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Chapter 186

Sparks of Hope

Edward

"It was the parting gift from kindergarten and the picture was from her first day there. That's when she got to know Lisa," my angel told me after she pulled the children's book off the shelf and sat down with me again.

"It actually slipped my mind that it's actually Lisa who's her best and oldest friend, not Becky," I admitted. You could really forget that, given the local manners. Leah and Becky were so familiar with each other that you could mistake them for longtime companions or loving sisters.

"Just like you had to think about who Jake's best friend is with Brandon and Marcus as well. I think that Marcus and Becky being in on all of our secrets - no exceptions - and them practically all living here together, especially during the vacations, probably changed the twins' sensation a bit, too," she reflected.

"That certainly plays a significant role, and the attachment between Jake and Leah does the rest. As wolves, they very much empathize with each other's love for their mate and are in turn attracted to that person in some way," I discussed what I had overheard from my twins' minds a few times. Which is why I found it relatively difficult to remember Lisa as Leah's best friend ubiquitously.

Bella snuggled up to me a bit and read the story to our daughter. It was not only very vividly written, since it was a children's book, but also really amusing.

If I wasn't completely wrong, Leah had even smiled a little. Probably more wishful thinking, since her next attack was not long in coming.

Bella was sitting right next to Leah, and I almost lifted my angel off the bed when Leah lashed out with one arm. It narrowly missed Bella's back, but I immediately turned Leah onto her stomach so that any more uncontrolled blows would only hit the padding. I slid a little higher, trying to calm my princess, talking softly to her and stroking her head.

I would not give up trying to reach Leah with such gestures, though she gave us all little hope of catching any of it.

But Bella backed away.

She stood there frozen, looking down at our daughter. I could not tell what emotions were reflected on her face. 'None at all' probably came closest to that facial expression.

"Bella?", I addressed her, but she didn't seem to hear me at all.

I had never seen her like that before. I also saw no reason why Bella should be frightened by Leah right now. Bella had never backed away from Leah - except from uncontrolled punches or kicks - or stood by as dispassionately as she was doing right now. Yesterday at noon, when we were back here, Bella had indeed been hysterical at Leah's seizure, but that was a state of emergency. Fueled by desperate fear, under the influence of painkillers. That had not been my Bella. I had gotten my strong and self-confident Bella back in the course of yesterday afternoon.

"Bella, dearest?", I tried again, but had to turn my gaze back to Leah.

She squirmed so that she almost pushed me off the edge of the bed and hit me in the tailbone with one knee.

It hurt, but seeing Leah so tortured and unstable hurt me more. Much more.

It took me a moment to gently hold Leah in my arms under control so that nothing could happen to her, and only then turned my head back in Bella's direction.

She had disappeared.

"Bella!?", I shouted, as the front door also slammed into the lock.

I was startled by this.

"Bella?", I mumbled to myself, uncomprehending.

How could Bella just disappear without a word? I would have understood if Bella was afraid of Leah's condition in general and it was getting too much for her overall, but she had said herself - even insisted - that she wanted to be there for Leah. She was her mother, she said! Now, it hadn't been a particularly bad seizure that might have upset Bella in any way. We had been through far more violent ones from Leah, which would have taken Bella more. Immediately before that, it had also been quite comfortable while Bella was reading the story. And now Bella had just run away. Without a word. That was just over my head.

"Dad, what's wrong?" came Jake over to us.

He had heard my call for Bella and the tone had worried him.

"I'm not sure ... Bella just drove away."

"Why? And where?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "She left without saying a word and with a pretty emotionless look on her face."

Jake suggested that his mother might have been frightened by Leah's recent outburst, but that didn't seem particularly logical to me.

I explained my considerations in this regard.

Becky also joined us after Jake didn't return to his room to her, but even the three of us found no reason for Bella's strange behavior.

I asked Jake to stay with Leah and went into the bedroom to my phone.

Wherever Bella was headed, enough time had now passed that she would have arrived, assuming her destination was within Saco.

I dialed her number.

Three seconds later, I was standing in the dining room and learned from Bella's cell phone that I was calling.

