I was tired by the many rounds of patrol I'd been running. I hadn't taken a break, volunteering each hour to run the loop around the house. Leah and Seth were happy for the break, but Jake brooded silently in the living room, refusing to voice his disagreement. Leaving me alone as I'd asked him to.

I stuck to the trees in human form, hopping from branch to branch wherever they would hold me. Moving made being here easier, so close to him, to Edward, to the Cullens. To all these people I would be so close to if it had not been for this situation.

Because Bella got knocked up.

"Can we talk?" Edward's voice sounded from the house, far away from this fog of responsibility.

I moved closer to greet him and his company but paused when I realized it was Jake.

"Look, Jacob," he began, "I need you to do something for me." Jacob's laugh cut off the rest of his plea. "For her. You have a connection with her that I'll never understand. Maybe you could talk to her, change her mind. You can keep her alive."

He scoffed. "Nothing I say is going to change her mind. I thought we already established that."

"Well, try again." His voice was exhausted. "I want her to stay alive as much as you do, but it seems like I'm the only one trying to convince her to choose life over death."

"I already tried that. Multiple times. Tried to convince her to choose 80+ years alive with me rather than an eternity dead with you, but we both know how that worked out."

The vision of Jake and Bella burned itself painfully into my mind.

"I recall you falling in love with someone else." And despite myself, that lifted my spirits.

"That's not the point here. She's not going to listen to me. She wants the whole package with you. A honeymoon, a marriage, a house, and a kid."

Edward sighed. "Well, I gave her all of that, but I can't give her a child."

"Clearly."

"But you can." My ears perked up at this, and my heart thumped out of my chest. I dropped from the tree on all fours, angry and confused. I wasn't supposed to react like this, but I was already racing towards Edward, teeth bared, claws stretched.

I was met with my imprint, arms wide, facing me with a look of determination, and...love.

"Get out of here, leech." His eyes stayed glued to me but I eyes focused on Edward, tired, haggard, idiot Edward. "And just for the record, I'm not doing this for you. It's for her. I know she wouldn't forgive herself if she offs you."

I saw Edward nod once, and I growled at the movement. How dare he? How DARE he?!

My blood was boiling but the anger I felt looking at Edward was canceled out by the love my wolf felt for Jake. Neither of which I wanted to be feeling. So then there was more anger accompanied by more confusion, and these paralyzed me.

Edward ran before I could react and Jake was left, reaching a hand out to this uncontrollable part of me that only wanted to snuggle closer to him.

His hand touched my nose softly, petting me, and I grumbled in satisfaction before stepping back. My eyes widened at the change in me, and I hated myself for it. I turned and ran in the next second, but he didn't let me get away that quickly.

He followed behind me until we got to our spot. I didn't know I was heading there until I heard the sound of the waves, saw the view of town, so small and quaint.

It broke me, and the tears came with speed. I dropped to the ground, wrapping my arms around myself rocking back and forth, and then he was holding me. I didn't push him away. Because in that moment, Jacob Black, friend, companion, that's who he was to me. The safety I felt in his arms only magnified the feeling I got being in this place, in this spot, where I first laid eyes on him.

"Why are you crying?"

"Because I love you, okay? No matter how I try, I can't get over you. I love you even though I don't want to, and I can't stop it." I pushed his chest, screaming now. "I don't want to love you. I don't want some ancient spirits to tell me that I have to be with you for the rest of my life, especially when you were the one to show me what heartbreak was. I hate you. I hate you!"

"No, you don't."

"I do. I do."

"You can't hate me." He was cradling my face, wiping my tears away. "You can never hate me. Just like I can never hate you because we were made for each other."

I shook my head, trying to convince myself it wasn't true. But Jake just kept talking. He was still holding me, still trying to make everything okay again.

"I'm glad you can never hate me because I screwed up. I screwed up big time, but at least this means that you'll have to speak to me again. At least this means that I haven't lost you forever."

I cried harder at his words, burying my head in his chest.

He rubbed his hands up and down my back with care. "Do you know why I came back?"

I didn't answer still trying to get my emotions together.

"I got tired of the running," he said. "The anger. The transformation. For months, I thought I'd just stay a wolf, but the emotion was still there, buried underneath instinct. I still loved you, and I'd still kissed Bella. I'd still broken your heart. And even though I know I have no right to be, it hurt that I knew you hated me."

