She is pack. She will wait. Sexy, snuggly pack dynamics. Bella/a lot of people. Oneshot.

This is a weird little story that would not leave me alone until I finished it.

Warning: There is a lot of polyamory here. Like, pretty much the entire story. In various forms. Also, if you're looking for a bold and independent protagonist this is not your story.

Rated M for sexual content.

when it's darkest

She knocks on the door timidly, then opens it enough to stand in the doorway.

Paul turns over, squinting against the light flooding in from the hallway. "'S wrong?" Curled up beside him, Rachel makes a murmured sound of concern.

Tears fill Bella's eyes before she can get the words out, and she rubs her arms desperately. She is so cold.

Paul stills, and she knows he is listening for heartbeats, for human sounds in the house. But all he'll hear are his, Rachel's, and hers. Not...

He grunts, like it's not a big deal, and reaches for her hand. "Shut the fucking door."

She does as she is told and lets him tug her to the bed. She hesitates awkwardly over him and Rachel, but Rachel scoots over to leave enough room for Bella in the middle.

"Now go back to sleep," Paul orders her as she slides under the warm sheets and lies down on her side. He shifts so one leg presses down on her ankles.

Rachel kisses her shoulder and wraps an arm around her waist. "Sleep," she agrees.

Finally, Bella does.

In the morning, Bella sits on the front porch, her knees tucked up to her chin.

She feels like a fallen leaf floating on the water, waiting for either the rain to drown her or to drift back to shore again. Either way, she will accept her fate.

But the pack refuses to let her wait alone.

They are at the beach, the boys cooking hamburgers over a driftwood fire and everyone trying to forget the hole in their lives.

Kim has been Bella's unceasing companion all evening, and something in the girl's wide eyes and bright smiles draws Bella to her.

"The most awesome thing," Kim is confiding to her on their seats on a fallen log, "is that he literally, honestly wants whatever I want. Watch." She turns to Jared, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

Without a word, Jared tosses the football back to Quil and begins walking toward the two of them as if Kim has called his name.

He crouches down in front of Kim so they are at eye level. "What's up, babe?"

She gives him a soulful look. "You love me, don't you, Jared?"

"You know I do," he says immediately, looking concerned. "Always. Did I do something wrong?"

She ignores the question. "And do you love Bella?"

His eyes flicker to Bella. "Of course I do, babe. She's pack."

Kim shakes her head. "No, do you love Bella? I want you to love Bella like you love me."

Jared stares at his imprint for a long moment, and then he turns his stare on Bella, as if he has never seen her before. "Okay," he says, dragging the word out.

Kim looks delighted. "Perfect. Now, I want us to have sex with Bella. Okay?"

Jared's mouth drops open, and then he grins, a truly boyish looking grin on a face that looks much more mature than he actually is.

Kim rises, and Bella rises with her, uncertain. Jared wraps an easy arm around each of them, laughing. "As my ladies command," he says, and leads them back to his house.

Jacob's looks devour her, as they always have. He has wanted her from the day she moved to Forks and has no concern over showing it to her or the pack or anyone else.

Now they have taken on a new meaning, though - a possibility neither of them has ever truly considered since the day she saw Jake phase for the first time.

She can feel him watching every move she makes, and under his attention she stumbles more than usual, which makes him laugh. Then he'll be at her side, helping her up and saying something to make her duck her hair and hide a smile. He's always been her sunlight.

For now, his attention goes no further than looking, but there is a tension inside him, a prickling energy that Bella know everyone in the pack can feel. Jacob will take over the pack one day. She has often wondered what will happen to her when there is a new Alpha.

Something in Jake's eyes tells her he is wondering the same thing.

Leah starts off by getting annoyed with her. Bella doesn't take it personally, because Leah gets annoyed with the rain for falling and people for breathing.

Then Leah tries to make her angry, sharp words worrying the raw edges of her loss. Bella just tucks her knees into her chest and stares back at Leah, accepting the deluge and waiting for it to end.

