A/N: Beta'd and titled by the ever-amazing SweeneyAnne. I think maybe I should get her an assistant before she tries to kill me for all the shit I keep sending her. :-)
Pre-read by THEChickNorris & GemmaLisaX. They're two pretty awesome gals, if you haven't been reading their stuff then you should be.
In fuck-awesome news: Belonging got nominated for two Gem Awards! I've got the link up on my profile, head on over and check out all the great nomad fics in the Onyx Round!
Don't own Twilight. :-(
Chapter 6 – Ring Of Fire
"Why do you always have to be going somewhere? We didn't have to check out until eleven. Why can't you stand to just stay still?" Bella scowls as I throw our three bags in the back of the Jeep after little more than shoving her out the door; I didn't even give her time to shower. She's standing against the passenger side glaring at me, mumbling something about A.D.D., and I've had enough of her throwing all these things we have in common in my face, as if I've got some sort of disease and she's not infected, too.
"You and I, we're cut from opposite ends of the same cloth," I tell Bella as I take two steps closer to tower over her. "We can't tolerate watching the world spin around us; we have to be in the thick of it, working toward something, moving...we can't just stand still."
She opens her mouth for a retort, and for some reason that spurs me on even more, that she thinks she can actually defend her position.
"Who are you to talk anyway? You haven't stopped running since Phoenix." She drops her eyes and presses her lips together, and what's running through her is some strange combination of regret and acceptance—and I wonder if she was just goading me, hoping that I would call her out on it.
"No, I guess I haven't." Bella turns away, climbs into the Jeep, and slams the door as hard as she can.
I don't know how she's managed to make me feel a little bad about what I've said to her with one collision of metal and plastic.
We're three and a half hours into this last leg of our journey before she finally starts talking to me, not that I've been counting. She feels nervous and unsure, completely uncomfortable for some reason or another, and I don't really understand. She was just fine yesterday, earlier this morning even, but maybe it's just that everything is starting to sink in for her. A week ago she was making plans, and now they've all been shot to shit.
"What did you mean yesterday, when you said that when it comes to me, Edward is the one who gets to call the shots?"
It's not really something I want to explain to her, and I try to brush it off with something true, but vague. "Because you were his."
"His what?" she prods. "His girlfriend? His property? You have to give me more than that, Jasper. I think I deserve to know why the people I considered my family abandoned me the moment Edward said so."
"Everything you just said is completely true," I admit, and her little spike of rage has just enough lack of surprise that I know she'd already kind of figured it out. "Rule number two is a little stricter than number one. Mates are sacred."
"What does that mean?" Bella groans, slumping down in her seat a little as she turns her head to glare at me. "Why don't you want to tell me? You've never had a problem with hurting my feelings before."
"This is a truth you might not want to know," I warn her, staring steadfastly ahead at the blurring lanes of the highway in front of me.
"You've never had a problem with that before, either." Bella grins wryly, and I suppose that she's right.
"Edward deemed you his mate, he claimed you as his. If you are to be changed he is the one who will do it, and no other vampire is permitted to intercede—especially within the same coven." She's pissed, just like I knew she would be. "It's usually not quite like this. When humans are involved there's generally some sort of curiosity at play; sometimes the infatuation is more flippant than lasting. It's...it's stupid, okay? It's ridiculous and archaic."
A dull silence falls over the car, only to be interrupted by the sound of her window rolling down and the wind whipping through the space.
"If that's how it works, then why did you agree to change me?" she finally asks, and this is the biggest reason why I hadn't even wanted to start this conversation.
"If you were anyone else I wouldn't have."
"Why?"
"Because I wouldn't have cared whether or not you were being treated unfairly." I leave it at that, make no effort to explain myself more fully—and she thankfully decides to let it go.
She leans forward to turn the radio on, and hums to the beat of Bob Seger as we race down the highway heading south-east. Her hair is flying in the wind, and for just a moment I can imagine that this is exactly where she wants to be, but then the melancholy surfaces a little bit more in tune with harmonies floating out of the stereo, and I focus on the road more than I need to in an attempt to brush the near guilty thoughts out of my head.
"What exactly will happen to you, if they find out that we planned it?"
"Depends on who finds out, and how pissed off they are—not many would actually give a shit. Emmett and Alice don't, not really. With Carlisle I'd get a slap on the wrist, and an order to return you. Edward...I'm not sure what he'd do, but worst-case scenario would involve the Volturi." I hadn't really realized just how precarious of a situation I've put myself in until I'm explaining it to her. This could end so badly.
