Older Brother

Today's song is Older Brother by Pepper Rabbit.

"Shit!" Jacob gasped as he turned his head just in time to witness Bella's spectacular attempt at a reverse Swan dive.

"Wh-," Emmett turned around to see where all the commotion was coming from, "Bells!" he shouted as he unceremoniously dropped the box he was carrying onto the steps. He hastily pushed past a frozen Esme as he followed after his sister.

Esme stared stunned. To her credit she had made an attempt to grab for Bella when she saw her going down but with her arms full she wasn't quite fast enough. They watched in horror as Bella's body bounced sickeningly down the worn stone steps before coming to a halt with a sickening crunch against one of the stone walls.

"Shit, shit, shit," Emmett muttered agitatedly as he came to a halt before his sister's sickeningly contorted crumpled form. He bent down to check her injuries but was no sound or movement save for the quick steps of Jacob and Esme's feet as they too came to offer assistance.

"Is she…" Esme trailed off as she observed a growing pool of blood seeping from the girl's broken body.

"I don't- I don't know," Emmett sobbed, "she's not moving. Oh my god why isn't she moving? Can you help her?" He asked a stricken looking Esme.

Esme shook her head sadly, "I'm sorry but I'm a PhD not an M.D. I'm not even CPR certified."

"Let me see man," Jacob said gently pushing the tortured man aside, "I'm a certified First Responder."

Jacob knelt and paused for a moment before deciding to move her. He knew any wrong move could cause irreversible damage or even death but there was no way to treat Bella's injuries if they didn't. It wasn't like they could just whip out their cell phones and call the paramedics.

"Well the good news is she's not dead but we're going to need to move her so I can check her for injuries. Esme you come here and support her head and neck while Emmett and I slowly straighten her out. Then we can figure out what to do next." Esme and Emmett moved into position and at Jacob's command, he and Emmett began to unfold Bella's twisted form.

"Oh my god there's so much blood," Esme groaned.

Emmett looked up and noticed how pale Esme had suddenly become. "Blood makes you sick?" He asked in disbelief as he remembered the grisly collection of brains not scattered haphazardly across the staircase beside the severed head.

Esme didn't respond, instead she just squeezed her eyes shut tightly and focused on breathing through her mouth.

Emmett shook his head in disbelief as he turned his attention back to a now shirtless Jacob. "Well?" he asked anxiously.

"Her neck isn't broken so that's good. She definitely busted her head open pretty good and is going to need a few stitches but I've managed slow the bleeding with my t-shirt. She has a concussion and I'm fairly certain she has several broken ribs and a possible broken collarbone but so far those are the only breaks I've been able to find. Right now my biggest fears are that she may have some sort of spinal injury or internal bleeding. We're going to need a backboard to get her off of here so I can treat her properly."

"Do you have one of those, backboard things?" Emmett asked.

Jacob nodded as he lifted Bella's shirt and began to look for any visible sign of internal bleeding. "We keep it in the small supply shed near the church along with the First Aide supplies. One of us has to go the rest of the way up the mesa and get help."

"I'm not going anywhere," Emmett declared stubbornly.

"Well I can't go," Jacob replied, "I'm the only one with any First Aide knowledge."

"I'm not leaving," Emmett repeated forcefully.

"Emmett," Jacob growled exasperatedly, "it's getting dark and Bella needs more medical attention that I am equipped to provide right now.

"I'll go," Esme interjected meekly.

"What? But you don't know the way," Emmett argued.

"I'm pretty sure I can find my way up the stairs and into the only village on this rock," Esme answered.

"Alright it's settled then," Jacob said with a decisive nod. "Esme you get help from the first person you see and Emmett you're going to need to carefully take Esme's place supporting Bella's neck. Be sure not to jostle her any more than necessary."

"Alright," Emmett replied as he and Esme gently exchanged places. "Please hurry," he pleaded, "I can't lose her too."

"I will. I promise," Esme replied solemnly as she turned and began taking the steps two at a time.

"Em?" Bella rasped.

At the sound of his sister's voice Emmett sagged with relief. "Bells," he sighed, "thank god. I thought I had lost you for a moment there."

"It hurts so bad Em," Bella whimpered as she struggled to move.

Jacob tried to gently restrain her struggling form while Emmett tried to keep her calm. "You have to stay still Bella," Emmett explained looking her square in the eye, "you took a bad tumble and we know you're hurt but we don't know how badly yet and we don't want to accidently make it worse. Esme went to get help so we can get you off of this fucking staircase."

"I can't," Bella gasped her expressive brown eyes wide with panic, "I can't breathe. I can't breathe Em!"

"You have to calm down Bella," Jacob instructed. "You have a few broken ribs and possibly a broken collarbone. Let's just try not to add a punctured lung to your list of injuries. Just try to relax and take slow, controlled breaths and we'll have you out of here in no time."

