Title: Guilt
Rating: PG-13 Mild violence and language.
Summary: A lot of talking post Jane's extinction. Jacob gets told off.
Disclaimer: As always, credit for characters goes to Stephenie Meyers.
I don't remember how long we had been laying, staring at the familiar surroundings of my bedroom. Carlisle and Alice were tending to Charlie and everyone else was repairing the damage done by the earlier commotion.
Edward held my head against his chest and ran his hand absent mindedly up and down my back sending a constant stream of shivers down my spine.
I let my thoughts wander . I hadn't been able to stop worrying about the consequences to my actions since the fire had died 5 hours ago. I had just been the main cause of the massacre of one of the Volturi's biggest assets. Would that now result in the extermination of the Cullen family at my expense? I wondered idly if I would be able to convince Aro that Jane's demise was my fault and take the punishment myself I had put this family through so much already.
Also tugging at the frayed edges of my mind was the pending conversation with Charlie. I had a lot of explaining to do to his weak heart. And then, Jacob. All of this was brought on by him. Charlie's life had been endangered twice by his loud mouth…but then, was it his fault, or was it really my own? Why not , I decided. Everything else was my fault, why not this too?
"Bella?" Edward spoke softly.
"Yes?"
"I love you." His voice was pained.
"I love you too…" I turned in his arms to face him.
"I'm so sorry that this all happened to you." He apologized.
I let my hand flutter up to his face and placed a finger over his lips to silence him. "What do you have to be sorry about?" I frowned. "This is all my fau-"
"No, Bella. You need to stop blaming yourself for this." He cupped my face in his hands and forced eye contact. "If anyone is to blame it is me. My very presence caused this. If it weren't for me, you would be having a happily ever after as a mortal with Jac-"
"Stop it." I ordered harshly. "You know you are all I want. You're the only thing I will ever want. Its me who should be sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry about." He whispered as he pressed his lips to my forehead.
"The Volturi." I reminded him. "They will be after us for what we…..for what I did."
"Even if that is true, they have rules working for us. No member of the Volturi can attack another vampire unless its in self defense, for starters. Jane clearly attacked all of us first. Add blackmail and threats to that and I would say that we have a pretty decent case against her. It's also pretty suspicious that she came here without any company or protection at all. Something is going on.." He frowned, deep in thought. "We should be fine."
"Should." I muttered pointedly.
"Hey," He said sternly as he lifted my chin to catch my eyes." What you did today was very brave."
"And stupid…."
"No, Bella. Do you even understand how many lives you saved today? I don't just mean Charlie. I mean me, and Alice, everyone here in this house is still here because of your bravery. Jacob too."
"And its also due to my bravery that we are going to be in huge trouble with the Volturi."
"Don't worry about them, Bella you did what was necessary to save us."
"And I was too stupid to find a way with less consequence."
"There was no lesser consequence, Bella. Jane lied to you. She wasn't going to let any of us leave that house alive, including you. You never had a choice, she saw us as dead in her mind the moment we walked through the door. She knew that with the proper concentration she could have killed us with her mind alone. If you hadn't broken her concentration - we would have been dead in less than a minute."
I felt my eyes drop in embarrassment, and even without the tell-tale flush in my cheeks he could tell.
"Bella you have nothing to regret or be sorry for here. You are the heroine."
I rolled my eyes. "Not to Jacob I'm not. I'm pretty sure Charlie thinks I'm a heartless savage monster now too."
"No he doesn't. He is proud of you. Almost as proud as me. You can go talk to him as soon as he wakes up."
"Not without you please?" I let my panic slip into my voice. "I need you there. All today I have managed to resist focusing on the smell of blood because I have had so much else to focus on….. I don't want-"
"Say no more." He nodded. "I'm there."
Content for the moment, I rested my head against his chest and breathed in his heavenly scent.
"You were so brave today." He sighed.
"I was so scared." I admitted.
"Me too, Bella, me too."
The door creaked open
"What is it Alice?" Edward asked. "What! Where did she go!?"
"WHO!?" I yelped. I hated it when they did that to me.
"Rosalie. I don't know, I went to look for her and she's gone… I searched in my head and she's….. she's disappeared."
"No." I breathed. My first thought was the Volturi. Were they already here, picking us off one by one…..
"Bella, can you find her?" Alice turned to me.
"Oh, yeah.. I'll try." I had forgotten about my power momentarily.
I closed my eyes and focused on my nose. I latched on to Rosalie's scent.
"She's alive. She's…… she's on her way back now. She'll be here in about 5 minutes." I frowned. "She stinks too."
"Where the hell…."
"She was with Jacob." I gasped. "But why on earth…."
"Lets go." Edward slid out of bed and pulled me along behind him.
We reached the bottom of the stairs just as Rosalie entered.
