Ok. Here's the second giant chapter. I know this story give whole new definitions to the term "slow build" but I'm hoping that it's creating the kind of anticipation that only sort of makes you guys want to beat me to death with my laptop, rather than actually inspiring a real computer bludgeoning. Enjoy. :0)
** I've updated this chapter, as I was re-reading it and noticed a huge, crap-covered error. Pretty amazed actually that you guys didn't all jump all over it, but also glad as it's an embarrassingly awkward mistake. *red face*. So if you noticed it and didn't like to embarrass me by pointing it out, thanks, although maybe a PM so I can change it quicker next time? And if you didn't notice it, well sorry, but I'm not telling you what it was! Lol :0p
Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight Saga. I own twitchy fingers that enjoy writing for no profit.
Chapter 38: Heart Attacks and Heroines
I sat myself down on the couch, waiting for Billy to get himself wheeled round to face me before I started straight in with "So I'm guessing that you're going to fill me on as to what all the expressive looks and loaded statements were about this morning then?" Billy chuckled, a lot happier than I would've expected him to be while recalling the ludicrous meeting. I raised a questioning brow.
"Old Quil doesn't realise how badly he shot himself in the foot this morning." He told me, an unholy glee spreading over his face. "First of all he's managed to kill any chance he might've had of keeping Harry on-side in any future disagreements. I'll be honest, it was almost worth all the shit today just to get that result. But that's not all." He grinned over at me, a knowing glint in his eye. "I've got a theory, based on something I remember reading in the journals, but I'm going to hold off on telling you, you'll know exactly what I mean once you find it for yourself. If I'm right, then not only will it answer several questions, but also it'll completely solve the problem of filling Bella in on who you are." I couldn't help my frustrated growl at the older man. "Fuck's sake. If he wasn't going to tell me anything, then what the fuck did he bother with the meaningful looks and the emphasising certain sentences? And why the hell did he make me come down here to hear nothing helpful, when I could've spent the extra time with my mom?" Hearing my growl, Billy held his hands up in defence and quickly pressed on. "But the best result, apart from the fact that now its two to one in favour, I can hand over the journals," at this, he reached behind him to a box and dragged it round on the floor until it was in front of him, gesturing to me that I should have a look. Inside were dozens of books in different sizes and bindings; the journals of the last pack. "the best result," he continued "is that without realising it, Old Quil has officially, in an official Council meeting, recognised that the members of the pack are the final authority in confirming an imprint, and he's accidently agreed that once an imprint is confirmed, by the pack, the imprint can be told about the pack, without asking permission of the council, like he was trying to force on you. He's freed you all of any obligation to hold to that agreement you offered after Paul blabbed to Rachel without checking it with you first." Billy sat back, beaming and smug, and I couldn't blame him; it was all I could do not to let out a victory whoop at this news. Now that Billy was spelling it out, it was obvious. It wouldn't be of benefit to me directly, with Bella not being my imprint, and me having no idea when, or if I ever would imprint with anyone, but for the pack in general it was a really great development. I wondered if Old Quil would work out what he'd done before the next wolf imprinted, or if the realisation would come crashing down on him when he attempted to enforce the previous agreement. My shoulders started to shake with repressed laughter, and looking up to see Billy doing the same, I gave up repressing it and threw my head back, laughing out loud with Billy at Old Quil's huge mistake. It took a few minutes for us to settle back down; the relief of the day's stress and tension creating a pair of giggling school children right there in Billy's living room, but once we'd calmed ourselves, Billy leant forward and looked through the journals in the box for a moment, before sitting back up and passing me a large, scruffy brown leather bound volume.
"Start with this one first." He told me. "It's not the earliest one written, but I think it's going to be the most useful one for you right now." Taking that as a hint that it was time I was gone, I nodded and rose form the couch, picking up the box of journals and placing the scruffy brown one that Billy had handed me on the top.
"Thanks Billy." I said, shaking his hand firmly, "For everything. I mean you were really batting for us today, and you've managed to pull off a real coup over Old Quil this morning, without him even noticing." Billy grinned at me, but shook his head slightly.
"You need to take a fair amount of credit for how well today turned out yourself, Sam." He told me firmly. "You handled the whole situation amazingly well. I'd been chief for several years before I was able to turn a meeting around like you did this morning when you questioned Leah." He chuckled at the memory. "I think that maybe it's time that you started asserting that authority a little more in all Council meetings; give it a few more sessions and you'll have shut down Old Quil's agenda completely." I smiled at him, appreciating the vote of confidence, and for the first time feeling that maybe I was beginning to fill the very large shoes that Billy had left behind when he stepped down as chief and I took over.
Leaving Billy's, I headed over to my mom's, wondering the whole way which of my old favourites she was going to cook. There was no question in my mind that she would want to prepare something that I'd loved as a kid, and I wasn't about to try to talk her out of it, I was hoping she would go for either her meatloaf, or if I was really lucky, maybe her baked ham. Both had been firm favourites of mine when I was younger, and I was willing to bet that she'd not cooked them for herself in the time we'd been on bad terms; she'd never really been one to do much cooking if it was just for herself. Turning the corner onto her street, I wound down the window on my truck, wanting to catch the smell of Mom's cooking as early as possible. About five houses away I caught an unmistakeable scent on the breeze and a massive grin spread
"Awesome." I beamed. "Baked ham and Mom's mashed potatoes." I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten Mom's mashed potatoes. She'd always made the best in my opinion; after creaming them, she'd always mixed in corn and every time I'd eaten anyone else's I'd always been disappointed when I didn't find little yellow kernels in each mouthful. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me just how much I needed to fill it, and I was actually having to swallow back the drool as I pulled up in front of Mom's place.
She opened the door as I switched off the engine and I jogged up her steps and gave her a huge hug and a loud kiss on the cheek as she chuckled indulgently.
"Dinner's going to be at least a half hour." She told me, "But I've got it far enough ahead that we can just sit and chat until it's ready." We settled immediately into a comfortable atmosphere, talking and laughing, reminiscing and discussing our current lives, which lasted through dinner and beyond, and I was happily amazed at how easy it was for us to settle back into our previous closeness, and all of it, however unwittingly, was down to Bella and her presence in my life. That was actually a favourite topic of conversation for my mom, and as I drove home just after ten o'clock that evening I thought over a few of her less than subtle comments.
"So you and Bella Swan then?" She'd questioned me. "She's a lovely girl, and perfect for you. I just hope you're being careful with how you treat her; she's had a real rough time over the last few months from what I've seen, and even though she seems to have improved a lot over the last couple of months, she's still pretty fragile emotionally and mentally I think. I wouldn't want to see her hurt again, I'm not completely sure she'd survive it intact." When she'd said that I'd worried for a second that once again my mom was doubting me like she had when Leah and I had split, and the thought hurt more than I would've known was possible, but Mom's next words soon soothed the hurt and had me smothering a smile. "Just the same as I wouldn't want to see her hurt you unintentionally. The kind of damage that's been done to her, not just by her ex, but by the rumour mongers and gossips in town, can create such a defensiveness that she might react to the slightest disagreement or difficulty in a way that could really hurt you without her meaning to." I had appreciated my mom's concern for me, but I couldn't believe, even for a second, that Bella would ever do anything to hurt me.
"Shit, the girl went so far as to voluntarily walk into what she knew full well could easily be her own death in order to keep her dad alive." I recalled "I could much more easily imagine her hurting herself to save me from being hurt myself than anything else." I couldn't, of course, tell any of that to my mom, not without letting her in on things that she couldn't know. So instead, I'd tried to explain to her the agreement Bella and I had formed about our relationship.
