11- Party for One

I don't know how long I sat there staring at the bottle in my hand. I heard the knocking at the door and someone calling my name, but my mind could not seem to concentrate on that. Instead it was occupied with the agonizing image of Emily pregnant with Sam's child. It should really not have bothered me, I knew in my mind that Sam would never be mine again; but my heart had not gotten the memo.

I was a little shocked when someone kneeled down next to me and wrapped their arms around me, without thinking I turned in the embrace leaned into his shoulder to cry.

"Shhhh Princess, don't cry, everything is fine." He muttered soothing words into my hair as I soaked his shirt with my tears. This was starting to be a habit of ours.

I don't know how long I stood there sobbing but I did manage to get his shirt really wet.

"Sorry," I mumbled into his shirt when I had composed myself a little.

"All right, I think it is time for us to get out of here. So are we going out the door or the window?" His tone was absolutely serious. I laughed a little, Phil was crazy sometimes; but he did know how to make me feel better.

"I would suggest the window," he pointed at it, "you have been monopolizing the bathroom for far too long. There are some pretty unhappy partygoers out there wanting a piece of you."

"Oh sure the window," I said wondering how he would fit his shoulders through the narrow opening.

He slowly pried my hands off the bottle of pills I was holding. "Let us just leave this for the next person."

Had someone stopped and asked me what the hell I was doing it would have been hard to come up with a logical explanation. But thinking is not what I was doing at this point in time, instead I was sneaking out of the Uley's upstairs bathroom via the window. Phil helped me out the window first, I could have been wrong but his not so helpful push on my ass felt more like a grope. Fortunately for us there was a tree close by so none of the people below us saw what we were doing. I might have been able to point out that it was the man who followed me out the window's crazy ass plan. I would have thought he would get stuck with his broad shoulders, but he did some sort of twisting trick and out he slipped. My bad little Phil knew how to get out of tight spots, I suspected he had not always been so good.

It did not take us long to make our escape, we stuck to the shadows and soon we were in Phil's truck driving away from everything.

"Where to Princess?" Phil asked after a few minutes.

"I don't care as long as it is away from here." Crying on Phil's shoulder had helped a little but it did not change the reality glaring at me. I was a complete moron. I had not even realized this until now, but somehow a glimmer of hope had remained deep inside me. In my delusion I had seen a future where everything would be all right and Sam would leave Emily to come back to me. The fact that she was pregnant had killed that last little hope, I had nothing left.

I looked out the window of the truck as Phil took another turn with more speed than I would have liked, but for all his crazy driving I have never seen him lose control. The clouds had stayed away and for the first time in weeks I could see the stars. I snorted under my breath.

"What is so funny?" Phil asked, his voice quiet and soothing.

"I thought about making a wish on a star but with my luck these days it would get completely messed up." I could hear the bitterness in my voice, it had been absent most of the time for over a month now. I did not like what I was becoming again. I would allow myself this for tonight. But tomorrow Leah you are getting your act together, you are going to apply to any school that might possibly take you and get the heck out of dodge.

"What would you wish for?" Phil interrupted my plans.

"I would wish to find someone and ..."to imprint. I finished in my mind, that would be a good plan, no more Phil as a placeholder. No more hoping this was all a bad dream and Sam would leave Emily. I was going to go find the real thing.

"Fall in love?" Phil did not understand, how could he? He knew nothing about wolves. "I don't think that would solve your problems."

"Sure it would," imprinting would solve all my problems.

"But then what would you do with yourself?" Phil continued, determined to explain to me that falling in love would not solve anything. We were going to have to disagree on this point.

"What do you mean?" Imprinting would mean I no longer cared about Sam being in love with another woman, I could be happy, as happy as Jake.

"How do you expect someone to love you when you have not figured out who you are yet?" Phil asked in a quiet voice.

I looked back at the stars and did not answer. Phil's questions were starting to be too hard, "I liked you better as a prankster."

Phil made a noise of displeasure before he started playing around with the radio. It took him a while to find something that he liked.

I concentrated on the music so I would not think about what was behind me, I did not want to think about how quickly my feeble defenses failed at the slightest adversity. I could face down a newborn army but I could not stand the thought of Sam and Emily starting a family together. I was glad they had not set a wedding date yet, how would I sit through the ceremony? The song was a faster ballad, I did not understand the words. If I had to guess I would say it was French. Phil had a varied taste in music, he was humming along tunelessly.