Finally, Leah leans forward and kisses her, and Bella is so shocked she falls off the steps of the Clearwaters' front porch.

"Knew that would get a reaction," Leah says smugly.

Bella thinks she is teasing her, but then Leah follows her to the ground and brushes a hand against her neck and kisses her tenderly, her lips shaping against Bella's.

Bella thinks that maybe Leah isn't teasing after all.

Quil is surprisingly timid, his big talk absent as he stares at her seriously. "Come on, spend the night," he tells her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he leads her to his house. "We'll watch a movie."

So she curls up on the couch with him, and he wraps his arm around her waist. Mr. Darcy confesses his love to Kiera Knightley on Quil's high-def TV, and silent tears slide down Bella's cheeks as Elizabeth turns him away.

After both sisters gets their happy endings, Quil carries her to his bedroom and strips her bare before kissing every inch of her body from her forehead to her toes.

As he returns to the folds between her legs and brings his fingers and tongue into play this time, her tears turn to gasps, and by the time Quil has tucked her firmly against himself again, she is crying, but this time her tears are from relief.

Embry has long fingers and graceful hands like an artist, and Bella never noticed until she sees his hand encircling her wrist, bronze against porcelain.

He takes her to his house and she helps his mom make dinner. Lasagna and salad, even though they both know Embry won't touch the salad.

When his mom asks Embry if Bella is his girlfriend, he just smiles and shakes his head, because it's the wrong question to ask.

Later, he walks along the beach with her, and between one step and the next he is pushing her up against a tree, its bark scraping her lower back, as he kisses her roughly. She is soaking wet when he slides her jeans and panties down a minute later.

He lifts her up with one hand to get his cock free, and then he is sliding her onto his length. She gasps when he sets their rhythm, and his eyes are dark on hers as he watches her come undone.

Afterward, they stand in front of the ocean, her hand tucked comfortably into his, and Bella wonders if these days have become her eternal present, sliding inexorably into her future.

Seth looks at her with big eyes and an enraptured expression. He is fifteen and she is nineteen, and all the pleading looks in the world won't persuade her.

She finally agrees to kiss him, though. He smells good and is a fast learner. Before she thinks about it, she opens her mouth to French kiss him, and that he obviously hasn't done before. He takes to it immediately, though, and Bella can't stop her own physical reaction to him.

When they finally pull back, his eyes drop to her thighs, and she knows he can smell her arousal. "After my birthday?" he pleads. She shakes her head. "Seventeen?"

He makes it sound like that's a lifetime away, but she's seen the way the girls at his high school look at him. He will survive until then.

No matter what happens with the rest of it, she's not going anywhere.

The pack doesn't talk about it in front of her, but what they don't say fills her head and demands her attention.

Kim rests her head on her shoulder and asks Bella if she wants to spend the night, and Seth brings her a Diet Coke without asking, and Quil pulls her ponytail loose and musses up her hair.

Jake comes over and pulls her into his lap and makes fun of the rest of them, and Bella's lips curve against his neck.

Not one of them mentions that it's been weeks.

Weeks with the hole burning through her chest.

Paul likes to be tied up, Rachel confesses to her in a delighted cackle. He likes it but he's a terrible sport about it, too, and she hopes having Bella with them will drive him insane.

Bella feels uncomfortable taking the lead, so Rachel takes her hand and guides it over twitching pecs, a tight abdomen, and a long, hard shaft.

Both of their hands on Paul's cock makes him utter a string of profanities that don't make sense separately, much less together. He tries to thrust his hips into their hands, but the ropes hold him back.

Rachel shares a secretive smile with Bella and pulls their interlaced fingers away from Paul. He groans, and Rachel straddles his chest and kisses him, effectively shutting him up. Bella's hands ghost over Paul's upper thighs and up his hips and lightly past his hardness.

He makes a muffled sound against Rachel's lips, and Rachel twists around to grin at her. "Lick him," she says. "He likes that."

Rachel says something to Paul and then squeezes his nipples, and Bella runs a tongue over his thighs, his balls, and finally his cock, taking him slowly into her mouth.

