A/N: Alright, another chapter.

I hate to sound whiny, but I would supremely enjoy some more reviews! There are 87 people recieving story alerts from this fic, and I only got 10 reviews on the last chapter.

PLEASE? Is a few short sentences too much to ask? This is the 14th chapter, and we've had 125 reviews - that's like MAYBE 10 a chapter. *sigh*

Disclaimer: One of my preschoolers told me this week he was a vampire now. I told him to tell Jacob Black I was looking for him.

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road
And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, Imma face my demons
I'm manning up, Imma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now…

"Not Afraid" - Eminem

Edward found Jacob on the deck, his hands tightly gripping the railing as if he were trying to hold himself in place. The new Alpha's gaze was fixed into the distance, unseeing and empty. "I'm sorry, Edward," he managed to say. "That wasn't the way that was supposed to go."

Edward shook his head slowly. "You had every right to say those things." He sighed, a human gesture for a creature that hadn't experienced a heartbeat in almost a century. "Every word of it was true."

Jacob's head turned so quickly he almost knocked himself off balance, his face filled with shock. "What did you say?" he growled, not quite believing the words that had reached his ears.

"Calm down, dog," Edward said mildly. "I am not trying to provoke you. I'm simply trying to agree with you." Jacob's eyes narrowed uneasily. "You were correct when you said I've manipulated Bella - in the past I can admit that this is true. I realize now that I carry much influence over her decisions." He looked back at Jacob's face. "I have not used this power to make her do things she did not want to do, but I have not done what I should have to discourage her from making poor decisions… like wanting to become… like me."

Jacob watched Edward for a moment, contemplating his statement. "I meant every word I said in there. I just hadn't meant for it to come out like that, in front of everyone." He shrugged. "Ok, so maybe I really wanted to, but I actually did go in there with a plan to be calm and productive." Another shrug. "I can admit that I wanted to remind your family of their poor decisions and of their part in getting us to this point, but if I'm going to be a good Alpha for my pack, I need to show better self control than that. I can't fly off the handle every time blond sparkle-bitch makes a nasty comment."

Edward chose to ignore Jacob's new nickname for Rosalie. He knew that the dog could never completely control himself. "So you apologize but do not apologize." He let out an odd chuckle.

"I suppose so," Jacob managed a lopsided grin. But then his face grew solemn as he remembered the real reason behind their uneasy alliance. He turned back towards the forest, his hands resting on the railing once more. "So what's the plan, then? Since we've managed to alienate both of our families…"

Edward sighed again and Jacob fought to control the urge to punch him - why did the vampire insist on pretending he was human? His jaw tightened painfully and he forced himself to remember that the only reason that he was speaking with the leech instead of killing him was because of Bella.

"The last place that Alice saw Victoria was Seattle, so I suppose that we should start there," Edward replied finally.

Jacob nodded in agreement. "Sam told me after her partner attacked me that they headed in that direction. Makes sense then." He thought for a moment longer. "Seattle is a big city, and even though we move quickly, if she finds out we're there before we find Bella…" his voice trailed off, letting Edward assume the rest.

"This is true," Edward said quietly. "And you have a rather… potent smell, to say the least, Jacob."

"But," Jacob interjected. "If she smells me, she may not notice you."

Edward's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Good idea, dog. Mask my presence with your scent and she may be so worried about where you are and what you're doing that she won't think to look for me. She probably won't even consider the possibility that we're working together." He tapped his chin thoughtfully and Jacob ground his teeth together in irritation, and clenched his fists to keep from breaking that finger off. Edward smirked. "Shout a little louder why don't you, mutt."

Jacob rolled his eyes. Fuck you - how's that?

Edward sneered. "Very eloquent."

Jacob took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, alright?" He put up both hands in sign of defeat. "I just don't understand why you bother doing shit like that."

"Like what?" Edward replied. "Human gestures?"

Jacob nodded. "We know you're not human. Why pretend?"

Edward went perfectly still, the kind of still that take decades of practice, where no muscles twitch, no eyelid blinks, no breath… nothing. The wind blew around him, tossing the hair on his head, but the rest of his body was completely motionless. A statue might have moved less. He stood there like he could have held that position for the rest of eternity, never growing tired, never growing weary.

Jacob blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said softly. "I guess that's kind of fucked up…"

Edward laughed and resumed his blinking, breathing, fidgeting façade. "We pretend to be human because we interact with them. I suppose it just becomes habit, to perform these small movements. If we behaved as we truly are, we could never enjoy the lifestyle we crave." He shrugged. "In all actuality, I could possibly remain like that for an indefinite amount of time. Yes, I would be thirsty, but vampires do not die unless they are killed. I might shrivel up, become a simple shell of a creature, but I would not perish." His voice got softer, and it was full of an emotion so dark that Jacob could not imagine a name for it. "This would most undoubtedly be the equivalent of a mankind's 'hell'…. But it is a punishment most certainly worse than death."

