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1: Broken Mould: Illusion.

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Trying to forget something you love is like trying to remember someone you never knew – Unknown.

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Jacob stood fidgeting with his tie, using the mirror on the back of his dad's bedroom door to help. He re-tucked his white shirt into the 'slate' - grey dress pants before lifting each leg and fidgeting with the hem, tugging at the black and grey argyle socks that encased his feet in the over-shiny shoe's.

It had been seven years next month since he'd last phased, seven years since he'd been to a wedding. He didn't go to Sam and Emily's, Jared and Kim's, or even Rachel and Paul's and he'd skirted around Charlie and Sue's, even though Charlie had begged the young man he considered his son to attend.

The after thing, Jacob could do that. Food! Like Jacob Black would miss the opportunity of a free buffet. Not on your life. The 'deal' was that, so long as it wasn't too fancy he would go, but weddings were always fancy and fancy wasn't Jacob Black, that's what he had told every single one of them. Over and over and over again, but they all knew better though, they knew that wasn't the real reason why Jake didn't go to wedding's. The real reason was never mentioned. Nobody liked to see a strong man weak or to watch him swallow thickly. Jake would prefer a funeral over a wedding any day.

Funerals, like baptisms were essential, part of being a Christian, which he wasn't particularly interested in, nor was anyone he knew. Really. In today's society what was the point in getting married? It just ended with single parent families, debt, and that's all he had seen. Unless you were imprinted on, and he wasn't.

Weddings weren't essential. You could live with someone, love someone, have kids, and be a family together without a wedding. At least that was what Jacob thought, and Jacob had done a lot of thinking about religion, souls, morals and all that other stuff that gave you a shoe in at the pearly gates, and he'd done it for one reason specifically. Getting married didn't interest him, not one little bit.

Jacob disliked fancy things. If something would, could make do, then he would be more than happy. He didn't need expensive things, I mean sure, he liked expensive things – sometimes. Like that one pair of nice boxers Rach had bought him when he hadn't phased for two years straight, and he'd enjoyed that time when Tess insisted on going to that expensive Italian place in Seattle when they first started dating. He was sure he was going to enjoy the massive LCD TV and Super King-Size bed that he would be sleeping in for the next two weeks, but really, those things were exceptions. One-offs. Things Jacob himself would never splurge on. Jacob had been happy in his twin bed in his eight by five foot bedroom, his dads old black and white TV with a coat hanger for an aerial, and day old left over pizza; which Tess would never let him eat. She said something about Salmonella or something like that.

The thing Jacob liked best was wearing hardly any clothes, so currently he found himself very uncomfortable standing in all this 'get-up'.

Jacob Black had been the pack guinea-pig in many respects being the first to stop phasing. It had been hard, but worth it. Only now were Paul and Sam both beginning to consider not doing it anymore.

There had been times when all he wanted to do was rip into one of those cold, granite-like beings that passed close to his reservation but at the same time he didn't want to take the risk. He didn't want to come across anyone he'd once known because he knew what his reaction would be, and what he would instinctively do. That was another one of those things that no one ever spoke about.

The pack had learned a lot from their 'guinea-pig', firstly, cold turkey was probably not the best way to go about things, but Jacob being as stubborn as he was about his decision insisted it was either all or nothing, he of course was aiming for all.

The majority of his senses waned and although they were weaker he found them to still be more acute than an human. Jacob's physique stayed the same with very little attention and his temperature levelled out just above normal. Enough that he should still be at deaths door but again a little more average. The final thing, the thing that had really concerned his brothers, as well as the elders was for nine months he ate hardly anything. There were several theories on this; theories Jacob didn't like to think about because they were unconnected to his wolf.

As you can imagine, Jacob standing in the slight summer sun, in his father's stuffy bedroom was sweating his bollocks off with all these layer's on.

In seven years things had changed, a lot. He was no longer a wolf - obviously, and he was a businessman, his own boss. He owned the first gym ever in Forks. The only down side to that was the fact that it was directly adjacent to Newton's Outfitters so he still had to tolerate that marshmallow. Only now it was on an almost daily basis as the smuck floated through his door twice a day. Twice! The idiot was certain that by using Black's Gym and picking his trainer's brain's constantly he could obtain what had come to be known in the local area as the La Push Physique… Yea, really not going to happen. Anyway Jacob owned his own house, he had a new car, like new-new, because there was less maintenance that way and Jacob NEVER, EVER, under no circumstances, no matter what, not even for something as simple as to fill the screen wash, check the oil, change a tyre or check the pressure. No, Jacob Black DID NOT under any circumstances do any sort of auto-mechanical repair, or maintenance.

