(Page 376 of New Moon)

Jake pressed his warm cheek against the top of my hair.

If I turned my face to the side—if I pressed my lips against his bare shoulder… I knew without a doubt exactly what would follow. It would be very easy. There would be no need for explanations tonight.

But could I do it?

Jake ran one hand up and down my arm comfortingly, unknowing of my internal battle. I smiled as he soothed my doubts away without even realizing it. In my darkest hour, he was my sun. I had nothing to fear from my best friend. I had barely finished processing this thought when my head moved of its own accord, and then my lips were on the dip between his shoulder and neck.

Jake's arms tightened around me as I felt his muscles clench and a gust of breath whoosh out of him. Then his arms loosed, and he gently set me a few inches away from him in the cab. One big hand cradled my face, and his eyes searched mine. "Bells, honey," he sighed. I felt tears threatening, and he must have seen them in the corners of my eyes, because he pulled me close again, tracing patterns on my back. "It's been a long day for everybody. Let's get you in the house and get some rest. We can pick this up tomorrow," his voice was gentle as he stroked my tangled, saltwater and sand encrusted hair.

I suddenly felt sleepy at his words, and nodded along. I had kind of expected him to pounce on me, but this was better, and maybe I needed to give him more credit. Maybe he wasn't just physically older.

He opened the door and jumped out, then turned to lift me down after him. I was halfway out and in his arms when he suddenly stiffened. "Holy crap!" he exclaimed, shoving me back into the cab and tumbling in after me.

"Er, Jake," I began, wondering what was going on.

"Bloodsucker," he ground out from between clenched teeth. I started at him in alarm. He was shaking, probably dying to phase, but then he shook himself, shoved the keys back in the ignition and floored the truck back down the drive. "We're going back to the Res. You can spend the night with us, Dad'll take care of Charlie."

"Okay," I agreed as I heard him mutter "Gotta call Sam," to himself.

After a few miles, once his breathing calmed, he reached over for me and I scooted back to his side, tucking myself into his warmth.

Billy rolled out onto the front porch, alerted to our presence by my overly loud truck, almost before Jake had a chance to shut off the engine, his face lined with worry.

Jake didn't wait for me to walk, just swooped me up and bounded up the stairs to his father. "There was a Cold One at Charlie's place," he said, by way of explaining my being there. Billy's eyes widened and Jake nodded, looking shaken instead of enraged now that we were out of the immediate danger zone.

"Bella, I don't know what you've been up to today, but you're filthy. Not that I'm not used to it with this one here," he tried, and failed, to roll over Jake's foot before continuing, "but you can't be comfortable. Why don't you go take a shower while Jake calls Sam? You're safe here," he smiled up at me, although I could see faint tear tracks down his cheeks.

"Thanks Billy, that sounds great," I said, shivering a bit now that I wasn't ensconced in Jacob's heat. I headed back for the bathroom, and expected Jake to turn off into the kitchen, but we passed it and he was still on my heels.

"Wait one sec," he told me as he ducked into his bedroom. I followed curiously and leaned against the door frame. He took up most of the space in his tiny room at this point. He yanked one messy dresser drawer open and closed in a matter of seconds, something balled in his hand, then crouched on the floor and dug through the bottom drawer, finally finding what he was looking for all the way in the back, under who-knows how many layers of seemingly forgotten clothing detritus. "Here," he thrust the bundle out to me, his expression a mixture of shyness and brisk efficiency.

"Er, thanks," I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it, and he must have seen on my face just how tired and confused I was, because he gently guided me towards the bathroom. "Something to wear after you're clean. Unless you have a change of clothes stashed somewhere I don't know about?" he asked playfully, obviously trying to calm me down, since I was almost hyperventilating at this point with the overload of emotions, sensations and the physical drain of the day.

"Thanks Jake," I said. He nodded, then strode off to the kitchen to call Sam.

