A/N: WOW. I am so sorry for the freakishly long time it took me to update! You wouldn't believe how hectic things have been for me lately. I'll treat you to a bit of a longer chapter… I think.

In this chapter… things get a bit more eventful, or at least I think so. Most of the events described here popped into my head as I wrote them. None of the plot of this story is set in stone, actually, but I think this quite fits in to the immediate situation.

I've decided to rate this fic back to T, at least while everything is mildly non-M-rated. A change of the summary also might help out a few readers to find out if this is what they really want to read.

Thanks for all the reviews thus far.

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Chapter Six.

In what could be called a haze, you slosh and stumble through the growing mud to where your truck sits and you climb in. Somehow you forget to shut the door behind you, and the cold of the wind and rain blows through the open truck door, making you impossibly colder with every drop of rain that touches you.

Minutes pass and you can't calm down enough to turn the keys in the ignition. You give up after two attempts and spread your body out on the seat to lie on your back, soaked wet and muddy and looking probably more awful than you had in a long time. A sudden wave of utter exhaustion is tangible as you close your eyes, blowing you back against the seat with a surprising force that leaves you even more breathless than before. With that, you cry harder and hope for sleep to come soon, but nothing could force you into unconsciousness now, unfortunately.

And all throughout the night, while you lie there pitying yourself, you can't help but think over and over, He left me. He actually left me. The pain you feel now is a new kind of pain, a horrid feeling all over your body that causes you to scream several times throughout the night. And you still can't sleep.

The rain does finally stop, although you thought it never would. And when you sense the first light of dawn after what seems like a century of lying in your truck with the door open and your legs hanging halfway out into the misty air, you hear his voice.

But it wasn't the voice you wanted to hear.

"Oh, Bella," Embry sighs miserably. The tone in his voice indicates he could be rolling his eyes. Yes, the rolling of eyes would be perfect to go with that tone. And you hate that tone.

You don't open your eyes. Or maybe you can't open your eyes. Maybe it was physically impossible or maybe you forgot how to. But whatever the case, you did not open your eyes.

You see a shadow hover over your body through your closed eyelids, in the dim light of the morning, but you still don't look to see what it is. Strong, large, and most importantly warm arms find their way underneath you to effortlessly lift you upright, and you clutch on desperately although you know they're not the arms you'd like to be held in right now. He positions you in a semi-sitting position, your head leaning against his shoulder while the sound of your truck roaring to life is heard, along with the slamming of a car door. The loudness of your truck's engine (and most importantly, the very abruptness of it) causes your eyes to jolt open in surprise.

He's there—Embry is—sitting to your left, fumbling with the controls of your ancient truck, getting it into to gear and pulling out of Jacob's nonexistent driveway, and you feel the car moving...

Oh, Jacob—

The pain that awakens your body causes you to cry and spit and scream and gasp for air, and—for once—you really don't give a fuck about who sees you. Especially not Embry.

His warm arm wraps easily around your waist in an attempt to comfort you, but you're too weak to do anything about it.

He drives you back to your house that morning, and you're only vaguely aware of Charlie yelling questions at Embry, and maybe at you—"What the hell is this all about? Where has she been? What happened to her? Why wouldn't Billy answer the damn phone? Where's Jacob?" (That one makes you wince in Embry's arms and you whisper for Charlie to please, please stop yelling at Embry. This isn't his fault.)

Everything else is a blur. Unlike before, Charlie doesn't insist to carry you into the house and into your bedroom; Embry does that part. Charlie uncharacteristically doesn't follow him up the stairs. At least that much you can sense. You can only sense the presence of Embry and no one else. It's as though there's a black piece of translucent gauze laid over your eyes. Shapes and forms mean nothing. The only things you can see are colors. And even the colors are a jumbling, confusing mixture of blacks and whites and grays… and occasionally reds…

Embry lays you down on your bed without a sound, and you make absolutely no movement. You're nothing; you're a shadow; you're dead.

