Every exhale felt like a scream escaping from his lungs. He wanted nothing more than to scream, to cry. But instead his two front paws would dig into the ground with each exhale, pushing him further. It felt like he was shoving, pushing, punching the Earth for the shit that had been dealt these last few days.

Her whole left side was basically fucked. That was what the doctor had said. And he had left before he could get any idea on brain damage.

Fuck.

What if she woke up, and had forgotten everything about him? About the pack? What if she woke up, and she still believed she was in a relationship with that fucking asshole? What if she woke up and couldn't even understand what they said?

What if she never woke up?

It had happened with his dad. His mother had found him half falling out of his car in the garage. The shit had drank so much, he had put himself in a coma. He had died three days later, but not after waking up and not even recognizing his own name. He didn't know if he could take that… If he could take her dying.

He had fucked up so much, why couldn't something just go right? Why couldn't things go well?

It was all his fault. If he hadn't had called her a whore, she wouldn't have been so eager to get out of La Push. His last words to her before… fuck, she died twice. And his last words were…

He felt Sam's presence in his head. They never bothered him for long, didn't even try to convince him to come home – truth was he wasn't that far from it. He was just outside Mahah and had only really gone up and down that small strip of coastline.

He wanted to be able to get back double time if something happened. If… He nearly snorted, if he hadn't been breathing so hard from running. Something already did happen. Something he probably could have stopped if he had… Jesus, he was literally killing her.

Three mornings after he left, Sam found him, naked, sitting on the beach in the shadow of Swan Beach House. He did nothing more than stare out at the water, and he would glance every so often to the pile of rocks at his feet. Rocks that he had been skipping a week ago, retrieved and drying in the summer sun. It wasn't raining today.

It was a first of the summer. And if he would have looked up, he would have seen the sunlight. "Paul?" Sam asked quietly. He didn't move to sit down, and he didn't move to get too close either.

Paul swallowed a lump in his throat. It was everything that kept him from bawling like a baby. He wanted to. But what would that solve? What would crying do other than wound his ego?

"I don't know how to skip a rock," he admitted. Sam didn't seem surprised by the revelation. "Isn't that the shit your parents teach you or something? I never learned. I just sort of… throw rocks at the water. And they crash. And that's sort of how everything is, isn't it? That I touch. It just sort of crashes and I never see it again. All those girls I slept with. Now, Bella." Paul's fingers found another rock in the sand and he crashed it on top of the pile, making them both flinch with the harsh clink of rock hitting rock.

"They've been planning that trip to Port Angeles for a week, Paul. That's why you got babysitting duty, and why I arranged patrols so that I'd be home," Sam insisted. Paul still felt like shit. "You didn't drive her to drink or anything. Apparently, she's quite the partier in Florida. That's what her friends told me."

Her friends. He hadn't seen them since he was at the crash site, but he knew they were on a flight home. From what he had caught in the pack mind, Renee and Phil were in the Beach House, trying to figure out their schedules so one of them could be here at all times. He could hear them now, talking about it. Sue had closed the diner for a week. Charlie had taken off work.

It was like she had died – died for good this time.

Sam sat down beside him, seeming to discover that Paul wasn't volatile. In all honestly, Paul felt the calmest he had in years. He could breathe, even though his heart felt constricted. He could move. He didn't even care what anyone thought of him now. He didn't care if they thought he had gone soft. He didn't care if they thought he had turned insane.

He just cared about whether or not she'd be okay.

"Are you going to put some clothes on?"

"I'm just going to phase again after a few minutes." He worked himself up, got himself thinking, and he was a wolf.

"How do you know?"

"Because I always do." Paul swallowed back an unworthy lump in his throat, and he felt tears prickle his eyes. He glanced down at the rocks, a hand tugging at his hair, getting sand in it. "I almost got her killed, Sam…" He took a deep breath. "I wanted her to teach me… how to skip rocks, I mean… She knows how, right?"

"I guess Jake taught her when they were kids," Sam answered.

Paul frowned. "I wanted it to be a sort of… thing to make us bond or some shit." Sam glanced away from him and to the water, that Paul had spent five hours scouring for the pile in front of him. "But I would have fucked that up too, probably."

"Hating yourself won't make her better." Paul fucking knew that. "Nor will it make everything fix itself."

"Her heart stopped. Twice." Paul dug his hands into the sand and pulled out another rock, adding it to the pile, harshly. "She died, twice, because of me. That leech just made her get lost in the woods. I'm worse than the leech."