"Bella and I understand where each other stand, Mom." I'd told her. "Neither of us are in a position to offer the other more than a short-term thing. Nothing heavy, we're just enjoying each other's company for as long as it last and no hard feelings when one of us needs to put an end to it." Even as I'd spoken, I'd felt a painful twist in my gut and chest at the thought of Bella putting an end to our relationship. My wolf had been vehemently opposed to the idea too, growling lowly at me inside my head. Rather than the disapproval I'd half expected, Mom had given me a pitying look.
"Honey, the two of you can tell yourselves that 'til you're blue in the face, and believe that you mean it too, but I can see the way she looks at you and the way you look at her. Trust me." she'd put her hand over mine and squeezed. "There's nothing short-term about those looks. Not for either of you." Mom gave me a sudden amused ad sly grin. "Within the next couple of months, one or both of you is going to realise I'm right, and I'm definitely not such a good person that I'm to going to revel in the opportunity to say 'I told you so'." I'd given an amused snort, and didn't bother trying to argue with her. As much as I'd actually liked the picture she'd painted, I knew the reality, and I was beginning to really resent it.
As I arrived back at my house, I was surprised for a moment to find Leah, in wolf form sitting at the bottom of my steps. It took a moment before I remembered the punishment I'd set her earlier that morning, about a decade ago. She was clearly there to give her first report and I had to steel myself before I got out of the truck; getting a complete and unedited view of every thought, word and action of my bitter, jealous and angry ex-girlfriend daily, however fast she managed to zip through it using the pack mind bond, was going to be almost as hard on me as it would be on her to have to show me. But I couldn't deny the fact that I'd come up with an apt punishment for her; if she was going to learn to respect the privacy of her pack mates, beginning with me, she would have to start by experiencing a complete lack of any privacy of her own. Maybe then she'd see the value of what she had so casually violated that morning.
With a heavy sigh, I got out of my truck and stripped and phased before coming around the truck to stand face to face with her. I could already feel the resentment and anger flowing off her, but brushed it aside, not wanting to show even the slightest sign that I was going to hate this as much as she was. Sitting down in front of her, I took a final deep breath in readiness.
"Ok then, Leah, Report." I instructed her, ignoring her distress as she began to run though everything she had done, said, thought and felt that day. Her anger and bitterness left a metallic taste in my mouth, they were so strong whenever she re-played a thought of Bella, or of Bella and me together, and my own anger was very hard to fight down when I heard her private thoughts on the matter. I clamped down hard on my wolf, not wanting him to tear free of my control and do Leah physical harm as we both heard her tirade at the Council building for the second time, this time coloured by Leah's thoughts and emotions, but it seemed that for now my wolf was content to witness the emotional pain that she was experiencing through this punishment, rather than cause her any physical damage. My own emotional responses to Leah's re-play of the day was impossible to hide, even if I had tried, and for the first time I could actually see that Leah was getting a clearer understanding of how she was being perceived by myself and the rest of the pack due to her behaviour. I began to feel a trickle of remorse coming through the bond from her, overlaying the anger, embarrassment and resentment she was feeling for having to expose herself in such a way, and it gave me a little hope that maybe eventually I'd get through to her. As she came to a close, showing me the last couple of almost totally silent hours spent patrolling with Jared while he snubbed her and instead talked with Seth and Jake who were still on Bella guard duty, I nodded at her and stood once more.
"Very well, you can go home now. You're on Patrol with Embry at three. Don't be late." I told her, not wanting to talk to her right then any more than I had to. She had a right to her private thoughts and emotions, the same as anyone, but that didn't mean that I wasn't incredibly pissed at her for just what she'd been thinking and feeling about me, Bella, Billy, her brother, and the whole pack. If I tried to speak to her right then, I would've blown up at her over it, and that sort of thing wasn't going to benefit anyone.
Without a sound, Leah turned on her heels and ran off in the general direction of her house, while I checked in with Jared, who was waiting for me to take over his patrol officially before he could phase out and get some rest.
"Just give me a couple of minutes to get these journals inside, would you?" I asked him after checking that he'd had a quiet patrol with nothing unusual to report. I'll take over as soon as I've phased back, but I need hands, rather than paws to take this box to the house." Jared cheerfully agreed and so I quickly phased back and, grabbing my short off the ground where I'd let them fall, I picked up the box of journals from the front seat of my truck and carried them inside. I was just juggling the large box, my pants, and the rock under which my door key was hidden when my cell in my shorts pocket let me know that I had a text, so when I managed to get the front door open, I quickly dropped the box onto my couch and fished the phone out of the pocket to see who was trying to get a hold of me. It was Bella and I felt my mouth curl up on one side in an unconscious grin as I saw her name come up. Her message made me snort in a slightly sardonic amusement. It read
"Hi Sam. Hope your Sunday was relaxing; apart from a quick trip into Port Angeles mine was pretty quiet. I'll see you at the drop-in centre tomorrow? Bella x"
"Hmm. Let's see. Was my Sunday relaxing?" I chuckled ironically to myself. "Yeah, I'm going to go with a huge great steaming, stinking pile of 'no' on that one. Although at least spending the evening hanging out with Mom was nice." I was relieved to hear that her day had been relaxing though. After the previous evening I would've expected her to have spent the day in a state of shock, or in panicked realisation of just what exactly she'd gone through in the clearing. Well if she'd been anyone other than Bella that was. But being who she was, with that amazing bravery that she didn't even seem to realise she possessed, I guessed I shouldn't be at all surprised to hear that she'd suffered no stress from the event at all. "And if she's calling her Sunday relaxing, then I guess the hospital trip this morning can't have been anything important." I reminded myself. Typing out a quick reply before I had to phase back and go take over from Jared only took me a couple of minutes, although I had to pick my words carefully so that I could remain within the bounds of both my agreement with Bella to be honest, and the strictures placed on my by the Council to not give her any more information than she already had. I felt an uncomfortable stirring in my gut at the memory of Old Quil telling me that I'd have to lie to Bella if she asked me directly whether or not I was a wolf. Neither I nor my wolf liked the thought of lying to her one bit, and I guessed I was going to have to avoid seeing her for a few days, or even talking to her on the phone to prevent being forced into it. Texting would be easier though; I would be able to carefully pick and choose my words so as to tell the truth without revealing too much, and she wouldn't know I was doing it. I scowled. Even that much put a bad taste in my mouth, but until I'd managed to get the Council to butt out of the running of the pack, I was going to just have to deal with it as the best of a bad lot. Just before I set my cell down on the kitchen counter and went outside to phase once again, I fired off my reply.
"Hi Bella. Had a pretty full-on day myself. Spent some time with my mom and had several tribal things to deal with. Not sure if I'll make it to the drop-in centre tomorrow, as I've still got a lot of tribal duties to handle, but if I don't make it I'll miss spending time with you. I'm glad you had a good day. Hope tomorrow's another good one. Night. Sam x" It was all technically true, just a shading of the truth, but it didn't stop that bad taste in my mouth to become really bitter, nor did it keep my wolf from whining in distress at me. "I seriously need to work out what the fuck is going on there; he's acting so weirdly, it's very close to how Jared and Paul are about Kim and Rachel, and as it's been very clearly established. Several times today even. There's just no reason for either my human or wolf side to be reacting like this. For the final time, wolf, Bella's NOT our imprint!" That thought, sent directly to my wolf earned me nothing more than a vicious snarl. At myself "Fucking hell, I'm so fucking messed up." So I tried hard to just table that topic for the time being and phased to relieve Jared of his patrol, and to send Jake and Seth back home; With both Bella and Charlie home for the night and no sign of any leech activity since the night before I'd run a loop directly around the Swans' block in between each loop I ran around the Rez and Forks. The fact that getting to be close to Bella, even in such a limited way appeased my wolf was nothing to do with the matter. Nothing at all. And if the human side of me felt better about it, well I just wasn't ready to look at that whole can of worms yet, so it could just stay good and unopened.
