Hurting

AN: Thanks so much everyone, for not hating my attempt at drama! It won't be the last in this story... unfortunately! But there's got to be some of that stuff, eh? Here is another short chapter, and just so you all know, I really don't like it. It just... didn't work for me. Maybe next chapter will be better?
THANK YOU TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF MY REVIEWERS! I know I didn't respond to you personally this time. I'm very sorry. I was intent on writing and re-writing this... and decided to post it as-is before I had a chance to reply to everyone. Sorry, but I WILL reply this time, so please let me know what you think! It means so very much to me. THANKS AGAIN!


I was being dragged back into consciousness, and holy hannah, did I want to fight it. Unfortunately for me, there really was no fighting the overpowering, single-minded Alpha command to move, to hunt down and destroy a bloodsucking enemy of the Pack. All I could see in my mind were blurs of green and brown, because shit, everyone was running except for me, the bloody Beta, but oh, dear god did it hurt! I tried, with an inhuman effort, to heave myself to my feet, but my bones wouldn't cooperate. Why the hell did everything hurt so much? Still, the Command was there, and I tried to drag myself forward in answer.

A keening, wolfish whine twisted it's way through the confused, pained fog in my head as something bumped into me gently. I tried to turn my head to see what it was, but sharp pains shooting down my spine stopped me. What the hell was wrong with me? What was going on?

"You're okay, B. You're gonna be okay. Just don't move. C'mon, baby. Leah, talk to me."

Embry's voice. That was Embry's voice. It was Embry's furry, enormous head bumping into me, Embry making that awful, painful whining sound. He pawed at me gently, in a desperate sort of way, his thoughts piercing through the chaotic jumble that was the Pack mind.

Oh, god. Everything came back in a flash of horror. Molly spinning out of control, the pain, Cyrus. Embry whined again, his voice in my head telling me over and over again to talk to him, tell him I was okay, and I tried to form a coherent thought to answer him.

"Tank. Shut up."

He huffed out a short, barky laugh, relief flooding through him and spreading through the Pack. I felt Seth, and Jacob, and even Quil suddenly realizing that I was back among the living when Embry's relief penetrated their intent focus on the hunt.

"Leah, Leah, thank god, Leah! You're okay!" Seth sounded half-hysterical with relief himself, but I doubted any of the guys would give him any shit about it, since it seemed like they all felt almost the same.

I grimaced, and Embry butted his nose into me again as I whimpered. "NOT okay. Dammit! This HURTS."

"We'll find the leech, Leah. We'll fucking rip him apart," Jake snarled, and I believed him. I had never, not once, felt anything like the fury rolling off of him at that moment.

"I wanna help," I shot back, and tried once more, unsuccessfully, to climb to my feet. I wasn't weak, dammit! I was the bloody Beta, and I wasn't going to let a few injuries keep me down, not when there was Cyrus-ripping to be done.

Broken bones grated harshly against themselves, and I fell back down, nauseous and whimpering from the pain. Embry was there in my face again, making that awful keening sound like a wounded puppy, as all of my Pack mates yelled at me to stop being an idiot.

"Geez, Leah! Are you trying to make yourself worse?" Jake demanded harshly. "Both Packs are hunting, and the Vamps. Cyrus isn't getting out of here alive."

I wasn't paying much attention to him anymore, though. I was trying not to pass out again. My body was doing it's best to start the healing process, but it was trying to heal things in all the wrong places, and it hurt. Worst of all, it hurt to breath. It felt like I was drowning; I coughed weakly and choked up great gobs of blood.

"Oh, shit. That doesn't look good. C'mon, stay with me, B," Embry pleaded as I coughed again.

"So hard to breath," I thought to him, struggling to get enough air between bouts of coughing. He whined again, and his brown eyes looked terrified.

"I know, baby, I know. Hang in there."

Hang in there until what? I drowned? I could hear Seth freaking out, and Jacob commanding him to focus, dammit! They'd lost Cyrus' scent in the river, but I couldn't really care about that at the moment. I was too busy watching the black spots dancing across my vision every time I coughed.

Embry growled low in his throat, but it was Rose's voice that answered him. "Calm down, Embry. It's just me- let me help her."

