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 15-Ending On A High Note

Leah and Embry are in a lovely undefined thing that she doesn't want to define (and he does), Embry decides to ask the question just as Jacob gets some news from the Cullen's.

It was a lovely undefined thing she told herself. Lovely because if she had to think of it as more than that then she was going to get a headache and if she thought of it as anything other than undefined then she was going to have to define whatever this…with Embry was and she was not sure she was ready both physically and emotionally to do that.

And could you blame her? It was not like her last relationship had left her unscarred. The words catastrophic failure came to mind when one thought of her and Sam and she was more than happy to remember it that way. The good times she had convinced herself that they had, had seemed to fade with time and in their place she was remembering all the times that she had compromised or changed for him and now she was thinking about it that was quite a lot.

Leah had come to the conclusion one morning that Emily was welcome to him. And she meant that. Sam had been her first love but she had realised somewhere between the Cullen's and coming back that he was not going to be her last.

It didn't help with anything else. She was still a genetic dead end, she still hated Bella Swan, she still couldn't speak to her mother who was desperate (according to Seth) to speak to her. But there was a sense that while everything else was settling down why not her?

And so she decided to keep everything as she wanted it to be.

Undefined.

And lovely.

And it was lovely.

She liked living at Embry's house simply because it was so different from her own. It was nice not seeing her father plastered across the walls, nice not to live through the awkwardness that came with her mother and more than anything it was nice not to have to listen to her mother and Emily plan out the wedding that Leah knew even now should have been hers.

Maybe it was bad of her but it was the truth.

She liked Embry's mother especially. Layla Call had a way of being that threw everyone into the shadows. The first time that she had listened to the legends, the first bonfire of the two packs she had sat very neatly and composed on a log next to her son and had listened with a polite attention that had a in a very small way thrown everyone else into the shadows. Leah didn't know if she was the only one who was picking up that Billy Black couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her but if she was then that was that. She didn't want to look further at what was happening here. Things were good and Leah was off the opinion that they needed to stay that way for as long as it took.

So every day she woke up on the couch, made breakfast, talked through whatever plans Jake had for the pack that day and then she saw that Seth and Embry and Quill were aware of them. The second they were back in La Push and he was not longer destined to choose between pack and imprint Quill had skipped over to join their little ragtag group with no warning whatsoever. It was admittedly petty delight for her to see Sam's reaction. He still had Jared and Paul but that was it, in terms of good fighters that was it. Colin and Brady were there because they were too young to go anywhere else and Liam…the newest of the pack? Well Liam was twelve for crying out loud. He was not going to do well with a pack that helped out vampires when a B- on his Math homework was enough to keep him going.

She knew it worried both Sam and Jacob and to be fair she understood why. As second in command (or whatever the hell she unofficially was) she was aware that both of them were concerned with how young the wolves seemed to be. Not even in September when fifteen year old Skylar had joined them did it change their concern. New transformations were thick and fast for mostly for the par, expected somewhat but the age was concerning. Leah didn't have to point out that if they were down below eleven they would be babysitting puppies not training warriors or whatever tribal spiel they were selling to these kids whose lives had been turned upside down completely overnight.

The best thing about it was that Sam had gotten over his high horse and had decided that it was best to tell parents. Embry when she had told him that had laughed out loud bitter and broken and more than a little damaged and perhaps he had seen the look on her face because he lay back down on the grass in his backyard staring up at the sun and the sky and said quietly.

"It's not because of me. He knows that he's been dodging cult rumours for a long time. That and steroids. And he knows that sooner or later the people who don't like him are going to outweigh the people who like him. This works because people trust Sam with their kids, take that away and what have you got? The council can only do so much when it comes to the rumours. And believe you me, had my Mom been anyone other than my Mom she'd have damn well been told earlier. A fact that I don't doubt she knows"

"No I don't doubt it either" Leah said quietly. She thought about the look that Layla had shot her mother over the bonfire that night and it had not been kind. She wasn't sure weather or not her mother had figured it out but she was also sure that she was soon going to. It was another one of those things that they didn't talk about. Another one of those things where she didn't want to think that she had more of a relationship with Embry's mom than she did with her own, her own who just the other week was sat with Emily picking out bridesmaid dresses and drinking champagne in Seattle like it was her daughter getting married and not the niece who had always in reality, walked through life as though she was charmed.

Okay so maybe that was unfair considering what had happened with Sam but still.

Leah was trying but she couldn't help but feel bitter.

But Embry helped.

He did.

They were kissing now and he would move his head into her lap and brush the hair off his face until he fell asleep and she would watch the smooth lines of his face even out as the worry and the anger and the rest of the angst that made up teenage boy disappeared and she thought that he looked beautiful. She didn't know men could be beautiful as naïve as that sounded.

Certainly she had never thought that Sam looked that way.

"You know" Embry said one morning after their intense make out session in which his hands had found the small of her back rucking up her t-shirt setting her skin alight and on fire with every dancing fingertip that was dragged across her ribs and she had wrapped both her legs around his waist which did not help when she felt…well…you know what she felt poking her in the side.

"I was thinking"

"Oh dear"

He swatted at her and she laughed leaning back and drinking in the sun. Embry opened one eye and smiled at her flipping onto his stomach and propping himself open with one elbow. She smiled down at him and he smiled back up and it was amazing how simple and easy this was even though they had never put a name on it.

