"You set off a dream in me. Getting louder now, can you hear it echoing?"

-Loren Allred, Never Enough

A Fractured Fairytale (Pt. 2)

The witch was dead.

Her soul finally vanquished, and the remains scattered to the ends of the earth. That, however, did not mean that the danger had passed.

Quietly, the young warrior approached her sleeping lover's bed, ignoring the steep silence where the sound of his heartbeat should have been.

Embry's face was clean, recently shaved by one of the wolves (or perhaps Emily) and his expression was lightly serene. If she hadn't known any better -- hadn't been able to feel the sharp pull of darkness around his body like a veil - she would have thought him sleeping. She took his hand slowly, curling gentle fingers around his hand and exhaling as the scent of saltwater brew in from the open window.

She imagined the hushed whispers of the speculating elders, and the sceptical unnerved gazes of the other wolves. Her 'strange movement' in the waters - as Old Quil had termed it - had inadvertently caused an unexpected phenomenon: every Imprint in existence had been broken by her spell.

Whether it had been intentional or not didn't seem to matter. The consequences ranged from faint to severe for each affected person, and some romantic liaisons were being painfully reconsidered. (Sue had mentioned the latest gossip: Jared had asked Kim for some distance). It seemed that the wolves, former Imprints and the Council of elders had been cast into existential crisis.

Safe to guess that the lore of the Spirit Warriors and their apparent return had not been received with open arms. Leah was, once again, disliked by most. But what else was new?

"Soon." She touched Embry's hair, her fingers soft against the strands. He would be due for a cut when he woke up. "Are you ready?"

From Embry's other side, Sam lifted weary eyes. "Are you sure about this?"

"I'm certain."

Cullen and his son had already made their opinions clear about the probability of his waking. And after four days of enduring the Council's deliberation (after Paul's funeral had done away with the collective numbness and the rotting bodies in the lake had been burned by the pack), Jake and Billy had conceded as well. He isn't coming back Lee, Jacob had said with a voice full of grief. It's time to let him go.Time to alert Tiffany Call, now that her other choices had been stripped from her, so that she could make arrangements for her son's funeral.

No one had listened when she had asked to be left alone with his body. Too terrified of her power, perhaps, after seeing what she'd done.

And then, one night, Seth snuck into her bedroom and told her Sam and Emily were waiting downstairs.

Later, she would find out about the way her brother had stood up for her, narrating the scene he'd witnessed in the woods. She'd learn about Sue corraborating his story with details about Leah's childhood nightmares. Later, she would hear about Sam pointing out that Embry's body had been perfectly preserved unlike the others, and how he'd convinced the Council that he was cursed to a deep sleep, not dead. And most incredibly, she'd find out about the way Emily had defied the Council, raging on about the neglect he had experienced most of all the wolves.

"The body, a witch, a tether and a talisman." Leah finally said, placing the bracelet on Embry's chest. "That's what the spell requires."

"Would Tiffany would be a stronger tether?" Emily asked.

"Blood is blood. And I'm not asking a mother to touch the lifeless body of her son."

Both Emily and Sam nodded in agreement. Sam dropped his gaze briefly to his brother before looking away. He had volunteered for the spell as soon as she'd mentioned it to the Council, and she had wondered when he'd guessed at his and Embry's shared parentage.

"Seth's only going to be able to distract them for so long." He said, "Get on with it."

Nodding, Leah closed her eyes and followed the familiar pull of magic leading her to a deep sleep. Her eyes drifted shut as she remembered the old songs once again.

It had taken a few days to recognise some of the words. After all, it wasn't every day that the winds whispered the word 'talisman' to her in ancient Quileute.

The songs were words to a spell, a solution for her problems. The answer to a riddle. They led her here. Into Embry's dreamland where the evergreen forest was a distant dream, and the Ocean was far more provocative than the one that existed in the waking world.

She made out his scent: rich, pleasant, and strong. More masculine now, without the foreboding scent of lilies clouding it. She found she rather preferred it this way.

Following the sound of his heartbeat up a narrow winding path, Leah smiled when she recognised the resting place his spirit had chosen. It was familiar, though flecks of rare snow now drifted across the air in jagged lines, coating the path to the devilish peak he'd taken her to all those months ago.

She froze when she finally found him. Lounging quietly in the snow, dressed ridiculously in a startling onyx from head to toe. Embry's eyes were distant and clouded as he observed the pulling waves below, and for a moment she simply watched him as he frowned, no doubt worried about whatever plagued his thoughts.

Embry?"

His head whipped up, his eyes cutting to hers, and she startled at the sight of vivid Jade irises staring back at her. For a moment she thought, Kaheleha?

But the man didn't hear her thoughts. The spirit she had known for years had finally moved on. To rest.

When he spoke, his voice was filled with the deep affection that had only belonged to one man. "Leah?"

Leah rushed to him as he stood on his feet, winding him as her hands wrapped around his waist. Embry moved slowly as he took her in, as though convinced she were a dream. "You're here." He said, as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.

"Where else would I go?"

They sat together quietly at the edge of the world, sinking into each other's warmth, feet dangling off the precipice of a terrifying fall. Embry kept shooting her worried glances, his hands tightening around her every few moments as though she might fade away and disappear.

"I never thought I'd see you again." he finally said. "Am I… dead?"

Leah studied his face, so different now that it had hardened with experience and age. And yet he was still hers. Earnest, not unlike that little boy who'd parted his long hair in the middle all those years ago.

She grinned, "Not yet. Give Tiffany a few days though, it might happen."

