AN: The story may seem to jump from one to the other but it'll all blend in nicely together soon enough. I also think the paragraphs are longer in this one for some reason :S
Chapter 2: Fight then Flight.
They had all agreed to come, that was the stupid thing. But here Bella sat, in Port Angeles movie theatre with none other than Mike Newton.
She was going to kill everyone when she saw them on Monday.
Mike had of course, offered their excuses to her.
Angela was unwell and therefore, unable to make it. Jess's parents had family friends over for dinner, so she had to opt out. Eric was behind in English and his parents made him stay in and study. As for Tyler, well for him Mike offered no excuse, but Bella secretly deduced that he had been told the outing was cancelled.
So now here she was, watching some racing movie she'd already forgotten the title of, with Mike Newton. She rolled her eyes.
Mike was nice, she couldn't argue with that. But since the first day she'd come to Forks High he'd been hounding her non-stop with proposals for dates. Alone. With him. Getting her books taken off her and walked to class more often than not was bad enough. Not to mention the way he'd be at the door of her classroom right when she was leaving, even if he was on the other side of the school for his own class. If she really stopped to consider it, it really was stalker-like behaviour.
Bella stopped her eye-rolling and directed her attention back to the screen.
So it seemed like the good guy had somehow managed to get himself tied to a chair and beaten to a pulp before finally, someone stuck a gun to his head.
Bella almost huffed in frustration, wanting the movie to end. And fast.
Mike, unfortunately for Bella, seemed to notice that something was up and leaned in close to her to whisper in her ear.
"You're not worried for him are you?"
"Whoa, too close!" The girl's thoughts screamed at him as she jolted away from the horrid feeling of his breath on her earlobe.
Mike, being the clueless one, took it for surprise and reached over to grab her hand. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to scare you."
She wanted to rip her hand from his, run to the bathroom and begin disinfecting it immediately. But instead she gave him a false smile and slid her hand out of his grasp by pretending to reach for a drink.
Bella hadn't missed that triumphant look in his eyes when he had successfully caught her off guard and secured his hand on her own. His smile was obvious and he certainly didn't sound sorry at all.
"That's okay." She whispered back and turned to give him a quick reassuring smile.
It was soon forgotten however, when a pair of hands slick with butter and salt from popcorn had locked themselves upon her cheeks and a pair of buttered, salty and saliva slicked lips were closing in on her.
Before Bella ever knew what was going on, she'd punched him in the face. Hard.
Mike was leaning away from her, staring at her in shock while trying to stop his nose from bleeding.
She stood up. "I'm so-. You shouldn't..." she couldn't finish either sentence. She was too mad and shocked and well, downright pissed at the boy next to her. Bella grabbed her things and hurried out of the theatre, leaving Mike to finish off the movie alone.
When the teenager finally got out of the building and into the fresh night air, she breathed in deep and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Thankfully she had avoided Mike's attempt at kissing her.
She then did a squirmy little dance of discomfort for a moment and several passersby looked at her as if there were something wrong. Bella blushed, lifting up the hood on her jacket and ran across the rainy street to the bus stop on the other side.
No, she didn't have her car with her. Mike had insisted that he drive them both into town, as they would all have gone together anyway.
With the rain dripping down her nose from her wait for the bus that would take her back to forks, Bella finally began to feel the pain in her hand from the few minutes ago that she'd punched Mike.
She had to laugh at the recent memory. The way he'd looked at her in shock was almost a comical contrast to his triumphant face only seconds before his demise. Bella remembered his popcorn coated hands and began scrubbing at her cheeks with her sleeves furiously. "That was gross."
It was nearing her tenth minute waiting for the bus and the teen had been contemplating returning to the cinema when the bus finally rolled up. She jumped onboard gratefully, paid her fare and took a seat up the front.
As she stared out the window into the cold wet night, rubbing her sore hand as her knuckles began to turn a slight shade of purple, she thought of Jake and how he was doing.
They'd been working on their respective homework assignments in his garage the last time she saw him. Why the garage? Jake had the tendency to stare off into space if he was going at it for too long, so Bella had suggested switching between homework and building the Rabbit. He'd agreed very quickly.
So she did not understand when she came to see him two days later, why she was told to go away. Apparently Jake had told Billy that he did not want to see her. She'd roller her eyes and laughed, trying to scoot around him, but his stern glare had her reluctantly heading back to her truck and back to Forks.
