Chapter 53

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.


Paul and Seth phased once they had dumped the extra bags in Niki's truck. They made a punishing pace back to La Push, but it still took them days to travel that distance. Seth's memories of everything that had happened played across his mind and brought Paul up to speed. Seth left him at the Lahote place and went home to sleep. He had to trust in Paul now. Paul had a quick shower and grabbed his truck keys. He didn't know why he didn't just run to Forks, but he had a feeling that he might need the truck.

Paul drove up to Charlie's place, where Seth had told him Bella had gone. No patrol car meant Charlie was out. Bella's old red truck was parked outside.

He parked, jogged up to the porch and just let himself in. He listened for a little while, and then started up the stairs without calling out her name. He could tell from her breathing pattern that she wasn't awake. He found her in her old bedroom. Under a huddled heap of quilts and coverlets. It looked like she had every blanket in the house on her bed. She clearly missed her warm bed partner.

She was asleep but not breathing well. Her eyes were crusty and red. She had a mound of used tissues by the bed. She had obviously cried herself to sleep. Still? After days.

He huffed out a breath. He hated complications. He had wanted a simple, easy sex life and instead it was turning into a freaking disaster story. He looked at her red, blotchy face and remembered her fighting with Leah for him. When his mother had died and he had nowhere else to go. He had stood in the rain and listened to them argue. He remembered telling Sam that being Bella's one and only made him feel special. He didn't feel special now.

He felt like he was going to skewer his heart again. If he tried again and lost? Fuck me. That would hurt worse. He looked at her. Bella had cared about him and fought for him. He couldn't abandon her now. He had come all the way back to Forks, anyway. He had started on this path the second that he had decided to come back.

He took a deep breath and willed himself to take those extra steps, into her poorly furnished bedroom and back into her life.

She jolted awake when he put his warm hand on her face.

"Leah?" she called out in a croaky vestige of her normal voice.

She made a shuddery breathing noise when her eyes focused and she saw it was him. She stared at him as if he was a figment of her imagination.

He didn't say anything. Not one word. He just dug under all those blankets until he could feel her skin and scooped her out of her mound and into his arms. He sat down on the bed with his back against the headboard and held her to him.

She cried and cried. Contributing more tissues to the trash mound.

He looked around her empty room. All her furniture and decorations had been in the rez house. "This room is depressing," he muttered to himself. He supposed that she hadn't just lost her lover, but also her home.

"You looked surprised to see me," he finally said to her.

"You were long gone. And you hate complications."

"Fuck! I sound like a total bastard."

"No. You just like things your way."

"Christ, Bella. Even now, you can't be angry about all this?"

"I'm not very good with anger. It makes me feel sick in the stomach. My hands shake."

They were shaking a bit now, he noticed. He grabbed one and squeezed it. "Tell me everything."

"My throat hurts."

"Fine. I'm getting you a bottle of water and then we are going to talk." He dumped her back on the bed and dashed down the stairs. He was back in a minute; almost literally, with a drink. "Here." He held it out to her.

She took it, sipped a little and then held her arms up to him like a child. He picked her back up again.

He rested his cheek on the top of her head while she sipped some more water. "Your hair stinks."

"I know. You heard? How? I thought you were miles away."

"I was. In the Central Canadian forest with Dad. Seth came and got me. He told me everything."

"He's Makah."

"I heard."

"Some relative of Emily's. A cousin from the other side of the family."

"Typical. More of them fucking up her life. As if Emily taking Sam from her wasn't bad enough."

"He won't let me stay with her."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't give a reason."

"I'd say he's frightened of you."

"How can you say that? You don't even know him."

"True. I missed that pack meeting and about a dozen others. But I know the type. He doesn't want you to see her because he knows she loves you more."

Bella sniffed.

"She does," Paul insisted.

Silence.

"I wanted to kill him. I've never felt like that before, and just the thought of it made me feel sick to my stomach."

"Of course you felt like that. He took something, or someone that belonged to you. Why wouldn't you want to hurt him?"

"Is that how Leah felt when she was jealous of you?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that one. Fuck, he had just blundered in there and made a complete mess of the whole thing. His total ego. The game of bedding them both. What the fuck had he started? Did he make the small cracks that had widened into chasms later? Or did they already have their own cracks?

"I-I'm not sure what Leah thought," he finally said, when she still seemed to need an answer.

Silence again.

"Paul?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay with me?"

"Sure."

"Paul?"

"Fucks sake, Bella. I am not going anywhere - just talk to me."

"Sorry."

Silence.

He sighed. "Please ask me whatever it was you wanted to ask me."

"Why haven't you imprinted?"

Ouch. He could understand why she wanted an answer to that question. "No idea. Seen enough women. I am clearly a poor quality wolf."

"Do you think you will?"

He shrugged. "I don't need it."

"I disagree and I don't think it is about what you need."

"You have it all worked out, eh?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking and not much of anything else."

"Like washing your hair," he teased.

"Shut up. And anyway, she loves you, too."

"Me? No, she doesn't." That surprised him.

"She does."

"Whatever. We aren't talking about me right now. We are talking about you and Leah."

"No."

"What?"

"That's the point," Bella insisted. She sat up a little so that she could see his face. Or so that he could see hers.

"What is?" He frowned at her.

"There is no me and Leah."

"Not at the minute, but we can fix that."

"No, you misunderstand. She can resist me. But I don't think she can resist you and me."

Silence while he thought about that. It was actually pretty close to what he had already worked out; that they were better as a trio. He had told Sam that ages ago.

"Why? What's the point?" He wanted to see what she said; what she thought was going on.

"Because as you told us once, she has different boxes that need ticking. And we tick them all." She waved a hand between them.

"And this guy won't let her continue to see you."

