Chapter 51 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.


Josh was sound asleep. His limbs sprawled on the bed. Naked as always and not under the covers. She could see him in the light from the bathroom, before she turned the light out. She thought he was gorgeous.

She half got Edward's need to watch her sleep. Not all the time, and not when you didn't sleep at all yourself; that was creepy.

She was tempted to wake him up, but he was working so hard. The change had added some muscle to his previously more lean body. The planes of his stomach had definition and his shoulders looked wider than when they first met. She forgot not to touch him and in the now darkened room, she trailed a finger from the point of his shoulder to his throat. The change in his body told her that she had woken him up. He could see everything in the dark with his enhanced vision. She probably looked caught out. "I love you," she blurted out.

"Yes."

She poked him.

"You know how I feel," he said as he stretched and breathed deeply.

"Yes. I know."

His arm pulled her down onto his chest. He held her close for a minute. She listened to him breathe.

"Can't sleep?" he asked. He knew it wasn't because she had a nightmare.

She nodded against him. "Just… general anxiety."

"Come here, then," he said. He lifted her legs and made her straddle him. She could feel him hardening under her.

"Sex is not the answer to everything," she suggested as she sat up. "Not that I am saying, no."

"It is an answer to your insomnia."

"What?"

"You always sleep better after sex."

"I do?"

"You haven't noticed that?"

"I suppose so," she said and frowned as she tried to think about it. "I know that I fall asleep on you a lot."

"There you go."

"It's a wonder," she said. "The way you get my heart rate going."

He chuckled; it sounded pleased. He reached over and flicked the lamp on. She blinked in the sudden light change.

She asked him a question with her eyebrows.

"I like you seeing me," he said.

"Right. Because you can see me."

"I can… I really can," he crooned at her. "Admit it, you love watching my face."

She leaned down to kiss his face. "I do. You get this look as you come… almost as if it was just this side of painful."

She tried to do an imitation of his O face, the look he got as he orgasmed, and that made him chuckle, too.

"Watch it, or I will do imitations of you."

"You know what my O face looks like."

"Sure do. And now I am rested enough to wear you out. Make sure that you sleep well."

She chuckled. "That sounded like a challenge."

"Bring it." He made the gesture at her.

She laughed with delight.


Her eyes closed and she sank down onto him; inhaled and when he was all the way in, held her breath. Her eyes were still closed. He was watching her avidly. Looking faintly amused. She pushed on his shoulders and lifted her body up to then thrust down. She huffed out the breath she held as she did it.

She only got two movements like that in, before he grabbed her and flipped her onto her back. As he did it, he scratched down her shoulder blade. She winced but sometimes they got a bit rough with each other, so it wasn't unusual. Her knees were still up and he held them that way as he pulled back and thrust into her again.


Edward kept hanging around Bella like a bad smell. Josh was tired, and one day, he'd had enough.

"We need to talk," he said to the pale vampire.

Edward waited for him to speak although he probably knew exactly what he was going to say, but Josh said it anyway. "She's made up her mind. You need to leave her alone."

"I do not know what she sees in you. You want to put her in the front of a battle. You don't care for her at all."

"She left La Push. She went back to Seattle. And if she wanted to, she could have stayed away. I wasn't there to stop her. But she came back and she is working hard on her shield so that she can fight with the wolves that are protecting her. It's her choice. And I will stand with her while she fights."

Josh was sick of this. He stood right in Edward's face. He thought of last night; Bella fucking him like a wild thing. She looked like she was enjoying herself.

"Do you mind?" Edward hissed.

"Do you want to compare dick size? Will that make you feel better?"

"I've seen your dick," said Edward stiffly.

"Oh… have you?" Josh laughed. "You had to look, huh?"

"It was Alice, doing research into your pornographic past."

"Right… it's irrelevant." He made an abrupt hand gesture. "She didn't leave you for me. There's a five year gap there, during which she dated nobody on a permanent basis and the fact that she is with me now, has absolutely nothing to do with you."

"She didn't choose you; an imprint did."

"Right. Like a quirk of chemistry makes her blood attractive to you."

"She is my singer. Il mio cantante."

