Disclaimer- All recognizable copyrighted and trademarked items mentioned herein belong to their respective owners, most especially Stephenie Meyer. Everything else belongs to the respective author.

Song- Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

~~*~~* ~~*~~

"Bella," he breathed, "Honey, are you on that pill or patch thingy?"

I inhaled a shaky breath, closed my eyes and shook my head, "No, I'm not on any birth control, Jake."

He just nodded and pulled me in closer to his warm chest before whispering into the darkened room,

"Holy crap!"

Yup, Holy crap was right!

If it had been anyone else I'm sure they would have been given a 'Gimme' on that one, but, yeah… I don't have that kind of luck. For someone who was supposedly known for being uber-responsible and level-headed, I had done just about the most irresponsible, impetuous and classically teenage thing ever. I blamed it on adrenaline and hormones and hot chocolate and red T-shirts and warm wolf boy bodies and stupid, cheesy, southern vampire voices, though I couldn't ever tell anyone that. I mean, seriously, Bella? 'Make hay while the sun shines?' Who even talks like that? And who falls for a line like that? Well, me apparently, and more than once…

That night definitely changed the trajectory of my life. I really had not set huge goals for myself, beyond day to day survival, but any plans that I did have were completely blown into oblivion. Looking back at all that had transpired, though, made me realize that I was okay with that.

Just over five years later, I was standing in what used to be my Dad's kitchen, making dinner and waiting for Jake. I heard the front door open with a bang and a familiar voice sang through the house.

"I wanna make wuv wight now na na , I wanna make wuv wight now na na, Wif we neva bwoke up wight now na na, We need to wink up wight now, na na."

Hearing those words sung by my almost three year old daughter caused me to groan inwardly. Jake and I were on the same page about most things when it came to parenting. But what constituted as music appreciation for preschoolers was definitely not one of them.

"Hey, Bewwa," my little girl sang from the doorway of the kitchen. Her pig tails were askew, the elastics trying desperately to hang on to the short, wispy tufts of mahogany that fought against their captor. The pink polka-dotted ribbons that I had tied into them that morning were long gone. She had my eyes and they were sparkling with mischief and delight, just like usual. Her cheeks were rosy and smeared with dirt, as were her black track pants. Without words, I knew that she had spent the day at the garage with Jake and not at Charlie and Sue's as originally planned.

"Hi, Bethie, did you have fun today?" I asked, bending down so that I was at eye level with her.

She shrugged, "Yeah, I thaw Unca Pau and Aunty Raythel, they thaid Daddy ith fawking thstoopid!" At that, she turned to go into the living room, giggling and calling over her shoulder, "Daddy thaid I could watth Dowa before thuppa, Okay, Bewwa?"

"Okay," I called to her, knowing that she could turn the T.V on and start the DVD on her own. "And, Bethie, don't say those words, even if Uncle Paul and Aunty Rachel say them, okay? I wasn't surprised when I heard her response and I could just picture the eye roll that went along with it.

"Sure, sure, Bewwa, no pwobwem." She then began singing along to the opening theme to Dora the Explorer.

I sighed because it looked like I was going to have to spend the evening killing my husband and that hadn't been on my To Do List for today. I walked into the front hall just in time to see Jake coming in. He was holding our sleeping son in one arm and one of Emily's cookie tins was in his other hand. I took the tin from him and set it in the kitchen before I silently began pulling off the little boy's boots and raincoat. At four and a half years old, Masen was a miniature version of Jake, in fact Jake delighted in referring to him as 'Mini Me'. I caught Jake's eye as he watched me straighten Masen's shirt where it had ridden up. He winked at me and then gave me that smile that made me forget my plans for his demise.

Silently, he carried our first born up the stairs to his bedroom. I looked down the hallway where I could see into the living room. Bethie was still happily watching Dora even though she had seen that particular DVD at least fifty times.

I went into the kitchen and opened the oven to check on the lasagna and see if it was time to add the garlic bread. I was bent at the waist and leaning into the oven when I felt the heat of his body behind me. He placed his large, warm hands on my hips and pulled me in toward him.