The next few days were, happily not quite as chaotic as Sunday had been, although I was still swamped with all my responsibilities. I'd taken on a few small construction jobs, two on the Rez, and one in Forks, on top of the bigger project we were still completing, Seth and Leah needed training up from scratch, Jake, and to some degree Embry, were still relative noobs and needed to tighten up their individual fighting skills, and we needed whole pack drills to begin to function well fighting as a group, so that we could all know exactly what our roles were if we needed to act as a cohesive unit in a fight. Like Bella had said; the red-head could just make a new friend and we should make sure we'd be ready in the event that we had to hold off a pair of vamps at the same time. Quil was beginning to show signs of losing his usually easy going nature, so we were keeping an eagle eye on him at all times, ready to spring into action at the first sign that he was going to phase. The day-to-day administration and running of the pack was not the easiest job even when there were no major events of disputes ongoing, so I had plenty on my plate from that direction too, and of course, added to all of this was the usual pack duties, Guarding Bella and Charlie, and then rounding the day off every time with another tortuous run-down of Leah's day when she came by to report each evening.
When it came down to it, I wouldn't have been able to make it to the drop-in centre on the Monday, even if I hadn't been avoiding seeing Bella so that I didn't have to lie to her, but I did manage to send her a text letting her know not to expect me, and I made sure to send her a message each day so that she wouldn't think that I was avoiding her. Even though I was. However much I was hating it. As each day went on with no further vampires scents, I kept up with my Sunday night tactic of running the last patrol myself, doing a loop around the Rez, one around the Swan's block and then another around the whole of Forks, before going back round the Rez again, and although it meant I was beginning to feel the effects of the drastically reduced sleep, and I was barely finding more than a minute here and there to begin working my way through the journal Billy had recommended I begin reading, it was keeping the rest of the pack that little bit fresher, was holding back the resentment of Paul and Leah about having to guard Bella even when she was safe at home for the night, and it was also keeping my wolf from fighting me for control and breaking free to run off and moon over Bella. The muted dose of her scent drifting around her house, and the odd times I would catch an old trace of it around the Rez or town was, if not keeping him happy, at least preventing a coup. It was settling for my human side as well. It had only been a few days since I'd seen or spoken to her, but I was missing her enough that I was beginning to realise that she'd gotten under my skin in a much bigger way that either of us had ever intended, ad a part of me was starting to acknowledge that maybe my mom hadn't been as far off the mark as I'd been telling myself.
That realisation was bittersweet. I was torn between wanting to admit to myself (and maybe to Bella too) that I felt something much stronger for her than I'd ever thought I might, and knowing that nothing good could come from the admission. At least I'd given up on trying to actively fight it or deny it. My inner teenage girl, which had done such a good job of freaking me out before our first date, kept nagging away at me that Bella would think I'd lost interest in her and move on to someone else unless I did more than send her vague and non-committal texts making excuses about why I couldn't actually see her, and by the Friday, that nagging had me so on edge that I finally gave in and called, although I made sure to do so during school time when I knew she wouldn't be able to answer the call, and I carefully planned what I would say to her machine to avoid lying outright.
"Hi Bella." I began. "Just checking in to see how your week is going so far. Mine's been completely non-stop pretty much since Saturday afternoon, I'm sorry we've not had a chance to meet up. I'll do my best to get everything straightened out so we can get together soon though." I gave a little dry chuckle. "It sounds a bit weird, I know, but I'm actually really missing spending time with you." I was just about to go on with my pre-scripted but still tragically awkward message when Paul jogged onto the construction site and phased right there in the open. Before I could do more than cover my cell with my hand and fix him with an astonished and angry glare for being so careless, he burst out.
"I just caught the red-head's scent out near the clearing. A couple of hours old, she's not there now, but Jared and I figured he'd best keep running tight loops around the school to keep that covered while I came to let you know." I nodded briefly in reply and he immediately shifted back and turned to run back into the woods.
"Great." I said into the phone once again, my voice sounding a little rushed, but hopefully not too strained. "Something else just came up so I've got to go. I'll see you soon. I hope." I hung up quickly, fired off a text to Billy, asking him to get Jake to phase as soon as possible, and followed Paul, phasing once I'd entered the tree-line.
"Jared. Anything going on over there at the school?" I checked, my wolf insisting that I do so first before I ran off to check out this scent that Paul had caught.
"No sign of trouble here, Boss." He replied, his mental tone clear and alert, but not overly alarmed.
"I'm just chasing her scent back as far as that corridor she keeps running down, Boss." Paul informed me, sounding calm and professional "looks like whatever she came for this time, she left again pretty quickly, as there's a fresher trail leading back out of the area, less than a half hour old. I dunno what she came in for, but I'm pretty sure she's gone again now." With that news I calmed a great deal, my wolf settling down too.
"Ok. So let's trace her scent trail back and see if we can work out just what it was she was up to then." I instructed, and we both turned tail and ran back along the clear track of the sickly sweet, bleachy scent, as it headed, with several cut-backs and twists towards the Cullen mansion. "Is it just me, or can you smell a fainter leech smell underneath the red-head's stench." I asked Paul after a few minutes of running. Paul paused and touched his nose to the ground, sniffing and snuffling and wincing as the heavier fresh scent burned his nose.
"No, you're right. It's faint, but it's there. It's that dread-locked dick's scent. And hers is following it almost exactly." By this point we were circling around the back of the Cullen's place. The well-manicured lawns had gone to seed and up to knee-high on an average human adult, and two sets of tracks could clearly be seen, the bent and flattened blades of grass showing how first one, and then a few days later another individual had walked around the building. "Looks to me like the first bloodsucker, the one we wasted the other night, came by looking to see if the Cullens were still around, and the red-head was following his tracks today, maybe trying to find out where her little BFF has got to?" The theory sounded solid to me and I nodded my agreement.
"Probably spot on." I said and jerked my head in the direction the double trail led next. "So let's keep on following it and see if she worked it out." We continued our run, Paul snorting suddenly in a grim sort of amusement. I glanced over to him questioningly.
"I was just thinking I wish I'd been there to see her face when she found the remains of our little campfire." I couldn't help but to give him a tongue lolling wolfy grin back at that.
"Yeah that would've been satisfying. I bet she was seriously pis…" I broke off as the two of us arrive at the site of the fire, an ashy smudge on the ground that was all that remained of the vamp who tried to attack Bella. The last time we'd been here, the tree cover was fairly dense, but as we looked around, we could see what closely resembled the path of destruction of a decent sized tornado. Many of the trees were now downed, creating a mini version of the clearing nearby. Most of the pulled right up out of the ground, a few snapped off several feet up their trunks, and in one impressive case, a snapped of trunk had clearly been hurled at another tree and was now impaling it's trunk, about three feet of the projectile sticking out the other side. Paul gave a mental whistle and looked at me, eyes wide.
"Whoa! She was more than just pissed; she was completely livid by the looks of it." I had to agree. The female leech had clearly gone completely nuts on finding what was left of her extra crispy friend.
"Still wish you'd been here to see her face?" I asked him with a snuffling wolf chuckle.
"Well yeah, but maybe from behind those rocks." He jerked his muzzle in the direction of a few boulders about 50 feet away. "Just until she'd done throwing trees around though." He hastened to add, not wanting to sound like he was afraid of the vamp. "Then I would've done some tearing and throwing of my own." I carefully withheld my thought that I wasn't sure he, or indeed any of us were a match for her one-on-one when she was clearly out of her head with anger. Then again, we might've had the advantage with her distracted and not thinking clearly. These were the sort of things I was hoping to learn from the journals; gaining important knowledge from the experience of packs from the past would drastically improve the fighting capability of our own pack. We felt Jake phase in just then. He'd been due to take over Paul's patrol in a couple of hours anyway, but with Paul investigating with me, I needed to have him start his own patrol loops early to make sure the red-head hadn't doubled back and re-entered the Rez from another direction. I quickly filled Jake in on what we figured had happened, and he saw the new mini clearing though our eyes. He too gave a mental whistle.