Once, she had thought that the fluttering in the pit of her stomach would disappear with time, but that belief failed as he smiled right back at her. It was one of his easy smiles, one of the rare ones that made the vein in his forehead pop just a bit, and she found herself starstruck for a moment.

Embry tightened his hold once more as she rested her cheek against his chest, fitting them together like puzzle-pieces. They watched the snow fall and listened to the subdued roar of the ocean. His dream land, his rules. She was pleased but not wholly unsurprised that this was the resting place his soul had chosen to wait for her.

"I missed you."

"What's not to miss?" Leah quipped in return, breaking away from his embrace. "My intelligence, the sheer talent -"

"Your ego-" he smirked.

"The word you're looking for is brilliance."

"And of course," he smirked, "That gravity-defying derriere. Though…" he let his own hand drift suggestively down his bottom. "Nothing quite this scrumptious."

"Ugh," Leah pushed at his chest, laughing, and apparently unable to go without touching him for even a second. "How'd I fall for such an idiot?"

"So you admit it then. You love me."

She had never said it before. She had never had to, though he must know she did. She looked into her lap, "More than anything." she said.

Embryo smirked, "Prove it."

They fell into a brief silence. Both apparently unsure how to move forward, though Leah's thoughts were whirling with all the things she wished to tell him. She wasn't sure how much he'd already pieced together during their time apart, and she would hate it if he ever looked at her the way the Council of Elders had. She realized then that she would have to trust him.

She exhaled, "Embry…"

"Marry me."

Leah blinked. For a moment she had no thoughts other than she'd misheard him, but he said it again. "Marry me."

When he took her hand this time, she knew what it meant. Her face turned scarlet at the intensity in his gaze, "If we can get out of here, then I don't want to go back to a half-lived existence. I know what I want, I know what you want, and I don't care what anyone else has to say about it. Marry me, please."

"You don't know what you're saying."

Embry's face flickered once, and then became smooth. Detached, "Is that your answer?"

Leah pulled away, running her hands through her hair, conflicted. She loved him, in a way that was consuming, and the logical reasons for why they should not get married seemingly paled in comparison.

She knew that they were too young, that's what her mother would say. She was heading off to art school soon, with him following in Tiffany's academic footsteps in less than a year. They barely knew who they were, and no doubt would change even more as time flew passed. And when they finally phased into different people, possibly falling out of love in the process, it would ruin her. It was, by all reasonable considerations, a very bad idea.

She almost said, 'I've been down that road before' but that would have been cowardly. Instead she settled on honesty.

"There are things I might never be able to give you."

"Children?"

"Yes," she knew he would argue with her, tell her that he had already prepared himself for that possibility, but there were other things. "I'm never going to be subservient, or sweet. I'm never going to sit out of fights because you want me to. I'm never going to stop… All this stuff that's been happening: the witches, the visions, the magic… It's not going away. I'm never going to change. I'm never going to be easy to love."

Embry snickered but wisely kept whatever he'd been about to say to himself as she narrowed her eyes. He lifted her palm to his mouth for a soft kiss, and she flushed again. "You say all of this like I don't already know it."

"You'll change your mind."

"No, I won't. But if you don't think you're ready, I trust your judgment." For a moment, Leah realised he hadn't once made her feel bad about the rejection, though her answer must have hurt him. She thought she could probably live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve him.

Embry turned to her, considering, "What do you want?"

Her first thought was 'You.' Her second was less cringy. She thought of his teasing laughter and his infuriating smirks and the way she unconsciously looked for his face first when she entered a room. She wanted dances in the snow, damn him. And midnight swims in the ocean. She wanted boxing matches in Miles's gym, and his Metallica T-shirts scattered around her furniture. She wanted… she wanted children, one day. With him.

"Everything."

Surprised at her own intensity, and the way his eyes must have mirrored hers, Leah broke away from his gaze. Vaguely, she watched the incandescent skies and the exquisite snowdrops dancing in a frenzy around them before admitting. "I hate the way you make me feel, sometimes."

"Human?" he quipped.

"Vulnerable." She admitted.

"You make me feel that way too. All the time."

Leah felt a touch of magic wrapping around her warmly. It felt Benevolent. Safe. Accepting. She wondered if he knew he was doing it.

"When I was a child, I used to have these dreams. Not unlike your own." He said quietly, "I don't like the idea of fate, but it doesn't change what I feel at all now, knowing. We were destined, weren't we?"

Leah thought of Sam and Emily and how they were still glued at the hip despite the break in the Imprint. She thought of how she's always thought she had Imprinted in a way too, with Embry. It seemed he had guessed at it too.

"It's some kind of Imprint, I think." she spoke.

"It's love, Leah. That's the magic." Smirking at the look on her face, Embry jumped to his feet and held his hand out to her. "You can have as much time as you want, Leah. I'm not rushing." But I am going to propose again. Often."

Laughing, Leah watched him as the snow swirled around them. As she took his hand, and she prayed that neither of them would see this place again for a long, long time.

She imagined countless sunsets, decades of shooting stars and years of kissing under the young blooming of cherry blossoms. She hoped for many swims in the ocean, flirtatious boxing matches in Miles's sweaty gym and competitive races in the forest. She looked forward to the idea of a cottage in the forest one day, filled to the brim with new cubs. And maybe children.

Sighing, Embry brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, lingering there, as though to place a flower. Leah remembered Kaheleha doing that in a river years ago. She'd thought he had been doing it lifetimes and would do it for lifetimes still.

Now, Embry would.

She smiled at him, "Let's go home."