I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 73

Chapter 73 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.

*****

"What are you doing?" Embry asked Leah. He had rolled out the back door of the hall. There were ramps in place for Billy.

She was sitting on the ground. "Nothing," Leah grunted at him.

"Neat. I'm not doing anything, either." He levered himself out of the chair and sat down next to her on the step. It was hard for him with his missing foot but he managed it by supporting his weight on one arm and holding onto the pillar with the other as he lowered his body down. "I might do nothing with you."

"Suit yourself," she mumbled. She didn't know how to offer to help him or whether she even should or what would happen if she touched him.

Silence.

Leah was pulling at blades of grass and weeds from around the steps of the porch. Angrily pulling them up, tearing them into small pieces and throwing them away.

Embry watched her.

She wouldn't look at him.

"Did you want to talk?" Embry asked.

"No."

"Did you want to hug?"

"No."

"Did you want to fuck?"

"No!" She smacked her hands onto her thighs. "Honestly, Embry. Fuck off and leave me alone."

"No," he said quietly.

Leah stopped. She looked at him now. "You have never said 'no' to me."

"Well, I am now."

"Why?"

"Leah, I get how angry you are. I do. But you cannot let this get to you this badly."

She snorted. "Right. I imprint and he dies." She tore up another piece of leaf. "I'm like some freaking black wolf widow or something."

"He was your imprint, but we all lost Billy," Embry pointed out, "Not just you. The tribe lost its chief and Jake lost his father."

She didn't respond.

"Leah… Billy saved me. Why did he do that?"

"I don't know."

"I think I do."

Quickly glancing at his face, Leah looked as if she did and didn't want to know. Warring with herself, she finally asked, "Why?"

"He saved me for you."

Silence.

"He knew how I felt about you. Didn't he?"

Her voice was tiny. "Yes. He knew where I'd been when I snuck out to talk to you. I didn't even need to tell him."

"He wasn't a fool. If he saved me, he had his reasons."

"Jake said that he got a rebirth. That is how he thought of it. Billy and I had a big talk about all of this before the battle. The possibility that one or both of us might not come home. Might not walk away from it. We knew it."

She kept talking, as if speaking of her imprint was helping. "The way he saw it, he was dying when Bella and Josh showed up on the rez. And days after they arrived, he was awake, and he was walking when he hadn't done that for years. He phased and became a wolf, which he had secretly wanted to do from the time when he was a little boy and saw the last pack. Also something he thought he would never get to do. He had sex." She made a vague hand gesture at herself. "Also something he hadn't done for years."