A/N: This chapter is very dialogue-intensive, but I chose to do that in order to establish a bit of common ground between Leah and Alice to help root their relationship a bit better.

Knowing how awkward Leah felt in "ordinary" parts of town, Alice hadn't wanted to take her to the one restaurant in Forks. As much as Alice had tried to assure Leah that people in Forks were usually too wrapped up in themselves to care that other people were lesbians, Leah had argued that every tiny event was a news earthquake there. Bella's arrival had been every boy's dream come true just because they hadn't known her since kindergarten, and Bella's wedding to Edward had been catastrophic because "they're eighteen!" If an eighteen-year-old married couple was news around here, Leah didn't want to deal with the stares they would get.

They climbed into Alice's yellow porche, and as always, Alice floored it. When Leah didn't flinch, Alice was almost shocked-her girlfriend's calm reaction to the burning rubber surprised her, and Alice had lost all of her memories of a time when things could surprise her.

"I'm a frickin werewolf," Leah said, "I'm used to speed."

"It's easy for me to forget sometimes," Alice said honestly, "no offense."

"Why?" Leah asked. "Don't I stink?"

Alice inhaled a girly scent of vanilla lavender and giggled at how typically feminine it was. "Not at all," she said, "but if you want a new signature scent, we can pick it up at the mall."

"The mall?" Leah wrinkled her nose, "I'm a shape shifter. I'm going to rip off every article of clothing I own the first time I wear it."

Alice wore the smile that usually accompanied a human blush. "Well it's just as likely that I might rip off every article of clothing you own." Her tone hardened a bit, "when we're ready."

Leah, being the more human of the two, still had the capacity to blush. "First of all, if you were anyone but you that would have been exceptionally creepy," she laughed, "second…isn't Bella your life size Barbie?"

"Bella's no fun anymore," Alice smiled, "I mean I love her as a sister, but she's way too stubborn sometimes."

Leah sighed. "I used to be in love with her, remember?"

"No," Alice said, "is that why you…"

"Well, I didn't used to be in love with her," Leah corrected, "but Jake did, and do you think it was easy vicariously living that through his thoughts? At first it was like watching a bad porno starring my alpha, but after a while it was like I was the one who wanted to be with her. Jake turned me gay, dammit."

Though the comment stung a bit, Alice reminded herself that their budding romance wasn't as simple as other relationships she had been in. "I don't care if you ruin all the clothes we get," Alice smiled, "it's not like my family is on a fixed income."

The idea of wearing pretty clothes and dressing up made Leah's heart sting a bit. "I haven't really gone shopping since I was with Sam," Leah said, "when I realized there was no point in trying to impress him, and I didn't want anybody else, I just kind of gave up on being pretty."

"Well now you do have someone else," Alice said, "you deserve to be happy as much as anyone else."

"Did you ever have feelings for Bella?" Leah asked curiously.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," Leah said, "I just mean since you were around her all the time, and you guys had slumber parties and such. I mean, you did tell me you're pretty much bisexual right?"

"Pretty much," Alice said, "I think I've always leaned a bit towards women, even with Jazz in the picture. I can't say I never thought about it, but she works well with Edward. I love them both, but both of them have some growing up to do, I think."

Leah sighed, almost in relief. "So you don't think I'm a complete bitch for what I said?"

"Not a complete bitch," Alice said. "It was pretty bad timing, but it is sometimes easy for me to forget how young Bella is. We may both look like teenagers, but I'm about a hundred years older than her."

"And me," Leah reminded her.

"I think permanent heartbreak does something to age a person's soul," Alice mused, "aside from being a socially awkward kid, having a few clumsy accidents, and losing Edward a couple years ago, Bella's never really known what it's like to hurt."

"But didn't she almost kill herself?" Leah asked.

"Not on purpose," Alice recalled, "I was there. She tried jumping off a cliff to hear Edward's voice. I'm not saying that wasn't hard for her, that whole thing and I gave Edward a pretty lengthy speech about leaving his soul mate unattended, but she got Edward back and she had Jacob to keep her going while he was gone. She had Renesmee, which must have been incredibly physically painful, but emotional pain always trumps physical in my mind. Both her parents are still alive, and the first boy she ever really liked turned out to be her soul mate."