"Um, Hi," I said from inside the oven, "Kinda trying to check on your dinner here."

'Don't mind me, as you were, Carrot." He said softly as he allowed one hand to trail from my hip and down to my thigh, which he began to stroke languidly. His other hand remained firmly on my hip and was the only thing preventing me from falling face first into the oven. I reveled in the sensations that Jake's touch was creating.

Deciding that the garlic bread could go in, I hurriedly grabbed it off the counter and set it on the rack beside the lasagna. Jake moved with me as I closed the oven door and reached up and set the timer on the stove for ten minutes. I straightened up and Jake molded into me from behind, his hands wrapping around my waist and pulling me into him. I felt his breath against my ear.

"I wanna make love right now na na, I wanna make love right now na na…" He crooned, making my whole body tremble and turning my legs to jelly. He started swaying us slowly as he hummed the tune and began kissing that magic spot on my neck.

"Jake," I struggled to maintain coherency, "Bethie came in singing that song and I thought we agreed that we were only going to play the kid's CDs when they are in the car with us. It's more than disturbing to hear that song coming from my little girl. Plus, I don't even think that those are the right words." He began stroking his hands up and down my arms, across my stomach, down my thighs and then up again.

"I know, Hon, something's wrong with the CD player in the Rabbit, I can only get the radio to work. Biff doesn't know what the words mean. She'll forget about it by tomorrow, don't worry about it, Bells. The Epicenter of Heaven is here to make all your worries disappear." He increased his attack on my neck; rocking my body gently against his and definitely making everything disappear except my need for him which was increasing exponentially by the second. I was losing this battle and I cursed myself internally for ever telling him my theory about him being the possessor of The Epicenter of Heaven.

"Is she also going to forget that Unca Pau and Aunty Raythel thaid that you are fawking thstoopid?" Jake sighed, giving up his assault on my neck and resting his chin on the top of my head instead.

"She told you about that, huh?" He half chuckled and half sighed.

"Yeah, within the first two seconds of her being in the front door." I said, as I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent, enjoying the feeling of his warm arms wrapped around me. "What was that all about and why was she with you at the garage today and not at Dad and Sue's?"

I felt him shrug behind me, "She said she wanted to come with me after we dropped Masen off at Emily and Sam's. I called your dad and Sue and they said that was fine. They actually brought lunch over for all of us around noon so they got to see her and have a visit with my Dad too. As for the Paul and Rachel thing, it's just the same old same old. I guess Dad made a comment to Paul this morning about being concerned that their headboard was going to come through his bedroom wall last night. Of course, Paul told Rach and she flew off the handle, just like always." I felt him shake his head behind me and shrug again.

It was no secret that Rachel hated living with Billy, but with his failing health he could no longer live on his own. He had recently developed diabetes and made no effort to manage it himself. His meals and insulin intake had to be closely monitored; a task that Rachel openly resented.

Her solution to the problem was simple. She figured that Billy should come and live with us. That it was our turn to take him so that she and Paul would be free to smash as many headboards through as many walls as they wanted without complaint. When faced with the argument that we didn't have a room for him, she had said that if we cared at all, then we would be more than willing to put Masen and Bethie together in my old room. She then thought that we should take Charlie's old room and give Billy our room in the addition that Jake and the pack had added to the house so that each child could have their own room in the first place. She said that children that age didn't need their own rooms, that we indulged them too much, and that if we would just look at the bigger picture, we would see how perfect her solution was. The bottom line was if you ever needed to know how to run your own life, Rachel Black would be happy to tell you and then stand over you to be sure that you did it exactly right.

It was a daily struggle for me to like her. I sighed against Jake and watched the timer on the stove count down the seconds until it went off.

"So, what did you tell them this time?" I asked, as I lifted the lasagna and garlic bread out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. Jake moved in from behind me to close the oven door.

"Same as always." He said as he reached three plates, one plastic and two china, out of the cupboard. He then began to fill the glasses on the table from the pitcher of ice water that I had set there just before he arrived home.

"I told them that we just don't have the room and that Dad is happiest right where he is. He won't leave La Push and they both know it. Quil and Embry were both there helping me with that engine job today and they offered once again to help build something in the clearing just behind the house, but Rach won't hear of it. It's her way or the highway, as usual."

