Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Oh my gosh...this chapter was like pulling teeth! No idea why, but I hope it's not complete crap:) I've had a crazy month; hasn't it been a crazy month? Anyway, thank you so much for your patience and for caring enough about this story to keep asking for the next update:)

Winter Moon

by Kristen Elizabeth

Jacob had drifted back to sleep by the time Nessie delivered his requested soup. Rather than wake him, she quietly set the tray on the nightstand and sank down to her knees beside the bed.

No matter how many times she'd studied his face while he was sleeping, she never got over how angelic he looked when he was lost in his dreams. She wanted to stroke his cheek and touch her lips to his, but she also wouldn't have woken him up for the world. It was enough, for the time being, just to sit next to him.

"Nessie."

She didn't have to turn around to know that her uncle had appeared in the opend doorway, but out of courtesy, Nessie turned her head towards him. "Hey."

Jasper stepped inside, immediately followed by the unmistakable bulk of her other uncle. After flashing Emmett a brief smile, Nessie turned her attention back to Jacob.

The men exchanged a glance before Jasper cleared his throat. "We're going into the woods," he started.

"Caught site of some mountain lion tracks when we were looking for the newb..." When his brother elbowed him in the ribs, Emmett quickly finished, "Got a craving for cat."

Nessie delicately touched the dark hair at Jacob's temple. "Okay." When the men said nothing, but didn't retreat, she glanced back at them in puzzlement. "Have fun."

Jasper took a hesitant step towards her. "Nessie...you probably haven't looked in a mirror much the past couple of days, but..."

"Baby, you look like death," Emmett interrupted. "And that might be okay for us, but it ain't a good color on you."

"I know you're tired of everyone telling you what you need, but part of being an adult is realizing that sometimes we need the people who loves us to point out the obvious when we can't see it ourselves." Jasper crouched down next to his niece. "I know you already ate, but now you need blood."

It was a truth she had been ignoring since Brazil, but she could deny it no longer. Blood was exactly what she needed. Fresh, hot blood...her half-vampire body craved it and the human half wasn't strong enough to resist anymore.

So when Jasper reached for her hand and asked, "Come with us?," Nessie rose to her feet and let herself be led out of the room without protest.

Gentlemen to the core, her uncles gave Nessie the first kill, a sleek and snarling mountain lion whose blood immediately put color back in her cheeks. She had just finished burying the body and offering up a little prayer for the creature's death when she felt Emmett's hand on her shoulder.

"Better?" he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

"Yeah." Nessie smiled softly. "Thanks."

"That's what we're here for, darlin'." Emmett guided her over to a fallen tree and sat down beside her on the wide, moss-covered trunk. "So...how're you doing?" He tapped his finger against the side of her head. "What's going on in there?"

The woods were quiet, save for the occasional hoot of an owl or rustle of leaves in the cold wind. "I did something...really awful, Uncle Emmett," she whispered.

"You?" He shook his head. "I don't believe that for a minute."

Suddenly, she was so tired of holding everything in. If there was anyone in the family who wouldn't judge her or try to advise her, it was going to be the man sitting next to her. With tears stinging the backs of her eyes, Nessie hesitantly placed her small hand against Emmett's chiseled cheek.

A minute later, with all of her jumbled thoughts running through his mind, he stared at his niece. "Woah."

She tried to smile, but failed miserably as she lowered her hand and tucked it against her body. "I told you."

Emmett threaded his fingers together and tapped them against his mouth for a long minute. "So...you didn't..."

"I'm still a virgin."

He grimaced, like any uncle who was hearing too much information about his favorite niece's sex life. "Well. That's good news for that Nahuel kid's nuts," he muttered.

"But Jake thinks we're even," Nessie continued. "And I don't know what's worse...me wanting to hurt him as much as he hurt me...or him thinking that everything's okay now that he's not the only one who was bad." She paused. "It's not supposed to work like that...right? A wound for a wound?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right and all that Sunday school stuff, yeah?" Emmett waved away a hovering beetle. "Carlisle'd be better at answering that sort of thing."

"I want to know what you think."

"Doesn't matter what I think, sweet pea." Emmett put an arm around her and drew her closer. "Doesn't matter what anyone thinks but you. Cause you're the only one who has to live with it."

Nessie buried her face in her uncle's shirt. "Can I be three again? Please?"

He laughed and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. "Now, I seem to remember a three year-old who told me that the only thing she wanted for Christmas was to be all grown up."

Even at three, Nessie was far too clever not to know that it was her uncle in the Santa suit. Still, he had asked her what she wanted and she'd told him the truth. She couldn't wait to be a grown-up.

