Chances

Disclaimer: all characters and copyright belong to Stephanie Meyer.

A/N-thanks for the awesome reviews. Nikki :)

Part Three-Loneliness

Sam was sitting outside the small cabin he shared with Leah. He was drinking a beer and enjoying the rare peace and quiet. He was surprised to see Jacob striding purposefully out of the trees surrounding his house.

"Hey." He greeted him. He held out one of the beer cans he had lying by his feet. "Want one?"

Jacob nodded. "Thanks." He caught the can easily as Sam chucked it over to him.

"Wasn't expecting you today." Sam looked at him curiously.

"I went to Charlie's house." Jacob said bluntly.

"Ah." Sam said as if that one statement explained everything.

"It was Bella." Jacob sat next to Sam and popped open his can, taking a long drink as he did so. The cold liquid was soothing as it slid down his throat.

"Why is she here?" Sam asked.

"She is visiting Charlie." Jacob rolled the can between his palms.

"I thought the idea was to cut off all contact." Sam mused.

"It was, but things haven't turned out quite like we all thought." Jacob swallowed thickly. "She's not a vampire Sam...not in the literal sense."

"That's impossible Jake. We all smelled her scent." Sam looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

"Jeez this is hard to explain unless you actually see her." Jacob rubbed the back of his neck agitatedly. "When she was changed the transformation didn't go as expected. She only has certain traits of a vampire...putting it bluntly she is a kind of half breed, that's how she termed it. She is half human."

Sam choked on his beer. He banged his chest as he coughed. "What? Are you serious?"

"Deadly." Jacob looked him straight in the eye. "I wouldn't have believed it myself but I talked to her Sam, I heard her heart beat, I saw color in her cheeks and I watched tears roll down her face when she cried."

"She cried? Fuck this is unreal." Sam said in disbelief. "How is this even possible?"

Jacob explained Bella's theory, that she had antibodies left over in her body from her previous bite from James. Sam was stunned when he heard the full explanation, especially the part where Bella was still fertile. "So she is a type of hybrid, a mixture of human and vampire."

"Yes." Jacob said huskily. "You should have seen her Sam, lying broken on the floor when she told me about what that bastard had done, robbing her of her child. I held her..."

Sam coughed again as his beer went down the wrong way for a second time. "You held her? Jake what were you thinking?"

"I know." Jacob screwed up his can and threw it on the ground. "You don't have to tell me what an idiot I am. I had a list of rules in my head and not touching her was number one. I broke them all."

Sam sighed as he looked over toward the trees. The sun was setting and the sky was blood red. "You can't choose who you love, Jake. I know that better than anyone. Look at the mess I made. Luckily Lee forgave me but we she still struggles every day to trust me again. I am not going to lecture you about still loving Bella."

"What the hell am I going to do?" Jacob asked him desperately.

Sam turned his wise eyes onto him and smiled wryly. "You'll do what you always have done, Jake."

"What's that?"

"You'll try to save her." Sam replied with certainty.

Bella sat cross legged on her old bed and began to knit. Her fingers were a blur as the blue wool fell from the needles. Within a couple of minutes she made a sweater. She tied the wool off and held it up in front of her. "No holes this time, Bella." She said to herself. She pulled the sweater over her head. It fit perfectly.

Charlie had gone into work to finish up some paperwork so she was alone. He had promised her he wouldn't be gone long. She could see in his eyes he was worried that she was going to flee during his absence. It had taken a lot of reassurance on her part to get him to relax again. After he had left she had retreated to her room and began to knit, she found it calming.

It had been hard but she had banished all thoughts about her recent conversation with Jacob. She regretted letting him get past her defenses and telling him about the baby. She was still trying to process her own emotions. She had parted with Edward on cordial terms; having shut down mentally after discovering what he and Carlisle had done. She had drifted through the following days in a haze before suddenly deciding to run back to her father to put some space between her and Edward. Her husbands betrayal was like a knife in her heart and the love she had felt for him had seeped away to be replaced with hatred. Outwardly she had managed to hide her loathing and Edward was convinced that she had put the incident, as he called it, behind them. How little he knew?

Even though she hadn't been aware of it, tears had been leaking out of her eyes. One dropped on her hands and she unintentionally stabbed herself with one of the needles as she knitted a scarf for Charlie. "Damn." She cried out. She put the knitting aside and wiped at her eyes angrily.

Bella slid gracefully off of her bed and wandered around her old room. Nothing had been changed since the day she had left to get married. The same purple paint still covered the walls. The bed had the same purple bedspread. She smiled sadly at the memory of her teenage self. Had it really been so bad just being plain Bella Swan? She regretted the impulsive teenager she had been. If only she had thought through her actions more instead of selfishly forging ahead with what she thought she wanted. She had hurt a lot of innocent people in the process. Bella was full of shame and guilt. She left her room and walked down the stairs. In the past she would normally have tripped on the way down. Her old ability to trip on even a flat surface was not something she missed.

