Author's Note: Sorry I'm a bit late with the update... had a busy week and I'm working on this as I'm simultaneously developing a sequel to my Jacob/Bella fic "Duty Bound," so hopefully you'll all forgive me! Anyway, enjoy, and please review!
Sam, or at least the wolf version of him, sat down on his haunches in front of my bedroom door. I sat down across from him, feeling ridiculous, but also frightened of what was coming, of what he was going to show me. I had given my permission and now I was waiting, on bated breath, for the truth. But Sam seemed to be hesitating, as though second-guessing his plans.
Hey, I thought towards him, looking into those dark brown eyes that were still somehow his. You promised.
I could almost hear his long exhalation before his deep voice rang out in my head, Okay. Then, suddenly, images.
I immediately knew where I was. First Beach, what seemed like a lifetime ago, the first time Sam had met Emily. But this time I was seeing things through Sam's eyes. It was a very weird feeling, almost uncomfortable. I saw him arrive, and I could actually feel how much he was looking forward to seeing me, since we hadn't spent much time together the last week. I'd been busy with Emily. I watched him watch my car drive up, and I felt his excitement and love for me emanating outward as though moving in physical waves through the air. I watched myself emerge from the driver's side of the car, and then the passenger door opened and Emily-
The vision cut off. I was frustrated, but I allowed Sam to move me backward through time. Apparently he had changed his mind about where he wanted this story to start, or maybe the thought of that night had simply crossed his mind, absently, and I'd seen it against his intentions. I still wasn't sure just how this link worked, how much I could see, or how the images and our voices were transmitted back and forth.
This time, I didn't recognize the setting. It was somewhere in the woods, but it seemed very far away from the Rez. I saw through Sam's eyes as he walked through the forest, not seeming to have a destination, but just absently wandering. His height in relation to the path told me he was in wolf form during this memory. Then, belatedly, the emotion in the scene caught up with me and I could feel overwhelming anguish, uncertainty, and fear. I recognized the terror of distrusting one's own sanity, and it shook me to the core. The loneliness I felt as I experienced Sam's memory would have been enough to make me break down and sob, if I could.
Again, time jumped, and that vision ripped away from me. This time I found myself at Sam's house, and I was back in that place again where I'd been for the last few days, feeling the fever ripping through my bones and expanding outward until I thought it would choke me. Except the body I felt was not my own, but Sam's, familiar to me and foreign all at once when experienced this way. Then the vision went dark, abruptly, like the others.
You're confusing me, I told him impatiently.
I know, I'm sorry; I've never done it this way before. I'm going backwards… hang on. He seemed frustrated as well, and for a long moment I saw nothing from him. Then the vision returned, the same one again, and I felt it all- the fever, the pain and fear. I saw Sam's mother worrying over his bedside, saw his visits to the clinic and even the emergency room, saw the confusion on the faces of the doctors. I felt the sharp chill of the ice baths they gave him, felt my own lungs gasp and contract against the shock in time with Sam's. And I felt the dismay of seeing the numbers on the thermometer creep back up again, just as I had felt as I watched Seth's steady downward spiral.
I saw the days pass, somehow presented to me in fast-forward but without any details being lost. Then I saw his fever break as mine had done, in a moment of rage against his mother for the smallest thing- a comment about his hair of all things, which he had cut off in desperation, trying to keep his body as cool as possible. He screamed at her, and then he bolted from the house, running off into the woods. I re-experienced my own moment of transformation through him, felt myself- him- reel in panic as his hands were replaced with massive black paws. I saw the speed at which he could run, tearing through the underbrush as he ran flat-out for miles, each one taking a fraction of the time to cover as it should have.
I felt the anguish of that time in the woods, so much fear and panic that it tore me down and left me breathless. Sam- I- wandered for days in the woods, trying desperately to convince himself that he hadn't gone insane, and becoming frustrated, angry, and terrified when he couldn't figure out a way to change back. I saw how long it took him to finally return to human form, and how he wept like a child when he saw his skin again, flexed his fingers, ran his hands over his nose and cheeks and chest. I saw him return home, broken and confused, full of apology to a mother he now felt removed from, as though a chasm had gone up between them over that short span of time.
