4. Connecting the dots.(BellaPOV)

She couldn't really describe the connection, even if she tried. There was this pull, she didn't think it was as Jacob described it would be for Paul not that she could blame his reaction, he had been through something similar that same day. There was no point in which she remembered it changing but it did. It happened so seamlessly in her life that it was almost as if Edward and the rest of the Cullen's didn't exist at all. Like the life she lived with her mother away from here, away from Paul and the rest of the pack were simply faded memories, it sent a shiver down her spine. Everything had changed in a moment, that moment with Paul. Not much else mattered anymore because this was where she belonged now...this is where she belonged forever.

It had only been a week since that day outside the small store where her life had become tied to Paul, Wendy and the rest of the pack, to the entire community. Bella shuddered when she remembered Benny, he was so ordinary and looked nothing like the monster she knew he was. She remembered the smell of urine and liquor that poured off him. It had given her nightmares and she could barely sleep that night, how could they just leave Wendy there? And then all to quickly their worst fears became a horrific truth, just like that.

It was all like a terrible nightmare when Sam called her that evening. No explanation, just that something had happened to Wendy and Paul would need her. Bella didn't ask questions, there was no time for questions. Jumping in her beast of a truck and wishing for the hundredth time she owned a faster car, Bella drove and hoped for the best. By the time she arrived, Paul had come and gone and everything just played out in agonizingly slow motion.

There were small pools of blood on the floor leading to the room where Wendy was. Bella took a deep breath before entering, preparing herself for the absolute worst, it wasn't enough. The crumpled body of the girl she had met only hours before lay there, unmoving and so tiny on the queen sized bed. Emily with shaky hands pulled Bella into the room, she too had stopped moving. Stopped breathing. It took her a few moments to pull herself together she wasn't sure what she could do at this point, Charlie had already been called, Paul and the rest of the guys were out looking for Benny and Sheila, she decided it was best not to think about what would happen when they actually found them. A doctor was called because Wendy screamed and shook when they tried to take her to the hospital.

Bella cried, a lot. She had never experienced something so heart breaking in all her life. Nothing would ever be as painful as watching or listening to this little girl as the doctor and nurse examined her, she wailed and Bella never felt more useless. Emily sat quietly on the floor outside the room across from Leah, it was the first time Bella had ever seen them together in a room without the unspoken tension that usually lay between them. Leah sat her legs crossed, slightly hunched looking a lot younger than she usually did. Emily sat with her arms wrapped around her legs, face rested on her knees, she had been extremely quiet and very stiff and slow in her movements since Bella arrived. None of the women said a word to the other, it was too tense and too heavy of a situation to say anything. They waited and waited, and waited some more. Sue had been put in charge of taking care of Wendy, she was truly the only adult in the house. It was so easy to forget that they all were so young yet, easy until something difficult like this came up.

It was a long night full of silent tears and the occasional whispered check in between Sue and the women who set up camp just outside the room.

Hours passed and eventually Emily got up to cook and when Leah couldn't sit there anymore she got up and started tidying things up. At some point she left to check in on Paul, he hadn't come back and Bella tried not to worry. She was told that he was okay and that Benny and Sheila were gone, it woke something up in her. How dare they hurt their grand daughter and just leave her to die! That made Bella's blood boil, she hoped Paul did find them and rip them to shreds, they truly were monsters and it made her sick to her stomach, they deserved something far worse than death though and before she could get too caught up in imagining the horrible ways for them to die Leah was back.

"You okay Swan?" Leah looked a little less stressed and Bella thought for a moment it must be nice to have an escape from your own thoughts for a while but then again, to know what everyone else was thinking couldn't be much better. Bella gave her a nod, it felt heavy and forced. The truth was she was not okay and suddenly the rush of anger, sadness, hurt, pain and heart ache hit, all at once. The tears came fast and her breath's came short, she was not okay. There had been this strange feeling creeping up on her since the moment she and Paul left Wendy, she couldn't explain it if she tried. It was like need, want, anxiety, worry, grief and she wasn't sure for what, all fused together by this overpowering sense of...love. It made everything she ever felt before it, hallow and small. Leah moved in one smooth motion to her side, it wasn't as strange as she thought it would be, her comfort.

"It'll be okay...she'll be okay." Leah wrapped Bella up in a hug and she had never felt so...safe. It was like family except she couldn't remember feeling this sort of care from her mother or Charlie. Bella's sobs died off and she worked on breathing properly. Emily returned with some food and water for them, she looked between Leah and Bella and took a spot beside them and they returned to the silence and waiting.

Bella must have fallen asleep because she was jolted awake by the sound of the most heart breaking cry. They could hear Sue and the nurse struggling with her behind the closed door. There was a lot of rustling around and then the cries became softer and her small voice became a lot harder to hear. Leah looked at Bella then back at the door.

"She's asking for you." Leah's eyebrows were pulled down as she listened in again. She gave Bella a sad smile. "She can't remember your name but she must feel what you feel because she wants to see you." Just then Sue opened the door to grab Bella.

Hesitantly, quietly and with extreme caution Bella walked into the room. Sue reassured her, it was fine but was it really? Now what? What the hell was she supposed to do to make this little girl alright? Bella had never been around children enough in her life, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.