NEVER.

Jacob Black was just hours away from breaking one of his cast-iron rules: to never attend another wedding, under any circumstances, no matter what.

Although when Jacob made that vow he had been young and at the time, suffering terribly from tunnel vision and he hadn't actually planned on ever getting married himself.

Now as I mentioned before Jacob Black didn't think it was one of those 'essential' things, he didn't even believe it was one of those 'life milestones', someone specific had stolen all the beauty, all the meaning, the elation that Jacob Black had envisioned that came along with marriage and yet he was still standing here; now fiddling with the cuff-links in his overpriced shirt cuff's, in his over starched shirt, and Jacob Black was still getting married.

In just over twenty-four hours time.

He wasn't nervous; he didn't have cold feet although he was sure the future Mrs. Black did. It was just the 'girly' thing to do and if one thing he knew about his long standing girlfriend - of six whole months was she was girly – to a T. He knew what kind of dress she would be wearing, how her hair would be done, that she'd have those horrific artificial nails, welded onto the end of her delicate fingers. How did he know? Because, as she had told him, she'd been planning this event since she was three years old - and it was going to be perfect.

Her mother disagreed though, she said it was when her daughter was two years old that she first showed an interest in meeting her Prince Charming, in fact Charming was what Estelle, Tess' mother called him.

Prince Charming, what a load of shit.

All this was because of blood lines and bullshit like that, if it was up to Jacob they wouldn't be getting married at all. The comments ranging from, 'It's time you found someone to share your achievements with Jacob,' to 'Haven't you started on the next generation of Black's yet, Jacob?' He knew it was time to move on and really there was no reason why Jacob hadn't had a steady girlfriend or why he lived alone in that family-sized house near to the boundary line.

Like I said before things had changed but Jacob wasn't stupid enough to know that not everything had changed. Something that Jacob wouldn't discuss under any circumstances, those thing's had never changed. At least for him they hadn't but at the same time he understood that there was no point in brooding, that there was no point in not embracing his life – even if she had ended her own.

You see, Jacob's inner voice was a sneaky fucker. Every so often he would slip something like that through Jacob's subconscious, just enough to make sure he didn't ever forget.

Alas - this wedding, this marriage was going to be one of the things he excelled at. There had been hardly anything Jacob had considered he'd failed at, which was actually part of the reason why he was getting married, so he didn't fail, so he could provide his family, his tribe with what they needed.

An heir.

On one hand he was almost repulsed by the idea of passing his genes on to another generation; his genes were defective and at the same time he could still feel the overwhelming urge from his wolf to produce another generation, a large quantity of the next generation. That was something that puzzled Jake; he'd always, always longed for a large family, strong, broad, troublesome boys, and tiny, delicate, clumsy little girls, who played in the mud until bedtime, he wondered if it was something that had always come from his fury side or if his wolf was complying with him? What puzzled him more was his wolf hadn't made an appearance in over four years. Not even the slightest rumble – until someone mentioned kid's.

The knock of the bedroom door brought him from his thoughts as he swung his jacket over his shoulder,

"You ready for this son?" He grinned. He really was ready for this. He was ready for a new chapter of his life to start. He didn't expect it to be perfect, nothing ever was but he was going to give it his best shot.

"Sure'am Chief." He responded, following his father's best friend down the hallway to his waiting father and fiancé so they could join her family for dinner, before she checked into the hotel they would be spending the following night in before jetting off where ever the hell it was off the coast of Mexico that her family had rented for them.

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The next day Jacob found himself in another over priced, over starched suit, in front of another mirror, his house this time, his room. Again fidgeting with his tie, his shirt, his pants, his shoe's.

Clothes his body hated them.

It felt so unnatural to be covered like this. The pollen from the flower in his button hole was aggravating his nose. He just wanted to get all this formal shit out of the way so they can go to the beach for the food.

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