SorrySorrySorrySorry I know that cliffhanger was the worst place to leave you when it took me so long to post the next chapter, but that last one was tense. I think my brain actually broke! Anyway, I'm here, and hopefully I won't leave you so long next time. (I got busted at writing at work, which apparently is not what they pay me to do, so that leaves me much less time to write.) Hope this chapter is worth the wait, and please leave me plenty of input. It helps me narrow down where this should go.
And again, thanks for sticking with me. I really love the writing, but when you realize people actually love reading it too, that just makes it that much better.
I woke up the next morning groggy and completely disoriented. Both my head and body felt extremely heavy, and as I went to sit up, I suddenly got really dizzy. I grabbed my head, and before I could even call for him, Jake appeared by my side.
"Bella! You're awake!" He said, looking relieved. "I'm so sorry! How are you feeling?" He honestly looked like he was bordering hysterics, his eyes looked bloodshot from crying. I was so confused.
"Well, I feel like death. But what's wrong with you? What do you mean 'you're sorry'? And what the hell happened to me?" I asked, holding my head with both hands.
"You don't remember?" He asked wide eyed.
"No." I answered him, my mouth muffled by my hands over my face. "But I can only assume it had to do with an obscene amount of alcohol." I groaned. I heard him chuckle darkly, and mumble something that sounded like 'I wish' after that. I raised my head and questioned him with just a look.
"Come on." He said quietly. "Let's get you cleaned up." He gently raise me from the bed and walked me into the bathroom. "How are you feeling?" He asked looking down at me. My mind was still too foggy to try to figure out what was going on.
"Well, I don't feel sick or anything, it's mainly just my head. It just feels…...I don't know, heavy I guess. That and my neck and shoulder kinda ache." He stiffened a bit when I said that, but said nothing. He walked me into the bathroom and turned on the light. I glanced in the mirror, and froze.
"Jake…" I said slowly. "Why are there bandages on my shoulder?" I looked at him in the mirror, and he was clenching his jaw. He slowly turned me to look at him.
"Bells, are you sure you don't remember anything?"
"No, everything is just so foggy. I remember us going out last night.."
"That was the night before. You've been asleep for nearly twenty four hours." His eyes looked pained as he spoke.
"Wait, what?" That was enough to clear the fog a bit. "Jacob," I gritted out. "Tell me, now, what happened." He blew out a breath.
"Ok. Now before you get upset, you have to know I would never ever-"
"Spill it, Black." I said crossing my arms. I could tell that whatever it was he was going to tell me was hurting him.
"Ok. After we got home, we started fooling around, and remember how I was afraid I was going to hurt you? Well, I…..I bit you." He hung his head, but I couldn't help but to laugh. Maybe more from relief than anything.
"You bit me?" I said, trying to hold back my laughter.
"It's not funny Bella! I could have really hurt you!" Now he was the one getting aggravated.
"Oh, Jake, people bite during sex. I think the bandages were a little overkill though, don't you think?" I said, still smiling as I went to remove them. But as I removed them, my face fell as I realized what he meant.
"Oh my-"
"Yeah." He said softly, his eyes filling with tears. I turned to face him.
"You…..you phased?"
He clenched his eyes shut and he shuddered. I looked back to the mirror. I traced around the near-perfect silhouette of what looked like a very large canine jaw. I turned to inspect my back, and it was very similar. There were dark purple bruises where each tooth would have been, and they formed and angled oval on both the front and backside of my shoulder. It was a little sore to try and move it, but nothing as bad as he was making it seem. I turned to him to see tears streaking down his face.
"Jake, come on." I said softly. "You didn't even break the skin. It could have been-"
"What?" He jerked his head up. "What are you talking about?" He leaned down, and his eyes went wide. "You've got to be kidding me." He said more to himself than to me.
"See?" I giggled. "You were making a big deal out of-"
"No! You don't understand, I did break the skin. A lot."
"No you didn't, look, there aren't any scabs, nothing." I was starting to think he had lost his mind.
"Don't look at me like that, I know what I saw." He said. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me out through the apartment into the kitchen. He pulled out the trash bag sitting by the sink and opened it. Inside were several towels, completely soaked in blood. I looked up at him confused.
