THE SAMURAI WAY
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
EDWARD ANTHONY CULLEN
"No, I wouldn't be too concerned if I were you" I sighed. She huffed once and played with a lock of her hair-an old human habit she did when she didn't get her way immediately. "I am not interfering with it, mother"
"All I am saying..." Esme breathed touching my hand lightly and peering up at me; imploring me "Go talk to him"
"And say what?" I chuckled "'Be a better Father even though you think and feel like a sixteen year old'?" I raised an eyebrow and she pursed her lips.
"Ahhh!" she sighed, pouting a little and watching Jacob and Charles squabbling down bellow on the front lawn. "I couldn't imagine you fighting with Renesme over her having the last piece of cake!"
"No..." I whispered "But maybe we should have fought about these inconsequential things, rather than... her drinking human blood?"
She stiffened slightly and held her pose in front of my bedroom window, her hair moving as the wind blew warm air through the open window. She was trying to think up what words to say, fearing she had cast my emotions into gloom. They had been in gloom for a while now, I want to tell her but I hug her shoulders instead.
"It looks serious" I murmur into her ear "There may even be a few bruises and blood when Jacob and Charles are done... but their love will remain whole and intact"
"He is sitting on his son!" she squeaked pointing down below at Jacob seated on Charles back and pulling his son's hair like the reins of a horse. It lasted a second before Charles spun him over and pushed Jacob's nose up with his finger, asking Jacob if he could smell the chocolate cake.
"They aren't serious" I sighed again "Rough housing"
"Over a piece of cake?" she stressed "Is that normal?"
"He is a wolf and his child is the same age as him, is that normal?"
"Oh, you are so unagreeable!" she snapped, waltzing out of my room "I'll get Emmett to knock some sense into them"
Esme had no real understanding of the nature of young men due to her coddling ways. She had less patience for violence, and tended to think that even play fighting was a sign of latent aggression. She wouldn't have faired well being the den mother of the Quileute wolves when there had been ten of them...
She was also being tense about the trip-which I had convinced Carlisle that she should not be a part off. She and Alice would remain to help with keeping Forks as boring and dreary as it had always been, alongside Embry and the younger wolves.
I watched mystified as Emmett strutted across the lawn, shimmering where the sun fell on him and picked Charles up effortlessly by the collar of his flannel shirt (he had just come from having a heated argument with Alice about the article of clothing) and held him raised off the ground before tossing him casually to the left were Charles fell with a heavy thud a few feet off.
"Respect your elders, kid" he murmured, ruining the line Esme had told him to deliver to Charles on 'a respectable gentleman and good conduct'.
"Yeah!" Jacob growled, rising from the ground and dusting his cargo pants "Respect me! I am your elder!"
"Real mature, elder" Charles scoffed shaking a bruised arm lightly and glaring at Emmett "You sprained my wrist!"
"Uhhh, that will heal... I think..." Emmett looked behind him, wondering on how to conduct the situation and not end up being pulled into Charles and Jacob's contagious immaturity-praying Esme wasn't listening. She was... intently.
"And you..." Emmett continued, pointing a finger sternly at a sulking Jacob "No sitting on your son... especially if he is stronger than you and can kick your ass"
"Exactly!" Charles agreed "Emmett, you are wise beyond your years...!"
"My decades, kid" Emmett breathed haughtily and I stifled a snort.
"He is only stronger because I am not in wolf form!" Jacob snarled taking an aggressive step forward towards Charles, who instinctively took several back.
"And Charles..." Emmett continued, grinning impishly "No eating the last piece of cake"
"Leah made it for me" Charles said, smiling knowingly at Jacob "It was out of sheer courtesy that I even bothered to share"
"I..." Jacob stammered and Emmett stared at both of them in confusion. He was in over his head; this wasn't about chocolate cake directly. "I am going to chew your ass...!"
"If you can catch it" Charles breathed, already spinning on his heels before Jacob could rip out of his shorts. He stormed into the woods, a mane of blackened burgundy hair and Charles wild cackling the only evidence of his existence. Jacob pushed clumsily past a bewildered Emmett-the russet wolf snarling and growling after the uncontrolled hooting in the distance.
