A/N: Wow, I'm totally shocked and extremely excited by the number of people that have put this story on their alerts over the past couple of weeks. Because of that and the incredible reviews I received for the last chapter, I busted my butt to get this chapter out to you. Two chapters in less than a week…I can't believe it. But please, please do not expect this to be a typical thing. I'm still extremely busy with school, work and wedding planning. But…reviews do give me the inspiration to burn the midnight oil and write write write my little heart out So; I won't keep you in suspense any longer…Enjoy!

…

Ness sat at the small table in her parents yellow kitchen, grasping a mug of tea between her hands. It had been a week since she'd seen Jacob; a week since she'd showed up on her parents' door step crying hysterically.

It hadn't been easy, but once she'd calmed down, she'd told her mother everything. All about her trip to Forks, meeting Jake, and falling in love; she left nothing out. At the end, she felt relieved, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She'd always been extremely close to her mother and couldn't remember her reasons for not coming to her sooner. Now that she looked back, admitting things to her mother had been the easy part.

She'd had her parents support after coming clean, and together, they went to the home she'd shared with Michael and removed all of her belongings. She left behind the many gifts and antiques he'd given her throughout their time together, along with her wedding ring.

The ring was a family heirloom that had been passed down from generation to generation for over three hundred years. Being the somewhat forgetful and clumsy person that she was, Ness had been terrified when he'd given it to her. For that reason, the ring tended to stay locked away in the safe in their bedroom more times than not.

After removing the remainder of her possessions, the only thing left for her to do was wait for Michael to return.

It certainly hadn't been a joyful reunion. Ness had barely been sleeping, crying most of the nights away instead. She looked horrible and she knew he could sense that something was wrong the minute he saw her.

She was alone, opting not to have her parents there for the exchange; this was something she had to do on her own. She'd jumped in with both feet, explaining to Michael how things hadn't felt right with her for some time. She let him know that she felt stifled and that she'd come to realize that his life wasn't the life she wanted for herself.

She told him almost everything, the only thing she left out was Jake. It was hard enough; she didn't see any reason to bring Jake into it. For all she knew, she'd never see him again anyway.

Michael hadn't thrown in the towel without a fight either. He'd begged, and to Ness, it'd seemed as if he were on the verge of tears; she'd never seen him that distraught in all of their time together.

She felt horrible, but she knew it was what she had to do and she begged back, asking Michael to understand and to let her go.

The entire encounter hadn't lasted much more than an hour and had ended once Ness admitted that she already had an attorney who was drafting the divorce papers. A phone call to her Uncle Jasper the day before had arranged that for her. After that, it was as if all of the fight had been taken out of Michael and he didn't try to stop her as she walked out of their former home.

"Renesmee, do you want some more tea?" Hearing the voice of her mother brought Ness back to the present and she looked up into her warm brown eyes. She shook her head no, offering up a little smile.

She knew that both her mother and father were worried about her; she'd barely been sleeping and had only eaten miniscule amounts. She needed to get herself back on track, and fast.

Her mother smiled back as she moved to the sink, emptying the remaining contents of the tea down the drain. It was another few moments before she spoke again, "honey…have you tried calling him?"

Although she didn't say his name, Ness knew that her mother was speaking of Jake and not Michael, and she winced at the pain she felt in her chest from the mere thought of him.

She'd already promised herself that there'd be no more hiding things from her family, so she went with the truth, "yes, two days ago."

Her mother turned to face her, a slightly surprised look on her face as she asked, "and?"

Ness laughed derisively, "and nothing. He didn't answer, I left a message and he hasn't called back."

She watched as her mother made her way towards the table. Her sympathetic eyes felt undeserved and Ness had to look away quickly as she felt her own eyes begin to sting; the telltale precursor to her tears.

Bella took a seat at the table across from her daughter. Her heart was breaking for her and she wished that there was something more she could do. But she knew that her daughter was an adult; she had made a few not so smart decisions and she needed to find her way back.

"Renesmee," Bella began as she took her daughters hand in hers. "I know that right now, things seem hopeless. And I can't say that one day soon this Jacob will wake up and realize that he loves you regardless…But I do know that you are a strong, beautiful, smart woman. And I know this because that's the woman your father and I raised you to be. And no matter what, you will recover from this, with or without this Jacob."