A few days later she'd tried again, thinking that the first time Billy had been lying because Jake was in trouble and had been grounded for something. But when she knocked on the door again, she was met with the same stern looking face, but with a different excuse.
Jake was sick with Mono according to Billy and that why Jake said that he didn't want to see her. Bella of course was filled with guilt that her friend had copped this while she hadn't and immediately tried to get around Billy and into the house so she could take care of her best friend. Billy however, had plonked himself perfectly in the way of Bella making such an entrance impossible and once again asked her to leave; adding on that Jake was contagious and did not want her catching what he had.
The teen impatiently waited another week before she decided to call Jake. The phone had rung four times before Billy's voice answered.
Bella relived the conversation in her head as the bus neared Forks.
"Hello?"
"Billy? It's Bella."
"Oh, hi Bella." She could hear the sudden change in his tone and knew he wanted to get her off the phone.
"How's Jake doing? Is he there? Can I talk to him?"
"Bella I really don't think-"
"Please Billy. It's been an entire week! Surely he can come to the phone!"
"Jake's asleep right now." She heard the lie in his voice. She could always tell when Billy lied, especially when he pretended to be Santa Claus at Christmas dinner all those years ago. But that was a completely different story altogether.
"Okay," Bella sighed, defeated. "I'll call later. Bye."
Bella hung up before Billy could tell her not to, just like she knew he would.
She called every evening, just when she knew the Blacks would be about to have dinner. It was always the same time, every single day no matter what. So why, reasonably presuming that Jake would at least have one dinner in two weeks, could he not come to the phone for any of those calls?
Jake was going crazy running patrols for Sam. He knew his pack leader wanted him trained up fast, but he seemed to be running every few hours which left him barely enough time to sleep.
With every thud his paws made against the ground he would chant "Bella, Bella, Bella..."
Ever since the dream he had been even more in love with her than before. He'd begged Sam to let him go into Forks and see her, but Sam forbade him, saying it wasn't safe.
The Alpha had of course seen the dream through the pack mind link and thought it very odd. At the next council he had promised to bring it up to the Elders, to see if they could shed some light on the situation. At this moment though, it seemed as if Jacob was stuck without answers.
He was peeved.
Very peeved.
He didn't know what the dream meant, he couldn't see Bella and to make matters even worse than he possibly thought they could be, his father told him about Bella's visits. This was not a happy conversation.
"YOU WHAT!"
"Now, Jake, calm down." Billy pleaded as he noticed his son's now vibrating form. Having his son explode into a full-grown werewolf in the middle of his living room was not on his to-do list that day.
Jake took a few deep breaths and the vibrating lessened slightly.
"When she came over here I told her you were sick and contagious and that she shouldn't be around you."
The vibrating started to pick up pace once more and Jake scrunched up his face in the effort to keep his wolf from breaking free and wreaking havoc.
"I was right to do it too. Can you imagine what would have happened if you phased and she was with you? You can see what you did to your bedroom, right? Just think what could have happened."
Jakes heart stopped for a beat before it picked back up again. He hated it, but he knew his father was right. He couldn't let something like that happen to Bella. He understood, especially now that he'd seen Emily and learnt the story behind her scars from Sam.
He wasn't shaking anymore. He was still mad as all hell, but at least Billy was in no danger.
"Why couldn't I talk to her on the phone then?"
Billy started rolling himself towards the kitchen.
"I needed to hear her voice, dad. It's been driving me crazy not seeing her and now you've taken her voice away from me too?"
Billy looked to his son with sad eyes. He knew the look on Jakes face. The look of love, of longing.
"Jake, I'm sorry. But I thought it best."
The son set his face hard and growled under his breath, "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Once he was out the door he turned and faced back inside and took a deep breath.
"YOU AND SAM HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"
That was it. He ran as fast as he could to the woods, stripping off as many pieces of clothing as he could before he phased and let out a pained howl that could be heard all the way into Forks.
Bella jerked her head up from her book with a start. The howl she heard sounded so lonely. Her heart panged for a moment and she raised her hand to rub her chest, smiling a sad smile.
"If I could howl like that, I would too." She said to the wolf, miles away. "I know what it's like to miss someone."
