Three

Jared came over at first light, letting himself in through the always-unlocked front door and barging into Paul's room like he'd been coming over for years.

He hadn't, of course. Jared was in the same grade as Paul, a year ahead of Baby Alpha and his mini pack, but Jared had always been too… everything for Paul's liking. Too happy, too talkative, too popular.

Now that Paul had had to dump Zach and Tim, Jared was the closest thing Paul had to a friend. He wasn't terrible, really. Just as annoying as fuck, sometimes.

"Damn, Paul," Jared said cheerfully as he stepped into his room. "You really pissed Sam off this time."

"What? Why?" Paul asked, more curious than angry. He'd pissed Sam off plenty of times, and probably would do so plenty more, but he usually knew when he was doing it.

"You were supposed to report in last night," Jared said, shrugging.

"Oh." Technically, Sam had ordered him to be back on the rez by last night, not to report in. What was the hell was there to report, anyway? The Cascades are leech-free, all is well?

"He wanted to talk to you about your imprint." Jared's eyes gleamed at the word. "I gotta tell you, I'm hoping she'll calm you the fuck down a little."

Paul grunted. "Why should she? Kim doesn't calm you down."

"Yeah, but I don't have anger issues, dude. Kim helps with…other things."

Paul groaned and threw his pillow at him. Thanks to the wolf mind, he knew exactly what Kim helped with, and how often.

"Not like that! Though," Jared grinned, "that is a perk, too."

"Hate to break it to you, but you could have gotten chicks without imprinting, the way we look now."

Jared shook his head as he sat down on the edge of the bed, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. "It's not the same, I promise. There was this girl, April, I hooked up a few times with before I imprinted." His eyes were far away. "It's weird, I can't even imagine what I could have seen in any girl who isn't Kim. But I remember thinking back then it was good, you know? We had chemistry. Then Kim came and blew it out of the water." He chuckled. "No pun intended."

Paul finally decided to get out of bed and see his damn Alpha before Sam got any pissier. "There's not going to be any chemistry between me and the leech-lover," he said firmly, reaching for his wallet and phone. "I know better than to fight it," he said, speaking over Jared's protestations. "I'm not stupid. I know it's there. I'm just going to…ignore it."

Jared followed him out of the house, laughing like that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Any anger his alpha had harbored toward Paul was gone, and Sam was his usual implacable self as he opened the door for Paul. "Take patrol for the next hour," he told Jared, who sighed dramatically but turned to go.

Sam steered Paul to his living room couch, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, Paul glaring at him, and Sam just looking right back at him calmly. Finally, Sam said, "Are you done running away?"

Sitting abruptly upright, Paul scowled at his alpha. "I'm not running away, it's not like that-"

"It's done, Paul," Sam said, cutting him off. "Even if she wasn't your imprint, she knows about us. But I don't think we have to worry about her telling anyone."

"Because she didn't tell anyone about the leeches," Paul said flatly.

Sam hesitated. "Yes."

Paul stood up to pace, frustrated. "That just proves she has horrible judgment! She'll probably tell her father all about us and keep the leeches out of it."

"Bella will keep our secret," Emily said as she entered the living room with a stack of sandwiches on a plate. She handed them to Paul and gently pressed his shoulders until he sat back down. "She's a sweet girl, Paul. She came over here with your brothers after you…left."

He scowled at her, but it was hard to be mad at Emily, even when she wasn't bringing him food. "She's an idiot, Em," he said, biting into a sandwich.

She shook her head, sliding easily into Sam's lap. "She's heartbroken," she said, tilting her head to smile gently at her fiancé. "People in love do silly things."

"Not me," Sam said immediately, and Paul heard the levity in his voice that only ever came out when Emily was around.

Emily twisted around to kiss Sam's nose. "You're the silliest of them all," she proclaimed, and her giggle joined Sam's deep chuckle.

Paul rolled his eyes and finished his breakfast with his back to them.

Paul's reprieve from Baby Alpha ended a few hours later, when Jacob Black came storming up Sam's driveway, righteous indignation in his eyes. Sighing, Paul stood up from where he had been helping Emily place paving stones in her garden and walked toward Jacob, resigned to the inevitable confrontation.

Jacob stopped in front of him, using all of the annoying couple inches he had on Paul to try to loom over him. "You've got to talk to her," Jacob said, and Paul rolled his eyes, unimpressed.

"I really, really don't."

"She's scared," Jake insisted, and damn it, if that wasn't the one thing that could get Paul's wolf to stand up and pay attention.

"Why the fuck would she be? I only phased once I was out of her way."

Jake shook his head. "Not scared that you'll hurt her. Scared that there's something wrong with her. She knows something happened, and Sam said you should be the one to explain it to her. She keeps asking me about you and then trying to figure out why she even cares."