"I was thinking that I might…I might ask my Mom you know…to tell me who my Dad is?"

"Yeah?"

"I think…I think I wanna know. I mean I know that it might cause a lot of hurt and I don't want that but I can't live my life in fear of what is going to happen next. I can't live wondering…I want to know. I want to move forwards and I can't move backwards. Moving forwards I have to be able to face the truth and that means I have to know."

"I agree" she said quietly.

He nodded and then.

"Do you mind being there with me when I ask her?"

She looked down at him in surprise.

"You want me there for that?"

Embry nodded and then he paused as if he was on the cusp of speech and when he next spoke it was quiet.

"I want you here for everything"

She paused looking out over the little garden and Embry sat up watching her.

"I know your not ready" he said sagely. "I know your not ready for me to say it, I know your not ready for me to put a label on this, but it doesn't stop it from being the truth. I want you here for everything"

"You know one day you could imprint" she said suddenly. "And then this entire conversation and any other conversation is moot. You could imprint and this would all be over. You wouldn't have a choice, I've seen it so many times, you'd be with this person—"

"You know if it worked like that Quill would be arrested" Embry said flatly. "You know that, I know that, Quill knows that. It doesn't work like that. You don't have to be with your imprint for the rest of your life. What if destiny decides that the person that I am destined to be with is already with someone else. You think I am going to be the man who comes crashing into a happy marriage? You think I am going to be the man who sees a family of four broken up? And what if she doesn't want me? What if she doesn't want me which is not like out of the realm of possibility. Everyone here has been extremely lucky to be with the object of their affection. Kim had a crush on Jared, Claire is too young to know better, Nessie is too smart to know better, Rachel is happy to stay despite everything that tells her to go, Emily…well I don't know about Emily but what I do know is that I really, really like you Leah, might even love you if you want me to name it. I know that I love you and I think that you could learn to love me back and we don't need an imprint getting in the way of that."

He shrugged as if it was that simple.

"Course" he said with a graceful kind of nonchalance. "That is just me, if you found your guy somewhere down the line and you wanted to go that is quite fair. I don't want to keep you here if you don't want to be. But for me…imprinting isn't he be all and end all of being a werewolf. I am more than happy to give that particular mating claim a brush by."

She looked at him for a second and then.

"I don't want to imprint either. I like being here with you."

Embry sat up and stared at her for a second and then he nodded.

"Okay" he said quietly. "Okay. I like being here with you too"

He took her hand in his and that was the end of that.

It was the closest that she was going to get to say what she wanted to say and he knew it and so did she.

He wasn't wrong.

She wasn't ready.

But finally she thought she might now be with someone who understood why.

Jacob called them eyes wild rolling in the back of his head barely human three days later. He transformed to tell them the news and she felt a terrible sickness in her stomach.

It took him three goes to tell them who the Volturi was and even then she had to hear it from the Doctor before she got an official confirmation.

Vampire royalty.

Coming for them.

Well…coming for the Cullens but as Carlisle pointed out the reality was that once they saw Jacob they would move to wipe them all out. She bit her bottom lip and listened turning into a human so she could understand more.

It was a death trap Seth said quietly and she turned to shoot her brother a look, her silly little fifteen year old brother who was squaring up to his responsibilities like a man and who would probably never see seventeen and she had never hated where she came from more. Because it was only going to get worse and more children were going to be forced into service to die.

And what the fuck had they ever done to deserve this?

"So they are coming?"

"Yes"

"When?"

"When the snow sticks to the ground according to Alice"

"Well that's awfully specific" she snarled.

"Alice is gone" Embry said flatly. "You know it she crossed the line last night you can smell her the entire way and—" he trailed off and then he laughed harshly. "Jesus talk about family, she's gone and fucking ditched them hasn't she?"

Jacob said nothing. It was clear he was itching to get back to Nessie and Embry spat on the ground.

"Fucking leeches" he said once. "Does Sam know?"

"Yeah" Jake said quietly. "Yeah Sam knows"

"Bet he's loving this" Seth muttered. "That's his wedding to Emily gone"

Despite the situation she found it very hard not to smile at that. She didn't know why. She really, really didn't know but she was smiling at the thought that while she was going to die Emily was not going to get her wedding.

And to think, her mother had done all that work for nothing.

"I'm sorry" she said quietly standing up. "I just gotta…" she took off walking in her human form until she was deep in the forest and then even though there was nothing funny about this she started laughing.

Embry had followed her and he watched his eyes wide at her hysterical giggling and she couldn't blame him to be fair. She imagined that it was frightening to see her like this. She felt wild, out of control, never changing, never moving forwards, never going back.

And now she was going to die.

Figured. Just when she had gotten over Sam, found someone she wanted to be with.

Figured.

Couldn't have happened right after Sam had dumped her could it? You know when the sense of betrayal and ritual humiliation had been so strong that she had actively wanted to die?

And so she laughed, cried, screamed out all that was inside her and she felt arms come around her. She pushed him back but Embry would not go and he wrapped both his arms around her as she screamed and thrashed. He was taller than her, stronger than her and he made her feel safe.

But there was no safety Leah knew.

There was no safety from what was coming next.

Well…at least things got to end on a high note.

And yeah, onto the third part of Breaking Dawn now. Eight more chapters to go.

Next Chapter-Embry contemplates the Volturi and decides he wants to know the truth. Layla is compelled to tell him and lives are never the same again.