After Your Heart Stops Beating OneShot Contest

Story Title: We Built Another World

Penname: MaeMay

Summary: 3rd place winner in popular vote! Check out my page for the banners! Thanks to all those who voted!How differently would things have gone if Victoria had gotten her revenge—or, at least, came close to it? Does a point come when someone is irreparable? Middle of New Moon, AU. Rated M.

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Disclaimer: All characters and the world of Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer.

"Edward?" I exhaled a whisper of his name the moment my subconscious eased me from sleep. The same thread of hope I woke to every morning was stronger today—a discerning pull that pitted an off balance within me. The eagerness to open my eyes and find him in my room, watching me like he used to do so frequently before he left, turned into just another tear in the inadequate seams at the hole burning around my midsection when the nightlight of my room showed nothing but its warm emptiness.

No nightmare? No waking up breathless and sobbing? I checked my cheeks for wetness, checked my heart for frantic thumps…but instead found myself barren with the realization that I'd dreamed tonight, whispered the painful two syllables of his name, and woke feeling incredibly calm even as something felt frighteningly…different, out of order.

I focused to remember what'd caused me to wake so suddenly.

Like every other nightmare, like every other dream, pieces and sequences came back to me in no particular order until it hit me all at once: Edward, my curled body on the forest's floor, Jacob, a black wolf, Sam.

Jake. "Oh!" I bolted into a sitting position as flashes of last night came back to me in the way the dream had. I remembered Jacob's visit, the secret he couldn't tell me, the walk on First Beach a year ago, the reason why I woke so blindly with that strange feeling of awareness… Werewolves. Descendants. I choked on the air my lungs collapsed around.

Holy crow.

I struggled to get out of bed, my left leg tangled within the sheets and prevented the urgency spiking my heart rate to go see Jacob, to confront him because I figured it out, to forget about the pain my abandoned hole throbbed upon but was already being pushed to the back of my thoughts…

I hobbled three times. The result of the twisted sheets had me carelessly falling on my ass to the floor and drawing in a deep breath when bone met hardwood… and I could breathe again. But that single inhale sparked a distant but held close memory, and I couldn't exhale because of the taste my senses latched so tightly on to.

The air tasted sweet, so rich that if I closed my eyes I could pretend…

"Edward," I repeated his name with a heave of confusion, the reminder of him back in the forefront of my thoughts. That smell, it was so real. He's here. He came back. He's—

The moment I stood back to my feet, more attentive, my heart stuttered then completely stopped and a sob ripped from my chest.

The window was open—and not in the way I'd left it when Jacob jumped out last night. Yet, that was not the only change in the room that my eyes caught, because when they trailed wide to search for other signs, they found a depression atop the sheets of my bed of a once seated body, not inches from where I had just lain mine to sleep.

The spot was still drenched under a coldness that my out stretched and shaking fingertips discovered.

"Edward." When would repeating his name stop?

The sense of déjà vu I felt had me tripping my way to the window and almost flinging my body out in the process. The cold stabbed at my skin as I jutted my head outside and over the window seal to look for any sign he was here—he was here, I could feel it—and just barely could I make out a pale glow along the shadowed edges of the forest line. Another sob, gasp, and that was all it took for my heart to lead me down the stairs, out the front door, and into the muddy landscape sucking my feet with each step that grew deeper and deeper the further I ran into the trees in chase.

I never theorized that the light could've simply been a reflection of the moon, that this reaction of mine might've been some new hallucination to the ones I found and sought with adrenaline, or even perhaps that I was running straight into the arms of a vengeful death. Laurent and the events of yesterday played no role of paranoia. Rather, I seemed to have shut down with one ambition in mind.

"Edward!"

His name never left my lips as everything went black.

As many times as I prayed for the pain to subside, I never figured that would be the last of the entire sense of feeling altogether when it was finally gone. Even more so, I came to realize that wasn't the only thing taken from me. The thought made me feel violated, stripped, and greatly alone and emptied.