I called David.

All in all, David knew my angel much longer than I did, in this respect certainly better than I did in some things. Maybe he would have an idea what could have gotten into Bella.

But he disappointed my hope. He had no presumption at all.

I saved myself the trouble of calling my family. They would notify me when Bella showed up at their house. So the only thing left for me to do was to go back to Leah.

With increasing concern for my angel ...

Bella had been gone for over an hour, Jake and Becky were in his room, when Leah again threw a fit.

My fear for Bella had already reached frightening proportions. I was nervous and at my wits' end. But Leah distracted me from my fear.

She squirmed back and forth while she simply screamed.

And I held my princess. I sat in the middle of the bed while Leah sat sideways between my legs, and I pulled her against me with my upper body.

Her cries became sobs, with her fists pounding weakly against my chest as far as she could manage in my arms. Not particularly hard, but desperate. The strength slowly left her again and she cried.

And I held my princess.

Leah mumbled to herself, exhausted.

Mom. Dad. Jake. Becky.

In her dream, she was apparently looking for us.

"We are here, Little one!", I cradled my daughter, kissed her on the forehead and stroked over her back. "We are all with you and will never leave you!", I promised.

Something had to be done, it couldn't go on like this with Leah, but I just couldn't think of anything. For four days now I had been racking my brain about how we could help Leah, but I just couldn't find a solution. I didn't have a starting point on which to begin thinking of this kind. Leah's thoughts were unchanged since Monday evening. A dark wall of fog that let nothing and no one through to her. Words and gestures were swallowed up by it. Her temperature rose during her seizures and then dropped a bit. It hovered around one hundred and eighteen degrees, which was way too high even for wolves. Twice a day she received a transfusion and yet Leah looked increasingly emaciated. At the same time, my concern for Bella continued to grow.

I was on the verge of calling the hospital or asking at the police station about accidents.

It wasn't like her to disappear without a word. I felt miserable and just sat there with Leah in my arms. I closed my eyes and concentrated solely on Leah's darkness, perhaps to find a little loophole somewhere. I had very little hope of finding one, because the darkness took over Leah's entire being and completely shielded her from the outside world.

So we sat there without anything changing ...

Until something did happen. As if a very faint glow of light wanted to illuminate a little corner, but couldn't get through the blackness.

I opened my eyes.

"Marcus!", I stated as I looked incredulously into his face. I hadn't heard him coming and was still analyzing the possibility that he was just a hallucination. However, I probably wouldn't be able to imagine that facial expression. Affected and tormented.

Our glances met only fleetingly, because he actually only looked at Leah, whom he had shoved a hand to her cheek.

"Leah," he whispered as he tried to turn her face slightly in his direction.

And my daughter? She seemed to nestle into that hand and gave what amounted to a sigh. She was reacting! Although I could not say how consciously Leah did this. Nothing was to be taken from her thoughts in this regard, except just that this barely perceptible gleam of light tried to get through.

I loosened my arms around Leah so that she could move freely, but she didn't really move. Her eyelids opened, her gaze fixed on Marcus, but I couldn't tell from her thoughts whether she really saw him. Instead, her eyes immediately filled with tears.

"You've cried enough, Leah. It's time for you to come back to us," Marcus murmured softly.

It had an extremely calming effect with his dark voice.

Tears ran down Leah's cheeks, but she closed her eyes and glided back into apathy.

We gently put her completely back on the bed.

"How did you get here?", I asked Marcus in amazement as we stood in front of each other next to Leah's bed afterwards.

"Bella was with me," Marcus replied as he pulled a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and held them out to me.

My key.

"Then she's fine, right?", I asked promptly, accepting the key.

"Yes, why?" he replied, puzzled.

However, a huge weight lifted from my heart, which visibly brought me relief.

"When Leah had a seizure this afternoon, Bella left without a word. I tried to reach her on her cell phone, but it's downstairs in the dining room. I had no idea why she just left and started to worry."

"She waited for me at school and followed me to a bistro. Bella said something about regular outbursts in which Leah would lash out ... Is that where the injuries on Bella's face came from?"

