I continued staring at him, wondering if I heard him correctly.

"What?" I asked quietly.

"I said, I imprinted on you." He repeated. He let go of my arm and fell back onto the couch, holding his head in his hands. "This obviously isn't how I wanted to tell you."

I nodded, but didn't say anything. I was relieved, but I also felt the weight of the situation. Suddenly there was a forever with us, and while that made me happy, I felt like I should be scared, or at least a little freaked out. But really, could I ever imagine myself with anyone else? The thought of being with Jake through everything, well it just made sense to me. On the other hand, we were both so young, were we really mature enough for a lifetime commitment?

"Bells, please say something." I heard his broken voice through the fog in my mind. I looked up and saw his worried face. I walked over and sat down.

"I….I don't know…..this is big."

"Yeah, I know. But like I told you, you have a choice." I whipped my head to look at him.

"But you don't?" I couldn't help the hurt that came through. I didn't have some supernatural mojo tying me to him, but it was still a very real possibility in my eyes, but would it be for him too? If he was free to choose, would he choose me? "Jake, if it wasn't for this imprinting bullshit, how would you feel about this? Honestly. Because apparently it doesn't matter anymore, we know how you feel now." He stood up swiftly and ran his hand roughly through his hair.

"Damnit Bella, I thought you knew how I felt about you!"

"I knew how you felt about me, but being in love isn't the same as wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone! And now, I just want to be sure that it's you that wants this, not your wolf, or whatever the hell it is."

"Well what about you!" He roared. "Now that we know all my feelings are just bullshit, what about you?"

"Damn it Jacob, that's not what I meant! I just don't think it's fair that you're stuck with me if that's not what you wanted!" I yelled back.

"You are unbelievable,you know that? Stuck with you? Is that how I've made you feel, that I'm stuck with you?" He turned and walked out of the room.

"Where are you going?" I yelled as I followed him out towards the front door.

"I need some air." He said, and then slammed the door behind him. I just stood there staring at the door with my mouth open in shock.

"What the hell just happened?" Rachel's voice came from behind me as she came down the stairs. Her words mirroring my thoughts exactly. I just shook my head numbly, still trying to answer that question myself. I felt her wrap an arm around my waist and lean her head on my shoulder.

"You guys are just stupid, that's what." She said plainly. I raise my eyebrows, but nodded in agreement. That pretty much summed us up completely.

JPOV

"What the hell just happened in there?"

I heard her before I saw her. I was too frustrated already to question what she was doing here.

"I don't know." I said through clenched teeth, walking straight past the blond leech into the woods.

"Jacob, wait, you can't just leave her by herself, she isn't safe." I stopped in my tracks, because of course, she was right."

"Damn it!" I roared. "She's got me to where I can't even think straight!" I kicked the closest tree, where the other leech happened to be perched in, and came tumbling out of. Any other time, that would have thoroughly entertained me.

"Man, welcome to my world." He said standing up and brushing himself off.

"What are you two doing here anyway?"

"Well you ran off last night like something was wrong, without an explanation of what was happening, and it's not like we could chase you onto the rez, so we hung out here, waiting to either see if you guys showed up, or if…..." The female interrupted him with a growl instead of letting him say the name.

I really hated to say it, but I was actually starting to…. Nope, still hated leeches.

"So speaking of, have you seen or heard anything from the psycho sucker?"

"Nah, nothing." He grumbled back to me,kicking at the ground, obviously ready to kill the guy almost as much as me.

"You still don't know what you did wrong, do you?" The blond asked me.

"Huh?"

"With Bella! Your fight?"

"And how would you know?"

"I'm a woman, and I know how we tend to think. Do you want my help or not?"

I struggled to swallow back the pride that wanted to tell her to go to hell, because really, at this point, I was desperate to understand where Bella was coming from. The blonde rolled her eyes at my lack of communication.

"Ok, fine, just listen. Bella loves you, and even though this whole 'forever soulmate' thing is pretty heavy, I think she can handle it. What she's afraid of is that-"

"That I don't love her enough, yeah I got that." I spat.

"Damn it pup, just listen to me! She's afraid she can't be everything you need." I turn and stare at her incredulously.

"And you know this…..how?"

"Like I said, I'm a woman."

"But she didn't tell you this though."

"She didn't have to Jacob. Not only can I put myself in her shoes, but I could tell what she was trying to tell you in there. She's worried that she won't be good enough for you. That under normal circumstances, you wouldn't choose her."

"That's ridiculous! I've always told her how wonderful and perfect she is. I mean really, she is my everything." I looked toward the house through the trees. "She always has been, and she always will be. You have no idea how lucky I am that she is my imprint."I chuckled darkly."She's like my reward for this fucked up life I have now. All of this phasing shit? The fact that I have her forever makes it totally worth it."

"Now that was perfect, dammit. Why couldn't you have told her all that in there?"

"She didn't give me the chance!"

"Because you were acting like this was the most painful thing to have to tell her."

"Well, it's not exactly easy telling someone that whether they like it or not, you're bound to them for the rest of your life."

"But Jake," her voice softened, "it came across sounding like it was painful for you. That you were the one that didn't want to be tied to her." I sighed in defeat.

"That's not how I meant it." I dropped my head into my hands.

One thing you can say about me, I have a true talent for really screwing things up.

