Title: Falling Away (With You)
Chapter: Prologue, One
Pairing: Jacob/Bella, of course
Rating: PG-13/R for cursing and sexual situations in later chapters
Warnings: While this fic is meant to be J/B, I've kind of attempted to make Bella a semi-normal person and fall in love with more than two people her entire freaking life. So beware of a bit of non-J/B throughout. And there's lots of angst. Angst angst angst.
Disclaimer: Fic title/lyrics from Muse, characters from Stephenie Meyer.
Author's Note: Told completely from Bella's perspective (ugh, I know). But yes, when I say "you", I do in fact mean "Bella". It was difficult for me to write so I can only assume it will be difficult to read. But how about you give it a try. (: (This is not a songfic, by the way.) The setting of the story might be a bit confusing. Chapter one starts during New Moon (Bella hasn't jumped off the damn cliff, Edward is gone), and almost everything that happens in the actual series happens in my story, but at different times. (Almost.) It's difficult to explain without giving everything away.
Summary: "All of the love we left behind, watching the flash backs intertwine, memories I will never find—So I'll love whatever you become and forget the reckless things we've done. I think our lives have just begun."

This is my first multi-chaptered fic so I apologize if things are a little sloppy. Constructive criticism is more than welcome.

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Prologue.

"I am so sorry, Bella, my love. It's going to hurt more than I can tell you and I'm sorry." His cold fingers had stroked down your face to stop at your neck, and his hand trembled there. A howl grew louder in the distance.

That's when the physical pain had worsened, where it was so unbelievably overwhelming, you wondered why he was doing this to you, and you couldn't feel anything else anymore but the pain.

But you'd already started hurting before then, and it was worse, so you thought you could live through anything, and you did. Even though you were dead. But you still survived.

Your mind now wanders back to the present, and you remember everything now. But it doesn't matter if you remember them or not, because all has been said and done and you've now been changed into something you can never, ever take back.

The thing that you remember most, the thing that stands out most in your mind, is also the most painful. Your heart is stopped. That much is true. And you remember the exact sound your heart made as it slowed, before it came to a stop. You remember how it thumped unevenly in your chest, when the pain had still not completely abhorred your being.

But what you remember most is how every single heartbeat yelled, and whatever it was yelling was for one person and one person only. And you remember your heart beating only for him, saying, thump… thump… thump (I love you)…

You remember this all, and you remember Jacob's face, before your heart stops.

---

Chapter One.

Somehow, it all happens, even though Jacob had said he was positive he never would.

But it does happen, just as you knew it always would. The day you always knew was always bound to come (as much as you didn't want it to, deep down) was now here, and of course you didn't see it coming.

Even if you knew that not all werewolves were prone to imprinting, you could never really get rid of the feeling that there was someone perfect out there for Jacob. Someone who could and would quite literally complete him, more or less. Someone who would almost literally be his matching puzzle piece, and, most importantly, someone who could settle this deal (once and for all) between you and Jacob.

You had always had the feeling that Jacob was especially imprint-proof, though, even if you don't necessarily want to believe it. At the same time, you want him to be happy. But he had said himself that he never expected it to happen. You always took Jacob's words right to your heart. So why had you never expected it, just like he once did, all at the same time?

You never wanted to accept that you knew all this, though. You think maybe that's why you act so ridiculously, so pitifully, so much like someone who should probably be locked up in a mental asylum.

So when the day, when the moment is suddenly thrust upon all three of you, when you first see the look in his eyes as he just stares at her (her name being Natalie, as you would find out sooner than you'd like), you can't hold back the scream that literally hurls itself out of your chest as you tear out of the general store, past the girl who is both gorgeous and pleasant and knows more than a thing or two about cars, past that one person in your life whom you once thought would always—always—be there for you, past your car in which you both arrived in. And not caring at all where you were heading, as long as it was anywhere away from there.

---

There was no doubt in your mind that he would find you sooner or later. Even if that girl completely got a hold of Jacob's life and there were no more room in his heart left to love anyone with, neither of you could hide the fact that you'd be talking to each other again, sooner or later.

Unfortunately (fortunately), it was sooner.

You weren't meaning to run into him, not really. You weren't looking for trouble, either. Surprisingly, you don't find trouble, even if you knew that you were looking for Jacob anyway and Jacob was trouble and there was no reason you could find that you wouldn't have found trouble if you were trying to find Jacob. (And all of this made sense in your head back at Charlie's house, too, and you hadn't been expecting that to happen.)

But you don't find trouble—not really.

