A/N: Beta'd by ShadowPast620.
"Shit!" Jake screamed while Quil sat there slowly breathing in and out, both boys staring at the lump on the floor. At least her caterpillar eyebrows had detached. "This is a really bad habit we're forming, watching Bella hit the deck every time you open your damn mouth. Charlie's going to shove his Glock up our asses and pull the fucking trigger." Hysteria set in and Jake clamped a hand firmly over his mouth as the giggles started.
"Bella's dad is gay?" Quil exclaimed, immediate understanding flooding his system and soothing Qwar to a point. "Damn, no wonder she thought you and I were an item; her dad's like super macho and-"
"Glock, you fucking idiot, not cock! Charlie is not gay. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I should just leave your ass here, alone, to deal with Charlie on your own."
"No need to get so upset, Jake. It was an honest mistake. In case you hadn't noticed, I was little distracted," Quil huffed, pointing to his prone imprint.
His eyes narrowed in contemplation as Qwar muttered thoughts. "And what's up with the religion speak? I thought you already claimed that Bella isn't religious and that it was all some sick joke on me?"
"Quil! I don't have time for your crazy-ass thought process. In case you hadn't noticed," Jake parroted, his anger rising, "We need to be kind of busy, taking care of your imprint!"
Quil stared back and forth between the unconscious girl and his rabid best-friend. The need to help Bella was strong and Quil really wanted to. When he thought about it, though, why should he pick her up? All of her problems seemed to occur because she wasn't already on the ground. It was one of those 'Aha' type mental moments.
Are you just going to sit there, Quil?" Jake continued to scream while taking two steps to reach Bella. Swooping over, he gently picked her up to set her back on the couch next to her supposed imprint.
"Jake, calm down. If anyone has the right to be angry, it's me." Looking over at Bella and what was clearly another bruise forming on her temple, he amended, "Or her. Do you think this is going to set her healing time back any? I was hoping she'd be able to go out on a date next weekend."
"Enough!" Jake bellowed. "Damn Quil, all you think about is what you want, not giving a rat's ass about what anyone else wants, including your imprint and how she might, just might, be thinking that spending time with you could hurt."
"You'd like that you, wouldn't you? For me to be the first wolf whose imprint turns him away. Don't think I don't know that's what you were doing here yesterday after giving me the slip. You came over to state your case and try to worm your way into her heart so she'd forget all about me. I mean, she basically told us that you wanted her as your imprint and she damn near thought it was you that had imprinted on her not me."
"Were you not just sitting right there three fucking minutes ago when she said she thought we," Jake indicated, waving his hand between him and Quil, "had imprinted on each other?"
"All that tells me, Jake, is that you suck at convincing people of shit. It's not my fault she couldn't understand your back-stabbing tactics."
"I didn't back stab you!" Jake hollered. "I came over here to explain to Bella in a calm setting that you had imprinted on her. She doesn't do well with crowds and shit and I thought that springing something like this on her at a bonfire—cause, she didn't get it the first time at the beach—would only end up with her freaking out." From the need to be spiteful, he added, "And I was right. You showed up today and now look at her. She freaked out and is hurt. All I did was try to save her from that."
Quil's sarcastic laughter was not well met.
"You can't even save a person standing in a room with friends. Sam's definitely going to need to know about this and maybe have you do some extra patrols and training. You know, increase your response time and all that shit."
"It's not my damn job to protect your imprint, Quil, and I don't mean from vamps. She was sitting right next to you before head diving to the floor and you didn't even twitch! If my fucking response time sucks then so does yours."
"So, what? I'm a bad wolf cause I don't twitch? You got all over my ass when I was trying to dance and that's a lot closer to twitching than standing there like you're part of the wall."
Jake was beyond dumbfounded in both looks and thinking. This half-ass wolf sitting in front of him was not only placing the blame for an injured imprint at his feet, but was more concerned about dancing and twitching in time? The world ceased to exist.
Ill-placed youthful testosterone rage fell upon both Jake and Quil as the former took the latter with him over the couch and into the wall. Had a normal person been watching, they wouldn't have been able to see the two figures rolling and struggling about the room. They would, however, have thought the place was haunted as the walls shook, dents appeared and knickknacks fell from their places.
When the grunts and groans of the struggling men turned into snarls and growls, the fight migrated out into the yard. Ned *Nancy* Nippleburn stopped adjusting his bra strap to witness the scene of two wild animals tearing out of the police chief's house, down the front steps and to the side of the building.
"Do you see that, Eddie?" *Nancy* whispered to his teddy bear, holding it up in front of him. The teddy bear's dress straps fell off of the arms and *Nancy* hurriedly fixed it as he watched in horror and fascination, the two beasts roaring at each other and struggling across the ground. *Nancy* thought it was rather sexy.
