AN: Sorry that updates on this story aren't as fast as any of us would like. I've had trouble getting inspiration for the early stages of this story, and life in general has been challenging. But I'm working on getting through the blocks and have tons of ideas for later in this story. This one's a little shorter than I usually like to post, but I think it's alright; not sure what else I could add anyway.

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Jake POV

I walked back to the waiting room with Bella's mom, mostly tuning out her exuberant talking. Bella was awake. She still looked kinda out of it, but she'd recognized me and understood what I said to her.

"She's awake! Bella woke up!" Renee danced into the waiting room, laughing like a crazy person.

Charlie Swan jumped up and held her still. "She woke up?"

She nodded. "The doctor's doing his exam and then we can go back."

He dropped back down into his seat and buried his face in his hands. My dad reached over and clapped a hand to Charlie's shoulder. Bella's mom was already fidgeting again, so Sue Clearwater moved to give her a hug and keep her here until the doctor gave them the okay to go see Bella. As soon as Bella's parents were gone, Dad looked at me.

"So how was she?"

I tried to play innocent. "Who?"

"Don't give me that look, Jake. I know you got into her room. And that she woke up. So?"

"Okay, yeah I did sneak in. It was so weird how she was just lying there, like it wasn't really her. Then I just told her she needed to wake up…and she did. Like she was only waiting for someone—for me—to tell her to."

"Good that you could help her out, then," Dad told me.

"But next time, Jacob, wait to be invited," Sue Clearwater said. "Hospitals have rules for a reason."

"Okay," I grumbled. I knew she was right—she was a nurse, after all—but I might not listen to the advice, not if Bella needed me to ignore it. We stuck around for a while until Charlie came back out.

"She's asleep again," he reported. "Normal sleep."

"Told you she'd be fine," Dad reminded him.

"Yeah, you did. She'll still be here another day or so, but Dr. Gerandy thinks she'll be okay." Charlie sagged a little, and Harry Clearwater braced him up. After another minute or two, Dad signaled that we ought to leave.

"Let us know how she's doing," Dad asked. "And if there's anything you need—just ask."

"Thanks, Billy." Charlie clapped his shoulder before heading back to Bella's room again. Harry and Sue Clearwater walked out with us.

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Narrator POV

"She woke up," Billy Black reported over the phone to Sam Uley. He and Jacob had just gotten home from the hospital, and Jake was out in his garage, probably working on that old junk car of his. Jake swore he'd turn that piece of junk into a real attention-grabber, and Billy believed it. His son had a real gift when it came to his hands and pieces of machinery.

"Thank goodness," Sam breathed, in heart-felt sincerity.

"She woke up after Jake snuck into her hospital room," Billy elaborated.

"Oh." There wasn't much Sam could say in response; the implications appeared pretty obvious. "I'm sorry, Billy. I know you never wanted this life for your son."

"I never wanted this for any of you," the older man corrected.

"We manage," Sam dismissed it. While it was nice to hear—in a way—both men knew that such wishes were pointless. Whatever the tribal elders might have wanted for their children and those children's peers…what was done was done, and it couldn't be changed. The pack was back now; now, and not a generation earlier. And today's events only seemed to solidify the idea that the pack wasn't complete, that another wolf would join them. "Will you have an eye on him and keep us in the loop?" the Alpha asked.

"I will," Billy agreed. They would all need to be watchful, so that the pack could intervene when Jake did eventually phase. But it really wouldn't be possible for the wolves to do the up-close watching; Sam was a few years older, and neither Jared nor Paul was a particularly close friend of Jake's.

Billy sighed after hanging up the phone. Sam's words and his own reply had caused a pang in his father-heart. The truth in those words was undeniable and inescapable.