"Woah!" Jake breathed, and Paul's mental snort was so loud that for a moment I thought he'd found a way to make the human sound through his wolf body.
"That's exactly what I said." He told Jake, his wolfy grin clear even through his tone. "We certainly upset the bitch by killing her undead buddy. Although whether she's pissed because they had an emotional link, or because he was an important part of her plans is a new and interesting question." He added thoughtfully. That was a very good point. Bella had already told us that the Cullens had killed her mate, which was why she was gunning for Bella, but had we now killed her new mate and doubled the rage?
"Well short of having a nice little chat with her, that's something we'll probably never know." I pointed out. "And if I'm honest I don't really care one way or the other. She gives us even the smallest chance and we're ripping her to pieces whatever. I guess if we've managed to put a kink in her plans though, that's a bonus for us." The others gave rumbling growls of agreement, and we all started a slow run. Paul and I back towards the Rez, and Jake off on his first patrol loop of the evening.
Jared let us know that Bella was leaving school and was headed over to the Rez, they'd probably beat us there in fact. His shift was coming to an end and Seth and Leah were due to take over, the first time I'd put the two of them together without a more experienced wolf to supervise, and also the first time Leah had taken Bella guard duty. I figured that with Seth's experience in dealing with his sister, he was the ideal person to make sure there weren't any problems while she took her first turn at keeping Bella safe. It was still a relief though, that Bella was coming onto the Rez; it was safer in general for Bella, if the two inexperienced wolves did run into any difficulties, help wouldn't be far away, and also, if Leah did act up it would be easier and quicker to handle her in the relative privacy of the Rez.
As Paul and I jogged along towards the Rez, I began running various fight training ideas through my head, based on the very little I'd managed to read of the journals so far. My earlier thought that perhaps none of us would've held our own one-on-one against the red-head was worrying; we ought to be able to fight effectively both as individuals and as a pack, and using tips from the journals, describing past training and fights alike would hopefully bring us up to scratch; we were a very young pack still, both in terms of our ages, and in terms of how long we'd all been phasing, but in order for us to mature in either case we needed time and training.
Deciding that work on the construction site was done for the day, once we got back to the Rez I let Paul, Jared and Jake know that I was going to phase out and take the opportunity to do some of the jobs around my mom's place that I'd noticed needed doing. In particular, I'd seen, when I was over at her house having dinner that her kitchen sink was blocked and needed clearing, so I turned off, leaving Paul running towards his house, and headed back to mine to collect my tools. Once home, I decided to take a few minutes to catch up on a few chores I'd been neglecting there as well – not having had time to do any of them between my pack and tribal duties, work, guarding Bella at night, and snatching a bit of sleep here and there. As I rummaged around in the back of my truck, sorting out some of the trash that had built up there from my busy week. My cell rang; Paul. "Seriously, I just left him. What the fuck could be so important already that he needs to interrupt me?" I thought in exasperation, accepting the call.
"Boss, you need to grab Billy and get yourselves over to the Rez clinic." He burst out as soon as I answered, his voice rushed and edged with barely controlled panic. My heart began to hammer.
"Bella?" I asked. It wasn't a completely unjustified question – Bella was very talented at getting herself injured and for the most part any of us wolves being injured wouldn't mean a trip to the clinic, we'd heal almost all the way before we even got in through the door. Paul couldn't disguise the slight hint of disgust in his voice at my response, but it wasn't as strong as I'd become used to, maybe he was finally coming round.
"Not her." He answered quickly. "Harry's collapsed. Bella was with him when it happened, and Leah and Seth phased back to help them." He let out a shuddering breath. "Seth had his cell in his shorts pocket tied to his leg so I'm pretty sure an ambulance is on its way over to them now, but if you leave now, you should be able to get to Billy's and still arrive at the clinic before they get there." I was torn between a rushing torrent of relief that Bella wasn't hurt, concern for Harry, and an almost desperate need to get to wherever Bella was to help her.
"I should go find them and help." I said, beginning to pull down my shorts ready to phase."
"By the time you get there, the ambulance will have arrived and you'll just be in the way." Paul pointed out, being unusually sensible for him, and more unusually tolerant of my concern for Bella. I think the best you can do is get Billy and have both of you be there ready at the clinic in case you're needed. I don't know exactly what happened to Harry; Leah and Seth phased out as soon as they realised that it was their dad that Bella was yelling for help for, and Seth said he was going to call 911. Everything that can be done has been done, but if he's injured and has lost blood they might need donors, so you and Billy could be of use at the clinic, and that's also the best place to be to find out if they were attacked and the pack needs to deal with the threat." Amazingly, Paul was making perfect sense, without cursing and being all hot-headed like usual. It was just as well because I was struggling to remain my usual calm self, concern for Bella's wellbeing stripping of the ability to focus properly.
"Ok, you're probably right. I'm on my way to Billy's now." I climbed back into the truck as I spoke, starting the engine with a roar and gunning it away from my house. "You call the rest of the pack and make sure someone is patrolling, I don't care who, just make sure we're covered and get the others to come to the clinic. Leah and Seth might have problems fighting back the need to phase at the clinic and we might need extra bodies there for crowd control."
"I'm on it." Paul assured me and hung up right away, leaving me to silently fret as I sped through the Rez to get Billy.
We pulled up to the entrance of the clinic just as a nurse and one of the EMTs were unloading Harry. Bella's scent was coming strongly from the back of the ambulance and I paused for a moment, watching for Bella to come out too, but instead, another EMT jumped down carrying a blanket which was apparently where most of the scent was coming from. Not all though, and I couldn't hold back a low growl as my wolf reacted to the scent of Bella coming from the EMT himself. He must've been very close to her for some time for him to smell of her so strongly. Jealousy, anger and concern mixed and churned through both human and wolf me. "What was he doing touching her? Was she hurt after all and he had to treat her? Was he the one that hurt her? How dare he touch her?" the thoughts span through my head almost too fast for me to catch each one before it gave way to the next. Billy nudged me.
"Get a grip on it, Sam. You need to be focused right now." He cautioned me. "Is there any vampire scent on Harry?" I silently kicked myself in the ass and attempted to narrow my concentration to the issue at hand.
"No. No blood either, so I don't think any of us will need to donate." The Clearwater's car pulled up in front of us and before it had stopped completely, Seth and Leah cam boiling out of it, rushing over to the stretcher carrying Harry as it passed through the double doors. Sue wasn't far behind, leaving the car doors open and the engine still running in the parking lot. I lifted Billy's chair out of the back of the truck and helped him down and into it. "I'll park their car up." I told him. "Can you head on in and see what you can find out? I'll be in myself in just a minute." Nodding grimly, Billy wheeled himself over to the building and I folded myself in to Sue's little car, parking it safely and then jogging inside myself.
The next hour and a half proved to be evidence that time is not a constant and can indeed stretch beyond all recognition. As we sat on scratchy, squeaky plastic chairs in the waiting room, watching the second hand crawling at sub snail speed around the clock, just beyond a closed door the doctor was treating Harry, his voice, while clearly audible to those of us with the wolf hearing, giving no real clue as to what was going on as he was speaking a completely different language to the rest of us. Terms like Acute myocardial infarction, Hypercholesterolemia, and Pulmonary embolus meant nothing to any of us and so we were reduced to sitting on the uncomfortable chairs, avoiding making eye contact with each other for fear that any one of us might break at any time, the interminable, century-long seconds proving too torturous for us. We'd only been there for about five minutes, long enough for a nurse to come and let us all know that the doctors were working on Harry and that the best thing Sue, Seth, Leah, Billy and I could do for him would be to keep out of the way and wait quietly for news, and for Leah to very nearly lose her grip on her human shape at the (admittedly slightly bunt and tactless) advice, when the other pack members began to arrive one at a time. Jake was first, Paul not long behind him, and about fifteen minutes later Embry rushed in, and each time I had to repeat the same answers to the same questions.
