ALL THOSE LITTLE MOMENTS
Xx~xx~xX
Life sucks… and then you die.
Life sucks… and then you get amnesia. Jacob Black
The waves moved lethargically over the sand. Each pull was longer and each push came an inch closer to his feet. It was the same as it was in his mind, in his youth; the smoky grey picture over the lulling sea, the sky clouded and smudged dots of boats in the distance. The cliff just to the left of him stood still and quiet, the waves moving with a different aura to the ones on the thick expanse on First Beach. There on the face of the cliff, the queasy laziness that was laid out on the beach was lost; the violent roaring of the waves, vehemently trying to move the cliff face further back and wilting away at jagged rocks and underwater death traps remained instead. He heard the whistling sound of the water moving with an increased velocity there-his superior ears nimble to all the sounds around him.
He closed his eyes-they were weakened in his human form and hindered him from experiencing 'Twenty Years' away from First Beach. He let the sounds of the ocean speak to him for a moment, but they were soon drowned out by the sound of Billy's wheel cheer moving over their scarcely varnished timber floor and his rich voice calling him-begging him to wake up for the eighteenth time. He heard Billy's voice whispering over the sounds of his heavy angered breathing (he had wiped that one hot tear away angrily before it was seen) to not let this take him over, to let it go-to let Bella go. This had been way before the New Born war… when that Leech had returned and she had thrown him to the side like a ragdoll…
Billy was always there.
He was always there…. How was he supposed to comprehend everything if Billy wasn't there? The thought that he had gone, he had passed and he had been somewhere other with a leech… he left his father alone to be with a leech…
"What kind of man…." Jacob whispered to himself and then groaned, squeezing back angry hot tears and then resuming his glaring of the sea "What kind of man did this make me… this imprint?"
How did they expect him to accept what they were telling him, showing him… making him feel? He hadn't killed the thing; he had imprinted on it instead because his luck was so beautiful… oh, God-that replay of their memory of his memory of imprinting-that feeling thrown at him and how quickly he had run from it. Phasing out quickly and having a panic attack all alone in the woods; he had imprinted on Bells daughter, he had loved it… it had made him marry it and have sex with it and there was a child, a deformed child… and then it had proceeded to deform the already fucked up imprint by walking away from the family it had convinced him to give it?
"Jacob" an unfamiliar voice murmured. He had heard the soft deliberate movements over the sand, too silent in the unstable soil to be any human but the wind was not on his side to smell a scent and he had thought it was one of the pack… or just Embry or Seth. Leah…
That was another trauma altogether he had to deal with slowly.
"It's Charles" the voice stated clearly and he tensed. The voice was pleasant, smooth and gripped with a strong timbre that suggested a sort of elevation in the owner's status. It was too like a vampire's; he thought at first but then… it wasn't at all when it continued to flow. Like the bell like quality that reverberated through every vampires voice was only present for that one moment when the being spoke, like an announcing trumpet that was put away as soon as it was blown.
"You should go to Leah" he said-growled.
"I want to talk to you" the man said, standing next to him and blocking the distant sun.
"I want never gets" Jacob breathed and Charles paused, then laughed uneasily.
"Does Leah know you are here?" Jacob asked, peering up at him. The sun was behind Charles, his entire front covered in shadows, only his hair shimmering over him like a dark golden tinted bronze crown. His hair was long and obviously not maintained but something about the way it moved was too lustrous and silken in its abundant body.
"Why should she know?" Charles asked. "She isn't my babysitter"
"Isn't she?" Jacob sneered, rising from the ground and rounding on Charles "Could've fooled me, the way she interjected…"
He was about to get into it with him, that quick easy anger that wolves had, erupting so suddenly in him but when he faced him he gulped, looking away and feeling a torrent of emotions working its way up and down his body.
The man had the eyes of a boy-a young man, maybe a teenager; but one who could still contain a sort of innocence… that was the first thing he noted, making eye contact with rich wide emeralds under thick brows shaped distinctly like… like his own. By eyes of a boy, Jacob noted that a certain 'Perplexity'… an uneasiness rising from Charles eyes. Not an uneasiness or bewilderment with the outside world, but with himself.
"Recently phased?" Jacob asked, folding his arms over his chest.
"I suppose…" Charles murmured.
"Most wolves just move through the new physique" Jacob said controlled.
