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Summary:

The moment Bella’s heart stopped beating, Jacob started running.

 

He sent Seth back home, back to Sam, because Seth had what to go back to. Leah stayed.

They ran together, for a while. It was no longer surprising how easy they found each other’s company; it was just… companionable. Leah’s heart was healing, while Jacob’s was freshly ripped open, but they understood each other’s pain in a way that made it more bearable for both of them.

Notes:

This basically picks up a chapter from the end of Breaking Dawn, Part II - "What if Jacob didn't imprint on Bella's kid, none of the other bad stuff from Part III happened, and Jacob just took off like he had planned to do throughout Part II?" But also "what if Leah Clearwater finally has something nice in her life like she deserves?"

No graphic violence or major character death, but there is obviously reference to Bella's canon almost-death and subsequent change into a vampire. Likewise, no actual nonconsensual relations going on, with the caveat that the werewolf imprinting mechanism in these books is questionably consensual for the werewolf who experiences the imprint.

Chapter 1: Run

Chapter Text

The moment Bella’s heart stopped beating, Jacob started running.

He didn’t quite regret giving them permission to change her - he didn’t want Bella dead, and he knew this wasn’t the same thing - but he didn’t want to stick around to watch it, either. He’d tortured himself enough for one lifetime; now it was time to get the hell away from there.

He sent Seth back home, back to Sam, because Seth had what to go back to. Leah stayed.

They ran together, for a while. It was no longer surprising how easy they found each other’s company; it was just… companionable. Leah’s heart was healing, while Jacob’s was freshly ripped open, but they understood each other’s pain in a way that made it more bearable for both of them.

They parted ways when Leah had gone far enough: put enough distance between herself and Sam that she could get over him, enough distance between herself and the other pack that they wouldn’t be stumbling over each other, enough distance between herself and La Push that Seth didn’t have a trail to follow to her, to beg her to come home. They’d gone far enough that she was able to start fresh in a new city, and make a go of having a life; all there was for Jacob was to keep on running.

They ran together, anyway - not beside each other, but wherever they were, they were together, when they were in wolf form. Such was the nature of the pack. When Leah couldn’t afford rent and tuition and food, they hunted together, separated by miles of distance, bringing down different prey but sharing one mind as they ate it raw, letting Jacob’s now-practiced wolf instincts subsume Leah’s all-too-human revulsion.

Leah was healing, and Jacob was still a bleeding, open wound, but she understood him in a way that no one else could, and that made her presence in his mind a comfort, rather than the pain he had thought it would be. When it got so bad that no amount of empathy would help, she filled his thoughts with updates on classes and new human acquaintances and that, too, was a comfort.

The gaps in time between their runs together grew lengthier. That was to be expected; Jacob knew that Leah was working on trying to stop, so that she could age and change again. Soon, when she did join him, her thoughts were tinged with a new bitterness, disappointment in herself that she hadn’t been able to keep up her streak. Her pain was a welcome distraction from his, though, and usually, he was able to distract them both until Leah faded back into human form.

*

He told himself that he wasn’t keeping track, but he must have been subconsciously marking the days; when he shifted to human form long enough to duck into a library and check his long-neglected email, the message from Leah was only 14 hours old.

Hey Jake,

It’s been a year (!) since my last shift, and I’ll spare you the gory details, but I know for a fact that it’s working.

I kind of want to throw myself a party to celebrate being human again. Give me a call if you can, so I don’t have to invite my mom and Seth.

-L

So he checked online to see where he actually was, and then he went hunting for a payphone (which used to be a lot easier), and he spoke to Leah. Even though it had been a year, occasional email exchanges notwithstanding, her voice sounded familiar; after all, he’d had it in his head, off and on, for years. 

“I’m happy for you, Leah,” he said. “I mean it.” He did, even though it wasn’t a choice he could see himself ever making.

They worked out that even with stops to hunt and rest - and with slowing down to go in human form once he’d actually hit the city - he could make it by the next day. Leah promised that there would be food, and lots of it, which was a good enough draw for him to agree to spend more time than he usually put up with on two legs.

And then he shifted back to wolf, and ran.