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.

Life has been hard recently, very, very hard, however I hope this chapter makes up for it.


A First Time For Everything

Chapter 19-May Your Choices Reflect Hope Not Fear

Leah gets closure in two different ways as the pack head back to the Cullen's only to find out that half of the world's vampires have moved in.


The snow was sticking to the ground and it was time to go back to the Cullens.

Leah knew this. She had still not moved home but she knew that it was time to leave the little warm haven that had been Layla Call's house. Right now all she wanted to do was stay but she had learnt the hard way this year that that couldn't happen. You can't wish time away because you desperately want too.

But the snow started sticking to the ground, the beach became frosty and everyone wore clothes but the wolves who ran so hot there was no point in it.

She was sat on the cold hard ground looking down over the edge of the sea when…

"Embry is looking for you"

"Hello Sam"

Sam came and sat next to her which was just annoying because it now meant that Leah looked like the bitch when she got up and walked away. She knew Sam never meant to do it deliberately but sometimes she had to remind herself that her ex boyfriend never understood the power of appearances.

"Hey" he said sitting down. "Jake tells me you guys go back into town to begin your main perpetrations."

"We'll come back. My Mom wants to see me and Seth before we go. She's gonna spend Christmas with Charlie Swan so we will be there too"

Sam shot her a sideways glance.

"Does that bother you?"

"What Charlie Swan?"

"Yeah"

"No"

"Leah"

"It doesn't" she said shaking her head. "Sure is it soon, yeah, do I believe that my Dad wants her to be alone for the rest of her life, no. I don't judge her on moving on. Not when you and I both did the same thing"

"It's not the same"

"Isn't it?"

"I didn't move on from you Leah. Life just…chose someone else for me"

She didn't say anything. Didn't take her eyes off the sea when she asked the question.

"Did you ever love me?"

"Don't ask me that, you know I did"

"And yet you didn't fight for me?"

"It wasn't that simple—"

"Oh okay"

"Leah—"

"Sam have you ever stopped to consider what would have happened if you hadn't had seen your Dad that day? If you had never transformed then at that moment in time. If you and I had gotten married and God forbid I had gotten pregnant and then you'd transformed, then you'd met Emily? Tell me something Sam would you have fought for me then? When I was the mother of your children, the woman you married? Would that have been enough to tempt fate?"

She was calm when she said it, she was perfectly calm now. She could smell Embry's aftershave on her shirt and it was a calming effect.

Sam paused for a second.

"I don't know"

"Okay…wonderful"

There was nothing he could say to that and to be honest she was interested even if he did. So much of this was torn between lies and truths and feelings and love and that fucked up imprint.

"Leah…I regret hurting you more than I can say—"

"I don't want to hear—"

"I don't care I am going to say it I loved you, you know I did, deep down you know I loved you and I regret hurting you and I want you to be happy. I won't apologise for being happy because I am happy, very happy and I want you to be the same"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because" here Sam sighed looking at her and she turned and looked at him.

"Because despite what I tell Emily I genuinely don't think that I can see another way out of this. And I have been trying to but…Alice Cullen disappearing like that has freaked me more than I can say. Vampires are pouring over the boarders and I can't stop them and more and more kids are turning…you know the youngest in my pack…eleven."

"Jesus"

"I know I thought Colin and Brady were bad at thirteen but I could control them. I knew they were an eventuality but this is just…this is unprecedented, obscene…dangerous even, I have Billy and Old Quill going through family trees so we can find anyone who might be turning and I send Paul and Quill and Jared to watch them…I can't…it's not clean anymore, the lines are all over the show and so I tell Emily that everything is going to be okay and this is one last hurdle before we can start out lives together and the truth is I can hear the lie in the back of my throat because I am taking for the first time actual children into battle against an enemy that the Cullens openly think we can't win against and so here I am with the woman I used to love heart and soul trying to make it better so I can die with as clean a conscious as I can. Oh and that's before we get to the shocking secret that actually while my father is a deadbeat he wasn't a cheating deadbeat, no that was Billy Black! Hurrah!"

He finished this little speech breathing hard and Leah looked at him. Sam wasn't going to transform here, Sam wasn't going to transform out of anger ever again. She knew that, she knew that about him if nothing else.

"You done?"

"Yeah" he said breathing hard like he was winded.

"You feel better?"

"Yeah"

She smiled at him and he smiled back.

"You think Embry is gonna make you happy?"

"Don't know. That's the main problem he could always imprint one day too. And then it could all be over."

Sam nodded and then.

"Or maybe his imprint all along has been you."

"Ha!"

"No I'm serious, maybe your transformation blocked it a little bit. Between Embry and your transformation did you ever see him? No! So maybe…maybe it's just blocked or something"

Leah thought that was a very optimist way of Sam trying to find her a happy ending so he felt less guilty about his own. For once however she could accept the spirit in which his trying was coming from.

