Chapter 26

The rest of the ride was silent. Bella wondered exactly how to break it to Jacob that Edward still loved her. It was imperative that she fill him in, but it seemed wrong to waste what could be their last moments talking about Edward.

"Jacob?" She began. This wasn't going to be easy.

"Yeah, Bells? What is it?"

"It's Edward. When we went to the Cullens' house and we were talking…" she let the sentence trail off, not quite sure how to finish. Best to just do it, like ripping off a bandaid. "Edward told me he loves me."

She let the words hang dangerously in the air between them, waiting for a response.

Jacob's entire body tensed. It was a good thing he had just turned the engine off in the driveway. He had to get out. He had to get out now. His body was shaking and his head was pounding and if he didn't get out now, he might phase and hurt Bella. He shoved the door open with enough force that it now hung at an angle as one of the hinges snapped.

Bella watched in horror as he ran out of the garage and into the open yard and began stripping his clothes off.

"Jacob, wait!" She shouted as he tossed his shirt aside and stood there in his shorts. She could see the muscles in his chest and arms convulsing.

"I'll kill him!" he shouted. He had everything he had ever wanted this summer. His life was literally perfect. Edward Cullen would NOT steal his happily ever after. But Bella…wouldn't it hurt Bella if he killed the one she loved? He cringed thinking about it. Killing Edward would make him feel better, but it would be like killing a little piece of Bella, too. Could he do that?

"Jake, relax! Calm down! Everything is fine!" Bella tried. She knew he would be upset, but this was a major overreaction. What was the deal?

"Everything is NOT fine. I can't lose you!" He cried desperately. He wasn't shouting at her; he was pleading to her.

"Lose me? To Edward?" Bella suddenly realized the problem with the situation. She was shocked for about half a second, and then she was mad. Furious, even.

"Jacob Black, are you telling me that you think I'm in love with Edward?" Bella walked towards him and jabbed his rock-hard chest with her index finger. She was mad enough that she barely noticed the pain that followed. After all they had been through, how could he think that she could just abandon him for someone else?

"I, you mean—" Jacob looked bewildered, but Bella cut him off.

"—because if you think that I could just drop everything we have and run off with someone else—ANYONE else, then I'm in love with the biggest idiot on the planet. I love you more than I ever loved Edward—more than I could ever love anyone, and that's never going to change. Got it?" She involuntarily jabbed him again and immediately regretted it. That was definitely going to leave a bruise.

Jacob responded by almost crushing her ribs in a hug.

"I….Ja…" Bella gurgled under his strength and he immediately loosened his hold.

"So the bloodsucker loves you, but you don't love him."

"Yes. And there is a reason I'm telling you this." Jacob pulled her by the hand and sat her on the hood of the car before joining her.

Bella pulled his hand into her lap and began tracing the lines in his palm. "Alice interrupted our conversation. I never got to tell him about the imprint or about us at all." She almost paused for his reaction, but thought it best to plow on and get through it. "Alice and I were talking, and we think that if we tell him the truth, he might do something irrational that could jeopardize our alliance with the Cullens."

"So you want to keep us a secret," Jacob scowled.

"No, I don't 'want' to keep us a secret, but I think it's best that we save that bit of information until after the fight. I feel horrible keeping it from him; we're betraying and using him, but all of our lives depend on this alliance," she finished.

"I guess you're right about that." The whole situation was a little more tolerable now that he knew they had the upper hand at Cullen's expense.

"And hopefully this will all be over soon and we can get it out in the open and go on with our lives," Bella added. Or we'll all die and we'll never have to break it to him at all, her subconscious countered.

"I hate this," Jacob sighed. "All of it. Edward, vampires, werewolves—everything. I love being part of the pack—most of the time—but sometimes I wonder what life would be like if none of it existed. If we were all just normal people." He had never wondered it before, probably never would have wondered it if it weren't for Bella, but right now all he wanted was to be a normal teenager with a hot girlfriend and no stupid vampires to stalk her.

"If we were normal, we wouldn't have our imprint," Bella pointed out. "We would be your average teenage couple."

"You could never be an average anything, Bella." He rose from the car and scooped her up into his arms, then bent to gently kiss her. He had almost grown used to the overly sweet aroma that had followed Bella into the car, but it hit him hard as a tendril of her hair slid across his face. He involuntarily pulled away. The look on her face told him she noticed.

"Um, Bells? No offense, but how about that shower?" he offered as an explanation.

"You're right; back to the mission. You better put me down before I spread any vampire germs to you. Might be contagious," she teased.

He put her down gently, then opened the door that led into the laundry room at the side of the house and let her enter ahead of him.

