The MOST important Author's Note I've ever written – ***MUST READ BEFORE CONTINUING***: If you are a follower/returning reader of this story and read the previous chapters of this story prior to September 2012, please go back and read them again!
I decided to totally re-work this story upon my return to fanfiction this past summer (Summer 2012) and essentially rewrote each of the first 10 chapters. This new version of Lost and Found has changed quite a bit from the old, original version (including my deletion of the old Chapters 11 & 12). So if you don't start again at the beginning, you are likely to be rather confused.
I felt that both Leah and Embry (but especially Leah) were far too OOC for my tastes, in the version of Lost and Found I originally wrote. Leah Clearwater's struggle to overcome emotional pain, her sass, and her fierce self-reliance are just a few of the things I absolutely LOVE about the lone she-wolf character Stephanie Meyer created. I felt that I hadn't done justice to the independent spirit of canon Leah in the first rendition of this story. I also thought that my portrayal of the budding relationship between Leah and Embry and its development over time was nowhere near accurate, when taking into account the history that exists between those two characters. Basically, I just felt that overall my previous attempt to tell the Lost and Found story was not some my best writing… So I decided to change it.
I truly hope those of you who read the original (and liked it enough to return for updates) will approve of the changes I've made, but let me know what you think of it either way! Happy reading!
After more than two years, here it is – finally a brand new chapter! Enjoy…
Chapter 11: That Damned Pull
Seth continued, "Why do you think it just happened now though? Like Sam said, there's never been a case of a wolf imprinting years after the first sight. So what do you think made it different this time, for you guys?"
"Uh… no idea, kid," was all I could offer.
Looking at Leah though, I got the distinct impression that she wasn't quite as clueless as the rest of us. Just what did she know? And why wasn't she sharing?
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Embry's POV
I knew that whatever it was Leah knew or was hiding, she certainly wasn't going to spill it in front of practically the whole tribe. So I decided to let the issue drop for the moment and returned to my earlier plans of escape.
I had already made it half-way across the room before Seth had stopped me earlier, so it wasn't too much farther to the door now.
Knowing full well that I was throwing Leah to the wolves – literally, I never even turned my head to look back as I announced to the group as a whole, "Well, great talk! See you guys later!" while I quickly opened the door and darted though, finally making my exit from the awkward gathering.
I felt the pull immediately, calling me back to Leah's side. But there was no way in hell I was going back in that house anytime soon.
Not able to go too far – thanks to the damn pull – and not really wanting to go home since I would be far too easy to find there, I headed towards the water.
My pace was lazy and unhurried – I really didn't have any specific destination in mind. After an indistinct period of time – I honestly don't recall how long I had been walking as I really wasn't paying any attention to the ground my feet traversed, lost in my own head (and Leah's too, I suppose) – I was forced to a stop by the dead-drop ahead and the insurmountable expanse of the sea beyond. My aimless wandering had unintentionally (really, it was!) brought me to a familiar, if ironic, spot.
My feet had inadvertently lead me to Leah's cliff – the one I'd found her on the night of Sam and Emily's wedding, where she sat thinking about dying.
I headed over to the cliff's edge and sat down, legs dangling over the ledge into the empty air, staring out over the mighty Pacific and trying desperately not to think of anything at all, but failing miserably and able to do nothing but.
Strange the way life works, isn't it?
Five years ago, as an average, horny, high school boy who worshipped the very ground she walked on, I would have given anything to have Leah Clearwater even know my name…
Two or three years ago, as a pack-mate often falling victim to her bitter harassment, I would have given anything to have Leah Clearwater just leave me the hell alone…
One year ago, as an almost-friend sitting on a cliff trying to convince her life was still worth living and worrying that I might fail, I would have given anything to have Leah Clearwater feel hope again and see even just a little bit of her long-overdue happiness…
And today, as a newly imprinted wolf, I would now give anything to have Leah Clearwater go back to being nothing more than an almost-friend and pack-mate again, instead of whatever it is that she just became to me…
I'm not ready for any of this imprinting crap yet! Hell, who am I kidding? – I don't think that I was ever going to be ready for this shit! Guess there's no chance of escaping it all now though – all the crazy drama that seems to go hand-in-hand with imprinting – is there?
Why do Leah and I always seem to draw the short straws in life?
I suppose it wasn't it enough that I was born the tribe bastard.
And I guess it hadn't been enough that she had her heartbroken by a man who she will never really be able to fully remove from her life.
Wasn't enough that I had grown up without a father – a frequent topic of rez gossip over the years – and continued to be judged for the actions of a nameless, faceless man whose identity dimmed my every action, my every achievement?
