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noblealiceworksTitle: Silent Ripples in Clear Water
Author: lily
Pairings: Leah/Sam, Sam/Emily and slight, implied Bella/Jacob
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: using details learned from Eclipse but set during Twilight, when the Cullens first arrived and Sam transformed for the first time.
Summary: Time had never been their problem, it was always about space. Like the space between them that grew too large until his affections shifted irrevocably. Then it wasn’t about anything anymore.
Word Count: 2,200+
Author's Notes: Dudes, I love Leah, wholly and unabashedly. She's the most tragic figure ever and gets the worst rap in the whole series. She's painted by a gossip-happy Edward and a mourning Jacob to be evil, but neither of these character depictions is given to us by a narrator with a clear, un-biased mind. The idea of female werewolves as better trackers/heightened senses of smells is stolen from "Bitten" by Kelly Armstrong which beats the pants off Twilight (except in the love-triangle-angst-of-d00m department) and everyone should READ IT.
Jacob may be the Fighter and Sam may be the Leader, but as the only female, she has the most heightened sense of smell. The most natural job for her in the Pack was to become the Tracker. So while the boys cavorted in the woods, she was relegated to looking for lost things, even if others might not want them to be found: emotions that burn too bright, memories that chill with their cold accuracy and painful truths that others trick themselves into believing that they can blindly ignore. Whether they want her to or not, she brings it all to light, tuning her senses until there is nothing else hidden. She places them all back in their rightful place upon the shelf for presentation. Secrets had begun to rhyme with lies and so she picked at the other’s fresh wounds to keep them from being infected by festering too long.
She doesn’t pretend with the Pack so they know that it hurts when they see her as a harpy and not a helper. But she has learned that there are things in life she cannot change, so she sticks her snout towards the dew-damp earth and begins her search anew.
---
At the time, she had laughed off his excuses, jokingly accusing him of playing up his illness to avoid their anniversary. She could hear his smile through the phone and wished she could be there to pull the blanket tight to his chin and press her lips to his feverish forehead. She doesn’t know what mementos she would have saved from the inferno raging inside him. All she knows now is that a supernatural fever burnt up all their happy memories like a wildfire in August, turning their past to ash.
After hanging up the phone, her friends teased her for being so smitten and she tried not to glow with the pride that young love brings.
The next day his voice was scratchy as he lied to her about specialists and tests. She could sense his fear and anxiety and felt helpless, being unable to offer a solution.
She didn’t see him for a week after that, until the ‘test’ results came back negative and she could safely gasp at his closely shorn head. His eyes were still frightened and she hugged his body into hers like a family. He could only spend short amounts of time with her at first, his muscles would tense when the pain medication wore off and he would start to look furtively over his shoulder until an Elder arrived with his next ‘dose’. Eventually, he would just breathe deeply for minutes on end, until he had assured himself that he had relaxed enough for her to lean into him again and he would let out a sigh of her name. She felt awful, making him suffer just so they could have a few more moments in each other’s arms, but he assured her that his time with her was worth any pain.
After dark, despite his bandages, he would push her up against the nearest structure, sometimes bending grown trees in the process. His tendons would stand taut as he would hold her in a vice grip and bend to breathe against her ear. She melted under his weight and gently trailed her fingertips along his body, gently caressing the sore muscles and enjoying his answering wince when her fingers dipped lower.
Those nights were the last happy memories they shared together, soon he stopped returning her calls and avoiding her visits. Later, he had plainly told her that she needed to leave when the council was meeting; she was too much of a distraction. Seeing her face crumple with rejection, he reached out for her shoulder, just once, but she shrugged him off her. She didn’t see him again until the day their vision of 'happily ever after' had ended.
Sam had held her hands and calmly told her that he just couldn’t care for her in the same way anymore. He was so fucking calm, in fact, that she had wanted to knock all the teeth out of the smile she used to love so much.
She ran into the forest like a frightened deer, unflinchingly rigid against the scratching branches as she pumped her muscles and cooled her flushed face with stinging tears. She ran until she was encompassed by the familiar trees of her childhood. She didn’t know that she would later emerge from those same trees as a wolf, hated and feared by those she loved. Perhaps if someone had told her, she would never have stopped running.
