A/N: So, it's been a while. :/

There's really no excuse other than my extreme laziness (I'm the queen of procrastination, even with something I love to do like this) and, for the past two months, the horror of junior year. Oh, and Netflix. Lots of Netflix. (Stupid Hurricane Sandy also delayed this for a few days. Very hard to write in the dark, even though you'd think if I had a week off school and no computer/TV anyway to distract me I would have found some way to write a little. But so many people were affected much much more than me and my family and I were very lucky to only lose power for the week.)

Anyway, I'm back now and hopefully nothing else will happen to make me forget about this until it's over. Nothing's really set in stone about this ending after the next chapter, either, because I tend to have a completely different idea about what I want to write until I actually sit down at the computer. Enjoy! I also love reviews/follows/favorites, FYI. Please?

I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry

Bear attack, must have wandered right into its territory. Shame…

Too much blood loss…..Induced coma. Possible muscle damage. Permanent disfiguration.

Poor dear. So pretty, too. So young.

I won't tell Leah you were here. – Thanks, man.

I'll do anything

Constant warmth. Sometimes the familiar voices—never her brother or his family, it was the farthest away then, and once her uncle, but usually her Aunt Sue or Seth-came with it (still there she could tell it was close but not nearly as close as she needed it to be, but most of the time it seemed to wait until everything else was quiet. The nurses were at first hesitant to let him stay past visiting hours, but after seeing that he was determined to sit outside the hospital all night until they let him in, one of the more senior ones took pity on him and would slip him into the employee elevator every night after eight. Emily seemed to respond much more when he was around, anyway, and though he didn't speak very much to any of the night staff they came to understand quickly.

Usually just on her uninjured cheek, but sometimes he would briefly touch the side that was covered by bandages. Never for very long. He didn't like to recognize it but he knew he had to. It was his fault. It was his to suffer over, not hers.

One night she started to siver (her roommate had some kind of fever and needed as much cool air as possible, one of the not-so-kind nurses had informed him after she had caught him trying to close it) and when no amount of extra blankets could chase them off he had very carefully laid down next to her and molded his body to hers, his front to her back. The shaking subsided quickly.

He started doing this every night, which was a huge improvement over the chair next to her bed that he had been sleeping in up until to this point, and after one night of this he felt closer to her than to anyone else without ever actually having a meaningful conversation with her.

And then, five days after her 'accident', she woke up.

She didn't remember much of it. Just the talking with Sam, and the anger, and then the fear as she realized that there was nothing in between her and the raw, unstoppable power that Sam had become in the last few months.

It was almost funny to her, the idea that he would ever turn into a wolf, out of all animals, because to her Sam had always come across as the more quiet, stoic type—completely the opposite of Leah, all fire and brimstone, and that was a large part of the reason that Emily had thought they fit so well together. They weren't even close to the perfect couple that many of those around them thought they were. They fought a lot and over nothing, more than was healthy. They were both incredibly insistent on having dominance over the other, neither being able to be content with some kind of balance. In many ways, they were an alpha pair before either of them realized what else was hidden under their skin, and this was much of the reason they would never have worked out in the end.

Needless to say, Leah never visited.

Emily barely noticed that she had been missing, she thought sadly.

When one of the nurses comes in to change Emily's bandages for the first time after she has woken up, Sam looks away and winces. Emily hurts inside for him more than herself. She has become less shallow.

They still haven't talked about the accident. They talk about everything but phasing, or the forest, or Leah. When the subject of when they first learned to ride a bike (her from her older brother, and Sam from one of his friend's fathers, because his own had come home drunk the night before) comes up and Sam rolls up his sleeve to show her the resulting scar, he leaves quickly and doesn't come back until after she has gone to sleep. He is reminded again of how he is like his father, despite all those years of trying to be the perfect son and man.

The next time Emily's bandages are changed she grabs Sam by the hairs on the back of his head and doesn't let him turn away.

"I'm sorry." She says after the nurse has left, letting go. She doesn't have to specify what for. He knows. They have already gotten to the point where they can understand each other without even trying.

"You don't have to be. You were right."

"No, I wasn't."

Sam doesn't fight back. He climbs onto her bed like he still does at night, and this time it is her that holds him.

"I'm sorry." Sam whispers when he is sure she is asleep.

"You don't have to be."

The next morning Emily's bandages are changed for the last time in the hospital, and when the nurse asks who will be doing it at home for her until it heals completely, Sam volunteers. She holds his hand while the nurse shows him how to do it and already knows that she won't be going home to her brother's house like she would be before the accident.

She laughs when she sees his car, an old beat-up thing, but he can only respond with something about the mileage because he knows that the scar, that the doctors have carefully warned her will be permanent, won't at all take away from how beautiful it is when she smiles.

I love writing this. They come very easily to me once I really make myself sit down and focus.

When the first chapter was written the cover picture feature thing hadn't come out yet. I looked on Google Images and Photobucket last night for pictures I might want to use but I couldn't find anything I really felt fit the story. Do you guys have any ideas? I know it's not required but I feel like it needs something.

Please do go look at my other fan-fic, a Twilight AU which goes off the idea of Bella never having moved back to Forks and an OC taking her place and is much more complicated and interesting than I can describe here. It's been neglected as much as this but hopefully the fourth chapter will be up within a week, sooner if I get off my lazy butt. And the third/only possibly last part of this will be up much much sooner than this one if I get some nice reviews. :)