Sometimes, at night, Sam wonders.
He lies in bed, in the house he shares with Emily and their children, and he wonders what it would have been like with Leah. He's happy with Emily now, of course – the imprint ensures that her happiness is his – but with Leah, it had been… different. He can't put a finger on it. Leah understood him, saw into his soul in a way Emily has never been able to do.
She's gone now, with Jacob and Seth. They travel with the Cullen pack, and last he'd heard from Sue, she'd found someone to spend her life with, a shapeshifter from Mexico. He's happy for her; he hopes she finds happiness. The kind of happiness they'd had together. The kind of happiness he wishes he had now.
He wonders if humans have imprints. Probably not, but they do have soulmates. And as much as Emily is the perfect match for his wolf, Leah is the other half of his human soul.
It makes sense, in a weird way, that Leah had left with the Cullen pack. He'd shifted because they'd come to Forks, and it was when he'd shifted that the imprinting had occurred. The Cullens had sparked the change that had caused him to drive Leah away, and then they'd actually taken her away.
And on some level he knows that it's ridiculous and selfish to resent her leaving. He can't expect Leah to just hang around La Push forever, watching her first love, her ex-fiancé, spend his life with another woman. Her cousin. Her best friend.
But as fucked up as it is, he wants her to stay. Because she makes him whole, and he needs her. And when the shift goes away because the Cullens have left, all he'll have left is a life he never wanted, a wife he doesn't love, and the woman that he does love will be out of his reach forever.
The Quiletes believe in reincarnation, and Sam believes – because he has to – that he will see Leah again. That they will be together again. And maybe next time, it will work out the way it's supposed to.
It has to.
