Author's Chapter Notes:

This will be the last chapter before the events start to shift off the New Moon axis ever so slightly. Major events will still happen, just not in the same manner as SM wrote them and not necessarily on the exact timeline. :)

Don't own Twilight. Love and powdered donuts to SM for her brilliance!

*****

I was perched on the top of the movie theatre in Port Angeles, staring down at Bella. She was sitting on a bench outside the theatre, waiting for Jessica. I knew I was wearing a wry expression. She had picked a zombie movie, obviously hoping to avoid any romance. She had left twice, but I doubted if it was because the movie was too gory for her.

"Was the movie too scary for you?" Jessica asked in annoyance when she finally found Bella outside.

"Yeah," Bella agreed. "I guess I'm just a coward." I knew that was a lie. Bella Swan was the bravest human I'd ever known. Granted I didn't know a lot of them…

"That's funny." Jessica frowned. "I didn't think you were scared-I was screaming all the time, but I didn't hear you scream once. So I didn't know why you left."

Bella shrugged. "Just scared."

Jessica relaxed a little, obviously feeling better that Bella had been more scared than she. "That was the scariest movie I think I've ever seen. I'll bet we're going to have nightmares tonight."

"No doubt about that," Bella's voice was full of pain and I suddenly wondered what about the zombie movie had stirred her memories of Edward, because no doubt it had. I pondered this as Bella and Jessica decided to walk to a McDonald's a block away. I sighed and flashed from one rooftop to another, keeping tabs on them. Not that Bella seemed to be quite the trouble magnet she had been when Edward was around, but I wasn't taking any chances.

Jessica was nervous on the darkened street between the theatre and the restaurant. I could sense the slightly elevated heartrate and smell sweat. From Bella, no change. Across the street from the pair was one open business. I saw it when Jessica glanced nervously at the windows covered from inside. There were neon signs, advertisements for different brands of beer, glowing in front of them. The biggest sign, in brilliant green, was the name of the bar-One-Eyed Pete's. I wondered if there was some pirate theme not visible from outside. The metal door was propped open. I could, of course, hear every conversation going on, but I chose to ignore them. It was nothing I wanted to hear.

Jessica wasn't looking anymore, so I switched my sight to Bella's eyes. She was watching four men lounging against the wall beside the propped open door. She glanced back at Jessica, who was moving briskly along the sidewalk. I mentally urged Bella to keep walking too. But she paused, looking back at the four men.

I felt an eerie sense of déjà vu. This was a different road, a different night, but the scene was so much the same. Through Bella's human eyes, I could almost imagine they were the same four men from that fateful night. I knew that Lenny was safely ensconced in the California penal system, but Bella didn't. She stopped and turned toward them.

"Bella?" Jess whispered. "What are you doing?"

I sensed Bella shake her head. "I think I know them…" And then she stepped into the street. What was she doing? I was a vampire and memories of that other night, so many months ago, had me wanting to run. Not from danger to me, but because I still remembered my rage, my need to hurt. It had been the first time in my vampire life that I had wanted to hurt someone. Not just the usual urge to have my natural prey, but actually hurt someone.

"Bella, come on!" Jessica hissed at Bella and I hissed as well, it was just inaudible to human ears. Bella ignored her, walking slowly forward, adrenaline surging in her veins so strongly that I scented it easily. The smell of fear…or excitement. Fear should have Bella running by now. But she wasn't really afraid, was she? I watched with wide eyed horror as she moved forward until Jessica grabbed her arm.

"Bella! You can't go in a bar!" she hissed.

"I'm not going in," she said absently, shaking Jessica's hand off. "I just want to see something…"

"Are you crazy?" she whispered. "Are you suicidal?"

That question caught my attention, and I shuddered. Was that it? Had she gone beyond any will to live? This was worse than the apathy, the lifelessness. I focused through Jessica's eyes as Bella defended herself weakly.