"What the fuck just happened?" Emmett breathed, staring at the spot Jacob had been.
"You made it worse!" Esme cried emerging from the house.
"I told you not to interfere" I sighed softly and she turned her head up at me-at the window high up from were she stood on the lawn-and pouted, thinking on how she would now have to badger Carlisle into giving Charles and Jacob a lecture.
Maybe that was the fault in all mothers-Bella included; they wanted to interfere at the slightest disturbance instead of letting their children learn their own way.
Xx~xx~xX
"It's going to be a short trip" Jasper breathed, sorting the papers and passports out quickly "Aliases and such organised naturally..."
"I wouldn't have picked a better location myself" I cut him before he could voice it out "Isle Esme... we would be alone there"
"And we can infiltrate the main land and leave just as unnoticed" he murmured, grinning. "Being pale is a hindrance"
"Yes, it is..." I chuckled. "There was one hindrance I was wondering if you had felt recently?"
"What?" he asked, moving everything into a black folder.
"Jacob..." I started and then took in a deep breath "...and Leah"
"Oh?" he grinned. You don't need to worry about that!
"I know he is a lot more mature on the matter than Charles is" I sighed "But that might have everything to do with knowing that Charles is Leah's imprint"
"It isn't that serious" Jasper sighed-humour still in his eyes "I feel it from people all the time; attraction"
"Just attraction?"
"I really can't tell you" he breathed, patting my shoulder lightly "Like I said; it isn't that serious so I don't bother myself with the trials of the furry and restless"
Xx~xx~xX
"Hold it perpendicular and firmly" I instruct "Brace your legs; shoulders levelled..."
He pursed his lips in concentration, his eyes set on the large block of wood with the manikin's head screwed at the top and changed his stance to the specifications I had asked of him. One might say he looked fierce standing a good few feet away from the training prop; hair moving languidly through the air around his angular face with startling eyes, shoulders broad and muscled and height perfect to display his good physique. One who didn't know that an hour ago the warrior standing so tensely in the clearing wielding a elegantly curved samurai sword had had an argument with his Grandfather on leaving the television show-Sponge Bob Square Pants-to go and train so he would be better equipped to defend his life...
"Tightly, Charles" I sighed, I hated training him at times "Not too tight, the way you would hold a..."
"Woman" Emmett offered and Jacob snorted.
"If you are not going to be useful...!" Charles began, dropping his stance in favour of glaring at Jacob (although it had been Emmett who had deliberately broken his concentration) "Then go back into the house and watch your damned Gossip Girl"
Jacob spluttered and Emmett raised an eyebrow looking at Jacob suspiciously, Embry letting out a billowing series of blasts of air from his nose-a wolf chuckle.
"He was watching Sponge Bob!? That's a cartoon!" Jacob tried pointing at Charles accusingly.
"Dude, everyone knows Sponge Bob rules" Emmett tutted "Gossip Girl is just so..."
"Gay" Seth murmured. "I can't believe I have to call you Alpha!"
"I can't believe you are homophobic" Jacob challenged
"Is this you coming out then?" Seth grinned.
"You know what I meant!" Jacob snapped.
"Listen!" I growled "When I pulled Charles off of you..."
"Hey, that was only because I can't turn Wolf in the middle of the lounge if I want to kick his ass and watch television...!" Jacob protested.
"My point exactly!" I yelled "I took him away from the television room so you could watch your Rumour..."
"Gossip Girl" Jacob corrected and Charles snorted.
"He did that deliberately, dude..." Seth murmured
"Like a 'Rhetorical Blunder' or something" Emmett said seriously
"Vampires don't forget...?" Jacob pieced it all together airily and Seth and Emmett burst out laughing.
"Just get the hell out of here!" I roared, rubbing the space between my eyes. They paused their hooting and muttered audibly and mentally how wound up I was "I have a lot on my mind..."
"I would think so..." Jacob breathed skipping after Seth into the denser encroaching of the woods around the little clearing "Hearing other people's thoughts on top of your own thoughts can do that to you"
"So you want to be Samurai Jack there, Charlie..." Emmett began and I groaned "What?"