"Maybe. But you want to do better."

"But I'm not good enough for her. She'll go back to Florida, she'll get some boyfriend, and then she'll get married – even though she says now she doesn't, she will - and she'll stay in Florida and forget about me. That's how it is going to be."

"Because you're not willing to be better?"

"Because no matter how much I can get better, I won't be good enough." Because no matter how hard he tried, he didn't try hard enough.

"Do you not remember driving to the actual crash site?" Sam asked him quietly. "You didn't even think on how you could help, Paul. You knew what you could do. You put her first. You drove Charlie to the hospital, because you didn't think he should be driving. You sat there until they told us she went under. You stayed in control for all of it. The Paul I know would never have been able to do it. But for people you care about, you prove me wrong. For Emily, you were always closest to her before I imprinted, you took charge. And for Bella… That's how I know you really care. And if you think you're the reason she's dying, shouldn't she see when she wakes up that you're not the asshole you were? That you can stay this way? Don't you want a chance?" Paul couldn't do it though. He didn't think he could. He was weak, and he would never be strong enough for that.

"I had a chance. I had fifty chances, and I ruined every single one before they even started."

"Do you remember when she was first here, and she was sick?"

"And she wouldn't stop mouth breathing," Paul muttered. He remembered.

"She really appreciated it. I know you messed that up, but she told Emily and Leah and Kim and Angela about how you actually left her alone and you were romantic and you got medicine for her. Or told me to get medicine, at least. She thinks you were the one to actually go out and buy it. She really, really appreciated it."

"I don't do that shit. The only reason I did that shit was because she was sick."

"Would you do it again, if she was sick?" Paul knew he would. "Or if she wasn't and she asked you to hang out?"

"Yes, but she would have to want that to happen. And that's not going to happen. Not anymore. There's no more chances left. I blew every single one of them."

"You're not even going to try?"

"Why? It won't change anything."

"It could."

"It's no use, Sam. Stop it."

"She's dying." Paul took a deep breath and clutched a rock tightly in his hands. "Every single hour she's laying there, her chance of never waking up gets greater and greater. If she dies, what will you do?"

"I couldn't protect a member of the pack. She's apart of the pack, whether she knows it or not. And... I got her killed." Paul felt like his throat was closing up, and fuck him, his eyes were getting wetter. "I don't know what I'd do. She's... Fuck, she's everything, and I destroyed her."

"Would you die for her?"

He closed his eyes as a few tears escaped and he brushed them away with his sandy arm angrily. "Fuck yes."

Sam just nodded. "Then show her that you care. Take anger management, find something that relaxes you. Get your anger out somehow. Or get it under control."

Paul felt the emotion burst from his throat and he hated the sound that came out. Something that sounded like Bella when she cried. "I'm such an asshole."

"Yeah, you are, but you can change that, if you really want a chance with her."

"Of course I want a chance with her," Paul insisted. "She doesn't want a chance with me. Not after this."

"Then don't do anything. Wallow and wait for her to die."

"If an imprint dies, do we die?" He had been scared to voice it, but he needed to speak it, because he needed to know if he'd live with that his whole life. That pain. Maybe it would be better if it would.

"I don't think so. But I know that it will hurt a lot. Like what you felt at the hospital, but all the time."

Paul hated it. Because that pain was like ripping his soul in half. It was ripping them apart, and reminding him they'd never be together.

"She would have been better off with the leech. She'd be a leech by now."

"Would you want her to be a leech?"

"No. But she'd be happier, and she'd be living, if you can call it that."

"Bella wouldn't be able to live with herself for centuries, if she accidentally killed someone. You know that. She was never meant to be a vampire. She was always meant to be an imprint. She's nurturing, and she loves to feed the pack, for some odd reason. Cullen fucked her up. She has to feel needed, because if she doesn't... she thinks no one wants her around."

"And I basically pushed her around and away from everyone and treated her like I didn't want her around."

"Yeah."

"God, I'm such a dick."

"Could you imagine yourself being the man she deserves? Making her happy and smile?"

Paul cleared his throat at the emotion coursing through him. "No."

"You're supposed to at least try in your head," Sam snorted.