"No, I'm not." She paused, as if seeing something in Jessica's eyes that startled her. She waved her hand towards the McDonald's. "Go eat," she encouraged. Then she turned away from Jessica, back to the men who were watching with amused, curious eyes. I switched to one of them and watched Bella step forward once and then freeze. Something flickered across her face, almost joy, before she looked around herself as if in shock. As if she'd just realized what she'd been doing. She looked back at Jessica and then shook her head, looking first thoughtful and then oddly disappointed. She stepped forward once again and the joy flared again briefly, followed by a sigh of relief. To say I was confused and angry right now was beyond. If she didn't stop this right now, I was going to have to let her know I was there.

"Hi," one of the men called, his tone both confident and a bit sarcastic. He was fair-skinned and fair-haired, and he stood with the assurance of someone who thought of himself as quite good-looking. I would have laughed if I'd been capable of amusement right now. Compared to any of my brothers, he could have won an audition as the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

"Can I help you with something? You look lost." He grinned and winked.

"No. I'm not lost." Bella stepped forward one more time and I leapt across the street to the roof of the bar. No one noticed the light creak of my landing. I poised on the edge, ready to jump between Bella and her own stupidity if I had to. I listened as she turned down a drink offer from one of the men and then spoke almost shyly.

"From across the street, you looked like someone I knew. Sorry, my mistake."

"That's okay," the confident blonde said. "Stay and hang out with us."

"Thanks, but I can't."

"Oh, just a few minutes."

Bella shook her head and turned away. The blond took a step towards the two girls and I snarled above their heads, loud enough to be heard perhaps by the men, but not by Bella. Two of them looked up in fear and disappeared into the bar. The blonde one took another step. I growled. He definitely heard me this time, because he turned and I saw my shadow through his eyes. I looked like a gargoyle perched there, just out of the neon glow that would have ruined the picture by showing him the teenage girl in the rumpled clothes. Not that I would have been any less of a stone menace, but it wouldn't have caused the reaction it did. He ducked back into the bar with a curse to get the bouncer. I was already across the street again with Jessica and Bella when he dragged the burly man out, pointing at the roof. Neither girl noticed.

Cars are faster than running vampires. Blind ones at least. It took me a while to get back to Forks after Jessica and Bella drove out of Port Angeles. By the time I peeked in Bella's window, I was afraid of what I would see. Bella was asleep, curled up as she usually was on her side in a ball. I slipped in through the window, as Edward always had, and settled into the rocking chair with an inaudible sigh. I sat, asking the exact same question my brother so often wondered, with the same level of anguish for once. What was going on in Bella Swan's head?

The next day was Saturday and Bella was working. I lay on the roof of Newton's and watched the sun play hide and seek in the clouds. I was missing my family terribly. I had promised to call, but I hadn't made good on that yet. I decided that Bella would be perfectly okay at work for a few hours and ran back to the house. I'd only been here a few times since returning to Forks so I decided a bath and a change of clothes was in order before I used my cell phone.

"Leia Rhianna Cullen, you get back here right now." Carlisle's voice was full of distress. I cringed and the comb I was dragging through my wet, clean hair snapped under my suddenly tense fingers. My angel doctor had never barked at me like that before. I must have really made Esme sad.

"I can't, dad. Not yet."

"I know exactly what you're doing," I cringed again, waiting for him to blast me for breaking our promise to Edward. "But chasing after your brother isn't going to do any good. He needs time to get his head in a better place." Oh, wow. They didn't know I was in Forks? Alice must really be covering for me. I suddenly wanted to hug my sister.

"Has he called?" I asked this for two reasons. One, I really wanted to know. I wanted to hate my brother for leaving me. Again. But I had grown up a lot in the last year. I knew my brother didn't love me any less just because he needed to sort out his misguided, brooding vampire thoughts. Unlike me, however, Bella didn't have that reassurance. That was why I was here, to make sure Edward's decisions didn't backfire on him before he figured out that leaving Bella was the stupidest idea of his hundred some odd years on earth.

The second reason was to keep Carlisle thinking that I was hunting for my brother.