I cut up the garlic bread and dished out some lasagna onto each plate.

"Do you think that we should wake Masen up?" I asked Jake.

He shook his head.

"Nah, he's out cold, Carrot, he'll eat when he wakes up. He might be coming down with something; Emily said that he seemed a little off today, so we should just let him sleep."

Jake went into the living room, turned off the T.V and brought Bethie into the kitchen. He hoisted her up at the sink and I watched as he helped her wash her hands. He checked the temperature of the water before he let her put her hands in, then he squeezed some soap onto her hand and got her to scrub while they sang the ABC song together. Then, he told her to rinse her hands off, which she did while managing to splash him in the process. She giggled when he covered her head with the dish towel that he used to dry her hands with and carried her to her booster chair at the table. He pulled the towel off of her head after he had her seated and placed it across her lap with a flourish, causing her to giggle some more.

As we ate, we discussed the events of the day. I hadn't seen Jake or either of the kids since they left the house at eight o'clock in the morning. Jake told me that he had made a lot of progress on the engine rebuild he had been working on and expected to be done really soon. This was good news. The bulk of our income consisted of money that Jake earned from working on cars on the weekends. During the week, Sam still insisted that the pack run patrols, sometimes even up as far as to Alaska and back just to ensure that the area was still completely vampire free. Just like it had been for the last five years. Because the pack was considered to be the police force for the reservation, they each received a small stipend each month. That was nowhere close to covering what was required to feed and clothe a growing family of four, however.

After Masen was born, Jake and I visited one of the two daycare centers in Forks. We both left with tears running down are faces, though Jake maintains his were caused by the overwhelming smell of dirty diapers. We made the decision then and there that we would never put our children into that kind of group care environment.

I began taking child development courses on line with the intention of opening a day home of my own. Initially, I brought in a few children from the neighborhood and made a rather decent earning from it. However, once members of the pack began having children, they felt that their children should have priority. I had to let some of the paying families go to make room for Jake's 'brothers' who never felt obligated to pay for the time that I spent with their children. There were some exceptions, but as a rule, I had become a free babysitting service for the wolf pack.

Emily was one of the exceptions; she took Masen for me every Saturday in exchange for my looking after her two one day during the week. Masen adored Emily, so it was very much a 'win-win' situation. Every Saturday he would arrive home with one of her tins filled with cookies or brownies or muffins or whatever else they had made together that day. I was really grateful for the arrangement because it gave me the chance to clean the house, buy groceries for the week and do all of the things that got left undone during the course of a busy week.

I watched Bethie poke her lasagna with her kids fork while she talked about her day playing at Daddy's garage with Sam and Emily's son, Sammy, whom she called Thammy. She was also very pleased that she got to have lunch with Gwampa Charwee, Gumma Thue and Gwampa Biwee. Of course, the absolute highlight of her day was getting to spend some time with Unca Pau and Aunty Rathel. She completely adored Paul, much to my chagrin. I didn't have anything against Paul, aside from the fact that he made no effort to rein in his mouthpiece of a wife. Truth be told, he made no effort to rein in anything and that was the crux of the problem. He made no attempt at being a role model of any kind. Bethie was such a little sponge who soaked up everything, most especially if it was negative. It was incredibly frustrating for me because it seemed like both Paul and Rachel deliberately went out of their way to provide her with lots of new material each time they saw her.

"Eat up, Sunshine." I encouraged after I saw that she had only eaten one bite of her dinner. She poked it with her fork again one more time and then sighed and wrinkled her tiny little nose.

"I don' yike it."

Lasagna and Beth had never had a problem before. Just last week, she had yiked it very much and had asked for seconds at Sue and Charlie's house. I actually would have said that it was number one on her favorites list. I was completely bewildered as to what had caused the drastic turn around.

"Have some garlic bread, then." I said, offering her a slice.

"No, Bewws, I'm good." She said as she tried to get out of her booster seat by herself.

Jake put his hand on her shoulder to hold her in place.

