Author's note- Now, I do recognize that it took me a considerable amount of time to update. And I am sincerely sorry. The dilemma stood as such...I couldn't write the next QxC chapter without knowing exactly what had happened with Jake and Bella...thus i did not write just one chapter, but two essentially. And so, the Jacob POV of the confrontation between the ex-lovers will be posted as a companion one shot to this story within the next day or so. Keep your eye out for it. But as I have yet to title it, I cannot post it quite yet. And now, please enjoy.

Disclaimer.

"What!" He bellowed. "Bella? Jacob's Bella?"

"I don't think I know of any other Bellas, Quil!" I screamed. "What's the big deal?"

"She isn't allowed to be here!" His hair was on end as he ran his tensed hands through it, the tendons in the backs of them brutally exposed.

"He loves her!" I told him.

"I know that!" he cried, his eyes wild and furious. "Don't you think I know that, Claire? Everyone fucking knows that!"

I winced.

He hissed a hot breath through his teeth. "I need to get the hell out of here."

The front door slammed with a rush of air, leaving me speechless. I'd never, ever seen Quil that mad. Not even when he had beaten the crap out of Casey. My heart was racing, blood pounding in my face.

She hurt his best friend, the realist in my head blurted. Nearly killed him, sounds like. And we know how overprotective Quil is.

Yes…I understood why he was mad. But I had never seen him like that. I couldn't stop myself from shivering as I stared at the spot that his blurry form had just occupied.

The footsteps were so light compared to the raging stomps that had led Quil outside that I nearly didn't hear them.

"Claire?" The voice wasn't the one I wanted to hear, but it was close.

"Jacob." I glanced towards him and smiled weakly. I walked towards his shivering form, sighing as he lifted me up in a hug. His skin was hot and wet from the rain, his bare chest burning against my stomach. I rubbed his back with the tips of my fingers when I suddenly felt a drop in altitude. My stomach hopped up into my ribcage as we plummeted onto the couch I had been standing in front of.

Jake's shoulders were shaking as I tucked my face into his neck, tightening my arms around his neck as he cried. The tears were slow and quiet, falling into the fabric of my shirt. His arms were secure around me, holding on to me as if I were someone else. Someone who he had just lost for a second time.

We sat there for a long time. The rain was staunched to a light drizzle by the time that Jacob's tremors quieted. He still held onto me, scared to let me go. I hummed quietly in his ear and skimmed over the skin of his wide back with my finger nails. It felt weird to comfort someone so much bigger than me, but right all the same.

"I'm sorry, C," he finally said, releasing his arms and allowing me to flop onto the couch next to him. "I shouldn't have let you see that."

My heart broke as I looked into those spacious pools of loamy humanity. "Jacob, really, it was nothing. I'm glad you came to me."

He sighed and pulled the lengths of his face down with open-palmed hands, "I just couldn't face the guys yet, y'know?"

I nodded, combing a piece of his hair back behind his ear. "Your hair's a lot longer than Quil's."

"She liked it that way," he said, resting his head in his hands.

My voice fell like my heart. "Oh."

"Well, I have to face them sometime." He sighed. "No time like the present." His thumb skimmed over the skin of my forehead, clearing the wisps of bangs away. He pressed his lips to my forehead and gave me one last hug. "Thanks, Claire."

"Anything for you," I told him, squeezing his shoulders as he stood up and watching as he trudged towards the door.

"What were you thinking?" A vein in Paul's temple was swollen, his entire face beaming with heat.

"I'm missing the part where this is my fault," Jacob defended, his arms coolly crossed.

"You were the one who went to see the goddamn bi—" Paul corrected himself when Jake threw him a warning glare, "…thing."

"Nothing happened." Jacob's eyes were closed as he rubbed his head. "I didn't break any rules. She didn't break any rules. This is all pointless."

"That girl caused more problems with her leeches than anyone else ever has!" Leah snapped. "Her being anywhere near here is like breaking all of the rules."

We all flinched when Jacob pitched his arms down onto the table in front of her, the impact rumbling through the floor, "you seem to forget that time when you nearly got me killed, Leah; I'd say you've caused more trouble than anyone else I know."

She grimaced, fuming. The chair's legs squeaked against the tile flooring of Sam's house as she pushed away from the table and left.

"Okay, children," Sam growled. "This bickering is ridiculous. You sound like my kids." He rubbed his hand over the short, marine cut of black hair on his head. "Down to the point, Jake, was she changed?"

He squirmed in his seat. "Yes."

"Were any of the others with her?"

"No."

"Are they moving back?"

That question had all of us going rigid, like poles had been shoved through our backs.

"No."

The room visibly relaxed.

"Is she gone?"

Jacob's face was stony but I saw his hands shaking. "Yes." The word sent a rack of visible pain down his body.

"Alright," Sam concluded, releasing the tension in his chest with a long heave of breath. "Now, everybody get out of my house."

My heart was beating strongly against my chest as I walked into the reduced rain fall. "Jake!" I called to him.

He shook his head and put a hand up. "I—I can't do this right now." His voice was angry, the hurting kind of anger. He stalked across the road; his arms folded behind his head, and didn't stop once he got to the edge of the forest.

Not two minutes later I heard a howl of complete agony. My body shuddered at the emptiness that rang in its oscillation. A pain—similar to his but not as strong—knocked against the bones of my torso, weakening my breath. I'd been terrible earlier. A monster.