A cold shiver licked down Jacob's spine and he fought against the feeling, as iciness was a sensation that he was typically unfamiliar with. Why Bella could consider choosing cold over warmth, he might never understand.

"I do not understand that decision either," came Edward's quiet voice, and if Jacob hadn't been so surprised by the words, he might have been pissed that the leech had been rummaging through his thoughts again. "But I… can't let her go until she asks me to." He lifted an eyebrow in Jacob's direction. "Perhaps that is selfish, and difficult for you to believe, but I do love her." A dark smile crossed his face. "My heart may not beat, but it is not entirely frozen."

Jacob's lips rolled in disgust and he fought against the urge to gag. "Forgive me if I can't understand your version of love," he sneered. But then he sighed and shook his head, disappointed in himself for taking the bait. He wanted to release all the pent up anger and hostility inside him, but by accepting the responsibility of Alpha, he could no longer allow his vicious mood swings and violent temper to rule his life and dictate the words that slipped out of his mouth.

Edward nodded, slowly. "I can appreciate that, I suppose." His golden gaze turned to Jacob. "I would let her go, if she asked. If she wanted you, I would not fight it. If it meant that she did not… become like me, I would let her go."

Jacob squinted at his former enemy. "You would… allow her to chose me?"

"You say allow like somehow I control her decisions." Edward's eyes narrowed.

Jacob barked out a laugh that was laced with sarcasm and disbelief. "Please, leech. You treat her like your own personal marionette." He allowed a smirk to dance along his mouth. "You make her think she makes her own choices, but if she did, you and I both know that we wouldn't be having this discussion right now."

"Listen, dog," Edward hissed, his face leaning towards Jacob's. "I have done my best to accept your insults and insinuations, accept my portion of the blame for the situation. I have even admitted that I have not cared for her the way that I should have. But do not, ever, accuse me of controlling her, of using some sick form of psychological abuse." His fist drifted towards Jacob's chest, but it stopped an inch from touching skin. A growl rose from deep within the wolf's chest. "You may not like me, but I love her, and I will not allow you to tarnish that with your jealousy and hatred for my family."

Jacob's breath was coming in pants, his chest heaving with fury and his tightly clenched arms were trapped against his sides, trembling dangerously. "Hatred for your family?" The volume of his voice was rising. "Your fucking family is the reason my entire life was ruined." He raised a large finger and stabbed it in the direction of Edward's icy face. "This is not just about Bella. This is about your kind, and how your existence here in Forks made me into this." He gestured up and down at his large physique. "I would give almost anything to have had a normal life. This was not a choice." He rolled his eyes towards the sky. "Let's blame mythological genetics for the awesome hand I was dealt. If not for your family, Bella and I would have fallen in love when she came here from Phoenix, and we could have had a normal life without all this ridiculous supernatural bullshit." His jaw flexed, and his teeth ground together in frustration. "I would like nothing more than for your entire species to altogether disappear from the planet."

Edward laughed, and it felt like fingernails on a chalkboard as it fell on Jacob's sensitive ears. "You think we're excited about your existence?" He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Trust me, mutt, we did not count your tribe's shape shifting abilities into the equation when we came to this area. We did our best to live by your rules, to live in peace here. How were we supposed to know that this would happen?"

"I don't fucking care how the fuck you should have known!" Jacob shouted, his face red with the effort it took to keep from shifting right there on the leech's front porch. "I just want a normal life without all this ridiculous bullshit! I want my life back!" His fist connected with his solid chest, just above his heart. "I want my life, the way it should have been. I want normalcy, I want Bella, and for Christ's sake, a little fucking happiness!"

A look of pain stretched across the vampire's cold features. His eyes filled with defeat and his chin slumped to his chest. "I know what it's like…. To feel like you've been left with no choices, everyone else having made them for you." He looked up to meet Jacob's eyes. "I understand how it feels to be…. Frozen… in place. Stuck where you are, with no way to escape, unable to satisfy the yearnings of truly living your own life." He whispered, and his tone was desperate and filled with dreams that could never possibly be fulfilled.

Jacob should have been pleased that he had made the vampire admit to his wrongdoings, but hearing the ache in Edward's voice reminded him of his own. He shook his head, rubbing his fists into his throbbing temples. "Shit," he said with feeling. A sad laugh bubbled up from his chest. "This was not how this was supposed to go."

