A/N: As a reminder, I do not own Twilight, but I am very grateful to Stephenie Meyer for having created characters that are so fun to play with.

*NEW STORY* A one-shot from Sam Uley's perspective. Look for "Only a Broken Heart can Heal"!

Please R&R!

Chapter 10 – Five years later

The rain made it almost impossible to see out of the windshield as I drove home from the hospital. I would have to talk to Jake about installing new wipers on the 240DL he had built for me; the ones that I was using now kept smearing the glass with dirt kicked up from the car in front of me. It took all of my effort to concentrate on the road- a thousand thoughts were competing for my attention, but I knew that I had to make it home safely.

As I pulled into our driveway, Jacob ran out in the rain to meet me. He was carrying an umbrella; a comfort we had around for my benefit that he would never need. The man didn't even wear a shirt, and it must have been no more than 45 degrees out.

"Well?" he said, sucking in a breath and holding it.

I blushed and looked down to the hand I held to my stomach. There was barely anything there yet, but I knew that would change in short time. "Congratulations, daddy," I managed after a while. Jacob stood frozen, staring at my belly in awe. His expression was so soft, his eyes wide, his mouth parted as if to speak a prayer.

"I KNEW it!" he shouted suddenly, his happiness rolling off of him in waves. He threw his hands up and started whooping and dancing around, laughing.

"Hey! I hate to interrupt you, but the mother of your unborn child is getting cold and wet here!"

"Oh, sorry!" He said as he ran back to the car. He held me to his side with one arm around my shoulders and the other hand on the umbrella. "Daddy," he whispered to himself.

"I know," I couldn't help but be overcome with happiness, too. "But I'm only 5 weeks, so let's keep this to ourselves, ok?"

"Sure, sure. So have you thought of names?"

Only every minute of every day since I realized the possibility that I might be pregnant. "I was thinking, if it's a boy, E.J., you know, for Ephraim Jacob." Or for Edward Jacob, but I didn't need to tell him that. "Or if it's a girl, combining our mothers' names, Renee and Sarah...Renah. It means joyful"

Jacob beamed and leaned down towards my stomach. "Hey little E.J., or Renah, whoever you are."

Over the next few months, as I my stomach started to stretch out my jeans, our routine was always the same. Jacob and I would come home from work together, I would make dinner, and afterwards we would sit on the couch while he told all of the Quileute stories to my abdomen.

We were sitting on the couch like every other evening when Jacob stopped mid-story. "Maybe I just won't go. I'll stay here with you instead."

"Like hell you will. Those kids are counting on you, Jake! You've been planning this field trip for how many weeks now? It's just a few days, I'm staying with Charlie, you have the cell phone, and there hasn't been a vampire anywhere near Forks in over 5 years. Everything will be fine. Besides, Olympia isn't that far away."

"There are other ways the kids can learn about the tides than by visiting the Puget Sound. Last year, Mr. Hoke just took the class to First Beach. We could do that again! I don't want to leave you. I can't bear to."

"You're going on this trip, Jake, and when you get back you can help me pick out colors for the nursery." I didn't want him to leave me any more than he wanted to go, but I wasn't about to let him miss out on taking his science class on the one field trip they get, especially since it was his first year teaching.

"I'll call every day - twice." He bent down and kissed me. I took in his warm scent that always wrapped around me like the forest.

"I know."

"I love you."

"I love you to. Hurry back to me."

Without another word, he picked me up in his giant arms and carried me off to bed.

The next morning, I followed him to the door and watched him pull away through the rain that came down in sheets. When I could no longer see his car, I turned to go back inside the house, stopping for a moment, as I always did, by the picture of us from our wedding. It amazed me that my husband finally looked his age, but it startled me to see how much I've changed over the past five years. Jacob's face was now virtually indistinguishable from his yearbook photo. Though for the time being we were even, I wondered with a sigh when I would appear too old for him.

I had had this discussion with Emily, Kim, and Leah – Claire being still too young to understand. None of them seemed to mind that their husbands weren't aging, that one day, when and if they stop changing, they will seem so much younger. My mind flitted back to the porch swing in front of Sue Clearwater's house on the day of Harry's funeral. Had I gotten it wrong? Would Jacob be the one left behind, stuck in time, unable to follow me when I left him for the last time? At least in that case I would never have to live a day without him. Maybe that's what set the other women at ease.