"You too, Emmett" I sighed. "Leave, please"
"Yeah, leave!" Charles said insolently "And don't call me Charlie!"
"Fake Ninja with your Polo wearing Sensei" Emmett threw in "Call me when you need a wrestling dummy next, I am your man"
"We know" Charles and I breathed concurrently.
Xx~xx~xX
"How is the..."
"Your imprint has the attention span of a squirrel in heat" I sighed.
"My imprint but your blood..." she paused "Uhm, venom...?"
"Venom will do"
"Uh, okay... venom relative" she finished. Is venom thicker that blood...?
"Yes" I answered her wayward thoughts "But apparently ADD is a more deadly contagious infection than venom"
"You know if I had my way he wouldn't go" she said seriously
"We all know, even Charles knows Leah"
"Right" she said nodding her head "Just so we are clear"
"I am glad you are coming..." I murmured, watching her pull out a bottle of chocolate spread easily from where Charles had thought he had hidden it-intolerable troublemaker "Jacob and Charles are..."
"Unbearable?" she asked quirking an eyebrow up "Now you know what it was like for me back when the pack had ten thousand horny wolves with pent up..."
"You do realise that you are a wolf so that applies to you too?" I smiled at her.
"You do realise that if I had an erection, you wouldn't be able to tell?"
"Poor Jacob" I chuckled-her memory of Jacob taking forever to emerge from his bedroom when Sam had decided to have an unannounced meeting at the Black residence.
"Yeah, poor him" she murmured, chewing her bread awkwardly, chocolate spread tinting her lips and escaping from the corners. "I say let them..."
"Exactly what I said!" I cut her and she raised an eyebrow irritated. "Uh, you know... let them tear in to each other"
"It would have been nice to finish my sentence" she sighed, taking a seat on the island. "When do we leave?"
"Soon" I breathed tense "Very soon. Everything had been organised... just... making sure we are prepared past the technicalities"
"Right" she breathed in equal tenseness "Charles and the training and such"
"Partly" I murmured "But hopefully we can just leave him on the island and find Renesme ourselves, with no incidents... you could stay with him together with Jacob"
"Hmm" she nodded "That gives me some measure of comfort-just the convincing them to stay on the island part while you guys go off to the action seems unimaginable..."
"Jacob can't very well turn into a giant wolf in the middle of the city and Charles..." I stopped realising fully that just as Leah pondered on the confusing feelings she felt for the childish man-I too, was lost in reminiscing on the time he had long greasy hair and a perpetual sulk hidden behind a thick hoody.
Alice had gotten rid of the many hoodies, the hair had no chance of being greasy unless he deliberately poured cooking oil over his head... and the sulk had turned into brooding pensiveness in rare instances he was left alone by either Emmett or Jacob (who would be off somewhere brooding too).
"Just make sure he can defend himself" Leah breathed "I mean... I would stop a speeding bullet for him but I need to know he can dodge the bullets alone once I am down."
"If he doesn't argue with you about who has to put their lives in front of the gun first" I said absently.
"I am not getting used to this!" she confessed "I promised it would be the same... I promised him and yet I can't handle this! I don't want him to go off onto some warped haphazard badly planned mission, no offence..."
"None taken" I murmured, waving my hand for her continue
"... and it feels selfish because at the end of the day, when the sun sets and those of us who can sleep doze off... Renesme is his mother. I know what I would do for Sue... and that's what scares me. What would he do for Renesme?"
"He wouldn't risk you" I answered easily "But I know what I would do for Esme... and I have no imprint"
"But you have a son?" she asked with wide terrified eyes "Argh, it's always been me watching him, keeping him safe... and now there is everyone and I just want you all to go..." she paused, her heart hammering much faster and then finished in a small voice "I am sorry"
"No, Leah..." I said seriously "There is nothing to be sorry about. Wasn't it you who said facts were not for the light hearted?"
"Yeah but..."
"...but nothing" I cut her sternly and added lightly. "Your imprint needs a hair cut"
"He does, doesn't he?" she sighed. "I have to go, therapy is over and you're still a sparkling leech"
"I am, aren't I?" I murmured "And one last thing, Leah...? Next time you bake Charles a cake; just bake a complimentarily cupcake for Jacob?"
