2020-10-16: beta'd by the amazing Chayasara and Eeyorefan12.
Sam, Jacob, and Paul made the Cullens' otherwise spacious living room feel small; shortly after they arrived, it turned loud, as well.
"No!" Jacob half yelled. "Sam, this is—!"
Sam held up his hand, the gesture securing silence. The trio of Quileutes stood across from Bella, who was sitting on the couch, Edward and Carlisle a few feet away from her on either side.
"Are you asking for our permission to change her?" Sam asked Carlisle.
"We haven't asked you for anything, but I think Bella has been very clear about her request," Carlisle replied evenly.
"You can't want this," Jacob said to Bella. "Not after what you know about them now, what you've just told us." Though she had skirted the gorier and more intimate details of her time in Volterra, her tone and evasive wording had clearly been sufficient to communicate to the wolves the horror of what she'd endured.
No, she didn't want to be changed, but staying human endangered the Cullens, the Quiluetes, and potentially, every human in Forks, beginning with those closest to her. To capitulate to her own desires would be an act miles beyond selfish.
"Is it what you want, Bella?" Edward asked her, a precise emphasis on each word.
She frowned in confusion. He knew very well it wasn't. What did he possibly hope to accomplish by asking this now? She was a terrible liar, and pressing this point would only reveal the cracks in her very shaky resolve.
"It isn't, is it?" Jacob sounded as if he'd had a revelation, eyes darting between her and Edward.
"Bella?" Edward asked, his neutral expression giving nothing away.
She stared at him with a rising sense of panic. This was not the plan they'd discussed.
"It's not." Jacob spoke more firmly.
"You will not hurt me with any refusal," Edward said, repeating his words from earlier.
He wanted her to speak her mind? This could only confound matters. She eyed him, trying to make sense of why he was pushing her to be honest when it would only hurt their cause.
"No, it isn't," she said. "But it has to happen."
Very quietly, Carlisle spoke. "We protect our family, Bella. The choice is yours, regardless of the promise Edward had to make in Volterra." Carlisle looked perfectly calm, perched on the arm of a couch, hands resting on his lap as if they were discussing the weather.
"Then why are we here," Sam asked, "beyond you asking us to rubber-stamp something you know we'd never approve—and she clearly doesn't want?"
"Because regardless of what Bella decides, you are as much a party to this as we are," Edward said.
"Like hell we are," Jacob said. Sam's lifted eyebrows seemed to express his agreement.
"If we might actually have a few minutes to speak with you privately, I can explain." Edward looked first to Jacob and then Sam.
"With me?" Sam asked.
"Jacob, Bella, and me," Edward said softly. He glanced at Carlisle then, and his father nodded at whatever thought he'd conveyed with that look.
"Jake?" Sam asked.
"Sure." Jake looked to Bella, clearly puzzled.
She wished she had answers for him. Instead, she kept her gaze on the floor, wrestling with her sense of trust and trying to orient it towards Edward. He obviously had something up his sleeve.
"There are some other things I'd like to discuss with you," Carlisle said to Sam, "if you wouldn't mind relocating."
Sam nodded as all three pack members eyed Edward warily. Clearly though, Sam trusted Jacob to handle himself as he and Paul followed Carlisle from the room without any verbal complaint.
Edward stayed perfectly still for several minutes and then spoke abruptly. "If I'm right, and I think I am, Alice can't see us right now."
"Your sister?" Jacob asked.
"Yes. She sees—"
"The future." Jacob finished for him. "I know. Bella told me."
"Of course," Edward said politely, a tiny furrow in his brow. Mentions of that time that marked his absence were obviously still painful. "As Bella just told you all, Alice and her husband stayed behind in Volterra, taking our places. That was what allowed us to leave. I don't think Alice has figured it out yet, but when she first brought Bella to Volterra, she apologized for giving me incomplete information about what we thought was Bella's death. She'd seen her jump from the cliff, but she didn't see what happened afterward, which is why she thought Bella had died. Bella told me that you were there, Jacob, and that you saved her."
"Yeah, I got her out of the water. So?" Jacob said.
Edward nodded. "Many of the times Alice tried to see Bella when we were away, she couldn't. She thought that perhaps it was the same reason I can't hear Bella, but I think it's because of you."
"Just me?" Jacob asked.
Bella watched their exchange with alarmed attention. Edward had mentioned none of this to her, and her eyes widened with each revelation. There was more that he hadn't told her?
"Not just you, but your kind. You seem to . . . block Alice's gifts. I suspect you might deflect other gifts, too, much as Bella does." He turned to Bella. "Demetri couldn't track you, not using his gift, anyway. He had to rely upon more traditional methods."