Paul groans again, and Rachel looks triumphant. "Now fuck him," she tells Bella, moving forward so she is positioned over Paul's lips. He makes a muffled sound around her.

When they come, Rachel releases Paul's restraints, and he fucks them both again.

"He's just scared, you know," Leah murmurs against Bella's neck. She slides a slick finger down to the folds between Bella's legs. Bella gasps and arches against her, breasts touching breasts.

Leah smiles and uses her other hand to roll Bella's nipple between her fingers. She is so much taller that she can pin Bella down easily to the bed, but Bella has never felt safer with her.

"He ran back then, and he's running now."

Bella bites down on a sob and reaches for Leah's face. The other woman seems to understand what she wants, and her mouth is hot and inviting against Bella's as their tongues twist.

Bella comes hard with Leah's fingers inside of her. She twists around on the mattress to return the favor, but Leah tucks her into her chest in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture. "Later," she says, and Bella nods and falls asleep against her.

Jake tests her as he always has, touching her casually and whispering things in her ear to see what she will do. He's done it more often in the past month, but he hasn't yet exceeded the borders of a close friendship.

He might be able to control his hands, but he can't control his eyes. Bella knows what she sees in his.

Yet he is deliberate, patient, and she knows he won't do anything until he has agonized over the decision for days. Maybe weeks.

She thinks it's fitting, because everything between her and Jake has always been so simple, except for this.

But when she slides past him to grab a cup of water at the latest beach bonfire, Jake's hand brushes down her side to rest on her waist, stopping her in her tracks. He watches her carefully for her reaction, and she lets her head fall to one side, exposing her neck from her jaw to the thin strap of her tank top. It's a gesture she knows intimately. Submission.

Looking at her with an expression that she has never seen before, he slides both his hands down to her ass and pulls him against himself, hard.

She gasps at the bulge she feels sliding between her legs. "Bells," he says in a low growl against her ear, "I'm going to take you right here in front of everyone if you don't move."

She clutches his shoulders at the heat in his words, and he boosts her up into his arms, holding her thighs as her legs wrap automatically around his waist.

"Was gonna wait," he mutters hotly against her ear as he carries her. "Wanted to fight for it, fight for you properly. Too long, though. It's been too long."

She nods and arches against him, agreeing fervently. So long. Too long.

After a minute, he drops to his knees, setting her down gently on soft grass. His hands run up under her tank top, pushing her bra out of the way and palming her breasts like he's done this a thousand times before. She gasps and would have fallen backward if he wasn't there to catch her, sliding her shorts and panties to her knees. He presses his mouth between her legs, and suddenly his tongue is there, lapping and sucking and twisting effortlessly.

She bites down on a cry, and he stops long enough to say, "Don't fight, Bells. Want to hear you."

Those words make her clench down involuntarily. Jake seems to know what she wants, and slides his cutoffs down in one smooth motion, revealing nothing underneath but hard muscles and cock.

She spreads her legs, but he rolls her over until she is on all fours, her bare glistening wetness exposed to him.

He makes a low sound and reaches around her legs to push inside her. She moans as he stretches her, and his hands find her clit again and rock her in a steady motion until she is doing nothing but crying wordlessly to the night sky. He finally lets his fingers circle directly over her clit as he pumps her so hard her teeth knock together, and white hot bliss overwhelms her.

When she finally comes to, she is stretched out over him, chest to chest, only her toes touching the ground.

Jake tilts her chin up to look at him. He is slick with sweat and his hair is disarrayed, but the heat in his eyes distracts her all over again. A wondering expression comes over his eyes. "It's more," he breathes. "More than I could ever imagine."

He slides her down onto his already hard cock again, and this time she is on top.

She thought that the needs might fade after being with Jacob, but it has only made them stronger. She wants it all - every comfort the pack is willing to offer her, she will take.

