This story alternates between past and present, to emphasize Jacob's confusion. Sorry to all hardcore Jacob fans. Rated T for violence, bloody images, and some sexual references. All reviews will make me do a dance.
I do not own Twilight...though with my large share in their merchandise, I certainly should.
Setting: A few years after Breaking Dawn
Summary: "Jacob Black has become bewildered by time; what happened to cause his life to take this path he's on? His love for Bella never died, merely subdued deep within him, forced to the side by his new connection with Renesmee. Jacob never asked for what he's received. The sadness and confusion inside of Jacob changes him, breaking something in his mind and soul. Haunted by the phantoms of his past, memories that he can't seem to lose, yet won't survive without, Jacob Black begins to lose his very humanity…will he become a beast?"
PHANTOMS AND BEASTS
To find oneself within the sufferings and emotions existence has wrapped around the human form, sometimes one must release their given body for another, less sensitive state.
Luckily, Jacob Black possessed that very ability.
Rushing through the thick forest with unmatchable speed, Jacob reveled in the welcome sensation of rough ground beneath his claws, dirt which he could rake and scar to resemble his own innards. The sky was a distant grey, casting the wood below with an eerie fog, limiting vision. Sight was superfluous to Jacob now. He needed only coarse soil and coarser paws flinging rapidly in their swiftness. Trees whipped at his massive sides. He ignored the branches tearing his fur apart. His heart was the only piece of him he wished to mend. All else was easily endurable.
The pain in his chest was fierce. 'Take it from me', Jacob pleaded with the wilderness. 'Please, take it away. I can't live without her now.'
Bird caws taunted him with their refusal. He threw himself further into the darkening forest, faster, faster, and faster…
Hoping to erase his being if not his pain.
---
"Jacob?"
Black strands of hair whip round as Jacob snaps out of his bleak reverie.
It's Renesmee. Of course it's Renesmee. She is his other half, and must know when he's troubled by the phantoms of his past.
"What, honey?" he asks the sweet vision before him. Her perfect oval face is milk-white with sadness, plump pink lips twisted in sympathy. He tugs her into his lap and cradles her in his chest. She murmurs his name and Jacob thinks no previous utterance of those two syllables can ever compare to Renesmee's angelic croon of them.
"Jacob, why are you so miserable? Is it something I did?" The brick wall of his torso muffles her voice, but Jacob can understand her. Always.
"No, sweetheart. Never."
She pauses. Jacob knows it is not in anticipation for his response. He will not reply. Renesmee surely knows as much. Instinctively.
Renesmee touches his broad, russet-skinned face with her tiny palm. Jacob tilts his head back, allowing the images to course through his brain unchecked.
It was Bella. Yet she was not Jacob's Bella anymore. She was a frozen predator with garnet eyes and careless grace. She stood alone on the beach where they used to spend many hours together. The murky sunset bathed her in luminescent rays. Her strong features were turned to the horizon, gaze searching past the waves and beyond.
Jacob watched as her stone face twisted. This was the face a human would assume if they were about to cry.
Bella was a vampire, though, and such an action was impossible for her.
Her throat brought forth strange dry sobs. She lifted her lovely white hands and stared at their pearly surface as if she despised them. Her flawless teeth bared in a grimace.
She began to whisper something between firmly clenched teeth. As Renesmee neared, so too did Jacob. A breeze blew the brunette vampire's long locks wildly and with them came her repeated mantra:
"Jacob…Jacob…Jacob! I'm so…"
The images dissipate into misty nothings.
Renesmee's chocolate eyes do not belong to her as she observes her soul mate in his moment of awakening. The brown orbs, framed with black lashes and turned liquid with tears, are the human Bella's. Bella as she used to be, clumsy, imperfect, and unconfident.
This is why Jacob begins to cry. He covers his face with his large hands and completes Bella's unfinished sentence.
"Sorry. I'm so sorry."
---
"Jacob, Jacob stop! Jake," Bella gasped with laughter as the tall, black-haired boy tickled her thin sides.
"Say 'uncle'!" Jacob demanded. "Say it and I'll stop!"
"Jake, no…Jacob! Fine, uncle! Uncle, I said!" Her eyes widened as Jacob persisted. "What…you liar…you dirty rotten…filthy liar!"
He laughed a great booming laugh as he sat back and watched as she righted herself, clearly affronted.
