Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

Author's Note I: I changed the last line in the last chapter. It took forever but I finally figured it had to change for things to make more sense in this chapter. So go back and read it quickly please.

Not a minute had passed after Jasper left her room than Alice stormed inside to yell at, reprimand, plead with, and hug her friend silly. Bella, already somewhat drained from talking to Jasper, quietly resigned herself to several more emotional confrontations. But the Cullens could talk all they wanted; she wasn't going to change her mind. As painful as the prospect of one day saying goodbye to the people she'd come to call family...to Rosalie...it was debilitatingly more painful to imagine herself living on for all eternity. Living...and killing.

It was cruelty defined that the one person who meant the most to her was the one person she couldn't be sure would ever get over all this. Precisely twenty days had passed since Rosalie disappeared, including the seven since Bella returned. It was their longest time apart since she'd known her, and for Bella it felt like twenty days without her sight. Twenty days without legs to prop her up. She felt like a ghost.

If it weren't for Charlie checking in with her every few hours she would still be in bed. His enthusiasm for her return into his life was still a hard thing to get used to. Every time he knocked on her door she half expected a retribution of some sort only to find him standing awkwardly with a takeout bag in his hands, eager but also struggling to connect. They struggled to speak to each other, both of them, and the silence between their scant words filled the space until they were treading in it. That's when Bella would sit at her new piano and play a song that would somehow bring oxygen back into the room and allow them both to breathe.

As strange as her new reality with Charlie was though, it was nothing compared to what had become the new normal with Jacob.

Today:

The tapping on the door came in a fast-paced, upbeat thump that immediately told Bella it was not her father.

She walked to the door, half eager to open it, half fearful and holding back. She'd opened that door over a dozen times since she got back, and every time it was with a sense of paralyzing trepidation. When would she stop fearing what she'd find on the other side?

"Hey."

"Hey," she replied. Her voiced tinged with questions. With amazement and with uncertainty. With hope.

She opened the door wider and Jacob walked inside. His arms were laden with tupperware containers that looked too heavy and far too numerous for a regular human to carry.

"Esme made me bring these," he rolled his eyes. "I told her your fridge was the size of Eddie boy's head...but she chose to ignore me."

Bella shook her head. "She ignored you because she knew you'd eat most of it yourself."

He shrugged. "You gonna help me with this or not? Cause I probably could finish it all if I tried."

She nodded, still trying to get her eyes accustomed to the sight of Jacob in her shed. Jacob talking to her. Jacob smiling at her.

Out came her supply of plastic plates and utensils. The rubbish bin was put on alert beside the table; It would take a lot of plates to clean out this meal.

Six days ago:

She thought it would be Esme coming back to give her yet another hug. Or Carlisle wanting to add a postscript to his lengthy speech about respecting her decision. Hell, even Charlie-who had stopped by on six separate occasions during the last 24 hours, each time with take-out of some kind because the man seemed incapable of coming by without a justifiable excuse, and to him food was always a justifiable excuse to say hello-would not have been a surprise. But the person Bella saw when she opened the door right before sunset...was Jacob.

"Hi."

Bella stiffened as soon as she registered his presence. He was pretty stiff himself too, and he wasn't smiling. But he looked just as nervous as she felt and that gave her pause enough to formulate a response.

...which was a formulaic "hi" right back at him.

When she didn't add anything else, nor indeed, move to let him in, Jacob took a breath and spoke, all the while fidgeting in his spot.

"I heard about what happened," he said.

Bella nodded slowly, wanted to keep the ball in his court for as long as she could.

"You really don't wanna be a vamp someday?"

She shook her head, still not trusting herself to speak. What was he doing here? Why was he making small talk? Bella was afraid to react in any way because a reaction would have to be based on her perception of him and this conversation. He was talking to her. He was practically being nice to her...but she just couldn't bear the prospect of misjudging him, of misjudging this. So her expression stayed placid. No one looking at her would suspect the excitement, the hope that was swirling inside her as she watched her friend struggle to come up with his next words.

"Why?"

She spoke, finally. "They didn't tell you?"

He shrugged. "I heard a lot of things. But I wanted to hear from you."

She opened the door wider and leaned heavily against the frame. "I don't want to become a vampire because I don't want to kill anyone else," she said bluntly, noting how he momentarily lost his composure on the word 'kill'. "It's too great a risk, especially for someone like me."

Jacob nodded, still not looking directly at her. He too leaned against the frame of the door, on the other side opposite of her.

"I bet blondie didn't like that," he muttered, nodding.

A pang set her heart reeling in pain, as it usually did nowadays whenever she thought of Rosalie (which was just about every other second). Jacob, seemingly noticing the change in her countenance, immediately looked sorry to have brought her girlfriend up.

