Chapter Text
Chapter 17
Realisations
*She’s…alive.* That’s what Sam finally said when he flickered into existence in the pack's mind.
Alive?
Alive.
Hannah was alive.
They could all feel the worry that stuck to Sam like a thick, cloistering blanket, and also how he was hanging on by a bloody thread.
If he was just a tiny little bit less harsh on himself about his control, then Sam would have already lost that fight.
Still, the relief that Jacob felt at that moment was potent and strong, like clear spring water in the winter. A shot of iciness that ripped through the constant hannahhannahhannah that was making everybody go crazy, him included.
He couldn’t help it. Ever since that stabbing pain in his arm, his thoughts had turned into a carousel of all the things that could have gone wrong.
He didn’t want to worry about her like that, but his instincts were making it impossible.
He couldn’t help it.
Jacob Black maybe wasn’t on board with the imprint but that didn’t mean that he wanted Hannah to die.
He couldn’t have her die. It went against every single instinct he had. Regardless if he wanted to act on that imprint or not, the fact was that Hannah Uley was his imprint. She was inexplicably linked to him.
She was Sam’s and Embry’s little sister and a member of their tribe.
She was….She mattered. To all of them in very different ways.
*What happened?* Seth finally asked quietly.
*Car Accident,* Sam answered, cut short.
It was getting late, darkness slowly blanketing the forest and he could feel Sam move, away from the forest, towards Forks.
What did he want there?
Jacob drifted in the same direction, pictures flickering through the pack link as Sam obviously tried to keep it contained, but he still saw Hannah in his mind, dark eyes so impossibly big in her face, dark skin ashen.
She was fine. Nothing seemingly out of the ordinary, other than a butterfly bandage that was half hidden underneath her wild cloud of hair, and a broken arm.
A broken arm?
*Since when does Hannah have a license?* Paul wondered.
*She wasn’t the one driving. Allison…Allison drove,* Sam answered clippedly.
Car accident. The mother driving.
*She’s dead.*
The mother dying.
It was like somebody was cutting him to the quick.
This was…
This was what happened to him. To him and his mom…
They had been in their dodged-up Ford, it had been raining…he couldn’t remember much of that evening. The doctors had mumbled something about concussion and shock.
Jacob sometimes wondered if it was a mercy that he couldn’t remember.
Maybe it was better.
And then another time he would give everything for just a few more memories of his Mom.
He had her for 12 years. But it didn’t seem enough, it never would be enough.
He would give nearly everything for another conversation with her, for another moment of just…
*I am sorry, Sam,* he whispered.
He did mean it.
Nobody deserved to lose their mom. Not like this. Never like that.
Not with the daily thought of What If? What if they hadn’t been in the car? What if they had been just a few minutes earlier or later? Would that have still happened? Would it still have been…
*Don’t,* Sam ground out. *Just. Leave her in peace. Hannah has enough other things to worry about and we don’t need to add you on top of it.*
Right.
There was some feeling right there that he didn’t want to examine right now.
Not really.
When had his life turned into this kind of mess? The girl he loved in love with a bloodsucker, the other girl he was supposed to love having lost her mother in a car accident…
He let himself fall back, the always present echo of hannahhannahhannah right there in the back of his head.
And then, suddenly, there was that picture in his head, as Sam had reached the edge of the forest and got a good look at that car wreck.
That was why he had headed towards Forks. He had wanted to see.
Now it made sense.
And they all got treated to a look at that wreck as well because Sam lost his fight over his control at that moment.
The howl that broke out of his mouth was pure agony.
There was nothing there that could still reasonably be called a car anymore. It was a heap of scrap metal and nothing more.
Scrunched up like a piece of tin foil.
The amount of pressure that had been needed would have been immense.
And Hannah had been right in there.
Right in that car wreck that was now loaded up to be taken away…
She could have ended up scrunched up like a piece of tinfoil just like that car.
That she had just ended with some scratches and a broken arm…that was a bloody miracle.
And Jacob hadn’t been there to protect her.
She was a human. A human, right in the middle of a supernatural world, surrounded by creatures like him, that could kill her with a simple swipe.
And Jacob had done nothing to protect her.
It burned deep within him, that idea of protecting her. Protecting their tribe, their land…and their imprints. It was their highest law.
And it had been challenged.
It burned, aching, as he could still feel the pain that he knew must have been Hannah’s.
He wondered if she could feel his. Was it a wolf thing? He didn’t want to ask Sam about it because he was quite sure that it was just going to bring up bad memories of the time were Emily gained her scars…and Jared and Kim probably never had a moment where…well, neither of them had gotten any broken bones lately.
That was squarely on him and Hannah.
He could still hear his pack brother’s conversation in the back of his mind but it was far, far away, as the images of that car were clinging to his mind like glue.
The wolf, always there, always growling and prowling…the moment where he had thought about protection…at that moment he had come to the forefront. Nothing else had been important anymore.
And for just a moment, Jacob lost his grip on him. For just a moment he got himself swept away in that tightly banked rage of instincts, of protecting their land and their tribe and his imprint against the cold ones.
