Offerings chapter 9
Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.
Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading and Goldengirl2707 for helping me out.
AN: sorry about the hiccup in postings. We had a dose of gastro through the family. I am way tired of washing bedding. So now back to Jake and Bells.
Charlie spoke to his deputy, "Should you call your father, Jake?"
"I can do that later."
"Do it now."
"Oh... okay." Jake hesitated; clearly not confident of leaving Bella alone. She nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement but he took it and left, heading out the front door, avoiding the crime scene and leaving Bella alone with her father.
Charlie pulled his chair over closer to hers. He leaned forward and reached out to pat the back of her arm where it lay on top of the table.
"Talk to me, Bells."
"He..." Her voice was so low Charlie had to strain to hear it. He leaned closer to her. She spoke haltingly with many gaps and pauses. "He said ... Alice could see the future ... that in one future... I was with him... and that I was... a v-vampire." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "I am so tired of crying."
"I know, kiddo."
"I'd just be... dead... like he was."
"Pretty glad you didn't do that. I only just got you back."
"Yeah. I haven't called Mom."
"It will be on the news. There is no way she will miss a mention of Forks, Washington."
"No."
"So... Jake?" her father asked.
"You like him."
"I do." He paused. "Do you?"
Her father's eyes looked concerned.
"You think it is just some stress reaction. That it is too fast."
"Yes, plus, no offense, I've seen the way people react to him."
Women would flirt with him; she had no doubt. Maybe men, too. He was such an impressive figure and he was so handsome. "What do the other guys in the station think of him?"
"They let him deal with all the witnesses; he's brilliant at that."
Idly, she wondered how much of that was due to his wolf senses. "From the time I first met him, he has been nothing but polite," Bella said with a glance at her father. "It's me that keeps asking for more."
An embarrassed cough from Charlie. "I see." He had seen it; she had leapt onto Jake's lap as soon as she could.
"There is something there," she tried to explain. "He said his wolf liked me."
"His wolf? You've met his wolf?"
"Ah... kind of." Hard to explain that the wolf had literally torn chunks out of Edward in front of her.
"So... that matters?"
She shrugged. "I don't know... I've never felt like this before and he said the wolf had never liked anyone before."
"Uh-huh."
"I need to ask him what he meant."
"He'll tell you; if there's one thing that kid has always been - it's honest."
She knew that. He had told her everything, when she asked.
"So the wolf matters?" Charlie checked.
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"The others... I dunno... what do I call them? In the pack?"
She shrugged. "Yeah?"
"If the wolf matters, that might explain Sam and Leah's break-up."
He had recited those names as both being wolves.
"Sam and Leah were together?"
"Not any more."
"And now they are both wolves?"
Jake spoke from the doorway, "Yes. It makes it difficult. Leah is very-" he stepped inside the room, "- bitter."
Charlie noticed the way Bella's face lit up when she heard Jake. In seconds she was out of her chair and holding herself against him. One of his hands slid under her hair and held her face against him, the other pressed against her back. He looked at her father over her head. "If it is okay with you guys, may I stay here the night?"
"Here?" Charlie asked.
"Please?" Bella muttered. "We won't do anything." She held up her hands as her argument. "I can't stay in that room. We'll sleep in the living room like we did last night."
"Just for tonight," Charlie tried to argue. "Tomorrow we bleach it or repaint or whatever you need me to do. You have to stay here to finish school." All the desperate arguments of a father confronted by young love.
It took some time for the police to release the bodies to their families.
The investigation was stalled. As Esme had feared, the abrupt departure of the Cullen family was noted; as was the fact that Edward was not with them. The small town almost exploded with rumours and gossip.
The only thing people were happy about was that there were no more deaths.
Charlie knew that a fingerprint match had been made with Edward. They took reference prints from his piano. But the prints also matched some very old murders and the police had great trouble making any sense out of the computer records that related to the Cullens. They just seemed to go too far back.
