Hey, sorry this took a little while, but it is way longer than I normally make chapters, because of all the setting up I had to do. I have some big plans for future chapters;) I know its getting a little bit boring, but bear with me, if you keep reading, you will be rewarded. And thank you to all of you who review, whether it be praise or constructive criticism. Because It realyly warms my heart to know that yall care about how the story goes, and wanna help me make it better.

And, I have been forgetting to put this in my author's note for a while now, and I wanna go ahead and do it before i get in trouble for not doing it. DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters and events in the plot belong to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just putting the "What if's" out there.

enjoy:P


I tried calling Jacob after making breakfast for Charlie and having some cereal, but all the phone did was ring, and ring, ...and ring. I figured that maybe the reason for nobody answering was because maybe they had gone to the doctor. So I shrugged it off and went upstairs to check my email.

While my aged and decrepit computer wheezed to life, I worried about Jacob. Someone almost always picked up the phone.

My computer was finally working, and while I was waiting for the slow dial up connection to log me on, a fidgeted nervously, not knowing what to do with myself.

It had been a while since I checked my email, so there were a few from Renee. I opened them all up and was shocked, because instead of sounding like an email from a mother to her daughter, it was more like a diary entry. Renee' told me about her week, and about how Phil was doing and how great Florida was. I instantly felt guilty. I must have been so...non-responsive that she just decided not to bother asking me questions and took to telling me about all the things she did. I figured that she had become pretty worried that I had not emailed her back in a while, so I wrote her a longer email than usual, now that I actually cared enough to do so.

I replied saying:

Dear Mom,

All that sounds great. I'm so glad that you're having so much fun in Jacksonville. The weather must be great.

I'm sorry for not replying to you so soon, I've just been really busy lately. I've been hanging out with Jacob Black. You do remember the Blacks, don't you? Jake is Billy's son. We've become really great friends lately. We went to the movies yesterday, and saw a scary movie. It was a pretty good movie.

I was thinking, maybe I could come down for a visit soon? I mean, the sun and weather sounds great, and believe it or not, I've gotten at least a shade or two paler. But I miss you. And Phil.

So how is Phil? And what about his career? He must be doing better since ya'll settled down.

Well, I have alot of home work to get to, so I look forward to your reply.

I miss you, so so much,

Love, Bella

My mom would be so relieved to hear more from me than just comments on her day. And the idea of visiting had been kind of spur of the moment, but sounded like a great idea. Maybe I needed a little more sunshine in my life...

And that had me on the subject of Jacob again. I figured that I should call him again, because between cleaning up the kitchen, packing Charlie's lunch for the first fishing trip in months, and emailing my mother, it had been about and hour and a half since I called them. Surely that was long enough for them to have been to the doctor and back...Right?

But, at the same time, maybe I was just too worried. I could be a real worry wart sometimes.

Since Charlie was out on a fishing trip, the house was unually quiet. This was the first fishing trip that Charlie had been on in months. While I was in the midst of my...what, depression?, he had not been fishing, due to the fear that I would do something irrational. I knew that I would never have gone that far, but apparently Charlie did. I felt bad that he had to stay home and quit something he loved because of me, but I couldn't help it.

I couldn't stand having the house this quiet, so I went upstairs to get a few CD's to put in the stereo system. I chose four of my favorites, Muse, Linkin Park, and a mixed CD of some of my favorites from the 80's.

After doing all that, I went to the phone. Before picking up the phone, I stood there for a few minutes just thinking. I didn't want to be a nuisance, but I was really worried. I had promised him that I would be over to see him, and I wasn't one to not keep my promises, since I rarely made one that I couldn't keep.

So I picked up the phone and dialed their number, and waited. It rang on forever, and right as I was about to hang up the phone, a voice came over the phone and said, "Hello?" It was Jacob!

"Jacob! Hey, it's Bella. How are you feeling?" He sounded exhausted. I should probably just leave him alone and let him get some rest. I figured that he was probably feeling better than I was, and I was still feeling a little queasy and weak, because the sickness hadn't lasted long, only a few hours, and he had gotten sick before I had. Then again, he had had different symptoms than I did...

"Oh, hey Bella. You know, I'm still not feeling too good. You're okay, though, right? You didn't get sick or anything?" He sounded worried about me. I like that he cared this much.

"Yeah, I did, but only for a few hours. It passed pretty quickly. I'm still a little queasy, but that's about it...How come ya'll weren't home earlier?" The question seemed desperate, even to me, but I was just dying with curiosity.

"We uh, we went to the doctor." Like I thought. But that answer seemed really...stiff.

"Oh? And?" I was hoping that whatever he had wasn't too bad.