He hesitated, but backed off just enough to let her come up and kneel at my side, Alice close behind her. She covered me carefully with a blanket, and I could feel her hands shaking.

"Leah, you've got to try to shift back," she was saying to me, and there was a scared, panicky edge to her voice. "We've got to get you back to the house so Carlisle can help you."

Shift? She had got to be kidding me! Did she have any idea how horrible that was with one broken bone, let alone multiple ones? I wasn't shifting, no way in hell! I'd rather just pass out and die here on the forest floor, thank you very much. Embry huffed in my ear again and pawed me, but it felt like I was swimming through pea soup to try to hear the Pack mind.

"For shit's sake, Leah! You've gotta try!" Jacob's frustrated thoughts growled at me. "I know it's gonna hurt like the bitch, but you don't have a choice, here!"

Ha. So says the mighty Alpha. Forget the pain; I didn't have the strength left to pull myself back into my human skin. Or didn't he realize the fact that I was drowning? I could just barely hear Seth, telling me that I was strong, stronger than anyone, and I could shift, and Quil panicking because he couldn't find Cyrus' scent anywhere. I closed my eyes and coughed some more.

"Embry, she's got to shift back, you've got to get her to shift back," I heard Rose saying urgently, then a warm, wet nose pressed into the side of my muzzle.

"B, you can do this," he told me, and his voice was stronger and clearer than the others. "Please. Shift. For me."

Aw, dammit. This was going to hurt so bad... I forced myself to concentrate, to grab the strings of my humanity and pull with every ounce of strength I had left. Popping and grinding, my bones moved and shrank as my muscles and skin contracted. White hot, searing pain blinded me, and I couldn't for anything get enough air into my lungs. Abruptly, I was laying on the forest floor in my human skin, covered in a blanket and my own half-dried, sticky blood. I felt fur and a wet nose rub against my cheek, and Embry huffed as if to tell me, 'I'm here, I'm not going anywhere'.

I reached up my only good hand to the side of his face to tell him that I was okay, and then I let the merciful blackness drag me back under.

I was only vaguely aware of cold hands lifting me away from something warm, and I managed to open my eyes long enough to see that I was on the Cullen's front porch. I could hear voices, Esme, Rose, and Alice all talking so quietly and quickly I couldn't make out a single word, and a low, anxious, wolfy whine.

Tank...

I wanted to reach out and take hold of his fur, but it was far too much of an effort. Besides, I was already being carried into the house, and his huge shoulders wouldn't fit through the front door. I hissed in pain as my broken bones were jarred, despite how carefully I was being carried. Dammit, hadn't anybody in this house ever heard of morphine? I was in some serious need of a shot of it, preferably one big enough to kill an elephant. And what was wrong with the air that made it so painfully thick to breath?

The hands laid me down on an equally cold, hard, plastic-coated mattress, and an oxygen mask was slipped over my face. It didn't help; I kept coughing up frothy blood.

My ears picked up on the faint sound of a car skidding to a halt outside and Esme's relieved voice exclaiming, "Thank the lord, Carlisle's here!".

"She needs painkillers!" I heard Rose call anxiously, and I would've kissed her if I wasn't half-unconscious.

"She needs surgery," Carlisle replied quickly, and another cold pair of hands touched me. "Leah, I'm going to give you something to help the pain and put you to sleep. You're going to be alright, I promise."

"Whatever you say, doc. Just give me the damn morphine," I thought, wishing for the first time in my life that Edward was around to read my mind. I felt a needle poke into my skin, smelled something sweet in the small amount of air I was able to pull into my aching lungs, and drifted off into pain-filled dreams.

I dreamed of crunching metal, shattering glass, and eyes the color of blood. I dreamed of cold hands gripping me, too powerful for me to fight, and a smooth voice telling me I could not escape. I dreamed of my father, not the way he looked in life but how he had looked in his casket, and I clung to him and begged him not to leave me again. And then I dreamed of Sam, and watched helplessly as he walked away. Only, it wasn't Sam walking away, it was Embry, and suddenly the pain in my chest was far too much to take.