"What would they do?" Bella asks, curious and resigned. I choose to think she feels this way because she's finally starting to understand that she's not going to be able to sway me from decisions I've already made.
"I have no idea," I shrug, and my nonchalance outrages her, so I elaborate a little. "If Edward managed to plead his case and provide some sort of proof that he had claim, then there's a lot of possibilities. Death, servitude, disapproving glares...supposedly they have a girl who can manipulate bonds; maybe they'd break my ties as punishment."
"How can you be so casual about this, when the list of possible consequences includes death?" Bella's breath fans out from her face in an angry wave, and I just can't figure out why she's so mad. It's not like they'd kill her, not for this anyway; she's nothing to them, at most a victim.
"I can take care of myself." It's the last she says on the matter for another four miles.
I think that maybe what I really want to tell her is that if I had it all to do over again, I would—but even though it's true, it's something I'd never say out loud.
The song floating out from the radio shifts into another right as she takes a deep breath, and I brace myself for whatever nonsense is going to come out of her mouth now.
"Thank you," she mutters, her gaze never wavering from the scenery whipping past. "For not telling me how much trouble you'd be in until I'd decided."
I roll my eyes and mumble some words of my own that I don't feel entirely comfortable expressing, "I know you well enough to realize that if I'd told you, you would have stayed."
"How is this going to work?" She's worried and conflicted, and maybe this wasn't the best time to tell her these little half-truths—but at least she's not demanding that I turn the car around and drop her off back home.
"Not a damn clue," I answer, and I'm a little less bothered by that than I would have thought. "The way I figure it either I'll get caught or I won't, and somehow you've managed to wriggle your way underneath my skin enough that I don't really care which one."
"Is this you trying to be sweet?" she asks mockingly, a flutter of gratitude blooming in her chest.
"Probably," I shrug, and she laughs, long and hard in the open air of the Jeep. I hate Emmett a little bit for suggesting that I just play nice with her, though I certainly wouldn't mind showing her a good time.
"It's kind of adorable," she snickers, "how awkward you are with something as simple as kindness."
"I am not awkward," I protest. It's not like I'm that pimply faced boy back in Forks who nearly wet his pants at the mere thought of asking Bella out.
"Whatever you say," she mocks. The growl that slips out is entirely unintentional, but it seems to further incite her amusement.
"We'll need to stop to get supplies," I tell her, and even I think I sound short—but this conversation of ours is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. "You'll need food, and other human shit I'm sure, and it's a good idea to get some air."
Bella shakes her head as a twinge of something I can't quite identify runs through her, and she mutters, "And just like that, he's back."
I decide to ignore that one.
It's tense the rest of the way. We stop at the first place I find that sells both food and clothes, and I'm nearly positive she picks out twice as much as she needs of everything as some sort of bizarre revenge, because she doesn't even put up a fight at the cash register.
This tension between us, it's the exact reason why I never really try all that hard to get along with anyone. It always ends up like this; me trying to figure out just what I did to piss Bella off so much. I don't understand how one casual comment was somehow more offensive than all the other shit I've been spouting off over the past two days.
She finally slips when Emmett's house comes into view from the winding dirt road surrounded by trees, and it's just a quiet gasp in and a muttered, 'it's beautiful'-but I decide to count it as a victory. She's emanating awe and she's suddenly treading on the edge of happy now that she's staring up at this place that I know she's desperate to turn into home. "Emmett's had the place for a while. He bought it once the last of his family had died off, but I don't think he's ever actually lived in it before."
"Why not?" she asks quietly, unmoving in the passenger seat.
"It reminds him too much of the things he's tried to forget." Emmett's never actually said so, but everyone knows that's the reason he only steps foot in Tennessee for a few weeks at a time.
"Maybe we shouldn't have come..."
"Nah, I think he was happy when I told him we were heading here." I start to climb out of the car, but she doesn't make a move to follow suit, and I'm left with one foot on the ground and my body twisted around as I try to figure out why Bella's so conflicted about something as simple as climbing down to the gravel.
"Are you sure?"
"Hey, look...it's..." I'm not really sure exactly how to do this. I shift so I'm sitting back in the drivers' seat, and grab her arm to get her to face me. "Emmett...he lost everything when he died. He has Rosalie now, but he never really had any family until he met you. He...he wants you to live in this house, Bella."