"No, not yet. We're waiting to find out. No nothing. Down the corridor and to the left, but the coffee tastes like chlorine and dust so I wouldn't advise it." Jared had offered to run the patrol as he'd already been phased and had been bored witless sitting still guarding Bella at school. He figured that if he had to do more sitting around, this time at the hospital, he'd probably go bat-shit crazy and I could certainly relate. After about an hour, I took a moment to go out around back and phase so I could check in with Jared and make sure everything was cool, and he showed me a quick replay of what he'd seen when he'd run over to the scene of Harry's collapse, arriving about five minutes before the ambulance left, my mom of all people standing with her, and I heard through Jared's memory, my mom basically ordering Bella to go to Mom's place with her. Then he showed me a flash of Seth and Leah's memory of realising that their dad was in trouble. But their despairing panic which accompanied the visual memory was so sharp that it almost sent me over the edge, so I cut it short and thanked Jared for stepping up to patrol, phasing back and heading in once more to suffer the squeaky chair, stretched time torture with the others, the added torment of being more and more impatient to find Bella which I was feeling from both my human and even more strongly, my wolfy sides.
At last news was filtering out of the treatment room to us; Harry had had a heart attack and although he was now in a stable condition, had he been alone, or with someone who didn't know CPR, or with someone less determined and stubborn, the chances were he wouldn't have made it. But as Seth told us once his relief at knowing that Harry was now stable had overcome his frightened silence, Bella had managed to get CPR started less than half a minute after Harry had dropped, and had stuck with it, obstinately refusing to let him go until help had arrived in the form of Leah and Seth, and had then worked together with Leah for even longer until the Harry's heart had re-started before the EMTs had even arrived. "Fuck me but Bella is completely astounding. How many people would've just kept on going? Or would've not just panicked in the first place and would've known what to do?" I glanced across to Leah, who, whilst she had the same mix of tension and relief on her face as Seth and Sue, also had a slightly thoughtful expression as she stared at, or through the floor. "I bet there are even more than a few people in the world who would've thought twice about helping someone whose daughter had injured them, Harry's seriously lucky that Bella was with him when he collapsed." Leah looked up just then and caught my eye, for the first time since she'd phased there was no trace of the bitter resentment I'd grown used to seeing in her face, and while it wasn't exactly a smile, the calm but slight nod she gave me went a long way to convincing me that the worst was over where she was concerned. I guessed that your dad almost dying gave you a whole new perspective on what was really important.
The doctor came out of Harry's room and pulled Sue over to one side to talk to her, and after a few moments of earnest discussion, she went in to see Harry, pausing only to squeeze Leah's and Seth's hands and tell them they could come in too in a few minutes. All of us in our crappy plastic chairs let out a relieved sigh, the tension in the room deflating like a kids' balloon with a pin in it. Taking the doctor calling the family in as a sign that we were no longer needed, I looked around at the others and gestured with a slight jerk of my head that we should go.
"I'm going to hang on here for a while longer." Billy told me firmly. "See if I can't get in to See Harry myself, even if it's only for a minute."
"Ok. Then I'll leave my truck here for you." I told him, handing over the keys. "I'm gonna get Embry to take over patrol from Jared and have Jake go over to keep an eye on Charlie. Bella's on the Rez, so she's safe enough for now. Jake can drive my truck, so give Charlie a call when you're ready to leave. I'd be willing to bet that he'll want to come check up on Harry, and probably Bella too as soon as he hears what's happened. Jake can trail Charlie over here and drive you home in my truck." Billy nodded and wheeled himself off to get another crappy cup of coffee.
"Leah." I called out across the waiting room as everyone began standing and heading to the door. "If you guys need anything, anything at all, just let your new brothers know, ok?" I told her, receiving a tiny smile as her eyes softened a little. "And under the circumstances, you can skip your report tonight. You've got other things to deal with right now." I added
"We will, Sam. Thanks." She replied, her voice quiet but clear and she turned to go into her dad's room, Seth close on her heels.
I gave the others their assignments for the rest of the afternoon and evening and, having now established that Harry was in good hands and that Seth, and more importantly Leah, were calm and not too likely to phase in the middle of the clinic, I could finally get out of there and go check on Bella. My wolf was almost desperate after the forced inactivity to find her and make sure she was ok. The images I'd seen from Jared's mind of her sitting on the back of the ambulance, the EMT checking on her with the stethoscope, had him, and if I was honest me, frantic to see her safe and well at my mom's place.
Actually, if I was really being honest, what both the wolf and I really wanted to see was Bella safe and well at my place, more specifically, now that I'd seen her there once I wanted to see her safe and well in my bed. My wolf sent me his hearty agreement with that thought, his feeling of safe, right, home startling me in its certainty. For what felt like the millionth time I fretted over the reason for my wolf's obsession with Bella. I'd proved to myself time and again that she wasn't my imprint. No matter how much my wolf wanted to roll around in her scent like a terrier in fox shit, no matter how mental my wolf had gone when he'd realised she was directly under threat by the red-headed leach bitch, no matter how much he screamed "MINE" at me, the fact remained that despite the number of times Bella and I had made eye contact, no imprint had occurred and therefore she wasn't "mine". I continued to wonder about this as I strode off around the back of the clinic building, undoing my shorts as I went, but as usual I couldn't come up with any reasonable answer to the problem. As much as I wanted Bella to be the one I ended up with – and I was being honest enough with myself now to admit that that was what I wanted – it appeared that it wasn't going to happen and all I could do was enjoy what we had while it lasted, and hope like hell that if or when I ever did imprint on someone, I'd done enough to keep Bella's heart safe from being broken again, no matter how bruised and battered my own ended up being. Shaking off that depressing train of thought, I rounded the back of the clinic, pulled my shorts off and, pausing only long enough to tie them to my ankle, I phased. Jared, and Embry were still phased in, Jared running a patrol loop around the far side of the Rez, and Embry running a tighter loop around the clinic. As soon as he felt me phase in, Jared started up with the questions.
"Any news, Boss? How's Harry? Is he ok? What about Leah, Seth and Sue?"
"Hold on, hold on. One question at a time!" I told him. "The doctor came out a few minutes ago and told Sue she was allowed in to see him. I don't think he was awake yet, but I got the impression from the medical staff that the worst was over and he's out of danger, at least for now." The sense of relief from Jared was as palpable as it had been from all of us sitting in the waiting room. Harry was an important, respected and well-loved member of the tribe, even without taking into account that he was one of our Elders. If we then added in the fact that he was the father of two of our own, well, our pack bond meant that we all felt to a certain degree like it was our own parent lying in that hospital bed.
"Well thank fuck for that!" Jared's less than eloquent response nonetheless spoke for us all. "What about Bella? What was going on with her? Do we know why the EMT was treating her too?" I stifled a wolfy grin at his clear concern for Bella. She certainly had a way of making people feel attached to her. At this point, pretty much the whole pack was firmly in the Bella camp. Well except for Paul of course, and Leah. Though I was willing to bet that her aversion to Bella was probably significantly lessened by now and even Paul had been pretty toned down in his disapproval that afternoon.
