Hi, so this is my first story for this pairing and I have to admit I am liking it so far so let's see where it goes! I hope you all enjoy this story and this chapter.

Leah is criminally underused and criminally treated. She's the Rosalie of the Wolf Pack. Seriously the shit that she goes through because she's not skipping at the idea of being Emily's maid of honour (and seriously what the fuck possessed Emily to ask that? Like seriously Stephanie). So this story is a love letter to Leah.

I also have a huge amount of respect for Embry's Mom. Not sorry. Also I know she has a different name in the books to here but here she is Layla and she was seventeen when she got pregnant.

Also on Embry's father...I know a lot people assume it is Joshua Uley but somehow that seems to nice and neat, I also think it's pretty ironic, that both Jacob and Quill end up being friends with a kid who might be their half brother. So my views on Embry's Dad is that is has to be one of them and I do tend to lead towards Billy just for reasons I can't name. The council bit deciding whose parents should know and who doesn't is my own and I know it does not correlate with the books but then again this whole story is AU so (shrugs), I just think it's a fun angle to explore that everyone is terrified with who Embry's father could be.

Again, all of this is my own design, the characters belong to someone else, I am just playing in my writers box.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know.

Also I do not do Private Messaging anymore, any questions stick them in a review and I will get back to you next chapter note.


A First Time For Everything

Chapter 3-Countermeasures

Leah and Embry have a conversation about men, father's, boyfriends and Alpha's. Leah also makes a decision and Embry...Embry makes one too.


He got to the house by walking. He had no doubt that they were watching him but he found it irksome now rather than comforting. He had only been to the Clearwater's house once and that had been after the funeral. He had remembered Sue looking at him through the side of her eye as if she was tracing him for a resemblance and he had to curl his fist into his side least he say something very unpolite for a very polite setting.

Leah was in the kitchen and she opened the back door.

"He send you to spy on me?"

"No"

"And you'd tell me the truth?"

"He doesn't even realise that the two of us are gone is my bet. He went for it after you left and then he and Jared and Paul went to tell the council."

Leah snorted.

"Oh I bet those fuckers are going to love this" she said shaking her head. "I should have known that he'd go and head me off. Good thing I left my Mom a note"

"You think you can put this in a note?"

"Only way the woman and I can talk these days. Since she's decided to help the bitch who ruined my life plan her fucking wedding"

Embry didn't know what to say to that. Not for the first time he found himself adrift in the never ending, never ceasing love triangle that was the Leah-Sam-Emily freak show. He had no idea what to say to that so he went with honesty.

"That must suck"

Leah shot him a look that didn't quite convey how much it sucked but Embry thought that it must be complete and utter hell to have your Mom on your side right up until she knew what was going on and then to have her be back as besties with the woman who broke your heart.

Sue might view it a different way but he thought his sympathies were more with Leah at this point than they were with her mother.

"So why are you here Embry?"

And suddenly he was spilling out his secrets.

"I had this plan, I wanted to tell my Mom all of it and Sam said no because…"

"Because the second she knows she has to tell you who your father is" Leah finished. "Yeah I thought that would be the case, in a way this pregnancy is his dream come true. Between the newborns and this there wasn't any great pack secret that kept you bound and silent. You should have done it the second Jacob fled the state"

He didn't know what to say to that one. She was right of course but he still didn't know what to say.

And then suddenly…

"Sam's father…does Sam think it's him?"

She turned pulling a glass down from the counter and filling it with water. She passed it to him but he left it on the table not sure what to do. Leah sat down at the little rickety circle table and stared up at him crossing her legs over her shorts with a sigh.

"I don't know" she said truthfully. "I think he thinks it is, I think he hopes it is if only for the sake of peace and harmony within the pack but that's gone to shit now. Also I don't think it would have mattered to Jacob if you were his brother or to Quill. Their problems would have been with their own father's not with you. But then again…Sam's always been a bit of a coward about his father if truth be told. Even before he could explode into a wolf he couldn't talk about the man without storming out in a huff. I got it but the truth of the matter was that he's never gonna want your Mom to know. Neither are the council. One of those three and I include my mother in this know the truth and none of them want to confront it."

"So there was never going to be a way I could tell her"

Leah shrugged and Embry sat down and took a sip of the water and then a gulp just for something to do. It wasn't like he had known that this was always a possibility it's just…he had placed a great deal of trust in Sam from the get go. To find out that there was always going to be something that had eroded that trust hurt.

"You know the really fucked up thing?" he asked her and silently she shook her head.

"I don't really care. I know I should. I know that I should care that he's my father and that he probably cheated on his wife and his babies with a seventeen year old who didn't know any better but the truth is…I don't. I don't care who he is, I just…I just want to know so I can walk into the middle of the Rez and shout it from the top of my voice. I don't care about anything else I just want to see the luck on that bastard's face when I out him as the guy who went to another Rez in search of a seventeen year old to sleep with"

Leah watched him for a second and then…

"You better not tell Sam that, he'll gag you so fast you won't be able to even think it. His father aside he's part of them now, he's going to protect their reputations and their secrets as soon as humanly possible. He's never going to let you embarrass them"

"Who says I intended to stick around that long" he said putting the glass back on the table.