I recognized in his thoughts that he had also asked Bella about it. Her answer - a summarized 'So to speak' - was not credible even second-hand about his memory of it.

"No, not exactly," I said, joining my princess on the edge of the bed.

Marcus took off his jacket, threw it over the desk chair, and knelt down next to Leah.

He did not touch her. He had nothing more to do with Leah.

"She twirls her arms and legs uncontrollably, which is certainly painful for Bella when she gets hit, but would be far from causing such injuries. Yesterday, however, something happened ... something none of us expected ... Leah ran away, and Bella stood in her way. She pushed her into a door frame downstairs. With all her might. So no one could stop her."

"Where ... did ... Leah run to?" asked Marcus cautiously. He was afraid of the answer.

"To the forest. To a bluff we passed on our trip ...", I began to say.

Marcus looked at me, sucked in the air sharply between his teeth, and held his breath.

"She jumped," I finished in a whisper.

"NO!", Marcus cursed under his breath. It was hard for him to believe this, even though he didn't doubt my words.

I quietly told him how things had been going here since Monday.

Since Bella had already mentioned it, as I took from Marcus' thoughts, I skipped over how Leah and Nanuk had found to each other. But I reported about the events later in the forest. That Kate didn't know about the fact that Nanuk wanted to commit to Leah. How the past days had gone. With Leah. With Jake. But also with Bella and me. That we were all suffering from Leah's condition, and we just couldn't think of anything we could do to help Leah.

During my detailed explanation, Marcus had taken Leah's hand and had not averted his gaze from her face for a second.

He tried to understand her feelings, her actions. He couldn't. This was not the Leah he still loved above all else. From their separation he had barely recovered in the past two weeks.

"... I can't tell if Leah is aware of these incidents. That she hurt her mother so badly in her escape or even that she jumped. Her thoughts have been unchanged black since Monday night, so I can't discern any thoughts."

Marcus was silent with his eyes closed while his head was buzzing with all the things Bella had said to him earlier.

'Maybe exactly these feelings are the key to be a guide back to life for Leah.' He didn't know what his role was there. He was just a human being in the midst of all these supernatural beings who were somehow connected. He hadn't been meant to be one of them. Yes, Leah had been fighting for him and against Nanuk all along. A fight he had thought hopeless, which was why he had finally left. The fact that they had given in to their feelings for each other on Monday confirmed this to him. There was no place for him there, even if Nanuk were now gone for good. He was sorry for Leah that Nanuk had died. He wished her happiness, not sorrow. Still, none of this had anything to do with him anymore. He would help Leah if he could, but he didn't see what he could contribute.

"I probably wouldn't have thought of that possibility, but Bella actually sought you out for a reason," I began to say when I realized Bella's motivations via his thoughts. "I usually prefer not to imagine these memories that Jake showed me in more detail, but it is in accordance with the facts that Bella is best able to classify Leah's state of mind among all of us. As you know, I left Bella about twenty years ago and hurt her very much. Actually, both of us ... She was in a similar state, far from reality. But there was someone who helped her out of that grief. Jacob Black, the father of the twins. He gave Bella back the joy of life and the belief in love. After he fell in a fight against our kind, Bella was also at the point where she wanted to end her life. She must have felt very much like Leah does even from this suffering there was a way out. For Bella, it was the knowledge that Jacob Black had given her two innocent children. So for Leah, too, there must be a way for her to break free from the consuming misery ... She has not responded to any of us in the last few days. Leah sees no difference between any of us. No matter who is with her, she doesn't see it and it doesn't change anything ... But since you've been here, a little light has been trying to get through the dark fog in her head!"

"But how ..." he began to ask, but was interrupted.

"Marcus!?" suddenly Becky was standing in the doorway.

I smiled at the adorable sleepy sight of her.

Jake and she had been watching a movie and had dozed off from it.

She rubbed her eyes, still believing in a dream for a moment, but then she rushed toward Marcus. He quickly rose and caught the star of the house. Firmly they embraced. They had not seen each other for almost two weeks. She immediately pulled him over to Jake's room so that he could see who was here.