"Do you know what she is singing?" I asked him trying to distract myself.

"Rough translation: I return your love," he said after a moment of thought.

"That is sweet," I made gagging sounds. I know it was immature but it was that or cry; I did not need to hear about love right now. Plus I think Phil's shirt was already soaked.

"No, not sweet." He shook his head. "I return your love as in I give it back to you, I don't want it."

"Must be nice to have that option," I was starting to sound like an old woman, the bitterness making my voice harsh.

"So you want to talk about it?" Phil said after a while. I did not answer instead I continued to look at the stars. The clouds were moving in again, blocking some of them out. The sunshine was over, the weather matched my mood.

We were getting close to the cabin, almost to the turnoff. Phil slammed on the brakes and moved his arm across my chest pushing me back into the seat. All of a sudden a deer crossed the road.

"Wow that was close", I had not noticed the deer, it was a good thing Phil was paying attention. He had some really good eyes, the deer was almost invisible in the growing twilight.

"Yeah that was a surprise", he sounded somewhat annoyed, more than surprised. "Are you all right?"

"You can let go now", I pointed to his arm, he still had it across my chest.

He gave me a dimpled smile and finally removed his arm, the truck sped up again. You would think that nearly hitting a deer would have caused him to drive a little slower but apparently that was not the case.

"Thanks for getting me out of that bathroom. How did you know I was there?" I would thank him quickly and get it out of the way.

"Maybe I was just trying to find the bathroom and happened to find you instead." It should have been an easy enough explanation but something told me he was lying to me. Had he been looking for me? making sure I was all right?

I did not say anything as he parked the car. Getting out of the truck on autopilot I headed through the unlocked front door and turned off the alarm. I really had spent far too much time in this house, it was starting to feel like I lived here. I was not going to worry about that tonight, there was something I needed to do first. Moving to the kitchen, I began to implement my plan.

"Are you hungry?" He seemed confused as he watched me search the cabinets. I guess he could not figure out my desperation as I dug around in the cupboards.

"Is there anything in particular you are looking for?" He was hovering, trying to figure out what the emergency was.

"Something alcoholic, preferably with lots of alcohol." I opened one cabinet door all I saw were strange pots, more plates, tupperware. "Where do you keep it?"

I was kneeling down to look in the very back of a corner cabinet when I hear a clink of glasses. I looked over my shoulder to see Phil placing two shot glasses on the counter.

"I am assuming you are going for drunken oblivion and not a wine tasting expedition." It was not a question so I did not see the need to try and formulate an answer. I could hear the strong disapproval in his voice.

"I don't need any crap from you right now." My words almost a growl. "I most certainly do not need a daddy."

"Got it, all you need is for me to provide alcohol to a minor. I am guessing if I say no you will probably go and try to find alcohol in another place." He sounded more resigned now, but I could still see the censure in his eyes.

"You of all people know I am willing to throw myself at strangers." I narrowed my eyes at him, I had a plan and he was not going to stop me.

I watched as he went to the pantry, and pulled out a bottle of some sort. So that is where he had been hiding the stuff.

The bottle was clear just like the liquid inside of it. It was short and squat looking, and did not look like it contained enough alcohol to satisfy my current needs. It had a little cork stopper and a green ribbon.

"Get the salt Leah", hmmm he was calling me Leah. He never called me by my first name, only Princess.

I went to the spice cabinet to get the salt, he was cutting up some limes into wedges.

I sat on the stool across form him watching him with great concentration. My experience with alcohol usually involved the parties I would go to with Sam. That constituted a bunch of teenagers sitting around drinking crappy beer that one of their older friends was able to obtain for them. There were the drinking games I had seen in movies and such but I had never paid too much attention to it.

"Do you know how to do this?" He asked giving me a doubtful look.

"I have seen it on TV, it does not take a rocket scientist to know how to do shots." I told him stubbornly, I felt like sticking my tongue out at him. But that might take away from the mature demeanor I was going for.

"Right," he said drawing out the word. Both this face and tone reeking of disapprobation. "Salt, shot, then lime."

"What is that?" I don't know why I bothered to asking, this was not something I had ever done before.

