The Alternative

This is a story about Jacob and Bella, who never seem to get the chance they deserve. Of course, certain things have to happen in order for them to get their chance, and certain things will always happen to make their lives more complicated.

Rated T for a teensy bit of language and scenes of intense psycological distress. Please R&R!

These characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, and not to me. I have no rights to these characters.

Chapter 1: Loss
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Edward was holding my hands in his. We were in the meadow, his meadow.

"Okay," I said teasingly, "What's the surprise?"

"Well," Edward sighed, his eyes closed, the hint of a waver in his voice. "It's your birthday Bella, and I've decided to give you what you want." He opened his eyes, his uncertain topaz eyes, to gaze into mine. It took me a moment to comprehend, but then the realization hit me: what it was that I wanted. I gave a little gasp - I had hardly expected him to give in so soon. But he was leaning in to kiss me, so I raised my face towards his. He passed my lips without brushing them, and I readjusted so he could reach my cheek, my collarbone... His perfect features landed at the base of my neck, and he kissed me once gently before his lips parted,

and he bit me.

It was gentle, no worse than a shot at the doctor's office. He pulled back, and the expression on his face was worried and intense. I gazed up at him for a moment, trying to find some word that I could use to express my thanks, my love for him. I think it was the calmest moment of my life, there, gazing into Edward's golden eyes with little universes of depth behind them.

Then the pain started. I hadn't noticed the creeping, tingling feeling that had been spreading through my left shoulder and up around me ear. When the burning started, I wasn't ready. It moved much too slowly, following the tingle. My heartbeat shot from slow and steady to emergency mode, and my breathing kept pace with it.

Edward saw the panic flood my face. "Bella, Bella listen to me!" He took my face and held it between his marble hands. "Bella, it doesn't last long, I promise..." he was fading. His velvet voice was losing volume, his beautiful face blurred in my vision as the pain and fire throbbed in my temples and swam behind my eyes. I closed my eyelids and tried to free my head from the cold grip that held me, but those pale hands held fast and Edward's voice intruded again in my world of pain. "Bella!" he yelled, "Bella! Bella, I love you, I'll love you forever, I'm here with you forever Bella, I..."

I couldn't take it anymore, and that's when I began to scream. It helped, the screaming. It drowned out everything - the cold hands gripping my shoulders like vices, the throbbing in my temples. It even helped to smother the agonizing fire that I could feel from my head to my feet, feel coursing through my veins causing me to writhe and thrash on the ground. I felt it grasping and choking my heart, and I knew it wouldn't end until the heartbeats ceased.

My breath would run out, then all the agony would return and I would gasp and drag at the air until my lungs, full of fire, threatened to burst. And I would scream again, as long and loud as was humanly possible. Or, later, as was inhumanly possible. There in that meadow, faintly, beyond the screaming and the agony and the throbbing of my temples, I felt those cold vices leave my shoulders. Vaguely I heard growling, vicious snarls that were almost indiscernable from mine. Then there were ripping noises, and dull thuds like heavy objects hitting soft ground. More than once something passed me at such speed that a breeze would follow, and each gust of wind reawakened the fire in my skin and it burned hotter and faster, and I screamed with more passion.

Then I was being dragged over uneven ground, and it felt like the electric current coursing through my spine had tripled in strength. There was more agony as I was swung up into the air, the breeze assaulting me like millions of tiny needles. I thumped heavily over theback of something that moved, pitching and heaving. With each movement the pain was more alive, moreso even than I was, first at my arms and then at my back and between my shoulderblades. But always, always worst at my core, at the very center of my slowly dying heart.

I couldn't keep the concept of time anymore, not after that. The jostling movement continued for a while, then I was lurched to the ground. Nothing else touched me after that, though a few times I had a notion of light; ebbing and flowing around me. All the time the fire continued to rack my body, but eventually I was too exhausted to scream anymore. Though I continued to snarl and gasp when stabs of intense anguish would rip through the rest of the pain.

Somehow, eventually, I either fell asleep or passed out. When I opened my eyes again, the light was fading softly - it was twilight. I drew in a deep breath and sighed, wondering if the pain would come back. I was surprised to find that I missed it. Then, whtever I'd been laying on, it moved. It sat bolt upright, and then its arms were wrapped tight around me, and its familiar husky voice whispered in my ear,

"Oh, Bella..." And I realized.

It was Jacob.

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His arms were so tight they were crushing me, but I didn't protest. The pain felt comforting compared to the confusing emptiness in my chest. But I almost wished he would let me go, because he smelled awful.

"Bella, Bella..."he whispered desperately into my hair, shaking ever so slightly. We both sighed at the same time, which made me smile.

At that moment, I remembered the rest of my life. Everything that had ever made an imprint on my mind returned in a flood. I was a little girl playing on the floor in my room, and mom and Charlie stood holding hands in the doorway as they watched me. My mom's place back in Arizona. The drive to Forks from the airport with Charlie. The last glimpse I'd had of Edward's face...

Edward.

I became confused. My last memory had definitely been in the meadow, with Edward. Now I was somewhere in the forest . . . with Jacob. I was with Edward, and there was pain in my neck, but more painful was the look that had been on his face. Dead-on fear, mingled with something I couldn't comprehend. After that, I couldn't remember anything.

"Jacob," I said softly, still trying to think things through. He didn't let me go all the way, placing his always warm hands on my shoulders and holding me away from him. There was an expression on his face that I didn't try to understand, since my head was so full of one thought.

"Edward..."

Hurt flooded into Jacob's eyes once I'd said it. He released me and turned away, his back hunched and his fists clenched at this sides.

"Jake?" I asked, so soft he couldn't have heard me, though I know he did. I was still so confused and empty...

He spoke without turning around, without moving, "After all of that... after all the pain, everything I've done...and the first thing, the only thing she thinks of is still that leech, that... that fucking vampire!"

Oh, I'd done it again. I'd hurt Jacob without meaning to, without even knowing. I stood up, which was surprisingly easy, and went to put my arms around him. My hands clasped tight around his chest, and I leaned my head into the space on his back between his broad shoulderblades. Then I sighed as I felt some of his tension drain away.

I asked again.
"Jake?"

He was silent.

"Jake... what happened?" He was silent again, for so long that I was about to ask another question when he said, almost calmly,

"He bit you, Bella."
A pause, then,

"You're a Vampire.

The memory of the pain came back then - it hit me like a falling piano. The screams, the movement, the light, all so vivid they were almost as bad as they had been when they were real, though much more fleeting. I gasped. I didn't feel myself let go of Jacob, but I must have, because I was standing there remembering, and he was facing me with that ocean of hurt moving like waves in his eyes, and everything was clear as crystal.

But not quite.

"Were you there?" I was cautious as I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.

"I found you . . . after . . . and took you here, where no one would hear you. I carried you on my back. It's been three days."

"Three days . . ." So that was the light, the passing days. And the movement, that must have been Jacob carrying me. But... but what? There was something else, something that I couldn't remember because I was distracted... because... because why? When I found the reason I knew was right, it came as a shock:

Because I was thirsty.