"Natural thing, I bet" Charles said and Jacob shrugged. "Nothing about me is natural right now" Charles said in a much softer voice, vulnerable so suddenly that it both disarmed and irritated Jacob.
"I don't want to talk to you" Jacob stated, frowning.
"You don't have to talk…" Charles whispered, looking at him-his head tilted slightly. He had always thought Jacob was tall, known it even… but standing next to this stranger, this version that seemed to know it possessed a destructive strength… he was aware that this was one of the tallest men he had ever seen.
"I don't want to hear about the future" Jacob snapped "Leah is probably going berserk being away from her young pup"
"I am not Leah's 'young pup'" Charles growled and Jacob smirked at the anger in his darkened green eyes.\
"Then… what are you?" Jacob challenged.
"Your son!" Charles hissed and Jacob frowned at him. "Look, I didn't come here to… do this… whose-going-to-be-Alpha dance…."
"Sam…" Jacob trailed of and grimaced.
"I don't care" Charles stated "I may never turn into a wolf again"
"Good luck with that" Jacob laughed, walking away from Charles, charging away from the gloomy sea to the little empty car park.
"Hey!"Charles yelled, moving quickly forward and past Jacob, blocking his way. "I am not done!"
"Well…" Jacob snarled, inching closer to Charles, radiating an aggression that Charles was still incapable of handling-already moving from Jacob's path slowly "I am done with you, run back to Leah because I don't want to deal with her bitch-act at the mome-"
Whack!
He lifted of the ground, flung with the velocity of the punch a metre away from his original position, little lights popping in the corners of his vision and his head throbbing in pleasant aches. Before he reached the ground, he snarled loud and booming through the air and by the time his body made contact with the earth-he was a giant russet wolf.
"Oh, shit" Charles gasped and the red wolf grinned, as though agreeing fully with him on the matter. He was stuck to the ground momentarily, staring into the amber orbs that seemed to grin in accordance with the pulled lips revealing an arsenal he had no chance of being bulletproof too.
Jacob took a step forward, waiting for something… waiting for him to change, he realized. But he wasn't about to do that. He looked around, cursing when his hopes of some human being in the wrong place at the wrong time were not met and looked quickly back at Jacob. He had taken another step forward and Charles was all too aware that he was much taller than a horse, double a horse it seemed and the muscles rolling under the thick coarse fur shuddered-begging to be uncoiled.
He wasn't about to wait for that.
He wasn't faster than any vampire-but e moved much faster than any human Shapeshifter regardless and it was only recently that he had mastered his sight and control when it came to velocity. Tactile wise… there would be a lot of uprooted trees and trudges by the time he got to the Manor-if Jacob looked as clumsy as he seemed in his burly fortress of a wolf body.
He sprung up in the air, twisting as Jacob missed him and running to the left, towards the trees. The sound of eager snarls and growls were serenading his desperate escape and half way through the journey, he thought Jacob was deliberately keeping a steady pace behind him and not catching him. Somewhere past the thinning trees and at the approaching denser woods, the russet wolf stopped chasing him altogether and he moved annoyed towards the Cullen Manor.
Xx~xx~xX
"You shouldn't have gone to him" Leah stated and he growled at her. She held her stance, holding his gaze until he had to look away-unable to read any secrets from her brown large eyes. Unable to stand under the spotlight of her unveiling vision without feeling like crumbling to his knees and revealing that he was really breaking apart inside…
"I told you so's?" he said loudly instead, twirling in the middle of Edward's room "Right now, you want to do 'I told you so's'?"
"He wont ever remember" Edward said calmly and Charles scowled at him. He ignored the forever ready frown of his grandson and spoke to Leah instead "Carlisle and I discussed it…"
"Of course you did" Leah sighed "If you weren't vampires, you would be mad scientists"
"…the imprint does something to the soul; alters it-breaks all its previous bonds and redirects them through to this one thing. The imprint… so what of the all these bonds connected to the imprint? What of them, when they are set free…" Edward said, looking at the large window facing a thick wall of tall trees. "They were never allowed to mature after the imprint so they would be stuck in a sort of infancy, wouldn't they…"
"Imprint?"Charles whispered and Edward stopped, looking to Leah who shook her head slightly.