"Lucky for you it is the good stuff, Silver Patron." I looked confused, he gave me a look filled with censure before he explained, "this is tequila. About one shot of this and you should be drunk."

I scoffed, that is not possible, at least it would not be with my werewolf genes.

"You are native american Leah, your liver is more than likely low on or missing certain enzymes which makes you a really cheap drunk. Now watch me do it." He licked the inside of his thumb, put salt on it. I mimicked Phil's move but most of my salt fell off, obviously this was not Phil's first time.

"You can use a lime to do that," Phil said expertly, watching me mess up something even this simple. "Before I forget, call your mother to tell her you will be out all night."

I was about to protest, at nineteen years old I should not have to call my mother. Regrettably my mother would worry and then I would feel guilty for making her lose sleep - there had been enough of that in the past few months. It was nearly ten at night I had better call soon before she went to bed. The phone call was surprisingly short, I guess my mother heard something in the tone of my voice that caused her not to question my weak excuse for staying with Phil.

Phil showed me the sequence of drinking tequila once more, this time the salt managed to stay on. Proud of myself I decided to just go for it, and took the shot.

Immediately I began to cough. "Oh my god", I could feel the sting as it went down to my stomach. I sucked on the lime wedge but it did not seem to help much.

Phil did not say anything as he refilled both our glasses. I watched as he expertly tossed another shot down his throat, completely unfazed by the strong alcohol.

I followed his example, this time it did not sting as much. I stopped counting after five shots, my head was getting a little dizzy. But that was all right, I could not not think. That had been my goal for tonight, not being able to think.

"Is there a particular reason you were desperately clutching a bottle of medication?" Phil said out of the blue, he had paused in his bartender duties. My mind was getting kind of numb.

"It was not just any medication, it was prenatal vitamins." I pointed out the obvious.

"What is so wrong about prenatal vitamins?" His tone seemed amused, was he laughing at me?

"Obviously Emily is pregnant." I pushed my glass closer to him, trying to indicate that I needed another one. He looked down to where my glass was tapping the bottle but he did not give me a refill. "By the way, you suck as a bartender," it would have been a better insult had I not slurred most of the words.

"So what if she is?" Phil asked unconcerned.

That is when I broke down and told him my entire pathetic sob story. How Sam left me, how he picked Emily instead, my daddy died, and how I had stopped having periods. I would have probably told him all about the werewolf thing if I could have, fortunately Sam's alpha orders not to tell anyone about it were still in effect.

I lay with my head on my folded arms, I was really dizzy now that I had told him everything I could. The rest of the night was kind of fuzzy. I do remember Phil moving me at one point into a bed and helping me get out of my clothes.

"Sleep well, Princess," he said, I could feel his breath followed by his lips against my forehead. My last thoughts were filled with relief over the fact that he was calling me Princess again and then I knew nothing.

I was walking in the woods, I could not seem to find the way. I was getting more and more upset because no matter where I ran I would end up in the same place over and over again. There was nothing special about the place, just a couple of trees with a path cutting through it.

This place seemed familiar though, like there was something I should remember about it, my mind felt too groggy to figure it out. I was getting frustrated, I called out for help. It was then that I heard movement through the underbrush.

Something was coming at me.

I looked up to see three vampires staring at me, two were female and one was male. They looked somewhat familiar. Their ill fitting clothes seemed made me think I should know them from somewhere, but you can bet your ass I knew the face of every leech I had ever run into. It would be strange to recognize them, since every one that we had met had been killed by my pack.

"Are you inviting us for lunch?" one of the males asked in his perfect vampire voice.

I don't know why but I fell down to the ground, my legs could not longer support my weight.

I was lying there when a woman moved above me, she was not one of the vampires. This one was human, her light green eyes attested to that fact. She had a pretty round face, brown hair with streaks of blonde. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a fleece jacket, her clothes were much higher quality than the vampires ones had been - it also helped that they were the right size.

"She is kind of cute," she was looking down at me with a friendly smile. "Well we should probably put your clothes back on...Uh oh, I think she is waking up a little."

She seemed nice, I tried to warn her about the vampires but my tongue was too heavy in my mouth to speak. It felt like waves of warmth started to hit my entire body, I could not keep my eyes open. Before the waves fully overtook me I heard a distinct sound, one that I could immediately recognize, the sound of a vampire being broken into pieces.