"This doesn't make any sense. There's no way that's my blood, there would be scabs! Hell, if that much blood came out just a day ago, I would still be bleeding!"
"Unless you healed exceptionally quick." He said, furrowing his brow.
"Well, we both know that's not the case." Again, has he lost his mind?
"No, but I do." He said, looking back to me. I rolled my eyes and huffed.
"That's great, but like I said, I don't!"
I turned and walked back into the bedroom, stopping when I saw the torn sheets, and the huge bloodstain where I had been laying. I shivered at the thought of what had happened.
"I called Sam." He said softly from behind me. I sat down on the edge of the bed, nodding silently as he continued. "I was, God, I was ready to go out of my mind. I talked to both him and Rachel. She said that as long as you were breathing alright, and your pulse rate was normal, to just let you sleep. Her and Sam figured you were just sleeping from the effects of the blood loss. She talked me through taking your blood pressure, and everything was normal. Sam thinks that what happened, that may have been what was happening when he hurt Emily. He just tried to get away from her instead. I apparently wasn't thinking as clearly. I'm so sorry Bella, I just, I was so scared, and-"
"Hey!" I said interrupting him. I stood and cupped his cheek, and he leaned into the touch. "Stop it, ok? I'm ok, alright?" I said softly. "I know, I know you were scared. I would have been scared too, but look, everything is fine. I'm fine. Ok?"
He looked at me and breathed out heavily, nodding his head.
"Yeah." He said thickly. "Ok." And he pulled me into a tight embrace, burying his face in my hair and inhaling. He held me for several minutes before loosening his grip.
"Now," I said with a smile. "Next on the agenda? FEED ME!" I laughed. "I am starving!"
He laughed and walked me into the kitchen. I really couldn't believe how hungry I was. We grilled three pounds of hamburger and two packages of hotdogs, and between the two of, we polished off everything. Of course the majority of it went into his bottomless pit. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in front of the tv, catching up on Dexter, Supernatural, and Sherlock.
"So have you decided what you want to do tonight?"
"I don't know, we went out last night, so we can just stay in tonight."
He grimaced a bit.
"No babe, we went out the night before last. Last night you were still….sleeping."
"Oh yeah. Oh! That means tonight is New Year's Eve!" I said sitting up quickly. He chuckled at me. "Don't laugh!" I said playfully. "I missed a day, remember?"
"Yeah, unfortunately I remember all too well. I wish I would have missed that day too." He said with a sour look on his face. I hated that he had gone through that whole time, not knowing if I was ok. I know if it was me, I would have went insane. I pulled my legs up underneath me and faced him on the couch.
"Ok, so, not that I would have wanted you to, but why didn't you take me to the hospital? I mean, you could have always said it was a dog attack or something."
He kept his gaze forward to the tv, but I knew he wasn't paying attention to it. His jaw flexed before he answered.
"Yeah, I definitely thought about it, and I was actually getting ready to, but I wanted to call Sam first. He was worried that since all of this is weird and supernatural, if there was anything weird in the bite, it could mean trouble for you, and the rest of us. That's when Rachel told me what to look for, and when everything looked normal according to you, she said you should be fine. And actually, just a few minutes before you woke up, I had given myself an ultimatum. Either you wake up in the next hour, or I was taking you to the hospital. To hell with the consequences. God must have heard me, because it wasn't fifteen minutes later, you woke up." We sat in silence for a few minutes before he continued. "There was also something else. After I had talked to Rachel and Sam, and had a small bit of relief that you were probably ok, I passed out from exhaustion. I had a….dream."
I looked at him a little funny when he said that. Now I know that currently in our lives, we deal with our own fair share of out-of-the-ordinary crap. But dreams? That was a little far fetched for me. He must have really been upset if his subconscious was trying to trick him into believing I was ok. He caught my raised eyebrows and rolled his eyes, a small smile grazing his face.
"I know, I know, it's crazy, but just listen. It was too weird, not like any other dream I have ever had. I found myself standing outside of this small wood cabin. It was like it was on top of a hill or a mountain or something, out in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere you looked, all around, all you could see were the tops of the trees that grew down off the hill, and you could see for miles and miles like that. There was nothing blocking your view from seeing the mountains in the distance. They were so far away, they almost looked blue. I've never seen anything like it."