"No, but Alice said he's fine. Just…surviving." Carlisle sounded resigned now. I made an annoyed sound. That meant nothing had changed. He was trying his hand at tracking, running after Victoria. Evidently he thought the female vampire might still pose some threat to Bella, so he was using that as an excuse to run away from his family and be completely alone with his misery.

For the next hour I talked with Carlisle and then Esme. My mother begged me to come home and I had a very hard time telling her no. I wasn't going to promise her and then have some crisis arise with Bella, though. Her little episode with the boys at the bar was still bothering me. She was shaking out of her zombie-like progression through life, but I didn't know if it was good or bad. Time would tell.

By the time I finally got off the phone, due to a nearly dead battery, I felt both better and worse. Better for having talked to my parents. Worse for having to tell them I wasn't coming home soon. I was really no better than Edward in that respect. But we were immortal and Bella was not. It was worth a year or two of my life without my family to make sure Bella was okay.

I ran back to Newton's a couple of hours after noon and was startled to find Bella's truck was already gone from the parking lot. I cursed softly and ran along her usual route home until I found her. The truck was stopped and she was standing in the rain staring at…a pair of old, rusty motorcycles?

"Bella, what are you doing?" I muttered this question to myself and leaned back against a tree to see what she would do next. She ran up to the door of the house and knock. A young boy answered the door.

"Bella Swan?" he asked in surprise.

"How much do you want for the bike?" Bella was panting as she asked, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward the bikes.

"Are you serious?" he demanded.

"Of course I am." Bella sounded exasperated and I was beginning to feel that way myself. What in God's name did Bella want with a rusty old motorcycle that I knew probably didn't work?

"They don't work." The boy confirmed my thoughts and I smirked. Bella just sighed impatiently

"How much?"

"If you really want one, just take it. My mom made my dad move them down to the road so they'd get picked up with the garbage."

Bella glanced back at the bikes again. "Are you positive about that?"

"Sure, you want to ask her?" The boy motioned behind him into the house.

"No, I believe you." Bella's response was too quick. No, she would not want the adults discussing Bella Swan's sudden interest in two broken down heaps of scrap metal.

"You want me to help you?" the boy offered. "They're not light."

"Okay, thanks. I only need one, though."

"Might as well take both," the boy said. "Maybe you could scavenge some parts. What are you going to do with them, anyway?" he asked as he helped Bella put the bikes into the back of the truck. "They haven't worked in years."

"I kind of guessed that," Bella said, shrugging. "Maybe I'll take them to Dowling's."

He snorted. "Dowling would charge more to fix them than they'd be worth running."

"You know what? That's okay. I know someone who builds cars." Bella sounded like she been hit with a sudden inspiration, her gaze taking in her old truck. I felt a twinge of unease. I climbed into the back of the truck as Bella climbed into the cab. It wasn't dark out, but I was able to tuck myself against the front side of the bed, where she wouldn't see me if she bothered to look back to check the bikes. There was no way she was going to beat me home. I wanted to know what was going on in her head.

When she got to the house, after driving faster than I'd ever known her to drive, she ran into the house and called her father at work.

"Chief Swan, please. It's Bella."

"Oh, hey, Bella," Deputy Steve said affably. "I'll go get him."

"What's wrong, Bella?" Charlie demanded as soon as he picked up the phone, asking the very question I wanted to ask.

"Can't I call you at work without there being an emergency?"

He was quiet for a minute. "Younever have before. Is there an emergency?"

"No. I just wanted directions to the Blacks' place-I'm not sure I can remember the way. I want to visit Jacob. I haven't seen him in months."

When Charlie spoke again, his voice was much happier. "That's a great idea, Bells. Do you have a pen?"

Bella wanted to go to La Push? Oh, that was so not an option. I couldn't follow her there and I wasn't about to let her out of my sight thinking whatever crazy thoughts she was thinking. I didn't have a choice any more. It was time to let Bella know one of the Cullens, at least, had come home.

Chapter End Notes:

Muahahaha!