"Secrets" Charles breathed and then made a disgusted handsome expression "More of them, even now…"
"Theories" Edward smiled.
"That's all we have" Leah said coolly.
"Will you go and see Jacob?" Edward asked her and she pursed her lips hard.
"I don't see why your not going would help" Edward picked the answer from her thoughts.
"Why won't you go?" Charles asked.
"He can't be helped by anyone except himself…" Leah began ands then took in a steady breath, controlling her anger "He doesn't accept this; he doesn't want the future we are telling him he has already lived. Charles, you two are practically the same age… if what Edward theories is to be believed"
"He is a kid mentally and emotionally now…" Leah said finally "Even in his thoughts, you know… just… it's too much that I am expecting from him. That we all are"
"He is my father" Charles murmured.
"He was your father years ago…" Leah said thoughtfully "And even then, he was just a child"
"So, what…" Charles growled "You want me to just lay off because of circumstances?"
She sighed wearily and looked away. "I don't… know… I don't know what to do, what to say and how to handle this Charles. And there is the truth…"
"I guess that's better than non-answers" he growled, leaving them.
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
JACOB BLACK
I don't know what I had imagined meeting the boy would have been like. Shit, I hadn't imagined meeting him had I? I hadn't thought about him past 'deformed child' and 'Leah's imprint'... and even then, I made sure they were fleeting thoughts.
He was real-he wasn't just some warped image from the visuals I had picked up from the other wolves like Isabella's daughter. He had a scent, he had a voice and he had a presence. He had a face and I could see so easily were I was in those features behind a freaky human Edward-look-alike with a tan and green eyes.
He was real, which meant it was all real-every occurrence that they had told me about. What was I suppose to feel? Was there supposed to be some grand life changing tugging emotion that would bring me to my knees?
The only life changing tugging emotion that was weighing heavily on me was the loss of my father...
"More?" Rachel asked. I nodded and she served more lasagne, smiling softly while she did it before moving to Billy Junior seated silently beside me. He was no were near my build but he was a man in his Shapeshifter boyhood and he was my nephew and my sister's child... My sister who had greying hair and laugh lines...
"So Sam is going through the motions as best as he can" Paul murmured dropping the newspaper to the side and looking at me. He looked like a man, like someone's father who deserved respect sitting there where my father once sat.
He was someone's Father and a man, and as grating as it was to look upon this very man I had once gotten into many useless fights with and realise the fact-he did deserve respect. But did he have to deserve it sitting in Billy's chair... (The fact that Billy had been unable to sit in the chair for a good thirteen years, twenty years ago was irrelevant...)
"Billy and Peter are getting their training from Embry" Paul murmured, not looking at me and pushing up his glasses-he wore reading glasses now, how quaint and mature-up his nose and taking a sip of his glass of milk.
"So you didn't bother to get your own house" I said behind the loaded fork, glaring at my filled to capacity plate. Rachel stiffened and instinctually looked to Paul while Billy glared at me from opposite me on the dinner table.
"We did" Paul stated and continued calmly "Sam talks them through some of the finer detail, but Embry isn't really up to it... you know..."
"As leader" I finished and Paul sighed.
"Yes, as leader" he said "Seth helps, they do pretty well together"
"Why doesn't Leah help" I growled, this anger I had at Leah so irrational and unfathomable past her witnessing the self destruction that was my fucked up mystery imprint life. "I hear she is pretty formidable these days"
"She is busy with Edward, Alice and Carlisle" Paul said.
"Busy doing doggy tricks for her imprint?" I said softly.
"Yeah, doggy tricks for your son" Paul said with the same measure of patience, ignoring me completely when I crushed the glass of milk in my hand and sent white liquid over my food-startling Rachel and causing Billy to go deathly still with anticipation.
"He won't phase, Billy" Paul said smiling at his son. "You can relax"
"...if you have a house, then why don't I have my father's house to myself" I growled.
"We had to come back from our house to care for Dad" Rachel whispered but I didn't look at her, choosing instead to have a stare-off with my nephew "...by the time we had to leave, Billy was obviously a wolf and... well..."
"We can go and stay in a motel, if it will calm you Jacob" Paul said-that fucking irritating patience dripping in his voice.
"I am calm"
"You're behaving like a new pup" he said.
"I woke up from a coma with the last twenty years of my life wiped out, how do you want me to behave?"
