Oh my gosh! I feel so awful! I should have updated this a long, long time ago. I'm so sorry that I didn't. But I'm updating it now! I have not given up on this story! I promise you all that. Just one more time, I'm so very sorry for the long wait. I'll do my best to not let myself go this long without updating again.

So without having to wait any longer than you already have, here's the long awaited next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...well, except for the plot I guess.

Chapter 7

The next morning when I woke up, as per the new normal, Leah was there. I didn't see her at first because I didn't open my eyes. But I could feel a presence there. It wasn't Edward's presence I felt, though, so I deduced that it was Leah's. Other than Edward, Leah was the only other one who usually came into my room uninvited when I was asleep.

If I wasn't used to Leah already, I'd probably be just the slightest bit uncomfortable, but that wasn't the case. We were pretty good friends now, believe it or not. Plus, even if that were not the case, I'd much rather wake up to Leah being in my room than I would my soon to be ex annoying vampire husband.

"You know, this is starting to become a common occurrence, Leah," I said as I kept my eyes closed, but gave away the fact that I was awake now.

"What is?" she asked, curiously.

"You being here when I wake up," I answered, slowly forcing myself to open my eyes.

Leah thought about it for a moment before nodding her head. "Yeah, I guess it is."

I laughed, shaking my head and rolling my eyes up towards Leah. My laughing ceased immediately when I saw the look on her face.

Leah was standing over me with her nose scrunched up, and a frown on her face. "Why in the world does it smell like a vampire in here, Swan?

My eyes widened, and I sat up in bed, looking around the room. "Oh, umm..."

"Was he here last night?" Leah asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

I nodded my head and sighed before I answered, "Yeah, he was here."

"Why the hell did you let him in here?!" she accused, jumping to conclusions.

"Hey now! I didn't!" I exclaimed defensively. "I woke up from a nightmare and he was just here."

"He let himself in?"

I shook my head yes. "Yeah, I definitely didn't invite him in like I'm sure you're thinking."

"Why was he here?" she asked curiously.

I looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "He said he'd be back for me remember."

Leah rolled her eyes when she realized exactly what had happened last night. "He tried to talk you into leaving again," she said, shaking her head.

"Mm-hmm," I mumbled my confirmation. "But I would not take the bait, so to speak."

"You do know that I'm not going to be able to keep this from the rest of the pack or Jacob for too much longer," she said suddenly.

I gulped, swallowing the lump that had quickly formed in my throat. "Leah..."

Leah held up a hand to stop me from continuing what I was about to say. "No, you listen to me and you listen to me good, Swan," she said in her stern "don't even try me" voice. "The more the leech comes around here, the quicker my resolve lessens. You know it's my nature to hate vampires and keeping one a secret from the others..." she trailed off. "It is not exactly easy for me."

"I know."

"Well then do something about your stalker vampire husband," she hissed at me.

"He's not a stalker..." I, for whatever reason, started to defend him.

Leah lifted an eyebrow at me and gave me a look that pretty much called me insane. "Seriously? He showed up on your doorstep the other day and then last night he was there when you woke up," she said as if I wasn't actually there both times. "One word, Swan, one word...stalker."

Alright, so maybe she did have a point there.

"Alright, fine," I relented. "He's my soon to be ex-stalker husband."

Leah smiled happy with my quick surrender. "You need to tell Jacob," she said. "And soon before you know who ups his stalker antics and something bad happens."

"He would not do anything to me," I said, trying to sound convincing, but part of me wondered if maybe he would and that I was wrong.

"You sure about that?" Leah asked me, challenging what I said. "It's obvious that he's not planning on just letting you go easily."

"I think he's trying to keep me from finding something out," I admitted before I could even think it through and stop myself.

A puzzled expression took over Leah's face.. "What do you mean?" she asked, sitting down next to me on the bed.

No need to take it back now.

"I mean, he so badly wants me to return to Alaska with him and he's more persistent about it than usual. And something just tells me not to trust him like I use to. You know, woman's intuition and all that," I explained, leaving nothing out.

"You should listen to it," Leah stated simply.

"I am," I insisted assuringly. "That's why I refuse to go back with him," I told her. "I want to know what really happened. I just want my memory back already."

Leah sighed and looked at me sadly. "I couldn't even begin to imagine what you're going through," she admitted. "Even though I don't think that I'd mind too much if I could and did trade places with you...amnesia wise, I mean."

I nodded in understanding. "It's not exactly a walk in the park. I really want to get my memory back, but at the same time like I said before..." I trailed off. "I just don't want to end up hurting Jake again," I confided in her.

"I know you don't."

We sat in silence for some time before a hard hitting question that I had in my mind for a while now came front and center in my head.

