(Sue Clearwater POV)
The fluorescent lights of the hospital had always been harsh, but tonight they felt cruel. Every corner of the ER seemed to echo with the voice of the on-call doctor dashing the last of her hopes. She had worked on him with her own hands, had counted every compression, every second, had begged him to come back. But Harry Clearwater was gone.
For a brief moment, she wondered if it would have been a different story had they gone to the Forks hospital. Even though the Cullens had left, the tribe's unspoken rule of avoidance still dictated a longer drive to a more distant hospital.
She shook herself. No, this was the hospital she worked at, she knew the doctors here and trusted them. Even if the Forks hospital had newer and fancier equipment.
Sue sat hunched in the hard plastic chair, the hospital blanket someone had placed on her, still hung around her shoulders. Her hands wouldn't stop trembling, bruised and swollen from the effort of trying to keep Harry here. She was a nurse—she knew when there was no coming back. She had felt it in her bones even as her palms pressed down on his chest. But her heart refused to let go, and now…
A quiet shuffle of rubber wheels on linoleum drew her attention. Billy Black rolled up beside her in his wheelchair, his hand reaching out, warm and steady on her arm. His face was lined with grief but calm, the way only Billy could manage.
"Sue," he said gently, "I'm so sorry."
On her other side, Quil Ateara Sr. leaned heavily on his cane. His eyes glistened as he lowered himself into a chair with a sigh. "We've lost one of our best. The council will never be the same without Harry's voice." He paused, his throat working as he swallowed. "But this isn't just the council's loss. It's yours. Leah's. Seth's. You will not carry this alone."
The words cracked something inside her. Sue pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle the sob that tore loose, her shoulders shaking. She tried to pull away from the memory of the giant wolves in her house. Tried to blame it on a fevered dream…
Billy's grip tightened just slightly, grounding her. "You don't have to go back tonight," he murmured. "You and the kids could stay with Jacob and me. Where are Leah and Seth anyway? They should be here with you."
Sue's eyes darted away, fixing on the sterile tiles. "They… they ran," she whispered, her voice raw. "After… after it happened. After Harry fell. There were wolves—giant wolves—in my kitchen, Billy. I thought I'd lost my mind. But then… then I saw their eyes."
Her throat closed. She couldn't finish. She couldn't say aloud what her heart already knew.
Billy and Quil exchanged a startled look, one she caught even through her haze of grief. Their surprise was evident even to her tear swollen eyes.
Billy was the first to recover, his voice low and careful. "Sue… what you saw wasn't madness. You weren't dreaming."
Her breath caught, a chill racing down her spine. "Then what was it?" Her voice trembled, her fingers twisting in the thin hospital blanket. "Because I swear, Billy, I saw my children in those eyes. My children. Tell me I'm wrong."
Quil exhaled slowly, his cane tapping once against the tile as though marking time. "No, you're not wrong." His gaze was heavy with things unsaid, secrets older than either of them. "But there are truths that only the Elders know… that Harry knew."
The words hit her harder than any doctor's verdict. Harry had known. He had carried this secret while she sat across from him every night at the dinner table, thinking their lives were ordinary, their children safe.
Her voice broke, jagged with grief and betrayal. "So, he kept this quiet? From us? From me?"
Billy's expression softened, his own grief weighing his shoulders. "Not to hurt you. To protect you. To protect them. We have never heard of a woman shifting in all our stories… and Seth—" He shook his head slowly. "Seth should have been years away. We thought there was no need to worry yet."
Quil's cane tapped once against the floor, his eyes clouded. "The next child we expected to shift was my grandson. That was what we were preparing for. Not… this."
Sue pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. A daughter stepping into something no woman had ever faced. A son dragged into it far too early. And Harry—gone, leaving her to pick up the weight of secrets she had never been trusted to share.
She stood and wiped the last of her tears away. Her face pulled into a mask of calm, she pulled her dignity around her like armor. "I need to get home. They shouldn't come home to an empty house."
Billy's gaze softened, but he didn't argue. He knew better than to try.
"I'll have someone drive you," Quil offered, levering himself up with his cane.
Sue nodded, knowing it would be the fastest way.
The ride home blurred past her, headlights streaking over the wet pavement, but Sue hardly noticed. Her mind circled the same points over and over—Harry's secrets, her children's eyes in those wolves, the hole in her chest where her husband had been.
When the car stopped in her driveway, she thanked Quil jr. in a quiet voice, not trusting herself with more.
Inside, the house felt too still. The blanket Harry had used on the couch was still thrown over the armrest. His coffee mug sat abandoned on the end table next to his Lazy Boy. Sue touched it once, then drew back as if it burned.
Her eyes swept the room, not really searching for what she feared but bracing for it all the same.
And then, faintly, from beyond the back door, she heard it: heavy paws in the yard, the low shuffle of bodies too large to be anything else.
Her children were home.
(Leah POV)
The forest was quiet around us, the echo of the grief-filled howls finally gone. But inside the pack bond, it was loud, overwhelming. My thoughts churned like a storm, bleeding out whether I wanted them to or not.
{"We should go home,"} Seth said, his voice still thin with shock but steadier than before. {"Mom will be there… alone. She needs us."}
The word "us" sank like a stone in my gut. I faltered, my head hung low.
{"Not me,"} I muttered. The bond carried every crack of my doubt, every jagged edge of my shame. {"She won't want me."}
Seth's head snapped toward me, his eyes wide, glowing faintly in the dark. {"What are you talking about? Of course she does!"}
But I couldn't stop the spiral. The image of Mom on the kitchen floor slammed into me—the look in her eyes when I shifted, the fear that had frozen her before she'd even screamed dad's name.
{"I'm the reason Dad's gone,"} I whispered into the bond. {"I lost control, and he saw me… and it killed him."}
The silence from the others pressed in—Jacob's heavy sympathy, Paul's restless impatience, even Sam's quiet weight telling me he disagreed but wasn't going to argue it now. They all heard it. Every word. Every thought I didn't want to give voice to.
Seth growled, sharp and desperate, vibrating across the link. {"Stop saying that! It wasn't you, Leah! Dad was sick, you know he was—it could've happened any time!"}
{"But it happened because of me,"} I snapped back, my head fell, not wanting to look into Seth's eyes. {"Mom saw me for what I am. A monster in her kitchen. Do you really think she wants me walking back through that door?"}
Seth's thoughts tumbled fast, clumsy but fierce. {"She's our mom. She doesn't care what you look like...she cares that you're her daughter. She cares that I'm her son. She needs us. Both of us."}
I turned away from him, my body trembling. {"You don't get it. I can't face her. Not like this. Besides, you heard her earlier… I'm broken, dragging the family through the mud."}
His presence blazed across the bond, young but unyielding. {"Most of that was said by you, not her."}
The words hit me like claws in the chest.
{"Seth…"}
{"We have to, Leah! She needs us."} His thoughts burned with a clarity I hadn't felt from him since this started. {"She can't be alone. Not after losing Dad. She needs someone there, and if you won't go, then I will. Alone if I have to."}
The pack bond rippled with the certainty in him. Jacob's quiet approval. Sam's grim acceptance. Even Paul's restless energy stilled for a breath.
I hung my head again, shame and love warring inside me. {"Okay,"} I breathed into the link. {"I'll try. Let's go."}