If I'd ever noticed how comforting the beat of my own heart was, how it would flip and flop, speed up, slow down, and occasionally lurch against my rib bones, it was now, and in its absence silence. I also noticed the absence of chills and how they would've run up my spine and spread goose bumps down my arms when I shivered involuntarily from the cold, the single feeling I could make sense of to which I found a bit strange. Shouldn't I be impenetrable to it? I was to everything else. I couldn't feel anything soft or warm or even rough to my touch. My bed for once couldn't comfort me.

Everything was just… cold. And inescapable. And burdensome.

I thought of Renee and how she told me time and time again that certain things take time to adjustment to, like the oven-like heat in Phoenix that I once hated but now craved at the thought.

Was this just another adjustment? Of course it was. But would I ever adjust to something so volatile and forced upon me?

It hurt to think about spending forever like this. I tried repeatedly not to get sucked into that fact and the vortex it then became. My mind couldn't numb so easily to things this size.

When I awoke only minutes ago, it felt as if I'd stepped into a dream. How many times had I imagined my fate as this? But parts of the equation were missing, and when I blinked back into where I felt once tied to the world, I was alone… with no golden eyes of a family I once considered my own welcoming me. I came to knowing what I was; the burning of my veins prior couldn't be mistaken for anything else because I'd felt it before, but the painful knowledge didn't make up for the abandonment of how alone in that moment I felt. Facing those first few steps and obstacles with the feeling of being unwanted and a mistake, I knew deep down, would be something I'd forever remember and never forget.

By that point I was ready to get on my knees and pray for a second chance or perhaps a time machine. It was Victoria, not Edward, who I'd run after. Victoria. Not Edward. It's all just a nightmare, it's all just a nightmare, I'm stuck, it's all just a nightmare, I'm stuck… The mirror I dragged myself in front of proved otherwise. I cocked my head with indifference towards the person taking my position in the reflection.

Thighs, knees, belly button, chest, collarbone, hips… For whatever reason I was naked and the changes my body had altered weren't necessarily narrowed down to an attractiveness I should have seen if I wasn't so disgusted. On my throat, beneath my collarbone, and above my right breast were crescent shaped scars that, as I held my wrist closer for inspection, resembled the mark of a previous scar.

With that inference and by some degree, the intruder in the mirror was still me. But the eyes I could I have never recognized. The red-crimson held me under a spell. They reminded me of the last pair I saw before I'd slipped away, a part of her she'd given me.

I missed the hollow cheeks and drained eyes that used to stare back at me. Never would I've ever thought that girl was important to me.

After inspecting the physical attributes, I focused on what was on the inside. Was there anything on the inside? The Cullens never really explained that aspect of themselves to me.

God, it's so cold…Why is it so cold?

Leaving the truth behind with the strange person in the mirror, I fell deeper into a state of shock and rejection as I mechanically walked out of my room, took the five steps down the hallway and into the bathroom where I quietly clicked the door shut to keep my privacy and remain nothing but a dark hole. Was it possible the one bound to my midsection swallowed me entirely?

I stepped naked into the shower, not bothering to close the curtain or pay mind to the water dripping out and onto the linoleum.

Maybe this all can be washed away.

Inch by inch, I pushed the metal knob all the way up to the side labeled with a red coating that transferred as hot. I sat under the falling water, my knees drawn to my chest, wrapped in my arms, and my face buried between the stone of my kneecaps. The steam increased as the minutes passed and the water continued to mix with the frozen temperature of my skin. I lost track of time in my wait to feel warm.

A knock at the door drew me from the pity I barely had time to indulge in. Worse, the cold feeling wasn't extinguished. Although not necessarily was this feeling cold, I discovered, but instead hollow; the impressions of both within.

"Bella? Bella!"

I chanced a glance up from behind wet lashes dripping water into my line of sight.