Her eyes widened momentarily, her thoughts spluttering before she bolted through the door. Such a change from the vile beauty that flew through a vampire house to curse out the girl who had broken her Alpha's heart.
And even in her new found jumpiness... I had no doubt that Leah Clearwater had no qualms about swimming with sharks... with a bleeding paper-cut. Of course it made one wonder what would melt such a resilient passion to nerves and 'baking'.
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
CHARLES BLACK
It was quiet in the woods, the sun dipping elegantly behind the dark canopy of pine and redwood. The thick trees formed a trembling barrier around the expanse of shrubs and grass that made up the clearing. It was cool and the quiet was natural; filled with the distant chirping of birds and various inadequate animals scurrying around. They didn't come too close to my perimeter-Emmett's scent still lingered in the air strong, sugary and perilous.
The errant ray glinted gently on the tip of the blade before oozing down the shaft and merging with the silvery metal of the blue meteorite blade. It seemed to pull on the light and hold it in its core, flinging it in different dark beams of sapphire...
A gift from Carlisle. A fallen star constructed into a samurai blade by ancient warriors with an almost lost skill-all of it held by a heavy chrome coated tungsten handle with diamonds studded along the length of the grip.
Real diamonds...
I was holding about fifteen million dollars in my hands with the 'harder than vampire teeth blade' and platinum enriched handle with chrome and tungsten...
"Why are you grinning at the sword?" Leah asked. I looked up and sniffed the air lightly, frowning when her chai spice scent was no where to be found in the cool air; she was down wind of me. I turned around and saw her leaning casually against a tree, her hair blowing around her face. She had let her hair grow out to just past her shoulders... framing her face gently.
"Uhm..." I realised how stupid I looked still poised in my attacking stance with the weapon held tightly in my hand and straightened myself, leaning on the sword with forced nonchalance "It said something rather witty to me"
"Did it now?" she grinned, sauntering from under the shadows "What did it say?"
"I look like a bad ass Genghis Khan with my rugged good looks and 'guns'" I murmured.
"You are such a nerd" she breathed, rolling her eyes before looking at me strangely "Funnily, Genghis Khan had red hair, green eyes and glittering skin apparently" she covered the distance languidly while I watched her silently, keeping my breathing steadied.
"I don't have glittering skin" I mumbled as she touched my hair contemplatively "And my hair isn't really red-more of a brown or a..."
"Bronze?" she quirked an eyebrow before rolling her eyes.
"And its only really at the ends!" I defended.
"Speaking of 'ends'" she sighed releasing the strands bored "You have two of them on a single lock"
"I do not have split ends!" I yelled in indignation, grabbing a lock and surveying it "You see... shiny and healthy!"
"And filthy"
"My hair isn't filthy"
"Mangy... mangy... mangy" she chanted, doing a weird Indian rain dance around me, her hands waving left and right in time with her jumping and head shaking "Genghis Khan the mangy haired red head!"
"Real mature, Clearwater" I sighed "If you haven't come to watch my superior skill with the samurai blade..."
"It's called a katana" she rolled her eyes.
"What do you know about it?" I asked her and she gave me a blush inducing impish grin.
"I did a lot of travelling in my day" she murmured and I frowned. I hated being reminded that she had 'days' to 'travel' without me... even though I didn't exist at the time. Jacob's voice boomed in the back of my mind on how I was not to let the 'selfish nature' of the imprint overwhelm me...
He came up with that new slogan after pointing out that Leah's dark denims cupped certain things just right... idiot father... and idiot Embry who agreed to said statement...
"... went to a few places..." she reached for the katana and I tried to ignore how she was sure not to make contact with my hand "...and learnt a few things..." she thrust the blade swiftly through the air, her hair whipping in the opposite direction and body moving easily to an elegant coiled point.
"So you are a samurai?" I asked watching as a distant look consumed her features and she thrust her body tensely left in a lowered form-the sword pushed outwards to jab at nothingness. "What does a giant wolf with daggers for teeth need to gain from knowing of the Samurai way?"
