Billy's Heartbreak

One year. It had been one year since Bella Swan walked away from Forks, and all of the people who loved her. The secret about her fate was a heavy burden on Billy's shoulders. It pained him to see his best friend so easily fooled. Billy stayed away whenever she came to visit Charlie. The thought of seeing that beautiful young girl, one he loved with all his heart, cold, lifeless, nothing more than an abomination of nature, he couldn't do it. Bella was a vampire now, and there was nothing to be done about it. Sam sent the wolves from his pack to keep an eye on things the few times she visited Charlie. He never asked his old friend about her, and Charlie was smart enough not to say anything. .

Billy never asked about her. He just didn't want to know. Jacob's heart was broken. Seeing his son this way was almost more than he could bear. Jake was a shell of his former self. All the good inside him seemed to have been locked away, and he was trying to be someone else. Anger, frustration, putting on a front of being a ladies man. None of it was Jacob. Not really. Oh, Billy was aware of the wagging tongues on the reservation. The rumors, accusations. His son was supposed to set an example, become the Chief of the tribe one day. The way Billy figured it, his boy needed to grieve in his own way, and the hell with what other people thought. So he let him be. Besides, Billy knew the truth. He heard his son's screams in the middle of the night. Jake would dream of her, with red eyes. He'd lost his imprint, the girl he'd loved since he was three years old. Nobody saw Jacob Black cry. But coming home one day, Billy found his boy in the kitchen, sobbing his eyes out. In his hand was a recipe, crossed out, and scribbled over. Bella's handwriting. Jacob had knocked over Sarah's old cookbook, and the paper fluttered to the ground. Billy Black had never felt more helpless in his life. Wheeling himself over to his son, he placed his withering old hand on Jacob's strong shoulders. Silent tears fell from his own eyes, and the two of them wept together, grieving over a little girl lost.

One day Charlie came over in his squad, a tow truck following behind him. Bella's truck, the one that was never good enough for the Cullen's, was dragged to the Black's. Charlie left it there, only telling Billy that he thought Jacob could use a project. Maybe one day he'd want to fix it up again and sell it.

When Jacob got back home from his date that night, his flavor of the week having bored him, and spotted the truck in the driveway, he just turned away. Billy said nothing. Later that night, he heard his son walk out of the house. Peering out the window, Billy saw Jacob push the rusty heap into the garage. He heard as his son screamed, tossed tools around and eventually broke down in tears. The next morning, Billy sent Rachel to find him. Find him she did, curled up in the cab of the truck, one of Bella's old sweatshirts in his hands. He cuddled it like a small child would a security blanket.

If there was one thing Billy Black understood, it was heartbreak. Sarah, the only woman he had ever loved had been cruelly taken away from them. He wasn't always the best husband to her, heaven knows he had his regrets. But, he loved her as no other man could. It was all encompassing, not unlike the way Jacob loved Bella.
So, when Charlie brought the truck over, Billy thought it might be a turning point. Something that would finally help his son. He couldn't have been more wrong. Oh, Jacob fixed it up alright, and then he handed the keys back over to Charlie, never saying a word. That same night, loud crashes once again came from the garage. It sounded like Jacob was ripping the place apart. Using every ounce of strength he had, Billy wheeled himself over the uneven ground, and peeked inside.

Jacob looked like a madman, sweat pouring from his body, his hair wild, screaming profanities. He had torn apart Bella's motorcycle, and the remains were all over the place. It was then that Billy realized why the truck didn't help. Jacob fixed it up the first time because Charlie asked him to. But it was Bella who asked him to fix the motorcycles. It was their project together. Those damn machines represented all the hard work and love Jacob put into healing her heart. A heart he so desperately wanted a place in.

Not knowing what to do, Billy wheeled himself back inside and called up Embry. The kid didn't say much, he just listened, and said he'd be right over. A few hours later, after more screaming and yelling, Embry Call walked out of the garage with a wheelbarrow containing what was left of Bella Swan's motorcycle. If there was one thing that Billy prided himself on, it was being observant. Jacob didn't get any better after that, but he let Embry take that bike away. More than that, Jake could have beaten the shit out of the kid, but he didn't.

Something had changed that night. The dead look seemed to disappear out of Jacob's eyes. Part of him, somewhere deep down had begun to heal. The nightmares that woke him in a cold sweat happened less. While his son still acted like an ass out in public, at home he was kinder. It wasn't long after that Billy found that same crossed out recipe, tucked behind a picture on their mantle. A picture of Jacob and Bella together. He knew then his son would be ok. Because even though he lost her, he loved her, and he would always carry that memory in his heart.