Then the images got more difficult for me. I saw next, through his eyes, when I came to see him that first time after he was home. Sam was relieved to see me, but that same chasm he felt separated him from his mother had come between us, too. He was terrified. He tried to cling to me, to bring us back to a place where things could make sense again, but I pulled away from him. He wanted to tell me everything right then, yet he was afraid. He didn't know then that it would be his only chance.
The day after I went to him, I was surprised when I walked with Sam toward a knock on the door and saw my father standing on the doorstep, with Quil's grandfather next to him and Billy sitting just behind. Sam let them in, hurrying to find them something to eat or drink, because having the entire tribal council in your living room doesn't happen every day.
"Sit down, son," my father said to Sam.
Reluctantly, he did.
Through him, through them, I learned the truth. I wish I could fully explain the horror that I felt as they stacked up the facts of our lives like dominos, each word hurting just a little bit more. Sam felt the revulsion, shock, and terror of it, and experiencing it through his memory, so did I. I listened as my father and the others explained to Sam the reasons for the change, the truth about vampires and the curse a select number of our people still bear in our blood. At the same moment as Sam I came to realize that all the things I never quite believed in were, in fact, true and horrible.
Separately from Sam's own emotions, I so felt betrayed. My father had known about this and he didn't prepare me. But I also couldn't overlook the fact that the council spoke of the transformation as a male-only phenomenon, and I filed that away in my head for further thought later. I could barely deal with all the thoughts I was having now, not to mention the emotions. I felt Sam's intense anguish as he realized that this was not something he could turn off or escape from, ever. I felt how trapped he was, and I knew it was the same for me.
Quil's grandfather brought out something surprising then, a tattoo gun, and he loaded in a cartridge of pure black ink into it.
"What's that for?" Sam asked apprehensively.
"This is a ritual that was passed down to us from our own grandfathers," Billy explained. "Our fathers never had to use it, and neither have we- until now. We must do it before you can heal from it. This will be the last scar you ever have."
"What does that mean?" Sam asked as Quil's grandfather stood up and moved to the couch where Sam was sitting, settling down next to him. Sam eyed the machine with suspicion and so did I.
"You must wear the mark," my father told him.
"It is a sign of your bond to the land, and your commitment to always protect it," Billy added.
"Wait, so if I don't get the tattoo I can stay normal?" he asked hopefully, but I already knew the answer and so did he.
"The bond is there," Quil's grandfather said gently, as he pulled out some gauze and cleaned the outside of Sam's shoulder with it. "You cannot fight it." I felt the needle pulsing in and out of my own skin as he started to draw, and after he was done, I felt Sam's revulsion and disgust as he looked at the mark, as well as his deep, deep resignation.
The council rose to leave, and Sam stood with them. "Sir," he said, addressing my father. "Leah…" He left my name hanging in the air for a long moment, as though it was a question he wouldn't dare to fully ask.
I watched my father turn to him with a heavy heart. He put his hands on Sam's shoulders and said, "I love my daughter. But you are a different breed now, Sam. You've stopped aging, and being tied to a mortal- even her- will be difficult for you. And for Leah."
He took in this knowledge with control; after everything else, immortality seemed almost an afterthought- unimportant. "But I love her," he protested, and my heart swelled as I heard that, threatening to burst. "I need her," he added, his voice soft.
"You are, as of yet, a lone wolf," my father answered him. "The council will support you in any way we can. But you should think long and hard about whether it's fair to still be with her."
As they left him alone in his house, I felt his desperation but also his determination to stay with me. He loved me, so much. What had changed? How had we gotten to this place? I had assumed it was whatever he'd gone through in his absence that had made him stop loving me, but now I saw that wasn't the case at all.
I'll explain that too, I heard Sam's gentle voice cut through my thoughts, and I looked at him. There was such sadness in his dark eyes, and I realized that reliving these memories were probably painful for him, too. But I couldn't let him stop.
I watched through his frustrated eyes as the days and weeks passed and he tried to still be my boyfriend, even while he held this terrible secret. I saw how he worried about hurting me, emotionally and physically, as more than once he lost his temper to a point that made his blood boil and he almost changed in front of me. I couldn't help but wonder how much easier it might have been if he had. Every night when he couldn't sleep he dreamed about telling me the truth, even though he knew he couldn't ever do that.