"Unlike Jacob Black..." she breathed, holding the katana horizontally above her head "I can hold my own on two legs, even against bloodsuckers..."
"Oh" I breathed-suddenly intimidated by the knowledge and skill she held past being a Shapeshifter. Suddenly intimidated by the fact that Carlisle had a collection of katana's, Edward was a master at them (Edward was good at everything) and Emmett and Jasper... Well, if you could live forever, you could afford to learn a few added things...
"I was too drunk to complete the training regardless..." she sighed, moving through another stance "And the idiot sensei quit on me to top it all off"
"Why?" I asked her and she brought her stances back to a straight line, bowing her head behind the raised sword held in her prayer hands.
"I called him a chauvinistic pig with bad skin"
"Maybe you shouldn't have told him he had bad skin..." I laughed.
"But how else would he have known?" she asked raising an eyebrow "Honesty is the best policy"
"I just mean you were tactless there, Clearwater" I said in fake seriousness. "You should have given him some facial wash and then told him he was a chauvinistic pig"
"That is a better much more sensitive approach, I agree" she grinned.
"I get my kindness from my grandfather" I chuckled
"Which one?" she asked
"The one who threw a tree at me because I was five minutes late for training..."
"Yep, sounds like patient loving Eddie" she grinned handing me back the katana. "So, I hear that cuts through marble..."
"Like butter" I chuckled. "Maybe I'll get to butter some marble on to dry bread when we get to South America"
"...or maybe you can just stick to messing up the woods with wood chippings" she snapped, jerking her head to the almost completely destroyed once dense wood stump with a concrete pole centre... the manikin head laying lonely a few feet off.
"What's up with...?"
"Just get your butt moving!" she hissed walking off, already tugging at her tank-top with no warning, leaving me spinning around with wide eyes anxiously staring at the sky "You have an appointment with the barber"
Xx~xx~xX
Charlie Swan seemed to be getting grumpier with age. He held the newspaper in front of him, his feet raised petulantly on his footstool and the television blaring besides him being fully aware that he was housing supernatural beings with exponentially acute senses.
"Is Edward with you?" he asked after both Jacob and I huffed 'hello' awkwardly, Leah throwing in a snarky 'must've run out of Viagra finally' under her breath.
"Uhm..." I looked at Jacob and he shrugged. "No"
"Good" Charlie sighed, dropping the newspaper (that had been upside down) beside him and looking at us closely "I get tired of his guilt and gloom sometimes..."
"You know he can hear your thoughts?" I asked him perplexed. He stared at me for a second, and then frowned before looking to Sue. She nodded her head and he fell back in his seat.
"Then why did he never go away when I thought it!?" he yelled "Or not marry and impregnate my teenage daughter? Or stop talking about how sorry he is when I had been singing 'blah blah blah, go away' in my mind?"
This had been the loudest and longest Charlie had talked without prodding. We stood still in the living room staring at him as though he had grown an extra more talkative head.
"Hears thoughts..." he snorted, picking up the newspaper again, the right side up this time "...and yet he never understood his wife, the irony"
"Uhm, he can't hear Isabella's thoughts" I breathed and he peered from above the newspaper. "She is the only one and then..."
"And they say I give away secrets" Jacob chuckled nudging Leah, who hissed "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"
"And then here you stand before me..." Charlie shook his head "Looking like them. So what special trick can you do, hmm? Poop gold?"
"Uh no..." I mumbled
"My son poops platinum" Jacob said majestically and Leah snorted.
"I bet you use four-ply" Charlie finished, hiding behind his newspaper once more "Do whatever it is you came to do and then get the hell out of my house; I am too old for this Harry Potter bullshit"
"Charlie, language!" Sue gasped.
"Your daughter swears like a sailor, start there Sue" he mumbled audibly to every super powered ear except Sue's fragile ones.
Xx~xx~xX
"Why didn't we just do this at our place?" I asked her.
"This is the last night, Charles" she breathed setting up the comb and scissors next to me on the bed "Those grumpy old people down there are your grandparents... the normal ones. Enjoy them while they still remember your name"
"Where is Jacob?"
