The smiles quickly fell from the room as all eyes migrated to the fragile girl nestled between the two healing men. No-one knew what to say, but two sets of acute ears sought out a faint heartbeat, hidden softly under that of her already strengthening wolf; Bella was alive. There was nothing they could do but wait and watch, helpless as she fought internally to save her soul.
"Do you think she's gonna go leech on us?" Quil asked, forming the question that no-one had truly been willing to voice, but had nestled uncomfortably in the forefront of their minds.
Jacob couldn't bring himself to answer, couldn't find anything left in his internal arsenal to sooth himself, let alone the people around him. He knew what the law of his people would dictate if she did turn, but the thought of destroying her sickened him, turning his stomach with repulsion and fear.
Luckily, Leah had enough hope for all of them and so with a dismissing tsk, she took them all quickly to task. "Enough with this moping shit already. Bella knew the risk she was taking when she decided to go through with this and I'm sure as all fucking hell you aren't even gonna think once about abandoning her if the worst happens. So, let's get them all off the fucking living room carpet and do something productive for once."
Neither Jacob nor Quil were sure what they could do that fell into the category of productive so they simply rose to their feet and lingered, looking lost as they both waited for their cues from the smallest conscious body in the room.
"Jake, you move Embry back up to his room, its gotta be a damn sight comfier than the floor, and while you're at it, why don't you sit with him for a while? If being around pack makes them heal faster, then I'm betting with you as Alpha it's gonna go a good way to helping that along." Leah commanded and Jake was already moving to the stairs with a heavy body thrown cautiously over his shoulder before she was done speaking.
"Is the room Paul was in big enough for Bells too?" Leah asked as Jacob's feet disappeared at the top of the stairs, turning her attention to Quil.
"Yeah it should be, but Leah, my Mom is gonna be home soon and she's gonna flip when she finds us all camped out here. I mean, what am I supposed to tell her, that a big scary wolf nearly took out two of my friends and now one might turn vamp on us?" Quil rubbed his hands over his forehead as he played out his Mother's irate reaction in his head.
"Hey don't worry that, maybe we can get Billy or my Mom to run interference or something. Just focus on staying positive, okay?" Leah stepped into his body and put her hand on his youthful cheek, the assurances finding their way home as she stared at him with such innate confidence. When she decided that he finally had it together again, she went right back to ordering him around. "Now, how about you help get these two upstairs? That way, at least if your Mom does come back to check things out, we won't have to explain the comatosed strangers on her living room carpet." Leah smiled and Quil couldn't help but mimic the action, finding a sense of peace as he relinquished his control to simply follow orders for a while.
With the room cleared, Leah allowed herself just a brief moment of doubt, heaving in a thick breath through her heavy body. She hadn't even really had time to check out her own injuries, but Jacob had sworn to her there was little more than surface damage to contend with. She was lucky, she knew that, but as her eyes trailed towards the staircase, she certainly didn't feel that way.
"Leah? Do you want me to stay with them too?" Quil called softly from the corridor above and an easy smile adorned her lips just from hearing the familiarity in his timbre.
Taking the stairs as quickly as her body would allow, she found Quil standing awkwardly in an open doorway, obviously unwilling to leave his pack-mate alone without express instructions.
"Why don't you take a shower Quil, and then maybe try to get some sleep." Leah prompted softly, knowing the brave mask he was wearing was already slipping away, also knowing he would likely want to hide his pain from her when it did.
"I'll say yes to the shower, but I don't think I could sleep even if I tried." But he was seriously underestimating Leah's will and when he did emerge smelling of soft floral scents rather than dirt and death, she could see the exhaustion in his eyes.
"Why don't you just come and lay with me for a while?" Leah asked, patting the floor next to her where she'd been holding vigil next to Paul and Bella's slumbering forms. He didn't need anymore prompting than that and as he laid his head in her lap, he could already feel himself giving in to his body's demands, sleep finding him easily as she gently pet his slightly damp black hair.
He awoke with a start, a sharp finger prodding between his ribs. "Whu?" He grumbled, nestling his head down deeper into Leah lap, earning him a sweet chuckle.
"Seriously honey, I think you're gonna want to see this." Leah coaxed and as her lilting voice wrapped around his senses, he felt the last vestiges of sleep tickle from his system.
Lifting his tired body he closed his eyes as he stretched out his muscles, groaning in delight to feel the familiar twinges of pain. When he opened his eyes again he had to blink twice to believe what he was seeing.
He turned back to Leah to find her grinning widely, her eyes glimmering with happiness. "Have you told Jake?" Quil asked, looking back over to the bed in happy amazement.
"Nah, not yet anyway, he only just started moving." Leah replied, her whole attention focused on what was now a view of Paul's back.
Paul had been laid prone for so long, chest down on the mattress, that it was strange to see his muscles twisting under his skin, his body now propped on his side, curling subconsciously around the body of his fading imprint.