"Leah won't let Charles come up for training with us..." Paul said suddenly and I paused my shooing of Rachel's fussing over the spilt milk to stare at him blankly.
"Okay" was all I said.
"He needs to train and from what I gather… there is still mystery behind him phasing. She hasn't said anything about it... and to top it of..." Paul said quickly, voice level and eyes serious in their wrinkled encasing. "She is busy with securing the check points with the Cullen's... We will not be moving past our territory with patrols to help with that and well, she is being a Samaritan about it and double-working with the vampires"
"Whatever, then"
"Jacob..." he warned.
"What do you want from me, Paul?" I sighed. "If he wants to train, then he will come..."
"Get him to come"
"He said he isn't phasing, and from what I saw..." I said tensely "He doesn't need to phase to..."
"To what?" Paul urged, and I was all too aware they were all waiting on me to elaborate. It seemed that Leah's imprint was a topic shrouded in mystery in the tribe. He hadn't been on Quileute land since he had arrived; he had changed drastically in a short space of time but had managed to not phase and then there was the matter that he had apparently 'Died'...
"He is... not human" I said dumbly.
"Established that long ago what with his father being a wolf and mother a half-vampire being" Paul said this time annoyance in his eyes. "What did you see?"
"He ran fast" I said. "I couldn't catch him"
"Why were you trying to catch him?" Rachel asked. "What had happened?"
"I was... chasing him" I said Rachel's gaze narrowing into suspicion.
"You were chasing him were?" she demanded. "Of the lands"
I scooped more lasagne up, not caring that it was strained with milk and filled my mouth.
"Jacob Black" Rachel said slowly "Did you chase your son of the Reservation?!"
"The point here is he was fast enough to evade a wolf" I diverted, keeping my gaze safely on Paul's amused face. "I mean, I wasn't going to do anything... just scare him of. He was hovering and looking all lost and confused and..."
"Kind of how lost and confused you probably looked" Rachel said. "Wondering what you are going to do now that Dad is gone?"
"Well, yeah..." I mumbled.
"Poor Charles" Paul said and it was so obvious that phasing or not, that imprint-telepathy was working over time between him and Rachel "Lost and confused and wondering what he is going to do now that his Dad is gone"
"Wait" Rachel paused, placing a finger on her chin "His Dad isn't gone... just acting like the biggest jerk on the Reservation"
"This family is weird" Billy sighed after everyone went quiet.
"You have no idea" I whispered.
Xx~xx~xX
Two days ago, all I had been about was loving Isabella Swan and trying to make her see that the being she was giving herself to, was a monster of the highest grade. That I was her natural choice, that she should be human and that she should live.
And I had fallen asleep and woken up to some fucked up alternate world were vampires could have babies and my father was gone.
"…so you see how easier it is to hunt if you don't think about it" Embry murmured, patting Peter on the back. Sam was just of, sitting patiently on a rock with a can of beer in hand-his gaze fleeting from his son to me; proud and wary.
"Just lose your self to nature" Seth continued, skipping through the woods after Embry and Peter, Billy grudgingly in tow "The wolf will do everything else"
"Jake is actually a master hunter" Bradley said and I looked away from them. I was careful to be alone as a wolf. I remembered the technicalities that had followed a few days ago-or to them a few decades ago-when I had left Sam's pack. They would be drawn to following me or whatever… I didn't want that. That sense of responsibility…
Seth made a beeline towards me and before he could reach me, I walked of towards the light grey Honda that Rachel had allowed me to drive-with my being forty or something and not just under sixteen and all. I had been scared to ask until she chucked my wallet in my hands and I had taken out my driver's license.
"Jake… come on!" Seth called and I groaned. I still liked him-he had stopped looking like a little kid, naturally and that carefree sunshine he used to exude was limited and squashed by this new slight brooding tenor-but he was still undeniably Seth.
"I seriously don't feel like talking about feelings" I muttered, he leaned on my drivers door casually-like he wasn't attempting to stop me from entering the car and just driving of.
"Who said I want to talk about feelings?"
