bit of mysticism. It wasn't that she didn't want to believe it. Every girl did. Every girl wanted there to be that perfect person out there for you, the soul's very counterpart from one life to another. But that wasn't the reality. The reality was that even after bringing him back from the dead Bonnie could barely expect a text back from her own boyfriend back home. The reality was that only girls like Elena got that passionate heady kind of soul wrenching love, even if her story with Stefan had been far from perfect and was now farther away from a happy ending.
Bonnie also wanted to believe that there was something out there that could scare away her nightmares. She still had them, even as the summer passed by. She had nightmares about dying, about the spell that had caused her heart to stop beating when she'd faked her death. She had nightmares about Klaus. She had nightmares about watching her friends die or worse watching them leave her behind. Because Bonnie feared abandonment above all things ever since her mother had left her and she had yet to find anyone that she could truly believe would never leave her.
Even without believing Bonnie had grinned at the woman and given her the fifty dollars for the dreamcatcher. She knew that the people were struggling and that as they were her people, no matter how far back it went or how deluded the bloodline was in this case, she would like Sheila Bennett had taught her, take care of her own.
Being black and Native was just another part of her heritage that Bonnie had spent years not knowing much about outside of what she had learned from her father's rare mentions and the even rarer occasions that she saw his side of the family. She had when she was young, brushed Maiana off in the same way she had Sheila. Now she took pride in it the same way she had the legacy that Sheila Bennett left behind and so she hung the dreamcatcher over her bed in the guest room she was staying in when she had gotten back to her grandmother's three story beachfront home and then she had walked out to the beach.
Bonnie had been there for hours. She'd gotten dinner at a food stand and then she had walked some more. She spent the rest of the day on the beach until it got dark and the night air began to cause goosebumps to rise on her skin. She walked back to her grandmother's house and went straight to her room. She'd wanted one last night of enjoyment and leisure as she was sure the next day it would be back to the grimoires as regaining her powers couldn't be put off for much longer now that the summer was nearly over.
Bonnie showered and then got ready for bed. She looked at the dreamcatcher one last time before shaking her head and climbing under the floral bedsheets. She left the double doors to her balcony open so that the sound of the water could lull her to sleep and turned out the lights. Bonnie closed her eyes and let sleep take her.
:::
La Push Reservation, La Push, Washington
Jacob Black and been gone for over a month. It wasn't that Leah Clearwater was counting the days or anything like that. It was simply that the longer he was gone the more that everyone on the reservation worried, especially Billy Black and the pack. The pack was the worst to deal with because she had to deal with not just her own worries because of Jacob's idiocy but she had to hear the thoughts and the concern of the rest of the pack as well. The crazy thing of it all was, for some reason everyone was waiting for Jacob to make contact with, not his father, or his childhood best friends Embry and Quil, or even with that bitch of a leech lover Bella Swan, they were waiting for him to contact Leah.
The thing was after what had happened after the new born battle, Leah honestly didn't blame them. When Jacob had to go and play hero and get himself a battered ego and shattered bones for his trouble, Leah had given him shit about it, even though it had been for her sake. After that, as he healed, Leah was one of the few people he'd let see him besides Billy and Bella. Then Bella had stopped coming around as much, which didn't surprise Leah at all as Bella had gotten what she needed from Jacob and felt free to reject him in favor of the leech and so it had been up to Leah to sit at his bed side taking care of him in the days that his body had taken to heal even with the accelerated healing.
Leah had admittedly done so out of guilt. She didn't like Jacob. He was immature and could be obnoxious and it was more than a little pathetic the way he turned himself inside out for Bella, but he was pack and she'd watched him grow up even before that. Leah knew all too well that you didn't have to like someone to care about them or even love them. It was the reason that Sam still haunted her and Emily was more like a sister than a cousin to her even now. So, in spite of the surprise from everyone, Leah had held vigil at Jacob's bedside loyally and daily, even when he hadn't particularly wanted her to.
The thing of it is, when you sit with someone who is bedridden for hours, it makes it even more awkward to do so in silence. So after the first initial day of bickering back and forth they'd actually managed to talk. It was the first day that Bella didn't come by and Jacob had been as sullen and depressed as Leah had expected him to be as a result.
Leah sat in a chair besides Jacob's bed and rolled her eyes. In a rare moment of honesty Jacob had murmured. "Sometimes I wish I could just forget her, or that we'd never met."
Leah who had felt his pain and still suffered from her own had nodded. "I know what you mean," she said.
Jacob had smiled up at her weakly. "I know you know," he replied, "I've felt that you know. That's the only reason I said it."
After that things had just gotten easier. Being around someone who understood made Leah feel less alone, even if it didn't take the pain away. When Jacob had gotten well enough to phase, Bella had still been at the forefront of his thoughts and Leah had sighed and given him more shit. "This is making me sick, Jacob. Can you imagine what this feels like to me? I don't even like Bella Swan. And you've got me grieving over this leech-lover like I'm in love with her, too. Can you see where that might be a little confusing? I dreamed about kissing her last night! What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
Jacob had gotten angry at first. They had argued. Leah had pushed too hard and Jacob had gotten upset and pushed back harder. She'd told him all of the things that everyone had told her about Sam. She told him to get over it. Pressed that Bella was going to marry the leech and there was nothing he could do about it. Almost shattered the fragile peace they had been building between them. Jacob railed on her about Sam and she'd stormed off.
Leah had gone to the Blacks a few hours later with a plate full of chocolate chip cookies. "I'm not sorry. I'm still right. Not my fault you're over sensitive." Jacob had laughed and stolen a cookie.
"You were right," Jacob said, "I am sorry." Leah looked at him like he had two heads. She hadn't expected him to be the bigger person. Jacob just shrugged and took another cookie.
