Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just borrowing S. Meyer's characters for some fun.
Hey guys! So I did some deep thinking, and now I have the plot for the rest of this story semi-figured out, which means that stuff will actually start happening now. For those of you reading my other story, Taking Nothing On Faith, I'll probably update that really soon. It's easier to write than this one.
Anyway, enjoy, and please don't hesitate to review.
Love, Berry Smoothie
When Leah was finished yawning, she looked past her mom out the window. Yup, they were going to land in 20 or so minutes. Which gave her enough time to think a little bit. For the first time, she realized that this little trip to New York might not be all that fun. It all depended on Natalia. I don't even know her at all, thought Leah. Hell, maybe it was better that way – then she could act all normal and shove Bitchy Leah away for the duration of her stay – but still. With a shock, Leah realized that she had never really thought about what she was doing here.
There could be all sorts of problems. Natalia could suspect something, there could be a vampire traveling around in New York, there could be –
Oh shit. It was extremely likely that quite a few leeches were hanging around in the city! What the hell was she supposed to do now?
In that second, her mind presented her an answer. And the solution to her little problem turned out to be…: do nothing. Keep a low profile, don't draw attention to yourself by phasing, act human, don't try to fight them as a wolf. Do absolutely nothing. They won't know about you, they'll leave you alone.
Leah loved the idea.
The plane touched down. She failed to notice it, though. Nervousness was building itself up inside of her, and it grew as they got closer and closer to the arrivals area where Natalia would be standing. At the baggage claim, she was close to going crazy from it. It was very unlike her to be the slightest bit nervous, anxious or even curious, and now she was all three.
Leah was behaving like she had before Sam. Maybe…maybe she wouldn't need to fake so much for Natalia's sake after all. Maybe she would automatically transform into a normal person.
That will never happen, argued her mind, but damn it, it had a point. She couldn't expect to find happiness just by staying away from her past, right?
Leah sighed. Her mother, who stood next to her, registered this and wondered what was going on in her daughter's mind. She had been watching during the entire flight, and had noticed that Leah seemed different. More upbeat and alive, but also thoughtful and quiet.
That was not the Leah she had gotten to know these past months. This person was entirely different – which was probably a very good thing. When she had planned this entire visit to Natalia, she had hoped that Leah would have a little bit of happiness away from La Push, her own personal hell. Sue didn't completely know how Leah was doing mentally there, but it couldn't be good.
She was hoping that Natalia, with her cheery ways, wisdom, youth and logic could pull up the 18 year old from the dark hole she was hiding in and show her the open world of possibilities. Now she was even more hopeful.
Natalia was waiting in the large crowd of people, all searching for family and friends from the plane. She didn't really know what she was looking for, because although she had met Leah before, it had been at her brother in law's funeral, and she had been a little out of it. Poor girl.
Poor woman, she corrected herself immediately. Leah Clearwater, her niece, was 18 and therefore no longer a girl. She was ready for real life.
Natalia was proud of her, even though they barely knew each other. She didn't know why, but she didn't question it.
The first flyers stepped into the waiting area, and she saw a young girl who couldn't have been older than 6 rush forward to hug a woman who looked about her age. It made her smile.
Soon enough, Leah and Sue also made their way into the medium sized hall, and immediately Natalia stepped over to them with a smile on her face. She was wearing dark blue skinny jeans and a light purple top with beads on the top. She looked gorgeous as she hugged her sister and her niece.
Leah had met her aunt only a few times before. Most of those where when Leah was still really young, maybe 6 or 8. She could barely remember seeing Natalia then.
Natalia had visited once when she was 12, but her aunt had only stayed for 4 days. The house was so small, and there was so little to do for visitors to La Push… The Clearwaters had never gone to visit Aunt Natalia as a family. Hell, Leah and Seth hadn't ever left the damn state. Travel was somewhat costly, after all, and even before the wolf thing they hadn't been the richest family around.
Now, of course, they were poor.
Leah remembered having seen Natalia one more time: at her dad's funeral. She had arrived 3 days beforehand to help Sue with all of the arrangements, and left the evening after the funeral. After all, the lady had a job to get to.
Leah recalled how helpful Natalia had been. Everybody else had thought Sue was really strong and handling the loss of her husband well. In truth, Sue had been incapable of getting anything done. Of course, she also had the oh-my-God-both-of-my-kids-transform-into-wolves-and-now-I-have-to-take-my-just-deceased-husband's-role-in-the-tribe thing to deal with.
Needless to say, it was a very emotional time.
Anyway, Leah had last seen her aunt months ago, and they hadn't really talked because of all the other crap there was to deal with. Like the fact that she, Leah Clearwater, was now a wolf. And had contributed to her father's death by phasing into said wolf.
Like she had said: an emotional time.
Leah was distracted out of her thoughts when Natalia pulled her in for a hug. She did the civilized thing and returned the hug, surprising herself by actually being glad to see Natalia.