"You used to be really good at that"
"Well…" he looked away briefly, a grey veil covering the light of his eyes momentarily and his lips tugging down before he looked at me seriously, determined "Feelings got me in a lot of trouble over the years and I approach them carefully"
"Well…" I breathed, leaning on the car beside him and adopting his folded-arms-over-chest pose "Let me warn you that the same can be said about my feelings"
"Two grown men talking about feelings" that was Leah's voice and I couldn't control the grimace that was working on my face "How sweet"
I tensed and Seth shuffled uneasily-unsure on whether he wanted to just let me have my getaway or risk having his ass chewed. I realized that the little seating area by the forest trees had cleared-Billy had gone home and Peter had left with his… father.
"Hello Jacob" Leah said coming to the side of the car were I stood with Seth.
"Hmm" I grunted, looking away from her.
"'Name is Leah Clearwater" she stuck out her hand in front of me for me to shake "I believe you met my sister, Medusa-in the not so distant past. I assure you, her and I have nothing in common except for a great ass… and you won't turn into a cold statue, also known as a vampire, if you acknowledge me"
"What do you want from me!" I yelled, flinging my hands up so suddenly, Seth jumped. "You Clearwater's, seriously! I should put a restraining order!"
"I am not here to tell you what to do" Leah said calmly and I finally did look at her. I don't know what I had feared… or maybe I did. No, I was more certain I did know what I feared.
The last thing I knew about her, the last memory that was so recent I could still feel the feelings swirling inside of me when I made contact with her large brown eyes-a very different brown from Bella's-and looked quickly away. That last thing I knew was that she and I had formed a comradeship that had made me blushed very distinctly once and now she was here, imprinted to my son…
"I don't handle being commanded very well" I said
"I wonder why" she frowned her side-frown and cocked an eyebrow up "Must be something in your blood?"
"I thought you weren't telling me what to do, Clearwater" I growled at her and she grinned.
"I have a question?" Seth said but Leah and I didn't bother looking at him. This was as easy as falling, our understanding of each other and I regretted being an idiot about it and staying away…
"Spit it out already" Leah said.
"Why is it you call Leah by our last name and not me?" he complained. "I am the guy here, I should be referred to as 'Clearwater'"
"Moving along from little Sethie's ego problems" Leah said "I am not telling you what to do, if it feels that way… its probably because you know what you have to do"
"I am not being Alpha"
"Too late for that, Ephraim Black's heir" she said smugly. "Must be hard moving around alone…"
"No, actually… it's rather peaceful" I said.
"So when are you going to hold a pack meeting" she asked suddenly.
"Hey!" I growled.
"Tomorrow?" she said "Great… that works just fine because I am kind of busy patrolling Cullen territory and trying to keep a certain young Mr. Black from acting-out all over the place because his parents are such douches and not wandering straight into Jane's pretty little claws"
"What…?"
"Don't you know?" she asked. "The Volturi… they are scheduled to visit to make sure Charles is dead"
"The Vulture's?…what?" I said dumbly and then remembered something from the battle with the new born when the plan had been to clear immediately "Those Royal Leeches? But… he isn't dead? He has a heart beat…?"
"Well, he isn't supposed to in their books" she sighed walking away into the forest. "And on top of that, they want to annihilate our little tribe, or so we suspect… you have your work cut out for you Alpha"
"I am not…"
"Not this again" Seth grinning at Leah's rather impressive talents "So will I be Beta this time?"
"No" I said softly, still staring at the spot were Leah had disappeared into the trees.
"Why is it always Leah!?" he whined.
"She is nicer to look at" I answered automatically-picking that memory of this alternate day so easily.
Xx~xx~xX
"So I raised him?" I asked Embry.
"Well…" he looked at Seth "Mostly"
"What do you mean 'mostly'?" I asked. "Was I a bad… father?"
"Well…" Embry murmured sheepishly again "Mostly"
"Oh, come on… it wasn't really your fault Jake!" Quil shouted shoving aggressively at an immovable Embry who gave him a 'what the fuck are you doing?' look. "It was that Nesstiness"
"What?" I asked confused-looking at Seth who was somehow more mature than an aging Quil.
"It wasn't really…" Seth began and Quil groaned theatrically, leaning back into the rusty couch of my little worn down garage.
"Don't be a fucking diplomat about this" Quil said stonily "It was all on her"
"She is a vampire, isn't she?" I said frowning "What do vampires know about…"
Blondie. Blondie and Bella's pregnancy-how she had cooed and hovered over a thin skeleton-like Bella.