"I don't know yet. All I know is that my mom dragged Bella off to her house after the EMT was done with her, and I only know that because you saw them head off and passed the image to me." I made a concerted effort to keep my own (and my wolf's) concern tamped down and instead reminded myself that Bella was safe with my mom. "I'm just on my way there now to see what gives. For that matter, hopefully she'll tell me exactly what happened with Harry, cos we still don't know much before Seth and Leah heard her yelling for help. We're assuming that he just suddenly collapsed, but I don't like just making assumptions like that. There's still a chance that something happened to give him the heart attack and I'm not running the risk of missing anything important just cos I figured I knew what went down." I could now see my mom's house ahead of me and began to slow, ready to phase back and finally find out everything I was burning to know. "I'll fill you all in as much as I can when I can. I know that Seth was s'posed to take over from you, but Embry's going to do that now, and Jake's going to go guard Charlie. Bella should be safe enough for now. We're all going to have to do longer shifts for a bit, so that Leah and Seth can be around to help Sue with Harry."
"Not a problem." Jared said immediately, "Anything we can all do to make things a bit easier for them, right?"
"Right." I agreed, "I'm at my mom's now, so I'm going to go check on Bella. I've got my cell if I'm needed." I shifted back and pulled my shorts on, still buttoning them as I approached mom's door.
"Shit." I thought to myself suddenly, "I've left my fucking tools in the truck. Now I'll have to do those repairs using Mom's shitty excuses for tools, and that's never gone well in the past." I grimaced to myself, but there was no point going back to grab them now. Apart from anything else, I could already smell Bella's wonderful scent, dragging me forward towards the house, and either because I'd not had any real time with her for about a week - only catching traces of her scent here and there on my travels around the Rez, and a diluted dose when guarding her at night or because she somehow impossibly smelled even better than normal, it hit me even harder than it normally did, an almost physical kick to the senses, causing a pooling heat in my lower stomach and groin and setting a tingling all over my skin. "Holy shit! That's just amazing. How can she possibly smell even better than before? Well of course she doesn't, can't. It's just because I've been Bella scent deprived for a week. That's all." Fighting down my wolf who was suddenly desperately clawing at me to get into the house as soon as possible and rub myself all over her, I made a point not to rush headlong indoors.
"So how about other boys in town? Were you not interested in any of them?" I could hear my mom asking, or I should probably say interrogating, Bella. I was actually fairly interested in the subject though, as it seemed they were discussing Bella's love life, and possibly her relationship with me too. Both of which were obviously matters of great curiosity to me. I slowed my approach, wondering what else I might overhear.
"Well to be frank, I was pretty much a lock-in after the Cullens left, and even if I hadn't been I can honestly say that up until Sam, no-one around here held any interest to me whatsoever." Bella replied, causing both me and my wolf to do an internal happy dance despite me knowing that I really shouldn't be celebrating this fact; the more attached Bella got to me, the more chance that she'd be hurt if I ever imprinted on someone. I couldn't help my very real pleasure at knowing that I was the only one holding Bella's interest for the time being though, whoever she'd been with in the past. She continued and I began to feel guilty for eavesdropping so I pressed on towards the door. "I'm good friends with a guy who's dating my girlfriend Angela, and I did think that Mike Newton was another good friend, up until his more recent behaviour that is. I'm also good friends with Jacob Black, Embry Call and Quil Aterea, but those are all just platonic friendships. Since Edward left, the only guy I've had any interest in romantically has been Sam." I had to fight down the self-congratulatory smug smirk at that as I opened the door and walked in. Immediately her face burst once more into flame and she began studying the floor. "I do love that blush." I thought to myself, automatically re-running several occasions when I'd been treated to the same colourful display in the past. While normally this mental slide show would have me plunging my hands in my pockets to disguise my building hard-on, my urgency to check her over for injuries and to just plain reassure my wolf and myself of her physical presence there in the room with me meant that I was able to bypass this reaction in favour of my pure happiness and relief at seeing her. She shrank back a little on the couch, her embarrassment at being caught having such a personal conversation with my mom plain, and I felt another little twinge of guilt at having listened in from outside, ever if it was only for a few moments.
"Bella." I couldn't keep the relief from colouring my tone. I needed to touch, to scent her and make sure she was indeed as safe and un-injured as she appeared, both my human and wolf sides insisting on it. I strode over to her on the couch, pulling her into a tight hug, and burying my face in her hair to breathe in deeply and scent her thoroughly. "There's no way that's just down to me not having a proper dose of her scent for a few days. She actually does smell better than she did before. How the fuck has she managed that?" determinedly keeping a tight rein on my instinctual need to nuzzle and rub myself against her, I maintained the tight hug and I felt her relaxing into my arms and in what I'm sure she thought was a subtle move, heard her dragging in a deep lungful of my own scent before she relaxed into me even further. My wolf gave a smug contented hum, totally approving of her unconscious almost animalistic response to my presence and despite knowing that I really shouldn't be pleased I couldn't help agreeing with my wolf's pleasure.
"Babe are you ok? The word on the Rez is that you're the hero of the year, saving Harry and ending up having to be treated yourself." I couldn't let on that I knew any more than that; I'd have to explain how and I currently couldn't think clearly enough to cobble together a convincing explanation. Bella shrugged and closed her eyes, blushing further and clearly embarrassed by the attention.
"I just did what anyone else would do in the same circumstances." She mumbled against my chest, ridiculously humble and self-effacing as always. She really was just an amazing person. "And the EMT was just making sure I wasn't going into shock, or about to collapse from exhaustion. Your Mom talked me into coming here and resting up before I headed home." I gave an amused snort.
"You mean she strong-armed you into coming here no matter what excuses you tried to make?" I asked; even if I hadn't seen Jared's memory of Mom all but forcing Bella to go with her, I knew how determined my mom can be at the best of times, and that's without taking into account her almost rabid determination to see Bella and I firmly attached in a permanent, long term relationship. She let out a small chuckle as mom tutted at me.
"Well something like that, I guess." She admitted. "But to be honest, I didn't put up too much of a fight. I was more than happy to escape from the crowd of gawkers outside the diner." Now that I knew without any question that Bella was safe and well, and that she'd only been examined by the EMT as a precaution, my need to find out precisely what had happened with Harry had faded, she was clearly still too embarrassed by the conversation with mom, being caught having that same conversation, and by my attention and admiration for her actions earlier in the day to even make eye contact with me; I'd leave it 'til later. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and slowly, forcing myself to do so, I stood up, collecting Mom's tools from the shelf in the closet and taking them through to the kitchen.
"I'm just glad you're ok." I called over my shoulder, "Both after the Harry ordeal and after the Alison treatment." She giggled into her teacup and mom tutted again, pretending to be offended. I forced myself to keep on walking away from Bella and into the kitchen. I set myself up half in and half out of the cupboard under the sink, in part not looking forward to the inevitable messy and stinky chore, but also just happy that mom and I were now on so much improved terms that I was actually able to do these jobs for her instead of worrying about who she was going to call in to do it. There was something wonderfully domestic about the atmosphere in the house, me tinkering away in the kitchen, fixing the sink and mom and Bella chatting away comfortably, discussing mom's work, Bella's school and various events at the Drop-in centre. I smiled to myself, strangely content and more than ready to drag this chore out for much longer than really needed. Every so often I would glance out of the cupboard and through the door into the living room, enjoying the sight of the two of them so comfortable with each other as much as I did the sound.
Eventually the conversation waned a little and I glanced across to see what was happening. Bella leant forward and mom grabbed her arm, probably just to keep her from getting up, but my wolf was serious displeased with the idea of anyone, even my mom touching Bella in any way at all. Before I could stop myself, I let out a low warning growl. Hoping rather than trusting that no-one had heard me, I quickly returned my attention to the chore in front of me, attempting to look completely innocent in case either of them had heard and looked over. I firmly warned my wolf to keep himself quiet and re-focussed on fixing the sink.
"You haven't rested up enough yet, Bella honey, don't go before you have to." I heard my mom plead, and I wondered just how much of her pleading was down to her concern for Bella's wellbeing and how much was due to her determination to keep Bella there as long as possible as part of her plan to set the pair of us up.