And apparently it still hadn't been enough when she had become the pack's lone female wolf, first ever in the history of the Quileute tribe – a veritable anomaly.
Was it not enough that I had been one of the biggest sources of tension within the pack right from my first phase – the question of my paternity casting a shadow of doubt on the integrity of both my best friends' fathers?
Honestly though, had she really not suffered enough when she watched her father die, right in front of her eyes and – in her mind, at least – by her own unexpectedly furry hand?
Obviously, none of our past suffering had been enough to ease the grudges that Fate seemed to hold against Leah and me because we were now proving, yet again, to be La Push's black sheep… or really, wolves, right? – we were the tribe's 'black' wolves. In addition to all our other abnormalities, Leah and I both were now the only wolves to ever have imprinted on another shape-shifter, on a pack-mate.
Guess it could be worse…I could have imprinted on one of the guys. If it had to be a pack-mate, at least it's Leah.
Hahaha! Sad but so very true! Her amusement broke into my thoughts.
It would have been hilarious if you had imprinted on one of the pups though! Her laughter annoyingly carried on, ringing inside my head.
Think that's funny, huh? Well just imagine if you had imprinted on Seth. I hear he's still imprint-free and available!
That shocked her into silence and her laughter finally ended, but my own now took its place – thanks to the amusement I felt imagining the look of pure disgust I could practically see taking over her face.
When her thoughts returned from silence, to be met by my continued laughter, they sounded almost more like a growl than actual words. I got the overall gist of them though…
You're awfully twisted, aren't you, Call. That was just plain wrong on every level. You just wait until I find you, Embry… Can't believe you just left me standing there alone, to take on that whole group. You'll be sorry for leaving me high-and-dry once I get my paws on you – or maybe I should say once I get my claws into you…
Ooohhh, I'm shaking in my fur already… I returned, sarcastically. But I'm not going to lie… Leah Clearwater always scared me a little bit – even more so when she's actually pissed. Not that I'd ever admit to that out loud. So let's just pretend I never said – or thought, I mean… let's just pretend I never thought any of that.
I could tell she was on the move. She must have executed an escape of her own, since I was positive the packs (and especially Sam) would never have just released her from interrogation without full, clear, and precise answers to all of their questions – none of which she actually had, as I well knew.
It wasn't long before I felt her physical presence break through the tree-line ten yards back from the edge of the cliff, where I sat waiting.
Despite her earlier threats, she approached the edge of the cliff in a calm, casual manner and made no moves to attack. Instead, she just sat down next to me, joining me in dangling her legs from the knee down off the side of the cliff.
"That was a pretty crappy thing you did…leaving me there to deal with all of them alone like that," she commented in an empty, even voice. Her detached tone, devoid of any emotion at all, seemed to suggest that her hurt ran deeper than she felt comfortable acknowledging, much less expressing.
I wished then that she actually had decided to go on and hit me, maul me, pull my hair, anything!
And make it painful please, if you don't mind…
God, nothing she could possibly say would have made me feel any shittier than that had!
…
And she knew it too! That she-wolf! And I do mean that in every sense of the word!
I could tell by the slightly smug look on her face that she had known exactly what she was doing, had known exactly how her words would affect me. That was how she intended to punish me – guilt. Rather than beating the shit out of me, she would just give me a little nudge in the right emotional direction and then let me do it myself!
Clever girl! I couldn't help but think. Manipulative, sure. But very clever!
"Maybe. But I've been dealing with them alone for nearly a year since you've been gone – I figured it was your turn this time," I responded, adding a small 'I'm sorry' smile, when I turned to face her as I spoke.
"How did you get away, anyways?" I asked, truly curious as to her method of escape.
"What do you mean 'how did I get away'? ... I'm Leah Clearwater, of course, legendary bitch of the Quileute people!"
My face must have said loud and clear that I required a little more in the way of an explanation before I'd let it go. So she went on, "When they started hounding me with questions all I had to do was give them the most hateful look I hold in my arsenal, tell them I didn't freaking feel like dealing with their questions right then in a tone I usually reserve especially for Paul, and then… I just turned and walked out."
I shook my head, slightly in awe of her terrible power. She chuckled a bit, for once enjoying her reputation as a shrew with the potential to become a fearsome, violent, raging bitch in the time it took you to blink, if provoked.
After that, neither of us spoke for several minutes. We just sat there, looking out at the sea and each lost in our own swirling thoughts.
"You know, we should probably talk about it – we'll have to talk about it sooner or later," I started.