"She was a kid" Seth stated and I snapped out of my reverie, realizing that the math wasn't adding up at all. Twenty years or so, a sixteen year old boy plus those other years… then that would mean I had had him when I was… what, twenty six or four but that would have made Bella's daughter…
"Oh, shit… she was a kid!" I roared, rising from the chair and fisting my hair "I raped her! Oh, fuck… I am a pedophile… no wonder he is so messed up! I am the most fucked up individual…"
"No Jake, calm down…"Seth whispered "You have it wrong"
"No wonder she left him, no wonder she left me… no wonder she pulled on the imprint!"
"Jake, calm down buddy" Embry murmured "It isn't like that, remember what I showed you… she grew fast?"
"Fast?" I repeated blankly "She was eight!"
"She was eighteen" Seth said. "And her body stops changing and she wanted a family before that"
"And somehow, you think that's normal?" I asked him and he shrugged his shoulders and mouthed 'half-vampire logics'.
"It…" I had wanted to blame this anonymous being I had imprinted on for everything, I had thought I could… but it was so… Fragmented! "Whose fault is it?"
"No one Jake" Seth said patiently, pulling me back down onto the seat "No one could have ever known, Jake"
"But venom?" I spluttered "The boy…"
"Charles" Seth corrected.
"Venom is poisonous to us" I said.
"It hurts him" Seth explained "Phasing hurts him because of that"
Some of the pieces clicked into place at that; how he said he wouldn't be phasing and that air of guardedness about him-past the fact that he had been dealing with a volatile me. He seemed so fortified, so many barriers…
I sat still and they left me in my quiet; talking about other things immediately.
This mystery being I had helped to create past the laws of Quileute wolves being deathly allergic to venom. He had no one; his mother had left him-left us both-and Leah had to come in and salvage what was left of that disaster. I had… I didn't need to relive it to know what having one's imprint forsake you could do to a wolf. There was no way I was a functioning anything after that… a cabbage on the couch beside him was probably a better description and I Leah hadn't been there, if she hadn't imprinted on him…
We may both not be here.
I didn't know him and even realizing some of the many missing pieces of what could only be his time with an imprinted Jacob didn't change that fact. He was still a stranger in a lot of ways but he was a stranger who looked like me.
I had Billy when my mother had died. I had had Billy when Rachel and Rebecca had left. I had had Billy when Bella had broken my heart countless times. I had had Billy when I was phasing. I had had Billy and this feeling that was stuck in my gut at the thought that I wasn't ever going to hear his wheelchair rolling over the wood or his voice calling me to go fishing…
I couldn't just ignore it, just put it down that he had Leah… he had come to me at First Beach for a reason.
He had his imprint; but he had no parents. I felt like I had orphaned him somehow, not remembering. Had I even tried when I was… the old me, or was it the future me? I hoped I tried, I hoped desperately that my not running after this… half-vampire woman was a sign of that.
"I am going for a run" I sighed and they paused their chattering.
"Okay" Seth murmured.
"Just make sure you don't end up in Canada" Embry warned and I punched his arm playfully, skipping over their legs and into the cold air of the outside. The forest stared at me as I approached it, guilt swimming freely in my veins as I ran towards it and phased.
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
It had the remnants of beauty etched all around it; the clearing well constructed into a circle and the boulders and trees placed in deliberate tranquility. It was a meadow, really but the green grass grew a little too long, moving past his knees and the wild flowers now mingles with weeds freely. He moved slowly over the boulders, climbing up the rock and placing his foot deliberately into the hidden crevices. When he was up, he dusted his palms lightly and stood still on the height of the giant rock and stared out. The trees blocked any chance he would have of seeing past the meadow and he sighed, sitting down petulantly and folding his legs neatly below him.
This wasn't so much out of the territory, he thought. He was in their patrolling circle. Sitting in the house waiting on Leah to stop being so goddamned stressed about stuff, Edward was going into deep-thought mode and stressing about this South America thing and Carlisle and Esme of course got tense with everyone else's stress and then it just rippled and spread out and he had too much to deal with to be affected by all that.
