So, it's quite a short chapter again - basically it examines how Jake (with the help of Leah and Sam) tries to cope with what he's done to Nessie in the last chapter. Some very interesting thoughts are brought up in this chapter.

Tell me what you think - and sorry, that I'll leave you with a cliffhanger, but it'll be worth it. Chp. 8 is gonna rock you, just be patient. I hope to have it finished by at least the end of the week.

Review and Comment, mates, I'll need some support to keep me writing this fic!


7. The Truth of the Silence

Silence.

Sometimes it could be calming, comforting even, giving you a rest from all the stress and chaos of the world, offering a refuge and a lair whenever you sought for loneliness, when you needed to think, when you needed to make sense of things. But silence also had its darker side. This other side offered no such peace; she was heavy and oppressing, so full of unspoken words that you fear to suffocate upon them, so full of long suppressed feelings that the tension feels like tearing you apart, inch by inch by inch. You can not breathe, you can not live within this silence – and this silence kills, slowly, steadily, quietly, without a word.

It was this kind of silence that sounded through the kitchen of the usually loud and lively Black house, levitating like a thin veil of heaviness upon the hearts of every soul inside its walls, making it hard to even breathe freely, pulling everyone's thoughts down into a maelstrom of confusing and wild emotions that filled the air with words left unspoken. There was no laughter filling the atmosphere; even more, it felt as if all the light had been sucked out of the room, as if all life had been drained from them. There was now only darkness embracing them.

Jacob sat on a wooden stool at the kitchen table; he was shaking visibly – however not because of the cold, though he was soaked and only clothed with a pair of old, worn-out jeans – and his brown eyes, usually gleaming with fun and warmth, looked empty now and red shades spoke of the shameful tears he had shed. His large hands were clasped over his mouth as if he had to keep himself from screaming in agony and kept rocking in his stool, back and forth, and back and forth.

Sam and Leah stood only a few feet away from him, leaning against the wall, both apparently lost in their own thoughts, however, both their eyes were directly focused upon him, analysing his every move, watching in pain and desperation as he was losing himself in his own wild, shameful thoughts and blames. None of them spoke, there were no words that could have possibly given any comfort or redemption in that moment, and so their calm, steady breathing remained the only disturbance to this heavy, overwhelming silence.

The red glow of the sun that was born in a colour of red and gold at the horizon was the only thing that told them about the breaking of a new dawn; but this new day promised no new hope, and even the rare rays of the sun that, for a change, broke through the heavy clouds of Washington state could not bring light to their hearts at this dark morning. It had taken Jacob several hours before he'd had the courage to leave the forest, before he'd even had the emotional strength to pick himself up, and to return home, where his former Alpha and his Beta were already waiting for him.

Without so much as a word he had collapsed onto the stool, his head sinking onto his forearms, releasing the tears that had burnt in him for too long; and they had let him cry, they had let him grieve, giving him all the time he needed, giving him all the privacy he needed, too. None of his other brothers had disturbed him in this moment of silence, none of them had even dared to approach him, offering their comfort through the privacy and silence he usually never knew – Leah and Sam remained the only members of his family that had come to him, prepared to listen, when the time for words would have been come.

Until now, none of them had even said one word – and what was there to say? They all had felt what had happened last night in the forest; it had literally thrown them out of their beds and those, who had been on night shift, it had crushed them down as if the world itself had collapsed over their heads. At first, none of them had known what was going on; they all had picked up those irritating, foreign feelings, feelings that weren't even their own – pain, shame, anger, hatred, desire, and hunger.

Leah shuddered mentally as she remembered this unnatural, inhuman hunger that had claimed her thinking from one second to another. She had wanted to scream in yearning for a thing she did not know she wanted, lusting for a release she did not know existed. In that moment, her whole existence had been reduced to the mind of a wild beast; pain, anger, joy and hunger were the only feelings she was then capable of, and each and everyone of them was singing inside her head at the same time.

It had confused her, driven her wild, nearly insane; she hadn't been able to think properly, or to remember that she, Leah, was not an animal, but a human being. However, for that instance she had been rendered helpless to the Wolf inside her and she hadn't been able to fight off those foreign feelings – willing, yearning to sink her teeth into flesh, tasting the twitching muscles beneath someone's skin, tasting the blood in the veins...

She had felt all those feelings crushing down on her just like it had happened to all the others; even when they hadn't been in their Wolf form, the connection between them went too deep, was too intense to be cut off completely, they all sensed each other, felt each other – and the emotions of last night had been too immense, to overwhelming to shut them out. It hadn't taken them long to understand what was happening, they had soon enough picked up the reason why their brother had been so upset, so wild, so excited...