"Have a piece of bread," he said as he put a slice on her plate, "and three baby 'maters." He added as he scooped three cherry tomatoes out of the salad bowl that was sitting in front of him to add to her plate.

"Are you fawking kiddin' me, Daddy?" She exclaimed.

In that instant, Jake dropped his knife on the floor and dove under the table to retrieve it, leaving me topside to be the disciplinarian, as usual. I could feel the table shaking with his laughter and I resisted the urge to kick him, knowing that it would only result in a broken toe or two – again.

I didn't know why I didn't find the situation as funny as my soon-to-be-dead-husband did; I just knew that I didn't. I took the job of parenting my children very seriously, too much so, according to Jake and Charlie. I realized very early on that you can't over parent your children but you can certainly under parent them. I am definitely not someone who is content in doing a half-assed job in anything – let alone the most important thing that I have to do, which is to raise my children.

I didn't always agree with the things that Oprah said, but she had it right when she said that parenting is the most difficult job in the world. It was nothing like what I expected it to be. Bethie was an exceptionally challenging child who always seemed to be zigging when the rest of us were zagging. She was prone to tantrums and was impossible to reason with then. She was very strong-willed as demonstrated by her insistence on calling me 'Bella' instead of 'Mommy' no matter how often we corrected her to the contrary. She was way more assertive and aggressive than her brother and not at all interested in anything remotely 'girly' or feminine. She wasn't just not a princess, she was an anti-princess, and she wasn't just a tomboy, she was an uber-tomboy. Her mannerisms, speech and clothing preferences all reinforced that fact. I was concerned. Paul had coined the nickname 'Biff' for her and I despised it. It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much if she wasn't so very Biff-like, but she was. It suited her just a little too well for my liking.

I leaned forward in my chair and looked her in the eyes,

"Beth, that's not a word that we use in our home. I know that you've heard others use that word, but they are doing the wrong thing and they deserve to have hot sauce put on their tongues."

"Weally?" She asked incredulously.

I nodded solemnly.

"Do you want me to put hot sauce on your tongue?"

She shook her head vehemently, sending her pig tails into a floppy frenzy.

"Ok, you get one more chance and then we will have to put hot sauce on your tongue and you won't like it." I promised.

"Okay, Bewwa, I pwomith!" She looked at me sincerely.

"Okay," I said just as Jake re-emerged, knife in hand, "Mr. Black, for the record, you are on your last chance too."

He settled back into his seat and winked at me,

"And then I get the hot sauce too?" He asked with a shrug.

I shook my head.

"No," my eyes met his, "it's what you won't be getting that you should be worried about."