"I have." I said barely above a whisper. I couldn't believe what he was describing, it gave me cold chills.
"You were there." He said, looking straight at me.
"I'm there a lot." I said quietly.
"What is it?"
"It's….it's my happy place." I chuckled. It was his turn to look at me weird now. I shook my head. "It's actually a combination of my Great Grandparent's house, and the view from a place called Brown Mountain. Whenever I am scared or stressed, I try to picture myself there. The grass is really soft, and it doesn't have any bugs," I joked. "And usually the sky is a perfect blue color with no clouds. It's bright, and the sun is perfectly warm, not too hot, but you can't actually see the sun. Like it's always behind you. I don't like the sun in my eyes." I said smiling. "And sometimes it's dusk, the sun is just going down, so the sky is a beautiful mix of pinks and purples, and you can see the stars beginning to come out." I warmed at the thought of it.
"It really was beautiful, and so peaceful." He said reverently. "You were laying in the grass, moving your hands and arms slowly through the grass. You had a smile on your face, like you were absolutely content. I stayed there for a long time, just watching you. I had been so worried about you, and then to see you so relaxed and calm, it was crazy. But, it made me so happy too. I loved seeing you like that, and even though it was a dream, I'll never forget that, seeing you like that." He turned my face up to his. "My mission in life will to always make you look and feel like that."
I couldn't stop my smile, and I snuggled into his chest. I knew if anyone could make me feel like that, it would be him.
A couple hours later, we extracted ourselves from the couch and got ready to go out. We decided since the past 12 hours had been pretty serious, we needed to get out and do something. We went out and decided to hit just a small, local place for dinner. We figured any place remotely nice would be slammed tonight. Turns out, little or big, all restaurants were slammed, so the little tavern-turned-burger-joint that we found was no exception. We waited about 45 minutes while crammed in a dark little waiting area with about 900 other couples. Jacob had wormed us back into a corner, and was trying his damndest to get me worked up. I was relieved when they finally called us for a table, I was seconds away from letting him take me right there.
The food was well worth the wait. The burgers were massive, and cooked to perfection, and the plates were overflowing with fries. We talked and joked the whole time.
"Let's play a game." I said with a grin. He rolled his eyes at me.
"Oh geez, you're games are always dangerous." He whined playfully.
"No way! Well, sometimes, but not this one. Come on."
"This isn't one of those whole, 'if you could change one thing about me' games is it?"
"Jacob Black! You know me better than that!" I threw a fry at him, which he caught and threw into his mouth with a grin. "Besides, there's nothing to change about me, I'm perfect." I said, tossing my hair over exaggeratedly. He choked on his fry laughing, earning some looks from nearby tables.
"Anyway, back to my game. It's like being on a first date, but backwards."
"Huh?"
"OK, on a first date, you ask each other stuff to get to know each other. But this one, I ask you stuff about me, and vice versa."
"Ah, I see." His face lit up with understanding, and then he had a mischievous look in his eye. "Ok, so what are the stakes?"
"Dinner. Whoever loses, pays for dinner."
"How do you win or lose?"
"The first person who misses three questions has to pay."
"Deal. Ok, you go first." He sat back in his chair, waiting for my question.
"Alright. What is my favorite color?"
"Black." He said with a smug grin. I cracked up laughing, I couldn't help it.
"Wow, I walked right into that one!"
"Ok, my turn. How did I learn how to swim?"
I thought about it, and then laughed as I remembered.
"Jared pushed you off the dock into the lake, telling you 'swim or drown'."
"I don't know why you're laughing, that was mean!" He said, joining in with my laughter.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. But Geez Jake, you were twelve! And you lived on a beach! I still haven't figured out what took you so long." I started laughing harder. "Besides, you figured it out. And I have no doubt that if you truly couldn't have kept yourself up, they would have come in after you."
"Well, it doesn't matter. I may have dog paddled out of that lake, but sure as hell kicked his ass after that."
"Ok, ok, my turn. Hmmm. Ok, what do I want to do after college." I forced to keep a smile off my face as his faded."
"Wait that's not fair, you don't even know the answer to that question!"
