AN: This little one-shot is dedicated to Annilaia (or Emma!) Who liked this story when I sent it to her. And gosh, this took me almost an entire day to write. Written for one of the most unappreciated characters, Leah, who I think has unrequited love for Jake. Not the main point of the story, though. This story takes place a few months after Eclipse, when Bella's about to get married...
C o l d - F e e t
"Don't worry, Bella! It'll be fine! Charlie's waiting at the church!" Alice hummed the wedding march, and that only forced another strangled sob to escape my throat.
"Stop!" I screamed irrationally. "I can't do this!"
I stopped for a minute to stare at her. Her eyes, glazed utterly, gazing into the distance, were not peaceful. Her eyebrows narrowed in frustration as she tried to see my future. To no end, she'd tried to see anything at all, but couldn't. Nonstop, through the confusion, she'd continued to get me ready for this holy union, all the while screaming at herself. As if she'd done something wrong to force this to happen.
She shoved me through the door, obviously trying not to break any bones, and flipped open her cell phone before it rang.
"Hello? I know. I'm blind and that mangy...No, Edward! I wouldn't force her. But—No, I will not tell her that!" She slammed the phone shut, surprised when a long crack split the front. Not beyond repair, certainly, but she shouldn't have been surprised.
"What was that about?" I asked, even though I knew already.
"It was about you going to disappear off the face of the Earth!" She almost shouted. Quickly, as if she'd cleared her head, she smiled. "Well, to me, at least. He probably just thought that the reason why I couldn't see anything was because of...Jacob. And cold-feet."
But I didn't have cold-feet. I was just nervous. What was going on now?
"But what was he shouting about? Why is Edward upset?" If he was upset, there was no way I could go through with it. He was the only thing keeping me sane through Alice's escapades at this point. "And why did you say 'force her'?"
She looked down awkwardly, and then met my gaze with confidence. Whatever had made her nervous to reply, she'd shoved it from her thoughts after a slight deliberation.
"He's worried that I'd force you to marry him," she said at last. "And he also wants me to tell you something else, but I refuse!"
I knew I shouldn't push the little bit of luck I had left, that she wouldn't say much more, but I couldn't help it. I had to know what was wrong, since she'd decided to keep me out of the loop, especially if it was something significant. And since I was definitely involved.
I took a deep breath. "He'd want me to know before I went there, whatever it is. And I can call this whole thing off right now if you won't tell me."
"That's what I was afraid of," she said, her voice an unusual collection of whispers. "He told me to tell you that you have other options. That a certain mangy mutt wants you almost as much as he does, and there is always time to turn back. I don't agree. It's almost noon already."
"Neither do I," I said, a little more firmly than I felt. Of course there was an obvious problem no one was willing to share. It started with a D, ended with a G, and had an O in the middle. Nothing else could make Alice blind, though they were hoping I wouldn't connect the dots like that.
"Well, that's settled, then!" Alice tried to hide her worry as she grinned, and began pushing me further out the door. I remembered what Edward had said -don't force her- and felt a spasm of panic in my stomach.
-o--o-o--o-
Cold feet? Was that what he had called it? My feel did feel cold as I sat with my feet on the tiled wall of the washroom, huge skirt piled around me. Luckily for me, wheelchair washrooms have plenty of rooms for brides in constant states of worry.
I'd locked myself in here when Alice had left for the slightest of moments. Eager to tell someone about her newfound frustrations, she'd eagerly skipped to Edward's side when he entered the church. Of course, he had some respect for the 'no one is supposed to see the bride's dress before the wedding' rule, so he was far from me. It bought me only a minute of hysterics.
The laughter crept inside me before I'd even realized what was happening. The entire situation was ridiculous. Alice, stumbling around like an actual blind person, despite her usual grace. Me, curled up in a church washroom, minutes before the wedding. Edward, worried over my choices more than worrying that I might have chosen...Jacob. And me, crying, because something was missing.
And I knew exactly what it was.
My best-man. My best friend. Pathetic, maybe, but I needed his comfort. He gave me a certain kind of comfort, too. Not the kind of comfort that someone like Edward could, since it wasn't completely unconditional. I knew that Jake would tell me if I was being a huge idiot, if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
Like right now, he would tell me to leave it all and go with him. Which I would never do, but I still wanted to hear it. Without hearing him say it, it was like the day couldn't be complete. I wanted to know that he had given up the sort of fight he should. It was Jake.
Even with Angela and Alice there, it wouldn't be the same. I wanted to hear that Jake thought I was a complete failure, and his eventual congratulations and forgiveness.
Without him being here now, the eventual might never happen.
"Bella? Open up!" A familiar voice. Not one I knew well, though. Just familiar in the sense that I'd heard it a few times. Chatting away on the phone, or spitting some sarcastic comment in another direction. Growling like a wolf. Not like a wolf, as a wolf. And I knew that some days, she was in plenty more pain than I was right now.