I saw the realization hit his eyes and I smirked before taking a forkful of my cold supper.

~~~ ***~~~

After dinner, I gave Bethie her bath while Jake cleaned up the kitchen. After I had tucked her into bed in my old room and promised to send Daddy in for a kiss, I walked across the hall to check on Masen. He was fast asleep in his race-car bed. His breathing was shallow and his cheeks were flushed. I held my hand above his forehead and could feel the heat emanating from him. Quickly, I made my way down the hall to the bathroom and retrieved the thermometer from the bathroom cabinet. I turned it on before I entered his room and then walked back over to his bed and gently placed the receptor into his ear. A minute later, a soft beeping alerted me that it was ready. I checked the read out – 102 F flashed back at me.

Not good.

Not. Good.

I removed the heavy Lightning McQueen comforter from on top of him and replaced it with a lighter blanket from his closet. I didn't even flinch when Carlisle began to speak through my thoughts. I expected it by now.

"The fever needs to come down, Bella, three pellets now and then assess him in half an hour."

I slipped back into the bathroom and found the homeopathic fever reliever. Back in his room, I slipped three small pellets past his bottom lip to rest against his lower gum, they would have melted and begun to work before I even reached his doorway.

I could hear Jake singing in Quileute to Beth, so I leaned against the wall across from her room and waited for him. He emerged a few minutes later and offered me his hand as we walked down the stairs, pausing first to close and lock the gate at the top.

"Masen's sick, Jake, he's running a fever of one oh two."

"Did you give him some magic potion?" He asked.

"Yeah, right away." I said as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Good," he said as he pulled me into a hug and ruffled my hair. "That stuff is golden, Carrot, he'll be just fine."

I sighed into him, "I know, Hon, I just hate it when they're sick; it makes me feel so helpless and scared."

"Don't worry, Bells, they've got wolf blood running through them, they're invincible." I smiled weakly. That opened up a whole other discussion that I just didn't want to even think of or talk about right now.

I let go of Jake so he could check the locks on the doors and turn off the lights downstairs. We headed into our room, where he flopped down on the bed, picked up the remote and turned on the T.V. I could hear the opening theme for Family Guy and it made me smile. That show was definitely Jake's guilty pleasure. He was constantly quoting from it and it was really funny. I liked to hear him quoting the show more than I liked to actually watch it.

I pulled my sweater from the closet, slipped on my shoes and opened the sliding door leading out on to the deck. I had asked Jake if we could add a roofed porch when we renovated this part of the house to add our room and bathroom. It had become my favorite place. Jake had even built and hung a wooden porch swing for me on one side, and on the other side there was a built in bench. The seat lifted up so that we could store some of the kids' outdoor toys in there. I had a couple of pretty terra cotta planters filled with ferns sitting on either side of the stairway leading down to the newly fenced-in yard. I reached up to one of the cross beams and extracted my own guilty pleasure from the shadows.

I pulled one from the box, put it to my lips, lit it, inhaled deeply and waited. This really was my favorite part of the day. I had begun smoking shortly after Beth was born. It was during a period of time when I had felt very overwhelmed and alone. At first, I smoked way too much, sometimes, chain smoking two and three cigarettes in a row. I also drank a lot during that time too. Then, when Beth was about three months old, I had the most vivid dream of my life. I dreamt that all of the Cullens were in my bedroom and I was in my bed sleeping. I had not heard anything from any of the Cullens since they left Forks after my eighteenth birthday, so to say that I was surprised to see them all in my room was an understatement. While I slept, they each spoke to me, each sharing a different message with me. When I awoke in the morning, I felt as if it had really happened. I knew that it wasn't possible, and must have just been my subconscious reacting to some rather dramatic events from the night previous. After I had that dream, I felt so much better – so much better about myself, about my marriage, about being a parent, about everything in general.

I scaled back my smoking because 'Dream Carlisle' had asked me to, but I continued with the one a night because of 'Dream Jasper'. Every night when I would light a cigarette, he would join me. In my mind of course, not in reality, that would just be crazy. Actually, I had determined long ago that I was indeed crazy but it's not the kind that will hurt anyone or myself, so I don't worry too much about it. By now, I was very used to hearing the voice of a Cullen in my head triggered by whatever particular activity I happened to be doing at the time. In my dream, both Carlisle and Jasper had agreed that it was my subconscious mind's way of keeping them with me… that I had an inherent need to maintain a connection to them. Even though I had moved on and was mostly very happy with the choices I had made, a part of me would forever mourn the loss of the people that I truly did view as my family. In the dream, they had wanted me; they wanted to stay with me, to be in my life again or to take me away with them. Whatever I would have wanted they would have done. But the wolves in the room said no. I hadn't even known they were there until Sam had spoken and had said that all they would be allowed to leave with me would be memories and that was all. I remember Jasper's smile then, it was so sad yet his eyes sparkled mischievously as he leaned forward then and breathed into my ear,