Through their connection with him they had realised the danger that lurked beneath the surface, and they had desperately tried to warn him, tried to pull him out of that destructive maelstrom of his own emotions. They had tried to remind him that he was Jacob Black, a human – not the Wolf that roared in an unnatural hunger inside him – who was bound to protect and to love that girl, and not to destroy her by this aggressive, brutal act of devouring. But he hadn't listened to them; at that point the human inside had been long gone, lost to the needs and desires of his very own, inner monster, that had turned his feelings for this girl into a cruel conversion of love.

He had shut them out, though he still couldn't have spared them the feelings that he was living through, for they were also forced to endure all the emotions that had burnt inside him in those long, terrifying minutes. It had almost been too much to bear; no, it had been too much. After the joy and momentary relief had ebbed away and the truth of what he had just done had slowly begun to sink in, they all had moaned in a pain none of them had encountered before. It had broken them.

Pain. Shame. Self-hatred so sharp und hot it had burned every other thought away – and the truth, this terrible, tormenting knowledge that he had hurt the one person in his world he loved most.

It had killed him, broken him, and it had left nothing of him behind but the shadow of the person he had been, a tortured soul.

"I can not make her happy."

Both Leah and Sam startled at the sound of his voice; for one thing it had sounded rather like the voice belonging to quite another person, the pure desperation in it that made those words sound raw and thick with a pain that was almost too intense, to catchable to be purely emotional. It had been the first time in hours that he had said a word, and now they wished he hadn't said anything at all. Hearing him saying the words, giving breath to the tormenting feelings inside him made them so much more real, also for the both of them.

Leah, for her part, at least, was not sure if she was really ready for this conversation. Heartbreak, to be perfectly honest, wasn't a new thing for her and to encounter those particular painful feelings in the situation of imprinting all over again made it not easier for her. Unbeknownst to Sam, who was still completely focused on Jacob, she looked up, examining the features of the man she had once loved more than her own life – and in the shameful quietness of her mind, she could not but admit that she still felt like this, though time had changed this once happy knowledge into a painful truth.

Love was never easy, she thought, and the same held true for this particular kind of a love – a forced kind of love, as Jacob, had used to call it, though his opinion appeared to have changed quite a lot in the last years – which bound, at least the imprinter, so unbelievably tight to its imprintee. She could not even start to imagine how tight he was bound, how strong the connection must be, and how deep those feelings really went. She did not encounter the love of imprinting yet, she thought bitterly, and the only face of love she had met so far was now nothing but a painful shadow.

"I can not make her happy." Jacob repeated, and with that he tore her out of her thoughts as well. Leah looked at him intensely, thinking about his words, thinking about what they really meant. It was strange, to put it nicely, usually the imprinting was a connection that placed the Wolf into the position of doing everything in his power to guarantee the happiness or satisfaction of its imprintee – and usually it worked.

Sam (her heart ached uncomfortably at the thought of his name, but she ignored it, she had grown used to the pain by now), Jared, Paul...they all had not only found great happiness through the imprinting but had also learned incredibly fast and easily how to ensure the happiness of their imprintees. It was only Jacob who seemed to find it particularly difficult to find any happiness in the love the imprinting had given him, neither for him nor for this girl. It was really mysterious, though because of her rather second-hand knowledge it was hard for her comprehend it, she knew that the Wolf should theoretically be content and happy with everything the imprintee did or felt. Even if the love he felt was not responded by love from her side at all.

However, said rule appeared not to apply for Jacob and his Vamp girl. Not that she liked to think about such things – she had quite enough pain with her own emotional life already to rejoice in the fun of thinking about other people's love life – but being part of a pack of telepathically competent werewolves, plus being Beta to the leader of said wolf pack, well, all those things came with some responsibilities. She could not but muse over the inexplicability of the situation, for the reason alone that the earlier this thick-headed Wolf worked out his Chick-problem the earlier she could also be spared all those terrible feelings and thoughts that weren't even her own.

Why was it so hard for him to make her happy and give her the love she wanted, the happiness she needed? After all, happiness and love was the one thing that every person needed and wanted, wasn't it? The question stirred something in her mind, a memory worked its way slowly to her mind, something she had heard Jacob think a while ago, something that had come to his mind as he had thought about the hybrid's dangerous behaviour.

"Maybe that's not what she wants. Maybe she wants to be unhappy."

Leah had found herself talking before she even realised it; Jacob had immediately stopped sulking, instead his head turned towards her in what felt like light speed and he was now staring at her as if she had something with the importance of a life-death decision, and – considering his really over-the-top concern for the Vamp girl – it probably felt like that for him. But the She-Wolf ignored his stare, instead focusing on the dawning sun as she looked straight out of the window while she resumed speaking.