Jacob was there, sitting on the hood of his Rabbit like he'd been waiting for you ever since you'd screamed and ran and tripped out of that general store so long ago (how long had it been…? Maybe yesterday?). And it seemed right then to you, and maybe him, that ages had passed as you stared into each other's eyes. But you knew it was not the same, and it would never be the same, even though nothing had really changed. He still stares at you right now like you are his life, like yesterday didn't just happen and he stares at you right now like he knows he could speak an entire declaration of his love for you with a simple look of his eye. That was true, of course. So nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

Especially the way his voice sounds when he finally speaks, like in actuality, you aren't the only one who had cried until your eyes ran dry last night.

"So…" His voice cracks in its usual husky tone, but it's all different this time around and you don't really know why. He clears his throat. "I guess you know what's happened."

You would have laughed out loud if it weren't for the circumstances. "Yes," you manage to reply, smiling dryly at his timid expression. "I guess I do." Seconds pass, and you decide to speak up again when he says nothing, does nothing but stare at your shoes, like he's already looked into your eyes for far too long already. "You can't say it was… hard to miss, though." Your voice is stronger than you ever could have hoped, and it helps nothing when you can't pull your gaze away from his face.

You never thought that Jacob could be the weak one. That was the role you were destined (designed) to play.

"Yeah, I guess I can't say that," he says at last.

And then suddenly he's the one staring you down with the full force of his eyes, and you wonder why his eyes are so there and nothing else is there until you realize that his face is not more than three inches away from your own and you're breathing too hard for comfort, and his smile is so heartbreakingly beautiful and all so wrong at the same time.

"You also can't say it was my fault," he continues in a whisper, and he gently presses his lips to yours for the very first time.

It wouldn't be the last.

As you allow the warmth of his breath to enter in your mouth, you somehow know something like this is too good not to be a first and last time—which is strangely ironic as you know that at the same time, something this good and this strange should not be able to happen again. Especially since now you are crying. But since when was that ever a surprise?

So you kiss him back for a few moments because you can, crying while he cries.

---

Seconds pass. Then minutes. (And by now you are already out of the garage that you once stood in, under the looming figure of the boy, no, man, who once—and maybe still did—love you.) Those minutes turn into hours and then days and then weeks and it's not until two months later that you realize all along you'd actually been counting. Waiting.

For what, you don't know exactly. Maybe you weren't meant to wait for anything at all. Maybe that's why at every tick of a clock, every suspicious and the maybe-she's-crazy-after-all look you get from Charlie, every intentional glance away from all mirrors in the house tear a fresh wound through that hole in your chest you thought had almost been so close to being fully healed long ago.

To open something like that up again… it was putting you through so much more pain than you could have ever thought possible, even though you thought maybe you'd grown immune to being ripped to pieces by broken promises. (Promises—did they mean nothing anymore?) You thought maybe nothing could ever put you in a world of absolute hurt more than when Edw—when he left you (but you weren't thinking about that), and you were beyond as miserable as you'd ever been when Jacob had to be the one who left you in pieces now.

But the worst part of it all was that Jacob had promised—he'd fucking promised—and now he had stared into the eyes of his imprint (but you always knew it couldn't have been his fault, so you stopped trying to blame him and tried to blame yourself). And now it's like nothing mattered at all anymore.

---

You weren't expecting to see him ever again, not really.

You also weren't ever, ever expecting to meet Natalie. Not ever. Not really.

At the same time, you hadn't been expecting your body to drive you back down to La Push, straight into to the general store in which she worked… the general store in which your heart had—yet again—been torn out.

What in the hell is your purpose there, anyway? Nothing comes to mind at first.

The first thing you notice, though, is the absence of Jacob. And for that you are grateful, but only right now.

Natalie looks at you curiously from behind the counter, and it takes her longer than it would have taken you to recognize a familiar face. You would never forget a face. (Yet another reason why someone like her—so regular—could not be a good choice for Jacob. Your Jacob… even if he doesn't belong to you now, or maybe never did.) It takes her a good five minutes of watching you walk aimlessly around the store, pretending like you were fascinated by the sloppy display of beef jerky and it takes her five minutes of sneaking peeks at you like you were just a customer in need of assistance and she was wondering all the while if maybe she could be the one to assist you.

The thing is, though, five minutes pass and you still don't know quite what to say to her when she speaks to you—because you know she (or you) would, eventually.

"Um… hello there." Her perfectly innocent voice shouldn't have ticked you off so badly. You'd heard her speak before. You'd struck up a pleasant conversation with her while Jacob was looking for tools to tamper on his car with, ignoring the both of you, all those months ago. She was one of the nicest human people you'd ever met, someone you could probably become best friends with. "My name is Natalie, and it looked like you were having some trouble finding what you—"

You interrupt her by instinct. (Instinct?) You don't mean to. "Yes," you very nearly bark. Calm down, you tell yourself. It's not her fault; it's not her fault… You find yourself repeating over and over again in your head. You take a deep, raspy breath before starting again. "Yeah, I was trying to find something. I'm not quite sure what, though."