"I only came back for Bella's wedding." I flinched at that. "Not because of why you think. Not to stop it or kill her husband-to-be, but...to say goodbye."

I briefly remember Edward's promise to turn her after the grand event, for her to be withering in pain at her honeymoon. I'd never thought he'd actually go through with it but here we were at the other end of the honeymoon with Bella pregnant and Edward having no choice but to save her and his baby.

Jake continued. "I wanted to see you, talk to you, hold you in my arms but any scenario I cooked up in my head ended with you hating me even more than you already did and I couldn't live with⸺and now you're my imprint and I'm torn because everything in you is telling you to hate me but your wolf says you love me. I want you to love me but seeing you struggling against it, against what we're supposed to be, I can't stand it. I want to make all your pain go away, but I'm also the cause of it, so in the end, I'm where I've always been with you, letting you down."

I heard a sniffle over my head and knew he was crying too. This broken shell in front of me was neither the boy I had met nor the cocky boy who'd come back after being gone for months. He was merely a shell of who he once was, and I realized just how much both he and I had changed.

I closed my eyes to stop the flow of my tears, but his hand under my chin popped them open again. Brown teary eyes. Flannel shirt. Pink soft lips. Blue jeans. Tousled black hair from hands run through time after time.

Pleading warmth. Luring comfort. Sorrowful sad depressing expression. Jacob Black. My Jake. My imprint. My soulmate. My everything.

"I can't go back and change what was the stupidest mistake of my entire life but I can ask for forgiveness. I can ask for another chance to prove to you that you're the one for me. I will do whatever it takes to make you see that."

I didn't want to talk about us, about what I meant to him. I just wanted to know one thing. "What would your answer have been?"

He paused, eyes flashing between my own, searching for something before he answered, "No. It would have been no."

My heart smiled when I knew he was telling the truth, but I didn't want it to change us. It couldn't change us. I couldn't give in to everything in me telling me to kiss him.

"Thank you." I said. "Thank you for that." I pulled myself out of his arms, wiping my face and standing up.

He grabbed for me before I could I could escape.

"Jake I—" And then he was kissing me. And then I was seeing him with Bella atop a mountain covered in snow. And then I was pushing him away again.

The tears came again without permission though I was still grateful for the comfort that came with it right before I was reminded of his betrayal. But he reminded me of Jake the friend, the best friend, and having him back, if just for a moment, was better than any comfort anyone else could have given me.

Maybe I could do this. Keep him in a glass box, so I could see him, speak to him but never be touched. I would be safe that way. I thought I would be safe that way.

A hand to my shoulder snapped me out of my reverie, and I cringed away from him. His whole body slumped, but I stood my ground, if only to gain him back as a friend. Only a friend.

"I can't pretend like nothing happened. I can't forget because it's seared in my brain. I can't tell you I love you or kiss your lips without guaranteeing that you're not thinking about her when you say it back."

"You can Crystal. Use your superpower." The endearing term made my heart smile, and it widened even more when he said his next three words. "I love you."

It hurt when he said it because he wasn't lying but I couldn't take him back.

"I know. Thank you. But I can't. I'm not...ready. But I think—I think I need a lot of friends to get me there. Friends like you, maybe, that used to make me laugh and would listen all day and night when I talked about absolutely nothing or almost everything. Friends who cared about me and were always there for me. Always."

I took a deep breath and looked away. "I don't know if you can still be that friend, but if you are, I could really use someone like you at a time like this."

His body crushed to mine before I could register it and it felt so wonderful being in his arms again. It wasn't the heat or chemistry transpiring between our bodies, it was the feeling of friendship, companionship, the feeling that someone else was finally holding the burden of my heartbreak. Validating it. Letting me feel it. Ironic that it was him.

I pushed him back before we got too attached and let one side of my mouth quirk up a teensy tiny bit, and in return he gave me the best and brightest smile he could muster. And I told myself before I could change my mind, that this would work out in the end.

Everything in me hoped for it.

My eyes shut the pain away trying to find peace in the midst of it all. Maybe this was what I needed. Jake close but not close enough, not too close that he could hurt me again. Not close enough that it would matter.