That had been his calling. That was for what he was made.
It was there, clear in his mind, centuries of it bearing down on him.
Things slotted back into place, and his whole life changed, just as it had during that morning in that school corridor when Hannah had run into him…and it had felt like she was branding him.
He was raging against fate taking his choice from him. But he couldn’t change it.
He could change nothing about any of that. And the more that he fought it…the more he put everybody around him in danger.
He didn’t want that to be the answer but it was.
And Jacob Black had never hated anything more.
He couldn’t change that he shifted into a giant dog. He couldn’t change the fact that he had imprinted onto Hannah Uley. He couldn’t stop the bloodsuckers from coming back and sinking their claws into Bella and…
Bella was going to choose them over him. It wasn’t even a question. He knew that.
The girl that he loved didn’t love him. Never would. He had allowed himself a fantasy fairytale where Bella woke up one day and realised that he was perfect for her.
But it was never going to happen, wasn’t it?
He had been nothing but a…bandaid over a gaping wound for her, something to try and hold together the broken pieces. And she hadn’t really wanted to heal. No, she hadn’t. She had briefed about her bloodsucker and in a very specific way enjoyed drenching herself in self-pity. She hadn’t wanted to hear anything else.
And Jacob wasn’t quite sure if he could do this any longer.
All of it.
It sucked.
It was a fucking mess and he had no idea where to even begin cleaning up any of it. And he highly doubted anybody else did either.
Sam managed to pull himself back from the brink, calm himself down enough that he realised that human Sam was probably a much bigger comfort for Hanah than furry Sam ever could…
He listened half-heartedly as Jared and Embry did their best to finally get Seth and Quil to shift back to human form.
It did finally work. Even with emotions running high, they were just happy that they were back in human form after too long…Embry went to sleep, finally, still worried about Hannah…which left him, Paul and Jared.
And with the red-headed bitch dead…well, there wasn’t any need for all three of them to stay awake the night…and be there.
Jared went home, sure to be worried about Kim and Paul shimmered out of existence, leaving Jacob alone.
He was quite happy about that.
Mostly because then his thoughts could stay private and he didn’t need to bother with keeping them quiet.
He spent the night running the perimeter, but he couldn’t stop himself from always coming back to that house at the edge of the woods…
He had no idea if Sam noticed it but all east he didn’t say anything. It was there, the living room slightly lid and he could see Emily in the kitchen.
All was right in the world if Emily was still cooking. She seemed to get some sort of peace from that that Jacob wished he got from anything.
So finally, when the moon was high, he ended up lying down to doze. Emily’s vegetable garden made a surprisingly comfortable place to stay.
He was careful not to destroy her corn because he was never going to hear the end of it.
And he was also quite sure that he looked very ridiculous laying around between her rhubarb and Strawberries, but…well.
The wolf shut up with his litany of hannahhannahhannah if he felt like he did something useful.
Like protecting her.
Regardless of how ridiculous it was.
He didn’t even know from what. Not from Emily and Sam, that much was certain…
And also not from Kim or from Charlie Swan who showed up sometime that next morning.
Hannah didn’t talk a lot. Not any more than she needed. And somehow every word that she forced out of her mouth sounded like it took her too much effort.
Gone was the sunny, happy girl that bubbled all over the people she met.
Jacob had known Hannah Uley as happy-go-lucky, the only thing that actually made her upset was anybody badmouthing her brother. But otherwise, Hannah was…always there with a quick smile on her face, knowing everybody and getting along with seemingly everybody as well.
Her voice was usually sweet and even, but it never sounded as gravely as it did now, him even sometimes having to strain to hear the conversation happening two walls away from him. His hearing was better than that usually.
She talked about it all. He couldn’t help but flinch at her admission that she would have nearly been in the passenger seat.
She hadn’t. She had been in the backseat. It had saved her life. Charlie said the same thing.
She could have…died.
Just like that. With a snap of his fingers.
It was a cold, hard realisation that seeped into every inch of his very being.
I wish you had never been born.
Her saying that…her voice breaking off, forcing out the words…it made him furious, a dark growl nearly coming out of his snout but managing to only paw at the ground slightly. Hopefully, he didn’t kill any of Emily’s rhubarb.
But even if he did, it didn’t matter, when Hannah said things like that.
It didn’t exactly get any better after that. Her mother had more or less committed truck-assisted suicide and not care if Hannah had died or not.
He had thought that that was the worst.
Oh, how wrong he had been.
He heard it all. Every word.
He shouldn’t have listened. This wasn’t for his ears.
He had no right to this.
And still, he had stood in one spot and listened as Hannah in all her pain and grief lobbed grenade after grenade at Sam, because it all boiled over.
The pure and utter agony of Sam leaving and ignoring her.
A mother with alcohol problems, that got aggressive after one drink too many. That disappeared and left Hannah to worry about her… she brought home man after men and didn’t care if they tried anything with her daughter.
He wanted to vomit.
He didn’t. Instead, he stood there rooted in one spot in Emily’s garden.
All her trauma laid out for him to see.
And Jacob Black had never felt more like an asshole than at that moment.