"What do you suggest we do, then?" Edward breathed, and he turned away from Jacob, as if to hide the pained expression that seemed permanently etched into his features.

Jacob sighed, shifting his weight from one foot to other uncomfortably. "Can I ask you a question?" He asked quietly.

Edward turned back to him, surprised that the anger had vanished from Jacob's eyes. The constant barrage of ideas, thoughts and dreams had suddenly vanished from the air around them and Edward briefly wondered if Jacob was shielding from him. But then he shrugged - he almost didn't care. Hearing the wolf's innermost thoughts was almost entirely too painful. "What's your question, Jacob?" His voice was quiet.

"Um… did you mean what you said… about letting Bella go?" Jacob asked, finally finding his voice. He could feel in the change in Bella since the accident, and something told it that she was different now, that her feelings were no longer what they once were. He struggled to keep the image of a brick wall securely in his brain, desperate to keep the bloodsucker from continually invading his personal space.

Edward sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "When I left before… I thought I was doing her a favor. But when Alice had the vision of her… jump, I was terrified that I had driven her to hurt herself." He looked back at Jacob. "If I had known that you were capable of making her… whole again, I would have… stayed away." His cold body shivered slightly, but they both knew it wasn't because he was cold. "I would have spent the rest of my existence in constant, excruciating pain, but it would have pleased me to know that she was happy… even if it was with you. I believe that you can protect her."

Jacob shook his head. "What you forget, Edward, is that Bella can take care of herself. She may be delicate, she may be clumsy, and unbelievably accident prone, but all she needs is someone to believe in her." He shrugged. "Everyone seems firmly convinced that I 'saved' her," he continued, making air quotes with his fingers. "But I didn't." He chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. "I just allowed her to be herself."

A slow breath leaked out from between Edward's marble lips. "Perhaps you know her better than I do."

Jacob shrugged again. "Maybe we just know different parts of Bella."

Edward shook his head his disagreement. "No, I forget that she is not a child requiring my care."

"So you mean it," Jacob continued, still not quite sure whether he could trust Edward. "You really would let her go?"

"Of course I would," Edward replied, his voice crackling with pain. "I love her, but if she chose you, I could let her go." His eyebrows rose, as if to ask the same question of Jacob.

Jacob snorted. "I hate to break it to you, but there's no way in hell that I would let her go. I meant it when I said that I would fight for her until her heart stopped beating." His dark eyes cut back to Edward, full of unspoken threats. "If you even actually consider changing her…"

"I won't," Edward interrupted. "Not anymore. I still worry that she would consider serious bodily harm to force my hand… but I believe between my family and your pack, that we could prevent her from doing something like that." He sighed again. "Although, it looks like someone else-" he pointed upwards towards the clouds. "was listening to our prayers." He rubbed his hands up and downs his arms in an awkward fashion. "Although I most certainly believe no one has listened to my questions for quite sometime."

Jacob coughed in the back of his throat. "I don't know if I could go that far, and I'm not the one to be asking any kind of spiritual question, but at least she has a chance to start over." He sighed again. He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the doors leading into the house, desperate to end this painful, unproductive conversation. "I suppose we should get over ourselves for a bit and go back inside to make a plan."

Edward nodded. "I believe you are right, dog." Then, to the shock of both of them, he held out his hand towards a man that in most circumstances would be his enemy, asking for a human act between two creatures that most would find unnecessary. "Please?" he asked softly, looking between his hand and Jacob's.

Jacob stared, floored by the gesture. But before he could stop himself, he reached out and clasped the offered hand. The cold seeped into his skin, spreading up his arm, and he forced it back, controlling the fierce iciness with his own heat, and the two temperatures mingled, at war with one another, tangled in a war for dominance.

And there they stood -

fire and ice.

cold and warmth.

death and life.

They had been created by nature to balance the life forces of the world between good and evil, as if organic versus supernatural had converged onto a universe unprepared for the supreme powers they possessed. They were like modern day Gods of Olympus, and they both carried the ability to create, protect and destroy. They were enemies, polar opposites, and their primal urges were screaming deep inside to rip the throat out of the other. Neither life nor experience could have prepared either one for the agreement they were about to make.

But with that simple gesture, they merged as one force, if only temporarily, to save the woman they both loved more than life itself. Their basic instincts fought against the union, and their inner beasts growled uneasily at the enemy before them.

But a higher power was in control now, and they made an unspoken promise, an oath to their families, a vow to one another, and a pledge to themselves -

We will save her.

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PUSH THE DAMN BUTTON!

*smiles* thanks! *hugs*