He hauls a heavy blanket over your body (still fully clothed, shoes included—and still fully dirty) but the blanket does nothing to eliminate the cold.

Still unspeaking, his face is coming closer and closer and you wonder why. Just a trick of your flawed vision? But before you can stop anything, he kisses you, his lips soft and tense at the same time. It's very short and very sweet, unlike how it'd been yesterday evening (you flinch, trying not to think about that afternoon), and you don't kiss him back, of course. Your body won't let you, as much as your mind knows you should.

Then all warmth leaves you and you open your eyes just barely to notice Embry silently plunging out of your room and down the stairs and out of the house.

Sleep does come, eventually, whether you want it to or not. You can't possibly hold off the unbelieving feeling of exhaustion that engulfs you once again after Embry was no longer present. You fall asleep within the first few seconds of silence. (Or, at least it was silence to you. Maybe everything would be silent to you from now on.) You gasp pitifully into the folds of your sheets when you're alone, and then everything is suddenly black.

That night, you dream. Horrid, awful, dark dreams that involve a confusing mixture of a dark-skinned boy and the forest. Two dark-skinned boys, actually. One of them screams your name before both of them plunge into the darkness of the brown-hued forest far, far away from where you stand, and you weep into the strange black water that surrounds you. Weakly, you fall to your knees and are swallowed up as well. You don't attempt to call out for help. No one is there to help you, anyway.

A beautiful image appears to the right of your vision, and it somehow adds to the roar of water in your ears. The image has a face. The face is white… his face is white. And it's that of an angel, cropped with golden-bronze hair in a messy array above his perfect, liquid topaz eyes.

The image follows you as you sink deeper, deeper, deeper in the black water, never reaching the bottom and never reaching anywhere. He doesn't speak until the outline of his body eventually fades away into darkness. "Bella," he says. And that's it. And then Edward's gone.

But when everything goes silent and all you can hear is the frantic sputtering of your fragile heart as you sink ever deeper, nothing is real anymore. And your eyes are painfully blinded in the light.

---

Two fairly uneventful days later, in the morning, a very tired-looking Charlie bursts through the door of your bedroom and you attempt to quiet your screams from your most recent nightmare for his sake. And you didn't want to hurt him—you'd been trying your hardest to avoid freaking him out as much as you were now. You could plainly see from the look on his face that he was freaking out. Freaking out a lot. You'd never screamed as horrifically as you had that night. (Now, how was that possible?)

"Bella, Bella!" Charlie yells at you through the screams that are still ripping through your throat. You can't seem to stop them, and you clutch to your pillow like your life depends on it, burying your face into the fabric as to somewhat muffle yourself. "Bella! Please, honey, please stop and tell me what's wrong." His voice is desperate and frustrated.

"I… I'm…," you gasp, but you can't find yourself enough to stop the strange, rasping yelps that still come out of your throat in painful ways.

"Bells, baby," Charlie says again, quieter now. His voice is exasperated, tired, and it breaks through your heart enough close your mouth hard, muffling the screams. "Is there anything I can do?"

A few seconds pass as you calm yourself. You wipe your face with the sheets of your bed, not caring how much snot or tears spoiled them. Blinking hard to get the tears out of your eyes enough to clearly see his face, you reply to Charlie's question, hardly taking a moment to think about your answer. "No," you manage to whisper at last. You shake your head hopelessly. "I really don't think so, Dad. I—I'm sorry."

The weakness in your muscles makes it difficult for you to sit up, but you manage to. You restlessly lean your back against the headboard and look at Charlie's desolate expression. You arms tremble and it's difficult to breathe while you realize how much this is really hurting him. Can't you get over something like this, just for his sake? Charlie was always the most important person in your life, as much as you constantly contradict yourself otherwise. No matter how much you may love Jacob—you flinch as you think the name—it was always Charlie who gave you life, love, and easy happiness that comes with childhood. It was him you should be worrying most about.