I woke up to bright lights and the worst pounding headache I had ever experienced. My mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls, and my tongue was too big. Groaning I rolled over in the bed, pulling a pillow over my head hoping to block out some of the light. That was kind of hard in a house filled with walls of glass.

I could hear Phil humming tunelessly under his breath as he typed away at a computer downstairs. Each key stroke was like a jackhammer to the brain, too bad he was such a fast typer. I briefly considered going downstairs and breaking his fingers, but that would require me moving and I was not ready to do that.

I lay on the bed in agony for a few minutes but my stomach told me I no longer had the luxury of staying in bed. I jumped up and ran for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time.

The noises I was making must have alerted Phil to the fact that I was awake, I could hear him behind me as I retched into the toilet. After it looked like my stomach and possibly my small intestines were completely devoid of any substance I pushed sweaty chunks hair out of my face. Phil was standing at the door to the bathroom with a glass of something brown and unidentifiable.

"Morning sunshine," he said with a huge smile.

I flipped him the bird. But I ruined whatever dignity I may have had left by turning back to the toilet and evidently I had not emptied everything just yet. Phil's face appeared with a neutral expression as he squatted down right next to me, his hand appeared with a couple of white pills.

"What is this?" I asked him suspiciously, swallowing did not seem like such a good plan. Maybe I would avoid doing that, for like the next year or so.

"Ibuprofen for your headache, I can't give you acetaminophen because unfortunately for you it is metabolized in your liver. And your liver is not very happy this morning." He told me in a too cheerful voice, it was starting to grate on my nerves. I looked at the pills he had put in my hand, while he went to the sink to fill a glass with water.

I swallowed the pills, since they promised the possibility of some relief. Miraculously they stayed down, but I was not about to press my luck so I sat down next to the toilet and put my head back against the cabinet.

"All right Princess now for the fun stuff," Phil's voice sounded tinged with anticipation. I smelt something horrible, and opened my eyes to see him presenting me with the glass full of brown goopy stuff.

"I am not drinking that nasty glob," I told him, tired from all the barfing I had done my voice came out a little weak.

"Trust me it will make you feel better." He tried to persuade me. "Between the two of us who has done more drinking?"

"What is in it?" I asked suspiciously, that thing looked and smelled just foul. It made me want to throw up again just thinking about having to drink it.

"You don't want to know. Secret family recipe." Mr Happy Sunshine said. For a moment I pictured punching him so hard he would fly across the room. I seemed to have very prominent fantasies of causing this man bodily harm at this time, but he was being far too cheerful this godawful morning.

I drank the stuff, gagging much of the way. I tried my best not to smell it, though I failed miserably. I had thought vampires smelled bad but this was much worse. I don't know why I drank the stuff, probably just to get him to leave me alone. Maybe this was retribution for when I was trying to force him to drink the water when he had that migraine.

He disappeared to get me a toothbrush and some extra clothes, so that I could take a shower. It was not until I was under the hot spray that I remembered I had not been wearing any pants when I woke up. I don't know what was worse the thought of him undressing me, or the fact that I wore the super sexy granny whites. Then I remembered my breakdown the night before, the underwear was nothing compared to that. Had I really told him that I no longer had a period? My face got so warm with embarrassment I would probably get a first degree burn.

Getting out of the shower I considered crawling back into bed, would he notice if I never left the room? There were two other bedrooms in this house, maybe they could just slide in some food a few times a week.

I was a lot of things but I was not a coward, so I sighed heavily once and headed downstairs.

Phil was puttering around in the kitchen, washing some dishes. "Do you want anything to eat?"

I shook my head but then realized the drugs had not kicked in yet. "I am so not drinking again," I groaned sitting carefully down on a stool so as not to move my head more than necessary.

"Well that was easy enough, here I thought I was going to have to whip out with some Trent Reznor." Phil was just asking to be punched.

"Trent who?" I said not lifting my head from the counter.

"You don't know who Trent Reznor is?" He seemed genuinely shocked. "Oh yeah I forgot I was dealing with an infant."