There was an awkward tension in the air. Bella wanted to invite him into the shower with her, but she knew what would happen if she did. She knew she was ready, knew Jacob was the right one, but the timing didn't seem right. Her mind kept wandering to the impending fight and the alliance with the Cullen's. The alliance with the Cullen's—she noticed that she didn't align herself with them anymore. For Bella, in the separation of "us" and "them," "us" was wolves, and "them" was vampires. She was getting used to it, but taking sides at all felt unnatural.

"Here you go," Jacob said, handing Bella a faded blue towel before she stepped into the bathroom. "Shampoo and soap are in the shower. You need anything else?" He asked. Like a helping hand? He didn't let himself say those words, though. There were more important things going on than his raging hormones.

"I just realized I didn't bring a change of clothes. These probably smell like Alice," Bella said with a frown as she looked down at her shirt. It looked clean to her, but her sense didn't count for much in a crowd of vampires and werewolves. It was like being the slow kid in class.

"Go ahead and shower; we can wash them after you get out. Can't run the washing machine at the same time, it screws with the water." He had found that out the hard way. He could still remember the icy chill that penetrated his body when Billy started a load of laundry without realizing Jacob was in the shower once. The cold had felt like needles and had scared him so badly that he jumped, slipped and took down the entire shower curtain and rod trying to steady himself. They had had to take baths for a week while they waited for the curtain rod to be shipped to the local hardware store, and Quil had laughed until he cried when he asked about one of the many resulting bruises. Jacob smiled at the memory. It couldn't have been more than a year ago, but it felt like forever. He wondered if he would ever feel cold like that again.

If Bella's clothes needed to be washed, he would have to find her something to wear in the meantime. Jacob smiled to himself as he considered the possibilities. Bella was more than just a hot body to him. It had never been about trying to get into her pants at all, but it sure was hard to forget that aspect of their relationship in situations like this. He let his smirk fade away as he opened his dresser drawer and realized one of his old t-shirts would have to do. It's not like he had any pants that would stay on her tiny frame, and his sisters had only left behind a very small, very hideous reject pile of clothing when they moved out.

He heard the water shut off and the familiar scraping of the curtain against the rod as Bella stepped out. Moments later, she opened the bathroom door and trapped steam billowed out from behind her.

"Jake?" she said. She was wrapped in a towel, her dark hair slicked back and dripping onto those perfect pale shoulders.

"Do you have something I can put on?" she asked. He wordlessly handed her the t-shirt. Why was he looking at her like that? She couldn't read the thoughts behind the expression that he wore.

God, she was perfect. And she still didn't know it.

"What?" she asked.

"I love you," he said seriously. It was all worth it, the fur, the voices in his head, even the treaty with the bloodsuckers. He wished things were easier and that they could be normal teenagers, but he would take whatever unpleasant variables were necessary as long as they added up to him getting to be with Isabella Swan, this goddess dripping water all over the floor and looking confused.

"I love you too, Jake." Bella smiled as she took the shirt. They'd said it a hundred times by now, but somehow the words held a calming effect, and for a moment, she was just a teenage girl in love.

After Bella dressed herself in the oversized t-shirt and started the load of laundry, Jacob whisked her off of her feet and set her on the couch in the small living room.

"What are you doing, Jake?" Bella asked as he bent down to rummage in the cabinet beneath the TV.

"Treating you to a date. The normal kind, complete with an awful chick flick, a bowl of popcorn, and whatever else you want. Until your clothes are dry, we could be anybody with normal lives. Deal?"

"That sounds amazing, actually." It really did. In just a few hours, all hell would break loose. Risks would be taken; lives were at stake. It was all she had thought about for days. A few hours of goofing off with her boyfriend sounded like the perfect solution.

"I'll be Carly, the shy new girl intimidated by the gorgeous guy who just asked her out," Bella giggled.

"What?" Jacob was lost.

"Hey, you said we get to be anybody, right?"

"Okay…then I'm Nathan, the school stud that immediately had to make a move on the gorgeous new girl," Jacob grinned one of those smug grins. Of course he'd cast himself as the stud. And of course Bella would cast herself as the shy new girl.

Jacob pressed play on the ancient VHS player and went into the kitchen to make popcorn during the previews. When he returned, Bella had moved from her position sprawled out across the couch and was sitting up straight with her hands in her lap.

"Popcorn is served," he said, offering the bowl between them with his left hand as he slyly slid his right arm around her shoulders. It seemed like a move the school stud would make.

Bella smiled innocently, then looked back to the TV as the movie finally revealed itself as She's All That.

"I wouldn't have taken you for a She's All That fan, Nathan."