Jake? My lips parted to heave his name, but nothing but a protesting moan sounded, drowned by the clatter of the water ticking on the porcelain.

"I'm coming in!" The door opened not a second after and hit the wall with a bang that reverberated in sound waves to my eardrums which throbbed at the upheaval, causing me to flinch and tuck my face back into my knees to escape the disturbance.

"God, honey… I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were awake… I'm so sorry you were alone…" He was next to me, his hands craning my limp neck and holding my face in his palms as his fingers stroked through my wet hair and his thumbs ran across my cheekbones and lips and jaw line. He continued to apologize frantically, frenzied.

I didn't open my eyes or respond to his touch. I was so confused to anything he was saying. "Go away, Jake… Please. I don't want you to see me like this," I begged, failing to pull away from him. How could I dare watch the disgust in his eyes when they found the red of mine?

"Shhh, I don't care. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay…"

I tried to drone out to the sound of the running water, but that was taken from me when Jake shut it off and gathered me in a towel cradled to his chest.

"Are you okay? Do you need anything? God, I'm so sorry…I shouldn't have left. Are you okay? Oh, honey…" he continued rifling out questions I had no answers to, but I could determine the own numbness to the reality of my situation in his low and broken voice.

I didn't answer, but rather slumped in his arms during the journey back to my room. I didn't put up the effort to protest.

"Where's your robe, honey?" he asked in a low and concerned voice. I could hear how easily he thought I'd break.

The fear of being alone gripped me like a hand clenching around my throat, and I squeezed tighter onto Jacob in a desperate attempt to cling. I didn't want to be left alone again.

"Bells, crap, not so tight…"

I pushed out of his arms with a force so great that it had me landing soundlessly five feet away, horrified. The too-quick movement sent us both reeling. Surely I would have been nauseous at this point. How did I—? The strength. I could hurt him. All this time, I never took into consideration how restrained Edward had remained because of how threatening each touch could be.

Edward.

Could he want me now, like this?

He isn't here, my tormented thoughts never having changed reminded, of course he doesn't want you, he wasn't lying.

The single and only good thing that came out of my stripped humanity was not feeling the sharp shreds of pain at my midsection.

"Where's your robe?" Jake repeated as a plea, interrupting the every messed up thought in my head. I stared at the floorboards, not wanting to look up from my feet. A new tired, exhausted, traumatized voice and force in my body built up and overflowed. Couldn't he see? I was a monster.

"I don't need a robe, Jacob. I can't get any colder, I can't feel anything," I snapped harshly.

"God, Bella…please, put it on." The pain in his voice caught my attention and I risked a glance his way. His head was thrown back, his eyes on the ceiling, his adam's apple bobbing. I stared at him, wanting so badly for him to see me as he forced himself not to take me in, standing naked and exposed.

What am I doing? I couldn't risk letting him see what I saw in the mirror so fully fledged. It was dirty and broken.

In one fluid motion I hadn't planned nor thought I was capable of, I had my robe out from under the clothes hamper tied around my naked body and was then hiding deep into my bed with my back curled to Jacob. I felt so embarrassed and sick with myself.

"Honey—"

"Go away," I hissed in a menacing voice so unlike my own.

I heard him step closer.

"Go. Away."

The creak of the floorboards, the bend in his knees, the crinkle of his jeans… none of the sounds went unnoticed to my sensitive ears, and I didn't have to open my eyes to know he'd rounded the bed and was squatting down in front of me, level to where my head was resting on the pillow. I wouldn't have opened my eyes anyways, especially not for him to see how red they are. Moments ago I could have cared less about showing that barrier between us and hurting him in a way to hurt myself.

I noticed a very important something that, with all my changes, was briefly forgotten: his smell repulsed me. Where was the bloodlust? Was I still adjusting? Would it hit me all at once? Would I attack him? I shuddered.