God, could he? He thought of the woman that would always smile and joke around with members of the pack. And then he thought of what she needed, when she was sick. How she just wanted him to lay there, and let her lay on him. And how he had requested medicine. If he was being honest, her breathing hadn't really bothered him all that much. She was sick. Everyone got sick. And everyone had trouble breathing at times. And what had really bothered him was that the only way he could help was by getting her medicine - how he couldn't physically help her. If he could act like he did then - if he could do that all the time. He could see something with her. He could see them having their moments, at least. He had no idea about the relationship aspect, but maybe friends.

"She told me that she hoped that my imprint would like me back," Paul remembered quietly. "She knew I imprinted on someone, and when she was sick, she told me that she hoped they liked me, because when I did shit like that for her, she could see me as a human being or some shit." Sam nodded. "She liked me, when they tried on dresses, she was crying about it in the dressing room after I called her a whore and... and she kept talking about how she always falls in love with men that destroy her. And ... if she knew about the imprint, and she didn't know it was her... God, Sam, I didn't even know she liked me, let alone… Fuck. She always calls me names and-"

"You call her names, too."

"But... that's different." Paul started to breath a little faster. "They just slip out. And she ... she knew about the imprint, and if she lik-loved me as much as she said, that had to have been... been awful. Because, if I think about her with another guy, I want to tear his throat out. And ... to know that the guy you like is destined for someone else? Or to think it, anyway-"

"Sucks."

"Like... Like you and Leah and Emily. And... Bella would be Leah. Only, she isn't. She's Emily, but she thinks she's Leah. And I should have just fucking told her. When it first happened. It was easier to talk to her then, because all I had to do was call her a leech lover and she'd laugh. We'd laugh. And we'd get into fights, but we'd laugh. Now, she hates it."

"She wants to forget about the Cullens," Sam said after a moment. "She just wants to forget about them. But you won't let it go."

"She told me she slept with a lot of guys," Paul said after a moment. "She's only slept with five. And one of them was Embry, while they were drunk. So... I mean, that doesn't really count, because she doesn't remember it that much. And... I kept calling her a whore because I thought it was a lot higher than that."

"Isn't your count up to the hundred and twenties?" Sam asked.

Paul swallowed. "Yeah."

Sam snorted. "You're a real piece of work, Paul."

"Why didn't I tell her? Why couldn't I just... tell her?" Paul gave a frustrated whine and tossed a rock into the sand.

"Because you thought she slept with Edward."

Paul swallowed, like a lemon was on his tongue. "I ruin every single moment. There isn't one time we've had a good time. I always ruin it at the end."

"I sent Leah to anger management classes when she first changed," Sam said carefully. "In Port Angeles. You should go, give them a shot."

"How do you do it? Anything I say to you would set anyone else off, but you ignore it."

"Because the last time I was near someone I loved and I got angry, I hurt her," Sam said simply. "And I don't know how she forgave me, but she did. And there are times Emily still looks in the mirror and I know she thinks about when I phased too close. And I still don't forgive myself for it. Any time you say something to me, I think of Emily's face. And I count to ten."

"Were the rocks really supposed to help?"

"I knew you didn't know how to skip them," Sam admitted. "And I knew it would make you frustrated and angry when it didn't work. Eventually, you'd grow impatient and leave. Or, you'd keep trying and when you phased, you'd wait until you calmed down and skipped some more rocks. And it would repeat until you learned to control it. I knew that if you kept it up that meant you were really trying. You didn't. You left. But now you're back."

"I need to get better, Sam. I need to be able to have at least one decent conversation with her. And I need to get better for myself. I'm not helping myself, I'm not helping anyone, getting mad at everything, causing problems... Mom would hate what I've become."

"She would." It just made Paul feel like shit. He was being the man that had ruined her life. The man she had made him promise he would never be. But when she had died, Paul had spiraled. And he spiraled hard. "You should visit Bella, just once. You need to see her."

"I don't think I can." He would definitely not be keeping the secret then.

"Charlie listed you as family. You can visit her anytime you want, even past visiting hours." Sam watched as Paul seemed stricken by that. "He knows about everything now. The imprint, the pack… He knows you really care about her, Paul… You've always been family to him, we all are, but … I think he'd really like it if you'd stop by and saw him too."

Paul swallowed. "I might phase. That's the last thing the pack needs."

"I think you really need to see her. I've ordered the pack to not think about her when you're phased. Because you need to see her yourself."

"Will you come with me? If ... if I start to phase, I don't want to hurt anyone."

Sam nodded. "Sure, just let me know when."

Paul took a deep breath. "Now."

"How about some clothes, first?" Sam suggested. Yeah, clothes. That was good.

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