"Well Carly, I'm just full of surprises." He grinned that 100 watt smile and winked as he said it.

They spent a good portion of the movie just like that, giggling over the sillier parts and throwing popcorn at each other while Jacob pulled out his cheesiest lines and Bella blushed and smiled in return. Halfway through, Jacob cooked a frozen pizza in the oven and did his best to save some for Bella. She ate two slices to his six.

"Oops," Jacob said once as he dropped a piece of popcorn down Bella's shirt. "Here, let me get that for you."

He faked reaching for her shirt as Bella giggled, "Nathan, stop!" and gently pushed his hand away. As she did, he laced his fingers through her own. It was flirtation in its most sugary, unrefined form.

"You know, I really like you," Bella said to Jacob at the end of the all but forgotten movie, just as it would be in any first date.

"And I really like you," Jacob said, and he began to slowly lean in. Bella closed her eyes and met his lips with her own, the perfect first kiss for the fictitious couple.

Jacob pulled away, but kept his hand on her knee. "You know, Carly, I know I'm good, but it usually takes me more than the first date to get a girl out of her pants," he slid his hand up an inch and squeezed her thigh playfully.

"I wish I could say the same for myself," Bella retorted in an intentionally sexy voice Jacob had never heard before.

"Damn, I knew there was something mysterious about the hot new girl!"

Bella grinned and threw her arms around Jacob's waist.

"Thanks, Jake. This was perfect," she told him.

"It was, wasn't it?" He agreed, kissing the top of her head. "We better finish getting ready."

It had been perfect, but it wasn't reality. He hoped they could come back to this scene after whatever was about to happen, or even that there was a scene to come back to at all.

"It's almost time to go," he said, gently tugging Bella's hand as he rose from the couch that looked like doll house furniture beneath his massive frame.

He led her into the guest bedroom that had once belonged to his sisters and flipped on the light. There were two twin beds against the walls and an oversized dresser, too big for the room.

"Here, you'll need this," Jacob said, handing Bella a baby blue parka that had been sitting on the closest bed. Rebecca had left it behind when she moved to Hawaii.

"For?"

"It's going to get cold where we're going," Jacob said.

"I better put on some pants, then," she joked, but neither of them laughed or smiled.

Bella dressed, and Jacob disappeared into the garage. When he came back, he was carrying a large backpack, the kind Bella was used to selling at Newton's for hiking. It had a green sleeping bag strapped to the bottom and looked full.

"It's time," Jacob said. He set down the backpack and reached down to help Bella zip the front of the jacket.

"Do you think you'll be able to wear this?" he asked, pointing down at the backpack.

"Um, sure. What will you be wearing?" Bella didn't mind pulling her own weight, but she knew Jacob wouldn't ask her to carry something so heavy unless something was stopping him from doing it himself.

"Fur," he said.

…

As she clung to his fur, laying low against his back as they traveled further up the mountain, Bella couldn't help but picture the scene from The Golden Compass where Lyra rode the polar bear through the arctic. With the wind whipping against her face as they raced through the forest, the ride had been chilly from the beginning. Now there was snow melting against her eyelashes, and she was grateful for the heat of the wolf beneath her body. This would have been unbearable with anyone else.

Jacob stopped before the top of the mountain at a small space where a gap in the trees was just large enough to accommodate the small tent. Bella climbed from his back, and he phased immediately. He pulled the backpack from Bella's hunched shoulders and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that he had packed inside.

"You're not going to be cold?" Bella asked, still shivering. Jacob was standing barefoot in two inches of snow. Any normal person would be well on the way to frostbite; instead, she noticed that the snow around his feet began to melt from contact with the heat.

"Nah, I'm fine," he said as he pulled a packaged tent from the backpack. "I'll have this tent up in just a minute and we can go inside and stay warm." It would take three minutes and forty-two seconds. He had timed it when he scouted out a location to make sure that Bella wouldn't get too cold waiting.

Bella thought about offering to help, but she knew she would only get in the way, and she couldn't feel her fingers anyway.

"There," he said, ushering Bella inside the cramped tent. The tent was seven feet by seven feet, just big enough for the two to lie down inside the sleeping bag that Jacob was rolling out. Bella was sitting in the corner, teeth chattering and hands buried deep in her pockets.

"Here sweetheart, let's get you out of that coat and into the sleeping bag so I can warm you up." He carefully unzipped the jacket and pulled the hood from Bella's head.

As soon as he climbed into the sleeping bag with her, Bella started to feel better. The numbness of the cold was slowly starting to melt away against his warm skin, like something cold-blooded coming out of hibernation. She was too cold to speak, so she took his hand that was draped around her waist and intertwined her freezing fingers with his fiery ones.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.