Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of the characters, yada yada yada, you get the point.
A/N: I know it's been like a month, sorry, but life and reasons I'm very sure you could care less about prevented this from getting here sooner. Anyways I'm not going to promise new chapters by a certain date because I hate broken promises and I'm terrible with deadlines. All I will promise is that I will finish this in about 3 to 4, maybe more chapters.
Leah and Jacob had just reached the Uley residence when Leah suddenly stopped and Jacob just continued on. Jacob made it to the door before he noticed Leah wasn't with him. When he turned he saw a very ticked off Leah with her arms crossed in front of her glaring at the house. Jacob let out a frustrated sigh. He had no idea why he thought she'd just go in; she hadn't been inside the house since her first phase. They'd been bringing food to her, which was a miracle in itself that food lasted long enough from Emily's to the middle of the woods.
Reluctantly, Jacob walked down the steps and approached Leah. She just looked at the house with a growing resentment for what was supposed to be hers.
"Leah, come on. We're already late." Jacob said voice filled with frustration. It had been a long day and was going to be an even longer night and he didn't need this.
Leah's glare moved from the house to Jacob. "No one said I had to go in with you. So, if you're so concerned with punctuality, go on without me."
Jacob rolled his eyes. "It's a pack meeting. Everybody's supposed to be there, including you, so get a move on it."
Leah just huffed and then decided to challenge him. "I am here. I can hear everything perfectly fine from here and you guys can just as easily hear me. So, again, go on without me."
Jacob knew logic was correct, but still didn't feel like dealing with the look he was going to get from Sam for not getting her inside. Taking in deep breaths, Jacob reigned in his anger and calmly spoke to Leah.
"I'm well aware what this house is and what it represents, but right now we have more important things to focus. You have more important things to focus on. And the more drag your feet with these little things, the longer everything else is going to drag on. There's an army of newborn leaches headed this way ready to threaten everyone we love, so suck it up and save it for bigger things that you can actually change."
As sincere as Jacob sounded, it didn't make her feel any better. She stood her ground and stayed right in her spot defiantly.
"The meeting will go just fine, if not better, with me standing right here. I can hear them and they can hear me, so there's no problem. In other words, pull you lips from Sam's ass and leave me alone."
He had no idea why he expected her to reasonable, granted in the past couple of weeks she'd been nicer and a lot more cooperative with him, but you can't change a leopard's spots. Her logic was correct and he really didn't feel like dealing with a temper tantrum from Leah especially when it wasn't his job. Sam could deal with this, he resolved.
"Fine, stay here like an ornery child. It's not my job and I certainly didn't sign up for dealing with this." And with that he left her standing outside the Uley's home to seethe in her own pain and anger.
Today had started off so great only to be ruined by her wolf gene. She thought the day she phased would be the day she most resented being a wolf, but it was today, when her most precious was literately taken away from her again without promise to get it back anytime soon. And now, she was being asked to walk into the home that Sam bought for her and him to live out their lives together. She'd been in it before, but now both Sam and Emily would be inside to rub salt on her wounds even more. She was well aware that her difficult behavior was not only unnecessary but unneeded at this time, but she figure with what she'd been through the past year; she deserved to be as petty as she wanted to be.
Leah shook her head from those thoughts and decided to focus on the meeting. It felt completely unnecessary to have this meeting, it was pretty straightforward. They meet the Cullen's in the clearing and get insight on what was coming their way. If any of the Cullen's tried anything the treaty would be broken and they'd be missing a few members of their precious little made up family. But everyone knew control freak Sam needed order everybody around before anything had even happened.
"Okay, everybody's here, respectively. I just wanted to go over with everybody what's happening later tonight. We're going to the clearing as neutral ground. That means no baiting, biting or anything unless they strike first. I'm not saying we should trust them, but they have pertinent information and their help would really increase our odds at survival." Leah could hear everybody's nods as Sam reiterated crap he'd been saying since this whole alliance took place. She again thought how pointless his words were because everybody already knew it and if he really wanted to speed things along, he could get them all to phase and he could go over his whole spiel in his head for about five seconds.
"Now all of us are only going to this first meeting to get their scent and to get a sense of security, but after that only a Jacob and I will be going and we'll share what we learned after at a more reasonable hour." They all perked up at that, even Leah was on board with that idea. It meant less time in the leaches presence.
"Now I know this isn't ideal and we would rather take care of this issue ourselves, but it would be bode well for us to accept their help and we want everybody coming back from this alive." The timber in Sam's voice leaked authority and it irked Leah's nerves like no other. She could take getting order from Jacob despite him being younger than her, but Sam, he broke her without a second thought and now has the audacity to bark orders at her. The thing that was even worse was that she didn't want to be this bitter, broken person that everybody either pitied or hated. She wanted to be Leah, the girl who took crap from no one and was either adored or envied. She knew she was still those things, but her pain outshined all the qualities that used to be her.
Sam continued to drone on, but Leah wasn't listening. She just continued to stare at the house that was supposed to be her own. She even helped Sam pick it out when they still had a future together. She felt it was a little early to be picking out houses especially with her plans to go away to college, but love was blinding that way, it overtook logic in many ways. The funny thing is had they stayed together, it would have been the best decision they made together. But now it was the house he lived in with her and would be making a life with her and now she was being forced to watch.