That was interesting. Paul had never paid much attention to how the imprints themselves were affected by the bond. For one, he hadn't really cared, and for another, he never thought it would happen to him. Why would the "gods" match up some poor girl with someone as fucked up as him?

Maybe because he and the leech-lover deserved each other.

Paul chuckled darkly. "You can explain it to her, I don't care. Just make sure she you tell her it's not going to have any impact on her."

Jake growled, actually growled in frustration. "It's already had an impact on her, dick. She said it's like there's a new hole in her heart now, only she doesn't understand why."

Paul's stomach clenched at hearing that. Knowing his imprint was in pain was one thing, but being the one to cause the pain was something worse. Something unbearable.

He started pulling off his shirt and shorts before he realized what he'd decided to do. Jake rolled his eyes and scoffed, "Finally," as Paul turned to phase, jogging into the woods.

The sun was setting by the time he got to the girl's house. Only her rusty-as-shit truck sat out front, daddy's police cruiser nowhere in sight.

He phased and grabbed the pair of shorts he'd tied around his neck. Glancing around to make sure no neighbors were around, he jogged up to her front door and knocked.

After a few seconds, she opened the door. She was even paler than he remembered, her hair pulled back tightly into a messy ponytail and dark shadows under her eyes. She looked like hell, and at the same time she looked wonderful to him.

"I'm Paul," he said, when she didn't say anything.

"Hi, Paul," she echoed, staring somewhere around his knees. Was the girl half-robot, too?

"I need to talk to you."

There was a long pause, as if it took her a long time to process those six words. Wordlessly, she stepped aside, and he followed her into the living room.

"Sit," he told her. She looked like a light breeze would topple her. Her brow furrowed like she was going to argue, but she sat obediently on the couch.

He remained standing, too tense to sit down. "Do you know what imprinting is?" he asked her. No use delaying the inevitable.

She shook her head. "Well, like what ducks do?" she amended.

He barked out a laugh. "No. Imprinting is when one of us," he gestured vaguely at himself, so she would understand he meant the pack, "or, rather, our wolf, decides we've met our mate."

"Okay," she said, still sounding like she had no idea why he was bringing this up. He stayed silent. "Oh. Really?"

"Yeah," he said dryly. "Really. But don't worry, you're not going to be inconvenienced. We're in control of our wolves." Mostly. "I'm only telling you this because Jacob told me you knew something felt weird about me."

She brought her fingers to her breastbone, almost absent-mindedly. "Empty," she agreed. "It was getting better… a little. But then suddenly I couldn't breathe again."

"Shit," he said, dropping to his knees in front of her before he could think better of it. "I didn't mean to hurt you." Apparently he was just that good at hurting people unintentionally, though. "I think if I'm just nearby, you'll be fine. I'll come patrol by your house at night."

"It got better yesterday evening," she said, seeming to ignore his words. "You came back then, didn't you? I thought I was going crazy, but suddenly the pressure was gone."

"Yeah," he said. "I was in the woods outside your house. But goddamn it, staying close should be enough so I don't hurt you. I'll keep fighting it."

"Fighting…it?" she echoed faintly, and her hand dropped from her chest. For the first time since he'd knocked on her door, she looked him in the eyes, but her expression was blank. "You don't… want me?" she said slowly, her mouth shaping the words uncertainly, as if she was repeating words she didn't quite understand.

He surged upward, taking a step back from the girl with the big brown eyes. "Of course I want you," he growled. "That's the entire fucking problem, isn't it? I don't even know you. And you sure as shit don't like me."

She shrugged, like fucking imprinting meant nothing to her. "I only just met you," she said. "How could I know whether I liked you or not?"

"I could take a bet which side you'd fall on. But I guess we'll have to live with never knowing," he said with a sneer, watching her closely to see if rudeness would get a reaction out of her.

She bit her lip but didn't say anything. For Christ's sake, this girl was a fucking zombie. Why the fuck would the gods give him her?

"Whatever, I'll be outside your house tonight," he told her in disgust, moving toward the door. "And eat a fucking sandwich. Or two. I'll know if you don't." He hadn't meant to say that last part, but damn it, it was true. She was translucent skin wrapped over bones, and she needed to eat.

Thanks to a cruel stroke of fate, there was now nothing he knew as well as what Bella Swan needed.

The police cruiser still wasn't outside the house when Paul came back that night after his evening patrol. He settled on his haunches and prepared for a couple hours of fun staring intently at the siding on the corner of the house where he knew his imprint was sleeping.

Less than half an hour later, though, the girl started screaming like someone was cutting off her leg.

He knew there was no one in that house but her – his wolf senses guaranteed it. That didn't stop him from phasing human and bouncing up the tree outside her window like a fucking spider monkey, though.

