There are no wars remaining, no vast, gloriously tragic battles left to fight, and thus, no reason for the russet wolf to stand guard against the forces that would tear the world as they knew it asunder, but she is still the skirmish waged across his mind daily, his yearned-for triumph, his bitter failure. The memory of the small sounds she makes in her sleep is his call to fight; the smile she saved only for him his inspiration – thoughts of the one who lured her into a merciless eternity of night his constant enemy. Once, he might have overcome any obstacles in the belief that if he was patient enough, strong enough, brave enough, she would love him, too. And in the end, he supposes she did, though it wasn't in the manner he craved. She has never burned for his touch, has never moaned his name into his mouth, her hands tangled in his hair, a thousand burnished suns blazing overhead. He has never turned over in his bed, his wandering hands trailing across her warm flesh, reminding him that she is curled against him, that she needs him, craves him.
Bella spends her days and her nights, an infinity of endless forever's, in the arms of Edward –fucking- Cullen. She calls his name if ever frightening images plague her mind. She holds his hand in a crowd of strangers; she knows when he leaves a room, and too, when he returns. She depends on him; she surrenders herself to him.
Jacob spends his days and his nights, an infinity of endless forever's, in the grip of vividly hellish nightmares. He saves Bella every night, in his dreams, from Victoria or another rogue vampire, from a car accident, from marrying Edward. He pulls her from the brink of destruction and she comes with him in the end, as he kneels and swears himself to her, and wakes, something in him dying when the daylight crashes against his tight skin and his tired eyes. He saves her, every night, knowing it will never make a damn difference in this performance they are bound to repeat. They all have their roles; Bella and Edward are the blissful lovers, reunited against all odds. Jacob is just the fucking –loser- who keeps fighting, not realizing he has already lost.
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Jacob sees Bella once, through the pouring rain, in New York City, just as evening sways into existence. The earlier heat of the late August day is breaking under the shower, and the sky is completely overcast, and he blinks, dark eyes widening, certain he's finally losing it, this is it, he's gone off the deep end finally, but the jolt that sears through him when she blinks, and he focuses on her warm, ochre eyes almost sends him to his knees. He's known for ages (months? Years?) that she's turned, that she's one of –them-, but witnessing it himself, -seeing- her after, it's more than he can take. His next breath is a trembling, weak thing, he shudders, "did you know you're sort of beautiful?" scorching, speeding, through his addled mind. All he can see is Bella, wet hair plastered to her head, waking on the beach after she jumped; all he can feel is holding her in his arms, kissing her, there before the last battle with the newborn vampires; all he can hear is her saying his name – no one has called him Jake since her.
His chest is on fire, the burning reminding him to breathe, and he does so, raking a hand through his too-long dark hair, greedily drinking in the sight of Bella, trying not to dwell on the scent she carries now. She is frozen and unchanged; he supposes he is, too. He wonders if she is happy. If she thinks of him. If her life is all she believed it would be. If she ever wakes, choking on the sob tangled in her throat.
He wonders, too, if she senses him, through the crowd, if there is still any part of her connected to any part of him. Or if they left that all behind, scattered like ashes across the wasteland of their previous lives, and he is the only one still holding on.
Closing his eyes, Jacob fights for composure. His world is reeling, shattering, burning.
By the time he inhales, and opens his eyes, they are all of them – Bella, Edward, Alice, Jasper – gone, vanished, so effortlessly that later, he wonders if they were ever really there at all.
Only the intense anguish smoldering in his heart tells him she was.
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You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?
How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
Amy changes everything; she sees him, takes him in with a glance of her clear, green eyes, she sees that he is falling, and she reaches out and stops his download spiral. She inspires him to take up his old ways again, to hope, to protect those that he cares about with his life, to rekindle his devotion to the females in his life. He has forgotten how to smile, even how to cry, but when Amy in his life, coloring his days in vivid hues, erasing the shades of grey, Jacob remembers both who he was, and who he can still be.
Amy brings out his better qualities. She accuses him of being snarly and stubborn; she laughs at his wounded expression, when he asks what's wrong with his behavior, and she smothers a grin and informs him that he is just "very male."
She accepts, without question that there is a portion of his heart that he cannot unlock for her. She knows he is scarred, that some small sliver of his soul will always bear the wound of having loved and irrevocably lost, Bella Swan. Amy knows of Bella, and the wolf, and his life when he was acquainted with vampires. She sees the faint, puckered white lines that dot his body, and she understands. She touches him so tenderly, as if it isn't too late to heal him, as if all he has ever lacked were her fingers, tracing gentle, soothing lines across his back.
She understands that their life together will be anything but ordinary. She looks at every day as an adventure, sees beauty all around her and in him, and tells him that she'll love him through anything, that she waited too long for him to give up on him because he isn't perfect. She admits when she's wrong; she cries at happy endings of sappy movies, and she paints every fingernail a different color. She wears gloves with the fingers cut out above the knuckles and when it rains, she dresses as if she's defying the weather. She lives with a passion that matches only his own, holds back nothing, and gives everything she possesses without expecting anything in return.
She tells him it is okay to miss Bella, because he lost a friend, too, when she left. She shares her secrets with him, telling him of a boy with blue eyes named Dan who couldn't stay in her life. She tells him stories of growing up in Alabama but visiting Ireland, Scotland, France. When he kisses her for the first time, she tells him that she considers it her first, -real- kiss, that all others were only a lead-up to this moment, with him.
Jacob puts a ring on her finger exactly one year to the day they met. It is late August, a humid day in New York City. It has just stopped raining when he looks up, and through the crowd, he sees a shining patch of dark hair speeding toward him. Amy's smile is radiant as she pauses before him, and then reaches for his hand. She sees the ring in his other hand, and he swallows, twice, before he can speak.
"Amy…" he begins, his deep voice halting, thoughtful. "When you found me, you – you saved me. From so much. From myself, I think. And I love you, but it's so much more than that. I want you. I'm prepared to show you why, every day. You're perfect for me," he admits, grinning now. "We make sense, when so much else hasn't. Marry me, Amy Taylor?" He asks, barely breathing.
Her green eyes are wet as she gazes up at him. The sun begins to tiptoe out from behind the clouds, and Jacob squeezes her hand tighter when she beams brighter than the jewel overhead.
"Oh yes," she agrees, her smile taking away his breath. "Yes Jacob Black, I will."
Jacob slides the ring on her finger. He cannot imagine leaving all of this – his new life, his father, his friends, Amy – behind, watching them fade into the stillness. He does not want to be apart from this. From them. From her.
And –that- is how he knows he made the right choice.