"I had to get a few more seconds of squealing in while I could. You understand." He chuckled.
"No. Surprisingly," she stated, flipping her long hair back over her skull, "I do not understand. Nor, may I add, will I ever."
Bella moved as if exiting the Rabbit.
"Come on, Bells! It was just funny! You're funny, okay?" He begged, instantly repentant.
"Well…you're funny looking. So there." She settled back in the seat, though, satisfied.
"I thought you said I was beautiful," Jacob couldn't help but add.
Bella sighed. Appraising him with a heavy-lidded eye, she muttered, "Well, you shouldn't be."
Jacob grinned a blindingly white smile, sliding an arm around her in a hug. She swatted him playfully, but after a minute leaned into his embrace.
Jacob's easygoing smile vanished. A serious expression replaced it, etching his handsome face into sterner lines.
Within a few moments, she was asleep. Jacob kissed her smooth forehead, tightening his muscular arm around her slim frame protectively. Even in unconsciousness, her slender arms slowly reached to circle her abdomen.
Needlessly, yet habitually, Jacob glanced around the dim garage as if waiting for the golden-eyed one he so hated to appear and steal the woman he loved from him.
"You can stay wherever the hell you are," he growled quietly. "She's mine now." His tone took on a despairing quality, a weak sound which was not characteristic. Unaware that his grip was tightening drastically, Jacob was startled when Bella sleepily murmured, "Ouch, Jake. That hurts."
Instantly he loosened his hold. "Sorry, Bells."
"S'okay." Bella looked up at him and he gazed back at her. 'Is this the moment?' he thought frantically. Pursuing the chance, Jacob cautiously bent his lips to hers.
"Jacob," she chided at the last second, shifting her head shyly to the side. He nuzzled her cheek instead, contented. Her small hands covered her chest, squeezing the cotton material of her big jacket, as if in torment.
"I'll fix you," He promised.
But Bella had already fallen back into slumber.
He could only guess who filled her dreams.
---
It was Edward, always Edward, with his impossible handsomeness and unparalleled strength. He had won the prize Jacob endeavored to secure so recklessly, risking not only life and limb but also heart.
Edward- holding her in the cream-colored living room with the wide windows throwing sparkling beams against the both of them.
Edward- kissing her senseless and whispering sweet words of worship, lifting her swiftly and carrying her to their room in the fairy-tale cottage they dubbed home.
Edward- staring intently into the amber eyes he had created in that pale perfect face, as if he were an inventor of timeless treasures, setting topaz gemstones into an ivory sculpture, then marveling at it's beauty. Her beauty.
"Jacob."
Edward- speaking gently to her, discouraging one of her more harebrained ideas, refusing to lash out with the sternness her fragile failing character required, smoothing away her hair, patting her head, squeezing her cheeks, laughter…laughter at Jacob's expense.
"Jacob?"
Jacob- sitting sullenly in the corner, tossing scathing remarks at Rosalie…before.
Jacob- bounding brightly toward his life partner, white smile endlessly stretching across the distance…after.
Jacob- staring down the great marble staircase with inscrutable black eyes, bewildered by time…
"Take a look at me now!" he says roughly, wrapped up in the illusion.
"Jacob! Renesmee, stop it! Let go of him!"
Relief.
"Everyone's changed." Renesmee whispers to him. "That's life."
Jacob gulps in unforgiving air, chokes, spits out, "But she's dead."
Leaving Bella to gasp as he falls from the couch and his skull meets the polished wood floor below with a disconcerting 'crack.'
---
Carlisle, having appraised the unconscious Jacob's newest wound with a well-used and critical eye, comments to Esme at the doorway, "He'll be fine in a few hours. Wolf healing," he laughs, "it never ceases to amaze me."
"Yes, but what is wrong with him? Jacob's one of our family, Carlisle. He's sick, or depressed, or…" The lovely 'queen-of-the-castle' figure trails off, buttery eyes screwing up in puzzlement.
Carlisle watches her with an unfathomable tawny gaze, sighs, and then slides a pale arm around her. "Darling, Jacob is struggling with the path he has chosen. Rosalie and I were discussing it last week." His gaze shifts to the end of the long hallway.