As he climbed in through her surprisingly well-greased window, he realized she was just having a nightmare. She was half sobbing, half yelling into her pillow, her covers tangled at her feet. Regardless of the cause, she was in pain, and that was unacceptable.

In two long strides he was across her room, his hand hovering over her shoulder for a second before he manned up and touched her. It felt like static electricity, but softer and warmer somehow.

She stilled almost at once, then sat bolt upright, dislodging his hand.

"Paul? What – oh my god, put on some pants." He looked down, realizing for the first time that, of course, he was butt naked. She covered her face.

He rolled his eyes but walked over to her dresser to save her delicate eyes. The second drawer he opened proved to hold sweatpants and athletic shorts. He held up the biggest pair of shorts he could find, still looking at it doubtfully. He tugged them on with difficulty over his heavily muscled thighs, and they fit as tightly as boxer briefs on him.

The girl raised her eyes again slowly, not looking below his neck. "Okay," she said. "Now, what are you doing in here?"

Paul stared at her, not understanding the question. "You were having a nightmare."

"Yeah," she said with a one-armed shrug. "I have those a lot."

"Well, you're not going to anymore," he said without thinking. "Not now that I'm here."

"I'm not?" she repeated. "I thought you didn't care about me."

"Jesus, girl, I'm not cruel," he burst out. Was he, though? He was suddenly sure of something else. "And you didn't eat shit for dinner, did you?"

She flinched and looked away, and he knew he was right. "I couldn't!" she said, wrapping her arms around herself. "My heart's gone, and my stomach…"

"Bullshit," he said, brushing past her to start downstairs to the kitchen. "You talk, you sleep, you breathe. You're alive. Start acting like it."

She shook her head as if she was actually trying to deny that fact, but she did trail him reluctantly into the kitchen like a ghost.

He made her two ham and cheese sandwiches and stared at her while she picked at them. She got three-quarters of the way through one before shoving the plate away.

"I can't," she said, and this time he believed her. He remembered reading somewhere that if you starved yourself for long enough, your appetite shrank dramatically. He was going to have to work on giving her slowly increasing portions.

"Okay," he said, picking up the remains of the sandwiches and shoving it into his mouth. No need to let good food go to waste. "Go back upstairs and go to sleep. I'll stay for a couple more hours to make sure you don't have any more nightmares."

"You can't tell me what to do," she said, and for a moment there was actual emotion in her words. Annoyance, or anger.

Then she was back to being the blank-faced zombie, big brown eyes just watching him for his reaction.

"I know what you need," he told her. "It's as annoying as fuck, but it's true. And since you're obviously ignoring what your own fucking body is telling you, you're just gonna have to deal with me doing it for you."

Her mouth dropped open in indignation. He got right up in her face, where he could see the flecks of light brown in her otherwise dark, dark eyes. All he could think of was getting a reaction, any reaction out of her.

"You want to make decisions for yourself again? Put on your big girl panties and prove you're capable of it."

"You-" she sputtered, her fists clenching. "Jacob will-"

"Jacob won't be doing shit," he told her with a sneer. "Imprinting is the wolf's business, no one else's. And Jacob's obviously not what you need, or he would've imprinted on you, wouldn't he?"

"The idea that I need you in my life is…is laughable," she spat. "If anyone was going to imprint on me, it should've been Jake. He took care of me."

Paul laughed out loud. "No, he babied you. He's hero-worshipped you since he was five. He gave you whatever you wanted, not what you needed. You had a bad breakup, for Christ's sake; you didn't watch your parents die in a fire."

"My heart-"

Paul raised his hand and pressed it against her chest, just above the swell of her left breast. She sucked in a startled breath.

"Your heart is still in there. I can hear it beating from across the room; I can feel it now."

She stepped back, and Paul let his hand fall to his side. "It's not the same," she whispered. "He took everything good in me with him when he left."

"He didn't take shit," he said sharply. "He broke up with you and left you lost in the woods like the asshole he is. You're still you."

"I'm not… I'm broken."

"Jesus Christ, girl," he said in disgust. "You're not a toy to be fixed. If I could get over the leech for you, I would. But you've got to decide that's what you actually want."

She cowered back from him a little, her anger fading as quickly as it had sparked. He had a horrible realization. "You don't want to get over him, do you?"

She dropped her eyes to the floor, and he stepped forward again to grip her arms. "He left you in the woods. It's been half a year. He's gone. You've got to stop pining for him like a…like a sad little puppy. You're better than that."

"Am I?" It sounded like a rhetorical question, but he answered it anyway, with a surprising amount of complete conviction in this pathetic-as-fuck girl he barely knew.

"You really, really are."

Thanks to everyone who has read so far! Next chapter should be out within a week or two. I'm expecting this to be somewhere around 40k words total, when all is said and done. Reviews are happily accepted!