They talked after that. They had talked about gender confusion and Bella and Sam and things that Leah had never been able to talk about with anyone else without getting those stupid shitty little looks of pity or feeling pathetic afterwards. She'd told him how she was certain she was barren after the change and that she was sure fate had picked Emily for Sam because she could give him what Leah couldn't.
When Billy had come out to tell them how late it was he almost looked like he was sorry to interrupt. Jacob never really lost that empty look he had taken on as of late unless he was around Leah, even if they were arguing it was better than seeing that flat expression. Leah had said goodnight and Jacob had smiled at her shaking his head. "You're not as much of a hard ass as you want people to believe."
The next day, Jacob had presented her with a dreamcatcher. It was larger than any one she had ever seen and purple, her favorite color. Leah had stared at him eyebrow raised. "It'll scare the nightmares about kissing Bella away," he said, "Shopkeeper said when the shipment came in that these ones were special. Came from a tribe out of state. You'll dream of your soulmate instead."
Jacob was the only one she had mentioned that she had wanted to imprint to. Jacob hated the idea of imprinting, Leah thought it might be freeing. At least she could let go of Sam and finally move on. Jacob had argued against it but she knew in that moment that even if they weren't exactly best friends he respected her point of view and he wanted to see her as she had put it, "Any kind of happy."
The tag on the dreamcatcher said, "Made in Delaware. Nanticoke Nation." Leah had huffed. "How authentic." She said dryly.
Jacob shrugged. "Take it or leave it. I don't care."
"Whatever, kid," Leah muttered, but she still hung it over her bed that night before she'd gone to sleep.
That night Leah dreamt of a girl but it wasn't Bella. She was a stranger to her but she felt more real and made Leah feel more alive than any person she had ever met. The girl had brown skin and green eyes and curls that were wild and unkempt. In the dream Leah wasn't herself however, but a man with her eyes and her smile and her laugh. A man that touched the girl like he knew her. Like he had touched her a thousand times. Kissed her breathless one million nights. Watched her arch and cry out and shudder beneath him again and again. The only reason Leah recognized the man as herself was because right before she woke up, she saw the man phase and the wolf looked just like the one that Leah saw in her reflection when she looked down into water as they ran through the forest in wolf form.
When Leah woke up she was in tears and she felt an ache and longing that she had never felt before, not even when Sam had left her.
Leah wasn't sure how to feel about any of it. She had heard the legends before. The legends about past lives and reincarnation. Apparently some tribe in Delaware had figured out how to peer into those lives. Did that mean that Leah's soulmate was long gone? Did that mean that any chance she'd had at happiness had already been lived in the past and that all she could do was revisit it in sleep?
Leah had gone to see Jacob and she'd told him what she'd seen. He'd been shocked. "I can't believe it actually worked," he said and then, "I'm kind of not surprised that you were a man in a past life though."
Leah had punched him in the side. "Don't be an asshole." She already had mixed feelings about it. Ever since she had first phased she had doubted her own femininity. She'd felt like a freak upon phasing and now she felt even more so.
Jacob shook his head. "I wasn't trying to be," he said, seriously, "It would explain so much," Jacob dodged another hit, "Listen before you assault me. I mean think about it. No one can explain why you phased. Not even the elders. If you were a man before in another life, it would make sense why you're the only known female that has. If you're reincarnated from a male then that means not only were you one of us before but there's a possibility that the person you imprinted on came back too. That this girl you had a dream about is who you're meant to be with. The thing is if you look like this now and since you're clearly not a guy she wouldn't know you if she saw you in this form. She wouldn't recognize you but there's a chance that-"
"She'd recognize the wolf," Leah smiled. In one statement Jacob had made her feel better about her change. It was possible that it wasn't some tragedy or some freak accident, that she wasn't just some freak. It was possible that it was fate's way of reuniting her with who she was meant to be with. That there was a plan and purpose behind all of Leah's loss and her pain. "You're not as much of an idiot as I thought you were, Black."
Jacob ignored the insult. "I'm surprised it doesn't bother you," Jacob grinned, "The idea of being with a girl. I mean you had a lot to say when you were dreaming about Bella because of me."
Leah made a face. "That's because I don't like her," Leah sighed and then, "I think I could be with anyone who really loved me and wouldn't leave. Before it was mostly because of Sam but now…she made me feel things I didn't think I could ever feel and that was just a dream. Can you imagine if she's real Jake?"
Jacob surprised Leah by taking her hand in his hand and squeezing it. "No I can't," he said, "but for your sake I hope that she is. At least one of us wouldn't be in pain anymore. One of us could move on. Besides…you deserve to be happy. You're smiling and you haven't even met her. You're beautiful when you smile, Lee."
Normally she hated it when he called her that but right then she let it go. It was after that that things went pear shaped. Jacob had gotten the invitation to Bella's wedding and then he had run. Leah had tracked him for a few days in spite of Sam's orders. It was the first time she had been able to defy him, the first time anyone had found a way around it outside of Jacob really. She wondered at that.
Finally the day came when Jacob stopped and she knew it was only because he knew she'd followed.
He didn't bother to phase back because she was there in his head. "I'm not going back." He thought at her.
"I know. I wouldn't ask you to. Not now anyway."
"Then why are you following me?"
"I understand why you want to run. I get it more than anyone. But the things is…things are going to suck around here again for me without you. Defying all sense of logic and reason you're the only person I can seem to talk to and I just…you get it. You're the only one that gets it. So come home when you can, okay?"
The nod he gave was stiff even in wolf form. She could hear in his thoughts that he planned to live as a wolf but she hoped deep down that he wouldn't make it in that form. She hoped that he would come back to his people. To his pack. To her.
