First off this is to let everyone know how sorry I am for not updating this story the muse worked at me so hard I had run out of steam to go any further with it. Then a whole lot of real world caught up with me. I hated to leave Leah hanging for so long but even at the end of the first chapter she seemed like she was in a good place at that point. I am grateful for those still following this story. I'm not fussed with grammar too much in writing this fic, as I do it for fun, but I do try my best on my own but nobody's perfect.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight series nor Leah Clearwater. Just Jimmy White. I don't like Twilight but I love Leah and she deserved a happier ending than what she got from Meyer.

When Leah had been gone about forty-five minutes when the Clearwater phone rang. Nobody was home at the moment to answer it but it wouldn't be too much longer before someone noticed the flashing light on the Caller ID.

When Sue and Seth Clearwater had just arrived home with a car full of groceries a short time later. (Because let's face it when your shape-shifting children and their shape-shifting packmates come over to your house to hang out you need enough food to feed a small army several times a week!) Neither of them thought much of the seemingly empty house because for all they knew Leah was still upstairs sleeping off her latest patrol shift from last night.

They brought in arm-loads full of bags of food (both healthy and junk), soda, milk and bottled water as well as household supplies. It took them a few trips to bring in the groceries and didn't notice Leah's letters to them as the table had now been almost completely covered in grocery bags. Once everything was inside, they then proceeded to putting them away wordlessly other than Seth occasionally asking where something belonged despite having lived there all his life.

When the table was cleared of all but last bag of groceries they spotted the letters from Leah. When they found notes, one for each of them in Leah's handwriting.

Even before Sue opened hers to read she knew what it had to be. It was a goodbye. Seth just stood there silent for once, his letter still unopened, not knowing what to make of the situation. With a sad but proud, watery smile Sue opened hers. She read the note quietly wanting to focus on her daughter's words. She knew the Leah had wanted to leave La Push for a while now but with the whole Bella and the Volturi situation had pushed that back, possibly permanently, once Jacob became her Alpha in the new pack and Leah's world had turned itself right-side up again. Better yet, it slipped into a place where things could get even better for her if she was careful enough.

Sue didn't blame Leah at all for wanting to leave, not with all the shit her little girl had been put through for nearly two years now. She deserved a fresh start, away from all the drama. She just wished she had at least told her of her plans to leave in person but she understood why she didn't.

Sue couldn't help the tears from falling but she didn't break down. Leah had left of her own free will, that was something no one else in either pack could say they could do. Luckily Seth hadn't imprinted yet, maybe he wouldn't, she hoped that he was lucky enough to find real love and not some brainwashed pack's idea of a "soulmate". Especially after seeing what it had done to Leah and Emily both (though Emily would never admit it).

In her letters, she told them both in which she thought they needed to hear and her reasons for leaving. She wasn't mad at them but all the same, if more people around Leah had been more understanding and supportive of her that she would not have had to leave. In the thick letter to her mother, she raged about how imprinting took a person's choices from them, for both the imprinter and imprintee. Imprinting, in her eyes, was more of a curse than a blessing. It was, Leah believed, for the weak-minded, those who couldn't think for themselves. She was also leaving because of the treatment she received during her time with Sam's pack.

Now that Sue thought about it, it all seemed to fit for instance Claire needed a full-time day or night baby-sitter? Quil imprints on her! The Cullen's needed a permanent solution for the treaty so Bella could be turned without consequences from Quileute's or their packs? Jacob imprints on the Cullen "child". Not that she wasn't grateful for the truce for her children's safety. Sue, needless to say, was worried for those two little girls. That was no way to live or to grow up. Charlie's granddaughter may understand exactly what was going on and probably even accepted it (disturbing as that sounded) God only knows what was going through Sam and Emily's minds seconds before he imprinted on her.

Of course imprinting wasn't the only reason why Leah was leaving but it had a lot to do with it, even though she didn't once mention Sam or Emily by name, although it was implied in a few places.

Although Leah had once wished to be able to imprint or be imprinted on. She only realized just how wrong it was when she saw it's effect on Jacob. What was even more disturbing was when she also realized that both Quil and Jacob had imprinted on children. That had been when the final straw. Especially when she remembered what Jacob had once said, that day on La Push beach. What he had once believed, before imprinting had taken away his own free will.

She reassured her family that she loved them both more than she could ever manage to put into words. She wasn't leaving because of them but for her own reasons.

At the bottom of each letter Leah had neatly scrawled her new number and warned them not to call her just yet, she needed time to get away and think first. To figure out what she was going to do next. Sue and Seth were anything but numb in reaction to Leah's leaving them, they loved her and wished her the best but also wished that she hadn't been forced (in their opinions) to leave the place where Leah called home for so many years in order to start over.

When Sue and Seth had both finished reading their notes, and then each others, it was Seth who spoke first. "She did it. She left. I mean I know she was thinking about it before..before this whole Nessie thing started but... I never thought she'd really do it. Not for a while anyways." Seth looked hurt but deep down he understood why Leah thought that this was her best chance at a somewhat normal life. Sue didn't say a word, but nodded, she knew exactly what Seth was feeling despite his lack of appropriate words. After they were silent for a few moments longer, Sue finally brought herself to speak and there they sat, talking, until Jacob Black came striding through their front door not even thirty minutes later.