Disclaimer: All of the characters, concepts, and anything affiliated with the Twilight saga belong to (their rightful owner) Stephanie Meyer. The rest of the work belongs to me and should not be copied in any way, including translations, without my explicit consent.
Major thanks to Flyaway Dove for Beta-ing this.
Set: Sometime after BD.
Rebecca POV.
Be Safe, Bubble Boy
For as long as I can remember Jake has always followed Leah Clearwater around. It started out when we were younger; he would follow Rachel and I, and then he practically began stalk us when we met Leah.
I remember one time when Leah, Rachel and I were ten, and Jake was seven. We wanted to go bike riding on a path in the forest from our house to First Beach and spend the day at the beach hanging out and looking at boys. Since Leah was coming with us, Jake insisted that he went too. Rachel and I, of course, said no. Who wants their little brother to come biking and boy hunting with them? No one. Long story short, Jake whined to Dad, who whined to us before making us take Jake with us.
So, since it was an order, we let Jake tag along, but modified our plan. Instead of just taking the path that we normally took to the beach on our bikes, (an easy little trail with one little uphill), we decided to take another, brutal path with three steep inclines, rocks, and roots. Basically, it was designed for sisters to bike with their friends and lose their brothers.
Unfortunately, that was not the case with Jake. Because he's Jake, and he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Leah by not joining us on the harder path, he came with us. Rachel and I figured that after the first five minutes of him biking, in which he was way behind the three of us, that he would give up. But no, he followed us until the big hill. At the big hill, Jake decided to speed up and run down the hill without peddling, He sped down the hill faster than any of us. It was a good run, until he ignored a rock in front of him and flew over his handlebars crashing into a nearby tree. He broke his arm and bashed his nose.
That was the day that I noticed how accident-prone Jake was around Leah Clearwater. He's worse than Charlie Swan's daughter, Isabella, and that's saying something.
After that day, Rachel and I decided we would do our best to keep Jake and Leah separate. As much as he annoys us, we still love him and we don't want him to get hurt. So, whenever we wanted to see or hang out with Leah, Rachel and I went to her house while Jake stayed at home.
This worked for a long time. It worked so well that the two were never seen anywhere near each other. Leah started to date Sam, and Jake was attached to the hip with Quil and Embry. Rachel and I left La Push, Rachel to university, and me to my married life in Hawaii. A couple of years went by, and all was good. Dad was in good health, Jake was doing well in school, and Rachel went back to La Push and found love. I seriously thought that everything was all fine and dandy. But then I got the call from Rachel.
Apparently, Jake was hanging out with Leah, and we all know what happens when Jake hangs out with Leah. He got hurt. The whole right side of his body was crushed when he was riding his motorcycle, (yeah 'his' motorcycle, I'll have to have a talk with Dad about that), and flipped it when he was riding with Leah and the guys. I just about flew all the way back to Washington before Rachel explained that she took away Jake's bike, forbid him to go on any type of motorbike, and bitched slapped him twice for me.
After that, I figured that she could take care of everything down in La Push. That is until yesterday. Yesterday, I got a call from a Dr. Cullen about Jake, which only worried me more, telling me that he got hurt, but that he was okay and healing nicely and just thought that I should know. He never told me the extent of Jake's injuries, what happened, or when. That's when I bought a ticket to Washington to see Jake. He's my only brother and I miss him, my dad, Rachel, and my home.
My plane lands and I sprint to hail a cab. I call and leave a message at home telling Rob that I'm in La Push to see Jake because he got hurt, that I had to leave right away, and that I love him and will call him soon. About two hours later, after I ordered the cabbie to drive like his paycheck depended on it, I stand in front of my childhood home.
I run into the house and run into my Dad. No time for chit-chat, I ask him where Jake is. Sensing that I am in a no nonsense mood, he calls Rachel and we head off to the Cullens' house because the doctor there wanted to keep a close eye on him.
I grab my jacket and head to Rachel's car. We're driving to the Cullens' and I ask Rachel what happened. I should have known what happened, considering how it's Jake and it's happened before.
So, apparently, dear little Jake rebuilt another set of motorcycles and decided to share his new bikes with the rest of the Res, including Leah Clearwater. He and Leah were the first two to ride the new set of bikes and Jake, being Jake, tried to impress her by doing these jumps. As he was trying to do a "wheelie" into a "backspin" and then a jump, he misjudged the amount of space he had in front of him and crashed into a rock before slipping in between a heavy, still running, motorcycle and the sharp jagged rocks. Basically, Jake crushed his body with a bike. Again. Only this time, it was worse. He wasn't wearing a helmet, shin pads, elbow pads, hand guards…nothing.
