Title: Of Forever
Chapter: Part VI
Author: Sleepybard
Rating: Overall NC-17
Pairing: Edward/Jacob, Edward/Bella
Warnings: Mild violence, language, sexual content, AU after New Moon, OOC (of course), imprint!fic (some people might be getting sick of these), drama
Author's Note: This is another imprint!fic, yes, but I tried to keep them as in character as possible (lol, Smeyer doesn't even do that). Please note, I'm taking a lot of creative license with these characters.
Thanks to the awesome bovus_stercus for the beta-ing

Summary: Months after Edward and Bella return from Volterra and Jacob is left wondering what's next. Maybe he's prepared to fight for Bella. Fate, however, is a bit more fickle than that, because he's just not meant to live alone. Or is he?

Disclaimer: Twilight belongs solely to Stephanie Meyer. I am merely borrowing her characters for some creative, fan-based writing. No opinions or original characters or storyline in the following story in any way reflect her opinions.

Please read: Okay, so I can't even begin to apologize for the wait! I really am so sorry this part was so late coming. On top of that, it's a cliffhanger and on top of that it's kinda short! I apologize sincerely :( All my classes and such are done though, which means much more time for my writing, if that appeases anyone (though I doubt it). Anyway, again, sorry for the late post!


Part VII

One thing I had come to regret was having never done drugs as a human. I'd never even so much as gotten drunk, because if I'd even thought about it, Sam would have torn me apart. And of course, it was impossible to sneak off the reservation for a few hours because the next time I phased, everyone would know of what I had done.

That was one thing I didn't miss. Though my body with the other shifters was one which brought me closeness to them in a way that couldn't be measured, it also destroyed any semblance of privacy.

Sometimes I wondered what it felt like for them, when I was bitten. Did they feel the pain of a dying brother, or was it less exact, a sudden loss of something they had come to cherish? The severing of such a complete must have been paralyzingly frightening, especially as they had no knowledge of where I'd been off to or what had happened.

Which brings me to wonder what happened when Bella and Edward returned to Forks. Did they go to the reservation and tell Sam, my friends, my dad, what had happened? And they did, how on earth did they survive the nearly tangible fury of a pack of wolf shifters?

Perhaps Edward had told them I'd imprinted on his. Aside for that, Sam and the other shifters would not have hesitated to kill him (Bella, no matter what, would have been safe, I was certain).

At times I still wanted to despise Edward but I couldn't. My inner wolf immediately beat down those feelings the moment the surfaced. I had a loyalty to Edward, no matter how unwanted by either party, and it was one perhaps even stronger than the one between myself and my packmates.

My love for Edward was a crippled affection. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but mine only grew heavy from longing. I was a pining, lovesick Juliet, yearning for Romeo. Worse yet though, I had already drunk the same poison as him, knowing that even in death, we would not be together.

Which was, in a nutshell, all my woes of misery culminated together. And it was in times like this in which I wished drugs and alcohol could be the salve for my never-ending wounds. Unfortunately, drugs had no affect on me now. And I'd been too cowardly to try them as a human.

How ironic though. Edward was like heroin itself; I was addicted and it was killing me.

I was living the life of a martyr and if ever there were time I wanted to drink my woes away, now was it.

I left Volterra and boarded a plane back to the States with a clear idea of how fucked up my situation was.

Kill Bella? It had to be a joke. I'd killed before, sure, but never someone I knew. The Volturi were cruel, but not like this.

Then again, as I remembered what they told me following the bombshell Jane had dropped, I guess I could understand their recipe of cruelty after all.

They didn't give me many details. No doubt, there was a good number of terrifying details that I'd have to discover and confront when I finally myself back in Forks. I knew one thing though: I was not going to like any of it.

The flight I caught took me to Washington and from there, I took a bus back to Forks. I packed only one bag, not expecting to stay long. Just long enough to figure out what the hell had happened and then leave. I had already decided that I couldn't kill Bella, and indeed, I wouldn't.

The bus wasn't packed at all. Only an elderly couple and a sleeping man in ragged, disheveled clothes were on the bus with me. It was evening, twilight again. Another sting of life's irony: Twilight was now my safest time.

As the bus stopped in town, I walked off the last step and inhaled the familiar scent of the town. Despite how long I'd been away, it was still like walking home after a long, terrible nightmare. It was July, the town warm despite the smell of rain in the air. For a moment, I wanted to explore the entire place, retouch and taste and inhale this small place again as though for the first time as my new self.

I hailed a cab and had him take me to the reservation. It was when I stepped outside the car after paying, though, that I realized just how much had changed in the eleven years I'd been away.

I walked the same paths I'd walked eleven years ago as a young shifter. I smelled the same scents, saw the same trees and the same homes.

But where there had once been a quiet, comfortable, beautiful atmosphere, I felt nothing but coldness.

When I found myself facing my old home again, standing awkwardly before the front door, I felt a shaky nervousness take hold.

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply once in hopes of calming myself. But how could I be calm? I was about to face my father for the first time in over a decade, after I left without so much as a note and never even a single phone call in all that time to say I was still alive.

And what could I say now? Was I supposed to knock on the door and go inside, as though I still belonged, as though I still could belong? Would I see dad, sitting in the kitchen with his cup of coffee and aged book and say, "Dad, I'm home?"

I had come this far though. No matter if I was nervous, anxious, frightened, I had no choice. I had to do this. I owed it to my father.

I knocked and received no answer. Going on a hunch, I lifted the eagle statue beside the front door and sure enough, there was the key.

I opened the door and walked inside. I noticed that nothing had changed, not really. Making my way into the kitchen, I braced myself. The moment of reckoning had come.