"Bad news, Bella. He said I have Mono. I won't be back on my feet for a while, about a month, month and a half. And he strictly said, "No visitors" So...I won't be able to see you for a while...I'm sorry Bells..." This was bad news.

"A month?!" That was a really long time to go without my Jacob.

"Yeah, but, I gotta go." I was getting the impression that he was impatient with me. Like I was being really nosy.

"Okay...bye Jake."

"Bye," he said curtly.

Fine then, rudo. It was very unlike him to be rude like that. I wondered what had gotten into him. Mono, obviously, I thought to myself dryly. I laughed without any humor. Sure, he was sick and all that, but that still wasn't an excuse to be rude like that.

I tried desperately to keep myself busy. I looked up mono, wanting to know more about it. Sure, Jake had had some of the symptoms, like a high fever and fatigue, but his throat was fine, and I didn't know about his glands and stuff. And it was nick-named the kissing virus. Great. But it could be a month before I showed any symptoms, so I guess I would have to wait and see. It wasn't airborn, or dangerously contagious. Not unless havong come in direct contact with his saliva. And besides, if I was going to get it, I would get it because of the kiss we had shared. I don't see why the doctor made a big deal about having no visitors. Most people knew better than to kiss somebody who was sick.

After doing all that, I worked on my homework, while doing loads of laundry inbetween. All the homework was easy, except for the calculus. But that didn't take long, since I put all my effort into it.

Afterwards, I was left with the rest of the night and all day tomorrow to kill. My room was already spotless, so I decided to arrange my books and CD's into alphabetical order. That took a while, but I still had plenty of time to kill. I looked at my CD collection, and my eyes went straight to Debussy. That album reminded me of both Renee and....him. I grabbed it and just looked at it for a few minutes. Against my better judgement, I put it in my CD player and let it play. I turned the volume up louder than I normally would have listened to it, and let the beautiful music fill my head. This music brought up some of what used to me the happiest memories of my life. Now they were just downright painful. I let the memories that I had held back for so long come crashing into my mind. The pain came at me in waves, each wave more painful and unbearable than the last.

My body wracked with sobs and suddenly I was glad that Charlie wasn't here. I didn't want him to hear this. The tears ran down my face as I collapsed to the ground and wrapped my arms around my abdomen, trying hoplessly to keep myself together. After what seemed like hours, I stopped trying to hold myslef together and just let the pain come. It wasn't because I knew I would feel better afterwards, because I knew this wasn't true, but I hoped that soon enough I could cry myself to sleep.

The pain that I had thought was disappearing hadn't disappeard at all. In fact, it had just been waiting, dormant, so that when it had the chance, it could spring back up and attack me with more force than it had before. This time, I was in more pain than I had ever been before.

This pain wasn't just because of Edward, I let myself think the name, because I felt like as long as I was inflicting pain upon myself, I might as well do it completely, but it was also because of Jake. It was because I had just realized that I loved Jake the other day, and because when I had found the passion and done something about it, he wasn't there.

After hours of sobbing and laying on the floor, my entire body felt as if it needed water desperately. If I had felt weak before, it was nothing compared to now. I was simply exhausted. I couldn't find the will in me to get up and walk, so I crawled to the bathroom to get myself a glass of water.

When I had drank a glass of water, I felt like I was able to stand up and walk.

I was walking into my bedroom so that I could get the things I needed to take a shower. Nothing like scolding hot water to clear your head and calm you down.

In the middle of my room, one of my floorboards squeaked under my weight, I stopped walking and back tracked, trying to figure out which board had made the noise. When I found it, I bounced up and down on it a little, and noticed that when it went down a certain amount, the bottom of the floorboard hit something. I immediately went downstairs to get a crowbar and a screw driver to see if I could somehow wedge the floorboard open and see what was in there.

It took a little bit to get in between the two floorboards and lift up the squeaky one, but I managed to do so after aquiring a few splinters here and there.

Inside, there was a pretty box, embellished with gold around the edges of the top, and with a lock on the front of it. I had to rip open a few more floorboards in order to pull the box out.

After a few more splinters and broken nails, I was able to pull the box out and admire it. It was old fashioned, the type of things that I loved. I looked back down into the hole that I had made in the middle of my room, to find that there was an old-fashioned key sitting on the ground where it would have been underneath the box. It matched the box, so I figured that it would fit.

I picked up the key, and stuck it into the lock, took a deep breath and turned the key.

Maan, I hate lying: Jacob

I know it's only been a day, but I missed Bella already.

