Author's Note: This fic will explore what I'd like to think happened had Bella not jumped off the cliff, setting all the other events in New Moon into motion. Set sometime just before spring break; canon until approximately Chapter 15 of New Moon. This is not my first fic by any means, but it's my first Twilight fic.
"Right and wrong have ceased to mean much to me; I was coming back anyway…I was already past trying to live through one week at a time, or even one day. I was fighting to make it through a single hour. It was only a matter of time--and not much of it--before I showed up at your window and begged you to take me back." --New Moon
Prologue
Tick...
As he listens, the minute hand shutters for the most miniscule of instants, then clicks into its new position.
Tock.
Tick.
He closes his eyes, but what difference does it make? Light, darkness, its all the same to the immortal.
Tock.
He shifts in the small space he's called home for days now, feeling neglected tendons and muscles slide under the surface of his rock hard skin.
Tick.
He clenches his teeth.
Tock.
There's a point when you know you're not going to make it. When the tightrope becomes too narrow, your balance too precarious. The distance too long, the height too vast. And when you reach that point--when Ihe/I does, in the claustrophobic attic space overlooking some loud city or another in the heart of South America--when the fight to survive the passage of weeks have accelerated to days and then hours and then minutes, why continue the struggle? Why not surrender with a voluntary relaxing of muscle and mind power, face the inevitable, and simply…
fall?
Chapter 1
Time.
For several months now, it's gone by for Bella in leaps and starts, like a heart stuttering. At home, alone, at school, asleep…it stalls. With Jacob, it races forward again like a sprinter from the block, in a burst of speed that takes her breath away.
The whole experience leaves her slightly dizzy.
But not…unhappy. Not when she's with Jake, and she receives her usual electric jolt of new life. Of course, that's less and less often these days, as his pack demands his attention and loyalty with increasing frequency, leaving her with her own thoughts, or else her job at Newton's, or sometimes at Emily's, awaiting the wolves' return.
But even so, there's enough of the old times--the old them--to keep her on life support. She's undeniably grateful.
Today, they're curled up together on Billy's sagging couch, her calculus textbook spread open over her knees, Jake's heavy head on her shoulder. His eyes are closed, but she knows he's awake. For one thing, he's toying idly with the string of her hoodie, running the thread up and down through his fingers.
"If you're so bored, you could start your lit essay so I can read it."
He chuckles, the sound reverberating from deep in his chest. "I think I'm on a bit of sabbatical from school these days."
She frowns. Partially because it's not fair.
She shifts her weight on the couch as she snaps her book closed, under the pretense of freeing herself from his crushing weight. In truth, her dramatic groan is a farce; she doesn't mind.
Which is exactly why she needs to put a few inches between them.
Jake acquiesces with a grunt of his own, unfolding his long limbs to stand before holding one hand out for her. She takes it, allowing his fingers to briefly curl around her own. They're warm enough to set her palm to tingling.
"Time to go already?" he complains.
Bella's gathering her stuff into her backpack. "Charlie," she explains with a shrug. "He'll be home in half an hour or so."
The shadows are lengthening across Jake's tiny living room, and he seems to concede to this point if not to her own explanation. "I'll drive you home."
She waits while he grabs a sandwich from the fridge then follows as he trots through the front door without bothering with shoes, or for that matter, a shirt. She raises one eyebrow.
"What? It's just easier. I'm not exactly planning to hitchhike back to La Push."
She rolls her eyes.
*****
He'd booked the flight from Rio to Seattle before he could talk himself out of it.
It's wrong; Edward knows this. But right and wrong have ceased to matter much, as he should have suspected all along, given his spectacular streak of egocentricity. Self-preservation won out, what a shocker. Now, as the shuttle plane idles to a stop on the narrow tarmac of the Port Angeles airport, he thinks back to that moment last spring, when he'd actually plotted how to destroy himself had he arrived at the dance studio too late. He considers darkly whether all his planning had actually been moot. At the end of the day--week, millennia, whatever--was he even capable of finishing himself off? He, who lacks even the will power to deny himself now what he wants?
What he needs, he corrects himself grudgingly.
Because it hardly feels like a choice, this gravitational pull back the Forks.
Back to Bella.
*****
It's starting to rain, but the truck cab is warm, Jacob is warm, and Bella is warm, her jacket-covered arm and shoulder pressed to his bare one. He's regaling her with some tale of Paul and Sam the previous day on patrol, some mishap to do with a skunk, and his laugh is loud; she can feel the vibration of his abdominal muscles as he gaffaws. The boy is ripped. The realization never ceases to amaze her; it's as though every day, he's bigger. Stronger. Older. As though she can never quite get a pulse on precisely who he is…what he is…to her.
A quandary which has nothing to do with shape shifting, of course.
She knows this, when she slips and actually thinks about it. When she thinks about what Jacob has come to mean to her, instead of just contenting herself with floating along in his ever-increasing wake, happy just to keep her head above water.
He's not a floatation device. He deserves better than 'lifesaver' status. She knows this, as well.
Still, by the time he pulls her truck into her driveway, the rain is coming down in sheets, and she doesn't want to get out. Their breath is starting to fog the glass and for a long moment, she listens to the click-click-click of the windshield wipers; in a rare turn of events, Jacob has fallen silent beside her as well.
It's short lasted. Abruptly, he turns to face her; he's close enough that she can feel the trace of his breath on her cheeks as he exhales. "Bella--"
A sudden instinct has her cutting him off, even as she leans forward earnestly. "Listen, Jake--"
She has no idea what she was going to say, but abruptly, it doesn't matter; they both blink as the glare of headlights cut across the early evening gloom of the truck cab. Bella raises one hand to shield her eyes as the cruiser pulls in behind them.
Jake is out of the truck cab in a flash. "Hey, Charlie."
Bella watches as her father blinks back at him in surprise, but he's chuckling. "Ever heard of a coat, kid?"
*****
Edward's phone beeps impatiently at him the moment he turns it on outside the sole terminal of the Port Angeles airport. The sound is nearly a foreign one; until today, his family has fully respected his desire for isolation. He dials his voice mail while scoping out the near-empty long term parking lot for a decent ride, then accesses the single message. He's not surprised to see it's from Alice.
She doesn't waste time on preliminaries. Her waif-like voice fills his ear, nearly breathless with poorly contained excitement.
Edward, does this mean what I think it means?