Jake was completely over the moon, which was certainly because of the fact that he was awakened rather rudely.

Marcus briefly told the two that Bella had sought him out after school and told him about Leah.

"Slept in?", I teased my son a little as they all three returned to Leah's room.

He stuck his tongue out at me.

Jake climbed right over Leah and sat on the bed with his sister.

"So you're back," Becky said in Marcus' direction, whereby she sat down next to Jake from the foot end.

"No!", Marcus answered directly in a firm voice.

Jake and Becky looked toward him, slightly confused.

And disappointed, which I could empathize with them very much. But Marcus was right, which he immediately tried to explain to the two.

He knelt beside the bed, took Leah's hand, and looked at her for a moment.

He found it difficult to admit it and to admit it to himself. A certain hope had accompanied him on the way here. Only a little spark, but it had already been extinguished. Reality stood in the way of this hope.

"It's too late for Leah and me. The imprinting has changed everything between us ... I love Leah! But Nanuk will always stand between us - whether he lives or not. And if I were to lose Leah one more time ..." His voice broke off in mid-sentence. He swallowed hard and looked at the sheet for a moment before lifting his gaze again and continuing to speak. "I'm only here because Bella and Edward think I might be able to help her in some way. I don't know what exactly my help should be so that Leah can find herself again. But after that, I'm gone again. We no longer have a chance together," he finished his remarks about it.

This statement tilted the mood of the children.

"There's no prescription for what you can do. Just be there for Leah. You've been in the house less than half an hour and she's already calmer than she's been," I affirmed.

Truly, that's how it was. Heart and breathing were absolutely steady, with no little stumbles in between, as had been normal for the last few days.

Marcus nodded resolutely.

He didn't want to see Leah like that and would do everything he could to make her go back to being the Leah she actually was.

"Excuse me," Marcus said, and left the room for the bathroom.

He needed to relieve himself, but he also needed to collect himself. Unlike Jake and Becky, Marcus had already realized what a burden he was taking on.

"So ... they're not going to be together again, even if Leah only wakes up because of him?" Becky cautiously dug deeper.

"No, they won't. And I ask you not to encourage Marcus in that direction either. Nor Leah, if she really comes to again," I replied.

"Why not?" asked Jake, a touch defiant – like a little child.

"Think about it, Jake. If Becky were gone, would you be able to let another girl into your heart?"

He looked at me in shock and with widened eyes. Then he shook his head.

"Leah has lost her counterpart. She will never fully get over that. Marcus is aware of that ... It's not good for Marcus to be with Leah right now. He is not over this breakup and is in an unstable state about it. If we had a choice, I would send Marcus away, or rather Bella would not have asked him for help. But since Leah's condition is getting worse instead of better and we have no other idea, we have no choice but to hand Marcus over – emotionally speaking. I pray that Jasper will be able to make up for the emotional damage we do to Marcus afterwards. But Leah needs help now, not if we can think of another option at some point. Leah may not have that much time," I said, stroking my Little one's sunken pale cheek.

I left the young people alone, but I didn't really have anything to do.

For reading or the like I lacked the rest, for dinner it was still too early, the laundry that Bella wanted to iron tomorrow was all washed.

So I sat down on the stairs opposite the front door, put on as grumpy a face as possible, and waited for Bella.

As I did so, I naturally listened upward.

Leah did not have any of her seizures during this time, which amazed me. She had only rarely deviated from her usual rhythm, which she had now already far exceeded. During this time, Marcus sat on the edge of the bed, constantly held her hand, talked to her, and only rarely took his eyes off her. My angel had apparently come up with the only solution there could be for Leah.

That's when my offended expression became increasingly difficult. I was still able to save some of it when Bella actually came.

"Hi ..." she mumbled as she saw me sitting on the stairs, offended.

Extremely offended! "Hello," I replied formally.

"Um ... I'm ... back."

"I can see that! – Your phone rang!", I followed it up with a delay.

"Oh ... Who called?"

Bella was obviously happy for a little change of subject and acted all surprised and innocuous.

"Me!"