Leah watched him for a second and then she smiled. It was the first genuine smile that he had ever seen from Leah Clearwater and he had to admit that it made the anger and the hurt strip away from her. She looked…beautiful.

Well…Leah had always been beautiful, not even Jacob with his one sided obsession with Bella Swan had been unable to deny that Leah was beautiful, even when she had been angry, even when she had been so angry that she had been hard to be around and even when an imprint was on the scene she had been beautiful. There wasn't a single man in the damn pack who could change that preconception. The point was as she was sat here he found that she was absolutely stunning in every way imaginable. Because that smile was real.

"So you came to the same conclusion I did" she said still beaming and he suddenly realised what they were both not saying.

There was a way out for them both. A way out of the consent never ending control that came with Sam. There was a way out of the gag rule. Jacob.

Jacob and Seth between the two of them had given them an out and it was clear as day that they were the only two people who had realised it as the weapon that it was. Embry followed along her line of thinking and he realised what conclusion she had come too.

"You want to protect Bella Swan?"

"Fuck no. That woman's made her bed and as far as I am concerned she can lie in it. If she wants to die for the thing inside of her then that's her choice. I might not like it but it's her choice" here she leaned forwards and Embry realised for Leah this was the sticking point.

"I hate that woman" she said brutally honest to the last and God knows Embry had to admire that in her if nothing else.

"I hate her and I hate what she has done, she can act like butter wouldn't melt but the truth of the matter is that she has strung along both her husband and Jacob for as long as possible. There is no conceivable way that the woman didn't know that Jacob was falling in love with her and then in love with her. She allowed him to risk his life and even tried to keep him bound to her despite the fact that she insists she has made her choice. She even wanted him as best man. She is cruel and she is spiteful, and she is stupid and she mean and she is surrounded by people who keep enabling her piss poor decision making instead of calling her out on it which makes the entire thing a hundred times worse. If that vampire truly loved her he would have called out the cruel way she has treated Jacob from the start but he hasn't. I wouldn't spit on Bella Swan if she was on fire but the point I am trying to make is that it is her choice to keep this baby. Her choice. Nobody else's. It's not Sam's decision to abort whatever is inside of her. She is choosing to allow that thing to grow inside her body and yeah maybe it is a bad decision but it is her choice to do it. Since this whole fucking nightmare began so much has been out of our control and I cannot support this but I can respect that it's her choice to make. Neither Sam, nor Jacob, nor the Council, nor Edward Cullen have the right to tell Bella Swan, or to force Bella Swan what to do with their own body. This is not some backwards country stuck in time. She gets that choice, she gets that right"

"And that's why you're going to leave?"

"No. Well…part of it. I don't want any harm to come to Seth. He might be a pain up my arse but he's my little brother and I don't want him dead or seriously injured. I can take Jared and I can take Paul and I can even give Sam as good as he gets. Seth can't. I'll back him for as long as I can. God knows he's done the same for me. You might have noticed that things between him and my ex and his fiancé are cordial at best which is more than I can say for what's left of my fucking family"

That was a nice way of putting it. Embry knew Seth was nothing if not open and honest and his issues with Sam were often put aside for the sake of the pack but it was clear as day whose side he was on. He was totally Team Leah. He spoke no more than few words to Emily at best and he spent little time in the house. He ate in silence and then he made sure he was gone and whenever Sam and Emily were in those touchy feely moments he went when his sister went with a curled lip and whatever he was thinking in his thoughts. Embry didn't know if Sam had ever picked up on it, if Emily ever had but he knew Paul had. Paul who would look at Seth as if he wanted to say something but didn't know what.

It was an awkwardness that was made worse by Leah in truth but even without Leah the awkwardness was always going to be there.

And there was nothing that anyone of them could do about it.

Even before the Clearwater's had joined the pack the knowledge of the imprint and the damage that it had caused had ran deeper than the scars on Emily's face and body and they all had known that.

"And the third part."

He didn't know why he was pressing her for this but this was the closest that he had come to having an honest conversation with someone in months and he was not going to do this without everyone's cards on the table.

Leah's included.

"You know what the third part is. I can't be the pathetic ex-girlfriend anymore. I can't be the object of disgust, and yeah…maybe I do not make things easier for myself but Sam and I…it's raw and it's painful and I've been allowed no option other than to get on with it. I can't cry, I can't move on, I can't…I have to see them together. She was my best friend Embry. She was supposed to be my Maid of Honour and she was supposed to help me plan my wedding and I have to sit there and watch as my Mom and her…and she fucking looks at me like I am ripping her heart out of her chest because I can't get excited about flower arrangements and then Sam makes me feel like the monster and I can't—"

And then she was crying. Full on head in her hands and crying and Embry watched her suddenly feeling like the biggest dick in the world.