"He made a choice years ago," says Rosalie, suddenly appearing where her father's eyes have strayed. "And his choice condemned him just as your choices have condemned us all, Carlisle. I thank you for the hard decisions you were forced to make…most days. Others don't exactly fill me with gratitude."
"Rose!" Esme reprimands, a cream-colored hand flying to her ample bosom.
"No, Esme." Carlisle lets loose a tired breath. "You and I both know this is our Rose. She will not change."
"I have made more than enough concessions just since Bella entered our lives. Can you ask more of me?"
Silence falls between those golden-haired members of the Cullen family.
Finally, Carlisle answers needlessly, "Of course not. And you're right, Rose. My choices have altered your lives beyond recognition. Or, rather, ended them neatly." He chuckles without mirth. "However, I'd still like to think it was worth it. That there is more for us in this world or the next."
"I'm not Edward, father." Rosalie stares at the young doctor for an interminable amount of time. Then, with a blink of the eye, is gone.
"She is bitter."
"As is Jacob. Esme, I think we must be missing something. There is something hidden in Jacob we can't find. And maybe we shouldn't try. From what Edward has gathered, inside Jacob exists two selves: past Jacob and present Jacob. Perhaps he's warring with himself, with what has occurred, with everything changed. I think…I think…" He holds up his hands helplessly, shrugs, and then looks to his wife for guidance.
She smiles, murmurs softly, "Oh, Carlisle, you think too much."
He kisses her icy elven nose. "That, my dear, is precisely why you love me."
---
Alice quickly carries a massive silver bag over the threshold until Bella's tired sigh reaches her from the second floor, stopping her dead in her tracks.
"Now, Bella, it's almost your birthday. I had to get you a present! I think you'll love it, anyway, so get down here and stop sulking," she says.
When no pale perfect figure appears at the top of the stairs, the pixie-like vampire throws the bag onto the ground, harrumphs loudly, and folds her skinny arms.
"Don't pitch a fit, Alice, it's unbecoming." Esme calls from the kitchen, where she's fixing a hearty meal for the impatient child floating around in the gardens.
"Mother, tell Bella to come see her gift! I mean, really, I didn't even demand to have a party this year."
"That," Bella remarks icily as she glides down the long luxurious marble staircase, hands on hips, "is because you knew I'd make good on my threat to rip your throat out."
"Oh Bella. Jasper would just sew it back on. Or in, rather. Now look…" she hurriedly picks up the garment bag, unzips it, and then whips out a luscious sexy see-through dress.
Bella critiques the near-transparent material with a click of her tongue. "I don't know if purple is really my color."
"Look, as your sister I must beg you to toss out all your creams and ivories. The blacks and browns must leave this house as well. It's time for crimsons and golds and yes, even purples."
When Bella doesn't answer, Alice slyly comments, "Edward will love it. In fact, I'm certain he'll go crazy."
Bella pauses. "You've seen it? He'll go crazy?"
"Without a doubt."
Bella fingers the fabric with another expression on her angular face altogether.
"I suppose I could try it on."
---
He's running, running, running. Unable to stop. Ground, impact of paws, air. Repeat. Lightning fast, he streaks through the woods. It's instinct which drives him. There is nothing chasing him. Yet he is filled by tense panic. He is the ground, he is the impact, and he is the air. He is urged on by the animal memory of something frightening. He has relinquished the fight. He has run from the battle for a soul infinitely more precious to him than his own, now turned feral. He is forsaken, and the one he vowed to fight for is lost to him. Consequently, he too is lost. Primal sensations keep him pushing blindly through the forest. He gives himself completely over to the feeling. He roars as he runs, emotion ripping inhumanly from his throat. Soon, he will forget what he has lost. He is, after all, a beast.
---
"What's that he's muttering?" asks Emmett as he and Jasper observe the sleeping form of the Indian-skinned boy.
"I think it's 'lost'.
"No, listen."
They both turn to statues.
"Beast…beast…beast…beast."
The vampires exchange a surprised glance.
"I wonder what he's dreaming about."
"We can only guess, I suppose. Do you think we should get Carlisle? He's turning a funny color."
Indeed, the skin stretched taut and crimson over Jacob's bones had lightened marginally. His hand clenches.
"I think he's sick. Carlisle's at the hospital. Call him, just in case," Jasper orders.
Emmett smoothes his shaven head. "This is a great time for Edward to be gone."