"You live in our hearts, Darlin' and we live in yours, that isn't something that anyone can change. Believe that when you need us, we will be there, sugar, if it can only be in your thoughts, then that is enough. It is still confirmation that we love you and that you aren't alone, ever, Bella… ever." Then he began to whisper so fast that I couldn't keep up with his words and I knew that he was eventually pulled away from me forcibly, but that was all I could remember.

"Tell me all about your day, Darlin'"

I sighed. Best. Part. Ever.

I began to relay my day to him in vivid detail through my thoughts as I puffed slowly on my cigarette. I was in no hurry at all for this time to end. I showed him how I had helped Jake get the kids ready to go to La Push, and all the housework and errands I had accomplished during the time they were gone. He was as thrilled as I was that I finally found a cleaning product to help me get the permanent black marker ink off of the toilet, bathtub and linoleum floor in the kids' bathroom. I still had no idea when Beth did it or how she got a hold of that damn marker that was usually stored on the top shelf in the chuckled again at my insistence that Rachel had given her the marker. I had been ranting about this for over a week, but he didn't seem to mind, he always just listened and tried to offer suggestions.

I told him about Masen and he seemed concerned but was just as confident as Jake that the remedy I had given him would do its job and all would be well by morning. I also shared my worries about Beth, and he assured me that she was just going through a phase and the swearing thing would blow over in no time. He said that I should try to ignore it as much as possible and only make an issue of it when absolutely necessary.

We just sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood interspersed with Jake's occasional laughter filtering through the sliding door. I sighed when I took the last drag from my cigarette. As I exhaled, I bid Jasper good night.

"Good night little Darlin', if you need me, just give a holler and I'll come runnin'." His chuckle emanated through my thoughts and then he was gone.

I snubbed out my cigarette in the coffee can I kept hidden in one of the planters, returned my pack and lighter to their hiding place and pulled my sweater more tightly around me. I had just about opened the sliding door when a small black form blurred past me and into the house.

Juliet.

She was our two-year-old rescue cat and the so called bane of Jake's existence. He said that it was an absolute insult to dogs everywhere that I insisted we keep a cat as a pet. Truth be told, he loved her and she him, but neither would ever admit it.

I replaced my sweater and shoes in the closet and then went into our ensuite bathroom to have a shower. The bathroom was small and very basic but I loved it. I had painted it a lemony yellow to match the bedroom and added sage green accessories and bath mat. It was a happy room.

I showered quickly and then got ready for bed before returning to the bedroom. The end credits were rolling across the screen and Jake was still chuckling as he turned off the T.V.

"Which one was it?" I asked as I opened a drawer in the dresser and pulled out one of Jake's black T-shirts. I tossed the towel that I was wearing onto the chair beside the bathroom door and pulled the shirt over my head.

"Um," Jake stuttered momentarily, causing me to smirk knowingly. "It was the one where Peter gets adult sized footie pajamas that cause him to shock everyone when he wears them because of the static electricity. This leads him to think that he is actually Jesus."

"That's a good one." I said with a laugh as I ran my brush through my wet hair.

"Uh, yeah, a good one." He parroted and I knew that he had no idea what he had just said. I could see him in the mirror and he was watching me very intently. Juliet had made herself comfortable on the pillow above his head and was almost asleep, completely oblivious to the fact that she would soon be unceremoniously removed from the bed.

He began humming that song again and it reminded me of something I had been meaning to do. I powered up the laptop that was sitting on the dresser and typed 'lyrics akon right now' into the search engine. I clicked through the different websites that came up and felt smug as I realized that my suspicions had been correct. It was 'I wanna make up', not make love, which, as I read it through, actually made no sense at all. The guy rhymed up with up like, four times. Just more proof that true creativity was dead. Satisfied that I now knew the truth, I snapped the laptop shut and went to go check on Masen.

The thermometer said 98.6 and I was flooded with relief.

I stopped by the kitchen on my way back to the bedroom and liberated a can of whipped cream from the shelf in the fridge.

I smiled as I opened the door to our room, listening to Jake singing his song in earnest now. I picked it up where he was at and entered our room holding my present behind my back and singing along with him, "I wanna make love right now na na…"

~~~***~~~

A/N- Wow! I am so incredibly humbled by the response this story has received. To everyone that has read, reviewed, alerted and favorited - thank you from the very bottom of my heart. My cup runneth completely over, you guys, there really just aren't adequate words…

Thank you so much to Keira and all the awesome ladies at Les Femmes de Twilight (the link is on my profile). The faith that you have in me and my writing absolutely astounds me. Your love and support makes this story possible…

Please go check out the cool cherry popping feature that they did for me, it's EPIC!

This was betaed by the amazing and incomparable Meddz, who knows exactly when to push, when to pull and when to go make out with Mafiaward in the corner and leave me to deal with my own crazy… ily bra.