"At least I don't have one foot in the grave, old man." Surprisingly I was feeling better, so long as I did not move around too much. I don't know if it was the brown glob stuff, the medication or the wolf genes but my stomach was no longer doing flips in my abdomen. My head still felt like a miniature marching band was stomping their way across the inside of my skull. I sighed again, "ah about last night, sorry about crying all over you and then for going on and on about Sam, and my dad, and about Emily being pregnant." I might as well get the apology over with. Then I realized what I had just said. "Oh my god, I can't believe Emily is pregnant."

"You know that is not necessarily true," Phil started to say. I could hear him adding some water to the kettle, it made a distinct sound when the water hit the metal bottom.

"What other reason would there be for her to take prenatal vitamins?" I interrupted him, considering lifting my head but deciding I was not ready to risk that yet. Phil was just going to have to get used to talking to the top of my head this morning.

"Some people think the vitamins make your hair and nails stronger. You did mention she was engaged, she might want to look extra nice. It won't really do much more than conventional vitamins, but reason does not always come into play when a woman is planning her big day." I could hear the disdain in his voice when he said "big day".

That comment reminded me of something he had said earlier, and I latched onto that since I did not want to talk about Emily. "What did you mean about the aceto stuff."

"Acetaminophen?" he clarified.

"Yeah that stuff," I risked raising my head to give him a suspicious look. Then I remembered what he said last night, "and what do you mean about native americans missing something from their liver."

"Acetaminophen is what you call Tylenol." He answered my question, but at the same time revealed nothing - typical Phil.

"And I don't want to take it because I am native american and it can hurt my liver?" I was getting confused.

"No you don't want to take it because you already hurt your liver by drinking and so adding Tylenol would only increase the assault on your liver. You have to give it some time to recover. But then it should be fine for you to take." His tone was emotionless, like he was giving a lecture, it might have been my imagination but I thought I heard a little censure in there.

"So what you are telling me is that there is a change that Emily is not pregnant." My brain finally caught up with what he had said earlier.

"There is a chance that she is, but I am saying is that just because there is prenatal vitamins in that household does not mean that she is. Someone could be anemic and prenatals have higher than normal iron content." As he explained small dots were starting to get connected in my brain but my head still hurt too much for me to see the big picture.

"So my complete and utter breakdown is for nothing." I said with disgust.

"Not nothing, it taught you not to jump to conclusions and more importantly it taught you why you should not drink." Phil seemed determined for me to learn that lesson.

He did not need to keep bringing it up, I was not going to drink any time soon.

"Why does it bother you so much, the thought of Emily being pregnant?" Phil said after a pause, he had poured the boiling water into a mixing bowl filled with what looked like oatmeal.

"Duh, she has the life I want." I blurted out without thinking about it, I looked up to see if he had noticed what I said.

"You want to be pregnant?" He stopped stirring and looked at me with a shock written all over his face.

It was impossible not to laugh, but then I groaned again. It was not good to laugh when your head hurt. "No not right now, but eventually I would want to be."

"Just because you are no longer menstruating does not mean you are infertile." Phil seemed relieved and went back to cooking.

"What would you know about it?" It was not like he had to worry about periods and things like that.

"There are lots of reasons for your period to stop; reasons that can be easily fixed. The most common reason for amenorrhea is of course pregnacy."

"Nope, I can assure you I am not pregnant," I interrupted before he could go on. That had been my worry as well when my periods first stopped, but soon it became apparent it was because of the wolf thing. Amenorrhea was the technical name for no periods, I knew that because I had looked it up - what surprised me was that Phil knew that word.

"Barring pregnancy the second most common reason is stress and low body fat." Phil continued like I had not said anything. "You have to admit you are on the skinny side and you have been under a great deal of stress lately."

"What if there are other reasons?" I asked, what I could not ask is what if it was because of the wolf genes.

"I could get you pregnant if that is what you wanted," Phil paused for a moment as he went over what he had said. His face turned red under his dark skin. "All right that did not come out right."

"Yeah thanks doctor," I said sarcastically trying to block the mental picture of Phil helping me make a baby. We could go for that, my libido pointed out. "I will make sure to call you up if I ever have the need."

"Infertility is not my field of specialty," he muttered, I could see he was still embarrassed. It was nice to have someone else open mouth and insert foot, usually I was the one that did that.

