"We'll Do It All, Everything On Our Own, We Don't Need Anything Or Anyone. If I Lay Here, If I Just Lay Here, Would You Lie With Me And Just Forget The World? Let's Waste Time Chasing Cars Around Our Heads."- Snow Patrol; Chasing Cars
"Shit like this happens in movies man, not to Silver." Quil let out a sigh, both him and Embry sharing a look before staring sadly at Jacob, who had his head in his hands.
"You should have seen her face guys; she looked lost, like she didn't even know who she was let alone me."
His words came out muffled as he spoke, due to the fact that his hands covered his mouth, and he spoke brokenly, tiredly. Going months without proper sleep and patrolling had gotten to him considerably, but he was in no way leaving Silver's bedside unless it was for patrol. His creased white T-shirt had proved that itself, and the fact that his hair was growing out; getting a haircut was the least of his problems right now.
Jacob of course hadn't been the only one to be suffering, Silver was loved by the entire pack, seeing as she was apart of it, she'd bonded with everyone, and she had originally been close to Embry, Quil and Jake before hand anyway. All of the pack had been there at the hospital, at different times, they had been told to not over crowd her room just in case she woke.
Currently the three boys sat in the hospital's cafeteria, waiting on Silver to be done with an X-Ray for her head before they could see her, giving all three boys enough time to work out how they would spend their time trying to re-introduce themselves to Silver. Something they never thought they would have to do.
"So when she woke up, did she ask any questions to you?"
"Yeah, she asked what my favourite fucking colour was." Jacob's tone seethed with venom as he directed his sarcasm to Embry, who in turn flinched slightly at Jacob's reaction.
"What the fuck did you think she did Embry? She didn't even know my fucking name; Dr. Fang kicked me out of there as soon as she recalled her last memory! I haven't even had a chance to speak to her alone, get things straight, and fix things!"
"What's there to fix Jake? She doesn't remember anything that happened in the last four years, your apology for what you've put her through in the last six months wouldn't make any sense."
Quil's voice was calm and firm, fully prepared to take the brunt of Jacob's anger, but it was something he had needed to hear. They all knew Jacob had screwed up, it was the most obvious yet tension filled subject between the pact, no one wanting to put the blame for Silver's situation on Jacob's shoulders. Though they didn't need to, as Jacob had constantly beaten himself up about it, insisting that if it wasn't for him that Silver would never have gotten on that bus to get some time away from him in the first place.
"Jake, there's no way any of us could have known what would happen to Silver when she got on that bus, its just life being messed up, like it always is."
Jacob shook his head at Embry's statement, constantly repeating in his mind to control his temper, not somewhere public with many people, and certainly not in a hospital. Yet the hatred towards himself and the constant guilt he felt seemed to overwhelm him, especially with his wolf senses amplifying his feelings.
"No. I screwed up, and we all know it. I did things a wolf should never do to their imprint, and now I'll never get to set things right."
With a roll of Quil's eye he socked him around the head, pretty hard at that, earning a shocked face from Embry and one of bewilderment and anger from Jacob, scoffing at Jacob he spoke.
"You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself! So you fucked up, it's done now and you can't change that. Whether she knows it or not Silver needs you now, this is your chance to set things right, to start all over again with Silver from the beginning, she may never remember what happened and you need to consider that a blessing in disguise."
Jacob tried to protest, to think of ways to say how sick that was to manipulate Silver's memories, to hope that she didn't remember for his own benefit. Yet it still made sense to him, it almost felt appealing, to know that he could have a second chance with her, or some sort of hope that maybe they could still be happy despite everything that had happened.
"Hey, it's Jake right?"
He could recognise that voice from anywhere, making his heart skip a beat he whirled his head around to look at the figure of Silver, who sat in a wheel chair with a nurse behind her, dressed in a fresh set of polkadot pyjama's her mother had brought for her, and her unsure but friendly smile never faltered. Shooting up from his seat at the table he walked over to her, thanking the nurse for bringing her down her and taking hold of the handles, guiding her towards their table, he sat back down beside her, taking her hand and smiling to himself as she made no indication to let go.