"I'm sorry," you repeat, and your voice shakes. "This is something that… that I'll learn to get over by myself."

"When, Bella?" he stresses, his face turning an awful color of red, but you know it's not because he's angry at you. You cringe away from the frustration clearly displayed in his words. "When can I stop worrying about you enough to get a full night's rest? When can I know that you'll do the same?" He doesn't give you enough time to answer any of those questions—it appears he's in ranting mode. "I can understand how hard breakups are—I broke up with the love of my life, too, you know! But I already told you how I got over that a long time ago. I know what you had with this boy was something else than I've ever seen, but I'm going to lay down on the table right now that how much you loved Edward is more than unnatural, it's completely bizarre—"

"Edward? Dad, you think this is about Edward?" you interrupt him, your voice still not strong enough. Charlie probably couldn't have known otherwise, you knew that, but had he not just witnessed the last few months you'd had without Jacob? Or did he really think you were lingering on the nightmares you'd stopped having months ago?

Charlie's eyes grow wide and questioning, ranting mode off. "Isn't it?" he asks in a much smaller voice than before, but his complexion doesn't get any less redder at this revelation.

"No, it's not, not really," you whisper, looking down at your quilt and feeling almost embarrassed. "Dad, I—I agree the love me and… and Edward share is not exactly… normal. I came to terms with that a long time ago. But—Jacob was the one that was always there—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Charlie's the one to interrupt you this time. "You're confusing me with your… past and present tenses of the words you're using." His face scrunches up like he's concentrating on something hard. You know exactly what he means when he says 'past and present tenses'. "The love you and Edward share?" he asks. "I thought that was over a long time ago. And"—he holds up a hand to stop you before you can contradict him—"you said Jacob was the one—not is. Bella, I honestly feel like I don't even have any clue at all what the hell's going on with your love life." Now he's turning angry.

You feel the blood rush to your cheeks, and his accusations only further your embarrassment. "I wish I could tell you Dad, because I honestly don't know, either."

"I don't believe that," he growls. "One day, you're off skipping and laughing with Jake, and the next day I come in here and find you howling in fright from a nightmare you had. And then—I mean, and now—Embry has to come into the mix? Bella, I… I just want to know who in the hell is making my daughter's life so miserable. I'm sick and tired of feeling so helpless. I want to kick someone's ass already, Bella." He glares at you hard, and you know he means it.

You can't help but grin a little bit anyway.

"Dad," you say, humor creeping into your voice in the midst of all the tension and sadness. "You don't have to do anything like that. It's not their fault."

"Well, then who's fault is it?"

You sigh. "Mostly mine, actually."

Charlie shakes his head back and forth. The movement suggests hopelessness, and you know that's just exactly what he's feeling. "Bella, I can't work with that answer."

"I understand that." You bite your lip, not wanting to delve any deeper into the topic.

He just stares at you, scrutinizing your face like perhaps he could read more there than what you originally told him. If this moment had happened about a year ago, you'd have been ridiculously easy to read. But you'd had practice since then—practice protecting yourself and your secrets from those who were much too intuitive (even though Charlie probably didn't count in that category). Someone like Jacob.

You realize, though, just how impossible it really was to keep secrets from him. And it was much, much more than his intuition, you know that. Sometimes it seemed like he knew you like the back of his hand. Ironically, you probably knew the back of Jacob's hand better than you knew yourself. You both went hand-in-hand with one another. It was impossible to deny you too were made for each other. It only made sense.

So… why in the hell did imprints have to be involved in it all? If you and Jacob were always meant to be? What was the meaning of complicating everything with something as mythical and magical as an imprint?

You'd always believed that even if you might not like the outcome of some things, whatever had just happened was no accident, and was always meant to be that way. Then again, you and Jacob weren't at the end of your rope—yet. You still had time to fix things. …Didn't you?