She was fuming and was very close to phasing in their front yard, in plain sight of anybody near. She had a malicious though about Emily inquiring whether she liked her hand-me-downs. There wasn't an original thing about the things Emily had. She had her house, her fiancé, even her role in the pack and yet she seemed blindly happy about losing everything that was hers and stepping into someone else's life.
Sam had finally stopped talking and the rest of the pack was filing out of the house. As they were filing out Leah was receiving a cacophony of glares from each of them for staying outside. She didn't know what they were so mad about; they generally preferred not being in her presence. Sam was the last to exit the house and they all stated heading for the woods. Once they were out of plain sight they all started stripping down and attaching their clothes to their ankles. Leah found a secluded place away from the others and did the same. Once she had finished that task she let out all of the anger she had been suppressing earlier and phased.
Once phased, she was automatically hit with mindless chatter she didn't really feel like listening to, she quickly tuned them out. She cleared her mind as best as she could, but with the direction of her thoughts earlier that was difficult. She was thinking about the only neutral thing she could think about without giving Sam glimpses of Daniel or bumming everybody out, her mom. She thought about how she had always been there for even when she was stubborn past the pint of logic. Her thought were interrupted by Sam.
"Alright everybody let's head out."
Everybody quickly got into formation with Sam in the front and Leah in the back next Colin, one of the baby wolves, and then they were off. They made it to the clearing in about five minutes. Had Leah been able to go on her own, she could have made it there in two. Her annoyance at the slow pace quickly subsided when she realized she'd be early to a leech party had she gone ahead of everybody.
The entire Cullen clan, including Bella, was waiting in the clearing. Everybody was mindful to stay as quiet as possible knowing the gift of the leech Bella was obsessed with. Leah honestly didn't care if he heard anything she had to say because she knew he'd be dead the moment he decided to use anything against her. Sam stepped forward in front of the patriarch of the clan. Edward immediately left Bella to go to Carlisle's side to translate. Leah observed how Bella seemed to be slightly pained by him leaving her side and could only think of one word, pathetic.
The pack didn't seem to notice her comment but Edward did because the moment the thought formed in her mind she was automatically met with a glare from him. Leah just glared back in defiance, no one intimidate her least of all a mind raping leech. She was slightly surprised that Jacob didn't say something when that thought slipped, but she guesses that was because he knew she was right.
Sam started speaking, taking Edwards attention away from Leah back to the reason he was there to begin with.
"We are going to stay in our wolf form until we get a little more comfortable with this arrangement. We're all only going to be here for this meeting then only Jacob and I will be attending and then sharing through the pack mind later."
Edward immediately started translating Sam's words through some unwanted paraphrasing. Once all the pleasantries were through the training began. For this one they all just sat back while the watched Jasper release his knowledge about new born vampires. Leah was actually a little amazed at what she observed. She'd only seen vampires through other pack member's minds and they didn't really spend much time observing them before they torched them.
When everything was finished and they had all cataloged each leeches stench, Leah's mind wandered to the whole reason this meeting was necessary, Bella. Obviously her companions and her behavior toward Jacob had Bella on Leah's do not like list of people, but she also pitied her. This girl had become prey an abusive relationship, granted it wasn't intentional by both parties but it was there. Edward was your classic possessive boyfriend and Bella was the codependent girl that easily attracted these kinds of people, but Bella was so codependent that she failed to create an identity outside her boyfriend. She only had one friend outside of her boyfriend and his friends and that was only because Jacob was annoyingly persistent. Leah wondered how someone could demean themselves like that because even when she was blindly in love with Sam, she would have never let him take over her identity like that. It was the only reason she survived him breaking-up with her, she was her own person. The thing that broke her was the betrayal. Had Sam just simply broken up with her, she would have been able to get over it and move on and probably would be civil especially in regards to Daniel. But he didn't, instead he carried on an affair with her cousin and only broke up with her when he got caught. Destiny doesn't excuse violating simple principles of trustworthyness and everybody needed to realize that if they were going to ever get anywhere with her.
The pack headed off their separate ways to their homes, or in Leah's case the Black's, to get some rest. The pixie leech said no vampires had decided to head in their direction anytime soon so they all were getting a three hour reprieve from patrols until next shift, which happened to be Leah's.
Leah found a secluded place and quickly got herself on two legs and dressed in record time. She made her way into the Black house and flopped down onto the couch. She could hear Jacob in his room and Billy was still asleep, so she could get at least a little bit of uninterrupted sleep. It was a little ironic that being child free had not increased the amount of sleep she could get. Leah rolled over to her sided and sighed. She never thought she'd miss being woken up at odd hours by a three month old, but now that she didn't have the option, she wouldn't wish for anything more. Ending that train of thought, Leah closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
A/N: I know it's short but I didn't feel like reiterating what happened in the book especially considering it had little relevance to the story and more to keep it on tract and to not move too fast. Also know that I will be just summarizing the newborn battle like I did with the clearing because I'm not changing the events of that from the book.