She smiled at all three boys, shifting uncomfortably while her eyes darted between them all, looking to Jacob for help before he cleared his throat.
"Sorry uhm, these are your friends Quil and Embry."
She nodded and greeted them with smiles as they waved to her, not looking all too comfortable themselves.
"You know it's funny, I get this tingling sensation in my head that makes me think I'm familiar with you boys, but I just can't see anything, were we close?"
"Actually we were all best friends."
When seeing a small hint of horror take over her face at Embry's statement, Jacob squeezed her hand softly, letting her know that they held no resentment towards her not knowing who they were, and she looked down to their intertwined hands then, and the crease in her forehead made it look like that she were having some sort of inner conflict with herself. Running a lightly tanned hand through the longer part of her hair she removed the other from Jacob's grasp, refusing to make eye contact with him as they sat in silence, his heart sinking as she did so.
"So uhm, Jake? What's your full name?" She didn't look at him as she spoke, as if she were embarrassed to ask, like it was a silly question, and the rosy tint to her cheeks proved that.
"It's Jacob actually, Jacob Black."
"I guess I'm supposed to know that already."
She muttered it underneath her breath, seemingly annoyed with herself, not even knowing her supposedly best friends full name. The boys had all heard of course, but refrained from saying anything as they had to remind themselves she no longer knew they had heightened senses and hearing. Quil sat up straight in his seat, smiling brightly for Silver's sake and cleared his throat, he hated things being awkward with the four of them, there were rarely any times when their conversations came to a halt and all was silent, and he wasn't going to let something like Silver's memory loss stop it.
"So Silver, how's your head and things?"
She looked to him and smiled, thankful for the attempt at conversation, "its okay thank you, I'm getting the stitches taken out next month, and I'll be starting physiotherapy tomorrow for my back."
He nodded, and then proceeded to ask about her hair, telling her of the many times she would talk about how much she loved it and would never think of cutting it. She listened intently, smiling at the right times for when Embry or Quil would make an inside joke that she would have understood at one time, Jacob was the only one to notice that her smile didn't fully reach her eyes, that as hard as she tried he could still tell she fought back the urge to cry.
Ever so slowly so the boys wouldn't notice, Jacob went to grab her hand again under the table, but at a soft and slow pace as to not startle her, and watched her as she looked down at his hand for a long time, tuning out the other boys chatter as he guessed she was thinking whether it was a good idea or not to hold his hand. Without any indication to what her decision was, she looked up to Jacob, and stared into his eyes for what felt like the longest time, before looking back to the boys and slyly intertwining her fingers with Jacob's tightly.
6 Months Earlier...
"Okay okay, just one more time please?" I tried to hold back my soft laughter as I spoke, my head leaning on Jacob's shoulder as we both lay on my rooftop.
It was a relatively warm night, so I had the idea of getting Jake to come up with me to watch the stars, something I usually did on my own, but I felt like bringing Jake with me too to enjoy it.
"No. You'll just keep on laughing." I could hear the smile in his voice, as he pretending to act annoyed with me, craning my head to look up at his face I grinned toothily at him.
"It's only because you sound so … mesmerised when you say it, just once more, please!"
He sighed reluctantly, before looking up to the stars and smiling softly, I watched him as I snuggled deeper into his side, smelling the scent of pine tree's and the words in his navy shirt.
"Imprinting on someone is like when you see her, everything changes … all of a sudden it's not gravity holding you to the planet, it's her … nothing else matters. You would do anything, be anything for her …"
I smiled fondly at him as the butterflies in my stomach soared, making my fingertips tingle and my heart beat speed up, and he looked back to me, sharing a knowing look before he kissed my hair.
"It's so great up here."
"Yeah, told you it was awesome, I come here whenever I need to think." He hummed in agreement, letting out a happy sigh before speaking again.