"Go away," I tried again in a fearful whisper, ineffective in sinking within myself and the robe covering me from his eyes that I could feel itching at my face. I was wobbling back and forth on a tight rope between concealing a side of myself I hadn't chosen and the idea of wondering how easy it would be to kill him.

"Stop sending me away. Let me help you through this."

Help me? This wasn't something that could be corrected. "How can you even look at me?"

"You're still Bells… somewhere in there. But I won't lie to you, it's so goddamn tough seeing you like this," his voice cracked and I caught the hitch of his breath like it was my own.

I pulled the comforter up and over my body with dejection. In another time, I would have been crying and breaking down at this point. At least I had that to rely on. Now, I didn't even feel guilty over his pain but rather insensitive and bitter.

"Then don't. Leave."

Not only could I feel his strong sense of contemplation, but it was easy to imagine the signature pucker of his lips and furrow of his eyebrows. I'd only seen that expression on numerous occasions. Half the time when I caught him staring at me with the same look of wonder, the other half when he was so focused on repairing the Rabbit.

When his body did finally drift away after silent seconds of loitering, his footsteps rounded the bed on creaking floorboards, and I thought I'd won for the split second following until I felt Jake's weight settle onto the empty side of the mattress, lying at my side but with a space I was clearly persistent of between us.

"Tough luck."

I heard his smile hidden in his words but couldn't find it in myself to return one of my own. I knew Jacob too well to think he'd give up after a few hours. As long as I stayed in this position, so would he. The way he cared almost made me care.

Almost.

I was in a space between feeling hopeful he would leave me to my sorrow and reliant on the care he would, no doubt, offer.

In the end he stayed, of course.

It took two more nights for any progress to build; a whole forty eight careless hours I'd tossed away. As the first night continued, neither of us moved from our spots, and I discovered how simple it was to remain immobile and limp minus the human fidgeting. Only hours later did Jacob let his guard down and fall asleep, a gesture I considered an act of trust that he shouldn't have felt comfortable exposing to me. Like his persistence, it almost made me feel as if nothing had changed.

Almost.

The morning and day following he still laid with me after waking, only leaving once but reassuring me with "I won't be gone too long" as he disappeared out the window. In the time he was away, I felt lonely and maybe even a bit reliant on him being here with me and the fear of him abandoning me would have gutted my heart if it were at all possible to let emotions in. I distracted myself by changing out of the robe and into pajamas, all the while avoiding the mirror as I brushed my teeth. A voice in the back of my mind told me it was unnecessary, but the denial I was feeling began to expand. Fifteen minutes later he was back with the scent of food on his breath. I resumed my position curled on my side. As the day passed and Jake continued to lay with me, I never uttered a word. He would talk sometimes, never about anything important, but mostly about his wolf duties and all he couldn't tell me before. He explained all the trivial things, talked about each of his brothers, and explained how he'd been with me nonstop throughout my transformation.

Soon it was night again. The events repeated until the next day, except when Jacob left he'd asked me if I wanted to come, and when I declined he kissed the back of my head hidden under a new silky sort of hair before jumping through the window.

And then once again, night came.

During the time when I would have been sleeping, I instead closed my eyes and let my mind wander. Feebly, I tried to sleep but never would my body allow it. Other times throughout that same night when Jake fell asleep and the night dragged on, I decided to test how warm I remembered his body to be from the evening he came in through my window—how many days had passed since?—to see if it could still somehow affect me in the way I hoped, despite the barrier. I was growing restless without it. Even if it didn't work and that hollowness I ached to fill remained the same, I could at least trust Jacob to hold me together. He never stopped.

My curiosity started when I surrendered my stubborn attitude and rolled to lay on my side so that I was facing him as to see and observe his peaceful face when I wouldn't have to fret over him looking right back. On my side, I'd touched his arm and the thought plagued: could he warm me like he used to? Nothing else seemed to work.

When I knew Jacob was in the deepest of sleep in the early morning hours by the shallowness of his breaths, I took his hand with every little greedy intention of hoping to suck up the warmth I knew he could and always had provided me.