There was a book sitting on the nightstand, it must have been a book Claire left behind. Bella was awkward in lots of ways and she was clumsy too so she was sure that put a limit on any use she could be to Wendy but she looked at the book again, she couldn't do a lot of things but she could read…and that's exactly what she did and even if she read the same story over and over again she felt like she was doing something. Wendy began to smile when her favorite parts came up. Eventually she felt comfortable enough to move to Bella's lap, and not long after she wanted to see the rest of the house. Wendy was quiet and she jumped every time someone walked in the door. It wasn't long before Emily shooed any one who wasn't Sue, Leah or Bella out of the house, the pack that stayed behind stood guard outside. It made Bella wonder how Wendy would react to Paul, would she be afraid of him now? Would she be afraid of all men after this? God, no one would blame her but Bella really hoped not.

It wasn't long after all her pondering that Paul walked in. They made eye contact, she hadn't even realized she missed him or needed him until then or maybe he needed and missed her, she couldn't tell what her own feelings were anymore but it didn't matter because he was back. Wendy smiled shyly at him and all the tension and worry left her. Thank god.

Love was a word she could have used to describe her feelings for Edward and the Cullen's then again so was infatuation and possibly even obsession. There were no words to describe what she felt when she was in the same room as Wendy and Paul, it was useless to even try. They were connected in a way she couldn't even begin to fathom, they just were. Just like that Bella had all the family she had ever dreamed of and more in the pack and with Wendy. It wasn't perfect because even if she was a part of the pack Wendy was still a child in a system, she had to be placed in a home with adults who could take care of her. It was odd Bella thought, it wasn't so long ago that she had wished so desperately to stay young forever, now she wished she were older even just by a couple years. So she could be someone who could provide a safe home for Wendy. It wasn't the way the world worked though, she couldn't just take her and neither could Paul. They were all lucky when Sue was granted temporary custody but Bella never felt more like a child when she thought about the situation. They were still children her and Paul and the rest of the pack, their status in terms of the real world meant nothing when it really counted...not even Sam.

Who on earth would hand over a child to two barely adults? Although she imagined a happy home with Wendy and Paul, Bella was aware of the real world and its very real rules and expectations. Realistically, Wendy would be placed in a home off the reservation with a family they didn't know. Charlie didn't understand why Bella was suddenly so interested in becoming a foster parent, he reluctantly gave her the contact information for social services but he didn't really ask a lot of questions. For her to even have a remote chance she needed to have her own place. Then she needed a job, one that paid enough to provide for a growing child. Even if her application was approved it could take months, years even to make it happen. None of this stopped her from applying though, she encouraged Paul to do so as well. Even if the three of them were bound together it didn't mean a whole lot to anyone outside the pack, they had a lot of growing up to do still.

Bella filled out an application for school and for any place that was hiring in Forks. If she let the reality set in for too long she'd go back to feeling hopeless and useless and she refused to go back to that. When Paul did come around it wasn't for anything really, just comfort. They spoke few words to each other when Wendy wasn't around and she knew it wasn't normal for an imprint and that the pack was questioning it as much as she was but no one said anything. Paul was dealing with it and so was she.

When Leah showed up at her door step, Bella knew it wouldn't be good news. The bad news was that Paul had taken off, he was on his own looking for Benny and even worse news Wendy was being moved that day. Seattle was the closest available home. It suddenly became extremely difficult, nearly impossible to breathe. This was about all she could take and she still couldn't breathe. Leah grabbed the keys for the truck and Bella could feel herself being moved from the floor...when had she fallen over? To the couch. There was someone else in the room with them, Charlie? It all sounded muffled and Bella tried but couldn't open her eyes. Instead of fighting it, she let the calm take her.

Waking up in a hospital was not new to her, the last time was after she took off to Phoenix when James tried to kill her. Bella figured it must have been an anxiety attack or something, she looked around the room. Everything looked so white and it all smelled really off to her. There was a nurse shuffling things around on the other side of the room and she could hear people talking outside, none of the voices sounded familiar though. It made her feel so strange and out of place, she didn't want to be there anymore. Wendy was probably in Seattle by now and Paul, she couldn't even think about him without her stomach twisting into uncomfortable knots, she needed to get out of there and sort everything out.

"Oh you're awake." The nurse looked at her nervously, this only made things worse. Something was off about this. "The doctor should be back to check in on you shortly." She made her way out of the room and Bella sat up in the bed staring around the empty room feeling so strange. When he walked into the room Bella's whole body stiffened and it nearly sent her into shock. Carlisle was standing there looking exactly the way she remembered him.

"You're going to need to breathe Bella." Why the fuck was he there! It made her so angry and she wondered if they were all back but she didn't ask. She said nothing. They were a part of her past and there were more important things to worry about right now. Instead she took several deep breath's, he was right she did need to breathe because she could breathe. She after all, was still capable of doing so. When she calmed down she continued to breathe because she was still human and she had never been so relieved of that fact until that moment. Carlisle watched her, the anger she felt faded, he had never done anything but help her when she needed it, she couldn't hate him for something he couldn't help.

"Thank you Dr. Cullen." She was glad he had helped her. It never even occurred to her that he'd come back but there he was. He smiled and explained to her why she was there, it was a panic attack, close enough and that he could prescribe her something for now but she'd have to follow up with her family doctor if she felt she needed something stronger. When he was done he asked if she had any questions...there were so many questions she wanted to ask him but she kept her mouth shut, she could deal with all this shit later. He filled out her release forms and Charlie came to pick her up.

Bella left the hospital with another worry...What the hell was Carlisle doing back in Forks?

AN: I am not big on writing in the Cullen's(nothing against the character's I just don't like to use them) so I am letting you know this will be the only appearance by any Cullen in this story and there is an explanation but there are far more serious matters to deal with in this one than Vampires. Thank you for reading and/or reviewing