"Hey, Leah, can I ask you a question?"

Leah turned her head and looked at me. "Sure, go ahead."

I took a deep breath before going for it. "So Jake mentioned that everyone thought his imprint with...her...ended because I'm suppose to be his real imprint, right?"

Leah nodded.

"Okay, then...if that is the case..." I trailed off, trying to figure out how to word my question "How come he hasn't imprinted on me yet?"

Leah pondered my question for a moment before answering, "Honestly, I don't know. But if I had to make a guess..."

"What?" I urged her on.

"It's probably because you haven't let Edward go completely."

I looked at her with confusion clearly written all over my face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, most imprints that I know of have happened on unsuspecting girls who weren't in love with or dating anyone else," she explained. "It's very possible that because you're still connected with Edward that the imprint isn't able to happen." Leah paused before adding, "Or maybe what you and Jake share is stronger than an imprint could even be imagined as, so an imprint is not really necessary."

"I'd prefer the latter," I said without hesitation.

Curiously, she asked, "How come?"

"Jake's suppose to be alpha one of these days, right?"

Leah nodded.

"Judging by previous imprints wouldn't an alpha imprinting get in the way of the alpha doing his duties?" I asked, letting my own overthinking conclusions be said out loud for the first time ever.

Leah looked pleasantly surprised. "Hmm...no one ever thought of that before. How did you..."

I shrugged and cut her off, "I just think a lot that's all."

Leah laughed. "Where was this side of you back then? You could have helped immensely with certain things thinking this deep into things."

"This me was hidden behind a naive, teen-aged me," I confessed with a sigh.

Leah didn't even try to deny any of it. "Yeah, you are probably right about that one."

I shook my head. "There's no probably to it. I am right about that," I corrected her.

"Taking up for things how they are. You are definitely very different from who you were two years ago, Swan," she told me, standing up. "I can actually respect this you." She smiled.

"Thanks."

She nodded. "Alright, I should get going."

"Wait," I stopped her as she walked over to the door. "Why were you here in the first place?"

Leah thought for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "Honestly, I don't remember." She shook her head, laughing. "It'll come to me later if it was that important."

"Okay."

Leah went to leave, but stopped before and turned back once again. "Oh, and Swan?"

"Yeah?"

"You should really use some room spray," she said with a small smirk on her face. "If Jake were to come here, he'd smell Edward all over and it wouldn't go so well."

My eyes widened and I bolted out of my bed and made a beeline for the bathroom to get some room spray. When I returned, I proceeded to spray just about half of the spray bottle's contents all over my room. I was almost like a ballerina jumping and prancing around the room, making sure every inch of the room got sprayed.

Leah was laughing the whole entire time.

"Is that better?" I asked, stopping and looking at her.

Leah laughed more, sniffing the air, and nodding her head. "As long as he doesn't come here actually looking for vampires he won't notice it."

I sighed, relieved. "Good."

Leah shook her head as she continued to laugh. "See you later, Swan."

"Yeah, you, too."

Then she was gone.

~MP~

Later that afternoon, after making myself breakfast and getting ready for the day and taking care of a few other things, I decided to call Jacob and see if he was busy. Unfortunately, he was busy. He said it was something to do with the pack. Much to both of our absolute dismays, we had to rein check. I'd go over there later tonight and we'd hang out.

Realizing that I had nothing else to do, I remembered bumping into Angela a few days back. I searched for the paper with her number written on it and then called her up to see if she wanted to hang out. Luckily she had nothing to do for the day either, so we agreed to meet up in Port Angeles and go to the movies.

After the movies, we went out to eat and spent the time catching up. She told me how she was currently in college, she just came back to Forks on break to see her family. She was going to school to become a teacher. It also turned out that she and Ben were still going strong and had plans to get married once they both graduated college and got settled down in their professions. I was so very happy for her, and I made sure to tell her that.

When it was my turn to tell her about the past two years of my life, I didn't really have a reason to lie so I told her just about everything. I told her about how I was in a coma for the past two years and had no memory of anything after graduation, that part was the only thing I actually lied about. She listened and afterwards gave me her condolences and all that.

Then she mentioned something about how did Edward take the accident and me being in a coma for those two years. I sort of lied about that, too...just slightly. I told her that my coma was the downfall of our marriage and that we were in the middle of getting our marriage annulled. She once again gave me her condolences. I accepted them with the most fake thankful smile that I could muster. After all, that wasn't really how everything was happening, but I couldn't tell her everything because quite honestly not even I knew everything.

After we ate, we were heading back to my truck when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a familiar car and froze. Angela noticed me stop mid step and stopped as well, turning back to walk over to me.

"Is everything okay?" she asked with an expression of concern on her face.