"You seriously want him here when I am holding a sharp object over your head?" she asked raising an eyebrow "I could give you a Justin Bieber hair do with Jacob in the room"
"He has that effect on people" I murmured remembering the dithering blushing girl at the food mart.
"Jake's gone to Paul... I mean Billy's. The old Billy" she explained. "Seth is with Sam and here we are"
"Here we are..." I said blankly, staring at the strange room "In your room"
"Bella's room" she corrected. "I just lodge here occasionally"
"It's sad"
"I know" she sighed, staring at the same picture I was looking at; a picture of four teenagers smiling freely stuck on a small board on the east wall. I got up from the bed and went to study the little notice board; a picture of Edward and Isabella was stuck perfectly straight next to the teenage photo-this one was worn and bent at the corners.
"She looks so different" I whispered touching the image of the wide eyes pasty girl experimentally "So... harmless"
"As harmless as a rattle snake" Leah said. There was a small black leather bound folder bellow the notice board, it was dusted and stained. "That's Pack photo's mixed with some stuff Sue forced me to keep..."
I opened it and the first picture in it was of Harry Clearwater; young and with drooping eyes that suggested a tired annoyed person. The next photo was of Sue as a girl, a young beautiful girl with a stubborn mouth.
"You kook like your mum" I told Leah and she shrugged her shoulders.
"You should have seen my grandmother..." she said "Now there is a Leah if ever!"
Seth came next as a baby, with a towering toddler Leah gazing at him with mild tolerance as he drooled on her pigtail.
"Do I have baby pictures?" I asked her and she sighed.
"Of course you do"
"Where are they?"
"Safe, there aren't many copies and I am not up to sharing with beings who can remember the number of hairs you had when you were six easily..." she said seriously "But you can see them all you want of course..."
I flipped through the photos quickly, Leah dictating the story behind some and pointing out how most of the pictures of her and Seth as kids were forced in by her mum. I stopped abruptly in the middle part of the thick picture album and she peered over my shoulder.
She stood leaning against a silver car, her hair billowing so obviously around her face even in the stillness of the image and a shy smile on her face. Her eyes were turned not to gaze into the lens... but to stare at the tall man leaning easily by her side with his arm draped around her shoulders.
"I thought I burn all of these!" she hissed grabbing the album from my hands. I remained frozen by Isabella's little desk. "Argh!"
"It's okay Leah" I murmured, rising up slowly.
"It's... okay?" she paused her frustrated picking of the photo-trying to release it from the tape keeping it secured on the page.
"I mean... the photo..." I pointed at the album suddenly conscious that she was staring at me with terrified x-raying eyes-terrified she could hear and feel the way my heart was shaking and thrashing inside me. "I mean... you know, you having a past"
"Huh?"
"Maybe lets just get to the hair cutting, hmm?" I laughed nervously and she threw the album casually back onto the desk, watching me cautiously.
"Take a seat" she instructed and I lowered myself slowly onto the bed.
Xx~xx~xX
Have you ever gazed up at the sun when you were a kid and tried to have a stare down with it? That's what it felt like as Leah looked intently at my face, brushing my hair in a swift soothing motion and holding my chin with one hot index finger.
"I need to cut a bit more from your left side" she breathed and I tried to hold my breath, failing almost as soon as I tried to do it and being engulfed by cranberry and chai spices. She tilted my head lightly to the right so the left side would be raised and my stupid head lolled all the way like it had no brain in it.
"Charles stop fooling around!" she snapped, removing her finger and hand from my head and reaching for the scissors "I will seriously give you a Justin Bieber pre-Selena Gomez hair do"
"It worries me that you know he is with Selena Gomez" I murmured hoarsely and then coughed once when a lump crawled up my throat and sat there when she scooted deliberately between my legs and her fingers pulled at my hair from my roots till the ends.
"It worries me that you take it lightly that small people are going to rule the world" she said in a low voice, her brown eyes tracing something on me. "I say research on them and learn their language quickly"
"You know what stumps me" I breathed, blinking rapidly to stop my eyes from being shrivelled up from gazing at this mega sun for too long "Is why I am getting a hair cut"
"Its either this or you let Alice style you" she said raising an eyebrow.