In the time that Charlie studies your face, a faint glimmer of hope grows in the depths of your rotting chest. A hope that could—quite possibly—save what had always meant to be.

"Bella." Charlie interrupts your half-epiphany, most likely seeing less devastation on your face than there had been before. That makes you even happier, even more hopeful that maybe this all could turn out okay, and you wouldn't need to hurt Charlie any more than you already had. But you decide that you'd have to stop hoping or sooner or later. (In your mind, not to be seen in your expression, you choose later). "I'm going to trust you to figure this all out on your own," Charlie continues, "for as long as you possibly need to. Or for as long as is healthy for you. If I notice that things aren't getting better, it's gonna be time for me to step in and doing something about it. And I'm gonna give some boy one hell of a time." A grim expression reaches his face, and a pang of sadness shoots through your chest.

"Hopefully… it won't come to that," you mutter.

"Don't count on it," Charlie grumbles, and he heaves himself up by his elbows from where he'd been leaning against your bed, causing the springs to squeak unpleasantly. He stops in the doorway before exiting. "I'll always be here for you, Bells," he says in a husky mumble. "You can always count on that. I hope I'm the first, or, one of the first"—you flinch guiltily as you understand what he implies—"people you go to whenever you're having trouble with something."

Charlie sighs loudly before closing the door behind him. His loud footsteps clomp down the stairs, and eventually the sounds of opening and closing cupboards inform you that it's late enough in the morning to have breakfast.

You glance at the alarm clock on your night stand. It reads in plain green text 4:51.

You do a double-take before having second thoughts about the whole late-enough-in-the-morning thing. And then you realize that neither you nor Charlie could fall back asleep after what'd just happened. Not until night came again. (You dread the thought of night coming, although of course it would be inevitable. So why hope?)

"Four-fifty-one," you murmur out loud, thoughtful. "Or… four-fifty-two now, I guess. What would be too early…?"

In intentional and decided movements, you get yourself ready for the unpredictable day ahead of you.

---

You grab no more than an apple in your rush to be out of the house, planning to chomp on it on the way there. The warmth of the house disappears as the front door slams behind you and is replaced by the freezing cold temperature of the outside. The air is misty yet calm and immediately cools your face in an unpleasant manner. You sense your ears might already be red before you'll even make the short walk to your truck. The sun hasn't yet made its way over the horizon—only a faint outline of light that lines the mountains gives you a clue (well, that gives a clue, as well as that, before you walked out of the house, the clock over the stove read 5:08 AM).

You almost don't notice Charlie fumbling with something under the hood of his cruiser to the right of your truck. Only when a loud slam is heard as Charlie shuts the hood of his car do you realize he was standing there the whole time. During your planning to get ready and out as soon as possible, you'd nearly forgotten to tell Charlie about it all first.

The loud sounds makes you jump where you stand, and you breathe an embarrassed sigh of relief when you notice Charlie behind his car, wiping his hands with an oil-stained rag.

"Hey, Dad," you say quickly, feeling guilty you didn't tell him before. "I'm—uh… headed to… La Push." You bite your lip slightly and wonder if this could be a lie. You could change your mind halfway there.

Charlie simply nods his head. "Making things right with Jake, I see." He states it like a fact.

Your eyes widen at the misunderstanding. "I—well, I mean—um… no, not really, actually." Heat rushes to your cheeks. "Not yet, I guess."

He stares at you suspiciously, looking completely flabbergasted that his guess had been wrong. "That's not what I wanted to hear."

"I know."

He gives a sigh of defeat and exasperation. "Whatever the reason is, don't you think it's a little bit too early to head over to La Push? Any sane person would sleep in till at least after eight o'clock on a Saturday morning." He takes a swift glance at his watch. "And it's five in the morning, Bell."

You raise your eyebrows, playing the defendant. "I thought you wanted me to make up with Jake."