"Ok, it sounds like you sister has calmed her down, now go in there and fix it." The male walked over and said. I cringed at the thought of Rachel being involved in this. She had a knack for making my life miserable already. I slowly walked toward the house, preparing myself to grovel. We never used to be like this, we never had communication problems before. And if the dead barbie was anywhere near accurate, that was our main problem. Was it stress? Were we just completely stressed out from all of this crap going on, that we had turned into completely dysfunctional people?

I took a deep breath as I entered the house. I heard movement in the kitchen so I went there first.

"Look who decided to drag their sorry ass back." Rachel said with a sneer. I rolled my eyes and turned to leave.

"Stop. Sit." She directed to the kitchen table. I was prepared to ignore her until she put down an entire chocolate pie in front of me with a fork and a glass of milk.

"Well, if you insist." I said sarcastically. She rolled her eyes at me.

"Now that I have your attention…" Which she really didn't. I was already a third of the way through the pie. "God, you're an animal." She said disgustedly. I barked out a laugh, knowing she was a lot more accurate than she thought.

"Anyway, I assume you came back to apologize?"

"Rach, let me go ahead and stop you, I know what happened, I know where I went wrong, and I know how to fix it."

"I talked to Bella, and she mentioned you guys had a big fight last night too. Are you guys ok? You never used to-"

"I know. I've been thinking the same thing. I think we're just so stressed out, what with the stalker and everything."

"Yeah, and you being a werewolf doesn't help much either."

I nearly sucked an entire mouthful of pie down my windpipe when she said that, and it was probably a good five minutes before I recovered.

"What, do you think I'm dense?" Hello? We've been told of those stupid legends for years, and then when all the guys from the rez start changing like they have been? Plus, mom may have told me stories when I was little about grandad and his friends being wolves." She added nonchalantly.

"Why didn't anyone tell me? I'm the one that would have benefited from those stories, not you!"

"Oh pipe down, you're ok." She said, rising to rinse my dishes for me. "Anyway," she said turning back to me. "All I'm trying to say, is that you guys could really use a break. A vacation somewhere. Get away from all of this crap, the wolves, the stalkers, and just take some time to get back to just being you guys, the way you were before."

"That sounds great Rach, but have you considered that I have very little money?"

"You mean you're not loaded? Of course I considered that, idiot. Listen, how about the day after Christmas, you guys go up to Seattle for the week. You can stay in my apartment. I know it's no beachfront resort or anything, but it's something. I can stay down here, spend some time with dad, and I'll be back up for new years. All you'll be out is gas and food. What do you say?"

It was extremely tempting, I had to say. Getting Bells away from all this, having complete alone time with her, and being able to just be us again, it sounded like heaven.

"Actually, that sounds great." I grinned at Rachel. "I need to talk to her of course, make sure it's ok with her, but yeah, that sounds like just what we need."

"Great!" Rachel grinned. "Happy I could help. Now get upstairs and fix her." She said as she walked past. I waited until I heard her get upstairs and shut her door before I locked up, and headed up myself.

I tapped on Bella's door before pushing it open. She was sitting on her bed cross legged, hugging her pillow. She gave me a small smile

"I was hoping you would come back." She tried to joke.

"I'm so sorry babe, all that downstairs was so stupid." I went and sat on her bed, facing her.

"We just can't seem to get things right lately." She laughed bitterly, looking down at her hands. I took them in my own, causing her to look up at me.

"We will though. Everything is a little…...rough right now, but it will get better. We will get better. Just like we were before." She had a look of desperation on her face.

"That's what I want! Everything was perfect with us before!"

"And it will be again, I promise! I think we're just really stressed right now, and we are having a really hard time communicating for some reason."

"Tell me about it." She chuckled.

"So, can I clarify a couple things then?"

"By all means." She said with a smile.

"OK, well first of all, I want you to know that, the reason I was so afraid to tell you about the imprint, was that I was afraid you would get freaked out. I know that you love me, but being told that you are actually someone's soulmate is quite different." She nodded understandingly. "And the second thing, I want you to know, that long before any of this happened, before we even went on our first date, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Bella, you are everything to me, you always have been, and regardless of what has happened, you always will be. You already were the most important thing in my life, the center of my universe, my everything. So essentially, for me anyway, nothing changed." Her eyes were watery, but she had a smile on her face, so I figured I hadn't screwed up this time.

"I love you so much Jake. It's funny that you say that, because for a long time, before you asked me out, I kept having this debate with myself about if we should ever date. We were so close, and I loved you so much, that if things didn't work out, I just didn't want to lose that friendship with you either." She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and I gave her hands a squeeze of encouragement. "I had talked to Angela about it, and I remember she asked me at one point, if I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we would last forever, would I want that, I remember there never being a hesitation, that yes. I would want you forever." I couldn't help but grin at her admittance.

"So you're ok with being my imprint?" I asked.

"Jacob Black, I would be honored to spend the rest of my life with you."

AN:

I know, I know, crazy angst, and then a bunch of fluff. Things are about to pick up within the next few chapters though. I hope everyone is enjoying it so far, the reviews I've gotten have been so awesome, they really do feed my drive to write. I know I've updated three days in a row, but that's unfortunately not the norm. I know where I'm going when I get to the next plot point, but right now I'm just trying to figure out a good way to actually get to the next plot point. Please don't hesitate to let me know how you like it, and if you have any ideas/suggestions/feedback, I would love to hear it. Thanks for all the support so far!

MSB