"That's why I resent her so much, I think," Leah said, "she had two perfect men in love with her, and I saw her constantly breaking Jake's heart and the poor guy just kept going back for more. I couldn't keep one guy in love with me then."

"That's why you're different, though," Alice said, "Bella and Edward look at each other like the worship the ground the other walks on. You look at me like I'm a frickin goddess, but there's something deeper there. I think people have the potential to love more when they've been hurt more. They can appreciate it more, and it's all the more special that way."

Leah smiled. "Sam wasn't half the romantic you are."

"I know," Alice smiled back.

"Did you ever get your heart broken?" Leah asked.

"I actually don't remember," Alice said, "I guess it's possible that when I was human I did. I spent my last few years in a mental institute, and 'died' there. I don't really remember anything from my human years."

"Wow," Leah said, "I'm…I'm sorry. That kind of makes my problems sound pretty pathetic."

"Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, my visions aren't very accurate because my mind gets clouded with sounds of someone screaming, or really faint memories of scissors and loud voices, and laughing. Jazz used to try to convince me to see a therapist, but I kind of doubt there are many who work with vampires. Maybe it's some latent PTSD, but I don't think I'd go even if there were."

"Scissors?" Leah repeated. "I remember in Sweeny Todd they tried to cut Johanna's hair when she was in the mental institute and sell it to wig makers," Leah reached over to finger her girlfriend's spiky hair, "do you think…?"

"Probably," Alice said, "I doubt in the early nineteen hundreds I would have just waltzed out to the barber and asked to have most of my hair lopped off."

"Yikes," Leah responded, "it won't grow back, will it?"

"No," Alice said, "I thought about getting extensions, for a while, but most of the time they end up looking pretty fake. Plus, I kind of like my short hair."

When they neared the end of a highway, Alice turned her signal on and they entered the city limits of Seattle. "Do you need to eat?" Alice asked.

"I wouldn't mind it," Leah responded.

"Right," Alice said, "I was finally getting used to the whole human, parenthetically shape shifter eating schedule with Bella, when she became a vampire and it stopped being important. You have a preference?"

"Won't it look weird if we go into a restaurant together and you don't even have water?" Leah asked.

"In our relationship, I think we should just drop the 'won't it look weird if…' questions," Alice smiled.

Leah agreed, and after stopping for lunch, they hit the mall and Alice danced with joy as she dragger her reluctant date through the door. "So, where do you like to shop?" Alice asked.

"When I actually used to come to the mall I'd usually go to Nordstrom rack or maybe JcPenny."

"It feels like an Express kind of day," Alice said, eyeing Leah's slightly torn jeans, "we're going to Express."

Once Leah felt completely too glamorous to recognize herself in the mirror, and the two of them received their complementary-with-purchase age-defying cream from Sephora, there came the question of what to do next.

"I really don't want to go back to my house," Alice said. "We really need to ask Carlisle about hooking us up with one of those fairy tale cottages like Edward and Bella's."

"Not sure a fairy tale cottage would really be my thing," Leah said, "is it really bad with your family?"

"No, no," Alice said, not wanting Leah to feel guilty, "Edward is Edward and Jasper, obviously is dealing in his own way."

"Edward's homophobic then?" Leah asked.

"Just old fashioned," Alice said, "he'll get over it."

"Well I can't bring you back to my place either," Leah said lamely, "I already gave my father a heart attack. Even with the truce, I don't think bringing a vampire home, especially a vampire who is coincidentally my girlfriend would be a good idea."

"One or both of us needs a new place," Alice suggested.

"I'm looking into an apartment," Leah said, "for when I start at University of Seattle in the fall, but until then things are just going to be a bit irritating."

"So, tell your mom you're staying over with the Cullens," Alice suggested, "she won't mind, you've done it before. She doesn't need to know you're with me, and she doesn't need to know that we're actually hanging out at a hotel in Seattle."

"A hotel?" Leah asked. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course," Alice said, "I can cover it."

"No, I mean, are you sure about…" Leah hesitated.