"Maybe she thinks she deserves to be unhappy, to be punished. She blames herself, she feels guilty, unworthy of luck and happiness. Maybe that's what she wants, what she needs. Maybe that's exactly what you are bound to give to her."

When she had finished her little speech, she felt instantly that she was right about it – she did not know a lot about Renesmee, but due to her pretty good insight look into Jacob's thoughts she could tell instinctively that the hybrid felt guilty for whatever she had done in those three months she had been away, and that she even felt guilty for what she was doing to Jacob right now. It was very stupid really, though she could understand that self-hatred to a certain degree, she still knew that whatever Renesmee was doing to hurt herself for what she had done, was not only a punishment for herself, but for Jacob also. It was cruel, but so agonizingly understandable that the truth of her words could not be denied.

Jacob was now sitting in front of her at his kitchen table, looking as if he was in pain; his eyes were squeezed shut as he tried to process the meaning of her words, his hands clenched to fists; his whole body language was screaming of the pain the words – this truth – had caused him. For another three minutes there was nothing but silence, heavy and thick, saturated by the truth of her words.

"So, what do you expect me to do now?", Leah twitched back from the harshness of the words; when Jacob spoke now the former desperation was replaced by a feeling she knew all too well: plain, brutal anger, and this fury was completely directed at her now.

"Do you expect me to punish her for something she thinks worth of a punishment? Do you think it was right how I handled her in the woods?"

Leah narrowed her eyes at him; the air suddenly smelled of danger – she didn't like the way this talk was heading to, "That's not what I said...I didn't mean..." she repeated desperately again and again, shaking her head in defence – she could not deny that Jacob's anger meant certain danger, even and maybe especially to her now. He did not seem to have heard her trying to explain herself, but more likely he didn't want to listen to her any more, because he simply ignored her and kept on talking.

"Do you expect me to rejoice in how I punished her back in the woods?", Jacob had got up as he said those words, and he took a threatening, small step towards her; she immediately backed away, focusing on the dangerous shaking that held his body in a firm grip. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her fear at bay, but she could not but think of Emily's scarred face and the consequences of Jacob's anger.

"You would like that, wouldn't you? Seeing how a Vampire gets punished?

For you they are all nothing but monsters – and you never liked her, never accepted her!"

He had made several other, threatening steps towards her and she instinctively twitched back from him, she had lost her voice now completely, panic and fear tightened her throat and she looked over to Sam, looking for help. The Alpha immediately stepped between her and Jacob, trying to shield her from Jacob's sight, but the latter still stared at her in utmost hatred and fury, and it was quite unlikely that he really listened to anything Sam said.

"Jacob, I'm sure she didn't mean it like that..."

"I don't care what she meant! I heard her too, remember?", now, finally, the young Werewolf averted his eyes from Leah, focusing on his former Alpha instead, who, so much unlike her in this moment, did not back away but simply held the contemptuous glare of the hard-headed young man. It was hard to tell whether the hatred and fury in Jacob's eyes was really directed against his sister or against his brother, or maybe looking at Sam only made him aware that his relationship with Renesmee would never be of the same harmony and affection that Sam and his imprintee had.

After what felt like a very long moment of him staring Sam to the ground, Jacob focused on her again; the fury over what she had said – and in his opinion also hinted – still flashed in his usually warm, gentle eyes, his nostrils flaring in pure anger.

"Get out of my sight – you make me sick!", his words had been spoken in a rare cold-hearted hatred, nothing but a whisper through his clenched teeth; she felt herself twitch back from the coldness in his eyes. Leah looked over to Sam for a last time, looking for a help he could no longer offer, before she nodded stubbornly, swallowing down the angry tears that burnt in her eyes and with that she stormed out of the kitchen, heading towards the edge of the forest. The last thing that could be seen of her was a flash of light and shredded clothes, and the wolf with the silvery fur vanished into the woods without looking back.


"Jacob, you know she didn't mean it like that. Leah was merely pointing out..."

"Stop giving me this bollocks, Sam.", Jacob cut his former Alpha short like he had done it so many times in the past hour. After Leah had vanished into the forest – the anger and pain over his attitude forcing her to phase into her wolf form in order to cope with it – Sam had taken over this eternal litany of scolding him for his outburst of rage. Jacob, however, was in no mood for sense and reason; it felt much better to direct his anger towards someone else than him, though he knew, Leah was not the one who deserved his hatred.

A part of him, though it was small and shut up now, knew full well that Leah hadn't meant what she said, at least not the way he had interpreted it – and for one thing, he could not deny that there was a seductive truth in her words. It explained rather a lot of things; the way Renesmee behaved and the way he reacted whenever he was near her, all those terrible things she had done since she had been here would be given a new meaning – her pathetic fight with the bear, her attempts to turn him against her, her pleading words to make him hurt her...