"Is she really busy" Charles scoffed, pocking at the rough surface of the top of the boulder in wonder; marveling at how his nail was hard enough for him to chisel away fragments of the rock. "Busy doing what…"
"Keeping me out" a soft ringing voice murmured ahead of him and he froze, not raising his head to look at the source of the voice. "She must have indulged her imprint then; there were fewer of them today and I managed to slip in"
His heart stuttered and then revved up; pounding furiously and his skin heated up. A sheen of sweat formed over his forehead. He still didn't look up at the looming still figure further down the clearing from the height of his position.
"Charles?" she said his name in a scolding "Didn't that Bitch teach you any manners?"
He snapped his head up immediately; a growl reverberating from his chest through his throat and out. His momentarily scowl was washed away by terror when he met a pair of blood eyes, a soft smile playing in them.
"Hello sweetie" Isabella said "So nice to see you again… alive"
He stared at her blankly, his frame shuddering with each frantic punch his heart gave.
"You have grown, haven't you" she moved forward and he followed the ghosting motion easily. She saw this and smiled softly "My, you have grown so much! How beautiful you are!"
"Have you…" he stammered and a little voice told him he really shouldn't be stammering, but he couldn't help it. Her eyes were so red; crimson liquid swimming around a hateful black stone "Come to… visit, Grandma?"
"I haven't come to visit you" she stated gazing up at him thoughtfully "My visit here had nothing to do with you; it had everything to do with capturing a rare litter of puppies"
"What?" he asked her softly.
She frowned sadly, still beautiful in the motion and gazed up at him with fake despair "Jane is the one… who had been sent to 'visit' you."
"Visit?" he asked her.
"As much as I would love to indulge Aro" Bella murmured smiling a little and taking a step forward "I am duty-bound to do other things"
"Bella?" Edward murmured entering the clearing too. "Isabella?"
"Edward" she frowned then, viciously twisting her stone features and turned towards Edward. Charles looked quickly between the two of them-there was a great distance between them and they may not realize like he did that all three of them shouldn't be able to hear them by all natural circumstances.
"Bella?" Edward said again, leaving the shadows of he circling trees.
"I have stayed too long it seems" Bella murmured, casting Charles a longing look "I have to go"
"Why did you come… here…" Edward asked slowly, walking tentatively towards her "To this place; to our meadow?"
"Don't indulge yourself in such hopeful thoughts, Edward" she sneered cocking her head up to Charles form on the boulder "I followed his scent"
"Stay a while longer?" Edward pressed and she looked up at Charles again, contemplating something.
"I do miss my grandson" she murmured and Edward smiles slightly "But maybe I can take him back with me"
"Wh…?" Edward breathed but he was caught of guard, Bella flinging herself at him like a torpedo and launching him of his feet and into the trees. Charles saw the fuzzy canopy of leaves start and a few feet of thickness abscond the air as trees fell.
She hissed at the unseen form of Edward metres inside the forest and snapped her head at him in a very predator like manor. He gasped, locking with crimson slits and struggled up, moving of the boulder. The air was moving with too much velocity behind him and he panicked, unable to fully figure his balance out and rammed into the side of another boulder.
"Never!" Edward hissed from somewhere behind the boulder he had been sitting on top of.
"If you do not release me, I will hurt you!" Bella roared and he heard a sick screeching sound. "I will hurt you Edward…"
"Bella!" Edward begged and Charles rose up, ignoring the bulbs of light smashing in his head and stumbled from behind the boulder, glancing briefly at a mass of rubble from where he had collided.
"Think of this as payback…"Isabella murmured as Charles emerged from the rock formation "For you making me loose my head when you left me, all those years ago… and making me fall for a Dog"
She had her knee pressed hard on the middle of his back were he kneeled in the ground, her one hand gripping his left hand hard and tugging so sadistically in the opposite direction of his body that each second that passed, the air was filled with that sick screeching sound as Edward's arm was slowly being ripped of. Her other hand was cupping his head, under his chin and pulling with as much evil glee-ignoring his flailing right hand trying to stop her.
"You weren't kidding about how much stronger a vampire is on a diet of human" she whispered almost lovingly to him.
Charles rushed at her, ignoring his fear and the shuddering erupting in him-the heat clawing at his spine and she momentarily let go of Edward's hand but he didn't see the calculation in the act-her hand meeting his charging form with a slight slap that sent him flying across the meadow and back into the boulder. He whammed into it hard, groaning as pain flew threw his back and crumpled to the ground-the boulder fissuring in the middle beside him and splitting in half.
