Author's note: So, it was brought to my attention that I completely missed the disclaimer on the first few chapters of this story. These characters, their lives and their histories belong entirely to Stephanie Meyer. If they were mine, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn would have been much, much different!

I don't know how long we sat there, Jake staring off into the distance at nothing and me staring at Jake. It could have been minutes or hours, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Before I knew it, Renee was calling us both in for dinner and I was no closer than I had been before to finding out what had happened when he left.

Jacob stood up, shook himself like a dog (how much time had he spent as a wolf, anyway?) and reached a hand down to help me up. I just glared up at him. Seriously? He was going to ignore me, then walk into Renee's house, my mother's house, and eat dinner like everything was kosher? I don't think so.

He sighed.

"Bells," he raked the hand he'd held out to me over the short, dark waves that covered his head. "I know you want to know what happened after I left, but to be honest, I'm really not sure where to start." The unnatural calm was slowly creeping off his face, replaced with a frustrated desperation and a plea for understanding that stabbed me right in the gut. "Can we talk about this after dinner?"

When he was looking at me like that I would have agreed to just about anything. And how many times had I been the one pleading for time and patience from the gentle giant standing in front of me? I nodded slowly, stretching my hands out for him to pull me up. He grabbed both hands firmly, then pulled, sending me flying off the chair and stumbling into his chest. Laughing, he grabbed my shoulders to steady me.

"Same old Bella."

"Not my fault you're freakishly strong," I grumbled, but I grabbed his hand as we walked inside. Intellectually I knew I probably couldn't do anything about it if he decided to take off again, but something deep inside me demanded I grab hold and hang on. Jake was here. For the first time in three and a half years I could see him. I could touch him. He was filling up the empty spaces he'd left behind, and I wasn't letting go until I had some answers.

After that…

I walked into the kitchen and laughed.

"Starting dinner huh?"

Six huge boxes were stacked high on Renee's kitchen table. From the thick aroma of cheese and sauce floating through the air (and the telltale logo on the side of the box) she'd decided cooking was too much trouble and ordered enough pizza to feed an army-or a 21 year old werewolf.

Renee shrugged. "It's too hot to cook. Besides," she sent Jake a blinding smile "I wasn't sure what Jake would want, but everyone likes pizza."

She nodded toward the boxes. "You guys help yourselves. I got a little carried away and ordered enough to feed a pack of wolves. If we're lucky, Bells, you won't have to cook for a while."

Jake snorted beside me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. If Renee only knew. Those pizzas wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes with the boys in La Push.

Ten minutes later we were happily tucked up in Renee's living room. The only furniture Renee and Phil had in the main room was a pair of recliners, neither one of which would have held Jacob's massive frame, so she and I sat in the chairs while Jake curled himself up on the floor in front of the coffee table.

"So, Jake, what brings you all the way from Forks to Jacksonville?" Renee asked.

My ears perked up as I stole a bite of my pizza, thick, gooey cheese dripping down my chin. Maybe there really was more than one way to skin a cat. God bless my mother and her need to be nosy.

Jake shrugged. "Came out here a couple of years ago. I was looking for a change, and Bella always raved about how nice it was down here."

A couple of years?

"So what are you doing these days?"

"I work at the garage over on the corner of Main and Union."

I snorted. "Figures."

He laughed. "Yeah, well, fixing cars is about all I know how to do."

"Let's see, you'd be about, what, 22, 23 now?" Renee asked, her forehead furrowing in concentration as she tried to reconcile Jake's appearance with his age. "Are you going to school?"

"Sort of." Jake glanced sheepishly over at me as he took a massive bite of his slice. How he managed to actually find the pizza under the inch and a half of toppings was beyond me. "I finished my GED about 3 years ago, but my grades weren't good enough for a scholarship. I've been taking classes here and there at Florida State when I can scrape up the money for tuition."

Renee beamed. "That's nice. And you're living right around here?"

"Yeah, I share an apartment with a couple of roommates just a few blocks from here."

"How's that working out?"

He shrugged again. "It's fine. Quil, Embry and I have known each other since we were in diapers, so it's no big deal."

"Wait," I broke in. "Quil and Embry are here too? Sam actually let them go?"

Jake shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, they didn't give him a whole lot of choice."

"But," I stopped, looking at Renee. Crap. I couldn't exactly ask Jake how Quil and Embry had managed to convince their alpha werewolf to let them leave La Push, much less travel 3,000 miles to set up shop on the east coast.

"It's okay," he said, immediately recognizing my dilemma. "Quil really needed to get away from the rez for a while, and Sam knew it. Claire…" he paused, and I saw the quick sheen of tears before he looked down, studying his pizza intently. "Bells, Claire died, a couple of years ago."