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't." I shrugged. I knew it was totally unfair, but I couldn't help it. He was really wracking his brain, when his face lit up. Oh, this should be good.
"Marry me." He said confidently.
"What?" I asked, half laughing, half choking.
"After college, you're going to marry me." He grinned, popping another fry into his mouth.
I tried, but I just could not deny it. That wasn't my planned answer, I really had no planned answer, but that was it. I knew I would be with him forever, aside from all the 'imprint' crap, I've always known he was the one for me. I felt my face grow hot.
"You sound awful sure of yourself." I was struggling to fight my smile.
"C'mon Bells, who wouldn't want to marry me?"
I rolled my eyes at him.
"You're so full of yourself, you don't need me around." I joked.
"Trust me, if I didn't have you, I would be completely empty." I scrunched up my nose despite the warm fuzzy feelings he was giving me.
"Quit being all cute and crap, and get on with the game."
"So I was right?"
"Yeah, sure." I said rolling my eyes.
"Ha! Ok, my turn. What's my favorite band?" I narrowed my eyes at him.
"That's definitely a trick question. You change favorite bands like people change underwear."
"Not true! I have….ok, I have some favorites."
"Ha! See? Plural. Ok, well just to cover my bases, hmm. I'll go with Red for the past few months, and The Who for all time."
"Oh wow, Bells. I'm sorry, but you are wrong!" He said. My jaw dropped and I slapped my head.
"Zeppelin! I knew that! What was I thinking?"
"I know!" He laughed. "And yeah, I've been listening to Red a lot lately, but that's definitely a 'mood' band. It's good to get you all amped up, which I have been lately." He winked at me.
After a couple more questions, we decided to free up the table for another couple, and I ended up paying, even though Jake fought me tooth and nail. I guess he didn't think I was serious. We headed down toward the needle, and it was absolutely packed. We had to park about 3 miles away, and it wasn't even dark yet. But there was a lot of stuff going on. They had bands playing, a few we had actually heard of, several vendors selling cheap little new years knickknacks. Jacob was able to get us a couple beers from one of the vendors since he looked much older than he was. We found a patch of grass under a tree that no one had claimed with a blanket yet, and sat down to wait for the fireworks to start.
"So without making things too heavy, can I ask you a question?" I looked up at him hesitantly. I really wanted to keep the lightness going, but I was very curious about something he had said earlier.
"Of course, babe. Ask me anything." He said, turning me in his lap to face him."
"When you said you saw me in your dream, you said you knew I was ok. How did you know that just because you saw me, that I was ok?"
He blew out a breath, and stared past me, thinking.
"Well, you talked to me. Not just that, but you seemed, more than just a dream. It seemed like you, not my subconscious creating you. I remember, you were laying on the grass, and I was just watching you, maybe even for hours. And then you just turned to me, and told me to come sit down. You told me that you didn't know why you were sleeping so much, but that's all it was. Sleep. Then you told me about everything around us. You told me about the cabin, you said it was your great grandparent's, and then your grandparent's house for awhile. You told me after they moved away, it stayed in the family, but no one lived in it. It was more or less used as storage. Then you showed me where your grandmother would take you, down the side of the hill, and the two of you would pick blackberries. Then you told me about Brown Mountain, and the story of the Brown Mountain lights, which, if I do say, sounds pretty damn cool and creepy at the same time."
I couldn't speak, I was in shock. These things were all true, but none of it had ever been talked about with him. Just because there was no reason. Most of those memories are from when I was little, or in elementary school and we would visit dad's family on vacation. I don't know how long I sat there before Jake brought me back.
"Bells? You still with me?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh, Jake, I don't think that was a dream. I mean, how would you know all that stuff? I didn't even remember half that stuff until you started talking about it. Like the blackberries? That was so long ago, and I never think about it. But it's true. All of it, it's just so accurate. And a little scary."
"Yeah, so that's why I felt like it was really you, or some part of you anyway, telling me that you were really ok."
"Well, apparently I, or it, was right." I smiled.
"And I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am about that." He smiled back at me. He closed his eyes and nuzzled his nose against my ear. "You are my everything Bells, you really and truly are. I am absolutely nothing without you."