Deep, rude, beautiful, her voice was one I recognized. Someone who would miss Jake as much as I did.
"Leah?" I asked, disbelieving. It made sense, now. The mangy mutt Alice had been talking about was her, not Jacob. But I wished it was him.
"You know it's me! And you had better open up right now!" The words were a little sharp, even for her. Though, I knew what she had to go through. After being a bridesmaid for Emily, I knew all too well what she was feeling.
"Why should I come out?" A thick sheen of sweat coated my forehead. Because she can pulverize you, a more rational part of my brain reasoned. "And why are you here?"
"Yes," tinkling voice added. "Why are you here, dog?" I almost laughed at how bizarre the insult sounded in Alice's silver bell tone. Even inside the washroom I could picture her nose wrinkle at her.
I opened up the door, and Alice threw her arms around me. "Thank goodness, Bella. Edward's waiting for you at the other end of the church. We have to–"
"Not yet." Leah cut her off. "I'm sure someone's told you that Jacob is...incapacitated at the moment."
I looked at Alice, who shook her head. The tears on my face felt warm, but were otherwise unnoticed. By me, at least. A hard pang hammered its way in my heart. Jacob. Incapacitated?
"Inca-incapacitated?" My voice broke halfway through.
"It means disabled," Leah informed me harshly. It seemed that it wasn't only Sam and Emily that had made her irritable.
"She knows what it means," Alice said, too gently.
"Anyway–" Leah shot a glare at Alice "–Jacob's hurt pretty bad. I figured you might want to see him, since he came back to see you..."
I shot into attention. "If he was...incapacitated...how did he manage to come back?" I thought Jacob was in Canada, like Seth had said. Not here. And not in any mood to come see me. My thoughts weren't quite working rationally, ever since she said that ugly word. I didn't even understand how it could be. My Jacob? Physically enable to come and see me?
"What...What happened?" I managed to choke out the words, and Alice clung to my side, clutching at my fingers with her tinier hand.
"He was very much alright in the physical sense until he tried to phase back," She said, very matter-of-factly. That much surprised me. I figured, since she seemed to be friends with Jacob, that she'd be crushed. Especially since she was a member of the pack.
I hadn't really considered what she said until it hit me. Carlisle had told Jacob not to phase until he was completely healed. Were his bones even set yet? Could he walk? I had a quick vision of him doomed to a wheelchair the way Billy was now.
In the physical sense. That meant that emotionally he was still the wreck he was before. I forced myself to believe that it wasn't my fault, but why else would Leah have come?
"Bella?" Leah asked tentatively. "Are you coming?"
Alice stepped between us, the knuckle of her forefinger pressed over her lips. "Not wearing that. Jacob doesn't deserve to see her in a wedding dress."
Leah nodded as if it was understood.
Alice ran off, and then quickly came back with a pile of clothes in her hand. The white eyelet lace shirt I'd come to Forks in, and a pair of loose-fitting jeans that Alice said looked flattering on me. Not that I really cared at this point.
"Where did you get the clothes?" I asked her. She couldn't have run to my house that fast, not even in vampire speed.
She smiled half-heartedly. "I knew something would make you want to leave early. This wedding was doomed not to happen today. But I could tell that by Edward's future, not yours. I kept the clothes in the male washroom."
Lovely.
"I have a quick question," I snapped at Leah, now inside Edward's Volvo. Edward wasn't here of course, because he thought I needed some space to figure this out. But he loaned Leah the car, which was beyond insane to me. He hardly let anyone touch the car. And he was only letting her touch it with the exception that I kept his phone for the event of an emergency. He was probably following us until the border, anyway.
"What would that be?" She snapped back, equally as sharp.
"Why exactly do you care if I come to his sickbed?" I asked.
She was silent, and then sighed dramatically, her lips pressing together tightly. "Because he wanted you there. I just had to. Whatever he wanted. I couldn't bear to see him upset. Not this time. Especially when I warned him not to be rash in the first place..." she trailed off to the familiar silence again.
I was actually only using her as a distraction. The thought of Jacob, curled up on his bed, wrapped in bandages, really would drive me insane. I was unable to think it, actually. It seemed impossible, and more grisly than anything I could imagine, with only one exception.
But as soon as she said it, I realized a few very important things. The first being that Leah, as rude as she'd seemed, was facing a similar grisly feeling. Maybe she was even more hurt, no, crushed, than I was.
She loved Jacob. I wasn't sure how, in what way, but she loved him. Enough to drag me to see him, just because he wanted her to. After dealing with everything else, she was now faced with this. Faced with me.
There was nothing I could say. The words I had meant to say, the apologies, just wouldn't come out. She'd been the brunt of my anger and frustration, and I was very sorry for that. But I knew that she wasn't at all sorry for forcing me to visit Jacob on the day of my wedding, and leaving my groom in the church. Not quite at the altar, but still.
