Note: Title and all song quotes from Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark."

This first chapter is just background info on the AU, what has happened up until now. Much more to come...

Dancing in the Dark

Prologue

You can't start a fire,

Can't start a fire without a spark…

Without the compulsion of imprinting to guide them in their love lives, the La Push wolf pack went somewhat astray.

Jacob finally gave up on Bella when he heard that she was marrying Edward. Though he returned to La Push after running away, he refused to see Bella again; still, when he heard that she was carrying Edward's demon spawn and was probably going to die, he was inflamed with rage and convinced Sam and the rest of the pack that they should kill the thing as soon as it was born. And if the Cullens died in the process, well, so much the better.

However, by the time they got word that it was born, someone else had got there first: the Volturi. The pack obviously liked the Volturi even less than they liked the Cullens, but they decided reluctantly that, if they and the vamps had a mutual interest (namely, destruction of the demon child), they could stand to help them out just this once.

But the Volturi backed out at the last minute, leaving the ten wolves facing down a whole crowd of powerful vamps ready to kill. They desperately wanted to fight (Paul especially) but Sam ordered them to retreat, knowing that it would be suicide. He met with Edward Cullen later, under truce, and told him that he was to take the child and never, ever return to the Olympic Peninsula if he wanted to keep, finger quotes, "living." The Cullens were gone within the week; they were never heard from again.

Jacob, haunted by his one glimpse of Bella as a beautiful, dead(ly) vampire, swore he would never love anyone ever again. So far, he has kept that promise.

Sam and Leah got married just after what the pack now refers to as "the Baby Wars," having been living together for some time previous. Emily was Leah's bridesmaid.

A few years later, Embry started dating Angela, Bella's old friend from high school. She was shy at first, but soon became like part of the pack—what Bella would have called a "wolf girl." Now, she and Embry are getting pretty serious, and although she doesn't know he's planning on proposing, the whole pack does—as Paul often complains, he thinks about it all the freaking time.

Quil thinks there might be something wrong with him; he's nearly twenty-five and has never, ever managed to score a single date. He's awkward and freezes up when he talks to girls… well, except Angela, who doesn't count because she's Embry's girl.

Jared never even noticed Kim. He scribbled "HAGS" in her yearbook and never saw her again. Now, he too is frustratedly single. He hangs out with Paul a little too much—his buddy is starting to be a bad influence on him.

Paul is, not surprisingly, the black sheep of the pack. He spends his days getting wasted and picking fights, and spends his nights on emotionless one-night stands.

Sweet Seth, twenty-two now, is currently single—he's an admitted romantic and is waiting for "the one." So far, she hasn't shown up.

Brady and Collin can't decide whether to hero-worship Sam, the Alpha, who's married to the hottest (and scariest) woman ever, or Paul, who brags he can have any woman he wants. So they're taking turns trying the "womanizer" approach vs. the "monogamy" approach. Thus far, all they've found out is that they really suck at both.

The whole pack, in short, is really unhappy—with the possible exceptions of Leah, Sam, and Embry, and even they have their problems.

Something's gotta change…and now, seven years after the Baby Wars, it's about to.

…this gun's for hire

Even if we're just dancing in the dark.