Because the girl in the dream was just a dream, no matter how real she felt. In the real world Leah didn't have many connections anymore outside of Seth. Now she had Jacob and like Sam, because of another woman he was gone, even if the situations were different.
Leah watched Jacob a long time as he ran. She watched his retreating form until it was a dot in the horizon. When he was far enough away that she suspected he couldn't hear her thoughts anymore she thought, "You deserve to be happy too."
When Leah made it back to the reservation Sam looked at her with narrowed eyes and she ignored him. Leah went straight to Billy Black's house and began to pick up the role that Jacob had left in caring for his father, surprising everyone once again.
"Jacob always said you were softer than you let on." Billy told her one night while she cooked him dinner.
When she phased the rest of the pack could hear her thoughts of Jacob, see her memories. The ones regarding the dreamcatcher she made sure not to think about while she was in their company.
One day Seth was brave enough to say what everyone seemed to be thinking. "Don't worry, Leah, he'll come back to you."
Leah tried not to think about the fact that she had gone from the pathetic ex-girlfriend who couldn't get over Sam's love to the pathetic she-wolf that was pining after Jacob's friendship.
Leah took comfort in her dreams that came each night. Dreams of a girl with green eyes and a crooked mouth. A girl with brown skin that was an outsider but could say, "I love you," in Leah's language. A girl that Leah burned for in her dreams each night and ached for when she woke each morning.
When Leah woke up she got into the habit of doing what everyone else seemed to be doing, waiting for Jacob to reach out to her, just like they believed he would. When Jacob finally did, Leah had no idea that he would bring the girl of her dreams with him.
:::
Dewey Beach, Delaware
It had been nearly two months and Jacob Black was still more human than animal, even in his wolf form. He had tried everything to give in to the beast. To succumb to his more base and primal instincts. He ate only what he hunted. He stayed in wolf form. Slept outdoors. He hadn't had a conversation with another human being since he'd left. Maybe that was the reason that he was still hearing Leah Clearwater's voice in his head. It was the last voice he had heard before he left, even if they had both still been in wolf form.
Jacob had settled for a while along the Canadian border. He had foraged and ran and ran and ran. Most of his days were spent running. He couldn't leave the past behind though and that was the problem. The pain had ebbed some but it hadn't gone away and he blamed Leah for that. Leah whose words still burned his ears and infiltrated his mind each time that he attempted to let go of his last strand of humanity.
"You deserve to be happy too," was the last thing that she'd thought at him. Leah who was bitter and closed off and who could be such a raging bitch sometimes he had once wondered if she was even human. Leah who'd listened to him and understood him in ways no one else could, not even Bella. Leah who was beautiful when she smiled and who beyond all logic was now probably his closest friend. Leah was what was keeping him tied to the person he once was. Leah was who was keeping Jacob Black alive.
He'd thought it would be his love for Bella that tied him back to that person. It wasn't. With his feelings for Bella it was the opposite. When his feelings for Bella surfaced it made him want to run harder. It made him want lose himself in the wolf that much quicker. It made him want to immerse himself in those instincts that were more animal than human, all so that he could forget.
He would be close and then he would think of Leah and his promise to come back and he would be back to square one all over again. He would start to feel sorry for himself and then he would hear her voice in his head calling him pathetic. He would think about Bella becoming a vampire and he would hear Leah taunting him that the choice had been Bella's and he should just get over it. The cycle went on until his thoughts began to change.
He thought about the dreamcatcher and Leah's dreams. He thought about the possibility of her imprinting. He thought about what she had said about wanting to be with someone who loved her and wouldn't leave and he'd wonder if he'd been wrong about imprinting all along. No one really knew the real reason behind it and what if it wasn't just some genetic glitch in the makeup that helped you procreate with your best option? What if it was a way to reunite you with the soul you had left behind or to unite you with the soul you were meant to be intertwined with?
Before his mother passed she would tell him and his sisters stories about souls finding each other again and again. Legends about the Great Spirit bringing souls together to make them feel whole. About the first meetings of soulmates and how their love always lasted throughout all of time, no matter when or where they met or who they were. Whether they had spent many lives together or they were only meant to be united in one. Jacob hadn't taken much stock in the stories but Rachel and Rebecca had eaten them up.
However, with listless days wandering in the wilderness Jacob didn't have much else to think about. He'd wandered so long and so far that before he realized it, he was somewhere in Delaware that he didn't recognize.
In spite knowing it was likely a bad idea, Jacob started to spend his days closer and closer to the beaches. He began to watch the people and pass by and remember what it was like to be connected. He wasn't homesick quite yet but he knew that he soon would be.
Jacob didn't remember much about his mother aside from her kind nature but looking at the beaches he saw in his mind the paintings his mother had done that his father still kept around the house. Paintings of the beaches in La Push where the skies weren't as blue and the sun wasn't as bright but it had felt warmer than this place full of strangers somehow.
Jacob was sitting under the cover of the trees thinking of home when the scent hit him. It was strong and floral and Jacob had followed it without thinking. He came to a clearing and saw a three story house by the water that was white and had a wraparound deck and long glass windows. It looked like many of the other houses Jacob had seen in the area aside for one thing. There were vines of red flowers growing down the side.
The flowers reminded him of the botany book that Sue Clearwater had gotten from one of her patients when she had said that she was going to start a garden. That was the only reason Jacob knew that the flowers were hibiscuses and they shouldn't have been able to thrive in the Delaware climate.
The scent of them awakened something in him and made him wish for a love so dark and deep that it would consume him and burn him from the inside out. It made him want to cry and Jacob didn't understand it at all. He felt more longing in that moment as he stared the house down than he ever had felt for Bella.