"I wasn't actually planning on going right now, but I am going to have to leave fairly soon." Bella told her "Apart from anything else, I need to get home to reassure Charlie that I'm ok. I'm sure he's heard the gossip about Harry by now and he's probably worried about me. Crap. And I left my charger in my truck." She griped. "Charlie's probably been trying to get hold of me. He's not going to be happy with me." She made a move once again to get up, mom once again stopped her by grabbing her wrist, and my wolf once again let out a low growl before I could stop it. I made sure to continue working in case they'd heard, cursing silently at my inability to prevent the noise in the first place. "Seriously, what the fuck?" I asked myself "Suddenly she smells even better than ever and now I'm apparently incapable of letting even someone I trust as much as my mom touch so much as Bella's wrist? It's not like she's actually mine so why does my wolf insist on acting like she is? And why" a very tiny voice in the back of my mind where I could normally ignore it if I tried hard enough added "am I secretly happy to act that way myself when I know I shouldn't?"
"You still need to be resting. Let me go for the charger." Mon offered Bella. "Where's your truck parked? I didn't see it outside the diner." Bella sat back, for once willing to allow someone else to do something for her even though I could see it went against her nature. I was glad that she was making an exception though, no matter how badly it sat with her; without mom around there were going to be less occasions where I'd accidently let loose a growl and more occasions when I could revel in Bella's suddenly even more awesome scent. I stopped dragging my heels on the sink fixing and instead started rushing it as much as I could without doing a half-assed job on the thing. The sooner I had it finished, the longer I would have to spend alone with Bella, and while I had spent the last week making sure I wasn't put in a position where I might have to actively lie to her if she should accidently (or deliberately, I had to remember that she was her father's daughter and had shown more than a slight tendency toward hyper perceptiveness) now that the possibility to be in her company had been thrown at my feet, I just didn't have the willpower to turn it down.
"I left it by the Black's house. The charger is in the glove box." I heard Bella tell mom, still discussing her phone charger.
"I'll just walk down there and drive your truck up here, if that's ok with you Honey." Mom offered, she was being more than a little obvious about her manoeuvring in my opinion, but I wasn't about to complain. "That way you won't need to walk to get it later. If you're still really tired when it's time for you to go home, then Sam can always drive you back if needed." From my position inside the cupboard I couldn't really see, but Bella must've agreed to mom's suggestion as I heard a jangle, which must've been her handing over her truck keys and then mom headed out, cautioning me as she walked through the door. "You make sure that Bella doesn't do anything tiring now, you hear me?" She raised a single, suggestive eyebrow at me and winked as she spoke. "I'll be back before too long." And she closed the door behind herself.
I was half expecting, half hoping that Bella would come straight into the kitchen the moment mom left, but the silence from the living room as I carried on working away at the sink made it clear that that wasn't happening. Maybe she had drifted off to sleep? She'd certainly had a long enough day to justify it. I was almost done with the repair job under the sink. I just needed to release the pipe and drain out all of the crud that had built up and then reattach it and that would be it. I muttered a few choice curse words as the fitting on the pipe refused to co-operate with me and then fell silent as I heard Bella doing some muttering of her own. Not asleep then. Although she'd proven herself more than capable before now of mumbling in her sleep, what I could hear now wasn't the slurred utterances I knew she could make while sleeping. No. This sounded clear and alert and full of what could only be called dread.
"Come on Bella; it's got to be done, so you better just suck it up and go talk to him." I heard her mutter quietly to herself and, with a small groan, she forced herself and slouched, reluctantly it seemed, into the kitchen. I froze. The dread in her voice and the reluctance in her stride all spoke clearly of a conversation she really wasn't looking forward to, and suddenly my inner teenage girl reared her ugly head and filled mine with reasons why Bella would be reluctant to come talk to me. Actually, to be more accurate, my inner teenage girl was filling my head with reason, singular, as to what Bella was having to 'suck it up' to come talk to me about. "Oh fuck no. She's going to end it. Something's convinced her that whatever we've got going on is just not worth the hassle. I knew it was a terrible idea to avoid spending time with her this week. She's either convinced herself that now I've slept with her I'm no longer interested, or maybe she's decided that now she's slept with me, she's no longer interested" my mind babble at me. I didn't have the ability to knock the train of thought off its rails as I was also fighting a simultaneous battle with myself not to phase on the spot. Apparently my wolf was taking the whole situation as a serious threat and wanted out to face it. That was just about the worst idea in the whole history of bad ideas though so I locked my muscles down to prevent the phase, even as my mind babbles on along its panicked track. Having made her slouching way into the kitchen, she leant against the counter, but still remained quiet for a few more minutes. "Trying to think of a kind way to let me down gently." My freaked out inner teenaged girls insisted, ramping up my anxiety another couple hundred notches. Sure enough, when she finally did start speaking, what Bella had to say offered no reassurance that I'd made the wrong assumption.
"So we always said that we'd keep things between us relaxed and casual, and above all, honest, right?" She said in a bit of a rush, and my heart froze, then plummeted to my stomach, freezing all my other organs and the muscles too on its way down. "And we both agreed that if either of us needed to make a change we should just tell the other without any drama or lies" I could feel my newly frozen heart lurch and crack a little, stress fractures snaking their way across its surface as I tried to prepare myself for what I had no doubt by this point was coming next. I felt vaguely hollow, and yet my stomach felt overly full and churning, my frozen, fissured heart which was now residing there wanting to force the other contents up. I clenched my muscles further, not wanting to puke my guts up there and then. She hesitated for a moment before going on and I could no longer stand the tension. If she was going to do this, end this, then maybe I should just make it as easy as possible on both of us, not that I could see a way I was going to find any of it easy myself. In such a short time she had wormed her way into each and every corner of my life and yes, dammit, my heart, and no matter what I'd told myself from the beginning, no matter how much I told myself she wasn't the one I was destined to be with, my heart and mind had made other plans and once this was officially over, I was going to be truly wrecked. I let out a huge, gusty sigh and still from under the sink, I said quietly.
"It's ok, Bella. If you decided you want to put an end to this, I won't make a huge deal of it. I'll be disappointed… ok very disappointed, but you're right, we did have a deal and I won't go back on it." Her silence seemed to speak volumes and I was kind of grateful that I had my head in the cupboard so that I wouldn't have to hide the ruined expression of my face as I forced myself to offer her the easy way out she needed. The quiet lasted at least a decade, echoing empty years as the fissures I my heart started to open up into full sized cracks, and then finally she spoke. Actually, yelped was a better description.
"NO!" She cleared her throat and tried again, quieter this time. "No, Sam that's not what I was going to say at all. Seriously, nothing could be further from my mind right now, really." The cracks reduced to fissures once again. The heavy frozen feeling in my stomach warmed a little, as I tentatively allowed that denial to reassure the panicking little teenage girl in my mind. No longer in danger of hurling up my last three meals, I allowed my muscles to relax. Not all the way; I still needed a firm grip to prevent the phase my body was threatening. " Ok. Just calm the fuck down, Sam, you prissy little drama queen." I told myself. "She had a perfect out just then and yet she turned it down with almost as much panic as you're currently feeling. So chill the fuck out a little and just listen to whatever it is she needs to say without jumping to any more conclusions!" I made myself respond.
"Oh. Ok then. That's good." I murmured, not able to disguise a relieved sigh. "I really need to get this fucking job finished so I can get out of this cupboard and talk to her properly" I thought, reaching back out of the cupboard and feeling around for a large wrench laying on the floor by my side. Grabbing it, I pulled it back under the sink and began feverishly attacking the damn fixture that was refusing to budge. I had to work almost as hard on making my next words come out in a more normal tone of voice as I was on the fucking bastard pipe, but I was fairly sure that I managed it. "Then what was it you wanted to say? Seems like you've got something heavy on your mind."