"Wait, what do you mean your field of specialty, you mean you are a doctor?" Though it made sense, he was really smart and well educated. "If you tell me you are a psychologist I will kill you right here."

"No not a psychologist, anyway psychologists are Ph D's and I am an MD." He reached for some raisins to add to the concoction.

"So what is your field of specialty, Doctor Nelson?" I wanted to know he had not been the shrink messing with my head. Was I some sort of experiment for him?

"Boobs and butts," he said with a smirk. "Plastic surgery," he clarified after I gave him a confused look.

"You mean to tell me you are a plastic surgeon from LA? Oh my god can you get any more cliche than that?" I laughed again but this time I was a little more careful, I had my headache to consider.

He laughed with me, "now you are going to have to stop hanging out with me."

"Yeah, I have a reputation that could be ruined if this got out." We spent a few minutes laughing quietly together, I was asking him stupid questions about his profession. He did not answer most of them citing patient confidentiality as an excuse. It took me a while to figure out that I was back in the light again, not in that deep hole of depression.

"All right that is enough laughing at my expense, I have a question for you, and before you rip my head off please consider it. What exactly do you see in Sam? Why do you love him?" It was his turn to look bewildered.

"Because he is Sam, my Sam. Do you have to have a reason why you fall in love?" Despite his vast knowledge, here was one topic I had a great deal of experience in.

"So are you in love with your Sam, or the real boy that is now engaged to your cousin? Because it sounds as if you like the idea of being in love more than you like the actual man." He was clearly not understanding what I was talking about.

"That is not true, sounds like you have never been in love." I flaunted my superior experience.

"What makes you think I have never been in love?" He asked quietly, I would not have been able to hear him had I been human.

"Well then tell me what reason did you have to love her?" A little tweak of jealousy sprang up in my chest. Phil did not seem to be the type of guy that fell in love, he was too self contained. He did not need anyone and if I was being honest it kind of hurt that this man's heart already belonged to someone else.

He paused for a minute, thinking. "I love her for many reasons. There is her strength, her stubbornness, her absolute need to control everything and how much it bothers her when things are out of her hands, but most of all I love the woman she can potentially be." He had a faraway look in his face, I might as well not have been here, he certainly was somewhere else. With someone else - whoever that bitch is, she is going down. All right I have no idea where that came from.

"So did you actually tell her this?" I have to admit I was curious as to what had happened with this woman, that little bit of jealousy had become bigger.

"I told her I loved her, but she did not notice." He shrugged, I could not tell if he was this good of an actor or if it truly did not bother him.

"How does someone not notice when you tell them you love them?" He probably used the male lingo, told her she was wearing nice shoes or something along those lines.

"She was distracted at the time. So I ask again why do you love Sam?" He seemed determined for me to answer this question.

I thought about it for a minute. "We shared hopes and dreams together, we were going to go to school and come back to help the tribe. We planned our entire life together." It still hurt to talk about all that I lost, but I needed Phil to understand.

"Sounds like you miss the dreams more than you miss the actual man." Phil pointed out as he slid a bowl of oatmeal in front of me. He brought some milk from the fridge and set it down next to my bowl.

I did not say anything as I ate my breakfast and considered what Phil had said. It was true I was more enthusiastic about the plans for the future than Sam was, he had been more willing to go with the flow than I was. That did not mean I did not love him. That did not mean I missed the dreams more than the man, did it?

A/N: All right one step back but two steps forward. I think Leah did well this chapter - oh yeah and Phil is a saint. See I posted quickly so as to not leave you all in suspense.

ABarbieStory: Yeah Phil was telling her the truth about his age, but you are right on the wording; there is a lot of wiggle room in there. You need not have worried, Phil found her and took care of her - Leah did not have to run away. The mysterious duo will make themselves known to Leah...eventually, so have a little patience with me.

Ms animegoddess: Glad you liked it where the last one was cut off. This chapter was a lot smaller, but I think Leah made a great deal of progress.

Twilighter: Was this update soon enough for you? Yeah, yeah about the forbidden fruit, it always is more fun. Thanks for the compliment, I have to admit this is much more fun than the other stuff I was trying to get done today.

Toshii519: One day Leah's time will come, but she has to kind of saw off the ties she still has to Sam - I will tell you now it will not be as simple as imprinting on some guy - that would be way to easy and not at all fun.