It was dark out and Jacob felt secure enough to leave the cover of the trees completely. He wanted to know who lived there. He felt some kind of raw energy pulsing from inside the house. Something that seemed to be calling to him. He thought for a moment that the days in the wilderness had officially driven him insane and then suddenly the door to the house opened and a girl came running outside as if she were chasing something down.
Jacob froze as he felt the earth move beneath him. His whole body trembled and everything he was stopped in that moment and then zeroed in on her. She was perfect. Beautiful. Magnificent. She was the thing of dreams and myth and legend. As she ran towards him waves seemed to crash toward the shore in an effort to get closer to her, to touch her, to kiss the ground at her feet.
The wolf howled inside singing, "Mine. Mine! MINE!", as her green eyes landed on him and her brown skin shown in the moonlight.
When she stopped in front of him Jacob realized that he was in wolf form and he phased into his human form without thought, even after vowing he would never take the form again. He realized something else as he found he had no problems revealing himself to this girl, this stranger, he'd imprinted.
He wasn't embarrassed by his nakedness or concerned that she saw him transform. He only saw the look of awe in her green eyes as he reached out to her. He only heard the soft melodious sound of her voice as she said, "You're not…but I feel….I know you're mine. How?"
Jacob didn't care how. She was right. He was hers and he loved her as illogical as it sounded. She was a stranger and he loved her with every fiber of his being. He wanted to know her like a friend. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to caress her and touch her and take her like a lover would. He wanted to wrap her around himself and never let go.
Jacob touched her face and watched as she closed her eyes. He knew that this wasn't one sided then. He knew that this was different, that they were different. This wouldn't be some life sentence like he thought. This would be something more, something better. Jacob smiled in a way that he hadn't smiled in so long. "God you're beautiful," he said, "What's your name?"
She smiled back and Jacob felt his heart soar. "Bonnie." Bonnie. Her name was Bonnie.
:::
Bonnie wasn't sure whether or not she should tell Jacob about the dreams. She had wanted to tell him everything about herself and wanted to know everything about him but she wasn't sure how he would react to the possibility that there had been someone before him, in another life. Bonnie wasn't sure if before was the right words as, it stood to reason that if she had come back from a time before, the one in her dreams had as well. Bonnie had both of them now, one in her dreams and Jacob in reality and she wasn't sure she wanted to ever give either of them up.
Jacob had been with them for two days now and already she understood what the woman in this shop had meant. He was her mirror, but she was certain that there was another reflection of herself out there.
Before Jacob had arrived Bonnie had gone from a nonbeliever to a believer. It started with the dreams. The first night that Bonnie had dreamed underneath the dream catcher she had saw a man with eyes what were dark and deep and he had made her feel like she was floating whenever they touched and like she was engulfed in flames whenever they kissed. She had woken up in tears and that was the day that hibiscus had started growing from Bonnie's balcony and the day Bonnie's powers had returned to her.
The hibiscus had started on her balcony but rapidly spread. The flowers didn't even typically grow in vines but there they were when Bonnie woke up, winding around her balcony rails red and blooming and beautiful. It didn't help that the flowers shouldn't have even been able to grow in Delaware at all and their scent wafted through the house so strongly that Bonnie could smell them even when she went downstairs to help her grandmother with breakfast. Grandma Maiana had looked at Bonnie knowingly over the rim of her coffee mug and stated, "Block gone already, eh?" she gave a wink and then, "The Great Spirit finds a way."
Bonnie's father had shaken his head and mumbled something from behind his newspaper while Bonnie's aunt Tamala had asked her if the dreamcatcher had worked as she cracked eggs into a bowl. Bonnie had shrugged and said something about not being sure and after breakfast she'd tried her first spell in months. She had done it without any complication. No fatigue. No shortness of breath. No nose bleed. She had her powers back and she couldn't have been more grateful, but she couldn't thank the person responsible either.
Another night passed with another dream and then the hibiscus bloomed even more, traveling down the side of the house. Vines of red flowers, winding around windows, flowing into doorways. By the time the dreams had changed on the third night and featured a present day Bonnie running alongside two wolves, one brown and the other gray, the hibiscus had nearly consumed the house.
All that day people came to the house unprompted and cried and cried over the flowers. Rudy had tried to shew them away but they ignored him. They didn't leave until Maiana began to sit on the porch and listen to their stories. Stories of love that brought tears of joy and tears of sorrow. Stories about love lost and love found. Always it was love. The scent of the flowers could be smelt even from across town when Bonnie had gone shopping for groceries with her aunt.
Bonnie knew the flowers were her doing. She knew that they likely had to do with the dreams. She may have even been using her powers in her sleep. But stopping the flowers meant stopping the dreams and she couldn't let go of them. She wouldn't.
In those dreams she felt something that she had never felt before. Not with Jeremy or anyone else. She felt alive and cherished and wanted and whole. She was sure she could never feel those things while awake until the night that Jacob appeared.
Bonnie had been eating dinner with her father and Rudy had been debating on whether or not he should take a hedge trimmer to the hibiscus because he was tired of random strangers coming up and telling his mother their love stories. Maiana had been debating on whether or not to put a wall around the property where people could leave notes instead. Neither of them said anything about Bonnie getting rid of the dreamcatcher even though they both knew the source of the flowers.
While Bonnie had become a believer so had Rudy, though he was a reluctant one. He still had his doubts about the soulmate thing but the dreamcatcher's presence had reawakened Bonnie's power and she seemed happy and so he didn't comment one way or another.
Bonnie had been mid bite when she felt a pull towards something outside as if something or someone was calling her.