"'Bout what?" she replied without turning to look at me, faking ignorance in the hopes of avoiding this particular discussion – or at least postponing it.
My only answer was the glare I sent her, which said 'you damn-well know exactly what I'm talking about – is there even anything else going on in the world right now – come to think of it, is the Earth even still spinning?', and managed to convey my extreme aggravation, all without my ever having actually said a word.
She didn't argue though. She just sighed, but then remained silent on the subject nonetheless. Apparently she was waiting for me to start us off.
"Fine, I'll go first then, shall I?" I huffed in irritation.
If she wouldn't talk then I'd just have to push forward until she chose to join in, "It was starting to get really bad for me, you know – the pain, I mean. And the pull too, I guess. But the pain was closing in on nearly debilitating."
I stopped to let my words settle in the silence between us. I wasn't sure where I was going with this, so I took the brief pause to collect my thoughts a bit better and choose my next words carefully before proceeding.
She surprised me though, when she began speaking before I managed to go on. When she spoke, it sounded like she was answering a question I had never even asked her.
"I know. Why do you think I came home? I was hardly even functioning anymore. I couldn't even drive myself home, I had to have my mom come up and get me at school," she supplied.
It's silly really, but I actually exhaled a breath of relief as she confirmed that it hadn't just been me. I mean, sure, I knew the imprint was mutual – she had said as much, both in the privacy of the bedroom I'd first woken up in and then again downstairs, in front of everyone else.
I didn't know, however, what else we might have shared in regards to our imprinting experiences. And by that, I mean that I didn't really know if she had gone through all the crap leading up to imprinting like I had over the past year or if maybe she had arrived in La Push today, completely normal, and then BOOM – all of a sudden she just imprinted.
Well, I guess I know now. She went through 'the year from hell', same as me. Although, I guess every year over the past half-decade has probably felt like 'the year from hell' in Leah's life. That thought made me feel oh-so-guilty for any earlier relief I had experienced at the knowledge that I hadn't been the only weirdo to be so drastically affected by our pull.
And since we both were clearly destined to always be the pack outcasts, in every way that might ever be possible or could even be imagined, so it also seemed that our imprint would be just as atypical as the two wolves it now forever connected.
Not only were we the first wolves ever to imprint on another pack member, none of the other imprinted wolves had ever experienced any of the 'symptoms' Leah and I had over the past year, leading up to the 'main event' (i.e. actually imprinting on each other).
Sure maybe they felt a bit of a pull, but it wasn't an all-consuming pull like ours. And before they actually imprinted, only when they were close enough that they might easily follow the pull to within sight-range of their future imprint could they even noticeably feel it at all really.
Example: Paul and Rachel. When Rachel Black had come back into town, there had been several instances in which Paul had come as close to her as the front door of her father's house, where she slept inside. While standing on the porch, after knocking, and waiting for Jacob to come to the door and follow him away to a pack meeting, he had felt Rachel's proximity pulling at him to go inside the house. Standing in front of a locked door though, there was really no sane way to follow it, so he just dealt with the urge by trying – and succeeding – to ignore it.
Sure, he wondered what the hell was going on and briefly considered that he might be going crazy – not that you'll ever hear Paul admit to it, not even torture could wrestle that one out of him. But trust me – after all, I should know – not even repetitively singing "This is the song that never ends…" at the top of his mental 'lungs' was able to drown out the memories of those moments of self-doubt when he phased soon after.
Each time the door to the Black home had eventually been opened – no longer blocking the path his pull had wanted him to follow, one that led straight to Rachel – he had always ended up being physically dragged away from the house (and 'his destiny') by some pack-mate or other until he gained a suitable distance from her and the pull mostly faded.
Like I said, this happened to him several times before he actually set eyes on Rachel for the first time since he started phasing and, when he finally did, that was it – his whole world had shifted in an instant.
Our pull had not been anywhere near as patient or gentle with us. Or at least, it hadn't been with me. No distance was enough to diminish it – in fact, I think it might have actually been made stronger by our distance, while Leah was away at school in Seattle.
It seemed to me that there might be even more oddities in our imprint besides just the aforementioned oddities of 'the pull' and then, of course, the obvious…
'The obvious', of course, would be our newfound ability to hold mental conversations with one another while standing on only two legs (as opposed to the four legs with which, years ago, we had first grown used to silent forms of communication).
My thoughts have veered way off track now, more on the abnormalities of Embry and Leah to come later...