Embry is hugging her in his lap one day, his arms looped around her waist, when Quil walks in with three boxes of pizza. One is spinach, just for her. He sets the pizza down and kneels before her. He kisses her thoroughly before he pulls away, her lips swollen, and Embry's arms wrap tight around her.

Quil comes back with just two plates for the three of them, and Embry feeds her off of his, laughing as he pulls away bites at the last minute and kissing her hair to apologize.

Embry and Quil pull her with them to bed that night, and she slides in between them in a warm tangle of limbs. She falls asleep easily but wakes up past midnight, sobbing. Quil makes soothing noises against the back of her neck and slides his hand down between her legs, and Embry turns to suck and tease her nipples.

She shudders and comes, and the hurt is still there, but the pleasure is, too.

Quil tucks her tighter against his chest, and Embry runs his hand through her hair, and they fall asleep again.

"I don't know how he can fight it," Jared whispers to Kim as Bella lies, spent and exhausted, curled up against Jared's other side. "How he can stand it."

They must think Bella is asleep. She keeps her face relaxed and her breathing even.

"He must think it's for the best," Kim says, sounding unusually thoughtful. "It has to be what she needs, somehow."

"She's miserable. That can't be what she needs."

Bella feels the movement of Kim's shrug. "She never would have looked at anyone but him if he hadn't left. I don't think she even would have thought about it."

Jared snorts. "So she needed to fuck us all?"

Kim shakes her head. "She needed to know it wasn't just about him. It's about all of us. We're pack."

Jared kisses her, and his free hand slides over Bella's bare back of its own accord. Bella shifts and pretends to wake up.

Kim leans over Jared's knees, taking Bella's hand and pressing it to her chest - not against her breasts, but against her heart.

"All of us, we're one," she says. "Do you believe us yet?"

Somewhere between passionate kisses and hot skin and long, loving nights, the weeks bleed into one, two, three months, and Bella sometimes goes long hours without noticing the emptiness that throbs inside her.

The pack is there, is always there. She learns to trust that her tears will be soothed, that there is always at least one pair of warm arms to wrap her tight, to kiss her neck until her breathing calms and her tears dry.

She learns to seek them out in turn, to feed Paul when he gets too frustrated to eat, to stroke Leah's hair when she cries after she stumbles upon a forgotten photo of her dad, to slide into bed with Embry when he shakes and shakes after Joshua Uley comes back in town and Embry recognizes the tilt of his cheekbones and the rise of his nose in the other man's features.

Her heart still aches, but in the pack's company, her pretend smiles become real ones.

She is dropping the last of the raspberries into her gardening pail for a new pastry recipe she wants to make the pack when she feels him.

She makes a low, keening sound at the sight of him, at her other half.

He is on her faster than she thought he could move while human, pressing her up against the siding of the house and grasping her by the hair to pull her mouth up to his.

She struggles for balance as she tries to scramble up, to get closer and closer until she is inside his skin.

"Don't cry, baby, don't cry," he says desperately, pulling back enough to kiss her nose, her cheeks, her forehead.

She is sobbing, she realizes, tears sliding down her cheeks as she reaches for him. Her chest pounds as the empty hole inside her fades, is made complete by his presence.

She buries her face in his neck, and he clutches her hard, the hand that is still fisted in her hair tightening, and the other hand sliding underneath her shirt until his warm hand is pressed over her pounding heartbeat. His body is shaking.

He is crying, too.

"Didn't want to leave," he gasps. "But I knew - I knew it was what you needed." His chest heaves as he tries to control himself. "The hardest thing I've ever done. The hardest thing I'll ever do."

He strokes her hair and pulls back enough to look at her face. "Did it work?" he asks urgently. "Do you know you belong to us now? To me?"

She is crying too hard to answer.

He slides his hand down the rise of her cheekbone, the fullness of her lower lip, the rise of her clavicle, as if she is something precious he has never seen before. The touch of his fingers traces warm fire along her veins.

Her future is here. She is pack and he is pack and she is part of him, and nothing will ever change that.

She feels her heart soaring, a smile breaking across her tearstained face. "Sam," she breathes. "I missed you."