"Continue..." I murmured and she went back to tormenting me with her long fingers thrumming the strands of my hair.
There was no need to feel like this, I whispered to my heart, mind and other parts. When was a hair cut ever included in seduction one-oh-one? There was no need for me to feel like she was deliberately trying to drive me insane with jumping nerves...
"There was something I have been meaning to tell you" I whispered and her left large beautiful eye swivelled quickly to meet mine-and cause me to look away just as rapidly-before resuming its concentrated dance on her fingers and scissors ministration on my hair.
"Then tell me" she sighed, scooting the stool she sat on further between my legs and leaning a hand on my thigh.
"Uhm..." what was that thing I wanted to tell her? She removed her hand from my leg when my leg jumped up in a series of blurring uncontrolled spasms and retracted her hand in fake indifference before placing it carefully on the bed.
"It's about..." I paused and she leaned back from me, placing the scissors and small comb next to me on the bed. She sat straight and poised opposite me on the small stool but I could tell she had realised how impossibly close she had gotten to me in a bid to prove she could cut hair as good as any vampire...
She cleared her throat, studying her nails as though they held the cure to every disease known to man.
"I know about the imprint" I said quickly and her leg shot across the floor and rammed into my still one suddenly. "I know about you and then..." I pointed at my chest and then at her and then dropped my hand pathetically.
"Who told you?!" she demanded, leaning back forward-this time the awkward fear of being electrocuted by any such closeness to her twisted violently to something more intense and less... decadent.
"No one..." I began and she cut me swiftly.
"Jacob" she said sneering "He told you, didn't he?"
"It doesn't matter" I shrugged "I know"
She stopped her anger-that had been a ruse to cover up the fleeting fear and frantic panic working behind her eyes and stared at the far off corner of the room. I expected her to get up and put some distance between us-breathing room or running room... something...
"It's okay, Leah" I said in the same soft tone I had used when I saw the picture of her and Sam. "We are cool, right?"
"The thing about the imprint..." she began "The reason I hadn't told you..."
"You know what I think" I said softly, my hand twitching out to her "I think its not about you looking after me..."
"I don't..." she started, her eyes shining with liquid.
"Or you making me happy" I murmured and she shook her head in disbelief.
"Or you... becoming..." I stuttered and then took in a shaky breath "my lover..."
"I think its about us" I told her and a single tear fell down her cheek "And it isn't as complicated as making someone happy or being their mate or whatever. It's about just being there; never being alone. Standing as one... not joined in holy matrimony or whatever but just... caring"
I held her hands in mine, this time her hands resting on my knees without any jerking "And because its about us, Leah... I want you to be happy"
"Charles..." she whispered but I shook my head adamantly.
"I want you to have..." I looked into her eyes and she didn't look away but I knew then that just as she was the sun to me, so too was I her sun "I want you to have the little house in the woods with a..."
I paused abruptly, a pined smile on my face that disintegrated to an unsure quirk. Have you ever tried looking at the sun when you were a kid, and really trying to gaze at it so you could really see what it was past the bright hot light...? That's what it was like looking at Leah and until this moment before I uttered those somehow hard words... I always managed to blink before I could really see what she was behind the burning light.
My heart thudded violently in my chest and I almost thought it was only me with the conga beat before I realised hers was echoing my tempo beat for beat in a more elegant dance. This was the moment when I blinked...
"With a what, Charles?" she asked softly, her eyelids falling slightly but not enough to hide her dilated pupils from me.
"With a..." I breathed but when I finally managed to blink, praying that the blinding lights would return and I wouldn't be falling into her eyes-she remained solid and revealed before me "With a kid..."
"A kid?" she asked.
"Yeah" I nodded vehemently "A baby and a... good husband... in a little house in the woods. Like you always wanted"
"Oh, Charles..." she smiled and I released her hands-quickly wiping her tears away.
"I just want you to be happy, Leah" I whispered stroking her cheek. I scooted forward awkwardly and kissed her forehead; she shuddered behind my lips but allowed the motion. "You're the bravest person I know"
"I guess you haven't met yourself!" she chuckled but then a weird gulping sound worked its way through her throat. "Charles..." she squeaked and I groaned.