"Mom, you just don't get it, but you should. What I feel for Jacob…it's what you feel for dad. What Aunt Rose feels for Uncle Emmett. What Aunt Alice feels for Uncle Jasper. It's something that I never understood and quite frankly, didn't really believe existed until I felt it myself."

Ness took a moment to take in a few deep breaths, calming herself before she spoke again, "I messed up. I went to Forks to get away, but I never expected to fall in love, to meet the one person who completes me. And now…If I can't fix things, if he won't give me a chance…I may recover over time, but I'll always be missing a piece of myself."

She looked directly into her mother's eyes as she spoke, and she saw the spark of recognition. Elated, she realized that she'd finally convinced her mother of the depth of her feelings for Jake. Now all that was left was for Ness to convince him.

…

Over the next two weeks, Ness tried calling Jake three more times; each call went to voicemail and none were returned. After three weeks of not seeing or hearing from him, she was starting to get desperate. She had fleeting thoughts of driving to Forks in the middle of the night and waiting on his door step for him to come out first thing in the morning. Each time, her palms would itch with the need to grab her keys and go, but she resisted, knowing it wouldn't be a smart move; he clearly wasn't ready.

But if she couldn't see or speak to him herself, she knew she had to have some other link to him; and that's when she decided to call Claire.

She and Claire had hit it off while she'd been in Forks and the two had exchanged numbers. At the time she hadn't envisioned calling her under these circumstances, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

On the afternoon that she decided to make the call, she was more nervous than she'd ever been. Thoughts kept running through her head about what Jake had told everyone about what had happened and what Claire would think of her. But she couldn't let that stop her.

After picking up her phone, Ness quickly scrolled through her contacts, selecting Claire when she found it. The phone rang and rang and her stomach dropped as she thought that it too might go to voicemail, she hadn't thought about that possibility.

But then, just before she was about to end the call, someone answered. "Hello?" she heard a gasping, out of breath Claire say.

"Um," Ness was momentarily tongue tied, now that she had Claire on the line, she'd forgotten everything she'd wanted to say. "Uh…Hi…Claire. This is Ness, Jacob's…friend?" The last part came out sounding more like a questions and Ness wanted to kick herself for sounding so stupid.

"Oh my god, Ness, hi, how are you? Wow, you're the last person I expected to hear from."

Ness was unsure of which route to take. Claire clearly thought she'd never speak to her again, but she sounded happy to hear from her. How much does she know?

Deciding to play it cool, Ness laughed before speaking, "Well, I just had some free time and thought I'd give you a call and see how everything was going."

She heard Claire snort on the other end, "yeah, sure. I like you Ness, but I have a pretty good built in bullshit detector. So why don't you tell me the real reason you called?"

Ness was pretty much speechless. Claire was clearly onto her, but again, her tone hadn't sounded hostile. So after a brief internal debate, she decided to come out with the truth. "Well, actually, now that you mention it…I uh, was calling to uh…check on Jake."

"Well, it's about damn time." Was all Clair said in response.

Ness was surprised again; nothing about this conversation was going as she'd expected, "excuse me?"

She heard Claire let out a sigh before she spoke, "Listen Ness. I don't know what happened between you and Jake. Honestly, he's hardly talked to any of us the past few weeks. But it's pretty obvious to us all that he's miserable. At work, he's always in a horrible mood; the slightest thing sets him off. And none of us besides his father and sister see him outside of work. But he won't talk to any of us to tell us what's going on, so maybe you can fill me in?"

It was worse than she had thought. Jake and his friends had all seemed so close when she'd visited La Push with him, more like family than friends. And she felt responsible for ruining that for him. She had no idea how to fix it. But Claire had known Jacob almost all of his life, if anyone might know how to help her, it was Claire. But to accomplish that, she knew she had to tell Claire the truth; and all of it.

"Claire, this is all my fault…there's something I need to tell you…"

Ness started at the beginning, just as she had with her aunt Rose, and her parents, leaving nothing out. Claire interjected only seldom, asking a question here and there.

By the time she was done, Ness could tell Claire was shocked. She hadn't said anything in a while and it took Ness clearing her throat to get her to speak.

"Well…I certainly didn't expect that." She was quiet again for a moment and Ness gave her time to gather her thoughts.

"Ness I…" but she stopped there, not knowing what to say.

