After a much needed nap and some food – a whole dinner of three boxes of macaroni and cheese and two packs of hotdogs, he was growing idle. He didn't know what to do. Around his house, he probably could have done some good with cleaning or even throwing out some of the shit that he didn't need. He also really, really needed to do laundry.

But he found himself back at the hospital, standing outside Bella's door. Jake and Embry were in there with her, talking about everything from politics to what happened on patrols that day. When they saw Paul hesitating at the door, Embry stood up fluidly. It made Paul surge with a touch of anger to see that he had been holding her hand, but he let it go. Fuck was he going to do? But it gave him some satisfaction to see that Embry looked terrified of him. Good. His message had sunk in.

"Wasn't looking at her like that, I swear," Embry spoke as Paul entered the room.

Paul rolled his eyes. "We'd have a lot bigger problems if you two were getting it on in the middle of the room with Jake and I here." Embry held his breath. And Jake snorted.

"You okay, man?"

Paul shrugged, glancing towards Bella. He categorized her, took in if anything had changed. From what he could remember, nothing much had changed. He didn't know if he really expected much to change. "Charlie said you were here earlier," Jake said.

Paul shrugged again, shoving his fists into the pockets of his shorts. "Sam said I needed to." He drew his eyes from her to Jake, and Jake seemed to be watching him carefully, but not critically. Like he was glad to see Paul. It was a nice change, for once. "It's… it's pretty bad, huh?"

"Yeah," Jake sighed. "But she's holding in there." Paul didn't know what to say so he awkwardly nodded. "Are you staying a while?"

Paul shrugged. "And do what? She's not going to talk. She doesn't want me here, probably. Just sit here and be like some giant elephant in the room."

"More like wolf," Embry snickered.

Paul cut a glare to the twerp. Embry sobered immediately. "I can still rip your ass apart, just say another word, kid."

"Yeah, I'll wait for you in the lobby, Jake," Embry said too quickly to be a natural thought. "I'll see you when you're done."

"Yeah," Jake said faintly. With the other seat left unoccupied, for some reason they had added a second chair, Jake offered it to Paul, who sat. "It's good to have you back, man."

"I wasn't really gone."

"I know. But… it was pretty quiet without you around." Paul shrugged. And flexed his hands over the arm rests. What was Jake looking for? What was he trying to talk about? "Ange's worried you're going to ditch us. Head off to nowhere's land."

"No, that was your sister. The one that I didn't screw." Jake growled in warning, but Paul didn't even find satisfaction in getting the Alpha-in-Training riled up. He stared at Bella's unbruised hand. The one that had somehow escaped the damage. The only thing to remain untouched by this injury. "I heard a few nurses talking on my way in. They say even if she was awake, she wouldn't be released until she's able to walk. They don't want her to possibly bother any of the surgeries."

Jake exhaled. "Yeah, which means that she'll be in her for a lot longer than just the coma."

"At least she doesn't feel it."

"Yeah," Jake said quietly. "How long are you staying for?"

Paul shrugged. "As long as I feel like it."

"Do you want some food?"

He shook his head. "Already ate." But he didn't mention that he was starting to feel hungry again. Stupid wolf stomachs. He just wanted to sit in silence.

"Okay. Well I'm going to go down and head home… Text me when you leave, alright?" Paul just nodded and watched as Jake said an extremely emotional goodbye to Bella that made his throat almost burn. And when the door shut, Paul sighed as he stared at her. She looked the same.

It had been so long since he healed normally, that he forgot what the normal time ration for this stuff was. So he pulled out his phone and looked it up. Pretty much two months for everything to be back to normal strength. And a shit ton of weeks of therapy. Fuck.

"This is all my fault," Paul murmured. His phone fell to the ground and his head buried itself into his hands. And for the first time in what felt like a long time, he cried. He bled his soul dry with the tears, until he couldn't cry anymore. She didn't move. God, he was such a baby. Why was he such a whimp?

The heart monitor beeped twice quickly, before it went into the normal rhythm. He sat up straight, as if she was about to crash on him, and glanced between her and the heart monitor. "Don't you dare get worse on me."

But the monitor didn't so much as beat off tempo again. As Paul dropped his gaze, wiping away the last of his tears, he spotted the stack of books. A bookmark was sticking out of a thick one, but it was the thin book that had a creased cover and everything on it that made Paul hesitate. Wuthering Heights. Sam had said it was her favorite. He had no idea what it was even about. He just knew it was old.

Older than his ancestors had learned how to write old.

He wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon, and the book did seem to be short… He slid it off the top of the pile, thumbing through it to see that the print was tiny as fuck. Great. Maybe he would be here all night.

Maybe it was an excuse for him to stay here all night.

There was an inscription on the cover, written in handwriting too nice to be from Jake or anyone he knew. And he tensed as he read the first words. "Dear Bella." Fuck.

Had the leech given this to her? Had this… this been some sort of gift from him that she had cherished? And then left behind when he left her?

He continued reading. "As you're writing this, you're seventeen and madly in love with someone too good to be true. With your Edgar Linton." And scrawled on the margin it said, "And you've just discovered your Heathcliffe after Linton left." The fuck did that mean? "Yet, despite knowing he's the most self-obsessed, selfish ass in the entire book, there's something about that undying devotion of Heathcliffe – that never ending love that you find fascinating. And you want that. At least, you think you do. You do now, at least. And sometimes things are too good to be true. I have a feeling that we're going to learn that every time Linton gives you that smile with his gold eyes. Let me give you a piece of advice. Linton isn't the guy you thought he was when you first read this book freshman year and fell in love with him. You want a Heathcliffe. You want a selfish asshole that will make you feel alive. You want someone who will love you unconditionally. And if he becomes too much, you know that you can always have your chance to walk away, if he's ever bad like Heath was, but he will love you. And right now, that's all you want. You want the love to feel real for once – you want it to burn and to hurt and to feel like it's alive. You want to feel like YOU'RE alive. Like your heart can't take anymore. I hope you're happy now. I hope that you didn't make that mistake with Linton, because you would have regretted it for eternity. Find your Heathcliffe. Find someone that's worth living for. Love 17 year old you."

Fuck… had she been thinking about breaking up with the leech? And who was the Heathcliffe she was taking about? She said she had found him. He didn't dare hope it was him. But he was the only asshole that Bella really knew her senior year of high school.

So he decided to read. And he got the whole story.

He didn't understand why it was her favorite book. It made his head hurt, and he wanted to throw the book down because he didn't really care all that much for what was going on in it. But she did. And fuck him, he kept reading aloud. Until the window behind him turned bright with the morning sun, and he knew someone else would probably be coming to see her. He managed to finish the book, only stopping a few times to figure out what some words meant, or how to pronounce them. And with the words coming to an end, he could hear the sound of Jake and Angela down the hall, stepping off the elevator. He set the book down, and unintentionally reached forward, grasping her hand with his.

"I.. er, will probably be back tonight, not that you'll bar me from coming or anything, but… yeah." He cleared his throat and released her hand, still feeling her burning touch in his palm. And he stood just as the door opened.

He didn't bother saying goodbye. It wasn't like she was going to say it back.

But the entire drive back to the reservation, he couldn't get the image of her bruises out of his head. He couldn't stop thinking about her body being strapped to wires and broken and... God, he hated it. Hated what he had done.

As soon as his truck parked itself in front of his house, he started to make the to-do list. And after a long, suffering sigh, he got to work.

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