"Please don't cry!" I said desperately rubbing her shoulders. "You never cry, Lee"
"Yes I do!" she said "I just don't let anyone see me...ever... and now you... and I am crying... I don't know what's wrong with me..."
"Leah" I murmured and pulled her into my arms. She protested a little, trying to get her arms over mine and hold me to her but gave up when I wouldn't allow her.
"I love you, Charles" she whispered into my chest and something in me tensed hard and didn't release even after she calmed down and finished my haircut. It merged solidly with my conquering of the burning lights of her sun. I didn't say it back...
Because I knew that although we had always been on the same page, this wasn't one of those times.
It wouldn't have matched her 'I love'.
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
"I hate flying" Jacob grumbled. "Don't you hate flying?"
"I guess..." I murmured and he nodded and then turned to Emmett beside him and asked the same question.
"I prefer swimming" Emmett answered "But Rosalie and her hair..."
"You should just tell Blondie to get a swimming cap" Jacob muttered, nudging himself lower in his seat. "What's eating you, Fuzz?"
"Nothing" I grumbled, staring at the back of Edward's head. He was seated to rows up to out right at the end of the row, besides Jasper and Carlisle. He turned his head slowly, never fully and then resumed talking to Jasper.
I braved my nerves and looked back quickly, past several heads. Immediately I met umber eyes. She smiled freely at me and my eyes widened in response-no smile was returned. I sat back properly in my seat, tensing noticeably.
"Charles?" Jacob asked and I shook my head rigidly. "Okay, fine... it isn't like I want to discuss feelings" he lied.
Edward... I thought with purpose, pushing at the front of my mind. He turned his head deliberately again, this time cocking it in place. I did something I think I shouldn't have...
"Continue" he murmured, startling Jasper with his random word.
I made a promise... I began and then sighed I promised something I thought I could... give but then giving it feels like...
"The best gift is always something you yourself will miss dearly" he answered cryptically. "And it shows maturity and deep love if it is indeed something you possess and treasure that you are giving away"
"Uh, thanks" I said and Jacob snorted before snoring softly, his head falling on to my shoulder heavily. I let it lay there, the heat of him bearable through the light shirt. He snuggled slightly closer, his breathing steadied and heart pumping long droning beats.
That was the thing, maybe. I didn't want to possess a treasure. I wanted to earn it.
Something about it was similar to the emotion that wheedled at my heart when it thought about fighting to free Renesme with my grandfather-as much as it would have been a dream to have Jacob there with us, he couldn't hide that he had little emotion for Renesme outside of curiosity. He didn't know her and I didn't fault him for that. He knew me and that was what mattered to him in the end.
And it hit me so suddenly, I felt like jumping of the plane and swimming back to Esme's ever loving arms. The greatest treasures couldn't be possessed; they had to be earned-fought for with unrelenting passion.
We would have to fight for her...
It seemed so much easier in theory when we were all just having fun as boys do. But where we were heading, there was a battle and we couldn't be boys in such a fight.
This was the pinnacle-the moment; and it would last a lifetime.
I had to become a warrior.
And with any warrior, there were sacrifices to be made. And this is how it would come that my youth would remain in Esme's ever loving arms.
Xx~xx~xX
AUTHORS NOTE:
RESPONSES
Hmm, in retrospect... I do agree that I may have rushed the last few chapters. Postponed the arrival date of the gang to help with that and keep the plot straight and narrow...
As always, I love your reviews and responses! Renesme is such a tragic victim of her own disaster... and in future we will see how much mother is just like daughter *hint*. I think this story aside from being about Charles impact on Leah, Jacob and Edward-it is really about the tragedy that is Renesme due to Isabella. And on that note I have some news...
I think I did say this story will have sequels... and as we near the end of the major themes, we head into the sequel which may be headlined as an entirely separate story. Like your 'New Moon' to your 'Twilight'. This is after I got irritated with my Avatar fic seeming so very long...
And on that note, I hope you enjoyed the Wolf Vampire family dynamics as much as I enjoyed writing them out...
Till next time
Xx Tj