"Sorry, I didn't-"

"It's ok. You don't have anything to apologize for."

"Yeah...I do," he said, stiffening once more as he prepared himself to carry on. "I'm sorry for the way I've treated you, Bella."

Bella stared at him questioningly, not quite understanding what he was getting at. "What are you-"

"It wasn't your fault," he said. "I knew that...kind of...from the start. It was just, I dunno...easy I guess to hate you for it."

She watched him shuffle his feet. He was looking everywhere but directly at her, as though the walls could give him the courage to say these words that her expectant face most certainly could not.

"It wasn't your fault," he said again. "If my dad can forgive you, then...so can I."

Bella, who had stopped breathing earlier during this conversation, let out a shaky breath after his pronouncement. She was torn between exaltation and angst.

"But it was," she whispered.

If he heard her, he didn't react to her admission. Instead Jacob pocketed his hands and motioned for her to follow him to Charlie's driveway. Bella went along, dazed and not quite sure what to say or do. She stopped when he stopped, and watched him unload their bikes from the back of her ancient truck.

"I thought this might cheer you up," he said. Chancing a hesitant smile, he asked, "wanna go for a ride?"

5 days ago:

She had expected a snide remark from Leah but the girl had remarkably kept her mouth shut. Bella walked into the Cullens' home with Jacob 20 minutes ago and Leah, who was huddled next to Seth at the kitchen counter, had yet to comment on Rosalie and Emmett's absence. Despite her silence, Bells could feel her 'I told you so' from across the room hit her skin like a hot laser. The silent sting didn't bounce off of her like so many stings had before, but instead cut so deeply through her she imagined herself burning from the inside.

Edward's brusque voice broke through her dark thoughts.

"Hello, Bella," he said. "It's nice to see you again."

She smiled and nodded in his direction, and for the first time since she knew of her shielding skills she wished desperately for a moratorium on her power so she could communicate with him, even if just one-way. Why hadn't she called him before coming here? She had no idea what he'd said to their family but...they were still so nice to her...surely that wouldn't be the case if he told them the complete truth?

"Hi Edward," she replied in what sounded, to her anyway, like a forced response. "How was your trip?"

Leah's whole body seemed to roll along with her eyes as she groaned with exasperation. "Of for the love of god, are we seriously gonna do these stupid pleasantries? Can we please get on with why we're really here?"

Jacob sighed and gave her a look, but Leah would have none of that and glared icily at him. She and Rosalie are so alike...they might be great friends one day if they could get over their differences. She almost smiled at this, but her chest ached too much for Bella to do anything but pour her energy into hiding her feelings. No one reacted except for Jasper, who watched her sadly from his chair next to Alice.

Esme darted toward Leah with a tray of sandwiches and fruit, tsk-tsking her for the outburst. "Now, now. A minute of pleasantries won't do us any harm. These are the ones you said you liked dear. Go ahead, they're all for you."

Leah, who had visibly flinched when Esme reached her, also visibly restrained herself from lashing out at her, Bella was surprised to note. In fact Leah's face, when Esme had turned away and had her back to her, had softened quite a bit as she looked from the retreating woman to her pile of food before gingerly picking at one sandwich and taking a bite. Bella once again looked to Jasper and he confirmed her unspoken question with a very small smile. So something had thawed Leah's heart after all.

Edward resumed speaking as if nothing had interrupted their flow of conversation. "My trip had some very surprising consequences. Leah has a point though. They've been waiting for all of us to be here to discuss this. Since it doesn't look like Rosalie and Emmett will be joining us in the near future...now will have to do."

Bella wondered if her control was strong enough to rip his head clean off of his body in one searing effort. The smugness in his eyes was so unbelievably transparent. Was she so good at covering up her emotions that he couldn't see the savage rage emanating from her? Or was he really just that dense?

She's never coming back. She's never coming back. Her mind screamed. Her heart ached. Her muscles burned. They burned. And they burned.

"Let's get to it then," she said coolly. Bella did nothing to conceal the loathing she felt for the creature before her. If he was going to expose her ordering him to spy on the nomads, she wasn't going to bother with the pretense of friendship. Not when he was about to throw her under a bus.

But he didn't. He wouldn't, not when revealing her vile act would shed light on his own.

"When we were outside Bella's house, with the nomads inside with Charlie, you all noticed I was able to hear their thoughts without them detecting our scents."

Alice and Jasper nodded. They were with him that day and remembered perfectly the harrowing minutes spent learning second-hand through Edward about the unwelcome guests.