"I might have to leave, so if I'm not here when you get out-"

"Your dad doesn't bite, and I'm used to hanging out with mine anyway. Take care of your duties," I smiled, and started to duck back into the bathroom.

"Bells, if I'm not back before you go to bed, sleep in my room and I'll take the couch,"

My head popped back out. "You don't have to do that. I'll be fine on the couch, besides, you're bigger than me," I reasoned, wondering if he could even lay on the couch without his legs hanging off the end.

"You. In. The. Bed," he said firmly, and Billy hollered from somewhere in the house, "Bella, best just give up now. Jake, call Sam already!"

We both grinned sheepishly before doing as we were told.

I stripped and then looked at my underwear in distaste. Something told me Jacob didn't have a spare bra hanging around to loan me like the oversized-for-me but buttery soft tee shirt and obviously several-years-old sweat pants which did have a prayer of fitting my frame reasonably well, unlike the shirt. I finally settled on washing them in the sink, although they'd never by dry by the time I'd have to leave the bathroom. As I was rummaging under the sink for a clean towel, however, I ran straight into a beat up hair dryer, probably left over from when Jake's older sisters lived at home.

I plugged it in and left it running on the counter, pointed at my sopping undies, while I quickly cleaned up with the Old Spice body wash in the shower. As I toweled off I wrinkled my nose. Although I liked the smell well enough on the men in my life, I wasn't sure how I felt about smelling like a guy myself. And I was suddenly wondering if Jake would care that I didn't smell all fruity and flowery and girly.

I didn't know why I cared…just that I did.

Except, maybe…

I had finally let him, let Edward, go tonight, in realizing that I wanted to give things with Jake a try. He'd been amazing, yes, but then he'd left, and hadn't even let his family say goodbye. Alice and I had become friends, and not only had he abruptly broken up with me and disappeared from my life completely, but he'd also taken one of my closest friends with him, and denied us a goodbye.

I stood in my towel blow drying my underwear, and found myself wondering how much he could have loved me if he'd done all that. Sure, he hadn't killed me, that was some kind of caring, but Carlisle probably had as much to do with it as I did. So he didn't kill me, saved me from another vampire, dragged me to prom, let his family throw me a birthday party and then…poof? That was it? It was strange, and it made me rethink how 'in love' he'd been with me.

I decided, as I pulled on the now-dry underwear and Jake's outgrown sweat pants, that I was worried about Jacob suddenly because I had realized I was willing to emotionally invest more into our relationship, but since I'd so grossly misjudged Edward, what's to say I hadn't read Jake all wrong too? I'd become totally dependent on Jacob the last few months, but that had happened by itself, seemingly by accident. This was a choice I was making, and just because he hadn't run me off before didn't mean he wouldn't reject me as a girlfriend at some point. Maybe he really didn't care quite as much as I thought he did. In which case, it would be easier to run him off. Just like I had apparently unknowingly done with Edward.

I peevishly yanked Jake's shirt over my head and attacked my tangled hair with a comb I'd also found under the sink, next to the hair dryer.

When I finally wandered out of the bathroom, Billy was in the living room, bowl of popcorn on his lap, watching a basketball game. "Hey Bella. Feel better?" he asked, peering at me in concern. It really was like having Charlie around.

"Yes, much," I assured him, not bothering to look for Jacob since I assumed the Pack had gone to deal with the vampire.

"Sam needed Jake, he'll be back in a bit. In the meantime, why don't you get something to eat from the kitchen?"

I nodded, and padded into the small, but well stocked, kitchen. I cut up a granny smith apple and fixed some crackers and cheese. "You want anything else while I'm here Billy?" I called into the next room. His grinning face popped around the corner.

"Thanks. Jake never asks," he rolled his eyes, "some more coffee would be nice. I think I'm going to stay up until he's back, and it might be late. I nodded and took the tall mug he held up around the doorframe.

I'd been planning to wait up too, but once I'd eaten my snack, my eyelids became heavier and heavier until the effort to keep them propped open was simply too great.

Next thing I knew a too warm, too large hand was stroking my now-dry hair off my face. I peeled my eyes open to find Jake inches away from my face, hair still wet from the shower. "Hey," I mumbled sleepily, slightly disoriented to not only wake up in someone else's house, but obviously hours later, the room almost pitch black instead of lit by lamps and a basketball game on the T.V.

"Hey," he smiled back. The room was dark, but his smile burned like a sun, my sun, in the faint starlight seeping into the room from the window. That special smile he kept just for me lit up my world, no matter how bad things were. "Dad said you fell asleep before the second quarter of the game," he put on a mock angry face. "I thought I said you in the bed," he finished with a growl.

"I wanted to wait up. But I was so tired, and the couch is soft and everything smells like you," I yawned, "and I was comfortable. So I accidentally nodded off," I finished with a sheepish grin.

He nodded, then sniffed. "You smell like me. Well, kinda," he amended.

I gave a nervous grin. "The only thing I could find was Old Spice body wash," I explained. "Do you mind?" I couldn't help asking.

"No, what else were you going to use?"

I shrugged. It had been comforting to have his scent all around me, like he'd been holding me, while he was gone.

He seemed to shake himself out of something, and suddenly looked worried. I bolted upright.

"What's wrong? Is someone hurt? Dead? Did it get away? Jake, tell me! What happened!" the words spilled out of my mouth before I had a chance to sensor them.

"No one's hurt, or dead. It just…ah…wasn't what we were expecting. And it could have been messy." He rubbed the back of his neck.

I looked askance at him, but then ruined the effect by shivering. I guess my body was still trying to deal with today…or was it yesterday, now? Jacob quickly stood, swung me up into his arms and sat down on the sofa, keeping me curled in his warm embrace. He pulled a knitted blanket, I guessed his mom had made it before she passed, and draped it over me. I snuggled into his bare chest, griping an edge of the blanket in one hand and his wrist in the other. He pressed his hand against my face, and I sighed as his warmth seeped into me.

"So," I said after a few moments, "tell me what happened."

I felt his chest expand as he drew a deep breath, then he suddenly sighed. Whatever it was troubled him deeply.

"Ah," he began, "the thing is…."

"What?" I asked, confused. About all I caught out of his stream of quick words was 'blood sucker', but that was hardly a revelation.

"It was the fortune. Teller. Bloodsucker," he repeated, painfully slow. I listened to his heat rate go up and felt his breathing quicken.

"Alice?" I asked, hardly able to believe it.

"Little pixie of a Cold One," Jake said unhappily.

"Yup, that's her," I confirmed, "what happened?"

"She saw you cliff dive, and then nothing. She wanted to make sure you were still alive," Jake finished with a sigh that could have blown an Artic wind to Hawaii.

"Oh," I was silent, thinking. Then I remembered he'd said it could have been messy. "Why would it have been messy?" I asked, curious.

"The Treaty says that we're not to go into each other's territory. Your house, where she was waiting for you, or Charlie, depending, is in the area sectioned off as 'theirs'," he explained.

"Oh, so she could have attacked if she'd wanted," I surmised.

"Yeah, but she didn't. Once we realized it was a Cullen, Sam phased and went to talk to her. But she would only believe me that you were okay," Jacob grinned suddenly, whether at upstaging his alpha or that he was the Bella authority, I wasn't sure. "She understood that we were trying to keep you safe and that was why I brought you back here, but she wants to see you before she…leaves," he said the last word as though it might trigger a bawling fit. And a few months ago, he probably would have been right. But I'd known she wouldn't be here to stay, and while I relished the chance to say a proper goodbye, once I had that closure…

I wasn't sure what would happen. What I did know what that here, with Jake, I felt safe and almost whole. He took care of me, and made me laugh. He'd stood by me through my darkest hours, and helped me into the world of light again. His smile, his laugh, his presence, lit up my world. I nuzzled my face into his hand. He was the brightest burning sun in my universe, the center of my universe.