After the break-up, it had been difficult to rationalise her situation, but at least she was left with the satisfaction that he hadn’t lied about timing. Time had never been their problem, it was always about space. The space between them that grew too large until his affections shifted irrevocably. Then it wasn’t about anything anymore.
People tried to comfort her, but all their hollow words did was prop up a neon sign that blinked Newsflash: Life isn’t fair. Eventually, she was made to feel guilty for still being so effected, the Clearwater family could only have one martyr at a time and that slot had been filled.
She knew she couldn’t wallow or hide, not when her Papa’s health had been so poor at the time. So she accompanied her father to every check-up and watched him take his blood pressure medication twice a day. The local selection of resources was sparse, so she drove to Seattle to bury herself in books that helped her understand the words the doctor’s bandied about so lightly.
It seemed that everyone seemed to take life less seriously than her; Sam was so cavalier about ending theirs together and even her mother had begun to nod with a sad resignation after every appointment. So it surprised her a year later that some tiny brunette’s death could incite a grim war. Where was this fervent appreciation of life when she stumbled around half-dead after her father’s funeral? Where was the outrage when she stopped eating after seeing Sam casually squeeze Emily’s hand?
When she finally met the brunette she finally understood – nothing about this girl would ever be casual, but Leah grew angry when the human dared to think she could understand this pain, that she could compare herself to it. Empathy flowed out from her petite body and the sight sickened Leah. All except her terrified eyes, which looked up, wide-eyed with the silent question of how did you survive that?
Leah wanted to snark back that ‘when she found out, she’d be sure to let her know’, but the innocent pleading in Bella’s eyes must have got to her and besides, being torn like this wasn’t a fate she wished on anyone, even if they are abandoning love for another. When she tries to think of it, she doesn’t remember how she coped, but she certainly didn’t go comatose like an addict. She wasn’t going to sink that low nor proven to be that weak.
That was an over-dramatic reaction and reminiscent of a small child clutching at their mother’s legs, refusing to believe that they can survive a night alone with the babysitter. The child is always surprised when it does survive, but is always scarred with the knowledge of how easy it was for them to leave.
Leah endured the pain for her family as she couldn't stand the way they would whisper to each other before she entered a room. She pushed herself to the limit and threw her whole body into pointless activities. When the hectic movement finally stopped and her thoughts caught up with her feet, she locked the bathroom door and stubbornly waited for the day when she would break. She was strong for now, but she had first-hand experience with parents that never came back to replace the awkward sitter and it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped.
She just didn’t know it would be in the form of her cousin.
She was out for fresh groceries and saw Emily’s smile in response to Sam’s juggling tricks at the back of the convenience store in the tiny corner that the mirror didn’t cover. It was the same corner that had once hidden two different young people in love as they wrapped themselves up in each other, showing off the smiling faces that she wouldn’t recognise now.
But the vision of her past faded as the present grew stronger. Sam had moved to rest his chin on Emily's head, practically bending over due to the height difference and he seemed to be whispering to her as he warmed her shoulders. Leah stared from across the aisle and tried to understand why it felt so normal for him to tighten the coil he had around her waist as they continued strolling. Like his arm had always been there. Should always be there. Instincts that would only lay dormant for a few more months were telling her that it was a perfect fit and despite the way her mind railed against it, her body accepted it as naturally as breathing.
She returned home with an empty carton and milk on her shoes.
The pain was easier to bear when stretched over many shoulders, like a load-bearing weight displaced over multiple supports. For months she had to endure the doubts and questions on her own and in a perverse way, it was a relief to transform and finally shift it off onto others. She found that if she concentrated hard enough, she could tune out the individual voices until the Pack's connection buzzed inside her ears like an abandoned phone.
The only thing she saved for herself was the guilt that seemed to multiply inside until it threatened to consume her. She saved the image of her father's face when he clutched at his shirt, the plaid wrinkling between his fingers as his face contorted with shock and pain. She guarded this image with a sharp snap to any who dared console her, even scratching Seth from his waist to his ribs. Her father rested among the trees that had once sheltered her broken heart and it was the sprouting monster within her that took the final bite from his life.