She watched the waves crashing below the weather making them loud and crashing and terrible. It was worse than the day that Bella Swan had jumped off the cliff, the day her father had died, the day her life had changed forever.

Fucking Bella Swan.

She bit her bottom lip for a second and then.

"Embry makes me happy. But I don't think you get to ask me that anymore Sam"

Sam said nothing for a second and then.

"Fair enough"

She worried the skin of her lip and then.

"I hate this" she said finally. "I hate the uncertainty of waiting. I hate the what is going to happen, I hate knowing that it is going to happen, I hate it all, I hate it all. One more battle to be done, one more thing to be done and then it will all be over…until the next time, until the time after that. Until the Cullens leave…and even then…even if we can get them to wait, even if we can get them to stop, this…Volturi, then…then we are right back where we started again. Vampires knowing we exist only this time they are not going to write a treaty with us. Looking back we got lucky when you consider it—and don't give me that look, you know deep down I'm right"

There was a long pause as Sam tried to find a way to put their history, their tribal history into her perspective, for him it was a pride thing and she knew it.

For her it was something different.

Sam didn't say anything for a second and then…

"I hope it works out for you Leah. I really do hope that it does. I think…Embry is a good man. And he does love you. And maybe you don't want to hear this but maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't…I don't know but…but I hope that you get the happy ending that you deserve."

She couldn't be magnanimous towards him, couldn't be happy for him, it was still too raw and too painful but instead Leah Clearwater found it within herself to smile and then she nodded.

"You too" she said and it was up to him as to if he would accept it. Either way she had said what she had to say.

It was time to let the past go, and move on. While she still could.

And the rest…well…that was relative.

She sat looking at the waves for a very long time, even after Sam had left.


Embry had been alone in the house, his mother had been out and he had been alone. Going to the Cullens once in the past two weeks had been enough to convince him that all the body spray in the world was not going to fix the stink that was coming out of that house. Didn't help that every vampire they could was there as well, like Embry knew what the plan was, knew what Edward and Bella were hoping for with that sweet little girl but still…

He didn't dare say it but he had understood why as well. The Doc had explained immortal children to him and the image in his brain alone was enough to make himself feel sick. When he had told his mother (because he was promising honesty right now) she had gone a rather bad shade of green and had immediately insisted on meeting Nessie so she could attest that she wasn't one of those children.

Which you know was complicated, the human woman, the vampires and the half vampire who had gotten his mothers life story off her with one touch and had decided that she was 'strong'.

Which of course his mother had loved but that was by the by.

But right now he was packing things to take to the Cullens. Mrs C had apparently erected some kind of barn/apartment thing for them totally their own (apparently she loved a good project) and so they would have a place to kip while this was all going on.

He was just deciding weather it was worth the hassle of taking jeans when he heard the knock on the bedroom door.

"Open" he called and then there was Leah.

"Mom's out" he said turning towards his clothes and not taking in her expression (that was the first fatal mistake to be honest)

"I know. I was speaking with Sam"

He dropped his bag on the floor. Sam.

Sam.

Great.

Logically he knew there was no reason to be jealous. Things with Leah and him were still undefined, they had kissed—well actually they had kissed quite a bit but nothing more and now he knew that Sam had done something or said something. He knew Sam didn't intentionally mean to cause harm but everytime Sam spoke to Leah harm was always a consequence.

"And?" he asked though he really didn't want to know.

"And I realised something" she said quietly. "I realised that I have to move on with a good man that loves me. So…if you want…" she trailed off and then gave a little laugh and Embry's brain struggled to catch up with what she was saying because there was no way that she was saying what he thought…what he hoped…what he desperately dreamed she was saying was she?

"Christ I am bad at this" she said finally and then.

"Embry I like you, I mean I really like you and you've put the pieces back together and I thought that would be enough but the truth of the matter is that I have loved you since you started putting the pieces back together and I might be fucking this up completely and you know there is the whole vampire royal family trying to kill us thing but I just…I've been thinking that for as long as I have left before either one of us imprint or whatever I…I just had to say this. I had to say this because…because I love you Embry and I know that, that is no guarantee that it could work but—"

But she had been cut off abruptly then by Embry who for all his talk of being tactical and smooth was in this moment…well…not.

You see he just kissed her.

He didn't think he could speak right now.

But Leah was a smart woman.

And from her smile he thought that she understood.

"I love you too" he said truthfully.

The smile he got back was worth everything…even staring down this Volturi.

There were some things in life that just got two people together regardless and a heard of murderous vampires intent on killing them all as well as their own kind currently held up in the fanciest two up two down known to man…well…as Embry found out that day when he and Leah stumbled back into bed, that…that was just one of them.


And there you go! Finally, they are together.

I don't intend to go too much into the actual fight with the Volturi so please keep that in mind. I expect it to be one, maybe two chapters as this story is fully intended to end at twenty three chapters.

Next Chapter-Leah and Embry the night before the Volturi arrive and the morning before they transform for what might be the last time. And then...then it begins.