Four days. I sighed again. We'd never been apart for so much as a few hours and then only because his duties as a teacher prohibited me from wrapping my body around his on a whim. I paced, not knowing what to do with myself. At least tomorrow I could go back to my volunteer work in the nurse's office at the school, but I had taken today off for the doctor's appointment I had in the afternoon.

I walked down the hallway to our bedroom, looking at the pictures we kept of our family. The pictures of Jacob and me as attendants in three different weddings, the one of Charlie in a tux at ours, Renee and Phil on the beach in Florida, Billy holding up the 3 foot bass he always claimed in later stories was 4 feet; each one was a comfort to me. Here were the faces of everyone I had ever loved.

Almost.

The small ache in my chest surfaced for the first time in several years. I walked into my room and over to my dresser, pulled out one of the drawers, and reached inside to the back. There, taped to the wood, was an envelope I rarely looked at, though I could no more throw it out than cut off my own arm. I took a deep breath as I opened it to reveal its contents.

There he was. Exactly the same as he had looked five years ago when he left. Exactly the same as I knew he would look now – eyes smoldering, his features carved of marble, his smile impossibly soft, his body, as Paris', made of wax. I sat down on the edge of my bed facing the mirror over the dresser and looked at my face, at my body. Again, as a thousand times before, I wondered if I were the only one changing.

My eyes fell to the small gold-framed picture standing in front of the mirror: my Jacob, smiling up at me. It was a picture taken the night he proposed. Well, the night he gave me my ring anyways; I suppose he proposed to me long before then, on the night of my graduation. My refusal to let go of Edward wasn't fair to him, and I knew it. I was still holding on, whether out of guilt, selfishness, or habit, and it was time I let go.

I grabbed my raincoat and headed outside. As I sat down in my car, I realized I had no idea how I was going to do this, nor where. For almost an hour I sat, listening to the sound that the rain made on the roof of the car.

"Rats." I said out loud. All of this rain was going to drown the basil I had planted last week- and I was hoping to have a nice herb garden this summer.

Drown. I knew where to go. I threw the car into reverse, made my way down the long and winding path from our house, and then jammed the transmission all the way into second gear as I turned onto the street that would take me to the last place I heard his voice.

The rain stopped just as I pulled up to the cliff. I walked carefully, making my way close to the edge, though not quite as close as I had gotten last time. Looking out over the ocean, smelling the salt, I wondered how my life would be different had Edwards stayed. Surely I wouldn't have stayed human for long – I would have wanted to be frozen with him forever. I looked down at my stomach, so glad I chose this path; this miracle wouldn't have been possible in that universe.

I let my eyes drift towards the water and the crashing waves below, watched them come in from impossibly far away out on the horizon. The sky was still dark gray from the morning's storm, and for a long time I stood watching the clouds drift out to sea.

"Goodbye." The words came out flat. I let them hang in the air for a moment, pretending the clouds were carrying the words away with them. It wasn't long before I realized it wasn't enough. This was the last place I heard him, but for some reason, there was more to my ache.

Alice. Oh, Alice. Of course, I missed her so much, and Esme and Carlisle, Emmet, Jasper, even Rosalie. They had all at one point been like family. I had to let them go too, and there was only one place I knew I could do that. I hurried back to the car, tripping over branches and rocks as I went, scraping up my hands and knees.

As I jumped into the car, I prayed that four days would be enough for the scrapes to heal over. Jacob wouldn't be too happy if he saw them, especially now that I was walking for two. I prayed that Charlie wasn't out in his cruiser and wouldn't see me speeding down the roads. I prayed that no one would recognize me driving this recklessly and report back to Jacob. Then I prayed that I would remember where in the woods I needed to turn.

I needn't have worried. My hands remembered what my brain couldn't, and soon I was pulling up to the big white house in the middle of the woods. There, in the driveway, was a small moving truck. It was too small to hold everything that someone moving into the large house would bring. Slowly, I got out of the car and made my way to the back of the truck where two men were lifting something large and clumsy into the truck. Under the blanket that was covering it I recognized the legs of the table that used to sit in the Cullen's seldom-used dining room.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" I tried to yell, but the words got stuck in my mouth. I turned to look into the house through all of the glass, and was shocked into silence by what I saw

Alice- her face frozen, her eyes wide, her mouth perfectly formed into a tiny "o".

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