Jessica's mother Mrs Stanley had been the source of all gossip in the town and now she was silent. Everyone else did it for her. She was heard to make comments about how bad behaviour was to be expected with a whole family of adopted teenagers. Not that the police could find any legal evidence of the adoptions. The gossip tree went crazy with that information.
The fact that there were no more deaths took the attention away from Bella and laid it squarely at the Cullens' feet, at least as far as Forks was concerned. It didn't make the national press for more than a day.
School was difficult. Bella had trouble writing until her hands healed. People were wary of her for a few days and then they went the other way and kept asking her about the whole thing until either Angela or Mike scooted them away. Her friends flanked her and ran interference for her.
Mike was a little put out that she had a new boyfriend but he was still as chatty with her as he had always been. And he still tried to save her from sport. That earned her thanks.
Jake stood next to her at the funerals. He held her hand; their fingers interlaced. He was her rock.
People told her that she didn't need to be there, but she was anyway. So was her father. They both felt guilty. Charlie because the murders happened on his watch and Bella because it was Edward's interest in her that had caused their deaths.
Thoughts were supposed to be secret. It didn't matter that these girls had disliked her. Everyone has thoughts that are not meant to be overheard. It was just first impressions. They never got the chance to change their minds.
She never got the chance to make them her friends.
Her mother, as they suspected, flipped out. Bella hadn't told Jake about it, yet.
She didn't know what to do and then Jake asked her out to La Push to meet the pack formally. It involved eating. Bella was starting to learn that a lot of the pack meetings centred on food.
"Explain it again," Bella ordered.
"Imprinting?" Jake checked.
"So it's like baby ducks?"
"No... although the life bond part is correct."
"You saw me and now you want to be with me forever?"
"Yeah." He sounded pleased, as if she had finally understood him.
"You are so fucking it up," said Quil.
"Why are they here again?" Bella asked.
"They're my pack."
"I know... but why?"
"Look," said Leah, "he loves you. You are the centre of his world. He will never do a single thing to hurt you EVER. Which is a problem 'coz imprinted wolves become complete pushovers for their imprint partners."
"Hey!" all the presumably imprinted wolves objected.
"It's true. Pushovers," she insisted. "Can't argue for things they know they should."
"Like what?" demanded the guy Bella now knew was Sam.
"Purple curtains, Sam." Leah leaned towards him with relish as she said it.
"What?"
"Purple," she repeated. "In the bedroom."
"Emily likes them."
"See!" Leah turned triumphantly to Bella. "And throw pillows... in lavender … with flowers."
A couple of the guys winced.
"Pillows are useful," Sam argued, but Bella could tell that he had already lost.
"You're a man, Sam and your bedroom looks like a Barbie doll exploded."
"She's got a point," said Seth.
"Emily likes it and I want her to be happy."
Embry rolled his eyes.
"Ha!" crowed Leah.
Bella whispered to Jake, "I'm guessing Leah is not imprinted?'
"She can hear you," Jake said.
"Oh."
"Nope. I am not and it is never going to happen," Leah insisted.
Quil smirked at her.
"Yeah? That's what Jake used to say," Jared piped up.
"But you're happy about it?" Bella asked suddenly concerned that it might not be what Jake wanted if he had insisted it would not happen to him.
He wound his body around hers. "Ecstatic," he said as he kissed her neck. "What about you?"
She tried to think about it. Touching Jake had calmed her before she had known any of this supernatural stuff. She had held his hand within an hour of meeting him. "It's growing on me," she confessed.
"But?" he asked. He knew there was a 'but'.
"There's something I haven't told you. My mother rang."
"Ah."
"She had a fit and she wants me to go back to Arizona."
"Go home?" he asked.
"Huh. That's funny... I didn't call it home. I think that's the first time I've done that."
His face betrayed his emotions, just as Leah had suggested. "But you're safe, now."
"I know that and you know that but I can't tell my mother Edward is-" she searched for a word "-gone, without having to explain why we are hiding that death." She had killed him.