Apparently Sue and Natalia had a lot of catching up to do, judging by the amount of talking they were doing. By the time they left the airport and were driving in Natalia's car, Sue had recounted many tales from life in La Push. Leah paid close attention, memorizing each and every little lie her mom had to tell, in case Natalia asked her a question about La Push later.
Okay. So Sam ran this little business type thing, and both Leah and Seth worked for him, along with the rest of the pack.
Their work consisted of patrolling the grounds of the reservation, looking for anything that was not normal. Actually, thought Leah, that's pretty much true.
Seth and Leah had both dropped out of high school. Also not a lie, thought Leah. Thankfully Natalia didn't ask why her niece and nephew hadn't stayed in school. Then again, she'll probably privately ask mom sometime when I'm not around, considered Leah.
Sue stayed away from the whole Sam-Emily dilemma, but Leah was pretty sure that Natalia already knew the basics. Still, she was grateful for the silence about it.
Eventually, they arrived at Natalia's house. It wasn't in the really main part of New York but still not too far away. And it was wonderful.
The floor was a light wood and the walls a soft beige. When you walked in, you had the living room directly to your right. It was entirely open. There were two dark brown sofas around a glass coffee table that had a copy of the Cosmopolitan on it. Hmm, thought Leah, interesting. What a big difference there was between her mom and her aunt. Sue didn't read magazines in general, and if she did, it would probably be something like Better Homes and Gardens, under no circumstances the Cosmo.
Leah had occasionally read magazines before It All happened. There was a time when she had bought almost every issue of Seventeen.
To the left of the door was the bathroom. It was modern but small. Still, it had a toilet, sink and shower.
The kitchen and dining room were combined and kind of sectioned off from the living room by a wall that ran between them but stopped about five feet before the wall, a space that served as the door.
The kitchen was as modern as the living room had been. There was a lot of shiny, gleaming metal and almost everything was gray, white or black.
There was a table with 4 chairs, two on each side, next to the kitchen. The table was a pretty dark wood and was rectangular. In the middle, there was an oblong gray bowl with exactly one purple flower, which was laying in there. It was surprisingly pretty.
Stairs on the bathroom side of the bottom floor led up to the next storey. Here, there was a hall with a total of three doors; one on the left and two on the right. Natalia gestured to the left one and said, "My bedroom. A private bathroom is attached, so I thought I'd leave the one downstairs to you guys."
She then started walking to the door on the right at the end of the hall. "The one over there," she said, gesturing to the right door closer to the stairs, "leads to what I consider an office. It has my computer, bookshelves, all sorts of crap, even a treadmill."
Natalia opened the other door and stepped in. "This is my rarely-used guest bedroom. It used to be the second bedroom but I converted it into a storage-space slash guest bedroom kind of thing. There's a futon to sleep on – it's actually pretty comfortable." She grinned.
"You guys must be tired and hungry. I personally hate flying longer than 2 hours. You know, I can never sleep on planes and the food they serve is always so ick. Well, go ahead and get settled in. I'll leave you alone to get your things sorted, maybe take a shower, whatever. Besides, I have to go run a few errands anyway. Sorry about that. I should be back in maybe two hours." Natalia waved her hands around as she spoke as if for clarification.
"Don't worry 'bout it," said Leah, sitting down on the futon, which was in the bed-state.
Thirty minutes later, Leah did actually step into the shower downstairs. She took one look at the hair products sitting there and decided she would try using them. In La Push you could only get those crappy quality shampoos from unknown brands. The general store had stuff from Sadana (A/N: Sadana doesn't exist. At least not that I know of. I made it up myself).
Natalia, however, had Herbal Essences shampoo, John Frieda conditioner and a Garnier hair mask tub. For God's sake, if she had this in her guest bathroom that she rarely showered in herself, what was in hers? That little hidden part of Leah's brain that was still The Leah From Before thought she was in heaven. Leah couldn't blame her.
The only female wolf on the planet stripped down, got in and turned on the water. She jumped a bit at the cold and moved to the side of the shower so that the water didn't hit her, a hand always testing the temperature, seeing if it had warmed up yet.
Leah stayed under the warm water for a surprisingly long time. She didn't know how long exactly, of course, but it sure felt longer than the usual 10 or 12 minutes. When she did come out, her feet were all wrinkled. She wrapped herself in her old yellow bathrobe and ran a brush through her short, black hair.
Then she stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was unusual; Leah often threw an occasional glance at herself but never really inspected her face or body. Now she did, trying to view herself from a stranger's perspective.
She was tall. That was nothing new. And she had muscles, but they weren't gross. As a matter of fact, Leah decided she loved her muscles. A lean, strong body – an ideal so many people strived for. She had it for free.
Well, not free…actually, she paid a damn large price for her toned, flat stomach and elegant, strong arms.
She wondered if strangers thought she was pretty… They once had, she knew, but now? Maybe they would consider her hot, but pretty as in beautiful? Probably not.
Fuck them.
Fuck them all.
