Last chapter: Jacob's POV

Jacob Black shook his head and clawed his muzzle, trying to forget how absolutely terrible Bella had smelled. Trying to forget that her eyes were gold and not the deep brown he loved. The clear, pale, topaz eyes had a timeless quality about them that made Jacob want to curl up in a ball and wept for Bella's innocence lost.

She knew things others could not begin to imagine.

Jacob knew she must have—what was that term the Cullen's used? —"fallen off the wagon," in her newborn days.

How did this woman have the power to shrink him fifty years until he was a love-stricken teenager with only one aim in life? To be hers.

Jacob threw his head up to the moon and howled in anguish, wishing his heart would just finish breaking and be done with it. He had wasted sixty years waiting for her to come back.

So you finally figured out that she meant it when she told you good-bye? Leah thought venomously. I know you thought you'd be the exception to love's unhappy nature, but news flash Jake! You're not.

SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Jacob yelled, putting the full force of his authority behind the command. Leah quickly phased back, whimpering.

Bad luck, mate. Paul said sympathetically, wincing as he felt the full force of Jacob's pain.

It made Jacob want to stay a wolf forever, like he had when he'd left before the wedding.

Did you just hear what I said to Leah? Jacob asked testily, in a dangerously calm voice. Paul phased back as well, leaving Jacob in welcome silence.

He wouldn't go back to how it was in that awful first year "getting over her". So Jacob didn't run into the woods and stay animal like he wanted to. The abandonment and pain got worse and worse the longer he put it off. So he phased back as well and slipped on his sweatpants and walked home to the empty house.

It was so easy to believe that Bella was there, talking to Billy and Charlie, having escaped from the bloodsuckers and come down to play hooky with him. Then he shook his head.

"I'm not that boy anymore." He said aloud. "And she's not that girl!" With a snarl he drew back his fist and slammed it into a near tree, not even bruising his knuckles. Then he bucked out of control and was once again in wolf form. It had been a long time since he lost control.

He ran. Tail between his legs he ran and ran, ignoring the calls from Paul and Leah, just ordering them not to phase until he got back.

At least he's coming back, and Quil and Embry won't have to get him this time. Leah remarked to Paul as they phased back.

Jacob growled softly but kept running, following the scent of where Bella had run. He ended up by a large house on the tundra of Alaska that smelt of Cullen and another coven Jacob couldn't identify.

And he behind the low rise of a hill, and waited.

He finally saw her. She and Edward were walking out of the door, hands twined. Bella wore a clinging blue dress with long sleeves and simple lines. Her mahogany hair was loose around her face, blowing gently as she and her husband walked. They stiffened slightly when the wind blew his scent towards them, and Jacob instinctively crouched lower. Then she whispered something in his ear and they kept walking.

Jacob watched them for nearly a week. Watched them kiss and laugh and read. There was another coven, but Jacob saw they had the same yellow eyes.

Jacob realized he had never seen Bella look entirely happy, like all of her belonged where she was. When she was with Edward her whole face shone with love as passionate as it had been when she was a teenager. Well, more of a teenager than she was now.

And so he went home.

"Oh, so you've finally decided to return to us, oh great one. Pray tell, what the hell were you doing all week?" Paul spat.

Jacob gave him a look designed to freeze his blood. Paul subsided.

Hmmm, I was stalking my archenemy's wife, Paul. Jacob thought acidly.

"I was saying goodbye." He finally explained. Paul looked angry, then unexpectedly his eyes softened. "She died, Jacob." He said.

No, she's still so alive. Just not for him.