Bonnie had run out of her grandmother's house without thinking. She ignored her family's calls and she had run out of the house and out onto the beach. She ran toward the wolf that stood in the sand as if waiting for her. A wolf the size of a horse that Bonnie knew most people would run away from. A wolf that Bonnie recognized as the one that had ran alongside the gray on in her dreams. A wolf that she knew and didn't know all at once.
Bonnie stopped in front of him as the wolf changed, shifted shape into a boy. A boy with copper skin that shone like the sun even in the moonlight and eyes that were deep dark brown pools. A boy that was thick and muscular and toned. A boy that was so tall he towered over Bonnie in a way that might've been intimidating were it not for the sudden urge she had to climb him and kiss the perfect smile from his face. A boy that might have been a man if not for the softness of his eyes and the slight roundness of his face. He was beautiful and Bonnie felt safe and secure and whole all at once as she looked up at him.
He was hers, she was sure but he wasn't the man in her dreams and Bonnie remembered the shopkeepers words about some having more than one soulmate or different ones each life time. She knew as he reached down to touch her face that he was hers in this one. It didn't matter that he'd come out of nowhere. That he wasn't quite human, as neither was she. It didn't matter that he was standing there as naked as the day he was born. It only mattered that he was looking down at Bonnie with so much devotion, Bonnie was sure that he would never leave her side for as long as she lived.
Bonnie told him her name and then asked his. "Jacob." He said, his voice deep and smooth and making Bonnie shiver, "Jacob Black."
Bonnie took his hand and led him back toward her house and he followed, willingly, wordlessly. Her family's reaction to him was almost comical. Her father had looked like he was on the verge of a stroke as Bonnie explained that she had found him on the beach and that she was certain that they were fated. Maiana was the only one who looked joyous and she had welcomed Jacob and offered him access to their bathroom as he had been covered in dirt and she'd given him the clothes that had been her dead husbands and she had stuffed him with food and asked him about himself and his people.
Jacob had told them about the Quileute and the legend of the skin walkers, about the wolves. He explained to them about imprinting and Bonnie understood then, there was a name that she could put to whatever it was she was feeling.
When Jacob had gone to wash up her father had cornered her. "I don't like this," Rudy frowned, "I…I know that given what you are you can't have a normal life but I thought…I thought you'd have a better chance than me at least. But this…"
Bonnie didn't have the heart to tell him that Jacob Black was the least of the reason that her life hadn't been normal the last year. That he could've easily come home and found her dead at any given moment. Bonnie instead smiled and said, "All those people and their love stories and their tears on the porch the last few days…it made me want to ask you…how did you feel when you first met mom? The very first time even before you knew anything about her. I know you haven't moved on and so I know she had to mean so much to you even if she isn't with us anymore. Even if she left. You stayed with her, even after finding out what she was. With your history and your views, I don't see how you would have if you didn't believe in the whole soulmate thing just a little."
"The first time I saw her I loved her," Rudy revealed, "From the very first moment."
"Would you give up any of your time together if it meant you could have a normal life?" Bonnie had asked.
Rudy had shaken his head. He looked like he was in pain but he answered the questions anyway for Bonnie's sake. "I wouldn't," Rudy said, "Not just because of Abby but because my time with her gave me you."
Bonnie smiled, taking her father's hand. "When I saw him I knew he was mine," Bonnie whispered, "He won't leave me. You heard what he said about the imprint. He hasn't had normal either. Do you really think someone normal could understand me for what and who I am? Do you think they'd understand the things I've gone through? Maybe normal is overrated."
Rudy had helped set Jacob up in a guest bedroom down the hall from Bonnie's, though he hadn't brought anything with him and there wasn't much of a set up to do.
Bonnie had gone to her room and tried to sleep but she couldn't. She could feel Jacob as if he were there with her and yet he wasn't. Only a few walls separated them and Bonnie wasn't sure that she could take it. It was insane she knew. He was a stranger. She didn't know anything about him really. All she knew was that he could shift into a wolf and apparently they had some kind of cosmic connection. Still Bonnie tossed and turned in bed until she heard the soft knock on her door once the rest of the house was quiet.
Bonnie got out of bed and adjusted her nightgown. She walked to the door and opened it, not at all surprised to see Jacob on the other side. "I'm sorry," he said, "I tried."
"Don't be sorry. " She understood what he meant without further explanation and allowed him to enter. He'd tried to stay away but like her he had yearned to be close.
Jacob had changed out of the t-shirt that had been too small for him anyway and was shirtless in her grandfather's flannel pajama pants that didn't really fit his tall frame. Bonnie giggled as he shuffled around the room. He stopped in front of her dream catcher and smiled fondly as he read the tag. "A friend of mine has one of these," he said.
"Oh yeah?" Bonnie asked, "Did that friend not advise you to pack clothes before you left where you came from?"
Jacob's frown deepened and Bonnie regretted her words. "It wasn't exactly a planned trip. She didn't want me to go."
Jacob sat on the edge of her bed and Bonnie sat down next to him. "You said you were from La Push, right? Why'd you leave?"
Bonnie listened as Jacob talked and then she talked and they talked almost on into the night. They had a lot in common. A lot more than Bonnie had thought they would. They'd both grown up in small towns around the same people they'd known since childhood and it had been the arrival of vampires that had upended both of their worlds. The vampires Jacob described were nothing like the ones Bonnie knew and Bonnie wondered where they had come from. She didn't doubted that they existed. There would always been something they didn't know in terms of the supernatural it seemed. The existence of Klaus and his hybrid nature was proof of that.
"The vampires you know seem almost more terrifying because they can pass as human easier," Jacob had whispered, "Make you believe they're not the monsters they really are."