More than once during his life, Billy had wished to follow in his grandfather Ephraim's footsteps and become a protector of his tribe. First, it had been a childhood dream after he'd seen his grandfather and his packmates Quil Ateara II and Levi Uley—cousins all—phase for their final time; Billy had been only a small boy at the time, held in his father William's arms. Later, it had been drunken musings after his friend Quil IV had drowned and his own health had deteriorated. But it wasn't Billy's generation to carry the honor and burden of phasing. Instead, it was the newest generation: youths like Levi's great-grandson Sam, Sam's cousin Paul, and Billy's own young cousin Jared. Of the three, only Sam had direct blood-descent from the last pack; both Jared's and Paul's connections came from farther back. Age was probably part of it; Jared and Paul were older than boys like Jacob and his best friend/cousin Quil V. But Jacob's youth was counterbalanced by the fact that he was a great-grandson not just of Ephraim, but of Quil II, too, through Billy's late wife Sarah. And with Bella Swan's reaction to Jacob today…it did seem to suggest what Sam suspected about a potential imprint-bond between them. Yet, Billy saw no signs in Jacob that presaged a phase, none of the clues they had seen in Paul and Jared, and had missed with Sam. Neither had the pack reported any signs of incursions by the enemy since the Cullens had left more than a week ago. So Billy sighed again, and hoped. Hoped that Jacob might still somehow be spared—that both he and Bella might escape entanglement with the supernatural.

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Embry POV

"What's up?" I called to Jake. He was leaning over the shell of his Volkswagen Rabbit, banging hard on something under the hood.

"Hand me that wrench, would ya?" he asked.

I stepped over to his workbench and grabbed the wrench he'd asked for. "Looking good," I commented, surveying the car Jake had been rebuilding for the past few months.

"Yeah right," Jake snorted, standing up and stretching.

"Okay, it will look good…eventually." Then I ducked when he raised the wrench my direction.

Suitably repaid, Jake set the wrench down and headed for the small fridge set up in one corner of the garage. He pulled out a pair of soda cans, tossing me one before crashing on the beat-up old sofa against the wall.

"So where were you?" I asked, claiming the other end of the couch. "I stopped by earlier, and you and your dad were both gone."

"We were up at the hospital in Forks. Dad wanted to see how Charlie was doing, what with Bella being so sick."

"Nice of you guys."

"Sure, sure," Jake shrugged it off. I knew it was nothing new for him, driving his dad around to wherever Billy needed to go. Things had been that way for them for a few years now, ever since Billy's diabetes had gotten so bad that he'd been confined to a wheelchair.

"So?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"You went to the hospital…"

"And she woke up!" Jake grinned. "Four days she'd been in that coma-whatever, and I show up and tell her she needs to wake up—and she does!"

"Coincidence," I dismissed it.

Jake reached an arm back toward the wrench and I back-pedaled. "All I'm saying is that she was bound to wake up sometime, right?"

"Not so sure. Seems like her parents and the docs were kinda worried she wouldn't."

I still didn't completely buy it, but if Jake wanted to think it was all him, I wasn't going to get into a fight with one of my best friends over it. Chucking my now-empty can into the recycle bin, I made the peace overture. "Want a hand?"

"Sure," Jake grinned, as willing as ever to forgive and forget. And we spent the rest of the afternoon hunched over his car or crawling underneath it. Our other best friend, Quil, ended up coming over, too. Not that it was a big surprise. The three of us had been the Three Amigos of the La Push Reservation practically since we first learned how to walk. With all three of us being the same age, we'd always been in the same playgroup as little kids, and the same class in school once we started. And we'd all had the bond of losing a parent; my mom and dad had split before I was even born—I'd never even met the guy or heard his name—and Jake's mom and Quil's dad had both died in accidents before we'd turned ten.

"So, Super-Jake to the rescue, huh?" Quil said. "What are you gonna do to top it?"

"Dunno," Jake admitted. "Whatever she wants, I guess."

"Wuss," Quil ragged, before being the one to get threatened by the wrench this time.

Jake frowned, "Whatever."

"What's up?" I wanted to know.

Jake exhaled heavily. "I guess I just feel like it's my fault somehow. That if I'd been a better friend to her back when she first moved here that all this wouldn't have happened.

"Jake, man, I think that's taking too much responsibility, when it isn't yours. I'm not saying it's her fault she got dumped or got sick. But she could have tried to be friends, too."

"Well, I might not have been a true friend before, but I can be one now."

"And we'll help," I spoke for both myself and for Quil.