it was apparent early on that the only daughter of linda fuller had a knack for science. linda didn't quite know how to deal with it, given that she had always been more focused on the natural order of things than fixing them through man-made means. she was certain it must have come from her father, a one-night stand that still had a presence in his daughter's life despite the fact he didn't have a relationship with her mother. it was a strange arrangement for young leah, who only saw her father in person once or twice a year, but it quickly became so normal she questioned those around her with normal families.

even before she started school, leah was curious about everything. she wanted to know how the world worked, from what composed matter to what made things work the way they did. by the time she was ten, she was playing with chemistry sets and reading books about the human genome. everyone that knew the fullers found it odd, but chalked it up to the fact linda was open about being a practicing wiccan. the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, they would always say. it didn't help that, along with that passion for science, leah also developed a love for the macabre. from horror movies to dark poetry, she was a fan of it all.

she never let the opinions of others dissuade her. she was her own person and never felt judged or ashamed for what she cared about, genetics especially. why one combination of chromosomes could produce a perfectly healthy human being and a slight deviation could be catastrophic, that's what she sought to figure out. that desire stuck with her throughout her teenage years, and she knew that she wanted to seek a career in the field.

she set off to college, with a full scholarship thanks to good grades and her mother's income level, determined to make her mark on the world. for most of the time she spent working on her bachelor's, she was set on continuing on her current path, to do research to change things. the more she studied and spoke with others, the more she realized that she wanted to take a different path entirely. her quest had always been to understand the way things worked, and it wasn't until her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer that she realized that.

it was at that point she started taking the counseling side of genetics seriously. it was a way to both study the genome to understand why certain people were prone to disease and help them cope with it and understand it themselves. her grandmother eventually overcame her own diagnosis through treatement, but because she'd needed to fill that role for her mother (and by extension, herself), she felt a personal attachment to the idea of helping others in the way her knowledge had helped her family. she still pursued the degree necessary to dive into the field-changing research if she so chose to, but it was only meant as a way to keep her options open. leah was certain that helping people was what she needed to do; for as curious as her father made her, her mother's preaching about the natural order of things had a major influence on who she became as well.

obtaining her doctorate and going through the hoops necessary to gain her counseling license was not a simple process on its own, but it became slightly more complicated for leah once she fell into the orbit of an attractive psychologist. their relationship, as off and on as it was, proved a serious distraction from her studies. at times, those in her life wondered if she wouldn't give up and settle for something less for the sake of an unhealthy relationship. eventually, she realized that she wasn't going to give up on what she wanted for anyone. she didn't give up and achieved her goals just shy of her thirtieth birthday. her dream is to own day have her own practice, one that doctors and other colleagues would consult with, but she knows that getting there will be just as long of a process as getting to where she is currently was. she managed to find an opening at massachusetts general hospital once she became certified and has been working there for close to two years.