Bonnie told him about being the last of the Bennett line and destined to be the most powerful and Jacob likened it to being the descendent of Ephraim Black and being expected to take on the moniker of Alpha one day.
They had both lost their best friends to them falling in love with vampires. Bonnie with Elena and Jacob with Bella. But Bella was someone that Jacob had loved as well. Someone that he would do anything for, even fight alongside vampires to protect. Bonnie told him about all she had given up for Elena. She told him about losing her Grams. Told him about the battles she had fought to keep Elena and everyone safe. She told him about Caroline being turned and the Lockwood curse that birthed wolves that were dwarfs in comparison to Jacob. She told him about fighting Klaus and the nightmares she still had about dying. She told him about falling in love with Elena's brother and giving up all the power she'd been channeling to bring him back from the dead. About how that love had turned into radio silence over the summer and it was almost as if they had never happened at all. Like her absence had been their end, even if it wasn't intentional.
"Do you still love Bella?" Bonnie asked.
Jacob thought about the question for a long time. "I do but I see it a different way now," he said, "I…I loved her but I think I loved this idea of what we could have been more than I loved what we actually were to one another. She was something I thought I wanted but I was never what she wanted. I still love her like a friend…a sister. But it wasn't what I thought it was."
Bonnie thought about his words and they summed up so well what she felt for Jeremy. It wasn't what she thought it was. Bonnie had needed Jeremy to help her gain confidence in herself and to support her for a time just like he had needed her to stave off the loneliness and make him feel connected to everyone. Bella had needed Jacob to piece her back together, just as he had needed someone to see him as someone special. They had needed one another for a season but their love wasn't the kind of love that they wanted it to be.
"I think I was scared more than anything of being alone," Bonnie said, "My dad he…never got of my mom leaving us and when my Grams died I loss the one person that loved me unconditionally and I thought that if I could create the kind of love that wouldn't leave for myself that I could be happy."
Jacob nodded. "That's exactly it," he sighed, "My dad never got over my mom's death and he…being in that wheelchair I feel like maybe he gave up on the idea of finding someone. I don't remember much about my mom but I remember that she believed in the idea of true love. Soul mates. She used to tell me these stories and I thought that I could create that feeling out of thin air. I thought if I pushed hard enough that Bella would feel what I felt and I resented Edward when she didn't but I get it now. Stuff like that can't be forced. I hated the idea of imprinting for so long but the moment I saw you I just…I knew that you were my forever and the more I learn about you the more I get why it had to be you."
Bonnie could understand that. The more they shared the more she got what it meant to be someone's mirror. Jacob told her about his friendship with Quil and Embry and it reminded her so much of what she, Elena and Caroline had been like before the supernatural world had taken over.
When Jacob told her about Leah, Bonnie got a strange sensation that she knew her. "I'd like her I think."
Jacob had laughed. "Leah doesn't really like anyone. But she'd like you too."
Jacob had asked questions about her heritage and her power and Bonnie had answered them until her voice grew hoarse and her eyes grew heavy. Jacob eventually took over talking again telling her tribal legends in a tone and cadence that would have made Billy Black proud until Bonnie fell asleep.
They spent the next day on the beach and wandering through town shops finding clothes that Jacob could actually fit. Jacob slept in Bonnie's bed both nights.
Bonnie had thought that with Jacob there the dreams would subside but they hadn't. They had come but greater in intensity because Jacob invaded them too and Bonnie was surrounded in warmth and heat and love and bodies grinding and clinging and moving against each other in her mind's eye. The man from before had taken on a new shape that Bonnie couldn't make out before she woke. Bonnie woke up panting, feeling hyperaware of where Jacob's hands were touching her. His arms were around her as he slept on and hibiscus was spilling into the room from where it hung low on the balcony railings. The scent of the flowers were maddening and Bonnie had half the mind to kiss Jacob awake and get lost in the heat of his skin and the strength of his embrace. She had never been one to rush into physicality but this didn't seem rushed. She knew him better than she had the day that he arrived and yet she still felt as if something was missing. Or someone. As Jacob opened his eyes and looked at her, with something akin to knowing, and whispered, "What is it?" She knew she would have to tell Jacob about the dreams.
:::
La Push Reservation, La Push, Washington
Leah hadn't meant to do it. In spite of her normal temperamental nature, she had had no intention of going off on Bella Swan when the girl had come looking for any word on Jacob. Leah was angry all the time and unpredictable at the best of times but she had since the dreams, been able to reign it in. However, the road to hell was paved with good intentions and honestly, Leah didn't have all that many good intentions where Bella was concerned on a good day. Her dislike for the girl hadn't helped but it hadn't been what prompted the tirade either. Leah had just been frustrated because of a few things, the main thing being that Jacob was still missing and no one had yet to hear from him.
The second part of her frustration was more sexual in nature. The dreams had gotten worse and for some reason there was now hibiscus flowers growing outside of the home Leah shared with Seth and her mother. Not only that, Jacob now had a starring role in her dreams and Leah was now not her past self but her present self in them. Meaning she'd spent the last few nights dreaming of being in the throes of passion with Jacob Black and some girl who likely didn't even exist, which was almost more pathetic than pinning after Sam.
Then there was the fact that Leah had to take on extra patrols because of Jacob's absence, some of which were with Sam himself. The silences were awkward when they were together and more and more of the pack were noticing Leah's shifted thoughts from obsessing over Sam and making unsolicited inappropriate comments to obsessing over someone that Leah wouldn't reveal to them, when she wasn't thinking about Jacob.