"You're wicked," she stated, looking down at the floor.

"No, I was just terribly worried. You just left without a word and without me being able to reach you. It's not like you to abandon one of our children. That's why I was afraid for you. I couldn't understand what was going on with you ... Why didn't you tell me you were going to Marcus?"

Bella took a deep breath and now put down her jacket and purse. She pulled some strands from her face and sat down one step below me sideways between my legs.

"I'm sorry, Edward," she murmured, claiming one of my hands.

Inwardly, I smirked.

A repentant angel. How much I loved her. I would have liked to just hug her, kiss her, and tell her that Leah seemed to be better already. On the other hand, I was burning to hear her apology, since I still had no clear explanation for her behavior.

So I remained steadfast and granted her only the one hand, with which she played nervously.

"I was running away from myself ..." she began, explaining her unusual flight instinct.

In the end, she was in my arms after all, and I felt very remorseful.

How could I have missed the parallel between Leah in her bed and Bella twenty years ago? Yesterday, after Leah's jump over the cliff, I had still considered this. Earlier, too, I had recognized Bella's intention to bring Marcus, of all people, here. However, that Bella could be frightened by Leah's general attacks just because the scene corresponded to one of her own memories had not occurred to me.

"How is she doing? Does Marcus have any influence on Leah's mood?" she then asked, sounding hopeful but not necessarily convinced.

"Yes, he has. I can't explain why it is, but Leah is much calmer. He's been here for about an hour doing nothing different than we've been doing, but Leah somehow seems to sense that this time it's Marcus."

"Then my idea wasn't so wrong."

"No, she was ...", I wanted to confirm when our patio door opened.

"Mommy? Daddy?" the impatient baby called out immediately.

Our baby!

Bella and I smiled at each other in love.

"Thank you for our son, dearest!", I whispered and kissed my wife.

Ced reached the stairs and quickly climbed the steps as well.

Something we had actually forbidden him to do. Several times!

"How many times have we told you not to climb up or down the stairs?", I asked with a stern face.

My equally stern pointing finger was skillfully ignored and Ced snuggled into Bella's arms.

I could only be mad at Ced as rarely as I could be mad at his mother. I would have to do some serious work on that. However, our son was still a little young to come home alone.

So Alice and Jasper stood before us.

"You're sitting on the stairs in a good mood instead of being with Leah?" pondered Jasper.

"What happened?" asked Alice jitterily.

"Leah has a visitor," I replied with a smile.

Ced found this very interesting and composed himself to climb the next steps.

He did it very skillfully and it didn't make an unsafe or shaky impression, yet Bella scolded him that he was only allowed to do it when someone was there. Never alone!

He quickly crawled further down the hall until he reached Leah's door. He remained sitting there for the time being and peeked indecisively into the room.

A cute face.

We then reached the door as well.

The picture had barely changed. Jake and Becky were sitting behind Leah on the bed, Marcus on the edge of the bed.

"Marcus?!" stated Alice, thereupon he looked in our direction.

They greeted each other and Ced crawled up to Marcus, who immediately lifted him onto his lap.

We left the five children among themselves, went downstairs, and started dinner.

Bella and Alice set the table.

"I still find it very strange, after all these months, the naturalness with which you stand at the stove," Jasper remarked, standing in the kitchen with me.

"At least you don't mock me like you do Emmett for living a stuffy and boring suburban life!", I countered.

"Surely your life should be very far from boredom."

"That's right ... How is Marcus?"

"Right now?" he asked back. "Confused. It hits him deeply to see Leah so apathetic, but he's also kind of glad to be here. With her. At the same time, he sees that she's not the girl he was in love with anymore. Or still is. And he assumes that she will never be that girl again. He has missed her very much and knows very well that it is a huge step back for him to be with her. His soul is being torn apart at this very moment. Piece by piece. The longer he sits with her."

"And can you manage that again as a psychologist?"

"I can't answer that for you," Jazz replied.

I sighed in frustration.

"I can't send Marcus away. Leah responds to him. Only to him!"

"And can you live with exposing Marcus to this emotional danger without the assurance that you will get your daughter back in return?"