This is getting ridiculous. He was hurt doing the same thing once before and he still wears no protective gear? Well, if he doesn't protect himself, it looks like it's my job to protect him from his own idiotic actions and ideas. Somehow, someway, I will protect Jake from Hawaii. Maybe Rachel will help.
Suddenly, I have an idea. I turn to Rachel and tell her to pull over at the nearest post office. I quickly fill her in on my plan and she agrees to help me. We buy all of the supplies we'll need and make our way to the Cullen house as quickly as we can.
Once we're there, we enlist the help of two of Dr. Cullens' boys, Edward and Emmett, who, after hearing our plan, were only too happy to help.
With our plan in motion, we head toward the room where the Cullen boys directed us and opened the door. I look in and see Jake covered in bandages everywhere. For a huge guy, he looked so much like the Little Jake I remember. He wakes up when we slam the door shut.
His mouth hangs open in surprise, probably because I haven't seen my little brother in four years. Then, he sees what I'm holding.
"I'm sorry Jake, but this is what needs to be done," I tell him.
Rachel nods, "It's the only way." She peels a strip of duct tape off of the roll.
Jake's eyes widen and he shakes his head, pleading, "Please, don't do this. Have mercy!"
Rachel looks at me with a question in her eyes, 'Should we?'
I look at her and nod, 'It's for his own good. Let's do this.'
With Edward and Emmett holding Jake down, Rachel and I start. I grab his arm and started to wrap while Rachel tapes over my handiwork. The snapping and protests from Jake fill our ears as we continue our work.
"Please!" Jake cries.
SNAP! CRACK! SNAP!
"Don't do this!" he shakes his head.
Rachel stops and looks at me before looking back at him and says, "It's for your own good."
I nod and continue to bubble-wrap Jake and listen to the sounds of our work; SNAP! SNA-SNAP! SNAP!
Soon, we manage to bubble-wrap every part of Jake's body, except his head.
By this time, Edward and Emmett are laughing so hard that Mrs. Cullen orders them to leave the room. This left me, my sister, and my brother in the room. 'All alone.' I smile evilly to myself, 'Oh, yes. He will pay for making me worry like that.'
Rachel grabs the wrap from my hand and cackles, "Any last words, Jakey? Maybe a promise?"
Eyes-wide, Jake looks around the room horrified, looking for someone to save him, luckily for us, there is no one. His shoulders slump, (well, as much as they could while he was incapacitated by our wrapping skills), and he whimpers, "Please, I'll do anything!"
Rachel's eyes harden as they look from me to Jake. "Promise," I grit out.
"What?" he asks bewildered.
I clutch the wrapping threateningly. "I said, promise us that you will never ride that stupid death-trap you call a motorcycle."
"And to never to something that irresponsible and stupid ever again," Rachel adds with a pointed stare.
"I promise! I promise! Never again! Never again!" he rushes out.
We smile at him, "Good."
At the same time, Rachel and I ambush him and wrap his head three times, our brother has a beautiful face and I would like to keep it that way, and tape over it twice for good measure. We look over our handiwork with pride before giving each other a high-five.
Arm in arm, my sister and I walk out to the foyer, confident that our baby brother is safe.
"OH MY GOD! HA! GUYS YOU HAVE TO COME SEE THIS!" we hear Leah yell with glee.
We hear Seth, Quil, Embry run down the hall to see what Leah was yelling about.
'Five, four, three, two –'
We can hear their booming laughter all throughout the house.
"He- he- he," Quil tries to spit out between laughs.
"It's all over him!" Seth snorts.
SNAP!
"It's real! We have our own personal punching bag!" Embry hoots.
We hear Leah calm down before saying, "Guys, this isn't funny. We were all worried about what happened. Just because Jake is all wrapped in – "
"What's on his forehead?" Seth asks.
"Let me see that!" Leah snaps and grabs the post-it note.
Soon, we hear someone fall to the ground in hysterics, followed by three other thuds.
After we wrapped Jake in two to three layers of bubble wrap, to make sure that if he ever fell again that he would be protected, we wrote a little note to remind him of his promise to us.
"Be safe, Bubble Boy."