All in all Leah had just been in a bad mood and Bella had been an easy target. The rant didn't even last as long as it should have and Leah hadn't said anything the girl hadn't needed to hear. Leah had gone for a run soon after and as no one was fast enough to catch her, she'd been left to her own devices.
She'd gone to the cliffs where Jacob liked to go alone and thought about things she'd rather forget. She wondered if she would ever really be free or if she would be stuck in La Push forever the miserable bitter bitch that everyone loved to hate.
Leah sat there a long time and thought about going home and falling asleep beneath her dream catcher, just so that she could got back to the one she had left behind in another life. Just so she could feel just a little bit of happiness for once. However, she was beginning to use the dreams as a crutch. They weren't real and every day she grew more and more frustrated with the fact.
Leah sat alone at the cliffs for a what must have been hours before she finally sighed and resigned herself to going back and getting lectured as she would have to make Billy breakfast.
Leah ran through the forest in wolf form and changed back into her natural form and into her clothes just before she left the tree line and walked onto the Black's property. She was walking towards the house when suddenly Seth bounded out of the back door and ran towards her laughing and reminding her of when they raced in wolf form, his loud exclamation upon seeing her bringing to mind his happy howl each time she let him when.
"Leah!" he yelled, "Jake's on the phone! He's asking for you!"
Leah ran without thinking. She didn't want to look desperate but it had been almost two months now. Two months since she had heard his voice. Two months since she had had anyone around that she could really talk to.
Seth turned to run alongside her, as they raced toward the house. Leah reached the back porch first and ran inside. Billy was on the phone in the kitchen and he smiled upon seeing her, which was strange even if they had gotten closer. "She's right here," Billy grinned, "hang on son."
Leah snatched the phone as Billy held it out to her. As soon as Leah pressed the phone to her ear she snapped into the receiver. "Almost two months, Black," she growled, "Are you serious?! If I wasn't so relieved you're not dead somewhere I'd kill you myself."
Billy and Seth shared an amused look before shaking their heads. Leah ignored them as Jacob spoke. "Hey Lee," he said, "I missed you too. Oh me? I'm doing good. How about you?"
"I swear to God, Jacob if you don't tell me where you are and when you're coming home right the hell now," Leah frowned. Still there was no real ire in her tone. He wouldn't have called if he wasn't planning on coming home soon. Just in time for the leech wedding, Leah thought bitterly.
Jacob laughed and then, "I'm in Delaware," he said, "Near the remnants of the Nanticoke nation." Leah froze as she thought about her dream catcher. "You won't believe this Lee, but….I imprinted."
Leah wasn't sure how she felt about that. Him infiltrating her dreams of late, made the news of the imprint worse. She wanted Jacob to be happy. In fact he sounded happy. But at the same time she knew how he'd felt about imprinting before, obviously that had changed. A selfish part was saddened that he would no longer understand her and her pain the same way. The bitter part of her felt sick at the thought of losing someone else she'd cared about to imprinting even as she longed to find her own. The foolish part of her was hopeful that he had mentioned ended up near the people that had made her dream catcher. Maybe the place that held Jacob's happy ending, held hers as well.
"She's perfect Lee," Jacob continued, "Smart and beautiful. She's kind and caring. She understands about the wolf, in fact, she has her own powers. She's a witch. I know it sounds crazy but I feel like it deepens our connection somehow. She said she's connected to nature and I can feel it, her power, Lee. It feels like nothing I've ever felt before. She's fought vampires too. She's strong. She'll fit right in. You'll love her. I know you will, Lee. I want you to be the first to meet her."
Leah stiffened. She thought about how Jacob's word reminded her of Sam's constant thoughts of Emily's virtues. The girl Jacob had spoken of did sound perfect. She wondered at the witch thing and it brought to mind the girl in Leah's dreams that performed what Leah had dubbed little miracles in the memories those dreams carried. Making fire from water. Causing dead flowers to bloom. She wondered what Jacob's imprint was capable of. Wondered how she would handle this new Jacob that had a reason to be happy, that wasn't like her anymore, bitter and miserable and pinning. She wondered if she would ever have anyone, if she would ever not feel so alone.
"Lee," Jacob whispered, "I know what you're thinking and I need you to stop it. I'm the one that understands you remember? I wouldn't ask you to come if I thought it would hurt you. I need you to trust me okay? If I'm wrong you can kick my ass and I won't even fight back I swear it."
Trust. It was such a small word. It seemed like something so simple but it scared the hell out of Leah to even think it. She had trusted Sam. She had trusted Emily. She had trusted that her father would always be there when she needed him before he died. She had trusted herself to be strong enough to let Sam go. She wondered if he knew what he was asking. She sighed, knowing that she would give in. "Where are you?" Leah murmured, "Where are you exactly?"
"Thank you, Leah," he said before giving her his exact location. He sounded somewhere between excited and relieved and she let herself hope again that this wasn't just about him introducing her to his imprint. He'd imprinted. She couldn't quite believe it.
"I still reserve the right to kill you if the mood suits me," Leah said.
Jacob laughed again and then said, "Sure, sure," in an indulgent way that made Leah forget for a moment that she was the one that was older.
Leah passed the phone to Billy and turned to Seth. "Cover for me with mom," she said, "I'm going to Delaware."
With the way Seth worshipped Jacob, Leah half expected him to beg to come along but instead he just beamed at her with his stupid huge optimistic smile and said, "No problem. Just bring him home."
Leah nodded and without packing or even looking back, she ran from the house, phasing as she leapt off the porch. She grabbed stash of clothes she kept in the woods, gripping the satchel in her wolf jaws before running the same path that Jacob had taken away from La Push.
