A/N: this is the first part in the two part story, it concentrates on Nessie and Jacob but also contains Quil and Claire
"Guess what" an over excited Nessie screamed as she ran into the open spaced white room where Jacob was sprawled across the couch lazily. She sprang onto the couch next to him, the heat radiated off his skin; she inhaled his rustic scent, breathing deeply. His head lolled to the side his deep brown eyes staring intently up at the hyper girl sat impatiently next to him, her long blonde curls bouncing up and down.
Smiling he placed a calming hand on Nessie's shoulder "how about you tell me before you explode" he suggested, sitting up and pulling his arm around her.
"I can't we have to wait till Claire and Quil get here, we said we would tell you together" she squealed grabbing hold of Jacob's hand, so that he pulled her into an embrace. After a few minutes sat in silence, in Jacob's lap, Nessie suddenly jumped up at vampire speed. "They're here" she ran to the door, flinging it open allowing Claire and the giant wolf on which she was sat entered the room.
Carefully, Claire dismounted the giant wolf, kissing it lightly on the nose and placing a bundle of clothes in its mouth, before it shot off into the trees outside; after a few minutes Quil emerged dressed in faded ripped jeans and a tight fitting top that extenuated his toned muscles.
Grabbing Nessie's hand Claire pulled her to the side,(far enough so that the boys couldn't ease drop) were they began whispering and giggling to each us as the two lads watched in amusement, eye's looking at each other sceptically.
"You've not told him yet have you?" Claire whispered.
"No, of course not! You haven't either have you?" Nessie questioned.
"I can't wait to see their faces; they're going to be so excited for us!" Claire giggled.
"It's going to be amazing, finally, abroad!" Nessie jumped up and down excitedly.
"Alright, the suspense is killing me, can you tell us already please" Jacobs voice boomed.
"I don't think I've ever seen you so excited" Quil commented as he took a seat on a chair near Jacob, facing the girls as they stood together in the middle of the room in front of the fireplace, smiling giddily.
"Well..." Jacob started impatiently as the girls stood silently, trying to draw out the suspense.
They looked at each other, eyes sparkling with excitement before turning to the lads simultaneously shouting as loud as they could "WE'RE GOING TO FRACE!" Jumping up and down they hugged each other, before turning to the lads who still sat frozen staring intently at each other as if having a private conversation. Immediately the girls stopped jumping and instead focused on the lads in front of them.
"Why aren't you excited? This is great, the schools never done a trip like this before, two weeks in the culture capital of the world, it's like a dream" Nessie said walking over and taking Jacobs hand.
Without looking up Jacob spoke "because you're not going, that's why" his voice was toneless and flat, showing no emotion.
Nessie dropped his hand in shock. "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said, you're not going, you're too young to be going around a foreign city on your own" Jacob looked up into Nessie's eyes, to see her glaring back at him.
"The same goes for you Claire bear, it's not right for young girls to go abroad without proper supervision, when you're older then we will reconsider letting you go" spoke Quil.
By this point both Claire and Nessie had retreated from the lads and were stood the opposite sides of the rooms, their eyes black as they glared at the lads before them.
"To young?" Nessie spat; to the surprise of Jacob, whose brow creased in confusion at her behaviour.
"Yes, that's what I said" Jacob answered wearily, and calmly, as he looked at Quil, who shrugged in response to the unspoken question, why were they both acting so defensively they had told them they weren't aloud to do things before, and they had never had this reaction.
"I think you will find we are going on that trip, aren't we Nessie" Claire said, glaring at Quil.
"Yeah we are" Nessie replied without taking her gaze off Jacob.
Jacob suddenly became angry, Nessie had never acted so defiant before and he didn't like it, he wasn't being mean on purpose it was for her own protection and she knew that! He didn't understand why she was being so argumental about it. Shivers started to erupt over his skin, the breathed deeply digging his hands into the couch in an attempt to calm his self.
"It's a no and that's final" Quil repeated his voice ringing with authority.
"You're not in charge of me, and dont call me Clairebear, Im not four years old!" Claire spat venomously "it's up to my parents if I can go or not, and they seemed delighted with the idea when I told them."
"Well I can always talk to them cant I and I'm sure they will see my point of view" Quil resorted after a few minutes regaining control of the sudden tremors that rolled off his body - he had called her Clairebear for as long as he could remember she had never objected before.
"What the concerns that we're too young!" Nessie jumped in to defend Claire, "Why don't you two just leave us alone so we can just live our lives!"
Jacob stood up and advanced slowly towards Nessie "look it's just foreign countries are dangerous, and it's unsafe for you to go there with little supervision."
