Continuation of what may or may not become a fully fledged Leah/Sam fic. Sam shows up broken in Leah's new life. Even after all those years and everything they've been through, he's still the one person she can't turn away from. She's about to find out just how much she's willing to give up for him. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter... I'm worried that it was too much... I guess we'll see! Reviews are love.

Spoilers/Setting: Post-Breaking Dawn, Potential BD spoilers.

Disclaimer: Twilight and subsequent characters belong to S. Meyer. I'm just playing with them. Reviews are love.

Inspiration: Title is from The Atari's record of the same name, Welcome the Night Chapter title and cut is a track from Death Cab for Cuties record 'PLANS' Leah and Evan's home

WELCOME THE NIGHT

Chapter Three: What Sarah Said

Last time, it was five words that fell from his mouth, that ruined her life as she knew it.

"I can't be with you"

This time, even if she didn't know it yet, all it would take was two.

"She's dead".

Leah almost collapsed down beside him.

Regret. Grief. Fear.

Regret that she'd spent the last eight years avoiding a girl who had been as good as her sister for the first twenty of her life.

Grief that someone she loved so much was gone.

Fear that he wouldn't make it through this.

She wanted to fall apart but she knew that he needed her, that he'd come here for a reason and that she had to be strong.

"Can you control yourself?" It sounded like a stupid question, but while she would do almost anything for him, she wouldn't risk her family by letting him inside her home if he was going to phase on her. When a weak nod was all she got in response she believed him, helping him to his feet and inside, where she took him straight to the guest room, thankful that Seth kept clothes here on the off chance he decided to pay a visit.

It wasn't until she flipped the light on that she saw the damage. She didn't even bother trying to hide the gasp that escaped her lips, though she supposed she shouldn't have been that surprised. His skin was stained with dry blood, a few wounds still healing on his arm and shoulder, but mostly they were just faded pink scars now. "What happened?" She whispered as she sat him down on the bed and got him a blanket.

He didn't answer for a while and she didn't push him, instead going to get him some water and a damp washcloth to at least get some of the blood off - the latter he pushed away. So she sat there, beside him, letting him tell her without words what he needed, because it was safer for everyone that way.

Eventually, he got up. He didn't say anything to her, just got up and went into the bathroom. Leah sighed when she heard the shower running and collected some clothes for him, leaving them on the bed and going to the kitchen to call Seth. She got his machine and left a message asking him what the hell happened. She had felt Sam come into the room but she hadn't expected him to speak.

"It was a vampire."

Leah closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. If it had sounded bad before, it was a thousand times worse now. He sounded hollow. Like there was nothing left inside, nothing of her Sam there anymore and from what she knew about imprinting, it probably wasn't that far from the truth.

"One was wandering too close to the reservation for comfort. We killed it just before it took some campers."

Leah frowned, really hoping that they hadn't pissed off an entire coven by killing that vampire - that hadn't turned out so well for them in the past. Sam seemed to pick up on her concern, shaking his head and looking at the ground.

"There was just two of them, but we didn't know about the second one until..." Grief and pain seemed to steal his words as he struggled to find a way to finish that without a stabbing reminder. "Until last night."

A mate for a mate.

Leah's gaze joined Sam's on the plush carpet near their feet, unable to take the pain that was etched into his face. Hot tears brushed her cheeks but she wiped them away quickly.

"What about..."

She didn't need to finish the sentence before Sam interrupted her with the answer. "He's safe."

Even that didn't really make her feel any better.

Again, she couldn't find words, she wasn't sure there were any in this situation, all she could think to ask was whether they got the leech that... and she knew the answer to that just by looking at him. He'd probably gone alone and the vampire probably couldn't have asked for a worse death.

So they sat there, in silence... in mourning... on the couch that Leah loved, but had refused to buy because it had been ridiculously expensive. Of course, Evan had been there with her, so it was delivered to their home the next day.

She was deep in thought about how she was going to explain this to her husband - a modified version of the truth would probably be the easiest way - when Sam grabbed onto her wrist, harder than he meant to, she realized, because it immediatley loosened. Any pain she might have felt though was forgotten when he looked her dead in the eye... and dead was an appropriate word. It was the first time he'd looked at her since he arrived and she almost wished he didn't. It did nothing short of break her heart.

Of course if the way he looked at her broke her heart, what he said ripped it out completely.

"I can't live like this."

If anyone else had of been in the room, they wouldn't have heard it, but every word burned Leah's ears.

"Help me be with her." Apparantley the look on her face reflected her answer because when he spoke again it was nothing short of begging. "I don't care how. I can't do it on my own. You're the only one..."

Leah stood up. She'd been worried about him phasing but now she was the one who was trembling. "I'm the only one who can help you kill yourself!?" She said angrily. It was an advantage of being a werewolf, she could yell at him without even raising her voice. She slapped him and she slapped him hard but the only recognition he paid was dropping his gaze again, though the fact that he looked at least a little ashamed made her feel a tiny bit better.

"You're a fucking selfish coward, Sam." She said harshly. They were two words that everyone who knew him would probably never use to describe him, but then, Leah had always been privy to a side of Sam that no one else had ever seen. "You have a child. A child who just lost his mother and you want to take away his father too?" She realized then that maybe she'd underestimated the power of imprinting just a little. Or she was right and he genuinely was a coward. "Emily was the most forgiving person I ever met, but she wouldn't even forgive you if you did that to Liam." That was something that Leah was sure of.

"You're going to go back to the guest room, I'm going to make you a sandwich, you're going to eat it and then you're going to get some sleep. And try and leave before I say you can and you'll have to kill me to get past the property line." She wondered for a split second if he would be desperate enough to do it. To kill her in an attempt to get the others to take his life. She shook the thought away because she didn't really believe it.

He hadn't said anything, but he looked even more broken than he had a few minutes ago. Like his last hope had been stolen.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, and it took all of Leah's strength not to break down. When he stood up and took her hand, leading her to the bedroom she didn't hesitate, not even when he lay down on the bed, pulling her so tightly against him that if she had of been human he may have broken her in two. She knew that everything about her, from her heated skin to the scent of her shampoo was probably reminding him that she wasn't Emily and maybe she should have been mad, because she knew that right now he was doing everything he could to block out all of that and find any trace of his wife, his Emily, in her, but selfishly she let him because this was maybe the most bittersweet moment of her life.

It reminded her of the first night he'd come back after disappearing for two weeks. She knew now where he'd been but at the time all she knew was that he was home and he was safe. He'd snuck in through her window and she could tell straight away that he was scared and unsure of what was going to happen, but he'd held her and she'd thought that maybe she was enough to make him think whatever it was that was bothering him would be okay.

And sure, this was different; she wasn't sure how she was going to explain being in bed with a large, half naked man to her husband, who was asleep upstairs, or whether she wanted her children to be around him like this, but she wanted to think that right now she was holding him back from the brink of total destruction. Tonight that was enough, tomorrow she would deal with everything else.

Tomorrow she would try to be enough for him this time.