:::
Dewey Beach, Delaware
The journey took almost two days. It was well after dark when Leah had stopped running. She was tired and hungry. She'd only stopped a few times during the journey and there were thousands of miles that separated Leah from her destination. She wasn't sure what fueled her, anger, worry, pain, or more dangerous than any of those things hope.
When she came to the beach and the clearing, her eyes went first to the house that Jacob had described in the distance. The three story beach house covered with hibiscus. She could smell the scent of them from where she was, so strongly that it was as if she had picked one of the flowers herself and brought it right up to her nose. They reminded her of the ones that had sprouted up around her house and once again she felt encouraged.
The scent brought tears to her eyes even in wolf form. It brought to mind yearning, desire, passion and fear. Her mind wandered to the dreams that had haunted before she had left home and she left the cover of the trees without taking the time to consider whether or not she would get caught or seen by a passerby.
That was when she heard it, the sound of laughter. It was so jarringly familiar that Leah stopped in her tracks. Then she saw her. The girl that tormented her nights running across the sand bounding towards the waves that were washing ashore. She was in a white dress, her feet bare as she kicked them in the water and laughed and spun in circles like a mad woman. Leah laughed too, though it didn't sound the same coming from a wolf. She laughed because there she was, the girl of Leah's dreams, radiant and glowing.
Leah felt everything shift and she was so relieved and happy that after all of this time floundering she had finally found her center. She felt grounded and stable but elevated and high all at once. She wanted to scream and cry. She wanted to shout because this girl was real and she was hers and Leah had a purpose. She would be happy and she would be loved.
She moved forward but stopped as suddenly she saw Jacob. Jacob shinning bright in the moonlight and laughing with the girl that was her girl as he ran over to her. She kicked water at him with her feet and he laughed louder before picking her up and swinging her around and then the revelation hit Leah like a brick to the face. Jacob, the only one who had understood her, had imprinted on her girl. The same Jacob that had invaded her dreams of her soulmate in what she hadn't realized was a warning, had called her to this place to stake his claim on her happily ever after.
Leah did cry then. She sobbed and it came out as a howling, loud and long. She'd finally imprinted and this was the outcome. She hated herself because she drew their attention and they both looked towards her and smiled. They smiled and waved and of course they did. They hadn't realized that she had somehow infiltrated what they had, or maybe Jacob knew. She wasn't sure. She didn't know anything anymore.
She knew that the two were so perfect as they ran towards her. They were beautiful and bright and Leah wanted to hate Jacob but she couldn't. She couldn't hate him because something in her loved him even though she hated that it had taken this for her to admit it. She loved him and wanted to see him happy. But more than she had ever loved anyone she loved the girl. The stranger that visited her at night and made her burn with just one touch. She loved her and Jacob made her happy, Jacob made her laugh and smile. Leah loved Jacob even more for that, for doing what she couldn't and being there for her imprint. Because what would either of them want with her. She was angry and bitter and stupid and the girl didn't even know she was a woman. She couldn't even be what the girl had had before. She had the same soul but a different body, different experiences and of course the girl would be Jacob's in this time. He would be better suited than she. He could move on from his pain and no matter what Leah did she couldn't. Her hurt for Sam was gone and now it was replaced by this torment and Leah wanted, no she needed to run.
Leah turned to do just that but then the girl screamed, "Wait!" Leah couldn't deny her anything and so she stood there sobbing in wolf form like an idiot and waited as Jacob and the girl approached.
They stopped in front of her and the girl gave her the softest smile anyone had ever directed at her when she spoke. "It's you," she beamed in a way that would have put Seth to shame, "It's really you."
Leah stared and she saw from the look on Jacob's face he could tell even in this form that she was a mess. "Lee," he murmured, his voice soothing, "It's okay. I promised you wouldn't get hurt and I meant it." So he knew. Leah didn't know what kind of game he was playing.
She opened her mouth to growl at him but stopped when the girl reached out a hand to touch Leah. "I'm Bonnie," the girl said as she ran her hand along Leah's side. Leah closed her eyes feeling suddenly calm and euphoric at the touch. It was all too much. "Can I see you?" Bonnie asked, "Please?"
Jacob must have told her what she was to him and still she was giving Leah a choice. Leah swallowed before phasing back into her true form.
She stood before her girl. Her Bonnie. Her name was Bonnie. She stood before Bonnie and Jacob naked and vulnerable, her cheeks stained with tears.
Bonnie studied her, her eyes searching for something. Probably the remnants of the man Leah had once been. Then Bonnie was crying and Leah was sure that they were tears of disappointment before Bonnie smiled and then suddenly launched herself at Leah. As Bonnie wrapped her arms around Leah's neck and pressed their bodies together Leah felt like she was coming home. She had felt the phantom touches in slumber but it didn't compare to Bonnie there in her arms.
Leah wrapped her arms around Bonnie and clung to her. She looked at Jacob over Bonnie's shoulder and was surprised to find that he was smiling as well.
"Promise you won't leave me ever again," Bonnie whispered.
Leah nodded, as she inhaled Bonnie's scent. Not rejection then, but a miracle. She realized that she was finally going to get what she wanted. As Jacob came and wrapped his arms around them both she knew she would get, everything she wanted. "I won't leave." No, as long as she lived, Leah wouldn't be going anywhere if they weren't there.
End Notes: So there it is, part one. Please let me know if you want this continued. Also the Nanticoke are a real tribe and the museum does exist and they did harbor fugitive slaves. Klonnie week kicks off tomorrow on Tumblr and I'll be contributing so it likely won't get updated until the weekend but I actually liked how this one turned out so far. Next couple of parts there will be some relationship negotiation type convos with the OT3, lots of sexual tension, Bonnie visits Mystic Falls and Beremy get closure and then we head back to Forks! Review, review, review! Love you guys!