Jacob shook his head, shaking off the memory of that night and of what he had done to her. He just couldn't handle the consequences – emotionally just as well as physically – right now; he did not want to think about how it would feel when he saw her again, being forced to look into her eyes, big brown eyes, so full of a ripped apart innocence. The world had killed her innocence, and once upon a time, he had been her whole world. No, he couldn't cope with the feelings of shame and self-hatred right now, instead he focused on something else, directing his destructive anger towards someone else – for it was so much easier to see the flaws in someone else other than yourself.

"So, you think Leah was right, eh?"

"Yes, I think she was right."

Jacob was taken aback by how calm and easy Sam had said those words, the latter full well aware that his Pro-Alpha was only trying to provoke him, only trying to get him into a fight, if only verbally in order to cope with his emotional burden of guilt and self-blame. He could understand him so easily, he hadn't acted differently, back then after he had hurt Emily like this, marking her for the rest of her life with those shameful scars – he, too, had tried to handle his self-hatred with directing it against others. It was only natural, an instinct of self-protection. However, exactly because he understood Jacob so easily in this moment, he was not willing to give into his desperate attempts, instead he fought it off with the patience and calamity of age.

"What Leah has said makes perfectly sense, Jacob." he continued, forcing the young Werewolf to listen to reason and truth even if said Werewolf didn't want to hear it, "Renesmee is a hybrid. A part of her is human, but you have to understand that there is another part of her, too, and that part is not human, not in any way."

"I know that, thank you very much."

"Yes, you know it, Jacob, but you are unwilling to understand it, or to really accept it.", Sam raised his hand, urging him to let him speak, because Jacob had already opened his mouth to retort something to his former Alpha's apparently ridiculous accusation, "You are saying that you know what that means for her, or for you, but in fact you don't understand it at all, because you won't accept it."

At this point, Sam made a short pause and took a deep breath; he was clearly looking for the right words to explain to Jacob what he needed him to understand. It was a very delicate subject and the fact that the young man in front of him was more than just unwilling to accept the truth didn't make it necessarily easier for him. However, it was necessary for him to understand – it was not just him and Renesmee who suffered under this situation, the pack also suffered. All werewolves felt for each other, the connection between them was too strong to shut out the pain that even just one of them felt – they felt it all, and it slowly destroyed them, just like it destroyed Jacob.

He needed to understand.

"In your eyes, she is only a human girl with a little bloody problem – but that problem won't be solved by ignoring it. She is a half-Vampire, and she has needs that are not human.

Perhaps she has suppressed those needs so rigidly over the years because she knew that you wouldn't be able to accept it. Don't be fooled, Jacob." he added when the young man opened his mouth to protest again, but Sam cut him short, "She knows how you think about Vampires, and, though it is only one part of her personality, it makes her belief that you think about her just the same way."

Upon these words their eyes met for the first time since Leah had left them and Jacob quickly averted his eyes, being confronted with the truth in Sam's look; he, too, remembered the incident months ago when Renesmee had stepped between him and that Bloodsucker. His words had destroyed it all, she had believed that he would despise all Vampires no matter their attitude; he hadn't had the time to explain that he was quite comfortable as long as they stuck to the Veggie life style choice.

"We can't be sure what she experienced while she had been away." Sam continued thoughtfully and by doing so Jacob was torn out of his thoughts, forced to listen again, "But the way she behaves adumbrates that she has, maybe for the very first time in her life, lived out that other part of her being, that she had been in peace with that other part of her soul, no longer forced to hide it or suppress it in fear of being rejected."

"She does not strike me as being at peace with herself at the moment, if you ask me.", Jacob couldn't help it, before he knew it he had growled the angry retort; Sam, however, simply ignored him as he continued to speak just as if Jacob hadn't said anything at all.

"Something must've happened then, something terrible that she has witnessed – or even committed herself – that deeply traumatised her, throwing her into this state of self-hatred and guilt. Perhaps Leah is right, and whatever Renesmee is doing serves as a twisted way of getting redemption for what she has done."

"But why does she want me to be the one to give her this redemption, as you call it?" Jacob asked, his eyebrows knitted thoughtfully as he stared up at Sam, looking for advise. The Alpha sighed heavily, and he had already opened his mouth to speak, but before he could have said anything his face suddenly contorted in pain. With his hand clutched to his chest, he sank to the kitchen floor, growling in agony. Jacob was on his feet in a glimpse of a second, about to ask him what was wrong, but then he felt it, too; this unbearable, unimaginable pain that cursed through his veins, like fire, like venom...

And then he saw his sister's face – Leah – as she withered in pain, screaming in desperation and agony; and the knowledge came to Jacob so fast that it took his breath away: She had been bitten by a Vampire.