You turn fully around to get a good look at her face, because you know you have to and you know you want to and you know you never really did before.

She's just about as lovely as her voice, this Natalie person. Long and dark brown hair goes past her waist even when pulled up in a braided ponytail and even when flung over the front of her chest, her shoulder. The braid is slightly limp, sloppy, like she'd had it in for an entirely stressful day. Her skin is a deep russet color, glowing perfectly and showing absolutely no trace of any sort of makeup or bronzer, or blemish. The only unnatural thing about her is the thin layer of mascara that lightly traces the length of her gorgeous and long eyelashes. Her body is quite slender, but not anorexic, and her shoulders are strong and broad.

She couldn't be any more than nineteen. She couldn't be anymore beautiful, and it takes you a minute to realize that she's not gorgeous. She's really not. Is she?

But what kills you inside right now is that you know Jacob probably made the exact same assessment you had about this girl. Maybe he'd stared even longer. In fact, it was quite likely he'd stared longer. Jacob knew more about this girl than you did. So why were you judging her so poorly?

All these thoughts, and only a few seconds had passed between the two of you. "Well," she says in a slightly breathless voice, like she rather wouldn't be anywhere else in the world than 'helping' you right now. Natalie was far too nice. "I was just about to close up the shop. I'm manager, you know." She points proudly to her chest, and you blink, not being able to care any less. Completely off subject, shallow and silly, you think. "Is there anything you'd like me to get for you before I do…?"

"No," you say, much too quickly. And the slight wrinkle made around her beautiful, almost-black eyes makes you know that she knows you didn't really come to buy anything in the first place. Of course not.

"I saw you the other day, you know. Or… well… I guess it was more like a few months." She smiles sheepishly, and you're not quite sure what to think at this display of kindness that you really do not deserve at all.

You don't say anything. You don't know what expression is on your face. Maybe it's better you don't.

"I guess I introduced myself back then… though you never did tell me your name." She extends out a lovely, delicate hand, and her smile is blinding.

"B-Bella," you finally stutter, taking her hand cautiously in one of yours. "Bella… Swan."

Her smile grows into something different than her usual pleasantness—now her smile was showing that she is clearly sorry for you. Pitying you. Like she knows everything that happened already. The thing is, though, you are sick of people feeling sorry for you, even though they couldn't feel any different about you anyway. This girl is no exception.

But Natalie murmurs, "I know," and whether this statement had double meanings or not, you'd never really find out.

---

In your bedroom that night, as you curl yourself up on the cold wood floor, you cry.

It's not like any time you've cried before… the salt water comes out softer than before, not like your tear ducts were exploding (like it had seemed many times), it's definitely more unbearable—you flinch at the word—and it tears at your wound like there are infinite feelings to destroy.

And this time, you can't stop. Your eyes aren't drying out. You lay there on the floor that entire night, wondering why you feel this way. Wondering why you had to be so damn kind (more or less) to that girl! Why couldn't you have set the law down straight? Why couldn't you have just slapped her, let her know that Jacob was yours, cussed her out and been on your way? That was what you'd come there to do, wasn't it?

You are not sure of anything anymore.

It had been over a year ago that Charlie dared come into your bedroom at night to see why you were screaming in your sleep. A year ago, you'd had completely different nightmares to scream about than the ones you did now. The ones you now scream about.

---

In the middle of the night, when the sun still hasn't quite found its way over the mountain, you feel a warm hand running over your forehead as you are already burning under a cold sweat. No—the hand is more than warm… it's scorching. And it's all too familiar.

You calmly open your eyes to stare into the ones of Jacob Black. For some reason, you are not surprised, yet at the same time you are wondering why he is doing this to you. Tears are streaming silently down your face, and you make no effort to stop them for the sake of Jacob. You know you wouldn't be able to, anyhow. And maybe he wouldn't have tried to stop the ones that were pooling out of his eyes, as well. In any case, your face is wet and his face is wet and your tears are mingling with his no matter what.

His mouth moves, and the whispered words that come out don't mean as much as they probably should have. They don't mean as much as he probably meant them to. "I love you, Bella Swan. More than my own life." You say nothing. You simply look into his deep pools of black-brown eyes and say nothing at all. He seems to choke on his next words as they spill out quickly, much too quickly than you are able to comprehend. "More than anyone else's, too. And I swear to God that I mean that, Bella, damn it!"

Jacob wastes absolutely no time in jumping up and disappearing out the window without another word. It was probably better he weren't there for you to see him break down, anyway.

But you miss him immediately.

As you think back to that morning, you think maybe you just heard him saying those words. Just heard those words in your head. Maybe they weren't really said by him. You'd never been very creative with your imagination, anyway.

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A/N: BAH. So, tell me what you think, and if things are making sense, and if I should just trash the project altogether… even though I have the next two chapters completely written. (: