A/N: I've kind of got the Twilight bug at the moment, hence so much writing. I even took my little sister to see the movie (gasp shock horror) which would never have happened before said movie was released. The wonders of the silver screen.
Disclaimer: Not mine, which I have to deal with. Darn
"I don't see why we should have to move halfway across the continent for a bunch of bloodsuckers" Leah spat, and Rose grew more visibly irritated by the second. I wondered if Jasper was ever going to step in and calm things down, or whether he, like me, was intrigued as to who would win if it came down to a fight between Leah and Rosalie. Although she would never show it, Esme was a little bit hurt that a guest was being so rude, when were we all making such a tangible effort to be agreeable. For instance, Jacob had agreed to tell his pack at our house, in human form, so that we could hear what they thought, and therefore Edward didn't need to act as a translator. Since we'd learnt to live side by side in a harmonious enough fashion ages ago, there was no other real tension. Except for the whole, moving thing. Seth, predictable as he was, had no objections from the off, "It'll be great" he babbled, ecstatic that there was the opportunity for a new hunting ground, and perhaps a nice Canadian girl for him to imprint on. "Steady on, little friend" Edward warned, "There'll be plenty of time for you think about girls in the future. We're not moving to Canada to improve your chance of scoring" There were bubbles of laughter from all sides, but Seth looked so offended at the indignity of it all, that we all sobered up and tried to take him seriously. I couldn't view him as anything other than the still vaguely gangly teenage boy who was lolling before me, which of course made it difficult.
Jacob's eyes passed over to Quil and Embry, who nodded, and replied, "If that's where the pack's moving to, we're with you. Especially if it keeps Nessie close" The werewolves were just as infatuated with my charismatic daughter as my own family was. Which left Leah as the only problem. We hadn't needed Alice's ability to see that one coming. "No" she refused stubbornly, "This is the place you were born to protect, Jacob Black, and it's the place that I'll continue to protect, no matter what" Jake sighed, and tried to approach the subject from another angle, "Leah, she's my family" he said, gesturing towards Nessie, "And so are you lot" he continued, sweeping his arms to motion her, her brother, Quil and Embry, "And if there's one thing in this whole world that I'd like the best, it'd be to keep you all close to me, so I can keep you all safe. And obviously I want to stay here, to stay close to La Push, but at times like this compromise is inevitable, and I think that this is a good one"
"Oh, just force her" Seth said exasperatedly, seeing the hard look in Leah's eyes, which clearly showed that she wasn't going to be changing her mind any time soon. "No," Edward replied, an edge of sharpness in his voice, "Jacob would never take any person's freedom from them, Leah must come to this decision for herself" Whilst Jake looked gratefully at Edward for explaining the situation so clearly and articulately to Seth, Leah glared at him, irritated that he was fighting her corner. Even ever optimistic Esme could see that this situation was not working out, "Perhaps we should leave Leah to consider her options for a while, to put things straight in her mind?" she said calmly, and Leah's blazing eyes now turned to her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that she did not appreciate her help. "That sounds like a good idea" Jasper replied, taking Alice by her delicate wrist, and leading her towards the stairs. The room cleared slowly, by vampire standards; the look in Nessie's eyes trying to convey upon Leah that she was sorry that she was causing this situation. Her father put an arm around her petite shoulders and comforted her, "Renesmee, none of this is your fault, do you understand? We will find a solution to this that suits everyone, I promise" Nessie didn't look particularly reassured by these words, and was even less comforted by Leah's unkind snort. Edward ignored her, and chivvied Nessie along to the piano, so that he could hear her play.
Rosalie and I went outside; though I would never be as close to her as I was to Alice, there was no denying that with Nessie's birth, and my rebirth, that we had become much closer, sisters as well as friends. "Stupid werewolf" Rosalie said in her most ungentle tone, even though I could tell that her aim was to support me, "Honestly Bella, she's just being selfish, everyone else can see that it's a wonderful plan" I, like Carlisle, was having my own doubts now; there didn't seem to be anything in the world that would convince Leah that this plan was the most convenient thing, for the majority of people. Rosalie and I took a stroll, probably quite fast by human standards, but for her and I it was the equivalent of tortoise pace. It was peaceful mostly, and we headed towards the river, where we sat, quietly, listening to all the sounds of nature around us, like the splashing of the river and the whisper of the wind in the trees.
