Just to be clear, this one shot doesn't link into the last one. This is Au, but doesn't have a specific time period. Think not too distant past, but in a time of change and a little turbulence (in fact, it could even be the present... the really secluded present?) and keep you're minds open, that's all I ask (well, that and don't sue because i don't own!). Enjoy.

Leah was... something not of La Push.

And that was fact.

None of the other rez girls had the qualities Leah had; she was unique, different, exotic.

A challenge.

She hadn't been raised to flatter and mollify the males of the tribe, like so many of the women produced from their small area of land were. It was a sad, misguided belief, but it was one that still held some prominence in small, isolated towns like theirs, where the older generations had much sway in all things.

The grandmothers, or great grandmothers, aunts or mothers of great aunts twice removed- it didn't matter who started it, all that mattered was the effect. Docile, weak willed, meek women were found in abundance.

Her differences did not endear her to the female population, at all. It's effect on the male one, however...

Everyone heard the news. As soon as someone knew, everyone knew, that was just the way of small towns and communities. Which is why, within about a minute of the Trans Atlantic phone calls to turn the power and gas on to the ancient, unlived in Clearwater home, the entire town was gossiping. The return of Harry Clearwater, prodigal son of a prominent family, run off to marry some...woman. (The scandal that news caused was seconded only by the rumours that Harry Clearwater Snr had a heart attack when he received the invitation).

Of course, the speed of the gossip flying was heightened by the enrolment of two children the next day with the surname Clearwater.

So then, two days later ( the day after the huge, corporate looking trucks had backed into the isolated Clearwater abode but the day before the news about the mother had sprung) Leah and Seth Clearwater-Danvers breezed into the small-town lives of the people of La Push. Twins, but oh so different.

Seth assimilated quickly, tall and russet skinned with the chocolate eyes of Harry Clearwater and an easy going personality to match.

Leah shattered walls and minds (and hearts, when she had to) with her brash –in comparison- personality and ideals and dreams that extended beyond simply marrying a Black or a Uley and settling down to have pretty grand children and repeat the cycle. She stood out, and her appearance didn't rectify that.

Sure, she was tanned, but it never seemed to fit quite the same hue as her peers and yes, her hair was dark but it was really more blue than black and she was tall where the other girls were short and curvy where they were stout or stick thin and her eyes.

They were blue.

Of course, the mystery of Leah Clearwater was solved by (and consequently blamed on) the appearance of the previously MIA mother.

Susan Danvers-Clearwater was every bit her world travelling, Art critic, Ex-Model, Italian-French History and bloodline made her out to be. Different.

The town gossips crucified Susan for her influence on Leah, while simultaneously sanctifying Harry for his apparent 'savoir' of Seth.

The children were different as night and day, that cannot be denied. The same year Seth began growing his hair to match his fathers; Leah cut hers into a dramatic bob. Seth spent his time with boys his age, cliff diving and tree climbing and talking cars and doing 'whatever it is boys do' while Leah also cliff dived, tree climbed and talked cars, with the boys, older, younger or whoever was there at the time, including but not limited to kids from the neighbouring towns, sight seer's and – in the words of, yet again, the female, gossipy portion of La Push- corrupting Rachel Black.

(When Rachel left a year later, all the gossips spoke of for a month was how it was all Leah Clearwater's Fault – despite the fact that the girl in question was three years younger, and Rachel had received both a college scholarship and the support of her father.)

None the less, the siblings were still close, even when –at 15- Leah started spending more time with her travelling mother, going to new and exotic places and learning 6 different languages within the span of two years – All while Seth and Harry (who understood his wife and her need for freedom) stayed in La Push, content with life and the postcards, video calls and newspaper clippings (everywhere she went, Leah liked to leave her mark).

A week before the twins seventeenth birthday, the travelling duo returned to La Push only long enough to collect their missing halves and were off again, all four to somewhere far away and exotic for an entire year.

They returned just in time for the supposedly wayward teens to take finals and college entry exams –shocking some of the stauncher haters with their abilities to juggle both school and travel- when it happened.

Like a chain reaction, jovial Harry Clearwater, prodigal son turned patient husband of the wayward wife, was dead. Gone.

(The gossipy snide women commented not so quietly that he left life like his family left La Push. Unnoticed.)

Seth Clearwater-Danvers (Brother, Speeker of three languages and aspiring Art Historian) became Seth Clearwater, Shifter. Anger flowed through his veins like it never had before, dug up from deep within by the powerful magic as if it were the most natural thing in existence.

Susan Danvers-Clearwater (Mother, Free Spirit) Became Sue Clearwater, Counsel Member.

However, there was one other event, which turned Leah Clearwater-Danvers (Sister, wild child, Bad influence, Free spirit) into Leah Clearwater- Danvers, Absent-from-family College student, anti-hater, Feather in the breeze with an occasional furry little problem. (Far away from La Push, because that night, Leah Clearwater Danvers almost became something she never could be: Leah Clearwater: Shifter.)

She returned one summer with a Degree and bangs.

The next time she returned, it was a doctorate and a modelling contract.

The summer after that, it was a ring, a light in her eyes and (for once) the tribe's approval. The wedding would be a traditional one, in La Push. The entire wedding planning party watched as that light dimmed.

(she held the phone to her ear as the man spoke of words like courage and valour and patriotism but all she could see, hear or feel was that dreaded acronym, flashing and pulsing right in front of her eyes... KIA.)

She lost her pretty dress and her neatly styled hair when she shifted -right there, in the kitchen- but she also lost herself.

Leah Clearwater-Danvers, Mrs Leah Chang, all of it.

She became Leah: Mystery. Not shifter. Never shifter, because what was she, really? She wasn't a protector, she ran patrols only when she felt like it and rarely followed orders – even the Alpha command had little effect- so she really couldn't be counted amongst her larger (Yet slower) wolven pack mates.

Her female peers still felt nothing more than hatred for her (especially now that she seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time with both a Black and an Uley, amongst others) but by now the elder gossipers had moved on to greener pastures and the younger generation was a curious bunch and as such, thanks to her, looked to be a handful. Leah liked to leave her mark, after all.

So there she was, Leah Clearwater-Danvers with a doctorate, an engagement ring with a promise that will never be fulfilled and an open invitation into the minds of a bunch of hormonal males whose dominant thoughts seemed to only be of food, TV and seeing her naked.

Leah Clearwater-Danvers was something not of La Push, It was fact. However, that didn't mean she didn't find it an appropriate starting point and/or gateway until she did find precisely where she did belong to. After all, how long could this Wolf pack thing last? She was betting about as long as Emily Young's sanity if she kept moving closer to Sam while Emily watched.

These people were just too easy!

And that was fact.