"Why are you in such an awful hurry to grow up?" Emmett had asked her around the fake, white beard Alice had forced him to wear.

Everyone was watching. Her parents...her grandparents...her aunts and uncles. And Jacob.

"Because grown-ups have all the fun," she had pouted.

It was a lie, but it made everyone laugh. Jacob had swung her up into his arms and planted a kiss on her cheek and just for a second, she wished she could tell him why she really wanted to be a grown-up.

So they could get married and live happily ever after.

"Don't grow up too fast, Nessie," Jacob told her with a smile. "Okay?"

She would have promised him anything. "Okay."

Jasper's sudden reappearance knocked Nessie out of the memory. "How'd you do?" Emmett asked his brother.

"Caught her." Jasper looked at Nessie. "There's a small herd of deer a few miles to the east."

Nessie rose to her feet, shaking her head. "I'm okay, Uncle Jazz. I'd like to get back to the house, if that's okay."

Jasper glanced at Emmett and waited for him to nod. "All right. Let's head home."

When they started off, Nessie was a few steps in front of the men, but after only a minute or two of walking, she stopped and looked back at them.

"Was this hunting trip my dad's idea or my mom's?"

"Does it matter?" Jasper asked with an arched eyebrow.

"No," she eventually decided. "I guess not." After another second, she faced forward again and resumed walking. Only her uncles could have heard her grumble, "You all know me way too well."

"Family," Emmett chuckled. "Kind of a bitch, eh?"

Alice had told herself a thousand times that she wasn't going to bother Jacob while he was recovering, but when she just happened to pass by his room and noticed the door was ajar, she couldn't help but peek inside.

Jacob was sitting on the edge of his bed, a thick, square bandage still covering his neck like an off-kilter bib. He was pale, but not deathly so, and he was frowning at a crescent-shaped bite mark on his forearm.

"Knock, knock?" His head shot up as Alice poked her head inside. "Are you supposed to be out of bed, Mr. Black?" she teased.

The corners of his lips turned up. "Are you going to tell on me, Ms. Cullen?"

Alice stepped into the room. "I'm no tattle-tale," she assured him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell." He turned his attention back to his arm. "This will go away, won't it?"

She frowned. "You've been bitten before, right?"

"Crushed, smacked, tossed, body-slammed and clawed," Jacob admitted. "But never bitten."

Alice delicately cleared her throat. "It'll fade." She paused. "Mostly."

"Great," he groaned. "Just what I wanted out of all of his. A souvenier." Lowering his arm, he winced in pain. "Guess that's what I get for being stupid."

"You're the only one who's used that word," Alice kindly reminded him.

"Then everyone else is being really polite." Jacob tried to stand, but the effort took too much energy. He slumped back with another groan. "Did the guys get off okay?"

"Bella's driving them to the airport as we speak." Alice watched him try to get up again and when he failed a second time, she stepped forward and ducked her whole body underneath his arm for support. With her help, Jacob finally rose to his feet. "There we go," she said cheerfully.

Jacob shook his head. "Nope. Dizzy. Gotta sit." Alice stepped back and let him fall back onto the bed. "No wonder Nessie left," he muttered a minute later, when the room stopped spinning. "I'm pathetic."

"Nessie's not here because Jasper and Emmett were given a mission to get her into the woods by any means necessary," she informed him as she took a seat on the bed beside him. "She hasn't had blood in weeks and it was starting to take a toll on her. I don't blame you for not noticing, but it's also not fair to jump to conclusions."

He nodded. "You're right. Sorry."

Alice sighed softly. "No, Jake...I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm always sorry that I can't see anything that could help you and Nessie," she admitted. "Maybe if I could, none of this would have happened."

"Okay," he said a second later. "You are way too tiny to take on so much guilt." Jacob offered her a crooked smile. "What would you have done, anyway? She and I...we made our choices and that's that. No time to stop any of it."

Alice sniffed. "Little comfort."

Jacob nodded again, only absentmindedly this time. Just when Alice was about to say something, anything to break the silence, he suddenly spoke again. "Alice, you were with her in Rio." His jaw clenched. "You saw her with him."

"Mmm-hmm," was her only reply.

Alice braced herself for any number of questions that Jacob might have about Nahuel, but the one he asked nearly broke her unbeating heart. "Was she happy when she was with him? Even just for a minute..." He paused. "I'm only asking because..." His Adam's apple bobbed above the white bandage on his neck. "I hope she was."

"Oh, Jake," she murmured after a long moment of thought. "Maybe she was. For a minute." Alice put her small, cold hand on top of his. "But if it helps, I don't think it was true happiness. I think it was the kind of happiness we can almost trick ourselves into believing is true. Because the alternate...the unhappiness...it just...well...it sucks."