"The world thinks he is just missing," Jake said.
The pack seemed to be holding their breath.
"Yes, missing. And still out there somewhere, even though the world isn't sure he committed the murders. There is no proof and we can't say what happened."
"Most people put two and two together. And Charlie knows."
"Yes, he does."
The pack were hanging on her every word. Jake stood with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. He had stepped away from her. And he wasn't touching her.
She noticed him do it and it actually hurt. She felt his absence.
Spinning to face the pack, she asked, "Can we just have a few minutes alone?"
They all looked at her as if they thought she was going to dump Jake, but they slowly drifted away. Jake didn't move.
It was only when they were alone that she turned to face him. He looked as if he was waiting for the axe to fall. Was she going to rip his heart out? His head was down and he was staring fixedly at the ground.
"Jake?"
She stepped in closer to him and tried to look up at his face. It pushed her back at an odd angle and she almost fell backwards.
He caught her.
"You knew I'd do that," he accused.
"You said you would not let me fall on my face." He had caught her on the stairs even though it exposed his secret.
"Or your ass," he said. "Clever."
"I am, you know. I get good grades at school." She touched his face with her palm. "Tell me what you were thinking that upset Edward so badly."
"No."
"Why not?"
"It doesn't matter, now."
She frowned at him. "It matters to me."
He shook his head.
"So, Leah is not entirely right," she said.
A wry grin. "She just thinks she is. And I am the alpha. Things might be different for me." He shrugged.
Silence.
His thumb was rubbing slowly over the side of her arm. She was completely aware of it.
"Are you going to leave me?" he asked in a choked whisper.
"I don't know," she whispered back. "My life has changed so drastically in less than a month. I need time to breathe."
"I'll w-"
She put her hand over his mouth. "I know what you are going to say; you'll wait for me." She paused. "But is that fair?"
"Bells, please stay - even if just tonight." He was begging. He held her now. Hard enough for it to hurt. "Please stay with me tonight?"
She knew what he was asking. They had been affectionate but had not gone the last step in their relationship. "If I stay with you... will that make it worse tomorrow?" she asked.
"No," he lied. He would take every moment he could get with her. Take everything he could get; even if she left him tomorrow. He'd always have this night. And he would try so hard to convince her to stay.
She pulled her phone out. "I will text Charlie. What about your dad?"
"He has his own place. It was easier to convert one of the holiday cabins than put ramps into the house. So we will have the house to ourselves." He tugged at her hand and they started walking towards his house.
"Okay." She nodded.
They had gone some distance when Jake asked, "Bells, can I ask you something personal?"
She looked doubtful. "Sure," she agreed.
"Are you a virgin?"
"No." And then she panicked that it might be important to this imprint stuff. "Does that make a difference?"
"Yeah." He stopped walking. "If you were a virgin we could probably only have sex once. If you're not, we can do it a heap of times." His voice dropped and the way he said it made her struggle to breathe.
"Oh," she finally managed to say. "That wasn't what I meant." She shifted and squirmed.
"Bells?" he checked. "You did want to have sex?"
He always asked her. He asked before he touched her. He even apologised for doing it without asking. "You said... before we started cooking enchiladas, that if we started, we were not going to stop."
"Yeah, I did say that." He said a lot of other stuff too, about the taste of her being all over him. "That's why we need all night."
"All night," she repeated.
She felt an irrational flare of annoyance that some other person had had sex with him. He was hers.
She blinked. This imprint stuff might well go both ways. Maybe Leah didn't know that. She had no reason to think like this, and even less to be jealous if she went back to Arizona and Jake moved on with someone else; if he could even do that. Irrational as it was, it was how she felt right now.
Intrigued by the flood of emotions across her face, he brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. "What's the matter?"
Wanting to shake her head, but also not wanting to move away from his hand, she blinked and leaned into him. "Sorry. That was weird."
He still looked doubtful. She supposed that she hadn't actually answered him.
"I'd love to spend the night with you, Jacob Black."