"Bella?" The sound wavered slightly, but her choke was relatively unnoticeable. Just a slight break in what seemed so similar to Jacob's own voice. "Do you know that he's waiting for you?"
She stared straight ahead, the road leading to La-Push. How quickly time passed when you were talking about something that sent waves of pain through you.
"Yes," I whispered. "Unfortunately, I think he'll always wait. At least until..." I stifled the words I wanted to say. At least until I'm dead. When I was changed, I would truly be dead to him.
She nodded again. Simply. Her glossy black hair moved with her head, forward and back.
"And you're not good for him," she amended. "But you are what he wants."
I nodded the same as her, only more slowly. "I didn't want him to love me that way, either. I told him from the start I didn't feel that way about him, but he was right. I loved him all along, when it comes down to it."
Her eyes were fixated on the road, and then on Jacob's house as we approached it. There was a faint tremble in her hands, which mattered since she could normally contain her temper well. When it came to Jacob, she must have been holding a lot back.
She turned into the driveway, grinding her teeth as she went. The trembling had stopped, thankfully. Edward would explicitly return his offer of loaning the Volvo if he knew about it in the first place. If she had lost control of her wolf-tendencies in the car, I would be far worse off than Emily.
"He's in his bedroom," She said quietly. "Billy's not there. He's with some of the others. Sam, Quil, Embry...Seth. They're trying not to think about this. They were calling Dr. Cullen, but he's been occupied with the wedding...We couldn't contact him."
"He definitely would have come," I said. And then I opened the door to Jacob's room, bracing myself.
"Bella?" he asked. I wondered how he knew it was me.
"Yes." I approached the bed quietly. It reminded me of a little while ago, when he'd first gotten injured. And while I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to embrace him. Lie on the bed with him.
I could smell the salt-rust that was his blood under the covers. They'd covered him in a blanket to hide it, but I could imagine how bad it was. His legs were probably crooked, set wrong. And his normally wiry-muscled arms now looked disjointed. What a stupid thing for him to do. Didn't he know that it would hurt me this way? That was probably the entire point.
Leah walked in, too, and knelt at the bed beside him. "She came pretty far to see you, kid."
He smiled. "Leave us alone for a sec, Leah. I'll talk to you later."
And I'd never seen Leah submissive before, but she was at that second. She bowed her head and smiled at him. For what I think was the first time, she pressed a kiss to his forehead. He looked like he expected it, but also that it displeased him.
"Bells? I can't believe...you're here..." he sighed a bit, shortness of breath, and then continued. "Man, could you call that damn... Doctor Fang and tell him ...I'm in trouble? If these...bones set... god-dammit! ...I'm a wreck, Bells."
I could see that. And it made me a wreck.
"I can't stay long, Jacob. I'm so sorry."
He tried to nod, but gave up. "I know...your wedding...right?" He knew all too well what the date was, I was sure.
"Yes, but that can wait. As long as you're okay, Jake."
He was breathing heavily. "I'm...I'm fine...Perfectly...He needs you now, Bella. This is...your day."
I couldn't disagree, but I wanted to. He would be fine, he had to be. But right now he wasn't.
"Jake...Are you being serious? I might never be here to see you again, after tonight." I paused, but he urged me to keep going. "I know he needs me. But I think you might need me more."
He looked down, not meeting my gaze. "It's time, though...We all knew it was coming for you. I knew... And honestly, Bella...If I could go...I would be your best man...If you wanted me to be."
I was startled by his sudden change of heart. I wondered if it had to do with Leah, almost hoped, but knew that it didn't. This was all about me, to him, just like everything else.
"Of course I wanted you to be. You know what, Jake? I was going to wait at the church for you, too. But you didn't come in the way I hoped." I let out a wry laugh.
"Bye, Bella." He laughed, too."I want to see the...wedding photo-ops, 'specially if he comes out on the film."
"That's one promise I can make." I leaned down so he could press his lips to my forehead, just like Leah had done to him. But he didn't push me the way I thought he would.
It felt warm, where his lips had been. But not all over. My feet were still cold. And I'd never thought the term was literal before.
Even so, his new confidence in me, I had the urgency to walk down the isle. Ironic, maybe, but I needed my best-man's approval. Without that, I don't think I could ever have done it.
-o--o-o--o-
Edward met me at the border, thankfully, taking the car keys from me. He thought me incapable of driving the car. Well, I thought myself incapable sometimes, too.
He kissed my cheek with his cold lips, which still sent the electric current running through me. But this time, I felt warm all over. My feet were warm, and I was finally ready.
AN: Just a cute little moment I wrote. It was mostly for Jacob/Leah because I absolutely DON'T ship Jacob/Bella. Sorry. I gave Jacob/Bella a cute scene, too. Sue me. But for the Edward/Bella fans(like me), the ending should please. I hoped you liked it enough to review!