Jacob swallowed back a reluctant smile. "Okay." With a sigh, he slung his huge arm over her slender shoulders. "Let's trying this standing thing again."

Alice leapt up, ready, as always, to help a member of her family.

Upon her returning from the airport where she had dropped off Seth and Quil for their return journey to Forks, Bella searched the house until she found her husband in Carlisle's study. Edward was seated behind the massive cherry wood desk, surrounded by open medical texts, although his focus was on the glowing screen of Carlisle's computer.

"Welcome back," Edward said as she entered the room. Tearing his eyes away from his reading, he gave her smile that made her knees momentarily weak. "I missed you."

"I was gone for an hour," Bella reminded him. Coming around the desk, she glanced at the books and the article on the screen. "What's all this? Artery repair?"

Edward leaned back in his chair. "When Carlisle was working on Jacob, all I could really do was assist him. I don't know the latest surgical techniques and even my basic knowledge of the anatomy involved was shaky." When Bella put her hands on his shoulders, he reached back to cover them with his own. "I haven't gone to medical school since 1992."

"Hmm. Well, then..." Bella rested her chin on top of his messy bronze locks. "After we graduate this time, why don't we go together?"

"Together?" Edward thought about this for a second. "You'd want to?"

"Sure. I've always liked science. Why not get a medical degree? Or two?"

Edward urged her around his chair until he could grab her by the waist and pull her down onto his lap. Studying was forgotten as he kissed his wife, slowly and thoroughly. Pulling back, Edward tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "All right. We can always use another Dr. Cullen in the house."

Bella brushed kisses across his cheeks, his forehead and finally his mouth. "Love you," she whispered.

After Edward returned the whispered sentiment, they were quiet for a long minute, just enjoying being close. But eventually, Bella lifted her head from his shoulder. "Did Jasper and Emmett..."

"Yes," he answered her question before she could finish asking it. "I got a text from Emmett a few minutes ago. She's fine and they're on their way back."

Bella relaxed against him. "That's one less thing to worry about, I guess."

As if she had tempted fate, the phone on Carlisle's desk suddenly began to ring. Edward strained up to see the ID screen over the layers of books that lay between him and the device. "It's an unknown number," he reported.

"Telemarketer." Bella rolled her eyes. "Tell them we're a family of vampires and we don't need new long distance service. Maybe they'll finally put us on that no-call list."

Chuckling, Edward guided her lips back to his. As they kissed, Carlisle's voice filtered through the phone in a recorded message, telling the unidentified caller to leave a message after the beep. There was a shrill beep and then a second of silence.

What followed was enough of a shock to tear them out of their embrace.

"Hello, Carlisle. This is Zafrina. I am sorry to have called while you are not available, but I felt as though I must give you some...shall we say...warning. Nahuel is on his way to America. To see our Renesmee. I do not know what happened between the two of them, but I suspect his visit may not be welcome. What can I say? He is a young man in love and there is no talking to such a fool. Please call us if there is anything we can do to help. Thank you, old friend."

Bella stared at the machine for a long time after Zafrina's message ended. "Nahuel is coming here? Oh god..." She closed her eyes briefly. "How are we going to keep him and Jacob apart?"

"I have no idea." Edward's jaw clenched. "Let's try to keep this from my brothers for as long as possible. No need to give them time to organize any bets on who will be walking away from that showdown."

Bella frowned at her husband. "Forget about them!" Her expression softened into worry. "We have to tell Nessie. We can't just let Nahuel surprise her with no warning, especially since we still have no idea what he did to send her back her so upset and withdrawn and..."

"It's going to be all right," Edward soothed his wife's rapidly mounting anxiety. "Nahuel can't hurt her here." His tone grew dark. "I don't imagine he'll even get to be alone in a room with her."

"Edward...don't you go down this road again." His wife climbed off his lap in order to better look him in the eye. "We'll tell her that he's coming, yes, but after that...we have to let her deal with him on her own. Whether she wants to be alone with him or wants to kick his ass out of the house...it's up to Nessie. Not us. Understood?"

"But..."

Bella clamped her hand over his mouth. "I'm serious, Edward. And you'd better believe I'm going right upstairs to have this same conversation with Jacob. No one interferes in all of this unless Nessie asks for our help. Do I make myself clear?"

"Can I just say one more thing?" he asked, his words garbled and muffled around her hand.

"No." After dropping a kiss onto his head, Bella stepped back, turned and left the study. Edward sank back into his chair. If he hadn't known it to be impossible, he would have sworn he was coming down with a sudden migraine.

To Be Continued