"Your what?" he shook his head. "Never mind. I don't care. And that's not strictly true about the imprint. We met in a bar. We were together before the imprint, fell in love before that happened and I think we might still be together even if there was no imprint."

"You don't know that."

Josh gave a small smile. "We just clicked from day one. We haven't slept apart since that first meeting."

"We did the same."

"She doesn't want you. Respect her wishes. You do not know what is best for her."

"No. You don't understand - her hold on me is permanent and unbreakable."

"She let you go. Her hold on you is gone. She took it away."

"I do not think that you are good for her."

Josh snorted. He remembered the list of injuries she had sustained when she was with Edward. Her listing them all for the tribe. "It isn't your decision; it's hers."

Edward just didn't seem to be listening to him. "She always worried about me leaving her. I never thought it would be the other way around."

"Well it is. She left you!" In frustration, Josh ran his hand through his hair. He wanted to scream.

"Although, I have to say, I always wanted her to stay human. The two would have been … a conflict for her."

"Ah, yes her dislike of aging. I heard she used to be like that. Clearly, she isn't now."

"She does seem better adjusted to aging, now."

Finally something that they could agree on. Josh was trying to imagine how her staying human and staying with Edward could possibly have been an option. He imagined the unchanging eternal teenager linked to a woman who grew older, as all people do. A woman who developed laugh lines, gray hairs and wrinkles. She matured and aged when he didn't change. He could imagine his Izzy older; her body heavier with age and some of her jittery habits gone as she relaxed more and learned to be at peace. Her tendency to bite her lip and gnaw at her nails, for instance.

And what about what she wanted? The things he had loved and longed for at seventeen had changed so drastically. By nineteen he was married with a kid. He had not appreciated what he had. Now he was eager to see his child with her; his Izzy.

He remembered, too late, that Edward could read his mind. He gave him a rueful look. "Things change."

"She has changed, even in the five years we were… apart," Edward conceded.

"Yes."

"I feared that, too."

"Change? Is that why you didn't want her to be turned?"

A small nod.

So he had considered the possibility that she might change her mind about being a vampire. Edward's family hadn't changed in seventy years or more. Added a couple of new members, but that was all. He was still seventeen; legally considered a child in most places in the world.

"I've changed," Josh confessed. "Made mistakes, got regrets, missed opportunities and done things that I shouldn't have." He had an image of little Sam waiting for the mail that never came. "Things you could never understand; not even if I showed you."

Edward watched him warily.

"But," Josh continued, "The one thing that I am absolutely, positively sure of is that Bella Swan loves me."

Edward's lips thinned.

"What she feels for you is pity and when she sees you, she feels guilt. Ask Jasper if you don't believe me. He can tell you what emotions people feel, right?"

"He can."

"So ask him. There isn't love there; not any more."

Josh spun on his heel and walked away. He tried hard not to think swear words at the vampire. Being made of stone, probably made it very hard to change. Maybe his brain was fossilized, too?

He had to check on Bella so he walked back to where she was watching the Forties. He kissed her and embraced her. That made him feel better. Her scent. Breathing her in and stopping that itch under his skin. Settling the wolf. "I have to go check in with Old Quil. I'll see you later."

"Dinner at the hall?" she checked.

He nodded and kissed her again before jogging away.

She frowned when she noticed Edward walk out of the forest from the same path that Josh had used. He smiled at her but she refused to return it and then she felt as if she was behaving like a five year old. She would have to talk to him. She couldn't put it off any more.

Edward approached her, as she knew he would with Josh gone.

"Were you talking to Josh?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"About me?"

"Yes."

"He looked annoyed. What did you say?"

"He is volatile. Offered to show me his dick."

Bella bit her lip. She would have to ask Josh what on earth that was about. "Well, you missed something there. I assume you didn't take him up on his offer?"

Edward made an annoyed little snort sound.

"You are only here to help fight the Volturi, if you are not going to do that, maybe it would be better for you to leave."

"I am here to fight."

"Okay, so stop following me around. We broke up. I am not interested in you like that."

"I can't help what I feel."

"I love Josh. I didn't marry you. I changed. I grew up."

"And I didn't."

"No."

"I didn't know that you had nightmares about a baby. You told … him about it." He said it as if it was a betrayal.

"I told the whole tribe. It was a vampire; it killed everyone. And it wasn't just that."