She's kind of looking at me like she's never really seen me before, and I don't really know what the warmth running through her is, but I'm positive that it's something that no other person has ever felt for me before. It's a moment we're having here, and after the initial awe and confusion wears off I shake my head, and get out of the Jeep before things get too stifling.
I leave her to her own devices as she stumbles into the wooden structure to explore, and I grab all the bags of nonsense she made me buy and dump the bags on the couch. Bella extracts her own once she snaps out of her stupor just inside the doorway, before heading down the hallway to our left, where the bedrooms are. I head right, to the kitchen. I've been demoted to putting away groceries; I'm really not even sure how it's done.
The house is, unsurprisingly, exactly as I remember from my last visit. Cozy and rustic, wood covering the exterior and simple, neutral paint inside. The place has been gradually modernized over the years, but still maintains the original charm that made the property so appealing to Emmett. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere without being too secluded, woods surround on all sides, and the mountains decorate the scenery. Even I think it's pretty beautiful here.
I listen to Bella shuffle around in one of the bedrooms, and I'm not as understanding as I should be when I realize that she's fallen asleep. This is how she copes; when she's so upset or disoriented that she doesn't know what to do, she sleeps. Then again, she's had a hard few days, and maybe giving her some slack wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Still, I may as well be crawling up the walls for how restless I feel as I pull the dust covers from the furniture. There's not as much work to be done as I thought there would be. Emmett's obviously had someone taking care of the place, and it was most likely Alice who called ahead to have the electricity turned on. The house is in remarkably good shape for having never really been lived in.
I have nothing to do, far too much on my mind, and not nearly enough insight into what has Bella tossing and turning in the other room as she mumbles nonsensical words and runs through far more emotions than I thought a human would be capable of.
Calling Emmett isn't something I particularly want to do again, but at least it's something.
"What?" He sounds annoyed and gruff, and maybe a little bit angry, I'm not sure. I really hate talking on the phone.
"We're here."
"Oh. Okay. I'll..." Emmett sounds lost for words, like he never really expected us to come to our destination, and I guess that's fair. If I had it my way we'd still be in his Jeep, fleeing from the world around us. "I'll be there as soon as I can; it might wind up being a couple of weeks."
"You know she'd understand, right?" I ask, and I have to stop myself from slapping my forehead; reassurances and coddling aren't things I'm good at. I've started, though, so I may as well finish. "She won't hate you if you decide not to leave Rosalie."
"I'm not leaving Rosalie," Emmett insists, "but I'm not leaving Bells either. There's a balance somewhere, and I'll find if it's the last thing I do."
"You're only going to cause more pain." He knows it, too.
"I have to at least come and see her."
I don't know how we ended up arguing. This isn't what I called him for, and I bite my tongue and swallow the harsh words that want to come spilling out, because I've already pushed Bella so close to the edge, and if I fuck things up with Emmett she'll never forgive me.
"Then we'll see you soon," I say, once I've gotten a hold on my composure.
"Um. Okay?" Emmett's confused, I don't even need my gift to tell it, and I like that I can still surprise the people who think they know me so well.
"Bye, Emmett." I hang up first, before he can get another word in.
I've been to Emmett's house once before, but not in decades, and I didn't stay long. I don't particularly want to stay very long now, but I can already tell that if I leave I'm going to be leaving alone. Bella is stubbornly trying to put down roots, to stop running; she doesn't even realize that living the rest of her life tucked away in the Tennessee wilderness is running, too. I also can't convince myself that I'd even consider dumping her here, because out of all the possibilities spread out in front of her she chose to take this flight with me.
Somehow, when she looked at the options she decided I was a better path than wallowing in hurt, or that blond douche-bag who caused her all those problems with her pseudo-friends. She made the conscious decision that she'd rather spend her time with me than trying to forge new bonds, and she told herself that if someone was going to come along to kill her someday, that she'd rather it be me who did it. She's slowly accepting the realization that she'd rather be a mateless vampire roaming around with a son of a bitch, than be swallowed whole by Edward—and it's all just so unusual and heady and confusing...
The moronic girl actually trusts me, and while I know that I'm a man of my word, it doesn't seem to be something that any other has been able to believe.
She stirs not even an hour after she fell asleep, and I feel the slight embarrassment run through her before the sounds of her testing out the shower and sighing contentedly run through the house. The image of her with warm water pouring over her skin do nothing to abate my irritation with my infatuation, and by the time she reappears in the living room I already know I'm too wound up to sit here and talk to her without pissing her off.