I could feel his hand, the weight of it, but not his heat. As the night and hours passed, my hand tingled around his. Then, soon after, I felt the smallest reminder of what warmth used to be around the creases our fingers linked together through, the tingle increasing.

I snuggled closer, forgetting my own instability as I thawed under the touch our palms ignited. I sighed the first content sigh I had in what seemed like too long.

In this position, with my chin now resting on his shoulder, my senses perked and regretfully fixated on the point of his jugular and the blood pumping beneath his exposed neck. My throat itched—actually burned—and with it came the first feeling of anything I'd experienced in this body. I found myself inching closer.

Horrified when realization dawned on me, I sobbed a very empty sobbed, clasped a hand over my mouth, and fled so quickly to the farthest corner of my room near the window that my hair whisked around me. I shoved the window open with no effort. Steadying my hands on the seal, I leaned as far outside as I could to gather the fresh but unnecessary air into my immobilized lungs to allow the pine scent to chase away the present hunger I'd consistently fought against over the days.

No, no, no, no… I don't want it… Go away, go away…

I cracked my eyes open when the odd burn filling my throat settled to find a pair of yellow wolf eyes watching me from the forest floor. Our gazes locked under the moon. Then, as I stood stock still, I noticed a second pair of eyes highlighted against the dark bushes only inches away from the other. The bed creaked and caused me to turn before I could pinpoint the third pair, but the thought clicked that I was now the predator of the same wolves that had saved me from Laurent once upon a time.

Of course I was a danger. How could they even allow Jacob to be alone with me?

"Bells? What's wrong?"

What wasn't wrong? Why was he acting so… normal, like his friends weren't caging me in?

I snapped the window shut and drew the curtains closed securely. My back stayed to him as I wrapped my arms uselessly around my midsection that didn't even physically ache but I was so mentally broken that I could at least pretend the pain was there. "Nothing."

He seemed to think over my lie of an answer, because I received no response.

I let my posture show no signs of remorse to remaining so short and insensitive towards him when he was trying so hard to help. I used to think I was damaged beyond repair before after Edward left, but that pain felt so miniscule in size compared to how great my own self hatred has become now.

His heavy sigh was followed by a tired question. "Are you ever going to look at me?"

I directed my glare to the window, focusing on the split in the middle of the two curtains revealing just a piece of the night that they couldn't jointly cover. "It's not a matter of looking at you. It's a matter of you seeing what I am."

"Too late," he replied in a whisper. "Do you really think that it would make a difference to me, that I wouldn't still care so much about you?"

"It should. And I don't want to be cared about."

He sighed another sigh, one more filled with frustration. "Bells. C'mere."

I pinched my eyes closed. "I can't."

"You…can't," he restated slowly, but soon caught on. "What were you doing at the window?" he asked suspiciously. Of course he was privy to my intentions of staying so far away. Was I still an open book to him? Even in the skin of a monster?

"Getting some fresh air," I half-lied. On a whim, I decided to tell him the whole truth. Maybe it would scare him off… or at least get him to stop beating around the bush. "Your blood was too much. I got too close."

"I trust you."

I ignored his effort to console me (and the urge to stomp my foot). That didn't mean a thing. How could he trust me when I couldn't even trust myself?

"But… you don't even smell… appetizing." I missed the way he used to smell so fresh of evergreen and warmth. "Is it supposed to be this way?" If it was, I was joyous. Blood always thoroughly repulsed me.

He chuckled weakly but with enough effort to try and ease how unsettling the subject was. "You don't smell too great either, honey. But yeah, it's supposed to be this way. We're enemies. Technically."

I stiffened. "Don't say that." You're my only ally.

But before Jake could speak up and reply, I cut him off as my mind wrapped around part of the sentence I'd overlooked. "What…? I mean… I… I smell different?"

Of course I do. The sweet, very alluring and inviting scent that was now unmistakably mine had only led me to this.

