Passing Years

Disclaimer: all characters and copyright to Stephanie Meyer.

A/N-thanks for the kind reviews, Nikki.

Part Three-First Fight

His lips felt warm against hers as he kissed her lightly, softly, as if testing the waters. He pulled back and gazed at her for a second, waiting for her to make the next move, obviously not wanting to push her in case it was too much. Bella smiled slowly before closing her eyes and pressing her mouth back onto his, moulding her lips with his as she reciprocated. The sensation was pleasurable, a mixture of cold and warmth. There was none of the blazing heat that had been unendurable before. They kissed for a long time, just standing together, Jacob's hands cupping her face while she placed hers on his broad shoulders. Gently, carefully Jacob then led Bella toward his bedroom, very slowly beginning to caress her back through the thin material of the tank top she was wearing. "This okay?" He checked as they reached his bed.

Bella nodded slowly as she pulled back a little. She became lost in his dark eyes. "I love you." She said simply with no affectation. She sounded utterly certain and the glow in her eyes and the look on her face showed Jacob she meant every word, that the last barrier that had always been between them had dissipated. Bella's words were said with raw emotion, there was no hiding what this meant now or hiding behind the shield she was so good at creating. She was his, and for the first time in his whole life he knew the ghost of Edward Cullen was gone. Jacob smiled at her as he leaned forward and kissed her again, murmuring the words back to her.

They lay in the huge bed lying on their sides facing each other. Bella trailed her fingers down Jacob's arm, tracing the faint outline of a bruise which was forming on his tan skin where she had gripped him too tightly. "I'm sorry." She whispered, feeling slight guilt that she had hurt him in any way, even if it was just a few light bruises.

Jacob hushed her. "They'll fade, honey. You didn't hurt me. I loved every minute of it."

"Really?" Bella wanted to believe him; she had tried to be as careful as she could as they slowly made love but as the passion built between them her control had been tested to the limit. For the first time she finally understood how ambivalent and scared Edward must have felt when she kept pushing and pushing for him to show more physical affection when she was still human. She had been a naïve fool. Of course she had been very seriously hurt after her first union with Edward, thankfully Jacob had suffered only a few bruises, but it still upset her.

Jacob touched her cheek and stroked it. "Yes, really. I'm fine honestly. It will get easier for you I know it will. Stop stressing."

"So we'll be doing this again will we?" Bella put her fears to one side; Jacob did seem to be genuinely happy and relaxed. Perhaps she was making too big a deal of it.

"Hell yeah." Jacob laughed as she rolled her eyes at his boyish enthusiasm. "Like right now perhaps?" He suggested as the mirth left his face and his expression turned hungry.

Bella leaned forward and kissed him effectively ending the conversation.

They spent the day in bed, either making love, or in Jacob's case sleeping. While he rested Bella would lie next to him and watch him for a while, her eyes roving his beautiful face worriedly. Her anxieties were building up inside her again. This, this is what she knew she now wanted, what she could have had if only she had made the right choice in the first place and listened to what her heart had been telling her instead of playing into her vanity and silly fears about him imprinting and leaving her one day. After all that Jacob had never imprinted, in fact no one else after Paul Lahote had. Embry, Leah, Seth, Colin and Brady had all married outside of the pack. After waiting a few years to see if anyone else imprinted they had decided to stop putting their lives on hold and start to allow themselves to form other relationships. The pack, under Jacob's leadership, after he had taken on his birth right when Sam had stepped down, continued to phase for years even after the threat of cold ones became nothing but a distant memory. Sam had been the first to give up the wolf at the age of fifty. He wanted to begin to grow old with Emily who was now really showing her age and pressing him to go into retirement. He was dead within a year from a heart attack. His sudden death and rapid decline shocked the other pack members and they held off giving up the wolf until, as more time passed, they began to think Sam's quick death was an anomaly. As one they all decided to stop phasing together, apart from Jacob who was still single and had no one urging him to grow old with them. Unfortunately it appeared Sam's quick death was not an anomaly. One by one Jacob had to endure seeing his brothers and his pack sister die within months of each other as their hearts failed. Leah was the longest to survive; she managed to hold on for over two years before she died in her husband's arms.

The deaths of the pack had shocked the elders of the tribe as well as Jacob himself. It appeared there was a big side effect from allowing the spirit wolves to inhabit their bodies. While they had the strength of the wolf inside them it gave them the ability to stay young and not age as well as their quick healing ability, but once the wolf was banished the toll it took on their bodies and hearts quickly caught up with them. There was no warnings in the old legends about the last pack dying like this, but then times were different then and life expectancy much shorter anyway. So maybe it just wasn't deemed important.