"You were right," she smiles softly, taking a seat on the newly unsheathed couch. "I like this house, a lot."
"There's not going to be a whole lot to do," I point out, knowing it's going to drive her crazy.
"So what?" she shrugs. "You seem to be forgetting that I have a rather impressive Jeep. Have you heard of these things called...towns?"
She's mocking me. It's actually kind of funny.
"I think they may have stuff in them." Bella says it all completely straight-faced with wide eyes, and if she were like this all the time I don't think I'd stand a chance at keeping my hands off her; I like a woman who can dish it out.
"Really? Well, then. We should go find us something to do." I stand swiftly, grab hold of Bella's forearm, and haul her right back up to her feet and straight out of the house. It hasn't been long, but I've been bored, and I gotta get out of here. If nothing else I want to see what's around, map out my new territory, or maybe I just want to see how Bella's going to react when she sees that I've driven us around for almost thirty minutes in search of the seediest bar I can find. It actually took a lot less time than I would have thought; just one right turn once we made it back to civilization.
"Jasper!" she hisses, once she realizes where we've ended up. It's some dilapidated building with neon signs proclaiming their draft selection buzzing in the dirty windows. She looks absolutely horrified.
"I'm underage!" she protests, and I roll my eyes at her with what I'm sure looks like a condescending smile on my face. Like that's going to stop us. "I am not going in there."
"Sure you are," I insist, climbing out of the car and I make sure to get to her door handle before she does. I swing the heavy piece of metal out and block her path, and she glares at the keys swinging from their ring around my middle finger. "You said you weren't sure who you were any more. Well, get out; see the world, and then maybe you'll know."
"That is so manipulative!"
I laugh a little, because, well, she's right. "Would you expect less of me?"
She's starting to find our banter more funny than annoying, and once that irritated feeling that I've always associated with nails on a chalkboard dissipates, I can see that she's seriously considering storming right into that bar and asking them to leave the bottle.
"Come on, what else are we going to do?" I goad, and her resistance collapses.
"I am not dancing," she insists, but she gets out of the car.
I laugh at her, and then laugh harder when two drinks in finds me holding onto the back of her shirt to keep her from climbing up on the bar to proclaim her undying love for all things Johnny Cash. The girl's such a light-weight.
"But, Jasper," she slurs as she finally falls back onto her stool, and grins at the bartender, motioning for another round. "I would be so tall up there!"
"Only until you fall on your face," I tease.
Bella throws back her head and laughs, nearly toppling over backward in the process. "I would totally have done that."
She has another and one more after that, completely ignoring the sleazy men who may as well be slobbering over her. I put the fear of God in one, who gets too close, but then some drunk fuck tries to chat her up, and it's either leave or break the douche-bag's neck.
Bella laughs and wiggles her fingers at the old man tending bar, blows him a kiss, and promises to see him soon as I haul her out the door. She throws her arms around my neck once we reach the car and jumps, bending her knees and demanding that I 'spin'-and it's so light and carefree to sling an arm around her waist and turn in a slow circle for her.
She tightens her grip on me, just a little bit, before kissing my cheek, and a curious longing runs straight through her, passing between us to lodge itself right in my gut. I don't even have time to speculate what that's all about before she whispers something about hugs. I let her down and she looks away for a moment, but the melancholy is short lived. In another beat she's grinning and climbing into the car, demanding that we roll down all the windows and turn the stereo up.
She's drunk out of her mind, swaying in her seat and singing softly under her breath as I drive us back to Emmett's house.
"Did I ever tell you that I love you, even though you're kind of an asshole?" she sighs, smiling a bit with the words.
"No, but I knew that already," I snicker. She's funny when she's been drinking.
"What?" she gasps, turning in her seat so fast that she nearly manages to fall out of it. "How?"
"You love everybody," I explain, and she, for some reason, finds this hilarious. "And have you forgotten that I'm an empath?"
"Um...well...yeah?" she stutters, and I full on laugh, and it's a laugh that's full and rooted solely in the fact that drunk Bella is funny as hell. I don't think I've ever actually done that before, laugh just because I kind of have to.
"Poor, poor, inebriated Bella," I tease, and she giggles softly as she shifts to sit back in her seat properly. "Did you have fun?"
"I did."
I never would have expected it, but I did, too.