"Yeah…"

"And…and to you I smell bad, in the way you smell bad to me, because we're…supposed to be… enemies?"

"Right," he confirmed. He'd danced around the subject of his tribe protecting his people from vampires—me—and the rivalry between the two species. It wasn't hard to figure out that whatever this was between us went against our nature.

"How so?"

I sensed, or rather felt, his discomfort. "The way you smell, the way vampires smell to us, is sweet, sickly sweet… and sometimes it burns, like inhaling acid. But I'm getting used to it, Bells. It's not that bad. Really."

I figured that could be correct. "Well you kind of smell like wet dog."

"I suppose that's fitting." After his chuckle and the few unstrung, heavy seconds of silence, he repeated, "C'mere."

"Can't."

"You won't hurt me. It's not in your nature."

"It was a few minutes ago."

"Well, it's been a few days, honey, and maybe that happened because you're…"

"Hungry?" I finished for him dryly.

"This is probably the last thing you want to hear, but… maybe you should hunt. The… Cullens"—I could tell he forced the name passed clenched teeth—"had a treaty here. They couldn't kill humans. They hunted animals."

"I know."

"Right. I should have figured."

"I'm not going to hunt, Jacob."

"Why? I'll go with you…"

"No. It'll feel too real."

But there was no more choice, was there?

"When you're ready, let me know."

I hissed a sigh. I didn't want to be ready.

We were at a stalemate until I heard the gentle pats of his hand against the bed ushering me to come sit by him as he continued to insist. Debating the outcome of each option, I begrudgingly lowered my head—hiding my eyes—and took the quick few steps to the bed where I settled at his side. Not touching. I was still considerate of Jake's own limits. It was already difficult enough for him to breathe around me, why add to his discomfort level? How would I even survive on my own if I forced the matter and he left me?

Sitting stiffly, I focused on not taking the habitual breaths I was used to taking so that I wouldn't have any problem with smelling his blood. Maybe I'd just gotten too close before. His smell set me off at a distance. So I would keep a distance with a mantra of not hungry not hungry not hungry playing over and over and over and over…

Jake, on the other hand, seemed to have opposite intentions. He took my nearest hand, laced our fingers, and traced the exposed skin of that same hand and wrist with his free fingers. While waiting to feel his heat—Jake seemed absorbed in his touches—I asked very tentatively, "Can… can you feel how cold I am?" I could recall him telling me his temperature ran at one hundred and nine point something-or-other. I figured that was the opposite equivalent of how cold I was.

I, too, kept my gaze on the contrasting colors and malleability of where our hands laced together.

"Yeah," he breathed softly, shifting my hand between both of his and gently rubbing to produce friction as if trying to de-thaw the permanent chill and tending to me as if I was child who had just molded snowballs in her bare hands during the winter. "Can you feel how warm I am?"

"Sometimes. Not at first. It takes time. But yes… I can," I fell over my words, hoping he wouldn't ask how I knew of this. Then, with a question on my tongue, I closed my eyes in preparation for rejection, only opening them when I was ready. "Does it bother you?"

"No," he replied just as quickly and brought my fingers to his lips. "It's different, and I'll get used to it. But…" He held my hand to his cheek and from the corner of my eyes I saw his own close. "It's just so different, honey."

"I know," I whispered. It was different for me, too.

Knowing he wasn't looking, I tilted my head to watch the inner conflict play out on his Jake's face. So sure his eyes would remain closed, he caught me off guard when I found them suddenly flutter open and lock into mine. They still burned the same with his emotions, I noted.

I was so close I could see the reflection of red mine gave off, but couldn't break the hold to hide. It was useless to even try now, especially when he still looked at me the same as he always had, so full of desire. But… how did the crimson dye get into my eyes? Everything about that night was hazy after I stumbled, tripped, and fell to the ground on my hands and knees to the mercy of Victoria, not Edward.

"Tell me what happened."