Bella bit her lip but remained quite as she struggled to remain still despite the pain emanating throughout her entire body. Instead she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, willing herself to think through the pain and ignore it as best she could, something she had mastered over the years due to the sheer number of injuries she sustained annually.

"Fuck what's taking her so long?" Emmett demanded after a few minutes of listening to Bella's ragged breathing.

Jacob sent him a threatening glare over Bella's head. "I'm sure they'll be here soon, we just have to wait for them to get here."

"Fucking bullshit," Emmett muttered under his breath.

Jacob would never admit it in Bella's presence but he too was getting worried about how long it was taking Esme to find help. Surely they were near enough to the top of the staircase that it shouldn't have taken her too long to reach the top and the village was right near the entrance so there was no way she could have gotten lost…

"I hear something," Emmett said anxiously as the distinct sound of footsteps reverberating off the stone walls could be heard coming toward them from above.

"Finally," Jacob breathed a sigh of relief as he turned his head to watch for reinforcements. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long before Charlie's worried face came into view followed by Sam and Kim carrying the backboard and medical supplies.

"Oh god, Bells," Charlie breathed as he crouched next to his daughter's immobile form.

Seeing his children hurt had never gotten any easier for Charlie over the years, no many how commonplace Bella's various injuries had become. Every time he saw one of his children in any amount of pain, Charlie felt a sense of helplessness he usually had to struggle to mask but now, faced with Bella's prone form heaped atop the stress and fear of the past few days, his mask was beginning to crumble.

Bella's eyes fluttered open at the sound of her father's voice. "Hey Dad," Bella greeted her father with a slight grimace that was meant to be a smile.

"What happened?" Charlie demanded gruffly looking from one man to the other.

"Sir, it was my-," Jacob began to say before he was interrupted by Emmett.

"It was my fault Dad," Emmett confessed while looking Charlie square in the eye. "If I had been keeping an eye on her like I was supposed to this never would have happened. I should never have let her down here in the first place."

Bella shifted painfully. "Bullshit," she wheezed.

"Sshh, Bells," Charlie soothed, "Emmett's right. You never should have been allowed off the mesa."

"No," she argued incensed by the blatant set of double standards she was being subjected to, "that's bullshit. Emmett is not my keeper and if I want to do something I'm going to do it."

"Bella," Charlie warned, his moustache twitching in response.

"Dad," she mocked. "I'm an adult and if I want to do something I'm going to do it and no one, not you or Emmett, is going to tell me no. I would have thought I had proved myself to you by now but I guess I was wrong."

"Bells," Charlie sighed as he stepped out of the way so Kim could use butterfly bandages to close the gash in Bella's forehead until they were able to give her stitches. "It's not that I don't trust you but I worry about you getting hurt and before you argue with me let me remind you that you really don't have a leg to stand on given the state you're currently in."

Bella rolled her eyes, "Because I tripped on the stairs while I wasn't paying attention. I've seen you misstep thousands of times so don't act like this is a unique occurrence. Besides, this could have happened anywhere. There are stairs in the village. Who's to say keeping me up there is going to stop this from happening again? I could fall down and hurt myself anytime. Besides, you need me. No one, not even Jake, knows as much about this as I do."

"It's true Sir," Jacob interjected before falling silent after receiving a disapproving look from Charlie that promised pain if he didn't.

Their argument came to a temporary halt when Bella let out a small cry as she was placed securely upon the backboard. Her whole body felt like it had been put through a rock tumbler and in a way she supposed it had. Breathing was taking more effort than it should as anything less than a small breath caused the stabbing pain in her chest to flare painfully and the dull throbbing in her head was making her woozy.

As Sam and Jacob lifted the backboard, Bella struggled to remain conscious but the blood loss had sapped all of her energy so she decided to rest her eyes, just for a minute. As they fluttered shut she heard Kim's muffled scolding her, urging her to stay with her but it was a fight she was not going to win. Already the voices of those around her had begun to sound like the teacher on Charlie Brown and the world around her had softened into a fuzzy mess.

Finally, just before losing the battle, Bella's mind drifted to those who had fallen. If Esme was right then the only person she had cared about, other than her family and Jake, who was possibly still alive, was the one person who had almost destroyed her.

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I hope you enjoyed. Today I'm taking a trip to Acoma to make sure I get all of my facts right. I haven't been there in years so this should be interesting. I'm not sure how to ask some of the questions I need answered without coming off as crazy though so wish me luck. Anyway please let me know what you think! Some of your reviews are hilarious and I have to be honest, NO ONE has figured out the Jack Rosalie thing yet and some of your theories are just plain funny. Send me your guesses! Also you can fallow me on twitter MissBellarella.

XOXO,

Bellarella