When she called me, I had to pretend, well, lie to her, telling her that I was sick, and that she wouldn't be able to see me for at least a month. Sam told me that we would see if I was in enough control of myself to be around her.

Everyday, I worked at it, testing my limits. I had to see her soon. For both mine and her well-being.

This wolf thing was so tiring, though. We were expected to make nightly runs, all night long. We wolves were here to protect both our people and others from vampires (the Cullens, way back in the day). But now that there were no vampires to worry about, there wasn't really much to do. We mostly worked on our stamina and learned how to work better as a team. Even though we could hear each other's thoughts in wolf-form, it was still hard to work as a team. We had Paul, who's temper was the worst, and he still had bad self-control, there was me, who was new to this, and there was Embry, who had been phasing for a few weeks now, but was still getting used to it. Between all of this, Sam had his hands, paws, rather, full.

Every now and then, when we would run through the forest in wolf-form, just letting our instincts take over, we would run across this nasty, sickly sweet smell that was so repelling that it was nearly impossible to think clearly. After running into these trails a few times, I asked Sam what they were, and he said that it was the scent of vampires, and that was why the smell was so repelling to us. We could smell it without even being in our wolf forms.

Apparently, the pack had been on high alert lately because there was a vampire around. Not the Cullens, but one that preyed on humans. We had run across trails left by the Cullens that we could tell the difference.

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A couple of weeks went by, and I was a natural at this whole werewolf-thing. I could phase on the run, and my self-control was up there with Sam's. Sam had even let me lead a team when we split up to run the border.

By now, Leah Clearwater had phased for her first time, and was running the border with us. All together now, the pack consisted of Me, Sam, Quil, Embry, Paul, Jared and Leah. Having a girl in the pack was new, and wierd. What was even wierder was hearing her thoughts.

She and Sam had a history. Her and Sam had been dating back in high school, and when Sam phased for the first time, he was missing for two weeks before he could calm down enough to phase back. When he came back, him and Leah were back together, and then her cousin Emily came to visit, and Sam imprinted on her. It broke Leah's heart, and now we had to live with her every thought. We had to live with the pain she felt every time she looked at Sam, and the pain Sam felt every time he looked at Leah. It was just pathetic on her part.

Well, Leah, Quil, Embry and I were running our nightly patrol around the border when we found the same scent we had been watching, well, smelling for. I dug my paws into the ground, coming to a complete stop within two seconds, and everybody almost ran into each other.

The scent assaulted my nose cruelly, and all my vision went red as the hackles on my back rose up to send everybody on alert. I had to take a minute to clear my head before I did anything irresponsible. It was wierd, being the responsible one. With Bella, she had always been the responsible one in the relationship.

Oh will you shut up about her? Leah thought. She's all you ever think about. It's pathetic, really.

Shut up, Leah, Quil thought. He knew that ever since Sam had banned me from seeing her for a few more weeks, Bella was a touchy subject for me.

Oh, I'm pathetic? Really Leah? Do you know how much it bothers not only you, but us, and Sam, thinking constantly about a guy who you know will never think or care about you the way you care about him. And you can't even control your thoughts around him. Yeah, we all know what you feel about him, and yeah, it sucks that it happened, but do you think you could do all of us a favor and get him out of your head?

That had come out alot harsher than I had meant it, but every word of it was true.

Yeah, well you're in love with a girl who doesn't even see you. She was mentally screeching at me. What, you think she loves you? She's still in love with that bloddsucker. And as much as you try, there's nothing you can do about it.

That was it. I growled and threw myself at her as hard as I could. I took her by surprise, and since I was much bigger than she was, we went flying across the clearing.

I bit and clawed at her, not caring what I did to her, just hoping that she knew just how pissed off she made me. She was an annoyance to everybody, and she knew it, but I was just the only one who voiced it. Constantly.

I could hear all the guys yelling at us in their heads and barking and growling at us, but we didn't stop fighting until we heard Sam's mental voice, and you can't ignore it when the were alpha gives you an order.

Stop it, you two. Sam rarely used his alpha power to give commands, but when he did, you couldn't help but listen to him. We stopped immediately, as we could see his figure running into the clearing.

I swear, you two are worse than Paul sometimes! I can't believe you two. Leah, come with me. Jared, Go with Jacob. Now, what about the vampire that's been here? Did nobody think to say anything about it?

It was rare that there was silence between all of us, but this just happened to be one of those rare moments.

That's what I thought. Now, Me, Leah, and Paul are going to follow the scent, to see if we find anything. Jacob, you Quil, Embry, and Jared, go run both our side of the border and Forks. I want you constantly communicating, and if you catch another scent that we haven't been on, split up and let me know. Nobody needs to run alone. Now go.