I saw how painfully, slowly, all the plans he'd had for our future gradually turned to despair. The more I tried to get close to him, to plead with him to tell me what was going on so I could be there for him, the more trapped he felt. He hated lying to me, hated having to stand me up or make up pitiful excuses about where he'd been, and he couldn't blame me for my rising anger. He knew the situation was spiraling out of control yet, like me, he thought if he could just hang on, we would figure out a way to get through this. Through it all, I saw how much he loved me.
Seeing all these events through his eyes, I couldn't help but be shocked. I had felt that I was so attentive, so loving and caring and supportive, during that time, and in a way I was… but I had been so blind to what was really going on. There were so many layers underneath his struggles that I'd had no idea about. Maybe I wasn't paying attention; maybe he'd been trying, desperately, to reach out to me and I had failed.
No, Sam said, his voice in my mind almost pleading. It's not your fault, Leah. Please don't think that.
What am I supposed to think? I shot back.
Just… try to be patient. I want to explain. At the end of this you'll understand how innocent you are.
His words made me apprehensive, but I let him continue. I watched, as Sam took to running through the forests at night and sleeping all day, to watch out for vampires. He never actually found one in those early days, but he learned the scents of nomads who were passing through the land, and he learned to scan the news for suspicious deaths that seemed to relate to their activities. I experienced his dismay as my own as we realized together that not only were vampires real, but they were everywhere.
He started to think that he was even crazier than he'd been when he'd first transformed. He was certain that five of the kids enrolled at Forks High School were vampires, too. He went to the council about it and, reluctantly, they told him everything.
I felt his deep sadness as he was told that Jacob Black had been expected to make this change first, and that he was the rightful heir to the throne of his great-grandfather Ephraim Black, who had led the pack almost a hundred years ago. They had all be dismayed, they told him gently, when the first to make the shift in generations had been the son of Joshua Uley. I felt my heart breaking for Sam who was being told, once again, that his father had left a stain on his reputation that was beyond his control. I felt Sam's anger at that, but also his determination to prove them wrong, to prove that he could be responsible and a leader, too. But there was also hope there, hope that, if Jacob Black changed, Sam could hand over the reigns and step away from all of this.
Then they told him about the Treaty. Sam was angry to learn that there was a whole coven of vampires that he couldn't touch, even though every bone in his body ached to destroy them. Apparently, he couldn't touch them because they only ate animals, and unless they either set foot in La Push or bit a human, they were off-limits, and he wasn't allowed to reveal what they really were, either. He was somewhat comforted by the fact that they couldn't come on the Rez, but he liked Jacob's bloodline a little bit less after that. Grudgingly, he accepted the terms of the Treaty, but I could feel how much he felt like he didn't have a choice. Trapped- again.
Sam glossed over the next few weeks, and I was grateful- I knew those times would primarily be characterized by the same things that we'd already experienced: my pain, our growing rift, and his struggle. It was hard, and I didn't want to see it if I didn't have to. Then, two days before my eighteenth birthday, he slowed the images down again to show me something else.
He was on the phone. I recognized my father's voice on the other end of the line as he said into Sam's ear, "Paul's had a fever for three days. It looks like it's close to breaking."
Oh, the gravity of hearing that hit us so hard. Sam felt so many things in that moment- pity, worry, hope, and elation. He saw his isolation coming to an end, but at the same time his heart broke for what he knew Paul was going through, and what he was about to go through. But his overall feeling was one of determination- a determination to make this easier on Paul and anyone else that came along than it had been on him. He also argued with my father, saying that the Treaty should be abandoned because it was forcing other boys to change, and how could he protect the tribe if he couldn't even prevent that? But my father just told him he was sorry, and hung up.
I recognized that firm resolve in Sam immediately. It was one of his best features, a hard, self-sacrificing will that put the needs of others before his own and made him want to protect those people that were vulnerable. I had always thought he would make a great brother because of these traits, and it seemed that that was what he wanted for himself and Paul.