I gasped and shuddered, then felt two tears- warm, wet, and real, slide down the sides of my face onto my ears. The dreams faded away, though the pain remained, and I opened my eyes only to squeeze them shut again quickly from the harsh brightness.

"Leah? Can you hear me?" Carlisle's quiet, reassuring voice came from somewhere near my left ear. I mumbled a sound that approximated a 'yes', but kept my eyes firmly shut against the light. I heard a quick shuffling of movement, and then his voice was back.

"I've dimmed the lights. How are you feeling?"

Just peachy! I love pain. How are you? Again, where was Edward? Devoid of the mind-reader, I managed to mumble "ouch" at him while I cautiously attempted to open my eyes.

"Ouch is right," Carlisle chuckled. "You had more broken bones than I cared to count, not to mention a punctured lung. It was no easy task getting you put back together, young lady."

I tried to pull a face at him, but it turned into a pained grimace. Ugh, there were tubes snaking out of me all over the place! Carlisle saw me eyeing the particularly huge one sticking out of the side of my chest and smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry, that will be able to come out in a few hours, thanks to your Wolfish healing abilities. Which, I feel compelled to point out, might have saved your life today."

Hm, yeah. Except that I was attacked because I'm a Wolf in the first place. Faulty logic there, doc.

Oblivious to my thoughts, Carlisle busied himself checking all my tubes and bandages and shining a brutally bright flashlight into my eyes. I pouted and grumbled incoherently while he poked and prodded at every sore spot I had on my body. It's a damn good thing he had an unparrallelled bedside manner, because otherwise those frigid hands would've gotten his practice revoked decades ago.

"Good. Your healing is coming along very nicely," he said in a satisfied voice when he'd finally finished torturing me. "Give it a few days and you'll be good as new."

"Days?" I managed to mutter out crossly, and he gave me a very doctorly smile.

"Yes, days. You should be happy about that. A normal human with these injuries would take months to heal, and even longer for physical therapy after that." He ignored my pout and pushed the contents of a large syringe into my IV. "This should help the pain and hopefully put you back to sleep for a few hours. You need to rest to help yourself heal. Next time you wake up, I may let you have a few visitors."

Sleep? I didn't want to sleep anymore- not with the memory of my last few dreams still fresh in my memory. I wanted to know where everyone was and what was happening. Had they found Cyrus? He hadn't hurt anyone else, had he? Where was my Tank? What time was it? And what...

Ohhhh. Whatever drugs Carlisle had put into my IV, they were good. My eyes kept drifting shut no matter how hard I tried to fight it, and my tongue had turned into a numb blob in my mouth. Stupid doctors and their cheap tricks. I could vaguely hear Carlisle telling me to relax and sleep, but I wanted to open my eyes and argue. I needed my Tank. Didn't he realize I would sleep better with Embry beside me? He would chase all my bad dreams away.

Unfortunately for me, there was no Edward to read my mind, and I had already slipped away into oblivion. And the nightmares were waiting.

They seemed to go on and on forever. The fear, the pain, all mixed up with the terrifying stare of scarlet-rimmed eyes and icy fingers until I could feel my body shaking even in my sleep with the desire to shift into my grey fur and run. But even my body betrayed me; I had no strength left to shift, only enough to rattle my broken bones helplessly.

Suddenly, the cold hands were replaced by large, warm ones. I felt familiar, calloused fingers slip into mine, and I gripped them with everything I had left in me. Hot breath tickled my cheek, and even though I was too drugged to open my eyes, I tipped my head closer.

"I'm here, B," I heard my Tank murmur in my ear. "You're safe. We're all safe. Just go to sleep. I've got you."

My shaking eased off as his strong hand squeezed mine and his even breaths fanned my cheek. I knew he would chase all the nightmares away. Even the pain eased slightly as the heat radiating off of him seeped into me like it always did when he was close to me. I heard his voice singing in a hushed whisper, like a very faint memory, and I couldn't tell if it was real or only in my head.

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
Oh these word I don't just say...
And nothing else matters..

Sleep drifted over me again, a peaceful, dreamless sleep this time, and I welcomed it with open arms.

AN: "Nothing Else Matters" Metallica. Oh yeah- and see that little review button down there? Click it or Ticket, people! ...god, I'm so lame....