He sharply inhaled but never let the hold of our first eye contact in days break. "I'm not really sure, Bella. Embry and Paul found you, the leech, and Charlie—"

"C-Charlie?" I withdrew my hand from Jacob's, both now shaking as I steadied them against the edge of the mattress and squeezed. My eyes flicked back and forth, void, trying to remember. Was he dead? Did Victoria get to him after me? Was he like me? I wouldn't be able to live with myself. The feeling already began to sink in.

"Hey…hey…shhh, he's fine. He's fine." Jake cupped and titled my face, his eyes and the gentleness in them bringing me back. "Like I said, I'm not really sure what happened, honey. Charlie said he heard you running outside and then heard you screaming. He followed you out and saw the fucking bloodsucker…draining…you. It distracted her from you and that's when Embry and Paul showed up. They said the leech was so blood crazy that it was easy to take her down, even after your dad shot Embry."

Deeper into the forest. Fiery hair, equally as red eyes. "Nice trick you and Edward tried to play. Not even for a second did I believe he'd actually leave you. He could never stop loving you, like I never have with James. We mate for life. How amazing I will feel when he comes back to find your body in the middle of the forest." A snapped bone, paralyzed body, and quiet thoughts drifting to a very, very dark yet welcoming place.

"God, honey, I'm sorry. I should have stayed with you that night and told you everything. Shit, what were you even doing outside? We barely even had time to save you from that other leech the day before!"

I tried to shake away the images in my head. "No, please, it wasn't your fault, Jacob. I didn't know it was Victoria. I should have known. God, I should have… Laurent warned me, but-but I thought it was Edward and I had to see him—"

"Victoria? Laurent? You… you knew those leeches?"

"Yes, no… kind of. It's a long story."

"Tell me," he growled.

My mind boggled under too much information thrown at once. I felt a very strange sense of disorientation. I shook my head stubbornly. "What happened to Charlie? How is he alive?"

"Goddamnit, Bella, I don't know!" He jumped to his feet in front of my wide eyes, his hands that were once cupping my face now fisting into his short cropped hair. And then, as quick as he had moved to stand, he was kneeling in front of me. "Do you think any of that mattered to me when I found out you'd been killed? That your body was lying in the woods when only hours before I was in your room, holding you? All I could feel and focus on was you."

I watched him struggle for his next words.

"I didn't care about anything else other than getting to you, and finding you lying there…" he choked on his words, not being about to finish with anything but a shake of his head in which gradually lowered weakly to my lap. In that same moment I was met with the acrid smell and taste of salt. With the thought, I made the connection to Jake's few tears staining the grey of my sweats with small, round dots. I sobered at the scene before me. Seeing Jacob crying was the same as seeing Charlie or Renee breakdown, because as a kid I'd termed them invincible, and all I'd ever known of Jacob was smiles and strength. So to see him weak left me in a state of uncertainty of how to console someone who had for so long only consoled me.

My hand hesitated over his head furrowing into my leg, and for the life of me I wouldn't have known there were tears if I couldn't place the smell. But soon his shoulders, slumped over my knees and burdened, began to shake and his too-big, desperate hands grasped from my calves to under my knees. Instinct set in and I buried both of my hands into his hair, only limiting them to that space when he shivered under the icy offset of my fingers as they touched his bare neck and shoulders.

He stayed there for awhile, allowing a weak moment.

I couldn't say how much time passed until I spoke up. "Is it worse that I'm like this?"

I saw, not felt, as Jake tugged me closer. He cleared his throat and the muscles at his neck protruded. "I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes not."

More minutes passed. "I'm sorry."

He pulled back; empty of tears, slight with a smile. "You always apologize for the silliest things, Bells." That was the end of his breakdown and he was back together, but the shine on his cheeks still proved there was something he was trying to push through.

I whispered after thinking that one over, "Yeah… I guess I do."