When her transformations were finally controlled enough to be governed by thought and not reckless emotional outbursts, she was able to differentiate among the cacophony of smells that bombarded her brain. The most over-powering sense was the whiff of her father and with an irrational exultation, she ran towards the source with the blinding hope that only a little girl who has recently lost her Daddy can possess.
She didn't hear the footsteps approaching, she had long since returned to her clumsy human form, shaking in a ball on the dense undergrowth that reeked of the dead pine needles, leaves and other debris that littered the ground. It felt right that she be surrounded by death - the last strand of hope that she could return to a normal life had faded when Seth had appeared in the clearing and explained to her confused brain why she had recognised a strain of her father's scent. She didn't feel his arms lift her from the ground, or hear the soft croon of comforting words as he carried her home, but she noticed the familiar scent of authority that still had the power to tear her heart open with false promises and understanding.
She allowed herself to be supported for a moment before succumbing to guilt again, embracing the emotion like an anchor so she could avoid feeling anything else. He seemed to notice the stiffening in her muscles and set her down wordlessly.
They stared at each other until her body betrayed her with a shiver and he turned to return noiselessly to his own burden of guilt - the two women he had ripped to shreds with his inhumanity.
---
Leah can’t mend what’s been broken, but she can at least find all the missing pieces. So she tracks down leeches, rabid animals that threaten the rez and every once in a while, when the wind shifts, she tries to track down a love that was lost long ago.
Author: lily
Pairings: Leah/Sam, Sam/Emily and slight, implied Bella/Jacob
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: using details learned from Eclipse but set during Twilight, when the Cullens first arrived and Sam transformed for the first time.
Summary: Time had never been their problem, it was always about space. Like the space between them that grew too large until his affections shifted irrevocably. Then it wasn’t about anything anymore.
Word Count: 2,200+
Author's Notes: Dudes, I love Leah, wholly and unabashedly. She's the most tragic figure ever and gets the worst rap in the whole series. She's painted by a gossip-happy Edward and a mourning Jacob to be evil, but neither of these character depictions is given to us by a narrator with a clear, un-biased mind. The idea of female werewolves as better trackers/heightened senses of smells is stolen from "Bitten" by Kelly Armstrong which beats the pants off Twilight (except in the love-triangle-angst-of-d00m department) and everyone should READ IT.
Jacob may be the Fighter and Sam may be the Leader, but as the only female, she has the most heightened sense of smell. The most natural job for her in the Pack was to become the Tracker. So while the boys cavorted in the woods, she was relegated to looking for lost things, even if others might not want them to be found: emotions that burn too bright, memories that chill with their cold accuracy and painful truths that others trick themselves into believing that they can blindly ignore. Whether they want her to or not, she brings it all to light, tuning her senses until there is nothing else hidden. She places them all back in their rightful place upon the shelf for presentation. Secrets had begun to rhyme with lies and so she picked at the other’s fresh wounds to keep them from being infected by festering too long.
She doesn’t pretend with the Pack so they know that it hurts when they see her as a harpy and not a helper. But she has learned that there are things in life she cannot change, so she sticks her snout towards the dew-damp earth and begins her search anew.
---
At the time, she had laughed off his excuses, jokingly accusing him of playing up his illness to avoid their anniversary. She could hear his smile through the phone and wished she could be there to pull the blanket tight to his chin and press her lips to his feverish forehead. She doesn’t know what mementos she would have saved from the inferno raging inside him. All she knows now is that a supernatural fever burnt up all their happy memories like a wildfire in August, turning their past to ash.
After hanging up the phone, her friends teased her for being so smitten and she tried not to glow with the pride that young love brings.
The next day his voice was scratchy as he lied to her about specialists and tests. She could sense his fear and anxiety and felt helpless, being unable to offer a solution.
She didn’t see him for a week after that, until the ‘test’ results came back negative and she could safely gasp at his closely shorn head. His eyes were still frightened and she hugged his body into hers like a family. He could only spend short amounts of time with her at first, his muscles would tense when the pain medication wore off and he would start to look furtively over his shoulder until an Elder arrived with his next ‘dose’. Eventually, he would just breathe deeply for minutes on end, until he had assured himself that he had relaxed enough for her to lean into him again and he would let out a sigh of her name. She felt awful, making him suffer just so they could have a few more moments in each other’s arms, but he assured her that his time with her was worth any pain.
After dark, despite his bandages, he would push her up against the nearest structure, sometimes bending grown trees in the process. His tendons would stand taut as he would hold her in a vice grip and bend to breathe against her ear. She melted under his weight and gently trailed her fingertips along his body, gently caressing the sore muscles and enjoying his answering wince when her fingers dipped lower.
Those nights were the last happy memories they shared together, soon he stopped returning her calls and avoiding her visits. Later, he had plainly told her that she needed to leave when the council was meeting; she was too much of a distraction. Seeing her face crumple with rejection, he reached out for her shoulder, just once, but she shrugged him off her. She didn’t see him again until the day their vision of 'happily ever after' had ended.
Sam had held her hands and calmly told her that he just couldn’t care for her in the same way anymore. He was so fucking calm, in fact, that she had wanted to knock all the teeth out of the smile she used to love so much.
She ran into the forest like a frightened deer, unflinchingly rigid against the scratching branches as she pumped her muscles and cooled her flushed face with stinging tears. She ran until she was encompassed by the familiar trees of her childhood. She didn’t know that she would later emerge from those same trees as a wolf, hated and feared by those she loved. Perhaps if someone had told her, she would never have stopped running.
After the break-up, it had been difficult to rationalise her situation, but at least she was left with the satisfaction that he hadn’t lied about timing. Time had never been their problem, it was always about space. The space between them that grew too large until his affections shifted irrevocably. Then it wasn’t about anything anymore.
People tried to comfort her, but all their hollow words did was prop up a neon sign that blinked Newsflash: Life isn’t fair. Eventually, she was made to feel guilty for still being so effected, the Clearwater family could only have one martyr at a time and that slot had been filled.
She knew she couldn’t wallow or hide, not when her Papa’s health had been so poor at the time. So she accompanied her father to every check-up and watched him take his blood pressure medication twice a day. The local selection of resources was sparse, so she drove to Seattle to bury herself in books that helped her understand the words the doctor’s bandied about so lightly.
It seemed that everyone seemed to take life less seriously than her; Sam was so cavalier about ending theirs together and even her mother had begun to nod with a sad resignation after every appointment. So it surprised her a year later that some tiny brunette’s death could incite a grim war. Where was this fervent appreciation of life when she stumbled around half-dead after her father’s funeral? Where was the outrage when she stopped eating after seeing Sam casually squeeze Emily’s hand?
When she finally met the brunette she finally understood – nothing about this girl would ever be casual, but Leah grew angry when the human dared to think she could understand this pain, that she could compare herself to it. Empathy flowed out from her petite body and the sight sickened Leah. All except her terrified eyes, which looked up, wide-eyed with the silent question of how did you survive that?
Leah wanted to snark back that ‘when she found out, she’d be sure to let her know’, but the innocent pleading in Bella’s eyes must have got to her and besides, being torn like this wasn’t a fate she wished on anyone, even if they are abandoning love for another. When she tries to think of it, she doesn’t remember how she coped, but she certainly didn’t go comatose like an addict. She wasn’t going to sink that low nor proven to be that weak.
That was an over-dramatic reaction and reminiscent of a small child clutching at their mother’s legs, refusing to believe that they can survive a night alone with the babysitter. The child is always surprised when it does survive, but is always scarred with the knowledge of how easy it was for them to leave.
Leah endured the pain for her family as she couldn't stand the way they would whisper to each other before she entered a room. She pushed herself to the limit and threw her whole body into pointless activities. When the hectic movement finally stopped and her thoughts caught up with her feet, she locked the bathroom door and stubbornly waited for the day when she would break. She was strong for now, but she had first-hand experience with parents that never came back to replace the awkward sitter and it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped.