Her eyes scanned the lounge, apart from the addition of the huge flat screen television she had bought her father, nothing in there had changed either. Bella felt like she was walking into her past. It seemed that her father was living in it. The whole house needed a change, a complete makeover. She wondered if he would be offended if she suggested it. She went over to the few photo's that hung on the wall. Most of them were of her at different stages of her life. She touched the picture of her first day at kindergarten. Her hair was in bunches and she had a gapped toothed smile. It was odd seeing herself in still photographs as she aged. One thing that stood out was the loneliness in her eyes. Even when she was surrounded by others she seemed to be isolated from them. Nothing had changed there. She was alone once again. She had thought being a part of the great Cullen family would change this. It hadn't taken her long to finally realise she didn't quite fit there either. She was neither human or a vampire. She belonged nowhere. The thought made her sick.

The doorbell rang pulling her out of her thoughts. She sighed. She could guess who it was. Bella had hoped he would just stay away, but she knew that he wouldn't or couldn't. She debated whether to just ignore it, but a large part of her wanted to talk to him again. Jacob was the sun, he was good at chasing the shadows away. She left the room quickly and opened the door.

Jacob had his hands in his pockets as he stood awkwardly on the front steps. "Hey." He greeted her lamely.

Bella looked at him warily. "Why are you back here?" She asked him.

"I don't know." Jacob said honestly. "I left and went to see Sam."

"Sam?"

"Yeah, I wanted some advice."

Bella leaned against the door frame and folded her arms. "Did he tell you to stay as far away from me as possible? To run me out of town? "She muttered bitterly. Sam Uley had never been her biggest fan.

"No. He told me to do what I needed to do." Jacob said simply.

"You can't save me, Jake." Bella whispered.

"You called me Jake." He smiled at her gently.

"Slip of the tongue." Bella returned his smile faintly.

He held out his hand. "Come with me I want to show you something."

Bella stared at him for a moment, wondering whether to take his hand or not. "I won't bite." He promised.

"I might." Bella said wryly.

"I'll take the risk."

"I need to leave a note for my dad." Bella replied.

"Okay, I'll wait here." Jacob sat down on the top step.

Bella smiled at him tentatively for a moment before heading back inside.

The cemetery was quiet and peaceful. There was no one else around, just the two of them. A light wind ruffled Bella's hair as she looked down at Sarah Black's grave. She felt nervous. It had taken all of Jacob's persuasive powers to make her cross the invisible treaty line into La Push.

"I'm a Cullen, a vampire." She had said fearfully.

"You are Bella and only half. The treaty is irrelevant now." Jacob had assured her.

"I doubt the elders or your brothers would feel that way." Bella was still hesitant.

"I am the Alpha, they trust my judgement." Jacob's news had shocked her.

"You took up your birthright?"

"Yes, it was imperative that I did otherwise the pack would have imploded."

"Why?"

"That's a story for another day, Bells. Come on." He had tugged on her hand.

"You called me Bells."

"Slip of the tongue." Jacob had grinned at her and Bella was lost.

Sarah's grave was well tended. Fresh flowers were placed discreetly in stone vases around the circumference; there were framed photo's of Sarah herself and with her husband and children. Bella inhaled the sweet smell of the flowers as she read the inscription on the headstone.

Sarah Black, Loving wife to Billy Black and mother to Rachel, Rebecca and Jacob. An angel that was taken from us too soon.

It then gave the dates of her birth and death. She knelt down as Jacob watched her and touched the headstone lightly. She could see clearly in the dark and as she glanced to the side she let out a choked gasp. She saw a photo of herself, placed in a small silver frame. She was smiling into the camera, her eyes half closed as the sun had been shining in her eyes. In front of the photo was a small bunch of flowers.

"Why is this here?" She demanded.

"This is where I came to grieve for you, Bella. I knew when you left that you were going to die and I had lost you forever. I had no grave to visit so I put a picture of you beside my mom's so I could have a quiet place to remember you." Jacob confessed.

"Oh god." Bella put her head in her hands. "Why did I do it, Jake? Why did I do it?"

Jacob knelt down beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder and rubbed it gently. "You didn't die though, Bells. You came back. You are a little different, but you are still Bella. I didn't lose you after all."

Bella collapsed against him as she picked up the small silver frame and hugged it to her chest. Maybe he was right. She wasn't totally gone after all.

A/N-thanks for reading!