"Will these Vu—"
"The Volturi," Bella said.
"Will the Volturi come for her if she doesn't return?" Jacob asked.
"Yes," Edward answered. "Without a doubt."
"So if you don't change her, more vampires come." Jacob frowned at the floor.
"Yes, but I might have an idea that could circumvent that . . . for a time." Edward looked to Bella, his eyes clearly seeking something from her. Her forgiveness? Her trust?
Taking a deep breath, she took the figurative leap and nodded.
"If Bella and I were to leave, the Volturi could see and find us. But if one of your pack comes with us, they would have to track us through conventional means, which are easy enough to hide from, given the right amount of planning." He turned to Bella. "I'm sorry. I couldn't risk saying or deciding anything until one of them was here, not without alerting Alice."
She nodded in understanding, her mind reeling with the revelation. He was offering her hope—the thinnest filament of light, but hope, nonetheless.
"For how long?" Jake asked.
"For as long as one of you is willing." Edward's unflinching gaze, landing squarely on Jacob, seemed significant.
"Okay, I'll go," Jacob said.
Bella gasped. "You can't—"
"No." Jacob turned to her. "Otherwise it means you die. Not happening."
Edward spoke up. "If we don't comply with the Volturi's wishes or create a suitably distracting ruse, Bella, Forks will welcome any number of human-drinking vampires coming in search of you. Providing a plausible reason for us to leave the area will draw their focus away from the town here, and using Jacob to hide you should keep you and everyone here safe."
Bella's breathing felt even more ragged. So much rode on Edward's suppositions—and her decision about whether or not to try this.
"How will you create a false trail for your sister to see?" Jacob asked.
"Very simply," Edward said. "All I have to do is decide to take Bella somewhere when we're away from any pack members. If I make it seem as if it's just a little vacation before her change, it shouldn't raise any immediate alarms. When Alice sees that we haven't returned, Aro will be alerted as well and he might send the guard after us. But he will know my family is innocent of any wrongdoing as it was my decision alone. They wouldn't even come here. They'd be headed to some other location I've decided upon to start looking for us. I would choose somewhere remote and sparsely populated."
"You sure that works?" Jacob's arms were folded. Bella recognized his shrewd expression as one she'd seen often on Sam's face.
"There's no doubt she'll see me deciding to travel with Bella. The only question is whether or not we're hidden when we go, but given what I've seen in Alice's thoughts, I think it's almost certain a wolf presence will block her gift. There's also the possibility that the Volturi will not look for us right away. Without Alice being able to see us, they won't actually know if Bella has been changed or not."
Though she could see the possibilities, Bella was focused on one very significant logistical problem. "It would only work as long as you were with us, Jake." There was no question of which wolf she would choose to accompany her, and clearly there wasn't for Jacob either, judging by his response to Edward's plan. But he would need to leave home, as would she and Edward. It would mean that Jacob would never be able to be away from them, at least not as long as they were in hiding. She thought of the hostility that so obviously bristled between the Quileutes and the Cullens; she'd observed it firsthand at the barbecue at her house. How would it be sustainable? How was it in any way justifiable?
"Do you even know how close together we have to be for this to work?" Jacob looked as if he were running figures in his head.
"How close were you when you found her in the water?" Edward asked.
Jacob frowned. "I saw her jump when I was just coming out of the treeline, so maybe . . . half a mile? A little less?"
Edward nodded curtly. "That's workable. My family won't know what's happened until we fail to return, but I fully expect that they'll remain to resolve the other problem we've encountered."
Victoria.
They'd be leaving the Cullens and the wolves to deal with Victoria. Bella's heart felt as if it were being squeezed in a vise.
"I'm not worried about her. I know the pack can deal with a leech, but there is no guarantee that Sam will agree to this plan." Jacob looked to Bella again. "When do the bloodsu . . ."—he glanced at Edward—"Volturi expect you?"
"By early September." Her mouth felt as if it were full of cotton as she spoke, but she hadn't missed Jacob's self-correction, and she was grateful for it.
Jacob huffed and turned back to Edward.
"Agreed," Edward said.
"What?" Bella asked.
"Jacob thinks the Volturi's timing makes a poor birthday present." There was definitely a note of amusement in his voice.
Edward's casual response to Jacob's comment made Bella study him for a moment, and she could see that his features were animated by something like hope or excitement. She saw it in Jacob's expression, too, although he didn't look too thrilled that Edward had shared his snarky thought with her. Poor Jake. She knew how hard Edward worked to keep out of people's heads most of the time for his own sanity as well as theirs, but how could Jacob see it as anything but a complete invasion of his privacy? And that was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to difficulties that could arise.