"Is he awake?" Quil asked, ignoring the obvious reality that if anyone should be aware of his pack-mates recovery it should be him, with his acute senses and supernatural brotherly bond.
"I don't think so, but I can't imagine it'll be long now. Maybe you should go see how Embry's doing." Leah suggested, selfishly unwilling to miss the moment when Paul finally did wake, even if she was more than certain that he would be likely to combust when he found out what Bella had done to save him.
Quil stepped quietly out of the room and tread softly to Embry's side, nodding a greeting to Jake, who, like Leah, was sitting legs outstretched on the carpet, as he entered.
"Paul's moving about, but he isn't awake yet." Quil mumbled lightly, noting that Embry just looked like he was sleeping peacefully, no sign of the horror he'd endured on his now unmarked body.
"I think Emb will be up and about soon too, he's definitely healed overnight... any news on Bells?" Jake asked reluctantly. He didn't want to hear that she was fading any further, that he might be faced with yet another unthinkable decision when things felt like they were finally threading back together again.
Quil just shook his head, offering neither peace nor problems with words he didn't have to give. Jacob knew from what his father had said in hushed words that the change took roughly three days, but his insight into the metamorphosis ended there. He had no idea what markers they should be looking for to indicate the worst was going to happen and it left him feeling remarkably helpless.
"You mind sitting with him for a while? I wanna take a look and see how she's doing." Jake asked, pulling himself to his feet with ease as Quil readily took over his watch.
Jacob found Leah exactly where Quil had left her and though he longed to go to her side, to lift her into his arms and just pretend that everything was going to be okay, he moved to the other side of the room, his enhanced eyesight countering the otherwise problematic dark lighting.
His eyes wandered all over Bella's body, systematically taking in every inch of her, from her toes up to her tangled hair. He wasn't sure why, but he felt a little relieved to see that all of her injuries were still intact, that nothing unnatural was going on to heal her with any increased speed.
"Do you think she's gonna end up like one of them?" Leah asked quietly, entwining her fingers with his as she moved to stand by his side.
"I don't know, but somehow I don't think so. I guess I'm really just hoping that Paul had already put up a pretty decent fight against whatever the hell was in his blood that the leech put there. She's not healing any faster than she should be, and she doesn't smell of anything but wolf." Jacob concluded, feeling more sure of himself as he actually said the words aloud that he'd been thinking.
"She smells like wolf?" Leah asked, purposefully avoiding the question that she truly wanted answering.
"Yeah, well actually she smells like Paul, just like you smell like me." Jacob replied, pulling her body into his as he pressed his nose into her throat and made an exaggerated show of snuffling against her skin as she giggled.
"Fucking wonderful, just what I wanted to wake up to!" Paul groaned, his voice gruff from days of silence.
And just like that, chaos erupted.
Embry's feet weren't so silent this time as he trampled his way into the room, his eyes wide with delight as he stood gaping in the doorway. "Paul!" Leah exclaimed, as she tried to get to his side, not understanding why Jacob was holding her back, when all she wanted to do was run forward and throw her arms around him, to prove to herself that what she'd prayed for had now come to be.
"What the hell?" Paul asked as he tried to figure out why he was lying in bed with Bella, with an exuberant audience to boot. Pulling his body up into a sitting position he grimaced slightly, unsure whether the pain in his back was from the position he'd been sleeping in or something he was yet to understand.
"You might want to take it easy there." Jake said, his first words a calm warning and nothing more.
"What the hell happened? The last thing I remember was Sam and then…" His voice trailed off as he tried to picture the scene in the Swan's broken backyard. Vividly he recalled Embry hanging from the trees, but there was little else. It was obvious from the way they were all staring at him in wonder that he hadn't just woken up from a nap, and as he took a moment to assess the situation he finally took a good look at his sleeping imprint.
Sleeping was the wrong word he quickly decided. Her breath was labored, her heart beat weak, and from the looks of it she'd been dragged through a thicket of broken glass, with one side of her face darkened by an ever developing bruise.
"Someone better tell me what the fuck is going on and they better start talking soon." Paul snarled with ferocity, his anger making it impossible for him to touch her, to taste her skin as he desperately needed to do.
"No, first you need to calm down or else I'm gonna have to separate you from Bells." Jacob said evenly, all lost hope abandoned as he slunk effortlessly back into his destined role.
Paul didn't like what he heard, but he agreed as he closed his eyes and pushed past the pain in his body to take several long deep breaths. When he felt like he could reach out and touch Bella without falling apart, he opened his eyes, ignoring the awaiting stares in the room.
He urgently wanted to know what had happened, what had left her broken on the bed, but more than that he needed to reassure himself, and his wolf, with the warmth of her skin and the rhythm of her heart.
Three pairs of eyes watched on patiently as Paul reached out to Bella with almost hesitant fingers, his touch quickly turning to impatience when she didn't respond as he needed her to.