I'd screamed at her for nothing. Well…not for nothing, but for something that didn't have much to do with her. My breath came out in a single stab at the memory of her face when I had gotten mad. She had been afraid. Afraid of me.

I'd been waiting for the day when I finally showed her how scary I really was. I'd been dreading it. But expecting it none the less. She deserved to know the frightening thing that festered in me. I hated myself for it. How could I expect her to do anything but the like?

A fierce anguish snapped in my stomach at the thought. I couldn't bear anything about this life without Claire. I couldn't bear anything at all without her.

A terrifying thought snaked through my conscience like a ribbon of thin smoke. What had I done?

I paced the length of my room for hours, noting the changing numbers on my clock. Quil still hadn't come back. Was he really that mad at me? I hadn't meant to do anything wrong.

Then again, I had sent Jacob into a situation that most likely was going to get him hurt. But I hadn't meant to! I thought that he'd want to see her. The whole situation had so many sides to it that I could never have thought up a name for the type of prism it would have formed.

But, similar to a prism, the light seemed to shine from multiple angles whichever way you turned it. Which only confused me more.

The pale yellow walls of my room bled into a shadowed, dark color as the moon rotated around the earth, its light entering windows on the other side of the house.

I tapped my fingers nervously against the back of my clock. It was really late. My eyelids felt heavy but my head was determined to stay awake and wait for him. That is, hoping that he came at all.

After three and a half hours of pacing I settled into my comforters, my lids too heavy to hold. The clouds of dreams began to roll in when I was jolted by the squeak of my window.

The bottom plane had been lifted, two dark hands bracing themselves inside of the frame. My heart began to pitter patter in its space. A huge form tossed itself through the window, crouching once it hit the floor.

"Quil?"

He snapped his head around at the sound of my voice, looking surprised. "Claire." His voice was soft. "Why are you still awake?" he wondered.

"I was waiting for you," I answered honestly, my pulse thundering as he stayed where he stood. Maybe he was still mad.

He approached my bedside painstakingly slowly, a wary expression in his eyes, "you shouldn't have stayed up this late."

"I—thought you might be…" Tell the truth, Claire. "I thought you might be mad at me." His eyes flew open in shock, or maybe continued anger. I couldn't tell. "I wanted to tell you that I was sorry."

He immediately crumpled to his knees beside me, capturing my hands in his, "how could you ever, ever think that I was angry at you?" His voice was vibrating, the dull light outside reflecting in the glass of his eyes. "I thought you'd be afraid of me after I acted like that." He was almost breathless.

"I—I thought that…aft—after you yelled at me…"

His face contorted in pain, "C, I'm so sorry. That anger was meant for someone else. Not for you. Never for you."

My heart beat quickened, a weight having been lifted off of my chest. "That's good to hear." My hands wandered to his face, the path hard to trace in the darkness that had secured itself outside of the windows. I ran my fingers down the smooth, muscular sides of his jaw and over the straight bridge of his nose. The tips of my nails floated over his long lashes, brushing wavy bangs out of his eyes.

My fingers began shaking as they traced the outline of his full lips; the thin, even skin tightened around my fingers, pulling them into his mouth. He kissed them gently before I felt a body set next to me on the bed.

"Claire." The murmur barely fluttered to my ear. The oxygen that I took in got caught in my throat as he put a strong finger under my chin, giving me no choice but to look at him. When my eyes grasped his, a fire propelled me towards him. His hands came to cup my pelvis, rolling me towards him and pressing me against the length of his muscles, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, face to face. His mouth covered mine, making the desire in me ache.

A shiver ran through me as his hands danced to the hem of my shirt, sneaking under the cuff and discovering the skin of my stomach and chest. Continuous pulses of pleasure rolled down my spine, causing my breath to go ragged and my mouth frenzied.

His hands crept slowly up the tight skin of my stomach. I realized a little too late that I hadn't worn a bra to bed. My face flushed as his hands lightly brushed against the tender skin. I gasped, unused to the feeling. Quil froze, his entirety turning to stone beside me. That was a good gasp, I wanted to say. But instead I just relaxed into his hand, allowing the calloused fingers to swipe against the sensitive skin again.

His lips were fervent and determined as they met mine for the second time, rhythmically opening and closing. There was heat all over me, thudding through my body like blood. I threw my leg over his hips and pinned him to the bed, showering his neck in slow kisses. His body writhed beneath me, putting pressure against mine. My tongue swept over the muscles of his neck, pulling some of the receptive skin into my mouth. He sucked in a short breath, speeding my heart even further.

His hands ran up the backs of my legs and came to rest beneath my butt. He hiked me up on his chest and kissed me on the mouth. This one was purposefully drawn out and lingering. My body went languid against his, a thin sheen of sweat covering me.

He smiled into the kiss, twisting his arms around me and tightening me to his chest. We just lay there, breathing. Our lungs swelled in unison, our chests contracting at the same time, prolonging the contact between them.

"Quil?" My lips grazed the rim of his ear.

"Yes, beautiful?"

"Guess what."

"I love you?"

I smiled "No," I teased. "I'm sixteen in—" I checked the clock; it was definitely past midnight, "thirteen days."

He went silent, the beat of his heart the only sound I could hear. "That's…soon." His voice was swollen with relief. "Thank God."

Author's note- Now, leave your wonderful thoughts here so that the title to the one shot pops sooner into my head and the next chapter can swim onto my computer screen :) plus they make me very happy!