She just didn’t know it would be in the form of her cousin.
She was out for fresh groceries and saw Emily’s smile in response to Sam’s juggling tricks at the back of the convenience store in the tiny corner that the mirror didn’t cover. It was the same corner that had once hidden two different young people in love as they wrapped themselves up in each other, showing off the smiling faces that she wouldn’t recognise now.
But the vision of her past faded as the present grew stronger. Sam had moved to rest his chin on Emily's head, practically bending over due to the height difference and he seemed to be whispering to her as he warmed her shoulders. Leah stared from across the aisle and tried to understand why it felt so normal for him to tighten the coil he had around her waist as they continued strolling. Like his arm had always been there. Should always be there. Instincts that would only lay dormant for a few more months were telling her that it was a perfect fit and despite the way her mind railed against it, her body accepted it as naturally as breathing.
She returned home with an empty carton and milk on her shoes.
The pain was easier to bear when stretched over many shoulders, like a load-bearing weight displaced over multiple supports. For months she had to endure the doubts and questions on her own and in a perverse way, it was a relief to transform and finally shift it off onto others. She found that if she concentrated hard enough, she could tune out the individual voices until the Pack's connection buzzed inside her ears like an abandoned phone.
The only thing she saved for herself was the guilt that seemed to multiply inside until it threatened to consume her. She saved the image of her father's face when he clutched at his shirt, the plaid wrinkling between his fingers as his face contorted with shock and pain. She guarded this image with a sharp snap to any who dared console her, even scratching Seth from his waist to his ribs. Her father rested among the trees that had once sheltered her broken heart and it was the sprouting monster within her that took the final bite from his life.
When her transformations were finally controlled enough to be governed by thought and not reckless emotional outbursts, she was able to differentiate among the cacophony of smells that bombarded her brain. The most over-powering sense was the whiff of her father and with an irrational exultation, she ran towards the source with the blinding hope that only a little girl who has recently lost her Daddy can possess.
She didn't hear the footsteps approaching, she had long since returned to her clumsy human form, shaking in a ball on the dense undergrowth that reeked of the dead pine needles, leaves and other debris that littered the ground. It felt right that she be surrounded by death - the last strand of hope that she could return to a normal life had faded when Seth had appeared in the clearing and explained to her confused brain why she had recognised a strain of her father's scent. She didn't feel his arms lift her from the ground, or hear the soft croon of comforting words as he carried her home, but she noticed the familiar scent of authority that still had the power to tear her heart open with false promises and understanding.
She allowed herself to be supported for a moment before succumbing to guilt again, embracing the emotion like an anchor so she could avoid feeling anything else. He seemed to notice the stiffening in her muscles and set her down wordlessly.
They stared at each other until her body betrayed her with a shiver and he turned to return noiselessly to his own burden of guilt - the two women he had ripped to shreds with his inhumanity.
---
Leah can’t mend what’s been broken, but she can at least find all the missing pieces. So she tracks down leeches, rabid animals that threaten the rez and every once in a while, when the wind shifts, she tries to track down a love that was lost long ago.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 09:25 pm (UTC)She returned home with an empty carton and milk on her shoes.
I really liked that sentence. Good work!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 03:24 am (UTC)"They stared at each other until her body betrayed her with a shiver and he turned to return noiselessly to his own burden of guilt - the two women he had ripped to shreds with his inhumanity."
I dont get this line though. Is that supposed to be Sam or Seth cause it said he took her home, but then what two women is he talking about?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 08:45 pm (UTC)Sorry, I guess it was clearer in my head. I meant it to be Sam, who had noticed that she had run off. She may have smelled Seth from when he was there earlier, but it was Sam who picked her up to bring her home, then return to Emily. In my personal canon, Sam is always closely following her, although she probably hates that he 'watches over her'.
Thanks for the feedback!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 06:16 pm (UTC)One thing - the last strand of hope that she could return to a normal life had faded when Seth had appeared in the clearing.. - it's Sam, not Seth right?
Anyways, awesome job! :D