"How long has she been out?" He asked lowly, not taking his eyes from the slightly parted pink of her lips.
"Since yesterday. Sam did a number on her, but she was doing okay." Jacob replied, knowing he was deliberately stalling by not telling Paul what he didn't know he was asking to hear.
Paul didn't say a word, his fingers now following the scrapes on her skin, as though touching the places where she was beginning to heal might be a sign of life.
The emotional climate in the room was fevered as they all watched and waited, knowing it couldn't be long now before all the cards were laid out for all to see.
"For a while it didn't look like you were going to make it, both you and Embry both." Jacob started, knowing it was better to do this on his terms than Pauls. "Edward bit you both and the venom seriously fucked you up, it stopped you from healing as you should; they slashed your back up pretty good." Jacob didn't say what they were all thinking, what they all knew had been some fucked up symbolic effort to recreate the wounds Paul had inflicted on Emily.
"Bella would have done anything to save you and in a way she did." That quickly got Paul's attention, his eyes landing like a sting on Jacob's face, all vestiges of softness gone as he rapidly assessed the looks of pity and persuasion heading his way.
"Just spit it out." Paul barked, knowing from their eyes that he was going to be furious when the words were finally out.
"The Elders told us of something the imprints used to do a while back." Leah said, taking over for Jacob as she gently squeezed his hand, letting him know it was her turn, her right to tell this part of the story. "It would finalize the imprint and bind us to our wolf, just as you had been bound to the imprint from the beginning. They said it might help strengthen the pack and somehow that might help you heal."
Paul gave Leah a look of loathing impatience as she paused, his fingers never once stopping their caress of Bella's hand.
"The ritual involved marking our skin with the blood of our wolf, a sort of weird old-school mixture of a tattoo and being blood brothers." Leah finished, waiting for Paul to piece together what she was saying. She lifted the sleeve of her t-shirt slightly so he could see the still reddened marks on her skin, the raw anger of the wounds only made worse by the mix of blood and ink that had been smeared into them.
Immediately Paul lifted Bella's body slightly, turning the arm that had been blind to him upwards towards what little light there was in the room. His eyes traced the only wound on her flesh that he didn't wish he could take away, the only one she had asked for herself, even if he did want to shake her for even considering being so stupid.
"And you let them do this? You let Bells do this, when you knew what I had running through my blood? Please tell me you didn't just fucking wing this, at least tell me you got the blood tested or some shit to make sure it was safe." Paul's voice was slowly rising, the cut of his words sharpening as his body rose higher and higher from the mattress.
Jacob at least had the decency to look ashamed, but it wasn't enough, it would never be enough if Bella didn't make it through this alive, and he meant in the warm skinned, heart beating kind of way.
Paul rubbed his free hand over his jaw, the short stubbled hair scratching against his palm as he tried to keep his cool, if only for Bella's sake. "You know if she doesn't make it, I'll hunt you down." Paul stated coldly, his eyes meeting Jacob's in a challenge that felt all too familiar. But unlike any reaction Leah expected her imprint to have, Jacob just nodded, understanding and remorse pushing their way to the forefront of his deep brown eyes.
"Can you keep down the threats about hunting him down, I'm trying to sleep here." A sweet voice requested, and though he wasn't sure whether he had imagined it or not, Paul's eyes darted away from Jacob's face down to a softly smiling Bella.
"You're awake?" He asked stupidly, not sure what to do with himself after he'd just been fighting with the possibility that she might not make it out of this alive.
"Hmmm, I am, but I really don't want to be." She replied, not aware of anyone but him in the room, her hand shakily reaching out to touch him, to assure herself that this wasn't just a dream. "You're awake too." She added, remembering that hadn't been the case when she'd laid down beside him, when she'd resigned herself to knowing there was nothing left to do but hope.
"Well, I for one am glad everyone's awake, but could someone tell me what the fuck happened?" Came a jovial voice from the doorway, and all eyes but Paul's turned to see Embry standing a little shakily in the doorway, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead from the effort it had taken him to hobble less than thirty feet.
Quil and Jacob were at the door in seconds, bracing themselves on either side of Embry as they took quite blatant comfort in the alert presence of their fallen pack mate, the pleasure and joy in their eyes palpable as the emotional climate of the room warmed with pure happiness.
"Now that everyone's awake, do you think we can get the fuck out of my house before my Mom gets home?" Quil asked desperately and though two people remained locked in their own little world; the rest of the room broke out into almost delirious laughter, unknown and unseen shackles of tension evaporating into the ether.
a/n: Thank you to my wonderful beta Twiticulate... and thanks to all you lovely readers... we're so close to the end now and I think maybe one or two chaps more might see this story complete. I would love to say I have something lined up ready for when WDF is finished, as I usually do, but right now I have nothing concrete in the works :(
Anyway, I'll see you all again soon. xxx