Baby Fever [Jacob & Edward]

14

Edward's ears are ringing. His ears are ringing, but he can see Jacob. He watches as he moves into view saying something that Edward still can't make out. Bear's crying. He can't hear it, but he can see her mouth open in a wail, her little eyes scrunched and tears running down her cheeks. Jacob's reaching for her. Edward forces himself to let go of her. He has to let go. What if he's the one hurting her? Holding her too tight?

There's blood. 

Edward's not sure where it's coming from and doesn't take the time to investigate as he watches Jacob flag down the EMT's who are bringing a stretcher. He doesn't need a stretcher, he's fine. He needs them to make sure she's okay. He attempts to tell them as much, but must not be very convincing because they pull him out of the car anyway before placing him on the stretcher. He watches as one of them, a woman, goes over to help Jacob with Bear. 

He doesn't need this. 

They lift him into the ambulance and Jacob follows, still cradling Bear in front of him. She's no longer crying, peering around the truck, clearly curious. The same woman continues looking her over while a different woman pokes and prods at him.

"Looks like Dad has a broken arm." She says aloud and at first he think she's talking about someone else. That is, until she lifts his arms up to show that his arm is definitely twisted at an odd angle. That's never happened before. He blinks down at it 

"But we're doing okay, aren't we?" The other woman asks Bear who blinks up at her like she's some kind of alien.

The woman in front of him continues her inspection, asks him a few questions that he doesn't feel like answering. 

"Nasty cut on your forehead. Definitely a concussion. Nothing life threatening though." The woman continues, giving Edward a smile that does absolutely nothing to comfort him.

His eyes wander back over to Bear, who is now watching Jacob like she's waiting for something interesting to happen. Jacob, however, is watching him. He has this look in his eye that Edward's never seen before. He looks a bit shaken up, but somehow angry at the same time. Is he angry at Edward? He'd just wanted to get away for a little while, be alone for just a second. How was he supposed to know this would happen?

Jacob sits like that for the rest of the ride and only tears his eyes away when the doctor comes in to put a cast on his arm. He watches the doctor like a hawk. He flinches when Edward flinches, looks at Edward helplessly when he groans, and holds his hand like he's dying when the doctor checks over Bear one more time. 

They're picked up by Emmett, who hauls out a car seat that definitely doesn't belong to Bear. He doesn't explain how he got it, just holds it as Jacob lowers Bear into it. Jacob locks her in before his gaze returns to Edward, who's slumped next to her, eyes drooping despite his determination to keep an eye on her.

Emmett drops them off at Jacob's house. Leah would've yelled at him otherwise. Jacob gets it. They're family and someone he cares about is hurt. She wants to help. Edward's awake, but he's barely responding, mind slow to process what's going on around him. Jacob needs all the help he can get and Jessica couldn't help him and watch the street. So, he'd come home. Leah and Quil were standing on the porch and crowd around the Jeep as soon as Jacob had the car seat unbuckled from the seatbelt. He hands Bear off to Leah before going to help Edward, who has to place most of his weight onto Jacob's shoulders to keep him upright. Quil shuts the door behind them before going up to open the door and let them inside of the house. 

Jacob ends up having to carry Edward upstairs. The man grumbles his complaints about halfway up and then Jacob has talk to him the rest of the way to keep him from closing his eyes. Jacob lowers him onto his bed and bends down to remove his shoes. While he's doing that, Leah is pulling the bassinet she'd rushed to collect from one of the closets, closer to Edward so that he could see that she was okay. Jacob lifts him so that he's further up on the bed, ignoring his little whines and whimpers of protest.