"I...I think so," I answered, my eyes not leaving the car for even a millisecond.

Angela turned to look where I was looking. "What are you looking at? That car?"

I nodded.

"Do you know the owner of it?"

"I do. "I nodded. "I mean, I know who owned it before whoever owns it now." I sighed sadly.

Angela smiled a sympathetic smile.

Just then I saw someone walk over to it.

Without a second thought, I started running. I looked both ways before I crossed the street (thank you preschool teacher) and made it across safely. I could hear Angela calling after me, but I ignored her, not stopping until I was breathing heavily standing next to the car's current owner.

"Can I help you miss?" the owner, a middle aged man, asked as he turned to look at me.

I took a few deep breaths to get my breathing back in order. "Actually there is."

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

"What would it take for you to sell the car to me?" I asked, trying not to sound rude but seeing the car after all this time and remembering the memories that I had of it, I just couldn't get myself completely together.

The owner shook his head, and gave me a confused, sympathetic smile. "It's not for sale, miss. I'm sorry."

"Please," I pleaded, obviously not above pleading to get the car back somehow. "It was my best friends car and he sold it too you because..." I started to say, hoping that the guy would take pity on me.

The owner suddenly held up a hand to keep me from saying anything else. "You're the girl?" he asked, eyes wide.

I was taken aback by his question at first. "Sorry. Come again?"

"The boy who sold it to me mentioned a girl was the reason he was selling it," he told me. "Are you that girl?" he asked me again.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, I suppose I am."

"The boy told me a brief story when I asked why he was selling the car that he put so much time into building himself."

I smiled briefly.

Of course he did. Even to strangers, he wasn't ashamed to admit his love for me. And that's exactly what I said to the guy, too.

"The car means a lot to you, too, doesn't it?" he asked.

I nodded my head.

"I'd be willing to sell it back to you. I was thinking about selling it myself sooner or later, anyways," he admitted, looking at me. "But now I'm more than willing to sell it to you since I kind of know who you are."

I had to do everything I could not to act all crazy and hug that guy silly.

"Thank you so much!" I exclaimed, looking down at the ground when I felt the urge to.

My eyes widened when I saw the glint of my bracelet. Oh my gosh! The diamond pendant! If it was possible, I was even more happy now than I had been a second ago. "Here! How about this?" I asked, lifting my arm up to show him the pendant. "It's a real and very expensive diamond! You can pawn it or sell it or something for whatever it's worth."

He looked it over and then nodded his head. "I think that we have a deal."

"Oh, that's great!" I exclaimed, actually jumping up and down and clapping my hands like a little kid now, not caring what anybody thought of me. "Alright, so I'll just give you my number and vice versa. When I'm ready for it, I'll be in touch and we can exchange the car for the diamond," I offered once I got myself together again.

The guy smiled at me. "That sounds like a plan."

"Thank you so much," I said, smiling at him once again.

"You're welcome," he replied. "And good luck."

At first, I didn't get what he meant by that, but once I did I nodded my head and smiled even brighter. "Oh, thank you!"

After exchanging names and numbers, we parted ways.

"What was that all about?" Angela asked, looking at me curiously as we made our way back across the street.

"I am fixing everything that I messed up," I told her with a wide grin.

Everything was slowly taking a turn for the better.

~MP~

After hanging out with Angela in Port Angeles for a little while longer after making a deal to buy the Rabbit back, I had the sudden urge to go see Jacob earlier than he was expecting me. So after dropping Angela off at home, I drove to La Push. Just as I was pulling up to Jacob's house, my breath immediately caught in my throat. I saw a beautiful girl walking out of the house. Of course I instantly thought the worst. But then I doubled back and realized I should find out who she was before I jumped to conclusions.

I parked my truck, turned it off, and got out.

"Hi." I smiled at the girl as she was about to walk by me to get to her own car.

"Hello," she replied with a smile that probably matched my own.

"Who are you?" I asked, skipping straight to what I really wanted to know.

The girl smiled more so than before and she answered, "I'm Elena."

And just like that I felt my heart drop right back down into my stomach where it had went when I first found out about Elena. But this was different. I was not just hearing about Elena. I was actually seeing her. I was standing right in front of Jacob's ex-imprint.

Oh my god!

Review, please? Let me know what you think! Dun, dun, dun! Well, you knew it was coming. But you probably didn't expect it so soon though. So, is Elena gonna be mean or nice? Take your guess and find out if you're right next chapter. Who knows...maybe you'll be surprised.

Next chapter; Bella and Elena have a talk about Jacob. Afterwards, Bella learns of what Jacob went though during the time she was gone. And, where does Elena fit into everything? Well, you know, other than her being Jacob's ex-imprint.