What were we talking about again? Leah had said something a minute ago, hadn't she? She wasn't waiting for some answer to a question I'd already forgotten, was she? What was it she said again? She's probably waiting for me to at least say something, anything back…
Oh yeah! She's been feeling like crap all year too. That's why she had come home to La Push – because it had gotten so bad. She couldn't even drive home from Seattle, her mom had had to go and get her.
She must have hated that! Leah has always hated not being able to do something herself… Needing help with something as simple as driving the few hours home from Seattle must have nearly killed the woman!
"I'm sorry, Lee," was all I said.
What else could I say, really? No words from my mouth could possibly have consoled her feelings of what I assume to probably be helplessness, shame, anger, and resentment at the whole situation. I couldn't necessarily stop all my thoughts from reaching her – I couldn't control it like that quite yet. But all I would do by commenting on it any further was either embarrass her even more or worse, refocus her anger in my direction. We already secretly established that an angry Leah Clearwater pretty much scares the bejeezes right out of me, correct?
"Only two hours in and already this damned imprint is ruining lives…" she observed. The look in her eyes and her choice of words told me she was really thinking about another imprint that had once ruined her life.
The silence that followed sat heavy in the air around us. Occasionally, I glanced over to my right to find Leah still staring out at the empty water, as though the edge of the world lay only as far as the ocean's horizon and by spotting it she might solve all her problems.
It was the familiarity of that look on her face, reminding me of the last time she and I had sat together on this very same cliff, which finally led me to break the quiet that had fallen between us – just as it had begun to feel too overwhelming to bear any longer.
"You know that we can't just make it go away, right? Nothing we do is going to change it now, Lee, we're…stuck with it now, I guess – stuck with each other," I brilliantly informed her. I had turned to look directly into her pretty, big brown eyes as I said it, hoping the eye-contact would reinforce the sincerity with which I spoke – even if those eyes didn't look back at me.
I expected to see anger, horror, resignation, or any numbers of other emotions play-out through her expression – all of which assumed the logic and rationality of my question-cum-statement about the permanence of our imprint to be irrefutable. Where I had expected to read one or more of these things on her face, all I actually did see was doubt…genuine, unadulterated doubt.
Was she in denial of the lasting impact an imprint held for the two souls it connected? Or did she perhaps have doubts about the true indestructibility of the imprint-bond and hope that we might discover the secret to dissolving an imprint, so that she could break ours?
"Lee?" I checked to make sure she'd even heard me.
If nothing else, I had at least expected some sort of characteristic snarky, sarcastic retort out of Leah. She never failed to get one of those off when an opportunity presented, always ready with one waiting on the tip of her tongue for just the right moment.
"Lee!" I tried again to grab her attention.
When her restrained response only grew minimally, in answer to my calls, to now include worrying her full, pink bottom lip between her teeth, I instinctively knew that our conversation had been touching upon whatever it was that I had suspected she was hiding from me.
And now I didn't just want to know. If our imprint was involved in her secret, then inextricably I was involved too. So now I needed to know.
"Okay, Clearwater, spill. Now."
Author's Note: I realize that this story has not officially been 'updated' in over two years (since posting my newly reworked chapters did not appear to count as an 'update'), but I'd like to make a few long-overdue review shout-outs:
To suzmac33, Little Emily, I WANT TO GO AWAY NOW (nice catch on my mistake in directions!), Littlestokes, xxBloodyRoseAlchemistxx, and HamaK0, who all reviewed the last chapter I posted for this fic on 03/05/10 (the old version's Chapter 12, which now no longer exists) – THANK YOU all so much for your reviews! It is, in large part, due to you guys that I decided to pick this fic back up when I returned to fanfiction. So I hope you all enjoy the story's slightly new direction and some of the changes I've made herein.
To those of you who reviewed any previous chapters (before the most recent Chapter 12 of the old version), I appreciate your reviews too and hope to receive more of them on this new version of Lost and Found!
Most of all, my HUGEST thanks goes out to ***Evil-Angel-23***, the most thorough, reliable, dedicated reviewer I have ever been lucky enough to have review one of my fics (she reviewed every single chapter of the original version of this story – all 12 of them)! Thank you so, so, SO much, Angel, for your appreciation, input, and support! I hope for your approval (above any other's, in fact) on my changes to this story! But I'm sure if you don't in fact approve then you'll be sure to let me know… And don't worry, I'll make sure to work Embry punching Sam back into the story at some point (probably pretty soon) – I know you liked that bit. Thanks again, you'll never know how much your detailed reviews have meant to this story! XOXO
Let me know what you all think – about this newest chapter, about my new version of Lost and Found, about the direction in which this story is heading – and help me stay motivated to keep writing…REVIEW!