"No. And he is pretty boring and … I can't think of the word. Ordinary?"

Paul snorted. "Vanilla?"

"Exactly. He's not Leah's type at all."

"So, Miss Heavy Thinker. What's your plan?"

"I don't have a plan."

"Brilliant. They'll never see that one coming."

Her face fell. As if she was imagining that she would never see Leah again.

He looked suddenly guilty and shifted on the bed quickly. "Come on. If I am staying you have to have a shower and wash that hair. It's too much for me."

"I do feel kind of gross."

"Atta girl."

"Will you wash my hair for me?"

"What? What am I? A hairdresser?"

"Please? It'll be fun."

"For you - maybe."

"I might feel better after a shower," she suggested archly.

"Ooh, I sure hope so."

He carried her to the bathroom. She clung to him like an invalid; as if she couldn't have managed it on her own. He really thought that she couldn't. He held her in the shower and shampooed her hair. Then he carefully dried her off with a towel. She didn't feel up to sex, but she slept naked and pressed up against him. She didn't need all the blankets now.

He lay awake for a long time. Thinking. Paul wasn't a big thinker; he usually just acted. Often without regard for the consequences. He tried to analyze it all. He had got what he wanted; what they had accused him of a long time ago. He had sex with Leah and Bella, sometimes at the same time. That was all he had wanted at the time.

Introspection wasn't big on Paul's list of things to do, either. But he tried. So he had got what he wanted. And to be honest with himself, he missed it. He missed them.

He missed being part of something comfortable and, (he actually winced when he thought it), loving. He hadn't had much of that in his life and he decided that he rather liked it. For him, two women were better than one because each had a role to play, and they filled gaps in his life; Leah on the wild side and Bella on the caring, motherly side. Although sex with her was pretty good, too. Bella had said that was what Leah needed. But was it what he needed, too?

He thought through memories of happier times. All three of them in bed together. It wasn't just the sex; they had laughed and hugged. They had been a kind of a family. Their photos in his house.

Was Bella right? Was Leah unhappy? The pack had decided this imprint was wrong. Heck even the imprint champions, Sam and Emily, had said it was wrong. Seth had played him the memory of the pack meeting. As far as he could tell, nobody liked it. Either way, he made a decision to do something about it.

They had to break it. He wasn't sure how and if Leah was the imprint crack addict she appeared to be, then she might fight them about it.

But regardless of Leah, his first priority was Bella. He held her closer and finally fell asleep.


He woke her up just after dawn. She opened her bleary, red-rimmed eyes and stared into his intense dark ones.

"Move in with me," he said.

"What?" She frowned at him.

"You have to come and live with me."

"Why?"

"You can't stay here and you're too old to live with Charlie, anyway."

"Do you really mean that?" Her lip wobbled as if she was going to cry again.

"Yeah, but don't cry on me again. I hate that shit."

She managed a faltering chuckle that subsided quickly into silence. "What are we going to do?"

"About Leah? No idea. But you can't stay here, so first, we are going to fix you up. Where's your stuff?"

"This is it." She pointed at a small backpack and one carton.

"What? That's all she let you take?"

"Yes." Her voice was tiny.

"Fuck. She is not right in the head."

"See… I told you."

"Okay. I see your point. Fuck! You two set up that place together—" He stopped talking when he realized that he was just upsetting Bella. "No more tears," he told her firmly.

"O-okay."

"No. Really," he insisted.

But her lip wobbled.

"Oh, for fucks sake." He scooped her in against him again. This time they were both naked. And it was morning. That was his excuse. Regardless, Bella didn't care. She grabbed him. "What the?" he argued.

"Are you telling me 'no'?" she asked.

"No."

Her face fell.

"No! I didn't mean that. I meant … I will never tell you no, honey." He insinuated himself under her arm and writhed against her.

"Humph."

He kissed her. "Even if you are all snotty and your breath stinks."

"Fine." She folded her arms in a huff.

"It's easily fixed. Go brush your teeth."

"You don't normally complain about morning breath."

"You don't normally forget to brush your teeth for a week."

She gave him another balancing look. "It's not a week, but that's true, I did forget," she admitted. She jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. He heard her using the toilet and brushing furiously. She appeared in the doorway naked and tried to smile at him with a mouthful of toothpaste and a toothbrush. He chuckled.

"We'll fix this," he rashly promised her. Even if he wasn't sure how. The Leah he knew would never have thrown Bella out of her own home with nothing. She would have cut her own damn arm off first. It didn't make sense. It must be this imprint shit overriding her natural behavior. Her Bella? No way. She had damn near fought him for her. How this new guy could make her throw her over in days? Yeah. Imprinting was fucked. He remembered Sam going all gooey over Emily and her crack baking. And Jared with the brainless Kim. Ugh.

Bella dashed back in and leapt onto the bed with him. She seemed happier already. He decided to try and make her really happy. He knew just what she liked and the way she liked it. It seemed stupid, but he knew women and self-confidence was a massive thing for them. Especially for Bella, she had hers knocked out of her periodically, it seemed.

"Are you thinking again?" she asked.

"What? I'm not allowed to think?"

"No. You looked all frowny."

He gave her a wicked look. "I was thinking how best to fuck you."

"You were?"

"Yep." He tilted his head. "Now… she likes it missionary but I know she likes it when I eat her out."

"She does." It was a statement.

"So, let's start with that and see what comes up."

"You're already up." Her hand slid under the sheet and grasped him firmly.

He grinned at her. "I can wait. Quality, baby."

"I missed you, Paul."

"Shhh. Don't tell me that; you'll put me off my game."

"Nothing puts you off your game."

"Yeah?" He pulled her in against him.

"Yeah."

"Excellent."