She falls asleep in the car, snores replacing her sleep-talk, and she doesn't even stir when I jostle her a bit getting her untangled from her seatbelt before taking her to the bedroom she's claimed as her own. I wonder what she'll say when she realizes she's picked the one next to Emmett's; or if maybe she somehow did it on purpose. I look at her for a bit, sprawled out over the covers, and maybe I understand why Edward liked to watch her sleep so much. She's beautiful when she's spread over bed-sheets.
I shake my head sharply, and get the fuck out of there before my normally inappropriate thoughts take a turn for the worse, shutting the door behind me a little harder than I need to. It's one thing to have idle fantasies, another entirely to have them boiling out of control—and I don't care if it's my fault, if I'm the one who took her to the bar, let her get loaded, and then took her to bed instead of dumping her on the couch; she's the one who's damn enticing.
I leave her sleeping, and hop right back into the Jeep. I drive south for miles and miles until I spot a store that's open twenty-four hours, and I stroll right in and buy the biggest, most obnoxious television I can find. Some periphery equipment and a couple handfuls of random DVDs later and I'm driving back. I think that maybe if I have something to stare at while she's sleeping, then that image of her lying serenely over her bed won't haunt me as much as it already has tonight.
At the very least, now I'll have something to do while I wait for her to wake up. It's an infuriating concept, this desire I have to sit around doing nothing until she's active for the day, and I have no idea where it came from. I've never waited for anyone, but then again, I've never given two shits about a human before, either, and no matter how hard I try not to, I can't help but try to look out for Bella in one way or another. It just doesn't feel right, to leave her all alone in this house, in this unfamiliar land while she struggles with foreign feelings, and I wouldn't have even left for town in the first place if I could have tolerated an eight hour hiatus from...everything.
It feels a bit like I'm tethered to her side, and I hope that she never finds out just how much sway she has over me.
I theorize about what could change once she's changed, as I hook up the ridiculous television and DVD Player, build the shelving unit I picked up for the movies, and re-arrange the entire array four times. I wonder if her allure all in her blood, in her humanity. I almost hope it is, but then again, this whole thing started because I'd been so sure that her rise from ashes would be nothing short of majestic. Either way I'm fucked, because either I'll be pulled further into her web, or all of this will wind up being for nothing.
I've never been much of a gambler when the odds aren't firmly in my favor, and I can't figure out when I decided that these were stakes I was willing to wager.
She feels fine when she wakes up. A slight headache, but nothing she can't manage, and after a shower she whirls into the kitchen with more energy than I thought she'd have after a night of drinking. Maybe I just don't remember hangovers right.
"What in the world?" Bella giggles as she opens the pantry. "Jasper, were you trying to take up as much space in the cabinets as possible?"
I don't understand what her objection is, clearly the most efficient way of displaying the food is to group it into what I can only assume are similar items, and ensure that all are visible. When I tell her so, she just laughs harder.
"Just tell me where the cereal is, so I don't have to go through every single one of them."
I point to the cabinet just to the right of her, over the counter, and when her humor bounds after opening it I think that maybe it wasn't necessary to have all the boxes facing forward.
"It's like I'm in some mini-grocery store," she mumbles, plucking the yellow box that declares 'Cheerios' from the shelf.
"I didn't exactly know what I was doing," I tell her, trying to defend my arrangement as she makes her breakfast. I have no idea how she can be so chipper that she's actually insulting me after the night she had.
"I can tell," she snickers, and that's enough of that; I change the subject.
"Emmett says he'll be here as soon as he can, but I don't know how long he'll be."
"Can I ask you something?" She glances slyly at me as she changes the topic of conversation yet again, like she knows that the rising glee in her is enough of a reply to what I've told her. "Edward...he used to say you had...issues..."
I raise an eyebrow at her, wondering just which part of my depravity Edward would use to ensure she kept her distance. "I have many issues, Bella."
"With bloodlust."
It's true, so I nod, and wait for her to get to the point.
"Aren't you uncomfortable? I don't—I don't understand how we made it all the way here without it being a problem." She wrinkles her nose a little in confusion, and I wonder how little I can tell her without giving my hand away.
"I already told you once; I'd love to rip that pretty little throat out." I really just say it to get the reaction that I know is coming that slight shiver than runs through her whole body before she comes to the inevitable conclusion that I'm simply trying to scare her. "But your blood doesn't have the draw for me, that it did for Edward—and if you want to know the truth, I'd much rather see what my venom does to you, than what your blood does to me."
