Disclaimer: I own nothing. Stephanie Meyer owns everything Twilight related. Well, the film studio owns some of it.
Author's Note:Hello! Welcome to a new project, a new Jacob and Leah story. I've gotten a lot of requests for another Blackwater since Red Sky at Morning was finally finished about a year ago. If you haven't read Endless Daylight and RSaM, you might enjoy them.
I've been brewing on this for awhile. I'd love to know what you think. Remember, this first chapter is just the prologue.
Set seven years after Breaking Dawn. Cannon. Blackwater.
Forever is a long time, and promises made to be kept forever are especially problematic for immortals. "Forever" is something vampires know well—morning and night blending into one unending period of feeding, of reading. Of passing the time any way they can, even if that means going to high school again and again.
"Forever" is especially important to vampire lovers, those creatures who choose to spend an eternity of monogamy. It is why Bella never wants anything but to stare at Edward as he stares back, lost in each others liquid eyes and boundless love, even after all of these years (although seven hardly counts as "all these years," especially to vampires.)
"Forever" is the reason that Sam Uley still puts food outside occasionally, in the very far back corner of the garden, the part that turns slowly into the forest. Not table scraps, but proper Emily's-Secret-Recipe food. "Forever" is the reason that Emily bites her scarred lip, says nothing as her best china comes back muddy. "Forever" is the reason she never has to worry that he, too, will disappear into the woods like the best cuts of dinner.
"Forever" is the word on Nessie's lips as she kisses caramel skin, over and over, claiming. "Forever" is the whispered reply as he lays her on the bed, covers her with his body, pulls away the loose white dress.
She looks up at him and smiles in the way that only new brides can. "I love you," she says, for the thousandth time today. She says it over and over, binding him in her words. He laughs and kisses her again.
"I've waited so long for this," he whispers back, and he doesn't mean the lovemaking, he means the wedding, the vows, the having her here. And perhaps it's a stretch, since seven years isn't that long to immortals, but to him its felt like eternity, waiting for her to grow up, to love him.
She laughs, now, knowing that while he's waited her whole life, her whole life isn't that long. And she thinks that marrying him is the best birthday present she could have asked for. They told the priest she is 18 today, because as far as anyone needed to know, it is her 18th birthday. And her wedding day. And the beginning of the rest of her life.
She's too happy to speak anymore, just presses her hands on his shoulders and chest and shows him what she's thinking, feeling. Shows him too much, or at least too much for anyone else. All of her dreams about them, the children she wants to have with him. Although she fears that she can't have children, she knows her mother's pregnancy shocked everyone, and the same could happen to her. So she shows him dark-haired boys and girls, with big, almost-human eyes.
"We have to go back to your family eventually," he tells her, and she nods, almost sadly. Her parents don't know she's here. Alice can't see her, she hopes. Her parents won't understand. She knows this isn't what her mother wanted for her, but she doesn't care. Her mother has her fairy-tale ending. Nessie has waited seven years for hers, and now she finally has it. Forks seems like it's on the other side of the world, which it is.
"Forever" is the reason that Nessie ran away from home last week to be with the man she loves, so that she could marry him as soon as the final magic set in and she stopped aging, becoming forever a perfect, petite, porcelain 18 year old.
"Forever" is not something immortals take lightly. They do not promise their hearts if they don't mean to keep their promises. Their blood will never race for anyone else because their blood can't race, can't pump. When they fall in love, they give themselves completely. The same is true for dhampirs, dunpeals, those rare creatures born of vampire and human. Nessie's soul mate was born years before she was, waited for her to finally grow up. Today is the first day of the rest of her life.
Like her mother and father who sometimes seem only to exist for each other, Nessie shines only for him now. She is happier than she has ever been. She is complete.