All of this ran through Bella's head as she watched Jacob sleep. Already she could see the signs that he was rapidly deteriorating. The grey hairs, the way he could no longer keep up with her like he used to. They may only be little things but it was a start and although she had made him a promise not to bring up the subject again she knew she would not be able to keep silent. She loved him, she really loved him. They had found something special. She couldn't lose him, she couldn't. Bella rested her head on his chest as he slept and counted the beats of his heart, panicking each time it seemed to slow down or jerked in his chest.

When Jacob finally woke up he found Bella in a state of distress as her anxieties overwhelmed her. She kept thinking his heart had stopped every time he took a deep breath as he slept or he rolled onto his side. If it didn't sound right in her frazzled mind she crouched over him, ready to start CPR and pump his chest. She wasn't going to lose him, not now. "Bells, what the hell is wrong?" He took her hands in his as she stared at him in anguish. "What's happened?"

"You have to start phasing again, Jake. You have to. I can't cope, I can't. Please, just bring back the wolf. We can be together, live together. Please, please don't die, Jake. I can't bear it. I can't." Bella gripped his hands tightly, not aware that she was hurting him until he winced. She snatched her hands away and curled up into a ball facing away from him. "Please Jake, I'm begging you." She choked out.

"Stop it, Bella. Just stop." Jacob yelled at her as she kept on and on pleading with him.

"I can't. I can't. Please, please…" Bella knew she was being selfish, knew she was being irrational, but she couldn't stop herself. Being a vampire heightened her emotions and tended to make her overreact and not listen to reason. All vampires suffered from the same syndrome. If they were angry, they would explode, if they were sad, they became suicidal and if they were happy they would be over exuberant with boundless energy that would exhaust a human. Normally she could rein it in a lot of the time but she had worked herself up into such a state she was inconsolable. "Promise me, Jake. Promise me. Say you'll phase again, please…."

"ENOUGH BELLA." Jacob roared at her as he slid off the bed after trying in vain to calm her down. "I won't go back to that old life. I don't want it. I told you this. You can't ask me to go back to it. If I brought back the wolf we could never be close physically like we've just been. We'd kill each other if we tried. I don't want to live an eternity not being able to touch you, make love to you. If you stop being so damn selfish you wouldn't force me to."

Bella wasn't listening. She continued to beg until he couldn't listen to her any longer. Jacob dressed quickly, grabbed his jacket and fled the apartment. He was so pissed at her that he couldn't think straight. Bella trembled as she watched him go, knowing inside that she had pushed him too far, but still in too much of state to go after him.

Jacob was gone for hours. Bella thought about tracking him down, but decided that was the last thing he would want. An hour or so after he had left her alone she managed to regain control of herself. When she thought about what she had done it sickened her. She had only ever been that emotional once since she had been changed, that was when she had been faced with the loss of her father. She had effectively had a major melt down, and with Edward's indifference to her plight, it had been left to Rosalie of all people to calm her down and make her see sense. Bella had never thought she and the icy blonde would ever have formed a friendship, but Rosalie was the only one who seemed to understand her distress at the loss of her human father and it was her suggestion that Bella go to his funeral and gain some closure. Bella had taken her advice and was forever grateful that she had done so. Now she had suffered another breakdown at the thought of losing someone precious from her life again. Jacob was and always had been her anchor, it was only now that she realised how big a part he had played in keeping her sane through the years. She had quickly tired of being a vampire, doing the same empty things day after day. Attending countless schools over and over, listening to the same inane chatter of the others day after day, reading the same books, listening to the same music, constantly moving from town to town, never able to settle, never feeling alive. Only one month of the year would her existence light up and that was going to see her sun, and now she was going to lose him.

As evening drew in and the sun sank below the horizon Jacob finally came back to the apartment. His face was awash with sadness as he stepped inside. As soon as she heard him enter Bella flew at him and put her arms around him, forcing herself not to squeeze too tight. "I am a selfish creature and I am so sorry, Jake, so sorry. What you said, everything was right. I understand. A few months of what we have now are worth an eternity of being without it. Forgive me, I love you. I was just frightened."

Jacob hugged her close, his head dropping to rest in the crook of her neck. "I want it too, honey. Don't think I haven't thought about it. I was walking around and around and I nearly did it, I nearly called the wolf back…"

"Jake…" Bella was aghast as guilt washed over her at what she had so nearly forced him to do.

"Hush, I didn't do it. I love you, Bella. I want to be close to you. I don't want to have to be forced to keep a distance between us like before. I want this, us as we are now. I don't want to go back to being friends, not able to touch you because of the differences between us." He kissed the nape of her neck and held her tighter as his emotions overwhelmed him. "I want to love you for as long as I have left."

"I think we've just had our first fight." Bella pulled back and smiled tremulously at him, trying to lighten the mood again. "Does that mean we're a proper couple now?"

"Hell yeah." Jacob kissed her gently on the lips as he smiled down at her with love pouring from his eyes.

A/N-thanks for reading!