"I thought it was almost impossible, to stop once you've started." Bella prods, and it takes me a minute to figure out how she knows that. Alice; she'd told her this, back in Phoenix.
"I've had some practice."
Her eyes widen, and I can tell that she'd never really given much thought to exactly what it was I was doing before I came to be with the Cullens, even though she's undoubtedly heard that it was different. She's seen the marks crossing my skin, and her eyes always dart away from them uncomfortably, just like everyone else who has a vague idea of where I've been, but doesn't want to ask about it.
"Where are they now? The people you've changed?" Her heart speeds a bit, and I know that she already knows the answer. She loves to ask questions for the sole sake of confirmation.
"Dead."
"All of them?" she gulps.
"Every last one."
She nods a little to herself, and then continues to eat her foul smelling breakfast, as if nothing has happened to disrupt her little routine. She chews thoughtfully before glancing up at me again, and she asks, "Doesn't that upset you?"
"I didn't turn them to keep them."
Bella wrinkles her nose a little as she tries to figure it out before I tell her the whole story, but she can't and we both know it. She's lived a privileged life as a human, and none of the Cullens would ever dare to tell her a tale like this one. "Why then?"
"Because I was in the middle of a war, and they were my cannon fodder." It's one of those things that I'd never really thought was all that bad—those were my circumstances, and there's nothing I can do to change it now—but the ache of her heart in sympathy for all those lost souls and the way I hear the words come out of my mouth sounding so unaffected makes me want to take it back, and keep my mouth shut.
"That sounds horrible," Bella says, staring down at the table as she tries not to let on how disturbed she is by what I've told her, and I feel this irrational need to defend myself.
"It wasn't intentionally malicious. That's just the way things were. I left that life the second I knew how, and I never looked back." I'm tense and angry, and I've never had to explain this to anyone before; I'm not really sure why I'm doing it now.
Bella raises her head and I could swear her gaze is shooting right though me, that same sympathy running so deep that she's practically vibrating with it. I idly wonder if any of it is for me, and push the thought out the second it materializes; I don't want her sympathy. She presses her lips together tightly, and then, just like that, the moment is over. Bella goes back to eating her breakfast, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and lean back to prop my side against the counter.
"Why did you ask me to change you if you thought I couldn't do it?" It doesn't make any sense.
"Because I knew you'd find a way." Bella answers with a proud little smile on her face, and she feels exactly like I did that day I'd realized that I'd been right about her all along. I'd always had an inkling that there was something about her that makes her more.
We're back to that casual distance we were stuck in back in Forks, but it works for us, somehow. There are shy glances and subtle digs, standing across the kitchen from each other while Bella eats, and sitting on opposite ends of the sofa while Bella proclaims my movie choices to be absolute shit. It's easier to chill out and be her friend when she's not so close, and I wonder why that bothers me a little.
Bella starts taking long drives in Emmett's Jeep to God only knows where, and I always make it back from hunting before she pulls back up the driveway. I gradually make a habit out of staring at the dust sticking to the television screen as I try to figure out just what in the hell about this whole thing seems so off while simultaneously feeling like it's just one shove away from perfect.
It's all calm and okay in that way that there's nothing that's really wrong, and we're dealing well with squashing our instinctual desires to run screaming from the horror of standing on the sidelines for so long; Bella seems to be coping slightly better than I am. The fighting is less, Bella's simmering anger stays on low-heat, and I think that maybe I'm starting to get the hang of avoiding the minefield that is spread out around her; at the very least I piss her off a lot less often. It's an acceptable life; this one where I spend my time pacing the house feeling like a caged lion until Bella comes sweeping in, spouting nonsense, and gifting me that unique grin of hers that makes waiting around for her tolerable.
We talk, but not about the things that really matter, like venom and lost loves, and I watch her. I watch and wait for something to shift in her that tells me she's ready, that it's okay for me to pounce and bite and finally let go of the anticipation that overshadows everything else buzzing around me. The only thing keeping me in check is the perpetual cloud of doom Bella walks around with, and it's just barely enough to remind me that even though it's not going to be today, it's going to be someday. I used to have more patience than this.
We're doing just fine on our own, and Emmett's impending arrival fills me with a sense of foreboding that I can't wash away.
A/N: Surprise, surprise...the next chapter is with the beta.
I forgot to say something last time, but there's teasers for whoever wants them. It's pretty safe to assume there always will be. If you want to know what's coming up next, just ask ;-)