"Well," Edward continued, giving Bella a positively loathsome sneer, "that's what I did these last few weeks."

Alice bolted up from her seat. "Wait, what?!" She stared him in surprise and not without a little anger. No doubt she was irked that despite all her efforts, she hadn't seen this-any of this-coming.

"Victoria didn't sense the danger?" Jasper asked, surprised like Alice but more intrigued that Edward avoided detection.

"No," Edward addressed his brother. "I believe it was because I didn't mean her harm. I only wanted to understand their motives."

"So you weren't discovered?" Carlisle asked sharply.

Edward never hesitated. He shook his head repeatedly, but as he did he glanced at Bella for the briefest second and caught her eye...and she understood the double meaning in his words.

He was discovered.

"Where are they?" Jacob demanded. "And why didn't you eliminate them?"

Edward addressed the second question first. "That wouldn't have worked. The second my intention changed to cause any harm, Victoria would've known and would've fled. This is her gift, and no matter how fast or strong her assailants are (and there have been many from what I gleaned from her thoughts) she would outrun, outmaneuver, and outsmart them all."

He turned to Jacob again. "That's why your pack will never catch her, especially if you're spreading yourselves thin all over the reservation. If all of you were there in the right place and in the right time...maybe. But not like this."

"They're not my pack," Jacob grumbled, but his face betrayed his worry. Schism or no schism between him and Sam's pack, in a battle between them and Victoria he'd root for them any day.

"Whatever. As to your first question, they don't stay in one place for more than a day."

Seth, the youngest wolf in either pack, spoke. "So what do they want?"

Edward actually scratched his head. For the first time today, Bella saw genuine thoughtfulness on his face, and her mind briefly flashed to an alternate universe where the two of them might have been friends or even lovers. Edward was capable of great kindness and compassion. His family's love for him spoke volumes on its own that Edward was worthy of their affections. Once upon a time...But once upon a time, Bella Swan happened, and Edward's position in the family had never been the same since. How could she blame him for hating her? Especially when in her own eyes, she deserved much, much less than what she was given here?

"What would happen..." He addressed the three members of Jacob's pack "...if one of you were bitten by a Vampire?"

Jacob cocked his head in surprise. "We'd die," he replied. "The venom wouldn't turn us to one of you, but would poison us instead. Slowly. It would take a long time, but eventually we'd die from it."

Edward nodded. "Good, good," he mumbled, eliciting several raised eyebrows from the family. He looked distracted, and Bella realized he must be listening to Jacob's runaway thoughts when he continued on. "So your tribe's stories document this?"

Startled for a second, Jacob replied quickly nonetheless (though visibly annoyed at the invasion of his mind). "Yes. It happened once as far as we know. A pack member was bitten. The venom messed with his system. He didn't always heal right when injured after that. As time went on, his control over phasing got worse and worse. He got sick a lot. And eventually, he was hurt really badly and never healed. He died."

"Is that what they're trying to do?" Leah demanded. "Is that why she tried to bite Seth?!"

Edward shook his head. "Not exactly. Ok, so biting a phased wolf wouldn't do any good short term. But...what would happen if one of you were bitten...before you phased for the first time?"

That caught everyone off guard. They looked to Jacob, who himself was looking to Leah and Seth as if trying to communicate even though they couldn't in these forms.

"I...I don't know," Jacob finally said.

"I see..." Carlisle looked off into the distance as he pondered what he knew of wolf physiology. "Their genes are dormant until the first phasing. If they're bitten before that happens, then..."

"Then what?!" Leah shouted. "What the hell are you all talking about?"

"They're looking for future wolves-to-be," Bella said finally. The conclusion to all this was painfully obvious. "They want to turn them to vampires before they phase. What do they think they'll be? Super vampires slash wolves?"

Edward nodded. "Victoria is convinced that if she bites someone right before they're about to transform, they'll retain some of their would-be wolf characteristics. That's why-"

"That's why she's been running through the rez without hurting anyone," Jacob caught on. "She's spreading her scent. Trying to accelerate things."

"And vampires can detect when one of you is about to shift for the first time," Bella told Jacob. "She'll strike when their scent comes close to matching the rest of yours."

Jacob stood still with this new information, trying to process. "But why? If she wanted to make an army, couldn't she just do that a lot faster with normal humans?"

"She could," Edward said. "But creating a newborn army is prohibited. The Volturi would swarm the area and even she's not that stupid. She knows it wouldn't end well for her. However, a newborn army comprising of would-be shapeshifters would-"

"It would make her a favorite with the Volturi," Carlisle finished. "They hate your kind, though I think it's the children of the moon they truly despise. Caius has had then hunted to near extinction. He wouldn't appreciate the difference between you and them. Ending your existence by turning your line into Vampires-that would be quite the coup...if it works."

