A/N: This is starting out as a (rather long) Sam one shot. If the demand is there, and I can come up with ideas that are different than the usual Sam/Bella story I may continue it. I don't own Twilight.
The End of Me
She was gone. Love, life, meaning, all gone. It happened so fast. This is it, the end of me.
Standing in my kitchen, I thought back over the day I just had. I do landscaping, repair work, and other odd jobs around the reservation. I make a pretty good living at it too because I'm pretty much the best around. Today was horrible though. I had a landscaping job to do at Mrs. Anderson's. She was recently divorced and moved here with her idiot son, something about wanting him to experience the "Native American" culture. What a crock of shit. She had money and liked to hold it over everyone here at the res. Apparently, I wasn't pruning her hedges to her satisfaction. She came out of her house in her damn silk bathrobe and started screaming at me. This part of the hedge was too short, this part still looked too messy, it was taking too long. She accused me of drawing out the job longer so I could milk her for more money. I couldn't take it anymore and jumped in my truck and peeled out of her perfectly paved driveway.
Then, when I got home, I called Leah. We had gotten into a huge fight because we were supposed to go see a movie in Port Angeles and I just wasn't up to it. I cancelled on her. I swear if she got any more upset, I wouldn't need the phone. I would have been able to hear her clear across the res. But dammit, I was working my ass off, trying to get some money so we could build a life together. I had already started paying on an engagement ring at a jewelry store in Port Angeles. I was going to marry this woman.
The more I thought about everything, the more pissed off I became. And, to top it off, I must be coming down with some weird flu or something. I've been sweating my ass off for three days. I just can't seem to cool off. And the elders had been following me around for two weeks. Seemed like every job I had, at least one of them would drive by, or stop in to talk to me. When they did they were always looking at me strangely. I didn't like it at all.
God, this stuff shouldn't be pissing me off this bad. Why is it so damn hot in here? And why can't I stop this shaking? Just then the phone rang. Great, Mrs Anderson. I picked up the phone. At this point in my life I couldn't afford to be proud. Jesus, she was laying into me again about her fucking hedges. The shaking increased. I began to see red. I could no longer make out the words she was saying. All the words were just running together. Snotty, self-righteous bitch. Then she said the one thing that pushed me off the edge. That I was a good for nothing, trailer park trash res boy who wouldn't amount to anything.
I dropped the phone.
And I exploded.
What the hell just happened? I was scared out of my mind. Where my feet should be, there were paws. Where my skin should be, there was fur. I couldn't make any sounds other than growling. And I was huge. What the hell was I? I started knocking over everything in my house. I had to get out of here. I had no idea how to turn the door knob with these friggin paws. So I did the next best thing and busted the door down.
I ran.
I don't know how far I had run. I don't know where I ended up. I don't know how long I've been gone. Days blended into each other, one after another. I was starving. I became a hunter out of necessity. Taking down my pray, getting sustenance the way animals did. That's what I was, right? I finally came to a beautiful, calm, crystal clear lake. I put my snout down the water and lapped up the fresh, cool water. What I saw reflected back on the still surface of the lake should have scared me at this point but it didn't. I was a wolf. I finished drinking and looked out at my serene surroundings. I was filled with a sense of peace. And just like that, I was human again. Naked, but human again.
Somehow I knew which way I needed to go to get back home. I tried running. Even in human form I was impossibly fast. Then everything that had gone wrong that day, every wrong that had occurred in my life, went zipping through my head. And just like that, I was the wolf again. I kept running until I recognized my back yard. Seeing my home that I had worked so hard for calmed me down. The familiarity of it eased my frayed nerves.
And just like that, I was human again.
I ran into my house. I looked in the bathroom mirror and realized that I had grown at least six or seven inches. I had muscles that the greatest body builder would envy. Looking through my drawers for something to wear, I realized none of my clothes fit me anymore. I grabbed an old pair of sweatpants. They were almost a foot too short so I cut them off at the knees. When I went into the kitchen I noticed there was a note taped to the fridge from the elders. They wanted me to contact them when I returned. It said they would give me answers.
Billy Black explained to me what I was. I was a shape shifter, a werewolf. I was destined to protect the tribe from the Cold Ones. The Cullens were the reason we came to exist generations ago, and now they were back in town. He retold the legends I had been hearing since I was a little kid. He explained the Cullen's way of life and the treaty. The thought of them and what they were made me start shaking again. Billy was able to calm me down. I had to try to continue on with my normal life so that I could keep the secret and not raise suspicions. He worked with me so I got better control of my phasing.
Or so I thought.
Leah and I had sorted everything out about my "disappearance." Her parents were having a family reunion. I spent all day helping them set up and watched Leah help her mother prepare the food. God, how I loved that woman. I couldn't wait until the day that Leah Clearwater would become Leah Uley.
And then I saw her.
Leah's cousin Emily walked into the backyard and we made eye contact. Suddenly, every detail of my own life seemed unimportant. Every connection I had made to others was severed. The earth seemed to shift under my feet. The only thing holding me to the ground, to this life, was this perfect woman in front of me. I tried to remember the love that I had for Leah, but something inside me had made that love unneeded, unimportant, unnecessary.
Love, life, meaning, it was all there. In that beautiful, flawless creature, Emily.