"You think it's too big a gamble?"

"I don't feel any change in Leah's sensibilities. She is marked by sorrow and pain that Nanuk's death has left her. You say that Leah is reacting to him. I don't notice any of that. Is it possible that you're just persuading yourself? That you're just wishing Marcus was the answer and imagining an improvement in her condition because you don't want to see it any other way?"

The knife fell from my hand, and I propped myself up powerlessly on the kitchen counter.

Had I just imagined it? Hadn't Leah changed since Marcus was in the house? I listened intently into the nursery. Paying attention to Leah's vital signs, looking through Marcus' eyes into Leah's face. And at that exact moment, a further seizure of Leah began.

I immediately passed on what I saw to Jasper, who at the same time observed the feelings from upstairs.

Leah's breathing quickly became bumpier until it resembled a gasp, as if she were struggling for breath. Her eyes were open, and her pupils moved briskly, as if she were looking around anxiously. Her hands tightened into those of Jake and Marcus, who each held one. But she did not scream and she neither struck. Marcus sat a little higher to her and was startled at the tortured sight of her, although he knew by now from various narratives that Leah's outbursts had been far worse so far. He slid a hand to her cheek.

"Leah!" he addressed her. "Please calm down. Everything will be okay."

Jake was also talking softly to her, and it seemed to me that she was paying more attention to her brother, if that could even be said in Leah's condition. Ced, whom Becky had pulled into her arms when Leah's seizure began, sought a purposeful path with his fingers to Leah. He managed to catch her by the leg, and he showed Leah that everyone was with her. Jake and Becky, himself and Marcus, who looked anything but pleased or happy or even equanimous. That didn't please my baby. Leah let go of Jake's hand, reaching vaguely into space, so that Jake in turn offered her his hand. But she didn't want it. She slapped it aside. Suddenly Leah straightened up and fell around Marcus' neck. He was clearly peeking in surprise and overstrained, as I could see through Jake's eyes. But only a moment passed before he enfolded Leah in his arms and hugged her tightly. Leah cried softly to herself until she slipped into a shallow sleep.

Jazz and I looked at each other.

Bella and Alice were standing with us by now and had followed my description from Leah's room.

To no one had she fled into the arms during the last days. Rather, she had tried to wriggle out of all hugs. This was a change in Leah's condition! And I had not just talked myself into it!

"Power and strength to be there for Leah and to be able to leave her unharmed later without having taken too much mental damage," I instructed Jasper.

He nodded.

"You don't think they could find their way back to each other?"

"No. Leah will never be the same as before. Marcus is fully aware of that and will leave as soon as Leah is ... healthy again. She will be attached to Nanuk even then and he needs distance from her to process the breakup," I explained.

"If Marcus is still here later, Leah could also take that as a prompt. A prompting that they should be together again, when he has already helped her through this time. However, Leah will not be able to comply with this request after she has admitted her feelings for Nanuk once. That would then conjure up additional feelings of guilt in Leah, because she is using his help, but can't give him anything in return," Bella added.

Jasper nodded again and I continued to prepare dinner.

However, when the children were called to eat, only three of the five children showed up.

Well, I didn't seriously expect Leah either, but I did expect Marcus. I heard the reason in his thoughts. He wanted to be there for Leah and, moreover, he didn't want to fit back into this family in which he had felt so comfortable.

I filled up a plate and went upstairs.

I was pleasantly surprised when I entered the room.

Leah was lying on the side, facing the door, appearing peaceful and relaxed. Different from the last days. For the first time - since Nanuk's passing - I had the impression that Leah was finding inner peace. And Marcus sat with her steadily. He worried about whether his presence would really be so good, how Leah's improvement would show, how long he would have to be there and the like. But also how difficult it would be for him to leave again.

"It's going to be hard for us to let you go, too," I interjected into his musings.

The corners of his mouth twitched a little.

He had already completely forgotten what it was like when I answered his thoughts.

I handed him the plate and sat down with the two of them. Gently, I stroked over Leah's neck with my fingertips.

She slept - deeply and soundly.