"Yeah you could say that." She muttered. "So yeah, anyway, above all, honest we agreed, meaning I really have to tell you…." She swallowed, cleared her throat, swallowed again, and took a deep breath. "I know about the pack." She blurted.
…
…
My newly relaxed muscles locked down again. I'd not had to work this hard, this often to prevent phasing since I first started years ago. "Holy shit. No fucking way. The other day in the clearing she had no clue that I was one of the pack. There's no chance that she'd be mentioning it to me unless she was sure that I was part of the pack myself or at the very least knew about it." My mind raced on, trying to work out the best response to her statement. "Ok. Fuck. Right. Confirm or deny?" I wondered to myself "If I at least try to deny any knowledge, then I guess I'm keeping the letter of the agreement I made with the Elders not to tell her anything more about the pack, even if I'm not keeping the spirit of the thing." It was almost impossible to achieve but somehow I forced my voice to sound casual and innocent as I responded.
"The pack?"
"It's ok, Sam, you don't need to cover-up anymore." She told me, her voice sounding reassuring. I guessed my attempt at casual had been less convincing than I wanted. "I know about the wolf pack. I know they're protection for the tribe against vampires amongst other things. I know there are seven of you. And I'm pretty sure I know that you're the leader, and that in your wolf form you're black. And take an unhealthy amount of amusement in seeing me trip and stumble my way through a dark forest." As she checked each point off on her fingers, an almost automatic response sparked in my head. "Well I already knew that she knew about the pack, that's not new. Yep, I already knew that she knew why we existed, obviously she knows how many of us there are – she saw us all at the clearing. She knows that I'm the Alpha? How the fuck would she know that? But I guess she'd know my wolf is black if she knows that." When she came to me finding her clumsiness funny I couldn't help the tiny spark of amusement that burst through my tension. She wasn't wrong there, it was fucking hilarious how clumsy she was. As far as I could see, the only way she could know that I was Alpha was Charlie. I felt a wave of anger, sorrow and disappointment wash through me at that realisation; I wasn't just that I liked the man, and respected him, but recently I'd started to look at him almost as the father figure I'd been lacking for so long. The realisation that he'd betrayed us, had broken his promise and told his daughter about us was close to heart-breaking rather than just disappointing. As I thought all this through, the silence built between us. A living thing, throbbing and pulsing and pressing all the oxygen in the room out through the windows. It actually looked like she jumped when I finally broke it with a loud, gusting sigh.
"Sounds like you know quite a lot that you're not supposed to, Bella." I ground out, not able to keep the sadness and defeat from my voice. "I've gotta say, I'm really disappointed. I thought the Chief was more trustworthy than this." I was still quivering with the effort of holding back from phasing and I forced myself to relax my muscles a little. "So what else do you think you know?" Once again my automatic sarcasm defence kicked in before I could stop it, although the possibility that I might manage to divert her into an argument about my use of the work 'think' made me feel a little less guilty about it. Judging by the tiny eye roll I caught her doing, she wasn't taking the bait.
"Well actually, there's quite a bit, and most of it is pretty major." She began, her voice careful. I began loosening up my muscles, the strain of holding myself under such tight control was beginning to wear on me. "I seriously need to get this fucking pipe finished so we can talk properly." I reminded myself as I forced myself into a more relaxed state. The urge to phase had eased off and most of the remaining tension was from the stress of the conversation itself rather than the fight to remain in human form. "It's, um, well it's about…" She stalled out again, whatever it was she needed to say was clearly hard. I sternly fought back the inner teenaged girl who was trying to start me off in a panic again, reminding myself that Bella had firmly rejected my offer to let her break things off. "What in the hell could possibly be more difficult to talk about than the fact that you know the guy your seeing isn't strictly human?" My mind boggled at the thought, determinedly not reminding myself that actually she was probably growing used to having that sort of conversation, bearing in mind who her last boyfriend was. Thinking about the copper-headed dick vamp wasn't the best way to keep hold of my temper or my human form
"Look, could you come out from there so we can talk properly, please? This is hard enough as it is." I could hear her nerves, whatever she wanted to tell me had her really on edge. "And the novelty of the torso show is starting to wear out." She added to herself under her breath. She clearly didn't realise just how good my hearing was, not matter what else Charlie had told her, he hadn't warned her about that. I couldn't help the faint snort I let out. Like my irritation and amusement had mated and created a new mongrel sound. I officially gave up on trying to finish up the job and went from trying to release the pipe to empty it, to tightening it back up so I could go back to it after we'd finished talking.
"Yeah ok, Bella. Just let me get this tightened all the way and I'll be right wit – SHITFUCK" The pipe chose just that moment to split, dumping its gloopy, stinking mess all over my head and face and filling my eyes with stinging liquid. I emerged from under the sink, covered in the crap and made the situation worse by trying to stand before I'd cleared the edge of the cupboard, the resultant blow to my head adding a splitting pain to my already disastrous situation. "SHIT FUCK FUCKITY FUCK!" I yelled, clapping my palm to my head to hopefully disguise any wound I might've caused. With the speed at which wolves healed, I didn't need her seeing any cut I might have knitting itself together right in front of her eyes. It was probable that the wolf had already bolted, but it wasn't going to stop me from trying to bolt the kennel door. I staggered to me feet blindly, try to hear Bella so I could orient myself in the kitchen. For some reason she seemed to be holding her breath, so I latched on to the bounding sound of her heart to work out where each of us was in the room and I turned to face her. "Oh god this stuff smells like ass." I told her. "Is my head bleeding?" No reply. "Bella?" I asked again. Fumbling blindly around on the counter beside Bella, I finally made contact with a towel and scrubbed at my face enough to clear my eyes. Forcing my eyes open I realised I was addressing the empty air to her left, adjusted my position accordingly and stared blearily into her huge brown eyes.
It was like dying and being born, all at the same time. Everything I'd ever known, felt, cared about changed. Shifted, along with the rest of the universe, about two feet further in front of me until it was all centred within Bella and then fed back to me, firmly tethered from her to myself with inch thick tempered steel cables. The heart beat keeping me alive wasn't centred in my own chest anymore, it was in Bella's. The basic needs to breathe, eat, drink, mate, weren't centred in my own mind anymore, they were in Bella's. The force holding me down to the surface of the planet wasn't gravity anymore, it was Bella. I knew instantly what was happening, even though I knew it was an impossibility. Imprinting. Not even witnessing it almost first hand through the pack's mind link could've prepared me for how profoundly my mind body and soul had just altered. I would be anything she wanted and needed me to be - everything of me was now hers, and she was just as much mine, yet somehow I felt a stronger sense of self, of owning myself, than I ever had before. It was truly the most awe-inspiring feeling I had ever felt, and I knew, without knowing how I knew, that I would experience this amazing feeling every single time our eyes met in the future, forever and ever Amen.
The moment stretched out for a decade and lasted for just milliseconds and when I finally felt normal, or as close to normal as I was ever going to feel again, I realised that Bella's – my Bella's- beautiful chocolate eyes were rolling back, unseeing in her head and she was slumping to the ground. Reacting instinctively I reached forward and caught her before she hit the floor, my wolf and I both flooded with panic. "I can't lose her now I've finally got her." My mind screamed at me, my wolf fervently agreeing. I swung her up into my arms and rushed her into the living room, laying her down on the couch, while trying hard not to get my disgusting sink gloop and blood mixed mess all over her as I did so. The healthy scent drifting off her, and her now normalised heart rate all served to reassure both my wolf and human sides that she was going to be ok, and as I was laying her down her eyelids were already fluttering, signalling that she was returning to consciousness. I didn't know what had caused her faint; none of the other imprints had ever reacted that way, so maybe it was just the stress of the earlier conversation, combined with the extreme effort she'd had to expend earlier that day. As long as she was whole and well, everything else could take a back seat though, so I settled down on my knees beside the couch to watch as she opened her eyes and met mine.