He had forgotten my birthday that year. Now I knew why, and the tears and anger I'd had about it at the time seemed so childish suddenly. I'd had no idea he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, or that he'd stood me up on my birthday because he'd been guiding a terrified boy through the most profound change of his life. Through Paul's fever and shift, through all the explanations and guidance, my birthday had slipped Sam's mind; could I really blame him for that? The bond that formed between Sam and Paul during that time was touching, and for once I saw that some happiness could come from the transformation, as I witnessed their excitement as for the first time the two of them realized they could hear each other's thoughts. They hadn't really ever been close before this, but now they had a bond that transcended everything else. They were truly brothers.
Now, again, finally, he took me back to that same memory from earlier. Sam was at First Beach, helping to light a big bonfire where we would roast hot dogs and marshmallows later. I watched him standing apart from the others, not feeling like he could really join in, fully, ever again, but at the same time struggling to appear normal. I also saw him paying closer attention to a particular few boys, the descendants of Ephraim's pack and those others that would be expected to change, should more vampires cross our lands. He watched them with a mixture of hope and terrible pity.
I watched him see me drive up, and through his eyes I saw how beautiful he found me as I got out of my car. I still felt confused, knowing that within three weeks of this night our relationship would end. I kept waiting to feel contempt, fear, or even a protective feeling that had led him to leave me, but in every memory he'd shown me so far, he felt nothing but unconditional love for me. It didn't fit with what I knew was coming.
Suddenly, the image cut off, again right before Emily got out of the car. Maybe we should stop there, Sam thought to me, and even though there was no sound I could hear the uncertainly in his voice.
No, I want to see the rest, I answered stubbornly. I need to know, Sam.
I could tell that he was hesitant, but tentatively, he continued.
Emily got out of the car, but Sam's eyes were on me. I blushed inwardly as I watched him trace the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts through my clothing as I approached him, and I knew he believed that I was more beautiful than any girl he'd ever seen, or ever would see. As I reached him he took my hand in one of his and traced the curve of my cheekbone with the other, catching me behind my head to pull me into his lips. I experienced kissing myself through his eyes and body, which was incredibly strange, and with his fingers I held my own hand. He loved me then, but I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then he saw my cousin. Strangely, this memory felt more real than any other I had witnessed so far. It was like everything he'd showed me had been black and white, and suddenly, she was colour. I felt myself- or him- stop breathing. It was as though she was glowing, as though some kind of ethereal light emanated from her body and shone outward to him and only him. I was shocked by the instantaneous love that shot through his body in response to her presence, but not just love… worship wasn't even a strong enough word. As I looked at her through Sam's eyes, my knees went weak and I felt so many things- for a moment I forgot my own life, and I realized that everything up to this point, everything I'd ever felt or experienced, was meaningless. I felt my body shaking with a profound, deep fear at how I could have lived before this moment, how I could have carried on with my life never knowing that she existed. Everything about her was perfect, and I felt as though I'd been living in a cave all my life and had finally emerged into sunlight by accident, never having known its warmth.
The intensity of Sam's attraction bowled me over- but attraction is such a pale word to describe it. I don't believe there is a word in any language for the things he felt for her. He would have stolen, killed, or even died, willingly, immediately, if it meant one moment of happiness for this girl. He ached to know her name, to hear her voice, which he already knew would be the most beautiful sound in the world, and to touch her skin. He wanted to protect her from anyone and anything that threatened to harm her, and he wanted to love her and give her everything she could ever want.
It was incredibly difficult to witness. But not just witness- feel. I felt his every ounce of love for her and found that even 'love' wasn't a good enough word to describe this. A new language should be written just to describe these feelings; only no language could ever be sacred enough. The human mind could never have the capacity, depth, or intelligence to describe the connection that Sam felt to Emily. And even though I knew these thoughts and emotions were Sam's alone, it was hard to separate them from mine. I felt, in those moments, that my cousin was a goddess, something otherworldly, and I had somehow just never noticed before.
Though Sam was still holding my hand, it was like a thing gone dead. Even his body ached for Emily, and the carnality with which he wanted her shocked me. It wasn't that he didn't love me, but that love- like eating and breathing- seemed inconsequential in the face of her. It faded away to nothing when compared to the depth and breadth of his commitment to Emily. Everything was right in the world as long as she was in it, and Sam knew for a fact that he would die if ever she were taken from him.