"I do, I do!" Charlie replies, lifting both hands in a placating gesture. "But—good God, Bella! A boy that age and size should get as much rest as possible. Don't you go down there and make a pest of yourself. And anyway, I thought you weren't going to La Push to make up with him."

"I will get around to it. Jake's just not ready yet. And neither am I, I think." You hesitate before continuing, feeling suddenly unsure about what you meant to go to La Push to do. "But I'm making progress, Dad."

He just grins, and that one grin outpours his obvious complete and total trust in you. You're not sure whether he should trust you, or not. "That's all I needed to hear." He walks to you and gives you a firm one-armed hug. "Good luck with whatever you do. But remember, Bella, at this age, you should probably still think boys are icky. Well, at least I wished that you still did."

He chuckles and you raise an eyebrow at how embarrassing Charlie could be when you really concentrated and gave in to your natural teenage hormones. The sense of regularity you feel as Charlie releases you and goes back to work on his car makes you feel strange as you climb into your truck, like maybe you could just bask in the normalness of being a teenager for a while and not have to embrace the strange world of fairy tales that you so willingly went forward to involve yourself in.

But you decide to stop pretending. You could save basking in the 'normalness' for later.

(If there was a later.)

---

Your truck roars as you pull into the not-so-clear driveway and sputters to a stop when you pull the keys from the ignition. Your hands suddenly begin shake convulsively, and it's not because of the cold air that greets you when you finally manage to open your truck door.

Hyperventilating is inescapable as you walk up the pleasant, flower-lined pathway that ultimately leads to a pleasant little house—cute and perfect, yet old and small—and one knock on Emily Young's front door is all it takes.

The door swings open wide without a creak that you might've expected from a door so seemingly old.

Emily stands in the doorway as though she'd been there the whole time. A shocked expression is already present on her face, so you know that she knew it was you from the sound of your truck approaching.

"Bella," she gasps, her eyebrows scrunching up peculiarly. "What a… pleasant surprise…" She makes the sentence sound like a question.

"Yeah," you say, forcing your voice to be strong. "I'm really, really sorry it's so early, but I couldn't wait," you continue as you feel the blood rising to your cheeks. Emily seems to look ready for the day and not like she just got out of bed, though, so that makes you feel better.

"No, no problem at all, Bella," Emily replies as though she is just barely aware of her surprised stature. Straightening herself with a kind, yet still confused smile, she studies you up and down.

You feel embarrassed as you realize how you probably look like absolute shit. I mean, you didn't have time for a shower, or even to run a rag over your face or a comb through your hair. No doubt tear stains were in place below your eyes. And you'd definitely not had enough sleep, so it could be guaranteed that the purple-bluish bags under your eyes had bags. You look at your feet uncomfortably, noticing how awkward the situation was getting and wanting to get right to the point.

"Honestly, I've already been awake for a while, so you shouldn't worry about it," Emily says again, smiling wider and looking a bit embarrassed herself. "What would you like, Bella? I can help you with anything you need." Her tone grows significantly more serious. You'd like to tell her how wrong she really is, how much she really couldn't help you with what you'd really like. You'd like to spill out all your problems in the world to her, to anyone, just so someone could feel the pain you were feeling right now and understand.

But you know the person you'd really like to talk to right now was most likely occupied with someone infinitely more… important than you.

So you decide to stick to the immediate problem at hand. "It's not anything big, really, it's just…" The words get stuck in your throat. How would this help anything, anyway? Well, it probably wouldn't. But knowledge was better than being kept in the dark. But… knowledge wouldn't give you want, either.

"Anything you'd like, Bella. You can tell me." Emily breaks into the momentary silence. She smiles even more invitingly and kindly, and you think, Well, too late to back out now. I'm making an utter fool of myself just standing here.

Well, it was what you'd come here to do.

"If it's alright with you," you speak up strongly as you meet her questioning gaze, "I'd like to speak with Sam about something."

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A/N: Ooh, cliffhanger. Terribly sorry about that. Note that I hate those as much as you do. :)