"There's a small problem with your plan," she said.
"What?" Jacob asked.
"No one asked me if I'm okay with it."
The silence in response to this was truly deafening. Her breathing felt like the loudest thing in the room. "You hate each other." She looked between Edward and Jacob. "You nearly—I don't know what you were about to do the other night, but it wasn't anything good. You're proposing to give up your lives for now so that I can keep my human one, leaving your family to deal with Victoria." She shuddered. "It might work, or it might not. The Volturi could still find us, and you could both wind up dead beside me. Your entire family could die because of this, Edward. Your entire tribe, Jacob."
The negative thoughts kept coming: of Edward, seconds from being torn apart in Volterra and the way her desperation in that moment had driven her to make such an ill-fated decision; of Jacob, even younger than she was but just becoming a man with his whole life ahead of him.
"I don't want you to have to be like me, Bella." Edward's voice was low and urgent. "Not because I don't love you, but because I do." He looked down briefly. "You already know my reasons. More importantly, though, I don't want to see you changed because you don't want it. If it does have to happen, sometime in the future, I want it to be something that you've chosen. I know this plan isn't perfect, but I had hoped to . . . give you time, at least."
"And I just like you better when you won't want to suck the life out of people," Jacob said, arms still folded. "I can figure a lot of stuff out, even getting along with him if it means keeping you, well, you."
She couldn't help noticing the determination in his voice. She also remembered that after their initial meeting, both of the guys had been able to be perfectly civil with each other the rest of that evening. Still, this would be so different. She swallowed hard. "I need to think about it." She didn't really need to think about it. There was no way she could endanger so many people she loved with this kind of recklessness.
"Of course you do." Edward instinctively stretched his hand out in her direction before quickly retracting it again.
"Is there anything else?" Jacob asked.
"Things have been quiet tonight," Edward said. "Rose and Emmett haven't seen anything. And for you?"
Jacob shook his head. "I'll need to talk to Sam."
"In private." Edward stressed this last word.
"As much as that's possible. And no one else knows? Not even your, uh . . . Carlisle? Why does he think we're talking in private like this?"
Edward shook his head. "He doesn't know my plans. He believes I wanted to give Bella the opportunity to appeal to you alone, as her friend."
Jacob nodded at this and turned back to Bella. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, Jake."
He clapped a hot hand on her shoulder, but she was so preoccupied, she only brushed her own hand over his, thoughts fully muddled with the possibilities Edward had presented.
For all her knee-jerk reaction against this plan, the idea was insidious, wheedling its way into her thoughts. It would be so selfish, she told herself. Still, she would not have to be changed—at least, not right away. She could—there were almost too many possibilities to consider. If Edward was right, she could have . . . time. It was too much to think that she might have something like a life, but even a few months, possibly more, during which she could regain her health, work through her fears, and allow her memories time to fade? Maybe even form the more equal partnership with Edward that she wanted to have and that both of them deserved? It was something . . . but at such a cost. A potentially murderous cost.
As if Edward could still hear her thoughts, he came closer, crouching down so they were at eye level. "I think you know that I do not lightly share what it is that I hear in people's minds, but Jacob spoke directly to me this evening and asked me to share what I heard. He . . . loves you, Bella. He will do whatever it takes to keep you from becoming like me, including staying with us or just you at the expense of his life."
Bella shook her head. Jacob was so young, younger than she was. "He can't do that. For a little while, maybe, but . . ."
"He thought you would say as much, and he was very clear." Edward's gaze dropped to his hands which were folded tightly together, almost as if he were physically restraining himself from touching her.
He probably was, she thought sadly.
"I won't deny that Jacob is hoping this is more than a temporary respite for you, and there is a risk of future disappointment for him on that score, but I believe he is fully aware of what his choice entails. I may disparage some of the wolves and call them immature, but Jacob is not. His offer is genuine, and you have time to decide."
"What about your family, Edward? How will they feel if we do this? And Alice and Jasper . . . they're still there."
Edward smiled softly, his eyes meeting hers. "If I was able to ask them all, I already know how any one of them would answer. They love you, Bella, and you are one of us now. If their taking this risk gives you the time you need to heal, to . . . choose for yourself, then they would do it without reservation. The decision is yours to make."
She held the two possibilities side-by-side, turning them over like two Chinese meditation balls in her hand, the choices ringing with equally loud consequences.
DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.
