Mistake.
Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.
Thanks to BanSidhe[ruadh sidhe] for betaing.
Bella Cullen thought perhaps she had made a mistake.
She stood at the grave side of Jacob Black; full chief of the Quileute people and much missed by them evidently. Much missed by her too.
What could she say to him now? Sorry? I made a mistake. I was young. I didn't know.
She had chosen Edward; but in truth she had chosen Edward's money. His family owned an island for heaven's sake; a whole island. They hired Lear jets, they had exotic holidays, and they could buy anything they wanted, go anywhere they wanted. Their houses were full of priceless antiques and beautiful, original works of art. They even had a man who made fake documentation for them. Alice purchased clothes in a frenzy that Bella had secretly admired.
She had come from lower middle class stock anyway and Jake was a poor Native American kid who lived on a reservation. What could he have really offered her?
She had thought money was going to be enough compensation.
She was wrong.
She had thought that all Jake could offer her was love. Now she knew it would have been enough. Even if it was all he had.
The love that Edward offered her was as cold an unchanging as they both were now.
Children, grandchildren. Jake could have given her those too.
Sure, she had Renesmee, but she had never been her child. Not really. She had never been a normal child and her freakishly fast growth to adulthood had left Bella reeling. She had barely come to terms with having a child of her own, when she wasn't anymore; she was all grown up. She was always so strong and independent. It seemed truly strange that her childhood was over so quickly, when their own lives moved so slowly.
She had literally killed herself giving birth to her daughter and could have no more. And Renesmee like the mule she was, was sterile. No grandchildren for Bella.
Jake imprinting on the newborn baby had saved them all from tearing each other apart and maybe that had been its purpose; they united to defeat the common enemy. But the tribe had lost its heir. And more and more of their precious children transformed as the Cullens continued to live too close to their lands.
The Quileute were proud of the packs, but no parent would wish that on their child. And each year, they got younger. It was too much.
The treaty was old and out of date now.
Renesmee had never loved Jake like that. She had released him from the imprint when it was obvious that the Cullens continued presence was too much of a strain for the Quileute people and that they just didn't feel any passion for each other. Their relationship would never move to the next level.
Renesmee had let him go, just like Bella had. And not like she had. Because Bella had never really let him go. In a small dark, part of her heart, Bella had resented her daughter having Jake. It seemed wrong to her. She knew Edward have heaved a sigh of relief. Being able to read Jake's mind as he thought about their daughter, was not something he was looking forward to either.
Bella was sure Edward would have completely over-reacted, as he often did, the first time Jake did think of her in a sexual way… he would have half killed him. He was still too much the Victorian man. But it wasn't necessary. It never happened.
She had also not been looking forward to explaining to her daughter, that her mother's first proper kiss had been with Jake.
To Jake, Renesmee was always Bella's baby. He never saw her as anything else and Renesmee knew it.
So the Cullens had moved away. Bella had finally convinced them that the endless repetition of high school was some kind of torture. They could all pass for older than a high school student, it was completely unnecessary to repeat it. She finally won the argument with Carlisle when she pointed out that the school records were now computerised and their names would keep popping up all over the country. None of them wanted to change their names. It was bad enough that Jasper had to pretend to be Rosalie's brother and couldn't use his own name.
They found other ways to socialise with humans. Carlisle had the same issue with his medical records and he started to reside in third world countries where the records were less well scrutinised. He would never think of giving up medicine. Esme went with him, of course.
She looked at the headstone. Five kids. Four boys and a girl. He would have adored that girl. She would have been daddy's little princess. And so many grandchildren, they couldn't list them all.
Of all the wolf pack; Leah had kept in touch. Bella had never expected that. Leah told her Jake was happy, but she knew he didn't love his wife like he had loved her. She had wondered at Leah telling her that at the time, but now, it was a comfort to her.
His love had proved just as eternal, as Edward's. Maybe more so. Because now she found herself more and more, lowering the shutters on her mind and keeping Edward out. And he didn't like it. But she no longer cared what he liked.
Maybe it was getting older; she had always laughed at older people whose memories of their youth were so strong, when they couldn't remember what they had done the day before. Her mind was shuttered because more and more frequently it returned to warm, bone crushing hugs, passionate kisses and visions of small russet skinned children.
FF_2154210_ - 11/08/2011 04:07:00 PM