"When I next see Bella I'll totally bring her up here to see this .." Right there is when I tuned out his voice and let my stomach drop, pain coursing through my chest and head as I tried to block out the B word. Jake could actually go for hours just talking about Bella, and I actually let him, mostly because I saw how happy he looked when he did, and the other reason was because I couldn't bring myself to let him know how much it tore me up inside.
All he'd talk about was how painful it was to watch someone he loved, love someone else, and how nobody else would understand how that felt. The idiot really needed to open up his eyes if that's how he seriously thought, and I wasn't just talking about myself, about people like Leah too, who I couldn't bring myself to hate because when I looked into her eyes I truly saw just how painful it was to watch Sam and Emily together.
At the same time I couldn't bring myself to hate the concept of imprinting though, it still felt magical, although I did often think to myself if Jacob had gotten it wrong, if he had in fact imprinted on Bella, because he certainly didn't look at me the way he did with her. Maybe he hadn't imprinted on anyone, maybe because of the fact he constantly knew what it felt like because of Sam and Jared's thoughts that he tricked himself into thinking he did. That theory went out of the window when I realised that it was far from the truth, because I felt the connection I had with Jake, I felt the gravitation pull towards him, the need to be close to him, the pain of when he wasn't with me and the happiness of when he was.
But when he talked about Bella, or when he even looked at her it felt like a ton of bricks was being dropped on my heart, I just didn't understand, if he did imprint then he was supposed to look at me that way, instead he denied it, running after someone who was already taken.
"Silver …?" I turned back to Jake, looking at his sceptical face.
"Sorry, what did you say?"
"Never mind." He mumbled, and we lapsed into a comfortable silence, only speaking when one of us pointed out a shooting star, or when we thought a couple of stars made a picture, when I began to fall asleep in Jake's side, he had decided that was the moment we should retire for the night. He let me climb through my window first, as the porch's roof was located right under it, before he climbed in himself making sure to lock the window behind him.
I collapsed onto my bed, diving under the covers as Jake did so slowly, making next to no sound as he got in, and lifted his arm up for me to crawl to his side, and while I drifted off I still managed to ask Jake one more question.
"Jake?"
"Mhmm?" He mumbled sleepily, releasing a yawn for effect.
"If Sam and Emily have the imprint of lovers, and Quil and Claire have the imprint of protector … what does that make us?"
He was silent for a long time, to the point where I eventually gave up thinking he was going to reply, and almost closed my eyes until he answered, my eyes snapping open to listen intently.
"I guess we would have the imprint of best friends, and protector."
I don't think I had wanted to cry like that since my mother had left a long time ago, and swallowing the lump in my throat I attempted to smile through the darkness, just in case he was looking at me to see my reaction.
"Well that's a bit pointless, since we already were best friends." Jacob laughed lightly at that, his arm around me squeezing softly.
"Well then I guess it just makes sure that we'll be best friends forever."
"Again, I thought that was already set in stone." Damn, I really needed to get my acting skills up, or Jake would notice for sure sooner or later that I wasn't happy with this.
"Fine, for forever and more then."
I had to smile at that one, his attempt to make things look better for me where sweet; lifting my head up slightly to kiss his chin I buried my head in the crook of his neck, repeating the words he had just said before I fell asleep. Yeah, for forever and more.
I just love how good the feedback for this story is, that I had to update again! Three chapters within three days! I'm so proud! :D
Now just in case updates get slower, I'm giving you a heads up ... because it is rather difficult to write this!
Replies:
Jordi: Thank you for reviewing once again, you're awesome!
Ariel Oceans: thank you for loving it! I hope I keep you happy with the chapters to come!
Giannaa: Thank you so much, it honestly makes me happy knowing you think that! Btw I've started reading your fic on my phone, because my internets been acting up on my laptop ... actually I'm surprised it just about managed to let me update on here! But I'll leave you a review as soon as I can! :)