"Now, now, Eddie, none of that," he replied as the stuffed toy shifted in his hands. "I know those look like bears, but I think they're dogs." Turning the stuffed toy to face him, *Nancy* stared deeply into the one eye.
"Oh, Eddie-teddy, I'd never judge you for wanting to admire a different species. You're just like me, you like big and rough." Sighing, he gently placed his friend back into the messenger bag that doubled as his purse.
"We should probably be on our way. The Chief will probably be home soon and we don't want to be associated with this mess in any way. No, Sir Bear, we don't." With a fluff of his wig, *Nancy* hurried his stilettoed step, eager to reach the diner. It was trucker's special night and he was determined to find a worthy one.
As the raging wolf fight continued, Qwar impatiently knocked on Quil consciousness, the sounds of a V-8 engine belonging to one, Forks; Washington Police Chief could be heard rumbling its way towards the Swan house.
Jake was nowhere near finished attempting to disembowel his pack mate and with a sharp snap of his massive jaws, used Quil's hesitation time to drag the slightly smaller wolf off into the woods. The grass swayed from disruption for a minute before becoming stationary, hiding all signs of the struggle that had just taken place.
Unaware and perfectly content, Bella—still comatose on her couch- began to dream about a sexy wolf fur coat that turned into a man with large, talented hands. Aside from the fact that they weren't currently attending to her, but were instead thrashing an equally sexy furred coat—this one was mink—Bella fantasized herself lying on a divan, waiting to gain the attention of the wolf fur.
As Charlie pulled into his drive way, still grinning over his visit with Billy, his smile slipped off of his face to be replaced with that of his cop look. He took in the presence of Bella's truck, what appeared to be remnants of a front door and wondered if it had finally happened and his work had come home for him.
Quietly radioing for dispatch to send another unit, he got out of his car, removing the keys but leaving the door open so as not to make unnecessary noise. He didn't need to check his gun for ammunition, but he did unclick the safety while approaching the steps, fully withdrawing the weapon before he crossed the threshold.
Charlie had lived in this house for nearly twenty years and knew it back and forth. There may have been blind spots, but he knew how to maneuver around to the best advantage and did just that, taking notice of his daughter's body immediately.
From where he stood, the room was clear and she wasn't visibly bleeding, meaning he had to establish if there were other hidden threats elsewhere before attending to her. After several minutes, Charlie had checked every crevice of his house and knew there weren't any lingering intruders in his home.
The only question left was: What had happened to Bella?
His feet took the stairs two at a time as he rapidly descended to the ground level of the house, back to where his child was.
"My god, Bella! Sweetie, did you fall down again? Oh, Jesus, are you okay?" Holstering his weapon, he reached out to check for a pulse, all the while his eyes roaming the damage of the room. Charlie wasn't usually a betting man, but clearly someone had been thrown into the walls several times, his first guess being that Bella had been the unlucky recipient.
He positioned himself to be able to attend to her while still maintaining eye contact with the doorway, relaxing slightly when he heard the siren wails fast approaching. When one of his deputies entered the house, Charlie waited until the man looked his way before saying anything.
"It's clear," he stated, addressing the deputy, watching as the man put his side piece back into its holster.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. I suspect that Bella came home and interrupted a robbery. Obviously the assailant beat her up and then left her here on the couch. I haven't been able to get her to wake up yet."
The deputy sucked in a sharp breath as he eyed the damaged walls and then turned to look at the girl on the couch. If she had been some sort of punching bag for these criminals then her wounds would be vast. She probably had a few broken bones and bruises.
Taking a closer look, she didn't look like she had been beat too badly. Her clothes didn't look as if they had been torn or ripped in any fashion to indicate a struggle and neither did the one hand, lying limply to the side. A person would have at least tried to defend themselves either from an attack or from impact. The deputy became nervous.
"Chief, did you look at her?" He asked, nodding the man's daughter.
"Not yet. I've only been on scene for a few minutes. Her breathing isn't distressed and aside from the welt on her head, she doesn't appear to be bleeding."
The usual chaos that results from calling emergency units to a residential house was doubled considering it was the town's own Police Chief. Another officer entered the house followed by EMT's carrying med-kits, again interrupting the conversation.
Charlie stood up and stepped away while the paramedics went to work. He inched closer to the deputy he had been conversing with earlier.
"Look, Chief, I know she's your daughter, but the fact that there has been some sort of attack and she isn't conscious, do you think that maybe…" The deputy trailed off. They were all trained for situations like this but to actually remind his boss what could've happened to the girl was awkward.
Charlie waited for the man to speak.
"Chief, does Bella have a… a boyfriend?" The deputy hesitantly asked, unsure if a yes or no answer would be better at this point.