No time at all seemed to have passed before Edward was calling to us from the house, "Bella, Rosalie? Are you two going to come in any time this year?" Time, for me at least, had absolutely no significance in my life whatsoever, since it stretched out almost infinitely before me. I'd been too much of a klutz in my previous life to bother with a watch; I'd probably have managed to cut off the circulation to my hand, or something equally unlikely, and so I'd never bothered with one as a vampire either, but I caught the time from a radio station of a car passing by on the freeway, "It's 9:59 now folks, so time to wind down for the night" The fact that Rosalie and I had been gone for four hours didn't particularly matter; I'd not noticed the time passing in the slightest, which is always a good way to regulate anxiety when the possibility of your future lies in someone else's hands. Rosalie and I made our way back to the house with much more speed than we'd left, desperate to know what sort of outcome we were facing.
There wasn't much settling to be done in the living room; the atmosphere was almost saturated, mostly with worry and anticipation. It didn't take long for everyone to be assembled, and Edward's face was smooth, Leah's thoughts seemingly disconnected from the matter at hand. Maybe that was why she was humming a waltz, to keep her mind away from what she was about to tell us. "Okay everybody, I think that Leah feels like she's had enough time to figure out the available options and now she'd like to discuss them with us" Carlisle announced. Leah took the floor, so to speak, breathing in deeply, and beginning, "Jake can't go without us, because we're his pack; that's an established fact. Jake doesn't want to leave Renesmee behind, and as much as I want to discredit it, that's also a fact" Leah was decidedly not supplying us with any solutions, which Rosalie was about to point out, before Edward held up a hand to stop her. A murderous glance passed between Leah and Rose, before Leah continued, "And the reason why Jake doesn't want to be without her is because of the imprinting thing, right?" There were murmurs of assent among us; nobody saw where this was going. I noticed that Alice's eyes, like mine and Jasper's, flicked towards Edward to try to decipher his face, but it was blank. Almost too blank, like he knew something he didn't think we should know. "And the imprinting thing is because Jake is a wolf, right?" she questioned, looking towards Carlisle. He nodded, almost indiscernibly. Could he see the direction this was going in? "So, if Jake was no longer a wolf…?" she trailed off, leaving us to fill in the blank for ourselves. If Jake wasn't a werewolf, there wouldn't be the connection between he and Nessie, and we'd be free to leave.
There was silence for the briefest of seconds, before Jake replied, calmly, but firmly, "No." That was it; one word, one syllable, two letters. "Jacob refuses to leave Nessie, imprinting or not" Edward supplied, articulating the stony glint in Jake's eye, "And I think that he's right" he added. Nessie looked up, the look of mortification that she'd been wearing blurring to gratefulness towards her father. Edward and I didn't like the imprinting situation, there was no contradicting that. But we also couldn't refuse to believe the happiness that Jake and Nessie provided one another with, and I'd give up my (relatively) new found immortality, before doing anything that would make her unhappy. "No" Jacob repeated, apparently still in a state of semi-shock that Leah had suggested such a thing. "What about Quil?" Leah demanded, livid that her suggestion wasn't going down well, "What about Claire? Are you asking him to leave her?" It was a point that I hadn't considered, and I turned to look at Quil to see what his reaction would be. "Well" he started slowly, "If there weren't any vampires in Forks, then they'd be no need for werewolves" Shockingly, it seemed that Quil was suggesting that he'd be willing to live without Claire, but then he caught the expression on my face. "No Bella, I'd stay in La Push with her, and once I start ageing again, it'll be fine"
"But you're going to be sixteen, and she'll be forty three" Alice gasped, horrified.
"Talk about robbing the cradle" Emmett added, the mood hardly appropriate for this calibre of joke. Leah looked wildly to Embry, to see if he'd back her up. He looked pensive for a few moments before announcing, "I'd like to stay here too. Go back to being human" Seth was Leah's last lifeline, which horrified her. "Sorry sis" he said softly, "I want to go to Canada. I want to be near Jake and Nessie and the Cullens" That was Leah's final line of defence, and it was as broken as her resolve.
Without another word, she sprinted towards the front door, phasing halfway through it, without bothering to remove her clothes. The torn garments lay tattered on the floor. We all stared at them, disheartened. And then came the howl. Bitter, full of anger, more anger than should rightly be contained in one person. And then the howl softened and became one of betrayal. That was too much for Nessie to handle, and her petite body racked with sobs which even Jacob couldn't stop. I think that the last howl was too much for everybody, Rosalie included, because after that the rest of the night passed by in silence, punctuated only by the sound of Nessie's tears splashing to the floor, and Leah's prolonged, but heart-wrenching howl.