"We don't have to do anything if you don't want to," Alice said, "obviously. But it would be nice to get to spend time with you without all this werewolf/vampire plus homophobia, plus my divorce chaos."

"Sure," Leah said.

When they got back in the car, Leah couldn't stop eyeing herself in the passenger side mirror. Her brown eyes were accented with a faint, amber glitter and her lips looked shiny and worth having someone kiss them. She adjusted her new green blouse to hide the laciest bra strap she had ever worn, and felt a pang of insecurity she usually kept well-guarded. She remembered the first while after Sam left her, when she would examine her naked body in front of a mirror and wonder if Emily's naked breasts were perkier than hers, if Emily's skin was softer, if Emily was better at making love. Leah had only had Sam a couple of times before Emily came into the picture, and it was impossible for Leah not to wonder if something about her had turned Sam off completely, too much for any preexisting love to compensate for.

"Thanks for the clothes," Leah said lamely.

"It wasn't entirely selfless," Alice said, "I like seeing my girlfriend look hot."

"I do look hot," Leah said reluctantly, taking another look in the mirror, "I haven't felt that way in a while."

"Well get used to it," Alice said. "Because you are hot."

When they arrived at the Hyatt, Alice explained that they had no luggage: only shopping bags. The bellhop groaned, and Alice whispered to Leah that he probably thought they were spoiled teenage girls with Daddy's plastic.

"Aren't we, though?" Leah asked. "I mean, technically."

When they reached the room, Leah noticed that Alice had reserved two beds, probably to avoid intimidating her. "Let's see what's on TV, shall we?" Alice laughed.

After a few minutes of channel flipping, they went through all the movie titles and took turns making fun of the available porno titles.

"I almost would rent some of these just to make fun of them," Alice said.

"I don't like porn," Leah said, "I don't like the idea that if only I were prettier, I'd be worth being treated like a whore."

"You don't need to be prettier," Alice said, "or to be treated like a whore."

"I sometimes forget how badly my self esteem was fucked up after Sam left me," Leah mused. She climbed onto Alice's bed, and Alice put her arm around Leah.

"You want to talk about it?" Alice asked.

"Not really," Leah said, "just…how do we know that what we have is different than what you had with Jasper or what I had with Sam?"

"Well isn't imprinting the end-all?" Alice asked. "It feels different for me anyway."

"And me too," Leah said, "but I thought I was feeling so much for Sam, and it turned out that neither of us were really the people we thought we were."

"He didn't imprint on you, though," Alice said, "but you imprinted on me. As much as it hurt you, and as much as it hurts Jasper, Sam was meant for Emily and you were meant for me. And someone out there was meant for Jasper too."

"So we deserve to be happy then?" Leah asked. "Even when we've made Jasper miserable?"

"I think from the way things were going, Jasper and I would have grown apart eventually," Alice said, "and so would you and Sam. Love isn't something you do to someone or take away from someone, it's something that is or isn't. You can try to force it or fight it, but…what I'm saying is, of course we deserve to be happy."

"I lost the person I thought was my soul mate," Leah said, "and I'm so happy…to be with you, but so scared that something will happen and you won't want to stay with me. I never thought I was really going to imprint on someone, and I'm kind of scared."

Her lip started to tremble, and Alice leaned in to kiss her. For a few moments, Alice did all the work: applying gentle touches of the lips and working towards small pecks, and eventually Leah started to catch up, their mouths awkwardly missing each others' rhythm until they slowly learned to move together. Alice never would have remembered to stop if Leah hadn't finally come up for air.

"It's cute seeing you do human things like that," Alice said.

"Like breathe?" Leah responded.

"I told you, I don't remember being human," Alice said, "and you're as close as I've ever been to someone resembling a human."

Leah leaned in for a second kiss, and this one was more synchronized than before and required a few more deep breaths afterward.

"It's weird, figuring out how fast a relationship should go with someone I barely know anything about, except for the little detail of us being soul mates," Leah said awkwardly.

"Well," Alice looked at her watch, "thankfully I'm immortal, and as long as you have a vampire around, you're really in no hurry either."