I believed him too, not just because he had said it before, but I felt the same exact way. And I had for so long, long before we were ever together.
"I hate so much that we waited so long for this." I said leaning into him.
"Me too. It was so much time wasted."
"Jacob Black, I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else, and more than I will love anyone else. You are my first and last love. You will be my only love."
He pulled me into a searing kiss that had my abdomen tightening instantly. I fisted my hands in his shirt as he wound his hands into my hair. But not a minute later, the first boom of the fireworks let loose, and I jumped so hard, I nearly knocked him backwards.
"Calm down, babe." He laughed. "I know I excite you, but there's no reason to lose control like that."
I slapped his arm as I turned back around, and settled myself back against his chest to watch the show. I was still torn between making out with him, and watching the fireworks, but I also wasn't wild about putting on a show for a couple hundred strangers either. So I sat there for forty five minutes, trying my best to ignore his idle hands that would graze up and down my arms lightly, his lips just millimeters away from my ear, which caused chills with every breath he took.
When it was finally over, the crowd started making it's way over to the needle for the countdown.
"That was really mean." I grumbled, refusing to look up at him.
"What?" He said with that stupid smile on his face.
"That's ok, I hope you enjoyed it because that's the closest you'll be coming to getting any the rest of the trip."
"Bells!"
I continued to ignore him with a smirk, until the crowd got too thick, and I grabbed hold of him, scared that I would lose him.
"No no! You said you were done with me." He joked.
"But I'm tiny and I don't want to get smooshed!" I fake pouted. He pulled me to him, kissing my head, as we continued pushing our way through the crowd. We were still about 100 yards away when the countdown started. We both sealed and started our year with a deep passionate kiss that left us both breathless.
"Happy New Year, babe." He said, leaning his forehead against mine.
"As long as I have you, it will be." I answered back, and was rewarded with another kiss. I heard the band start up, and just after the first few notes, I looked at him with wide eyes."
"Didn't you see who the headliner was?"
My mouth dropped open, and I'm pretty sure I screamed, but it was drowned out by the other thousands of people screaming. He swung me up onto his shoulders, which gave me a completely unblocked view of one of my favorite bands ever, Flyleaf.
"Jake! Can you see?" I yelled down to him.
"Yep, I'm fine!" He smiled back.
He held me up on his shoulders for the next hour while they performed, which, wolf or not, had to be exhausting. A second band was coming on when I decided to admit defeat. As we made the trek back to our car, Jake stopped suddenly, and tensed up. I almost fell from him stopping short. He looked around, but didn't seem to see anything.
"Hey Bells, you seem tired, why don't you let me carry you." He said, still looking around, and visibly tense. I was too sleepy to really care at this point, so I just shrugged. He grabbed me up and took off before I had time to even think about it. Before I knew it we were back at the car, and just a few moments later we were in the car, and Jake was driving like a bat out of hell. All that was enough to wake me up a bit.
"Umm, Jake? You ok?"
"Vampire." He said through clenched teeth. Now that really woke me up.
"What? Where? Who was it, where were they?" I felt my very relaxed body completely tense within seconds of hearing that word. Jake looked at me with wide eyes.
"Woah there Bells, calm down, you aren't really helping."
"The hell Jake! Don't tell me you see or smell or sense a vampire, or however it is you notice one, and then get mad because I freak out."
"Ok, I'm sorry. I just, I'm trying to keep myself from losing it, and feeling you freaked out makes me want to kill whatever the threat is. But I didn't want to lie and say 'nothing' either."
I guess I could appreciate that, because he very well could have just brushed me off. I ran my hand through my hair, looking at the passing city lights.
"And it's smell."
"Huh?"
"I smell them. They reek. That's how I can tell one is around. But, it's a big city, and while I would love to exterminate the threat, I have you to think about. Besides, it didn't smell very close, or familiar. Hopefully it's just passing through."
"Not to mention, you can't really fur-splode in the middle of downtown Seattle."
"Congratulations. That's not even a word." He said rolling his eyes at me.
"Yuh-huh." I said, leaning my seat back as the sleep returned to my body. "I said it, therefore, it's a word." I slurred out. I heard him chuckle from beside me.
"Go home Swan, you're drunk."
"Shut it Black."