"She's calmer in every way than has been usual for her the last few days," I confirmed.

"But I'm not doing anything," he objected.

"You're here."

"Until she gets better!"

I nodded silently and Marcus began to eat.

I left him alone again and went downstairs.

He didn't want too much company. Not too much idyll family.

The evening passed quietly.

David came by with Cookie to check on Leah, as he currently did every evening. He was happily surprised that Marcus was there.

However, he had the same hope as Jake and Becky before him. That Leah and Marcus would find each other again.

We destroyed his hope and apologized with a bottle of beer.

It did not necessarily work.

Jake and Becky went out, even though they didn't really feel like it. They had arranged to meet their friends to celebrate the end of midterm exams. In the end, they had just brought their friends up to date on Leah and were home early and sober.

Bella and I played extensively with Ced, who had had to back off a lot in the past few days.

Jasper and Alice sat with us, accompanying Jake after him on his rounds through the woods, and my son came home once again injured.

"If this keeps up, I will no longer let you out at night! Or you'll get a leash. Like Cookie!"

"Dad! I just stepped on broken glass!" Jake said in a huff, rolling his eyes as he pulled his bleeding hand away from me.

The three incisions were not particularly deep, and they were already healing.

"There are those invisible fences, too, aren't there, where the dog gets electrocuted through the collar when it tries to cross the underground wires!" contributed Jasper to this conversation.

"Am I a dog, or what?" thundered Jake in response, indignantly, and fled into the kitchen.

Becky was looking for ice cream in the freezer. The wolf had to supervise that. They took the ice cream bowls upstairs and also brought Marcus one.

It got to half past ten in the evening.

David went home, Becky was already in bed, Ced fell asleep in our arms right after a bottle of blood, and the guys upstairs were chatting about whatever trivia they could find that had nothing to do with Leah.

Also Bella's eyes became smaller and heavier.

So we went upstairs.

We put Ced in his crib, but we still looked in Leah's room together.

The boys had just fallen asleep.

"Is it my imagination, or are the shadows lessening under her eyes?" asked Bella uncertainly as she sat down with Leah.

"You're not wrong, dearest," I confirmed. "Marcus is good for her, although I can't say why it is. It would be more understandable to me if Jake was causing this, or you as her mother."

"Let's just be happy that it is," Bella opined.

I nodded and turned to Jake, who was lying across the bed at Leah's feet.

Since he had just fallen asleep, he would only wake up if I would take him to his own bed. So now he was awake immediately, even though he looked at me indecisively for a confused moment.

"You fell asleep," I explained, whereupon my son first yawned heartily and stretched.

"Marcus," Bella tried to wake Marcus, who was sitting on the floor with his head nodding off on the bed - with one hand on that of Leah's.

He startled and looked around the area even more confused than Jake.

"I fell asleep," he stated on his own, however, already rubbing through his eyes.

"If you want, you can stay here tonight," Bella offered him, but I already knew the answer to that.

"No, better not. My ma will already be wondering where I'm hanging out," he declined and tried to stand up.

He was still a bit wobbly because his legs had fallen asleep, so he first dropped onto a chair to finally wake up.

Thereupon, Bella looked towards him a little anxiously.

"If you really think I can make a difference with Leah, I'll be back in the morning," he placated my angel.

"Yes. Thank you, Marcus!", Bella rose and hugged him.

Alice and Jasper took over the night watch at Leah's while I drove Marcus home.

He was so tired that I thought this was a better choice.

We drove in silence through the empty streets. Then we got out and stood in front of each other.

"We are really grateful to you!", I said emphatically, putting a hand on his shoulder to emphasize my sincerity. "We know it's not easy for you to be with Leah. That you're sacrificing your own progress in dealing with your breakup to help her, and that afterwards you're going to have to start all over again to deal with it. It's pretty selfish of us to misuse you for that purpose, so to speak. All the greater is our gratitude that you're taking this on yourself."

"Wouldn't everyone be willing to make such a sacrifice when it comes to the person you love above all else?" he replied, without really thinking about it.

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Good night, Edward. See you tomorrow," he said and turned to the door.

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