Her eyes full of apologies, she surrendered with her hands in the air. "He had to know what he caused." She placed her hands on my shoulders. "And I owe you an apology. You did something remarkable for this family today, and I have been treating you awfully for the very thing that let you save our lives. I'm sorry Bella." This was the first she had acknowledged me since the change. "I had to do something, I couldn't let someone else treat you as awfully as I had. You sacrificed a lot for him and he needed to know it." Without further explanation she departed across the room to Emmett's waiting arms.
"You smell." He teased.
"What did she say?" I turned to Edward.
"Lets just say that Jacob has now been introduced to a part of Rosalie that I hope you never have to witness. She can be downright terrifying when she wants to be." He chuckled.
Realizing that he would say no more on the topic, I turned my attention to the flawless kitchen. Not only had they completely repaired everything… they had also cleaned it.
"Bella," Edward sighed as he pulled me into his chest.
"Yes?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to hug you." He smiled.
I smiled back and stretched up on my tip toes to plant a light kiss on his nose.
Suddenly, I took a step back… sniffed the air and scowled.
"What is it? What?" He sniffed also but came up short of any conclusion.
"Jacob."
He sniffed again and chuckled. "Don't kill him. Rose already made him cry once today."
"I wont kill him." I promised, "But I can't say that I wont punch him in the face."
"Oh, by all means, inflict as much damage as possible. Knock the kid on his ass. He deserves it. I've seen your right hook, it's a thing to be feared." He winked.
"No more broken bones." I smiled.
"Not for you, anyways. Not in this case." He grinned my favorite half smile.
"He's not coming in." He directed me towards the front door.
"Come out with me." I grabbed his hand and pulled him along. He wasn't going to miss this.
I met Jacob at the foot of the stairs. His hands were in his pockets and he was studying the ground intently.
"What do you want?" I snarled.
"Is it true?" He mumbled incoherently.
"What?
"The blonde one. Was it true what she said?"
"Jacob, in order for me to confirm anything, don't I need at least a basic knowledge of what was said..?" I sighed heavily.
He hesitated, obviously not looking forward to relaying the details.
"She said…. She said that you almost died saving me and that if you hadn't been there no one else would have been able to find me and I would have been killed…." He paused.
"She also said that you almost died again to save Charlie from the vampire girl who sent those zombies after me because he knew too much and she wanted him dead."
"Oh, so she must have neglected to mention that I was forced to decide between my husband and y father, subjected to watching my entire family be tortured mercilessly in front of me, and that we are now probably the number one targets to the most feared vampire coven in the world?" I snapped icily.
"No, she mentioned that." He winced at the memory. "So its true then?"
"Yes, Jacob."
There was a moment of silence before he spoke again, still staring at the ground. "Why?"
"Because you were my best friend." I scowled. "Even after you treated me like shit."
"You shouldn't have come back here." He whispered. "I'm supposed to kill you, you know. I could….."
"Oh, Jake!" I spat. "I have just as much reason to kill you as you have to kill me. And trust me, I can take care of myself."
"That's not true, you don't know what I'm capable of."
"I know more than you think, Jake."
"Bella, I think you guys should leave. I have to kill you, it's a part of the treaty.."
"Screw your God damned treaty Jacob!" I screamed. "We will leave whenever we feel like it! I have some explaining to do to Charlie."
"I'd say." He scowled. "You gave him a heart attack,"
"NO Jake, YOU gave him a heart attack." I approached him viciously. At the tone of my voice his head snapped forward and met my furious eyes.
"Why couldn't you have just let me be happy!" I shouted.
"Because Edward doesn't deserve you!" He bellowed back. "Because he is such a coward that the only way he could manage to keep you away from me was to change you into the one thing in this world that I despise! And even then he can't keep you away from me. You came running back to save me. It's because you love me Bella, and he knows it!"
My fist flung forward with such force that the noise it made against Jacob's jaw was comparable to the sound of thunder crashing. He stumbled blindly backwards, holding his jaw and staring at me in shock.
"I love my husband." My voice shook violently as I forced back the fury that raged inside of me. "I love him and It was my choice to be a vampire. I came back to save you because you were my friend, Or maybe it was so that I could have a chance to personally kick your ass for putting me through hell these past few months." He flinched. "Regardless, Edward is my husband and I love him, not you."
My words seemed to hurt him more than my fist had.
"You should have just let me die." His voice wavered dangerously as he spoke.
"I'll remember that next time you ungrateful prick." I cursed.
Still holding his jaw, a howl of agony rippled through him and he stumbled clumsily toward the trees and was gone.
"UGH!" I threw my hands in the air and stalked back to the porch to Edward.
"Nice hook." He applauded.
"Thanks." I mumbled.
"Bella, Alice says Charlie wont be awake for another 5 hours."
"That's ok, we can wait." I shrugged.
"You need nourishment, and we need alone time." He pointed out.
"Meadow?" I raised my eyebrow.
"Oh Mrs. Cullen, how well you know me." He grinned.