The elders explained imprinting. I knew it should have bothered me that I couldn't seem to think of Leah like I had just that morning. Emily was destined to be my soul mate. I would live out my life with Emily, for Emily. I would be whatever she needed.
I had broken Leah's heart, but it didn't matter. She wasn't there anymore. All that mattered, all I saw was Emily. I took Emily for a walk on a deserted beach one day and I tried to explain it to her. She wouldn't hear any of it. She thought the legends were just that, legends. Ridiculous stories told to little children to keep them obedient to tribal traditions. She was angry and she didn't want anything to do with me. She told me she hated me for what I had done to Leah, her cousin, her best friend. Her loyalty was remaining firmly with Leah. She hated me. This couldn't happen. I wouldn't let it happen. She couldn't hate me, we were supposed to be together.
She was yelling, hitting me, damning me to hell for breaking her cousins heart over what she thought was superstitious here-say. I was seeing red and shaking uncontrollably. She was too close, pounding on my chest, telling me to leave her alone. I told her I loved her and she slapped me across the face.
I exploded.
She was too close. My claws ripped through her perfect flesh like a hot knife through butter, from her perfect face, all the way down the front of her perfect body. The blood came immediately and I couldn't calm myself enough to phase back to help her. She couldn't scream. Her airway had been choked off by a river of blood. Her eyes were staring at me with a hateful glare, her body writhing in pain, coursing through it's own macabre dance of death. Her backed arched off the ground, fell flat, and she was still.
She was gone. Love, life, meaning, all gone. It happened so fast. This is it, the end of me.
I ran as fast as I could. I knew I couldn't run forever, but I thought maybe it would dull the excruciating pain in my chest. I killed her. I lost control and killed my imprint. I was no better than the monsters I was supposed to protect my tribe from. A small part of my dying mind knew that I had to go back, I had to keep the secret. I secluded myself in my house, not coming out for days. I had no will to do anything. I had lost Leah because of this curse. She had been replaced by someone so much more important and I had lost her too. No, I hadn't lost her. I had killed her. My god, what have I done?
Her death was ruled an animal attack. Search parties were sent into the forest to track the beast that had taken her life. They would never find him, for they would never come to knock on my door, linking me with vicious attack that had claimed the life of one of our own. But, Billy knew. He was sympathetic. He placed no blame, He was not ashamed of me. He knew of the difficulties that came with controlling the inner beast. While he was deeply saddened by her death, he understood. But what he didn't know was that this loss was slowly killing me. Losing Emily would be the end of me.
Months passed and I barely survived. I ate occasionally and rarely ventured out of my house. I spent my time curled in a fetal position wishing for my own death. With this curse came extraordinary healing abilities so I didn't even think I could kill myself to put myself out of this misery. But, I didn't deserve something as quick as a self inflicted death. I deserved to suffer, for eternity if need be, to repent for my sins.
And then I was forced to become the beast again.
Billy Black called me because he needed my help. Charlie Swan's daughter, Bella, had gone missing. She left a note saying she was going for a walk with Edward in woods and hadn't come out. Oh, that's right, she was dating one of them, one of the the Cullens. Billy reminded me of my duty to protect. He was afraid that the Cullen boy had taken her and turned her. They had been searching the woods around Charlie's house for hours with no sign of her. Billy knew that with my heightened senses I should be able to track without a problem, if she was still in the woods. I reluctantly agreed.
When I arrived at Charlie's house, Billy discreetly took an article of clothing out of her truck and let me smell it. As much as I hated being here, I had to admit that her scent was wonderful and would be easy to track. I could also still detect the stench of the vampire she had been here with and it was all I could do not to phase right there. I slipped off into the woods, tied my shorts around my leg and phased. I crossed over to the trail that led behind her house, being careful to remain undetected by the rest of the search party. I found where her scent and the vampire's stopped and were concentrated in one area. What shocked me was that his scent looped back towards the house, while hers kept going further into the forest. I put my nose to the ground a followed it a good distance. She couldn't have walked this far, could she?
Her scent started to get stronger and I could faintly hear quick, shallow breathing. I came into a clearing and there she was, laying on the ground. She was soaking wet and shivering. She seemed to have no idea that I was there. Tears were streaming down her face. I tried to push away the resentment I felt for her for associating with leeches so I could be calm enough to phase back to my human form. After I had phased and dressed, I walked over to her and looked down at her with disgust, but I couldn't help but feel a small amount of pity for her. Whatever Edward had done to her had messed her up pretty badly. I couldn't smell any blood in the air so I knew he hadn't harmed her or bitten her. Figuring I owed it to Billy to follow through with my purpose, I called her name and asked her if she had been hurt. That was when she looked at me.
No, this can't be happening again, it's supposed to be rare. Not with her. She had loved a leech, a bloodsucker, a vampire. But I felt it. Every connection, severing. New ties forming, binding me to her. Every love that I had ever had, losing it's meaning. Even the love that I thought I had for Emily was gone, the misery from the pain of her death all but a distant memory. There was still an ache in my chest, but the ache was now because this girl in front of me was hurting. The earth was shifting again, forcing me closer to this girl. This miserable, heartbroken girl. I couldn't do it, I would fight it. I couldn't be with this girl who had fallen in with the vampires like they were just like every other normal person. Every fiber of my being ached with that thought. The part of me that was now unconditionally devoted to her hoped that she hadn't known what they were. Because if she did, this girl would be the end of me.