He stood up and knowing that there was a very good chance that she could kill him in a second he wrapped both arms around her letting her rest her head on his shoulder and letting her cry her emotions out.

"It's alright" he said though he knew it wasn't. "It's…it's gonna be okay Leah. You've gotten an out. We've got an out now"

Leah didn't say anything she just rested her head against his shoulder until she had herself under control and her hand patted him once and he knew that he had to let go. He found that he missed the warmth of her. Whatever that meant…

"You're going then?" she asked looking up at him and Embry nodded.

"I can't stay here" he said truthfully. "It's getting too bad for me. At some point the secret about my Dad is going to come out, at some point everything is going to come crashing down. And I can't…I can't stand being looked at like I'm the Rez bastard—"

"I've never looked at you like that"

It was a soft admission but it landed in the room as if it was a bomb. Embry looked at her and then…

"You made jokes about it"

"Yeah" she said unapologetic which to be fair was Leah through and through.

"Yeah I did and…and I am sorry for it. But it was always a deflection, I never gave a shit really. Not compared to some of the other people in this town."

"Your Mom does."

Again it came out badly but Leah shrugged.

"My Mom is a cousin to Jacob's Mom" she said and Embry felt his eyes widen accordingly. "She was…they were the original Emily and Leah so to speak. So yeah when your Mom came down and my Mom knew there was a chance that Billy was the father…yeah…she never asked Jake's Mom but everyone knew there was a pretty good chance…and then when you became friends with Jake and Billy did nothing to stop it…made things worse. But I don't give a shit, I know for a fact your not my half-brother so why should I?"

"Oh you do, do you?"

"Embry if there was even a whisper of a chance of that being a possibility do you think my mother would have let your mother live?"

That was…that was a point actually.

She nodded at his expression and Embry grinned suddenly.

"Forget it"

"No it's…I really am sorry. I thought thinking about having sex with Sam wasn't working"

"Ugh Leah…"

She giggled then and he grinned back at her and she tilted her head to the side and then…

"That the only reason you are doing this? Your father, and Sam and a hatred for both?"

"That and Jake's my brother. He's my best friend and I'm gonna stick by him, and…and I remember the Doctor coming over after he was hurt and I remember how nice he was. I don't want any harm to come to them. Besides…your right. It is Bella's choice to make. If other people had, had their way my Mom would have never have had me."

"You should call her."

"I can't stick this in a voice mail"

"Yeah you can. You know what you have to say Embry, you know what will get her the answers she needs."

Embry had no idea what he was doing but sure enough he was leaving his mother a voicemail while Leah went to get a change of shorts and a few things that she called 'essential' if they were going to do this.

And suddenly he was telling his mother everything. Leah was right it was easier than doing it face to face. He talked until the beep cut him off and then he called her voicemail and talked again. And it was only when he had talked through the entire thing that he leaned back on Sue's cream sofa and breathed in and breathed out. It felt like a whole weight had been lifted off him and she found that he was shaking violently, shaking so violently that he thought he was going to be sick and hear transformed when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Yeah" he said wiping his face and jumping away from Leah's gentle touch. It had burned him and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

"Yeah I…you were right. It was easier to tell her. Turns out I had the words after all"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know she's gonna turn up at the Cullen's once she knows I'm there?"

"Yeah I think your Mom turning up is the least of the Cullen's problems right now"

Embry opened his mouth and then shut it again because…yeah she was right.

"How do we do this?"

"How do we do what?"

"Leah you think they aren't going to be watching us? I didn't leave Sam's in the best of moods and you were pretty obvious too. Might not be clear to everyone yet but at some point Sam is going to put two and two together and—"

"I think we should be okay. Once Seth made the decision he was gone, I think we've made the decision so we should be okay. If not…then it's race. You got a race in you?"

"Yeah" Embry said grinning. "Yeah I got a race in me"

And so they left the house together. He did leave a note for Quill. He knew Quill. He knew that Quill had Claire. Someone had to go and have Jacob.

It was the easiest way he could explain to Quill. Even then he wasn't sure if his friend would ever get it.

Embry didn't care. Like Leah he could taste freedom and so he went for it.

She was right as she so often was. They had made the decision and so it was nothing but the two of them as they ran and he found he rather liked it. He found that it was peaceful.

Her joy was complete and it was catching.

So was her smile.


And yeah, the Bella rant was needed because she is all of those things but the decision to carry on her pregnancy was her choice and I respect that if nothing else. I do think she was unbelievably cruel to Jacob in Eclipse but Eclipse is a write off for me just because of how she is treated by Edward so I tend to skip that entire nightmare that is a book. But yeah that needed to be said, as did the Emily/Sue/Leah debacle because I just hated how that turned out. Seriously Emily, Maid of Honour? Ugh.

I will get you the next chapter as soon as I have written it.

Next Chapter-Embry and Leah cross the border and meet Jacob. Jacob is not impressed to say the least. Seth is overjoyed.