I watched myself walk away to talk to a friend, oblivious to what had just happened, and for the first time I saw a part of this night that I hadn't before. I watched, sick to my stomach, as Sam flirted with my cousin, trying to sweet-talk her, desperate just to hear her voice, and to have her like him. I watched the confusion and disgust just under Emily's polite but uncomfortable expression as they talked. I experienced real panic as he realized she didn't seem interested in him, and I felt his urgency as he redoubled his efforts, so that she might find him charming and interesting. It was difficult to watch, to experience, as he tried, almost pathetically, to make himself seem like someone Emily would want without knowing the first thing about her. That lack of knowledge made him deeply afraid.
Even when she excused herself to find me, he couldn't keep his eyes off her for the rest of the night. It was a struggle just to stay away from her, to keep from being with her every moment, from ensuring that their hands 'accidentally' grazed, or that he would be the first to anticipate her needs- to get her food, or drink. Anything would have been better than watching her from a distance, but he managed to restrain himself. And because she stood next to me all evening, no one thought anything of it. Sam barely noticed me all night. I remembered that later Emily had told me, without giving any details, that Sam had given her the creeps. I had apologized for him, but I'd had no idea then that this was what she'd been talking about.
I could feel Sam hesitating about going further, not wanting to hurt me, but I already knew the ending, and what could hurt worse than that? So I pushed at his mind, forcing him into sharing the rest. It was like a horrible car wreck- you don't want to see the blood and the pain but you can't help but look. I had to know. I had to understand this.
I was surprised to find Sam meeting with my father the next day, and confessing his feelings for Emily. I watched my father's face, watched his distress for my sake, and then his resignation. Then he explained imprinting to Sam, explained to him that, like the shift, this would be a part of him for the rest of his life. That he would feel lost and depressed if he wasn't in Emily's presence, and that he would want almost nothing more from life than her happiness. My father told him that I could never be as important to him as she was now. I watched Sam rage against this knowledge, watched him beg for a way to change it, to imprint on me instead of Emily, but my father only said no, it wasn't possible, the body finds the perfect mate and after that there is no way out. I was touched that he cared enough to wish that things could be different, but even as Sam pleaded for an alternative, I could see his mind already at work about how to trade me for Emily, and how to minimize the damage for all involved.
So, Sam hadn't grown to hate me. I didn't do something to make him stop loving me, I didn't frustrate him with one too many fights, and not even the weight of his secret was enough to tear us apart. It had been this, this imprinting, this most irrational aspect of our change that had simply turned off his love for me, like a light switch. I was suddenly terrified about whether that was going to happen to me, too, whether I would lose all sense and reason and devote myself, puppy-eyed, to some boy I wouldn't have looked twice at before. For a moment, I let go of my scorn long enough to wonder if that wouldn't make this whole thing easier… it would. But still, the idea gave me the creeps. I was stronger than that. If I was going to ever fall in love again I wanted it to be on my terms.
I couldn't help but feel deeply inadequate. Why hadn't Sam been able to imprint on me? And why was I the only woman who had ever made this change in the history of the tribe? What was wrong with me? My immediate thought was that perhaps my parents had lied to me my whole life, and I'd actually been born a boy, and through some terrible accident they had changed my gender, but Sam's genes knew the difference. But I knew that wasn't really the case- I had all the right parts, I had gone through normal puberty, I menstruated. So what was wrong with me? Why was I so different? And what about that difference had made Sam's body turn away from me and find that perfect mate in my own cousin?
I felt like such an outsider, like I was toeing a line between two worlds, and I would never really belong in either one. My femininity felt like a lie; I felt like a freak, too masculine to be a suitable mate for Sam, too girly to be a wolf. I didn't feel like a pioneer as the first female werewolf, I felt like a mistake of nature- an outsider. I felt so deeply alone in that moment, and my grief at losing Sam washed over me with the same strength as it had when I had first experienced that loss. I didn't want to live my life this way anymore, the worth of Leah measured against the failure of our relationship. I had thought I was passed all this, yet seeing it all again, through his eyes, freshened the wounds and left me bereft once more.
You have to let it go, his voice rippled through my mind, as though carried there on a gentle breeze. You did nothing wrong in this, Leah. I loved you so much until that moment… if I had a choice in it, I'd love you now.
I knew he was telling me the truth. But it didn't make it any easier.