"No. Not since that Cullen dick left, she hasn't been seeing anyone," Charlie replied, still watching the EMT's exam his daughter.
The deputy gathered all of his courage and tact to rush through an explanation to his boss. "Well, you know Deputy Harris's girlfriend works at the hospital and she mentioned the other night when Bella came in. Actually what the nurse said was Bella was half-carried in by some really big guy and that three others who looked like him showed up in the waiting room minutes later."
Charlie's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Spit it out. What are you trying to say exactly?"
"Is it possible that this attack was from some guy Bella might be seeing? Most attackers wouldn't put their victims on the couch and she doesn't have any defense wounds. Do you think she was knocked out first so that she couldn't fight or say no?"
"Fuck," Charlie hissed, the implication clear. Not for one minute did he think Jake had come over to sexually assault his daughter, but any other intruder could have.
"I don't know," Charlie finally admitted, thinking through all of the scenarios. "Once I get her to the hospital, I'll brief the doc on call and have him first check to see if she suffered any type of injury from being thrown. Either way, she'll have to be checked for a sexual assault, but at least if she wasn't thrown multiple times into the wall, we'll have a better understanding of what the assailant was here for.
Bella's dreams began to wane. The sexy coats were disappearing, the feelings of comfort going away with them. The sharp pungent odor suddenly assaulting her senses caused her to flinch and moan, her head aching and the world once again slightly spinning.
"Isabella, can you hear me?" A man's voice asked.
The sound scared her as she didn't know who it belonged to.
"Can you tell me your name?" It asked again as Bella fought to peel her eyes open. The light was unwelcome and stung as she stared at the collection of people in her living room.
"Do you know where you are?" The voice –which she realized belonged to a paramedic—asked her again as he stared at her.
"My living room," she answered, barely paying attention as the guy nodded. "What happened?"
"It appears that you hit your head on something and then passed out. Do you know how it happened?"
"No." Her answer was short and only somewhat honest. She couldn't say why she was laying on the couch surrounded by emergency personnel, or what had happened to Quil and Jake, if they had been there. Briefly she recalled words of an imprint being spoken and that she belonged to a wolf, but that easily could've been part of her dream and nothing to do with facts.
Charlie walked back over to his daughter, none to gently shoving the EMT out of the way. "Bells, do you know what happened to you? What did you hit your head on? Who hurt you?"
"I…what? I'm hurt?" Panicking, Bella breathed through her mouth, in case there was blood.
"Your head, sweetie," Charlie offered. "You either hit your head, or someone hit you."
Bella cringed when she brought her hand up to her forehead. Her head always hurt, but it never hurt from touching it unless she had fallen or tripped.
Seeing her wince of pain, Charlie began barking out orders again. "Bring in the stretcher and load her up. The faster we move, the more opportunity we'll have to catch whoever did this."
"Dad, I'm fine," Bella protested weakly from her spot on the sofa as a gurney was being set to the side of couch. The last thing Bella needed, or wanted, was another first class ticket to Forks General Hospital.
Charlie figured that Bella was delirious with pain and was just trying to put on a brave face in front of his co-workers. He dropped his voice to that patient Dad tone, the one father's used to talk to their four year olds when they were half-awake from a nightmare. "You don't know that, honey. You were passed out and could have been assaulted. I'm not taking any chances with you."
"Dad, I wasn't assaulted. I must have just tripped and broke a few things," she answered, yelping slightly when her body was slid to the stretcher.
"Bella, there is no way you managed to destroy three of the four walls in here, smacked yourself into unconsciousness and landed perfectly sprawled out on the couch."
Looking around again, Bella tried not to shudder as she studied the room's interior dents. They were kind of large and Bella knew that if she had been the cause of it, her body would hurt worse than it presently did and her head would ache even more so.
The look of surprise on her face while she studied the walls was enough to convince Charlie that his daughter had no idea as to what had happened to her. He was going to reassure her again when…
"Hey, Chief," one of his co workers interrupted. "Did you notice anything missing?"
"No, I haven't. Aside from my safe—which hasn't been touched—there's not much of value here except the TV," he nodded towards the large screened appliance still sitting undisturbed in the corner, "and my daughter."
"Hey, Bella," the other officer greeted her, jotting down notes. She had definitely seen better days, but at least as the police chief's daughter, there was a slim chance anything like this would ever happen to her again.
"Look, I'm gonna ride in the bus with her. You guys stay to gather evidence." Charlie pointed to the holes in the walls. "Make sure you do a thorough sweep and dusting. I want any and all prints and hair samples on my desk within an hour."
Three different voices could be heard muttering 'Aye' as Charlie followed his daughter out to the ambulance. Bella just prayed she wouldn't be forced into receiving another shot of Demerol and that no one would suddenly visit her at the ER, like Quil.
Charlie was just itching to shoot someone…