"It also has the added bonus of most likely stirring tensions between us and the tribe to the point of breaking the treaty," Edward added. "If one of their own were to be turned, would the tribe honor any goodwill between us?"

"No," Jacob said immediately. "Even the council would approve of hostility. I can't even imagine..."

"It would be complete chaos," Alice said. "We'd be fighting on every front."

"And Victoria would have a clear shot at getting to Bella."

Everyone except Bella snapped their heads at Edward, who shrugged in mock surprise.

"Oh come on, this can't come as a total surprise," he said and looked to Bella. "That's the real reason she's doing all this. She's stacking the deck in her favor so she could get to Bella, the person who killed her mate."

Esme and Alice, the vampires closest in proximity to Bella, moved even closer as if to shield her from an invisible foe. "Well, we'll just have to stop her then," Esme said earnestly.

Outwardly, Bella nodded. Yeah, right, she thought to herself. How would they do that if they couldn't cross into La Push territory?

508. 509. 510... How many more would there be? How many more would there fucking be?!

Today, continued:

"Seriously, is cooking her superpower? Cause I'd totally believe that."

Bella laughed as she dumped the remnants of the meal into the garbage. Esme was proving herself an excellent ambassador for making nice with the wolves. Seth was smitten. Jacob was all smiles for the woman whenever they interacted. And Leah, Jacob confided in her, was finding it too difficult to maintain her bad girl attitude in the face of Esme's neverending generosity.

"Next time you guys do a treaty, maybe you could give up some ground in exchange for some of Esme's cooking," Bella joked.

He chuckled, looking wistfully at the empty containers in front of him. "To think, they all really think she's a monster..."

He was talking about the other pack. He was talking about himself not so long ago when the name Esme Cullen meant nothing more than 'dangerous bloodsucker.' It seemed a lifetime ago.

"You talk to your dad?" She asked, feeling the conversation shift and choosing not to fight it.

"Yeah. This morning," he said grimly. "It doesn't look good Bells. He thinks Sam is maneuvering with the tribe to vote him and Sue out of the council. There'll be nothing he can do for us if that happens."

At Jacob's urging, Billy and Sue tried to explain Edward's discovery (without revealing how said discovery was made) to the La Push pack, but either they didn't believe the information or simply refused to believe its source. The tribe's stories didn't mention anything about a bite before the first phasing, only the venom's poisonous effect, and so Jacob's 'outlandish' warning was written off as a desperate attempt to make reparations. Nevermind that Jacob, Leah, and Seth had absolutely no desire to repair anything with Sam.

"I don't want to find out what a canine vampire looks like," Jaco said carefully.

She looked at him. He was looking right back at her. The change in Jacob since becoming Alpha was truly a sight to behold. His appearance hadn't changed, technically. But at the same time it had. Responsibility for other people's lives reflected differently in different people. For Jacob, you could see it in the slow way he now spoke. Careful and measured. Like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Like there was a biographer following him around taking notes for a critical analysis of his leadership. You could also see it how he interacted with his pack mates. Leah and Seth were family to him now. They looked up to him and he had to protect them at all costs. Protect them...and protect their creed. With the close interactions between them and the Cullens, that creed was more and more starting to include protecting the Cullens as well.

"The Cullens can't step onto La Push. You know that," she replied just as carefully. She thought she knew what he was thinking, but she'd be damned if she said it first.

He nodded. "But I can. And...you can."

Bella sighed. If Rosalie was here and she heard this, she'd come crashing through the door and say no, no, fuck hell, no. But Rosalie wasn't here.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she said.

Author's note II: I know, I know. This has taken forever and I'm very sorry for that. It's been a very difficult month. 3 days after the last chapter was posted, my 19-year-old cousin passed away suddenly from a heart defect. Needless to say, I had a few things on my mind. Death is truly a thief in the night. Most of the people that knew him found comfort in religion but I'm not so lucky. Respecting different beliefs aside, I can't convince myself that "the dead are in a better place" or "he's with God now" because darcythe2nd's head says that's complete bullshit. A great kid is gone for absolutely no reason. And that really fucking sucks. I've been enraged and mad as hell about this, and only lately have gotten better basically by compartmentalizing and just not thinking about any of it. So yeah...this is why it took so long to update. Sorry.

Please, please review. Take a second to write constructive criticism or what you like/don't like about the latest development. Reviews are magical cures to melancholy. And they make it easier to keep my head in the story, and that means it's easier to write and update faster. Seriously. Take a moment and know much I'll appreciate it.