We split up into two groups, my group running overtime to try to make up for all the ground we had to cover. We didn't want to have the chance to miss anything, so I sent Quil and Paul to double back and cover what we had already passed. That way, if anything was to happen, it would be less likely we would miss it.

The night was about over when we came across that repulsive scent again. This time, though, it was stronger, like there had been more than one on the scene. And these definitely hunted humans. We let Sam know, and followed the trail, getting all amped up for a fight. I hadn't seen any action yet, and I had been waiting to do what I had been made to do. Kick some vampire ass.

None of us were nervous. Everything was almost moving in slow motion. We had all been trained thoroughly for this moment, and it felt right. Vampires were our mortal enemies, and so everybody was itching to have them torn apart. Everything about us was made to defeat the immortal. Our teeth and claws were the only things on this earth that could tear into that cold, hard flesh of theirs. Red colored every one of our ranges of eyesight. Every one of our minds were in sync. We were no longer individuals, but one as a whole.

We came into the clearing to see four vampires. They had smelled us coming, and they had been prepared. But we were just as prepared. One of them, a woman, had fiery red hair and a feline-like face. We'd smelled her before. But this time she had friends. Four of them. One of them. Dark skin and long dreadlocks, he seemed like the leader of them all.

I didn't have time to inspect the others, because a female with pitch black hair and bright crimson eyes lunged toward me, and, caught off guard, I lept out of the way and grabbed her leg, but I was too late. She had already wrapped her arms around Jared and had crushed the whole left side of his body. He collapsed with a yelp, and when he hit the ground, I heard every one of the bones in his body crunch underneath him. We would have to get him back into his human form and to a hospital quickly so that he could heal right.

But before we got to that we had to get rid of these vampires. With a jerk of my head, I ripped the leg off this leech and continued mangling it until it was unrecognizable. The others were on top of her instantly, and sounds like metal bending and groaning filled the air. And while all this happened the other vampires had just stood watching. Not frozen in terror, their mind would be way too sharp for that, but considering whether or not to attack. They were acting funny. Vampires were wierd things, but I was sure that they cared about their comapnions.

And then I realized the reason for them just standing there. I could smell Sam and the rest of them getting close, and with them there, the bloodsuckers would be severely outnumbered, and surely their sense for self-preservation is better than that.

Paul burst out into the clearing and went right for the female with the red-hair, but she was too fast and moved out of his way quickly, and he clawed at the empty air where she had been. Then she took off running. I remembered this one. She had an amazing sense of self-preservation. We had trailed her several times, but had never gotten this close to her.

After she had taken off running, the other two had followed suit withing a second after her. Sam and Leah both chased them for as long as they could, as Leah was the fastest, and Sam was the second fastest after me. While they were chasing after the vamps, all of us had phased back, gotten back into our clothes, and were now trying to calm Jared down enough for him to phase back. It took a while, but he did, and he was screaming a long string of profanities as we tried to help him back into his pants.

We didn't know what was up with Sam and Leah, or how long they would be, so we went ahead and got Jared home so that we could get a doctor to set his bones so that they would heal properly.

Sam and Leah arrived there in their human forms not long after we had taken Jared into Emily and Sam's house, and was laid out on the couch. You could tell that Leah was uncomfortable here, where the love between Sam and Emily was almost tangible, but she dealt with it because, as much as she hated it, she was as much a part of the pack as everybody else.

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Once I made sure that Jared was going to be okay, I left the house so that I could get some time to myself, because I hadn't had much of that time lately. It gave me time to think.

Immediately, my thoughts went to Bella, and how she was probably doing. She was probably heart-broken. Not in the way she had been before, but now that her best friend had left her. Bella had never been off of my mind for the last few weeks, far from it, actually. But I had had to push her to the back of my mind so that I could train my self-control, the sooner for me to be able to see her.

Thinking of her put a smile on my face, I couldn't help it. I could just see her face, her smile. I could almost feel her hand, kind of cool in comparison to my toasty 108 degrees now, in mine. And I could just imagine us walking down the beach like we used to do all the time. The smile on my face faded slowly. Like we used to do. I didn't like that I was now referring to all the time we spent together as a thing of the past.

I was going to talk to her, one way or another. I didn't know how I was going to pull it off without Sam and the others finding out, but I would find a way if it was the last thing I did. Even if it meant going behind the alpha-wolf's command...


I think we made alot of progress in this chapter. This chapter was more than twice as long as they usually are. (My chapters are normally around two thousand words, this one was 4,678 words before I saved the authors notes.) I think I like writing long chapters like this. This one got a little bit boring, I know, but it'll get better, I promise!