Watching my expression, Jake leaned his forehead to mine, placing a hand at the back of my neck mixed with my hair, the other at my side and supporting his balance. "Is this okay?"

His breath fanned my lips. I closed my eyes and nodded, trying not to focus on the proximity. He worked his way between my parted knees and let an arm wrap around my waist, his forehead soon falling to my neck.

A worry on my mind needed to be put to rest. "Tell me Charlie's safe."

"He's safe."

I nodded.

"Billy's helping him. He's been staying at my place ever since…"

"You'll have to thank Billy for me."

He replied, "Sure, sure," but his eyes, as I fluttered mine open, argued You won't be locked up in here forever.

Later, after we'd crawled back into bed, I could piece together the information Jacob gave me. Victoria wanted to kill me, I understood this. So how would my immortality benefit her revenge if it would only solidify being together with Edward? A mate for a mate. She wanted me dead, even telling me of the satisfaction she'd gain from Edward finding my body in the middle of the forest. Thus, Charlie must've shown up before she had time to completely drain me. Jake said his arrival distracted her and that must've been when the wolves showed up and got her… And Charlie had shot Embry? I could almost find humor in the image of my dad and his loyal shot gun.

Was I better off this way? Being saved but not quite?

I let the thought sink in.

"Jake?"

"Hmmm?" he asked in a sleep-tired voice, the sun just beginning to peek through the slit between the curtains.

"I'm scared." Which seemed silly, what could ever hurt me?

His hands, fingers spread across my back, traced patterns up and down. "Of what?"

"I don't want to be alone forever."

I heard his heart skip a beat. My ear pressed into the skin right above it.

"As long as I keep phasing, honey, I won't be getting any older. You won't be alone."

I stilled.

I knew it selfish of me to ask him of such a thing, but at some point, human or after, I grew reliant on Jacob Black. Following my transformation and during the days spent in my room, that bond felt increased and perhaps maybe even unbreakable. I felt it in my chest. I felt it in his absences.

I remembered Alice once explaining how her power of foresight worked; how she always had strong intuitions as a human, which passed over into something greater in a greater body. And the same, I could imagine, was for Edward and his telepathy.

I was always very good at attaching myself to people. Maybe that was my power. Even if it wasn't, I couldn't let Jacob go. He would take care of me.

"You promise?"

He kissed the top of my head, holding me closer. "Promise. You and me, all right?"

My chest felt lighter. "You and me," I agreed.

To his word, that's how it was. Us.

It was us when Jake took me hunting for the first time, not only showing me his wolf, but returning to me with a dead deer in his jaws and placing it at my feet, somehow stomaching to watch me drain it.

It was us when I decided I wanted to see Charlie only a week later because I knew he could handle the truth but more importantly I also knew I wouldn't hurt him, and Jacob didn't protest that but rather stuck himself at my side as source of strength but also a shield just in case I wasn't as strong to the bloodlust as I'd anticipated. Charlie was paled and sweaty and for the first half second I worried of having to face his rejection as he scrutinized me. That fear was smothered when he'd pulled me into what could be considered a very tight embrace (if I could feel it), cried into my hair, and even eased the pain with a chuckled and slightly sobbed, "At least I won't have to worry about your clumsiness anymore, kiddo."

It was us when Jake introduced me to his pack. It was us when they couldn't accept me or allow me on their lands, and when a fight broke out during that gathering and I'd gone catatonic into a state of protectiveness the monster inside me controlled, it was Jake who'd cupped my face and brought me back with the warmth and concern in his eyes and his voiced They won't hurt me, honey. With Embry's lead, they all did eventually come around.

It was us when we made love for the first time… and it was awkward and clumsy and perfect. Underneath our outer edges making us a little more capable and powerful, we were still the same shy teenagers who grinned like idiots when it was over. But what it grew into as time passed, the passion and the connection, all evoked something within me.

A word Victoria mentioned tugged and tugged at my thoughts with each touch.

Mate.

A/N: Reviews are appreciated!