"Don't talk to me about dangerous, you think we don't worry about you when you're out protecting the res, so don't give me any bull about it being because it's dangerous when you know damn well I can protect myself" she laughed cynically "after all I'm a half vampire aren't I?" when no one answered, she sighed, tears spilling out of her red rimmed eye's "Just admit it, all of ...this is just because you think were too immature and young to be trusted by ourselves, were still little kids to you, and that will never change."
By then Jacobs face had completely softened as he went to stroke away the tears running down Nessie's flushed cheeks "Nessie, don't be like this you know it's not..."
"Don't touch me Jake" interrupted Nessie, knocking his hand away.
Edward appeared at the bottom of the winding stair case "that's right, listen to my daughter, or I will be forced to hurt you." Nessie forced a laugh at her father's overprotective ways, he didn't even need to be, Jake would never accept that she was older now which meant he would never love her...in that way, he would always see her as a kid – so her fathers worries and threats were unnecessary.
Jacob's tied face turned to Edward "come on Eddy you just have to read my mind to know there wasn't any hidden meaning behind that touch."
"It never will be and that's the problem" Nessie sighed under her breath wiping away the last of her tears, as Claire stood beside her nodding in agreement. Taking Claire's hand for moral support she looked up at her father, "It doesn't matter Jake and Quil are leaving now anyway, and Claire is stopping here for the night."
"Nessie!" exclaimed Jacob in shock; Nessie had never dismissed him willingly before especially under the circumstances of which they had just had an argument, he went to step towards her.
As the sadness of being resigned as a child in his mind for ever subsided, anger began to pulse through her veins once more "I swear Jake get out now, or you will regret it..." she snarled, looking deep into his eyes so he could see the seriousness of her threat.
Quil went towards Claire, gripping tighter to Nessie's hand Claire spoke "You too Quil, I can't be around you right now... when your acting like such a jerk" she added onto the end, in a quieter tone.
"But we have plans for tonight" Quil answered also shocked at Claire's outright dismissal.
"Not anymore!" she replied simply, before tears erupted from her eyes and she ran up the stairs with Nessie following in close pursuit. They heard the bedroom door slam behind the girls.
Quil and Jacob stood frozen to the ground in shock as they contemplated what had happened. Edward watched in mild amusement, "you really have no idea what you've done do you?" he asked smirking.
Ignoring the question Jacob spoke out loud his thoughts in a daze "I've never seen her act like this" his brow was furrowed in concentration.
"I know, Claire's never spoke to me like that before, so defiant and blunt, should we go see them?" Quil asked still not looking at Jacob.
"If you value your lives I wouldn't" the lads finally took notice of Edward, angling their bodies so they now faced him "the girls are currently in Nessie's room ranting and cursing – which leads me to mention that you should not be mentioning such profanities in front of my daughter – anyway you're not their favourite people right now going by the names their calling you so I wouldn't venture up there if I were you."
"Nessie's actually cursing?" Jacob asked, Edward nodded curtly in reply, "this is really bad" Jacob continued turning to Quil "Nessie hates it when I swear and it's unlike her to curse."
"But what have we actually done? I mean it's not like I haven't told Claire she can't do things before, she's never reacted like this!"
Edward sat down on the steps where he stood, silently laughing at the wolfs as they discussed the reasons why the girls could be so upset, he almost doubled over as the two wolves cringed at the mention of it possibly being the girls 'time of the month' as Quil so elegantly put it. Finally he couldn't take it anymore and decided to step in, he may not have particularly liked Jacob but he knew his daughter did and her happiness was of the utmost importance to him.
"Excuse me mutts don't mean to intrude on your little session of possibilities, but how about I narrow it down for you and tell you exactly why the girls are so upset with you? Otherwise we could be here all day...and night" chuckled Edward. Jacob and Quil nodded appreciably at him, ignoring the 'mutt' insult and sitting down by Edward like school children.
"You kept commenting on their age, saying they were too young."
"Yes but why does that matter?" asked Quil with curiosity.
Edward spoke slowly, pronouncing every syllable with deadly accuracy, in order to make sure that the two beastly wolves understood, "because your saying their too young, treating them as children, but they don't want you to see them as children any more, as grown men like yourselves don't date children."
Understanding crossed their faces as Quil and Jacob looked up at each other "They've grown up" Quil stated "They're adults" Jacob finished.
"That's right, they just want you to recognise them as adults...as girlfriends" Edward finished for them.
"Don't they get we want that too?" Quil asked to no one in particular "but the transition for us is hard, we love them but we don't want them to feel forced into a relationship with us."
"We've loved them two since we first met them but our love grows each day and we've had to work so hard to control it and keep it locked up, it's hard to let that barrier down, especially if we don't know if their truly ready for an adult relationship" Jacobs words were heartfelt, Edward could not only read it in his mind but see it on his face, it was stained his skin pulled taught over his face, a sign of genuine worry.
"I think today's events show that they think their ready, it's what they want! And you have to trust them, their 17, old enough to know what they want from life" Edward offered, but was quick to add "but that doesn't mean they're ready for all aspects of an adult relationship, especially Nessie, not until after marriage, you got that Jacob." Jacob chuckled at Edwards overprotective ways, he remembered them all too well, it reminded him of when he first imprinted on Nessie and both Bella's and Edward's reactions.
"It looks like we have some making up to do...and no Edward I don't mean it like that" Jacob said rolling his eyes.
"Indeed we do," answered Quil, with one last glance up at the closed door that lead to Nessie's bedroom the two lads left the house in order to make plans and preparation, shouting a quick "thanks" to Edward over their shoulders.
"Don't thank me yet, your plans got to work yet" he whispered in reply under his breath, watching as the two lads disappeared into the thick forest leaves; shivering as they shifted into their wolf forms.
The atmosphere had shifted to one of silent resign; with their anger forgotten, rants out of the way, they lay in silence as understanding dawned on them and they realised their efforts and dream's were useless.
"I can't believe, we thought it could ever be anything more than friendship" Nessie sighed "but yet when he looked at me I could have sworn there was hidden yearning in his eyes... I really thought he loved me as more as well."
"I used to catch him staring at me when he didn't think I was watching, the look on his face suggested he wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him, I guess we were both mistaken" Claire rolled over onto her stomach so she was facing Nessie "I guess we are still children to them, after all they are over 16 years older than us."
"You know that doesn't matter as much as you would first assume, you know that in this world of realistic fantasy that age is merely a number, in years my dad is over 100 years older than my mum, and that doesn't affect them, maybe we were just too naive and missed read the signs" she stared into Claire's eyes intensely, smiling sadly.
Falling back into their reflective silence they lay on Nessie's bed. The sound of softly padding paws running into the distance awakened them from their deep thoughts.
"I guess their gone now then" it wasn't a question, more a statement, but Nessie nodded, "we cant just sit her pining for something we never really had in the first place" Claire stood up, swinging herself off the bed.
"But you could tell they loved us!" Nessie whined slumping on the bed.
"Maybe! But not in the way we wanted them too" Claire said sadly pulling Nessie off the bed "the only way to deal with this is a large tub of ice-cream and some comedy's to get our spirits up."
"No romantics though, I don't think I could cope"
"Deal" Claire answered, pulling Nessie out of the room.
Even with her preference for blood, Nessie couldn't resist the lure of ice-cream, her parents found it comical that even though she would happily live on blood alone, the temptation of ice-cream had just the same draw to it "well I'm half human what would you expect, all humans love ice-cream" she would always reply with satisfaction, whenever they pulled disgusted faces as she guzzled down scoop after scoop.
They entered the kitchen to find Nessie's mother and father whispering in the corner, with her accurate hearing, she could pick out bits of their conversation, but wasn't in the mood for listening.
"We have to tell her."
"It's not our place."
"But she's upset if she realises about imprinting then ..."
"Look it will be alright, they have a plan and the girls will know soon enough, but you have to let the lads tell them, it's not our place to interfere" Edward concluded, as always being the voice of reason, Bella scowled at her husband but accepted he was right. Jacob had grown on Edward over the years after he had gotten over his infatuation with Bella and learned to control his inappropriate thoughts about his daughter growing up – he had in fact to Edwards surprise proven very responsible with regards to Nessie's safety, he almost made it easy on Edward as he very rarely had to say no to any over the top schemes of Nessie's (of which there were many) as Jacob would do it for him meaning Edward was always considered the good guy to his daughter.
Turning to the girls she spoke at a more audible volume as to get both the girls attention. "Are you two all right girls, need any help finding something?" she asked, as Claire and Nessie continued to bang cupboard doors in search of the ice-cream and spoons, triumphantly Claire held up the spoons.
"Yeah mum where's the ice-cream?" Nessie asked slamming the freezer door.
"Oh we moved it to the freezer outside as Emmet kept ..." she didn't have time to finish as at vampire speed Nessie rushed out the door; within seconds she was back cradling two whole tubs of cookie dough ice-cream in her arms.
"Mum, dad, were going to be in the living room, and would appreciate it if you wouldn't disturb us" with this said the girls walked into the living room, slumping down on the couch – the rusty scent of wood still lingering on the fabric. Nessie scrambled around in the DVD box - after getting approval from Claire she shoved the DVD into the TV, and took her seat, digging into one of the large tubs of ice-cream.
A/N: I think i may have gone over the top with the reactions of the girls but i hope not, let me know what you think, constructive criticism welcome :D R&R
tanny apple