"He said it was a warning. A hybrid."

"It was a pretty stupid idea to want to have sex on the honeymoon. Why didn't you tell me that?"

Edward didn't say anything.

She knew sex with Josh got pretty rough sometimes. He'd bruised her and she'd scratched him and they hadn't even noticed at the time it was happening. They both knew what they were doing and had had sex before. What would two virgins have done to each other; one with superhuman strength and an attraction to the blood of the fragile human? If Jasper had picked up on Edward's blood lust for her the night of the paper cut, then Edward definitely had blood lust for her, but just held it in check by sheer force of will. Mid sex? He could have lost it completely.

She pulled at the neck of her shirt. Edward recoiled as if she was going to expose herself to him.

She rolled her eyes. "I want you to see something." Lifting her shoulder up she pulled the shirt neck down. "Can you see the scratch?"

A hesitant reply, "Yes."

"Josh did that last night."

"He hurt you?" He sounded horrified.

"We were having sex. And it got pretty intense and he just flipped me over a little too enthusiastically."

She peered at him but his face was blank.

"Do you understand?" she checked.

No reply.

She plowed on. "Um… I'd get him to show you his scratches but he heals so fast," she said, sounding frustrated. "You should have seen the nail marks on his back from last night." She chuckled.

"I don't believe you." He sounded so stiff; so formal, but it was understandable, she was trying to discuss sex with him. She thrust her fingers under his nose but he recoiled.

"What are you doing?" he sounded offended.

"Sniff. You can sense blood, right?"

A nod.

She pushed her hand at him. He sniffed delicately at her fingers and wrinkled his nose. "I see."

"Ask him."

"No, thank you."

"You see inside people's heads, why is rough sex so hard to believe?"

"It's not; it's just hard to believe it of you."

"I am not the teenager you wanted to marry. Not anymore."

"Will you get married? To him?"

"I don't know." She gazed off into the distance. "It isn't important to me anymore." It wouldn't make any difference to the relationship she and Josh had now.

"You said you wanted to do things in the right order."

"Get engaged, then married?" Then die, right after the honeymoon (or on it). She didn't say it and he couldn't know what she was thinking.

He changed the subject. "I did some research about hybrids. I admit that I would not have thought of using contraception." His face twisted as if saying the word was distasteful enough. And she wasn't on the pill back then, or using anything else. She hadn't thought about contraception being an issue, either. Fuck. She could have got pregnant. The dream might have been a reality. "But… vampires? They are dead, how could they make sperm?"

"My research suggests that human vampire hybrids do exist. Mostly in South America. It seems that there is a male vampire who preys on women like that. There are only four who have survived the process to reach adulthood. One male and three female."

"What the fuck?"

He flinched at her swearing.

"He's breaking the Volturi rules!" she said. "How old are these kids? Isn't it against the rules to make vampire babies?"

"Yes, but I don't know why they haven't dealt with him. I suppose they aren't technically vampire children; they can grow and reach adulthood and the Volturi are mostly concerned about immortal children."

She had an image of Nate and Kaylee asleep in their blanket fort. "Half human half vampire. That would be tragic. And a child? How does it eat or grow? Who looks after them? I assume the father isn't around and that the mother doesn't survive the birth?"

Edward just shook his head. "The baby has to bite its way out; the womb sets as hard as vampire skin and only vampire teeth can cut…" His voice trailed off.

She shuddered. "The poor babies. Their first act is to kill their mother. How many of them died with no one to look after them?"

"I didn't mean to make you sad." He looked as if he wanted to comfort her.

She took a step back, away from him. "Edward, I don't know how to do this. But I have told you I love somebody else, I am with that man. I do not love you. I do not want to be a vampire. The thought makes me feel ill."

He lifted his chin. "I sicken you?"

"No… but we are over. We were over five years ago. It's just … circumstances that have brought us together. I changed my mind." She said the last sentence forcefully. He had to understand. She wished, not for the first time, that Edward had found someone else to love.

"He said to ask Jasper what you feel."

"If that will help, then do it. I don't care."

She had to get away from him. She just walked away, but as she did she heard him repeat. "I don't care." He said it as if it was a foreign language that he didn't comprehend.