"Charles!" Edward breathed struggling to free his other hand and then opting to push against Isabella who stumbled two steps backward before righting her stance and gripping both of his arms instead.
"Charles!" Edward called "Get up, get up… run!"
"…these arms that used to hold me so tight but never managed to keep me warm and safe" Bella murmured and Edward's arms were pulled in opposite directions, his growls filling the air. "Let's be done with this…"
He squinted his eyes open, trying to stay focused and to command his limbs to run-to run towards her and save his grandfather, friend and the man who had been his father for so long now but the pain was splitting him open.
"Ed… Edward?" he managed and Edward groaned in pain, flinging his head back and teeth clenching with a resounding snap.
"Oh, God…" Edward breathed strained staring up at Isabella; she smiled sadly at him "Oh, Heavens… I have never been happier to hear your thoughts on my Isabella, Dog"
The russet wolf bound out of the trees, hesitating for a second when it met Isabella's eyes then shaking its head and resuming its juggernaut attack. It caught her in it's muzzle but she twisted out of its mouth when its jaws didn't clench her in place. It was unwilling to hurt her… she kicked it in the ribs and it whimpered, casting a slowly rising Charles one last desperate look before realizing she was outnumbered with a fast healing Edward rising from the ground.
"I'll let Jane handle this after all" she murmured and disappeared into the shadows of the woods.
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
"So she became a vampire?" Jacob asked and Edward nodded once, still not moving away from the picture window-still staring into the darkness. "And… the child…"
"Renesme" Rosalie growled and Jacob frowned.
"Okay, Renesme… what a messed up name…" Jacob muttered "She went of with another one of her kind"
"You knew this already from Seth and Embry's mind" Edward said stonily
"I want to hear it from you" Jacob said.
"She went of with him" Edward said "Yes, he is Joham's son"
"Joham…. The guy Isabella left you for?" Jacob asked "The pack doesn't really know this piece of detail"
"Yes"
"Joham who has a fetish for supernatural beings?" Jacob asked and Edward said yes again. "Uh, Charles?"
"Yes?" Charles said eagerly, leaning away from Leah's hovering hand on his slightly bruised head.
"What was that comment about puppies?" Jacob asked.
"She wants puppies?" Charles said. "I don't know… a rare litter? Are there rare dogs here or…"
He paused, the words making sense finally "Or giant wolves" Charles finished.
"That bitch" Leah growled, poking the red flesh of Charles back and Charles flinched.
"He will heal soon, Leah" Carlisle assured her and she frowned skeptically.
"Yeah well, healing or no healing… she is still a bitch" Leah growled "Didn't I tell you Jacob, hmm? Didn't I tell you that Pale Face was too much trouble for her worth… and now she is a Pale Faced Vampire Bitch"
"What did I tell you about 'I told you so's', Clearwater" Jacob growled and she huffed, throwing a blanket over Charles shoulders.
He ignored Charles insistent staring at him and opted to look around the odd group who were just as oddly comfortable with each other. Embry stood by the door-an easy sign that he wasn't all too prepared to delve deeper into the vampire house, and Seth sat beside Jasper freely.
"This isn't the Bella I know" Jacob murmured.
"Welcome to my world" Edward breathed. "If only I could hear her thoughts then I would know why this is happening…"
"If only you could hear her thoughts then we wouldn't be in this predicament ever" Rosalie sighed.
"If you could hear her thoughts…"Charles said thoughtfully, watching as Leah got up after being certain he was okay and moved to the opposite side of the room "Then I wouldn't be here"
"I couldn't hurt her" Edward whispered "Not even when my life depended on it"
Jacob Black remembered the words he had told Isabella many years ago with such clarity and realized how rash he had been-if she was a vampire then she was as good as dead to him. If it hadn't been for those red eyes, Edward would have lost both his arms because for a moment, he thought he had his best friend back. For a moment he thought it was all one big misunderstanding.
It feels like he had been living a moment, recently. A moment for life.
AUTHORS NOTE:
This might be very, very long. It may even end up having a sequel if my imagination is anything to go by. But we are still a long way from that, so no worries. The support you all give me with this fic is amazing and I thank you for that!
And again; your thoughts on things are greatly appreciated, suggestions and criticism.
Till next time
Tj