"Claire, I know I made a mistake. Albeit the Grand Canyon of mistakes, but a mistake none the less. I did things the wrong way but I had honorable intentions, I swear." Ness knew that she had to present a strong case to get Claire to help her after everything she'd just divulged. She and Jake were close as brother and sister; of course she'd be protective.

"Ya know," Claire started softly, and Ness crossed her fingers, hoping for the best. "As soon as I saw you and Jake together, I knew there was something different about you…the two of you actually, together. I've known Jake my whole life, I trusted him when I was a toddler and I looked up to him as a little girl. When I grew up and started falling for Quil, Jake was the only one who knew, and he kept my secret. When Quil would go on dates, Jake was the one who let me cry on his shoulder. And when I was finally old enough, he was the one that pushed me to go after Quil. Who knows, without Jake, Quil and I might not have become Quil and I."

Claire paused and Ness could hear as she took a deep breath before continuing, "What I'm trying to say is, I've been there with Jake every step of the way. I love him…and even though I saw something when the two of you were together, I have to know, without a doubt, that you're in this thing if I'm going to help you."

Once she heard that, for the first time in the past three weeks, Ness felt a flicker of hope. "Oh Claire, you have no idea, none. I – I am so in this. All I want…is Jake. But he won't talk to me and I have zero chance of fixing this if he won't even speak to me."

There was quite from the other end as Ness waited for Claire to say something. And then, "Okay."

"Okay?" Ness asked.

"Yes, Okay. I'll talk to Jake, test the waters so to speak. Based on his mood the past few weeks, if we're going to fix this, it won't be easy. Just give me a couple of days. I'll see what I can do and then I'll call you back."

"Oh my God Claire…you have no idea…I'm just…" Ness couldn't even finish. Silent tears were falling from her eyes and they made it nearly impossible to speak without getting chocked up.

"Yeah well…just don't make me regret it."

"Never," Ness vowed.

After they wrapped up the call, Ness went straight to her bedroom. She'd gone through three weeks of restless, fitful sleep. Now that she had a small beacon of hope in the form of Claire, she could feel the exhaustion taking over. Giving into it, she climbed into her bed. Just minutes after her head touched the pillow, she was out cold.

…

Two days went by as Claire mulled over what she'd spoken to Ness about. She'd believed her, but she had to find the right time to approach the topic with Jake.

She finally decided to talk to him at work on a Thursday afternoon. He'd come in that morning looking horrible; tired and unshaven, and he smelled like he'd taken part in a long night of drinking.

Claire hated seeing her friend like that and she hoped that she could help bridge the gap between the two of them and get them speaking again.

She made her way out to the garage and approached the car Jake was working on. He was under the hood which hid his face, but she could see the rest of him clearly. "Hey Jake," she started. "How're things going?"

When all she got in response was a grunt from him, she took a deep breath and kept going. "I talked to Ness the other day."

She saw that Jake had stopped moving at the mention of Ness and she nervously twisted her fingers as she waiting for him to respond.

After a moment, he straightened up and Claire could finally see his face over the raised hood; and he didn't look happy. "You what?"

"I uh - I said I talked to um, Ness." Clair stammered. "She's desperate Jake. She just wants to talk to you."

Jake disappeared back under the hood of the car he was working on as he spoke, "we have nothing to talk about. She belongs to someone else, the end."

Claire jumped in quickly, hoping Jake would be happy with the news she had. "No, you're wrong Jake. She explained a lot to me when talked. I think if you just hear her out, give her the chance to explain –

Suddenly, Jake slammed the hood of the car down as he yelled, "FUCK." Effectively silencing Claire and making her jump back in surprise.

He looked directly at her and Claire could see the torment written all over his face. "I can't Claire. I'm begging you…just stay out of it, please."

Without saying anything else, Claire nodded her head and turned to leave.

Jake avoided her for the rest of the day, not even saying bye at the end of the night like he typically did. She made her way home in silence, not even turning on the radio as she thought about how Jake had responded to their conversation.

It was obvious to her that he was hurting. But what she realized was that he wouldn't be hurting so much if he didn't care. And that thought all but made her mind up for her; whatever she had to do, she'd somehow find a way to help get Jake and Ness back together.

A/N: There it is, so tell me, what did you think? Any predictions on where this story is going? I've got most of the story mapped out already and a lot of key points fully written And because I love to hear what you all have to say, anyone who reviews will get a preview of the next chapter….and it's gonna be a good one